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those ages, the institutions of which have been credulously regarded as monuments of the superiority of unsophisticated good sense, over the false refinements of modern arrogance, we are the more struck with the numberless insults offered to the most obvious suggestions of nature and of reason. We may remark this, not only in the moral depravity of rude tribes, but in the universal disposition which they discover to disfigure and distort the bodies of their infants;-in one case, new-modelling the form of the eye-lids;-in a second, lengthening the ears;—in a third, checking the growth of the feet ;—in a fourth, by mechanical pressures applied to the head, attacking the seat of thought and intelligence. To allow the human form to attain, in perfection, its fair proportions, is one of the latest improvements of civilized society; and the case is perfectly analogous in those sciences which have for their object to assist nature in the cure of diseases; in the developement and improvement of the intellectual faculties; in the correction of bad morals; and in the regulations of political economy.

SECTION VI.

Of the Speculation concerning Final Causes.

I.

Opinion of Lord Bacon on the Subject.-Final Causes rejected by Des Cartes, and by the majority of French Philosophers.-Recognized as legitimate Objects of research by Newton.-Tacitly acknowledged by all as a useful logical Guide, even in Sciences which have no immediate relation to Theology.

THE study of Final Causes may be considered in two different points of view; first, as subservient to the evidences of natural religion; and secondly, as a guide and auxiliary in the investigation of physical laws. Of these views it is the latter alone which is immediately connected with the principles of the inductive logic; and it is to this, accordingly, that I shall chiefly direct my attention in the following observations. I shall not, however, adhere so scrupulously to a strict arrangement, as to avoid all reference to the former, where the train of my reflections may naturally lead to it. The truth is, that the two speculations will, on examination, be found much more nearly allied, than might at first sight be apprehended.

I before observed, that the phrase Final Cause was first introduced by Aristotle; and that the extension thus given to the notion of causation contributed powerfully to divert the inquiries of his followers from the proper objects of physical science. In reading the strictures of Bacon on this mode of philosophizing, it is necessary always to bear in mind, that they have a particular reference to the theories of the schoolmen; and, if they should sometimes appear to be expressed in terms too unqualified, due allowances ought to be made for the undistinguishing zeal of a reformer, in attacking prejudices consecrated by long and undisturbed prescription. “Causarum finalium inquisitio sterilis est, et tanquam Virgo Deo cansecrata, nihil parit." Had a similar remark occurred in any philosophical work of the eighteenth century, it might perhaps have been fairly suspected to savour of the school of Epicurus; although, even in such a case, the quaintness and levity of the conceit would probably have inclined a cautious and candid reader to interpret the author's meaning with an indulgent latitude. On the present occasion, however, Bacon is his own best commentator; and I shall therefore quote, in a faithful, though abridged translation, the preparatory passage by which this allusion is introduced.

"The second part of metaphysics is the investigation of final causes; which I object to, not as a speculation which ought to be neglected, but as one which has, in general, been very improperly regarded as a branch of physics. If this were merely a fault of arrangement, I should not be disposed to lay great stress upon it; for arrangement is useful chiefly as a help to perspicuity, and does not affect the substantial matter of science: But, in

this instance, a disregard of method has occasioned the most fatal consequences to philosophy; inasmuch as the consideration of final causes in physics has supplanted and banished the study of physical causes; the fancy amusing itself with illusory explanations derived from the former, and misleading the curiosity from a steady prosecution of the latter." After illustrating this remark by various examples, Bacon adds: "I would not, however, be understood, by these observations, to insinuate, that the final causes just mentioned may not be founded in truth, and, in a metaphysical view, extremely worthy of attention; but only, that when such disquisitions invade and overrun the appropriate province of physics, they are likely to lay waste and ruin that department of knowledge." "The passage concludes with these words: "And so much concerning metaphysics; the part of which relating to final causes, I do not deny, has been often enlarged upon in physical, as well as in metaphysical treatises. But while, in the latter of these, it is treated of with propriety, in the former, it is altogether misplaced; and that, not merely because it violates the rules of a logical order, but because it operates as a powerful obstacle to the progress of inductive science."*

The epigrammatic maxim which gave occasion to these extracts has, I believe, been oftener quoted (particularly by French writers) than any other sentence in Bacon's works; and, as it has in general been stated, without any reference to the context, in the form of a detached aphorism, it has been commonly supposed to convey a meaning widely different from what appears to have been annexed

* De Augm. Scient. Lib. III. Cap. iv. v. See Note (AA.)

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to it by the author. The remarks with which he has prefaced it, and which I have here submitted to the consideration of my readers, sufficiently show, not only that he meant his proposition to be restricted to the abuse of final causes in the physics of Aristotle, but that he was anxious to guard against the possibility of any misapprehension or misrepresentation of his opinion. A farther proof of this is afforded by the censure which, in the same paragraph, he bestows on Aristotle, for, "substituting Nature, instead of God, as the fountain of final causes; and for treating of them rather as subservient to logic than to theology."

A similar observation may be made on another sentence in Bacon, in the interpretation of which a very learned writer, Dr. Cudworth, seems to have altogether lost sight of his usual candour. "Incredibile est quantum agmen idolorum philosophiæ immisserit, naturalium operationum ad similitudinem actionum humanarum reductio." "If (says Cudworth) the Advancer of Learning here speaks of those who unskilfully attribute their own properties to inanimate bodies, (as when they say, that matter desires forms as the female does the males, and that heavy bodies descend down by appetite towards the centre, that they may rest therein) there is nothing to be reprehended in the passage. But, if his meaning be extended further to take away all final causes from the things of nature, then is it the very spirit of atheism and infidelity. It is no idol of the cave or den (to use that affected language) that is, no prejudice or fallacy imposed on ourselves, from the attributing our own animalish properties to things without us, to think that the frame and system of this whole world was contrived by a perfect understanding and mind.”

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