MS 1343 (1902) - Of the Classification of the Sciences

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Second Paper. Of the Practical Sciences.

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what then? How much to these laws prescribe? Simply that taking any system of particles not disturbed by anything outside the system, the positions of all the particles at any instant could be calculated without difficulty by any mathematician for whom complications were not difficulties, provided he were informed of the laws of force and of the positions of all the particles at two instants not too remote from one another. The laws of force, the positions of the particles at the first instant, and their effective motions from the first to the second instant, not being prescribed by the laws in question are either uncaused or are caused by something other than force. These considerations show over how small a part of the realm of physical fact the laws of dynamics and of force claim any jurisdiction. As for the relation of a physical event to a purpose it is sheer nonsense to think of it as influenced by any physical force.

So much for the action of instinct on any one occasion. There we are sure we understand ourselves. But

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when it comes to deciding whether upon different occasions it [is] the same instinct or two different instincts that act, we cannot,—at least ,the author cannot, at this stage of his education,—be so entirely confident of meaning much of anything. Here it is no longer the same subject upon which the instinct acts, but only subjects more or less connected. Nor is it any longer a single character that is superinduced upon those subjects, but only a sort of harmony of characters. This harmony has to be judged by the way it strikes our minds. We cannot absolutely assure ourselves that there is any real bond of unity between the various phenomena that we attribute to one instinct, nor that that bond is greatly different between phenomena that we attribute to different instincts. The difficulty is increased by the fact that different instincts sometimes undoubtedly mingle their influence upon the same actions. What resort have we except to trust to natural good sense? That is a common phrase; but it is an incorrect one. Let

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a sailor who never learned to swim fall overboard, and he can only try to strike out as best he may. That he must and will do, whether he has reason to trust to his natural swimming instinct or does trust to it, or not. Natural good sense is not a faculty that ought to be trusted in questions of a scientific character. But there are occasions when we are reduced to using it and making the best we can of it. Its suggestions will probably be wrong. But if we can find some way of putting them to the test, of thus refuting the first suggestion and can then ask good sense to propose something else to be treated in the same way, there is a hope that we may ultimately get set upon the road to truth. But in the present case, the only checks that the author has been able to devise contain themselves too much of the subjective to inspire much confidence; and the very fact that they turn out favorable to the first suggestion is a suspicious circumstance. The author would be very sorry to have his classification of

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the major sciences ranked with that of the sciences whose classification depends on the classification of the instincts. For, of course, what will appear in the classification as single instincts are themselves classes of instincts. To prevent this protest from being forgotten, he will record it upon the very names given to the classes of instincts by giving them a fanciful character which must serve as a reminder that the classification is not too seriously advocated.

Such being the sense in which the word instinct is to be used, let us begin our attempt at classifying the instincts by recurring to the remark that instincts cluster about two as foci, the instinct concerning food and the getting of it, and the instinct concerning reproduction. The former group govern man's treatment of things, the latter his dealings with fellow-beings. The former is physical, the latter psychical. But on closer scrutiny, the latter group seems too heterogeneous. Such instincts as that for Art and Scientific

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Curiosity do not deal with persons so much as with ideas, nor do we find among Artists and Scientific Men that power of handling men that we find among those in whom civic instincts, say those for Politics, Education, and War, are strong. In order to set ourselves right let us seize upon the clue of purpose. The lowest instincts are no doubt centred in self. We may call them the suicultural instincts.* But what is the use of that individual man to whom the suicultural instincts minister? Those oft-quoted Redarwinian lines of Tennyson tells us that Nature seems to value the individual only for the sake of the stock. If so, the suicultural instinct is but the servant of the civicultural. The civicultural instincts, then, will form the second group. And what is the use of the state or the race? Is the mere swarming and multiplication of human

*Pursuing the idea of making our designations fanciful, we may regard 'suiculture' as of Lewiscarrollesque ambiguous derivation, either from sui, of oneself, or from suis, of a swine.

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