Frontmatter

Titlepage

PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS
BY
CHAUNCEY WRIGHT
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR
BY
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1878

Copyright, 1876, BY
HENRY HOLT.

PREFATORY NOTE

This volume contains the greater part of the published writings of its author. The beginning of the article on “Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind,” and the fragment on “Cause and Effect” are now published for the first time.

CONTENTS.

                      

	Page
Biographical Sketch of Chauncey Wright	vii
A Physical Theory of the Universe	i
Natural Theology as a Positive Science	35
The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer	43
Limits of Natural Selection	97
The Genesis of Species	128
Evolution by Natural Selection	168
Evolution of Self-Consciousness	199
The Conflict of Studies	267
The Uses and Origin of the Arrangements of Leaves in Plants	296
McCosh on Intuitions	329
Masson’s Recent British Philosophy	342
Mansel’s Reply to Mill	350
Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind	360
McCosh on Tyndall	375
Speculative Dynamics	385
Books Relating to the Theory of Evolution	394
German Darwinism	398
A Fragment on Cause and Effect	406
John Stuart Mill—A Commemorative Notice	414
Index	429

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CHAUNCEY WRIGHT.

BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.

Chauncey Wright died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 12th of September, 1875, aged forty-five years.

His name was not widely known. He had written comparatively little. A few essays by him on scientific subjects had appeared in “The Mathematical Monthly,” and the “Memoirs” and “Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences”; he had contributed several articles, mostly upon philosophical topics, to the “North American Review,” and he had printed numerous briefer papers in “The Nation.” His work gave evidence not only of a mind of rare power and unusual balance, but also of wide acquisitions and thorough intellectual discipline, and he had won recognition from competent judges as a philosophical thinker of a high order, from whom much was to be expected.

To collect his principal writings, and to present them in a form accessible to students was a duty to his memory, and in the interest of philosophy. Fragmentary, as of necessity such a collection must be, and but imperfectly representative of the scope of the author’s mind, the general character of his philosophical opinions and method may clearly enough be learned from it.

It seemed desirable to prefix to this selection from his writings an account of the author, not merely to gratify the natural

desire of his readers to know something of the man to whom they might owe the incitement of thought, but still more because the character of Chauncey Wright was no less remarkable than his intelligence, and was of such uncommon and admirable quality that upon those who knew him intimately his death fell as a great misfortune, and has left a void in their lives that can never be filled.

The task of preparing this account has been assigned to me as one who knew him well, especially during the last fifteen years of his life, and who had enjoyed the happiness of his close and helpful friendship. The external events of his life were not striking, and all that need be told of them can be said in a few words.

Chauncey Wright was born in Northampton, in the year 1830. His father and mother were of old New England stock, with such characters and habits as were the results of a long succession of generations who had lived simply and seriously, transmitting from one to another the traditions of labor, frugality, domestic comfort, and intelligence. His father was an active man in his town, carrying on a successful country trade, and occupied with the various duties of the office of a deputysheriff of the county, a post which he filled for many years. Wright’s boyhood was fortunate in the advantages common to New England country boys at a time when the conditions which have, during the present generation, wrought so rapid and great a change in American society, had hardly begun to manifest themselves. The circumstances of his life were eminently wholesome. He was an affectionate, reserved, and thoughtful boy, fond of animals and plants, observant of their habits, and in general more interested in outdoor than indoor pursuits. He did not especially distinguish himself at school, except, perhaps, in mathematics and in the writing of compositions,

which he often preferred to write in verse rather than in prose. No strong personal influence seems to have affected the natural development of his intelligence; and, though neither solitary nor unsocial, he worked out much by himself the problems and devices of his youth, and early displayed the solid independence of his mind and character. He had a serious disposition, and even in early years he, at times, suffered from a tendency toward melancholy. He entered Harvard College in 1848. His classical attainments were slight, and he took little interest in the study either of languages or of literature. The bent of his mind was strong toward abstract pursuits, and he applied himself chiefly to mathematics and philosophy, displaying the acuteness and originality of his intelligence in his themes and other written exercises. He had a certain inertness of temperament which caused the action of his mind to appear slow and difficult. But often when he seemed least active, he was engaged in reflection, and the want of brilliancy or vivacity of power was more than compensated for by solidity of acquisition, as well as by the assimilation of his knowledge with his thought. He learned slowly, but he knew whatever he learned. His memory was retentive, and well disciplined, so that its stores not only became abundant, but were also held in good order for service. One of the most marked features of his intellectual nature, even at this comparatively early date, was the steadiness and consistency of its growth. There was nothing desultory in the pursuit of his aims; and, though his efforts were often intermittent, they were not dispersed.

His modesty and reserve combined with the nature of his interests to prevent him from being well known by any large circle of acquaintances; but the disinterestedness of his disposition and the amiability of his temper endeared him to a few

intimate friends, while his classmates generally felt for him more than ordinary regard and respect.

Soon after leaving college, in 1852, he was appointed one of the computers for the recently established “American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac.” By occasional contributions to the “Mathematical Monthly” and other journals, he gradually won repute as a mathematician and physicist of distinguished ability and accomplishment. In 1863 he was made Recording Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a place which he held for seven years, and which gave opportunity not only for the exercise of his sound judgment in practical questions, but for the exhibition of critical discrimination in the editing of the Academy’s “Proceedings.”

His attention gradually became more and more fixed upon the questions in metaphysics and philosophy presented in their latest form in the works of Mill, Darwin, Bain, Spencer, and others, and in 1864 he published in the “North American Review,” then under my charge, the first of a series of philosophical essays, of which the last appeared only two months before his death, and of which it is not too much to say that they form the most important contribution made in America to the discussion and investigation of the questions which now chiefly engage the attention of the students of philosophy.

From the time of his leaving college to his death, he resided, with brief intervals of absence, in Cambridge. In 1872, he spent a few months in Europe. In 1870 he delivered a course of University Lectures in Harvard College on the principles of Psychology. In 1874-75, he was instructor in Harvard College in Mathematical Physics.

He lived all his life simply, frugally, and modestly. He had few wants, and he used a considerable part of his somewhat scanty means to add to the comfort of those who were dear to

him. He had what may be truly called an elevated nature, not remote from human interests, but above all selfishness or meanness. The motives by which the lives of common men are determined had little influence with him. He did not feel the spur of ambition, or the sting of vanity. No thought of personal advantage, no jealousy of others, affected his judgment or his conduct. His principles were so firmly established that his moral superiority seemed not so much the result of effort as the expression of what was natural to him. His sympathies were not stimulated by his mode of life, but they were keen, and so interpenetrated by his intelligence that in cases of need they made him one of the most helpful of men. He was, for instance, admirable as a nurse by the sick-bed, alike tender and firm; and while the touch of his hand and the modulation of his voice afforded the invalid unwonted comfort and repose, the steadiness of his judgment gave the supporting tone so often wanting in the sick-room. The same qualities brought him frequently into happy relations with children and with old people. If his imagination once felt the appeal, his adaptation of his strength to their weakness, of his multiplicity of resource to their need of entertainment, was so complete as to win for him the love of young and old. He was fond of games with children, and would devote himself to their amusement with unwearied patience and spirit. He had great skill in sleight-of-hand, and frequently amused himself with finding out and reproducing the tricks of the most renowned jugglers. He would hardly have been suspected by a casual acquaintance to be a master in legerdemain; for his massive build and heavy proportions, and the absence of agility in his common movements, seemed to unfit him for performances of this sort. But, after seeing him display his dexterity, it was easily recognized as the outgrowth and indication of faculties already exercised in higher fields. The same fine touch and precise and delicate movement which were shown in his nursing, the same quick and exact vision which distinguished his observation as a physicist were exhibited in his feats of parlor magic. He brought his keen analytical powers to bear on the seemingly mysterious processes of jugglers or of spiritualists; he used his knowledge of mechanics in the construction of toys, and applied his mathematical genius to the invention and performance of marvelous games and puzzles of cards.

I dwell thus at length on what might seem a mere trivial accomplishment, not only because it affords a vivid illustration of marked personal traits, but more because it was the means by which he gave concrete and visible expression to certain mental qualities trained to rare perfection in higher fields of exertion.

His temper was naturally calm, and he early attained a degree of self-discipline that enabled him to keep it under complete control. He was fond of debate and argument, and the full force of his mind was brought out through the animation of talk, more than in the solitary exercise of writing. Yet he was seldom ruffled by controversy, and never made ungenerous use of his strength, or forced his opponent to pass through the Caudine Forks of unwilling concession and acknowledgment of defeat. This control of his own temper secured that of his adversary. To argue with him was a moral no less than an intellectual discipline. The words he used of Mill apply with equal fitness to himself. “He sincerely welcomed intelligent and earnest opposition with a deference due to truth itself, and to a just regard of the diversities in men’s minds from differences of education and natural dispositions. These diversities even appeared to him essential to the completeness of the exanimation

which the evidences of truth demand. Opinions positively erroneous, if intelligent and honest, are not without their value, since the progress of truth is a succession of mistakes and corrections. Truth itself, unassailed by erroneous opinion, would soon degenerate into narrowness and error. The errors incident to individuality of mind and character are means, in the attrition of discussion, of keeping the truth bright and untarnished, and even of bringing its purity to light.”

It was in this spirit that Wright himself carried on the discussions in which he engaged. He early learned that truth is a double question; and in the pursuit of truth, which was the controlling motive of his life, he disciplined himself by the study of opposing opinions. As he himself said, “Men are born either Platonists or Aristotelians; but by their education through a more and more free and enlightened discussion, and by progress in the sciences, they are restrained more and more from going to extremes in the directions of their native biases.” And this general remark may be applied with fitness to himself. For while his intellectual operations were directed by a spirit of observation and experiment, which, though training the judgment and imagination in habits of accuracy, might also have a tendency to direct the attention to exclusive views of truth, he was on the other hand in all matters of speculation, to use a phrase of Mr. Mill’s, essentially a seeker, testing every opinion, and recognizing the difficulties which adhere to them all. He exhibited that union of science and of philosophy which is the highest distinction of the leading thinkers of our time, and which hereafter will be indispensable for all who may succeed in deepening the current of thought or in opening for it new channels.

It was a marked quality of his genius as a thinker, that its

springs were mainly fed from other sources than those of books. He was no wide reader; but, making himself master of a few comprehensive books, he gained from them, by reflection upon them, much more than their mere contents. He was never a persistent and systematic student; but he was essentially a persistent and systematic thinker.

During his college life he had been a judicious reader of Emerson and of Lord Bacon, but in the years of his early manhood, while he was accumulating large stores of observation and reflection, two or three books, similar in interest, but widely different in spirit and in method, were of special interest and importance to him,—chiefly Sir William Hamilton’s Dissertations and Lectures, and Mill’s Political Economy and his System of Logic. The repute and influence of Hamilton as a metaphysician and psychologist have undoubtedly declined since the publication, in 1865, of Mill’s Examination of his Philosophy,—a philosophy, which professed to combine in an original form the German and French developments of the earlier Scotch reaction against Locke and Hume, with the demonstrations of modern science in respect to the necessary limits of knowledge. Hamilton had, however, succeeded previously not only in re-awakening among English students a fresh interest in metaphysics, but also in exercising a strong influence upon the general current of philosophical opinion. It was his great service, and one which will always deserve recognition, whatever be the ultimate verdict upon his special doctrines, that he produced a real revival of interest in a subject of fundamental importance which for a generation at least had ceased to receive due attention, and that he forced once more upon the consciousness of his generation the conviction that a true Psychology is, in the words of Mr. Mill, “the indispensable scientific basis of Morals, of Politics, and of the

science and art of Education,” and that upon the resolution of the difficulties of metaphysics, using the word in its proper sense, depends the assurance of the solid foundation of all knowledge. For this stimulus, and for this conviction, Wright, like many others, was indebted to his early studies of Hamilton. but he had studied Hamilton too thoroughly, and with too much clearness of mind, not to have become aware, even before Mill’s exposure of them, of some at least of the weak points and inconclusive determinations of his system.

But Mill’s work was much more than a simple refutation of the errors of Hamilton. In accomplishing this, he did much to re-establish, and upon more solid foundations than before, certain principles in philosophy of which the validity had seemed to be shaken. He showed that the determination of the vexed problems of metaphysics was to be sought in a properly scientific, and not in an a priori, or spiritualist psychology. His work went far to determine the mutual dependence of mental philosophy and of experimental science, the general recognition of which has already become effective in determining their respective courses of advance. The doctrine of experience may not yet be the dominant doctrine of the English school of psychologists; but the fact is obvious, that the recent independent investigations of science, and the rapid and unforeseen developments of knowledge, have tended to confirm its main propositions, and to strengthen its claim to acceptance. With this doctrine in psychology, the ill-named but generally well-understood doctrine of utilitarianism in morals is closely associated, so closely indeed that one may be said to be in great measure dependent on the other. Whatever contributes to the support of either, contributes more or less directly to the support of both. It may not be correct to assert, that if either be overthrown the other must fall with it; but it is at least

certain, that the validity of a great part of each depends on evidence common to both. The consistency among the postulates of psychology, and morals, has never been so clearly manifest, and has never received such valuable exposition, as during the last twenty years, mainly through the efforts of English investigators and thinkers, with Mill and Darwin at their head.

The effect of Mill’s doctrine upon the direction of Wright’s thought was confirmed by that of Darwin’s work on The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection. The strong moral element in the works of both writers found a warm response in his own nature. The entire candor, the love of truth, the disinterested search for it, the patience of investigation, the accuracy of statement, the modesty of assertion, characteristic of both these masters, were in entire harmony with his own mental traits. The conclusions and the theories of Mill and Darwin may be disputed, may be overthrown, but their respective methods of investigation and of statement are of such excellence, and their desire for truth so sincere and impersonal, that their works would remain as models of scientific investigation and philosophic inquiry even though they should lose their doctrinal authority.

The questions opened and partially solved by these authors were those which chiefly occupied Wright during the last ten years of his life. The rare combination in him of a genius for reflection, disciplined by long exercise, with great natural powers of observation, and with unusually wide and accurate scientific attainments, fitted him to deal with them not merely as a reporter of other men’s thought, but as an original investigator, capable himself of making additions to the sum of knowledge. The position which he occupied as a philosopher is the standpoint common to one of the two fundamental divisions of the philosophic world; namely, that of the assumption of the universality

of physical causation. It cannot be stated better than in his own words. “The very hope of experimental philosophy,” he says, “its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is based on the induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical meditation. Or, as Bacon said, it is not by the ‘anticipations of the mind’ but by the ‘interpretation of nature’ that natural philosophy is to be constituted; and this is to presume that the order of nature is decipherable, or that causation is everywhere either manifest or hidden, but never absent.” The methods of this interpretation of nature or, in other words, of this discovery of truth, he regarded as those of all true knowledge; namely, the methods of induction from the facts of particular observation. This was his position in respect to the much-debated problem of metaphysical causation, or the question of what are called “real connections between phenomena as causes and effects, which are independent of our experiences, and the invariable and unconditional sequences among them.” “To those,” I cite his own words, “who have reached the positive mode of thought, the word ‘cause’ simply signifies the phenomena, or the state of facts, which precede the event to be explained, which make it exist, in the only sense in which it can clearly be supposed to be made to exist; namely, by affording the conditions of the rule of its occurrence. But with those” he adds, “who have not yet attained to this clear and simple conception of cause, a vague but familiar feeling prevails, which makes this conception seem very inadequate to express their idea of the reality of causation. Such thinkers feel that they know something more in causation than the mere succession, however simple and invariable this may be. The real efficiency of a cause, that which makes its effect to exist absolutely, seems, at least in regard to their own volitions, to be known to them immediately.” “But,” he goes on, after an interval, “that certain mental states of which we are conscious are followed by certain external effects which we observe is to the sceptical schools a simple fact of observation. These thinkers extend the method of the more precisely known to the interpretation of what is less precisely known, interpreting the phenomena of self-consciousness by the methods of physical science, instead of interpreting physical phenomena by the crudities of the least perfect though most familiar of all observations, the phenomena of volition.” North American Review, 106, p. 286, notice of Peabody’s Positive Philosophy, January, 1868. ¹

It is not to be assumed, from the phrase in the preceding extract concerning those “who have reached the positive mode of thought,” that Wright classed himself with any specific school of so-called Positivists. He used the term positive, as it is now commonly employed, as a general appellation to designate the whole body of thinkers who in the investigation of nature hold to the methods of induction from the facts of observation, as distinguished from the a priori school, who seek in the constitution of the mind the key to the interpretation of the external world. It was only in this sense that he himself was a positivist. So too with regard to his use of the word “sceptical.” In his employment of it, it had no direct theological significance.. It meant with him the temper of mind which puts no confidence in assertion unsupported by the evidence of experience; it meant the temper of questioning and investigation as opposed to that of concluded opinion;

the temper in which the unknown remains matter of inquiry, not of dogmatism, and to which the unknowable, or that which lies plainly outside the range of human faculties, is of no concern save as matter of sentiment. To the quality of this sentiment he gave great weight as a test of the worth of individual character. His scepticism rested upon the proposition, that the highest generality, or universality, in the elements, or connections of elements, in phenomena, is the utmost reach both in the power and the desire of the scientific intellect. There was nothing aggressive in such scepticism as this, except so far as it led him to expose the fallacious arguments of the supporters of the orthodox metaphysics. The sympathetic quality of his nature showed itself in his respect for individual beliefs sincerely held. He felt, to use his own words, “that the subordinate, almost incidental value that some traditional metaphysical issues, like the ultimate nature of the connection of mind and matter, and of cause and effect, and the dependence of life on matter, have in the view of the scientific psychologist, is with difficulty comprehended by those who approach the subject from a religious point of view.” He had no liking for the iconoclasts who would destroy ancient faiths in the hearts of those who are incapable of substituting, with good effect on their lives, rational convictions in the place of sentimental beliefs. He had confidence in the constant and progressive extension of the field of knowledge; but he did not believe that the question of the origin and destiny of things would ever be included within its limits. If asked for his speculations on these topics, that so greatly exercise the curiosity of the race, he would have been very likely to reply with the words of Newton, which were among his favorite apothegms, “Hypotheses non fingo.”

In the year 1870, Mr. Wright published the first of a series

of papers, of which the last appeared but a short time before his death, expository of the true nature of the doctrine of Natural Selection, of its various applications, and of its relations to common metaphysical speculations. In the first of these articles, which had the form of a review of Mr. Wallace’s contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, Mr. Wright touches upon the application of the principles involved in the doctrine of Natural Selection to the development of the mental powers of man. The full importance of the topic did not, however, appear till the publication, more than two years afterward, of his most considerable contribution to philosophy, his essay on the Evolution of Self-Consciousness, in which a natural explanation is given of the chief phenomena of human consciousness, involving the refutation of many of the main propositions of mystical metaphysics or idealism. In 1871, he published a paper on the Genesis of Species, in reply to Mr. St. George Mivart’s attack on the theory of Natural Selection. The vigor and effectiveness of his defense of the theory led to the republication of this essay in England, at Mr. Darwin’s instance, and compelled Mr. Mivart to attempt to make good his position in a communication to the “North American Review,” the journal in which Mr. Wright’s article originally appeared. To this reply Mr. Wright rejoined in the succeeding number of the “Review,” July, 1872. In his recently published work, entitled “Lessons from Nature as manifested in Mind and Matter,” Mr. Mivart reprints his reply to Mr. Wright’s criticisms, but fails to notice Mr. Wright’s rejoinder. ²

In these discussions of the problems of modern research, and other shorter papers on similar topics, published for the most part in “The Nation,” Mr. Wright showed the wide reach of his thought, his powers of keen analysis, and the large store of his acquirements. His training in the sound scientific method of investigation gave precision to his statement of the

inductions of philosophic thought. He carried the scientific method into the region of reflection. In respect to all matters concerning which the facts necessary for the formation of opinion were not known, or had been but insufficiently observed, he held a suspended judgment. He never seemed to have a prepossession in favor of or against any opinion, concerning which the testimony of experience was doubtful, and the evidence of fact apparently inconsistent.

But his thought was by no means limited to the topics which philosophy derives from the exact or the natural sciences. The main attraction of science and philosophy to him was not on the side of abstract truth, but much more on the application of truth to the life and conduct of man. The questions of morality, of politics, of jurisprudence, of education, in the light thrown on them by psychology and by experience, were those which in his later years were continually assuming an increasing share of his attention. And in his treatment of these questions he displayed the most eminent trait of his genius, and the highest result of the discipline of his philosophic powers,—I mean a good practical judgment, or the quality of wisdom. Chauncey Wright was in the true sense a wise man. I do not assert, that, in the ordering of his own life, he was always guided by the considerations of wisdom. In some important respects his self-control was greatly deficient in steadiness. Few, indeed, of the wisest men have succeeded in conforming their lives in all respects to their principles. Wisdom more frequently manifests itself in objective relations, than in the complete mastery of personal dispositions, and a consistently judicious regulation of conduct. And, in all matters in which the interests of others were involved, Mr. Wright’s judgment was one of the most trustworthy. His sympathetic nature gave him the power to enter into moods of character and conditions of feeling widely

diverse from his own, while his judgment in each particular instance was the result of inductions of large experience and careful reflection. Instant as the expression of his opinions might be, there was nothing of haste in their formation. Emotion, sentiment, opinion, all rested with him on a rational foundation. I should give a false image, if, in thus speaking, I were to convey the impression of anything dry or formally deliberate in his intercourse with others. He was, especially in his later years, always ready and fluent in talk, easily animated, accessible to the ideas of others, neither preoccupied with his own reflections to the exclusion of external suggestions, nor using the predominant weight of his own intelligence to crush the slighter fabric of the thought of his companions. He had the modesty of the philosopher in happy combination with his just self-confidence, and the vigor of his moral sentiment was as evident in the manner as in the substance of his discourse. I have referred to his tendency in early life to melancholy. He was never wholly free from occasional periods in which some defect of physical organization or constitution showed itself in uncontrollable mental depression. But he was for the most part cheerful, and often gay. He was an easy and equable companion, and the lighter regions of life and thought were as open and accessible to him, as the grave solitudes in which he habitually dwelt.

Those who knew him best will most clearly discern the fact that his published writings, able as they are, and deserving of the respect due to high qualities of thought, fall short of being a satisfactory expression, even of the purely intellectual part of his nature. The action of his mind in composition was laborious, and his style was often too compact of thought, and not sufficiently relieved by the lighter graces of expression. His writings and his oral lectures sometimes required closer attention

on the part of readers or hearers than it would have been well to demand of them. His thought, indeed, was never obscure; but it was too condensed, and at times too profound to be readily followed. His own ability misled him, and he did not always estimate aright the average incapacity of untrained intelligence to follow a process of exact reasoning. But nothing of this defect was to be found in his conversation, which was constantly lighted up by the pleasant play of a suggestive humor, that often added a happy and unexpected stroke wherewith to clinch the point of argument. In talk, the readiness of his intelligence was not less remarkable than its force; and the abundance and variety of his resources not less surprising than their accuracy. Whatever he knew was at his command, and his knowledge extended over many fields with which he might not have been supposed to be familiar. One could hardly turn to him with a question on any topic, however remote from his ordinary studies, without receiving from him an answer that seemed as if he already had devoted special attention to the subject now for the first time presented. The method of his thought was so excellent that new topics fell naturally into their right positions, and received immediate illustration from previous acquisitions, made originally without reference to any such application. With such capacities as his, and with such training as he had given them, the growth of his mind was constant. There was no period to his progress, and what he had done seemed but the beginning and assurance of the greater things of which he was capable. His sudden death in the fullness of power was a loss to be mourned by all who have at heart the interests of philosophy; that is, by all to whom the highest interests of man are of concern.