§ 3. As, however, there is scarcely any one of the principles of a true method of philosophizing which does not require to be guarded against errors on both sides, I must enter a caveat against another misapprehension, of a kind directly contrary to the preceding. M. Comte, among other occasions on which he has condemned, with some asperity, any attempt to explain phenomena which are "evidently primordial" (meaning, apparently, no more than that every peculiar phenomenon must have at least one peculiar and therefore inexplicable law), has spoken of the attempt to furnish any explanation of the color belonging to each substance, "la couleur élémentaire propre à chaque substance," as essentially illusory. "No one," says he, "in our time attempts to explain the particular specific gravity of each substance or of each structure. Why should it be otherwise as to the specific color, the notion of which is undoubtedly no less primordial?"[1]
Now although, as he elsewhere observes, a color must always remain a different thing from a weight or a sound, varieties of color might nevertheless follow, or correspond to, given varieties of weight, or sound, or some other phenomenon as different as these are from color itself. It is one question what a thing is, and another what it depends on; and though to ascertain the conditions of an elementary phenomenon is not to obtain any new insight into the nature of the phenomenon itself, that is no reason against attempting to discover the conditions. The interdict against endeavoring to reduce distinctions of color to any common principle, would have held equally good against a like attempt on the subject of distinctions of sound; which nevertheless have been found to be immediately preceded and caused by distinguishable varieties in the vibrations of elastic bodies; though a sound, no doubt, is quite as different as a color is from any motion of particles, vibratory or otherwise. We might add, that, in the case of colors, there are strong positive indications that they are not ultimate
- ↑ Cours de Philosophie Positive, ii., 656.
phenomena under a common statement. The similarity of terrestrial gravity to celestial attraction enables the two to be expressed as one phenomenon. The similarity between capillary attraction, solution, the operation of cements, etc., leads to their being regarded not as a plurality, but as a unity, a single causative link, the operation of a single agency. . . . . . If it be asked whether we can merge gravity itself in some still higher law, the answer must depend upon the facts. Are there any other forces, at present held distinct from gravity, that we may hope to make fraternize with it, so as to join in constituting a higher unity? Gravity is an attractive force; and another great attractive force is cohesion, or the force that binds together the atoms of solid matter. Might we, then, join these two in a still higher unity, expressed under a more comprehensive law? Certainly we might, but not to any advantage. The two kinds of force agree in the one point, attraction, but they agree in no other; indeed, in the manner of the attraction, they differ widely; so widely that we should have to state totally distinct laws for each. Gravity is common to all matter, and equal in amount in equal masses of matter, whatever be the kind; it follows the law of the diffusion of space from a point (the inverse square of the distance); it extends to distances unlimited; it is indestructible and invariable. Cohesion is special for each separate substance; it decreases according to distance much more rapidly than the inverse square, vanishing entirely at very small distances. Two such forces have not sufficient kindred to be generalized into one force; the generalization is only illusory; the statement of the difference would still make two forces; while the consideration of one would not in any way simplify the phenomena of the other, as happened in the generalization of gravity itself."
To the impassable limit of the explanation of laws of nature, set forth in the text, must therefore be added a further limitation. Although, when the phenomena to be explained are not, in their own nature, generically distinct, the attempt to refer them to the same cause is scientifically legitimate; yet to the success of the attempt it is indispensable that the cause should be shown to be capable of producing them according to the same law. Otherwise the unity of cause is a mere guess, and the generalization only a nominal one, which, even if admitted, would not diminish the number of ultimate laws of nature.
