On causation : with a chapter on belief / by Charles A. Mercier.

  • Charles Arthur Mercier
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On causation : with a chapter on belief / by Charles A. Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    particular relation. If these experiences are sufficiently numerous, and are all one way, we must believe that the experience is necessary and will continue. The smaller the number of experiences, even if they are all one way, the less are we justified in arguing to other similar cases, and the more cautious should we be to keep an open mind. When expe¬ riences are not constant, but are sometimes one way and sometimes another, we are not warranted in believing that any new experience of the kind will be either way ; but when experiences of one way preponderate numerically over expe¬ riences of the other way, and the total of experiences of both kinds is very large, we are justified in believing, and compelled to believe, that a similar proportion will hold of such expe¬ riences in the future, and that the chances of a new experience being one way rather than the other will be in the proportion that the ways have borne to one another in the past. Evidence of Hearsay, Immense numbers of our beliefs are based on this kind of evidence ; and as it is manifestly open to more sources of error than either of the other kinds, it is incumbent on us to examine it with some care. It is more open to sources of error than the other kinds because all evidence, including that of hearsay, is ultimately derived from experience or from reasoning, and hearsay evidence has additional sources of error in the untrustworthiness of the witness, either from bias, or from deliberate intention to deceive, or from defect of memory, or from other causes. With respect to every assertion, the first necessity is that it shall be understood in the same sense by both the assertor and the recipient, and this is often not the case. The ancients asserted that all swans are white. A modern zoologist will assert that all swans are not white—that in fact some swans are black. Either assertion may be true or false, according as it is understood. If by ‘ swans 3 we mean the familiar Euro¬ pean species, the ancients were right ; but if we include in the term ‘ swans ’ birds that are sufficiently like the European species to be included in the same genus, and extend the name so as to cover this genus, then the moderns are right and the ancients