On certain modified forms assumed by the inductive process in different sciences : being an attempt to elucidate and extend some doctrines of the Novum organum / by Robert Mortimer Glover.

  • Robert Mortimer Glover
Date:
1837
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain modified forms assumed by the inductive process in different sciences : being an attempt to elucidate and extend some doctrines of the Novum organum / by Robert Mortimer Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    lie censures the cjuery in which Newton couched his belief in the existence of an ultimate principle,—the cause of gravity. Were one, unacquainted with the Newtonian Philosophy, and likewise with any theories of causation, to behold two masses of matter gravitating to one another, he would naturally ascribe the fact to the existence of an attractive force, or the exercise of a secret sympathy; and, if one of the bodies were drawn more towards the other than this one unto it, he would suppose the power residing in the one to preponderate over that power residing in the other ; for the feeling in ourselves of what is re- quired to produce analogous effects by muscular exertion, is alone sufficient to produce both convictions. The hypothesis of the existence of an attractive force is admitted by Condillac to be a forced conviction of the mind, and therefore allowable in a philosophical sense also * Dr Brown himself nearly ad- mits at one time all that the most speculative transcendalist could desire to have from him in favour of the legitimacy of researches into the nature of ultimate principles; for while la- menting the defection of Newton from sound philosophical views, with regard to the proper objects of physical inquiry in- dicated by the query as to the cause of gravity, this circum- stance is attributed by him to the influence of a « human infir- mity,” from which the greatest minds are not exempt.f The advocates for transcendental or speculative inquiry, when in- ductive investigation is apparently pushed as far as possible, merely maintain, that, from the very constitution of the human mir.d,it is not possible for us to refrain from attempts to acqune some notion of existencies in the being of which we are com- pelled to believe, although they themselves be not before the senses. Both Dr Brown and Mr Stewart + regard a conviction of the existence of something to be explored, as the legitimate and necessary precursor of scientific inquiry : hypothesis is the stimulus to investigation which in the human race as a whole, and in individuals, has ever been urged on by the presumption of success thus afforded. And if the existence of some princi- ple beyond such a law as that of gtavity weie not supp ’ * Traite des Systems, vol. i. pp, 240-2. f See Brown’s Lectures, vol. i. sect. 8, p. B>7- + See Stewart’s Lectures, vol. ii. c. 4, p. 408.
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