On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical. William Whewell

      CHAPTER I.

       INTRODUCTION.

       Table of Contents

      By the examination of the elements of human thought in which I have been engaged, and by a consideration of the history of the most clear and certain parts of our knowledge, I have been led to doctrines respecting the progress of that exact and systematic knowledge which we call Science; and these doctrines I have endeavoured to lay before the reader in the History of the Sciences and of Scientific Ideas. The questions on which I have thus ventured to pronounce have had a strong interest for man from the earliest period of his intellectual progress, and have been the subjects of lively discussion and bold speculation in every age. I conceive that in the doctrines to which these researches have conducted us, we have a far better hope that we possess a body of permanent truths than the earlier essays on the same subjects could furnish. For we have not taken our examples of knowledge at hazard, as earlier speculators did, and were almost compelled to do; but have drawn our materials from the vast store of unquestioned truths which modern science offers to us: and we have formed our judgment concerning the nature and progress of knowledge by considering what such science is, and how it has reached its present condition. But though we have thus pursued our speculations concerning knowledge with advantages which earlier writers did not possess, it is still both interesting and instructive for us to regard the opinions upon this subject which have been delivered by the philosophers of past times. It is especially interesting to see some of the truths which we have endeavoured to expound, gradually dawning in men's minds, and assuming the clear and permanent form in which we can now contemplate them. I shall therefore, in the ensuing chapters, pass in review many of the opinions of the writers of various ages concerning the mode by which man best acquires the truest knowledge; and I shall endeavour, as we proceed, to appreciate the real value of such judgments, and their place in the progress of sound philosophy.

      In this estimate of the opinions of others, I shall be guided by those general doctrines which I have, as I trust, established in the histories already published. And without attempting here to give any summary of these doctrines, I may remark that there are two main principles by which speculations on such subjects in all ages are connected and related to each other; namely, the opposition of Ideas and Sensations, and the distinction of practical and speculative knowledge. The opposition of Ideas and Sensations is exhibited to us in the antithesis of Theory and Fact, which are necessarily considered as distinct and of opposite natures, and yet necessarily identical, and constituting Science by their identity. In like manner, although practical knowledge is in substance identical with speculative, (for all knowledge is speculation,) there is a distinction between the two in their history, and in the subjects by which they are exemplified, which distinction is quite essential in judging of the philosophical views of the ancients. The alternatives of identity and diversity, in these two antitheses—the successive separation, opposition, and reunion of principles which thus arise—have produced, (as they may easily be imagined capable of doing,) a long and varied series of systems concerning the nature of knowledge; among which we shall have to guide our course by the aid of the views already presented.

      I am far from undertaking, or wishing, to review the whole series of opinions which thus come under our notice; and I do not even attempt to examine all the principal authors who have written on such subjects. I merely wish to select some of the most considerable forms which, such opinions have assumed, and to point out in some measure the progress of truth from age to age. In doing this, I can only endeavour to seize some of the most prominent features of each time and of each step, and I must pass rapidly from classical antiquity to those which we have called the dark ages, and from them to modern times. At each of these periods the modifications of opinion, and the speculations with which they were connected, formed a vast and tangled maze, the byways of which our plan does not allow us to enter. We shall esteem ourselves but too fortunate, if we can discover the single track by which ancient led to modern philosophy.

      I must also repeat that my survey of philosophical writers is here confined to this one point—their opinions on the nature of knowledge and the method of science. I with some effort avoid entering upon other parts of the philosophy of those authors of whom I speak; I knowingly pass by those portions of their speculations which are in many cases the most interesting and celebrated;—their opinions concerning the human soul, the Divine Governor of the world, the foundations or leading doctrines of politics, religion, and general philosophy. I am desirous that my reader should bear this in mind, since he must otherwise be offended with the scanty and partial view which I give in this place of the philosophers whom I enumerate.