Question of the origin of the belief exhibited as the conclusion of a ratiocination, except one; but that one, unhappily, includes all the rest. Whence came the universal major? What proves to us that nature is governed by general laws? Where are the premises of the syllogism of which this is the conclusion?" 1 It is perfectly true that the constancy of the order of things cannot be proved by any deductive or syllogistic reasoning. Mr. Mill thinks that our belief in it is due to association, or mental habit. I have stated, in the foregoing chapter, my reasons for constancy of nature. thinking that it is an ultimate fact of intelligence. in the 1 Logic, vol. i. p. 373, note. CHAPTER XL. HABIT AND VARIATION IN HISTORY. I science of HAVE in the foregoing chapters traced the outline of the The sciences, or rather the single science, of life and mind, life and regarded as consisting of various and manifold applications mind has been fully of the two principles of Habit and Intelligence. That systemascience, though at present in a state of very rapid advance, tized, is fully systematized; a vast number of its problems remain to be solved, but a fundamental revolution in the mode of conceiving of the problems appears as totally impossible in the science of life and mind as in dynamics or in astronomy. The same is true of all the mathematical and physical sciences. I hope to show in a future chapter that there is a perfect series of sciences, from abstract as have logic, through mathematics, physics, and chemistry, to also been logic, the sciences of life and mind. The ground-plan of this matheseries has been so well laid, as regards both the principles physics, of the sciences themselves and their relation to each and other, that the work can never by any possibility have to be done over again. The outline has been drawn, and what remains to be done consists exclusively in filling it up. matics, chemistry: sciences of But there is another group of sciences which have not yet been thus systematized. No doubt they admit of systematization, but the time for doing this work is, but the perhaps, not yet come. The sciences I speak of are those the results whereof the subject-matter consists of the results of the of man's activity of the human mind, and the laws by which the activity mind acts under particular conditions. I cannot attempt have not yet been even a complete enumeration of this group of sciences: systema mental tized, those of but the most important, or at least those which have been including most nearly reduced to systematic form, are the science of language, language; the science of the fine arts, or æsthetics; and the science of society, or politics. art, and society. The laws The subjects of these three sciences-that is to say, language, art, and human society-are all products of the mind of man; and, consequently, their elementary laws must depend on the laws of mind, while the laws of mind. depend on do not in any degree depend on them. So that these of these subjects the laws of mind, but the converse is not true. In lan guage are an in and an element. sciences depend on psychology in somewhat the same way that biology depends on chemistry, or dynamics on mathematics. The manner in which the principles of language, art, and society depend on the laws of mind can be best shown by taking those three sciences separately. First, as to language. In all mental action whatever, as I have endeavoured to show in the last chapter, there telligent is an habitual element and an intelligent element, which, habitual though they may be separated in thought, are always combined in fact. Language, being a product of mental activity, may be expected to show manifest traces of these two factors; and such is the case. It would be superfluous to argue for the obvious truth that all language involves an habitual principle: we learn to use language by habit, and by habit alone. But it is also obvious that all language, at least when it is used as the means of the most elementary reasoning, involves a logical principle: and if the conclusions of the preceding chapter are true, the logical principles that all thought involves belong to intelligence, and not to habit. But without going back on that metaphysical question, it is obvious that the power of learning words by memory, and the power of combining them into sentences that have a meaning, are two totally distinct powers; and even those who do not agree with me as to the absolute and fundamental difference between Habit and Intelligence, will agree that the distinction between the two in the use of language is real, and of great importance. We may briefly say-though, perhaps, not with perfect logical accuracy-that memory supplies the words, and intelligence combines them. A person rative without intelligence might know the names of things, but he could not combine the words into sentences having a meaning; and this, I believe, is the case with some idiots. A person without memory, on the contrary, might conceivably think, but for want of knowing the necessary words he could not express his thoughts in words. Memory and intelligence are thus both necessary to the use of language; and as memory is a case of habit, it follows that habit and intelligence co-operate in the use and in the formation of language just as they do in organization and in mind. I think this cannot be disputed, whatever may be our conclusion as to the ultimate nature of intelligence; but in the present state of the science of language it is not so evident as it will be at some future time. The science of comparative grammar has not as yet got beyond Compacomparative etymology; the students of the science are at grammar present concentrating their whole attention on the habitual is as yet only comelement in language, namely the words; this is needful parative at present, and may probably continue to be so for a long etymology, time. But it may not always be so; a science of com- parative parative syntax will surely be possible, so soon as matesyntax is rials enough have been accumulated. By the formation of hoped for. such a science the logical element in language will be brought into the same prominence, and may, perhaps, come to be as well understood as the habitual, or verbal, element is now. I do not think it is too much to hope that some fellow-countryman of Bopp and Grimm, or perhaps of Sir W. Hamilton or of Professor Boole, may yet so trace the connexion between the laws of language and the laws of logic as to throw light on both. I am not able to make a beginning at that subject. I go on to show how very close is the resemblance between the action of the habitual principle in organization and in language. but com to be is an Language is an organism. This is no mere metaphor. Language The definition of an organism is that it consists of parts organism. which are all in functional relation to each other; and the words of a sentence are thus functionally related. Organization is not the cause of life, but life is the constructs As life cause of organization. High organization is, however, the organ- necessary to any high development of life: life constructs ism, so the organism to be at once its dwelling and the means of thought constructs its action. Just so, language is the result of thought, but language. a highly developed language is necessary to any high Variability of language, both in the forms of words and their meanings, comparable to variations in the forms of organs, development of thought: thought has constructed the organism of language in order to use it as an instrument. Considering the unlikeness between the subjects of the analogy, the analogy itself is wonderfully close between the action of life in building up the organism, and the action of thought in constructing language: each forms an organism to be its instrument. All habits are gradually variable; and habits of using particular words are peculiarly so that is to say, the words themselves are variable. Words vary both in their forms and in their meanings. I have argued in the earlier part of this work, that the characters of organic species are variable, with little or no limit as to amount of change, if only time enough is allowed; and that all organisms which are morphologically similar, are so by reason of being descended from the same ancestors. If this is true, any difference between parts which are morphologically the same-as, for instance, between the leg of the dog and that of the horse-are due to variation in the course of their descent from their common ancestor; and such variation is a parallel fact to the variation that takes place in the form of words when a word which is fundamentally the same is found in different languages. No one doubts, for instance, that the German word heide and the English heath are forms of the same word, and that the similarity of the two is due to their common Gothic original. I believe that the modifications, both in the organisms and in the words, are due to modification in the course of descent or derivation; and that both, consequently, are alike cases of the variation of habit. We usually speak of the descent of living races, and of the derivation of words; but it is not a violent metaphor to speak of the derivation of the former and of the descent of the latter. Words also change their meanings, even within the |