by G. J. Mattey
Introduction
1. It is most natural for those who claim to introduce something new in philosophy or the sciences to promote their own systems by putting down all the systems that came before them. Few would disagree that we are ignorant of the answers to the most important questions “that can come before the tribunal of human reason.” It is easy for persons of intelligence and learning to see the weak foundations of the systems that are given the most credit and have made the strongest claims to “accurate and profound reasoning.” There are several kinds of problems with “the systems of the most eminent philosophers”:
2. One does not even need to understand the specific problems with the systems to see that there is something wrong with them. Everything is subject to debate, and there is no agreement among learned people, from the most trivial questions to the most momentous. “Disputes are multiply’d, as if every thing was uncertain; and these disputes are manag’d with the greatest warmth, as if every thing was certain.” Systems gain favor through the way in which they are presented, rather than through their rational justification, and even the most extreme hypothesis gains followers if it is well-presented.
3. The reaction to this situation, even among the learned, has been to reject “metaphysical reasoning,” by which is meant “any kind of argument, which is in any way abstruse, and requires some attention to be comprehended” (rather than the reasoning in some particular branch of science). These researches have yielded no results, which leads us to reject them without hesitation. We look instead for what is “natural and entertaining,” given that we are doomed to be subject to error and delusion. But this rejection of abstruse thinking can only be justified if one is a skeptic, and a lazy one at that. It is “vain and presumptuous” to think that we can discover the truth without effort, when the greatest geniuses have failed to find it without effort. If we can indeed attain the truth at all, “’tis certain it must lie pretty very deep and abstruse.” The author does not claim to make his system “very easy and obvious,” because if it were, this would be an indication that it is not correct.
4. It is evident that all sciences, whatever they may be, “have a relation, greater or less, to human nature.” This holds even for mathematics, natural philosophy [philosophy of physical and biological nature], and natural religion: all are dependent in some way on the philosophy of man [or moral philosophy]. The reason is that they are all products of human understanding and are judged by the powers and faculties of human beings. If we can understand thoroughly “the extent and force of human understanding” and could “explain the nature of the ideas we employ, and of the operations we perform in our reasonings,” we might well change and improve the sciences just mentioned. The improvements are most to be hoped for in natural religion, which not only tells us about the nature of “superior powers,” but also states how these powers are disposed toward human beings and what our duties are toward them. It teaches us that we are not the only beings that reason, and that we are the objects of reasoning.
5. There are other sciences which are more closely tied to human nature, and that would thus benefit even more from a science of man. “The sole end of logic is to explain the principles and operations of our reasoning faculty, and the nature of our ideas.” Morals and [aesthetic] criticism concern our tastes and feelings. “And politics consider men as united in society, and dependent on each other.” Nearly everything else that is important to us, or that might improve or embellish the human mind, falls under the heading of logic, morals, criticism, and politics.
6. So we should abandon the old way of investigation, “the tedious, lingering method,” which investigates these sciences independently. Instead, we should investigate the fundamental subject, human nature, which is “the capital or center of these sciences.” Once we get a handle on human nature, we will be able to master the sciences “which more intimately concern human life” and then at our leisure take up topics which only incite our curiosity. “There is no question of importance, whose decision is not compriz’d in the science of man; and there is none, which can be decided with any certainty, before we become acquainted with that science.” The author is undertaking a very ambitious project: to “explain the principles of human nature,” and thereby to “propose a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security.”
7. The foundation upon which the science of man must be built is solid only if consists of “experience and observation.” Although it has been a century since the science of nature has been built on experience and observation, it is no surprise that a science of man has not yet been built on that basis. In ancient times, there was a long gap between the investigation of nature by Thales and the investigation of man by Socrates. The gap is about the same as between the early advocacy of the empirical scientific method by Francis Bacon and the recent work on moral philosophy by Locke, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, Butler, and others in England. Other nations may excel England in poetry and rival her in other agreeable arts, but not in reason and philosophy. This is due to the fact that England is a “land of toleration and of liberty.”
8. The advances made in moral philosophy in England will bring her more esteem even than the advances made in natural philosophy earlier [by Newton]. The reason is that moral philosophy is of greater importance and stood in greater need of being reformed. We must investigate the human mind on the basis of experience and observation as we do in investigating nature, for the “essence of the mind” is unknown as much as the essence of external bodies. So all we have left to “form any notion of its powers and qualities” is “careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations.” We may be able, using this method, to explain “all effects from the simplest and fewest causes.” But we certainly “cannot go beyond experience.” Therefore, we ought to reject from the start any hypothesis about the “ultimate original qualities of human nature” as being “presumptuous and chimerical.”
9. Philosophers who work hard to explain the “ultimate principles of the soul” will not, the author thinks, end up mastering their subject. Moreover, they do not recognize what gives satisfaction to the human mind. Once we recognize that the task is impossible, we are inclined to be content with what we can accomplish, since “nothing is more certain, than that despair has almost the same effect upon us [as] enjoyment, and that we are no sooner acquainted with the impossibility of satisfying any desire, than the desire itself vanishes.” If all we can do is work within the confines of experience, our reasoning is the same as that of the common person, which can discover the most extraordinary phenomena with no study. Once we give up our quest for ultimate principles, we can take further satisfaction in the fact that we acknowledge our ignorance and are therefore free of the errors made by those who would base their principles on conjecture and hypothesis. “When this mutual contentment and satisfaction can be obtain’d betwixt the master and scholar, I know not what more we can require of our philosophy.”
10. If it is thought that our inability to discover ultimate principles is a defect in the present system of moral philosophy, it should be kept in mind that it is also a defect in all other sciences, as well as in all that is done in the studies of the philosophers and in the shops of the most unrefined people. “None of them can go beyond experience, or establish any principles which are not founded on that authority.” There is a disadvantage in the application of the method of observation and experiment when its subject is the human being. This has to do with the nature of the experiments that can be conducted. In natural philosophy, all that is needed is to place bodies in the right circumstances and observe what happens. But if I try to place myself in an experimental setting, the results may be biased by the fact that I have set up the experiment for a certain end. “’Tis evident this reflection and premeditation wou’d so disturb the operation of my natural principles, as must render it impossible to form any just conclusion from the phænomenon.” Because of this limitation, our “experiments” are to be taken from the cautious observation of people in various circumstances: when keeping company with one another, when handling their affairs, and when indulging in their pleasures. “Where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compar’d, we may hope to establish on them a science, which will not be inferior in certainty, and will be much superior in utility to any other of human comprehension.”