A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive Volume I Part 25

Suppose, as before, that we have the antecedents A B C, followed by the consequents _a b c_, and that by previous inductions (founded, we will suppose, on the Method of Difference) we have ascertained the causes of some of these effects, or the effects of some of these causes; and are thence apprised that the effect of A is _a_, and that the effect of B is _b_. Subtracting the sum of these effects from the total phenomenon, there remains _c_, which now, without any fresh experiments, we may know to be the effect of C. This Method of Residues is in truth a peculiar modification of the Method of Difference. If the instance A B C, _a b c_, could have been compared with a single instance A B, _a b_, we should have proved C to be the cause of _c_, by the common process of the Method of Difference. In the present case, however, instead of a single instance A B, we have had to study separately the causes A and B, and to infer from the effects which they produce separately, what effect they must produce in the case A B C where they act together. Of the two instances, therefore, which the Method of Difference requires,--the one positive, the other negative,--the negative one, or that in which the given phenomenon is absent, is not the direct result of observation and experiment, but has been arrived at by deduction. As one of the forms of the Method of Difference, the Method of Residues partakes of its rigorous certainty, provided the previous inductions, those which gave the effects of A and B, were obtained by the same infallible method, and provided we are certain that C is the _only_ antecedent to which the residual phenomenon _c_ can be referred; the only agent of which we had not already calculated and subducted the effect. But as we can never be quite certain of this, the evidence derived from the Method of Residues is not complete unless we can obtain C artificially and try it separately, or unless its agency, when once suggested, can be accounted for, and proved deductively from known laws.

Even with these reservations, the Method of Residues is one of the most important among our instruments of discovery. Of all the methods of investigating laws of nature, this is the most fertile in unexpected results; often informing us of sequences in which neither the cause nor the effect were sufficiently conspicuous to attract of themselves the attention of observers. The agent C may be an obscure circ.u.mstance, not likely to have been perceived unless sought for, nor likely to have been sought for until attention had been awakened by the insufficiency of the obvious causes to account for the whole of the effect. And _c_ may be so disguised by its intermixture with _a_ and _b_, that it would scarcely have presented itself spontaneously as a subject of separate study. Of these uses of the method, we shall presently cite some remarkable examples. The canon of the Method of Residues is as follows:--

FOURTH CANON.

_Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedents._

6. There remains a cla.s.s of laws which it is impracticable to ascertain by any of the three methods which I have attempted to characterize; namely, the laws of those Permanent Causes, or indestructible natural agents, which it is impossible either to exclude or to isolate; which we can neither hinder from being present, nor contrive that they shall be present alone. It would appear at first sight that we could by no means separate the effects of these agents from the effects of those other phenomena with which they cannot be prevented from coexisting. In respect, indeed, to most of the permanent causes, no such difficulty exists; since though we cannot eliminate them as coexisting facts, we can eliminate them as influencing agents, by simply trying our experiment in a local situation beyond the limits of their influence. The pendulum, for example, has its oscillations disturbed by the vicinity of a mountain: we remove the pendulum to a sufficient distance from the mountain, and the disturbance ceases: from these data we can determine by the Method of Difference, the amount of effect due to the mountain; and beyond a certain distance everything goes on precisely as it would do if the mountain exercised no influence whatever, which, accordingly, we, with sufficient reason, conclude to be the fact.

The difficulty, therefore, in applying the methods already treated of to determine the effects of Permanent Causes, is confined to the cases in which it is impossible for us to get out of the local limits of their influence. The pendulum can be removed from the influence of the mountain, but it cannot be removed from the influence of the earth: we cannot take away the earth from the pendulum, nor the pendulum from the earth, to ascertain whether it would continue to vibrate if the action which the earth exerts upon it were withdrawn. On what evidence, then, do we ascribe its vibrations to the earth's influence? Not on any sanctioned by the Method of Difference; for one of the two instances, the negative instance, is wanting. Nor by the Method of Agreement; for though all pendulums agree in this, that during their oscillations the earth is always present, why may we not as well ascribe the phenomenon to the sun, which is equally a coexistent fact in all the experiments?

It is evident that to establish even so simple a fact of causation as this, there was required some method over and above those which we have yet examined.

As another example, let us take the phenomenon Heat. Independently of all hypothesis as to the real nature of the agency so called, this fact is certain, that we are unable to exhaust any body of the whole of its heat. It is equally certain, that no one ever perceived heat not emanating from a body. Being unable, then, to separate Body and Heat, we cannot effect such a variation of circ.u.mstances as the foregoing three methods require; we cannot ascertain, by those methods, what portion of the phenomena exhibited by any body is due to the heat contained in it.

If we could observe a body with its heat, and the same body entirely divested of heat, the Method of Difference would show the effect due to the heat, apart from that due to the body. If we could observe heat under circ.u.mstances agreeing in nothing but heat, and therefore not characterized also by the presence of a body, we could ascertain the effects of heat, from an instance of heat with a body and an instance of heat without a body, by the Method of Agreement; or we could determine by the Method of Difference what effect was due to the body, when the remainder which was due to the heat would be given by the Method of Residues. But we can do none of these things; and without them the application of any of the three methods to the solution of this problem would be illusory. It would be idle, for instance, to attempt to ascertain the effect of heat by subtracting from the phenomena exhibited by a body, all that is due to its other properties; for as we have never been able to observe any bodies without a portion of heat in them, effects due to that heat might form a part of the very results, which we were affecting to subtract in order that the effect of heat might be shown by the residue.

If, therefore, there were no other methods of experimental investigation than these three, we should be unable to determine the effects due to heat as a cause. But we have still a resource. Though we cannot exclude an antecedent altogether, we may be able to produce, or nature may produce for us, some modification in it. By a modification is here meant, a change in it, not amounting to its total removal. If some modification in the antecedent A is always followed by a change in the consequent _a_, the other consequents _b_ and _c_ remaining the same; or _vice vers_, if every change in _a_ is found to have been preceded by some modification in A, none being observable in any of the other antecedents; we may safely conclude that _a_ is, wholly or in part, an effect traceable to A, or at least in some way connected with it through causation. For example, in the case of heat, though we cannot expel it altogether from any body, we can modify it in quant.i.ty, we can increase or diminish it; and doing so, we find by the various methods of experimentation or observation already treated of, that such increase or diminution of heat is followed by expansion or contraction of the body.

In this manner we arrive at the conclusion, otherwise unattainable by us, that one of the effects of heat is to enlarge the dimensions of bodies; or what is the same thing in other words, to widen the distances between their particles.

A change in a thing, not amounting to its total removal, that is, a change which leaves it still the same thing it was, must be a change either in its quant.i.ty, or in some of its variable relations to other things, of which variable relations the princ.i.p.al is its position in s.p.a.ce. In the previous example, the modification which was produced in the antecedent was an alteration in its quant.i.ty. Let us now suppose the question to be, what influence the moon exerts on the surface of the earth. We cannot try an experiment in the absence of the moon, so as to observe what terrestrial phenomena her annihilation would put an end to; but when we find that all the variations in the _position_ of the moon are followed by corresponding variations in the time and place of high water, the place being always either the part of the earth which is nearest to, or that which is most remote from, the moon, we have ample evidence that the moon is, wholly or partially, the cause which determines the tides. It very commonly happens, as it does in this instance, that the variations of an effect are correspondent, or a.n.a.logous, to those of its cause; as the moon moves farther towards the east, the high water point does the same: but this is not an indispensable condition; as may be seen in the same example, for along with that high water point there is at the same instant another high water point diametrically opposite to it, and which, therefore, of necessity, moves towards the west, as the moon, followed by the nearer of the tide waves, advances towards the east: and yet both these motions are equally effects of the moon's motion.

That the oscillations of the pendulum are caused by the earth, is proved by similar evidence. Those oscillations take place between equidistant points on the two sides of a line, which, being perpendicular to the earth, varies with every variation in the earth's position, either in s.p.a.ce or relatively to the object. Speaking accurately, we only know by the method now characterized, that all terrestrial bodies tend to the earth, and not to some unknown fixed point lying in the same direction.

In every twenty-four hours, by the earth's rotation, the line drawn from the body at right angles to the earth coincides successively with all the radii of a circle, and in the course of six months the place of that circle varies by nearly two hundred millions of miles; yet in all these changes of the earth's position, the line in which bodies tend to fall continues to be directed towards it: which proves that terrestrial gravity is directed to the earth, and not, as was once fancied by some, to a fixed point of s.p.a.ce.

The method by which these results were obtained, may be termed the Method of Concomitant Variations: it is regulated by the following canon:--

FIFTH CANON.

_Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through some fact of causation._

The last clause is subjoined, because it by no means follows when two phenomena accompany each other in their variations, that the one is cause and the other effect. The same thing may, and indeed must happen, supposing them to be two different effects of a common cause: and by this method alone it would never be possible to ascertain which of the suppositions is the true one. The only way to solve the doubt would be that which we have so often adverted to, viz. by endeavouring to ascertain whether we can produce the one set of variations by means of the other. In the case of heat, for example, by increasing the temperature of a body we increase its bulk, but by increasing its bulk we do not increase its temperature; on the contrary, (as in the rarefaction of air under the receiver of an air-pump,) we generally diminish it: therefore heat is not an effect, but a cause, of increase of bulk. If we cannot ourselves produce the variations, we must endeavour, though it is an attempt which is seldom successful, to find them produced by nature in some case in which the pre-existing circ.u.mstances are perfectly known to us.

It is scarcely necessary to say, that in order to ascertain the uniform concomitance of variations in the effect with variations in the cause, the same precautions must be used as in any other case of the determination of an invariable sequence. We must endeavour to retain all the other antecedents unchanged, while that particular one is subjected to the requisite series of variations; or in other words, that we may be warranted in inferring causation from concomitance of variations, the concomitance itself must be proved by the Method of Difference.

It might at first appear that the Method of Concomitant Variations a.s.sumes a new axiom, or law of causation in general, namely, that every modification of the cause is followed by a change in the effect. And it does usually happen that when a phenomenon A causes a phenomenon _a_, any variation in the quant.i.ty or in the various relations of A, is uniformly followed by a variation in the quant.i.ty or relations of _a_.

To take a familiar instance, that of gravitation. The sun causes a certain tendency to motion in the earth; here we have cause and effect; but that tendency is _towards_ the sun, and therefore varies in direction as the sun varies in the relation of position; and moreover the tendency varies in intensity, in a certain numerical correspondence to the sun's distance from the earth, that is, according to another relation of the sun. Thus we see that there is not only an invariable connexion between the sun and the earth's gravitation, but that two of the relations of the sun, its position with respect to the earth and its distance from the earth, are invariably connected as antecedents with the quant.i.ty and direction of the earth's gravitation. The cause of the earth's gravitating at all, is simply the sun; but the cause of its gravitating with a given intensity and in a given direction, is the existence of the sun in a given direction and at a given distance. It is not strange that a modified cause, which is in truth a different cause, should produce a different effect.

Although it is for the most part true that a modification of the cause is followed by a modification of the effect, the Method of Concomitant Variations does not, however, presuppose this as an axiom. It only requires the converse proposition; that anything on whose modifications, modifications of an effect are invariably consequent, must be the cause (or connected with the cause) of that effect; a proposition, the truth of which is evident; for if the thing itself had no influence on the effect, neither could the modifications of the thing have any influence.

If the stars have no power over the fortunes of mankind, it is implied in the very terms, that the conjunctions or oppositions of different stars can have no such power.

Although the most striking applications of the Method of Concomitant Variations take place in the cases in which the Method of Difference, strictly so called, is impossible, its use is not confined to those cases; it may often usefully follow after the Method of Difference, to give additional precision to a solution which that has found. When by the Method of Difference it has first been ascertained that a certain object produces a certain effect, the Method of Concomitant Variations may be usefully called in, to determine according to what law the quant.i.ty or the different relations of the effect follow those of the cause.

7. The case in which this method admits of the most extensive employment, is that in which the variations of the cause are variations of quant.i.ty. Of such variations we may in general affirm with safety, that they will be attended not only with variations, but with similar variations, of the effect: the proposition, that more of the cause is followed by more of the effect, being a corollary from the principle of the Composition of Causes, which, as we have seen, is the general rule of causation; cases of the opposite description, in which causes change their properties on being conjoined with one another, being, on the contrary, special and exceptional. Suppose, then, that when A changes in quant.i.ty, _a_ also changes in quant.i.ty, and in such a manner that we can trace the numerical relation which the changes of the one bear to such changes of the other as take place within our limits of observation. We may then, with certain precautions, safely conclude that the same numerical relation will hold beyond those limits. If, for instance, we find that when A is double, _a_ is double; that when A is treble or quadruple, _a_ is treble or quadruple; we may conclude that if A were a half or a third, _a_ would be a half or a third, and finally, that if A were annihilated, _a_ would be annihilated, and that _a_ is wholly the effect of A, or wholly the effect of the same cause with A.

And so with any other numerical relation according to which A and _a_ would vanish simultaneously; as for instance, if _a_ were proportional to the square of A. If, on the other hand, _a_ is not wholly the effect of A, but yet varies when A varies, it is probably a mathematical function not of A alone, but of A and something else: its changes, for example, may be such as would occur if part of it remained constant, or varied on some other principle, and the remainder varied in some numerical relation to the variations of A. In that case, when A diminishes, _a_ will be seen to approach not towards zero, but towards some other limit: and when the series of variations is such as to indicate what that limit is, if constant, or the law of its variation if variable, the limit will exactly measure how much of _a_ is the effect of some other and independent cause, and the remainder will be the effect of A (or of the cause of A).

These conclusions, however, must not be drawn without certain precautions. In the first place, the possibility of drawing them at all, manifestly supposes that we are acquainted not only with the variations, but with the absolute quant.i.ties both of A and _a_. If we do not know the total quant.i.ties, we cannot, of course, determine the real numerical relation according to which those quant.i.ties vary. It is therefore an error to conclude, as some have concluded, that because increase of heat expands bodies, that is, increases the distance between their particles, therefore the distance is wholly the effect of heat, and that if we could entirely exhaust the body of its heat, the particles would be in complete contact. This is no more than a guess, and of the most hazardous sort, not a legitimate induction: for since we neither know how much heat there is in any body, nor what is the real distance between any two of its particles, we cannot judge whether the contraction of the distance does or does not follow the diminution of the quant.i.ty of heat according to such a numerical relation that the two quant.i.ties would vanish simultaneously.

In contrast with this, let us consider a case in which the absolute quant.i.ties are known; the case contemplated in the first law of motion; viz. that all bodies in motion continue to move in a straight line with uniform velocity until acted upon by some new force. This a.s.sertion is in open opposition to first appearances; all terrestrial objects, when in motion, gradually abate their velocity and at last stop; which accordingly the ancients, with their _inductio per enumerationem simplicem_, imagined to be the law. Every moving body, however, encounters various obstacles, as friction, the resistance of the atmosphere, &c., which we know by daily experience to be causes capable of destroying motion. It was suggested that the whole of the r.e.t.a.r.dation might be owing to these causes. How was this inquired into? If the obstacles could have been entirely removed, the case would have been amenable to the Method of Difference. They could not be removed, they could only be diminished, and the case, therefore, admitted only of the Method of Concomitant Variations. This accordingly being employed, it was found that every diminution of the obstacles diminished the r.e.t.a.r.dation of the motion: and inasmuch as in this case (unlike the case of heat) the total quant.i.ties both of the antecedent and of the consequent were known; it was practicable to estimate, with an approach to accuracy, both the amount of the r.e.t.a.r.dation and the amount of the r.e.t.a.r.ding causes, or resistances, and to judge how near they both were to being exhausted; and it appeared that the effect dwindled as rapidly, and at each step was as far on the road towards annihilation, as the cause was. The simple oscillation of a weight suspended from a fixed point, and moved a little out of the perpendicular, which in ordinary circ.u.mstances lasts but a few minutes, was prolonged in Borda's experiments to more than thirty hours, by diminis.h.i.+ng as much as possible the friction at the point of suspension, and by making the body oscillate in a s.p.a.ce exhausted as nearly as possible of its air. There could therefore be no hesitation in a.s.signing the whole of the r.e.t.a.r.dation of motion to the influence of the obstacles; and since, after subducting this r.e.t.a.r.dation from the total phenomenon, the remainder was an uniform velocity, the result was the proposition known as the first law of motion.

There is also another characteristic uncertainty affecting the inference that the law of variation which the quant.i.ties observe within our limits of observation, will hold beyond those limits. There is of course, in the first instance, the possibility that beyond the limits, and in circ.u.mstances therefore of which we have no direct experience, some counteracting cause might develop itself; either a new agent, or a new property of the agents concerned, which lies dormant in the circ.u.mstances we are able to observe. This is an element of uncertainty which enters largely into all our predictions of effects; but it is not peculiarly applicable to the Method of Concomitant Variations. The uncertainty, however, of which I am about to speak, is characteristic of that method; especially in the cases in which the extreme limits of our observation are very narrow, in comparison with the possible variations in the quant.i.ties of the phenomena. Any one who has the slightest acquaintance with mathematics, is aware that very different laws of variation may produce numerical results which differ but slightly from one another within narrow limits; and it is often only when the absolute amounts of variation are considerable, that the difference between the results given by one law and by another becomes appreciable. When, therefore, such variations in the quant.i.ty of the antecedents as we have the means of observing, are small in comparison with the total quant.i.ties, there is much danger lest we should mistake the numerical law, and be led to miscalculate the variations which would take place beyond the limits; a miscalculation which would vitiate any conclusion respecting the dependence of the effect upon the cause, that could be founded on those variations. Examples are not wanting of such mistakes.

"The formul," says Sir John Herschel,[33] "which have been empirically deduced for the elasticity of steam, (till very recently,) and those for the resistance of fluids, and other similar subjects," when relied on beyond the limits of the observations from which they were deduced, "have almost invariably failed to support the theoretical structures which have been erected on them."

In this uncertainty, the conclusion we may draw from the concomitant variations of _a_ and A, to the existence of an invariable and exclusive connexion between them, or to the permanency of the same numerical relation between their variations when the quant.i.ties are much greater or smaller than those which we have had the means of observing, cannot be considered to rest on a complete induction. All that in such a case can be regarded as proved on the subject of causation is, that there is some connexion between the two phenomena; that A, or something which can influence A, must be _one_ of the causes which collectively determine _a_. We may, however, feel a.s.sured that the relation which we have observed to exist between the variations of A and _a_, will hold true in all cases which fall between the same extreme limits; that is, wherever the utmost increase or diminution in which the result has been found by observation to coincide with the law, is not exceeded.

The four methods which it has now been attempted to describe, are the only possible modes of experimental inquiry--of direct induction _ posteriori_, as distinguished from deduction: at least, I know not, nor am able to imagine, any others. And even of these, the Method of Residues, as we have seen, is not independent of deduction; though, as it also requires specific experience, it may, without impropriety, be included among methods of direct observation and experiment.

These, then, with such a.s.sistance as can be obtained from Deduction, compose the available resources of the human mind for ascertaining the laws of the succession of phenomena. Before proceeding to point out certain circ.u.mstances, by which the employment of these methods is subjected to an immense increase of complication and of difficulty, it is expedient to ill.u.s.trate the use of the methods, by suitable examples drawn from actual physical investigations. These, accordingly, will form the subject of the succeeding chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES OF THE FOUR METHODS.

1. I shall select, as a first example, an interesting speculation of one of the most eminent of theoretical chemists, Baron Liebig. The object in view, is to ascertain the immediate cause of the death produced by metallic poisons.

a.r.s.enious acid, and the salts of lead, bis.m.u.th, copper, and mercury, if introduced into the animal organism, except in the smallest doses, destroy life. These facts have long been known, as insulated truths of the lowest order of generalization; but it was reserved for Liebig, by an apt employment of the first two of our methods of experimental inquiry, to connect these truths together by a higher induction, pointing out what property, common to all these deleterious substances, is the really operating cause of their fatal effect.

When solutions of these substances are placed in sufficiently close contact with many animal products, alb.u.men, milk, muscular fibre, and animal membranes, the acid or salt leaves the water in which it was dissolved, and enters into combination with the animal substance: which substance, after being thus acted upon, is found to have lost its tendency to spontaneous decomposition, or putrefaction.

Observation also shows, in cases where death has been produced by these poisons, that the parts of the body with which the poisonous substances have been brought into contact, do not afterwards putrefy.

And, finally, when the poison has been supplied in too small a quant.i.ty to destroy life, eschars are produced, that is, certain superficial portions of the tissues are destroyed, which are afterwards thrown off by the reparative process taking place in the healthy parts.

These three sets of instances admit of being treated according to the Method of Agreement. In all of them the metallic compounds are brought into contact with the substances which compose the human or animal body; and the instances do not seem to agree in any other circ.u.mstance. The remaining antecedents are as different, and even opposite, as they could possibly be made; for in some the animal substances exposed to the action of the poisons are in a state of life, in others only in a state of organization, in others not even in that. And what is the result which follows in all the cases? The conversion of the animal substance (by combination with the poison) into a chemical compound, held together by so powerful a force as to resist the subsequent action of the ordinary causes of decomposition. Now, organic life (the necessary condition of sensitive life) consisting in a continual state of decomposition and recomposition of the different organs and tissues; whatever incapacitates them for this decomposition destroys life. And thus the proximate cause of the death produced by this description of poisons, is ascertained, as far as the Method of Agreement can ascertain it.

Let us now bring our conclusion to the test of the Method of Difference.

Setting out from the cases already mentioned, in which the antecedent is the presence of substances forming with the tissues a compound incapable of putrefaction, (and _ fortiori_ incapable of the chemical actions which const.i.tute life,) and the consequent is death, either of the whole organism, or of some portion of it; let us compare with these cases other cases, as much resembling them as possible, but in which that effect is not produced. And, first, "many insoluble basic salts of a.r.s.enious acid are known not to be poisonous. The substance called alkargen, discovered by Bunsen, which contains a very large quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic, and approaches very closely in composition to the organic a.r.s.enious compounds found in the body, has not the slightest injurious action upon the organism." Now when these substances are brought into contact with the tissues in any way, they do not combine with them; they do not arrest their progress to decomposition. As far, therefore, as these instances go, it appears that when the effect is absent, it is by reason of the absence of that antecedent which we had already good ground for considering as the proximate cause.

But the rigorous conditions of the Method of Difference are not yet satisfied; for we cannot be sure that these unpoisonous bodies agree with the poisonous substances in every property, except the particular one, of entering into a difficultly decomposable compound with the animal tissues. To render the method strictly applicable, we need an instance, not of a different substance, but of one of the very same substances, in circ.u.mstances which would prevent it from forming, with the tissues, the sort of compound in question; and then, if death does not follow, our case is made out. Now such instances are afforded by the antidotes to these poisons. For example, in case of poisoning by a.r.s.enious acid, if hydrated peroxide of iron is administered, the destructive agency is instantly checked. Now this peroxide is known to combine with the acid, and form a compound, which, being insoluble, cannot act at all on animal tissues. So, again, sugar is a well-known antidote to poisoning by salts of copper; and sugar reduces those salts either into metallic copper, or into the red suboxide, neither of which enters into combination with animal matter. The disease called painter's colic, so common in manufactories of white lead, is unknown where the workmen are accustomed to take, as a preservative, sulphuric acid lemonade (a solution of sugar rendered acid by sulphuric acid). Now diluted sulphuric acid has the property of decomposing all compounds of lead with organic matter, or of preventing them from being formed.

There is another cla.s.s of instances, of the nature required by the Method of Difference, which seem at first sight to conflict with the theory. Soluble salts of silver, such for instance as the nitrate, have the same stiffening antiseptic effect on decomposing animal substances as corrosive sublimate and the most deadly metallic poisons; and when applied to the external parts of the body, the nitrate is a powerful caustic; depriving those parts of all active vitality, and causing them to be thrown off by the neighbouring living structures, in the form of an eschar. The nitrate and the other salts of silver ought, then, it would seem, if the theory be correct, to be poisonous; yet they may be administered internally with perfect impunity. From this apparent exception arises the strongest confirmation which the theory has yet received. Nitrate of silver, in spite of its chemical properties, does not poison when introduced into the stomach; but in the stomach, as in all animal liquids, there is common salt; and in the stomach there is also free muriatic acid. These substances operate as natural antidotes, combining with the nitrate, and if its quant.i.ty is not too great, immediately converting it into chloride of silver; a substance very slightly soluble, and therefore incapable of combining with the tissues, although to the extent of its solubility it has a medicinal influence, though an entirely different cla.s.s of organic actions.

The preceding instances have afforded an induction of a high order of conclusiveness, ill.u.s.trative of the two simplest of our four methods; though not rising to the maximum of certainty which the Method of Difference, in its most perfect exemplification, is capable of affording. For (let us not forget) the positive instance and the negative one which the rigour of that method requires, ought to differ only in the presence or absence of one single circ.u.mstance. Now, in the preceding argument, they differ in the presence or absence not of a single _circ.u.mstance_, but of a single _substance_: and as every substance has innumerable properties, there is no knowing what number of real differences are involved in what is nominally and apparently only one difference. It is conceivable that the antidote, the peroxide of iron for example, may counteract the poison through some other of its properties than that of forming an insoluble compound with it; and if so, the theory would fall to the ground, so far as it is supported by that instance. This source of uncertainty, which is a serious hindrance to all extensive generalizations in chemistry, is however reduced in the present case to almost the lowest degree possible, when we find that not only one substance, but many substances, possess the capacity of acting as antidotes to metallic poisons, and that all these agree in the property of forming insoluble compounds with the poisons, while they cannot be ascertained to agree in any other property whatsoever. We have thus, in favour of the theory, all the evidence which can be obtained by what we termed the Indirect Method of Difference, or the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference; the evidence of which, though it never can amount to that of the Method of Difference properly so called, may approach indefinitely near to it.

2. Let the object be[34] to ascertain the law of what is termed _induced_ electricity; to find under what conditions any electrified body, whether positively or negatively electrified, gives rise to a contrary electric state in some other body adjacent to it.

The most familiar exemplification of the phenomenon to be investigated is the following. Around the prime conductors of an electrical machine, the atmosphere to some distance, or any conducting surface suspended in that atmosphere, is found to be in an electric condition opposite to that of the prime conductor itself. Near and around the positive prime conductor there is negative electricity, and near and around the negative prime conductor there is positive electricity. When pith b.a.l.l.s are brought near to either of the conductors, they become electrified with the opposite electricity to it; either receiving a share from the already electrified atmosphere by conduction, or acted upon by the direct inductive influence of the conductor itself: they are then attracted by the conductor to which they are in opposition; or, if withdrawn in their electrified state, they will be attracted by any other oppositely charged body. In like manner the hand, if brought near enough to the conductor, receives or gives an electric discharge; now we have no evidence that a charged conductor can be suddenly discharged unless by the approach of a body oppositely electrified. In the case, therefore, of the electric machine, it appears that the acc.u.mulation of electricity in an insulated conductor is always accompanied by the excitement of the contrary electricity in the surrounding atmosphere, and in every conductor placed near the former conductor. It does not seem possible, in this case, to produce one electricity by itself.

Let us now examine all the other instances which we can obtain, resembling this instance in the given consequent, namely, the evolution of an opposite electricity in the neighbourhood of an electrified body.

As one remarkable instance we have the Leyden jar; and after the splendid experiments of Faraday in complete and final establishment of the substantial ident.i.ty of magnetism and electricity, we may cite the magnet, both the natural and the electro-magnet, in neither of which it is possible to produce one kind of electricity by itself, or to charge one pole without charging an opposite pole with the contrary electricity at the same time. We cannot have a magnet with one pole: if we break a natural loadstone into a thousand pieces, each piece will have its two oppositely electrified poles complete within itself. In the voltaic circuit, again, we cannot have one current without its opposite. In the ordinary electric machine, the gla.s.s cylinder or plate, and the rubber, acquire opposite electricities.

From all these instances, treated by the Method of Agreement, a general law appears to result. The instances embrace all the known modes in which a body can become charged with electricity; and in all of them there is found, as a concomitant or consequent, the excitement of the opposite electric state in some other body or bodies. It seems to follow that the two facts are invariably connected, and that the excitement of electricity in any body has for one of its necessary conditions the possibility of a simultaneous excitement of the opposite electricity in some neighbouring body.

As the two contrary electricities can only be produced together, so they can only cease together. This may be shown by an application of the Method of Difference to the example of the Leyden jar. It needs scarcely be here remarked that in the Leyden jar, electricity can be acc.u.mulated and retained in considerable quant.i.ty, by the contrivance of having two conducting surfaces of equal extent, and parallel to each other through the whole of that extent, with a non-conducting substance such as gla.s.s between them. When one side of the jar is charged positively, the other is charged negatively, and it was by virtue of this fact that the Leyden jar served just now as an instance in our employment of the Method of Agreement. Now it is impossible to discharge one of the coatings unless the other can be discharged at the same time. A conductor held to the positive side cannot convey away any electricity unless an equal quant.i.ty be allowed to pa.s.s from the negative side: if one coating be perfectly insulated, the charge is safe. The dissipation of one must proceed _pari pa.s.su_ with that of the other.