| | | Among the philosophic chemists of this century M. | Chevreul holds a distinguished place. His Recherches | sur les Corps Gras d’Origine Animale (1823) and his | Considerations Generales sur l’Analyse Organique | (1824), although now distanced by the rapid advance | of science, are still consulted with profit, and cited with | respect by men eminent both in the speculative and | practical departments of chemistry. His work on | Colocces has made his name even popular, for it has | been studied with admiration by a public larger than the | special public of scientific men. A new work by such a man, | and on a subject of very general interest, will be certain to | command attention; and we hasten therefore to report on it, | in order to prevent the reader’s disappointment should he | be eager to peruse the book on the strength of the author’s | name. | These Lettres a M. Villemain consist of eleven | letters preceeded by a feeble Academci Discourse, a letter | to the Industrial Society of Angers, and a note from M. | Villemain. In the Lettres M. Chevreul undertakes | to expound certain ideas on Method which will be found in | his unpublished work, De l’Abstraction consideree | comme element des connaissances humaines, | whenever that Organon shall appear. Hitherto, | he has refused to publish this important work, fearing lest | the public should refuse to listen to him if he once quit the | particular line in which his reputation has been made. This | fear may not be without foundation; nevertheless, we | cannot help thinking he would have acted more prudently | in braving the indifference or scepticism of the world than | in disappointing his admirers, and giving the public just | grounds for suspicion by such a feeble volume as the one | now lying before us. Better to have risked the book than to | have prattled thus about it. | We are not greatly struck with what these Lettres | communicate respecting the inedited work. The | author’s definition of Fact, upon which he lays great stress, | seems to us far from satisfactory, but we quite agree with | him that the confusion which exists in scientific treatises, | no less than in popular language, respecting the real | nature of Fact, is fertile in error. Nothing at first seems | simpler than to determine what constitutes a fact. Nothing, | however, is often more abstruse. The Fact is the whole | truth, and, consequently, is frequently excessively complex. |

“I am cold,” “I am mortal,” “the earth revolves round | the sun,”

are facts, varying in degrees of complexity | ~~ the first being direct, and immediately known; the | second being indirect, and mediately known; the third | being the result of a long and complicated chain of | inferences. Everyone | practically acquainted with a science is aware how very | delusive are the simple seeming facts, how difficult it is to | keep clearly in view the point of separation where fact | ceases and inference begins, and how prone we all are to | take what is only inferential as equally valid with what | directly certain. Thus in Clairvoyance, Spirit Rapping, and | Table Turning (to allude only to popular delusions), how | many

“well attested facts”

are confidently cited by | persons who fail to perceive that these

“facts”

are | bundles of fact and hypothesis! Thus also it is that every | absurd doctrine has abundance of

“facts”

to | support it; whereas, facts being truths, no | absurd doctrine can really claim them ~~ a doctrine being | only a logical formula expressing the meaning of the facts. | So little is the inferential nature of almost every

“fact” |

understood by the public, that we constantly hear men | gravely offer personal respectability as a guarantee for | scientific accuracy. The Frenchman assured his friend that | the earth did turn round the sun, mot parole | d’honneur! and persons

“of the highest integrity” |

vouch for the facts of clairvoyance and table-turning, | not recognising the immense difficulty of ascertaining the | facts. A table turns that is a fact. The cause of its turning is | not obvious, nevertheless

“respectable witnesses” |

vouch for the fact that it turns

merely | by two or three persons placing their hands on the table | without pressure,”

Here ignorance flies to hypothesis | for explanation, and calls its hypothesis a fact, when in | truth the only ascertained fact is that the table has changed | its position, though the cause of the change is not obvious. | So little of direct fact is there in what appear to be the | simplest cases, that any mind, investigating the subject | closely, will perceive that by far the larger proportion of | every so-called fact is inferential. Take a simple case. The | streets are sloppy, and on stepping from our house to the | pavement, we say

“It has rained.”

This is no fact, | but an inference. The fact merely is that the streets | are wet. Unless we have stood under the rain, or | seen it pattering down, we have only a well-grounded | inference to justify our assertion that

“it has rained.” |

The wet streets, the dripping umbrellas, the running | spouts, the swollen gutters, are all facts which give the | inference fresh assurance, because they are facts which | have on former occasions been noticed as concomitants of | rain; but in strict language, the fact

“it has rained,”

| is and must always be an inference. | M. Chevreul appears to us only partially to have seen the | real difficulty of rightly estimating a fact. His definition is | defective; he actually accepts the ordinary definition ~~ | namely,

“A fact is that which is, which has been, or | which will be,”

and thinks it only needs development | to make it perfect. We deem it vicious ab initio. | In the development which he suggests, there are several | points of importance, but they by no means rectify the | original mistake of confounding fact with inference. | Glancing at Physics, he finds Matter to be identical with | certain properties ~~ extension, impenetrability, weight, | solidity &c.; and the study of these general properties | constitutes the science of Physics. Chemistry studies these | general properties in more special forms, reducing matter | to types, every one of which is defined by an assemblage | of properties belonging to it alone. Now a fact, he says, | being the expression of we cannot refuse to | admit that the properties of matter are facts; and farther, | inasmuch as these properties are abstractions, | the conclusion is inevitable, that a fact is an abstraction. | This is the result to which his theorizing has conducted | him~~ this is the definition which is to be the basis of his | great work. Difficult and delicate as the task is of producing | an adequate definition of fact, we think few readers will | compliment M. Chevreul on the success of his attempt. | On the question of Method, he is more successful, | although touching it in a fragmentary style. The letter of | Analysis and Synthesis is excellent throughout. In it he | refutes the very popular prejudice in favour of Synthesis as | the more philosophic, the more potent, the more creative | process. In the loose jargon of the day, analysis is spoken | of as

“cold,” “mechanical,”

the process of

| “inferior minds,”

We are not told that synthesis is

| “hot,”

but in all other respects it is supposed to be | superior to analysis ~~ it is that which distinguishes

| “creative genius.”

Every reader must remember pages | of rhetorical nonsense on this theme. Many may have been | rather captivated by the classification of epochs into the | analytical and synthetical. But such classifications are | essentially false. All knowledge, all invention, presupposes | analysis. The imperfection of our minds prevents our | knowing anything by immediate intuition. Divide et | impera. Not only does invention presuppose analysis, | but any mere analysis presupposes great | invention in the analyst ~~ as the rhetoricians who are | magniloquent upon synthesis would know, if they knew | what they were talking about. When once the analysis has | been made, it can be made again with ease; just as a | synthesis once made can with ease be repeated. But an | analytical discovery taxes the imagination quite as much as | a synthetical discovery. When it is said that a particular | epoch is synthetical, and that that is its glory, two | propositions may be meant ~~ either that in such an epoch | analysis had exhausted its office, and nothing remained for | it to perform (which is absurd), or else, that owing to the | activity of analysis, a vast quantity of new material had | been prepared ready for synthetical combination. But this | is not to glorify one method at the expense of the other. | Every true synthesis must be preceded by an analysis; if | the man who makes the analysis does not himself make | the synthesis, one of his contemporaries is certain to do it | for him. The two methods are twins. | We have, in these few sentences, given the spirit of M. | Chevreul’s remarks, which are too long for extract; and | here we must close our notice of a book which, though not | without merit, is very much beneath the deserved | reputation of the author.