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Show 6 . IN.TRODUCTION. a precipitate attempt to simplify and generalize; and 'vhile their more practical opponents dravv too hasty inferences fron1 a frequent appeal to partial facts, these \vriters run into a contrary extreme, and db not sufficiently try their theories by a reference to that enlarged and con1prehensive experience vvhich, on so complicated a subject, can alone establish their truth and utility. rro minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization. It is indeed the desirable and legitimate object of genuine philosophy, \vhenever it can be effected consistently \vith truth; and for this very reason, the natural tendency to\vards it has, ·in almost every science with which Vle are acquainted, led to crude and premature theories. In political economy the desire to simplify has occasioned an unw'"illingness to acknowledge the operation ofmore causes than one in the production of particular effects; and if one cause \Vould account for a considerable portion of a certain class of phenotnena, the \Vhole has been ascribed to it \Vithout sufficient attention to the facts, which would not adtnit of being so solved. I have alvvays thought that the late controversy on the bullion question presented a signal instance of this kind of error: Each party being possessed of a theory which would account for an unfavourable exchano1e and b ' an excess of the n1arket price above the 1nint price of bullion, adhered to that single vicvv of the question, which it had been accustotned to consider as correct; and scarcely one writer seetned willing to I .INTHODBC'fiON. rtO acltnit of the operation of both theories, the COmbination of \vhicb, sometimes acting in conjunction and sometin1es in opposition, could alone adequately account for the variable and con1plicatecl phenon1cna observable.:;c~ . It is certain that v;re cannot too h1ghly respect and venerate that admirable rule of Newton, not to adrni t more causes than are necessary to the solution of the pheno1nena \Ve are consideri11g, but the rule itself implies, that those which really are necessary must be admitted. Before the shrine of truth as discovered by facts and experience, the faire;t theories and the 1nost beautiful classifications n1ust fall. The chen1ist of thirty years ago n1ay be allovved to reo-ret, that new discoveries in b . the science should disturb and confound h1s pre-vious svstems and arrano·ements; but he is not ' .J b entitled to the name of philosopher, if he does not give the1n l.tp \vithout a struggle, as soon as the experiments ,vbich refute tbetn are fully estab- .lished. The same tendency to simplify and generalize, Produces a still <Yreater disinclination to allow of. b . modifications, limitations, and excepttons to any rule or proposition, than to ad~it .the op~ration of .more causes than one. N oth1ng Indeed Is so unsatisfactory, and gives so unscientific and unmas- * It must be allowed, however, that the theory of the Bullion-l. sts thouah too exclusive accounted for much the largest proportion' of thbe phenomena in' question; and perhaps 1• t may b e sal' d with truth that the Bullion Report itself was more free from the error I have adverted to than any other work that appeared. B4 |
