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CP 5.591. How is it that man ever came by any correct theories about nature? We know by Induction that man has correct theories; for they produce predictions that are fulfilled. But by what process of thought were they ever brought to his mind? A chemist notices a surprising phenomenon. Now if he has a high admiration of Mill's Logic, as many chemists have, he will remember that Mill tells him that he must work on the principle that, under precisely the same circumstances, like phenomena are produced. Why does he then not note that this phenomenon was produced on such a day of the week, the planets presenting a certain configuration, his daughter having on a blue dress, he having dreamed of a white horse the night before, the milkman having been late that morning, and so on? The answer will be that in early days chemists did use to attend to some such circumstances, but that they have learned better. How have they learned this? By an induction. Very well, that induction must have been based upon a theory which the induction verified. How was it that man was ever led to entertain that true theory? You cannot say that it happened by chance, because the possible theories, if not strictly innumerable, at any rate exceed a trillion -- or the third power of a million; and therefore the chances are too overwhelmingly against the single true theory in the twenty or thirty thousand years during which man has been a thinking animal, ever having come into any man's head. Besides, you cannot seriously think that every little chicken, that is hatched, has to rummage through all possible theories until it lights upon the good idea of picking up something and eating it. On the contrary, you think the chicken has an innate idea of doing this; that is to say, that it can think of this, but has no faculty of thinking anything else. The chicken you say pecks by instinct. But if you are going to think every poor chicken endowed with an innate tendency toward a positive truth, why should you think that to man alone this gift is denied? If you carefully consider with an unbiased mind all the circumstances of the early history of science and all the other facts bearing on the question, which are far too various to be specifically alluded to in this lecture, I am quite sure that you must be brought to acknowledge that man's mind has a natural adaptation to imagining correct theories of some kinds, and in particular to correct theories about forces, without some glimmer of which he could not form social ties and consequently could not reproduce his kind. In short, the instincts conducive to assimilation of food, and the instincts conducive to reproduction, must have involved from the beginning certain tendencies to think truly about physics, on the one hand, and about psychics, on the other. It is somehow more than a mere figure of speech to say that nature fecundates the mind of man with ideas which, when those ideas grow up, will resemble their father, Nature.
Peirce: CP 5.592 Cross-Ref:††
592. But if that be so, it must be good reasoning to say that a given hypothesis is good, as a hypothesis, because it is a natural one, or one readily embraced by the human mind. It must concern logic in the highest degree to ascertain precisely how far and under what limitations this maxim may be held. For of all beliefs, none is more natural than the belief that it is natural for man to err. The logician ought to find out what the relation is between these two tendencies. END
The tendency of man (us) to err (stray, do wrong) is definitely related to logic and to life or nature. We are endowed with choice. To believe differently is itself a choice. If one is comforted by a sense that there are no ethics and that all of our actions are fated, determined, beyond our control, risk the discomfort of considering that such a view is illogical and would be harmful if all thought thus.
Peirce,a scientist with a Scholastic bent, understands the precision of thinking needed to make more and more correct inferences about natural (physical) processes. We narrow things down until we perceive that in most or all cases the hypothesis we are testing pans out.
There are several answers to the closing question about why in the face of our ability to parse nature, do we make so many errors and engage n so much wrongdoing.
Aside from the fact that wrongdoing may be a misnomer because of its capacity to create results which actually turn out to be logical, we must give freedom the nod. We choose our destiny and we develop our ideas in ways that have little to do, for the most part, with our observations of nature. The rationality behind our ideas and subsequent actions is hardly a picture of reason or logic that betrays attention to ethics or aesthetics. We gang up. We engage in selfishness by closing off community and universal considerations. We indulge in spontaneous acts that suggest fear, in one of many guises, and result on actions that hurt and harm oneself or others and generally both.
That we can escape the seeming vise of negative happenings is a universal testimony of anyone who has succeeded in learning the ways of positivity and practicing some form of spirituality.
Peirce is wrong in saying it is natural for us to err. We forget who we are, what we are, and how we are to exist. We are free. It is ultimately natural for us to exercise our freedom regardless of all conditions and circumstances and achieve by choice the best possible results.
Peirce: CP 5.592 Cross-Ref:††
592. But if that be so, it must be good reasoning to say that a given hypothesis is good, as a hypothesis, because it is a natural one, or one readily embraced by the human mind. It must concern logic in the highest degree to ascertain precisely how far and under what limitations this maxim may be held. For of all beliefs, none is more natural than the belief that it is natural for man to err. The logician ought to find out what the relation is between these two tendencies. END
The tendency of man (us) to err (stray, do wrong) is definitely related to logic and to life or nature. We are endowed with choice. To believe differently is itself a choice. If one is comforted by a sense that there are no ethics and that all of our actions are fated, determined, beyond our control, risk the discomfort of considering that such a view is illogical and would be harmful if all thought thus.
Peirce,a scientist with a Scholastic bent, understands the precision of thinking needed to make more and more correct inferences about natural (physical) processes. We narrow things down until we perceive that in most or all cases the hypothesis we are testing pans out.
There are several answers to the closing question about why in the face of our ability to parse nature, do we make so many errors and engage n so much wrongdoing.
Aside from the fact that wrongdoing may be a misnomer because of its capacity to create results which actually turn out to be logical, we must give freedom the nod. We choose our destiny and we develop our ideas in ways that have little to do, for the most part, with our observations of nature. The rationality behind our ideas and subsequent actions is hardly a picture of reason or logic that betrays attention to ethics or aesthetics. We gang up. We engage in selfishness by closing off community and universal considerations. We indulge in spontaneous acts that suggest fear, in one of many guises, and result on actions that hurt and harm oneself or others and generally both.
That we can escape the seeming vise of negative happenings is a universal testimony of anyone who has succeeded in learning the ways of positivity and practicing some form of spirituality.
Peirce is wrong in saying it is natural for us to err. We forget who we are, what we are, and how we are to exist. We are free. It is ultimately natural for us to exercise our freedom regardless of all conditions and circumstances and achieve by choice the best possible results.
