Copyright © 1996 R.J. Kilcullen
To use this reading guide you will need to have before you either the course Readings book or J.S. Mill, A System of Logic Rationcinative and Inductive, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
So as you read look out for what Mill says about drawing lessons from history.
In the title of book VI, "The logic of the moral sciences", "moral" has a broader meaning than it usually has these days. It means "concerned with customs" (from Latin mos, custom); so, roughly, "social sciences".
READ VI.ii.3, pp. 839-42.
Mill accepted David Hume's analysis of the relation of cause and effect. (See Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Nature, sections IV and VII). Hume rejected the idea that there is a necessary connection between cause and effect--that the cause necessitates the effect. All that experience shows, according to Hume, is that certain events are as a rule followed by certain other events. Regularity of sequence is all there is to the notion of cause and effect. So this is one point Mill wants to make in this passage; he adopts Hume's doctrine and urges that we should get rid of the word necessity in this connection. Even in the purely physical realm a cause does not necessitate, constrain, or compel the effect to happen. The reason why he wants to make this point is that the notions of necessitation, constraint, compulsion, are inconsistent with freedom of choice, and he wants to find a place for free choice within a causal theory of human action.
The other idea in this passage is this. If we say "X" causes "Y" (i.e. that events of type x are regularly followed by events of type y) we should generally add the qualification ceteris paribus, other things being equal: i.e. Y will follow upon X if no other cause interferes. However, there are some causal connections that are so very regular that we can be (almost) sure that nothing else is going to interfere. To illustrate, if we jump off a 20 storey building nothing is going to prevent our being killed. But if we drink something poisonous, it is possible that medical treatment will succeed in preventing death. Mill suggests that most statements that can be made about patterns of cause and effect in human affairs are of the second kind--if x happens, y will probably happen but not inevitably; it will happen other things being equal, but some other cause may intervene to prevent it. Mill suggests that the necessitarians or fatalists speak as if nothing we could do, no choice we could make, could prevent whatever hereditary and environmental causes dictate.
Go back through the passage, and underline some phrases. In paragraph 3, 9 lines down, "too powerful to be counteracted", and 16 lines further down, "no room for the influence of any other". In the next paragraph (beginning "a fatalist believes"), four lines down underline "no use in struggling against it", and seven lines later, "no effort of his own can hinder it". Against the fatalism expressed in those phrases Mill maintains that our inheritance and our upbringing and whatever other external causes there are, are not too powerful to be counteracted by our own decisions. Life is not like jumping off a 20 storey building.
(A possible misunderstanding in the paragraph "A fatalist believes", lines 2 and 3: " whatever is about to happen will be the infallible result of the causes which produce it": This is true, Mill says. But bear in mind that we may not yet know what is about to happen (that is why he uses the word "Whatever"). We can't infallibly infer what will happen from merely partial knowledge of the situation. The cause that is about to counteract the causes we have noticed will be one of "the causes which what happens.)
The point so far is that inheritance, upbringing, circumstances, etc., may be counteracted. The next point is that my own wish or desire may counteract my inheritance, upbringing, etc. Go back to the paragraph that begins "A fatalist believes", about half way through, and underline "he has, to a certain extent, a power to alter his character". A little further down he says, "We cannot, indeed, directly will to be different from what we are", any more than we can directly will to be rid of a headache--but we can will to take a headache tablet, we can indirectly bring about the change we desire. Read again the rest of the paragraph.
Next paragraph: "Yes (answers the Owenite)"--Robert Owen, one of the early socialists, is the founder of this sect (in the previous paragraph 1/3 through, "the sect which in our day has most perseveringly inculcated" etc.)--Robert Owen believed that if the poorer classes were put into decent housing, worked in safe and pleasant conditions, were given education, etc., they would be transformed into decent, industrious, prudent, law-abiding citizens: change their circumstances and you change their characters. "Yes answers the Owenite, but these words 'if we will' surrender the whole point". We won't will unless something in our inheritance, upbringing, circumstances, etc., makes us desire to become different. Mill agrees, he does not see this as a problem. In his view it doesn't really matter why we want to change; if we do, we can change, that is the main point. On p.841, 8 lines down, he refers to the "depressing effect" of the fatalist doctrine. In his autobiography, Mill says that at one stage of his life
the doctrine of what is called Philosophical Necessity weighed on my existence like an incubus. I felt as if I was scientifically proved to be the helpless slave of antecedent circumstances; as if my character and that of all others had been formed for us by agencies beyond our control, and was wholly out of our own power. I pondered painfully on the subject, till gradually I saw light through it. I perceived, that the word Necessity, as a name for the doctrine of Cause and Effect applied to human action, carried with it a misleading association; and that this association was the operative force in the depressing and paralysing influence which I have experienced: I saw that though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances.... that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing. (Autobiography, in Collected Works, vol. 1, pp. 175, 177 (B/1602/.A2).)The message is, then, that we can change if we want to (if experience makes us want to): not by a naked act of will ("From now on I won't be irritable"), but by deciding to do certain things that will bring about a change in our character or mood for the future (e.g. we may decide to reorganise our schedule so that we don't get overtired, and then we may become less irritable).
Look again at the next paragraph, "And indeed, if we examine closely": Notice that Mill doesn't think that we can work miracles. Sometimes our attempt to change will not succeed. But in so far as, to the extent that, we do succeed when we try to make changes, then we will have a sense of freedom. At the end of the paragraph he is talking about (not altering our character for in future) but resisting temptation on a particular occasion. Our existing character makes us want to do something--it tends to cause such action, other things being equal. But other things may not be equal--we may on this occasion have an especially strong desire, for some reason, not to do this thing, and that may be a strong enough counteracting cause.
Notice that on Mill's account everything we do, and every choice we make, is determined by some set of causes. For example, our character and dispositions may be the result of our genetic inheritance and our upbringing. Given that character and those dispositions, when a new situation arises, we will predictably make a certain choice.
Freedom does not consist in being able to fly in the face of all the causes acting on us. It consists in there being among those causes, some that make us desire something different from what the others would make us choose if they were the only causes operating--a desire strong enough to counteract the other causes.
For more on this topic see Kilcullen, Sincerity and Truth: Essays on Arnauld, Bayle and Toleration, pp.175-182, 195-201.
The outcome of chapter 2, then, if Mill's argument is successful, is to reconcile our sense of freedom of choice with the doctrine of causal determinism, according to which every action and choice is caused. On Mill's view a science studies what causes what and predicts effects from causes. A science of human nature will be possible because every human action and choice is determined by causes. As Mill envisages it, the science of human nature will contain laws of two kinds:
Propositions of the first type predict the action of a person of a certain character placed in certain circumstances; propositions of the second type predict the change in character likely if a person of a certain existing character is placed in certain circumstances. Propositions of the second type, about modification of character, make up what Mill calls "ethology", the science of character.
Note that Mill's project for a science of human nature does not pre-suppose that all human beings have the same nature or that human nature is unchanging. It does not assume that all human beings at all times have the same initial dispositions. There might be a scientific understanding of changes likely in various circumstances in a diverse population containing many kinds of individuals.
Mill did not think that a science of human nature yet existed, except in its beginnings. It was far from being an exact science.
At the bottom of p.844 underline "greater", "principal" and 9 lines down p.845 underline "principal mass".
P.847 half way down, "Inasmuch, however": Still, there is a useful knowledge of human nature. We can anticipate the effects of major causes on most people.
P.848, 5 lines down, "Empirical laws": The science of human nature is empirical or inductive, in the sense that it is based on experience. But Mill uses the term "empirical law" in a narrower sense, to mean a generalisation for which there should be some explanation, the limits within which the generalisation will hold not being understood without such explanation. For example, suppose most Protestants Church goers vote Liberal. For this generalisation there should be some explanation; and until we know the explanation we won't be able to recognise cases to which the generalisation does not apply. On empirical laws see Mill, Logic, III.xvi and VI.v.i.
Two lines down, "Resolved into": Explained in terms of.
Three lines down, "Corollaries from": deductions from. An explanation is a deductive argument, (i.e. one in which the conclusion is strictly and necessarily implied by the premises), the conclusion of which is the thing to be explained, the premises being the more fundamental principles of the explanatory theory.
READ VI.v.2, pp. 863-4.
Read again the next paragraph "Now, without deciding...", and the next. What Mill is saying is that the science of human nature will consist mostly of the second of the two kinds of laws referred to above, "In circumstances x a person with dispositions y will acquire disposition z"
READ III.x.8, pp. 449-52.
What Mill is saying on p.452 still has relevance to political discussion. For example we hear people appealing to the experience of Japan or Singapore or some other country to support their view on government industry policy--should the government try to pick winners, or encourage investment in certain fields, or should it just level the playing field and let market forces decide? Advocates of one view or the other will sometimes allege that in some economically successful country this or that was done. Mill would say that this sort of argument is unscientific. To answer such questions you must go back to the economic first principles, whatever they are, and not appeal to what other countries have done, because their experience is too complex. In the middle of p.452 underline "we should never succeed in making two instances identical in every respect except the presence or absence of some one definite circumstance".
Mill's thesis is that lessons cannot be drawn directly from history or from the contemporary experience of other countries or cultures. We have to try to construct a basic understanding of human nature, including especially how human character changes as circumstances change, and in applying this understanding take full account of the culture of the time and place. Re-read p.864, to which the passages you've just read from Book III provide a background.
This leaves "Deductively", as Mill says at the bottom of p.868, paragraph 4 ("Since, then, it is impossible..."). Re-read paragraph 4. Psychology is the basic science, ethology is next-to-basic, the science through which Psychology is applied to the understanding of historical experience. Notice the hopeful view Mill expresses on the middle of p.869: "But we must remember that a degree of knowledge far short of the power of actual prediction is often of much practical value". (Cf. p.847, paragraph beginning "Inasmuch, however...")
In the last paragraph ("This science of Ethology") Mill is making the point that the laws of ethology will be laws ceteris paribus, other things being equal: in a given case some other law may prevail.
An individual in society will behave differently than he would in the bush by himself, but this is because certain of his dispositions are not brought into play except by the presence of other individuals: he has these dispositions (though they are latent) even while he is in the bush by himself. An individual entering a church in which there is no one else may behave in some special way, but this is because of dispositions brought into play by the presence of certain physical objects of symbolic significance. Thus social phenomena are to be explained, according to Mill, in terms of the dispositions of individuals, and the laws according to which they are triggered into action by different circumstances.
At the end of paragraph 1 on p. 879, "Composition of Causes": i.e. intermixture of effects, as when the motion of a body is influenced by gravity, air resistance etc.
First line of next paragraph, "Chemical": Chemical change, unlike physical mixture, produces something whose properties are not a combination of the properties of its components before they were combined.
On p.880, notice yet again Mill's rejection of attempts to transfer historical lessons from one time and place to another, without taking account of differences of culture.
Mill goes on to consider the other methods of direct experimental study, and concludes that none of them will work. The complexity of social phenomenon, the possibility of the plurality of causes (i.e. that the one phenomena can have different causes in different cases) and of intermixture of effects (that the phenomenon may be partly caused by several things) makes the method of statistical correlation unworkable. The method of social science will be: construct theories for simplified situations, adopt hypotheses about the analysis of complex situations into simpler components, and test by trying to explain in these terms the complexities of history and contemporary experience. Sociology will explain by deduction from laws worked out for simple cases together with hypotheses about combination.
Three lines from bottom p.898, "True in all societies without exception": Mill expects that sociological generalisations will mostly be related to particular societies or ages, e.g. will be about modern societies, tribal societies, etc. (Cf. Adam Smith's hunter, shepherd, farmer and commercial societies.)
P.898 2nd last line, "Eminently modifiable"; Cf. VI.v.2, p. 864.
P.899, half way through, "Consensus": A metaphor from physiology--not the modern sociologists idea of consensus. Mill's consensus is the mutual influence on one another of different organs of an animal or social body. Notice again in this paragraph Mill's rejection of the practice of drawing lessons from history without taking account of cultural circumstances.
P.900, 5 lines down, "Hypothetical": "If the surrounding circumstances are such and so, then cause X will tend to produce effect Y". The "if" clause makes the proposition hypothetical.
Some social sciences (Mill thinks that this is true of economics) can usefully analyse the workings of certain causes without constant reference to cultural circumstances: this is true if those phenomena are in fact comparatively independent of other circumstances. However,
it has been a very common error of political economists [i.e. economists] consistently to draw conclusions from the elements of one state of society, and apply them to other states in which many of the elements are not the same (VI.ix.3)- e.g. to apply Adam Smith's analysis of commercial society to India.
In political economy [economics]... empirical laws of human nature are tacitly assumed by English thinkers, which are calculated only for Great Britain and the United States. Among other things, an intensity of competition is constantly supposed. (VI.ix.4).
READ VI.ix.4, pp. 905-6.
P.906, 5 lines up from paragraph "This general science of society", "No separate science of government": i.e. no political science separate in the sense that economics can be separate (for the most part) from the study of culture. He does not think that politics can be understood without constant reference to cultural circumstances.
Notice the passage on p.913, 2nd paragraph (beginning "The principal cause"):
The circumstances in which mankind are placed... form the characters of the human beings; but the human beings, in their turn, mould and shape the circumstances for themselves and for those who come after them.Human beings are among the causes of human character.
P.914, in the paragraph beginning "The progressiveness of the human race", the reference to "advanced thinkers on the Continent" is to Auguste Comte and other members of the School of Saint-Simon.
P.915, 4th last line, notice the passage:
What we now are and do is a very small degree the result of the universal circumstances of the human race, or even of our own circumstances acting through the original qualities of our species, but mainly of the qualities produced in us by the whole previous history of humanity.Even if basic human nature is universal and unchanging (as Mill probably supposed, though it is not essential to his position), human culture changes and is a more important influence than underlying human nature. Of the two kinds of sociological inquiry distinguished on p.911 the second is an attempt to construct a theory of social development consisting of propositions about the succession of states of society, i.e. of change from one state to the succeeding state.
P.917 half way: "Accordingly the most erroneous generalisations are continually made from the course of history." Notice at the end of this paragraph that historians need to guidance of psychology and ethology in working out what did happen in history.
Same paragraph, "A central chain... being appended": The metaphor is bizarre, perhaps confused. He imagines several chains, one of which is central, with successive links of the other chains being attached not only to the prior links of their own chains but also to the contemporary links in the central chain. Thus there may be a history of fashions in furniture, but in each generation furniture fashions "depend" not only on the fashion of the last generation but also and more importantly on what has happened in some more central strand of social history, e.g. the development of domestic architecture.
P.926, 1st paragraph, "Speculative faculties": The central strand, according to Mill, the development of knowledge and belief.
Next paragraph, "Relative weakness": Thirst for knowledge is not the great driving force, but the development of knowledge sets the parameters within which the more powerful forces act.
READ VI.x.8, pp. 928-30.
The most important explanatory generalisations are not about original human nature, but about individuals as formed within their particular society or culture. Lessons cannot safely be drawn from one society or culture and applied to another without consideration of the differences in cultural circumstances. History yields understanding applicable to our present society only indirectly, by helping refine our basic theories about the character and actions of individuals.
Mill hopes that it will one day be possible to explain and predict development from one social or cultural state into another. He believes that the development of knowledge will be the central strand.