The Rise And Progress Of The Sciences

In human affairs, the most refinement is required by the discernment of:

• what comes from chance and
• what comes from causes.

Any enquiry about an event is cut when we declare it to be derived from chance. *

It leaves the writer in the same state of ignorance with the rest of mankind.

But when the event comes from certain and stable causes, he may then display his ingenuity in assigning these causes.

The distinguishing between chance and causes depends on every man’s sagacity in considering every incident.

A general rule to help us with this distinction is:

What depends on a few persons is mostly to be ascribed to chance, or secret and unknown causes. What arises from many may often be accounted for by determinate and known causes.

This is because of 2 natural reasons:

1. If a die has bias, however small to a side, this bias might not appear in a few throws.

But it will prevail in many throws and will skew the outcomes to that side.*

Similarly, when causes come from a particular inclination or passion, some persons might escape the contagion and be ruled by different passions. Yet most will be governed by the common affection in all their actions.

2. Those principles or causes, which operate on many are always of a grosser and more stubborn nature.

They are less subject to accidents, and less influenced by whim and private fancy, than those which operate on a few only.

The latter are commonly so delicate and refined, that the smallest incident in the health, education, or fortune of a particular person, can divert their course.

They cannot be reduced to any general maxims or observations.

Their influence at one time will never assure us concerning their influence at another; even though all the general circumstances should be the same in both cases.

This rule makes the domestic and the gradual revolutions of a state come from general passions and interests.

It is not caused by the foreign and violent revolutions produced by single persons who act on whim, folly, or caprice.

General principles account for the depression of the lords and rise of the commons in England caused by the statutes of alienation and the increase of trade and industry.

For the same reason, it is more easy to account for the rise and progress of commerce in any kingdom, than for that of learning.

A state, which should apply itself to the encouragement of the one, would be more assured of success, than one which should cultivate the other.

Avarice is a universal passion which operates always, everywhere, and on everyone.

But curiosity, or the love of knowledge, has a very limited influence. It requires youth, leisure, education, genius, and example to make it govern any person.

You will never want booksellers, while there are buyers of books.

But there may frequently be readers where there are no authors.

Multitudes of people, necessity and liberty, have begotten commerce in Holland. But study and application have scarcely produced any eminent writers.

We must be most cautious when we trace the history of the arts and sciences because we might assign them to causes which never existed.

This would turn chance into a universal principle. Those who cultivate the sciences in any state, are always few. The passion, which governs them, is limited.

Their taste and judgment is delicate and easily perverted.

Their application is disturbed with the smallest accident. Chance, therefore, or secret and unknown causes, has a great influence on the rise and progress of all the refined arts.

But chance is not the sole cause for the rise of the arts. The judgment of those eminent writers must have been cultivated from childhood by a spirit and genius that is already diffused throughout the people who lead to such arts.

The mass of people cannot be altogether insipid, from which such refined spirits are extracted. Ovid says that there is a God within us who breathes that divine fire which animates us.

Poets claim to be inspired by it even if it is not supernatural. Their fire is not kindled from heaven.

It only runs along the earth and is caught from one breast to another. It burns brightest, where the materials are best prepared, and most happily disposed.

The rise and progress of the arts and sciences, therefore is not a question on the taste, genius, and spirit of a few, but on those of a whole people.

These may, therefore, be accounted for, in some measure, by general causes and principles.

If we ask why Homer existed in ancient Greece, we would encounter many false subtilties and refinements.

We might pretend to give a reason why the generals Fabius and Scipio lived in Rome and why Fabius came before Scipio.

The only reason is that of Horace: Scit genius, natale comes, qui temperat astrum, Naturæ Deus humanæ, mortalis in unum— —Quodque caput, vultu mutabilis, albus & ater.