LETTER XXI. "I PROMISED," said L--, "this morning, to tell you something of the nature of proof, called, 'Proof by Demonstration,' in its proper sense. "The most simple demonstratives are those of sight and hearing; if you clearly see my person, or plainly hear me speak, as you now do, I should think no one would successfully attempt to convince you, that you do not in fact see and hear me: the senses of sight and hearing, applied to objects so close at hand, that no deception of appearance can, from the nature of things, take place, are in themselves actual demonstratives, incontrovertible. But the meaning of demonstrative proof, in the actions to which that term is usually applied, is, when it is applied to bring home irresistible evidence to the senses, of the existence of some fact as truth, in objects before obscure, or distant. Thus, suppose I was to stand forth in a circle of savage men, ignorant entirely of Natural Causes, and say, 'I declare that to-night, at a certain hour, the moon shall be seen with a piece hollowed out of her side, such appearance to commence at such a time; and the hollow to be filled up, and disappear at another:' (naming certain periods), I should imagine their first impulse would be to scoff, and think no more about it. But if any, more curious than the rest, were to observe, and find that such appearance did actually take place, agreeably to my prediction, the same ignorance would perhaps cause them to fall down, and worship me as a god: most certainly they would regard me as holding commerce with the moon, or in league with the objects of their adoration. Now, presuming that you are by this time wiser than to imagine me to be aught than a being as yourself, and possessing therefore no supernatural powers, exercising no faculties, and disclaiming all pretensions to such, but those which pertain also to you; if I offer to teach you the discovered mode, the knowledge through which I am able to calculate the time of such appearance, and why it takes place, with perfect ease; you would then feel that the only real difference between us consisted in my having attained a degree of knowledge which you had not; but at the same time you would be led to admit, that the science by which I was enabled to make the prediction so verified by your sight, must needs be correct and true, else how could I have made such prediction ; not merely that the event should happen on a body at an immense distance, to which I could naturally have no more access than yourself, but that the appearance should likewise begin, reach its ultimate magnitude, and entirely disappear at given periods. And this is proof of any given assertion being founded on truth; that the events predicted, or declared, are afterwards demonstrated, shown to the senses at precise points of time. Demonstration and self-proof, are the essence of what we distinguish by the name of 'Science,' which is a right conception and mastery of principle: Art is an application of knowledge acquired, to a specific purpose. And we may safely lay it down as an axiom, that mere assertion not warranted and borne out by a proof suitable to its own nature, amounts only to a sound without meaning; it conveys no idea for the mind to fasten on. So much for proof by demonstration, which is to knowledge as the sun to our earth. "We will now resume enquiry into the artificial state of man and its results, whether those results are past, present, or to come. The two first are objects of direct sense; the third must be proved like all other prognosticated future events, by candid, scientific reflection and research, and by fair analogous reasoning. "In addition to what I have advanced on this head, you are further to understand, that besides being divided into the two classes of rich and poor, which we will call 'division of quantity,' and which we have already considered, modern society is parted into three farther grand compartments, which we may well term 'division of quality.' The first is that party which for the time being holds the reins of Civil Government, of foreign influence and balance of power; of particular sects of religious belief and worship, of all sorts of exclusive emolument and enjoyment, from whatever source arising. The second, are those who, generally speaking, possess not these advantages; who soaring superior to all prejudice, anxious only to be happy in the equable diffusion of happiness by means of the establishment of all possible practicable equality are eager to give and receive every information tending to develope truth, without regard to forms, which daily experience and reflection demonstrably prove to be false, and fertile in misery; who see in every society founded on the principle of gradation upwards, from the Pauper to the Sovereign, the self-sown seeds of disunion, of premature decay, and disastrous dissolution. The third and last, infinitely superior in number to the joint amount of the other two, consists of all those in subjection to the first, by various dependencies; of those, who from want of time, inclination, or mental energy, never reflect at all; who are content to take things as they find them; to believe that, as they term it, 'what must be, must.' If the second party dare to speak, (even thought is attempted to be proscribed), their conviction that there must be something wrong in a system which gives exclusive power and pleasure to only a few, that is to the first, these latter have recourse to what they have found an excellent expedient to stifle the cry; they sound the trumpet of alarm in the ears of the third, saying, 'Listen not to those wretches, they are bad men.' They enlist under their standard, and rally round them, every natural weakness, every artificial relation and feeling by which man's bosom can be stimulated; they work on the timid, the proud, the avaricious, the superstitious, by every device of fear, jealousy, and horror: to the weak they say, 'the factious and disaffected, (the second) will obtain a revolution and cut all your throats:' to the proud they will annihilate all distinctions :' |