Hume on Scientific Law

Author(s): Chester T. Ruddick

Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 89-93
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science
Association
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 pht1ozophM of Sdienoe
VOL. i6 April, i 949 NO. 2

HUME ON SCIENTIFIC LAW'

CHESTER T. RUDDICK

For many years now a "principle of uncertainty" has played a major role in
all discussion of the problem of scientific law as description of nature. That this
principle had its origin in the efforts of science to describe nature is entirely
aDpropriate; that it has had so immediate an effect on philosophic thought is
inevitable.
It is also inevitable that questions should be raised concerning the meaning
of certainty and its reference to descriptive law. Such questions are bound to
occur to one who is concerned about the kinds of law in terms of which nature
might be described. If these kinds can be considered to be two, one "mechan-
ical," the other "statistical," it appears to be an easy step from the assertion of a
principle of uncertainty which requires that the description of elemental processes
and facts of nature be statistical-in terms of probabilities, that is-to a further
assertion that after all a strictly mechanical description of nature is impossible,
since the observational data which constitute its material are approximate and
probable, and because the laws which provide the formal element of that descrip-
tion can never be more than approximately or probably true. It is concluded,
then, that no element of certainty attaches to the so-called mechanical laws,
any more than to others that are avowedly statistical. When a prediction is
based on either sort of law, it is taken to be a prediction that an event will proba-
bly occur.
There is no question in the case of the statistical law-this is all that it pre-
tends to assert. Mechanical law, on the other hand, seems to declare that a given
event will certainly take place. But, it is remarked, this seeming is an obvious
fraud, for all it can assert is a hypothetical proposition: if such and such are the
facts, which they probably are, then this being the most probable of the many
laws which might serve to describe them, such and such an event will certainly
occur. And what could be more probable, meaning by that less certain, than a
conclusion conditioned by two propositions both of which involve probabilities?
In looking for support for this sort of argument one naturally turns to Hume,
and at first one seems to find it there. But a careful reading of Hume makes it
quite clear that he was definitely not one who would deny all meaning to cer-
tainty in connection with descriptive law.

1 Read at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical
Association at Charlottesville, Va., December 29, 1948.
89

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90 CHESTER T. RUDDICK

Hume is, in the first place, concerned about the possibility of a knowledge of
causal laws as relevant to nature, and so he offers what is usually referred to as a
criticism of the notion of necessary connection. He is also concerned, when he
comes to consider grounds of belief and the bases of popular religion, with the
status of exception with respect to law. Again, he has something to say about
probability. It would seem therefore that before attempting to decide what
Hume has contributed toward the resolution of the present problem, one should
consider what he has to say in regard to each of these three phases of it and
how he may be taken to present a consistent body of doctrine.
The first may be dealt with briefly enough. There is no need to review the
Humean criticism of the notion of necessary connection in its usual context,
where obviously it is intended to show that such connections cannot be found
with certainty to subsist in nature, any more than they can be shown to have to
belong there on any rational grounds. For the present discussion it is enough to
point out that the only question here is one of the certainty of a knowledge of
laws of connection, not one of the sort of connection that might be known to
obtain. It is necessary connection that is under discussion, but the necessity
of the connection does not itself come in question. Hume takes the stand, as
everyone agrees, that we can have no absolute certainty that there are such
connections. He does not assert that such connections are irrelevant to nature,
nor that it is unreasonable to attempt to describe nature in terms of them, nor
that connection of some other sort may be known to subsist there instead. He
does not, in fact, criticize the notion of necessary connection at all, but merely
the certainty of a knowledge of such connection.
Hume does, in another place, argue quite forcefully in support of a conviction
(not, of course, a certain knowledge) that law of a sort which involves necessary
connection is essential to description of nature. This argument throws a second
light on our problem, since it serves to make even clearer the distinction between
a restriction on the certain truth of a description of nature and a limitation of
such description to laws of probability.
This point may be developed at greater length, since there is somewhat more
of subtlety involved. The argument arises in a discussion of the grounds of
conviction and belief and culminates in the rejection of evidence in support of
miracles. It is most clearly set forth in Section X of the Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding, where it turns upon the definition of miracle: it is "a
violation of the laws of nature." The conclusion follows at once-"as a firm
and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle,
from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience
can possibly be imagined." It is not only a question of evidence here, but also a
question of meaning, for "there must be a uniform experience against every
miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appelation." The
question of evidence, however, does not drop out of sight, and Hume argues
concurrently for the "absolute impossibility" of a miracle on the basis of its
definition, and for the unreasonableness of belief in one, on the ground of superior
evidence against it.

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 HUME ON SCIENTIFIC LAW 91

It is this latter argument which is the more important for the present dis-
cussion. Evidence for the miracle takes the form of human testimony. But
"it is experience only which gives authority to human testimony, and it is the
same experience which assures us of the laws of nature." In accordance with
the general principle which determines belief, then, one must weigh the one ex-
perience against the other, "subtract the one from the other, and embrace an
opinion, either on one side or the other, with that assurance that arises from the
remainder." In the present case, however, the case of miracles of the sort which
form the bases of popular religion, this subtraction "amounts to an entire an-
nihilation," and the result, in spite of the contrary evidence, is a proof against
such miracles.
Hume is not, of course, entirely consistent in his use of the word "proof," but
he does insist often enough on a conviction that there are "laws of nature."
And the laws he has in mind must be of the sort that we are calling mechanical,
that involve necessary connection, and permit of no exception which might be
considered a miracle, else there would be no problem of miracles at all. What-
ever such laws may be-and he does not even consider what they may be, but
only of what sort-there can be an empirical certainty that they are. This
certainty now is not absolute-no contradiction results if it be denied-yet it
serves to establish a full belief and a firm conviction that there are such laws of
nature.
The point to be made from this follows indirectly, from the consideration that
Hume is making an assertion about truth in relation to law which is not an
assertion about the certainty of the occurrence of any event. He is not, as
might at first seem, letting the truth of the law, or rather the truth of the lawful-
ness of nature, be qualified by the uncertainty of the occurrence of some events.
Whether he be taken to conclude that laws of necessary connection are cer-
tainly, or only more probably, ascribable to nature, he is not asserting that
knowledge of nature as expressed by laws is knowledge of the probable and not
certain. There are two stages in his approach to the problem. The first re-
quires it to be determined in what manner nature is to be described, whether in
terms of one sort of law or another, and the second requires that everything as-
serted of nature be consistent with the chosen mode of description. If in the
first place it is determined, on whatever grounds, that causal laws obtain, then
there is in the second no qualification of the way in which they obtain, and the
consequences which follow from them are not tainted by any of the uncertainty
which might attach to the first decision.
The question of the truth, certain or probable, of any given descriptive law
stands quite apart from the question of the manner in which the law will specify
events as belonging to a nature as yet unknown. Such and such a law, mechan-
ical or statistical, may be considered to be probably true, or that probability
may be such as to amount, for the time at least, to certainty of a sort. If the
law be a mechanical one, then predictions which arise from it assert that pre-
dicted events will certainly occur, whether the evidence in support of the law

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 92 CHESTER T. RUDDICK

makes it certainly or probably true. Likewise if it be a statistical one, it pre-

dicts an event as likely to take place, even if it be certainly true.
A third place where a reading of Hume throws a sort of reflected light on this
problem of the description of nature is found in his discussion of probability.
He has already been credited with a notion of the probability that some par-
ticular description of nature be a true one, but this use of probability is not
explicit in his doctrine at all. On the other hand, he does treat extensively
of the other sort of probability, the kind which might enter into the description
of an event, and which is relevant to the statistical type of law.
There are two points to be made. The first refers back to one of the matters
dealt with above. For Hume is insistent on the equivalence of chance with
ignorance, and accepts the corollary which immediately follows, that laws of
probability pertain not so much to nature as to the state of our knowledge of
nature. This implicit denial of any objective validity to chance emphasizes
further his conviction that causal laws are universal in nature and so supports
the interpretation of his treatment of miracles which leads us to disjoin the
questions of probability of law and probability as the only form of prediction
which law permits.
The other point may be dealt with in reference to a familiar passage. "It is
true, when any cause fails of producing its usual effect, philosophers ascribe not
this to any irregularity in nature; but suppose, that some secret causes, in the
particular structure of parts, have prevented the operation. Our reasonings
however, and conclusions concerning the event are the same as if this principle
had no place. Being determined by custom to transfer the past to the future,
in all our inferences, where the past has been entirely regular and uniform, we
expect the event with the greatest assurance, and leave no room for any contrary
supposition. But where different effects have been found to follow from causes,
which are to appearance exactly similar, all these various effects must occur to
the mind in transferring the past to the future, and enter into our consideration,
when we determine the probability of the event."2
Here there is an explicit distinction made between two kinds of law, and it is
essentially the distinction between a mechanical law, or one which predicts an
event as certain to occur, and a statistical one, which can predict only that an
event will probably occur. It may be pointed out, therefore, as perfectly clear
to Hume that, regardless of their grounds in experience, and regardless of their
status with respect to truth, these two sorts of law differ in the form of the asser-
tion in terms of which each announces a prediction. The one offers its predic-
tion as certain of being fulfilled, the other as more or less likely to be. And so
there is a sharp-cut distinction between the certainty or probability which meas-
ures the law's claim to truth, the certainty with which a predicted consequence
is related to antecedent events, and the certainty or probability that the pre-
diction will be fulfilled. It is the second of these three kinds of certainty which
seems to be characteristic of the so-called mechanical law.

2 Enquiry, Section VI.

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 HUME ON SCIENTIFIC LAW 93

This second kind of certainty is perhaps too easily confused with the third,
and so certainty is denied altogether to any description of nature. But Hume
himself does not seem to have been subject to that particular confusion, and his
authority hardly supports that peculiar form of skepticism which would deny
the possibility of mechanical description.
One is apt to recall as a bald assertion Hume's statement that "all knowledge
resolves itself into probability"3 and neglect to consider that he means to say
that knowledge is more or less probably true, rather than that it necessarily
takes the form of a judgment expressing a probability. It is significant that the
section of the Treatise in which the statement occurs has to do with "Skepticism
with regard to the Reason" and that its central argument tends to show mathe-
matical knowledge itself to be only probably true, from the subjective point of
view, while the same sort of knowledge considered objectively, as involving only
the relations of ideas, is still capable of a certainty which is denied to matters
of fact.
Hume is a skeptic, of course. He is skeptical about the possibility of a de-
scription of nature that is certainly true. But he clearly does not limit such
description to law of a statistical sort, and he even leaves little doubt that to his
mind the most probable description will take a form which asserts a necessary
connection between one set of events and another.

Lake Erie College

3 A Treatise of Human Nature, I, IV, 1.

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