Item 26 - Richard Jones to William Whewell

8 pp.

WW's 'first query is a puzzler - how happens it that the peasants in many (perhaps most) countries pay half the produce as rent and yet the proportion of non-agriculturists is so small - the facts are indisputable the causes obscure - in France for instance the metayers paid half produce and perhaps half the other as taxes - at any rate much of it - yet the agriculturists before the revolution were 4/5 of the population - what became of the rents and taxes they paid - there was notoriously but little export of raw produce - I should not like to say any thing very positive without being for a time in peasant countries and looking about me'. However, hypothetically RJ claims: 'First peasants live barely - the produce they consume might not maintain another population equal to more than half their numbers. Secondly we must calculate that almost all that part of the produce which constitutes the same material of manufactured articles - all inedible produce that is is turned over to the landlords half' - although this is strictly a guess. 'Thirdly the horses and other animals maintained by landlords consume much[.] Fourthly - some is returned to peasants as loans and gifts - (not much perhaps) and Fifthly and most especially the waste in the consumption of produce rents by landlords is likely to be very great[.] Sixthly - there is almost always some exportation. Now which of these causes are the most efficient in producing the phenomenon of this small extent of the non-agricultural classes I do not know[,] or whether there be or be not other causes to take into the account[.] I should like to go and see - the phenomenon is common to all peasant countries - In France the causes mentioned may account for it. In other countries Italy for instance - Poland Russia - it is harder to make out because the non-agriculturists are still fewer and after allowing fully for all these causes there will remain I suspect a residual phenomenon to be accounted for'. RJ goes along with WW in his use of the word induction, but 'I do not myself like to oppose it to or contrast it with either observation or pure reason. Induction according to me and Aristotle (admire my modesty) is the whole process by which the intellect gets a general principle from observing particulars or individuals and on that process both observation and pure reason have a part - when observation has collected the facts abstraction (which I consider a purely intellectual process and in the province of pure reason) seizes on the law a principle and then the inductive process is compleat in all its parts'. Therefore if the inductive process is a combination of observation and pure reason and cannot be opposed to either - 'I have no objection to the use of the word to express the compleated process - in any case - an induction obtained by induction with me would mean an induction obtained by observation and abstraction - I like induce better than inducted and see no objection to inductor. But as I shall use the word induction meaning the completed process as synonymous with general principle I should prefer saying a general principle got at by induction - but I doubt if you would accept this use of general principle and I doubt if I should yours of pure reason - But you shall have your own way banning German words and phrases'. RJ believes Aristotle 'meant to represent induction as the process the power of effecting which distinguishes the intelligence of man from the instinct of brutes and as the only foundation which is yours and steps further than you or Bacon'. Aristotle emphasises the crucial necessity of memory: 'He observes I think with truth that the faculty of memory acts an essential part in the formation of general principles we observe one thing we remember others - I do not recollect that Bacon notices this but it being true the faculty of memory becomes at once important in the inductive process'. The habit and, if possible, act of guarding against the deficiencies of the inductive process strengthens its powers, while conceding its mistakes forms an essential part of all rational logic (both inductive and deductive processes). Bacon 'includes the study of the intellectual faculties under the head of natural philosophy of which he wants the preeminent use and power partly on that essential ground. His tables were meant to strengthen against memory as well as to facilitate observation were they not? To be sure memory is as essential as conception, to all the processes of reason but what we ought to do is to make men see, that analysing the processes gone through by the mind including all its faculties, and watching where they are most apt to stumble, constitutes the science of logic and that the art is an inferior business may assume deficient shapes and be useful in all without being essential in any and that this is equally true of the syllogistic and the Baconian art. Bacon first drew attention to the science part of induction - Aristotle to the art of deduction - passing over the science too lightly but not overlooking it. Now you see a little what I shall set about but till we meet and you have talked at me for a reasonable time I shall not catch exactly what you mean by pure reason'. With regard to WW's suggestions in political economy - 'I will try to make the divisions you wish about auxiliary capital but it will require considerable research and thought and if done will be but an approximation - I doubt most about getting at the manufacturing bit I must try at something like it when treating of the functions of capital - so it will not be labor thrown away'.