The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 52

V

We may take still a third point of view, less important than the first two and upon which I shall lay less stress. When we seek to foresee an event and examine its antecedents, we strive to search into the anterior situation. This could not be done for all parts of the universe and we are content to know what is pa.s.sing in the neighborhood of the point where the event should occur, or what would appear to have some relation to it. An examination can not be complete and we must know how to choose. But it may happen that we have pa.s.sed by circ.u.mstances which at first sight seemed completely foreign to the foreseen happening, to which one would never have dreamed of attributing any influence and which nevertheless, contrary to all antic.i.p.ation, come to play an important role.

A man pa.s.ses in the street going to his business; some one knowing the business could have told why he started at such a time and went by such a street. On the roof works a tiler. The contractor employing him could in a certain measure foresee what he would do. But the pa.s.ser-by scarcely thinks of the tiler, nor the tiler of him; they seem to belong to two worlds completely foreign to one another. And yet the tiler drops a tile which kills the man, and we do not hesitate to say this is chance.

Our weakness forbids our considering the entire universe and makes us cut it up into slices. We try to do this as little artificially as possible. And yet it happens from time to time that two of these slices react upon each other. The effects of this mutual action then seem to us to be due to chance.

Is this a third way of conceiving chance? Not always; in fact most often we are carried back to the first or the second. Whenever two worlds usually foreign to one another come thus to react upon each other, the laws of this reaction must be very complex. On the other hand, a very slight change in the initial conditions of these two worlds would have been sufficient for the reaction not to have happened. How little was needed for the man to pa.s.s a second later or the tiler to drop his tile a second sooner.

VI

All we have said still does not explain why chance obeys laws. Does the fact that the causes are slight or complex suffice for our foreseeing, if not their effects _in each case_, at least what their effects will be, _on the average_? To answer this question we had better take up again some of the examples already cited.

I shall begin with that of the roulette. I have said that the point where the needle will stop depends upon the initial push given it. What is the probability of this push having this or that value? I know nothing about it, but it is difficult for me not to suppose that this probability is represented by a continuous a.n.a.lytic function. The probability that the push is comprised between [alpha] and [alpha] + [epsilon] will then be sensibly equal to the probability of its being comprised between [alpha] + [epsilon] and [alpha] + 2[epsilon], _provided_ [epsilon] _be very small_. This is a property common to all a.n.a.lytic functions. Minute variations of the function are proportional to minute variations of the variable.

But we have a.s.sumed that an exceedingly slight variation of the push suffices to change the color of the sector over which the needle finally stops. From [alpha] to [alpha]+[epsilon] it is red, from [alpha]+[epsilon] to [alpha]+2[epsilon] it is black; the probability of each red sector is therefore the same as of the following black, and consequently the total probability of red equals the total probability of black.

The datum of the question is the a.n.a.lytic function representing the probability of a particular initial push. But the theorem remains true whatever be this datum, since it depends upon a property common to all a.n.a.lytic functions. From this it follows finally that we no longer need the datum.

What we have just said for the case of the roulette applies also to the example of the minor planets. The zodiac may be regarded as an immense roulette on which have been tossed many little b.a.l.l.s with different initial impulses varying according to some law. Their present distribution is uniform and independent of this law, for the same reason as in the preceding case. Thus we see why phenomena obey the laws of chance when slight differences in the causes suffice to bring on great differences in the effects. The probabilities of these slight differences may then be regarded as proportional to these differences themselves, just because these differences are minute, and the infinitesimal increments of a continuous function are proportional to those of the variable.

Take an entirely different example, where intervenes especially the complexity of the causes. Suppose a player shuffles a pack of cards. At each shuffle he changes the order of the cards, and he may change them in many ways. To simplify the exposition, consider only three cards. The cards which before the shuffle occupied respectively the places 123, may after the shuffle occupy the places

123, 231, 312, 321, 132, 213.

Each of these six hypotheses is possible and they have respectively for probabilities:

p_1, p_2, p_3, p_4, p_5, p_6.

The sum of these six numbers equals 1; but this is all we know of them; these six probabilities depend naturally upon the habits of the player which we do not know.

At the second shuffle and the following, this will recommence, and under the same conditions; I mean that p_4 for example represents always the probability that the three cards which occupied after the _n_th shuffle and before the _n_ + 1th the places 123, occupy the places 321 after the _n_ + 1th shuffle. And this remains true whatever be the number _n_, since the habits of the player and his way of shuffling remain the same.

But if the number of shuffles is very great, the cards which before the first shuffle occupied the places 123 may, after the last shuffle, occupy the places

123, 231, 312, 321, 132, 213

and the probability of these six hypotheses will be sensibly the same and equal to 1/6; and this will be true whatever be the numbers p_1 ... p_6 which we do not know. The great number of shuffles, that is to say the complexity of the causes, has produced uniformity.

This would apply without change if there were more than three cards, but even with three cards the demonstration would be complicated; let it suffice to give it for only two cards. Then we have only two possibilities 12, 21 with the probabilities p_1 and p_2 = 1 - p_1.

Suppose _n_ shuffles and suppose I win one franc if the cards are finally in the initial order and lose one if they are finally inverted.

Then, my mathematical expectation will be (p_1 - p_2)^{_n_}.

The difference p_1 - p_2 is certainly less than 1; so that if _n_ is very great my expectation will be zero; we need not learn p_1 and p_2 to be aware that the game is equitable.

There would always be an exception if one of the numbers p_1 and p_2 was equal to 1 and the other naught. _Then it would not apply because our initial hypotheses would be too simple._

What we have just seen applies not only to the mixing of cards, but to all mixings, to those of powders and of liquids; and even to those of the molecules of gases in the kinetic theory of gases.

To return to this theory, suppose for a moment a gas whose molecules can not mutually clash, but may be deviated by hitting the insides of the vase wherein the gas is confined. If the form of the vase is sufficiently complex the distribution of the molecules and that of the velocities will not be long in becoming uniform. But this will not be so if the vase is spherical or if it has the shape of a cuboid. Why?

Because in the first case the distance from the center to any trajectory will remain constant; in the second case this will be the absolute value of the angle of each trajectory with the faces of the cuboid.

So we see what should be understood by conditions _too simple_; they are those which conserve something, which leave an invariant remaining. Are the differential equations of the problem too simple for us to apply the laws of chance? This question would seem at first view to lack precise meaning; now we know what it means. They are too simple if they conserve something, if they admit a uniform integral. If something in the initial conditions remains unchanged, it is clear the final situation can no longer be independent of the initial situation.

We come finally to the theory of errors. We know not to what are due the accidental errors, and precisely because we do not know, we are aware they obey the law of Gauss. Such is the paradox. The explanation is nearly the same as in the preceding cases. We need know only one thing: that the errors are very numerous, that they are very slight, that each may be as well negative as positive. What is the curve of probability of each of them? We do not know; we only suppose it is symmetric. We prove then that the resultant error will follow Gauss's law, and this resulting law is independent of the particular laws which we do not know. Here again the simplicity of the result is born of the very complexity of the data.

VII

But we are not through with paradoxes. I have just recalled the figment of Flammarion, that of the man going quicker than light, for whom time changes sign. I said that for him all phenomena would seem due to chance. That is true from a certain point of view, and yet all these phenomena at a given moment would not be distributed in conformity with the laws of chance, since the distribution would be the same as for us, who, seeing them unfold harmoniously and without coming out of a primal chaos, do not regard them as ruled by chance.

What does that mean? For Lumen, Flammarion's man, slight causes seem to produce great effects; why do not things go on as for us when we think we see grand effects due to little causes? Would not the same reasoning be applicable in his case?

Let us return to the argument. When slight differences in the causes produce vast differences in the effects, why are these effects distributed according to the laws of chance? Suppose a difference of a millimeter in the cause produces a difference of a kilometer in the effect. If I win in case the effect corresponds to a kilometer bearing an even number, my probability of winning will be 1/2. Why? Because to make that, the cause must correspond to a millimeter with an even number. Now, according to all appearance, the probability of the cause varying between certain limits will be proportional to the distance apart of these limits, provided this distance be very small. If this hypothesis were not admitted there would no longer be any way of representing the probability by a continuous function.

What now will happen when great causes produce small effects? This is the case where we should not attribute the phenomenon to chance and where on the contrary Lumen would attribute it to chance. To a difference of a kilometer in the cause would correspond a difference of a millimeter in the effect. Would the probability of the cause being comprised between two limits _n_ kilometers apart still be proportional to _n_? We have no reason to suppose so, since this distance, _n_ kilometers, is great. But the probability that the effect lies between two limits _n_ millimeters apart will be precisely the same, so it will not be proportional to _n_, even though this distance, _n_ millimeters, be small. There is no way therefore of representing the law of probability of effects by a continuous curve. This curve, understand, may remain continuous in the _a.n.a.lytic_ sense of the word; to _infinitesimal_ variations of the abscissa will correspond infinitesimal variations of the ordinate. But _practically_ it will not be continuous, since _very small_ variations of the ordinate would not correspond to very small variations of the abscissa. It would become impossible to trace the curve with an ordinary pencil; that is what I mean.

So what must we conclude? Lumen has no right to say that the probability of the cause (_his_ cause, our effect) should be represented necessarily by a continuous function. But then why have we this right?

It is because this state of unstable equilibrium which we have been calling initial is itself only the final outcome of a long previous history. In the course of this history complex causes have worked a great while: they have contributed to produce the mixture of elements and they have tended to make everything uniform at least within a small region; they have rounded off the corners, smoothed down the hills and filled up the valleys. However capricious and irregular may have been the primitive curve given over to them, they have worked so much toward making it regular that finally they deliver over to us a continuous curve. And this is why we may in all confidence a.s.sume its continuity.

Lumen would not have the same reasons for such a conclusion. For him complex causes would not seem agents of equalization and regularity, but on the contrary would create only inequality and differentiation. He would see a world more and more varied come forth from a sort of primitive chaos. The changes he could observe would be for him unforeseen and impossible to foresee. They would seem to him due to some caprice or another; but this caprice would be quite different from our chance, since it would be opposed to all law, while our chance still has its laws. All these points call for lengthy explications, which perhaps would aid in the better comprehension of the irreversibility of the universe.

VIII

We have sought to define chance, and now it is proper to put a question.

Has chance thus defined, in so far as this is possible, objectivity?

It may be questioned. I have spoken of very slight or very complex causes. But what is very little for one may be very big for another, and what seems very complex to one may seem simple to another. In part I have already answered by saying precisely in what cases differential equations become too simple for the laws of chance to remain applicable.

But it is fitting to examine the matter a little more closely, because we may take still other points of view.

What means the phrase 'very slight'? To understand it we need only go back to what has already been said. A difference is very slight, an interval is very small, when within the limits of this interval the probability remains sensibly constant. And why may this probability be regarded as constant within a small interval? It is because we a.s.sume that the law of probability is represented by a continuous curve, continuous not only in the a.n.a.lytic sense, but _practically_ continuous, as already explained. This means that it not only presents no absolute hiatus, but that it has neither salients nor reentrants too acute or too accentuated.

And what gives us the right to make this hypothesis? We have already said it is because, since the beginning of the ages, there have always been complex causes ceaselessly acting in the same way and making the world tend toward uniformity without ever being able to turn back. These are the causes which little by little have flattened the salients and filled up the reentrants, and this is why our probability curves now show only gentle undulations. In milliards of milliards of ages another step will have been made toward uniformity, and these undulations will be ten times as gentle; the radius of mean curvature of our curve will have become ten times as great. And then such a length as seems to us to-day not very small, since on our curve an arc of this length can not be regarded as rectilineal, should on the contrary at that epoch be called very little, since the curvature will have become ten times less and an arc of this length may be sensibly identified with a sect.

Thus the phrase 'very slight' remains relative; but it is not relative to such or such a man, it is relative to the actual state of the world.

It will change its meaning when the world shall have become more uniform, when all things shall have blended still more. But then doubtless men can no longer live and must give place to other beings--should I say far smaller or far larger? So that our criterion, remaining true for all men, retains an objective sense.

And on the other hand what means the phrase 'very complex'? I have already given one solution, but there are others. Complex causes we have said produce a blend more and more intimate, but after how long a time will this blend satisfy us? When will it have acc.u.mulated sufficient complexity? When shall we have sufficiently shuffled the cards? If we mix two powders, one blue, the other white, there comes a moment when the tint of the mixture seems to us uniform because of the feebleness of our senses; it will be uniform for the presbyte, forced to gaze from afar, before it will be so for the myope. And when it has become uniform for all eyes, we still could push back the limit by the use of instruments. There is no chance for any man ever to discern the infinite variety which, if the kinetic theory is true, hides under the uniform appearance of a gas. And yet if we accept Gouy's ideas on the Brownian movement, does not the microscope seem on the point of showing us something a.n.a.logous?

This new criterion is therefore relative like the first; and if it retains an objective character, it is because all men have approximately the same senses, the power of their instruments is limited, and besides they use them only exceptionally.

IX

It is just the same in the moral sciences and particularly in history.