The Limits of Empiricism

Author(s): Bertrand Russell

Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 36 (1935 - 1936), pp. 131-150
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Aristotelian Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4544270
Accessed: 03/02/2010 00:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aristotelian.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Aristotelian Society and Blackwell Publishing are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.

http://www.jstor.org
Meetingof the AristotelianSocietyat 55, RussellSquare,London,
W.C.1, on 4pril 6th, 19364at 8 p.m.

VII.-THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM.

By BERTRAND RUSSELL.

EMPIRICISM, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is " the

theory that all knowledge is derived from sense experience."
Accepting this definition, three questions arise before we
can discuss whether empiricism is true or false. We must
ask what is meant by " knowledge," what by " derived
from," and what by " sense experience." The word " know-
ledge" is one of which there is no accepted definition, and
to all suggested definitions there are grave objections. The
words " derived from" may be interpreted either logically
or causally. The words " sense experience" are capable
of either a wide or a narrow interpretation; for example,
when I see a rainbow, and notice that the blue and green are
more similar than the blue and yellow, is this to be included
in " sense experience " or is it " derived from " sense experi-
ence?
Where so many questions are involved, it is not easy to
know where to begin. I think the best starting point is to
inquire: What are sense-data, and what is the knowledge
most immediately dependent upon them ? This leads at
once to the question: How is this knowledge dependent
upon these data ? When these questionshave been decided,
we can go on to inquire whether there is any other know-
ledge, and, if so, what reason there is for believing it.
Let us start with some every-day example of empirical
knowledge. Suppose a number of people are playing cards,
and one of them plays the ten of spades. The others see
it and know that it has been played. The proposition " the
ten of spades has been played " is known through sense, and
is not (at least consciously) inferred, although it may be the
basis of inferences, such as that the player has not got the
nine.
R
132 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

There is here a sensible occurrence and there is know-

ledge; the two are not identical, but there is obviously an
intimate relation between them. Let us try to state, as
exactly as possible, wherein the seeing and the knowing
differ, and what relation makes the one a knowledge of the
other.
Let us first of all eliminate what is irrelevant. On the
side of the datum, we see more than the one card, and we
see more of the card than is necessary for knowing it to be
the ten of spades. In passing from datum to knowledge,
we isolate the card from its visual background, and we ignore
everything about it except what marks it as the ten of spades
-we pay no attention to its exact size, or to any slight
smudges there may be on it. To this extent, when we say
" the ten of spades has been played," we state less than we
see. But in other respects we say more. I will ignore the
fact that we state what we believe to be a public event, not
visible to ourselves alone; this is important, but for the
present we can leave it aside. The additions to what is
purely visual with which I am concerned at the moment are
those involved in classification: we say the card is a spade,
and we say it is the ten. Something of this sort, it might
seem, is always involved in the use of language, provided we
say more than just " look!" Words necessarily isolate
some feature of the datum, and give it a prominence which
it did not have until we passed from sense to knowledge.
(As to this, however, further explanations and some modi-
fications will be needed presently.) This use of words to
describe the datum depends upon associations or condi-
tioned reflexes. Instead of noticing " that is the ten of
spades," we might only notice " that is a ten " or " that is a
spade." The particular feature of the sensible fact that we
notice and know depends not upon the fact, but upon our
interests and past history.
Thus in the transition from sense to the knowledge most
immediately derived from it, the knowledge contains less
than the datum through isolation of part of the field
and part of the character of that part; but it contains
more through association, i.e. through the influence of the
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 133

observer'spast history. Knowing is different from seeing;

it involves noticing, and it seems to involve something that
might be called classifying.
At this point, however, we are faced with a logical diffi-
culty. We are in search of the empirical premissesfor our
knowledge of the world, and we have seemed to find that
the most immediate knowledge we can express depends, not
only upon the sensible fact, but also upon previous occur-
rences in our own lives. Obviously we cannot, when we
are at the very beginning of empirical knowledge, already
know about the effect of the past upon ourselves; this is a
late discovery, made by assuming that we could, in the past,
know facts then present, and can now rememberthem. We
can never discover that past experience-i.e. that involved
in learning to speak-has made us say " that is the ten of
spades," unless we have had reason to believe facts of the
same kind as that it is the ten of spades. You could not
know that you say " cat " when you see a cat, unless you
knew that it is a cat independently of your saying so. You
must also have a knowledge, not essentially verbal, that you
say " cat." Obviously I may-noticea feature of the environ-
ment without using words about it; and to say that I know
the meaning of the word " cat " is to say that I can notice
feline features of the environment, and know that these are
features to which the word " cat " applies. Thus it cannot
be essential to sense-knowledgethat it should be verbal.
The point may be illustrated by the following fact. I
may say: " Cat is the word I apply to cats," and when I
say this, I am not uttering a tautology. This is evident if
you imagine a Frenchman trying to report my statement.
He would have to say: " Cat est le mot que M. Russell
applique aux chats." This no longer has the remotest
appearance of a tautology.
Sense-knowledgewhich is not verbal must be knowledge
of that which words can express. E.g. when I say " there
is a cat" because I see a cat, I must notice the cat, and be
aware of its feline character. But when I say " There is a
weasel " because I see a stoat, it cannot be maintained that
I am knowing nothing: my sense-knowledgemay be just
R2
134 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

as great as if I used the right word. How, then, does sense-

knowledge differ from sense ? Only, I think, by isolation
of certain features. It is this isolation that makes the use of
words possible. Sense knowledge, therefore, is merely a
selection from sensible facts.
This raises a new logical puzzle: How do I know that
there are sensible facts that I do not know ? I am con-
vinced that my visual field, for example, contains many
features that I do not notice. Do I knowthis ? And, if so,
how have I discovered it ?
The natural answer would be: If I keep my eyes still,
I can, at will, successively notice a number of different
things; I can, for example, attend to things remote from
the point on which I am focussing. I believe that these
things were there all the time, partly because I have found
that moving objects attract attention, and therefore objects
which had not attracted my attention were probably not
moving; also because I can repeat the process of directing
my attention, and again notice successivelythe same objects
that I noticed before. And, of course, as a common sense
person, not a philosopher, I feel sure that my books do not
jump out of the shelves as soon as I take my eyes off them.
But all this assumesa great deal that ought not to be assumed
in the search for first premisses.
I think we must conclude that belief in sensible objects
which we are not noticing should be put among inferential
beliefs; only what is noticed can be accepted as an empirical
premiss in our knowledge of the world. Moreover know-
ledge, like noticing, is a matter of degree; there is not a
sharp line, in sense, between what is known and what is not
known.
This primitive non-verbal sense-knowledge, though
logically necessary as a basis for other empirical knowledge,
has not yet the characteristicsthat make knowledge service-
able. Before a datum can be used as a premiss in philo-
sophy or science, it must be remembered, and expressedin
words; until then, it is too vague and fleeting to be impor-
tant. We must, therefore, examine the transition from the
non-verbal sensible fact of which I am aware while it exists,
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 135

to the verbal fact of which the knowledge can survive, and

which I can communicate to others.
For our purposes, the process of learning to speak is
not what is essential. In its simplest form, it consistsin the
establishment of certain causal relations: the presence of
a cat causes the word " cat" to be spoken, and hearing the
word " cat " may cause expectation of a cat. These causal
relations are produced by the usual processof learning which
is common to men and animals. It is in virtue of their
causes and effects that words have " meaning." But all
this, though important in other connexions, has not much
bearing upon the problems with which we are concerned.
For our purposes, we may assume that all mankind speak
one language, and speak it perfectly. What, granting this
assumption, is the relation between a piece of non-verbal
sense-knowledgeand the verbal expressionof it? And how
do we know the character of this relation ?
There is here a distinction to be made, which is impor-
tant if " meaning " is to be understood. In a person who
knows a language, there are causal relations between words
and what they mean: a cat causes the word " cat," and the
word " cat" causes expectation of a cat, or perhaps the
actual sight of one. But these causal relations which con-
stitute the understanding of a language are themselves
caused: they are caused by the experiences which consti-
tute the learning of the language. My contention is that
the causal relations (or at least relations connected with
them) which exist after the language has been learnt can
sometimes be perceived; but I make no such claim as
regards the causal processes which constitute the learning of
the language.
Suppose that I see a cat and say " there is a cat." From
what has already been said, we must believe that my words
" express" a piece of knowledge which is not essentially
verbal, though the word " express " remains to be defined.
The verbal proposition " there is a cat " can form part of
the official corpus of human knowledge, whereas the non-
verbal knowledge, if not " expressed" in words, cannot be
a public premiss for anything. Non-verbal knowledge,
136 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

therefore, is important to science solely as a source of verbal

knowledge.
I doubt whether any empiricist will deny, in the case
supposed, that I know (1) a sensible fact expressed, perhaps
inaccurately, by the words " there is a cat " ; (2) that I
say " there is a cat "; (3) that I say " there is a cat "
because a cat (or a sensible appearance resembling that of a
cat) is there. If any of these three pieces of knowledge is
called in question, it is difficult to see how any verbal know-
ledge can be known to be " derived from sense experience."
We need not waste further time upon (1) and (2), which
are of the same sort; (1) must be interpreted as know-
ledge of a visual fact and of how to classify it; (2) is know-
ledge of an auditory fact, except in so far as it asserts that I
am speaking, which may be interpreted as asserting simul-
taneous laryngeal and oral sensations. It is (3) that raises
difficulties.
What do we know when we know that our words
express " something we see ? I see a cat and say " there
is a cat." Someone also says " why did you say ' there is a
cat ' ? " and I reply " because I saw a cat." I feel just as
sure of the second statement as of the first ; yet the word
" because " seems to take me beyond what an empiricist
ought to know.
The word " because " must be taken as expressing a
relation which is, at least partly, that of cause and effect.
But when I know that I said " cat " because there was a
cat, I am not knowing that, in large numbers of similar
instances, similar visual appearances have been followed by
similar utterances. This may be true, but it is not what I
am asserting. I am asserting something which I can know
without going outside what is now happening. This is
essential, since the knowledge in question is required for the
connexion of sensible occurrences with the verbal assertion
of them. At least, wlhat is essential is the connexion of the
cat with my intention to say " cat " ; I may, for various
bodily reasons, be unable actually to utter.the word even
though I try to do so. The connexion of will with bodily
movements raises problems which need not concern us
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 137

in this connexion; we may confine ourselves to the con-

nexion of the sensible appearance with the will to utter the
appropriate word or words.
If I say: " I said ' cat' because I saw a cat," I am
saying more than is warranted. One should say: " I
willed to say ' cat' because there was a visual occurrence
which I classified as feline." This statement, at any rate,
isolates the " because " as much as possible. What I am
maintaining is that we can know this statement in the same
way in which we know that there was the feline appearance,
and that, if we could not, there would be no verbal empirical
knowledge. I think that the word "because" in this
sentence must be understood as expressing a more or less
causal relation, and that this relation must be perceived,not
merely inferred from frequent concomitance. " Cause,"
accordingly, must mean something other than " invariable
antecedent," and the relation of causation, or some relation
intimately connected with it, must be one which can some-
times be perceived.
If this view is accepted, we can say that the verbal pre-
misses of verbal empirical knowledge are sentences per-
ceived to be caused by something perceived. If we refuse
to admit " cause " in this sense, it seems impossible to
explain the connexion between what we perceive and the
words in which we describe it. And science, as organized
knowledge, requires words. The possibility of empirical
science, therefore, if the above argument is correct, depends
upon the possibility of perceiving causal or quasi-causal
relations.
Problems connected with language are absent in some
instances in which the same relation can be perceived, e.g.
if I am hurt and cry out. We seem, here, to perceive
indubitably a connexion between the pain and the cry.
If I were to say, without qualification, that we must be
able to perceive "causal " relations, I should be too definite.
What I have a right to say is that, between a sensible
appearance and the will to utter words describing it, I can
perceive some relation having an intimate connexion with
that of cause and effect. The relation which I perceive
 138 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

may, however, be one which is only present in some instances

of causation, not in all. Moreover, it differsfrom causation
as ordinarily understoodin science in one important respect,
namely that certain conditions must be present if the ante-
cedent is to give uise to the consequent. The sight of a cat
will not cause the word " cat " in a Frenchman or in a man
not interested in cats. The sensible appearance, therefore,
is only part of the cause of the word. We shall have to say
that the relation which we perceive is one which may be
present between an effect and part of its cause, but is not
invariably present where there is causation, and is never
present where causation is absent. To distinguish it from
causation, we will call it " producing." It can only be
perceived when it holds between two parts of a sensible
whole, and is then perceived as we perceive (say) that one
thing is above another.
I come now to another difficulty in thorough-going
empiricism,and that is, the difficulty of justifying inferences
from facts to facts. The point is best explained by reference
to Wittgenstein'sTractatus Logico-Philosophicus,where he
says:
" Atomic facts are independent of one another. From
the existence or non-existence of an atomic fact we cannot
infer the existence or non-existence of another" (2061
'062). " The events of the future cannot be inferred from
those of the present. Superstitionis the belief in the causal
nexus" (5-1361).
The reference to atomic facts (the existence of which is
questionable) is not essential to the above doctrine. What
Wittgenstein is saying is that all valid inference proceeds
according to the laws of deduction: the connexion between
premiss and conclusion must be tautologous. Suppose, for
example, that, within one specious present, we perceive that
A precedes B, and within another specious present we per-
ceive that B precedes C, we cannot infer that A precedes C,
unless we can show that this is logically implied.
It is obvious that this doctrine sweeps away all inferences
that have any practical utility. When we smell food, we
cannot guess how it will taste; from a railway time-table
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 139

we cannot tell how the trains will run; when we read a

book, we have no reason to suppose that someone composed
it; when we talk, we must regard it as a lucky accident if
we hear a reply. No one in fact holds these views, and a
philosophy which professesthem cannot be wholly sincere.
Let us, to begin with, concentrate on the inference " A
precedes B, and B precedes C ; therefore A precedes C."
This may be a purely verbal inference. We may say that
"A sensibly precedes B " is to mean that A and B are parts
of one specious present, and that we perceive a relation of
sequence in which A comes before B. We may then say
that " A precedes Z" means that there are a series of inter-
mediates B, C. . . Y, such that A sensibly precedes B and
so on. In that case, the transitiveness of " precedes " is
logically necessary. Let us examine this theory.
In the first place, it confines temporal order withinione
experience. We cannot say " Casar's invasion of Britain
preceded William the Conqueror's,"because no one experi-
enced both. If we are to extend the time-seriesbeyond our
own lives, we must have some means of knowing when an
event in A's life is simultaneous with one in B's. This can
be made a matter of definition, adopting the principles of
physics. We shall say that if A hears what he believes to
be B speaking, A's experience of hearing is almost exactly
simultaneous with B's experience of speaking, which A
hypothetically assumes to exist although, in doing so, he is
sinning against the principle of not inferringfacts from facts.
In this somewhat dubious manner, we can extend the time-
series as far as sentient experience extends.
But difficulties remain. We certainly know that, if A
sensibly precedes B, B does not sensibly precede A. And in
order that the above transition from " sensibly preceding "
to " preceding " may be feasible, we must know that, if A
sensibly precedes B, and B sensibly precedes C, and A and
C are in one species present, then A sensibly precedes C.
Perhaps we could construct the time-series with smaller
axioms than these, but something of the sort is necessary
for temporal order. In any case, it seems undeniable that
the relation " sensibly preceding " is transitive and
140 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

asymmetrical, and that our knowledge of this fact has not the
merely probable character of a generalization from a number
of instances. It seems that, when we perceive that A
precedes B, we can attend to the relation " preceding," and
perceive that it has the characters of transitiveness and
asymmetry. Wittgenstein and Carnap attempt to explain
such propositions as merely grammatical, but I am not
satisfied that their attempt is successful.
That it is possible to perceive facts about universals
appears also in many other ways. In looking at the rain-
bow, we can perceive that blue and green are more similar
than blue and yellow; moreover, it is evident that this is
not merely a relation between three particular patches of
colour, but between their shades, which are universals. We
can perceive, again, that a semitone is a smaller interval
than a tone, which is also a relation of universals.
These things are known empirically in one sense, but
not in another. Take the case of blue, green, and yellow.
It is only through sense that we know green to be between
blue and yellow: when we see all three colours simul-
taneously, we can also see their resemblances and differences,
and we can see that these are properties of the shades, not
of the particulars. The sensible fact must be held to
include not only particulars, but their predicates and rela-
tions, with their predicates and relations. Our knowledge
of all this depends upon the occurrence of a suitable sensible
fact, and is in that sense empirical. But in so far as the
knowledge concerns universals, it is knowledge which may
be exemplified in other sensible facts, and which gives us
hypothetical knowledge concerning such facts. That is to
say, having carefully observed blue, green, and yellow in
one sensible fact, we can say : Wherever these shades may
occur, green will be intermediate in colour between blue
and yellow. In this way attention to the facts of sense can
give rise to general knowledge. One perceived instance
of three events in a time-order can enable us to know that
preceding is a transitive relation. Hence, from the two
facts " A precedes B " and " B precedes C " we can infer
" A precedes C," which is contrary to what Wittgenstein
 THE LIMITSOF EMPIRICISM. 141

intends to assert when he says that atomic facts are indepen-

dent of one another, if, as I believe, the inference is not
purely verbal.
I come now to a question closely related to the one we
have just been considering, namely that of finitism in
mathematics. This involves other issues besides that of
empiricism, but there is a connexion which makes a strict
separation impossible.
The doctrine of finitism has been recently set forth by
Alice Ambrose in two articles (" Finitism in Mathematics,"
Mind N.S. Vol. XLIV) which I shall take as my text.
She says:
" The finitist demands that we should be certain of
being able to verify or to prove false a verbal form before
we hold it to be either true or false in any clear sense of these
two words."
" The difficulty is whether statements about all of an
infinity of objects, or about the existence of one among an
infinity of objects, can by any possible method be verified."
" If we do not know what is meant by the statement
that p is demonstrated, we do not know what is meant
by p."
Speaking of7t, " it is logically impossible to run through
the entire expansion."
" The phrase ' after an infinite number of operations'
is self-contradictory."
On mathematical induction (p. 323) she is not very
definite.
On the definition of a class by a defining property
instead of by enumeration, she says: " I should think the
injunction against property-definitions would not be ex-
tended to finite classes-'except in so far as these tempt one
to treat the infinite case analogously."
I do not know how far finitists in general would accept
the doctrine of the above extracts, but at any rate it is an
interesting doctrine, and worthy of careful examination.
Take first the statement that a verbal form is neither
true nor false unless we are certain that we can prove or
disprove it. Let us consider some examples.
142 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

(1) " It rained in London on January 1, 1066." There

may be historical evidence by which this can be proved true
or false, but I am not certain that there is, and therefore, by
the doctrine, it is neither true nor false. In like manner,
the form of words " it will rain in London tomorrow " will
become true or false tomorrow (if uttered today), but is
neither true nor false when it is uttered.
(2) " There is an integer greater than any yet men-
tioned." Theoretically, I might know that N is the greatest
integer yet mentioned, and I might proceed to mention
N j- 1. I, who am persuaded that every integer has a
successorgreater than itself, may be satisfied with this proof.
But the finitist, as I shall try to show, has no right to know
this, and therefore cannot be sure that there is an integer
greater than any yet mentioned, until it has been actually
ascertained that N is the greatest yet mentioned, and that
N + 1 is greater than N. However, he knows how to
prove or disprove the statement, so that even on his prin-
ciples it is true or false.
(3) " There is an integer greater than any that will have
been mentioned by the time I die." Obviously I cannot
prove this proposition by setting to work to mention very
big numbers ; nor can I regard it as disproved by the fact
that no one has ever mentioned a number bigger than any
yet mentioned. The sole method of proof allowed by Miss
Ambrose, namely that of giving an actual instance, is logi-
cally impossiblefor me ; yet no one will contend that, there-
fore, so long as I live there is a greatest integer. I could, of
course, take steps to see that my statement should be verified
after my death. If I had enough money, I might endow a
Chair of historical research to discover the biggest number
mentioned up to the time of my death, and a prize to the
first person who should proceed to mention a still bigger
number. But my investments might lose their value before
the necessary research could be carried out. And can any-
one really believe that arithmetical truth depends upon
financial accidents ?
(4) " The greatest finite integer that will ever have been
mentioned is not the greatest finite integer." This, so far
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 143

as I can see, is, on finitist principles, forever incapable of

proof or disproof, and therefore forever neither true nor
false.
I do not see how the finitist can know that there is not
a greater finite integer. The proof that, if N is any finite
integer, N < N + 1, requires us to be able to deal with the
whole class of finite integers, which we cannot do (on his
principles) unless the class is finite. He has found by
experiment that there are numbers to which he can add 1
and he has found no instances to the contrary; but he will
hardly rely upon induction by simple enumeration. He
must not say: " To everyfinite integer I can add 1." This
is impossible, because life is too short. I agree that, if I
suggested N as the greatest number, the finitist could refute
me by mentioning N + I; but how does he know this ? If
I mention a number, he can prove me wrong; but he
cannot know in advance that this will always be possible.
If he says he does, he abandons finitism.
Wittengenstein'ssymbol for the seriesof natural numbers,
(0, i, i + 1), seems to me to conceal assumptions which
should be made explicit. It seems to mean: " Start with
0, and if you reach P go on to i + 1." The words " as long
as possible " should be added. But what do these words
mean ? Do they mean "till you die " ? If so, there is a
maximum finite integer; so there is if the words mean
" till the human race dies out." If they mean more, they
mean something that finitists have no right to mean.
I think the practice of taking rather abstract mathe-
matical illustrations has concealed from finitists some of the
consequences of their doctrines. Did Bismarck eat beef on
January 17, 1861 ? Does any finitist consider it certainthat
it can be proved or disproved that he did so ? And is any
finitist prepared to say that the statement that he did so
has no meaning ?
Miss Ambrosesays it is logicallyimpossible to run through
the whole expansion of -t. I should have said it was
medicallyimpossible. She thinks it logicallyimpossible to
know that there are not three consecutive 7's in r. But is
it logicallyimpossible that there should be an omniscient
144 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

Deity ? And if there is such a Deity, may he not reveal the

answer to a mathematical Moses ? And would not this
be a demonstration ? It seems to follow that, if a form of
words p is syntactically correct, we always " know what is
meant by the statement that p is demonstrated." If revela-
tion is rejected as demonstration, it will be found that we
do not know of the existence of Cape Horn unless we have
seen it.
The opinion that the phrase " after an infinite number
of operations " is self-contradictory, seems scarcely correct.
Might not a man's skill increase so fast that he performed
each operation in half the time required for its predecessor ?
In that case, the whole infinite series would take only twice
as long as the first operation.
A question arises as to what is a proper definition of a
class. Miss Ambrose, apparently, allows a finite class to be
defined by a property common and peculiar to its members,
whereas an infiniteclass must be defined by a rule for con-
structing its members, such as " start with 0 and go on
adding 1 indefinitely; anything you reach is one of the
natural numbers." Another finitist writer (Mr. Good-
stein), in an as yet unpublished paper, says: " The pro-
perty ' sub-class of a class ' does not construct a class ; it
is not a defining property. A sub-class of a class must be
defined by a rule for selecting its members." I do not
understand this. The class of sub-classes of men, for
instance, is the class of those classes whose members are men.
There is a perfectly satisfactory defining property of this
class of classes, though not necessarily of its members In
this it is in just the same position as the class of men, which
is defined as " rational animals " or " featherless bipeds "
or what not, but has members of whose several definitions
nothing is known to the logician in the vast majority of
instances. Shall we then say that men are. not really a
class ? Certainly the class of men is not so defined as to
give us a " rule for selecting its members."
I cannot undersand how Miss Ambrose can allow
property-definitions of finite classes, but not of infinite ones.
Outside mathematics, we do not know with any certainty
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 145

whether classes are finite or infinite, except in a few cases.

And even when we think we know, it is no great help.
Consider such a proposition as " all men are mortal."
If this is to be ascertained by examining instances, it
requires inspection of everything in the universe. It may
be that, in fact, the only men are A, B, C, . . . Y and Z;
but in order to know this, we must have observed that all
the other things in the world are not men. Classes that
can be proved to be finite (unless they are defined by enu-
meration) are hardly to be found outside mathematics.
We know that " integers less than 100 " is a finite class, but
we do not know that " man " is a finite class. And if any-
one maintains that we do know this, he must believe that
we have means of knowing something about all the things
in the world, over and above what logic has to say. I
believe this to be the case, but the finitist position, if I have
not misunderstood it, results from assuming the opposite.
Miss Ambrose, if we are to interpret her literally, must
hold that the statement " all men are mortal " is neither true
nor false, since we are not " certain of being able to verify
it or prove it false." To prove it false is obviously impos-
sible, since, however long a man may have lived, we cannot
know that he will never die. To prove it true is theoretically
possible, but only by one very drastic method: we might
murder all -he rest of the human race and then commit
suicide. But no man can be " certain " of being able to
do this, so that, on finitist principles, the form of words " all
men are mortal " is outside the scope of the Law of Excluded
Middle.
For my part, I hold that, as soon as I know what is
meant by "men " and what by " mortal," I know what is
meant by" all men are mortal," and I know quite certainly
that either this statement is true or some man is immortal.
I am led to reject finitism because (1) it rests on what
seems to me an untenable general principle, that what
cannot be proved or disproved is neither true nor false,
(2) it cannot enunciate mathematical induction or define the
natural numbers, (3) its advocates, if I am not mistaken, only
think it feasible because they do not carry it out logically.
146 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

I come now to another question, namely: In what

sense can physics be empirical ?
The practice of physicists is by no means wholly empirical.
Thus Dirac, in the preface to his " Quantum Mechanics,"
after describing the aims of classical physics, says:
" It has become increasingly evident in recent times,
however, that nature works on a different plan. Her
fundamental laws do not govern the world as it appears
in our mental picture in any very direct way, but instead
they control a substratum of which we cannot form a mental
picture without introducing irrelevancies. The formula-
tion of these laws requires the use of the mathematics of
transformations. The important things in the world ajpear
as the invariants (or more generally the nearly invariants,
or quantities with simple transformation properties) of these
transformations. The things we are immediately aware of
are the relations of these nearly invariants to a certain frame
of reference, usually one chosen so as to introduce speciai
simplifying features which are unimportant from the point
of view of general theory."
This statement of the position is one with which I am in
entire agreement ; but it is a statement incompatible with
thoroughgoing empiricism. " The things we are immedi-
ately aware of " cannot be provedto be relations of invariants
to a frame of reference. This is an interpretation, recom-
mended as the simplest way yet discovered of formulating
laws compatible with all that has been observed. A great
deal is assumed that cannot be observed, and cannot be
inferred from what is observed, unless forms of inference are
admitted which pure empiricism must reject.
Physics, as ordinarily understood, accepts as factual
premisses not only what I observe now, but also what I
observed formerly and what others have observed; and it
accepts as legitimate inferences, not only unobserved past
occurrences, but also future occurrences implied by its
laws. Thus we may distinguish the following stages:
A. I observenow, and see so-and-so. This may be regarded
as mere matter of fact, although, as we saw in the first part
of this paper, it involves much complication, and is not
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 147

intelligible unless relations which are more or less causal

can be perceived. Since we have already discussed this
matter, no more need be said now.
B. I observed formerly,and saw so-and-so. This involves
reliance on memory. Now it is obvious that the existence
of a memory does not logically prove the existence of the
thing remembered; we might have memories of a wholly
fictitious past. It is obvious also that, since our memories
refer to the past, no future evidence can prove them accurate.
We may, of course, obtain what looks like confirmation of
our memorics: we may, for example, remember writing
something, and find it written in what is apparently our
handwriting. But this only shows that the present is what
it would be if our memories were accurate; there is no
way of proving that no other hypothesis will account for
its being what it is. The empiricist, therefore, must include
among his premisses the trustworthiness of memory (with
the limitations demanded by common sense), in spite of the
fact that neither now nor hereafter can we find any evidence
for the truth of this premiss.
C. Othersobserved,and saw so-and-so. This, primafacie,
involves acceptance of testimony; that is to say, it involves
the assumption that, when I hear noises or see shapes
which I should use to express certain experiences, someone
is having or has had similar experiences. We cannot get
very far in any science without accepting testimony, yet the
assumption involved is considerable. And owing to the
existence of different languages, a further complication is
necessary; we must know what we mean by saying that
two different statements have the same meaning. When-
ever an English physicist uses a French observation, he
assumes that when he sees a body which emits French noises,
the causes and effects of these noises can be assimilated to
those of his own noises by using the dictionary. All this is
presupposed in recording what everyone would consider to
be the data of physics.
D. Futureobservations will showso-and-so. To make state-
ments of this kind possible is the whole practicalpurpose of
science. To say that science has utility is to say that it
s
148 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

enables us to foresee future occurrences ; if it does not do

this, it may still be delightful or elevating, but it cannot
help us to conduct matters so as to achieve desired ends.
We are all firmly persuaded that the laws of nature will not
change, and that scientific apparatus will work in the future
as in the past. Nevertheless this assumption that the future
will resemble the past is one for which it is logically impos-
sible that we should have evidence deducible by logic alone
from past events. We may argue as to the precise form
which our axiom is to take, but some axiom we must have
if we are to be able to infer anything about the future.
And if, in our capacity of professional philosophers, we
pretend to complete agnosticism as to the future, we are
not sincere, for we still avoid arsenic unless we are tired of
life.
It seems clear, therefore, that we all in fact are unshake-
ably convinced that we know things which pure empiricism
would deny that we can know. We must accordingly seek
a theory of knowledge other than pure empiricism.
Collecting the results of our argument up to the present,
we have found reason to believe:
(1) That if any verbal knowledge can be known to be
in any sense derived from sense experience, we must be
able, sometimes, to " see " a relation, analogous to causa-
tion, between two parts of one specious present.
(2) That facts about universals can sometimes be
perceived when the universals are exemplified in sensible
occurrences ; for example, that " preceding " is transitive,
and that blue is more like green than like yellow.
(3) That we can understand a form of words, and know
that it expresseseither a truth or a falsehood, even when we
know of no method of deciding the alternative.
(4) That physics requires the possibility of inferring, at
least with probability, occurrences which have not been
observed, and, more particularly, future occurrences.
Without these principles, what is ordinarily regarded as
empirical knowledge becomes impossible.
It is not necessary to maintain that we can arrive at
knowledge in advance of experience, but rather that
 THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM. 149

experience gives more information than pure empiricism

supposes. In perceiving a sensible fact, we can perceive
the universals which are qualities or relations of parts of the
fact, and we can perceive relations and properties of these
universals. When I am hurt and cry out, I can perceive
not only the hurt and the cry, but the fact that the one
" produces " the other. When I perceive three events in
a time-order, I can perceive that preceding is transitive-a
general truth of which an instance is contained in the pre-
sent sense-datum. General propositions, such as " all men
are mortal " or " every finite integer is increased by the
addition of I," can be understoodas soon as we understand
their terms. If we have understood the word "man ",
and seen something die, we have had all the experience
required for understanding the proposition " all man are
mortal " ; at least, this would be the case if " men"
and "mortal" had definite meanings. Sometimes a
single sensible occurrence suffices, not only to enable
us to understand a general proposition, but even to
know that it is true ; of this, the relations of yellow,
green, and blue in the rainbow have given us an
instance. It is obvious, as a matter of logic, that general
propositions cannot be deduced from propositions which
are not general; therefore, if we know any general
propositions, there must be some among premisses. I
maintain that " yellow is more like green than like blue "
is such a premiss, derivable by attention to one single
instance of the sensible compresence of yellow, green, and
blue.
Knowledge concerning unobserved facts, such as physics
requires, becomes possible if we admit such sources of
knowledge as we have just been considering. If we can
sometimes perceiverelations which are analogous to causa-
tion, we do not depend wholly upon enumerationof instances
in the proof of causal laws. If we perceive two events A
and B, and perceive that A precedes B, we know that what-
ever follows B follows A. When we come to matters which
must be at best probable, the apparatus of perceived general
propositions may suffice to give an a priori probability,
150 BERTRAND RUSSELL.

which is necessary for the satisfactory working of probable

inference. I do not profess to know, in detail, how this is
to be done, but at any rate it is no longer, as in pure empiri-
cism, an obvious logical impossibility.