Shepherd vol 2 ebook: Chapter 10: Experimentum Crucis in Shepherd’s 1827 treatise

Chapter 10: Experimentum Crucis in Shepherd’s 1827 treatise

In this chapter, I shall build on my previous chapter 9 by moving on to the questions:

1)Where does Shepherd write the phrase ‘Experimentum Crucis’ in her 1827 treatise: Essays on the Perception of an External Universe?¹

2)Why does Shepherd use this term from science and logic? What is the context and purpose? 

In her ‘Perception of the External Universe’, Shepherd writes: 

“When such an experimentum crucis shall be made, as that parcels of matter of different bulks, shall at a distance from each other, and being forcibly placed at rest for a moment, be afterwards left at perfect liberty, without any foreign impulse on either towards motion, and without their being affected by the motions of the earth, of which they are forming a part; when in such a case, they shall bound towards each other, then shall I believe in an inherent quality as capable of such a propulsion, but till then, I feel it to be impossible ….”²

To sum up this passage: Shepherd is correctly using the methodology of Crucial Experiment that I explained in chapter 9, by stating that she would only change her mind and believe this scientific theory, once an Experimentum Crucis demonstrated it to be true, as long as the test had factored in and accounted for any variables that might corrupt the results. Hence, if we streamline her very long sentence down to its skeletal structure, we notice that her claim is essentially this: 

When such an experimentum crucis shall be made, then shall I believe it, but until then, I feel it to be impossible. 

Slightly earlier in this passage³, Shepherd assesses the quality of scientific arguments about the laws of attraction in physics, while relating it to God. At one point she seems to be making some sort of a religious argument against the laws of attraction in physics:

"Attraction is a word fitted to keep the Deity for ever out of view....."⁴

But then we see that she might claim this, not necessarily for religious reasons as such, but as a contra against two things: 

One, poor linguistic practice and scientific philosophical methodology. Shepherd⁵ is objecting to messy intellectual reasoning which does not follow logically and rationally from hypothesis to conclusion and her religious views keep in line with this. She does not allow anything in religion to disrupt this or introduce an illogical, mysterious thinking⁶. 

So, two, much like Spinoza, I suggest that Shepherd is not prone to superstitious thought and furthermore, she passionately argues against superstitious tendencies, by for instance, criticising scientific theories which allow for obscure, occult elements in their explanation. 

And here's the relevant passage. Shepherd writes: 

"....the conversion of a term could suggest any defined idea of the true nature of governing causes, is merely to hide an unproved hypothesis by means of a metaphorical allusion.—The assignation of this occult quality, as forming a component part of the very essence of matter, has afforded to atheism its most powerful refuge.”⁷

So I maintain that Shepherd’s rigorous logical and scientific methodology protects her philosophy from becoming too irrational, superstitious, or even particularly religious. I argue that solid methodology and rationality is her priority, and any reference to the existence of God must stay in keeping with this approach. Hence she states: 

"The most that I would contend for on the subject is this, that we should reason with impartiality from what we know, to what we know not."⁸

Therefore, there are a few related ideas I would like to bring out here about Shepherd on:

1)scientific discovery; 

2)knowledge of the material world; 

3)how this can be advocated whilst, on the one hand, avoiding accusations of atheism and blasphemy in the Early Modern period, while, on the other hand, not falling foul of becoming illogical or superstitious, such as invoking the notion of inexplicable, mysterious, occult qualities within the natural world as a work-around for anything that sounds irreligious in a theory. 

Furthermore, Shepherd rather intelligently and astutely points out that providing unproved hypotheses and arguing in favour of the existence of occult qualities of matter actually does religion a disservice by giving easy strength to the atheist argument.⁹ 

Hence, contrary to common perception, I interpret Shepherd as showing us that there is nothing genuinely pious about insisting on resorting to superstitious arguments to keep religious authorities happy. Therefore, there is no excuse for anyone, religious or atheistic, not to make use of excellent methodology and so remain consistently rational and logical to progress our knowledge of causation and the external world. 

References:

¹Shepherd, Mary. Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation, 1st edition 

(Piccadilly, London, United Kingdom: J. Hatchard and son, 1827), 

http://archive.org/details/essaysonpercepti00shep. 

²Ibid p368

³Ibid p367-8

⁴Ibid p367

⁵Shepherd, Essays on the Perception of an External Universe

⁶Ibid

⁷Ibid p367-8

⁸Ibid p365

⁹Ibid p368; p404-5