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DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

STUDIES IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY

BY

THEODORE DE LAGUNA, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

AND

GRACE ANDRUS DE LAGUNA, Ph.D.

Neto ¥orlt
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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GENERAL

Copyright, 1 910,
By Theodore de Laguna

Press of

The New era printing Company

lancaster. pa.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF
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PREFACE.

The term 'dogmatism' is here used to denote the body of logical
assumptions which were generally made by thinkers of all schools,
before the rise of theories of social and organic evolution. Its
application is therefore wider than common usage would warrant.
The empiricism of Berkeley and Hume, as well as the rationalism
of Descartes and Leibniz, is included in its scope. The first
part of the present work is devoted to the analysis and illustration
of the dogmatic principles. In the later parts we have examined
some of the philosophies by which dogmatism has, upon one
side or another, been assailed: the critical philosophy, absolute
idealism, and, at much greater length, pragmatism.

It is to an excursion over well-traveled roads that the reader
is invited. A glance over the pages will show them to be fairly
sprinkled with the great names — Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill,
James — while few others are mentioned except in passing. In
a history this would be a sore defect. But our object was not
history, but the critical analysis of principles; and this required
the confinement of the discussion to a comparatively few systems
that would be recognized as typical.

While these pages were in press, William James passed away.
The debt which we, in common with all of the younger American
thinkers, owe to him cannot be measured — unless, perhaps, by
the very eagerness with which we have upon many points at-
tacked him. With the other leader of the American pragmatists,
Professor John Dewey, we stand in a much closer sympathy.
We say this here, because the hostile criticism which we have
passed upon his theory of immediate empiricism ought not to
disguise our direct indebtedness to him upon other lines. To
Mr. Schiller no direct reference has been made, but certain of
his characteristic positions are noticed In Appendix I.

ill

207112

IV PREFACE.

These studies make little claim to systematic unity. Unity
of a certain sort, indeed, they will be found to possess, namely,
unity of purpose and of point of view, but not that of the mono-
graph or treatise. There is one omission, however, which we
especially regret. After considerable prominence is given to the
theory of relations in the first and second parts, the subject is
only incidentally treated in the third. But one of the writers
having been forced to withdraw from the work, the attempt to
supply this omission would have meant the indefinite postpone-
ment of publication.

The book is the product of a genuine collaboration. Some

division of labor was necessary at the outset; but almost endless

discussion, together with repeated revision by both writers, has

made the work in a peculiar sense our common property.

Bryn Mawr College,
September 12, 1910.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PART I. The Old Dogmatism

CHAPTER I Universal Mathematics versus Universal Psychology. 3

CHAPTER II The Common Basis of Empiricism and Rationalism — I.

The Certainty of Immediate ExPERfENCE 16

CHAPTER III The Common Basis of Empiricism and Rationalism — II.
The Simplicity of Elements and the Externality of
Relations 30

CHAPTER IV The Representative Theory of Ideas 54

PART II. Revolution and Reaction

CHAPTER I The Critical Philosophy 67

CHAPTER II Absolute Idealism 86

PART III. The Pragmatist Revolt

CHAPTER I The Principles of Pragmatism 117

CHAPTER II Examination of the Principles 135

CHAPTER III The Developing Concept and its Functions — I. The

Concept of the Object 162

EXCURSUS ON J. S. Mill's Theory of Objectivity. . . 173
CHAPTER IV The Developing Concept and its Functions — II. The

General Concept 188

CHAPTER V Pragmatism and the Form of Thought 202

APPENDICES

I The Pragmatic Method, The Will-to-believe, Humanism, and Im-

mediatism 219

II The Practical Character of Reality 235

PART I
THE OLD DOGMATISM

or THE

UIMIVERS/TY

CHAPTER I

UNIVERSAL MATHEMATICS VERSUS UNIVERSAL PSYCHOLOGY

Had Lord Bacon known that in the century following the
publication of the Advancement of Learning no school of philoso-
phers would acknowledge him as master, he would not have been
seriously disheartened at the prospect. Splendid as was the am-
bition of the scholar who chose all knowledge for his province,
that ambition did not include the founding of a school. In truth,
to his mind such an accomplishment seemed so slight, and the
distinction it won so petty, that he was content to leave it to
ingenious but narrow-minded men. What, he wished to found
was not a school of philosophy, but philosophy itself — or science,
if you please, for in his day the two terms were still synonymous.
But had he known that by far the most important movement of
thought during the next three generations was to be in direct and
conscious opposition to his most cherished principles — in England
as a reaction against his influence, on the continent in contemptu-
ous disregard of him — only a sublime faith in their truth could
have saved him from utter discouragement. Writing in 1739,
the young David Hume comments upon the fact, that the whole
period of the pre-Socratic philosophy in Greece was "nearly equal
to that betwixt my Lord Bacon and some late philosophers of
England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new foot-
ing." Yet the institution of a body of experimental ''sciences
of man" was the part of Bacon's program that was nearest his
heart, and that he himself did most to forward.

The phenomenon is certainly a striking one. Bacon had
taught that deduction, as a scientific method, was useful only
for purposes of instruction, and even so was better fitted to pro-
duce a showy than a real and thorough knowledge; and that
for the discovery and establishment of truth induction and ex-

4 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

periment were all-important. The great rationalists of the seven-
teej^th century — Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, for
example — however great their differences in detail, were agreed
upon the general point, that deduction is the sole ultimately
satisfactory mode of proof ; that experimental methods are wholly
subordinate devices, which may, indeed, be indispensable in the
course of a complex investigation, but which the completed theory
must in every case cast aside. Bacon had taught that science
must begin with particulars, rising by successive inductions to
more and more general laws, and arriving at its supreme ex-
planatory principles only at the last stage of its endeavors. Ac-
cording to the rationalists, that whole ascent is a mere preliminary
to the task of science ; science itself begins with secure first prin-
ciples, and its problem is the explanation of the more particular
laws of nature as necessary consequences of the first principles.
Finally, whereas the rationalists one and all regarded precise
definition and the consistent use of terms as prime necessities for
scientific discussion, and counted upon these as most potent aids
to the discovery of truth, the great chancellor held that the estab-
lishment of definitions belongs not to the beginnings of science
but to its consummation, and that in the meantime the effort at
verbal consistency is only too apt to issue in self-deception.

It would be beyond our present purpose to attempt a complete
explanation of this phenomenon — the temporary unsuccess of
Bacon's polemic. It has been customary to attribute it in great
measure to personal defects in him ; especially to a lack of plod-
ding thoroughness, that made his brilliant suggestions mere sug-
gestions, and left his programs of scientific advancement un-
supported by actual solid contributions to knowledge. Two.
other causesjwere probably more important. The first of these
was the silent influence of Aristotle. It is true that in the seven-
teenth century it was not the fashion to refer to Aristotle except
for the purpose of emphasizing one's disagreement with him and
one's contempt for his authority. But ''he who flees is not yet
free" ; and never did the perennial vigor of the ancient rationalism

MATHEMATICS VERSUS PSYCHOLOGY 5

show Itself more clearly than in the control which it exerted over
the development of rationalism in the seventeenth century.
A good part of Hobbes's Computation, or Logic is scarcely more
than a simplified restatement of the leading principles of Aris-
totle's methodology, in terms of the already traditional English
nominalism, and not improbably profited by some study of the
Greek original. In the case of the continental rationalists, the
dependence is generally more indirect — through the continued
prevalence of conceptions inherited from scholasticism — but not
less evident. The opening paragraphs of Descartes's Discourse
on Method afford a singular illustration of this. He is inclined
to think that the intellectual differences between men cannot
have to do with their reason, because that faculty is the distin-
guishing characteristic of the human species, which completes
its definition, and consequently must be present equally in all
members of the species. From this one fossil vestige, well-nigh
the whole skeleton of the classical logic might be safely recon-
structed.

The other influence to which we referred was that of the
rnathematical sciences, and especially of the geometry of Euclid.
It is difficult for us today to realize what the possession of this
work meant to the thinkers of the later renaissance. To these
pioneers of modern science it was the very image of all that they
hoped to do, and, more than that, an unquestionable guarantee
of the competence of the human mind to solve the riddles of the
universe. While physics and physiology were still the sport of/
vain and conflicting theories, here, at least, was a science. With
all of the unfounded pretensions and lamentable failures of the
Greeks, so much they had accomplished. This was their great
bequest to the modern world. Accordingly we can understand
that in the seventeenth century the hope of a science meant the
hope of a new geometry. Whatever modern methods, experi-
mental or analytical, might be employed in its construction, the
finished product was to be of the one uniform type.

How was this type understood? In the most natural and

O DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

perfectly obvious fashion. At its basis were conceived to be a1
certain number of indemonstrable but self-evident propositions,
involving a certain number of indefinable but self-explanatory
terms. Resting upon this basis were series of propositions of
ever narrowing generality and increasing complexity. The truth
of the later propositions was supposed to result from, and to be
guaranteed by, that of the earlier propositions, without giving
to these any reciprocal support. It seems to have been popularly
supposed that the order in which the propositions followed upon
one another was quite fixed, or admitted, at any rate, of no radical
alteration; and, although, of course, mathematicians were well
aware that this was not the case, they were nevertheless inclined
to think that one order alone could represent with perfect clear-
ness the exact interrelations of the concepts involved, and that
all others were therefore open to ultimate logical criticism. The
discovery of this ideal order was therefore regarded as a very
great desideratum.

The influence of mathematical conceptions upon philosophy
was due in part to the fact that two of the great rationalists,
Descartes and Leibniz, were among the founders of modern math-
ematical science, and that many lesser members of the school
were competent mathematicians. With Descartes, indeed, whose
system was the point of departure for the whole movement, the
philosophy was the result of a deliberate attempt at an extension
of the mathematics. Inspired by his success in developing the
great discovery of his early manhood — the application of alge-
braic analysis to the solution of geometrical problems — he
thought to apply a similar analysis to the fundamental problems
of all departments of science. Had Descartes lived a little earlier,
Bacon would surely have cited his system as the superlative
instance in all history, of the Idol of the Cave. After telling us
how Aristotle, when he had discovered and classified the various
forms of demonstration, was thenceforth driven to interpret all
the phenomena of nature and society in terms of this new logic;
and after taking his fling at his countryman Gilbert, who had

MATHEMATICS VERSUS PSYCHOLOGY 7

pondered for years over a magnet, until he saw magnetism every-
where and in everything; he would have capped the climax with
the inventor of analytical geometry and author of the Discourse
on Method.

But rationalists who were by no means distinguished as mathe-
maticians were scarcely, if at all, less under the influence of
mathematical conceptions. The most obvious example is Spi-
noza, composing his Ethics in "geometrical order," and illustrating
the invariability of natural causation by the necessity with which
the idea of a triangle implies that the sum of its angles is two
right angles. Hobbes, too, who was so far from competence in
geometry that he is remembered in its history only as the most fat-
uous of circle-squarers, must nevertheless be said to have owed the
first flush of his enthusiasm for science, as well as his first clear
conceptions of scientific method, to a copy of Euclid's Elements.
On the other hand, Leibniz, the greatest mathematician of the
whole group, was not least a slave to mathematical notions,
though in various directions he strained these notions to their
breaking-point. His writings are, indeed, remarkable for their
constant use of principles which in their manifest implications
far transcend the rationalistic standpoint. More than any other
modern philosopher — except perhaps Bacon — he was a man of
the world with the most far-reaching social and political interests.
Yet his logical theory remained mathematical to the core, though
the uses to which he endeavored to put it were strikingly, nay
absurdly, concrete. Thus, for example, he was not above en-
forcing a practical social optimism by a reference to the law of the
parallelogram of forces. That this is the best of possible worlas
might be seen in the fact, that every change that takes place in
the world comes about with the least possible expenditure of
energy; so that, considering the state of affairs at each moment
of the world's history, as much as possible is always happening!

We have mentioned several dogmas upon which all the great
rationalists are found to be united. The essential point is prob-

8 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

ably this : that science (or philosophy) consists wholly of urdver-
sal and necessary propositions, a limited number of which are
self-evident and form a sufficient body of premises for the deduc-

tion of the rest. The principal division between rationalists is
upon the question of the nature of the self-evident first principles.
For Hobbes (as a nominalist), these could be only arbitrary
definitions of terms to be employed. For the great mass of con-
tinental rationalists, they are significant truths which are cog-
nized by a special faculty of reason called ^intuition.' For Leib-
niz, they are again definitions; not of mere terms, however, but
of concepts. All, again, are agreed in declaring that observations
of matter of fact are invariably particular and contingent; and
furthermore that whereas universal propositions are conditional
in their import,^ particular propositions are categorical and, as
such, existential — i. e., imply the existence of their subjects.
Accordingly, the whole realm of truth is divided into two distinct
provinces, that of reason and that of sense-perception, the former
consisting of necessary implications, the latter of observed facts.
All rationalists are further agreed, upon certain metaphysical
conclusions. If science is deductive, the world must be such as
to be knowable by means of deductive science. If knowledge is
to fall into series of logically consecutive propositions, the world
itself must be similarly ordered. As Spinoza puts it, the order
of thoughts and the order of things are the same. In other words,
the relation of premise to conclusion in the system of scientific
doctrine must everywhere exactly correspond to a relation of
cause and effect in the system of objective reality. From the
methodological standpoint, this means that all explanation or
proof of anything must be in terms of its causes — knowledge of
its effects throws no light upon its nature at all.^ The intuitional-
ists (or rationalists proper, as we may call them) proceed to a

^Thus Hobbes maintains that political science (like geometry) is altogether
independent of the question, whether any such thing as a state (or a straight line)
has ever existed in the world or not.

2The reasoning from effects to causes, which Hobbes includes in his definition
of philosophy, is only an apparent exception; for such reasoning, he finds, is never
conclusive.

MATHEMATICS VERSUS PSYCHOLOGY 9

further inference, in which it may be difficult for us to follow
them; namely, that the relations just described as everywhere
parallel are in fact identical. The necessity with which the cause
produces its effect means that a mind possessed of complete
knowledge of the former must be able to predict the latter, that
is to say, deduce it from the cause as premise. Thus the funda-
mental nature of the circle, conceived as produced by a rotating
line, is the cause of all its other properties — for example, of the
fact that every radius is perpendicular to the tangent at its
extremity. From this extreme form of the doctrine, Hobbes is
saved by his nominalism; while Leibniz is distinguished by his
'principle of sufficient reason,' according to which the determi-
nation of an effect involves not only logical necessity but the
selection of the best out of an infinite number of logically pos-
sible alternatives.

The keystone of continental rationalism is the doctrine of
substance. While the provinces of reason and sense-perception
are wholly distinct, a certain connection arises from the obvious
consideration, that when a fact is attested by perception a number,
of consequences may logically follow from it. Indeed, every
observed fact, no matter how irrelevant it may appear from the
standpoint of pure science, is known by the law of causality to be
absolutely determined by, and thus deducible from, a series of
previous facts. Unless, then, some one or more facts could be
conceived as eternally necessary on their own account, and thus
as serving to support all other facts, the whole chain of facts,
taken in its entirety, must be thought of as hanging in mid-air —
which appeared to be inconceivable. Such necessary fact or'
facts could, however, be attested by no act of perception; the
only adequate witness is reason itself. The entity whose exist -
enceis implied in any such eternal fact is called a substance; and
those philosophers who believe in the existence of but a single
substance call it God. In the nominalistic theory this entity is
an unknowable, to which, however, the name of God is also given .
Those, too, who accept the existence of a plurality of substances,

lO DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

regard one of these as supreme, the others being substantial only
in a secondary sense, as dependent for their existence on the
supreme substance, or God, alone. Thus the existence of God
has a unique place in the rationalistic scheme of things. It
belongs, in a way, to both kinds of truth. It is a. fact evident to
reason, and the necessary presupposition of all other facts.

The development of rationalism in the seventeenth century
was followed by an equally brilliant development of empiricism
in the first half of the eighteenth century. Bacon at last came
into his own. The movement is commonly regarded as dating
from the publication of Locke's Essay concerning Human Under-
standing in 1690. Against the common view it has been urged
with much force that Locke was at least as much a rationalist as
an empiricist; and, indeed, his direct debt seems to be far greater
to Descartes and Hobbes than to Bacon. His theory of mathe-
matics and ethics is strongly rationalistic. He believes these
sciences are concerned wholly with the relations between ideas
in our own minds, and are in need of no confirmation from experi-
ence. The ideas of which they treat are arbitrarily put together
by us; and the principal caution which we must observe in their
manipulation is to define accurately and use consistently the
terms by which we choose to denote them. Locke therefore
accepts the distinction between intuitive and demonstrative
truths on the one hand and inductive probabilities on the other,
and maintains that the latter can never through any process of
experience be raised to complete certainty. He believes, for
example, that the existence of each one of us is intuitively certain
to himself, and that the existence of God is demonstrably certain ;
while the existence of other persons and things can only be morally
certain, that is to say, true enough for all practical purposes.

On the other hand, there are two peculiarities in Locke's
doctrine which were very important for the future development
of empiricism. In the first place, he attacked one of the most
central positions of rationalism by maintaining that all our ideas

MATHEMATICS VERSUS PSYCHOLOGY II

of substances, whether material or spiritual, finite or infinite,
are inadequate — i. e., fail to correspond accurately to their ob-
/ jects. In the second place, his theory of intuition differed from
that of the rationalists in a way which brought into prominence
a new problem for science. According to the rationalists, the
intuitive truth presents itself to reason as a whole, — subject,
predicate, and all. According to Locke, the ideas involved in
such a truth must, like all other ideas, be originally derived from
experience, however they may have since been modified by proc-
esses of abstraction and composition; all that intuition gives
is the connection between them. Locke was thus led to under-
take to show in detail how various ideas and classes of ideas —
especially those which had been generally regarded as intuitive —
are indeed derived from our outer and inner experience, or, as
he puts it, from sensation and reflection. And though his
methods of research were primitively crude, he succeeded in en-
dowing modern psychology with a problem of the first impor-
tance: the origin of our ideas.

As mathematics was the science of sciences for rationalism, all
other sciences being either extensions or special applications of
this one; so for empiricism psychology became the science of
sciences, central and fundamental, its method being the organon
of philosophy. There had been psychology before this, occasion-
ally (as in the early chapters of Hobbes's Leviathan) containing
suggestions whose full value has only recently been realized.
But for the most part it was a very superficial affair, a formula-
tion of definitions of various mental processes, based on no evi-
dence except undisciplined observation. The elementary dis-
tinction between the logical implications of an idea or a passion
and its actual structure in consciousness was either unrecognized
or neglected. Psychology is of all sciences the least amenable
to deductive treatment, the one in which even today it is most
necessary to keep one's eye fixed on the phenomena to be de-
scribed and declare simply and plainly what one finds there.
No modern man before Locke had done this, and Locke himself

12 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

was incapable of doing it with any consistency. But he made
the attempt inevitable to the generation of investigators who
followed him.

The development of English empiricism was carried on in two
lines which at first appear to be entirely separate. On the one
hand, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Butler attempted
in various directions and with varying success to apply the em-
pirical study of human nature to ethical problems. On the other
hand, George Berkeley in his New Theory of Vision — a work
which marks one of the great turning-points in the history of
science — formulated with distinctness the method of introspec-
tion and applied it with unsurpassed acuteness and judgment;
and in his Principles of Human Knowledge first claimed for psy-
chology the highest place among the sciences, subjecting their
fundamental conceptions and principles to its final jurisdiction.
The two lines of development meet in David Hume.

The form which the system of empiricism took in Hume's
hands may be outlined somewhat as follows. All science must
begin with human experience and can never get beyond it. The
fundamental science is thus the science of human experience as
such; and all explanations whatsoever, if carried back with rigor,
must lead us at last to psychological considerations. However,
no complete solution of any problem — that is to say, no solution
in terms that do not themselves constitute new problems — is
ever possible. Science must be fundamentally inductive. All
our reasonings must start from principles of whose ground we
have no inkling, but which we assume to be true simply because
they appear to be verified by our detailed observations of matter
of fact. The limit of explicability is reached in the elementary
sensations and feelings, the fainter ideas which copy them, and
the observed laws of the association and mutual relations of the
elements. — No existence over and above our perceptions is con-
ceivable. The idea of substance is indispensable to common
sense, but wholly useless to science — except as it may be identi-
fied with a closely conjoined mass of ideas. The belief in an ex-

MATHEMATICS VERSUS PSYCHOLOGY 1 3

ternal world, the belief in God, nay even the belief in the existence
of our own minds — as distinct from the hosts of ideas which flit
through them — is matter, not of knowledge, but of blind instinct,
which science can in a measure account for, but which it must in
vain attempt to justify. — If substances are thus to be subjectively
interpreted, so also are relations. These are but various ways
of comparing ideas; or, more precisely, they are complex ideas
formed from simpler ideas by the inexplicable process of com-
parison. Certain classes of relations — for example, the equality
or inequality of quantities or numbers — are found to be com-
pletely determined by the ideas compared ; that is to say, while
these ideas are unchanged the relation remains the same. Such
relations give rise to no peculiar problem. They are expressed
by universal propositions, from which valid deductions may be
made; and in the cases above mentioned the deductions are so
extensive as to constitute special sciences. The other class of
relations (those of space and time, identity, and causality) are
more remarkable.^ The utmost analysis of any acknowledged
cause and effect (for example) will reveal no quality or combina-
tion of qualities in either or both that determines why the one
should be thought to produce the other. And the most exact
attention to two bell-tones will disclose no shade of difference j
between them that could account for the one's being heard as
preceding or following the other. In every such case, therefore,
the relation must be supposed to be determined by other ac-
companying sensations, feelings, or ideas. Thus the second of
two bell-tones may be accompanied by a memory-image of the
first. In the case of causality, the relation depends upon a feeling
of 'necessary connection,' which accompanies the habitual move-
ment of the imagination from one event to another, when they
have frequently been observed to occur in close succession and
uniform order. Causal necessity is therefore by no means equiva- \^
lent to logical implication. Nor is it a property of the operations

^The inclusion of identity in the list is at first sight surprising. But it is
meant that at most a complete resemblance can be actually determined by the com-
parison of two ideas. The interpretation of this as identity is another thing.

\

14 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of nature, in themselves considered, but a property of our imagi-
nations projected forth upon them.

Such were the two great types of philosophical thought which
prevailed among the leading minds of Europe for five generations.
We are aware how scanty has been our exposition, and how much
that is of first class importance has been passed over. And yet,
could we have contrived it, we should have cut the account still
shorter. For our object has been simply to present the main
lines of cleavage with all the distinctness of a glaring contrast.
As we conceive it, the difference is essentially one between two
scientific ideals, gained from the two sciences which were in most
active progress at that time. Well-known parallels of greater
or less suggestiveness are to be found in the influence of the
science of mechanics upon Kant, of the history of civilization
upon Hegel, of biology upon the ethical speculation of the half-
century since the Origin of Species, and of comparative and social
psychology upon many thinkers of today.

In this connection it is interesting to note that of the greater
English empiricists not one was a mathematician. Berkeley,
indeed, had a more than ordinarily good training in mathematics,
and showed a very keen interest in such studies. His earliest
published writings were upon mathematical subjects. But his
greatness lay elsewhere. Hutcheson, more than any other of
the school, was influenced in his thought by mathematical con-
ceptions— sometimes in a very grotesque fashion. But this was
only in the details of his system ; its general structure was wholly
psychological. Equally interesting is the impermeability of Leib-
niz to the influences of the new psychology. For Leibniz, among
all philosophers, ancient and modern, is conspicuous both for the
breadth of his sympathies and the clearness of his critical insight;
and his literary life overlapped not only Locke's but Berkeley's.
Locke, indeed, he understood — except where a spirit of prophecy
was necessary to understand him; but in Berkeley's epoch-mak-
ing work he could see nothing at all. And in his own psychology

MATHEMATICS VERSUS PSYCHOLOGY 1 5

the significance of introspection as a method of analysis finds
scant recognition. Consider for a moment the central feature
of his psychological theory, the conception of subconscious sen-
sations (or petites perceptions, as he called them). By what
manner of argument is the assumption of their existence sup-
ported ? We hear the sound of the waves beating upon the shore.
The waves are made of tiny drops, the separate sounds of which
we cannot distinguish. But yet we may be assured that each
drop makes some sound; for if the drops were silent the whole
ocean would be dumb. What would Berkeley have thought of
that? Leibniz's followers endeavored to make room for the new
psychology by giving it a place alongside of the old, distinguishing
thus between empirical and rational psychology. This was as
far as appreciation of it went.

In insisting thus upon the contrasting characteristics of ration-
alism and empiricism, we have had an ulterior object in view^;
namely, to prepare the way for an exposition of their common
presuppositions. To have attempted this latter task without
such preparation would have been doubly dangerous; first, by
exposing us to the criticism, that we were losing sight of dif-
ferences and endeavoring to confound well-established distinc-
tions; and, secondly, by putting us in the position of one who is
arguing for a thesis and hence is involuntarily led to suppress or
distort the facts which tend to weaken his contention. Whereas
now we can at least pretend to candor, and can prosecute our
discussion without fearing that we shall be accused of a par-
tisan interest in its outcome.

CHAPTER II

THE COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM
I. The Certainty of Immediate Experience

A very pointed discussion has recently been carried on, con-
cerning the proper standpoint to be assumed in the criticism of
the philosophers and philosophical schools of the past. How far
ought we to forget the increased knowledge which the years have
brought us, and, entering into the life of the past, to judge of
the value of its theories only in their own terms? Such conduct
seems a commendable generosity to old friends. But are the
philosophers more our friends than truth; and can the claims
of truth be satisfied if the standards by which we judge be any-
thing less than established fact and cogent demonstration? The
question has had a two-fold bearing, according as the reputation
of the thinker or the continued consideration to be given to his
work has been regarded as at stake. On the first score, the his-
torically minded critics have a comparatively easy case to defend.
Few men of sense are now inclined, for example, to begrudge
Descartes his fame as a natural philosopher, because his vortex-
theory of creation or his hypothesis of animal spirits flowing
through hollow nerve-channels has been definitely abandoned.
The greatness of the scientist does not depend wholly on his
permanent achievements. But, on the second score, the justice
of the historical attitude is not so clear; and many a learned critic
must have felt the accusation rankling within him, that he had
debased the study of philosophy to a mere aesthetic appreciation
of harmonious and grand ideas.

There are several reasons, nevertheless, which constrain us to
the opinion, that with doctrines, as with men, the sympathetic
criticism is the best. In the first place, the observation is famil-
iar, that the endeavor to do bare justice is a constant source of

i6

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 1/

rank injustice, — that the habit of checking up each paragraph of
an author with the reflection, "After all, is this true?" is to ensure
constant misinterpretation. For interpretation, at any rate,
must be historical ; and the mental agility to skip back and forth
over the interval of even a century is not human. Even the
canons of sound deduction, extra-temporal as their validity may
be, can seldom be applied by the critic without a thought as to
the scientific atmosphere that may have enveloped and given
color to the naked words that remain. The men who find fal-
lacies in Plato are generally superficial students. No man puts
on paper anything approaching a complete record of his thought.
For one premise expressed, there are ten that writer and reader
dlike supply from their common fund of assumptions. And the
inadequacy of the expression is only magnified when the writer
departs from the tradition of his school, correcting the assump-
tions which both he and his reader have alike regarded as indubi-
table. For though the need of free and full expression is sensibly
increased, the possibility of real intellectual intercourse is as much
diminished. One is tempted to remark that no man ever under-
stands a philosophical doctrine who has not been previously led
to a similar hypothesis in the course of his own reflections. This,
at any rate, we may safely say: first, that to discover a formal
fallacy in the reasonings of one of the great masters is, generally
speaking, equivalent to revealing one's own lack of comprehen-
sion; and, secondly, that when the existence of the fallacy is
fully established it remains probable that the particular line of
argument thus demolished has in reality little to do with the
acceptance of its conclusion. The really significant errors of
the philosophers are upon a far more magnificent scale. They
have their sources in peculiar limitations of character and en-
vironment; and in their consequences they affect the entire world-
view. The well attested fallacy is, rightly regarded, but one
surface indication among the many that must be patiently sought
out, of vast underlying strata of thought.

True it is, indeed, that however frankly one may in general
3

1 8 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

terms admit the probability that one's interpretation is incorrect,
one must in each particular case make the most of the best light
that one possesses. If any of Plato's arguments appear to the
student to be patently unsound, they must pass with him for
unsound until he has been convinced of the contrary. And
while in the midst of one's reading it may be necessary to lose
oneself by a species of dramatic illusion in the thoughts and
feelings of the past; still there must be times of afterthought
when one attempts to bring past and present together, — to sum
up the permanent contributions of by-gone schools to one's own
world-view. Nevertheless, as we must in the second place re-
mark, the significance of these admissions is modified by the fact
that the present world-view, by which we judge the past, is
itself in process of development. It is not even as if we possessed
a fixed body of scientific doctrine, which could be modified only by
accretion; that is to say, by the addition of new facts and prin-
ciples which should leave the old unchanged and undisturbed.
If that were the case, an objective and final criticism of earlier
theories would not be so impracticable. But, on the contrary,
the progress of science is a true evolution, an organic growth, in
which no part is wholly unaffected. Time-honored formulae,
even if unrefuted, are narrowed in their field of application, or,
by inclusion in more comprehensive generalizations, become pos-
sessed of a new significance. Thus, while two and two still make
four and doubtless will continue to do so, the science of arithmetic
has had a new birth and the general conception of number itself
has been transformed, since the establishment by Cantor of the
existence of distinct 'transfinlte' numbers.

In the third place, the chief motive which we have for studying
the thought of the past is such as to make sympathetic criticism
of the greatest possible importance. For that motive is self-
knowledge, — the analysis of the categories of contemporary
thought in the light of their development. The method of analy-
sis to be employed is fundamentally the same as is used in genetic
investigations of every sort. As a moving object is easier to

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM ,19

distinguish than one at rest, so the developing organism reveals
the intricacies of its structure far more easily than the same
organism studied at only a single stage of its life-history. And
so also the philosophical conceptions, which to our direct exami-
nation appear to be inexplicable intuitions of the human mind,
may exhibit their hidden content with the greatest clearness
when the record of their various metamorphoses lies before us.
Thus the question of deepest interest is not : "How far can Plato's
thought be made to square with the science of today?" but rather :
"How far has Plato's thought entered into the living tissue of the
science of today?" The most valuable criticism, therefore, is
contained in a plain and clear exposition. The best refutation
of a theory is the unvarnished history of its transformations.

To many of our readers all that we have just now been saying
must appear to be sheer truism; and very few will question its
substantial correctness. It may, therefore, be thought worthy
of note, that not one of the writers whom we have mentioned
would have found a word of truth in the whole discussion. No
feature, in fact, is more characteristic of the old dogmatism than
the general incapacity of thinkers of both schools to recognize
the fact (or the possibility) of an evolutionary progress of human
knowledge. If science should advance, it must be by the addition
of new truths to old. That half-truths might grow into whole
ones was unsuspected. As truth w^as absolute truth, so error
was absolute error; and as the former was most advantageous,
so the latter (whether avoidable or unavoidable) was most detri-
mental, to the acquirement of further truth.

Of the rationalists this holds true as a matter of course. The
very essence of anti-evolutionism is expressed by Spinoza in his
letter to a recreant pupil: 'T do not presume that I have found
the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philos-
ophy. If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same
way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to
two right angles."^ It is not a question of comparisons! But

^Letter LXXIV, Elwes tr

20 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

the most complete illustration of which we are aware is to be
found in the second part of the Discourse on Method. The very
first reflection which is there recorded is upon the fact, "that there
is seldom so much perfection in works composed of many separate
parts, upon which different hands have been employed, as in
those completed by a single master." This might be seen in
buildings, cities, religions, and civil constitutions. The same is
true of the "sciences contained in books" — at least the non-
mathematical sciences. And finally the very development of
each one of us from infancy is a most unfortunate necessity.
'Tt is almost impossible that our judgments can be so correct
and solid as they would have been, had our reason been mature
from the moment of our birth, and had we always been guided
by it alone." It is under the influence of this reflection that he
determines upon a clean sweep of his previously entertained opin-
ions, and that he adopts as the first maxim of his future scientific
endeavors: "never to accept anything for true which I did not
clearly know to be such."

Among empiricists the same blindness to the possibility of a
true evolution of knowledge prevails. "Nothing," says Hume,
"is more usual and more natural for those who pretend to dis-
cover an^^thing new to the world in philosophy and the sciences,
than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying
all those which have been advanced before them."^ This attitude
is typical of pre-evolutionary thought ; and Hume does not deny
that it is substantially his own. He is only concerned to excuse
the implied effrontery of his new pretensions. And his excuse
is the usual one. He has found a new mode of attack, a new
avenue of approach; he is applying new methods, or is radically
enlarging the scope of old ones. Thus he hopes to succeed ivhere
others have failed. That his own philosophy is an almost in-
evitable outgrowth of the speculations of Locke, Berkeley, and
Hutcheson, he does not for a moment suspect.

The certainty of immediate experience — "seeing is believing" —

^Treatise of Human Nature, Introduction.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 21

is a principle which in the history of philosophy may be said to
date from Empedocles of Acragas, but which common sense has
no doubt held from time immemorial. Not that either philos-
ophy or common sense has always been agreed upon the matter.
Indeed, as a philosophical dogma, nobody would ever have
thought of asserting such a proposition, had it not previously been
denied. With Empedocles it was simply a reassertion of the
trustworthiness of clear perception which in the previous period of
Greek philosophy had become more and more deeply suspected.
The physical theories of the early cosmologists had been so
utterly out of accord with ordinary observation that they (or their
followers) had inevitably been led to exalt the authority of dis-
cursive reason as over against that of direct observation; until
with Heraclitus, and still more with Parmenides, an absolute
scepticism of the senses resulted.

In the generation following Empodocles this scepticism took
on a new and more subtle form. According to a theory ascribed
to Protagoras, the senses are indeed absolutely trustworthy in
so far as they simply make each man aware of his own perceptive
states of consciousness; but they give him no insight into the
sensations of other men or into the nature of things. The notion
of an indubitable immediate experience is thus preserved; but
the range of its significance is seriously restricted. This doctrine
of the relativity of sense-perception was maintained by all of the
more important thinkers of antiquity (except the Stoics); and
in modern times it has been held by both rationalists and em-
piricists. Certain of the latter, indeed, have made it a ground
for doubting, or denying altogether, the existence of any object
over and above the sensations themselves.

A second form of immediatism philosophy owes to Plato.
Desiring, as a constructive social reformer, to found the theory
and practice of politics upon a basis of indubitable truth, it
appeared clear to him that Protagoras had taken away the hope
of discovering such a basis in the evidence of the senses. Yet he
saw that as a matter of our life-history all knowledge starts from

22 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

sensation. A partial solution of the difficulty he found in the
example of geometry. Without sensible diagrams the geometri-
cian could accomplish little, and yet the most exquisitely con-
structed diagram was far from conforming to the exact require-
ments of the science. It was evidently as a suggestion that the
diagram was useful, — a suggestion of a perfect prototype which
it weakly imitated. Was this not true of all our scientific ideas,
including those of morality and statecraft (in which Plato was
most deeply interested)? Is not the good man whom we see —
brave, wise, temperate, and just as he may be — a very imperfect
illustration of the ideal courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice
of which we can conceive, and of which the philosopher attempts
to frame adequate definitions? But if the conceptions of the
mathematical and moral sciences are not logically derived from
sense-impressions, but only suggested by them, what logical
ground have they? It seems to have been properly held by the
geometricians, that the fundamental conceptions of their science
were self-evident and needed no further warrant. But Plato saw
that this was not so. He perceived that all these conceptions
involved assumptions that might perfectly well be questioned
and that the geometricians had no way of defending; and he
believed the like to be true of the moral sciences.

In order properly to found both classes of sciences, one must,
he thought, adopt a course directly the reverse of deduction.
Frankly recognizing their fundamental assumptions as mere hy-
potheses, one must seek for more comprehensive hypotheses
which shall unite and explain the former. And the new hypothe-
ses must be similarly treated ; and the process must be repeated
again and again until it is no longer necessary or possible. That
is to say, the process must be repeated until a conception is
reached which is no longer hypothetical, but which is indeed
self-explanatory and capable of explaining and justifying all the
conceptions that have led up to it. The content of this highest
conception Plato called the Good; and because the conception
was itself incapable of being explained in simpler terms, but'

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 23

must be reached by each thinker through a like process of ascent,
it came to be for later antiquity the very type of the hopelessly
obscure, and men would say: "As incomprehensible as the Good
of Plato." In his own mind, however, it constituted a new type
of absolute certitude, in default of which no genuine knowledge
was possible. The supreme conception was reached by an in-
volved and uncertain process of thought, but when it was thus
reached its truth was immediately manifest to reason. The men-
tal act by which this takes place Plato represents by the analogy
of sensuous perception. In contrast to such perception, however,
it possessed a mediated immediacy. In a word, it was an intuition.

This logical theory, which with modifications of greater or less
import has persisted down to our own day, descended to modern
times by three principal avenues, — the teaching of Augustine,
that of Aristotle, and that of Plato himself. Aristotle, who gave
to the method of working up to first principles the name of induc-
tion (eTrayoyri) appears to have thought that it led, not to a single
highest conception, but to a variety of first principles peculiar
to the various special sciences; but each when reached was intui-
tively certain. With Augustine the intuition of self-consciousness
first gains the importance which it has had in modern thought.

It is thus entirely in the spirit of the ancient rationalism that
Descartes divides the task of philosophy into two parts: first,
a preliminary analysis, the object of which is to discover the
necessary fundamental truths; and, secondly, the deduction from
these of the system of the sciences. The so-called 'criterion of
truth' which he professed to use in order to distinguish genuine
from pretended intuitions, is peculiarly significant. The genuine
are clear (that is to say, indubitably present to consciousness)
and distinct (that is to say, unmistakable in content). In both
epithets the analogy of sense-perception is evident; and in both
alike the recognition of an absolute beginning is apparent, — a
beginning which lies beyond proof and beyond external criticism.
The evidence of the intuition is entirely in itself. Reflection
can do no more than note that it is and what it is.

24 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

A most Instructive example of Descartes's intuitions is that
which stands first in his system and which he accepts as the
type and standard of them all, — self-consciousness. I may doubt
(says he) the existence of all the objects of my thoughts, feelings,
and desires. I may question whether the world of nature which
the senses reveal be not an illusion; whether the whole content
of the deductive sciences be not vitiated by lapses of memory;
whether all the joys and sorrows of life, all life's purposes and
ideals, be not wholly vain. But — past and future aside — I can-
not question the reality of my present experience as such. I
cannot doubt that such and such ideas, emotions, and impulses
are now within my mind. Indeed all that I know assuredly
with regard to my mind — or rather, to speak strictly, myself —
is just the fact that I have such an experience. So much is
clear and distinct. / think, therefore I am (or, /, as a thinking
being, exist), is not a deduction, nor is it in need of deductive sup-
port. It stands in its own strength. It would be true, though
all else were false.

It has been observed, that so far as awareness of one's own
mental states is concerned, the principle of immediate certitude
is equally acknowledged by rationalists and by empiricists. In-
deed, the very example of an intuition which we have just taken
from Descartes turns out, when carefully examined, to be a
modified form of the doctrine of Protagoras, set forth (not as he
had done, as a lesson drawn from experience, but) as an intuition.
When one looks to see what meaning Descartes attributes to the /,
or myself, one discovers that it is simply that which is intuitively
known as thinking. And, if one further asks what a thinking
being is, he replies: "It is a thing that doubts, understands,
[conceives,] affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and
perceives." All these properties unite in his nature, as certainly
as he exists — even though they should convey to him no truth
beyond their inherence in, and inseparability from, himself. Sup-
pose, for example, that the perceptions of sense are false. "Let
it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 25

a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false; and this is what is
properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than
thinking."^

All this may be otherwise expressed by saying that rationalism,
as well as empiricism, acknowledges the absolute trustworthiness
of introspection as a source of truth. The difference between the
two schools on this score is due, first, to the improvement of the
method of introspection by Berkeley; and, secondly, to a conse-
quent great divergence of opinion as regards the actual contents
of the mind, revealed by introspection. The ultimate appeal,
however, is to the same supreme authority.

The improvement in method is nowhere more strikingly illus-
trated than in the criticism of Descartes with which Berkeley
introduces his own theory of the visual perception of distance.
Descartes had seen that the altering convergence of the two eyes
plays a frequent part in such perception; and he promptly at-
tributed this part to the angle formed by the lines joining the
two eyes to the observed object. The greater the angle, the
nearer the object; and thus the idea of the angle must be the
basis for a judgment as to the distance. But this, Berkeley says,
is pure fiction. No such process of judgment takes place; and
the idea of the angle, upon which the judgment is supposed to
be based , is almost never present to consciousness. The defective-
ness of Descartes's procedure is that he allowed himself to specu-
late as to what must be in the mind in order to account for the
possibility of the given phenomenon (of distance-vision), instead
of basing his explanation upon such facts as were known from
direct observation. Since Berkeley's statement of the case is
very brief, and since it marks an epoch in the history of science,
a few lines may be profitably quoted. "It is evident that no idea
which is not itself perceived can be to me the means of perceiving
any other idea .... But those lines and angles by means where-
of some men pretend to explain the perception of distance are
themselves not at all perceived, nor are they in truth ever thought

^Meditations, II; italics ours.

26 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of by those unskillful in optics .... Every one is himself the
best judge of what he perceives and what not. In vain shall all
the mathematicians in the world tell me that I perceive certain
lines and angles which introduce into my mind the various ideas
of distance, so long as I myself am conscious of no such thing."i
The true explanation he finds in the sensations set up by the
muscular contraction involved in converging the two eyes. His
language here is equally interesting. "It remains that we inquire
what ideas or sensations there be that attend vision, unto which
we may suppose the ideas of distance are connected, and by
which they are introduced into the mind. — And, first, it is certain
by experience, that when we look at a near object with both eyes,
according as it approaches or recedes from us, we alter the dis-
position of our eyes, by lessening or widening the distance be-
tween the pupils. This disposition or turn of the eyes is attended
with a sensation, which seems to me to be that which in this case
brings the idea of greater or lesser distance into the mind. Not
that there is any natural or necessary connection between the
sensation we perceive by the turn of the eyes and greater or
lesser distance. But — because the mind has, by constant ex-
perience, found the different sensations corresponding to the dif-
ferent dispositions of the eyes to be attended each with a different
degree of distance in the object — there has grown an habitual
or customary connexion between those two sorts of ideas ;"2 just
as, for example, the sound of a word becomes associated with its
meaning. Here we have what is at least a plausible theory,
based upon a genuine introspection.

It is with the confidence born of this improved method of
introspection, that Berkeley ventures to question the existence
in the mind of a distinct class of abstract general ideas over and
above particular ideas. Here his polemic is directed against
Locke; but at the same time it attacks the very foundations of
(intuitionalistic) rationalism. For the essential mark of an intui-
tion, and that which distinguishes it from an impression of the

^An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, §§ lo, 12.
Ubid., §§i6, 17.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 2J

senses, it is absolute universality. The rationalists would not
even admit that a genuinely universal idea could in any way be
built up from the data of sensation. Generalized images (sup-
posed to be formed by the blurring together of a great number of
similar sense-perceptions) were, indeed, acknowledged to exist;
but these were to be carefully distinguished from the true ideas
of reason. Thus, for example, the somewhat dim and hazy image
of a triangle that may start up in the mind at the mention of the
word, was believed to be a radically distinct and separate thing
from the scientific conception of triangle which is treated of in
geometry. This whole distinction Berkeley proposed, not to de-
molish, but utterly to transform, by pointing out that universality
of meaning is not primarily a peculiarity of origin or structure of
ideas, but a pecuVmr function which certain ideas have acquired.
That is to say, — "an idea, which, considered in itself, is particular,
becomes general by being made to represent or to stand for all
other particular ideas of the same sort." Now what evidence
had he to support this position? Simply. the fact that after
careful introspection he could discover no such general ideas as
Locke or the rationalists had described. "If any man has the
faculty of framing in his mind such an idea of a triangle as is
here [by Locke] described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him
out of it, nor would I go about it. All I desire is that the reader
would fully and certainly inform himself whether he has such an
idea or no. And this, methinks, can be no hard task for anyone
to perform .... So long as I confine my thoughts to my own
ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can easily be mis-
taken. The objects I consider, I clearly and adequately know. I
cannot be deceived in thinking I have an idea which I have not.
It is not possible for me to imagine that any of my own ideas are
alike or unlike that are not truly so.''^ The final appeal is thus
to the same authority which Descartes too recognized as supreme
and infallible, — the immediate consciousness of the contents of
one's own mind.

^Principles of Human Knowledge, Introducticn, § 13; our italic?

28 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

It cannot be said, indeed, that Berkeley succeeds altogether in
banishing intuitions from psychology. The 'notions' which he
admits, and especially the notion of himself as a 'spiritual sub-
stance,' are convincing evidence to the contrary. The word 'idea'
had been used by Locke to denote any content of consciousness.
Berkeley restricts its application to sensations and sensation-
complexes, original or revived — that is to say, to those conscious
processes which, according to his view, have no reference to any
reality beyond themselves. But notions have just such a refer-
ence. A spirit, whether human or divine, and the notion of this
spirit, are by no means the same. The notion, therefore, aims
at a universal and objective validity, which is wholly foreign
to the nature of the idea. Now the notions of other spirits are
arrived at inferentially, "by reason"; the notion of the self is
given directly, "by inward feeling or reflexion." But "inward
feeling or reflexion," in the then usual sense of the terms, could
impart only a species of ideas. As the source of a notion, which
refers to a reality beyond itself, it is a thinly disguised faculty of
intuition.

Much the same comment is to be passed upon that mysterious
faculty of comparison, which Hume's theory inherits from
Locke's, and to which ideas of relations are conceived to be due,
— particularly in connection with those classes of relations which
are completely determined by the ideas between which they ob-
tain; namely, resemblance, contrariety, degrees in any quality,
and proportion in quantity or number. Let us ask how this
complete determination of the relation is known. How do we
know, for example, that the double of a number must always
be its double? This is not the same as asking how we know that
the one number is double the other, for that may be know^n in
various ways, direct and indirect, and with all degrees of proba-
bility or certainty. At the same time, the answer to the former
question must be included in the answer to the latter; for the
relation in question is knowahle as a necessary relation. Other-
wise Hume's explanation would be obvious; namely, that the

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 29

determinate character of the relationship is not perceived in the
cognition of the relationship itself, but is an induction from ex-
perience, not less doubtful than many others. But, in Hume's
own language, these four kinds of relation, "depending solely
upon ideas [i. e., upon the ideas related] can be the objects of
knowledge and certainty," and accordingly "are the foundation
of science" in a sense to which no induction from experience can
pretend.^ We submit that this means, and can only mean, that
in the act of comparison from which the idea of the relation is
derived, there is involved an intuition of the deterriiinateness of
the relation.

This, however, is a digression. What we wish particularly
to make clear is, not that Berkeley or Hume retained elements of
intuitionalism in their systems, but the far more important fact,
that intuitionalism and empiricism have a common principle in
their acceptance of a direct and infallible perception of truth.
That in comparison with this fundamental dogma the differences
between the two great schools sink into comparative insignifi-
cance, will, we trust, become increasingly apparent through the
discussions of the following chapters.

^Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part III, Section i.

CHAPTER III

THE COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM
II. The Simplicity of Elements and the Externality of Relations

The possibility of an ultimate analysis , or, in other words, the
existence of absolutely simple elements, is a common pos-
tulate of both the rationalistic and the empiricistic systems.
The nature of the analysis to which the possibility of
completion is ascribed, is ostensibly diflferent in the two
cases. In both, indeed, it is a process of explanation, an exhibi-
tion of the true inwardness of that which has been accepted as a
rough and ready whole. But for rationalism this must be a
definition (or demonstration) of universals; for empiricism it
must be a dissection of individuals. For the former it is a dis-
covery of logical presuppositions; for the latter it is a discovery
of psychological structure. And the ultimate elements to which
the one analysis leads are simple conceptions and simple judg-
ments; while the elements which the other contemplates are
simple sensations. The contrast is glaring enough. But that
there is, nevertheless, an important identity underlying the two
positions can, we believe, be made equally evident.

Let us observe the logical connection between this assumption
of the simple, and other characteristic dogmas of rationalism and
empiricism.

The connection with the intuitionalistic feature of rationalism
is certainly close. On the one hand, it is as a guarantee of the
truth of the indefinable and the indemonstrable — of that residuum
left by the explanatory process, which baffles further effort at
reduction — that the faculty of intuition is invoked. On the other
hand, by reason of the very directness of the cognitive act and
the very immediacy with which its objects are presented, the
intuitive concept can scarcely admit of explanation. At any

30

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 3 1

rate, we find that in Descartes's methodology simplicity is not
so much used as a mark for the distinguishing of intuitions —
perhaps that would have made the intuitionalistic theory too
palpably a stop-gap — as the clearness and distinctness of intui-
tional cognition are regarded as ensuring the simplicity of its
content. For, in the first place, "whatever is more simple is
whatever is more easy to comprehend, and what we might make
use of in the solution of problems;" and, in the second place,
'4t is to be observed . . . that there are a few necessary elements
that we perceive by themselves, independently of all others, I
do not say at first, but by the aid of experience and the light
that is in us. Also I say that it is necessary to observe these
with care; for it is these which we call the most simple of each
series."^ And again: "Considering here things merely in their
relation to our intelligence, we shall call simple those only the
notion of which is so clear and so distinct that the mind cannot
divide it into other notions still more simple. "^

Simplicity, relative or absolute, thus means for rationalism
logical priority. Now let it be recalled that according to this view
the order of logical priority is irreversible ; that in the system of
science every inferred truth owes its whole certainty to its prem-
ises without contributing anything to theirs ; and that accordingly
the knowledge of a conclusion is impossible except upon the
basis of its own proper premises. This now means that the knowl-
edge of the complex somehow contains the knowledge of its con-
stitutent simple elements — even though these latter may never
have attracted attention. "Thus I can know a triangle without
ever having noticed that this knowledge contains that of the
angle, the line, the number three, figure, extension, etc.; which
does not prevent our saying that the nature of the triangle is a
compound of all these natures and that they are better known than
the triangle, since they are what are comprised in it."^ We know

^Rules for the Direction of the Mind, VI. Torrey, Philosophy of Descartes, pp.
74. 76.

^Ibid., XII; Torrey, p. 98; italics ours.

^Ihid , XII; Torrey, p. loi; italics ours. So Spinoza holds that, if we have

32 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

all the simple natures absolutely; but evidently we may know
them without knowing that we know. After what fashion,
then, do we possess this knowledge? Exactly as we retain in
memory anything which lies for the moment without the field
of reflective attention. Even the mind of the unborn child, if it
were freed from the all-engrossing impressions of pain, pleasure,
warmth, etc., would find within itself the ideas of all self-evident
truths.^ To be a rational creature at all is to possess these ideas ;
and the act of intuition by which they are acquired proves to be
only an act of attention to the permanent contents of the thinking
faculty.

From this point of view the necessity of postulating an absolute
limit to the process of explanation becomes quite evident. For
without it such knowledge as the rationalist requires would be
virtually impossible — possible, perhaps, in the sense of existing
in the unfathomable depths of the mind, but not capable of
being brought to clearness and distinctness before the attentive
consciousness. For an idea's being distinct (or adequate) means
that the entire content is perfectly manifest; and the range of
attention cannot embrace an infinite content. This applies both
to the process of definition and to that of demonstration. With
respect to the latter the case can be put even more strongly. If
the knowledge of a demonstrable truth presupposes the knowledge
of its grounds, and the knowledge of these grounds (if they be
not ultimate) presupposes in turn the knowledge of their grounds,
the series of grounds and consequents cannot possibly be an
infinite one. For suppose the knowledge of the demonstrable
truth A is B presupposes the knowledge of C is D. Then the
former truth is capable of being expressed in the form of a syllo-
gism : If C is D, A is B; hut C is D; therefore A is B. Now if C
is D is capable of similar expansion, and the process is conceived

any knowledge at all, God is better known to us than anything else. For though one
cannot reason from the nature of anything else to the divine nature — that would
be to ascend through the scale from effect to cause, which is impossible— yet the
fact that one knows anything at all implies that he must already have an adequate
notion of God.

^Reply to Hyperaspistes; translated in Torrey, Philosophy of Descartes, p. 128, n

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 33

to be repeated ad infinitum, nothing remains of the categorical
proposition, from which we started, save an endless chain of if's;
and no reason appears for supposing that the proposition A is
notB, depending upon a similar infinite chain of antecedents, may
not have equal claim to truth. Moreover, if there be no ultimate
truths, we cannot even be certain of the implication oi A is B, in
C is D. For if the fact of this implication is demonstrable, it
too dissolves into an endless series of conditions which cannot
serve to exclude the validity of a similar series leading to the
absence of such implication.

Such, then, is the relation between the assumption of the exist-
ence of simple elements of thought and the general scheme of
rationalism. How does the case stand on the side of empiricism?
Very similarly. Here, it will be remembered, psychological intro-
spection has been made the organ of philosophy, and has been
qualified as an infallible source of truth — truth, to be sure, which
is limited in its scope to the enumeration of the actual contents of
consciousness. But if such enumeration is to be worth anything
as unquestionable knowledge, it must, at least for some small
portion of the field of consciousness, declare precisely what it
contains; and this can be done with entire satisfactoriness only
if there exist ultimate elements in terms of which the enumeration
can be made. For, with regard to any complex factor which
might be named in the description, it may always be doubted
whether its identification has depended upon the particular ele-
ments which it contains, or, perhaps, upon a characteristic
arrangement of elements which in themselves are by no means
determinate — or, again, whether similarity of meaning may not
have been taken for identity of structural contents. Let it be
remembered, in this connection, that for the empiricist structure
and function are absolutely disparate orders of facts; and that
since the structure alone of an idea can be given by an introspec-
tion that declares what is there and what is not there, all function,
and accordingly all meaning, belongs to the problematical and
the obscure — to that which must be explained, and not that in
terms of which explanation is to be given.

34 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Moreover, just as the intuition of the rationalist creates
nothing, but is merely a direction of attention to what was
already present implicity ; so the infallible introspection of the
empiricist adds nothing, changes nothing, in the complex w^hich
it analyzes, but simply emphasizes successively the elements
which there existed in combination. Each element, so far as its
own nature is concerned, is precisely the same in and out of the
combination; otherwise the analysis would be of questionable
validity. Such change as it may appear to undergo is wholly
to be ascribed to our shifting attention.

We shall return to this subject very shortly. Here we are
concerned to show its relation to the empiricist criterion of sim-
plicity. A remarkable passage occurring in Hume's criticism of
the doctrine of abstract ideas — the absurdity of which lies in the
fact that they exceed the limits of possible simplicity — will serve
to illustrate the point. "We have observed, that whatever ob-
jects are different are distinguishable, and that whatever objects
are distinguishable are separable by the thought and imagination.
And we may here add, that these propositions are equally true in
the inverse, and that whatever objects are separable are also distin-
guishable, and that whatever objects are distinguishable are also
different. For how is it possible we can separate what is not
distinguishable, or distinguish what is not different? In order
therefore to know, whether abstraction implies a separation, we
need only consider it in this view, and examine, whether all the
circumstances, which we abstract from in our general ideas, be
such as are distinguishable and different from those, which we
retain as essential parts of them. But 'tis evident at first sight,
that the precise length of a line is not different nor distinguishable
from the line itself [i e., as the preceding sentence shows, from
the essential parts of the line itself] ; nor the precise degree of any
quality from the quality. These ideas, therefore, admit no more
of separation than they do of distinction and difference."^ If
for the twentieth century reader these words need any commen-

^Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part I, Section 7.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 35

tary, it is that attention may be called to the fact, that 'different'
here denotes a numerical difference (not a difference in kind), and
that 'distinguishable' accordingly means recognizable as numeri-
cally different; while 'separable' refers to the "liberty of the imagi-
nation to transpose and change its ideas." Of the three terms,
therefore, 'different' applies to the simple ideas as they are in
themselves, 'distinguishable' applies to them as objects of atten-
tion, and 'separable' applies to them as subject to the caprice of
imagination. That the separable is distinguishable, and the dis-
tinguishable different, may therefore be regarded as analytical
propositions; and Hume rightly regards them as sufficiently
proved by the mere challenge to conceive the facts otherwise.
But that the different must be distingui hable and the distin-
guishable separable are characteristic dogmas of the empiricistic
system, proceeding directly from the conception of psychological
elements, and thus indirectly (as we have tried to show) from
the doctrine of the certainty of immediate experience. Upon
this point the following passage in Hume's chapter on memory
and imagination is curiously illuminating. "Nor will this liberty
of the fancy appear strange, when we consider, that all our ideas
are copied from our impressions, and that there are not any two
impressions which are perfectly inseparable. Not to mention, that
this is an evident consequence of the division of ideas into simple
and complex.'"'^

We may add that from the logical point of view the psychologi-
cal element may be indefinitely complex. That is to say, it may
enter into a variety of relations of resemblance, and may be
classified accordingly; and in this way it is capable of receiving
different predicates and hence of acquiring an extensive meaning.
Thus one elementary sound may resemble certain others in pitch,
others in duration, and yet others in intensity; and hence may
be regarded as a middle C, as a half -note, and 2iS fortissimo. The
distinction between these predicates is thus at bottom a distinc-
tion between the different relations of resemblance into which

^Op. cit.. Book I, Part I, Section 3; our italics.

36 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

the simple idea enters, and is not supposed in the least to affect
the absolute simplicity of the idea as an existential unit.

The doctrine of the externality of relations has been repeatedly
foreshadowed in these last pages. The recognition of ultimate
elements, of whatever sort, implies that these elements have in
themselves a character, which is independent of the mutual rela-
tions into which the processes of combination bring them; so
that in contrast to the inner nature of the separate elements the
relations may be properly described as unessential, or external.
Such is conceived to be the case with the relation into which the
straight line and the number three are brought in the concept of
the triangle ; and such is similarly the case with the relation into
which two musical notes are brought when they become parts
of a single chord. For since — to take the latter example — the
notes in their elementary character are the same in and out of
the chord, the relation which they sustain is no true part or
property of either of the two. Furthermore, if we consider a
relation between complex terms, what each term is in its own
nature must obviously be determined by what it contains; that
is to say, by the nature of its elementary constituents, together
with the relations between these constituents w^hich make up
its own structure. The larger relation of which it is a term must
be as absolutely external to it, as the internal structural relations
are to its ultimate elements.

However, the externality of relations is a doctrine too plausible
on its own account to depend wholly upon such support. The
very notion of a relation — common sense will say — is of some-
thing extending between distinct terms, with which it is no more
to be confounded than they are with each other. The supreme
paradox of a term 'constituted by its relations,' or of a 'system of
relations in which nothing is related,' was not then familiar to
philosophers; but it would have been explained as only more
extensive, not more inherently ridiculous, than the initial absur-
dity of a relation which affects or modifies its terms.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 3/

But with all its plausibility the doctrine of externality is ex-
ceedingly close to another which is shocking to common sense,
and into which the former shows a constant tendency to trans-
form itself; the theory, namely, that relations are unreal. The
reason for this tendency is apparent. All relations whatsoever
would seem to be external to the simple elements of which all
reality consists. It may be suggested — and in recent times the
suggestion has seriously been made — that some relations, at least,
are themselves simple elements of reality, as underivable and as
unquestionable as the terms between which they subsist. But a
simple relation, existing independently of any and all terms, ap-
peared to the old dogmatists to be a mere absurdity; so that this
mode of escape was not open to them. To what new difficulties
it might have led, the example of Kant will perhaps teach us.
For the present it will suffice for us to note that neither ration-
alism nor empiricism is able, when pressed, to vindicate the
reality of relations — nor greatly cares to do so.

In the general degradation of relations to the merely phenom-
enal, there is one, at least, which for rationalism remains sacred
and unassailable; namely, the logical relation of intensive inclu-
sion} While, therefore, each concept signifies only the essence
of its object as unaffected by all relations to other objects —
while, to take a famous example, the concept wax signifies what
wax is universally, regardless of its behavior toward other things
in the world, and the concept fire contains no reference to the
influence of fire upon wax or wood or gunpowder — still, where one
concept includes another, a real relation subsists between them.
Thus both fire and wax include in their connotation the less
intensive concept, mode of extension.

The ground for the exception is not far to seek. This relation
is the one among all others which may reasonably be said not
to be external, at least to the more intensive concept. For the
relation expresses the real essence of the concept, which is the

iln which the definition of the one term includes the other; as with insect
and anima\

38 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

inclusion in its meaning of such and such more general concepts.
And furthermore we can see how the explanation can be made,
that, properly speaking, this is no relation (between tw^o distinct
terms) at all, but simply the identity of the included concept in
and out of its particular setting. In like manner, we may add , the
only reasonable inference from premises to a conclusion must
have the form : A includes B, B includes C, therefore A includes C;
the justification of the procedure consisting in the recognition
of the identity of C in itself considered, with C as an element in
B, whether, again, the latter be considered apart or as an element
in A . (So also, if the two premises and the conclusion be regarded
as concepts, the fact that the former, taken together, imply the
latter, is to be explained by the fact that the meaning of the latter
is contained in the 'oint content of the former.)

But it is obvious that the relation of inclusion cannot obtain
between simple concepts; and the question becomes urgent, how
the rationalist can save his world from falling apart into a chaos
of disconnected elements. For the older rationalists (of whom
Descartes is here typical), an answer is to be found in the fact
that they really postulate two distinct classes of elements, namely,
indefinable concepts and indemonstrable judgments, each of
which is simple in its own sense, and each of which serves as a
bond of connection for the other. The elementary judgments
contain the elementary concepts in (or as) their terms; and the
same terms occurring in several judgments unite them into syllo-
gisms.

Now it seems clear that if the judgments are to do their part
in the matter they cannot be merely analytical; that is to say,
their predicates cannot be contained in the content of their sub-
jects. They must be strictly synthetical. But here, as time went
on, scepticism found an entrance. Does intuition ever vouch
for the truth of a synthetical judgment? Descartes, indeed,
declares so ; but others have denied the self-evidence of every one
of the examples which he adduces. Is not science thus brought
into a perilous condition — to depend for its first principles upon

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 39

the mere word of contradicted witnesses?^ Moreover, if we ask
why demonstration is ever required for any judgment whatsoever
— why a ground must be sought for the predicated connection of its
terms — is it not because the judgment as it stands appears to be
synthetical and cannot be left so? In a word, is not every syn-
thetical judgment a standing problem? So Leibniz believed ; and
accordingly he sought to reduce even the axioms of Euclid to
analytical form. Thus intuitionalistic rationalism assumes a
position substantially identical (despite Leibniz's protest) with
that of nominalistic Hobbianism; namely, that all science must
be deduced from definitions. But while thus gaining a certain
self-consistency, it is lost in that hopeless unproductivity from
which Descartes, by means of the assumption of distinct axioms,
had sought to save it.

It has been suggested that a final means of synthesis is to be
found in the judgment which denies a simple concept of its
negative; as, for example, What is unextended is not extended.
Here we remark that Descartes is correct in assuming that the
negative of a simple concept, if it be itself a concept at all, must
also be a simple concept. For since all definition is by means of
genus and differentia, the negative is not definable in terms of
the positive — as, for example, non-extension is not a species of
extension. And if it be suggested that the negative is in every
case a species of non-existence, the reply follows, that the positive
is then equally a species of existence, and hence equally complex.
If, then, unextended is a concept at all. The unextended is not ex-
tended is a synthetic judgment; and as such it would appear to
be open to much the same criticisms as other supposedly elemen-
tary synthetic judgments. Suppose, however, it be said — as Des-

1 Cf . Hobbes's criticism of the dare el distincte (quoted by Mr. Mahaffy) : "This
way of speaking, a great clearness in the understanding (as a test of truth), is meta-
phorical, and therefore not fitted for an argument; for whenever a man feels no
doubt at al! he will pretend to this clearness." Cf. also Kant's explanation of the
necessity for a critical deduction of a priori principles, — "without it, our assertion
might be suspected of being purely gratuitous." Critique of Pure Reason, An-
alytic of Principles, Chz.^ II.

40 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

cartes does say^ — that while, as ideas, both positive and negative
are equally elementary, nevertheless the one denotes a reality of
which the other denotes the privation. Then, if this be supposed
to be the ground of the negative judgment, we have the paradox
of two concepts, in themselves utterly indifferent to each other,
held asunder in thought by a characteristic of reality which is
known only through the concepts themselves.

From the point of view which these reflections indicate, and
which, while it belonged to neither Leibniz nor Spinoza, probably
represents the real drift of opinion of both, — leaving aside the
question whether any simple negative concepts actually exist,^
it is clear that no simple positive concept can be universally
afhrmed or denied of any other. On the other hand, there is
nothing to prevent any two simple positive concepts, or, indeed,
all such concepts, from being predicates of one all-comprehensive
concept whose connotation includes them all. This concept, be-
cause it can be included in no more intensive one, can never be a
predicate. Now this was the ancient meaning of the term sub-
stance (that which in judgment must always be subject and never
predicate) ; and it is connected with the modern meaning (the
eternally existent) by the simple reflection, that since no simple
predicate can be denied of it, it contains all possible reality.
As predicates of substance, the simple positive ideas are called
attributes. Now because any substance must contain every pos-
sible attribute, Spinoza concludes that there can be but one sub-
stance ("All determination is negation"); while Leibniz, reflect-
ing that an identical quality can exist in any number of degrees,
finds room for an infinite number of substances possessing the
same attributes in different degrees, one alone (God) possessing
them absolutely, or in an infinite degree.

Thus, as the system works itself out, rationalism conceives the

^Rulesfor the Direction of the Mind, XII. Torrey, Philosophy of Descartes, p. 99.

2The solution of this question clearly depends upon the further inquiry, whether
contradictory concepts imply a genus of which they are alike members. This is,
by the way, a formal aspect of Hegel's famous discussion of being and naught;
which are conceived, as he says, as simple contradictories, and yet have no higher
genus within which they may be distinguished.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 4 1

real world as expressed in a hierarchy of concepts related only
through intensive inclusion, and all converging in one supreme
concept whose definition comprehends within itself every neces-
sary truth. Corresponding to this logical hierarchy is the on to-
logical hierarchy of causes and effects. The logical relation and
the causal relation are identical. The cause includes the effect
in precisely the same way in which the richer concept includes
the poorer. The supreme cause is God, in whom, as the sum of
all positive predicates, all possible combinations of reality are
grounded .

We cannot forbear noting that in Spinoza (and to a lesser
degree in other rationalists) this mode of thinking is curiously
mixed with another, inherited from neo-Platonism, and com-
monly called mysticism. According to this theory, the supreme
concept in which all others are implicit is so far from being the
most intensive of all concepts, that it is the least intensive — the
summum genus. To this concept the name of God is ascribed;
and he is regarded as the ultimate cause of which all specific
realities are but particular effects. The commixture of rational-
ism with mysticism — whole heavens asunder, as they logically
are — is probably due to a very ancient misconception with regard
to the processes of definition and demonstration. Definition, it
is said, must always be in terms of the higher, that is, the more
general and less intensive; and demonstration likewise must be
founded upon premises of greater and greater generality. But
it is forgotten that though each element of the predicate of the
definition is more general than the concept defined, the predicate
as a whole is not; and that while one of the premises leading to
a conclusion must be more general than the conclusion, the prem-
ises together are not. Now it has been customary, on various
accounts, to regard the predicate of a definition as falling into
two distinct parts, the genus and the specific difference; and it
has been found convenient that the difference shall be a simple
concept, all the complex remainder of the content of the subject
falling within the genus. For the further elucidation of the

42 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

subject, the genus must next be resolved into a higher genus and
a new difference, and this genus again into a still higher genus
and yet another difference; and so on, until a highest genus is
reached which is incapable of further analysis and thus marks
the limit of the process. But it has frequently been forgotten
that in each definition any single element of the subject may be
chosen as difference, the whole remainder then standing as genus;
or, in other words, that in the process of successive definition by
which a complex concept is explained, no one order in which the
elements shall be added in is predetermined. Every simple con-
cept is thus a summum genus. But when a certain order of
definition has for any reason become regarded as necessary, the
successive genera are naturally viewed as presupposing each other
in the given order; the equal significance of the differences is
forgotten; and the summum genus is regarded as the source and
cause of the whole series. To put the matter differently, the
summum genus is regarded as being a simple concept in another
sense than the various differences. It is capable of being thought
by itself, while they are incapable of being thought except as its
limitations or determinations. They are aspects of concepts, but
not themselves concepts. The summum genus alone expresses
the essence of self-subsistent reality; it alone is true Being, the
being both of itself and of all things else ; and hence all its species
must be regarded as particular manifestations to which it deter-
mines itself — for there is no other Being to determine it.

Let this brief account of the mystic logic be taken parentheti-
cally. It lies outside the proper field of our inquiry, and is in-
serted only to prevent misunderstanding. For a clear and striking
contrast of the two mental attitudes, compare the following quo-
tations, from Descartes and Spinoza respectively. "We say, in
the third place, that these simple elements are all known by
themselves."^ ''By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and
is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a con-
ception can be formed independently of any other conception. "^

^Rulesfor the Direction of the Mind, XII; Torrey, op. cit , p 95-
^Ethics, Book I, Def. Ill; Elwes tr.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 43

According to the latter, substance is clearly the only simple con-
cept. But in one of Spinoza's letters to Oldenburg the very
same definition is applied to attribute. "You must observe that
by attribute I mean everything, which is conceived through itself
and in itself, so that the conception of it does not involve the
conception of anything else. For instance, extension is conceived
through itself and in itself, but motion is not."^ The tremendous
gap between the two standpoints is covered by the much dis-
cussed but perhaps inexplicable formula: "By attribute, I mean
that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of
substance. "2

So much, then, by way of parenthesis. We turn now to other
considerations connected with the general doctrine of the exter-
nality, and implied unreality, of relations.

In the mind of the rationalist, this scepticism of the relation
had much" to do with the persistence of that gap, which, as has
been pointed out, ever lay for him between the universal and the
particular, the necessary and the contingent. This becomes most
strikingly evident when we inquire into the grounds of his rejec-
tion of the senses as evidence of reality; for, in a word, it is the
relativity of sense-perception that is for him its fatal weakness.
There is a remarkable passage in Descartes's second Meditation^
which may be taken as illustrative of the common attitude of
the whole school. In this passage he proposes the examination
of a piece of wax in order to ascertain what we can really be said
to know about it. Apparently we know it through our senses
as white, hard, cold, fragrant, etc. But change its surroundings,
place it near the fire, and all this changes. It loses its color and
fragrance, and becomes a shapeless mass of soft, warm substance.
Yet, although it loses every quality which we observe in it, we
do not hesitate to call it the same wax. These sense-qualities,
then, which change with change of conditions, and hence are

^Letter II.

^Ethics, Book I, Def, IV. For specific illustration of the difficulties inherent
in Spinoza's double standpoint, see Tschirnhausen's last letter to Spinoza, with the
latter's reply.

44 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

merely relative, do not really belong to the wax. They are not
essential to it. If we would discover the real nature of wax,
we must look to some other source than sense-perception, for
its real nature is just what remains constant through all changes
and in all relations. This nature, of course, is given only in the
concept of wax as a modification of extended substance. Now
what we thus find to be true of the wax is true of the whole
world of sense-perception. However far we go in our observa-
tions, we find only a multipicity of particular qualities which
are never fixed but always changing and relative. But the real
world, in the thought of the rationalist, is the unity which under-
lies this multiplicity, which is not subject to change, and to which
all relations are external. It is the world of conceptual universals
— the world of reason, as opposed to the world of sense. In a
secondary sense, the world of particulars may, indeed, be said
to be real, since it must have substance, the eternally existent,
for its ground; and its illusoririess vanishes in so far as we can
exhibit it as thus grounded. But this is just the task of reason,
— to seek the ground; and rational knowledge is precisely the
knowledge of things as grounded.

How, then, are the two functions of rational thought and sense-
perception connected? Or, ontologically stated, how is the world
of the particular and the contingent related to the world of con-
ceptual universals? While rational concepts may, in some sense,
form a logical system among themselves, culminating in the con-
cept of substance, what way is there of getting out of the system
to the particulars of sense-perception? All that we learn from
perception is the changing qualities and relations of particular
objects. Sense is utterly incompetent to reveal the unversal . We
may know through the understanding that wax is a modification
of extended substance ; but how are we to identify this particular
piece of hard, white, fragrant material, which melts when near
the fire, as such a modification of extended substance? We may
assume that the concept wax is a true predicate of all particular
pieces of wax; but if these particular pieces, so far as particular,

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 45

are wholly constituted by fragrance, whiteness, etc., and relations
w4th particular fires, etc., then to predicate wax of the thing is an
absolutely unmotived procedure. The very fact that definition
simply adds one universal to another, makes it impossible to
pass logically from any concept, however low in the hierarchy
it may be, to the particular. If reason deals only with the
universal, and the senses yield only the particular, the two worlds
must remain absolutely unrelated.

To put the difficulty in perhaps clearer form, we may say that
the observations of sense-perceptions are invariably expressible
as particular judgments, such as, This wax is white, or. The fire is
hot, or again, The wax melts now that it is near the fire. These
judgments are existential in the sense that they imply the exist-
ence of their subjects ; they are contingent, inasmuch as no neces-
sary ground for their truth is given; and, as merely contingent,
and hence not invariably true, they convey no information about
reality. They are not, properly speaking, knowledge at all, and
cannot become such unless they can be shown to be the necessary
outcome of the real nature of things. For example, the fact of
the melting of a piece of wax when heated becomes knowledge
only when it is shown to be the necessary result of the universal
nature of wax so to act under such circumstances. But how is
this to be accomplished?

Furthermore, those subordinate universal judgments, from
which the contingent truths of sense are conceived more directly
to spring, must themselves be established as valid. For instance,
the law that all wax melts when heated demands explanation—
as a result, let us say, of the specific constitution of wax. For
such a law is obviously conditional in its significance; it is the
expression of a relation between possible contingencies; and con-
sequently it cannot describe the ultimate nature of reality. The
statement of a relation, to become truth, must be seen to spring
from the attributes of substance itself. The conditional proposi-
tion must be deduced from some final necessary truth which is
at once universal and existential. This truth must be universal,

46 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

since particulars cannot serve to establish universality. It must
be existential, since the whole series of conditions must have
some starting point in real existence. The only judgment that
can meet these requirements is, of course, the definition of the
highest concept, — a definition, which, as the ontological proof is
supposed to show, contains existence as an essential predicate.
While every other concept may be defined without reference to
its existence, the very definition of substance posits its existence.

Now let us suppose that from this first principle the whole
system of universal truths has been deduced. The problem still
remains, how the rationalist shall unite the mass of particular
contingent propositions with this system — how, for example, he
is to establish deductively the fact that this wax is white. He
has deduced, let us say, the universal, All wax is white, or (in
conditional form). If wax, then whiteness; but how shall he deduce
the existence of this particular bit of wax. For according to
the logic of rationalism the existence of particular objects is a
fact altogether irrevelant to the laws of their action.^ It may
even be questioned whether the statement of their existence has
any meaning for him. The wax, we say, exists. But the very
terms of which the proposition is composed have their meaning
wholly exhausted in relations — the determinate variation of the
sensible qualities of the wax, its modes of behavior under various
conditions. Abstracted from these relations, the existence of
the wax reduces to that of a portion of extended substance, which
we have no sufficient means of distinguishing from any other
portion. It seems as if the union of essence and existence in
the definition of the highest concept served only to make ultimate
the breach between essence and existence elsewhere.

But what of the assumption, that the system of universal
truths is deducible from its first principle? This is, of course, a
mere postulate of the rationalistic logic — its verification is not

iCf. Leibniz's recognition of this difficulty in his distinction between truths
of reason and truths of fact. The latter are, indeed, as he holds, demonstrable
from the former; but only by an infinite process of deduction, which can be accom-
plished only in the divine consciousness.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 47

only unaccomplished, but indefinitely exceeds human powers.
In the actual progress of his scientific work, the rationalist cannot
fail to verify the aphorism of Bacon: "The syllogism is not ap-
plied to the first principles of science, and is applied in vain to
intermediate laws, being no match for the subtlety of nature."^
Consider, for example, the testimony of Descartes: "Afterwards
when I wished to descend to the more particular, so many diverse
objects presented themselves to me, that I believed it to be im-
possible for the human mind to distinguish the forms or species
of bodies that are upon the earth, from an infinity of others which
might have been . . . unless we rise to causes through their effects,
and avail ourselves of many particular .experiments." In this
way, he says, he had never failed to find a satisfactory explanation
of any phenomenon, on the basis of his already deduced prin-
ciples. "But it is necessary also to confess that the power of
nature is so ample and vast, and these [already deduced] prin-
ciples so simple and general, that I have hardly observed a single
particular effect which I cannot at once recognize as capable of
being deduced in many different modes from the principles, and
that my greatest difficulty usually is to discover in which of these
modes the effect is dependent upon them ; for out of this difficulty
I cannot otherwise extricate myself than by again seeking certain
experiments, which may be such that their result is not the same,
if it is in one of these modes that we must explain it, as it would
be if it were to be explained in the other. "^ Perhaps the most
significant feature of this confession is Descartes's embarrassment
at finding several possible explanations of a phenomenon. For
since explanation is deduction, a possible explanation is an actual
one — and what geometrician was ever embarrassed by the dis-
covery of several proofs for a theorem, or of several solutions for
a problem? Such embarrassment can only mean that the alter-
native explanations depend upon anterior principles which are
mutually exclusive, but between which the investigator has not
yet been able to decide; or, to put the matter squarely, that an

^Novum Organum, Book I, § 13.
Wiscourse on Method, Part VI.

48 • DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

uncrossed gap still remains between the truths of reason and the
generalizations based upon experiment.

Can we go further and say that the rationalistic deduction is
not only indefinitely far from accomplishment, but essentially
impossible? Perhaps not; for the simple reason, that whenever
a law is shown to be indemonstrable from an existing set of axioms,
the rationalist may be expected simply to claim it as an additional
axiom. At the same time, the prospect of such procedure on his
part has a fatal effect upon the convincing power of his system.
Axioms are supposed to be derived, not from the exigencies of
the demonstrations that are founded upon them, but from the
unbiased intuition of reason. A defect in the system is thus
disclosed which is analogous to the initial difficulty involved in
the assumption of synthetic axioms — that even if it assumed a
form in which (in the existing state of the sciences) it was wholly
irrefutable, it would remain powerless to convince a sceptic.

We have been led so far in the discussion of the rationalistic
side of our subject that we must confine ourselves to a few words
upon its empiricistic side. However, a very few will suffice.
That the doctrine of the externality of relations is involved, for
empiricism as well as for rationalism, in the postulate of simple
elements has already been shown. That, furthermore, these
presuppositions lead the empiricist unavoidably to an atomistic
chaos in which all relations disappear, is practically admitted
by Hume in the remarkable appendix to his Treatise, and it has
been joyously reaffirmed by his critics ever since. We have seen
that the rationalist commonly saves himself from a similar embar-
rassment by the assumption of synthetic axioms. It is worth
while inquiring how the empiricist avoids, or at least postpones,
the fatal reductio ad absurdum. Berkeley and Hume are here,
in sharply contrasted ways, representative of their school. Each ,
it will be seen, calls in rationalistic principles to his aid;^ and

iThis has already been shown for Hume in the course of our discussion of
immediate experience.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 49

Hume is further guilty of a fundamental inconsistency by which
the externality of relations is denied, as well as affirmed, at the
very threshold of his system.

The doctrine of the externality of relations is held by Berkeley
in a form so extreme as scarcely to have a parallel. Not only
have related ideas (according to him) a nature of their own,
which is unaffected by their relations; but relations are of an
absolutely different nature from ideas, and are cognized in an
entirely different manner. There are relations between ideas;
but relations are not ideas, nor are there ideas of relations.
Properly speaking, we have only notions of relations; just as we
have notions, not ideas, of substances.

The grounds upon which Berkeley bases this peculiar doctrine
are interesting, though they do not particularly concern us here.
Ideas, he declares, are altogether inactive entities ; whereas spirits
are known to us only as active, i. e., as thinking, feeling, and will-
ing. It is impossible, therefore, that an idea should in any way
resemble a spirit; and hence an idea cannot represent a spirit
or any of its acts. But a relation includes an act of the mind.
Therefore there can be no ideas of relations. So much Berkeley
explains to us in a sentence added to the second edition of his
Principles (Sect. 142). It is a pity that he does not enter more
fully into the matter; but it is perfectly apparent that the rela-
tions are understood to be an extraneous addition imposed by
the mind upon the ideas as such. Berkeley has, however, an
ulterior motive in all this — or so we suspect. He is concerned to
save the demonstrative certainty of the deductive sciences ; i. e.
(for him as for Locke), mathematics and ethics. The absolute
validity of moral laws in particular must not be left to mere
induction founded on the observed connections between ideas.
Apparently, also, he saw something of the difficulties involved
in regarding relations as a class of complex ideas; for example,
that if the relation be a compound of its terms it is impossible
for the same terms to stand to each other in more than one rela-
tion. But if the relation be regarded as a simple idea, it becomes
5

50 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

portentously dijffiicult to show how it (as a relation without
specific terms) is not a mere abstract idea. So to save the rela-
tion as an abstraction Berkeley denies that it is an idea or know-
able by means of ideas.

For Hume, however, who knows nothing of 'notions,' the
Lockian classification is inevitable. Relations, like modes and
substances, are a class of complex ideas. Just how they are
specifically characterized is harder to make out. Hume has often
been accused of verbal inconsistency — of which, like a true Bacon-
ian, he takes little account. But in this case his vacillating modes
of expression seem to point to a real unclearness and inconsistency
of thought, and ultimately to an untenable postulate underlying
his whole treatment. In the first place, complex ideas in general
are introduced to consideration as remarkable effects of the asso-
ciation of ideas ; and it is said that they ^^ generally arise from some
principle of union [i. e., association] among our simple ideas. "^
With two of the three classes of complex ideas this appears to
be invariably the case. The idea of a substance or of a mode is
a "collection of simple ideas that are united by the imagination
and have a particular name assigned them," association by con-
tiguity and causation being necessary to the first, while (pre-
sumably) either this or resemblance is necessary to the second.
But a relation may arise ''even upon the arbitrary union of two
ideas in the fancy," "without a connecting principle." Relations,
then, are not complex ideas In the sense of being products of
association. What then is a relation? Hume has two answers.
First, it is "that particular circumstance in which ... we may
think proper to compare" two ideas; or, "any particular subject
of comparison." But, secondly, a certain example (which he
cites) "will be allowed by philosophers to be a true relation, be-
cause we acquire an idea of it by the comparing of objects." Is,
then, the relation the basis or the product of the process of com-
parison; or how, upon Hume's principles, can it be both? Again,
"those qualities, which make objects admit of comparison, and

^Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part I Section 4; italics ours.

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 5 1

by which the ideas of philosophical relation are produced" are
properly enough "considered as the sources of all philosophical
relation." But these "sources of relation" (comprised under
the seven heads of resemblance, identity, etc.) are at once spoken
of, and are thereafter referred to, as being themselves relations.
This really amounts to saying that relations are their own sources
— or that the existence and nature of relations are wholly inex-
plicable in empiricistic terms. Berkeley's partial intuitionalism,
crude as it may seem, is surely not less philosophical than this.

We have dwelt at some length upon the rationalist's inability
to pass from the universal to the particular. It is notorious that
the empiricist is equally unable — except by the covert addition
of rationalistic principles to his own — to pass from the particular
to the universal. For him, as for the rationalist, the contents
of sense-perception are mere particulars; and the ascent from
the contingent particulars of sense to necessary connections of
ideas becomes as impossible as is the rationalist's attempt to
deduce particular propositions from the body of universal truth.
We may state the case in another way. The datum of knowledge
which the empiricist recognizes as immediately given is in the
form of individual elements. Hence all terms of thought that
are not particular can be only collective. The universality of a
concept can mean nothing but the inclusion of every possible
particular. It could be reached only by an infinite process of
summation — and this could never be completed.

Empiricism, then, starting from what seems to be a position
diametrically opposed to the assumption of rationalism, runs into
the same logical cul-de-sac in which rationalism has been found
to issue. We may well ask: Is the claim that the system of
rational knowledge is wholly derived from the contents of sense-
perception so far removed, after all, from the contention that its
source is to be found only in a priori intuitions of reason? It has
been noted, in the first place, that both positions rest on the
assumption that experience is analyzable into final elements.
The futility of the empiricist's attempt to construct a system

52 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of rational knowledge from the essentially irrational and un-
related elements of sensation has often been pointed out. But,
as we have seen, this was precisely the problem which confronted
the rationalist; for his logical ultimate was a bare given, as irra-
tional and unrelated as the simple sensation. Empiricism and
rationalism alike conceive the process of analysis as leading to a
final goal and yielding an irreducible element. That the one
conceives this ultimate as a conceptual absolute, and the other
as a psychological absolute, is of minor importance. A highest
concept and a simple sensation, regarded as the ultimate elements
of rational experience, and united to others of their kind by no
other relation than that of mere coexistence, are indistinguishable
and alike meaningless.

Along with this conception of the real as constituted by ulti-
mate elements, goes the complementary conception of relations
as merely external bonds. The process of analysis, whether logi-
cal or psychological, consists essentially in stripping away these
relations until the inner core is revealed. The issuance of the
process in elements whose validity can be attested only by their
mere immediacy is the common criterion of its success. And just
as the analysis which leads to the elements is a mere denial and
casting aside, so the process of synthesis can be nothing more
than a bare affirmation, a joining together of the essentially un-
related. The organization of rational thought for both rational-
ism and empiricism is an externally imposed arrangement.

With an important reservation, to which attention will imme-
diately be called, rationalism and empiricism may be said to agree
further in the parallel treatment of logical and causal connection.
Rationalism, with its carefully formulated correspondence be-
tween the ontological and logical orders, establishes the peculiar
relationship by the reduction of both modes of connection to
terms of intensive inclusion. Just as the essence of a thing
contains its attributes and modes as effects, so the higher con-
cepts contain the lower, and so also the premises contain the
conclusion. On the side of empiricism, the association of ideas,

COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 53

springing from the temporal order in which sensations are given,
is the source of the causal relation; and, except for the case of
demonstrative reasoning, it is the foundation of all inference.
It is this, which, as Berkeley says, ''gives us a sort of foresight
which enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life."
And Hume expressly holds that "the only connection or relation
of objects, which can lead us beyond the immediate impressions
of our memory and senses, is that of cause and effect." The
basis of syllogistic inference is, of course, different. This is to
be found in that extraordinary faculty of comparison which plays
so great a part in the classic empiricism.

But the importance of this exception must not be exaggerated.
Hume's criticism of the notion of the self, resolving it into a mere
sensational complex, strikes a death-blow at the conception of
an act of the mind. Though he himself may not admit it, the
possibility of an ''arbitrary union of two ideas in the fancy,"
"without a connecting principle," has disappeared. The faculty
of comparison, like all other faculties, must be explained in terms
of the natural behavior of the ideas themselves. Thus empiri-
cism takes the form of a pure associationism — and thus the
identity of the causal and the logical orders becomes complete.

CHAPTER IV

THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS

Some remarkable illustrations of the doctrines set forth in the
preceding chapters are connected with the representative theory
of ideas, or 'epistemoldgical dualism,' as it has latterly been
called. And so, though this theory is by no means universally
accepted by the old dogmatists, we think it important to give
some analysis of it, and to show its relation to rationalism and
empiricism respectively. A general definition of the theory,
which will apply with perfect justice to all of the various forms
which it has taken, probably cannot be given. But an approxi-
mation, which will serve to introduce the present brief survey,
may be based upon the following statement :

The things of which we have knowledge are not, as known,
themselves present to consciousness, but are represented by ideas,
with which they stand in a relation which is external to both or,
at least, to the things.

By the concluding words it is implied, that, whatever the rela-
tion denoted by 'representation' may be, it neither is, nor affects,
any part of the essential nature of the thing or (generally speak-
ing) of the idea. The idea may be completely analyzed without
betraying the existence of the thing ; and the thing may exist in
the full possession of its attributes though no idea of it ever arises.
The correctness (truth, adequacy) of the idea and the *cog-
nizedness' of the thing are purely accidental. The words, "as
known," imply that even an idea, in order to become object of
knowledge, must be represented in consciousness by an idea of
itself.

The simplest form of the theory, and the one from which all
others are divergences, is that the idea is like the thing. This
does not mean that the acceptance of an idea as correct is held

54

THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS 55

to imply that an actual comparison between the two has been
made. On the contrary, no such comparison is believed to be
possible — at least to men. Even the case of an idea of an idea
is no exception. Nothing can be known except through a repre-
sentative— not even a representative. The utmost that com-
parison can do is to equate one idea with another already accepted
as correct. The meaning of the correctness therefore is that if
(as is inconceivable) a comparison were made, the idea would
be found to be like the thing.

This primitive theory is in most highly developed rationalisms
recognized as out of the question; and it slips in only surrep-
titiously, as a relic of bygone habits of thought. In its place
arises the theory, that the representation of things by ideas
means — not the resemblance of ideas to objects, but — the identity
of the relations between ideas with those between objects. That
is to say, the world of things is supposed to form a system, which
is exactly paralleled by the system of true ideas; and the corre-
spondence of an idea to a thing means that it is related to all
other true ideas precisely as the thing is related to all other things.
In a previous chapter we have shown how rationalism tends to
reduce all relations to the one of logical inclusion. The system
of things then takes the form of a network of interlacing lines
of causes and effects; and the system of ideas, one of subjects
and predicates (or premises and conclusions). Among empiri-
cists, too, the resemblance-theory cannot long maintain its ground
— Berkeley's refutation of it is proof of that. As alternatives
we find on the one hand a feeble reflection of the rationalistic
doctrine — the theory of secondary qualities — and on the other
hand, in all mature empiricisms, the rejection of the representa-
tive theory altogether. For the subjective idealism of Berkeley,
by declaring that things are merely a class of ideas, amounts to
a point-blank denial of the representative theory ; and Hume's
peculiar realism is so far in full agreement with Berkeley. For
though 'images' (to use Berkeley's terminology) resemble 'real
things,' and do indeed represent them in their absence, the 'real

56 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

things' are themselves directly perceived; and the 'images* can
be compared with the 'real things' and thus corrected by them.
The representative theory in all its forms contains the following
difficulty. On the one hand, there is nothing in the idea by
which its correspondence with the thing, or even the existence of
the thing, can be attested; and yet, on the other hand, it is only
through the idea that the existence and nature of the thing can
be known. The difficulty is evaded somewhat as follows. It is
not anything in the idea (i. e., it is no part of its logical content,
or of its psychological structure) that indicates its correctness,
but some character that can vary independently of the content
or structure. Thus the empiricist observes that sensations (as
over against the precisely similar ideas of imagination) are dis-
tinguished by a peculiar intensity, steadiness, vividness, or emo-
tional setting, or by their direct dependence upon the sense-
organs; and any or all of these may be regarded as assuring the
correctness of this class of ideas. On the other hand, the rational-
ist, rejecting the evidence of the senses, may specify the analytical
distinctness of the true ideas as the distinguishing mark. If a
ground be sought for any such theory, the empiricist who main-
tains it can only appeal to the observed fact, that such ideas as
he has named cannot be doubted. The inability to doubt may
be ascribed to two causes : the fixity of the idea itself in conscious-
ness, or the strength of the feeling of conviction which accom-
panies it. That a similar procedure is possible to rationalism
the example of Descartes shows. With him too the inability
to doubt is the ultimate proof of a true idea. His famous cri-
terion of truth is found inductively — by the method of difference,
in fact. Having discovered an indubitable truth, he observes in
what respect this differs from all the ideas which he has previously
rejected as open to question; and this difference is then the
criterion. Descartes, however, adopts this position only as the
point of departure from which to reach a higher one. Ultimately,
as he believes, the ground of the criterion is to be found in the
veracity of God. The existence of a perfect being is thus a self-

THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS 57

supporting truth on which all other truth depends.^ Needless
to say, this is the more characteristically rationalistic position.
The epistemological dualism of idea and ideatum passes over
very easily into an ontological dualism of mind and matter.
The ideas are regarded as modes of thinking substance, and those
ideata, which are not themselves ideas, are regarded as modes of
extended substance. This is, of course, what we find in Descartes
and (substantially) in Locke. But other ontological interpreta-
tions are by no means impossible. The distinction between idea
and ideatum may be regarded as defining, not two kinds of sub-
stance, but two kinds of existence ; that is to say, a single reality
may be regarded as existing both as idea and as thing — objectively
and subjectively. This is the conception which underlies the onto-
logical proof of the existence of God in its original medieval form ;
for the proof turns upon the principle, that, since that which
exists both as idea and as thing is more perfect than that which
exists as idea alone, the most perfect being cannot be conceived
as having the former kind of existence alone., In the period with
which we are dealing, this conception is represented by Spinoza,
by whom, however, it is carried to an extreme. Not only may
the same reality exist both as idea and as thing, but nothing
can exist otherwise. There is but one substance, which in each of
its modes exists both as idea and as thing, that is to say, in the at-
tributes of thinking and extension. The correspondence between
idea and thing is, therefore, a universal parallelism ; and if, to a su-
perficial reflection, this does not appear to be the case, that is only
because ideas are confused. All error is confusion. Every dis-
tinct idea (including, of course, every simple idea) is true; and
the real content of every confused idea is likewise true. Truth
here means the correspondence, not of one entity with another,

^It should be recalled that the ontological proof of the existence of God, in the
form which Descartes gives it, is not a proof — that is to say, a deduction — in the
ordinary sense of the term at all. It is a piece of exposition, calling attention to
the fact, that the judgment that God exists is analytical and therefore requires
no deduction. "Its conclusion may be known without proof by those who are free
from all prejudice." Cf. Proposition I of the "geometrical" account of the proofs
of God's existence, in the Reply to the Second Objections.

58 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

but of two indissoluble aspects of a single entity. Again, in the
monadism of Leibniz, the correspondence is between the modes
of each substance and the universe of substances. The pre-
established harmony here takes the place of the parallelism of
thought and extension; and consequently, as in Spinoza, the
completely distinct idea is forthwith true. The important point
for us to note is that in spite of these developments of the ontology
of rationalism the epistemological dualism remains. In Spino-
zism the attributes of thought and extension are each absolutely
primitive and independent, and there is no possibility of any
essential connection. The parallel that obtains beween them
is only such as obtains equally between all the infinite attributes
of God. At bottom it amounts to no more than their being
predicates of a common subject. In the philosophy of Leibniz,
the 'windowlessness' of the monads, their imperviousness to out-
side influence, is a fundamental dogma. The ideas of which a
mind is conscious follow upon each other by a law of its own
nature. The student of Leibniz is, indeed, sometimes driven to
wonder how the philosopher ever convinced himself of the exist-
ence of an outside world at all.

How admirably the representative theory accords with the
other characteristic doctrines of rationalism, the reader has doubt-
less observed. The externality of the relation between idea and
thing is itself a case of the general maxim ; and it further assures
the externality of all other relations. For as idea and object
are absolutely incomparable, the identical relations which obtain
between ideas and between objects must be wholly foreign to
the essence of both. Moreover the dualism of idea and ideatum
makes the assumption of a definite stock of underived and un-
questionable knowledge imperative. The rationalistic axioms
and definitions serve not only to connect a variety of ideas among
themselves and to support a chain of 'abstract' reasoning. The
intuitions refer directly to reality; and every deductive process
that starts from them maintains its reference to reality to the end.
For the relations between ideas, which the judgments of science

SENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS 59

affirm, are at the same time the relations between the corre-
sponding things. So that, in so far as the relations are concerned
— and it is only by reason of their relations that ideas represent
things at all — the judgments may be said to refer to, or to
represent, the things as directly as the ideas.

So long as empiricism holds to the representative theory, its
point of departure is the assumption, that the thing is the source
(or cause) of the perception that initially represents it in con-
sciousness— any representation by an 'image' being due to the
fact that this is a revival or copy of the perception. This as-
sumption is as natural, as apparently inevitable, from the empiri-
cal standpoint, as the doctrine of parallelism is from the rational-
istic standpoint. It will be remembered that Descartes alone
among the rationalists is willing to admit a causal connection
between thing and idea, and even he regards it as a mystery sur-
passing human understanding. But for Locke and his more
direct followers the assumption is unquestionable.

Whether, then, the perception resembles the thing is a com-
paratively small matter. It is believed to do so in the case of
sensations derived from more than one sense — also in that of
solidity. The other sensations seem to be wholly different from
those features of the thing which cause them to arise in us. But
they represent the thing no less adequately on that account.
For their representative function depends upon the axiom, that
every difference between effects must be due to a difference in
their causes. It is important to note that this axiom is far from
justifying the inference, that all relations between ideas are iden-
tical with the relations between their objects. Indeed, the em-
piricists are well aware of some striking evidences to the contrary.
Darkness is the absence of light; but black is not the mere ab-
sence of brightness or of color, but a peculiar positive sensation.
The consequence is that a judgment, representing the relation
between two ideas, cannot — however adequate the ideas may be
— be understood as referring directly to things. The cleft be-

6o DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

tween Ideas and things is thus far deeper for dualistic empiricism
than for rationahsm. Locke's famous definition of knowledge
is simply typical — "the perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of our ideas."

Certain other features of empiricism lead to a like result. In
the first place, while all the simple ideas which the mind contains
have been originally caused by their objects, the mind constructs
out of these elements great numbers of complex ideas, that have
no objective counterpart at all. Such, for example, are the con-
ceptions of virtue and vice. These ideas are not representative
of anything at all — except in so far as they are intended to re-
semble the similarly named ideas of other men. But, for all
that, such ideas agree and disagree with one other, and the per-
ception of the agreements and disagreements is knowledge . Thus
there is knowledge that has no application outside of the sphere
of the ideas themselves. In the second place, even where the
complex idea is not a mere fiction, there is scarcely ever a com-
plete certainty that a particular concrete object corresponding
to it exists. The possibility of illusion or hallucination may be
so slight as to be practically negligible, but it is still present.
Locke, it will be remembered, recognized only two exceptions,
the self and God, the former known intuitively, the latter de-
monstratively. In order to get in touch with reality, the empiri-
cism that holds to the representative theory must call in rational-
ism to its aid.

The philosophies of Berkeley and Hume are interesting in this
connection, as indications of the vain effort of empiricism to rid
itself of the inconsequences of Locke's theory. Berkeley flies to
two opposite extremes. So far as his 'notions' of substances and
relations are concerned, his thought is a mere undeveloped ration-
alism. But in his identification of things with their ideas, he
institutes a very different sort of speculation. In the first place,
he shows the futility of the resemblance-theory of representation
— the emptiness of declaring two terms similar, which according
to the hypothesis cannot be compared. In the second place,

THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS 6 1

while accepting the necessity for an external cause for the idea
(where it is not the work of the mind itself), he denies that there
must be a distinct cause for each idea ; and he urges the observ-
able uniformity in the succession of ideas as proof that they have
a common origin. The difficulty which then faces him is that of
explaining, or explaining away, the universal assumption of
science and common-sense, that things exist while we are not
observing or thinking of them. This he declares is true as the
condensed statement of the results of conditions contrary to fact.
It really means only that if conditions were otherwise the things
would be perceived. Stated categorically, it means simply that
the order in which sensations come to us contains numerous
uniformities; that these uniformities are not limited to the ex-
periences of single minds, but extend from mind to mind in such
fashion that the experiences of different men dovetail into each
other; and that the uniformities of sensation are more or less
reproduced in imagination. We have, for example, often seen
wood consumed to ashes; and now, seeing similar ashes, we im-
agine a fire that has burnt here in our absence, — a fire which an
observer would have seen, had one been present. There is no
reason to assume the existence of a thing in addition to the
image or percept; nor is there any sense in supposing that an
idea exists elsewhere than in some consciousness.

Hume's attitude upon the matter is well expressed in a famous
footnote in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.^
Berkeley's arguments, he says, are absolutely irrefutable and
utterly unconvincing. For the representative theory Hume has
no manner of use. It simply doubles the problems to be solved,
without lending any aid toward their solution. And Hume am-
plifies Berkeley's argument against it in one very important
direction. Berkeley had shown that ideas could resemble nothing
except other ideas. Hume, upon the basis of his theory of neces-
sary connection, shows that ideas can be related as effects to
nothing except other ideas. The last vestige of support for the

^Section XII, Part I.

62 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

representative theory (so far as empiricism could countenance it)
is thus swept away. Nevertheless Hume is not able to rest
content with Berkeley's idealism. That real things, or, if you
please, our impressions of sensation, do exist while we are un-
conscious of them, is, he declares, the universal belief of unsophis-
ticated men — an instinctive faith which no scepticism can weaken
— and a necessary assumption for the scientific explanation of the
world. The mere condition contrary to fact will not suffice.
The ashes are real; and to explain them a real fire is requi-
site. At the same time, Hume can no more than Berkeley
give • an intelligible meaning to the existence of a thing ex-
cept as a content of consciousness, but sets it down as a sheer
absurdity.

There can be little doubt, that, upon his own principles, Hume
is in error in thinking this 'realistic' theory absurd. In the first
place, he does not, like Berkeley, feel the need of a spiritual
substance in w^hich ideas shall inhere. To him, substances are
but a class of complex ideas, and the conscious self is no exception.
Instead of the self's being necessary to the existence of ideas
(or sensations), the contrary is clearly the case. In the second
place, there is no force in the objection, that ideas are only
known to us as connected in individual 'streams of consciousness.'
For each of us has direct experience of only one such stream.
And if for the understanding of the world he is obliged to assume
the existence of other streams of consciousness, connected with
the bodies of other men and animals, and must, indeed, often
ascribe to these consciousnesses elements which he himself does
not possess ; there is at least no prima facie reason why equally
cogent intellectual needs should not, with perfect legitimacy,
lead him to the assumption of the existence of simple or complex
sensations not connected with any consciousness whatsoever. At
the same time, Hume clearly underestimates the resources of
Berkeley's position; and, indeed, the considerations which he
advances are all answered by Berkeley in advance. That a so-
called real existence should be analyzed into a relation between

THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS 63

ideas — the possibility of perception under supposed circumstances
— may be startling to common sense, but there is nothing in it
to baflRe scientific acceptance.

There is, however, a very simple objection, which neither the
subjective idealism of Berkeley nor Hume's modification of it
can successfully meet, and which did much to block the further
development of English empiricism during a full century. How
can things be identified with perceptions, when the same thing
can be perceived in so many ways and from so many different
points of view? It is not as if the various impressions thus
received were fused into a single image — as color and texture
unite in the perception of a rose-leaf. They may be in the
highest degree incompatible and mutually exclusive, as well as
extremely different from each other. Yet they remain percep-
tions of the same thing. Neither Hume nor Berkeley can offer
any explanation — except the denial of the fact. So long as the
perception and the thing remain identical, a one-to-many relation
between them is a manifest absurdity. The device of getting
rid of epistemological dualism by equating one side of the division
with a portion of the other side will not suffice.

In conclusion, we wish to remark that, while Berkeley and
Hume denounce the representative theory, they in effect fall
back upon its very crudest form for the conception of the relation
between idea and ideatum. They regard it as necessarily a re-
semblance, and contemplate no other possibility. This is why,
for example, the possibility of an idea of a spirit is rejected by
Berkeley. The passive idea and the active spirit are so utterly
unlike, that no possible bond of resemblance between them can
subsist. This attitude on their part may be thought the more
remarkable, as their investigations into general ideas had famil-
iarized them with an altogether different type of representation ,
— that of ideas by words; and Berkeley had particularly noted
the analogy between the signification of words and the visual
perception of distance. The strain of eye-convergence means

64 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

nearness, not because it resembles it in any way, but because it
has been constantly associated with it. But representation such
as this means simply the ability to suggest, arising from previous
association. The thing must first be represented by its idea-
copy, before the suggestion of that copy by an associated idea
is possible.

PART II

REVOLUTION AND REACTION

CHAPTER I

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY

After the successful carrying-out of a revolution, our wonder
may be less excited by the greatness than by the limitedness of
the changes that have been effected. Looking beneath the al-
tered surface of things, we find a scarcely modified substratum,
which bears witness to an unbroken historical continuity. Very
notably is this the case with the more important revolutions in
philosophical thought. It is notorious, for example, that the
founders of modern philosophy, with all their contempt of scholas-
ticism, were never able to free themselves from its most character-
istic concepts — nay, never awoke to their bondage to them. Very
similar is the relation which the critical philosophy bears to its
forerunners, rationalism and empiricism. The 'Copernican hy-
pothesis' of Kant, despite its magnificent daring, meant no such
absolute shift of the center of vision as its author supposed. On
the contrary, nothing is more apparent to the reflective student
than the far-reaching identity of the fundamental logical con-
ceptions of Kantian and pre-Kantian thought. Indeed, it may
safely be asserted, that there is not a single one of the doctrines
which we have pointed out as characteristic of the old dogmatism,
that is not to- be found, either openly expressed or implicitly
accepted, in the writings of Kant. And yet is it none the less
true, that in the critical philosophy a transformation of the
traditional logic is involved.

So far as it is possible to regard this transformation as due to a
single revolutionary idea, it may be described as having its source
in a new conception of the nature of truth and validity. As
conceived by rationalism, the warrant for the truth of any propo-
sition could be exhibited only by deducing it from some more
general proposition, whose truth in turn must be attested by

(>1

68 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

some wider principle, the series of premises necessarily resting
upon some ultimate proposition or propositions, for whose truth
no other ground could exist beyond their own immediate clear-
ness. This conception of the nature of validity and of rational
procedure, as we have already pointed out, was made inevitable
for rationalism by the representative theory of ideas. Just be-
cause the truth of ideas consisted in their correspondence to the
reality which they represented, there could, in the last resort,
be no test of truth except intuition.

Now, so far as his ideal of scientific procedure went, Kant was
a thoroughgoing rationalist. He was not — as he remarks in the
preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason —
opposed to the dogmatical procedure of reason, since science
must always derive its proofs from pure principles a priori. It
is only necessary to inquire in what way, and by what right,
reason has become possessed of such principles. Mathematics
typified in his mind, as in Descartes's, the ideal of scientific
method; and this ideal was further confirmed by the recent de-
velopment of mathematical physics. The fact of the existence
of a body of a priori judgments he assumed without question.
Profoundly as Kant was stirred by the analysis of Hume, Hume's
scepticism left him untouched. Human knowledge is — so he
believed — unassailably founded on universal and necessary
truths.

As to the character of these truths, however, Kant had become
convinced that the a priori premises on which the sciences are
founded must be synthetic propositions. It will be remembered
that this was a question on which rationalists had not been agreed.
Descartes, to whom the issue had not clearly presented itself,
admitted both analytic and synthetic propositions among intui-
tive truths. Spinoza, too, had included synthetic propositions
as axioms among the first principles of his system. Hobbes and
Leibniz, however, had, for differing reasons, made the attempt
to base deductive science solely on definitions. Now it was evi-
dent to Kant, that this latter procedure was impossible. From

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 69

analytic propositions alone no new truths could be deduced.
They can, as Kant remarks, serve only "to form the chain of the
method, and not as principles." Furthermore, not only did he
recognize that metaphysics and natural science contained syn-
thetic principles, but he was equally convinced that geometry
and even arithmetic were based upon such principles. Now the
mathematical sciences were the only ones to which Hume had
allowed demonstrative certainty, as being based upon the direct
comparison of ideas — all judgments involving the notion of cause
being only of various degrees of probability or 'moral' certainty.
But Kant found that Hume's criticism of the causal relation
turned upon its synthetic character; so that, although Hume"
himself had never formulated the distinction between analytic
and synthetic judgments — and, indeed, the distinction is wholly
foreign to his thought — his criticism needed only to be generalized
in order to apply with equal cogency to the principles of mathe-
matics.^ It was in this way that Kant's reading of Hume re-
acted so sharply upon his inbred rationalism. It brought into
relief the fundamental difficulty of rationalism and empiricism
alike: What warrant can exist for universal relations between
terms essentially disparate?

It was, then, with a clear recognition of this difficulty, that
Kant was led to formulate the problem. How are synthetic judg-
ments a priori possible? And yet, despite this insight, he failed
to realize that a solution of the problem must involve a trans-
formation of the whole scheme of rationalistic logic. His pur-
pose was not to destroy but to fulfill rationalism .

The solution which Kant believed himself to have discovered
lies in the fact, that a priori principles are the indispensable con-
ditions of the unity of experience. They are a priori, i. e.,
immediately certain and logically independent of all other knowl-

^As an indication of Kant's rationalistic bias, we may cite the remark (in the
Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, 2d ed.). that if Hume had thus general-
ized his criticism, his good sense must have forced him to reject both the logical
consequences of the criticism and the fundamental premises from which they were
drawn.

70 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

edge, precisely because they are involved in every possible bit
of empirical knowledge. Their necessity lies in the indispensa-
hility of the function which they perform in experience. If it is
their universality which serves as the basis of all valid knowledge,
they themselves are reciprocally justified by the whole system
of experience. All this implies unmistakably an important limi-
tation upon the dogmatic conception of irreversible logical prior-
ity. This appears in the fact, that, as a consequence of the
Kantian treatment of the a priori as the form of thought, its
legitimate application must be restricted within the limits of
possible experience. That is to say, a priori principles are not
true in that they severally and independently correspond to
reality, else a limitation upon them would be unthinkable. A
type of truth thus emerges in the critical philosophy, which is
not conceived as a relation between the world of thoughts, on
the one hand, and a world of reality, on the other. This new
truth is a concept which, like any of the categories, is itself
applicable only within experience. Moreover, the truth of the
a priori principles is no longer a matter of conformity to objects,
either phenomenal or noumenal. Kant himself expresses this
in his suggestion, that, instead of assuming as had previously
been done, that our cognition must conform to objects, we make
the assumption, that objects must conform to our mode of cogni-
tion. On the other hand, if the objects of empirical experience
are determined only by conformity to the laws of our intelligence,
the a priori principles of experience become knowledge only by
application to those objects. The correspondence between con-
cept and object which thus results is, therefore, a secondary
matter, rather the consequence than the ground of the truth of
the a priori principles. What does at once determine and con-
stitute their truth is precisely the function they perform. Con-
sidered apart from this function, indeed, they are not true, for
they are not knowledge at all, but mere "cobwebs of the brain,"
as Kant calls them.

That Kant did not realize the full significance of the changes

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 7 1

he had wrought in the logic of rationalism, or make consistent
use of his own new conceptions, we shall attempt to make clear
as we proceed. Here we need only call attention to the fact, that
he insists upon preserving the traditional rationalistic idea of
truth alongside of the revolutionary one, though only as a rubric
beneath which all is blank — an ideal .unattainable by human in-
telligence. Knowledge of the thing-in-itself, if such knowledge
there were, could alone exemplify this truth. Here alone could
be found an object absolutely independent of the ideas which
refer to it, and to which, as their eternal standard, they must —
if they are to be true — submissively conform. And, on the other
hand, it is evident, that only in truth of the representative type
could the thing-in-itself be revealed to us. For this is an object
which lies outside of human experience, and hence can be present
to it only by representatives. No such relation as obtains be-
tween the phenomenal object and its idea can obtain here. But
the impossibility of any representation is equally evident. Any
ascertainable resemblance is out of the question. And one cannot
postulate an identity of any of the relations between ideas and
those which make up the structure of the thing-in-itself; for all
the former are limited in their legitimate application to the phe-
nomenal world, while the thing-in-itself may be structureless.
For the same reason a theory of secondary qualities is ruled out,
even the conceptions of unity and multiplicity having no war-
ranted application beyond experience. Thus the thing-in-itself
remains unknowable, and the traditional conception of truth is
without exemplification.

When we pass on to consider the conception of reality in Kant,
we are at first struck by the apparent fact, that the new concep-
tion of truth which he has introduced has not had any effect
here at all. To be sure, just as he distinguishes between two
possible orders of knowledge (one of which we lack), so he dis-
tinguishes between two kinds of reality, the reality of the thing-
in-itself and that of the phenomenon. The former is the self-

72 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

subsistence of an orthodox rationalistic substance, with, to be
sure, the important defect, that it is unknowable; and analogy
would lead us to expect that the latter would represent the critical
standpoint. But such does not at once appear to be the case.
The reality of the phenomenon, as Kant treats it, is rather sug-
gestive of empiricism. In his own phrase, it is "that in the phe-
nomenon which corresponds to the sensation." When one speaks
of the reality of anything which is not at the moment perceived,
that can only mean that it is connected, by means of the analogies
of experience, with what is so perceived, so that it coheres with
it in a single larger whole. The absent phenomenon thus owes
its reality to the present phenomenon — a singular and most in-
structive parallel to Hume's doctrine of belief.

But when we pause to reflect upon the nature of the coherence
with present reality, which gives reality to the absent, we see
that here too the critical theory has worked its transformation.
This coherence is not a mere association reducible to the con-
tiguity of mutually independent elements. It is the organization
of experience under categories. To put the matter dift'erently,
the older notion of reality has developed for Kant into two inti-
mately united, but nevertheless formally distinct, factors, —
reality, in the sense above defined, and objectivity. When, there-
fore, we would rightly estimate the significance of Kant's realitas
phcenomenon, we must recall that only an object can be thus real;
and that an object is an object only by reason of its internal (and
external) organization. We must, then, even add that it is not
simply the absent phenomenon which owes its reality to the
work of thought, but the present phenomenon as well, since it is
only as an object that it could be real. That is to say, apart from
the thought-activity, nothing would be present save an utterly
meaningless image, to which the attribute of reality would have
no application whatsoever.

We have already seen that Kant's critical problem, How are
synthetic judgments a priori possible? arose through his recognition

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY Tl

of the inadequacy of analytic propositions to provide a basis for
science. But it is equally important to recognize that there
could have been no such problem, had not Kant accepted the
dogmatic doctrine, that analysis must yield final elements. In-
deed, the very division of propositions into analytic and synthetic
rests on this assumption. For no proposition could be deter-
mined as synthetic, unless a complete definition of its terms had
exhibited their ultimate disparateness. Moreover, the recogni-
tion of the necessity for synthetic connection means that the
terms of thought are ultimately simple elements, possessing no
inherent relationships. It is only because a synthetic proposition
connects ^ to an ^, which in itself, as A, has no relation to B,
that the connection is conceived to demand an explanation. The
validity of synthetic relationship can never be grounded in the
nature of the terms themselves.

This, then, is the problem of criticism: How is the validity of
these indispensable relationships to be explained? The solution
criticism finds in the assumption, that pure thought supplies to
experience certain universal modes of relationship, to which every
particular experience must be subject, as a condition of its be-
longing to experience at all. This assumption has its justification
in the fact that without it the validity of thought must remain
unexplained. It is the only possible means of accounting for
the element of necessity in experience, of accounting for the fact
that experience is a unity and not a chaos ; and hence it must be
accepted. What makes the assumption necessary, however, it is
important for us to note, is the fact that relations are conceived as
external to the terms related. It is only relations between terms
already determined as ^'s and -B's, that a priori forms of thought
are needed, or are competent, to explain. If experience does not
yield terms given as essentially discrete, the a priori forms must
remain inoperative. For if the ^'s and 5's are not discrete,
then their relationship to each other must constitute in part their
determination as A and B. Consequently, not only is there no
need of assuming universal forms of thought to account for their

74 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

relationship, but there is no ground for assuming that such uni-
versal forms would apply to them at all. Universal forms of
thought, as necessary modes of relationship, are altogether in-
capable of determining the terms which they relate; they are
altogether incompetent to determine the content for whose valid-
ity they are the necessary ground. Furthermore, even supposing
discrete ^'s and B's to be given, to which a priori forms must
apply, what ground is there for determining the application of
the forms to this particular A and B rather than to C and D?

It scarcely needs to be pointed out, that this inability of the
critical philosophy to account for the application of the forms to
the content of thought is identical with the inability of rationalism
to apply universals to particulars. That the emergence of this
dualism, implied, as we have tried to show, in the very basis
of criticism, is inevitable, appears more plainly upon further
consideration. Necessary truth, as conceived by rationalism,
was truth which could be deduced from axioms of a priori
certainty. Any proposition which could not be exhibited as a
consequence from a priori premises was incapable of attaining
rational validity. The result of this procedure of rationalism
was, as we have seen, to divide experience squarely in two, leaving
on the side of necessity all universal propositions, and on the side
of contingency the whole mass of particular propositions. Now
criticism, in its contention that necessity springs from the a
priori forms of thought, attempts to avoid this rationalistic
dichotomy, and to institute a new conception of the distinction
between necessity and contingency. That is, instead of there
being one type of cognition giving rise to truths of reason, and
another type giving rise to truths of fact, every possible bit of
experience has at once a necessary and a contingent side. How-
ever contingent a given proposition, such as This wax is white,
may seem, it is by the very fact of its belonging to experience,
already partly determined by the forms of perception and judg-
ment, and in so far necessary. To be in experience at all is
to be subject to the necessary conditions of possible experience.

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 75

Now if this new conception of necessity and contingency as
aspects of all experience is to be logically followed out, it must be
equally true that there can be no merely universal proposition.
That is to say, every formally universal proposition must have
its aspect or element of contingency. For according to the
Kantian logic the necessity or the universality of a proposition
lies in the form of connection of subject and predicate. Its
terms, which are related by this a priori connection, must, then,
be given, since they can never be determined by their connections
with each other. If it be asserted that other relations than those
in which they now stand have determined them, it is still true
that any other relation must itself have given terms. Thus
every possible universal proposition must have its contingent
aspect.

That Kant's own position in the matter is not wholly in accor-
dance with this statement is well known. The formal determina-
tion of all possible experience is, indeed, a prominent doctrine
of the Critique. Not only must every judgment be determined
a priori as to its form by the categories, but every perception
must also be subject to the forms of space and time. Indeed,
sensations themselves, in so far as they belong to experience at
all, are already determined. To be given, is to be brought under
the necessary conditions of experience. The purely contingent,
therefore, the 'matter of sensation,' remains an abstraction to
the end. It is a limiting conception, a mere instrument of analy-
sis. Matter and form, contingency and necessity, however far
we may carry our analysis of thought, present an indissoluble
union. This is not Kantian language, but it is unmistakably
the doctrine of the Critique. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied
that Kant draws conclusions which are not in accordance with
this doctrine. As we shall try to show, these spring inevitably
from the critical failure, or refusal, to admit the complementary
thesis, namely, that every universal proposition contains an ele-
ment of contingency.

If "percepts without concepts are blind," in the Kantian die-

7^ DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

turn, it Is equally true that "concepts without percepts are
empty." The conditions of the possibiUty of experience, except
as they receive some particular filling in the actual course of
experience, are without significance. Their objective validity
depends on their reference to given objects. But while the valid-
ity of any universal proposition depends on its reference to con-
tingent fact, the content of the universal proposition, as such,
Is supposed by Kant to contain no element of contingency. That
is to say, while the universal must depend for its validity on
particular given experiences, the meaning of the abstract univer-
sal as such remains the same no matter what the particular
filling may be. But a proposition which remains unchanged In
meaning, no matter to what contingent particulars It may have
reference. Is a necessary truth pure and simple.

It Is the purity of the categories of the understanding, that Is,
their absolute separation from all the particularity of perception,
which makes necessary the device of the schematism. Each
category has In Itself a certain sort of meaning, that Is, it may be
formally defined in purely universal terms; but as thus defined
it can never be applied to any objects of experience. It Is, how-
ever, capable of being given an interpretation In terms of per-
ception; and it Is as so Interpreted (schematized) that It enters
Into experience. What connection there Is between the formal
definition of the category and its schema, is left wholly unex-
plained. Thus substance Is defined as "that which may be con-
ceived as subject, without itself being predicate of anything else."
As schematized, however. It becomes the permanent in time.
Certainly the ground of connection between these two meanings
Is far to seek. Indeed, as is well known, Kant says of the schema-
tism that it is "an art hidden in the depths of the human soul,
the true secrets of which we shall hardly ever be able to guess
and reveal."

We have only to state Kant's position clearly. In order to see
both its near affinity to, and its divergence from, rationalism.
In showing that no particular contingent proposition can be

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 77

framed, that is not in itself already partly determined a priori,
Kant has passed beyond rationalism. But his treatment of uni-
versals is by no means free from rationalistic assumptions. That
is, while he maintains that no universal can have meaning or valid-
ity except through reference to contingency, he supposes that
there are universal propositions which in their own content con-
tain no contingent element — whose meaning is wholly independent
of their application. While such universal propositions are not in
themselves knowledge — are, in fact, mere "cobwebs of the brain"
— we may use them as premises and deduce consequences from
them, which become valid knowledge through their reference
to possible experience, or rather to the possibility of experience.
Our present concern is, not to refute this position, but to point
out its inherent rationalism. For to suppose that universals,
which do not in themselves contain their reference to experience,
do yet have such reference, is to assume that there are relations
wholly external to the terms which they relate. Furthermore,
to suppose that essentially meaningless propositions are yet capa-
ble of standing in logical relations which possess formal cogency,
is to assume that validity of logical relationship is wholly external
to the meaning of the terms related. In one sense it is true that
Kant transcends this; namely, in his insistence that it is because,
and only because, universals do bear a relation to experience
that they have significance and validity. Yet in conceiving that
this relation is not constitutive of their very universality, he fails
to give any logical ground for their reference to experience.

Again, what is the 'experience' to which universals must refer
to gain validity? To suppose that universals may, in abstraction
from their experiential filling, perform logical functions, is to
suppose that one may abstract the universal as such. But if the
universal as such is abstracted, the 'experience,' apart from the
universal thus abstracted, must be the contingent as such. Fi-
nally, we wish to call attention to the essential rationalism of the
conception of the nature of abstraction, which is implied in this
treatment of universals. It is conceived that the process of ab-

7^ DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

straction does not affect the content of what is abstracted. This
is, of course, the logical form of the ontological doctrine so fa-
miliar to us in rationalism, that the essential nature of a thing is
not affected by a change in its relations.

In the foregoing pages, our discussion of criticism has clung
very closely to Kant, and has referred in great measure to specifi-
cally Kantian doctrines. We intend it, however, to have a larger
scope, applying not only to what is peculiarly his, but to the
critical philosophy generally. To the reader the objection may
seem pertinent, that the development of the critical philosophy
by Kant's successors has so transformed the original doctrine,
that our arguments, as applied to its later forms, become irrele-
vant. But if criticism be taken to include all the doctrines of
all the thinkers that have drawn their inspiration from the Kan-
tian Critiques, one may safely say that no thesis will be found to
hold concerning it. Let us, then, define criticism as the theory,
that thought has a certain definite form or mode of procedure,
which is universally characteristic of it, and, indeed, is essential
to its systematic unity; and that the description of this form
constitutes, therefore, a body of absolutely necessary truth.
That the argument advanced in the foregoing pages with reference
to the critical theory as held by Kant applies at the same time
to criticism as here defined, will appear evident, we believe, upon
consideration.

If thought has a form universally characteristic of it, or in
other words, conforms to some universal law or laws of procedure,
then the formulation of such law or laws becomes a set of neces-
sary propositions valid for all experience. These necessary propo-
sitions, then, must form a body of truth whose relation to
other knowledge not thus necessary forms precisely the same
problem with which rationalism struggled in vain. Criticism's
issue with rationalism and empiricism lies in its conception of
universality as the formal aspect of all knowledge. If universal-
ity is, indeed, a characteristic of all experience so far as deter-

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 79

mined, it ceases to be, by that very fact, the peculiar character-
istic of any proposition or set of propositions. If determined at
all, knowledge must in so far be universal or necessary, and to
belong to experience or to be knowledge means to be determined.
In this conclusion, that all knowledge is necessary, the concept of
necessity has itself become transformed. It no longer stands for
an immediately given, as in rationalistic logic. The necessity
of truth does not lie in the isolation of its absolute self-sufficiency,
but in its inherent dependence on the entire system of knowledge.
Its validity is part and parcel of the validity of all other truth.
But as the system is likewise contingent through and through,
no validity is more than relative validity. That is to say, no
proposition is more than approximately universal. Pure uni-
versality is a limit never fully reached. Just as no analysis of
experience can, as Kant showed, yield us the final product —
bare matter of sensation, pure contingency — so no analysis ever
reaches the pure universal.

It has been pointed out by Kant's successors, that the ultimate--
ness of the Kantian distinction between form and content does
not hold, and that, furthermore, on Kant's own principles it
does not hold. It is, so it is agreed, a doctrine inconsistent
with the implied logic of the critical philosophy. Now it is true
that the separation of form and content is inconsistent with
criticism, so far as criticism conceives necessity as the universal
conditionality of thought. But it is the prerequisite assumption
of criticism, so far as criticism maintains that any particular law
or laws form the indispensable condition of experience. The
fundamental ambiguity of criticism lies in its holding at once
these two doctrines : first, that knowledge to belong to experience^
must conform to conditions, or, in other words, that knowledge
as such must be conditional and in so far universal ; and, secondly,
that there are particular descrihahle conditions to which all knowl-
edge must conform. If there are any particular conditions neces- \
sary to experience, and these are capable of formulation, then
that very formulation yields propositions which are merely for-

8o DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

mal, and which themselves contain no content. If it be argued,
that this does not involve the ultimate separation of form and
content, since these purely formal propositions are valid only
with reference to experience, we may at once reply that to con-
ceive pure forms which apply indifferently to all content, is to
conceive their applicabilty as not dependent on the nature of
that content, and hence logically unrelated to any content.

A more important modification of the Kantian position than
the one we have just discussed is the elimination of the thing-in-
itself , by those successors of Kant regarded as most truly carrying
out the critical principles. This doctrine too, it is urged, is in-
consistent with the implied logic of the critical philosophy. The
concept of an unknowable thing-in-itself , lying beyond the limits
of possible experience, is an utterly useless conception, playing
no real part in the system. Its only alleged connection with
experience lies in the assumption that it is the source of the un-
formed "matter of sensation." But since no such bare matter
is to be discovered in experience, the positing of a source for
it becomes simply gratuitous. Indeed, so it is argued, if sensa-
tion did yield an utterly unorganized matter, its organization in
experience would be entirely impossible. In short, criticism is
concerned only with the conditions of possible experience, and
what lies beyond experience is altogether outside its scope.

If the argument of the preceding pages has carried any weight
to the reader's mind, it must appear evident that Kant's assump-
tion of the thing-in-itself is by no means gratuitous; that, on
the contrary, it is a conception of vital importance not only to
the Kantian theory, but to the critical philosophy generally.
For if it is said that the relations we find in experience, the
terms in which we think, are relations essential to the nature of
thought, this must mean that these relations constitute the
nature of thought as such, and must hold of experience univer-
sally. These relations, then, in belonging to the nature of thought
as such, are not inherent in, or constitutive of, the elements
which they connect. If they were, the claim that they owed

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 8 1

their validity to the nature of thought, would lose all relevancy.
Forms of thought, universal relations, must be relations as such*
— relations indifferent to, and hence external to, the terms which
they relate. Being thus external, they must remain inoperative
unless there is posited a somewhat for them to connect ; and this
somewhat, not being constituted by the relations, must be con-
ceived as a bare matter, whose ground can only be sought in a
contentless thing-in-itself — or, having no ground, it becomes it-
self a thing-in-itself.

The question may become clearer upon comparing the critical
position with that of rationalism. The demand of rationalism
for substance was fundamentally a demand for a reality not
constituted by relations. The series of conditions must find a
final source in the unconditional, that is, in a categorical proposi-
tion. The imperativeness of this demand for a categorical source
for conditional propositions arose from the fact that conditional
propositions were regarded as wholly conditional. The idea that
there could be no final distinction between conditional and exis-
tential propositions was wholly foreign to the logic of rationalism.
For plainly, if conditional judgments involved in themselves a
categorical element, the positing of a distinct, purely categorical
proposition would be purposeless.

Now the position which criticism takes is that the series of
conditions cannot be traced to a final categorical source, for such
source would lie beyond the limits of experience. It therefore
assumes that a certain set of conditional propositions must be
final for experience. But if criticism indeed recognized that con-
ditional judgments as such contained categorical implications,
it would have no ground for assuming the finality of any given
set of conditions. The demand for finality would lose all perti-
nence. What we wish to point out here is that the conception of a
set of final conditions, which lies at the very root of criticism,
inevitably carries with it the demand for a final given somewhat
to which these conditions may be applied. In short, we must
conclude that without the conception of a thing-in-itself, the
whole critical contention falls to the ground.

82 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

There has recently become current a belief, that a very close
affinity to the present-day theory of pragmatism is to be found in
Kant's regulative ideas of reason. Leaving aside their signifi-
cance for the moral life (which we shall discuss later, and w^hich
is irrevelant to our immediate purpose), their significance for
theoretical reason depends solely on their function. They are
never realized in any experience; that is to say, no analysis of a
given experience can reveal them as verified in it. Yet they are
essential to thought; for it is through their use that given ex-
periences become organized into the larger unity of experience
as a whole. Their kinship with pragmatism thus appears upon
their face. Kant seems to say of them what the pragmatist
would say of all conceptions — that while they are never com-
pletely satisfied by any application of them, yet they serve to
bring unity to our thought, and in this service, if in no other,,
find their sanction.

Striking as this similarity to pragmatism appears to be, a
closer examination of the Kantian doctrine will show, we believe,
that these regulative principles are neither more nor less closely
related to pragmatism than are the constitutive principles. In
the first place, while they are instrumental in the sense that their
significance depends wholly on their usefulness, they are indis-
pensable instruments for the organization of thought. Conse-
quently they are not, like the principles of pragmatism, subject
to correction. They bear none of the ear-marks of evolution.
They are constructions of reason itself, created once for all by
reason for its own ends, without reference to the experience to
which they must be applied, and thus serve but to emphasize the
dualism between reason and the existent. True, they are to be
assumed as mere as ifs; but their 'as if is not the 'as if of an
instrumental logic, for they are not provisional. They are never
to be replaced by more workable conceptions. In short they
bear the unmistakable stamp of dogmatic absolutism. In the
second place, Kant says of them that their function is merely
to arrange the results of experience, without at all affecting the

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 83

content of what is thus arranged. They organize the product
of the understanding, just as the categories organize the product
of sense-perception. That is, they are pure form separated from
all content, relations absolutely external to what they relate.

In the beginning of our discussion of the critical philosophy,
we found that the application of a priori forms of thought to
content is impossible of explanation. Since the a priori form is a
relationship which does not determine in any degree the terms
to be related, there is no rational ground for its application to
these terms, and the use of the forms becomes wholly arbitrary.
From this it follows that if the ideas of reason are not constitutive
of experience they cease to be even regulative.

The inherent rationalism of the ideas of reason comes out
most plainly in Kant's conception of symbolic anthropomorphism.
The objects to which these ideas refer, viz., a supreme being,
an intelligible world, and an immaterial being, are objects which
can never be realized in any experience. Reason is utterly in-
capable of knowing them. They must remain mere illusions.
Yet even as illusions reason is forced to assume them in order
to bring unity within experience. The reconciliation of the de-
mand which reason feels for going beyond experience, with its
inability to do so, is found by Kant to lie in the limitation of our
judgment concerning these noumenal objects strictly to the re-
lation which they bear to the world as we know it, without
ascribing to them the possession of any qualities in themselves.
Thus we may, and even must, regard the organic world as if
the work of a supreme will and understanding; but in so judging
the world we do not in the least assert anything concerning the
nature of the supreme being. Knowledge of the relation of God to
the world constitutes in no degree a knowledge of God. As Kant ,
himself expresses it, we have in the comparison of God's relation
to the world to an artisan's relation to his production, an exam-
ple, not of an imperfect similarity between terms, but of a perfect
similarity of relationship between terms which in themselves are
utterly disparate.^ Surely this is outdoing rationalism itself.

Projegomena, § 58.

84 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

But we cannot discuss Kant's regulative principles without
reference to their function in the moral life. Indeed, it is in the
fact of their common functioning in the world of conduct and
in the world of thought that the contemporary pragmatist is
wont to feel his closest kinship with criticism. In the realm of
speculative reason, the ideas of God, the world, and the soul
remain mere empty conceptions. Their objects lie beyond the
reach of thought. Their only sanction lies in the constant im-
pulse of thought to go beyond its boundaries. If this were all
that could be said on their behalf, the position of the regulative
ideas would be precarious indeed. But to consider only their
function in theoretical knowledge is to leave out of account the
most important part which they play in the life of man. For if
theoretically they have no validity, practically they are neces-
sary. Although their objects must remain altogether unknow-
able by speculative thought, in the moral life is found indubitable
assurance of their reality. They are the postulates of practical
reason, the necessary conditions for the possibility of moral con-
duct. Now this conception of the ideas of reason, as obtaining
their ultimate sanction in the sphere of conduct, would seem to
accord to practical reason a certain supremacy over speculative
thought. It is in the practical life that the final solution is
found of problems which prove insoluble for thought. In so
far as this is true, the Kantian conception of regulative ideas
doubtless does exhibit a leaning toward such a voluntarism as is
often associated with pragmatism. Furthermore a certain simi-
larity to the pragmatist theory is to be found in the very fact
that the regulative principles serve to unite conduct with specu-
lative thought. But here again we find that the resemblance
to pragmatism is far less than appears at first sight, and that
the half-acceptance of an instrumentalist position serves to em-
phasize the critical adherence to dogmatic absolutism.

In the first place, let us note that the validity which the moral
consciousness furnishes to the ideas of reason does not in the
least affect their function for thought; they are valid for practical

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 85

reason only. The world of moral conduct as such is a world
utterly beyond the scope of thought. The very fact that the
connection of theoretical and practical reason is found to lie in
such transcendent ideas as God, the world, and the soul, is a
denial of that intimate relationship of conceptual thought to con-
duct, upon which pragmatism so earnestly insists.

In the second place, we cannot refrain from pointing out the
absolutism involved in Kant's conception of the regulative ideas
as postulates of practical reason. It is true that their validity
lies in the service that they perform; but it is an indispensable
service. The validity of these concepts within the sphere of
practical reason is absolute. Morality is not a developing func-
tion, the nature of which becomes modified with the modification
of other activities. The whole Kantian conception of it is
thoroughly rationalistic. The morality of any act is determined
by the nature of the act as such, and remains unafifected by the
relation which that act may have to other acts. The place of
the act in the phenomenal series of conditions is utterly irrelevant
to its moral value. Furthermore, its moral value remains wholly
unaffected, whether such an act has ever taken place or ever
will take place. In other words, moral values are absolutely
independent of content on the one hand and of existence on the
other.

CHAPTER II

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM

The chief enemy of dogmatism during the last hundred years
has been the HegeHan philosophy. This has been the great
liberator of human thought — if only, as many believe, to plunge
it into a new slavery deeper than the old.

To deal in summary fashion with absolute idealism is not a
task to be lightly undertaken. It has been as prolific in sects
as if it were a religion — perhaps because for many it has been a
religion — and the sects are as radically opposed to each other as
to any adversary from without. We have, indeed, always the
writings of the master himself to refer to; and in comparison
with these no other productions of the school are of first-class
importance. But here one must strain to comprehend a mind
both subtle and profound, expressing itself in a technical language
of unparalleled obscurity. The danger is that one may find as
many conflicting doctrines in the master as the sectarians have
divided amongst themselves; or, even more, that in spite of the
lessoning of a century of controversy we may be sectarians our-
selves. Fortunately, however, the matters with which we have
here to deal are of a very elementary character, so that it may
not be impossible to interpret them in a form which will be fairly
adequate and generally acceptable.

In the present chapter, we propose to discuss, first, the opposi-
tion of Hegelianism to the dogmatic logic; and, secondly, the
extent to which the presuppositions of the latter may still be
retained by the former, and the difficulties and uncertainties
to which they may continue to give rise.

Just a word may be premised as to the attitude of absolute
idealism toward empiricism. (Observe that we speak of empiri-
cism as a philosophy, not of empirical science.) It is one of

86

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 87

almost entire misappreciation. This is the great defect of Hegel's
own intellectual equipment, and it has very generally character-
ized his followers. It is true that to Hegel we owe some very
incisive criticisms of the empiricist procedure ; but we also owe
to him a burdensome inheritance of misconception and prejudice.
Of the very meaning of psychological analysis, as the English
school had developed it, he had but a hazy impression. The
analysis of ideas appeared to him to be nothing more or less than
an enumeration of the attributes and properties of things. Least
of all did he suspect the damaging inroads which the empiricist
could make upon his own position. Hegel accepted without
reserve the rationalistic distinction between the generalized image
and the conception, and he was inclined to set down those who
denied the separate existence of the latter, as no philosophers.
It is true that the evolution-idea gave him a new mode of formu-
lating the relation between image and conception. The latter is
an outgrowth of the former, a higher stage of its development.
But of this essentially psychological relation only a 'logical' ac-
count is given: all the stages of mental development exhibit
the same content under more or less adequate /orw5. The intense
contempt which Hegel everywhere exhibits for psychological con-
siderations throws a curious side-light upon his own limitations.

But Hegel not only misunderstands empiricist doctrine. He
is thoroughly out of sympathy with the empiricist temper. Its
modesty is a perpetual affront to him. His own ideal of science
is one in which facts are ultimately useful only for the illustration
of principles; and a curiosity which is confined to the limits of
experience, which proposes to itself nothing beyond the descrip-
tion and generalization of facts, appears to him to be far beneath
the full dignity of man. That a philosopher should pride himself
upon his self-imposed reserve, is as far from his conception of
propriety, as that he should be proud of his ignorance.

In Hegel's opinion, the history of empiricism marks a distinct
divergence from the forward development of philosophy — in-
evitable, as such divergences ever are, and in a manner justified

88 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

by the fatal narrowness and abstractness of rationalism, but a
divergence none the less. It is philosophy passed out of itself
into its other; or, as it is somewhere expressed, it is a kind of
philosophy in the same sense in which darkness is a kind of light.
In a word, Hegel's opposition to empiricism is as strong as his
own principles permitted him to assume toward any philosophy
whatsoever. This, we repeat, appears to us to be his most serious
limitation; and it may be added, that in Great Britain, where the
Hegelian philosophy is now most strongly established, this origi-
nal limitation has only become more prominent by reason of the
long and bitter warfare with the empirical philosophy, whose
reign its invasion disturbed.

The cleft between absolute idealism and the old logic is most
strikingly displayed in the theory of relations. While for the
dogmatists these had been invariably external to the essence of
the terms related, for absolute idealism the essences of things
are wholly constituted by their relations. It may be of assistance
to us In our endeavor to appreciate the absolutist position, if we
retrace, in a general and schematic way, the thought-transition
by which this revolutionary change was effected.

The long continued controversy over the heliocentric hypothe-
sis was sufficient to familiarize even the popular mind with the
idea, that rest and motion — at least in the ordinary application
of the terms — do not appertain to things as they are in them-
selves, but only to things in definite relation to other things.
Whether there must be assumed an absolute standard underlying
these relativities, remained a question for the learned; and both
sides were taken by eminent authorities. From the end of the
seventeenth century, however, the relativistic position was,
though widely questioned, a commonplace of scientific theory.

Intimately associated with the foregoing and, no less attractive
to the speculative mind, was the theory of the relativity of spatial
magnitude. This, too, met with scepticism, but the common
intelligence had long embraced it as self-evident. The celebrated

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 89

exposition of the theory by Laplace simply confirmed its hold.
Closely bound up, again, with spatial relativity is the relativity
of temporal position and magnitude; for time is habitually treated
by the scientist as a sort of one-dimensional space. When this
also has been embraced, there remains no convincing reason for
questioning the similar nature of the mechanical concepts of
mass and force. The general doctrine, then, of the relativity
of all the primary qualities of matter becomes so far from para-
doxical, that it is apt to meet with unquestioning acceptance.

But the primary qualities of matter are precisely those upon
which rationalism had fixed as constituting its essence. The
relativity of the secondary qualities had been recognized by Des-
cartes, and it was for this reason that he branded them as mere
appearance. Precisely the same conclusion was therefore natural
in the case of the primary qualities. Leibniz actually reached
this conclusion with respect to extension ; and only the then cha-
otic state of elementary mechanics permitted him to avoid equally
condemning motion and energy. When therefore, the mechan-
ical theory of the eighteenth century had assumed its classi-
cal form, the time was ripe for the announcement of the thesis,
that all the knowable qualities of material things are determined
by their relations to other things, and hence are merely phe-
nomenal.

This conclusion was facilitated by another consideration,
which, however, for the rationalists was not clearly distinct from
the foregoing. The observable qualities of things are not
only relative in the sense of owing their meaning to their implied
reference to the qualitites of other things. They are also (with
the exception of mass^) relative in the sense that they change in

^We are not surprised to find a disposition to identify the concept of mass with
that of matter itself. Size and shape, density and velocity are then recognized as
accidents: but the material body not only has mass, but is the mass. Otherwise
put, mass shows an evident tendency to replace extension as the essence of matter.
But aside from the fact that its 'mathematical' relativity is a fatal obstacle to a
strictly rationalistic interpretation, there is a further difficulty yet to be men-
tioned. It is readily perceived that the concept of mass has meaning for us only
in connection with those of duration, extension, and force> Mass may, indeed.

90 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

accordance with change in their relations. That is to say, the
relativity is not simply mathematical, but also dynamical. Fur-
thermore, in the dynamical as well as in the mathematical sense
of the term, the relativity is not to a few things, or even to things
in general, but to the universe as a system of interrelated things.
This is the principle of universal reciprocal determination, for
which Newton gave a solid basis by his discovery of the law of
gravitation, and which Leibniz proclaimed, while he yet denied
it, in his theory of the preestablished harmony.

If then the distinction between the essential and the relative
was anywhere to be made out, it would have to be in the case of
thinking substances, or souls. But, in the first place, where a
distinct class of such substances was recognized, they had always
been treated after the analogy of material substances. This was,
of course, unavoidably true, where the characteristics of the soul-
substance were simply the negatives of those of all (or some)
material things: simple, incorruptible, immortal, etc. But it was
also true of its own peculiar attribute of thinking, which was
always thought of in express opposition to the material attribute
of extension. A changed interpretation of the latter was therefore
bound in some measure to affect the former. In the second place,
a line of argument precisely similar to that which had transformed
the material attributes into relations was readily applicable to the
qualities and functions of the soul. Whether the essence of the
soul was (with Descartes) to think, or (with Leibniz) the energy
by which its ideas, conscious or unconscious, are determined, it
was necessary that this essence be inseparable from the soul-
substance, and, independently of everything else, equally char-
acterize it at all times. But so far as unprejudiced observation
could show, the soul's faculty of thought or ideation is quite as
relative to circumstances as the color or density of matter. To

be said to be a name for the fact, that a given force, acting upon different bodies,
produces in a given time accelerations that vary only from body to body. Now
since a force acting upon one body is always a strain between two, it is obvious
that mass does not belong to any particular body apart from its dynamic relations
to other bodies.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 9 1

all appearances, it is dependent not only upon the stimuli and
distractions of the outer world, but upon the condition of the
nervous mechanism. In the third place, the concept of soul-
substance had itself, with Kant, fallen under suspicion. That
of material substance had at least found a new excuse for being
in the doctrine of the conservation of mass. But among the
observable qualities or contents of the soul there is no such
constant factor — nothing beyond the empty abstraction by which
its manifold ideas are subsumed under the identity of one con-
sciousness.

The reader will surely understand that the above is not to be
taken as a presentation of the very arguments by which Hegel
was led to the doctrine of the essentiality of relations. What
we have wished to show is that — apart from the peculiar forms
of the critical philosophy — the doctrine which reduced the es-
sential attributes of eternal substances to the mutual determina-
tions of phenomena was a characteristic manifestation of the
spirit of the age. We have already described Kant's attitude
upon the matter — how, clinging to the old logic, while he ushers
in the new, he still conceives of a self-subsistent substance lying
behind the phenomenal substance, though there remains no deter-
mination with which he can identify it. In Hegel's system, that
dualism has been left behind. It is now recognized, that in the
concept of reciprocity rationalism has found its refutation. That
the thing-in-itself is unknowable has become a truism, for there
is nothing in it to know. The real thing is wholly determined in
all its qualities by its relations to other things. More truly
than Leibniz had conceived, every reality is a mirror of the
universe — not by reason of a preestablished harmony, the work
of a transcendent creator, but simply because that is what its
existence means. Essence and accident, the inner and the outer
have coalesced. The actual is no longer to be sought for beside
or behind the phenomenon. If the distinction between them is
not to be abandoned, it must be radically transformed.

92 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Before taking up the new doctrine of the actual (which takes
the place of the rationalistic doctrine of substance), it will be
convenient for us to examine some of the more Immediate con-
sequences of the essentiality of relations.

In the first place, the representative theory of knowledge has
lost Its excuse for being. The Kantian compromise, which had
preserved the old ideal only to show it to be impossible of ful-
fillment, Is already only of historical significance. With the
independent essence has vanished the independent standard of
truth. The task of reason is not simply to construct a thought-
copy of a reality which exists prior to all thought. On the con-
trary, there is no aspect of reality which is not wholly dependent
upon at least the possibility of its being known. The new
conception of truth, which Kant had Introduced as an Imperfect
substitute for the ideal, and as having relevancy only within a
restricted sphere of thought — the conception of truth as service
In the organization of experience — has occupied the whole
thought-universe. While the relation of correspondence between
idea and object is not denied, It is not regarded as an ultimate
and inexplicable datum.

From one point of view the critical doctrine Is thus carried to
its extreme. But from another It has lost much of its apparent
radicalism. To make use of Kant's famous figure, — both the
popular prejudice, that the sun revolves about the earth, and
the enlightened doctrine, that the earth revolves about the sun,
have given way to the theory, that both alike revolve about their
common center of gravity. It Is the sober conception of a system
that has triumphed. The startling thesis of the critical philos-
ophy, that the constitutive relations of things do not belong to
the things themselves, but are supplied by the subject, has given
way to the synthetic view, that these relations are at once sub-
jective and objective — that, belonging to the organization of
experience, they appertain to both subject and object indis-
solubly.

In the second place, the intuition of reason has become un-

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 93

necessary — or, to speak more guardedly, an important ground
for its necessity has been removed. For the function of the
intuition is precisely to bridge that gap between idea and reality
which now no longer exists. Upon this point we need not dwell,
for the connection between intuitionalism and the representative
theory of knowledge has been treated at length in an earlier
chapter. Here we would merely add that even if, upon other
grounds, the intuition should appear to be indispensable as the
foundation of science, it is now inadequate. For the intuition
owes its self-evidence to the clearness and distinctness of its
contents altogether independently of anything else. But if the
essentiality of relations is to be regarded as established, there
can be no such independent truth.

Let us turn now to more positive considerations.

According to absolute idealism, the actual is the system of
phenomena. Like the substance of the rationalists, it is a self-
subsistent unity; for there is nothing outside of it to w^hich it
can refer or upon which it can depend. Its existence and its
meaning are alike contained within itself. For any particular
phenomenon, a ground, or cause, may properly be sought; and
as this is found in another phenomenon, the inquiry may be
repeated without limit. But for the complete system it is ridicu-
lous to seek a ground or a cause. It stands, to be sure, in relation
to its phenomenal elements, and maybe thought of as dependent
upon each of them; but in depending upon them it is simply
depending upon itself.

This may be otherwise expressed by saying that for Hegel the
actual is a concrete universal, as distinguished from the abstract
universals from which rationalists had sought to deduce all things.
An illustration of his theory is to be found in any natural or
social organism. If one inquires, for example, the meaning of
'American citizen,' an answer in the spirit of the rationalists
would consist in a definition embracing all the points of likeness
Jn which all American citizens agree; while an answer in Hegel's
spirit would comprise an account of the national life, in which

94 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

various classes of citizens — rich and poor, educated and illiterate,
men of various parties and sympathies — play distinctive parts.
That is to say, in his view the differences between American
citizens are quite as essential to an understanding of the concep-
tion as are their likenesses. To know the American citizen is
to know the United States of America. Even so, to express the
meaning of 'tissues- of the human body' no mere definition will
suffice, but only an account of the various tissues in their complex
interrelations. A further point of great importance must be
noted. If we consider a series of abstract universals, related as
species and genera of increasing extent, the thought-content
steadily diminishes; whereas in the case of concrete universals
the wider the extent the richer the content. So that the limit of
explanation is not to be found in a set of simple ideas, or summa
genera, of maximum extent and minimum content, but is a
summum genus which contains, as well as subsumes, all its
species, and whose meaning exhausts all possible meaning.^

It is true that, upon reflection, the organism shows itself to be,
after all, an imperfect illustration of actuality. The meaning of
its component elements is not sufficiently shown by their mutual
relations alone. There is an environment also to be considered,
and upon this environment every part of the organism stands in
absolute dependence. Strictly speaking, there can be but a single
actuality.

But that the analogy may lead us as far as possible, it must
not be supposed that in his conception of the organism Hegel
confines his view to a single stage in its life-history .^ As far as
the reciprocal dependence extends, so far the concept of the
organism extends. The true organism embraces the entire de-

lA resemblance to mysticism lies upon the surface, but its importance is easily
exaggerated.

^As will be seen in the sequel, however, the maturity of an organism is not to be
regarded as simply one stage among others in its development. It is that m wh-ch
the whole development is contained — its end, and at the same time, its principle.
And the eternity of the actual, of which we immediately speak, does not mean
simply the inclusion of temporal change. It means the incorporation {A ufhebung)
of all stages of the universal evolution in its consummation — God.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 95

velopment. This is (in part at least) the significance of the
dictum of absolute idealism, that the actual changes and is yet
eternal. The infinite organism embraces the whole past and
future — it is a universal evolution. It is eternal, not as if change
were illusory, but because all change is comprehended within it.

In the philosophy of Hegel a new scientific influence has be-
come dominant — that of the history of civilization. This in-
fluence, which prior to the middle of the eighteenth century is to
be discerned only by careful scrutiny, has by the beginning of
the nineteenth relegated to a secondary place the methods and
principles of mathematics. In this, as in so many respects, the
philosophy of Kant is a turning-point. It is there that one finds
the supreme effort of rationalism to interpret the phenomena of
human progress in terms derived from the study of mechanics —
to make a morality that simulates the uniformity of natural law
square with a humanity that has passed up from savagery to
civilization and is still climbing. In absolute idealism, the inter-
pretation of progress operates by means of categories to which it
has itself given rise, and by which, in turn, even the theories of
quantity and number are dominated. In other words, absolute
idealism is a philosophy of evolution — the philosophy of evolution
par excellence, its advocates would say.

The significance of the revolution thus accomplished it is diffi-
cult to overestimate. It is not simply a shifting of interest
from one science to another. It marks the emergence of a higher
ideal of human wisdom. The oldest division of the accumulated
learning of man, the division upon which all further specialization
has rested, is that between history and philosophy; and this
division has persisted, without any effectual attempt to overcome
it — unless the work of Aristotle be an exception — down almost
to our own day. It is the cleft between the individual and the
universal, between the curiosity that would fain know the for-
tunes of men and things in all the fulness of their concrete particu-
larity, and the curiosity which is not to be satisfied by mere

96 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

stories, but only by explanations upon general principles. The
division is, no doubt, a preeminently useful one — as its long
persistence would suffice to prove — and Heraclitus, who was, so
far as we know, the first to perceive it, was not without warrant
in supposing that this discovery had made him the wisest of men.
We may well say that self-conscious philosophy begins with the
insight, that "wisdom is apart from the knowledge of many
things" — that "it is to know the thought by which all things
through all are guided." But, however advantageous such a
division may be, it inevitably gives rise to limitations, which
sooner or later become serious ; and a synthesis which successfully
overcomes these limitations means not simply the origin of a
new department of science or history, but a reformation of both
science and history, by which few departments of either can fail
to be profoundly affected. This is the great accomplishment of
the century from Turgot to Darwin — the synthesis of history
and science in the conception of evolution. A score of such new
births as geology and philology, economic history and the history
of philosophy itself are not wholly surprising under the circum-
stances.

It is, then, as a representative of this movement that Hegel
claims our attention, and this in spite of the fact that his work
precedes that of Darwin by half a century. His acquaintance
with the facts upon which a general theory of evolution might
be founded was almost entirely limited to social phenomena.
The development of the individual organism had been so im-
perfectly studied, that a grave dispute still waged between the
advocates of preformatlonism and those who saw in the process
a true epigenesis, a gradual change from the simple to the com-
plex. The evolution of organic species was generally set down
as a discredited hypothesis. But for the understanding of social
progress Hegel had behind him the work of Turgot and Condor-
cet, of Lessing, Herder, and Kant. The broad facts to be ex-
plained were already familiar, though only the beginnings of a
dynamic theory had yet been made.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 97

The feature of social evolution which stood out to Hegel's
view was the manner in which the older and simpler forms of
organization persist as essential elements in the higher forms.
The family in civil society, the folk-song in the symphony, the
fear of God in the Christian religion — these may serve as examples
of the type of phenomenon which he found of the utmost signifi-
cance. Perhaps for us the best illustration of this significance
is to be found in a parallel observation of biologists, — the per-
sistence of the protozoic type in the structure of the reproductive
and somatic cells of the highest animals. It is with a species x/
of awe that one learns, for example, that the cells of the human
body are still living substantially the marine life of their remotest
ancestors. The sense of physical solidarity, the realization of
the fact that evolution means the persistence of the old in the
very substance of the new, is tremendous. It was this, we repeat,
that Hegel observed in human society, — the preservation of prim-
itive man in the structure of modern civilization. He gave the
process the name of Aufhebung, a term for which a proper etymo-
logical equivalent in our language has been sought in vain, but
which may be well enough rendered by incorporation. Two as-
pects of the process were pointed out by him; first, the loss of
independent self-subsistence by the lower form; and, second, its
^persistence as a mere element, but an essential element, in the
structure of the higher form.

.But Hegel had not only observed this process. He had his
theory as to the manner in which it is accomplished. If we ex-
amine carefully — he would say — any of the lower forms which
have been mentioned, we perceive that it contains within itself
the sources of its own inevitable dissolution ; it involves its own
contradiction. Thus in the family parents and children are held
together by the dependence of the latter upon the former; but
through parental care the children are brought to a maturity in
which that dependence no longer eixsts, and the family falls
apart into a number of individuals having separate and distinct
interests. If even between these individuals a natural affection
8

98 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

continues to exist, the renewed course of family life itself, with
the consequent numerical increase of the group, must bring about
in time the practical dissolution of that tie. Thus a competitive
system is originated, which is the complete antithesis of all that
the family is and represents. But unrestrained competition has
in it, in precisely similar fashion, the seeds of its own undoing.
That competition may be effectual, the possession of goods must
be assured; and such an assurance can only be given by a new
family unity — not the primitive family based upon human in-
stinct, to be sure, but the self-conscious family which we call
the state. The state, then, is the outcome of a two-fold process
of self -negation. The family has given rise to its opposite, and
this opposite has in turn given rise to its opposite; which, how-
ever, is not now the primitive form from which the development
set out, but a higher unity in which both of the earlier stages are
contained as essential elements. To be sure, neither the family
nor the competitive order is quite what it w^as before the origin
of civil society. But that is simply to say that each has lost the
appearance of self-subsistent completeness which it formerly pos-
sessed. It has become a civil institution, aufgehoben, incor-
porated, in the larger life of the state. The complex process
thus exemplified is called dialectic.

In the dialectical movement there is one feature to which
especial attention must be called. This is the fact, that it is
the very nature of the lower forms to develop in the manner
described. The development is not something which occurs to
them by reason of accidental surrounding conditions. It is im-
plicitly contained in them; and as it proceeds it exhibits what
their real nature was better than they did themselves. It alone
reveals their truth, as distinguished from what they seemed to be.
In a different sense, the whole development is contained in the
higher form which is its outcome. Indeed, when it is reflected
that the development is not a mere temporal succession of events,
but a logical sequence of essentially interrelated factors, it may
be said that the higher form is the development; for in it the
same opposition and synthesis are evermore preserved.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 99

It was in the domain of philosophical thought, that Hegel
found the richest exemplification of his theory. The creation of
a philosophy was, in his view, as impossible as the creation of a
political constitution — and this for reasons which have already
been set forth. The advancement of knowledge could not consist
in the mere addition of new to old. For — by reason of the essen-
tiality of relations — the mastery of concepts, the insight into
things, is inevitably interpenetrating. A complete knowledge of
any object, a complete comprehension of any concept, would
amount to omniscience — no possible addition would remain.
What happens, therefore, is that our abstract and palpably in-
adequate notions of things gradually gain in concreteness. The
old truth becomes the new, when hitherto unperceived conditions
and limitations of its applicability are revealed. It must then
be regarded as refuted, so far as its former pretensions to absolute
universality are concerned ; but this refutation means that it has
found its due place in a larger scheme of truth.

It is this conception which enabled Hegel to organize a new
department of human knowledge — one which Bacon two hundred
years before had described as wanting, but the lack of which
had not yet been supplied — the history of philosophy. We have
already remarked that to the thinkers of the dogmatic period
the striking feature in the succession of world-theories is the in-
consistency of each one with every other. It is a lamentable
series of failures, to which the ultimate touch of pathos is given
by the curious vanity with which each man hopes to finally
triumph where all his predecessors have met defeat. Hegel sees
matters in a different light. To him the refutation of a system
means simply that the peculiar limitations of its principles are
perceived, and that they are accordingly included in and sub-
ordinated to principles that are at once more comprehensive and
more concrete. The catalogue of the philosophers and schools
of the past is in truth the index of an inspiring record of progress ;
and the relation of the latest thinker to those who have preceded
him should be one of gratitude and reverence. While he may

lOO DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

be vain enough to hope that by bringing together the results of
their labors he may produce a system that shall surpass them
all, he ought not to be unwilling to reflect that his own best
thoughts will be reduced to a place of subordination in the grander
system of the future.

Needless to say, the process is here, as elsewhere, dialectical.
Indeed, it is from this field that the concept of dialectic is ob-
viously derived. No philosophy is refuted until it refutes itself;
and its self-refutation means that it passes over into its negative.
Thus it is the palpable failure of rationalism to explain the indi-
viduality of things upon universal grounds, that makes empiri-
cism inevitable. But the negative is equally insecure; as the fail-
ure of empiricism to frame an adequate account of the universal
aspects of things illustrates. Hence the second negative arises,
which is the synthesis of the two opposites. Philosophy returns
to the universal as its principle; but this is not now the empty
universal of rationalism, but the generic type which contains
the grounds of its own differentiation. Absolute idealism is thus
the truth of both rationalism and empiricism, their logical out-
come which first makes clear what each really contained. And
as it maintains both within itself as essential factors of its own
higher complexity, the dialectic by which it has arisen still con-
tinues evermore within it — it is that dialectic.

What is thus true of philosophical systems is equally true of
those fundamental concepts in terms of which the interpretation
of the universe is carried on; for the history of philosophy is
essentially conditioned by the development of these concepts.
Philosophy comes into existence with the explicit emergence of
pure thought, in the Eleatic school; and it is naturally then in
the poorest of its categories, that is to say, at the lowest of its
possible stages: mere being. The great advance made by Hera-
clitus (whom Hegel apparently supposes to be later than Par-
menides) is due to the fact, that he has made out the dialectical
unity of being and its negation, in the relatively complex category
of becoming. Here also the lower forms continue as permanent

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM lOI

elements of the higher ; and here also the higher form is nothing
more than their reconciliation. Each of the two elements suffers
a certain modification; but that again means only that it has
lost its original deceptive appearance of isolated self-sufificiency.
The higher category shows better than the lower what the lower
really was. It is its 'truth,' that is to say, its logical outcome.

Hegel repeatedly remarks upon the altered conception of
immediacy which this evolutionary doctrine brings to the fore.
The dialectic sets out from an immediate in the rationalistic
sense — an absolutely simple and unrelated thought, which for that
very reason is empty of all content and cannot even be distin-
guished from its own negative. Hegel is insistent upon the point,
that no such thought can be more than this. But every new
synthesis is immediate in a different sense. It is self-mediated.
For though the preceding evolution is necessary in order to pro-
duce it, that evolution is itself.

The same is true of the logical dialectic taken in its entirety.
Every category is the whole development up to itself. And the
supreme category is nothing more or less than the complete
dialectic.

For this reason the mere temporal development of the cate-
gories, as the history of philosophy records it, is, after all, a
matter of secondary concern. The really significant thing is
the dialectic as it' exists in the higher category. For though the
historical process, in so far as it occurs at all, occurs in precisely
the one possible manner, nevertheless it is constantly obscured
and interrupted. Historical change is not always progress.
Moreover the very temporal sequence of the stages gives them
an appearance of mutual externality, which is the reverse of truth.
Not that the historical course of events is without its suggestive-
ness. But it is logical insight — the perception of the eternal
synthesis of opposites — that alone can be receptive to the sug-
gestions of history. Thus, in principle, logic, the science of the
eternal dialectic, is the presupposition of the intelligent study
of the historical dialectic. It belongs, indeed, to the historian of

102 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

philosophy — as Hegel is reported to have said^ — to show in detail
"how far the gradual evolution of his theme coincides with, or
swerves from, the dialectical unfolding of the pure logical idea."
There is another general feature of Hegel's logic, which we
must not neglect to emphasize. In his view, it is the lower cate-
gory itself, which, by reason of its own inherent character, de-
velops into the higher. No outside influence plays any part in
the process. It is not necessary for us to think about being, to
compare it or contrast it with any other category, or even to use
it in any concrete connection, in order to produce the dialectic
All that is mere * 'external reflection." Above all, no induction
is necessary. It is not as if the category were an hypothesis
accepted provisionally and gradually corrected as its application
to new instances requires. On the contrary, it is accepted with-
out reservation — it fills the mind's whole horizon — and then,
without extraneous interference of any sort, it corrects itself.
It is only necessary that being be thought — that is to say, that the
thought named 'being' continue — and it transforms itself into
naught and into becoming. The dialectic is an expression of the
thought's own essential spontaneity.

It will be readily seen from the above, how vital to Hegel's
system the assumption of pure thought as a particular species
of conscious activity is. He is unable to speak without contempt
of those who pretend to philosophize and yet deny the existence
of such thought. The denial is to him a mere confession that
the one who makes it is so far undeveloped as to be incapable of
the study of logic, and so of any philosophical speculation worthy
of the name. Not that this is his only answer. In his Phenome-
nology of Spirit he attempts to show that pure thought (as well as
concrete thought, of which later) is a necessary development
from the very lowest sensuous consciousness. From this position
he does not swerve, and his whole system of philosophy is con-
ditioned by it.

1 In an editorial addition to Encyclopedia, Logic, § 86; Wallace tr.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM IO3

The purity of thought does not, of course, mean that it stands
in no organic connection with the lower forms of consciousness.
It has grown out of them. Experience — the data of mere per-
ception and the quasi-universals formed by induction — is and
remains its points of departure. Cut off from this origin, it would
be a dead formalism. Its purity, then, means its negativity —
in the sense which we have previously described. Having
emerged from experience, the explicit fact about it is that it is
not experience. It is not, like experience, subject to correction
by yet unknown exceptions ; for its truth is dependent upon noth-
ing outside of itself. That is to say, it has no object with which
it must square — or, if you please, its only object is itself — and
its development consists solely in its better and better squaring
with itself. Thus it exhibits an absolute universality and neces-
sity, such as experience indefinitely strives towards, while ever
remaining at an infinite distance from it.

Pure thought also differs from experience in its transcendence
of the individual limitations of the thinker. Each man's expe-
rience is more or less peculiar to himself; and inductive science
can only approximately cast out the errors thus arising. But
pure thought is not one man's thought to the exclusion of others'.
How could it be, seeing that it has no object beyond itself? The
varying experiences of different men have a meeting-point in
the common object to which they refer. But pure thought is
its own object; so that the universality which it possesses means
that, while it emerges from the individual experiences of men, it is
unitary. Not that it is a bare identity either (as if one man's
thought were ipso facto another's) or an abstract universality
(as if one man's thought were simply like another's). It is a
concrete universal, of which their several thoughts are partial,
though essential, aspects. The logic has an existence and char-
acter of its own, independent of the circumstance that you may
resolve to study it; though, again, it is only in the conscious
life of you and of other men that it has any existence. (So the
state lives before the citizen is born; but there can be no state

104 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

without citizens. So, too, God himself exists only as he is self-
conscious in man.) When you think measure, or cause, or end,
it is not you, as you, that think it. The logic is not a develop-
ment within your particular self, or even an inheritance passed
on from man to man and increased by successive exertions. "For
these thousands of years the same Architect has directed the
work; and that Architect is the one living Mind, whose thinking
nature it is to bring to self-consciousness what it is, and, with its
being [i, e., its present stage of development] set as an object
before it, to be at the same time raised above it, and so to reach
a higher state of its own being. "^

Now in relation to experience pure thought is altogether a priori
— as its character of universality and necessity sufficiently indi-
cates. It needs no experiential evidence to support it; and all
experience must conform to it. But the relation of pure thought
to concrete thought — which is very different from mere experience
— is not thereby stated. For concrete thought is the result of a
further development. As a matter of human history this devel-
opment consists in an appropriation of the most general results
of the empirical sciences, and the casting of them into a form in
which they possess the self-sufficient necessity of pure thought
itself — that is to say, we repeat, an absolute independence of
mere fact or of any inductive evidence. For this achievement
the inductive sciences themselves were, to be sure, a necessary
precondition; but that does not compromise the certainty of the
result.^ The logic, too, is a precondition — but only as a lower
stage of a development comes before a higher; which, let it be
remembered, means that the logic first shows what it truly is,
when it is viewed as an element in concrete thought. Seen, then,
in its truth, the advance is a typical dialectic, due, as always, to
the fact that the given stage contains more implicitly than it

^Encycl., § 13, Wallace's translation, slightly altered.

2The relation here is like that of the experiment to the rationalistic deduction.
By reason of the finitude of human powers the experiment is necessary in order to
point the way. But experimental evidence forms no part of the structure of the
science.

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 105

exhibits explicitly. So conceived, it shows two stages, the philos-
ophy of nature and the philosophy of spirit. These two stages,
with the logic, are a reflective recapitulation of the dialectic of
actuality itself. For nature is nothing else than the negation of
thought — thought objectified, 'petrified' (in Schelling's phrase),
representing in an external way the same dialectic which the
logic sets forth. The many permanent natural forms are ar-
rested developments corresponding to the various stages of the
evolution of the pure 'idea.' (This is why, for example, the
categories of the old rationalism were fairly competent in the
realm of mere mechanics, but failed altogether when applied
to the explanation of the simplest organism.) Spirit is the return
of nature to thought again in man: first as a thinking subject;
then in the thought-suffused institutions of human society; and
finally in the forms, at once subjective and objective, of art,
religion, and philosophy. Philosophy, as the outcome of the
entire threefold dialectic, is the supremely actual. In other
words, God is in very truth the spirit of philosophy.

Upon its face, absolute idealism is the reverse of rationalism.
Its procedure, instead of being a descent from first ^premises
which are severally clear and distinct and absolutely true, and
impart their truth to all that follows from them, is an ascent
from thoughts which, as they stand, are unclear and inadequate;
and its fundamental principle is its goal. It would be difficult
to imagine an opposition more extreme. Accordingly, the popu-
lar usage which has grouped absolute idealism with philosophies
of the Cartesian type under the one name of rationalism may well
seem inexcusable. It is our conviction, nevertheless, that in
various important respects the popular classification is amply
justified; and that the absolute idealist, despite his courageous
struggle for spiritual liberty, has not succeeded in getting himself
free from the meshes of the old dogmatism.

What has usually figured as the main ground of distinction
between the Hegelian philosophy and the pre-Kantian rationalism

I06 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

has, however, not yet been mentioned. This is the so called
'law of contradiction,' w^hich Descartes and his successors ac-
cepted as self-evident, and which Hegel is supposed to have called
in question. For such an interpretation of his position, Hegel
is himself largely to blame; but it is very misleading none the
less. So far from being invalidated, the law of contradiction is
the one moving principle of the whole dialectic, not only in pure
thought, but in the natural and social orders. Not only have we
here no break with rationalism, but there is a bond of union whjch
is worthy of most careful examination.

The current interpretation has arisen, in the first place, natu-
rally enough from Hegel's deep-seated contempt for the school-
logic that he found in possession of the field. There was a
precious bit of truth contained in it — the classification of the
syllogistic moods, for example — but that might all be expressed
in a couple of pages. The rest was 'pure fudge,' and he seldom
lost an opportunity for pouring his contempt upon it. Almost
inevitably, he went too far. The particular form which his ex-
cess took was given by his weakness for reading new meanings
into old formulae. Generally, indeed, the meanings thus im-
ported were deep speculative truths, which the idioms of lan-
guage and the dogmas of religion unconsciously contained — a
mode of interpretation which Hegel's evolutionary theory of the
relation of thought to the lower forms of consciousness was well
adapted to support. But on occasion he could as easily read-in
all manner of untruth. Thus in criticising the 'law of identity'
{A is A) J he interprets it as an affirmation of the externality
of relations; and the 'law of the excluded middle' (A is either
B or not-B) he similarly interprets as declaring that all meaning
consists in the relation of contradiction. Finally, the law of
contradiction {A is not not- A) he finds to mean that a contra-
diction is unthinkable; whereas to himself the truth is that it is
not permanently thinkable, for when a thought is shown to contra-
dict itself it inevitably undergoes some modification which re-
solves the contradiction. Now it is true, that Hegel takes issue

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM I07

with rationalism upon the question of the existence of a body of
absolutely clear and distinct thoughts, given by intuition and
insusceptible of any modification. But the law of contradiction
has nothing to do with the possibility of unclear thought or
with the question whether certain categories are clear or unclear.
Nor is it involved in the question, whether the thinking of unclear,
self-contradictory thoughts is a necessary precondition of the
thinking of self-consistent and adequate thoughts. But that self-
contradiction is an infallible sign of unclearness and untruth
both Hegel and the rationalists agree.

In the second place — and here he is more seriously guilty —
Hegel systematically confounds opposition of any sort, either in
nature or in society, with the existence of a logical contradiction;
just as he also identifies the mutual cancellation of opposed ele-
ments with the process of dialectic. Contradiction, he accord-
ingly declares, has a universal phenomenal existence. An example
may serve to make clear his view. The acid and the base are
opposites. Yet each is directly dependent upon the other for its
specific characteristics. If there were not acids, a base would
not be a base. Either, then, by itself considered, is an unreal
abstraction, and it is only in their combination that their truth
is realized. Their existence together in the world is thus an
open contradiction — hence their tendency to react. This, of course,
is puerile; and such stuff bulks larger in Hegel's work than one
would like to admit. But even here, let it be noted, the contra-
diction is only phenomenal, not actual. It exists at all times, but
only in each temporal cross-section. In the continuous flow of
the cosmic process, it is perfectly resolved.

In the third place, there are the numerous express self-contra-
dictions which are to be found in all his writings. But can such
outrages upon language be avoided by any man who attempts to
work out an evolutionary philosophy? The propositional form,
Hegel insists, is incapable of expressing speculative truth, that
is to say, of expressing the relation between concepts which are
in process of development. No proposition which attempts the

Io8 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

task can be one whit truer than its contradictory. Thus being
and naught, somewhat and other, positive and negative are the
same and yet not the same; the whole is prior to its parts, and
yet they are equally prior to it; there must be a mere given
somewhere in the universe, else the whole system of necessary
connections has nothing to hang up on — and yet any phenomenon
which one attempts to regard as such a mere given shows itself
at once to be a link in the chain of universal necessitation. It
is startling to common sense to be told that each of two contra-
dictory propositions is both true and false; but it is merely one
of the growing-pains of thought. When categories which have
heretofore seemed absolute begin to show their limitations, what
else is to be expected? The law of contradiction is not thereby
abolished. It is simply pointed out that the application of this
law implies a certain finality in the terms involved, which they
do not always possess.

We repeat that what is especially remarkable with respect to
Hegel's treatment of the principle of contradiction is not his real
or alleged assaults upon it, but the tremendous scope which he
allows it. That no contradiction can be actual, and so eternal,
is with him not simply a permanent condition but a motive force
— the force to which all progress is due. For all progress is but
the becoming explicit of contradictions that are everywhere im-
plicit, and their reconciliation; and this process takes place with-
out the necessity of outside interference, solely by reason of the
existence of the contradiction itself. Thus, in the logic, no ex-
ternal reflection, no induction need intervene; in the development
of the state no pressure of the natural environment plays a part.
It is what the lower form has in it — its organic concept — that
determines what it is to be. The order and connection of thoughts,
and the order and connection of things are the same.

This freedom of the development from outside interference
has its characteristic explanation, which we must not neglect
to note. The logic is independent of experience because it is
its outgrowth. The development of the state is essentialh^ inde-

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 109

pendent of natural conditions, because man is nature's highest
fruit — the mere stress and strain of material forces is already
aufgehoben in him. But what we would now particularly observe
is that these incorporated forces, though they play no distinguishable
part in advancing the development, have an extraordinary power to
thwart it. Even philosophy itself — the absolute spirit in its su-
preme self-realization — is not undisturbed in its historical growth
by the accidents of fortune. And here we come face to face with
rationalism in its most pronounced form. The historical order is
explained in terms of something truer than itself. It is broken up
into two parts, an essential and an accidental, and only the former
is susceptible of rational explanation or justification.

There thus reappears, despite the unifying conception of Auf-
hebung, the rationalistic cleft between the universal and the par-
ticular, the necessary and the contingent. In every phenomenon
of nature and mind there is an aspect which must be set down to
mere chance — every attempt to explain it will surely come to
grief. We must beware of attempting to exhibit the necessity
of that which is fundamentally contingent. True philosophy is
far from pretending to be competent to any such task. For
while the contingent is always the relatively superficial, and
necessity in every case underlies it, that does not mean that the
former is a mere illusion of ignorance, which the advancement of
knowledge can ultimately dispel.

If we ask the reason for this surprising turn of thought, an
answer is to be found in the name of the ancient rationalist
whom Hegel held in highest reverence, and whose fame he did
much to reestablish : Aristotle. There can be no doubt, we think,
that Hegel's conception of the irrational element in nature comes
•directly from this source. But such an answer seldom contains
so much as half a truth. The question remains, why Hegel
became indebted to Aristotle for the conception — what the need
of his own thought was, that urged him to the borrowing.

Let us answer this question with another. How else could
Hegel have preserved his sanity? As it stands, the program of

no DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

his philosophy is the most magnificent that the mind of man ever
conceived: on the one hand, to exhibit in a complete outHne the
system of concepts by which all thought is organized; and on
the other hand to transform the chief results of ancient and mod-
ern science into a thought-universe, wherein all should be in-
terrelated by a necessity as absolute as that of pure thought itself.
If the dialectic which he professed had included the full par-
ticularity of experience, it would have amounted to an oracle
of prophetic omniscience.

But while the acceptance of the existing irrational saves ab-
solute idealism from relapsing into a mere charlatanism, this is
only at the expense of admitting an irreconcilable contradiction
into its theory of actuality. On the one hand, the irrational
aspect of the phenomenon is condemned as mere untruth; but,
on the other hand, the actual, as compared with this untruth, is
itself a mere negative, equally untrue. If history fails to square
with thought, so much the worse for history — but also so much
the worse for thought. For its relation to the merely historical
is an external relation, which in no wise affects its intrinsic sig-
nificance. But because it stands in an external relation, the
actual is not the actual, but a mere phenomenon.

Thus the theory of the essentiality of relations refutes itself
in very much the same fashion as the dogmatic theory of their
externality — and for a similar reason. Each is valid as a descrip-
tion, not of any real human thought, but of a one-sidedly idealized
thought. For the old rationalism, the improvement of the under-
standing consisted essentially in the analysis of concepts ; and its
ideal was definition in simple terms. For the new rationalism,
the improvement consists essentially in the enrichment of con-
cepts ; and its ideal is the all-inclusive, self-supporting Idea. Per-
haps it is too much to say that either ideal is intrinsically self-
contradictory. But as applied to the explanation of human ex-
perience, each is alike absolutely futile. The plain fact of the
matter is that expanding knowledge means, on the one hand,
the transformation of external relations into essential relations, and,

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM III

on the other hand, the establishment of new external relations.
In other words, it means the solution of problems in terms which
themselves raise new problems. For the externality of a relation
signifies simply the existing limit of our knowledge — every rela-
tion is external until we have explained it. Whether any rela-
tions are absolutely^ external — that is, whether there are any
absolute limits to our understanding, any problems that are in-
trinsically insoluble and hence not worth the setting — is a ques-
tion which we need not discuss here. It will be granted, we
think, that the idealization of thought by a sweeping-away of its
limitations — the conception of a problem-solving function, which
has no problems left to solve — is scarcely adequate as a model
of correct thinking.

The 'concrete universal' has been Hegel's most important sug-
gestion to later thinkers — one whose fruitfulness has not yet
been exhausted. But the theory of the actual as a concrete
universal, is, when taken in perfect strictness, as nearly as possible
unilluminating. Its whole attractiveness is due to the analogy
of finite organisms. In the case of the finite organism, it is
possible to see that part in the light of the whole — but only
because the whole is itself a part of a larger whole. ^ For the
conception of an organism is wholly relative to the conception of
an environment. This is the simple sun-clear truth that Hegel
never saw. It is only with reference to the environment that
there can be any comprehensible unity of the whole organism,
to which the functions of the various organs are subservient.

^Shaftesbury's quaint observation is worth remembering: "When we reflect
on any ordinary frame or constitution either of art or nature ; and consider how hard
it is to give the least account of a particular part, without a competent knowledge
of the whole: we need not wonder to find ourselves at a loss in many things relating
to the constitution and frame of nature herself. For to what end in nature many
things, even whole species of creatures, refer; or to what purpose they serve; will
be hard for any one justly to determine: but to what end the many proportions
and various shapes of parts in many creatures actually serve; we are able by the
help of study and observation, to demonstrate with great exactness." An Inquiry
concerning Virtue, I, 2, i.

112 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

That is to say, it is impossible to advance by a synthesis of any
number of parts or aspects to the idea of an organic whole. It
is true that the idea of a universal organism may have for many
minds a certain figurative suggestiveness, standing for the fact,
that every apparent externality of relation constitutes a problem
— that a Vhy' may always be asked. But the ''point of view of
the whole" remains a pure abstraction. It adds nothing to the
law of gravitation if we write: "Actuality is such that every mass
attracts every other mass, etc."

For this reason, the famous Hegelian dictum, "Everything
actual is reasonable," if intended as a criterion of reasonableness,
is not so much false as meaningless, because of utterly uncertain
application. The actual is the eternal or, at least, an essential
stage in the self-development of the eternal. But who, in looking
abroad upon human society, can distinguish between what is
essential — for, from the point of view of the actual, a thousand
years are as a day — and what is superficial and evanescent?
The dictum is appropriate only to one who pretends to extra-
ordinary, if not superhuman, insight, and who magisterially an-
nounces to the world his distinctions of true and false, reasonable
and unreasonable. Let it be admitted, that, as a postulate of
moral effort, the dictum is by no means meaningless. "Nothing
that is unreasonable is actual," may well stand as the formulation
of the demand, that no evil be accepted as necessary, and of the
faith, that in the battle of life the right may meet with defeat
but can never be conquered.

It is because of his curiously abstract view of the nature of
the organism, that Hegel represents its evolution as the mere
self-explication of a concept — the environment counting only as
a possible disturbing element. And because the process is a
self-contained one, it is reasonably described as 'determined by
its end.* Thus the development of the chick is due to the fact
that the egg is implicitly a fowl; the fowl involved in the egg
produces itself. The same line of thought is accountable for the

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM II3

fact, that for Hegel dissolution and death are mere signs of the im-
perfect correspondence of the natural organism to its true con-
cept. According to his thinking, a perfect man could never die —
except as a sheer accident. That the very conception of the
organism should include a complete life-process, that death should
be as normal as birth, he could not contemplate.

PART III
THE PRAGMATIST REVOLT

CHAPTER I

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM

No scientific hypothesis has ever exerted a more profound or
far-reaching influence upon the thought of a period, than has
the Darwinian theory of evolution upon that of the last half-
century. Not only have the group of biological sciences been
re-created, but there is scarcely one of the mental and social
sciences, that has not been in large degree revolutionized. It
was, indeed, in the realm of social science, as we have already seen,
that the idea of evolution first became efl"ective. But it was not
until the work of Darwin in biology, that there existed anything
like a scientific theory of evolution, based on wide and intensive
empirical study. That is to say, the process of evolution had
been conceived in an essentially abstract fashion, without any
adequate consideration of the factors which operated in any field
or of the manner in which they produced their effect.

The importance of Darwin's work did not lie simply in the
fact that it provided an acceptable theory of the evolution of
organic species. In the first place, the fact that he was able to
furnish a tolerably satisfactory explanation of the evolutionary
origin of species — which up to his time had seemed inexplicable
— this very fact gave weight to previously existing evidence for
such evolution, and opened the way for a universal theory of
evolution. In the second place, the bridging of the gap between
man and the lower orders meant a transformation of those
sciences dealing with essentially human activities. For if man
had developed from the condition of a brute, then it must be
possible to trace the rise and growth of his activities from instinc-
tive animal behavior. A tremendous impetus was thus given to
the application of evolutionary methods to the entire body of
mental and social sciences.

117

Il8 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

And yet amid this wide-spread upheaval of method the science
of logic has, until within the last two decades, remained un-
touched by the spread of the Darwinian theory. There have,
to be sure, been revsearches in plenty into the evolution of concepts
in the individual and in society. And the proof of the imperma-
nence of natural types has given a special impetus to such re-
searches— largely because the traditional belief in the fixity of
these types had been generally associated with the dogma of the
fixity of their concepts. But until the rise of pragmatism no
thoroughgoing attempt was made to explain the fundamental
notions of logic itself in the light of the selection-hypothesis.
The isolation of logic has been the more conspicuous in view of
the development of the closely related sciences of psychology and
ethics under the application of evolutionary methods, hotly con-
tested though such application has been. The long resistance
of logic is, indeed, readily intelligible. The capacity for reflective
thought has from the time of Aristotle been regarded as the dis-
tinctive characteristic of man — the one essential attribute which
eternally separated him from the merely animal. But the evo-
lutionary explanation of an essence is more than a contradiction
in terms. It is the forcible collocation of diametrically opposed
tendencies of thought. The consequence is that even when an
evolutionary origin of the thought-function is conceded, the
rationalist has only to advance a definition of thought, and there-
upon declare that so long as thought has been thought it must
have conformed to his definition; so that the consideration of
any prior stage in the development is superfluous.

But there is another influence which has opposed the entrance
of the new conception of evolution within the realm of reflective
thought; namely, absolute idealism. It might, perhaps, be sup-
posed that the Hegelian philosophy, since it is a philosophy of
evolution, would be the first to welcome and appreciate the
Darwinian theory of organic evolution. A consideration of what
the concept of evolution has come to mean under the influence of
Darwinism will, however, reveal its thorough incompatibility with
the Hegelian conception of the process.

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM II9

The course of evolution Is not conceived by biologists as a
dialectic. The forces which bring about the successive stages
of the process are not supposed to be completely contained in
\^e nature of the lower forms as such. The course of evolution
is not understood as logically predetermined by the concept of,
these forms. In short, it is not to be explained in terms of mere
logical relationship. External circumstances, instead of being
unessential, and as likely to obscure as to illuminate the signifi-
cance of the process, have become determining factors, a detailed
knowledge of which is indispensable to the understanding of the
evolution. Had external circumstances been ever so little dif-
ferent, the succeeding stages of the process might have been
profoundly modified. Thus the later stage can no longer be
regarded as the realization of the earlier. There is, to be sure, a
certain inclusion of the features of the earlier in the structure of
the later; but what features are to be so included, and what ex-
cluded, is not determined by the essential nature of the lower
form. It may, perhaps, be said, that the full development of man
was implicit in the earliest vertebrate forms ; but so too were the
eagle and the horse and the other existing vertebrate species —
and so too were the unnumbered possible forms which might
have developed had environmental conditions been favorable.
If evolution is a process of conservation, it is equally a process
of waste; for the selection of the existing lines of development
has been at the expense of countless other possible lines. It is
not, then, properly described as the progressive unfolding of a
reality potentially existent throughout. In a word, it is not to
be regarded as a teleological process.

In view of this transformation wrought in the idea of evolution
by the Darwinian hypothesis, it is evident that a treatment of
logical problems based on the new conception must differ widely
from the logical theory of absolute idealism. In the first place,
there is a tremendous difference of standpoint in regard to the
nature and position of thought itself. According to absolute
idealismy rational thought, since it is the outcome of the process

120 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of organic development, expresses in its own nature the essential
truth of that development, comprehends in itself all the earlier
(aufgehobene) stages. Hence in its own unfolding it is absolutely
free, that is to say, self-determining. From the Darwinian stand-
point, on the contrary, the nature of thought must be explained
by ascertaining the part which it plays in the life of the organism.
Thought, instead of being regarded as the end and determinant
of organic development, is a product and (more importantly) a
moment, or factor, in that development, — a factor whose exist-
ence and nature are throughout conditioned by the part it has
to perform in organic life. How this initial attitude toward
the nature and place of thought affects the treatment of the more
important problems of logical theory, it will shortly be our task
to consider.

In the second place, it is inevitable that the new evolutionary
logic should be distinguished from absolute idealism by a charac-
teristically empiricistic temper; and this we find to be the case.
In various respects, the pragmatists of today may justly be
claimed as the modern representatives of the school of Berkeley
and Hume. This is notably true as regards the place accorded
by them to the science of psychology, which with them becomes
again the corner-stone of philosophy. That their method and
their theoretical results exhibit marked differences from those of
the older empiricists is largely to be explained as a consequence
of the enormous development of scientific method in general
and of psychological science in particular. Speaking broadly,
we may say that this development has meant the emancipation
of psychology from the presuppositions of the old dogmatism.
Perhaps the chief conception that has thus been outgrown is
the idea of analysis into elements assumed as final. ^ In psy-

i"Current sensationalism is a result to which we are led by empirical analysis;
and its sensations are simple processes abstracted from conscious experience, last
terms in the psychologyical study of mind. The associationism of the English
school is a preconceived theory, and its sensations are, accordingly, productive
and generative elements, first terms in a logical construction of mind." Titchener,
Lectures in the Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes, p. 34.

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 121

chology, as in chemistry and physics, the dogma of the absolutely
simple has no longer any place. This change has been facilitated
by the application of evolutionary methods in psychological in-
vestigation and the adoption of the functional standpoint. It is
not that the modern functional psychologist would necessarily
deny the possibility of the analysis of psychological phenomena
into irreducible elements, but rather that it is not in such terms
that the problems he has to face are to be solved. The essential
thing to be explained about a given process is, on the one hand,
its functional relations to other processes, and, on the other hand,
its genetic relationships. The mere analysis into structural ele-
ments is of secondary importance, subservient to the functional
problem.

It is, then, on the basis of the functional interpretation of
psychological problems, that the pragmatist urges so insistently
the psychological treatment of logical theory. The traditional
contention of the Hegelian school, that psychological method is
fundamentally incapable of dealing with logical problems, is
based, he believes, upon the conception of psychology as aiming
at a merely mechanical explanation of mental processes. That
the contention had some force against the procedure of the old
empiricists, he would admit. Certainly the pragmatist would
as readily as the absolute idealist point out the inadequacy of
such alogical elements as the Berkeleyan idea and the Humian
impression to provide an explanation of logical processes. But
what he is more anxious to insist on is the greater anachronism
involved in the Hegelian attempt to treat the processes of re-
flective thought in abstraction from their genetic and functional
relations to other human activities.

There is a more general sense, in which the temper of pragma-
tism is empirical ; and that is in its self-professed affiliation with
the empirical sciences. For pragmatism is not, at least in its
inception, a system of metaphysics. It has stood first of all
for the application of empirical scientific methods — and this has
meant for the most part the methods of functional psychology —

122 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

to certain of the traditional problems of philosophical inquiry.
Furthermore it has insisted upon the specialization of these prob-
lems, in order to make them amenable to empirical treatment.
This has involved the rejection, as illegitimately abstract, of
some of the most important of the traditional problems; most
notably, the ontological problem, What is the nature of reality?
and the epistemological problem. How is knowledge possible?
Thus Professor Dewey writes in the Studies in Logical Theory
(p. 8): *Trom its point of view [that of an instrumental logic]
an attempt to discuss the antecedents, data, forms, and objec-
tive of thought, apart from reference to particular position oc-
cupied, and particular part played, in the growth of experience,
is to reach results which are not so much either true or false as
they are radically meaningless — because they are considered apart
from limits. Its results are not only abstractions (for all theoriz-
ing ends in abstractions), but abstractions without possible refer-
ence or bearing. From this point of view, the taking of some-
thing, whether that something be thinking activity, its empirical
condition, or its objective goal, apart from the limits of a historic
or developing situation, is the essence of metaphysical procedure
— in the sense of metaphysics which makes a gulf between it
and science." A greater contrast than that between this attitude
and the Hegelian conception of philosophy, as the imparting of a
true universality to the crude results of merely empirical science,
can scarcely be imagined.

Pragmatism, as a philosophical movement, is difficult to de-
scribe and impossible to define. We shall not attempt to do
either. As hitherto, we shall single out for exposition and criti-
cism those features which appear to us to be of central importance
for logical theory, paying scant attention to attendant phenom-
ena however interesting — such, for example, as the relation of
pragmatism to religious faith. Even with this limitation our
task will be embarrassingly complex. To simplify it, we propose
to limit the present discussion to the closely connected theories

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 123

of meaning and truth, together with the conception of reality
which these theories directly imply; postponing to appendices
the treatment of the pragmatic method, the will-to-believe, human-
ism (the theory of a 'plastic' reality), and immediatism (the
theory that reality is experience in its immediacy).

A further motive for this division of the subject will become
so evident as we proceed, that we are constrained to confess it
at the outset. The theories to be treated in this place contain
those elements of the complex historical whole called pragmatism,
which we believe to be on the side of truth — that is to say, true
at bottom, and especially true as against the opponents of prag-
matism. While we shall criticize these theories at considerable
length and- — as it seems to us — unsparingly, it will be found that
our criticisms are in great part positive and constructive. Our
persistent effort will be to exhibit the truth in pragmatism at
least as prominently as what we conceive to be its errors and
contradictions. In the appendices we shall discuss those doc-
trines of the pragmatists which we believe to be radically un-
sound. We hope that upon the whole our treatment will impress
the reader as being neither an attack upon pragmatism nor a
defense of it. We believe that this philosophy contains too much
of good and of evil to warrant either mode of procedure.

The main charge which we shall bring against the central doc-
trines of pragmatism will be apt, w^e fear, to strike the reader as
somewhat forced and unfair. And yet it is just such a charge
as can generally be made out against any revolutionary creed —
against Descartes's or Kant's, for example — namely, that it is
only half-free from the grip of the traditions which it openly
repudiates. It is from this cause, indeed, that most of the ap-
pearance of extremism is due. Real extremes meet. The rem-
edy for radicalism of every sort is, not a mixture of conservatism
— that never cures — but a more thorough carrying-through of
the radical principles. Pragmatism is the first whole-hearted
attempt at an appreciation of the significance of Darwinism for
logical theory. We propose to show that the attempt has only

124 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

half succeeded ; that conceptions and methods inherited from the
dogmatic empiricism of the eighteenth century go far to vitiate
the evolutionary empiricism of today; and that the critical re-
vision of these inherited notions from an evolutionary standpoint
'will make of pragmatism a far less iconoclastic movement.

Our first endeavor must be to present a brief and simple out-
line of the central doctrines, permitting ourselves only so much
criticism as may be necessary to clearness of exposition. We
begin by summarizing the elementary facts and conclusions of
functional psychology, which pragmatism has taken as its point
of departure.

The conception of consciousness as an instrument lies very
close to the fundamental principles of the Darwinian theory.
Like every other character of complex living organisms, con-
sciousness has had its history and presumably its origin. How,
indeed, it first arose is one of the unfathomed mysteries. But,
both in its first appearance and in the general course of its later
development, it must have possessed a survival-value which deter-
mined its persistence amid the universal struggle for existence.
The determination of this survival-value is a matter of consider-
able interest — far more so than any speculation as to a possible
origin. Not the accident or series of accidents, through which
consciousness as a variation took its rise, but the utility which
led to its selection and perpetuation — that is the matter of vital
scientific concern.

The peculiar survival-value of consciousness appears to consist
in the fact that it provides a more minute adjustment of reaction
to external stimulus than is afforded by any other organic
agency. This superiority, again, depends very intimately
upon the learning-process. By reason of this process exist-
ing correlations may, if they prove insufficient, be promptly
modified in accordance with the needs of the organism. It
is true that suggestive analogies to the learning-process may
be pointed out in the field of inorganic chemistry, as well

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 12$

as in the behavior of vegetable organisms, to which we
hesitate to ascribe consciousness. Such facts, however, need
not lead us to modify the general proposition that the survi-
val-value of consciousness consists in its enabling the organism
to learn. And, practically speaking, the ability to learn is the
only test by means of which the presence of consciousness in
any organism can be demonstrated.

The most elementary form of the learning-process, and that
which furnishes a general type for all the more complicated forms
may be succinctly described as follows. If the mode of behavior
which is modified by the learning-process be called habit (the
term being used in its widest sense, including instinctive be-
havior), then, conversely, the primary function of consciousness
may be described as the modification of habit. The inadequacy
or inappropriateness of habitual response, from which the activity
of consciousness upon any occasion takes its rise, is evidenced by
an unpleasant feeling. And the readjustment in which the task
of consciousness finds its accomplishment is marked by a feeling
of pleasure, which, however, vanishes as the readjustment be-
comes complete. The task of consciousness may be described
as the forming of a distinction between the stimulus which has
normally provoked a certain response, and a second stimulus,
which so far resembles the first as originally to elicit the same
response, but with unpleasant effects. The task is accomplished
when this latter stimulus has acquired its own peculiar satis-
factory response, following it invariably and without confusion;
whereupon consciousness gradually disappears. Thus, speaking
generally, we may say that consciousness becomes active, only
as it becomes necessary in order to eke out the inadequacy of
existing modes of reaction — where its peculiar survival value
comes into play. So long as the habit serves, consciousness exists,
if at all, only as a vanishing quantity.

The phrase, "the forming of a distinction," which we have
used, is ambiguous, or rather has a double meaning. The learn-
ing-process is at once the development of behavior and the

126 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

development of ideas; and the latter phase, like the former, is a
differentiation of the parts of a complex from a relatively simple
datum. Furthermore, the development of ideas is essentially
the development of interests. Amid the primitive formlessness
of the infant's world — a formlessness which yet pervades all but
a little of our own — only that is distinguished which catches its
instinctive attention; and if we adults see more, that is because
we have felt more. The function of consciousness in the biologi-
cal organism being the control of conduct, it is only in and through
the performance of that function that its development is possible.
If we examine into the use and context of a newly developed
idea, we find that we must recognize: (i) its relation to the
relatively simple idea from which it has sprung, as well as to the
contrasted idea from which it has been distinguished (and, per-
haps, soon also to the more complex ideas to which it in turn
gives rise) ; and (2) its relation to the conduct to which it prompts
— briefly and crudely — its genetic and functional relations. Both
of these are somewhat indiscriminately included under the term
'meaning'. The terms 'content' and 'import' vseem to mark the
distinction fairly well, and we shall find occasion to employ them
later. As the process of habituation proceeds and conduct ap-
proaches the automatic stage, both aspects of the meaning of the
controlling ideas suffer gradual decay.

It is the latter (functional) aspect that pragmatists have gener-
ally seized upon as constituting the 'meaning' of ideas. Such
usage is, of course, in itself perfectly legitimate. The question,
whether the genetic aspect has not been unduly neglected, never-
theless remains. And as the pragmatist theory of truth is essen-
tially an evolutionary one, such neglect, if it has occurred, might
well have serious consequences.

The following passage, in which Professor James (writing in
1906) summarizes the contentions of Mr. Charles Peirce (as ex-
pressed in 1878), exhibits very clearly the conception of meaning
generally held by pragmatists. "... Mr. Peirce, after pointing

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 12/

out that our beliefs are really rules for action, said that, to develop
a thought's meaning, we need only determine what conduct it is
fitted to produce:^ that conduct is for us its sole significance.
And the tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions,
however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist
in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain per-
fect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only
consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the ob-
ject may involve — what sensations we are to expect from
it, and what reactions we must prepare. Our conception of
these effects, whether immediate or remote, is then for us the
whole of our conception of the object so far as that conception
has positive significance at all." To the same purport is the
opinion of Ostwald, — "All realities influence our practice, and
that influence is their meaning for us." Upon which Professor
James comments that ''meaning other than practical, there is
for us none."2

So far, then, as these passages are typical, the assertion
holds, that for pragmatism the relation of an idea to the vaguer
idea within which the distinction occurred that gave rise to it,
as well as to the more concrete ideas which may arise by distinc-
tion within itself, forms no part of the meaning of the idea.
And yet it is by reference to these relations that functional
psychology must explain a whole group of conceptions w^hich
would ordinarily be regarded as having something to do with
meaning; e. g., genus and species, definition, division, and predi-
cation generally.

But while the above assertion is formally correct as an account
of a prevalent use of terms, it is not wholly just as an appraise-
ment of the pragmatist theory of meaning. It is not simply
that certain members of the school may be pointed out as speci-
fically recognizing content as a kind or aspect of meaning,^ and

^The pragmatic method, treated in Appendix I.
^Pragmatism, pp. 46-48.

^Note ie. g.) Professor Dewey's incisive inquiry with respect to the pragmatic
method: "Does Mr. James employ the pragmatic method to discover the value

128 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

that particular passages to this effect are to be found in the
works of the others. The more important fact is that the two-
fold conception of meaning — as content and import — is plainly
implied in the pragmatist theory of truth ; to which we now turn.

Truth is a property which we attribute to our beliefs — so far
as we do, indeed, believe in them. Whether the particular
beliefs actually possess this property or not,^ the meaning of the
property itself, which is thus attributed to them, is of course
unchanged. A method is accordingly suggested for analyzing
our conception of truth; namely, the genetic method that con-
sists in observing the conditions under which belief changes and
the general features of the process of change — how doubt arises,
how speculation proceeds, and how belief becomes reestablished.

As a result of such observation, it is found that truth contains
two essential factors, which (we would note in passing) are analo-
gous to the two aspects of meaning already noted. One is con-
sistency^ with other beliefs (including, by indirection, the beliefs

in terms of consequences in life of some formula which has its content, its logical
meaning, already fixed; or does he employ it to criticise and revise, and ultimately,
to constitute the proper intellectual meaning of that formula?" And below (with
reference to the pragmatic determination of the meaning of design in nature, as a
'vague confidence in the future') : "Is this meaning intended to replace the meaning
of a 'seeing force which runs things'? Or is it intended to superadd a pragmatic
value and validation to that concept of a seeing force? Or does it mean that,
irrespective of the existence of any such object, a belief in it has that value? Strict
pragmatism would seem to require the first interpretation, but I do not think
that is what Mr. James intends." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods, V, pp. 90, 91.

^Cf. James, The Meaning of Truth, p. 183.

^On account of the one-sidedness of the usual pragmatist account of meaning,
the writers of the school are unable to give a very definite account of this consis-
tency, harmony, or agreement. We are told simply that we "feel" that certain
ideas are in agreement with other parts of experience, "such feeling being among
our potentialities" (Pragmatism, p. 201, cf. Meaning of Truth, p. loi, 11. i-?)- This
is the old empiricist faculty of 'comparison' over again, with the important dif-
ference, to be sure, that the consciousness of agreement is (or may be) simultaneous
with, rather than posterior to, the consciousness of the terms compared. But
though the existence of such a faculty, or potentiality, be admitted, the problem
certainly remains of determining under what conditions the feeling is felt. Even so,
in the case of an externally excited sensation, such as sweet or bitter, we are not

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 1 29

of other men in whose judgment we have confidence) ; the other
is the satisfactory guidance of conduct. The truth of an idea is,
then, its workability in combination with our other ideas. Thus
the interpretation of a new experience, in such a way as to conflict
with a great body of accepted maxims, can hardly ever win our
acceptance, no matter how successfully it suggests the conduct
suitable to the circumstances. And, contrariwise, howevei
beautifully a theory may harmonize with accepted notions, its
persistent failure in practice not only condemns it but casts doubt
upon the old notions as well. Change of belief is thus character-
ized by the continuity which belongs to evolution generally. Ex-
isting structures and functions are modified as slightly as possible,
in accordance with new demands; and, moreover, such modifica-
tion as occurs is always more apt to attach to recently acquired,
than to older (and thus more deeply involved), features.**

The truth-formula is most frequently presented by pragmatists
in a form which consolidates the two factors. Recognizing that
consistency is itself an important subject of human interest,
they declare that the truth of an idea is its satisfactoriness — in-
cluding the satisfaction of intellectual interests as well as of all
others that may be involved. There may be matter for serious
criticism here (as we hope hereafter to show) ; but in fairness it
must be said that a mere confusion, in which the specific character

wholly satisfied with the statement, that the experience of these sensations is a
potentiality of our nature. We desire to know the general characteristics of their
respective stimuli. It is a pressing problem of psychophysics. Even so the moral-
sense school of ethicists, who believed the feeling of approbation to be an original,
fundamental endowment of our nature, recognized the problem of determining what
the object of this peculiar reflective sense was. Indeed, they differed among them-
selves upon the matter, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume having each his own
characteristic theory. Now it is clear that logic has at least an equal interest
in determining the general nature of the combinations of ideas (or other forms
of experience) which are felt to agree. The mere fact that they are felt to agree
is so far from being a solution that it is what sets the logical problem.

If we are correct in our interpretation. Professor James and his more immediate
friends have formally deprived themselves of the only means of attacking, much
less of solving, this problem. That the deprivation is only formal, and can be
amended in full accordance with the general spirit of the pragmatist theory, we
freely admit.
10

130 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of intellectual interests is lost sight of, is not to be attributed to
pragmatists generally. The consolidated formula is, however,
significant to this extent, that the various interests which may
be active summate themselves in the total effect. The acceptance
of a truth by no means implies either its perfect accordance with
other accepted truths or the unmixed satisfactoriness of its prac-
tical working-out. It is "eminently a matter of approximation."
And, as elsewhere in human life, the choice of the best involves a
compromise. To insist too rigidly on the theoretical criterion
is the part of mere visionaries; to slight it almost entirely for
the practical criterion is the part of short-sighted dolts. The
average man is content with truth that avoids explicit self-con-
tradiction and saves him from the ruder shocks. In the last
resort, however, all this is a matter of individual taste. "We
say this theory solves it on the whole more satisfactorily than
that theory; but that means more satisfactorily to ourselves,
and individuals will emphasize their points of satisfaction dif-
ferently."^

It is noteworthy that belief, rather than knowledge, is the
starting-point of the pragmatist epistemology. This has at least
the controversial advantage, that while the very possibility of
knowledge has-been questioned, no one has dreamed of question-
ing the possibility of belief. The theory is thus founded upon
patent matter of fact. It has, however, this difficulty. Truth
is defined as a property attributed to beliefs. It thus remains
undetermined whether any belief actually possesses this property;
that is to say, is reasonably consistent w^ith all other unquestioned
beliefs, and is incapable of serious failure in practice. But the
pragmatist, in a genuinely empirical spirit, does not hesitate to
take his stand upon the beliefs actually and commonly enter-
tained by men as true. Truths are for him, primarily at least,
the truths of actual practice — that is to say, the beliefs that are
recognized as true. The distinction between knowledge and be-
lief is then interpreted as one of degree only. Our knowledge is
simply the body of our best attested beliefs.

^Pragmatism, p. 61.

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM I3I

What becomes of the conception of an absolute knowledge —
of beliefs possessed of absolute truth? It acquires the potent
significance of an ideal limit. For the change of human beliefs
is by no means altogether a mere fluctuation. In great part,
it shows itself to be a gradual convergence ; and this is especially
true of the history of the sciences. Now a convergence may be
conceived as having a finite terminus or as proceeding ad infini-
tum. In the case of the progress of knowledge, however, it is
hard to see how the attainment of a terminus could be sufficiently
attested. For it has happened repeatedly, that beliefs which
for centuries have been regarded as possessing a certainty which
nothing could surpass, are found to require correction. Never-
theless it may be admitted, that if a considerable body of science
should remain for a great length of time without modification,
men would feel obliged — as they have felt under similar circum-
stances in the past — to regard such knowledge as ultimate. But
from the vantage ground of the opening twentieth century, it
seems far more natural to regard scientific progress as the con-
vergence upon a goal which will never be definitely reached.
The question whether the goal is attainable or not, is a question,
which, from the present standpoint of science, leaves the meaning
of the goal unaffected ; for its attainment is beyond any reason-
able expectation. Absolute truth is truth incapable of correc-
tion. Whether such truth can be secured, only time can tell.^

The pragmatist theory of reality offers serious difficulty to
the expositor, and that for two reasons. In the first place, its
most distinguished advocates are also believers in humanism or
immediatism or both ; and while they generally endeavor to keep
these theories apart, human nature forbids that they should in-
variably succeed. In the second place, there is, we believe, a
frequent ambiguity even in the definitely pragmatist usage of the

^This holds as a general statement of the pragmatist position in the matter.
We shall hereafter have occasion to call attention to a class of absolutely true
beliefs, which Mr. James believes to be even now entertained by us. Our belief
that two and one make three is an example.

132 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

term 'reality.' That is to say, the term denotes either a belief,
qualified as knowledge, or the things and relations which make
up the object of the belief. In Mr. James's Pragmatism, these
figure as distinct kinds of realities, with which a new idea must
'agree' if it is to be accepted as true. Now it appears to us
perfectly clear, that the belief and its object are not kinds of
realities (as if 'reality' were a generic term comprehending them
both), but realities in different senses of the term. In a later
volume the author oi Pragmatism assumes thsit "the only realities
we can talk about" are objects-believed-in.^ This we take to be
obviously the better statement, and we propose to hold to it in
this place.

Reality, then, may be said to have two aspects corresponding
to the two factors in truth itself. In the first place, it is that with
which our ideas must agree if they are to be true. In the second
place, it is that to which our conduct must conform if it is to be
satisfactory. More briefly, it is on the one hand the object of
knowledge, and on the other hand the condition of success and
failure. It is a principal object of the pragmatists to exhibit
the essential unity of these two aspects, and they do not consider
them separately. We think, however, that for the purposes of
the present exposition a brief separate treatment may be helpful.

Reality, as the object of knowledge, is conceived to be relative
or absolute, according as the knowledge itself is accepted as
,relative or absolute. Primarily, reality means the realities of
actual experience and expectation. Though, upon sufficient re-
flection we may admit that these realities have not been definitely
ascertained, nevertheless, in so far as we naively accept them,
we accept them as if they were absolute — that is to say, as
perfect standards to which our other beliefs (as well as the beliefs
of other men) must, if they are to be true, exactly conform.
They are believed in as if their existence were independent of
the present belief itself; as if a change of belief would be a change
from true to false, leaving the reality itself unchanged. The

^The Meaning of Truth, p. 236. The whole passage is a silent, perhaps uncon-
scious, correction of the looser exposition given in Lecture VI of Pragmatism.

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 1 33

distinction between relative and absolute reality is thus a reflec-
tive afterthought. Absolute reality is the object of absolute
knowledge — the unattained standard, which, if it were present
to us, would, indeed, afford an ultimate test of truth or falsity.
The conception is therefore, like that of absolute knowledge,
based upon the experienced development of human beliefs.

The leading pragmatists are unanimous in protesting against
the charge of subjectivism, which their critics have, with almost
equal unanimity, brought against them. With respect to the
continued existence of sensible things, when not perceived by us,
they declare that they regard this as the best supported of all
human inferences. And the answer to the occasional charge of
solipsism is precisely similar.

Reality in its other aspect, as the condition of success or failure,
is assuredly no new discovery of the pragmatists. Their merit —
or crime, if you please — is that they have insisted upon the essen-
tiality of this aspect, instead of regarding it as a mere 'external'
property. While philosophy and common sense have always
been agreed that reality makes a great difference to us, the
pragmatists have made themselves conspicuous by maintaining
that nothing is real except in so far as it makes a difference
to us.

This doctrine should be carefully distinguished from the theory
of the will-to-believe, as well as from the allied theory of human-
ism ; and we hope that our treatment of these two theories will
make the difference clear. Here we can only call attention to
the fact, that in conceiving reality as the condition of happiness,
nothing is implied as to any function of desire in legitimizing
belief, or as to the efficacy of human desires in changing a 'plastic'
reality. Nor is the pragmatist theory of reality a mere optimism.
So far from suggesting that evil realities do not exist, it suggests
very forcibly that they do exist, and declares that the evilness
of such realities is an essential factor in constituting them as
real. .

The whole line of thought may be comprehended in the single

134 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

formula, that reality is the object of interest. Herein is suggested
one of the most significant scientific developments of recent
times, the re-born theory of the objectivity of values. It would
lead us too far afield to enlarge upon this theory. Suffice it to
point out that whereas pragmatism has been currently con-
founded with subjective idealism, its real tendency is to extend
the boundaries of the objective rather than the subjective world.

CHAPTER II

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES

We have confessed to an extensive agreement with the pragma-
tist theories set forth above. Whether the agreement be regarded
as a fundamental one, will doubtless depend upon the point of
view. It is natural for us to regard as fundamental in pragma-
tism the portion of truth which we find there. The pragmatists
themselves may easily think otherwise. How important the
agreement is, may be judged from the criticisms which we offer
here.

A serious weakness in this system, as we conceive it, may be
traced to a certain peculiar assumption which has apparently
been inherited from the biological ethics of the last generation, —
an assumption which pragmatism ought, indeed, to have been
the first to denounce. This is, that the whole utility — or, at
least, the ultimate utility-^of a newly arising function consists
in its supplementation of previously existing functions, in the
accomplishment of previously existing ends. In reliance upon this
assumption, a previous generation of evolutionists attempted to
discover a 'sanction' for morality in the general characteristics
of prehuman evolution; and the present theory follows a simi-
lar course with respect to logical thought and consciousness in
general.

That pragmatism oiight to have rejected such an assumption
will appear, when it is reflected that it is a form of that very
doctrine of logical priority, the denial of which is vital to the
whole revolt against dogmatic absolutism. To assume that new
ends must be interpreted simply as means to old ones — or, at
most, as new elements in old ends, upon a par with the rest — is
to give up the whole instrumentalist position without a struggle.
It is to grant to the final ends a species of finality, for which no

place should now be left.

135

136 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Such being the case, we are led to wonder how so obvious an
inconsistency came to be overlooked — how 'adaptation' and 'sur-
vival' came to be used, as if they, unlike all other terms, pos-
sessed at least a core of absolutely fixed significance. The only
answer which suggests itself is that these terms are, indeed,
fundamental to the Darwinian theory, in which the psychology
of pragmatism took its rise. In that theory, survival passes for
the essential precondition of all the various phenomena of life ;
and adaptation is defined in turn as the precondition of survival.
A very cursory examination, however, serves to show that neither
conception can maintain its integrity. Survival, for example,
changes its meaning most plastically according to the object to
which it is referred. The survival of the individual is one thing,
and the survival of the species is another; while the survival
of the group — which is as compatible with extinction of an original
stock as survival of the species is compatible with the downfall
of all its individuals — implies no more than that successors to its
former membership remain; and the manner in which admission
to membership in the group takes place is practically unlimited,
varying according to the nature of the group in question. The
survival of a custom or an art is similarly independent of that of
the group which practices or cultivates it. Taken generally,
therefore, survival is one of the vaguest and emptiest of concepts.
It means no more than continued existence; and, as is the case
with existence itself, its meaning changes enormously with the
subject of which it is predicated.

Why, then, has the survival of the species been conceded such
preeminence as the end of all organic functions? Simply because
organisms reproduce after their kind, and such reproduction is,
in general, the only means by which traits are transmitted from
one generation to another. The term 'end,' as used in this con-
nection, is, of course, originally a metaphor derived from human
purposes: the end of a function is the interesting outcome toward
which it appears to be directed. Strictly speaking, however,
the term has come to indicate primarily an effect which is essential

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 1 37

to the repetition or continuance of its cause; and secondarily any
link in the chain of events leading from the cause to the effect;
or briefly, to use a well-worn phrase, an effect determining its
cause. Now it is obvious that in relation to organic functions
transmitted by reproduction, the survival of the species stands
as such an end. If it is not secured, they cease to be; and it is
thus a permanent condition in accordance with which their
evolution has come to pass. In a general way this applies as
well to consciousness as to any other organic function.

With regard to at least certain of the particular forms of con-
sciousness— ideas, sentiments, and the like — a very different ac-
count must be given; for, as is well known, these are not per-
petuated in the same manner, and accordingly their development
is quite otherwise determined. To be sure, such mental processes
are necessarily the outgrowth of inherited capacities, and these
must be maintained by an unbroken heredity if the whole function
is not to disappear. But within the limit thus assigned so definite
and extensive a variation has occurred, that to speak of survival
in the biologist's sense as the end of consciousness is a monstrous
distortion of the facts.

For in the rise of consciousness a second end (in the sense above
defined) emerges, namely, the satisfaction of desire, or happiness.
That happiness does thus operate as a determining condition in
the psychical selection by which the more complex mental proc-
esses are developed, is well known; and none have illustrated the
fact better than the pragmatists. Their fault, as we conceive it,
has been a failure to distinguish accurately between the condi-
tions of happiness and those of survival. This has led to a
distressing ambiguity in the use of such terms as 'need,' 'adjust-
ment,' 'failure,' 'working,' etc., referring to the presence or ab-
sence of both classes of conditions at once — an ambiguity which
has done more to prevent a wide acceptance of pragmatism
than any other single circumstance.

In urging the necessity of keeping ourselves clear upon this
point, we do not wish to suggest a questioning of the pragmatist

13^ DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

doctrine that all ideas refer ultimately to modes of behavior,
that is, to correlations of stimulus and response. This we believe
to be substantially true, though with reservations which will be
noted hereafter; and we have met with no contemporary dis-
cussion which seriously hinders its acceptance. No, our simple
contention is that the development of conduct, which is at the
same time the development of consciousness, is only remotely
and to a limited degree controlled by natural selection; that
is to say, that though this development has its beginnings in
hereditary tendencies whose perpetuation has been due to their
survival value, and though it must remain within the bounds set
by the necessity for the continuity of the organic stock, never-
theless, as the process advances in complexity, comparative sur-
vival values have less and less to do with its determination.
In man, at any rate, mental development is a social phenomenon;
and while natural selection is a very slow process, social evolution
is an exceedigly rapid one, so that the phases of the latter are
increasingly independent of the former's control. Surely this is
a moderate statement of the truth which is popularly exaggerated
to read, that among mankind the struggle for existence has wholly
given place to the struggle for happiness.

An adequate recognition of these facts would, indeed, only
serve to strengthen the central doctrines of the pragmatist, for
it would enable them to be stated in more consistently psycho-
logical terms. In his wholesome desire to explain consciousness
in the light of its relations to the organism as a whole, he has
lost sight of the great extent to which all other functions have
become subordinated to this one. Consciousness is not an end
in itself? As nearly as possible it is, for it contains within itself
the leading principle of its own development. It is consciously
approved satisfactoriness of the conduct to which an idea prompts
that determines its stability, and it is conscious dissatisfaction
that entails its modification. The dictum of the comparative
psychologist, of which pragmatism has made so much, — that it
is only upon the failure of habitual adjustment that conscious-

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 139

ness interferes, and that when a readjustment is accomplished
it retires, — has real significance only for the most rudimentary
conscious processes. As applied to more complex processes, it is
a mere tautology; for, in that case, adjustment and failure of
adjustment no longer refer to the conditions of survival, but to
the expression of volitional tendencies whose relation to survival
is practically undetermined.

A further advantage to pragmatism is contained in the fact
that it now becomes feasible to include thought-activities as such
under the term 'behavior' or 'conduct.' So long as conduct was
conceived to be essentially determined by its relation to survival,
such inclusion was not practicable; since it is not clear how in
general a conscious process as such, or the neural process corre-
lated therewith, is capable of modifying the situation of an organ-
ism in such a way as to improve its chances of survival. A mere
thought cannot ward off a blow or repair expended energies.
And so, if a thought was to be regarded as conduct, it was neces-
sarily in a modified and secondary sense, namely as a contribut-
ing cause to conduct proper, i. e., directed physical movements.
Mental procedure must then be interpreted as a succession of
attitudes, of preparations for action — like the crouch of the cat
making ready to spring. Unfortunately, scientific procedure has
commonly no conscious reference to overt action; and when its
significance for the guidance of such action is made clear, the
relation is not to any particular situation or any particular re-
sponse. But when conduct is defined in relation to a state of
consciousness, such as satisfaction, the difficulty no longer re-
mains. It is only necessary that a specific interest be taken in
the issue of the thought-activity as such — the solution of a mathe-
matical problem, for example — apart from any expected effect
upon later physical movements; and this is so far from being
inconceivable, that it is a familiar daily experience.

«

But is it correct to say that happiness, as such, is the deter-
minant of intellectual progress and the ultimate term to which the

140 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

distinctions of truth and error are reducible? Or ought a specific
type of satisfaction to be substituted for happiness, or satisfaction
in general? The question is, we think, of far-reaching impor-
tance; and before attempting a direct answer we shall try to
make its bearing clear by means of a familiar parallel.

The question is closely analogous to that which divided the
utilitarians and the moral-sense ethicists in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Are the sentiments of moral approbation and disappro-
bation, on the one hand, and that of benevolence, on the other
hand, to be explained as consequences of the anticipation of
pleasure and pain, produced by a psychical mechanism which
merely combines and separates the given elements of human
nature? Or are these sentiments qualitatively peculiar, native
endowments of humanity for which no derivation is to be found?
The alternative consequences for the development of the science
soon became apparent. The utilitarians, by reason of the very
simplicity of their primary assumptions, were committed to an
artificial theory, which did scant justice to their subject. It was
easy for the moral-sense theory to be far more appreciative, for
all difficulties of interpretation were solved for it in advance.
But for the same reason it was barren — the future was closed
against it. The signal importance of the application of evolu-
tionary methods to ethics during the last half-century is this,
that it has united the advantages of the two older schools. It
has permitted the recognition of the distinctive qualitative char-
acter of moral values, while at the same time expediting the more
thorough investigation of the fundamental relations subsisting
between these and other human values.

It is a position analogous to this last, that we should expect
to see taken by the pragmatists. But they have not taken it.
It is the dead level of utilitarianism that they have sought.
This is the more surprising, since all the materials for a synthetic
view would seem to be present to their hand. Mr. James, in
particular, recognizes the existence of a 'logical sense,' that is
to say, a specific feeling of consistency. But of the theoretical

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 14I

possibilities lurking in such an assumption, he appears to take
very little account.

The issue is formulated by Mr, James with great distinctness.
"The opponent here will ask: 'Has not the knowing of truth
any substantive value on its own account, apart from the col-
lateral advantages it may bring? And if you allow the theoretic
satisfactions to exist at all, do they not crowd the collateral
satisfactions out of house and home, and must not pragmatism
go into bankruptcy, if she admits therfi at all?' " The essential
portion of his answer (to which far too little attention appears
to have been given) is as follows: "At life's origin any present
perception may have been 'true' — if such a word could then be
applicable. Later, when reactions became organized, the re-
actions became 'true' whenever expectation was fulfilled by them.
Otherwise they were 'false' or 'mistaken' reactions. But the
same class of objects needs the same kind of reaction, so the
impulse to react consistently must gradually have been estab-
lished, and a disappointment felt whenever the results frustrated
expectation. Here is a perfectly plausible germ for all our higher
consistencies. Nowadays, if an object claims from us a reaction
of the kind habitually accorded only to the opposite class of
objects, our mental machinery refuses to run smoothly. The
situation is intellectually unsatisfactory. ... In some men
theory is a passion, just as music is in others. The form of inner
consistency is pursued far beyond the line at which collateral
profits stop. . . . Too often the results, glowing with 'truth' for
the inventors, seem pathetically personal and artificial to by-
standers. Which is as much as to say that the purely theoretic
criterion of truth can leave us in the lurch as easily as any other
criterion. "1

Are we not justified in the remark, that this explanation is
typically utilitarian? All of the old machinery is at work. Cer-
tain experiences are viewed with an immediate pleasure, that is

^The Meaning of Truth, pp. 96 ff . The whole passage is too long for quotation,
but the omitted portions are almost equally interesting and significant.

142 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

to say, desired as ultimately good. The necessary or convenient
means of obtaining them are then desired for their sake. Promi-
nent among these means is the appropriate conduct. Conduct
is generally more efficient when it is consistent ; hence consistency
comes to be desired as a means to efficiency. And then, as in
the case of any other means to an end, the end drops out of
consciousness, and the means is desired for its own sake.^ It is
particularly to be noted, that by this last step it is not meant
that the criterion of consistency becomes independently sufficient
to establish truth. Intellectual interests are simply a new class
of interests to be provided for — normally bound up very closely
with the rest, it is true. Intellectual values are simply one class
among others, varying greatly in importance from man to man.
The criterion of consistency, if pushed to extremes, is as likely
to lead to error as any other.

Once again, therefore, we find the emergence of a new end, or
controlling resultant, evaluated in terms of a previously existing
end — in this case, the total satisfaction resulting from each par-
ticular voluntary act. Here also the assumption appears to us
to be unwarranted.

When we examine the relation in which a belief stands to a
particular course of conduct dictated by it, it is obvious that this
relation has more than one side. The truth of the beHef tends,
in general, to ensure the success of the conduct, and the success
of the conduct tends, in general,^ to confirm the truth of the

iWe are speaking here of a similarity of scientific standpoint and method. The
similarity of results is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in the following
extract, though similar quotations might be multiplied almost indefinitely: "Sat-
isfactoriness has to be measured by a multitude of standards, of which some, for
aught we know, may fail in any given case; and what is more satisfactory than
any alternative in sight, may to the end be a sum of pluses and minuses, concerning
which we can only trust that by ulterior corrections and improvements a maximum
of the one and a minimum of the other may some day be approached." (Ibid,
p. 56.) This is what we have alluded to as the dead level of utilitarian theory.

Hi knowledge were perfect, it would, no doubt, suffice to guarantee the success
of every particular endeavor — in the hopeless case we would tamely submit.
But such knowledge as we have cannot do this. There is always a margin of un-
controllable variation. Contrariwise, the particular non-fulfilment of expectation

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 143

belief. In the long run, true belief is an indispensable and most
potent condition of happiness, and it would be a careless view
of the thought-function that would overlook this fact. But with
any particular belief the case may be very different. The effect
of a belief may easily be to plunge a man into despair; and it
then finds its confirmation as aptly in the catastrophe that fol-
lows as the most ardent hope could find it in the most complete
success. In either case, the total satisfaction of the agent is
irrevelant, so far as the truth of his belief is concerned. The
fulfillment of expectation, which constitutes verification, owes
nothing of its logical significance to the happiness or misery of
the conscious agent.

In the type of conduct by which human knowledge is most
efficiently furthered — namely, the scientific experiment — the only
interest felt to be at stake is the confirmation or rejection of a
theory.^ The "collateral profits" to be expected are often prac-
tically nil. It is true, that the general result of successful scien-
tific endeavor is an immense enlargement of the means of human
happiness. Bacon was surely not in the wrong when he de-
clared that fruitfulness in useful inventions is a fair test of the
healthful condition of the sciences. But that does not alter the
character of the specific inquiry. Its outcome does not wait
for its truth upon the benefits derived from any particular appli-
cation.

We thus find that the relation between the love of truth and
the totality of our interests is quite similar to that between
happiness and survival. While very largely in mutual accord,
truth and happiness are nevertheless distinct ends, even where
they appear to coincide. From the point of view of utility, the
adequacy of a concept is on a par with the soundness of a limb.
From the point of view of truth, the success of one well-planned ef-

is not a perfect negative criterion of truth. The repeated resurrection of theories
long thought dead and buried is striking proof of this. All our formulae, as applied
in action, contain'an 'in so far as' or an 'other things being equal.' It is generally
possible to say, with the bungling professor of chemistry: "Gentlemen, the experi-
ment has failed; but the principle still holds true." The very imperfection of
cience gives it a'certain independence of the individual datum.

144 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

fort is on a par with the expected, but unavoidable failure of an-
other. Moreover while it is true that within wide limits the course
of scientific progress is determined by all manner of human inter-
ests, yet in detail it is the specific interest in truth that is of deter-
mining importance. The statement, that the true is that which,
now and in the long run, is the expedient in thinking, is doubtless
correct of truth in general, but it may be absolutely false as
applied to any particular truth. That may amount simply to
an increase of misery.^

A second ground of complaint which we find against the prag-
matists is that in their inductive study of the meaning of truth —
proceeding, it will be remembered, by an analysis of the process
of change of belief — they deliberately ignore a distinction, which
has existed from the earliest recorded times, between warranted
and unwarranted change of belief. They deliberately ignore it,
apparently because they believe that to give it recognition would
unduly prejudice in advance the results of their investigation.
Pragmatism stands, above all else, for open-mindedness and can-
dor, and wishes to be, as far as possible, unhampered by tra-
ditional canons of truth. We believe that in this matter its
apostles have overreached themselves.

The following sentences from Pragmatism will sufficiently illus-
trate our meaning. ''Of whatever temperament a professional
philosopher is, he tries, when philosophizing, to sink the fact
of his temperament. Temperament is no conventionally recog-
nized reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his con-
clusions. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias
than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the
evidence for him one way or the other, making for a more senti-
mental or a more hard-hearted view of the universe, just as

^It is fair to note that Professor Dewey has protested against the identification
of his own view with the one here criticized. "I have never identified any satis-
faction with the truth of an idea, save that satisfaction which arises when the idea
as working hypothesis or tentative method is applied to prior existences in such a
way as to fulfill what it intends." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods, Vol. V, p. 94.

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 145

this fact or that principle would. He trusts his temperament.
. . . Yet in the forum he can make no claim, on the bare ground
of his temperament, to superior discernment or authority. There
arises thus a certain insincerity in our philosophic discussions:
the potentest of all our premises is never mentioned" (pp. 7 ff.).
This account appears to be an understatement, or a misstate-
ment, of the facts in several important respects.

1. It is not simply the professional philosopher, but the scien-
tist of every shade, that attempts to eliminate, as far as possible,
the temperamental factor from his results. Mathematician,
physicist, biologist, sociologist — if this is a conspiracy, they are
all in it.

2. The restriction is not due to professionalism. If it be a
piece of scientific tradition, at any rate it does not belong to the
bureaucracy of science. The free lance is as much bound by it
as the member of six academies.

3. The restriction does not apply simply to temperament, but to
every other peculiarity that can affect the general verifiability of
the results. This does not mean that a perfect elimination of
the individual factor is possible. But it means that no effort is
spared to carry the elimination as far as possible. The 'personal
equation,' by which astronomical observations are corrected, is
typical of such effort. Even a claim to exclusive sources of
information, except as it may be substantiated by rigid cross-
questioning, is of little avail to the man of science, though appro-
priate enough in the prophet. When an unconfirmed observation
is accepted as correct, it is only on the basis of a critical examina-
tion of the general scientific record of the observer; and even
then it is usually regarded with some degree of suspicion. A
claim to peculiar faculties of intelligence — such as the aesthetic
world-view of the German romanticists — may inspire enthusiasm
in a religious or philosophical sect, but the progress of science
invariably discredits it.

4. That the philosopher — or the scientist — trusts his tempera-
ment, is ambiguous and only half true. He distrusts it in general,

II

146 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

just because he knows that he is in danger of trusting it in the
particular instance. It is a bias to be allowed for, as far as
possible. We distrust our optimism, we distrust our partisan-
ship, we distrust our love of simplicity; otherwise we are less
competent as sociologists, as historians, or as physicists. Pre-
cisely the same is true of other sources of bias.

5. Where individual precautions are insufficient to eliminate
the effects of bias, public discussion and criticism are expected
to carry the process further. As Mr. Titchener has recently said,
— "Every one of us has his natural inclinations to overcome;
and if I lean towards sensationalism, why, the imageless minds,
the minds of the extreme verbal type, lean just as strongly in
the opposite direction. . . . Well! it is from the clash of these
individual psychologies that a generalized psychology must
arise." ^ Mr. James commits a double oversight when he writes :
"The potentest of all our premises is never mentioned." It is
true that it is not mentioned by the advocate, except where he
candidly distrusts himself; but this is because he believes he has
sufficiently discounted it. And there is little risk of its not being
mentioned by the other man.

6. The distrust of individual bias, in oneself or others, is not a
recent phenomenon. It extends back to the beginnings of self-
conscious scientific endeavor. Among the fragments of Hera-
clituswefind: "Understanding is common to all. . . . And though
reason is common, most people live as though they had an under-
standing peculiar to themselves. . . . They that are awake have
one world in common, but of the sleeping each turns aside into a
world of his own. ... It is not meet to act and speak like men
asleep" (B. 91, 92, 94, 93; Fairbanks tr.). On the other hand,
it must be confessed, this sentiment is found to be more widely
spread and more powerful, as the advancement of science pro-
ceeds. Where science is so far undeveloped as to be closely
bound up with religious belief, or otherwise subject to religious
influence, trust in one's temperament is proportionately common.

^Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes, p. 22.

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 14T

7. We believe, with Mr. James, that in no department of
science is the complete elimination of the individual factor prob-
able ; but this does not affect the question whether such elimina-
tion, so far as it is possible, is a distinct desideratum. At the
same time it is worthy of remark that a vast body of knowledge
exists, in which the process has gone so far that the individual
factor is very difficult to detect; nay, that there are fields in
which we are not in a position to demonstrate it in any detail,
and can at most only infer its existence from very general con-
siderations. This is notably the case with the mathematical
sciences, which are, and have been, almost universally accepted
as absolute truth. But, aside from these sciences, the desidera-
tum of universal acceptability has been progressively realized.
To be sure, as science advances, more and more questions are
raised that can as yet be answered only as temperament suggests ;
and there are also questions which have vexed men for ages, and
which, so far as we are aw^are, have never been put in the way of a
universally acceptable solution. But it remains true that in-
creasing numbers of problems, and even whole realms of specu-
lation, where tastes and whims formerly reigned supreme —
philology, for example — have been brought into an orderly sub-
jection to principles of generally recognized cogency.

It appears to us that these considerations are sufficient to
show that the lack of recognition of temperament as an evidence
of philosophical truth is not due to any mere prejudice. The
cause certainly lies deeper. As we have previously remarked,
a larger induction with respect to the conditions of belief, one
which embraced, not simply the causes which might at any time
produce belief, but those which were confirmed by reflective
criticism, would have led to a more trustworthy theory of truth.
There is something admirably bold in the philosophical enterprise
which is committed to "no rigid canons of what shall count as
proof." But the actual procedure of the pragmatist makes the
distinction between proof and sophistry, between argument and
persuasion, not simply uncertain but altogether illusory.

148 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Pragmatism is notable for the first unreserved adoption of the
evolutionary standpoint and method in logical research. Its ad-
vocates have been most bitterly reproached by conservative
thinkers for admitting into philosophy a developing truth. We
believe, however, that a more valid criticism might be expressed
in precisely opposite terms. The pragmatists hold that truths
have developed : by which they mean no more than that doctrines
which in former times were entitled to the most complete possible
credence have given way to others which we now know to be
more adequate. But of truth itself they have an altogether
static theory, a theory couched in a definition which applies
equally to the crudest anticipation of the brute and to the subtlest
abstraction of the scientist — nay, even to absolute truth, if such
there should ever be.^ That the ascription of truth should mean
more at one level of human experience than at another — that
there should been have a development of the species of truth of
which judgment is capable^ — they have apparently not contem-
plated as a real possibility. In short, our opposition to the
pragmatists, like their own to Herbert Spencer, is due to the
fact that they have not carried their evolutionism far enough —
that the leaven of the old dogmatism still works in them.

And yet all the materials for an evolutionary conception were
present to their hand ; and in one way or another some account
is taken of them — with the result of leaving the subject in an
almost inextricable confusion. Thus, according to Pragmatism,
the truth of an idea is experienced as its 'agreement' with 'reality' ;
'reality' consisting of (i) the things and relations of common
sense, (2) relations between purely mental ideas, and (3) other
accepted truths; while 'agreement' is agreeable leading-on from
the idea in question to other parts of experience. Now, in the
first place, this agreeable leading is diversely described, some-
times as pleasant on its own account by reason of a peculiar
human susceptibility to the harmoniousness of experiences — this

iCf. James, The Meaning of Truth, pp. 182-3.

2The suggestion might have come from Hegel, had he been more sympathetically-
read.

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 149

is the original statement (p. 202), but it is almost immediately
lost sight of — and sometimes as pleasant by reason of the char-
acter of the object to which it leads. That is to say, the pleasant-
ness sometimes attaches to the process, sometimes to the result,
without our being informed whether either or both modes are
necessary to truth. In the former case, moreover, in addition
to the specific pleasantness above mentioned, an appeal to indi-
vidual or conventional taste may be a factor — the taste for
simplicity, for example. In the second place, the knowledge of
the second class of realities (the relations between purely mental
ideas) is altogether independent of the eventualities of experience.
Ideas in agreement with such realities are at once obtained by
inspection, and are not subject to confirmation or correction.^
If the results of conduct which they in part control are unsatis-
factory, the fault is invariably charged elsewhere: things have
been incorrectly subsumed. This anomaly has doubtless struck
every reader; but we know not if it has been generally noticed
that the whole passage might have been transcribed from Locke
or Hume.^ A similar account in The Principles of Psychology is
in fact declared by Mr. James simply "to make a little more
explicit the teachings of Locke's fourth book" (p. 662). The
pragmatist theory of truth is only verbally brought into connec-
tion with the knowledge of the relations in question. Agreement
is said to be still "an affair of leading"; but nothing of the sort
is made out. The failure of pragmatism is concealed by a bor-
rowing from the old dogmatism.

We believe that the development of the judgment is marked by
increasing definiteness and increasing universality, that is to say,
by the greater and greater delicacy with which it is contradicted
or confirmed by experience, and by its gradual transcendence

iWe recall the statement in Mr. James's Principles of Psychology: "The pure
sciences form a body of propositions with whose genesis experience has nothing to
do" (p. 641).

^Cf. Pragmatism, pp. 209-10 with {e. g.) Treatise of Human Nature, Book I,
Part III, Section i. Hume, to be sure, instead of describing the terms of the
relations as 'purely mental ideas,' enumerates the classes of relations to which
the account applies.

ISO DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of the limits of the particular interests and the particular occasion
which have called it forth. In what follows we shall devote our
attention more particularly to the latter aspect of the develop-
ment, without, however, wholly disregarding the former.

Let us note at the outset what is meant by the relativity of the
judgment to the particular occasion. An illustration may help
us here. Suppose that upon a piece of paper two geometrical
figures are drawn with considerable care. We call the one a
circle and the other a rectangle. Yet we are aware that a micro-
scope would reveal irregularities of curvature in the first figure
and inexactness of angles in the second, and even that it would
taken an infinite amount of correction to make the first figure a
perfect cricle or the second a true rectangle. If we are to speak
accurately we should have to confess that the one figure exempli-
fied circularity no more than the other; and, on the other hand,
that we could no more truly refer to the second as a rectangle
than to the first. But we could conform to accuracy in speaking,
only on the penalty of speaking only in negatives. If the concept
of the circle were only to be applied with mathematical exactness,
it could never be identified with any concrete phenomenon at all.
What determines the applicability of a concept in any particular
case may vary greatly We may be willing to accept a figure
as a circle only when the most accurate measurements obtainable
fail to carry the correction further, and when, although we may
on general principles feel sure that the figure must deviate from
circularity, we are unable to point out just how and to what de-
gree it does so deviate. In the vast majority of cases, however,
the degree of accuracy which we demand is not determined by
the extreme limit of the finest instrument manufactured. Gen-
erally we are satisfied with what looks 'round' to the unassisted
eye ; and often we do not stop to notice even palpable irregulari-
ties.

What makes the difference? The answer is obvious. It is
the exigency of the occasion. To speak of the inaccuracy of a
given judgment as negligible implies a reference to an end that

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 151

is to be served. In a process of calculation the amount of in-
accuracy which we can tolerate in the premises depends on the
degree of accuracy which is required in the results. Thus the
captain of a disabled ship, whose sole object was to reach shore,
might be quite content with the accuracy of observations which
showed his position within a fraction of a degree, provided the
nearest land were a large island to the westward, extending over
several degrees of latitude. The Arctic explorer, who believed
himself to be near the pole, would find such rough calculations of
his position to be absolutely useless. The conclusion which the
captain would wish to draw would be merely the general direction
in which to sail; while the conclusion desired by the explorer
must be the exact direction in which, and the exact distance to
which he must change his position.

But though error may be negligible is it not still error? Is not
the false judgment, which is near enough to truth for practical
purposes, still false? Granted. But suppose the judgment does
not pretend to exactness — what then? We have an immense num-
ber of common-sense terms, which serve our purposes excellently,
but which are not to be rigidly defined. Is a child of two a baby?
Is a bachelor of thirty-five still young? How many grains make
a heap? And even mathematical terms may be toned down by a
cloudy modifier. Is it true or false that the earth is nearly spheri-
cal, or that San Francisco is about three thousand miles from New
York? The answer is indeterminate, unless the requirements of
the particular occasion determine it. How largely our judgments
are of this character is evidenced by the polemical success of
the ancient Megarian eristic, which was based upon the principle
that aU our judgments are similarly indefinite. Perhaps they
were not wholly wrong in their opinion.

But scientific judgments evidently aim at a validity which is
higher than this, and that is why terms like heap and baby fail to
serve their turn and are replaced by a technical vocabulary.
The ideal is a truth that shall remain true for all possible purposes
and in all possible situations. But this ideal is assuredly not

152 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

attained at a bound. The validity of scientific laws is not de-
pendent, to be sure, on the particular concrete use to which we
may choose to put them. But their significance and truth may
still be conditioned by the nature of the results which we expect
in general to derive from them. On what grounds, for example,
do we judge the validity of the principle of classical political
economy, that men seek to gratify their desires by the least
exertion? Most assuredly we should not judge it to be invalid,
because as a matter of fact we find exceptions to it. That men
often rush onward in their pursuit of a coveted prize without
pausing to choose the shortest way, that exertion once undergone
as a necessary means to some desired end may come to be desired
for its own sake, are facts which may very well be regarded as
negligible in this connection. What does determine the validity
of the principle as a law of economics is its general serviceableness
in the explanation of a certain class of human actions, namely,
commercial intercourse. How serviceable such a general prin-
ciple will prove to be, depends very largely upon the degree to
which the science has at any given time carried its analysis of
the particular phenomena with which it deals. As a science pro-
ceeds it becomes more ambitious. It is led to correct its general
laws, not by the mere finding of exceptions to them — for the
exceptions as such might be treated simply as the operation of a
counter-tendency — but because there is developed a more ade-
quate appreciation of the particular phenomena which the law
purports to correlate. Laws are revised, not because they are
false, but because they are shallow. This may very well be seen
in the recent history of the very case which we have just men-
tioned, the classical abstraction of the 'economic man.' The
truth of the conception of the 'economic man' is questioned
today, not because of its mere abstractness, but rather because
it is too rough and ready an affair for the purposes of present-day
economics. A more careful study of the operations of a market,
a finer analysis of the phenomena of supply and demand, a
deeper insight into the nature of value, due in part to investiga-

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 153

tions in allied sciences — all these are tending so to transform our
ideas of the functions performed by the 'economic man,' that
the classical description of him is no longer appropriate.

What we find to be true of this principle of economics applies
in some measure, we believe, to all general laws. The validity
of a universal principle is not a matter of its own individual
adequacy as a description of reality; nor, again, is its validity
elative to the whole existing body of human knowledge (if,
indeed, we can speak of such a thing). It may correctly enough
be said that the validity of such a principle depends upon its
place in the developing structure of our knowledge, if we remem-
ber that this place is not definitely determined, but is exceed'ngly
variable. A law is not judged as true because it marks the limit
of human knowledge and because we are not able to correct
any given formulation of it. Its truth is always a matter of
context. It is valid if we find a certain harmony between the
character and degree of its abstractness and the character and
definiteness of the conclusions in view of which it is asserted.

A process of reasoning can proceed only by assuming a set of
premises, partly explicit and partly implicit, as valid for the
purposes of the argument in hand. Without such fixed point of
departure, no coherent reasoning would be possible. The hypo-
thetically valid premise is a fulcrum by means of which we move
the unwie'dy masses of fact and theory with which our thought
is to cope. But to make an assumption with regard to any con-
crete subject is to make an abstraction; it is to single out certain
characteristics, and to regard these out of connection with others
which are equally constitutive of the subject in other relations.
What is thus singled out and regarded as the nature of the subject
is what is relevant to our purpose in thinking of the subject at all.
And what is disregarded as negligible is what is irrelevant and
foreign to our interest. Hence it happens that for the purposes
of some other argument it may be possible and even necessary
to assume other and often contradictory propositions concerning
the same subject, which are then regarded as valid, while the

154 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Others are supposedly Invalid. To think at all we must assume
something as true; and what we assume depends upon the pur-
pose of our thinking, the kind of conclusion (though, of course,
not the particular conclusion) to which we intend our argument
to lead.

Thus, whether our assumed premise regarding the subject 'man'
is that he seeks to gratify his desires by the least exertion, or that
he possesses a strong religious sentiment, depends upon the nature
of our Interest. True, in this case the assumption of one of the
propositions as valid does not involve the denial of the validity
of the other proposition. For the purposes of the economist,
the fact that man is religiously Inclined Is simply negligible —
it Is a meaningless statement so far as his thought Is concerned.
It Is easily seen, however, that the Incompatibility between pro-
positions concerning the same object, used as premises on different
occasions, may amount to explicit contradiction. A remarkable
instance of this is found In the physics and biology of the
eighteenth century. While the latter had yet to appeal to the
intervention of creative power to account for the origin of species,
the former had long excluded all Intelligent causes from the expla-
nation of the cosmos. One may say that In order that physics
and blo'ogy might exist, what was true in the one had to be
false in the other. And although this particular contradiction
no longer exists for contemporary science, there are other no less
serious and fundamental difficulties which have arisen In its place.
Thus, of the alternative hypotheses of psychophysical parallelism
and interaction, the one Is preposterous from the point of view
of the biologist, who can only regard as absurd the selection and
development, on so great a scale, of a function In no wise con-
nected with survival; while the other Is no less unacceptable
to the modern physicist. To be sure, such a contradiction con-
stitutes a problem for science, and one which In no particular
Instance could be branded as Insoluble. But we should regard
as chimerical the hope that the various sciences will ever be so
fully coordinated that the validity of their several laws will in-
volve a complete mutual compatibility.

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 155

But what is thus true of science in those fundamentals which
mark its grand divisions is true throughout of the unsystematic
thinking of common sense. The exigencies of Hfe force us con-
stantly to make assumptions, whose inconsistency becomes mani-
fest upon the most cursory examination, but which we have
neither occasion nor opportunity to harmonize. We must act
and act again, and the purposes of our conduct determine for us
what is essentially true of the surrounding world. The scientific
judgment, whatever may be its faults, is better than this. Its
ideal may be unattainable, but the advance in that direction is
none the less real and important.

The highest level of universality yet reached is that of the
mathematical sciences; and, indeed, in common opinion they
are altogether removed from dependence upon the particular.
The mathematical stage is that to which every other science is
supposed to look forward as its ultimate perfection. The excep-
tional position of mathematics has usually led philosophers to
derive them as a separate sphere of knowledge, from a separate
faculty of the mind. Their axioms are intuitions of reason.

Now in the case of mechanics, the patent historical fact that
its laws have been only gradually revealed by observation and
experiment, suggests very forcibly the opposite conclusion, that
the certainty and absolute exactness of these laws are illusory — as
illusory as the primitive notion, which persists even in so astute
a thinker as Epicurus, that all things tend to fall downward in
parallel lines. Newton and the modern world have not been
more confident of the truth of his laws of motion, than Epicurus
and the greater part of the ancient world were of this other
principle — or than Aristotle and his followers were of the division
of natural bodies into celestial and terrestrial, the former class
moving in circles, and the latter, under the influence of gravity
and levity, in straight lines. Logically, have not all these prin-
ciples stood upon the same basis? They have been universally
descriptive of the known facts of the matter, with an exactness
(within the limits of observation) surpassing the delicacy of any

156 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

possible correction. To be sure, our present observations cover
an enormously wider range and are likewise vastly more delicate;
but these differences are differences of degree. An impartial
survey of the history of mechanics certainly disposes one to the
opinion, that its laws, as compared with those of economics (for
example), simply represent a higher level of universality and
exactitude — probably not the ideal level.

Various suggestions have been made, looking toward a recon-
ciliation of the intuitional theory with the facts of history. Two
important types of suggestion are worthy of particular notice.
The first is the theory of Aristotle and Herbert Spencer, that while
the attention of men has been led to mechanical principles along
the devious and uncertain paths of observation and induction,
yet, when once clearly brought to mind, the principles are intui-
tively self evident. Spencer's version is modernized by the intro-
duction of an evolutionary explanation of the origin of the intui-
tion; and it is reinforced by the consideration that (in the case
of all the principles for which he claims a priori certitude) the
supposed experimental proofs invariably take for granted in some
connection the truth of the principles which they purport to
establish universally. This last, however, amounts only to show-
ing that the principles are tested as working-hypotheses: and
the theory remains eminently plausible, but wholly gratuitous.
The evolutionary explanation moreover, brings with it the dis-
quieting suggestion, that while the intuitively known principles
may be self-evident, in the sense of producing a quasi-instinctive
conviction of their truth, they need not for that reason be wholly
removed from reflective criticism. The adaptations which nature
produces are commonly no better than they need be — with a
generous margin of safety, of course. If Newton's first law of
motion were no truer than the law that falling bodies tend to
move in parallel lines, an intuitive acceptance of it would be no
less explicable for that.

The other type of mediating theory — represented most ably
by Poincar^ — gives up the hypothesis of an intuition of mechani-

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 157

cal laws, and regards them as supported only by approximate
verifications ; nevertheless it maintains that they are universally
and exactly true. They are experimental laws exalted by con-
vention into absolute principles; and they owe their security to
the fact that they cannot be submitted to any decisive experi-
mental test, because they apply perfectly only under conditions
which surpass the limits of possible observation. ^ The theory
certainly is not without attractiveness. According to the first
law of motion, a body under the influence of a single force moves
in a straight line. No body, however, can be pointed out that
meets this condition. On the contrary, the forces acting upon
every body within our notice appear to be unlimited in number.
To find an exact application of the law we should be forced to
imagine a body at an infinite distance from the rest of the uni-
verse. Similarly, the law of the conservation of energy involves
the notion of a closed system, a notion for which no corresponding
object can be found except the universe as a whole. So, too, in
the case of the lever. The formula which describes its action
requires that its fulcrum be a mathematical straight line, a con-
dition which we find nowhere realized. The endeavor to find the
perfect lever simply leads us to dissect the visible lever into
smaller and smaller segments, without a real expectation of ever
arriving at a satisfactory conclusion.

But now let us ask whether it is in such application as this that
the significance of these laws really consists? Do we not see
the realization of the first law of motion in the missile which is
thrown from the hand? To be sure, neither is it acted upon by a
single force, not is its course a straight line. But we say that
in so far as other forces are negligible in comparison, the course
is indeed a straight line. And do we not find the law of the con-
servation of energy realized in the relation of the food we eat
to the work we do? Here again, to be sure, there are other
sources of energy and abundant avenues for the escape of the
energy developed; but even in so crude an example as this, we

^Science and Hypothesis, pp. 98-100.

158 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

would hold that the operation of the law is unquestionable —
that it is merely concealed and not held in abeyance. And,
finally, the principle of the lever we find actually operative in
the iron crowbar, which, resting on one log, moves another.
And let it be considered that apart from such concrete instances
as these, the laws in question have no meaning for us. It was
not from the consideration of infinite distances, or of the universe
as a whole, or of the ultimate constituents of matter, that these
laws were derived — so much is obvious. And their actual utility
in the interpretation of our every-day life, as well as of our
scientific experience, is enormous. To suppose that their true
application is something utterly different from any application
we ever actually make of them is trifling with common sense.

No, these laws, like other laws, are instruments by means of
which we analyze phenomena. They are demonstrated, not from
'pure' instances, but from instances in which disturbing factors
are as far as possible eliminated; and, both in the more simple
and in the more complex instances, their significance is that of
the description of a contributing factor in a total process. It is,
indeed, to this fact that the exactness of the laws is due, for this
is but complementary to the confessed insufficiency of the analy-
sis. All inexactness is attributed to further, as yet undistin-
guished, conditions. But to say that the laws are approximately
verified under approximately perfect conditions is to understate
their experimental basis. They are verified with less and less
average inexactness as the conditions approach perfection. M.
Poincar^'s theory takes no account of this all-important fact.
And it must be added, that even though no single decisive test
can ever overthrow these laws, yet, if with increasingly delicate
observations the average error should ever fail to decrease, they
would be regarded as disproved in their present form, and would
have to be materially corrected.

On the whole, we find no sufficient reason for placing the
principles of mechanics in an absolutely different category from
those of economics. The essential difference appears to consist

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES 159

in the nature of the abstraction which is made in the two sciences.
The laws of economics are protected by an 'other things being
equal,' where there is by no means a definite conception as to
what these other things may possibly include. In mechanics
there is no 'other things being equal.' The antecedent of each
formula purports, at least, to set forth the precise conditions
under which the consequent must follow. Aside from this we
can only say that mechanical laws represent a far higher grade of
universality and precision than economic laws have attained, or,
very possibly, will ever attain.

The case of geometry and that of mechanics hang closely to-
gether. It is known that the principles of the two sciences are
so related that considerable alterations can be made in either
and sufficiently compensated by corresponding alterations in the
other. A non-Euclidean geometry, coupled with its appropriate
non-Newtonian mechanics, can describe our world as exactly
as the Euclidean can do. In short, geometry is recognizedly a
branch of applied mathematics — an experimental science which has
long since reached the deductive stage. If mathematicians some-
times appear to take it otherwise, that is because they have re-
defined the term. It then no longer professes to treat of the
space-relations of our experience, but is, as the phrase goes, a
science of 'cross-classification.'

There remains only pure mathematics — that is to say, formal
logic and the sciences of number and order deducible from formal
logic — as a possible obstacle to an evolutionary view of scientific
validity. We are inclined to the belief that this also is no insuper-
able obstacle, — that logic, like geometry and mechanics, repre-
sents a stage in the development of scientific universality, not the
ideal consummation. The numerical formulas (such as Kant's no-
torious 7 -j- 5 = 12), upon whose a priori certainty so much stress
was formerly laid, are in themselves, as has been definitely shown,
analytical propositions and, indeed, absolute identities: the defi-
nitions of the two members of the equality can always be reduced
to an identical form.^ The vital question is whether the under-

^Cf. L. Couturat, Les Principes des Mathematiques, p. 255, n. 3.

l6o DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

lying concept of number itself, and below it the concepts of
implication and inclusion, are absolutely final. This we see no
sufficient reason to believe. On the contrary, the utterly un-
expected development which the concept of number has recently
undergone through researches in the theory of infinite numbers
is an index of the possibilities which may yet be in store. Nothing
could ever have seemed more necessary than that if 2X — X,
Z = 0; and yet we know today that there is a distinct class of
other roots. The old number-theory, which was thought to be
absolutely true, is seen to be true only within a certain limitation,
namely, that the numbers considered be finite. It has been
aufgehoben — refuted as absolute, and taken up and preserved as
part of an ampler whole. For all that we know, the theory of
today may be similarly aufgehoben tomorrow.

The classification of contemporary human races presents in tem-
poral cross-section a picture of the evolution of humanity. The
classification of the sciences presents in a like cross-section a pic-
ture of the evolution of human judgment. Of this evolution, we re-
peat, the pragmatist theory of truth has taken insufficient account.

Nothing is more dangerously misleading than an indiscriminate
induction from the various stages of a given development. That
most, if not all, laws are approximate, that their validity is
relative to the satisfaction of the particular wants of individual
men, and hence that validity is determined by maximal individual
satisfaction, is true enough to be exceedingly false. It is like
Hume's theory — founded upon a similar sweeping induction —
that justice is whatever custom makes it. Whereas, for example,
Locke had claimed that taxation without representation is un-
just, Hume observes: 'What authority any moral reasoning can
have, which leads into opinions so wide of the general practice
of mankind in every place but this single kingdom, it is easy to
determine."^ Hume's induction was correct. He might even
have added that in Great Britain the suffrage was strangely
limited. And yet Locke was more than half right, because the
norm which he described lay athwart the course of social evolu-

^Essay XXXIV.

EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES l6l

tion. So, when the pragmatist interprets his doctrine as an
individualism, we declare that we find the rationalist right as
against him; for the latter merely describes as a realized, or
definitely realizable, end an indefinitely distant ideal toward
which the developing judgment tends.

Will it be said that the development which we have been trac-
ing is not of truth, but of the capacity of the judgment for ex-
pressing truth, that truth itself is the eternal ideal toward which
the whole development is tending? Well and good; we need
not quarrel about terms. But, in the first place, let it be re-
membered, that the stages of this development are not past and
gone. We cannot live by pure mathematics alone, enormously
valuable as its conceptions are to us. Truths such as, "Johnny
is a baby," and "William is still young," are still wonderfully
important to us; and it is idle to say that they are not true.
Whatever truth may mean for an absolute consciousness, for us
it certainly includes all the grades that have been mentioned,
and no doubt others which we have not distinguished. It is an
utterly arbitrary use of terms to restrict it to the ultimate ideal.
In the second place, we must beware of imagining that science
as a whole is approaching the mathematical type — that the day
is nearing, though still far distant, when all our encyclopedias
shall be reduced to tables of formulae. Take any particular field
of concrete inquiry, and as investigation proceeds, a body of more
and more general and precise propositions is accumulated within
it. But even within the given field the looser, more vaguely
limited propositions likewise accumulate. The evolution is a
spreading-out and a filling-in, as well as a growth upward. The
same is true of knowledge in general. Paradoxical as the state-
ment may seem, each new stage in the advancement of science
makes it more and more manifestly impossible that its highest
type of judgment should ever be applied to express its entire
content. There is a manifest increase in clearness and universal-
ity, but there is also a constant expansion of the confused and the
contingent; and the importance of these in our world-view is
assuredly not declining.

CHAPTER III

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS
I. The Concept of the Object

It has been pointed out that pragmatists, explicitly or by impli-
cation, have recognized two aspects of meaning; on the one hand,
the reference to conduct, the value of the idea, or what we have
called its import] and, on the other hand, its content, consisting
of its relations to certain other ideas and represented roughly
by the terms genus and differentia. But, while they have done
so much, they have not concerned themselves to bring out the
very intimate relationship which the two aspects bear to each
other. Had pragmatist writers faced this problem, they might
have averted much of the criticism urged against them, and at
the same time have opened the way to a very fruitful develop-
ment of their theory.

That a very intimate relationship exists will readily appear
upon consideration of a very simple case of the learning-process.
We are fully aware that there is a certain danger in this pro-
cedure— the same danger that is always incurred in the attempt
to explain later and more complex features of an organism through
reference to a simple and primitive type. On the one hand,
there is the tendency to interpret the later type in terms far too
simple to do it justice; and, on the other hand, there is the ten-
dency, equally strong, to falsify the earlier type by reading into
it characteristics which properly belong only to later stages of
development. And yet these tendencies are not, we believe, so
unavoidable, that we should forego the great advantage to be
gained from the schematic clearness that is thus made possible.

Let us assume as the starting point of the process that an
accustomed stimulus A is regularly met by the response B with
satisfactory consequences. We assume the conscious experience

162

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 163

of A , and the learning-process which we have to study consists
of the development of this A into two distinct forms, A' and A''.
(With the origin of consciousness we have no present concern,
any more than the student of cellular differentiation is concerned
with the origin of the first cells.) Upon certain occasions, let
us say, the usual response B brings an unpleasant result. Sub-
sequent behavior on meeting with the stimulus is thereupon
modified until a satisfactory mode of response is hit upon ; and at
the same time attention is directed to the stimulus previously
experienced as ^ . As a result of a successful modification of the
earlier behavior, we now find that the original vaguely sensed
stimulus A has become differentiated into the more attentively
perceived A' and A", each demanding its own peculiar response,
B^ and B respectively.

Until the modified behavior has become habitual, and while,
therefore, consciousness is still actively functional, there is, on
the appearance of the stimulus A' (for example), a conscious
association of it with the kineesthetic and organic sensations that
accompany its response B\ and perhaps with the revived image
of the immediate consequences of this response. When this asso-
ciation disintegrates, the stimulus tends to pass outside the field
of attention and later to drop out of consciousness altogether.
In other words. A', in so far as it is attentively recognized,
means B' or the remembered consequences of B' .

But there is another side to the meaning, which ought not to
be overlooked. When, at the outset of the learning-process, the
response B results at various times unpleasantly, it is not to be
supposed that it is only on the occurrence of such stimuli as will
later elicit the different response B' that an inhibitory tendency
will assert itself. Every A is still followed by B, for the lesson
is not learned from a single experience; and in every case a
slight weakening of the impulse may occur. And even if some
comparatively striking feature of the A that was wrongly dealt
with becomes quickly associated with the shrinking movements
that attend the unpleasantness, so that only ^'s with this feature

164 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

give rise to a weakened impulse, yet the feature in question may
well enough be entirely disconnected with the peculiar experience,
and the incipient differentiation of A that thus arises may count
for nothing in the ultimate result. Speaking generally, then, we
may say that the effect of an unsuccessful B is to weaken the
impulse to B whenever A occurs. Now in numbers of cases the
weakened impulse is immediately reinforced by success ; in others
it is further sapped by failure ; and the two effects may for some
time cancel each other without other manifest issue than the
heightening of attention.

What is necessary for the learning-process is a reorganization
of the sense-experience A in the two classes of cases; not that
new elements should be brought to consciousness, but that the
old should be given a new emphasis, so that feeling and active
response may attach to the really important marks. The trial-
and-error is not simply a selection between movements, but a
selection between candidates for the focus. In the latter aspect,
as in the former, we have no reason to suppose anything more
recondite than a process of summation. A comparatively ob-
scure feature, which when responded to by B is repeatedly and
without exception succeeded by unpleasant after effects, and
when responded to by the modified B' as invariably leads to
pleasant after effects, must finally make its way to the center of
attention; while the various false cues, leading to conflicting
results, retire into the background.

Now where the recognition of A' (for example) is attended
with distinct effort — and even when this is no longer generally
the case it may still occasionally happen — this recognition is its
discrimination from a possible ^'^ as the movements of hesitation
suffice to indicate. Thus A' and A" sustain a quasi-logical rela-
tion to each other, as well as to the vaguer image A' -or- A" of
which they are alternative fiUings-in. The significance of each
is partly that it is not the other. The first impression may be,
for example, of a moving something to be attacked or to be
avoided; and the aroused attention then amplifies the image so

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 16$

as to characterize it as prey or enemy. The essential point to
be noted is that, as new ideas arise by differentiation from old
ones, they preserve this species of relation to each other; and
further that the maintenance of this relation may often be es-
sential to their serviceableness in their natural function of the
guidance of conduct.

It is these quasi-logical relations to which we have attached
the term content. Too much should not be read into it. The
type of learning-process with which we are dealing is antecedent
to the rise of thought proper. Such ideation as is present is
non-conceptual, there being as yet no appearance of the distinc-
tion between individual and universal, or even the perception of
things as permanent objects — to say nothing of abstract qualities
and relations. And yet it must not be forgotten that the type
of experience which does exist is the matrix from which universal
and individual develop, and that we should expect to find in it
the mingled characteristics of both.

It is clear that in their origin import and content are insepara-
bly connected. It is the necessity for a differentiation of the
response that gives rise to the differentiation of the stimulus.
The former cannot occur without the latter, and the latter would
not occur without the former. Thus the peculiar import which
the consciousness of a stimulus possesses — whether analyzable
into k'naesthetic and organic sensations or into memory-images
— is intimately connected with the attentive discrimination of
the stimulus in situations where its identity is doubtful.

One of the chief weaknesses of pragmatism has undoubtedly
been the loose fashion in which it has treated, under the general
name of 'idea,' all forms of cognitive experience from the pre-
logical sense-images of animals and early childhood to the ab-
stract conceptions of science. What pragmatist writers have
mostly been concerned to point out, is the reference of all ideas
to conduct. Since this was their distinctively new doctrine, the
emphasis upon it has undoubtedly been proper enough in the

1 66 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

past. Nevertheless the failure to discriminate and describe the
various ways in which the different types of cognitive experience
function in the control of conduct, has certainly become a serious
defect in their general theory. It would seem, for example, a
matter of considerable importance to the successful development
of pragmatism, that some systematic account should be given of
the distinctive character of general ideas on the one hand, and
of particular ideas on the other hand, together with their genetic
relationship; or, again, that a similar account be given of the
genetic relationship of the perception of objects to simple sense-
experience. Yet, so far as we are aware, no such account has
been attempted. Thus, according to Professor James's Pragma-
tism, the meaning of any idea consists in the particular differences
in conduct which it involves. Any difference in meaning between
one idea and another, accordingly, is wholly resolvable into the
difference between the "cash-values" of the two ideas. Professor
James's treatment is of course intended to be merely general;
and yet not only does it take no account of any possible specific
differences between different kinds of ideas, but it is hard to see
how any difference of kind could be made out on the terms
provided.

A treatment of the nature of meaning would seem to demand
the consideration of two problems of primary importance: first,
the distinctive characteristics of the concept of an object, both on
the side of content and on that of import; and, second, the dis-
tinctive characteristics of the general concept. The first of these
problems is indeed touched upon by Professor James. In the
passage already quoted, in which he sums up the ''principle of
Peirce," he writes: *'To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts
of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects
of a practical kind the object may involve — what sensations
we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare.
Our conception of these effects, whether immediate or remote,
is then for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as
that conception has positive significance at all" (pp. 46-47).

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 1 6/

In opposition to this statement we would assert that no object
ever can mean any particular sensations or any particular re-
actions. What particular sensations and what particular re-
actions constitute, for example, our conception of the winter
overcoat of daily wear? It has, to be sure, a certain familiar
and recognized aspect when we see it hanging in the hall; but
its identity is perhaps never a simple identity of visual sensations.
Never twice on such occasions, in all probability, have we re-
ceived the same visual sensations from it. Other sensations,
which we might be supposed to expect from it are, it need scarcely
be added, equally uncertain. The case is similar as regards our
reactions toward it. It is true, we usually put it on in the
morning; but if, when we try to button it up, we find a button
missing, we may take it off and wear another for the day. Again,
we may turn the collar up if it is snowing, or if we have a sore
throat; but we may unbutton it when the day is mild, or if we
wish to pay our car-fare. All these reactions the coat may in-
volve in winter, while it is an object of daily wear. But what
conduct does it demand on the return of spring? Packing away
in moth-balls? Giving it to the Salvation Army? In short, the
object as such is only a conditional determinant of any specific re-
action, just as it is only a conditional determinant of any specific
sensations. And it is the nature of the conditions under which
an object may determine sensation on the one hand, and reaction
on the other — that is, its relations to other objects — which con-
stitutes in a large measure our conception of it. What does deter-
mine conduct in any case is the total situation. The relation of
the object to the situation is that of a factor recognized as a
possible factor in other situations.

In order to gain a better understanding of the functional sig-
nificance of the concept of an object, it may be profitable to
inquire into its probable origin in a more primitive type of exper-
ience. Under what general conditions may we suppose such a
concept to have been derived from the type of experience which
we considered in the preceding analysis of a simple learning-

1 68 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

process? Such a process results, as has been shown, in the
forming of a distinction between two stimuli formerly undis-
tinguished and reacted to in the same way. Now the fact that
the two stimuli have come to be recognized as different, may not
at all imply any analysis of either stimulus. The difference
between them may be felt simply as a difference on the whole.
But such a type of consciousness can have but a limited sphere
of usefulness. If the animal can profit by more complex and
varied behavior, then a more developed type of cognitive control
is of evident advantage. Thus if the food of the animal be a
living creature, which can safely be attacked in some situations,
but which it is better to avoid in other situations, it is of impor-
tance that the situation be differentiated into prey and significant
circumstances. Still more necessary is it that the prey be dis-
criminated as distinct from its surroundings, if the most advan-
tageous mode of attack varies with change of situation. But
until a stage is reached where it is of decided advantage to behave
differently toward prey under different circumstances, there is
no reason why the prey should itself be recognized as a distinct
object. It becomes an object for the consciousness of the animal,
only in so far as it is discriminated as an element in a total com-
plex situation. From the standpoint of biological utility, it is
clear that the object, so far from meaning a definite type of behavior,
is recognized as an object only as it is associated with important
diversity of behavior in characteristically different situations.

The emergence of the object marks a critical stage in the de-
velopment of conscious life. Its importance lies fundamentally
in the indirectness which the cognitive control of conduct now
assumes. Broadly speaking, it is the indirectness of the reference
of cognitive experience to conduct, that, on the one hand, makes
it so efficient an instrument of control, and, on the other hand,
gives thought its distinctive character. Regarded from this
standpoint, the whole development of conscious life may be
characterized as an increasing indirectness in the control of con-
duct. More specifically, the emergence of the object means the

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 169

emergence of a set of constant elements into which new situations
may be resolved. Instead of experience falling into a succession
of stimuli related to each other as simply alike on the whole and
different on the whole, it now falls into a succession of complex
presentations, containing constant factors in new and varying
combinations. The identity of these factors gives a continuity
to experience which was impossible before. As a result of this,
the learning-process becomes a far more efficient means of adapta-
tion. The discovery of the proper response to a new situation
need no longer be a matter of sheer chance. The new situation,
if it contain familiar objects, tends to stimulate not simply one
habitual response but the whole group of conditional responses
which the object represents. Thus if one response fails, an alter-
native is ready. Foresight is immeasurably extended. In pro-
portion as the concept of the object gains in variety of associa-
tions, the individual becomes correspondingly fertile of resources
in the face of new conditions.

So much for the significance of the concept of the object in
reference to conduct — its value, or, as we have termed it, its
import. The increase in complexity, the indirectness of the refer-
ence to conduct, which we have pointed out, is correlative to a
corresponding development on the side of content. The content
is made up, on the one hand, of distinctions between the object
and the situation and of its quasi-logical connections with other
objects from which it must be discriminated. As in the case of
the simpler sense-impression, these connections include the dif-
ferences between the given object and other objects, together
with the more general likeness equally recognized as subsisting
between them; for objects, like simple sense-impressions, come
to be discriminated as possessing differences only in so far as
there is a tendency to confuse them under certain conditions.
This confusion may arise simply from a lack of sufficient atten-
tion; or it may be that two objects remain indistinguishable
under some conditions, and that a change of condition is necessary
to enable their differences to become discernible. On the other

I70 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

hand, the distinctions thus constitutive of the content are correla-
tive with the second aspect of the content — namely, the recog-
nized identity of the object with itself in different situations. In
the earlier form of cognitive experience, the identity of the
stimulus is a simple given identity of sense-qualities within which
no differences subsist. But the identity of the object is the identity
of a system. It is constituted by the whole group of possible
sense-impressions, associated with the conditions of their appear-
ance. Thus, for example, a single sense-impression may not be
sufficient to establish the identity of the thing perceived. The
given impression may be precisely that which the supposed object
would yield under the given conditions; but it cannot be truly
identified as the object, unless under changed conditions it con-
tinues to yield such impressions as are to be expected from that
object upon similar changes.

We are now ready to call attention to a further distinction.
The group of associations which constitutes the concept may
never in its entirety be present to consciousness in any single
experience. In fact, it is only a concept of very low type that
would ever be wholly present. The concept is not to be identified
with any conscious process, however complex. It is an organi-
zation of possible processes, wh!ch is represented in consciousness
by some member or members of the system or by some symbol
associated therewith. Such representative processes are of two
kinds: percepts and ideas. The system itself is the object-as-
conceived, to which the representative process refers, and to
which it must conform if it is satisfactorily to perform its cognitive
function.^ Or, again, in another sense of the term, the system
is the meaning of the representative percept or idea.

How, to take first the case of perception, the representation
of the system is psychologically accomplished by the actual per-
ceptive process, is a problem which has not been fully solved.

iQf course, conformity to the object-as-conceived is not sufficient to ensure
successful conduct. For the object may not be adequately conceived. It may be
that future experiences, in revealing hitherto unknown possibilities of the object,
will demand a modification of the conceptual system.

OF

TR^HBB^^OPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS l/I

How, indeed, can given conscious contents 'represent' or 'mean'
or 'point to' other possible contents not given? Where the habit-
ual associations which make up the concept are very few and
simple, representation may, perhaps, be effected by the revival
of images of the associated experiences; but where the associa-
tions of the given sense-presentation are numerous and complex,
the percept certainly does not contain the revived images of all
the possible associated experiences. Yet some structural peculi-
arity of the given content is, no doubt, to be looked for, to account
for the representative function. When the perception involves
an appreciable degree of attention — which is, of course, the
favorable condition for revival — there would undoubtedly be a
successful tendency in certain of the associated experiences to
rise to clear consciousness, while a weaker tendency on the part
of others would be inhibited. We would suggest, however, that
such inhibited tendencies to revival may affect in a distinctive
manner the qualitative tone of the existing content. The arousal
of attention regularly goes along with some uncertainty ; it means
the problematic character of the presentation attended to. And
this problematic character may well involve a conflict among the
various associations. There develops, it is true, a capacity for
perception without any appreciable degree of attention. Thus
the familiar objects of daily life are given presentations, from
which all meaning, all conscious reference, seems to have worn
away.^ Nevertheless, it would, we believe, be committing a
serious mistake to regard such perceptual experiences as merely
given presentations wholly devoid of reference. Far better does
it seem to regard their meaning or reference as potential, repre-
sented by nascent tendencies of association with a whole group

^It is this characteristic type of experience which the pragmatist is so concerned
to distinguish from the 'knowing,' or 'cognitive,' experience proper. It is just
^he failure to make this distinction, so Professor Dewey claims, and the attempt to
treat all experience as exclusively cognitive, that is the source of the futile intellec-
tualism of present-day philosophy. With this contention we feel a certain sym-
pathy. But we believe that the differences between the 'knowing' experience and
other forms of experience have been greatly exaggerated, and that a serious limita-
tion has thus been put upon the development of pragmatist theory.

172 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of experiences. These nascent associations, which remain nas-
cent unless called out by attention, would seem to be a constitu-
tive characteristic of the percept, giving it its distinctive qualita-
tive tone. All this may be expressed by the statement, that
existence and meaning are correlative aspects of perceptual ex-
perience; that in inattentive perception the meaning tends to
drop away, though this separation is perhaps never complete,
mere existential givenness being then a limit which is not reached
in any actual experience.

No less important than the distinction between the concept
and the percept, is the corresponding distinction between the
concept and its second kind of representative, the idea. Just as
in perception all the members of the group of possible associa-
tions are not present to consciousness, so they are never, except
perhaps at an early stage of cognitive development, all present
in the idea. Here again we meet a problem which has not been
fully solved — the psychological structure of the idea. In general
it may be said that as compared with the percept its representa-
tive character is far more essential to it. The elements, which
on any particular occasion stand as the nucleus around which the
associations cluster, are far less prominent. It is certainly mis-
leading to suppose the idea to be a revival of a particular percept,
in which reappear the same sensation-qualities which figure so
prominently in perception. We may, indeed, have ideas ap-
proaching this type — some of us have many such. But they
certainly appear but seldom in our trains of reflective thought.
Most of our ideas are schemata. The nucleus about which as-
sociations cluster may be the faintest image of a word, or other
symbol, perhaps peculiar to the individual. ^ Here perhaps to a
greater degree than in attentive perception there is conflict be-
tween alternatively possible tendencies to revival. The nascent
associations are, so to speak, in a state of irritability. Many

iWe are of course here speaking of the highest type of cognitive experience, and
not of a stage prior to the development of universal concepts. The appearance of
language marks a nodal point in mental evolution which involves important modi-
fications of both perceptual and ideational processes .

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 1/3

remain inhibited, while others rise to clear consciousness; the
selections being determined on the one hand by habit, and on the
other hand by the total situation and the nature of the existing
interest.

But whatever the psychological character of the representative
idea may be, the essential point upon which we must insist is the
distinction between the idea, i. e., the particular conscious process,
and the concept, or the system of possible processes which the
idea represents. The former may vary widely from situation to
situation, while the concept of the object is unchanged. And
the variation of the idea may affect not simply the association
nucleus, but, more importantly, the particular associations that
spring up.

Excursus upon J. S. Mill's Theory of Objectivity

The kinship which certain leaders of the pragmatist movement
have claimed with the school of English empiricism has nowhere
been so expressly avowed as in their relation to the last great
name of the school — John Stuart Mill. It is not difficult to
understand why this should be the case. It was Mill who carried
to the farthest extent the psychological analysis of fundamental
philosophical concepts begun so brilliantly by Berkeley. And in
Mill's hands the subjective idealism of his predecessors under-
went a remarkable transformation, which is very generally sup-
posed to have issued in something more nearly approaching
realism than a consistent idealism. These supposed realistic
tendencies of Mill might the more readily be regarded as akin to
pragmatism, in that it is precisely the idealistic side of English
empiricism that pragmatists are so concerned to disclaim, be-
lieving, as they unanimously do, that a new realism is the logical
outcome of their pragmatism. And yet the remarkable fact is
that Mill's transformation of subjective idealism has received as
scant attention from them as it has from thinkers generally and,
as we believe, as great misappreciation. As we shall try to show,
it is precisely Mill's transformation of the idealism of Berkeley

174 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

and Hume, that constitutes his greatest contribution to philo-
sophical thought, and from which pragmatism especially has
most to learn.

Misappreciation of Mill has not been confined to this side of
his thought. His treatment of utilitarianism met much the same
fate, and for a similar reason, namely, his own conservative
attitude toward his philosophical innovations. Thus, in his
treatment of utilitarianism, he advanced, as if it were nothing
more than an unimportant modification of the prevailing hedon-
ism, the theory that desire, and not pleasure, is the determinant
of value — a theory which really involved, as is now recognized,
a profound transformation of the older utilitarianism. Owing
very largely to the modest and conservative mode of presentation,
this new theory was criticized, on the one hand, as being open
to all the objections applicable to the traditional hedonistic doc-
trine, and, on the other hand, as betraying a misunderstanding
of the older doctrine and inadvertently going over to the camp
of the enemy. In the same fashion, his doctrine of objectivity is
advanced as if it involved only a slight amendment of the sub-
jective idealism of Berkeley and Hume. And here too he has
been accused of misinterpreting the theory he avows and in-
advertently throwing wide the door to the admission of a thing-
in-itself in but a slight disguise.

In view of the prevalence of such misconceptions of Mill's
position, we shall take the liberty of presenting on our own ac-
count what we conceive to be his essential contribution to the
theory of objectivity, together with our own reflections upon the
actual deficiencies of his treatment and upon the manner in
which pragmatism is able both to remedy these defects and
greatly to improve its own position.

Mill's general problem is essentially that of Berkeley; namely,
the explanation of the existence of sensible things in psychological
terms. Berkeley's solution had been, as it will be remembered,
that sensible things are a class of ideas, or perceptions (synony-
mous terms for him) , and that accordingly their existnce can mean

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY 175

nothing more than the fact of their perception by the mind. The
ascription of existence to an object not at the moment perceived
is explained by Berkeley, somewhat uncertainly, as meaning
either its presence in the form of a memory-image of past sensa-
tions, or its presence to other minds, or, lastly, its conditional
presence under other conceivable circumstances. Mill, while ex-
pressly avowing himself to be a Berkeleyan, and accepting the
fundamental Berkeleyan presuppositions, nevertheless recognized
the serious defect of this theory of objectivity. He recognized
that even from the psychological standpoint it is essential to
give some explanation for the universally accepted distinction
between the object and the mere perception or idea of the object,
even if the distinction is not to be justified as an ontological
difference between two orders of existence. In addition to the
fact of the universal acceptance of this distinction by common
sense, the particular consideration that led Mill to take this
position was as follows. The unifority of nature is not, as
Berkeley had expressly asserted it to be, a uniformity in the
order of sensations. No law of nature can be stated in term.s of
sensations as such, or of perceptions as such. It cannot be said,
for example, that if we see a vivid flash of light we shall hear
a heavy rumbling noise. In the great majority of such cases,
there are an indefinite number of alternative possibilities of
experience. Whether we hear the thunder or not, depends upon
the fulfilling of further, objective conditions, not definable directly
in terms of perception. The uniformities of nature, in other
words, are conditional uniformities of a higher order, and must
be stated in terms of more or less highly abstract conditions of
experience — that is, in terms of things. Thus it is these condi-
tions of perception, and not the perceptions themselves, that are
the objects of science, and to which scientific laws apply.

The following sharply contrasting passages will suffice to show
Mill's divergence from Berkeley in this matter. Berkeley writes :
''The ideas of Sense . . . have likewise a steadiness, order, and
coherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are

1/6 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train or
series, the admirable connection whereof sufficiently testifies the
wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules or
established methods wherein the Mind we depend on excites in
us the ideas of sense, are called the laws of nature; and these we
learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas
are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary
course of things."^ Mill, discussing the same subject, writes:
"Now, of what nature is this fixed order among our sensations?
It is a constancy of antecedence and sequence. But the constant
antecedence and sequence do not generally exist between one
actual sensation and another. Very few such sequences are
presented to us by experience. In almost all the constant se-
quences which occur in Nature, the antecedence and sequence
do not obtain between sensations, but between the groups we
have been speaking about, of which a very small portion is
actual sensation, the greater part being permanent possibilities
of sensation, evidenced to us by a small and variable number
of sensations actually present. "^

The solution which Mill has to offer to this important problem,
so underestimated by Berkeley — his psychological theory of the
nature of objectivity — is anticipated in the passage just quoted.
This theory is, in brief, that external things are not to be identified
as a class of complex ideas; but that they are groups of possible,
as opposed to actual, sensations. Just what Mill meant by the
famous phrase, "permanent possibilities of sensation," it is
essential to be at some pains to discover. In the case of direct
perception, the actual sensations form but a small part of the
object as experienced. As Mill says: "What we see is a very
minute fragment of what we think we see." In addition to the
sensations actually present to consciousness, there are associated
a whole group of other possible sensations, some of which a more
careful attention would serve to make actual, others of which
would enter the field of consciousness by a slight shift of bodily

^Principles of Human Knowledge, § 30.

^Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, 6th ed., Ch. XI, p. 230.

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY 17/

position, etc. The perceived object, that is to say, is determined
to a greater extent by the associations which the given sensations
have with other merely possible sensations, than it is by the
actually given sensations themselves. And, in fact, the existing
sensations enter into the perception of the given object, not
through the mere fact of their actual presence in consciousness,
but by reason of their association with the whole group of possible
sensations which make up the object.

But directly perceived objects form but a small part, again, of
the world of objects which we believe at any moment to exist,
and which we constantly think of as existing — the world which
forms the persistent background of our immediately given exper-
iences. If we analyze what we mean by the existence of an
object not actually perceived, a precisely similar result is reached,
namely, that it is nothing more than a group of possibilities of
sensation under specific conditions. Indeed, whether the object
is perceived or not, it is this group of definitely connected pos-
sibilities of sensation that constitutes its objectivity as over against
the subjectivity of the transient and variable actual sensations.
It is true that there would be no group of possible sensations —
no object would exist — if it were not for the actual experiences
of the past and of the present; and yet, it is the possibilities that
are relatively permanent and unchanging, while the actual sensa-
tions are fleeting and changeable.

Mill's theory is thus seen to make a great advance over that
of Berkeley, in that the object is no longer itself a kind of idea-
It is not, in other words, a state of consciousness. In relation
to such states, the existence of the object may be described
as ideal. But Mill is still a Berkeleyan in that the object is ex-
plained in terms of ideas, or, strictly speaking, of sensations. Its
existence as something independent of conscious minds is as
meaningless to him as it was to Berkeley. Moreover, the object,
as compared with the elements of consciousness, is merely deriv-
tive; it is, in a sense, an artificial product. The fact that it is
regarded by common sense as possessing a reality superior to
13

1 78 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

that of ideas, is an illusion to be explained psychologically; but
such explanation in no wise constitutes a justification of such an
interpretation.

Some of the causes to which Mill attributes the growth of this
illusion, we have already mentioned. That is to say, experience,
through the operation of the laws of association, once having
given rise to the idea of groups of possibilities of sensation, these
groups come to be thought of as permanent, and as persisting
relatively unchanged while our actual experiences are constantly
changing. They are naturally regarded, therefore, as, in a sense,
independent of ourselves. In the second place, the groups of
possible sensations are not realized by ourselves alone ; but they
are objects of common experience in a way in which the sensations
themselves are not. Under the same conditions, others have
experiences similar to ours. It is not so much that the sensations
compared one to one are precisely similar, but that they exhibit
the same uniformities of antecedence and sequence. It is then
the groups of possibilities — the conditional certainties — that are
constantly verified by our intercourse with others. Moreover,
as we must not forget to recall, the object is given a place in its
system independent of our subjective sensations and feelings, not
simply because it is accessible to other men, but because to it
the universal laws of nature apply. Finally, what serves to
complete the emancipation of the object is the inevitable tendency
to regard it as bearing a causal relation to our sensations. For
the actual sensations we feel are indubitable evidence to our
minds of the presence of some group of possibilities of sensation ;
and these possibilities are held to have been equally possibilities,
whether the conditions of their realization in actual experience
were fulfilled or not — that is, the object is regarded as necessarily
existing prior to our perception of it, which is precisely the con-
dition for the ascription of the causal relation.^ There is but one

^Mill's treatment involves likewise an important modification of Hume's theory
of causality. For just as the uniformities of nature hold, not of the antecedence
and sequence of sensations, but of the antecedence and sequence of possibilities of
sensation, so the causal connection applies, not to the sensations in their relation
to each other, but to objects.

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY 1 79

step more needed to account for the belief in the existence of an
external world as a realm of being wholly independent of ex-
perience— that is, for the rise of ontological dualism. This step
is taken, when we recognize the tendency of the mind to generalize
illegitimately by applying to a whole class of things what holds
of each member of the class considered separately. Thus, be-
cause each group of possibilities possesses a certain independence
with reference to the actual realization of any of the particular
possibilities that constitute it, considered singly, the group comes
to be regarded as absolutely independent of any actual experience
whatever — an inference which is, of course, wholly unwarranted.
The same thing may be otherwise expressed by saying that the
ideal character of the object is forgotten, and it is accounted as
possessing in itself a reality properly ascribable (according to
Mill's presuppositions) only to the sensation as such.

Let us now pass to the consideration of the more common
criticisms of Mill's position. First, there is the charge, that the
theory logically commits Mill to a form of realism. One cannot
stop, it is argued, with the statement, that the object is a possi-
bility of sensation. There can be no such thing as a mere possi-
bility, for every real possibility must have a basis in actuality.
For the object to be a permanent possibility of sensation, it
must exist as actual in some form. The phrase may be an
adequate description of what the object is known as; but, if it is
anything more than a mere idea, it must exist as something
actual, even though the nature of that actuality be inscrutable
to us. The dilemma is perfect. If the object has a permanent
existence, it cannot be reduced to an idea, for all ideas are m-
permanent. If, on the other hand, it is a real possibility, it
must exist as an actuality; but the only actualities that Mill
admits are ideas.

That this criticism is based upon a misunderstanding of Mill's
real position will, we believe, be evident upon consideration.
It seems to rest upon a certain confusion in regard to the meaning
of the term 'possibility.' This is a word that is commonly used

l8o DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

in various senses which are by no means always kept distinct.
First, it is used to signify an incompleteness of knowledge about
a particular event, as when it is said that a certain imagined
future event is a possibility but not a certainty. This is equiva-
lent to saying that so far as is known the event may or may not
happen. This obviously is not the sense in which Mill employs
the term, nor does the criticism with which we are concerned
imply any such understanding of it. Secondly, the term is ap-
plied to what is regarded as the essential condition of the future
existence of a thing. Thus the egg is, or contains, the possibil-
ity of the chick; that is, the existence of the egg, although not
sufficient to determine the future existence of the chick, is never-
theless regarded as the essential condition of the chick's being.
Hence, if one were to assert that the chick's existence is a real
possibility, such an assertion must owe its truth to the actual
existence of the egg — the possibility in other words, must exist
as an actuality. Now it is this sense of the term 'possibility'
which Mill's critic evidently has in mind, when he contends that
the phrase, 'permanent possibility of sensation,' may express all
that we know of the nature of the object, but that it must
nevertheless exist as an unknown or even unknowable actuality.
But is it in precisely this sense that Mill uses 'possibility'? Let
us take the case of the object that is directly perceived, and ask
what Mill conceives this present object to be. Obviously its
present existence is not the actual sensations we are having; the
object, even when directly perceived, is still the possibility of a
group of sensations. Mill's statement, that the object is the
possibility of sensation, is not analogous to the statement, that
the egg is the possibility of the chick; for in the latter case the
egg is an existent of the same order as the chick. In the former
case, on the contrary, the object is not an existent of the same
order as is the sensation — it is, as we remarked before, ideal with
reference to the sensation, which is real. There is, indeed, an
actuality which corresponds to the possibility of the group of
sensations; namely, the present sense-experience, whatever it

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY l8l

may be, or perhaps the memory of certain past sensations. A
world of mere possibilities, however complexly interconnected,
would be a shadow. It is the givenness of the present or re-
membered sensation that communicates substance, first to the
objects of present and past perception, and then to the whole
universe in which they have their place. The theory is very
similar to Kant's. "For everything is actual that hangs to-
gether with a sense-perception according to laws of the empiric
progress. They [the men in the moon] are real, if they stand in
an empirical connection with my actual consciousness, although
they are not on that account actual by themselves, i. e., apart
from this progress of experience."^

A second criticism frequently met with is one which seems to
start from an interpretation similar to the one just urged by us
in Mill's defense. Briefly stated, it is that Mill's admission of
possibilities of sensation as something over and above the sensa-
tions themselves, logically commits him (although he fails to
recognize the fact) to what is substantially Kantianism — that is,
to the assumption of an a priori form of thought. But this
criticism too seems, upon consideration, to be unjustified. There
is, indeed, a striking resemblance — as we have illustrated above
— between Mill's doctrine and that of Kant. But the differences
are equally striking; for the forms of connection which Mill con-
siders are not a priori but a posteriori. In the first place, they
are not intuitively known and assured, as are Kant's a priori
princip es; but they are discovered empirically, and often, as in
the case of objectivity, only by careful and difficult psychological
analysis. Moreover, it can never be asserted that a given de-
scription of any form of connection is adequate or final. It is
always open to correction and modification. In the second place,
not only must the ascertainment of existing forms of connection
be wholly empirical, but the forms themselves Mill conceives
to have arisen and to be modified in the course of experience.
In fact, it is only by tracing their psychological origin and de-

^Critique of Pure Reason; The Antinomy of Pure Reason, Section 6.

1 82 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

velopment that their nature can be defined. A better illustration
of Mill's theory than any which he himself gives may perhaps
be found in the forms of musical composition — except that it
may suggest too forcibly the social factor in psychological de-
velopment, of which he took but little account. These forms
have formerly been supposed to be a priori with respect to musical
experience; universally valid for all mankind, and, while perhaps
only gradually arising to self-consciousness in the individual,
nevertheless operative in moulding his whole perception of melody
and harmony from the outset. As thus conceived, they furnish
a striking analogy to the Kantian forms of experience in general.
It is now commonly admitted that musical forms are, both in
the individual and in society, a product of evolution, and that
this evolution is still in progress, although to the modern man
they may appear to be as absolute as the law of gravitation.
The musical forms are then typical of all the forms of experience
which Mill admits. If it be asked, whether music has not an
a priori basis in the sense of generic characteristics of tonal per-
ception, by which the whole evolution of the forms has been
conditioned, the disciple of Mill may well answer in the affirma-
tive. But such characteristics of the perception are nothing more
than empiricalty discovered psychological uniformities. And in
precisely similar fashion he can admit no other basis for the
forms of experience in general than psychological laws.

Our own criticism of Mill strikes deeper, as we think. It is
the dogmatic presuppositions of his theory that we would call
in question. His departure is from the simple elements of sensa-
tion and imagination, held together by various modes of 'external'
association (which do not affect the character of the elements
connected). To these he adds memory and expectation, which
are 'real' connections, through which a present state of conscious-
ness involves in itself a belief in the past or future existence of
another state, with which the former is in some wise continuous.
But he is so far from attempting to reconcile the existence of
these 'real' connections with the simplicity and independence of

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY 1 83

the conscious elements, that he sets them down as a final in-
explicability.^ Mill is not only a dogmatist; he is a dogmatist
who clings to his faith despite what is to him its manifest in-
sufficiency. It is not as if he simply accepted sensation and
memory as equally fundamental facts. Sensation he accepts as a
fact. Memory he accepts as an utterly incomprehensible fact.

Accordingly, for Mill the real is, first, the sensation, and,
secondly, the remembered or expected sensation. From both of
these must be distinguished the (not actually, but) conditionally
expected sensation, that is to say, the possible sensation. The
possible sensation is not, as such, real, though it may become
real. But, while not real, it has, as merely possible, a perma-
nence, which the real, as real, has not. Objects are groups of
possible sensations, or possibilities of sensation; the terms are
not carefully distinguished.

Objects are not real, though some elements of them may from
time to time acquire and lose reality. If the popular, and even
the scientific, consciousness regard the object as real, and even
as more real than present sensations, that is a delusion which
can be satisfactorily accounted for. The possibilities of sensa-
tion are relatively permanent ; they exhibit extensive uniformities
of succession ; and they are cognizable by men in general. Hence
their supposed reality.

Now suppose that, instead of regarding the sensation as a
given element of reality, we treat it as a scientific construct, an
hypothesis, by means of which the experienced reality is to be
in some measure analyzed and explained — no more given, no
more open to direct observation, than the atom. How would
our attitude toward Mill's theory be affected? The question is
not an idle one, as the position thus described is that commonly
held by psychologists today. When we turn aside from dogmatic
presuppositions, and ask ourselves how anything is ever per-
ceived by us as real, it becomes obvious that nothing is ever so
perceived except in implied connection with a not-perceived,

iMore precisely, memory is assumed as inexplicable, while expectation is sup-
posed to be explicable in terms of memory.

1 84 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

within which connections are likewise supposed to exist. The
present sensation is never identified by us with the real; or if
for a moment we are tempted to make the identification we are
forced, like the ancient atomist, to turn upon ourselves with
the admission, that the not-real is just as real as the real. We
must, then, radically reinterpret Mill's explanation of the general
conviction, that the permanent possibilities of sensation are more
real than the sensations we actually experience. What he re-
gards as a psychological account of the sources of the conviction
must be construed as a partial logical analysis of the meaning of
reality, as implying on the one hand the series of given sensations,
and on the other hand the connections between sensations, given
or not given. That objects are relatively permanent, generally
verifiable, and subject to universal laws, makes them 'more real'
{i. e., more concrete) than the momentarily given sensation-
complex, just as truly as the givenness of the sensation-complex
makes it more real than other merely possible complexes. If the
object with its inexhaustible possibilities is ideal in comparison
with the conscious presence of the perception, the perception is
subjective in comparison with the permanence and universality
of the object.

Whether or not Mill is right in holding that the phenomenon of
memory cannot be explained in terms of association, we do not
stop to inquire. Our thesis is the more general one, that 'real
connections' are as essential to the realities of experience as are
the elements connected. Possible sensations are merely possible,
to be sure. But possibilities of sensation, in the sense of more or
less permanent connections of antecedence and consequence, in
which the series of our actual sensations has its place, are not
merely possible but real — or, if they be not real, our experience
is a dream within a dream.

If our criticism is well-founded, Mill, in his theory of permanent
possibilities of sensation has accomplished far more than he
dreamed of attempting. His refutation of Berkeley appears to
us to be definitive. But, more than that, he has given to empiri-

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY 185

cism the means of an effective synthesis of realism and subjec-
tive idealism, in which the claims and the limitations of both
are duly recognized.

What has all this to do with pragmatism? In the first place,
it is to be observed that the pragmatist theory of the relation of
thought to conduct casts a wholly new light upon Mill's analysis
of objectivity. Permanence, uniformity, accessibility — the fac-
tors may seem at first blush to have nothing in common and to
form a merely accidental combination. But for the intelligent
guidance of conduct what can be more necessary than an en-
vironment thus characterized? It is the condition, not simply
of success, but of reasonable endeavor. In so far as the world
is not of this character, our struggles are vain.

In the second place. Mill's theory offers an alternative to the
immediatism} with which pragmatism has hitherto been bound
up. It is to be noted that pragmatism, as presented by its
chief advocates, is subject to a limitation which the evidences
drawn from functional psychology seem hardly to warrant —
namely, its inapplicability to perception. According to these
writers, the percept is neither true nor false: it is a fact. It
represents nothing beyond itself, with which it might stand in
agreement or disagreement. Ideas, on the contrary, are repre-
sentatives. The idea of a sensible thing may, for example, be a
copy of the thing. But the percept {i. e., the thing as perceived)
is the thing. In this identity, there is no scope for representation,
whether true or false. A thing cannot agree with itself.

This view is included in the theory of immediatism, the general
discussion of which we cannot undertake here. At the same
time it stands in a very close relation to the loosely-styled sub-
jective idealism of David Hume. Hume, it will be remembered,
found that the belief in the continued existence of our impressions
of s nsation was instinctive and ineradicable, and was an indis-
pensable postulate of science; while at the same time he con-

^Cf. Appendix I, pp. 231 ff. and Appendix IL

1 86 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

demned the belief as wholly irrational. The pragmatists have
affirmed a sort of converse of this — or perhaps we should rather
say, the same doctrine expressed in objective instead of subjective
terrris — with the sceptical afterthoughts omitted. If the percept
and the object are identical, what difference is there between
saying that the percept {i. e., the impression of sensation) exists
while it is not perceived, and saying that the object is directly
present in the perceptive consciousness. In a former chapter
we mentioned one inconvenience of Hume's theory, which at-
taches with equal force to the pragmatist restatement: namely,
that a supposedly unchanged object must be successively identi-
fied with very diflferent percepts. In the preceding pages we
have given an account of the difficulties raised by John Stuart
Mill — difficulties which seem to us to be wholly fatal to the
theory. Here we wish to point out that the percept may be
quite as truly representative as the idea, and representative in
substantially the same fashion.

Just a word as to resemblance. It is true that an idea may
resemble a certain percept, but only as one percept may resemble
another — as the aria heard in the gallery resembles the aria
heard in the front rows of the pit, or as the landscape at dusk
resembles the landscape at midday. Moreover, upon the score
of resemblance, an idea is no more open to qualification as false
or true than a percept; for, if the idea may (by later reflection)
be subjected to comparison with the percept, so also may the
percept be subjected to comparison with a percept (or idea)
regarded as a yet better standard.

We say that if the pragmatist theory of meaning applies to
the idea, it must equally apply to the percept. A fortiori it
must. For on the lower levels of animal life the conscious control
of conduct must be almost entirely vested in the sense-impressions
of the moment, imagination reaching no farther forward than to
the immediate consequences of the act to be performed. And
when, with the progress of intelligence, the control exerted by
perception is more and more largely supplemented by centrally

MILL'S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY. 187

aroused processes, no new mode of exerting it is introduced. It is
true that in the guidance of overt conduct the percept remains
(except, perhaps, in abnormal cases) an essential factor. Control
by 'mere ideas' is lunacy. It is true also, that the percept makes,
in general, a more forcible appeal to the emotions than does the
idea. The sight of the proffered coin is a powerful inducement
to the hesitating vendor. But these admissions do not touch
the heart of the matter. As from the structural standpoint there
is no fundamental difference between percept and idea — simply
a difference in the proportion of externally and centrally excited
elements — so from the functional standpoint there is no funda-
mental difference in the mode of control which they exercise upon
conduct.

Is it possible that the disagreement here indicated is merely
verbal? We think not. Mr. James has described the "kind of
knowledge called perception" as one in which the knower and
the known are "the self -same piece of experience taken twice
over in different contexts."^ True, perception does not mean for
him necessarily the perception of things as things, i. e., as having
an existence beyond the moment of their presence in conscious-
ness. This is a piece of interpretation for which a somewhat
extensive previous experience is necessary. But, if we under-
stand Mr. James aright, this interpretation is not supposed to
alter the nature of the percept as such. The child's earliest
perception was (presumably) a perception of things — that is to
say, the percepts had an existence beyond the moment of per-
ception— though the perceiver did not know it. This position
(which is substantially the same as Hume's) we believe to be
clearly false and to have been sufficiently refuted by J. S. Mill.
But we further hold that, even if this position were correct,
nevertheless the percepts have meaning substantially as ideas
have, and are similarly open to criticism as correct or incorrect.
This would involve the paradoxical conclusion, that things are
correct or incorrect — but we are not responsible for that.

^The Meaning of Truth, p. 103.

CHAPTER TV

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS
II. The General Concept

So far we have not concerned ourselves directly with that
level of cognitive experience at which the concept of the simple
object has been differentiated into the universal concept, denoting
any member of a class, and the individual concept, denoting a
particular member of the class; although in what has preceded
we have had occasion to refer to such a type of experience. The
earliest objects, like the earliest sense-images, are, of couise,
neither universal nor particular, but possess certain character-
istics of both types. The fully developed universal is no doubt
a product of a very late stage of development, as is also the fully
developed individual. In advance, however, of a complete dif-
ferentiation of the two, objects must have fallen into groups, more
or less indeterminate, to be sure, but within which quasi-logical
relations became established which bore certain analogies to the
later logical relation between class and individual member.

This may be illustrated by the behavior of young children.
Very early there appears an instinctive recognition of other
children. The sight of another child elicits signs of interest and
delight, which the appearance of adults or other animals does
not call forth. Such behavior is, of course, instinctive, and
indicates no more than that some distinction is made between
the appearance of a child and that of an adult or animal. More-
over, no distinction is at first made between one child and another
— any child calls forth the response. The child it sees on the
street while out in its go-cart meets the same response that is
given to the neighbor's child who is a constant visitor, or even
to its own reflection in the mirror. But very soon, if the child is
thrown with other children, distinctions between individuals are

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 1 89

noticeable in its behavior, and we have the beginnings of classifi-
cation. The child at such a stage recognizes a certain resem-
blance between all children, which it does not recognize between
children and adults ; for, in spite of the differences in its behavior
toward individual children, its attitude toward any child is char-
acteristically different from its attitude toward adults. Further-
more, the recognition of this general resemblance develops pari
passu with the recognition of individual differences. There is
no grouping of children together until particular children come
to be distinguished. But that there is a grouping, which is
correlative to the growth of individual distinctions, seems evident.

As general conditions for the formation of the earliest class
concepts, we find, first, a failure to distinguish between a number
of objects, which are, however, distinguished from other objects;
second, the emergence of a distinction between one or more of
the objects in question and others of the number, which is valu-
able for certain purposes or in certain situations, while it still
remains of advantage to the individual to treat them similarly
except under these specific conditions. The mere failure to dis-
tinguish between them must, that is, be transformed into a posi-
tive recognition of their general resemblance, such recognition
being essential to their classification. These fundamental con-
ditions being fulfilled, the further development of the incipient
class concepts depends upon the conscious differentiation and
accentuation of this common character, effected by the focusing
of attention upon it.

We are now ready to inquire what relation the general concept
bears to the more primitive concept of the simple object. In the
first place, like the latter it is an organization of associations,
actual or potential, and not a particular process. In other words
we have here to draw the same distinction between the general
concept and its psychological representative, the idea, that we
found necessary in the case of the simple object. If, however,
we compare the organization constituting the general concept
with that which constitutes the concept of the s'mple object,

I90 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

we find a characteristic difference. The concept of the simple
object is an organization of various conditional possibilities of
experience which have become associated by virtue of their direct
functional relation to each other. In the general concept, how-
ever, we find an altered state of affairs. While the members of
this organization exhibit, indeed, a type of internal relationship
similar to that subsisting in the concept of the simple object, a
modification of structure has taken place under the operation
of what has traditionally been called 'association by similarity.'^
The system is based, not simply upon the direct functional rela-
tion of the associated experiences to each other, but upon the
common significance for conduct of a variety of objects. What
may be called potential resemblances between objects become
actual, and general concepts of them are formed, only when some
interest attaches to the recognition of these resemblances and
attention is directed toward them.

If these observations are correct, it would follow that the
earliest general concepts must be based, not upon specific and
definite similarities between objects, but upon relatively massive
and indefinite resemblances, such as w^ould correspond to the
common significance for conduct of the objects associated. And
this is what seems to be the case with the general concepts of
children, as evidenced, for example, by their early attempts at
definition. Thus a child of three, when asked : "What is a train?"
replied: "A train is something to pull." Similarly, "A toy is to
play with," and, "A mamma is a lady to take care of me."
Students of pedagogy have compiled sets of definitions given by
children, which are similar in character. In these instances the
resemblances between the different objects belonging to the class

^This psychological mechanism has, from the time of its first mention b3' Plato,
been regarded as separate and distinct from the so-called 'association by contiguity' ;
and only in very recent times has the fundamental identity of the two modes of
connection become probable. It must be admitted that to the psychologist of
today 'association by similarity' is rather a name for a problem than a solution.
But however problematic the detailed analysis of this mode of association may be,
it has become evident that it belongs only to the most highly evolved types of
consciousness and is probably attributable only to man himself.

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS I9I

are markedly indirect. Thus the child will class as a 'train' its
toy train of iron, a piece of wood with a string tied to it, a row of
blocks, etc. As regards 'toy,' the resemblances are even more
indirect, and consist rather in similarities of attitude than in
likenesses between the objects considered by themselves.^ Nev-
ertheless, if the concept be not merely artificial, but is a real
functional element in the child's mental economy, it must have
content as well as import — the different toys must have some
common characteristics by which they may be discriminated
from other objects. Thus, for example, toys are also things papa
buys in a certain well-known store, they are things given it on
festive occasions, things kept in the chest over which it has
comparative freedom of control; they are distinctly not things
mamma buys in the grocery store, or things kept on the mantle-
piece or the desk, however attractive these might be to play with.
So much for the mode of association by which the elements
constituting the class concept are related. As compared with
the concept of the simple object, it is also to be noted that in the
general concept the relations to other concepts are far more
definite and constitute a far more prominent element in the struc-
ture of the organization. Indeed, as the class and individual
concepts become clearly difl^erentiated, such relations pass from
a quasi-logical to a logical form. The presence of such true
logical relationships is clearly evident where a relatively simple
class concept has undergone a further differentiation and has
developed into a more general class on the one hand and a sub-
ordinate, relatively specific class on the other. We have such a
case of differentiation, where the child's earlier concept 'mamma'

ijf some early concepts are based upon directly observable sense-differences,
these are found upon examination to be no exception to the general rule. 'Big'
and 'little,' 'hot' and 'cold' have an import for the child, which the color-tones
(for example) ordinarily have not. It is not mere sensible discriminability, however
gross, that calls for class distinctions. The common failure among primitive
peoples to have special terms for blue and green is not the slightest indication of an
undeveloped color-sense. Children, too, are usually very slow in noting differences
between colors; but in the kindergarten, where several of the occupations require
an attention to such differences, children of barely three years easily acquire an
intelligent mastery of a dozen color-names.

192 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

(within which are distinguished as individuals the child's own
mamma and the particular mammas of certain of its playmates)
becomes differentiated into the more general concept 'lady,' in-
cluding all adult women, and 'mamma,' including women having
children. Where such development has occurred, we have a
true case of logical inclusion, as is evidenced in the former defini-
tion cited: '*A mamma is a lady to take care of me" — though
the last word reveals the individual significance which also at-
taches to the term.

We have next to consider the greater survival-value of the
general concept as compared with the concept of the simple
object. The very fact that the reference of the general concept
to conduct is a stage more indirect means that cognitive control
is at once more far-reaching and more delicate. The further
differentiation and integration which marks the development of
the general concept means that on the objective side the situation
has undergone a similar transformation. It has gained at once
a far greater degree of continuity with other possible situations
and a far greater individuality. The general concept provides a
far more efficient instrument for the analysis of the situation, and
it is in the analysis of the situation that the specific function of
cognition consists. The increased efficiency of control manifests
itself in the modification which is observable in the learning-proc-
ess. When a given course of conduct fails, the individual is not
left to mere groping in the dark, but there are ready to suggest
themselves more or less specific alternative modes of behavior.
The failure may itself be classified as falling within more or less
known limits. The possibility of such classification arises from
the fact that for the most part the conduct to be modified is at
the level of conceptual thought — no such instinctive affair as it
was formerly. Desires, purposes, intentions have undergone a
process of evolution correlative to that which has taken place
in cognitive life. Failure of a given action results in no vague
unpleasantness; on the contrary it is a failure of definite expec-
tations. This is true even where the failure attaches to an habit-

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 1 93

ual and relatively automatic act, and where the act has been
undertaken with no conscious purpose. In such a case the ap-
parent purposelessness of the act is largely a matter of attention.
Once failure attracts attention to the outcome, the potential
purpose of the act is at once recognized — the failure, in other
words, is in effect a failure of definite expectation. This being
so, it is at once attributable to some more or less definite factor
in the preceding conduct. For it must be recognized that this
conduct, however simple it may seem if regarded as a mere
objective act (for instance the throwing of the ball at a critical
point in a baseball game), is as a piece of conduct exceedingly
complex, and capable of many possibilities of modification.
Moreover, where conduct is controlled by conceptual thought,
it is never directed by a single concept. Just as the import of a
concept is expressible only in terms of indirect conditionalities
of conduct, so the nature of a given act — its meaning for the
individual — is expressible only in terms of an organized group of
concepts. Thus the modification of the act requisite to satisfy
the purpose for which it has been undertaken involves a change
in this initiatory group of concepts, the specific nature of the
change demanded depending on the specific nature of the failure
in expectation.

A further advantage of the general concept in the control of
conduct is to be found in its greater communicability as compared
with the concept of the simple object. It is notorious that the
development of language, other than that merely expressive of
emotion, proceeds pari passu with the growth of general concepts.
Imagine the futility of attempting to communicate the meaning
of an unclassified, unindividualized object, or the paucity of a
language made up wholly of proper names and interjections.
Such a state of affairs temporarily exists in every child's life,
when it is just beginning to talk. But obviously where speech
has progressed no further than the mere attaching of names to
different objects there can be little communication of meaning.
What makes possible an effective communication is an apprecia-
H

194 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

ble degree of organization and mutual dependence of concepts.
It is largely the fact that in the general concept the relationship
to other concepts has come to be so distinct and to form so
prominent a part of the content, that causes the development
of conceptual thought and the development of language to co-
incide. Moreover, it is worth observing that the more indirect
a reference to conduct concepts bear, the wider is their range of
communicability. That is to say, where such reference is com-
paratively indirect, communication is possible between individ-
uals whose experiences are comparatively dissimilar; and on the
contrary, where concepts are comparatively simple, and refer
more directly to conduct, communication is limited to individuals
whose habitual daily experiences differ little. We may see this
illustrated on a large scale if we observe the effect of national
and racial differences upon the cosmopolitan unity of the sciences.
In the case of the more abstract sciences, such as logic and
mathematics, these differences count for practically nothing.
When we come to more concrete sciences, ethics and politics for
example, many of the more fruitful developments have had fixed
national boundaries.

In this connection it may be well to mention the reciprocal
dependence of thought upon language. Whether or not it is
possible for general concepts to be formed in the absence of
language, we need not attempt to decide; but certainly it must
be admitted that no great development of conceptual thought can
take place without the aid of language. In general the advan-
tages of language for the formation of general concepts are of
two sorts. First, there is the important and evident fact, that
it is the instrument of communication. It would be difficult
to exaggerate the influence of social intercourse in facilitating
the formation and development of general concepts. It at once
fixes and corrects old concepts and suggests new ones. We have
but to reflect that all science, literature, and art are social prod-
ucts, to realize the part played by social intercourse in our
cognitive life. Secondly, the mere fact that a specific verbal

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS I95

symbol comes to be attached to a given concept operates power-
fully in rendering the concept fixed and definite. What fre-
quently happens is that some image of the word (visual, auditory,
or motor) becomes the habitual psychological representative
through which the concept functions. The word serves thus as
a sort of nucleus for the larger and looser associative organization,
and thus furthers the conservation of the concept.

No modern treatment of the nature of the general concept can
afford to neglect Berkeley's epoch-making theory. Nowhere in
Berkeley's writings is there to be found a more brilliant or effec-
tive application of his new-found introspective method than his
treatment of abstract ideas. Not only did this treatment revolu-
tionize contemporary theories, but it has exerted a profound
influence on the whole later development of psychology.

The gist of Berkeley's account of the matter is contained in the
following passage. "Now, if we will annex a meaning to our
words, and speak only of what we can conceive, I believe
we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered in itself,
is particular, becomes general by being made to represent or
stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. To make
this plain by an example, suppose a geometrician is demonstrating
the method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws,
for instance, a black line of an inch in length: this, which in
itself is a particular line, is nevertheless with regard to its signifi-
cation general, since, as it is there used, it represents all particular
lines whatsoever; so that what is demonstrated of it is demon-
strated of all lines, or, in other words, of a line in general."^
In a closely succeeding passage, Berkeley notes that a particular
idea which acquires the function of standing for a class of ideas
undergoes structural modification to this extent: that those fea-
tures which it has in common with the other members of the
class are emphasized or alone attended to, although its peculiar
features cannot be wholly banished from consciousness.^

^Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, § 12.
Ub., § 16.

196 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Berkeley's theory is further ampHfied by Hume upon two im-
portant points; first, with respect to the part played by language
in making possible the function of general ideas, and, secondly,
with respect to the part played by 'custom' or association in the
function of representation. Upon the latter point, Hume remarks
that representation implies a certain subdued tendency to revival,
such that where the representative idea is used in a connection in
which its peculiarities make it no longer typical of the class, the
tendency shows itself by the replacement of the unfit representa-
tive by a more appropriate member of the class. With regard to
the part played by language, Hume commits himself to the
extreme view, that it is absolutely essential. The association is
not so much between the various ideas of the class, as between
each idea and the identical term which denotes them all. Making
allowance for this exaggeration, we must acknowledge that Hume
strengthens the Berkeleyan theory in no small degree. On the
other hand, he fails to notice the structural modification of the
representative idea to which Berekley calls attention — most clear-
ly, we may observe, in the latest (1734) edition of the Principles,
which Hume may easily not have seen while working upon this
part of his Treatise.

Regarding the mutually complementary theories of Berkeley
and Hume as substantially one, we find ourselves in fundamental
agreement upon the following points: that ideas connected by a
relation of resemblance, reinforced by association with a common
term, may form a more or less closely unified organization, such
that the presence of one of these ideas (or even of the term
alone) in consciousness may be accompanied by nascent tend-
encies to revival of the others; and that it is this complex phe-
nomenon which is referred to under the name of 'general ideas'
or 'concepts.'

Our leading divergencies from their view may be summarily
expressed as follows:

I . The general concept is not identified with the representative
idea, but with the total organization.

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 19/

2. The point of departure in the formation of the general con-
cept is not in mere ideas but in concepts of objects.

3. The resemblance which forms the bond of association is not
(generally speaking) between the ideas themselves, but between
the objects denoted by the general concept; and it is funda-
mentally based upon similarity of import.

4. The resemblance is such as to call for identical behavior in
characteristic situations ; for it is this necessity for the uniformity
of conduct (in spite of individual differences) which fixes attention
upon the resemblance and conditions the association based upon
it.

Thus far in our discussion of the general concept we have chiefly
concerned ourselves with earlier and simpler forms, in order to
discover the common characteristics of this type of cognitive
organization and its general function in the control of conduct.
We now wish to turn our attention to some of the characteristic
modifications which the general concept undergoes in the later
and more complex stages of mental evolution. These modifica-
tions are immediately dependent on what we have tried to exhibit
as the most no able feature of the development of cognition,
namely the increasing indirectness of its control of conduct.

It will be recalled that in a former chapter pragmatists were
criticized as falling into a certain confusion in regard to the
end of conduct. The point was made, that while survival is
the primary end (in the sense that it is the essential condition
for the continuance of conduct), nevertheless it is equally true
that happiness also functions as an end in the same sense; and
that, moreover, happiness has come to be relatively independent,
and much more direct in its influence on the development of
conduct. It was further pointed out that what is a common
phenomenon of all sorts of activities is to be observed in connec-
tion with theoretical activity, namely, that it comes to function
in relative independence of its original end. We can now see
more clearly why this must be so. As cognition grows more

198 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

efficient, it grows more indirect in the performance of its function,
this increasing indirectness being intimately correlated with an
increase in the organization and mutual dependence of concepts.
For in order that our conduct may be successful in meeting the
demands of a complex and changing life, it is necessary that the
ideas which prompt it should be consistent and systematic.
Accordingly there has arisen a characteristic and peculiar interest
in the organization and consistency of our concepts for its own
sake. Mental behavior comes to be a relatively independent
sort of conduct determined by its own specific end, intellectual
satisfaction. We must not, of course, fail to recognize that men-
tal behavior can never become more than relatively independent
of overt conduct. Its roots are in practical and social life, and
the very condition of its health lies in an ever renewed contact
with, and adaptation to, the changing phases of such life. Never-
theless it remains equally important for the understanding of
the evolution of conceptual thought, to take account of its grow-
ing distinctiveness of character. It is naturally to be expected
that along wath this transformation in the end of thought should
go certain modifications of its structure; and these we find.

First, we have to note the existence of a whole class of concepts
which have arisen in direct response to the needs of mental
behavior, and whose function and meaning are determined with
reference to the end of this behavior. Such are the whole body
of the abstract concepts of the sciences. While the development
of the different special sciences has had a profound effect on
practical life, yet the particular advances have been generally
made without reference to practical considerations. Nor can
the meaning of any single concept taken by itself be interpreted
in terms of overt conduct. Many of our scientific concepts have
doubtless arisen through the modification of previously existing
practical concepts by a sort of analogy — as in the case of mathe-
matical 'continuity' and logical 'inclusion'. In scientific concepts
content and import approach each other very closely, since the
conduct to which they refer is itself the discovery of logical

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 1 99

relationships. Yet the distinction does not fade away entirely.
In such a concept as evolution, for example, it comes out very
clearly. On the side of content, evolution means a process of
change distinguished by certain definite characteristics; on the
side of import, it means no less than a whole new principle of
classification, almost one might claim, of scientific procedure.
Moreover, what we found to be true of the formation of the
simpler general concepts seems to hold equally of these more
complex and abstract ones — namely, that the association of the
ideas composing a concept rests primarily upon the common
functional significance of the objects denoted by the concept in
question. This may perhaps be illustrated by the transforma-
tion wrought in the traditional biological classifications by the
concept of evolution. The most advantageous principle for the
classification of organic groups has come to be descent from a
common parent stock. That is to say, common descent is the
characteristic which calls for similar intellectual treatment of
the organisms possessing it. The concept of the species thus
determined accordingly comes to include as essential characteris-
tics other common features of the organisms which it is scarcely
conceivable would have been selected and associated for any
other reason. Identity of import thus conditions the association
of related similarities, which so become content. The basis for
no scientific classification is mere unmotived association of like-
nesses, however striking in themselves.

Secondly, in the later development of general concepts, there
is observable the appearance of a tendency which marks the
development of all organic structures, namely, the tendency
toward fixity and loss of plasticity. In the case of the concept
this increase in fixity seems to be reinforced by the necessity of
counteracting the unwieldiness of the more general concepts,
arising from the great complexity of their organization. The
fact that the development of these more complex organizations
depends upon their mutual dependence and relationship within a

200 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

system makes desirable a growing definiteness and fixity of the
internal structure of the concept. This is the phenomenon which
we find in definition. Definition is a singling out of certain
features or certain elements of the total meaning of a concept
and regarding these as essential, while other more loosely associa-
ted ideas are more or less effectively excluded. Even before
intentional and formal definition takes place, however, this proc-
ess of centralization has been at work; and to a large extent
the formal definition merely recognizes and confirms the segrega-
tion which has already taken place. It is of significance that
this segregation, or definition, involves the selection of a com-
paratively small group of associated concepts, the relationships
to which become constitutive for the concept in question. What
thus takes place in the course of intellectual evolution is that the
organization of concepts tends to fall into groups, varying in
size and in the closeness of their interrelations. At the one
extreme are the loose apperceptive systems of common life, which
vary with occupation, habits, and interests, as well as from indi-
vidual to individual ; at the other, the special sciences. It is within
these last, and particularly within the abstract sciences, that the
process of integration and fixation of concepts has been carried
farthest. Because the special science is so remote in its reference
to common life and so entirely controlled in its progress by its
own special end, it becomes a system relatively independent of
the great bc3dy of cognitive experience. The increasing deter-
minateness of its peculiar field, the increasing definiteness of its
peculiar presuppositions, impart a high degree of stability to
its distinctive concepts.

But it seems impossible that the definiteness and fixity — the
'clearness and distinctness' — of scientific concepts should ever
be more than approximate. The meaning of the associated con-
cepts, in terms of which a given concept is defined, must itself
be determined in relation to yet other concepts. For if it were
possible to restrict the meaning of a group of concepts to the

THE DEVELOPING CONCEPT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 201

mutual relationships within the group, the group as a whole would
lose all connection with the developing body of cognitive experi-
ence— it would be simply a useless mass of dead matter. In
other words, an uneliminable condition for the continued func-
tioning of a concept is its very plasticity and indeterminateness
— its lack of 'clearness and distinctness.'

CHAPTER V

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT

We propose to bring together in this chapter certain considera-
tions bearing upon the contempt for formal logic which prevails
among pragmatists. It appears to us, and we shall try to estab-
lish the contention, that this contempt and the hostility which
it has inspired have no reasonable excuse ; that they have arisen
from an unwarranted exaggeration of the legitimate consequences
of the pragmatist theory of truth.

The general position which we are to criticise may be briefly
indicated as follows.

Consciousness is a function of the animal organism which has
developed by reason of its utility in various types of situations.
The intelligent study of consciousness will not attempt to sepa-
rate it from the conditions under which its present characteristics
have been acquired and to which its various structural relations
owe all their functional importance. To make such a separation
is to be committed to a formalism as shallow as that of an engineer
who should analyze and describe a complicated machine without
reference to the work for which it was designed and by which
the proportions and interconnections of all its parts were deter-
mined.

If consciousness is not to be studied as a thing-in-itself, still
less is logical thought. For the latter is but an episode in the
life of feeling. It has its rise in the unpleasant strain occasioned
by the failure of an habitual mode of behavior; and it has its
normal conclusion in the satisfaction attendant upon successful
readjustment. All real thought is essentially practical, in the
sense that it is devoted to the solving of problems arising out
of the exigencies of conduct, and that when a solution is reached
behavior is modified accordingly. Thought is therefore not to

202

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 203

be studied to greatest advantage in those of its manifestations
where it is as nearly as possible idle — where needs are fictitious,
interest lax, effort subliminal, and the entire operation is scarcely
more than the repetition of a form of words.

When thought is seen at work, the meaning of logical validity
is clear. Valid thought is efficient thought, thought that accom-
plishes its function of controlling conduct in accordance with the
needs of the organism. The notion, that apart from its proper
function thought may possess a peculiar intrinsic, or formal,
validity, is delusive. A form of thought, as distinguished from
its content, there is none.

Hence the futility of formal logic. It is the physiology of a
corpse — of thought which is without function and without life.
Even the Hegelian dialectic is better; for in spite of willful ab-
straction one cannot think the categories without surreptitiously
bringing in something of their concrete significance, and it is to
this that whatever insight is therein displayed is due. But formal
logic, the science of every thought and none, is at the limit of
possible insignificance. Any access of sense is rigorously cut off.

This judgment of the supposed science of thought is strongly
confirmed by an examination of the specific content which it has
accumulated. We find a body of formulae, which are fitly ex-
pressed, not in words with their wide and shifting associations,
but in bare and simple algebraic symbols. Do these formulae
constitute a description of any actual thought? Who knows?
The logician, as logician, does not care — except that he would
like to think that his logic itself is logical, i. e., conforms to its
own canons; but this he knows he cannot show. But the inten-
tion of the formulae is not to describe actual thought (which may
be logical or illogical) but a certain type of ideal thought. Whe-
ther any such thought has occurred or will ever occur, is a
secondary consideration.

The most striking characteristic of the ideal thought is the
absolute fixity of its terms. A is A, and A is not not-A, are
classic expressions of this feature. The most striking character-

204 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

istic of actual human thought, at least to the observation of the
trained student of human nature, is the more or less limited fixity
and stability of its terms. They are products of an evolution
which still proceeds. And though we cannot in many instances
distinguish, or even imagine, the particular changes that may
have taken place within the period of human history, and must
even grant that certain concepts have, in all probability, remained
substantially unchanged for ages, we cannot avoid recognizing
at least the possibility of their future modification. In no case
have we sufficient warrant to guarantee the permanent fixity of
the existing forms; and, in fact, it is only within the domain of
the mathematical sciences that such fixity could be claimed with
any show of reasonableness. Of the great mass of our concepts
we can scarcely doubt that they are changing now more rapidly
than ever before.

But where concepts are undergoing an evolution, a precise
clearness cannot be expected. Where distinctions are hardening
and melting away again and shifting generally, it is impossible
that dividing lines should be shadowless and unbroken. Bacon's
aphorism, that ultimately satisfactory definitions belong, not to
the initial stages, but to the consummation of the sciences, is
significant to us as the description of a never to be attained ideal.
The conviction of clearness is common enough. But we have
well learned that there is no more suspicious indication of shallow-
ness of mind. The nearer any concrete reasoning approaches
the mathematical type, the readier we are to condemn it as
doctrinaire.

The weakness of the syllogism, that supposed universal form
of thought, is now evident. The possibility of drawing a con-
clusion depends upon the exact identity of the middle term in
the two premises. But who shall vouch for this? Not to the
satisfaction of common sense alone, but in accordance with the
canons of the syllogism itself? For by these canons the least
variation constitutes a quaternio, and no valid inference is then
possible. In fact, so far from being an absolutely certain mode

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 205

of inference, the syllogism is dangerously deceptive, just because
it effectually conceals the evidences of its weakness. The syl-
logistic axiom, the dictum de omni et nullo, pretending to represent
the essential form of thought in abstraction from all particularity
of content, is, in reality, without application to any content what-
soever; for its terms require just that fixity and clearness which
the thoughts of men can never claim.

The pragmatist theory, that all meanings refer ultimately to
correlations of stimulus and response, can be accepted only with
certain reservations, which may be summed up in the statement,
that such reference is never direct and never uni vocal. Let us
consider the latter qualification first.

A concept is never univocal in its reference to a mode of con-
duct ; that is to say, its meaning is never limited to the correlation
of a certain type of stimulus with a certain response. On the
contrary, its import invariably embraces a variety of actions
under different circumstances. To take a simple example, the
concept of the straight line means that when we wish to look at
one object we must take care that a second does not stand in
the way; a circumstance which, when it occurs, may be obviated
by moving either of the objects, by standing aside, or by changing
the attitude of the body. It also means that in order to hit an
object with a missile we must throw it in its direction; that in
order to reach a destination with the greatest prompitude, we
must travel directly toward it; that in order that a rope may
not sag it must be stretched taut ; and so on, practically ad infini-
tum. So also an apple means to us the eating of it, if it be sound
and sweet and our appetite be so inclined ; the paring and coring
of it, if need be; the removal of a worm or bruised spot perhaps.
And the case is not different with such concepts as joy and sorrow,
pity and scorn. We may add that even when the particular
situation is given, the concept never determines a specific appro-
priate adjustment. The immediate one-to-one correlation does
not fall within the function of thought. That remains the func-

2o6 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

tion of older and simpler agencies. Our thoughts direct our
conduct, and it is in this service that their meaning ultimately
consists; but every concept means both more and less than any
particular application of it contains.

To this we have added that the reference of a concept to a
mode of conduct is never direct. The concept never directly
bridges the gap between stimulus and response. On the con-
trary, thought is a long-circuiting of the connection, and its
whole character depends upon its indirectness, its involution, if
we may use the term. Though concepts, apart from the conduct
which they prompt, mean nothing, yet their meaning 's never
analyzable except into other concepts, indirect like the first in
their reference to conduct.

But does not this really do away with the reference altogether?
It certainly would, if concepts were ever (in the rationalist's
sense) perfectly clear, if their implications ever became perfectly
explicit. But as thought always arises as a problem, so it always
remains more or less problematic, for that is what lack of clear-
ness amounts to. Every concept involves an indefinite number
of problems; and these cannot be stated except in terms which
themselves in turn involve indefinite series of problems. No-
where is there an absolute given, a self-sufficient first premise.
From this, as well as from the indirect and equivocal nature of
the reference of thought to conduct, it follows that the confirma-
tion or invalidation of a concept by the result of the conduct
which it serves to guide can itself be no more than tentative.
But this does not mean that it is unreal or unessential to the
nature or development of thought.

These considerations, however, have a decided bearing upon
the pragmatist contention, that apart from its reference to con-
duct thought has no form. This is naturally understood to imply
that the nature of thought may be exhaustively described in the
statement of its relation to conduct. Now t is very probable
that the statement of the relation between two terms may be
indefinitely developed, so as to include any assignable attribute

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 20/

of the terms in question. But at any stage of scientific progress
all this remains an abstract possibility; and the degree in which
the statement of a relation is actually comprehensive of the other-
wise known content of its terms is capable of indefinite variation.
And with respect to thought and conduct it must be said that
the very indirectness and equivocality of the reference of the
former to the latter gives thought a character of its own, which
is as independent of aught beyond as can well be imagined. The
more meaning is read into this particular doctrine, the less truth
there is n it. Apart from the reference of thought to conduct,
that is to say, in the limitless interrelations of concepts with each
other, thought has as distinctive a form as any abstractly con-
sidered entity whatsoever.

What, then, shall be said of logical validity? Is it true that
this does not attach to thought considered in abstraction from
the control of conduct — that its only test is the practical one,
the cessation of thought itself when its task of readjustment is
done? For the reasons just given we cannot assent to this. The
very indirectness of the reference of concepts to modes of
of reaction implies that the interrelations of concepts which me-
diate the ultimate practical reference must have a character of
rightness or wrongness in themselves. To say that without the
ulterior test of workability all other rightness or wrongness would
be fictitious is to interpose an idle objection. For the point
precisely is that without a characteristic organization of the con-
tent of thought the practical significance of thought would itself
disappear.

The fact is that according to the common pragmatist view a
chain of reasoning would be altogether impossible. For in such
a chain each link must be valid if the whole is to have any
strength. But the test of practice obviously cannot apply to
the separate links; it can only indicate in a general way the
profitableness of the whole procedure. If the test fails, that
alone does not determine where the difficulty lies. It is, indeed,
implied, that each valid link, if separately tested — or if tested

208 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

in a variety of connections, such as would throw its own strength
or weakness into relief — would lead to satisfactory results. But
in the chain of argument no such procedure is ordinarily con-
templated. On the contrary, each conclusion reached in the
course of the argument is regarded as proceeding immediately
from its premises; and it is upon that supposition that the rea-
soner advances to the later conclusions.

But it is not only the chain of reasoning that cannot be ac-
counted for on the pragmatist basis. The simplest conceivable
argument, in which premise and conclusion are distinguished, be-
comes equally inexplicable; and this can be shown from an ex-
ample which is in constant reference by the pragmatists them-
selves. Let us suppose that the truth of a general hypothesis has
been tested in the case of a particular instance, and has been
found in want of correction. Here, on the basis of the hypothesis
under consideration, something is inferred as to the results of
acting in a certain way under certain circumstances; and this
conclusion, as compared with the observed results, is found to
be false. What now constitutes the validity of the inference
which led to the admittedly false conclusion? The whole pro-
cedure depends upon this point, and yet just this point is sub-
mitted to no practical test. To be sure it may be said that
similar inferences have in the past been found to be correct.
But, in the first place, it is probably not on the basis of such a
comparison that the untrue conclusion is accepted as correctly
derived. That is seldom a matter for reflection. And, in the
second place, we must observe that the pragmatist theory fails
equally to explain the correctness of an inference ffom true
premises. In a word, the theory does not distinguish between
the correctness of an inference and the truth of its premises, and
hence virtually eliminates the former altogether.

So far as we are aware, this result can only be avoided by an
interpretation of pragmatism in which its opposition to formal
logic is given up. It is pointed out that the acceptance of a
conclusion as satisfactorily derived, with the consequent passing

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 209

on to the drawing of further inferences is itself a piece of conduct
in which earlier thought finds its extinction ; and that the mean-
ing which we ascribe to the term Validity' is exhausted in its
reference to such conduct. To this we have no objection; but
we think it necessary to call attention to several important fea-
tures of the argument.

In the first place, the conduct just mentioned is not to be
confused with the conduct to which implied reference is made "n
the conclusion. Suppose, for example, that it has been demon-
strated by the methods of elementary geometry, that a triangle
is determined by the length of its three sides. This is a most
useful principle in many lines of activity, very conspicuously in
building. It means, for one thing, that a triangular structure
made of stiff material is non-collapsible, even though its corners
be hinged, and, consequently, that such a structure has no need
of further bracing. The rectangle is known not to have this
property; and accordingly a frame of that shape is frequently
given greater rigidity by constructing a triangle in one of its
corners. Now it is in its reference to such practical applications
as this that the meaning of the proposition consists; and its
truth is confirmed by the satisfactory issue of the conduct thus
prompted. The point to which special attention must be called,
is that, according to the interpretation of the pragmatist doctrine
which we are now considering, this is not the conduct in reference
to which the validity of the demonstration itself has its meaning.
The meaning of Validity' is found in the characteristic mental
procedure involved in accepting the conclusion as warranted by the
premises, and which would be generically the same, whether the
premises (and accordingly the conclusion) were regarded as true,
as probable, as possible, or even as contrary to fact. Here, as
elsewhere, of course, no single definite act can be pointed out as
unequivocally referred to by the concept; but that fact offers
no greater difficulty here than in the case of physical behavior.

In the second place, it is implied that apart from the interest
attaching to the environmental situation which indirectly promp-
15

2IO DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

ted the whole argument, there is likewise a specific interest at-
taching to the logical situation as such. This situation is
formulated in a problem, the solution of which is contained in
the acceptance of the conclusion as correctly derived. That
such a specific interest exists is very commonly believed, and is
by no means an untenable hypothesis. Logical validity is thus
recognized as a kind of value depending upon a specific sentiment
and as in so far comparable to esthetic and moral values.

In the third place, the special point which we have had in
view throughout this digression is now readily established, —
namely that the opposition of pragmatism to merely formal logic
has no solid basis. The familiar pragmatist doctrine, that
thought has no validity apart from its function in controlling
conduct, seems like a subterfuge when we reflect that the conduct
to which logical validity refers is logical procedure itself. It is no
subterfuge, however, but only the result of an afterthought
which reestablishes what at first sight seemed done away with.
And after all, though the negative result proved deceptive, the
positive results which may be safely enumerated are not small.
It is no small gain to have learned, that in so far as thought has
a distinctive form, it must be viewed as purposive behavior
animated by a distinctive human interest. It surely is not a
less welcome, because a somewhat unexpected, outcome of the
pragmatist philosophy, that theoretical values as such are re-
stored to their ancient position of dignified independence of
more narrowly 'practical' needs.

Let it be noted that in asserting against the pragmatist the
indispensability of the conception of a form of thought as such,
we do not commit ourselves to any dogma as to the universality
or permanence of this form. We need assert no greater claims
for the form of thought (however it be expressed) than we are
ready to assert for the fundamental laws of mechanics. In either
case, if an absolute exist we can never know it ; and any ascription
of qualities to the unknowable is sheer play of fancy. The form

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 211

of thought, as we know it, though fairly clear in certain respects,
is sadly obscure in some others. Our conceptions of it have
undergone some very decided modifications in the past, and no
doubt will be profoundly modified in the future. The assertion,
then, that thought has a universal form, could we but know it,
is without scientific significance. And to assert absolute uni-
versality for any statement of its form which we can make,
is to lapse into indefensible rationalism.

Nor, for similar reasons, are we committed to any dogma with
regard to the relation of the form of thought to its content. We
must, however, frankly admit one necessary assumption, —
namely, that hypothetically to recognize any definite form of
thought at all is hypothetically to recognize it as a universal
under which various contents are subsumed without change in
itself. But the self-contradiction — if such there be — is no greater
than is involved in any general proposition whatsoever. For
no proposition can contain the confession of its own imperma-
nence. And it is of no avail to object that 'form,' as distinguished
from 'content,' is a category of ignorance or of imperfect knowl-
edge; for so are all our other categories.

Herein, though we have departed from the letter of the prag-
matist doctrine, we believe we have remained true to its deeper
spirit. Our criticism is, indeed, that it has contained a vital
inconsistency. In the theory of inference that inconsistency
appears as a denial of the reciprocality of determination, as
exemplified in the relation of premise and conclusion. Whereas
rationalism had made the former prior in authority, pragmatism
has simply reversed the order of dependence and made the con-
clusion prior to the premise. Thus, for pragmatism as for ration-
alism, the inference has ultimately vanished altogether.

It is not necessary for us to examine at length the specific
criticisms which the pragmatist urges against the traditional
schema of the form of thought, namely, the syllogism. It is
true that the formula of the syllogism does imply that the terms
are distinct and fixed in meaning, at least so far as to ensure the

212 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

universality of the major premise and to exclude a quaternio
terminorum; and it is possible that this condition is not satisfied
in any real deduction. But the answer is, that deduction is a
thought-process in which ideas are regarded as if they were fixed
and distinct; and an ample justification of the process is the fact
that ideas must be so regarded if their specific obscurities and
self-contradictions are ever to be exhibited and removed. It is
by working our ideas for all that they are worth, that their
limitations are brought to light. Is the syllogism a true account
of the deductive process as it goes on in our minds? We cannot
say that; for, in the first place, it would claim for the doctrine
of the syllogism an absolute certitude which we are not disposed
to claim for any knowledge whatsoever; and, in the second place,
we know in a general way that obscurity and vacillation every-
where pervade our thought. But in a specific instance, the syl-
logism may well enough describe our thought, so far as our per-
ception of its significance yet extends ; and when that perception
becomes deeper, we no longer call the total process, as thus dis-
tinguished, deduction. And furthermore, at any stage of prog-
ress, the syllogism is the form which the clearest of our thought
appears to take. In so far, the rationalist was undoubtedly
right in his conception of deductive certainty as the ideal of
science. He did not see, however, that it is an ideal which can
only be progressively realized, — that its absolute realization
would, indeed, be the extinction of thought altogether. If there
were any such assured knowledge as the rationalist dreamed of
— final, irreducible, modifiable only by accretion — his logic would
have been unanswerable. It is our sense of the universal process
that for us limits the truth of his account to a temporal cross-
section of knowledge, regarded as if it were eternal.

Very similar must be our comment upon the pragmatist's
treatment of the conception of fundamental categories of thought.
Despite its lack of finality the conception has a very considerable
degree of usefulness. Kant is popularly believed to have been
one of the most wanton of theorists, exceeded in this respect

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 213

only by his romantic successors, — a self-centered recluse who
unrestrainedly piled speculation upon speculation, with the
slenderest basis of observed fact. The student of Kant knows
that his is not true, — that among all philosophers ancient and
modern he is unsurpassed both for the breadth of scientific obser-
vation which went to the forming of his views, and for the rigid
faithfulness with which he persisted in his observations and re-
fused to indulge in gratuitous hypothesis. To adopt a phrase
of the nature-poets, never was there a man who more invariably
wrote "with his eye on the object." It is, indeed, in consequence of
impartial fidelity to matter-of-fact, that the volumes of his criti-
cal philosophy are unusually full of naked paradox — short of
formal contradiction, no consideration could lead him utterly
to exclude a well attested datum of experience. To this general
character of his thought, the doctrine of the categories assuredly
presents no exception. If we can no longer accept that doctrine
in its historical form, our dissent is due neither to faulty obser-
vation in the premises nor to fallacy in the reasoning, but to a
radical transformation in the whole body of logical theory in
which the conception of categories has its place. To the array
of tolerably evident facts which the Kantian doctrine represents
a respectful interpretation must still be given.

These facts may be briefly enumerated as follows. We are
in possession of a number of very general principles, to which
we attribute a truth that is not conceived as open to correction by
any experience; inasmuch as all the particulars of experience
are interpreted in accordance with these principles, and any ob-
servation which apparently contradicted them would rather itself
be denied than cause a modification in these principles. These
principles are obviously synthetic, and thus open to formal ques-
tioning, and no demonstration of their truth can be given; but
they constitute the most comprehensive organization of our expe-
rience, and it is in this function that their validity consists. The
reality of phenomena in our experience has no further assignable
meaning than their conformity to these most general conditions
of experience.

214 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

How these facts were interpreted by Kant need not now con-
cern us, except to note that in that interpretation the possibility
of an evolutionary explanation of them was definitely excluded.
Herein Kant remained a rationalist. Thought, for him, must
operate with concepts, to which the laws of contradiction and of
the excluded middle applied absolutely and without reservation.
That, measured by such a standard, the fundamental categories
of the understanding should be false — that the unity of experience
which they mediated should be imperfect — was not for him a real
possibility. His problem did not include it. Thus the scepti-
cism which he refuted was one which left the analytical judgment
unquestioned. It was only the fact of synthesis that suggested
doubt, and this only in so far as universality was claimed for it.
The very enterprise with which the Transcendental Analytic sets
out — the formation of a definitive and complete list of categories,
as if that were a thinkable performance — is sufficient to indicate
his attitude in the matter. And the completeness of the list
in which the metaphysical deduction issues is an important
premise in the later argument. It is upon this that the indis-
pensability, and hence the unquestionable validity, of the cate-
gories depends. These and no others must perform the function
which they perform — because there are no others.

In place of this persistent dogmatism, we would rather observe
that when a succession of concepts appears, each of which has
arisen as a modification of the preceding complex, a certain
relative stability belongs to the earlier members. Not as if
temporal priority gave a logical priority in the ordinary sense of
the term ; for the later does not come as a mere accretion to the
earlier, but as a modification of it which goes to the formation
of a more complex unity. But the earlier has nevertheless this
preference: that, as the further revision of the complex becomes
necessary, this takes place, as far as possible, in the later elements ;
and only such portion of the correction as cannot be made here
is passed back farther and farther, until the disturbing conditions
are satisfied. This, indeed, appears to be a general characteristic

PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 21 5

of all evolution, and forms a part, at least, of what is commonly
alluded to as the 'continuity' of the process. It may, therefore,
naturally be expected, that among our concepts there are certain
ones which are not observably affected in the course of ordinary
experience, and thus stand to the whole of our thought as nearly
as possible in the relation of an a priori ground. Such we may
well enough designate the 'categories' of our thought; but they
will obviously lack certain of the important characteristics that
have traditionally been associated with this term. They are not
forms of thought as distinguished from its content; they are not
final or unmodifiable ; we cannot affirm that they are true of all
possible experience. In short, they are to be distinguished by no
hard and fast line from the other concepts of the understanding.

What, then, is the practical use of the distinction? Simply
this : that, when we try to give an account of the concepts which
appear to be fundamental in all our thinking, we find that they
form a quite closely articulated system — not so perfect, doubtless,
as the absolute idealist would have had us believe, but still a
system, and the most permanent factor in our thought. If we,
then, regard our present knowledge as a cross-section of an evolu-
tionary process — a loose procedure, if judged by too scrupulous
a standard, for our present knowledge continues its development
while we inspect it ; but none the less a necessary procedure —
the system of categories stands out as an a priori element in our
thinking, a pure form of thought, logically prior to all the par-
ticularity of experience. That is to say, we find ourselves vir-
tually at the standpoint of the critical philosophy — with this
exception, indeed, that we do not regard it as an ultimate stand-
point, and hence no longer expect a self-sufficient completeness
in the view of reality which it affords. In the sense of this
exception, the critical standpoint has, we believe, been trans-
cended; but we must still return to it for observations of the
utmost scientific importance.

It is in this light that we must regard the logical researches of
Kant's successors, and in particular those of Hegel. We have

2l6 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

already expressed our reasons for the opinion, that, in spite of
important divergences, Hegel's epistemology is still fairly to be
classed as a form of rationalism. Although more to him than
to any other man is due the elaboration of the logical conceptions
which appertain to general evolutionary theory; and though he
applied these conceptions with wonderful insight to the study of
the development of thought; yet that development, as he con-
ceived it, was a movement within a system, not of a system, for
the system as such was completely determined by its absolute
end. For this reason he could not dispense with the essentially
rationalistic conception of pure — that is to say, a priori — thought,
and whatever may be conceived to have been the psychological
history of his logic, it stands in its full rounded completeness as
a schema to which nature and spirit universally conform. But,
when the extravagances to which his absolutism led him are, as
well as may be set aside, and the Science of Logic is viewed as a
provisional solution of a problem, which, from the terms in which
it is stated, can never be adequately solved, it becomes a treasure-
house of inestimable wisdom, which the pragmatist, of all men,
cannot afford to despise.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE PRAGMATIC METHOD, THE WILL-TO-BELIEVE,
AND HUMANISM, IMMEDIATISM

In almost all expositions of pragmatism that have received
wide attention, a foremost place has been given to the so-called
'pragmatic method.' In spite of this prominence, the method
has been, of all parts of the pragmatists' program, the most
generally misunderstood both by the larger public and by the
technical reviewers. How far the expositors have been to blame,
and how far the incautious readers, we need not determine. But
we shall try to profit by the experience of others, by putting
into italics a warning against the commonest misunderstanding.

The pragmatic method is a method of explanation, not of proof.
It is used to determine the meaning of propositions; hut, except in
cases where it turns out that the proposition has no meaning at all,
the truth or falsity of the proposition is not brought into question.
It is true that the resulis of the exposition may be seized upon
by the 'will-to-believe,' and the alternative of truth or falsity
may be thus settled; but that is a further distinct step.

The method is based upon the following assumption: that
every distinction in meaning between ideas is a distinction be-
tween possibly desirable modes of conduct. It is inferred, that
the meaning of a proposition may be determined by showing
the differences in conduct which its truth or falsity would call for;
while a proposition whose truth or falsity can under no con-
ceivable circumstances affect the conduct of anyone is meaning-
less. Thus the meaning of the existence of God is that a man
should persevere in right conduct, despite the apparent triumph
of evil ; and the meaning of the freedom of the will is that a man
should not commit suicide from fear of ennui, but live in the
expectation of continual novelties.

219

220 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

Suppose the fundamental assumption to be correct.^ The
method is nevertheless defective. It prescribes no means of
determining whether the differences in conduct that are pointed
out are the only ones that can arise from the truth or falsity
of the proposition, or even that they are the sole important
differences. A meaning is discovered ; but no assurance is given
that this is the whole meaning, or even the principal meaning
of the proposition. Hence, even though the instrumental theory
of meaning be correct, the pragmatic method is intrinsically
fallacious.

A possible exception to this general fallaciousness remains.
If it is indeed demonstrable that the truth or falsity of a given
proposition could in no way affect the advisability of conduct,
the proposition must, upon the instrumental theory, be meaning-
less. But when we examine the illustrations of this contingency
that are given by pragmatists, it becomes clear that the prag-
matic method is entirely non-essential to them. What is in-
variably proved is that the proposition in question cannot be
confirmed or contradicted by any conceivable experience; that
is to say, whether the proposition is true or false, no possible
experience would be different. In the words of the well-known
formula (already quoted), there is no difference in the "sensations
to be expected," and hence no difference in the "reactions that
are to be prepared." But in such a case the proposition is
meaningless, not only upon specifically pragmatist grounds, but
on the basis of a pre-evolutionary empiricism. In fact, Berke-
ley's proof of the meaninglessness of the assumption of material
substance — that it is incapable of verification or disproof — is
hailed by the pragmatists as an admirable application of their
method. But the reference to conduct is altogether lacking.
Now it is true that where there is no difference in the phenomenon
there can be none in the behavior which it calls for; so that the
practical reference can be freely supplied if one wishes. But it

lit should be noted, however, that this involves an isolation of 'import' from
'content,' which we can by no means admit.

WILL-TO-BELIEVE 22 1

is a mere addendum, which contributes nothing to the force of
the argument.

The pragmatic method, then, is either fallacious or superfluous.

In current philosophical literature the name 'pragmatism' has
been used to cover any sort of attempt to eliminate ambiguity
in the use of terms — perhaps from the conviction that any other
mode of thought is at bottom mere verbalism. Thus the dis-
tinction of various senses in which the world may be said to be
'one* or 'many' is called pragmatic, though it is carried on as the
veriest scholastic would require. To 'go around' an animal may
mean to go north and east and south and west of him ; or it may
mean to go in front, on one side, in the rear, and on the other
side of him; and to note the two-fold usage — though without
the remotest suggestion of any practical difference to the animal
or his satellite — is called pragmatism. But this simply robs the
term of any controversial importance; and it has no warrant
in the formal descriptions of the method, given by its advocates.

A second feature of pragmatism, which we believe to be foreign
to its deeper spirit, but which is popularly regarded as constitut-
ing its very essence, is the theory of the 'will-to-believe.' It may
be formulated as follows : Where alternative hypotheses are pre-
sented, whose probability, so far as determined by existing evi-
dence, seems fairly equal ; and where the belief in the one alter-
native, were it verified by the event, would produce a satisfaction
so far greater than would in any case follow either from un-
certainty or from the acceptance of the other alternative, that
any relative deficiency of happiness which might arise from the
acceptance of the former, in case it were not verified, would be
negligible in comparison ; there a belief in the former hypothesis
is warranted — that is to say, the former hypothesis may rightly
be regarded as indefinitely the more probable.

It must be noted that the above statement of the theory differs
in one important respect from Professor James's enunciation.
We have omitted the proviso that a choice of alternatives be

222 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

necessary; for we cannot see that this is ever the case. Where
a question is possible, doubt is always possible. But it is said
that to doubt may be practically the same as to accept one or
other of the given alternatives. This is true ; and if the theory
in question referred to the wisdom of action instead of the validity
of belief, we should have no quarrel with it. But we must not
confuse the acting on a chance with a confidence in the outcome.
Hence in our statement of the will-to-believe principle, we have
included the state of doubt as a third real possibility ; grouping it,
however, with the acceptance of one of the alternatives in such
a way as to leave the pragmatist position virtually unchanged.

It must next be noted that, according to the premises laid
down, the happiness consequent upon belief is supposed to be
directly thus consequent — not an after-effect of conduct dictated
by the belief, but the immediate effect of the belief itself. For
if the happiness were supposed to flow from a course of conduct,
then that same course of conduct would be equally dictated by
an uncertainty in the matter. That is to say, of two conflicting
courses of conduct, having apparently equal chances of success
or failure, a man would wisely choose the one which promised
the greater gain in proportion to the risk involved, even though
he had not the least confidence that a favorable rather than
an unfavorable issue would result. In other words, an absolute
uncertainty as to the result would logically warrant the same
course of conduct as would be warranted by an entire conviction
as to the certainty of a favorable outcome. The happiness pro-
posed must, therefore, be conceived to be a direct fruit of the
belief as such. How far this is removed from the spirit of prag-
matism need not be emphasized.

In order to escape this interpretation a new premise must be
added to those above specified; namely, that even though the
same conduct might be dictated by belief and by doubt, yet only
the belief in the particular outcome could so strengthen a man
as to enable him to act in the manner necessary for success.
Now this is by no means an impossible supposition, and it is

WILL-TO-BELIEVE 223

one that is made without hesitation by pragmatist writers. And
yet we question whether any particular instance can be cited,
in which this supposition can with any assurance be said to be
realized. Fanaticism has, indeed, a very considerable degree of
strength; but so has a cool, self-restrained balance of judgment.
It is well enough to say in general terms that confidence in success
may be the one thing necessary to assure success; but it would
require the prescience of a writer of fiction to determine such a
case. For the truth, after all, is notorious, that though con-
fidence is a good thing, it is likewise an exceedingly dangerous
thing.

In any case, however, it is worth while remarking that this
peculiar validation of belief takes place only when evidence to
the contrary does not exist. It is only where a free field is
open to it that it can accomplish anything; but then its efficacy
is extraordinary. Without exaggeration we may say that in its
relation to actual evidence it constitutes a dualism of orders of
truth Accordingly, the scientific procedure which it suggests
consists of two distinct steps. In the first place; one must find
whether a free scope for the will-to-believe exists, that is to say,
whether there is a practically entire absence (or balance) of
evidence on the subject; and, in the second place, if one feels
so inclined, one takes the voluntary step of putting faith in the
alternative preferred.

A familiar example may serve to make this point clearer. Let
us suppose that it is the doctrine of human immortality which
the pragmatist proposes to establish. The general conformity
of the doctrine to the conditions above laid down is as close as
one could expect. The belief is capable of producing in many
minds (possibly, therefore, in the mind of the reasoner) a great
and lasting satisfaction which is sufficient to outweigh many of
the evils of life ; and if it prove in the event to have been illusory,
any possible ill effects are cut short at the same time. The
fearful misery which a belief in immortality may bring upon
society in this world, in consequence of a possible distortion of

224 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

the values of things, may be regarded as negligible. The two
steps of the pragmatist's procedure are then quite clear. In the
first place, he feels it incumbent upon him to meet pertinent
objections to the doctrine; and this is done according to the
ordinary methods of logical procedure. But when this is success-
fully accomplished, he then, in the second place, cuts the processes
of reasoning short, and, with a distinct and final act of belief,
commits himself without question to the supremely valued
dogma.

Now how is it that this curious theory has become identified
with that great leveler of all dualisms, pragmatism? A super-
ficial resemblance is not far to seek. According to the functional
conception of truth upon which pragmatism is based, the validity
of a proposition depends upon its satisfactoriness as a working-
hypothesis in the accomplishment of intelligent purposes; it is
true 'when it works.' And according to the will-to-believe
theory, too, the belief is true because it 'works'; but its working
means, not its verification in the successful accomplishment of
intelligent designs, but simply the pleasantness of the idea itself,
or the encouragement given by it.

In short, the will-to-believe, instead of going to substantiate
the essential doctrine of pragmatism, that logical validity is
throughout conditioned by interests and values, implies, by the
very particularity and circumstantiality of the connection which
it asserts, that no more complete and intimate union between
them exists. In this respect, the will-to-believe presents an in-
structive analogy to the transcendent ideas, by means of which
Kant attempted to bridge the gap between theoretical and prac-
tical reason. In each case, the resort to special means of con-
nection is a confession of the utter divorce of reason and will
assumed at the outset.

At bottom, the will-to-believe theory is a relapse into dogma-
tism. Somewhere, it is felt, amid the sea of fleeting experiences
an anchorage must be found; and if within the limits of logical
thought no firm bottom can be reached, then it must be sought

HUMANISM 225

for in feeling or in will. Upon the hopelessness and the useless-
ness of such a procedure we shall not dwell.

The word 'humanism' has been used in recent philosophical
discussion, in a variety of senses, which our present purpose
does not require us to enumerate and distinguish. In its widest
sense it includes every attempt or tendency to interpret the
macrocosm in terms derived from the analysis of the microcrosm.
According to this interpretation, Augustine and Campanella are
humanists par excellence. Taken more narrowly, it may denote
the pragmatist theory of reality that was outlined in a previous
chapter; the theory, namely, that was condensed into the for-
mula, that the real is the object of interest. We propose to use
it here in a sense which must be carefully distinguished from both
of these, the rather because in recent controversy it has been
closely associated with them. It is the theory that all reality
is to some extent man-made, and hence may be — to an extent
to be discovered only by actual trial — modified and controlled by
human efforts.

We shall try to show that this theory has only a very limited
controversial significance; that it is wholly unsupported by evi-
dence and is without possible application; in short, that upon
admitted pragmatist principles it is meaningless — though not
more so than the doctrines which it opposes.

The most prominent of these is a degenerate Hegelianism,
which finds some support in the writings of the master, but
really amounts to an exaggeration of his weakest traits — accord-
ing to which the absolute exists complete in the temporal present.
In our opinion this view is not worthy of serious discussion,
except upon the ground of its supposed wide acceptance by
teachers of philosophy; and we believe that most of those to
whom it is attributed would upon a direct challenge repudiate it.
The absolute of Hegel's philosophy is the evolving universe, not
at a single point of time, but conceived as embracing its whole
development. What it is now is merely a step toward what it
16

226 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

is to be. It is eternal in the sense that in its development it is
wholly self-determined. Hegel interprets this last statement as
implying that the development is logical rather than temporal;
the historical process, he finds, contains much that is irrevelant
and non-essential. But it is a caricature of his teachings to
declare that the entire development exists now, except in the sense
in which the oak is present in the acorn. And apart from con-
siderations extracted from Hegel's works we are aware of no
inducement that has been offered for the acceptance of such a
doctrine.

In insisting upon the reality of change, the humanist is thus
in partial agreement with absolute idealism. According to the
latter, some change is real (or actual, if we hold to the more
precise Hegelian terminology), namely, evolution. Indeed, Hegel
in his day believed his philosophy to be distinguished from the
older rationalism, by his acceptance of a developing reality; and
the criticisms which his dialectic had then, as more recently,
to endure from conservative thinkers are exceedingly similar
to some which his present-day successors are urging against
humanism.

The radical difference between the humanistic position and
absolute idealism lies between the pluralism of the former and
the monism of the latter. Even this difference may easily be
exaggerated. It must not be forgotten that Hegel believed in
the presence of an element of contingency in all phenomena,
though he regarded this as merely evanescent. Only the rational ,
that which is bound up with the constitution of the universe,
could endure. The humanist, on the other hand, believes that
the universe contains within itself agencies which are not com-
pletely determined in their activity by the universe as a whole,
but which may, to an indefinite extent, affect the future history
of the universe. That is to say, humanism (in the sense here
treated) is a theory of the freedom of the will. The distinctive
character of the theory comes from its supposed connection with
the pragmatist logic — to which we must now turn.

HUMANISM 227

The connection is made out in several ways, which require
separate examination.

In the first place, it is held that a complete determinism is a
mere rationalistic assumption, exalted into an axiom that is not
subject to correction by any evidence; while an indeterminism,
which leaves the relative scope of freedom and necessity open to
empirical enquiry, and is satisfied with any amount of indeter-
mination above absolute zero, is relatively open-minded. The
latter theory is, therefore, the one which the pragmatist, holding
to the practical character of all knowledge, is bound to prefer;
though the former is not excluded as an utter impossibility.

In reply we should call attention to the fact that no experiment
can be imagined, the result of which would be noticeably different
according as one or other of the opposed theories was- true. So
far, then, from entertaining a preference for one or the other
theory, pragmatism (like any other thorough-going empiricism)
ought to regard the difference between them as illusory. Such,
upon a closer examination, we find to be the case. The crux of thie
matter lies in the unlimited indefiniteness of the term 'determina-
tion' and its equivalents and correlatives, such as 'causation' and
'necessity.' Determination, as we know it, is of various types,
under various conditions. These types are not related to each
other as species of a precisely definable genus, but as analogous
forms for which a proper genus remains to be found, and to
which additions may be made that call for modification of the
genus. Consider in this connection a few of the meanings which
have attached to the term 'causality.' It is the communication
of motion by impact ; or the relation of premise to conclusion ; or
the relation of antecedent to consequent in a uniform succession ;
or the transformation of energy: the only causes are moving
bodies; or spirits; or ideas; or emotions; or truths; or events:
there may be distinct chains of causation; or the only proper
connection may be between the universe as a whole at different
moments; or there may be distinct initiations of causal activity,
though the scope of their effects is forthwith universal. Never

228 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

was there an axiom more stoutly maintained, or more empty of
definite signification, than the so-called law of cause and effect.
Kant (in the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason) an-
nounced as an a priori principle of the understanding: "Every-
thing that happens (begins to be) presupposes something upon
which it follows according to a rule." Probably few living
scholars would accept this formula as absolutely true. It ap-
pears, for example, to imply the existence of distinct chains of
causation.

What, then, of the strife between determinism and indeter-
minism? If any particular type of determination is specified,
the latter has the advantage. To declare, for example, that all
change is interpretable as the transformation of energy is to
commit oneself to a dogma of at least doubtful probability.
But if no type is specified, and determination means anything
and everything to which analogy may ever lead us to apply
the term, the determinist has the advantage — such as it is. In
fact, the history of the controversy contains repeated instances
of the claiming by the one party as determination (or freedom)
of what had been previously advanced in the opposite sense by
their opponents.

The real significance of the law of causality, or the law of
reciprocal determination, is as a methodological postulate. It
means that in our endeavor to explain the world, we regard no
datum as absolutely inexplicable. And as explanation at any
stage of scientific development must operate by means of the
categories available at that stage, practically this amounts to
saying that the categories we already possess are equal to the
entire explication of the universe. If this be false, yet it is by
acting as if it were true, by carrying our hypotheses through to
the bitter end, that their inadequacy becomes evident and their
development proceeds.

In the second place, it is urged that all the realities we know
have come into being by the very same process by which our
knowledge of them has developed. This, it is affirmed, is the

HUMANISM 229

great lesson of pragmatism. The making of truth {i. e., the
forming of true beliefs) and the making of reality are aspects ot
one process, namely, the development of intelligent behavior.
Having such an origin, reality is necessarily (or presumably)
plastic in relation to human effort.

So far as we can perceive, the evidences upon which pragmatism
is founded justify no such interpretation of its leading doctrine.
A simple example will help to make this clear. Crusoe, observing
the footprint in the sand, becomes aware of the presence of at least
one man in his vicinity. This man exists for Crusoe in the sense
that he must be seriously taken account of in the future. But
Crusoe is aware that the man existed and was in the vicinity
before he discovered him; yes, that he existed for him in the
very important sense that if they had met a variety of interesting
consequences might have ensued — say a fight to the death, or
the succor of a friendly bark. The case is a typical one, and the
generalization is easy. The making of truth is the discovery of
reality, not the making of it — except in the sense that enlarging
knowledge establishes a new and very real relation between the
knower and the object known, from which results of importance
to both may spring. An object not known is not less real (may
easily be far more dangerous) than an object known.

Perhaps this is too obvious to be conclusive. Are not all the
realities of which we have knowledge man-made? Is not the
best assured of them liable to be condemned tomorrow to un-
reality ; and may not the progress of science transform the worst
of unrealities — ghosts and spirit- tappings — into genuine realities?
Perhaps ; but such a change is never, by science or common sense,
regarded as taking place in the real object; except, again, as
knowing and being known are real conditions. We do not say
of the demolished myth that it was real, but that it seemed so;
it was our deception that was real.

In the third place, we are reminded that the real is the object
of interest. Every reality is strictly relative to human character,
to human desires and aversions. Hence it must change at our

230 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

will, perhaps more, perhaps less, but certainly to an appreciable
extent.

The argument is fallacious, but it conceals a truth which has
been highly estimated by the moral sages of ancient and modern
times. Let us consider the truth first. The importance of a
thing for our happiness depends upon our volitional attitude
toward it. If we can maintain our indifference to the thing and
its consequences, it is in so far nothing to us. The traveler is
not lost if he does not care to find his way; the peasant is not
poor, if his wants do not exceed his income. It is easy to multiply
examples. Buddha, Antisthenes, and Rousseau, and countless
lesser preachers have sufficiently familiarized us with the prin-
ciple. But let us not mistake its scope. The object of interest
may be pleasurable or painful. It is equally real in either case.
And in neither case does the fact that it is of interest to us make
it forthwith amenable to our control.

So much by way of criticism of the supposed foundations of
humanism. Let us append a few queries with regard to the
significance of the doctrine itself.

Humanism asserts the reality of change; and finding that
change in a deterministic universe leaves the laws of change,
and hence certain fundamental characteristics of the changing
substances, unchanged, it declares that change in such a universe
is illusory. Now would a change in the laws of change take place
in accordance with the laws of change, or not? And would a
change in the fundamental characteristics of substance be char-
acteristic of the substance, or not?

It declares for the efficacy of human purposes. Is this a plea
for a psychophysical interactionism? If so, it has weighty bio-
logical support. But we feel vaguely that it is intended to mean
something more.

It urges us to assert our freedom by freely willing and striving
for what seems good to us. Is it possible to strive intelligently
except in accordance with the admitted laws of nature? Is it
possible to strive to change a law of nature? If we succeeded
in changing one, how would we be aware of the fact?

IMMEDIATISM 23 1

If these questions seem unmotived, the reader is not widely
acquainted with the recent literature of humanism.

Our attitude toward the theory of Immediatism commonly
held by pragmatists has been several times indicated in the course
of the preceding discussions. It remains for us to formulate it
definitely.

Immediatism may be broadly defined as holding that reality,
or the real, is identical with immediate experience (or pure ex-
perience, or experience in its immediacy), and cannot be ade-
quately described in conceptual terms. When we try to make
this definition more precise, we find that 'immediate experience'
(or 'pure experience') is used by pragmatist writers in two senses
which seem not to be carefully distinguished. In the first sense,
it is used (by Mr. James) to denote the genetically primary stuff
from which all experience, and especially reflective experience,
develops. None of us ever has pure experience, except in a relative
application of the term. It is most closely approximated in the
experience of the new-born babe or the semi-coma of a man.
Taken relatively, the term is applied to our more passive states,
where thinking is at its lowest ebb and we are as far as possible
immersed in mere sensation. In this relative application, im-
mediate experience is a kind of experience which differs from other
kinds only in degree. In the second sense (used consistently by
Mr. Dewey), it is an aspect of all experience. Even reflective
thought is, as it comes, immediate. We shall here consider only
the form of the theory which takes the term in the first sense. ^
It may be briefly set forth as follows:

The relatively pure experience of sensation is the starting-
point of all our reflection. It is the given reality to which all
the conceptual terms of thought refer. It does not come, how-
ever, as a mere contentless 'that'; but, "far back as we go, the
flux, both as a whole and in its parts, is that of things conjunct
and separated. "2 As applied to the content of immediate ex-

iProfessor Dewey's immediatism is discussed in the following appendix.
^James, A Pluralistic Universe, p. 349.

232 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

perience, the terms 'false' and 'true' have no meaning, for In this
experience facts simply come and are, with their qualities and
their relations. However, in their given connections, the things
of immediate experience are not altogether adequate to the
needs of human life. Their very concreteness and manlfoldness
make them too cumbersome for complicated uses. Consequently
we schematize them in abstract conceptual terms, with which
we may perform all sorts of calculations. But the purpose of
these calculations, however complex they may be, is to take
advantage of the real things of immediate experience. The func-
tion of our concepts is not to inform us of the nature of reality
(what it is), but how to use it. Thus It Is only in the light of
this service that we can evaluate them as true or false. Thoughts
or theories are true, not because they literally correspond to
reality, but because they represent it in ways suitable for our
specific purposes. The great conflicts of philosophy have arisen
almost wholly because the function of ideas has been misunder-
stood. Treated as if they really did reveal to us the concrete
nature of reality, they inevitably lead to contradiction and para-
dox. Just because they have arisen in response to specific needs,
they are abstract, that Is to say, one-sided, and so mutually
incompatiable. They yield 'theoretic' knowledge, knowledge
about things, but are valueless for purposes of 'speculative' in-
sight into the real nature of things. The philosopher, then, if
he would really know reality, must turn his back upon truth and
plunge unquestioning into the stream oi fact.

We have already expressed the opinion, that the weakness
of the modern empiricist lies not In too much radicalism but in
too little. Why is conceptual knowledge unsatisfactory to him?
Just because he still clings to a conception of absolute reality
that demands the very species of truth against which the whole
pragmatist movement is In revolt. Of course our thoughts and
theories do not give a speculative Insight that is not a knowledge
about things, for what possible use or meaning could such insight
have? The demand for an Insight which is other than knowledge-

IMMEDIATISM 233

about is but a reformulation of a meaningless problem, — how
things-in-themselves can be known.

The path of evolutionary doctrine is abandoned in the treat-
ment of sense-experience, which is only relatively pure, as if it
were absolutely so, and thus radically different from conceptual
experience. It is not true to say of any sensation that it is just
an experience in which facts come and are. The fixity and deter-
minateness of the things of sense-experience is after all only the
comparative fixity of any product of evolution. If we ask the
pragmatist himself how the original pure experience of the babe
or of the race comes to be transformed into such an experience
as ours, his answer is that a simon pure experience can have no
survival value. Sentience has developed only in so far as the
pure experience has been broken up and become cognitive. Con-
sciousness in us tends to persist and extend because "the ten-
dency of raw experience to extinguish the experient himself is
lessened just in the degree in which the elements in it that have a
practical bearing upon life are analyzed out of the continuum and
verbally fixed and coupled together, so that we may know what
is in the wind for us and get ready to react in time."^ The diver-
sified character of our purest sense-experience is thus attributable
in an indefinite degree to the work of past thought (using 'thought*
in its broadest sense). There is, then, on the pragmatist's own
showing, no chasm between a perceptualized and a conceptualized
experience. And if the difference between them is only one of
degree, why should he so urgently maintain that the criteria of
truth and falsity are utterly inapplicable to sense-experience?
Surely the reality of sense-experience must be correlative with
its truth. To affirm reality of it at large has no significance.
Everything is real in some sense. It is relevant to predicate
I eality of any thing, or even quality, in sense-experience, only if
we mean that it is really the sort of thing, or the specific quality,
we have perceived it as; and the perceiving or taking it as of
any sort or species is always a true or false way of taking it.

^Op. cit., p. 350.

234 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

We suspect that pure experience, like a good many other
philosophical 'realities,' is an arbitrary construct, devised to stop
up the loop-holes of a theory. It is everything and nothing at
once ; and as it cannot be brought into evidence who shall say its
author nay? It is as like observed sensations as you please;
and why not, since they contain the largest proportion of it?
And it is as unlike them as you please; and why not, since,
after all, they are mere'y conceptualized products? It is "not
yet any definite what,'" perhaps because to be definite is to be
brought under a concept ; but it is "ready to be all sorts of whats,"
for if reality were not what would be? It is "full both of oneness
and manyness," to the eternal confusion of all rationalistic dia-
lectic; but the "respects" in which it is one and many "don't
appear." It is "changing throughout," so that change is as
little mysterious as the one and the many; but it changes "so
confusedly that its phases interpenetrate and no points, either
of distinction or of identity, can be caught."^ This is all very con-
venient, but hardly convincing. Mr. James does not like historical
parallels; but we cannot help thinking of the much abused sub-
stance of Spinoza, which while being one and indivisible contains
an endless multiplicity, and while incapable of change or of the
emotional perception of change, loves itself with an infinite intel-
lectual love.

^Op. ciL, p. 348.

APPENDIX II

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITYi

Recent discussions of the practical character of reality seem
very significant when one considers their bearing on the relation
between what are probably the two most distinctive doctrines
of pragmatism. The first of these doctrines may be called in-
strumentalism ; the second is immediatism. By instrumentalism
is meant that element of pragmatism which has grown out of the
application of the evolutionary method to logical problems. The
evolutionary method in general prescribes that, in order to under-
stand the existing nature of anything, we inquire into its origin
and development, and that this development be in every case
explained as an adjustment to the specific conditions under which
it has taken place. When this method is applied to logic, it
means, in the first place, that thought itself has arisen as a mode
of organic adjustment to environment, and that its whole de-
velopment has been, and is, determined with reference to this
function. In the second place, and more particularly, instru-
mentalism means that all distinctions and terms of thought, that
is to say, all meanings, are relative to the specific conditions which
have called them forth and to the functions which they perform.
This carries with it a denial of absolutism in all its historic forms,
from the Platonic doctrine of the absolute good to the neo-Hege-
lian conception of reality as completely organized experience.

It is from the standpoint of instrumentalism that the pragma-
tist has so effectively sought to discredit the venerable disciplines
of ontology and epistemology, whose aim is the investigation of
reality as such or knowing as such. As profitably, argues the
pragmatist, might we discuss with the pre-Kantian rationalist
the nature of man as such, without reference to his biological
relations to lower species and the conditions of his development

^Reprinted from the Philosophical Review, Vol. XVHI, No. 4, July, 1909.

235

236 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

from them. In place of epistemology, that outworn relic of
rationalism, he would substitute a genetic investigation of the
relation of thinking to other modes of experiencing, together
with an inquiry into the specific conditions under which the
various thought-processes arise and subside. The absolutist's
condemnation of such procedure as 'merely psychological' he
would stigmatize as parallel to the vitalist's contempt for the
chemical investigation of organic processes as 'merely mechan-
ical.' The claim, that psychological investigation is essentially
and ultimately incapable of throwing light on the nature of mean-
ing, is, he would urge, as unfounded as the claim that vital reac-
tions are in essence not amenable to chemical analysis.

A very similar conclusion regarding the investigation of the
nature of reality we might suppose to be the natural expression
of the instrumentalist attitude toward ontology. We might sup-
pose, for example, the pragmatist pointing out the dualism in
which absolutistic philosophy has generally issued, as a result of
the attempt to define reality in existential (as distinct from func-
tional) terms. Such a dualism, he might say, is practically in-
evitable; for the characterization of one form, or even aspect, of
being as real thereby implies the unreality of other forms or
aspects, and makes inexplicable the relation between the two
divisions. The dualism may, perhaps, be avoided, but only by
the expedient of maintaining that all being is real, in which case
the term 'real' loses all significance. From the instrumentalist
standpoint, the inquiry. What is reality? appears as futile as did
the question, What is the cause of the world? to Kant. And we
may imagine the pragmatist to urge of reality, even as Kant did
of causality, that it is a conception applicable to the particular
objects of experience in relation to each other, but utterly barren
if applied to existence as a whole. But the advocate of instru-
mentalism would go farther than Kant. Something like this,
perhaps, is the argument we may conceive hLm to advance. If
one asks the cause of a given event, a complete answer would
include the description of the whole preceding state of the uni-

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 23;

verse. On the other hand, the attempt to give a perfectly accu-
rate account of the event itself would equally involve a description
of the contemporaneous state of the universe. Completeness of
statement in either case means the entire loss of all significance.
No event is left and no cause can be adduced. How much,
then, of the preceding state of the universe is to be regarded as
the sufficient cause of any event? What degree of completeness
does 'truth' demand? The only answer is: So much as is rele-
vant to the purposes of the particular inquiry in hand. In fine,
what may be regarded as a true account of the event, and what
as an adequate description of its cause, is relative to the purposes
of the investigation, — it is a 'practical' matter. The case is
similar in regard to reality. What any object or event really is,
always depends on the context and occasion in connection with
which the object or event is considered. Taken 'at large,' — to
use Professor Dewey's phrase, — the inquiry is futile because
indeterminate. The 'real,' again, is always such by distinction
from the 'unreal,' or the 'apparent,' or even the 'ideal.' The
ground for the distinction is always specific, and is to be found
in the particular circumstances and exigencies which have given
rise to it. The only general theory of reality (as of causality)
must be functional; that is, it must be an account of the general
service which the distinction 'real-unreal' performs in our actual
processes of thought. Such, in brief, is the position which we
might suppose the pragmatist to take, and something of this sort
we might suppose him to mean when he speaks of the 'practical
character of reality.'

Let us now turn to what has been mentioned as the second
distinctive doctrine of pragmatism, namely, immediatism. In
the following discussion I shall, for purposes of brevity, confine
myself to a consideration of immediatism as it appears in Pro-
fessor Dewey's writings. In this matter he seems to be in sub-
stantial agreement with other leading exponents of pragmatism,
notably Professor James^ and if the thesis which is here to be

^We have pointed out in the preceding Appendix that this is not strictly true.

238 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

advanced is valid with reference to Professor Dewey's position,
it will, I think, hold respecting that of Professor James.

The doctrine of immediatism is the pragmatist's substitute for
ontology. It is briefly expressed in the formula, that reality is,
or things really are, what they are experienced as. The formula
owes its point to the distinction between things as known and
things as otherwise experienced. The fallacy of older theories
is supposed to lie precisely in the assumption, that the object of
knowledge alone is real; or, otherwise put, that reality sustains
but a single sort of relation to us, namely, that of object to be
known. Such an assumption, however, fails signally to do
justice either to the nature of reality, or to our relations to it.
For reality is practical; and, besides being object of knowledge,
it is that with which we hold commerce, — economic, ethical,
aesthetic, and the like. Hence it is whatever, and all, it is ex-
perienced to be. More specifically, the real is what it is imme-
diately experienced as, not alone what it is found to be for a later
reflection. Thus, in the illustration used by Professor Dewey,
the noise heard in the night is really fearsome, even though in-
vestigation shows it to be only the harmless flapping of a shade
in the wind. This is not meant to imply that the object of the
subsequent knowledge-experience is unreal (because known as
harmless), but merely that the object known has no exclusive
title to reality. The knowledge-experience, albeit the issue of a
process of mediation, is, as experience, itself immediate, and
hence as real, if no more real, than any other kind of experience.
Reality, then, is identifiable with experience in its immediate as-
pect. To the objection that the real object thus becomes the
subject of contradictory predicates, the reply of the pragmatist
is that the ascription of contradictory predicates becomes a dif-
ficulty only when the real object is conceived as a static entity.
The solution lies in conceiving the real itself to change. The
noise of the illustration is really fearsome and really harmless,
just because the reality experienced has changed, and changed,
indeed, by virtue of the knowing itself. It is a false account of

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 239

the occurrence to describe the change as being merely in our
attitude and thus subjective. The real thing, that is, the thing
as actually experienced, has changed. It is all one, indeed,
whether we say that the thing experienced has changed, or that
experience has changed . Things are no other than our experience
of them; and experience is no other than the things experienced.

But not only do we discover the real nature of such things as
particular noises, horses, and chairs, by asking what they are ex-
perienced as; but we must apply the same method in our inquiry
into the nature of all manner of metaphysical quiddities. As
Professor Dewey says: "If you wish to find out what subjec-
tive, objective, physical, mental, cosmic, psychic, cause, sub-
stance, purpose, activity, evil, quantity, — any philosophic term,
in short, — means, go to experience and see what it is experi-
enced as."

Suppose, now, we attempt to apply this method to the very
subject under discussion, the nature of reality itself. Has Pro-
fessor Dewey, we may well ask, followed the method of imme-
diate empiricism in his account of reality? Has he asked what
reality itself is experienced as? Or has he, since reality is only
another name for the different reals of experience, asked what a
real thing is experienced as? For surely, although 'real thing*
may perhaps be conceived as identical with 'thing experienced,*
it is not immediately experienced as such. If a 'really fearsome
noise' is not experienced as something over and above a 'fear-
some noise,' the 'real' is not experienced at all. As well might
the fearsome noise be described as harmless, since investigation
shows it to be such. For is it not perfectly manifest, that it is
only for subsequent reflection that the 'fearsome noise' can be-
come a 'really fearsome noise,' just as it is only for subsequent
reflection that it could have become a 'not really fearsome' but
'really harmless noise'? The experience 'A — B' is surely not
identical with the experience 'really A — B' \ and it would seem
that the inquiry to which the immediatist is committed is: What
is the nature of this experienced difference?

240 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

But what now shall we say of the doctrine, that reality is to
be identified with the immediate? Surely if immediatism means
that all things are what they are experienced as, then it is not
true to say that all things as they are experienced are real; for
they are not experienced as real. The doctrine of immediatism
can no more legitimately supply a definition of reality than it can,
for example, of causality. All it can with any semblance of
consistency claim to offer is a method for discovering either. If
as immediatists we would discover the nature of reality, we must,
in Professor Dewey's words, go to experience and see what it is
experienced as; and, still imitating his language, one may say
that this would be found no short and easy method.

It is not my purpose, however, simply to convict immediatism
of self-contradiction. Let it be admitted for argument's sake
that the self-contradiction just pointed out is merely verbal, and
that, in Professor Dewey's thought, the term 'reality' is used
as synonymous with 'things as immediately experienced'; and
let us consider on its own merits the doctrine that things are
what they are experienced as. No difficulty may, at first sight,
seem to arise, so long as we consider experiences of particular
things. The noise which alarms us in the night is a fearsome
thing; and, when later we find it to be caused by the wind, it is,
again, a harmless thing. So the horse we use for our afternoon
drive is the means of relief from the pressure of the day's cares;
although later, when we learn that it grows frantic with fear
when it meets a motor-car, it becomes no longer a means of
recreation but an unwelcome responsibility. So far we may per-
haps follow the immediatist dictum, that things are what they
are experienced as. But suppose the case in point be the nature
of some universal; say, for instance, the universal 'horse.' What
is 'horse' experienced as? How, in general terms, can the im-
mediatist describe the difference,, between the experience of a
universal and that of a particular? The discussions of imme-
diatism by Professor Dewey have given me no material help
toward an answer to this question. In regard to one universal,

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 241

'reality*, the assumption, indeed, seems to be that the experience
of the different particular real things is no other than the expe-
rience of reality itself. But it is scarcely conceivable that in
reply to the question, "What is the nature of the universal
'horse'?" the pragmatist would point to the various experiences
of particular horses and say: "That is what 'horse' is expe-
rienced as." To such a reply the retort is obvious, — "How is
the experience of these numerous and varying objects as 'horses'
to be described?" No, the only seemingly possible position for
the pragmatist to take is the one which we find him actually
taking; namely, that the universal is experienced as a tool in
the processes of reflective thought, and that, although these are
processes of meditation, yet as modes of experiencing they are
themselves immediate. Thus we find Professor Dewey saying:
"Lest I be charged with intimating that concepts are unreal and
unempirical, I say forthwith that I believe meanings may be and
are immediately experienced as conceptual."' Suppose we ask,
however, just what in such a process of mediation is immediately
experienced. Here it is important to recall that the thing ex-
perienced and the experience are the same. The thing imme-
diately experienced in the process of mediation, accordingly, is
the process of mediation itself. The terms in which the process
is carried on, the tools by which the reconstitution is effected,
are not themselves immediately experienced. In pragmatist
references to universals they usually are described as Denkmittel,
instruments of analysis, means by which we are enabled to deal
successfully with facts and lead our thinking to successful issue.
They are, in short, described in functional terms. Yet one
could scarcely state the essence of the immediatist theory of
reality better than to characterize it as the belief that the real
nature of things is to be found in structure and not in function.
Perhaps the difficulty may be better presented in this way. The
first principle of immediatism is that things are what they are
experienced as. But universals are not described by the prag-

Uournal of Philos , p. 599, note.
17

242 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

matist in terms of what they are experienced as, but in terms of
the functions they perform. Universals are, it is said, tools of
the process of reflection; but surely it cannot be said that they
are immediately experienced as such. Indeed, it is only for the
speculation of the pragmatist that the universal becomes inter-
preted as a tool, that is to say, as a mediator. Even so, the
noise heard in the night may be described as a stimulus to the
specific organic reaction which follows; but it is not as such a
stimulus that it is experienced. Doubtless, universals must, as
Professor Dewey says, "somehow enter into experience"; and,
doubtless, "all experience is as existence immediate"; but, if this
last remark is to have any force, it obviously implies that ex-
perience as meaning is not immediate.

It seems impossible, then, that universals should be immedi-
ately experienced. Laying aside the problem which now emerges
regarding the status of universals thus banished from the realm
of reality, let us turn to the no less urgent problem of the rela-
tion of universal to particular. For immediatism, it is evident, is
brought face to face with a dualism of particular and universal
as radical as that faced by the older empiricism. One finds, in-
deed, in the writings of pragmatists suggestions as to how this
difficulty may be met. Knowing, it is urged, as compared with
other modes of experiencing, is not absolutely sui generis. It
is, indeed, nothing other than the mode in which the conflicting
values and meanings of immediate experiences become trans-
formed and adjusted. It is false to assert that any irreconcilable
dualism exists between the tools of the knowing-experience and
the things which they serve to readjust. For, on the one hand,
the very nature of these tools is determined by the specific mal-
adjustments and tensions of the immediate experience which call
for the reconstitution ; and, on the other hand, the nature of
these tools by which the reconstitution is effected determines the
nature of the immediate experience in which the process issues.
In other words, the relation of universals, which are always me-
diate terms of thought, to the particular things of immediate ex-

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 243

perience lies in the uncertainty and doubtfulness existing within
the immediate experience itself.

In reply to this argument, I would submit, in the first place,
that immediate experience can contain no uncertainty and doubt-
fulness such as to demand mediation ; but that as immediate it is
utterly incapable of giving rise to any inquiry whatsoever. Let
the point be perfectly clear. An immediate experience may, in-
deed, be one of vagueness, doubt, uncertainty; but this very un-
certainty becomes then the thing experienced, and is not itself
uncertain. There can be no possible doubt as to what is experi-
enced, since any doubtfulness felt is itself precisely what is ex-
perienced. It is only an experience which contains a doubt as
to the nature of the thing experienced, that stands in need of, or
can possibly evoke, reconstitution. As Professor Dewey himself
says in the Studies: "It is the uncertainty as to the what of
the experience, together with the certainty that there is such
an experience, that evokes the thought-function" (p. 40). But,
if the thing experienced is just the experience itself, there is no
possible distinction between the what and the that. The what is
the that. It is this very confusion of the that and the what which
is, I believe, the source of the dogma of the certainty of immedi-
ate experience. "If any experience," Professor Dew^ey writes,
"then a determinate experience."^ So also might it be said:
"If any existence, then a determinate existence." We see a tree
in the yard, and we assume (as indeed we must, if only as a
working hypothesis) that as an objective thing the tree is per-
fectly determinate in every particular. But this is not to assert
that any possible description of the tree can adequately express
its determinations. On the contrary, we would say that every
possible statement about the tree is fundamentally hypothetical,
and subject to correction. Just so, we must say that any given
experience, is as an objective thing, perfectly determinate; but
our statements about the nature of this experience are just as
truly hypothetical as are our statements about the nature of the

^Journal of Philos., Vol. II, p, 398.

244 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

tree, — else why the need of trained introspection? Again, Pro-
fessor Dewey writes: "It is a situation which is organized or
constituted as a whole, and which yet is falling to pieces in its
parts, — a situation which is in conflict with itself, — that arouses
the search to find what really goes together and a correspondent
effort to shut out what only seemingly belongs together" (p. 37).
But within the immediate experience there can be no question as
to what really, and what only seemingly, goes together. Either
things go together or they do not; and in either case it is really,
and not seemingly.

Now it is just this failure of immediatism to distinguish the
what from the that, this attempted reduction of meaning to exist-
ence, which marks the fatal separation of universal and particular.
This will perhaps be evident if we again consider one of Professor
Dewey's illustrations, that of the Zollner lines. ^ One would
naturally say of these lines that they are seen as convergent, but
are really not convergent but parallel. To such a statement of
the case, however. Professor Dewey takes exception. The lines
of the experience in which the illusion occurs, he maintains, are
really convergent, not merely seen as such. But how, we must
ask, are lines experienced as convergent?- What do we mean
by describing lines as convergent? Convergent lines are com-
monly defined as those which, when extended, meet in a point.
But the lines-of-that-experience cannot possibly be conceived to
be extended, without thereby becoming the lines of some other
experience. Evidently, then, the lines which are seen to be con-
vergent are not the lines-of-that-experience, in the immediate
particularity of the experience; they are not the lines of any
particular experience at all ; they are the real lines. That is to
say, if the paradox be allowed, the lines-of-that-experience are
not real lines at all. For what is a real line? Surely something
that can be extended and measured and divided; something
which (to adapt a phrase of Professor Dewey's) is good for
something else in the way of experience. And this, I venture

^Journal of Philos.. Vol. II, p. 397.

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 245

to assert, is just what a 'real thing' means (at least, this is one
of the meanings of 'real'), — a thing good for something else in
the way of experience. To experience a thing as real is to
experience it as having reference to that which is not contained
in the experience itself. And here we come into open contra-
diction with immediatism. For this is precisely what the things
of immediate experience are not, — good for anything else in the
way of experience, — provided that things experienced are, indeed,
the experiences themselves.

To put the matter otherwise, the 'real,' I should say, is never
immediately experienced at all; it is always ideal. This being
so, it turns out that all experiences are not equally good at tell-
ing what the nature of a thing really is. If they were, there
would be no such thing as illusions at all. In the case of the
Zollner lines, the visual experience is not as good as an experi-
ence of measuring for telling whether the lines really are con-
vergent or not. Perhaps the question may arise: If 'con-
vergent' means 'meeting in a point when produced,' what is
meant by seeing lines 'as convergent' when they do not actually
meet? Simply that a certain visual appearance, now recognized,
has come to be a sign or symbol of other experiences. Indeed,
the association of these experiences with this visual appearance
is so close, that 'convergent' is often used to denote the visual
appearance without explicit reference to the possible extension
of the convergent lines to a meeting-point. Thus in the illusion
we do, as Professor Dewey says, see real convergence, in the
sense that we do actually experience this visual appearance. But
let the question arise, whether the lines are really convergent or
not; and the reference is no longer to the visual appearance
alone, but to the possibility of actually extending the lines until
they meet, or of applying some other recognized test of con-
vergence. It is this ambiguity in the meaning of 'convergent'
which, it seems to me, makes plausible the contention of Pro-
fessor Dewey, that the lines of the Zollner illusion are really
convergent. And there is, I believe, a similar ambiguity in the

246 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

meaning of 'fearsome' as used in the previous illustration. The
noise, was, indeed 'really fearsome,' in the sense of actually
giving rise to the emotion of fear. But 'fearsome' also means
simply dangerous: and it is this meaning of the term which we
have in mind, when after investigation we say that the noise is
not really fearsome but harmless. For there certainly could
never arise any question as to whether the noise was really fear-
some or really harmless, unless fearsome meant more than
actually exciting fear. So the question, what things really are,
has meaning only because it refers beyond the particular imme-
diate experience of the things, — not, to be sure, to any reality
lying beyond experience, but to other possible experiences of the
things. This is true, even if the question be, for example,
whether a certain book is really gray. Does the gray I now see
belong to the object, or is it merely subjective? The question
is not as to the reality of my sensation of grayness, but whether
the gray is a part of the nature of the book or not. And the
answer to this question involves reference beyond the present
experience. For it may be that the apparent grayness is the re-
sult of peculiar conditions of the lighting, and that in a better
light the book is blue. The experience of a thing as anything
is always an interpretation, an assumption on which we act in
our dealings with it; and the question as to the real nature of
the thing refers to the verification of the assumption.

What now is to be said of the practical character of reality
and of the claim that knowing changes reality? Is it truism,
paradox, or significant truth? For evidently the answer given
to this question will vary with the interpretation of the term
'reality.' Let us first consider the matter from the standpoint
of a consistent immediatism. If real things are things as ex-
perienced, and if things as experienced are no other than the
experiences themselves, then it would seem the doctrine that
knowing changes reality becomes a mere truism, which is better
expressed by saying that knowing is a change in reality, or that
the process of learning is a real change.

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 247

Secondly, from another point of view, the doctrine may, I
think, be shown to be not a truism but a paradox. As was
pointed out earlier in this article, one would suppose the ques-
tion of primary importance to the immediatist in his investigation
of the nature of reality to be: What is the difference between
the experience ^A — B' and the experience 'really A — B'? In
other words, one would expect him to seek to determine empiric-
ally when and how a thing is experienced as real. Let us, then,
taking the part of immediatists, raise this question. In the first
place, it would seem that a thing is experienced as real, only
when there has been some question regarding its nature. That
is to say, we are led to characterize it as really this kind of a
thing, only when its nature has been subject to doubt and inquiry.
Now to characterize a thing as this or that means to regard it
as promising a specific sort of future experience. The charac-
terization of the thing as really this or that means that after in-
vestigation we regard this promise as confirmed ; not necessarily
because we have experienced the actual fulfillment of the promise,
but because satisfactory evidence has been adduced that the
promise would be fulfilled under certain specified conditions.

(The question may perhaps be raised, whether a runaway
horse is not experienced as 'really' dangerous, when we get out
of its way. We are surely acting as if it were good for dan-
gerous consequences, even if we do not explicitly frame the
judgment, 'That horse is dangerous,' before taking to our heels.
True ; but my point is that for a consistent immediatism in such
an experience 'reality,' or the 'real,' is not experienced at all.
A really dangerous horse is a horse experienced as 'really danger-
ous.' The horse may for a subsequent experience be 'really
dangerous,' but only in so far as my action in getting out of his
way has been made the subject of inquiry and judged right.)

If this analysis be correct, and it is only the thing subjected to
inquiry that is immediately experienced as real, we have reached
a conclusion of great significance for immediatism. For the
thing that has undergone the process of inquiry is precisely the

248 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

thing known. Thus it is only the object known that is experienced
as real. The paradoxical character of the doctrine that know-
ing changes reality is now apparent. For if we experience the
real only as the outcome of the knowing experience, it surely
cannot be the real that is changed by the process of knowing.

But there is another sense in which the immediatist doctrine
shows itself to be paradoxical. As conceived by the immediatist,
the object known, the outcome of the knowing-experience, is the
earlier experienced reality transformed in a certain specific way.
It is emphatically not a different reality. The object known is
essentially the same thing that was experienced in the initial
stage of the process. The whole purpose of the knowing is just
to effect a specific change in the thing experienced. It may, in
fact, be described as a specific sort of transformation taking place
in things. The significance of describing reality as practical lies
in the refusal to regard the real nature of things as something to
be distinguished from our personal subjective attitudes toward
them. And it is this same refusal which likewise gives point to
the assertion, that things are what they are experienced as. For
they are experienced as standing in personal, practical relations
to us, — as means, ends, obstacles, dangers, delights. In other
words, as things are experienced there is no distinction between
the merely subjective and the objective itself, between our per-
sonal attitude and the thing experienced. In Professor Dewey's
words, the thing experienced is just the experience itself. How,
then, it seems pertinent to ask, does this distinction of sub-
jective and objective arise? Is it a purposeless device of sheer
intellectualism? Or, on the contrary, is it not the very purpose
of the knowing-experience to make just this distinction? Is not
knowing evoked for the sake of determining what in the initial
experience is to be regarded as objective and what as merely
personal and subjective? And does not the outcome of the
knowing-experience, the object known, include and preserve just
that part of the content of the earlier experience which has been
determined as objective? And, contrariwise, is not that part of

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 249

the earlier experience which is not preserved in the knowledge-
experience as characteristic of the object known, regarded as
unreal? To say, then, that the object known is essentially the
same thing as the earlier experience becomes unintelligible. For
the earlier experience is not a thing in the same sense as is the ob-
ject known. It is both more and less than a thing; more, by
virtue of those subjective factors the discarding of which is neces-
sary in order to make it a thing; and less, because it lacks that
supplementation from related experiences through which the
thing acquires external and internal consistency. The paradox
of immediatism thus becomes acute. For that aspect of the
earlier experience which has been determined as real is just that
which is regarded as having remained unchanged throughout the
process.

There is one sense, however, in which, as it appears to me,
reality may well be characterized as practical; but it is a sense
almost directly opposed to that in which Professor Dewey has
employed the phrase. Whereas reality has been called practical
because it is conceived to change with every change of our sub-
jective attitude toward it, may not its practical character be more
truly urged on the ground of its stability throughout the changes
of our attitudes? Let it be granted that things have been dis-
criminated and are defined in reference to the practical needs of
human life. Yet it is equally true, that if a thing bore but a
single relation to our needs, it could never be discriminated
as a 'thing.* It is just because a thing does stand in such a
diversity of relations to us, and because at the same time it main-
tains a certain experienced identity of character amidst this di-
versity of relationship, that it becomes a 'thing' at all. Its
recognition as a thing marks the distinguishing of this continuity
of character from the changes of relationship it undergoes. Thus
the definition of the real nature of a thing as what it is apart from
our practical attitudes toward it, is not a piece of intellectualism ;
it is a vital necessity for conduct as well as thought.

250 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

But in order to appreciate the real significance of the imme-
diatist conception of reahty as actual experience, we must recall
to mind the ontological theory in opposition to which it has been
urged. This is, of course, the theory of reality held by abso-
lute idealism. According to this theory, reality is, indeed, object
of knowledge; not, however, of knowledge as cumbered with its
contingent imperfections, but of knowledge as such, — that is, in
so far as it is knowledge, or conforms to the eternal ideal of
what knowledge should and must be. Or, again, it is the object
of absolute knowledge, the content of a single all-embracing ex-
perience in which every element is what it is by reason of its
relation to and determination by every other element. It is a
perfect system, no part of which can be abstractly considered
without falsification. Moreover, it embraces not simply relations
between contemporary states but between successive events.
The processes of the cosmos constitute one evolution, every
stage of which is an essential aspect of the system of reality.
Just as the human organism may be understood to embrace, not
simply the set of tissues and organs belonging to a man at one
stage of his development but the whole life-process itself from the
beginning to the end of individual existence; so reality is under-
stood to be limited to no single cross-section of evolution, — it
embraces the universe throughout all its transformations. It is
in this sense that it is described as eternal. Change, indeed, is
real, but it is not reality which changes; for reality is precisely
that which includes all changes within itself. Accordingly, as
applied to any particular thing or event, reality means its nature
as an element of the infinite system, and as determined thus by
its relation to all other things or events. The real individual is
the infinitely determinate individual, — determinate, moreover,
not simply for the thought of any particular inquiring conscious-
ness, but for the absolute thought which is the norm to which
every rational inquiry submits itself for final judgment.

In criticism of this theory, pragmatism urges that such a con-
ception of reality and truth must remain utterly inoperative as a

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 25 1

criterion for evaluating the realities and truths of actual experi-
ence. No actual judgment as to the real nature of anything
ever was or will be found true or false by comparison with the
standard of an absolutely completed knowledge. For the pur-
poses of actual thought, the real nature of any individual never
can mean what it is as determined by its relations to all other
things in the universe. For so to extend the meaning of 'indi-
vidual' is to deprive it of all significance; just as the similar ex-
tension of the idea of 'cause' deprives it of significance. And
if it be urged by the absolute idealist that the realities and truths
of human thought must by the philosopher be judged neither
real nor unreal, true nor false, but as representing degrees of re-
ality and truth ; the reply is that the absolute mind with its real-
ity and truth is separated by an infinite gap from human thought,
and that the former can be no measure of degrees in the latter,
— just as an infinite straight line can be no meaure of the lengths
of finite straight lines.

In short, from the standpoint of instrumentalism, reality and
truth as defined by absolute idealism are merely limiting con-
ceptions; and, like the limiting conceptions of mathematics and
mechanics, they must be criticised both as displaying irreconcila-
ble self-contradictions and as failing to represent the concrete
facts of actual experience. But this is not to assert that when
their limitations are recognized they are not effective instruments
of analysis. Take the case of the pulley for example. As a
pulley is defined by mechanics, the cord must be perfectly flexi-
ble and the wheel on which it runs perfectly frictionless. Only
when these conditions are fulfilled have we, from the standpoint
of pure science, a real pulley. Suppose a pragmatist mechanic
to reply: "Not so. The flexible cords and frictionless wheels
of pure mechanics are sheer abstractions. If you would under-
stand what a pully really is, observe the ropes and wheels that
men use in actual life, — these are real pulleys." To such a
criticism of the definitions of pure mechanics the reply is obvious ;
for the definitions of mechanics do, indeed, represent the outcome

252 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

of a study of the ropes and wheels of common life; and, if they
are abstractions, it is because such abstractions are a practical
necessity and owe their justification to their necessity. More-
over, it is only by regarding the actual ropes and wheels as if
they were perfectly flexible and perfectly frictionless, that the prin-
ciple of the pulley can be applied to them. It is true that such
procedure involves error, for which allowance may be made.
But allowance is made only for error that is not negligible; and
it is made, too, in terms that are as ideal and schematic as the
perfect pulley itself; and when all is said and done there ever
remains uneliminated error, whose correction would demand an
infinite analysis. What the instrumentalist would point to as sig-
nificant is just this ever-present factor of negligible error. Just
what degree of error is negligible in a given case is always deter-
mined by the purpose for which the calculation is made. Whether
the actual structure of ropes and wheels and weights is a real
pulley or not depends on whether, for the needs of the existing
occasion, the cords and wheels may be regarded as if perfectly
flexible and perfectly frictionless. In short, the dispute as to
whether the pulley of abstract mechanics or the structure of ropes
and wheels which draws the bucket of water from the well is the
real pulley, is after all a verbal difference. The one is real, just
because of its practical usefulness in computations; the other is a
real pulley, because it may, for the purpose in hand, be regarded
as conforming to the conditions defined by mechanics.

From the standpoint of instrumentalism, the case is similar as
regards reality and truth. It may be admitted that, abstractly
considered, we find a pure case of reality only in the completely
determined, the object of absolute knowledge. Shall we then
say that the things of human experience are merely phenomenal,
in that we know them as only partially determined, or even be-
cause it is evident that, were they known to us as completely
determined, they would thereby become transformed beyond
recognition? Shall we say that all human judgments are essen-
tially untrue, because their correction would involve an infinite

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 253

process of thought? Assuredly not. Yet we are not thereby
committed to say with the immediatist that reality is just our un-
analyzed immediate experience, and that the real nature of noises
and lines and events in no other than what they have been actu-
ally experienced as. For the assumption that a given thing
really possesses the character we ascribe to it, implies not only
that (as we have already pointed out) it has stood the test of in-
quiry, but also that it may be counted upon similarly to bear the
light of any future inquiry, — that it to say, no matter what fur-
ther investigation might reveal about the thing, what we know
now will stand as an integral part of the enlarged knowledge of it.
This assumption, as we are ever, upon reflection, ready to admit,
is erroneous ; for we are aware that the enlargement of knowledge
does not take place by mere addition to the existing stock, but
continually involves the modification and even transformation of
that which has hitherto been accepted as most assured and most
fundamental. In other words, the untruth of the assumption is
simply the untruth which attaches to any abstraction whatsoever,
— the mistake of supposing that a partial account of anything
may be absolutely true so far as it goes. The fact remains, that
all our actual knowledge is of this sort, — an everlasting synec-
doche in which the abstract poses for the concrete. The very
terms in which our most certain judgments are expressed are
themselves only relatively determinate. But let us note that
even as we demand only that degree of flexibility in the cord of
our pulley which will satisfy the requirements of our purpose, so it
is only a certain degree of determinateness which is relevant to
the ends of either action or thought. A certain degree of in-
determlnateness is negligible; and, as in the case of the pulley,
just how much is negligible depends upon the specific purpose of
the application.

And so we may, as instrumentalists, find a new interpretation
for the absolute idealist's definition of reality. It may be legiti-
mately taken as a description of a 'pure case,' or ideal limit,
analogous to the fundamental formulae of the mathematical sci-

2 54 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION

ences. It has the same advantage as such formulae, namely, that
of an efficient instrument for the analysis of experience; and it
has likewise the same defects. When it is exalted, however, into
a metaphysical first principle, a result follows which is analogous
to that which we find proceeding from the similar exaltation of
the primary definitions of mechanics, — that is to say, a dogmatic
absolutism quite as sterile when applied to the concrete issues of
human life as any materialism could well be. Our actual investi-
gations into the real nature of anything never aim at the descrip-
tion of this nature in its infinite entirety. On the contrary, they
are always undertaken from some definite point of view, and are
carried on with reference to some specific practical or theoretical
interest; and it is this interest which furnishes a criterion for the
success of the investigation. But within these limits the investi-
gation may be said to have achieved success, when the descrip-
tion it furnishes of the real nature of the thing may be regarded
as if completely determinate; when, that is, its indeterminate-
ness is negligible with reference to the purpose for which the
investigation has been undertaken.

Thus, from the standpoint of instrumentalism, both absolute
idealism and immediatism have erred in failing to recognize that
a general definition of reality can be given only in functional
terms. The claim of immediatism that reality changes, and
changes by virtue of the process of knowing, is indeed valid, if by
it be meant that the specific content to which the characteristic
'real' attaches changes from situation to situation, or from stage
to stage of scientific progress. But it is nevetheless untrue, that,
from the standpoint of any completed inquiry, the concrete reality
of that standpoint can be regarded as having been transformed in
the process of inquiry just finished; for, as has been pointed out,
reality means just that content which is regarded as unchanged
by the process.

Let me add a last word in comment upon the claim of imme-
diatism to be regarded simply as a method, using as my text the
following declaration of Professor Dewey: "From the postulate

THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 255

of [immediate] empiricism, then (or, what is the same thing, from
a general consideration of the concept of experience) nothing can
be deduced, not a single philosophical proposition. . . . But the
real significance of the principle is that of a method of philo-
sophical analysis."^ Now, in the first place, if the method has
even any prima facie claim upon our attention, it must pretend
to an appropriateness to the subject-matter to which it is to be
applied, and must hence imply something as to the character of
that subject-matter. The declaration quoted is parallel to the
belief of Descartes that he has doubted all that can be doubted,
while he yet has firmly in hand a method for the elaboration of
all science. Rather is it true, that a whole philosophy is implicit
in the assumption of that method, — if only because the choice of
method means the acceptance of an ideal of truth, a standard of
that which shall be admitted into the results. It may be said
that the immediatist, for his part, is willing to accept anything
that experience is or contains. But, even so, Descartes is willing
to accept anything that can be demonstrated from self-evident
first principles. The very conception of immediate experience,
or of experience as immediate, implies that a body of unequivocal
data are given and can be discovered by inspection, — are prior,
that is, to all interpretation, and thus form an unquestioned basis
for all interpretation. It may well be questioned, however,
whether this notion of the 'given' is not simply another limiting
conception, — like the pulley, again, or 'reality' itself, — never pre-
cisely exemplified in any definable content, though admittedly a
most useful instrument for the analysis of all manner of experi-
ences.

Grace A. de Laguna.

^Journal of Philos., Vol. II, p. 399.

INDEX

Absolute Idealism, 86 ff.; essentiality
of relations, 88 ff.; concrete universal,
93 f . ; a philosophy of evolution, 95 f . ;
dialectic, 97 ff.; compared with Dar-
winism, 118 ff. ; history of philosophy,
99 f.; logic, 100 ff.; pure thought, 102
ff.; concrete thought, 104 f.; relation
to rationalism, 105, no f.; prin-
ciple of contradiction, 105 ff.; com-
pared with humanism, 225 f.

Absolute knowledge, in pragmatism, 131.

Actual, Hegelian theory of, 93 ff.; self-
con tradictoriness of theory, no;
compared with immediatism, 250 ff.
See Thing-in-itself, Substance, Real-
ity.

Agreement, see Consistency.

Aristotle, 4, 6, 23, 95, 109. 118, 155,
156.

Association by similarity, 190.

Associationism, 53.

Aufhebung, 94 .n., 97 ff.

Augustine, 23, 225.

Bacon, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 47, 99, 143, 204.
Belief, in pragmatism, 130, 144.
Berkeley, 12, 14, 15, 20, 25 ff., 48 ff.,

51. 53. 55. 60 ff., 120, 173 ff., 195 ff.,

220.
Butler, 12.

Cantor, 18.

Categories, schematism of, 76; value of

Kant's theory, 212 ff.
Causality, in rationalism, 8, 52; Hume's

theory, 13; modified by Mill, 178;

criticism of concept, 227 f.
Cogito ergo sum, 24.
Comparison, 28, 128.
Concept, immediatist theory of, 240 ff.
Concept, general, 188 ff.; conditions of

origin, 189; compared with concept

of object, 189 ff.; indirectness of
control, 192; communicability, 193;
Berkeley's theory of, 26 f.; 195 f.;
scientific concepts, 197 ff.

Concept of object, 166 ff.; conditions
of origin, 167 f.; import, 168 f.; con-
tent, 169 ff.; distinguished from per-
cept and idea, 170 ff.

Concrete universal, 93; criticised, in.

CONDORCET, 96.

Conduct, reference of thought to, 126 f.,
205 f-

Consciousness, as an organic function,
125, 137 f., 202.

Consistency, 128; feehng of, 128 n.,
140; ambiguity of term, 148.

Content and import, 126, 162 ff.

Critical Philosophy, 67 ff.; dual con-
ception of truth, 67, 70; relation to
rationalism, 68, 76 ff,; thing-in-itself
71, 80 f.; realitas phaenotnenon, 72;
form and content, 73 ff., 79 f.; re-
lation to pragmatism, 82 ff.; perma-
nent value of standpoint, 215.

Darwin, 96, 117.

Darwinism, influence on mental and
social sciences, 117; exception of logic,
118; compared with absolute idealism,
n8 ff.

Definition, theory of, 200.

Definitions, views of Bacon and ration-
alists, 4; as principles, 8, 19.

Descartes, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 16, 20, 23,
25, 31 f- 38 ff.. 42. 43 ff-. 56, 57. 59.
68, 89, 90, 106.

Dewey, 122, 127 n., 144 n., 171 n.,
231. 235 ff.

Dialectic, in Plato, 22 ff.; in Hegel, 97
ff., 108; pragmatist estimate of, 203.

Dualism of form and content, 79.
156

INDEX.

257

Dualism of idea and ideatum, in ration-
alism, 57, in empiricism, 60.

Dualism of universal and particular, in
rationalism, 43 ff.; in empiricism, 51;
in Kant, 74; in Hegel, 109; in im-
mediatism, 244.

Elements, simplicity of, 30, 51 ff.; in
rationalism, 30 ff.; in empiricism,
33; in Kant, 73 ff.; in modern psy-
chology, 120 f.; logical complexity
of psychological, 35.

Empedocles, 21.

Empiricism, Part I passim; debt to
Locke, 10 fif,; place of psychology, 11;
development in XVIII century, 12;
outline of Hume's system, 12 ff.;
Hegel's attitude toward, 86 ff.; re-
lation to pragmatism, 120 ff.

End, definition of, 136; survival and
happiness, 137; intellectual satisfac-
tion, 129, 139 ff., 197 ff., 210,

Epicurus, 155.

Evolution, in absolute idealism, 94,
95 ff.; Darwinian theory of, 117 ff..
136; in pragmatism, 123 ff., 148.

Evolution of knowledge, 18; unrecog-
nized by dogmatists, 19 f.; in Hegel,
99; in pragmatism, 131; its continu-
ity, 214.

Experience, in empiricism, 12; in criti-
cism, 70; in absolute idealism, 103 f.;
in immediatism, 231 ff., 238 ff.

Euclid, 5, 7, 39.

Fallacies, interpretation of, 17.

First principles, their nature for ration-
alism, 8, 38 ff.

Formal logic, validity of its principles,
159, 210 ff.; pragmatist estimate of,
203 ff.

Forms of thought, in criticism, 73, 78 ff.;
a posteriori for Mill, 181; in prag-
matism, 202 ff.

Freedom of will, 226 ff.

Geometry, scientific ideal of rationalism,
6; influence on Plato's logic, 22; val-
idity of its principles, 159.

God, meaning of, for rationalism, 9, 40;
ontological proof, in Descartes, 57 n.;
in Anselm, 57; relation to world, in
Kant, 83.

Hegel, 14, 40 n., 86 ff., 148 n., 2x5,
225 f.

Heraclitus, 21, 96, 100, 146.

Herder, 96.

Historical criticism of philosophy, its
value, 16 ff.

History of philosophy, Hegel's concep-
tion of, 99 ff.

Hobbes, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, II, 39 n., 68.

Humanism, 123, 133, 225 ff.

Hume, 3, 12 f., 20, 34 f., 48, 50 f., 53, 55,
60, 61 ff., 68, 69, 72, 120, 129 n., 149,
160, 174, 178 n., 185, 187, 196.

HuTCHESON, 12, 14, 20, 129 n.

Identity of thing and percept, 55; in
subjective idealism, 60 ff.; in realism,
62 ff.; criticised, 63; in immediatism,
186.

Immediacy, reinterpreted by Hegel, loi.

Immediate empiricism — see Immedi-
atism.

Immediate experience, certainty of,
20 ff., 243.

Immediatism, 185 ff., 231 ff., Appendix
II; as a method, 254.

Inclusion, intensive, in rationalism, 37 f.

Induction, in rationalism and empiric-
cism, 3, 12, 104 n.; in Hegel, 104.

Introspection, infallibility of, 25, 27;
Berkeley's method, 25 ff.

Intuition, 8; in Locke, 10; in Plato,
Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, 23;
in Berkeley and Hume, 28 f.; re-
jected by absolute idealism, 92;
evolutionary theory of, 156.

James, 126 ff, 140 ff., 166, 187, Appendix
I.

Kant, 14, 37, 39 n., 67 fif., 91, 92, 95, 181,
212 fif., 2i8, 236.

Language, relation to general concept,
193 ff.

2=;:

INDEX.

Laplace, 89.

Learning-process, 124 f., 162 ff.
Leibniz, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 39, 40, 46 n.,

58, 68, 89, 90, 91.
Lessing, 96.
Locke, 10 ff., 14, 20, 26 ff., 49, 57, 59 f.,

149, 160.
Logical priority, in rationalism, 6, 31;

in Kant, 70.

Mass, relativity of, 89; identified with
matter, 89 n.

Mathematics, influence on philosophy,
5 ff., 14 f.; ideal of scientific method,
in Kant, 68 ; validity of its principles,
155 ff.; limiting conceptions, 251 ff.

Mandeville, 12.

Meaning, pragmatist theory of, 126 ff.,
of concept of object, 166 ff.; of per-
cept; 185 ff.; of general concept, 190
ff.; immediatist theory of, 241 ff.
See Content and import.

Mechanical laws, intuitional or induc-
tive, 155 ff.; as conventions, 157;
compared with economic laws, 159.

Megarian eristic, 151.

Mental activity as conduct, 139, 209 ff.

Mill, J. S., 173 ff., 187.

Mysticism, 41 ff., 94 n.

Necessity and contingency, in ration-
ahsm, 8; in Kant, 74 ff.; in Hegel,
109; in humanism, 226.

Negative ideas, simple, 39 ff .

Neo-Platonism, 41.

Newton, 90, 155, 156.

Notions, in Berkeley, 28, 49.

Objectivity, in Kant, 72; in Mill, 173 ff.
OsTWALD, 127.

Parallelism, in Spinoza, 57.
Parmenides, 21, 100.
Peirce, 126, 166.
Plato, 17, 18, 19, 21 ff., 190 n.
Poincare, 156 ff.

Pragmatic Method, 123, 127 n., 219 ff.

Pragmatism, Part IIL Appendices;

compared with criticism, 82 ff.; re-

lation to empiricism, 120 ff.; general
estimate, 123; as philosophy of evolu-
tion, 123, 235; psychological basis, 124
ff.; meaning, 126 ff.; truth, 128 ff.;
reality, 131 ff-; survival and happiness
as ends, 135 ff.; intellectual ends,
129, 141 ff,; indiscriminate account
of thought-function, 165; contempt
for formal logic, 202 ff. See Prag-
matic Method, Will-to-believe, Hu-
manism, Immediatism.

Preestablished harmony, 58, 90.

Protagoras, 21, 24.

Psychology, influence on philosophy,
II, 14 ff.; empirical and rational, 15;
Hegel's attitude toward, 87; new
importance for pragmatism, 231 ff.

Radical Empiricism, see Immediatism.

Rationalism, Part L passim; opposition
to Bacon, 3 ff.; general doctrines,
7 ff,; controversial weakness, 38,
39 n., 48; relation to criticism, 68, 76,
82; relation to absolute idealism, 105
ff ; value of ideal of truth, 212.

Realism, in Hume, 55, 62; ascribed to
Mill,"i73; of Hume and pragmatists
compared, 185 f.

ReaHty, Kant's conception of, 71 ff.;
pragmatist theory of, 131 ff,; kinds of
reality for James, 148; as a limiting
conception, 251 ff. See Humanism,
Immediatism.

Reciprocal determination, principle of,
90, 91, 228,

Relations, no ideas of, in Berkeley, 49;
essentiality of , 88 ff., no; externality
of, 36 ff.; in empiricism, 48 ff,; in
Kant, 73 ff,; unreality of, 37,

Relativity, of perception, 21, 24, 43;
of motion, space, time, mass, and
force, 88 ff,; of psychical attributes,
90,

Representative theory of ideas, 54 ff.;
resemblance, 54, 60, 63, 186; par-
allelism, 55; causal connection of
thing and idea, 59; rejected by

INDEX.

259

developed empiricism, 55, 60, 61;
place in system of rationalism, 58; in
Kant, 71; rejected by absolute ideal-
ism, 92.

Satisfactoriness of an idea, its truth,
129; theory criticised, 139 ff.

SCHELLING, 105.

Scientific laws, nature of their validity,

142 ff.; relativity to context, 153.
Shaftesbury, 12, hi, 129 n.
Spencer, 148, 156.
Spinoza, 4, 7, 8, 19, 40, 41 ff., 57, 58,

68, 234.
Stoics, 21.

Subjective Idealism, 55, 61 ff., 173 ff.
Substance, in rationalism, 9, 20, 40;
• in Locke, 10; in Hume, 12; in Kant,

76; in absolute idealism, 91. See

Actual.
Sufficient reason, principle of, 9.

Survival, 136 ff.

Synthetic first principles, 38 ff., 68.

Temperament, as a philosophical
premise, 144 ff.

Thing-in-itself, 71, 80 ff.

Titchener, 120, 146.

Truth, rationalistic conception, 8 ff., 67;
limits of, for empiricism, 12; of in-
trospection, 20, 24 ff; of intuition,
23; Descartes's criterion, 23; Kant's
conception, 70 ff.; Hegel's conception
92 f.; pragmatist theory, 128 ff.;
development of, 148 ff. See Repre-
sentative theory.

Turcot, 96.

Utilitarianism, compared with pragma-
tism, 140 ff.

Values, objectivity of, 134.

Will-to-believe, 123, 133, 221 ff.

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