MODERN PHILOSOPHY
MODERN PHILOSOPHY
WITH OTHER LECTURES AND ESSAYS
BY
ROBERT ADAMSON
M.A., LL.IJ.
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND RHETORIC IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
EDITED BY
W. E. SORLEY
M.A., U..D.
PROFESSOR OK MORAL PHILOSOPHY IX THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
1903
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
PART I.
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES AND ESSAYS.
I.
PACK
IN-AUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW . 3
II.
GIORDANO BRUNO .... .23
III.
PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY .... 45
IV.
KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY .... 66
V.
PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM ... 78
VI.
THE BASIS OF MORALITY ..... 97
VII.
THE REGENERATION OF GERMANY 117
VI CONTENTS.
PART II.
PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY.
A. GENERAL ANALYSIS.
CHAPTEK I. THE PKOVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY.
Difficulties involved in the definition of psychology
as the science of mind, ...... 161
as the science of the phenomena of consciousness . . 161
A terminus in the defining process marked by the latter
term . . . . . . . 162
Consciousness as all that of which one is aware at any given
moment, or as the total series of such momentary states . 163
Twofold distinction required
(a) between the objective facts and the modification of the
subject s existence which constitutes his perception of
them ( = distinction between outer and inner) . . 164
(b) the same distinction as holding good for the subject
himself, between the state of consciousness and its
reference to something other than itself . . 164
Question as to the primary character of this distinction 164
Resultant suggestion as to the peculiarity of the psychological
treatment of facts . . . . . .165
The material of psychology
(a) the immediate experiences . . . .165
(6) the process by which the distinction between subject
and object is developed . . . . .165
Consequent distinction between psychology and epistem-
ology . . 165
Definition of psychology . . . . . .166
CHAPTER II. PRESENTATIONISM, AND THE
SUBJECT-REFERENCE.
General analysis of the inner life : three important conceptions
The doctrine of faculties . . . . .167
Psychical atomism . . . . . .167
The conception of development . . . .167
CONTENTS. Vll
The first conception without significance for modern psy
chology ... . . 168
The second conception
(1) the doctrine of Herbart . 168
(a) its metaphysical presuppositions
(b) its explanation of mental process
(2) The association psychology . 171
its inadequate explanation
of the apprehension of relations .
and of the special character of the emotions . 171
Ward s criticism of presentationism and counter-theory of
subjective reference . 172
The role assigned to Attention
The description of presentations as objects . 173
Objective character of sense-presentations an after-growth 174
The distinction of feelings from presentations in primitive
i 7^
consciousness ....-
Criticism of Ward s view . . .176
() whether feelings can be attended to, revived, and associ
ated, that is, have the general characteristics of pre
sentations . . 1 7
(6) whether facts justify the distinction of presentations (as
objective) from attention and feeling (as subjective) 1 79
Brentano s distinction of presentation from judgment and
from feeling ....
The criterion of the subjective according to Kant .
The distinction of subjective and objective not applicable,
with any definite meaning, to the primitive conscious
ness
181
Inadequacy of the second main conception
CHAPTEE III. MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.
The third main conception : that psychology has to trace the
development of mind . ...
Hegel s conception of the development of mind as tending to
an end fixed from the outset
fundamentally identical with the Aristotelian doctrine . 185
The notion of End : two possible views
(a) the transcendental : that the notion of end is absolutely
valid, and efficient in the production of its own mani
festations
(b) the critical or empirical : that the notion is of subjective
Vlll CONTENTS.
validity only and limited in application to our practical
experience . . . . . .188
The laws of change or development . . . .188
(a) merely descriptive . . . . .189
(/3) the doctrine of an ultimate end known beforehand not
included in them . . . . .189
Mental life a development . . . . .190
Cause of development not predetermined . . . 190
The notion implicit ..... 190
What is specific in the notion of end not implied in develop
ment ....... 191
Application to mental life of the notion of development thus
freed from the implication of end or purpose . . 192
CHAPTEE IV. THE PRIMARY FACTORS OF
CONSCIOUSNESS.
I. General character of the content . . . .195
The inquiry as guided by the conception of development . 195
The difficulty that the series of states of consciousness
cannot be regarded either as making up a self or as
existing without a self a result of the false objecti-
fication of states of mind .... 197
The distinguishable features in immediate experience . 198
Qualitative differences . . . . .198
Our names for these derived from mature experience . 199
Qualitative distinctness and variation of intensity pos
sessed by both sensations and feelings . . . 199
Sensations distinguished
(a) by their origin being connected with stimulation of
some part of the body .... 200
Inadequacy of this method . . . . 200
(/3) by their function in the subsequent development of
mind ....... 200
II. Feeling ....... 201
The distinction of feelings as subjective from sense-presenta
tions as objective a derivative distinction . . 201
View of feeling as a secondary fact dependent on other com
ponents of consciousness ..... 202
This dependence found in developed experience . . 202
But bodily pain if not also bodily pleasure primary in
character ...... 202
And the observed dependence not a simple relation . 202
CONTENTS. IX
Feelings (i.e., pleasure-pain) independent in nature and only
explicable by reference to some independent organic
process ....... 202
Insufficiency of Wundt s reasons for holding that pleasure-
pain does not exhaust the qualitative characteristics
of feeling as primary experience . . . 203
Theories of feeling : two main types
(1) Pleasure and pain connected with their conditions in
conscious experience : the teleological theory . . 205
The theory which connects pleasure with unimpeded
exercise of attention, and pain with its restriction . 207
The theory which connects pleasure and pain with ex
pansion and repression of the self . . . 208
(2) Pleasure and pain connected with physiological pro
cesses distinct from, though perhaps related to, those
underlying sense-presentations . . . 208
the changes which determine feeling being probably
diffused in character, perhaps due to the state of
nutrition of the organs directly connected with
sensation ...... 209
The formal feelings . . . . . .210
Connexion of feeling and action . . . .211
III. Willing ....... 212
The essential elements of a voluntary action, according to
Wundt ....... 212
Factors involved in the process of willing
(a) the series of sensations involved in movement . . 216
(b) the movement not prefigured in the primitive sense -
impulse ....... 216
(c) regular series in the changes in our experience . . 217
Influence of the feelings on this mechanism . . 217
The inner effects of the process .... 218
in attention . . . . . . .218
in association ....... 219
Gradual growth of the process of willing . . . 220
The feeling of activity . . . . . 221
B. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING.
CHAPTER I. THINKING AS A MENTAL FACULTY.
View of thought as a distinct faculty connected with the differ
ence of notion, judgment, and reasoning, from the simpler
materials of knowledge ..... 222
X CONTENTS.
Statement of this view by Hamilton and Mansel crossed by a
different view ......
Hansel s psychological judgment . . . . 224
Hamilton s statement that comparison is involved in the
simplest act of mind ..... 225
Similar view of the process of knowledge as being of the nature
of analysis
in the Leibnizian School ..... 227
and in Condillac ...... 228
The objective reference of the logical products disregarded
by both 229
CHAPTER II. LOTZE S DOCTRINE OF THINKING.
Lotze s doctrine : that thinking is a specific activity of the soul
of a higher grade than that called forth in sensation or in
perception ....... 231
The specific functions of thinking
(1) reference to the objective exhibited at a stage of think
ing prior to the notion proper .... 231
(2) as exhibited in the logical products imposing form on
the given material ..... 232
Distinction of thinking from lower mental processes
(1) activity of thinking described as the process of relating
as contrasted with the isolated impressions and ideas . 232
(2) more general description of thought as the seeking for
grounds or reasons as contrasted with the mechanical
nexus of fact ...... 232
Reconciliation of these diverse representations perhaps sought
by consideration of the processes intermediate between
mechanism and thought ; namely
(a) mere identity of the perceiving subject . . . 234
(6) unity of the subject in association and reproduction . 235
(c) unity of the subject in the translation of sense-impressions
into intuitions of space and time .... 235
Pre-logical processes of thought ..... 237
(a) first grade : objectifi cation ..... 238
Objectivity and Universality .... 239
(6) second grade (relatively passive) .... 242
(a) Position ....... 242
(/3) Distinction ...... 242
(Ground for the antithesis between these and the
mechanism of sense and idea) . . . 243
CONTENTS. XI
(y) Comparison ...... 245
The first universal and the concept . . . 245
Implication of subjective activity in Lotze s account of
comparison ...... 246
Criticism of the isolation of these processes from the
mechanism of sense and idea . 247
CHAPTEE III. THE KANTIAN DOCTEINE.
Kant s doctrine (in the main unpsychological) : that the func
tion of thought is the formation of the conception of
object ....... 251
The question for psychology : whether the distinction between
subjective and objective is due to a unique activity of
mind ........ 251
Reasons for a negative answer
(a) the view not required for Kant s philosophical theory . 252
(b) its inconsistency with experience . . . 252
Two sides of Kant s doctrine ultimately identical
(1) objective reference of thought .... 252
Kant s criticism of Leibniz ..... 252
Criticism of Kant s view ..... 253
complexity of the notion of object . . . 254
relation of this developed notion to the simpler modes
of representation of objective reference . . 254
(2) relation of thought to self-consciousness . . . 255
Self-consciousness dependent upon thought, but itself
neither simple nor primitive .... 255
CHAPTEE IV. SURVEY OF DEVELOPED THINKING.
Developed functions of thought shown in
(1) distinctions running through mature experience . . 257
thinking distinguished from presentations as (a) subjective
activity, (b) purposive, (c) relating given material . 257
(2) the characteristic products of thinking : notion, judgment,
reasoning ....... 258
Lines of consideration to be followed 259
Xll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V. ANALYSIS OF THINKING.
Reasoning in its various forms ..... 260
The disjunctive syllogism ..... 260
Primitive and developed forms of the disjunctive proposition 261
Complexity of the disjunctive judgment even in its least de
veloped form . . . . . . 261
The hypothetical judgment ..... 262
The connexion in idea of antecedent and consequent only
relatively distinct from the more concrete representa
tions of connexions in time and space . . . 263
The hypothetical judgment and reasoning . . . 263
The categorical judgment ..... 264
Distinction of universal and individual judgments of funda
mental importance from the psychological point of view 264
Attitude of mind involved in the universal judgment . 265
The simplest type of judgment without qualitative dis
tinction ...... 266
Reference in the universal judgment to objective fact . 266
The common distinction between idea and judgment . 267
View of this distinction as resting on a fundamental
difference in the attitude of consciousness towards
the content apprehended .... 268
The function of judging being the reference of a given
content to objective reality . . . 269
The question as to the justification for assuming that
objective reality is in any way a primitive ele
ment in experience .... 269
The cognate distinction between the parts of speech and
the sentence . . . . . .271
The apprehension of the objective . . . 272
The various forms of the judgment based on this conscious
ness at its different stages .... 272
What combination of experiences in the inner life gives the
primitive distinction between subjective and objective 273
The difference between sensuous perceptions and idea the
simplest form of that distinction . . . 273
The rudimentary form of judgment thereby rendered
possible indicated in the interpretation of any por
tion of sentient experience as a sign . . 275
this involving
(a) distinction of ideas and actual facts . . . 275
(6) a certain sense of continuity .... 275
CONTENTS. Xlll
The apprehension of the real world of perception as a
common point of reference for the experiences of a
number of percipient subjects . . . 275
involving
(a) contrast between immediate sense -perception and
the reality apprehended thereby . . . 276
(b) recognition by the individual subject of other exist
ences generically identical with his own . . 276
New aspect thus given to perceived reality, and larger
significance acquirsd by the interpretation of signs 276
Origin of language ..... 277
Psychological conseqiiences of philological inquiry . . 279
Psychological condition under which the use of verbal
signs may have originated . . . 280
Objective reference not peculiar to thinking . . . 281
Limitations of Kant s view ..... 281
(a) the separation of the formal from the material ele
ments of nature impossible .... 282
(&) the representation of nature as a systematic whole a
gradual development from the primitive distinction
between the sentient subject and an order of fact
distinct from his perceiving . . . 282
Summary view of the nature of thinking . 282
CHAPTEK VI. PEOBLEMS IN THE THEOEY OF
THINKING.
I. Inter-relation of the products of thinking . 283
The notion judgment and reasoning not in an ascending-
series of complexity, but different developments from a
common origin ......
II. Objectivity and universality .... 284
Objectivity in the sense of independence of the individual
act of thinking necessarily possessed by the universal . 285
Aspects involved in the recognition of the objective in
perception
(1) independence of the particular act of apprehending . 285
(2) generality (being common to all percipient minds) . 285
Objectivity of fact and objectivity of truth
Divergence of thinking from perception
The transition as consisting in a re-arrangement of data,
and dependent on the supply of concrete material . 286
(Distinction of self and not-self) . . 287
XIV CONTENTS.
Appearance of thinking due to the separation of relations
from related contents ..... 288
The common opposition of perceiving and thinking in re
spect to Time . 288
III. Thinking and self-consciousness .... 289
Development of thought dependent upon
(1) distinction of ideas from sense-perceptions . . 290
(2) unification of each series . . . 290
Thinking objective as regards its content, but pre-eminently
subjective as a process ..... 290
Relation of the reflective to the primitive form of self-
consciousness . . . . . .291
IV. The Categories ...... 292
General attitude to Kant s analysis .... 292
The distinction between category and Idea not ultimate . 293
Thought as reflective consciousness .... 293
Abstraction from condition of time to be found in the
simplest acts of thought .... 294
Analysis and synthesis as correlative aspects of thought 295
The category of Causality and the principle of the Adapta
tion of nature to the human mind . . . 296
Objections to the distinction between them drawn by Kant 296
The conception of the Uniformity of nature . . . 297
Its variable content illustrated by the difficulties in the
logical treatment of reasoning .... 298
Uniformity not susceptible of discursive proof, because
involved in the structure of our intelligence . . 299
These ultimate conditions characteristics of the concrete
material of experience ..... 300
V. Thought and Eeality ..... 300
Thinking not identical with the structure of reality, but one
form in which reality is manifested . . . 300
The question as to the complete intelligibility of reality . 300
The Aristotelian doctrine of the individual . . 301
The distinction between the That and the What no
ground for limiting the interpretative function of
thought ....... 301
VI. The notion of Development ..... 302
The view of development as the unfolding of what is
already contained (Aristotle and Hegel) . . 302
Contradiction in this view of development when applied
to the practical sphere ..... 303
Same difficulty on the theoretical side . . . 304
Special difficulty in the notion of development : the fusion
of identity and difference .... 305
CONTENTS. XV
Question whether the same notion of development is
applicable to all concrete forms of existence . 306
The conception of a pre-existing plan . . . 307
A type of agency other than the mechanism of nature not
required for the notion of development . . . 307
VII. The Positivist view of Thought .... 307
The limitation of knowledge to co-existences and sequences
(Comte) ....... 308
a type of knowledge which is
extremely abstract ..... 308
and specially (if not exclusively) applicable to external
perception ...... 308
The method adopted in Comte s later work for deal
ing with the facts of the inner life . . . 309
VIII. Form and matter ...... 310
General result : impossibility of severing form from matter 310
This general position a deduction from Kant s work . 310
No ultimate justification for Kant s antithesis between
pure generality of thought and indeterminate par
ticularity of perception . . . .311
CHAPTEE VII. CONCLUSION.
Importance of the practical type among our primary notions . 312
Primitive thinking (or the natural order of thinking) . . 313
The complex individual its starting-point . . . 313
Agency conceived through muscular effort, and as pur
posive ....... 313
The reverse order put forward by developed thinking . . 314
No incompatibility between the two representations . . 315
Gradual alteration in content of the primitive categories of
practice through increase of perceptive experience and
of analytic power . . . . . .315
Experience itself the sole criterion of the worth of the notions
by which it is interpreted . . . . .316
INDEX
PART I.
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES AND ESSAYS
i.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF GLASGOW. 1
EVERY teacher to whom is entrusted some special branch
of University work must feel a deep sense of responsibility
as regards the relation he holds both to his subject and
to those whose studies in it he is to direct. It de
volves upon him, by his own activity as a teacher and as
a learner, to maintain as a vital influence in the microcosm
of letters the branch of human culture entrusted to him.
It is his privilege, a privilege riot without its heavy
burdens, to share in giving to others what Plato wisely
calls "the first and fairest thing that the best of men can
ever have," education of the soul.
In the latter respect, in the relation in which he stands
to his students, he who undertakes, I will not say to teach
philosophy but to aid in drawing forth and stimulating
the power of thinking philosophically, seems to me to
have very special responsibilities. No other subject in the
academical curriculum touches so many of the deepest
interests of humanity, or touches them so intimately; no
other subject is adapted to produce so fundamental a
change in the culture of the individual mind. It may be
deemed by us a pious exaggeration of the good Bishop
1 [On entering upon the professorship of Logic and Rhetoric, 21st October
1895.]
4 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
Berkeley when he declared that " whatever the world
thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the
human mind, and the summum bonum, may possibly make
a thriving earth-worm, but will most indubitably make a
sorry patriot and a sorry statesman " ; but the more temperate
conclusion can hardly be avoided that the difficulties and
perplexities with which reflexion on human life in any
of its aspects is confronted, lead back when thoroughly
followed to questions of the ultimate kind we call phil
osophical, and that so, for good or for evil, he who has
once breathed the free, if rarefied, atmosphere of specula
tion must have his views on all the permanent interests
of humanity profoundly affected.
While, then, I feel keenly the responsibility resting on
me, I take comfort in two reflexions. The one, of minor
and merely personal significance, that the auditors in whose
company I shall have to wade through the ocean of
words constituting the medium of philosophical analysis
will assuredly extend their cordial sympathy to a single-
minded effort to reach the truth, and so far as possible to
express it. The other, that he who has the privilege of
lecturing on philosophy in a Scottish University may
reckon upon the lively interest in the subject and the
predisposition to prosecute inquiries in it which seem to
be the natural heritage of the Scottish mind.
With these considerations in mind, I have thought not
only that I might venture, but that it was in a measure
incumbent upon me to devote this opening lecture of the
course to a general treatment such as might indicate, broadly,
the method and principles by which the main topics of theor
etical philosophy may be fruitfully handled. A. general treat
ment of the kind has its own difficulties and dangers, and
it is with great diffidence that I venture to connect it with
a survey of the present position of philosophical questions.
L ] INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
It has often been, and it is likely still to be, a reproach
to philosophy that its problems exhibit in the course of
history a suspicious uniformity. The modern thinker seems
still to be placing before himself the same ultimate ques
tions that pressed upon the earliest adventurers on the
ocean of being. Nor do the advantages of the modern
thinker s later position seem to bear fruit in a propor
tionate completeness of the solutions reached. A final
philosophy, by which I suppose is meant a connected body
of answers to all the issues involved in the general ques
tions raised by reflective thinking, seems as far off as ever.
If point be wanted for the reproach, it is added by reference
to the history of philosophy as the record of never-ending
strife among rival views.
Now, it is no doubt possible to say, and there is a
certain truth in saying, that the apparent sameness of the
philosophical problem depends mainly on the arbitrary
insistence that it shall be at all times conceived and ex
pressed in all its width and generality, no regard being
paid to the considerations that a generality has significance
only in the concrete details it sums up, and that the
stringent rule applied to philosophy might have much the
same consequence if applied to spheres of research in
which admittedly change and advance have taken place.
Even the developed and detailed researches of the special
ised natural sciences show a tendency to return to the
larger cosmical inquiries from which they took their start,
and their special problems might, without undue straining,
be brought within the limits of the vague and broad ques
tions which first suggested themselves to the keen per
ceptions of the Greek mind.
With such an answer, however, no one is and no one
ought to be contented. There is beyond doubt a sense in
which the philosophic problem is and must be the same, a
6 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
sense moreover, in which sameness is so far from identical
with uniformity, with want of change, that it demands
variation as its very condition. Philosophy has always
taken as the goal at which it aimed, to find the principle
of ultimate intelligibility, the principle by which and
through which the manifold of experience can be under
stood ; and, in respect to such aim, its distinction from the
special sciences has consisted in the more general, more
comprehensive character of the principle it sought. This
is not a point of view, as I shall try to show, with which
we can altogether rest content, although it fairly expresses
the historic character of speculative philosophy. But, even
from this point of view, it follows of necessity that
philosophy as realised at any time, as expressed by any
thinker, must depend on the nature of that manifold of
experience for which explanatory principle was sought, on
the vividness and completeness with which the individual
thinker was able to place before himself the discordant
elements of experience which serve as primary occasions
for speculative effort to reconcile them, on the conception
which the thinker had formed of the ultimate character of
intelligibility, and, lastly, on the measure of success
attending his effort to pursue that roundabout path
through all things, rrjv Sia Trdvrwv SiegoSov, whereby the
adequacy of a principle is tested.
The apparently uniform fashion in which the most general
problem of philosophy comes forward is mainly due to the
obvious fact that the ultimate lines of division in experience
as a whole, from reflexion on which arises the first sense of
a difficulty to be overcome, the division, separation, even
opposition between the subjective life of self-conscious
mind on the one hand, and what we call relatively the
objective world of nature on the other, appear to remain
in a certain abstract sense the same. But this identity
L ] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 7
in the abstract is the least important feature of the
division, and is fatally apt to mislead us. Much of the
perplexity we feel in our effort to understand things springs
directly from the ease with which we identify our abstract
and lifeless representations of them with the fulness of the
concrete reality. Nothing is gained for thought by dropping
the particularising features which form too often the essence
rather than the accidents of the reality we are striving to
understand. A philosophic principle which seeks to render
intelligible the conjunction in real experience of such ap
parently antithetical factors as mind and nature, self-
consciousness and the world of objective fact and event,
will have small success if it remains satisfied with the
abstract representations of these opposites, such as are
familiar to ordinary thinking. From that point of view,
as the history of speculation, particularly of modern
speculation, abundantly shows, some barren solution will
be sought, either by referring the conjunction of the two,
allowed to remain in all their abstract difference, to some
equally abstract third, which may be called God or what
we please, or by arbitrary expression of one in terms of the
other, or by equally arbitrary submersion of both in some
inconceivable third. It is only by retaining the full
particularity of the concrete facts that we can hope to reach
some mode of expressing their union which shall satisfy us,
and which shall prove itself adequate to the task of following
out the details of experience. In truth, it would not be
quite a paradox to say that philosophy has not so much to
find a uniting principle as to make clear to us in what the
reconciliation we seek consists.
Psychology, Hegel used to complain, was too shy of the
facts of mind, by which he meant, I take it, whatever may
have been the justice of his reproach, that psychology was
too much inclined to busy itself with wholly abstract
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
thoughts about mind and its ways (if, indeed, the attenu
ated pictures with which psychology has often been delighted
deserve to be called thoughts), and that in so doing it lost
sight of the real character of the experience to which these
pointed. The unity, substantiality, immateriality of mind,
its various powers and capacities, these are terms which
have a meaning only through pictorial representations,
imperfect abstractions that are more likely to mislead than
to refer us to the full life of mind from which they have
been derived. What Hegel said of Psychology may be said,
and with as much justice, of Philosophy at large. It has
too often been shy of the facts of experience and inclined to
wheel in endless circles round the imperfect pictures which
the dividing faculty of thought readily supplies. The
perplexities in which we thus involve ourselves are most
often of our own creation. We make a dust, and then
complain we cannot see. I do not say that we can dispense
with these pictorial representations, these half-thoughts;
they are necessary material, the first stage of reflexion,
and more often than not a heritage from the past. But
there is great need that we should not take them for more
than they are worth. It was not an injudicious prayer of the
philosopher, to be delivered from the evil one and from
metaphors.
Philosophy, then, must keep close to experience and draw
its sustenance therefrom. Just as the philosophy of an
individual, if he have one, is the condensed expression of the
way in which he views the elements of his experience as put
together, so philosophy in general is at any time the abstract
mode of expressing what is vaguely described as the culture
of the age, the thoughts and feelings of humanity at large, so
far as these have a definite character, regarding its surround
ings in nature and in practical life. When philosophy is so
regarded, change or advance in it is readily seen to resemble
I.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 9
in general fashion the change and advance that come about in
the individual mind with increase of experience and increased
faculty of reflectively handling it. Experience, whether in
the way of new knowledge or in the way of new forms of
activity, does not merely accumulate isolated materials in the
individual mind. Each new item modifies what has gone
before, and is itself received into a contexture of acquired
notions that powerfully affects it, The first partial views
are modified and expanded, and an increased power is gained
of dealing with what is still to be added to the stock. So, in
the history of philosophy at large, the wider and more exact
knowledge of nature and man which constitutes increase of
experience, compels a modification of the general conceptions
in which reflexion had embodied itself, while the new
thoughts do not lie in simple isolation or in antagonism to
their antecedents. Mainly by the aid of these antecedents is
thought able to supply what in them is wanting, to correct
their one-sidedness or imperfection, and to carry out through
the richer detail of new experience the fuller conception at
which it has arrived.
I do not desire to press the analogy further. Perhaps if
one cared to pursue the fancy, one might maintain that in
the genesis of a philosophical conception there is something
resembling what has been called recapitulation in the
realm of organic life. In working out a new conception, our
thought will be found to be passing through, in modified
stages, no doubt, the forms of earlier philosophical ideas,
which in the larger page of history stand, each with an in
dependence of its own, as so many past systems. The final
ideas of the earlier doctrines find a place, and a necessary
place, in the larger apprehension of reality, through which,
moreover, their essential meaning is more fully and ade
quately expressed.
Now, when one turns to the special case to which these
10 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
general reflexions are intended to apply, to the present
position in which philosophy stands, one can hardly fail to
discern the signs of a condition such as one commonly and
fairly enough describes by the term transition. The apolo
getic attitude which is often and necessarily adopted by the
exponent of philosophy seems at present peculiarly appropri
ate. Of confidence in the constructive work of philosophy,
of conviction that thought is in a position to work out a
satisfactory solution of the problems it must set before itself,
there cannot be said to be at present much. Such a con
dition of things indicates now, as it has indicated in the past,
that the leading ideas with the aid of which we are seeking
to master and make intelligible the experience before us are
felt to be inadequate to their task.
Moreover, it is not difficult to define in a general fashion
the unreconciled factors which have determined the present
somewhat unsatisfactory position of philosophy. I have no
hesitation in regarding these as, on the one hand, the
fundamental conceptions which animated the great idealist
systems of the early part of the century, and, on the
other hand, the accumulation of detailed particular know
ledge both of nature and of the history of man which
has specially characterised the last fifty years. I by no
means intend to say that these factors are in simple
antagonism to one another; for that, it would be requisite
that the latter of them should satisfactorily express itself
in the form of a principle, which it has not yet done and
is not likely to do. Nor do I suppose that reconciliation
is to be effected by simple substitution of the one for the
other. But it does appear to me that the idealist systems
were wrought out with the help of concrete representations
of reality which increased experience has shown to be in
sufficient, that the new knowledge specialised research has
given us of man, his development and surroundings, forces
!.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 11
upon us a considerable modification of the idealist conception,
and that the idealist conception itself, in the elaboration of it
by its main exponents in the great philosophic movement
initiated by Kant, encountered obstacles such as in themselves
indicate the need for a revision of its principle and method.
I make no attempt in this general treatment to embrace in
any summary description the rich material furnished by the
systems of idealist philosophy that connect themselves his
torically with Kant. The precise character of the perplexity
in which I conceive these systems found themselves, the kind
of new light thrown upon it by our extended experience, and
the resulting modification of principle and method, will be
much more easily understood looked at in the more simple
fashion in which it presents itself in the Kantian system.
There is a reason other than that of mere convenience for
selecting the Kantian position as typical. In reviewing the
Kantian doctrine, one has the rare satisfaction of being able
to define precisely the concrete representation of natural fact
which served as background to his speculative discussions.
It is to be regretted, but it is not from the circumstances of
the time unnatural, that we are not able to define with equal
precision the picture of human life and progress which doubt
less was there too and operative, but which was certainly for
Kant relatively vague and incomplete. These backgrounds,
as one calls them for brevity s sake, are truly the most im
portant factors in determining the philosophic conception
that appears at first sight quite distinct from them. Much
of our difficulty in understanding a past philosophy rests on
the fact that we know not the background, or at all events are
unable to realise it with sufficient fulness.
Now, on the other hand, in the case of the idealist systems
that sprang directly from the Kantian, and in particular in
the case of the most imposing of them, that of Hegel, one has
12 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
not the same satisfaction. I do not envy the task of any one
who tries to reconstruct the picture of natural fact which
plays its part in the formation of the Hegelian system. I
must myself confess that I am wholly unable to understand
the place assigned to Nature in Hegel s constructive phil
osophy, and that I regard his philosophy of nature as being
in the mass and in detail a needless excrescence and a blunder.
It would carry me beyond the question I design to put before
you to refer to the not less interesting side of that system
where the picture of man s practical life has the same im
portant place for ethics as that of nature has for theoretical
philosophy. But I may be permitted to say that I doubt
whether on this side either one s satisfaction can be complete.
I am not myself able to regard the constitutional system of
Germany as the ideal in which the practical life of man has
reached its consummation.
Those who are familiar with the main currents of the
philosophic movement during this century may probably
wonder why in this connexion I do not refer more specially
to the work of Lotze. Lotze s historical position, in rela
tion both to the earlier idealist philosophy and to the later
specialised researches in nature and history, seems to render
him peculiarly significant as illustrating the struggle I have
referred to. But though it would be impossible to estimate
too highly the value of much of Lotze s work in detail,
though the ingenuity, subtlety, and tenacity of his genius
will always secure him the highest rank as a thinker, I
cannot say of his philosophical views as a whole other than
what a distinguished critic has said of Malebranche, that his
is after all only a half-philosophy. Lotze was undoubtedly
keenly alive to the discrepancy between the large concep
tions of the idealist systems and the detail of experience
which special science had to bring forward, and undoubtedly
strove to effect some modification and reconciliation. But
I.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 13
the net result of his long-continued labours was, so far as I
can understand, a kind of half-hearted admission that re
conciliation was impossible. For that cannot be called a
reconciliation which is effected only by passing beyond the
limits of knowledge.
It is, then, I believe, with good reason that, in order to
make discussion of our present position in speculative in
quiries at once clear and precise, we revert to the Kantian
doctrine and to that germinal principle in it from which the
more systematic philosophies sprang. In connexion with
that principle we shall see most definitely what effect has
been wrought upon our general conceptions by the increased
knowledge we have to utilise.
Of the Kantian doctrine as a whole, the foundation was the
analysis of knowledge, and of that analysis of knowledge the
central idea was the function assigned to the unity of mind.
Experience as Kant conceived it, experience so far as
theoretical cognition was concerned, came about only in
and through the correlation of passively received impressions
with the uniting activity of mind. A finite subject, a mind,
could le only in so far as it was self-conscious, aware of its
own unity. The conditions under which it becomes aware
of its own unity cannot be given in the merely contingent
whirl of sense-impression ; they spring from and express the
nature of the uniting consciousness of self whereby experience
is thus constituted. Through these forms of unity in ap
plication to given sense-material the subject knows himself
as opposed to and yet in most intimate conjunction with a
world of determinately related objects, the mechanism of
things in space and time.
It would be a long task to trace out the historic factors
which determined the general character of the view here
briefly summarised, and though in this way it would be
possible and it would be right to explain much that is
14 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
peculiar to it, I do not purpose making the attempt. More
over, if in dealing so briefly with a great conception I seem
unsympathetic and even unfair, I must plead the exigencies
of the special occasion, and protect myself by saying that
elaborate statements of the Kantian doctrine exist in abund
ance, and that in this University in particular we hold in
well-deserved honour an exposition which in its sympathetic
appreciation does full justice to what is of permanent worth
in Kant s conception while measuring out justice likewise to
its obvious defects.
That the central idea in Kant s view of knowledge was in
some way at fault became obtrusively manifest even in his
own attempt to apply it within the compass of cognitive
experience. The pieces of the mechanism of knowledge as
conceived by him had a suspicious tendency to fall asunder,
and were only patched together by a variety of ingenious but
artificial devices. It was, in the first place, impossible for
Kant to bring directly within the scope of his main idea the
equally important part of his general doctrine, that only in
the forms of space and time were the perceived contents of
knowledge possible material of cognition. Only in the scat
tered utterances of his posthumous work somewhat melan
choly reading do we come in sight of an attempt on his
part to fill up this hiatus in his view.
It was further impossible for Kant to offer from the basis
of his central conception any reasonable explanation of the
altogether remarkable doctrine that only in and through the
representation of sensuous experience ordered according to
universal laws, only in and through the apprehension of the
mechanism of external nature, did mind become aware of its
own unity and continued identity. In truth, the notion of
unity of mind was far too thin and unsubstantial to stand
the weight imposed upon it by Kant.
And, finally, the whole exposition deepened the impression
1.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 15
which is made by Kant s general mode of approaching the
problem of knowledge, that the orderly system of appre
hended facts constituting knowledge stands in some mys
terious fashion mid-way between two incognisables, two
unknowable realities, the pure self or ultimate core of mind
and the realm of things in themselves. I doubt if it is at all
possible to free the Kantian doctrine, as it stands in his
work, from the subjectivism which certainly he seems anxious
to repudiate.
I do not think it necessary to add to this summary view
the criticism which one would have to pass if one tried to
follow out the Kantian doctrine on two of its most interesting
lines of development: the one bearing on the functions of
Eeason, in which we should find a new but equally unsatis
factory meaning attached to the ambiguous term Unity ; the
other connected with Kant s peculiar view of the province
and method of empirical psychology, wherein our doubts as
to the justification for the distinction between the pure and
the empirical self, to which his central doctrine led, would
be strengthened and enlightened. It is sufficient to have
enumerated the more obvious defects in order to make clear
where the fundamental error lies. The unity of mind is put
in an altogether false relation to experience. From Kant s
mode of approaching the question and stating the solution,
the conclusion is inevitable that it is because of the unity of
mind that subjective facts of sense-impression are organised
into the orderly form of determined knowledge. But in
truth, as it appears to me, the emphasis might, with more
justice, be laid on the other side of the antithesis. It is in
and through the organisation of experience in the form of
knowledge of objective fact that mind becomes self-conscious,
aware of its own unity; nor has its unity any significance
other than what it obtains in and through the contrast with
objective fact which is given in knowledge.
16 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
The conditions of the possibility of experience are not
forms imposed by the activity of mind upon the chaotic
material with which it is furnished from without, but the
general characters of the experience wherein and whereby
mind becomes possible at all. In the synthesis of mind and
its objects, the determining factor is not the activity of mind
standing, so to speak, equipped with its armoury of weapons
for mastering given fact ; rather we are bound to conceive of
the two correlative sides, subjective life of the self-conscious
mind and objective fact apprehended, as developing side by
side.
It has long been seen how hard it is to reconcile Kant s
mode of stating his doctrine with the admitted and patent
facts which we sum up under the title development of know
ledge. Many of the hard-and-fast distinctions in which he
delighted, the antitheses between sense and understanding,
between a priori and a posteriori, between necessary and
contingent, lose their point when looked at in the light of
development of knowledge. The difficulty of reconciling
amounts, in my judgment, to impossibility, and indicates
not merely an imperfection in the fundamental idea but a
radical error.
It is no unimportant feature of the Kantian doctrine that
is thus to be considered. It constitutes not only the key
stone of his structure, so far as that is a systematic repre
sentation of knowledge, but the point from which to a large
extent the immediately following idealist philosophies took
their start, I am convinced that it is doing these systems no
substantial injustice to say that, following out the central
conception of Kant s doctrine of knowledge, they represented
the principle of experience in the form of a connected content
of abstract thoughts, and regarded the method of philosophy
as essentially the following out of the inner relations, the self-
development of these thoughts. There is much that may be
i.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 17
said in explanation of their procedure, much that seems at
times to be an explaining away of what is most peculiar to it,
but I do not think it affects greatly the general impression
left upon the mind of an unprejudiced critic.
Now the view pressed upon one by the failure of Kant s
method, the view that the emphasis is wrongly placed on
mind, is precisely that which is pressed upon us by the
accumulated mass of increased knowledge of man s relations
to nature and of his slow historic development.
Specialised research into nature has not only deepened and
strengthened our ideas as to the systematic interconnected-
ness and interdependence of all parts of reality, but in
particular, by extension to what comes closest to the life of
man, has enforced a conclusion one would feel inclined to
advance from purely philosophical grounds, that the antithesis
we make between the abstract mechanism of nature and the
subjective life of mind is falsely conceived when taken to
mean absolute severance in concrete existence. That the
antithesis, the opposition, is a necessary condition in con
sciousness for the very being of consciousness, that mind, in
other words, only realises itself in the form of that which is
contrasted with nature, ought not to lead us to confer a
wholly fictitious and unwarranted independence upon the
opposites themselves. It is true that self-consciousness
implies a contradistinction from nature, that mind only
knows itself in knowing a nature that is distinct from itself.
But the very implication of this truth is that neither mind
nor nature as thus contrasted in consciousness is possessed
of independent being, that mind knows nature only in so far
as it is a part of nature, and that its knowledge of nature, its
apprehension of fact other than itself, is the living link
which binds it to nature and to the sum-total of reality.
Ideas, as one may put it, are not so much in mind as of
VOL. II.
B
18 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
mind ; they are the actual modes of our participation in that
reality of which external nature is a part.
NOT is the lesson thus enforced less readily learned from
the researches which have already opened to us much of the
long process whereby man s mind has expressed itself in
varying institutions and beliefs. Not only does what we
thus positively know or reasonably conjecture compel the
thought of mind in its entirety as gradually developing, but
it constrains us to interpret the conditions of our experience
in such a fashion as not to exclude the humblest manifesta
tions of mental life. Our imagination here readily misleads
us. We talk of mind expressing itself in various ways, of
the mind of man forming in gradual succession more and
more elaborated representations, for example, of the divine,
of supernatural powers. We forget that mind is not an
abstraction, that it lives only in and through its concrete
expression, and that what we thus represent as the pro
duct of mind might just as fairly be said to be the very
making of mind.
On the whole, then, as it appears to me, the recognised
inadequacy of the central thought on which the earlier
idealist systems were based, and the lesson of concrete
experience, combine to compel an important transition in
the point of view from which the philosophical question
must be contemplated. Short titles are always misleading,
and I doubt not that it would give rise to some misappre
hension if I described the change as that from idealism
to realism, from rationalism to empiricism or naturalism.
The designation is of much less importance than the thing
itself, which means, in brief, that in our attempt to unfold
the nature of knowledge and the general connecting links of
what is known, we must turn rather to the concrete experi
ence of mind than to the abstract conceptions into which
that experience is condensed. There is no royal road to
!.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 19
philosophic truth ; the only route that can be followed is the
long and difficult path of facts.
1 may be permitted a remark or two on certain aspects of
the change which I have briefly indicated.
1. When the opposition is denned, as has just been done,
when the contrast is drawn between the principle of the
idealist systems and what I have called Naturalism, it
appears as though mind were relegated to a- secondary
position, were made dependent upon and a product of
nature. On this it must be said, in the first place, that
our imagination, representing real existence in the ambiguous
form of a series in time, will always deceive us somewhat,
We are impelled by the easily recognised deficiencies of that
mode of representation to conceive of real existence as enjoy
ing a kind of timeless mode of being, in contrast with which
that which comes into being in time is relatively inferior.
The contrast is valueless. The tiinelessness of real being is
in no way exclusive of change, and indicates no more than
the mode in which the law of change must be represented
in consciousness. Timelessness in no way intensifies exist
ence. It is a vulgar error to think that truth or goodness or
beauty are enhanced in value by having the predicate of
eternal affixed to them, or that they are thus qualitatively
distinguished from the temporal. A real interconnected
system, which undergoes change, has in it no other relation
of superior and inferior among its parts than depends on the
actual character of these parts. If we possess a standard
whereby to measure such a relation, a point on which 1
express no opinion, we should certainly find that it applied
without regard to temporal order or dependence.
2. Moreover, it would be to misconceive all I have said to
regard nature, in the sense of the external mechanism of
objects in space and time, as equivalent to the sum-total of
20 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
reality. On the contrary, I have desired to insist on the view
that the life of mind is an integral part of that reality. I
am aware of the perplexities attaching to the term part of
reality. They are too numerous to be adequately handled
in a sentence. I shall only say that, according to the view
I take, reality is the interconnected system of which the cor
relatives, mind and the apprehended world of fact, are the
partial manifestations. In this sense, mind is not less neces
sary to the completeness of the whole than nature, and to
neither can be accorded the absolute independence which our
imagination demands.
To say of mind, then, that it comes into being settles in no
way its place in the scheme of things, as a secondary and
inferior fact. As Lotze puts it, in reference to a somewhat
similar problem, "Man esteems himself according to what he
is, and not according to whence he arose. It is enough for us
to feel now that we are not apes. It is of no consequence
to us that our remote and unremembered ancestors should
have belonged to this inferior grade of life. The only pain
ful thought would be that we were destined to turn into apes
again, and that it was likely to happen soon."
3. The last remark I make concerns the most notable
feature in recent work within the range of philosophy, the
vast increase of interest in psychology. Hegel used to say
that it was only in a period of decline in philosophy that
there came an outburst of empirical psychology; and I be
lieve there are many observers of the course of modern
philosophical work disposed to apply his remark to the
present condition of things. I think there is another side
to the matter. Even the empirical psychology which Hegel
had in view, abstract and unsatisfactory as it was, had at
least the merit that it strove to get near to the actual life of
mind. Psychology, as it is conceived at present, has certainly
lost the abstractness of its earlier form, and though no
I.] INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 21
doubt pursued by many minds with great diversity of in
terest, may claim a genuinely philosophical character. To
trace out the history of the mental life, to determine the
natural conditions on which it depends, and to follow the
several stages of its development from the lowest to the
highest, keeping ever before us the concrete character of
the whole, is impossible except as part of and in the light of
a general philosophical view. The problem which Psychology
has before it cannot be arbitrarily severed from the general
questions of philosophy, and it cannot be satisfactorily solved
except as part of the more general treatment which by long
tradition and common consent is called philosophical. It is
with the nature of knowledge that theoretical philosophy
has to deal; and its three main branches Logic, the
description of the form of knowledge, Psychology, the ac
count of the mode in which knowledge is realised in mind,
and Metaphysics, the systematic statement of the thoughts
which express the nature of reality and the relation of mind
thereto are so interdependent that the problems of any
one lead on inevitably to the problems of the others.
I cannot but fear that in attempting to indicate what
appears to me the character of the important change pass
ing over the spirit and method of philosophy, I may have
fallen into the very error I have been condemning. An
abstract conception or a general description has little sig
nificance when divested of the detail of concrete illustration.
A new methodical principle in philosophy can only be under
stood, as it can only be tested, by the resolute endeavour to
apply it to the whole round of questions which have long
exercised human reason. So to think out a philosophical
idea is no easy matter ; not like the spinning of an oyster-
shell, but a revolution of the whole soul. " The eye," says
Berkeley, " by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern:
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some
glimpse of truth by long poring on it. Truth is the cry of
all, but the game of a few. Certainly when it is the chief
passion, it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views ; nor
is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life ;
active, perhaps, to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise.
He that would make a real progress in knowledge must ded
icate his age as well as youth, the later growth as well as
the first fruits, at the altar of Truth."
II.
GIORDANO BRUNO. 1
GIORDANO BRUNO, " a man of impure and abandoned life : a
double renegade, a heretic formally condemned, whose ob
stinacy against the Church endured unbroken even to his
last breath. He possessed no remarkable scientific know
ledge, for his own writings condemn him of pantheism and
of a degraded materialism, and show that he was entangled
in commonplace errors and not unfrequently utterly incon
sistent. He had no splendid adornments of virtue, for as
evidence against his moral character there stand those ex
travagances of wickedness and corruption into which all
men are driven by passions unrestrained. He was the hero
of no famous exploits, and did no signal service to the State ;
his familiar accomplishments were insincerity, lying and
perfect selfishness, intolerance of all who disagreed with
him, abject meanness, and perverted ingenuity in adulation."
This testimonial to character comes from no vigorous
polemic of Bruno s time, an age yet unskilled in the deli
cate art of vituperation. It is an extract from an allocu
tion addressed by the Pope in 1889 to the Sacred College
in Consistory, and ordered by the Sacred Congregation of
Bishops and Regulars to be read in the various Roman
Catholic Churches. The spirit in which it is conceived has
i [Read 4th February 1895, at the Owens College, Manchester, as one of a
series of popular evening lectures.]
24 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
for long proved successful in surrounding the life-history
and the ideas of Bruno with a veil of obscurity through
which only very recent researches have penetrated, and which
even yet is not wholly removed. But the more enlightened
historic conscience of our generation, aided perhaps by a
certain fondness for rehabilitating damaged reputations, has
worked to good purpose in Bruno s case. His writings,
formerly hard to procure and evidently little known or ap
preciated, have been collected in handsome and fairly com
plete form, and are thus at least accessible. All the new
data for a narrative of his career, so far as they have yet
been obtained, are collected in the life of Bruno by his
countryman, Domenico Berti. From the sources thus opened
up, and under the impulse given by the erection of a statue
to Bruno in Eome, quite a little flood of larger treatises and
smaller pamphlets has been poured forth.
Prior to the discovery of the new materials relating to
the life of Bruno, a discovery initiated by the researches
of Foncard into the archives of the Savii sopra 1 Eresia in
\ r enice, there existed only one foundation for a sketch of
Bruno s career. That foundation, however, is in itself re
markable and interesting. It is in the form of a letter by
an eyewitness of the burning of Bruno at Eome in February
1600. The letter seems first to have appeared in print in
1620 or 1621, and was again printed, apparently from
another MS. copy, in 1701. On the authenticity of the
document, and consequently on the historic credibility of the
event it narrates, quite unnecessary doubts have more than
once been cast. Mr Chancellor Christie, on the occasion of
a recent revival of these doubts, brought to bear upon the
matter his great and minute knowledge of the contemporary
literature, and had no difficulty in showing that there was
satisfactory independent evidence for the event narrated, and
that there was as strong evidence as can reasonably be de-
n.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 25
manded for the authenticity of the document. 1 The writer
of the letter, a certain Gaspar Schoppe or Scioppius, a highly
ambiguous character who played an ambiguous part in the
learned warfare of the time, was in Rome and in intimate
relations with the authorities of the Church and Inquisition.
It pleased him then to be a devoted convert to Roman
Catholicism, and it is not unfair to conjecture that he was
being used, with his own eager consent, to whiten the face
of the Holy Church before the recalcitrant Protestants.
Schoppe s letter is the last of a series despatched by him
to his correspondent, Conrad Rittershusius, rector of the
University of Altdorf. As it furnishes at once an interest
ing commentary on the allocution already referred to and
a statement of the long-current story of Bruno s life, I
extract the relevant portion of it, before proceeding to the
more detailed narrative. 2
you must know, my dear Eittershusius, that the Italians
here are quite incapable of drawing distinctions among heresies.
They call any heretic a Lutheran. I pray God that they may
retain this simplicity of judgment and never come to know how
one heresy differs from another. I fear that the power of dis
crimination may cost them dear. But I am most anxious that
you should learn this from me, and I do assure you, on my honour,
that no Lutheran or Calvinist, unless he be a pervert or the
cause of public scandal, runs any risk at Kome, least of all the
risk of punishment by death. It is the earnest desire of our most
Holy Father that Lutherans should be free to come to Home, and
that they should be treated by cardinal and prelate with every
mark of courtesy and kindness. Would to heaven that you were
here ! I am perfectly certain that you would give the lie to their
false calumnies. Why, only last month there was a Saxon gentle-
1 [Macmillan s Magazine, October 2 [The Latin text of the letter of
1885 ; reprinted in Selected Essays Scioppius is printed in full in the
and Papers of R. C. Christie (1902), Appendix to Frith s Life of Bruno,
p. 161 ff.] 1887.]
26 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
man here who had come from a year s residence in the house of
Beza. Many Catholics had acquaintance with him : among others
even Cardinal Baronius, the Pope s confessor, who treated him witli
the utmost politeness and never so much as referred to his religion,
except occasionally to exhort him to seek out the truth. More
over, he expressly said to this gentleman that he had nothing to
fear so long as he caused no public scandal. Beyond a doubt he
would have remained here longer if he had not been terrified
by a rumour that some Englishmen had been arrested and taken
to the palace of the Inquisition. But these English were not at all
such as are called here Lutherans; they were Puritans. They
were suspected of that brutal insult to the Holy Sacrament which
is an English custom.
Now, I too should perhaps have shared the common opinion
that Bruno was burned on account of his Lutheranism, had I not
been present at the Holy Office when the sentence of death was pro
nounced on him. Thus I came to know exactly the heresy of
which he was guilty. This Bruno was a native of Nola, in the
kingdom of Naples, and had been a Dominican monk. When he
was eighteen years old, he began to have doubts about the
doctrine of transubstantiation (a doctrine, as your Chrysostom
says, very repugnant to reason). Soon his doubts grew to denial.
As at the same time he dared to call in question the virginity of
the Blessed Virgin (who, as the same Chrysostom says, surpasses
in purity cherub or seraph), he fled to Geneva, where he remained
two years. Not being able to accommodate himself entirely to
Calvinism, he was expelled from Geneva, and went first to Lyons,
then to Toulouse, and lastly to Paris. There he was Professor,
but extra-ordinariue, for he knew that ordinary professors had to
take part in the service of the Mass. In London, whither he
soon after went, he published a work called The Triumphant
Beast that is, the Pope, to whom you Lutherans are in the habit
of giving the title Beast, honoris causa. Thence to "Wittenberg,
where, if I am not wrong, he taught as professor for two years.
At Prague, where he was next found, he published the books de
Immense et Infinite, and de Innumerabilibus (if I remember the
titles rightly : I saw the books themselves at Prague) ; also a book
de Umbris et de Ideis. In these writings he teaches the most
ii.] GIOKDAXO BRUNO. 27
horrible and absurd doctrines for example, that there are innum
erable worlds ; that the soul can pass from one body into another,
nay, even into another world ; that one soul may be in two bodies ;
that magic is a good thing and perfectly legitimate ; that the Holy
Ghost is nothing but the anima mundi, and that that is the
meaning of the words used by Moses, " the spirit of God brooded
upon the waters " ; that the world is eternal ; that Moses worked
his miracles by magic, in which he was a greater adept than the
other Egyptians ; that Moses invented the laws he gave ; that the
sacred Scriptures are just a dream; that the devils will be saved;
that only the Jews are descended from Adam and Eve, all others
being descended from a pair created by God the day before ; that
Christ was not God, but a great magician who deluded men and
was therefore justly punished, by hanging, not crucifixion ; that
the prophets and apostles were worthless men, wonder-working
magicians, and that the most of them were hanged. But I really
should never come to an end if I tried to detail to you all the
monstrosities he has uttered, in his writings or viva roce. In one
word, there is not an error of pagan philosopher or of heretic,
ancient or modern, that he has not maintained.
From Prague he went to Brunswick and Helmstiidt, and is there
said to have taught for some time. Afterwards he was at Frank
fort, publishing a book, and at last came into the hands of the
Inquisition at Venice. There he was for some considerable time
(d-iu satis), and was then sent to Rome. At Rome, being re
peatedly examined by the Holy Office and refuted by the fore
most theologians, he at first obtained a respite of forty days for
deliberation ; then he promised to retract, but presently betook
himself again to his foolish defences and procured a further delay
of forty days. But his only object was to play with the Pope
and the Inquisition; wherefore, after he had been some two
years in the custody of the Holy Office, he was brought on
the 9th of this month, February, to the palace of the Grand
Inquisitor. There, in presence of the most illustrious cardinals
of the Holy Office (men who surpass all others of the time in
gravity of years, experience of affairs, and knowledge of theology
and law), in presence of professional theologians, amid curia>,
and in presence of the secular magistrate, the governor of the city,
28 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
Bruno was brought forward, and on his knees had sentence pro
nounced upon him. The sentence recounted his life, his studies,
his opinions ; pointed out the patient zeal and brotherly kindness
with which the Inquisition had striven to convert him ; and dwelt
on the stubborn impiety with which he had resisted exhortation ;
then proceeded to degrade him (as the term is), to excommunicate
him, and to hand him over to the secular power for punishment,
requesting that he should be punished quam dementissime et
sine sanguinis profusione. To this he only responded with a
threatening air, " Perchance you give your sentence on me with
more fear than I receive it." The guards of the city governor
then took him to prison, where a period of eight days was
allowed him as a last opportunity for abjuration of his errors.
But all in vain. To-day, then, he was taken to the stake, and
there, when on the point of death, the image of the crucified
Saviour was shown to him, and he turned from it with a scowl
of disdain. Thus was he burned and miserably perished, and
I daresay he has gone to tell in those other worlds of which
he dreamed how impious blasphemers are handled by Eomans.
There, my dear Eittershusius, you see the way we deal with
men, or rather monsters, of this kind. N"ow, I should very much
like to know whether you approve this mode of dealing, or prefer
that every one should be free to believe and say exactly what he
pleases. For my own part, I cannot think you would not approve.
But, perhaps you will say, Lutherans do not teach or believe any
thing of such a kind, and therefore ought not to be treated in such
a manner. I grant it you ; and you see we don t burn Lutherans.
We should perhaps have acted differently in the case of that
prophet of yours, Luther. What would you say if I undertook to
prove to you that Luther, not indeed teaching the same as Bruno,
has nevertheless uttered even more horrible absurdities, not, I mean,
in his Table-talk, but in books published during his lifetime, and
that he maintained these absurdities as though they were dogmas
and oracles ? You have only to say the word, and if you do not
already know this fellow who, on your behalf, has revived truth
buried for so many centuries, I will show you the exact places in
which you may find the juice of this fifth gospel. If Luther,
then, is no better than Bruno, what fate do you think should
n.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 29
be his 1 You will allow that he should be handed over to
the limping-footed god and to his fatal flames. Aye, and what
would you like done with those who take him for an evangelist, a
prophet, a third Elias 1 I leave you to answer, and desire only
that you will believe me when I say that the Romans do not act
towards heretics with the severity ascribed to them ; perhaps not
Avith the severity that is the due of those who perish only because
they wish to perish.
This letter, sufficiently interesting in a general respect, has
special importance for the biography of Bruno. It conveys a
vivid idea of the last, the crowning event in his somewhat
stormy career. It may be accepted as containing the account
which it was sought to make public of the grounds for the
severe penalty inflicted on him. In his statement of the
various horrid heresies of which Bruno was accused,
Scioppius was no doubt as accurate as his essentially un
truthful nature allowed. Most, if not all, of the articles of
accusation could readily support themselves on passages in
known works of Bruno. Others may have had for them the
evidence of hearsay, of reported conversation, for Bruno had
a fatal facility of expression. Indeed, one s wonder is that
the lynx eyes of the Inquisition did not discover more
heinous matter in the Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast,
and the Cabala of Pegasus, than is laid out in the accusation.
He must have been gifted with more than normal simplicity
who could misinterpret Bruno s wild jests on the enigmatical
nature of the Centaur.
Apart from the articles of accusation, however, Scioppius
narrative has only approximate accuracy. He was evidently
under the belief, doubtless from the information conveyed to
him, that Bruno had passed only two years in the cells of
the Inquisition at Eome. He appears to have been possessed
only of a summary, not of a detailed account, of the ex
amination of Bruno at Venice ; and he certainly shared the
30 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
ignorance of his contemporaries and successors regarding
that curious book of Bruno s which he refers to as the
Triumphant Beast, In the detailed account of the investi
gations at Venice, which we now possess, Bruno, in response
to certain interrogations, gives a full narrative of his life up
to that time, and a list of his writings, both published and
unpublished. The narrative has some inaccuracies in it,
naturally enough, with regard to the length of time spent in
the various towns to which his wandering career led him.
These, for the most part, we are able to correct, and so to
construct a history, fairly accurate and, up to a certain point,
complete, of his life.
Filippo Bruno, for such was his baptismal name, was born
in the month of May 1548 at Nola, in Campania, not far
from Naples. The pleasant and fertile country, to which
Bruno often refers in his Latin poems, was said even then to
retain among its inhabitants more than usual traces of the
earlier Greek colonists of southern Italy; and Nola itself,
though no longer what it had been, was still not without
fame in the annals of Italian literature. The family of
Bruno, not of high rank, seems to have been in comfortable
circumstances. His mother, it has been conjectured, from her
peculiar, un-Italian name, Fraulissa, was of German descent :
the constant wars render very explicable such wanderings of
offshoots from a foreign stock. The boy, after some training
in the ordinary staple of education, grammar and dialectics,
entered at the age of fourteen or fifteen the Dominican order,
and took then the name Giordano. He proceeded through
the usual stages to the priesthood in 1572, spending his time
mainly in the monastery of St Dominic at Naples, famous as
the scene of the labours of Thomas Aquinas.
There is nothing surprising in this selection of a career.
The time had not yet come when it was possible to lead,
without special protection, the life of a scholar or man of
II.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 31
learning. The Church afforded the readiest means to one
whose inclinations led him in that direction, and within the
Church the exercise of some little reticence and prudence
sufficed to secure no small measure of peaceful liberty. Of
such reticence and prudence Bruno was wholly incapable.
There is no mistaking the evidence of his disposition, which
his later writings and all the events of his career afford. He
was superabundantly endowed with the Southern vivacity of
nature : quick, ardent, impetuous, and passionate. Devoted
to the things of mind, he had a singularly unselfish disregard
for what ordinary humanity takes to be the solid interests of
life. With the eye of a poet or dramatist for the peculiar
ities, the foibles of character, he displayed throughout his
dealings with men a sanguine naivete of belief in their
honesty and good feeling which brought him many a mis
hap. While he combined, as perhaps only a philosopher
can do, a genuine philanthropy, love of humanity, with pro
found contempt for the mass of mankind with their petty
aims, their stupidity, and enormous capacity for accepting
the inane, he seems always to have acted under the convic
tion that his own simplicity of nature would meet as simple
and hearty a response. No better illustration of this can be
given than the first act in his literary career. He wrote a
little work entitled the Ark of Xoah, which he either sent,
or designed to present, to the Pope, Pius Y. The work is
lost, and its contents are only known by a general reference
in a later writing. It was an allegory, based on the idea of
a contest among the animals in the ark for precedence. The
animal most perturbed in mind and excited at the thought of
not securing the first place, the seat in the poop of the ark,
was the Ass. Now the poop of the ark was a common
expression then for the seat of Reason in the Soul, and
the Ass, as we know from Bruno s later works, possessed
peculiar attractions for him as the symbol of human
32 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
stupidity and pedantry. He hymns the ass in prose and verse,
and reserves for it a most notable place in his new celestial
hierarchy, as the companion and coadjutor of wisdom. It
is altogether significant of the man that he should have
selected such a peace-offering for the Head of the Church.
During the relatively undisturbed years of his cloister
career, Bruno must have laid the foundations of the exten
sive knowledge his later writings display of earlier philosophy
and literature. In particular he seems to have drunk deep
from the well-spring of human culture then recently opened
up, the Platonic and Neo-platonic philosophies. It is to this
time, too, that we must refer his acquaintance with the new
movement in science which was destined to affect his life so
profoundly. The great work of Copernicus had appeared in
1543, and though it is impossible to date precisely Bruno s
knowledge of it, there is no reason to doubt that it goes back
to his cloister years. The Copernican system has long since
traversed the stages of relation to theological belief through
o o o
which each great scientific conception seems destined to pass.
The new thought is first attacked as wholly irreconcilable
with the faith, then coldly accepted as at least compatible
with the faith, and last, eagerly championed as the very
foundation of the faith. Copernicanism in Bruno s time
had barely entered on its first stage, and its further advance
was in no small measure due to the impetus which Bruno
communicated to it. In his mind the new scientific concep
tion of the heavenly system formed the natural complement
to a wider philosophical idea ; and both scientific conception
and philosophical idea brought him into sharp conflict with
views which unfortunately the Church had so incorporated
with its theological dogmas as to make inseparable from
them. Not indeed that Bruno troubled himself much about
the theological dogmas. There is no feature of his mind
more remarkable than its entire freedom from genuine in-
II.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 33
terest in theological questions. His language is saturated, as
is natural, with Scriptural phraseology ; he knows much of
Church fathers and the like ; but that wonderful picture of
the scheme of things which forms the very essence of theology
as then understood, possessed no vital significance for him.
It was an interesting fact for him that men did so believe,
a fact for which he inclines at times to attempt, very inade
quately, a kind of historical explanation, but his mental atti
tude towards the whole is that expressed in a characterisation
of him by a worthy Protestant rector who knew him later :
a man of great capacity, with infinite knowledge, but not a
trace of religion.
It is not impossible that in this period of his life Bruno
also began to exercise his literary gift. The comedy II
Candelajo, the candle-bearer, which was published later, in
1582, at Paris, was in all probability sketched or partly
written at Naples. It is a somewhat wild work, in which
as he elsewhere puts it, everything is called by its own name ;
good of its kind, though the kind is not particularly good ;
and containing one typical character, the Pedant, which is
certainly suggestive of, if not historically connected with,
the Holofernes of Love s Labour s Lost. Bruno throughout
is as much the poet as the philosopher. His best philos
ophical works are written in the freer form of the dialogue,
and are interspersed with sonnets, on the poetical merits of
which, it must be added, not the most favourable verdict is
pronounced by Italian literary critics. Perhaps there is
justice in the double judgment of the philosophers, that
his philosophy is written in too poetic a style ; of the
men of letters, that his poetry is too much of philosophy
in verse. The combination has nevertheless u certain human
attractiveness.
The cloister years were not altogether undisturbed. First
one and then another process was directed against him. The
VOL. II. C
34 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
first, a trumpery affair, originated in a rumour that he had
objected to all images, and had stripped his cell of every
thing but the crucifix. To this it was added that he had
dissuaded a fellow-novice from reading the Seven Joys of
the Madonna, saying that he had better read something of
the Church Fathers. The second, much more serious, arose
out of doubts he had early begun to express about the
fundamental dogmas of the Church, the Trinity, and the
divine personality of Christ. No fewer than 130 heads of
indictment were prepared against him by the Provincial
of the Order ; and Bruno, dreading so formidable an array,
fled from Naples to Eome in 1575 or iti the beginning
of 1576. In Eome he had hoped to find protection still
within the Order, but the news followed him that the process
begun at Naples was to be carried on in Eome, and that the
gravity of the accusation had been increased by his luckless
error of leaving behind him in his cell certain works of
Hieronymus and Chrysostom with scholia by Erasmus.
Eesolving no longer to submit himself to a tyranny that
would, as he said, reduce his reason to a slave, he put off
his monk s gown (retaining, however, the scapulary), re-
assumed his name Filippo, and, leaving Eome, began the
wandering life which was to lead him back, after many
years and many changes of fortune, to the cells of the In
quisition and to the last fatal scene in the Campo di Fiore.
Of many details of his knight-errant wanderings there is
but an imperfect record. Some three years passed among
the cities of Northern Italy, the staff of life being gained by
varied teaching, of the sphere, of grammar, and the like. In
1579 we find traces of him in Geneva. With what object he
selected the stronghold of Calvinism as a place of refuge is
still matter of doubt. Perhaps the inducement was the
presence there of a considerable Italian section of the
II.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 35
Reformed Church, driven beyond the Alps by the vigour
of the Catholic rulers of Lucca. Assuredly Bruno had no
ground for expecting great toleration there. Protestantism,
the noble daughter of a still more noble mother, has often
shown herself a most ungrateful child, and never more than
when in Calvinist disguise. Calvin, says a contemporary,
could not endure that there should be in his city one individual
who dissented from him in matters of faith. Nor was Cal
vinism more enlightened in matters of philosophy and science.
"The Genevese have decreed," says Beza, "once and for ever
that they will never, either in logic or in any other branch
of learning, desert the teaching of Aristotle."
Little chance of peace for Bruno in such surroundings,
even had he been of a placable and prudent turn of mind.
As it was, he had not been there many months before there
happened the little event which we find chronicled in the
proceedings of the consistory of 1579.
Gth Aug. Philippe Jordan, called Brunus, an Italian, detained
for having caused to be printed certain replies and invectives
against M. de la Faye, counting up 20 errors in one of his
lectures. Resolved that he shall be examined before the learned
Council and Mr Secretary Chevalier. 10th Aug. Philippe Brunet,
an Italian, having responded in person respecting the calumnies
which lie caused to be printed against M. Antoine de la Faye,
having acknowledged his fault, resolved that he must ask pardon
of God, of the law, and of the said de la Faye, and that he shall
be again sent to acknowledge his fault before the consistory, and
he shall, moreover, be sentenced to tear the said defamatory libel
to pieces.
\?>th Aug. Philippe Erun appeared before the consistory to
acknowledge his fault, inasmuch as he had erred in the doctrine
and had called the ministers of the Church of Geneva,, pedagogues,
alleging that in that matter he would neither excuse himself nor
would he plead guilty, for the truth was not told of him, since he
was of opinion that the story was had on the report of one M. de
36 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
la Faye. Asked whom he called pedagogues, he answered, with
many excuses and allegations, that he was persecuted, bringing
forward several random opinions with sundry other accusations ;
nevertheless, he confessed that he came to own his fault, which he
committed when he made sundry and divers reflexions upon the
ministers. Was admonished to follow the true doctrine. Said
he is prepared to submit to the censure.
At the same examination the de la Faye matter was
brought up, and Bruno was prohibited the sacrament, though
the prohibition was removed on the 27th August, a fact which
shows that he had in some form enrolled himself in the
Eeformed Church.
It is small wonder, then, that Bruno soon found it advis
able to leave Geneva, and that he should have retained an
evil memory of his short stay there. Nor is there any
religious sect towards which he shows genuine animosity
save the Calvinist. This, from the Spaccio della Bestia,
breathes personal feeling and experience:
There is a dastardly race of pedants, who, doing no good thing
either by the divine law or the law of nature, esteem themselves,
and desire to be esteemed, religious and pleasing to the gods, saying
that though it is well to do good and evil to do wrong, we can
only become acceptable to the gods, not by reason of the good we
do or the evil we leave undone, but by hoping and believing in
strict accordance with the catechism. Those fellows, who declare
that all their desire is fixed upon things invisible (which indeed
neither they nor others rightly comprehend), insist that to attain
their end nothing is needed beyond the eternally decreed act of
grace producing certain inward affections and imagination ; at all
of which the gods are hugely amused. . . . Such fellows are pests,
and deserve no more mercy than wolves, bears, and serpents. To
cleanse the world of them is an honourable and meritorious
office.
With the dust of Geneva shaken from his shoes, Bruno
passed by Lyons to Toulouse, where for nearly two years he
.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 37
lectured chiefly on Aristotle s Physics and de Auima, leaving,
as he says, by reason of the disturbed state of the country,
but more probably on account of objections to his teaching.
Travelling through France, whose distracted inhabitants
seem to have found difficulty in carrying out their king s in
junction on pain of death to love one another, he reached
Paris towards the close of the year 1581, and at once began to
lecture in the Sorbonne. His active mind was at this time
much occupied with a quaint art of logic devised by a very
remarkable personality of the thirteenth century, Eaymond
Lully. Lully, after a very stormy youth, suddenly saw light,
renounced the world and his wife, and devoted himself to the
conversion of the infidel. He was under the belief that he
had discovered a new method whereby the reason of the
infidel might be forced to admit the truth of the Christian
religion. Of this method, the Great Art as it was called, I
believe one must be of Bacon s opinion, who called it a
method of imposture, and described Lully s work as like a
broker s or fripper s shop, where there are fragments of all
sorts but nothing of any value. To Bruno it may perhaps
have seemed of some philosophical importance, but its prac
tical service as a kind of mcmoria technics, an art of memory,
is foremost in his treatment of it ; and he attracted consider
able attention by his exposition of it. Henry III. did him
the honour to question him whether his art of memory was
based on natural means or on magic, and being pleased with
his responses, recommended him for an extraordinary pro
fessorship, and likewise gave him a valuable introduction to
Michel de Castelnau, ambassador to the English Court, in
whose train he passed into England in the spring of 1583,
and with whom he returned in September or October 1585.
The two years in England were among the happiest they
were certainly the most productive in Bruno s career. The
38 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
works by which he will be remembered, The Ash-Wednesday
Supper ; The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast ; On the
Cause, the Principle, and the One ; On the Infinite, the
Universe, and the Worlds ; The Cabala, that is, the intricate
allegory of the horse Pegasus and his appendage the Cyl-
lenian Ass ; The Intellectual Enthusiasms : are fruits ripened
under the sun of temporary prosperity. Not that he found
England altogether to his taste. The climate disgusted him ;
he disliked the language, of which he would not learn a
word ; but he thought the women charming, the custom of
kissing adorable, and the queen a very goddess. Moreover,
he found much and intelligent interest in Italian letters, and
made some noble friends. With Philip Sidney and Fulke
Greville he was on intimate terms, and lived much in their
company, meeting and knowing their literary associates. To
Sidney are dedicated the curious allegory, the Spaccio della
Bestia, and Degli Eroici Furori, the writings in which he
expresses his views on morals. In Fulke Greville s house
was held the conversation embodied in the Ash -Wednesday
Supper, an exposition for the most part of Bruno s extended
Copernicanism.
Conjecture has naturally been busy with this portion of
Bruno s life. It would be interesting to know more in detail
with whom he was thrown in contact, how he impressed
them, and what effect, if any, his forcibly uttered ideas
produced. We are left, unfortunately, entirely to conjecture.
Francis Bacon might have known him personally, but makes
no direct reference to him. Fulke Greville, with whom, in
deed, he had some slight difference, of what nature we know
not, mentions him nowhere, not even in his life of Sidney.
Shakespeare could not have known him, and there is no
direct evidence that he knew his works. At the same time,
while certain coincidences of phrase and sentiment between
Shakespeare and Bruno have had undue weight attached to
n.] C4IORDANO BRUNO. 39
them, and while the foolish expectation of finding somewhere
incorporated in Shakespeare the astronomical and metaphys
ical ideas of Bruno has met its deserved fate, there seems
reasonable ground for assuming that some fragments of
knowledge relating to Bruno, some of his characteristic say
ings, reached Shakespeare. There is no difficulty in under
standing how that should be possible. Florio was intimate
with Bruno, and through him alone something may have
been transmitted. I have already hinted at a somewhat more
direct connexion in the case of Bruno s drama and Love s
Labour s Lost, But beyond a doubt, Bruno s philosophically
conceived dialogues cannot be said to have exercised a living
influence on the English mind either then or in the succeed
ing generations. Were a proof of that desired, it would be
found in the curious fact that a certain rather elaborate
masque, the Coclum Britannicum, by a tolerably well-known
Jacobean poet, Thomas Carew, was represented before their
Majesties in 1G33, and that neither then nor afterwards was
it recognised to have borrowed not merely its general idea
but its whole structure and detail from the Expulsion of the
Triumphant Beast. 1
Bruno s English experience was not unruffled by the aca
demic storms which his impetuosity generally excited. The
University of Oxford made high festival (10th-13th June
1583) on the occasion of a visit from the Polish magnate,
Albert a Lasco. Thither went Bruno. He had already
announced himself in an address which exhibits the weaker
1 [The fact is mentioned in the New York and London, 1899) and the
short article on Thomas Carew in the writer of the article on Carew in the
ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Dictionary of National Biography be-
Britannica (1876). but seems to have tray no knowledge of his indebtedness
remained otherwise unnoticed until to Bruno. Dr Sutherland Black has
drawn attention to by a writer in the been good enough to verify the present
Quarterly Review for October 1902 (p. editor s conjecture that the Britannica
507). The recent editors of Carew s article on Carew was written by Pro-
Poems and Masque (London, 1893; fessor Adamson.]
40 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
side of his nature, but is too characteristic to be omitted.
Thus it runs :
Philotheus Jordanus Brunus, the Nolan, Doctor of a more per
fect theology, Professor of a purer and more blameless philosophy,
a philosopher known, recognised, and honoured in the foremost
academies of Europe, nowhere a foreigner save to the barbarian
and the vulgar, an awakener of sleeping souls, a tamer of pre
sumptuous and refractory ignorance, who in all his acts displays
love to all men, to the Italian not more than to the Briton, to the
man not more than to the woman, to the wearer of mitre and the
wearer of crown, to the toga and to the sword, to the frocked and
the unfrocked, but above all to him whose ways are peaceful,
enlightened, true, and fruitful ; who looks not to the anointed
head or consecrated brow, but there where man s true countenance
is to be seen, the heart and cultivated mind, he whom the preachers
of foolishness and the hypocrites abhor, whom the upright and sin
cere love, whom noble souls receive with acclamation; To the
noble and honoured Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford,
and to his Fellows, Greeting.
With some of the select spirits so greeted Bruno held a
lively disputation on the Copernican system ; fifteen times
confuted, as he tells us, his pig of an antagonist ; gained a
complete victory and an absolute prohibition against further
lectures at the University of Oxford. The Ash- Wednesday
Supper, a continuation of this disputation, contains many a
sally at the expense of the Oxonian pedants.
The stay in England was all too brief. The return to
Paris, signalised by a disputation judged to offend indirectly
against the Catholic faith, was followed by a rapid journey
through Mainz, Wiesbaden, and by Marburg (where a longer
halt was prevented by a fierce skirmish with the rector of
the university) to Wittenberg. Here another respite of two
years was gained, closed only by the gradual swing of the
pendulum from Lutheran to Calvinist domination. A six
II.] GIORDANO BRUNO. 41
months residence, with some recognition at Prague, was
succeeded by eighteen months at the young University of
Helmstadt, from which again the unfortunate philosopher
was driven with a sentence of excommunication by the
triumphant Calvinist party. At Frankfort, where he next
took refuge, he was refused residence within the city, and
barely permitted to put up beyond the walls at the house of
his publisher, with whom he was preparing for the press his
longer, more elaborate Latin works. Here Bruno, who seems
to have been fascinated by the fatal idea of a reconciliation
to the Church with freedom from the bondage of his Order,
received an invitation to Venice, and in an evil hour accepted
it. The invitation came from one Giovanni Mocenigo, scion
of a distinguished family in Venice, who had purchased a
book of Bruno s, made inquiries about the writer, and wrote
to offer him maintenance in exchange for his instruction.
Bruno, after a brief visit to Zurich, reached Venice in
September or October 1591. What he came to think of his
pupil we may readily guess. Mocenigo was a narrow super
stitious soul, with a timorous belief in magic and a conviction
that from Bruno he might learn some magic art. When his
expectations were disappointed he broke into threats against
Bruno, and, having already pressed at the open door of his
confessor s conscience by asking whether he ought not to
denounce so irreligious a character, he forcibly detained his
friend, when he proposed to leave Venice for Frankfort,
and handed him over to the Inquisition with a series of
denunciatory letters.
On the 23rd May the luckless philosopher was lodged in
the cells of the Inquisition at Venice, and for nearly a year
the protracted examination of the accused himself, his
accusers, his books, his booksellers, all his acquaintances
in Venice, went on. Bruno had spoken with characteristic
incaution to Mocenigo, whose letters of denunciation supplied
42 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
ample material for beginning an investigation which gradually
worked backwards over the whole career of the accused.
Perhaps we shall never make quite clear to ourselves the
conditions of a trial so far off and under such strange
conditions. It appears evident that Bruno at first and
for long endeavoured to shelter himself under the broad
shield which had but recently served to protect Pomponazzi,
Cremonini and many another against whom the Church had
moved the shield of the distinction between the twofold
kinds of truth, the one of natural reason, the other of faith.
But, unluckily for him, he had thrown himself into the power
of his adversaries at a time and under conditions when he had
but the worst to expect. The Eoman Church was then pass
ing through a period of renovation and reformation. The
most potent of her ecclesiastic directors was the severe
Cardinal Sanseverina, who had given a foretaste of his
quality in Spain; the foremost of her theologians was the
ardent polemic, Eobert Bellarmin. Little grace was there
for a heretic, least of all for a renegade from his Order.
Although Bruno, then, under the pressure of the inquiry at
Venice, made in words a more ample retractation than one
would have wished to think possible, expressing himself
indeed in terms that are not reconcilable with his real
opinions, no final judgment was given at Venice. The
articles of process were sent to Borne, and speedily a papal
nuncio requested his extradition. Such requests had often
before been made to the Venetian State, and as often proudly
refused ; on this occasion the circumstances made acquiescence
desirable, and the procurator of the republic soon found a
legal reason for assenting to the demand of the Holy Office.
The process, he said, was, rightly considered, but the con
tinuation of that long ago begun and yet unfinished at
Borne; the accused was not a Venetian, and had besides
declared his desire to go before Ciesar. To Csesar let him
.] GIORDANO BRUNO.
43
go. On the 27th February 1593 he was lodged in the cells
of the Inquisition at Eome.
From this time to the beginning of the trial which
Scioppius describes to us, in the early part of 1599, there
is an absolute blank in our information. Scioppius believed,
and was probably given to understand, that the imprison
ment, terminating in the auto da ft of February 17, 1600,
had lasted only about two years. It is but recently that the
record has been discovered which discloses to us that it
lasted for seven years. Why there was so unusual a delay
and what took place during it are matters for conjecture,
and empty conjecture. Not impossibly the delay was due
to the keen desire to avoid the scandal of disclosing to
the world such grave heresies as professed by one who
had been in the Order of St Dominic ; perhaps there was
hope of even more than such a retractation as had been
uttered at Venice. Failure of negotiations seems fairly
inferrible from the rather dogged character of the response
which is ascribed to Bruno in the scanty original records
of the Koman trial. "He declared that he should not
retract, that he would not retract, that he had no reason
to retract, and that he knew of nothing which he had to
retract." Of the trial itself, its incidents, and its melancholy
termination, a sufficiently vivid impression is conveyed by
the well-informed letter of Scioppius.
The tragic fate of Bruno may have been in part deter
mined by special circumstances, but the conflict leading to
it was the inevitable result of the opposition between quite
<?eneral forces. I have made no endeavour to present even
&
an outline of the philosophical and scientific views which
Bruno expounds in eloquent prose and enthusiastic verse ;
there attaches to the details of them too much of the earlier
forms of thought to make them readily accessible to the
44 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
modern reader. But there is no difficulty in understanding
at once the general idea of which Bruno was the impassioned
representative and the way in which that idea conflicted
with the then accepted interpretation of human life and its
surroundings. On the whole, the idea may be most aptly
designated by the modern term Naturalism ; and it has, as its
negative mark, rejection of any such distinction as is in
dicated by the title supernatural, while, positively, it regards
the consummation of knowledge as being the intellectual
contemplation of one systematically connected world of
reality, and the full perfection of action as the purification
and elevation of the life of man in this one world of his
experience. No conception could run more violently counter
to the very essence and soul of the beliefs embodied in
popular theology, beliefs which the erudite or learned
theology of the time not only accepted but presented in
rationalised form as at once a system of dogma, a philosophy
of existence, and an ultimate standard of conduct. Pre
sented in this fashion, these beliefs formed an absolute barrier
to the free movement of the human mind ; and it is the
struggle of human reason to emancipate itself that gives its
special colour and its perennial interest to the close of the
sixteenth century. Nowhere did that effort of reason find
a more eloquent, forcible, and enthusiastic exponent than in
Bruno. The impressive statue which now marks his death-
scene in the Campo di Fiore is a recognition by his country
men at once of the merits of one of their foremost thinkers
and of their sense of the important contribution which Italy
made through him to the cause of the development of truth.
45
III.
PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 1
IT is an often-quoted remark of Kant s, " that the sciences
are not promoted but confused when their boundaries are
allowed to run into one another." The maxim has its utility
and at the same time its dangers. When it has been possible
to determine from a comprehensive point of view the re
lations which certain groups of problems or certain methods
of inquiry bear to one another, then the maxim is applicable
but hardly requires application. When, on the other hand,
the special sciences, as they may be called, have grown up
in a kind of vague independence only of one another, when
they have severally acquired a unity that is little more than
accidental, then the attempt prematurely to refer problems
exclusively to one or the other may stifle legitimate inquiry
and confuse rather than facilitate thinking. If the maxim
be applied to philosophy in particular, then, by reason of
the intimate relation in which all its questions stand to one
another, a further danger is incurred, that of isolating and
giving a quite fictitious independence to what has meaning
only in connexion with the whole.
Kant s general remark was no doubt determined, as is the
O
case with most general remarks, by reference to a particular
case to the distinction running through all his work between
the critical theory of the conditions of experience and the
1 [Read to the Glasgow University Philosophical Society, 7th March 1894.]
46 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
special investigation of any one group of facts of experience.
In the light of this distinction, it served for him and for
his followers as a methodical precept, justifying the total
separation of the critical or transcendental theory of know
ledge and action from the special treatment of concrete fact,
whether in the natural sciences or in psychology or in what
may be called moral anthropology. With some (at times
with a fundamental) change of significance, the same distinc
tion has been drawn between the general inquiry into the
validity of knowledge and the more special researches into
the nature and laws of connexion of the facts of mind. The
contrasted doctrines of Episternology and Psychology need
not be denned as Kant defined them, but the general concep
tion of a distinction in kind between them comes directly from
the Kantian system.
Apart from the special form of the distinction between
these doctrines, which is an essential feature of the Critical
Philosophy, and to which I purpose returning, there is no
difficulty in finding general grounds for a contrast between
the problems and methods of Epistemology and Psychology.
The broadly marked difference between the existence in an
individual mind of the state or act of knowing and the
significance or import of what is contained therein the
difference between knowing as a psychical fact and know
ledge as the represented relations obtaining in the material
known presses itself upon our attention, and perhaps at
no time in the history of thinking has failed to receive
some recognition, however inadequate. The existence of
an idea as a mental fact, and its meaning as an item
of cognition, seem wholly distinct and even antithetic.
Whatever portion of knowledge we select, whether per
ceiving or thinking, we seem able in regard to it to
put two wholly distinct questions. We may ask how it
comes about in the individual mind, of what simpler facts
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 47
it is composed, if it should be deemed complex, and how,
in that case, the combination has been brought about,
and under what conditions its various appearances are
presented. We may ask, on the other hand, what validity
its content possesses as an apprehension, which it pro
fesses to be, of some object or objective relation, and how it
is possible that the content of a subjective act or state of
mind should inform us in regard to what, ex liypothesi, is
distinct both from the act and from the mind itself. On the
one hand seems to stand the inner life, with its successive
states or processes, of which we are in some way aware, but
whose nature as known to us is emphatically arid simply
that of existing fact. On the other hand, in and through
this mental life, we seem to become aware both of the inner
states themselves and of much that is essentially different
from it, No distinction can well appear more sharp and
precise ; and it costs us little to dwell so on it that the anti
thesis shall appear absolute, and, somewhat to our astonish
ment, we may find reappearing from a new quarter and with
a new force of meaning the familiar formula of the Kantian
work, How is knowledge at all possible ?
Fact, even if qualified as psychical, and import or mean
ing ; existence and validity ; individual mind and apprehen
sion of general truth extending to what is not-mind : these
come forward in such opposition that we are readily induced
to sharpen the distinction to the utmost verge. The inner
life appears as concentrated in itself, as an exclusive unity, a
monad without windows, as Leibniz would say. What is
known, on the other hand, appears as distinct from mind
and in an altogether indeterminable relation thereto. If the
inner life, the life of mind, be called subjective, that which is
known must be called, at least in its most important part
if not wholly, trans-subjective. It is by no means unnatural
that, in presence of this sharp distinction, the question should
48 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
arise, In what possible relation to one another are the two
contrasted aspects of knowledge, the two contrasted inquiries
or sciences ? As a distinguished American writer expressed
it some years ago in Mind, " How can the consciousness
which in its primary aspect exists in time as a series of
psychical events or states be the consciousness for which a
permanent world of spatially related objects, in which all
sentient beings participate, exists ? " l
The series of somewhat easy reflexions which have just
been referred to may be expressed in a variety of ways ; but
it rests in the long run on recognition of the total difference
between knowing as a fact forming part of the complex we
call a mind and knowledge as the apprehension of objective
fact. It leads to the establishment of a complete distinction
between the problem and method of Psychology and Epis-
temology. There may be differences, particularly in regard
to the latter doctrine, in the way of formulating the problems
and methods of the two distinct doctrines ; but in general the
one is conceived of after the fashion of a natural science,
having for its aim the complete account, descriptive, genetic
or what not, of the facts of mind, and pursuing the ordinary
scientific method ; the other, in a somewhat unique fashion,
as having for its aim the determination of the validity of the
information seemingly given in and through the facts of
mind, and for its method something of whose nature I can
form no clear idea.
It is impossible that these reflexions should contain noth
ing of real significance. The contrast from the recognition
of which they take their rise is, in some form, real; and one
can trace the recognition of it, or, perhaps, even the unrecog
nised presence of it, far back in the history of philosophic
thought. That it affected the speculations of Plato and of
Aristotle might easily be made out ; that it made its appear-
1 [J. Dewey, Mind, xi. (1886) 13.]
III.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPTSTEMOLOGY. 49
ance as of quite decisive importance in the Stoic theory of
knowledge is one of the results we owe to recent researches
in that unduly neglected quarter of the history of phil
osophy. The greater scholastic writers abound in fine dis
tinctions, some of which might with advantage be utilised by
us, all of them due to a more or less obscure appreciation of
the distinction. Some of the most interesting discussions of
modern pre-Kantian philosophy for example, that which
I would cite as specially relevant, between Malebranche
and Arnauld turn upon the distinction; and it has been the
consistent reproach of the later Kantian writers to Locke,
that he habitually ignores the broad difference between mere
factual existence of knowing and the import or content of
knowledge.
But, however real the distinction may be in some sense,
it is in itself so ultimate and so penetrating that one may
fairly expect to find no small difficulty in formulating it and
in basing on it a satisfactory account of the relation be
tween the two contrasted doctrines, epistemology and psycho
logy. When one attempts to express in definite terms a
distinction of great generality and of far-reaching import
ance, one is apt to be misled by the influence of side-
thoughts, of glances towards well-worn problems known to be
affected by our decision, which accompany all our reflexions
and too often determine their direction and scope. A single
question, like that which has presented itself as the epis-
temological, the question of the validity of that pronounce
ment in respect to objective fact which knowledge, whether
in the form of perceiving or of thinking, seems to contain,
comes to us weighted with the memories of many a past con
troversy ; and it is under the influence of these memories,
exercised consciously or unconsciously, that we proceed afresh
to the task of formulating the problem. To this it may be
added, that ultimate distinctions are like edged tools : they
VOL. II. D
50 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
are apt to cut the fingers of the user. It may happen, as I
have already hinted, that the distinction here dwelt upon
between psychical fact and import of the fact, between know
ledge as subjective activity or state and knowledge as appre
hension of the trans-subjective, is expressed in such a way
as to render the problems of both psychology and epistem-
ology insoluble, if not inconceivable, and the doctrines
(sciences) themselves incapable of further development.
At first sight, indeed, nothing seems simpler than the
general line of distinction between the psychological and the
epistemological points of view. It seems to find application
in so many special cases, that its general nature might even
be abstracted without difficulty. For example, we may ask
in regard to the total act called perception of space, what is
its nature as a process occurring in the inner life ? If it be
deemed simple and irreducible, in what relation does it stand
to those concomitants which serve at least as occasions for
calling forth its exercise ? If it be deemed complex, out of
what simpler facts of mind is it formed, and how are these
combined into the strict unity of the apparently simple act ?
In trying to answer such queries, we should be occupying
what is generally described as the psychological point of
view ; our analysis would be psychological. On the other
hand, starting from the same .basis of fact, the supposed per
ception of space, and to all appearance without needing
to refer to the kind of answer given by the psychological
analysis of the fact, we might raise a very peculiar question
in regard to the nature of that representation of objective
reality which seems to be contained in our perception. The
real is represented as having a special relation among its
parts, a relation so general and simple that we are perhaps
able to define its nature only by terms that suggest the
several aspects of the whole without exhausting its meaning.
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 51
We are entitled to ask, how far is such a representation of the
nature of the real to be accepted as valid, what does such a
relation of the real signify, and how does it harmonise with
such other qualifications as we think ourselves entitled to
assert of it ? And here I must point out that inevitably, and
almost involuntarily, there has come forward a curious am
biguity in the form of our question. The validity, worth,
significance of the representation of the real may mean one
of two things. It may mean, how far are we entitled to
regard as a characteristic of the real what is, after all, only
the content of our subjective act of apprehension ? How do
we effect what may be metaphorically called the transition
from the content of our perception to the nature of the real ?
Or it may mean, as was expressed above, how far is it possible
to interpret the character represented as belonging to per
ceived reality in harmony with such other qualifications as
we deem ourselves on similar grounds entitled to attach to
it? I am inclined to think that only the former of these
alternative modes of putting the question would be described
as epistemological by those who have insisted most strenu
ously on the basis of distinction between fact of mind and
reference to trans-subjective reality, and that, if any designa
tion be allowed for the latter mode of putting the question,
it would be described as metaphysical. And it appears to
me desirable to separate the two, for not impossibly it may
be thought after further consideration that the former ques
tion, if expressed, as is usually done, in all its generality,
implies a mode of looking at knowledge which would render
any answer to it impossible.
On the basis, then, of this general distinction between
the fact of mind and its value as a representation of trans-
subjective reality, there is rested the broad distinction be
tween psychology as a treatment of the facts of mind and
epistemology, the consideration of the relation between the
52 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
contents of these facts of mind and the characteristics of
ulterior reality which they seem to represent. In scope and
in method the two seem distinct from one another, and, if I
understand rightly the attempts that have recently been
made to secure a definite place for epistemology, that doctrine
is held to be independent of psychology, and indeed devoid
of any presupposition. Even if it be necessary in the episte-
mological investigation to take for granted the fact of knowing
as it presents itself in the inner life, the inquiry does not
proceed on or by the help of the features of knowing which
psychological analysis may disclose. In its general nature,
if not in its special method, the epistemological investigation
resembles that aspect of the Kantian treatment of knowledge
which is most often described by means of an antithesis
between it and the psychological analysis of mind.
I am convinced that no further advance is to be gained in
clearing up our ideas regarding the distinction here expressed
in its broadest fashion, so long as we content ourselves with
the abstract difference between the notions fact of mind
and validity, trans-subjective reference, or whatever else
we may call it. If the distinction be real and important,
capable of serving us in laying out the general problem of
philosophy, it must be expressed in terms of a more rigorous
determination of the elements opposed to one another in it.
It seems to me far from satisfactory to work with the vague
and ill-defined term facts of mind. Psychology may cer
tainly be denned, in a rough-and-ready fashion, as the science
of the facts of mind ; but in so denning it we are apt, on the
one hand, to forget what is implied by the qualification of
these facts as facts of mind, and, on the other, to take much
for granted that calls imperatively for consideration. I
question whether we can ever come to an understanding in
regard to the real character and value of the distinction
O
which no doubt obtains in some way between the psycho-
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 53
logical and the epistemological points of view, unless we
undertake the somewhat ungrateful task of defining what
we mean by facts of mind.
Now on this point, and keeping in view the special
problem before us, there seem to rne to be two main con
ceptions running through our ordinary modes of expression,
each of which, fortunately, has had an exponent in the past
history of philosophy. According to one of these views, facts
of mind, taken in the mass, are objects of knowledge, appre
hended by processes essentially the same in kind as those
applied to the knowledge of so-called external things, and
forming, therefore, the material of a science which holds to
mind the same position as physics, in the widest sense, holds
to external nature. According to the other, facts of mind and
external things stand by no means on the same level in
respect to experience or knowledge. Facts of mind are
taken to be at once the instruments of knowing and the only
objects directly known. Of what is mental fact we are
directly aware, and we are directly aware of no other fact.
The first of these views I shall call the Kantian, for a
very precise statement of it is to be found in Kant, and, on
the whole, I think it expresses the essential feature in his
conception of psychology ; the other I shall call the Cartesian,
for though Descartes himself can hardly be said to have
formulated it with great defmiteness, it is implied in his
general position, is a leading idea among his immediate fol
lowers, and is naturally adopted by any who approach the
general philosophical question in the Cartesian fashion.
Now, in regard to the first of these, it is fortunately quite
unnecessary that I should try to unravel the tangled skein
of questions that has gathered round the critical method.
How far it is the case that the critical analysis of experience
is dependent on psychological assumptions, and that the
54 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
results are expressed in terms of psychology, need not at
present concern us. What is certain, and of sufficient
interest to repay separate consideration, is that Kant im
agined himself to have drawn a sharp distinction between
the psychological and the transcendental analyses of experi
ence, and that, in accordance with this, he thought it possible
to contrast the two doctrines, psychology and theory of
knowledge. It is quite possible that we may come to the
conclusion that his distinction was erroneous, and that the
assumption of it lies at the root of much of the ambiguity
always attaching to his epistemology. But we cannot refuse
to admit the existence of the distinction for him, and, con
sequently, that he intended the two lines of inquiry to be
thoroughly independent. Moreover, this view of psychology,
even if freed from the peculiarities of the Kantian doctrine
of knowledge, is one that naturally presents itself, and that
finds abundant statement in the literature of the subject.
The sole superiority of the Kantian statement, that which
renders it available for my purpose, is that it does not rest
content with the bare generality. It condescends to par
ticulars, and enables us to appreciate the doctrine in its
details.
Psychology, in the Kantian view, is the portion of experi
ence constituted by knowledge of the facts of the inner life.
Such knowledge, so far as it is given, has the form of know
ledge in general. The material is presented to the receptive
faculty of inner sense, is apprehended as event in time, and
ought, in order to be fully known, to be systematically con
nected by these pure forms of thought, the categories. I
hardly require to say that in regard to this last point Kant
wavered in his view, and exhibited so much indecision and
hesitation as to show how great was the difficulty involved
in his conception of psychology. I think that the hesitation
increased upon him, and that, though it would be foolish to
Hi.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 55
try to extract much from the extraordinary medley of jottings
contained in his posthumous work, yet without much trouble
one might find there many expressions throwing light on the
line into which his reflexions were leading him. I am
particularly struck by the fact that in it the expression
making of myself the object is invariably used, not as it
would be in the Critique, to indicate the empirical apprehen
sion of inner states through the inner sense, but to indicate
the process of perceiving, intuiting the object in space.
Without, however, pursuing this, which has only historical
interest, I return to the general conception of facts of mind
as the isolated objects of inner sense, apprehended as events
in time, and making up that empirical self which Kant so
strenuously contrasts with the so-called Pure Ego. There is
not a point in that conception which is not the cause of end
less trouble to Kant ; the whole conception is irreconcilable
with his theory of knowledge, and is in itself untenable.
The notion of an inner sense drives him into the difficulty
of allowing to knowledge itself a kind of twofold existence.
The thought of time as the form of the inner sense, and of
o
the inner sense only, brings him within measurable distance
of the crudest form of subjective idealism ; and the idea of an
empirical ego which has no inner connexion, but only the
purely external relation of sequence of its states in time, is
in fact a contradiction. The very antithesis which is made
between the empirical and the pure ego gives to the latter
that ambiguous place in the Kantian system from which,
even if we admit that our natural interpretations exaggerate
the perplexity, no ingenuity can altogether rescue it. I do
not myself believe that in the term pure ego we have more
than Kant s peculiar and unhappy way of naming the funda
mental characteristic of experience, that it is expressible only
in terms of consciousness, of mind ; but undoubtedly the way
of naming it conveys the impression that the pure ego is in
56 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
some kind of external relation to experience, and exercises
upon it the function of uniting what would otherwise be
incoherent multiplicity.
But I by no means rest the case against the description of
psychology as the knowledge of facts presented to the inner
sense and having the characteristic of events in time on the
difficulty of reconciling that with Kant s general doctrine of
knowledge. I wholly doubt its truth, and incline to think
that our general conception of psychology can never be satis
factory until we have once for all got rid of it.
It is not merely that on reflexion I find no evidence of the
presence anywhere in experience of the process which is
called the inner sense (and, if one had no further grounds for
doubting the existence of such an organ of knowledge, one
might find reasons enough in the absolute want of agreement
among psychologists as to its nature and conditions), but that
1 cannot convince myself that mental facts as such could
ever be presented in the fashion of objects to any sense or
perception, even if it be of the peculiar kind called inner.
To me it seems as if their very nature prevented the pos
sibility of such presentation, and that just what is specifically
characteristic of them must needs evade presentation in the
fashion of object, known or perceived. If it be urged that
psychical states are surely facts and can be known as facts,
the reply seems obvious that they are, at all events, facts of
mind, and that this qualification is exactly what prevents
their appearance as objects.
What seems to me to lie at the foundation of all the con
fusion on this point is the peculiar character which belongs to
each and every so-called fact of mind, and which emphatically
distinguishes it from fact of any other kind. Wherever
there is a fact of mind, as we shall call it for the moment,
there is a mode of what, for want of a better expression, I
term being for self. There is implied, therefore, a duality
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 57
of nature, which is not, however, to be conceived as a com
bination of two isolated or independent existences. The
simplest phase of inner life, the first dim obscure stirrings of
feeling, are ways in which there is apprehension, awareness
of a certain content. The content may be as indefinite as
one pleases, it is probably (almost certainly) never simple,
but it is there as defining the phase of mind or fact of
consciousness. And the general character of facts of mind
remains the same, however complicated or developed they
may be. It is a totally false abstraction, based on the
analogy of our conception of external things, to give to
the contents of these modes of apprehension a fictitious
independence, and to identify the act of apprehending which
makes them with a kind of inner vision directed upon
them.
I am aware that in taking this view of what is peculiar to
psychical fact I run counter to much accepted psychology,
and in particular to the opinions of one for whose work in
psychology I entertain the deepest respect. Dr James Ward
has consistently urged the necessity of severing the act or
mode of apprehension, the act of being aware or conscious of,
from that which is apprehended, that of which we are aware
or conscious ; and he appears to identify the counter- view
with the conception of facts of mind as independent objects.
Prcsentationism, as he describes this counter-view, he regards
as erring in method just by reason of ignoring the relation to
self inseparable from any fact of mind. If I understand him
rightly, and the matter is so subtle that it is easy to mis
understand, he regards as the only alternative to his own
conception that which gives to the contents apprehended
independent existence, and seeks to show how mind as a
whole is built up by their coming together. But this is by
no means the only alternative, and, so far as it is concerned,
I am heartily in agreement with Dr Ward in regarding it as
58 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
a wholly inadequate conception. It is possible, and I think
it is necessary, to insist that there shall be no distinction of
existence drawn between the act, state, or mode of being
conscious and the content of which we are conscious. I am
quite aware of the difficulties attaching to this mode of con
ceiving of mental facts, and in particular I recognise the
awkwardness of the question which will doubtless be pressed
upon it, What, then, is this self for whom the mental fact
is ? Our natural tendency is to interpret in accordance with
the distinctions of that matured experience to which the
inner life has reached, and it is only by analogies based on
such matured self-consciousness that even a partial answer
can be given. But I am prepared to say, on the one hand,
that the matured self-consciousness would be impossible if
the primitive and simple facts of mind had not as part of
their very nature this obscure self -reference, and, on the
other hand, that neither the primitive nor the matured self-
consciousness indicates a factor distinct from the inner states
themselves. It is, to my thinking, the fundamental error in
the Kantian doctrine of experience that it appears to give a
kind of abstracted being to the pure ego or self, and yet
there is much in that very doctrine to cause us to hesitate
in ascribing so impracticable a view to Kant. Even the
pure ego is not without its content, a content that it attains
to, and does not, in some incomprehensible way, possess from
the first.
Facts of mind, psychical states, so conceived can never be
directly presented as objects. Just as little can they be appre
hended as merely events in time. Time is, after all, a relation
in what is apprehended, a relation in the content of which we
are aware ; and reflexion will convince us that in the complex
state of mind we commonly describe as the remembrance of
our past mental states, the presence of a conception of the
external world of objects is an integral element, and that we
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 59
are in truth reproducing or reviving contents that have the
time-relation in them.
When we describe the facts of mind as a series of events
in time, we are vainly trying to regard them from the point
of view of an outside observer. We are not describing them
as they are for the consciousness they compose. There they
are not objects of which the subject is aware, but ways in
which he is aware. And nothing whatsoever is gained by
introducing the perfectly empty conception of the subject as
distinct from these and as affording a bond of union among
them. It seems to me more true to say that the subject is
his mental states than that he has them. The unity which
attaches to the conceived subject depends upon the content
of his consciousness rather than constitutes its form.
From this point of view there is no real difficulty in
replying to the question which was quoted from Professor
Dewey, and which re-echoes much that has been made
familiar in recent English writing through T. H. Green :
How can consciousness, which in its primary aspect is a
series of psychical events, be the consciousness for which a
permanent world of objects exists? The content of con
sciousness by no means remains for ever in the crude
condition of its earliest stage. That which is apprehended
need not and cannot retain for ever the rich but confused
detail of immediate perception. Why should the content
apprehended not have the mark of permanence ? It has it,
in every case of thought as contrasted with intuition, and I
see no reason for supposing that in thought we have more
than a higher development of the same psychical functions
of apprehending that are exemplified in crude intuition.
The Kantian distinction of sense and understanding was
probably in its original conception connected with a differ
ence in kind between the psychical acts supposed to be
involved, but it needs only a reference to all recent work on
60 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
Kant to assure us that what is of importance and significance
in the distinction depends in no way on the psychological
basis given it by Kant.
If, now, there be resigned as imperfect the mode of viewing
psychical facts as so many objects to be known, and with it
the conception of psychology as a kind of natural science,
there must likewise be resigned the distinction which Kant
seemed to draw between psychology and epistemology. It is
quite true that Kant did not assign to epistemology the
problem which springs naturally from the Cartesian mode
of treating facts of mind. He did not think that it was the
business of epistemology to determine whether it was at all
possible by subjective process of knowing to reach cognition
of objective or trans-subjective fact. It is to his credit, I
think, that when he is expressing himself most carefully in
regard to knowledge he does not intrude ideas as mediating
between the conscious self and objects. But, on the other
hand, it seems to me impossible to follow out consistently
the general method which he applied to knowledge, or to
accept as fairly expressing the philosophical problem his
well-worn question, How is experience possible ? However
successful his analysis is in laying out the connective links
of an experience in which the subject is conscious of himself
as confronted by a world of objective fact, there is not to be
altogether excluded from it the intrusive and baffling con
ception of this as a result due to the formative action of
mind on what is supplied to it. From this conception the
critical account of knowledge is not to be freed. It goes
along with too many of the occasioning causes of the
whole Kantian work to be regarded as merely accidental.
Distinctions of form and matter, of a priori and a posteriori,
of necessary and contingent, presented themselves to Kant as
absolute, as distinctions of kind calling for explanation by
reference to heterogeneous sources, and compelling thus the
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AXD EPISTEMOLOGY. 61
analysis of knowledge to assume the more familiar aspect of
an account of the way in which knowing comes about.
It is from what I have ventured to call the Cartesian
position in regard to facts of mind that a certain mode of
formulating the episternological question comes forward most
readily, and in most precise fashion. Fortunately the Car
tesian position is relatively simple in its statement. Accord
ing to it facts of mind are known directly, and direct know
ledge is confined to such facts of mind. The human mind
has its own states of consciousness, has knowledge of them,
and directly, immediately, knows nothing except them.
From this point of view the process of knowing arid what
is known are primarily subjective. If, then, all that is other
than the inner facts of the subject s consciousness (and indeed
in strictness, perhaps, all that lies beyond the momentary act
of knowing) be termed trans-subjective, it is not possible to
affirm without qualification that the trans-subjective is known.
It obviously is not in consciousness, and only in regard to
what is there can there be immediate certainty, self-evidenc
ing conviction. Apprehension of the trans-subjective must
be mediate, and in whatever process we conceive it to consist,
however far we may think it extends, it must suggest the
problem, How is it possible that what is not in the subject,
in consciousness, should nevertheless be apprehended by what
is, and is directly known as, a fact in consciousness ?
Although the position is capable of a tolerably simple
statement, it is not always clear how far we may proceed in
interpretation of the metaphors with which it abounds. In
and out of consciousness, for example, are phrases in use
habitually, without much appreciation of the very curious
implications they involve. The boundaries of what is
immediately certain are not always drawn with the same
strictness ; and while I admit that I think the rigour of the
62 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART r.
argument would compel the restriction of the immediately
cognised to the momentary, atomic, unconnected psychical
state, if state it can be called, I do not think it necessary to
thrust this interpretation on the view as a whole. Nor can
I attach any great importance to certain qualifications with
which the statement of it is sometimes accompanied. Volkelt,
whose exposition of it in his important work Erfahrung und
Denken seems to me the most complete and developed,
after saying that for philosophy no opposition is so funda
mental as that between process of consciousness and the
trans-subjective, remarks, " The opposition, it is true, is not
metaphysical but epistemological. It determines nothing in
respect to difference in the mode of existence of the two ; it
concerns only the relation in which the two stand severally
to the attempt to have knowledge of them." l That is to say,
what lies beyond my consciousness may be in its existential
nature either corporeal or spiritual, either matter or another
conscious life with my own ; in any case it presents the same
problem for knowledge ; it is not in mind ; it is not itself a
process of consciousness, and cannot be cognised with simple
indefeasible certainty. It has the stamp of the trans-sub
jective. But this qualification has importance only if the
position be granted, only if we maintain that there are
really two questions involved : one, how it is possible to
know the trans-subjective at all ; the other, how we are able
to determine the nature of that which is in any case appre
hended as trans-subjective. For my own part, I am unable to
attach significance to the first of these suggested questions,
and the latter hardly seems to me to require the special
designation metaphysical.
I have never been able to divest myself of the conviction
that the general argument just presented rests on a confusion
of thought, and screens the true order of development of the
1 [Erfahrung und Denken (1886), p. 103.]
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY. 63
inner process of knowledge. No doubt it is not easy to
ensure that, when one discusses the simple rudiments of ex
perience, the terms employed shall have a significance on
which we are in agreement. Still, allowing for the danger
so arising, it seems possible to disentangle the confusion into
which we seem to me to be led by this absolute antithesis
between subjective process of consciousness and the trans-
subjective. An isolated act of mind is evidently the hypoth
esis from which the argument starts ; and it is maintained
that such an act of mind, say, for example, a state of sense-
apprehension, may be, and must be known as mine, as subjec
tive. As I have already said, the rigour of the argument would
cast doubt upon this term mine, the meaning of which can
hardly be supposed to be given in the sense which would
make it identical with subjective in the isolated process. But
apart from that, I am prepared to say that I see no evidence
for the assertion that the act of mind is originally appre
hended as a process of rny consciousness, and further, that
any meaning the designation subjective comes to possess, it
acquires as part of the larger complex notion of the inner
life as distinct from the space-extended not-self. If we are
attempting to trace the development in us of the recognised
distinction between subjective and trans -subjective, we do
wrong, it seems to me, in extending too rapidly the scope of
the latter term. It appears to me obvious that the type of
trans-subjective indicated by the term other conscious minds
is dependent and derivative. I am far from saying that the
only meaning of subjective is what it gains in and through
the opposition between the act of perceiving and the space-
extended that is perceived ; and, above all things, I do not
imply that the recognition of this opposition is a simple
primitive fact of mind. But I feel inclined to say that all
further determination the subjective receives in the course of
the development of experience depends upon this initial dis-
64 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
tinction, and that it is only when that distinction is appre
hended, dimly or clearly, that there comes to be possible any
signifiance at all in the designation subjective.
There is no doubt that to some extent this mode of view
ing the question returns to the lines of a well - known
portion of the Kantian work; but it approaches it from a
wholly different standpoint, and is free from certain dangers
which Kant s statement did not succeed in evading. The
general idea of the correlation of inner and outer experience,
which underlies the Kantian position, seems to me true and
fruitful, capable of application far beyond the limits of the
use to which, in this special case, it was put by Kant.
The Cartesian method, as I said, seems to me to reverse
the true order of development of experience. It assumes
that we begin with the knowledge of subjective states, and
then, by some mode of reflexion on or about them, are led
to the conception of a trans-subjective, to which must always
cling something problematical. Perhaps reversal is too strong
a term to apply to this account, for I do not think that the
initial step in the development of knowledge is the position
of the trans-subjective or objective. Perhaps we deceive
ourselves here a little by using too freely the term know
ledge, which can hardly fail to carry with it the counter-
implication subjective existence of the act of knowing, trans-
subjective existence of that which is known. In this sense
of the term knowledge, it cannot be maintained for a moment
that with it our experience begins ; and I cannot see more
than an equivoque in that most astonishing opinion with
which Mr Herbert Spencer must have startled the student
of his Psychology, " I see no alternative but to affirm that the
thing primarily known is not that a sensation has been experi
enced, but that there exists an outer object." l I am perfectly
1 [Principles of Psychology, 404, vol. ii. p. 369.]
in.] PSYCHOLOGY AND EP1STEMOLOGY. 65
aware that Mr Spencer does not regard this act of knowing
as itself primary, but I am not able to reconcile the two
points of view from which he evidently regards the question.
For my own part, I am content with the simpler and, as it
appears to me, more correct view, that the discrimination of
subjective and trans-subjective is one act or process, however
complicated, that it comes about in consciousness, and that
neither element is given without the other.
VOL. II.
66
IV.
KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY. 1
MANY lines of investigation, historical and critical, converge
in the general question of the relation of the main Kantian
doctrine to psychology. It is of some importance to be able
to trace the obligations of Kant to preceding writers on
psychology, and to determine the extent to which, in the
formulation of his own views, he seems to have been affected
by what he borrowed from current psychology. 2 Again,
from the earliest of the long series of discussions on and
about the Kantian doctrine, there has manifested itself a
deep-going difference of view as to the foundation and aim
of the whole doctrine, a difference of view aptly enough
designated as that between the psychological and the critical
or epistemological. The penetrating influence of the opposed
views so designated is to be discovered in some quarter or
another in wellnigh all the interpretations that have been
offered of the Kantian system. Finally, the powerful change
in the general character and direction of philosophy, due to
Kant, did not leave psychology itself unaffected. A new, or,
at all events, a highly peculiar and definite conception of its
1 [This paper is probably earlier in haps in connexion with the author s
date than any of the preceding. Al- projected History of Psychology.]
though only a fragment, it appears 2 An excellent summary of much
(unlike the other contents of these bearing on this matter is given in
volumes) to have been originally writ- Hegler, Die Psychologic in Kant s
ten with a view to publication, per- Ethik, 1891.
iv.] KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY. 67
scope and method was one of the results of Kant s analysis
of knowledge, and has since exercised an influence on all
psychological work.
These general lines of inquiry lead off into innumerable
side issues. Nor is it possible, as tolerably uniform experi
ence has shown, to deal with any one portion of the Kantian
doctrine without bein - drawn into the discussion of some or
O
all of them. The praiseworthy Commentary of Vaihinger
has only to be consulted to make us aware, not only how
multifarious are the detailed questions that surround each
step of Kant s analysis of knowledge, but also how continu
ously there present themselves discussions unmistakably
psychological in character. It was, and it is, inevitable that
the statement of any view regarding the nature and validity
of knowledge should be made in terms that have a certain
vague fixity of meaning as parts of the nomenclature of
psychology. The significance assigned to such terms in the
course of the inquiry into knowledge is often either obscured
by an interpretation of them in accordance with their current
psychological use, or may be thought to be illegitimately
reached as a consequence from the unfounded assumptions
generally latent in the accepted nomenclature. The term
Bcgriff as employed by Kant will furnish ample illustration
of both alternatives suggested.
The general character of Kant s own conception of Psych
ology is not hard to state in his own terms, though the more
closely the conception is investigated the more serious are
the perplexities raised by it. Psychology has for its object
the phenomena of the inner life, just as Physics, natural
science in the widest sense, has for its object the phenomena
of external nature. Inner phenomenon, like outer, involves
given, presented matter, and for its cognition requires that
such matter should be apprehended under the general condi
tions whereby a definite known object is possible. Such
68 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
conditions are (1) the general rule of all presentation as
object to a subject, tbat the matter be in time ; (2) the
general rules of apprehension as object known, the pure
forms of understanding. The matter presented is every
modification of mind : perception, thought, feeling, desire.
Such matter is presented to the inner sense ; and just as
outer sense has its form space and is affected by the com
bining act of thought in the cognition of a determined object
in space, so the inner sense has its form time and is affected
by the combining act of thought in the knowledge of the
coexisting and successive phenomena of the inner life.
Whereas, however, the outer sense-material, by reason of its
form space, affords ground for the objectively valid use of the
pure combining forms of understanding and yields a com
prehensive conception a priori of the structure and relations
of the unity of external phenomena as nature, inner sense-
material, subject to the sole condition of time, exhibits no
general a priori law of its structure and relations other than
the formale of time itself that it is a continuous stream and
yields no body of a priori determinations. Nor does inner
sense-material lend itself even to the less complete theoretical
form of natural science ; its phenomena are non-mathematical
in character ; there is possible in respect to them only the
descriptive treatment of classificatory science, hardly even
the analytic processes of chemistry. Psychology, which is
empirical only (for of the impossibility of all Rational
Psychology one may be convinced by the reflexion that
the inner sense contains only the given material of inner
phenomena, not the substance of the soul as the unity of
which these are the states), is nothing but a descriptive
account of the series of facts, modes of his own existence in
time, of which the subject becomes aware through inner
sense. If such psychology be distinguished at all from
anthropology, it is so, Kant appears to say, because in it
iv.] KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY. 69
there is taken for granted that the capacity for feeling
and thinking, mind in the empirical sense, is something
peculiar in man an indwelling substance in him. 1
To this brief statement, divested so far as possible of such
technicality as does not seem essential, it has to be added,
first, that the empirically known contents of the inner sense
are apprehended as the self, that is, as at once identical with
and diverse from the pure ego ; and secondly, as is here im
plied, that a sharp distinction is to be drawn between the
empirical self of inner intuition and the pure ego. Kant
notes quietly that to some the view taken of inner sense
seemed to have the difficulty that it involved the conception
of a duality of self in one and the same person ; and, indeed,
were there taken rigorously one of the most tortuous of his
many tortuous expressions, 2 Ihe difficulty might be presented
in an exaggerated fashionx He does not, however, offer any
further comment, and contents himself with reiterating
that only through presence in consciousness of a determinate
intuition can the bare self-consciousness of the pure ego,
the correlate of all experience, be realised. How far this
extends, or how far it is compatible with his general analysis
of knowledge, are questions for the moment deferred.
That the empirical self is not to be confused with the
pure ego, that the inner sense is not pure apperception, are
such cardinal and familiar doctrines of the Critique that a
mere reference to them will suffice. However true it may be
that the simple form of all thought, the I think, is depend
ent for occurrence, for existence at all, on the concrete of
sense, it is not in its nature a determinable fact of intuition ;
it is not even a determinate notion. That which is the uni
form and indispensable condition of all knowing cannot itself
be an object known.
1 Werke. K. vii. 2. 51, 55 ; H. vii. 473-4.
- Kritik. B, 155-6 ; H. 129 ; M, 95 ; Miiller. i. 452.
70 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PAKT I.
The general statement of the field for psychology, taken
without special reference to the peculiar Kantian terms in it,
commends itself at first sight as containing the basis for a
scientific treatment of mind, and, interpreted as it was none
too closely, it for a time powerfully influenced psychological
research. There was something symmetrical and attractive in
the conception of the field of experience as divisible into the two
broadly distinct types of phenomena those of external and
those of inner sense of empirical science as either Physics or
Psychology. A certain community of method and aim between
the two types of science, giving added harmony to concep
tions of the sum-total of phenomena, seemed likewise to be
implied. If for the inner life there was no such funda
mental doctrine as abstract mechanics extends to natural
science, the cause was to be found in the peculiar character
of inner phenomena, their wonderful complexity, the weakness
of the inner sense, and the common confusion of ideas as to
its real nature. 1
Psychology regarded from this -point of view could evi
dently be distinguished sharply from the research into the
conditions of possible experience constituting the critical
theory of knowledge. Nothing could be more dissimilar
than the problems of the two inquiries ; nothing less possible
than to apply the leading thoughts and methods of the one
within the other. Psychology is at best a descriptive account
of a determinate portion of experience ; theory of knowledge
an investigation of the conditions under which experience at
all is possible. The first has to do with a determinate group
of facts, objects presented in experience ; the other takes for
consideration the conditions under which the object as such
can be presented at all. To the psychologist mind is but a
collective term for the series of inner states, coexistent and
sequent, of which the subject is aware through inner sense ;
J See, e.y., Jakob s Erfahrungs-seelenlehre, 157 ff.
iv.] KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY. 71
to the critical investigator into the conditions of knowledge,
mind names no fact or group of facts, but the necessary
implicate in all facts.
But, though these distinctions may possess a certain super
ficial value, they are too dependent on the special determina
tion given of the field of psychology to be decisive. They
ignore the real difficulties, which are only hidden under, not
solved by, the conception of the nature of inner sense and
the way in which the subject presents to himself his inner
life. They are powerless to meet the objections urged against
the critical view of knowledge, that it is only the laying out
with much detail of an arbitrary psychological theory, that
is, a theory of the nature of mind ; and that in its own pro
cedure it is at every step conditioned by assumptions
psychological in character, that is, concerning the relations
to one another of facts of the inner life. For there may
certainly be urged as an objection to the critical theory of
knowledge what has often been regarded as a sufficient
representation of its outcome, that it rests on the hypothesis
of a specially organised structure of mind, the thinking and
perceiving principle in man, and offers as a final account of
the nature and validity of knowledge nothing but the vague
unsatisfactory conception of a mind which must arrange,
co-ordinate, reduce to form in accordance with its own
special structure, whatsoever impressions are made on it
from without. It is from this point of view, one probably
wholly foreign to Kant but for which his language gives
ample warrant, that many of the current general objections
to his theory of knowledge are directed. It is argued that
the conception of mind, so organised as to impose form in
general on the contents supplied to it from without, in
consistently places mind in the position of one real fact in
relation of reciprocal action with others, and at the same
time renders it impossible to explain how such form in
72 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
general is realised in particular modifications. The a priori
forms of intuition or of thought are just as far removed
from and as incapable of explaining the concrete particular
as the Platonic idea was remote from and helpless to explain
the world of generation.
Returning now to the general statement, we find that
it suggests two somewhat distinct inquiries : first, how far
does it offer a conception of psychology possible in itself
and consistent with the Kantian theory of experience ?
and secondly, what light does it throw on the relation
between the psychological and the transcendental methods ?
As regards the former question, it is tolerably evident
that the statement, taken in its generality, has but super
ficial clearness ; that it cannot simply be interpreted as
an expression of the view familiar in the writings of the
Scottish school, that, as our notions of mind and matter
are alike relative, the proper object of investigation, for
psychology as for physics, is phenomena only ; but that it
contains, in an involved confused fashion, a multiplicity of
thoughts which require to be analysed before the full import
of the general statement can be determined. As regards the
second question, however clear it may be that, on Kant s
own conception of the province of psychology and of the
problem of theory of knowledge, no two methods could be
more distinct than the psychological and the transcendental,
it is possible to ask, and it may be useful to consider, how
far he is successful in freeing the critical investigation into
the nature of experience from presuppositions essentially
psychological in kind, and in particular how far the per
plexities which we shall probably discover in his treatment
of psychology affect at the same time his central thought
of the unity of self-consciousness. The two inquiries run
into one another, but there is a certain convenience in
keeping them for a time apart.
iv.] KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY. 73
The field of psychology is a certain portion of experi
ence, of knowledge therefore. It is to be defined more ex
plicitly in terms of the general conditions of experience, of
knowledge at all. What is known must, in the first instance,
be given as matter of intuition, in order that it may be a
somewhat at all, and morever must be given in or subject to
such form as renders it possible material for apprehension.
It must, in the second instance, be determined as an object,
that is, thought as object for the apprehending perceiving
subject. Such thought has a twofold aspect. It is, on the
one hand, the consciousness on the part of the thinking self
of its own unity as opposed to the given material of intuition ;
on the other hand, it is the reference of the given material of
intuition, in itself a haphazard of contingent appearance, to
the conceived unity of the object, the recognition of the
universal of law in the manifold particular. These two
aspects may be distinguished in our abstracting reflexion
on experience ; they are in essence one. The object to which
the material of intuition is referred is nothing but the con
ception, the thought, of a determinate order, and that in turn
is nothing but the consciousness of its own unity on the part
of the thinking subject. Difficulty may be felt in consequence
of the way in which we state, and must state, the act of know
ing, as the reference of Vorstellungen, given intuitions, to the
object. We inevitably tend to think of the object as distinct
from and in existential relation to the given material. But
the object of such reference is, in general, nothing but the
conception of unity of itself on the part of the subject, and
in particular, such varied conceptions of its unity as are
possible for a percnving subject, a subject whose unity is
determined in relation to given forms of intuited material.
Within the domain of particular science there is nothing to
prevent us from employing the dual mode of expression in
respect to objects known ; and if we choose to designate the
74 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
empirically given material as phenomenon and refer it to the
conceived object as that of which it is the phenomenon, no
greater inconvenience would follow from the reflexion that
the object so conceived is itself the phenomenon than the
necessity of using the awkward phrase phenomenon of
phenomenon, a mode of expression which makes its appear
ance in the fragments of Kant s posthumous work. 1
With these generalities in view, we ask what is the material
of intuition for the apprehension of self as an object ? and to
this simple question we presently discover that there is no
very direct answer forthcoming. Kant himself, and the
Kantian psychologists who professedly proceed on his prin
ciples, are led by the use of a term still to be considered-
inner sense to refer generally to the material as the con
tents of the inner life, perceptions, imaginations, thoughts,
feelings, desires. But in a tolerably official passage in the
Critique, 2 it is expressly said that the contents of inner sense
are just the contents of outer sense a statement which
has sometimes been connected, though without sufficient
ground, with the familiar Kantian doctrine that feeling is
generically distinct from knowing or from the objective
presentative element in the cognitum. Whatever be the
merits of this doctrine (and in the vague fashion in which
it is here referred to it is useless to consider them) acceptance
of it here would conflict strangely with its own implication
that feeling is the specifically subjective element in experi
ence ; for it would be not a little remarkable were the sub-
1 See Altpr. Monatssch., 1882, pp. the pure and the empirical ego, and
289, 292, 295, 296, 300. This posthu- which I find hard to reconcile with
mous work is sufficiently hard to un- the passages quoted. I do not know
derstand ; but on the particular point on what ground Vaihinger proceeds
referred to I am not able to agree with in asserting that the terms direct
Vaihinger s interpretation (Strass- and iiwlirect have got transposed on
burger Abh., pp. 156, 157), which p. 300.
seems to imply a more definite dis- 2 Transc. ^Esth., 8. ii. ; B, 67 ;
tinction than I can discover between M, 40.
iv.] KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY . 75
jective factor to play no part in the subject s apprehension of
his own existence, to form no part of what the subject ap
prehends as his own mode of existing.
There is obviously some ground for Kant s fluctuation
of view on this important point, and we shall presently
discover what that ground is. Meantime, keeping still
to the generalities, we go on to ask, In what way is this
material for the empirical knowledge of self received ?
To this the consistent Kantian answer is, By the inner
sense, and subject to the condition of the inner sense,
time. The notion of inner sense has an evil history,
and nowhere has it been more unfortunate than in the
Kantian theory. As there denned, it may fairly be re
garded as a product of combined abstraction and analogy.
The broad experience from which we start is vaguely ex
pressed in the phrase that we are aware of our own temporally
changing existence as contrasted with the existence of outer
things. Perceptions of these outer things are themselves
temporally determinable changes of our own existence. As
changes in the particular of experience, they must be ap
prehended through a sense; they are given. As contrasted
with apprehended outer things, the objects of outer sense,
they must be received through an inner sense, which stands
in the same relation to them that outer sense stands to the
perceived outer objects.
It is perhaps not to be urged as a special difficulty in this
mode of viewing the apprehended material of self-perception
that it just fails to include the characteristic feature the
identification of the perceived with the percipient self for
Kant consistently declares that any explanation of this
feature is impossible ; but it is evident that it throws the
whole burden on the peculiar nature assigned to the inner
sense, towards elucidation of which there is singularly little
in the Critique. It is only by following out the further
76 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
steps in analysis of the whole process of self-perception
that we get additional light.
The form of inner sense is time, and time is form of the
inner sense only. The percepta of outer sense are determin-
able as in time, only because the material element in the
process of outer sense is and must be also material of inner
sense. Nothing can be more explicit than Kant s repeated
declarations on this perhaps the most perplexing point in his
whole analysis of perceptive experience. It lies at the root
of the doctrine of schematism, and it comes to the front in
the discussion of the real character of the external perceived
object. The first and obvious inference from it would be,
not merely that, as he frequently seems to say, outer and
inner sense are equally primordial, inexplicable in their
characteristic features, and just side by side, but that a
certain priority belongs to inner sense. Such an inference
as is well known, is completely at variance with Kant s
views; and it seems probable that insight into the hazard
ous character of the conception of inner sense came about
from consideration of the third element in the process of
self-perception. It is by an act of understanding that the
given material of inner sense is determined as an object in
experience, is cognised. Such determination concerns only
the time-relations of the given matter ; but for the determina
tion of time-relations a feature of the given is required that
is not furnished in the matter of inner sense. There is not
possible in the field of inner experience the reference of
given materials to the unity of an object as determining the
order of their appearance such as we find in the case of outer
experience. It is only in correlation with and dependence
on outer perception that we become able to determine the
empirical sequence of states of the inner life as changes in
the object known. But this is to say, in other words, as has
been often pointed out, that we do not cognise self or its
iv.] KANT S VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY. 77
changes as object at all. Whatever other account we may
offer of the way in which self-perception comes about, or,
indeed, of the meaning of that process, we must give up the
attempted parallelism of inner and outer experience, and
with it the basis for that kind of psychology which Kant,
or his immediate followers at least, seemed to contemplate.
A peculiar danger, indeed, attaches to any attempt, how
ever carefully guarded, to conceive of Vorstellungen, the
apprehended contents, as objects. Language, which has much
to account for in popular psychology, plays its own hurtful
part in reference to this fundamental point ; and ho\vever
fairly it may be recognised that we are dealing only with
an abstract, an aspect of a concrete whole, it is almost im
possible to escape from the implications of the substantival
terms used. For Kant the difficulty is aggravated by the
pronouncedly subjective colouring of his expressions a
colouring deepened in the posthumous work in the confused
treatment of the central idea of his system. The moment we
allow ourselves, as Kant does, to speak of Vorstellungen as
the matter known, and to identify such Vorstellungen with
the assumed objective states of the empirical self an identi
fication which he resists but which is inevitable on his view
we are thrown back into the weakest form of the subjective
idealism, from which the Kantian theory of perception seemed
at first to save itself. Such a result, no doubt, arises from a
confusion between the psychological and the transcendental
points of view ; and there is much in Kant which shows he
was well aware of the need of holding these apart, but it
can hardly be maintained that in his exposition the con
fusion is only one of language. It seems to go deeper than
that,
78
V.
PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 1
IT is not my intention, in these rather desultory remarks, to
attempt any historical account of the ways in which philos
ophy, in the official recognised sense, has actually connected
itself with the general problems of social life. Such con
nexion has, indeed, never been wanting, though it has had
many degrees of intimacy. From Plato to Hegel and Comte
and Spencer, the great speculative thinkers have always en
deavoured to include within their scheme some explanation
of what are the distinctive features of social life, the economic
arrangements, the code of laws or body of customs, and the
form of State constitution. Even more important than such
an obvious surface connexion between philosophy and social
inquiries is that which turns upon the influence of general
conceptions, conceptions therefore on the whole philosophical,
on reflexion upon any concrete problems. Such influence
is very often unconscious, even in the case of the trained
thinker who is proceeding methodically to his work. He
has already formed a general picture or representation of
things, and his mind operates constantly under its direction
and within its scope. What is true of the trained thinker is
still more true of the ordinary uncritical mind. And in the
latter case, as a consequence mainly of inability to lay out in
even partial outlines what the general picture is, there is the
1 [Address to the Civic Society of Glasgow, 14th April 1898.]
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 79
strongest inclination to deny its influence, and to assert the sim
plicity and freedom from prejudice of the plain practical mind.
It would be far more instructive to follow out the in
fluence of these general ideas on sociological thought than
to describe the various social philosophies which have formed
part of the work of the systematic philosophers. But it is a
more difficult task, and it is hardly possible yet to attempt it
on the full scale it requires. Isolated branches have been
taken up, as, for example, in Mr Bonar s excellent study on
the relation between Philosophy and Political Economy, a
work which shows how deep is the influence exercised on
economic speculations by general ideas, often vague and un
tested, regarding the true end of human life and therefore
by implication the natural, true, or best form of social
structure. Any economical theory, be it Adam Smith s, or
J. S. Mill s, or Karl Marx s, will be found on close scrutiny to
rest on certain assumptions, postulates, or ultimate prin
ciples, which the economist, if he be a shrewd and practised
disputant, will assert to be outside the scope of his science,
and to be defended or attacked on other than economic
grounds. In like manner, any practical discussion on some
economical proposal, for example, the increase of the death
duties, the relief of local rates, employers liability, or the
like, will be found to terminate in the long run in some
ultimate differences of view or feeling with regard to what is
deemed the right, the fairest, or the best arrangement of
human life. I do not wish to be understood as objecting to
the employment of such general ideas in thinking upon
social questions. Far from it : the only method known to
humanity by which it can hope to overcome a difficulty is to
reason it out, to endeavour thoroughly to understand and
explain it ; and all explanation involves the application of
general ideas. But it is necessary to test and examine the
general ideas thus applied ; for they are often picked up in a
80 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
haphazard way; they are frequently vague and incomplete;
they are always based on the experience already had, which
likewise may be incomplete and imperfectly known. Even
when the general ideas are very abstract, and of the kind the
philosopher calls formal, the same precautions are requisite
in regard to them. Let me take a couple of examples to
illustrate what I mean.
(1) It required some time, much advance in civilisation,
before the life of society, even in the limited type of a par
ticular nation, people, state, or city, could be selected as a
single object of consideration, and the inquiry raised as to
the causes which gave it a certain coherence and unity, and
furnished explanation of its distinctive features and of the
changes which occurred in it. When such isolation was
effected, when sociological speculation took its start, explana
tion was naturally given first and most directly by assimil
ating the object of research to something relatively familiar.
Primitive explanations are always of the same type, and turn
upon analogies, many of which tend to become unintelligible
in later times and in the light of fuller knowledge. The
analogy which first pressed upon the imagination of the
early sociologists was that between the society or state and
the living being. That a society was in its inner or generic
character an organism is one of the earliest, and has proved
itself one of the most persistent, of sociological conceptions.
In the body politic, as in the naturally organised individual,
there seemed to be a unity embracing and depending on a
multiplicity, a singleness of aim which is effected by the
co-operation of subordinate parts, and a reciprocal depend
ence of part on part which gives to each part a special and a
common character. Moreover, experience seemed to confirm
the analogy, for it seemed to show in the continuing life of
the body politic the same stages of growth or development
as those apparent in the organised body.
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 81
It took further time to expand the idea, to apply
it beyond the limits of the single body politic, and to
represent humanity as the identical unity which persists
throughout varied transformations, different states as the
subordinate parts working towards an end which embraces
all, international relations as consequences of the inter
dependence of the parts of a whole, and the rise and fall
of nations as the stages of the growth or development
of humanity. Such an expansion involves difficulties so
great that no early sociologists faced them, so formidable
indeed that they seem to indicate a limit to the application
of the conception, supposing the conception itself to be of
value and valid.
Undoubtedly no conception has more commended itself to
our ordinary thinking. It was among the earliest, it is
among the latest, of the general ideas brought to bear on the
social life. If it has not generated, it has connected itself
with, a great number of the cujiomata media of sociology, as,
for example, that constitutions are not made but grow, that
there is a natural order of opulence, or economic growth, or
social development. Yet, I venture to say that the employ
ment of the notion is always a sign of an unscientific stage
of sociological thinking. No one would deny the historical
value of the idea. It has served to mark out, compendiously,
differences of real moment, and it may even be said to have
had the same methodical importance that is claimed for the
notion of final end in physiology : it has drawn attention to
connexions which might otherwise have escaped notice. But
it has to be borne in mind that the differences between the
social life and that of an organised living being are far more
important and go far deeper than the resemblances, which at
best are but superficial, that the value of the explanation, so
far as it can go, is seriously affected by the consideration
that our knowledge of the exact differentia of organic life is
VOL. n. F
82 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
very imperfect, that we have no justification for assuming
as the explanation leads us to do, that organic life is, so to
speak, an ultimate fact, and finally, that the description, for
it is no more, of social life as organic constitutes no explana
tion whatsoever of it, and gives us no insight into really
causal connexions among its parts. I will go further, and
say that nothing can be more fatal to sociological thought
than the consequence easily and too often drawn from the
analogy, that there is an end, a purpose, a final idea to be
realised by the whole which, so far at least, is distinct from
the end, purpose, or idea of the parts.
(2) As a second example I take the general conception of
Progress or Development, likewise an early conception (for
the facts which it brings together lie on the surface, and
could hardly escape the glance of the first sociologists), but
undoubtedly a far more difficult idea than that of organic
life, apprehended therefore at first in an excessively vague
fashion, more dependent on secret underlying thoughts for
the meaning given to it, and presenting greater differences
between the earlier and later modes in which it has been
regarded. The analogy which I think pressed most upon
the minds of those who first formulated the conception
was that between the changes of an individual mind in
its growth and the history of human culture as exemplified
in arts and sciences and in constitutions. When the first
Greek thinkers considered the broad difference between
nature and culture, as exemplified in the contrast between
barbarian and Greek, between the less and more advanced
specimens of the Hellenic stock, between their past and
present states in arts science and civic life, they explained
it by appealing to the analogous differences in the natural
growth of the individual mind, from its first crude em
bryonic condition of vague sense -perception and instinct
up to reason and reflective moral conduct. The analogy
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 83
is harmless enough, but these thinkers imported into it
an element which has been veritably a damnosa hereditas
for their successors. The growth of the individual they
regarded as the realisation in the concrete of the idea, of
the eternal exemplar or type ; and consequently they were
naturally led to interpret social growth or development as
in like manner the unfolding in time of an eternal prede
termined plan. Strange and far away from us now are the
surrounding thoughts in which this conception of human
history as the realisation of an idea, the unfolding of a plan,
was first placed ; but the conception itself is deeply implanted
in our minds, it affects at every point our thoughts about
sociological questions, and it colours the whole terminology
we employ for discussion of them., A very Proteus, it
presents itself in infinitely varied and bafflingly indeterminate
forms : now as the Platonic conception of a world of ideal
perfection, now as the medieval thought of the decrees of
God, now as the eighteenth century personified nature, now
as the eternal not ourselves that works for righteousness,
now as the Hegelian absolute or the modern naturalist s
cosmic order.
Every one will allow that a notion which has the power
of incorporating itself with so many thoughts of profound
human interest is not to be lightly dealt with ; and indeed,
were it not in so many ways operative in sociology, one
would be glad to leave its consideration to the philosopher
whose business it is to test and try all such abstractions.
But unfortunately the notion, either in itself or in some of
its numerous implications, constantly presents itself in the
discussion of concrete social questions ; and the \vay in which
it is held certainly affects very deeply the different view s
taken of such questions. For it is quite impossible for any
human mind to entertain the thought that the varied scene
of human event is the partially seen development of a plan,
84 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
and not to fashion for itself some more or less detailed con
crete image of what the plan is ; equally impossible to avoid
the conclusion that what constitutes the plan is, or deserves
to be, accepted as the end determining conduct, the standard
by which to judge the actual fact of social life or any pros
pective change therein.
Such being the case, it becomes necessary to say, and to
say with emphasis, that whatever claims the conception of
human history as the unfolding of a plan may have, it is an
intruder, and a uselessly disturbing intruder, in sociological
inquiries. No one is denied the liberty of adding to what he
has gathered from experience and reflexion of the actual
conditions of social life, and of the real causes by which
social events are brought about, the further consideration
that in these conditions and causes he sees the mechanism
by which a plan is being evolved. Nay more, he may, if he
pleases, add to the desire he entertains for producing or
seeing produced an alteration in the actual, the additional
interpretation that he is thus co-operating with the scheme of
things/ is assisting to carry out the plan preordained. But
he is bound to remember that the plan, if plan there be, is
only known through experience and reflexion on the actual ;
that whatever ideal he forms is based upon the actual, is
the ideal of a relatively better than the present, not of the
absolutely best; and that his desire for the better is the
cause of any change he may seek to bring about in the
temporal order of social events : the inclusion of such change
in the eternal scheme or plan is not the cause. It is
of the utmost importance to expel from the region of socio
logical inquiry the notion of the absolute best, a notion
which is worthless when it remains in its abstract gener
ality and dangerous when expressed in concrete special
forms. I design to quarrel, on the one hand, with those
modern exponents of primitive Christianity who delineate
v.J PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 85
their absolute best in the form of a list of virtues or
excellences of character, without regard to the medium of
social life within which such virtues can be nurtured and
attain strength, and, on the other hand, with those hasty
socialists who dash off a new structure of society without
the slightest regard to historic conditions or the essential
correlation between character and circumstance.
The notions just commented on may serve to show how
impossible it is that philosophy, which deals with ult
imate questions and always with the human reference,
should be without influence on our thinking about social
problems. Philosophy has always endeavoured to reduce
the whole of our experience to systematic intelligible order,
so that it may be possible to understand human life in all its
conditions. It is the treatment of experience by thought,
and in the interests of thought, with a view to making the
position and relations of the thinking mind intelligible. The
ideas in which it sums up its efforts are therefore always
ultimate, general, systematic, and conditioned by their
central reference to man and his destinies. Nor are there
any other features by which to characterise the philosophic
method as distinguished from the scientific or artistic. But
if so, then it must be observed that philosophic ideas, like
our whole thinking, depend upon the experience they are
employed to interpret, reflect the fulness or poverty of that
experience, and undergo change in accordance with the
gradual increase of our mastery over experience. Just as
scientific ideas, while on the one hand they guide re
search into nature, are on the other hand modified by the
opening up of new aspects of nature and the accumulation
of new knowledge, so philosophical reflexion on social
questions, while it sums up from time to time our acquired
knowledge of social facts, is in its turn dependent on the
86 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
new forms of social life which are opened up or on the
increased clearness of insight obtained into the character
and conditions of what already exists.
The social problem in its widest extent is the explanation
of the actual forces in human nature and the conditions of the
surroundings under which a society grows up, is held to
gether, and changes, and under which the members of that
society are enabled to lead a common or conjoint life, to
share in certain rights, to discharge certain obligations, and
to enjoy in various proportion the fruits of human activity
and culture. Doubtless the term the social problem is
often interpreted in a more limited sense, is taken to mean
the inquiry into the possibility of altering conditions of
social life under which a result our reflexion disapproves
seems to come about. But any treatment of the narrower
question is fruitless except when based upon the discussion
of the larger. Zeal without knowledge is proverbially
dangerous, and never more so than when exercised upon
the excessively complicated facts of the social life. Though
in reflecting upon the character of social events we inevit
ably occupy for the moment a position as it were external
to them, yet in reality the feelings with which we view
these events, the standard by which we criticise them, are
themselves social facts, belonging to the main current, and
forming, indeed, no inconsiderable element therein. If, then,
in bringing together two such large generalities as Philosophy
and the Social Problem, I have seemed to take the view that
philosophy has somehow an independent contribution to
make towards the solution of the problem, that philosophy
is what Socrates used to complain his interlocutors took him
to be, a bag of arguments from which one might be drawn
appropriate to any given question, I desire to remove that
impression. Philosophy can do no more than think out as
completely as may be the experience of social life which we
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 87
possess, and it has perhaps gained more from the considera
tion of the concrete facts of social life than it has contributed
to their elucidation. Largely through the increasing pressure
of the social problem, philosophy has been driven to abandon
certain lonely heights on which it was too prone to dwell and
to give a much needed concreteness to its very abstract
notions. Its special function in relation to the social prob
lem is but that which it discharges in respect to any part of
experience, to insist on keeping together and in their natural
connexions all the elements or conditions entering into the
facts, and on viewing these in relation to the interests of
human thinking.
It is true that the conditions here referred to are so numer
ous, so complex are social facts, that the philosophic treat
ment of them must always remain very general, very remote
from immediate practice, and that, therefore, what philosophy
can offer in regard to social problems is more of the nature of
a corrective to misleading and incomplete ideas than of the
nature of guidance for action. It can hardly be denied, how
ever, that a clear insight into the intricacy of the questions
involved, even if it be gained from a very general analysis of
them, is an aid to such thinking as ought to precede action.
Now,thereare two features of social phenomena,constituting
in large part their complexity, which seem to me to exercise
an often unsuspected influence, and therefore to deserve
particular attention. In the first place, social facts exhibit
a very intimate combination of two distinguishable sets of
conditions, the natural and the artificial, as they may be
called ; and, in the second place, social phenomena are only
to be understood when viewed as parts of a continuously
changing stream : they are essentially mobile, historical.
Certainly, as regards the first of these features, I must
admit that it is not easy to draw a sharp line of severance
88 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. . [PART I.
between the natural and the artificial, and must add that
the line will be drawn at a different place in different stages
of social progress. I think there falls to be included under
the natural not only what depends directly on external
physical nature, but also all that enters into the acquired
habits and customary ways of action, the second nature
of the human being. By the artificial is meant all that is
explicable only by reference to the determinate, purposeful
action of individuals singly or conjointly, as, for example,
all forms of legislation on whatever topic. I suppose we
should be entitled to say that, historically, the second of
these, the artificial, grows out of the first ; at all events, it is
quite clear that the definite character of the second is always
determined by the first, and this is indeed the element of
truth in the view before referred to, which interprets social
development as organic growth. More difficulty will per
haps be felt in the proposition, which I think true, that
with every advance in social evolution the share taken by
the second factor, the direct interference with conditions
of social life, becomes larger and more significant.
Of course social facts exhibit the combination of these
elements in very varied proportions; and the difference in
this respect entails important differences in the character of
the result, and, on the whole, determines the ease or difficulty
of finding a general explanation of them. As, for example,
to take an instance from the sphere of economics, the social
facts indicated by the terms Kent of Land and Method of
Taxation stand almost at extremities of the scale of differ
ence. But whatever the difference, it is imperative to recog
nise the truth that the character and interconnexion of
social phenomena are largely dependent on the deliberate
purposive interference of the society, by one instrument or
another, with the so-called natural conditions of its life. I
have no wish to quarrel needlessly with the political econ-
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 89
omists ; but it seems to me that in the interests of scientific
method they have unduly thrown out of account this factor,
and have ignored the real and indissoluble connexion between
the economic structure of a society and that system of laws,
positive or customary, under which possession and enjoy
ment of property, of civic and municipal rights, belong to
the members of the society. They have tended, therefore,
to regard the artificial factor as an extraneous incident to
be reckoned with quite independently.
The second feature of social facts to which I drew atten
tion may be called briefly their historical character ; they
are events in a process; not to be understood, therefore,
without regard to what has preceded, and not to be regarded
as final. I will not labour this matter further ; it has be
come a commonplace to insist on the necessity for applying
to social phenomena the historical method ; and it is perhaps
equally a commonplace, or the conclusion one has to draw,
that it is not possible to point to any one form of social
structure which is absolutely indispensable to the welfare of
society: that, for example, as there have been economic
arrangements very different from the present, so there may
be changes of equal magnitude, provided that the ideas and
feelings of the society have undergone a corresponding modi
fication and find satisfaction in the new structure. All this
has become familiar.
But I desire to note that the changing character of
social facts holds good with respect both to the natural
and to the artificial. The thoughts and feelings about
social facts, the aspirations of humanity as they are
sometimes called, as they are continuously affected by and
moulded on the changing reality, undergo modification in
their very aspect as leading to new change in the stream of
social progress. I note this because it appears to me that
90 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
a remarkable oversight or underestimate of it is to be
detected in the most important general conceptions of social
progress which have dominated sociological speculation in
the eighteenth and in the nineteenth century.
In this sphere, as perhaps generally, the thinking of the
eighteenth century has received, by reason no doubt of its
apparently negative character, much harsher criticism than
it deserves. There is no negative that is only negation ; the
eighteenth-century thinkers had a sufficiently positive back
ground for their numerous negations ; and they did yeomen s
service in insisting upon clearness of ideas. At the same
time, it is to be admitted that the eighteenth-century thinkers,
in their idea of social progress, misconceived somewhat the
relation of the two elements they distinguished. Nature and
culture they so contrasted on the one side that, when it
became necessary on the other to exhibit their union and
interdependence in the actual life of humanity, the ideas
they had to apply were of an imperfect and mechanical
kind. It was an age rich enough in historians with at
least one representative of the historical method and yet
fairly enough to be held as wanting in genuine historical
imagination. The natural man, like the social contract, is
the figment of an essentially unhistorical way of looking at
the past. It was a consequence of the contrast, that emphasis
should have been laid almost exclusively on the need for
removing inequalities. Inequalities, according to Condorcet s
striking examination of them, were found () among nations,
(&) among individuals in (1) wealth (2) social status (3)
instruction, and (c)in the application of knowledge to human
conditions. Were all such inequalities removed, then it was
thought there must follow from the free expansion of human
nature the steadily perfecting system of social relations.
But, from the way in which nature and civilisation had been
pitted against one another, it was inevitable that the new
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 91
more humane culture should appear as something to be
mechanically induced upon the fundamental unit, man; and
thus to secure consistency of thought the new order came to
be conceived of as the re-establishment of that natural system
prescribed by and conformable to the constitution of the
same elementary unit, Man was taken too readily as a given
quantity, whose nature had just to be known, and there
forthwith would appear the system of social relations involved
in it, and insight would be gained into the measures required
to establish them as fact. Thus, by a somewhat curious turn
of thinking, the eighteenth-century sociologists tended to lay
exclusive stress on knowledge, on ideas, as the condition of
social progress, and on direct legislative action as the method
of effecting it. They were great at the construction of consti
tutions, even while stoutly maintaining that the constitution
framed was but the natural inherent expression of man, and
only required freedom from restraint in order to come into
existence.
If the eighteenth-century thinkers tended to give too ex
clusive a place to reason as the guide to progress, and to
legislative action as the instrument, there has been an equally
marked tendency in much sociological thinking of the
nineteenth century to underestimate the function of reason
and to minimise the scope of legislative action. Those who
have utilised most freely the conceptions of biology have
been led into an almost hopeless conflict of ideas by dwelling
on the contrast between the natural or cosmic order and
the ethical order. For it seems to be implied in such a
contrast that, while the cosmic order, including in it the
conditions of animal life, the struggle for existence, can be
matter of generalised knowledge, can be rationalised, the
ethical order, involving excellences of character wholly op
posed to the qualities required for the cosmic struggle, can
92 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
only be regarded as the product of some irrational feeling.
From this point of view there ought to follow complete dis
trust of legislative action as an instrument of social progress ;
I will not say that the conclusion has always been drawn
with express reference to the premisses on which it rests.
The contrast on which the whole rests is entirely unsatis
factory, and leads us altogether away from concrete facts
into the region of abstractions. There is no ground what
ever for supposing that there is an antithesis between the
qualities useful in the struggle for existence and the virtues
which find their scope in the moral order. Is courage,
for example, exclusively the property of the animal or
savage ? Is it not the case that such qualities form the
natural basis on which the moralising influences of social
progress operate, so that they undergo an essential transforma
tion and appear as the active principles in a life based on
and inextricably connected with the natural, different from
it, but not to be represented as an independent entity ? Is
there any abstract faculty of reason which we may pit
against an equally abstract feeling ? Or does not reason
mean always a highly concrete group of ideas united in a
special form, and varying with the whole character, sur
roundings, and stage of development of the rational being,
influenced therefore by feeling and influencing feeling, based
upon natural instincts, but transcending them and able now
to control and direct them ?
A complete account of social phenomena, that is to say, a
philosophy of the social problem, must, then, involve two
somewhat distinct inquiries. The one is mainly matter of
fact or scientific, the actual knowledge obtained from reason
and experience of the conditions under which a given social
structure has come into existence and is maintained in
existence. The other is mainly ethical or speculative, a
v.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 93
treatment of the grounds for the criticism we pass upon the
whole or any part of that structure as satisfying or failing
to satisfy the conceptions we form of what is in the interests
of social life. I do not think it possible to avoid recognition
of the equal necessity of these two inquiries ; the difficulties
which attach to both suffice to convince us that a complete
sociology is at present far beyond our reach. But exclusive
insistence on either constitutes the gravest obstruction to the
advance of sound sociological thinking. To deal, as political
economy has too often done, with the actual facts of the
economic structure without reference to the ultimate ques
tion as to how far such arrangements are in harmony with
our ideas and feelings respecting the advance of human life,
is to mistake abstractions for realities. It is an equal mistake
to indulge in fancy pictures of an ideal state of human per
fection without consideration of the actual constituents of
human life and the necessary correlation between character
and circumstance.
It would obviously be impossible to present in the brief
compass of an address even the most abridged statement of
the general conditions of a social life ; equally impossible to
do justice to the complicated ethical question which runs
alongside of all our thoughts about society. But, without
dogmatising about the ultimate ground of the distinction
between good and bad, I think one might fairly assume it
has been the purport of all the preceding remarks to justify
the assumption that if it be possible at all to distinguish
in the changing events of social life a better from a good,
then, even if we cannot frame a detailed picture of the
absolute best, and for a developing creature that seems
impossible, we are yet able and entitled to criticise the
existing arrangements of society from the point of view
of a better that seems attainable ; and our knowledge of the
real conditions of change in the social life will enable us to
94 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
judge to some extent by what method such better state may
be attained. To the extreme theorist, I know, such a view
will appear meagre, timid, unsatisfactory. He will call it
opportunism, a name I should not object to, for after all it
only means in the sphere of the practical that we take
enlightened experience as our guide, not any a priori
scheme of things.
Of all such a priori schemes I entertain profound distrust.
They assume a knowledge of human nature which I do not
think any one possesses, and. generally, in what they assert
about human nature, I think they are wrong. If I look, for
example, to Tolstoi s ideal of human life, I find it to consist
in the possession by human beings of all the Christian virtues,
with entire removal of all that civilisation has succeeded in
rearing upon the merely natural basis of human life. I doubt
whether the virtues could flourish in such impoverished soil ;
I altogether refuse to admit that humanity has ever seriously
desired the state of angelic barbarism. If I look to any one
of the socialist schemes which is sufficiently definite to have
even its outlines discerned, I find postulated a transformation
of human character which I think very little probable, and
not certain to be produced by the economic change suggested.
I doubt whether the history of the past supplies evidence to
convince one that in such a scheme humanity does find its
fullest aspirations realised. Both ideals seem to me vague
and illusory.
It is a long and treacherous path that lies between theory
and practice ; and I am painfully conscious how little one
may dare to offer practical suggestions from the theoretical
point of view. Yet the social problem presents aspects so
closely connected with the general tenor of the theoretical
view I have been expressing, that I am tempted to remark
on one or two of them.
\.J PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 95
It is desirable for that purpose to express, in somewhat
sharper terms than I have yet ventured to do, the general
character of the idea with which, as the result of reflexion on
what has worked best in the past history of society, what has
contributed most potently to its development, we may ap
proach the question of changes to be effected. Our aim, it
appears to me, may be defined as the establishment of such a
state of social relations that each shall have full opportunity for
development, for the kind of life that gives the amplest scope
to his capacities and powers, and that each shall have the
fullest opportunity possible for enjoying that improvement in
social conditions which is our heritage from the past.
Now, undoubtedly, the existing social structure in any state
is far from corresponding even to such a humble aim. The
earlier, less enlightened, types of civilisation have all of them
left their traces on human character and on human institu
tions. The strong sense of the indebtedness of the individual
to society, and admission therefore of the obligation to accept
such rules as may be deemed best for the common weal, are
products of modern civilisation ; and it is the clearness of
perception of these ideas, the strength of feeling accompany
ing them, not any deterioration in the condition of some
classes of the community, that have given such prominence
in modern times to social questions. But it would be a great
error to suppose that the solution of such questions is to be
had by a violent transformation of the social structure. The
true solution is the utilising of the means possessed by the
community in such a way as to secure, on the one hand, that
the obligations which each bears to the whole obligations
generally measured by the advantage his position yields
him shall be recognised and discharged ; and that, on the
other hand, the resources of the community shall be employed
so as to render possible for all the kind of life we accept as
desirable.
96 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
Let me take rapidly one or two examples of what I mean.
Inequality has long been recognised as the condition at
the root of many of the most acute social questions. It is
perfectly certain that no known mechanism can remove in
equality, just as certain that it is not desirable to attempt
to remove all inequalities. Inequalities of natural ability,
acquired skill, social status, are irremovable. Inequalities
of position or of advantage are equally irremovable. But
it does not follow because these are irremovable that there
fore we should, without modification, accept the results
now following from them. I see no reason whatsoever why
the benefits which are thus derived from working in the
favourable medium of the community should not be made to
bear their proportionate share in supplying the means for
any well devised scheme of social amelioration. In principle,
a graduated tax on the returns to industry (or on incomes
generally) seems to me thoroughly defensible.
Health and education are equally necessary conditions for
a vigorous, prosperous, and moral community. We have
already accepted, with some limitations, the principle that
under existing circumstances it is necessary that education,
which might not attract by its inherent advantages, shall be,
for the elementary stages, the concern of the community, and
shall be compulsory. Not only should I desire to go further
on that line, but I feel strongly that the same principle
should be applied in the case of our hospitals. I do not
think that these should be dependent on the contingency
of private charity. It is, in the long run, for the common
welfare that the conditions of health, so far as these can be
secured by the maintenance of hospitals, should be satisfied,
and I do not think there are insuperable difficulties in the
way of carrying out such a principle.
97
VI.
THE BASIS OF MORALITY.*
THE basis or principle of morality is certainly no new
problem. It has been a theme of discussion since reflexion
first turned upon the facts of experience in the hope and
with the intention of reducing them to some kind of intel
ligible system. Such reflexion, the source of science and
of philosophy, is obviously, as its very name implies, no
primitive direct exercise of thought. There is always pre
supposed in it a certain material, such detailed knowledge of
facts as has been acquired, and a certain formal element,
those uniting ideas in which thought has found satisfaction
for its attempt at explanation. The two factors which we thus
distinguish are not independent of one another. With every
increase in the one, nay, even with the change in our views
of the one consequent on the explanations we attempt of it,
there is given the possibility of an alteration in the other ;
and so intimately do the two work into one another that
after a certain time it becomes an almost hopeless task to
disentangle the facts from our theories about them, or to
secure that our theories are, so to speak, disinterested, that
is, are not infected by certain concrete prejudices of our
own. The degree to which any portion of our reflexion
attains such disinterestedness is perhaps measurable roughly
1 [Read to the London School of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 28th Jan
uary 1900.]
VOL. II. G
98 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
by the distance of the facts involved from our practical in
terests, that is, by the extent to which, in treating them, ab
straction can be made of the very complex factor, human life
and thinking. Mathematics, for example, is and has long
been free from such intrusion. Its facts can be defined ;
its explanations spring directly from the nature of these
facts, and can be seen to express no more than the unities
which bind them together. On the other hand, a theory of
morality is most of all exposed to the confusion that arises
from real indeterminateness of the facts themselves, and from
the foreign character of the explanatory ideas brought to
bear upon them. It is of all difficulties the hardest to keep
the facts and the hypothetical explanations of morality apart
from one another ; and yet, without clearness in this respect,
no scientific determination of the principle of morality can
ever be achieved.
The difficulty referred to is of course that which has always
presented itself in efforts at constructive philosophy. Kound
the vaguely known facts which constitute the material there
grows up such a thicket of fanciful interpretations that any
clear vision of the actual things becomes impossible. From
time to time there comes forward some resolute thinker who,
impatient of the obstacles, prepares to attain clear insight
by sweeping away every intervening theory and getting
straight to the facts. A new method is characteristic of every
great advance in philosophical thinking, and the new method
requires the dismissal of all prejudices that perturb the view
of real fact. Such clearings-out have generally had but little
success, so far at least as they have concerned the concrete
and complex region of human life. The reforming thinker
is too ready to suppose that his zealous cutting down gives
him the power of seeing the facts and no more, too ready to
forget that he least of all comes to their treatment with no
bias of acquired ideas.
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 99
The history of such philosophical endeavours is itself a
problem which we may seek to explain, and no one can
take into consideration even the relatively simplest of its
stages, say the development of early Greek speculation,
without discovering how largely the general theoretical
conceptions which these first thinkers employed are but
the abstract expression of concrete pictorial representations
drawn from sources altogether foreign to the facts they
were applied to explain. It is much more in such concrete
pictures, oftentimes so vague that they hardly deserve to
be called more than feelings, than in the abstractions based
upon them that we find the true inwardness of the philos
ophical view. The abstractions, indeed, may fatally deceive
us, for their attenuated generality may show no points of
obvious difference from the corresponding thoughts employed
by us, and we may therefore expound a Plato or an Aristotle
in such fashion as to give his speculations all the air of a
modern view, ignoring the real and profound difference of
spirit that makes him a Greek of two thousand years ago.
It is not necessary, in order to do justice to the continuity of
thought, that one should neglect the element of difference ;
on the contrary, only by giving full weight to it does the
continuity become real.
These general remarks I put forward only by way of a
defence in liniine for the slenderness of such contribution as
I feel able to make towards the discussion of so complicated
a problem as that of the basis or principle of morality. I am
far more deeply convinced of the difficulty of seeing exactly
what we want as principle or basis than of any power of
throwing light upon it, not to say of reaching a satisfactory
answer to it. At the same time, something may be done for
the substance of the question by a treatment which concerns
rather the form and method of reaching a principle than the
principle itself. For I incline to think there is consider-
100 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
x able confusion in one s mind regarding the relation between
morality, taken generally as the sum of accepted customs of
right conduct plus aspirations after a better state, and the
principle on which morality may be rested. It is easy to
entertain an erroneous view, and equally easy to fall into
discouragements, when the principle or basis assumed seems
to lack vital power, to yield no ready solution to the many
problems of detail we bring before it.
Perhaps at the present time, if I may indulge in con
jectural interpretations of rather vague phenomena, one
might think it possible to trace certain evidences of dis
couragement at the apparently small success in application
to moral questions of leading ideas that have approved
their worth in other fields of speculation. A certain re
actionary tendency in many departments of thought one can
hardly fail to recognise in this last quarter of a century.
It is doubtless no more than superficial, but among its
causes I incline to place the sense of disappointment at
the small significance for practical morality of general specu
lations on its principle and basis. Such disappointment may
be in whole or in part unreasonable ; it implies a special con
ception of the relation between morality and its basis, which
may be false or inadequate, but which at all events deserves
to be scrutinised and estimated. It seems to me, therefore,
that the problem I purpose considering, though it covers but
a small portion of a wide field, has some practical importance.
One further preliminary remark may be allowed. The term
scientific, when used in reference to the basis of morality, has
only methodical significance. It implies only that the prin
ciple or explanatory ground of morality is to be viewed
simply and strictly as that which finds expression in the
facts of morality, and if discerned, enables them to be
grouped into an intelligible whole. One might apply to
it Newton s maxim that no hypotheses are to be entertained
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 101
which are not deducible from the phenomena. There is not
implied in it that explanation of morality is to be sought in
the results of any other scientific treatment of other facts,
save in so far as indirectly all knowledge of the surround
ings of morality, of the conditions determining the course of
human conduct, must be of service towards understanding
morality itself. Considerable harm has been done by the
rash introduction into the treatment of one order of facts of
the general notions serviceable in explanation of another. It
is tolerably certain that a general notion has meaning only
in and through its particular matter, though it is very easy
to extend its application unduly. The extension may direct
our thinking on sound and fruitful lines, but is just as likely
to induce us to rest content with half-understanding. One
is rather thankful to note an increasing tendency towards
caution in the use of such notions as life and organism
when they are taken out of their appropriate department.
They are suggestive when taken as analogies, treacherous
when conceived as explanations.
It will readily be allowed that an answer to the general
question as to the basis or principle of morality is hardly
likely to be reached by a direct attack. A certain amount
of manoeuvring is admissible, even necessary, in order to gain
a position from which an approach may be made. There is
doubtless risk in such movements, for the case is much the
same in thinking as in conduct. The accomplished fact, the
step taken, has its inevitable consequences, and if it be ill-
judged, the result may be fatal. I purpose asking, in the
first instance, what kind of answer one may reasonably expect
to get to our question, in the hope that consideration of that
side issue may bring us some light on the more subtle
problem, What kind of relation is there between the principle
or basis and morality itself ?
102 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
Now, there seem to be two main ways in which such an
answer as we may desire has been defined : either by formu-
\ lation of a supreme law of human action or by statement of
N an absolute end, an ideal towards which conduct in its moral
aspect is directed. It is hard to say which of these, in some
one or other of the less perfect enumerations of it, has been
the earlier in point of time. In the history of philosophical
ethics, the second has received systematic statement both
earlier and later than the other ; for end, the final good, is
the dominating conception in the first ethical theories, those
of the Greek thinkers, and also in the most recent doctrines,
- whether naturalist or idealist. The first has received its
most explicit statement and its strongest defence, in modern
times, in the Kantian philosophy, though in cruder fashion
it presents itself in all varieties of theological ethics. There
are easy links of connexion between the two conceptions ;
we may pass readily from one to the other ; but they repre
sent, nevertheless, different ways of looking at the general
problem of morality.
Either conception may be regarded as a hypothesis, put
forward as explaining or enabling us to understand what is
peculiar in morality, and to be tested, therefore, by the
ordinary process of thinking, bringing into relation the hypo
thesis and the facts. In either case, it hardly requires say
ing, the conception must be understood not as an absolute
law which may somewhere or somehow hold good as an
absolute end, which is, so to speak, for the universe as a
whole, but as forming a part of human conscious experience.
The law must be represented or thought by us ; the end
must be capable of statement in terms of human experience :
otherwise it is impossible to see how, for us at least, either
can make intelligible what is certainly matter of experience,
namely, morality.
Let it be assumed that this actual representation of ab-
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 103
solute law or absolute eud is possible (I shall reserve for
the moment the doubt as to the possibility of such rep
resentation), then there arises the next question, In what
way does the hypothesis work ? how does either conception
render morality intelligible to us ? There are two rather
obvious analogies, or metaphorical images they might more
appropriately be called, which have always found applica
tion in the answers to this question. The one is the image
of a logical or even a legal system, the other is that
an organism, a living being and its activities. The one is
naturally employed in working out the conception of an
absolute law ; the other, in the case of a supposed absolute
end. In the first case, the relation is conceived as that of
general to special ; morality presents itself as the specifica
tion in definite directions of an all-comprehensive rule of
conduct. In the other case, the relation is less easily im
aged ; the end is related to the special functions as the
active living principle which works itself out under varying
conditions ; concrete morality is therefore represented as the
definite ways in which organisation of conduct is brought
about by the constant effort to realise the absolute end.
It cannot be said that in either of these images we have
what logicians term an impossible notion. But it may
very well happen that neither of them is the notion of a
possible thing. Hesitation in regard to them, doubt as to
whether by either of them the concrete stuff of morality is
made intelligible, must inevitably arise if we give to either
an interpretation which seems natural, though I am aware
that it has been vehemently repudiated. Are we to under
stand that morality the accepted modes of common life, our
iudo-ments and feelings about them, the institutions in which
J O
these judgments and feelings are partially embodied did in
fact come into existence by bringing to bear upon the detail
of practice the representation of a universal law ? Has the
104 OCCASIONAL ADD11ESSES. [PART i.
ethical spirit of humanity worked only as a supreme casuist,
debating and settling questions of classification, referring
this or that point of practice to its appropriate wording in an
all-embracing law ? Or, looking to the other conception, the
more fluid and more subtle, can we regard the slow changes of
moral practice as just marking the imperfect struggles of the
human mind to bring its conduct into harmony with an end
which must represent the completed state it seeks to attain ?
I conceive that the answer must be an unhesitating negative,
whether we take the process in the more concrete way, as
historical formation, or in the more abstract way, of system
atic deduction. There is no evidence for, and abundant
evidence against, the hypothesis that the transitory codes
of human morals have been formed by applying to de
tails of practice the conception of an absolute law. The
evidence is all in favour of the view that our notion of a
final good has been developed from the changes of actual
morality, not inversely, as the hypothesis seems to require.
I freely admit the difficulty of drawing inferences from the
imperfect and obscure materials for a history of the forma
tion of morality. I admit that when the human mind first
began to treat reflectively its code of morality, the ex
planation that most readily commended itself was the refer
ence to some gods or wise lawgivers, and I allow that such a
primitive type of explanation is still the most common in
human thinking. But what is so admitted seems only to
strengthen the inference made. The moral code was estab
lished prior to reflexion on it, and cannot be supposed to
have come into existence through the thoughts afterwards
used to explain it. Perhaps the same simple facts may serve
to disabuse our minds of the ambiguity attaching to the term
absolute when used in reference to the supposed law. What
ever the contents are, however little they may define for
human conduct, the law is regarded as absolute.
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 105
In precisely the same way we must conclude that the
gradual organisation of human conduct, the crystallising of
fluid customs into established methods of action and institu
tions of life, did not come about in actual fact through
the pressure of any represented absolute end. From the
systematic point of view there may be urged considerations
bearing on the necessary subordination of minor ends to some
one supreme purpose, but the notion of end is far too simple
practically to require such logical symmetry as a condition
of existence ; and one cannot doubt that the conception of a
supreme end, empty or filled with definite contents, is the
later, not the earlier formation. It is a travesty of history
to view the relation in any other way.
But, it may be argued, the intention of either theory is
misconceived if the connexion it asserts between principle
and details be regarded as a statement of actual historical
causation; the true relation is of the kind we may call
logical : it is a relation of dependence. If so, the dependence
must be either that of particulars on a universal or of sub
ordinated ends, that is means, on a final end. Neither seems
to find justification in the case with which we are dealing.
Whether we represent the absolute law with some kind of
definite content, as in theological ethics, or more wisely, with
Kant, insist that an absolute law must from its nature be
formal only, we shall find, with other difficulties, the im
possibility of deriving from it the detailed particulars of
morality. I doubt if we could deduce anything at all from
it ; I have not the smallest doubt that we cannot deduce the
actual code of morality anywhere or at any time accepted.
The impossibility rests on such obvious grounds, and is, in
deed, so generally admitted, that I do not labour the point.
But I urge that the admission constitutes a strong ground for
o
hesitating as to the justification for the conception of an
absolute law at all. The Kantian doctrine has here, I think,
106 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
worked more harm than good. Its critics are ready to point
out how barren a purely formal prescript must be ; they insist
on a more concrete handling of the principle, and they reject
the curious supplements which Kaut makes in the way of
bringing his abstraction into closer relation with facts ; but
they do not see that by so doing they remove all the grounds
for what they desire to retain of the Kantian doctrine.
More success, it may be thought, will attend the attempt to
exhibit the facts of morality as the necessary mechanism by
which an absolute end is to be attained. The abstract rela
tion with which we work is so easy and familiar that we are
apt to be deceived, and to imagine that we have stepped into
the region of the concrete and actual while in truth we have
never got beyond our abstractions. Our procedure is very
much that still to be found exemplified in those wonderful
constructions of human fancy, theories of the state or
political philosophies. The end is defined in terms ab
solute enough, and then specification of means follows with
logical necessity, while the reader remains in a state of
painful bewilderment, not knowing whether the state and
state institutions described have ever existed, do now exist,
or may be rationally expected to exist. The method is bad
enough even when applied to a limited sphere of practice ;
but what can one say of a thinker who believes himself able
to see that the variegated texture of morality, throughout
the long course of time, is perfectly intelligible as the
system of means by which an end distinct from them is
wrought out ? Admiration is his meed, but I think it is all
one can give him ; and his method will only strengthen doubt
as to the possibility of forming a representation of any
general end except by reflexion on the details which it is
assumed to explain. Define the end as we may (and I shall
not even insist on the rigorous interpretation of its qualifica
tion as absolute), it appears to me that we cannot explain
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 107
therefrom the actual concrete fashion of morality, and that
the attempt to do so rests upon an inversion of the true
relation between principle and detail of moral practice.
In truth, careful scrutiny of such definitions of the
final end as have ever been attempted shows that their
function in regard to actual conduct is much the same
as can be claimed for and allowed to the representa
tion of a supreme absolute law. It is a negative func
tion, indispensable and more or less valuable according
as the principle formulated is more or less concrete. The
utilitarian conception, for example, is less abstract than
the Kantian formal law ; but a prudent utilitarian would
neither claim that in fact moral practice has organised itself
under the recognition of the end he proposes, nor insist that
such practice can only be explained as means towards that
end. It seems obvious, indeed, that the conception of the
greatest happiness of the greatest number, apart from any
other difficulties that may beset the concrete representation
of it, is in essence relative and derivative. Probably that
conception in its positive aspect has never been thought
applicable save in reference to a limited sphere of actual
fact, from which indeed it has been drawn. Such value as
it has, and I think the value great, is again of the negative
kind, consisting not in what it enjoins but in the practical
criterion it supplies : that no course of action should be
approved which sacrifices the interests of one section of the
community to another. The most enthusiastic utilitarian has
never maintained that the actual code of moral practice at any
time conforms to or could be thought deducible from thi-
negative or restrictive rule.
The feature so clearly exhibited in the utilitarian conception,
the combination of indeterminate and varying positive contents
with definite negative force, suggests inevitably the final con
sideration regarding these theories of absolute law or absolute
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
end. If they do not furnish historical explanation of moral
ity, if they do not constitute premisses from which the de
tails of morality may become intelligible as conclusions, have
they any claim at all to a place in moral reflexion ? I
think it, as I said, quite unnecessary to question whether the
conception of absolute law or of absolute end is possible as
a mere thought, as a complex of features that can be har
monised, though I do not say that doubt of such possibility
may not be entertained. I ask, only, whether such concep
tions represent what could enter into the content of our
experience, whether what they relate to can form part of our
thinking about moral facts. I shall make the inquiry with
respect only to the conception of an absolute end. The
notion of an absolute law, as by admission formal only, need
not concern us further. Probably it indicates nothing more
than the qualitatively peculiar character involved in any
judgment as to morality. Such a judgment always asserts
absolutely, without reference to the relation of means to end,
a fact worth considering by those who are inclined to pos
tulate an end in some mystic fashion outside moral practice
itself. (In fact, for example, our direct judgment as to the
rightfulness of truth in speech and action is far more un
hesitating than a reflective judgment turning on the subor
dination of truthfulness to perfection or any other end we
may select.) The tendency of modern ethics to treat its
problem from the point of view of end rather than of law
has been so pronounced as to make it reasonable to select
for special treatment the question, paradoxical it may be
thought, whether the notion of an absolute end corresponds
to anything that can by any possibility find a place in our
real thinking experience.
Notions of an absolute end have been advanced from two
distinct sides from that of naturalism, and from that of
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 109
idealism. The exponents of the former type seem hardly
to have been aware of the difficulties involved in their
view. The utilitarian conception, for example, has often
been stated as if the greatest happiness of the greatest
number were veritably a representation with positive and
well-defined components ; but this, as we have seen, is a
mere mistake. Perfect adaptation of human action to its
environment, another mode of expression, is obviously so
derivative a notion that it can have surprised no one but its
author that it yielded less information regarding concrete
detailed practice than was predicted for it. Both are
purely formal notions, and may be said, without qualifica
tion, to mean something other than they directly name,
while what they directly name constitutes no definite con
tent of our experience.
Of the idealist conception, what shall I say ? I have a
friendly and companionable feeling towards it. With much
in the way of its construction I have no quarrel, though I
must add that ofttimes in the expression given to it I seem
to detect the accents of an alien and even an unintelligible
tongue. That " morality is possible at all only if the world
is the expression of the divine mind " is a cryptic saying that
leaves me gasping in a vain attempt to put its parts together.
There seems to me neither historical nor philosophical justifi
cation for it. The workings of the principle of infinite self-
consciousness in the texture of the world s morality suggests
to me only the uneasy memory of that finger of providence
which the theologian and the theologically minded historian
so readily detect. Self-realisation has always impressed
me as a conundrum rather than as its solution. But it is
with entire satisfaction that I hail the generally admitted
doctrine to which Green has given the most pointed ex
pression, that the ideal, the representation of an absolute end,
cannot be translated into any definite conceptions, except
110 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
such as are derived from existing usage and law ; and I do
not believe I put any unjust strain upon the admission
when I draw from it the conclusion that it is not from any
representation of an ideal supreme end in human conscious
ness that we can make intelligible the concrete fact, morality.
It is quite a different proposition to maintain that only for a
consciousness that is capable of forming ideals is morality
possible. This is merely to say, what every one would allow,
that morality is possible only for a thinking, self-conscious
being a position doubtless important and rich in conse
quences, but never capable of supporting an inference to
something which is, from its assumed nature, not a content of
consciousness at all.
Philosophy has sometimes been blamed for its habitual
method of proceeding by negative criticism, and it must be
allowed that the business of a philosopher has seemed too
often that of rending his predecessors. Yet a general defence
might fairly be rested on the ground that such is the method
of thought, which always advances by distinctions and lim
itations, and that such is the process of all organic growth
and development. A negation never merely expunges. It
defines, and at least points the way towards a positive. The
negations, then, in which I have been freely indulging, may
enable a more rapid advance than would otherwise have been
possible towards some positive though general interpretation
of the principle of morality.
There are two salient features of morality, as here concerned,
which are, so to speak, light-giving the one, the peculiar
characteristic indicated by the term obligation ; the other, the
constant variation of its contents. To the moral customs and
institutions at any moment accepted the individual stands in
the special relation that he regards his personal determina
tion and activity as bound by a rule. It cannot be doubted
vi.J THE BASIS OF MORALITY. Ill
that the total body of morality varies from age to age, from
community to community, from individual to individual, even
from one stage to another of the individual s development,
On the feature called obligation, I remark, in the first place,
that the relation involved in it is of a very general character.
I stand individually in much the same relation towards
all that is, or is taken to be, objective. Perhaps it might
seem to strain the analogy were I to say that I assent, but
with reluctance and as constrained, to the proposition that
two and two makes four ; but I should have less hesitation
if my assent were extorted to a conclusion which is shown
to be necessitated by admissions I have made. Historically,
too, it appears certain that even the peculiar feeling of moral
obligation connected itself, and does indeed still connect itself,
with much that lies outside the definite sphere of moral
action. It deserves consideration also, that, in theoretical
explanations of morality, such as those of the earlier Greek
thinkers, resting on a highly developed structure of social
life, the feature so prominent in modern ethics is almost
conspicuous by its absence. I conclude, then, that the
feature of obligatoriness does not find explanation, as Kant
seems to have thought, in the formal relation between a
will and a rule, but that its special colouring, what consti
tutes its differentia as moral, depends on and arises from
the concrete character of the elements related. It would be a
complete mistake to suppose that by thus interpreting the
origin of the feeling and allied judgment of obligation we
deprive it of its rightful place in the moral life. A feeling
which arises from or expresses a complex situation or atti
tude of mind does not lose its concrete character or its
efficiency because we are able to enumerate the components
of that complex state and show how they have come to
gether. The mental life is at any moment a living whole,
riot an aggregate of independent units.
112 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [FART I.
In the second place, I remark that there is a distinct
advantage for the general treatment of morality in assigning
to the factor, obligation, a secondary, and, so to speak, de
rivative position. To treat morality from the point of view
of obligation inevitably tends to accentuate the implication
of external law which lurks in the conception of duty, and
to give to virtue the character of resigned submission, of
sacrifice, which is its least valuable aspect. On the other
hand, to emphasise the fact that the determining element is
the concrete end which morality has to realise, gives its due
place to the all-important consideration that in morality we
have the expression of what the human mind most earnestly
and strenuously is desirous of seeing established as the or
ganisation of life. I will add that I regard as the most
important contribution made by that fair-minded thinker,
T. H. Green, to the science of ethics, his recognition of the
fact that in the order of development of morality, the specific
ally moral element, that in which moral obligation is involved,
presupposes and rests upon an organisation of conduct in
which the distinctions of natural good and evil are already
involved. I do not accept his peculiar interpretation of the
moral element (I think he drew inferences from it that were
not justifiable), but his general statement as to the relation
between natural and moral good seems to me true and of
fundamental significance. Green seems inclined to regard
the difference as of kind, and therefore as calling for some
non-natural or extra-natural explanation ; but this is quite
unnecessary, and even makes the process unintelligible. The
import and inner character of a mental fact, above all the
part it plays in the practical life, are not at all dependent on
theories as to its origin. In the same way, I may remark, it
need not be doubted that the element of moral obligation,
the complex of feeling with the judgment of approval or dis
approval, is intimately related to^elf^conscicmsjiess ; but self-
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 113
consciousness is not a form, nor an unchanging factor. It
also depends on and varies with the concrete in human ex
perience, and it is wholly impossible to explain the moral
element by referring it to the abstract nature of self-con
sciousness. Perhaps it is only in this way that we can fully
understand what I may call, borrowing a word from Herbart,
the wanderings of the notion of obligation. For it has
attached itself, and does attach itself, to much that cannot
justify itself when brought to the test of reason.
Only the changing requires explanation ; only the changing
gives the clue that is necessary to render explanation possible.
It is only from reflective treatment of the actual development
of morality that we can gain precision and defmiteness for
our ethical notions, or can determine the ways in which any
moral institution affects character and conduct. Doubtless
the image we employ to describe such change development
will always tend to an interpretation that is doubly mis
leading : to the view that the change is comprehensible only
as the working out of a final end and absolute best, and that
the representation of this end has been the motive force pro
ducing the change. We have already seen that we cannot
employ the conception of an absolute end. We are not in
possession of any representation of completed morality, nor
is it easy to avoid the conclusion that any such representa
tion is self -contradictory. But it does not, therefore, follow
that we are without the means of distinguishing degrees of
excellence, of recognising a better. Still less that we must
exclude from the motive forces of moral progress the power
of forming ideals that carry us beyond what has actually
been achieved.
The formation of ideals is by no means special to the moral
consciousness. Kather, one would say, it is the common
characteristic of all exercise of reason, theoretical or practical ;
VOL. n. H
114 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
and doubtless, if one sought to determine its psychology,
one would have to turn to those elementary experiences
which enable the content of a thought or perception to be
severed from the temporary conditions of its actual occur
rence, experiences which truly constitute a human mind as
compared with the animal. We can think only in and by
the formation of ideals ; but on the practical side, perhaps
more directly than elsewhere, we become aware of the
weakness and uselessness of ideals that are not filled from
the concrete wealth of actual life. All our ethical notions,
the conceptions we form of special duties or excellences
of character, have necessarily a certain ideality : they are
isolated from the circumstances of current experience.
But we can give them definiteness, and so understand
their worth, only by following out the functions they
severally represent in the whole complex texture of actual
life. Such a realisation of them is hardly to be based on
individual reflexion. It is not by psychological analysis
that we can weigh and measure their significance. Two
ways only are possible : the one, that of ideal concretion,
as I may call it, the method of the imaginative creative
writer, who brings into relief a moral problem or a moral
duty by displaying its working in a fictitious setting ; the
other, less attractive it may be, the method of historical
and sociological research, in the absence of which our
moral conceptions are not only ideal, but mere abstractions.
Preference for one of these methods is matter of individual
temperament. For myself, if I wished to understand the
moral condition of a people at a given time, I think I
should trust rather to the statute-book, and such pictures
as I could obtain of the day-to-day life of the ordinary man,
than to the more subtle evidence of creative literature. Yet
no one would urge the exclusive value of the more realistic
method, for it may well be said that the existence of minds
vi.] THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 115
which do adopt the idealising form of expression is itself
a fact of no small interest to the sociologist.
As against the view which I am rather hinting at than
working out in, a way adequate to the problem, it would
doubtless be urged that, after all, morality is not and
cannot be merely the residuum from the past ; that we
cannot accept, and do not accept, the decisions of the past
except on grounds of reason. True, but not to the point.
The past is never merely received, passively taken in.
We who receive it are constituted as our predecessors were,
and actively remould what is passed on to us. Not the
most impersonal of the heritages of the past, not language
itself, is merely taken in. And reason, which we drag into
the argument, is not other than historical : that is to say,
the term reason indicates no abstract power or process
remaining always the same, but a living function which
grows and develops in and by the material provided for it.
A theory of morality, however constructed, must always
give occasion to a certain feeling of despondency ; not
because human practice falls so often short of its own ideals,
but because of the insuperable difficulty we experience in
determining the real laws of interdependence among the facts
of conduct. A single action, a general rule of conduct, a per
manent institution of the moral life, what moral philosopher
will assume that he knows completely how in each case they
have affected the agents directly or indirectly concerned, how
far the consequences are such as further or impede what he
has gathered from experience and reflexion as constituting
progress in morality ? It is in this field that there lie the
true problems of ethics, problems only to be solved by
methods which, when we think over them, almost bring
us back to an old position of Greek speculation, that evil
is ignorance, and that the secret of all excellence of
practice and of character is knowledge.
116 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
Morality, then, as I conceive it, is a product or a mani
festation of human nature, exhibiting in its history, like every
other such product or manifestation, traces of the constant
interaction between individual minds and the forms in which
it may have been embodied. There is no method of explain
ing it save that which is applicable in all similar cases :
knowledge of its history and of the structure which re
presents its stationary condition at any moment. We can
not explain it from without. Just as little can we work out
a theory of it from above downwards. Our constructive
explanations must advance from below upwards.
117
VII.
THE REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 1
THE disasters of the year 1806 made the leading statesmen
of Prussia, however they might differ in other respects, agree
that comprehensive reforms in the State were necessary.
1 [The following pages contain the
second and third of a series of three
lectures delivered to popular audiences
at the Owens College, Manchester,
in the Lent Term of 1891. The
series had been preceded by one,
given by a colleague, on the decline
of Prussia after Frederick the Great ;
and Professor Adamson s first lecture,
which is not printed here, began
with a summary account, connecting
the two series, of the dissolution of
the Holy Roman Empire, and of the
collapse, in the terrible year 1806, of
the Prussian military power. The
lecturer proceeded to point out how
<: the two events, though closely enough
connected for the determining con
ditions of both were woven together
in the same web of circumstance
may yet be regarded separately, for
they exercised no direct influence on
one another. Each, moreover, may
well be contemplated from a twofold
point of view. Each has an external
aspect and history and an internal.
The external, as in all other cases, is
the more directly perceptible ; it
presents to the imagination a picture
more easily grasped and apparently
more complete in itself, and it tends
to keep in the background its less
obtrusive, less demonstrative counter
part. Yet, without desiring to rob
the pomp and circumstance of out
ward political history of its immense
significance, for it is in outer act that
the character of man is exhibited, one
would insist that only in the slower,
more secret movements of the life
of a people is its history to be truly
read. A State as it exists at any
moment may be a noble product of
human effort, potent for good in in
numerable ways, but never is it to
be regarded as final, as an end in
itself, as other than a way in which
the general spirit of humanity has
expressed itself under particular con
ditions. And the changes of a State
or system of States seem to me to
have significance only when regarded
in relation to the movements of
human thinking and feeling from
118 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
The dramatic interest of the events that had forced on
them this conviction is reflected in their plans, which were
conceived and received in an enthusiastic spirit that perhaps
hardly corresponded to any widespread change in the general
habit of thought. At the same time, it was quite inevitable
that many distinct trains of thought, many distinct purposes
and aspirations, should come together in the most varied
proportions and impress their shifting character on the
schemes projected. Hence there is a certain difficulty, a
certain risk of misrepresentation, in any over-definite state
ment of these inchoate plans, just as there is such in any
description of a historic event, which must perforce isolate
it from its natural surroundings and give a fictitious stability
to what is in itself but a momentary appearance in the
ever-changing.
In order, then, to arrive at a tolerably fair idea of these
reforms in the public life of Germany, such as will enable
us to judge their character and relative importance, it is
necessary to follow them for a brief space from the first
airy stage of conceived idea through the conflict with sur
rounding realities, into which they were inevitably thrown,
down to the relatively final appearance of institution. Only
so can we determine the measure of vital energy which
each possessed, the contribution which each succeeded in
making to the total end contemplated. For it is in the
life of a State as in the life of the individual. Many a
one steps forth from the abstract period of youth, con
fronting the future witli long thoughts and high ideals,
looking forward with joyous confidence to rich and fruitful
realisation, and learns soon, consciously or unconsciously,
which they spring and to which in forms in the Prussian State achieved
turn they communicate impulse and after what had seemed its catastrophe,
direction." the defects which they were designed
The remainder of the lecture was to remedy, and the purposes which
devoted to sketching the great re- they were intended to fulfil.]
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 110
the bitter lesson of experience. The details of practice,
each in itself apparently the weakest of ties, have a com
bined force sufficient to bind the strongest will. Rigorous
counsels of perfection yield little by little under the constant
pressure of the innumerable complaisances which common
life seems to render necessary. The high purpose of youth
becomes the conventional morality of middle age, with which
one sleepily rests content, or which, alas, may be accompanied
by memories that are a ceaseless source of pain rather than
of satisfaction.
The shock of disaster had opened the eyes of Prussia s
statesmen to the inner discord in the Prussian State.
The collapse of the material power of the older govern
mental system seemed to demonstrate the need for such a
change as should enlist in the active life of the State the
best energies of all her members. How this should be
achieved floated vaguely enough before the minds of many ;
in one mind, that of Stein, it took clear, definite, and systematic
form. His ultimate aim was to create anew in Germany those
invisible links of common political feeling and life through
which alone a mere collection of individuals is formed into a
State or nation, and which had dimly and imperfectly entered
in the past into the old idea of the empire. Thoroughly
familiar, by training and experience, with the actual con
ditions of the German States, and particularly of Prussia, he
was able to lay his finger witli unerring precision on the
circumstances which had prevented the realisation of that
idea. It was on this account mainly, only in a secondary
way from reference to what may be called international con
siderations, that he urged the unification of Germany, a
conception which, arrived at from a wholly different point
of view, was finding eloquent expression in Fichte s patriotic
addresses. Small States, with government based on absolute
sovereignty, seemed to him a mechanism simply designed to
120 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
perpetuate the evils that had been laid bare in the recent
history of Germany.
On this ground, too, was based his energetic demand for an
alteration in the administrative system of the Prussian
Government. Stein was no republican. I do not think it
ever entered into his scheme of things to deprive the
personal ruler of the large, nay, the overwhelming measure
of power which the traditions of the Prussian State accorded
to him. He evidently considered that the dangers incident
to such a polity, dangers of which he was not oblivious,
would be practically obviated if the sovereign were really
in a position to rule through a well-organised well-defined
ministerial system, itself in constant and vital relations with
the people through their general and local representative
institutions. Much of the evil in the immediate past he
ascribed to the thoroughly vicious method which had slowly
crept in, whereby the ruling sovereign was often little more
than a puppet whose strings were pulled by a few personal
friends or courtiers or cabinet secretaries, and any unity of
plan among the ministerial departments was completely
destroyed.
Not the less strenuously, however, did he believe that the
reform of the administration would effect but little if it were
not accompanied by a removal of all that prevented the free
exercise of political and civic functions on the part of
members of the State and the development of the material
resources of the country. The motive power for animating
and giving practical effect to the new system in the com
munity itself he, with others, hoped to find in a new form of
education which should quicken both the intellectual and the
moral and religious life.
The whole scheme, then, aimed at securing the basis for a
free constitutional government in Germany, or in Prussia in
particular; and the means fall into the two groups: (1)
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 121
Measures of political and economical reform ; (2) Reform
of education in the widest sense.
1. Beyond a doubt, the ultimate and possibly far-distant
aim was closely connected, in the minds of Stein and others,
with the more immediate and pressing necessity, the libera
tion of Prussia and Germany from foreign domination.
As is well known, the means for the more distant end,
necessarily slow in coming into operation, were not the
means whereby the liberation of Germany was directly
achieved. The spirit which found expression in the one,
which permitted some part of it to tind realisation, and
which left as an imperishable legacy the idea of what
remained, was indeed a potent auxiliary in the other. It is
with justifiable pride that the historians of Prussia can point
to the rapid growth during the years of foreign oppression
(1807-1813) of a strenuous spirit of patriotic devotion, to the
enthusiasm of self-sacrifice with which the call to action was
hailed, and to the brilliancy of achievement in which the
nation recovered its position. The course of events depended
on that spirit, or was determined by it in but a small degree ;
and the German Government afterwards all too easily forgot
the warmth of enthusiastic feeling in which for a moment
kings and peoples had worked in unison, in order to fall back
under the sway of traditional policy, and to look with dis
trust and alarm on the quickening of popular life. Of such a
relapse signs had appeared even before the laborious business
of settling the deranged affairs of Europe, and of Germany in
particular, was gone through at the Congress of Vienna,
and the succeeding years furnish an instructive though
melancholy commentary on the stubbornness with which
existing conditions and prejudice can withstand a new idea.
I instance but a few of the many events that stand out
as indications of the conflicting forces.
122 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
To begin with, Stein did not again become a Prussian
official. At the Congress, the smaller German kingdoms
retained their sovereign rights. A representative constitu
tion was promised, but against the protests of the King
of Bavaria that his rights were indefeasible, and that he
would not renounce the exercise of any one of them ; while
the King of Wiirtemberg protested against the mention
of any rights of subjects. In 1815 Schmalz (brother-in-
law of Scharnhorst), who had been the first rector of the
University of Berlin, in a pamphlet which called forth
many refutations, denounced the revolutionary tendencies
and the supposed secret societies of the age. In 1822
Fichte s Reden were brought before an inquisitorial com
mission sitting at Mainz and narrowly escaped condemna
tion for Jacobinism and republicanism. In 1824, at Berlin,
the reprinting of the same work was forbidden.
But the same process of political degeneration was appa
rent on a larger scale. The disturbances at Jena at the
Wartburg festival, when Kotzebue s German History was
burned by the enthusiastic students, and the murder of
Kotzebue at Mannheim (23rd March 1819), were not the
causes of the retrograde action, but merely served to mark
its development.
From 6th to 31st August of 1819 there sat at Karlsbad a
quasi-private conference of Ministers of ten German Govern
ments, whose resolutions, either as approved when handed by
it to the Bundestag or as adopted by the individual States,
breathed nothing but distrust of the universities, the press,
and revolutionary public opinion. The old and well-known
mechanism of the censorship, the supervision of the univer
sities, and the Central Commission for investigating dis
affection against the Government were revived; while in the
Vienna Final Act of 15th May 1820, originating in the same
way from a conference of Ministers and approved by the
YJI.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 123
Bundestag (June 8, 1820) a mode was found for evading
the seemingly solemn promise of a constitutional government
contained in the Act of the Confederation and, among others,
in the proclamation of Frederick William III. to Prussia.
Article 57 of the Vienna Act asserts that "as the German
Confederation, with the exception of the Free Towns, consists
of sovereign princes, it follows from the principle here laid
down that the entire authority of the Government must
reside intact in the Head of the State, and that by a con
stitution on the principle of estates the sovereign can only be
bound to the co-operation of the estates in the exercise of
particular defined rights." And indeed only Provincial
Estates were called into existence at all ; in the general law
for their reg;ulation it is said, " When it will be advisable to
O
summon the General Estates, and how they should be de
veloped out of the Provincial Estates, are matters on which
we reserve to our paternal care for the interests of the
country to decide further."
It is hardly to be wondered at that Stein should have
expressed his disgust at politics and resolved to devote
the remains of his energy to German history, and that AV.
von Humboldt, a man of equal liberality of mind, though
not of equal strenuousness and vigour of character, should
in 1819 have quitted the Prussian service and thrown him
self on literature and philology. What was precisely the
part played in all this by Hardenberg, who since 1810 had as
Chancellor wielded almost dictatorial power in the German
State, seems still to be undetermined by historians. That
he was on the whole liberal in tendency, one would not
doubt; but he was entirely devoid of Stein s firmness of
principle, and was, perhaps, incapable of originating a liberal
idea for himself, though not incapable of taking it up if
offered, and working it faithfully so long as its development
in no way endangered his own tenure of power. Clever and
124 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
ingenious as a diplomatist, he never shone as an adminis
trator. His first essays at realising his own and Stein s plan
of local government were miscalculated and unsuccessful,
and it will give his biographers trouble to bring his repu
tation as one of the reformers of the German State unsullied
through the history of his closing years.
Thus it came about that no immediate result followed
the efforts from which much had been hoped. The awakened
political consciousness of the German people was still left
without the external means by which it could maintain itself
in health and vigour. It was not with the help of political
institutions, the happy heritage of a moment of intense
national feeling, that she was to work towards the high place
she occupies among European nations. Nor can one think
that the political constitution she now possesses calls for un
questioning admiration or adequately represents the high
measure of her intellectual and moral advancement.
2. Much more satisfactory is the result when we turn to
the second of the two great means which it was then thought
would serve to purify and strengthen the national life of
Germany. Far more unmistakable is the genealogical con
nexion between the after state of culture in Germany and
the reform then undertaken of her educational system.
Perhaps the simple reason for this is at the same time the
truest and deepest: the reform of education had relatively
less hostile forces to encounter; it started from a relatively
better basis than the political.
It is not easy to obtain a fair general idea of the state of
education in Germany during the preceding century. The
differences among the several States reflected themselves in
the diverse arrangements for schools, and I think it advis
able to restrict attention to the matter as it presents
itself in North Germany. There, so far as elementary and
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 125
popular education is concerned, it, beyond all doubt, pre
sented a striking contrast to what it has become. There
was at this stage no general or national system of educa
tion. Old custom and tradition still left it mainly in
the hands of the Churches. Something had indeed been
achieved, for the most part by those who shared the views
of the significant religious revival about the beginning of
the century, of which the varied phenomena are summed
up in the term Pietism. August H. Fran eke at Halle
laid the foundations of an elaborate system of elementary
schools, orphanages, and burgher schools ; and his influence
worked powerfully on the development of elementary educa
tion in Prussia. Francke s pupil, J. J. Hecker, was the
trusted adviser of Frederick William I., and more especi
ally of Frederick the Great, among whose merits not the
least is that he devoted energy and insight to the promo
tion of general and sound education in his State. It was
under Hecker s advice that the main educational acts of
Frederick the Great s reign were drawn up, and through
Hecker that a demand for the training of teachers for
their profession began to be made. (The first Seminar
was founded under Frederick William I.) In all direc
tions, indeed, Frederick the Great did his best to encour
age the work of education. He fostered and regulated, by
a liberal and wisely expressed edict, the higher education in
the gymnasia ; he pressed on the foundation of the real-
schulen ; and he allowed his like - minded minister, Baron
K. A. von Zecllitz, the fullest authority in dealing with the
highest institutions of culture, the universities.
Other influences in the latter part of the eighteenth century
contributed towards an improvement of educational practice
arid to the spread of a general belief in the necessity and
utility of education at large. Piousseau s appeal to nature as
the sole arbitress of method found acceptance with the phil-
126 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
anthropists, Basedow and Bahrdt, who, with a grievously
thin conception of nature, endeavoured to promote the general
welfare.
The gymnasia were gradually in this century developing
out of the Latin schools that had been bequeathed by the
Reformation. Neither in general arrangements and equip
ment nor in popularity can they stand comparison with their
successors at the present time. For the most part the
teachers in these gymnasia were candidati theologies, or those
who had relinquished the hope of attaining some Church
position. The Latin schools were conspicuous by their
inefficiency. The staple of instruction was the Latin
grammar ; other subjects were included or excluded accord
ing to the predilection of the teacher. Greek was rarely
taught ; if taught at all, there was merely Greek Testament
for not more than two hours weekly. Instruction was
given in history, from the Creation to Charlemagne; in
geography, the globe and the four quarters. " Nullam
esse, si a sacra scriptura descesseris, in historia gentium
primaeva exploratam veritatem," declared the rector of the
Joachimsthal Gymnasium in 1742.
I note, as of special interest, that even in the gymnasia
little or no interest was taken in Greek till towards the close
of the century. This coincides with the parallel history of
classical studies in the universities, for it would not be incor
rect to say that the characteristic note of intellectual life in
the second half of the eighteenth century in Germany was a
revival of classical, particularly Greek, learning, comparable
only to that of the earlier Renascence. There were merito
rious classical scholars of the earlier generation : Fabricius
(1688-1736), Gesner, Ernesti, Christ, Reiske, Reiz, Sehweig-
hiiuser, are honourable names in the history of ancient
letters in Germany. But it is only in the generation inspired
by Winckelmanu, Heyne, and, above all, F. A. Wolf, that
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 127
one finds the genuine enthusiasm for classical culture which
makes of it a real living influence. Wolf, who had entered
himself at Gottingen in 1777 as studiosus philologies-, had
from 1783 to 1807 been the glory of the old and distin
guished University of Halle. His enlarged conception of
philology as the complete knowledge of antique life was the
first to give consistency and definiteness to classical studies ;
his unbounded activity had found scope for exercise in the
philological seminary (1787), from which the best equipped
classical teachers in Germany issued ; and his daring as a
scholar had been evidenced in the stimulating Prolegomena
to Homer (1795), with which he began the discussion of
the since well-worn Homeric question. Wolf s influence
extended beyond the sphere of scholars by profession. It
was through him that the cultivated and accomplished W.
von Humboldt was brought to unite in his person the two
powerful forces of intellectual life, scholarship and philos
ophy ; and through him mainly that there was conveyed
to the contemporary literature so strong a colouring of the
classical form.
Education had during the eighteenth century been but
slowly escaping from the direct control of the Churches,
but slowly succeeding in making itself recognised as a
matter of national importance. Like all other forms of
intellectual life, it had at times to submit to the cramping
influence of ignorance and bigotry, whether ecclesiastical or
political. Throughout the century are observable various
waves of increasing and diminishing pressure, according as in
tellectual interests were more or less under the control of the
narrow-minded, for which the institution of the censorship
of the Press throughout provided such ample opportunities.
The expulsion of C. W. Wolff from Halle in 1723 was a
despotic act, directly due to the hasty misconceptions of
Frederick William I. ; but it was in all probability only the
128 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
king s death which left to his successor the credit of revoking
this outrage. Unhappily, before the close of the century in
Prussia, the notions of Frederick William II. and the evil
influence of Wb llner, which was fully established by 1788,
the year of the publication of the notorious Keligious Edict,
had done as much as was possible to reverse the wise and
enlightened policy of Frederick the Great. Rampant re
ligiosity had taken the place of a sincere desire to further, in
such measure as seemed adapted to the conditions, the original
powers of the individual. The Regulation for schoolmasters
in the country and lower town schools lays down that
religious teaching is the staple of instruction in the lower
schools in town and country: such religious instruction to
consist in adequate exercise in Luther s Shorter Catechism,
which the children must learn by heart, acquaintance
with the main propositions of the theory of belief and
morals, and sufficient knowledge of the Bible. Ability
to read, some dexterity in writing and ciphering, some
exercise in the calculations most used in domestic affairs,
were subsidiary requirements. More must not be taught.
Least of all is it permitted to the teacher to set aside these
and to introduce matters of natural history, geography, &c.
Wollner s control was not less adverse to academical freedom
in the universities. At Halle, in 1795, there were only 844
students against 1070 in 1785. In 1794, when King Fred
erick William II. applied a sharp personal stimulus to his
Minister s activity, the following declaration was imposed
on university teachers : " I undertake in particular, that
neither in nor out of my lecture hours, neither in writing
nor in speech, neither directly nor indirectly, will I advance
anything against the Holy Scripture, or the Christian
Religion, or against the rules of the supreme authority in
respect to affairs of religion and the Church; rather that
in all points I shall regulate my conduct according to the
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 129
precepts of the Religious Edict of 1788." Action taken
against Kant in this connexion did more than anything
else to inflame the general feeling against Wollner and
his administration.
A much more healthy tone was introduced by Frederick
William III., who had a genuine interest in the promotion of
education, subsidised liberally the struggling universities in
his kingdom, and entertained enlightened views regarding
the general or national organisation of instruction. By
sympathy and experience he was well prepared to look with
favour on the attempt by a new and comprehensive reform
of education to rekindle the life of Prussia and to strengthen
her for her future trial. Stein repeatedly expressed himself
in the same spirit in private communications and in public
documents. "Most is to be expected," he wrote in 1808,
" from the education and instruction of youth. If by a
method based on the nature of the mind every power of
the soul be unfolded and every crude principle of life be
stirred up and nourished, if all one-sided culture be avoided,
and if the impulses on which the strength and worth of man
rest be carefully attended to, then we may hope to see a race
physically and morally more powerful grow up, and a better
future dawn upon us."
These thoughts found outward expression in the events of
the year 1807. In the winter of that year, while Berlin was
still in French hands, Fichte delivered on successive Sundays
his Addresses to the German Nation. On the 10th August
of the same year a deputation from the ancient and famous
university of Halle, recently suppressed by Napoleon, ex
pressed to the king their hope that within the Prussian
dominions a place would be found where the intellectual
force expelled from Halle might find scope for working
towards the great end of reanimating the fallen people.
From this recpuest sprang the conception, which had indeed
VOL. II. 1
130 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
already been entertained, of the foundation of a new univer
sity in Berlin. It seems to me certain that the lively interest
then taken in educational reform would not have sustained
itself and yielded so much solid result had it not from well-
nigh the outset been connected with the concrete business of
this new foundation. Most fortunately for Prussia, too, there
was ready to hand, in W. von Humboldt, a statesman
possessed of all the qualifications for successfully carrying
through a plan which, however enthusiastically conceived
and patriotically approved in general, had yet to encounter
all the hazards of a particular scheme launched amidst
conflicting private interests.
On no thinking mind in Germany had the fall of Prussia
produced a deeper impression than it had on Fichte. To
him the events that had led to it seemed but the fatal
comment of history on what the eye of reason had long
discerned as the element of falsehood in modern life. The
want of correspondence between the actualities of social
existence on the one hand, and on the other the demands
of the highest ethics and those admitting of the clearest
apprehension, argued, as he thought, the slavish subjection
of uncultured natures to the selfish, unsocial, and corrupt
impulses of philistine morality. With truly Platonic fervour
he delineated the ineradicable difference between a life in
the idea, a life animated by the contemplation and love of
the divine invisible order of truth, and a life buried in the
transitory, shifting, and perishable things of sense, carried
hither and thither by the impulses of sense, selfishness, and
individual vanity. And the entirely noble, disinterested,
and impetuous character of the thinker who expressed such
seemingly antiquated distinctions, gave to his exhortations
a weight and significance they assuredly would not otherwise
have secured. His career and action presented, even in their
failures, the liveliest image of the ideas which in abstract
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 131
terms he strove to implant in the minds of his hearers.
Already he had given ample proof of that single-hearted
devotion to the cause of truth in which he placed the funda
mental excellence of man. His earliest writings, senii-
political in character, and not of a style that secured for
them much general attention, had thrown a species of
shadow on his name which was often to prove hurtful to
him. He was marked out as a Jacobin, a revolutionary, and
at every critical period of his career he had had to encounter
the dull hostility of those in whose turbid minds such titles
in themselves rendered candid judgment impossible. At
Jena, where his high character and great abilities had shed
lustre on the university and raised it to an unparalleled place
among the universities of Germany, he had suffered the
extreme consequence of the ill-omened policy which deemed
it necessary to defend the cause of religion by fettering the
activity of thought. The accusation of atheism, so familiar
in the history of philosophers that a philosopher ought surely
to reckon on it as a certainty if he dares to think at all,
might perhaps with a less strenuous and more politic man
than Fichte, have passed without harmful consequence nay,
even without outward damage to his reputation. For outward
fame, however, Fichte cared not at all. It was impossible
for him to be untrue to himself.
In "Berlin, then, where he settled, he had already in various
lectures expressed his view on the state of contemporary
culture, on its failures and weaknesses, and on the source
from which healing might be drawn. The lectures On the
Nature of the Scholar, On the Characteristics of the Present
Age, and On the Way towards a Blessed Life, express in
varied form the general view of life that underlies the
Addresses to the German Nation.
In these Addresses, however, the deepest note is due to
the recent events that had thrown all merely speculative
132 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
interests into the shade. A people, great in the historic
achievements of its past, great by its proved devotion to the
cause of religious freedom, great through the wealth of its
intellectual culture, had fallen ; nor could it be disguised
from any one that this fall was no mere chance play of un
fortunate contingencies. The causes of Germany s disaster
were deep-seated in the history of her past and in the moral
life of her present. She had proved herself unfaithful to
the tradition of the part she was called upon to play in the
great society of nations, and with that unfaithfulness, partly
as its effect, partly as its cause, had come the shameful weak
ness of the individual moral character. To restore her to
herself, it was necessary to revive and reanimate the memory
of the part which as a nation she had formerly played and
which she was manifestly destined to play, and by giving
a new and more stimulating direction to the cultivation of
individual character, to supply her with the needful energy
for working out her high vocation.
Thus it is that the Keden unite, in somewhat unequal pro
portions, the two themes, a reform of educational method,
and an appeal to the principle of German nationality. Let
me indicate briefly what Fichte had to say on the latter.
As to the former, after defining the ultimate aim of educa
tion as consisting of the devotion of the individual to duty,
and of the formation of character in accordance with this
purpose, he pointed out that such education must be national
and uniform. The method which he had in view to this end
was Pestalozzi s, to whose writings he at this time devoted
much study.
In making his appeal to the national principle, it was
characteristic of the man and of his method that he should
have carefully laid out his questions : (1) whether it is true
or not that there is a German nation ; (2) whether it is worth
while or not to preserve the German nation; (3) whether
Mi.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 133
there are any means of doing so ; and that in his answers he
should have developed higher conceptions of nationality and
of the essence of patriotism than had yet found expression in
German or perhaps in any other writers. I will not say that
his idea of a nation is very practical, easily exemplified in
actual fact; I will not say that the principle which he ex
pressed in abstract terms, and which was then and after
wards to come forward in a remarkable way as a historic
force in modern Europe, can bear all the weight that he
imposed on it ; but it expresses a great truth, and the
eloquent enforcement of it contributed in no small measure
to animate the flagging spirits of those who were to work
under its stimulating influence for the liberation of Prussia.
The project of a university in the metropolis had for some
years formed a subject of discussion in Prussia. Long
before, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the idea
had been started ; but not till the beginning of the nineteenth
was it again taken up in a more practical fashion. From
1802 onwards, in a desultory fashion, it was contemplated by
the Cabinet Minister Bey me, to whose credit, not otherwise
excessively high, it may well be put that he constantly took
a warm and unselfish interest in it. The closing of the uni
versity of Halle in 1807, the most famous of the universities
of Prussia, and its re-opening, in 1808, as one of the uni
versities of the new kingdom of Westphalia, gave the stimulus
that was needed to call the mere conception into life. Berlin
seemed specially marked out as a great seat of learning. It
already possessed in the Academy of Sciences the earliest
foundation of the kind, dating from 1700 (with Leibniz as
its first president), which would, together with the university
proper, form an organically complete institution of the higher
learning. The idea once started was further advanced by the
preparation of general schemes for the constitution of the
134 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
new university ; and for some time before a definite consti
tutional form was obtained, a foretaste of the work was given
by lectures delivered in Berlin, among others by Fichte and
Schleiermacher. I do not purpose saying anything of the
complicated tangle of difficult circumstances in which the
project found itself involved in its initial stages monetary,
local, professional. It is possible they might not have been
overcome at all ; it is certain they would not have been over
come so rapidly and satisfactorily as was the case had not
the conduct of the affair fallen into the hands of a states
man pre-eminently qualified by his character and experience
to bring it to a successful and fruitful issue.
In the spring of the year 1809 W. von Humboldt was
placed at the head of the Section of Cultus and Public In
struction ; within a few months he had matured and carried
out the scheme of the new university, secured a sufficient
endowment from the State, adequate buildings, and an un
usually complete and brilliant equipment of teachers. The
university was formally opened in the Michaelmas term of
1810, some months after Humboldt s retirement from office.
Among the many strong and varied personalities which
the pressure of trial brought then to the front in Germany,
there is none that gives so marked an impression of com
pleteness and harmony as that of W. von Humboldt. "A
statesman of Periclean elevation of mind," he was called by
Bockh in an eloquent epitaphial address ; and the expression
has more justification and pertinency than is usual in such
panegyrics. For in him were united, in a measure rarely
equalled in modern life, high intellectual capacity and attain
ments, intense devotion to the things of mind, practical
ability, loftiness and purity of personal character. In him,
too, is observable the combination of the most powerful in
tellectual influences that had for some generations been
quietly and invisibly moulding the general mind of Ger-
Vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 135
many, and which in no other individual reached such ful
ness and amplitude of expression, literature and art, the
humanist revival of Greek learning, and philosophy. From
these rich sources he drew, and it was into no empty recep
tacle that they poured their treasures.
His earlier career had amply equipped him for playing a
noteworthy part in the arena of public affairs. The first
groundwork of intellectual life, a reflex of the better type of
the Aufklarung, while it left always its own valuable legacy
a tendency to insist on clearness of thought and vision had
been enriched and supplemented by intercourse with the
representatives of a wider, deeper, and more vigorous tone
in the treatment of the problems of human interest. From
the cultivated society of Berlin, from Jacobi, from Forster,
the eager democrats, and from the experiences of the first
stage of the French Revolution, he derived much that pro
foundly influenced his mode of thought, yet left him still
an independent thinker. The remarkable essay, an attempt
to determine the limits of the activity of the State, written
in 1792, but unpublished during his life, has been hailed in
later times as the most complete and temperate statement
of the individualist theory in politics. So to regard it, how
ever, is to do violence to its historic conditions and injustice
to the views of Humboldt himself. From the general pos
ition on which that essay proceeds he never swerved : that it
is a false, injurious, and demoralising view to assign to the
rulers the care of the welfare of the subjects. With even
greater width and generality than Stein, with whom on most
points of practical policy he was later in agreement, he urged
the counter- view, that the subjects must themselves, and
actively, participate in the control of public affairs. But
he did not think, either at the date of his early essay or
later, that the right of individuality as such was supreme
against the general control for objects of general moment.
136 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
The rather abstract character of Humboldt s turn of mind,
in this first period of his intellectual development, received
an important supplement or correction, through his inter
course, first, with F. A. Wolf, and then with Schiller and
Goethe. If ever a man can be said to have fallen in love
with Greek literature, that may be said of Humboldt. He
buried himself in it, and resolved that " antiquity, and pre
eminently Greek, should thenceforth be the occupation of his
life." His omnivorous intellectual appetite, however, left him
abundant opportunities for benefiting by the friendship he
formed with the coryphsei of German classical literature,
Schiller and Goethe. He enjoyed, criticised well, and
attempted, without much success, to produce.
So equipped, and with the additional intellectual fruits of
a prolonged sojourn in Eome, he began his career of public
activity in 1809, and by his conduct of the Ministry of
Public Instruction left an ineffaceable mark on the educa
tional policy of Prussia. I say nothing now of the eminent
service which he rendered in other capacities to the Prussian
State. He was a worthy coadjutor of Stein, and in general
views of politics perhaps even endowed with a greater breadth
of vision and a more far-seeing prudence, if inferior in prac
tical sagacity and force of individual character. Nor can I
spare time for more than mentioning the fruits of his years of
retirement. Whatever may be the objective value of his own
contributions to the science of language, an honourable place
must always be assigned to him in the history of comparative
philology. It is not by reason of his own intellectual achieve
ments not even on account of the exceptional richness of
his intellectual acquirements and endowment that so high
a place must always be reserved for him in the history of
Prussia, but because of the stimulus he gave to the educa
tional reform then undertaken, and the breadth and liberality
of the views which he conveyed to those who took up the
vu.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 137
work after his retirement. The University of Berlin is the
one definite product of his brief period of administration ; but
in the plan of its organisation, and in the high ideal it was
designed to realise, principles of wider, of national scope, found
their concentrated expression. The enthusiasm for intellectual
life which animated Humboldt s whole career found the most
appropriate field for its display in calling into existence a
supreme institution destined to gather, as it were, into one
focus the finest intellectual powers of the Prussian people ;
but that institution was itself only part of the far wider
scheme by which it was hoped to stimulate and develop the
moral and intellectual life of every individual in the nation.
The spirit and principles of such a national system of educa
tion, a system formally begun in the Education Acts of 1818
and since developed with almost continuity of aim, such was
the legacy of Wilhelm von Hmnboldt to Prussia.
II.
We have seen how large a part was taken in encouraging
the hopes of patriotic Germans, and in stimulating their re
forming efforts, by the proud consciousness of the contribution
made by the German mind to the intellectual culture of the
world. Among the many elements that go to form the feel
ing of nationality, not the least important is the sense of
common right of inheritance in the fruits of intellectual
achievement. History has certainly shown that such par
ticipation is not by itself an adequate foundation on which
an energetic national life can be based ; and a cautious ob
server of European affairs at the beginning of this century
might well have doubted whether the result hoped for could
possibly have been secured by the means adopted : whether,
indeed, in the absence of other conditions, the stimulus to be
138 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
applied to the national consciousness by recalling and im
pressing the memories of devotion to intellectual interests
and the capacity for furthering them could have continued
to produce the anticipated effect. Hypothetical history,
however, on a large or on a small scale, is a profitless waste
of ingenuity. Actual experience is always sufficiently rich
and instructive to dispense with the dubious aid of so shadowy
and fanciful a supplement. The fresh remembrance of the
distinguished place which the German mind had asserted for
itself in the varied provinces of intellectual culture served
beyond all question to inspire and encourage her most
thoughtful statesmen and patriots, and to nerve them for
the struggle by means of which Germany was to emerge
from her temporary period of eclipse.
It was not, then, without warrant that Germany was
called upon to remember and be faithful to her high intel
lectual tradition. No depreciation of the merits of other
nations is involved in the assertion that, in the mighty
stirring of humanity with which the transition to a new
epoch was being effected, Germany had assured to herself
a place of decisive significance. The impulses which still
continue to affect the later generations had found in the
literature of Germany their largest, their most ample ex
pression. A new ideal of life, bearing the freshly written
promise of an abundant, an inexhaustible future, had re
ceived a rich and varied embodiment in the more spon
taneous productions of her poets, and was being reduced to
abstract and systematic form in the more reflective work of
her philosophers. But seldom in the world s history have
there been presented in so close a connexion and mutual
action, and on a scale of such magnitude, those two great
literary forces the artistic creations of poetry, the reflective
speculations of philosophy.
I do not suppose that we shall ever be able to detect
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 139
all the ways in which the atmosphere surrounding his
spiritual life affects the individual, perhaps not even the
ways in which such accompaniments affect the tone of a gen
eration. The secret influence of the inborn disposition, the
pressures and hazards of the personal career, the varied modes
of social observance, the accepted fashion of civil or political
institutions, the tenor of religious beliefs, combine in such
distracting variety to determine not only immediate action
but the more general views of life which sum up the prin
ciples of action, that he would be rash who should attempt
to assign to each its weight, and to forecast the effects of
some particular character in any one of them. Yet it is
hard to refrain from assigning to a peculiar circumstance in
the German life of the time a certain determining influence
both on the more concrete representations of the new ideal
in her poetry and on the abstract conceptions of her philos
ophy. Public life and culture had long been, and were then,
widely separated from one another. The world of letters lay
apart from the world of activity, and it was only by accident
that any individual could hope to realise what Humboldt
called the Greek ideal, the perfection of personal character
through participation in general political ends.
The literary guilds and associations of former ages had
led their harmless existences apart from the great currents
of national interests, though one or another of them may,
perhaps, especially in some of the Free Towns, have formed
a department of a self-contained little municipal world.
The universities had, by the very circumstances of the
foundation of the large majority of them, remained in
timately attached to the dynastic traditions of particular
States, or had identified themselves with particular schools
of theological opinion belonging to particular Churches. Men
of letters had lived their lives as the dependents of Courts,
or as university teachers, or in some sphere of professional
140 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
dependence, unprepared and unaccustomed to cultivate or
express broad and aspiring national ideas and sentiments.
Gustav Freytag has dwelt on the practical indifference
exhibited by so large a proportion of the educated class
in Germany towards the national aspect of the great events
which succeeded one another in the theatre of European
history. He recalls how, while storm and thunder roared so
appallingly in France, and blew the foam of the approach
ing tide every year more wildly over the German land, the
educated class hung with eye and heart on a small prin
cipality in the middle of Germany, where the great poets
thought and sang as if in the profoundest peace, driving
away dark presentiments with verse and prose. The guillo
tining of the king and queen of France was followed by the
publication of Eeineke Fuchs ; the Eeign of Terror synchron
ised with that of the Letters on the ^Esthetical Education of
Man ; the battles of Lodi and Arcola with the completion
of Wilhelm Meister, the Horen, the Xenieu ; the annexation
of Belgium with the appearance of Hermann and Dorothea ;
that of Switzerland and the States of the Church with the
Wallenstein trilogy ; that of the left bank of Ehine with The
Natural Daughter and The Maid of Orleans ; the occupation
of Hanover with the Bride of Messina ; the coronation of
Napoleon as Emperor with the stage production of Wilhelm
Tell. Nor can there be any doubt concerning the indifference
maintained as a matter of theory, both towards the interest
ing changes of which their age was full and to the actual
political condition to which Germany was reduced, by his
torians such as Johannes von Miiller, by philosophers and
thinkers such as Hegel and the writers on Natur-recht, and
by the comprehensive genius of Goethe himself.
Goethe s attitude, however, as might be easily shown, was
very far removed from the sickly cosmopolitanism which so
widely prevailed at this time in certain classes of German
vil.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 141
society. The greater natures among the poets and artists
of the country might remain uninjured by it; for the
weaker, the contrast between the enchanted palace of
their imaginings and the hard realities of private life was
too strong. The organic filaments binding together the
elements of society, as fantastically pictured by them, were
too airy and unsubstantial to resist the rude pressure of
individual passion, at no time more formidable than when it
can succeed in clothing itself in the guise of an angel of light
(or enlightenment).
It is not, I believe, solely the prejudice of the insular and
practical mind if one seems to find in even the best products
of the German intellect at this its period of highest activity,
whether literary or philosophical, a deficiency in the sense of
reality, an incapacity to hold the balance between abstract
reflexion and concrete fact, which, like every other omis
sion in one s scheme of things, takes ample vengeance for
neglect.
I will not refer in detail to the historic circumstances
which had given rise to the peculiar isolation of purely
literary activity in Germany from the national life. There
are, however, certain accessory effects of the same circum
stances which deserve a special word of mention ; for they
serve to explain in part the unique character presented by
the great change in philosophical views marking the general
current of thought in Germany at the beginning of the
century.
1. It would seem as though, on the whole, a country re
quired a period of rest and recuperation, after a period of
disturbance, before it can gather energy for the work of pure
literature. Tranquillity and the time for accumulating and
assimilating are pre-requisites for the disinterested activity
of artistic creation. Germany was no exception to this rule.
For wellnigh two-thirds of the eighteenth century she may
142 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
be described as only recovering, and during that time pure
literature is almost wholly wanting. When it begins to show
itself, the wealth of new thoughts for neither in Germany
itself, nor, much less, in other countries, had the human mind
stood still which struggled to find expression gave to the
new literature the appearance of being in almost no relation
of continuity with its historic antecedents.
2. The part which Germany in particular, North Ger
many had taken in the great struggle of the Reformation
left an ineffaceable mark on the German mind. Whatever
else the Eeformation might have done, it gave to the ques
tions of religion round which it had centred a predominating
place in human interests ; and the principle which had ap
parently been involved in the whole movement howsoever
one expresses it, whether negatively as a rejection of the
mechanical intervention of Church or other external autho
rity between the individual soul and the realities of its faith,
or positively as insistence on the free and active participation
of the individual soul in the appropriation of saving truth,
had come to impose a general direction on the current
of reflexion on religious problems. The Reformation is a
great and many-sided fact, on which one does well not to
dogmatise ; and its principle may be expressed to one s own
satisfaction in a manner that will satisfy no one else. Here,
however, I am concerned, not with the vain attempt to crush
into a formula what utterly refuses to submit to such a
process, but with something much simpler the way in
which the wave caused by the Reformation affected the
flow of thought in Germany in the first half of the eigh
teenth century.
Modern Philosophy, says an able exponent of its history,
is Protestantism in the sphere of speculation ; and the remark
is true and weighty if it be not interpreted as conveying
what it may be all too easily understood to mean. Modern
VII. ] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 143
Philosophy is no offshoot from Protestantism, but a mani
festation of the same deep-seated invincible effort of human
reason which finds partial, and at times inadequate, expres
sion in the various historical forms of the Protestant Eefor-
mation the effort to attain complete comprehension of itself,
to form such a conception of itself and of the realities to
which it is related as shall yield permanent, enduring satis
faction. We may name that impulse as we please, and it
has borne many names according to the concrete shapes in
which it has found expression for itself, according to the
infinite diversity of historic conditions under which it makes
itself apparent, according to the character of the nutriment
from which it has drawn its vital energy. But in essence it
is the same, and its proper name is old and familiar : it is
the impulse of philosophy.
To insist on this, however, is by no means to oppose to the
essential character of the impulse of reason the historic forms
in which it has clothed itself as if they were merely acci
dental. There are no accidents in history or in nature, nor
is philosophy a uniform and indifferent instrument which
may be applied with varied skill and success to this or that
material. The element of difference, which seems to render
it vain to speak of philosophy as one in kind, is the necessary
condition of its vitality ; and the broad characteristics of any
one period of human thought, which might hastily be ascribed
to chance surroundings, mark only the necessary conditions
of its development,
It is no hard task to determine the form which theological
O
thinking assumed at the beginning of the eighteenth century
in Germany, nor the special features which its internal his
tory brought to the front. The regular accepted orthodox
Church doctrines found themselves flanked by two rather
opposite methods of carrying further the principles the
Church itself represented. These were, on the one hand, the
144 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
Rationalist, drawing upon such abstract philosophy as was
then within reach ; on the other hand, the Pietist, empha
sising the fundamental ideas of the Reformation itself, the
independence of the individual conscience, and the supreme
value of individual conviction. Reason is an honourable
title, and one would not willingly speak evil of what claims
recognition as reason. But after all, it is but a formal title ;
and any right to respect is derived not from the empty
vehicle of the name but from the content with which it is
filled. And with that as our criterion, what can one say of
the rationalism which in various stages of decline played
its part in German intellectual history in the eighteenth
century ? It is a merit to have insisted on the need of clear
and distinct conceptions, an insistence common both to the
earlier Leibnizian. rationalism and to the later stage which
has had the special title of Enlightenment assigned to it,
but the degree of merit depends on what the conceptions
were that seemed clear and distinct. I take it that, what
ever credit one allows to the speculations which in unsys
tematic form Leibniz left as a legacy to his successors, one
can find no ground for satisfaction in the effort they made
to accommodate with them the relatively large amount of
theological dogma they were willing to retain, nor in their
attempts at philosophical interpretation of these dogmas.
Gradually and inevitably the abstract and most unhistorical
method of the Leibnizian school tended to degenerate into
the caput mortuum of a Natural Theology, from which the
transition was almost insensible to the thin Deism of the
Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment, which for the moment I consider only
in its reference to speculation and theology, has its own
merits, and was indeed historically, as it is for each indi
vidual character, a necessary stage of transition. No one
will understand the significance of life until he has looked
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 145
at it and its surroundings from the homely bourgeois point
of view of the Enlightenment, until it has become possible
for him to realise the inner imperfection of that view arid
trace wherein it fails of its own aim. For one must not
understand the Enlightenment in Germany as purely neg
ative, as consisting in a mere refusal on the part of what
called itself common - sense to acknowledge any general
standard, any ground of principle other than the individual
judgment. Whether the Enlightenment, if trenchantly
handled, might not have been reduced to such pure nega
tion is one question ; whether the Enlightenment accepted
such a position is another ; and the answers may be en
tirely different. The representatives of the Enlightenment,
such, for example, as Nicolai, had a very positive scheme
and a certain enthusiasm for it. No doubt it was some
what narrow in character. They reasoned about the uni
verse as if it were or ought to be an enlarged Berlin, with
a Deity as its constitutional monarch ; they had a passion
for nature which they reduced to its animal basis, and
talked much of the education and amelioration of that bundle
of selfish desires, man. Declining to accord acceptance to
any Symbolic books, refusing their assent to such doctrines
as those of eternity of punishment and of original sin, they
adhered steadfastly to the belief in the Immortality of the
Soul.
I have called the Rationalism of the Leibnizian school
abstract and unhistorical ; and I desire for a moment to lay
stress upon the latter term as marking a special feature in
the philosophy of the eighteenth century, though a feature
that was undergoing a gradual and steady change. To have
been unhistorical is not altogether a peculiarity of eighteenth-
century thought, which inherited that characteristic from its
predecessor. It is perhaps difficult for us who have accus
tomed ourselves to the historical method, without in all
VOL. II. K
146 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
cases realising its full significance, to form a fair idea of the
enormous differences to which the absence of that method
gives rise ; but any comparison of the constructive philosophies
of the earlier epoch with those we call more specially modern
forces upon us the sense of its supreme importance. Some
portion of the abstractness which thence results will be found
to cling even to the philosophy that was effectually to destroy
the earlier by taking its place, the philosophy of Kant ; and
it cannot be thought that the earliest attempts, towards the
close of the century, to bring the historical into living re
lation with the speculative were more than preliminary
to a true conception. Those of Lessing, Kant, and Herder
range between the years 1780-87. To any such conception
the dogmatic method in theology was naturally and rightly
antagonistic. Even such dim anticipations of it, in a half-
defined fashion, which we can detect among the records of
heresy, excited the bitterest animosity.
It was into such surroundings that the most significant
work of the eighteenth century was introduced. We may
perchance think it no more than national prejudice to regard
the French Revolution and the Critical Philosophy as the two
most important historic forces in modern culture. Yet we
may well pause before thus dismissing the estimate of their
work. Assuredly neither contains in itself, not even im
plicitly, all to which it has given rise; but to one or the
other, in the sense of its having effected a fundamental
change in general conceptions, we must refer as explaining
the character of all subsequent political and philosophical
views. And I know not to which one should accord the
palm of historic importance. To the significance of the
one ungrudging justice has been done by history, nor can
the place it fills in the memory of the past be ever lost.
What it has achieved has lain in the full light of general
recognition. The other has not fallen under general ob-
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 147
servation, and has produced little visible effect. It has
operated in the secret and retired way of modifying those
seemingly abstract conceptions in which we sum up our
reflexions on human life and its meaning;. Yet in the Ion"
c? o
run, if we must believe that the definite organisation of
human life depends upon and comes to correspond with the
conceptions man forms of his end, that which affects most
deeply the structure of human thought is historically the
greater power.
Of the way in which the seminal ideas of the new
philosophy thrown into the surroundings of German life at
the time bore fruit, and therewith of the general nature of the
total contribution to intellectual culture which it brought, it
O *
seems to me that a fair notion may be obtained if we endeavour
to follow them out in the career of an individual thinker,
whose claims to recognition are not more based on the
positive value of his own share in the development of the
movement than on the peculiarly representative character of
his life and work. Had we to select the body of views which
in most complete fashion expresses the whole tendency of the
reforming movement in German culture, the Hegelian system
would necessarily have been our choice ; but in Schleier-
macher we have, I think, a less concentrated and therefore
more easily accessible result of very much the same set of
influences. In personal character, in the events of his
career, and in his defined views, Schleiermacher offers an
unusually complete representation of the forces of culture
appertaining to his time. The less perfected, less final
quality of the results he reached is even an additional
reason why in him more than in Hegel we can appreciate
the character of the new movement.
It has been said that a man s philosophy is little more
than the attempt to justify by reason in later years the
views adopted in youth. Even if we should not feel inclined
148 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART I.
to do so much honour to youth as this implies, we must
acknowledge the importance of the part played by early
intellectual impressions in affecting the tendency of more
matured thinking. In the life of no philosopher is this
effect more unambiguously evident than in that of Schleier-
macher. The father of modern Protestant theology, as he has
been called by his admirers, received from his early surround
ings and from his family traditions an overwhelming impetus
in the direction of the studies to which with gradually
increasing exclusiveness he gave his life.
Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher was born on Nov
ember 21, 1768, in Breslau, where his father was then
chaplain in the Reformed Church. His mother was a sister
of Professor Habenrauch, who held a chair of theology at
Halle, and who was on intimate terms with the magnates
of the Eeformed Church, Spalding and Sark. The family
traditions were markedly of the Pietist type in all its curious
variations. The grandfather, who had settled as pastor of
the large reformed community at Elberfeld, and enjoyed
high repute as a preacher, resigned his connexion with the
Church to throw in his fate with a worthless religious
enthusiast, Elias Eller, who at that time, in a clumsy
manner, and with faults all his own, played a part like
Edward Irving. When undeceived Schleiermacher found
himself an object of deadly enmity on the part of Eller,
who by dint of bribery contrived that in 1749 an action
for witchcraft and magic was brought against the pastor
in the Court of the Elector Palatine at Mannheim, and
even that a charge of Use majestt was entertained, and
troops were sent to arrest him. The father, who had been
brought up and at nineteen made preacher in the New
Jerusalem community, and who was evidently a man of
no common force of character, exhibits another curious
vii.] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 149
phase of the Pietist movement. The almost exclusive stress
then laid on the spiritual and independent character of
religious truths, the possibility, for example, of severing
them entirely from either philosophical or historical bases,
inclined many to a kind of scepticism, with which they
combined the theory of accommodation. Among these was
Gottlieb Schleiermacher, who later told his son that for
almost a dozen years he had preached as a total unbeliever.
Schleiermacher s education, whether at home or at school,
was calculated only to deepen the impression of these sur
roundings. His earliest feelings, he records, were religious,
and were carefully fostered by his father. Before the age of
fourteen he had begun to torture himself with the perplex
ities of eternal punishment. In the spring of 1783 he began
his more systematic education in the Moravian school at
Niesky, a couple of miles north of Gorlitz. The Moravian
community of the Herrenhuter carried out the principles of
Pietism in the organisation of the Church, and emphasised
to a degree almost past belief the tenets of original sin and
redemption by divine grace. The education, however, at
Niesky was not bad ; and Schleiermacher made progress there
in the classical studies he bad formerly begun under a tutor
who had been a student of Ernesti s. Not so, however, when
in 1785 he was promoted to the seminary intended for the
instruction of future pastors of the community. The Her-
renhuters on principle depreciated theological or other learn
ing, and since the formerly Pietist university of Halle had
fallen increasingly under the rationalist influence of C. W.
Wolff, long represented by Semler, they had instituted a
seminary of their own, a mile or two from Halle, at Barby.
Here Schleiermacher felt, in full measure, the intolerable
pressure of their narrowing discipline, and with fear and
trembling, but with firm resolution, he opened his mind to
his father, laid before him his theological doubts (concern-
150 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
ing the divinity of Christ and His function as Redeemer),
and sought his permission and aid to carry on studies for a
time at Halle. Grudgingly, and with the bitterest recrim
ination of his outcast son, the father gave permission, and
the entry at Halle ensued in the autumn of that year.
Halle did not then enjoy its old renown, and had not yet
begun the fresh life that again raised her to the first rank
among Prussian universities. The young candidatus theologice,
in narrowest circumstances, with a shy, sensitive disposition,
gained but little of what a university is so often able to offer.
He made few friendships, and carried on his studies mainly
by himself. F. A. Wolf strengthened his interest in Greek,
particularly in Plato, and, like others at the time, he came
under the powerful influence of the Kantian philosophy,
which was then beginning to transform the whole intellectual
life of Germany. The res angustcu compelled him prematurely
to leave the university. A couple of years were spent at
Drossen as assistant to his uncle, and for three years, 1790-93,
he acted as tutor in the family of Count Dohna-Schlobitten.
1794-96 were occupied with pastoral duties at Landsberg-on-
the-Warthe, a small retired town nearFrankfort-on-the-Oder,
but somewhat celebrated at the time for its cultivation and
luxury. Here, in addition to composing his own, he trans
lated Blair s Sermons. In 1796 he received through Sack s
influence the post of chaplain to the Hospital of the Charite
at Berlin, and entered on a wholly new world of interests.
In these years of retirement the intellectual character of
the man had been gradually forming ; and from the abundant
letters through which we learn to know him, and from the
records published long after his death of his progressive
studies, we are able to gather with unusual clearness its main
features, the nature of the influences that had affected it, and
the prevailing tendency impressed upon it.
On Schleiermacher, as I need not say, very diverse and op-
vii.j REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 151
posed judgments have been pronounced. The more strenuous
followers of philosophy have deemed him too much of a theo
logian ; the religious world has looked askance upon his
philosophy. His earnest and eloquently expressed doctrine
of pious feeling as the essential factor in all religion has
commended itself to some as the truly conservative basis on
which may be built a cultus, a system of religious observance,
adequate to the needs of man and independent of all varia
tions of dogmatic creed. To others he has seemed but a
" man in a mask," whose ambiguous, vague, and emotional
terminology secured success only because its nebulous ob
scurity allowed it to be employed indifferently either by the
rigid adherent of the most antiquated dogma or by one to
whom all dogmas meant the same.
Apart from all else, there is ground for this diversity of
judgment in the remarkable combination of apparently con
tradictory features that entered into Schleiermacher s char
acter. He united many - sided susceptibility with strongly
pronounced individuality, deep and easily excited feeling for
all the interests of humanity with penetrating force and
analytical tendency of intellect, the capacity of eager enthu
siastic absorption with cool reflective self - consciousness,
quick restless activity with the quiet solid repose of a firm
will. These personal features, rooted in the original disposi
tion, were strengthened and brought into varied prominence
by the circumstances of his career.
The early strain of Pietist feeling he never lost, and with
it he retained the sense of its essential value as contrasted
with the defined conceptions in which it might seek expres
sion or support for itself. Even in his later years he called
himself a Herrenhuter of a higher order, nor did he ever
throughout his career cease to think of his primary function
in life as that of the theologian and preacher. What he
drew from the literary and philosophical influences with
152 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
which he came successively into contact, with classical
antiquity, with Spinozism, with the Kantian system, or what
he gained by critical meditation on these, appeared to him
to stand in no opposition to the essential content of that
pious feeling in which consisted true religious theology.
Sedulously, and with genuine good faith (and, it must be
added, with no small measure of success), he strove to unite
into one consistent body of principles the requirements of
purified and elevated religious feeling, the realities of human
religious history, and an intellectual scheme of things which
seemed at the first glance to remove all those deep -going
distinctions round which religion has ever revolved.
It would be impossible to develop in detail the mode in
which these varied elements worked together in the forma
tion of the intellectual character with which Schleiermacher
entered on his public career. I note only as of special
significance the attitude which then and later his views
assumed towards the all-important Kantian philosophy. For
in that philosophy was laid the ground-work of a new
and comprehensive conception of man, which, while it
negatively destroyed the barren rationalism of the En
lightenment, left on its positive side much to be done in
the way of clearing up, systematising, and overcoming its
own imperfections. The significance of any post-Kantian
work is to be estimated according to the clearness with
which it apprehends the general position of the Kantian
doctrine, the particular difficulties inherent in it, and the
extent to which it succeeds in overcoming these.
With much in the critical philosophy Schleiermacher had
little or no sympathy. He was ready enough to accept the
fundamental view that knowledge regarded as process is a
combination of sense-perception and understanding, the one
supplying the matter, the other the form, and that know
ledge, regarded from the point of view of its content, is
vir] REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 153
limited to the orderly necessitated realm of sense-phen
omena, which we call nature. On the whole, too, he was
contented with the second main theorem that what the
ideas of Reason contain, God, Freedom, and the Soul, are
not objects of knowledge, but have significance only as
characteristic and necessary forms of the spiritual life, the
life of reflective self -consciousness. But he could neither
remain satisfied, as many of the immediate followers of
Kant did, with these two theorems left in that barren juxta
position, nor with the further steps whereby Kant himself
endeavoured to secure for them a more organic connexion
with one another and with the ultimate fact, the character
of Reason as consciousness of self in man. It appeared to
him, and I think so far rightly, that, in these further efforts
to bring the severed parts of this doctrine into vital unity,
Kant only rendered more pronounced their abstract and
irreconcilable character; and his objections addressed them
selves to the ethical position in which Kant found fullest
satisfaction. Influenced, perhaps, by his leanings towards
Spinoza, Schleiermacher insisted on the wholly contradictory
result that followed from the Kantian doctrine of Freedom.
In the badly expressed notion of Freedom of Will, Kant, it
is known, placed the very essence of self-consciousness, and
with it of morality ; but in so doing he had to oppose to one
another with such marked antithesis the original and
intelligible fact of freedom and the concrete realities of
human conduct, that they seemed to lie in two wholly
distinct realms of existence. The excessive formalism of
his view, moreover, ran counter to another of Schleier-
macher s most cherished thoughts a thought which to him
appeared not only reconcilable with the unity of things, but
demanded by it the inestimable significance of individuality.
For in the Kantian analysis of action and the Good the
individualising features had necessarily been referred to
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PAHT i.
the contingent external matter, and it was hard to assign
to the requirements of the moral law any definite, any
particular content. With this Schleiermacher could not be
satisfied. To him the Good was generally the expression
of the formative operation of the spiritual on the natural,
and the highest good the completed result of that in the
individual character a result not to be attained in isolation,
but embracing as an essential condition devotion to the
common welfare.
In Berlin, Schleiermacher found wholly new conditions of
life, adapted certainly to call forth and develop much in his
many-sided character, calculated also to give undue promin
ence to what in it was of least objective worth. Berlin had
long been the focus of the Enlightenment ; but though it held
aloof from the stirring efforts of the new classical school of
poets, though even Goethe was but coldly regarded there, the
new generation in the last decade of the century was break
ing loose from the old bonds. In particular the younger
members of the cultivated and wealthy social circles of the
Jews, who had long sat at the feet of Mendelssohn and
hailed him as their intellectual prophet, were now inspired
by the ideas of a culture for which the Enlightenment had no
formulae. It was in these circles that Schleiermacher found
his most sympathetic welcome ; there he found the com
prehension of his nature which he missed elsewhere ; there
he formed his friendship with Friedrich Schlegel, and gave
himself up for a time to the restless turbulent activity of the
Romantic school. The strain of sentiment in his character
made it possible for him to judge all too favourably of such
principle as there was in the wonderful compound called
Romanticism, to find a perfect character in F. Schlegel, and
to ignore the danger to which the want of objective basis
exposes the life of impetuous feeling. It was a rude shock
when the unhappy relations of Dorothea Veit to F. Schlegel
VII.
REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 155
came to the inevitable termination ; but, true to an exagger
ated friendship, and expressing likewise his large share of
sympathy with the romantic view, he endangered his reputa
tion by the Confidential Letters on Luciude. It is to be said,
however, that much as Schleiermacher leaned towards the
sickly sentimentalism current in the society in which he
moved, there were always in him elements antithetic to it.
And in his personal career these led to increasing divergence
and final separation from his quondam friend. It was with
pain, depression, and a sense of broken energies that he
left Berlin in 1802 for a country parsonage at Stolpe, in
Pomerania.
His literary activity meanwhile had begun to yield fruit.
The Addresses on Keligiou appeared in 1799; the Mono
logues in the following year ; an elaborate criticism of ethical
systems in 1803 ; and from 1804 onwards he was occupied
witli the great translation of Plato, a work which more than
any other stimulated the interest of the modern world in
ancient philosophy.
I pass rapidly over the few salient events of his after-life.
In 1804 he was called to Halle as Professor of Theology.
Returning to Berlin in 1807, he occupied himself busily in
lecturing, preaching, and co-operating in the foundation of
the new university, wherein he was the first Professor of
Theology. With no personal liking for Fichte, he shared the
warmth of his patriotism, was eager in the institution of the
Tugendbund, and during the years of depression seems to have
been much engaged on secret political embassies. From 1814
onwards to his death in 1834, as Professor and Secretary of
the Academy of Sciences, he exercised a constant and multi
form activity. The only work he published was his Christian
Belief, 1821-22, which, as supplementary to the Eeden,
gives a complete view of his philosophical and theological
opinions.
156 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
It was impossible for Schleiermacher to accept the position
in which theology seemed to have been left by the critical
philosophy, as identical with or an ambiguous appendage to
morality. Such a conception of it seemed to him not only to
rest on a narrow philosophical basis, but to do no justice to
the all-important character of the essential fact in all forms
of religion, the religious feelings of man. This religious
consciousness had the peculiarity that it connected itself
with no one province of facts rather than another : it was
all-embracing, and affected every part of human nature. A
system which failed to do justice to this fundamental feature,
or which found its ultimate conceptions out of harmony with
it, thereby demonstrated its own incomplete and fragmentary
character. Eeligion itself is no system of rationalised ideas ;
nor has it merely the function of aiding the moral impulse in
man. It is separable from and independent of the philosophy
which endeavours in pseudo-scientific fashion to embrace in
the network of its notions the sum of reality : it is not to be
deduced from or explained by any conceptions of the law of
conduct. Its foundation lies neither in Eeason nor in Will,
but in Feeling, the most immediate, direct, simple experience
of the human soul, that mode in which it becomes first and
best aware of itself. Here lies the inner unity of life, the
ultimate core of personality, the mirror in which the in
dividual reflects the universe of which he is a part.
The primitive, absolute feeling of dependence, the expres
sion of the finiteness of the individual, is more particularly
the mark of the religious consciousness, which connects itself
therefore with no one particular of experience, but with the
universal life in things. Whoever feels the intimate union
of his soul with the universal ground of things has the
essence of Religion, with whatsoever notions he may clothe
the reality to which he feels himself in relation.
The religious consciousness is at once the mode of appre-
vii.J REGENERATION OF GERMANY. 157
hension of the divine in man and the direct operation of the
divine nature in the finite soul. In every one there lies
implicitly the capacity for such consciousness ; in each it
may be developed, and in the exchange of individual ex
periences, in the community of believers or Church, consists
the objective organisation by which the religious life is
strengthened and furthered.
Religions, as they have historically manifested themselves,
stand in the relation to one another not of true and false,
but of more or less complete. The term truth, indeed, has no
application within the sphere of religion proper. It belongs
to the rationalised system of ideas wherein the religious
feeling may clothe itself, but which stands in no essential
relation to it.
Although, according to Schleiermacher, Reason is not the
organ of religion, and a man s religious feelings may be
wholly independent of his speculative views ; yet to complete
the view of his theology it is requisite to add what follows
from his criticism of the Kantian doctrine in respect to the
nature of this universe of reality with which religious feeling
is connected. The real ground of things he names, with
Spinoza, God ; and with Spinoza he identifies God with the
infinite variety of His manifestations making up the world.
It was the strength of conviction with which he held this
conception of the unity of things that compelled him to reject
the Kantian opposition of nature arid freedom, and to insist
on the unbroken continuity of connexion throughout the
whole universe. With this Spinozism he combines the Leib-
nizian thought of an infinite scale of varied perfection in the
forms of finite manifestation, a thought which in like manner
helps to overcome the deep-rooted dualism in Kant s scheme
of things.
It is easy to see where the weak point of Schleiermacher s
exposition lies. With all admiration for the resolute way
158 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. [PART i.
in which he tries to work out his doctrine of Religion, it is
impossible to remain satisfied either with its basis or with
the method by which progress is effected from it. Feeling is,
and will always remain, the obscure and ambiguous element
in the inner life ; and for satisfaction of the problems that
experience forces on us we need, not the exercises that are
to stimulate pious feeling, but the patient labour of reason
that will clear up and systematise our notions.
Schleiermacher saw clearly enough the ultimate question
that had come forward in the Kantian philosophy. He saw
that what was needed was a more comprehensive view of
human experience, such as should at once do justice to the
results of the analysis of knowledge and to the permanent
interest man takes in religion and morality. If we are to
determine what these thoughts signify on which the human
mind has always turned the thoughts of God, and Immor
tality, and the Good and to determine them in a way that
shall be in harmony with our scientific knowledge of nature,
some organic connexion must be established between the
parts of our nature, which the Kantian system had seemed
to tear asunder. Such organic connexion can never be given
by feeling, which stands itself in need of interpretation, and
lends itself with dangerous ease to all forms of explanation.
PART II.
PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY
A.
GENERAL ANALYSIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY.
THE difficulties of psychology begin at the very outset in the
attempt to define accurately the province or scope of the
whole study. Naturally the first suggestion of a definition,
that psychology is the science of mind or of the soul, must
be dismissed as merely verbal. So general a definition does
not suffice to distinguish psychology from other cognate
studies, any one of which might claim in a sense to be
the science of mind, for example, the critical theory of
knowledge, Epistemology. Moreover, the important term
mind, when taken in the substantive fashion, tends rather
to introduce from the first into the treatment of psychology
a special theory, the justification for which can be given
only by psychology itself.
Even if we amend this preliminary definition, and, in
accordance with more modern practice, describe psychology
as the theory or science of the facts of the inner life or
phenomena of consciousness, we have still to face the ques
tion, What is involved in and what is excluded from the
VOL. II. L
162 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
matter so selected for psychology, and what is the method
of treating it which is specifically psychological ? For it is
evident that a fact of the inner life or a phenomenon of con
sciousness may be interpreted in a variety of ways, may be
taken to signify more or less : for example, it is character
istic of one important line of reflexion in modern psycho
logical theory that it insists on regarding each fact of the
inner life or each phenomenon of consciousness as involving
the antithesis between subject and object, and as involving
that antithesis so intimately that in the absence of it the
psychical fact or conscious phenomenon is held to be un
intelligible.
Again, it is obvious that a psychological fact or phen
omenon of consciousness may be regarded in a variety of
ways, may be treated from more than one point of view.
There is a familiar distinction that between the psycho
logical and the logical which rests upon the difference re
ferred to. It is possible, perhaps necessary, to regard the
psychical fact as part of a larger natural process which comes
about under natural conditions, and which may therefore be
approached from the same objective point of view that is
occupied in any scientific treatment of natural facts. On
the other hand, the same phenomenon of consciousness may
be regarded from the point of view of its content, and con
sidered with respect to the kind of insight thereby derived
concerning real processes conceived to be distinct from itself.
Possibly this distinction may apply to some only of the
phenomena of consciousness. Obviously it applies to those
which constitute cognition or knowledge. Even if it does
not hold good with respect to feeling and will, it requires to
be taken into account in determining the general nature of
the treatment which is specifically psychological.
At the same time, the term phenomenon of consciousness
seems to indicate a terminus in the process towards defining
CHAP. I.] PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 163
or marking-off the field of psychology. It is impossible to
get further, in the sense of expressing what is conveyed by
the term consciousness, or to reduce consciousness to some
thing different from and simpler than itself. It may be
possible to refer the appearance of what is called conscious
ness to conditions in the absence of which it is not found ;
and undoubtedly whatsoever is achieved in that direction
must take its place as part, and a very important part, of any
general account or science of the phenomena of conscious
ness. That is to say, even though we may acknowledge that
the specih c character of those facts with which psychology
has to deal is an ultimate, we are not bound to the further
assertion that the limits of psychological theory are con
terminous with those of consciousness. It is perhaps a pre
judice on our part that we should invariably strive to abolish
so far as possible qualitative distinctions, and should feel
that our theoretical explanation is incomplete if we are not
able to see analytically how a qualitative characteristic
comes about from some combination of what is simpler, less
qualitatively marked, than itself.
The term consciousness, then, is that to which we have
first to give our attention, trying to describe what is in
volved in it, with the exclusion, so far as possible, of hypo
thetical elements.
Now, undoubtedly, the simplest sense of the term con
sciousness is that which identifies it with the total moment
ary state of the subject. All of which he is aware at any
given moment is in one sense his consciousness ; and .we are
certainly entitled to extend this definition of the term so as
to include the total series of such momentary states. At the
same time, it is evident that the very expressions we have
employed raise the difficulties already referred to. In that
description the terms have been employed the subject,
and all of which he is aware. Now, undoubtedly, from
164 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
the point of view of the developed mind, the latter term
would include much that can in no sense be supposed to
constitute part of the inner life of the individual subject
himself. Any one describing that of which he is aware
would and must employ terms of wholly objective signifi
cance. His perceptions, for example, would be described by
him as ways of being aware of the existence and qualities of
things ; and, from one point of view, he would rightly say
that the things perceived are that of which he is aware. It
is obviously necessary, therefore, to make a distinction, and
a distinction, moreover, of a twofold kind. On the one hand
(and this is the popular mode of expressing it) a distinction
must be drawn between the objective facts and that modifica
tion or change in the mode of existence of the subject which
constitutes his perception of them the distinction familiarly
expressed as that between outer and inner. On the other
hand, the same distinction must be expressed in a more
subtle, but more satisfactory, fashion as holding good for the
subject himself ; for obviously the distinction between inner
and outer is one for the subject, or in consciousness itself.
The distinction, then, is that between the state of conscious
ness, the perception, for example, as a way in which the
subject is immediately affected or modified, and the reference
to something other than itself which is involved in that
mode of consciousness.
Now such a distinction, undoubtedly familiar in the mat
ured consciousness, can hardly be described in definite terms
without suggesting the further question, whether the refer
ence involved in it, and in the form in which it is there
involved, is a primary or a derivative part of the total mental
state. If we entertain any doubt with regard to the primari-
ness of the implication, if we think there are grounds for
asserting that the primitive condition of perceiving does not
contain such reference, or at least not in that form, we may
CHAP. 1.] PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 165
obtain therefrom a hint as to the peculiarity of the psycho
logical treatment of facts ; for to that would belong (1) the
consideration of phenomena of consciousness as primary or
immediate experiences, and (2) the consideration of the way
in which there comes to be added to the immediate experi
ences this secondary or mediate element of reference.
If it be legitimate to question the primariness of the refer
ence to the outer world, which now appears to form part of
that of which we are aware, it follows that it is equally
possible to question the simplicity and primariness of that
other implication introduced into the statement namely, the
subject. Undoubtedly the question is legitimate, if the
subject be taken in the fashion in which it appears as a
component of the developed phenomenon perceiving, for
example. It is quite impossible that the subject should be
involved in a direct immediate experience which we cannot
suppose to contain in it a reference to the outer object, in
the same fashion as that in which it appears in mature
experience. But it is possible perhaps it is necessary
that even in the primary immediate experiences there should
be contained that which serves as the basis for the later
developed reference, on the one hand to the subject, on the
other hand to the outer object.
From these immediate experiences, then, we seem to be
entitled to exclude the antithesis of subject and object, at all
events in the sense familiar to us, that which is for conscious
ness the counterpart of the popular distinction between inner
and outer; whence again it would follow that psychology
has for its material (1) the immediate experiences, and (2)
the process by which, from their characteristics, there is
developed the distinction between subject and object.
Now, all questions of the critical or epistemological kind
proceed on the basis of this developed distinction between
subject and object. They are all questions which concern
166 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART II. A.
the supposed objective worth of connexions which are prim
arily in thought, or subjective. There is, therefore, a distinc-
ti6n of the most obvious kind between the psychological and
the epistemological mode of treating the facts of conscious
ness. The one contemplates these facts as immediate experi
ences, in and through which there is developed that antithesis
of subject and object, from the jecognition of which the
epistemological problem takes its start. In one sense, then,
it might be said that neither in material nor in point of view
are psychology and theory of knowledge identical.
On the whole, then, psychology has for its object the
description and explanation of those immediate experiences
whereby an individual self-conscious existence, and therewith
reference to an outer objective world, become actual.
167
CHAPTER II.
PRESENTATIOXISM, AND THE SUBJECT-REFERENCE.
THE first main problem in psychology is concerned with the
general analysis of the inner life. In regard to this question
there have been three important conceptions. The first
regards the inner life, the field of consciousness, as the
expression or manifestation of a number of distinct faculties
or powers with which the subject is endowed. The second
conception is represented, so far, by two very distinct treat
ments of the material, that of Herbart in Germany, and that
of the Association School in England. It regards the whole
of consciousness as the result of the varied combinations
which come about among ultimate simple elements, of which
elements naturally the typical example is to be found in the
simple irreducible sensation. Carried to its full extent, this
conception might fairly be called that of psychical atomism ;
for, on the whole, in its two fundamental features it presents
a strong resemblance to the physical doctrine of atoms : in
the first place, the elements are simple, and retain through
out their original character ; and, in the second place, the com
bination which occurs among them is represented as being of
the general nature called mechanical. A third main concep
tion represents the life of consciousness as, taken generally,
a continuous development, the varying forms of which are to
be represented as the stages of the development itself. Of
course, within this large conception there is room for great
168 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
difference of view as regards the nature of that which, de
velops, and, more particularly, as regards the implications of
the notion of development itself.
Of these three views, the first can hardly be said to possess
significance for modern psychology. At its best it merely
served to lay out, in a descriptive classificatory fashion, such
knowledge of mind as is for the most part condensed in the
ordinary terminology by which mental operations are desig
nated. Even in its strictest fashion, that is, even if we
accepted the general metaphysical position, that whatever
actually occurs indicates the presence of a power which is
called into exercise, it is evident that nothing is gained for
explanation of the inner life by the assumption of faculties.
The precondition for working out the hypothesis would evid
ently be the completion of just such an analysis and history
of the mental life as constitute psychology itself.
The second conception may be connected with very different
views, both of the ultimate elements themselves and of the
conditions under which they come into existence. The first
important treatment of the inner life from this point of view,
that of Herbart, was undoubtedly hampered by the meta
physical presuppositions on which it was in large part based. 1
On metaphysical grounds Herbart chose to represent the
soul as a simple nature, which, as real, had very much the
characteristics of the old Eleatic notion of Being. The real,
like that Greek representation of the existent, was simple,
indestructible, and receptive of nothing into itself : it under
went, therefore, in one sense, no change. Yet, since ap
parent change required some explanation, it was necessary
for Herbart to assume that, as a consequence of the variable
relations in which each real the soul, for example stood to
1 [Lehrbuch zur Psychologic, 1816 ; gegriindet auf Erfahrung, Metaphysik
Psychologic als Wissenschaft, neu und Mathematik, 1824-25.]
CHAP. II.] PRESENT ATIONISM. 169
other reals, something did happen ; and this something he
chose to express as the self-maintenance of the real. 1 The
soul then being (let us say, with less strictness of language)
acted on, reacted; and its reactions were the ways in which
it preserved its own inherent nature.
With this rather obscure metaphysic Herbart united an
other position redolent of the earlier Eleatic metaphysic :
what has once occurred never ceases to exist. The reaction
of the soul, its assertion or maintenance of itself, remains.
Now, with an appeal to experience which is only in part
disguised, Herbart proceeded to treat the whole process of the
mental life as the result of the way in which the soul reacts,
and of the various ways in which the reactions, whether now
occurring or due to the past, combine together. Conscious
ness is a total state resulting from and expressing a certain
degree of intensity of any one of these reactions ; and the total
field of consciousness at any moment is determined in its
character by the relations of degree of intensity obtaining
among the simple elementary reactions possessed by the soul.
It is easy to understand why, from this point of view, Herbart
should lay the greatest stress on what are commonly called
the Laws of Association. For, according to the ways in which
the simple elements presentations, he called them resemble
one another or differ from one another, according to the time-
relations in which they have been given or received, pres
entations tend either to increase or to lower the degree of
intensity of other presentations, and to aid or impede one
another in preserving their original degree of intensity. This
change of degree of intensity may be called, metaphorically,
movement into or out of consciousness ; and the general
psychological problem is, therefore, to determine according to
what laws the elements so combine in consciousness that their
movements in or out thereof yield the concrete results directly
1 [See above, vol. i. p. 302 ft .]
170 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
known to us. It is implied, then, in Herbart s view that all
those more involved states of inner experience (judging, for
example) in which there appear as components the self,
its own ideas, and an object distinct therefrom to which the
ideas refer that all such states are to be explained as the
result of the way in which the simple presentations have
moved and are moving.
Again, in this treatment the simplest elements are naturally
those in which most obviously there is implied what for the
moment we shall call action upon the real, that is, the soul ;
and such, certainly, are the sense-presentations. Each distinct
sense-presentation is an ultimate way in which the soul reacts
or maintains itself. Herbart did not, therefore, place on the
same level of priority with the sense-presentations those
other factors which generally have been regarded as equally
primitive. Feeling, for example, he explained as a secondary
reaction depending on, and indicating, a certain state of
conflict or harmony arising from the presence together in
consciousness of the ultimate simple elements. In this it
is implied that what are called bodily pains and pleasures
must be regarded as sensations, and be distinguished from
the feelings. It should also be noted, that, though feeling is
in one sense described as secondary, it is nevertheless accepted
as an ultimate factor ; it is not a combination of presenta
tions, but a new reaction.
In addition to these sense-presentations and feelings Her
bart admits no original elements in consciousness. All the
higher processes of intellect are deduced from the presenta
tions, while willing tinds an explanation by reference to a
characteristic assigned to the sense-presentations, and, so to
speak, inherent in them that each strives to maintain itself
in consciousness as well and as long as it can. Such striving
is not indeed will, but is the ultimate fact which determines
the development in the line of willing.
CHAP. II.] PRESENT ATIONISM. 171
The Association psychology, as it has been called, proceeds
on much the same lines as the Herbartian, but without its
metaphysical basis and complications. It is peculiar to botli
that the higher products, the more concrete forms of mental
life, should be regarded as mechanically resulting from the
grouping together of elementary parts. Wherever the As
sociation psychology acknowledges that, in these more con
crete forms, there is more than, or something different from,
a grouping of the elements, it departs from its own principle
and makes appeal to some mode of explanation probably
quite inconsistent with its own basis. That some such
further appeal has always been found necessary is evident
if we consider two typical problems : one belonging rather to
the side of cognition, the apprehension of relations ; the
other belonging to the side of feeling, the special character
O O ^ -i.
of the emotions. In the latter case, indeed, the admission
that some further explanation is needed has been openly
made by the exponents of the Association view themselves.
An emotion, fear or anger, for instance, may indeed be seen
to involve the simpler factors sensations, feelings, and ideas ;
but its peculiar character, its unity, is wholly inexplicable
by a reference to the conjoint presence of these elementary
parts. It is admitted that the combination of the element
ary parts results in a whole, the character of which is totally
distinct from that of its parts a result which, as in the
case of Herbart s view of the relation between sense-
presentations and feelings, indicates that the mechanical
mode of explanation has proved inadequate. Nor is any
thing really gained by using, as J. S. Mill does, 1 the term
mental chemistry to indicate the formation of a product
which has a unique quality, and in which for the subject
himself, or introspectively, it is impossible to discover the
components.
1 [System of Logic, B. V. c. iv. 3, 10th ed., vol. i. p. 441.]
172 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
The term selected by Herbart for the simple components
of mind, which we translate by presentation, may be used
as the basis for a general description of the whole theory.
Dr Ward proposes to call the general conception Presenta-
tionism ; l and he has written a criticism of the theory which
is mainly designed to show that, from the point of view of
Presentationism, no explanation is possible of what is most
characteristic of mind the antithesis between subject and
object.
His treatment of this subject may with advantage be con
nected with the short analysis which, in his own Psychology, 2
he offers of the ultimate components of mind. Conscious
experience is there regarded as generically involving " a
subject (1) non-voluntarily attending to changes in the
sensory continuum ; (2) being in consequence either pleased
or displeased ; (3) by voluntary attention or inuervation
producing changes in the motor continuum." The presenta
tion of sensory objects and the presentation of motor objects
correspond respectively to the first and third members of the
division. There is no object and no presentation correspond
ing to the second.
The fundamental fact in this scheme is the antithesis
between subject and object, which, in more definitely psycho
logical terms, seems to imply an operation of some kind on
the part of the subject, an operation directed upon what is
either given to or produced by the subject, while that which
is given or produced is called a presentation.
To this operation there appears to be assigned the title
Attention : so that the whole scheme falls into the two
sections the subject, on the one hand, with its primary
function of attention and with its secondary capacity of
feeling; and, on the other hand, the object, which is
1 [Modern Psychology, Mind, N.S., 2 [Encyclopedia BritannZca, 9th
vol. ii. p. 54 ff.] ed., vol. xx. p. 44o.]
CIJAP. ii.] PRESENTATIONLSM. 173
identified with presentation. In his article Modern Psy
chology, Dr Ward seems mainly engaged in pointing out
that Presentationism pure and simple makes the mistake of
ignoring completely the primary function and position of the v
subject, and, further, that it must find itself entangled in
almost hopeless difficulty as regards the secondary capacity
of feeling : for feeling, according to the scheme, is not pre
sented ; a feeling is not a presentation ; it is never an object ;
and, consequently, if mind be represented as composed
wholly of presentations, as arising in and through the inter
action or combination of presentations, no explanation is
possible of that kind of self-apprehension which is involved
iu the consciousness of feeling.
o
Obviously, the divergence of view here must be connected
with the special sense attached to the term presentation ;
and, for my part, I cannot help thinking that nothing but
confusion will arise from identifying presentation with
object. It is impossible to avoid the consequence that
follows from that identification. The presentation conceived
as object at once acquires a quasi-substantive existence. No
doubt no psychologist would care to describe sense-presenta
tions as things ; but, if he calls them objects/ it will be
difficult to avoid attaching to them the same characteristics
by which we describe to ourselves the mode of existence of
things ; and, if we separate, as Dr Ward does, the primary
function of the subject his attention from the presenta
tions, it will be equally difficult to avoid assigning independ
ent existence to each of these components. The presentation
will tend to be conceived literally as given with all its
characteristics to the function or faculty of attention, which,
in its turn, must be represented as a wholly independent
fact.
Is there, then, justification for the assumption that, in the
primitive stage of consciousness, the qualitatively distinct
174 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
contents are apprehended as objects ? Is it not possible
that the characteristics which constitute the meaning of the
term object come to be assigned to these qualitatively
distinct contents as a result of the developed knowledge in
which an independent world of things is distinguished from
and contrasted with the apprehending subject ? If, indeed,
we continue to represent these primitive contents of con
sciousness, as the Association psychology generally did, as
individualised sense-presentations a colour, a sound, and so
on we may feel ourselves compelled to attach to them
something of objective significance. But, in that case, what
shall we make of the equally simple directly given relations
coexistence and succession, for example in and through
which these presentations are given in consciousness ? The
Association psychology, in its strictest form, has always
N/ found the explanation of these relational elements a hopeless
problem. Indeed, criticism of it has generally consisted in
drawing attention to these ; and the counter-theory has too
often been rapidly developed by finding an explanation of
them in some non-sensuous relating synthetic activity of the
mind or ego or self.
These relations, if taken in the form in which they are
originally presented, have at all events little or none of that
claim to substantive existence which the sense-presentations
appear to have ; and I can conceive of no reason why they
should be called specifically objects. If, then, we admit
that presentations are erroneously conceived as forming in
their isolation one side of the primitive sensory conscious
ness, if, on the contrary, we insist that the primitive sensory
consciousness, in order to exist at all, implies a related
manifold of distinct contents, we may take the further step
and infer that the objective character we commonly assign
to sense-presentations is an after-growth.
From the same point of view, the question may be asked :
CHAP, ii.] PRESENTATIONISM. 175
Is it legitimate to assume that the distinction, obvious enough
in the mature consciousness, between sensory and motor
objects on the one hand, and feelings on the other, obtains in
the same fashion in the more primitive form of consciousness?
in other words, Are we justified in denying to feelings the
title presentations ?
Whoever maintains that feelings are not presented, that
there is a distinction of kind between feeling and presen
tation, must of course, as Herbart did, distinguish between
* o
bodily pleasure or pain and pleasure or pain which results
from some combination of presentations. Bodily pleasure
and pain, it can hardly be doubted, may be presented. But,
if bodily pleasures and pains are admitted as presentations,
then, on the one hand, it must be acknowledged that the
significance of the term object as applied to presentations
must be made most extensive : for unquestionably we do not
give to the sensations of bodily pleasure or pain any shadow
of that substantive existence which we undoubtedly give in
varied degree to the ordinary sense-presentations, such as
colour, sound, and the like ; and, on the other hand, it
becomes almost impossible to maintain a distinction in the
way of knowing between these pleasures and pains and those
which may be supposed to arise in consequence of changes
among the presentations themselves. Certainly, the burden
of proof that feelings cannot be presented rests on those
who maintain that, owing to the way in which pleasures and
pains are generated, they can never be presented, never be
the objects of direct immediate experience. Not impossibly
we shall find the clue to a solution of this question by con
sidering the relation between consciousness and knowledge.
In Dr Ward s view that which specially characterises mind
is the antithesis between subject and object. The fundamental
term presentation is defined by reference to this antithesis.
" A presentation," he says, " has a twofold relation ; first,
176 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
directly to the subject, and secondly, to other presentations.
By the first is meant the fact that the presentation is attended
to, that the subject is more or less conscious of it : it is in
his mind or presented. As presented to a subject a presen
tation might with advantage be called an object, or perhaps
a psychical object. . . . Ideas are objects ; and the relation
of objects to subjects that whereby the one is object and
the other subject is presentation. . . . On the side of the
subject [this] implies what, for want of a better word, may
be called attention, extending the denotation of this term so
as to include even what we ordinarily call inattention. . . .
The inter-objective relations of presentations are those on
which their second characteristic, that of revivability and
associability, depends." l
Presentations then, briefly, are objects on which is exer
cised some form of mental activity, a certain quantum of
which is necessary. Presentations, moreover, can be revived
and associated. Within the region of mind they constitute
the objective factor ; and from them must be distinguished
as heterogeneous whatsoever attaches only to the subject and
his attitude towards presentations. Of this subjective factor
there are at least two varieties, if, indeed, a third has not to be
included : first, the activity of attending ; secondly, the state
or affection of being pleased or pained. To these possibly
might have to be added something that is involved in that
change of attitude of the subject prominent in voluntary
movement or voluntary control of thought.
From this point of view, then, it becomes intelligible why
Dr Ward should insist so resolutely on the difference of kind
between feelings and presentations. They are indeed so de
fined by him as to be generically distinct. It is therefore
implied in his view of their opposed nature that the features
most generally characteristic of presentations that they can
1 [Art. Psychology, E. B., vol. xx. pp. 41a-42a.]
CHAP. II.] PRESENT ATIONISM. 177
be attended to, revived, and associated must be absent from
feeling.
In order to test the view we shall ask : first, whether it is
legitimate to refuse to feeling these general characteristics ;
and, secondly, whether the actual facts of inner experience
justify the defined antithesis between presentations on the
one hand and what is referred to the subject attention and
feeling on the other.
(1) As regards the former point, the question is, no doubt,
a subtle one. But, if the feeling of being pleased or pained
is not presented to the subject, in what way is the subject
aware of it ? It cannot seriously be contended that it is
only by inference from the effects which follow such change
of affective state as constitutes feeling, that the subject is
aware of feeling. If it must be admitted that in some way
the subject is aware of feeling, how shall we define this par
ticular attitude of l>einy aware ? Has it no content at all ?
Even if with Dr Ward, who recognises fully the force of this
objection, we go the length of rejecting what is implied in
the familiar term feelings, even if with him we could hold
that the facts are better expressed by saying, not that the
subject has different feelings, but that he feels differently,
nevertheless we could not exclude the simple ultimate differ
ence of pleasurable and painful ; and this is qualitative
enough to render it necessary to admit that feeling has a
content.
I am not even sure that we ought to speak so confidently
of never having pleasure and pain as possible objects.
Already the case of bodily pleasures and pains has sug
gested an exception ; for even though these come to be con
nected with other sense-presentations, to be localised, yet it
is legitimate to suppose that they had not originally such
objective predicates, and it is tolerably certain that even now
our attitude towards them exhibits a curious conflict or
VOL. II. M
178 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
struggle between the objective and the subjective refer
ence. There are also other phenomena which seem to sug
gest an exception. Is it the fact that we never objectify
pleasures and pains ? Do we always remain true to this absol
ute distinction ? Does not the primitive mind, whether in the
savage or the child, assign feelings to external objects with
out hesitation, represent them to itself as pleased or pained ?
If so, it will be hard to reconcile this fact with the rigorous
character of the distinction drawn. For, even if it be said
that the explanation is that the primitive mind personifies
the objects, makes them subjects, it is making them subjects
for its own contemplation ; they are objects to it, and it cer
tainly imagines itself to be representing their inner states of
pleasure and pain.
Again, are we justified in refusing to pleasure and pain
that secondary characteristic revivability and associability
which we allow to presentations ? On what grounds is it
to be said that we cannot remember a pleasure or pain ? If
it be insisted that, while we can revive a presentation, we
cannot revive a feeling, that what simulates the revived feel
ing is the new state of feeling into which we are thrown by
the revived presentation, it must be said that this view either
confers an objectionable and dubious mode of independent
existence on the presentation, or ignores what, without such
theory, must be supposed to be the condition of revival. As
regards the former alternative it will hardly be contended
that, in literal fact, the presentation, as an object distinct
from our having it, attending to it, or being aware of it, is
recalled into existence.
But, if we exclude this wholly fanciful interpretation of
revival, then it will be found hard to express the condition
whereby what is called revival of the presentation comes about
in any way which shall render impossible a similar revival of
the feeling. There will always be differences in the form of
CHAP, ii.] PRESENTATIONISM. 179
such revival according to the differences in the original char
acters of what is revived. But there seems no ground for
supposing a difference of kind between that re-stimulation of
the disposition left by a first experience, which constitutes
the revival of the presentation, and a corresponding re-
stimulation of the disposition, which we must suppose to
have been in like manner due to the original pleasure-pain
feeling.
It does not seem to me decisive to say that pleasures and
pains are revived only in conjunction with what are called
presentations. Were we to apply the principle involved in
such an argument we should find that it cut at the root of
revival even of presentations. ISTo presentation is revived in
isolation. Interdependence, therefore, constitutes no argu
ment against the possibility of reviving feeling. No doubt
there is a difficulty, but one, I think, mainly imaginary, in
the term idea of a feeling. It is imaginary, because it
appears to result mainly from our habitual tendency to think
in images, and to insist on a pictorial representation of what
we are representing. But there seems no good ground for
refusing to describe my representation of the pleasures and
pains which another subject may experience under certain
conditions, by the name idea of feeling. If we do not,
in this quasi-objective fashion, represent to ourselves the
pleasures and pains of others, it is hard to understand
how these experiences could signify anything for us at
all. Even if we had first to realise the feelings in our
selves, we should have in the second place to transfer
them to what is certainly objective to us the inner life
of the other subject.
(2) It is not uncommon to group or arrange the facts
of mind in accordance with the principle implied in Dr
Ward s view, that is, to make the distinction depend upon
the different ways in which reference to the object is made.
180 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
On this ground Brentano bases his distinction of presentation
from judgment with" belief, and from feeling with wish or
striving: 1 for in each the mode of reference to the object
seems to be characteristic. I imagine that historically the
whole view comes directly from the Kantian system, where
the principle of varied reference to the object determines the
threefold classification into cognition, feeling, and volition.
It is a cardinal point in Kant s treatment that feeling is the
subjective element ; and his reason for this is, that by means
of feeling we determine nothing as regards the constitution
of the object. 2
According to Kant the decisive criterion of the subjective is
that it cannot form the basis of a predicate which we can
regard as forming part of the object of cognition. Only by
insisting on this criterion is it possible for Kant to make any
such distinction as that which he draws between a sensation,
such as sweetness, and feeling ; and, obviously, the criterion
depends on a very special and highly developed conception
of what is meant by object. The object is invariably that
which is represented by the subject as independent of his
own mode of being, as possessing characteristics which can
not be ascribed to the subject himself. Clearly any such
conception lies wholly outside the_domain of psychological
analysis. It is not in that fashion that what the psychol-
[ ogist calls "presentations" can be defined as objects; and
yet, without such definition, it is quite impossible to retain
the absoluteness of the distinction between sense-presenta
tions and feelings. We are entitled, I think, to insist that
real injustice is done in psychological analysis by introducing
as primitive and simple so highly developed and derivative
a conception as that of object.
1 [Psychologic vom empirischen 2 Kritik der Urtheilskraft, in trod.
Standpunkte (1874), B. II. c. vi. 7 ; [tr. Bernard, pp. 29-30].
2, 3.]
CHAP, i!.] PRESENTATIONISM. 181
To introduce it involves as a consequence the representa
tion of consciousness after a fashion familiar enough to us
from our ordinary practical conception of the process of
knowledge. We are compelled, that is, to depict the primi
tive simple condition of being conscious after the model sup
plied by our ordinary practical experience, that of a cognising
subject, inner eye, or inner vision, which is directed upon
objects wholly independent of it. It is doing Dr Ward s
exposition no injustice to say that this representation is in
separable from his view of Attention. Attention plays with
him the part which the inner organ of vision played in the
earlier psychology of Locke and his school ; and, if we give
to attention the latitude of significance which Dr Ward s
use of the term demands, we must allow that its operations
become wholly unintelligible. It is apprehended only through
its effects. All that is otherwise in consciousness is distin
guished from it ; and its variations of intensity and direction
become altogether unaccountable. When its meaning is
extended so as to cover, in Dr Ward s own words, every
shade of inattention/ it is wholly indistinguishable from
consciousness, and we have nothing to which to appeal when
explanation is sought for the obvious difference between in,-
attention and that concentration which is ordinarily called
attention. There can be no doubt that, under any circum
stances, that ultimate nature which we, perhaps imper
fectly, designate by the term being conscious is never itself
and in isolation a content of consciousness ; it is never an
object, because, rightly construed, it is never itself a separate
existent. But attention, on the other hand, is a term which
indicates a certain modification of contents of consciousness ;
and it may become an object of knowledge just in so far as
the changes it implies are represented in connexion with the
conditions under which they come about.
Attention and feeling are not by any means the only
182 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
portions of the inner life which, in the course of its develop
ment, are assigned to the subjective side. We must allow
that, as matter of fact, every process of mind is thus assigned
by the subject to himself, and takes its place, therefore, on
the subjective side. If it be maintained that these processes
are nothing but variations of attention, and that what occurs
is merely a case of the reference of attention to the subject
himself, the obvious reply is that we cannot sever the abstract
modification of attention from what gives it concreteness and
definiteness, namely, the varieties of content with which it is
connected. In other words, as a matter of fact, what in this
view are declared to be originally objects, do in the course of
development find a place on the subjective side. My per
ception is just as definitely contrasted by me with the
perceived thing, and assigned to the subjective side, as my
attention can be. Evidently, therefore, it must be allowed
that if there be the original distinction assumed between
subjective and objective, it gets overlaid and modified by a
later distinction which also claims for itself the designation
of a distinction between subjective and objective. It is a
fair inference, and the inference I should draw, that the
assumed primitive distinction is really an illegitimate trans
ference to the supposed original condition of the inner life
of a distinction which has definite meaning only in its
later form.
It may be urged that, if we thus reject or modify the sup
posed primitive distinction between attentiou-to-object and
feeling, we incur the risk of ascribing to feeling, as many
psychological theories have done, a certain cognitive signifi
cance. No doubt there is, and will always be, much am
biguity attaching to the term cognition ; and certainly
many attempts to express in generalised terms the primitive
all-embracing feature of consciousness have erred by giving
exclusive prominence to the cognitive function.
CHAP, ii.] PRESENTATIONS!. 183
But the objection would only have force on the assumption,
which it is the very purpose of my criticism to reject, that
arnoii the facts of consciousness there are from the outset
O
those which exhibit the essential features of cognition, pre
eminently the antithesis between subject and object. If a
presentation were supposed from the very outset to be a
typical example of cognition, involving in its nature the
fundamental distinction which characterises cognition, then
it would be fair to urge as against any, I do not say, identi
fication of presentation and feeling, but approximation of the
two, that feeling would thereby have assigned to it a character
inconsistent with its nature, that it would be treated as a
cognition. But the argument is to the effect that cognition,
in the sense defined, is not a primitive fact of consciousness,
and that in so far as the general feature awareness, con
sciousness, of a definite content is concerned, there is no
absolute difference between a sense-presentation and a sense-
feeling. Neither the one nor the other is a cognition ; and
this may fairly be held in conjunction with the other position,
that it is by reason of differences in the two, and in the con
ditions under which they appear in consciousness, that in the
development of mind one becomes pre-eminently the objective
factor, the other pre-eminently the subjective.
On the whole, then, the second main point of view, that
the phenomena of mind are to be regarded as so many
isolated contents which are grouped together, and by their
grouping give rise to the more concrete operations familiar
to us and designated in ordinary language by the name of
the faculties, must be rejected. We cannot explain the
development of mind on the hypothesis of these isolated
contents. Nor is any help given by bringing in, as an
additional factor, the subject assumed as present from the
outset. In both cases the kind of mechanical combination
184 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
which is the only legitimate result is quite out of harmony
with the actual facts of the development of mind.
We have to turn then to the third type of view, that
which, with many variations, attempts to represent the
mental life as a development, and its familiar forms, its
concrete operations, as stages in that development.
185
CHAPTER III.
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.
THE third main point of view regards psychology as the
attempt to trace the development of mind. The several types
of mental process or state are in it regarded as constituting
stages of the development of mind as a whole. It is impos
sible to deny that this general conception may be interpreted
in fundamentally distinct ways; arid it can be seen that the
diversity of interpretation depends upon the difference of
signification of the fundamental idea development. Thus,
the psychology which forms part of Hegel s philosophy is
rightly described as a history of the development of spirit or
mind; but, at the same time, such development is domin
ated by the conception that the course and end of the evolu
tion are in some way fixed from the outset, that we can form
a comprehensive idea of the final end, and that therefore our
assignment to each psychical form of its special position or
grade in the development is determined by the estimate we
are able to form of the extent to which it contributes towards
the realisation of the final end.
In such a view, moreover, it seems inevitable that what we
may call the spring of advance should be interpreted vaguely
enough no doubt as the tendency on the part of what is un
developed to attain its full realisation. Taken on the whole,
then, one cannot fail to recognise the fundamental identity be
tween this conception of development in mind and that which
186
GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
finds expression in the earlier Aristotelian doctrine. Nor can
it be regarded as a merely accidental and unimportant opinion
of Hegel, who may be taken to represent the idea of specu
lative development, that, in regard to all organic products of
nature, development must never be understood to mean the
real transformation of one simpler type into a more complex
or higher. The scale of natural organisms is fixed and
absolute. That is to say, the development contemplated
applies solely to the individual specimen of each type, whose
concrete history may be regarded, therefore, in thoroughly
Aristotelian fashion, as the realisation of the idea of the type
or genus.
Quite in accordance with this is the general maxim current
among writers more or less of the Hegelian school, that the
essential character of development is that nothing arises in it
de novo which is not in some way preformed and anticipated
from the beginning. If pressed for an explanation of what
is to be understood by this term preformed or anticipated,
the adherents of the view respond, so far as I can make
out, with only the equally general and difficult terms
implicit and explicit. Development in their view would
be expressed most briefly as making explicit what is already
implicit.
The application in this fashion of the notion of develop
ment to mind is evidently dependent on a wider view con
cerning the real significance of the notion of End or purpose
in nature ; nor is it possible to avoid the discussion of this
general idea if the conception of development is to be
employed in the analysis of mind.
Now there seem possible only two views with respect to
the validity of the notion of End in nature. One of these
a view which, with many modifications, finds expression
throughout the whole history of human thinking may fairly
be called the transcendental : it insists on the absolute
CHAP. III.] MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 187
validity of the notion of End, and it regards the concrete
manifestations, as we call them, of purpose in nature as
being veritably due to and produced by an operative efficient
idea. Over against that there stands the view which to -
some extent finds expression in Kant, and which might be
called the critical or empirical. According to it the phenomena
which give rise in our reflexion on them to the conception of
End have indeed their own peculiarities, may, indeed, be of so
special a nature that our reflexion on them can only express
itself through the notion of end or purpose ; but at the same
time, since it is possible not only to determine the exact
nature of this notion of end, but also to see that thereby no
explanation of the concrete phenomena is given, the notion
itself remains merely of subjective validity : that is to say,
is of service only for the generalising power, and only from
the point of view, of the reflecting subject. Kant, however,
wavers somewhat in respect to the nature of the idea of End,
and seems at times inclined to allow it objective validity, if
not in respect to the concrete of sense-experience, at least to
the abstraction of the supersensible.
With regard to the first of these two views, the considera
tion of it does not at all depend on the solution of all possible
cpuestions that may be put with regard to the process of
organic growth. It may be that we are unable to explain in
what way the combination of special processes that consti
tutes the life of an organism comes about now, or has come
about in the past. But it is always necessary to insist on
that minimum demand which every hypothesis ought to
satisfy, namely, that it should explain something ; and to ex
plain is certainly not to repeat as ground what is actually
presented as effect or consequent.
If we press this demand upon any of the hypotheses in
which the explanation of organic growth as realisation of an
idea is expressed, we shall find that one and all fail to satisfy
188 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
it. Not only are such hypotheses devoid of all independent
basis, not only are they obviously called forth merely to fill
a gap in our explanations, but they do not really con-
\ stitute an explanation : they merely repeat with much cir-
; cumlocution the fact to be explained ; and we are bound to
ask, therefore, it is a reasonable question What is the
origin of the idea which plays the fundamental part in the
hypothesis ? that is to say, Why is it that we should represent
I to ourselves as a possible explanation the manifestation in
concrete form of a purpose or end ? There seems little doubt
as to the region of experience within which that conception
takes its origin. It is our own practical experience. The
notion of end has no other origin than the familiar experi
ence of our own action, and pre-eminently, of our voluntary
action. It is possible that, in like manner, the conception of
end has no consistent application except within the limits of
the said practical experience.
But if we adopt this, which is on the whole the empirical
view of the conception of end or purpose, we must at the
same time allow that what suggests the application of it
beyond the limits within which it properly applies, must
needs be found in certain peculiarities of the changes which
there occur. It is these peculiarities which really form the
most important element in the notion of development; for
, it is them that we seek to explain by the help of the notion
of end or purpose. Now, these peculiarities appear to be the
following :
(1) The series of changes in which development sejems
to be presented are all connected with a common unity or
subject. They are not differences which are merely pre
sented to the outside observer; they are differences which
constitute the unity, the individuality, of that which is
observed.
CHAr. ill.] MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 189
(2) Such changes exhibit a certain common form or law.
In the first place, each subsequent change is conditioned,
and its very character is modified, by what has preceded ; and
in the second place, the several changes as they proceed
seem to constitute, to make real, a more complete, more
highly differentiated, structure of the individual, the unity to
which they belong.
(3) The whole course of the changes, while by no means
unaffected by outside conditions, and, indeed, essentially de
pendent on them, is never explicable solely by reference to
them. With respect to the subject developing we inevitably
draw the distinction between external conditions and internal
nature an internal nature which expresses itself in the law
already referred to, that each change remains as constituting
a factor in all subsequent changes,
Now, these Laws of Change are merely descriptive laws.
They imply nothing with regard to real causation, with
regard to the conditions which render it possible that they
should be manifested. What kind of nature it is in which
there can be retained the effect of a change whereby new
modifications are affected, what in the long run determines
the original stock of determined tendency with which the
subject starts on these points the descriptive laws say
nothing. In all probability, indeed, it is because we are able
only to describe the general features of development without
determining the mechanism of the whole process, that we
are so irresistibly inclined not only to apply to development
the notion of end, but to imagine that thereby we are giving
a final explanation.
In these descriptive laws, it will be observed, there is not
included what received recognition in the transcendental
view of end or purpose, namely, the doctrine that the final
stage of realisation, the ultimate end, is known beforehand.
This is not only unnecessary, but perhaps in all cases impos-
190 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
sible. Certainly, in the case of the human mind, it must be
regarded as wholly beyond our compass. Not even the most
daring of moral philosophers, I think, has ever ventured to
do more than indicate in most abstract terms the general form
of the final end.
If we apply this to the psychological problem we shall cer
tainly be entitled to say that the mental life may be regarded
as a development ; for there assuredly, in more abundance
than elsewhere, do we find the general features which are
described in what we have called the Laws of Change in a
developing subject. It may indeed be that any clearness of
( insight we possess into these general characters is based on
I our knowledge of mind rather than on our knowledge of the
processes of life. Just as, in primitive experience, life was
interpreted from the point of view of the conscious subject,
and was taken to be identical with what that subject appre
hended in himself, so, at a much later stage, the more
elaborate idea of development may be applied by us to life
and its processes only because we seem to discover there
something analogous to what we are more directly and more
copiously aware of in psychological observation. To apply
the notion of development, therefore, to the mental life will
not require us to assume that the notion of end or purpose
has any objective validity. It will merely sum up for us
the characteristic experience of a conscious and practical sub
ject ; and the notion of development will be employed
without the assumption that we are in possession of the
final idea, and consequently regard the inner life as devel
oping only because we can trace in it approximations more
or less marked to the final end.
And, finally, we shall by no means find it necessary to
allow that the course of development is so predetermined
I that what are called relatively the external conditions play
I the part only of stimulating occasions calling forth into ex-
CHAP, in.] MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 191
plicitness what is implicit. The external and the internal
conditions are equally necessary, and may therefore be called
equally important. That a new product shows traces of being
modified by what is past ought not to be interpreted as signi
fying that the new fact is merely explicit manifestation of
what is implicit. Perhaps in no region is the notion of implicit
existence really justifiable : it is just the Aristotelian potenti
ality re-expressed. It is least of all justifiable in the region
of consciousness, where, so to speak, everything is just as it
appears.
The consideration of development in general lias been
directed to free that notion from entanglement with the
thought of End or purpose, which has sometimes been
identified with it, more often regarded as implied in it.
No one would deny that, in point of fact, we do use the
thought of end or purpose as a convenient key to explain the
phenomena of development ; but cautious thinkers, who have
investigated more profoundly the idea of end in this appli
cation of it to the concrete, have always found themselves
compelled to introduce a distinction which in fact trans
forms the notion the distinction technically expressed
as that between an external end and an immanent end.
Where end or purpose is proximately exhibited in the action
of a conscious being, in the relation between an ideal repre
sentation of something to be effected and the realisation of
that idea, the end as related to the action whereby it is
carried out may be said to be external. Now no such rela
tion of externality can be assumed in those cases to which
the thought of purpose is applied and which lie outside the
region of conscious action. Not only must we resign in
respect to living organisms the thought of external adapta
tion, but, even in respect to the vital processes themselves,
it becomes impossible to interpret them according to the
scheme furnished by practical activity. There are no grounds
192 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
for assuming that the sequence of changes in such processes
is preceded by a representation on the part of the subject
himself of the changes to come about. There is no possi
bility of understanding how, even if such representation were
assumed, it should operate as a determining factor.
Accordingly, if the notion of end be still retained in appli
cation to the vital processes, it must be represented, in some
way hard to determine, as not distinct from the process
itself. The realisation and the end to be realised flow
together. We can just name the total result as realised
end without introducing into our representation any thought
of an antecedence of the end to its execution, or indeed of any
difference between the two. But, when this modification is
introduced, it appears to me that we have removed all that is
specific to the category of end, and that, in taking the con
crete fact, to the exclusion of the separation of its elements
which is involved in the category of end, we have returned
to the true point of view, and are summing up a characteris
tically distinct combination of empirical features.
If we apply to the mental life the thought of development,
freed from its implication of an end or purpose which is there
realised, we undoubtedly find within conscious experience
itself abundant material for justifying the application to it
of this general thought development. Beyond doubt there is
there a certain central unity which is modified through the
various experiences which constitute the matter of its con
sciousness. The general character of the changes which take
place in consciousness is certainly that of increasing definite-
ness of the central fact, the unity, through increasing variety
of differences in it. Nor is it impossible to name definitely,
though in general terms, the result which is reached through
such development : it is the consciousness on the part of the
individual subject of himself as in relation to the world of
objects, of himself as an agent capable of carrying out in the
CHAP. III.] MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 193
world of objects what is prefigured in his own representations
of it.
Such consciousness, moreover, is undoubtedly exhibited to
us in various stages of completeness. Even within the narrow
range of our own personal experience we have the means
of distinguishing more and less developed grades of it ;
and if, hypothetically, we extend the consideration of such
development beyond the range of personal consciousness, we
can find much, though indirect, material to supplement our
representation of the developing unity and to substantiate
the general representation we make of its nature.
In this life of consciousness the several distinct forms or
modes are, moreover, dependent on one another in a regular
order in such fashion, indeed, that we are entitled to treat
them as representing the successive stages of a determined
development. It is not to be supposed that this general
representation implies that each succeeding grade of con
sciousness abolishes what has preceded. The unity of the
subject is sufficient to hold together (and, perhaps, without
holding them together its development would be impossible)
the elements that belong to several distinct stages of its
history.
Moreover, the development is not to be regarded as, so to
speak, the calling forth of new powers, new forms of opera
tion. There is nothing in the most advanced, the most
developed stage which is not generically the same as that
which enters into the simplest form a fact which, again, is
probably intimately related to the foundation for the thought
of development, that it is one and the same subject which is
being modified.
Now this implies that what are called the higher opera
tions of consciousness are not, in technical language, formally
distinct from the lower, that the difference is one dependent
on the material. And this consideration, again, enforces the
VOL. II. N
194 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
general aspect of development, as being a consequence of the
effect produced by what is retained of past experience on
what is newly given. For example, we are doubtless right in
regarding the stage of perceptive consciousness in which the
given sense-presentations of the moment are symbolic of
generalised thoughts concerning an orderly connected system
of external things, as being higher, more developed, than that
in which the given sense-content summons up by association,
as it is said, the definite images of some particular previous
experience. In the former case there is undoubtedly no
representation of definite particular facts, just as a word by
no means suggests definite objects of past experience. Yet
the two are generically identical. It is fundamentally the
same process that is at work in both ; and the former, the
higher, only becomes possible by an advance from the lower,
by the supply of additional materials assimilated and pre
senting a somewhat novel appearance as a consequence of
such assimilation.
In the same way we are justified in regarding consciously
voluntary action as a higher form of practical activity than
impulse, that is, action under the immediate pressure of idea
and feeling. Yet the two are generically alike. The higher
does not involve the introduction of a new factor: in the
lower there is involved what renders possible, by increase of
such acts, the advance to the relatively higher. There are
given in it the conditions which render possible the recogni
tion of a distinction between the inner motive the idea and
feeling as subjective, and the change, the activity, as an
operation upon the objective. The highest form of voluntary
determination is no more than a developed form of the
simpler type, arising as a consequence of the enriched
consciousness of self and the clearer discrimination between
the orders of inner and outer experience.
195
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRIMARY FACTORS OF COXSCIOUSXESS.
I. General character of the content. If we take, then, as our
working conception of the business of psychology, the notion
of the development of the inner life, we are naturally and
inevitably confronted with the first of the main problems of
psychological science : What is the irreducible minimum of
material constituting consciousness ? Our conscious experi
ence contains a multiplicity which we find it hard to name,
and about which, indeed, we are always in some confusion,
owing to the vagueness of the general terms by which we
name its parts. If, as we assume, these highly differentiated
processes or states of our inner experience are rightly regarded
as developments from what is simpler but identical in kind,
it would appear as though the method of approaching a
solution of our first problem were necessarily the
analytical.
Now analysis on the whole assumes that that which we
propose to resolve into its elements is made up by the juxta
position, the putting together, of the elements we distinguish.
Such an interpretation, if rigorously insisted on, would be
found to lead to a view of mind which we have already
considered the view which regards the composition of
mind as but the putting together in certain general ways
of elements definite from the first, and retaining through
out their definite nature. Such a conception is wholly
196 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
unworkable,; it may be doubted whether it is without
qualification applicable even in the region of mechanism,
where it seems most appropriate. One might hazard the
conjecture that it is altogether an offshoot of our abstract
mode of representing space-relations ; and even there, as
past history has shown, the conception is not without its
difficulties.
The problem defined above is substantially that which has
always appeared in the treatment of mind as the classification
or arrangement of the elementary forms of the psychical life.
Naturally any attempt to describe these elementary forms is
largely determined by the nature of the general conception
we are applying to the mental life as a whole. If we proceed
with the help of a notion familiar enough in the history of
psychology that the contents of the inner life are brought
before us by some process of inner perception we shall
hardly escape the implications of the term : we shall tend to
represent the inner life after the model of the world of
objects which we suppose ourselves to apprehend through
outer perception. On the whole such a tendency results in
giving a quite illusory independence to the facts of mind,
and throws into the background the really important feature
the mode of connexion among the facts thus isolated.
On the other hand, if we regard the content of mind, as
that of or in which we are immediately aware as immediate
experience of our own, and apply to it the general conception
of development, we shall tend rather to define the distinguish
able parts of the inner life as connected processes, events
which occur, and the occurrence of which together and in
succession constitutes the inner life. We shall thus, at the
same time, and in consistency with what has already been
attained, avoid the introduction into the description of con
sciousness of a supposed Self distinct from the processes, and
having these processes for objects of its contemplation.
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 197
The difficulty which has always been pressed as regards
this view that it is impossible to represent the series of
states of consciousness either as making up a self or as exist
ing without a self seems to me to arise altogether from the
o
false objecti fi cation of what are called the states of mind. If
we represent them as objects, doubtless they seem to require
a bond of connexion external to themselves. But, by so
describing them, we ignore altogether their characteristic
nature: we employ an external mark of their existence
instead of being content to accept their inner nature, that
which makes them what they are.
"We may certainly assign a unity to the contents of con
sciousness without referring it to anything external to these
contents themselves. Undoubtedly we have to admit as a
general feature of what we are calling the processes of mind
that, at any one moment of consciousness, the contents
defining it, giving it a special character, are manifold. A ;
plurality of related contents constitutes the unit of the
concrete life of consciousness. If, then, we desire to deter
mine in general terms what are the differences which we
must suppose to be involved in what is genetically the
primary state of consciousness, we have to proceed by
analysing the more direct and involved experience which
we possess, and by singling out such features of the total
content as seem irreducible.
It is hopeless to attempt to avoid all that cannot be said to
fall fairly within the scope of a description from within. Were
it possible, it would be logically more consistent to ignore
altogether what concerns the dependence of the mental life
on conditions lying outside itself. That is to say, were we to
select as topic of analysis sentient consciousness, it would be
logically consistent to ignore all that we may otherwise
imagine we know respecting the way in which the contents
of that consciousness are determined by external conditions.
198 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
Making the attempt for the moment, and taking as our
field for analysis immediate experience experience in which
the fundamental distinction of self and not self, inner and
outer, with all its consequences, is not involved we may
endeavour to name the distinguishable features which seem
to be necessarily implied in a consciousness that is at once
one and many, a single moment with varied content.
In the first place, then, there seems to be involved in
the content qualitative distinctness, differences of quality.
On general grounds we can go no further than the quite
general term qualitative differences. What kind of quali
tative differences may be presented we can only discover
from special experience. A total state of consciousness
in which qualitative difference is presented so much at
least we may assert to be the primitive condition of mind.
But in this description it is implied that in some form at
least, however indeterminate, what we name by the abstract
term relations is also involved. Certainly a single moment
of consciousness does not correspond to the representation we
make of the inner life. It is in one respect at least a
continuous process. Such discontinuity as it seems to
present is always reckoned from the point of view of an
outer observer, and, whether rightly or wrongly ascribed to
the mental life, is perfectly compatible with the continuity
of the psychical process from within. This continuity from
within implies, and is only possible through, the retention
and revival into subsequent moments of consciousness of
the contents of previous states. Such perpetuation is
indeed the fundamental condition of any transformation
of the contents of mind or any development thereof.
Can we then name from special experience the qualitatively
distinct contents which appear in consciousness ? and are they
in any way affected by the consideration that consciousness
is not, so to speak, a stationary theatre within which they
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 199
are presented, but is itself in constant movement and
change ?
It is only by inference from what is in our mature experi
ence that we can hypothetically name the various qualita
tively distinct contents, and our names invariably bear traces
of the more matured experience to which they primarily refer.
Thus when we include sensations, as they are called, among
such qualitatively distinct contents, and place feelings along
side of them as equally primitive, though perhaps not
equally independent, we almost inevitably introduce into
our description something of the general distinction between
objective and subjective which attaches to sensation and
feeling in mature experience.
At the outset we are undoubtedly bound to include no more
in our description than can be supposed to be present in the
content as it is directly given. With just as much right,
therefore, as we exclude from the content of a sensation-
element all that may attach thereto by association, we
should exclude from it all that concerns the more general
connexion it may have with knowledge of the objective.
Sensations and feelings cannot be primarily distinguished as
relatively objective and subjective. Both have in common
qualitative distinctness and variation of intensity. If, there
fore, we are to enumerate the primitive contents, we must
do so in the light of such qualitative differences as we can
hypothetically determine.
For such a problem of special experience we have no other-,
foundation to go upon than our matured knowledge of
sensations, in accordance with which we proceed to enum
erate a variety of types of content, making distinctions
wherever it seems impossible to recognise specific elements
of identity of character. It is, indeed, a question far from
easy to answer, What constitutes the specific element of
identity in each of these types of sense-experience say,
200 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
in colour ? It is, perhaps, even a harder problem which
is raised when we ask whether there may not be a certain
generic element of identity in all sense-contents.
It is a fair hypothesis, though not one which requires to
be introduced into our psychological analysis, that such
qualitative distinctions as we now find, and which appear
irreducible, may be regarded as themselves products ; and
that therefore primitive consciousness, when that term is
extended beyond the limits of the individual human mind,
may present many fewer qualitative differences than we
are now bound to enumerate as elementary components of
the human mind. Some qualitative differences we must
always include; but everything points in the direction of
the hypothesis that the extremely marked differences we
now discover in even the first stage of human consciousness
are results. -
Accordingly, an enumeration of kinds of qualitatively dis
tinct contents, which we call sensations not from any
feature which they present, but because we connect their
origin with stimulation of some part of the body consti
tutes the first part of a description of primary consciousness.
I say we call them sensations because we connect their origin
with stimulation of some part of the organism. Evidently
this criterion is wholly insufficient. There is not the smallest
ground for supposing that other contents of mind, which we
do not enumerate among sensations, are not connected with
stimulation of the organism. In fact it is not this criterion
which in practice we employ. We enumerate on the basis of
a much less definite principle that of the function which
the contents have in the after-development of mind. We call
those contents sensations which, as we discover from con-
\ sideration of their later development, discharge the function
of informing us of the qualities of what we call the objective
world. No doubt, at first, the two principles were regarded
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 201
as having at least the same scope : the outer world meant the
extra-organic world ; and sensations were therefore described
as those changes of consciousness which came about through
stimulations that were extra-organic in their origin.
When we include among sensations those which arise from
mtra-organic stimulations, we are compelled to drop the one
principle the affection of the organism and employ the
other that of giving data for the apprehension of the
objective. The first principle would not allow us to dis
tinguish between what is called an internal sensation and
an idea or emotion. We make the distinction on the ground
that the one kind of content serves to inform us of the
existence and qualities of that which is objective the body
while the other does not.
It follows, therefore, that our enumeration of the sense-
contents must not be regarded as resting upon any clear
well-defined feature of their own content a consideration
which will be found of some importance when we proceed
to deal with another content of consciousness which is ap
parently primitive, namely, feeling.
II. Feeling. From the point of view of the inner observer
the components of primary consciousness can only be char
acterised by differences among the features or combination
of features which they possess as directly given there. For
this reason it seems impossible to regard as primitive and
fundamental the distinction between what are ordinarily
called sense-presentations and feelings, as though the first
involved from the outset the mark of being apprehensions of
objects, while the second were from the outset marked as
states of the subject. Such a difference we must regard as
derivative dependent, therefore, on the features, or some
combination of the features, which all the contents of con
sciousness offer in their primary appearance.
202 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
We should undoubtedly be entitled to accept as among
these features any relation of dependence, if such be dis
coverable any such relation, for example, as is implied in
Herbart s view of feeling as a state arising out of and
having reference to some conflict or harmony among given
presentations. Now there does appear to be, in our devel
oped experience, some kind of relation of this sort between
feelings and the other components of consciousness. Ex
tending this relation from the developed state to the
primary consciousness, it has been supposed that feeling
may be regarded as a secondary fact, conditioned by and
(one might conjecture) dependent on the presence of other
components in consciousness.
Against this undoubtedly there stands the fact of ex
perience that bodily pain, if not bodily pleasure, seems quite
primary in character, that its occurrence may indeed depend
upon a physiological change, but does not seem to depend on
the previous occurrence in consciousness of a definite sense-
presentation. Whatever be the relation between bodily pain
and pleasure and the more ideal forms of feeling, we are
bound, from the psychological point of view, to regard them
as varieties of the same kind ; and if, therefore, at any one
point of the series of feeling-experience, we can detect in
dependence, we must, in opposition to the other theory,
accept such independence as the fundamental mark, and
consider the dependence, which undoubtedly is observable,
as affecting the intensity and direction of the feeling-ex
perience, which nevertheless possesses its own roots.
There can indeed be no doubt that even the dependence
which we do observe is very far from being a simple rela
tion. Wundt, whose theory of feeling is most obscure, seems
at times to include, as one of the integral features of sense,
the feeling-tone of the presentation, assigning to it, there
fore, a place similar to that of quality, intensity, and
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 203
duration. But it is obvious that there is no simple rela
tion between the content of a sense-presentation and the
accompanying feeling. Normal or average relations there
may be, and such relations are fairly intelligible ; but it
seems evident that the feeling-tone is not simply deter
mined by any one feature, or by any special combination
of the features, of the sense-presentation. Under different
conditions the same presentation will yield the most diverse
feeling-tones. The feelings, then, and by those at present
we mean the pleasure-pain experiences, seem to be of inde
pendent nature ; and, however intimate their connexion with
the other components of consciousness, they seem capable of
explanation only by reference to some independent process
of an organic kind.
The question next arises, do the characteristics of pleasure-
pain exhaust the qualitative distinctions we discover in feel
ing ? To this question Wundt for two reasons seems to
offer a negative answer. On the one hand he seems to
think that the feeling-tone accompanying any content of
consciousness that has itself distinctness must also be re
garded as qualitatively distinct. The feeling -tone of a
simple note, for example, he would insist, is qualitatively
distinct from the feeling-tone of a harmony. But he has
to admit in respect to this that we have no means of de
scribing this qualitative difference ; and a qualitative differ
ence which is devoid of all definable character seems hardly
worth retaining. The truth is probably that in describing
these experiences we underestimate their complexity, and
that more distinct factors are involved than are satisfactorily
named in our generalised terms the sense-presentation and
the accompanying pleasure-pain. It is exceedingly improb
able that any sense-presentation occurs without giving rise
to a general alteration in the organic processes, which, yield-
in" in its turn elements of sense and feeling, colours the
204 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
total result. In the realm of sense what occurs is probably
very similar to what we find in the more developed region
of ideas, where the total effect of any idea in its passage
through consciousness is dependent largely on the vague ill-
discriminated suggestions to which it gives occasion.
A second ground which Wundt advances for recognising
more than pleasure-pain, concerns, I think, not so much the
immediate experience ordinarily called feeling, as certain
total effects due to the manner in which sensations and
V feelings pass through consciousness. "Every feeling," says
Wundt, " in this passage through consciousness has a three
fold significance. First, it indicates a definite modification
of the immediately present state ; this, on the whole, coin
cides with the fundamental difference between pleasurable
and painful. Secondly, it exercises a definite influence on
the immediately subsequent condition ; and this may be dis
tinguished, according to its main directions, as stimulating
or repressing. In the third place, it is in its own character
determined by the immediately preceding condition; and
this effect makes itself manifest, in the given feeling, in the
forms of tension and relaxation." l
I cannot admit that these second and third points indicate
simple primary experiences which we are entitled to place
on the same level with pleasure and pain. The descriptive
terms applied to them are very general, and indicate not
necessarily simple direct experiences, but the results of
mediate comparison relative to, and conditioned by, direct
sense-experiences. For example, there is no reason to doubt
that, owing to the intimate correlation of the organic pro
cesses, an experience which is either pleasurable or painful
may indirectly exercise an effect of the kind which we ex
press by the generalised terms stimulative or repressive on
1 Wundt, Grundriss der Psychologic, 7, par. 9 ; [tr. Judd, Outlines of
Psychology (1897), pp. 84-5.]
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 205
the processes which are called into action at the next moment
of our conscious experience. In the developed stage, what
corresponds to this is the change that takes place in what is
called attention to an object when it gives rise to pleasure.
The effect is indirectly produced, and constitutes no new
primitive experience requiring to be classed among the com
ponents of mind.
Pleasure and pain, then, stand out as the only distinguish
able qualitative differences characterising the primary ex
perience we call Feeling. Is it possible now, recognising
these as primary, to indicate their source, and to give what
may be called a scientific determination of their place in
mind, comparable to what is given in the case of sense-
presentations by reference to the stimulation of particular
parts of the nervous system ?
Theories of feeling have been of two types mainly. Of
the first type the most important representative is the
teleological, where on the whole the theory consists in a
generalised statement of the conditions under which in our
experience the difference in quality of pleasurable or painful
makes its appearance. The second type of theory attempts
to connect feeling in its characteristic difference with certain
processes of the nervous system distinct from, though, it may
be, closely related to, those underlying sense-presentation.
The teleological theory, in many of its forms, involves a
reference to what lies outside of the immediately given facts
of consciousness. According to this view, which has many
modifications of statement, pleasure is the indication of the
healthful working of the organism, pain of the reverse. A\ r e
may reinforce such a general conception by connecting it
with other general views respecting the development of
organic life, as is done, for example, by Mr Herbert Spencer,
who, insisting on the identification of a pleasurable feeling
206 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
with one we seek to bring into consciousness and retain
there, and a painful feeling with the opposite, supports his
doctrine by the consideration that an organism could not
possibly live and develop if it consistently preferred the
hurtful and avoided the beneficial.
However suggestive the phenomena of pleasure and pain
may be of some kind of teleological connexion, they are not
explained thereby. And it does not seem possible for us at
present to determine so accurately the end of conscious
existence, and the range of the two opposed terms, the
beneficial and the hurtful, as to connect therewith in any
general way the phenomena of pleasurable and painful feel
ing. IVTany psychologists have insisted that, though the
reference to what lies outside of conscious experience, the
beneficial or hurtful, should be avoided as unpsychological,
yet that, within the range of consciousness, a generalisation
somewhat similar in kind is attainable. In all cases, how
ever, in which this generalisation has been attempted, there
seems the same fundamental defect. What pleasure and
pain are connected with can only be named in general terms
which indicate relations. Thus, for example, according to
Wundt, 1 feeling expresses as a whole the reaction of apper
ception on consciousness : apperception being that process
whereby attention is directed upon the content offered.
According as this apperceptive act is freely performed or
impeded we have pleasure or pain. According to Dr Stout, 2
pleasure and pain are to be connected with the counter
possibilities of psychical activity, the characteristic of which
is always that it is directed towards an end. If the end is
attained there is pleasure. If the activity is frustrated or
impeded there is pain. According to another theory, to
which Mr Bradley 3 gives a qualified approval, pleasure
1 [Cf. Gruiulziige der physiolo- 2 [Analytic Psychology, ii. 270.]
gischen Psychologic, i. 588, 4th ed.] 3 [Mind, vol. xiii. (1888), p. 6 f.]
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIXD. 207
is to be connected with recognised expansion of the self,
pain with recognised contraction or repression of the self.
In regard to all these theories the remark made by Dr
Stout seems to me to hold good : " It must be admitted that
our psychological theory of pleasure and pain is not so easily
applicable to the pleasures and pains of sense as to those
which involve ideal activity. It may even be said that it
breaks down at this point; and that we have merely masked
the failure by substituting physiology for psychology. The
truth is that any purely psychological theory must, from the
nature of the case, to a certain extent break down when it
comes to deal with sense-pleasures and pains, because it
cannot find here sufficient data for its verification. At the
higher levels of mental life the psychical conditions of
pleasure and pain are definitely ascertainable." l
A more precise form of the theory which attempts to
explain feeling from some general attitude of the workings
of mind may be considered. This form of the theory con
nects pleasure with the unimpeded exercise of attention,
and pain with any restriction, obstacle, or impediment
to attention. Even if we could bring the whole mass of
the more ideal feelings, feelings connected with complex
representations, under this general rule and to do so
would require, I think, some straining it must be ad
mitted that the pleasure - pain feelings of the simpler
sensuous order do not lend themselves at all to such in
terpretation. It is only in a very forced way that we can
represent to ourselves a physical pain as being essentially
nothing more than a felt impediment to our attention.
Even if we distinguished, as some psychologists have
done, between the physical pain as a sensation and the
unpleasantness which follows from its presence in con
sciousness, we should still, I think, be left in doubt whether
1 [Analytic Psychology, ii. 303.]
208 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
the latter can be resolved simply into the situation of
impeded or frustrated attention.
Similarly, we find a difficulty in connecting pleasure and
pain with expansion and repression of the self. There is, in
all probability, an element of truth in this generalisation. As
a matter of fact it is observable in the more definite complexes
of feeling the emotions. Where the element of pleasure has
the upper hand, in the joyous emotions, there is an accom
paniment of a purely physical kind which might serve as
foundation for a later, rather confused representation of ex
pansion of self. As a fact such emotions heighten the vital
activity, and actually produce what may be called an increase
of bulk.
On the whole it can hardly be thought that any one of
these expressions for the general relation between feeling
and some position, attitude, or set of the mental life is suc
cessful : either as bringing all the phenomena into line under
one hypothesis, or as pointing to the real conditions on which
the variation of feeling may be thought to depend.
We can hardly avoid the inference that in feeling we have a
primary phenomenon of consciousness a phenomenon, there
fore, in all probability as directly connected with some specific
physiological processes as sense-presentations are connected
with stimulation of the sensory nerves. It would be unjust
to dismiss any hypothesis of this kind on the ground that it
was illegitimately attempting to reduce feeling to the level of
sensation. I have already pointed to the ambiguity of the
word sensation. x All that is implied in the hypothesis
is that the feelings, under whatever occasions they may
be called forth, are directly dependent on organic changes,
organic processes.
It must certainly be admitted that we do not find in the
structure of the organism any apparatus so differentiated as
1 [See above, p. 199 ff.]
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 209
the sensory nerves, to which we could look as the seat of the
changes which underlie feeling. Even from the subjective
side, when we consider the excessively diffused character of
feeling, its poverty in qualitative differences, we might be
ready to conjecture that the changes we are in search of are
in like manner diffused and general in kind.
Now some peculiar features of physical pain hold out a
certain clue for our research. Upon the occasions which
give rise to the sensation of bodily pain, and varying with
the intensity of that sensation, there are certain changes in
the mechanism of circulation which are to a certain extent
independent of the sensation itself. They are independent
because, while under appropriate conditions (for instance,
under anaesthetics), the sensation of pain may cease to appear,
these physical effects still continue to manifest themselves.
They are indicated by the changes of the pulse, and are
undoubtedly, therefore, connected with alterations in the
circulation of the blood. In all probability the action of
the anaesthetic consists in, so to speak, inhibiting such
changes of circulation, preventing them from being extended
to the regions of the nervous system where stimulation gives
rise to a change in consciousness.
It is therefore a fair conjecture that pain generally is con
nected with a certain change in the state of nutrition of the
organs directly connected with sensation. There is no ground
at all why we should suppose that such changes of nutrition
can have no representation in consciousness. The thing is
just as easy or as difficult to understand as that changes of a
kind wholly unknown to us in the sensory nerves and con
nected central organs should be represented by sense-
presentations and ideas. But it is certainly to be admitted
that the hypothesis is one of extreme generality, and that
it does little more than offer a feasible explanation of the
broad differences in the total life of feeling.
VOL. II.
210 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART II. A.
It must also be confessed that the hypothesis in no way
enables us to understand why it is that variation in one
direction should have the qualitative effect of pleasurable
feeling, and in the other, of painful feeling. But in this
respect it stands on just the same level as the hypothesis
we accept without question in respect to sensation : that
one form of stimulation has as its response colour-presenta
tions, another, sound-presentations, and so on.
The hypothesis would not of itself necessitate the con
clusion that the only varieties of feeling-experience should
be the pleasurable and painful. For it must be remembered
that, in respect to these feeling-experiences, there is nothing
but an analogy (if even an analogy) between their difference
and the difference which we may describe as one of direction
(of increase or decrease, for example, or of positive or nega
tive) in the physical process. There is no ground for describ
ing pain as a negative pleasure. It is only on grounds of
inner experience that we can decide the question of fact :
whether there are phenomena, otherwise resembling the
pleasure -pain experience, which are nevertheless not dis-
tinguishably either pleasurable or painful.
The feelings, then, are to be regarded as primitive facts of
the inner life, connected in the most varied way with every
change that occurs in that inner life ; and, beyond a doubt,
this connexion may extend to the formal relations among
these changes as well as to their relatively more material
contents : that is, the differences which the flow or sequence
of processes of sensation and idea may manifest may them
selves give rise to modifications of feeling. If, then, we
attempted to classify feelings a difficult, almost an im
possible, task we should have to allow room for a group of
feelings dependent on and conditioned by variations in the
flow of processes, vital, sensuous, ideal. These might be
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 211
called the formal feelings : they appear as of considerable
importance through their connexion with one variety of
changing or sequent experiences, that of movement. They
seem to play a part of considerable importance in the
development of the aesthetic sentiments. They have from
the outset a freedom from the material content of sensations
and ideas which gives them readily the general and impersonal
character peculiar to the aesthetic sentiments.
The feelings are undoubtedly in very intimate relation to
action : so much so indeed that Wundt has insisted that
feeling is only conceivable as a mental state of a being en
dowed with will. More than once in the history of psychology
it has been attempted to represent the feelings of pleasure
and pain as arising only in the process of desiring or striving.
Pleasure is said to be the result of the attainment of its end
by an appetite or desire ; pain, of failure : whence necessarily
it follows that the striving appetite or desire must be repre
sented as preceding the state of feeling.
oSTot only does such a theory fail to account for many of
the most important varieties of feeling ; but, taken as a
whole, it unquestionably reverses the true relation of feeling
and striving in the inner life. I do not mean that, as a matter
of fact, in the history of each individual mind, a definite form
of striving is always built up by degrees through the com
bination of feeling with action and sensation of some kind.
We have every reason to allow that, in the formed individual
mind as it now presents itself, there are established from the
outset connexions between feeling and action of an articulated
or organised kind : that is to say, in the formed mind a
single experience combining sense and feeling may now
initiate a co-ordinated series of movements, the arrangement
of which is not due to experiences of the individual mind
itself. But, on the other hand, the initial step is always the
presence of some kind of feeling; and the active pheno-
212 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
mena of the type of striving or appetite have nothing in
them to contradict our hypothesis that feelings are primary
elements in consciousness.
Consequently, however intimate may be the connexion
between feeling and activity, it is not one in which feeling
can be either identified with activity or regarded as produced
by it. If the relation be of the simple kind which these
terms indicate, one would rather assign to feeling the
i generating function. Feeling calls forth, just as it controls
and regulates, action. So far indeed as our experience goes,
if we could suppose a consciousness in which there were no
other elements than those distinguished from feeling as sensa
tions, action would not make its appearance. For it must be
remembered that the experience in later life in which an idea
seems to initiate and control action, is complicated by the fact
| that the idea is itself the representation of an action, that it
presupposes, therefore, the previous reality of action, and
in this way only, in all probability, acquires its power of
initiation and control.
TIL Willing. The whole notion of action, as a feature of
our conscious experience, is obscure and confused. "The
notion of activity," says Wundt, "contains two factors. In
the first place, activity implies a process or change in the
given condition of an object, and, secondly, the reference of
this change to some subject as its immediate cause. The
subject may be proximately defined as the willing subject or
self that wills ; but this self that wills is in the concrete a
particular idea with its own characteristic tone of feeling
attaching to it. The feeling has from the outset as part of
its own nature the tendency to pass into action. The
essential elements of a voluntary action are therefore, in the
first place, a feeling in which the tendency of the will is
manifested; secondly, a change in presentations or ideas;
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 213
and, thirdly, the general idea of the dependence of this
change upon the whole trend of consciousness. This last
finds its principal expression in a feeling which partly pre
cedes the decision of will, partly accompanies it." l
In this passage, Wundt substitutes for what is the first it
may he, the superficial analysis of activity, which intro
duces the conception of the subject as that to which the
change is referred, the more psychological description con
tained in the terms dependence of the change upon the
wliole.., trend of consciousness. The motive obviously is the
recognised impossibility of finding an explanation of any
concrete psychical fact in the abstract subject. The subject,
in order to have significance in the inner life, must possess
some concrete character, some content ; and this Wundt
proposes to define by help of the term the whole trend of
consciousness.
Even if the explanation in this form be on the right lines,
as I think it is, the expression whole trend of consciousness
is far too vague and indeterminate to serve our purpose. For
a more minute analysis we may turn to what is offered in
the same author s Outlines of Psychology ; and there, on the
whole, though the exposition is somewhat perturbed by relics
of an older form of the doctrine, in which in some mysterious
way a unique and ultimate activity of apperception was
introduced, there is to be found the more acceptable interpre
tation psychologically of willing as a process. A process
involves a number of factors ; and, even if the way in which
they are combined which is the determining feature may
justly be called fundamental, it would nevertheless follow
that we had no ground for regarding will as the name of a
simple primary component of the mental life. Moreover,
even if it were legitimate, by reason of the part which this
1 [Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen- und Thier-seele, lect. xv. ; tr. Creighton
and Titchener, pp. 230-4 (condensed).]
214 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART IT. A.
combination of psychical elements plays in every manifesta
tion and development of mind in the life of knowing, of
sentiment, of movement it must be regarded as a rather
misleading expression when on that account the will is de-
j scribed in Wundt s terms as " the fundamental fact in which
all other processes of mind have their root." To take a
corresponding case, it might be legitimate to regard the
complex constituting willing as the most decisive factor in
the whole network of processes by which self is gradually
defined in consciousness; and yet it would be a misleading
expression to describe willing as the fundamental fact from
which self-consciousness proceeds.
What, then, are the components of this process which is
regarded as making up will ? Feeling, undoubtedly, in the
first place, connected with the entrance of new elements of
presentative experience into consciousness. In the next
place, somehow involved in the feelings which accompany
and which in more developed consciousness may often
precede the entrance of a new presentative fact, a certain
movement or (when there is no external effect) a certain
striving, the end of which, in the simplest form of will,
is the reversal of the initiating state of feeling or its
reinforcement. 1
In this analysis, the more easy of the two processes to
follow out further is certainly that in which external move
ment finds a place. It is difficult to determine what is
Wundt s final view with respect to the relation between
this and the more refined form. As he expresses himself
here, the external is regarded as the more original : the
inner action of will, that which involves nothing beyond
ideas and feelings, appears as the product of a more com-
1 By adopting this analysis Wundt in feelings of pain which liberate
is driven to the probably unnecessary motor reactions from which the con-
hypothesis that the origin of the trasted pleasure-feeling may result,
simplest form of will is to be sought
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 215
plete intellectual development. l On the other hand, a certain
loophole for a reversal of this view of the relation is un
doubtedly left by the kind of answer given to another
and almost equally difficult question, How are we to explain
the origin of the corporeal processes, the movements whereby
the contrasted feeling is attained? If, for example, the
answer to this question were of the kind which Wundt
appears to give, 2 namely, that all movements, including those
called automatic and reflex, must be regarded as having
had originally, even if they do not now obviously possess,
psychical antecedents, it might still be possible to maintain
that the inner process of willing is the more fundamental.
Now, it must be observed in regard to this further ques
tion that our decision of it does not necessarily involve, as
Wundt appears to think, the antithesis of a psychological and
a physiological way of looking at mind and mental processes.
Under either theory there fall to be considered, from the
point of view of the psychologist, only those representations
of movement effected which come into consciousness, But
the former theory undoubtedly implies that the motor-sen
sations, presentations and representations, the memory of
which forms a necessary link in all voluntary movement, are
the consequences of motions which occur from whatsoever
antecedent circumstances. Even were we driven to the
supposition that the simplest of these movements required
and had as its antecedent something psychical in nature,
that antecedent must, in its own concrete character, be
wholly distinct from the motor - sensations, presentations
and representations, to which its consequences give rise.
The external movement involves, then, a factor which
lies, to some extent, outside of the process of willing
itself. The whole process, as it is initiated by a feeling,
1 Grundriss, 14, par. 1 ; tr. p. 2 Grundriss, 14, par. 10 ; tr. p.
184. 193-4.
216 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART 11. A.
is accompanied and terminated by feeling. Most of these
( "feelings are described in a way hard to justify. They are
) called feelings of decision and conclusion, of doubt, of the
resolution of doubt; but in addition to these there is also
introduced the specific feeling of activity, which in external
volition has its sense-substratum in " the internal sensations
of touch accompanying the movement." 1
The will can only be represented as a process involving a
number of distinct factors. In the more obvious case, where
willing has a manifestation in movement, there may accom
pany the whole process the series of sensations initiated by
the movement. But it appears quite unnecessary to include
among such sensations any that require to be described by
the special term activity or effort ; for, as we have seen,
the meaning of that term can never find expression in any
single type of sensation. Activity must be regarded, if we
use the technical term, as the object of a concept. It is,
therefore, always the content of an experience which involves
comparison. The direct sensation which we may legitimately
assume, and which from its peculiar quality is no doubt
easily translated into terms of activity, is that of tension
a purely muscular sensation. These sensations of tension,
no doubt, are never experienced in isolation ; they always
form part of the connected series involved in movement, and
more particularly in overcoming resistance. It is natural,
therefore, almost inevitable, that in our developed experience
the character of the whole process in which they are in
gredients should be taken to constitute the content of a
single sense-presentation.
But now, in the second place, whatever may be the nature
of the detailed sensations which accompany the movement,
it cannot be supposed that the primitive movements, those
1 Grundriss, 14, par. 7 ; tr. p. 189.
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 217
which correspond to the first germs of the voluntary process,
are in any way prefigured: that in the impulse a mere
name for a feeling and sensation looked at as the first term
of a process the movement, whether on the one side as
objective change or on the other side as a series of specific
sensations, should be represented. Whatever theory we may
entertain on the ultimate question as to the relation between
movement and sensation in the organism, whether or not we
assume that every movement there must be initiated by a
sensation with its feeling, we must at all events allow that
the movement in neither of its aspects is prefigured in the
antecedent sense-impulse. It is only experience that can
weld together in consciousness those familiar series of con
nected sense-impulse and movement which form the founda
tion for any acquisition of control over the movements of
the body.
In the third place, we require to bear in mind, as one of
the factors undoubtedly operative in the development of will,
that, independently of anything that maybe called move
ment of consciousness, the changes in our experience pro
ceed in such a fashion as to fall into tolerably regular series.
Our mental life is a continuous process : new sense-presenta
tions are constantly making their way in ; and, owing to the
fundamental attribute which is manifested in revivability,
these new elements are constantly connected with representa
tions that are revived. A constant formation of groups and
series, of presentations and representations, is the mech
anical side of the mental life the psychical mechanism.
In this mechanism a determining influence is exercised by
the inner motives the feelings which arise in conjunction
with the given sense-presentations and their ideas. We must
accept as an empirical fact the qualitative difference of the
pleasurable and painful, and, equally so, the character of the
effect which these severally produce on the stream of the
218 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
conscious life. There may be a kind of teleological explana
tion of these effects ; but such explanation lies outside the
bounds of psychological treatment. There the connexion
between feeling and the changes it produces on the flow
of consciousness must be accepted as ultimate empirical
fact.
The kind of effects can only be determined from ex
perience itself, although there may be probably there is
a very definite correspondence between the effects and
the organic processes that underlie them. Such effects,
moreover, are primarily, and probably one ought to say
ultimately, internal : that is to say, they concern directly
the flow of conscious experience ; and it is only thereby
that the results produced, the definite lines of connexion,
become of significance for the development of the mind as
a whole. In this sense it would undoubtedly be true to say,
as Wuiidt used to say, 1 that the inner process of will is the
fundamental. The error is in describing by the term
will this kind of connexion which, after all, only forms
a part, though an indispensable part, of the more complex
fact to which alone the name will is at all applicable.
Such inner effects are more familiar to us in the case
of the process of attention than elsewhere. The presence
of the pleasurable feeling intensifies what is connected
therewith, gives it, therefore, a greater suggestive power,
and tends to bring into consciousness the ideas of all ex
periences that have been conjoined with it. On the other
hand, the feeling of pain, while undoubtedly as a first
effect it gives prominence to the occasioning cause, tends
to excite the ideas of the objects which are capable of pro
ducing the opposite kind of feeling, or at all events of re
moving that which is now present. In the primitive stage,
no doubt, such suggested ideas are always the represen-
1 [Cf. Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologic, 3rd ed., ii. 468.]
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 219
tations of the movements whereby, in the past, relief
from the pain, or attainment of a neutralising pleasure, was
attained.
The association with those representations that are sug
gestive of movements is doubtless of the same mechanical
kind as appears in every case where a sense-impulse is fol
lowed by a movement. But, in so far as the movements are
now connected with a definite series of representations rep
resentations which are to a large extent the ideas of the
sensations accompanying the movements they begin to
acquire greater definiteness and regularity, and also a more
definite connexion with the impulse, the initiating sensation
and feeling. Movements lose their original character, which
is chaotic and unregulated, and begin to fall into regular
groups and series. Of course in this development a large
place and a place that differs immensely in different or
ganisms mast be allowed to the purely mechanical pro
cesses which go on in the growth of the animal body. We
must, for example, reckon as one of our data the fact that
each organism as we know it comes into existence with a kind
of predetermined plan of its growth. The external influences,
important as they are, do not explain the regular arrange
ment of this growth ; they only render it possible ; they
may impede or facilitate it. In this growth, then, types of
movement, that is to say, connected processes in the body
itself, are involved ; and these furnish for the psychical life
closely connected series of sensations, which have not been
put together artificially, so to speak, in the experience of the
individual himself. Our voluntary control over movements
is undoubtedly acquired, but it is acquired only up to a
certain point. The execution of the movements which we
control depends on a connexion of the bodily processes of
which the subject has no knowledge, and with which, it
may be said, he does not interfere.
220 GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND. [PART n. A.
The process of willing, or rather the process out of which
willing emerges, is thus to be conceived as of gradual growth.
We cannot assume that in its history there is anything cor
responding to the meaning of the term will until it is pos
sible to connect the initiating circumstances the feelin^
O O
and sense-presentation as subjective with the change pro
duced : this change being regarded either as one which may
be brought about by objective conditions, or as itself be
longing to the objective world. The latter is undoubtedly
the simpler case ; for the objective world is at first defined
in close relation to and dependence on our experience
of movement. It is therefore in the process where the
sense-impulse is followed by movement that the distinc
tion between the impulse as subjective and the movement
as an objective result becomes apparent : and this is the
simplest type of willing. The total consciousness, the total
state of mind which corresponds to the term willing, is
itself a complex : it is the representation of this objective
change as following from a subjective motive. In the more
subtle case the change produced lies completely within the
inner life; but, within that inner life itself, there can be
no doubt that we draw the same distinction between what
is objective and what is subjective. A new sense-presenta
tion, for example, is undoubtedly part of the inner life ; but
its occurrence there is at once accounted for by reference to
objective conditions. The series of ideas in consciousness is
part of the inner life ; but, when the case is one of suggestion
or association only, we always explain the sequence in thor
oughly objective fashion : the psychical mechanism is in one
way objective.
Inner process of will is that in which a subjective motive
brings about a change in the flow of consciousness identical
in kind with that which is produced by the psychical
mechanism, that is, by independent or objective conditions.
CHAP, iv.] PRIMARY FACTORS OF MIND. 221
What Wundt calls the feeling of activity in such a case is
not, I take it, a feeling at all, but the complex consciousness
which embraces the terms of the process the subjective
motive and the effect of an objective kind produced ; and it
may be that, in the inner life, there is something strictly cor
responding to the overcoming of resistance which intensifies
the muscular sensations in outer movement.
B.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING.
CHAPTEE I.
THINKING AS A MENTAL FACULTY.
I PURPOSE first clearing the ground by considering the view
of the nature of thought which seems to follow naturally
from the logical treatment of its characteristic forms the
notion, judgment, and reasoning. And here there are two
varieties of interpretation which it is worth while following
out separately : (1) that which commonly takes expression
in the doctrine of faculties, familiar in the Scottish phil
osophy, and (2) a more refined expression of the same view,
of which Lotze s doctrine may be taken as representative.
According to the former of these two interpretations,
thought coexists with other activities of mind, having a
separate function and a certain independence of action.
No doubt this psychological proposition is connected with,
and perhaps determined by, the obvious difference that dis
tinguishes the products of thought, such as the notion and
judgment, from the simpler materials of our knowledge
perceptions, ideas, and the combinations of these in what
are called associations. The percept and the general notion
CHAP. I.] THINKING AS MENTAL FACULTY. 223
are broadly contrasted : they are the concrete exemplifica
tions of the important difference between the particular and
the universal. An association of ideas and a judgment are
no less distinct from one another, and seem to represent the
equally important difference between casual concomitance
and objective connexion.
But, while contrasted, thought and these other activities
or processes of mind are in a special relation to one another.
The concept appears as a higher product resting on per
cepts, which constitute the material for its formation ; the
judgment, though obviously distinct from an association of
ideas, is yet, as a natural occurrence, in some way dependent
on associations: for, unless the ideas connected in a special
way in the judgment rose into consciousness together, the act
of judgment would be impossible.
It is easy to proceed from this point to the perfectly
definite view which receives official expression in the doc
trine of Faculties, but which in fact seems to run through all
our customary modes of reference to the structure of know
ledge. Thinking or thought is used as a comprehensive
term for a special activity of mind, which operates upon the
materials furnished in isolated perceptions and ideas, and
whose several products are the results of the several ways
in which it thus operates on the matter submitted to it.
Some such view finds representation in most of the pyscho-
logical doctrine of the Scottish school of philosophy, though
in its latest exponent, Sir William Hamilton, it is curiously
crossed by a view altogether incompatible with it. In his
Logic, and in his definite classification of what he calls the
intellectual powers, Hamilton is to be found adopting the
familiar position that, perceptions being given, thought
operates on them in the way of comparison, evolving in a
graduated series (1) concepts, (2) judgments, (3) reasonings.
Taken as a whole, moreover, his special doctrines in logic
224 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
rest on and imply this familiar psychological position. The
same is true with respect to the best exposition of logic from
Hamilton s point of view, that of Mansel.
In Mansel, however, as in Hamilton, though with some
what different phraseology, we find a recognition of a certain
function of mind so closely connected with thought as to
require inclusion under the general term thinking, although
its nature is not identical with the procedure assigned ex
pressly to thought. In dealing with the judgment Mansel
proceeds on the ground that the terms of the judgment are
concepts, and therefore general. But this statement is im
mediately confronted with the fact that there are thereby
excluded certain types of predication which must be recog
nised as judgments, but in which, nevertheless, one of the
elements at least is not a concept. The assertion, for ex
ample, of my own existence, an assertion which, for other
reasons, both Mansel and Hamilton were inclined to regard
as primitive or fundamental in the life of mind, cannot be
resolved into a relation between two concepts. Mansel,
therefore, was driven to distinguish between what he called
the logical and the psychological judgment. 1
In a similar fashion Hamilton, who, in his Lectures on
Logic and in his classification of the powers of mind, ex
pounds thought as a process of elaboration operative on
materials supplied to it, is to be found asserting in his
Lectures on Metaphysics that, " so far from comparison or
1 [" Every operation of thought is contains two concepts, and hence must
a judgment in the psychological sense be regarded as logically and chrouo-
of the term : but the psychological logically posterior to the conception,
judgment must not be confounded -which requires one only. The psycho-
with the logical. The former is the logical judgment is coeval with the
judgment of a relation between the first act of consciousness, and is
conscious subject and the immediate implied in every mental process,
object of consciousness : the latter is whether of intuition or of thought."
the judgment of a relation which two Mansel, Prolegomena Logica (1851),
objects of thought bear to each other, pp. 54, 55.]
. . . The logical judgment necessarily
CHAP. I.] THINKING AS MENTAL FACULTY. 225
judgment being a process always subsequent to the acquisi
tion of knowledge through perception and self-consciousness,
it is involved as a condition of the acquisitive process itself."
Hamilton, therefore, goes on to maintain, " in opposition to
the views hitherto promulgated in regard to comparison,"
" that this faculty is at work in every, the simplest, act of
mind, and that from the primary affirmation of existence in
an original act of consciousness to the judgment contained
in the conclusion of an act of reasoning, every operation
is only an evolution of the same elementary process, that
there is a difference in the complexity only, none in the
nature, of the act." 1
Unfortunately, it cannot be maintained that Hamilton
really carries out in his doctrine the highly important general
view contained in these extracts ; for Hamilton selects Com
parison as indicating the nature of the fundamental act
which is thus supposed to be involved in even the simplest
process of knowing. " Comparison," he says, " is supposed
in every, the simplest, act of knowledge " ; and all the higher
products, " our factitiously simple, our factitiously complex,
our abstract, and our generalised notions," as also our judg
ments and reasonings, are all products of comparison. 2 But
Comparison seems an altogether inappropriate term to ex
press what Hamilton takes to be the simplest act of know
ledge the judgment, the primary affirmation of existence,
which is either that of the non-ego or that of the ego. Even
were we to grant that in the simplest act of knowledge there
is the affirmation of existence of the non-ego or es-o, it would
O O
be found difficult or impossible to accommodate that act to
any definition of comparison. If, therefore, comparison name
sufficiently well the process when exemplified in the more
developed products the notion, judgment, and reasoning
it must be said that we are not able with satisfaction to
1 Metaphysics, ii. 278-9. 2 Metaphysics, ii. 279.
VOL. II. P
226 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
carry back the definition of comparison there arrived at to
the more simple, more primitive acts of mind, which also
Hamilton calls judgments. In fact, some such recognition
of the difficulty or impossibility of identifying the two
meanings of comparison seems to be involved in Hansel s
distinction of logical and psychological judgments.
Comparison, then, if regarded as the general nature of what
is exemplified in the familiar products notion, judgment,
and reasoning cannot at the same time and in the same
fashion constitute the peculiarity of the primitive operations,
which are supposed to be more elementary and yet to be
serially connected with these logical forms. Nor can it be
thought that Hamilton is more successful in exhibiting the
connexion which he assumes between these primitive acts of
comparison and the logical products the notion, judgment,
and reasoning. He nowhere shows any recognition of the im
portant psychological difficulties involved in the apparently
simple process of classifying seizing on common qualities,
and taking these to represent a multiplicity of individual
cases. He contents himself with the commonplace re
mark that classification is "determined by the necessities
of the thinking subject." 1 Subjects being finite, and objects
being relatively thereto infinite, it becomes necessary to
effect a simplification ; and this is rendered possihle by the
objective fact that things, though infinite in number, are not
infinite in variety. Evidently at this stage the exposition is
ready to slide into the familiar channel of the logical treat
ment of the products of thought, and has no vital relation to
the view of a certain common process running through all
the acts of knowledge.
This well-worn view itself deserves some special considera
tion. It is by no means peculiar to the psychological theory
1 [Metaphysics, ii. 281.]
CHAP. I.] THINKING AS MENTAL FACULTY. 227
of faculties. It appears in systems which either reject or,
at all events, do not proceed on the hypothesis of faculties,
for example, in Leibniz and in Condillac. In Leibniz, or,
rather, in the systematic philosophy which based itself on
that of Leibniz, thought was regarded as having specifically
the function of analysis. Some such statement is doubtless
to be found in Leibniz himself. It is the natural conse
quence of the general position in his theory of knowledge
that progress is the gradual clearing-up of what is obscure
and indistinct. The earlier forms of knowledge contain
latent all that may be evolved from them ; and the relation
between the less and more developed is simply that between
the obscure and indistinct and the clear and distinct. It
is not certain that Leibniz would have been contented to
accept analysis as a term adequate to describe the func
tion of thinking. There are indications in him of a much
more profound conception. But his followers undoubtedly
proceeded on the view that the higher products in the de
velopment of knowledge were gained by making clear what
is obscure in the lower, and that the process of clearing-
up was analysis. Analysis might be aided by objective
circumstances, as by repetition of the same amid
diversity of surroundings ; but the process, however aided,
was regarded by the Leibnizian school as in its nature the
breaking-up of what was originally given in such closeness
of combination that understanding of it was rendered diffi
cult or impossible. The concept, therefore, was selected as
the typical product of thought, of which the judgment and
reasoning were only more complex varieties; while the concept
or notion itself was obviously for them only the percept, the
obscurely apprehended individual, defined and distinguished,
its parts held asunder, the original combination resolved or
analysed. Just as in the lower forms of mind the separate
perceptions seemed to have a kind of independence, so the
228 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
notion seemed naturally to follow from the analysis, the
decomposition, of the relatively obscure and indistinct per
ception, and the judgment and reasoning appeared to rest on
the notion as their foundation.
A very similar view, though proceeding from a very
different fundamental position, and using different instru
ments for working out a general theory of thought, is to be
found in the distinguished French follower of Locke Con-
dillac. Condillac accepts the general principle of Locke s
theory of knowledge, according to which the materials of
experience are the sense-ideas supplied to mind ; and, like
Locke, he, without further criticism, identifies each such
given sense-impression with an act of knowledge. To have
a sensation and to apprehend a sense-quality are for him as
for Locke equivalent expressions. It was therefore but a
consistent development of Locke s view regarding the opera
tions of mind when Condillac proceeded to say, All thinking,
all the so-called higher activities, are only transformations
of sensation. 1 After all, though Locke encumbers his state
ment with the superfluous apparatus of distinct powers of
mind, he says in effect precisely what Condillac said later :
for the powers of rnind bring about only a transformation
of the original data by compounding, separating, and com
paring them.
Condillac thus evades the difficulties undoubtedly imposed
on Locke by his needless assumption of distinct powers of
mind ; and, though he does not set forth his view very ex
plicitly, he may be looked on as one of the first to regard
the higher powers as results following from modifications
of the lower fundamental process. The faculties, as he put
it, are themselves acquired.
Now, in general character, the transformation of sensa
tion is analysis ; and Condillac shows some interest in de-
1 [Trait<5 des sensations (1754), introd., (Euvres, iii. 14, 50.]
CHAP. I.] THINKING AS MENTAL FACULTY. 229
termining the psychological nature of this general process of
analysis. Although his theory compels him to reject all
activity of mind, yet in his own way, he recognises attention
as the characteristic feature of analysis. Attention as con
ceived by him is a passively determined result synonymous
really with the varying intensity of interest of the objects
presented.
In both cases, whether in the view of Leibniz or in that
of Condillac, it will be observed that no reference is made
explicitly to the consideration that the simple datum, that
upon which analysis is supposed to operate, is assumed to be
of the nature of apprehension of an object. Thus Leibniz is
ready to insist that what are called feelings, states of pleasure
and pain, are in themselves confused apprehensions of those
objective qualities which give rise to the states of feeling in
us. Leibniz is so far carried away by his general theory that
he actually maintains that our sense -apprehension of the
colour green is a confused sense-apprehension of the two
colours blue and vellow. and almost sroes the length of sayinf
*j o o (/ o
that we do not properly perceive green until we apprehend
the blue and yellow which are its components.
Accordingly, this fundamental aspect of the original datum
being taken for granted, the question did not arise as speci
ally requiring an answer, Wlience do the logical products
the notion, judgment, reasoning acquire their highly char
acteristic objective reference ? It is not at all impossible
that the complete answer to this problem will carry us to
the conclusion that a determination of objective though,
no doubt, in a very incomplete and primitive sense pre
cedes the specially logical forms of thinking. Such an
answer is. however, very different from the assumption that
the initial sense-impressions are in themselves apprehensions
of the objective. Yet it is quite clear that, without justifica
tion for this assumption, the whole theory of thought as
230 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
arising from perceptions by mere analysis is without founda
tion. Of course we are entitled to say that mere analysis
may possibly increase the clearness and distinctness of the
apprehension with which we begin ; but it cannot give that
apprehension a reference which it did not originally possess.
We must therefore assume either that the initial percepts
had this reference to objects in themselves, or that the func
tion of thought is by no means purely analytic but essentially
consists in giving to our apprehensions the characteristic
reference to the objective.
Now this is in brief the modification of Leibniz s theory
upon which Kant insisted. The first thing, as he insists,
which thought does for sense-intuitions is not to make them
clear and distinct, but to give them the all-important, indis
pensable, reference to an object. Without such reference
sense-impressions do not constitute knowledge at all ; and
the reference itself can only be given to sense-impressions.
By this is meant that thinking, in the Kantian view, is not
creative of its contents, and that, although it does more than
analyse what is given, it makes no addition to the given
except what is involved in the reference to the object.
231
CHAPTER II.
LOTZE S DOCTRINE OF THINKING.
LOTZE S doctrine may be regarded as an intermediate form
between that of the Faculty-psychology and that of Kant.
According to his view thinking is a specific activity of the
soul, called forth not as sensations are, by immediate impres
sion from without, but, possibly in a similar fashion, stimu
lated by the existence of such sensations in the mind.
Thinking would thus represent the second, or perhaps the
third, ra<le of reaction. External impressions call forth
sensations ; these call forth in their turn that characteristic
activity of the soul whereby there is conferred upon the
contents of sense the form of space; and, again, percepts
serve as stimulations calling forth the still higher activity of
thinking. Moreover, Lotze seems to incline to the view that,
if the whole function of thinking be taken into account its
relating and comparing aspects, and likewise that reference
to the objective which is fundamental to it and given by it-
it will be found unnecessary to distinguish as Kant did
between understanding and reason.
While the general aspect of Lotze s doctrine 1 seems thus
fairly clear, he does not make equally distinct his view of the
specific functions of thinking. So far as these specific func
tions are concerned, they seem to be : (1) the reference to the
1 Cf. Mikrokosmus, 4th eel., i. 259 f. ; tr. Hamilton and Jones, i. 231 f.
PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART u. u.
objective ; and this function, as is made plain by Lotze, 1 is
exhibited at a stage of thinking which is even prior to the
notion proper; (2) thinking especially as exemplified in the
logical products ; and this seems to have assigned to it the
function of imposing on the given material a form which is
derived not from the material but apparently from thinking
itself. 2 Of these functions further consideration is required.
Lotze distinguishes the activity of thinking from the
lower processes concerned in the development of knowledge,
and interprets the distinction as indicating a fundamental
difference of origin in the soul itself. Selecting the process
of relating as illustrative of the peculiar activity of thought,
he contrasts sharply the simultaneous or successive presence
in consciousness of impressions or ideas with the conscious
ness of relations among these isolated facts. This contrast
he interprets as signifying that, in the act of relating, a
wholly new function of the soul is called into exercise.
Just as the stimulations of the senses, and of the mechanism
of the brain connected with the senses, serve to call forth
that elementary function of the soul which yields sensations
and their copies or representations, so sensations and ideas,
by being present in consciousness, serve to stimulate or call
into exercise a distinct function, that of thought.
Lotze offers us also a more general description of thought
in its contrast with the stream of impressions and ideas,
which is not at first sight identical with the function of
relating; and the difference compels him to give a rather
more detailed and more suggestive account of the mode in
which thinking makes its appearance in consciousness. In
the introduction to his Logic, the feature of thinking which
serves to differentiate it from the stream of impressions and
ideas is, briefly, that which appears in the contrast between
1 Of. Logic, B. I. c. i. 1-19.
2 Cf. Mikrokosmus, i. 261-4 ; tr. i. 233-5.
CH
AP . ir .] LOTZE S DOCTRINE.
reason and fact. Impressions and ideas are given, given in
combinations groups or series, which have for us simply the
value of facts. Accompanying this mechanical nexus of given
fact there is in knowledge the continuous exercise of the
critical activity of thinking, the function of which is to seek
for "rounds or reasons.
o
Apparently Lotze is influenced by the broad distinction
which the ancients fixed by the terms opinion and
science. Knowledge strictly so-called implies a reference
of what is immediately given to an order of connexion which,
as contrasted with the given, may be called internal. Think-
ino- therefore, in all its modifications, is animated by the
O
general idea of ground or reason an idea the significance
o o
of which cannot be expressed in terms of merely given fact.
Thus, for example, we discover the indication of thought in
the Concept or notion when we contrast the represented rule,
according to which the general type of the object is conceived,
with the merely given character of the combination of marks
in the isolated perceived case. A concept or notion is not
merely the given perception analysed, with its parts made
more distinct, or even with some of its parts omitted. A
concept is a more complex fact of mind the representation
of the universal or rule determining the conjunction of marks
which constitutes the essential character in the several in
dividuals. Similarly in the Judgment, its peculiar form
the reference of the predicate to the subject as a quality to
the thing possessing it, or the relation of dependence of
events expressed in the hypothetical proposition is that
which differentiates the judgment as an act of thought from
the mere complex idea of a number of marks or of a sequence.
The same holds of the Syllogism : the mechanism of association
and memory may produce in us expectations ; but, as con
trasted with these, reasonings contain always as their cardinal
feature the thought of a ground which renders necessary the
234 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART 11. B.
consequence to which, doubtless with the aid of the mechanism
of association, we proceed.
Two points in this account deserve special attention. In
the first place, it is evidently assumed that the highly peculiar
fundamental idea involved in thought that of logical or inner
ground, reason as contrasted with fact requires for its ex
planation the special hypothesis of a distinct independent
power of mind. In the second place, the consideration of
the co-operation (and the gradually modified co-operation)
of thinking and the mechanism of sense and association,
renders necessary a more detailed account of the way in
which the logical function of thinking asserts itself in the
human soul. Lotze is fully alive to the fact that, if the
contrasts are defined too sharply, it will be found impossible
to explain their union in the total operation of knowing.
It becomes necessary for him, therefore, to introduce some
intermediaries between the merely given material of sense-
association and the critical activity of thinking.
Perhaps it is in this way though he is not very explicit on
the point that he would seek to unite the two rather diver
gent representations of thought : that which dwells exclusively
on the notion of ground or reason, and that which identifies
thinking with the act of relating. As I understand his ex
position in the Microcosrnus, 1 no fewer than three inter
mediate grades are introduced between the mechanism of
impression and idea and the stage of thought. In each
of these intermediate grades the essential factor is the
unity of consciousness or of the conscious subject.
The first and lowest of these grades is called by him the
mere identity of the perceiving subject, in which are gathered
together impressions from different parts of the external world
and from different times. This he says is the first necessary
1 [Mikrokosmus, i. 257 ; tr. i. 229.]
CHAP.
LOTZE s DOCTRINE. 235
condition for that act of relating which becomes possible
later, but it is not the sufficient condition for the origination
of that act.
1 hail this with satisfaction. It is a recognition of what is
fundamental in the development of the soul: namely, that a.
merely mechanical or vital identity of the subject, a union of
its different experiences in one whole, necessarily precedes
any mode of the more reflective unity to which alone the
name self-consciousness is appropriate. On what this first
vital identity of the subject depends Lotze does not further
consider. Probably it is intimately connected with the
bodily activities of the subject: that is to say, so far as
its inner aspect is concerned, with the experiences of sense
and feeling which are dependent on the exercise of such
activities. It presupposes obviously a certain grade of mere
mechanical reproduction or revival of past experiences.
There seems nothing to contradict the assumption that
such rudimentary unity of self is present in the experience
of the lower animals.
A second form of the same unity of the subject Lotze
recognises as connected not specially with the impressions
of sense but with association and reproduction. Many facts
would lead us to conjecture that the conditions for such a
unity in the case of animal experience are very varied. It is
possible that the degree of ability to retain together in con
sciousness a number of distinct ideas is the expression of tins
difference in the conditions referred to.
In the third form of this unity, Lotze, in a way peculiar
to himself, recognises a fundamentally distinct process as
concerned in the translation of sense-impressions into in
tuitions of space and time. He holds that, in order to
account for the characteristic of extendedness which attaches
to our sense -impressions, we must go beyond the impres
sions themselves. They are merely non-spatial, and almost
236 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. u.
in a sense non-temporal, re-actions of the soul. The special
form induced on them is therefore alien to their own char
acter, and must be accounted for by some special function of
the soul. The exercise of this function constitutes at the
same time a new form of the unity of self. It is .now the
unity of a subject perceiving the extended and the temporal.
I do not think that Lotze anywhere manages to distinguish,
with sufficient accuracy, the characteristics of this all-import
ant space-and-time element in our apprehension. There are
many features of the said element which we must regard as
relatively reflective in character, as indicating, therefore, a
development in the conscious subject that goes beyond the
mere formation in perceptive experience of intuitions as
contrasted with impressions. There is no reason for doubt
ing, for example, that the characteristic differences of position
and time are involved in the perceptions of animals. There
is no reason to suppose that, in the same animal experience,
there is anything corresponding to the reflective or logical
predicates which we attach to space and time. Nay, it is
doubtful whether, in the animal consciousness, there can
be supposed to be anything corresponding to the com
prehensive picture which we form of an indefinitely ex
tended space, an indefinitely enduring time. These variously
graded characteristics of space and time ought not to be
ignored : they cannot be explained satisfactorily by a simple
reference to a fundamental independent activity of the soul.
Only with the help of this graduated unity of consciousness
which Lotze describes in his own way, but which we might
fairly -call the gradual development of self-consciousness,
does he allow that thinking, in the full sense of the term,
becomes possible ; and even there, he proceeds to point out,
the characteristic critical activity of thought again mani
fests itself only as the final step in a series of which the
first members are very much simpler in nature.
CHAP, ii.] LOTZE S DOCTIUXE.
Thought in general has been characterised by Lotze by
reference to the specifically logical feature of ground or
reason. Even the concept or notion, which less obviously
than the other products of thought involves reference to
ground or reason, is regarded by him as containing such a
reference in the peculiar significance of the universal, which
forms its distinctive feature. The concept, if we express it
in somewhat lax psychological terms, is. according to Lotze,
the representation of the universal law of interconnexion of
the marks which determines the appearance of the manifold
particulars likewise represented in the concept.
Evidently, then, the total act of thought which consists in
having a concept or notion is psychologically a complex ; and
it would seem impossible to represent so complex a fact
otherwise than as a gradually attained result. The peculiar
significance of a universal law, the relation of the uniformly
combined marks to the concrete individuals in which, so to
speak, the law is manifested these, psychologically, indicate
a stage of human reflexion which cannot possibly be regarded
as primitive. Concepts or notions so described must be held
to become possible for the human mind only on the basis of
some preliminary processes, only at a stage in which the
unity of consciousness has acquired definiteness and specific
character.
Possibly it was through recognition of this evidently
complex character of the concept which, in opposition to
many logicians, he continued to regard as the first, the
simplest, of the logical forms that Lotze was led to at
tempt a descriptive or genetic account of certain pre-logical
processes, essential for the formation of the concept, and
explicitly stated to be manifestations of the activity of
thinking. As manifestations of thinking, their nature cannot
be explained through the conditions of the mechanism of
sense-presentation and association. Lotze is certainly far
238 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. 13.
from clear as to the place these pre-logical processes of
thinking occupy relatively to those other intermediate
stages of development which, as we said, lie inclines to
introduce between the mere receptivity of perception and
the first utterances of thought. We shall probably be
doing no injustice to the theory if we regard them as
subsequent to the last of these, the peculiar indefinable
activity of the soul whereby sense-impressions are formed
into intuitions with space-a-nd-time characteristics.
The pre-logical processes of thinking, according to Lotze,
fall into two grades, of which the second is itself a mani
fold : though the distinct processes named as belonging to it
are so intimately conjoined that, for logical purposes, it is
hardly necessary to separate them. It is difficult to make
quite clear all that Lotze means in his description.
The general function of these pre-logical processes may be
said to be to prepare the contents of given experience
impressions and associated ideas for the later manipulation
of the logical activity of thinking. Their h rst grade is said
to consist in the formation of impressions into ideas, or,
otherwise, the objectification of the subject, 1 Objectifica-
tion is certainly a term requiring further explanation, for
object has a variety of meanings in the analysis of know
ledge. Some part of Lotze s meaning evidently depends on
the contrast implied to the subjective. A given impression,
or its relic in consciousness, is primarily a subjective change
in the individual consciousness. In so far as it retains this
character it is, Lotze seems to say, wholly inappropriate as
material for thinking. One might illustrate by contrastincr
*f O
the possibilities for thinking of two types of such subjective
change on the one hand what is called a sense-presentation,
and on the other hand a sensuous feeling. But, evidently,
such an illustration might be rejected by Lotze on the ground
1 [Logic, B. I. c. i. 1-8.]
CHAP. IT.] LOTZE S DOCTRINE. 239
that in respect to their given character and in respect to the
necessity of some transformation before either can be made
material for thought, they stand on the same level.
Apparently, then, Lotze desires to say that some alteration
must take place whereby the purely subjective character of
such presentations is removed, before there can come into
operation any of the higher activities of thinking. The
change consists in conferring upon the content of what, in
itself, is a mere subjective individual change of consciousness,
a fixity, a universality, which renders it, so to speak, an
object.
The precise significance of this is a little cleared up by the
statement that in fact such alteration of the subjective coin
cides with, perhaps consists in, the naming of the content
experienced. The parts of speech indicate, he thinks, the
very operation which consists in conferring on the merely
subjective the all-important character of being an object.
On this account, therefore, it will be seen that Lotze thinks
himself justified in assigning to the term object the very
general significance which would hold good whether the object
be a so-called real thing or quality or relation of things, or
a state of mind, or (as becomes possible in developed in
telligences) a complex of circumstances, conditions, or events.
When the contents of our experience, which at first come into
consciousness as merely subjective changes, are named, there
is at once conferred on them an aspect of generality which
renders possible in their regard the further operations of the
logical activity of thinking.
o i/ O
Objectivity is thus in a way made, if not identical with,
at all events akin to universality a position for which there
is much to be said. But universality is never a characteristic
which is self-explaining. Moreover, the universal has such
a variety of meanings, that whoever employs the term as
characterising an aspect of experience is bound to specify in
240 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART II. B.
what precisely its meaning consists. If we ask, In what
consists the universality conferred by naming a content of
experience ? we should naturally be referred in the first
instance, I imagine, to common consent. It can hardly be
supposed that the individual mind effects the transformation
of the originally fleeting subjective particular for its own
ends. We, looking back on the results for the development
of knowledge which follow from the application of names to
the contents of experience, may express ourselves as though
names came into existence for that purpose ; but, in so doing,
we fall into the common error of all such teleological ex
planations. The employment of names, then, cannot be
regarded as coming about for the purpose of objectifying.
Still less can it be supposed that such process of naming is
due to the individual mind itself. But, if this be true, we
are bound to say that the separation between the originally
subjective fleeting particular change of individual conscious
ness and the objectivity given by names is a far wider
separation than Lotze allows for, and must have been
bridged over by many intermediaries of which he takes
no account.
For the moment the expression has been allowed to pass
that the original contents of experience are subjective fleet
ing individual changes in the consciousness of the individual
subject; but I do not think that this truly expresses the
character such contents would possess in the primitive
mind. It is only from our reflective point of view that we
discriminate between the subjective character of the changes
in consciousness, and the objectivity of what is generally
recognised and indicated by a common name. The primitive
contents of experience may be fleeting and imperfect, service
able only as stimulating to equally fleeting and imperfect
acts ; but, for the, individual mind, they are not subjective
in the sense required for Lotze s contrast. Following this
CHAP. II.] LOTZE S DOCTRINE. 241
out, the question must be asked, Is it possible that the ap
plication of names, whereby doubtless fixity is obtained for
the contents of experience, should precede and be independent
of modifications in the stream of consciousness wherein are
given the fundamental distinctions between self and the
external real world ? I can hardly suppose that Lotze
would insist on the absolutely primitive character of this
process of objectifying by names; for, apparently, he is will
ing to regard this pre-logical process as at all events posterior
to the arrangement of the contents of experience in the form
of intuitions of space and time. But contents of experience
which have already undergone this transformation into space-
and-time facts are no longer subjective in the sense of Lotze s
contrast; and, further, such transformation into the picture
of a space-and-time qualified world is possible only on the
basis of the distinction between self and the external
not-self.
It is possible, therefore, that we shall have to regard the
universality, which comes about through or in conjunction
with the employment of words, as resting and dependent on
the prior and more elementary distinctions in conscious
ness, whereby, first of all, the objective begins to be defined
in the narrower, more special, sense of the real external not-
self. Further, it would appear to be indicated that, in the
process of objectifying by the employment of names, we have
not the manifestation of a simple unique power or activity ;
but that the achievement is to be regarded rather as the
final result of a complex which is capable of more detailed
psychological analysis. On such a view, nothing whatever
would be altered with regard to the importance, the signifi
cance, of the achievement in all the higher developments of
the mental life. From the psychological point of view, it
must be regarded as the gravest error to suppose that the
fundamental value of a result is dependent on the primitive
VOL. II. Q
242 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART 11. n.
simple unique character of the process, act, or function of
mind from which the result is supposed to follow. The re
sults in the human mind which, taken collectively, constitute
thinking are of no less significance for the total character of
the human mind and its experience, if they are regarded as
the complex products of more simple processes, than if they
are supposed to be the manifestation of some original simple
power.
Of the two pre-logical processes recognised by Lotze, the
first that already examined is named Objectification. The
second is itself a manifold. He does not seek to define too
closely the chronological relation of the two. But he selects,
as distinguishing them, and at the same time exhibiting their
close connexion, the familiar antithesis between spontaneous
activity and passively determined reception. The first pro
cess, he says, is one in which spontaneity is manifested :
though a little reflexion convinces us that the exercise of
such spontaneity is not absolutely without restriction. There
is always something in the character of what is presented that
determines the specific form of the active process exercised on
it. The second process l is at least relatively passive and re
ceptive. The whole process is further analysed into position,
distinction, and comparison. Position is a term indicating
undoubtedly a very simple factor in thought, which we can
illustrate best, perhaps, by saying that a given content of
sense-perception can only be thought about in so far as it
is attended to in such a way as to make it stand out
from its surroundings. Obviously, such positing, giving a
position or place in consciousness to a content, implies a
differentiation of it, a discrimination of it, from what is also
present, whether in the shape of immediate sense-impression
or idea.
1 [Logic, B. I. c. i. 9-19.]
CHAP, ii.] LOTZE S DOCTRINE. 243
Lotze is desirous to insist both on the connexion between
the two processes, positing and distinguishing, and on their
essential difference. He is anxious to avoid the view which
exaggerates the indispensable function of discrimination to
the extent of assigning no significance at all to the positive
elements in given experience.
Before proceeding to the third of the connected operations,
we may ask at once whether there is any sufficient ground
for distinguishing, as Lotze s exposition undoubtedly does,
between these operations of positing and distinguishing and
the material of experience given in the form of sense-
impressions and ideas. Is there a fundamental opposition
between these processes and what Lotze rails the mechanism
of the soul ? Are they processes which are requisite only
for thinking, that is, for the admittedly higher type of con
scious experience, or are they in some form implied even in
what is designated the lower type of conscious experience
the mechanism of sense and idea ? The only ground for
assuming that they are so confined to thinking is that which
seems to be involved in the very general proposition from
which Lotze makes the transition to the third process, that
of comparison. Lotze there, in order to justify a peculiar
feature of his view of comparison, emphasises the general
position that the world of directly presented experience, that
is, the universe of sense-impression and idea, might without
self-contradiction be conceived of as altogether destitute of
grounds of comparison. It might, that is, consist of an
aggregate of units each of which is different from every
other.
This general position is sufficiently difficult to maintain in
itself : for, certainly, it must be regarded as doubtful whether
any conception can be formed of an aggregate in which the
units are wholly unrelated. And it proceeds on an antithesis
which we have no reason to accept as valid. It is meaning-
244 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
less unless we accept as fundamental the distinction between
sense-impressions and ideas on the one hand and thinking
on the other, or (which is the same antithesis expressed in
more objective terms) unless we accept as radical the differ
ence between experience and the mind itself. But such an
antithesis can be accepted in neither form. To oppose mind
to its experience is to isolate mind from the world of fact,
to give it an external position from which all our ingenuity
will never extricate it successfully. It is to ignore the con
sideration that we are not entitled, in philosophy generally,
or in psychology in particular, to start with the conception
of mind as a given, completed, self-existent fact. The con
trary position is the truer one, that mind only comes into
being in and through its experiences, that the experience
which, as we say, it has, might quite as legitimately be
said to constitute the mind. And if we take the antithesis
in its more subjective fashion, we cannot regard as possible
experience a mental life which should veritably be an aggre
gate of wholly isolated units of sense-impression and idea.
Nowhere in the actual living experience of mind do we come
upon such units. The conception of them is evidently an
abstraction. They emerge from our analysis of mind ; but
even that analysis ought not to be made responsible for
the fictitious independence which our expressions confer on
them.
For my part, then, I see no reason to admit the sharp
antithesis between positing and distinguishing on the one
hand and the mechanism of sense and idea on the other.
The only concrete fact in our experience, in even the prim
itive stage of the mental life, is the sense-apprehension which
is in its own nature the being aware of a content, and which,
therefore, involves in itself what are here distinguished as
three apparently independent facts : position, discrimination,
and the given of sense or idea. It is only our analysis
CHAP, it.] LOTZE S DOCTRINE. 245
which distinguishes these three aspects. It is misleading to
describe the fact of sense-apprehension as a union of them.
The most important of the three connected processes in
Lotze s view is the third Comparison. Such comparison,
although the term indicates rather specially an activity, is,
however, so far at least as the pre-logical operation is con
cerned, to be regarded as mainly determined by the nature
of the given material. Lotze is, at all events, perfectly clear
in regard to this often-debated point. Thinking, in his view,
does not create the relations which lie at the foundation of
all developed knowledge of given fact, The elementary
relations of degree, number, and extent are accepted by
thought, not produced by it. In particular the relation,
varying in degree, of identity and difference, as in fact given,
makes itself manifest in the first generalities of our thinking
experience ; and the contrast between what Lotze here calls
the first universal and the concept serves to define the
distinction between comparison in its pre-logical stage and
the same function when concerned in the formation of the
concept.
The Concept is a highly complex product of active thinking.
Looked at as formed, the concept involves the representation
of a general law of connexion among the determining char
acters of a number of individuals, and also the representation
of individuals manifesting or exhibiting this uniform con
nexion with considerable variety of detail or of accompany
ing circumstance. Looked at in its formation, the concept
presupposes the representation in a quite generalised form
of these determining marks, presupposes also the distinction
of thing and quality, and may be said always to depend on
an active reflective treatment of concrete individuals in
whom, amid variety of circumstance, the same kind of con
nexion of determining marks is to be discerned.
On the other hand, the primitive or first universal ex-
PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
hibits to us the generality of one represented quality, one
characteristic which is, so to speak, the type of the many
isolated cases in which it may be presented. Over against
it the individual instances are not represented as concrete
units. The distinction of thing from quality is wholly want
ing. As regards its formation, the first universal cannot
possibly arise by reflexion on individual cases and ab
straction of the common element. Such first universals,
of which the sense - qualities are the best examples, are
presupposed in the more developed act of thinking by
which the concept is formed. They are rather received
than produced. Thinking in their regard is passive rather
than active.
The name Comparison, it must be said, is not well chosen,
for it implies just that which is regarded as wanting in the
process here a certain activity exercised by the subject on
material supplied to it. It is true that Lotze has more than
once expressed himself regarding this process of Comparison,
even in this its pre-logical form, as though it did imply an
active exercise on the part of the subject. In his Out
lines of Psychology, when he is contrasting the presence of
impressions and ideas in consciousness with the apprehen
sion of relations among them, he says explicitly that such
apprehension of relations implies an activity that passes from
one to the other of the related ideas, and becomes aware of
the change which it undergoes in the transition. 1 It can
hardly be held that this explicit statement is more than a
metaphor used to emphasise the distinction between think-
in-T and the isolated contents which form the mechanism of
>
sense-impression and idea. The account given in the larger
Logic qualifies that metaphorical description in a very
important respect, though it still leaves very obscure the
relation in which the isolated impressions and ideas stand
1 [Grundziige der Psychologic (1881), pt. i. c. 3, 1.]
CHAP, ii.] LOTZE S UOCTKINE. 247
to the basis of comparison on which thought is supposed to
turn. LoUe here throws the emphasis rather on the given
character of these relations, interprets them not so much
as products of an activity exercised, but rather as implicit
connexions of which the mind somehow becomes aware on
occasion of the occurrence together of sense-impressions and
ideas in certain specific ways. Even with that qualification
it seems to me doubtful whether we can accept his view of
the nature of the process.
Consider, for example, the manifestation of it involved in
the formation of what he calls the primitive or first uni-
versals. There, as we saw, a certain result is reached in
consequence of our (we must call it) perception of a certain
resemblance in quality among sense-impressions and their
ideas. It is stated expressly that this first universal (which
resembles, if it is not identical with, what psychologists call
the generic image) is not reached by the processes of com
paring individual cases, making abstraction of the points of
difference, and retaining with greater distinctness and clear
ness the common factors. In what way, then, does it arise?
Obviously there must be presupposed a certain number of
what, relatively, are to be called individual or particular
cases, even though it be also maintained that these are not
apprehended as individuals or particulars in all their detail
of special circumstance. They are not individualised, so to
speak. Such individualisation, indeed, is evidently regarded
as the result of a subsequent process. The individual rather
emerges from the first universal than precedes it. In what,
then, does the process of forming the first universal consist ?
Is it to be regarded as a process supervening upon the given
impressions ? Is it not rather the merely natural develop
ment, the intensification under quite empirical conditions, of
the very process through which the materials the impres
sions and ideas themselves are given in consciousness?
248 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
It is no doubt hard for us to represent the primitive
operations of mind except in the form which is familiar in
our developed experience, hard, therefore, to represent to
ourselves either a succession or a coexistence of partially
identical impressions which are divested of the discrimin
ating marks so abundantly supplied in the more developed
consciousness. The developed mind has the means, through
its experience of space-and-time relations, of separating suc
cessive or coexisting impressions and of conferring on each
of them an individuality. But, where the space-and-time re
lations are in the same condition of vagueness and indistinct
ness, such separation is by no means possible. We have
rather to represent successive impressions of what, from the
later point of view, we call one and the same type as coming
about in the primitive consciousness in a form which is not
quite that of a series of isolated units.
The vague whole of the contents of such primitive con
sciousness has at first but small differentiation by qualita
tively distinct features ; nor is there fully developed in it
the very rudimentary distinction between impression and
idea. The revived impression or idea, when first revived
in the primitive consciousness, is by no means contrasted
with, set over against, the impression which reproduces it.
Accordingly, just as we must assume, for the mere presence
at all of qualitative distinction in the primitive sense-con
sciousness, the function of discrimination, so we must allow
that what happens, through repetition of sense-impressions
belonging, as we say, to one type, is but the intensification
of the very same function of discrimination involved in what
is called the single impression. The repetition affords the
means for a more easy and effective apprehension of what
we incline to say has been implicit in the first impression.
The first impression, by repetition of that which contains
identical features, is, so to speak, analysed a process, in-
CHAP, n.] LOTZE S DOCTRINE. 249
deed, which we are entitled to call quite mechanical, in
so far at least as the word implies only absence of any
directed control from the side of the subject. This analysis,
moreover, does two things : it strengthens the content, which
embraces only the features of identity ; and, at the same
time it gives a certain additional prominence to the features
of difference, enabling them, if farther circumstances render
a more complete individualising possible, to become the
distinguishing marks of particular cases. 1
The process does not seem to me fundamentally different
when the material provided for the formation of this first
universal is coexistent. Only in that case the process has
at once the additional aid towards the kind of analysis
required that is furnished by the local marks of differ
ence. It is a matter hard to determine, to what extent the
primitive consciousness is capable of holding together as
parts of the total complex, which always forms the content
at any moment, a numerical variety of cases of one and the
same general type. We are so accustomed to regard numer
ical plurality as in itself constituting a basis of discrimina
tion that we overlook the highly complex conditions which,
in the developed mind, give detiniteness to that numerical
variety. In the undeveloped consciousness plurality of co
existing similars is probably a possible apprehension only
when the qualitative differences are sufficiently strong.
The first universal does not, on the whole, appear to in
dicate a new process which can be regarded as quite distinct
from what is involved in the having sense-impressions and
ideas as parts of a whole of apprehension. But, although
Lotze does not extend the scope of these first universals
directly beyond quality, it seems to me perfectly obvious
1 It will depend altogether on whether the individualising of the
material conditions partly relating separate cases comes about .swiftly or
to the kind of olrject apprehended, slowly or not at all.
partly conditions of space and time
250 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. u.
that they present themselves in just the same fashion in the
case of the fundamental non-qualitative relations, those of
number and extent. We cannot represent to ourselves the
condition of the primitive consciousness, the first grade of
apprehension, unless we introduce into the content appre
hended those features of difference which lie at the founda
tion of all our developed notions of number and magnitude
or extent. No doubt the first relations which are thus
vaguely apprehended those of plurality and its correlate
the unit, those of coexistence and of the occupation of the
field of consciousness in varied amount are devoid of all
the specific marks whereby they afterwards become of im
portance for scientific purposes. But this is true for the
same reason that rendered the first universal of quality a
mere generic image and not a concept or notion. There is
no ground at all, therefore, for refusing to regard the de
veloped relations of our later experience as resting upon first
universals,. themselves the vague apprehensions of elementary
relations, which relations, again, are not superinduced upon
the materials of consciousness but are involved in the most
rudimentary fact of apprehension.
Hence, with regard in particular to the three connected
operations which Lotze singles out position, distinction,
comparison it seems to be the case that the isolation of
them from the mechanism of sense-impression and idea is
without due foundation : that such separation, in fact, is but
a repetition of the old and wholly misleading abstraction of
the form of apprehension from its matter. It is quite im
possible to represent sense-impressions and ideas as forming
facts of mind except in so far as there are also present just
those very features of distinction and relation which Lotze
seems to assign to a special, a higher, form of mental
activity.
251
CHAPTER III.
THE KANTIAN DOCTRINE.
THE somewhat elaborate statement of Lotze s view renders
unnecessary more than a passing reference to what is peculiar
to the Kantian doctrine. Kant s doctrine is in the main un-
psychological. Expressed in its sharpest fashion, it is that
the function of thought is the reference of our perceptions
and ideas to the object. In so formulating it, Kant had
partly in view the previous interpretation of thought in the
school of Leibniz, according to which the function of thought
is the analysis of what is given in perceptions and ideas.
In opposition to that view he throws exclusive emphasis on
the function of thought not there recognised the creation
of the conception of an object at all. In this perhaps con
sists the only valuable contribution that his view makes to
the psychology of thinking. Tor, if we exclude any refer
ence to problems belonging to the theory of knowledge, we
must understand Kant to say that it is through the activity
of thought that there is established in our apprehension the
all-important distinction between subjective and objective.
Whether, then, we accept or reject the general philosophical
implications of this view, we may at least approach it from
the psychological side by asking whether it necessarily im
plies that the establishment of such a distinction is, so to
speak, the utterance of a single, simple, unique activity m
mind the spontaneity of thought,
252 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
There is no doubt that Kant expresses himself as if that
were so. No one contrasts more absolutely than Kant the
passive determined character of sense-impressions and the
active determining function of thought. But on this two
things may be said : first, that so far as its philosophical
consequences in the theory of knowledge are concerned, the
peculiarly Kantian doctrine is quite independent of any
psychological theory as to the nature of thinking and its
relation to sense and ideas ; and, in the second place, that no
ingenuity can accommodate the interpretation of Kant s view,
which he himself encourages, that thinking is a spontan
eous active unique operation, with the facts of experience,
and above all with the development of mind through its
several stages from the primitive consciousness, in which the
conception of object is almost wholly wanting, to the highest
reach of scientific reflexion, where the object is really what
is represented in the highly abstract conception of a real
world of interconnected parts regulated by general laws. It
is always hard to determine what Kant means by object.
The very obscurity is sufficient to show that the objectifica-
tion of the perception arid idea cannot possibly be the utter
ance of a single simple unique faculty or power in mind.
There are two points in Kant s view of thought which
deserve particular attention. According to his view thought
has the most intimate relation (1) to object or the objective
order, and (2) to self-consciousness. Indeed, although we
separate those two references for convenience, in Kant s
view they are one and the same.
(1) As regards the former, it is in and through the
function of thought that there comes about in our experi
ence the all-important reference of representations sense-
perceptions or ideas to the object. On this account Kant
definitely opposes Leibniz s view of the relation between
sense and understanding. What thinking does, he main-
CHAP. Hi.] THE KANTIAN DOCTRINE. 253
tains, is not to clear up our more confused apprehensions
of objects, but to give to our representation the reference
to object at all. Thinking makes objects possible ; and
in respect, therefore, to what may be called its operation
on the crude materials of representation, it is in nature
not analytic but synthetic : it imposes on the materials a
form of combination of a quite special kind, that which
we express through the notion of the object.
It is true that, in this statement, it appears to be implied
that sense per se, that is, the mere presence of sense-
perceptions in consciousness, constitutes some kind of appre
hension or knowledge. As Kant definitely rejects this
implication, his opposition to Leibniz might of course be
otherwise expressed, by saying that so far from sense being
the confused apprehension of what is cleared up in under
standing, it is not apprehension at all. In a similar fashion,
when Kant so definitely rejects Leibniz s view that sense
confusedly represents the purely logical relations which
are clearly apprehended by understanding, insisting that
sense, so to speak, has its own absolute character that the
relations of space and time there reached are final, not to be
regarded as shadowy confused imitations of the purely logical
the same implication might be thought to exist: it might
be thought that sense, according to Kant, constituted one
kind of apprehension, whereas, according to him, sense per se
is not apprehension at all.
We may admit the justice, so far, of Kant s criticism of
Leibniz s view ; in particular, we may accept the opinion that
what is apprehended in sense-perception is in its own way
final. But, nevertheless, it seems difficult, without an
important qualification, to accept the Kantian view that
the function of thinking is the introduction of this peculiar
factor the reference to the object. It is difficult, partly
because one would hesitate to accept this function as an
254 PSYCHOLOGY OF THIXKING. [PART n. B.
ultimate, partly because there is no such simplicity about
the notion of object as to render it at all probable that
its introduction is the expression of a simple unique
function of mind. Beyond a doubt, when the notion of
object is taken as Kant himself takes it, our hesitation
here rapidly changes to certainty. It is impossible to
suppose that the highly developed representation which can
be expressed only in the variety of forms unfolded in the
categories, is the simple, psychologically first, utterance
of an elementary function of mind. What Kant offers as
the explicit notion of object may be a description of what
thought achieves, and may have even special importance
as a description of a necessary stage in the development
of experience; it cannot be accepted as indicating the
immediate proximate addition to the first incoherent move
ments of sense-perception. It may not have been Kant s
intention that his critical analysis of the components of
knowledge should be interpreted as giving at the same
time a psychological history of the way in which know
ledge comes about. But it is not possible to separate the
two inquiries in the way in which he seems to have pro
ceeded. No one can suppose that the first, the simplest,
form in which the antithesis arises in consciousness be
tween the subjective contents of mind and an object is
that developed systematised representation which appears
in Kant s analysis as the correlate and expression of
tmderstanding.
There is, therefore, as a result of the Kantian analysis of
the developed representation of object, a further problem of
the first significance psychologically. If that developed
representation be not the first and simplest form in which
the objective reference makes its appearance, in what relation
does it stand to the simpler modes, and what consequences
follow with respect to the supposed function of thought ? It
CHAP, in.] THE KANTIAN" DOCTRINE. 255
is to be observed, as of considerable importance from the
psychological point of view, that in Kant s exposition there
is a connexion indicated, but not worked out, between object
or objective order and generality. The objective order is
the common standard over against which the transitory
accidental representations of the individual mind are judged
to be subjective. In fact Kant repeatedly, though without
sufficiently detailed treatment of the problem implied,
identifies objective with necessary and universal ; and
certainly, whatever else necessary and universal may
signify, they imply generality. It lias been already pointed
out that one of the difficulties in the comprehension of Kant s
work is his identification of the function or process of under
standing in its two lines of application. The categories are
called by him notions, and put on the same level with the
logical concept. The analytical function of thinking is
viewed as having some identity of character with the far
more important synthetic function.
Perhaps we shall find, in the more minute analysis of the
simple manifestations of thinking, a clue to the connexion
here indicated by Kant between the notions of objective
and universal or general. It is possible at the same
time that the result of our analysis will be an important
modification of the notion objective as employed by Kant.
(2) In regard to the second point self-consciousness
beyond a doubt Kant is naming correctly one important
feature of thinking in our experience. Without that kind
of combination or connexion in the contents of our experi
ence which we summarily designate by the term thought,
self-consciousness would have no existence ; but it is im
possible to accept the notion self-consciousness as either
simple or primitive. From the psychological point of
view, at all events, we are compelled to recognise a con
tinuous gradation in the consciousness of self ; and we
256 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
cannot regard that highly developed form of it, in which
it is the correlate of the orderly systematic representation
of a world of things in space and time, as being the first
form in which it comes forward in our experience. It
may be true that what we call thinking a process which,
as we may assume provisionally, presents itself in very
different grades of development is just the operation in
and through which self-consciousness develops. But we are
not justified in deriving the operation of thought from self-
consciousness, still less from a form of self-consciousness
which we cannot suppose to be present from the outset
in the development of mind.
These remarks on the Kantian view illustrate what is
really the greatest difficulty in the psychological analysis of
thinking. The experience in which the manifestations of
thinking are to be discovered is so various, that we can
hardly suppose that a complete thoroughgoing insight into the
nature of thought can be extracted from any one section of
it. Moreover, the gradations of the experience from which
we have to get our insight into thinking are not all of them,
are not even many of them, within reach of psychological
analysis. The regressive work which we have to undertake
carries us inevitably to regions of the inner life which we
have no direct means of inspecting. Much of it, therefore,
is inferential, and we have no direct tests to apply to the
inferences we make.
257
CHAPTER IV.
SURVEY OF DEVELOPED THINKING.
WITH this precaution as regards the method to be followed,
we have now to ask what light is thrown on our problem by
a survey of the developed functions of thinking. Such
developed functions are manifested in certain distinctions
which run through our mature experience, and in certain
special products which form parts of that experience. Both
require to be handled with care ; for neither, according to our
methodical principle, can be at once accepted as ultimate.
They are to be utilised only as pointing to the earlier, more
elementary, processes, from which they may have developed,
and to which we may be able to trace them.
Of the distinctions, the most obvious is doubtless that
which appeared in Lotze s treatment as the opposition be
tween the psychical mechanism and the activity of thinking.
Our ordinary experience seems abundantly to confirm some
such contrast. We set on the one side the appearance in
consciousness of sense-presentations coming from the ob
jective world, and, in their coming, under no control, or, at
best, a very indirect control, by us ; likewise the haphazard
unregulated flow of ideas, regulated no doubt by principles
and explicable by reference to causes, but standing, so far,
beyond our control, not dominated by reference to any end
proposed by the subject himself. Over against these, we
place the exercise of some activity of our own : the expres-
VOL. II. R
258 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
sion of ourselves or our own purposes wherein the train of
ideas is dominated by some end, theoretical or practical, which
was proposed by the subject himself, and in which the com
bining or separating of the materials appears as a process
carried out upon them by the subject. Taken in the mass,
our thinking appears (1) as a subjective activity, (2) as the
expression of some purpose, and therefore as self-conscious,
(3) as relating together the materials supplied by presentation
and representation.
It cannot be supposed that, in this distinction, we are
really naming fundamental and original oppositions of
mental function. The smallest consideration suffices to
convince us not only that the distinction is far from being
so absolute as it appears in expression, but that, as it occurs
iu our experience, it is in itself fluctuating and variable.
No one of the members of the oppositions it sums up is capable
of being taken as simple and ultimate. (1) Subjective
and objective, which we contrast with one another, evid
ently present themselves at different stages of experience in
different aspects. (2) The purposes or ends which we seek
to realise, and which give to our thinking its self-conscious
aspect, are also variable, dependent on accidental circum
stances. (3) The relating or combining and separating
operation of thinking is evidently only possible if the
material be adapted thereto ; and the material, therefore,
cannot be regarded as quite foreign, distinct in origin,
and wholly opposed psychologically, to thinking itself.
In the same way, if we take into account the characteristic
products of the activity of thinking notion, judgment,
reasoning we shall be compelled to allow that the sharp
differences which mark them off from one another, and from
the other contents of mind in our mature experience, must
needs be regarded as results, not as primitive conditions : that
the variety in the range of each of them indicates that the
CHAP, iv.] SURVEY OF DEVELOPED THINKING. 259
fully formed product is the last term of a development, and
that its characteristics are not primitive, and can be taken
only as indicating the original features from which the
development started.
In reasoning, judgment, and notion there have long been
recognised the special forms of mental process in which the
activity of thinking is displayed. But the logical analysis of
these products of thought, which generally determines the
view we take of their natures, contemplates almost inevitably
the most matured stage of their existence. Too little atten
tion has been given to two points significant even for logic,
namely : (1) the variety of graduated forms in which these
products appear, and (2) the common basis which constitutes
each of them a product of thinking. The tendency of
logical treatment is on the whole to consider exclusively the
most developed types, and to regard the three products as
either independent of one another or as only in a kind of
mechanical relation to one another.
There are thus two lines of consideration to be followed ;
and these converge towards a common result. In the first
place we may seek to connect the developed with the primary
stages in these several products of thinking; and secondly,
by a consideration of the points they have in common, we
may hope to discover what are either fundamental character
istics of thinking or the determining peculiarities which, in
the mental life, give a definite impetus in one direction
the direction which we call summarily the development
of thought. We take, then, in the first place, the attempt
to analyse the more complex forms of the products of
thought, and to connect them with their primary stages.
260
CHAPTER V.
ANALYSIS OF THINKING.
BEASONIXO, the most involved of the three types of thought,
is itself presented as exhibiting a variety of different forms.
Logical analysis recognises not only the broad division be
tween deductive and inductive reasoning, but also, within
the scope of the former, a subdivision which for the moment
we shall accept in the Kantian fashion as into categorical,
hypothetical, and disjunctive reasoning. These are generally
formulated in a way which corresponds to the highest range
of thinking, with its definite discrimination of the universal
or general from the special particular or individual.
In the Disjunctive Syllogism the fundamental proposition
expresses an exhaustive enumeration of alternative possibil
ities. It rests therefore on an insight into the determining
conditions of the subject, which can only be expressed in the
most general fashion. Now, it is evident that, even if the
insight here referred to constitutes a ground for recognising
one specific type of reasoning, it ought not to be for
gotten that such insight must itself be a derivative fact,
reached gradually in mind by means of a series of ap
proximations. If we can trace these approximations, they
may give us a more complete knowledge of what is involved
in the result. It may be perfectly true that, under the con
ditions of knowledge, the disjunctive proposition represents
one fundamentally distinct form of our way of representing
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 261
real fact. That it should have a history, that it should
gradually develop in our experience, stands in no contradic
tion to such recognition of its fundamental value. It is a
complete mistake to suppose that the significance of a form
of thinking in our experience, the importance of the part it
plays in enabling us fully to represent reality, is dependent
on the manner in which it comes to exist in our concrete
thinking.
Evidently, the highest form of the disjunctive proposition
will be found where most complete abstraction is made of all
the material conditions which enter into the special subject
to which it refers. But that this should be so indicates at
once the nature of the antecedent and less developed forms
of the same proposition. They may exhibit the same general
characteristic as is displayed in the developed form, that is,
they may proceed on the basis of enumeration of alterna
tives ; but the alternatives enumerated will be determined by
material conditions, and the exhaustiveness of the enumera
tion which is required will have a wider or narrower scope
according to the kind of alternatives that are included. In
this way, the developed disjunctive proposition does not seem
to differ in kind from the much more elementary recognition
of alternatives which is limited in scope by the conditions of
immediate perception, and which contemplates little more
than the alternations of Here and There, of Now and Then.
If this is so, it is also reasonable to assume that the uni
versality of the developed form is dependent on the possibility
of making more and more abstraction of accompanying con
ditions ; and that in turn is dependent on two correlative
facts : first, increase of material experience, and secondly,
greater ability to hold together and manipulate masses of
ideas in consciousness.
Further, even in its least developed form, the dis
junctive judgment must be recognised by us as some-
262 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART ir. B.
what complex. It involves the fundamental distinction,
whether logical or psychological, of subject and predicate ;
it postulates the ability to relate a given perceived sub
ject to what is represented in idea ; it involves, there
fore, a certain recognition of the fundamental distinction
between order of ideas and order of fact, a recognition,
moreover, of that distinction which cannot itself be called
primitive. The conception of alternatives indicates unmis
takably a certain advance from the primary stage of dis
tinguishing between idea and fact. Again, there is obviously
involved in the alternatives, however simple they may be,
the element of generalisation. An alternative, however
limited its scope, is representable only in a generalised
fashion: the alternatives cannot themselves have the deh nite-
ness of the individual subject.
Take next the Hypothetical Judgment. Recent logicians
have tended towards the discrimination of two forms of the
hypothetical proposition, the basis of the hypothetical reason
ing. They recognise, first, the more abstract type, that in
which the members connected, antecedent and consequent,
have not separate independence, do not constitute in isola
tion complete predications, where, therefore, the entire
thought expressed in the hypothetical judgment is not so
much a combination as a chemical mixture of antecedent
and consequent. A second and less abstract type admits
of a certain independence of antecedent and consequent.
The assertion made is more of the nature of a statement
respecting the conditions under which a certain fact or
event comes about.
Even if the distinction here drawn were admitted, we
should find that the more abstract type involved a complex
representation of a connected interdependent whole, which in
its nature so closely resembles the less developed thoughts of
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 263
less abstract connexions, that we could not overlook the
fundamental identity of character between them. This con
nexion in idea between antecedent and consequent is not
absolutely, but only relatively, distinct from the more con
crete representation which we frame to ourselves of con
nexions dependence of events in time, or relation of objects
in space. Logicians have been in the habit of excluding
from the range of the hypothetical proposition those forms of
statement in which a connexion is asserted of a temporal
kind as whenever A is then B is on the ground that
logical connexion is independent of temporal qualification.
But the independence so claimed is only relative. Even
in the judgment which involves the temporal qualifica
tion there are present and operative the same functions of
thinking which, carried to a higher range of abstraction, find
expression in the purely logical judgment. Our view of what
is involved in the hypothetical judgment becomes far more
sound and fruitful when we take these less developed types
into account than when, we confine attention to the highly
abstract variety called the logical.
In these lower types there is implied the representation
of an orderly connexion, a uniformity of relation, both as
regards time and as regards space. But this representation
evidently implies that the subject thinking has reached the
stage of being able to distinguish the transient momentary
event from the relatively permanent order of nature, and this
again indicates recognition, and a somewhat developed recog
nition, of the difference between order of subjective experi
ence and order of objective fact. Moreover, as before, the
element of generality is involved. The order of connected
fact is never represented, can never be represented, in strictly
individualised fashion.
The hypothetical judgment suggests, as can readily be seen,
the rather interesting question, whether the undoubted com-
264 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART 11. B.
plexity it involves entitles us to regard it as, properly speaking,
a type of judgment. Logicians more than once have raised
the question as to the right of the hypothetical to be called a
judgment. Consider the connexion asserted in it. It is im
possible to suppose that the consequent is merely an applica
tion of analysis to the antecedent. There is always, therefore,
the reference to a factor lying, one may say, outside of anteced
ent and consequent, and enabling the connexion to be asserted.
But this is the characteristic of reasoning. The hypothetical
judgment must therefore raise the further question, whether
it is not in itself a simple type of the reasoning process,
whether the act of asserting a connexion, such as is expressed
in the hypothetical judgment, is not in its nature reasoning.
No doubt there is implied in this question an assumption not
yet justified, that judgment in its simplest form contains only
the factors Subject and Predicate.
No distinction in regard to the Categorical Judgment is
more familiar in logic than that between universal and par
ticular. For our purpose the contrast would perhaps be
better stated as that between universal and individual.
Logically, these are placed side by side ; and, for certain pur
poses, such treatment is adequate. From the psychological
point of view, however, it is indispensable that we should
recognise, and endeavour to account for, the all-important
difference between the universal and individual judgments.
We should not allow without discussion as the logical
treatment seems to allow that the universal judgment is
just an immediate expression of some power which we pos
sess. At various points, indeed, even in the logical treatment
of thought, the necessity for some such discussion becomes
apparent. The theory of syllogism, for example, cannot be
discussed without consideration of what is actually and in
detail the representation which finds expression in the uni-
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 265
versal judgment. It is imperative there to inquire what it is
that we think in the universal proposition, and perhaps
hardly less necessary to raise the further, more metaphysical,
question, With what justification do we represent what
seems to be contained in the universal judgment ?
The psychological treatment does not, in the first instance
at least, necessitate the treatment of this second question.
For its purpose, it is sufficient to describe fully what is the
total attitude of mind involved in the universal judgment. It
may be taken for granted that the total representation im
plied in formulating a universal judgment is complex. What
ever the judgment may be, it seems beyond question that our
representation, which gives it body and substance, extends
far beyond the limits of what can be immediately presented,
and implies a combination of elements such as could not
possibly be given in direct immediate fashion. It would no
doubt be prejudging the metaphysical question to say,
Therefore the universal judgment is always of the nature of
an inference. Without going so far as this, it is sufficient
and it seems necessary from the psychological point of
view, to say, The universal judgment, however got, is always
a complex product. It is impossible to suppose that, in
human consciousness, immediate experience at once calls
forth universal judgments. If this were applied directly to
the logical treatment of judgment, it would carry with it
the rather important consequence which the ordinary logical
analysis overlooks, that what is called the quantity of judg
ment is not a primitive inherent mark but a derivative
characteristic.
Of course it is here taken for granted that universal
bears the definite meaning of holding good in all possible
cases. It is therefore implied that some distinction obtains
between the universal which is expressed in such judgments,
and such mere generality as may very well accompany prim-
266 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
itive judgments in which the element of distinction is at the
minimum. The same difference, in fact, is implied here, as
logicians have seen right to insist on, between the concept or
developed logical notion and the general or generic repre
sentation. The logical notion always involves the relatively
distinct representation of individual cases in which a common
structure, element, law, or order is realised. Psychologically,
then, in respect to the categorical judgment, as in respect to
the others, we must contemplate a gradation in which there
may be certain common elements, though possibly even the
simplest form which we may succeed in disentangling will
exhibit itself as being psychically a complex fact. The line
of search which we at present pursue that relating to
quantity would certainly seem to indicate, when followed
out, that the simplest type of judgment will be that in which
quantitative distinction is wholly wanting, such, for example,
as the impersonal judgment in developed speech.
But another line of inquiry will carry us more directly to
the heart of the problem. In the universal, beyond question,
there is the conscious reference of our representation to real
objective fact. Such objective order may be of one kind
or another. It may be the order of external nature, or that
of the inner life, or even a fictitious order based, however, on
the experiences of the others, and inconceivable except in
reference to them. This objective order is always recognis
able as playing a part in whatsoever judgment we form.
Further, it is to be noted that, when reference to objective
order is spoken of, the whole process is one of thought: it
is a representation of objective order; nnd obviously the
function of judging and the exercise of that function are
wholly independent of any question as to the adequacy of
this, that, or any representation of the objective order. Ob
jective order is our represented objective order, nothing
more.
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 267
111 such judgments, then, there is always some kind of
combination, synthesis, or relation between representations
of a more special character, and the representation of ob
jective fact; and, commonly enough, the combination is
expressed by means of the abstract term, reference of ideas
to objective fact. The special problem to which I allude
concerns the nature of this reference. I approach this prob
lem first by calling attention to the commonly accepted
distinction between what is called an Idea and a Judg
ment. The distinction goes back to Aristotle, who points
out that in the judgment there is always a combination
or separation of terms signifying combination or separation
in fact, and that the terms in isolation do not involve such
reference to fact. The single representation or idea is thus
distinguished from the same representation or idea when it
is embodied in a judgment or assertion. Xo doubt we may
readily accept some such distinction. Every one must admit
a difference between the idea of an object simplicitcr and the
assertion that such an object exists, or even between the idea
simpliciter and the idea when it forms the subject of an
assertion.
Although the difference is clear enough in our mature
experience, it does not therefore follow that it should with
equal distinctness hold good at all stages of our mental
development. Indeed it may be held that the separation of
the idea the abstraction which has been made in order to
render it possible to contemplate it simplicitcr is the result
of thinking, and that we are not therefore entitled to suppose
that we start with such simple ideas, and then, whether by
some addition to them or by manipulation of them, proceed
to the judgment. It seems psychologically certain that the
implicit reference to the objective order in the idea of an
object is itself in need of explanation. We have no right
to assume that our ideas are originally given to us as ideas of
268 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. u.
objects, and then maintain that they are quite distinct from
assertions with regard to objective fact.
In what, then, is it supposed that the distinction between
such simple elements of the judgment and the judgment
itself consists ? Here the very thorough and excellent dis
cussion of the question in Brentano s Psychology 1 may be
taken as the basis for our consideration. Brentano holds
that the difference between the simple idea representation or
presentation and the judgment is fundamental and primor
dial. It is not explicable by reference to any difference in the
content, nor by any qualitative difference in the apprehension
of the idea concerned. The assertion (he argues) cannot be
explained as a clearer or more distinct recognition of what is
in the idea. It must then be explained as resting on a
fundamental difference in the attitude of consciousness
towards the content apprehended a difference comparable
to that between an idea and an idea which excites desire or
aversion. In this latter case every one allows that a new
fundamental and original element is added to the idea.
Nothing in the intellectual characteristics of the idea ex
plains the addition of desire or aversion. So in the case of
judgment. A given content A is asserted : A is ; the addi
tion is not to be regarded as a new feature of A, which
remains the same throughout, nor is it a clearer or more
distinct apprehension of A ; it must consist, then, in some
distinctness of attitude of the thinking subject towards A ; it
is the expression of a unique, simple, primitive function of
mind. Accordingly, from his point of view, Brentano recog
nises judging as one of the fundamental primitive compon
ents of consciousness. Presentations are given and are
judged; and all judgment, moreover, as he regards it, is
assertion of the existence or non-existence of what is given
in presentation or idea.
1 [Psychologic, B. II. c. vii. ; cf. above, p. 180.]
CHAP. v.J ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 269
According to this view the function of judging is wholly
and exclusively the addition to a given content of the refer
ence to objective reality. The doubt one would entertain
with respect to such an explanation concerns the justification
for assuming, as it assumes, that objective reality in any
fashion can be taken as a primitive element in the experience
of the thinking subject. Evidently if it be primitive, it can
not be in form a detailed representation. The existence of
A cannot consist in the position of A in any, however un
developed, system of reality. We may find ourselves led to
regard this function of judging, if primitive, as being of the
inexplicable character of a feeling. And, indeed, not a few
psychologists Hume, 1 for example have been found main
taining that the difference between an idea and an asserted
reality is constituted by the presence of a peculiar feeling ;
some for example, J. S. Mill, 2 as well as Hume have named
the inexplicable element Belief.
Brentano represents a long tradition in maintaining that
the essential fact in thinking is the peculiar function of
judgment, which is regarded as primitive simple and an
addition made to perceptions or ideas. No one would doubt
the difference between the simple presentation or idea and
the judgment. But it is not equally clear that we are en
titled to assume that such difference as now presents itself
is in its own nature primitive and simple. It is equally
doubtful whether, considering the nature of the supposed act
of judging or asserting, we are entitled to regard it as a
simple and primitive function of mind. It must certainly
be regarded as surprising that, if the function of judging be
simple and primordial, its exercise should vary with the
conditions presented. For it can hardly be supposed that
every perception or idea these being assumed to be inde
pendent of the judging function shall, simply as such, call
1 [See above, vol. i. p. 144.] 2 [See below, p. 272 n.]
270 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
forth the activity of that function. And, if the exercise of
the function be in any way dependent on conditions, these
can only lie in some characteristics of the perceptions or
ideas judged about, and the process becomes a complex in
stead of a simple one.
Moreover, there is some ground for doubt regarding the
description of the primitive judgment to which all others
are on this view reduced. The existential judgment is not
in itself so clear arid unambiguous that we can without hesi
tation accept it as requiring no further explanation ; for it
is quite evident that the existence which enters into our
various judgments is not always of the same kind. Exist
ence, then, cannot be regarded as a simple unambiguous
predicate. It demands a closer analysis to determine what
is contained in the supposed assertion of existence. In all
probability the ground for insisting on the primitive irre
ducible character of this asserted existence is the absolute
distinction drawn between the contents of the judgment and
the reference to objective fact which seems to stand along
side of them. For, if this distinction be made absolute
perhaps I ought to say, be misinterpreted it is natural to
conclude that any specification of the kind of existence
must needs be in terms of some content or other which
would therefore lie altogether outside of the assertion of
existence.
It will be observed that this view to which we seem re
duced is the fundamental conception at the root of all forms
of Subjective Idealism. It is not necessary to adopt Sub
jective Idealism by accepting that foundation, for we may
add to it, as is done in the theory here considered, the
postulate that alongside of the contents there is given a
simple irreducible assertion which carries us straightway to
the objective. But, the more complete we make the dis
tinction, the more startling and doubtful do we make the
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 271
postulate of this simple irreducible assertion of objective
reality.
Besides, if we draw the distinction in this way, we are
compelled to raise the further question, Whether we are
justified in assuming that the analysis we can so readily
make of our developed complex judgments wherein, as we
say, there are ideas connected plus some factor of belief or
assertion is an expression of the primitive components of
the mental life within which judging and thinking manifest
themselves.
We have as much reason for doubt with regard to this
as with regard to the cognate distinction in language be
tween the parts of speech and the sentence. In formed
speech we make the analysis readily enough, and are all too
prone to assume that in fact the sentence, which is the type
of connected speech, is built up out of those components into
which we now resolve it. But this is not so. No lan<niae
O O
is constructed out of original elements precisely correspond
ing to the separate words into which we may now analyse it.
If any result of philological inquiry can be trusted, we are
justified in assuming that, in the primitive components of
speech, the familiar distinctions, by means of which we
break up the developed sentence into its parts, were not
present ; that the unit of speech resembled far more closely
the sentence than the part of the sentence, though in truth
it was identical with neither. In a similar fashion we may
insist, on psychological grounds, that the sharp distinction
we make between the terms of a judgment and the asser
tion of objective reality is a derivative fact, and does not
represent the primitive condition of the simpler mental
life.
There is a great deal of abstraction involved in this ap
parently simple discrimination. It may be quite true that
the distinction between a sensation and an idea is irre-
272 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART II. B.
ducible, primordial, as Mill, for example, contends ; l and, to
all appearance, Brentano s theory was a development from
that observation. But, undoubtedly, the distinction does
not consist in this, that with the same content there is
present in the one and wanting in the other, a simple in
explicable utterance of the function of judgment an asser
tion of objective existence. If we do make the abstraction
required in order to contemplate isolated sensations and
ideas as facts of mind (and such abstraction may really give
a very imperfect picture of the actual mental process), we
may fairly recognise differences of a quite ultimate or
primordial kind without describing them in terms of a really
complex act.
To all appearance, then, our discussion now thrusts us
back to what may certainly be regarded as a tolerably simple
and early stage of consciousness the apprehension of the
objective. It seems to me impossible to form any psycho
logical theory of the judgment except by regarding its several
forms as based on the simplest consciousness of the objective
in our experience, and as expressing, in their gradual de
velopment, the increasing width and richness of the total
representation of objective fact which we find in that ex
perience. I assume some such gradation in the range of our
1 See J. S. Mill s edition of James aspect of the same difference." [P.
Mill s Analysis of the Phenomena of 423 : " I cannot help thinking, there-
the Human Mind, vol. i. pp. 412-3 : fore, that there is in the remembrance
" What, in short, is the difference to of a real fact, as distinguished from
our minds between thinking of a that of a thought, an element which
reality, and representing to ourselves does not consist, as the author sup-
an imaginary picture. I confess that poses, in a difference between the
I can perceive no escape from the mere ideas which are present to the
opinion that the distinction is ulti- mind in the two cases. This element,
mate and primordial. There is no howsoever we define it, constitutes
more difficulty in holding it to be so, Belief, and is the difference between
than in holding the difference be- Memory and Imagination. From
tween a sensation and an idea to be whatever direction we approach, this
primordial. It seems almost another difference seems to close our path."]
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 273
representation of reality, and I think it probable that we
shall be able to make out a connexion between the more
concrete forms of that representation and the more abstract
a connexion which will explain to us the ultimate relation,
the tendency almost to flow into one another, of the two
conceptions reality and truth.
I assume also what I think would readily be granted, that
the whole development of this representation of reality is
correlated with, and dependent on, the growth in the con
scious subject of those experiences sensations, ideas, and
their combinations wherein his mental life consists. It is
to this side that the psychological analysis of thinking has
to turn ; and its first problem is to determine what combina
tion of experiences in the inner life is required in order
to give, in its primitive form, the distinction between sub
jective and objective. In the absence of such distinction no
judgment can possibly have a place in consciousness ; for the
judgment, whatever else it may involve, has as its character
istic the reference to the objective. We have already seen
that such reference is not to be taken as a simple unchange
able part of the judgment. The objective referred to is a
variable quantity ; and we cannot and ought not to suppose
that what we vaguely call the reference remains entirely
unaffected by this alteration in what it concerns.
Xo thinking then, so far at least as that is expressed in
the recognised products of thought, is possible except on the
basis of the fundamental discrimination in consciousness be
tween the subjective and the objective. Now there can be
no doubt that, so far as our human experience is concerned,
the simplest form of that discrimination concerns solely the
difference between sensuous perception and idea a differ
ence which is itself capable of resolution into a number of
connected factors. "Were we limited in our experiences to
what are commonly called intellectual processes, it is doubtful
VOL. II. S
274 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
whether this distinction could ever make its appearance.
Only because every change in our consciousness is accom
panied by a varying amount of sensuous feeling and of
impulse which is very different in the two contrasted cases
(that of actual stimulation of the organs of sense and that
of revived idea), is it possible for a first crude imperfect
distinction to establish itself in mind between subjective
and objective. 1
The objective order, in such primitive sensuous conscious
ness, does not extend beyond the occasions of actual sense-
perception. A certain unity of the subjective consciousness
is undoubtedly implied in the merely natural conditions
which render possible even the simplest form of this dis
tinction : for, at all events, there must be a coexistence in
one and the same state of a number of distinct modifications
of consciousness. We may conjecture rather than confidently
name the conditions on which the establishment of a higher
form of that primitive unity of mind depends. Apparently
it depends much on the two circumstances : (1) the range of
discriminated sense-perceptions, (2) the possibility of accurate
and complete revival of these in idea. A consciousness pos
sessing but few elements of sense-perception, and these but
vaguely discriminated, reviving few of its original impres
sions, and that in an imperfect form, can hardly arrive, I do
not say at a representation of continuity in time, but even at
the basis for such a representation the ability to hold to
gether in one state of consciousness present perceptions and
a number of revived ideas with their distinguishing circum
stance. A unity of mind which involves a certain repre
sentation of continuous existence implies likewise, with
1 Although, strictly speaking, our mented by what is said elsewhere
conception of mind hardly extends regarding the function of the space-
beyond the form in which such dis- element in the formation of the dis
tinction is involved. [The statement tinctiou between subjective and ob-
in the text here should be supple- jective. See vol. i. pp. 238, 291 f.J
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 275
respect to the object, recognition therein of the primitive
time-relation and also representation of the object as pos
sessing continuity and unity of existence. Our sense -
perceptions and ideas taken in isolation are ways in which
we apprehend, directly or indirectly, this continuous per
manent objective existence.
On the basis of even the simple distinction between the
reality of what is apprehended immediately in sense-percep
tion and the representative character of what is given in an
idea, there would no doubt be possible a certain rudimentary
form of judgment. Such rudimentary form is perhaps in
dicated wherever a portion of sentient experience is inter
preted as a sign ; for the interpretation of any given content
as a sign implies (1) a certain power of holding, side by side
and apart from one another, ideas and actual facts, and (2)
a certain (I think one must call it) sense of continuity. No
doubt it is hard, from our point of view, to express these
implications without introducing into them the reflective
elements which are now always present in our interpretation
of a sign ; but the admission of the implications seems to me
inevitable. It is quite certain that, even where the mental
development does not extend beyond the perceptive stage, as
in the animal, it is possible for interpretation of signs to
come about. In our human experience, however, another
factor is introduced which modifies in a very important way
the meaning of symbols or signs and the method of interpret
ing them.
The objective world, even with the restriction of its sig
nificance to that which is immediately presented to sense,
is not for us merely the antithesis to our own individual
inner life. Nay, perhaps the correlative term here intro
duced the individual inner life would never acquire a
definite meaning except in and through that further factor
to which I refer. The real world of perception is the com-
276 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
mon point of reference for the experiences of a number of
similar percipient subjects.
It will always be a difficult, perhaps an impossible, problem
for special psychology, to determine accurately the history of
the steps whereby this all-important extension of meaning is
given to the objective sense-perceived reality. In all prob
ability such an addition depends on a number of distinct
psychical processes, of some of which we have a tolerably
clear conception. Even within the limits of the individual
mind we can discover what the conditions are which render
it possible to contrast the immediate sense-perception itself
with the reality which is apprehended thereby. Evidently,
for such a distinction, there is required a considerable coher
ence on the side of that complex of mental facts which makes
up the unity of the percipient subject ; and correlatively it
is quite certain that there must coincide with these facts,
perhaps as rendering them possible, a certain regularity of
occurrence of the sense-presentations which are given to the
subject.
But, even admitting these implications, we must acknow
ledge that there is much that is obscure, and perhaps hardly
capable of completely satisfactory explanation, in the history
of the process whereby the individual subject recognises a
kind of existence generically identical with his own, ascribes
to it the same kind of unity and identity as he finds in
himself, and thereby places it in the same relation to per
ceived reality as that which is expressed in his own experi
ence. The process once completed, a wholly new aspect of
the perceived reality is disclosed, and what is called interpre
tation of signs acquires a new and larger significance. It is
here, among these primitive acts of the forming intelligence,
that we at the same time come upon that which has long
been (and is probably destined long to be) a puzzle for
human reflexion the origin of speech or language.
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 277
We have no direct means of determining in what way the
two processes so closely linked together worked into one
another. Neither must be regarded as, so to speak, an in
stantaneous act. Even the simpler of them, the generation
of the common consciousness of reality a process which
results in the highly important distinction in the inner life
between the individual aspect of the subject s experiences
and their general validity must be conceived of by us,
despite our present prejudices, as coming about gradually.
Once established, and supported as it is throughout by the
product of the other process, the formation of a common
stock of signs with objective significance, the continuity
of human social existence renders it altogether unnec
essary, and even impossible, for the individual subject
again to pass through in a recognisable fashion the series of
steps by which the result was first reached. There is now,
as it were, forced on the growing consciousness of each in
dividual subject the very distinction which had slowly and
painfully to be evolved in the earliest stages of the develop
ment of human consciousness.
The origin of speech or language no doubt constitutes a
problem which can only be approached indirectly; and, un
fortunately, there are few or no materials for testing the
inferences by which alone we can offer an account of the
process of that origination. At best, perhaps, the facts at
our disposal enable us only to indicate what general types of
conditions are involved in the first conscious use of signs as
having objective significance. I here refer to the problem
only because the consideration of it brings forcibly before us
the inseparable connexion between objective and general.
It has long been a commonplace that language, or the system
of signs constituting a language, is general in significance.
It is equally true to say that such signs have always ob-
278 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
jective significance ; and, historically, it seems tolerably
clear that objective first signified the more limited range of
what was immediately given in sense - perception. Now,
such immediate data by no means involved at first the clear
sharply-drawn distinctions which we make between outer
and inner, between nature and mind. The primitive distinc
tion, in and through which consciousness first arises, might
very well be drawn in the absence of any such precise
description of the contrasted facts as is now familiar to us.
Accordingly, it ought not to surprise us that all the records
of language tend to confirm the view that at first the descrip
tion of objective facts, of what is offered in sense-perception,
is given largely in terms which express the composite ex
perience of the subject in his relation to the outer world.
Again, researches into the origin of language make toler
ably clear to us the kind of generality which first attached
to the signs or symbols. At first, the meaning of the sign
was naturally determined on the basis of such direct experi
ence as was possessed ; that is to say, it was such features of
what had to be symbolised as attracted attention, that were
able to be assimilated, apprehended, by the primitive intelli
gence. Such hasty abstractions from the given, from what
is presented in experience, doubtless based also on but a
scanty survey of instances, have certainly a kind of gener
ality ; but it is the generality which comes from indetermin-
ateness and want of precision. It is therefore compatible
with two features which we can discover even among the
terms of a developed language : on the one hand the same
significance is thought to be apprehended in a great variety of
really distinct facts of experience ; and, on the other hand,
what is really the same feature or character of given ex
perience may present a variety of aspects each of which
suggests, so to speak, another significance marked or sym
bolised by a sign. Thus we might suppose that the first
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 279
rudimentary signs in primitive language would have a
fluctuating character in two ways : one and the same sign
would stand for a great variety of experiences connected, it
may be, by the loosest links of analogy ; and one and the
same fact, as we call it now, would be symbolised by a great
variety of signs. This is exactly what, so far, the researches
into the history of language make plain to us.
Taken roughly, these researches have yielded one psycho
logically all-important result. They show that, with respect
to given types of language, it is possible to reduce their
immense developed structure and composition to a certain
number of significant signs which cannot be further explained.
The development of a language is regarded as the history of
the progress from a certain number of roots. Thus the dis
cussion of the more primitive grades of the formation of
a language concentrates on the question of the way in which
these roots are to be understood and accounted for. It was
not unnatural in the light of such a result that, with respect
to roots, there should be revived in modern times most of the
old theories respecting the origin of language ; and, in par
ticular, that these roots should have been taken to constitute
the simple irreducible primitive stock of signs employed by
the human mind under particular conditions for social in
tercourse, communication of thought, signification of the
objective. Equally natural was the assumption that in
each root was somehow imbedded a definite significance,
seeing that it was possible to find an explanation for the
variety which the formed language displayed in its develop
ment from the root.
But it ought not to have escaped notice that any such
assumption is wholly incompatible with the natural history
of language : that nothing could be more unlikely, judging
even from the records of development from the roots, than
that these roots themselves should have had from the outset
280 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
a definite precise significance. Evidently the same circum
stances, which in their after-history serve to explain the varia
tions of meaning, cannot be supposed inoperative previously
except on the violent assumption that the roots somehow
sprang into existence with just that definite significance
which we now think ourselves justified in assigning to them.
If, proceeding from these facts regarding language, we apply
them to elucidate the psychological conditions under which
the use of verbal signs may have originated, we are compelled,
I think, to this general conclusion : The word first makes its
appearance as a sign for a highly complex inner experience,
a total attitude of the subject to the matters presented to him
in perception. We must regard the word as having its locus
in that grade of developing intelligence in which there becomes
clear and distinct for the first time the objective meaning of
perceived experience as the common field of action for a
number of percipient subjects. Thus, not only is a consider
able development of mind implied as precondition for the use
of signs ; but that development carries in it the distinction
between the objective order of fact and the relatively sub
jective character of sense-perceptions and ideas. Moreover,
it is a natural conclusion (and it is as fully confirmed as one
can expect by the records of primitive language) that the
first signs should be prevailingly significant of the complex
fact the relation of the human subject to the objects of his
experience. It need not surprise us, therefore, to discover
that what may be called the fundamental grammatical
categories are, in their first form, indicative of the practical
relations of the agent to his surroundings. Primitive lan
guage is just as prevailingly anthropomorphic as human
thinking in general, or in any of its specific developments
mythology, for example, in which the same tendency is
perhaps more easily seen.
The word or sign, then, carried with it from the outset
CHAP, v.] ANALYSIS OF THINKING. 281
objective significance. It had from the outset that very
reference to an order distinct from the inner process of ideas
and impressions which we have been regarding as pre
eminently the characteristic of thought. Moreover, even
though words gradually come to have their significance
more sharply determined, so that they name this or that
portion of experience, and the putting them together in
intelligent speech seems to be a process extraneous to them,
yet in truth, in their first appearance, they are significant of
a complex fact such as would find expression later by the
developed instrument of the proposition or judgment. From
all this it would appear that what we have been assuming
as specially requiring consideration in respect to thought
its objective reference is not in any way peculiar to think
ing ; that, therefore, the theory which finds most definite
expression in the Kantian doctrine of knowledge that
through thought only is the object possible is either
erroneous or only a partial truth.
It is certainly to be admitted that the developed repre
sentation of an objective world, a structure regulated by
general laws, and a common standard for the individual
perceptions of all perceiving subjects that this is possible
only through and in the process of thinking. But it is
not created by that process : it is in truth but one aspect,
which we erroneously abstract, of the whole complex de
velopment whereby our experience is constituted, which
itself rests on and starts from perception, and which is
itself dependent on the material features of what is given
to us in perception. When, therefore, Kant tells us that
the understanding makes nature, at least in its formal
aspect, that it is only through understanding and by its
operation that the complex of our perceptive experience
comes to have systematic connexion, we must regard him
as so exaggerating a half-truth as to turn it into a philos-
PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. 13.
ophical error. It is undoubtedly true that our thinking
in its developed form involves the representation of a scheme
of universal laws in the concrete of perceptive experience.
But it is, on the one hand, wholly impossible to effect the
separation which Kant s view implies, between the formal
and material elements of nature ; and, on the other hand, we
are bound to recognise that no shadow of this representation
of nature as a systematic whole would appear in our con
sciousness except by gradual development from the simple
primitive distinction between the sentient subject and an
order of fact distinct from his perceiving and feeling, though
devoid of the element of universal or general law. One may
say, of course, that in that primitive distinction there is
implicit what presents itself later in the clear outline of our
thought of self and nature. But the development of what is
implicit, even if we admit for the moment that ambiguous
notion, is by no means to be regarded as dependent solely on
the activity of some inner process : it is equally conditioned
by the character of the matter presented in our perceptive
experience.
Thus, in very general terms, we should regard Thinking as
a name for either a set of processes of the inner life or a set
of modifications of the content apprehended through that
inner life, based upon the simpler facts of perception, and
constituting, therefore, not an isolated faculty or power in
mind but a higher grade of what is given in simpler fashion
in the primitive distinction between self and not-self. If
we call the thinking apprehension of things a form which
our experience assumes, we must bear in mind that the form
is not independent of the matter, that it is not even a form
which is presented in all its completeness at a stroke: it is
dependent on the matter of our experience, and comes for
ward in consciousness in a series of gradations whose progress
we can trace to a certain extent.
283
CHAPTER VI.
PROBLEMS IX THE THEORY OF THINKING.
ON the basis of this very general view it seems possible to
obtain a fairly sufficient answer to some of the main
problems connected with the theory of thinking.
I. Interrelation of the Products of Thinking. Let us take
first the question regarding the relation to one another of the
products of thought the notion, judgment, and reasoning.
Even when we recognise that notions form a series whose
first members can by no means possess the complexity and
abstractness of the more developed, it is apparent that even
the first forms of what are called notions cannot be regarded
as isolated facts of the inner life. A notion, it is true, like
the word which expresses it, always embodies the reference
to objective fact, Lotze is undoubtedly correct in laying
stress on this function which words discharge : they are
symbols, riot of a content iu the individual s mind, but of
what he takes himself to apprehend of objective fact in that
content. A notion or word, therefore, is always, in its
psychological application, indicative of a complete complex
act on the part of the subject employing it. One way of ex
pressing the meaning of a word, or of laying out the content
of a notion, tends to disguise this, and to make us represent
the notion or word as significant of something abstracted
from its position in the complex of experience. Words no
doubt do acquire this abstractness; but, at the outset, as
284 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
has been pointed out, they seem to be employed, not
as names of things or qualities or relations, but as indi
cations of the total complex fact the attitude of the
subject towards an object or event in his experience. Ac
cordingly the view is correct that the notion, as it is re
garded from the logical point of view, is an abstraction
from the judgment ; and perhaps one might say with equal
truth that what, in logic, is described as the judgment is,
in like fashion, an abstraction from the more complex fact
which lies at the root of all employment of signs or words
as indicating objective fact. What is here involved is a
complex process which as much resembles reasoning as
judgment; for in it there is implied the reference from
a represented content to an objective order distinct from
it, which is the very essence of reasoning.
We ought then, in strictness, to regard the so-called
products of thought not as falling into a series of increasing
complexity, the notion being the simple factor, the judgment
and reasoning successively more complex combinations
thereof, but as three developments from a common root,
retaining throughout so much of similarity that it ought
not to be surprising that in practice it is hard, almost
impossible, to distinguish the one from the other. As
we have seen, there are types of so-called judgments which,
on closer inspection of the thought expressed in them,
cannot be distinguished from reasonings. There are
reasonings so simple, where the data so immediately
combine to yield what is called the conclusion, that it is
hard, sometimes almost impossible, to distinguish them
from judgments. The characteristics of each product in
dicate the special conditions under which the general
development is carried out.
IT. Objectivity and Universality. We have already noted
CHAP, vi.] OBJECTIVITY AND UNIVERSALITY. 285
in Kant s view of thinking the analogy which he emphasised
between the conception of object and the representation of
a universal rule. According to his view, the object appre
hended was, in its own nature, that which determined in a
general or universal way the combination of presentations
or sense-intuitions constituting the matter apprehended.
Now, though it does not seem possible to accept in its
entirety the Kantian view of thought, yet there is much
to be said in favour of the intimate relation here implied
between objectivity and universality in our thought.
Evidently whatever is universalised must have, in one
sense, the aspect of objectivity. It is represented as at
all events independent of the individual act of thinking,
as common for all intelligences, as in some way, there
fore, related to intelligence as such.
Equally evident is it that this highly abstract form of
objectivity cannot in that way be involved in the simple
recognition of the objective in perception. Nevertheless
it points to the presence of a corresponding factor in
perception. The object there, however concretely repre
sented, has the two aspects (1) of being independent
of and determining the immediate act of perceiving, and
(2) of being common to all percipient minds. Generality,
then, and, as we might call it, independence of the
particular act of apprehending, these two features are
presented, in the first instance crudely no doubt, in per
ceptive consciousness. And their combination suggests the
reflexion that there is not an opposition but only a
difference of degree between the objectivity of fact, which
we are in the habit of confining to perception, and the
objectivity of truth, which we are in the habit of assigning
specifically to thought. To relate these two in such a
way as to regard them as so far identical in nature does
not in any way imply that we are entitled to transfer
286 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART II. B.
what is found to hold good of the one forthwith to the
other. Any such transference must depend not on the
formal identity of significance between the two, but on
the material character or content which is apprehended
in either case. Nevertheless the result to which we
are led seems to be that, in the long run, in ultimate
analysis, fact and truth coincide ; and that, therefore,
what we call the necessity of thought will be found
ultimately not to differ from but to be of like kind with
the necessity of fact.
Still we have to consider more particularly what is
involved in the undoubted divergence of our thinking
activity from perception, a divergence which is commonly,
though inaccurately, expressed in the opposition between
individual and universal. We can never disentangle this
perplexing problem so long as we retain the imperfect
representation of our mental life as consisting of isolated
facts or atoms. If we represent to ourselves perceptions
or sensations as individuals, we are necessarily led to
represent the thought which relates to these, and is
their generalisation, as though it resulted from some pro
cess performed upon the given units, a process expressible
only in metaphorical and wholly inappropriate terms.
But if we recognise that, in concrete reality, the inner
life is always a complex process from which these units
are pure abstractions of our own, then we may be able
to see that the transition from the stage of perception
to that of thinking consists in a re-arrangement of what
is at first given, a re-arrangement that may involve even
an increase of complexity. Thus the isolated perception,
as we call it, is really in consciousness only as one part of
a complex whole, involving relations as well as the related
parts, and involving not merely the immediate impressions
of sense but also revived ideas.
CHAP, vi.] OBJECTIVITY AND UNIVERSALITY. 287
Moreover, that primary distinction which renders possible
any furthur progress in mind, the distinction between self
and not-self, implies an increased complexity of the total
state of mind at any moment. The true unit, if we will
employ that term, is always the entire sum of consciousness
at any given moment, a sum of which we are able to say
in general that, as mind develops, it becomes increasingly
more complex ; and we are equally entitled to say that,
in the development of mind, as in development generally,
this complexity involves a relatively greater independence
of the parts which are originally fused with one another.
Thus, while primitive consciousness involves but little dis
crimination between the parts related and the relations,
it is the characteristic of developed mind that these should
be clearly held apart from one another, and that thereby
each should acquire a more definite form. The severing
of the relations from the related parts by no means implies
that we know each separately, and that each retains the
form in which it was first presented : rather, it implies that,
while each of these is apprehended more distinctly, the
content of each is affected by every distinction that has
enabled the separation to come about.
Now, we describe this process in general terms as though
it came about by itself : actually, it comes about only in
and through the supply of fresh material in consciousness ;
and it depends therefore on quite natural conditions. For
example, little or no advance would be possible in any direc
tion in a mental life in which little or no provision was
made for the retention and revival of those presentations
which have already occurred in consciousness. Putting the
matter roughly, one may say that the grade of mind is
expressed by the range, the span or compass, of conscious
ness at any moment. A mind which can hold but little
together at any one moment is altogether incapable of
288 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART 11. B.
drawing the distinctions, and becoming aware of the relations,
which make its experience a connected systematic whole.
In the case before us perceptive consciousness presents
us with the rudimentary form of certain relations which
are at first not distinguished, or distinguished but little,
from the content of the given presentations. On the one
hand we have the relations of space and time, on the
other hand, the relations of identity and difference, unity
and plurality ; but these are not at first involved in the
way naturally suggested by the abstract terms used. Now,
thinking first makes its appearance in and through the
separation of these relations from the related contents ;
and thus the first products of thought, themselves complex
facts in mind, are the generalised representations of space-
and-time relations and of such identities as are forced
on attention in the given material of presentation.
Our thinking, then, is, in and through the recognition
of these relations, a universalising or generalising of what
is immediately given. There is, therefore, a certain con
tinuous advance from the simple form of perception to
the more developed structure of thought. This advance is,
at each stage, dependent on the supply of concrete material ;
and it results, not only in the establishment of a connected
system of thoughts, but in the transformation of perceptive
consciousness. The generalising work of thought does not
leave perception unaffected : the distinctions which enter
into it become themselves generalised. Again, therefore,
one must hesitate to accept as final the opposition commonly
supposed to obtain between perceiving and thinking.
One aspect of that commonly accepted opposition may
be considered for a moment. The content of thought, at
all events in its developed fashion, is the representation
of an order which is, so to speak, independent of time.
Time indeed may be represented in the content : my thought,
CHAP, vi.] THINKING AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 289
for example, may be the representation of the uniform way
in which events succeed one another ; but, taken in itself
as universal, the content seems independent of time. On
the other hand, it is urged, perception is always dependent
on time. But one might fairly ask. Is there not some
confusion here ? are we not comparing two totally different
aspects of perception and thought ? It is perfectly true
that perception is dependent on the given sense-impression
of the moment; equally true that it is the apprehension
of what exists now : that is to say, the determination of
present time is part of the total content apprehended in
perception. But the act of thinking at any moment is
just as obviously dependent on temporal conditions : the
human mind at all events thinks at one time and
not at another ; and there may perfectly well be a temporal
determination in the content that is apprehended in thought.
If we compare the first feature (that perceiving is de
pendent on momentary conditions) with the second
feature (that the content of thought may be the repre
sentation of a constant order), no doubt there appears
to be a difference of kind. But such an opposition is quite
inappropriate : the contrast is wrongly made ; and, in truth,
so far as apprehension is concerned, both perceiving and
thinking present the aspect of being independent of time.
There is, therefore, it appears to me, no fundamental
opposition in respect to the element of time between
perceiving and thinking.
III. Thinkiny and Self -consciousness. "With the develop
ment of thinking there goes naturally, inevitably, the
development of other elements in the mental life. In
particular we may notice the connexion which seems to
hold between the development of thought and the develop
ment of self-consciousness. Any development of thought
VOL. II. T
290 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART ir. B.
the gradual formation of an apprehended content which
is related to, but different from, the momentarily given
perceptions depends on the possibility within conscious
ness of distinguishing sharply from one another the stream
of ideas and the series of sense-perceptions. Nay, more,
the same development depends on the possibility of unifying
each opposed stream : the flow of ideas must have a certain
unity as constituting, in part at least, the life of the subject ;
the order of perceptions must have a certain unity as the
appearance, the manifestation, of the object. But this very
development is both part of the process of thinking and
indispensable to its further growth. Without such unifica
tion of the subject and of the object it would be impossible
to discriminate with any clearness and distinctness the re
lations whereby the parts of our experience are connected
together. A thinking mind, therefore, is a mind which is
at the same time conscious of itself; and the activity of
thinking comes to be pre-eminently a subjective process,
the process whereby the mind lays hold of and interprets
in its own terms what is given to it in experience.
Thus, while thinking retains throughout, as regards its
content, the impress of objectivity (that which is thought
is no product of the mind itself), it is, in its own exercise
as a process, pre-eminently subjective ; and, as it is applic
able indifferently either to the given material of external
perception or to the series of changes in the subject s
own existence, it comes to acquire a position almost of
opposition to the mechanism of sense-perception and asso
ciation. It is a process conditioned by its own laws ; and
these again, as we shall see, are laws not capable of ex
pression in terms of the natural occurrence of facts: they
are not laws such as those of the sequence of mental
states, but are dependent on the character of the content
which is apprehended in thinking.
CHAP, vi.] THINKING AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 291
The term self-consciousness will always have a certain
ambiguity ; and perhaps it must also be said that it is hardly
possible for us to extend our consideration from the matured
reflective form of self-consciousness to its primitive stages
with complete satisfaction. It is only by indirect procedure
that we can establish the general conclusion that the reflective
form is developed from the more primitive, that the concep
tion of self as distinct even from the stream of the inner life,
is not given in, but rests upon, a more simple unity that
which we find first in the perceptive subject. Doubtless the
ultimate basis of any unity of the self, and therefore of any
reflective consciousness of self, is to be found in those con
ditions which render consciousness at all possible : especially
the presence of distinct contents in one and the same state of
apprehension. So far as we can judge from indirect evidence,
beings capable of consciousness differ widely in respect of the
possibility of such simultaneous apprehension of a manifold ;
and, undoubtedly, the further development towards a reflect
ive consciousness of self depends mainly on the possibility
of increasing the complex of distinct parts which may be
brought together in one and the same state of consciousness.
A conscious existence which retained in the form of idea but
little of what had preceded in perception, which was depend
ent mainly or wholly on the momentary impression, and
which re-acted to such impression with little more than a
single confused content, would obviously involve little unity
of the conscious subject, just as it would distinguish little
between the single object and its variable conditions.
On the whole, therefore, from indirect considerations, one
would infer that the reflective form of self-consciousness
requires, as its natural basis, a considerable development of
the more immediate distinction between the single con
tinuous self of perceptive experience and its varying states
a distinction which corresponds to, and is correlated with,
292 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
that between the world of real objects and its varying
appearances.
If this be so, then evidently the possibility of abstracting
the relations which connect together the parts of our conscious
experience indicates at the same time a higher and more
definite form of the unity of the Self, and, in like manner,
implies a higher, more subtle, conception of that objective
world with which self is correlated. It is, indeed, because
no fresh distinction can be introduced into self -consciousness
without there being simultaneously developed a change in
our representation of the object, that it becomes so difficult
almost impossible to contrast thinking and perceiving, or
even to regard them as stages, the latter of which must
precede the former. The very conditions which render
possible the emergence of the more abstract activity con
stitute a modification of what has preceded. To the subject
who has a reflective consciousness of himself the object no
longer is, or can be, what it was for him in the stage of merely
perceptive experience.
IV. The Categories. Thus we should readily enough accord
recognition to Kant s analysis of the abstract conception of
the object as being in itself a statement of the conditions
under which reflective consciousness of self is possible.
But, at the same time, we should altogether dispute the
justification for assuming that this analysis gives the simple
ultimate conditions of experience in the largest sense. More
over, the tendency of our method of treating thought and
self-consciousness is towards a rejection of that exhaustive-
ness, finality, which Kant seemed to accord to his list of
categories or conditions of experience.
It follows, moreover, from this mode of regarding the
function of thinking, not only that there is exaggeration in
the familiar Kantian expression that thinking constitutes the
CHAP, vi.] THE CATEGORIES. 293
object, but also that we should not establish, so definitely as
Kant was inclined to do, the distinction between category and
Idea, that therefore we should not accept, with such complete
satisfaction as he did, the ultimate distinction of kind between
constitutive and regulative principles of judgment. Differ
ence enough there may be ; but it will be of a kind to be
determined by consideration of the part which each is
capable of playing in the gradual development of our know
ledge. It will not be expressed in the Kantian fashion as a
difference between that which enters into the very structure
of the object and that which indicates only a point of view
from which the subject reflects upon the knowledge he
obtains of the object. Probably, we shall not find it possible
to amend the distinction by accepting, as the later Idealist
speculation seems to have done, the equally objective char
acter of the regulative principles. It is probably impossible,
in any legitimate sense of the term object, to regard these
principles as constituting part of the very structure of the
objective world. But the ground for denying the absolute
ness of the distinction will be found in a modification of
Kant s view as to the function of the constitutive principles.
If we regard these, not as giving a final exhaustive statement
of the structure of the object, but as indicating in abstract
outline one grade of the experience of a thinking intelligence,
then, without confusion of the provinces of what are in
essence distinct, we may recognise in the regulative principles
simply a higher development of what is already in the
constitutive.
Thought, even when regarded in this imperfect manner
from the psychological side, exhibits itself as pre-eminently
the activity in which the subject is conscious of himself
a reflective consciousness. This reflective character is of
course exhibited most clearly in the most developed form
of the activity of thinking, that in which we contrast with
294 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
one another the whole current of perceptive or immediate
experience and the abstract general representation of a
system, all the parts of which are connected, and which
yet exhibits none of that contingency, that dependence on
the empirical condition of time, which is peculiar to the
current of perception. Such a representation of reality is
certainly not the first product of thinking. But the ab
straction which gets fullest expression in it the abstraction
from the condition of time is to be detected in the very
simplest acts of the thinking function.
It is natural and inevitable to contrast perception and
thought as the concrete and abstract. But we must note
what it is that at first constitutes the abstraction that is
made : it is the abstraction of the immediate temporal
conditions under which the perceived experience is given.
Such abstraction might be said to begin, or at all events to
have its natural basis, in the capacity for reviving in idea
what has been immediately presented. No revived content
ever brings with it the complete detail of temporal circum
stance of the original occurrence. Of course, later, the
abstraction here referred to is consciously made, made
with distinct recognition of the opposition between the
content that is severed from its temporal conditions and
the actual occurrence in which such conditions are always
involved; but the reflective abstraction depends on and
becomes possible through the previous and unreflective
abstraction.
This freedom from the condition of time is in itself depend
ent on, and is facilitated by, the given character of the
immediately perceived facts. It is obvious enough that,
for perceptive consciousness, for any recognition of a self
as contrasted with the not-self, there are necessary (1)
certain uniformities or constancies of occurrence among the
given facts of experience, and (2) a certain identity of
CHAP, vi.] THE CATEGORIES. 295
character among the distinct parts of experience. In the
absence of these, our conscious life, could it exist at all,
would be limited to the immediate contents of each passing
phase of experience. With them, it becomes possible to bring
together the parts of our experience as related among them
selves and to the common centre, the apprehending subject.
Moreover, such conditions facilitate the abstracting work
of thought. The identity of character in the distinct parts
of our perceptive experience, merely by attracting attention
to itself, gives to the identical content a freedom from the
conditions of its isolated appearances, which is the lirst grade
of universality or generality.
In such an operation there are evidently displayed those
correlated aspects of thought which have always been singled
out. Thinking is at once analytic and synthetic : analytic,
for it breaks up the mass of presented fact ; and synthetic,
for it brings together what is presented in isolation, in
numerical difference. But the analytic work would be
quite misconceived if it were represented, as is too often the
case in logical expositions, as consisting in dropping off
certain qualities from the complex whole of the object; and
the synthetic function would be quite misconceived if it
were represented, as is too often the case in expositions from
the Kantian point of view, as the imposition on the given
material of a form which is due to the inner activity itself.
What is given at first is not a complex whole of distinct
qualities, but the vague and indeterminate in respect to
which identity of character is more the result of inability to
discriminate than the final stage of accurate distinction.
And the synthesis does no more than raise the given
material into that higher form of consciousness, which is
so far independent of the temporal conditions of the given
experience. It is not a new form which is imposed on
the given material.
296 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART IT. n.
Kant dwells repeatedly on the difference between the
abstract category of causality and the more concrete prin
ciple, that of the adaptation of nature the material of
experience to the human mind. 1 This concrete principle
we may legitimately translate into language perhaps more
familiar to us, as the principle of the existence of definite
uniformities in the material of perception. As regards the
one, the abstract principle, his view is that it constitutes a
necessary condition of experience for a self-conscious subject ;
with regard to the other, it is but a regulative principle :
what it contains is contingent, even though in the elaboration
of our knowledge we must proceed in its light.
Is this separation quite justifiable? Certainly, on the
general ground that there is no sufficient justification for
any such absolute distinction as Kant habitually draws
between formal and material, we might call it in question :
for it is certainly but one case of this more general distinction.
Again, our doubts might be excited by the difficulties
that have been experienced, and the criticisms arising from
them, in regard to Kant s attempted proof of the a priori
character of the category of causality. Most critics have
been disturbed by the apparent appeal made in that proof
to empirical constancies of connexion in the perceived
matter ; and some indeed, no less competent a judge than
Dr Hutchison Stirling 2 have maintained that, throughout
the proof of the constitutive principles of judgment, Kant
makes an appeal, illegitimate from his point of view, to given
uniformities of character in the perceived material. Dr
Stirling insists on the necessity that empirical matter
should present what renders possible the application thereto,
or the imposition thereon, of the pure form of intelligible
conjunction the category. He therefore maintains that,
1 [See above, vol. i. p. 225 ff.]
2 [Text-book to Kant, pp. 99 ff., 488 ff. ; Mind, ix. 531 ff., x. 45 ff.]
CHAP, vi.] THE CATEGORIES. 297
with respect to causality in particular, Kant s answer to
Hume is but in appearance successful, that it succeeds by
tacitly assuming exactly that which Hume s criticism called
in question.
Further, we might certainly entertain doubt with regard
to the soundness of the distinction on the ground already
familiar to us, that the abstract representation of the causal
nexus as Kant conceives it, the representation of a serial
determination of occurrences in time, is no primitive fact
in human intelligence. All that we can gather with respect
to the actual development of our thinking must be dis
missed as of no significance if we are to accept, as lying at
the foundation of any apprehension of objective order in
time, the abstract representation of determined sequence.
It is only to pay oneself with words to say that such
abstract representation is implicit in even the simplest
apprehension of objective order in time. No other term
so often proves an obstacle to clear thinking as this term
implicit. But its only legitimate meaning in the develop
ment of thought is that, under due conditions, the first less
elaborated view of what is given may be supplanted by a
more complete, which would have been impossible without
the first, and which is therefore naturally dependent on
and conditioned by the first.
On all these grounds, then, we should be disposed to call
in question the absolute distinction drawn between the
abstract notion of causal nexus and the concrete representa
tion of definite uniformities of conjunction among phenomena.
From the point of view which we occupy that of de
veloped intelligence it certainly seems at first sight to be
true that the uniformities of nature are in some respect
contingent : most certainly they are not known by us before
hand, and, in so far, have unquestionably an aspect of con
tingency. But the mere consideration that what these
298 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
uniformities are is only gradually determined, suggests the
further reflexion, that uniformity of nature is a general
notion which may have a very varied content, and that
therefore, even if it be the case that, in one aspect of it,
such uniformity has and must have a contingency relatively
to our understanding, it may very well be that, in another
aspect, uniformity in the concrete material of perceptive
experience is a condition constitutive of our intelligence, in
volved in its genesis, and therefore, in some fashion, assumed
at every stage in the development of that intelligence.
As an illustration of what is pointed to here as the
variable content of the conception of uniformity, we may
refer to the difficulties into which logical theory has always
been drawn when it seeks to determine the justification
for the procedure which constitutes reasoning. Criticism
of the accepted syllogistic form leads at once to the ad
mission that the general premisses on which the syllogism
proceeds must themselves be substantiated; and, when
recourse is had to another process called induction as
that whereby such proof is given, it is again found neces
sary to make an assumption corresponding in some way to
that which raised difficulty in the case of the syllogism.
Throughout, we seem confronted with the perplexity that
proof involves general principles, and yet that such general
principles cannot be accepted as prior data but require
some account which will justify their acceptance. It is
precisely the difficulty which finds a kind of partial solution,
in the Aristotelian theory of knowledge, by the antithesis
between the order of truth in itself and the order of our
apprehension of truth. The ultimate basis, the first principles,
are the intelligible essences, the determining notions; and
perfectly satisfactory demonstration is possible only when
thinking proceeds from these. But in actual fact, in the
progress of our knowledge, we do not begin with these
CHAP, vi.] THE CATEGORIES. 299
intelligible essences, but make our way slowly towards
them.
I call this a partial solution. For Aristotle does not manage
to make distinct the procedure by which, in the relatively
incomplete stage of insight, we effect an advance. Strictly
interpreted, his view would signify that the advance did not
take place by reasoning, but that, somehow, inspection of
a sufficient number of particulars collected together enabled
the ultimate truth, the determining notion, the uniformity,
to make itself manifest.
There is a line of consideration which we are bound to
follow in respect to this general problem. Analysis of per
ceptive consciousness, consideration of the simplest conditions
under which, as we say, there is developed in mind 1 recog
nition of the distinction between subject and object, shows
us that among these conditions is constancy of connexion
among parts of the empirical material there furnished. It is
not sufficient to say, Were the parts of experience given in
perfectly chaotic fashion so that no constancy of recurrence
could be discerned, it would be impossible to think. We
must go farther and say, Were such the nature of the
given material of experience, there would be no subject of
any such activities as enter into the mental life, neither a
perceptive subject nor a thinking subject. It is not our
thinking merely that would be discomfited if, in point of
fact, perceptive material were wholly incoherent : perception
itself would never spring into existence; there would never
be the primary stage of the differentiation of subject from
object.
If this be so, it ought in no way to surprise us that the
constant in experience, uniformity as contrasted with variety,
is never susceptible of perfect mediated or discursive proof :
it is involved in the structure of our intelligence ; and it
1 More correctly expressed, the development is of mind not in mind.
300 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
appears at every stage in our thinking though with very
varied aspect and very variously elaborated as that on
which our thinking proceeds. It is in this sense, and in
this sense only, that one would accept so far what Kant has
to say in respect to these abstract categories of thought :
that they render experience possible, and are therefore pre
supposed in every concrete or special fact of experience.
But, from our point of view, these ultimate conditions are
not abstract, but characteristics of the concrete material of
experience, and are therefore capable of undergoing a trans
formation by increase of experience itself : a transformation
in which the opposition is established, and becomes distinct
for thought, between the abstract, the form of experience,
and its matter. 1
V. Thought and Reality. From the point of view here
taken the problem often raised with respect to the relation
of Thought to Eeality must appear as of quite subordinate
interest. It cannot for a moment be supposed that any view
proceeding on such principles could identify thinking with the
structure of reality. Kather, our view makes us regard think
ing as one form in which reality is manifested a form,
moreover, limited to one special type of real existence, that
of minds capable of becoming conscious of themselves,
capable, therefore, of a certain development.
There is, however, another significance of this question
respecting the relation of thought to reality which may
seem still to retain its importance. The characteristic of
the content of thought is no doubt generality or univer
sality ; and, it may be asked, To what extent is the structure
of reality adequately apprehended ? or, putting the question
otherwise, Is there in reality, in the nature of the real, sorne-
1 This is a derivative distinction. Form and matter are not, as Kant thinks,
originally distinct.
CHAP, vi.] THOUGHT AND REALITY. 301
thing which must always evade thought ? In the Aristotelian
metaphysic, for instance, there appears throughout a factor
of this kind in the world of generation namely, matter,
the indeterminate substratum, that which is at least the
condition without which plurality of individual forms is
impossible. It must be noted, in respect to this feature of
the Aristotelian doctrine, that it is an erroneous, though
very common, exaggeration of what is there said, to repre
sent the element of matter as that which constitutes the
individual in opposition to the universal. Aristotle does
not mean by individual the numerical unit : he means
that which is so completely determined that it constitutes
a fact for knowledge or experience, a completely definite
type of that which exists in the world of generation. Such
a type is presented in the form of an unending series of
numerically distinct units ; but its individuality is not
identical with numerical unity. It must therefore be said
that Aristotle did not regard the presence of the material
factor as constituting an absolute barrier to complete com
prehension. It is indeed the burden of his continued criticism
of the Platonic view that there the universal as such was
taken to be the only intelligible, whereas from his point of
view the intelligible is the universal individualised in con
crete fashion. Whoever, indeed, retains, as Aristotle attempts
to do, the genetic connexion between perceiving and intellect
or understanding, cannot regard the universal aspect of
thought as lying apart from the concrete, or hold that the
latter is beyond the range of thought and unintelligible.
On this account, then, one cannot regard as constituting a
ground for limiting the function of thought as the interpreter
of reality, that distinction which presents itself throughout
the actual procedure of thinking, the distinction which in
Mr Bradley s Logic l is fixed in the terms That and What.
1 [Principles of Logic, pp. 4, 64.]
302 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
That our thinking is always the determination of something
presented, that it takes, therefore, the discursive form in
which the predicates are distinct from the subject, cannot
be regarded as the indication of a final divorce between the
subject and that which is apprehended as its nature in and
by thought. It is just as necessary to recognise the unifica
tion involved in the process of thinking as to recognise the
discrimination which is perhaps its more obvious external
feature.
Wherefore it must be concluded that not by reason of any
thing either in the character of the process or in the general
nature of its content does thought fall short of expressing the
constitution of reality. If such falling-short is to be recog
nised, it must be on other grounds : not by reason of the
formal character of thought, but in consequence of the con
crete nature of what is apprehended in thought as expressing
reality. Indeed, there is a contradiction in supposing that
thought which is but the methodised fashion of reaching
self-consciousness, of defining, therefore, in their relation to
one another the parts of reality within our experience, that
is to say, ourselves and our surroundings should by its own
nature be incapable of solving problems which it must put to
itself: even although, as a continuous process, it has still
much to achieve.
Is it then to be understood that the development of
thought, which is here referred to, enables us to express
in a complete fashion the whole structure of reality ?
This question brings before us again, in another way, the
fundamental difference in interpreting this difficult notion
of Development.
VI. The Notion of Development. 1 In Hegel s view, as in
that of Aristotle, development is but the unfolding of what
1 [Cf. above, p. 185 ff.]
CHAP, vi.] NOTION OF DEVELOPMENT. 303
is already contained. Thus the system, the connected series
of the notions which present themselves as developing from
one another, must be regarded as already in some way con
tained in the absolute idea, and that again as being in some
way contained in the Absolute Spirit which is the final and
all-comprehensive reality.
In such a representation of development it is implied,
negatively, that nothing new makes its appearance ; and
Hegel takes occasion, when referring to certain anticipations
of the scientific theory of Evolution, to express himself
definitely as opposed to any representation of natural types
as being evolved, the higher from the lower. " All explana
tion of the higher by the lower, such as the naturalist
theories attempt, is philosophically a varepov Trporepov, a
precise inversion of the true account. Development or pro
gress is riot the making of something out of nothing, but the
unfolding or manifestation of that which in another aspect
eternally is. When that which is being developed is itself
a self-conscious subject, the end of its becoming must really
exist not merely for, but in or as, a self-conscious subject."
Evidently so large a conception as that of development
must apply not merely to the theoretical but to the practical
side of human experience, must therefore be extended not
only so as to include the theoretical views or generalised
notions, whereby w r e make nature intelligible to ourselves,
but also so as to take in all that falls within the practical
culture of human nature. And yet the difficulties which
the notion undoubtedly involves become insuperable when
such extension of its application is made. It is perhaps
only within the practical sphere that the notion of End
has in truth any justification. At all events in that sphere
it is the most significant, the fundamental, notion. Is it,
then, possible to represent the gradual development in human
consciousness of conceptions of an end as the manifestation
304 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. u.
of what already is realised not only for, but in or as, a
self-conscious subject ? , What is the realisation of an end
in human practical experience ? Is it anything other than a
form of self-conscious activity, what Aristotle called evepyeta
tyvxfjs ? and in what sense can it be supposed that this,
which, as realisation, only exists in process, can exist as
already realised ?
No doubt we may be beguiled by the analogy of theoretical
notions, and represent to ourselves the idea of the end
which is to be realised as somehow existing ; but that, we
must note, is in no way the realisation of the end. Within
the practical sphere realisation has but one meaning : it is
an actual form of life, a mode of the concrete existence of
a reflective subject. To use quite inadequate metaphors, it
is not a state, a condition of rest, but a process, and cannot
be conceived except as a process.
On the practical side, then, there undoubtedly presents
itself to us a hopeless contradiction as emerging from this
interpretation of development. Whatever significance the
actual facts of the moral consciousness may have, however
difficult it may be to understand that direction of effort
towards the attainment of a result which is yet only in idea,
the interpretation we give must not imply that in any sense
or aspect the realisation already exists.
But, although the difficulty is more obvious on the prac
tical side, it is not less involved in the theoretical. Our
theoretical activities very closely resemble the practical : in
them, too, the general feature is the effort to work out a
complete representation, which itself changes its character
with each step in our advance. If we try to represent to
ourselves the content of that changing ideal as being already
realised in a consciousness, we shall find the same difficulty
of reconciling therewith the real character of our apprehen
sion of truth : we shall find in fact that we are erroneously
CHAP. VI.] NOTION OF DEVELOPMENT. 305
taking as a characteristic of the apprehension of truth what
is undoubtedly the characteristic of. the non-existent con
tent apprehended. For that content apprehended, not in
its ideal completeness but in every grade, is non-temporal,
merely because it is not itself an existent fact. We transfer
this special characteristic of all apprehended content to truth
conceived of as though it had objective existence, whether
in the form of a thinking spirit or of that about which such
spirit thinks.
The notion of development undoubtedly presents a special
difficulty by reason of the fusion therein of the two opposites,
Identity and Difference. But it is of no avail to attempt to
regard the notion of development as constituted by the union
of those two abstract categories. It is not identity and
difference in general that constitute the determining features
of the notion of development. Such combination is pre
sented not solely in that which develops but in everything.
When therefore we refer, in handling the notion of develop
ment, to the identical subject which in some way maintains
its selfhood throughout the differences, our reference is really
to a highly concrete and specialised form of the identical and
different. The moment we realise this, and understand that
the notion of development first presents itself in our reflexion
from a consideration of highly concrete facts, we begin to
understand one cause of the immense difficulty it presents.
The concrete facts are but imperfectly known. The general
type of arrangement among them, which we generalise into
the notion of development, is presented in a great variety of
concrete modes ; and, as a matter of fact, we find consider
able difficulty a difficulty which, one may perhaps say, is
yet unsolved in determining the limits within which there
is to be recognised substantial agreement in the peculiar type
of arrangement we call development. At the one end of the
scale stands humanity with all that we call its culture ; at
VOL. ir. u
306 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
the other end the lowest forms of organic life, forms in re
gard to which the boundary line between organic and in
organic is certainly not yet definitely drawn.
It is from the appearances presented in the arrangement of
such concrete forms of existence that we derive our notion
of development ; and it is not at all certain that we are not
attempting an undue simplification in applying one and the
same notion to all of them. The living individual, and per
haps specially the conscious subject, are the concrete forms
which most clearly display that peculiar combination : inter
dependence of parts with a continued identity throughout
changes, and with a constant reference from each developing
individual to a similarly constituted antecedent form. It is
these in particular which suggest to us the general marks
constituting our notion of development. From them in
particular is derived that curious and baffling conception of
a pre-existing plan which is being slowly realised in each
individual form. When we extend our survey, and take in
the higher grades of concrete fact to which also we apply
the notion of development, we soon find reason to doubt
whether there is more than analogy between this case of
development and that of the individual living organism or of
the conscious subject. "When, for instance, we apply the
notion of development to this or that type of human culture,
it may occur to us that it is not easy to find for this develop
ment the substantive basis of an individual subject such as
is presented in the living being and in the individual mind ;
and, assuredly, when we reflect on the development of any
such form of culture, we must find it difficult to apply there
the complicated idea which we think ourselves justified in
applying to the individual of a natural species : namely,
that what happens is only the unfolding of an idea or plan
which is somehow impressed on, and operative in the very
structure of, that which develops.
CHAP. VI.] POSITIVIST VIEW OF THOUGHT. 307
Probably the doubt one might entertain in respect to these
manifestations of development might be extended to the cases
where the notion appears to have more substantive founda
tion. Yet, when we turn to the phenomena of organic life and
of the life of mind, we must undoubtedly give full recognition
to the very important fact that what we call the development
is in all cases conditioned by and dependent on circumstances
which must be taken to be external to the plan itself. Even
if we assume that in the living being there is a pre-formed
plan, and that therefore the course of the changes through
which it passes is rightly described as the unfolding of that
plan, we must acknowledge that the unfolding, if real, is
dependent on external material, conditions which may or
may not be furnished, and the supply of which can hardly be
regarded as dependent on and contained in the plan itself.
No one would deny that, in those concrete arrangements
which first impress on us the notion of development, there
is something other than the mere laws of co-existence and
sequence. But it is by no means necessary, nor is it indeed
possible, to resort for explanation of them to a type of
agency which finds no place in the mechanism of nature.
We ought to remember that our statement of laws of co
existence and sequence is an abstraction, that the involved
specialised arrangements constitute nature really, and that,
when we sever from one another the abstract statement
of physical laws and the generalised description of the
special forms of organic life, the severance does not imply
the co-existence of two realms of fact : physical nature, and
organic life. The only real existence is the concrete whole
O v
of which what we call living beings are special forms.
VII. The Positivist View of Thought. Perhaps it is
at this point that one sees most clearly the deficiencies
of the view which stands most definitely in opposition to
308 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
the idealist interpretation of nature Positivism. As
that view was expounded by Comte, exclusive stress was
laid upon co-existence and sequence. 1 Knowledge, it was
declared, was not only limited to phenomena a perfectly
void and empty statement but, more particularly, it was
limited to the enunciation of sequences and co-existences
among phenomena. In this indeed Comte found what seemed
to him the radical distinction between genuine, scientific,
positive knowledge, and the pseudo, unscientific, metaphysical
speculation about things. In his view human thinking in its
progress naturally passed through the stage of metaphysical
speculation, in which explanation was sought of the given,
that is, the co-existent and sequent phenomena, by reference
to abstract entities or powers not within the range of obser
vation and experiment ; and, after passing through this, it
reached the positive stage, in which it rests content with the
statement in generalised form of laws of co- existence and
sequence.
Putting aside all that elsewhere might require to be said
regarding this supposed advance in knowledge, notice must
be drawn to Comte s insistence on co-existences and sequences.
There are two things which compel us to reflect further upon
the type of knowledge supposed thus to be exhaustively
given. In the first place, the type of knowledge is extremely
abstract ; and, in the second place, it has of necessity more
special, if not exclusive, application to what is presented in
external perception : it does not seem to apply as readily to
the highly important set of phenomena the inner life and
all the manifestation of human culture.
It is abstract. It is indeed peculiar to Comte s exposition
of Positivism that he should have drawn from the first a very
1 [" Seeing how vain is any research them by the natural relations of suc-
into causes, . . . our real business is cession and resemblance." Positive
to analyse accurately the circum- Philosophy, tr. Martineau, i. 5 ; cf.
stances of phenomena, and to connect ii. 515..]
CHAP, vi.] POSITIVIST VIEW OF THOUGHT. 309
sharp distinction between abstract and concrete. His classi
fication of the sciences, 1 in which they are arranged in an
order corresponding to the gradation of increasing complexity
from Mathematics to Sociology, is a classification of the
abstract sciences. Nowhere in his general treatment of
scientific method does he accord sufficient recognition to the
peculiarity of the concrete forms ; and, particularly in his first
treatment, he is emphatic as regards the unity and identity
of method throughout the scale of the abstract sciences.
Now, it is never sufficient for knowledge, for real under
standing, to be in possession only of the abstract laws of
co-existence and sequence. Such laws form an indispensable
part of explanation ; but they can never dispense with the
recognition of the highly special forms in which concrete
fact displays to us what is expressed in these abstract laws.
As Dr Chalmers used to put it, " There are in nature not only
laws but collocations," 2 and by the latter he meant the con
crete forms.
Now in his later work, and owing, it is clear, to reflexion
on the second point I mentioned the less obvious applica
tion of his conception of general laws to the facts of human
life mind and culture Comte was led to a highly important
distinction, and, in enunciating that, he introduced a very
curious and interesting modification of the meaning of the
word metaphysical.
When he approached the treatment of Sociology he dis
tinguished two methods by which the facts of human
practical life may be considered the one abstracting,
isolating, individualising ; the other concrete, synthetic, and
organic. 3 The individual man, however completely we may
state the co-existent and sequent phenomena of his nature, is
1 [Cf. Positive Philosophy, i. 25 ff.] 3 [System of Positive Polity, E. T.,
2 [Cf. Natural Theology, B. II. cc. 1875, i. 343 ff.]
i., iii.]
310 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART 11. B.
not thereby completely explained. There must be taken into
account that curious additional aspect of his life in which
he forms part of a larger whole : part, moreover, in a way
that cannot be expressed through the quantitative relations
applicable to external facts. And what applies to man thus
regarded as practical applies in the same way to the whole
facts of the inner life. Thus it is that in Comte s later work
the Positive Politics he offers an amended classification
of the sciences, in which the grouping is broadly into (1) the
Cosmological and (2) the Sociological, while Biology is given
a fluctuating position between Cosmology and Sociology. 1
VIII. Form and Matter. The general position which I
have assumed throughout might be expressed in the technical
language of philosophy as the impossibility of severing form
and matter. So general a statement, no doubt, is applicable
to many other subjects than thinking. In special reference
to thought, however, it implies that, even in \vhat we are able
reflectively to distinguish as the general structure of think
ing, contrasting it thereby with the particular applications of
thought, it is not possible to understand its definite character
except by taking into account the material of experience.
Such a general position is indeed one of the deductions
that may be drawn from the Kantian work in philosophy.
For, though Kant allows too much of the opposition between
form and matter to remain in his system, though such
residuum constitutes really the ambiguous, the baffling,
element in his treatment of experience, yet in what he called
Transcendental Logic, as opposed to purely Formal Logic, we
have the first recognition that thought has a significance
other than the purely formal. No doubt Kant did try in a
half-hearted way to keep the categories of real knowledge in
exclusive connexion with the thinking subject, and thereby
1 [Cf. System of Positive Polity, i. 463, 473.]
CHAP. vi.J FORM AND MATTER. 311
to oppose them to the foreign matter which somehow fell
into correlation with them. But, when we consider the
actual character of these categories their content the
impossibility of deducing them from a mere abstract self-
consciousness becomes apparent. And, though Kant ac
knowledges only in his own peculiar fashion that the
self - consciousness he is dealing with is concrete, though
he prefers to describe its consciousness of unity and identity
in time as rather an accident thrust upon it by the material
of experience than essential in the pure notion of self-con
sciousness, yet it certainly appears that these categories
however general, however abstract, they may be have
meaning only as expressing the ways in which a real con
crete subject attains consciousness of itself in the sensuous
experience with its conditions of space and time. There is
no ultimate justification for that constant antithesis which
Kant brings forward between the pure generality of thought
and the indeterminate particular of perception an antithesis
which, as we have seen, gives to his theory of knowledge its
rather mechanical character.
Now, the general position from which thinking has been
here regarded is no more than the legitimate development of
what is contained in the Kantian work. Thinking in its
developed structure is throughout determined by the concrete
material of experience within which it makes its appear
ance. It follows from this that there cannot be, in the
structure and generalised products of thought, that difference
in kind which Kant establishes as between categories and
Ideas. The difference, which may no doubt exist, among
the thoughts which form the connected structure of our
consciousness can express no more than a difference of
content. It cannot be that in the one we find what is
perfectly adapted to experience, \vhile in the other we
find that to which experience can never conform.
312
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUSION.
IN conclusion, I purpose pointing out one special application
of this general mode of regarding the nature of thought.
The character of what we call a notion is not to be deter
mined by a mere reference to that generality which it obtains
through the natural conditions rendering abstraction pos
sible. Generality of this crude kind is neither the exclusive
mark of thought nor what gives notions their main value as
ways of organising experience. A notion embodies the ap
prehended features of what is in the concrete presented in
perceptive experience, inner and outer. As such perceptive
experience is at first given in all its complication of detail,
as the human mind is able only gradually to bring to bear on
it notions by which it may be analysed and interpreted, so it
is natural to assume that our first primary notions will
contain but an inadequate representation of what truly
determines the constant character of perceptive experience.
Our first notions undoubtedly will be moulded upon the
prominent, but not therefore the most important, features
of perceptive experience. Among such first primary notions
a type of fundamental importance is the practical. The rela
tion between the concrete individual, as a source of changes
in his surroundings, and the consequences which follow
from his action, is so constant in our experience that it
cannot be without effect in determining the thinking con-
CHAP, vii.] CONCLUSION. 313
sideration of things, the general representation we form of
them.
Primitive thinking naturally represents concrete objects as
having the same complex structure as the subject himself, and
as giving rise to changes in the same way as the subject is
aware of acting. Undoubtedly the primitive representation
of a causal connexion is always anthropomorphic : the agency
is conceived of as the action of some subject.
Moreover, in the action of such a subject it is easy to dis
tinguish what may fairly be called the mechanical side from
the relatively more subjective, that in which purpose or
intention is prevailingly manifested. The mechanical side
connects itself most closely with bodily effort; and the
change produced is vaguely represented as the overcoming
of resistance by muscular energy. The type of all action
is for the primitive mind the initiation of movement by
muscular effort ; and even our most developed notions of
action continue to carry with them much of this primitive
representation.
On the other hand, distinct from that and more complex
in character, is the representation of means and end, on the
use of which experience soon imposes a limitation. Xot
indeed that, even in developed thinking, we are very clearly
aware of the precise scope of such a representation ; for we
still continue to interpret to ourselves at least some processes
of the external world by the help of the representation of
purpose, of final end; and the all-embracing scope of this
notion in our own personal practical life finds its counter
part in the continual tendency to represent after the same
fashion the whole content of experience.
Xow, in this set of primitive notions there is implied a
representation of individual facts individual, despite the
multiplicity they involve wholly distinct from that refined
analytical conception of the isolated unit of event or fact
314 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. B.
which is the product of a wide knowledge and of repeated
experience. These individuals, living conscious beings, are
taken as individual, and form indeed the final standard by
which in developed thinking we test the claims of any part
of experience to recognition as an individual. It is only by
degrees that we come to admit as having a certain right to
individuality what is merely distinguished from its sur
roundings by some qualitative peculiarity, or even by mere
numerical difference.
Thus the natural history of our thinking pursues an order
just the reverse of that which we would now put forward in
the light of our developed experience. We now tend to
think of the .ultimate units of our experience, that which
can be presented, let us say, in the indivisible moment of
perception, as the individual; and it causes us some per
plexity to understand the grounds on which we claim, and
insist on, individuality for what is in itself or in one aspect
a multiplicity, a combination of such units. But, in the
natural order of thinking, it is the complex individual with
which we start ; and it is not therefore surprising that, in the
earliest analysis of thinking the Greek, and pre-eminently
Aristotle s the individual should mean the numerically
distinct member of a natural class : a natural class mean
ing always a highly complex concrete order of perceived
existences.
The subjects in such natural order of thought are at first
the more concrete ; nor does our thinking consideration of
things ever lose the impress which is exhibited with such
clearness in its earlier stages. We still represent the con
crete combinations by thoughts or notions, which are in
themselves of a more definite, more organised, content than
our representations of the isolated units presented in space
and time. Even when, using the results of our developed
knowledge, we explain to ourselves these concrete forms
CHAP, vii.] CONCLUSION. 315
as being in their own nature the complex result of what
is expressed in the very abstract laws of the simpler com
ponents, we have still to recognise as the determining feature
the special combination there presented. There is -no real
antithesis, no incompatibility, between the two ways in
which we thus represent the concrete facts of experience.
Their character as combinations plays so important a part in
real experience that, even if we accept in its entirety the
view that each portion of this concrete whole is capable of
explanation by reference to the general laws of its simple
components, we do not remove the necessity which the facts
impose on us, of continuing to represent them iu their
coiicreteness. 1
The primitive notions are undoubtedly applied at first in
directions where the content which we afterwards assign to
them has no real application. It is only the abstractness,
the lack of discrimination, which attaches to our primitive
notions that enables us to overlook the discrepancies which
increased knowledge forces on our attention. Thus, for ex
ample, the practical thought of causal agency as the pro
duction of change by a personal agent must be conceived
only in the vaguest way, when it is applied to all the
changes which enter into perceptive experience. Xo sooner
do we become able to reflect on what is implied in such
a notion than we find that a modification of it must be in
troduced if it is to apply to the orderly uniform succession
of events in outer fact. But the notion itself, it must be
remembered, has its general significance only as enabling the
subject to put together his experience, to retain it in a co
herent form in his consciousness. The extension or modi-
1 Obviously, this consideration be- portant as determining the series of
comes of special importance when the events that follow from the subject,
concrete subject is the self-conscious that it cannot possibly be dismissed
individual. The combination has as imperfect and transitional,
there a form so characteristic, so irn-
316 PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING. [PART n. u.
fication it undergoes does not in any way alter this implicit
function of the notion ; and, in respect to the category of
Cause, the extension and modification it receives still con
tinue to exhibit the same function : we represent the causal
connexion as that order of change in outer events which
enables each alteration to be regarded as the outcome of
what has preceded. Fundamentally it is the same thought.
And, if we gradually become able to advance further, and to
say, with respect to the alteration in outer fact, that it con
sists in a certain quantitative amount of a special kind of
change, and if thereby we determine as the explanatory cause
a preceding quantitative amount of like kind of change, we
are still proceeding in the light of the general function of
every notion : that it enables us to keep together the parts of
our experience as a coherent connected whole. The primitive
mind and advanced scientific thought represent the same
function, and with equal satisfaction to themselves.
Put in more technical form, this would signify that these
primitive categories of practice gradually altered in content
in and through the increase of perceptive experience and the
power of analysing it into its more simple components. The
development in the categories or general thoughts, and the
alteration in the total representation of perceptive experience,
go hand-in-hand. If our representations of the concrete and
of its relations space and time are vague and indeter
minate, equally vague will be the content of the generalised
thoughts or categories which we apply.
Thus, then, it must be said that, in a sense, there is no
ultimate criterion to which we can appeal as testing the
worth of the general notions by the help of which we in
terpret our experience. Experience alone is the criterion.
And, if it be allowed that in all our reasoning we proceed by
applying general principles, we must remember that the pro
cess is by no means that of deducing from such general
CHAP. VII.
CONCLUSION. 317
principles what is already contained in them, leather it is a
constant process of testing, modifying, and, it may be, enriching
the principles themselves. In this general conclusion it is
implied that we cannot reconcile with the actual course of
human thinking and experience that representation, which
Aristotle was the first to give, of demonstration or reasoning
as resting upon a definite set of first principles. Aristotle s
conception of a number of principles, from which there
could be completely deduced the properties of concrete
things, represents, as it rests upon, a wholly erroneous
conception of the real nature of development. It is
applicable only to that conception of development which
assumes that the nature of what develops precedes as a
completed fact the attainment of its own end a view
which is characteristic not of Aristotle only, but of the
Idealist philosophy in general.
THE END.
INDEX.
Animals, the Cartesian view of, as
automata, 32.
Aristotle, affinity of the systems of
Hegel and, 274 ; his partial
solution of the antithesis between
the order of truth and of our
apprehension of truth, ii. 298 ;
his view of development, 302 ;
his doctrine of the individual,
303 ; his erroneous conception of
development, 317.
Arithmetic, its peculiar position in
Hume s system, 139.
Arnauld, Antoine, his criticisms of
Malebraiiche, 55, 56 ; Leibniz s
correspondence with, and its im
portance, 77 ft seq. ; the distinc
tion between psychology and
epistemology, ii. 49.
Association psychology, inadequate-
ness of the doctrine, ii. 171, 174.
Attention, its function in the doc
trine of presentationism, ii. 172;
criticism of I)r Ward s view, 181.
Attribute, difficulties attending the
meaning of, in Spinoza s system,
61, 62.
Belief, Hume s theory of, 135, 144.
Berkeley, his position regarding
Locke, 124 ; the correlation of
mind and ideas, 125 ; presenta
tions and representations, 126 ;
analysis of perception, 128 ; ap
prehension of the external world,
129 ; apprehension of general
laws of nature, 130 ; theory of
reasoning, ib. ; obscurity of his
theory of knowledge, 131 ; the
aim of knowledge practical, 132 ;
comparison of his theological
idealism with the Kantian theory,
250 ; relation of Lotze s and the
Berkeleian theory, 325 ; his de
scription of philosophy, ii. 4, 21.
Berlin, the foundation of the Uni
versity of, ii. 133, 134.
Berti, Domenico, life of Bruno by,
ii. 24.
Bohme, Jacob, his influence on
Schelling, 269.
Bonar, Mr James, Philosophy and
Political Economy by, ii. 79.
Bradley, Mr F. H. , reference to
Appearance and Reality by, 353 ;
his theory of feeling, ii. 206 ;
criticism of his view regarding
the intelligibility of reality, 301.
Brentano, Prof. F. , his distinction of
presentation from judgment and
feeling, ii. 180 ; on the distinction
between idea and judgment, 268.
Bruno, Giordano, supposed influ
ence on Spinoza, i. 58 ; unflatter
ing account by Pope Leo XIII.,
ii. 23 ; obscurity till recently
surrounding him, 24 ; (Caspar
Schoppe s remarkable letter, ib.
et seq. ; the auto da ft, 28, 43 ;
early life, 30 ; his learning, 32 ;
II Candelajo and its probable
connexion with Love s Labour s
Lost, 33, 38, 39 ; his wanderings,
34 ; clerical proceedings against
320
INDEX.
him, 35 ; his opinion of Calvinism,
36 ; the influence of Raymond
Lully, 37 ; his visit to England,
ib. et seq. ; friendship with Sir
Philip Sidney and Fulke Greville,
38 ; intimacy with Florio, 39 ;
Carew s indebtedness to Bruno,
ib. ; his manifesto to the Uni
versity of Oxford, 40 ; his be
trayal by a pupil, 41 ; seven years
imprisonment, 43 ; his philosophy
a form of Naturalism, 44.
Caird, Dr Edward, ii. 14.
Carew, Thomas, his Coelum Britan-
nicum, borrowed from Bruno s
Triumphant Beast, ii. 39.
Castelnau, Michel de, Bruno s con
nexion with, ii. 37.
Categories, nature and deduction of
the Kantian, 183 el seq. ; criti
cism of the Kantian categories,
ii. 292 et seq.
Causation, Hume s analysis of, 141 ;
the Kantian doctrine, 317 ; funda
mental representation of causation,
ib. ; change and generalisation,
318 ; intelligibility of nature a
relative conception, 319; the
empirical doctrine, 320 ; criticism
of Hume s view, 321 ; Lotze s
analysis, ib. et seq. ; Lotze s and
Berkeley s theories, 325 ; Kant
and Hume on causal connexion,
326 ; space and time components
of the content apprehended as
causally connected, 328 ; meaning
of unity of the objective world,
329 ; causal connexion as con
stant order or type of process,
332 ; criticism of the Kantian
view, ib. et seq. ; the identity
of cause and effect, 335 ; the
generalisation expressed in force,
336 ; causal connexion one of
fact not of reason, 357.
Chalmers, Dr Thomas, on the dis
tinction between abstract and
concrete, ii. 309.
Change, the foundation of any rep
resentation of time, 301 ; does
the nature of reality exclude
change ? 302 ; Herbart s view,
ib., 303; the Kantian doctrine,
305 ; the illegitimate distinction
this theory involves, 308 ; no
contradiction in the completed
notion of change, 309 ; Lotze s
account of the supposed contra
diction, 310.
Christie, Mr R. C., opinion of, on
the authenticity of Schoppe s
letter on Bruno, ii. 24.
Clauberg, his view that the soul can
direct movement, 42.
Comte, Auguste, his limitation of
knowledge to coexistences and
sequences, ii. 308 ; his distinction
between abstract and concrete,
ib. ; his classification of the
sciences, 309 ; his method of
approaching sociology, ib.
Condillac, his theory of psychology,
ii. 228.
Condorcet, his analysis of social
inequalities, ii. 90.
Consciousness, the method of deter
mining the content of, ii. 195 ct
seq. ; distinguishable features in
immediate experience, 198 et seq.;
qualitative differences in this con
tent, ib. ; two criteria employed
in distinguishing sensations, 200 ;
distinction between sense - pres
entations and feelings derivative,
201 ; feelings, as pleasure-pain ex
periences, of independent nature,
203 ; Wundt s theory of feeling,
ib. ; teleological theory of feeling,
205 ; theory connecting pleasure
and pain with physiological pro
cesses, 208 ; formal feelings, 211 ;
feeling and activity, ib. , 212;
Wundt s analysis of voluntary
action, ib. et seq. ; the factors
involved in willing, 216 ; sensa
tions involved in movement, ib. ;
movement not prefigured in the
antecedent sense - impulse, 217;
the regular series in the changes
of experience, ib. ; gradual growth
of the process of willing, 220 ;
the feeling of activity, 221.
Cordemoy, as an originator of Oc
casionalism, 42.
INDEX.
321
Descartes, his chief writings, 7 ;
insistence on the excellence of
mathematical demonstration, 8 ;
characteristics of his method, 9 ;
cogito ergo sum, 11, 15; the
lumen naturale and its axioms,
13 ; importance of the fifth axiom
connecting idea and reality, 14 ;
absolute and relative ideas, 15 ;
the ontological argument for the
existence of God, 16 ; the anthro
pological argument, 17 ; the ver
acity of God, 19; the origin of
error, 20 ; Understanding and
Will as passive and active, 21;
the priority of Will, 23 ; God
the only Absolute, 25 ; conscious
ness and extension, 27 ; the four
divisions of philosophy, ib. ; the
Cartesian Physics, 28 et *6q. ;
extension and extended substance,
29 ; his view of conservation, ib.
theory of space, 30 ; mechanical
conception of nature, 32 ; animals
as automata, ib. ; the antinomy
of the Cartesian Physics, 33 ; the
Cartesian Psychology and Psycho-
physics, il>. et seq^ ; antithesis of
_id.ea_aud sensation, 34; their mode
of operation in apprehension, 35 ;
sensation and image, 36;
consciousness and corporeality
not causally connected, 37 ; class
ification of ideas forming Under
standing, ib. ; explanation of ideas
as innate, 38 ; the process of
sense-perception, 39 ; approxima
tion to the doctrine of Occasional
ism, ib. ; theory of the pineal
gland, 42 ; lines of development
of the Cartesian doctrine, 43 ;
Leibniz s and Spinoza s ground of
dissatisfaction with his system,
68 ; Leibniz s criticism of the
Cartesian Physics, 75 ; Leibniz s
view of the Cartesian theory of
knowledge, 96 ; the Cartesian
view of facts of mind, ii. 53, 61.
Determinism, Leibniz s view of,
107 ; difficulty caused by, in
Spinoza s system, ib.
Development, psychology considered
as the tracing of mental develop-
VOL. II.
ment, ii. 185 et seq. ; the trans
cendental view of End, 186 ; the
empirical conception of end, 188 ;
the laws of development merely
descriptive, 189; they exclude
the notion of ultimate end, ib. ;
notion of implicit existence un
justifiable in region of conscious
ness, 191 ; the notion of develop
ment free from implication of end
or purpose, 192; the Hegelian
and Aristotelian conception of
development as the unfolding of
a content, 302 ; contradictoriness
of this view both on the practical
and theoretical side, 304 ; special
difficulty in the notion of devel
opment due to the fusion of
identity and difference, 305 ;
different notions of development
probably necessary for different
forms of existence, 306 ; the
mechanism of nature itself ade
quate for the notion of develop
ment, 307 ; misconception of the
nature of development in Idealist
philosophy, 317.
Dewey, Professor, on the distinction
between psychology and epistem-
ology, ii. 48, 59.
Enlightenment, a degenerate form
of Leibnizian rationalism, ii. 144 ;
character of the doctrine, 145.
Epistemology, its distinction from
psychology, ii. 46 et seq. ; recog
nition of this distinction in the
Stoic and pre-Kantian theories,
4 9 ; ignoring of it by Locke, ib. ;
inadequacy of Kant s account of
the distinction, 60 ; account of
the Cartesian view, 61, 62; sub
jective and trans-subjective one
act or process, 65.
Evolution, Hegel s view of, ii. 303.
Faculties, the doctrine of, without
significance in modern psychology,
ii. 168 ; Hamilton s and Mansel s
theories of psychology, 223 ct xeq.
Feeling, distinction of feeling and
sense - presentation a derivative
one, ii. 201 ; feelings, as pleasure-
322
INDEX.
pain experiences, independent in
nature, 203 ; Wundt s theory, ib. ;
the teleological theory of feeling,
205 ; Dr Stout s view of pleasure
and pain, 206 ; Mr Bradley s, ib. ;
pleasure and pain as connected
with the expansion and repression
of self, 207 ; pleasure and pain
as connected with physiological
processes, 208 ; formal feelings,
211 ; feeling and activity, ib.,
212.
Fichte, his insight into the want of
unity in the Kantian system, 255 ;
unity of consciousness the central
fact in experience, 256 ; difference
an absolute condition of self-
consciousness, 257 ; cause of ap
parent artificiality of his system,
ib. ; the evolution of self-con
sciousness a development from
within, 259 ; thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis, ib., 260 ; the ab
solute ego and the personal self,
260 ; speculation and life, ib. ;
the reality of the Non-Ego, 261 ;
difficulty of reconciling finite self
and the absolute, 263 ; relation
to Schelling, 264, 265; his
enthusiasm for the unification of
Germany, ii. 119; suppression of
his Reden, 122 ; significance of
his Reden, 129, 131, 132; his
single-hearted devotion to truth,
130.
Fischer, Kuno, his interpretation
of Spinoza s notion of attribute,
62.
Florio, John, Bruno s intimacy with,
ii. 39.
Francke, August, influence on
education in Germany, ii. 125.
Frederick the Great, his interest
in educational reform, ii. 125.
Frederick William I., his interest iu
educational reforms in Germany,
ii. 125.
Frederick William II., his reversal
of the policy of Frederick the
Great, ii. 128.
Frederick William III., his patron
age of the Prussian Universities,
ii. 129.
French Revolution, its significance
in modern political history, ii.
146.
Freytag, Gustav, on the political
indifference accompanying the
literary renascence in Germany,
ii. 140.
Frith, Miss I., Life of Bruno by,
ii. 25.
Galileo, importance of, in modern
philosophy, 5, 29.
Germany, the starting-point of the
regeneration of Germany, ii. 119 ;
Stein s conception for unification
of the separate States, ib. ;
political and economical reform,
121 ; rise of a spirit of patriotism,
ib. ; efforts at political reform
frustrated, 124; state of educa
tion in North Germany in the
eighteenth century, 125 ; educa
tion and clerical opposition, 127 ;
the policy of Frederick William
III., 129; Fichte s Reden, and
their significance, 131, 132 ; the
founding of the University of
Berlin, 134 ; W. von Humboldt s
place in the history of Prussia,
136, 137 ; influence of her in
tellectual tradition on the modern
history of Germany, 138 ; liter
ary enthusiasm and political in
difference, 140 ; effect of the
Reformation in Germany, 142 ;
Leibnizian rationalism and the
Enlightenment, 144.
Geulincx, Arnold, extension of
Descartes doctrine by, 42.
Goethe, his indifference to current
political events, ii. 140.
Green, Mr T. H., on the distinction
between the act and the content
of apprehension, ii. 59 ; on the
absolute moral end, 109 ; on
moral obligation, 112.
Greville, Fulke, Bruno s friendship
with, ii. 38.
Hamilton, Sir W., his psychological
theory, ii. 223 et seq.
Hardenberg, Karl, his part in the
regeneration of Germany, ii. 123.
INDEX.
323
Harmony, Pre-established, Leibniz s
theory of a, 92.
Hecker, J. J. , his educational re
forms in Germany, ii. 125.
Hegel, his criticism of Schelling s
absolute ground, 269 ; his in
sistence on the historical character
of mind, 273 ; absolute think
ing, ib. ; his system the most
perfect expression of idealism,
274 ; its affinity to that of
Aristotle, ib. ; system of abstract
thoughts an organic whole, 275 ;
nature of understanding, ib. ; the
Dialectic, 276 ; understanding
subordinate to speculation, 277 ;
his relation to Kant, 278 ; the
dialectic and the principle of
Contradiction, 279; selt - con
sciousness the highest form of
reality, 280 ; nature and mind,
ib. ; three divisions of the specu
lative view of reality, 281; im
portance of the notion of develop
ment, ib. ; his explanation of the
transition from essence to notion,
340 ; criticism of his philosophy
of nature, ii. 12 ; his indifference
to current political events, 140 ;
his view of development, 302 ; of
evolution, 303.
Herbart, criticism of his theory of
change, 302 et seq. ; the meta
physical basis of his psychology,
ii. 168 ; his explanation of mental
process, 169 ; Dr Ward s criti
cism of Presentationism, 172.
Herder, his recognition of historical
development, 272, 273.
Hospitals, their maintenance by the
State, ii. 96.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, his with
drawal from politics, ii. 123 ;
share in founding Berlin Univer
sity, 130, 134; his character and
genius, ib. ; his earlier career,
135 ; his intercourse with Wolf,
Schiller, and C4oethe, 136 ; his
place in Prussian history, ib. et
seq.
Hume, his position regarding Leib
niz and Kant, 105 ; connexion
with Locke, 133 ; difficulty at
tending the dual significance of
idea, 134, 146; impressions jmd
ideas, 134 ; modes of having and
of grouping ideas, 135 ; the ele
ment of belief, ib.; isolation of
ideas, 136 ; treatment of mathe
matical propositions, 137 ; theory
irreconcilable with His funda
mental principles, 138 ; view-ae-
to arithmetic, 139; memory ajjil
reasoning, 140 ; causation (real
dependence) and reasoning, 14J_;
analysis Of najnpatirm, } /^ariji lysis
of reasoning, 142 ; nature of an
inference, 143"; no synthetic func
tion in mind, ib. ; necessity only
subjective, 144 ; analysis of be
lief, ib. ; reality only clusters of
perceptions, 145 ; difficulty of the
principle as applying to personal
identity, 146 ; criticism of his
theory of causation, 321 ; com
parison of above with Kant s,
326 ; belief as the difference
between idea and judgment, ii.
269 ; Kant s inadequate answer
to Hume regarding causality, 297.
Idea, the Cartesian antithesis be
tween idea and sensation, 34 ;
Descartes classification of ideas
as forming Understanding, 37 ;
his view as to innate ideas, 38 ;
significance of the term in the
philosophy of Malebranche, 50,
53 ; Leibniz s position with regard
to innate ideas, 96 ; conflicting
senses of idea in Locke s Essay,
113; in Hume, 134.
Idealism, Subjective, criticism of
the theory of, 233 et sfiq. ;
its fundamental principle, 283 ;
Kant s relation to, ib. et xeq. ;
main cause of its perplexities,
288.
Innate ideas, Descartes conception
of, 38 ; Leibniz s criticism of
Locke, 96.
Judgment, the disjunctive judg
ment, ii. 260 et eq. ; the hypo
thetical judgment, 262 ; the
categorical judgment, 264 ; uni-
324
INDEX.
versal and individual judgments,
ib. ; distinction between idea
and judgment, 268 ; Brentano s
view, ib. ; judgment based on the
simplest consciousness of the ob
jective, 272 ; this consciousness
derived from the distinction be
tween sensuous perceptions and
ideas, 273 ; nature of the rudi
mentary judgment thence made
possible, 275.
Kant, relation to Locke, 112, 123;
relation to preceding systems,
147 ; the fundamental note of his
system, 148 ; his view of the
Leibnizian theory of space, 149
et aeq. ; incongruent counter
parts, 151 ; mathematical pro
cedure not purely analytic, 153 ;
Dissertation on the Form and
Principles of the Sensible and
Intelligible World marking a
transition stage in his thinking,
155 ; comparison of this work
with the Critique, 156 et seg. ;
phenomenon and noumenon, 157,
210 ; the a priori character of
Space determined relatively to
the Leibnizian theory, 158 ; re
jection of Newton s theory, 159 ;
definition of Critical Method, 165 ;
confusion in his application of
the method, 167; how are syn
thetic a priori propositions pos
sible ? a needlessly limited ques
tion, 170 ; his failure to harmonise
mind and reality, 172; the char
acteristics of a priori propositions,
173; transcendental knowledge,
174 ; threefold division of trans
cendental doctrine, ib. ; the forms
of sense, 176 ; their metaphysical
exposition, ib. space and time
as forms of intuition, 178 ; their
transcendental exposition, 179;
definition of synthesis, ib. ; real
and ideal as applied to space
and time, 180, 181 ; the Cate
gories, 183 ; their justification,
185 et *eq. ; the function of
understanding, 190 ; the Trans
cendental Schema, 192; the
Principles of Pure Understanding,
193, 194 ; axioms of intuition,
?6. ; anticipations of perception,
195; analogies of experience,
196 ; objective permanence, 198 ;
objective succession and causality,
199 ; simultaneity or coexistence,
200 ; reciprocity, 201 ; postulates
of empirical thought, 202 ; the
function of reason, 206 ; ideas of
reason, 208 ; the Paralogisms of
Pure Reason, 211 ; the Antin
omies, 213 ; the ideas of pure
reason, 217; the ontological
argument for the existence of
God, 219 ; the regulative func
tion of ideas of reason, 222 ;
things-in-themselves, 223 et seq. ;
three ways of determining the
realm of things-in-themselves, 226
et *eq. ; critical analysis of the
notion, thing-in-itself, 230 et seq.;
Subjective Idealism, 233 et .seg.;
critical analysis of the doctrine
of Inner Sense, 240 et seq. ; a
fundamental error in Kant s
analysis, 242 ; the meaning of
a priori, 244 et *eq. ; the anti
thesis between mechanism and
freedom, 247 et *eq.; the final
conception compared with Berke
ley s idealism, 250 ; Hegel s rela
tion to Kant, 278 ; his partial
acceptance of Subjective Idealism,
283 et seq.; his inversion of the
order of experience, 288 ; criti
cism of his theory of space, 292
et seq. ; criticism of his theory of
time, 305 ft seq. ; his doctrine of
causation, 317 ; his causal theory
compared with Hume s, 326 ; the
Subjective Idealism in his system,
348 ; general criticism of Kant s
system, ii. 13 et seq. , the dis
tinction between psychology and
epistemology, 46 ; meaning of
facts of mind, 53 ; his conception
of psychology and its difficulties,
54 et Heq. ; inadequacy of his dis
tinction between psychology and
epistemology, 60 ; his influence
on psychology, 66 ; his general
conception of it, 67 ; empirical
INDEX.
character of psychology, 68 ;
criticism of the Kantian psycho
logy, 72 et -teg.; the notion of
inner sense, 75 ; subjective colour
ing of Kant s terminology, 77 ;
his criticism of Leibniz s theory
of space, 99 ; the Kantian view
of morality and absolute law, 102
et w/. ; his relation to Leibniz
and Hume, 105 ; general histori
cal significance of the Critical
Philosophy, 146 ; his doctrine in
the main unpsychological, 251 ;
his view of the function of
thought, if>. ; the distinction be
tween subjective and objective
due to the spontaneity of
thought, ib. ; reasons against this
view, 252 ; the objective refer
ence of thought, ib. tt seq. ; his
criticism of Leibniz, 253 ; defects
of this criticism, 254 ; relation
of thought and self-consciousness,
255 ; criticism of the Kantian
Categories, 292 et xeq. ; the dis
tinction between causality and
uniformity, 296 ; the recognition
in the Transcendental Logic that
thought has other than a formal
significance, 310.
Kotzebue, August, murder of, ii. 122.
Language, the origin of, ii. 277;
psychological bearing of philo
logical inquiry, 279.
Latta, Professor, The Monadology
of Leibniz, edited by, 88.
Leibniz, salient facts in his life,
67 ; interest in mathematics,
ib. ; his dissatisfaction with Car-
tesianism, 68 ; his meeting with
Spinoza and its influence, ib. ct
seq. ; the influence of Plato, 69 ;
his varied activity, 70 ; methods
of approaching his philosophy, ib. ;
the problem of individuation, 71,
72 ; the theory of numbers, 73 ;
truths of reason and of experience,
ib. ; real and nominal definitions,
74 ; his criticism of the Cartesian
Physics, 75, 76 ; his correspond
ence with Arnauld, 77 6t *eq. ;
evolution of his central idea of a
single substance, 79 ; the con
comitance of substances, 80 ;
Arnauld s criticism of the doctrine,
81 ; the theory of expression,
82 ; biological arguments, 86 ;
general view of existence, 87 ;
the Monadology, 88 ; extended-
ness a derivative aspect, 89 ;
justification of describing his
general view as Intellectualism,
90 ; unity and activity the char
acteristics of reality, ib. ; two
incoherent conceptions in his
philosophy, 91 ; the Pre-estab
lished Harmony, 92 ; the principle
of development and the unity of
the monad, 93 ; the psychical
nature of the monad, 95 ; the
origin of knowledge, 96 ; his
position relative to Descartes and
Locke, ib. ; identification of the
grades of apprehension, 97 ;
qualitative nature of monads, 98 ;
nature of space and time, 99 ;
criticism of this theory, ib. ; its
influence on Kant, ib. ; his theory
of matter compared with Mill s
definition, 100 ; criticism of the
principle Choice of the Best,
101, 104 ; the initial argument
of the Monadology a verbal
triviality, 102 ; an irresolvable
problem in his system, ib. et seq. ;
truths of reason and of fact, 103 ;
essence and existence, 104 ;
prima possibilia, 105; philoso
phical relation of Leibniz, Kant,
and Hume, ib. ; the doctrine of
Creation, 106 ; view of deter
minism, 107 ; his theory of
optimism and its difficulties, ib. ;
the three kinds of evil, 108 ;
general estimate of his system,
109; criticism of Locke, 113;
general result of his philosophy,
147, 148 ; Kant s attitude to the
Leibnizian treatment of Space,
149 et fseq. ; his connexion with
the deism of the Enlightenment,
ii. 144; the Leibnizian theory and
psychology, 227.
Leo XIII., his unflattering account
of Giordano Bruno, ii. 23.
326
INDEX.
Leasing, his recognition of historical
development, 272.
Locke, Leibniz s view of innate
ideas, 96 ; analogy between the
Essay and the Critical Philosophy,
111; the problem of the Essay ;
112; Leibniz s criticism, 113;
inconsistent meanings of idea,
ib. ; the two sources of ideas,
114; meaning of sensation and
reflection, 115; the operation of
mind or ideas, 116; a novel in
terpretation of his theory, 117;
conflict in the treatment of simple
ideas, ib. ; dual significance of
idea in his theory of knowledge,
118; ideal and real propositions,
119; account of reasoning, 121;
relations between ideal contents
apprehended without reference
to reality, 122; Berkeley s con
nexion with Locke, 124 ; incon
sistent treatment of mathematics,
137 ; general result of his philo
sophy, 147, 148; his ignoring the
distinction between psychology
and epistemology, ii. 49.
Lotze, his explanation of apparent
contradiction in the conception
of time, 310 ; his analysis of
causation, 321 et seq. ; criticism
of above, 324 ; his relation to
Berkeley, 325 ; general estimate,
ii. 12 ; general aspect of his
psychological doctrine, 231 ; the
specific functions of thinking, ib.
et seq. ; thinking distinguished
from lower mental processes, 232 ;
three intermediaries necessary
between material of sense- asso
ciation and thought, 234 ; ( 1 )
identity of the perceiving subject,
ib. ; (2) unity of the subject in
association and reproduction, 235 ;
(3) unity of the subject perceiving
the extended and temporal, 236 ;
his view of the concept, 237 ; the
pre-logical processes of thinking,
238 ; the objectification of the
subject, ib. ; manifold character
of the second pre-logical process,
analysed into positing, distin
guishing, and comparing, 242 et
seq. the pre-logical processes a
misleading abstraction, 250.
Love s Labour s Lost, possible in
debtedness of, to Bruno s II
Candelajo/ii. 33, 38, 39.
Lully, Raymond, Bruno s obligation
to, ii. 37.
Malebranche, his position as an
exponent of Cartesianism, 43 ;
classification of the modes of
knowledge, 44 ; the idea of the
infinite as underlying knowledge,
45 ; the apprehension of soul a
product of feeling, not of idea,
46 ; all things known in God,
and only through God, 47 ; in
telligible extension, 48 ; God
neither res extensa nor res
cogitans, 49 ; the four modes of
apprehension, ib. ; his conception
of idea, 50; imagination de
pendent on sense-perception, 51 ;
his interpretation of sense-percep
tion akin to Occasionalism, ib. ;
external nature an article only of
faith, 52 ; ideas as distinguished
from consciousness of modalities,
53 ; antithesis of essence and ex
istence, 54 ; criticisms of Arnauld,
55, 56 ; the distinction between
psychology and epistemology, ii.
49.
Mansel, Dean, his psychological
theory, ii. 224.
Mathematics, importance of, in
seventeenth century philosophy,
4 ; the Cartesian view of mathe
matical demonstration, 8 ; Leib
niz s interest in, 67; unsatisfac
tory treatment of, by Locke and
Hume, 137.
Mill, J. S., his definition of matter
compared with Leibniz s, 100 ;
his use of the term mental
chemistry, ii. 171; belief as
constituting the difference be
tween idea and judgment, 269.
Morality, difficulty in separating
facts and hypotheses, ii. 98, 99 ;
practical and speculative morality,
100 ; use of the term scientific
applied to the basis of morality,
INDEX.
327
ib.; the relation between morality
and its basis, 101 et seq.; the
Greek and the Kantian method
of defining this, 102 ; absolute
law and absolute end criticised,
103 et seq. , negative value of
the utilitarian end, 107 ; modern
ethical preference for absolute
end, 108 ; formal character of end
in naturalism, 109 ; the idealist
view of end, ib. ; self-realisation,
ib.; the feature of obligation in
morality, 1 1 1 et *eq. ; the forma
tion of ideals, 113 ; difficulty of
constructing a theory of morality,
115 ; the only method of explain
ing morality, 116.
Naturalism, misconceptions in its
view of mind and nature, ii. 19 ;
Bruno as a pioneer of, 44.
Newton, his theory of Absolute
Space compared with that of
Descartes, 31 ; his theory of
space compared with Leibniz s
and Kant s, 99 ; Kant s view of
his theory of space, 158.
Nicolai, Friedrich, a representative
of the Enlightenment, ii. 145.
Occasionalism, approximation to, in
the Cartesian philosophy, 39, 40 ;
Psycho-physical Parallelism and,
346, 353.
Oxford, Giordano Bruno s visit to,
ii. 40.
Philosophy, its academical import
ance, ii. 3 ; Plato s description of,
ib.; Bishop Berkeley s, 4; the
uniformity of its problems, 5 ; its
relation to experience, 8 ; its
present transitional state, 10 ;
knowledge of its historical back
ground necessary for the under
standing of any system, 11 ;
recent increase of interest in
psychology, 20 ; the intimate
relation of its branches, 45 ; con
nexion of philosophy with the
general problem of social life,
78 et seq.; dangers of false analogy
illustrated from sociology, 80 et
seq. ; the value of negative criti
cism, 110 ; the psychological doc
trine of the Scottish Philosophy,
222 et seq.
Physics, the Cartesian system of,
28 et seq. ; Leibniz s criticism of,
75.
Pineal gland, the Cartesian view
of the, 42.
Plato, his description of philosophy,
ii. 3.
Positivism, exclusive stress laid by
Comte on coexistences and se
quences, ii. 308 ; Comte s dis
tinction between abstract and
concrete, ib.
Presentationism, Dr Ward s criti
cism of, ii. 172 ; the identification
of presentation and object, 173 ;
presentations and feelings, 175,
176 ; Brentano s distinction of
presentation from judgment and
feeling, 180; general criticism of
the theory, 183.
Psychology, the Cartesian system
of, 33 et seq. ; recent increase of
interest in, ii. 20 ; its distinction
from epistemology, 46 et seq. ;
recognition of this distinction in
the Stoic and pre-Kantian phil
osophy, 49 ; ignoring of it by
Locke, ib. ; psychology as the
science of facts of mind, 52 ;
the Kantian and Cartesian views
of facts of mind, 53; Kant s
conception of psychology, 54 ;
criticism of it, 55, 56 ; Dr Ward s
view of presentationism, 57 ; in
adequacy of Kant s distinction
between psychology and epistem
ology, 60 ; the Cartesian theory
of the distinction, 61, 62; criti
cism of this view, ib. et *cq.; sub
jective and trans-subjective one
act or process, 65 ; Kant s in
fluence on psychology, 66 ; his
general conception of it, 67 et seq. ;
his rejection of a rational psycho
logy, 68 ; criticism of the Kantian
psychology, 72 et seq. ; the notion
of inner sense, 75 ; subjective
colouring of Kant s terminology,
77 ; difficulties attending its defi-
328
INDEX.
nition, 161 et f>eq. ; analysis of
the term phenomenon of con
sciousness, 163 ; twofold refer
ence of the distinction between
outer and inner, 164; the
material of psychology, 165, 166 ;
the doctrine of faculties without
significance in modern psychology,
168 ; the doctrine of Herbart, ib.
et seq. ; the association psychology,
171 ; Dr Ward s criticism of
presentationism, 172 et seq. ;
presentation distinguished from
attention and feeling, 177 ; dis
tinguished from judgment and
feeling, ISO ; general criticism of
psychical atomism, 183 ; psy
chology as the tracing of the
development of mind, 185 et
seq. ; difficulties attending the
determination of the content of
consciousness, 195 et seq. ; analy
sis of immediate experience, 198
et seq. ; qualitative differences in
this content, ib. ; feeling (q.v. ),
201 etseq. ; willing (q.v.), 212 et
seq. ; the psychological doctrine of
the Scottish Philosophy, 223 et
seq. ; Sir Wflliam Hamilton s
theory, ib. ; Mansel s theory, 224 ;
Leibnizian view, 227 ; Condillac s
theory, 228 ; Lotze s doctrine of
thinking, 231 et seq.; the Kantian
doctrine, 251 et seq.; the various
forms of reasoning, 260 ; the dis
junctive judgment, ib. etseq.; the
hypothetical judgment, 262 ; the
categorical judgment, 264 ; dis
tinction of universal and in
dividual judgments, ib. ; distinc
tion between idea and judgment,
268 ; Brentano s view, ib. ; any
theory of judgment based on the
simplest consciousness of the ob
jective, 272 ; this consciousness
is based on the distinction be
tween sensuous perceptions and
ideas, 273 ; nature of the rudi-
mentaryjudgment thence possible,
275 ; the objective world con
ceived as standing in the same
relation to other percipient sub
jects, ib., 276 ; the origin of
language, 277 ; psychological
bearing of this problem, 279 ;
objectivity not the product of
thought, 281 ; the inter-relation
of the products of thought, 283 ;
objectivity and universality, 284
et *eq.; the transition from per
ception to thinking, 286, 288 ;
thinking and self-consciousness,
289 ; thinking objective in con
tent, subjective in process, 290 ;
criticism of the Kantian cate
gories, 292 ; thought both anal
ytic and synthetic, 295 ; Kant s
distinction between causality and
uniformity of nature criticised,
296 ; the relation of thought and
reality, 300 ; the notion of de
velopment, 302 et seq. ; criticism
of Positivism, 307 et seq. ; form
and matter, 310 et seq. ; primi
tive and developed thinking not
antithetical, 315.
Reality, Hegel s transition from the
sphere of essence to the sphere of
notion, 340 ; thought and, the
relation of the mechanical to the
psychical, 343 ; Lotze and the
unity of self-consciousness, 344 ;
the Occasionalist theory, 345
et seq. ; Psycho-physical Paral
lelism, 346 ; Dr Stout s view, ib. ;
Kant and Subjective Idealism,
348 ; meaning of reality as a
whole, 350 ; mind and body
qualitatively distinct parts of one
system, ib. ; Occasionalism, Par
allelism, and the popular view
regarding the relation of mind
and body, 353 ; the assumption
of the independence of mind,
ib., 354 ; experience of the
mechanical the genuine character
of inner life, 355 ; the distinction
of content and reality involved
in the simplest act of apprehen
sion, 358 ; scientific research
confirms the philosophical con
ception of the unity of existence,
ii. 17 ; thinking as one form in
which reality is manifested, 300 ;
the complete intelligibility of
INDEX.
329
reality, 301 ; Aristotle s doctrine
of the individual, ib.
Schelling, his attitude to Fichte,
264, 265 ; independence of nature
in the sum-total of reality, 265 ;
analysis of the development of
the philosophy of nature, 266 ;
transcendental philosophy, ib. ;
theoretical, practical, and a?s-
thetic consciousness, ib. ; nature
as a kingdom of ends, 267 ; the
philosophy of identity, ib. ; the
identical basis of all differences,
268 ; Spinoza s influence, ib. ;
Hegel s criticisms, ib. ; influence
of Bohme, 269 ; positive and
negative philosophy, ib. ; his
recognition of historical develop
ment, 271.
Schlegel, Friedrich, his relations
with Schleiermacher, ii. 154.
Schleiermacher, representative of
the culture of his time, ii. 147 ;
early career, 148; his education,
149 ; diversity of opinion regard
ing him, 151 ; his relation to
Kant, 152; friendship with F.
Schlegel, 154 ; professor at
Berlin, 155 ; his philosophy of
religion, 156 et seq.; the weak
ness in his exposition, 157.
Schopenhauer, view of external
perception. 285.
Schoppe, Caspar, his remarkable
letter respecting Bruno, ii. 24
et seq.
Scottish Philosophy, the psycholog
ical doctrine in the, ii. 222 et
seq.
Sensation, criticism of the theory
that it contains in itself the
trans-subjective reference, 289.
Shakespeare, possible indebtedness
of, to Bruno s II Candelajo,
ii. 33, 38, 3!).
Sidney, Sir Philip, Bruno s friend
ship with, ii. 38.
Smith, Mr N. D., Studies in the
Cartesian Philosophy by, 42.
Sociology, the dangers of applying
to it analogies drawn from or
ganic life, ii. 80 et seq. ; of anal-
VOL. II.
ogies drawn from the notion of
individual development, 82 et
seq. ; meaning and scope of the
social problem, 86; the nature
and artificial aspects of social
phenomena, 87 et seq.; general
underestimation of social facts
as historical, 90 ; Condorcet s
analysis of social inequalities, ib. ;
modern false antithesis of cosmic
and ethical order, 91 ; the two
inquiries for sociology, 92 ; c
priori schemes to be distrusted,
94 ; suggested maintenance of
hospitals by the State, 96 ;
Comte s method of approaching
sociology, 309, 310.
Space, Descartes and Newton s
theories, 30, 31 ; Leibniz s
theory, compared with Kant s
and Newton s, 99 ; inadequate
treatment by Locke and Hume,
137 ; Kant s attitude to the
Leibnizian theory. 149 ft seq.;
to the Newtonian theory, 158 ;
Kant s analysis, 177 et seq. ; con
sidered as the source of the
distinction between subjective
and objective, 291 ; the universal
form of the objective, 293 ; crit
icism of the Kantian view, ib.
et seq. ; the perceptual and con
ceptual aspects of space, 296 ;
apparent contradictions in our
representations of space, 299.
Spencer, Mr Herbert, his Prin
ciples of Psychology cited, 289 ;
ii. 64 ; his theory of feeling,
205.
Spinoza, disputed sources of his
system, 58 ; relation of ground
and consequent the basis of his
system. 59 ; distinction between
understanding and imagination,
60 ; Ood as the supreme ground,
ib.; the notion of Attribute, 61 ;
difficulties attending this notion,
62 ; finite and infinite modes,
63 ; soul and body one and the
same reality, 64 ; criticism of
the incompleteness and incon
sistency of Spinoza s fundamental
notion of unity, 65, 66 ; his
330
INDEX.
meeting with Leibniz and its
influence on the latter, 68, 69 ;
difficulty in his system regarding
determinism, 107 ; his influence
on Schilling, 268.
Stein, Heinrich, his conception of
the unification of Germany, ii.
119; his belief in educational
reform, 129.
Stein, Prof. L., on the genesis of
Occasionalism, 42.
Stirling, Dr Hutchison, criticism of
Kant s category of causality,, ii.
296.
Stoics, recognition in their theory
of the distinction between psy
chology and epistemology, ii.
49.
Stout, Mr G. F., Manual of Psy
chology by, quoted, 346, 347 ;
his theory of feeling, ii. 206.
Subjective Idealism, criticism of the
theory of, 233 et seq.; Kant s
relation to, 283 et seq. ; its under
lying principle, ib. ; main cause
of its perplexities, 288.
Subjective and objective, critical
analysis of the distinction, 283
et seq.; recognition of the sub
jective not prior to external
perception, 287 ; space as the
primitive source of the distinc
tion, 291.
Thought and reality, .see under
Reality.
Time, any representation of time
based on the notion of change,
301 ; the Kantian doctrine, 305
et seq. ; criticism of the foregoing,
306 et seq. ; differences in mean
ing of time-representation, 311 ;
space elements in such represent
ation, 312 ; not possible as a
single perception, 313; the time-
lessness of reality, 314, 315.
Vaihinger, Prof. H. , Commentary
on Kant by, ii. 67, 74.
Volkelt, Prof. J. ; on the opposition
of process of consciousness and
the trans-subjective, ii. 62.
Ward, Dr James, his view of pres-
entationism, ii. 57 ; general criti
cism of the theory, 172 et seq.
Webb, T. E., The Intellectualism
of Locke by, 117.
Weismann, August, anticipations of
his biological theories in Leibniz,
87.
Willing, Wundt s analysis of volun
tary action, ii. 212 et seq.; the
three factors involved in willing,
216 ; sensations accompanying
movement, ib. ; movement not
prefigured in the antecedent
sense-impulse, 217 ; the regular
series exhibited in our changes
of experience, ib. ; willing a grad
ual growth, 220 ; the feeling of
activity, 221.
Wolf, F. A., his influence on Ger
man education, ii. 127.
Wolff, C. W., his expulsion from
Halle, ii. 127.
Wbllner, J. C. , his opposition to edu
cational reform in Germany, ii.
128.
Wundt, Prof. W., his analysis of
voluntary action, ii. 202 et seq.;
his theory of feeling, 203.
Zedlitz, Baron von, his interest in
educational reforms in Germany,
ii. 125.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
PHILOSOPHICAL WOEKS.
SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY. A Comparison of the Scottish and
German Answers to Hume. Balfour Philosophical Lectures, University of
Edinburgh. By A. SETH PRINGLE-PATTISON, LL.D., Professor of Logic
and Metaphysics in Edinburgh University. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
HEGELIANISM AND PERSONALITY. Balfour Philos
ophical Lectures. Second Series. By the SAME AUTHOR. Second Edition.
Grown 8vo, 5s.
MAN S PLACE IN THE COSMOS, and other Essays.
By the SAME AUTHOR. Seco nd Edition, Enlarged. Post 8vo, 6s. net.
TWO LECTURES ON THEISM. Delivered on the occasion
of the Sesquicentennial Celebration of Princeton University. By the SAME
AUTHOR. Crown Svo, 2s. Gd.
A STUDY OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. By JAMES SETH,
M.A., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Sixth
Edition, Revised. Post Svo, 7s. 6d.
HISTORICAL PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE AND
FRENCH BELGIUM AND SWITZERLAND. By ROBERT FLINT,
Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, Hon. Member of the
Royal Society of Palermo, Professor in the University of Edinburgh, &c.
Svo, 21s.
PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. Being the Gilford. Lectures de
livered before the University of Edinburgh in 1894-96. By ALEXANDER
CAMPBELL ERASER, D.C.L. Oxford; Emeritus Professor of Logic and
Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Second Edition, Revised.
Post Svo, 6s. b d. net,
THE ETHICS OF NATURALISM. Being the Shaw Fellow
ship Lectures, 1S84. By W. R. SORLEY, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Crown
Svo, 6s.
SCHOPENHAUER S SYSTEM IN ITS PHILOS
OPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE (the Shaw Fellowship Lectures, 1893). By
WILLIAM CALDWELL, M.A., D.Sc., Professor of Moral and Social
Philosophy, Northwestern University, U.S.A. ; formerly Assistant to the
Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Kdin., and Examiner in Philosophy in
the University of St Andrews. Demy Svo, 10s. 6d. net.
THE ETHICS OF JOHN STUART MILL. By CHARLES
DOUGLAS, M.A., D.Sc., M.P., late Lecturer in Moral Philosophy, and
Assistant to the Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edin
burgh. Post Svo, 6s. net.
JOHN STUART MILL: A Study of his Philosophy. By
the SAME AUTHOR. Crown Svo, 4s. 6d. net.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ETHICS. By DAVID IRONS, M.A.,
Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy in Bryn Mawr College, Penn. Crown Svo,
5s. net.
STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM AND
CONSTRUCTION. By SYDNEY HERBERT MELLONE, M.A. Lond.,
D.Sc. Edin. Post Svo, 10s. 6d. net.
A HISTORY OF EUROPEAN THOUGHT IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. By JOHN THEODORE MERZ. Vol. I.,
post Svo, 10s. Gd. net. [Vol. II. in the press.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS.
PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OP THE LATE JAMES
F. FERRIER, B.A. Oxoir., Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political
Economy, St Andrews. New Edition. Edited by Sir ALEXANDER GRANT,
Bart., D.C. L. , and Professor LUSHINGTON. 3 vols. crown Svo, 34s. 6d.
INSTITUTES OP METAPHYSIC. By the SAME AUTHOR.
Third Edition. 10s. 6d.
LECTURES ON THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
By the SAME AUTHOR. 4th Edition. 10s. 6d.
PHILOSOPHICAL REMAINS, including the Lectures
on Early Greek Philosophy. By the SAME AUTHOR. New Edition. 2 vols.,
24s.
LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. By Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON,
Bart., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh.
Edited by the Rev. H. L. MANSEL, B.D., LL.D., Dean of St Paul s; and
JOHN VEITCH, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Logic and Rhetoric, Glasgow.
Seventh Edition. 2 vols. Svo, 24s.
LECTURES ON LOGIC. By Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON, Bart.
Third Edition, Revised. 2 vols., 24s.
DISCUSSIONS ON PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE,
EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY REFORM. By SIR WILLIAM
HAMILTON, BART. Third Edition. Svo, 21s.
THE METHOD, MEDITATIONS, AND PRINCIPLES
OF PHILOSOPHY OF DESCARTES. Translated from the Original French
and Latin. With a New Introductory Essay, Historical and Critical, on the
Cartesian Philosophy. By PROFESSOR VEITCH, LL.D., Glasgow University.
Eleventh Edition. 6s. 6d.
PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH
READERS. Edited by WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D., Professor of Mora!
Philosophy in tlie University of St Andrews. Crown Svo vols., each Is.
DESCARTES, Prof. MAHAFFY.
BUTLER, Rev. W. L. COLLINS.
BERKELEY, .... Prof. CAMPBELL FRASER.
FICHTE, Prof. ADAMSON.
KANT, Prof. WALLACE.
HAMILTON, Prof. VEITCH.
HEGEL, The MASTER OF BALLIOI..
LEIBNIZ JOHN THEODORE MKRZ.
VICO, Prof. FLINT.
HOBBES, Prof. CROOM ROBERTSON.
HUME, Prof. KNIGHT.
SPINOZA, Principal CAIKD.
BACON : PART I., Prof. NICHOL.
BACON: PART II., Prof. NICHOL.
LOCKE, Prof. CAMI-BELL FRASER.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
Catalogue
of
essrs Blackwood & Sons
Publications
PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE: A Complete and
CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT. Edited by PROFESSOR SAINTS-
BURY. In 12 crown 8vo vols., each 5s. net.
I. THE DARK AGES. By Professor W. P. KER. [In the press.
II. THE FLOURISHING OF ROMANCE AND THE RISE OF
ALLEGORY. (12TH AND 13TH CENTURIES.) By GEORGE SAINTS-
BURY, M.A., Hon. LL.D., Aberdeen, Professor of Rhetoric and
English Literature in Edinburgh University.
III. THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. By F. J. SNKLL.
IV. THE TRANSITION PERIOD. By G. GREGORY SMITH.
V. THE EARLIER RENAISSANCE. By THE EDITOR.
VI. THE LATER RENAISSANCE. By DAVID HANNAY.
VIII. THE AUGUSTAN AGES. By OLIVKR ELTON.
IX. THE MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By J. H. MILLAR.
XI. THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH. By T. S. OMOND.
The other Volumes are :
VII. THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY . Prof. H. J. C. Grierson.
X. THE ROMANTIC REVOLT
Prof. C. E. Vaughan.
XII. THE LATER NINETEENTH
CENTURY The Editor.
PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS
Edited by WILLIAM KNIGHT,
in the University of St Andrews.
DESCARTES, .... Prof. Mahaffy.
BUTLER .... Rev. W. L. Collins
BERKELEY, . . Prof. Campbell Fraser.
FICHTE Prof. Adamson.
KANT Prof. Wallace.
HAMILTON, Prof. Veitch.
HEGEL, .... The Master of Balliol.
LEIBNIZ, . . . John Theodore Men.
FOR ENGLISH READERS,
LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy
He-issue in Shilling Volumes.
Vico, Prof. Flint.
HOBBES, . . . Prof. Croom Robertson
HUME, Prof. Knight.
SPINOZA, Principal Caird.
BACON: Part I., Prof. Nichol.
BACON : Part II., .... Prof. Nichol.
LOCKE Prof. Campbell Praser.
FOREIGN CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. Edited by
Mrs OLIPHANT. CHKAP RE-ISSUE. In limp cloth, fcap. 8vo, price Is.
each.
DANTE, by the Editor. VOLTAIRE,
by General Sir E. B. Hamley, K.C.B.
PASCAL, by Principal Tulloch. PE
TRARCH, by Henry Reeve, C.B. GOETHE,
by A. Hayward, Q.C. MOLIERE, by the
Editor and F. Tarver, M.A. MONTAIGNE,
by Rev. W. L. Collins. RABELAIS, by Sir
Walter Besant. CALDERON, by E. J.
Hasell. SAINT SIMON, by C. W. Collins.
CERVANTES, by the Editor. CORNEILLK
AND RACINE, by Henry M. Trollope.
MADAME DE SEVIGNE, by Miss Thackeray.
LA FONTAINE, AND OTHER FRENCH
FABULISTS, by Rev. W. Lucas Collins,
M.A. -- SCHILLER, by James Sime, M.A.
TASSO, by E. J. Hasell. ROUSSEAU,
by Henry Grey Graham. ALFRED DE
MUSSET, by C. F. Oliphant.
ANCIENT CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. Edited by
the Rsv. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. CHEAP RB-ISSUE. In limp cloth,
fcap. 8vo, price Is. each.
Contents of the Series. HOMER: ILIAD,
by the Editor. HOMER : ODYSSEY, by the
Editor. HERODOTUS, by G. C. Swayne.
C/KMAR, by Anthony Trollope. VIRGIL, by
the Editor. HORACE, by Sir Theodore
Martin. JSscHYLUs, by Bishop Copleston.
XENOPHON, by Sir Alex. Grant. CICERO,
by the Editor. SOPHOCLES, by C. W. Col
lins. PLINY, by Rev. A. Church and W. J.
Brodribb. EURIPIDES, by W. B. Donne.
JUVENAL, by E. Walford. ARISTOPHANES,
by the Editor. HKSIOD AND THEOOKIS, by
J. Davies. PLAUTUS AND TERENCE, by the
Editor. TACITUS, by W. B. Donne.
LUCIAN, by the Editor. PLATO, by C. W.
Collins. GREEK ANTHOLOGY, by Lord
Neaves. LIVY, by the Editor. OVID, by
Rev. A. Church. CATULLUS, TIBULLUS,
AND PROPERTIUS, by J. Davies. DEMOS
THENES, by W. J. Brodribb. ARISTOTLE,
by Sir Alex. Grant. THUCYDIDES, by the
Editor. LUCRETIUS, by W. H. Mallock.
PINDAR, by ROT. F. D. Morice.
CATALOGUE
OF
MESSES BLACKWOOD & SONS
PUBLICATIONS.
ALISON.
History of Europe. By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart., D.C.L.
1. From the Commencement of the French Revolution to
the Battle of Waterloo.
LIBRARY EDITION, 14 vols., with Portraits. Demy 8vo, 10, 10s.
ANOTHER EDITION, in 20 vols. crown 8vo, 6.
PEOPLE S EDITION, 13 vols. crown 8vo, 2, 11s.
2. Continuation to the Accession of Louis Napoleon.
LIBRARY EDITION, 8 vols. 8vo, 6, 7s. 6d.
PEOPLE S EDITION, 8 vols, crown Svo 34s.
Epitome of Alison s History of Europe. Thirtieth Thou
sand, 7s. 6d.
Atlas to Alison s History of Europe. By A. Keith Johnston.
LIBRARY EDITION, demy 4to, 3, 3e.
PEOPLE S EDITION, 31s. 6d.
Life of John Duke of Marlborough. With some Account of
his Contemporaries, and of the War of the Succession. Third Edition. 2 vols
8vo. Portraits and Maps, 30s.
Essays : Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous. 3 vols.
demy 8vo, 45s.
ACROSS FRANCE IN A CARAVAN : BEING SOME ACCOUNT
OF A JOURNEY FROM BORDEAUX TO GENOA IN THE ESCAROOT, " taken in the Winter
1889-90. By the Author of A Day of my Life at Eton. With fifty Illustrations
by John Wallace, after Sketches by the Author, and a Map. Cheap Edition
demy 8vo, 7s. 6d.
ACTA SANCTORUM HIBERNDE ; Ex Codice Salmanticensi.
Nunc primum integre edita opera CAROLI DE SMEDT et JOSEPHI DE BACKER, e
Soc. Jesn, Hagiographorum Bollandianorurn ; Auctore et Sumptus Largiente
JOANNE PATRICIO MARCHIONE BOTHAE. In One handsome 4to Volume, bound in
half roxburghe. 2. 2s.; in paper cover, 31s. fid.
ADAMSON. The Development of Modem Philosophy. With
other Lectures and Essays. By ROBERT ADAMSON, LL.D., late Professor of
Logic in the University of Glasgow. Edited by Professor W. R. SORLEY, Uni
versity of Cambridge. In 2 vols. demy Svo, 18s. net.
AFLALO. A Sketch of the .Natural History (Vertebrates) of
the British Islands. By F. G. AFLALO, P.R.G.S., F.Z.S., Author of A Sketch
of the Natural History of Australia, &c. With numerous Illustrations by Lodge
and Bennett. Crown Svo, 6s. net.
AIRMAN. Manures and the Principles of Manuring. By C. M.
AIRMAN, D.Sc., F.R.S.E., <fec., formerly Professor of Chemistry, Glasgow
Veterinary Onllnge, and Examiner in Chemistry, University of Glasgow, &c.
Second Impression. (Jrown ^vo, 6s. 6d.
Farmyard Manure : Its Nature, Composition, and Treatment.
Crown Svo. Is. 6d.
List of Books Published by
ALMOND. Christ the Protestant ; and other Sermons. By
HELY HUTCHINSON ALMOND, M.A. Oxon., Hon. LL.D. Glasgow ; Head-master of
Loretto School. Crown 8vo, 5s.
ANCIENT CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. Edited
by Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. Price Is. each. For List of Volt, tee p. 2.
ANNALIST. Musings without Method : A Record of 1900 and
1901. By ANNALIST. Large crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CHILD. Crown 8vo, 6s.
AYTOUN.
Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, and other Poems. By W.
EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN, D.C.L., Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres In the
University of Edinburgh. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
CHKAP EDITION. Is. Cloth, Is. 3d.
An Illustrated Edition of the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.
From designs by Sir NOEL PATON. Cheaper Edition. Small 4to, 10s. 6d.
BAKER. A Palace of Dreams, and other Verse. By ADA
BARTRICK BAKER. Crown 8vo, 5s.
BARBOUR. Thoughts from the Writings of R. W. BARBOUR.
Pott 8vo, limp leather, 2s. 6d. net.
BELLESHEIM. History of the Catholic Church of Scotland.
From the introduction of Christianity to the Present Day. By ALPHONS BEL-
LKSHKIM, D.D., Canon ol Aix-la-Chapelle. Translated, with Notes and Additions,
by D. OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B., Monk of Fort Augustus. Cheap Edition.
Complete in 4 vols. demy 8vo, with Maps. Price 21s. net.
BLACKBURN. A Burgher Quixote. By DOUGLAS BLACKBURN,
Author of Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp. In 1 vol. crown 8vo. [In the press.
BLACKIE. John Stuart Blackie : A Biography. By ANNA M.
STODDART. POPULAB EDITION. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 6s.
BLACKWOOD.
Annals of a Publishing House. William Blackwood and his
Sons ; Their Magazine and Friends. By Mrs OLIPHANT. With Four Portraits.
Third Edition. Demy 8vo. Vols. I. and II. 2, 2s.
Annals of a Publishing House. Vol. III. John Blackwood.
By his Daughter Mrs GERALD PORTER. With 2 Portraits and View of Strath-
tyrum. Demy 8vo, 21s. CHEAP EDITION. Demy 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Blackwood s Magazine, from Commencement in 1817 to
March 1901. Nos. 1 to 1025, forming 168 Volumes.
Tales from Blackwood. First Series. Price One Shilling each,
in Paper Cover. Sold separately at all Railway Bookstalls.
They may also be had bound in 12 vols., cloth, 18s. Half calf, richly gilt, 80s.
Or the 12 vols. in 6, rozburghe, 21s. Half red morocco, 28s.
Tales from Blackwood. Second Series. Complete in Twenty-
four Shilling Parts. Handsomely bound in 12 vols., cloth, 30s. In leather back,
roxburghe style, 37s. 6d. Half calf, gilt, 52s. 6d. Half morocco, 55s.
Tales from Blackwood. Third Series. Complete in Twelve
Shilling Parts. Handsomely bound in 6 vols., cloth, 15s.; and in 12 vols. cloth,
18s. The 6 vols. in roxburghe 21s. Half calf, 25s. Half morocco, 28s.
Travel, Adventure, and Sport. From Blackwood s Magazine.
Uniform with Tales from Blackwood. In Twelve Parts, each price Is. Hand
somely bound in 6 vols., cloth, 15s. And in half calf, 25s.
New Educational Series. SM separate Educational Catalogue.
William Blackivood & Sons.
BLACKWOOD.
New Uniform Series of Novels (Copyright).
Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d. each. Now ready :
WENDEEHOLMB. By P. G. Hamerton. MARMORNE. By P. Q. Hamerton.
THE STORY or MARGREDEL. By D. Storrar REATA. By E. B. Gerard.
Meldrum. BMJGAR MY NEIGHBOUR. By the Same.
Miss MARJORIBANKS. By Mrs Oliphant. THE WATERS OF HERCULES. By the Same.
THE PERPETUAL CURATE, and THE RECTOR PAIR TO SEE. By L. W. M. Lockhart
By the Same. MINK is THINE. By the Same.
SALEM CHAPEL, and THE DOCTOR S FAMILY. DOUBLES AND QUITS. By the Same.
By the Same. j ALTIORA PETO. By Laurence Oliphant.
A SENSITIVE PLANT. By B. D. Gerard. PICCADILLY. By the Same. With Illustra.
LADY LEES WIDOWHOOD. By General Sir tions.
E. B. Hamley. LADY BABY. By D. Gerard.
KATIE STEWART, and other Stories. By Mrs THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE. By Paul Gushing
Ouphant, MY TRIVIAL LIFE AND MISFORTUNE. By A
VALENTINE AND HIS BROTHER. By the Same. Plain Woman.
SONS AND DAUGHTERS. By the Same. POOR NELLIE. By the Same.
Standard Novels. Uniform in size and binding. Each
complete in one Volume.
FLORIN SERIES, Illustrated Boards. Bound in Cloth, 2s. 8d.
TOM CRINGLE S Loo. By Michael Scott. PEN OWEN. By Dean Hook
THE CRUISE OF THE MIDGE. By the Same. ADAM BLAIR. By J. G. Lockhart
CYRIL THORNTON. By Captain Hamilton, i LADY LEE S WIDOWHOOD. By General Sir E
ANNALS OF THE PARISH. By John Gait. B. Hamley.
THE PROVOST, &c. By the Same. SALEM CHAPEL. By Mrs Oliphant
SIR ANDREW WYLIB. ^y the Same. THE PERPETUAL CURATE. By the Same.
THE ENTAIL. By the Same.
Miss MOLLY. By Beatrice May Butt.
REGINALD DALTON. By J. G. Lockhart.
Miss MARJORIBANKS. By the Same.
JOHN i A Love Story. By the Same.
SHILLING SERIES, Illustrated Cover. Bound in Cloth, Is. fld.
THE RECTOR, and THE DOCTOR S FAMILY. SIR FRIKLE PUMPKIN, NIGHTS AT Mess
By Mrs Oliphant. &c.
THE LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH. By D. M. THE SUBALTERN.
LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. By G. F. Ruxton.
PENINSULAR SCENES AND SKETCHES. By VALERIUS: A Roman Story By J G
P. Hardman. Lockhart.
BLISSETT. The Most Famous Loba. By NELLIE K. BLISSETT
Author of The Wisdom of the Simple, The Concert Director &c With a
Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6s.
BON GAULTIER S BOOK OF BALLADS. Fifteenth Edi-
tion. With Illustrations by Doyle, Leech, and Crowquill. Fcap. 8vo, 5s.
BOWHILL. Questions and Answers in the Theory and Practice
of Military Topography. By Major J. H. BOWHILL. Crown 8vo, 4g. 6d net.
.Portfolio containing 34 working plans and diagrams, 3s. 6d. net.
BOYD. Our Stolen Summer. The Record of a Roundabout
Tour. By MARY STUART BOYD. With 170 Illustrations by A. S. BOYD Cheap
Edition. Large demy 8vo, 7s. Cd.
BROWN, The Forester : A Practical Treatise on the Planting
and Tending of Forest-trees and the General Management of Woodlands By
JAMB i BROWN, LL.D. Sixth Edition, Enlarged. Edited by JOHN NISBET, D (Ec ,
Author of British Forest Trees, &c. In 2 vols. royal 8vo, with 350 Illustra
tions, 42s. net.
BUCHAN. The First Things. Studies in the Embryology of
Religion and Natural Theology. By Rev. JOHN BUCHAN, John Knox Church
Glasgow. Crown Svo, 5s.
BUCHAN. The Watcher by the Threshold, and other Tales. By
JOHN BUCHAN. Second Impression. Crown Svo, 6s.
List of Books Published by
BURBIDGE.
Domestic Floriculture, Window Gardening, and Floral Decora
tions. Being Practical Directions for the Propagation, Culture, and Arrangement
of Plants and Flowers as Domestic Ornaments. By F. W. BURBIDOI. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo with numerous Illustrations, 7s. 6d.
Cultivated Plants : Their Propagation and Improvement.
Including Natural and Artificial Hybridisation, Raising from Seed Cuttings,
and Layers, Grafting and Budding, as applied to the Families and Genera in
Cultivation. Crown 8vo, with numerous Illustrations, 19a. Cd
BURKE. The Flowering of the Almond Tree, and other Poems.
By CHRISTIAX BURKS. Cheaper Edition. Pott 4to, Is net.
BURROWS. The History of the Foreign Policy of Great Britain.
By MONTAGU BURROWS, Chichele Professor of Modern History in the University
of Oxford ; Captain R.N. ; F.S.A., &c. ; "Oftlcier de I lnstraction Pablique,"
France. New Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 6s.
BURTON.
The History of Scotland : From Agricola s Invasion to the
Extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection. By JOHN HILL BURTON, D.C.L.,
Historiographer-Royal for Scotland. Cheaper Edition. In 8 vols. Crown 8vo,
3s. 6d. each.
The Book-Hunter. A New Edition, with specially designed
Title-page and Cover by JOSEPH BROWN. Printed on antique laid paper. Post
8vo, 3s. 6d.
The Scot Abroad. Uniform with The Book - Hunter. Post
8vo, 3s. 6d.
BUTE.
The Roman Breviary : Eeformed by Order of the Holy
(Ecumenical Council of Trent ; Published by Order of Pope St Pius V. ; and
Revised by Clement VIII. and Urban VIII. ; together with the Offices since
granted. Translated out of Latin into English by JOHN, MARQUESS OF BUTE,
K.T. New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. In 4 vols. crown 8vo, and in 1 vol.
crown 4to. [In the press.
The Altus of St Columba. With a Prose Paraphrase and Notes
By JOHN, MARQUESS OF BUTE, K.T. In paper cover, 2s. 6d.
Sermones, Fratris Adae, Ordinis Prsemonstratensis, &c.
Twenty-eight Discourses of Adam Scotus of Whithorn, hitherto unpublished ;
to which is added a Collection of Notes by the same, illustrative of the rule of
St Augustine. Edited, at the desire of the late MARQUESS OF BUTE, K.T., LL.D.,
&c., by WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, LL.D., F.S.A., of the British Museum, &c.
Royal 8vo, 25s. net.
BUTE, MACPHAIL, AND LONSDALE. The Arms of the
Royal and Parliamentary Burghs ol Scotland. By JOHN, MARQUESS OF BUTE,
K.T., J. R. N. MACPHAIL, and H. W. LONSDALE. With 131 Engravings on
wood, and 11 other Illustrations. Crown 4to. 2, 2s. net.
BUTE, STEVENSON, AND LONSDALE. The Arms of the
Baronial and Police Burghs of Scotland. By JOHN, MARQUESS OF BUTE, K.T.,
J. H. STEVENSON, and H. W. LONSDALE. With numerous Illustrations. Crown
4to, 2, 2s. net.
BUTLER. The Ancient Church and Parish of Abernethy,
Perthshire. An Historical Study. By Rev. D. BUTLER, M.A., Minister of the
Parish. With 13 Collotype Plates and a Map. Crown 4to, 25s. net.
William Blackwood & Sons.
BUTT
Theatricals : An Interlude. By BEATRICE MAY BUTT. Crown
8vo, 6s.
Miss Molly. Cheap Edition, 2s.
Eugenie. Crown 8vo, 6s. 6d.
Elizabeth, and other Sketches. Crown 8vo, 6s.
Delicia. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
CADELL. Sir John Cope and the Rebellion of 1745. By the
late General Sir ROBERT CADELL, K.C.B., Royal (Madras) Artillery. With 2
Maps. Crown 4to, 12s. 6d. net.
CAFFYN. Seventy-One not Out, the Reminiscences of William
Caffyn, Member of the All England and United Elevens, of the Surrey County
Eleven, of the Anglo-American Team of 1859, and of the Anglo-Australian Teams
of 1861 and 1863. Edited by "Mid- On." With numerous Illustrations.
Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.
CAIRD. Sermons. By JOHN CAIRO, D.D., Principal of the
University of Glasgow. Seventeenth Thousand. Fcap. 8vo, 5s.
CALDWELL. Schopenhauer s System in its Philosophical Sig
nificance (the Shaw Fellowship Lectures, 1893). By WILLIAM CALDWELL, M.A.,
D.Sc., Professor of Moral and Social Philosophy, Northwestern University,
U.S.A. ; formerly Assistant to the Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Edin.,
and Examiner in Philosophy in the University of St Andrews. Demy 8vo,
10s. 6d. net.
CALLWELL.
The Effect of Maritime Command on Land Campaigns since
Waterloo. By Lt.-Col. C. E. CALLWELL, R.G.A. With Plans. Post 8vo, 6s. net.
Tactics of To-day. Fifth Impression. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net.
CAMPBELL. Balmerino and its Abbey. A Parish History,
With Notices of the Adjacent District. By JAMES CAMPBELL, D.D., F.S.A. Scot.,
Minister of Balmerino ; Author of A History of the Celtic Church in Scotland.
A New Edition. With an Appendix of Illustrative Documents, a Map of the
Parish, and upwards of 40 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 30s. net.
CAREY. Monsieur Martin : A Romance of the Great Northern
War. By WYMGNL> CAREY. Crown 8vo. 6s.
CARLYLE. A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the
West. By R. W. CARLYLR, C.I.E., Balliol College, Oxford ; and A. J. CARLYLE,
M A Chaplain and Lecturer (late Fellow) of University College, Oxford. In 3
vols demy Svo. Vol. I. A History of Political Theory from the Roman Lawyers
of the Second Century to the Political Writers of the Ninth. By A. J. CARLYLB.
[In the press.
CHARTERIS. Canonicity ; or, Early Testimonies to the Exist
ence and Use of the Books of the New Testament. Based on Kirchhoffer g
Quellensammlung. Edited by A. H. CHARTERIS, D.D., Professor of Biblical
Criticism in the University of Edinburgh. 8vo, 18s.
CHESNEY. The Dilemma. By General Sir GEORGE CHESNEY,
K.C.B. A New Edition. Crown Svo, 2s.
CHURCH AND FAITH. Being Essays on the Teaching of the
Church of England. By Dr WAGE, Dean FARRAR, Dr WRIGHT, Rev. RE.
BARTLETT, Principal DRURY, Canon MEYRICK, Professor MOULE, Chancellor
SMITH, MONTAGUE BARLOW, Sir RICHARD TEMPLE, Bart., E. H. BLAKENEY, and
J. T. TOMLINSON. With Introduction by the LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD. Second
Edition. Post Svo, 7s. 6d. net.
List of Books Published by
CHURCH SERVICE SOCIETY.
A Book of Common Order : being Forms of Worship issued
by the Church Service Society. Seventh Edition, carefully revised. In 1 vol.
crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. ; French morocco, 5s. Also in 2 vols. crown 8vo,
clcth, 4s. ; French morocco, 6s. 6d.
Daily Offices for Morning and Evening Prayer throughout
the Week. Crown 8vo, Ss. 6d.
Order of Divine Service for Children. Issued by the Church
Service Society. With Scottish Hymnal. Cloth, 3d.
CLIFFORD. Bush-Whacking, and other Sketches. By HUGH
CLIFFORD, C.M.G., Author of In Court and Kampong, Studies in Brown
Humanity, &c. Second Impression. Crown 8vo, 6s
CLODD. Thomas Henry Huxley. " Modern English Writers."
By EDWAED CLODD. Crowu 8vo, 2s. 6d.
CLOUSTON.
The Lunatic at Large. By J. STOKER CLOUSTON. Fourth
Impression. Crown 8vo 6s. PEOPLE S EDITION, royal 8vo, 6d.
The Adventures of M. D Haricot. Second Impression. Crown
Svo, 6s.
COLLINS.
A Scholar of his College. By W. E. W. COLLINS. Crown
8vo, 6s.
The Don and the Undergraduate. A Tale of St Hilary s
College, Oxford. Second Impression. Crown Svo, 6s.
Episodes of Rural Life. Crown Svo, 6s.
CONDER.
The Bible and the East. By Lieut. -Col. C. R. CONDER,
R.E., LL.D., D.C.L., M.R.A.8., Author of Tent Work in Palestine, Ac. With
Illustrations and a Map. Crown Svo, 5s.
The Hittites and their Language. With Illustrations and
Map. Post Svo, 7s. fid.
The Hebrew Tragedy. Crown Svo, 3s.
The First Bible. Crown Svo, 5s.
CONRAD.
Lord Jim. A Tale. By JOSEPH CONRAD, Author of The
Nigger of the Narcissus, An Outcast of the Islands, Tales of Unrest, &c.
Second Impression. Crown Svo, 6s.
Youth : A Narrative ; and Two other Stories. Second Im
pression. Crown Svo, 6s.
CONSTABLE. Marrables Magnificent Idea. By F. C. CON
STABLE, Author of The Curse of Intellect, &c. Crown Svo, 6s.
COOPER. Liturgy of 1637, commonly called Laud s Liturgy.
Edited by the Rev. Professor COOPER, D.D Glasgow. In 1 vol. crown Svo.
[In the press.
CORNFORD. R. L. Stevenson. "Modern English Writers."
By L. COPE CORNFORD. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 2s. 6d.
COUNTY HISTORIES OF SCOTLAND. In demy Svo vol-
nmes of about 350 pp. each. With Maps. Price7s.6d.net.
Prehistoric Scotland and its Place in European Civilisation.
Being a General Introduction to the "County Histories of Scotland." By
ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D., Author of Prehistoric Problems, The Lake-
Dwellings of Europe, &c. With numerous Illustrations.
William Blackwood & Sons.
COUNTY HISTORIES OF SCOTLAND.
Fife and Kinross. By ^NEAS J. G. MACKAY, LL.D., Sheriff
of these Counties.
Dumfries and Galloway. By Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart.,
M.P. Second Edition.
Moray and Nairn. By CHARLES RAMPINI, LL.D., Sheriff
of Dumfries and Galloway.
Inverness. By J. CAMERON LEES, D.D.
Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS,
Bart.
Aberdeen and Banff. By WILLIAM WATT, Editor of Aberdeen
Daily Free Press.
Perth and Clackmannan. By JOHN CHISHOLM, M.A., Advocate.
L/n the press.
Edinburgh and Linlithgow. By WILLIAM KIRK DICKSON,
Advocate. [In the press.
CRAIK. A Century of Scottish History. From the Days before
the 45 to those within living Memory. By Sir HENRY CRAIK, K.C.B., M.A.
(Oxon.), Hon. LL.D. (Glasgow). 2 vols. demy 8vo, 30s. net.
CRAWFORD. Saracinesca. By F. MARION CRAWFORD, Author
of Mr Isaacs, 1 &c., &C. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. People s Edition, 6d.
CRAWFORD.
The Doctrine of Holy Scripture respecting the Atonement.
By the late THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., Professor ol Divinity in the University
of Edinburgh. Fifth Edition. 8vo, 12s.
The Fatherhood of God, Considered in its General and Special
Aspects. Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 8vo, 9s.
The Preaching of the Cross, and other Sermons. 8vo, 7s. 6d.
The Mysteries of Christianity. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
CUSHING. The Blacksmith of Voe. By PAUL CUSHING, Author
of The Bull i th Thorn, Cut with his own Diamond. Cheap Edition. Crown
8vo, 3s. 6d.
DAVIES. Norfolk Broads and Rivers; or, The Waterways,
Lagoons, and Decoys of East Anglia. By G. CHRISTOPHER DA VIES. Illustrated
with Seven full-page Plates New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.
DESCARTES. The Method, Meditations, and Principles of Philo
sophy of Descartes. Translated from the Original French and Latin. With a
New Introductory Essay, Historical and Critical, on the Cartesian Philosophy.
By Professor VEITCH, LL.D., Glasgow University. Eleventh Edition. 6s. 6d.
DICKSON. Life of Major-General Sir Robert Murdoch Smith,
K.C.M.G., Royal Engineers. By his Son-in-law, WILLIAM KIRK DICKSON. With
Portraits and other Illustrations. Demy Svo, 15s. net.
DOUGLAS.
The Ethics of John Stuart Mill. By CHARLES DOUGLAS,
M.A., D.Sc., M.P., late Lecturer in Moral Philosophy, and Assistant to the Pro
fessor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Post Svo, 6s. net.
John Stuart Mill : A Study of his Philosophy. Crown Svo,
is. 6d. net.
io List of Books Published by
ELIOT.
George Eliot s Life, Related in Her Letters and Journals.
Arranged and Edited by her husband, J. W. CROSS. With Portrait and other
Illustrations. Third Edition. 3 vols. post 8vo, 12s.
George Eliot s Life. With Portrait and other Illustrations.
New Edition, in one volume. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Works of George Eliot (Library Edition). 10 volumes, small
demy 8vo. With Photogravure Frontispieces, from Drawings by William
Hatherell, R.I., Edgar Bundy, R.I., Byam Shaw, R.I., A. A. Van Anrooy, Maurice
Greiffenhagen, Claude A. Shepperson, R.I., E. J. Sullivan, and Max Cowper.
Gilt top, 10s. 6d. net each volume.
ADAM BEDE.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ROMOLA.
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.
SILAS MARNER ; BROTHER JACOB ;
THE LIFTED VEIL.
FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL.
MlDDLKMARCH.
DANIEL DERONDA.
THE SPANISH GYPSY ; JUBAL.
ESSAYS ; THEOPHRASTUS SUCH.
Life and Works of George Eliot (Warwick Edition). 14 vol
umes, cloth, limp, gilt top, 2s. net per volume ; leather, limp, gilt top, 2s. 6d. net
per volume ; leather, gilt top, with book-marker, 3s. net per volume.
ADAM BEDE. 826 pp.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. 828 pp.
FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. 718 pp.
ROMOLA. 900 pp.
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. 624 pp.
SILAS MARNER; BROTHER JACOB; THE
LIFTED VEIL. 560 pp.
MIDDLEMARCH. 2 vols. 664 and 630 pp.
DANIEL DERONDA. 2 vols. 616 and
636 pp.
THE SPANISH GYPSY ; JUBAL.
ESSAYS; THEOPHRASTUS SUCH.
LIFE. 2 vols., 626 and 580 pp.
Works of George Eliot (Standard Edition). 21 volumes,
crown 8vo. In buckram cloth, gilt top, 2s. 6d. per vol. ; or In rozburghe
binding, 3s. 6d. per vol.
ADAM BEDE. 2 vols. TH MILL ON THE FLOSS. 2 vols. FELIX HOLT, THE
RADICAL. 2 vols. ROMOLA. 2 vols. SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. 2 vols.
MIDDLEMARCH. 3 vols. DANIEL DERONDA. 3 vols. SILAS MARNER. 1 vol.
JUBAL. 1 vol. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 1 vol. ESSAYS. 1 vol. THEOPHRAS-
TUB SUCH. 1 vol.
Life and Works of George Eliot (Cabinet Edition). 24
volumes, crown 8vo, price 6. Also to be had handsomely bound in half and full
calf. The Volumes are sold separately, bound in cloth, price 5s. each.
Novels by George Eliot. Popular Copyright Edition. In new
uniform binding, price 3s. 6d. each.
ADAM BEDE.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.
ROMOLA.
SILAS MARNER ; THE LIFTED VEIL ;
BROTHER JACOB.
MIDDLEMARCH.
DANIEL DERONDA.
FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL.
Essays. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Impressions of Theophrastus Such. New Edition. Crown
8vo, 58.
The Spanish Gypsy. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
The Legend of Jubal, and other Poems, Old and New.
New Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Silas Marner. New Edition, with Illustrations by Reginald
Birch. Crown 8vo, 6s. People s Edition, royal Svo, paper cover, price 6d.
William Blackwood & Sons. n
ELIOT.
Scenes of Clerical Life. Pocket Edition, 3 vols. pott 8vo,
Is. net each ; bound in leather, Is. 6d. net each. Illustrated Edition, with 20
Illustrations by H. R. Millar, crown 8vo, 2s. ; paper covers, Is. People s Edi
tion, royal 8vo, in paper cover, price 6d,
Adam Bede. Pocket Edition. In 3 vols. pott 8vo, 3s. net ;
bound in leather, 4s. 6d. net. People s Edition, royal 8vo, in paper cover,
price 6d. New Edition, crown Svo, paper cover, Is.; crown Svo, with Illus
trations, cloth, 2s.
The Mill on the Floss. Pocket Edition, 2 vols. pott Svo,
cloth, 3s. net ; limp leather, 4s. 6d. net. People s Edition, royal Svo, in paper
cover, price (3d. New Edition, paper covers, Is. ; cloth, 2s.
flomola. People s Edition. Eoyal 8vo, in paper cover, price 6d.
Silas Marner ; Brother Jacob ; Lifted Veil. Pocket Edition.
Pott Svo, cloth, Is. Od. net ; limp leather, 2s. yd. net.
Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings, in Prose and Verse. Selected
from the Works of GEORGE ELIOT. New Edition. Fcap. Svo, 3s. 6d.
ELTON. The Augustan Ages. " Periods of European Litera
ture." By OLIVER ELTON, B.A., Lecturer in English Literature, Owen s College,
Manchester. Crown Svo, 5s. net.
FAHIE. A History of Wireless Telegraphy. Including some
Bare-wire Proposals for Subaqueous Telegraphs. By J. J. FAHIE, Member of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers, London, and of the Societe Internationale
des Electriciens, Paris; Author of A History of Electric Telegraphy to the
Year 1837, &c. With Illustrations. Third Edition, Revised. Crown Svo, 6s.
FAITHS OF THE WOULD, The. A Concise History of the
Great Religious Systems of the World. By various Authors. Crown Svo, 5s.
FERGUSSON. Scots Poems. By ROBERT FERGUSSON. With
Photogravure Portrait. Pott Svo, gilt top, bound in cloth, Is. net; leather,
Is. Cd. net
FERRIER.
Philosophical Works of the late James F. Ferner, B.A.
Oxon., Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy, St Andrews.
New Edition. Edited by Sir ALEXANDER GRANT, Bart., D.C.L., and Professor
LUSHINGTON. 3 vols. crown Svo, 34s. 6d.
Institutes of Metaphysic. Third Edition. 10s. 6d.
Lectures on the Early Greek Philosophy. 4th Edition. 10s. 6d.
Philosophical Remains, including the Lectures on Early
Greek Philosophy. New Edition. 2 vols. 24s
FLINT.
Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium and
Switzerland By ROBERT FLINT, Corresponding Member of the Institute of
France, Hon. Member of the Royal Society ot Palermo, Professor in the Univer
sity of Edinburgh. &c. Svo, 21s.
Agnosticism. Demy Svo, 18s. net.
Theism. Being the Baird Lecture for 1876. Tenth Edition,
Revised. Crown Svo, 7s. 6d.
Anti-Theistic Theories. Being the Baird Lecture for 1877.
Fifth Edition. Crown Svo, 10s. 6d.
Sermons and Addresses. Demy Svo, 7s. 6d.
FORD.
Postle Farm. By GEORGE FORD. Crown Svo, 6s.
The Larramys. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
12 List of Books Published by
FOKD. A History of Cambridge University Cricket Club. By
W. J. FORD, Author of A History of Middlesex County Cricket, &c. With
Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 15s. net.
FOREIGN CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. Edited
by Mrs OLIPHANT. Price Is. each, for List of Volumes, see page 2.
FORREST. Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts. By G.
W. FORREST, C.I.E., Ex-Director of Records, Government of India. With Por
traits. Crown 8vo, 6s.
FRANKLIN. My Brilliant Career. By MILKS FRANKLIN.
Fourth Impression. Crown Svo, 6s.
FRASER. Philosophy of Theism. Being the Gifford Lectures
delivered before the University of Edinburgh in 1894-96. By ALEXANDER
CAMPBELL FRASER, D.C.L. Oxford; Emeritus Professor of Logic and Meta
physics in the University of Edinburgh. Second Edition, Revised. Post Svo
6s. 6d. net.
FRENCH COOKERY FOR ENGLISH HOMES. Third Im
pression. Crown 8vo, limp cloth, 2s. 6d. Also in limp leather, 3s.
GALT. Novels by JOHN GALT. With General Introduction and
Prefatory Notes by 8. R. CROCKETT. The Text Revised and Edited by D.
STORRAR MELDRUM, Author of The Story of MargredeL With Photogravure
Illustrations from Drawings by John Wallace. Fcap. Svo, 8s. net each vol.
ANNALS OF THE PARISH, and THE AYRSHIRE LEGATEES. 2 vola. SIR ANDREW
WTLIE. 2 vols. THE ENTAIL ; or, The Lairds of Grippy. 2 vols THE PRO
VOST, and THE LAST OF THE LAIRDS. 2 vols.
S also STANDARD NOVELS, p. 5.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
Scottish Hymnal, With Appendix Incorporated. Published
for use in Churches by Authority of the General Assembly. 1. Large type,
cloth, red edges, 2s. 6d.; French morocco, 4s. 2. Bourgeois type, limp cloth, ls.|
French morocco, 2s. 3. Nonpareil type, cloth, red edges, 6d. ; French morocco,
Is. 4d. 4. Paper covers, 3d. 5. Sunday-School Edition, paper covers, Id.,
Cloth, 2d. No. 1, bound with the Psalms and Paraphrases, French morocco, 8s.
Nc. 2, bound with the Psalms and Parapnrases, cloth, 2s. J French morocco, 3s
Prayers for Social and Family Worship. Prepared by a
Special Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Entirely
New Edition. Revised and Enlarged. Fcap. Svo, red edges, 2s.
Prayers for Family Worship. A Selection of Four Weeks
Prayers. New Edition. Authorised by the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland. Fcap. Svo, red edges, Is. 6d.
One Hundred Prayers. Prepared by the Committee on Aids
to Devotion. 16mo, cloth limp, 6d.
Morning and Evening Prayers for Affixing to Bibles. Prepared
by the Committee on Aids to Devotion. Id. for 6, or Is. per 100.
Prayers for Soldiers and Sailors. Prepared by the Committee
on Aids to Dnvotion. Thirtifit-h Thousand 16mo. cloth limp. 2d net
Prayers for Sailors and Fisher-Folk. Prepared and Published
by Instruction of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In 1 vol
fca P- 8vo - [In tne press.
GERARD.
Reata: What s in a Name. By E. D. GKRAKD. Cheap
Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Beggar my Neighbour. Cheap Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
The Waters of Hercules. Cheap Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
A Sensitive Plant. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
William Blackwood & Sons, 13
GERARD.
The Extermination of Love : A Fragmentary Study in Erotics.
By E. GERARD (Madame de Laszowska). Crown 8vo, 6s.
A Foreigner. An Anglo-German Study. Crown 8vo, 6s.
The Land beyond the Forest. Facts, Figures, and Fancies
from Transylvania. With Maps and Illustrations 2 vols. post 8vo, 25s.
Bis : Some Tales Retold. Crown 8vo, 6s.
A Secret Mission. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 17s.
An Electric Shock, and other Stories. Crown 8vo, 6s.
GERARD.
One Year. By DOROTHEA GERARD (Madame Longard de
Longgarde). Crown Svo, 6s.
The Impediment. Crown Svo, 6s.
A Forgotten Sin. Crown Svo, 6s.
A Spotless Reputation. Third Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
The Wrong Man, Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
Lady Baby. Cheap Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Recha. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
The Rich Miss Riddell. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
GOODALL. Association Football. By JOHN GOODALL. Edited
by 8. ARCHIBALD DE BEAR. With Diagrams. Pcap. Svo, Is.
GORDON CUMMING.
At Home in Fiji. By C. F. GORDON GUMMING. Cheap
Edition, post Svo. With Illustrations. 6s.
A Lady s Cruise in a French Man-of-War. Cheap Edition.
Svo. With Illustrations and Map. 6s.
Wanderings in China. Cheap Edition. Svo, with Illustra
tions, 6s.
Granite Crags : The Yo-semit^ Region of California. Illus
trated with 8 Engravings. Cheap Edition. Svo. 6s.
Fire- Fountains. The Kingdom of Hawaii : Its Volcanoes,
and the History of its Missions. With Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Svo, 25s.
GRAHAM.
Manual of the Elections (Scot.) (Corrupt and Illegal Practices)
Act, 1890. With Analysis, Relative Act of Sederunt, Appendix coiifcaining the
Corrupt Practices Acts of 1883 and 1885, and Copious Index. By J. EDWARD
GRAHAM, Advocate. Svo, 4s. 6d.
A Manual of the Acts relating to Education in Scotland.
(Founded on that of the late Mr Craig Sellar.) Demy Svo, ISs.
GRAND.
A Domestic Experiment. By SARAH GRAND, Author of
1 The Heavenly Twins, Ideala : A Study from Life. Crown Svo, fin.
Singularly Deluded. Crown Svo, 6a.
GRAY. Old Creeds and New Beliefs. By W. H. GRAY, D.D.,
Edinburgh. Crown Svo, 5s.
GREEN. The End of an Epoch. Being the Personal Narrative
of Adam Godwin, the Survivor. By A. LINCOLN GREEN. Crown Svo, 6s.
14 List of Books Published by
GRIER.
In Furthest Ind. The Narrative of Mr-EDWABD CABLYON of
Ellswether, in the County of Northampton, and late of the Honourable Bast India
Company s Service, Gentleman. Wrote by his own hand in the year of grace 1697.
Edited, with a few Explanatory Notes, by SYDNEY 0. GRIER. Post 8vo, 6s.
Cheap Edition, 2s.
His Excellency s English Governess. Third Edition. Crown
8vo, 6s. Cheap Edition, 2s. People s Edition, royal Svo, paper cover, 6d.
An Uncrowned King : A Romance of High Politics. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. Cheap Edition, 2s.
Peace with Honour. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s. Cheap
Edition, 2s.
A Crowned Queen: The Romance of a Minister of State.
Second Impression. Crown 8vo, 6s. Cheap Edition, 2s.
Like Another Helen. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s. Cheap
Edition, 2s.
The Kings of the East : A Romance of the near Future.
Second Impression. Crown Svo, 6s. Cheap Edition, 2s.
The Warden of the Marches. Second Impression. Crown
8vo, 6s. Cheap Edition, 2s.
The Prince of the Captivity. Crown Svo, 6s.
The Advanced-Guard. Crown Svo, 6s.
HALDANE. How we Escaped from Pretoria. By Captain
AYLMER HALDANE, D.S.O., 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders. New Edition,
revised and enlarged. With numerous Illustrations, Plans, and Map. Crown
Svo, 5s.
HALIBTJRTON. Horace in Homespun. By HUGH HALIBURTON.
A New Edition, containing additional Poems. With 26 Illustrations by A. 8.
Boyd. Post Svo, 6s. net.
HAMERTON.
Wenderholme : A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire Life.
By P. G. HAMERTON, Author of A Painter s Camp. New Edition. Crown
Svo, 3s. (id.
Marmorne. New Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
HAMILTON.
Lectures on Metaphysics. By Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON,
Bart., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh.
Edited by the Rev. H. L. MANSEL, B.D., LL.D., Dean of St Paul s; and JOHN
VEITCH, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Logic and Rhetoric, Glasgow. Seventh
Edition. 2 vols. Svo, 24s.
Lectures on Logic. Edited by the SAMK. Third Edition,
Revised. 2 vols., 24s.
Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and
University Reform. Third Edition. Svo, 21s.
HAMLEY.
The Operations of War Explained and Illustrated. By
General Sir EDWARD BRUCE HAMLEY, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. Second Edition of
Fifth Edition. With Maps and Plans. 4to, 30s. Also in 2 parts: Part I.,
10s. 6d. ; Part II., 21s.
National Defence ; Articles and Speeches. Cheap Edition.
Post 8vo, 2s. 6d.
Shakespeare s Funeral, and other Papers. Post Svo, 7s. 6d.
Thomas Carlyle : An Essay. Second Edition. Crown Svo,
2s. 6d.
William Blackwood & Sons. 15
HAMLEY.
On Outposts. Second Edition. 8vo, 2s.
Wellington s Career ; A Military and Political Summary.
Crown 8vo, 2s.
Lady Lee s Widowhood. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 2s.
Our Poor Relations. A Philozoic Essay. With Illustrations,
chiefly by Ernest Qriset. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
HANNAY. The Later Renaissance. Periods of European
Literature. 1 By DAVID HANNAY. Crown Svo, 5s. net.
HARRADEN.
Ships that Pass in the Night. By BEATRICE HARRADEN.
Illustrated Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
The Fowler. Illustrated Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
In Varying Moods : Short Stories. Illustrated Edition.
Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Hilda Strafford, and The Remittance Man. Two Californian
Stories. Illustrated Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Untold Tales of the Past. With 40 Illustrations by H. R. Millar.
Square crown 8vo, gilt top, 6s.
HARRIS.
From Batuni to Baghdad, vid Tiflis, Tabriz, and Persian
Kurdistan. By WALTER B. HARRIS, F.R.G.S., Author of "The Land of an
African Sultan; Travels in Morocco, &C. With numerous Illustrations and 2
Maps. Demy Svo, 12s.
Tafilet. The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration to the
Atlas Mountains and the Oases of the North-West Sahara. With Illustrations
by Maurice Romberg from Sketches and Photographs by the Author, and Two
Maps. Demy 8vo, 12s.
A Journey through the Yemen, and some General Remarks
upon that Country. With 3 Maps and numerous Illustrations by Forestier and
Wallace from Sketches and Photographs taken by the Author Demy Svo, 16s.
HARTLEY. Wild Sport with Gun, Rifle, and Salmon-Rod. By
GILFRID W. HARTLEY. With numerous Illustrations by G. E. LODGE, and other
Sketches. Demy Svo. [/ the press.
HAY. The Works of the Right Rev. Dr George Hay, Bishop of
Edinburgh. Edited under the Supervision of the Right Rev. Bishop STRAIN.
With Memoir and Portrait of the Author. 5 vols. crown 8vo, bound in extra
cloth, 1, Is. The following Volumes may be had separately viz. :
The Devout Christian Instructed in the Law of Christ from the Written
Word. 2 vols., 8s. The Pious Christian Instructed in the Nature and Practice
of the Prinnipal Kxerpiaes of Piety 1 vol.. 3s
HAY-NEWTON. Readings on the Evolution of Religion. By
Mrs F. HAY-NEWTOX. Crown Svo, 5s.
HEMANS.
The Poetical Works of Mrs Hemans. Copyright Edition.
Royal Svo, with Engravings, cloth, gilt edges, 7s. 6d.
Select Poems of Mrs Hemans. Fcap., cloth, gilt edges, 3s
HENDERSON. The Young Estate Manager s Guide. By
RICHARD HENDERSON, Member (by Examination) of the Royal Agricultural
Society of England, the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and
the Surveyors Institution. With an Introduction by R. Patrick Wright,
F.R.S.E., Professor of Agriculture, Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical
College. With Plans and Diagrams. Crown Svo, 5s.
HENDERSON. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. By Sir
WALTER SCOTT. A New Edition. Edited by T. F. Henderson, Author of A
History of Scottish Vernacular Literature. 1 With a New Portrait of Sir Walter
Scott. In 4 vols., demy Svo, 2, 2s. net.
1 6 List of Books Published by
HENSMAN. A History of Rhodesia. Compiled from Official
Sources. By HOWARD HENSMAN. With a Map. Crown 8vo, 6s.
HEWISON. The Isle of Bute in the Olden Time. With Illus
trations, Maps, and Plans. By JAMES KINO HEWISON, M.A., F.8.A. (Scot.),
Minister of Bothesay. Vol. I., Celtic Saints and Heroes. Crown 4to, 15s. net.
Vol. II., The Royal Stewards and the Brandanes. Crown 4to, 15s. net.
HILLS. Points of a Racehorse. By Major-General Sir JOHN
HILLS, R.E., K.C.B. With over 100 half-tone Portraits of 92 famous Racehorses,
and other Illustrations. Royal folio. [In the press.
HOME PRAYERS. By Ministers of the Church of Scotland
and Members of the Church Service Society. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 3s.
HUEFFER. The Cinque Ports. A Historical and Descriptive
Record. By P. MADOX HUEFKER. With Fourteen Photogravure Plates and
Nineteen Page and Text Illustrations from Drawings by WILLIAM HYDE. Hand
somely bound in art canvas, gilt top, with special design in gold on side board by
Mr Hyde. Royal 4to, 3, 3s. net.
HUNT. A Handy Vocabulary : English-Afrikander, Afrikander-
English. For the Use of English-speaking People in South Africa. By G. M. G.
HUNT. Small 8vo, Is.
HUTCHINSON. Hints on the Game of Golf. By HORACE G.
HDTCHINSON. Eleventh Edition, Enlarged. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, Is.
HUTTON.
Frederic Uvedale. By EDWARD HUTTON. Crown 8vo, 6s.
Italy and the Italians. With Illustrations. Second Edition.
Large crown 8vo, 6s.
IDDESLEIGH. Life, Letters, and Diaries of Sir Stafford North-
cote, First Earl of Iddesleigh. By ANDREW LANG. With Throe Portraits and a
View of Pynes. Third Edition. 2 vols. post 8vo, 31s. 6d.
POPULAR EDITION. With Portrait and View of Pynes. Post 8vo, 7s. 6d.
INNES. The Law of Creeds in Scotland. A Treatise on the
Relations of Churches in Scotland, Established and not Established, to the Civil
Law. By A. TAYLOR INNES, Advocate. Demy 8vo, 10s. net.
INTELLIGENCE OFFICER. On the Heels of De Wet. By
THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER. Sixth Impression. Crown 8vo, 6s. People s
Edition, royal 8vo, paper coyer, 6d.
IRONS. The Psychology of Ethics. By DAVID IRONS, M.A.,
Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy in Bryn Mawr College, Penn. Crown 8vo, 5s.
net.
JAMES. William Wetmore Story and his Friends. From
Letters, Diaries, and Recollections. By HENRY JAMES. With Portrait. In one
vol. demy 8vo. [In the press.
JAMES. Modern Strategy. By Lieut.-Col. WALTER H. JAMES,
P.S.C., late R.E. With 6 Maps. Royal 8vo, 16s. net.
JOHNSTON.
The Chemistry of Common Life. By Professor J. F. W.
JOHNSTON. New Edition, Revised. By ARTHUR HERBERT CHURCH, M.A. Oxon.;
Author of Food : its Sources, Constituents, and Uses, &c. With Maps and 102
Engravings. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Elements of Agricultural Chemistry. An entirely New
Edition from the Edition by Sir CHARLES A. CAMERON, M.D., F.R.C.S.I., &c.
Revised and brought down to date by C. M. AIKMAN, M.A., B.Se., F.R.S.E.,
Professor of Chemistry, Glasgow Veterinary College. 17th Edition. Grown 8vo,
fin. 6d.
William Blackwood & Sons. 17
JOHNSTON.
Catechism of Agricultural Chemistry. An entirely New Fcli-
bvVTA 1 " 3 Edit M n A by * Sil ? HA , B ES A " CAMER N - Revised and Enlarged
Crown ^votl* * Thousand. With numerous Illustrations.
J H ^?J ON H\>, Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Acts, 1883 to
1900 .and the Ground Game Act, 1880. With Notes, and Summary of Procedure
Svo, 6s nrt HRIST PHKB JOHNSTON, M.A., Advocate. Fifth Edition. Demy
JOKAI Timar s Two Worlds. By MAURUS JOKAI. Authorised
Translation by Mrs HEQAN KENNARD. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo 6s.
KENNEDY Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor ! Fifty Years in the
Koyal fray By Admiral Sir WILLIAM KENNEDY, K.C.B., Author of Sport
from SkrtPh^ T fh re f H ewfou ^ f I 1 and the West ludies With Illustrations
Horn Sketches by the Author. Fifth Impression. Demy 8vo l ?s 6d
CHEAPER EDITION, small demy Svo, Gs.
KER. The Dark Ages. " Periods of European Literature." By
Professor V . P. KER. In 1 vol. crown Svo. [Itl the p ^/ s
KERR Memories: Grave and Gay. Forty Years of School
ClKrm- y T K R ;-, LL - D - Wfth Portrait and other Illustrations
KINGL AKF [/?i "" pre>s
Hi w^ y r f } he , I ^ sion of the Crimea. By A. W. KINGLAKE.
Sue at 3?6d Pl8te W rk Complote in 9 vols " crown 8 - Ci.eap
Abridged Edition for Military Students. Revised bv
Lieut.-Col Sir GEORGE SYDENHAM CLAKKE, K.C.M.G., R.E. Demy 8vo, 15s. net.
- Atlas to accompany above. Folio, 9s. net.
History of the Invasion of the Crimea. Demy Svo Vo 1 VI
n Vols VI1 - and VIIL F rom the Morrow or
,^ Editi o n ^ uniform with the Cabinet Edition
of the History of tne Invasion of the Crimea. 6s
CHEAPKR EDITION. With Portrait and Biographical Sketch ol the Author
D 38 P Palar Editlon in P a P er cover, Is. net
KNEIPP. My Water -Cure. As Tested through more than
Hoa?/h Y T\ and D6SCri ^ d f r the Healin S of Diseasos *^* Reservation o^
liV ? y H ? STI K ;- TE1PP Parish Priest of Worishofen (Bavaria). With a
"ti,?? other Illustrations. Authorised English Translation trom the
et . h , Ge T rman E d t.on, by A. de F. Cheap Edition. With an Append^ con
of Pfarrer Kneipp a System> and
LANG.
A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation Bv
^nr^n. V &i 8^5 S^ Frontispiece a^nd Four Mapl
\ol. II. With Photogravure Frontispiece. 15s. net
lennyson. "Modern English Writers." 2nd Ed. Cr.8vo,2s6d
& , f^ er ? . ? nd Diaries of Sir Stattord Northcote, First
e8
vols P ost8vo 3is. 8 6W f
rru TTui j N -o, With Portrait and Vi ew of Pynes. Post Svo, 7s. 6d
fntS 1 ! ^ 8 ^SStfte 1 * in 1750 From Manuscript 104
Crown S^^ Mu8e ^ m - With an Introduction by ANDREW LANG.
Crown Svo, 5s. net.
B
1 8 List of Books Published by
The Expansion of the Christian Life. The Duff Lecture
for 1897. By the Rev. J. MARSHALL LAND, D.D. Crown Svo. 5s.
The Church and its Social Mission. Being the Baird Lecture
for 1001. Crown Svo, 6s. net.
LAWSON. .
The Country I Come From. By HENRY LAWSON, Author ot
While the Billy Boils, <fec. Crown Svo, 6s.
Joe Wilson and his Mates. Crown Svo, 6s.
LAWSON. American Industrial Problems. By W. R, LAWSON,
Author of Spain of To-day. Crown Svo, 6s. net.
LEES. A Handbook of the Sheriff and Justice of Peace Small
Debt Courts. With Notes, References, and Forms. By J. M. LKES, Advocate,
Sheriff of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Clackmannan. Svo, 7s. 6d.
LEIGHTON. The Life History of British Serpents, and their
Local Distribution in the British Isles. By GERALD R. LEIGHTON, MD. (Thesis
on "The Reptilia of the Monnow Valley," Edin. Univ 1901) Fellow of the
Society of Science, Letters, and Art, London. With 50 Illustrations. Crown
Svo, 5s. net.
LEISHMAN. The Westminster Directory. Edited, with an Intro
duction and Notes, by the Very Rev. T. LEISHMAN, D.D. Crown Svo, 4s. net.
LEYDEN. Journal of a Tour in the Highlands and Western
Islands of Scotland in 1800. By JOHN LEYDEN. Edited, with a Bibliography, by
JAMES SINTON. Crown Svo, 6s. net.
LINDSAY. ,,
Recent Advances in Theistic Philosophy of Religion. By Rev.
JAMES LINDSAY, M.A., B.D., B.Sc., F.R.S.E., F.Q.S., Minister of the Parish of
St Andrew s, Kilmarnock. Demy8vo.12s.6d.net.
The Progressiveness of Modern Christian Thought. Cro
EssayV Literary and Philosophical. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
The Significance of the Old Testament for Modern Theology.
The r Teaching n Function of the Modern Pulpit. Crown Svo,
Is. net
" LINESMAN "
Words bv an Eyewitness : The Struggle in Natal. By "LINES
MAN "Eleventh impression, with Three Additional Chapters. Crown Svo, 6s.
People s Edition, royal Svo, paper covers, Gd.
The Mechanism of War. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
LOBBAN. An Anthology of English Verse from Chaucer to the
Present Day. By J. H. LOBBAN, M.A. Crown Svo, gilt top, 5s.
T OOXTTART
Doubles and Quits. By LAURENCE W. M. LOCKHART. Crown
Svo 3s. 6d. A New Edition, Crown Svo, 2s.
Fair to See. New Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Mine is Thine. New Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
The Institutes of Law : A Treatise of the Principles of Juris-
prudence as determined by Nature. By the late JAMES LORIMER, Professor of
Public Law and of the Law of Nature and Nations in the University of Edin
burgh. New Edition, Revised and much Enlarged. Svo, 18s.
The Institutes of the Law of Nations. A Treatise of the
Jural Relation of Separate Political Communities. In 2 vols. Svo. Volume I.,
price 16s. Volume II., price 20s.
William Blackivood & Sons, 19
LYNDEN -BELL. A Primer of Tactics, Fortification, Topo
graphy, and Military Law. By Lieut. -Colonel C. P. LYNDEN -BELL. With
Diagrams. Crown Svo, 3s. net.
MABIE.
Essays on Nature and Culture. By HAMILTON WEIGHT MABIE.
With Portrait. Pcap. Svo, 3s. 6d.
Books and Culture. Feap. Svo, 3s. 6d.
The Life of the Spirit. Fcap. Svo, 3s. 6d.
M COMBIE. Cattle and Cattle-Breeders. By WILLIAM M CoMBiE,
Tillyfour. New Edition, Enlarged, with Memoir of the Author by JAMES
MACDONALD, F.R.8. E. , Secretary Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland.
Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
M CRIE.
Works of the Rev. Thomas M Crie, D.D. Uniform Edition.
4 vols. crown Svo, 24s.
Life of John Knox. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Life of Andrew Melville. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation
in Italy in the Sixteenth Century. Crown Svo, 4s.
History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation
in Spain in the Sixteenth Century. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
MACDONALD. A Manual of the Criminal Law (Scotland) Pro
cedure Act, 1887. By NORMAN DORAN MACDONALD. Revised by the LORD
JUSTICE-CLERK. Svo, 10s. 6d.
MACDOUGALL AND DODDS. A Manual of the Local Govern
ment (Scotland) Act, 1894. With Introduction, Explanatory Notes, and Copious
Index. By J. PATTEN MACDOUGALL, Legal Secretary to the Lord Advocate, and
J. M. DODDS. Tenth Thousand, Revised. Crown Svo, 2s. 6d. net.
MACINTOSH. Rabbi Jesus : Sage and Saviour. By
WILLIAM MACINTOSH, M.A., Ph.D., Author of Through Doubt s Dark Vale,
&c. Post Svo, 3s. 6d. net.
MACKENZIE. Studies in Roman Law. With Comparative
Views of the Laws of France, England, and Scotland. By LORD MACKENZIE,
one of the Judges of the Court of Session in Scotland. Seventh Edition, Edited
by JOHN KIRKPATRICK, M.A., LL.B., Advocate, Professor of History in the
University of Edinburgh. Svo, 21s.
MACLEOD. The Doctrine and Validity of the Ministry and
Sacraments of the National Church of Scotland. By the Very Rev. DONALD
MACLEOD, D.D. Being the Baird Lecture for 1903. In 1 vol. crown Svo.
[In the press.
MAIN. Three Hundred English Sonnets. Chosen and Edited
by DAVID M. MAIN. New Edition. Fcap. Svo, 3s. 6d.
MAIR.
A Digest of Laws and Decisions, Ecclesiastical and Civil,
relating to the Constitution, Practice, and Affairs of the Church of Scotland.
With Notes and Forms of Procedure. By the Rev. WILLIAM MAIR, D.D., Minis
ter of the Parish of Earlston. New Edition, Revised. In 1 vol. crown Svo.
[In the press.
Speaking ; or, From Voice Production to the Platform and
Pulpit. Third Edition, Revised. Crown Svo, 3s.
2O List of Books Published by
MAITLAND. The Surrender of Napoleon. Being the Narrative
of the Surrender of Buonaparte, and of his residence on board H.M.S. Belle-
rophon ; with a detail of the principal events that occurred in that Ship between
the 24th of May and the 8th of August 1815. By Rear- Admiral Sir FREDERICK
LEWIS MAITLAND, K.C.B. A New Edition. Edited, with a Life of the Author,
by WILLIAM KIRK DICKSON. In 1 vol. post 8vo, with Portraits and other Illus
trations. [In the press.
MALCOLM. The Calendar of Empire. A Tribute to Lives,
Deeds, and Words that have gained Glory for Great and Greater Britain. By
IAN MALCOLM, M.P. Small square Svo, vellum covers, 5s. net.
LARGE PAPER EDITION. 15s. net.
MAKSHMAN. History of India. From the Earliest Period to
the present time. By JOHN CLARK MARSHMAN, 0.8.1. Third and Cheaper
Edition. Post Svo, with Map, 6s.
MARTIN.
The ^Eneid of Virgil. Books I.-VI. Translated by Sir THEO
DORE MARTIN, K.C.B. Post 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Goethe s Faust. Part I. Translated into English Verse.
Second Edition, crown Svo, 6s. Ninth Edition, fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Goethe s Faust. Part II. Translated into English Verse.
Second Edition, Revised. Fcap. Svo, 6s.
The Works of Horace. Translated into English Verse, with
Life and Notes. 2 vols. New Edition. Crown Svo, 21s.
Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine. Done into English
Verse. Third Edition. Small crown Svo, 5s.
The Song of the Bell, and other Translations from Schiller,
Goethe, Dhland, and Others. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Madonna Pia : A Tragedy ; and Three Other Dramas. Crown
Svo, 7s. 6d.
Catullus. With Life and Notes. Second Edition, Revised
and Corrected. Post Svo, 7s. 6d.
The Vita Nuova of Dante. Translated, with an Introduction
and Notes. Fourth Edition. Small crown 8vo, SB.
Aladdin: A Dramatic Poem. By ADAM OEHLENSCHLAEGER.
Fcap. Svo, 5s.
Correggio : A Tragedy. By OEHLENSCHLAEGER. With Notes.
Fcap. Svo, 8s.
Helena Faucit (Lady Martin). By Sir THEODORE MARTIN,
K.C.B., K.C.V.O. With Five Photogravure Plates. Second Edition. Demy Svo,
10s. 6d. net.
MARTIN. On some of Shakespeare s Female Characters. By
HELENA FAUCIT, Lady MARTIN. Dedicated by permission to Her Most Graciout
Majesty the Queen. With a Portrait by Lehmann. Sixth Edition, with a new
Preface. Demy Svo, 7s. 6d.
MARWICK. Observations on the Law and Practice in regard
to Municipal Elections and the Conduct of the Business of Town Councils and
Commissioners of Police in Scotland. By Sir JAMES D. MARWICK, LL.D.,
Town-Clerk of Glasgow. Royal Svo, 80s.
MATHESON.
Can the Old Faith Live with the New ? or, The Problem of
Evolution and Revelation. By the Rev. GKOROK MATHESON, D.D. Third Edi
tion. Crown Svo, 7s. 6d.
The Psalmist and the Scientist ; or, Modern Value of the Reli
gious Sentiment. Third Edition. Crown Svo, 5s.
Spiritual Development of St Paul. Fourth Edition. Cr. Svo, 5s.
The Distinctive Messages of the Old Religions. Second Edi
tion. Crown Svo, SB.
Sacred Songs. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo, 2s. 6d.
William Blackivood & Sons. 21
MAXWELL.
The Honourable Sir Charles Murray, K.C.B. A Memoir.
By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P., F.8.A., &c., Author of
Passages in the Life of Sir Lncian Elphin. With Five Portraits. Demy Svo, 18s.
Life and Times of the Rt. Hon. William Henry Smith, M.P.
With Portraits and numerous Illustrations by Herbert Bailton, G. L. Seymour,
and Others. 2 vols. demy 8vo, 25s.
POPULAR EDITION. With a Portrait and other Illustrations. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Dumfries and Galloway. Being one of the Volumes of the
County Histories of Scotland. With Four Maps. Second Edition. Demy 8vo.
7s. 6d. net.
Scottish Land-Names : Their Origin and Meaning. Being
the Bhind Lectures in Archaeology for 1893. Post 8vo, 6s.
A Duke of Britain. A Romance of the Fourth Century.
Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo 6s.
The Chevalier of the Splendid Crest. Third Edition. Crown
Svo, 6s.
MELDRUM.
The Conquest of Charlotte. By DAVID S. MELDRUM. Third
Impression. Crown Svo, 6s.
Holland and the Hollanders. With numerous Illustrations
and a Map. Second Edition. Square Svo, 6s.
The Story of Margre"del : Being a Fireside History of a Fife-
shire Family. Cheap Edition Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Grey Mantle and Gold Fringe. Crown 8vo, 6s.
MELLONE.
Studies in Philosophical Criticism and Construction. By
SYDNEY HERBERT MELLONE. M.A. Lond., D.Sc. Edin. Post Svo. 10s. 6d. net.
Leaders of Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century.
Crown Svo, 6s. net.
An Introductory Text-Book of Logic. Crown Svo, 5s.
MERZ. A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Cen
tury. By JOHN THEODORE MERS. Vol. I., post 8vo, 10s. 6d. net.
[Vol. II. in the press.
MEYNELL. John Ruskin. " Modern English Writers." By Mrs
MEYNELL. Third Impression. Crown Svo, 2s. 6d.
MICHIE. The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era.
As Illustrated in the Life of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., many years
Consul and Minister in China and Japan. By ALEXANDER MICHIE, Author of
The Siberian Overland Route, Missionaries in China, &c. With numerous
Illustrations, Portraits, and Maps. 2 vols. demy Svo, 3Ss. net.
MILL,
The Colonel Sahib. A Novel. By GAERETT MILL. Second
Impression. Crown Svo, 6s.
The Cardinal s Surprise. In 1 vol. crown Svo. [In the press.
MILLAR. The Mid-Eighteenth Century. " Periods of European
Literature." By J. H. MILLAR. Crown Svo, 5s. net.
MITCHELL. The Scottish Reformation. Its Epochs, Episodes.
Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics. Being the Baird Lecture for 1899.
By the late ALEXANDER F. MITCHELL, D.D., LL.D., Emeritus Professor of Church
History in St Andrews University. Edited by D. HAY FLEMING, LL.D. With
a Biographical Sketch of the Author, by James Christie D.D. Crown 8vo, 6
22 List of Books Published by
MODERN ENGLISH WRITERS. In handy crown 8vo
volumes, tastefully bound, price 2s. 6d. each.
Matthew Arnold. By Professor SAINTSBURY. Second Im-
Eession.
. Stevenson. By L. COPE CORNFORD. Second Impression.
John Ruskin. By Mrs MEYNELL. Third Impression.
Tennyson. By ANDREW LANG. Second Edition.
Huxley. By EDWARD CLODD.
Thackeray. By CHARLES WHIBLEY. [In the press.
In Preparation.
GEORGE ELIOT. By A. T. Quiller-Couch. FROTJDB. By John Oliver Hobbes.
BROWNING. By Prof. 0. H. Herford. DICKENS. By W, E, Henley.
MOIR. Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith. By D. M.
MOIR. With CRUIKSHANK S Illustrations. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
Another Edition, without Illustrations, fcap. 8vo, Is. 6d.
MOMERIE.
Immortality, and other Sermons. By Rev. ALFRED WILLIAMS
MOMERIE, M.A., D.Sc., LL.D. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Defects of Modern Christianity, and other Sermons. Fifth
Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
The Basis of Religion. Being an Examination of Natural
Religion. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
The Origin of Evil, and other Sermons. Eighth Edition,
Enlarged. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Personality. The Beginning and End of Metaphysics, and a Ne
cessary Assumption in all Positive Philosophy. Fifth Ed., Revised. Cr. 8vo, 3s.
Agnosticism. Fourth Edition, Revised. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Preaching and Hearing ; and other Sermons. Fourth Edition,
Enlarged. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Belief in God. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s.
Inspiration ; and other Sermons. Second Edition, Enlarged.
Crown 8vo, 5s.
Church and Creed. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.
The Future of Religion, and other Essays. Second Edition.
Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
The English Church and the Romish Schism. Second Edition.
Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
MONCREIFF.
The Provost-Marshal. A Romance of the Middle Shires. By
the Hon. FREDERICK MONCRBIFF. Crown 8vo, 6s.
The X Jewel. A Romance of the Days of James VI. Cr. 8vo, 6s.
MONTAGUE. Military Topography. Illustrated by Practical
Examples of a Practical Subject. By Major-General W. E. MONTAGUS, C.B.,
P.S.C., late Garrison Instructor Intelligence Department, Author of Campaign
ing in South Africa. With Forty-one Diagrams. Crown 8vo, 58.
MORISON.
Rifts in the Reek. By JEANIB MORISON. With a Photogravure
Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 5s. Bound in buckram for presentation, 6s.
Doorside Ditties. With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
^Eolus. A Romance in Lyrics. Crown 8vo, 3s.
There as Here. Crown 8vo, 3s.
** A limited impression on hand-made paper, bound in vellum, Is. M,
William Blackwood & Sons. 23
MORISON.
Selections from Poems. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.
Sordello. An Outline Analysis of Mr Browning s Poem.
Of " Fifine at the Fair," " Christmas Eve and Easter Day,"
and other of Mr Browning s Poems. Crown 8vo, 3s.
The Purpose of the Ages. Crown 8vo, 9s.
Gordon : An Our-day Idyll. Crown 8vo, 3s.
Saint Isadora, and other Poems. Crown 8vo, Is. 6d.
Snatches of Song. Paper, Is. 6d. ; cloth, 3s.
Pontius Pilate. Paper, Is. 6d. ; cloth, 3s.
Mill o Forres. Crown 8vo, Is.
Ane Booke of Ballades. Fcap. 4to, Is.
MOWBRAY. Seventy Years at Westminster. With other Letters
and Notes of the late Right Hon. Sir JOHN MOWBRAY, Bart, M.P. Edited by
his Daughter. With Portraits and other Illustrations. Large crown Svo, 7s. 6d.
MUNRO.
Children of Tempest : A Tale of the Outer Isles. By NEIL
MUNRO. In 1 vol. crown Svo. [In the press.
Doom Castle : A Romance. Second Impression. Crown
8vo, 6s.
John Splendid. The Tale of a Poor Gentleman and the Little
Wars of Lorn. Sixth Impression. Crown 8vo, 6s. People s Edition, royal Svo,
paper cover, 6d.
The Lost Pibroch, and other Sheiling Stories. Fourth
Impression. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d. People s Edition, royal Svo. paper cover, 6d.
MUNRO.
Rambles and Studies in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia.
With an Account of the proceedings of the Congress of Archaeologists and
Anthropologists held at Sarajevo in 1894. By ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D.,
LL.D., F.R.8.E., Author of the Lake Dwellings of Europe, &c. Second Edition,
Revised and Enlarged. With numerous illustrations. Demy 8vo, 12s. 6d. net.
Prehistoric Problems. With numerous Illustrations. Demy
8vp, 10s. net.
Prehistoric Scotland and its Place in European Civilisation.
Being a General Introduction to the " County Histories of Scotland." With
numerous Illustrations. Crown Svo, 7s. 6d. net.
MUNRO. On Valuation of Property. By WILLIAM MUNRO,
M.A., Her Majesty s Assessor of Railways and Canals for Scotland. Second
Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Svo, 3s. 6d.
MURDOCH. Manual of the Law of Insolvency and Bankruptcy :
Comprehending a Summary of the Law of Insolvency, Notour Bankruptcy,
Composition - Contracts, Trust Dieds, Cessios, and Sequestrations ; and the
Winding-up of Joint-Stock Companies in Scotland : with Annotations on the
various Insolvency and Bankruptcy Statutes ; and with Forms of Procedure
applicable to these Subjects. By JAMES MURDOCH, Member of the Faculty of
Procurators in Glasgow. Fifth Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Svo, 12s. net.
MY TRIVIAL LIFE AND MISFORTUNE: A Gossip with
no Plot in Particular. By A PLAIN WOMAN. Cheap Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
By the SAME AUTHOR.
POOR NELLIE. Cheap Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
NEAVES. Songs and Verses, Social and Scientific. By An Old
Contributor to Maga. 1 By the Hon. Lord NEAVES. Fifth Edition. Fcap.
Svo, 4s.
24 List of Books Published by
NICHOLSON.
A Manual of Zoology, for the Use of Students. With a
General Introduction on the Principles of Zoology. By HENRT ALLEYNE
NICHOLSON, M.D., D.Sc., F.L.8., F.O.S., Regius Professor of Natural History in
the University of Aberdeen. Seventh Edition, Rewritten and Enlarged. Post
8vo, pp. 956, with 555 Engravings on Wood, 18s.
Text-Book of Zoology, for Junior Students. Fifth Edition.
Rewritten and Enlarged. Crown 8vo, with 358 Engravings on Wood, 10s. 6d
A Manual of Palaeontology, for the Use of Students. With a
General Introduction on the Principles of Palaeontology. By Professor H.
ALLEYNE NICHOLSON and RICHARD LYDEKKER, B.A. Third Edition, entirely
Rewritten and greatly Enlarged. 2 vols. 8vo, 3, 8s.
NICHOLSON.
Thoth. A Romance. By JOSEPH SHIELD NICHOLSON, M.A.,
D.Sc., Professor of Commercial and Political Economy and Mercantile Law in
the University of Edinburgh. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.
A Dreamer of Dreams. A Modern Romance. Second Edi
tion. Grown 8vo, 6s.
NICOL. Recent Archaeology and the Bible. Being the Croali
Lectures for 1898. By the Rev. THOMAS NICOL, D.D., Professor of Divinity
and Biblical Criticism in the University of Aberdeen ; Author of Recent Ex
plorations in Bible Lands. Demy 8vo, 9s. net.
OLIPHANT.
Masollam : A Problem of the Period. A Novel. By LAURENCE
OLIPHANT. 3 vpls. post 8vo, 25s. 6d.
Scientific Religion ; or, Higher Possibilities of Life and
Practice through the Operation of Natural Forces. Second Edition. 8vo, 16s.
Altiora Peto. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo, boards, 2s. 6d. ;
cloth, 3s. 6d. Illustrated Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
Piccadilly. With Illustrations .by Richard Doyle. New Edi
tion, 3s. 6d. Cheap Edition, boards, 2s. 6d. People s Edition, royal 8vo, paper
cover, 6d.
Traits and Travesties ; Social and Political. Post 8vo, 1 Os. 6d.
Episodes in a Life of Adventure; or, Moss from a Rolling
Stone. Cheaper Edition. Post 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Haifa : Life in Modern Palestine. Second Edition. 8vo, 7s. 6d.
The Land of Gilead. With Excursions in the Lebanon.
With Illustrations and Maps. Demy 8vo, 21s.
Memoir of the Life of Laurence Oliphant, and of Alice
Oliphant, his Wife. By Mrs M. O. W. OLIPHANT. Seventh Edition. 2 vols.
post 8vo, with Portraits. 21s.
POPULAR EDITION. With a New Preface. Post 8vo, with Portraits. 7s. 6d.
OLIPHANT.
The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs M. O. W. Oliphant.
Arranged and Edited by Mrs HARRY COOHILL. With Two Portraits. Cheap
Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.
Annals of a Publishing House. William Blackwood and his
Sons; Their Magazine and Friends. By Mrs OLIPHANT. With Four Portraits.
Third Edition. Demy 8vo. Vote. I. and II. 2, 2s.
A Widow s Tale, and other Stories. With an Introductory
Note by J. M. BARRIK. Second Edition. Grown 8vo, 6s.
Who was Lost and is Found. Second Edition. Crown
Svo, 6s.
Miss Marjoribanks. New Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
William Blackwood & Sons. 25
OLIPHANT.
The Perpetual Curate, and The Hector. New Edition. Crown
8vo, 3s. 6d.
Salem Chapel, and The Doctor s Family. New Edition.
Grown 8vo, 3s. 6d
Chronicles of Carlingford. 3 vols. crown 8vo, in uniform
binding, gilt top, 3s. 6d. each.
Katie Stewart, and other Stories. New Edition. Crown 8vo,
cloth, 3s. 6d.
Katie Stewart. Illustrated boards, 2s. 6d.
Valentine and his Brother. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Sons and Daughters. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. Old Lady Mary The
Open Door The Portrait -The Library Window. Fcap. Svo, 3s. 6d.
OMOND. The Romantic Triumph. "Periods of European
Literature." By T. S. OMOND. Crown Svo, 5s. net.
O NEILL. Songs of the Glens of Antrim. By MOIRA O NEILL.
Eighth Impression. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
PAUL. History of the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen s
Body-Guard for Scotland. By JAMES BALFOUR PAUL, Advocate of the Scottish
Bar. Crown 4to, with Portraits and other Illustrations. 2, 2s.
PEILE. Lawn Tennis as a Game of Skill. By Lieut. -Col. S. C.
P. PEILE, B.S.C. Revised Edition, with new Scoring Rules. Fcap. Svo, cloth, Is.
PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. Edited by Pro-
fessor SAINTSBDBT. For List of Volumes, see page 2.
PETTIGREW. The Handy Book of Bees, and their Profitable
Management. By A. PETTIGREW. Fifth Edition, Enlarged, with Engravings.
Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
PFLEIDERER. Philosophy and Development of Religion.
Being the Edinburgh Qiflord Lectures for 1894. By OTTO PFLEIDERER, D.D.,
Professor of Theology at Berlin University. In 2 vols. post Svo, 15s. net.
PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS.
Edited by WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D.. Professor of Moral Philosophy, University
of St Andrews. Cheap Re-issue in Shilling Volumes.
[For List of Volumes, see page 2.
POLLOK. The Course of Time : A Poem. By ROBERT POLLOK,
A.M. New Edition. With Portrait. Fcap. Svo, gilt top, 2s. 6d.
PRESTWICH. Essays : Descriptive and Biographical. By
GRACE, Lady PRESTWICH, Author of The Harbour Bar and Enga. With a
Memoir by her sister, LOUISA E. MILNE. With Illustrations. Demy Svo, 10s. 6d.
PRESTWICH. Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Prestwich, M.A.,
D.C.L., F.R.S. Formerly Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford.
Written and Edited by his WIFE. With Portraits and other Illustrations.
Demy Svo, 21s.
PRINGLE. The Live Stock of the Farm. By ROBERT O.
PRINGLE. Third Edition. Revised and Edited by JAMES MACDONALD. Crown
Svo, 7s. 6d.
26 List of Books Published by
PRINGLE-PATTISON.
Scottish Philosophy. A Comparison of the Scottish and
German Answers to Home. Balfonr Philosophical Lectures, University of
Edinburgh. By A. SETH PRINQLE-PATTISON, LL.D., Professor of Logic and
Metaphysics in Edinburgh University. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Hegelianism and Personality. Balfour Philosophical Lectures.
Second Series. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Man s Place in the Cosmos, and other Essays. Second Edition,
Enlarged. Post 8vo, Os. net.
Two Lectures on Theism. Delivered on the occasion of the
Sesquicentennial Celebration of Princeton University. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
PUBLIC GENERAL STATUTES AFFECTING SCOTLAND
from 1707 to 1847, with Chronological Table and Index. 3 vols. large 8vo, 3, 3s.
PUBLIC GENERAL STATUTES AFFECTING SCOTLAND,
COLLECTION OP. Published Annually, with General Index.
PULLIN. Talks with Old English Cricketers. By A. W.
PULLIN ("Old Ebor"). With numerous Portraits. Crown 8vo, 6s.
RANJITSINHJI. The Jubilee Book of Cricket. By PRINCE
RANJITSINHJI.
EDITION DE LUXE. Limited to 350 Copies, printed on hand-made paper, and
handsomely bound in buckram. Crown 4to, with 22 Photogravures and 85
full-page Plates. Each copy signed by Prince Ranjitsinhji. Price 5, 5s. net.
FINE PAPER EDITION. Medium 8vo, with Photogravure Frontispiece and 106
full-page Plates on art paper. 25s. net.
POPULAR EDITION. With 107 full-page Illustrations. Birth Edition. Large
crown 8vo, 6s.
SIXPENNY EDITION. With a selection of the Illustrations.
RANKIN.
A Handbook of the Church of Scotland. By JAMBS RANKIN,
D.D., Minister of Muthill. An entirely New and much Enlarged Edition. Crown
8vo, with 2 Maps, 7s. 6d.
The Worthy Communicant. A Guide to the Devout Obser
vance of the Lord s Supper. Limp cloth, Is. 3d.
The Young Churchman. Lessons on the Creed, the Com
mandments, the Means of Grace, and the Church. Limp cloth, Is. 3d.
First Communion Lessons. 25th Edition. Paper Cover, 2d.
ROBERTSON.
The Poetry and the Religion of the Psalms. The Croall
Lectures, 1893-94. By JAMES ROBERTSON, D.D., Professor of Oriental Languages
in the University of Glasgow. Demy 8vo, 12s.
The Early Religion of Israel. As set forth by Biblical Writers
and Modern Critical Historians. Being the Baird Lecture for 1888-89. Fourth
Edition. Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
ROBERTSON. A History of German Literature. By JOHN G.
ROBERTSON, Lecturer in the University of Strassburg. Demy Svo, 10s. 6d. net.
ROBINSON. Wild Traits in Tame Animals. Being some
Familiar Studies in Evolution. By Louis ROBINSON, M.D. With Illustrations
by STEPHEN T. DADD. Cheaper Edition. Demy Svo, 6s.
RONALDSHAY. Sport and Politics under an Eastern Sky. By
the EARL OF RON-ALDSHAY, F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations and Maps
Royal Svo, 21s. net
William Blackwood & Sons. 27
ROSSLYN. Twice Captured. A Record of Adventure during
the Boer War. By the Right Hon. the EARL OF ROSSLYN. With 60 Illustrations.
Third Edition. Post 8vo, 10s. 6d.
RUTLAND.
Notes of an Irish Tour in 1846. By the DUKE OP RUTLAND,
G.C.B. (LORD JOHN MANNERS). New Edition. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
Correspondence between the Right Honble. William Pitt
and Charles Duke of Rutland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 1781-1787. With
Introductory Note by JOHN DUKE OF RUTLAND. 8vo, 7s. 6d.
RUTLAND.
The Collected Writings of Janetta, Duchess of Rutland. With
Portrait and Illustrations. 2 vols. post 8vo, 15s. net.
Impressions of Bad-Homburg. Comprising a Short Account
of the Women s Associations of Germany under the Red Cross. By the DUCHESS
OF RUTLAND (LADY JOHN MANNERS). Crown 8vo, Is. 6d.
Some Personal Recollections of the Later Years of the Earl
of Beaconsfleld, E.G. Sixth Edition. 6d.
Employment of Women in the Public Service. 6d.
Some of the Advantages of Easily Accessible Reading and
Recreation Rooms and Free Libraries. With Remarks on Starting and Main
taining them. Second Edition. Crown Svo, Is.
A Sequel to Rich Men s Dwellings, and other Occasional
Papers. Crown Svo, 2s. 6d.
Encouraging Experiences of Reading and Recreation Rooms,
Aims of Guilds, Nottingham Social Guide, Existing Institutions, &c., &c.
Crown Svo, Is.
SAINTSBURY.
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe. From
the Earliest Texts to the Present Day. By GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A. (Oxon.),
Hon. LL.D. (Aberd.), Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the Univer
sity of Edinburgh. In 3 vols. demy Svo. Vol. I. Classical and Mediaeval Criti
cism. 16s. net.
Vol. II. From the Renaissance to the Decline of Eighteenth Century Ortho
doxy. 20s. net.
Matthew Arnold. "Modern English Writers." Second Edi
tion. Crown Svo, 2s. 6cl.
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (12th
and 13th Centuries). "Periods of European Literature." Crown Svo, 5s. net.
The Earlier Renaissance. " Periods of European Literature."
Crown Svo, 5s. net.
SARGENT. A Woman and a Creed. By H. GARTON SARGENT.
Crown Svo, 6s.
SCOTT. Tom Cringle s Log. By MICHAEL SCOTT. New Edition.
With 19 Full-page Illustrations. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
SCUDAMORE. Belgium and the Belgians. By CYRIL SCUDA-
MORE. With Illustrations. Square crown Svo, 6s.
28 List of Books Published by
SETH. A Study of Ethical Principles. BY JAMES SETH, M.A.,
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Sixth Edition,
Revised. Post 8vo, 7s. 6d.
SIMPSON. The Wild Rabbit in a New Aspect; or, Rabbit-
Warrens that Pay. A book for Landowners, Sportsmen, Land Agents, Farmers,
Gamekeepers, and Allotment Holders. A Record of Recent Experiments con
ducted on the Estate of the Right Hon. the Earl of Wharncliffe at Wortley Hall.
By J. SIMPSON. Second Edition, Enlarged. Small crown 8vo, 5s.
SIMPSON. Side-Lights on Siberia. Some account of the Great
Siberian Iron Road: The Prisons and Exile System. By J. T. SIMPSON, M.A.,
B.Sc. With numerous Illustrations and a Map. Demy 8vo, 16s.
SINCLAIR.
Mr and Mrs Nevill Tyson. By MAY SINCLAIR. Crown 8vo,
3s. 6d.
Audrey Craven. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.
SINJOHN. A Man of Devon, and other Sketches. By JOHN
SINJOHN, Author of Villa Rubein, Jocelyn, From the Four Winds, &c.
Crown 8vo, 6s.
SKELTON.
Maitland of Lethington ; and the Scotland of Mary Stuart.
A History. By Sir JOHN SKELTON, K.C.B., LL.D. Limited Edition, with
Portraits. Demy Svo, 2 vols., 28s. net.
The Handbook of Public Health. A New Edition, Revised by
JAMES PATTEN MACDOUOALL, Advocate, Secretary of the Local Government
Board for Scotland, Joint- Author of The Parish Council Guide for Scotland,
and ABIJAH MURRAY, Chief Clerk of the Local Government Board for Scotland.
In Two Parts. Crown Svo. Part I. The Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897,
with Notes. 3s. 6d. net
Part II. Circulars of the Local Government Board, &c. [In preparation.
SMITH.
The Transition Period. "Periods of European Literature."
By G. GREGORY SMITH. Crown Svo, 5s. net.
Specimens of Middle Scots. Post 8vo, 7s. 6d. net.
SMITH. Retrievers, and how to Break them. By Lieutenant-
Colcnel Sir HENRY SMITH, K.C.B. With an Introduction by Mr S. E. SHIRLEY,
President of the Kennel Club. Dedicated by special permission to H.R.H. the
Duke of Cornwall and York. New Edition, enlarged. With additional Illus
trations. Crown Svo. 2s.
SNELL. The Fourteenth Century. "Periods of European
Literature." By P. J. SNELL. Crown Svo, 5s. net.
SOLBE. Hints on Hockey. By F. DE LISLE SOLBE. English
International Team : 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900. With Diagrams. Fcap. Svo, Is.
"SON OF THE MARSHES, A."
From Spring to Fall ; or, When Life Stirs. By " A SON OF
THE MARSHES." Cheap Uniform Edition. Grown Svo, Ss. 6d.
Within an Hour of London Town : Among Wild Birds and
their Haunts. Edited by J. A. OWEN. Cheap Uniform Edition. Or. Svo, 3s. 6d.
With the Woodlanders and by the Tide- Cheap Uniform
Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
On Surrey Hills. Cheap Uniform Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Annals of a Fishing Village. Cheap Uniform Edition. Crown
Svo, 8a. 6d.
William Blackwood & Sons. 29
SORLEY. The Ethics of Naturalism. Being the Shaw Fellow
ship Lectures, 1884. By W. R. SORLEY, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cam
bridge, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Crown 8vo, 6s.
SPROTT.
The Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland. By
GEORGE W. SPROTT, D.D., Minister of North Berwick. Crown 8vo, 6s.
The Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland, com
monly known as John Knox s Liturgy. With Historical Introduction and Illus
trative Notes. Crown Svo, 4s. Cd. net.
Scottish Liturgies of the Reign of James VI. Edited, with
an Introduction and Notes. Crown Svo, 4s. net.
STEEVENS.
Things Seen : Impressions of Men, Cities, and Books. By the
late G. W. STEEVENS. Edited by G. 8. STREET. With a Memoir by W. E.
HENLEY, and a Photogravure reproduction of Collier s Portrait. Memorial Edi
tion. Crown Svo, 6s.
From Capetown to Lady smith, and Egypt in 1898. Memorial
Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
In India. With Map. Memorial Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
With Kitchener to Khartum. With 8 Maps and Plans.
Memorial Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
The Land of the Dollar. Memorial Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
Glimpses of Three Nations. Memorial Edition. Crown
Svo, 6s.
Monologues of the Dead. Memorial Edition. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
With the Conquering Turk, With 4 Maps. Cheap Edition.
Crown Svo, 6s,
From Capetown to Ladysmith : An Unfinished Record of the
South African War. Edited by VERNON BLACKBURN. With Maps. Crown Svo,
3s. 6d.
STEPHENS.
The Book of the Farm ; detailing the Labours of the Farmer,
Farm-Steward, Ploughman, Shepherd, Hedger, Farm-Labourer, Field-Worker,
and Cattle-man. Illustrated with numerous Portraits of Animals and Engravings
of Implements, and Plans of Farm Buildings. Fourth Edition. Revised, and
in great part Re-written, by JAMES MACDONALD, F.R.S.E., Secretary Highland
and Agricultural Society of Scotland. Complete n Six Divisional Volumes,
bound in cloth, each 10s. 6d., or handsomely bound, in 3 volumes, with leather
back and gilt top, 3, 3s.
Catechism of Practical Agriculture. 22d Thousand. Revised
by JAMES MACDONALD, F.R.S.B. With numerous Illustrations. Crown Svo, Is.
The Book of Farm Implements and Machines. By J. SLIGHT
and R. SCOTT BURN, Engineers. Edited by HENRY STEPHENS. Large 8vo, 2, 2s.
STEVENSON. British Fungi. (Hymenomycetes.) By Rev.
JOHN STEVENSON, Author of Mycologia Scotica, 1 Hon. Sec. Cryptogamic Society
of Scotland. Vols. I. and II., post Svo, with Illustrations, price 12s. 6d. net each.
STEWART. Haud Immemor. Reminiscences of Legal and
Social Life in Edinburgh and London, 1850-1900. By CHABLES STEWART. With
10 Photogravure Plates. Royal Svo, 7s. 6d
STEWART AND CUFF. Practical Nursing. By ISLA STEWART,
Matron of St Bartholomew s Hospital, London; and HERBERT E. CUFF, M.D.,
F.R.C.S., Medical Superintendent North-Eastern Fever Hospital, Tottenham,
London. With Diagrams. In 2 vols. crown Svo. Vol. I. Second Edition.
3s. 6d. net. i. II. in the press.
3O List of Books Published by
STODDAKT. John Stuart Blackie : A Biography. By ANNA
M. STODDAKT. POPULAR EDITION, with Portrait. Crown 8vo, 6s.
STORMONTH.
Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymo
logical, and Explanatory. By the Rev. JAMES STORMONTH. Revised by the
Rev. P. H. PHELP. Library Edition. New and Cheaper Edition, with Supple
ment. Imperial 8vo, handsomely bound in half morocco, 18s. net.
Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English
Language. Including a very Copious Selection of Scientific Terms. For use in
Schools and Colleges, and as a Book of General Reference. The Pronunciation
carefully revised by the Rev. P. H. PHELP, M.A. Cantab. Thirteenth Edition,
with Supplement. Crown 8vo, pp. 800. 7s. 6d.
Handy Dictionary. New Edition, thoroughly Revised. By
WILLIAM BAYNE. 16mo, Is.
STORY. The Apostolic Ministry in the Scottish Church (The
Baird Lecture for 1897). By ROBERT HERBERT STORY, D.D. (Edin.), P.8.A.
Scot., Principal of the University of Glasgow, Principal Clerk of the General
Assembly, and Chaplain to the Queen. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
STORY.
Poems. By W. W. Story, Author of Roba di Roma, &c.
vols. 7s. 6d.
Fiammetta. A Summer Idyl. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Conversations in a Studio. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 12s. 6d.
Excursions in Art and Letters. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
A Poet s Portfolio : Later Readings. 18mo, 3s. 6d.
William Wetmore Story and his Friends. From Letters,
Diaries, and Recollections. By HENRY JAMES. With Portrait. In 1 vol. demy
8vo. [In the press.
STRACHEY. Talk at a Country House. Fact and Fiction.
By Sir EDWARD STRACHEY, Bart. With a portrait of the Author. Crown 8vo,
4a. 6d. net.
TAYLOR. The Story of my Life. By the late Colonel
MEADOWS TAYLOR, Author of The Confessions of a Thug, &c., &c. Edited by
his Daughter. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
THOMSON.
Handy Book of the Flower- Garden : Being Practical Direc
tions for the Propagation, Culture, and Arrangement of Plants in Flower-
Gardens all the year round. With Engraved Plans. By DAVID THOMSON,
Gardener to his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, K.T., at Drumlanrig. Fourth
and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s.
The Handy Book of Fruit-Culture under Glass : Being a
series of Elaborate Practical Treatises on the Cultivation and Forcing of Pines,
Vines, Peaches, Figs, Melons, Strawberries, and Cucumbers. With Engravings
of Hothouses, &c. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
THOMSON. A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the
Grape Vine. By WILLIAM THOMSON, Tweed Vineyards. Tenth Edition. 8vo, 5s.
THOMSON. Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent. With
Directions for the Preparation of Poultices, Fomentations, &c. By BARBARA
THOMSON. Fcap. 8vo, Is. 6d.
THURSTON. The Circle. By KATHEEINE CECIL THURSTON.
Third Impression. Crown 8vo, 6s.
William Blackwood & Sons. 31
TIELE. Elements of the Science of Religion. Part I. Morpho
logical. Part II. Ontological. Being the Gifford Lectures delivered before the
University of Edinburgh in 1896-98. By C. P. TIELE, Theol. D., Litt.D. (Bonon.),
Hon. M.R.A.8., &c., Professor of the Science of Religion, in the University of
Leiden. In 2 vols. post 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. each.
TRANSACTIONS OF THE HIGHLAND AND AGRICUL
TURAL SOCIETY OP SCOTLAND. Published annually, price 5s.
TRAVERS.
The Way of Escape. A Novel. By GRAHAM TRAVERS (Mar
garet Todd, M.D.) Second Impression. Crown 8vo, 6s.
Mona Maclean, Medical Student. A Novel. Fourteenth Edi
tion. Crown 8vo, 6s. Cheaper Edition, 2s. 6d.
Windyhaugh. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, Gs.
Fellow Travellers. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.
TROTTER. A Leader of Light Horse. Life of Hodson of
Hodson s Horse. By Captain L. J. TROTTER, Author of Life of John Nicholson,
Soldier and Statesman. With a Portrait and 2 Maps. Demy Svo, 16s.
TULLOCH. Recollections of Forty Years Service. By Major-
General Sir ALEXANDER BRUCE TULLOCH, K.C.B., C.M.G. Demy Svo, 15s. net.
TULLOCH.
Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in
the Seventeenth Century. By JOHN TULLOCH, D.D., Principal of St Mary s Col
lege in the University of St Andrews, and one of her Majesty s Chaplains in
Ordinary in Scotland. Second Edition. 2 vols. Svo, 16s.
Modern Theories in Philosophy and Religion. Svo, 15s.
Luther, and other Leaders of the Reformation. Third Edi
tion, Enlarged. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Memoir of Principal Tulloch, D.D, LL.D. By Mrs OLIPHANT,
Author of Life of Edward Irving. Third and Cheaper Edition. Svo, with
Portrait, 7s. 6d.
TWEEDIE. The Arabian Horse: His Country and People.
By Major -General W. TWEEDIE, C.S.I., Bengal Staff Corps; for many years
H.B.M. s Consul-General, Baghdad, and Political Resident for the Government
of India in Turkish Arabia. In one vol. royal 4to, with Seven Coloured Plates
and other Illustrations, and a Map of the Country. Price 3, 3s. net.
VEITCH. The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border : their
Main Features and Relations. By JOHN VEITCH, LL.D., Professor of Logic
and Rhetoric, University of Glasgow. New and Enlarged Edition. 2 vols.
demy Svo. 16s.
VETCH. Life, Letters, and Diaries of Lieut. -General Sir
Gerald Graham, V.C., G.C.B., R.E. By Colonel R. H. VETCH, C.B., late Royal
Engineers. With Portraits, Plans, and his Principal Despatches. Demy Svo, 21s.
WACE. Christianity and Agnosticism. Reviews of some Recent
Attacks on the Christian Faith. By HENRY WACE, D.D., late Principal of King s
College, London : Preacher of Lincoln s Inn ; Chaplain to the King. Second
Edition. Post Svo, 6s. net.
WADDELL.
An Old Kirk Chronicle : Being a History of Auldhame,
Tyninghame, and Whitekirk, in East Lothian. From Session Records, 1615 to
1850. By Rev. P. HATELY WADDELL, B.D., Minister of the United Parish
Small Paper Edition 200 Copies. Price 1. Large Paper Edition, 50 Copies.
Price, 1, 10s.
Christianity as an Ideal. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
Essays 011 Faith. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6cl.
32 Books Published by William Blackwood & Sons.
WARREN S (SAMUEL) WORKS:
Diary of a Late Physician. Cloth, 2s. 6d. ; boards, 2s.
Ten Thousand A- Year. Cloth, 3s. 6d. ; boards, 2s. 6d.
Now and Then. The Lily and the Bee. Intellectual and
Moral Development of the Present Age. 4s. 6d.
Essays : Critical, Imaginative, and Juridical. 5s.
WENLEY. Aspects of Pessimism. By R. M. WENLEY, M.A.,
D.Sc., D.Phil., Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michigan. U.S.A.
Crown 8vo, 6s.
WHIBLEY. Thackeray. "Modern English Writers." By
CHARLES WHIBLEY. In 1 vol. crown 8vo. [In the press.
WHITE. Mountains of Necessity. By HESTER WHITE. Crown
8vo, Cs.
WHITE. The Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom. By
Colonel T. P. WHITE, B.E., of the Ordnance Survey. A Popular Account.
Crown 8vo. 5s.
WILLIAMSON. Ideals of Ministry. By A. WALLACE WILLIAM
SON, D.D., St Cuthbert s, Edinburgh. Crown Svo, 3s. 6d.
WILSON.
Works of Professor Wilson. Edited by his Son -in -Law,
Professor FERRIER. 12 vols. crown Svo, 2, 8s.
Christopher in his Sporting-Jacket. 2 vols., 8s.
Isle of Palms, City of the Plague, and other Poems. 4s.
Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, and other Tales. 4s.
Essays, Critical and Imaginative. 4 vols., 16s,
The Noctes Ambrosianse. 4 vols., 16s.
Homer and his Translators, and the Greek Drama. Crown
Svo, 4s.
WORSLEY.
Homer s Odyssey. Translated into English Verse in the
Spenserian Stanza. By PHILIP STANHOPE WORSLKY, M.A. New and Cheaper
Edition. Post Svo, 7s. 6d. net.
Homer s Iliad. Translated by P. S. Worsley and Prof. Con-
ington. 2 vols. crown Svo, 21s.
WOTHERSPOON.
Kyrie Eleison (" Lord, have Mercy "). A Manual of Private
Prayers. With Notes and Additional Matter. By H. J. WOTHERSPOON, M.A.,
of St Oswald s, Edinburgh. Cloth, red edges, Is. net ; limp leather, Is. 6d. net.
Before and After. Being Part I. of Kyrie Eleison. Cloth,
limp, 6d. net.
YATE. Khurasan and Sistan. By Lieut.-Col. C. E. YATE, C.S.I.,
C.M.G., F.R.G S., Indian Staff Corps, Agent to the Governor-General and Chief
Commissioner for Baluchistan, late Agent to the Governor-General of India, and
Her Britannic Majesty s Consul-General for Khurasan and Sistan. With Map
and 25 Illustrations, and Portraits. Demy Svo, 21s.
ZACK.
On Trial. By ZACK. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 6s.
Life is Life, and other Tales and Episodes. Second Edition.
Grown 8vo, 6s.
Ad am son, Pohert
Thp development of modern
A3 5 ohllosophy
v.2
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
TVNews
OpenLibrary