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ESSAYS    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

Setonb    Series 


DUALISM   AND    MONISM 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


DUALISM    AND    MONISM 


AND    OTHER    ESSAYS 


BY 


JOHN     VEITCH,     M.A. 

Hon.  LL.D.  (Edix.) 

late  professor  of  logic  and  rhetoric  in  the  university 
of  glasgow 


WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 


R.     M.     AY  E  :N^  L  E  Y 

M.A.  (Glas.),  D.Sc.  (Edin.) 

FORMERLY   ASSISTANT  TO  THE  PROFESSOR  OF  LOGIC  AND  RHETORIC 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  GLASGOW 


WILLIAM    BLACKWOOD    AND    SONS 

EDINBURGH     AND     LONDON 

MDCCCXCV 


y  /(^  i/o 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 


In  fultilliiig  the  melancholy  duty  of  investigat- 
ing the  large  quantity  of  MSS.  left  by  the  late 
Professor  Veitch,  I  have  been  greatly  aided  by 
information  which  he  gave  me  six  weeks  before 
his  death.  Inspection  of  his  papers  confirmed 
his  verbally  expressed  opinion  of  them  in  nearly 
all  particulars. 

The  essay  printed  here  under  the  title  "  Dual- 
ism and  Monism  "  was  left  ready  for  publication, 
and  is  reproduced  without  essential  change. 

Another  work,  of  a  much  more  extended  char- 
acter, had  been  so  far  drafted.  It  was  intended 
to  embody  a  history  of  the  leading  doctrines  of 
Greek  Philosophy  with  special  reference  to  the 
theory  that  the  history  of  philosophy  is  a  record 


VI  PKEFATOKY  NOTE. 

of  "  progress  by  antagonism."  As  Mr  Veitch  had 
himself  indicated  to  me,  this  MS.,  although  of 
considerable  length,  is  not  wrought  out  in  detail, 
and  is  therefore  not  in  a  condition  to  warrant 
publication.  The  opening  chapter,  purely  gen- 
eral in  nature,  nevertheless  presented  signs  of 
revision,  and  it  forms  the  second  essay  in  this 
volume. 

The  third  essay,  which  many  consider  one  of 
the  best  examples  of  its  author's  constructive 
writing,  was  originally  published  in  Words- 
ivorthiana,  a  series  of  papers  selected  from  the 
Transactions  of  the  Wordsworth  Society.  By 
the  courteous  permission  of  Professor  Knight, 
the  Editor,  and  of  Messrs  Macmillan  &  Co.,  the 
Publishers,  which  I  desire  gratefully  to  acknow- 
lege,  it  is  reprinted  here. 

At  Mrs  Veitch's  request  I  have  prefixed  a 
brief  Introduction.  Of  its  inadequacy  no  one 
can  be  more  sensible  than  myself. 


R.  M.  WENLEY. 


Queen  Margaret  College, 
Glasgow,  2.7th  April  1895. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
LIST   OF   PROFESSOR   VEITCH's   WORKS  .  .  IX 

INTRODUCTION  ;    PROFESSOR    VEITCH'S    POSITION    IN 

PHILOSOPHY  .....  xi 

author's   PREFACE     .  .  .  •  .  xH 

DUALISM   AND   MONISM — 

I.    REALISM   AND   COMMON-SENSE  .  .  3 

IL    PHENOMENON  ;    PHENOMENALISM  .  .  21 

III.  THE   INDEPENDENCE   OF   THINGS  .  .  49 

IV.  BEING   AND   LAW  .  .  .  .76 
V.   PHENOMENAL   MONADISM            .                .  .87 

HISTORY,  AND   THE   HISTORY    OP   PHILOSOPHY — 

L    HISTORY,  AND   THE    HISTORY   OF   PHILOSOPHY        119 

n.  hegel's  VIEW.  .  .  .  .136 

III.   WHAT   REMAINS   OF   THE   HEGELIAN   VIEW  ?    .         154 
THE   THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH  .  .  .175 


LIST  OF  PEOFESSOR  VEITCH'S   WOEKS. 


1850.  Descartes'  '  Discourse  on  Method.'  Translated  with 
an  Introduction. 

1853.  Descartes'  '  Meditations/  and  Selections  from  '  The 
Principles  of  Philosophy.'  Translated  with 
Notes  and  an  Appendix. 

1857.  Memoir  of  Dugald  Stewart. 

1859-60.  Sir  William  Hamilton's  *  Lectures  on  Meta- 
physics '  and  '  Lectures  on  Logic'  Edited  con- 
jointly with  Dean  Mansel.     Four  volumes. 

1864.  Speculative  Philosophy  :  an  Inaugural  Lecture 
>     delivered  before  the  University  of  Glasgow. 

1869.  Memoir  of  Sir  William  Hamilton. 

1872.  Hillside  Rhymes. 

1875.  The  Tweed  and  other  Poems. 

1875.  Lucretius  and  the  Atomic  Theory. 

1877.  The  History  and  Poetry  of  the  Scottish  Border. 
{Out  of  print.) 

1879.  Descartes'  '  Method,'  '  Meditations,'  and  Selections 
from   'The    Principles   of  Philosophy.'     Trans- 


X  LIST  OF  PROFESSOR  VEITCH'S   WORKS. 

lated  with  a  new  Introduction,  Appendix,  and 
Notes.     (Now  in  its  tenth  edition.) 
1879.  Hamilton :     Blackwood's     Philosophical     Classics 
Series. 

1884.  Hamilton  —  the   Man  and   His    Philosophy:    two 

Lectures  delivered  before  the  Edinburgh  Philo- 
sophical Institution. 

1885.  Institutes  of  Logic. 

1886.  The  Theism  of  Wordsworth  :  Transactions  of  the 

Wordsworth  Society.     {Worclsworthiana,  1889.) 

1887.  The  Feeling  for  Nature  in  Scottish  Poetry.     Two 

volumes. 
1889.  Merlin  and  other  Poems. 
1889.  Knowing  and  Being.     Essays  in  Philosophy.     First 

Series. 
1893.  The  History  and  Poetry  of  the   Scottish   Border. 

(New    and    greatly    enlarged    Edition.)      Two 

volumes. 
1895.  Dualism  and  Monism  ;  History,  and  the  History  of 

Philosophy  ;  The  Theism  of  Wordsworth.   Essays 

in  Philosophy.     Second  Series. 
{In  -preixiration.)      Border   Essays,  with  a  Memoir  and 

Portrait. 


INTEODUCTIOK 

PROFESSOR  VEITCH's   POSITION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

Unique  though  his  strong  personahty  was,  Pro- 
fessor Veitch's  life  presents  none  of  those  dramatic 
incidents,  so  called,  which  are  calculated  to  startle 
or  arrest  the  general  public.  He  was  a  pure 
scholar  and  thinker,  singularly  devoid  of  craving 
either  for  fame  or  for  any  of  the  more  solid  re- 
wards that  sometimes  fall  to  the  lot  of  men  of 
high  intellectual  attainments.  Diffident  in  tem- 
perament, when  not  aroused  by  a  sense  of  duty, 
and  essentially  shy — a  feature  which  was  con- 
cealed, as  with  many  similarly  constituted,  by  a 
certain  brusqueness  of  manner — his  services  to 
his  university,  to  his  colleagues  and  others,  and 
to  several  public  associations,  have  not  become 
known  as  they  otherwise  might.  It  was  sufficient 
h 


XU  INTRODUCTION. 

for  him,  to  take  an  example,  that  the  exception- 
ally valuable  library  of  his  master.  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  should  pass  into  the  safe  keeping  of 
Glasgow  University,  without  any  special  recog- 
nition or  record  of  his  part  in  the  transference. 
No  doubt  it  was  better  thus.  For,  although  many 
details  which  might  redound  to  his  credit  are 
consequently  awanting,  the  interest  of  his  life 
concentrates  itself  upon  his  position  as  what  one 
may  term  uUwius  Scotorum. 

A  Borderer  by  birth  and  by  affectionately 
nurtured  lifelong  association,  entirely  Scotch  by 
academic  training,  Mr  Yeitch  had  been  fitted 
beyond  most  to  appreciate  the  conditions  and 
requirements  of  a  Scottish  philosophical  pro- 
fessorship. "  The  interest  and  eagerness  of  the 
Scotch  student,"  he  writes,  "  the  large  class,  the 
sympathy  of  numbers,  the  readiness  for  hard 
thought,  and  the  disinterestedness  of  feeling,  are 
the  elements  on  which  the  Professor  is  privileged 
to  work.  He  has  the  opportunity,  simply  by  the 
character  of  his  prelections  from  the  chair,  of 
quickening  and  inspiring  his  students  in  phil- 
osophical studies,  and  giving  them  a  connected, 
comprehensive,  and  systematic  view  of  his  depart- 


PROF.   VEITCH  S   POSITION  IN   PHILOSOPHY.      Xlll 

ment — such  as  can  be  accomplished  equally  well 
under  no  other  arrangement.     If  he  fail  to  do 
this,  the  fault  is  his  own."      His  sense  of  the 
value  of  this  arrangement  in  the  past  was  the 
secret  of  his  untiring  hostility  to  any  but  the 
most  circumspectly  considered  changes.      From 
his  own  experience  of  it  also  arose  his  deep  feel- 
ing for  the  personnel  of  his  classes.     Few  could 
have  felt  more  sympathetically  for  the  students. 
In  his  own  life  he  had  learned  their  varied  and 
peculiar  dithculties — their  frequent  poverty,  their 
occasional  lack  of  preparation,  their  sometimes 
misdirected  zeal.     Yearning  is  the  word  which 
best  conveys  his  attitude.     And  thus  it  was  that, 
in  spite  of  the  undoubted  unpopularity  of  the 
philosophy  which  he  taught,  there  was  no  one  to 
whom,  in  later  life,  former  pupils  more  readily 
turned  when  they  stood  in  need  either  of  material 
assistance  or  of  advice.     Within  the  class-room 
his  teaching,  partly  on  account  of  its  extremely 
critical  character,  did   not   exercise   dominating 
influence.     But,  after  they  had  gone  out  from  the 
artificially  restricted  academic  sphere   and   had 
battled  with  the  world  for  a  time,  those  who  had 
heard  him  were  quick  to  acknowledge  his  chasten- 


XIV  INTRODUCTION". 

ing  power;  his  practical  reverence  and  shrewd 
caution  came  back  for  judgment,  and,  be  it  said, 
for  comfort  to  the  men  who,  as  students,  had  been 
unaffected  by  his  acuteness. 

Although  in  no  way  disposed  to  magnify  his 
office,  Mr  Veitch  had  unrivalled  knowledge  of 
the  history  of  the  Philosophical  Department  as 
an  integral  factor  in  the  course  at  the  Scottish 
universities.  He  was  proud  of  the  names  which 
had  adorned  it,  and  was  correspondingly  ten- 
acious of  what  he  conceived  to  be  its  interests 
and  rights.  "  In  the  Universities  of  Scotland 
at  the  present  day,  after  all  the  changes  of 
constitution  which  they  have  undergone  during 
four  hundred  years,"  he  says,  "the  subject  of 
Mental  Philosophy  occupies,  if  not  an  exclusive, 
at  least  a  very  prominent  place  in  the  curriculum 
of  Arts.  For  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  tliis 
department  constitutes  a  proportion  of  require- 
ments such  as  is  not  found  in  Oxford,  Cam- 
bridge, or  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  The  teaching 
of  Mental  Philosophy  is  addressed  to  a  6lass  of 
students  of  an  age  considerably  higher,  as  a 
rule,  than  that  of  those  who  undergo  the  class- 
ical training.      The   Scottish  Universities  must. 


PEOF.   VEITCH  S   POSITION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.      XV 

therefore,  be  judged  as  well  by  the  relative 
merits  of  Mental  Philosophy  as  a  study  and 
discipline,  and  by  the  way  in  which  it  is  taught, 
as  by  any  comparison  of  them  with  Universities 
which  aim  exclusively,  or  even  mainly,  at  reach- 
mo.  a  hidi  standard  in  classics  or  mathematics. 
Any  criticism  of  the  Scottish  University  system, 
or  proposed  reform  of  it,  which  ignores  or  under- 
estimates the  historical  and  actual  place  of 
Mental  Philosophy  as  an  essential  part  of  its 
discipline,  is  neither  intelligent  nor  just."  It  is 
pleasing,  but  pathetic,  to  think  that  Mr  Veitch's 
last  course  of  lectures  was  given  during  the  last 
session  in  which  the  Logic  class  at  Glasgow  met 
under  the  conditions  to  which  he  makes  refer- 
ence above.  One  is  glad  to  know  that  the 
changes  which  the  order,  now  beginning,  must 
inevitably  work  upon  the  place  of  philosophy  at 
our  universities  cannot  trouble  him.  But  it  is 
pathetic  that  his  profound  grasp  of  the  historical 
circumstances,  wide  personal  experience,  and 
tenacity  of  purpose  should  be  unavailable  dur- 
ing this  critical  period  of  passage  from  old  to 
new.  They  would  have  been  wisely  exercised 
in  support  of  a  favourite  thesis — the  importance 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

of  the  philosophical  department  as  an  instru- 
ment for  general  education  as  opposed  to  '^  pay- 
ing "  specialisms.  Perhaps  no  one  was  in  a 
better  position  to  urge  this.  For  Mr  Veitch,  if 
the  last  representative  of  one  type  of  Scottish 
professor,  reverted  in  many  ways  to  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  more  ancient  Eegents,  whose 
duties  led  them  to  teach  several  subjects.  His 
attainments  in  literature,  in  archaeology,  and  in 
philology  are  too  well  known  to  need  comment. 
Some  few  may  not  be  aware  of  his  historical 
and  classical  scholarship,  which,  indeed,  were 
the  necessary  accompaniments  of  his  accurate 
knowledge  in  those  bypaths  of  philosophy  for 
the  moderns — the  Treatises  of  Aristotle  and  of 
the  Scholastic  Doctors. 

A  Scot,  then,  by  ancestry,  by  training,  and  in 
his  public  career,  Mr  Veitch  was  to  a  large  extent 
national  in  his  cast  of  thouglit.  When  he  entered 
the  University  of  Edinburgh,  Wilson  (Christopher 
North)  was  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy, 
Hamilton  of  Logic  and  Metaphysics,  and  Aytoun 
of  Ehetoric.  But,  despite  the  imaginative  fer- 
vour of  the  first  and  the  fine  perception  of  the 
last,  Hamilton's  influence  became  the  main  de- 


PEOF.   VEITCH'S   position  IN  PHILOSOPHY,      xvii 

termining  element  in  the  pupil's  thought;  and 
its  force  was  naturally  increased  when  the 
student  came  to  be  more  closely  associated  with 
his  teacher  as  Assistant  in  the    Chair  of  Logic. 

It  is  far  from  easy,  even  within  forty  years 
of  Hamilton's  death,  sympathetically  to  recon- 
struct, as  it  were,  the  secret  of  his  masterful 
formative  power.  The  old  problems,  truly,  still 
clamour  for  solution ;  but  the  generation  that 
takes  its  science  from  Darwin,  its  psychology 
from  Eomanes  and  AVundt,  its  metaphysic  from 
the  Kantians,  its  poetry  from  Goethe  and  Brown- 
ing, regards  the  great  questions  from  a  standpoint 
so  peculiarly  its  own  that  they  appear  to  be 
wholly  altered.  The  more  pressing  the  need, 
then,  to  revert  to  the  stirring  Edinburgh  decade 
of  '46  to  '56.  The  salient  points,  at  least,  may 
be  recalled.^ 

Upon  the  available  historical  evidence,  it  is  an 
exaggeration  to  say  with  some  that  philosophy 
was  dead  in  Scotland  till  Hamilton  brought  it 

^  I  gladly  acknowledge  here  my  obligations  to  Professor 
Calderwood,  of  Edinburgh  University,  Professor  Yeitch's  fellow- 
student  and  lifelong  friend,  who  has  attempted,  in  convers- 
ation, to  impart  something  of  the  spirit  of  this  period  to  me. 


XVlll  INTRODUCTION. 

to  life  again.  ]^o  doubt,  after  Hume,  Adam 
Smith,  and  Eeid,  there  had  been  a  species  of  de- 
cline. Yet  Ferguson,  Dugald  Stewart,  Brown,  and 
Chalmers  are  by  no  means  contemptible  names. 
The  truth  rather  appears  to  be  that  Hamilton 
entered  into  their  labours  and  in  a  manner  com- 
pleted them.  As  compared  with  Eeid,  he  taught 
the  Scottish  philosophy  a  new  language,  greatly 
to  its  advantage  in  accuracy.  He  departed  from 
the  elegant,  and  sometimes  futile,  generalities  of 
Dugald  Stewart.  In  contrast  to  Brown,  and 
indeed  to  the  best  equipped  of  his  predecessors, 
he  was  a  man  of  wide  and  accurate  learning. 
The  enthusiasm  which  he  evoked,  in  such  measure 
as  to  produce  a  school  of  thinkers,  seems  to  have 
been  due,  on  the  one  hand,  to  his  profound  know- 
ledge and  consequent  readiness  to  defend  his 
doctrines ;  on  the  other,  and  mainly,  to  the  per- 
sistence of  his  analysis  of  consciousness.  The 
time-honoured  inductive  method  of  the  Scottish 
school — self -observation  and  reflection — was  em- 
ployed, but  it  was  now  carried  out  with  a 
thoroughness  and  originality  previously  unknown. 
Students  felt  that  in  Hamilton's  analytic  of  con- 
sciousness they  had  found  something  inspiring, 


PROF.  VEITCH  S   POSITION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.      XIX 

something  positive  and  tangible  as  compared  with 
the  looseness  of  Eeid's  and  the  vagueness  of 
Stewart's  first  principles.  In  other  words,  Ham- 
ilton's constructive  influence  flowed  neither  from 
his  metaphysic  nor  from  his  logic,  but  from 
his  psychology.  Some  of  his  followers,  like 
Mansel  and  M'Cosh,  afterwards  interested  them- 
selves in  metaphysics ;  others,  like  Mr  Veitch 
himself,  in  logic.  Yet,  with  all,  the  psychological 
standpoint  remained  unaltered  in  essentials  and 
supplied  the  controlling  factor.  The  leading 
essay  in  the  present  volume  shows  that,  till  the 
end,  this  held  true.  Occasionally  in  public  utter- 
ances, and  more  frequently  in  private  convers- 
ation, Mr  Veitch  was  accustomed  to  emphasise  his 
master's  contribution  to  logic.  But,  so  far  as  his 
own  thought  was  concerned,  he  remained  a  "  Ham- 
iltonian"  exclusively  by  the  operation  of  principles 
inseparable  from  the  Scoto- Cartesian  psychology. 
Here  indeed  it  was  that  Hamilton  first  exerted 
influence  upon  him. 

When  he  became  a  member  of  Hamilton's  class, 
Mr  Veitch  had  already  enjoyed  the  advantage  of 
several  years'  philosophical  discipline.  More  par- 
ticularly, he  was  prepared  to  appreciate  Hamil- 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

ton's  analytic  of  consciousness  by  a  study  of 
Descartes.  What  he  acquired  in  general  from 
the  "  Father  of  modern  philosophy,"  he  now  ob- 
tained in  special  applications  from  his  new 
teacher.  By  reason  of  his  greater  maturity  and 
wider  preparatory  reading,  he  was  in  a  better 
position  than  his  fellov*^-students  to  react  upon 
Hamilton's  instruction.  The  tendency  to  con- 
centrate attention  upon  the  "  thinking  thing," 
engendered  by  Mr  Veitch's  study  of  Descartes, 
was  thus  confirmed  by  Hamilton,  and  became 
the  chief  formative  element  in  nearly  all  his 
later  thought.  Greatly  as  he  may  have  admired 
Hamilton's  contributions  to  logic,  which,  as  an 
enthusiastic  disciple  has  said,  "  certainly  accom- 
plished more  for  the  science  than  has  been  done 
by  any  one  man  since  Aristotle,"  and  much  as  he 
may  have  been  induced  by  his  opportunities  as 
Assistant  to  value  them,  they  never  were  the  real 
source  of  inspiration.  Latterly,  too — I  mean 
during  the  last  ten  years — Mr  Veitcli  would  never 
have  defended  Hamilton's  metaphysic,  even  if,  as 
he  occasionally  hinted  with  a  twinkle  of  the  eye, 
he  could  have  given  a  consistent  account  of  its 
leading  principle.     Further,  Hamilton's  psychol- 


PEOF.   VEITCH  S   POSITION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.      XXI 

ogical  teaching  found  a  mind  prepared  for  it,  not 
only  by  previous  reflection,  but  also  by  natural 
bent.  Analysis  rather  than  synthesis,  induction 
rather  than  deduction,  are  the  methods  which  the 
old  psychology,  from  Descartes  to  Hamilton, 
favoured.  The  tendency  to  separate  and  to  set 
forth  in  succession  rather  than  to  organise  and 
regard  as  a  developing  whole  is  characteristic  of 
the  mind  in  which  the  critical  faculty  predomi- 
nates. From  the  outset  and  till  the  last,  Mr 
Veitch's  mind  was  critical ;  and  there  can  be  little 
question  that  this  natural  tendency  was  fostered 
and  confirmed  by  the  methods  with  which  he  be- 
came familiar  under  Hamilton.  That  a  spirit  so 
poetical  and  artistic,  so  reverential  and  even 
mystical,  should  have  been  linked  in  one  person- 
ality with  an  intellect  so  masterfully  acute  is  the 
problem,  as  it  is  the  fascination,  of  his  character. 
And,  passing  now  from  Hamilton's  influence,  the 
prevalent  features  of  Mr  Veitch's  thought  may  be 
traced  to  the  interaction  of  these  two  distinctive 
yet  co-ordinate  leanings. 

Like  poetry,  philosophical  reflection  may  be 
regarded  as  an  essential  expression  of  life.  It 
appears  later,  and  often  settles,  or  attempts  to 


XXll  INTRODUCTION. 

settle,  the  accounts  which  poetry  has  incurred. 
Accordingly,  its  interest  is  commonly  either  living 
or  no  more  than  historical.  When  a  philosophy 
is  said  to  be  unpopular,  what  is  implied  is  that 
the  problems  which  it  attacks  do  not  press  hard 
at  the  moment,  or  that  other  aspects  of  them 
evoke  speculative  inquiry.  Putting  it  otherwise, 
and  employing  a  distinctively  modern  phrase,  an 
unpopular  philosophy  may  be  so  called  mainly 
because  it  is  at  odds  with  the  Zeitgeist.  In  the 
history  of  modern  philosophy,  the  second  period, 
inaugurated  by  Locke,  continued  to  affect  British 
thought  with  a  certain  exclusiveness  long  after 
the  third  stage,  inaugurated  by  Kant,  had  turned 
the  Continental  mind  to  fresh  questions.  This 
second  period  was  dominated  by  a  study  of 
individual  experience,  of  knowledge  as  it  is  in 
the  inner  man,  to  the  rejection  of  experience  as 
a  whole,  and  of  the  universe.  It  may  be  fairly 
alleged  that  Hamilton  was  the  last  constructive 
representative  of  this  stage,  on  one  of  its  sides, 
as  John  Stuart  Mill  was  on  the  other.  The 
characteristic  ideas  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  principles  whereby,  so  far  as  one  can  now 
venture  to  forecast,  it  will  be  remembered,  began 


PROF.   VEITCH'S   POSITION  IN  PHILOSOPHY,      xxiii 

to  assert  themselves  strongly  in  this  country 
during  the  fifteen  years  succeeding  Hamilton's 
death.  Since  then  their  influence  has  become 
more  and  more  dominant.  As  a  natural  conse- 
quence, Mr  Yeitch  was  not  in  touch  with  some 
of  these  doctrines,  and  he  was  probably  opposed 
to  the  extreme  assertion  of  any.  Carlyle,  through 
whom  many  relatively  of  his  generation  lighted 
upon  the  idealistic  interpretation  of  the  universe, 
never  attracted  him.  His  well-known  predilec- 
tion for  the  poetry  of  personal  experience — of 
aspiration  towards  the  divine,  of  subjective  com- 
muning with  the  natural  —  constituted  another 
bulwark  against  that  recent  form  of  speculation 
which  explains  man,  not  so  much  by  considering 
him  in  himself  as  by  reducing  him  to  the  position 
of  a  unit  in  an  all-embracing  order.  By  philoso- 
phical tradition  and  training  he  neither  credited, 
nor  cared  to  accredit,  the  Allgemeinhcit  which  so 
conspicuously  marks  post-Fichtean  theories  of 
human  consciousness.  Constitutionally  he  hated 
"publicity,"  and  his  affinities  in  literature  only 
served  to  confirm  this  partly  natural,  partly 
acquired,  distaste.  Thus  his  critical  faculty 
found   enough   and   to   spare   against   which   to 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

direct  itself.  The  positive  teaching  of  the 
Scottish  school  had,  in  the  main,  become  of 
historical  interest,^  and  the  newer  ideas  that  had 
supplanted  it  failing  to  recommend  themselves 
to  his  judgment,  he  set  himself  to  exhibit  their 
shortcomings. 

The  brief  period  that  has  elapsed  is  not  suf- 
ficient to  admit  of  anything  like  a  final  estimate 
of  the  value  of  these  criticisms.  It  must  be 
enough  to  point  out  here,  that  the  enthusiasm 

^  It  may  be  of  interest  to  quote  here  the  judgment  of  one 
who  was  himself  trained  in  the  Scottish  school,  and  who  cannot 
be  suspected  of  bias.  Professor  Masson,  of  Edinburgh,  Avriting 
in  1877,  thus  concludes  the  third  edition  of  his  Recent  British 
Philosophy :  "  On  the  whole,  my  impression  is  that  the 
struggle  in  Systematic  British  Philosophy,  apart  from  Didactic 
Theology,  is  not  now  any  longer,  as  it  was  in  1865,  between 
Hamilton's  System  of  Transcendental  Realism  plus  a  Meta- 
physical Agnosticism  relieved  by  strenuous  Faith,  and  Mill's 
System  of  Empirical  Idealism  plus  a  Metaphysical  Agnosticism 
relieved  by  a  slight  reserve  of  possibility  for  Paley  after  all, 
but  between  Mr  Spencer's  Knowable  Cosmical  Evolution 
blocked  off  from  an  Unknowable  Absolute,  and  some  less 
organised  Idealistic  Philosophy  describable  as  British  Hegel- 
ianism.  But,  apart  from  these  two  camps,  there  cluster  the 
Comtists  by  themselves  ;  and  between  the  two  camps,  looking 
into  each  and  borrowing  from  each,  but  refusing  to  belong  to 
either,  or  to  house  with  the  Comtists,  move  those  vagrant 
Agnostics  who  still  choose  to  rely  mainly  on  more  or  less  of 
constitutional  postulation." 


PKOF.   VEITCh's  position  IN  PHILOSOPHY.      XXV 

with  which  new  ideas  are  greeted  on  their  first 
inrush  is  commonly  accompanied  by  some  lack  of 
discrimination.  Tendencies  assert  themselves  to 
erect  the  most  recent  doctrines  into  confessions 
of  faith,  and  to  regard  opponents  of  them  as 
"  mostly  fools,"  or,  at  all  events,  as  persons  with- 
out whom  it  is  safe  to  reckon.  The  sudden  swing 
to  materialism,  which  was  the  immediate  conse- 
quence of  the  enunciation  of  the  theory  of  physi- 
cal evolution,  furnishes  a  typical  example  of  this. 
The  assumptions  which  science  necessarily  makes 
came  to  be  ignored,  or  forgotten,  for  the  time, 
and  a  world  altogether  alien  to  man's  experience 
achieved  curious  apotheosis  as  the  only  explan- 
ation of  this  very  experience.  Mr  Veitch  was 
quick  to  detect  logical  errors  of  this  kind,  and 
he  exposed  them  with  unsparing  scorn,  fearing 
no  man  and  recking  nothing  of  popularity  or 
sarcasm;  The  rapidly  growing  tendency  to 
resile  from  these  extreme  positions  proves  how 
thoroughly  justified  he  was.  New  conceptions, 
especially  when  they  happen  to  be  fraught  with 
widest  issues,  cannot  be  comprehended  in  a  day. 
They  lay  hold  of  men,  and  carry  them  off  captive ; 
so  they  are  frequently  bad  masters  ere  they  can 


XXvi  INTRODUCTION. 

be  reduced  to  the  level  of  good  servants.  And 
it  is  the  critic's  office  to  call  a  halt  for  their 
examination  and  appraisement.  To  many  zealous 
minds  these  stoppages  are,  of  course,  irritating 
and  almost  meaningless.  But,  at  the  last,  they 
actually  contribute  to  advance.  Moreover,  the 
operative  ideas  with  which  thinkers  are  now 
accustomed  to  work  extend  so  endlessly  in  their 
ramifications  that  there  cannot  but  be  a  place  for 
the  critic.  He  puts  questions  —  annoying,  be- 
cause often  inconvenient  —  and  so,  at  the  close 
of  a  somewhat  slow  process,  induces  the  construc- 
tive philosophers  to  admit  that,  after  all,  it  is 
but  human  to  err. 

Despite  this,  one  can  frankly  allow,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  critical  attitude  has  its  own 
dangers.  As  the  record  of  history  attests,  these 
are  apt  most  to  abound  when  the  upholders  of 
an  older  order  attack  those  who  are  swayed  by 
lately  born  ideas.  In  particular,  a  seeming  want 
of  sympathy  may  tend  to  repel  what,  by  common 
consent,  is  usually  known  as  the  "  young  "  gener- 
ation. I  am  inclined  to  believe — but  I  state  it 
only  as  a  personal  opinion — that  the  adherents 
of   British  idealism  were   thus   affected   by  Mr 


PEOF.    VEITCH'S   position   IN   PHILOSOPHY,      xxvii 

Veitch's  uncompromisiDg  hostility  to  their  most 
cherished  principles.  But,  nevertheless,  I  felt 
sure  that,  had  some  of  them  known  his  inner 
personality  more  intimately,  much  would  have 
heen  done  to  remove  this  impression.  In  any 
case,  one  who  differed  from  him  profoundly  on 
many  of  the  points  at  issue — certainly  on  the 
most  important  principle — is  bound  to  place  it 
on  record  that  there  was  no  trace  of  undue  dog- 
matism and  no  lack  of  sympathy  in  his  private 
discussions.  He  did  not  see  idealism  from  the 
inside,  and  never  had  any  desire  thus  to  view  it. 
Yet,  even  at  this,  there  were  compensating  advan- 
tages. He  perceived  defects  which  the  outsider 
alone  could  apprehend  with  similar  clearness. 
And  if  he  insisted  on  them  with  strenuous  iter- 
ation, he  not  merely  made  unseen  weaknesses 
manifest  to  some  of  the  idealists  themselves,  but 
also  bore  his  part  in  that  movement  towards 
a  re  -  examination  of  fundamental  philosophical 
postulates  now  in  process.  What  Green  said  as 
a  sympathiser,  and  with  a  view  to  purging  ideal- 
ism of  the  formal  difficulties  incident  to  earlier 
presentations  of  it,  Veitch  stated  as  a  hostile 
critic.  Yet,  for  some  minds,  the  disciple  and 
c 


XXVlll  INTRODUCTION. 

the  opponent  contributed  to  a  common  result. 
It  was  the  logic  of  idealism  far  more  than  its 
metaphysic  that  irritated  the  critic;  and  the 
follower  himself  seems  to  be  but  little  satisfied 
with  it. 

"  If  thought  and  reality  are  to  be  identified,  if 
the  statement  that  God  is  thought  is  to  be  more 
than  a  presumptuous  paradox,  thought  must  be 
other  than  the  discursive  activity  exhibited  in  our 
inferences  and  analyses,  other  than  a  particular 
mode  of  consciousness  which  excludes  from  itself 
feeling  and  will.  As  little  can  it  be  the  process 
of  philosophising,  though  Hegel  himself,  by  what 
seems  to  us  the  one  essential  aberration  of  his  doc- 
trine, treats  this  process  as  a  sort  of  movement  of 
the  absolute  thought.  But  when  we  have  said 
that  thought,  if  it  is  to  hold  the  place  which 
Hegel  gives  it,  must  be  something  else  than  we 
take  it  to  be  when  we  seek  to  ascertain  its  nature 
by  '  looking  into  our  own  breasts,'  we  are  bound 
to  make  it  clear  how  a  truer  conception  of  it  is 
to  be  obtained.  Till  this  is  done  more  explicitly 
than  it  has  yet  been  done  by  the  exponents  of 
Hegel,  a  suspicion  will  attach  to  his  doctrine 
among  those  best  students  of  philosophy  whose 


PEOF.  VEITCH's   POSITIOK  IN   PHILOSOPHY,      xxix 

prime  wish  is  to  know  throughout  exactly  where 
they  stand.  .  .  .  We  suspect  that  all  along  HegeVs 
method  has  stood  in  the  way  of  an  acceptance  of 
his  conclusion,  because  he,  at  any  rate,  seemed  to 
arrive  at  his  conclusion  as  to  the  spirituality  of 
the  world,  not  by  interrogating  the  world,  but  by 
interrogating  his  own  thoughts.  A  well-grounded 
conviction  has  made  men  refuse  to  helieve  that 
any  dialectic  of  the  discursive  intelligence  would 
instruct  them  in  the  reality  of  the  luorld,  or  that 
this  reality  could  consist  in  thought  in  any  sense 
in  which  thought  can  be  identified  with  such 
an  intellectual  process.  It  may  not,  indeed,  have 
been  of  the  essence  of  Hegel,  but  an  accident 
explicable  from  his  philosophical  antecedents, 
that  his  doctrine  ivas  presented  in  a  form  which 
affronted  this  conviction."  ^ 

No  one  appreciated  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  idealism  more  than  Green;  and,  convinced 
of  their  ultimate  truth  as  he  was,  no  one  more 
fervently  desired  to  remove  these  formal  tram- 
mels. Veitch  was  an  intuitionalist,  or  a  sym- 
pathiser with  the  intuitional  standpoint.     That 

1  WorTcs  of  T.  H.  Green,  vol.  iii.     Pp.  142,  143,  146.     The 
italics  are  mine. 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

is,  he  was  practically  an  idealist  of  another  kind. 
So  he  only  sought  to  pass  effective  criticisms  on 
what  he  considered  as  a  competing  and  mistaken 
theory.  But,  with  this  difference,  the  following 
passages  remind  one  strangely  of  what  Green 
wrote  as  above  : — 

"  When  we  come  to  the  application  of  results 
to  Man,  Self,  or  Person,  we  find  also  a  consider- 
able change  in  the  point  of  view  or  meaning  of 
terms.  Instead  of  a  conscious  subject  as  the  one 
factor  in  knowledge,  we  usually  hear  of  a  'con- 
sciousness,' or  '  thought,'  as  doing  the  work  of 
knowing  and  making.  This  is  not  a  correct  or 
justifiable  use  of  words ;  it  is  a  substitution  of 
the  act  for  the  actor,  of  the  knowing  for  the 
knower,  even  of  the  object  of  the  knowledge  for 
the  knowing.  .  .  .  The  ideas  of  creation  and 
creative  energy  are  emptied  of  meaning,  and  for 
them  is  substituted  the  conception  or  fiction  of 
an  eternally  related  or  double-sided  world.  .  .  . 
The  eternal  self  only  is,  if  the  eternal  manifold 
is :  the  eternal  manifold  is,  if  the  eternal  self  is. 
The  one  in  being  the  other  is  or  makes  itself  the 
one ;  the  other  in  being  the  one  is  or  makes  itself 
the  other.  .  .  .  What  may  be  called  the  method 


XXXI 

in  all  this  kind  of  reasoning  is  to  take  a  term  or 
concept  already  existing  and  to  analyse  it,  to  show 
what  is  implied  or  supposed  to  be  implied  in  it ; 
to  show  that  it  is  related  or  correlated,  and  in  so 
doing  to  treat  the  term  and  the  different  terms 
which  are  involved  as  if  they  were  active,  or 
constituting  elements  in  the  general  concept."^ 
Again,  "  Eelation  between  terms  or  concepts  never 
constitutes  the  reality  of  the  term  or  concept; 
but  is  possible  only  through  a  definitely  appre- 
hended or  comprehended  object.  .  .  .  Eelation, 
ultimately  analysed,  means  one  of  the  accidents 
or  properties  of  an  object  or  concept.  .  .  .  Genus 
and  species  are  united  in  the  individual.  Animal 
and  man  are  united  in  this  man  ;  but  tliis  man  is 
not  constituted  by  the  union  of  these  simply. 
Individuality  is  something  higher  than  mere 
membership  of  a  logical  class."  "-^ 

The  method  of  idealism  which,  as  Green  once 
said,  required  to  be  done  over  again,  remained  an 
irresistible  stumbling-block  to  Mr  Yeitch.  With 
the  removal  of  this  stumbling-block — a  process 
which,  as  some  recent  writings  appear  to  prove, 

1  Knowing  and  Being.     Pp.  15,  16,  21,  22,  149. 

2  Institutes  of  Logic.     Pp.  177,  163. 


XXXll  INTRODUCTION. 

has  already  well  begun — it  would  have  been  in 
no  way  surprising  to  find  Mr  Veitch's  thought 
far  less  "dualistic"  than  has  been  popularly 
supposed.  As  it  is,  he  assuredly  brought 
home  to  some  minds  the  indispensableness  of 
this  change.  To  this  end,  it  was  along  the 
line  of  a  favourite  topic  with  him  that  the 
chief  suggestiveness  of  his  criticism  lay ;  and, 
perchance,  even  yet  it  may  bear  most  fruit 
in  this  direction.  He  never  wearied  in  his  in- 
sistence that  "How  far  and  in  what  way  our 
fundamental  intellectual  and  moral  conceptions 
are  rationally  predicable  of  an  Infinite  Being, 
is  the  unsolved  problem  of  Metaphysics."  He 
would  probably  have  added  that  it  was  the  only 
problem  worth  solving ;  for,  surmount  it,  and  all 
other  things  will  be  added  unto  you.  The  ques- 
tions here  involved  mark  the  transition  in  his 
character  from  the  intellectual  acuteness  of  the 
critic  to  the  spiritual  perception  of  the  poet  and 
the  reverential  awe  of  the  mystic. 

The  psychological  standpoint  of  Hamilton,  with 
its  analytic  method,  so  far  retained  sway  with 
Mr  Veitch  that  constructive  metaphysic  never 
became  of  paramount  importance  in  his  thought. 


PROF.   VEITCH'S   position  IN  PHILOSOPHY.      XXXUl 

He  never  consciously  set  himself  to  systematise 
experience  philosophically.  Yet,  in  his  poetical 
writings,  and  in  those  moods  whereoiit  his  poetry 
sprang,  he  often  felt,  not  only  the 

'•  Heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  imintelligible  world," 

but  also 

"  That  serene  and  blessed  mood 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on, — 
Until  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul ; 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony  and  the  deep  power  of  joy 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things." 

What  he  says  of  Wordsworth,  in  this  connection, 
very  well  sums  up  his  own  attitude.  "Words- 
worth does  not  here  point  to  that  sublimity  of 
character  which  is  found  in  a  dignified  and 
reasoned  acceptance  of  the  inevitable,  yielding 
even  a  complacency  which  enables  a  man  to  turn 
to  the  sunnier  side  of  things  and  break  into  song. 
He  leads  rather  to  the  composure  which  arises 
from  a  faith  whose  reflective  and  scrutinising  eye 
pierces  'the  cloud  of  destiny,'  and  is  nourished 


XXXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

by  what  it  feels  is  above  and  beyond  it.  There 
is  all  the  difference  between  'putting  by'  and 
seeing  beyond. 

'  Faith  in  life  endless,  the  sustaining  thought 
Of  human  being,  Eternity,  and  God.'  "  ^ 

To  those  who  knew  Mr  Veitch  best,  this  con- 
structive mood  is  probably  most  characteristic- 
ally present  throughout  the  exquisite  volumes, 
The  Feeling  for  Nature  in  Scottish  Poetry.  "  Since 
I  was  a  boy — now,  alas !  a  long  time  ago — with 
fishing-rod  in  hand,  I  do  not  remember  when  I 
did  not  take  unalloyed  delight  in  the  wimplings 
of  the  burn,  in  the  sheen  of  the  bracken,  in  the 
grey  rock,  in  the  purple  of  the  heather,  and  the 
solitude  of  the  moorlands.  Once  I  remember, 
when  the  gloaming  was  coming  on  in  the  Posso 
Burn — forty-six  years  ago — I  whipped  up  my 
line  round  my  small  fishing-rod,  hitched  my 
basket  on  my  back,  and  though  it  was  eight 
o'clock,  and  an  August  evening,  would  not  be 
comforted  until,  striking  westwards  and  upwards 
away  from  home,  —  the  setting  sun  perhaps 
stirring   and   goading   me   on,  —  I   climbed   the 

1  See  below,  p.  220. 


PROF.  VEITCH'S  position  IN  PHILOSOPHY.      XXXV 

height, — '  speeled '  it, — wandered  down  Kirkhope 
with  a  curious  pathetic  heart,  for  the  grey  sky 
overshadowed  me,  and  the  burn  moaned,  and 
there  was  an  ominous  veiling  mist  on  the  con- 
fronting mass  of  Dollar  Law ;  and  I  got  home 
therefrom  about  midnight,  some  nine  miles  away, 
through  the  darkness  and  the  calm  that  had 
settled,  like  a  dream,  in  the  valley  of  the 
Manor.  But  I  did  not  find  then,  and  I  do  not 
find  greatly  now,  that  many  people  share  this 
feeling.  ...  I  find  even  the  angler,  carrying 
his  rod  up  the  beautiful  and  lovely  burn,  more 
intent  on  filling  his  basket  than  in  brooding 
on  the  braes.  I  find,  too,  the  citizen  out  for 
a  holiday  and  the  picnicker  laudably  enough 
rejoicing  in  the  open  haugh  and  moorland,  but 
this  delight  is  often  unquestionably  not  very  far 
removed  from  that  which  accompanies  fresh  air 
and  a  better  digestion.  The  free  pure  love  of 
nature  is  different  from  all  this, — as  difi"erent 
as  emotion  is  from  sensation.  They  are  few, 
indeed,  who  reach  a  supreme  satisfaction  on  the 
wilds,  who  delight  in  them  merely  for  what 
they  are,  and  ivlio  find  in  them,  as  there  may  he 
found,  the  near  ijresence  of  a  Personal  yet  Supreme 


XXXVl  INTRODUCTION. 

Power,  wJiose  communion  is  never  awanting  to  the 
solitary  lover  and  loorshipper  of  nature  ;  and  when 
this  feeling  rises  to  its  true  strength,  and  finds 
outlet  in  sympathetic  and  imaginative  express- 
ion— whether  in  verse  or  prose — what  has  been 
said  of  poetry  in  general  may  emphatically  be 
said  of  nature  poetry:  'It  redeems  from  decay 
the  visitations  of  the  Divinity  in  man.'"^  In 
the  rare  feeling  and  finely  toned  perception 
which  prompted  this,  and  much  of  a  similar 
kind,  lay  the  secret  of  Mr  Veitch's  unique  in- 
dividuality, with  its  strong  self  -  reliance  yet 
pervading  humility.  No  doubt  they  do  not  fur- 
nish a  reasoned  -  out  metaphysical  system,  but 
they  presuppose  one.  Nature  may  be  opposed 
to  man,  as  he  is  often  inclined  to  believe  at 
first  sight.  Yet  many  of  his  holiest  moments, 
and  the  better  part  of  all  that  is  most  valuable 
in  his  life,  implies  her  co-operation  —  implies 
that  she  is  not  foreign,  but  that  rather  from 
out  of  the  depths  of  her  indwelling  spirit  she 
answers  back  to  him,  who  is  bone  of  her  bone 
and  flesh  of  her  flesh.  Man  passes  forth  utterly 
stricken  from  some  quiet  churchyard,  and  with 

^  Vol.  i.     Pp.  2,  3,  4,  5.     The  italics  are  mine. 


PEOF.   VEITCH  S  POSITION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.     XXXVll 

song  of  bird,  with  dazzling  sunshine,  with  beauty 
of  flower  and  tree,  Nature  seems  to  scoff  at  his 
sorrow.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  by  these  very 
agencies  she  slowly  assuages  the  pang  and  heals 
the  wound.  Her  lilies  and  roses,  her  hedgerows 
and  beeches,  speak  to  man  through  the  eye; 
through  the  ear  her  thrushes  and  nightingales 
are  swift  to  soothe  his  spirit. 

"  Bird  of  the  wilderness, 

Blithesome  and  cumberless, 
Sweet  be  thy  matin  o'er  moorland  and  lea ! 

Emblem  of  happiness, 

Blest  is  thy  dwelUng-place  ; 
Oh  !  to  abide  in  the  desert  with  thee ! 

Then,  when  the  gloamin'  comes, 

Low  in  the  heather  blooms 
Sweet  will  thy  welcome  and  bed  of  love  be ! 

Bird  of  the  wilderness, 

Blest  is  thy  dwelling-place ; 
Oh  !  to  abide  in  the  desert  with  thee  ! "  i 

Nature  persuades  man  to  an  eternal  quest  which, 
as  Mr  Yeitch  not  only  said  but  in  his  inmost 
soul  deeply  felt,  "  leads  on  to  the  one  great  liv- 
ing Spirit  who,  while  He  transcends  the  world 

^  Cf.  The  Feeling  for  Nature,  vol.  i.  p.  104. 


XXXviii  INTRODUCTION. 

of  experience,  is  yet  iii  it, — manifesting  Himself 
in  all  —  in  light  and  darkness,  sunshine  and 
gloom,  holding  the  balance  of  opposites  in  the 
hollow  of  His  hand — not  a  magnified  man,  but 
a  soul,  which  somehow  takes  up  into  one  both 
man  and  nature  : — 

'  Tumult  and  peace,  the  darkness  and  the  light, — 
Were  all  like  workings  of  one  Mind,  the  features 
Of  the  same  face,  blossoms  upon  one  tree, 
Characters  of  the  great  Apocalypse, 
The  types  and  symbols  of  Eternity, 
Of  first,  and  last,  and  midst,  and  without  end.' "  ^ 

A  philosophy,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
schools,  this  may  not  be.  Nevertheless,  it  pos- 
sesses strength  just  where  abstract  systems  have, 
as  a  rule,  proved  themselves  weak.  It  is  the 
expression  of  a  life,  and,  as  such,  it  involves 
principles  which  have  already  come  to  their 
only  true  kingdom  —  the  ordering  of  a  soul  in 
its  fundamental  relations  to  the  universe  and 
to  God.  Accordingly,  in  that  fascinating  bor- 
derland which  lies  on  the  marches  between 
poetry  and  philosophy  —  partaking  in  the  aes- 
thetic emotion  of  the  one,  and  in  the   perma- 

^  The  Feeling  for  Nature,  vol.  i.  pp.  75,  76» 


PROF.   VEITCH  S   POSITION   IN   PHILOSOPHY.      XXXIX 

nent  reality  of  the  other  —  the  absolute  spirit 
of  the  man  most  revealed  itself.  Here  he  was 
himself,  here  he  belonged  to  no  school  or  sect, 
but  shared  with  those  selecter  souls  who  gain 
a  surer  immortality  such  glimpses  of  the  One 
Eternal  in  nature  and  in  human  life  as  are 
vouchsafed  to  the  aspiring  spirit  here  below. 

By  training  and  by  force  of  circumstances  a 
scholar  and  a  teacher,  Mr  Veitch's  mastering 
bent  was  to  be  found  elsewhere.  The  "  facul- 
ties" of  the  mind,  the  "laws"  of  logic,  the 
formal  systems  of  philosophy,  stood,  with  him, 
among  things  seen  and  temporal.  He  passed 
his  own  truest  life  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
unseen  and  eternal.  He  was  a  deeply  religious 
man  in  the  best  sense  of  this  term.  Eevealing 
this  side  of  his  character  to  none  but  his  very 
few  intimate  friends,  he  bulked  most,  with  his 
students  and  with  others,  as  a  critic.  But  even 
they  vaguely  felt  that  something  more  remained 
to  be  disclosed.  And  this  instinct  was  correct. 
When  one  pierced  through  the  shell  to  the 
inner  spirit,  a  nature,  rare  in  its  combination 
of  the  poet  with  the  philosopher,  revealed  it- 
self.     Contemplative    rather    than    speculative, 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 

emotional  rather  than  exclusively  intellectual, 
yet  of  immense  moral  strength  and  of  a  corre- 
sponding intensity  in  righteous  indignation,  the 
man's  greatness  lay  in  his  entire  humanity,  and 
not  in  the  special  predominance  of  any  one 
acquirement.  Spiritual  intuition  was  the  cen- 
tral fire.  And  with  the  quenching  of  this  there 
passed  a  personality  who,  in  philosophy,  affected 
youthful  minds  no  more  than  indirectly,  but  who 
gained  the  higher  meed  of  leaving  an  indelible 
impression  on  the  characters  of  those  with  whom 
he  was  brought  into  close  contact,  by  the  un- 
swerving manliness  with  which  he  battled,  as 
he  found  opportunity,  for  all  that  was  pure, 
and  elevating,  and  of  good  report. 

E.  M.  we:n^ley. 


PREFACE. 


In  a  former  volume,  entitled  Knowing  and  Being 
{Essays  in  Philosophy,  First  Series),  I  stated  and 
criticised-  that  form  of  philosophical  opinion 
which  represents  what  may  be  called  the  Ab- 
solutist view  of  the  world.  This  may  be  briefly 
put  as  the  doctrine  that  a  series  of  relations, 
summed  up  in  the  phrase  an  "Absolute  or  In- 
finite Self-conscious  Ego,"  is  convertible  with 
Eeality.  In  the  present  volume  I  deal  with 
what  may  be  regarded  as  one  form  of  the  in- 
dividualistic view — viz.,  that  mere  relations,  or 
a  collective  sum  of  relations  in  something  re- 
garded as  the  individual  consciousness,  are 
also  so  convertible.  The  latter  theory  seems 
to  me  as  inadequate  as  the   former.      To   give 


xlii  PREFACE. 

some  reasons  for  this  is  the  aim  of  the  present 
volume. 

From  the  presentations  of  this  view  I  have 
selected  Professor  Lionel  Dauriac's  book,  Croy- 
ance  et  B^aliU}  for  comment  and  criticism,  as 
it  seems  to  me  one  of  the  clearest  and  best.  I 
regret  that  this  mode  of  treatment  gives  a  some- 
what polemical  appearance  to  the  discussion ;  but 
I  write  with  no  feeling  of  disrespect  to  M.  Dauriac, 
or  to  any  one  who  differs  from  me.  I  merely 
take  this  method  of  getting  at  the  truth. 

J.    VEITCH. 

Peebles,  July  1894. 

1  Fdlix  Alcaii.     Paris  :  1889. 


DUALISM  AND  MONISM 
OR,   RELATION  AND  REALITY 

A    CEITICISM 


DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 


I.— EEALISM   AND    COMMON-SE^^SE ; 
DUALISM   AND    MONISM. 

It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  point  out  and  acknow- 
ledge that  M.  Dauriac,  in  his  fresh  and  interest- 
ing treatment  of  the  Eealism  of  "  Common-sense," 
and  of  Dualism  and  Monism,  is  more  accurate 
and  just  in  his  dealing  with  the  views  of  Eeid 
and  Hamilton  than  is  at  all  usual  in  this  country. 
It  is  obvious,  at  least,  that  he  has  read  the  authors 
whose  doctrines  he  expounds  and  criticises,  and 
that  he  seeks  fairly  to  give  them  their  place  in 
the  development  of  philosophical  theory.  This 
was  to  be  expected  from  any  one  in  sympathy 
with  the  course  of  French  speculative  thought, 
since,  in  the  first  part  of  this  century,  it  was 


4  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

raised  from  the  low  level  of  the  doctrine  of  Con- 
dilliac  to  what  it  became  in  Laromiguiere,  Maine 
de  Biran,  Jouffroy,  and  Cousin,  and  on  through 
the  men  of  Cousin's  and  other  schools,  who  have 
added  so  brilliantly  to  the  philosophical  litera- 
ture of  France  since. 

In  the  first  place,  M.  Dauriac  points  out  that 
the  distinction  between  strong  and  weak  states  of 
consciousness,  which  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  adopts, 
is  simply  Hume's  discrimination  of  impressions 
and  ideas.  Mr  Spencer  imagines  that  vivacity  and 
feebleness  in  the  states  of  consciousness  are  suffi- 
cient to  ground  the  inference  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween externality  and  internality ;  that  we  can  thus 
get  the  opposition  of  mine  and  not-mine,  of  sub- 
ject and  object,  both  really  existing.  The  feeble 
states  are  related  to  me,  the  strong  states  to  a 
not-me.  This  gives  the  very  opposite  of  the  con- 
clusion which  Hume  drew  from  the  premiss.  He 
used  it  to  ground  the  denial  of  external  reality  in 
any  proper  sense  of  the  term.  M.  Dauriac  holds 
that  Hume  was  right ;  that  such  a  distinction  as 
that  of  external  and  internal  cannot  be  thus  ob- 
tained ;  that  all  states  of  consciousness,  weak  or 
strong,  are  to  be  regarded  as  equally  mine.    Hume 


EEALiSM  And  common-sense.  5 

here  showed  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  position 
than  Mr  Spencer.^  This,  of  course,  was  the  view 
of  Hume's  position  taken  by  Eeid  and  Hamilton 
alike. 

In  the  second  place,  M.  Dauriac  fully  admits 
the  reality  and  importance  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween Sensation  and  Perception  taken  by  Eeid, 
and  subsequently  elab6rated  and  somewhat  mod- 
ified by  Hamilton.  Further,  he  states  Eeid's 
position,  at  least,  very  fairly,  as  follows : — 

1.  There  is  Sensation,  an  affection  of  me,  the 
conscious  subject. 

2.  This  precedes  Perception,  an  intuition  of  a 
quality  not  belonging  to  me,  an  attribute  not 
mine,  and  involving  the  difference  between  the 
res  cxtensa  and  the  res  cogitans. 

3.  This  perception  or  intuition  embraces  a 
knowledge  in  which  the  essential  qualities  of 
things  are  given  ;  I  helieve,  hecause  I  knoio.  Be- 
lief in  external  reality  is  not  blind,  but  grounded 
on  knowledge.^  While  M.  Dauriac  admits  the 
validity  of  the  distinction  between  Sensation  and 
Perception,  he  does  not  admit  the  metaphysical 
conclusion   which   he   supposes    Eeid,   and   also 

1  Croyance  et  Realite,  p.  133.  ^  Ihid.,  p.  135. 


6  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

Hamilton,  to  have  founded  upon  it — viz.,  the  real 
and  essential  distinctness,  yet  simultaneous  co- 
existence, of  the  res  extensa  and  the  res  cogitans. 
He  would  allow  only  a  phenomenal  or  empirical 
difference  in  this  connection — an  irreducible  con- 
trast of  consciousness  and  extension.  He  pro- 
ceeds to  point  out  what  seems  to  him  to  be  the 
difference  between  Eeid  and  Hamilton.  Eeid 
simply  said,  there  is  an  intuition  of  external 
reality,  of  extension  or  the  reality  of  an  object. 
Hamilton  went  further,  and  showed  that  there 
must  be  such  intuition.  Eeid  declared,  "  It  is 
so ; "  Hamilton  argued,  "  It  is  absurd  it  should 
not  be  so."  The  latter,  accordingly,  not  only  ad- 
mits the  reality  of  the  psychological  intuition, 
but  demonstrates  its  metaphysical  necessity.  Per- 
ception universally  implies  the  knowledge  of  ex- 
tension, and  this  knowledge  is  necessarily  ade- 
quate to  the  being  of  the  reality.  The  external 
world  is  more  than  tangent  to  the  spirit,  more 
than  penetration  of  internal  by  external;  that  is, 
in  sensation  there  is  the  necessity  of  the  per- 
ceived extension.  Hamilton  thus  changed  the 
mere  fact  of  the  intuition  into  law.  Extension  is 
necessary  to  perception  proper.     In  reference  to 


REALISM   AND   COMMON-SENSE.  7 

the  subjective  phenomenalism  of  Hume,  he  there- 
fore takes  up  a  hostile  attitude.  To  the  incon- 
clusive distinction  of  states,  strong  and  weak,  he 
opposes  that  of  states  exclusively  intensive  and 
exclusively  extensive  ;  and,  replacing  a  simple 
difference  of  degree  by  a  difference  of  nature,  he 
legitimatises  the  pretensions  of  Common -sense. 
For  he  accords  it  not  only  the  existence,  but  even 
the  knowledge  of  reality,  and,  what  is  more, 
necessary  and  necessarily  adequate  knowledge  of 
reality.^  M.  Dauriac  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say 
that  Hamilton  held  extension  indispensable  to 
consciousness,  necessary  to  any  consciousness 
whatever  on  our  part.^  At  the  same  time,  he 
holds  that  Hamilton  adopted  the  view  of  Kant  as 
to  the  ideality  of  space,  and  held  also  the  reality 
of  extension  as  perceived.  There  is  thus  an  in- 
consistency, even  a  contradiction.  For  extension 
perceived  in  an  ideal  space  cannot  be  real  in  the 
sense  of  independence  of  consciousness.  It  is 
embraced  in  the  sphere  of  the  ideal  or  subjective. 
Naturally,  then,  in  M.  Dauriac's  opinion,  Ham- 
ilton has  not  advanced  realism  more  than  Kant. 
There  is  no  means  of  distinguishing  among  the 

^  Croyance  ct  Umlite,  p.  135.  ^  Loc.  eit. 


8  DUALISM   AND   MONISM. 

qualities,  and  affirming  that  extension  belongs  to 
them  absolutely.  For  if  space  be  a  form  of  the 
external  sense,  and  have  relation  only  to  the  sub- 
ject, how  can  extension,  situated  in  this  space, 
survive  the  disappearance  of  consciousness  ? 
Either  there  is  no  extension  in  itself  or  there  is 
space  in  itself.  Hamilton  has  not  doubted  this  ; 
yet  there  is  a  conflict  in  the  texts.  Sometimes  he 
expresses  himself  as  if  the  primary  qualities  were 
known  to  us  quite  as  they  are,  sometimes  he  ap- 
pears to  admit  that  they  are  represented  in  the 
subject  instead  of  being  reflected  simply.^ 

M.  Dauriac's  view  of  Kant's  position  is,  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  be  idealistic,  and  that,  thanks 
to  his  dualistic  theory  of  knowledge,  he  occasion- 
ally fancied  he  was  not.  "  This  theory  .  .  .  places 
the  subject  under  the  necessity  of  determining 
itself  in  time,  in  order  to  know  itself,  and  this 
necessity  it  subordinates  to  the  existence  of  the 
external  object.  .  .  .  But  nothing  avails  to  graft 
the  consciousness  of  the  internal,  in  part  at  least, 
on  that  of  the  external,  for  this  internal,  bathed 
in  an  ideal  space,  can  itself  be  only  ideal.  The 
Kantian  realism  is  thus  an  empirical,  superficial 

^  Croyance  ct  Itecditd,  p.  148. 


REALISM   AND   COMMON-SENSE.  \) 

realism,  a  realism  according  to  appearance.  Kant 
admits  the  dualism  of  the  subject-phenomenon 
and  the  object-phenomenon,  but  he  is  mistaken 
in  his  interpretation  of  idealism.  This  does  not 
put  in  question  the  phenomenalism  of  the  object. 
It  is  the  reality  of  the  object-noumenon  which 
alone  is  in  question,  and  also  its  distinction  from 
the  subject-noumenon.  But  there  is  nothing  to 
prove  that  to  this  empirical  dualism  must  neces- 
sarily correspond  a  metaphysical  dualism.  ...  If 
we  admit,  with  Kant,  the  necessity,  for  the  know- 
ledge of  the  subject  by  itself,  of  an  intervention 
of  the  two  forms  of  the  sensibility,  it  is  because 
the  subject  is  not  inseparable  from  them,  it  is  be- 
cause, making,  so  to  speak,  bodies  with  them, 
it  carries  them  everywhere  with  itself.  Fichte 
will  not  delay  long  to  give  an  account  of 
this."i 

With  regard  to  Hamilton's  view,  I  do  not  think 
it  ought  to  be  allowed  that  he  held  extension  to 
be  necessary  to  the  fact  or  reality  of  conscious- 
ness. No  doubt  he  held  strongly  that  there  is  no 
consciousness  of  self  or  subject  apart  from  a  sim- 
ultaneous consciousness  of  a  not-self,  or  non-ego, 

•^  Croyance  ct  JRecdite,  pp.  147,  148. 


10  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

or  object.  But  he  is  careful  to  distinguish  several 
classes  of  objects,  such  as  subject-object,  object- 
object.  The  former  is,  among  other  objects,  sen- 
sation simply.  And  it  is  not  at  all  clear  that  he 
did  not  hold  the  presence  of  this  sufficient  as  a 
not-self  to  awake  consciousness,  even  although 
the  subject  were  not  as  yet  in  a  position  to  refer  it 
to  definite  extension  of  an  external  reality.  Ham- 
ilton certainly  did  not  hold  that  a  knowledge  or 
perception  of  extension  is  necessary  to  the  exist- 
ence of  consciousness.  The  necessity  of  object  to 
subject,  advocated  by  him,  is  not  to  be  so  summar- 
ily restricted.  He  may,  however,  be  regarded  as 
admitting  that  extension  as  a  percept  is  neces- 
sary to  smse-consciousness,  or  the  consciousness 
of  what  we  have  given  in  perception  proper. 
There  is  no  consciousness,  either  actual  or  pos- 
sible, of  what  we  regard  as  the  world  of  the  not- 
self  of  the  senses,  apart  from  a  perception  of  ex- 
tension—  the  space -filling  and  space -bounded. 
The  resisting-extended  is,  for  us,  the  condition  of 
the  existence  of  the  act  of  consciousness,  in  which 
we  know  the  external  world,  in  the  ordinary  ap- 
plication of  tlie  term.  But  this  is  very  different 
from   holding  extension   necessary   to   any  con- 


EEALISM  AND  COMMON-SENSE.  11 

sciousness,  or  to  consciousness  in  general — to  the 
reality,  even,  of  the  conscious  subject.  It  seems 
to  be  an  exceedingly  narrow  view  of  conscious 
reality  to  regard  it  as  dependent  on  the  possess- 
ion of  an  extended  object.  It  might  be  admitted 
that  there  is  no  conscious  act,  no  conscious  reality 
even,  no  conscious  subject  which  has  not  for  itself 
consciousness  of  an  object.  But  this  object  is  not 
necessarily  extension  ;  and,  even  if  it  were,  it 
might  still  be  held  that  the  perceiving  and  the 
percept  do  not  exhaust  the  reality  of  conscious- 
ness, do  not,  properly  speaking,  even  constitute 
it  —  that  there  is  something  more  fundamental 
still  in  the  percipient  himself  as  he  thus  reveals 
himself  to  himself. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  considerable  difficulty  re- 
garding Hamilton's  view  as  to  the  independence 
of  extension  and  space.  In  one  place  he  seems  to 
adopt  the  Kantian  doctrine  as  to  the  independence 
of  extension  and  space,  as  simply  a  necessity  of 
perception  or  representation.  He  holds,  at  the 
same  time,  that  extension  is  an  object  of  percep- 
tion ;  and  he  may  be  taken  as  holding  this  to  be 
an  attribute,  not  of  mind,  but  of  body,  and  thus 
as  in  a  sphere  wholly  distinct  from  consciousness. 


12  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

If  we  limit  this  distinctness  or  independency  of 
the  existence  of  extension — of  extension  for  itself 
— even  to  the  moment  of  the  given  perception, 
there  would  be  a  difficulty  in  reconciling  the 
possibility  of  this  with  the  Kantian  view,  as 
commonly  accepted,  of  the  purely  ideal  character 
of  space.  An  extension  in  an  ideal  space  could 
only  be  an  ideal  extension — not  really  distinct 
for  a  moment  from  the  conscious  act  which 
apprehends  it,  or,  if  distinct,  distinct  illusorily. 
But  it  is  questionable  whether  Hamilton  ever 
fully  or  in  an  unqualified  manner  adopted  the 
Kantian  dogma  on  this  point.  It  was  quite  con- 
sistent for  him,  in  accordance  with  his  general 
views,  to  hold  space  a  form  or  law  of  perception, 
and  yet  not  without  its  counterpart  in  the  real 
world  of  experience.  He  may  have  held  space 
to  be  a  necessary  law  of  perception,  and  yet  not 
simply  a  merely  subjective  condition.  And  in 
this  case  he  would  have  held  it  to  be,  in  a  sense, 
of  pure  or  non  -  empirical  origin.  There  is  no 
more  inconsistency  in  this—indeed,  inconsistency 
at  all — than  in  holding  causality  to  be  at  once  a 
law  of  thought  of  native  origin,  and  yet  a  law  of 
things  as  well.     Cause  is  but  the  pure  form  of  a 


REALISM   AND    COMMON-SENSE.  13 

cause,  as  space  might  be  the  pure  form  of  ex- 
tension. Besides,  it  is  rather  a  narrow  sort  of 
criticism  which  fixes  on  a  solitary  expression  that 
occurs  as  an  interpolation,  almost  of  a  passing 
nature,  in  one  essay,  and  to  set  it  up  in  con- 
tradiction with  the  general  tenor  of  an  author's 
teaching. 

There  is  also  the  difficulty  with  regard  to 
Hamilton  of  determining  precisely  his  view  about 
the  relation  of  the  primary  or  essential  qualities 
— extension,  &c. — to  body.  They  are,  no  doubt, 
regarded  as  primary  and  essential  in  the  act 
of  percex^tion,  as  distinct  in  nature  from  the 
consciousness  of  the  percipient,  as  referable  to 
something  else.  But  it  is  not  clear  whether 
he  regarded  these  as  constituting  in  body  an 
essential  existence,  independent  of  any  human 
perception.  The  main  feature  of  his  realism 
seems  to  have  been  the  acknowledgment  of  dis- 
tinct reality  in  the  perception,  with,  certainly,  the 
possibility  of  the  continuousness  of  this  in  some 
form  or  other  apart  from  the  perception.  This 
is,  at  least,  all  that  Eealism  need  contend  for. 
The  "  common-sense"  doctrine  of  Eealism  may  be 
taken,  in  an   irreflective  form,  as  meaning  the 


14  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

continued  subsistence  of  certain  qualities  of  body 
as  perceived.  And  this  seems  to  be  the  only 
"  Eealism  of  Common-sense  "  here  contemplated 
by  M.  Dauriac. 

In  reply  to  the  question,  What  is  Eealism 
according  to  Common-sense  ?  he  says :  "  It  is  to 
believe  in  the  existence  of  objective  things ;  that 
is,  in  consequence,  to  refuse  to  believe  that  they 
disappear  when  we  have  ceased  to  think  of  them, 
and  by  the  fact  alone  that  we  no  longer  think  of 
them.  After  me,  when  I  have  ceased  to  be,  the 
world  will  continue  to  subsist ;  I  shall  be  nothing, 
but  the  sun  will  not  cease  to  shine,  the  earth  to 
become  warm  from  the  contact  of  its  rays,  plants 
to  grow  and  animals  to  move."  ^  Once  more : 
"  Eeality  is  not  an  empty  word ;  it  subsists  by 
its  peculiar  laws,  and  these  laws,  known  by  us, 
remain  independent  of  those  whicli  regulate  our- 
selves. The  contrary  supposition  shocks  our 
instincts,  falsifies  our  most  invincible  beliefs  — 
those  upon  which  all  others  depend."  ^ 

But  Hamilton,  in  common  with  every  en- 
lightened realist,  has  recognised  the  need  for  re- 
flection upon  and  analysis  of  the  data — apparent 

1  Croyancc  ct  R6alit6,  pp.  121,  122.  -  Ihid.,  p.  123. 


IDEALISM  AND   COMMON-SENSE.  15 

data — of  the  ordinary  common-sense  judgments  of 
mankind.  Eealists  have  never  regarded  common- 
sense  as  doing  more  than  supplying  the  materials 
for  analysis — for  philosophy — any  more  than  the 
scientific  man  regards  the  data  of  the  senses  as 
being  more  than  the  materials  for  observation, 
analysis,  and  generalisation.  Probably  it  will  be 
found  that  in  the  common  -  sense  of  mankind 
there  is  embodied  the  principle  of  continuity  of 
an  external  reality.  Philosophy,  dealing  with 
this,  may  discover  that  there  is  such  a  principle, 
the  so-called  phenomenalism  is  not  all;  and  it 
may  propose  to  itself  to  find,  further,  what  this 
principle  is.  All  this  would  be  truly  in  accord- 
ance alike  with  the  spirit  of  common-sense  and 
with  the  method  of  philosophy. 

Another  point  falls  to  be  noted  here.  It  is 
said  that  the  man  of  common-sense  alleges  that 
the  idealist,  or  Berkeleyan,  denies  the  actual  or 
phenomenal  reality  of  the  external  world,  whereas 
this  is  not  the  case.  The  question  between  the 
idealist  and  the  realist  is,  truly,  as  to  the  inter-- 
pretation  of  this  perceived  or  phenomenal  reality. 
Whether,  for  example,  it  consists  simply  of  what 
are  called  sensations  or  conscious  impressions,  or 


16  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

of  these  as  coming  from  something  beyond  them- 
selves ;  whether  these  are  truly  percepts,  objects 
in  no  way  mine,  or  a  property  of  mine ;  whether, 
further,  this  perceived  or  phenomenal  world  has 
reality  only  in  the  moment  of  perception,  or 
whether  it  subsists  after  the  perception,  and  in 
what  form.  It  is  clear  that  the  idealist  may  be 
allowed  to  admit  the  phenomenal  reality  of  the 
world,  and  yet  deny  its  objective  reality  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term,  and  so  to  deny  external 
reality.  A  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  prime 
nature  of  the  object  perceived  may  fairly  be 
characterised  as  turning  on  the  reality  or  non- 
reality  of  the  external  world,  even  in  the 
phenomenal  sphere.  This  would  be  apart  al- 
together from  the  question  as  to  whether  the 
perceived  reality  subsists  after  perception,  or  is 
representative  of  a  substantial  or  transcendent 
world. 

But  there  is  more  than  this.  Suppress  ex- 
tension, and  consciousness — i.e.,  the  soul — dis- 
appears. But  equally,  suppress  consciousness 
and  extension  disappears.  Extension  only  exists 
by  relation  to  the  subject ;  space  has  only  reality 
of  spirit.      Between  the  soul   and   space   there 


REALISM  AND   COMMON-SENSE.  17 

occurs  a  perpetual  exchange  of  gifts  and  resti- 
tutions, so  that  the  soul,  in  order  to  become 
conscious,  has  need  of  sensation  ;  this,  in  its 
turn,  of  perception;  this,  again,  of  extension. 
Extension,  in  turn,  cannot  do  without  the 
soul.^ 

M.  Dauriac  thus  admits  the  validity  of  the 
psychological  distinction,  of  Eeid  and  Hamilton, 
between  sensation  and  perception.  He  admits 
that  in  perceiving — nay,  as  necessary  to  perceiv- 
ing— there  is  the  confronting  opposite,  the  ex- 
tended. But  here  he  parts  company  with  them, 
at  least  as  he  understands  them.  The  inference 
supposed  to  be  drawn  from  this  distinction  of 
mind  or  conscious  subject  on  the  one  hand,  and 
body  or  extended  object  on  the  other,  as  two 
separate  coexisting  realities  which  respectively  / 
contribute  to  the  perception,  he  challenges. 
What,  then,  is  his  own  doctrine? 

In  the  first  place,  he  premises  that  the  notion 
or  consciousness  of  the  soul  is  the  heing  of  the 
soul.  Apart  from  action  or  consciousness  the 
being  of  the  soul  is  mere  potency.  The  soul 
owes    its   self  -  consciousness   to   extension,   and 

^  Croyance  et  Eealite,  p.  145. 
B 


18  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

thus,  though  itself  unextended,  owes  its  being  to 
the  extended.  It  affirms  itself  in  as  far  as  it 
limits  itself,  poses  itself  in  so  far  as  it  opposes 
itself.  In  this  there  is  no  formal  contradiction. 
To  know  white  is  to  discriminate  it  from  not- 
white  ;  but  this  does  not  in  the  least  imply  the 
identity  of  whiteness  and  not-whiteness.  In 
other  words,  the  correlation  of  opposites  does 
not  identify  them. 

It  is,  accordingly,  impossible  to  demand  which 
of  the  two  events  comes  before  the  other.  In  order 
to  be  capable  of  perception  there  is  needed  the 
being  of  relation,  and  this  reciprocally.  Accord- 
ingly, that  which  is  real  is  not  perception  on  the 
one  side,  sensation  on  the  other,  but  the  connection 
between  the  two  terms  of  one  and  the  same  rela- 
tion. "  The  Me  appears  in  a  crisis  when  it  makes 
the  effort  to  eliminate  extension,  but  this  exten- 
sion, which  it  drives  back,  returns  to  beset  its 
shores,  not  in  vengeance,  but  rather  in  compass- 
ion, and,  as  it  were,  to  recall  to  its  antagonist 
that  their  rivalry  is  the  condition  even  of  its  own 
reaUty."  ^ 

Common-sense   is  idealistic  without  knowing 

^  Croyance  ct  Realitt,  p.  145. 


KEALISM  AND   COMMON-SENSE.  19 

it.  Its  test  of  reality  is  feeling.  The  proof  of 
reality  is  contact,  touch-impression.  Impression 
is  the  sign  of  existence,  so  said  Hume.  Esse  thus 
is  percipi :  the  external  world  is  a  permanent  pos- 
sibility of  sensations.  Common-sense  has  noth- 
ing to  reply  to  this.  It  holds  that  things  are, 
because  I  perceive  them.  In  demanding  that 
things  survive  the  extinction  of  thought,  it  can- 
not represent  this  survival  without  supposing,  in 
spite  of  itself,  the  resurrection  of  thought ;  "  the 
hypothesis  is  destroyed  in  its  enunciation.  Sup- 
pose we  disappear,  then,  in  order  that  the  world 
should  endure,  it  would  be  necessary  to  leave  to 
our  fellows  the  power  of  experiencing  sensations 
and  localising  them  instinctively  out  of  self."  ^ 

When  summarily  stated,  the  view  of  M.  Dauriac 
seems  to  be  as  follows : — 

1.  Consciousness  and  extension  are  known  by 
us  as  two  opposed  objects.  The  perception,  or 
consciousness,  I  have  of  extension  is  a  state  wholly 
different  from  the  extension  as  object :  it  belongs 
to  me,  is  mine;  the  extension  does  not  belong 
to  me,  is  not-mine. 

2.  These  two — consciousness  and  extension — 

1  Croyance  et  Eealite,  p.  131. 


20  DUALISM   AND   MONISM. 

are  reciprocally  necessary  in  order  to  the  reality 
of  each.  Consciousness  would  not  be  without 
extension;  extension  ceases  the  moment  con- 
sciousness disappears.  There  is  no  consciousness 
in  and  for  itself ;  and  there  is  no  extension  in  and 
for  itself. 

3.  Hence,  that  which  is  real  is  not  conscious- 
ness by  itself,  nor  extension  by  itself,  "but  the 
relation  between  the  two  terms  of  one  and  the 
same  relation."  ^  What  is  ultimate  is  the  relation 
of  conflict  which  arises  from  consciousness  beat- 
ing back  extension  from  it  as  foreign  to  itself ; 
and  extension,  returning  as  it  were  to  attack  con- 
sciousness in  order  to  recall  to  it  that  their  rivalry 
is  the  condition  even  of  its  own  reality. 

1  Croyance  ct  Realite,  p.  144. 


21 


IL— PHENOMENON;  PHENOMENALISM. 

M.  Daueiac  insists  very  strongly  on  the  point 
that  the  reality  of  appearance,  or  phenomenal 
reality,  is  universally  admitted  by  sceptic  and 
dogmatist  alike.  The  sceptic  doubts  the  ob- 
jective, not  the  subjective,  reality  of  the  pheno- 
menon. He  either  denies  that  something  is,  or 
he  affirms  nothing  about  it.  Nam  quid  is  not  in 
doubt,  but  only  quid.  There  is,  at  the  outset  of 
our  reflection,  an  initial  matter,  the  subjective 
reality  of  which  cannot  be  put  in  question ;  this 
initial  matter  is  none  other  than  the  matter  it- 
self of  knowledge.^  No  one  dreams  of  contesting 
this,  nor  even  of  transforming  it.  The  fact  of 
being  invested  with  objective  reality,  in  the 
Kantian  sense  of  the  expression,  neither  adds  nor 
takes  away  an  atom  from  its  objective  reality  in 

^  Croyance  et  Eealite,  p.  207. 


X  9^         OF  THK  >^ 

I  UNIVERSITY 


22  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

the  Cartesian  sense  of  the  term.  Eeduced  to  the 
function  of  thought  solely — that  is  to  say,  of 
conceiving  —  man  would  in  no  way  distinguish 
an  idea  from  its  reality.^ 

M.  Dauriac  then  institutes  a  comparison  be- 
tween the  real  as  given  in  perception  and  dream- 
ing. The  result  is  that  these  do  not  differ  essenti- 
ally; they  only  differ  in  certain  extrinsic  modi- 
fications. The  phenomenon  is  not  the  antipodes 
of  the  real,  any  more  than  hallucination  is 
the  antipodes  of  perception.  "We  experience  a 
hallucination,  and  we  take  no  account  of  it. 
There  appears  to  our  vision,  for  example,  a  person 
who  has  been  dead  for  years.  In  place  of  acting 
towards  him  or  speaking  to  him  as  if  he  were 
alive,  we  remain  quiet,  "waiting  until  the  true 
sensations  superimpose  themselves  on  the  false 
sensations,  and  progressively  efface  them.  Un- 
less deprived  of  reason,  the  man  under  hallucina- 
tion does  not  regulate  his  conduct  on  the  imagi- 
nary perceptions,  but  beyond  this — that  he  does 
not  draw  from  them  any  conclusion  translatable 
into  acts,  and  that  he  leaves  his  perceptions 
properly  called  to  determine  in  part  the  course 

1  Croyance  et  Realite,  p.  208. 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  23 

of  his  daily  life — all  other  difference  between  his 
perceptions  and  his  hallucinations  disappears  on 
examination.  For  all  hallucination  is  not  neces- 
sarily individual ;  sometimes  it  is  collective.  .  .  . 
Our  perceptions  become  motives  or  bases  of  infer- 
ence, our  hallucinations  never,  save  when  reason 
abandons  us.  This  difference  is  our  work ;  it  is 
only  imposed  upon  us  if  we  consent  to  it.  We 
may  not  consent  to  it ;  the  sceptics  are  proof  of 
this.  If  duty  demands  it,  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  consent — in  other  words,  to  treat  appear- 
ance as  an  objective  reality."  ^ 

On  this  it  may  be  asked.  Is  it  true  that,  as  a 
universal  rule,  we  act  only  on  perceptions  and 
not  on  hallucinations  ?  And  when  we  do  act  on 
hallucination,  is  it  not  true  that  we  do  so  because 
we  take  it  for  perception — that  is,  for  something 
of  a  wholly  different  nature  ? 

Then  we  may  further  ask.  Why  is  it  reason- 
able to  act  on  perceptions,  and  not  on  hallucina- 
tions, if,  in  their  nature  and  essence,  they  are  the 
same  ?  Unless  there  is  a  difference  in  them  as 
they  exist  subjectively,  what  reasonable  ground 
would  there  be  in  our  choosing  to  act  on  the  one 

^  Croyance  ct  Bealite,  pp.  212,  213. 


24  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

and  remain  passive  under  the  other  ?  This 
extrinsic  difference  can  have  no  foundation  what- 
ever in  reason. 

When  M.  Dauriac  tells  us  so  persistently  that 
the  sceptic  and  dogmatist  start  from  a  common 
basis  of  phenomenal  reality,  he  forgets  that  there 
may  be — are — different  interpretations  of  the 
nature  of  this  appearance,  apart  altogether  from 
any  question  as  to  its  objective,  permanent,  in- 
dependent existence.  What  it  is  now  and  here 
is  as  much  a  question,  and  a  question  giving  rise 
to  fundamental  difference  of  opinion,  as  any 
question  as  to  its  continuous  reality  out  of  per- 
ception. The  quid  does  not  apply  merely  to  the 
latter  question ;  it  is  first  to  be  asked  in  regard 
to  the  former  point. 

M.  Dauriac's  position  seems  to  be — 
1.  That  there  is  no  permanent  persistence  of 
things  independent  of  our  own — or  one  analogous. 
This  only  means  substituting  for  our  personality, 
destroyed,  another  personality ;  it  is  to  put  one 
spirit  in  the  place  of  another  spirit.  The  world 
evanishes  the  moment  all  consciousness  evanishes. 
If  God,  who  makes,  be  not  there,  if  God  have  not 
delegated  the  oversight  to  some  created  spirit, 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  25 

things  are  no  longer  sensible  forms,  no  longer 
objects  to  be  perceived.  Thus  the  persistence  of 
external  things,  their  objective  permanence,  con- 
tinues to  rest  uncertain. 

2.  The  objective  and  substantial  permanence 
of  thinking  subjects,  souls,  also  fails  of  proof. 

3.  Phenomena  neighboured  by  other  pheno- 
mena— that  is,  all.  Hence  hallucination  and  per- 
ception are  not  (speculatively)  distinguishable. 

He  is  opposed  to  idealism  and  a  fortiori  scepti- 
cism ;  not  less  to  substantialism  and  a  fortiori 
monism.  His  position  has  some  approximation 
to  that  of  Leibniz.  But  Leibniz  was  monist  in 
spite  of  his  monadism,  and  Leibniz  was  sub- 
stantialist,  and  he  professes  not  to  be  so. 

What  precisely  is  the  phenomenalism  he 
espouses  or  professes  to  hold  ? 

In  common  usage  the  term  ^phenomenon  means 
an  anomaly — something  abnormal  or  extraor- 
dinary. But  originally  and  etymologically 
phenomenon  means  luhat  happens,  passes,  takes 
place ;  and  hence  it  is  partially  at  least  identical 
with  what  exists.  Phenomenon  becomes  the 
substitute  for  the  terms  reality,  existence. 

The   philosophers,  however,  speak   of   pheno- 


26  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

mena  as  not-being;  phenomena  are  said  to  be 
the  contrary  of  being.  But  if  phenomena  are 
not,  it  is  necessary  to  dissociate  from  them  the 
notions  of  reality,  existence,  fact,  occurrence. 
Phenomenon  is  taken  as  synonymous  with  appear- 
ance, and  a  world  of  appearances  is  synonymous 
with  a  world  of  phantoms.  Hence  it  is  con- 
sidered as  identical  with  not-being — as  opposed 
to  reality.  Appearance  is  instantaneous — at 
least  not  durable.  It  is  fugitive,  a  shade,  a 
thing  we  can  see,  not  touch — almost  nothing. 
Hence  phenomenon  so  regarded. 

But  phenomenon  is  particular,  concrete;  it 
authenticates  and  describes  itself ;  it  is  object  of 
perception  and  memory.  It  is  accompanied  with 
certain  characters  which  concur  to  isolate  it,  by 
abstraction,  from  other  phenomena  contiguous 
and  successive,  and  almost  to  confer  on  it  an 
individuality.  How  then  is  it  regarded  as  a 
simulacrum  of  being  ?  ^ 

Duration  does  not  affect  the  reality  or  the 
nature  of  a  phenomenon.  The  sudden  fugitive 
flash  on  the  night  is  as  real  in  the  second  it 
occupies  as  if  it  remained  an  hour.     All  notions 

^  Croyance  ct  Hecdite,  p.  219. 


27 

of  a  phenomenon  as  related  to  duration  are  un- 
essential, extrinsic.  Its  intrinsic  features  are  con- 
creteness,  particularity,  individuality.^  This  per- 
ceptible world  is  the  real  world ;  and  we  may  bid 
adieu  to  the  dreams  of  the  metaphysical  substan- 
tialists,  whether  these  take  the  form  of  existences 
superior  to  the  phenomenal,  intuition  of  a  world 
of  ideas  alone  real,  the  affirmation  of  an  Unknow- 
able whose  function  is  to  support  the  indefinite 
succession  of  appearances  which  the  vulgar 
wrongly  call  beings  and  things. 

Those  who  hold  this  view  are  not  to  be 
regarded  as  Nihilists.  It  applies  rather  to  the 
Substantialists.  For  substantialism  says  we  never 
attain  reality — the  sceptics  only  incline  to  think 
that  the  reality  of  things  escapes  us.  The  Sub- 
stantialists are  illusionists  after  their  kind.^ 

Scepticism  is  only  possible  on  the  assumption 
of  substance.  If  there  be  no  thing  in  itself,  I 
need  not  seek  to  avoid  an  asserting  judgment 
about  it.  If  the  hypothesis  of  substance  be 
gratuitous,  we  need  not  interdict  speaking  about 
it,  nor  proclaim  it  inaccessible.  We  need  not 
think  more  about  it;  and  thus  scepticism  loses 

1  Croyance  et  Eealite,  p.  220.  ^  JUd.^  p.  221. 


28  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

its  basis.  If  there  be  nothing  beyond  pheno- 
mena, we  should  congratulate  ourselves  on  being 
incapable  of  knowledge  of  it.^  The  death  of 
substance  is  the  enfranchisement  of  the  pheno- 
menon. The  remedy  for  scepticism  ought  to  be 
sought  in  phenomenalism.^ 

It  might  here  be  very  readily  suggested  that 
as,  according  to  M.  Dauriac,  there  are  true  and 
false  sensations — that  is,  perceptions  and  hallu- 
cinations— scepticism  might  still  find  a  sphere 
in  asking  for  a  speculative  criterion  of  the  true 
and  the  false. 

But  it  may  be  asked.  Wherein  precisely  does 
this  phenomenal  reality  lie  ?  What  is  the  true 
nature  of  Being — the  only  being  that  is  ?  Con- 
sciousness and  extension  must  be  represented  as 
united  in  a  relation  the  terms  of  which  abstrac- 
tion alone  can  isolate.  Mind  is  not  given  before 
matter,  nor  matter  before  mind  —  the  one  is 
not  the  phenomenon,  the  other  the  substance. 
To  he  spirit  {mind)  means  to  he  given  for  itself. 
To  he  hocly  means  to  he  given  for  another.  No 
being  escapes  this  double  condition,  and  cannot 
therefore  be  exclusively  defined  either  in  terms 

^  Croyance  et  Itcalite,  p.  222.  -  Loc.  cit. 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.     29 

of  mind  or  in  terms  of  matter.  Esse  est  percifere 
etpercipi,  and  no  jperceiver  can  be  conceived  which 
is  not  a  perceived.  Consciousness  and  space  imply 
each  other,  and  the  supposition  of  a  consciousness 
pre-existent  to  all  extension  is  equivalent  to  the 
unintelligible  hypothesis  of  a  being  pre-existent 
to  its  laws — an  existence  anterior  to  its  essence.^ 

Things  exist,  not  only  because  they  are  for  us 
objects  of  representation,  but  because  they  are 
also  for  themselves — that  is,  self-conscious  beings 
— or  beings  with  a  consciousness  of  an  object. 
"Bodies  exist"  means  something  analogous  to 
"I  exist";  and  thus  the  notion  of  hehig  is 
inseparable  from  consciousness,  or  if  it  have 
another  sense,  another  word  is  necessary .^  The 
world  is  its  OWN  representation.  It  is  a  whole  of 
hcings,  each  of  which  hioivs  or  at  least  feels  itself 
to  he. 

But  only  phenomena — no  substance.  We  say 
"there  are  only  phenomena"  but  not  that  "pheno- 
mena exist  the  one  apart  from  the  other  "  in  isolation. 

To  the  statement  that  the  being  of  the  soul 
is  consciousness,  exception  might  be  taken  on 
the  ground  alike  of  ambiguity  and  inaccuracy. 

^^Croyance  et  RealiU,  p.  245.  ^  Loc.  cit. 


30  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

It  seems  to  be  meant  that  the  soul  does  not 
exist  until  it  is  self-conscious,  or  consciously 
realises  itself.  But  we  cannot  state  this  in 
terms  even  without  recognising  that  it  includes 
a  great  many  more  elements  than  a  simple  con- 
sciousness or  act  of  consciousness,  be  it  a  sense- 
perception  or  not.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  exclusive 
dogmatic  statement,  needing  proof  which  is  not 
given.  The  consciousness  of  a  given  time  is  not 
the  being  of  the  soul, — adequate  to  it, — unless 
on  the  supposition  that  this  is  possible  subjec- 
tively without  the  implicate  of  a  subject.  And 
if  we  extend  the  statement  to  the  consciousnesses 
of  successive  times,  these  are  no  more  adequate 
to  the  being  of  the  soul,  unless  they  are  held 
together  in  one  subject,  and  so  made  possible 
as  known  successive  consciousnesses.  But  in  this 
case  the  being  of  the  soul  cannot  be  identified 
even  with  the  sum  of  consciousnesses.  The  state- 
ment is,  indeed,  only  consistent  as  the  basis  of 
a  theory  of  Monadism  of  an  extreme  sort.  It 
would  restrict  being  not  only  to  individuals,  but 
to  the  isolated  and  separate  consciousnesses  of 
successive  moments.  And  this  is  the  same  as 
saying  that  being  and  impression,  or  single  con- 


PHENOMENON  ;  PHENOMENALISM.       31 

scionsness,  are  identical  and  convertible,  that 
being  is  no  more,  other,  or  wider  than  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  moment.  As  Hume  put  it, 
being  must  be  the  same  as  the  impression,  per- 
ception, or  object.  There  is  no  distinct  im- 
pression of  being.  There  is  no  other  kind  of 
existence  than  those  perceptions  which  appear 
within  ourselves.  Being  is  equally  attached, 
and  only  attached,  to  every  thing  we  are  pleased 
to  conceive. 

M.  Dauriac,^  indeed,  seems  to  admit  this.  He 
quotes  Hume's  well-known  passage  to  the  effect 
that  every  impression  or  idea  is  known  as  exist- 
ing. The  idea  of  existence  must  come  either 
from  a  distinct  impression,  joined  to  each  per- 
ception or  object  of  thought,  or  it  must  be  the 
same  as  the  idea  of  the  perception  or  object. 
But  there  is  no  such  distinct  impression.  Hence 
being  is  the  same  as  impression  or  idea — attaches 
to  every  object  equally  which  we  are  pleased  to 
conceive.  There  can  be  no  other  kind  of  exist- 
ence than  those  perceptions  which  have  appeared 
within  ourselves.  J.  S.  Mill,  while  holding  that 
we  perceive  and  judge  of  things,  not  ideas,  and 

^  Croyance  et  Realite,  pp.  129  seq. 


32  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

believe  in  the  reality  of  things  judged  of, — 
so  accepting  the  conclusions  of  common -sense, 
— does  not  hold  them  contrary  to  idealism. 

Thus  there  is  the  statement  that  extension — 
i.e.,  perceived  extension — is  necessary  to  con- 
sciousness, and  therefore  to  being — called  the 
being  of  the  soul.  But  there  is  surely  a  large 
assumption  here.  The  percept  extension  we 
may  take  as  a  consciousness  of  points  out  of 
points  in  coexistence.  The  percept  of  time, 
clothed  or  filled,  as  of  points  in  succession,  but 
not  necessarily  in  coexistence.  Is  it  the  case 
that  consciousness  does  not  exist  unless  and 
until  coadjacent  points  are  apprehended  in  co- 
existence ?  To  maintain  this  were  a  simple 
contradiction.  In  order  to  apprehend,  or  rather 
comprehend,  the  coexistence  in  one  time  of  the 
coadjacent  points,  a  previous  process  of  con- 
sciousness was  needed.  For  each  point  had  to  be 
successively  apprehended  ere  we  could  possibly 
grasp  their  final  coadjacent  coexistence.  They 
were  known  as  points  one  after  another  ere  we 
knew  them  as  points  constituting  a  surface.  It 
will  not  be  pretended  that,  if  there  were  no  con- 
sciousness of  each  successive  point,  there  could 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  33 

be  any  consciousness  of  the  series  of  points  as 
coadjacent.  There  was  consciousness,  therefore, 
ere  there  was  consciousness  of  extension  or 
an  extended  surface.  Consciousness  in  time  is 
needed  as  a  condition  or  consciousness  of  ex- 
tended things  in  space.  And,  what  is  more, 
there  might  be — nay,  there  is — consciousness  in 
time  apart  altogether  from  consciousness  in 
space;  for  there  might  be  the  consciousness  of 
a  succession  of  objects  which  did  not  terminate 
in  a  knowledge  of  their  final  coexistence.  Each 
object  might  in  its  turn  fall  out  of  conscious- 
ness, and  thus,  while  never  coexistent,  fulfil  the 
conditions  of  a  successive  consciousness. 

This  theory  seems  to  me  to  admit,  in  the  first 
place,  the  distinctness  of  the  two  spheres  of 
consciousness  and  extension — as  at  least  in  the 
act  of  perceiving — while  extension  is  perceived 
or  known.  It  even  goes  so  far  as  to  admit 
attribution  and  non-attribution  to  subjects ;  for 
it  speaks  of  the  perception  as  mine,  and  the 
extension  perceived  as  not -mine.  At  the  same 
time  it  denies  the  reality  of  separate  subject 
and  separate  object.  There  is  no  consciousness 
without  extension ;   there  is  no  extension  with- 

G 


34  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

out  consciousness.  Neither  has  for  itself  any 
reality.  The  only  reality  of  each  is  in  the  re- 
lation of  the  one  to  the  other.  Consciousness 
of  extension  as  different  from  consciousness  is 
the  ultimate  reality — and  the  only  one.  It  is  a 
species  of  monadistic  phenomenalism.  Such  a 
view  seems  to  me  to  be,  in  the  first  place,  in 
contradiction  with  itself.  If  extension  be  not- 
mine,  not  attributable  to  me  or  consciousness, 
how  can  it  be  regarded  as  essential  to  the  very 
being  of  consciousness  ?  If  it  be  so  essential — 
essential  as  known — and  if  consciousness  exist 
only,  as  is  alleged,  as  a  knowledge — an  actual 
knowledge — how  can  extension  be  said  not  to 
be  mine,  or  not  to  belong  essentially  to  con- 
sciousness ?  Consciousness  is  nothing  apart  from 
extension;  extension  is  nothing  apart  from  con- 
sciousness. They  are  only  as  they  are  together, 
or  rather  the  relation  or  difference  between  them 
is  all  that  is.  How,  in  this  case,  can  you  speak 
at  all  of  mine  and  not-mine,  or  of  self  and  not- 
self,  or  of  two  spheres  of  being  ?  What  is  reality 
here  but  a  fusion  of  two  separate  incognisables  or 
non-existents,  in  which  the  mine  and  the  not-mine 
have  ceased  to  have  the  slightest  significance  ? 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.     35 

But,  in  the  second  place,  the  word  relation  has 
actually  ceased  to  have  any  meaning.  No  doubt 
the  phrase  "  terms  of  relation "  is  still  retained, 
but  it  is  inapplicable  to  the  statement.  The  res 
cogitans  and  the  res  extensa  are  no  longer.  They 
have  not  in  themselves  any  reality.  A  product 
of  both,  called  a  relation,  is  all  that  is,  and  they 
are  not  there  to  produce  it.  There  is  an  effect  or 
result  of  two  factors,  but  there  are  no  factors. 
There  is  a  relation  of  two  terms  "  in  one  and  the 
same  relation,"  but  there  are  no  terms  to  ground 
it.  Clearly  we  are  no  longer  in  the  sphere  of 
relation  or  the  relative.  We  have  an  absolute, 
to  be  called,  it  may  be,  consciousness  of  exten- 
sion, or  extension  for  consciousness,  but  we  have  no 
longer  either  consciousness  or  extension.  This 
floating  relation  so  called  is  free  of  terms  —  an 
irrelative,  in  which  nothing  is  related.  It  is 
ultimate,  inexplicable,  absolute,  unless  on  the 
supposition  either  of  an  infinite  regress  of  such 
relations,  which  but  multiplies  the  anomaly,  or 
on  the  hypothesis  of  one  all-pervading  relation- 
ship as  the  one  being  of  the  universe — a  fictional 
abstraction,  which  is  even  impossible  with  no 
res  cogitans  in  time  to  hold  it.     It  is  of  no  use  to 


36  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

keep  repeating  the  statement  that  the  only  real 
thing  is  relation,  whatever  kind  of  relation  this 
may  be  or  in  whatever  way  it  may  be  described. 
We  cannot  have  relation  either  of  resemblance 
or  of  difference — contrast,  opposition — unless  we 
know  positively  the  terms  to  be  set  in  relation, 
and  this  before  the  relation.  We  cannot  possibly 
differentiate  one  thing  from  another,  if  we,  to 
begin  with,  have  no  knowledge  of  the  things 
themselves.  With  the  denial  of  the  separately 
conceived  reality  of  the  things  as  mental  objects, 
and  therefore  of  the  consciousness  of  them,  there 
falls  the  relation  of  resemblance  or  difference.  If 
the  so-called  relation  be  a  third  thing  struck  out 
from  the  two  other  things,  then  it  is  contradictory 
to  say  that  this  third  thing  is  either  the  only 
thought  or  the  only  reality. 

If  the  doctrine  had  been  that  in  the  conscious 
relation  of  perceiving  extension,  in  a  given  time, 
there  appears  the  contrast  of  consciousness  and 
extension,  as  two  qualities  or  attributes,  held 
together  in  knowledge,  by  me  the  percipient — 
that  the  reality  of  each  is  revealed  only  in  oppo- 
sition— that  the  act  of  consciousness  poses  itself 
only  in  opposing  itself  to  the  quality  extension — 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  37 

that  this  is  first  of  all  a  psychological,  temporal, 
or  empirical  contrast  —  that  the  metaphysical 
judgment  as  to  the  reality  of  each  term,  the 
mutual  effect  of  the  related  opposites,  is  not 
at  once  foreclosed, — then  there  would  have  been 
reason.  But  forthwith  to  fuse  and  thus  abolish 
both  res  cogitans  and  res  extensa  in  a  necessarily 
groundless  "relation,"  or  third  which  is  neither, 
is  to  misstate  the  fact,  and  further  to  super- 
induce upon  it  an  illusory  metaphysical  entity. 

The  gist  of  the  objection  to  Dualism  as  urged 
by  M.  Dauriac  is  to  be  found  in  those  words  :  "  If 
the  Me  is  one  thing,  extension  another  thing,  it 
is  that  extension  is  an  extrinsic  'proiperty  of  eertciin 
states  of  consciousness  superadded  to  those  states, 
tvitJiout  assignahle  reason,  and  even  against  every 
plausible  reason;  it  is  that  consciousness  exists 
before  itself,  that  it  gives  its  law  to  itself.  In 
addition  to  this  supposition  being  unintelligible, 
so  that  no  paraphrase  can  develop  it,  it  immedi- 
ately calls  up  another,  more  strange  a  thousand 
times,  that  of  a  being  giving  itself  its  law,  and 
giving  it  contrary  to  its  essence."^ 

I  confess  I  do  not  find  in  this  much  that  is 

^  Croyance  et  Eealite,  p.  145. 


38  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

clear  or  tangible,  and  I  find  a  good  deal  that  is 
inaccurate.  I  do  not  quite  understand  what  is 
meant  by  saying  that  "  extension  is  an  extrinsic 
property  of  certain  states  of  consciousness  super- 
added to  these  states."  Our  (alleged)  intuition 
of  extension  is  very  inaccurately  expressed  by 
calling  it  "  an  extrinsic  property  of  certain  states 
of  consciousness."  Extension  is  an  object  of 
perception  or  knowlege  in  a  given  time.  In  this 
sense  alone  is  it  a  "  property  "  or  a  state  of  con- 
sciousness, and  the  whole  question  is  a  simple 
matter  of  fact  as  to  whether  it  is  so  apprehended. 
Of  course  if  we  start  with  the  usual  supposition 
that  consciousness  knows  only  its  own  states,  there 
is  an  end  of  the  whole  matter.  But  M.  Dauriac 
does  not  admit  this,  for  he  says  that  extension  is  a 
property — not-mine — while  consciousness  is,  and 
he  allows  extension  to  be  known,  nay,  necessarily 
known,  in  order  that  consciousness  should  be  at  all. 
"Superadded  to  those  states  without  assignable 
reason  "  is  of  no  consequence,  unless  it  be  assumed 
that  an  intuition  cannot  possibly  be  ultimate  or 
without  assignable  reason — a  position  which 
would  destroy  the  very  possibility  of  philosophical 
method,  and  is  in  itself  utterly  unwarrantable. 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  39 

Then  with  regard  to  the  alleged  consequence, 
that  if  consciousness  be  one  thing  and  extension 
another,  consciousness  must  exist  before  itself 
and  give  its  law  to  itself,  the  dualist  has  only  to 
say  that  by  "consciousness"  he  does  not  mean 
the  act  of  consciousness  which  apprehends  ex- 
tension in  any  given  case.  This  could  not  exist 
before  the  given  or  definite  object — the  extension 
of  this  time  and  place.  The  existence  of  the  con- 
scious act  and  the  definite  extension  would  neces- 
sarily be  simultaneous.  But  he  is  entitled  to 
speak  of  the  percipient  or  conscious  subject  as 
well  as  the  temporary  act — the  percipiens  which 
even  M.  Dauriac  recognises — and  there  is  no  in- 
congruity in  holding  this  to  be  the  condition  of  the 
possibility  of  the  conscious  act  itself.  This  may 
quite  well  be  one  thing  and  extension  another 
— nay,  they  must  be  different,  unless  we  suppose 
that  the  extension  as  perceived  creates  both  the 
conscious  act  and  the  percipient.  And  what 
greater  incongruity  is  there  in  the  conscious  sub- 
ject, or  subject  which  is  capable  of  the  conscious 
act,  giving  "  the  law  "  to  itself,  than  in  supposing 
that  the  object,  extension,  gives  it,  or  that  this 
law,  of  contrast  apparently,  arises  from  conflict  or 


40  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

collision  between  a  consciousness  not  yet  existent 
and  an  extension  not  yet  existent,  but  becoming 
existent  through  a  collision  in  which  neither  of 
these  terms,  as  still  non-existent,  could  take  part  ? 
The  truth  is,  that  there  is  an  essential  contradic- 
tion in  this  respect  in  the  whole  theory.  Exten- 
sion is  not  per  se,  consciousness  is  not  per  se,  yet 
extension  beats  against  consciousness  for  recog- 
nition so  that  it  may  exist ;  it  is  surely  already 
something — something  waiting  to  be  recognised 
for  what  it  is.  It  is  curious  that  it  should  be 
able  to  assault  consciousness,  if  it  be  nothing 
whatever.  Dualism  is  assumed  in  order  to  set 
up  a  purely  monistic  theory — or  rather  a  theory 
of  mere  relationship  —  in  which  the  assumed 
terms  disappear. 

It  may  be  perfectly  true  that  we  cannot  con- 
ceive the  continued  future  existence  of  perceived 
objects — by  extension  and  resistance — unless  as 
objects  to  a  percipient,  and  a  percipient  like  our- 
selves. These  are  qualities  of  things  relative  to 
us — known  as  so  related — having  for  us  a  definite 
meaning  as  so  related.  And  when  we  try  to  con- 
ceive their  future  or  continued  existence  out  of 
our  perception,  we  may  need  to  postulate  a  per- 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  41 

cipient  image  of  ourselves,  or  an  image  of  a  per- 
cipient like  ourselves.  But  this  does  not  at  all 
imply  that  this  is  the  only  existence  of  the 
things  of  which  extension  and  resistance  may  be 
qualities  perceivable  by  us.  This  is  only  to 
transport  our  actual  perception  to  the  future — 
but  such  a  transference  does  not  take  account  of 
the  nature  of  this  perception  itself — while  it  is 
actually  ours,  or  as  a  simple  matter  of  fact  in 
our  experience.  It  is  just  possible  that  the  per- 
ception by  us  of  these  qualities — say  extension, 
resistance — may,  in  the  first  instance,  imply  more 
than  the  mere  or  actual  perception.  It  may  be 
that  the  so-called  datum  of  sense  may  imply,  not 
only  a  percipient  and  a  perception,  but  a  ground 
or  giver,  known  by  us,  necessarily  inferred  by  us, 
it  may  be,  as  lying  behind  and  beyond  the  actual 
or  phenomenal  perception  of  the  moment.  And 
indeed  unless  we  suppose  that  the  percipient — 
each  percipient,  or  in  Hume's  case  each  percep- 
tion, confers  reality  on  the  object,  or  percept — 
that  percepts  or  qualities  exist  because  we  per- 
ceive, and  therefore  equally  pass  away  wholly 
when  we  do  not  perceive  them — we  must  have 
recourse  to  a  ground  of  the  quality  perceived — 


42  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

to  that  in  the  objective  which  renders  each 
individual  perception  possible,  and  which  helps 
to  differentiate  the  perceptions.  For  unless  there 
be  an  independent  objective  ground  which  trans- 
cends the  percipient  act,  there  can  be  no  reason 
in  the  mere  act,  or  in  the  percipient  himself,  for 
the  variety  of  perceptions  which  form  the  actual 
content  of  experience.  Even  granting  categories, 
and  space  and  time  as  wholly  subjective  forms, 
these  would  not  enable  us  to  differentiate  as  we 
do  the  contents  of  experience.  The  variety  of 
sensations, — of  odour,  and  taste,  and  sound,  and 
colour — the  manifold  of  perception, — of  form,  of 
size,  of  number,  degrees  of  resistance,  distance, 
and  nearness, — all  this  would  stand  wholly  un- 
accounted for  on  any  scheme  of  mere  category, 
and  time  and  space.  This  is  the  very  crux  of 
idealism.  Here  it  is  utterly  impotent — here  is 
a  field  from  which  it  is  absolutely  barred  by  its 
own  essential  limitations.  But  if  this  be  so — if 
there  be  need  for  some  objective  ground  for  our 
sensations  and  perceptions,  in  the  very  first  or 
actual  experience  of  them — the  transference  of 
the  form  and  fact  of  our  experience  to  a  possible 
future  is  no  explanation  of  the  continuance  of  per- 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  43 

ceived  reality.  It  supposes,  in  fact,  a  ground  of 
being  deeper  than  and  beyond  the  actual  percep- 
tion ;  and  when  we  transfer  the  image  or  type  of  our 
experience  in  perception  to  the  future,  we  transfer 
this  objective  ground  along  with  the  mere  per- 
ception. It  is  thus  not  in  the  first  instance  that 
things  exist  because  we  perceive  them,  but  it  is 
that  we  perceive  them  because  they  exist  or  have 
a  ground  in  reality  which  we  do  not  perceive  at 
all,  but  which  yet  exists  as  the  condition  of  our 
perceiving  anything.  If  we  imagine  ourselves  or 
a  fellow-man  perceiving  at  some  future  time  as  w^e 
perceive  now,  we  must  imagine  ourselves  or  him 
perceiving  under  the  same  conditions  under  which 
we  actually  perceive.  These  conditions  provide 
for  a  reality  that  transcends  the  perception  itself ; 
and  we  have  no  warrant  whatever  for  saying  that 
this  objective  ceases  to  be  the  moment  we  cease 
to  perceive,  or  depends  for  its  existence  at  all  on 
any  act  of  perception  of  ours.  It  may  be,  for 
aught  we  know,  an  inexhaustible  objective, 
superior  wholly  to  our  perception  —  to  all  in- 
dividual perception,  wdiatever  —  grounding  and 
dominating  the  whole  world  of  external  reality. 
When  we   say,  accordingly,  that  the  perceived 


44  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

external  world  would  be  there  if  we  were  there  to 
perceive  it,  we  have  not  explained  liow  it  would 
be  there,  and  we  cannot  even  think  it  as  hypo- 
thetically  there,  and  as  appearing  in  perception, 
unless  we  think  that  it  has  in  the  future  as  in 
the  past  and  present  a  ground  beyond  each 
percipient  act. 

It  is  thus  necessary  to  say  that,  if  this  objec- 
tive ground  of  our  actual  perception  continues, 
and  if  we,  the  percipients,  are  there  to  perceive, 
we  shall  again  have  experience  of  the  external 
world,  but  not  simply  that  we  should  have  this 
experience  if  we  were  there  to  perceive,  or  there 
with  the  capacity  of  perception  or  sentience. 
But  the  former  supposition  is  grounded  on  the 
conviction  of  a  reality  beyond  the  quality  or  per- 
cept of  our  actual  experience  in  the  first  instance, 
which  may  continue,  which  is  not  exhausted  in 
the  perception,  which  we  believe  does  continue. 
And  this  conviction  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  crude  notion  which  attributes  continued  exist- 
ence to  the  sensations,  or  at  least  percepts  of  our 
consciousness,  exactly  as  perceived  by  us.  The 
analysis  of  knowledge  shows  us  that  this  cannot 
be  in  most  cases,  if  indeed  in  any  case.     As  has 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  45 

been  said,  the  mind  is  not  a  mirror  which  simply 
reflects  objects  as  they  are, — it  is  a  medium  of 
refraction,  and  the  sensation  or  percept  is  always 
more  or  less  a  composite  product ;  but  it  is  a  com- 
posite product  from  two  factors,  the  reality  of 
both  of  which  it  is  necessary  to  admit  before  it 
can  be  conceived  as  even  possible. 

Again,  to  say  that  that  alone  exists  or  can 
exist  which  is  self-conscious — which  is  for  itself 
— is  arbitrarily  to  narrow  the  denotation  of  exist- 
ence. It  is  further  by  a  definition  to  foreclose 
the  question  as  to  whether  the  unconscious — say, 
extension,  resistance,  movement,  atom — can  or 
cannot  be  described  as  existing,  supposing  it  not 
to  possess  self-consciousness. 

Further,  to  say  that  no  thing  exists,  unless 
there  be  a  consciousness  to  whom  or  which  it 
is  an  object,  is  not  to  guarantee  the  continued 
existence  of  material  things  —  extension,  atom, 
molecule — but  only  to  say  that  if  there  be  a  con- 
sciousness, or  if  a  consciousness  arise  to  whom 
they  become  objects,  they  will  have  existence. 
They  have  thus  only  a  hypothetical  existence. 
They  have  no  being  apart  or  by  themselves.  But 
they  would  be  called  into  being,  if  a  consciousness 


46  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

arose  so  to  call  them  or  confer  existence  upon 
them.  Nothing  exists  that  is  not  an  object  of  my 
consciousness  or  some  one  like  me.  But  we  have 
a  more  profound  difficulty  here,  for,  according  to 
the  doctrine,  there  is  no  conscious  subject  per  se, 
no  substance  called  soul  or  spirit,  only  a  con- 
sciousness— object,  extension,  matter — and  hence, 
unless  both  conscious  subject  and  matter  or  ex- 
tension be  supposed,  there  can  be  no  continuity 
of  the  latter,  of  either,  or  of  both.  But  this  is  to 
suppose  the  continuance  of  spirit  through  the 
continuance  of  matter, — the  very  point  which  the 
continuance  of  spirit  is  adduced  to  explain. 

Again,  to  say  that  because  external  reality 
springs  up  and  dies  in  human  or  animal  con- 
sciousness, therefore  it  only  exists  in  and  by  those 
consciousnesses,  is  to  confound  (known)  external 
reality  with  unknown  or  possibly  absolute  exter- 
nal reality,  and  thus  to  beg  the  question  at  issue. 

If  the  continued  existence  of  the  object  of 
perception  be  dependent  on  a  subject  or  subjects 
to  which  it  is  an  object  of  consciousness, — this 
subject  being  always  finite  like  ourselves, — then 
the  continued  independent  existence  of  those 
subjects  must  be  postulated.      It  must  be  held 


phenomenon;  phenomenalism.  47 

that  there  is  a  continuity  or  series  of  existing 
self-conscious  subjects,  to  which  the  object  per- 
ceived appears,  and  in  which  it  subsists.  Ex- 
ternality to  me  would  thus  mean  a  series  of  in- 
dependent conscious  or  perceiving  subjects — 
different  from  me,  but  yet  perceiving  what  I 
perceived,  and  so  keeping  it  in  being.  If  things 
are  thus  to  continue  in  being,  after  I  as  a  con- 
scious subject  have  ceased  to  be  or  to  perceive, 
what,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  guarantee  I  have 
of  their  continued  and  independent  reality  ? 

By  a  certain  process  of  inference  or  induction 
I  have  come  to  accept  as  a  fact — to  believe — 
that  other  conscious  subjects,  like  myself,  exist 
around  me.  And  while  I  have  an  apprehension 
of  the  signs  or  grounds  on  which  I  hold  my 
fellows  to  be,  I  may  suppose  that  the  object  I 
perceive  is  also  perceived  by  them,  and  thus  that 
when  my  perception  ceases  for  the  time,  the 
object  still  subsists  in  the  perception  of  one  or 
more  of  those  percipients.  But  what  guarantee 
have  I  that  after  my  consciousness  ceases  or  is 
withdrawn  from  the  world  —  after  I  cease  to 
apprehend  the  signs  on  which  I  infer  the  actual 
existence  of  minds  around  me  now  and  here — 


48  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

minds  similar  to  me  or  to  these  will  continue  to 
exist  and  to  perceive  ? 

I  may  think  it  probable  or  likely  that  with 
the  withdrawal  of  my  consciousness  from  the 
world  other  consciousnesses  will  not  cease,  that 
in  the  future  there  may  be — probably  will  be — 
other  conscious  subjects  percipient  like  myself. 
There  have  been  others  before  me  in  time ;  there 
probably  will  be  others  after  me.  But  I  have  no 
absolute  or  complete  guarantee  of  this.  I  can 
never,  therefore,  say  with  certainty  that  things 
will  continue  to  exist  after  my  consciousness  is 
withdrawn  from  the  world,  I  can  thus  have  no 
guarantee  whatever  of  the  continued  reality  of 
objects  after  my  individual  perception  has  ceased. 


49 


III— THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS. 

M.  Daueiac  interprets  the  realism  of  common- 
sense  as  founding  on  the  distinction  of  strong 
and  feeble  states  of  consciousness — in  fact,  the 
impressions  and  ideas  of  Hume — and  at  the  same 
time  as  holding  that  the  reality  of  things  is 
wholly  independent  of  their  perception  by  me, 
the  individual.  Things  do  not  cease  to  be  when 
I  cease  absolutely  to  perceive  them.  Eeality  is 
not  a  vain  term ;  it  subsists  by  its  proper  laws, 
and  these  laws,  known  by  us,  remain  independent 
of  those  which  regulate  us.^ 

But  the  question  arises,  Wherein  precisely  lies 
the  nature  of  the  conception  of  reality  as  enter- 
tained by  common-sense  ?  An  idealist,  according 
to  common-sense,  is  a  man  who  pretends  not  to 
be  sure  of  experiencing  what  he  experiences,  or 

1  Croyance  ct  RealiU,  pp.  122,  123. 
D 


50  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

of  perceiving  what  he  perceives.  Hence  when 
he  is  struck  with  a  stick  he  is  inconsistent  in 
complaining  or  crying  out  on  account  of  the 
blows.  But  common  -  sense  alleges  that  the 
reality  of  things  does  not  admit  of  demonstra- 
tion. The  reality  of  the  object  is  indemonstrable, 
because  of  its  immediate  evidence.  But  the 
meaning  at  the  bottom  of  this  view  of  common- 
sense  is  truly  the  philosophical  distinction  of 
Hume  and  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  between  strong 
and  feeble  states  of  consciousness  —  impressions 
and  ideaS;  or  images  of  impressions,  memories,  or 
expectations.  Common  -  sense,  in  a  word,  is 
idealistic  without  knowing  it.  But  the  idealist 
does  not  deny  the  distinction  between  those  two 
states  of  consciousness,  the  strong  and  the  weak. 
Hume  expressly  admitted  this,  yet  he  restricted 
being  to  these  states.  There  is  no  impression  of 
being  distinct  from  the  impression  experienced 
or  the  idea  conceived.  Esse  is  percipi.  What 
the  idealist  qud  idealist  is  concerned  to  deny  is 
the  continued  existence  of  the  objects  of  percep- 
tion— that  is,  impressions,  in  Hume's  language — 
apart  from  a  mind  or  percipient.  It  is  argued : 
Suppose  that  we  disappear;  then  in  order  that 


THE  INDEPENDENCE   OF   THINGS.  51 

the  world  should  endure,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  leave  to  our  fellows  the  power  of  experiencing 
sensations  and  localising  them  instinctively  out 
of  themselves.  Continued  existence  of  objects 
of  sense  means  the  substitution  of  others  for  us 
when  we  fail. 

But  it  may  be  further  asked,  Have  I  truly  in 
these  signs  of  others  like  myself,  any  guarantee, 
on  the  doctrine  in  question,  that  my  fellows  are 
really  independent  of  me,  that  they  are  true  ex- 
ternalities— distinct  and  for  themselves — are  more 
than  the  extension  or  the  motion  or  the  resist- 
ance which  I  perceive  ?  How  do  I  know  another 
consciousness  than  my  own  ?  Not  directly,  only 
through  media.  And  what  are  these  media? 
The  bodies  in  which  they  are  clothed,  the  move- 
ments or  actions  which  they  manifest,  the  sounds 
which  they  utter,  and  so  on.  But  these  are  all 
forms  of  extension,  motion,  material  qualities. 
They  exist  for  me  as  objects  of  my  perception. 
Only  perception  or  consciousness,  we  are  told, 
truly  confers  a  reality  upon  them,  as  it  does  upon 
all  material  qualities.  How,  then,  can  they  be 
anything  but  existences  for  me  ?  How  am  I  to 
transcend  the  magic  circle  of  my  subjectivity,  in 


52  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

respect  of  these  particular  qualities,  when  I  can- 
not do  it  in  respect  of  the  qualities  of  matter  in 
general  ?  It  is  obvious  that  if  these  qualities  be 
real  only  as  I  perceive  them,  and  because  I  per- 
ceive them,  then  the  conscious  subject,  as  a  per- 
cipient which  they  are  supposed  to  imply  and 
reveal,  is  also  real  only  in  as  far  as  this  exists  in 
my  consciousness  of  inference,  that  is,  in  my  con- 
sciousness. And  the  possibility  of  a  self-existing 
conscious  subject,  independent  of  me,  is  wholly 
excluded  from  knowledge. 

But  it  may  be  fairly  asked,  Does  what  is  called 
common-sense  actually  mean  only  this  ?  Does  it 
mean  only,  as  with  J.  S.  Mill,  a  permanent  pos- 
sibility of  sensation  ?  Surely  it  seeks  in  some 
way  to  account  for  this  possibility,  to  ground  it. 
A  permanent  possibility  of  sensation  is  as  yet 
but  a  possibility.  How  is  this  possibility  to  be 
made  actual  ?  By  some  condition  surely,  or 
ground  in  the  objective,  in  the  nature  of  the 
world  or  things.  Even  suppose  we  had  our  fel- 
lows, others  than  ourselves,  continuing  to  exist 
after  us — a  supposition  which  in  itself  implies 
independent  reality— would  the  mere  possibility 
on  their  part  of  experiencing  sensations  amount 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.  53 

to  the  actual  or  continued  existence  of  these  sen- 
sations, or  even  to  any  cause  of  them  ?  What  we 
mean  by  the  continued  existence  of  the  objects  of 
perception  is  not  a  possible  but  an  actual  exist- 
ence, and  these  conceptions  are  not  at  all  inter- 
changeable. But  it  is  urged,  "  If  things  survive 
the  extinction  of  our  thought,  we  cannot  repre- 
sent this  survival  without  supposing,  in  spite  of 
it,  the  resurrection  of  thought :  the  hypothesis 
destroys  itself  in  its  enouncement."  ^  This  is 
idealism,  and  it  is,  as  is  alleged,  what  common- 
sense  itself  supposes,  for  it  ultimately  refers  to 
contact  as  the  test  or  sign  of  reality,  and  contact 
is  an  impression.  But  does  this  "  resurrection  of 
thought "  mean  some  one  like  ourselves  actually 
perceiving  or  feeling  as  we  now  do  ?  In  this 
case,  we  have  to  explain  the  power  at  the  root  of 
the  resurrection.  We  have  to  fall  back  on  that 
objective  ground  of  perception  and  sensation 
which  is  confessedly  independent  of  us  in  our 
own  actual  experience.  And  we  are  no  nearer  a 
solution  of  the  continuity  of  things  than  we  were 
before.  Or  we  must  take  the  alternative  that  the 
actual  seeing  by  these  other  individuals  is  the 

^  Croyance  et  R4alite,  p.  131. 


54  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

being  or  making  of  the  things,  in  which  case 
there  is  no  continuity  at  all,  but  a  constant  repro- 
duction or  creation  of  a  certain  number  of  indi- 
viduals supposed  to  subsist  continuously  through 
time.  And  this  comes  pretty  well  to  making  the 
world  the  idiosyncrasy  or  peculiar  property  of 
each  individual,  without  the  slightest  guarantee 
of  any  community  of  knowledge. 

But  the  whole  conception  of  the  continued 
existence  here  sought  to  be  got  through  the  sup- 
position of  other  egos  like  me  is  a  narrow  one, 
and  this  bare  being  is  only  obtained  through  the 
postulating  of  a  continuous  externality  higher 
than  the  narrow  one.  Objects  of  perception  con- 
tinue to  exist,  if  a  percipient  continues  to  per- 
ceive them ;  but  a  percipient  continuing  to  per- 
ceive is  an  existence,  and  an  existence  external 
to  and  independent  of  me.  And  if  this  sphere  of 
reality  be,  and  be  continuous,  then  I  have  sup- 
posed a  continuous  external  reality  of  a  higher 
kind — viz.,  personal — to  account  for  the  contin- 
uance of  a  lower  reality  —  viz.,  the  impersonal 
objects  of  perception. 

If  matter  be  a  permanent  possibility  of  sensa- 
tion, then  we  are  bound  to  inquire.  Does  "  pos- 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.  55 

sibility  of  sensation  "  mean  the  possibility  of  the 
actual  occurrence  or  experience  of  sensations  ?  If 
so,  two  things  are  needed,  and  must  be  postu- 
lated— 

(ct)  A  permanent  cause  of  the  sensations,  on 
which  their  passage  from  possibility  to  actuality 
will  depend. 

(b)  A  sentient,  sentience,  or  consciousness  in 
or  for  which  the  sensation  will  occur,  or  by 
which  it  will  be  experienced. 

Further,  if  the  possibility  of  the  experience  be 
a  permanent  one,  then  these  two  factors  must  be 
postulated,  as  permanent.  But  they  are  neither 
of  them  sensations,  though  con-causes,  and  the 
question  of  the  continued  experience  of  sensa- 
tions is  not  solved  by  the  phrase  permanent  pos- 
sibility;  but  this  itself,  if  alleged  as  a  fact  or 
law  of  experience,  depends  on  what  lies  beyond 
itself  for  its  meaning  and  possibility. 

But  M.  Dauriac's  theory  is  neither  consistent 
with  itself  nor  with  the  facts  of  experience. 
Thus,  to  take  only  a  few  instances — 

1.  If  consciousness  demands  the  opposition  of 
subject  and  object,  every  "  datum  for  itself  "  is  at 
the  same  time  "given  for  another  than  itself." 


56  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

Thus  to  Berkeley's  esse  is  percipi  we  must  add 
Esse  est  percipere,  and  every  perceptum  is  the  si«fn 
of  a  percipiens}  If  so,  how  is  this  consistent 
with  the  author's  doctrine  that  soul  or  mind 
means  not  simple  coexistence  of  opposites — the 
phenomena,  consciousness,  and  extension, — but,  as 
he  says,  a  fusion,  interpenetration  of  these  ?  And 
when  we  are  told  that  the  "qualitative  irreduc- 
tibility  of  phenomena  becomes  the  criterion  of  the 
independent  existence  of  things,"  ^  we  may  well 
ask  what  is  the  meaning  of  "  independent "  here, 
if  there  be  no  coexistence  but  only  fusion  ?  And 
how,  further,  if  there  be  "qualitative  irreducti- 
bility,"  is  there  complete  fusion  ?  The  confusion 
of  the  coexistence  of  the  opposed  phenomena — 
consciousness  and  extension  —  with  their  real 
fusion  as  truly  a  single  entity,  seems  to  me  to 
run  through  nearly  the  whole  of  M.  Dauriac's 
statements  and  reasonings.  Thus  he  tells  us  that 
Leibniz  in  his  Pre-established  Harmony  stated 
a  fact  of  daily  experience— viz.,  that  there  are 
two  distinct  orders  of  phenomena  in  relation  to 
each  other.  But  certainly  the  distinctness  re- 
ferred to  by  Leibniz  is  a  distinctness  of  coexist- 
1  Croyance  et  RMiU,  p.  225.  2  ^^^  ^  226. 


or  THE  J 

UNIVERSITY 
THE  INDEPENDENCE   OF  THINGS.        %^  CAUPaR^^ 

ence,  not  of  inseparable  fusion  or  penetration — 
in  fact,  an  independent  coexistence.  Never  was 
reciprocal  finite  independence  more  completely 
realised  than  in  the  monadistic  theory  of  Leibniz. 

In  the  following  passage  it  seems  to  me  that 
M.  Dauriac  both  denies  and  affirms  more  than 
fusion  of  consciousness  and  extension — more  even 
than  coexistent  phenomenal  reality :  "  As  soon  as 
the  reality  of  substance  is  a  gratuitous  hypothesis, 
the  thesis  of  the  unity  of  substance  has  no  longer 
to  be  discussed,  and  there  is  no  longer  ground  for 
doubting  of  tlie  plurality  of  beings :  the  extensive 
proves  the  external,  for  it  is  hereafter  the  legalised 
sign  of  it,  therefore  incontestable.  Consequently, 
judgments  of  non-attribution  as  such  are  rendered 
valid,  and  every  perception  of  the  extended,  that 
is  to  say,  every  percept,  becomes  immediately  the 
index  of  a  percipient  Hence  everything  rep- 
resented extended  will  be  henceforward  con- 
nected, in  the  consciousness  of  the  representee, 
with  the  sudden  (instantaneous)  irresistible  con- 
ception of  an  external  representing  (representer), 
that  is  to  say,  '  another  consciousness.' "  ^ 

It   seems  to  me  that  a  theory  which  denies 

^  Croyance  et  Realite,  pp.  240,  241 .  (The  italics  are  Prof.  Veitch's.) 


58  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

reality  alike  to  independent  consciousness  and  to 
independent  extension,  and  which  holds  reality 
to  lie  in  these  two  combined,  or  fused,  or  inter- 
penetrated, has  no  right  to  recognise  a  "  plurality 
of  beings,"  or  to  say  that  "  the  extensive  proves  the 
external,"  or  that  it  is  "  a  sign  of  it,"  or  that  every 
"  perception  becomes  the  index  of  a  percipient." 
And  further,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  idea  of 
"  other  representers  "  or  "  other  consciousnesses  " 
existing  independently  of  ours,  while  reality 
is  only  this  twofold,  inexplicable  fusion  of 
consciousness  and  extension  in  us,  neither  pre- 
existing, neither  independently  coexisting,  is  a 
simple  contradiction  in  terms.  "Other  con- 
sciousnesses "  can  only  be  to  us  our  own  conscious- 
ness ;plus  extension  conceived,  imagined  as  dupli- 
cated here  and  now,  or  duplicated  hereafter — then 
and  there ;  but  this  imaginary  duplication  would 
never  make  them  "other  consciousnesses,"  or 
anything  but  a  fictional  concept  of  our  conscious- 
ness. Let  being  be  restricted  to  the  relation  M. 
Dauriac  describes,  it  must  stay  in  that  relation 
— this  and  nothing  more. 

2.  Again,  we  are  told  that  body  and  soul  are 
phenomenal.     "  They  are  given   in  a  primitive 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.       59 

synthesis,  abstractly  decomposable,  really  indis- 
soluble.  The  soul  is  a  sum  (enscmhle)  of  successive 
phenomena,  co-ordinated  in  one  and  the  same 
consciousness.      Body  is   a  sum  of  phenomena 
annexed  to  the  same  consciousness,  its  own  in 
certain  respects,  and  yet  excluded  from  its  in- 
ternality  {intimiU),  for  extension  is  common  to 
them,  and  space  contains  them.     There  is  no  soul 
without  body,  and  without  body  spirit  is  incon- 
ceivable."^   On  the  author's  theory,  it  is  impossible 
there  can  be  "  one  and  the  same  consciousness." 
Consciousness  is  the  term  for  the  one  side,  or 
rather  element,  in  a  fusion  of  which  extension  is 
the  other  element, — and  this  phenomenal  reality 
is  necessarily  restricted  to  the  condition  of  suc- 
cession, and  is  thus  indefinitely  varied,  —  never 
thus  can  there  be  "  one  and  the  same  conscious- 
ness," except  in  a  purely  abstract  or  generic  sense. 
In  fact,  it  is  not  properly  consciousness  at  all,  but 
the  resultant  of  what  is  called  consciousness  and 
extension.      Further,  if  body  be  annexed  to  the 
same    consciousness     and    also    excluded    from 
it,   on    the   ground   of   its   spatial   character   or 
essence,  there  must  be  more  in  existence  than 

1  Croyance  et  RealiU,  p.  233. 


60  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

the    phenomenal    fusion    of    consciousness    and 
extension. 

3.  M.  Dauriac  thinks  he  cuts  away  the  ground 
of  Fichte's  position  by  his  theory.  The  datum 
in  Fichte's  view  is  given  by  me,  and  hence  there 
is  the  restoration  of  substance  or  substantial 
reality.  The  Ego  is  duplicated.  There  is  an 
empirical  and  a  transcendent  Ego.  The  Me  is  the 
absolute.  But  if  the  Me,  as  according  to  M. 
Dauriac,  only  exists  in  opposition  to  external 
object,  subjective  idealism  becomes  impossible.^ 
But  surely  in  this  case,  the  problem  as  to  how 
the  extension  is  given — it  not  being  created  by 
the  consciousness — is  left  unsolved.  It  has  no 
reality  for  itself,  any  more  than  the  conscious- 
ness. There  is  thus  neither  a  given  nor  a  real 
recipient. 

4.  M.  Dauriac  states  and  criticises  Descartes' 
view.  Descartes  would  say  extended  things  re- 
main after  perception.  They  are  matter  of  pos- 
sible perceptions ;  they  remain  to  be  perceived  as 
soon  as  spirit  joined  to  body  appears.-  Matter  is 
not  simply  a  permanent  possibility  of  sensation. 
There  is  persistent  substance,  and  this  substance 

1  Croyance  ct  RealiU,  p.  232. 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.       61 

is  known  ;  it  is  res  extensa.  Hence  extension, 
geometrical  extension,  is  the  essence  of  matter. 
Extension  expresses  the  essence  of  a  reality  pro- 
foundly heterogeneous  from  mind — "  a  thing  in 
itself "  wholly  distinct  from  the  thing  in  itself 
which  in  us  thinks  and  knows  that  it  thinks.^  In 
order  to  be,  this  substance  has  need  only  of  the 
concourse  of  Deity.  It  is  not  created  by  our  \ 
thought ;  it  exists  "  in  itself,"  not  "  for  itself,"  as  i 
a  consciousness  or  conscious  being  does. 

M.  Dauriac  urges  against  this  view  that  exten- 
sion as  a  given  percept  involves  contradiction. 
Matter  is  extended  and  comprehends  an  actual 
infinity  of  parts.  But  an  infinity  of  parts  cannot 
be  given  in  act ;  yet,  if  the  whole  be  given,  the 
number  of  parts  is  also  given.  Extension,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  a  given  percept  or  mere  concept 
— it  would  as  such  be  finite  and  infinite  at  once. 
Hence  extension  —  the  extension  of  intuition  — 
cannot  be  objectively  real ;  and  this  holds  even 
of  intelligible  extension,  for  it  is  spatial,  and  this 
implies  divisibility  to  infinity. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  this  division 
without   termination   is   our  work,  —  that   it   is 

^  Croyance  et  JRealite,  p.  238. 


62  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

imaginary, — and  hence  the  infinity  of  parts  is 
not  given,  only  exists  in  imagination.  Nay,  the 
ultimate  analysis  of  a  particle  of  matter  shows  it 
to  be  composed  of  a  definite,  and  therefore  finite, 
number  of  physical  indivisibles,  whose  juxtaposi- 
tion makes  up  extension.  Hence  material  exten- 
sion is  not  indefinitely  divisible.  But  it  is  said,  in 
reply,  the  limits  of  distinct  perception  do  not 
coincide  with  those  of  possible  division,— and  the 
division  will  thus  never  be  arrested  until  the 
mind  finishes  it,  which  it  never  will.  Hence  if 
extension  exists,  it  is  not  indefinitely  divisible; 
but  indefinite  divisibility  is  essential  to  it,  hence 
extension  does  not  exist. 

The  given  extension  of  intuition — any  mate- 
rial extended  thing — is  of  course  finite,  bounded 
in  space.  If  this  is  indefinitely  divisible,  is  there 
necessarily  a  contradiction  of  its  finitude  as  a 
percept?  Division  to  infinity  is  never  actually 
realised.  There  is  no  actual  infinity  of  parts 
confronting  or  alongside  the  actually  perceived 
or  conceived  finitude  or  limitation  in  space. 
This  finite  material  extension  is  possibly  divis- 
ible in  our  thought  indefinitely  —  it  may  be 
infinitely   through    all    time  —  but    it    is    never 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.       63 

actually  so  divided ;  and  it  cannot,  therefore,  be 
said  that  this  possible  division  conflicts  with  the 
actual  finitude  of  the  object  perceived.  To  per- 
ceive or  conceive  a  finite  extension,  and  to 
imagine  that  this  extension  is  indefinitely  di- 
visible, is  not  to  negate  the  finitude  of  the 
percept  by  the  actual  infinity  of  another  per- 
cept or  even  concept. 

But  the  argument,  if  valid  at  all,  goes  a  great 
deal  further  than  M.  Dauriac  would  allow;  for 
if  intelligible  extension  be  essentially  contradic- 
tory, it  can  never  even  be  subjective — can  never 
be  a  concept  at  all — and  thus  his  whole  theory 
collapses.  If  the  consciousness  be  dependent  for 
its  reality  on  an  intelligible  essentially  contra- 
dictory— an  object  conceived  finite,  yet  at  the 
same  time  necessarily  infinite — this  is  fatal  to 
the  reality  of  the  relation  in  which  it  appears 
or  is  conceived.  In  the  relation  of  reality  made 
up  by  consciousness  'plus  extension,  extension 
has  at  least  an  ideal  or  intelligible  existence. 
This  it  cannot  have,  if  the  very  concept  of  it, 
as  both  limited  and  unlimited,  be  essentially  con- 
tradictory. It  is  no  concept  at  all ;  and  the 
argument  not  only  destroys  its  "objective  reali- 


64  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

sation,"  but  its  subjective  existence  as  ideal  or 
intelligible. 

The  truth  is,  that  perceived  extension  as  al- 
ways necessarily  limited  means  not  properly 
extension  itself,  but  matter  extended  or  in  space 
—  space  -  occupying.  And  when  we  speak  of 
indefinite  divisibility  in  this  connection,  we  do 
not  properly  refer  to  the  matter  perceived,  but 
to  the  space  which  it  necessarily  occupies.  We 
always  perceive  the  matter,  we  always  think  it 
in  space.  But  it  is  not  the  space  we  perceive, 
but  the  bounded  matter  in  the  space.  And  this 
— the  matter — while  conceived  as  indefinitely 
divisible,  is  never  indefinitely,  far  less  infinitely, 
extended.  The  actual  extent  of  the  matter  is 
never  increased  by  the  possibility  of  even  its 
infinite  divisibility — not  one  whit.  And  there  is 
no  contradiction  whatever  in  supposing  that  this 
finite  extended  matter  remains  precisely  the  same 
finite  extended  matter,  while  from  the  condition 
of  its  occupying  space  it  always  admits  of  being 
conceived  as  divisible.  The  infinite  or  definite 
divisibility  does  not  make  the  matter  perceived 
more  than  it  is  perceived — more  in  coextension 
— much  less  infinite,  but  it  opens  up  a  relation  of 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.  65 

the  matter  to  indefinite  or  infinite  time — a  rela- 
tion which  by  us  can  never  be  actually  realised ; 
and  this  relation,  as  truly  a  time-relation,  in  no 
way  conflicts  with  or  opposes  the  definite  bounded 
space-relation  of  coexistence  of  the  parts.  Matter, 
the  smallest  portion  of  it,  we  conceive  as  in  re- 
spect of  space  bounded,  as  in  respect  of  time 
divisible  to  infinity ;  but  this  time  possibility  is 
of  a  wholly  different  order  of  conception  from 
that  of  matter  actually  perceived  or  conceived, 
and  has  no  function  either  of  addition  or  diminu- 
tion of  its  quantum.  So  far  as  this  argument 
goes,  accordingly,  extended  matter  may  or  may 
not  have  objective  reality. 

M.  Dauriac  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
"substance," — that  is,  as  he  views  it,  a  reality 
existing  out  of  relation  to  another.  This  of 
course  obscures  the  true  idea  of  substance,  but 
meanwhile  let  it  pass.  The  fundamental  relation 
is  of  consciousness  to  extension,  of  extension  to 
consciousness,  as  wholly  opposed — mine  and  not- 
mine,  me  and  not-me.  Here  all  is  phenomenal, 
and  phenomenal  only  as  in  the  relation.  The 
phenomenon  isolated  from  all  relation  on  one 
side,  and,  on  the  other,  the  relation  isolated  from 

E 


66  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

all  term, — these  are  the  abstractions.  Ee-establish 
the  interrupted  communication,  and  the  concretes 
reappear.  Eenounce  the  concretes,  and  the  words 
Being  and  Eeality  are  meaningless.  Beyond  the 
relation  and  the  terms — that  is,  phenomena — 
there  is  nothing.^  He  contends  thus  for  more 
than  mere  relation.  He  holds  by  terms,  called 
phenomena.  But  to  allow  them  to  exist  out  of 
the  relation,  is  to  set  up  substances.  There  are 
only  phenomena,  but  it  is  not  maintained  that 
phenomena  exist  apart  from  each  other.^ 

But  it  is  quite  clear  that  on  this  theory  not 
only  substance — that  is,  a  reality  subsisting  in 
and  for  itself — disappears,  but  we  cannot  even 
maintain  the  coexistence  of  the  phenomena  in 
any  sense  of  the  word ;  and  with  the  abolition 
of  this  coexistence  the  relation  itself  is  annulled. 
All  that  really  exists  is  a  relation  or  opposi- 
tion in  which  one  term  is  necessarily  posited  as 
opposed  to  another.  There  is  mutual,  reciprocal 
opposition.  But  opposition  apart  from  coexisting 
opposites,  either  actual  or  ideal,  is  an  impos- 
sibility. A  relation  of  opposition  is  a  point  in 
which  two  coexisting  things,  call  them  pheno- 

1  Croyance  et  EMite,  pp.  247,  248.  -  Ihid.,  p.  246. 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.       67 

niena  or  what  you  will,  are  conceived  as  opposed. 
It  is  utterly  impossible  that  this  opposition  can 
be  anything  unless  there  are  coexisting  opposites 
which  are  opposed  in  this  particular,  and  which 
are  known  to  me  as  a  cognitive  subject  in  the 
first  place  apart  from  the  particular  opposition. 
I  cannot  speak  of,  cannot  conceive,  an  opposi- 
tion between  terms  neither  of  which  I  before- 
hand know.  This  is  the  true  meaning  of  a  term 
or  terms  in  an  opposition.  Terms  imply  objects 
cognised  by  me  as  real,  or  concepts  as  at  least 
ideally  existent,  and  as  affording  thereupon  or 
thereafter  a  point  or  relation  of  opposition.  To 
say  that  the  opposition — the  relation — affords  or 
gives  me  the  terms,  that  the  terms  only  exist 
in  and  through  the  opposition,  is  to  make  the 
relation  which  is  purely  secondary  and  deriva- 
tive the  very  essence  of  the  terms  themselves — 
to  make,  in  fact,  the  child  the  parent,  and  thus  to 
confuse  the  whole  conditions  of  intelligible  think- 
ing. The  necessity  of  the  pre-existence  and  coex- 
istence of  the  terms  of  a  relation  annihilates  the 
whole  theory  of  the  exclusive  reality  of  the  terms 
as  related  or  rather  known  to  be  related.  And  this 
is  the  essence  of  the  whole  of  M.  Dauriac's  theory. 


68  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

There  is  still  another  point  of  importance. 
Between  the  terms  consciousness  and  extension, 
as  in  the  relation,  there  is  opposition  and  nothing 
but  opposition,  and  each  is  real  only  as  opposed, 
as  in  conflict.  Now,  is  there  any  such  relation 
as  that  of  absolute  opposition  between  two  terms 
possible  ?  Must  there  not  be  some  community 
of  character  or  nature  between  two  positive 
terms  said  to  be  opposed  ?  In  contrary  opposi- 
tion there  is  necessarily  a  community  of  nature. 
This  holds  between  terms  of  the  same  class — 
species  or  genus — as  Uach  and  loliite,  virtuous  and 
vicious.  However  opposed,  they  still  belong  to  the 
same  universe,  and  hence  the  mere  opposition 
does  not  exhaust  their  nature  or  being.  Even  in 
contradictory  opposition  between  positives  —  as 
extended  and  unextended,  animate  and  inanimate 
— there  is  a  community  of  nature.  The  terms 
belong  to  the  sphere  of  the  existent  —  real  or 
ideal.  You  cannot  escape  community  of  nature 
in  the  most  absolute  opposition  conceivable,  pro- 
vided you  deal  with  positive  terms,  as  you  do  in 
the  case  in  consciousness  and  extension.  But  if 
this  be  so,  their  luhole  reality  cannot  lie  in  their 
opposition.     They  have  a  nature   besides — they 


THE  INDEPENDENCE   OF  THINGS.  69 

are,  they  are  existent  really  or  ideally.  In  order 
to  be  known  as  opposed,  they  must  be  known  to 
be,  and  they  must  be  known  further  as  fulfilling 
the  conditions  of  the  conceivable.  Eeality  merged 
in  simple  absolute  opposition  is  the  very  vainest 
of  concepts. 

M.  Dauriac's  treatment  of  the  monadology  of 
Leibniz  is  both  fresh  and  instructive.  First  the 
idea  of  the  Pre-established  Harmony  is  recog- 
nised as  simply  a  fact  of  our  daily  experience. 
The  world  as  a  sum  of  beings,  not  the  totality 
of  being,  commends  itself  to  M.  Dauriac.  This 
answers  well  to  the  monadology.  But  Leibniz 
has  not  proved  the  reality  of  his  monads.^  He 
has  postulated  the  monads,  and  found  the  condi- 
tion, fundamental  if  not  sufficient,  which  all 
reality  is  held  to  fulfil.  He  has  not  demon- 
strated realism.  He  has  found,  however,  the 
formula  of  it.  That  is,  all  being  is  a  conscious- 
ness—  "a  datum  for  itself. "^  Thus  Leibniz 
denied  the  essential  point  in  Berkeleyanism. 
He  said  practically  esse  is  not  percijpi ;  it  is  per- 
cipere.  This  would  certainly  be  true  if  we  re- 
garded each  monad  as  a  centre  of  representations 

1  Croyance  et  RealiU,  p.  225.  2  i^^^  ^if_ 


70  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

— a  conscious  unity,  capable  of  representing  the 
universe  from  its  own  point  of  view,  though  that 
universe  never  appears  to  it  or  can  be  pheno- 
menally presented  to  it.  Leibniz  filled  the 
world  with  an  actual  infinity  of  monads,  rang- 
ing from  the  unconscious  to  the  conscious  sub- 
stance. This  is  the  very  counterpart  of  the  Ber- 
keleyan  conception  —  of  a  single  Divine  Unity 
upon  which  every  perception  or  percipient  de- 
pends. Each  of  us  is  a  monad — conscious,  per- 
cipient ;  but  each  is  only  one  amid  the  infinity 
in  which  all  are  placed.  These  substances  con- 
stitute the  universe,  each,  it  may  be,  sharing  in 
a  dim  degree  of  perception,  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest.  Where  I  am  not,  these  others  are, 
and  so  the  universe  subsists. 

M.  Dauriac  would  apparently  accept  this  view, 
although  it  goes  far  beyond  his  definite  state- 
ment, as  implying  real  substantial  coexistence 
of  the  elements  of  the  world.  He  no  doubt 
objects  to  "  an  actual  infinity  of  monads  "  as  con- 
tradictory of  the  actual  universe.  But  he  says, 
"  Let  us  people  our  world  with  an  unimaginable, 
yet  not  unassignable,  number  of  psychical  in- 
dividuals, be  it  monads,  that  is  to  say,  units  of 


I 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.       71 

perception  ahvays  in  some  degree  conscious"  and 
we  might  supposably  have  the  theory  of  the 
universe.  The  idea  of  "  unconscious  perception  " 
is  as  contradictory  as  that  of  extension  in  itself. 
Leibniz  may  have  meant  simply  by  unconscious 
the  limit  towards  which  perception  would  tend 
without  ever  attaining  it,  a  perception  of  in- 
definitely decreasing  intensity.^ 

The  modification  is  needed.  Leibniz  tells  us 
the  monad  has  "no  doors  or  windows."  Con- 
sciousnesses, no  doubt,  are  reciprocally  impene- 
trable; no  consciousness  can  become  that  of 
another.  But  can  one  consciousness  not  pene- 
trate, not  know  another?  Each  monad  is  a 
closed  whole.  It  knows  only  itself  shut  up 
within  the  enceinte  of  its  own  perceptions.  This 
leads  to  Monism,  the  opposite  of  Monadism.  If 
the  monad  is  not  aware  that  other  monads  near 
it  coexist  with  it,  this  implies  Monism,  for  it  is 
no  longer  the  author  of  its  own  representations. 
These  depend  on  the  primary  Monad.  A  monad 
which  knows  the  changes  of  other  monads,  and 
of  the  universe,  and  has  no  communication  with 
these — any  one  or  all — is  necessarily  dependent 

^  Croyance  et  Realite,  p.  242. 


72  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

for  its  representations  on  the  one  monad  at  the 
root  of  all;  and  this  applies  necessarily  to  all 
the  changes  of  the  monads,  and  thus  to  all  the 
changes  in  the  universe.  But  unless  there  be 
reciprocal  knowledge  and  action  as  between  the 
coexisting  monads,  there  could  be  no  ground  or 
change  in  any  one.  We  could  not  change  if 
nothing  around  us  changed.^ 

M.  Dauriac  no  doubt  supposes  his  theory  to 
be  analogous  to  that  of  Leibniz,  but  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  identical  in  the  essential  point ;  and 
in  speaking  of  it  as  a  "  monadistic  phenomenal- 
ism," he  indicates  clearly  that  it  is  much  more 
extreme  than  that  of  Leibniz.  If  to  perceive 
with  Leibniz  implies  a  percipiens,  or  (con- 
scious) subject,  we  are  already  far  beyond  the 
mere  phenomenal  relationism  of  consciousness 
and  extension.  We  are,  in  truth,  back  to  the 
idea  of  substance,  or  the  subsistent,  in  one  main 
sense  of  the  term. 

M.  Dauriac's  view  of  the  Divine  is  a  very  fair 
test  of  the  application  of  his  theory.  "  If  there 
be  a  divinity,"  he  tells  us,  "this  is  either  the 
Absolute — that  is,  an  unintelligible — or  it  is  a 

^  Croyance  el  R^allU,  p.  243. 


THE  INDEPENDENCE   OF   THINGS.  73 

person,  and  a  person  which  it  is  impossible  not 
to  incccrnate  in  the  profound  sense  of  the  term. 
It  is  not  only  when  Christ  descends  into  the 
bosom  of  Mary  that  God  becomes  man ;  in  crea- 
tion, God  makes  himself  Word.  But  the  day 
the  first  Word  was,  there  were  beings  who 
understood  it.  Unfortunately,  it  escapes  the 
defenders  of  Christian  metaphysics  that  person- 
ality excludes  pure  spirituality,  not  less  than 
immensity  and  eternity ;  and  that  if  the  world, 
in  order  to  be,  has  need  of  God,  in  order  that 
God  should  be  there  is  need  of  the  world.  And 
if  it  be  objected  that  we  lessen  God  by  taking 
from  him  that  by  which  his  idea  surpasses  us, 
it  is  perhaps  because  the  religious  problems — 
even  within  the  limits  of  reason — are  not,  properly 
speaking,  philosophical  problems.  Picture  to  your- 
selves a  time  when  time  was  not,  an  immensity 
anterior  to  space,  a  consciousness  capable  of  self- 
consciousness  without  determining  itself,  of  deter- 
mining itself  without  limiting  itself,  of  limiting 
itself  without  dividing  itself  (se  segmenter),  and 
you  will  have  the  idea  of  a  God  anterior  and 
superior  to  the  world;  you  will  have  a  contra- 
dictory concept — that  is,  a  pseudo-concept. 


74  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

Imagine,  now,  a  being  flowing  into  time, 
knowing  that  it  exists  and  thinks,  and  capable 
of  thinking  without  experiencing  sensations. 
Do  you  try  it  in  vain  ?  Be  it  so ;  introduce 
sensation,  and  extension  will  follow.  Not-me, 
body,  extension — these  are  distinct  terms,  signs 
of  one  and  the  same  reality.  But  there  is  no 
me  without  a  not-me.  The  Me,  the  successive 
conscious  being  (conscient),  that  which  implies 
the  synthesis  of  the  changing  and  the  enduring 
— time, — these  are  the  distinct  terms  by  which 
the  ideas  are  designated.  Time  is  born  with  con- 
sciousness ;  but  with  this  space  appears.  Hence 
time  and  space  are  twin  brothers — twins  equally, 
those  pretended  hostile  brothers  which  are  called 
soul  and  body.     No  spirit  without  matter.^ 

In  so  far  as  this  passage  criticises  a  current 
conception  of  Deity,  taken  in  its  literality  as 
at  once  absolute  and  relative,  undetermined  and 
determined — and  of  Personality  as  qualified  by 
immensity  and  eternity — there  is  nothing  to  ob- 
ject. But  exception  certainly  may  be  taken  to 
the  statements  that  Personality  excludes  "pure 
spirituality,"  and  that  an  extended  world,  even 

1  Croyance  et  Kealite,  pp.  233,' 234. 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THINGS.       75 

this  world  apparently,  is  necessary  to  constitute 
God.     This   dogmatism  is  rash  and   unguarded, 
and,  as  I  have  attempted  already  to  show,  even 
in  regard  to  the  concept  of  a  finite  consciousness, 
not  founded  in  reason  or  fact.     It  may  be  that 
we  can  form  no  concept  of  a  God  who  is  not  a 
Person— nay,  that  we  ought  not  in  reason  to  seek 
to  form  any  such  concept — and  that  a  self-con- 
scious personality  is  not  conceivable   unless  as 
implying  an  object  of  knowledge.     But  we  are 
not,  therefore,  warranted  in  saying  that  this  per- 
sonality is  only  possible  as  joined  to  or  immanent 
in  an  extended  world — in  body  or  matter — that 
it  is  necessarily  incarnate  in  this,  and  that  this  is 
as  necessary  to  God  as  he  is  to  it.     There  is 
nothing  in  the  analogy  of  our  own  experience  to 
warrant  this — much  indeed  against  it.     And  it 
would   legitimately  end  in   supposing   that   the 
present  world  or  system  is  the  only  one  possible, 
because  coeternal  with  God,  as  necessary  to  his 
very  consciousness,  and  therefore  to  his  being. 
If  he  is  not,  until  or  as  a  world  is,  then  this 
must  be  the  world  that  is;   for  as  only  co-con- 
scious with  the  world,  he  is  helpless  to  create 
any  world  that  is  not. 


76 


IV.— BEING  AND   LAW. 

M.  Dauriac,  carrying  with  him  the  doctrine  that 
existence  in  any  form,  material  or  other,  is  in- 
separable from  that  of  consciousness  or  conscious- 
ness and  object  known — a  centre  or  representation 
— proceeds  to  sketch  what  he  calls  a  phenomenal 
theory  of  being  which  should  wholly  exclude 
"  substance."  This  under  the  heading  of  "  Being 
and  Law."^  In  Section  III.  he  comes  to  deal 
especially  with  the  relations  of  Being  and  Law.^ 
We  must  attend  carefully  to  his  definition  of 
phenomenon.  In  reality,  according  to  his  view, 
there  is  not  one  phenomenon,  or  a  phenomenon 
by  itself.  There  is  always  at  the  lowest  (1) 
sensation  and  (2)  subject  of  sensation.  "Every 
phenomenon  is  a  term  in  a  relation ;  but  a  rela- 
tion implies  always  more  than  one  term.     Hence 

^  Croyance  et  HealiU,  p.  223.  -  Ibid.,  p.  245. 


BEING  AND   LAW,  77 

the  phenomenon  does  not  exist  in  isolation."  If 
it  did  so,  this  would  be  substance.  Again,  being 
is  not  the  result  of  juxtaposition,  such  as  putting 
together  the  parts  of  a  clock,  nor  is  it  the  result 
of  composition,  for  the  composite  elements  do 
not  pre  -  exist.  There  is  no  phenomenon  apart 
from  relation,  as  there  is  no  relation  apart  from 
phenomena.  We  have  a  habit  of  supposing 
every  relation  to  be  of  the  mathematical  order 
— abstract.  We  have  another  habit  of  supposing 
that  this  relation  has  a  certain  logical  anteriority, 
and  this  is  readily  converted  into  an  imaginary 
pre-existence.^ 

It  is  generally  held  that  a  rigorous  pheno- 
menalism excludes  both  substance  and  law.  But 
this  is  apparently  denied.  The  idea  of  pheno- 
menon implies  that  of  relation,  and  that  of  rela- 
tion implies  stability  and  periodicity.  Absolute 
change  is  contradictory.  All  change  is  perceived 
in  a  consciousness ;  and  unity  of  apperception  is 
indispensable  to  the  perception  of  change.  And 
to  conceive  change  we  need  to  assume  the  per- 
sistence and  psychical  identity  of  the  spectator. 

But  were  being  the  result  of  the  association  of 

1  Croyance  et  Healite,  pp.  248,  249. 


78  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

phenomenon  and  law,  the  conclusion  would  seem 
to  be  that  the  individual  is  absorbed  in  the 
genus,  or  at  least  in  the  species.  Law  is  general ; 
phenomenon  is  particular  (individual).  Hence 
phenomenon  is  absorbed  in  law,  or  law  is  diss- 
ipated among  phenomena.  Phenomenon  is  thus 
prior  and  superior  to  law.  There  are  more  indi- 
viduals than  types,  more  facts  than  laws.  Hence 
the  principle  of  individuation  is  deeper  than  law. 
We  fall  back  on  the  doctrine  of  substance.  The 
essence  of  law  consists  in  generality  and  con- 
stancy. A  law  must  be  permanent  or  periodic 
in  its  manifestations,  and  consequently  envelop  a 
multiplicity  either  stable  or  moving.  The  prin- 
ciple of  individuation — if  not  substance — ought 
to  be  sought,  and  if  possible  found,  in  relations, 
general,  constant,  immanent  in  the  individual 
itself.  But  can  general  relations  be  realised  and 
coexist  in  one  individual  ? — relations  constituting 
it  member  of  a  species  ?  We  profess  to  find 
the  law  in  the  individual  without  going  out 
of  it,  without  comparing  ifc  with  others  than 
itself.i 

In  one  point  of  view  there  is  a  good  deal  in 

^  Croyancc  ct  Jimlite,  p.  251, 


BEING  AND  LAW.  79 

this  doctrine  which  is  sound.  It  is  true  that  the 
essential  features  of  the  individual  constitute  its 
character,  as  opposed  to  the  accidental  and  passing, 
— that  what  is  constant  or  periodic  is  more  char- 
acteristic than  what  is  not.  It  is  true  also  in  a 
sense  that  the  essential  features  of  the  individual 
are  not  transmissible  to  another  coexisting  indi- 
vidual even  of  the  same  species.  They  are  real 
for  him,  and  only  for  him,  though  it  is  forgotten 
that  precisely  the  same  thing  might  be  said  of 
the  accidents  or  peculiarities  of  the  individual. 
These  too  are  real  for  him,  and  for  him  alone.  It 
is  true,  further,  that  the  essentials  of  the  species 
or  class  are  found  realised  in  the  single  individual 
as  marks  or  features, — that  it  is  through  com- 
parison of  similarly  constituted  individuals  that 
we  form  conceptions  of  classes, — that  the  perfect 
or  typical  individual  of  the  class  is  the  ultimate 
test  in  experience  by  which  to  determine  the 
essentials  of  the  class,  though  it  may  fairly  be 
said  that  the  inspection  of  the  individual  merely 
— its  comparison  with  itself — could  never  lead  us 
to  fix  on  those  essential  qualities  which  it  may 
possess  in  common  with  other  and  varying  indi- 
viduals.     To   fix   on   essential   qualities   in   the 


80  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

individual  is  a  process  of  abstraction  from  its 
accidents,  and  these  essential  features  are  sug- 
gested to  us  by  observation  of  them  in  others. 
They  are  just  as  essential  to  the  class  as  to  the 
individual  itself.  Besides,  in  order  to  know  the 
essential  properties  of  any  individual  we  have  to 
set  it  in  various  relations  to  other  individuals. 

But  the  question  must  be  met  as  to  how  in- 
dividuals are  distinguished,  and  how  they  are 
regarded  each  as  an  identity  ?  Whence  comes  it 
that  the  individual  recognises  itself,  and  that  we 
recognise  it  ?  Whence  comes  its  identity  ?  This 
has  its  source  in  "  the  persistence  of  character." 
Hypnotism  establishes  the  fact  that  it  is  sufficient 
to  efface  the  memory  of  a  person  in  order  to  take 
from  him  his  personality,  and  substitute  for  his 
natural  character  an  artificial  one.^  But  char- 
acter is  a  sum  of  habitudes,  and  every  habitude  is 
"  a  general  mode  of  being."  Habitude  is  a  law — 
that  is,  it  is  either  without  intermission,  or  it  is 
periodical.  In  either  case,  it  is  a  law.  As  every 
individual  has  its  habitudes,  every  one  has  its 
laws.  The  office  of  these  is  to  restrain  accident 
within  just  limits.     The  individual  can  share  his 

^  Croyance  et  Rtalite,  p.  252. 


BEING  AND   LAW.  81 

beliefs  and  sympathies  with  its  fellows,  but  only 
share  them.  The  individual  always  retains  some- 
thing which  cannot  be  transmitted,  and  this  some- 
thing is  not  accident.^ 

From  this  it  is  inferred,  following  Lotze,  that 
individuality  consists  in  a  general  rule  dominat- 
ing the  development  of  the  individual,  but  not 
extending  beyond  it.  If,  in  place  of  comparing  a 
thing  with  others,  we  compare  it  with  itself  in 
its  different  states,  it  will  be  found  that  the  con- 
tinuity and  legality  which  we  have  noticed  in  its 
development  are  such  as  not  to  be  incapable  of 
reproduction  by  another  as  its  own.  Hence  it  is 
wrong  to  consider  the  essence  of  the  thing  as  an 
instance  of  a  general  law  under  which  it  comes. 
It  is  admitted  that  the  necessary  order  of  research 
leads  us  to  regard  general  laws  as  the  archdyjpe  to 
which  naturally  the  real  with  its  diversity  ought 
later  to  subordinate  itself  as  an  example.  But 
we  ought  to  remember  that  all  general  laws 
spring  up  for  us  from  the  comparison  of  isolated 
cases.  These  are  really  the  arclietype,  and  the 
general  law  which  we  deduce  from  them  is  at 
first  only  a  product  of  our  thought,  the  validity 

^  Croyance  et  Eealite,  p.  252. 
F 


UNIVERSITY 


82  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

of  which  rests  upon  the  comparison  of  numerous 
experiences  which  have  given  rise  to  it. 

The  statement  about  hypnotism  suggests  the 
weakness  of  the  theory.  There  must  be  an 
identity  below  the  characters,  otherwise  an  arti- 
ficial character  could  not  take  the  place  of  a 
natural  one  in  the  same  individual.  Unless  the 
unity  and  identity  of  the  individual  be  supposed, 
there  would  be  not  merely  the  substitution  of 
one  character  for  another,  but  the  succession  of 
two  individuals.  The  real  or  metaphysical  iden- 
tity of  the  subject  cannot  thus  be  disposed  of, 
and  to  say  that  the  different  successive  characters 
are  two  individuals  is  simply  to  beg  the  question 
at  issue. 

A  theory  of  this  sort  obviously  cannot  be 
described  as  phenomenalism  in  any  proper  sense 
of  the  term.  It  may  be  called  Individualism  or 
Monadism.  The  phenomenon  is  not  the  only 
existence ;  it  has,  indeed,  no  existence  per  se.  It 
exists  only  as  it  is  in  relation  to  a  conscious  sub- 
ject ;  and  the  world  is  conceived  as  made  up  of  a 
plurality  or  totality  of  such  conscious  subjects, 
each  holding  an  object  or  phenomenon  or  repre- 
sentation.    This  is  properly  substantialism — sub- 


BEING  AND   LAW.  83 

jective  substantialism.  We  really  fall  back  on 
the  idea  of  substance — or  of  self-centred  subjects, 
an  indefinite  number  of  which  make  up  the 
world.  These  are  supposed  to  be  really  inde- 
pendent. But  it  may  be  asked,  How  is  this 
reciprocal  independence  of  existence  compatible 
with  the  condition  of  knowledge  already  laid 
down  ?  If  knowledge  be  simply  a  relation  in 
which  "  I "  the  knower  apprehend  a  phenomenon 
or  object,  and  if  the  object  he  only  as  thus  appre- 
hended, each  monad  must  exist  only  as  it  exists 
in  the  knowing  of  it  by  "  me  "  or  some  conscious 
intelligence.  It  never  can  exist  independently 
of  "  me  "  or  a  conscious  subject.  No  one  monad 
can  exist  independently  of  "me"  the  knower, 
and  there  cannot  thus  be  a  plurality  of  inde- 
pendently existing  monads  in  the  world. 

All  this  leaves  the  two  fundamental  questions 
at  issue  wholly  untouched — viz.,  (1)  the  true 
ground  or  essence  of  individuality,  and  (2)  the 
question  of  an  archetype,  in  the  form  of  an  idea, 
transcending  experience,  and  grounding  even,  it 
may  be,  that  realisation  of  it  which  we  find  in 
the  individual. 

In  the  first  place,  the  comparison  of  the  indi- 


84  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

vidual  with  itself,  and  the  consequent  contrast  of 
essential  and  accidental  in  its  states,  points  to  a 
reality  in  the  individual  itself  as  more  than  either 
the  essential  or  the  accidental  features,  and  even 
as  containing  both.  The  nature,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  individual  comprehends  both — is  more  than 
either — and  cannot  therefore  lie  in  the  former,  in 
either,  or  in  both. 

In  the  second  place,  the  fact  that  there  is  a 
type  or  idea  realised  in  the  individual  is  not 
explained  by  the  fact  that  it  is  sa  realised. 
There  is  just  as  much  difficulty  in  accounting 
for  the  single  realisation  as  for  the  many  com- 
mon realisations  which  we  gather  together  and 
classify.  It  is  true  that  the  reality  of  law  in  our 
experience  ultimately  depends  on  the  individuals 
which  are  conformed  to  it.  Its  reality  as  a  fact 
of  experience  would  disappear  with  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  individuals  which  exemplify  it.  And 
this  reality  would  still  subsist,  although  it  were 
not  true  or  proved  to  be  true  that  the  law  exists 
as  an  ideal  in  a  transcendent  intelligible  world. 
But  the  question  still  remains  as  to  how  the 
order  implied  in  the  law  has  been  constituted — 
whether  this  depends  on  an  Intelligence  supreme 


BEING  AND   LAW.  85 

and  transcending  experience,  or  whether  the  order 
is  immanent  in  the  individuals  which  exhibit  it. 
A  law  conceived  by  us  may  be  an  abstraction 
from  individual  facts,  and  we  may  not  impose  it 
on  the  facts,  but  the  question  always  remains  as 
to  how  it  has  come  to  be  in  the  facts  at  all. 

M.  Dauriac's  answer  to  the  question  as  to  the 
origin  of  genera,  species,  laws,  is  simply  the 
agnostic  one.  He  puts  the  position  thus:  We 
are  not  the  authors  of  our  natural  character, 
still  less  of  the  features  which  make  us  human. 
We  are  the  authors  neither  of  the  world  nor  of 
the  ideas  which  regulate  it.  These  ideas  do  not 
seem  to  be  capable  of  subsisting  themselves, 
floating  above  beings  and  presiding  over  their 
development.  Why  not  then  seek  a  seat  in  an 
understanding  the  archetype  of  ours,  capable  of 
producing  them,  coexisting  with  a  power  capable 
of  making  them  pass  into  actuality  ? 

But  he  asks.  Can  we  maintain  that  all  con- 
sciousnesses come  from  one  supreme  conscious- 
ness? If  so,  this  supreme  consciousness  would 
either  imply  (involve)  them,  in  which  case  their 
derivation  would  be  illusory,  or  it  would  exist  be- 
fore them,  in  which  case  it  would  abolish  itself. 


86  DUALIS^r  AND   MONISM. 

Besides,  all  consciousness  implies  conflict  — 
plurality.  Monism  is  the  necessary  result  of 
either  alternative.  The  world  and  God  would  be 
contemporaneous,  and  Being  would  result  from 
their  union  ;  or  God,  before  making  himself  Lord, 
and,  abandoning  himself  to  the  full  and  free 
expansion  of  his  power,  would  remain  folded  up 
in  himself  in  the  state  of  essence,  not  yet  deter- 
mined to  exist.  It  would  be  Substance  anterior 
to  its  attributes.  He  alone  would  be,  and  from 
him  all  would  emanate.  To  touch  those  ques- 
tions, and  to  reduce  all  reality  to  phenomena  and 
their  laws,  without  asking  whence  these  are 
derived,  is  the  mark  of  wisdom.  The  first  duty 
of  thought  to  itself  is  the  recognition  of  its  just 
limits,  and  this  recognition  imposes  the  resolution 
of  not  going  beyond  them.^ 

^  Croyancc  ct  Realite,  p.  257. 


87 


y._PHENOMENAL  MONADISM. 

The  conceptions  of  Substance  and  Phenomenon 
in  speculative  use  have  of  late  been  subjected  to 
much  searching  criticism  by  writers  in  Germany 
and  France.  Lotze,  Eenouvier,  Pillon,  and  lastly 
Dauriac,  have  taken  part  in  the  analysis  of  those 
concepts.  The  result,  in  the  case  of  those 
authors,  is  a  philosophical  system  which  returns 
in  a  measure  to  Leibniz.  It  accepts  a  form  of 
his  Monadism,  but  throws  out  the  idea  of  Sub- 
stance, and  substitutes  as  a  new  conception  what 
may  be  called  Phenomenal  Monadism.  This  new 
line — a  certain  foreign  form  of  Neo-Kantianism 
— merits  some  attention.  The  analysis  as  given 
by  M.  Dauriac  is  sufficiently  clear,  though 
presented  in  a  somewhat  fragmentary  form. 
We  may  try  to  gather  up  the  threads,  and  form 
a  sort  of  a  conclusion  about  it. 


88  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

M.  Dauriac  at  the  outset  notes  two  meanings 
of  the  term  Substance.^  It  may  mean  that  which 
subsists  {id  quod  sichsistit) ;  in  this  case  there  is 
a  contrast  between  the  permanency  of  being  and 
the  passing  character  of  the  modes  of  being.  Or 
it  may  mean  that  which  stands  under,  as  a  sub- 
strate (id  quod  substat),  which  is  the  ground 
of  the  properties  and  modes  of  the  thing.  This 
substrate  will  be  one,  while  the  properties  or 
modes  may  be  manifold.  It  cannot  be  doubted 
that  we  naturally  regard  what  we  call  being  in 
both  these  aspects.  We  believe  that  something 
subsists  or  is  permanent  in  our  shifting  ex- 
perience of  things ;  we  suppose  that  change  is 
possible  only  through  permanency;  that  there 
is  a  transition  or  transmutation  in  things  or 
qualities;  and  this  implies  a  something  in  the 
sphere  of  being,  which  subsists  and  persists, 
and  in  which  this  change  takes  place  or  is 
accomplished.  There  is  a  course  or  order  in 
things,  but  this  is  of  some  being  or  beings  in  the 
course.  This  conception  of  subsistence  is  very 
closely  connected  with  that  of  substance  proper. 
We  suppose  a  substrate  or  substance  as  the  per- 

^  Croyance  et  RdaliU,  p.  179, 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  89 

manent  that  underlies,  as  it  were,  those  qualities 
or  manifestations  which  fill  up  the  sphere  of  our 
empirical  apprehension. 

M.  Dauriac  here  calls  upon  us  to  note  that, 
while  the  concept  of  substrate  implies  that  of 
permanency,  the  concept  of  permanency  does  not 
imply  that  of  substrate.  The  reason  he  gives 
seems  to  be  that  because  "  the  qualities  remain 
always  adherent  to  the  same  core  or  nucleus 
{noyau),  and  because  a  certain  number  of  them, 
distinct  from  accidents,  cannot  be  conceived  iso- 
lated from  tlie  substance  without  this  disappear- 
ing, it  does  not  follow  that  this  nucleus  is  dis- 
tinct from  the  qualities."  ^  We  are  the  dupes 
of  abstraction :  we  take  one  quality  out  of  the 
indecomposable  whole  and  name  it,  and  insen- 
sibly attach  to  it  an  independent  existence.  We 
restore  it  to  the  whole  to  which  it  belongs,  and 
in  so  doing  have  recourse  to  the  entity  of  sub- 
stance. But  there  never  was  any  concrete  sep- 
aration. Let  the  abstraction  cease,  and  the  reality 
will  show  itself  as  it  is,  and  as  it  had  never  ceased 
to  be. 

This  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  either  a  pro- 

^  Croyance  ct  Eealite,  p.  179. 


90  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

found  or  a  satisfactory  criticism.  The  phrase 
"distinct  from  the  qualities,"  as  applied  to  the 
nucleus,  is  not  an  accurate  description  of  sub- 
stance as  substrate.  "Distinct"  from  its  quali- 
ties it  obviously  cannot  be,  or  even  be  .conceived. 
We  do  not  need  to  contend  for  this  in  the 
conception  of  substance  proper,  and  in  order  to 
show  that  the  concept  of  permanency  implies 
that  of  substrate.  The  question  truly  refers  to 
the  meaning  and  implication  of  permanence  of 
being  amid  explained  change  of  being.  Look- 
ing at  the  changing  course  of  things,  or,  if  you 
choose,  appearances  as  given  in  experience,  the 
question  is,  Can  this  be  conceived  by  us  without 
supposing  that  at  the  root  of  the  whole  there  is  a 
substrate  or  ground — that  is,  being  which  under- 
goes the  change  or  manifests  it  ?  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  change,  orderly  change  as  it  is,  cannot 
be  conceived  by  itself — cannot  be  conceived  apart 
from  a  ground  in  the  objective  itself — which,  as 
subsisting  in  time  through  change,  is  essentially 
independent  of  the  successive  passing  forms  or 
qualities  which  it  may  present  to  our  knowledge. 
This  substance  or  ground  of  manifested  being 
is  of  course  not  a  percept  or  representation  of 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  91 

experience.  It  is  a  concept  implied  in  the  per- 
ceptions or  representations  of  experience.  But 
it  is  not  necessary  to  contend  for  what  is  called 
a  pure  concept  of  substance,  or  a  concept  of 
substance  in  itself  or  per  se.  There  is  no  more 
a  concept  of  this  sort  than  there  is  a  concept  of 
phenomenon  pei-"  se.  The  substance  conceived  is 
the  term  or  ground  of  a  relation,  and  is  known 
to  us  only  in  this  relation,  but  not  as  the  relation. 
And  its  reality  is  not  necessarily  exhausted  in 
any  one  of  its  relations  that  we  do  know,  or  in 
all  of  its  relations  that  we  can  know. 

In  this  connection  it  may  at  once  be  conceded 
that  there  is  in  our  experience  no  pure  or  mere 
spiritual  substance  in  the  sense  of  a  pure  Ego,  or 
self  apart  from  states  of  consciousness.  Of  this 
we  have  neither  intuition  nor  conception.  We 
can  no  doubt  abstract  from  this  or  that  indi- 
vidual state  of  consciousness,  and  think  of  the 
Ego  as  common  to  both  or  all.  We  might  even 
go  the  length  in  abstraction  of  thinking  of  one 
Self  or  Ego  as  in  the  Universe — of  one  Supreme 
Personality,  of  which  all  finite  personalities  are 
as  the  type  to  the  prototype.  But  the  one  finite 
Ego  can  be  conceived  by  us  only  as  in  this  or 


92  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

that  determinate  form  of  consciousness ;  and  the 
Supreme  Ego  can,  as  conceived  by  us,  only  be 
conceived  under  the  same  limitation — that  is,  we 
must  think  it  as  a  finite  Ego,  and  take  our  con- 
cept simply  analogically  as  the  type  of  the 
Supreme.  Nor  need  we  care  to  object  to  the 
description  of  the  subject  of  consciousness  as  not 
a  substrate  but  a  personality,  if  by  substrate  be 
meant  anything  distinct  from  personality.  We 
need  not  contend  for  anything  but  an  empirical 
Ego  or  Self — certainly  not  "  a  void  consciousness 
which  makes  of  itself  two  parts,  and  localises 
each  of  these  parts  in  distinct  portions  of  dura- 
tion." ^  But  the  self  in  personality  and  identity 
is  a  substrate  in  this  sense,  that  it  is  the  ground 
of  the  continuous  and  successively  known  states 
of  consciousness ;  that  it  is  never  wholly  in  them 
or  exhausted  by  the  sum  of  them  ;  that  in  a  true 
significance  it  is  their  support;  that  self  is  by 
nature  prior,  while  the  state  is  in  knowledge  the 
revealer  of  the  self. 

Schopenhauer  holds  that  we  can  know  the 
thing-in-itself,  because  we  ourselves  are  to  our- 
selves objects  of  knowledge,  and  because  in  ex- 

^  Croyance  et  RialiU,  p.  176, 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  93 

ercising  will  we  put  forth  from  the  interior  of 
self  an  act  of  the  thing-in-itself.  Every  time  a 
voluntary  act  penetrates  the  consciousness  of  the 
knowing  subject,  we  have  an  instance  of  the 
thing  -  in  -  itself,  whose  being  is  not  subject  to 
time,  effectuating  its  direct  appearance  in  the 
phenomenon.^  We  are  things-in-themselves,  and 
we  appear,  or  come  into  consciousness.  But  it 
is  alleged,  on  the  other  hand,  either  that  the 
term  volition  has  no  meaning,  or  that  it  desig- 
nates a  class  of  representations  of  which  con- 
sciousness is  the  genus  and  self  -  activity  the 
species.  This  may  be  readily  conceded ;  but  it 
does  not  touch  the  question  as  to  volition  being 
possibly  the  ultimate  manifestation  of  person- 
ality, and  personality  an  unconditioned  cause; 
although  this  is  probably  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  thing-in-itself  we  shall  be  able  to  find 
or  to  conceive. 

It  is  held  that  the  notion  of  substance  is  not 
of  any  use  in  the  explanation  of  the  stable  part 
of  beincfs  and  thinojs.  It  is  maintained  that 
substance  when  identified  with  cause  is  con- 
tradictory, since  every  act  of  causation  implies 

Croyance  ct  RealiU,  p,  178. 


94  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

a  change,  not  only  in  its  term,  but  in  its 
principle.  At  the  same  time,  the  partisans 
of  substance  —  at  least  the  spiritualists  —  have 
held  it  to  be  not  inert,  but  endowed  with 
activity,  even  self -activity.  But,  it  is  said,  to 
act  is  to  change,  and  to  attribute  the  capacity 
of  change  to  substance  is  to  suppress  it.  Either, 
therefore,  substance  as  inert  is  an  empty  con- 
cept, or,  acting,  it  ceases  to  be  substance. 

This  may  be  met  at  once  by  a  direct  denial 
of  the  assumption  involved.  Substance  as  cause 
does  imply  influence  and  change  in  the  object 
affected ;  it  does  imply  change  in  the  subject 
affecting.  An  act  of  volition  is  a  change  in  the 
subject  of  it,  and  the  object  upon  which  it  is 
exercised  also  undergoes  change ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  subject  or  substance  is  suppressed. 
It  is  not  so  necessarily.  If  a  definite  quantity  of 
motion  passes  into  heat,  the  motion  may  be  said 
to  be  suppressed  or  to  cease  to  be.  But  this  is 
phenomenal  change — the  change  of  one  quality 
into  another.  But  the  volition  which  I  put  forth 
in  no  way  suppresses  me,  any  more  than  the  act 
of  knowledge  which  I  exercise.  The  concept 
and  reality  of  substance  still  remain.     These  are 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  95 

unaffected  as  to  their  essential  nature  by  the 
passing  act.  It  is  not  necessary  to  the  concep- 
tion of  substance  that  it  should  be  regarded  as 
absolutely  immobile.  It  may  quite  readily  be 
taken  as  an  active — even  self-active — but  unex- 
hausted cause.  All  total  or  absolute  change  or 
transmutation  would  certainly  destroy  it;  but 
partial  change  as  in  this  or  that  manifestation 
does  not  destroy  it — nay,  it  shows  its  permanent 
or  unexhausted  nature. 

Lotze,  while  denying  substance,  admits  sub- 
stantiality. The  change  in  the  world  is  not 
capricious  or  wholly  incessant.  Hence  there  is 
substantiality.  This  means  "  that  things  do  not 
exist  by  a  substance  which  is  in  them,  but  they 
exist  when  they  can  produce  in  themselves  an 
appearance  of  substance."^ 

It  is  urged  against  this  that  it  is  the  "  appear- 
ance" of  substance  which  denotes  its  reality. 
The  thesis  of  Parmenides  was  "  no  phenomenon, 
nothing  but  substance."  The  phenomenalism  of 
Hume  admitted  mental  laws  of  association. 
Hence  not  pure  or  mere  phenomenalism  does 
not  follow,  for  there  is  a  regulated  becoming; 

^  Croyance  ct  RtaliU,  p.  182. 


96  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

and  this  implies  a  something  which  dominates  it 
and  imposes  modifications  and  conditions.^ 

Must  we  therefore  admit  substance  ?  No  ;  for 
the  lecoming,  of  which  the  ^permanent  does  not 
give  an  account,  is  a  primitive  datum  and  as 
such  is  inexplicable.  The  definite  direction  of  the 
course  of  things,  and  the  reality  of  the  order  of 
the  world,  will  then  be  posited  as  primary  truths; 
and  this  order  will  be  expressed,  not  explained, 
by  the  concept  of  law.  Hence  we  say,  "  Sub- 
stance is  not,  but  wherever  law  reigns  there  is  an 
appearance  of  substance."  But  it  may  be  alleged, 
If  there  be  law,  there  is  volition  ;  and  as  the  law 
is  regulative,  it  is  the  volition  of  a  Being  anterior 
and  supreme.  What  is  this  but  the  Absolute 
'Substance,  in  some  form  or  other — Spinozistic  or 
post-Kantian  ? 

Kant's  view  of  the  noumenon  as  wholly  in- 
cognisable  does  not  seem  compatible  with  his 
view  that  its  existence  is  necessitated  by  the 
phenomenal.  If  this  noumenon  have  any  rela- 
tion to  the  phenomenal  whatever,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  say  that  it  appears  in  various  forms 
in  the  phenomenal,  and  therefore,  relatively  at 

^  Croyance  ct  Jlealite,  p.  183. 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  97 

least,  is  cognisable.  Kant  himself,  in  the  Practical 
Reason,  attributes  to  man  a  super-temporal  free- 
dom. In  one  aspect,  man  belongs  to  the  world 
of  experience,  where  all  is  determined ;  in 
another,  he  belongs  to  or  participates  in  the 
noumenon  and  thing-in-itself,  and  as  such  he  is 
free.  Hence  moral  obligation  is  possible.^  The 
Absolute  thus  descends  into  the  sphere  of  ex- 
perience in  the  form  of  freewill.  Hence  "the 
resurrection"  of  the  Absolute  in  the  post- 
Kantian  philosophers  of  Germany .^ 

This  Absolute  will  vary  according  to  the  con- 
ception of  its  essence  in  the  different  systems. 
Its  determinations  will  follow  the  conception  of 
its  essence.  But,  as  a  rule,  the  Absolute  has  in 
all  the  same  fundamental  character — "that  of 
being  immanent  in  the  world,  of  realising  itself 
in  its  phenomena,  and  of  arriving  in  man  at 
the  highest  degree  of  perfection  capable  of  being 
attained  by  an  absolute,  which  from  the  moment 
it  is  incarnate  necessarily  decays."  ^ 

The  other  form  of  the  Absolute  —  that  of 
Descartes  —  is  the  conception,  the  spiritualistic 
conception,    of   the   Infinite — perfect,   transcen- 

^  Croyancc  et  Healite,  pp.  184,  185,  ^  Loc.  cit.         ^  Loc.  cit. 

G 


^8  "DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

dent — author  and  father  of  the  world.  It  is 
held,  however,  that  this  absolute  is  not  ultimately 
known.  It  is  not  pretended  that  here  knowing 
and  being  are  coadequate  or  as  to  extent  con- 
vertible. Thus,  as  M.  Paul  Janet  remarks, 
Descartes  said  we  can  conceive  God,  but  not 
comprehend  him.  Malebranche  said  we  can 
know  God  only  by  his  idea — that  is,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  deduce  his  properties  from  his  essence,  as 
is  the  procedure  of  Geometry.  "We  are  immersed 
in  God  as  in  light,  by  which  we  see  all  things 
without  knowing  what  it  is  in  itself.  Spinoza 
said  that  we  know  but  two  attributes  of  God, 
while  he  possesses  an  infinity.  Theology  says 
that  God  is  a  God  concealed.  Philosophy,  as 
illustrated  by  these  thinkers,  may  thus  be  taken 
as  the  relative  knowledge  of  the  absolute,  or  the 
human  knowledge  of  the  divine.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  alleged  that  while 
Descartes,  Malebranche,  and  Spinoza  held  only 
a  partial  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  or  God,  they 
yet  held  this  knowledge  to  be  adequate,  true, 
and  real  so  far  as  it  went.  They  believed  that 
in  the  human  mind  the  being  of  God  was  par- 

^  Croyance  et  Rtalite,  p.  186. 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  99 

tially  at  least  reflected — that  it  was  a  mirror  so 
far  showing  God  as  he  is.  They  had  no  concep- 
tion of  the  modern  view  of  the  relativity  of 
knowledge, — as  understood,  for  example,  by  Kant, 
— with  whom  our  knowledge  may  be  said  to  be  a 
refraction  from,  not  a  reflection  of,  things.  Theirs 
was  a  dogmatic  system  in  which  knowledge  was 
held  to  be  at  least  partially  adequate  to  the  real- 
ity of  Deity .^  He  was  not  an  existing  something 
wholly  unknown  as  to  predicate  or  attribute. 

The  partial  but  quasi-Sideqimte  knowledge  of 
the  absolute  asserted  in  Descartes,  Malebranche, 
and  Spinoza  is  a  dogmatism,  and  proceeds  on  the 
assumption  of  the  capacity  of  the  understanding 
to  reflect  things  as  they  are,  whether  in  respect 
of  the  invisible  or  the  intelligible  world.  But 
since  Kant  we  cannot  maintain  such  a  know- 
ledge of  the  absolute.  We  must  be  contented 
with  a  knowledge  relative  to  our  means  of 
knowing.^ 

But  when  we  come  "  to  define  "  Deity — that  is, 
to  assign  him  certain  predicates,  so  as  to  bring 
him  within  knowledge — the  question  arises  as  to 
their   connotation    or    meaning.      Descartes   ex- 

^  Croyance  et  Rtalite,  pp.  187,  188.  -  Ibid.,  p.  188. 


100  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

plains  that  by  the  name  God  he  understands  "  a 
substance  infinite,  eternal,  immutable,  indepen- 
dent, all-knowing,  all-powerful,  &c."^  Are  the 
words  "  infinite,"  "  eternal,"  &c.,  not  simply 
synonyms  ?  Can  each  of  these  terms  or  concepts 
be  regarded  as  representing  the  fulness  of  being 
— the  positing  of  the  real  without  any  limit, 
either  in  respect  of  quality  or  quantity  ?  Is 
the  elaboration  of  each  of  these  concepts  taken 
by  itself  possible?  Or  is  not  the  elaboration 
arrested  at  the  very  commencement  by  a  sudden 
contradiction  ?  ^ 

It  is  maintained,  further,  that  the  conception 
of  any  absolute  whatever  is  interdicted  to  us. 
Mr  Spencer  attempts  to  found  on  the  distinc- 
tion of  special  and  general  existence.  "The 
distinction  which  we  feel  between  special  and 
general  existence  is  the  distinction  between 
that  which  changes  in  us  and  that  which  does 
not  change.  The  contrast  between  the  absolute 
and  the  relative  in  our  minds  is  at  bottom  only 
the  contrast  between  the  mental  element  which 
exists  absolutely  and  the  elements  which  exist 
relatively."  ^     To  this  it  is  objected  that,  even  if 

1  Croyance  et  RealiU,  p.  188.      "^  Ihid.,  p.  189.     ^  Ibid.,^.  190. 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  101 

it  were  so,  there  is  not  implied  the  superposition 
of  a  non  -  empirical  consciousness  of  Absolute 
Being  upon  the  empirical  consciousness  of  in- 
dividual being. 

Hamilton,  as  is  well  known,  excluded  the  Ab- 
solute or  Unconditioned  from  thought,  on  the 
ground  that  to  think  is  to  condition.  M.  Carrau 
challenges  the  universality  of  this  statement.  It 
has  a  logical  but  not  a  psychological  reference ; 
it  holds  within  the  limits  of  the  empirical  con- 
sciousness; but  there  is  a  deeper  consciousness 
than  this,  which  is  the  principle  or  ground  of 
it.  "  This  higher  consciousness  is  not,  however, 
transcendent,  as  the  noumenal  Me  of  Kant,  but 
immanent  in  the  closest  manner  in  ourselves.  It 
is  definable  as  the  sentiment  or  intuition  of 
being.  This  is  identical  with  the  vorjac^;  of  Plato, 
the  active  intellect  of  Aristotle ;  it  subsists  even 
in  the  ecstasy  of  the  Alexandrian  school ;  it  is  the 
idea  of  being  which  Leibniz  lays  down  as  at  the 
foundation  of  all  our  judgments ;  it  is  the  idea  of 
God  with  Spinoza,  the  intellectual  intuition  of 
Schelling,  the  immediate  intuition  of  the  Infinite 
of  Cousin.  It  is  not  conditioned  and  it  does  not 
condition,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  principle  of 


102  DUALISM   AND   MONISM. 

every  particular  and  discursive  thought,  and 
that  its  object  is  being  which  no  negation 
limits."  Logically,  the  duality  of  subject  and 
object  always  subsists,  and  hence  thought  is 
always  necessarily  conditioned.  But  the  thesis 
is  psychological.  "  It  is  affirmed  that  in  the 
subject  there  is  apprehended  an  element  of 
pure  thought,  thought  of  being,  anterior  to  all 
particular  thoughts,  of  particular  and  fugitive 
things ;  that  is  the  unconditioned ;  not,  if  you 
wish,  the  logical  unconditioned,  but  the  real  un- 
conditioned :  it  is,  in  other  words,  the  primordial 
and  fundamental  intuition  which  renders  possible 
all  others,  and  is  not  itself  determined  by  any."  ^ 
The  objection  made  to  this  is  that  the  object 
here  supposed  to  be  apprehended  is  only  abstract, 
or  rather  virtual  thinking — possible  thought  as 
yet  undetermined  as  to  object.  It  is  the  concep- 
tion of  what  I  do  not  yet  think,  but  which  I 
could  think.  But  as  soon  as  such  a  thought 
should  reach  act  or  actuality,  it  would  cease  to 
be  unconditioned,  and  so  would  its  object.^ 

^  L.  Carrau,  La  Philosophic  Eeligicuse  en  Awjletcrre,  pp.  175, 
176. 

2  Croyance  ct  RkdiU,  p.  192. 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  103 

It  might  be  added  further,  by  way  of  criticism, 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand  what  is 
meant  by  an  intuition  of  being  psychologically, 
that  is,  anterior  in  time  to  any  definite  thought 
or  intuition.  Has  such  an  alleged  intuition  or 
act  of  consciousness  any  meaning  at  all  ?  It  is 
not  a  purely  logical  priority,  according  to  which 
we  might  think  one  concept  or  object  as  ground 
of  another;  it  is  a  real  priority  as  a  matter  of 
fact.  It  is  as  much,  then,  to  be  apprehended  in 
an  intuition,  as  the  colour,  or  sound,  or  figure 
I  perceive,  and  it  is  before  all.  I  confess  I  can 
attach  no  meaning  to  any  such  alleged  act  or 
object  of  consciousness. 

But  the  difficulty  is  increased  when  we  con- 
sider that  it  has  no  content,  it  is  wholly  uncon- 
ditioned ;  has  no  limit  or  quality  of  any  sort. 
I  do  not  see  how  this  can  be  called  an  object 
of  intuition ;  and  if  it  were  such,  I  do  not  see 
of  what  profit  it  would  be  in  helping  us  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  Absolute,  or,  for  that  matter, 
to  any  knowledge  whatever.  We  should  still  be 
left  to  our  actual  experience  or  empirical  con- 
sciousness to  fill  up  its  content;  and  however 
extensive  as  a  concept  heing  might  be,  it  would 


104  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

still  only  mean  for  us  what  the  empirical  con- 
sciousness might  be  able  to  put  into  it.  Being 
as  here  used  is  obviously  an  abstraction  —  the 
object  of  a  concept — partly  founded  on  particular 
intuitions,  and  partly  regulating  them.  It  is  the 
revelation  of  something  wider  than  itself  which 
each  individual  intuition  carries  with  it.  A  logi- 
cal priority  may  be  detected  in  it,  after  or  along 
with  our  particular  experience ;  but  prior  to  this 
experience  we  do  not  know  it,  and  apart  from 
some  particular  experience  we  cannot  think  it. 
Nor  has  it  any  power  of  a  principle  —  at  least 
as  causative  of  experience — whatever  regulative 
function  it  may  have. 

Then  it  should  not  be  lightly  admitted  that 
any  psychological  act  can  transcend  the  con- 
ditions of  logical  law.  These  acts — the  psycho- 
logical and  the  logical — are  within  the  sphere  of 
one  and  the  same  consciousness.  And  if  the 
former  can  yield  knowledge  which  transcends  the 
conditions  of  the  latter — if  we  can  perceive,  for 
example,  what  we  cannot  think — say,  what  is 
repugnant  to  the  conditions  of  the  thinkable — 
we  have  something  very  near  contradiction, 
which  makes  it  difficult  for  us  to  say  on  which 


^"^  OF  THK    ^^K 

UNIVERSITY 
PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  ^^J^J/ 

side  knowledge  and  truth  lie.  If  we  can  per- 
ceive an  object  which  is  not  only  undetermined, 
but  unconditioned,  and  if  at  the  same  time  we 
cannot  think  this  object  consistently  with  the 
relation  of  subject  and  object  at  all,  our  in- 
tuitional consciousness  gives  us  as  true  and 
real  what  we  cannot  conceive  or  even  consistently 
know.  This  is  going  much  further  than  holding, 
as  some  do,  that  the  inconceivable  may  be  real. 
It  is  saying  that  it  actually  is,  that  though 
inconceivable  —  in  the  degree  of  reuniting  the 
distinction  of  subject  and  object — it  is  within 
consciousness.  This  is  not  a  reasonable  position. 
On  a  system  which  denies  to  thought  the  power 
of  realising  aught  save  the  conditioned  or  deter- 
minate, it  is  inconsistent  to  hold  the  direct 
intuition  or  consciousness  of  an  unconditioned 
being.  We  cannot  perceive  that  which  is  incon- 
ceivable. We  may  conceive  what  we  do  not — 
even  cannot — perceive,  but  we  cannot  perceive 
that  which  we  are  unable  to  conceive  in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  term. 

It  is  remarked  by  M.  Dauriac  that  Mr  Spencer's 
doctrine  carries  him  further  than  he  desires  to 
go.     He  applies  to  the  Absolute  or  Unconditioned 


106  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

the  term  unknowable.  But  what  cannot  be 
known  cannot  be  thought.  The  alleged  concept 
of  the  Absolute  is  something  that  floats  between 
non- being  and  the  phantom  of  being.^  Mr 
Spencer  very  possibly  means,  however,  that  this 
Absolute  is  unknowable  simply  as  to  its  attri- 
butes or  determinations, — if  an  Absolute  can  be 
considered  capable  of  such, — and  that  its  reality 
is  a  necessity  of  actual  knowledge.  In  itself  Mr 
Spencer's  doctrine  of  the  Absolute  as  at  once 
a  free  and  incognisable,  seems  to  be  incon- 
sistent. It  is  defined  or  specified  as  force,  and 
however  vague  the  notion  may  be,  it  cannot  be 
said  to  be  absolutely  incognisable.  And  in  the 
second  place,  if  Spencer  holds,  as  he  seems  to  do, 
some  sort  of  relation  of  this  force — causal  or  sub- 
stantial— to  things  or  experience,  it  is  still  less 
incognisable.  We  have  its  manifestations  before 
us.  We  know  what  it  can  do,  and  how  it  is 
related.  Absolutely  incognisable,  therefore,  it 
is  not. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  experience  of  the 
Absolute  is  equivalent  to  the  dismemberment  or 
dissolution  of  the  spirit.     One  of  its  fundamental 

1  Croyancc  et  Eealite,  p.  193, 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  107 

laws  is  the  simultaneous  position  of  antagonistic 
concepts.  The  notion  of  the  Infinite  has  for  com- 
plement the  idea  of  the  finite ;  the  notion  of  the 
relative  has  for  complement  that  of  the  absolute. 
This  is  the  view  of  Descartes  and  Cousin. 

The  reply  to  this  by  M.  Dauriac  and  the  rela- 
tionists  is,  that  we  here  extend  to  the  alleged 
concepts  a  power  whose  influence  is  felt  on 
words,  and  on  words  alone.  A  positive  term, 
we  are  told,  may  always  be  converted  into  its 
corresponding  negative.  Hence  it  is  inferred 
that  a  positive  concept,  clear  and  distinct,  admits 
a  negative  concept  of  the  same  genus,  but  of  a 
diametrically  contrary  species.  "  The  Infinite  is 
supposed  by  the  finite" — "the  absolute  by  the 
relative."  But  on  the  same  principle  "  presence 
supposes  absence,"  "  being  supposes  nothing." 

"  A  finite  being  "  does  not  suppose  an  infinite 
being.  Everything  limited  supposes  a  limit,  a 
being  which  limits  it  and  which  it  limits.  "A 
relative  being "  does  not  suppose  an  absolute 
being,  but  a  relative  with  which  it  may  be  in 
relation.  The  finite  supposes  the  other  finite ; 
the  relative  supposes  the  other  relative.^ 

^  Qroyance  et  Healite,  p.  194. 


108  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  limited  or  finite  sup- 
poses a  limiting,  and  the  relative  a  related.  But 
this  is  not  all,  nor  is  it  the  point  of  contrast  in 
question.  The  finite  is  opposed  to  the  non- 
finite,  and  the  relative  to  the  ?io?i-relative.  It  is 
possible  that  the  non-finite  and  the  non-relative 
as  thus  thought  may  mean  the  mere  absence  of 
limit  in  the  one  case,  and  of  relation  in  the  other. 
So  that  the  terms  are  wholly  negative,  while  we 
know  what  they  mean.  As  thus  regarded,  these 
terms  would  not  imply  any  reality  corresponding 
to  them — any  positive  existence  capable  of  being 
described  as  the  non-finite  or  non-relative.  But 
this  leaves  the  question  wholly  untouched  as  to 
whether  anything  corresponding  to  an  Infinite 
or  an  Absolute  can  be  known,  and  whether, 
being  knowable,  it  can  be  established  as  a  reality. 
Its  possibility  is  certainly  not  excluded  by  the 
finite  implying  another  finite,  and  the  relative 
another  relative;  just  as  its  existence  is  not 
established  by  the  finite  implying  a  non-finite, 
or  the  relative  a  non-relative. 

There  is  no  foundation  in  the  laws  of  grammar 
for  the  idea  of  substance.  An  object  is  simply  a 
group  of  sensations.     We  fix  on  one  out  of  tlie 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  109 

many  before  us,  name  it,  and  thus  give  the  name 
to  the  object — as  in  fluvms  {floiuing),  navis  {float- 
ing), and  so  on.  We  connect  the  other  sensations 
with  this,  and  so  make  up  the  conception  of  the 
object.  Thus  every  substantive  is  essentially 
predicative ;  then  there  is  the  adjective  stage, 
then  the  abstract  noun — as  liorse,  equestrian,  or 
fluvius,  flowing,  fluidity.  All  substantives  are  in 
their  nature  abstract ;  and  their  signification  is 
exclusively  potential.  They  denote  either  the  pos- 
sibilities of  being,  or  the  possibilities  of  the  modes 
of  being.  The  hypothetical  realisation  of  the 
characters  connoted — as  of  horse — is  not  sufficient 
to  produce  the  perception.  These  characters  can- 
not designate  a  being,  an  individual ;  yet  the  in- 
dividual alone  is  real.  "  We  ought  not  to  speak 
substantively  but  only  adjectively  of  all  that 
which  is  real."^  The  distinction  of  substantive 
and  adjective  is  founded  on  nothing  supersensible. 
It  has  nothing  to  do  with  substance.  The  ele- 
ment round  which  we  group  the  qualities  of  an 
object  is  itself  simply  a  quality — abstracted — 
with  which  we  associate  the  others. 

On  this  it  may  be  remarked  that,  even  if  we 

^  Lotze,  Metaphysics,  §  31,  p.  64. 


110         DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

admit  the  genesis  of  the  substantive  as  described, 
the  question  of  the  ]jrinci]pium  indivichcationis 
remains  untouched.  The  object  or  group  of  sen- 
sations is  not  created  by  us;  it  has  its  own 
character  and  unity ;  and  the  question  of  its  so 
being  one  or  a  group  of  qualities  remains  to  be 
dealt  with.  Substantives  may  not  prove  sub- 
stances ;  but  the  former  iiiay  be  the  expression 
of  the  latter  all  the  same. 

The  system  I  have  been  describing  has  its 
parentage  in  a  system  which  clothes  itself  in  a 
somewhat  different — certainly  more  pretentious 
— phraseology.  But  in  the  end  I  suspect  Im- 
pressionalism  or  Eelationalism  and  Absolutism 
come  precisely  to  the  same  result.  No  definite 
independent  subject  in  time  ;  no  definite  inde- 
pendent object  in  space ;  no  transcendent  power 
real  in  itself  or  in  himself, — dependent  for  reality 
on  its  manifestation  and  real  only  in  its  mani- 
festation,— these  are  points  common  to  the  two 
systems.  Eeality  is  only  in  passing  movement 
—  phenomenal,  becoming  —  never  fixed,  never 
definite — always  only  the  passing  into  or  fusion 
of  consciousness  and  something  not  conscious, 
— call  it  extension,  or  object,  or  anything  you 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  Ill 

choose.  Take  away  relation,  and  there  is  nothing- 
save  possibility  of  relation, — a  possibility  not  pro- 
vided for  by  impressionalism,  and  provided  for 
only  metaphorically  by  abolutism. 

The  defect  of  Spinoza,  as  we  have  frequently 
been  told,  is  conceiving  the  absolute  as  sub- 
stance and  not  as  subject — that  is,  as  action,  life, 
and  movement.  The  philosophy  of  Spinoza  is 
rather  acosmism  than  pantheism.  "The  totality 
of  things  as  the  last  definition  of  God — that  is 
pantheism.  This  is  to  make  the  world  God  in  its 
natural  or  immediate  state.  The  world  is  only 
God  in  its  truth." 

The  identity  of  the  two  opposite  sides  of  the 
universal  development  ought  to  be  conceived  in 
such  a  way  as  not  to  make  abstraction  of  the 
phenomenal  difference  which  is  real  and,  which 
constantly  destroyed,  proceeds  eternally  from  the 
only  substance  without  ever  really  producing  a 
dualism.  Phenomenal  reality  is  thus  simply 
action  or  motion,  or  that  which  never  really  is, 
but  is  always  becoming.  There  is  never  at  any 
point  in  time  or  space  either  finite  mind  or 
matter ;  there  is  but  the  constant  passing  of  the 
universal  spirit.     This  is  in  plain  w^ords  to  relegate 


112  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

the  whole  sphere  of  finite  mind  and  material 
phenomena  to  non-reality  or  illusion :  a  dualism 
which  never  exists  in  time  is  no  dualism;  a 
dualism  which  exists  in  thought  only,  to  be 
abolished  or  trampled  out  by  that  in  which  it 
exists,  is  only  illusorily  thought  to  be  real. 

But  action  or  motion  when  and  of  what  ?  In 
the  universal  spirit — in  thought  working  out  its 
development  ?  What  is  that  to  me  or  my  con- 
sciousness ?  Can  this  ever  be  phenomenal  to  me 
or  to  any  finite  thinker  ?  What  is  phenomenal 
is  an  appearance  to  me  ?  During  a  long  part 
of  the  development,  I  do  not  exist  as  conscious. 
There  is  nothing  to  which  this  diremption  of  the 
universal  can  be  phenomenal,  unless  to  itself; 
and  how  do  I  know  that  the  phenomena  for  it  are 
identical  with  what  is  now  phenomenal  to  me  ? 

But  it  is  clear  that  if  our  perceptions  exist  in 
the  Divine  Intelligence,  as  they  are  in  us, — and 
they  would  not  be  ours  if  they  existed  in  a 
different  mode, — then  the  Divine  Intelligence  is, 
so  to  speak,  a  double  or  other  of  ours.  Can  we 
maintain  this  ?  Again,  if  only  perceptions  exist 
in  the  Divine  Mind, — not  ours  or  like  ours, — 
what  becomes  of  the  permanency  of  our  percep- 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  113 

tions,  or  of  the  world  we  perceive  ?  Of  course, 
there  is  no  such  permanency.  An  ordered  course 
of  things — incarnate  with  the  thoughts  of  the 
Divine — as  to  reality  entirely  independent  of  us 
— the  medium  and  mediator  between  the  Divine 
and  the  Human, — in  plain  words,  a  dualism  real 
as  an  order  of  things  and  real  as  an  order  of  per- 
ceptions, yet  with  a  community  of  constitution 
and  law,  is  the  only  adequate  solution  of  the 
problem  of  experience  and  the  world. 

An  action  or  motion  in  two  opposite  ways — ■ 
consciousness  and  extension,  personality  and  im- 
personality, self  and  not-self,  —  and  yet  not  a 
dualism  at  every  point  of  thought  or  every  moment 
of  time,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms ;  and  the  as- 
sertion that  it  is  and  that  it  is  not  truly  a  dual- 
ism but  a  manifestation  of  a  universal  spirit  or 
something,  is  not  a  solution  of  the  contradiction, 
but  a  mere  slurring  over  of  the  difficulty.  And 
it  could  easily  be  shown  that  such  an  evolution, 
or  any  evolution  of  an  impersonal  (conscious) 
entity  called  idea  or  thought,  or  of  pure 
being,  or  of  what  is  really  an  indeterminate,  into 
anything  whatever,  is  a  piece  of  mere  unin- 
telligibility.      It  is  to  seek  to  bring  the  logical 

H 


114  DUALISM  AND   MONISM. 

or  reasonable  out  of  the  alogical  and  primarily 
unreasonable. 

But  what  is  it  on  the  side  of  the  Absolute? 
What  is  the  reality  here  spoken  of  ?  And  where 
does  it  reside  ? 

(a)  Not  in  the  Absolute  itself,  be  it  substance, 
subject,  or  spirit.  It  by  itself  is  as  much  a  non- 
reality  as  the  finite  development  of  consciousness 
and  extension.  It  needs  and  waits  for  the  finite 
in  order  to  become  real,  or  at  least  to  get  the 
only  reality  it  can.  This  is  in  abstract  language 
M.  Dauriac's  essential  fusion  of  consciousness  and 
extension,  of  thought  and  body — first  in  man, 
and  then  in  the  Divine,  if  the  latter  be  at  all. 

(6)  Nor  is  the  reality  in  the  finite  by  itself, 
for  that  is  dependent  on  the  infinite,  and  is 
simply  a  passing  manifestation  of  it.  In  fact  it  is 
a  negation  of  the  real,  as  we  are  constantly  told. 

Where,  then,  lies  reality  ?  Obviously  only  in 
the  action  or  motion,  the  everlasting  becoming 
or  transition  of  the  absolute  into  finite  things. 
The  process  is  all  —  all  that  actually  is ;  the 
first  term  or  absolute  is  only  potentially ;  it  is 

ACTUALLY  ONLY  IN  THE  MOMENT  ;  and  it  is  ABSO- 
LUTELY only  at  the  end  of  it.      But  then  tliere 


PHENOMENAL  MONADISM.  115 

is  no  end  to  the  process;  there  is  an  everlast- 
ing recommencement  of  the  whole  business  at 
every  point  in  the  process.  What  the  absolute 
might  do  after  it  has  become  absolute  spirit 
with  full  self-consciousness,  it  might  be  difficult 
to  conjecture;  but  as  it  has  thus  completely 
wound  itself  up,  perhaps  it  will  set  about  wind- 
ing itself  down  again.  This  is  necessary,  other- 
wise we  shall  have  reality  defined  as  a  process, 
and  then  at  the  end  absolute  reality  or  absolute 
stagnation,  or  a  complete  lock-up,  which  is  very 
far  from  a  process  metaphysically,  or  ethically 
from  what  we  understand  as  freedom.  The 
absolute  can  surely  never  remain  imprisoned  in 
its  own  identity. 

But  if  this  be  absolute  reality,  what  becomes 
of  the  theory  of  process  as  the  only  reality? 
An  infinite  or  everlasting  on-going  is  needed  to 
keep  the  absolute  alive;  it  is  an  eternal  move- 
ment which,  if  it  were  to  complete  itself — fulfil 
its  own  end  or  needs — would  reach  stagnation, 
and  so  annihilate  itself.  Yet  it  never  reaches 
its  truth  till  it  grasps  all  in  absolute  identity — 
that  is,  it  never  reaches  truth  till  it  annihilates 
itself  and  its  own  movement.    Perhaps  the  simile 


116  DUALISM  AND  MONISM. 

of  organic  growth — of  tree  or  plant— applies  in 
a  way.  The  Idea  goes  from  the  indeterminate 
through  growth  and  symmetry  up  to  leaf,  flower, 
fruit,  and  seed,  and  so  completes  itself  —  com- 
pletes itself  in  the  seed,  which  wraps  all  up  in 
itself.  The  analogy  somewhat  fails.  The  life 
of  the  seed  is  from  life  and  seed,  and  still 
keeps  its  distinctive  vitality ;  the  ultimate  ab- 
solute identity  of  all  in  the  Idea  leaves  no 
room  for  life  more  than  death,  position  more 
than  negation,  possibility  of  action  or  move- 
ment, for  all  are  equal — even  all  are  one.  The 
possibility  of  conflict  or  exclusion  is  abolished  in 
the  fusion  in  one  Identity  of  all  contradictions. 
Impressionalism  and  Absolutism  here  meet  and 
shake  hands.  The  metaphor  of  the  Idea  goes 
down  before  the  fragment  of  the  reality  of  the 
moment. 


I 


HISTORY 


AND 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


I 


L— HISTOEY,   AND   THE   HISTORY   OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 

"  The  well-grounded  instruction  by  the  past  can 
be  acquired  only  by  our  withdrawing  occasionally 
from  the  present  age,  and  seeking  out  antiquity 
in  and  for  itself.  It  is  only  this  abstraction  from 
what  is  before  us  that  can  lead  us  to  an  intimate 
and  conscious  living  with  the  present.  The 
experience  of  our  age  can  only  be  attained  by 
our  repeating  within  the  consciousness  the  ex- 
periments of  which  it  is  the  result  and  the  ex- 
pression. More  quickly  shall  we  pass  through 
them  than  the  human  race  did ;  for  they  had  to 
overcome  substantive  obstacles  in  the  realities 
of  nature,  we,  however,  only  in  conception.  And 
this  indeed  is  the  main  feature  of  instruction — 
that  it  enables  the  learner,  by  a  shorter  road,  to 
run  throuo'h  what  the  first  discoverer  could  arrive 


120   HISTORY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

at  only  by  a  longer  route.  And  so  the  older  time 
grows,  the  greater  need  we  stand  in  of  instruction 
and  learning."  ^ 

It  has  been  observed  that  in  dealing  with  the 
history  of  philosophy  there  are  two  tendencies 
which  assert  themselves  more  or  less.  The  one 
is  the  tendency  to  present  details,  opinions  and 
systems,  without  any  attempt  at  discovering  and 
unfolding  a  connection  between  them,  whether  a 
successive  influence  or  a  governing  idea  running 
through  the  whole.  Such  a  method  recognises  a 
variety  without  connection  or  unity. 

The  other  and  opposite  tendency  is  to  represent 
"  the  essence  of  history  as  consisting  entirely  in 
the  recognition  of  this  unity,"  caring  little  about 
the  multiplicity  of  details.  The  erudite  type  of 
mind  will  be  drawn  to  the  firsfc,  the  speculative 
mind  to  the  second,  of  these  methods. 

In  regard  to  a  single  system  of  philosophising 
it  is  clear  that  but  little  good  can  come  out  of 
the  former  method,  for  a  philosophy  to  have  any 
value  at  all  must  have  something  in  the  shape  of 
a  principle  or  idea,  through  which  to  co-ordinate, 
rate,  and  explain  details.     A  philosophy   really 

^  Ritter,  History  of  Ancient  Philosophy,  Pref.,  iv,  v. 


HISTOEY.  121 

means,  even  when  directed  only  to  the  pheno- 
mena before  it, — of  its  time  or  age, — an  attempt 
to  bring  the  multiplicity  under  a  concept.  This 
may  be  very  varied, — either  the  mixture  and 
separation  of  the  early  lonians,  or  the  Mind  of 
Anaxagoras,  or  the  God  of  Xenophanes,  or  the 
Being  of  Parmenides, — but  still  something  that 
performs  the  function  of  a  unifying  conception. 
The  opposite  method  has  been  called  the  construc- 
tive,— or  the  construction  of  history, — and  this  is 
the  method  or  tendency  which  has  very  consider- 
ably prevailed  of  late,  especially  in  philosophy. 

The  general  method,  or  condition  of  the  method, 
of  construction  is  that  of  ideal  evolution  or  deduc- 
tion according  to  necessary  order — in  co-ordina- 
tion and  succession — of  certain  stages,  and  then 
of  the  end  or  destination  of  the  subject-matter  of 
the  history.^  The  starting-point  of  the  whole  is 
a  concept  or  idea  of  the  matter,  and  of  its  end  or 
final  perfection.  You  are  to  have,  first,  the  idea, 
and  the  concept  of  the  end  or  destination  of  the 
matter,  and  you  will  be  able  ideally,  through  the 
sheer  force  of  thought,  or  by  thinking  out  what  is 
involved  in  the  idea,  to  develop  stage  after  stage 

1  Ritter,  vol.  i.  p.  18. 


122       HISTORY,   AND   HTSTOEY  OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

in  the  history  or  process  of  the  idea,  until  the  view 
is  completed  in  the  full  -  drawn,  full  -  conscious 
conception  of  the  whole.  Thus  it  is  maintained 
that  the  history — that  is,  the  ideal  yet  true,  pre- 
eminently true,  history  of  humanity  —  may  be 
evolved  from  the  concept  or  notion  of  it;  that, 
in  particular,  the  historical  course  of  the  various 
systems  of  philosophy  may  be  thus  ideally  and 
necessarily  evolved.  If  only  we  can  get  the  idea 
of  man,  or  knowledge,  to  begin  with,  we  shall 
be  able  to  unfold  and  deploy  all  the  stages  or 
moments  in  the  history  of  each,  apart  altogether 
from  any  reference  to  experience,  to  observation, 
induction,  generalisation, — which  deal  only  with 
the  isolation  of  details,  with  the  divided,  suc- 
cessive, and  coexistent.  We  may  have  thus  the 
history  of  spirit  and  the  history  of  nature — of 
the  scientific  conceptions  in  all  their  length  and 
breadth — set  forth,  if  only  we  are  furnished  with 
this  entity  called  idea. 

Now,  without  meanwhile  seeking  to  point  out 
the  real  element  of  truth  in  such  a  view,  I 
say,  in  the  first  place,  that  such  an  evolution, 
even  if  it  could  be  dressed  up  for  ideal  or  imagin- 
ative satisfaction,  is  not  history,  nor  the  construe- 


HISTOPvY.  123 

tion  of  history  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  words. 
Such  a  scheme,  even  if  it  were  drawn  out  in  any 
case,  —  either  in  reference  to  humanity,  or  to 
society,  or  to  the  world  in  general,  or  to  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  science, — would  never  touch  the 
real — the  facts  of  time  in  their  succession  or  the 
facts  of  space  in  their  co-ordination.  The  mirror 
which  would  hold  up  the  necessary  successive 
and  co-ordinate  relations  of  the  various  stages 
would  show  only  the  modes  and  relations  in 
which  the  things  —  events,  thoughts  —  occurred. 
It  would  leave  out  entirely  any  explanation  of 
the  true  historical  fact,  as  to  how  and  whence 
such  an  order  arose  and  was  actually  carried  on 
in  time  and  space  alongside,  it  may  be,  this  spec- 
ulative representation.  You  cannot  be  said  to 
construct  history  when  you  do  not  give  the  dyn- 
amical power  at  the  root  of  it,  and  that  which 
also  pervades  its  course,  and  is  as  powerful  at  any 
moment  of  the  development  as  it  was  at  the  be- 
ginning, which,  in  fact,  appears  to  ns  at  least  to 
be  unexhausted  and  inexhaustible — as  fresh  now 
as  on  the  dawn  of  creation. 

Ideal  development,  or  evolution  from  Ideas,  is 
at  the  utmost  but  a  mental  sketching  of  a  process. 


124      HISTORY,  AND   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

with  various  stashes  and  relations.  It  should  not 
be  assumed,  and  it  cannot  be  proved,  that  these 
stages,  even  though  shown  to  be  necessarily  con- 
nected, are  the  powers  at  work  in  the  actual  fact 
of  succession.  At  the  best  this  ideal  is  an  ab- 
stract process,  and  it  leaves  wholly  out  of  account 
the  ground  or  cause  of  the  realisation  of  the 
stages  in  time.  And  further,  it  is  simply  an  in- 
tellectual process ;  it  is  an  ideal  scheme  founded 
on  notion  or  cognition  alone ;  its  necessary  rela- 
tions are  purely  intellectual,  and  the  real  forces 
at  work  in  history  are  a  great  deal  more  than 
this — often  wholly  different  from  this.  They  are 
individual,  moral,  and  social,  sesthetical  and  poli- 
tical, and  can  never  be  comprised  in  any  intel- 
lectual formula.  Nor  can  there  be  discovered  in 
their  relations  anything  the  least  approaching  to 
a  logical  or  metaphysical  necessity. 

One  other  remark  occurs  in  this  connection. 
The  constructive  method  is  necessary — essential 
in  the  order  of  its  development.  Now,  I  ask,  do 
we  really  find  in  the  history  of  humanity,  of 
reason  or  philosophy,  of  morals  or  sesthetics, "  that 
what  ought  necessarily  to  come  to  pass  has  really 
happened  "  ?    I  cannot  now  go  into  details,  but  I 


HISTORY.  125 

make  bold  to  say  this,  that  we  do  not  find  tliis 
correspondence  or  harmony  as  a  matter  of  fact. 
"We  do  not  find  the  a  priori  prediction  verified, 
even  as  to  the  order  of  happening ;  and  what  is 
more,  we  find  a  great  deal  in  the  actual  history 
that  never  was  predicted  at  all — that  has  no  place 
in  the  speculative  anticipation.  And  how  is  this 
latter  element  dealt  with  ?  It  is  simply  set  aside 
as  "  unimportant,"  "  non-essential,"  or  "  acciden- 
tal," even  as  "  unreal."  It  belongs  to  the  by- 
wash  of  history.  Of  course  we  might  expect 
that,  in  a  lofty  reasoned  or  a  priori  deduction 
from  the  idea,  there  should  emerge  only  the 
most  general,  shadowy  abstractions,  that  make  no 
provision  for  individual  life,  effort,  contingency, 
for  such  crossing  of  forces  as  happens  in  actual 
life  and  history.  When  these  cannot  be  set  in 
the  frame  of  the  universal,  or  the  universal  of  the 
epoch,  they  are  passed  over  as  insignificant  or 
unreal.  The  man  or  the  system  does  not  fit  into 
the  speculative  schema,  therefore  he  is  to  be 
ignored  or  declared  non-existent  —  as,  for  ex- 
ample, the  inconvenient  Diogenes  of  Apollonia 
in  Greek  philosophy,  or  the  number  of  Pythagoras 
beyond  the  triad  in  detailed  opinion.     But  the 


126   HISTORY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

element  of  apparent  irregularity  in  the  success- 
ion, and  that  of  anomaly  in  the  fact,  are  there — 
are  real — and  not  to  be  set  aside,  because  we 
cannot  embrace  them  in  our  narrow  specula- 
tive system.  The  truth  is,  that  in  history,  as  in 
science,  nothing^  whatever — not  the  meanest  fact 
or  the  slightest  apparent  departure  from  the  order 
we  conceive — is  insignificant.  When  we  speak 
of  insignificance  we  show  only  our  own  ignorance, 
our  non-comprehension,  and,  I  add,  our  arrogance. 

But  a  further,  even  closer,  question  arises. 
Where  and  how  is  this  "idea,"  which  is  at  the 
root  of  the  whole,  got  ?  What  is  your  guarantee 
for  such  an  idea,  or  so-called  piece  of  knowledge  ? 
How,  further,  can  you  show  that  it  is  a  complete 
knowledge  of  the  matter  or  object  whose  history 
you  profess  to  construct  ? 

In  reply  to  these  questions,  it  may  be  said  that 
it  is  impossible  to  form  or  acquire  the  idea  of 
anything  which  can  be  matter  of  history,  apart 
from  or  above  the  history  of  the  thing  itself.  If 
we  seek  the  idea  of  man,  it  is  not  to  be  found  in 
consciousness  in  general,  or  in  reason,  or  in  any 
abstract  sphere,  but  simply  in  the  individual  and 
sum  of  individuals  to  be  met  with  in  experience 


HISTORY.  127 

— in  their  history,  in  fact.  It  will  be  a  general- 
isation, and  nothing  but  a  generalisation.  This 
generalisation  will  not  exclude  necessary  elements 
in  the  conception ;  but  even  these  will  be  in  a 
sense  generalised  by  us — they  will  be  acknow- 
ledged through  experiment  as  actually  a  part 
of  humanity.  And  nothing  can  be  clearer  than 
that  any  idea  we  may  be  able  to  form  of  society, 
or  humanity,  will  be  largely  determined  by  the 
time  and  epoch  in  which  we  live,  and  in  which 
the  idea  is  formed.  Different  constructors  of 
history  might  thus  start  from  the  most  varying 
and  inadequate  ideas  of  humanity — the  subject- 
matter — and  their  history  would  be  constructed 
simply  in  accordance  with  their  limited  idea. 
To  know  man,  to  know  knowledge,  to  know 
nature  in  its  whole  or  in  its  varied  subject- 
matter,  to  know  goodness  and  beauty,  "the 
idea"  of  it  as  thus  supposed  to  be  got  will 
not  help  us,  it  will  only  lead  us  into  narrow, 
inadequate  views,  and  arrogant  limitations  of 
the  character  of  the  matter  with  which  we 
are  dealing.  Can  we  a  'priori  have  any  com- 
plete idea  of  humanity,  or  any  idea  of  it  at 
all,   in   the   true   sense   of   the   word  ?      Is   not 


128      IIISTOrvY,  AND   HISTORY  OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

our  most  complete,  our  fullest  idea  of  human- 
ity, obtained  from  an  observation  of  the  activities 
of  man  in  their  varied  directions  through  the 
course  of  history  itself?  Is  not  this  idea  — 
and  every  idea  of  what  is  matter  of  fact,  of 
what  is  and  lives  in  time  —  to  be  got  and 
filled  uj)  from  the  developments  which  take 
place  in  time,  and  which  never  can  be  iden- 
tified with  any  ideal  or  merely  speculative 
evolution  which  we  can  frame  ?  Nay,  it  is 
further  true  that  even  with  all  the  help  of 
history, — with  all  that  we  know  of  the  past, — 
it  would  not  be  possible  at  any  given  moment 
of  time  or  epoch  in  history  to  give  a  complete 
idea  of  humanity,  its  nature  and  destination. 
If  we  take  even  the  limited  problem  of  im- 
mortal individual  life,  or  of  absorption  in  a 
universal  soul  or  consciousness,  or  of  complete 
annihilation  in  the  naught,  it  is  impossible  for 
us,  from  any  idea  we  can  form  of  humanity, 
either  by  reason  or  history,  to  demonstrate  or 
deduce  the  necessity  of  such  a  destiny — to  show 
from  the  idea  of  humanity  that  any  one  of 
these  possibilities  must  be  so.  And  the  whole 
point  of  the  construction  of  history  is  the  un- 


HISTORY.  129 

folding  of  the  "  real  strain  of  necessity "  in 
events,  in  the  stages  of  the  subject-matter.  If 
the  constructive  method  cannot  do  this,  it  fails 
essentially.  It  professes  to  be  founded  on  rea- 
son and  the  necessity  of  reason,  and  if  it  fail 
in  showing  that  the  destination  of  man  is  so 
and  so,  and  is  a  necessary  deduction  from  its 
ground  or  idea,  it  fails  absolutely.  We  are 
just  where  we  were,  —  without  light  from  this 
source, — and  have  to  fall  back  on  the  empiri- 
cal history. 

The  readiness  with  which  what  is  called  the 
Idea  or  the  Universal  is  accepted,  first  in  this 
or  that  department  of  knowledge,  and  then  for 
all  knowledge,  rests  on  certain  obvious  princi- 
ples of  our  nature — not  the  highest  or  the  best. 
"  Nothing,"  says  a  shrewd  writer,  "  is  nearer  the 
ignorance  of  a  principle  than  its  excessive  gen- 
eralisation. The  imagination  receives  it  from  the 
hand  of  the  man  of  genius  who  first  brings  it  to 
light,  and  carries  it  in  triumph  to  the  summit  of 
our  cognitions  ;  the  imagination  gratifies  itself  by 
lending  to  it  an  empire  without  bounds ;  indol- 
ence, vanity  conspire  with  imagination  to  affirm 
it.  It  is  so  convenient  and  so  beautiful  to  ex- 
I 


130   HISTORY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

plain  everything  by  a  common  solution,  and  to 
have  the  need  of  knowing  only  a  single  part  [or 
principle]  in  order  to  know  everything,  or  at  least 
to  appear  to  do  so.  There  is  fashion  for  opinions 
as  for  costumes ;  novelty  constitutes  its  charm, 
and  imitation  propagates  it."  ^ 

Condillac's  formula  for  knowledge  and  science 
affords  a  striking  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this 
passage.  It  was  a  seductive  prospect  for  the 
friends  of  truth  to  find  that  there  was  to  be  an 
end  of  all  disputes,  the  prevention  of  all  errors, 
the  opening  of  the  way  to  all  truths,  simply  by 
the  reform  of  language.  "  The  study  of  a  science 
is  only  the  learning  of  a  language."  "  A  science 
well  treated  is  only  a  language  well  made."  One 
suspects  that  the  questions  regarding  "a  well- 
made  language"  would  themselves  require  such 
attention  as  to  raise  those  very  fundamental 
points  about  knowledge  and  science  which  the 
"well-made  language"  is  suj)posed  to  solve  or 
quiet. 

"When  there  is  excessive  generalisation  of  a 
principle,  the  reason  always  is  tlmt  we  have  not 
sufficiently   analysed   it   in   order  to  render  an 

^  Degerando,  Des  Si(/nes,  p.  ix. 


HISTORY.  131 

exact  account  of  the  conditions  wliicli  it  encloses. 
All  objects  are  like  when  we  see  them  at  a  dis- 
tance;  hence  the  demi-savans  think  they  can 
judge  of  all,  and  are  the  most  dogmatic  of  men."  ^ 
While  I  say  all  this  regarding  history  and  the 
constructive  method,  I  do  not  deny  —  nay,  I 
maintain — a  purpose  in  historical  event.  Only 
it  is  not  a  purpose  to  be  got  in  accordance  with 
the  constructive  method.  But  it  seems  to  me — 
taking  together  the  spheres  of  man  or  self-con- 
sciousness, of  outward  nature,  of  the  history  of 
thought  and  of  mankind,  of  the  course  and  pro- 
gress of  science  in  revealing  the  order  of  the 
world,  especially  the  sphere  of  free-determination 
in  man,  and  what  it  can  achieve,  what  it  has 
achieved  in  the  development  of  the  past — there  is 
a  purpose  or  end  in  things, — in  the  world, — other- 
wise I  at  once  admit  the  whole  would  be  mean- 
ingless. Man  is  bound  up  inseparably  with  this 
purpose,  and  we  can  form  some  conception  of  it. 
We  can  see  that  the  tendency  is  to  a  full  and 
complete  development  of  potencies — of  Svva/jLc<; 
into  ivepyeta — in  man  and  the  world.  Self-con- 
sciousness and  experience  have  to  some  extent 

^  Degerando,  Des  Signes,  p.  xxiii. 


V'  OF  THE         ^y 

UNIVERSITY 


132      HLSTOEY,  AND   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

revealed  these  to  us.  I  do  not  think  thus  that 
"  the  civilisation  of  humanity,  taken  as  a  whole, 
remains  equable  and  constant."  ^  I  think,  on  the 
contrary,  it  has  fallen  and  risen  in  the  course  of 
history ;  but,  on  the  whole,  risen.  I  do  not 
further  believe  that  human  progress  is  "  circular," 
as  has  been  maintained — coming  back  merely  to 
the  point  whence  it  set  out,  again  to  evolve  itself 
endlessly  and  fruitlessly.  I  sympathise  with  the 
view  that  all  things  are  working  to  an  end,  a 
consummation  which  will  be  a  perfection.  And 
this  perfection  will  consist  in  a  fuller  develop- 
ment and  in  a  harmony,  which  we  can  only  faintly 
depict  in  outline.  But  an  end,  I  believe,  there  is. 
What  that  end  is,  how  it  is  to  be  reached,  are  to 
be  known  only  by  scanning  closely  the  successive 
steps  of  order  and  progress  in  the  world  of 
nature  and  thought.  It  is  that  to  which  the 
successive  stages  point,  so  far  as  we  can  discern, 
which  is  or  shows  the  end  of  the  whole.  There 
does  not  seem  to  be  anything  like  successive  ab- 
sorption— one  period  being  taken  up  and  annulled, 
and  thereby  marked  as  completed  in  process,  so 
that  you  can  say  of  the  succeeding,  It  is  better 

;    ^  Hitter,  vol.  i.  p.  25. 


HISTORY.  133 

always  than  what  was  before.  All  that  you  can 
say  is.  There  is  fuller  power,  freer  life,  a  better 
moral  advance,  than  anything  hitherto  met  with. 
Take  it  all  round,  the  world  is  better  as  it  grows 
older — higher  on  the  line  of  progress  than  it 
was  before.  Let  us  pray  that  this  course  of 
advancement  may  not  be  broken  or  interrupted 
by  violence  from  without,  by  inroad  of  barbarian, 
by  war  and  conquests,  or  any  form  of  the  brutal, 
— be  it  the  selfishness,  the  sordidness,  the  avarice, 
the  worldliness  of  society,  which  are  quite  as 
deadly  as  any  hand  of  Goth  or  Visigoth.  The 
abolition  or  annulment  of  a  dualistic  force  in 
history,  which  interrupts  its  course  and  throws  it 
back  on  its  beginning,  is  a  mere  dream.  The 
individual  of  a  given  time  has  always  to  contend 
with  this  force,  however  the  speculative  phil- 
osopher may  ideally  view  it.  It  may  be  that  the 
advance — social,  moral,  spiritual — is  not  actually 
spread  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  planet,  or 
even  of  a  given  society  or  nation ;  but  if  the 
higher  thought  be  only  in  the  mind  and  heart  of 
certain  individuals  of  the  race,  there  is  a  true 
advance,  and  always  hope  for  the  diffusion  of  the 
thought  and  life, — for  one  thing  that  marks  grow- 


134       HISTORY,  AND   HISTORY  OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ing  and  higher  life  is  the  impulse  to  coTumunicate 
the  diviner  element  to  others,  even  at  the  cost  of 
self-sacrifice. 

The  one  thing  that  should  not,  either  in  reason 
or  morality,  be  tolerated  is  the  position,  not 
simply  tacked  on  to,  but  inseparable  from,  the 
evanishing  formula  of  trinitarian  development 
of  the  Idea, — the  position  that  because  there  is 
progress  in  opinions  and  systems,  it  is  through 
the  untruth  (non-reality)  of  the  preceding  moment 
or  dogma.  Each  undermines  itself — vanishes  in 
another,  becomes  another — in  the  course  of  time. 
It  is  nothing  to  be  told  that  the  Idea  takes  up 
all  in  the  end.  No  man  has  ever  seen  the  Idea 
or  ever  will  rise  to  its  totality.  It  is  as  much 
the  incognisable  as  the  God  of  the  direst  agnos- 
ticism. Man  may  put  it  in  words,  but  he 
cannot  know  it  as  absolutely  timeless.  His 
sphere  is  in  time,  and  his  point  of  view  the 
moment  of  time.  He  is  destined  thus  to  the 
sphere  of  the  endlessly  untrue.  What  he  con- 
templates is  a  long  continuous  suicide,  the 
material  of  which  is  furnished  by  the  Idea — the 
successive  ideas.  This  is  his  sphere  now  and  for 
ever.     It  is  this  relation,  this  dissolving  between 


HISTORY.  135 

things  or  ideas  which  he  knows,  and  which  is 
thus  the  real  for  him.  In  plain  words,  there 
never  is  either  a  true  or  real  for  the  creature  of 
time.  The  passing  is  all  that  is,  just  as  much  as 
the  flux  of  Heraclitus.  The  terms  are  not,  the 
relation  of  evanishing  and  reappearing  is.  This 
is  all.  The  Idea  is  a  metaphorical  personality, 
that  inhabits  the  sphere  of  the  impossible  of 
attainment,  conjured  up  to  give  a  plausible 
substantiality  to  the  whole.  ISTo  succeeding 
system  of  truth  can  ever  be  made  out  of  un- 
truth. If  every  moment  be  essentially  untrue, 
and  only  its  relation  to  something  else  be  true, — 
which  again  is  equally  untrue,  unless  in  relation 
to  something  else, —  there  is  no  truth  at  all. 
The  whole  is  a  mere  passing  phantasmagoria.  A 
complete  system,  as  far  as  this  can  be  achieved, 
is  not  made  up  of  a  fusion  of  untruths,  but  of 
an  eclecticism  of  truths.  And  unless  there  be 
truth,  reality, — things  in  the  moment,  stable  and 
permanent  for  us, — the  conceit  of  an  Absolute 
Idea,  over,  above,  and  in  all,  is  a  mere  dream — 
the  dream  of  a  dream. 


136 


II.— HEGEL'S  VIEW. 

It  should  be  noted  regarding  the  history  of 
philosophy  that  it  is  only,  so  to  speak,  a  frag- 
ment of  the  history  of  man  and  the  world.  We 
may  say  regarding  it  that  it  is  a  history  of  the 
attempts  made  in  different  and  successive  times 
by  reflective  men  to  account  for  the  fact  (or 
being)  and  the  cause  of  events  and  things. 
Philosophy  is  at  least  an  effort  after  a  fuller 
consciousness  of  the  nature  and  meaning  of 
things  —  man  and  the  world  —  than  is  to  be 
found  in  the  observation  of  their  actual  happen- 
ing. But  the  things  that  exist  and  happen  are 
thus  intimately  connected  with  philosophy,  or 
the  reflection  on  their  nature  and  ends.  And 
the  reflective  or  philosophical  effort  cannot  either 
create  or  control  these  things  on  which  it 
speculates.      The  philosopher  is   the   spectator. 


iiegel's  view.  137 

not  the  creator,  of  the  universe.      Hence  those 
results. 

1.  The  question  the  philosopher  puts  in  suc- 
cessive periods  will  vary,  as  to  subject-matter  at 
least,  with  the  varying — it  may  be  developing — 
facts  of  these  periods. 

2.  The  conceptions,  thoughts,  or  categories  in 
the  light  of  which  he  seeks  to  set  the  facts  of 
experience  will  also  vary  with  these  varying — 
evolving — facts. 

3.  It  will  be  found  impossible  to  detect  in  the 
successive  periods  conceptions  or  categories  that 
are  in  harmony  with  any  predevised  scheme  of 
thought  or  thought-arrangement.  Development 
or  deduction  of  conceptions  or  categories  from 
any  ground  we  can  lay  down  a  priori — called 
idea  or  notion,  or  anything  else — will  never  be 
found  adequate  to  the  course  of  the  history  even 
of  philosophy,  or  even  to  correspond  in  succession 
to  that  course. 

4.  And,  closely  connected  with  this  last-men- 
tioned point,  the  changes  in  the  events  them- 
selves, in  succession  or  in  successive  epochs,  will 
tend  to  break  up  any  predetermined  order  in  the 
logical  arrangement  of  categories.     So  that  you 


138   HISTORY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

will  have  an  event  —  i.e.,  in  philosophy,  for 
example,  a  system  of  thought — sometimes  earlier 
than  it  ought  to  have  come  according  to  the 
ideal  arrangement,  or  later  than  it  ought  to  have 
appeared,  and  sometimes  even  a  stage  of  the 
so-called  dialectical  process  will  not  be  represented 
in  history  at  all. 

There  is  but  one  truth, — unity  is  the  great 
point, — and  the  end  of  philosophy  is  to  recognise 
it  as  the  source  whence  all  things  flow, — all  the 
laws  of  nature,  all  the  phenomena  of  life  and 
consciousness, — and  to  refer  all  these  phenomena 
to  this  source  in  order  to  comprehend  their 
derivation  from  it. 

The  following  utterances  illustrate  this : — 

"  To  give  understanding  of  what  is,  such  is  the 
problem  of  all  philosophy ;  for  cell  that  is  is  reason 
realised."  ^ 

Again :  "  The  natural  and  spontaneous  develop- 
ment of  thought  ereates  an  actual  world  ;  reflection, 
the  reflected  thought  of  this  world,  destroys  it  and 
threatens  it  with  imminent  ruin." 

''  History  is  the  development  of  the  universal 
spirit  in  time.     This  is  God.    He  develops  him- 

.1  See  Werke,  vol.  viii.  pp.  18-20. 


Kegel's  view.  139 

self  in  time  and  the  world ;  becomes  explicitly 
what  he  implicitly  is.  Eeason  or  God  is  the 
substance  of  all  infinite  ])oiver,  infinite  matter  of 
life.  .  .  .  ^  The  domain  of  history  is  spirit ;  and 
the  domain  of  the  spirit  is  freedom.  Man  as 
man  is  free."  The  Germans  were  the  first  to 
teach  this.  The  effort  to  apply  this  principle, 
which  is  admitted  in  religion,  to  civil  society 
constitutes  a  main  feature  of  modern  history. 

The  aim  of  the  Lectures  on  History  of  Hegel  "  is 
to  show  in  history  the  same  spirit  or  X0709  as  in 
Nature,  the  Soul,  Eight.  The  categories  elsewhere 
established  are  applied  to  the  facts  of  human  free- 
dom, without  doing  violence  to  the  events  given. 
The  Idea  interprets,  explains  them,  without 
changing  anything  in  them.  It  is  to  be  under- 
stood, however,  that  all  in  the  external  facts 
cannot  be  explained  by  the  ideas,  just  as  in 
Nature  one  cannot  construct  a  2^'i''iori  any  ani- 
mal, the  least  vegetable,  the  least  stone.  The 
ideas  form  the  skeleton  (squelette),  or,  better,  the 
nervous  system  of  the  phenomenal  world — that 
is,  the  necessary  thing  to  show  while  neglect- 

^  Anaxagoras  was  the  first  to  recognise  that  Reason  governs 
tlie  world — i.e.,  a  self-conscious  intelligence,  with  general  laws, 


140      HISTORY,  AND   HISTORY   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ing    the    details,    and    that    which     is     purely 
accidental."  ^ 

Looking  especially  to  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy, without  meanwhile  considering  the  test 
of  the  essential  and  accidental  therein,  we  are 
told  that  this  history  is  not  a  fortuitous  succes- 
sion of  opinions  or  systems,  but  an  organic 
whole  which  develops  itself  according  to  neces- 
sary laws,  and  finally  terminates  in  the  Hegelian 
theory.  "  In  the  historic  development  of  thought 
there  is  always  the  same  real  content ;  the  last 
philosophy  is  only  the  truest  expression  of  this. 
Each  philosophy  is  but  a  part  of  one  and  the 
same  whole.  The  last,  if  true,  is  the  most  de- 
veloped, rich,  and  concrete."  ^  But,  correspond- 
ing apparently  to  the  accidental  in  the  facts  of 
history,  there  is  an  exterior  history  of  philos- 
ophy, of  opinions  purely  subjective.  Philosophy 
is  the  objective  science  of  truth,  of  necessity, 
comprehending  knowledge.  Diversity  of  opinion 
is  essential  to  the  existence  of  philosophy  as  a 
science — that  is,  to  its  development.  It  is  the 
history  of  free  and  methodic  thought  applied  to 

1  Willm,  Ilistoire  dc  hi  Plulosophic  Allcmandc,  vol.  iii.  pp. 
422,  423.  2  ji^i^j^^  p^  431^ 


Hegel's  view.  141 

comprehend  and  explain  the  spontaneous  products 
of  natural  thought.  And  we  must  strip  these  of 
their  subjective  elements  to  find  a  supreme  rule.^ 
Tlie  history  of  philosophy,  or  philosophy  itself, 
is  an  organic  development;  but  obviously  it  is 
not  a  chronological  development,  or  a  spontane- 
ous development  in  time ;  for  we  have  the  sub- 
jective systems,  which  do  not  follow,  apparently, 
the  order  of  the  formula,  according  to  Eeason  or 
Idea.  We  must  pierce  through  certain  subjec- 
tive or  accidental  systems,  which  are  still  mat- 
ters of  fact  in  time,  to  get  at  the  rule  which 
regulates  their  development.  It  seems  odd,  one 
might  say,  to  find  that  there  is  a  Universal 
Spirit  or  Idea  which  develops  itself  neces- 
sarily— which  is  the  sole  necessary  power  in  the 
movements  of  the  world  of  mind  or  thought — 
and  yet  is  apparently  unable  to  carry  out  its 
development  in  time,  according  to  its  nature. 
Whence  come,  in  the  first  place,  these  sub- 
jective systems  which  we  have  wholly  or  in 
part  to  set  aside  ?  What  is  the  power  at  the 
root  of  them,  if  it  be  not  this  exclusive,  omni- 
potent, universal,  and  necessary  Spirit  ? 

^  Willm,  vol.  iii.  pp.  431,  scq. 


142       IlISTOKY,   AND   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  further,  we  are  to  pierce  through  these 
subjective  systems — that  is,  the  actual  facts  or 
systems  in  the  history  of  philosophy — to  get  at 
this  rule  or  law,  represented  by  the  formula  of 
the  Logic,  and  which  is  at  their  inner  heart  or  core. 
But  can  this  procedure  afford  any  true  verification 
of  the  a  ^priori  formula,  if  we  select  only  such 
facts  or  parts  of  the  facts  as  may  happen  to  coin- 
cide with  it  ?  Would  any  scientific  man  in  these 
days,  in  attempting  to  verify  a  hypothesis  re- 
garding a  number  of  observed  facts,  dream  of 
acting  in  such  a  way — selecting  only  such  facts 
or  elements  as  might  fit  in  with  his  hypothesis  ? 
What  is  the  dynamical  force  at  work  in  this 
organic  development  ?  It  is  something  inherent 
in  the  Notion,  or  Idea,  or  Universal  Spirit,  as 
represented  in  the  immanent  dialectic.  "Tradi- 
tion, we  are  told,  is  full  of  life,  like  a  powerful 
stream  which  grows  in  proportion  as  it  removes 
itself  from  its  source.  A  notion  may  be  station- 
ary ;  but  the  Universal  Spirit  does  not  rest — its 
life  is  action.  The  spiritual  heritage  of  the  past 
is  the  soul  of  the  new  generation ;  it  is  trans- 
formed and  enriched."  ^ 

^  Willm,  vol.  iii.  p.  433. 


Kegel's  view.  143 

Taking  this  conception  of  organic  development, 
let  us  see  how  and  why  there  is  a  development  at 
all.  All  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  phenomena 
of  life  and  consciousness  are  to  be  developed  or 
derived  from  a  single  source;  and  the  unity  of 
truth  is  to  be  realised.  What  is  the  process — 
what  the  power  at  work — what  is  the  analogy  of 
the  process  and  power  ? 

The  process  and  the  power  with  Hegel  are  in 
fact  identified.  He  thinks  it  enough  to  specify 
a  certain  process  of  development  of  what  he  calls 
Thought,  and  at  the  same  time  to  say  that  this 
j)rocess  is  itself  the  power  of  development,  or  that 
the  moments  of  the  process  pass  from  one  to  the 
other,  and  that  they  have  an  inherent  power  to  do 
so.  Given  the  one  or  first,  the  second  necessarily 
follows,  and  so  on.  Where  and  how  he  got  the 
first  we  are  not  told.  But  meanwhile,  let  us  see 
this  process  and  power.  First  of  all  we  have,  or 
are  said  to  have — which  is  very  much  the  Hegel- 
ian way  of  having — three  kinds  of  Thought : 

1.  Formal  Thought.  This  is  independent  of 
all  content.  Perhaps  we  might  call  this  abstrac- 
tion, the  mere  possibility  of  Thought. 

2.  AVe  have  the  Notion  or  Begriff.     This  is  de- 


144      HISTORY,  AND   HISTORY  OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

terminate  thought — the  thought,  I  should  suppose, 
of  this  or  that,  as  in  or  under  category. 

3.  We  have  Idea,  and  the  Idea.  This  is  thought 
in  its  totality.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  Idea  to 
develop  itself,  to  comprehend  itself  by  its  devel- 
opment, and  to  become  thereby  what  it  is — what 
it  is  from  the  first. 

Language  of  this  sort  is  supposed  to  be  ap- 
plicable to  consciousness  and  experience.  The 
process  and  the  power  of  development  are  here 
stated  in  words  as  near  to  terms  of  ordinary 
experience  as  may  be  sufficient  to  make  them 
intelligible  and  plausible. 

There  are  two  states  of  the  Idea,  or  whatever 
it  is  that  develops  into  all  that  is.  There  is  (1) 
The  state  of  virtuality.  This  is  an-sich-seyn,  or 
Being-in-itself.     It  is  Power. 

We  have  (2)  Yirtuality  realised.  This  is 
filr-sich-seyn — that  is,  for  itself  being,  or  being 
in  act. 

But  apparently  this  in-itself-being  does  not 
exist  for  us,  until  it  becomes  an  object  of  con- 
sciousness, until,  I  presume,  it  becomes  for-itself- 
being,  though  how  we  can  tell  so  much,  supposing 
this  in-itself-being  is  at  all,  it  is  difficult  to  say. 


iiegel's  view.  145 

This  seems  playing  fast  and  loose — particularly 
the  latter — with  words  and  intelligibility.  At 
any  rate,  it  appears  that  man,  in  becoming  what 
he  is  virtually,  does  not  become  another  —  he 
becomes  actually  what  he  is  or  was  virtually. 
To  reach  existence  is  to  undergo  a  change,  and 
yet  remain  the  same.  In  other  words,  the  in- 
itself-being,  which  is  not  an  object  of  conscious- 
ness as  such,  is  yet  regarded  as  the  same  with  the 
for-itself-being,  which  is  an  object  of  conscious- 
ness— that  is,  without  knowing  it,  we  yet  predi- 
cate identity  of  the  unconscious  and  the  conscious. 
A  pretty  little  juggle  of  words  indeed,  and  a 
pretty  mess  of  the  unmeaning. 

This  first  moment  of  in-itselfness,  or  "  the  con- 
crete in  itself  and  virtual,  must  become  for  itself 
or  actualise  itself."  Why  ?  we  ask.  The  answer 
is :  "  It  is  different,  and  yet  simple  in  itself.  This 
contradiction,  which  is  primitively  in  the  virtual 
concrete,  is  the  principle  of  its  development."  ^ 

The  course  of  the  development  of  the  process  is 
determined  by  the  virtual  content  of  the  in-itself- 
state  or  moment  of  thought.  The  analogy  given 
in  exemplification  or  illustration  is  that  of  the 

1  Werke,  vol.  xiii.  pp.  36-38. 
K 


146       HISTORY,   AND   HISTORY   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

germ  into  the  plant,  and  into  a  particular  kind 
of  plant.  All  in  the  plant,  we  are  told,  is  ideally 
contained  in  the  germ — the  development  has  a 
predetermined  end.  This  is  the  fruit,  or  repro- 
duction of  the  germ,  and  consequent  return  to 
the  primitive  state.  The  germ  tends  to  reproduce 
itself,  to  return  to  itself.  The  germ  and  fruit  are 
thus  individuals,  but  they  are  identical  as  to 
content.  There  is  the  same  analogy  in  animal 
life.  But  in  the  life  of  the  spirit  it  is  different. 
Spirit  in  developing  itself  goes  out  of  itself,  and 
at  the  same  time  returns  to  itself,  and  thus 
acquires  consciousness  of  itself.  Development 
supposes  a  content — that  is,  an  activity.  Power 
and  actuality  are  moments  of  the  active  develop- 
ment. This  activity  is  one,  with  differences 
contained.  The  march  of  the  development  is  its 
content.     It  is  the  Idea. 

Of  this  we  have  an  illustration  in  the  flower. 
This  is  oncj  in  spite  of  its  diversity.  None  of  its 
qualities  can  fail  in  any  of  its  leaves,  and  each 
part  of  the  leaf  has  all  the  properties  of  the 
entire  leaf.  Each  particle  possesses  exactly  the 
same  qualities  as  the  mass.  Differences  are  re- 
united in  physical  things. 


Kegel's  vieay.  147 

What  this  development  accomplishes  in  spirit 
is  thus  the  conciliation  or  identification  of  differ- 
ences or  opposites.  In  the  mind,  the  under- 
standing opposes  one  to  another,  as  liberty  and 
necessity.  But  the  spirit  is  concrete,  and  its 
qualities  are  liberty  and  necessity  at  once.  It  is 
free  in  being  necessitated.  The  fruit  of  develop- 
ment is  a  result  of  the  movement ;  this,  again,  is 
the  point  of  departure  to  arrive  at  a  new  degree 
of  development.  "A  formation  becomes  always 
the  matter  of  another  formation,"  says  Goethe. 
The  evolution  of  the  concrete  is  a  series  of 
developments  not  linear,  but  circular. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  is  this  concrete,  or 
absolute  content,  which  makes  the  evolution  ?  It 
is  activity.  Power  and  actuality  are  moments  of 
activity,  of  the  active  development.  This  activity 
is  one,  though  it  comprehends  differences.  The 
march  of  the  development  is  the  Idea.  In  its 
first  moment  it  contains  a  contradiction ;  and 
this  is  the  essential  principle  of  its  activity  and 
development. 

"  The  concrete  in  itself  or  virtual  must  become 
for  itself  or  actualise  itself.  It  is  different  and 
yet  simple  in  itself.     This  contradiction,  which  is 


148       IIISTORY,  AND   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

primitively  in  the  virtual  concrete,  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  its  development.  By  the  development 
differences  and  oppositions  are  brought  to  light, 
but  in  order  to  vanish  immediately  and  to  be 
anew  reduced  to  unity.  Their  truth  is  only  in 
being  one.  The  idea  is  not  an  abstract  thing, 
the  supreme  being  without  other  determination. 
This  abstract  God  is  a  product  of  the  modern 
spirit."  ^ 

Again,  we  are  told :  "  The  spirit  is  essentially 
action,  and  its  action  is  to  learn  to  know  itself. 
As  living  organism,  I  am  immediately;  but  as 
spirit,  I  am  only  as  I  know  that  I  know  myself. 
The  consciousness  of  self  consists  essentially  in 
this,  that  I  am  become  object  for  myself.  It  is 
thus  in  distinguishing  itself  from  itself  that  the 
spirit  reaches  existence,  and  that  it  posits  itself 
out  of  itself." 

The  concrete  idea  which  develops  itself  is  an 
organic  system,  a  totality  which  encloses  many 
degrees  and  diverse  moments.  Philosophy  is  the 
knowledge  of  this  development,  and,  as  reflective 
thought,  it  is  this  development  itself.  Philoso- 
phy perfects  and  completes  itself  in  so  far  as 

1  Werke,  vol.  xiii.  pp.  36-38. 


L 


HEGEL'S  VIEW.  149 

the  development  approaches  its  term.  Such  is 
the  nature  of  philosophy;  the  same  idea  reigns 
in  its  totality  and  in  all  its  parts,  as  in  a  living 
individual;  the  same  life  rules  and  expands. 
From  the  immanent  evolution  of  the  Idea,  or 
of  the  absolute  content  of  the  mind,  the  know- 
ledge of  which  is  philosophy,  it  follows  that 
philosophy  is  identical  with  its  history.  The 
history  of  philosophy  is  thus  the  progressive  and 
necessary  development  of  the  Idea  or  of  thought 
in  its  totality,  and  philosophy  is  the  knowledge 
of  this  development.  The  history  of  philosophy 
and  philosophy  are  thus  identical. 

This  development  is  conceivable  and  possible 
in  two  ways :  first,  with  the  consciousness  of 
the  necessity  with  which  one  degree  succeeds 
another,  and  is  derived  from  it ;  secondly,  with- 
out this  consciousness,  apparently  accidental  but 
really  necessary.  In  a  plant  the  latter  is  the 
way  of  development.  Branches,  leaves,  flower, 
fruit  of  the  same  plant  proceed  from  it  each  for 
itself,  yet  it  is  the  internal  nature  of  the  plant 
which  necessarily  determines  the  succession  of 
all  the  parts  of  the  same  whole.  The  aim  of 
philosophy  is,  however,  to  realise  the  conscious- 


150      HISTORY,  AND   HISTORY  OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ness  of  the  necessary  connections  of  succession  of 
the  parts  of  the  organised  whole  of  knowledge. 
It  is  according  to  the  second  mode  that  the 
diverse  moments  of  the  evolution  present  them- 
selves in  time,  under  the  form  of  facts  that 
have  happened  in  such  places,  with  such  peoples, 
under  the  empire  of  such  circumstances.  This 
is  the  spectacle  for  philosophy  to  contemplate, 
and,  I  presume,  to  exhibit  the  unity  and  neces- 
sary connections. 

There  is  here  the  question  of  the  relation  of 
the  logical  development  or  formula  to  time,  and 
to  the  actual  occurrence  of  facts  and  systems  in 
time.  What  precisely  is  Hegel's  view  on  this 
point?  Is  it  alleged,  for  example,  that  the 
actual  occurrence  and  development  of  facts 
and  systems  in  time  correspond  precisely  with 
the  order  of  the  logical  development  of  the 
formula?  This  is  the  first  question,  and  has 
to  be  settled  before  we  can  even  consider  whether 
the  formula  has  a  dynamical  function  or  not. 

We  are  told  expressly  that  the  succession  of 
the  systems  of  philosophy  in  history  is  the  same 
with  that  of  the  logical  determinations  of  the 
Idea,  so  that,  if  you  strip  the  fundamental  prin- 


HEGEL  S    VIEW.  151 

ciples  of  the  historical  systems  of  all  that  holds 
to  form,  you  recognise  in  them  the  diverse  de- 
grees of  the  necessary  development  of  the  Idea, 
and  reciprocally  the  logical  movement  of  the 
Idea  represents  the  principal  moments  of  the 
historical  movement.  This  statement  is  certainly 
at  variance  with  others,  in  which  the  chrono- 
logical order  is  said  not  to  be  identical  in  devel- 
opment with  the  logical  order.  We  are  told  here, 
however,  virtually  that  these  orders  correspond, 
and  that  we  have  only  to  strip  the  historical 
systems  of  their  accidental  forms  to  find  that 
they  correspond  with  the  logical  order  or  idea. 
It  is  thus  obviously  reflection  of  philosophy  at 
work  which  detects  the  still  unconscious  neces- 
sary order  of  the  moments  or  systems  in  time. 
According  to  the  analogy  of  the  plant  which 
is  adduced,  we  must  suppose  that  the  systems 
or  moments  have  actually  been  developed  in 
time  in  a  chronological  order  corresponding  to 
the  necessary  or  logical  order,  and  that  all 
that  is  left  for  philosophy  to  do  is  to  exhibit 
to  consciousness  the  necessary  links  that  bind 
together  the  successive  systems.  They  bear  the 
same    clironolooical    relation    to   each   other   as 


152   HISTOEY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  parts  of  the  developed  plant,  and  what  philo- 
sophy has  got  to  do  is  to  make  the  link  or  con- 
nection manifest.  Now,  there  is  the  question 
here  as  to  whether  in  point  of  fact  the  systems 
of  philosophy  have  succeeded  each  other  or  pro- 
ceeded in  this  way.  Even  if  they  have,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  a  dualism  is  avoided;  for 
obviously  a  power  has  been  at  work  in  developing 
the  systems  according  to  a  necessary  order,  though 
unconscious  of  the  order  or  its  principle.  And 
this  must  be  one  kind  of  potency  in  the  universe. 
And  then  philosophy  comes  and  reveals  the  order 
to  consciousness,  makes  it  an  object  of  conscious- 
ness, shows  a  different  kind  of  reality, — a  con- 
scious reality, — which  proceeds  exactly  as  the 
unconscious  order  did.  The  unconscious  order 
or  process,  therefore,  created  the  facts;  and  the 
conscious  process,  retracing  the  steps,  revealed 
or  created  the  necessary  links  of  connection. 
The  unconscious  actually  did  what  the  conscious 
only  came  to  know  later.  There  are  thus  two 
powers  at  work  in  the  universe,  an  unconscious 
and  a  conscious:  the  one  does  what  the  other 
comes  to  know.  Yet  the  rational — the  con- 
sciousness of  necessary  connection— is  the  only 


Kegel's  view.  153 

reality.  There  is  either  such  an  essential  con- 
tradiction within  the  whole  system  as  to  de- 
stroy it,  or  there  is  a  clothing  of  commonplace 
fact  and  doctrine  in  heavy,  cumbrous,  and  mis- 
leading language. 


L 


154 


III._WHAT   EEMAINS   OF   THE 
HEGELIAN  VIEW? 

According  to  Schwegler,  Hegel's  view  of  the 
history  of  philosophy  is  that  "  the  various  systems 
constitute  together  but  a  single  organic  move- 
ment, a  rational,  inwardly  articulated  whole,  a 
series  of  evolutions,  founded  in  the  tendency  of 
the  mind  to  raise  its  natural  more  and  more  into 
conscious  being,  into  knowledge,  and  to  recognise 
the  entire  spiritual  and  natural  universe  more 
and  more  as  its  life  and  outward  existence,  as 
its  actuality  and  reality,  as  the  mirror  of  itself." 
Hegel,  it  seems,  was  "  the  first  to  enunciate  these 
views,  and  to  regard  the  history  of  philosophy  in 
the  unity  of  a  single  process."  ^  But  Schwegler 
accompanies  his  statement  of  Hegel's  view  with 
a  very  distinct  warning  and  note  of  criticism. 

^  Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  2. 


WHAT   EEMAINS   OF   THE   HEGELIAN   VIEW?       155 

The  fundamental  idea  is  true  in  principle,  but  it 
has  been  overstrained  by  Hegel,  and  this  "  in  a 
manner  that  threatens  to  destroy,  as  well  the 
freedom  of  the  human  will,  as  the  notion  of  con- 
tingency, or  of  a  certain  existent  unreason.  Hegel 
holds  the  succession  of  the  systems  in  history 
to  be  the  same  as  that  of  the  categories  in 
logic."  ^  "  We  have  only  to  free  the  fundamental 
thoughts  of  the  various  systems  from  all  that 
attaches  to  their  mere  externality  of  form  or 
particularity  of  application,  and  we  obtain  the 
various  steps  of  the  logical  notion  (being,  becom- 
ing, particular  being,  individual  being,  quantity, 
&c.) ;  while,  conversely,  if  we  but  take  the  logical 
progress  by  itself,  we  have  in  it  the  essential 
process  of  the  results  of  history."  ^ 

"  This  conception,"  according  to  Schwegler, 
''  can  neither  be  justified  in  principle  nor  estab- 
lished by  history.  It  fails  in  principle ;  for  his- 
tory is  a  combination  of  liberty  and  necessity, 
and  exhibits,  therefore,  only  on  the  whole  any  con- 
nection of  reason,  while  in  its  particulars,  again, 
it  presents  but  a  play  of  endless  contingency. 
It  is  thus,  too,  that  nature,  as  a  whole,  displays 

1  Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  2.  ^  Ihid. ,  p.  3. 


156       IIISTOEY,   AXD   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

rationality  and  system,  but  mocks  all  attempts 
at  a  priori  schemata  in  detail.  Further,  in  his- 
tory it  is  individuals  who  have  the  initiative — 
free  subjectivities — what  consequently  is  directly 
incommensurable.  For,  reduce  as  we  may  the 
individual  under  the  influence  of  the  universal — 
in  the  form  of  his  time,  his  circumstances,  his 
nationality — to  the  value  of  a  mere  cipher,  no 
free-will  can  be  reduced.  History,  generally,  is 
no  school-sum  to  be  exactly  cast  up ;  there  must 
be  no  talk,  therefore,  of  any  a  ^^riori  construc- 
tion in  the  history  of  philosophy  either.  The 
facts  of  experience  will  not  adapt  themselves 
as  mere  examples  to  any  ready-made  logical 
schema.  If  at  all  to  stand  a  critical  investi- 
gation, what  is  given  in  experience  must  be 
taken  as  given,  as  handed  to  us;  and  then  the 
rational  connection  of  this  that  is  so  given 
must  be  referred  to  analysis.  The  speculative 
idea  can  be  expected  at  best — and  only  for  the 
scientific  arrangement  of  the  given  material — 
to  afford  but  a  regulative."^ 

But  the  hardest  thing  said  against  the  Hegelian 
view  is  that  the  historical  development  is  almost 

^  Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  3. 


WHAT   REMAINS   OF  THE  HEGELIAN  VIEW?      157 

always  different  from  the  logical — that,  in  fact, 
chronology  contradicts  the  logic.  The  logical 
process  is  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete; 
the  historical  process  is  the  very  reverse — from 
concrete  to  abstract,  as  we  see  especially  and 
markedly  in  early  Greek  philosophy.  Philosophy 
is  synthetic ;  the  history  of  thought  analytic. 
The  concrete  —  the  Ionian  philosophy  —  is  the 
first;  and  even  the  Being  of  Parmenides  and 
the  Becoming  of  Heraclitus  are  not  to  be  repre- 
sented in  abstract  categories,  but  in  materially 
coloured  conceptions.^  The  conception  involved 
in  each  system  is  never  pure,  but  is  mixed  with 
physical,  psychological,  ethical  elements.  It  is 
as  it  appears  in  the  nature  of  man  and  the 
state  of  circumstances.  "  Hegel  would  have  been 
more  consistent  logically  had  he  put  chronology 
entirely  to  the  rout."  ^ 

If  this  be  so,  what  remains  of  the  Hegelian 
profession  ?  We  are  to  be  content  if,  in  repro- 
ducing to  thought  the  course  which  reflection 
has  taken  as  a  whole,  there  exhibit  itself,  in 
the  main  historical  stations,  a  rational  progress, 
and   if   the   historian   of    philosophy,   surveying 

^  Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  4.  -  Ihid.,  p.  5. 


158      IlISTOEY,  AKD   IIISTOIIY   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  serial  development,  find  really  in  it  a  philo- 
sophical acquisition,  the  acquisition  of  a  new 
idea ;  but  we  shall  be  chary  of  applying  to  each 
transition  and  to  the  whole  detail  the  postu- 
late of  immanent  law  and  logical  nexus.  His- 
tory marches  often  in  serpentine  lines,  often 
apparently  in  retreat.  "  History,  as  the  domain 
of  free-will,  will  only  in  the  last  of  days  reveal 
itself  as  a  work  of  reason."  ^ 

But  is  it  true,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the 
systems  have  followed  this  so-called  necessary 
order  ?  Is  the  supposition  even  consistent  with 
the  Hegelian  rejection  of  the  so-called  accidental 
or  contingent  in  the  facts  of  time  ? 

The  "  successions  of  the  systems  of  philosophy 
in  history  "  is  ambiguous.  Is  it  meant  that  this 
succession  extends  to  the  whole  thought-history 
of  the  world  ?  Is  it  the  case  that  contempor- 
aneously all  over  the  world  there  has  been 
precisely  the  same  moment  of  development  of 
spontaneous  thought,  or  of  thought  at  its  stage 
of  unconsciousness  of  self  ?  If  it  does  not  refer 
to  this,  why  does  it  not  ?  If  it  does,  what  is 
the  historical  truth  of  it  ? 

^  Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  5. 


WHAT   REMAINS   OF   THE   HEGELIAN   VIEW?       159 

Is  it  meant  that  the  systems  of  philosophy 
in  a  given  country  or  nation  have  observed 
this  order  —  unconsciously,  of  course  ?  Is  this 
the  case  in  the  most  philosophic  country  we 
have  known — Greece?  Has  it  been  so  in  our 
own  country  ?  or  in  France  ?  or  in  Germany 
itself?  This  will  be  found  to  be  true  neither 
of  the  world  from  Genesis  to  Hegel,  nor  of  any 
country  under  the  sun.  There  is  no  actual  de- 
velopment of  philosophy  in  the  form  of  which 
he  speaks. 

But,  if  the  movement  of  development  have 
been  unequal, — vacillating,  sometimes  retrograde, 
crossing  and  recrossing  the  so  -  called  logical 
order, — what  becomes  of  the  correspondence  ? 
What  even  becomes  of  the  omnipotent  power  of 
the  Idea  ?  Further,  if  the  systems  have  been 
developed  in  a  manner  wholly  unconscious  of 
the  link  which  connects  one  witli  the  other, 
how  has  the  one  been  able  to  influence  the 
other  ?  Must  not  the  system  be  known  and 
the  link  be  known,  ere  one  system  of  thought 
could  truly  influence  a  succeeding  one  ?  Have 
systems  of  philosophy  not  influenced  each  other 
precisely   as   the  succeeding   was   actually  con- 


160      HISTORY,   AND   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

scious  of  the  nature  and  limits  of  the  preceding 
system  ?  Is  this  not  true  of  our  own  philosophy, 
from  Locke,  through  Berkeley,  Hume,  and  Keid  ? 
And  how,  then,  is  the  link  still  undiscovered 
until  Philosophy  (or  Hegel)  arises  ? 

The  illustrations  of  plant  and  child — of  poten- 
tiality and  actuality  —  are  not  to  the  point. 
These  are  definite  individualities  or  realities  in 
time  and  space  to  begin  with.  They  cannot  be 
applied  either  to  prove  or  to  illustrate  the  nature 
and  development  of  a  notion  without  content.  It 
is  quite  clear,  however,  that  as  Hegel  abstracts 
Being  from  finite  or  phenomenal  Being,  he  also 
illegitimately  abstracts  the  notions  of  potency 
and  change  from  actual  phenomena,  and  uses 
them  to  explain  the  development  of  the  pheno- 
menal itself  from  or  in  the  Idea.  Potency  is 
only  possible  on  the  supposition  of  undeveloped 
content ;  and  change  is  only  possible  on  the 
supposition  that  this  content  is  distinguishable 
from  the  state  into  which  it  passes.  Activity 
is  not  possible  by  itself  or  as  content.  It  is 
possible  only  on  the  supposition  of  that  which 
passes  into  action. 

In  self  and  for  self  are   also  purely  definite 


WHAT   REMAINS   OF   THE   HEGELIAN   VIEW?      161 

distinctions,  borrowed  from  our  conscious  ex- 
perience. They  are  simply  individuality,  as  in 
consciousness,  capable  of  development.  But  they 
in  no  way  help  us  to  transcend  our  conscious- 
ness, or  to  raise  that  consciousness  to  a  know- 
ledge where  there  is  no  real  difference  between 
self  and  its  object.  What  the  mystery  of  exist- 
ence be,  before  self-consciousness  arises,  we  know 
not  and  cannot  know,  so  long  as  we  retain  self- 
consciousness  itself. 

"  But  as  the  spirit  posits  itself  out  of  itself,  it 
finds  itself  submitted  to  the  condition  of  time. 
The  idea,  considered  in  its  repose,  is  independent 
of  time,  but  the  idea  in  so  far  as  concrete,  as 
unity  of  diverse  forms,  develops  itself  by  thought, 
and  posits  itself  externally.  It  is  thus  that 
philosophy  appears  as  an  existence  which  de- 
veloped itself  in  time. 

"The  spirit  considered  as  the  activity  of  an 
individual  consciousness  is  an  abstraction,  and  the 
spirit  is,  not  only  individual  and  finite  conscious- 
ness, but  universal  and  concrete  spirit.  This 
concrete  universality  comprehends  all  the  modes 
and  all  the  aspects  under  which,  according  to  the 
content  of  the  idea,  the  spirit  becomes  object  for 

L 


162       IIISTOKY,  AND   HISTOKY  OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

itself.  Its  development  is  not  carried  in  the 
thought  of  an  individual,  in  one  soul  and  the  same 
consciousness.  The  richness  of  its  forms  fills  the 
history  of  the  world.  In  this  universal  evolution 
of  the  spirit,  it  happens  that  such  form  or  such 
degree  of  the  idea  manifests  itself  with  such  a 
people  rather  than  with  such  another,  so  that  a 
people  in  a  given  time  only  expresses  this  form, 
whilst  the  form  superior  to  this  only  manifests 
itself  ages  later,  and  in  another  nation."  ^ 

The  conscious  spirit  thus  does  not  develop 
itself  wholly,  either  in  one  individual,  or  in  one 
and  the  same  people,  or  in  a  given  epoch,  but  in 
humanity  all  entire. 

All  the  variations  of  philosophy  are  only  the 
movements  by  which  the  spirit  develops  and 
actualises  itself.  Nothing  sceptical  in  them ; 
nothing  fixed  or  absolute. 

"  The  concrete  idea  of  philosophy  is  the  activity 
of  development  tending  to  produce  the  differ- 
ences which  are  virtually  contained  in  it.  The 
differences  contain  the  idea  under  a  particular 
form,  and  each  form  is  a  philosophy — a  system 
which  has  the  pretension  of  rejDresenting  the  idea 

^  Werke,  vol.  xiii.  pp.  43,  44. 


UNIVERSITY 


WHAT   REMAINS   OF   THE   HEGELIAN   VIEW? 


all  entire ;  but  the  different  systems  only  repre- 
sent the  content  of  the  idea  collectively.  They 
disappear  as  moments  of  transition.  To  expan- 
sion succeeds  contraction,  the  return  to  unity. 
Then  a  new  period  of  development.  But  this 
progress  is  not  indefinite ;  it  has  an  absolute  term. 
The  temple  of  reason  is  constructed  rationally 
by  an  internal  architect."^ 

The  length  of  time  required  for  development  is 
no  objection.  The  universal  spirit  has  sufficient 
time  before  it ;  it  is  eternal.  Nature  reaches  its 
end  by  the  promptest  means — not  so  the  spirit. 
Generations  are  sacrificed  to  this  development; 
but  to  each  notion  the  form  under  which  it 
makes  its  place  and  its  universe  is  sufficient. 

But  how  does  the  Spirit  or  Idea  get  into  time 
at  all  ?  "  As  it  posits  itself  out  of  itself,  it  finds 
itself  submitted  to  the  condition  of  time.  The 
idea  considered  in  its  repose  is  independent  of 
time,  but  the  idea  in  so  far  as  concrete,  as  unity 
of  diverse  forms,  develops  itself  by  thought,  and 
posits  itself  externally.  It  is  thus  that  philo- 
sophy appears  as  an  existence  which  develops 
itself  in  time."  ^    No  doubt,  if  it  posits  itself  out 

^  Werke,  vol.  siii.  pp.  47,  48.  ^  Ibid.,  pp.  43,  44. 


164      HISTOliY,   AND   HISTORY   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

of  itself,  it  will  find  itself  submitted  to  the  con- 
dition of  time,  and  a  good  many  other  conditions. 
What  one  would  like  to  know  is  how  such  a 
positing  is  conceivable  or  has  any  meaning,  or 
how  one  is  to  construe  the  passage  of  the  logical 
formula  of  Identity,  Contradiction,  and  Becoming, 
as  anything  but  a  logical  formula  ?  or  how  a  stage 
of  thought,  called  in-itselfness,  can  be  anything 
really  or  actually,  or  become  anything,  but  what 
the  term  indicates  ?  Or  how,  if  we  get  an  ex- 
ternal position  for  it,  this  can  be  anything  more 
than  it  is,  a  purely  logical  conception  or  state  ? 
How,  if  the  in-itself-moment  be  not  already  in 
time,  can  its  simple  correlate  or  development 
pass  into  time,  or  need  any  time  to  pass  into  ? 
When  these  questions  are  answered  fairly,  or 
even  apprehended,  we  shall  consider  the  hypo- 
thetical statement  that  "  as  it  posits  itself  out  of 
itself,  it  finds  itself  submitted  to  the  condition  of 
time."  This  is  a  very  fair  specimen  of  the  con- 
stantly recurring  Hegelian  fallacy  of  hypothesis 
converted  into  assertion.  It  is  the  constant  art 
resorted  to  at  essential  points  of  connection.  As 
so  and  so  is,  if  so  and  so  is,  then  so  and  so  is, — 
this  is  the  reasoning.     It  is  but  a  poor  cloak  to 


WHAT   REMAINS   OF   THE  HEGELIAN  VIEW?      165 

cover  the  ever-recurring  iallacy  oi  petitio principii 
which  invalidates  Hegelian  reasoning,  and  makes 
it  as  bad  a  school  as  possible  as  a  propaedeutic 
for  ordinary  and  straightforward  thinking. 

Then,  in  order  to  bridge  the  gulf  between  the 
first  moment  of  the  formula,  or  the  formula  itself, 
and  existence,  we  have  the  wholly  concrete  word 
"  spirit "  introduced  without  warrant  or  proof  of 
any  sort.  Then,  founding  on  experience,  spirit 
is  described  as  "  essentially  action."  It  is  de- 
scribed in  terms  of  ordinary  consciousness,  and 
we  are  told  :  "  I  am  only  as  I  know  that  I  know 
myself.  The  consciousness  of  self  consists  ess- 
entially in  this,  that  I  am  become  object  for 
myself.  It  is  thus  in  distinguishing  itself  from 
itself  that  the  spirit  reaches  existence,  and  that 
it  posits  itself  out  of  itself."  In  other  words, 
a  process  professing  to  give  the  explanation  of 
spirit  and  the  consciousness  of  reality,  begs  or 
borrows  terms  from  the  spirit  of  consciousness, 
applies  these  to  the  process,  and  thinks  it  has 
explained  the  actual  consciousness  or  experience 
from  which  it  has  borrowed  the  terms.  And 
there  is  the  absurdity  in  it  all  of  assuming  that 
these  terms  have  a  meaning,  and  the  same  mean- 


166   HISTORY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ing,  ere  the  definite  consciousness  is  reached, 
as  they  have  in  this  definite  consciousness 
itself. 

We  may  quite  readily  admit  that  the  truth  of 
existence, — the  truth  of  the  fulness  of  experience, 
— in  its  varied  and  complex  forms  of  knowledge 
itself,  of  morality,  aesthetics,  theology,  is  not  to  be 
got  in  a  day,  is  to  be  got  only  by  development, 
the  development  even  of  humanity  all  entire, 
and  that  at  no  epoch  in  the  world's  history  can 
we  say  that  we  have  reached  a  term  of  finality 
on  such  a  point.  We  may  say  also  that  no  indi- 
vidual, however  normal  a  representative  of  hu- 
manity, typifies  or  mirrors  the  Universe  of  Being, 
and  that  we  can  gather  up  only  the  collective 
idea,  if  we  can  even  obtain  this,  through  the 
scattered  parts. 

The  different  forms  of  the  spirit  thus  appear  at 
different  and  wholly  separate  times,  in  different 
and  separated  people,  in  different  individuals, 
never  in  one  people  or  in  one  and  the  same  indi- 
vidual. The  weight  of  the  Universal  is  too  great 
for  the  individual  consciousness,  yet  apparently 
the  individual  speculative  philosoj)her  is  able  to 
bear  the  unified  and  necessarily  related  burden 


WHAT  EEMAINS   OF   THE   HEGELIAN  VIEW?      167 

of  the  whole  systems  — to  grasp  the  relations, 
and  thus  truly  give  them  reality. 

But  this  has  no  bearing  whatever  in  the  way 
of  proof  or  even  illustration  on  the  Hegelian 
formula.  It  is  compatible  with  any  theory  which 
allows  simply  the  coexistence  in  the  individual 
of  truths,  laws,  convictions  common  to  him  with 
humanity,  and  the  necessary  limitation  under 
which  such  truths  are  to  be  conceived  and  real- 
ised in  the  individual  consciousness.  Beware  of 
supposing  at  any  time,  or  in  any  individual,  the 
term  of  finality,  in  regard  at  least  to  the  content 
of  intellectual  conception,  moral,  sesthetical,  theo- 
logical truth.  But  this  is  a  lesson  which  history 
in  connection  with  a  theory  of  relativity,  or  with 
individuality  in  any  form,  will  teach  us,  as  well 
as  the  idea  of  a  divine  purpose  in  things  and  pro- 
gress towards  the  divine.  We  do  not  need  to 
postulate  the  absorption  of  the  individuals  in  the 
Universal  or  spirit,  while  the  Universal  or  spirit 
has  no  meaning,  or  even  conscious  being,  except 
as  spread  over  the  individuals.  We  may  admit 
a  progress  through  the  varied  unity  of  the  race, 
as  that  political  history  is  the  progress  of  con- 
sciousness and  liberty ;  but  we  are  not  quite  shut 


168      HISTORY,  AND  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

up  to  say  that  the  history  of  philosophy  is  the 
progress  of  the  spirit  to  the  consciousness  of 
identity  with  the  absolute — that  is,  to  so-called 
freedom,  the  freedom  of  construction  that  admits 
of  no  opposite  or  datum. 

We  have  here  the  following  statements : — 

1.  That  the  aim  of  history  is  to  explain,  in 
accordance  with  the  logical  formula,  the  facts 
and  systems  in  time.  This  would  certainly 
imply  at  the  least  their  connection,  development, 
concatenation. 

2.  There  is  a  spontaneous  development  of 
thought  or  spirit  in  time,  and  all  that  is,  or  is 
actual,  is  reason  realised — i.e.,  it  is  fact  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  formula.  The  rational  is  the 
real,  and  the  real  is  the  rational. 

3.  There  is,  however,  thirdly,  a  reference  to 
details  which  may  be  neglected,  even  though  they 
be  matters  of  fact  in  time ;  to  what  is  accidental 
or  contingent.  The  test  of  this  would  seem  to  be 
simply  that  these  facts  are  outside  the  formula, 
do  not  fit  into  it,  cannot  be  explained  by  it. 

4.  Even,  therefore,  supposing  certain  facts  or 
systems  to  follow  certain  others  in  chronological 
development,  these  are  to  be  set  aside  as  acci- 


WHAT  EEMAINS   OF   THE  HEGELIAN  VIEW?      169 

dental,  because  they  do  not  fit  into  the  logical 
formula.  The  logical  formula,  therefore,  cannot 
be  upheld  as  representing  the  chronological 
development  of  facts  or  systems.  It  may  be — 
is— in  contradiction  with  "the  spontaneous  de- 
velopment of  thought "  in  time,  and  it  is  regarded 
as  of  higher  authority  than  the  actual  facts,  yet 
all  that  is  is  reason — i.e.,  the  formula  realised. 
I.e.,  we  "impose"  a  formula  on  the  facts— on 
certain  of  the  facts — which  we  may  select,  and 
reject  the  others  as  not  facts,  because  they  are 
outside  the  formula. 

5.  The  reason,  spirit,  or  formula  is  at  the  same 
time  the  skeleton  or  nervous  system  of  the  facts 
—  of  all  the  facts  —  the  facts  of  reality.  Yet 
there  are  facts  which  do  not  fit  into  it,  and  the 
facts  in  their  actual  occurrence  do  not  follow  the 
order  of  development  of  the  formula.  We  can- 
not from  one  term  of  the  formula  predict  the 
logical  or  necessary  moment. 

This  method  is  obviously,  as  has  been  well 
remarked,!  neither  properly  a  priori  nor  a  pos- 
teriori, but  a  bad  mixture  of  both.      It  is  not 

1  Flint,  History  of  the  Philosoj^hy  of  History,  p.   538  (first 
edition), 


170      IIISTOEY,   AND   IIISTOr.Y   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

wholly  a  priori  or  deductive,  for  the  facts  are 
first  looked  to,  or  supposed  to  be  looked  to,  and 
the  formula  which  unites  them  is  apparently 
suggested  by  them.  It  is  not  truly  inductive, 
for  the  facts  are  not  consulted  purely,  but  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  formula,  and  so 
constituting  a  system.  There  is  no  independent 
application  of  either  method,  and  therefore  no 
verification.  The  method  is  thus  in  bad  repute 
with  physicists,  psychologists,  and  accurate  his- 
torians.    It  is  not  the  method  of  research. 

How  do  I  know  the  facts  of  history?  The 
existence  of  nations,  of  men,  their  deeds,  their 
chronological  succession  ?  Do  I  excogitate  these 
by  pure  thought  ?  Can  I  find  them  as  necessary 
emanations  of  the  virtual  concrete,  the  idea  ? 
I  don't  suppose  that  this  is  alleged,  though  I 
don't  see  why  it  should  not  be,  on  the  system. 
It  is  proposed  at  any  rate  to  show  lioiv  they  suc- 
ceed each  other,  and  must  succeed  each  other, 
in  virtue  of  the  moments  of  the  logical  notion. 
Still  they  are  given  somehow  in  experience,  and 
empirically  or  in  time,  just  as  the  parts  of  the 
plant  are  given  in  necessary  succession,  though 
we  do  not  know  it,  until  philosophy  gets  hold  of 


WHAT  REMAINS   OF  THE   HEGELIAN  Y1E^Y  ?      171 

its  inner  developing  principle.  Historical  facts, 
then — the  history  of  civil  deeds  and  of  systems 
of  philosophy — are  given  in  experience.  They 
are  to  be  found  in  books,  and  in  institutions, 
past  and  present,  non-existing  and  existing,  by 
testimony  and  by  present  experience.  Well, 
then,  I  must  have  an  organon  or  instrument 
of  fact  ?  What  is  that  ?  Not  the  pure  thought, 
not  the  evolution  of  the  idea.  We  can  only  find 
necessary  relations  when  we  have  got  objects  to 
be  related — at  least  we  must  have  the  first  term 
of  the  relation.  What  is  this  but  the  testimony 
of  mankind,  the  common  experience,  the  common 
consciousness  or  historical  experience?  Specu- 
lative philosophy  has  to  vindicate  its  pretensions 
to  acceptance  by  explaining  all  historical  develop- 
ment in  accordance  with  the  law  of  the  evolution 
of  all  thought  human  and  divine.  If  we  take 
away  human  testimony  —  common  experience 
and  common-sense  —  where  are  the  facts  to  be 
explained,  or  put  in  order  by  the  law  ?  The 
only  alternative  is  the  absurdity,  which  is  ex- 
plicitly stated,  that  the  evolution  is  identical 
with  the  facts,  or  creates  them.  But  then  if  it  is 
thus  identical,  what  becomes  of  the  evidence  of 


172      inSTOEY,    AND   HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  law  said  to  be  found  in  the  fact  of  harmony 
between  the  development  of  history  and  philo- 
sophical systems  with  the  so-called  law  of  pure 
thought,  or  concreted  Idea  ? 

As  to  progress  under  this  system — progress  in 
knowledge  and  science — I  believe  the  supposition 
of  it  proceeds  on  a  wholly  false  analogy.  Hu- 
manity, intellectually  or  morally,  has  no  real 
analogy  with  the  organic  development  of  plant 
or  tree,  even  supposing  that  these  accomplish 
their  end  or  completion  in  the  way  of  the  dia- 
lectical method,  and  through  the  fulness  of  life 
pass  to  death,  again  to  emerge  to  a  new  circular 
movement  out  of  the  germ  or  seed.  I  hold  that, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  history,  whether  civil,  in- 
tellectual, or  moral,  is  in  no  way  really  analogous 
to  this.  Humanity  is  not  a  continuous  life ;  it  is 
at  the  best  a  transitory  aggregate  constituted  by 
individualities  or  units  of  a  common  type.  These 
come  and  go,  and  they  exemplify  more  or  less 
the  characteristics  of  the  type,  and  they  may 
leave  some  memories  behind  them,  or  their  life 
and  doings  may  be  transmitted  in  the  consciences 
of  succeeding  generations.  The  common  heritage 
of  the  race  may  thus  be  increased  and  enriched. 


WHAT  REMAINS   OF  THE   HEGELIAN  VIEW?      173 

But  it  is  not  humanity  itself,  ever  renewed, 
which  starts  from  or  is  born  of  the  common 
heritage ;  it  is  but  the  individual  or  unit,  and  he 
must  work  out  even  the  best  type  of  it  for  him- 
self literally  from  the  beginning.  His  experience 
need  not  die ;  it  may  go  as  an  addition  to  the 
heritage  of  memory.  Yet  his  successor  must 
personally  serve  himself  heir  to  this,  to  what  is 
before  him.  But  a  progress  in  human  know- 
ledge, morality,  and  feeling,  carried  on  in  this 
way,  is  not  an  organic  development.  The  suc- 
cessive portions  are  not  necessarily  connected; 
they  are  not  necessarily  evolved  in  any  depart- 
ment of  science,  in  any  special  national  history, 
in  the  history  either  of  actions  or  of  thoughts. 
Neither  the  progress  made  by  the  individual,  nor 
the  progress  made  by  the  race,  can  be  described, 
explained — not  to  say  predicted — in  virtue  of 
any  a  priori  formula,  be  it  an  abstract  recipe,  or 
named  "  the  actual  living  pulse  of  actual  living 
thought." 


^  OF   THK       ^V- 

UNIVEBSITY 


THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH 


THE  THEISM   OF  WOEDSWORTH. 

If  I  were  to  seek  to  express  the  main  character- 
istic of  the  poetic  mood  of  Wordsworth  at  its 
highest  reach,  I  should  say  that  his  mind  was 
open  equally  to  the  world  of  sense — the  finite, 
and  to  the  sphere  of  the  infinite  which  borders 
and  surrounds  this  world  of  ours.  Most  reflec- 
tive minds  realise  both  worlds — that  the  finite  is 
set  somehow  in  the  midst,  and  as  but  a  part,  of 
infinitude  itself.  Our  own  limitation  suggests 
this.  From  the  sense-world  we  go  out  to  the 
boundless  in  space,  in  time,  and  in  power.  Our 
shortcoming  in  presence  of  the  moral  ideal  links 
us  by  a  personal  bond  to  the  conception  of 
absolute  duty  and  unswerving  will.  Each  finite 
life  truly  lived  passes  under  the  shadow  of 
infinity. 

M 


178  THE  THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH. 

But  to  Wordsworth  both  spheres  were  equally 
feal,  or  rather  the  infinite  was  the  more  real  of 
the  two.  In  the  full  consciousness  of  infinitude 
and  the  limitless,  Wordsworth  recalls  Lucretius ; 
but  there  was  this  difference — with  the  ancient 
poet  infinitude  was  unpeopled,  "a  melancholy 
space  and  doleful  time,"  transcending  and  dwarf- 
ing human  life  and  its  powers,  holding  for  it 
neither  love  nor  sympathy,  vacuous  and  inexor- 
able: while  with  the  modern  poet  it  was  the 
abode  of  living  powers,  even  ultimately  of  one 
supreme  Power  of  life,  closely  related  to  and 
influencing  the  soul  and  heart  of  man.  Now 
this  sense  of  the  boundless,  the  transcendent  in 
limit,  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  conceptions  in 
Wordsworth's  life  and  poetry.  And  it  is  at  the 
root  of  his  theistic  view  of  the  world.  It  is  by 
no  means  the  whole  of  this  view,  but  without  it 
as  a  direct  conception  his  theism — any  theism  in 
fact — is  impossible.  This  is  the  frame,  as  it 
were,-  in  which  God  is  to  be  set;  and  without 
this  opening  into  the  transcendent,  the  finite 
world — the  world  of  our  experience — must  re- 
main to  us  as  the  whole  of  reality.  But  what 
does  he  say  ? — 


WORDSWORTH.  179 

"  In  such  strength 
Of  usurpation,  when  the  light  of  sense 
Goes  out,  but  with  a  flash  that  has  revealed 
The  invisible  world,  doth  greatness  make  abode, 
There  harbours  ;  whether  we  be  young  or  old. 
Our  destiny,  our  being's  heart  and  home. 
Is  with  infinitude,  and  only  there  ; 
With  hojDe  it  is,  hope  that  can  never  die, 
Effort,  and  expectation,  and  desire. 
And  something  evermore  to  be"  ^ 

Speaking  again  of  the  view  from  the  ascent  of 
Snowclon,  he  says : — 

"  There  I  beheld  the  emblem  of  a  mind 
That  feeds  uijon  infinity,  that  broods 
Over  the  dark  abyss,  intent  to  hear 
Its  voices  issuing  forth  to  silent  light 
In  one  continuous  stream  ;  a  mind  sustained 
By  recognitions  of  transcendent  poiver, 
In  sense  conducting  to  ideal  form. 
In  soul  of  more  than  mortal  'privilege.'*^ 

There  are  several  other  passages  which  indicate 
the  same  elevating  consciousness,  and  the  ennob- 
ling practical,  moral  influence  of  it  on  his  life 
and  poetry.      It  is  especially  in  those  lines : — 

Hence 

"  an  obscure  sense 
Of  possible  sublimity,  whereto 
With  growing  faculties  she  doth  aspire. 


180     THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH. 

With  faculties  still  growing,  feeling  still 
That  whatsoever  point  they  gain,  they  yet 
Have  something  to  imrsue." 

This  feeling  was  manifest  in  him  even  from 
earliest  childhood,  "  the  disappearing  line  "  of  the 
public  highway 

"that  crossed 

The  naked  summit  of  a  far-off  hill, 

Beyond  the  limits  that  my  feet  had  trod 

Was  like  an  invitation  into  space, 

Boundless,  or  guide  into  eternity." 

There  is  in  a  view  of  this  sort  the  opening  up 
of  the  deepest  contrasts  in  human  life,  thought, 
and  imasfination.     We  find  this  brief  life  of  ours 

o 

standing  out  as  but  a  small  speck,  now  bright, 
now  darkened,  against  the  whole  of  the  past  and 
the  future  in  time ;  our  individual  experience  and 
knowledge  set  against  the  boundless  possibilities 
which  time  and  space  may  unfold  ;  our  selfhood, 
our  personality — mysterious,  deep,  and  significant 
as  it  is — in  contrast  somehow  not  only  with  the 
/impersonal  in  things,  but  with  the  great,  perhaps 
ungraspable,  conception  of  selfhood  in  the  uni- 
verse. This  rising  above  limit  in  our  experience 
is  the  first  breaking,  so  to  speak,  with  the  finite 
world — the  world  of  the  senses — the  sphere  of 


WORDSWOETH.  181 

purely  earthly  regards  and  earthly  interests,  and, 
in  the  very  realisation  of  our  own  limit,  there  is 
revealed  to  us  that  far  wider  and  higher  sphere 
of  being  which  holds  for  us  awe,  reverence,  and 
rebuke,  incentives  to  action  here  that  can  never 
allow  us  to  rest  in  the  mere  contentment  of 
earthly  enjoyment  or  bounded  prospect.  Once 
this  sphere  dawns  upon  us,  but  not  until  it  dawns, 
are  we  on  the  way,  however  devious  and  perplex- 
ing, by  turns  in  brightness  and  in  shadow,  that 
leads  to  the  Presence  which  men  call  God.  The 
root-difference  between  the  mind  of  the  purely 
earthly  man  and  the  God  -  visioned  man,  not 
the  whole  difference,  but  the  deepest,  is  just 
this  point  of  the  sufficiency  or  insufficiency  of 
finite  experience — or  a  bounded  life  in  time.  On 
this  point  Wordsworth  and  Pascal  are  at  one. 
"  Man,"  says  the  latter,  "  was  born  only  for  in- 
finity." 

This,  then,  is  the  first  stage  in  the  progress  of 
the  Poet's  mind  to  his  peculiar  theism.  But 
there  is  a  second  even  more  important  stage. 
There  is  a  sense,  a  consciousness  of  a  power  or 
powers  in  the  infinite  sphere  which  surrounds  us, 
and  of  their  presence,  in  some  of  our  moods  of 


182  THE   THEISM   OF   WORDSWOETH. 

mind,  to  the  senses  —  certainly  to  the  soul  and 
heart — especially  when  the  conscience  is  quick- 
cJ(  ened  or  alert.  There  are  of  course  ordinary  pass- 
ages innumerahle  in  which  a  sense  of  powers 
higher  than  the  world  yet  in  it  is  indicated.  For 
example — 

"  Ye  Presences  of  Nature  in  tlie  sky 
And  on  the  earth  !  Ye  Visions  of  the  liills ! 
And  Souls  of  lonely  places." 

*' Moon  and  stars 
Were  shining  o'er  my  head.     I  was  alone, 
And  seemed  to  be  a  trouble  to  tlie  peace 
That  dwelt  among  them." 

But  in  this  connection  there  are  two  passages 
especially  which  recur  to  the  student  of  Words- 
worth. 

The  first  is  the  memorable  passage  in  the  Pre- 
lude,  in  which  the  Poet  tells  us  of  that  night, 
when  rowing  alone  on  Esthwaite  Lake,  suddenly 

r  ^/^    *  '  "A  huge  peak,  black  and  huge, 

As  if  with  voluntary/  'power  instinct 
.  /         Upreared  its  head.     I  struck  and  struck  again, 

And  growing  still  in  stature  the  grim  shape 
\         Towered  up  between  me  Scl^the  stars,  and  still. 

For  so  it  seemed,  ivith  purpose  of  its  own 

And  measured  motion  like  a  living  thing, 

Strode  after  me.     ... 


WORDSWORTH.  183 

After  I  had  seen 
That  spectacle,  for  many  days,  my  brain 
Worked  with  a  dim  and  undetermined  sense 
Of  unhiown  modes  of  being  ;  o'er  my  thoughts 
There  hung  a  darkness,  call  it  solitude 
Or  blank  desertion.     No  familiar  shapes 
Remained,  no  pleasant  images  of  trees, 
Of  sea  or  sky,  no  colours  of  green  fields  ; 
But  huge  and  mighty  forms,  that  do  not  live 
Like  living  men,  moved  slowly  through  the  mind 
By  day,  and  were  a  trouble  to  my  dreams." 

The  other  passage  is  when  in  the  night  he  had 

thoughtlessly  taken,  as  he  tells  he,  "  the  captive 

of  another's  toil." 

"  When  the  deed  was  done 
I  heard  among  the  solitary  hills 
Low  breathings  coming  after  me,  and  sounds 
Of  undistinguishable  motion,  ste])s 
Almost  as  silent  as  the  turf  they  trod." 

Let  us  note  here  the  mingling  of  reality  and 
indefinitude,  a  reality  all  the  more  and  more 
impressive  because  it  is  unaffected  by  human 
limits.  There  was  "purpose,"  "motion,"  "life," 
yet  " unknown  mode  of  being ; "  "a  living  thing, 
that  did  not  live  like  living  men,"  yet  "  mighty," 
boundless,  uncircumscribable  in  its  power,  before 
which  the  individual — solitary,  alone — confront- 
ing it,  is  as  naught.     It  is  real  all  the  while,  vet 


184  THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH. 

it  is  a  reality  with  which  thought  cannot  cope, 
and  which  will  cannot  withstand. 

In  such  circumstances  an  ordinary  mind,  if 
impressed  at  all,  would  have  been  simply  over- 
come with  fear.  Wordsworth's  emotion  was  that 
of  awe — the  awe  of  a  new  revelation  of  the  un- 
seen— that  cast  its  shadow  over  all  his  imagina- 
tion, and  solemnised  and  purified  the  inner  heart 
of  his  moral  life.  Indeed,  in  both  the  instances 
referred  to,  the  unseen  power  was  bodied  forth  as 
an  impersonation  of  a  suddenly  quickened  and 
highly  sensitive  conscience.  A  link  was  formed 
between  the  moral  world "  of  the  finite  spirit  and 
the  unseen,  as  if  the  soul  were  in  the  presence 
of  a  higher,  purer  consciousness  than  its  own, 
unknown  until  suddenly  revealed. 

In  its  essence  this  feeling  was  not  new  to 
Wordsworth ;  it  was  not  new  to  him  even  in 
some  of  the  aspects  which  he  felt  and  delineated. 
"Unknown  modes  of  being" — mighty,  limitless 
by  us,  surrounding,  overshadowing  this  sense- 
world  of  ours ;  a  consciousness  of  this  kind  had 
been  a  marked  and  powerful  influence  in  the 
popular  feeling  and  current  ballad  literature  in 
the  district  from  the  Derwent  to  the  Tweed.     Its 


WORDSWOKTH.  185 

hills,  glens,  wide  -  spreading  solitary  moorlands 
had  nourished  it,  for  nowhere  does  a  man  feel 
his  own  littleness  more,  nowhere  does  he  feel  the 
awing,  purifying  power  of  solitude  and  mystery 
greater  than  on  the  far-reaching,  often  mist-dark- 
ened, moorlands  of  "  the  north  cuntre."  We  have 
it  in  the  expressions  of  "  the  darke  forest,  awesome 
for  to  see ; "  "  the  dowie  dens "  and  "  the  dowie 
houms  ;  "  "  the  brown  "  and  "  waesome  bent,"  and 
even  in  "the  lee" — i.e.,  lonesome — light  of  the 
moon.  This  feeling  very  readily  passed  into 
a  sense  of  supernatural  power  and  presences 
surrounding  the  steps  of  the  traveller,  so  that 
we  have  the  common  word  "eerie"  expressing 
the  emotion  which  comes  from  the  felt  nearness 
of  the  super-sensible  and  the  unearthly,  and  we 
have  all  the  long-cherished  beliefs  regarding  that 
mysterious  spirit-world  and  "middle  erd" — that 
"  other  cuntre,"  intermediate  between  heaven  and 
hell — chequered  neither  by  mortal  change  or 
calamity,  nor  cheered  by  mortal  hopes,  removed 
from  agony  and  shut  out  from  bliss,  which  yet 
might  at  any  moment  flash  in  weird  shape  on  the 
lonely  traveller  on  the  moor.  The  shadow  of 
this  lay  on  the  life  of  the  earliest  Border  minstrel, 


186  THE  THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH. 

Thomas  the  Ehymer,  waiting  his  call  through 
the  years,  and  then  calmly,  resignedly  passing, 
at  the  beck  of  the  gentle  white  hart,  to  the 
mysterious  land,  by  a  way  so  awesome  and 
weird : — 

"  0  they  rade  on,  and  further  on, 

And  they  waded  through  rivers  abune  the  knee, 
And  they  saw  neither  sun  nor  moon, 
But  they  heard  the  roaring  o'  the  sea." 

In  the  fairy  ballad  of  the  young  Tamlane  there 
are  circumstances  and  feelings  delineated  as  ex- 
perienced by  the  heroine  not  essentially  different 
from  the  imaginative  mood  of  Wordsworth,  as 
depicted  in  the  passages  quoted: — 

"  Gloomy,  gloomy  was  the  night, 
And  eerie  was  the  way  ; 
And  fair  Janet,  in  her  green  mantle. 
To  Miles  Cross  she  did  gae. 

The  heavens  were  black,  the  night  was  dark, 

And  dreary  was  the  place  ; 
But  Janet  stood  with  eager  wish 

Her  lover  to  embrace. 

Betwixt  the  hours  of  twelve  and  one, 

A  north  ivind  tore  the  bent ; 
And  straight  she  heard  strange  elritch  sounds 

XJlion  the  wind  that  went,'" 


AVOEDSWOETH.  187 

Do  we  not  realise  here  a  certain  parallel  to 

"  The  conflict  and  the  sounds  that  live  in  darkness," 

or  the 

"  Notes  that  are 
The  ghostly  language  of  the  ancient  earth, 
Or  make  their  dim  abode  in  distant  winds  ? " 

Obviously  this  emotional  sense  of  the  unseen 
in  the  soul  of  Wordsworth  had  its  source  deep 
down  in  a  certain  heredity  of  feeling,  due  to  the 
past,  and  nourished  by  circumstances  of  scenery 
and  of  race.  In  him  it  was  sublimed.  What 
had  been  but  a  dim  working  through  the  ages  on 
the  fears  of  the  older  Cymric  and  Scandinavian 
people  became  in  him,  as  he  lived  and  grew  with 
open  and  fervid  heart,  a  revelation  of  moral  and 
spiritual  truth,  and  thus  an  inspiration  for  man- 
kind. And  this  was  at  the  root  of  his  moral  and 
theistic  feeling. 

Essentially  connected  with  the  consciousness 
of  infinitude  in  Wordsworth  is  the  tendency  to 
seek  to  grasp  the  world  as  a  whole,  to  rise  to  a 
point  above  details,  to  seek  relation,  connected- 
ness, unity,  in  the  phenomena  of  sense ;  to  centre 
all  phenomena,  all  appearances,  in  one — a  Unity 
of  Being.     This  with  Wordsworth  is  not  a  mere 


188  THE  THEISM   OF  WOEDSWORTH. 

unity ;  there  is  somehow  the  consciousness  of  a 
Spirit — call  it  infinite  or  absolute — which  per- 
meates all  the  forms  of  existence,  all  the  world 
of  created  things,  working  therein  as  a  power, 
and  therein  manifesting  its  nature.  To  this  high 
sense  or  faith  the  whole  education  of  his  life,  as 
described  especially  in  the  Prelude,  unconsciously 
led  him — unconsciously,  I  mean,  as  to  its  steps 
and  process.  In  this  conviction  he  found  rest, 
consolation,  practical  power.  It  was  not  with 
him  a  process  of  conscious  seeking ;  it  was  rather 
a  process  of  conscious  finding  through  the  aban- 
donment of  himself  to  the  gradual  revelation  of 
a  Personality  higher  than  his  own,  that  hovered 
over  him  from  his  infancy,  and  spoke  to  him  in 
many  ways  ere  he  knew  the  Speaker,  and  finally 
realised  the  Presence  that  filled  the  temple  of 
earth  and  heaven. 

The  questions  here  arise — (1)  What  precisely 
was  the  nature  of  this  unity,  the  sense  or  con- 
sciousness of  which  so  powerfully  influenced  the 
thought  and  imagination  of  Wordsworth?  (2) 
How  generally  did  it  arise  in  his  mind,  and 
with  what  guarantee  or  warrant? 

Now,  on  the  first  of   these  points   we   must 


WORDSWORTH.  189 

keep  in  mind  that  there  are  three,  and  but  three, 
views  of  this  world  of  our  experience,  and  its 
relation  to  what  may  transcend  it.  We  may  \ 
hold,  first,  the  simple  independence  of  each  fact 
in  the  world — that  all  is  originally  unconnected, 
single,  isolated ;  any  connection  which  now  sub- 
sists has  arisen  through  accident — call  it  chance, 
custom,  association.  In  the  words  of  David 
Hume,  "Things  are  conjoined  but  are  not  con- 
nected." Laws  would  mean  on  such  a  system 
merely  the  common  modes  in  which  things  have, 
without  guiding  principle,  come  to  be  uniformly 
associated.  This  is  Atheism  in  the  proper  sense)  / 
of  the  term.  It  is  the  absence  or  denial  of  the 
0eoc,  Ultimate  Principle,  or  God.  This  view  is, 
I  need  not  say,  alien  to  the  whole  spirit  of 
Wordsworth,  who  constantly  proclaims  the  inter- 
connectedness  of  the  outward  world — the  action' 
and  reaction  between  Man  and  Nature — and  the 
unity  of  the  scheme  of  which  these  are  parts. 
In  its  moral  and  spiritual  consequences  this 
theory  is  not  less  opposed  to  the  teaching  of 
Wordsworth ;  for,  in  making  each  thing  inde- 
pendent, it  makes  it  self-sufficient,  and  it  entirely 
ignores   the  question  of   origin,  as  it  precludes 


190  THE  THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH. 

any   question   of   destiny.     But   what   says   the 

Poet  ?— 

"  I  was  only  then 
Contented,  when  with  bliss  ineffable 
I  felt  the  sentiment  of  Being  spread 
O'er  all  that  moves  and  all  that  seemeth  still ; 
O'er  all  that,  lost  beyond  the  reach  of  thought 
And  human  knowledge,  to  the  human  eye 
Invisible,  yet  liveth  to  the  heart ; 
O'er  all  that  leaps  and  runs,  and  shouts  and  sings, 
Or  beats  the  gladsome  air  ;  o'er  all  that  glides 
Beneath  the  wave,  yea,  in  the  wave  itself. 
And  mighty  depth  of  waters.    "Wonder  not 
If  high  the  transport,  great  the  joy  I  felt, 
Communing  in  this  sort  through  earth  and  heaven 
AVith  every  form  of  creature,  as  it  looked 
Towards  the  Uncreated  with  a  countenance 
Of  adoration,  with  an  eye  of  love. 
One  song  they  sang,  and  it  was  audible. 
Most  audible,  then,  when  the  fleshly  ear, 
O'ercome  by  humblest  prelude  of  that  strain. 
Forgot  her  functions,  and  slept  undisturbed." 

Every  reader  of  the  Prelude  knows  how  power- 
ful was  the  influence  of  Coleridge  on  the  mind 
and  heart  of  Wordsworth  at  the  period  of  his 
life  when  that  poem  was  written  (1799  to  1805), 
But  there  is  no  point  on  which  Coleridge  and  lais 
sympathetic  rather  than  intelligent  acquaintance 
with  the  rising  Absolutism  of  the  Germany  of 


WORDSWORTH.  191 

the  time  impressed  Wordsworth  more  than  in 
the  matter  of  the  transcendental  unity  of  being.  ^ 
He  says,  speaking  of  Coleridge  and  his  superiority 
to  the  ordinary  way  of  looking  at  things — 

"  To  thee,  unblinded  by  these  formal  acts, 
The  unity  of  all  hath  been  revealed." 

And  we  have  a  characteristic  passage  of  the 
so  -  called  "  speculative "  order  in  lines  like 
those : — 

"  Hard  task,  vain  hope,  to  analyse  the  mind, 
If  each  most  obvious  and  particular  thought, 
Not  in  a  mystical  and  idle  sense, 
But  in  the  words  of  Reason  deeply  weighed, 
Hath  no  beginning." 

The  Poet's  own  good  sense  and  strong  concrete 
sympathy,  fortunately  for  himself  and  his  poetic 
work,  speedily  stayed  this  line  of  confusion 
between  the  relations  in  time  and  the  begin- 
ningless  beyond  intelligibility. 

In  the  second  place  we  may  admit — may  be 
driven  to  admit — that  there  is  more  in  thincjs 
than  accidental  conjunction;  that  somehow  one 
thing  is  through  another  thing;  that  there  are 
essential  connections ;  that  there  are  ends,  even 
purposes,  reasons,  in  the  order  and  arransjements 


192  THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH. 

of  things.  This  leads  us  to  the  conception  of 
a  Power — a  Power  of  some  sort — transcending 
experience,  yet,  it  may  be,  working  in  it.  This 
is  entirely  opposed  to  the  atheistic  or  atomistic 
view  of  the  world.  There  is  a  Power  above 
things,  more  than  things — a  Power  which  sub- 
sists while  these  pass ;  and  through  the  working, 
unconscious  or  conscious,  of  this  Power  things 
are  as  they  are.  But  here  there  are  two  sub-_ 
ordinate_yiews^or  we  may  regard  this  one 
^transcendent  Power  as  unconscious  or  conscious. 
It  is,  on  either  supposition,  a  substantial  or 
abiding  Power,  underlying  all,  working  through 
all  that  is,  has  been,  or  will  be.  But  if  not 
conscious  of  itself  and  its  workings,  it  is  an 
impersonal  force;  and  it  matters  little  whether 
it  be  regarded  as  known  or  unknowable  by  us. 
On  this  I  may  remark  in  passing  there  has  been 
a  great  deal  of  useless  controversy  ;  but  it  is 
obvious  that  no  force  which  is  allowed  to  mani- 
fest itself  can  be  unknowable — even  unknown; 
for  in  its  manifestations  it  is,  and  these  are 
known  by  us.  It  might  be  added  even  that 
that  which  does  not  manifest  itself  in  some  form 
is  not,  is  never,  actually.      On  the  other  hand, 


WORDSWORTH.  193 

if  the  transcendent  Power  be  conscious  —  con- 
scious of  itself,  conscious  of  its  workings — it  is 
a  personal  power,  with  intellect  and  will — shall -"^ 
I  say  emotion  ?  For  I  am  not  now  speaking 
anthropologically,  I  am  speaking  analogically, 
and,  as  I  hope  to  show,  strictly  in  conformity 
on  this  point  with  the  view  of  Wordsworth.  I 
am  simply  using  words  which,  however  inade-  \i 
quate,  are  the  best  we  have  to  indicate  the  char- 
acter of  the  transcendent  reality.  This  is  the 
proper  Theistic  view. 

Now  the  position  of  Wordsworth  lies,  as  it 
were,  within  the  scope  of  the  last  -  mentioned 
vTew.  He  holds  by  a  Unity,  a  transcendent  yet  j, 
manifested  Unity,  a  Unity  amid  a  multiplicity, 
yet  not  a  blind  or  unconscious  power ;  a  Spirit, 
Soul,  Personality,  jet  not  as  the  human  — not 
a  magnified  man.  This  is  the  ground,  the  reason, 
the  living,  quickening  principle  of  things  —  of 
Nature  and  Man  alike.  Of  Him  we  may  rise 
to  consciousness,  and  He  may  become  to  us  a 
source  of  inspiration,  imaginative,  moral,  and 
spiritual,  giving  us 

"  Truths  that  wake  to  perish  never." 

The  other  view,  the  Pantheistic,  Wordsworth  / 


194  THE  THEISM   OF  WOKDSWORTH. 

would  have  repudiated — not  perhaps  on  what 
may  be  called  speculative  grounds,  but  simply 
from  the  feeling  that  it  is  utterly  unsuited  to 
our  experience — in  fact,  contradictory  of  it.  The 
speculative  difficulties  of  it  he  might  not  have 
appreciated  or  even  apprehended.  ,  That  a  form- 
less, indeterminate  force  should  be,  and  should 
pass,  one  knows  not  why  or  how,  into  the  formed, 
definite,  unending  variety  of  the  beautiful  world ; 
that  the  conscious  should  rise  out  of  the  un- 
conscious ;  that  the  individual  self-conscious,  the 
personality  of  man,  should  spring  from  the  abyss 
of  formless,  undirected  energy — all  this  "Words- 
worth would  probably  not  have  thought  of.  But 
brought  face  to  face  with  facts,  he  would  cer- 
tainly have  recognised  the  essential  incongruity 
of  the  alleged  worthlessness  of  the  individual 
in  the  world ;  the  indifference  of  his  existence 
before  the  supreme  Power ;  his  coming  and  going 
without  care  or  love  or  concern  on  the  part  of 
the  Absolute ;  the  worthlessness,  even  absurdity, 
of  individual  effort  after  moral  and  spiritual  pro- 
gress, in  face  of  the  certainty  of  final  absorption 
in  the  formless  abyss  out  of  which  each  one  has 
come  we  know  not  how,  and  to  which  each  one 


WOEDSWORTH.  195 

can  but  return  and  be  no  more — the  evil  as  the 
good,  the  good  as  the  evil.  All  this  he  would 
feel  and  recognise,  for  the  one  central  conception 
of  his  moral  theoxz-waa  the  worth  of  tbe-in- 
dnidua]_ —  of  man  as  man ;  the  deep  sense  of 
personal  responsibility  for  character  and  effort ; 
above  all,  the  conscious  relation  of  the  human 
to  the  divine.     Higher  minds 

"  Are  Powers  ;  and  lience  the  highest  bliss 
That  flesh  can  know  is  theirs  ;  the  consciousness 
Of  Whom  they  are,  habitually  infused 
Through  every  image  and  through  every  thought, 
And  all  aff"ections  by  communion  raised 
From  earth  to  heaven,  from  human  to  divine." 

On  the  scheme  of  Pantheism,  man — the  finite, 
conscious  spirit — is  both  an  accident  and  an 
anomaly.  There  is  no  reason  for  the  being  of 
a  conscious  personality  on  the  hypothesis  of  an 
Absolute  which  is  in  itself  unconscious ;  and 
effort  to  develop  this  personality  in  the  line  of 
the  higher,  intellectual,  moral,  spiritual  life  is 
merely  to  violate  the  law  of  its  being,  eventu- 
ally to  court  disaster  and  pain  in  the  process  of 
final  absorption  within  the  unconscious.  Indi- 
viduality and  freedom  are  the  haunting  shadows 


196  THE  THEISM   OF  WORDSWORTH. 

and  the  mockery  of  such  a  life.     Wordsworth's 

view,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  man,  taken  at 

his  highest  and  best,  is  the  nearest  type  to  God, 

\    1     and  that  every  step  we  take  in  nobler  effort  is 

%v,^^a  stage  of  assimilation  with  the  Divine. 

What  I  have  said  of  the  nature  of  the  Theisnf 
of  Wordsworth  may  be  proved  and  illustrated 
by  reference  to  passages  with  which  all  are 
familiar.  I  merely  indicate  briefly  the  points 
in  those  passages  which  bear  on  the  matter  in 
hand.  One  of  the  strongest  and  most  pertin- 
ent is  in  the  first  book  of  the  Prelude,  and  there- 
fore written  as  early  as  1799 :  it  begins  with 
the  lines — 


:A 


Wisdom  and  Spirit  of  the  universe  ! 

Thou  Soul  that  art  the  Eternity  of  thought, 

And  givest  to  forms  and  images  a  breath 

And  everlasting  motion^  not  in  vain 

By  day  or  starlight  t^ius  from  my  first  dawn 

Of  childhood  didst  thou  intertwine  for  me 

The  passions  that  build  up  our  human  soul ; 

Not  with  the  mean  and  vulgar  works  of  man, 

But  with  high  objects,  with  enduring  things — 

With  life  and  nature — purifying  thus 

The  elements  of  feeling  and  of  thought, 

And  sanctifying,  by  such  discipline, 

Both  pain  and  fear,  until  we  recognise 

A  grandeur  in  the  beatings  of  the  heart." 


WOKDS  WORTH.  197 

(  There  is  here  the  consciousness  of  a  transcend- 
ent Spirit,  a  spiritual  Power  above  and  beyond 

^  the  order  of  experience.  It  is  Soul,  living  Soul 
or  Spirit,  analogous  thus  to  us,  to  our  spirit,  yet 
in  contrast  to  ours  and  all  its  workings,  for  it 
is  "the  Eternity  of  Thought/' —  not  the  mere 
everlastingness  of  successive  thoughts  in  time, 
not  the  mere  order  of  perceptions  or  thoughts 
ever  going  on,  not  a  mere  perpetual  series  of 
relations — but  "  the  Eternity  of  Thought,"  the 
ground,  the  substratum,  the  very  permanent  in 
all  thinking.  It  is  in  contrast  to  our  finitude, 
to  our  successive  thinkings,  gropings,  in  time, 
until  we  get  what  we  call  "  the  truth " ;  it  is 
"  the  Eternity,"  the  Soul  or  Consciousness  above 
time  and  succession  and  finite  effort  or  struggle, 
in  whom  all  this  is  grasped  and  held,  as  it  were, 
in  one  indivisible  act.  It  is,  in  the  language  of 
Aristotle,  the  ©eo?  —  the  one  Eternal  Energy. 
And  as  Plato  put  intelligence  first,  and  as  ground- 
ing all  things,  so  the  poet  in  his  own  method 
sets  Man  and  Nature  as  grounded  and  inspired 
by  the  Eternal  Soul. 

But  though  transcendent  in  itself,  in  a  sense 
above  experience,  it  is  not  a  caput  mortuum,  or 


198  THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH. 

empty  abstraction.  It  is  not  even  a  power  dwell- 
ing apart,  set  higli  up  in  the  heavens,  no  one 
knows  where  or  truly  what.  It  lays  its  touch 
upon  earth,  on  what  we  call  the  outward  or 
material  world,  and  on  what  we  name  the  soul 
of  man. 

"  Thou  givest  to  forms  and  images  a  breath 
And  everlasting  motion  ; " 

and  through  these — in  a  word,  through  the  out- 
ward and  symbolical  world — this  Soul  that  is  the 
"  Eternity  of  Thought,"  that  gives  breath  to  the 
passing  scene  around  us — 

"  Intertwines  for  us 
The  passions  that  build  up  our  human  soul." 

And  thus  we  share  in  its  workings,  are  drawn 
into  communion  with  the  Transcendent  Spirit, 
and  "  pain  and  fear  are  sanctified  for  us,"  and  we 
no  longer  are  mere  passing,  individual  organisms, 
but  a  link  in  the  life,  the  solemn  life,  within  the 
fold  of  the  Eternal  Thought ;  and  so  we  rise  in 
the  scale  of  being,  and  "  recognise  a  grandeur  in 
the  beatings  of  the  heart." 

In  the  classical  lines,  Tintern  Abbey,  written 
about  the  same  time  (1798),  we  have  the  sense  of 


WORDSWORTH.  199 

the  nearness,  the  immediacy,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
mysterious  Spirit  of  all  emphasised — 

"  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air,  ] 

And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  :  I 

A  Motion  and  a  Spirit,  that  impels  \ 

All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

I  do  not  see  that  the  poet  has  given  us  any 
theory  of  the  mode  of  this  touch  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit,  the  Jwiv  of  the  connection  between  the 
infinite  and  the  finite.  In  this  he  was  right, 
eminently  sound  and  healthful  in  feeling.  Ob- 
viously indeed  no  such  theory  can  be  given  on  a 
doctrine  which  makes  the  touch  that  of  a  Power 
which  is  essentially  superhuman,  and  not  to  be 
formulated  in  the  language  of  the  modes  of 
human  consciousness.  There  is  ''the  burthen 
of  the  mystery  of  this  unintelligible  world ; " 
unintelligible  to  the  mere  understanding  of  man. 
To  any  such  attempt  there  is  but  one  or  other  of 
two  results — the  transcendent  ceases  to  be  God ; 


200  THE  THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH. 

or  11]  an,  the  finite,  usurps  the  place  of  the  Infinite, 
and  becomes  the  only  ultimate  reality.  Tlrere  is 
either  the  degradation  of  God  or  the  deification 
of  man ;  and  this  is  but  another  expression  for 
the  degradation  of  God.  I  know  no  theory  of 
the  relation  of  Infinite  to  finite  which  is  not 
merely  a  wandering  in  cloudland.  True  philos- 
ophy is  not  that  all  things— yes  and  no — are  true ; 
sound  ethics  is  not  that  all  things — good  and  evil — 
are  good ;  and  true  theology  is  not  that  God  is  all 
things — 3Ian  and  Nature— ov  that  all  things  make 
God.  Yet  no  theory  of  the  necessary  emanation 
of  the  finite  from  the  Infinite  can  escape  these 
consequences  ;  and  unless  it  be  necessary,  it  is  not 
a  reasoned  or  demonstrated  theory ;  it  is  simply 
a  matter  of  faith,  of  analogy  and  probability. 

I  shall  not  take  up  your  time  with  any  detailed 
reference  to  the  Ode  on  Intimatioris  of  Immortality 
\J  from  Recollections  of  Early  ChildJwod ;  but  it  is 
impossible  wholly  to  pass  it  by  in  this  connec- 
tion. In  it  we  have  the  poet's  fullest,  most  explicit 
statement  of  the  intuition  of  God,  and,  so  far, 
of  man's  relation  to  Him;  the  assertion  of  the 
pre-existence  of  the  soul ;  the  hope  of  immortal- 
ity ;  the  prefigurement  of  an  unearthly  life  : — 


AVORDS  WORTH. 


201 


Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  Cometh  from  afar  : 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

There  is  "  the  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's 
star,"  as  if  the  body  and  the  bodily  life  were 
simple  accidents,  conditions  which  allow  the  God- 
descended,  God-given  soul  to  accommodate  itself 
to  the  brief  passing  through  this  time-limited 
world.  It  hath  set  before,  to  rise  again  with  us, 
the  individual.  It  is  ours,  and  we  are  in  it ;  but 
it  holds  more  of  heaven  than  of  earth,  more  of 
God  than  of  us.  It  is  but  as  a  wanderer  from  its 
home,  orphaned  until  it  again  return  to  God, 
to  dwell  with  Him  in  His  presence,  in  that, 
sphere  of  light,  and  knowledge,  and  love,  from 
which  it  had  so  mysteriously  emerged,  almost 
fallen.  Our  relation  to  earth  is  represented  very 
much  as  that  of  a  guest,  a  wayfarer,  to  whom 
earth  is  kind: — 

"  The  homely  Nurse  doth  all  she  can 
To  make  her  Foster-child,  her  Inmate  Man, 
Forget  the  glories  he  hath  known, 
And  that  imperial  palace  whence  he  came." 


/ 


? 


s^ 


202  THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH. 

The  impress  of  our  origin  and  destiny  is  on 
us  in  the  childhood-time.  The  soul  is  not  origin- 
ally a  mere  tahda  rasa,  or  blank  sheet  of  paper, 
on  which  Nature  has  to  write  its  impressions. 
It  is  not  a  mere  receptacle  for  the  tracings  of  the 
senses,  so  that  the  greatest  reach  of  our  know- 
ledge afterwards  is  only  the  combining  and 
generalising  of  these ;  and  the  very  possibility  of 
the  notions  of  God,  and  personality,  and  im- 
mortality, and  all  purely  moral  and  spiritual 
conceptions,  is  absolutely  excluded  even  from  our 
consciousness.  From  our  very  birth  we  have  a 
certain  community  with  God,  and  this  is  shown 
most  in  the  simplicity  of  heart  which  is  self- 
contained  and  self-contented,  almost  self-joyous, 
while 

"  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy," 

and  "  the  earth  "  and  "  every  common  sight "  is 

"  Apparelled  in  celestial  light, 
The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream." 

But  there  is  more  than  this :  there  is  the '  feel- 
ing and  the  glimpse  of  a  type  or  ideal  over  all 
our  life,  towards  which,  from  this  early  revelation, 
we  are  almost  constrained  to  aspire.     Gradually 


WORDSWORTH.  203 

the  world  comes  in,  and  this  ideal  fades,  but  is 
never  absolutely  lost ;  it  never  wholly  dies,  and 
we  have  as  the  very  saving  of  our  life  all  through 
this  worldliness — 

"  Those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings  ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  Creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised." 

It  is  thus 

"  Those  first  affections, 
Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day. 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing  ; 

Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  Silence." 

Their  issue,  their  final  teaching,  is — 

"  The  faith  that  looks  through  Death." 

Of  the  intensity  of  the  Nature-feeling  in  child- 
hood alleged  by  Wordsworth,  it  may  fairly  enough, 
be  said  that  it  does  not  hold  universally.  But  I 
set  little  store  on  this  as  discreditinsj  or  dero- 
gating  from  the  importance  of  the  feeling  where 
it  does  exist.  The  physical  organisation,  with 
its  peculiarities  in  individuals,  has  much  to  do 


204  THE  THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH. 

both  with  the  furtherance  and  the  repression  of 
natural  intuition  and  feeling.  Man  is  by  no 
means  a  mere  mind,  and  even  the  natural  out- 
flowings  of  mind  are  greatly  modified  and  de- 
termined by  bodily  conditions.  That  a  special 
feeling  or  form  of  intuition  does  not  appear 
at  a  particular  stage,  is  no  proof  either  that 
it  is  unnatural  or  that  it  has  not  a  latent 
reality. 

But  this  may  be  said,  that  the  intensity  of 
the  Nature  -  feeling  alleged  by  Wordsworth  is 
not  sufficient  to  found  a  proof,  if  we  may  use 
that  expression,  of  its  relation  to  former  percep- 
tions or  intuitions  in  a  previous  state  of  existence. 
This  reference,  indeed,  may  be  taken  as  a  poetic 
way  of  putting  the  truth  of  the  first  fresh  intui- 
tion of  the  outward  world  as  fulfilling  in  various 
ways  certain  primary  intellectual  and  emotional 
needs  of  our  own  nature — eliciting  the  free,  fresh 
outflow  of  the  faculties,  soothing  the  heart,  touch- 
ing the  imagination,  giving  us  the  impression 
that  we  have  not  been  ushered  into  a  strange 
land,  uncouth  and  bewildering,  but  into  a  sphere 
where  has  been  at  work,  and  is  still  working,  the 
same  Hand  which  is  felt  in  this  inner,  conscious 


WORDSWORTH.  205 

life  of  ours.     The  poet  himself  has  touched  this 

very  point  when  he  speaks  of — 

"  That  calm  delight 
Which,  if  I  err  not,  surely  must  belong 
To  those  first-born  affinities  that  fit  \ 

Our  new  existence  to  existing  things, 
And  in  our  dawn  of  being  constitute 
The  bond  of  union  between  life  and  joy." 

And  infancy  or  youth  is  here  a  relative  term. 
We  may  not  have  the  feeling  in  childhood — it 
may  come  at  a  later  period  of  life ;  but  when  it 
comes,  it  brings  with  it  youth — a  new-born  spirit, 
which  will  survive  all  through  life  ls  a  glory 
which  never  fades,  and  a  heart  which  never 
grows  old.  And  every  time  we  feel  the  presence 
of  the  Transcendent  Power  in  things,  there  is  a 
freshening  of  all  the  springs  of  life.  I  do  not 
think  I  use  exaggerated  or  inappropriate  lan- 
guage when  I  say  that  to  such  a  heart  the  jour- 
neying through  this  often  arid  and  conventional 
world^is  as  if  by  the  banks  of  a  river,  the  streams 
of  which  do  glad  the  city  of  our  Grod. 

To  a  man  of  the  type  of  Condillac  or  David 
Hume,  to  any  one  whose  whole  view  and  feeling 
of  the  universe  is  merely  that  it  is  a  series  of 
sense-impressions,  sensations,  perceptions — asso- 


206      THE  THEISM  OF  WORDSWORTH. 

(ciated,  generalised,  transformed, — the  gospel  of 
the  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality  must 
appear  simply  meaningless  drivel — in  a  word, 
"  foolishness."  Yet  to  Wordsworth  the  remin- 
'  iscence  and  the  intuition  of  the  Divine  Eeality 
?V.  ^  and  the  Transcendent  Ideal  are  as  real  as  any 
Qs(Nj  /  sense-impression,  and  a  great  deal  more  influen-. 
y  tial  on  the  regulation  of  life,  moral  and  spiritual, 
than  either  a  series  of  impressions,  or  any  pru- 
dential code  of  ethics  generated  out  of  them — 
any  rules  for  the  avoidance  of  pain  and  the 
securing  of  pleasure.  Such  a  conception,  such 
an  ideal  as  that  which  overshadowed,  solemnised, 
purified,  and  elevated  the  soul  of  Wordsworth  in 
this  immortal  Ode,  and  in  those  other  kindred 
utterances  which  might  be  quoted,  withered  to 
the  core  self-seeking  and  prudential  calculation, 
and  strengthened  and  beautified  this  earthly  life 
with  a  wholly  unique  sense  of  the  littleness  and 
yet  the  grandeur  of  self,  as  a  travelling  not  from 
grave  to  grave,  but  from  God  to  God. 

This  Theistic  view  of  Wordsworth  is  aot,  as  I 
have  remarked,  anthropomorphic  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  this  word.  While  the  essence  of  it  is 
the  recognition  of  a  Spirit  in  the  world,  and  in 


WORDSWORTH.  207  , 

man,  and  above  both,  it  is  a  long  way  removed  ^"^  ^ 
from  the  kind  of  conceptions  that  ruled  Greek 
and  Eoman  mythology.  The  Spirit  he  feels  has 
no  taint  of  earthly  passion,  nor  is  it  to  be  mea- 
sured by  human  intelligence.  It  is  not  fashioned 
merely  in  this  image.  It  is  something  above  and 
beyond,  yet  in  Nature  and  man.  In  the  sonnet 
to  the 

"  Brook,  whose  society  the  Poet  seeks," 

we  have  one  of  the  finest  and  subtlest  expressions 
of  this  relationship  : — 

"  It  seems  the  Eternal  Soul  is  clothed  hi  thee 
With  purer  robes  than  those  of  flesh  and  blood, 
And  hath  bestowed  on  thee  a  better  good  ; 
Unwearied  joy,  and  life  without  its  cares." 

No  word  is  more  ambiguously  employed  than 
the  term  anthropomorphic.  It  is  thought  a  suffi- 
cient objection  to  Theism  to  say  that  it  makes 
God  anthropomorphic.  Anthropomorphic  may 
be  taken  as  meaning  fashioned  exactly  as  man  is 
— conceived  as  to  personality,  intelligence,  and 
will, — or  as  we  find  man  to  be,  but  somehow  in- 
definitely or  infinitely  greater  than  man.  If  Deity 
be  regarded  as  infinitely  greater  than  a  con- 
scious personality,  as  above  limit  in  intelligence, 


208  THE  THEISM   OF   AYORDS WORTH. 

above  law  of  thought  and  conceived  law  of  being, 
then  undoubtedly  we  have  a  contradiction ;  for 
we  cannot  conceive  either  consciousness  or  per- 
sonality  wholly   without    limit,   definiteness,   or 
determination.     And  a  God  merely  man,  but  in- 
definitely greater  than  man,  is  no  true  Deity.     But 
anthropomorphic  in  the  sense  that  Deity,  as  an 
object   of   thought,   must   be    regarded    in    and 
through  the  highest  conceptions  of  our  experi- 
ence—that is,  self-consciousness,  personality,  in- 
telligence, free-will,  generally  conscious  activity — 
this  every  theory  of  Theism  must  assume.     If 
Deity  is  to  be  held  an  object  of  knowledge  at  all, 
as  anything  more  than  a  mere  indefinite,  limitless 
substratum  of  substance — a  mere  caput  morhmm, 
or  at  best  indefinable  force — the  conception  must 
have  in  it  those  features,  must  reflect  them  in 
their  highest  reach  and  purity.    We  at  least  must 
think  of  Him  through  these,  if  we  are  to  think  of 
Him  at  all.     Anthropomorphic,  therefore,  in  this 
sense.  Deity  is,  and  is  conceived  by  us  to  be.    This 
is  the  true  meaning  of  the  scholastic  phrase  ex 
eminentid  as  opposed  to  actualiter.     In  a  word, 
Deity,  if  cognisable,  is  cognisable  only  through 
relation  or  analogy  to  what  is  highest,  best,  most 


WOEDSWORTH.  209 

perfectly  formed  in  our  experience.  This  will  be 
found  to  be  mind — conscious  being — in  its  ultimate 
ground  of  free  power  or  self-activity.     He  is 

"A  Power 
That  is  tlie  visible  quality  and  shape 
And  image  of  Eight  Reason." 

He  is  this,  for  the  simple  reason  that  He,  the 
highest  Power  of  all,  cannot  be  less  than  we  are 
or  can  conceive  at  our  best.  Wordsworth's  view 
of  the  Eternal  Soul,  while  it  is  opposed  to  a  literal 
anthropomorphism,  is  not,  as  seems  to  me,  opposed 
to  the  view  that  this  Soul  flows  into  and  fills  all 
our  highest  conceptions ;  but  it  is  a  fountain 
whose  overflow  no  human  vessel  can  contain. 

There  thus  appears  to  be  no  incompatibility  be- 
tween the  Theism  of  Wordsworth  as  expressed  in 
his  general  poems  and  the  views  to  which  he  gives 
utterance  in  the  Ecclesiastical  Soniiets.  These, 
while  breathing  a  pure,  solemn,  elevating  spirit, 
have  never  appeared  to  me  to  be  pervaded  with 
the  native  inspiration  and  characteristic  sugges- 
tion of  the  poet's  genius  and  imaginative  growth. 
They  reflect  his  historical  and  traditional  feeling. 
But  the  Church  forms  and  service,  even  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Personality  of  God,  His  manifesta- 
0 


210  THE   THEISM   OF  WORDSWORTH. 

tion  in  Christ,  the  sense  of  sin  and  the  quickening 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  readily  folded  in  the  em- 
brace  of  the  poet's  Theism.  This  takes  in  all 
that  is  highest  in  these,  keeps  it  while  it  trans- 
cends it.  These  are  for  us  the  best  and  highest 
definite  expressions  of  what  is  necessarily  trans- 
cendent, not  adequate  even  to  this  transcend- 
ency ;  but  they  contain  the  profoundest  symbolism 
for  us,  and  so  thoroughly  the  essence  of  the  true 
that,  while  in  the  ages  to  come,  in  this  life  or  in 
another,  this  aspect  of  the  highest  reality  may 
be  sublimed,  it  will  never  be  contradicted  by 
aught  to  be  evolved. 

After  all  this  it  may  be  said  that  this  view  of 
Wordsworth  may  be  only  a  peculiarity  of  his 
experience  as  an  individual;  it  may  be  some- 
thing which  he  has  felt  and  known,  but  whicli 
no  one  else  is  likely  to  feel  or  know.  It  may,  in 
a  word,  be  valid  for  the  individual,  but  not  for 
mankind.  This  touches  the  question  of  the 
warrant  or  guarantee  for  the  view  of  the  poet. 
Now  on  this  generally  I  should  like  to  say  that 
we  ought  to  keep  in  mind  one  prerequisite,  one 
condition  of  all  knowledge,  and  that  is  the 
possession   of   a  certain  degree   of   faculty,  and 


f  9^  OF  THB  '^ 

I  UNIVERSITY 
WORDSWORTH.  ^^4ij  i^Jlg^^^^ 

the  placing  of  ourselves  in  circumstances  in 
which  this  faculty  may  have  play  or  exercise.  It 
is  so  in  the  sphere  of  the  senses.  The  eye  must 
be  there  to  recognise  form  and  colour.  For  the 
colour-blind,  ordinary  diversity  in  colour  does  not 
exist.  The  ear  must  be  there  to  hear  sound,  and 
it  must  be  attuned  to  harmony,  ere  harmony 
exists  for  it.  The  man  who  lives  absorbed  in 
the  material  world  knows  nothing  of  the  world 
of  mind  or  consciousness,  its  modes,  forms, 
varieties,  which  nevertheless  is  his  very  self.  A 
man  may  live  all  his  days  and  never  know  what 
he  is ;  never  know  the  spiritual  world  within  / 
him ;  never  rise  beyond  organic  impulses.  Yet 
there  is  a  possibility  of  colour,  and  sound,  and 
experience  of  the  spiritual  world,  whether  the 
individual  have  the  faculty  for  the  two  former  or 
not,  whether  he  turn  in  upon  himself  or  not.  It 
is  possible  even  that  circumstances,  heredity,  the 
power  of  the  organic  life  in  us,  may,  partly 
through  the  power  of  the  past,  and  partly 
through  the  circumstances  of  the  individual, 
shut  him  out  from  a  whole  world  of  reality,  and 
that  of  the  highest,  purest,  noblest  kind — nay, 
from  the  knowledge  of  his  true  or  highest  self. 


212  THE   THEISM   OF  WORDSWORTH. 

And  just  as  the  prophet,  the  seer  of  old,  was 

needed  to  recall  men  to  the  reality  of  things — 

the  insight  of  moral  and  spiritual  truths — so  the 

seer-poet  in  these  times  may  be  needed  to  open 

the  eyes  of  mankind  through  his  individual  vision 

to  what  is  a  universal  reality,  even  the  common 

though  foresfone  heritacre  of   the  race.     This  is 

what  Wordsworth  believed  he  did,  and  I  for  one 

venture  to  think  that  he  was  ris^ht  in  so  believincr. 

What  does  he  say  of  his  vision  and  himself  ?     In 

his  solitary  walks  at  Cambridge  he  felt 

"  Incumbencies  more  awful,  visitings 
Of  the  Upholder  of  the  tranquil  soul, 
That  tolerates  the  indignities  of  Time, 
And,  from  the  centre  of  Eternity 
All  finite  motions  overruling,  lives 
In  glory  immutable.  .  .  . 
I  had  a  world  about  me — 'twas  my  own  ; 
I  made  it,  for  it  only  lived  to  me, 
And  to  the  God  who  sees  into  the  heart.  .  .  . 
Some  called  it  madness — so  indeed  it  was, 
If  childlike  fruitfulness  in  passing  joy, 
If  steady  moods  of  though tfulness  matured 
To  inspiration,  sort  with  such  a  name  ; 
If  prophecy  be  madness  ;  if  things  viewed 
By  poets  in  old  time,  and  higher  up 
By  the  first  men,  earth's  first  inhabitants, 
]\[ay  in  these  tutored  days  no  more  be  seen 
With  undisordered  sight." 


WOKDSWORTH.  213 

Again,  poet,  like  prophet,  has  "  a  sense  that  fits 
him  "  to  perceive  "  objects  unseen  before." 

*'  Prophets  of  Nature,  we  to  them  will  s^^eak 
A  lasting  inspiration,  sanctified 
By  reason,  blest  by  faith  :  what  we  have  loved 
Others  will  love,  and  we  will  teach  them  how." 

Wordsworth  was  what  is  known  as  individual 
or  individualistic  in  the  highest  degree.  There  is 
not  one  personality  as  a  writer  in  this  century 
more  singularly  unique  than  his.  But  his  indivi- 
duality was  not  an  idiosyncrasy ;  it  was  not  ab- 
normal, or  merely  subjective.  Rather  it  was 
normal,  and  of  the  highest  type.  We  speak  of 
two  selves  in  man,  and  we  do  so  rightly.  There 
is  the  lower  self,  finding  its  gratification  in  worldly 
interest,  commonplace  objects,  and,  it  may  be,  low 
passion;  the  everyday  self,  dwelling  in  its  little 
world,  its  microcosm,  which  it  mostly  values  for 
itself,  and  which  finally  encloses  it  as  a  bounded 
prisoner.  There  is,  however,  a  higher  self — un- 
worldly, spiritual,  reverential, — living  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Unseen ;  keenly  alive  to  all  sug- 
gestions from  the  transcendent  and  supersensible 
world;  seeing  faces  looking,  as  it  were,  through 
the  veil  of  sense ;  living  more  in  this  conscious- 


214  THE  THEISM   OF  WORDSWORTH. 

ness  than  in  the  ordinary  worldly  routine ;  priz- 
ing it,  in  fact,  as  the  true  life.  In  most  people 
this  higher  self  is  but  a  wavering  ideal  that  comes 
and  goes,  with  only  a  temporary  influence.  The 
characteristic  of  Wordsworth  was  that  this  was 
the  highest,  strongest,  most  constant  power  in  his 
life.  In  this  lay  his  individuality,  but  as  such  it 
was  a  typical  individuality,  normal  in  the  highest 
degree ;  representative,  not  certainly  of  what  is 
common  among  the  individuals  of  the  race,  but 
representative  of  what  is  certainly  the  true  type 
of  human  life,  of  what  that  life  ought  to  seek  and 
to  be.  And  if  such  a  man  habitually,  or  even  in 
his  frequently  recurring  best  moments,  felt  and 
knew  a  Transcendent  Power  in  the  world  around 
him,  in  his  own  soul,  as  a  divine  but  very  real 
atmosphere  of  the  higher  life,  we  may  well  sup- 
pose that  this  is  a  catholic  element,  not  a  pecu- 
liarity of  the  individual,  but  open  to  every  man 
who  has  singleness  of  vision  and  purity  of  heart. 
"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see 
God." 

Wordsworth  had  a  strong  feeling  regarding  in- 
tuitions or  primary  truths  as  a  revelation  and  a 
strength  to  man.     To  these  book-lore  was  in  his 


WOEDSWORTII.  215 

view  wholly  secondary.  This  opinion  was  held  by 
him  perhaps  even  to  exaggeration.  But  it  is  in 
this  line  that  we  are  to  seek  what  for  him  at  least 
was  the  ultimate  warrant  of  the  faith  in  the  one 
abiding  Transcendent  Power  manifested  in  all 
things.  And  it  is  something  to  have  the  testi- 
mony of  a  pure  unworldly  spirit  to  the  conscious- 
ness, at  least,  of  such  a  reality,  amid  the  blindness, 
heedlessness,  limited  and  noisy  worldly  self-con- 
tent of  our  own  time. 

The  Transcendent  Power  which  held  Words- 
worth through  life  was  not  discovered  by  him,  or 
got  through  a  process  of  dialectical  exercise ;  it  was 
revealed  to  him  as  a  Being  external  to  himself, 
which  laid  its  hand  upon  him  absolutely,  over- 
poweringly.  The  light  which  shone  and  the  voice 
which  called  from  heaven  on  Saul  of  Tarsus  were 
not  more  distinctly  influences  which  uncondition- 
ally seized  and  swayed  the  apostle,  than  was  the 
Power  in  the  outward  world  which  surrounded, 
revealed  itself,  and  made  the  poet-seer  its  own, 
its  daily  vassal  and  its  impassioned  voice — 

"  Speaking  no  dream  but  things  oracular." 


On  that  memorable  morning  after  the  night's 


216  THE   THEISM   OF   WORDSWORTH. 

dance  and  rural  festivity,  when  the  dawn  rose  be- 
fore him  in  "  memorable  pomp,"  he  tells  us — 

"  My  heart  was  full ;  I  made  no  vows,  but  vows 
Were  then  made  for  me  ;  bond  unknown  to  me 
Was  given,  that  I  should  be,  else  sinning  greatly, 
A  dedicated  Spirit." 

Wordsworth,  to  sum  up  what  I  have  said,  seems 
to  me  to  stand  in  two  great  relations  to  thought 
— past  and  present,  to  medieval  mysticism  and 
to  modern  science. 

In  the  firstjplace,  what  he  felt  and  taught  was 
not  a  mere  mystical  intuition  of  a  God  or  Being 
apart  from  the  world,  leading  to  absorption  in  His 
contemplation,  love,  and  worship,  but  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  Divine  as  present  in  the  world 
of  sense,  speaking  through  it  to  the  soul,  and 
thus  directly  regulating  the  life  in  the  present — 
raising  the  actual  world  to  the  divine, — not  de- 
preciating it,  or  leading  to  its  being  regarded  as 
worthless,  as  something  to  be  despised  and  cruci- 
fied. His  point  of  view  is  indeed  the  highest  reach 
of  the  reaction  of  the  modern  spirit  against  that 
unhealthy  phase  of  medievalism,  not  yet  extinct 
among  us,  which  regarded  the  earth  and  earthly 
things  of  whatever  sort  as  vile,  to  be  eradicated 


WORDSWOKTir.  217 

and  stamped  out  of  human  life.      Wordsworth 

fused  for  us  the  spirit  of  worship  and  the  spirit 

of  imagination — religion  and  poetry.     He  saved 

us  from  substituting 

"  A  universe  of  death 
For  tliat  wliicli  moves  with  light  and  life  informed, 
Actual,  divine,  and  true." 

In  the  second  place,  we  may  be  disposed  to  ask 
in  these  times,  Is  science  the  only  interpretation 
of  Nature  ?  does  it  tell  us  all  we  can  know  about 
her  ?  Science  is  no  doubt  an  interpretation  in  this 
way,  that  the  intellect  comes  to  the  aid  of 
sense,  and  discovers  the  relations  among  things, 
and  the  ideas  which  things  exemplify.  But  we 
must  keep  in  mind  that  these  ideas,  these  rela- 
tions, are  not  themselves  sensible  things,  although 
without  them  these  things  are  to  us  meaningless. 
Is  it  a  great  stretch  to  ask  one  to  go  a  little 
further  in  the  line  of  unpicturable  relations,  to 
rise  a  little  higher  above  impressions  to  ideas,  and 
to  inquire  whether  the  gathered  uniformities  of 
science  are  not  themselves  to  be  run  back  to  a 
system  ruled  by  an  intellectual  conception  and 
dependent  on  transcendental  power  ?  This  would 
be  to  go  above  or  beyond  science,  but  the  pro- 


218  THE   THEISM   OF  AVOKDSWORTH. 

cediire  is  not  unscientific ;  it  is  the  simple  carry- 
ing out  of  what  science  itself  postulates  for  its 
own  existence,  the  application  of  those  unpictur- 
able,  even  unverifiable,  notions  of  time  and  space, 
and  cause  and  end,  without  which  science  cannot 
move  a  step ;  for  whatever  is  universal  in,  truth 
is  unverifiable  in  our  actual  experiencqC  What 
Wordsworth  found,  what  was  revealed  to  him  as 
an  intuition — not  an  inference  certainly, — was 
the  simple  correlative  of  the  cosmos,  of  the  ordered 
system,  the  one  ordering  power,  the  0eo9.  His 
was  the  science  of  science,  the  knowledge  of 
knowledge.  In  this  relation  one  word  more. 
Science,  in  its  true  essence,-  has  always  sought 
the  universal.  It  has  sought  this  by  different 
methods  and  in  different  spheres,  but  always  the 
universal ;  so  Plato,  so  Aristotle.  This,  at  least, 
was  their  common  aim.  With  them  it  was  the 
necessary,  therefore  the  universal.  Bacon  sought 
the  same  thing  by  generalisation  from  particulars. 
There  was  still  another  form  of  interpretation 
left  unapplied.  This  Wordsworth  gave.  He 
read  the  appearances  of  sense  into  moral  or 
spiritual  truths,  thus  finding  in  the  individual 
shifting  forms  of  the  sense-world  ideas  fitted  to 


WOEDSWOETII.  219 

regulate  and  elevate  the  higher  life  of  man,  and 
so  rising  above  not  only  sense  but  individual 
appearances  to  universal,  unchangeable  truths. 
He  showed  that  these  moral  and  spiritual  lessons 
are  in  the  outward  things,  are  at  least  the  pro- 
duct of  the  interaction  of  Nature  and  mind,  are 
true  and  real  meanings,  are  open  and  designed 
for  us  to  learn,  and  that,  as  the  prophet  of  old  re- 
vealed new  truth,  so  the  seer-poet  discloses  even 
to  ordinary  vision  this  constaixt;  this  profound, 
this  all-hallowing  revelation.  [And  thus  Poetry 
came  to  complete  Science,  to  show  that  in  and 
through  phenomena  there  is  a  community  of 
knowledge  between  man  and  God,  a  community 
of  consciousness  in  "the  Eternity  of  Thought," 
a  fellowship  even  of  moral  and  spiritual 
feeling. 

There  are  many  ennobling  practical  lessons  and 
rules  of  life  which  flow  from  the  Theism  and 
general  religious  system  of  Wordsworth.  But 
among  these,  the  highest,  that  which  truly 
involves  all  the  others,  is  the  lightening  of  the 
"  burthen  of  the  mystery  "  of  the 

"  Heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world," 


220  THE   THEISM   OF   AVORDS WORTH. 

— this  world  which  for  the  understanding  of  man 

presents  so  many  insoluble  problems.     It  is  the 

yielding  ^ 

"  That  serene  and  blessed  mood  ' 

In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on, — 
Until  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood      » 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul ; 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  j)ower 
Of  harmony  and  the  deep  power  of  joy 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things." 

Wordsworth  does  not  here  point  to  that  sub- 
limity of  character  which  is  found  in  a  dignified 
and  reasoned  acceptance  of  the  inevitable,  yield- 
ing even  a  complacency  which  enables  a  man  to 
turn  to  the  sunnier  side  of  things  and  break  into 
song.  He  leads  rather  to  the  composure  which 
arises  from  a  faith  whose  reflective  and  scrutinis- 
ing eye  pierces  "the  cloud  of  destiny,"  and  is 
nourished  by  what  it  feels  is  beyond  and  above 
it.  There  is  all  the  difference  between  "  putting 
by  "  and  seeing  beyond. 

"  Faith  in  life  endless,  the  sustaining  thought 
Of  human  being,  Eternity,  and  God." 


WORDSWORTH.  221 

Meanwhile  let  this  be  our  rule  of  life : — 

"  Enough,  if  something  from  our  hands  have  power 
To  live  and  act,  and  serve  the  future  hour  ; 
And  if,  as  toward  the  silent  tomb  we  go, 
Through  love,  through  hope,  and  faith's  transcendent 

dower. 
We  feel  that  we  are  greater  than  we  know." 


THE    END. 


PRINTED   BY   WILLIAJI   BLACKWOOD  AND  SONS. 


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10  List  of  Books  Published  by 

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CROSS.    Impressions  of  Dante,  and  of  the  New  World  ;  with  a 

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CUMBERLAND.      Sport  on  the  Pamir  Steppes,   in    Chinese 

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CURSE  OF  INTELLECT.    Fcap  8vo,  2s.  6d.  net. 

GUSHING. 

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DAVIES. 

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Lectures  and  Essays.        By  the  late  Earl  of  Iddesleigh, 

_  G.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  &c.     Svo,  16s. 

Life,  Letters,  and   Diaries  of  Sir   Stafford  Northcote,  First 

Earl  of  Iddesleigh.  By  Andrew  Lang.  With  Tliree  Portraits  and  a  View  of 
Pynes.    Third  Edition.     2  vols,  post  Svo,  31s.  6d. 

Popular  Edition.     With  Portrait  and  View  of  Pynes.     Post  Svo,  7s.  6d. 


1 6  List  of  Books  Published  by 


INDEX   GEOGRAPHICUS :   Being  a  List,   alphabetically  ar- 

ranged,  of  the  Principal  Places  on  the  Globe,  with  the  Countries  and  Subdivisions 
of  the  Countries  in  which  they  are  situated,  and  their  Latitudes  and  Longitudes. 
Imperial  8vo,  pp.  676,  21s. 

JEAN  JAMBON.  Our  Trip  to  Blunderland  ;  or,  Grand  Ex- 
cursion to  Blundertown  and  Back.  By  Jean  Jambon.  With  Sixty  Illustrations 
designed  by  Charles  Doyle,  engraved  by  Dalziel.  Fourth  Thousand.  Cloth, 
gilt  edges,  6s.  6d.    Cheap  Edition,  cloth,  3s.  6d.     Boards,  2s.  6d. 

JEBB.    A  Strange  Career,     The  Life  and  Adventures  of  John 

Gladwyn  Jebb.  By  his  Widow.  With  an  Introduction  by  H.  Rider  Haggard, 
and  an  Electrogravure  Portrait  of  Mr  Jebb.  Third  Edition.  Small  demy  8vo, 
10s.  6d. 

JENNINGS.      Mr  Gladstone  :  A  Study.    By  Louis  J.  Jennings, 

M.P.,  Author  of  'Republican  Government  in  the  United  States,'  'The  Croker 
Memoirs,'  &c.    Popular  Edition.    Crown  8vo,  Is. 

JERNINGHAM. 

Reminiscences  of  an  Attache.    By  Hubert  E.  H.  Jerningham. 

Second  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  5s. 

Diane  de  Breteuille.    A  Love  Story.     Crown  Svo,  2s.  6d. 

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  Svo,  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.  Airman,  M.A.,  B.Sc,  F.R.S.B., 

Professor  of  Chemistry,  Glasgow  Veterinary  College.     Crown  Svo,  6s.  6d. 

Catechism  of  Agricultural  Chemistry.  An  entirely  New- 
Edition  from  the  Edition  by  Sir  Charles  A.  Cameron.  Revised  and  Enlarged 
by  C.  M.  Airman,  M.A.,  &c.  92d  Thousand.  With  numerous  Illustrations. 
Crown  Svo,  Is. 

JOHNSTON.    Agricultural  Holdings  (Scotland)  Acts,  1883  and 

1889  ;  and  the  Ground  Game  Act,  1880.  With  Notes,  and  Summary  of  Procedure, 
&c.     By  Christopher  N.  Johnston,  M.A.,  Advocate.     Demy  Svo,  5s. 

JOKAI.     Timar's  Two  Worlds.    By  Maurus  Jokai.     Authorised 

Translation  by  Mrs  Hegan  Kennard.     Cheap  Edition.    Crown  Svo,  6s. 

KEBBEL.     The  Old  and  the  New :  English  Country  Life.     By 

T.  E.  Kebbel,  M.A.,  Author  of  'The  Agricultural  Labourers,'  'Essays  in  History 
and  Politics,'  '  Life  of  Lord  Beaconsfield.'    Crown  Svo,  5s. 

KING.     The  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid.     Translated  in  English 

Blank  Verse.  By  Henry  King,  M. A.,  Fellow  of  Wadham  College,  Oxford,  and  of 
the  Inner  Temple,  Barrister-at-Law.    Crown  Svo,  10s.  6d. 

KINGLAKE. 

History  of  the  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.     By  A.  W.  Kinglake. 

Cabinet  Edition,  Revised.  With  an  Index  to  the  Complete  Work.  Illustrated 
with  Maps  and  Plans.     Complete  in  9  vols.,  crown  Svo,  at  6s.  each. 

History  of  the  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.     Demy  Svo.     Vol.  VI. 

Winter  Troubles.  With  a  Map,  16s.  Vols.  VII.  and  VIII.  From  the  Morrow  of 
Inkerman  to  the  Death  of  Lord  Raglan.  With  an  Index  to  the  Whole  Work. 
With  Maps  and  Plans.     28s. 

Eothen.    A  New  Edition,  uniform  with  the  Cabinet  Edition 

of  the  '  History  of  the  Invasion  of  the  Crimea.'    6s. 

KLEIN.    Among  the  Gods.     Scenes  of  India,  with  Legends  by 

the  Way.    By  Augusta  Klein.    With  22  Full-page  Illustrations     Demy  Svo,  lis. 


William  Blackwood  and  Sons,  ly 


KNEIPP.      My  Water -Cure.      As   Tested  through  more  than 

Thirty  Years,^ancl  Described  for  the  Healing  of  Diseases  and  the  Preservation  of 
Health.  By  Sebastian  Kneipp,  Parish  Priest  of  Worishofen  (Bavaria).  With  a 
Portrait  and  other  Illustrations.  Autliorised  English  Translation  from  the 
Thirtieth  German  Edition,  by  A.  de  F.  Cheap  Edition.  With  an  Appendix,  con- 
taining the  Latest  Developments  of  Pfarrer  Kneipp's  System,  and  a  Preface  by 
E.  Gerard.      Crown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 

KNOLLYS.      The   Elements  of  Field-Artillery.      Designed   for 

the  Use  of  Infantry  and  Cavalry  Officers.  By  Henry  Knollys,  Colonel  Royal 
Artillery;  Anthor  of  'From  Sedan  to  Saarbrlick,'  Editor  of  'Incidents  in  the 
Sepoy  War,'  &c.     With  Engravings.    Crown  Svo,  7s.  6d. 

LAMINGTON.    In  the  Days  of  the  Dandies.     By  the  late  Lord 

Lamington.    Crown  Svo.     Illustrated  cover,  Is. ;  cloth,  Is.  6d. 

LANGr.     Life,  Letters,  and  Diaries  of  Sir   Stafford  Northcote, 

First  Earl  of  Iddesleigh.  By  Andrew  Lang.  With  Three  Portraits  and  a  View 
of  Pynes.     Third  Edition.     2  vols,  post  Svo,  31s.  6d. 

Popular  Edition.     With  Portrait  and  View  of  Pynes.    Post  Svo,  7s.  6d. 

LAWLESS.    Hurrish  :  A  Study.     By  the  Hon.  Emily  Lawless, 

Author  of  'A  Chelsea  Householder,'  &c.     Fourth  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 

LEES.     A  Handbook  of  the  Sheriff  and  Justice  of  Peace  Small 

Debt  Courts.  With  Notes,  References,  and  Forms.  By  J.  M.  Lees,  Advocate, 
Sheriff  of  Stirling,  Dumbarton,  and  Clackmannan.    Svo,  7s.  6d. 

LINDSAY.     The  Progressiveness  of  Modern  Christian  Thought. 

By  the  Rev.  James  Lindsay,  M.A.,  B.D.,  B.Sc,  F.R.S.E.,  F.G.S.,  Minister  of 
the  Parish  of  St  Andrew's,  Kilmarnock.    Crown  Svo,  6s. 

LOCKHAKT. 

Doubles  and  Quits.    By  Laurence  W.  M.  Lockhart.    New 

Edition.     Grown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 

Fair  to  See.     New  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 
Mine  is  Thine.     New  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 
LOCKHART. 

The   Church  of   Scotland  in  the   Thirteenth  Century.     The 

Life  and  Times  of  David  de  Bernham  of  St  Andrews  (Bishop),  a.d.  1239  to  1258. 
With  List  of  Churches  dedicated  by  him,  and  Dates.    By  William  Lockhart, 
_  A.M.,  D.D.,  F.S.A.  Scot.,  Minister  of  Colinton  Parish.     2d  Edition.     Svo,  6s. 

Dies  Tristes  :  Sermons  for  Seasons  of  Sorrow.  Crown  Svo,  6s. 
LORIMER. 

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. 

LOVE.      Scottish  Church  Music.     Its  Composers  and  Sources. 

With  Musical  Illustrations.     By  Jajnies  Love.     Post  Svo,  7s.  6d. 

LUGARD.     The  Rise  of  our  East  African  Empire  :  Early  Efforts 

in  Uganda  and  Nyasaland.  By  F.  D.  Lugard,  Captain  Norfolk  Jlegiment. 
With  130  Illustrations  from  Drawings  and  Photographs  under  the  personal 
superintendence  of  the  Author,  and  14  specially  prepared  Maps.  In  2  vols,  large 
demy  Svo,  42s. 

M'CHESNEY.    Kathleen  Clare :  Her  Book,  1637-4L    Edited  by 

Dora  Greenavell  M'Chesney.     With  Frontispiece.     In  1  vol.  crown  Svo. 

\l'Yi  tJic  Ptess 

M'COMBIE.  Cattle  and  Cattle-Breeders.  By  William  M'Combie', 

Tillyfour.  New  Edition,  Enlarged,  with  Memoir  of  the  Author  by  James 
Macdonald,  F.R.S.E.,  Secretary  Highland  and  Agricultural  Society  of  Scotland. 
Crown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 


List  of  Books  Published  by 


M'CRIE. 

Works  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  M'Crie,  D.D.    Uniform  Edition. 

4  vols,  crown  8vo,  24s. 

Life  of  John  Knox.     Crown  8vo,  6s.    Another  Edition,  3s.  6d. 

Life  of  Andrew  Melville.     Crown  8vo,  6s. 

History  of  the  Progress  and  Suppression  of  the  Reformation 

in  Italy  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.     Crown  8vo,  4s. 

History  of  the  Progress  and  Suppression  of  the  Reformation 

in  Spain  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.     Crown  8vo,  3s.  6d. 

M'CRIE.  The  Public  Worship  of  Presbyterian  Scotland.  Histori- 
cally treated.  With  copious  Notes,  Appendices,  and  Index.  The  Fourteenth 
Series  of  the  Cunningham  Lectures.  By  the  Rev.  Charles  G.  M'Crie,  D.D. 
Demy  8vo,  10s.  6d. 

MACDONALD.  A  Manual  of  the  Criminal  Law  (Scotland)  Pro- 
cedure Act,  1887.  By  Norman  Doran  Macdonald.  Revised  by  the  Lord 
Justick-Clerk.    8vo,  10s.  6d. 

MACDONALD. 

Stephens'  Book  of  the  Farm.    Fourth  Edition.    Revised  and 

in  great  part  Rewritten  by  James  Macdonald,  F.R.S.E.,  Secretary,  Highland 
and  Agricultural  Society  of  Scotland.  Complete  in  3  vols.,  bound  with  leather 
back,  gilt  top,  £3,  3s.     In  Six  Divisional  Vols.,  bound  in  cloth,  each  10s.  6d. 

Stephens'  Catechism  of  Practical  Agriculture.     New  Edition. 

Revised  by  James  Macdonald.     With  numerous  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo,  Is. 

Pringle's  Live  Stock  of  the  Farm.    Third  Edition.     Revised 

and  Edited  by  James  Macdonald.    Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d. 

M'Combie's    Cattle    and    Cattle  -  Breeders.      New    Edition, 

Enlarged,  with  Memoir  of  the  Author  by  James  Macdonald.    Crown  8vo,  3s.  6d. 

History  of  Polled  Aberdeen  and  Angus  Cattle.     Giving  an 

Account  of  the  Origin,  Improvement,  and  Characteristics  of  the  Breed.  By  James 
Macdonald  and  James  Sinclair.  Illustrated  with  numerous  Animal  Portraits. 
Post  8vo,  12s.  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  8vo,  2s.  6d.  net. 

MACINTYRE.     Hindu  -  Koh  :  Wanderings  and  Wild  Sports  on 

and  beyond  the  Himalayas.  By  Major-General  Donald  Macintyre,  V.C,  late 
Prince  of  Wales'  Own  Goorkhas,  F.R.G.S.  Dedicated  to  H.R.H.  The,  Prince  of 
Wales,  New  and  Cheaper  Edition,  Revised,  with  numerous  Illustrations.  Post 
Svo,  3s.  6d. 

MACKAY.    A  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Fife  and  Kinross.    A 

study  of  Scottish  History  and  Character.  By  M.  J.  G.  Mackay,  Sherifif  of  these 
Counties.     Cro^vn  8vo,  6s. 

MACKAY. 

A  Manual  of  Modern  Geography  ;    Mathematical,  Physical, 

and    Political.      By  the    Rev.   Alexander    Mackay,    LL.D.,   F.R.G.S.      11th 

Thousand,  Revised  to  the  present  time.     Crowoi  Svo,  pp.  688,  7s.  6d. 

Elements  of  Modern  Geography.     55th  Thousand,  Revised  to 

the  present  time.     CroAvn  8vo,  pp.  300,  3s. 

The  Intermediate  Geography.    Intended  as  an  Intermediate 

Book  between  the  Author's  'Outlines  of  Geography'  and  'Elements  of  Geo- 
graphy.'   Seventeenth  Edition,  Revised.    Crown  8vo,  pp.  238,  2s. 

Outlines  of  Modern  Geography.     191st  Thousand,  Revised  to 

the  present  time.     18mo,  pp.  128,  Is. 

First  Steps  in  Geography.     105th  Thousand.     18mo,  pp.  56. 

Sewed,  4d.  ;  cloth,  6d. 

Elements  of  Physiography  and  Physical  Geography.    New 

Edition.     Rewritten  and  Enlarged.     With  numerous  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo. 

lIiithe'pnHs. 


William  Blackwood  and  Sons.  19 


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.  Sixth  Edition,  Edited 
by  John  Kirkpatrick,  M.A.,  LL.B.,  Advocate,  Professor  of  History  in  the 
University  of  Edinburgh.    8vo,  12s. 

MACPHERSOK     Glimpses  of  Church  and  Social  Life  in  the 

Highlands  in  Olden  Times.  By  Alexander  Macpherson,  F.S.A.  Scot.  With 
6  Photogra\aire  Portraits  and  other  full-page  Illustrations.     Small  4to,  25s. 

MTHERSON. 

Summer  Sundays  in  a  Strathmore  Parish.      By  J.  Goedon 

M'Pherson,  Ph.D.,  F.R.S.E.,  Minister  of  Ruthven.     Crown  8vo,  5s. 

Golf  and  Golfers.     Past  and  Present.     With  an  Introduction 

by  the  Right  Hon.  A.  J,  Balfour,  and  a  Portrait  of  the  Author.  Fcap.  8vo, 
Is.  6d. 

MACRAE.      A  Handbook  of  Deer-Stalking.      By  Alexander 

Macrae,  late  Forester  to  Lord  Henry  Bentinck.  With  Introduction  by  Horatio 
Ross,  Esct.     Fcap.  8vo,  Avith  2  Photographs  from  Life.     3s.  6d. 

MAIN.     Three  Hundred  English  Sonnets.     Chosen  and  Edited 

by  David  M.  Main.    Fcap.  8vo,  6s. 

MAIR.     A  Digest  of  Laws  and   Decisions,  Ecclesiastical   and 

Civil,  relating  to  the  Constitution,  Practice,  and  Affairs  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land. With  Notes  and  Forms  of  Procedure.  By  the  Rev.  William  Mair,  D.D., 
Minister  of  the  Parish  of  Earlston.    Crown  8vo.         [New  Edition  in  preparation. 

MARCHMONT  AND   THE   HUMES  OF   POLWARTH.    By 

One  of  their  Descendants.  With  numerous  Portraits  and  other  lUustrations. 
Crown  4to,  21s.  net. 

MARSHALL.    It  Happened  Yesterday.  A  Novel.   By  Frederick 

Marshall,  Author  of  '  Claire  Brandon,'  '  French  Home  Life.'    CroA\Ti  Svo,  6s. 

MARSHMAN.     History  of  India.     From  the  Earliest  Period  to 

the  present  time.  By  John  Clark  Marshman,  C.S.I.  Third  and  Cheaper 
Edition.    Post  8vo,  with  Map,  6s. 

MARTIN. 

Goethe's  Faust.    Part  I.    Translated  by  Sir  Theodore  Martin, 

K.C.B.    Second  Edition,  crown  8vo,  6s.     Ninth  Edition,  fcap.  Svo,  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.     CrowTi  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,  TJhland,  and  Others.     Crown  Svo,  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.    Third  Edition.     Small  crown  Svo,  5s. 

Aladdin :  A  Dramatic  Poem.    By  Adam  Oehlenschlaeger. 

Fcap.  Svo,  5s. 

Correggio  :  A  Tragedy.    By  Oehlenschlaeger.    With  Notes. 

Fcap.  Svo,  3s. 

MARTIN.     On  some  of  Shakespeare's  Female  Characters,     By 

Helena  Faucit,  Lady  Martin.  Dedicated  by  permission  to  Her  Most  Gracious 
Majesty  the  Queen.  Fifth  Edition.  With  a  Portrait  by  Lehmann.  Demy 
Svo,  7s.  6d. 


20  List  of  Books  Published  by 


MAKWICK.     Observations  on  the  Law  and  Practice  in  regard 

to  Municipal  Elections  and  the  Conduct  of  the  Business  of  Towni  Councils  and 
Commissioners  of  Police  in  Scotland.  By  Sir  James  D.  Marwick,  LL.D., 
Town-Clerk  of  Glasgow.     Royal  Svo,  30s. 

MATHESON. 

Can  the  Old  Faith  Live  with  the  New  ?  or,  The  Problem  of 

Evolution  and  Revelation.  By  the  Rev.  George  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.    CroAvn  Svo,  5s. 

Spiritual  Development  of  St  Paul.   Third  Edition.   Cr.  Svo,  5s. 
The  Distinctive  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions.    Second  Edi- 
tion.   Crown  Svo,  5s. 
Sacred  Songs.   New  and  Cheaper  Edition.    Crown  Svo,  2s.  6d. 
MAURICE.     The  Balance  of  Military  Power  in  Europe.     An 

Examination  of  the  War  Resources  of  Great  Britain  and  the  Continental  States, 
By  Colonel  Maurice,  R.A.,  Professor  of  Military  Art  and  History  at  the  Royal 
Staff  College.    Crown  Svo,  with  a  Map,  Gs. 

MAXWELL. 

A  Duke  of  Britain.     A  Romance  of  the  Fourth  Century. 

By  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart.,  M.P.,  F.S.A.,  &c.,  Author  of  'Passages  in 
the  Life  of  Sir  Lucian  Elphin.'     Crown  Svo,  Ts. 

Life  and  Times  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  William  Henry  Smith,  M.P. 

With  Portraits  and  numerous  Illustrations  by  Herbert  Railton,  G.  L.  Seymour, 
and  Others.     2  vols,  demy  Svo,  25s. 
Popular  Edttion.  With  a  Portrait  and  other  Illustrations.    Crown  Svo,  3s.  6d. 

Scottish  Land  Names  :  Their  Origin  and  Meaning.      JBeing 

the  Rhind  Lectures  in  Ai-cha?ology  for  1S93.    Post  Svo,  6s. 

Meridiana  :   Noontide  Essays.     Post  Svo,  7s.  6d. 

MELDRUM.  The  Story  of  Margredel :  Being  a  Fireside  His- 
tory of  a  Fifesiure  Family.  By  D.  Storrar  Meldrum.  Cheap  Edition.  Crown 
Svo,  3s.  6d. 

MICHEL.   A  Critical  Inquiry  into  the  Scottish  Language.   With 

the  view  of  Illustrating  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  Civilisation  in  Scotland.  By 
Francisque-Michel,  F.S.A.  Lond.  and  Scot.,  Correspondant  de  I'lnstitut  de 
France,  &c.    4to,  printed  on  hand-made  paper,  and  bound  in  roxburghe,  6Cs. 

MICHIE. 

The  Larch :    Being  a  Practical  Treatise  on  its  Culture  and 

General  Management.  By  Christopher  Y.  Michie,  Forester,  Cullen  House. 
Cro-wTi  Svo,  with  Illustrations.     New  and  Cheaper  Edition,  Enlarged,  5s. 

The  Practice  of  Forestry.     Crown  Svo,  with  Illustrations.    6s. 
MIDDLETON.     The  Story  of  Alastair  Bhan  Comyn ;   or.  The 

Tragedy  of  Dunphail.  A  Tale  of  Tradition  and  Romance.  By  the  Lady  Middle- 
ton.     Square  Svo,  10s.    Cheaper  Edition,  5s. 

MILLER.    Landscape  Geology.     A  Plea  for  the  Study  of  Geology 

by  Landscape  Painters.  By  Hugh  Miller,  of  H.M.  Geological  Survey.  Cro^vn 
Svo,  3s.    Cheap  Edition,  paper  cover,  Is. 

MINTO. 

A   Manual   of   English   Prose  Literature,   Biographical   and 

Critical:  designed  mainly  to  show  Characteristics  of  Style.  By  W.  Minto, 
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PATRICK.     The  Apology  of  Origen  in  Pteply  to   Celsus.     A 

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POTTS  AND  DARNELL. 

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William  Blackwood  and  Sons.  27 


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SHAD  WELL.    The  Life  of  Colin  Campbell,  Lord  Clyde.    Illus- 

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Maitland  of  Lethington ;  and  the  Scotland  of  Mary  Stuart. 

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SMITH.      Memoir  of   the  Families  of  M'Combie  and  Thorns, 

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SMITH.      Greek  Testament  Lessons  for  Colleges,  Schools,  and 

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SMITH.     The  Secretary  for  Scotland.     Being  a  Statement  of  the 

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SPROTT.   The  Worship  and  Offices  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 

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STATISTICAL  ACCOUNT  OF  SCOTLAND.    Complete,  with 

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STEPHENS. 

The  Book  of  the  Farm  ;  detailing  the  Labours  of  the  Farmer, 

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The  Book  of  Farm  Implements  and  Machines.    By  J.  Slight 

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STEVENSON.     British    Fungi.     (Hymenomycetes.)     By    Rev. 

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William  Blackwood  and  Sons.  29 


STEWART. 

Advice  to  Purchasers  of  Horses.     By  John  Steav^vrt,  V.S. 

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STEWART.  A  Hebrew  Grammar,  with  the  Pronunciation,  Syl- 
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STEWART.    Boethius  :  An  Essay.    By  Hugh  Fraser  Stewart, 

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STODDART.     Sir  Philip  Sidney  :  Servant  of  God.    By  Anna  M. 

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STORMONTH. 

Etymological   and   Pronouncing   Dictionary  of   the   English 

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TAYLOR.     The    Story    of    my    Life.      By    the    late    Colonel 

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THOMSON.     Cookery  for  the  Sick  and   Convalescent.    With 

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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 
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TWEEDIE.     The   Arabian  Horse:    His  Country  and   People. 

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William  Blackwood  and  Sons.  31 


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VIRGIL.     The  ^neid  of  Virgil.     Translated  in  English  Blank 

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WAGE.    Christianity  and  Agnosticism.    Reviews  of  some  Recent 

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WADDELL.    An  Old  Kirk  Chronicle  :  Being  a  History  of  Auld- 

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WENLEY. 

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WESTMINSTER  ASSEMBLY.     Minutes    of   the  Westminster 

Assembly,  while  engaged  in  preparing  their  Directory  for  Church  Government, 
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