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THE SCIENCE SERIES. 



1. The study of Man.— By A. C. H addon. 

2. The Groundwork of Science.— By St. Georgb 

MlVART. 

3. Rivers of North America. By Israel C. Rus- 

SBLL. 



G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York & London 



XTbe Science Series 

EDITED BY 

profcMor 5. Aclteen Cattell, AD.B., pb.2). 

AND 



THE GROUNDWORK OF 

SCIENCE 



THE GROUNDWORK 
OF SCIENCE 



A STUDY OF EPISTEMOLOGY 



•• * - 



ST. GEORGEjl'I^IVART 

M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S. 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON 

BLISS, SANDS, & CO. 
1898 



• • • 



Copyright, 1898 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Ube Itnicfccrbocker prcM, Dew rock 






PREFACE 

WE have again and again been impressed by the ready 
disposition of men whose views and opinions are 
most opposed, to agree in accepting ascertain, things which 
are by no means evident, and in adopting conclusions as 
proved, which are by no means the only consequences that 
follow from conceded premisses. Our great object, there- 
fore, in this little volume, is to represent nothing as certain 
which does not appear to us to be really evident, and yet 
not to shrink from upholding as true whatever, in our judg- 
ment, possesses the highest conceivable evidence. 

It has been our constant care to be impartial and, above 
all, to allow no consideration not purely scientific — no an- 
ticipations as to possible consequences — to influence us in 
the conclusions which our judgment has led us to form. 
Our appeal throughout has been to the dry light of reason, 
and to that alone. Not so to act; to allow any kind of 
prejudice, any non-scientific consideration, to influence us 
in such a task as an endeavour to investigate the ground- 
work of science, would be both treason to science and a 
betrayal of the cause of philosophy. 

But it is possible that to some persons the title of this book 
may prove a rock of offence, namely, persons disposed to 
doubt whether its object can be by any possibility attain- 
able. ** Is there," they may ask, " anything which can 
really merit the name of a * groundwork of science ' ; and, 

• • • 

111 






iv PREFACE 

should there be such a thing, can a knowledge of it be really 
attainable by us ? " 

To this question the answer appears to be that some 
groundwork of science there must be. For no one can deny 
that science exists, and this is obtrusively evident in our own 
time, when we are witnessing the closing days of an age 
which has been conspicuous beyond all others for scientific 
progress. Now, any science which we may select for con- 
sideration will be found to consist of some truths which are 
the results of other truths antecedently ascertained, whether 
the latter have served as incentives to more patient and 
careful observations and experiments, or whether the ante- 
cedent truths have served as premisses from which the newer 
truths have been logically inferred. These primitive and 
fundamental truths of the science selected, together with the 
efforts made to ascertain and establish them, must be allowed 
to form the groundwork of that particular science. And as 
every science must possess such primitive and fundamental 
truths, there must be a groundwork of science generally, 
even if it consists only of a collection of all the fundamental 
truths of all the several sciences. 

But can there be one common groundwork for all the 
sciences from logic to geology, however diverse may be their 
several subject-matters ? It might be supposed that such 
there cannot be, the sciences being so numerous and diverse. 
Nevertheless, there is one point which is common to them 
all. However numerous and diverse the sciences may be, 
they all agree in having been developed by one kind of 
energy, namely, that of the human mind. And, indeed, 
after putting on one side all the differences which have 
arisen from diversities of culture (qualitative and quanti- 
tative), of energy, and of industry, there is a general and 
fundamental unity in human capacity. The sciences there- 
fore being many and diverse, while the nature of the energy 



PREFACE V 

applied to their investigation is essentially one, it is evident 
that the groundwork of science must be sought in the human 
mind, and in the mind of each individual man who applies 
himself to its study — the study of Epistemology.* 

Now the mind of each one of us is, during our waking 
hours, ceaselessly active, but active in very different ways. 
We may be vaguely conscious of our existence while 
listening to some sweet melody which entrances us with its 
charm. We may be enjoying the freshness of the air and 
the augmenting brightness of the sun of a summer's day, 
hardly aware of undefined thoughts passing through our 
mind. We may be anxiously longing for the arrival of a 
friend whom we impatiently expect, or dreading the delay 
in his arrival as foreboding evil. We may be dwelling in 
fancy over events of days gone by, or looking forward to the 
future fruition of a hope long entertained. We may be 
simultaneously applying our senses of sight and touch to as- 
certain the shape and structure of some material object — a 
feather, a shell, or a work of art. We may be carrying out 
a piece of deductive reasoning, or we may be reflecting upon 
what we are about, and making sure we know, suspect, or 
doubt what we are actually cognising, suspecting, or doubt- 
ing. But if we happen to be engaged in the study and 
pursuit of science, we must be aware of what we are doing, 
and, at least occasionally, reflect upon our perceptions. 

Therefore, once more, the groundwork of science must be 
sought for in the human mind — in our own mind — when 
cognising scientific truths; especially those deemed most 
certain and far-reaching. And such truths cannot be truths 
obtained by reasoning, and cannot depend for their certainty 
on any experiments or observations alone. Such is mani- 
festly the case, since whatever truth depends on reasoning 
cannot be ultimate, but must be posterior to, and depend 

* Eitt6TTfpt?f, understanding, and Xoyoi, a discourse. 



VI PREFACE 

upon, the principles, experiments, or observations which 
show us that it is indeed true, and upon which its accept- 
ance thus depends ; while the reflex certainty of observations 
and experiments themselves also implies the recognition 
of fundamental intellectual perceptions. Therefore, the 
groundwork of science must be composed of facts and of 
truths which carry with them their own evidence — which 
are self-evident — together with our own mental activity in 
reflecting upon and recognising such propositions as being 
the self-evident truths they are. Amongst such truths (as 
we shall hereafter see) must be that of our continued exist- 
ence from day to day, and the certainty that we cannot at 
the same time continue to exist and yet cease to be, with 
others of similar nature. Such truths, it will be sought to 
show, cannot be really doubted without mental paralysis 
and self-stultification, for complete scepticism, as absolutely 
and necessarily self-destructive, is impossible for us. This 
assertion our readers are now asked to accept provisionally 
for what it may be worth, as full treatment of this and 
kindred subjects will find its place in the eighth chapter. 
They cannot be fully treated earlier, because before begin- 
ning to consider those fundamental questions, regarded as 
most essential elements of the groundwork of science, the 
way must be cleared for their due appreciation by a prelim- 
inary consideration of the various intellectual structures (the 
sciences) — the foundations common to the whole of which 
it is the purpose of this book to point out. 

At the commencement, therefore, it appears incumbent 
on us, after considering what science is and of what it must 
consist, to call attention to certain elementary facts and dis- 
tinctions without which it seems impossible to follow up any 
intellectual inquiry: such facts, e, g,, are (in our opinion) 
the essential nature both of our ideas and the words we 
make use of to express them. 



PRE FA CE Vll 

Obviously, without an adequate acquaintance with the 
nature of our ideas no one can hope to succeed in a task an 
important part of which consists in the analysis of mental 
conceptions. What factors, therefore, co-operate in their 
elicitation, and the nature of such factors, the shares they 
respectively take, and the rank of each in ideation, are 
preliminary matters which must be noted at the very com- 
mencement of this book. Similarly, no one can arrive at 
even a provisional conclusion with respect to any merely 
initial problem unless he can be satisfied that there is some 
criterion of truth and that he can avail himself of it. To 
these first steps towards an understanding of the ground- 
work of science, the earlier portion of this book must, it 
appears to us, be exclusively devoted. 

But in order to explore the groundwork of all science, it 
seems reasonable that the reader's attention should also be 
called to the different kinds of systematic and organised in- 
quiry — the different sciences about which men's minds have 
been hitherto occupied — their number, nature, and the 
various degrees of affinity and relationship existing between 
them, etc. But before we can take another step forwards 
we shall find our progress arrested by the idealists. It is 
true that we hear it said that all the physical sciences can 
be pursued and taught as well on the idealistic hypothesis, 
as on that view concerning a real, external, independent 
world existing on all sides, which is entertained by all men 
who are not idealists. This we regard as true for one reason 
only : the reason, namely, that nature is too strong for ideal- 
ism, and that no man can be always a consistent idealist, 
least of all students and adepts in physical science, who are 
continually recognising in thought and speech, and are con- 
stantly occupied about, certain bodies acting and interacting 
upon other bodies, not only quite without regard to their 
own perceptions (which need not be adverted to as being 



VIU PREFACE 

such), but with an implied perception of substantial exist- 
ences, underlying and utterly different from any plexuses 
of feelings. If we shall be compelled to admit that ideal- 
ism is true, we shall have to admit also that the groundwork, 
of science is indeed mental, in a very different sense from 
that in which we and most other men have taken it to be. 
Moreover, for our own part, we should then feel that the 
authority and certainty of other seemingly self-evident 
truths were gravely compromised, especially if a truth ap- 
parently so self-evident as the existence of our own body 
(as we and most men understand that body to exist) were 
but a delusion and self-deception of the mind. But al- 
though, even then, the most fundamental truths of all 
would still, for us, remain evident and unimpaired in their 
certainty, it nevertheless appears to us to be incumbent on 
anyone who desires to study Epistemology, to enter upon a 
serious inquiry as to the truth of idealism. 

An inquiry respecting a system which has been adopted, 
and is maintained, by so many men of eminence, not only 
in philosophy but in physical science also, can evidently be 
no light task; yet it must be undertaken and idealism ac- 
cepted or rejected before further progress is possible. If 
such an inquiry were neglected the groundwork of science 
would, we think, have to remain for the student a problem 
unsolved and (till this has been finally decided one way or 
the other) insoluble. 

The inquirer, having become once convinced of the real 
existence of an external independent world of ** things in 
themselves " should, we think, have his attention next 
called to the modes and methods wherewith science deals 
with the objects it investigates, in order to ascertain, as far 
as he may, what assumptions and convictions are implied in, 
and by, and are necessary for, all and any scientific research. 
This appears to us a desirable, if not an absolutely neces- 



PREFA CE IX 

sary, preliminary, because assumptions and convictions 
which are indispensable for the carrying on of science must 
be more or less closely connected with the groundwork 
thereof. Such an introductory inquiry, however, should, 
we think, be made only in order to ascertain what are the 
necessary implications of science, the question as to the 
objective truth of such necessary implications finding its 
place (as before said) later on, namely, towards the climax 
of our inquiry. These implications cannot but be very 
nearly related to questions concerning our highest mental 
faculties. Such must be the case, since science, in the 
widest sense of that word (including even the science of 
sciences, or metaphysics), requires for its satisfactory pro- 
secution the employment of our very noblest powers, and it 
is by them alone that we can hope to attain a knowledge of 
the most supreme and ultimate truths which our intellectual 
faculties have the power to apprehend. 

On this account, before entering upon our final inquiry as 
to what it is which constitutes the groundwork of science, 
we must study the nature and power of what seem to be our 
highest faculties; but this we cannot usefully proceed to 
do till we have taken cognisance of our ordinary mental 
powers, upon the pre-existence and exercise of which the 
possibility of such higher faculties depends. But, again, it 
is obvious that our ordinary mental powers, our emotions, 
our feelings, and the actions which thence result, are abso- 
lutely dependent on our bodily capacities, and our bodily 
powers are not less entirely dependent upon our corporeal 
structure. 

Therefore, in order duly to comprehend our highest in- 
tellectual faculties, we needs must begin with a consideration 
of at least some points in the construction of the human 
body — especially that of such parts as minister to feeling in 
general, and to our special senses, such as sight and hearing. 



X PREFA CE 

But to appreciate what the human body is, it is necessary, 
since nothing can be understood by itself, to learn some- 
thing also about other animals, so that we may know what 
is the place occupied in nature by that living body of ours 
which possesses powers and attributes so wonderful. But a 
mere study of structure — of anatomy — can serve but to 
supply us with a knowledge of the material elements indis- 
pensable to human thought and feeling. We must also, 
therefore, acquire some knowledge as to how the various 
parts and organs of the body act during its life, and how 
that life is maintained, how the body is formed and nour- 
ished, and how, if need be, injuries that it may suffer are 
repaired. The living energy of the body, apart from the 
feelings and sentiments to which it may give rise, requires 
to be understood in a certain degree before we advance to 
the consideration of our feelings and sentiments themselves. 
Such an elementary acquaintance with both anatomy and 
physiology will serve to pave the way for our entrance upon 
the first stage of our proper subject, namely, the study of 
the human mind in its ultimate pursuit of science. In the 
first stage of this psychological inquiry, it will be necessary 
to consider what our own intellect tells us concerning the 
various kinds and orders of psychical activity whereof our 
total mental life is made up. It is evidently desirable to 
ascertain what, if any, psychical activities besides sensation 
are most closely connected therewith, what are most allied 
in nature to our unconscious energies, and whether by the 
aid of reflection, memory, and inference, we can detect the 
existence of psychical states of which we were unconscious 
when they were being actually carried on. Evidently, it will 
also be desirable to ascertain, if possible, whether in the 
absence of consciousness we possess any other central and 
unifying psychical faculty, and, if so, what are its utmost 
powers and capabilities. Very special attention also needs 



PRE FA CE XI 

to be given to the consideration of the phenomena of 
instinct. 

But as idealists appear to bar the way to what, for all but 
themselves, can alone lead to a satisfactory Epistemology, so 
a distinguished school of naturalists oppose an analogous, 
though very different, obstacle to our even entertaining a 
reasonable hope that we may be able to see and comprehend 
what are and must be the foundations of science. 

What confidence, it has been asked, can we place in the 
declaration of an ape's mind ? Now we by no means admit 
that were the human intellect and the highest powers of 
brutes really of one kind (so that the essential rationality of 
animals was simply restrained by circumstances from making 
itself manifest), any valid ground for distrusting truths, 
which to us are self-evident, would thence arise. On the 
contrary, instead of giving us good reasons for such distrust, 
it would but supply us with an amply sufficient motive for 
an enormously increased regard for what we might certainly 
then, with reason, call our ** poor relations.*' What seems 
to us to be clear and indisputably evident in and by itself, 
and what reason demonstrates absolutely, can be none the 
less true on account of its cause and origin, or the mode in 
which it may have become manifest. It is plain that in our 
own case the truths which are for us most certain must 
have been gained through the evolution and development 
of psychical power latent in the mind of an unconscious in- 
fant, which once showed no sign whatever of rationality. 
Why then should we distrust the dictates of a mind evolved 
from creatures which, though giving no evidence of actual 
rationality, afford us far more signs of cognitive energy than 
does the child for some time after its birth ? 

Nevertheless, since there are so many persons who do feel 
a sceptical distrust of their reason on account of the source 
from whence they believe it to have had its origin, it will. 



Xil PRE FA CE 

we think, be most advisable to consider carefully the ques- 
tion whether or not there seems to be a difference of kind 
between the highest psychical energy found present in the 
brute and the intellect of man. This is simply a question 
of fact. 

Now, since man certainly possesses, besides his intellect, 
the sensitivity, faculty of sense-association, desires, emo- 
tions, instincts, and powers of emotional manifestation with 
which the higher animals are endowed, it will be incumbent 
on us to ascertain whether man's lower mental faculties, with- 
out the exercise of conscious intellect, will not suffice to ex- 
plain all the various more or less intelligent actions which 
mere animals display. Should such turn out to be the case, 
and should both the positive and negative evidence concern- 
ing rationality concur in affirming that there is no need to 
attribute intellect to animals, then it must be admitted that 
a difference of kind is thereby demonstrated to exist be- 
tween them and ourselves. But there is one other question 
which requires very special care in its examination. It is 
plain that, as a rule, all men speak while animals are dumb. 
A special consideration is therefore demanded for language. 
If it should prove that we have two sets of faculties (higher 
and lower), have we also two corresponding modes of ex- 
pression ? It is plain that we and animals make signs. It 
will be necessary, therefore, carefully to inquire and distin- 
guish as to what a sign really is, and, if there are different 
kinds of signs, what relation they bear to the intellect ? It 
will be further most necessary to examine the relations which 
exist between gestures and vocal expressions, and, above all, 
the relations which both of these bear to thought and to the 
faculty of forming and communicating abstract ideas, and 
the perception of relations as such. But that we may not, 
through neglect, underestimate the psychical powers of 
animals, it will be well to pass in review some of the more 



PREFACE xiil 

striking anecdotes of animal intelligence in both the lower 
and higher classes of the animal kingdom. Remarkably 
divergent forms of speech of both infants and savages would 
likewise seem to require some notice, as also the question as 
to the origin of speech. 

' If the result of this somewhat prolonged inquiry should be 
a conviction that between the highest psychical powers of 
men and animals there is a difference of kind — ^a difference 
absolute and not consisting of degrees of difference — it 
would then be a question whether such a breach of con- 
tinuity, such a new departure, stands alone, or whether there 
are others, analogous sudden interruptions, to be met with 
in nature ? If we become convinced that it is an unques- 
tionable fact that there are other breaches of continuity — 
such, for example, as between the inorganic and organic 
worlds and between insentient and sentient organisms — then 
^1 /rwr/ probability will become thereby established in favour 
of a breach of continuity between merely sentient animality 
and the rational animality of man. 

All these introductory inquiries (as to the conditions nec- 
essary for the existence of science; as to idealism ; as to 
what science implies ; as to both physical and psychical 
antecedents of science; and as to the place in nature of the 
human intellect) having been disposed of, we shall next have 
to examine into our own highest intellectual powers. In 
beginning that examination, existing circumstances, and 
the prevalent prejudices of the day, compel us expressly 
to consider the bearing upon our estimate as to the rank 
and value of our own mental powers, of the widely ac- 
cepted doctrine of " natural selection.** If we come to 
recognise that we are in the possession of self-evident 
truths which could never have given their possessors an 
improved chance of survival, then it is clear that our 
apprehension of such truths could never have been gained 



XIV PREFACE 

by ** natural selection," but must be altogether independ- 
ent thereof. 

But it is evidently necessary, in order to decide this ques- 
tion, that we should be acquainted with those of our powers 
which we might expect to be least dependent on ** natural 
selection,*' and for this it will be necessary to revert (once 
more, and more fully) to the questions of certainty and of 
what must be, if anything can be, its criterion. This, again, 
will necessarily lead us to examine more carefully the pos- 
sible self-evidence of propositions, the knowledge of our 
own existence, and the trustworthiness of memory as vouch- 
ing for such existence in the past. 

Then, also, if we conclude it to be true that we can know 
objects of knowledge as they exist objectively (or in them- 
selves) the problem .of the special relation which must, in 
that case, exist between ** subject " and ** object," will 
have to be investigated. The decision of this question will 
naturally lead us to a further investigation of first principles 
underlying all our reasoning, what they are, and whether 
we can attain to an evident and logical adjustment of truths. 
Amongst the most important of such principles, and one 
about which the most vigorous disputations have taken 
place, is the principle of causation. The truth and validity 
of this principle, if it can once be established, have evidently 
most important consequences bearing upon the cause and 
origin of our own intuitions, and upon the existence, quali- 
ties, and powers of the entire cosmos. Here the theory of 
** natural selection " again courts our notice ; and its 
bearing on the living world will have to be considered in 
the light derived from that far larger and more enduring 
world, which is inorganic and lifeless. The question con- 
cerning the significance of human faculty as a part of the 
universe will come next, and bring to a conclusion all but 
the main question to be dealt with. 



PREFACE XV 

When, in our final chapter, we have to apply ourselves 
directly to that main question, in the light derived from the 
various preceding investigations, the groundwork of science 
will, we are persuaded, be found to consist of three divisions : 
the labourers who work, the tools they must employ, and 
that which constitutes the field of their labour. Taking 
the last first, it will, we think, appear that the matter of 
science is partly physical and partly psychical. In relation 
with the former, questions concerning the various physical 
energies, matter, motion, space, and time must be noted, 
and an inquiry made as to the value of a mechanical theory 
of the universe, and the reasons why it is so commonly ac- 
ceptable. Next must come some reference to the tools 
which must be made use of, namely, those first principles 
and universal, necessary, self-evident truths which lie, so 
frequently unnoticed, within the human intellect, and which 
are absolutely indispensable for valid reasoning. ^ Finally, 
the nature of the workers themselves must also be noticed, 
as necessarily affecting the value of their work; and, last of 
all, a few words must be devoted to the question whether 
there is any, and, if any, what, foundation underlying the 
whole groundwork of science, and giving support and 
validity to that entire conception of the universe which an 
impartial study of the phenomena it exhibits may have led 
us to regard as alone consonant with the dictates of reason. 

St. G. M. 



CONTENTS 

PACE 

^ K XL Jr ^k^ •• • • • • • • •111 

CHAPTER I 
Introductory i 

CHAPTER II 
An Enumeration of the Sciences i6 

CHAPTER III 
The Objects of Science 34 

CHAPTER IV 
The Methods of Science 89 

CHAPTER V 
The Physical Antecedents of Science 108 

CHAPTER VI 
The Psychical Antecedents of Science 137 

CHAPTER VII 

Language and Science z86 

xvii 



xviii CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER VIII 
Intellectual Antecedents of Science 215 



CHAPTER IX 
Causes of Scientific Knowledge 255 

CHAPTER X 
The Nature of the Groundwork of Science .... 296 



i 



THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 



THE 
GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 



CHAPTER I 

IN TROD UCTOR Y 

THE century now so near its close has been distinguished 
from all preceding centuries by the rapid, varied, and 
continuous progress in science that it has witnessed. An 
interest in, and a real love for, science have by degrees 
<:eased to be confined to a limited society of experts, and 
have happily become diffused far and wide amongst all 
classes of society. 

T hfi scientific sp irit J^s, above all, an inquiring spi rit. It 
can never rest satisfied with what has become known, but 
must ever press on in all directions into fields of truth yet 
unexplored, and even seek to ascend into regions commonly 
deemed inaccessible to human research. But the results of 
these praiseworthy endeavours, however successful they may \- 
be, cannot by themselves fully satisfy the scientific mind. 
It is not only the phenomena surrounding us which demand 
exploration. Reason cannot be satisfied until it has probed, 
to the utmost of its power, the depths of science itself, and 
either ascertained what is and must be its ultimate founda- 



/ 



2 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

tions, or assured itself that such fundamental knowledge is 
beyond the scope and power of human endeavour. 

It is not enough for the true man of science to be ac- 
quainted with many sciences, and to reflect on the know- 
ledge he so possesses. The rational mind sooner or later 
seeks to know what is the basis of his own knowledge and 
the ultimate groundwork of all science. It thus calls for a 
science of science, and cannot rest satisfied without a pur- 
suit of Epistemology, or the study of the grounds of all the 
learning the mind of man can acquire. 

It is an attempt to satisfy this rational desire to which the 
present volume is devoted. Such an attempt appears to us 
greatly needed at the present time when every branch of 
science is rapidly becoming more and mf)re subdivided. 
For the fact of that very subdivision makes a comprehensive 
contemplation of science and of nature, as one whole, both 
more and more difficult, and also more and more requisite 
for the satisfaction of the intellect. 

Epistemology is a product of mental maturity, individual 
and racial ; but, sooner or later, a demand for it is inevitable, 
while the attainment of a satisfactory response to that de- 
mand is not only a thing to be pursued for its own sake, but 
will be found an aid to the study of every separate science 
and an introduction to them all. • This science of the 
grounds and groundwork of science is one to the study of 
which gifted minds are spontaneously impelled, as ordinary 
minds are impelled to acquire at least the rudiments of 
ordinary scientific truth. For all men (not congenitally de- 
fective) are, in fact, forced by a natural and spontaneous 
impulse to seek and to acquire some knowledge. To most» 
knowledge is pleasurable, while many pursue it with passion, 
and find in its possession a perennial source of happiness. 

Amongst the latter are to be found men of the noblest 
minds ; for though right action, rather than right thinking. 



IN TROD UCTOR Y 3 

constitutes the highest human activity, yet the will cannot 
act with good effect unless the intellect be first sufficiently 
informed. 

The earliest known ages of man's existence have afforded 
us pictorial evidence of some endeavour after knowledge, 
while the relics of Egypt, Babylon, and China speak plainly 
j)fj ts deliberate and systematic pursuit. 

But an ordered, systematic pursuit of knowledge is 
" science " ; for ** science " is but the careful and exact ap- 
plication of ordinary reason and good sense to the examina- 
tion of any object we seek, as best we may, to understand. 
The endeavour thus to obtain the most complete knowledge 
possible about any subject of investigation, whatever it may 
be, constitutes the highest form of science, for it necessitates 
the study of Epistemology. 

When we first deliberately and reflectively survey the 
world about us, we may well be appalled by the immense 
variety of objects and activities which on every side seem to 
solicit our attention. Striking differences, however, be- 
tween many of these become at once obvious, and, little by 
little, they are found to arrange themselves in groups ac- 
cording to their apparent degrees of likeness and unlikeness. 
Such groups roughly correspond with those various branches 
of human inquiry which have grown into distinct yet con- 
nected systems of ordered knowledge, familiarly known as 
so many different sciences. Among them are the sciences 
which deal with the celestial bodies; with the earth, its 
structure and formation; with the multitudinous tribes of 
living creatures which people its surface, and with the 
human race. 

Ordered and systematic knowledge considers such subjects 
from various points of view and along different lines of 
thought. But two questions commonly suggest themselves 
with respect to each new object or event which comes within 



4 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

the sphere of our experience. Having recognised-it^^xist- 
ence, or_** that it is," the first of these questions, asks, 
^"""What is it ? " ; the second makes the inquiry, ** Why is 
it ? " Whence does it arise ? How does it come to be ? 

Demands which thus rise to the lips even of the child 
must assuredly be included amongst the problems which 
systematic knowledge investigates. They constitute indeed 
the most searching inquiries which science can carry on with 
respect to whatsoever objects may become the subject of its 
labours. To classify each object or event with its congeners 
is one great end of scientific inquiry, and such an end was 
attained in each case when the fundamental similarity be- 
came understood between the fall of any object to the earth's 
surface and the moon's motions; between the electric spark 
and the lightning's flash ; and between that hugest of the 
ocean's inhabitants, the whale, and the little bat which flits 
through the summer air at twilight. These may serve as 
familiar examples of approximate answers to the question, 
** What is it ? " The origin of the solar system, the ex- 
planation of reflex and sensori-motor actions,* and the 
genesis of new species of animals and plants, are instances 
of most interesting scientific inquiries as to the '* how" 
and ** why " of matters of scientific or of ordinary experi- 
ence. 

Knowledge is initiated in the individual by the actions of 
surrounding objects upon his organs of sense, which objects 
the child becomes gradually able to perceive more or less 
distinctly. Self-knowledge is of later origin, and much ac- 
quaintance with the external world is acquired before the 
attention of anyone becomes directed to his own mental 
processes and his internal experiences. 

^ Movements which take place independent of the will on the occurrence of 
some sensation, as the movements of swallowing take place when a morsel is 
felt at the back part of the mouth. 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

So it is with the lower races of mankind and the least 
cultivated members of civilised communities. Physical 
phenomena attract their attention almost exclusively, and 
usually they attend but slightly, or hardly at all, to matters 
psychical. All men also, however cultivated, are continually 
impelled and compelled to notice what they regard as sur- 
rounding objects, to the apprehension of which the mind 
applies itself with extreme facility. But they are by no 
means so often impelled to notice their own mental states. 

Now, as we all know, ** practice makes perfect," and new 
or unfamiliar modes of activity are generally at first unwel- 
come and performed with comparative difficulty. It is small 
wonder, then, that to most men the study of their own 
minds and mental processes is at first both repugnant and 
difficult. 

But a moment's reflection will suffice to make clear to the 
reader that if he would become acquainted with the ground- 
work of science, he must also carefully inform himself re- 
specting the means and conditions indispensable for that 
inquiry. No language can be fully understood without a 
knowledge of its grammar, and no art can be successfully 
pursued by anyone who is ignorant as to the nature and 
use of the tools needed for its exercise. Obviously the 
study of objects and actions around us, as they are com- 
monly apprehended, and also as the results of the most care- 
ful examination, lies at the base of every science, and is 
therefore closely connected with the study of the ground- 
work of science. But none of the objects of any science, 
however simply physical, can be comprehended by us with- 
out the employment of certain mental tools of different 
kinds, which must be used in the right manner. No science 
can be properly cultivated without a certain amount of hard 
work, and in order to lay bare and see clearly the founda- 
tions of all science, such work is especially needed. It is 



6 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

on this account we have chosen for our title The Ground- 
work of Science^ it being our desire to point out not only 
what those foundations are, but also the tools to be used 
and the kind of work requisite for their discovery and 
correct apprehension. The study of psychical states being 
thus indispensable, it is fortunate that the difficulty anyone 
may find in turning the mind inwards upon itself can soon 
be overcome ; for the faculties of introspection and retro- 
spection, like our other faculties, can be strengthened by 
exercise, and all that is ordinarily needed to perfect it is 
patient perseverance. 

Perceptions of external and internal facts are primary 
elements of science. But neither physical facts alone, nor 
mental facts alone, will suffice for even the commencement 
of science. For that, conceptions, which are the result of 
both, are needed. The facts our senses make known to us 
are the existences and actions of what we regard as in- 
dividual objects, while mental facts are individual states of 
what is known as ** the mind " : states in which we act or 
are acted on. All that we thus know are real individual (or 
concrete) existences and activities. But with such materials 
only the intellect could do no work at all. Thoughts, of 
which words are the external signs, relate not to what con- 
cerns external or internal individual things, but each thought 
relates to many things of the same kind, i, ^., to ** univers- 
al." Almost always thoughts, and the words which ex- 
press them, refer to and denote what is abstract instead of 
concrete, and what is universal instead of individual. The 
thought symbolised by the word " triangle " does not refer 
to any individual, concrete triangle, nor even to a definite 
kind of triangle {e, g,y to an equilateral or non-equilateral 
one), but refers to " triangle-in-general '* — to a triangle con- 
sidered as abstract and universal, and to all triangles as 
members of one class of figures. It is the same with every 



IN TROD UCTOR Y 7 

noun-substantive which is not a proper name, with every 
adjective, and with every verb. The words ** apple," 
" red," " fallen," are equally applicable to every kind of 
apple, to whatever object is of a red tint, and to everything 
which has fallen from a higher, to a lower level. 

It is impossible intelligently to utter the simplest sentence 
— no savage could even say "Spear broken!" without 
making use of highly abstract ideas. Indeed, the highest 
and most abstract of all ideas, that of '' being " or '' exist- 
ence," is necessarily implied in every statement we make 
and every question we ask. Again, no progress in science 
is possible without apprehending degrees of likeness and 
unlikeness, perceptions as to which constitute the basis of 
all classification. But neither " likeness " nor " unlikeness " 
can, of course, exist by itself in the concrete, and no single 
object taken by itself can be either one or the other. But 
as with likeness, so with every relation in which one object 
or action can possibly stand to another object or action, we 
can only apprehend it by means of an abstract idea, and as 
all science consists of a study and comprehension of " re- 
lations," so all science is essentially abstract, although 
derived from, and accurately applicable to, real concrete 
states of real concrete things. 

** Thoughts " in one sense are concrete, individual mental 
(or psychical) realities, as truly as a heap of stones are con- 
crete physical realities. But the meaning of a thought and 
its oral expression — e, ^., " triangle " or ** apple " — is (as 
just said) abstract. Nevertheless, it is not purely mental, 
but refers to real things which constitute the ** class " to 
which the abstract term refers — the class of triangles and the 
class of apples — each real concrete member of each such 
class possessing the real concrete characters referred to by 
the abstract term. Thus these ** thoughts " so considered 
are not simply mental any more than simply physical. 



8 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

They are ideas which have their roots in the real concrete 
character of real concrete things. Therefore what we mainly 
make use of are th^se activities of a mixed nature — ^in essence 
psychical and in reference, generally, physical. It is thus 
we apprehend the relations between the various existences 
known to us. And the work of science may be said to con- 
sist (i) in the accurate classification of perceived objects, and 
the relations which exist between them, both simultaneous 
and successive — which are often called ** the co-existences 
and sequences of phenomena " — and (2) in estimating the 
possibility, probability, necessity, or impossibility of their 
recurrence. Thus are formulated what are commonly called 
** laws of nature." Some of these so-called ** laws" are 
termed ** empirical," because they merely express co-exist- 
ences and sequences which have been observed to exist as 
facts, apart from any knowledge of the causes which produce 
them. Necessary laws, on the other hand, are such as we 
can perceive to be the inevitable result of known causes, or 
such as possess other evidence of their universal truth. 
Some scientific truths must be directly evident (in and 
through perception) or science could make no beginning; 
but we must also be able to attam to truths which are 
indirectly evident (in and through reasoning or infer- 
ence), otherwise we could make no progress, and so sci- 
ence would remain a mere mass of empirically ascertained 
data. 

Now, amongst the laws of nature are the laws which, so 
to speak, regulate the mode in which mental processes 
should be carried on in order to secure valid and satisfactory 
results and to avoid mistakes and fallacies in our judgments 
and inferences. Therefore, since science depends, and must 
depend, largely on reasoning, it imperatively requires not 
only the greatest care with respect to the observation of 
facts, but also the greatest care that, in our inferences, those 



IN TROD UCTOR Y 9 

laws of thought the violation of which induces error, should 
in no case be disobeyed. 

In every human perception, and therefore of course in 
every perception wherewith science is concerned, there are 
two constituents — (i) the mental or ** subjective" constit- 
uent — the psychical modification of the subject, L e., of 
him who perceives — and (2) the external or ** objective" 
constituent — that (of whatever it may consist and whatever 
be its cause) which is the object cognised or perceived in the 
psychical act of cognition or perception on the part of the 
subject. Again, in every act of intellectual cognition or 
perception, there are also two elements — (i) the sensational 
and (2) the intellectual. 

In the earliest stages of mental life, psychical action — 
though no doubt partly excited by internal feelings (that is, 
by feelings due to physical changes in the internal bodily 
organs) — is mainly roused to activity, as before said, by the 
action of external bodies upon the infant's organs of sense 
and, through them, upon its central and supreme nervous 
organ, its brain. Numerous feelings are thus aroused and 
subsequently experienced again and again in various com- 
binations of co-existence and sequence of feelings thus 
excited by external objects. These experiences lay the 
foundation for subsequent minute brain modifications, the 
accompaniment of which are what we call ** mental images," 
"imaginations," or " phantasmata." Such mental phe- 
nomena are internal feelings, and resemble, more or less 
closely, the feelings previously excited by external objects. 

Without the aid of such mental images, or imaginations, 
it is impossible for us to think at all, while it is impossible 
for us to imagine aught save things which our senses have 
previously experienced, either entire or in their constituent 
parts. Our sense-impressions can, as it seems to us, alone 
furnish a basis and support on which the intellect may build 



lO THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

and act, and it can build nothing except upon a foundation 
of sense-impressions, nor can it take a step without the aid 
of the imagination. Thus sensations and subsequent mental 
images are both the necessary antecedents and also the in- 
dispensable accompaniments of all our ideas, however ab- 
stract or refined. 

Nevertheless, it would (in our opinion) be the greatest 
mistake possible to affirm that there is absolutely nothing in 
the intellect save what previously existed in our sensations. 
To say this would be to deny the essential distinctness which 
exists between ** ideas " and ** feelings," whether the latter 
are " sensations ** or ** mental images." As to the signifi- 
cation of the word ** idea," our definition would be ** an 
intellectual representation of an object either actually exist- 
ing or merely possible." 

One or two examples may suffice to show how, by the 
help of sensations, and mental images, the mind rises to the 
conceptions of ideas beyond the power of mere feeling. 
Thus we often refer to some past " experience," and the 
idea is a sufficiently familiar one, yet that idea cannot pos- 
sibly be a faint reproduction of past feelings, for ** experi- 
ence " is an abstract term, and, therefore, denotes something 
which never could have been felt at all. By receiving or 
obtaining over and over again feelings of the same or of 
different kinds, we may feel them more easily, more pleasur- 
ably, or (as is too often the case) more painfully. But to 
undergo such changes of feeling, and to obtain the idea 
** experience," are two very different things. 

Again, we can all form an idea of the action of our eyes 
in seeing (our act of sight), yet that act of seeing was never 
itself felt, nor can the idea be decomposed into mere feelings 
— it contains much more. We may have certain feelings in 
our eyeballs while looking, but even if we could feel (which 
we cannot) every minute action of every part of the eyes 



INTRODUCTOR Y 1 1 

and of the brain's complex mechanism, such feelings would 
be no ** idea of the act of seeing." Among the constant 
experiences of our daily life are our perceptions of different 
shades of colour, and different feelings have accompanied 
such perceptions. But of " colour" we have. never once 
had a feeling ; yet we have a clear idea of it and often speak 
of it. 

We have certainly another idea which was never felt, and 
that is our idea of " nothing," or " nonentity." It is very 
certain thjt past sensations can never account for that con- 
ceptionj^'which is nevertheless commonly enough employed. 
How often do we not hear such expressions as ** It is worth 
nothing," or, " There is nothing in it " ? 

That our powers of mental conception are not tied down 
to experience is shown by the very fact that we can conceive 
of its not being so tied down, and also that we conceive of 
other senses besides those which we possess — such, e. g.y as 
senses which might enable us to feel the chemical composi- 
tion, or the magnetic currents and condition, of different 
bodies. We can conceive of possible experiences which are 
as remote from being actual as would be perceptions of 
colour gained by most carefully listening with the ear, or 
musical harmonies detected by specially contrived lenses 
carefully fitted to our microscopes. 

This essential distinction may be further shown by the 
fact that one and the same intellectual conception can be 
initiated and supported by a variety of very different sets of 
feelings, while a single set of feelings may initiate and sup- 
port a number of divergent intellectual conceptions. Thus 
the one abstract idea, " motion," may be initiated or sup- 
ported by our actual experience or mere imagination of (i) 
the sight of something traversing our field of vision ; (2) a 
feeling of something slipping through the hand ; (3) a sound 
as of falling waters; (4) one like that accompanying the 



12 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

ascent of a rocket; (5) the sight of a bow and arrow, a 
musket, or a pile of cannon-balls ; (6) the name of a well- 
known race-horse; (7) dance-music from a familiar ballet; 
(8) the smell of a fox, and so on. 

So also with a single set of feelings, such as those we 
might experience after gazing upon a marble statue of 
Shakespeare : its aspect, or even our mere recollection of it, 
might give rise to and support a number of very diverse in- 
tellectual conceptions. Thus it might lead us to conceive 
of (i) the man Shakespeare who once lived; (2) the Eliza- 
bethan age ; (3) the man's merit as a dramatist ; (4) of poetry 
as an art; (5) plays we have seen acted; (6) theatrical mise 
en seine ; (7) the name and merit of the statue's sculptor; 
(8) the appearance of the marble ; (9) the mountains of Car- 
rara; (10) the geographical age of the limestone; (11) the 
creatures which existed whilst it was being deposited; (12) 
marble as a substance; (13) the particular piece making the 
statue; (14) individuality; and lastly (15) the idea of being 
or existence. 

To state this distinction as shortly as possible, it may be 
pointed out that our sensitive faculty is affected by sur- 
rounding objects in various ways, but that it is the intellect 
alone which can apprehend the relations in which they 
stand to it and to each other, and that such relations do, in 
fact, exist. But it is plain that to understand the relative 
position of two objects, we must perceive both of them and 
turn back the mind (reflect) from the last to the first per- 
ceived. Without so doing, their spatial relations, their re- 
lations as to position, could not possibly be apprehended. 
^ Again, feelings (both sensations and imaginations) can 
never reflect on feelings ; but thought can reflect on thought. 
Feeling may be so intense as to annihilate itself and pro- 
duce insensibility — as light may dazzle and blind; but an 
idea can never be too bright and clear, and no amount of 



INTRODUCTORY 1 3 

vividness on the part of the intellect can mar intellectual 
perception. 

The profound and essential distinction which exists be- 
tween (i) an idea, or intellectual conception, and (2) a 
feeling — felt or imagined — is particularly conspicuous with 
respect to our idea of ** being " or ** existence/* That idea 
is so fundamental that it is simply applicable to everything, 
while without it nothing can be apprehended. No group of 
feelings could possibly give us a feeling of ** being," because 
there neither is nor can be one feeling common to all other 
feelings, and yet a feeling of a distinguishable kind. Never- 
theless, though we have no ** feeling" of ** being," the 
idea of ** being " lies at the root of all our conceptions, and 
IS present (though, of course, it is not reflected on) in the 
mind of the, young child who asks what that '* thing " is. 
It may be Well further to contrast our ** feelings " and our 
" intellectual perceptions " from yet another point of view. 

In the pursuit of every science we have to make use of 
both, and the way we should regard them — the relations in 
which they stand to each other — is supremely important for 
those who would enter upon the science of the sciences — 
Epistemology. To determine what is most certain and most 
fundamental, it is obvious that we need to see clearly what 
is and must be the nature of our absolute and ultimate 
criterion of truth in all cases. 

There are some persons who would assign the dignity of 
an ultimate test of reality and truth to our sensitive faculty. 
But a little careful consideration will be enough to show the 
investigator that it is the intellect alone which is, and must 
be, supreme; and this not only in judging about recondite 
problems, but even in deciding concerning things which 
we see, hear, feel, etc., and concerning all concrete experi- 
ences as they actually occur. Thus, even with those matters 
which can be submitted to the test of sensation, the last 



14 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

word, in all cases of doubt, rests with the intellect and not 
with the senses. It might seem that in making experiments 
with different bodies (as in chemistry), when we directly ap- 
peal to our senses for information, those senses must be our 
ultimate criterion ; yet such is not the case. The enormous 
value and indispensable nature of our sensations is obvious 
and unquestionable. Observation and experiment are al- 
ways, of course, to be made use of, when possible, for verify- 
ing our inferences. Nevertheless, in the last resource, when 
we have done experimenting, how do we know, with absolute 
certainty, that we have obtained such results as we may have 
obtained ? Manifestly by the intellect. How otherwise are 
we to judge between what may seem to be the conflicting 
indications of different sense-impressions ? Nothing could 
be more foolish than to undervalue the testimony of the 
senses, which are both tests and causes of certainty. They 
are not, however, the test of it. Certainty does not pertain 
to sensation, but to thought alone. Self-conscious, reflect- 
ive thought, then, is our ultimate and absolute criterion. It 
is by thought only — by the self-conscious intellect — that we 
know we have ** feelings *' at all. Without that we might 
indeed feel, but we could not have complete certainty as to 
our feeling and know assuredly that we possessed it. Our 
ultimate court of appeal and supreme criterion is the intel- 
lect and not sense, and our act of intellectual perception 
which is thus ultimate, which both knows what it knows and 
knows that it knows it, with absolute certainty, which is 
above any possibility of proof and is self-evident in and to 
itself, is called ** intellectual intuition." 

The matters thus put forward in a simple elementary way 
in this introductory chapter will be treated of more fully 
and scientifically when we begin to grapple with the most 
fundamental questions concerning human knowledge. We 
have here somewhat anticipated what we shall have to say 



INTROD UCTOR Y 1 5 

in our eighth chapter. We have, however, felt ourselves 
forced so to do, as otherwise we could hardly make clear 
matters we must deal with almost immediately. 

Here, at the outset, we take for granted that a world of 
material, independent objects, possessing various powers and 
activities, exists about us ; also that we possess a material, 
extended body, so organised as to produce in us feelings of 
various kinds which are closely connected with our percep- 
tions and our judgments. 

Taking these data provisionally as unquestionable facts, 
it may, we think, suffice to affirm and point out what will 
be fully demonstrated later on, that, though in the investi- 
gation of science we should make use of all our available 
powers and faculties — our powers of feeling, imagination, 
sensuous perception, memory, and inference — ^yet that our 
intellect's declaration, as to what is here and now certainly 
and self-evidently true, is our supreme guide, and the most 
powerful and effective instrument for our use in every inquiry 
we make. A provisional assent to this statement and a 
temporary obedience to the law thus set forth, is all we wish 
to ask of those who would follow us in our investigation 
concerning the groundwork of science. 



CHAPTER II 

AN ENUMERA TION OF THE SCIENCES 

A BRIEF enumeration of the principal sciences, the 
groundwork of which it is our business to inquire 
into, may fitly, we think, precede the inquiry itself. 

Various attempts have been made at a classification of the 
sciences according to the subjects about which they are oc- 
cupied ; some sciences being set down as ** abstract,** others 
as ** abstract-concrete," and yet others as ** concrete" 
simply. 

All such attempts we regard as futile. Every science is 
a definitely organised system of recognised relations between 
thoughts and objects, between thoughts and thoughts, and 
between objects and objects ; and no science can be learned 
save by the aid of language, spoken, written, or both. But 
all language is highly abstract ; nor can the most concrete 
objects {e, ^., a tray of specimens of different minerals) be 
apprehended and compared save by the aid of very abstract 
ideas. 

On the other hand, not the most abstract of all ideas, that 
of ** being," or ** existence," can be made use of without 
reference to some concrete reality to which that idea truly 
applies. Even the most extreme of idealists, he who thinks 
that the whole universe about him is but the creation of his 
own mind, or he who deems it (his own being and thoughts 
included) to be but passing phases of some other unknown 

i6 



AN ENUMERATION OF THE SCIENCES 1 7 

mind — each such idealist must regard that mind he so con- 
ceives of as a concrete reality and the object of thought. 

Everything which can be an object of study has multi- 
tudinous relations, of most varied orders, to other objects 
and to the mind which studies it. A sphere of crystal, as 
being a single object, solid, transparent, spherical, of a 
definite weight, of a certain chemical composition, of a cer- 
tain temperature, capable of projection in various directions 
and at definite velocities, as a manufactured object, made 
in a certain locality, for a definite purpose, etc., etc., ob- 
viously possesses numerous relations, and cannot be fully 
understood save from many points of view and by the aid 
of abstract ideas of very different orders. 

How difficult, then, must be the task of classifying the 
sciences according to the degrees of abstraction made use of 
by them, seeing that every one of them is, in fact, highly 
abstract. It is true that an effort might be made to classify 
them on other lines, as, for example, from an historical 
point of view. This, however, would obviously be most 
unsatisfactory were we to try and arrange them in the order 
wherein the objects they treat of become known in the 
history of the individual mind ; and hardly less unsatisfactory 
would be an endeavour to arrange according to the date of 
their origin as sciences. Could astrology and alchemy be 
deemed incipient stages of astronomy and chemistry ? The 
mere fact that such a question can be asked is enough to 
lead us to abandon the task of attempting an historical 
classification. 

For our part, we shall not try to construct any classifica- 
tion of the sciences at all, but will content ourselves with 
the humble task of their brief enumeration, endeavouring, 
at the same time, to indicate some of their logical relations 
one to another. 

Indeed, reason, it seems, does not permit us to concede 



1 8 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

that any one science has an indefeasible claim to priority, 
for conflicting, apparently equal, claims point in various 
directions. 

Our own body is the object we most intimately know, 
and next might be ranked the objects most closely related 
to us, and with which we are the most familiar. But such 
things, taken together, do not constitute any distinct science. 

There is, however, one property which belongs to them 
and to everything else we can think of likewise — to every 
separate object, natural or artificial, to every motion or ap- 
pearance, and even to every thought we can entertain about 
any possible object. 

To know anything whatever, is to know that it is distinct 
from something else. Two marbles, alike in colour, size, 
shape, and weight, are known with perfect certainty to be 
distinct, though we may not, when apart, be able to tell one 
from the other. We recognise them as two things of the 
same kind, and together they form ** a pair." If we have 
elsewhere a group of three marbles exactly like the first two, 
then these two groups differ in number, " Number " is a 
property possessed by every object, motion, or appearance, 
and even by every thought. 

The one thing which alike pertains to everything we 
know, terrestrial or celestial, material or mental, is " num- 
ber. * ' Probably it was this truth which underlay the system 
of Pythagoras, who, more than two thousand four hundred 
years ago, taught that ** number " was the principle of all 
things. 

But the study of that which is thus common to every- 
thing is the study of mathematics. Therefore mathematics, ' 
as the science of number, would seem to have a reasonable 
claim to be regarded as the most fundamental of all the 
sciences, since it pertains to every other, and no other can 
be pursued without it. 



AN ENUMERATION OF THE SCIENCES I9 

Nevertheless, another science can advance a claim seem- 
ingly as unanswerable in another respect as is the claim of 
mathematics, as just stated. No science can claim to be 
absolutely primary which has to depend on another science 
for explanation and comprehension. Mathematics is a 
science of " number"; but what is '* number" ? More- 
over, numbers are alike or not unlike, and a perception of 
" likeness and unlikeness ** was declared, in our introductory 
chapter, to be at the base of all the sciences. What, then, 
it must be further asked, is *' likeness" ? May not the 
science which can solve these riddles justly claim to under- 
lie, and be prior to, the science of mathematics ? 

The idea of "number" implies comparison, together 
with a recognition that the things compared are similar, and 
yet not identical. Things which are quite dissimilar — such 
as, ^. ^., *' a violet blossom " and ** a fall in consols " — 
cannot be said to be two, unless it be two expressions or two 
thoughts — in which respects they are alike. But the idea of 
number, inasmuch as it recognises things as similar but not 
identical, implies many things besides similarity and iden- 
tity. In every perception of number there are, and must 
be, latent the ideas of " existence," " distinction," ** simil- 
arity," •• unity," and " truth," as a little reflection will 
show. Thus, to say ** there are two sheep," implies that 
they are not merely imaginary, but that they actually exist ; 
that they are not seen double by some optical delusion, but 
are really distinct ; that they are certainly both sheep and 
not one of them a goat — i. e. , that they are similar, and that 
they have that unity of nature which we have just seen to 
be necessary' in order that they should be susceptible of 
numeration, and finally the assertion implies that the 
thought of the assertion corresponds with objective reality, 
that is, it implies truth. 

It may be replied that mathematics deals with abstractions 



20 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

and considers numerical relations of things apart from the 
things themselves. The assertion is most true, but from 
that very fact it must be applicable to all things and would 
be mere nonsense apart from the implication that there 
really are things, be it only thoughts, to which the idea of 
number can be really and truly applicable. And if thoughts 
are to be capable of enumeration they must have existence, 
distinction, similarity, unity, and truth, just as a pair of 
sheep (as above pointed out) must possess those attributes. 
But this degree of similarity between things so essentially 
dissimilar as '* thoughts " and ** sheep," suggests the further 
question, '* What is likeness ? " 

Now a moment's reflection must make it evident to any 
thinker that not everything can be defined or explained. 
If there were not some things capable of being understood 
without definition and explanation, then nothing whatever 
could ever be understood at all ; for in that case the pro- 
cesses of definition and explanation would have to be car- 
ried on forever. Now ** likeness,*' like ** number '' can be 
clearly seen to imply ideas of existence, distinction, unity, 
and truth ; but that, of course, is no explanation of it. It 
is one of those primary, ultimate, fundamental ideas which 
(like the idea of ** existence " or ** being ") is incapable of 
definition or explanation just because it is so simple. For 
to say that two things are '* alike " when they are identical 
in some respect, or respects, does not deserve to be called 
an explanation. For to recognise that two objects are iden- 
tical in certain respects we must be aware that their other 
respects are alike in not being identical. Anyone who 
thinks he cannot understand what he means when he says 
two things are ** alike," or when he declares, ** there is a 
' likeness ' between them," may as well give up the attempt 
to understand any branch of science and, a fortiori, its 
groundwork. But the science of mathematics enables us to 



AN ENUMERATION OF THE SCIENCES 21 

prove a vast quantity of truths which would be inaccessible 
to the human mind without its aid. By its help truths, ap- 
plicable to all existing things, can be deduced from other 
truths by means of various processes of inference. But can 
mathematics, which thus makes use of ** proofs," dispense 
with the aid of that science upon which it thus leans : which 
tells us in what proof consists, and lays down the laws by 
obedience to which alone valid inference can be carried on 
and truth attained ? Now, such a science is logic. Surely, 
then, logic may advance a strong claim to be the most 
fundamental, and, therefore, to head our list of the sciences. 

But to comprehend logic, speech is necessary, and though, 
as we shall hereafter see, there are strong grounds for con- 
cluding that speech was posterior to thought, nevertheless 
here and now, the use of, and a considerable knowledge 
about, speech is long anterior to our comprehension of, or 
even to the very first application of our minds to, logic. 
Therefore, the science which treats of human speech could 
also advance a claim to priority. 

But, as before said, logic is essentially the science of the 
art of proof, and all proof must repose upon certain data. 
Therefore, such data must, in the first place, be either per- 
ceptions which we have concerning our own mental states 
and operations, or perceptions concerning external things,. 
or conceptions of, and reflections about, one or the other, or 
both of these. 

But all these are forms of psychical activity, or are the 
direct results of different forms of psychical activity. Now 
these psychical activities must be anterior to any processes 
of reasoning, and form the data whence all reasonings pro- 
ceed. But the elucidation of these data is the business of 
psychology. Surely, then, the science which deals with 
the initiation and performance of psychical phenomena 
(phenomena which constitute the data and basis of logic) 



22 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

may claim priority over, and to be more fundamental than, 
logic itself. 

But the science of reasoning cannot, for another reason, 
validly lay claim to be primary and fundamental, since it 
requires other data than those given it by psychology. 
Now in order to prove anything by reasoning, we must show 
that it necessarily follows, as a consequence, from other 
truths, on the truth of which its own truth depends. Such 
other truths must therefore be deemed more indispensable 
than the thing they are called on to prove. Evidently we 
cannot prove everything. However long may be our argu- 
ments, we shall at last come to statements which must be 
taken for granted as ultimate. One such statement is that 
which affirms the validity of reasoning. If we had t6 prove 
the validity of the reasoning process, then either we must 
argue in a circle, or our process of proof must go on forever 
without ever coming to a conclusion. In other words, there 
could be no such thing as proof at all. There must, then, 
if any human knowledge is trustworthy, be some truths 
which require no proof, but are evident in and by them- 
selves. Once more, then, that science, whatever it may be, 
which thus deals with the basis of all reasoning, and there- 
fore of all psychology, of all logic, and also of all mathe- 
matics, would seem to have, if anything has, a valid claim 
to be the most primary and fundamental of all sciences. 
But the science which does this is metaphysics ! 

Metaphysics, however, though it thus deals with what is 
so primary and fundamental, is a science which has also to 
do with the human mind, with our views concerning an ex- 
ternal world, and with whatever constitutes the subject- 
matter of every other science. For of wKat does the science 
of metaphysics treat ? 

In the first place, it may be said to be ** the science of the 
supersensuous considered objectively." 



it 
<« 



A// ENUMERA TION OF THE SCIENCES 23 

It is also divisible into two great sections; the first of 
these {a) may be distinguished as ** general," occupied as 
it is about ** being," its properties and categories — about 

reality " in the sense we give to that term. For us 

reality" is composed of ** whatever actually does or 
possibly may exist"; while, similarly, ''being "is that 
which possesses either form of ** reality." 

** Reality " cannot be anything else hwt possible ov actual, 
for there evidently can be nothing intermediate between 
the two. Abstract ** being" cannot, of course, exist as 
conceived by the mind ; but nevertheless it is not absolute 
nothing {nikilum), because, though incapable of existence 
in itself; the conception is nevertheless realised in things 
which do exist, while pure nonentity (nihilutri) is the abso- 
lute negative, and cannot possibly exist in any mode. As 
to what is " actual," that term needs, and can have, no 
definition, since it must be implied in every attempt to de- 
fine it. 

The second great conception {p) of metaphysics may be 
called " special," since it concerns itself with definite in- 
quiries about cosmology, the world as it appears to the 
human intellect, the origin and nature of the latter, with 
consequences which appear evidently to follow therefrom in 
all directions. 

It would, then, be manifestly absurd to place it first upon 
our list. It should come, as its name implies, after the 
study of all that concerns the external world, and the study 
of man as a living and thinking organic being. But not 
only must metaphysics, though the most abstract of sciences, 
be denied the first place in our list ; something may even be 
said for the sciences usually deemed the most concrete. In 
fact, a knowledge of the physical precedes that of the 
psychical (as was before asserted), and if concrete sciences 
need, for their comprehension, abstract ideas, the most ab- 



24 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

stract sciences have need pf the concrete. Thus psychology 
cannot be fully investigated and understood without some 
comprehension of our organic frame and its multitudinous 
activities. But our body is the subject of anatomy (includ- 
ing histology) and its activities, or physiblogy, while neither 
human anatomy nor physiology can be adequately compre- 
hended if dealt with alone. For such adequate compre- 
hension the aid of comparative anatomy (or morphology) 
and comparative physiology — which contrast man's form and 
functions with those of animals and plants — are needed, and 
these cannot be made use of without some acquaintance 
with zoology and botany. But, again, the creatures about 
which the last-named two sciences are concerned, must be 
studied with respect to extinct as well as existing species 
(palaeontology), and to know that requires a knowledge of 
the world's past Kistnry (grenloprj/)^ and this cannot be fully 
understood Without regard to the earth as a member of the 
solar system and of the sidereal universe, and so we are led 
to astronomy. 

We have hitherto passed over (simply because everything 
cannot be mentioned at the same time) the study of me- 
chanics and of the physical energies — gravitation, heat, 
light, sound, chemical change, electricity, and magnetism; 
but every one of these sciences is intimately connected with 
what concerns the inorganic as well as the whole organic 
world. Nor can that study which relates to the origin and 
evolution of the world (the only theatre actually known to 
us of all the sciences) be said to have no claim to be itself 
primary and fundamental. But the whole universe has 
been revealed to us by human study alone, and human ac- 
tivity is the cause of the existence of all our sciences, on 
which account anthropology, the science of man, must be 
allowed in its turn some claim to be considered fundamental. 
Now if a separate science (physiology) be devoted to the 



AN ENUMERATION OF THE SCIENCES 2$ 

consideration of the activities of animals and plants, surely 
the story of human actions has yet more claim on our care- 
ful investigation, and the most important results of human 
activity are recorded in history, which tells us of the first 
beginnings and systematisation of mathematics, psychology, 
and logic. And here must also follow on the study of 
man's pursuit of his ideals of beauty, truth, and goodness — 
the history of art, of science, of philosophy, of ethics, and 
of religion. All questions of religion, however, will be very 
carefully excluded from the present work, all the arguments 
in which claim to repose on and appeal to nothing but the 
pure dry light of human reason. 

But the fact that different religions have existed has been 
too often made most painfully evident, and therefore the 
recognition of the existence of religions and systems of 
theology as facts, cannot possibly be excluded from the 
sphere of the sciences any more than the external manifesta- 
tions of the inner nature of each such system. Now theo- 
logy professes to occupy itself with man's relations to a God 
or to gods, and to other superhuman beings, if such there 
are, and to his fellow-men, and so may be called (on the 
assumption that the only really intelligent animals are men) 
" the sociology of intelligences." But this form of sociol- 
ogy demands the aid of philosophy, psychology, and history 
and ethics. But ethics, like metaphysics, may be divided 
into {a) general and {b) special. The former regards the 
existence and first principles of ethical distinctions; the 
latter the special application of those principles to society, 
the family, and the individual. 

But for the due application of those principles to individ- 
uals and groups of men we must call in physiology to our 
aid, and therefore anatomy, while physiology brings with it 
the study of the physical energies (statics, dynamics, thermo- 
dynamics, chemistry, optics, acoustics, and the sciences of 



26 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

electricity and magnetism), which again necessitates recourse 
to mathematics, and once more to logic and psychology. 

In a word, all the sciences are connected by such a laby- 
rinth of interrelations that the construction of a really satis- 
factory classification of them appears to be an insuperable 
task. Anyhow, it is a task beyond our powers. 

But for our special purpose — the explorations of the 
foundations of science — a systematic classification of 
the sciences does not appear necessary. We will therefore 
aim at nothing but to place before our readers a catalogue of 
the sciences in what seems, to our judgment, a not incon- 
venient order. It will also, we think, be well here to 
assume the existence of real, external, independent bodies, 
as they are commonly supposed to exist, reserving all 
questions as to the truth of that supposition for our next 
chapter. 

Accepting, then, provisionally, the existence of a world 
of real and independent external bodies, generally exhibit- 
ing some definite shape and figure, with powers of intrinsic 
motion, of motion due to external causes, and in all cases 
capable of enumeration, we may thus set down the series. 

On account of this last characteristic we will place first on 
our list the science of Mathematics. This, as the reader- of 
course well knows, consists of Arithmetic y or the study of 
definite quantities of things of whatever kind; of Algebra^ 
or the use of definite symbols to investigate undefined 
quantities of undefined things; and of Geometry ^ which 
studies the properties of figures, the direction of lines, and 
the conditions of space in its three dimensions (length, 
breadth, and thickness), including the properties of the 
sphere, the cone, and the cylinder. Though geometry ap- 
pears to have arisen through the desire to measure land 
accurately (for which the properties of triangles and their 
angles served, and still serve), Greek geometers occupied 



AN ENUMERA TION OF THE SCIENCES 2J 

themselves, in a purely speculative manner, with the differ- 
ent methods in which a circular cone may be cut. The 
investigation of the various kinds of curves which may be 
produced by cutting across it in different directions, gave 
rise to the study we know as Conic Sections. 

By various other processes the most varied properties of 
objects have been investigated, including complex recipro- 
cal relations of increase, decrease, and variation. When 
two quantities vary they may do so equally or in different 
proportions or ratios. The Differential calculus deals with 
computations concerning the rates of change between quan- 
tities. The Integral calculus passes from the relation be- 
tween such rates back to the relations which exist between 
the changing quantities themselves. 

We may next pass to the science of Mechanics, with its 
subdivisions, Statics^ Dynamics, Hydrostatics, Hydrodynam- 
ics^ and Pneumatics, 

** Mathematics " is, as we have seen, concerned with num- 
ber, space, and direction; ** Mechanics" also with time, 
motion, and force, and especially the action or effects of 
gravity. Mechanics deals also not only with solids but 
with fluids, whether liquids or aeriform (or gaseous) sub- 
stances ; and these whether apparently at rest or in a state 
of motion. 

Statics concerns itself with equilibrium, the composition 
of forces, the lever, the balance, the inclined plane, etc. 
Dynamics consiA^vsvcioiion, its velocity, duration, extension, 
and direction (according to Newton's three laws), its quan- 
tity^ acceleration, and retardation, and the law of falling 
bodies due to the action of centrifugal and centripetal forces. 

In Meclianics it is assumed that solids consist of particles 
cohering stably in some definite order, but liquids are sup- 
posed to consist of particles which possess freedom of 
motion in all directions, each particle pressing equally on 



28 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

all those which surround it and being equally pressed on by 
them. 

In Hydrostatics, therefore, pressure in all directions, and 
not only the pressure of gravity, is considered, with the well- 
known consequence that the surface of tranquil liquids is 
horizontal, and water will always find its own level, and 
those concerning the sinking and rising and other motions of 
solid bodies in liquids. Hydrodynamics , or Hydraulics, deals 
with the motions of liquids (waves, running water, etc., 
etc.), which are so complex compared with those of solids, 
and the various machines — the utilities of which are due to 
the laws of moving liquids — water-rams, water-wheels, etc. 

The science of aeriform fluids, i. e,. Pneumatics, adopts 
the hypothesis that such fluids are composed of particles 
which repel each other, separating as far as they can but 
pressing equally in all directions. Such fluids are, there- 
fore, both extremely elastic and compressible, but, like 
solids and liquids, they have their due weight, inertia, mo- 
mentum, etc., and, like liquids, they have their waves of 
motion. The weight of the atmosphere is also treated of 
in its practical applications through the barometer, siphon, 
pump, etc. 

We may place next the sciences which treat of what are 
called the physical energies of matter, both in their non- 
manifest or /^/^;//m/ condition (capable of doing work), and 
in their active or kinetic state (actually doing work). The 
first of these sciences is that which treats of Heat, its powers 
of expanding bodies^ its phenomena of conduction, convec- 
tion, radiation, absorption, reflection, and refraction, and its 
relations to other physical energies. The science of Light 
deals in turn with its wonderful velocity of motion, in waves 
of various lengths, its aberration, reflection, refraction, inter- 
ference, polarisation, etc., with the laws of Optics, and such 
practical results in the microscope, telescope, spectroscope. 



AN ENUMERA TION OF THE SCIENCES 29 

and other instruments constructed in accordance with its 
laws. 

Acoustics is the science which concerns itself with sound, 
its propagation, reflection, and diffusion through aerial waves 
in all directions, with the laws of musical sounds or notes, 
the nature of timbre, and various conditions presented by 
different musical instruments. 

The science of Electricity is one the amazing consequences 
of which are familiar to everyone, so that we need but men- 
tion its name together with that of Magnetism, so intimately 
connected with it, and pass on to the science of Chemistry y 
which has a distinct, though very indirect, connection with 
the subject of this work. 

All the sciences which treat of solids, fluids, and the 
already mentioned physical energies, plainly exhibit what 
are commonly termed the laws which govern nature, but 
had better be called the definite tendencies which are innate 
in the substances which compose the universe. Yet chem- 
istry is, above all, distinguished by the clear and unanswer- 
able manner in which it demonstrates that these tendencies 
act in clearly defined directions, and build up by a selective 
agency certain bodies and none others. Such is the case 
whatever may be the reduction in number of what are at 
present considered elementary substances, even if we should 
ultimately become convinced that the material world is 
composed only of inconceivably numerous combinations of 
particles of one elementary substance. Processes of analysis 
and synthesis demonstrate the definite proportions in which 
alone different (as yet seemingly distinct) substances can 
unite and tmj^fjinTLthMipelves into others not leas well de- 
fined ; yih\\S (!^staHo ^aphv reveals the extraordinarily 
definite shapes into which alone definite substances can 
crystallise, two such substances of different kinds and modes 
of crystallisation sometimes growing so as to become in- 



GLci- 



U^ 

i/ 




J" 



GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

extricably mixed, each of them preserving its own individu- 
ality and growing according to its own laws. This science 
is closely allied to, or rather a part of, Minfi^ ^ aln^^ a know- 
ledge of which leads to, and is a necessary part "of, the study 
of the crust of the earth anrl thc fftrata whir^ /-nmpr>c^ \\ 

.yi\:^S^Q,jiX^^^iSS^^^^igS^^SSiSSX^ ^^hile Mete orology concerns 
itseir with the movements which take place in the earthT 
atmosphere, and all forms of storms, and the varying "direc- 
tions of currents, and all that concerns storms of all kinds. 
But these, with the flow of rivers and the action of tides, 
the descent and upheaval of parts of the earth's crust with 
^lA^ earthquakes and volcanoes, also come within the purview 






^\j^A^ O of Geography BXid^eology, w ^iirh l^tt^ jg^ j^gai p la^ ^j [ely i n- 



'-^ cJ-^w^ debted to t he science ol organic rem TSn^ HHa^i^nfnTog^ fSf 
^t-i ^oCA^ its knowledge of the relations of the superimposed layers of 

rocks which clothe our globe externally, revealed, as they 
often are, by the kinds of fossils they contain. 

But the phenomena of tides, of dawn and sunset, of the 
year's seasons, with their shortening and lengthening days, 
and, above all, of eclipses, force us to pursue the science of 
the earth's celestial sisters, Astronomyy which, in turn, has 
a distinct bearing on the possibilities of that inexplicable 
energy with which the sciences which remain to be enumer- 
ated are concerned — namely, life. 

Our reference to Paleontology has, indeed, already borne 
some reference to that energy, since fossil remains are relics 
of bodies which once had life. 

The two great groups of living things, plants and animals, 
were long supposed to be so widely separated that each was 
treated of by a separate science only. Now, however, so 
many deep resemblances are known to exist between them 
that we have been forced to treat with them together as one 
whole, in the science of living things, as Biology, Living 
things being classed in the two great, so-called kingdoms of 



AN ENUMERA TION OF THE SCIENCES 3 1 

plants and animals, it is accordingly, as everyone knows, 
divided into the sciences of Botany and Zoology. But every 
animal and plant has to be considered according to its form 
and structure on the one hand, and according to the activi- 
ties of all its component parts. Those activities are treated 
of by Physiology. Structure may be considered in its larger 
division as existing in one or many species {Anatomy\ or in 
its microscopic division — the structure of the component 
" tissues " of the organism {Histology). The structure of the 
various kinds may be studied in reference to many or all 
others, simply as to matters of fact, or with the aim of dis- 
covering general laws of structure [Morphology). Yet another 
science investigates the modes in which each species and 
group of animals or plants is developed from its germs {Em- 
bryology, Development, and Ontogeny), and the mode in 
which it may be conjectured to have been derived from an- 
tecedent species {Phylogeny). But living creatures have to 
be considered with respect to the relations they severally 
bear to space {Biological Geography), as also to past time, 
which brings us once more to palaeontology. 

A special science, which has been termed Hexicology,^ is, 
moreover, devoted to a study of the relations which exist 
between organisms and their environment as regards the 
nature of the localities they frequent, the temperatures and 
amounts of light which suit them, and their relations to 
other organisms as enemies, rivals, or accidental and invol- 
untary benefactors. 

Finally, as resuming and uniting all the sciences which 
deal with the various bodies which compose the universe, 
comes the science of the material universe considered as one 
whole — namely, the science of Cosmology. 

After these sciences, acquaintance with which is necessary 
for a complete knowledge of man, may follow that science 

' e^tS. Habit, state, or condition. 



32 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

I 

which concerns him specially and directly — namely, Anthro- 
pology. This science studies the various physical conditions 
needful for human existence, as the various subdivisions of 
biology investigate the conditions necessary for the life of 
other organisms also. Such are the studies of Human 
Anatomy and of the lower activities, i, ^., Human Physiology, 
But since man has powers and characteristics which other 
organisms do not possess, additional sciences are devoted to 
the study of such additional facts. Thus Ethnology occupies 
itself with the various races into which mankind is divided, 
while Philology examines the languages they speak, and 
History describes their successive appearances and disap- 
pearances, their aggregations into tribes and nations, their 
migrations, wars, and the series of events which have taken 
place, their form of government, and the actions both of 
their rulers and of the classes they ruled over. The study 
of the various conditions which have been, or which now 
exist, or which might be beneficial, or hurtful to the race, is 
known by the awkward term Sociology, The science of 
Politics deals with the various kinds of civil aggregations in 
which men do or may exist, with the probable or certain 
benefits and defects of each. Man's conceptions of right 
and wrong and the relations which thence arise between 
each individual and other human beings standing to him in 
a multitude of different relations, constitute the science of 
Ethics, while ethical relations have been supposed to extend 
to some various real or imagined superhuman intelligences, 
so constituting Religion, 

In connection with these latter sciences comes the study 
of man's lower and higher mental powers, together with the 
probably psychical powers of lower organisms, namely, the 
study of Psychology, closely connected with which are Logic 
and Philosophy or Metaphysics, about which enough has, we 
venture to think, been already said in this chapter. 



AN ENUMERA TION OF THE SCIENCES 33 

Finally, and last of all, comes the special subject of this 
work, namely, the study of the ultimate grounds of all 
knowledge and of all science of whatsoever kind — the science 
of Epistemology. 





^,^^X<t^ ^.uoCo oJ^f'^/" c^ 




CHAPTER III 

:£ OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 

IN our enumeration of the principal sciences, as also 
in our initial chapter, we have taken tlor granted that 
the ordinary and spontaneous jud gments of mankind as to^ 
tlie^xternal worljCaffrtrHa^and v-alid. But before proceed- 
ing any Turther in our endeavour to apprehend the ground- 
work of oHf Jcienc^Y^^ISlJfst carefully consider the question 
as to its OTjects. ^^e must ^endeavt)ur to attain as true a 
knowledge as possible concerning the nature of those things 
which science occupies itself about. 

The sciences of psychology and logic occupy themselves 
with the human mind, its powers and processes, its mental 
images, its feelings and emotions, its thoughts and infots^ 
ences. But mechanics, astronomy, jr?ft1^py- biology, etc' 

are commonly thought to j^usy themse\vgq ahn^it t-hinj 

Swhi^r*though we apprehend them by mental acts, trulyl 
exist independent of the mind, and form parts of a really 
existing external world, 
^^ow, of course, we can know nothing which we do not in 
some way perceive or indirectly gain information about by 
eye or ear or some sense organ, and everything we appre- 
hend we apprehend as in various ways related to other 
things, as well as to our own mind. Every object, there- 
fore, of which science can take cognisance, is only known to 
us through a variety df mental states which we term feelingrs, 

34 



r 
THE dBJECTS OF SCIENCE 35 

reminiscences, inferences, or apprehensions, and amongst 
the latter are apprehensions of such object's relations^: both 
its relations to other things and its relations within its own 
being — its external and internal relations. Every object, 
therefore, looked at as regards our apprehension of it — i. e,, 
merely subjectively — may be said to consist of a plexus of 
such mental states or ** states of consciousness." 

It is also true that not only can we know nothing about 
any object except by means of some mental state of our own 
being, but that were it possible to preserve such mental 
states in their entirety while the object they referred to was 
annihilated, our mind, and therefore our knowledge, might 
remain unaffected thereby. It is notorious that under 
abnormal conditions, things may seem to be perceived which 
do not in fact exist, as also that there may be existences 
which, to exceptional individuals, remain unperceived — as 
the odour of the rose to one congenitally devoid of all olfac- 
tory power, its red hue to one who is colour-blind, and the 
cry of the bat to very many persons. 

''May it not th^ be that no independent external world 
really exists at all, and may not the " esse " of every seem- 
ingly independent thing be ** percipi'* f We know with 
absolute certainty (with the certainty of reflex consciousness) 
that we have ideas ; may they not be the only real exist- 
ences ? 

This, as the reader well knows, is Idealism, But idealism 
has much to say for itself. 

Such could not fail to be the case, seeing how many illus- 
trious men of a very high order of intellect have professed 
and do profess idealism, and it is far indeed from being 
confined to pure metaphysicians. Many distinguished cul- 
tivators and teachers of physical science declare themselves 
to be idealists. 

Its advocates ask : 



36 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

" What possible ground can anyone have for not being an 
Idealist? If we examine any object, as for example an apple, 
what are really its various qualities ? Are they not rather ours 
than the apple's ? We think that we look at //, but all we see is 
a definitely shaped patch of colour, and that is a sensation of 
our own. We take it up and hold it to the nose, when we per- 
ceive its apple-odour. But that is only another of our sensations. 
We may grasp it, feel it, and squeeze it, and these acts will occa- 
sion a number of other sensations through our skin, muscles, and 
the nerves supplying both, and these sensations are merely our 
own feelings once more, though we refer them to an imagined 
object and say that it is rounded and rather hard. We may tap 
it on a table or drop it on the ground, when we shall hear sounds ; 
in other words, we shall experience sensations of another order. 
Finally, we may bite it, and so have other experiences of resist- 
ance overcome and a pleasant flavour ; but the taste is certainly 
not in the apple, but in us. It is but one mental state the more. 
Do what we may we cannot by examining any so-called material 
object arrive at anything more than modifications of our own 
mental states — different feelings. Other feelings we have, in- 
deed, of a less vivid kind. These, however, are nothing but 
faint revivals of sensations previously experienced, or of feelings 
of the modes in which such previously experienced feelings have 
stood one to another. Such ' faint revivals ' and * faint feelings 
of modes of sensation ' we call * ideas.' These vivid and faint 
feelings are the only things which can be perceived by us, and 
the whole of our knowledge consists of nothing else. Therefore, 
as far as we know, nothing exists or can exist except as some- 
thing felt and perceived. We cannot even conceive anything 
otherwise existing, and therefore the very essence of * existence ' 
must consist in being perceived. Evidently an * idea' or a * sen- 
sation ' can be like nothing but an idea or a sensation. A colour, 
taste, smell, or sound can be like nothing but a colour, taste, 
smell, or sound. We can have no experience and no knowledge 
of anything in any object, e. g., in an apple, which exists under- 
neath (so to speak) its size, solidity, shape, colour, smell, and 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE yj 

taste, and which supports these qualities, but which itself can 
never by any possibility be perceived. What Idealism denies, 
therefore, is not the existence of that which we really perceive, 
and which w^e habitually call * external things.' It only denies 
the existence of a something underlying what we call external 
things, which * something * is a mere phantom, a creation of the 
fancy, and cannot be attained to by any of our senses, but is 
equally out of the reach of them all. If ordinary people when 
they speak of any object mean to refer to what they actually per- 
ceive (and which we cannot any of us know otherwise than as a 
mere plexus of our feelings), then they are Idealists all the time 
without knowing it, as Idealism fully accepts and asserts the ex- 
istence of such things so actually perceived. Idealism does not 
contest the existence of any one thing which we can feel, per- 
ceive, or even imagine — of anything which we can apprehend 
either by sensation or reflection. That things which we see with 
our eyes and touch with our hands do really exist and are really 
known to us, it does not in the least question. It only denies 
that in these really known and existing things there is an under- 
lying, unknowable and unimaginable * substance,* which in some 
mysterious way supports the qualities which our senses perceive. 
In denying the existence of this unknown and unknowable * sub- 
stance,' it deprives men of nothing which they can even imagine, 
and therefore of nothing they can really miss. If the word * sub- 
stance ' be taken in the vulgar sense for a collection of all the 
* qualities ' — quantity, shape, weight, colour, etc., etc., which 
compose an object as we know it — Idealism can never be accused 
of taking it away, for, according to Idealism, it is that alone 
which exists. But if * substance * be taken in a so-called ' philo- 
sophic * sense for something external to and independent of the 
mind which supports all the * qualities,' the existence of which 
the mind recognises, then Idealism may be accused of taking it 
away, if one may be said to take away a thing which never has 
been or can be perceived to exist or be even imagined so to do. 
Far from inculcating any disbelief in the senses or in what the 
senses tell us. Idealism attaches the very highest value to the senses 



38 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

and to their teaching. It no more doubts the existence of 
what is seen, heard, or felt, than it doubts the existence of the 
mind which sees, hears, or feels. Nothing, therefore, can be 
more absurd than the criticisms of those persons who say that 
Idealists, to be consistent, ought to run up against lamp-posts, 
fall into ditches, and commit other similar absurdities. Idealism 
is not only a thoroughly logical system, but also one quite in 
harmony with every-day life, its perceptions and its duties. It is 
obvious that we can never get outside ourselves, or feel the feel- 
ings of anyone else. We can only know our own sensations and 
ideas. The existence of these sensations and ideas is sufficient 
to explain our whole experience, and we are not idly to suppose 
that other things exist when such 'other things' are altogether 
superRuous for explaining any of the phenomena we are or can 
become acquainted with. As we cannot know anything beyond 
our own ideas, why should we affirm that there is anything be- 
yond them ? It is impossible for us to even imagine anything 
existing unperceived. We cannot imagine matter existing in the 
absence of mind, for in the very act of imagining it we are com- 
pelled to imagine someone perceiving it. It is, of course, easy 
enough to imagine trees in a park or books in a library, and no- 
body by to perceive them. But so to do is only to form in the 
mind certgin ideas which we call books and trees, and at the 
same time to omit to form the idea of anyone perceiving them. 
But the person so imagining them must himself be thinking of 
them all the time. To show, or even to know, that anything was 
existing independently of the mind, it would be necessary to 
perceive it while it remained unperceived, or to think of it while 
at the same time it remained unthought of, which would 
manifestly be an absurd contradiction and a downright impossi- 
bility. Idealism, therefore, does not contradict the assertions of 
common-sense, or cause any practical inconvenience to him who 
maintains it, seeing that it only denies what is but a figment of 
perverse Metaphysicians — a groundless and utterly irrational be- 
lief in a necessarily unknown and unimaginable entity, about 
which no one of our senses can tell us anything whatever." 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 39 

Such is idealism as put forward and defended by its in- 
genious and estimable author, Bishop Berkeley, whose piety 
led him to explain our ideas and perceptions as the result of 
the direct action of God upon our minds ; the whole visible, 
audible, and tangible universe being the product of the 
energy of the divine mind so acting upon us. 

This explanation, could we accept it, would indeed en- 
able us to know at once what is the groundwork of science. 
But we by no means see how to reach our goal by so short 
a journey. We need not even linger over this pious hy- 
pothesis, since, so far as we know, no one now adheres to it. 

Nor has idealism remained unmodified in other respects. 
It began with the assertion that we can know nothing but 
sensations and ideas — the latter being generally interpreted 
as plexuses of faintly revived sensations. Still it must al- 
ways be manifest to anyone who would carefully examine 
his own mental states, that his sensations were very rarely 
noted or attended to as such, but that his mind was almost 
always occupied, not about " feelings," but about'* things." 
Even Berkeley himself allowed that we might reasonably 
speak of " things " and habitually employ our notions of 
what we so spoke about as if they were what he said they 
were not, namely, absolute external existences independent 
of the mind. Things were for him, as they arfe for modern 
idealists, stably associated groups of sensuous experiences, 
and not by any means mere passing feelings of the moment. 
Berkeley denied, and idealists deny, that we can have any 
notion of an object save in terms of sense-perception, and 
this is so far true that, as before pointed out,' we can have 
no conception of anything, however abstract, save by the 
said mental images, or imaginations. 

As our readers know, Berkeley's denial of the existence 
of material substance was followed by Hume's denial of the 

' See atite^ p. 9. 



40 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

existence of any substance of mind, and his representation 
of our own being as only made up of a succession of fleeting 
feelings, their mode of succession being modified by custom. 
According to Fichte, all that exists is the self, or subjective 
Ego, the thoughts of which constitute the universe (the 
system of Solipsism). According to others there is an ob- 
jective Ego, of which our own existence is but a thought. 
For modern transcendental idealists, a *' thinking subject '* 
is the source of relations and of the world they constitute ; 
for, as we before said, nothing exists unrelated. 

It would be beside the purpose of this book to enter upon 
a description of the different forms of idealism. What con- 
cerns us is not their various affirmations, but the denial in 
which they all agree — the denial, namely, that we do, or 
can, know and perceive an independent external world, con- 
sisting of objects known to us as things in themselves, and 
possessing a number of objective qualities which are revealed 
to us through our subjective sensations. 

Many of our readers may think idealism so unreasonable 
as to feel unwilling to pursue any further the question of its 
truth or possible validity. If, however, they are really in- 
terested in the inquiry to which this volume is devoted, they 
can hardly rest satisfied without coming to some decision as 
to whether the groundwork of science has to do with 
** thoughts " only, or whether it has necessarily also to do 
with'* things." 

It is easy to laugh at idealism, but unless it contained 
some important truth, it would never have spread as it has 
done, and captivated so many men exceptionally gifted. 

Its propagation, moreover, is a remarkable and interesting 
example of the vitality and influence of the English mind. 
For the whole of the philosophy of Germany and Holland, 
from Spinoza to Hartmann, has been a result of the mental 
seed first sown in men's minds by Berkeley, who explicitly 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 4 1 

produced what was implicitly contained in Locke. When 
we call to mind that Berkeley begot his parricidal child, 
Hume; that Hume set going the partially antagonistic, yet 
largely similar, system of Kant; that Kant begot Fichte, 
and Fichte produced Schelling and Hegel, and these again, 
by a revulsion, Schopenhauer and Hartmann — it seems im- 
possible to deny that English thought, from Locke through 
Berkeley, has been far more influential than aught else in 
the domain of philosophy, save the Greek mind as manifested 
in Aristotle. 

It is easy also to be unjust to idealism in the following 
way: Because idealists affirm that perceptions consist of 
plexuses of feelings of various kinds — actual feelings and 
grouped images of past feelings — it may be represented that 
they (idealists) occupy themselves exclusively about their 
own feelings, and thus treat as the objects of perception what 
are merely the means of perception. But idealists no more 
especially observe their own sensations and feelings than 
other people do ; they are, like other people, occupied about 
" things perceived.*' The difference is that we, and most 
men, affirm that througji our feelings the mind becomes 
aware that material objects consist of extended corporeal 
substance, though of that substance in itself we have no 
direct knowledge, but only apprehend it through its object- 
ive qualities, the existence of which is made known to us 
through our sensations. 

Idealists, on the other hand, deny the reality of this uncog- 
nisable substance, and deny also that we can know it to be 
really and objectively extended, existing apart from the mind, 
and they further deny the reality of anything apart from 
mind, usually seeming to mean a human mind, though many, 
when pressed by argument, will postulate an objective non- 
human mind and often a divine mind, as the necessary and 
indispensable cause of the existence of anything whatever. 



42 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

Now, as before said, we have no intention of entering 
upon any question touching religion in this work, but merely 
of treating of such questions as seem to us necessary for any 
investigation of Epistemology. 

We have, therefore, no intention of denying that the ex- 
istence of a divine mind is a necessary condition for the 
existence of anything else, and we have just as little intention 
of affirming it. But we are perfectly convinced that objects 
and substances can, because they do, exist apart from our 
own mind and apart from any mind we can have any direct 
knowledge of, or even imagine, as existing. Certainly we 
have no direct perception, no intuition, of the existence of 
a God ; nor do we believe that such an intuition exists in 
the minds of other men, while we (our individual selves) 
have a direct perception, an intuition, of the existence of a 
real, extended, external world existing independently of our 
own mind and of any mind, as above stated. 

Anyhow, we are convinced that the existence of a God 
can only be known through a process of inference based 
upon things and actions perceived ; and it appears to us a 
very illogical proceeding to affirm that objects cannot be 
perceived save as related to a certain entity, which entity 
itself cannot possibly be known to us except by the help of 
objects not perceived as being so related. 

Nevertheless (as we think), idealism enshrines an import- 
ant truth, namely, the truth that our apprehension of the 
world about us is much less perfect and complete than is 
often supposed. Our perceptive powers are inadequate to 
supply us with a complete knowledge of nature, which, as it 
appears to us, may be very different from what it might 
appear to any intelligences higher than our own. 

It is certain — quite apart from any system of idealism — 
that the material bodies about us (assuming that there are 
such bodies) must possess powers and qualities which our 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 43 

present senses are entirely unable to detect. Had we (as be- 
fore suggested) an organ of sense fitted to enable us to ap- 
prehend ** magnetism," as our eyes enable us to apprehend 
" light/* how modified might not the aspect of the world 
become ! We rejoice in the beauty of wild flowers and the 
gay plumage of birds, some of which delight us with their 
song; yet, though we are not idealists, we do not hesitate 
to affirm that their colours and their notes are not by any 
means just that which they seem to us to be. The most 
startling and impressive lesson we have had in the present 
century is that taught us by the ROntgen rays — like light, 
yet so different from it — with such unexpected powers of 
penetration that wood is to them, as it were, translucent, 
as the iron rod of a lightning-conductor is for electricity a 
tube down which it tumbles. 

We may seem to have thus delivered ourselves up to the 
idealists with our hands bound ; yet such is by no means the 
case. We, however, most willingly acknowledge the merits 
and the intellectual gifts of its supporters. But those sup- 
porters are nevertheless relatively very few in number, in 
spite of the great temptations and the two special attractions 
which idealism holds out to inquirers about, and students 
of, philosophy. 

Its first attraction for them consists in the fact that the 
system is exceedingly easy of comprehension. No difficult 
and sustained acts of mental introspection are needed to 
understand it. All that is required is to see clearly the dif- 
ference between ** things " and their '* qualities," to recog- 
nise that no ** things " can become known to us except 
through their " qualities," and to recollect that all the ex- 
perience we have of these consists in our own sensations, 
imaginations, and perceptions. 

The second attraction which idealism presents is due to 
the fact that it seems to carry the novice in philosophy into 



44 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

a region very much above that of ordinary men. For him 
a wonderful change has taken place. What common persons 
regard as the most stubborn and solid realities he is enabled 
to transform into an airy pageant consisting of nothing more 
substantial than a ceaseless series of feelings and ideas; yet 
all the time his elevated position causes him no practical in- 
convenience, because it is the boast of his philosophy that 
it in no way contradicts the assertions of common-sense, but 
only denies the existence of what no one ever did or ever 
can perceive, namely, " material substance." 

He may also assert — though, as we shall shortly see, in 
this he is mistaken — that idealism is not out of harmony 
with ** science *' any more than it is irreconcilable with 
** common-sense "; and he can certainly appeal (as before 
said) to distinguished men of science who affirm that they 
are idealists. 

Some of our readers, influenced by such representations, 
may be inclined to say to us: ** Why, if these so-called 

* facts ' — bodies and their activities — can be conveniently 
dealt with as so many * bundles of feelings,' and if we may 
speak of such * bundles of stably associated feelings * as 

* objects ' and ' things,' why should we not be content so to 
call them ? Why should we not leave all disputes about the 
truths of idealism on one side, concern ourselves only with 
what both parties thus agree to term * things * and ' objects,' 
and to treat them as if they were really independent entities 
quite external to the mind ? " 

Certainly we do not for one moment seek or wish to deny 
that idealists may be very good scientific men, and do excel- 
lent scientific work ; nor, for the purposes of physical science, 
are the conceptions of such scientific idealists unserviceable 
for the scientific ends to which they are directed, though (as 
will be shortly urged) their scientific conceptions are not 
really idealistic, but are like those of ordinary persons. 



\ 



hjs^ 




THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 45 

Nevertheless, as we have before observed, for our present 

urpose (namely, the exploration of the groundwork of 

science) it is necessary to determine whether the foundation 

of science is entirely mental or partly mental and partly 

?Vi^ I ^^ggijg^lj^and there is a yet graver consideration which for- 

ids us to rest contented with a philosophical concordat, and 

compels us to do our best to arrive at a satisfying solution as 

to the system of idealism. 

This yet graver consideration refers to the nature of our 
intellectual faculties. No man can get behind human 
reason, and no rational man will make any attempt so to 
do. A belief in a real, external, and independent world of 
things in themselves appears to most men to be an abso- 
lutely certain and self-evident truth. But if idealism is true, 
then ** absolutely certain self-evidence *' can be no sufficient 
guarantee of the truth of that for which it vouches. We 
should thus be reduced to a state of uncertainty and sceptic- 
ism, casting a shade of doubt over every proposition what- 
ever. But in such a state of mind it would indeed be a 
hopeless task to seek to investigate the groundwork of 
science. The question as to idealism must therefore be 
examined to the extent of our ability as a necessary pre- 
liminary for any possible satisfactory conclusion with respect 
to Epistemology. 

We have done our best to present the case of the idealists 
fairly. What is now to be urged on the other side ? 

In the first place, as we said before, most men are not 
idealists. Indeed, the professed adherents of that system 
constitute but a very small portion of the most educated 
part of mankind. Secondly, even idealists themselves can- 
not help entertaining and acting on the notions common to 
other men. It is not merely that they make use of ordinary 
phraseology about ** perception " and ** things perceived," 
but they habitually — as we shall shortly see — give to the 



46 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

terms they use the ordinary signification, and reserve their 
idealistic interpretation for the time they are occupied with 
philosophising. The most distinguishing character of the 
notion all men have of the reality of an extended, external^ 
independent world, is the absolute inevitableness of that 
notion, which holds sway over idealists as well as others. 

It has been said that the inevitable character of this notion 
is due to ** natural selection." Men who did not promptly 
make their actions accord with it, would, it is urged, be very 
quickly eliminated, and only those most ready to act as if 
an independent external world existed would survive. Thus 
it is that this notion has become ingrained in survivors. 

But, as we shall see later on/ our firmest, clearest, most 
certain and highest perceptions cannot have been due to 
" natural selection." If, therefore, there is some efficient 
cause which has, independently of such selection, produced 
our highest and most certain perceptions, applicable to all 
ages and every part of the universe, a fortiori it could have 
also independently produced the very minor effect of en- 
abling us to become aware of the present state of the world 
about us. We shall here contend that such awareness is of 
an intuitive character, and that we possess a direct intuition 
of ** the extended " — i. e., of the various extended bodies 
which make up the material world. Nevertheless, all intui- 
tions do not stand on the same level, and, as we have just 
implied, our intuition about " extension " does not stand 
on the highest level but on one below that upon which 
rest those ultimate first principles of knowledge with which 
Epistemology directly deals, and which will be carefully con- 
sidered in our last two chapters. Had it this highest degree 
of certainty, it would be impossible for us even to entertain 
about it that sort of fictitious doubt which idealists possess, 
nor could any dispute take place as to whether the inevitable 

' Chapter ix. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 47 

character of our notion about the external world is either an 
inference or a delusion. 

But before proceeding to argue in favour of the reality as 
well as the inevitableness of our conviction as to an external 
world, it may be well to state, as clearly as we can, what 
that reality according to us is. It may be expressed as 
follows : 

" All the different bodies and substances of the universe 
about us really exist independent of the mind, and with 
equal reality, whether they be perceived or not. Through 
Our senses our intellect becomes directly aware of their 
existence, as * things of themselves, * and of some of their 
objective qualities. Those qualities, however, are unlike 
the sensations external bodies excite in us ; though our per- 
ceptions, aroused by our sensations, do correspond to such 
objective qualities. External material bodies exist inde- 
pendently of us, and have a substantial reality in addition 
to that of the qualities we perceive, and our perception of 
them also does not in any way essentially alter them." 

That this position is the true one is, we think, shown (i) 
by the natural spontaneous judgment of mankind ; (2) by 
the careful examination of the dicta of our own mind, and 
(3) by what we learn through science. 

The first of these three arguments meets with no con- 
sideration on the part of idealists, on the ground that to the 
multitude it has never been given to understand what ideal- 
ism is. But in the eyes of persons who are not idealists 
that argument may well, nevertheless, have some value, 
since it is plain that the spontaneous judgment of mankind 
accords with what even animals practically learn through 
their senses. A wide river is an objective obstacle to the 
progress of a man's dog, as well as to that of the dog's 
owner; and a rotten fruit on the ground is plainly not only 
an external reality to the human observer of it, but also to 



48 THE GROUNDWORK OR SCIENCE 

the various insects which gather on its surface. Certainly 
those who hold that the inevitable nature of our sentiments 
about a really independent external world has been produced 
by the action of ** natural selection/' must allow the validity 
of our impressions about it, since they suppose it was the 
action of that very world which eliminated those persons 
whose impressions did not correspond with sufficient ac- 
curacy to fatal objective realities. 

But, in the second place, let the inquirer firmly fix his 
mental gaze upon his own personal experience, as, for ex- 
ample, when playing a game of billiards. Is it possible for 
him to believe, as he cannons and ** goes in off the red," 
that the balls he perceives are but groups of vivid and faint 
feelings, and not real, extended, independently existing 
bodies which really move, and, by striking, impel each other 
in different directions as ordinary people think they do ? 
Who that hears the pleasant voices of his children as they 
are playing in the garden, or even when silence succeeds to 
their audible merriment, can doubt their independent object- 
ivity entirely apart from his own feelings ? Should shrill 
cries break that silence, and the father, rushing out, find 
that one of his children has met with a serious mischance, 
not only his feelings and his actions, but his inmost thoughts, 
however determined an idealist he may be, will be in full 
accord with those of any other man similarly circumstanced. 
We are persuaded the more the reader examines into the 
dictates of his own mind during his actual experiences from 
day to day, the more profoundly he will be impressed by a 
conviction that real external bodies — things in themselves — 
exist and act independently of his feelings, wishes, thoughts, 
or perceptions, and that he has full and valid ground to be 
absolutely certain about it. This will be brought home to 
anyone with special vividness while undergoing a surgical 
operation without the use of anaesthetics. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 49 

But it is physical science which specially vouches for the 
reality of an external independent world. 

The advocates of idealism generally content themselves 
with explaining, according to their system, some of our 
simple perceptions — an apple, a landscape, the furniture of 
a room, trees in a park, books in a library, etc. Such things 
may plausibly be represented as made up of bundles of 
feelings, because bundles of feelings are the means by which 
we perceive them, and because we have but to gaze on and 
contemplate a quiet scene devoid of conspicuous interactions 
between its parts. But what we learn through science is 
something very different: it is a systematic investigation as 
to what are the causes of different phenomena and their 
various modes of action on one another. It has, therefore, 
to do not only with our perceptions themselves, but also 
with the causes of our perceptions. 

Although, as before said, we do not question the eminence 
or the services of men of science who are idealists, neverthe- 
less we believe idealism to be fundamentally out of harmony 
with physical science. We strongly suspect that the intel- 
lectual nature of idealistic physicists is too much for them ; 
and that, though they may be ever ready to represent the 
objects of their study and experience as so many complex 
groups of feelings, they really regard them (in common with 
other people) as independent objects with special qualities 
and powers. We think thus because, though (as we have 
just observed) it is easy enough to translate mere objects 
perceived into groups of feelings and relations between 
them, it is much more difficult to investigate and describe 
the reciprocal actions of objects (as, e. g,, of the sun and 
moon on the tidal wave) as only relations between ideas 
and not as activities of external, absolutely independent ex- 
tended things which really affect each other. 

There can be no question about the fact that observations 



50 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

and experiments are accepted by scientific men as real 
objective facts and occun:ences, and the whole of physical 
science, understood as men of science themselves understand 
it, is based upon that way of regarding them. It would be 
ridiculous to pretend that when astronomers, chemists, and 
anatomists are tracing the motions of the heavenly bodies, 
or analysing minerals, or ascertaining the course followed by 
a nerve or an artery, they remain all the time convinced that 
they are really investigating the relations borne by groups 
of past and present feelings to other such groups, and 
nothing more ! 

It is very certain that, but for their conviction they were 
dealing with independent realities and discovering really ob- 
jective truths, the physical sciences would never have at- 
tained their present degree of development. If idealism 
were true, then the advance of science must simply have 
been due to a profound mistake, and, the mistake having 
been once found out, can we believe that scientific advance 
would continue, or could even maintain itself where it is ? 

The attempt has been made more than once, and with 
admirable perseverance, to describe truths of physical 
science in terms of feeling and no more ; and the attempt 
has always ended (as it must always end) in complete failure. 

A few concrete examples may bring home to the reader 
the intenseness and inevitability with which the notion of 
external things ip themselves, really existing independently 
of the mind, is forced home upon the intelligence of the 
man of science by his own pursuits. 

Leverrier, by studying the movements of the planet 
Uranus, came to the conclusion that they were influenced 
by some external body in such a way as to lead him to be- 
lieve that Uranus was not, as up to that time supposed, the 
planet of the solar system which was most distant from the 
sun, but that there must be another revolving round that 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 5 1 

luminary at a yet greater distance. After further study he 
predicted the place in the heavens where that yet more dis- 
tant orb would be found. The prediction was put to the 
test, with the result that the planet now known as Neptune 
was there found. In this instance science did not merely 
predict that a new body (for idealism ** a new group of feel- 
ings ") would be found if looked for, but it affirmed ** how *' 
and " wAj^ " it would be so found. It was a statement as 
to causation. 

Another memorable prediction, in another science, was 
made by Cuvier. The fossil skeleton of a small beast having 
been found in the quarries of Montmartre, the great French 
naturalist, seeing a peculiar conformation in its jaw, foretold 
that when the lower part of the trunk was laid bare, two 
peculiar bones — present in but few beasts — would there be 
found. Friends assembled to see the prediction verified, 
and it was verified. 

The late Sir Richard Owen ventured to affirm that a huge 
extinct animal of South America (which had been furnished 
with very powerful limbs and tail) had been in the habit of 
obtaining its nourishment by uprooting trees and then feed- 
ing on their leaves. It was objected to this hypothesis that 
had animals of that kind really been in the habit of so pro- 
curing their nourishment they would now and again have 
had their heads broken by falling trees. Owen thereupon 
re-examined the head of the beast which had been the sub- 
ject of his investigations and conjectures, and found that its 
head Aad been broken. But he also found that the skull of 
the animal was so constructed as to enable it to endure such 
fracture with very little inconvenience. 

How can these facts be adequately expressed in terms of 
idealism ? Is it possible to regard the matters thus per- 
ceived as but groups of feelings or ideas in any mind, 
human or non-human ? If we do not recognise the relation 



52 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

of an actually *' falling tree " as a cause of an independently 
existing ** fractured skull/' the whole point and meaning of 
the venerable naturalist's sagacious inference would be lost. 
Similarly with respect to the planets Uranus and Nep- 
tune. The philosophy of idealism puts before us nothing 
but groups of feelings — or ideas in the idealistic sense of 
the word — which co-exist and succeed arbitrarily without 
any rational order or any evident reason why they should so 
co-exist or succeed. The idealist cannot say why the group 
of feelings he calls ** the movements of Uranus " should be 
related to another set of feelings, distinguished as ** the in- 
fluence of an external body, ' ' or why the feelings known as 
** looking through a telescope" should be succeeded by 
those called ** seeing the planet Neptune." 
^OaA '^ [ And modern science teaches us not only that real, ex- 
^''t^ / / tended, material bodies interact upon each other apart from 
r \M ^^^[^ Anybody perceiving them, but also that they so interacted 
f^ ^^> ^<L^ for untold ages before any human mind existed. It tells us 
^^hat the world, at first devoid of life, became fitted for it, 
'' y^ and ultimately fit for mind. The view which science opens 

to us concerning the fact may be briefly expressed thus: 
After an unknown but vast period of time, what we regard 
as the oldest rocks yet extant were deposited, and after 
multitudes of lower forms of life had had their day and dis- 
appeared, huge reptiles came upon the scene, swam in the 
ocean, sported in lakes and rivers, browsed in ferny forests, 
and flitted through the air, all to disappear before the white 
chalk of our Downs was finally deposited. Then beasts and 
birds, strangely unlike those which yet live, came into being 
and passed away unseen by any human eye. Genus suc- 
ceeded to genus and species to species. Gigantic long-armed 
apes bounded through the forests of Southern France, and 
many kinds of monkeys chattered in the woods of what is 
now Greece. At last the human form walked for the first 






THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 53 

time on the earth's surface, and then came races destined 
to dwell for centuries in caves, rudely chipping flints for 
weapons, but by degrees exhibiting signs of an innate love 
for art. Race succeeded race, till at last came those whose 
annals constitute the dawn of history and from whom we 
proceed. Such is the teaching of science. Such is that 
process of evolution in our world, which it declares to be 
certain and indisputable. 

But how is it possible to describe such relations and con- 
ditions in the language of idealism ? 

If idealism were true, evolution would indeed be nothing 
but a dream, nor could any branch of physical science be 
considered more substantial. 

If nothing exists but feelings and ** ideas," and some un- 
perceived cause — theistic, pantheistic, or atheistic — which 
produces them, then everything must depend upon the 
action of that agent, and all secondary causes and interac- 
tions, such as those by which one body is supposed to act 
on another, can be nothing but deceitful illusory appear- 
ances. 

^ But since physical science largely consists in a search after 
secondary causes and the laws of the interaction of bodies 
one on another, a system which can have nothing to say to 
either must be quite useless to such science. 

TT'is indeed the fact that, while following their special 
scientific pursuits, idealists must, temporarily, if tacitly, ab- 
jure their idealism. As men of science it is impossible for 
them to be idealists, and this some of them confess, candidly 
avowing that it would be absurd to try to describe scientific 
processes and state scientific conclusions in idealist phrase- 
ology, while all that science needs is to describe co-existences 
and successions of appearances and in no way to explain 
them. But surely such avowals amount to nothing less than 
a condemnation of the system which makes them necessary. 



\: 



54 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

Physical science requires us to admit the absolute reality 
of extended bodies which can move or be moved, and which 
have real objective relations of number and position and 
really act and react on one another. Newton's discovery is 
much more than a mere description of appearances, and of 
the theory of evolution the same may certainly be affirmed. 
Any system of philosophy, therefore, which denies the ob- 
jective reality of primary qualities, cannot serve as a ground- 
work of science. Either physical science has no foundation 
at all or its groundwork is other than idealistic. 

Now, according to received idealism the world is consti- 
tuted by ** relations," the source of which is a ** mind " or 
** thinking subject." 

Certainly no object can exist without relations. These 
are real objective relations of which the mind is not the 
" source " but the *' observer." The immense majority of 
these objective relations exist in independent objectivity, 
and would continue so to exist were every mind imaginable 
by us annihilated. On the other hand, it is surely too 
absurd to regard the world as made up of relations without 
objects which are related. 

The mind in perceiving these ** objective relations " — i, e.y 
the circumstances in which different things stand to each 
other — cannot, of course, do so without having correspond- 
ing subjective mental perceptions, which may be termed 
** subjective relations " — since they make known to us the 
corresponding "objective" ones. But the latter exist 
quite independent of any imaginable mind. Our perceiving 
or not perceiving them is a mere accident of such relations, 
and in no way affects them save as regards their being or 
not being perceived. 

A simple illustration or two will, we think, make this 
clear. Thus, e. g,, a definite relation exists between a piece 
of rock and a volcano in eruption which ejected it, but this 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 55 

relation is substantially similar between a rock and volcano 
perceived and a rock and volcano of the Antarctic Continent 
which never have been perceived, or between a rock and a 
volcano on the averted surface of the moon, if such things 
there exist. Multitudes of relations probably exist between 
various heavenly bodies, which relations existed long before 
the formation of our solar system. 

But idealists may be asked the following question : If all 
the truth concerning the universe consists not in the existence 
of extended things, but in relations essentially '* mental^'' 
how comes it that the outcome has been the production of 
what idealists must regard as a universal delusion ? For 
the practically universal belief of mankind that external, in- 
dependent, extended bodies really exist on all sides of us 
must, in their eyes, be just such a delusion. A philosophy 
with such a result hardly commends itself to the inquirer 
after the ultimate tests and grounds of truth. 

We therefore do not hesitate to affirm that the existence 
of the ** extended " — that is, of real, independent, external, 
and extended bodies — is an intuition. It is a revelation 
concerning the world about us directly apprehended by our 
intellect through the medium of our sense-perceptions. It 
is a fact certainly true, and shown so to be by its own evi- 
dence. *' Why " extended things exist and " Itow " they 
exist we know not, and may never be able to know ; but 
that they do exist is a truth intuitively perceived, and this it 
is which gives to our perception of the external world that 
character of " inevitableness *' which has been recognised as 
pertaining to it. The possession of this direct intellectual 
apprehension, together with the need for us of the due action 
of our organs of sense to call it forth, well explains both 
our power of directly perceiving what idealists are unable to 
understand our perceiving, and also the obscurity and con* 
fusion into which idealists themselves have fallen. 



56 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

It is no doubt a wonderful thing that such apparently im- 
perfect means as our organs of sense and general bodily 
organisation supply, should enable us to know so much 
concerning the world about us — the extension of bodies and 
their relations as to size, shape, solidity, motion, and num- 
ber, — yet it is not more wonderful, essentially, than is the 
rest of our knowledge and, in fact, the whole of our mental 
powers. How we get any knowledge at all, how we see 
objects, how we feel anything is most mysterious, and all 
our knowledge, deeply considered, is very wonderful. On 
the occurrence of certain changes in our bodies, induced by 
surrounding agencies, we experience * * sensations. * * Through 
such sensations (actual and remembered) sense-perceptions 
are aroused, and by the aid of mental abstraction ideas are 
called forth, and we perceive what we know to be '* external 
objects." Through our own activities and by things done 
to us we recognise our existence, our feelings, and our ac- 
tions. Nothing can be more wonderful than our faculty of 
memory, which gives us absolutely certain knowledge of a 
continuously existing being — our own self — the continuous- 
ness of which it is impossible for our senses to perceive, for 
they can perceive nothing but what is present to them. 
There is really no more difficulty in our perception of the 
external world about us than in our experiencing a sensation 
of azure or of sweetness. The fact is so, and we perceive it 
to be so ; and the act by which we do this is no more really 
marvellous in one case than in the other ; or rather every act 
of knowledge is alike marvellous. We know things, and 
we know that we know them. How we know them is a 
mystery indeed, but one about which it is idle to speculate, 
as it is absolutely insoluble. The oft-repeated question 
** How is knowledge possible ? " is therefore one of the most 
idle and futile questions which can be asked. 

It is an absurd question, because it leads to a regressus ad 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 57 

infinitum. To every possible reply to it, giving some ex- 
planation of its possibility, it may be rejoined ** but how is 
our knowledge of that explanation possible ? ' ' and so on 
forever. We cannot (once more) get behind the intellect, 
and therefore no ultimate explanation of our intellectual 
power is possible. No intellectual perception can be more 
than self-evidently true. We are compelled to trust our 
intellect, as we are compelled to trust that we are not mad ; 
and that we are not altogether mad or deluded is shown us 
by the fact of our seeing quite clearly that if we were de- 
luded our judgments could not be trustworthy. 

The mystery of knowledge runs parallel, as we have just 
said, to the mystery of sensation. We feel things savoury 
or odorous or brilliant or melodious, as the case may be; 
and, with the aid of the scalpel and the microscope, we may 
investigate the material conditions of such sensations. But 
how such conditions can give rise to the feelings themselves 
is a mystery which defies our utmost efforts to penetrate. 
Yet, because we cannot discover this, we never doubt our 
sensations or the fact that we feel them ; and we have as 
little reason to doubt our intellectual intuitions or the facts 
we know as made evident to our intellect through our 
feelings. 

By our recognition of this direct intellectual intuition of 
the existence — and, in part, the nature — of things around 
us, science and its progress can be both understood and ad- 
vanced without the denial of one single fact for which ideal- 
ism vouches. Its affirmations are justified while its negations 
can by such recognition be shown to be unreasonable though 
explicable, and almost necessary upon that conception of 
the nature of ideas which idealism adopts, and the insecure 
basis upon which it builds. 

By its affirmations, our feelings are correctly, described, 
but its great fault is its non-appreciation of the profound 



58 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

difference which exists between them and our ideas, and its 
consequent practical negation of the higher source of all our 
knowledge. That the affirmations of idealism are justified 
is unquestionable. Idealists rightly affirm that, as we have 
before pointed out/ we can know nothing without the aid 
of our sensations, that a plexus of our own feelings accom- 
panies every one of our perceptions, and that not even our 
most abstract ideas are destitute of such accompaniments. 
In our first chapter we endeavoured at some length to make 
clear the profound distinction which exists between ** feel- 
ings," however complexly associated together, and intel- 
lectual conceptions, and a similar distinction exists between 
(i) the associated plexuses of feelings, vivid and faint, which 
constitute a "sense-perception" of an object — an act 
which cannot truly be called intellectual, but seems to be 
merely a form of sensitivity — and (2) the non-sensuous 
activity, which is an intellectual perception • — an act of 
" consciousness." 

The latter is not the mere apprehension of an object as an 
individual " thing," * but as a " thing of a certain kind," 
and the recognition that it is such is the result of our power 
of abstraction. Idealists are too apt to confound " sensuous 
universals " with true ones. A sensuous universal is a mere 
blurred or defective mental image of an object which has 
been produced by the successive experience of a variety of 
individual objects of the same kind. Thus the successive 
sensuous impressions produced by a number of horses, 
different in size, colour, and somewhat in shape, have, of 
course, their effect upon the imagination, and reminiscences 
of these concur with freshly received impressions to aid us in 
eliciting the perception and idea of a horse by a direct intel- 
lectual act. But that the intellectual perception and idea 
of a " hor§e " is not a mere amalgam of modified imagina- 

' See ante^ p. 9. * See ante^ p. 9. * See ante^ p. 6. 



7 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 59 

tions, or a mere generalised mental image, is plain from the 
fact that the imaginations which have helped to call it forth, 
may persist in the mind side by side with it, which they 
evidently could never do if the idea was made up of such 
imaginations. 

A true universal — the intellectual conception supported 
by the sensuous universal — is a single idea called forth by 
a natural activity of the mind, and is by no means a mere 
collection or residuum of blurred sensuous impressions. Our 
power of abstraction instantaneously analyses the thing 
perceived into its ideal qualities, and also synthesises them 
as belonging to a really existing concrete object. It appre- 
hends both the object's concrete individuality (that it is 
" this thing here ") and also the kind to which it pertains 
(that it is a member of a group, which, as a groups exists 
only in the mind). 

How different is the intellectual apprehension from the 
sensuous affection is clear from the fact that changes in 
such sensuous affections may only render the intellectual 
apprehension a more complete and perfect unity. Thus, if a 
solid cube be suspended by a string and then turned round 
before us, we can never see all its surfaces at once, and its 
square faces, as we see them in perspective, do not look 
square but lozenge-shaped. Nevertheless, these incomplete^ 
defective signs not only serve to give us an accurate per- 
ception of the cube, but its revolution, though it changes 
our sensuous impressions, only makes our intellectual con- 
ception more complete and stable — while the former changes, 
the latter remains the same throughout. 

Thus every material object whereof our senses can take 
cognisance, has various qualities — its size, shape, solidity, 
colour, etc. — and acts upon our senses accordingly. 

Its qualities affect us in response to our activities of eye, 
ear, hand, etc. Our two eyes form two slightly discordant 



\ 



6o THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

images of it, and our hands and arms may give us numbers 
of synchronous and successive feelings respecting it. Sim- 
ultaneously with these sensuous impressions, we have a per- 
ception of the object and its qualities. But that perception 
is by no means correspondingly multiform. The per- 
ception is one intellectual cognition resulting from a multi- 
tude of sensations and reminiscences. Our attention may, 
of course, be directed to any one of its qualities, but if so, 
what we then directly perceive is no longer the thing itself 
but the quality in question. 

As it is with the revolving cube, so also changes produced 
by our own movements may make our intellectual cognition 
of what surrounds us more unchanging. When walking in 
Notre Dame, as we progress, the pillars of the double row 
of columns on either side of its nave successively change 
their relative positions in our eyes. Yet they remain in 
reality unchanging, and by the experiences thus received 
we gain a clearer intellectual apprehension of their true 
relative positions than we could do by remaining fixed to 
one spot. 

Some opponents affirm that what is really different be- 
tween a mere sense-perception and an intellectual perception 
of an object, is that to the latter a word is applied, and that 
apart from this word there would be no difference. Such a 
view is, of course, the teaching of the oft-refuted system 
known as '* Nominalism." 

That the essence of intellectual perception and conception 
does not lie in the word, is shown by the fact that the same 
idea may be made known by different words,different modes 
of speech, and even by gesture language. * But it is plain that 
if the intellect had not universal ideas, then general terms, 
such as * ' dog, " * * horse, ' ' etc. , would be meaningless. It may 
also be asked how general terms ever came to be, if the mind 

* Sec below, Chapter vii. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 6 1 

knew nothing but individual things ? Again, even nominal- 
ists must profess to understand the meanings of certain 
words; but since almost all words are universals, it is plain 
that they could not understand them unless they really 
possessed universal ideas. If we can perceive the general 
nature of certain words, why not of other things also ? But 
nominalists agree with idealists in one fundamental error. 
They confuse the objects of cognition with the means of 
cognition, not, as before said, because they pay any excep- 
tional attention to their feelings, but because they regard 
what are really, for both idealists and non-idealists, ** ob- 
jects perceived ' ' as being mere plexuses of feelings, plexuses, 
therefore, of what are in truth but ** means of perception." 
Objects are known directly by means of our mental affec- 
tions. It is true that modern idealists describe our experi- 
ence as made up of " perceptions'* ; but by** perceptions " 
they mean congeries of vivid and faint feelings, and not that 
direct intellectual cognition which exists over and above, 
and in addition to, ** feelings " of whatsoever kind they may 
be. Thus our perception of material, external, independent 
objects they declare to be not a direct intuition but an 
inference. 

The term *' inference '* means, as we all know, the percep- 
tion by our mind of the fact that one truth is implicitly 
contained in other truths antecedently known. Now it is 
quite true that an inference, though if it exists it must be 
conscious, may excite our attention but very slightly and be 
rapidly forgotten. Can our perceptions of objects, then, 
be due to such hasty, little adverted-to, and speedily forgot- 
ten inferences ? Now inferences, even of that kind, can 
be recognised by reflection to have occurred if they have 
done so. Thus, if we have on a dark evening mistaken a 
stranger for a friend, we can recognise afterwards the cir- 
cumstances which occasioned our mistake, and made us 



62 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

hastily conclude from insufficient evidence that the fact was 
otherwise than in truth it was. But it is impossible to 
recognise the presence of any act of inference in our ordinary 
perceptions of objects, however much we may look back and 
analyse such perceptions. When, for example, after having 
perceived an apple, we look back on our various sensations 
thus derived, we do not find that they have constituted the 
premises of any conclusion, but, on the contrary, we see 
that they have directly revealed the apple — they have tnade 
it present to our intellect. It is thus with the immense 
majority of our perceptions. Why, then, should we deem 
them to be inferences, when they exhibit to us no signs of 
having been produced by an inferential process ? Is it one 
bit more wonderful or mysterious that we should perceive 
"objects** than that we should perceive '* inferences "? 
An " inference " — a perception that one thing must be true 
because its truth is implicitly contained in other things — is 
surely a much more complex and involved mental process 
than is the direct perception of an object. For this reason, 
then, if for no other, we should not conclude that we have 
made use of a process of ** inference " when nothing in our 
minds assures us that we have really done so. 

What probably has caused some persons to mistake " per- 
ception " for ** inference " is the fact that every perception 
is the result of a number of psychical processes — sensations 
and imaginations associated in complex groups and a variety 
of unconscious * affections also. This process of complex 
sensuous association it is which seems to have been denoted 
under the self -contradictory term, ** unconscious inference." 

Yet if our perceptions of objects were ** inferences," then, 
since no inference can exist without data, the data of such 
perceptions must be the feelings which objects occasion in 
us. But if that were the case, then such feelings must be 

' As to this, see below. Chapter vi. 




F SCIENCE • 63 



primarily observed, or else no consequence could be deduced 
from them. In that case it would be quite true to charge 
.idealists with mistaking the means for the objects of percep- 
*tion, and in spite of all their denials, we should have to 
affirm that they do direct their attention upon their sensa- 
tions and feelings in an exceptional and most misleading 
manner. 

But that *' perception " is not ** iiiference " is very plainly 
shown by the fact that we can and do obtain a reflective 
assurance of the truth of our perceptions when we clearly 
do not employ inference to obtain it. 

No one can deny that there is a plain distinction between 
** attention " and *' inference," and we may gain an in- 
creased certainty for our perceptions by acts of attention 
alone. The reader will, we think, readily admit that he 
sometimes perceives an object consciously, but without 
paying particular attention to it ; and that when his atten- 
tion to it is by Si^me circumstance aroused, he has then a 
far clearer consciousness of it and of its nature than before. 
He can, indeed, thus " make sure " by merely, as it were, 
tightening his sensuous grasp of the object and carefully 
focussing his sense-perceptions regarding it. 

Thus perception is no process of inference from known 
signs to a before unknown notion of an object, but is a spon- 
taneous interpretation of signs (which themselves are by no 
means expressly adverted to) by a natural power the mind 
possesses, and which is rapidly perfected by exercise. By 
it we gain an immediate assurance (and, by attention, can 
gain an augmented assurance) that a perception is certain 
and needs no proof. 

But there remains one supremely important point to con- 
sider. If our perceptions were ** inferences,** our intellect 
would necessarily be thereby altogether stultified. For no 

inference " can be certain which does not repose on per- 



«< •- 



64 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

ceptions previously acquired and known to be true. If, 
therefore, every perception were an inference, we should get 
a regressus ad infinitum^ and be incapable of ever acquiring 
a perception of any truth whatever. Anterior to all possible 
truth, we must know truths which are not inferences, which 
require no proofs but are evident in themselves. 

The fact tha. we have a direct and immediate knowledge 
of objects which are made present to the mind through our 
sensations, is a fact fatal to idealism. It alike justifies the 
spontaneous and reflective declarations of our own minds, 
when once we have clearly understood the great difference 
which exists between (i) intellectual conceptions and per- 
ceptions, and (2) their merely sensuous accompaniments. 

The conviction, then, that science is really concerned not 
alone with thoughts but also with external, independent, 
and extended realities, is so far justified. 

It only now remains for us to consider the various objec- 
tions which have been brought against the validity of this 
conviction. 

The stock objection is based on the supposed constant 
and inevitable delusion we are led into by our sensations of 
colour, sound, smell, and taste — the secondary qualities of 
bodies — as contrasted with their primary qualities of exten- 
sion, size, shape, number, motion, etc. It is then further 
argued that if we are entirely deceived as regards the second- 
ary qualities, the primary qualities can be in no better case, 
each of them being, to our experience, but a plexus of our 
own feelings, vivid and faint. 

And we freely concede that in this idealists are so far right 
that if we could not directly know things in themselves, but 
only the impressions they make on us, then the said primary 
qualities might be no more than combinations of certain of 
those groups of muscular feelings and feelings of effort and 
resistance which have been made use of by us in acquiring 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 65 

such ideas. Nevertheless, there is a great difference in our 
notions of these two sets (primary and secondary) of quali- 
ties. For, in the first place, colours and sounds are each 
perceived by one sense only ; but in examining the solidity, 
extension, figure, number, and motion of any object we 
perceive, we can bring various modes of feeling to confirm 
the evidence of vision. We find also that doubt as to 
primary qualities carries with it very different results from 
a disbelief in the objective validity of our impressions as to 
secondary ones. If we became convinced that nothing in 
the remotest degree like the secondary qualities we know 
of existed in the perceived objects themselves, the world 
would lose very much of its charm for us. Flowers would 
have lost their tints as well as their fragrance, and the 
melody of birds, no less than their brilliance of plumage, 
would have disappeared ; but otherwise things would remain 
substantially as they were. But with the disappearance of 
primary qualities the solid earth itself would vanish, and we 
should even lose the companionship of that most faithful 
ally — our own body ! If we hold three marbles in our hand 
and we are told they are not truly of the tint we suppose, or 
that they really have an odour of garlic which escapes our 
notice, we are not greatly disturbed thereby. If, however, 
it were asserted to us that they were not three and not solid 
objects at all, that we could not touch distinct parts of the 
surface of any one of them, or that they were not spherical 
in shape, or that when we dropped them from one hand to 
the other there was no real motion in them apart from our 
feelings of touch, effort, and movement, — then, if we were 
not idealists, we should consider the assertor, if serious, to 
be irrational, or that he regarded our own rationality as 
dubious. 

The colour of any object, as we all know, is said to be 
nothing but a result of the undulation of certain waves of 



66 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

light reflected from its surface to us, and we are asked how 
there can possibly be any real resemblance between that 
condition of any object, which causes it to reflect such 
waves, and our sensations of colour ? How also, it is further 
asked, can there be any possible likeness between the real 
condition of a body thrown into rapid vibration and the 
sounds those rapid vibrations occasion in us ? As well, they 
exclaim, might a wound be like the kAife which inflicted it 
— thus tacitly asserting the necessary adequacy of a cause 
for its eflfect ! 

Now, of course, as we have before said, no subjective feel- 
ing can be like an objective quality belonging to an external 
object. The simplest rustic, with his senses about him, 
knows as much philosophy as that. But he also knows that 
there are in external things real qualities which give rise to 
the feelings he experiences. This can be easily ascertained 
(as we have ascertained it) by questioning such rustics in 
language they can understand. The conviction they really 
entertain is the spontaneous and universal conviction of 
mankind, from a Sussex cowherd to the greatest philosopher 
of Greece ; and a spontaneous and universal human convic- 
tion should be accepted and acquiesced in unless there are 
valid reasons against our so doing. 

We must here revert to a point before noticed. In our 
perception of any object it is made present to our mind by 
feelings to which we do not advert. Its presence is a pres- 
ence in the mind's perception and not in the feelings (vivid 
and faint) which accompany such perception. Moreover, 
though " subjective /i?^'//«^j " cannot be like "objective 
qualities^ ' ' there may nevertheless be a true correspondence 
between our subjective /^r^^///(t7« of an object and its object- 
ive mode of existence. For, as we have before pointed out,* 
we can know things which never were and never could be 

* See ante^ pp. lo, ii. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 6/ 

felt or imagined, and there is the greatest possible difference 
between " feelings " and " ideas." 

Now let the reader examine what his own mind tells him, 
and we are confident he will see that in perceiving any 
body to be one body, or to be solid or to be extended or to be 
moving^ he has, in each separate case, one single and simple 
idea and not an amalgam of feelings of ** touch," ** press- 
ure," " effort," and *' sight," however indispensable such 
feelings may have been in order to call forth perceptions and 
ideas of unity, solidity, extension, and motion. 

Moreover, the idea of extension may exist apart from 
visual feelings, for the blind have it, and apart from tactual 
feelings, for it is given by sight alone — especially with the 
twofold grasp of objects our two eyes simultaneously afford 
us. That an idea can persist unchanged amidst changing 
sensuous experiences and remain single though revealed to 
us by sensuous experiences of many and such diverse kinds, 
we have already seen.* That feelings of different kinds are 
required to arouse our idea of extension, does not show that 
the idea is a plexus of feelings any more than that ** coal " 
is " digging " because we may have to dig in order to obtain 
it. The nature of an idea and the modes of its elicitation or 
acquisition are two very different things. 

Our idea of "force" again becomes known to us by 
means of our sense of effort, of resistance, and of resistance 
overcome, and such sensations form the occasion through 
and by which our intellect comes to perceive that surround- 
ing bodies have powers corresponding to our own. Some 
persons pretend that we thus commit the absurd mistake of 
attributing to inanimate bodies around us activities abso- 
lutely like our own. But, in fact, we only attribute to such 
bodies powers which have a certain analogy with our own. 
If we try to pull a man up from the ground and fail because 

' See anti^ pp. 59, 60. 



68 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

he IS stronger than we are, and if we try to raise a piece of 
rock and fail because it is too heavy, we can indeed perceive 
a certain analogy between the effect on us of the man and 
the rock, but the difference between the two cases is also 
plainly evident to the intellect, however alike may be our 
sensations in the two cases. Similarly with respect to 
our ideas of " number," ** extension, " etc. By means of 
our sensations, and the relations between them, we arrive at 
something fundamentally different from either — namely, 
an apprehension of external, objective conditions of real, in- 
dependent bodies. But, as we have said before, these 
conditions are utterly unlike the sensations and relations 
between sensations which serve to make such objective 
conditions known to us. In considering these things we 
must never fail to recollect* that it is not ** sense" but 
" intellect," not our " feelings" but our ** perceptions," 
which are our ultimate criteria of certainty and truth. 

And our intellect surely tells us that by means of our 
sensations we attain to a certain degree of truth with respect 
even to the secondary qualities of bodies, and certainly even 
the common belief on the subject is nearer the truth than 
its negation can be. 

We are sometimes told that were there no eyes or ears 
darkness and silence would be universal. Now our notion 
of light is quite inadequate to make its essential nature 
known to us as it might be known by some intelligence of a 
higher order than our own. But, nevertheless, if light as 
we know it, and sound as we know it, are imperfect cogni- 
tions because thus subjective, the very same objection ap- 
plies to our notions of " darkness " and ** silence." They 
are as much subjective as our sensations of colour or melody. 
A world without eyes or ears would be neither light nor 
dark, neither sonorous nor silent, but in a condition abso- 

^ See ante, pp, 13, 14, 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 69 

lutely unimaginable by us. Yet that world would be far 
more like the brilliant one we know than it would resemble 
one plunged in darkness. For since we suppose the physi- 
cal forces, sun» moon, and stars, meteors, volcanoes, and 
phosphorescent organisms to exist in it as they do now, all 
the objective conditions of light, save sense-organs, would, 
by the hypothesis, be present, while the objective conditions 
of what, to our senses, is darkness, would not be present. 
Though all sensations of eye and ear would, of course, 
vanish from such a world, yet the objective qualities those 
sensations reveal to us would continue to exist. Other per- 
sons, again, think that they get nearer to the absolute truth 
of things by considering colours and sounds to be really 

j ** modes of motion " — different orders and different degrees 
of " vibrations." But, as we have seen, the very same 
cavils may be brought against the validity of our perceptions 
of primary qualities as against our perceptions of secondary 
ones. In that case ** vibrations " would be nothing but as- 
sociated, vivid and faint, muscular and tactual feelings, and 
such must at least be as unlike the objective causes of light, 
colour, and sound as are the conceptions of ordinary persons 
with respect to the latter. 

; Bearing these facts in mind, let us once more consider 

some objections made by idealists against those who believe 
in an independent, external world of real, extended objects 
possessing real, objective qualities. 

The iridescent tints of minutely grooved surfaces do not 
really deceive any more than the effects of coloured lights 
or tinted glasses, or than distant mountains which look 
purple make us suppose that they are actually purple when 
seen close at hand. 

The effects of bodily injuries are often cited as evidence 
of the untrustworthiness of judgments our sensations induce. 
Men who have had a leg amputated sometimes feel as if they 



yo THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

still had it, and also feel pains in their vanished toes. But 
no one would surely be so foolish as to pretend that our 
feelings, or even our perceptions, are independent of our 
bodily organisation ; if, then, that organisation be impaired, 
the action of our sensitive faculty would be likewise im- 
paired, nor should we be surprised if our perceptions were 
thereby also occasionally misled. If our normal organisa- 
tion is so arranged as to guide us right, it should be small 
wonder to us if it sometimes guided us wrongly when in an 
abnormal condition! But, after all, even though a man 
whose leg has been amputated may suffer with pains like 
those he might feel if he still had his toes, that does not 
lead him to believe that he has actually still got them ! 

If objects may appear different in size and shape as we 
change our place in respect to them, though they in .truth 
do not so change at all, not only are we not thereby deceived, 
but, as we have seen,* our knowledge of their objective 
qualities may be thereby perfected. A pea held between 
our crossed first and middle fingers will not feel like one 
pea, but like two peas. But there is no real deception in 
this. No one would affirm that the mere touch of a surface 
can impart knowledge as to the bulk and solidity of the ob- 
ject touched ; for this, we must also have some experience of 
resistance. If, then, with the fore and middle fingers )ve 
simultaneously touch two opposite surfaces and find we can- 
not bring our fingers together, the feeling naturally arises 
(from long experienced associations of sensations) that an 
obstacle in the form of a solid body lies between them — an 
obstacle situated between the adjacent sides of those fingers. 
But if we cross our fingers, then the pea touches those sides 
of each finger which do not ordinarily touch the same thing, 
but two different things, and this makes the single pea 
naturally feel as if it were two peas. 

* See anU, p. 60. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 7 1 

As everyone knows, various ingenious instruments have 
been invented to produce optical delusions, but that in no 
way makes the declaration of our perceptive faculty at all 
less trustworthy. We are able, indeed, so to arrange things 
as to invert or distort impressions ordinarily made; what 
wonder, then, that our sense-perceptions sometimes be- 
« come inverted or distorted likewise ? But it is generally 
the case that though our sense-perception is changed, 
our intellectual perception remains perfect all the time, 
and so enables us to be the better amused by the sense- 
deception induced. 

But, it may be urged, most people even now, and every- 
one a few centuries ago, have been deceived by their senses 
with respect to the motions of the sun and the earth, yet 
the fact is, their senses did not deceive them. They only 
drew too hasty an inference from what they saw, as a little 
reflection will, we think, make obvious. Our sight gives us 
no information at all with respect to motion, save indirectly, 
I. e. , as shown by changes of relative position between ob- 
jects. Thus, when we are moving, we may, under some 
circumstances, be quite unconscious of it, save for jolts, 
jars, the feeling of meeting the air, and other incidents 
which are no elements of motion, but merely its accidental 
accompaniments. When travellers in a balloon ascend from 
the earth, they are said to have no feeling whatever of their 
movement, save by looking down on an apparently sinking 
world beneath them. The feelings our senses give us, oc- 
casion an intellectual apprehension of motion and of moving 
things; but that apprehension, we can see by reflection, may 
take place with or without inference. With regard to the 
movement of the sun, there really is this relative change of 
position — di fact about which the senses gtve us accurate in- 
formation. Our perception of this relative change of place 
does certainly awaken in our intellect a perception of motion. 



^^ THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

but it does not, for it cannot, tell us where the motion is, 
without processes of observation and inference. The sup- 
posed perception of the sun's motion is an instance of an 
inference, not noticed, perhaps, at the time, but clearly 
recognisable by reflection. It is impossible for anyone to 
really see the sun move. If we fix our eyes on it at sunset 
we shall, indeed, from second to second, see that it has 
more and more disappeared; but we cannot see it move. 
As to the movement of the sun, the mass of men never think 
about its relation to that of the earth. The first observers 
inferred that it moved, and that the earth stood still, and 
their inference embedded in language, has so affected us, 
that to this day everyone speaks of the ** rising and set- 
ting sun," even though he may know quite well that it 
neither sets nor rises, but that the revolving earth gradu- 
ally hides it from view and afterwards lets it be seen 
once more. What men's senses ever did and do now 
make known, are " changes of relative position between 
the earth, on which the observer stands, and the sun," and 
just such changes do really take place. Thus none of the 
objections yet considered allow us to say that our senses 
really deceive us. 

And, indeed, with regard to the secondary qualities of 
bodies, more might yet be urged in defence of the veracity 
of our faculties respecting them than we have yet advanced. 
No one has ever shown, or can, we believe, show, that it is 
impossible for our intellect to obtain, through our sensations 
of colour, sound, etc., the truest notions it is possible for 
us to have concerning the objective qualities which give rise 
to those sensations. The objective cause, whatever it may 
be, must be admitted to be occult in each case, except as it 
may be made more or less known to us by the sensations it 
occasions. Granting, for argument's sake, the absolute 
truth of the undulatory theory of light, the objective con- 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 73 

dition of an object which causes it to select certain rays for 
reflection must be admitted to be as yet quite occult. 
Therefore, it cannot be denied that there may be such a 
conformity between objective qualities and the effects they 
produce on us, that those effects may be the best means 
possible for giving us the best understanding we can attain 
to of what those objective qualities really are. Though 
those effects may be, and probably are, far from telling us 
the whole truth, though the objective qualities that produce 
them may be very differeit from such effects, and though 
much ignorance about su'.h objective qualities (the existence 
of which we do know) m ly thus have to be added to our 
ignorance about various other qualities which probably ex- 
ist unknown to us — ne> ertheless, our knowledge, however 
fragmentary, is m part true, and, therefore, our faculties, 
though inadequate to reveal to us much we might wish to 
understand, are nevertheless not mendacious. But some 
persons, strange to say, have affirmed that incomplete 
knowledge is error ; and that what we know only in part, 
we therefore know wrongly. 

Yet such an affirmation is surely a most irrational one. 
Is the statement, ** The angles at the base of an isosceles 
triangle are equal," false or erroneous, because it does not 
also express the facts which follow if its sides be produced ? 
Is it false to say, "A gibbon has extremely long arms," be- 
cause we do not also say, ** No ape except a species of gib- 
bon has a chin " ? 

It is, of course, most true that no man can possess, with 
respect to any object whatever, a knowledge of all its 
relations (real and possible) with the rest of the universe. 
But the impossibility of our being omniscient does not 
prevent our having some knowledge which is perfectly 
accurate, absolutely true, as far as it goes. Our know- 
ledge, for example, of the numerical difference between 



74 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

two groups of marbles (one with three, the other with 
five) is a perfectly true knowledge, and in no way tainted 
with error. 

The same example may serve to refute another and very 
common objection to the veracity of our perceptions. Some 
persons, while professing to know nothing but sensations 
and sense-impresses, vivid and faint, yet believe — as a sort 
of faith — in the existence of an independent material world, 
quite unlike our perceptions, and yet the cause of them. 
The men of this school do really believe in " independent 
material objects " and " actual physical states," as realities 
independent of their minds and of everyone else's. But, on 
their system of knowledge, they can (since they say they 
can know nothing but states of consciousness) only get this 
belief of theirs by an act of blind and unreasoning credulity. 
They also affirm our knowledge to be necessarily untrue, 
because it corresponds neither with what is internal and 
subjective, nor with what is external and objective. They 
regard it as a sort of tertium quid which results from the 
combined activity and interaction of both subject and ob- 
ject, but resembling neither — ^just as water resembles neither 
the oxygen nor the hydrogen from the combination of both 
of which it results. But experience and reflection clearly 
show us that our intelligence has the power of unconsciously 
subtracting its own subjective element from the result. Let 
us concede that every perception is produced by the com- 
bination X -\-y ; X being the Ego, or self, and y the object. 
Yet the mind has the power of supplying its own — jr, and 
so we get x-^-y — x^ or y pure and simple. Unless such 
were the case, how could we know the real numerical differ- 
ence between three marbles and two marbles, between a 
cube and a sphere ? Does any reasonable person doubt 
that, in these matters at least, we attain to absolute object- 
ive truth ? 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 75 

It is clear that the mind can correct any such supposed 
delusive tendency of its own, or the above facts could not 
be known to us as perfectly certain and accurate objective 
truths. Thus the mind unquestionably must possess the 
power of transmitting to us a knowledge of at least some 
facts and principles as they really and objectively exist. 
Why should we distrust its other dictates ? Grounding all 
our assertions on the positive declarations of our conscious- 
ness, we can affirm that we really know (though more or less 
imperfectly) things in themselves, and not a mere amalgam 
made up of a mixture of the results of objective and subject- 
ive influences — results neither resembling ourselves nor the 
world without us in any one respect. 

As to the contention of idealists that the essence of all 
*' existence " is " being perceived," we may freely allow 
that nothing can exist in absolutely the same condition 
when perceived as when unperceived, for in the former case 
it is " a thing perceived," and in the latter case ** a thing 
unperceived," and** a thing unknown " cannot be identical 
with ** a thing known." But this contention is one which 
is utterly trivial. Of course, things unknown cannot be 
known while they exist as unknown objects, and of course, 
again, a thing perceived by us does not exist in a state of 
** being perceived by us " when we do not perceive it. But 
our perceiving it or not perceiving it is (as we have more 
than once urged) a mere accident of its existence, which ex- 
istence continues on essentially the same, whether perceived 
or not. Who has perceived the mountains on the other 
side of the moon ; but are they the less real because no one 
can perceive them ? ^ho^ rn^nivtd fi?r "■"^H'l 7g^? f"^^ ^^^^^y 
palaeozoic f ossils which hav e been in modern times disen- 
tomoea ; out have they been less'p' ei JilAlgiiLly laIjLliiI » n th a t 
account ? Does want of being perceived impair the reality of 
the thousands of fossils which as yet remain undiscovered ? 




/ 



j6 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

Surely here, as in the former instances we noted,* physical 
science is fatal to idealism. 

Before finally concluding this chapter it may be well to 
consider some special objections made by one of our most 
esteemed idealists' against a non-idealistic conception of 
the universe as being self-contradictory and replete with 
illusion. 

After the usual objections founded on the divergence be- 
tween our sensations induced by the secondary qualities of 
objects and the objective nature of the latter, he endeavours 
to raise difficulties as to our perception of the extended on 
the ground that the mode of inherence of its secondary 
qualities and the relations holding between them'(** how 
the qualities stand to the relations which have to hold be- 
tween them "), are, on any non-idealistic system, inex- 
plicable. 

We have already protested* against the question, ** How 
is knowledge possible ?" as a necessarily idle one. Qjj£ 
knowl edge of the '^Jiow aLU^UuUS Ls '.'_ must alwa ys repose 
^poir^gLlpieviQus knowledge of the fact *' ^fiat it; is^ " To 
seek to know the ** how " and ** why '* of every ** that,'* is 
to enter upon an inquiry which it is plain cannot possibly 
have any end — a necessary regressus ad infinitum. All men, 
even idealists themselves, have, we are convinced, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, an intuition of the extended. 
Nevertheless, when affirming anything thus evidently true, 
it is specially needful to guard against the appearance of de- 
claring any other things to be evident which really are not 
evident. Thus many persons assume that ** the extended " 
must possess secondary qualities, and, of course, our uniform 
sensuous experience renders it impossible for us to imagine 

* Sec ante^ pp. 51-53. 

' Dr. F. H. Bradley in his work entitled Appearance and Reaiity^ 1893* 

• Ibid., pp. 14, 15. • Sec ante, p. 56. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE JJ 

any extended object devoid of such qualities. Yet it really 
is not evident that it must possess such qualities, though, 
of course, its possession of them may in fact be necessary 
for all that. 

The ** extended " must, of course, have some definite 
quantity, but it is not evident that ** corporeal substance ** 
must be extended, or, so to speak, be quantitatively ex- 
tended in space. Let us suppose that the earth and the 
moon were both simultaneously deprived of their extension 
while remaining individually distinct, the one from the 
other; they would, though not externally extended, have a 
definite state of some kind, though we canaot imagine it 
even so well as we can imagine what Newton said as to the 
possibility of reducing the earth, without loss of substance, 
to the size of one cubic inch. 

Although merely speculative, it is well to recognise that 
when Kant arg^ued that the nountenon of substance did not 
evidently demand ^^ phenomenon of extension, he was not 
unreasonable save in denying our intuition of extension as 
a fact. We have no intuition of the essential nature of 
material bodies — of corporeal substance in itself — such as 
would warrant us in drawing the conclusion that it necessa- 
rily postulates, short of annihilation, actual extension. But 
in order to be able to affirm with certainty that the extended 
— the external world — exists, it is by no means necessary to 
know its intimate " nature,*' and the absolute exhaustive 
truth about all or any of its qualities. '* Qualities" and 
'* relations," as such, are, of course, mere abstractions, 
though every one of them has a foundation in those real 
things of which they are truly predicated. 

The difficulties raised by Dr. Bradley are very largely 
verbal ones, and result from the impossibility of our imagin- 
ing what is beyond our sensuous experience, and from his 
proneness to make use of exceedingly sensuous illustrations. 



78 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

Appearance, he tells us/ must belong and yet cannot be- 
long, to the extended. 

But it is not evident that something extended may not 
exist in our vicinity which our sensitive faculties may be 
unable to perceive, so that it cannot appear to them ; and it 
is certain that multitudes of extended bodies exist in space 
(so to speak) which never can appear to any human being. 
So much for the first alternative. As to the second, " ap- 
pearance " can and does belong to the extended, in so far 
as it has objective qualities and powers which our faculties 
are able to apprehend. The ** appearance '* is partly object- 
ive and partly subjective, or rather it is in one sense the 
former and in another sense the latter, just as we have seen 
that colour and sound are both objective and subjective. 

That the extended comes to us ** only by relation to an 
organ," and is ** perceived through an affection of our body 
and never without," is another objection. But why should 
we not apprehend extension through our organs, and what 
doubt does such a means of apprehending it cast on the 
truth of our apprehension ? Why also should we doubt 
the truth of the extension of our own body because we can 
only perceive it by the action of one part of it upon another ? 

Dr. Bradley says": ** That we have no miraculous intui- 
tion of our own body as spatial reality is perfectly certain." 
The word ** miraculous " should not have been used by him 
in this context, as it tends to excite an initial prejudice 
against the view he opposes. Nobody pretends that we 
have such an intuition, but that our possession of an evident 
natural intuition is certain we do not hesitate to affirm. 
Of course we cannot think till after we have begun to feel, 
and our intuition of the body's extension is not gained with- 
out experience and without multitudinous antecedent move- 
ments between its various parts. But that intuition once 

' Bradley, he. cit., p. 15. ^Ibid.^ p. 15. 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE Jg 

gained is not on that account a bit less clear and distinct at 
a very early date. 

There is no difficulty in the fact that nothing extended 
can be perceived except in relation to thought which is 
unextended. Who would expect that two extended but 
thoughtless things could perceive each other ? What doubt 
is cast upon our intellectual intuitions from the fact that 
they cannot do so ? 

That extended objects may be real in themselves, with 
various relations to our percipience, is opposed by Dr. Brad- 
ley on the ground that, " if a thing is known to have a 
quality only under a certain condition, there is no process 
of reasoning from this which will justify the conclusion that 
the thing, if unconditioned, is still the same." 

But here the use of the term ** unconditioned " seems 
quite unwarrantable. Because the conditions which accom- 
pany perception may be absent, it by no nieans follows that 
all conditions are absent. Indeed, it is clear and manifest 
that no extended object can exist devoid of all relations to 
the rest of the universe. The antithesis, therefore, is be- 
tween the extended under " some " conditions, and the ex- 
tended under " other " conditions, and, thus corrected, the 
assertion is plainly erroneous. 

We have only known the sun in so far as it is above the 
horizon. But that does not prevent our being certain that 
we could, were we supplied with certain helps, also see it 
on the opposite side of the heavens. 

That objection to the reality of qualities only known to 
us through one sense — one relation — which is grounded on 
the assertion that to affirm the reality of such qualities apart 
from that relation is ** more than unwarranted " — is itself 
" more than unwarranted." 

For we always have more than one source of information 
about the qualities of things. We have (i) our sensitive 



80 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

faculty, which informs us of the subjective results of such 
qualities, and we have (2) the intellect, which assures us that 
our sensation has, under normal conditions, a real objective 
cause. 

That extension cannot be presented in thought, or thought 
of except as possessing secondary qualities, we altogether 
deny, though, as we have already affirmed, it cannot be im- 
agined without them. 

The former assertion is manifestly false. For though we 
cannot think of our extended body except by the aid of 
sensuous images, into which imaginations of secondary qual- 
ities enter, nevertheless, thus aided, we can think of such 
things as devoid of secondary qualities. If we could not do 
so we should not be able even to discuss the question 
whether the extended can or cannot exist without such 
secondary qualities, nor could we have declared, as we have 
done, that it is not evident to us either that they can or that 
they cannot do so, and that an open mind is to be main- 
tained there anent. 

Dr. Bradley could not discuss the question either, unless 
he had the ** miraculous'' faculty of writing about a ques- 
tion concerning which he is utterly unable to think. 

" Extension," like quality (whether primary or second- 
ary), is, of course, an abstraction, though with a very solid 
foundation in extended things. 

The reality of extension, once more, is for us a direct per- 
ception. It is no inference, but an intellectual intuition 
acquired through the ministry of sense. It is, of course, 
most true that we can feel nothing of an object save the 
subjective effects of its objective qualities: that in a lump 
of sugar we have no sensitive perception of anything but its 
whiteness, hardness, roughness, sweetness, etc., together 
with its shape and its extension ; but we none the less know 
that there i^more. We have, as we before said, no intuition 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 8 1 

of the corporeal substance in itself^ but we have an evident 
intuition of corporeal substance in conjunction with the 
qualities our senses make known to us. This is the material 
substance which Bishop Berkeley said he alone denied the 
existence of, and the absence of which, he declared, would 
be missed by none. But its absence would, indeed, be 
missed by all ; for the plain man always thinks of a material 
object as something real in itself over and above its qualities. 
Such reality is apprehended by every healthy and normal 
intellect. It is easy to laugh at Dr. Johnson's refutation 
of idealism by kicking a stone. But that simple act wcu a 
refutation of it, for it was an energetic manifestation of 
Johnson's perception that he had an intuition of real, ex- 
tended, independent objects. It was a mute expression of 
a profound philosophic truth — a truth which underlies all 
physical science — the truth, namely, that we have an intui- 
tion of the extended. 

After the most patient consideration it has been in our 
power to bestow on Dr. Bradley's contention, we remain 
convinced that he has succeeded neither in showing that 
primary and secondary qualities stand On a similar footing 
in the mind, nor that the latter are appearances only, and 
are not known to us as revealing corresponding objective 
realities. But if neither primary nor secondary qualities are 
mere appearances, a fundamental mistake underlies his whole 
contention, that the world as perceived and understood by 
the mass of mankind is mere delusion. If, then, we are to 
rise out of utter scepticism — the irrational nature of which 
will be later pointed out — we are justified in shaking off the 
prejudices of idealism. 

These prejudices are ultimately due to a non-recognition 
of the fundamental difference which exists between feelings 
and ideas, between the impressions of our sensitive faculty 
and the, dictates of the pure intellect. They are therefore 

6 



82 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

due to an utterly inadequate apprehension of the power and 
dignity of human reason. 

But if the system which underlies idealism were true, if 
we had no means of perception save sensations and sense- 
impresses (vivid and faint feelings), then we could have no 
warrant for a belief in an external world, or for a conviction 
that other minds existed in addition to our own. If we 
could know nothing but complex associations of our own 
feelings, what right could we possibly have to affirm that 
anything else existed ? If we could in no way get beyond 
our own being, the only absolute certainty for us must 
be our own feelings, and so we become upholders of Solip- 
sism. It would be all very well to talk of a divine mind which 
produced those feelings in our mind ; or of a material uni- 
verse possessing many energies, whereof our own feeling was 
one ; or of an impersonal absolute which became conscious 
in our consciousness ; or of a monistic universe, the absolute 
unity of which has two sides — one physical, the other 
psychical — like the one substance of Spinoza with its two 
attributes, thought and extension. All these for the con- 
sistent idealist would be so many pleasant or unpleasant 
dreams, with no more body or coherence in any one of them 
than in the mist of the morning. For such an idealist there 
is but one firm reality — his own sentient being, and of all 
else he is evidently the creator (since everything he knows 
is a plexus of feelings which his being has caused to exist), 
though as to how he created the universe he need neither 
know nor care to inquire. It is enough for him that he has, 
in fact, produced it, and that its being depends absolutely 
on his own. The divine mind, the material world, the ab- 
solute, the uncogitable unity of the monists, and the sub- 
stance of Spinoza, will by him be courteously bowed out or 
unceremoniously kicked out, according to his idealistic 
temperament, and he can logically remain, like the Indian 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 83 

sage in peaceful contemplation of the plexus of feelings he 
calls his own navel, as a symbol of that first cause and im- 
manent upholder, from which all things have proceeded, 
and in which all things have their only being. 

This logical development of idealism finds small favour 
with existing idealists. Solipsism is looked at askance with 
evident dread by some, and vain attempts at its refutation 
have been made by others. But it remains none the less 
invincible on its rock of **nothing-known-but-feelings." It 
was, as our readers know, first developed and upheld by 
Fichte, though he ultimately abandoned it; and thus the 
logical outcome of the system of idealism has been practi- 
cally condemned by its own disciples. To the other ideal- 
istic extreme, that by Hume, we will sacrifice no space, for, 
in spite of its author's acuteness and great ability, it does 
not really admit of logical statement, so utterly incoherent 
is it, and so confident are we that its ingenious author had 
no belief in it himself, but was laughing in his sleeve at his 
inept admirers and disciples. 

In opposition to the notion of solipsism — that everything 
we can perceive or imagine is but a mode of our own per- 
sonality — may be opposed the contradictory form of ideal- 
ism, before referred to by us,' which would assert that our 
personality is but a mode of the absolute or of some divine 
existence. But, as Mr. Arthur Balfour has well remarked, 
" the very notion of personality excludes the idea of any 
one person being a * mode ' of any other." 

A system which would strongly, and with reason, deny 
that it was idealist, may conveniently, with apologies to its 
advocates, be here briefly referred to. 

This at present popular system is Monism, which solves 
the conflict between the advocates of mind and the advo- 
cates of matter (as alone the source of all whereof we can 

' See ante, p. 40. 



84 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

have any knowledge) by denying them both and affirming 
that nothing exists but a substance utterly unknowable save 
as regards two of its aspects, one psychical, the other 
material. According to it, thought is nervous tissue in mo- 
tion just so far as nervous tissue in motion is thought, both 
being eternally divergent and antithetical modes of a sub- 
stance which is neither thought nor matter. 

This system affords a seemingly easy way of explaining 
the ever-recurring puzzle about ** matter" and " mind." 
How can mind (unextended and immaterial) ever possibly 
act or be acted on by such a thing (extended and material) 
as matter ? This question has tortured many choice minds 
for more than two centuries, because men sought to obtain 
an answer to it in impossible terms, namely, in terms of the 
imagination. But it is utterly impossible for us to imagine 
the action of mind on matter or of matter on mind, simply 
because the mind never has been or can be a matter of 
sensuous experience, and we can never imagine anything of 
which we have not had such experience. 

But our inability to imagine such action does not consti- 
tute an argument of the slightest value against the reality 
of such action (in ways which are beyond our power of im- 
agination), if our intellect shows us good reason for thinking 
that such action does, in fact, take place, and there is no 
real evidence that such reciprocal action is impossible. 

But because it is felt difficult to imagine the action of 
mind on matter or of matter on mind, it is a curious method 
of obtaining relief to assume the unique existence of some- 
thing more unimaginable (because more unknowable) than 
either, and take that as a satisfactory explanation ! 

Matter we know and mind we know, but what is this x 
underlying both, the only properties of which are the two 
manifestations of existence (mental and physical) deemed 
the very metaphysical antipodes of bei^ ? 



THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 85 

If it is difficult to understand matter and mind as recipro- 
cally active, how can the emergence of entities so antitheti- 
cal from one absolutely unique and common source be better 
understood ? 

We have an intuition of the extended — the physical. Is 
it possible that we should have a less perfect intuition of 
our own consciousness ? Surely our reason tells us that we 
know them both as evident existences and as existences pro- 
foundly different. This is made manifest by the diversity 
of their activities, and this diversity can be perceived in our 
own intimate, unique, concrete being. 

Suppose we are energetically opposing the entrance of 
someone into the room we are in, by leaning the whole 
weight of our body against the door of it. We have a dis- 
tinct intuition both of our volitional effort and intention and 
also of our body acting by its mere weight as a corpse or a 
block of wood might do. 

To disregard such positive intuition of two evident entities 
thus different in action, in favour of an unthinkable entity, 
with no apparent power of exercising activity in either mode, 
is, in our humble judgment, little less than a deliberate 
abandonment of philosophy gained by experience in favour 
of a mere intellectually groundless fancy. 

We hope that enough has here been said to justify the 
dictates of the human intellect (as recognised by all but 
idealists and monists) in its declaration that we have the 
power of cognising an external, independent world of things 
in themselves, real objects possessing real qualities, apart 
from any perception of them by any imaginable mind. We 
have maintained, and do maintain, that the existence of 
such a world is (in our judgment) an absolutely certain and 
self-evident fact, of which the intellect, through the ministra- 
tion of the senses, acquires a direct intuition. Yet we will 
{ft-offer one more argument for the consideration of those 



86 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

who may still hesitate as to the final rejection of ideaU 
ism. This argument springs from a recognition of the fact 
that the contentions and objections put forward by idealists 
remain as plausible as ever, even upon the hypothesis that 
an external world exists. Let us assume, for argument's 
sake, that a real, external, extended world of " things in 
themselves " exists on all sides of us, we remaining the 
beings we are. Could we possibly know of the existence of 
such a world except by some influence it should exercise 
upon our organs of sense ? Could we get at it in any way 
except by means of our faculties conjoined with its influ- 
ences ? It would, therefore, always be possible for men of 
a certain turn of mind to declare they had no ground to ac- 
cept the existence of anything save the ** influences " and 
the ** faculties " themselves, and to deny the existence of 
anything producing the former or anything possessing the 
latter. Nay, let us suppose ourselves creatures possessing 
a thousand different kinds of sense-organs, revealing to us a 
mass of properties possessed by objects now quite unimagin- 
able by us ; however great the number of orders of sensitivity 
or of properties possessed by the external objects, the posi- 
tion must ever remain the same. The external world could 
never, under any circumstance, be known save through some 
influence exercised by it on organs capable of in some way 
responding thereto, and thus nothing could make evident an 
external world (by our hypothesis supposed to exist inde- 
pendently) to men bent upon regarding the mere means of 
cognition as the object of cognition itself. 

The systems which different idealists have put forward 
are just those,%Lnd nothing more, which men, determined to 
regard mere signs as everything, and utterly to disregard- 
their signification (a signification evident to the good sense of 
all who are not blinded by an extraordinary intellectual per- 
versity), are forced to construct. 



f THE OBJECTS OF SCIENCE 8/ 

To those who have so far followed us, then, it will be 
clear that the nl^ff.t^ ^ (science are in part me ntal and in part 

( ^mat erial. ^ 

; Its objects are, in part, thoughts and all that concerns our 

' mental nature, but they also, in part, consist of material 

things, possessing various powers and energies ; and all 
these things (a knowledge of which the human mind can 
attain to), as well as matters mental, are true and proper 
objects of science. 

^"t thf b'lTnan mindhas jeve r been satisfied with a mere 

knowl edge of fact s. Having ascert ained the fact that any 

, ind ividual thinj^jis (/. ^., a2dsts)j itsjiext questions aTgj yA u^ 

Js it and why is it ? What is its essential nature ? In what 

relation does thatJiature stand to the natures of other exist- 

/ -e&CMr ? What are we to think of the whole whereof it is a 

p^rtj that is, the universe ? "What is the cause of the in- 

^«>4iv^^ual thing investigated ? Has it a purpose, or final 

cause, as well as an efficient cause ? Finally, can anything, 

and. if so, what^ belaid as to the nature and causation of 

the universeltse] 

~*^eyond the knowledge we may be able to acquire about 

/ I our own minds, and beyond all we can ascertain about the 

\ ^ material universe, man has, by a natural, spontaneous im- 

\ ^\ pulse, been ever driven to pass beyond all that is physical 

' ■ ■ l^nd seek for metaphysical truth. Physics never have, and 

» - ^probably never will content him. He will ever crave to add 

thereto the science of metaphysics. That such a science 

does or can exist many men devoted to this or that special 

^^ branch of physics energetically deny. 

^--^vt^;- ^^ *s neither our business nor our purpos^here to consider 

whether this denial is, or is not, to be justified. All we 

^ V^C_^ have to do is to recognise the fact that very many of the 

. . * highest minds the world has ever known have been devoted 

"^ to metaphysics, and also the further fact, that if such know- 



88 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

ledge can be acquired, since all knowledge is science of some 
kind, such metaphysical science must be the highest of 
sciences, and may be called the science of science. The 
objects of science, then, described in the most general 
terms, may be said to be threefold : mental, physical, and 
metaphysical. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 

THE objects about which science concerns itself are, as 
we saw in the last chapter, threefold : they are, in the 
first place, the material bodies, inanimate and animate, which 
surround us, together with all those of their relations, quali- 
ties, and energies, which our senses and our reason combine 
to inform us about. In the second place, they are the 
various mental facts and processes which are revealed to us 
by consciousness and introspection. In the third place, 
they are problems concerning the essences and causes of 
whatever can be to us an object of knowledge, including the 
universe itself, in all its parts and considered as one whole. 
The method by which science proceeds with its investiga- 
tions of the objects of its study is essentially the same in all 
cases, though variously modified according to the kind of 
matter about which it is for the time occupied. 

But it is in no way the object of this work to describe 
the special methods whereby the various sciences have been 
brought to their present state of cultivation, nor the several 
modes in which each of them is now being pursued. Our 
only purpose is to point out, in the most general terms, 
certain characteristics, certain necessary conditions, which 
are common to the study of all, or of a great many of them. 
deal s cience — the science occupied about the first of 
the three categories of objects distinguished at the beginning 

89 



go THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

of this chapter — has been said to consist of careful meas- 
urements ; and there is much truth in the saying, if a 
sufficiently wide meaning be assigned to the term'' measure- 
ment." For science has to consider, as everyone knows, 
not only spatial dimensions — or the extent and directions in 
which any body is extended, or, in popular phraseology, 
'* occupies space" — but also differences of quality, differ- 
ences of energy, and of qualities as well as quantities of 
energy, and differences in respect to all those qualities 
which the different senses we possess enable us, though in 
radically diverse ways, to be subjectively affected by, and, 
through the intervention of the intellect, to perceive the 
objective existence of. 

But for the apprehension of all these matters, measurement 
is an indispensable and also an efficient aid. Thus, inquiries 
as to matters seemingly so purely qualitative as different 
degrees of warmth, are answered by thermometric measure- 
ments ; differences of velocity are estimated by the aid of 
the chronometer, and differences in the action of gravity, 
under various conditions, by the measurement of weight. 
Our own past history and the history of mankind are to be 
understood only by measurements of time. Moreover, to 
know anything, as we said before,' is to know that it is dis- 
tinct from something else, which is to know numerical differ- 
ence, which is again counting, and that, to a certain degree, 
is measurement. 

But, though the inquiries of physical science may be gen- 
erally described as various kinds of measurements, such a 
phrase is obviously inapplicable to the investigations of 
mental science. It is true that our own existence does not 
become known to us save through successive changes in 
consciousness (successive " states of consciousness *'), that 

is, through " relations " which exist between them, and all 

» i 

* Seea/fi^, p. i8.' 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 9 1 

mental facts become known through relations in which they 
stand to other such facts and to our consciousness. But 
these are not, in any true sense, " measurements." On the 
other hand, all the problems solved by careful measurements 
in physical science are in every case ascertained and solved 
by the attainment of a correct appreciation of relations 
existing between different objects and activities. And, in- 
deed, metaphysics may also be said to be occupied about 
metaphysical relations. Thus all science is one vast process 
of ascertaining, as correctly as possible, relations {e. g,y co- 
existence, succession, and causation) of very different orders, 
of things. 

But owing to our organisation, every such inquiry must 
be carried on, and every conclusion arrived at, through 
either our sense-perceptions * or by the aid of sensuous im- 
aginations, however supersensuous the essential nature of 
the object of our inquiry may be. 

The imaginations we make use of need not, of course, be 
mental pictures of concrete, extended things ; they may be 
the merest symbols, and such symbols are not only of the 
greatest utility, but are absolutely necessary for the very 
simplest kinds of science. 

Spoken and written words are such audible and visible 
symbols, and so are numerals and all algebraic signs. By 
means of symbols we can work out the most complicated 
results without any need of thinking, meanwhile, what it is 
such symbols represent. But in the end, to arrive at any 
practical or complete result, the symbols must be retrans- 
lated into the things they symbolised, and thus the corre- 
spondence of processes gone through (simple or complex) 
may be tested by our direct or our indirect sense-perceptions. 
Thus, in matters so elementary as the simple addition of 
numerals, the result may be tested by taking parcels of 

' See ante^ p. 9. 



92 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

things, e. g.y marbles, each corresponding in number with 
one of the (symbols) numbers to be added together, and, 
having mixed the whole, then counting them, and so seeing 
that the senses of sight and touch confirm the previous re- 
sult of the addition of the numerical symbols. It is the 
same as regards the process of subtraction ; its correspond- 
ence with the real relations which exist between the sub- 
stantial things may be similarly tested. 

The symbolism of science may be very well exemplified by 
the simplest facts of algebra, which, as our readers know, is 
a branch of science replete with the most beautiful, complex, 
ingenious, and far-reaching processes, whereby alone many 
calculations are made possible, or the labours of investigation 
lessened, while the results arrived at have complete accuracy. 
This is the case even when we find need to employ symbols 
which express not only unreal, but even impossible, quanti- 
ties, by means of which we may arrive at otherwise unattain- 
able truths concerning real or possible existences. Such is the 
case, because they express abstract truths which have real 
applications, or would have them could the impossible con- 
ditions, sometimes supposed, really exist. Thus even the 
absurd and impossible quantities expressed by the symbol 
^— X has its relations with reality. It is, of course, really 
impossible in itself, since there is no quantity which, being 
multiplied by itself, gives a negative product. Yet it has 
its relation with reality, inasmuch as it can be used as if it 
were a real quantity, and all the laws and relations relating 
to real quantities can be applied to it. 

The truths and processes of algebra may be tested by our 
direct sense-experience (as may those of arithmetic) by 
making use of definite numbers as representatives of alge- 
braic symbols, and so translating algebra into arithmetic in 
order to be practically tested. The truths of geometry may 
be tested by being made evident to the eye and by reasoning. 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 93 

Making free use of the indispensable aid of symbols, 
science proceeds to investigate the objects of its study (i) 
by obseicYan'on. i7\ by^r easonin^ y {i\ bv ^ putting forward 
^othesesy and (aS bv testing the hypotheses put for ward, 
scientific observation consists in carefully and attentively 
bringing to bear the senses appropriate to each fact to be 
investigated, making use of all the artificial mean»and ap-\ 
pliances available for the purpose, with a mind well informed \ 
>is to what has been done in the same field before, the in- \ 
^tellect being also aroused for the detection of likenesses ' 
and differences between the objects or actions studied, \ 
'and other allied objects or actions, and in a state of expect- / 
ancy as to the possibilities or probabilities of results to be 
anticipated. 

Where it is possible, such observations have to be supple- 
mented by others in which circumstances and conditions 
have been specially arranged to facilitate discovery. In 
other words, simple observations have to be supplemented 
by experiments, and these must evidently be varied accord- 
ing to the nature of the matter under investigation. 

In many sciences it is evident that no true experiments 
are possible, but only different degrees of ingenuity in de- 
vising modes of accurate observation. Such must be, of 
course, the case with the study of astronomy, history, palae- 
ontology, etc. 

Facts having been sufficiently ascertained, the truths so 
elicited may be further developed by reasoning according to 
the laws of logic. Thus it is we gain a distinct and certain 
perception of truths which were before but imperfectly, 
only implicitly, apprehended, through the deductive reason- 
ing of the syllogism. By induction, as we all know, we can 
form judgments more or less probable, and sometimes even 
certain. Thus, for example, having examined many kinds 
of pouched animals, and found that they all possess both a 



94 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

peculiar conformation of jaw and also marsupial bones^ we 
judge that if a new species be discovered with one of these 
characters it will also possess the other. 

Such a judgment can never be a certain, but only an em- 
pirical/ judgment, and it is no wonder that exceptions to 
the above-mentioned rule of co-existence have been found. 
But certainty may be attained in some cases. Thus, by the 
study of different kinds of rocks we easily perceive that they 
have been deposited at different dates, and that the animals 
which have left their remains fossilised within them were 
inhabitants of the earth at different periods. 

In endeavouring to reason out the cause (or causes) of any 
event or fact, we seek it amongst the invariable antecedents 
or concomitants of that event or fact by five different 
methods. 

There is first the " method of agreement," which endeav- 
ours to discover whether, in many cases of the occurrence 
of the fact we seek to explain, one circumstance is present 
in every case, and is the only one so invariably present. 

Secondly, there is the " method of difference," by which 
the endeavour is made to find two instances alike in all their 
circumstances save one, in addition to the difference that in 
one instance the event, or fact, the cause of which is sought 
is present, while in the other it is absent. When two such 
instances are found, then the single circumstance found to 
co-exist with the event or fact must at least be closely 
related to its cause. 

Thirdly, we have the ** joint method of agreement and 
difference," which may be thus stated: 

If in two instances in which ^ occurs x is also present, while 
two instances in which y does not occur, have nothing in 
common save the absence of x, then x is the cause of y. 

If we subtract from a given effect all that is due to cer- 

* See ante^ p. 8. 



I 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 95 

tain causes, then the residue is the effect of the rest of the 
causes. This is the fourth method — " that of residues." 

Fifthly, and lastly, if x and y increase, decrease, and vary 
together, then one is the cause of the other or is closely 
connected with such cause. This is called ** the method of 
concomitant variations." 

Objection has been made to the validity of such reason- 
ings on the ground that the universe is never the same in all 
particulars save one, at any two successive instants, and 
that two instances of any event or fact have never occurred 
with only one circumstance in common. These theoretical 
objections may also be urged not only against the above 
" methods," but against all investigatidns by experiment 
and observation. 

The objection is no doubt formally correct. The celestial 
bodies are never in the same position for two successive in- 
stants, while, on the other hand, their existence persists 
through whatever series of experiments we carry on. 

In all cases also there are, and must be, both a multitude 
of persistences and a multitude of changes, no one of which 
we may ever become aware of. But although such theo- 
retical inadequacies must be admitted to exist in every such 
proof, they can in most cases be sufficiently well allowed for 
to serve all practical purposes. 

The existence of the Pleiades, or even of the mountains 
in the moon, can be tranquilly ignored while we are trying 
experiments with respect to the solidification of gases, nor 
do the gavials of the Ganges interfere with careful investiga- 
tions into the development of the amphioxus or the apteryx. 

There is hardly need to remind any reader of this book 
that the ** method of agreement " is necessarily uncertain, 
because one effect may have several causes ; but this defect 
does not apply to " the joint method of agreement and 
difference." 



96 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

The idea as to what may be the cause of any effect is gen- 
erally suggested by analogy, or resemblance known, or sus- 
pected, to exist between causes and effects thought to be 
similar to the case investigated ; and, of course, a cause will, 
as a rule, be the more easily discovered the greater the num- 
ber of instances of the supposed effect we examine. 

A suspected cause may be tested by allowing it to operate 
in circumstances of less complication, to see whether the 
effect will still be produced. This is, of course, one import- 
ant instance of carrying on scientific experiments. The 
process of seeking out analogies and resemblances wisely is 
perhaps the special characteristic of a sagacious man of 
science. The process of constructing carefully thought out 
hypotheses, and then skilfully and accurately submitting 
them to fitting tests for verification, is the method by which 
the greatest scientific advances have been made during the 
last three centuries ; although it must be admitted that much 
time and effort have been wasted by the frequent emission 
of careless and ill-considered speculations. 

The foregoing observations with respect to the methods 
of science may suflRce, because our purpose in referring to, 
and briefly noting them in the most general terms, has not 
been for their own sake. We assume that most of our 
readers already know as much as we could tell them with 
respect to the methods of science generally, and the details 
of such methods with respect to those sciences with which 
they are best acquainted. 

Our purpose in devoting this chapter to a general view of 
the methods of science has had special reference — as every 
chapter in^his book has special reference — to the subject of 
EpistefTlolo] 

mam object is briefly to call attention to certain ideas, 
perceptions, and convictions which are present, in at least a 
latent condition, in every method whereby science is pursued 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 97 

and advanced, and consciously or unconsciously in the minds 
of those who pursue it. 

The question concerning the intellectual justification of 
these ideas, perceptions, and convictions will be entered 
upon later. 

Now, doubt and scepticism are not only legitimate but 
necessary in science. They are safeguards against rash as- 
sent to propositions inadequately proved. True as this 
is as regards physical science, it is still more true with 
regard to problems that are ultraphysical, in studying 
which it is especially necessary to withhold assent from 
what does not appear to be clearly and evidently true to 
our own minds. 

Yet it is possible, here as elsewhere, to go from one ex- 
treme to another, and to become so possessed by a tendency 
to doubt as to forget the existence and legitimacy of 
certainty. 

Nevertheless, we all of us possess absolute certainty con- 
cerning many things, and this especially applies to those 
men who cultivate science. We are all certain that science 
has advanced, and that our physical knowledge is greater in 
extent and better grounded than it was in the days of*^ 
Copernicus. Every man of science is also certain that some 
progress is being made in that department to which he is 
himself devoted, whatever that may be. But it is obvious 
that such advance would be impossible if we could not, by 
means of observations, experiments, and reasoning, become 
so certain with respect to some facts as to be able to make 
them the starting-points for fresh observations and inferences 
as to other facts. 

Thus for the astronomer, the earth's annual revolution 
round the sun, its daily revolution round its own axis and 
the coinciding of these two revolutions in the case of the 
moon, are matters of absolute certainty. No geologist en- 



98 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

tertains the slightest doubt that the earth's crust is largely 
composed of strata which have been in past ages deposited 
from water. 

No zoologist can doubt that the transitory stages which 
most of the higher animals go through in passing from their 
embryonic to their adult condition, bear a general resem- 
blance to permanent adult conditions of other animals of 
lower types of organisation. In science, as in matters of 
every-day life, there are a multitude of facts as to which no 
man in his senses can entertain any doubt. Though we are 
for the most part content to act on reasonable probabilities, 
yet certainty attends us at every turn. If we meet a friend 
in the street going away from home, we know that we shall 
not find him if we go straight to his house. If we find on 
returning to our library that a window, which we had care- 
fully closed before starting, is open, we are quite sure that 
someone must have opened it. Such certainties about 
ordinary and scientific matters are quite beyond the reach 
of reasonable doubt, and it is very necessary, for our pur- 
pose here, to recognise that such is the case. 

The methods of science clearly imply a conviction on the 
part of those who follow them that there really is such a 
thing as legitimate certainty. 

If such were not the case, there could be no true science 
of any kind. Blind disbelief would be as fatal to science as 
blind belief, and healthy and firm convictions must follow 
the presence of sufficient evidence, otherwise the progress 
of science would be fatally arrested. It is necessary, then, 
distinctly to recognise that there is such a thing as legiti- 
mate certainty, not to perceive the force of which is illegiti- 
mate doubt. The first conviction, then, to which we desire 
in this chapter to call attention as being implicit in all pur- 
suit of science, is the conviction that there is such a thing 
as certainty, and that there are at least some things which 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 99 

we can ascertain to be certainly true. In a later chapter we 
will consider the justification of this conviction, and the 
other convictions implied in the pursuit of science. 

But what does the assertion that anything can be " cer- 
tainly true " imply ? 

** Truth " has sometimes been said to be a mere subjective 
feeling of the mind — truth for each man being just that 
which each man troweth and no more. But the objectivity 
of truth is easily shown, since the sceptic who would deny 
it, in denying it, refutes himself. For if the statement 
** Truth is merely an individual feeling** were true, then 
that very statement, as a fact^ would itself be an objective 
truth, and therefore, more than a mere individual feeling. 
But, as John Stuart Mill long ago pointed out, the recogni- 
tion of the truth of any judgment is not only an essential 
part, but the essential part, of it as a judgment. Leave 
that out, and it remains a mere play of thought in which no 
judgment is passed. No follower of any branch of physical 
science can doubt that truth is more than a mere quality of 
a feeling, or that it has a real relation to things external to 
his mind. Were not such the case, science, once more, 
could make no progress. We do not base our scientific in- 
ductions and deductions on what we regard as so many 
individual feelings, but upon what we regard as facts — real 
relations between real events and things — without a found- 
ation in which our conclusions would be worthless. The 
truth of physical science consists, and must consist, in the 
agreement of " thought " with " things," of the world of 

perceptions, ideas, and inferences " with the world of 

external existences." 

In our last chapter we endeavoured to point out how im- 
possible it is to express the facts, processes, and conclusions 
of physical science in terms of idealism ; and we find that 
the most devoted idealists who also follow some branch of 



< < 



«< 



ICX> THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

physical science are absolutely forced by their science to use 
language essentially inconsistent with their philosophy, of 
which fact it would be as easy as it seems superfluous (and 
perhaps invidious) to give instances. 

But the fact that the pursuit of science cannot be carried 
on without a real and true apprehension of things objective, 
and that we possess a special faculty which certainly reveals 
to us objective truths, are truths contained (however little 
it may be noticed) in every observation or experiment we 
may make, and in every conclusion we may draw. 

That special faculty of ours, the wonderful office of which 
it is to reveal to us objectivity with absolute certainty, is 
our faculty of memory. 

Now, as we hardly need say, everything which is objective 
is external to the self — to the self which is feeling or think- 
ing. Thus all existences, even states of the ** self " or the 
** Ego," which are anterior to the time of any actual think- 
ing are also objective : they are objects of thought. 

It is memory which enables us to get, intellectually, out-, 
side our present selves and our present feelings, in a way 
the truth of which no sane man can question. For memory 
informs us with absolute certainty about some events of our 
past lives. There is probably no one who reads these pages 
who is not absolutely sure that he was doing some other 
thing before he began to read them. 

And since it is thus actually demonstrated to us through 
our memory that we can know with absolute certainty things 
which are objective as regards time, it is the less disputable 
that our faculties have the power also to inform us as to 
things which are external to us — spatially objective — and 
that, as was contended in the last chapter, we have an in- 
tuition of real external bodies : an external world as ordinar- 
ily understood. The questions as to the validity and the 
nature of jnemory will be subsequently considered. They 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE lOI 

are only here referred to as auxiliary to our apprehension of 
objectivity. 

Thus the second conviction which we desire to point out 
as existing, at least in a latent condition, in all physical 
science, and therefore implied in all its methods, is the con- 
viction that an independent, extended, external world really 
exists, that there are truly objective existences, and that 
truth is a relation of conformity between the dictates of the 
mind and other really existing conditions and relations. 

We have just referred to our faculty of memory, and that 
same faculty is intimately connected with the third convic- 
tion which must be latent in every pursuit of science. This 
third conviction is the certainty we have of our own con- 
tinued personal existence, and along with it the certainty 
that we do, in fact, know our actions, sensations, reminis- 
cences, emotions, perceptions, conceptions, and inferences. 

How would it be possible for any scientific experiments to 
be carried on if we could not be perfectly certain that it was 
we ourselves who carried them on : that it was we who had 
both arranged the test conditions and also noted the results ? 
How, again, could we arrive at any conclusion if we had 
any doubt about our really having felt, perceived, or reasoned 
out the results we had felt, perceived, or reasoned out ? 

Even mere scientific observation would be impossible if 
we had any doubt that it was we ourselves — one and the 
same person — who began the observation and carried it 
through to its end. 

To some of our readers these remarks and queries may 
seem superfluous or even idle. Such, however, is by no 
means the case, as the same readers will clearly see if they 
will have patience to peruse this volume to its close. The 
truths which to them may seem so obvious and undeniable 
that their enumeration is unnecessary, are truths which have 
been denied, and are denied by men of very considerable in- 



102 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

tellectual distinction. For our purpose, that is, to obtain a 
correct view as to Epistemology, it is extremely necessary 
to recognise the fact that we cannot follow science if we 
either, really and truly, doubt the possibility of certainty, 
or the actual certainty of a greater or less number of facts 
and principles, the truth of which every science, whatever it 
may be, necessarily implies. 

Provisionally recognising, then, the fact of our continued 
existence, as vouched for by memory (i. ^., till in our eighth 
chapter the question is more fully discussed), and recognis- 
ing the fact of the existence of an external world, the com- 
ponents of which stand in various active and causal relations 
to each other and to us, we have next to consider a matter 
hardly less momentous. This is the bearing of scientific 
progress on the question of the validity of the process of in- 
ference. The remark hardly need be made that no science 
has been developed or could be made to progress without 
it. A direct knowledge of events, facts, and their relations, 
sufficiently complete to constitute any one of the sciences, 
would be too vast in extent to be possible for the human 
mind. 

It is conceivable that other beings, endowed with much 
greater and more far-reaching intellectual powers, might be 
able to perceive, by direct intuition, all that we are able 
laboriously to attain to by indirect processes of inference. 
However that may be, ratiocination is necessary for us 
(being no better endowed than we are), and every man of 
science must admit that valid inference is not only a possi- 
bility, but a fact. He must admit that inferences which are 
perfectly valid and certain have been drawn ; since, other- 
wise, there could be no science about the certainty of which 
we could rest secure. He also knows (as we have already 
seen) that there is such a thing as scientific certainty, and 
that to some scientific propositions we can assent without 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 103 

the least fear of error. But this implies that we may, and 
that we musty place confidence in the principles of deduction 
— in that perception of the mind which we express by the 
word " therefore." When we use that word we mean to 
express by it that there is a truth, the certainty of which is 
shown through the help of different facts or principles, which 
themselves are antecedently known to be true. The valid- 
ity of inference is, then, the fourth of those truths to which 
we desire here to call attention as being convictions implied 
in physical science and in all methods by which that science 
is pursued. Of the process of inference itself, we shall have 
more to say hereafter ; all we desire here to insist upon is 
that to deny its validity is absolutely to stultify the whole 
of human science. 

But though inferences are necessary for science, our read- 
ers will not forget that (as we before pointed out) all reason- 
ing reposes upon a knowledge of facts antecedently known 
to be true. However long our processes of reasoning may 
be they must stop somewhere. If we were bound to prove 
everything, the process would never end, and in this way 
again we should be reduced to a regressus ad infinitum^ and 
no single proposition could ever be proved. It is therefore 
certain that if any inferences are true and valid they must 
ultimately repose on facts directly known to us without 
reasoning; and our fifth conviction, implicitly contained in 
every method by which science is pursued, is, and must be, 
the truth that there are some propositions which carry with 
them their own evidence, which are evident in and by them- 
selves. What is to be said in deprecation or defence of this 
character of self-evident truthfulness thus attributed to some 
propositions, we will see later on. What is here to be noted 
is the fact that science can have neither justification, de- 
velopment, nor even existence, unless it be conceded that 
not only is the principle of inference valid, but also that 



I04 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

underlying true and valid inferences, there are, and must be, 
in the last resort, certain truths which are made known to 
us by their own direct evidence, and need no process of 
proof. 

These are intuitive truths, directly apprehended by our 
power of intellectual intuition.* And, indeed, it is perfectly 
evident that the convictions at which men of science arrive 
by means of their observations, experiments, and inferences, 
are not blind convictions which they are compelled to arrive 
at they know not how or why. They are eminently intelli- 
gent convictions, attained by a conscious and intentional 
pursuit of truth, and of which those who hold them can 
give a good account, assigning valid reasons for the scientific 
faith which is in them. 

Amongst the facts and truths thus self-evident are certain 
evident principles of reasoning. Physical science is em- 
phatically experimental science. But every experiment 
carefully performed implies a most important latent truth. 
For when an experiment has shown us that anything is 
certain, as, for example, that a newt's leg may grow again 
after amputation, because one actually has so grown again, 
we shall find that such certainty implies an a priori truth. 
It implies that if the newt has come to have four legs once 
more, it cannot at the very same time have only three legs. 
This remark may seem almost absurdly trivial ; but it is im- 
possible to make principles of this kind too clear — too plainly 
certain and inevitable — and there is nothing so useful for 
bringing home to the mind an important abstract truth as 
the presentation of a plain and indisputable concrete example. 
Anything we are certain about, because it has been proved 
to us by experiment, is certain only if we know, and because 
we know that a thing which has been actually proved can- 
not at the same time remain unproven, and this depends 

' See ante^ pp. 14, 47. 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE IO5 

again on a still more fundamental truth which our reason 
recognises — the truth, namely, that ** nothing can at the 
same time both be and not be " — the truth known as the 
principle of contradiction y which we here bring forward as 
the sixth conviction which must be tacitly, if not expressly, 
recognised by everyone who cultivates science. It is, at 
lea3t, latent in every scientific method we employ. Whether 
or not, in ultimate analysis, the validity of this principle can 
be sustained, it is at least certain that it is constantly acted 
on; and this not only in the pursuit of science, but in the 
judgments and actions of every-day life. 

A seventh conviction, which is latent and is acted upon 
in all the methods of science, is that of the truth of such 
axioms as " the whole is greater than its part,'* and that 
'* things which are equal to the same thing are equal to 
each other." Merely noting this fact, which no one will 
care to dispute, and reserving what more we may have to 
say about it for a subsequent chapter, we will pass on to the 
eighth conviction implied, and ^t least latent in the methods 
of science, namely, the principle of causation. However 
much the validity of this principle may be disputed by philo- 
sophers — and such disputes will be considered later — it is 
impossible to deny that it is practically acted upon by those 
who prosecute any branch of physical science. It is indis- 
putable that any sudden and unexpected change which may 
be detected by any scientific observer, is at once put down 
as due to some cause, while he will often do his utmost to 
detect what that cause may be. That no change can take 
place, that no new existence can arise, save as the result of 
causation, is spontaneously acted on by every man of 
science, and, indeed, by every man of ordinary intelligence, 
as if it were the most certain and indisputable of axioms. 
Closely connected with this principle is the ninth conviction, 
namely, the conviction that the course of nature is uniform. 



I06 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

The uniformity of nature is so evidently necessary an as- 
sumption for ail who would investigate nature's phenomena 
and ascertain her laws, that the mere mention of the fact is 
all that seems necessary at this stage of our progress. 

Lastly, since we have seen that the methods of science 
imply the conviction on our part that some truths are nec- 
essary, and that they reveal to us objective necessities in 
external nature, we must here set down the tenth and last 
of those convictions to which we desire to call attention. 
This is the conviction that there really is a condition ex- 
pressed by the abstract term necessity, a term which would 
be meaningless without the correlative condition and term 
contingency. 

Reserving, as before said, for a future occasion, an 
examination into the validity of the fundamental assump- 
tions which must be made by all who purs^e physical 
science, and which are latent in its every method, we may 
briefly tabulate those assumptions as follows : 

(i) It is possible to arrive at certain knowledge about 
some things, and some absolute scientific certainty 
has been actually attained. 

(2) An external objective world exists and is truly appre- 

hended by some of our intellectual acts, an abso- 
U lutely certain knowledge of objectivity being afforded 

us through memory, which reveals to us real exist- 
ences external to all our present experience. 

(3) Wc c an know not only our actions, sensations, im- 

aginations, reminiscences, perceptions, conceptions, 
and inferences, but also our own substa ntial and 
continuous personal existence. - - 

(4) We know that if certain premises be true, then what-') 
ever logically follows from them must be true like-I 
wise. 



THE METHODS OF SCIENCE lO/ 



(5) Since we thus know certain truths indirectly by in- 
ference, we must also know some things directly and 
\ see that they are self-evident. 



\ (6) Nothing^an_atJJi^-«ftnre"-ttf»e4iO^ not bdl 

L ^ (7) Some axioms are self-evident. ~^— Ij^ 

■^^ (8) F,vf*r)^ jjnangg and fv^«y ^^w ^vi'stentg nmgf Kf^ Hn^ 





ome cause. 



^-cvi^^) Natiu::fi_is_uiuform. 
^ (10) Some things 



are necessary and others are contingent. 



The fact that the above ten propositions are true aud cer- 
tain is then implied by the methods of science. 

Unless we are convinced, and act on the conviction, that 
the propositions thus implied are true, science is logically 
impossible, and any scientific man who should deny any one 
of them would either deceive himself or try to deceive other 
people. Without their acceptance it is impossible to have 
any consistent, harmonious, and stable system of ordered 
knowledge — any true science. More than that, if these 
ten propositions were really doubted by anyone, he would 
thereby necessarily fall into a state of mental paralysis 
and intellectual inanition, in all that relates to scientific 
knowledge. 

Having thus recognised these important convictions, 
which find a necessary place amongst the implications of 
science, we may next proceed to consider what are the 
physical and mental antecedents of all and every science. 

A knowledge of such physiological and psychical facts 
will serve as an introduction to the study of our highest in- 
tellectual powers, the dicta of which can alone enable us to 
judge whether we can attain to a knowledge of the ground- 
work of science, and, if so, what that groundwork may, or 
must, be. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 

WE have no experience of knowledge save as consisting 
of mental states — our own, and those which ob- 
servation reveals to us as existing in other minds. We have 
no experience of mental states save as immanent in a living 
body — our own, and those of other living beings. Without 
mental states we cannot hope for knowledge, and without 
organised knowledge there is no science. The groundwork 
of science, as known to us by experience, may so far, there- 
fore, be said to be twofold: (i) mental and (2) corporeal. 
Granting, for argument's sake, the essential independence 
of intellect from all that is material substance, nevertheless 
we men, here and now, have no experience whatever of it 
apart from matter, apart from living organised matter, 
and apart from living matter with a special and definite form 
of organisation. 

If, then, it should be objected that the groundwork of 
science is, and must be, purely intellectual, we can at 
least reply that, so far as our actual experience goes, 
material conditions — a special kind of living organisa- 
tion — are at least a sine qua non for our apprehension of 
such groundwork. 

The groundwork of science must be closely related to the 
nature of science itself. Now science, as we have seen, is 
an organised result of knowledge; knowledge is dependent 

108 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE IO9 

on, and called forth by feelings; and feelings are a result of 
a normal, vital condition of a physical organisation. To un- 
derstand fully what is psychical, it is, therefore, generally 
necessary to have a certain acquaintance with what is physi- 
ological and physical. Moreover, as function depends on 
structure, any sufficient comprehension of the vital activities 
of our frame necessitates some previous acquaintance with 
its physical organisation — its anatomy. As we cannot vent- 
ure to assume that the great majority of our readers are 
possessed of even a small amount of anatomical and physio- 
logical knowledge^ we feel it impossible to dispense with 
some description of the physical antecedents of science 
(readers, however, who do possess such knowledge, and an 
elementary knowledge of zoology, had better pass over this 
chapter unread), related as they necessarily are to the 
groundwork of all science, which it is our ultimate object 
to study and endeavour to comprehend. 

Very little, however, need be said here, except with re- 

I spect to that substance and those organs of the body which 

are the necessary means by which alone we are capable of 

different special feelings and imaginations, or of any feelings 

: at all. 

, Feeling, knowledge, thought, everyone knows to be car- 
ried on by us only in a living body, which ought to be in a 
} sufficiently healthy and normal state. Abnormal conditions 
I may be accompanied by an absence, or paralysis, of one or 
i more of our senses, or by various forms of mental aberration 
down to complete idiocy. In order, therefore, to have a 
satisfactory comprehension of our powers of thinking (one 
indispensable preliminary for investigating the groundwork 
of science), it is necessary to have some knowledge of those 
c vital functions which are necessary for the exercise of 
ij thought ; and to understand them, as already intimated, we 
1: require to know something of the order and condition of 



no THE GROUND iVORK OF SCIENCE 

that special mechanism the actions of which so nearly con* 
cern us. 

To appreciate correctly human thought, it is also necessary 
to know something of the psychical powers of living creat- 
ures which are not human. Some adequate notion as to 
man's place in nature cannot be dispensed with by anyone 
who would estimate at their just value the products of 
human thought. We have already enumerated the sciences 
which deal with living things/ and probably no one will dis- 
pute the assertion that man, corporeally considered, is a 
kind of animal, and that the sciences which relate to animals 
generally relate, therefore, to him also. 

The multitude of species which compose what is called 
the " animal kingdom " is so vast that it would be impos- 
sible to study them otherwise than by classifying them in a 
number of more and more subordinate groups, each of which 
is defined by an enumeration of certain structural characters 
which the creatures included in such group possess in com- 
mon. It is usual to divide the animal kingdom into two 
great groups, the lower of which is made up by creatures 
the whole body of each of which is composed of a single cell, 
or, at most, a few cells only. Of these creatures, animal- 
cules of various kinds, it is not necessary for our present 
purpose to say more than a few words. One kind, the 
Amcebay may here be mentioned, as it is so often referred 
to as closely resembling certain particles (known as the 
colourless corpuscles) in human blood. It is a microscopic 
creature, consisting of a minute piece of ** protoplasm," with 
some internal modifications, which protrudes parts of its 
body in the form of short, blunt projections, and feeds by 
engulfing what it preys on into its body at various parts of 
its surface. The bell-animalcule, or Vortieella^ may also be 
referred to for the following reason : — its bell-shaped body 

' See Chapter ii., pp. 24, 32. 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE III 

is connected with a fixed point of support by means of an 
elongated stem, traversed by a special fibre. At the slight- 
est shock this fibre contracts, and throwing the filament 
into curves, draws the body of the creature near to the point 
of attachment of the filament. 

The second division of the animal kingdom consists of 
creatures the body of each of which is formed by a multitude 
of cells which are aggregated together into, or give rise to, 
various kinds of distinct substances, termed ** tissues" — 
such as bone, gristle, muscle, nerve, etc., etc. 

The lowest of these many-celled animals are the sponges, 
and the cells which compose their bodies are arranged in 
two layers. 

Next come the zo5phytes, or plant-like animals (corals, 
sea-anemones, jelly-fishes, etc.), to which succeed the star- 
fishes, sea-urchins, and their allies. A multitude of creatures 
compose at least two large groups of worms, of which the 
leeches and earth-worms may serve as examples of the 
higher kinds. We have then an enormous group, Arthro- 
poda, which embraces all insects, hundred-legs, scorpions, 
spiders, mites, crabs, lobsters, and shrimp-like creatures. 
We have, again, a very much less extensive groiip of Mol- 
lusca^ which includes all snails, whelks, cuttle-fishes, oysters, 
mussels, etc. Lastly we have the group of backboned 
animals (fishes, reptiles, birds, and beasts), to which we 
ourselves belong. Of beasts, or mammals, there are some 
dozen different orders, such as opossums, whales, rats, and 
squirrels, cattle, bats, beasts of prey, apes, etc. 

The structure of man's body closely resembles that of 
the higher apes, while ape and man agree to differ so much 
from all other mammals that they may be said to stand, as 
it were, on a zo5logical island by themselves. Thus man, 
when only structurally considered, is a species of the order 
of apes, though widely differing from most of them. 



112 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

Such being man's place in nature as regards the structure 
of his body, it remains briefly to pass in review the main 
facts of that body's organisation. 

As everyone knows, the human frame is a very complex 
structure : a mass of flesh (composed of a great number of 
muscles of different sizes) embracing a skeleton and clothed 
with skin — the skeleton consisting of the skull, backbone, 
ribs, and the bones of the two pairs of limbs. Within the 
body are the heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, 
etc. The skull and backbone together enclose a mass of 
soft, white substance — the brain and spinal marrow or spinal 
cord. Delicate threads of similar substance (nerves) and 
tubes of various sizes (vessels) traverse the body in all 
directions. 

Conditions essentially similar, but differing greatly in 
various ways in different groups (thus, e, g., there may be 
but two pairs of limbs or none), prevail in all beasts, birds, 
and reptiles. 

Organs nearly related to each other form what are termed 
" systems " of organs. Thus the muscles, each of which is 
made up of a mass of fibres, and are of different shapes and 
sizes (muscles of the limbs, trunk, head, jaws, etc.), consti- 
tute ** the muscular system." Muscles are generally at- 
tached by their opposite extremities to different bones. 
Thus, again, the mouth, stomach, and alimentary canal, 
with their appendages, form the ** alimentary system " ; the 
heart, with all the tubes (arteries, veins, etc.) connected 
with it, composes the ** circulating system " ; the windpipe 
and lungs constitute the *' respiratory system " ; the organs 
concerned with reproduction are the ** generative system " ; 
and the brain, spinal cord, and all the nerves of the body 
together make up the ** nervous system." These groups 
of organs are respectively named as above, because they 
severally minister to vital actions termed ** bodily motion," 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE II3 

*' alimentation/' ** circulation," " respiration," ** genera- 
tion," and " sensation " (or " feeling "). 

The functions of alimentation, circulation, respiration, and 
generation also take place in plants, and are indispensable 
for organic life. Thus they may be said to exist and prepare 
the way for development of the higher animal functions of 
locomotion and sensation. It is with the last-named func- 
tion alone and the organs which serve it — the nervous sys- 
tem, including its annexed organs of special sense — that we 
have here to do. Nevertheless, it should be noted that in 
order to act properly the organs of the nervous system re- 
quire an adequate supply of blood from the circulating 
system, which blood must be sufficiently refreshed through 
the respiratory system and purified by organs of '* secre- 
tion," while it must also be adequately supplied with suffi- 
cient and appropriate nutritious matter by the alimentary 
system. Through an inadequate supply of blood, or 
through blood insufficiently nourished, purified, or refreshed, 
the actions of the iiervous system become perverted or 
paralysed till death ensues. 

The entire nervous system is divisible into two main parts : 
a central and a peripheral portion. The central part con- 
sists of the brain and spinal cord, which are directly contin- 
uous. Its peripheral part is made of all the nerves of the 
body. The spinal cord (enclosed within the backbone) is 
divisible into two lateral halves, and nerves, called spinal 
nerves, are connected with it symmetrically in pairs (one 
right and one left), one nerve to each of its lateral halves. 
Each spinal nerve is connected with the spinal cord by two 
roots, one anterior in position and the other posterior, and 
each root is made up of a number of small bundles of nerve 
fibres. The fibres connected with the hinder and the ante- 
rior part of each lateral half of the spinal cord, are mixed 
and run together into the nerves— or rather compose them 



114 ^^^ GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

— but those connected with its anterior half go especially to 
the muscles, while those from its posterior half go especially 
to the skin. 

Within the spinal cord itself is a mass of longitudinal 
nervous fibres and more or less spherical nervous ** cells." 
The fibres extend upwards and downwards, towards and 
from the brain, and are closely connected with the spinal 
nerves. 

The brain (which is entirely enclosed within the skull, 
and is composed of delicate nervous filaments and a multi- 
tude of cells) is the expanded summit of the whole nervous 
axis, and may be said to consist of three noticeable portions : 
(i) The hindmost under part, or medullay which may be de- 
scribed as the expanded upper part of the spinal cord, so 
becoming the posterior portion of the base of the brain. 
(2) The cerebellum^ a rounder, narrowly grooved prominence, 
forming the posterior under portion of the brain. (3) The 
third part, which is by far the largest, is formed in part by 
the continuance forwards and the divergence of the nervous 
axis, in part by connection with the cerebellum, and also by 
a very large quantity of nervous tissue apparently independ- 
ent of either. This whole mass, called the cerebrum^ is 
divided by a deep, median groove into two lateral halves — 
the cerebral hemispheres — which form the whole of the upper 
surface of the brain, and are marked all over by meandering 
rounded prominences — the convolutions of the brain. The 
cerebral hemispheres are deemed to be main agents in oc- 
casioning our sensations and imaginations, and it is very 
noteworthy that as we have two eyes and two ears, so also 
we have two distinct yet similar cerebral organs which are 
of such importance. The greater number of the nerves 
which proceed from the brain have their origin in the 
medulla. This is notably the case with those which go to 
the lungs, stomach, and heart. Perhaps the most import- 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE II5 

ant, for our purpose, of all the structures which make up 
our bodily frame, are those organs by the aid of which, in 
unison with the brain, we are enabled to have sensations of 
different kinds. 

The organ of sight consists essentially of an extremely 
delicate membrane, the retina, wherein are a multitude of 
minute bodies called rods and cones placed side by side, and 
lining the rear of the eyeball. The retina is an expansion 
of the optic nerve (or nerve of sight), through which it is 
directly continuous with the substance of the brain itself. 

The eyeball is bounded by a tough spherical case, and 
contains within it three transparent media, of different dens- 
ities, while it is itself transparent anteriorly. It also con- 
tains a mechanism to facilitate vision at different distances, 
and its transparent media produce a picture (though an in- 
verted picture) of what is opposite the eye, on the posterior 
part of the internal lining of the eyeball. 

As each eye forms an image of what is opposite it, the 
two pictures simultaneously formed in the two eyes slightly 
differ from each other. They, of course, must do so, 
since each looks out on the world from a different point 
of view. 

The essential organ of hearing in man (and also in back- 
boned animals) consists of most delicate nervous fibres, 
which are distributed over a small, complexly shaped mem- 
branous bag containing fluid, and itself surrounded by 
another fluid, which is enclosed in a davity (corresponding in 
shape to the bag it encloses) in the densest bone of the skull, 
some distance within the opening on the surface of the side 
of the head, surrounded by that conspicuous projection com- 
monly spoken of as " the ear. ' ' Che nerve of hearing passes 
outwards from the brain, traverses a canal through the dense 
bone just referred to, which canal gives it entrance into the 
cavity wherein lies the membranous structure before men- 



Il6 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

tioned, and wherein the ultimate filaments of the auditory 
nerve terminate. 

The organ of smell is composed of minute terminal fila- 
ments of very delicate nerves (olfactory nerves), which pro- 
ceed downwards, from two special prolongations of the 
brain, to the moist membrane which lines the uppermost 
part of the cavity of the nostrils. 

The organ of taste also consists of minute nervous fila- 
ments, distributed in the tongue and the hinder portion of 
the palate, which filaments are derived from two gustatory 
nerves, by which the gustatory filaments are brought into 
direct connection with the brain, as in the three sense 
organs before noticed. 

The organ of touch is very widely distributed, consisting 
as it does of a multitude of nervous filaments that ramify 
and end in the skin, which is, however, very differently sup- 
plied by these nerves in different parts, some parts being 
much more richly supplied than others. These fibres are 
connected with some part of the nervous axis, either the 
brain or the spinal cord. 

Having gained an elementary acquaintance with the 
structure of the human body, and of its component systems 
of organs, we have next to consider what those organs and 
systems of organs do, what are their functions, and espe- 
cially those of the nervous system. 

The functions of muscles everyone is in a general way ac- 
quainted with, I. ^., that their special activity is to produce 
motion. To do this they contract, becoming shorter and 
thicker, and thus bringing nearer together the two parts to 
which the two ends of any muscle may be respectively 
attached, and it is by thete means that all movements of 
the body are effected. Most muscular movements are vol- 
untary, but others are independent of the will. Such is the 
case with those of the heart and alimentary canal. Some, 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 11/ 

like our respiratory movements, ordinarily take place inde- 
pendently of our will, but can be performed voluntarily, and 
can be voluntarily suspended. Soon, however, the power 
of voluntarily restraining them ceases, and they take place 
in spite of all our efforts to the contrary. Movements begun 
with a voluntary effort may be subsequently carried on 
automatically, as we see in setting out for a walk. Such 
movements may be carried on much better automatically 
than when attended to. Attention often positively impedes 
the rapidity and accuracy of our movements, as is easily 
seen if we begin to consider what our movements are as we 
are running downstairs. 

The agents which induce muscular contraction are termed 
stimuli. Such are heat, cold, a puncture, a very acrid or 
acid substance, electricity, and, normally, the influence of 
the nerves supplied to muscles, and emotion and volition 
each may be a stimulus. Stimuli physically equal have a 
more powerful effect when acting on a muscle through a 
nerve than when acting directly on the muscle itself. 

We have seen that muscular movements may take place 
in us without any advertence thereto on our part, and, of 
course, such actions are quite independent of our will. But 
much more wonderful, when we come to think over it, is 
the fact that muscular contractions will take place in appro- 
priate groups, resulting in co-ordinated movements and 
groups of groups of such movements, which not only we do 
not will, but which we do not even know! How wonderful, 
when we carefully consider it, is the trivial act of a lad 
throwing a stone at a mark! How complex must be the 
co-ordinated movements between different parts of the 
body in order to produce even such a result ! The lad's 
mind has little to do with it beyond the one impulse to hit 
the mark. He knows nothing of anatomy, but simply sets 
going the wonderful mechanism of his body, and this works 



Il8 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

out the desired effect for him, just as if it were an elaborate 
machine. In the first place, the various movable parts of 
his eyes must be so adjusted that he may see the mark dis- 
tinctly. Then his body must be held in a proper position, 
the stone be grasped with just the right amount of firmness 
(that is, certain muscles must be contracted to the proper 
amount), the arm must be thrown back to the due extent, 
and its muscles contracted, in co-ordination with the move- 
ments of the eyes, and with just that degree of vigour which, 
as his fingers are relaxed, will carry the stone as he desires 
it should go. Thus various complex groups of movements 
may be synthesised without our will and without our know- 
ledge — so as to result in the production of one complex 
action of the whole body. 

Besides these conspicuous movements, a multitude of 
minute ones are continually taking place in the living body 
— movements which we not only cannot feel but can in no 
way perceive in ourselves. They can only be perceived in 
animals by making use of various devices, including the use 
of the microscope. 

We have mentioned the function of alimentation as that 
of the system of organs termed alimentary— organs which 
receive and digest food. But though these organs do in 
this way minister to that function, nutrition ultimately takes 
place in parts altogether out of reach of all our powers of 
observation, consisting as it does in the reception of new 
elements into the very ultimate substance of the body — the 
change of the prepared residuum of the food we have eaten 
into our own living flesh and blood, /. ^., assimilation. 
That this does take place is absolutely certain, but how it 
takes place is an entirely unsolved problem. Moreover, it 
is to be noted that this function, so absolutely necessary for 
life, takes place in the intimate substance of the body be- 
yond the terminal filaments of the ramifying nerves. 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE II9 

We have spoken of ** the circulation " as the function of 
the organs which compose the ** circulating system." But 
over and above that great stream of life there is a minute 
circulation which takes place within each smallest particle 
of the body's substance (just as it takes place in unicellular 
animals), for the sake of which multitudinous microscopic 
streamlets the great sanguineous current may be said to 
exist. 

Respiration consists in the gaseous exchange to which our 
breathing organs minister. But it is not in that conspicuous 
respiratory process which is evident to our senses that the 
process really consists. It is in the minute gaseous inter- 
change which takes place in the ultimate and intimate com- 
ponents of the body's substance. 

Similarly, " secretion " is a process of formation, by 
organs, from the blood of products which did not previously 
exist as such within it. It is thus analogous to the power 
by which the various tissues that compose the body are en- 
abled to add to their own substance from the life-stream 
which bathes them, though their substance does not exist as 
such in that stream. Thus the process of assimilation in 
which alimentation culminates is analogous to secretion. 

Having thus, in the briefest manner, noticed the most 
essential facts concerning various bodily functions, we may 
next turn to our special subject in this chapter — the func- 
tions of the nervous system. In the first place, it is by the 
agency of this system that all the other organic activities of 
the human body are carried on. Without its aid all nutri- 
tion, growth, circulation, respiration, and muscular motion 
would not exist, just as its activity would be arrested were 
it not nourished by a sufficient supply of duly constituted 
blood. 

But besides organic activities, this system also ministers 
to, and is necessary for, sensation, and, therefore, for know- 



120 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

ledge, seeing, once more, that the latter is impossible for us 
except as following upon sensation. The nervous system 
is thus the special, the only, intermediary between our con- 
sciousness and the external world, and the only bridge be- 
tween the subjective and all that is objective besides itself. 
It both receives the various effects to which the world about 
us and our own body can give rise to within it, and which 
result in sensations; and it also causes all the movements 
which take place in response to stimuli. But it is necessary 
to note that it not only acts as an intermediary between 
each organ and its environment, through the sensations to 
which it gives rise, but also that it so acts without the in- 
tervention of sensations. When acted on by external influ- 
ences it may, and constantly does, excite corresponding 
activities in our body without giving rise to any feeling of 
which we are conscious. The special consideration of 
sensation itself, its various forms, and their other mental 
accompaniments and effects, will be considered in our next 
chapter on the psychical antecedents of science ; but sensa- 
tion in its physiological aspect, in so far as it is related to 
different portions and diverse conditions of parts of the 
nervous system, concerns us here and now. 

As everyone knows, different parts of the nervous system 
have different functions, and the special functions of differ- 
ent nerves are partly learned by the study of their distribu- 
tion, and partly by the simplest observations. Thus an 
irritation of the nerve which goes to the eye (to the retina) 
or to the internal ear, does not produce feeling in the ordinary 
sense of that word, but only certain sensations of light or of 
sound. The nerves which, as before said, are connected in 
pairs with the spinal cord, minister either to sensation or to 
motion, according to their distributions and connections. 

If one of these nerves be divided, and the part cut off from 
the spinal cord be irritated, then motion ceases in the 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 121 

muscles to which such nerve is distributed, but no pain 
accompanies such irritation. If the part which remains 
attached to the spinal cord be irritated, then pain is caused 
but not motion. If the so-called posterior root ' of a spinal 
nerve alone be severed, the parts supplied with twigs from 
such nerve only, lose their power of feeling, but their power 
of motion remains. If the anterior root of such a nerve 
alone be divided, then the parts supplied by such nerve are 
paralysed as to motion, but, nevertheless, retain their sensi- 
bility — their power of feeling. If the spinal cord itself be 
cut or broken through, it is impossible for a man thus injured 
to feel any irritation which may be applied to those portions 
of his body which are supplied with nerves which are con- 
nected with any part of the spinal cord below the point of 
injury. Neither can he move such parts by any act of his 
will, try as he may. J»Ievertheless, movements of those very 
parts may be produced by stimuli applied to them, of which 
he remains entirely unconscious, or which, if by observation 
he is aware that they are applied, he has none the less no 
feeling whatever, nor can he possibly withdraw any such 
part out of reach of the stimulus so being applied. A man 
so injured, though he may have entirely lost the power of 
feeling any pricks, cuts, or burns applied to such parts, will 
none the less execute movements, often in an exaggerated 
manner, in response to such stimuli, just as if he did feel 
them. He will withdraw his foot if it be tickled just as if 
he felt the tickling, which he is incapable of feeling. Such 
unconscious movement in response to stimuli which are not 
felt is called reflex action^ for the following reason : under 
ordinary circumstances stimulations of the surface of the 
body convey an influence inwards which produces sensation, 
and gives rise to an outwardly proceeding influence passing 
to the muscles, and resulting in definite appropriate motions. 

* Sec ante^ p. 113. 



122 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

The influence inwards appears to travel upwards through 
the spinal cord to the brain, and so produces feeling, because 
the brain is the main organ of sensation. The influence out- 
wards appears to travel downwards from the brain, which is, 
ordinarily, the main fundamental agent for producing mo- 
tion, and onwards down the spinal cord, and thence to the 
muscles, which thus move in response to a surface stimulus 
which has been felt. But when the spinal cord has been 
divided it becomes no longer possible for such influences to 
ascend to the brain (and, therefore, there can be no feeling), 
or to descend from the brain (and, therefore, there can 
be no voluntary motion). But the unfelt influence travel- 
ling inwards is supposed in that case, on reaching the 
spinal cord, to be thence automatically reflected outwards. 
That such is the case appears to be shown by the fact that 
appropriate movements are made in response, but made 
without the intervention of the will. Reflex action may 
also take place when the body is quite uninjured, as during 
sleep, under the influence of chloroform, etc. 

But this kind of action is much more strikingly displayed 
in some of the lower animals. A frog which has had its 
head cut off will yet make with its hind legs appropriate 
movements to remove any irritating object applied to the 
hinder part of its body. If its skin be touched with some 
caustic fluid, one leg will be brought forward so that the 
foot may be applied to the irritated spot ; and if that leg be 
held, then the other leg will be similarly moved forwards. 
A more striking instance of the same power can be obtained 
from the same kind of animal at the breeding season. The 
male frog has the habit of tightly grasping the female, and 
to enable him the more securely to maintain his hold, 
a warty prominence becomes developed on the inner side of 
each of his fore-feet. Now, if such a male frog be taken, 
and not only decapitated, but the whole hinder part of the 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 23 

body also removed, so that nothing remains but the 
small portion of its trunk from which the two arms, with 
their nerves, proceed, and if, under these circumstances, 
the warty prominences be touched, the two arms will 
then fly together as if they were moved by a spring, 
and this remarkable and complex response to a stimulus 
must take place altogether without the intervention of 
sensation. 

But in all these instances of reflex action, the stimulus 
applied should be regarded as the occasion, not the cause, 
of the movements in question. They must, it seems to us, 
be due to powers and energies latent in the organism, which 
powers the stimulus serves to make manifest. 

Other actions may take place in us which resemble reflex 
action in so far as they take place independently of the will, 
and, indeed, in spite of all the voluntary efforts we can make, 
while yet they differ from reflex action because they occur 
as consequences of sensations distinctly felt. We have 
already seen how impossible it is for us to impede our 
respiratory actions after they have been suspended long 
enough to give rise to peculiarly distressing feelings. 
Similarly, if an object, not too large, be placed very far 
back in the mouth, it must be swallowed, and we cannot 
help it. But the presence of the object is all the time dis- 
tinctly felt. Such actions are termed ** sensor i-motor*' 
actions, to distinguish them from reflex ones in which 
sensations do not intervene. 

It cannot be doubted that different regions of the brain 
are specially connected with our experience of different 
sensations, imaginations, and sense-perceptions, and it is 
also certain that different parts of it are organs for originat- 
ing different motions and combinations of movements. But 
though very much has been done towards determining these 
connections, a vast deal more remains quite uncertain, and 



124 ^^^ GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

for our purpose here, such localisations are indifferent, and 
it is enough to note the fact that there are various central 
regions which are thus connected with feelings and move- 
ments respectively. 

What it is especially desirable that the reader should here 
carefully note, is the fact that nervous activities which are 
accompanied by definite corresponding feelings, shade off, 
as it were, into activities which are but occasionally felt, 
and into activities which are in no way felt, nor can by any 
possibility be felt. 

A delicate network of nerves is distributed to the heart, 
arteries, intestines, liver, kidneys, etc., which network is 
generally spoken of as the ** sympathetic system." Usually 
the influences which these nerves exercise do not give rise 
to sensations, but under some abnormal conditions of any 
of these internal organs, such influences may be felt and be 
accompanied by pain. 

Another notable fact is that exposure to fresh conditions, 
it may be the reception of injuries, may result in very re- 
markable results, which cannot have been brought about 
without the help of that great co-ordinating system of the 
body — the nervous system. The thickening of the skin of 
the hand constantly employed in hard work, and that of the 
muscles of the blacksmith's arm or the dancer's leg, are in- 
stances in point ; but most striking of all are the processes 
of repair which may take place after injury. Very complex 
structures, appropriately formed and nicely adjusted for the 
performance of complex functions, may be so developed. 
Thus a new elbow-joint has been known to be produced 
in a railway guard who was compelled to have his own 
cut out as a consequence of an injury he had received. 
The new joint served his purpose exceedingly well, he 
having soon acquired the power of swinging himself by it 
from one carriage to another, while a train was in motion, 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 25 

as easily and securely by means of the newly formed parts 
as he could do with his other, uninjured arm. 

Processes of repair are far more conspicuous and remark- 
able in certain lower animals than they are in man and the 
creatures nearly allied to him. The tails of lizards, the legs 
of newts, and even the eye, lower jaw, and the front part of 
the head of similar animals can be reproduced after removal. 

Processes pf repair in ourselves take place in perfect un- 
consciousness, and our will has no direct control over them ; 
but they are directed to a useful end, and are carried on by 
vital processes which are practically full of purpose though 
their end is altogether unforeseen, because quite unknown 
to the patient who benefits by them. 

These facts as to unconscious but appropriately purposive 
processes of repair naturally lead us to reflect on those 
wonderfully appropriate, and seemingly purposive processes 
and metamorphoses whereby the embryo is developed, and 
the adult condition gradually attained. A description of 
such processes does not come within the sphere of the 
present work. Indeed, some of our readers may wonder 
why we have already said so much respecting merely vital 
processes which are not accompanied by sensation, and may, 
therefore, well seem altogether foreign to questions of 
thought, knowledge, science, and its groundwork. 

Nevertheless, they have a distinct reference thereto, as 
will almost immediately appear when we come to speak of 
instinctive action. But before entering upon that function 
a few words must be said concerning our faculty of acquiring 
habits. 

The power of forming habits has a certain analogy with 
reflex action, since it is the result of a power which our 
organism possesses to react, within limits, when it is acted 
on. Let us consider what a habit is. A " habit " is not 
formed by repeating an action a great number of times. 



126 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

though it may be much confirmed and strengthened thereby. 
If an act performed only once had not in it some power of 
generating a habit, then a thousand repetitions of that act 
would not generate it. Habit is the determination in one 
direction of a previously vague tendency to action. We 
possess a natural inclination to activity. Action is not 
only natural to us, it is a positive want. Our powers and 
energies also tend to increase with exercise and action (up 
to a certain limit), while they diminish and finally perish 
through a too long repose. Thus a power of generating 
" habit " lies hid in all, and in the very first of those actions 
which facilitate and increase the general activity and power 
of our body, and facilitate and increase the exercise of that 
power in definite modes and directions. 

This tendency to bodily and mental activity, which under- 
lies our acquisition of " habits," is closely allied to that 
special form of action which we have above spoken of as 
** instinctive action." Instinct, as a feeling, will concern 
us in the next chapter, but its physiological and physical 
aspects must be noticed here. Instinctive movements differ 
from reflex actions in that they are not merely responsive 
to a stimulus felt, but respond to that stimulus in such a 
manner as to serve a future unforeseen purpose. Such an 
action is that of the infant, which, in response to the feeling 
produced on its lips by contact with the breast, first sucks 
the nipple and then swallows the thence extracted nutriment 
with which its mouth becomes filled. It is an action neces- 
sary for the nutrition of the infant, and one performed very 
soon after birth, when there has been no lapse of time 
wherein it could have learned to perform that action. It is 
also an action which is definite and precise, and one per- 
formed in a similar manner by all infants, though it is 
effected by a very complex mechanism, and is performed at 
once, prior to all experience. But not only sucking and 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 2/ 

deglutition, but also the movements by which the products 
of excretion are removed from within the body of the in- 
fant, are, in our opinion, essentially instinctive. In later 
life various other instinctive actions minister directly or in- 
directly to reproduction. 

It is an instinct which prompts the female child to seek 
adornments for her little body, and to fondle a doll, and 
even press it against her breast, whence, when fully de- 
veloped, her future baby will draw its nourishment. Later 
on, when the time for love and courtship has arrived, in- 
stinct leads youths and maidens to seek each other's society, 
and tends naturally to induce affectionate feelings and ul- 
timately caresses, each of which acts as a further stimulus, 
ultimately leading on towards actions indispensable to the 
race. 

But instinct, as it exists in man, is very feebly and ob- 
scurely developed, compared with the manifestations of that 
faculty which may be met with in various of the lower 
animals, and especially amongst insects. Chickens will, 
very soon after they are hatched, peck at small objects, 
grains, and insects, and but little later will at once per- 
form, when they come in contact with water, the move- 
ments for making it flow over their backs and fall off.' 

Some birds will feign lameness, or some other injury, to 
draw off attention from their eggs or young. Birds of the 
first year, when the time of migration arrives, are often the 
earliest to depart, and duly accomplish their journey, though 
they can have no knowledge of the route tliey have to 
pursue, or the region it is the object of their journey to 
attain. 

Snakes taken out of their mother's body just before their 
natural birth will even then threaten to strike, and, if rattle- 

' For an admirable account of such phenomena, see Habit and InsHnct^ by 
C. Lloyd Morgan, F.G.S. 



128 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

snakes, to rattle, or at least rapidly vibrate the end of the 
tail. 

Ichneumon flies will lay their eggs within the bodies of 
caterpillars, that they may find abundant suitable food when 
they are hatched, but we cannot believe that they foresee 
the purpose and practical utility of their action. 

A kind of wasp, called ** sphex," provides for the nutri- 
tion of her unhatched young in an analogous but yet more 
remarkable manner. She will hunt about till she finds a suit- 
able caterpillar, grasshopper, or spider, which she adroitly 
stings on the spot which induces, or on the several spots 
which induce, complete paralysis, so as to deprive it of all 
power of motion, but not to kill it, as to kill it would defeat 
her purpose. This done, she stores away the helpless victim 
along with her eggs, in order that when her eggs are hatched 
the grubs which issue from them may find living animal food 
ready for them and in a suitable state of helplessness ; for 
were they not in such a state, the grubs would be utterly 
unable to catch, retain, and prey upon them. The species 
of sphex which preys on the grasshopper first stings it and 
then throws it on its back, so as to get at the delicate mem- 
brane which unites the pieces of its hard armour at their 
joints. This it bites through to reach a specially enlarged 
portion of nervous tissue there concealed, by mutilating 
which it attains its practical but surely unforeseen end. 

But if the adult insect cannot reasonably be supposed to 
understand the future conditions of its unborn young which 
it will never see, still less can the poor grub be expected to 
understand what will be the future conditions of its own life 
when it is a grub no longer — conditions so utterly different 
from those of which it has had any experience. Yet many 
species of caterpillar form cocoons in modes and places most 
suitable for their protection and for their own easy emerg- 
ence when they have changed into the adult form. The 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 29 

caterpillars of a moth found in Africa will unite their efforts 
to form a great, as it were, common cocoon, within which 
external envelope each caterpillar makes its own special 
cocoon, but which are so skilfully arranged as to leave pass- 
ages between them to facilitate their departure when, as 
moths, the time has come for them to fly away. 

The caterpillar of the emperor moth is described as spin- 
ning for itself a double cocoon, but Teaving an opening 
fortified with elastic bristles pointing outwards, and so 
directed that while they readily yield to pressure from 
within, they firmly resist pressure from without. Thus the 
caterpillar is at the same time both protected from intrusion 
from outside, and enabled easily to obtain its own exit when 
fully developed. 

As an example of the blindness which characterises these 
instinctive actions, we may refer to a kind of wasp which 
does not enclose living food with her eggs, but from time to 
time feeds the grubs which thence emerge with fresh food, 
visiting her nest for that purpose at suitable intervals. She 
covers her nest so carefully with sand that it is completely 
hidden, and this covering is replaced with equal care after 
each of her visits. While it remains thus hidden she, it is 
said, can always find it; but if an entrance is made ready 
for her, this, instead of helping her to get to her young, 
seems to puzzle her completely, and even to prevent her 
from recognising her own offspring. 

But, as everyone knows, moths and butterflies habitually 
lay their eggs on the leaves of such plants as will form 
suitable food for the grubs when hatched, although the 
parents themselves neither feed on such leaves nor make any 
other use of them than that of serving as a receptacle for 
their eggs. It may be that the parents are insects which, 
in the adult condition, do not feed at all, and it is incredible 
that they foresee the use to their unhatched young of leaves 



I30 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

useless to themselves, and the past utility of which to the 
grubs they once were, they cannot be supposed to remember. 

Still more incredible is it, however, that a grub should 
foresee the shape of the body it is destined later to acquire, 
especially when this shape is widely different in the two 
sexes. Yet the grub of the female stag-beetle, when she 
digs the hole wherein she will undergo her metamorphosis, 
digs it no bigger than her own body ; whereas the grub of 
the male stag-beetle makes a hole twice as large as his own 
body, in order to leave room for the enormous jaws (the so- 
called ** horns ") which he will have to grow. 

One more example of that function of the nervous system 
which results in instinct must here suffice. 

There is a kind of beetle, called ** sitaris," which is para- 
sitic on certain bees, while its relation to those insects is 
very different during the very different stages of existence 
which make up its life-history. 

It is hatched from eggs which the mother sitaris lays in 
passages in the bees' nest. Instead of being in the form 
of a grub (as is the case with beetles generally), it comes 
forth from the egg as an active, six-legged little insect with 
eyes and two long ** feelers," or antennae. In the spring, 
as the male bees (drones) pass out for their nuptial flight 
with the queen, the sitaris attaches itself to one of them, 
and as soon as the opportunity offers, passes from it to the 
body of the queen bee. When, afterwards, the queen bee 
lays her egg in the hive, the sitaris springs upon it, and is 
unsuspectingly enclosed in a cell with the honey destined to 
nourish the bee-grub when the queen's egg is hatched. 
Thus left alone with the egg, the sitaris devours it, and 
then undergoes a transformation in the empty egg-shell. 
Having been active in the earliest stage of its life it assumes 
the helpless form of a fleshy grub, which floats on the honey 
and gradually consumes it. Afterwards it transforms itself 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE I3I 

once more, and regaining six legs, emerges as a peaceful 
beetle, and so with its egg begins again the cycle of this 
species' strange life-history. 

All these various forms of instinctive action consist of move- 
ments which take place in response to feelings which have 
been given rise to, and which are often, in part, feelings of 
antecedent actions, which are the earlier, or the earliest, 
stages of the whole instinctive process. An interruption of 
the normal course of procedure will sometimes greatly im- 
pair or render impossible the completion of the entire action 
— as we saw in the case of the wasp, the carefully concealed 
entrance to whose nest was laid bare. They thus have a cer- 
tain analogy with sensori-motor action," which only differs 
from reflex action because of the intervention of sensation, 
and so might be called a sensuous-reflex action of an organ, 
or system of organs, which so react on felt stimuli. 

But in both insentient and sensuous-reflex action there is 
a spontaneous response to a stimulus, and a response which 
is more or less appropriate at the time of its occurrence, 
but which certainly has no reference to future events, which 
are to occur long after every trace of the stimulus has 
disappeared. 

The very essence of instinct, however, is that it provides 
for a more or less distant future, often, as in the case of 
various instincts of insects hereinbefore noticed, for the 
wants of a succeeding generation, which will never be known 
to the creature that performs the instinctive actions without 
which the new generation could never come into being. 
Instinct is essentially telic (/. r., is directed to a definite 
fend), and refers to circumstances future and unforeseen at 
the time the instinctive action takes place. Moreover, the 
actions which are instinctive, are actions not of this or that 
organ, but they are rather the reactions of the whole animal 

' Sec antey p. 123. 



132 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

in response to its environment. But though we cannot ex- 
plain ** instinct " by reflex action, insentient or sensuous, 
there is, as we have said, a certain analogy and, we may 
add, an affinity between all three. Indeed, all animal life 
is reflex in the widest sense of that term ; for all vital actions 
result, and are a reaction, from stimuli (internal or external), 
which are either felt or not felt. The effects of stimuli, 
moreover, differ according to what it is they stimulate. The 
ultimate particles of the innermost substance of man's body, 
like the minute particles which form the whole body of 
unicellular animals, react upon the stimulus of a certain de- 
gree of heat, moisture, or chemical action. The different 
** tissues " which compose the bodies of multicellular animals 
and of our own body, react more or less differently under 
similar circumstances, as the science of the physiology of 
the tissues shows us. The different organs and systems of 
organs all react according to the composition of each, and 
the study of their reactions is physiology as ordinarily 
understood. Similarly, the entire body of a living creature 
reacts as one whole in response to influences brought to bear 
upon it. This we see in the hibernation, or winter sleep, of 
bats and hedgehogs ; in the effects of violent emotions of 
fear and anger, and in the results of sexual and reproductive 
influences upon the whole organism. The activities and 
reactions of the whole body of an animal — including the 
process of its individual development — form a separate de- 
partment of the study of animal functions, and may be 
called " the physiology of organisms considered each as an 
entire whole." 

Now it is a generally admitted principle in biology that 
structure and function vary together, and the various actions 
of the several organs of animals depend upon the properties 
of the parts which act. So also the activities of each animal as 
one whole, and the sum of the actions it habitually performs 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 33 

— its habits and instincts — are closely related to its struc- 
ture. They may thus be said to be sensuous reflex actions 
not of this or that organ, but of each animal as a whole, and 
so instinct may be explained as a form of reflex action in 
the highest and widest sense of that term. But it must not 
be forgotten that the actions which instinct prompts are not 
absolutely invariable. They are modifiable to a certain ex- 
tent by circumstances, through such powers of perception as 
different animals may possess. The absence of accustomed 
objects and the presence of others in their place, may lead 
birds in abnormal conditions to build their nests in un- 
wonted ways. Similarly, many creatures may be led, by the 
pressure of adverse circumstances, to seek their food in ways 
different from those which beings of their species usually 
employ. In this we seem to see the action of a cognitive 
power of some sort co-operating with and modifying the 
promptings of instinct. But however much it may now and 
again be modified, it is clear (from the facts to be noted as 
to human infancy, the earliest stages of existence in in- 
dividual beasts and birds, and, above all, from the instinct- 
ive activities of insects) that there are courses of continuous 
action to which animals are prompted by an internal spon- 
taneous impulse, which impulse is blind as to the beneficial 
consequences of the actions it induces. 

Instinct, then, would seem to be a special internal tend- 
ency to perform blindly a series of definite and useful actions. 
It cannot be insentient reflex action, neither can it be what we 
have termed the sensuous reflex action of an organ or system 
of organs. It must be more : it must be the sensuous reflex 
action proper to an individual animal as one whole, or, as 
we have before said, the highest and most complex kind 
of all reflex action, '* the reflex action of the individual." 

The facts and considerations brought forward in the 
present chapter, not only show us that various material 



134 ^^^ GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

conditions are conditions indispensable for science, because 
they are conditions indispensable for sensation, but also 
make it clear what admirable results may proceed from 
causes seemingly most inadequate. 

The different ** tissues " of our body are so combined as 
to form efficient " organs," different sets of which are com- 
bined into systems — the activities of the tissues, organs, and 
systems harmoniously resulting in the performance of those 
vital functions which characterise and compose the life- 
history of each kind of animal. 

The various vital functions of the body take place in the in- 
timate recesses of our frame quite unperceived, and in a man- 
ner in no way directly controllable, by us. Yet these func- 
tions are so admirably interrelated that their common result, 
under normal conditions, is continuous and prolonged life. 

Similarly, the intimate processes of repair after injury can 
neither be perceived nor directly controlled, though their 
outcome is the practical fulfilment of an indisputably desir- 
able end, and yet more is this evident as regards the pro- 
cesses of embryonic development. In pure reflex action we 
have a clear example of the close dependence of the actions, 
and even the practically purposive actions, of animals, on 
the structure and function of their nervous system ; while in 
sensori-motor action, habit, instinct as fixed, and instinct 
slightly modifiable by cognition, we meet with a gradual 
transition from actions in which the will has no sway, and 
which need not be even matters of cognition, to acts which 
are results of a cognitive process, and are more or less vol- 
untary in character. 

Instinct is a result — a practically purposive and highly in- 
telligent result — of an impulse which is blind and, so to 
speak, mechanical. But we shall have, in the next chapter, 
to revert to the question concerning the nature of instinct. 
So we think no more need be said here upon that subject. 



THE PHYSICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 35 

More remarkable still are the results produced by means 
of those structures we term ** organs of sense." Were we 
pure intelligences devoid of bodies and ignorant of the char- 
acteristic psychical endowments of animals, there is nothing 
in an eye which could lead us to suppose that the inverted 
picture thrown upon the backs of a pair of them could enable 
their possessor to see real external objects, and to see them 
upright and single, and not inverted and double, as they 
are in each man's pair of eyes. Of course, the mere eyes 
could not see apart from the brain or apart from the brain's 
rich supply of duly conditioned blood, etc. Where sight 
takes place, who knows ? The exact nature of the relation 
of the brain and its parts to actual visual cognition, who can 
tell ? Moreover, as we have seen, the brain is double as 
well as the organ of sight. But the practical outcome of an 
organisation so incomprehensible in its innermost nature is 
none the less satisfactory. That the perception of the eyes 
is valid, and the cognitions it affords are true, can be shown 
by comparing small solid objects apprehended by our sight 
with the same objects as known to us by the use of our 
hands. Not that we have any ground for considering our 
physical means of sight less perfect than any other possi- 
ble physical means — any organ which was not an eye — for ob- 
taining a visual knowledge of objectivity. No such means, 
which we can in any way imagine, could appear better 
adapted or less mysterious, because every psychical result 
of physical antecedents is most absolutely mysterious. But 
we can hence obtain at least one practical lesson — the 
lesson, namely, that because we do not know how our bodily 
organisation enables us to obtain a real and true knowledge 
of what is objective, we can be none the less sure that it 
does enable us to obtain valid cognition of that kind, and 
one about which we are certain. 

Similarly, our two ears enable us to apprehend the exist- 



136 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

ence of single external bodies possessing energies which 
translate themselves into sensations of sound, as we say, in 
our ears, though, for all we can determine, ** in out brain " 
might be an expression more in accordance with reality. 
For our purpose, however, such distinctions are of no ac- 
count. What is of account — what relates to considerations 
which, later on, will concern us much — is the undeniable 
fact that true and valid cognition are produced by means 
which, save for familiar experience, we should not, a priori, 
regard as having any capacity, or being at all likely, to pro- 
duce them. 

It also concerns us to note that there is a gradual trans- 
ition in each of us from vital processes performed altogether 
beyond the terminations of the nerves, in the most intimate 
parenchyma of the body, through unfelt nervous activities 
and nervous activities only sometimes felt, on to acts which 
are distinctly felt and voluntarily performed. Thus, in 
addition to our known actions and those corporeal activi- 
ties which are only occasionally felt, there is an energy 
operating throughout the body by the intimate activities of 
which its vitality is ultimately and mainly sustained, and 
through which entirely unfelt responses are constantly made 
to received impressions, which never can be perceived, and 
ever remain beyond the domain of consciousness. 

We have in this chapter been mainly occupied about ques- 
tions of structure, together with the vital energies such 
structures subserve. We have been compelled to treat 
somewhat of feelings and cognitions, as forming part of the 
energies resulting from such structures. But in the next 
chapter the psychical energies of sensation, imagination, and 
sense-cognition will be our principal object, though we shall 
incidentally revert, now and again, to matters of structure 
and organisation, as we have had here to take some notice, 
by anticipation, of facts of feeling and cognition. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 

THE time has now come to leave behind us, as far as may 
be, questions of mere physics and physiology, and turn 
our attention to what concerns the declarations of our own 
consciousness with respect to our feelings and cognitions. 

Our present task, then, is to begin that process of intro- 
spection which, in the first chapter of this work,* we declared 
to be indispensable, and though, at first, somewhat repug- 
nant to beginners, yet soon made easy by a little patient 
perseverance. 

Psychical facts can of course be directly known to us only 
through such introspection — only through consciousness. 
On this account consciousness itself must be somewhat 
considered here, although, as one of our higher psychical 
faculties, its special place is in our next chapter but one. 
Consciousness is one of those things which can neither be 
defined nor made known by description. Any being who 
did not already possess it — if we can conceive of a being 
who could know other things but not himself — could never 
be made to comprehend it by any description or definition 
whatever. Consciousness is, for each of us, both an ulti- 
mate fact and an ultimate abstract truth. As an ultimate 
fact, it is that actual concrete knowledge of ourselves in the 
act of having some feeling or experience — a knowledge, the 

' See ante, p. 5. 
137 



138 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

absolute certainty of which is absolutely unquestionable. 
It is a fact which, being ultimate, is necessarily not only 
undefinable and indescribable, but also inexplicable. We 
know, as a fact, that we are conscious, but how that fact 
comes about we know no more than we know the ** how " 
of any other ultimate ** that " — e. g.^ ** how " it is that 
"extended" bodies are extended, or "how** it is that 
" motion " is a possibility, or " how " it is we can have any 
knowledge at all. 

As an abstract truth, as a universal,* consciousness is the 
ideal perception which the mind gains by abstraction from 
its experience of concrete conscious states of its own being. 
Such abstract consciousness, like all other abstractions, is, of 
course, only an idea, and has no real existence except in that 
actual living consciousness of an individual conscious being, 
which is the foundation of the idea. 

Consciousness constantly attends our normal waking life, 
though, of course, it is but rarely that we are expressly con- 
scious of our consciousness. We only become so by turning 
back the mind and saying, ** Now I know that I am con- 
scious." That is reflex consciousness. But, like all our 
other ordinary mental acts, it is accompanied by direct 
consciousness. 

Had we not true and valid knowledge in our direct 
consciousness, without the need of turning back the mind 
and reflecting thereon, we could never have any knowledge 
at all; for we should have to go through a regressus ad 
infinitum to obtain it — in other words, we never could 
obtain it. 

When we do turn back the mind and reflect on our ex- 
perience, we become aware (with special attention to the 
fact as a fact) expressly of what we may be doing, as when 
we are playing golf, or engaged in any other amusement or 

' See anU^ p. 6. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 39 

occupation whatsoever. Thus, consciousness seems to be 
normally, in its very essence, continuous, and, while exist- 
ing at each instant, to be aware (directly or reflexly) of its 
persistence — of its continuity. We each of us know and are 
conscious, not only that we are actually doing whatever we 
may be about (as, for example^ the reader while reading this 
passage is aware that he is reading it), but also that before 
we began to read it we were doing something else. But 
what still remains to be said about consciousness we shall 
reserve for a future chapter. Here it is only necessary to 
recognise the facts: (i) that we know and are conscious of 
our mental states, and (2) that when we are conscious that 
we have a thought or feeling, it is absolutely certain 
that we really have it ; (3) tha^ in being thus conscious of our 
present feeling, we both know it as a feeling, and therefore 
something so far objective as it is an object of thought; 
and (4) also that this feeling is something we are actually 
feeling, and therefore so far subjective. In this act of per- 
ception, then, subject and object appear to be identified ; 
but this will be further considered later on. What, then, 
does this absolutely trustworthy and infallible witness tell 
us about our own psychical states ? Turning our mental 
eye inwards, and considering our experiences by a process 
of introspection, what does it tell us concerning the question 
as to whether any mental states can exist, as it were, beside 
consciousness — states, the past existence of which, conscious- 
ness can by some means become fully aware of as having 
certainly existed ? 

It is unquestionable that our consciousness can and does 
inform us of the existence of very different kinds of psychi- 
cal experience. Thus it tells us of our very distinct feelings 
of colour, sound, smell, taste, and touch ; or sometimes that 
we have feelings of exerting force, or undergoing pressure f 
also that we have feelings which are simultaneous and others 



I40 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

which are successive, etc. Besides all these feelings and 
others allied to them, our consciousness also tells us that we 
have a multitude of cognitions of very different kinds, some 
of which are direct perceptions of external objects, others of 
the force of arguments, or of the evidence of axioms, or the 
truth of intellectual principles. Now in our visual percep- 
tion of the world about us, our consciousness informs us 
that we perceive at any one time a certain small portion of 
our field of vision with special distinctness, but that around 
this portion, receding on all sides, are visual perceptions 
which become more and more indistinct and, as it were, 
** out of focus." Similarly, in our musical experience, we 
hear with great distinctness a series of sounds as they suc- 
ceed each other, as also that they gradually fade as they re- 
cede from the present into the past ; while, if we are listening 
to a more or less familiar melody, the notes which are about 
to be heard become anticipated, so that past, present, and 
future- may be more or less truly present to the mind simul- 
taneously. Similarly, once more, in all that we attend to, 
there is always some part of what our mind is occupied 
about which is apprehended with special distinctness, while 
other matters more or less nearly related thereto are cognised 
with various inferior degrees of clearness of perception. 

Whatever might be the case in this respect with a creature 
all intellect, and independent of material conditions, such, 
it would seem, must be the case with beings like ourselves. 
It must be so, because all our most abstract ideas require to 
be attended and supported by mental images or phantas- 
mata, which have been derived from the actual experiences 
our senses have gained from material things. Since also 
material things, and therefore our imaginations of them, 
can only be attended to with the greatest keenness piece- 
meal and in succession, it cannot be otherwise with the 
intellectual considerations they minister to and support. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE I4I 

The recognition of these facts naturally leads us to the 
consideration of two other very important facts to which 
our consciousness gives distinct testimony. These are (i) 
that past experiences will often rise up in our minds, and (2) 
that experiences yet to come may also be anticipated. We 
have both powers of memory and of anticipation. Thus it 
is we have a power of faintly reviving complex groups of 
past sensations, and so forming mental images, or imagina- 
tionsy of persons we have known, scenes we have witnessed, 
etc. ; and we have also the power not only of thus imagining 
the past, but also what is, or may be, yet to come. We 
thus also become fully aware that we can (as pointed out in 
• the first chapter) apprehend certain degrees of likeness and 
of difference, and can cognise ** relations." ' We can also be 
only too sure we have sometimes feelings of pain as well as 
of pleasure, which appear to us external in origin, as well 
as internal pleasurable and painful feelings accompanied 
with anticipations or recollections — feelings which we dis- 
tinguish as emotions and desires. Yet other mental states 
are also clearly known to us which may, or may not, ac- 
company the last-named feelings — e. g,^ states which we 
term ** volitions." 

Thus consciousness, in examining the mind which is con- 
scious, perceives its perceptions, feelings, and activities with 
differences of intensity and of other qualities. But con- 
sciousness, through memory, also shows us — as will shortly 
be pointed out — that we have had experiences without 
advertence and vague cognitions of presence, absence, and 
relations of various kinds, to which consciousness at the 
time did not attend, so that we were unconscious of parts 
of our mental affections — not that we were not conscious 
when we were so affected, but that our attention was other- 
wise occupied. It is, of course, impossible for us directly to 

' See ante^ pp. 8 and 91. 



n 



142 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

perceive these unconscious psychical processes, because 
whatever we direct our mental gaze upon becomes thereby 
in the very focus of consciousness. Nevertheless, by the 
aid of memory and reasoning, we may plainly perceive that 
we have passed through such unconscious psychical states. 

It is very desirable that we should endeavour to recognise 
and distinctly draw out, through the assurance of our con- 
sciousness, that we must have had certain mental modifi- 
cations which we did not advert to at the time when our 
senses were being thus acted upon and were receiving such 
impressions. 

Before proceeding to do so, however, we desire to recall 
to the reader's mind, yet once more, our representation ' of 
the distinction which exists between feelings and ideas, as 
also that ideas cannot exist for us, unless ministered to and, 
as it were, supported by mental images, that is, by feelings 
of the imagination. These two facts may help us to under- 
stand how it is that, although we have no ground to regard 
our mind as other than a perfect unity, it yet has two orders 
of mental powers. There are two kinds of mental activity : 
(i) those allied to the sensations which are the means of 
perception, but which consciousness does not advert to when 
it perceives an object; (2) those allied to the intellectual 
perceptions to which such sensations and imaginations min- 
ister. A great number of mental facts — mental processes — 
may be grouped around each of these two kinds of mental 
affection. Those which are allied to feelings and imagina- 
tions constitute our lower mental faculties ; while those allied 
to our intellectual perceptions are our higher ones. No one. 
probably, will question that a process of conscious reasoning 
and a perception of the truth of an axiom are higher mental 
processes than mere feelings of colour, warmth, or sweetness. 

This distinction between our higher and lower mental 

* See ante, pp. 10-13. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 143 

powers, though it has been so long and so generally neglected, 
we believe to be one of the most profound and important 
truths in psychology, and one the recognition of which is 
absolutely necessary for everyone who would attain to a 
sound and reasonable philosophy. 

But as we are intellectual and conscious beings, we should 
expect that every lower mental process would, in us, be 
more or less modified by our higher nature, through the 
existence of which alone we can (through reflection) ever 
become aware of the existence of any such lower mental 
process. As to animals, we can have no psychical experi- 
ence of any creature's mind but our own. Nevertheless, 
observation, experiment, and inference, in combination, 
may suffice to give us a trustworthy assurance that faculties 
like our lower psychical powers exist in them, and that they 
are, or are not, sufficient to account for all their actions, how- 
ever rational such actions may, at first sight, appear to be. 

As a familiar illustration of this distinction to which we re- 
fer as existing in ourselves, may be mentioned a circumstance 
which has, perhaps, happened to many of our readers as it 
has repeatedly happened to ourselves. In walking along a 
street with consciousness absorbed by some train of thought, 
it may suddenly strike us that we had passed a house over 
the shop-window of which there was a remarkable, or a 
familiar, name, and then, turning back, find that our sus- 
picion was justified. We may thus see that we had ex- 
perienced sensations, grouped together into a mental image, 
but which, so far as we can perceive, never rose into con- 
sciousness. Again, we may set out to visit a friend at a 
residence well known to us, and our consciousness, absorbed 
as in the former case, may not serve to make us recognise 
the familiar spot we were seeking, and we may only be awak- 
ened to the fact that we have passed it by, through a check 
to our career given by some passing vehicle. But while we 



144 ^^^ GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

have thus been walking in reverie, our senses, though not 
our intellect, have been awake to all the conditions which 
were necessary to enable us to walk without accident through 
peopled streets, with repeated steppings down and up kerb- 
stones, and other similar movements. Each turning, each 
crossing, may have been accurately effected, and though we 
had no consciousness of the several objects which passed 
before our eyes, yet we must have felt them and had an un- 
conscious sensuous cognition of them, or they never could 
have served to guide us safely along our path. 

Once more, let us suppose the case of a young lady play- 
ing with perfect facility on the piano a difficult but well- 
practised piece of music. While she is playing it, she talks 
to a gentleman she thinks likely to ** propose " to her. 

Her consciousness is absorbed in attending to his words, 
his tone, and manner, with mental side-glances as to fortune, 
temper, and other matters. Yet she need never stumble in 
her performance, or fail in exactitude as to the force of 
stroke or prolongation of pressure to be applied to the dif- 
ferent keys ; indeed, were she to direct her attention thereto, 
the perfection of her execution might be thereby impaired — 
just as (once more) running up and down stairs may be im- 
peded by the express direction of attention to the movements 
necessary to effect it. Most persons who can play melodies 
on the piano ** by heart," know how, when they fail in any 
familiar passage, the worst thing they can do is to think 
what the order of the forgotten series of notes should be, 
and that their best course is to turn their mind away to 
something else while they try to play it unconsciously and 
automatically. In other words, the melody is recalled by 
avoiding the use of the intellect and trusting to the sensuous 
association which has been formed between successive notes, 
and which has become, as it were, embodied in the nerves 
and muscles of the pianist. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE I45 

And here it seems desirable to point out the differences 
which exist between our higher and our lower mental facul- 
ties as regards * * memory. ' * 

Memory is sometimes said to be a faculty which revives 
past feelings and ideas. But any number of feelings or ideas 
which might be revived and so once more felt or thought, 
would not constitute true memory unless they were recog- 
nised as having existed before, and as relating to the past. 
Nevertheless, reason shows us that our being must somehow 
have powers through which past feelings and imaginations 
can be retained and revived without their appearance in 
consciousness. 

Now two feelings, which have been experienced by us 
successively or simultaneously, may be so closely associated 
that on the recurrence of one, the other may recur also. It 
is natural to us thus to associate feelings and imaginations 
which have been frequently experienced together. Thus 
groups, and groups of groups, of such mental states may 
become associated and will recur as just stated, and this may 
take place anterior to, or without any intellectual advertence 
to the ideas such associated feelings may occasion and serve 
to support. Thus the sound of a dinner-bell, or the sight 
of an expanded umbrella, may instantly arouse in our minds 
associated mental images of food or of rain. It is not only 
that we know, by an intellectual cognition, that the bell is a 
call to dinner, or that the umbrella has been opened on ac- 
count of rain. These cognitions of the intellect we may, of 
course, have, but the associated mental images may be called 
up before them and persist, sometimes to our annoyance, 
after them; the notes of a melody familiar in times long 
past may arouse vivid mental images and keen emotions re- 
lating to the days of our youth, and even a mere perfume 
will sometimes have a similar effect. How true it is that 
these lower mental states can exist apart from intellectual 

xo 



146 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

cognition is proved by the fact that even idiots may some- 
times have their emotions similarly aroused. 

Such revivals of past feelings, unrecognised as such, can- 
not, as before said, be properly called memory, but, except 
for not being recognised, they closely resemble it, and may 
therefore be distinguished as examples of what may be 
termed ** sensuous memory," or the memory of the imagina- 
tion. It is this lower power which lies at the base of our 
true intellectual powers of memory and reminiscence, and it 
is by its aid, as we believe, that we are able to carry on 
during those unconscious states of reverie and ** absent- 
mindedness *' the actions we have above noted. It is by 
associated groups, and groups of groups, of feelings and 
imaginations, that we are enabled so practically to cognise 
objects in a merely sensuous way that such complex actions 
can be performed without intellectual advertence. 

In our next chapter we shall inquire whether animals, by 
the use of faculties analogous to our lower mental powers 
only, may not be enabled to do a variety of seemingly 
rational actions without consciousness, and therefore without 
knowing that they do them. We, being intellectual creat- 
ures, cannot (as before observed) know that we have these 
lower faculties save by the intervention of the higher — save 
by introspection, the interrogation of consciousness, and 
a consciousness of at least much of our environment. But 
we can, through observation and memory, be sure that we 
must occasionally have cognised objects with merely sensu- 
ous cognition and without consciousness. And since we can 
always argue that what has actually happened must be at 
least a possible thing, we may also be sure that merely 
sensuous cognition is possible, since we must really have 
had it. Without such cognitions the actions above noted 
as taking place during reverie and absence of mind could 
never be performed. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE* I47 

And the facts we noted in our last chapter ought to make 
the occurrence of such merely sensuous actions easy of com- 
prehension, because they have much resemblance to those 
acts of sensuous reflex action and those instinctive actions 
which were therein described. 

But since such complex instinctive actions, and actions 
resulting from sensuous cognition, are the action of the body 
as a whole, and as the sensations which give rise to such 
sensuous cognitions are often feelings produced by very 
different sense organs — by sights and sounds, feelings of 
touch, pressure, etc. — they must clearly bereferred to, and 
receive responses from, some common sensorium. 

Now in the cases referred to, consciousness is not called 
into play, but is otherwise occupied, and in consequence we 
require a term to denote such a faculty and sensorium in 
ourselves, and in animals, at least in such as all would agree 
have not intellectual consciousness. It has then been sug- 
gested to denote that lower psychical faculty, that meeting 
together of sensuous impulses of the most diverse kinds, by 
the term Consentience, 

Sometimes, as both in reverie and a state of absorbed 
attention to some object, our minds are in a condition in 
which all the direct consciousness of our being seems to be 
suspended, and we have but a vague feeling of our existence 
— a feeling resulting from the unobserved synthesis of all 
the various sensations and impressions we may then be 
subject to. Such a blending of feelings is a form of con- 
sentience, and it is by this faculty that the unconscious 
sleep-walker receives and accurately responds to the varied 
impressions which surrounding objects make on his organs, 
and by it also the idiot makes such responses, as he may be 
able to make, to similar impressions. It is to consentience 
again that the ability to perform many instinctive actions is 
due. 



148 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

In many of our rational actions, which consciousness 
knows and can analyse, we can by attention detect the 
merely isensuous elements of our cognitions. These ele- 
ments might be expected to be capable of producing in 
lower natures — in mere animals — ^acts apparently intelligent, 
but which are not really so. 

Thus we may recognise the presence of feelings of self- 
activity or passivity accompanying our perceptions of those 
states. When we draw our hand over a foreign body or 
grasp it, we may detect one such feeling underlying our 
perceptions, and both at once, when rubbing the hands 
together or when struggling against a violent wind. 

Similarly, a variety of sensations, real and imagined, 
underlie our perceptions of succession, extension, position, 
shape, size, number, and motion, and can, with a little 
care, be easily detected and discriminated. Thus as we feel 
the series of sensations of contact when the links of a chain 
are drawn across the hand, we have feelings corresponding 
with succession and motion. When handling a solid cube 
we have feelings related to extension, shape, size. Again, 
in a multitude of actions — for example, in climbing up a 
bank — we have feelings relating to ** relative position," and 
we may also acquire such by merely drawing our hand from 
the ankle upwards to the thigh. Of course, we have no 
feeling of succession itself or of the other abstract ideas 
above mentioned, but we have feelings which specially cor- 
respond with all of those ideas just referred to. Such 
feelings as serve to guide the footsteps of the unconscious 
sleep-walker, might well be sufficient to direct the move- 
ments of any creatures which were richly endowed with 
feeling, but denied the power of intellect. 

Similarly, we have feelings closely connected with percep- 
tions of agreement or disagreement, and others which ac- 
company surprise or doubt. Let us suppose that we grasp 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE I49 

an artificial orange so made as not only to look, but also to 
feel, like a real orange, and that we cut it, and to our surprise 
find its interior to be very different from what we expected 
it to be. Thereupon we have, of course, our intellectual 
perception of the fact, but we also have a certain feeling of 
** shock," which accompanies our surprise at making the 
discovery. Similarly, if the nature of an object seems to 
us doubtful, we have a feeling of " suspended action " ac- 
companying our state of intellectual doubt. If the object 
turns out to be what we supposed, as we discover it we have 
a simultaneous feeling of " smooth and easy transition " 
along with our perception that our anticipation has been 
fulfilled. If it should turn out otherwise, then, as we per- 
ceive the disagreement, we have a feeling somewhat like 
that which we get from a suddenly arrested motion. 

Thus by the occurrence of different sensations and differ- 
ent combinations with imaginations — by the association of 
sensations, imaginations, feelings of pain or pleasure with 
those of activity, passivity, succession, extension, figure, 
magnitude, unity, multiplicity, motion, and rest — we come 
to have most varied complex groups of feelings correspond- 
ing with states of the world about us and of ourselves. 
These groups of groups of feelings underlie and accompany 
our intellectual perceptions, on which account they may be 
termed " sensuous-cognitions," or ** sense-perceptions," 
since they may produce practical results resembling those of 
intellectual cognitions and perceptions in any creature 
capable of feeling them, but devoid of consciousness. 

If we reflect on these sensuous cognitions with the asso- 
ciations which may be established between feelings, as evi- 
denced by the effects of merely sensuous memory, we shall 
see that merely sensuous mental states may bear a notable 
resemblance, practically, to true inference. 

When different groups of feelings have become intimately 



ISO THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

associated, then, on the occurrence of one group, an imagin- 
ation of the other group will arise in the mind, and we 
have an ** expectant feeling " of their proximate actual re- 
currence — as we may have an expectant feeling of orange 
pulp when cutting the artificial orange. 

This expectant imagination of feelings yet to come, has a 
decided analogy with reasoning and inference, although 
quite distinct and unlike them essentially. Very noticeable 
also is that feeling of wondering expectancy which will arise 
when some strange sound is heard, or some startling move- 
ment seen, followed by a feeling of complacency when an 
innocent cause of either comes in view. 

Such feelings are the sensuous accompaniments of an in- 
tellectual search for a cause followed by its satisfactory 
detection. 

Strong feelings, and especially strong emotions, tend to 
manifest themselves externally, not only without our know- 
ledge and intention, but against our utmost efforts, when we 
become conscious of such manifestations. Thus terror and 
anger show themselves by external signs, which express 
feelings, not ideas, and so may be said to constitute a ** lan- 
guage of emotion." 

Such unintellectual language manifests itself, as we have 
just said, ** by external signs." This is quite true in one 
sense, yet, withoujt further explanation, the assertion may 
be misleading, as the word ** sign" is used in two very 
different meanings. 

A ** sign," in the full sense of that term, is a token or de- 
vice addressed to eye or ear, depicting by some external 
manifestation an internal, abstract idea, and made use of 
with the intention of conveying to another mind the idea or 
ideas in the mind of the sign-maker. 

Yet a sign may be truly such, though quite in another 
way. Thus the external contortion of the features in terror. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 151 

or screams or verbal exclamations, are truly signs to onlook- 
ers of the feeling of the terror-stricken person. But as the 
latter has not contorted his features or uttered sounds with 
the intention of making his terror known, it can be nothing 
but an accidental sign. 

Yet, again, a sign may be made with the object of attract- 
ing attention so far as to gain sympathy or make known a 
sympathy felt. Such signs may be an uplifting of the eyes 
with the hands clasped, or a hand may be smilingly kissed, 
or articulate words of tender endearment may be uttered, or 
curses may be shouted with clenched fists, the words in 
neither case having any further meaning than an indication 
of the feelings contained. Such signs, of course, are not 
those of the first category, but only emotional signs. 

We have before noticed the remarkable way in which 
movements may be spontaneously and unconsciously co- 
ordinated.' Such movements are due to feelings which have 
also unconsciously become associated. The actions per- 
formed apart from intellectual advertence show the power 
we have of co-ordinating sensations as, e. g., in playing 
the piano ** by heart." Then the motions of the hands 
and fingers follow each other in orderly succession, which is 
manifestly due to co-ordinated sensations of touch and hear- 
ing — felt touches of the keys, and heard sounds of the 
strings. Let only one note have become dumb, or one of 
the keys struck fail to rise, and the whole automatic action 
may come to an end through a failure of co-ordination in 
the associated sensations. 

But our power of unconsciously synthesising our move- 
ment3 into one complex general action — as in the stone- 
throwing before described * — runs parallel with another 
remarkable power we have of unconsciously synthesising 
various pleasurable tendencies into one dominant impulse. 

' See ante, p. 117. * See ante, pp. 117, 118. 



152 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

This power is singularly analogous to, though toto ccelo dif- 
ferent from, volition. That we have such a power is mani- 
fest from the actions of persons when walking in their sleep, 
or during a state of reverie, and also from the actions of 
some idiots. Another sensuous power we possess, and 
which we may term ** sensuous attention," is one that 
simulates the intellectual and voluntary act we know as 
paying attention to, deliberately observing, anything. 

Thus persons who walk in their sleep have been observed, 
when missing some object from its wonted place, to begin 
to look or feel for it. We may also observe in ourselves, 
when startled by some new and disturbing object, how our 
senses automatically direct themselves to it without waitings 
for the bidding of our conscious will. 

But the complex association and co-ordination of a group, 
or groups, of feelings (sensations and mental images), with 
resulting co-ordination of groups of movements, may have 
a yet more remarkable result. They may result in the 
spontaneous, unconscious, and automatic employment of 
what are, practically, " means to an end," quite apart from 
any intellectual recognition of either means or end as such. 
This result is sometimes strikingly manifested by somnambul- 
ists, who have been known to perform very complicated ac- 
tions. Under such circumstances, a drawer may be opened 
or a door unlocked in an unconscious search to obtain some 
object or reach some locality. Such actions are easily 
explicable in the way above stated. For the consentience 
of the sleep-walker is impressed by various groups of sensa- 
tions, such as those produced by the walls and furniture of 
the room the sleep-walker may be traversing on the way to 
the desired locality, the door of which is locked. The feel- 
ings thus excited arouse his imagination of the inside of the 
place sought, this in turn excites the r.ervous channels 
habitually stimulated in overcoming the intervening obstruc- 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 53 

tion^the hand automatically seeks the key; the feelings 
produced by its touch stimulate the muscles of the arm ; 
the key is turned, and the door opened. Very complex 
movements are sometimes thus automatically performed in 
order to complete a sensuous harmony which the imagina- 
tion, through habit, has come to crave. It craves for fresh, 
completing sensations, and is thus led to perform appro- 
priate movements when certain initial sensations have 
been afresh excited, after which the completing sensations 
have (in past experience) habitually followed. This, then, 
is the " practical imagination of means to effect a desired 
end." 

Such sensuous acts are what we should expect to find 
amongst animals if they are, as they have generally been 
supposed to be, creatures richly endowed with sensitive 
faculties, though devoid of those which are intellectual. 

But what judgment are we to form with respect to the 
highest psychical faculties of animals ? That is the next 
question to which we must now address ourselves. The ques- 
tion, however, is not, of course, to be pursued for its own 
sake in a work such as this, but for the sake of its indirect 
bearing on Epistemology. 

Many persons who have accepted the Darwinian hypo- 
thesis as to evolution are inclined to distrust their own reason, 
as being but the intelligence of a more highly developed 
ape. If, therefore, the study of animal intelligence should 
convince our readers that there is a difference of kind be- 
tween the psychical nature of man and that of animals, such 
reason for distrust must disappear. But, on the other hand, 
should we become convinced that there is no difference of 
kind, the distrust referred to need not thereby be strength- 
ened. For animals would then be seen to be of a much higher 
nature than has been usually supposed, since (as we shall 
see) there can be no doubt as to our own rationality. If 



154 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

animals are also rational, though but potentially so, we may 
suppose that their environment and some incompleteness of 
internal development has prevented them from hitherto 
manifesting their latent rationality. It must have remained 
hidden, as that of the human infant is concealed by the co- 
existence of internal and external conditions, which make 
its external manifestation impossible. There would, there- 
fore, be no more reason to distrust the dictates of human 
reason, because developed from that of an unconscious 
animal, than because developed (as that of all men has been) 
from that of an unconscious infant. 

We can, therefore, address ourselves csquo animo to the 
question of animal intelligence and study it with the most 
complete impartiality, since the absolute value of the 
dictates of our own intelligence cannot be affected thereby. 
Nevertheless, the question is most interesting, as bearing 
on the problem of nature's continuity, and as being one to 
which many excellent persons have (we believe most mis- 
takenly) attached an extreme importance. 

In dealing with this matter, great confusion and numerous 
mistakes have arisen from the fact that many persons will 
attempt to understand and explain the psychical powers of 
animals without having previously obtained a comprehen- 
sion of their own. As Mr. C. Lloyd Morgan has amusingly 
remarked,* ** the psychologist is apt sometimes to smile 
when, after the recital of some anecdote of animal intelli- 
gence, the writer exclaims, * If this is not reason, I do not 
know what reason is.* As, however, in such cases, the 
writer has himself suggested the alternative, there is perhaps 
no discourtesy on the part of the psychologist in accepting 
it." Indeed, men often interpret the actions of animals in 
a way which they regard as being simple and natural. 

* In his excellent work entitled Introduction to Comparative Psychology^ p. 
261. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 55 

** Simple and natural ** such explanations would be if they 
were applied to human beings, but exceedingly forced and 
unnatural they may be when applied in estimating the acts 
of creatures the natures of which are exceedingly different. 
They are also apt to be caught in a snare, which it is as 
necessary as it is difficult to avoid. This is the necessity we 
are all under of expressing ourselves in terms which have 
been gained as the result of prolonged processes of abstrac- 
tion, since, as we have before observed,* all our words are the 
results of such processes. To make use of such symbols, 
then, to denote psychical states which are not the result of 
abstraction, is to run the greatest risk either of misrepre- 
sentation or of being misapprehended. 

Occam's celebrated saying, ** Entia non sunt multiplicanda 
prceter necessitate?n,** applies to psychology as well as to 
other sciences, and it forbids us to credit mere animals with 
the higher human mental powers when their actions can be 
quite well explained more simply — by those lower psychical 
activities which we have just passed in review as existing in 
ourselves. The tales told by the owners of pet animals 
are often absolutely untrustworthy, so strong is the ten- 
dency they have unconsciously to exaggerate the perform- 
ances of their favourites, and naively to interpret them in 
terms of purely human psychology. 

As to the highest psychical faculties of mere animals gen- 
orally — those which are not pets — many persons credit them 
with powers (i) of perceiving objects ; (2) of perceiving rela- 
tions between objects ; (3) of perceiving their own existence 
— consciousness ; (4) of having ideas ; (5) of reasoning; (6) of 
perceiving moral quality; (7) of expressing their ideas by 
sounds, and (8) by gestures. 

Since the question of animal rationality is for us a sub- 
ordinate question, with only an indirect bearing on our main 

' Sec ante^ p. 7. 



156 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

conclusions, we are compelled to consider the eight just 
enumerated points but very briefly. 

That animals in one sense perceive objects is, of course, 
unquestionable. If they did not do so, coursing and hawk- 
ing would be impossible. But what is the nature of such 
perceptions ? We have already seen how, by turning the 
mind backwards and considering our experience, we may 
recognise that we have had perceptions of which we were 
not conscious at the time we experienced them. Such per- 
ceptions were sufficient to guide our movements, as they 
serve to guide those of the unconscious sleep-walker — in our 
words, there was not consciousness, but only consentience. 
Need we then credit animals with more than this ? Such 
sense-perceptions of theirs may be much more keen and 
more rapidly cognised than are our own. We ourselves do 
not know of any animal actions which we think cannot be 
explained by cognitions of this lower kind. It will be said, 
however, for a cat to watch the movements of a mouse and 
to catch it, needs not only that it should see the mouse, but 
the objects around it, and the varying bearings of the run- 
ning mouse thereto. This, of course, must be fully con- 
ceded, yet such cognition is sufficiently accounted for by 
that mere unintellectual, unconscious awareness which we 
have termed' the ** practical imagination of means to an 
end/' 

Again, it may, perhaps, be objected that the cat not only 
sees the mouse, but knows that it is a mouse and nothing 
else. This also may be freely admitted in the sense of a 
mere sensuous cognition or sense-perception. But there is 
no need to credit the animal with even the direct perception 
of the mouse, as the embodiment of a universal abstract 
idea, such as is possessed by the lowest and most uncultured 
human being who is sane. The cat need only have that 

' Sec anUy p. 153. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 57 

synthesis of sensations and imaginations — that kind of men- 
tal image which we distinguish as a " sensuous universal/' 

If, then, we need not credit animals with the perception 
of objects as we understand perception, can we credit them 
ivith any perireption of ** reTations " between objects ? The 
answer to this question will make yet plainer what we mean 
by a perception of objects themselves ; since, as we shall see 
directly, such a perception of objects themselves implies a 
perception of relations themselves. 

To perceive anything with conscious perception, though 
only that of direct consciousness, also implies a direct con- 
sciousness of the main relations in which it stands to other 
things, and which differentiate it from them. To perceive 
anything with reflex consciousness, which affirms, ** I do 
know that thing to be what it is, ' ' implies and necessitates 
a reflex consciousness also of those of its relations which en- 
able us to be sure it is what it is. For without turning back 
the mind to reconsider what it had previously done, we could 
not recognise the relations as relations, and so obtain the 
certainty we are thus enabled to reach. If we have occa- 
sion to note only one relation — as the relation of right and 
left — we must, to be conscious of it, turn our attention to 
both these conditions successively, and then simultaneously 
have regard to both terms, or we could not apprehend the 
relation. 

We think there is no need to credit animals with such 
complex psychical acts in order to explain even their most 
startling performances. It seems to us that their consen- 
tience affords them practically sufficient sensuous percep- 
tions of the relations in which objects and events stand to 
each other, as well as of the objects themselves. 

Similarly, it is plain that animals have a practical sense of 
their existence, and run no risk of mistaking another creature 
for themselves. But for such a sensitive synthesis there is 



158 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 



/ 



no need of consciousness, as we know by purely human ex- 
/ perience. All that is needed is consentience, and this no 

one can doubt that they possess, and probably exert this 
faculty with greater energy than we do, on account of the 
absence in them of a truly intellectual, conscious self- 
perception, such as that which enables us to perceive that 
** I am I, and not another/' 

As to the possession by animals of ** ideas," no one can 
deny them such psychical activities as are often so termed — 
namely, the faint revival of complex groups of past sensa- 
tions and imaginations previously experienced, and varied 
associations of groups of groups of such psychical states. 
But this is by no means what we understand by " ideas.'* 
An '* idea " is a ** psychical " entity, which spontaneously 
starts forth in our mind, upon the reception of certain 
sensuous experiences (sensations and imaginations), like 
Athene from the head of Zeus. Thus one of our earliest 
ideas is also the most ultimate and most abstract, namely, 
the idea of being. For the rest we must refer our readers 
to what we have said about ** ideas " in our first chapter." 
But it has been very unreasonably contended, since animals 
examine and reject some things for food and yet eat other 
things with avidity, that they must have such universal 
ideas as ** good-for-eating " and ** not-good-for-eating." 
Now, the inner nature and faculties of an organism can only 
be judged of by the outcome of its powers, whatever these 
may be. If animals really had ideas of the kind, and con- 
sciously performed voluntary acts of examination in order 
to see which of two general ideas might be applicable in any 
given case, then they would, most surely, soon make us 
very fully aware of it by other less equivocal manifestations 
o/ their possession of intellectual faculties essentially like 
bur own. Interpretations such as the above might carry us 

' See ante, pp. 10-13. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 159 

very far. We might say, for instance, that plants have 
abstract ideas of ** suitable-for-nutrition ** and ** not-suit- 
able-for-nutrition/' and of the still more abstract ideas, 
** big-enough-to-be-worth-a-prolonged-effort," and ** not- 
big-enough-to-be-worth-a-prolonged-effort. '* For Venus's 
looking-glass {Dionaa) will snap together the blades of its 
singular leaf to catch an insect, but will not do so to catch 
a non-digestible object. More than this, if the blades of its 
leaf have closed on an insect of very small size (not worth 
catching) they will (it is said) unclose and let it go again ; 
while otherwise they will hold it till it is killed and digested. 

Animals, even very lowly ones, possess multitudes of com- 
plex associations of feelings and movements. What, then, 
is more to be expected than that when an animal experiences 
a group of new sensations from a novel object, it should 
apply its senses and consentience to aid their reception and 
instinctively make movements in response thereto ? Such 
movements need be no sign of the existence of ideas when 
other evidence clearly points to their non-existence. 

Sensuous analogues of ideas, then, animals, of course, 
possess, and the phenomena they present do not, we be- 
lieve, demand the recognition in them of any higher powers 
for their satisfactory explanation. 

Similarly, the faculty of reason which we possess is, we 
believe, quite distinct from any power possessed by mere 
animals. There are, indeed, many actions on their part 
which at first sight look like reason, but for which that lower 
faculty of our own we have termed * *' expectant imagina- 
tion ** amply accounts, so far as we can see. 

In considering this question we should always take pains 
to understand and correctly appreciate the distinction which 
exists between true ** inference," which is an essentially in- 
tellectual apprehension of a truth as implicitly contained in 

* See ante, p. 150. 



l6o THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

Other truths, and that mere sensuous reinstatement of past 
impressions which may simulate it. The latter affection is 
what we regard as the ** sensuous ** or ** organic " inference 
of animals. Let any group of sensations have become in- 
timately associated with certain other sensations, then, as 
before pointed out, upon the recurrence of that group, an 
imagination of the sensations previously associated therewith 
spontaneously arises in the mind, and we have, as before 
said, an expectant feeling of their proximate actual recur- 
rence — as in the instance of a flash of lightning having come, 
by association, to lead to an expectant feeling of thunder 
to follow. 

Thus mere ** association *' may give rise to ** feelings of 
expectation," which when satisfied may give rise to a feeling 
of satisfaction or completion, and such may certainly exist 
in animals as well as in ourselves without the presence of 
any true reasoning faculty. 

In Mr. C. Lloyd Morgan's work,* already referred to, 
readers will find a very painstaking examination of the evi- 
dence both for and against the rationality of animals. 

Although his opinion favours the non-existence of a differ- 
ence of kind between human and animal intelligence, he is, 
nevertheless, of opinion that animals can neither perceive 
relations nor reason, and that with the advent of the latter 
power a breach of continuity and a fresh departure really 
took place. The book also contains a careful criticism of a 
variety of tales concerning animal intelligence. 

He is also of opinion that animals are entirely devoid of 
ethical perceptions; but other persons are not wanting who 
do credit them with moral perception ! 

That dogs will not only love their master but readily obey 
his commands, and feel pain if they have yielded to a tempta- 
tion to transgress them, may be very true. That dogs and 

* Introduction to Comparative Psychology, 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE l6l 

Other animals may sometimes feel impelled to assist their 
fellows in distress on witnessing their sufferings, we should 
not care to dispute, and it is possible that to some migrating 
bird, which has left its young behind, an imagination of its 
deserted brood may arise and cause it a painful emotion. 
But such feelings have really nothing to do with ethical 
perception. ** Conscience " is the exercise of judgment in 
a particular direction. It is a particular kind of judgment 
— namely, a judgment about '* right " and ** wrong," and 
nothing else. Acting rightly is often pleasurable, but it is 
also not unfrequently very painful, for it may tell us we are 
bound to give up something which is for us the very joy of 
life, or to take upon us a task as irksome as it is dutiful. 

It is plain that we may feel pleasure in doing things which 
are wrong, for certainly otherwise they would never be done. 
On the other hand, there may be much painful regret on ac- 
count of quite innocent actions, such as some trifling breach 
of etiquette. Keen remorse also may be felt on account of 
having neglected some excellent opportunity of pushing our 
fortune, or even of committing some very pleasurable but 
very immoral action. 

The late Mr. Darwin, who may be regarded as the leading 
exponent of the view which would regard morality as essen- 
tially similar in men and animals, said that " conscience " 
was *' that feeling of regretful dissatisfaction which is in- 
duced in a man who looks back and judges a past action with 
disapproval." Now ** conscience " certainly " looks back 
and judges," but not every act of that kind which is accom- 
panied by " regretful dissatisfaction " is a moral judgment. 

A French writer has said that no regret is so keen as the 
regret which may accompany the recollection of the non- 
commission of pleasant sins which might have been enjoyed. 

Such judgments, however much remorse may accompany 

them, can hardly be called ** moral." 
II 



1 62 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

The profound distinction which exists between the idea 
" goodness '* and every other idea, will be made plain by a 
consideration of the reasons which may be urged in favour 
of the performance of any plain duty. 

Every step we take to explain why any duty should be 
performed, must consist of some still more simple assertion 
of the same kind, till we come to an assertion about duty 
the truth of which is admitted to be self-evident. 

Now all our certain knowledge must be either evident in 
itself or must depend upon some other knowledge which is 
evident in itself. As we have before remarked, we cannot 
go on arguing forever, and every proof must stop some- 
where — namely, when we reach what is evident of itself, and 
therefore needs no proof. 

If, then, we want to urge some statement about any par- 
ticular action being ** right "or** wrong," if that statement 
be not admitted to be evidently true, we can only prove it 
to be so by means of some more general and elementary 
statement of the same nature. Therefore the judgments 
which He at the root of any system of thought about ethics 
(about right and wrong), must themselves be ethical. 

This profound truth shows us that it is absolutely impos- 
sible that the power of ethical judgment could ever have 
been gained through the experience of mere feelings of liking 
or disliking, pleasure or pain, sympathy or aversion, good- 
will or hostility of other beings. 

It is a distinct kind of intellectual perception, and, there- 
fore, if animals'are in the least moral, they must possess the 
power of intellectual perception, and also be able to form 
and comprehend highly abstract truths. For the purpose 
of this work, as before said, it does not matter in the least 
whether a snail or a starfish has or has not this intellectual 
faculty. We confess, however, that we have been quite 
unable to obtain evidence satisfactory to us that any mere 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 163 

animals are endowed with intellect, though we are quite 
ready to consider any better evidence which may be forth- 
coming. But if we have been mistaken, and if our ethical 
judgments have been mere congeries of animal feelings, and 
ultimately of physical impulses, which impulses and feelings 
have lost their way and come to mistake themselves for 
something else, then doubts might well arise as to the other 
declarations of our intellect, falsus in uno^falsus in omnibus^ 
and it would be difficult for us thus to arrive at a satisfac- 
tory Epistemology. 

On this account we deem it well to make a few more 
remarks upon the essential distinction of the ethical idea, a 
recognition of the validity of that perception being for our 
purposes of such extreme importance. 

In the first place, the assertion is sometimes made that 
ethic is but coincidence with ** social approbation." But 
no stream can possibly rise higher than its source. ** Social 
approbation," then, could never have produced the concep- 
tion of ** right and wrong " ; for how could a mere habit of 
obeying society have ever led a moral hero to denounce that 
habit and defy society ? 

It has, again, been often affirmed that there is no real 
distinction between ** virtue " and ** pleasure." Instead of 
there being any absolute distinction between them it is said 
that ** good actions " are merely actions pleasurable or use- 
ful to the individual who performs them, or are advan- 
tageous to his fellow-men. They say, also, that it is the 
pleasurable or useful results which cause actions to be good 
actions, not the intentions with which the doer may perform 
them. 

It i^ true we say " That is a 'good ' knife " because it 
cuts well, and any weapon or any other useful article is said to 
be a "good " one if it well serves the purpose it was intended 
to serve. But a very little consideration will show that such 



164 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

a use of the word does not bring home to us the fundamen- 
tal meaning of the term. For ** conformity to an end " will 
not make an action good unless the end aimed at is itself 
good and agreeable to duty — unless by conforming to it we 
** follow the right order." If a young person, carefully in- 
structed by a thief, conforms to the end aimed at so com- 
pletely as to pick pockets with extraordinary deftness, such 
" conformity " will not make his action a " good " one. 

But if the end aimed at is really a good end, and one which 
is for us a '* duty," if we ask, ** Why should we do our 
duty ? Why should we follow the right order ? " the only 
possible final answer is, ** It is right so to do." 

If it be urged in opposition that ** we should follow the 
right order because it is our true interest to do so," he who 
so urges must either mean " we should always follow our 
own interest," which is abandoning the rule of ** right and 
wrong" altogether, or he must mean ** we should follow 
our interest, not because it is our interest, but because it is 
right " — a proposition which, however mistaken it may be 
in fact, yet is one which, in its mistaken way, affirms the 
very principle, the rule of " right and wrong," which it was 
designed to oppose. 

But persons who say that the morality of any action de- 
pends on its results can always be refuted simply by examin- 
ing into the assertions about duty which they themselves 
make. Thus that eminent utilitarian philosopher, the late 
John Stuart Mill, declared that he would rather go to hell 
than consent to call ** good " a God who should violate the 
laws of the highest human morality, and in so saying he, 
of course, implied that other men ought to do the same. 

The sentiment was a very admirable one, yet singularly 
inconsistent in the mouth of a utilitarian. For on the one 
hand, as a utilitarian, he taught that men in all cases should 
seek the greatest happiness for all, while on the other he 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 165 

declared, in the case supposed, that in so pursuing happi- 
ness they should all voluntarily plunge into the greatest 
possible misery. 

But without having recourse to any such extreme supposi- 
tion, the simplest facts suffice to show that it is not the conse- 
quences of an act but the intention wherewith it is performed 
which makes the action ** good *' or " bad." 

Let us suppose that two men have each a sick wife, and 
that the doctor has left with each man two bottles : one a 
valuable internal remedy, the other a poisonous lotion. One 
of these men, who is devoted to his wife, gives her by pure 
mistake the lotion to drink, and kills her. The other man 
desires to poison his wife, but, by also making a mistake as 
to the bottles, gives her unintentionally the right medicine 
and cures her. Can there be any doubt as to who is the 
truly guilty man ? Who would venture to assert that the 
act of the second man was really a ** good " action because, 
in spite of his evil intention, it had a good result ? 

Again, it was said that the highest virtue is to do good 
without thinking about it. Yet it cannot be the mere ab- 
sence of thought which makes a spontaneously performed 
useful action specially meritorious ; otherwise we should 
attain the climax of virtue by performing beneficial actions 
unconsciously, in a state of somnambulism. 

The truly admirable nature of good actions done spon- 
taneously and without reflection, lies in their being the 
result of previously acquired good habits and of a fixed, 
undeviating direction of the will towards what is right. But 
this, does not make such acts blind actions, and deprive the 
doer of all power of knowing what he is about. A man 
cannot act from a sense of justice without knowing justice 
from injustice, and to approve habitually of kind and good 
acts he must know what " goodness" is. 

But another objection against the existence of any abso- 



1 66 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

lute distinction between " right " and " wrong " is some- 
times drawn from the fact that different nations (and the 
same nation at different times) take different views as to the 
*' goodness " of some particular kind of action. But this 
argument is quite valueless. It would be absurd, indeed, 
to suppose that all men were somehow furnished with a 
whole code of laws directing what is to be done and what 
abstained from in all cases. What we affirm is, that all 
men (idiots apart) can perceive that there is such a thing as 
'* right " and ** wrong." Men are not necessarily devoid 
of morality because they draw their lines and rules in differ- 
ent places, and actions revolting to us, such as the killing of 
parents, may seem good to those who kill, if they act in 
obedience to the wishes of their parents, and to procure for 
them, as they suppose, a happy immortality. 

For the existence of moral perception it is by no means 
necessary that men should always agree about the application 
of ethical principles; what they agree about, though they 
need not cognise it by a reflex act, is that some actions are 
wrong and deserve punishment. The merest savage knows 
that an ungrateful and treacherous injury inflicted on him- 
self is an act of that kind. Australian savages appear to 
have very clear and precise ethical notions about punish- 
ments which they have themselves merited, and will hold 
out a limb to be speared when they have done an act which 
merits that chastisement. 

Though tribes may differ as to what is right and just, 
men have never thought an action to be right* because it 
was unjust, or because it was ungrateful, or another act to 
be wrong because it was just or kind. 

So essential is the distinction between the ** good " and 
the ** useful," that not only does the idea of ** benefit ** 
not enter into the idea of " duty," but the very fact of an 
action not being beneficial may make it praiseworthy. Its 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 167 

merit may be increased by any self-denial which attends on 
its performance, and also decreased by gain. 

To nurse carefully and tenderly is ** good," but our ap- 
preciation of its merit is diminished if we know that the 
patient's death has brought his nurse a rich and hoped-for 
legacy. A woman may have an immoral connection with 
another's husband, but if we find that instead of any gain 
thereby accruing, she has sacrificed herself for him, our 
censure may be thereby mitigated, since it shows she ** has 
loved much." 

In the material gain or loss which may attend our acts it 
is not that the absence of the former, or of pleasure, bene- 
fits our neighbour more ; it is that any diminution of pleasure 
which circumstances may occasion (irrespective of any ad- 
vantage thereby occasioned to our neighbour) in itself 
heightens the value of an action. But evidently that can 
never be the substance of duty which makes any act more 
dutiful by its absence ! 

The conception of duty is the conception of something 
supreme and absolute, apart from all question of pleasures 
and pains, rewards and punishments, and also of utility. 
As Cicero said, it is ** Quod tale est ut detracta omni utilitate 
sive aliis prcBtniis fructibusque per se ipsumpossitjure laudari. " 

Some of our readers may, perhaps, fancy that we have 
devoted too much space to this question of ethics. But 
without a full explanation of a matter so often misunder- 
stood and misrepresented, the problem concerning the 
morality of brutes could not be demonstrated with sufficient 
clearness. There is, however, another reason why we have 
thought it well to dwell at some length upon this question. 
We have done so in anticipation of what we shall have to 
say in our eighth chapter concerning our highest faculties, 
and we consider that it has a bearing on Epistemology, 
which cannot reasonably be ignored. 



1 68 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

m 

We will now return to the question of the psychical 
powers of brutes, and notice some anecdotes and examples 
of their asserted intellectuality. 

In considering the value of the reports made about the in- 
telligence of this or that animal,' we ought carefully to bear 
in mind two facts. If the creatures about which the asser- 
tions are made are creatures low in the scale of animal life, 
we should recollect the extraordinary development of in- 
stinct amongst the class of insects. If the creatures referred 
to are animals of a superior kind, then we should compare 
their actions with those lower faculties which we possess, 
and which, as we have seen,* enable us to do so many things 
in a merely automatic manner. We should recollect how 
we every now and then have experienced a feeling of malaise, 
we did not know on what account, till we have found it 
suddenly relieved by finding something which was pre- 
viously missing, though we were not conscious of missing it 
till the shock we experienced on our having automatically 
found it has called our attention to the matter. We our- 
selves have frequently experienced this when one of the 
various objects we habitually carry in our pockets has been 
unconsciously transferred from one to another. We can, 
as everyone knows, do many things automatically and with- 
out consciousness which we often perform with full con- 
sciousness. This fact makes it probable that similar actions 
may take place in animals, and another fact is also very 
significant : this is the notorious circumstance that persons 
deprived of one of their senses often have their remaining 
senses made more acute. It is also commonly affirmed that 
some savages, who have very little intellectual power, have 
much keener powers of seeing, hearing, and, perhaps, even 

' No one has better or more thoroughly advocated the rationality of animals 
than the late Mr. Romanes. See his book entitled Mental Evolution in Man, 
• See ante, pp. 143-156. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 69 

of smelling, than we have. How much keener still may not 
be the sensitive powers of creatures whose whole being is 
entirely given up to sensitivity, without its being interfered 
with by any true intellectual activity! It should surely 
cause us little wonder if we find them doing many things 
which we ourselves could not do in similar circumstances. 
That an elephant should blow through its trunk on the 
ground beyond some object it sought to obtain, and thus to 
drive it back; that a bear should paw the water in order to 
bring a floating piece of bread within reach, or that dogs, 
accustomed to rivers or the seashore, should automatically 
allow for the action of currents with which they were prac- 
tically familiar, need occasion no surprise to anyone. Such 
actions are just the ones we might confidently anticipate 
should take place under the given circumstances. 

The late Mr. Darwin related the circumstance that a dog 
of his, on hearing the words " Hi ! hi ! where is it ? " rushed 
about, looking in all directions and even up into trees ; and 
he considered that these actions clearly showed that the dog 
entertained " a general idea that some animal was to be 
discovered and hunted." Now, of course, such sounds 
uttered in an eager voice excited the dog's emotions and 
awoke in its consentience reminiscences of before-experi- 
enced groups of smells, sounds, colours, and motions and 
relations of various kinds, between them previously con- 
nected with pleasurable activities and feelings of cravings 
satisfied, etc., etc. But such groups of feelings, vivid and 
faint, are, as we have seen before, something very different 
from " a general idea." 

Wolves have both a fear of man and a suspicious feeling 
with respect to traps and snares, on which account they 
have been credited with possessing an " abstract idea of 
danger." But the lower human unconscious activities we 
have passed in review are amply sufficient to account for 



I70 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

such phenomena, especially as the smell of man may often 
lead a wolf not to touch a bait which a man has set for him. 
In order correctly to appreciate the limits of the emotional 
language of animals, we must understand how much they 
can do by mere consentience, and that actions on their part, 
at which most ignorant wonder is often expressed, do not 
imply either self-consciousness or the possession of any ab- 
stract ideas. All the actions of the most intelligent animal 
can, we think, be fully understood as results of powers 
similar to our own lower faculties described in the last 
chapter. For such actions on the part of animals, it is 
1 necessary, indeed, that they should sensibly cognise things, 

but not that they should perceive them intellectually ; that 
they should feel themselves as existing, but not recognise 
their own existence ; that they should feel relations between 
objects, but not perceive them as relations ; that they should 
remember, but not seek to recollect, or know that what 
actually recurs to memory really relates to a past recognised 
as such; that they should feel and express emotions, but 
not know they possess them ; that they should seek what 
pleases them, but not aim at pleasure knowingly, or know 
that the pleasure they feel is pleasurable. By the exercise 
of such merely sensitive faculties, brutes can pursue an es- 
caping prey, jump up banks or rocks, climb to attain what 
is otherwise out of reach, raise up a dam, as does the beaver, 
or make use of a stone to crack a hard nut, as does the 
American sapajou ape. Actions such as these are performed 
to complete a harmony which the imagination craves, owing 
to associations previously effected between groups of feel- 
ings and emotions, and groups of groups of such. A cat 
does not need to entertain any intellectual knowledge or 
belief that the sound of clattering plates means possible 
food, to attain which it must make certain movements. 
Quite independently of such belief, and by virtue of mere 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE I/I 

sensuous association, the sound of the plates alone is enough 
to give rise to such movements on the part of the cat as 
have previously become associated with pleasant sensations 
of taste. Let certain sensations, emotions, and movements 
become associated, and then the former need not be noted ; 
they only need to exist for the association formed to produce 
its effects. When the circumstances of any case differ from 
those of some previous experiences, but imperfectly resemble 
those of many past experiences, parts of these, and conse- 
quent actions, are irregularly suggested by the laws of re- 
semblance, until such action is hit on which relieves pain or 
gives pleasure. For instance, let a dog be lost by its master 
in a field in which it has never been before. The presence 
of a group of feelings which we know to indicate its master 
is associated with pleasure, while the absence of those feel- 
ings gives pain. By past experience an association has been 
formed between this feeling of pain and such movements 
of the head as tend to recover some part of that group, its 
recovery being again associated with movements which, de 
factOy diminish the distance between the dog and its master. 
The dog, therefore, pricks up its ears, raises its head, and 
looks round. Its master is nowhere to be seen ; but at the 
comer of the field there is visible a gate at the end of a lane, 
which resembles a lane in which he has walked. An image 
of that other lane and of its master walking there presents 
itself to the imagination of the dog; it runs to the present 
lane, but on getting into it he is not there. From the lane, 
however, the dog can see a tree on the other side of which 
he was accustomed to rest; the same process is repeated, 
but he is not found. Of course, throughout, the dog has 
everywhere exercised its sense of smell but in vain. At 
last it goes home. By the action of such feelings, imagi- 
nations, and associations, which we know, by what takes 
place in ourselves, do really exist and act as causes — by 



172 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

these, all the apparently intelligent actions of animals can, 
in our opinion, be explained without the need of calling in 
the help of true intellect, the existence of which in them is 
inconsistent with the phenomena they, as a whole, exhibit, 
and which, did it exist, would most certainly make itself 
very plainly manifest to us in many and often in very 
unpleasant ways. 

A stag which " doubles" on its own footsteps, when 
hunted or before retiring to rest, has been credited, in the 
former case, with seeking to confuse its trail against real 
dogs, and in the latter case against imaginary hounds which 
may possibly be on the scent. But there is not the slightest 
need of such intellectual conceptions on the part of the stag 
to account for such actions, which are clearly instinctive, like 
the actions of the dog, which instinctively turns round and 
round on a drawing-room hearth-rug before lying down, just 
as if it were in its ancestral home in the greenwood where 
herbs needed pressing down and treading round to make a 
comfortable bed. 

Mr. Romanes cites ' an amusing tale from a Miss Bram- 
ston about a certain archiepiscopal collie dog which had ac- 
quired a habit of hunting imaginary pigs every evening 
directly after family prayers. The fact is put forward as an 
important instance of something beyond mere animal capac- 
ity as commonly understood ; but, in truth, the fact is so 
easily explicable by a mere association of sensations, that it 
may well be cited as a type for other instances more or less 
similar but not so easily explicable. It appears the animal 
had formerly been accustomed to be sent to chase real pigs 
out of a field, and so the sound of the word ** pigs " and 
the pleasurable action of running about after them had 
become associated in the dog's imagination. It had been 
the custom for Miss Branston to open the door for the collie 

* Op, cit., p. 56. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1/3 

after dinner in the evening and say " Pigs! ** when it very 
naturally ran out and ran about according to its previously ac- 
quired habit. Soon this exercise became in its turn a matter 
of habit, and the phenomena attending the termination of 
dinner, or, later, of family prayers, very naturally gave rise 
in the collie to an expectant feeling (such as may arise with- 
out consciousness in ourselves *) of the door being opened 
for the accustomed pleasurable excitement. If the door 
was not opened, the habit being now well established, the 
expectant feeling, growing more and more vivid with delay, 
could hardly fail to elicit barks, tail-waggings, and move- 
ments towards the exceptionally unopened door, and the 
accumulating excitement might very well lead it at last to 
run out and bark without waiting for the utterance of the 
word ** pigs " ; nor is it in the least surprising to learn that 
the phenomena attending family prayers at Miss Bramston's 
house should arouse in the dog the same kind of expectant 
feelings and the therewith associated actions, which had be- 
come so engrained during its residence at the archbishop's. 
We ought, perhaps, also to notice the oft-told tale about 
crows which have been thought able to count. It appears 
that somewhere beneath the nests shot at was a watch- 
house, and by its aid the wary crow was, only after several 
vain attempts, finally deceived. When about to shoot the 
nests, in order to deceive the suspicious bird, the plan was 
hit upon of sending two men to the watch, one of whom 
passed on while the other remained. This stratagem was 
without effect. The next day three went, but the bird 
merely looked on while only two returned, and it was found 
necessary to send five or six men to the watch-house before 
her senses were sufficiently confused. But there was surely 
nothing very wonderful in the fact that a crow, seeing a man 
go beneath her nest with a gun, should keep clear till she 

* See ante, p. 150. 



174 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

saw him go away, even if he had hidden himself for a time. 
What marvel was it, then, that the bird's sense-perception 
felt a difference between the visual picture presented by a 
group of three men and another presented by only two ? 
The wonder rather is that the crow should not have been 
more discriminative. 

But obtuseness to numerical differences on the part of 
highly organised animals, such as dogs and cats, seems to 
us very wonderful, indeed absolutely to negative their 
possession of any sensitive faculty which might run parallel 
with our idea of number. Such is the case, since both 
bitches and she-cats do not seem to miss a single pup or 
kitten which may be taken away from the others in her litter 
when they have not actually witnessed the act of its being 
taken away. 

But the fact which has been most relied on as a proof that 
a mere animal can understand what " number " is, was the 
fact that a chimpanzee known as Sally, and which lived a 
long time at the Zodlogical Gardens, was in the habit of 
picking up the exact number of straws she was told to pick 
up by her keeper. She would pick up separately from the 
ground, place in her mouth, and then present to him in one 
bunch, two, three, four, five, and, we believe, ultimately, 
ten straws, as she was told. She had distinctly associated 
the several sounds of these numbers with corresponding 
groups of picked-up straws. The ape would also, on com- 
mand, pass a straw through a large or a small hole in the 
fastening of its cage, or through a particular interspace of 
its wire-netting. It would also put objects into its keeper's 
pocket, play various odd tricks with boy visitors, howl 
horribly when told to sing, and hold on its head pieces of 
apple, remaining perfectly quiescent till some particular 
word was said. This last trick, however, is one of the com- 
monest performed by pet dogs, and the putting of objects 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 175 

into the keeper's pocket was nothing remarkable. The 
passing of a straw through a special aperture on command 
would have been more so but for the fact that the basis of 
the whole superstructure of such tricks was laid by the 
animal itself having spontaneously taken to the trick of pick- 
ing up a straw and passing it through a small hole near the 
keyhole of the door of the cage — possibly as a result of 
having seen a key put in and out of the keyhole. Having 
thus itself acquired a habit of picking up straws and passing 
them through a hole, there could be little difficulty in get- 
ting it to pass the straw through other holes, and not much 
in getting it to pick up more straws than one. That it 
should have associated certain motions with the sound of 
certain words is no more than dogs, pigs, and various other 
animals lower in the scale will accomplish. 

There remains, then, as the single distinguishing peculiar- 
ity of this case, the association in the ape's imagination and 
consentience of the words one, two, three, four, five, or ten, 
with the picking up, holding, and handing over a corre- 
sponding number of straws. This fact of association is, so 
far as we know, exceptional, and it is, therefore, very in- 
teresting. But it does not prove that the animal has any 
idea of these numbers — not of course as numbers — but as so 
many separate things. 

The idea of number implies comparison with a simultane- 
ous recognition of both distinctness and similarity ; although, 
of course, it is not necessary that the fact of our having such 
apprehensions should be adverted to. No two things could 
be known to be two without an apprehension that while they 
are numerically distinct they can in some way be thought 
of as belonging to one class of objects. We could not 
reasonably say that four tons of coal and four o'clock are 
" eight," or that Hamlet's idea of a future life and the At- 
lantic cable -are ** two," unless we mean to speak of them as 



176 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

two of our thoughts; in which case they would be two 
species of the genus ** our ideas." 

Sally was but one of many animals that had come to as- 
sociate very complex bodily movements with articulate 
sounds. The marvel of the matter is, in fact, due to. a trick 
our own imagination plays us. The keeper's words, of com- 
mand expressed and implied the highly abstract idea of 
number, and as that idea and our sensuous impression of 
such utterances have become closely connected, so we are 
apt to picture to ourselves a like connection as existing in 
the cognitive faculty of the ape. But its presence there is 
by no means necessary to explain the action, while if such 
a highly abstract idea was present there, the animal would 
not allow us long to remain doubtful about such a fact. 

We well recollect having specially questioned Sally's 
keeper as to whether she ever pointed to any object or 
made use of any gesture with the evident purpose of calling 
attention to some fact or passing occurrence. 

Although he was well disposed to extol the powers of his 
charge so far as truth would permit, he distinctly assured us 
that she did not do so. If anyone came in with a gun Sally 
would show extreme terror, but she never pointed to it, or 
by gesture called the keeper's attention to the dreaded ob- 
ject. We were unable to see or hear anything which rend- 
ered it possible to attribute to this very interesting animal a 
psychical nature of a higher kind than that possessed by other 
beasts. It appeared to us to have the same kind of powers 
they possessed, though possibly somewhat higher in degree. 
But this, surely, is just what we might have anticipated. 

We may sum up the conclusions at which we have arrived 
as follows: The minds of animals are analogous to ours, but 
the analogy is expressed, as it were, on a lower plane. They 
are astonished, but do not know it ; things recur to them 
through their memory, but they know not that they have 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 177 

recurred or that they remember. They recognise objects, 
both natural and artificial, but they have no idea of them as 
being either. A dog may fear another dog which is stronger 
and fiercer, but it will have no idea of courage or fierceness. 
Even insects will distinguish between differently coloured 
objects — the white from the blue, the red from the yellow — 
but no animal knows whiteness or blueness, and still less has 
it any notion of ** colour." Thus, the so-called *' intelli- 
gence, understanding, and knowledge" of animals are not 
really true intelligence, understanding, and knowledge. 
They are the sensuous groundwork of such intellectual 
faculties. Since, also, they have no abstract ideas, they 
cannot think ** I." Yet, as we have said, though they have 
not consciousness, they possess consentience, for we cannot 
doubt that in them, as in us, sensitive influences of difTerent 
kinds are received into one common sensorium. A tiger 
not only hears the plaintive cries of its victim, but at the 
same time can see and feel its writhing limbs, and taste and 
smell its blood. Such sensations also, no doubt, call up 
within it more or less distinct reminiscences of similar feel- 
ings previously experienced, and give rise to vivid emotions 
and to appropriate actions. 

But the irrationality of animals is shown by what, if they 
were rational, would have to be called their exceeding 
stupidity. Acts which would be reckoned as signs of ex- 
treme obtuseness in us are common enough amongst animals 
usually reckoned as the most intelligent. The fidelity of 
dogs is proverbial, but in a sudden scuflle it is by no means 
an unprecedented thing for a dog to fly at its own master. 

Dogs have seen fuel put upon fires again and again, yet 
what dog ever puts on any itself to maintain the heat it so 
much enjoys ? Apes have been said sometimes to warm 
themselves at deserted fires, yet no one asserts that they 
have replenished them. It is quite wonderful they do not. 



IS 



178 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

for such an act seems to come well within the scope of mere 
sensuous faculties. Some readers may have had a pet cat 
which has now and again got a piece of bone fixed between 
its back teeth. The useless motions the animal, when so 
circumstanced, will make with its paw are sufficiently irra- 
tional ; but although the accident may have occurred to it 
several times, it will act in the same way again and again, 
and will sometimes stupidly struggle against its master while 
he removes the object which distresses it, and, as soon as it 
is removed, the animal will go off licking its jaws without a 
sign of gratitude for the relief afforded. 

Swallows will continue to build on a house which they can 
see is being pulled down, and flies will deposit their eggs on 
a carrion plant instead of on real carrion. Even an elephant, 
an animal often thought so extremely wise, has been known 
to be so extremely stupid as to pull off the end of its trunk 
(which had got caught in a cord) instead of calling for help 
and waiting till its keeper came. 

But in truth animals merit no such reproach, for, of 
course, they cannot make use of faculties they do not 
possess, while they make, as a rule, an admirable and ex- 
cellent use of those non-intellectual faculties wherewith they 
are actually^ndowed. 

We venture to think that the facts and anecdotes we have 
here considered are sufficient for our purpose; but certain 
alleged cases of sign-making on the part of animals will be 
noticed in our next chapter on science and language. 

In the preceding chapter we cited various instances of the 
high degree to which the faculty known as ** instinct " may 
be developed as so many physical facts. In the present 
chapter we' propose to deal with instinct as a feelings and 
consider the question as to what may be its true nature. 
We have seen ' that it exists unmistakably in man, though 

' See ante, pp. 126, 127. 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 79 

it is but very poorly developed in him compared with what 
we find existing in many of the lower animals, notably 
insects.' 

Of course we are unconscious of the performance of our 
own instinctive actions, and the essence of instinct is that its 
acts should be performed blindly. But by observation, re- 
flection, and reasoning, we can be very sure that we have 
performed — that we must have performed — certain instinct- 
ive actions in early life. What ground, then, can there be 
to suppose that such instinctive actions of animals as we 
have hereinbefore described, are accompanied by anything 
more than feelings such as unconsciously exist in the human 
infant ? 

Montaigne sought to explain instinct by intelligence, but 
it is surely obvious that the acts of chicks newly hatched, 
or of young snakes, who from their mother's womb have 
been untimely ripped, cannot be due to intelligent purpose. 
It is impossible to suppose that any form of knowledge 
guides the actions of the emperor moth, the excavations of 
the grub of the stag-beetle in proportion to its jaws which 
are yet to be, or the actions of the beetle sitaris. Intelli- 
gence, therefore, is a quite unsatisfactory explanation of the 
nature of the instinctive faculty. Not less unreasonable is 
Condillac's hypothesis that instinct is the result of the ex- 
perience of the individual animal which exhibits it. It is 
manifest that experience could never lead a creature to per- 
form acts with reference to conditions quite different from 
all those it has ever had any experience of. Yet such are 
the acts of the insects before described, and the human in- 
fant is certainly not less destitute of experience. 

Another explanation was offered by Lamarck, who de- 
clared instinct to be ** habit which has become hereditary." 
Of course, this implies, as all Lamarckism necessarily im- 

' Sec ante, pp. 128-130. 



l8o THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

plies, that acquired habits may become hereditary; but 
granted, for argument's sake, that such is the case, there 
remains a radical difference between instinct and habit. 
" Habit " enables an agent to repeat with facility and pre- 
cision an act which has been done before; but/* instinct *' 
determines with precision the first performance of the act. 

It is impossible to believe that any of the progenitors of 
an infant acquired a habit of sucking, or that the insects 
before referred to acquired a habit of performing their 
purposive actions unless they were compelled by their 
organisation so to do, in which case they would already 
be instinctive. 

But an attempt has also been made to explain instinctive 
action as * * lapsed intelligence * ' — as consisting of acts which 
were once performed with deliberate purpose, but which 
are now carried on without advertence by unconscious auto- 
matism. According to this view, instinctive actions would be 
comparable with such actions as playing, without attention, 
airs to learn to play which laborious, conscious atten- 
tion was originally required. But here the same objections 
apply as can be urged against Montaigne's hypothesis. It 
may well be asked, could an adult female insect be supposed 
to foresee the future needs of her first progeny, often so 
totally different from her own wants; or recollect her past 
experiences as a chrysalis and as a grub, from the moment 
she first quitted the egg ? Not less absurd would it be to 
suppose that the grub of a male stag-beetle ever deliberately 
reasoned out the need of making his chrysalis bed twice his 
own size, on account of the jaws he is destined to grow, but 
which he not only has not, but has never seen in adult in- 
dividuals of his own species! 

Lastly, the late Mr. Darwin has tried to explain instinct 
as being partly due to intelligent, purposive action which 
has become inherited, partly to the occurrence of accidental 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE l8l 

variations of activity, which have been preserved by ** na- 
tural selection." 

As to the former part of the explanation, the objections 
we have already made to an intelligent origin of instinct 
may, we think, suffice. Moreover, this explanation assumes 
the truth of the proposition that acquired characters may be 
inherited. As to the other part of the explanation, let us 
look at one or two noteworthy instincts, and see if it is 
credible that they should be due to accidental, haphazard 
changes in habits already acquired. 

Can we conceive that the duck which feigns an injured 
wing that she may entice a dog away from her young brood, 
can ever have come to do so by pure accident any more 
than by deliberate intention ? Again, there is the case of 
the wasp sphex, which stings spiders, caterpillars, and grass- 
hoppers in the spots where their nervous ganglia respectively 
lie, and so paralyses them. According to the doctrine of 
" natural selection," either an ancestral wasp must have ac- 
cidentally stung them each in the right place, and so the 
sphex of to-day is the naturally selected descendant of a 
line of ancestors which inherited this lucky, accidental 
tendency to sting different insects differently, but always in 
the right spots; or else the young of the ancestral sphex 
originally fed on dead food, but the offspring of some indi- 
viduals which happened to sting their prey so as to paralyse 
but not kill them, were better nourished, and thus the habit 
grew. 

Finally, there is the curious instinct by which an animal,, 
when an enemy approaches, lies quite quiescent and appar- 
ently helpless — an action often spoken of as ** shamming 
death." The term is unfortunate, because the disposition 
of the limbs adopted by insects which thus act is not the 
same as that which their limbs assume when such insects are 
really dead ; while some species are, when thus acting, less 



1 82 THE GROUNDWORK OP SCIENCE 

quiescent than others. The remarkable circumstance, how^- 
ever, is not that a helpless insect should assume a posture 
approximating to that of its own dead, but that such a 
creature, instead of trying to escape, should adopt a mode 
of procedure utterly hopeless, unless the enemy's attention 
be thereby effectually eluded. It is impossible that this in- 
stinct could have been gained by minute steps, for if the 
quiescence, whether absolutely complete or not, were not 
sufficient at once to make the creature elude observation, its 
destruction would be only the more fully insured by such 
ineffectual quiescence. 

We have hitherto spoken only of instinct as existing in 
animals, and in certain human actions necessary for merely 
organic life ; but there are a variety of human activities of a 
much higher kind to which the term instinctive can hardly, 
it would seem, be positively denied. Such a special higher 
instinct is that which impels man to the external manifesta- 
tion by voice or gesture of the mental abstractions which 
his intellect spontaneously forms, but which does not exist 
(as we shall see) in animals. The very first beginnings of 
literature, art, science, and politics may also be considered 
as activities to which men have been first urged by an im- 
pulse analogous to instinct — impulses which, on the whole 
and broadly considered, have augmented the well-being and 
happiness of mankind. 

But ** natural selection " is as impotent to explain man's 
lowest psychical powers as is ** lapsed intelligence." Can 
it be for a moment seriously maintained that such infantine 
actions as sucking, deglutition, defecation, or the actions 
of adolescence tending towards reproduction, ever arose 
through the accidental conservation of haphazard variations 
of habit in remote ancestors ? If not, then it is impossible 
to account for such actions without the recognition of in- 
stinct as a distinct faculty, so comparable with reflex action 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE I83 

that it may be called, as we termed it in the last chapter, a 
reflex action of the individual as a whole. At the very bot- 
tom of the scale of animal life we find it present. Animals 
utterly devoid of a nervous system, and consisting of little 
more than minute partfcles of living jelly, will build up for 
themselves an external armour symmetrical in form and 
most artificial in construction. 

" From the very same sandy bottom one series [of such minute 
creatures] picks up the coarser quartz grains, cements them 
together with phosphate of iron secreted from its own substance, 
and thus constructs a flask-shaped test, having a short neck and 
a single large orifice. Another picks up the finest grains and puts 
them together with the same cement into perfectly spherical tests 
of the most extraordinary finish, perforated with numerous small 
pores at regular intervals. Another selects the minutest sand- 
grains and the terminal portions of sponge spicules, and works 
these up together, apparently with no cement at all, into perfect 
spheres, each having a single fissured orifice." (Carpenter's 
Menial Physiology^ p. 41.) 

However far, then, we may put back the beginnings of 
instinct, the question as to its origin ever returns, and in- 
deed with increased importunity. How did the first sentient 
creatures come to take and swallow their food ? How did 
they first come to fecundate their ova or suitably to deposit 
them ? How did they first effect such movements as might 
be necessary for their respiratory processes ? Wherever 
such phenomena first manifested themselves in sentient 
organisms, we seem compelled therein to recognise the 
manifest presence of instinct which may be called the 
faculty provided by nature for bridging over the interval 
which exists between the purely vegetative functions (nutri- 
tion and reproduction) and the complex activities of sentient, 
animal life. It is one of the most noteworthy of psychical 



1 84 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

powers, and its distinct and full recognition in all its bear- 
ings will (as we shall see later on) be found to have an im- 
portant bearing on problems of Epistemology. 

The psychical antecedents of science, which we have 
passed in review in the present chapter, consist of a number 
of intellectual perceptions of facts and of relations between 
facts, which enable us to understand the existence and 
nature of psychical activities which do not rise iuto con- 
sciousness. We have also been forced somewhat to antici- 
pate matters and notice some of our higher psychical acts, 
such as ethical conceptions, inferences, and reminiscences, 
of which we are directly conscious, and which can only be 
scrutinised by reflection with the aid of intellectual memory. 
We have also (as before said) noted, as occurring in our- 
selves, various acts of mere sense-perception, sensuous ideas 
or imaginations, complexly associated with sensation and 
sensuous memory, which may give occasion to sensuous in- 
ference, with feelings of pleasure and pain, and also uncon- 
scious co-ordinations of movements and feelings due to a 
power of consentience — our lower psychical powers. On 
turning our attention to the world of mere animal life, we 
saw reason to believe that the external manifestations made 
by animals are susceptible of explanation by faculties re- 
sembling our lower mental powers, without calling into play 
the action of intellect and consciousness. 

If we are correct in our estimate, then it must be admitted 
that there is a distinction of kind between man and animals. 

But we believe the question can only be decided by a 
careful consideration of the true value and significance of 
that obvious distinction between the lower creatures and 
ourselves which is expressed by the proposition, " Men 
speak, but animals are dumb." Have or have not mere 
animals the power of expressing mental conceptions by 
sounds or gestures ? 



/ 



THE PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 1 85 

This, which we regard as the crucial question of a distinc- 
tion of kind between man and animals, demands separate 
and somewhat lengthy consideration, and to it the next 
chapter will be devoted. 



CHAPTER VII 

LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 

IT has been already pointed out in the first chapter of this 
book ' that the simplest sentence cannot be rationally 
uttered without giving expression (for the most part quite 
unconsciously) to highly abstract ideas. In the last chapter ' 
we also noted that there are at least three distinct categories 
of* signs " — the merely accidental, the emotional, and true 
signs formally intended to serve as such, as also that all of 
such signs may be either vocal or consist of some bodily 
movements or gestures. 

Signs which are merely accidental or emotional have now, 
for our present purpose, to be carefully distinguished from 
signs made with a rational purpose, and, therefore, neces- 
sarily embodying abstract ideas. These merely accidental 
and emotional signs — gestures and cries— often produce 
sympathetic effects on those that see or hear them, who 
may be thereby excited to make similar gestures and cries, 
all expressive of excited feelings, on which account such 
signs may be said to constitute a language of emotion. 

These unintellectual manifestations may be divided intp 
three kinds or forms of emotional language. 

They may consist of (i) inarticulate sounds only; such as 
shouts and cries of pain or joy or surprise ; chuckles of satis- 
faction or contempt ; murmurs of affection, as of a mother 
to her infant, etc.; (2) articulate sounds, wherein the 

* See ant£^ p. 7. ' Sec ante^ pp. 1 50-151. 

186 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 1 8/ 

syllables have no rational meaning. Amongst such must 
be included phrases sometimes repeated by idiots, or the 
verbal exclamations made without real meaning by rational 
persons during strong excitement — as an Italian may ex- 
claim /^r Dio Bacco ! or any Englishman may invoke damage 
to his own eyes and limbs or those of his neighbours ; and 
(3) gestures f which do not express or answer to rational con- 
ceptions, but are merely manifestations of feeling, as, e. g., 
jumping, dancing about, throwing up the arms, tossing the 
hands, waving a hat, etc. , etc. 

Very different from all these is the spoken language, com- 
posed of articulate sounds, as used in ordinary vocal inter- 
course. In order to see this distinction clearly, it n[iay be 
well to analyse a very simple sentence, such, ^. ^., as ** That 
horse is running away." 

The word " that," as thus used, has no signification in 
and by itself, none without reference to the term ** horse," 
which it qualifies, dividing and separating off the particular 
horse referred to from all others, and so limiting and deter- 
mining the application of the universal abstract term "horse" 
to a single concrete example, for the word " that " conveys 
the idea of an absolutely individual unity — a unity which 
cannot be present anywhere else except in the one concrete 
entity referred to by it. 

The word " horse," on the other hand, is a conventional 
spoken, or written, sign of the idea " horse," and is a uni- 
versal * abstract term, applicable, over and above the par- 
ticular horse which is running away, to every other actual or 
possible animal of the kind thus denominated. It denotes 
no single subsisting thing, but a " kind " or whole class of 
things — a unity which can be present in many concrete in- 
dividuals — many horses — besides the particular one referred 
to in the sentence. 

' Sec anU^ p. 6. 



1 88 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

The word " is " denotes the most wonderful, important, 
and most abstract of all ideas — the idea of ** existence " or 
** being.*' It is an idea which we must have in order to 
perform any intellectual act. It is an idea which, though 
not itself at first adverted to, makes all other ideas intelligible 
to us, as light, though itself unseen, renders everything else 
visible to us. But we shall return to the question of the 
significance of the word ** is," and, later on, justify fully 
what is here said. 

The term ** running away " is one which denotes another 
abstract idea — namely, an abstract " quality " or ** state *' 
of some object. The idea is one evidently applicable to 
many things, such as all mice, dogs, lizards — to anything, 
in fact, which can ** run away." Yet the idea itself is one 
single idea. 

What is true of the simple sentence thus analysed is true 
of all sentences. Thus the truth is plain of what we before 
said about a savage, for all human language — except the 
emotional signs before distinguished — necessarily implies 
and gives expression to a number of abstract ideas. There- 
fore, wherever language exists there the power of abstraction 
must exist also. Therefore, again, thought is essentially 
anterior to speech, and the latter is its consequence. It 
may exist where the faculty of speech is wanting, and may 
be expressed by gestures, which are also often made use of 
by those who can speak, to convey a knowledge of their 
thoughts and meaning to others. Similarly, inarticulate 
sounds may also be made use of for the last-mentioned 
purpose. 

In addition, then, to the three forms of merely emotional 
language before enumerated, there are three forms of intel- 
lectual language, as follows : 

(i) Sounds which are rational but not articulate, such as 
the inarticulate ejaculations by which we sometimes express 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 1 89 

assent to, or dissent from, given propositions. Such in- 
articulate sounds are intellectual, because they depend on 
the propositions referred to having been understood, and 
are used to show that such is the case and what is the nature 
of the judgment which may have been formed about them. 

(2) Sounds which are both rational and articulate, such as 
are used in conversation, and which constitute speech or 
vocal language proper. 

(3) Gestures which give external expression to internal 
rational conceptions, and therefore are ** external," though 
not ' * oral, ' ' manifestations of abstract thought. One special 
manual expression of such abstract thought is writing or 
the making of any pictorial signs. 

Thus the essence of language as ordinarily understood — 
language used for the communication of ideas — is an intel- 
lectual activity. This is necessarily mental, and the root of 
speech is therefore the ** mental word," or verbum mentale. 
The natural result or consequence of this is the external 
expression, or speech — the ** spoken word," or verbum oris. 
This is the normal consequence, but it can be replaced by 
gesture or bodily expression to verbum corporis sed non oris. 

It is evident that a man may be dumb and yet possess the 
mental word, though he is accidentally hindered from giving 
it expression by the spoken word ; but he can still do so by 
gestures or writing — the verbum corporis — as long as he is 
not paralysed. Should he become so, he would be deprived 
of all means of external expression, while he might, never- 
theless, still be in possession of the verbum mentale. 

Now we believe that all the external signs of which mere 
animals are capable are explicable as forms of the lower of 
the two categories of human language — the language of 
emotion. We are also convinced that many forms of ex- 
ternal expression, of which human beings incapable of 
speech are reduced to make use, are fully and truly as in- 



190 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

tellectual as is the articulate language ordinarily used and 
intended to convey ideas. To this question of the distinc- 
tion between emotional and intellectual language, then, we 
will now directly address ourselves. 

It has been contended by some persons that there is no 
essential difference between the language of men and that 
of animals, and this contention has been based on two asser- 
tions: (i) that verbal expressions in us precede correspond- 
ing conscious mental conceptions, and (2) that brutes by 
sounds and gestures can express ideas and so actually con- 
vey a knowledge of the facts to which their ideas relate. 

No one has advocated these views more zealously than 
the late Professor Romanes,' who, as an exceptionally can- 
did and careful writer, may well serve as the best type of 
the school to which he belonged. 

He brings forward many instances which he considers 
justify his opinion. Thus he tells us of a wasp, which, on 
finding a store of honey, returned to the nest, and in a short 
time brought off a hundred other wasps. But surely there 
is no need to suppose that here any intellectual communi- 
cation had been made, but merely an instinctive com- 
munication inducing an instinctive response. Unfortunately, 
superior as Mr. Romanes was to most of the advocates of 
animal rationality, some of the tales he allows himself to 
quote plainly show how saturated with prejudice their nar- 
rators must have been. Thus, respecting some South 
American ants, Mr. Belt is quoted as saying: ** I noticed a 
sort of assembly of about a dozen individuals that appeared 
to be in consultation. Suddenly one ant left the conclave, 
and ran with great speed up the perpendicular face of the 
cutting without stopping." Shortly ** information was 
communicated to the ants below, and a dense column rushed 
up in search of prey.*' 

' In his book, entitled Mental EvoiuHon in Man^ before referred to. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE I9I 

We have quoted this passage as a typical example of 
increasing unconscious exaggeration. A dozen ants in 
proximity are first called ** a sort of assembly." Now any 
creatures which happen to come together in close proximity 
may, in a certain vague sense, be said to assemble ; but the 
word ** assembly " implies more than that. This implica- 
tion is further intensified by the declaration that the ants 
** appeared to be in consultation," though no fact in addi- 
tion to physical proximity is given as justifying such a 
purely fanciful interpretation. Finally, the implication is 
driven home by calling these physically approximated ants 
"a conclave." If those who narrate things of this kind 
would content themselves with accurately describing the 
facts they witness, the gain would be great indeed. 

Such an account has been given ' by one careful observer, 
Mr. G. Larden. He tells us of a small South American 
species of ant which makes a large nest underground with a 
network of paths converging to the nest. 

" These paths," he says, " are of all lengths, from ten yards up 
to one hundred yards. As a general rule, one may say that 
streams of ants, carrying leaves, buds, flowers, seeds, and other 
valuable odds and ends, are always moving towards the nest, while 
empty-mouthed ants are meeting and passing them on their out- 
ward journey to the foraging grounds.** 

He then tried the experiment of turning some of these laden 
home-going carriers round, when they had nearly reached 
home. 

" The general conclusion I came to," he continues, " was that 
these ants did not then understand in what direction the nest lay, 
nor did they (as far as I could see) draw any conclusions from the 
fact that they now met the stream of carriers with which they had 

' In Nature for May 29, 1890, p. 115. 



192 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

previously been travelling. Thus, one ant carrying a (relatively) 
huge burden I reversed in direction when already near the nest. 
I then followed it for about eight yards (or about twenty minutes 
of time as far as I can say) in its mistaken reversed course away 
from the nest. Though it met and collided with quantities of 
burdened ants, and was passed in the same direction as its own 
by unburdened ants only, it did not seem to take the hint. Its 
final return home was the result of accident, as far as I could tell 
— it having got up the right way round after a severe fall. . . . 
I dug a hole in one of the paths on several occasions. The hole 
was small; and it was easy, though not so convenient, to go round 
by the side over the very short grass. Nevertheless, it required 
the falling of very many ants into the hole, and the leaving of 
quite a pile of leaves there, before the stream learned to pass 
about one inch to one or the other side, and so to avoid the pit- 
fall. Some ants even turned back ; and I left them carrying 
their burdens back to the foraging grounds again." 

This statement quite accords with some observations we 
have ourselves made. 

As to higher animals and the asserted use by them of 
gesture language, Mr. Romanes cites * a case recorded by 
James Forbes, F.R.S., of a male monkey, which was said 
to have begged back the body of a female which had just 
been shot: ** The animal came to the door of the tent, and, 
finding threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning, 
and by the most expressive gestures seemed to beg for the 
dead body. It was given to him; he took it sorrowfully in 
his arms and bore it away to his expecting companions.'* 
One would like to know what the gestures were. Nothing 
less than the actions essentially like those used in our ballets 
would justify their being called *' most expressive." 

A Captain Johnson is also cited as having seen a monkey 
which he had wounded run down a tree towards him. He 

^ Op. cit., p. 100. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE I93 

then "stopped suddenly, and coolly put his paw to the part 
wounded covered with blood, and held it out for me to see." 
Finally, Sir William Hoste is referred to as having re- 
corded that 

" one of his officers coming home after a long day's shooting, saw 
a female monkey running along the rocks with her young one in 
her arms. He immediately fired and the animal fell. On his 
coming up she grasped her little one close to her breast, and with 
her other hand pointed to the wound which the ball had made, 
and which had entered above her breast. Dipping her finger in 
the blood and holding it up, she seemed to reproach him with 
having been the cause of her pain, and also that of the young 
one, to which she frequently pointed." 

Now, that these narratives repose on a basis of truth is 
not to be doubted, neither is the perfect good faith of the 
narrators to be suspected. That the mother ape hugged 
her young one, that the wounded animals made gestures 
due to anger, pain, terror, or distress, is not to be ques- 
tioned. But it is only too evident that the kind-hearted 
sportsmen read, in such movements, motives and meanings 
due to their own fertile imaginations. Such mistaken in- 
ferences are not to be wondered at on the part of military 
men, who may well have been unskilled in scientific observa- 
tion, and little read in either psychology or philosophy. 

But a very curious tale is told by Mr. Romanes himself 
with respect to an American monkey of his, which had 
found out the way to unscrew the handle of that object 
which is often so much too easily unscrewed, namely, a 
hearth-brush. He delighted in screwing it on and off, and 
soon began to unscrew all the unscrewable articles so as to 
become a nuisance to the household. This showed that 
the monkey, we are told,* had ** discovered the mechanical 

> Op, eit,, p. 61. 

«3 



194 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

principle of the screw" — an ** intelligent recognition of a 
principle discovered by the most unwearying perseverance 
in the way of experiment "(! ). But to do what this 
monkey did, needed as little the ** intelligent recognition of 
a principle " as any white mouse needed such knowledge to 
learn to make rotating objects go round, or as a canary, 
which had learnt to pull up a small vessel of water suspended 
by a thread, need apprehend '* principles" of mechanics 
and hydrostatics. We are also informed that the monkey, 
** however often he was disappointed at the beginning [of 
the screwing process], never was induced to try turning the 
handle the other way; he always screwed from right to 
left. " This would seem to show (on Mr. Romanes's method 
of interpretation) that the monkey had much greater intel- 
ligence than is possessed by many human beings, who often 
do try screwing the wrong way when their efforts to screw 
the right way have not succeeded. 

But it is yet further asserted that the animal, having dis- 
covered this " mechanical principle, proceeded forthwith to 
generalise " concerning the objects thus mischievously un- 
screwed, screwed, and unscrewed again. We are gravely 
assured, as to the separated parts, that the monkey ** was 
by no means careful always to replace them " — as if it was 
ever careful so to do, and as if those which were replaced, 
were replaced by a sort of quasi-ethical deliberate intention. 

With respect to apes, we have always to be on our guard 
against the deceptive effects of their tricks and ways, due to 
the close resemblance which exists between their bodily 
frame and our own. On this account, if two actions essen- 
tially similar are done, one by a pig and the other by an ape, 
the latter would necessarily appear in our eyes to be far 
more of a ** human " action. 

This may, in fact, account for the curious overestimate 
above cited of the action of the American monkey so fond 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE IQS 

of screws. But other instances are given still more open to 
criticism. 

The climax* of absurdity, however, is attained in an anec- 
dote of a talking bird,' which our esteem and regard for the 
late Professor Romanes do not allow us here to more than 
refer to. 

The vast difference between the emotional gesture- 
language of animals and the intellectual gestures of men is 
apparent, while those of infants show that mental concep- 
tions may precede verbal expressions. Colonel Mallery* 
has remarked that 

" the wishes and emotions of very young children are conveyed 
in a small number of sounds, but in a great variety of gestures 
and facial expressions. A child's gestures are intelligent long in 
advance of speech, although very early and persistent attempts 
are made to give it instruction in the latter, but none in the 
former, from the time when it begins risu cognoscere matrem. It 
learns words only as they are taught, and learns them through 
the medium of signs which are not expressly taught. Long 
after familiarity with speech, it consults the gestures and facial 
expressions of its parents and nurses, as if seeking thus to trans- 
late and explain words. . . . The insane understand and 
obey gestures when they have no knowledge whatever of words. 
. . . Sufferers from aphasia continue to use appropriate gest- 
ures." 

The same authority also tells us that Indians from the 
"West, who have been brought into the Eastern States, 

" have often succeeded in holding intercourse, by means of their 
invention and application of principles in what may be called the 
voiceless mother utterance, with white deaf-mutes, who surely 

* Seei^. a/., p. 190. 

' In his memoir on " Sign-language among the North American Indians/* 
Firti A nnual Rtport of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington , 1 88 z . 



ig6 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

have no semiotic code more nearly connected with that attributed 
to the Indians than is derived from their common humanity. 
They showed the greatest pleasure in meeting deaf-mutes, pre- 
cisely as travellers in a foreign country are rejoiced to meet 
persons speaking their language." 

Mr. Romanes himself has given * a very interesting ac- 
count of a conversation held between two Indians of differ- 
ent races, and carried on exclusively by gestures, beginning 
as follows : 

** Which of the north-eastern tribes is yours ? " 

** Mountain river men." 

" How many days from mountain river ? " 

** Moon new and full three times," etc. 

A deaf-mute from Washington is said ' to have related to 
some Indians, that 

** when he was a boy he went to a melon field, tapped several 
melons, finding them to be green or unripe ; finally reaching a 
good one, he took a knife, cut a slice and ate it. A man made 
his appearance on horseback, entered the path on foot, found the 
cut melon, and, detecting the thief, threw the melon towards him, 
hitting him in the back, whereupon he ran away crying. The 
man mounted, and rode off in the opposite direction." 



Another story of the kind, also told in gesture-language 
only, was much appreciated by the Indians, and completely 
understood. 

A truly wonderful amount of abstract thought was thus 
expressed and apprehended by means of gesture only. And 
there is no evidence that speech generated or facilitated 
gesture, but rather the contrary, while it is very evident 
amongst many peoples — notably in the more southern part 
of Europe — how very much gesture aids and enforces the 

' Op. cit., p. io8. • IHd., p. 1X2. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE lg7 

meaning of speech. No doubt speech has greatly, must 
have greatly, aided the elaboration of ideas, and so enriched 
the mental pabulum for gesture-language ; but it can have 
had no tendency to develop gesture-language itself, but 
rather the contrary, speech being so rapid and serviceable an 
agent compared with gesture only. 

Deaf-mutes possessing an extraordinary manual dexterity 
in signifying their ideas, could never have inherited it from 
speaking ancestors, while they may well be supposed to have 
inherited the structure common to those ancestors as the 
physical means of speech. The nervous conditions relating 
to abundant gesticulation, on the other hand, must have 
been going through a process of atrophy for ages during all 
the many generations of these loquacious ancestors of such 
deaf-mutes. The latter also seem to have a special construc- 
tion of their own in their gesture sentences — a mode of con- 
struction which could never have been inherited from their 
speaking forefathers. 

This special and peculiar construction is stated * by Mr. 
Romanes to be uniform in different countries. The deaf- 
mutes " do not say * black horse,' but * horse black *; not 
' bring a black hat,' but ' hat black bring'; not ' I am 
hungry, give me bread,* but * hungry me, bread give.' " 
But such modes of construction answer every practical pur- 
pose, and are as distinctly intellectual as any others. 

The innate intellectuality of, and voluntary purposive 
expression of ideas by, gesture is made specially clear in 
the following statement,' which also shows how the deaf and 
dumb express first that idea which they are most anxious to 
impress on those they address : 

" If a boy had struck another boy, and the injured party came 
to tell us, if he was desirous to acquaint us with the idea that a 

> Op. ctt., p. 114. ■ Ibid,^ p. 115. 



198 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

particular boy did it, he would point to the boy first. But if he 
was anxious to draw attention to his own suffering rather than to 
the person by whom it was caused, he would point to himself and 
make the act of striking, and then point to the boy." 

The celebrated Abb6 Sicard asked a deaf and dumb pupil, 
** Who made God ? " The answer he received is very re- 
markable from the highly abstract conception which it 
showed was present in the pupil's mind. His answer was, 
** God made nothing," meaning thereby that nothing what- 
ever made God — 1. ^., that God was not made by anything, 
but was self-subsisting. 

The deaf and dumb express a conjunctive sentence by an 
alternate contrast. Thus the sentence ** I must love and 
honour my teacher " would be expressed thus, ** Teacher I 
beat, deceive, scold, no! — I love, honour, yes!" This is 
logical enough in spite of being a roundabout mode of 
expression. 

Colonel Mallery's evidence is invaluable. His account 
of such an enunciation of the parable of the prodigal son by 
signs is an example of an extremely elaborated instance of 
the use of gesture-language. It is as follows: 

" Once man one, sons two. Son younger say, Father property 
your divide : part my me give. Father so. Son each, part his 
give. Days few after, son younger money all take, country far 
go, money spend, wine drink, food nice eat. Money by-and-bye 
gone all. Country everywhere food little. Son hungry very. 
Go seek man any, me hire. Gentleman meet. Gentleman son 
send field swine feed. Son swine husks eat, see — self husks eat 
want — cannot — husks him give nobody. Son thinks, say, father 
my, servants many, bread enough, part give away can — I none — 
starve, die. I decide : Father I go to, say I had, God disobey, 
you disobey — name my hereafter son no — I unworthy. But 
father servants call, command robe best bring, son put on, ring 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE I99 

finger put on, shoes feet put on, calf fat bring, kill. We all eat, 
merry, why ? Son this formerly dead, now alive : formerly lost, 
now found : rejoice." 

Even that most abstract of all ideas, the idea of " being '' 
or ** dxistence," can be expressed by deaf-mutes. Colonel 
Mallery tells us that the sign they use to express this is 
stretching the arms and hands forward, and then adding the 
sign of affirmation/' 

The idea of ** equality " they can also signify by extend- 
ing the' index fingers side by side — as when repeating the 
expression in the Lord's Prayer, ** As in heaven." We 
see, then, how intellectual conceptions may be expressed, 
and distinct statements as to fact made — the copula remain- 
ing latent and implicit — by this wonderful language of 
gesture. By its means the most lofty abstractions can be 
both mentally entertained and externally expressed. Church 
services for deaf congregations are carried out by gesture 
only. 

That bom mutes, without any teaching, do sometimes 
make vocal sounds more or less articulate is an unquestioned 
fact, and though we will not assert, we certainly suspect, 
the existence in man of an instinctive tendency to produce 
such sounds and to signify meaning by gesture. When 
once anyone has a meaning to convey, he must, if he can 
succeed in conveying it, convey it by some visible, audible, 
or tactile sign. The employment of any one means must 
be due to an internal impulse. How else could the language 
of gesture have arisen ? 

Therefore, if there ever was such a thing as a human com- 
munity entirely dumb, a natural and instinctive language of 
gesture would, we are persuaded, be evolved by it. We are 
thus persuaded, not only on a priori grounds, but also from 
the evidence afforded by such extraordinary examples of de- 



200 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

fective existence as that of Laura Bridgman and the still 
more striking case of Martha Obrecht. The former is a 
well-known case of a girl who was blind as well as deaf, 
and had become so afflicted when too young to have retained 
any recollection of seeing or hearing. Yet she learned to 
apprehend abstract relations and qualities, and to read and 
write. 

Martha Obrecht ' was deaf, dumb, and blind, and was 
confided to the care of the nuns at a convent at Lamay 
(Poictiers) when eight years old. Then, by intelligent and 
patient instruction, she was enabled gradually to acquire 
the power of apprehending and expressing intellectual con- 
ceptions, and highly abstract and lofty ideas, with distinct 
and clear moral and religious notions. She was also taught 
not only to read but to write perfectly well. 

When first received she was a living, almost inert, mass, 
with no means of communicating with her fellow-creatures, 
though she emitted cries and made certain movements in 
response to impressions she received. The first thing was 
to give her some means of communication, and this was 
done by making her touch different objects, and then touch- 
ing her in different ways appropriate to each object, so that 
each mode of touching became a sign to her of that object. 
Thus, when a piece of bread was given her, she was made, 
as it were, to cut her left hand with her right. Very soon 
when hungry she began to make that sign herself. When 
she did anything wrong she was slightly pushed away, and 
thus she soon learnt to push away from her things she did 
not like ; and so little by little from one point to another her 
intellectual development was slowly completed. 

It may be, as it has been, objected to these facts, that they 
show no more than the influence on an infant of a long line 

^ See Apologie Scientifique^ by Canon F. Duilh<$ de Saint- Projet, pp. 374-387. 
Toulouse, 1885. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 20I 

of ancestors all capable of speech. But, as we before re- 
marked, there could have been no inherited nervous structure 
and conditions specially related to gesture-language. Yet 
it was exclusively by gesture-language that the latent intel- 
ligence of Martha Obrecht was developed. 

Thus thought is evidently the cause, and not the effect, 
of language. 

We have said that the idea of ** being " or " existence " 
can be expressed by gesture, and also that the copula is 
habitually implied and latent in gesture-language. But its 
existence is, of course, no less effectively real because it is 
thus latent. In every gesture statement, as in every orally 
expressed proposition, the predication of existence is most 
important. Its importance has been disputed on the ground 
that '* merely to say a thing w, is to form the most barren 
(least significant) judgment about it." Now, of course, it 
is manifest that so to affirm is to give the minimum of in- 
formation about any object; but though it tells us little as 
regards extent of information, it yet tells us a truth of the 
most profound and intensely important kind. The reader 
will readily appreciate how much more important to him is 
his ** existence " than a variety of other properties with 
which he would be much less unwilling to part. > 

Having, we trust, to our reader's satisfaction, shown the 
essential rationality which may be possessed by deaf-mutes, 
we will next point out what we regard as the essential, 
though latent, intellectuality of infants. We contend that 
evidence shows intellect to be potentially present, i, e,, that 
the normal conditions being supplied, it will infallibly come 
to show itself as actually present. On the other hand, no 
evidence plainly indicates that it is potentially present in 
brutes, and that changes of mere environment can make it 
actual. We are, as we said before, perfectly willing to 
recognise the intellectuality of animals as soon as we can 



202 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

obtain any evidence thereof. All evidence we have been 
able to obtain, however, points, we think, the other way. 

But Professor Romanes seemed extraordinarily blind to 
the intellectuality of even his own children. Thus we read * 
that a daughter of his, aged rather more than eighteen 
months, called first her brother, and then other children, 
" ilda," and then whenever she came upon a representation 
of a sheep with lambs, she would point to the sheep and 
say mama — ba^ while of the lambs she would say ilda — ba. 
Nevertheless, he affirms that in her case formal predication 
had not begun. On the other hand, we regard these utter- 
ances of the child as distinctly intelligent predications. 

Similarly, he denies that a child two years old, who says 
dit ki (sister is crying) makes an intellectual assertion. But 
in saying those two words the child really enunciates a true 
judgment composed of two concepts and an implied copula. 
If such were not the case, if the child did not consciously 
perceive both his sister and her crying condition, the state- 
ment would be mere meaningless babble. But, of course, 
the child does not advert to such psychical facts and recog- 
nise what it says with reflex consciousness. Such a mental 
act is but rarely performed even by an adult. 

But much simpler, merely monosyllabic, utterances may 
be true implicit judgments. Thus when a child on seeing 
a dog looks up at her nurse and, pointing, says '* bow- 
wow," or taking food exclaims ** ot " (hot), or letting fall a 
toy says ** dow " (down), it may thereby express what is 
truly a judgment in each case. For in what respect does 
the utterance of the monosyllable " ot *' differ from ** dit 
ki '* ? It merely differs in the emission of two sounds in- 
stead of one. ** Ot " really means as much as do the two 
sounds ** dit ki '* — namely, that the child's food is hot. In 
one <:ase the meaning of a sentence is conveyed by two 

» Op. cit., p. 218. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 203 

articulate sounds, and in the other by the utterance of a 
monosyllable. The latter mode is in no way inferior except 
that it seems incapable of being adapted to express the com- 
plex ideas of later life. But very frequently the monosyl- 
labic mode is made use of by adults and fully understood. 
Suppose some men are watching, at a distance, certain birds 
indistinctly seen, and that they are trying to make out what 
they really are. When one man, having made sure, cries 
out ** Grouse !" it is as true and clear an expression of a judg- 
ment as would be the four words, ** Those birds are grouse." 
If it were only possible to follow out that mode without the 
danger of confusion, then the use of monosyllables to express 
whole sentences, instead of being inferior, would be the very 
highest ideal of language. This reflection brings us natur- 
ally to the consideration of different forms of language and 
its possible origin. But there is one form of language which 
exists, abundantly in low as well as in higher races of man- 
kind, and that is metaphorical language. But what is 
metaphor, and what sort of being must that have been 
which first employed it ? 

Had not the intellect the power of apprehending, through 
the senses, and expressing, by bodily signs, what is beyond 
the reach of mere sense-perception, metaphor would not and 
could not exist. Neither could it exist if thought was the 
mere outcome of language, and followed it, instead of the 
opposite. It is precisely because speech is too narrow for 
thought, and because words are too few adequately to make 
known the ideas of the mind, that metaphor exists. It is 
interesting also to note that figurative, metaphorical lan- 
guage is natural, and especially abundant amongst various 
savage and semi-savage tribes. Few things would be more 
unwise than to take the plainest and most material mean- 
ings of primitive words as being necessarily their only 
meanings. Figure or metaphor has been occasioned by 



204 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

poverty and sterility of visible and audible signs, but their 
cause is the wealth and fruitfulness of thought. Probably 
many primitive terms had double meanings from the first. 

As Carlyle has said, ** An unmetaphorical style you shall 
seek in vain, for is not your very attention 3, stretching to ? " 
The sensuous element in language is but a necessary conse- 
quence of our animal nature, and the necessity of phantas- 
mata of the imagination as supports to (as before said) even 
our most abstract thoughts. It does not follow from this 
that thought once was mere sensation, but, on the contrary, 
it manifests the wonderful spontaneity of the human intel- 
lect, whence, by the help of the ** beggarly elements " sup- 
plied by the senses, the loftiest concepts spontaneously 
spring forth like Athene, armed with the sharp spear of 
intellectual perception, and swathed in the ample mantle 
of signs, woven of the warp of matter and the woof of 
thought. 

It is just this power of metaphor-making which most 
plainly displays to us the intellect in its creative energy, 
giving rise to new external expressions for freshly arising 
internal perceptions. This power belongs to man alone, and 
no one even pretends that any brute can evolve a metaphor. 

It is ethical propositions especially which demonstrate to 
us that a higher meaning must be latent in terms which to 
some persons seem merely sensuous. For everyone must 
admit either (i) that he does not really know what an ethical 
proposition means, that he does not know the difference be- 
tween right and wrong, or (2) that he recognises it as a dis- 
tinction /^/^r^rA? divergent from every other, and one which, 
as before pointed out,' could have had none but an ethical 
origin, and therefore could never have been evolved from 
the sensuous life and perceptions of mere animals. 

As folly or prejudice makes tales of animal intelligence so 

' See ante^ p. 166, 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 205 

often quite untrustworthy, so also the statements as to the 
mental defects of savages are hardly less so. Love of the 
marvellous, credulity, exaggeration, and, above all, hasty 
and inconclusive inferences, abound in both. Mr. Tylor, 
who has devoted his life to the study of such things, has 
again and again protested to this effect. 

It has, for example, been objected against the intellectual 
ability of the Society Islanders that they have separate 
words for *• dog's tail," '' bird's tail," ** sheep's tail," etc., 
but no word for tail itself — i, e,y tail in general. But, really, 
the experience of the use of that word by ourselves leads us 
to consider the condition of these Islanders in this respect to 
be no great misfortune. We have our word ** tail " — tail 
in general — and it is constantly made use of in a way which 
is hopelessly misleading. To use the same term, as we do, 
for what we call the ** tails " of a peacock, a monkey, and 
a lobster is, so far, to be in a worse plight than that asserted 
of the Society Islander. 

Much has been said about some savages being unable to 
say ** I." Thus Professor Sayce tells us that a Malay who 
would mean ** I " says ulun — that is, " a man " in Lampong 
— and also that at least one other race expresses the idea ** a 
man " in a similar manner. 

But that is of not the slightest consequence as regards the 
intellectuality of the speaker. As a child will say * * Charley 
don't like it," meaning ** I do not like it," so if an adult 
Englishman were to speak of himself as ** this one here," 
pointing to his breast, his meaning would be as clear as if 
he articulated the sound " I." 

It has been supposed that the Grebo two sounds " ni «^," 
which may mean **I do it " or ** you do not," according to 
the context and gestures of the speaker, may be taken as 
evidence of conscious speaking in the making. Yet we have 
in our own language equivalent instances of the explication 



206 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

of sound by context or gesture. Thus the expression ** my 
work " may be shown to signify either ** I do it *' or ** you 
do not." A man may say ** my work^** pointing to the 
product with a look showing lively satisfaction at being able 
to boast himself as the performer of so remarkable a feat ; 
or he may say ** my work " while pointing to his own body, 
with a look of indignation at the idea of anyone else pretend- 
ing to have done it. 

A few further examples of what have been deemed forms 
of predication so low as to border on mere sensuous and 
animal language, must here suffice. 

We have been told by Mr. Romanes ' that if a Dyak 
Wants to say " Thy father is, or looks, old," he has, for want 
of words, to put together such expressions as ** father of 
thee," ** age of him." Also he says that if such a man 
wants to say of another ** He is wearing a white jacket," the 
form of the statement would be "he with white with 
jacket," or more tersely, " he jackety whitey." But this 
does not in the least tell against the presence of distinct in- 
tellectual meaning in the utterance of such phrases. They 
may strike the imagination of some persons so as to call up 
a smile, but in sober truth, as regards meaning (which is the 
only important thing), the expression, " he jackety whitey," 
is essentially as good as the expression, " The external upper 
garment of that man is of the colour of the driven snow." 

If in Fiji the response " I will " is expressed by the form 
" will of me," that surely is sufficient. It would be easy 
enough to parallel such rendering by means of examples 
from English slang. 

No doubt the parts of speech of English grammarians 
may be, in their external form, inapplicable to the Polynes- 
ian languages. But the fact, however interesting, has no 
significance as*regards the essentially abstract nature of the 

* Op. at., p. 317. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 20/ 

ideas conveyed. Our expression, " I will eat rice," may 
require to be rendered, ** The eating of me the rice; my 
eating will be of the rice." But such expressions are quite 
reasonable and logical. 

If it can be pointed out of any object that it is here, or 
there, or thus, or sitting, or standing, or waiting, there can 
be no doubt whatever of the implication that it is — that it 
exists — even though no special articular sound may be de- 
voted to the explicit assertion that such is the case. And 
how great is the significance of that small word ** £y " ! If 
a brute could think '' is," brute and man would indeed be 
brothers. ** Is," as the copula of a judgment, implies the 
mental separation and recombination of two terms that only 
exist united in nature, and can therefore never have im- 
pressed our sensitive faculty except as one thing. ** Is," 
again, considered as a substantive verb, as in the example, 
** This man is," contains in itself the application of the 
copula of judgment to the most elementary of all abstrac- 
tions — ** thing " or ** something." Yet if a being has the 
power of thinking ** thing" or " something," it has the 
power of transcending space and time by dividing or decom- 
posing the phenomenally one — ideally separating the in- 
dividuality, or haecceity, of an object or idea from its 
existence. This is an act done with reflex consciousness by 
philosophers, but entirely without advertence by the im- 
mense majority of mankind. Here is the point where 
" instinct " is entirely left behind and where reason has 
begun. 

We have now examined and reviewed the several asserted 
cases here considered as giving the best clue to the real 
nature of animal language. If we are right in deeming that 
no evidence has been brought forward to show that brutes 
can evolve and entertain abstract ideas, it is plain they can- 
not possess intellectual language, since the presence of such 



208 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

mental abstraction is a sine qud non for its existence. No 
doubt the songs and calls of birds have, in a sense, meanings 
which are practically understood by their fellows. Some 
dogs will make certain facts, e, g. , the presence of a rat or a 
thief, known to their masters, and may also indicate which 
of the two it is by the kind of sound they make. Pointers 
and setters, by their movements and the postures they 
assume, will make known other facts, while parrots and 
jackdaws can be taught to articulate whole sentences. All 
this is very true, but it is nothing to the purpose, because it 
does not surpass that lower emotional language which we 
also possess. We have, we hope, sufficiently shown how 
truly intellectual may be the language of gesture which 
mutes can use. Could animals do likewise, could any of 
them by gestures make us understand what the language of 
pantomime used in certain ballets can very plainly signify, 
there would be no need for them to utter sounds — such 
movements alone would be amply sufficient to demonstrate 
to us their rationality. And they have ample bodily powers 
so to do, especially the apes, which are so like us in struct- 
ure. Their senses, also, are quite keen enough to give them 
ideas about the things they sensuously perceive, were they 
not destitute of some higher faculty such as enables us to 
form intellectual conceptions. On the other hand, they 
might do much more by sound and gesture than they do, 
and yet neither possess nor express such conceptions. It is 
quite conceivable that a parrot might learn to utter certain 
words which, by teaching, he has come to associate with 
something pleasant to follow, just as a dog who ** begs " 
has associated that felt gesture with the imagination of bis- 
cuit which he has habitually received after begging. But 
such actions and imaginations do not tend even to bridge 
over the chasfti which exists between intellectual speech and 
the language of emotion. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 209 

Similarly, dogs or pigs, trained to select from a number 
of cards with letters on them, those bearing the letters 
CAKE, are animals very curiously and ingeniously trained ; 
b^it their actions prove nothing more than that there has 
been established in their imagination sensuous associations 
similar to those which have been formed in the psychical 
nature of any dog that *' begs." 

It now only remains to consider what may be said with 
respect to the origin of human speech. In the absence of 
all direct evidence only more or less plausible hypotheses 
are possible. One thing, however, we regard as quite cer- 
tain, and that is that thought, the verbum tnentale, was 
anterior to the verbum oris. The phenomena presented by 
deaf-mutes are sufficient to show that abstract ideas can 
exist without spoken words, and that oral terms are the con- 
sequence of thought ordinary experience suffices to prove. 
When, in the cultivation of any new science or art, newly 
observed facts or newly devised processes give rise to new 
conceptions, new terms are invented to give expression to 
such conceptions. Thus new words arise as a consequent, 
and not as an antecedent, of such intellectual action. New 
terms are always fitted to fresh ideas, and not fresh*ideas to 
new terms. Whoever attentively follows the mental de- 
velopment of a child, will see that in it also, notions are 
formed spontaneously, and often give rise to new words of 
the child's own coining. 

The antecedence of thought is also shown by the wonder- 
ful rapidity — far exceeding the rapidity of speech — with 
which the mind may detect a fallacy in an argument. And 
such detection is always due to some reason our mind per- 
ceives to be fatal, it may be, to a long chain of reasoning. 
A mere cry or gesture of negation may be the sign of intel- 
lectual perceptions which would require more than one 
sentence to express fully, but which are perceived too rapidly 



2IO THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

for even the mental repetition of the words of such sentences. 
We have seen how deaf-mutes may spontaneously evolve 
a gesture-language, through which they can convey ideas to 
one another. Dr. W. W. Ireland has recorded * the case of 
a boy who could not speak ordinary words, and yet had in- 
vented a few of his own, to which he attached fixed mean- 
ings. Thus he said " weep-oo " for night or black ; " burly ' ' 
for wood or for a carpenter; ** tatteras " for soldiers, and so 
on. An analogous case has come within our own experience, 
and Dr. Bastian has described another,* which seems to show 
that the faculty of rational speech is so potentially present 
in us that it sometimes manifests itself spontaneously and 
very unexpectedly. It appears that in 1877 he was con- 
sulted concerning the health of a boy of twelve, occasionally 
subject to fits. When five years old he had not spoken, but 
before another year had passed, on the occasion of an acci- 
dent happening to one of his favourite toys, he suddenly ex- 
claimed, " What a pity! " which were his very first words. 
He was then silent for a fortnight, but thereafter became 
very talkative. A medical friend of ours was much alarmed 
about his son (now an eminent medical man himself), be- 
cause he was long unable to speak, though he showed 
clearly by an elaborate language of gesture that he had 
very distinct intellectual conceptions which, after a time, 
he began to express vocally. The cases of Laura Bridgman 
and Martha Obrecht have been already described." 

Speech has, in many cases, been shown to be reducible to 
a certain number of probably primitive terms called " roots," 
and a large number of these denote some kind of action or 
movement. On this account the suggestion has been made 

^ Idiocy and Imbecility, p. 276. Churchill, 1877, 

^ The Brain as an Organ of Mind^ p. 606. Kegan Paul, Trench and Co. 
1880. 
* See ante^ p. 200. 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 211 

that Speech arose through a custom which grew up of emit- 
ting peculiar sounds when performing certain actions, as 
seamen and others often utter sounds in common when 
working together. 

But it is conceded by all that speech could not have arisen 
except by the utterance of sounds, the meaning of which 
was understood both by those who uttered them and those 
who heard them. Speech requires an apprehending intelli- 
gence on the part of the hearer as well as on the part of the 
speaker if it is to be more than a monologue. Without the 
attainment of this mutual comprehension spoken language 
could never have arisen. It is true, of course, that one man 
performing some act in the presence of others would know 
what he was about while the onlookers would know it also, 
and thus a sound repeated by him while so acting might 
generate a term to denote such action, which term would be 
understood by him and by those who saw and heard him. 
But for this it must have been necessary to have the niental 
conception of what was being done, that is, an abstract idea. 
If the man acting and the onlookers only uttered the sound 
accidentally, without will and intention, and then repeated 
it automatically, and not as a sign deliberately meant, such 
sounds (articulate or not) could be no form of speech. It 
is evident none of them could understand or apply it except 
by first acquiring the idea or conception itself. Therefore 
the doctrine, ** Speech begot reason," cannot be maintained, 
for speech cSmnot exist without the existence with it of that 
intellectual activity of which it is the external expression. 
As well might the concavities of a curved line be supposed 
to exist without its convexities, as the spoken word be sup- 
posed to have arisen prior to the idea which it represents. 
Experience shows us, as we have already observed, that it is 
new thoughts which generate new words, and not the re- 
verse. As the deaf-mutes teach us, rational conceptions 



212 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 



I 



can exist without words. The intellect is the common 
root from which both thought and language (whether of 
word or gesture) spring. 

This radical distinction between sounds denoting abstract 
ideas and sounds which are but the expression of emotional 
feeling is the distinction between the language (whether of 
speech or gesture) of men on the one hand and of animals 
on the other. That we cannot imagine how so fundamental 
a distinction arose should be no bar to our recognising its 
existence as a fact. This break, or new departure, in the 
order of nature is by no means an isolated one. There is an 
absolute break between the living world and the world de- 
void of life ; and though it is true that at some period life 
for the first time appeared upon the surface of this planet, 
whenever it did so appear, there must have been a breach 
of continuity and a new departure, which is no whit less cer- 
tain because we cannot imagine how it took place. We are 
convinced there was another breach of continuity and a 
fresh new departure when the first organisms appeared which 
were capable of sensation. 

That all the higher animals ** feel " will not be disputed. 
They give abundant evidence of sensitivity, and they 
possess the special living substance — nervous tissue — which 
we know is the organ of sensation in ourselves. But the 
world of plants affords us no such evidence. The move- 
ments of the leaves of some — as notably of the sensitive 
plant and of Venus's fly-trap — might be thought so to do, 
but they are explicable without sensitivity. That the 
vegetable world is devoid of sensation is what should be ex- 
pected, since plants are devoid of all trace of a nervous 
system ; and it is a universally admitted biological law that 
structure and function vary together. If, then, there are 
any organisms whatever which do not feel, while certain 
other organisms do feel, then (as a gate must be shut or not 



LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 21$ 

shut) there is and must be a break and distinction between 
the one and the other. 

But it may be objected : " The transition is so gradual, it 
is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between sentient 
and insentient organisms." Even if this assertion be true, 
such an objection would be of no avail, because an appar- 
ently continuous and uninterrupted course of action is often 
not really such, but only seems to be so on account of our 
organisation — our very limited power of vision. 

Let us suppose an action to take place at precisely such a 
rate as to permit of our seeing its steps separated from each 
other by just appreciable intervals; then we have but to 
suppose the period needed for our nervous activity to be 
slightly increased, and it would necessarily follow we could 
no longer perceive the intervals, and the supposed action 
would seem to be continuous. Next let us suppose that an 
action, which is really interrupted, takes place so quickly 
that we cannot perceive the intervals ; we have but to im- 
agine our nervous activity accelerated to a sufficient degree 
and the intervals would be plainly perceptible to us. 

Absolute interruptions and new departures take place 
every day in nature. Such, for example, take place at 
every junction of the ultimate sexual elements in impregna- 
tion and in the final separation of the embryo from the 
parent at birth. 

Because we cannot imagine the origin of an intellectual 
nature or any other origin, no argument thence arises 
against such breaches of continuity — such new departures. 
We cannot imagine them, simply because we cannot see^ 
feel, or in any way sensuously cognise them. We cannot 
perceive them, as we cannot perceive the ultimate constitu- 
tion of matter, because we have not been provided with the 
organs necessary to minister to such perception. As Pro- 
fessor Miers once remarked to us, we cannot perceive them 



214 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

any more than we can distinguish colours by listening, how- 
ever attentively, with our ears. 

But however impotent may be our imagination, our reason 
assures us that wherever a distinction of kind exists, there 
must also be a breach of continuity, and a new departure. 
For a ** nature " or a '* kind of existence " does not admit 
of augmentation or diminution — of ** greater " or " less " — 
it simply ** is " or ** is not," and there is no possibility of 
any intermediate condition. 

Seeing, then, that there is now existing an absolute differ- 
ence between the non-living and the living, and between 
non-sentient organisms and those endowed with sensitivity, 
we may, on grounds of analogy, deem it antecedently prob- 
able (what a study of the question seems to us to make 
almost certain) that there is also a breach of continuity and 
a new departure in passing from merely sentient creatures 
to beings endowed with reason. 

The distinction which exists between that lower form of 
language, of which mere animals are capable, and by which 
they express their feelings and emotions, and that external 
manifestation (by words or gestures) of abstract ideas of 
which man alone is capable, constitutes the strongest possible 
argument for the existence of a difference of kind between 
human reason and the cognitive faculties of brutes. A 
recognition of the existence of this distinction of kind, then, 
removes every cause for doubt and wonder that the intellect 
of man should be capable of apprehending absolute truths 
to which all the other inhabitants of this planet are blind, 
and should dispose *us to accept with readiness and without 
distrust whatever our highest faculties declare to us to be 
absolutely and necessarily true. 



CHAPTER VIII 

INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 

WE have now passed through our preliminary inquiries 
respecting the objects, methods, and antecedents of 
science. We have recognised that there is a real, external 
world, the conditions, laws, and relations of which it is the 
business of science to investigate, as it is also its business to 
take note of the existence, laws, and relations of the investi- 
gating human mind. We have seen what are the main 
physical and psychical conditions necessary for the very 
being of human knowledge, and what are those fundamental 
psychical activities of which we must make use for even its 
most trifling increase. 

In our last two chapters we carefully distinguished be- 
tween our lower and our higher mental powers, and it now 
becomes our business to direct our whole attention to the 
latter, as they are the only tools of which we can make use 
in exploring the foundations of science and seeking to ob- 
tain a satisfactory Epistemology. 

But before we can advance one step further in our inquiry, 
we must make sure that the ground beneath our feet is 
perfectly solid and secure, so that there shall be no danger 
of our falling into an abyss of intellectual nihilism, or a 
quagmire of doubt and uncertainty. 

We long ago * remarked that we are all certain about 

' See ante, p. 97. 
215 



2l6 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

many things, and that certainty is necessary for any real 
scientific progress ; and later on * we noted, in an introduct- 
ory manner, the absolute certainty which attends our reflex 
consciousness. These remarks were necessary preliminaries 
to some subsequent considerations which we then brought 
forward. Now, however, the time has come for us to study 
the question of certainty deliberately and as fully as we are 
able, and to call the reader's attention to those considera- 
tions which earlier (when speaking of reflex consciousness) 
we said we would reserve for a future chapter. 

In the first place, it is evident that we must be certain of 
something, and that, do what we may, we cannot get rid of 
our certainty. For if anyone were to affirm he was certain 
of nothing, and that to no proposition could he give an 
unhesitating and fully confident assent, he would thereby 
contradict himself, for he would at the same time be affirm- 
ing the certainty of his own disbelief in and denial of 
certainty. 

To avoid this charge of self-contradiction, he might, per- 
haps, go on to say : * * Oh ! I do not affirm that there is no 
certainty ; I am far from denying that there may be such a 
thing ; all I affirm is that I doubt everything, even whether 
I have any conviction about certainty one way or the other.*' 
But by so objecting he does not cease to affirm certainty : 
all the difference is that his certainty takes a different form 
from that before attributed to him. Instead of asserting 
the certainty of his denial of certainty, he would thereby 
be affirming the certainty that his mind was in a state of 
doubt. But that is a matter about which anyone may be as 
certain as of any other fact of belief or conviction. 

Concerning the present mental state in which anyone 
knows himself to be — whether it be a state of doubt or be- 
lief, or a state of having a sensation of blue or of a sour 

» P. 138. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 21/ 

taste — ^he has the most absolute certainty possible ; for it is 
a fact concerning which Omnipotence itself is powerless to 
deceive him. It may be, indeed, that his sensation of blue 
is a merely subjective one, and the sourness he tastes may 
be occasioned not by what he puts in his mouth, but by 
some abnormal condition of his gustatory nerves or of his 
brain. That, however, does not make it in the least the 
less certain that he has the sensation he feels. The reality 
of the fact of the feeling is in no way lessened by whatever 
may have been the cause producing it. Similarly, he may 
believe what is the merest delusion, e. ^., that his legs are 
made of glass, or may doubt what is most evident to his 
senses, as that there is light when the sun is shining at 
noonday. But none the less, his belief is his belief while 
he has it, and so is his doubt, his doubt. Both are, and 
can only be, to him just what they are while he is ex- 
periencing them. As to this, he has the most absolute 
certainty conceivable, that is, the certainty of both his direct 
and his reflex consciousness. He can with full conscious- 
ness direct his attention on his own mental state and say : 
** I certainly have such a belief, or such a doubt." As to 
this, if he thinks about it, no man can really doubt. But a 
man, nevertheless, may not think of it, and not having real- 
ised that he has a subjective, absolute certainty which no- 
thing can even weaken, he may yet fall into an unreasonable 
doubt as to his own mental faculties. Being fully aware 
that he has in his life made many mistakes, and that most 
men also frequently make them, it is conceivable he might 
say to himself, " As my faculties have deceived me in 
something, may they not deceive me in everything ? What 
guarantee have I that they are not always fallacious ? I 
cannot get outside myself and compare my convictions with 
external realities ; therefore I have no satisfactory evidence 
of their truth, and so I really know nothing, and am intel- 



2l8 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

lectually, as it were, entirely at sea, drifting I know not 
where or how. The idea that I can be really certain about 
anything is for me an absurdity. What can I ascertain 
about the cause and origin of the faculties I possess ? For 
all I can tell, I may be the sport of a demon who amuses 
himself with deceiving me in all things! " 

But to such a man we would say, Why do you feel this 
distrust of your faculties ? It is evident that your want of 
certainty about them can only be due to your certainty 
about something else. 

You are convinced that you cannot surely arrive at truth 
because your faculties may be deceptive ; but on what is this 
conviction of yours founded ? Why cannot you trust them 
all the same ? It is, and must be, owing to your perception 
that no one can arrive at conclusions which are themselves 
certain by means of premisses which are false ^ or even uncer- 
tain. Now, in this perception of yours you are evidently 
quite right, but please observe that you cannot have the 
conviction you say you have about it except by trusting 
your faculties after all. Therefore, if you are convinced, as 
you say you are, about this impossibility of attaining con- 
clusions which are certain from false or uncertain premisses, 
you must be convinced that your faculties are not always 
fallacious, and you must also perceive that your imaginary 
demon cannot deceive you in everything. 

Therefore, doubt as we may, certainty is the inalienable 
possession of even the most absolute sceptic, who, when he 
says he is certain of nothing — even of his own scepticism — 
simply contradicts himself, and says what is mere nonsense. 

At the outset of this our most important inquiry, namely, 
the study of our highest faculties, it is necessary for the 
reader thus to see clearly that certainty exists, and that he 
not only can but must possess it about some things, or else 
pay the penalty of drifting into imbecility and mental im- 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 219 

potence. He would, indeed, be compelled to affirm the 
certainty of uncertainty, and so to contradict himself, and 
to deny the truth of the system he at the same time up- 
holc'^. Such a position is so unspeakably foolish a one, 
that it cannot be understood and seriously maintained by 
any $ane mind. 

Fibm this fact it is well to note that an important con- 
sequf nee follows : no proposition, no argument, and no sys- 
texK^ of thought, which logically and necessarily results in 
su:h absolute scepticism, can be valid ; and every system, 
argyihfient, and proposition which carries with it such con- 
sciences, can thus be shown to be false by a process of 
reiuctio ad absurdum. 

Unquestionably, then, certainty exists; but the recogni- 
tion of this truth constitutes but a very small step on the 
rcd.d to an inquiry as to what propositions are most true, 
9id on what evidence do they depend ? 

Now, our imaginary sceptic was shown to have based his 
scepticism on the following process of reasoning — on the 
syllogism : 
All conclusions resulting from 

uncertain or false premisses are untrustworthy. 
But the declaratipns of my 

mental faculties . . are conclusions resulting 

from uncertain or false 
premisses. 
Therefore, the declarations of 

my mental faculties . are untrustworthy. 

He, therefore, must have been under the persuasion that 
reasoning is the test of truth, and there are not a few persons 
who are similarly minded and think that, in order to be ab- 
solutely certain about anything, it must be capable of proof, 
as also that to accept as true anything which is incapable of 
proof, is to accept a conviction blindly. 



220 THE GROUNDWORK. OF SCIENCE 

Of course it is common enough and reasonable r^^t 

ask for proof to be given with respect to any nev :iut 
ordinary statement, and it is most reasonable no "^n 
to any proposition which does not possess suflficien .^^r 

It is also true that the greater part of our kni ^i^g 
gained by us indirectly, by inference or testimony > 
kind. And thus it has come about that many p >is 

before said) have acquired, half -unconsciously, a p .:^f 
that to believe anything which cannot be proved y 

of irrational credulity, and thus a tendency has . '- 

distrust any assertion for which no proof is offered. ^ 

But, as we before pointed out,* however long j 

cesses of proof may be, they must stop somewhei 
cannot go on reasoning forever if anything is eve X 
proved. Therefore, every valid process of reasoni» ri^ 
ultimately depend upon propositions which need nc 
and are undemonstrable — not ** undemonstrable *' b< i 

like matters which have been taken on trust, we can 
no evidence for them, but because they are so lumi . 
self-evident that they admit of no demonstration, notl j 
else being so clearly and necessarily true as they are. We 
have, indeed, just said that it is most reasonable to demand 
sufficient evidence for any proposition to which our assent is 
demanded. But that evidence need not be external evi- 
dence, and the evidence of those ultimate propositions which 
need no proof is, and must be, internal evidence, '^hey 
carry with them their own evidence, and so are evidenc in 
and by themselves. 

Thus the reasoning of our supposed sceptic — his syllogism 
— reposes on premisses which are accepted by him as true — 
the major very reasonably, though the minor, most mis- 
takenly. 

Either, therefore, we have no certainty as to anything — a 

' See antts p. 103. 



I 



^*^'^ELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 221 

potci e have seen to be absurd and untenable — or the 

certa. .*is upon which our certainty ultimately reposes 
to del \ are self-evident and need no proof. If, also, it 
hole 'jie to accept as true, statements which are shown 

that .. y reasoning, it must be still more reasonable to ac- 
any r fositions which are shown to be true in and by 

Fr« jg : which are evident to our intellect as necessarily 
seque the statement that we have a feeling which at the 
tern enow by our consciousness we actually possess, 

sue >reader still has some feeling of dissatisfaction or 

argur rt about the self-evidence of ultimate truths, we 
seq {k him to reconsider the reasoning of our supposed 
^^^ ;' sceptic. We represented him as objecting that he 

^ btain no external evidence as to the correspondence 
tio ternal convictions with external realities, 

ro' ^s then suppose that he could, by some unimaginable 
^ -, get outside his present mental state and view his 
-ions and the objects they were related to, from out- 
V o that he could compare them one with the other, and 
o.:^ ^irt a higher kind of conviction — in a secondary mental 
state -as to their correspondence. But how could he thereby 
gain any better assurance as to the objective correspondence 
of the convictions of his subjective secondary mental state 
with respect to the objective realities of the comparisons he 
had originally made ? For this he would need to go outside 
hip' '/If again, and then again and yet again forever, with- 
out* ever attaining to any better grounded conviction than 
the one wherewith he originally set forth. Sooner or later 
he must accept self-evidence as sufficient (as we before 
provisionally pointed out),* or he must fall into absolute 
scepticism, which is a form of idiocy. What other or better 
criterion, or ground of belief, could any ultimate truth pos- 
sibly have ? Any criterion of an ultimate proposition must 

* See ante^ p. 57. 



222 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

be contained either in that proposition itself, and so make 
it luminously self-evident, or else in something external to 
it. Now any external criterion, however complete and 
perfect it may be, could only be appreciated by us through 
our perception of it and our judgment about it. If a pro- 
position suddenly appeared written upon a cloud, or on the 
face of the full-moon, we could not on that account accept 
it as certainly true till we had examined the evidences which 
circumstances could possibly afford us. Our first impres- 
sion, of course, would be that we were the victims of a 
hallucination, and next, the question of the possibility and 
probability of common hallucinations would have to be 
taken into consideration. But, finally, and at last, if we 
did accept the proposition as true, it would only be because 
we perceived that our ultimate judgments about it were 
self-evidently so. If the proposition so written were, " Two 
added to two make five," we should not believe it to be 
true any the more for its inexplicable appearance. By no 
external criterion, then, neither by the absurd one just im- 
agined, nor by any other, could we be furnished with better 
evidence than we already possess. We could but have self- 
evidence, after all, as our ultimate criterion. It will be 
clearly seen, on reflection, that nothing external — no com- 
mon consent of mankind, common-sense, or any amount of 
human testimony — could ever take the place of an ultimate 
criterion of knowledge, since some judgment of our own 
mind must always decide for us with respect to the existence 
and the value of such criteria. Self-evidence, then, is the 
necessary and only criterion of truth. The principle of evi- 
dence is one which is really ultimate, and must be accepted 
under pain either of futile reasoning, or of complete intellect- 
ual paralysis. It is, of course, necessarily incapable of demon- 
stration or any kind of proof, since it depends on nothing 
else. We all of us assume it as a criterion unconsciously. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 223 

and it is confidently acted on by everyone who reasons. 
But when we ponder over the matter, we see that what we 
have thus done spontaneously, through the natural activity 
of our intellect, has been done most reasonably. Did we 
not adopt it, we should not only be utterly unable to think 
logically, but should be plunged into the most utter and 
most absurd mental disorganisation. 

On the other hand, by recognising that criterion for what 
it must be, and is, we gain a secure foundation for our 
knowledge, and are enabled to make progress in science. 
Our mental condition is, by such recognition, transformed 
from a hopeless chaos into an orderly cosmos. 

It has now, we trust, been made sufficiently clear to the 
attentive reader (what has been incidentally put forward in 
earlier chapters) that his own mind — ^that the mind of each 
one of us — already possesses absolute certainty about some 
things, and that his intellect declares that things which are 
clearly seen to be evident in and by themselves possess the 
greatest certainty which it is possible for the human mind 
to attain to, and that such certainty is abundant. 

If one is so unfortunate as not to be able to see this 
clearly, and not to be able to have a firm conviction that 
there is such a thing as certainty, as also that many things 
are actually and in fact certain, then he had better close 
this volume and abstain from opening any other work on 
science, contenting himself with simple matters, the toils 
and pleasures of every -day life, without a thought beyond. 

Having satisfied ourselves once for all that certainty 
exists, and that the criterion of certainty is evidence, 
whereof intrinsic self-evidence is the highest kind, our next 
step should be an endeavour to ascertain what things are 
most evident — what things are supremely certain. 

In our third chapter we contended that we have an intui- 
tion of an external, independent world of extended things. 



224 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

This is equivalent to the affirmation that extended things 
are self-evident, and that we do actually affirm them so to 
be. Nevertheless, as we have before pointed out,* the self- 
evidence and certainty of the existence of such an external 
world do not attain to the very highest degree of certainty 
and evidence. They have not this pre-eminence, because 
we have to obtain their certainty through the ministry of 
the senses, by the aid of which, together with reflection, we 
recognise the action of external bodies upon us, and the 
sensations they excite within us, through which (without 
our at first attending to and recognising our sensations) such 
bodies are made present to our minds so that we perceive 
them. The fact that we gain this perception by so com- 
plex a process (though, through it, we cognise objects 
directly and not reflexly, or by inference),' makes us able 
to entertain a sort of fictitious doubt about the nature of 
our perceptions of external things, but for which all idealism 
would be absolutely impossible. We may (because many 
persons do) believe that our inevitable perception of the 
world about us is either an inference or a delusion, even to 
the extent of regarding ourselves as the one only cause of 
everything we perceive — that is to say, we may accept 
solipsism. As our own body is, for our mind, one portion, 
though a very peculiar portion, of the external world, 
doubts which may be entertained about that world must 
apply also to it. Moreover, what we perceive with the 
greatest certainty about the external world is just that which 
our senses do not and cannot show us. That secondary 
qualities should be, objectively, very different from what we 
subjectively feel them to be we can easily admit ; but that, 
underlying them, there should not be an unperceived and 
imperceptible substance in each body, constituting it essen- 
tially a ** thing in itself," belies that intuition of extension 

' Sec ante, p. 46. * See ante, p. 62. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 225 

by which we know bodies to be the self-evident entities they 
are, and thus and therefore it is that idealism is in conflict 
with sound sense. 

So with respect to the existence of our own bodies : the 
supreme certainty we have about it is not merely what is 
present in the feeling of the moment, but the cognition we 
have of it is gained (as we shall shortly see) through our 
faculty of memory together with the exercise of reflection. 

Thus all that is most evidently and supremely certain for 
us is not, as so commonly supposed, anything we experience 
in sensation, nor anything we cognise in examining or ex- 
perimenting with material things, but, on the contrary, 
exclusively that which is immaterial, abstract, and mental. 

The truth of whatever is true, and the evidence of what- 
ever is evident, can be most perfectly known to us only by 
thought and not sensation. Not observation, not experi- 
ment, not sensitivity, but thought and thought only (as we 
pointed out earlier),* is and must be our supreme, ultimate, 
and absolute criterion. Our last appeal in all cases is and 
must ever be to a perception — an intuition — of the intellect. 

Nevertheless, a mental world of abstract intuitions and 
nothing else could never supply us with a knowledge of 
science, still less with a perception of the groundwork of 
all science. Abstract intuitions furnish us with fundamental 
principles, which are not only priceless in themselves, but 
are also indispensable elements in all reasoning. But be- 
sides such processes of reasoning and such fundamental 
principles, science requires a knowledge of absolute facts. 
Without such facts all our reasonings must remain, as it 
were, in the air, and could never descend to earth and be- 
come of practical utility to us. There are, therefore, three 
categories of truths, the perception of all of which is indis- 
pensably necessary for science. These are : (i) certain general 

' See anUy p. 14. 



226 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

principles ; (2) certain particular facts ; and (3) certain pro- 
cesses of reasoning. 

Without a knowledge of certain general principles we 
could not argue; without a knowledge of certain facts all 
our reasoning would merely concern abstract ideas; and 
without a reference to concrete reality, and without some 
criterion of valid reasoning, we could never arrive at any 
conclusion or discover and explicitly recognise implicit 
truths, no inferences could be deduced, and no advance in 
science could be consequently attained. 

We will select from the category of particular facts one 
which may serve as a solid foundation and starting-point 
towards a pursuit of our object. 

Let us suppose that certain definite observations and ex- 
periments have been carried on — such, e, g,^ as those which 
were performed by the late M. Pasteur with a view to the 
treatment of rabies. Now there is one supremely important 
truth which is implied in our certainty as to the result of 
any such experiment, whatever that result may be. Unless 
we can be sure that it was we who both began the experi- 
ment and also witnessed its conclusion — that there had been 
no change in our personality while experimenting — such 
conclusion could not be confidently relied on by us, as we 
have before pointed out.* The most fundamental of all 
facts for our purpose is the fact of our continous personal 
existence. 

Now, of course, no one is so mad as to deny that he 
knows his existence at the moment he thinks about it. We 
have already noticed the absolute certainty we have about 
any feeling while we feel it; and as nothing can feel which 
docs not exist, the certainty about the existence of a feel- 
ing makes no less certain the existence of him who feels it. 
It is not this momentary knowledge of self-existence — what 

' See ante^ p. 10 1. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 22/ 

is known as the "empirical Ego '* — which is here in ques- 
tion, but the existence of our being continuously, from hour 
to hour, from day to day, from year to year, and from child- 
hood till the present time. 

Such a " continuous self," it has been again and again 
affirmed by followers of Hume, cannot be known (i) with 
supreme certainty, such as attends our certainty about our 
possession of any present feeling we may have ; and (2) that 
it cannot be certainly known because it cannot be known 
absolutely and by itself, but always as some modification or 
present state of consciousness. 

But, in the first place, though we may be perfectly certain 
about our possessing any present feeling, that certainty is 
not in XhQ feeling but in the conscious thought which recog- 
nises the existence of the feeling. Secondly, not only is it 
untrue that we cannot have supreme certainty about our 
continuous existence, but the supremacy and certainty we 
have of that is actually higher in degree than is our certainty 
about our possessing any present state of feeling. 

What we are conscious of when not directing our own 
mind backwards upon its own experiences is a direct con- 
sciousness of whatever we may be about — what we may be 
doing or feeling — and whatever may be done to us — what 
we are doing or suffering. The focus of our consciousness 
(the apex of the conscious wave) is not directed either upon 
our own existence from moment to moment, or upon the 
particular feeling or state of consciousness which we may 
then have. We can, however, at almost any moment direct 
it backwards and reflect upon either of these, and so attain 
supreme certainty either about our continuous existence 
from moment to moment, or upon the feeling or state of 
consciousness then present with us. 

Let the reader test this assertion by his own experience. 
As, for example, let him examine what his mind is oc- 



228 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

cupied about while sitting and attentively reading these 
pages. 

He will find his mind is not occupied about the feelings 
occasioned by his sitting in the chair which supports him, 
or the book he holds in his hand, any more than it is oc- 
cupied about his own continuous existence, but about the 
contents of this book. Yet he can at will make himself 
explicitly aware of either his feelings or his perception of 
his own self-existence. After thus turning his mind back 
upon itself he will then be able to say, either ** I have the 
feelings which attend holding and reading a book on the 
Groundwork of Science," or he may say to himself, ** It is 
I who have these feelings." But, as before said, this is not 
a natural, primary act, but an act of reflection — that is, a 
secondary act. No one, when he begins to think, adverts 
either to his ** present feelings*" or to his ** continuous per- 
sonal existence." No one begins by perceiving his act of 
perception a bit more than he begins by expressly adverting 
to the fact that it is he himself who perceives it. 

Only by reflecting on the direct spontaneous perception 
of the mind is it that we can explicitly see (by such a second- 
ary act) that our perceptions and feelings are perceptions 
and feelings, or that it is truly we who perceive and feel. 
When a man playing cricket is having his innings, he has all 
the ** perceptions " and ** states of consciousness " which 
attend the assumption of the fit postures for the reception 
and striking of the ball, and for gaining such runs as his ad- 
dress may make possible. He knows very well all the time 
what he is about during his play. But he never directs his 
mind upon ** his states of consciousness," or ** the persist- 
ence of his being." What he directly regards is what he is 
doing and what is being done to him — the defence of his 
wicket from the attack of the bowler. If he were to divert 
his attention therefrom to either his own ** perceptions " or 



<< 
<< 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 229 

his ** persistent existence," the result would certainly not 
contribute to the success of the eleven whereof he was a 
member. 

But we said that when men do so reflect, the certainty 
thus gained of a persistent existence is even higher in degree 
than that of any present feeling, perception, or state of con- 
sciousness. And in fact, it is the ** self " which is the more 
prominently given. For the ** feeling " or ** perception " 
is perceived as our present *' feeling " or '* perception," and 
cannot be cognised altogether apart from the ** self." But 
our *' self-existence " can be cognised without our advert- 
ence to any feeling which may accompany such cognition or 
to any ** perception " as such. 

In all our ordinary perceptions, wherein there is but a 
direct " and no ** reflex " cognition of either ** self " as 
existing " or of our " perception " as being such, it is the 
self again which is, as it were, nearer the surface of the 
mind. For we are sure, at least in our own case, that a 
more laborious mental act is needed to bring explicitly be- 
fore the mind the " feelings " implicitly contained in any 
perception, than to bring explicitly before the mind the 
self-existence implicitly contained in any such perception, 
as also that the existence of the self, as self, is more readily 
recognised than the existence of a perception as a percep- 
tion. 

Men repeatedly and very quickly advert to the fact that 
actions or sufferings are their own. They are generally 
prompt to claim any merit there may be in the former, or 
to cry out against the unmerited character of the latter. 
They do not, however, by any means so repeatedly and 
quickly advert to the fact that the feelings and perceptions 
they experience are ** existing feelings and perceptions." 

We think, therefore, it is impossible to deny that to 
assert we can know our ** states of consciousness" more 



230 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

certainly and directly than we can know the " continuously 
existing self" which has them, is a most profound and 
fundamental mistake. 

We are at this moment writing : we feel the pen and the 
motions of our hand and arm, and recognise that we have 
such sensations, and that we perceive hand and arm, pen, 
ink, and paper. But ordinarily, when writing, we no more 
advert to such ** perceptions " than we advert to our '* per- 
ceptions " when running up or down stairs. It is plain that 
we do not so advert; for as surely as our attention is so 
directed, our movements in writing become hampered in 
the one case, and a stumble on the staircase ' is very likely to 
occur in the second. Much less inconvenience ensues from 
turning the mind inwards (while writing or running up or 
down stairs), and recognising our existence, than from ad- 
verting to our bodily movements while thus occupied. 
Thus here, again, we may recognise the fact that of the two 
certainties, the certainty of our own existence from moment 
to moment is more easily attained than the certainty as to 
what is the nature of the various feelings and perceptions 
which may accompany the actions above referred to, or any 
others. 

But, as we have noted, it has been objected against the 
possibility of our self-knowledge that we can never know 
ourselves absolutely and unmodified, but only in some state 
or under some relation. Now it is very true that we have 
no intuition of our own psychical being in its essence, and 
apart from any of its activities, passivities, and relations. 
But then the same thing can be, and must be, said of every- 
thing else we perceive. In fact, nothing we can in any way 
perceive exists apart from everything else, or ** absolutely " 
— as it is (in our opinion) very unreasonably termed. 

Everything which exists, exists always in some state or 

* See anU, p. 117. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 23 1 

condition, and stands in some definite relation to other 
things. Small wonder, then, if we do not know things in a 
way in which they never do and probably never can exist. 
We can know nothing by itself, for the very good reason 
that nothing exists " by itself." It is quite true that we 
have never known our own existing being except in some 
state ; but then we have never known anything else except 
in the same manner. Our knowledge of ourselves is, in this 
respect, like our knowledge of anyone else. Many persons 
knew, as we did, the late Professor Huxley, but no one ever 
knew, or could possibly imagine, him except in some state 
—either standing or not standing, speaking or silent, etc. 
But that did not in the least prevent them from knowing 
him well, and the fact of his continuous existence for a 
greater or less number of years. 

To many of our readers this exposition of the certainty 
we have concerning our own continuous existence may seem 
superfluous. But just as we have been convinced that it 
was necessary to make as evident as it was in our power 
to do, the truth that certainty exists and what is its crite- 
rion, so we are convinced it is necessary to do our best to 
show that the first and most fundamental of all facts is the 
fact of our continuous being. If doubts as to either of 
these truths cannot be entirely expelled from the mind of 
any inquirer, that mind must remain subject to a sort of in- 
tellectual falling-sickness, rendering all steady progress in 
what concerns science really hopeless, and a pursuit of 
Epistemology utterly futile. The fact of self-existence 
from day to day is the most fundamental and important 
of all facts about which our minds can give us any informa- 
tion — not on its own account so much as on account of the 
consequences which follow its distinct recognition, as we 
shall clearly see when we come to speak of memory. 

But before leaving this subject, we must notice one further 



232 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

objection against the possibility of our knowledge of our 
own continuous and substantial being. 

It has been said that the self of each instant, the self the 
existence of which no one denies (the " empirical Ego "), 
must, if we know our continuous substantial existence, be 
identical with an underlying principle of unity, continuous 
and enduring (the ** pure Ego "). This, we are told, is im- 
possible, because the Ego of each instant is the feeling 
** subject," while the underlying principle is an existence — 
is a thing — thought about, and is an "object " of cognition. 
But the ** subjective " and ** objective *' are necessarily anti- 
thetical, and therefore the " pure ** and " empirical " Egos 
must be separated from each other by the unfathomable 
chasm which divides ** subject " from ** object." 

Yet, as we have seen, the ** pure Ego " can be perceived 
in conjunction with its states, modifications, and relations, 
and recognised as being the *' Ego " which also recognises 
that identity. 

The fact is that our own being — our Ego— differs from 
everything else whatever in that it can be, and is, both 
** subject " and ** object." It is, as we before noted,* in a 
sense subject and object identijied; though more cognised as 
especially the one or especially the other, according to the 
direction taken by the mind at one or another moment. 

We have but to turn our minds carefully inwards and ad- 
vert to what our consciousness tells us in order to be able 
clearly to see that the fact of our own substantial existence 
is a truth which carries with it its own evidence, and is 
absolutely certain in and by itself. 

We say, **what consciousness tells us," but by that we do 
not mean consciousness only of the present but also our 
consciousness as to some of the past. For it is not a 
momentary existence, but a substantial and continuous 

' Sec ante^ p. 139. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 233 

existence, the certainty of which we have been affirming is 
both so fundamental and supreme. 

Our knowledge of our continuous existence carries with it 
the conviction of the validity of our faculty of memory.^ It 
is, of course, obvious that by asserting the validity of this 
faculty we do not and cannot mean that our memory is 
always to be trusted. For everyone knows, and generally 
regrets, that there are things he is certain he once knew but 
which he can no longer recollect. As age advances, the 
recollection of the facts of the recent past becomes gradually 
less, and there are many instances of exceptionally defective 
memory, sometimes of a whole subject-matter, sometimes 
of particular parts thereof. But all these exceptional phe- 
nomena do not affect the assertion of the general trustwor- 
thiness of memory — the assertion that what most people 
remember clearly and distinctly, and which they are certain 
really was as they remember it, did in fact occur as they 
remember it. Putting aside exceptional persons, in patho- 
logical conditions, it is certain that everyone can recollect a 
portion of his past experience — either what has just occurred 
or what happened at a somewhat earlier, or very much 
earlier, date. 

It is also obvious that the trustworthiness of memory is 
implied in our knowledge of our own existence, since we 
could never know either what our most recently experienced 
feelings or our direct perceptions of the empirical Ego have 
been save by the aid of memory. Therefore the certainty 
we have as to the one or the other of these carries with it a 
certainty that our memory can inform us truly as to the 
past. 

As we have before pointed out, in order that memory 
should exist, it is necessary that whatever is remembered 
should be recognised by him who remembers it as having 

^ See ante, p. 100. 



234 ^^^ GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

occurred before, and without such recognition no recurrence 
of a bygone mental image, however many times it should 
occur, would be an act of memory. 

But there are two forms of real memory. All our readers, 
we are quite sure, have now and again tried to recall some- 
thing they know they before knew and ought to recollect. 
As memory is not truly a voluntary act, they can only turn 
their minds in this or that direction, which they think may 
possibly or probably lead them to it, till at last they have 
thus succeeded, and have before their minds once more 
the thought they wanted to regain. Such a mode of re- 
appearance, due to a more or less prolonged effort of the 
imagination directed in different directions by the will, is 
distinguishable as recollection. 

But very often an image of the past suddenly appears 
in consciousness unsought — unbidden — and, it may be, its 
reappearance is far from a welcome one. Such a spontane- 
ous resurrection of past thoughts and images is distinguish- 
able as reminiscence. 

It is ** recollection," the presence of which is implied in 
our reflex knowledge of our own existence, because for that 
we voluntarily turn the mind backwards on itself. We have 
spoken of our knowledge of our existence ** from moment 
to moment," because we are not sure that it is possible ever 
to know the present moment by a reflex act. It is true that 
it is possible to look at a coloured object and say, ** Now I 
see red." In our own case, it seems to us that we can thus 
be reflexly conscious of the present moment. Nevertheless, 
we cannot be sure that in this we do not deceive ourselves. 
For since we are a unity made up of material existence, 
thought, and feeling; since the mind cannot act in any way 
without some concurrent action of the nervous system ; and 
since no nervous action can take place without requiring a 
certain time for its performance, it appears to us that the 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 235 

reflex act which recognises ** I am I," or ** My feeling is 
now being felt/' must be one that occupies a portion of 
time, however minute, and that therefore the existence, or 
act, thus reflexly cognised, must be an existence or act of 
the moment past. That our faculties, with our bodily 
organisation, may fail to seize on this minute and moment- 
ary state of succession, is no more wonderful than that an 
iron bar, red-hot at one end, should, when very rapidly 
twirled, give our eyes the impression of a circle of light. 

But, however this matter may be, though mistakes of 
various kinds are possible, we are none the less all of us cer- 
tain as to some past events in our lives. It may be an event 
of childhood ; it may be one when leaving school ; it may 
be our marriage ; or it may be the last thing that those who 
are now reading this did before they began to read it. As 
to some portions of the past, memory gives us as much cer- 
tainty as we can have with respect to some portions of the 
present — if we can have reflex knowledge of anything abso- 
lutely present. 

If we could not trust our faculty of memory, not only 
would all history be impossible, but we could never order 
our future conduct according to the lessons our experiences 
of life ought, and are supposed, to give us. 

But the veracity of the faculty of memory can never be 
proved, and is, manifestly, a self-evident truth carrying with 
it its own certainty. There can be no possible proof of it, 
because we cannot argue at all unless we already trust it. 
How could we ever reach the conclusion of a syllogism if we 
could not trust our memory as to what the assertions of the 
major and minor premisses were ? 

Yet, marvellous to relate, an eminent physicist once de- 
clared that we may trust our memory because we learn its 
trustworthiness by experience ! Surely never was fallacy 
more glaring! How could we ever gain experience at all 



236 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

unless we trusted our memory in gaining it ? What the 
physicist said, in effect, amounted to this: '* You may trust 
your present memory because experience has confirmed it, 
while you can only know that it has confirmed it by trusting 
your present memory! " 

But memory, as will be quickly pointed out, performs a 
yet more wonderful office than any we have yet described. 

In the beginning of this work * we pointed out the great 
distinction which exists between the ** objective " and the 
" subjective." 

Every " feeling," '' thought," ** desire," *• volition," or 
other "state of consciousness" present to the mind of 
whoever is the subject of it, is spoken of as being " subjec- 
tive." It is a thing which pertains to the subject — to the 
mind which feels or thinks. The whole of such experiences, 
taken together, constitute the subjective worldy or the sphere 
of subjectivity. 

On the contrary, everything whatever which exists exter- 
nally to our present consciousness or feelings is spoken of as 
being " objective"; and all that is thus external to the 
mind constitutes the objective worlds and is the region of 
objectivity. It is the world of real objects — the world which 
occasions thought or feeling as opposed to the subjective 
modifications so occasioned. 

Everything which is subjective pertains to the self or 
Ego during the time in which that "self" is feeling or 
thinking. 

Everything which is objective is external to the self which 
is feeling or thinking, so that all states, even of the " self ** 
or " Ego," which are anterior to the time when that self or 
Ego feels, are also objective — objects of thought, indeed, 
but not the thought or feeling of the thinking subject — not 
subjective. 

' See ante^ pp. 8, 9. 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 237 

All thoughts and feelings are '* objects" and objective 
while they are being thought of or reflected upon, while the 
acts of " thinking about " them or ** reflecting on " them 
are subjective. 

It is generally recognised that there is no greater antithesis 
than that which exists between the subject which thinks 
and everything which may or can be an object of thought. 
It is the great distinction between the ** self " and the ** not- 
self." Every modern philosopher, beginning with Des- 
cartes, has sought in vain to discover a bridge capable of 
spanning that abyss. To avoid the difliculty the material- 
ists have simply ignored the need of a bridge, and pretended 
they were already on the other side, having effected the 
transit by an act of blind credulity ; while the idealists, like 
the philosophers of Laputa, have tried by elaborate calcula- 
tions and manipulations of mere feelings to bring the other 
side over to themselves. 

Yet all the time nature has provided us with the simplest 
and most practically useful of bridges in the mere existence 
of that conscious memory which is involved in our perception 
of our own substantial being. 

That is the ** yet more wonderful office " performed by 
memory to which we recently made reference. It is the 
bridge implanted in our own being between object and sub- 
ject. It is memory which enables us to get intellectually 
outside our present selves and our present feelings and sen- 
sations, in a way no sane man can question. 

For memory, inasmuch as it reveals to us part of our own 
past, reveals to us what is '* objective," and so actually in- 
troduces us into the realm of objectivity , shows us more or 
less of objective truth, and carries us (as we have before said) 
into a real world beyond the range of our present feelings, 
our sensations and sense-impresses. 

The power which memory possesses of thus lifting us, as it 



238 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

were, out of our present selves and showing us facts which 
otherwise we could never know, is certainly a most wonder- 
ful power; and, if we only have certainty as to one of our 
past experiences, even if that took place but a few hours 
ago, one such certainty would alone be sufficient to prove 
indisputably that we can and do, through the faculty of 
memory, learn real objective truth and can be certain about 
much more than mere "impressions" and ** sense-im- 
presses,*' more than "appearances " and "present feelings," 
more than mere "phenomena" — namely, about objective 
reality. 

Thus the fact that we can know with certainty our sub- 
stantial, continued existence, and facts anterior to our 
present feelings, is a truth fruitful indeed with far-reaching 
consequences. 

We have said that in the recognition, by a reflex act, of 
our continued being, subject and object were, " in a sense," 
identified. 

We used the expression " in a sense " for a very definite 
and important reason, for though in that recognition subject 
and object are to a certain extent conjoined and so " identi- 
fied," yet what memory vouches for remains truly " object- 
ive " ; our past states and experiences are distinct objects 
of cognition. Nevertheless, the consciousness which recog- 
nises them and affirms, through them, our own identity (all 
through the changes and experiences we have undergone), 
is no less completely and truly " subjective" — it is the 
conscious act of the subject which cognises and witnesses its 
own being and past experience. 

Therefore, in this act, subject and object, in one sense, 
keep the distinctness of their two natures, while, in another 
sense, they become identified in a single act of reflex con- 
scious cognition. 

In this circumstance we have indeed a vast and profound 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 239 

distinction between human nature and anything of which 
the psychical being of mere animals has as yet, to our 
knowledge, shown itself capable. No one pretends that 
brutes possess this marvellous intuition, while it is and must 
be present, however unrecognised, in any savage who has 
but one recollection of anything he has done or has had 
done to him. 

It is thus alone that we can unite the past with the 
present. and say ** I am." These two words have an im- 
mense significance for anyone who will carefully ponder over 
them. They signify that he who utters them intelligently 
recognises certain past acts as his own acts, and that a con- 
tinuous unity (himself) has persisted, essentially the same, 
for a longer or shorter time and has had more or less varied 
experiences. He who utters them also thereby indicates 
that he has the power of knowing at least one objective 
existence which his senses cannot perceive. 

Such must be the case, because our senses can only feel 
what is present to them ; they can never feel the past. The 
very fact of our feeling anything shows, with certainty, that 
something is actually present which occasions that feeling. 
But it is clear to everyone that his intellect can, by the help 
of memory, know with certainty something which is far from 
being present here and now, namely, some event of his past 
life. Similarly, he is thus able to perceive his own continu- 
ous existence, which is most certainly a thing which cannot 
be felt. Our body can, of course, be felt as often as we like, 
in several ways at the same time, and as long as we choose 
to feel it. Nevertheless, each time we feel it we can but 
experience the present feeling, and without memory and 
without reflex acts of the intellect, we cannot know that our 
own body has, and has had, a continuous enduring exist- 
ence. It can never h^ felt as** enduring,'* although by the 
aid of repeated sensations it can be intellectually perceived to 



240 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

be enduring. But the intellect, aided by memory, can 
know very well, by itself and directly, that it has an endur- 
ing permanence, and that the thought of the day before 
yesterday was its own thought. It can know this with a 
degree pf certainty which it is impossible to attain to as 
regards any other fact. To doubt the continuous existence 
of our body from day to day would be absurd indeed, 
and a sure sign of lunacy; but to doubt the continuous 
existence of the intellect, while illuminated by a clear 
memory as to some of its past acts, known with certainty 
to have been performed, would be infinitely still more 
absurd. 

This power of memory, however, is so wonderful, and the 
consequences which follow the recognition of the work it 
does are so profound, that it is in no way surprising its 
value should have been underestimated. Yet, as we have 
seen, its validity cannot be impugned without intellectual 
suicide and falling into a fatuous system of universal scepti- 
cism. The self-evident truth that our faculty of memory 
is valid is one, the acceptance of which is absolutely neces- 
sary for the pursuit of any inquiry, and for the full recogni- 
tion of what is for us the most certain of all facts, namely, 
the fact of our own existence. 

We have now seen (i) that certainty does exist — that 
there is such a thing as certainty — (2) that our own existence 
is a most certain fact, and (3) is vouched for by our self- 
evidently valid faculty of memory. 

But facts alone, however certain and well-remembered, 
cannot constitute science without the aid of some abstract 
fundamental principles. We require a knowledge of some 
principles which are self-evidently true ever and always. 
Otherwise we could never arrive at certain truths with 
respect to any matter of investigation or study. These 
principles, also, must not merely be laws and conditions of 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 24 1 

our own mind, but must be true of all objects open to our 
ken. They must be true objectively as well as subjectively, 
and must be laws of "things" no less than laws of 
** thought." They must be seen to be necessarily true 
everywhere and every when, quite independently of any or 
of every mind. If such be the case, the same laws must 
apply to the most common circumstances of every-day life 
as well as to the highest matters of philosophy. They 
must also be no mere blind mental processes, the result of 
any faculty such as instinct, or be due to any kind of non- 
rational impulse. Their influence must be seen in daily life, 
in actions resulting from definite and certain intellectual 
first principles and necessary and evident truths, to which 
the competent philosopher can always trace them. This 
does not mean they are evident as such principles and truths 
to the mind of every man who uses them, but that their 
truth is completely evident without reflection. In vain will 
the village grocer try to persuade the farmer's wife that if 
from sixteen ounces of tea two ounces be removed, the rest 
is none the less equal to a pound. She will be quite sure 
such is not the case, though she may be quite guiltless of 
the knowledge of a single axiom. Similarly, if a labourer 
has given the whole of his week's wages to his wife, he will 
be quite sure no part of them is still in his pocket, though 
he never heard a word about any first principles. The intel- 
lectual light of such first principles illuminates the intellect 
of every sane man, be he civilised or savage. Not, most 
certainly, that savages and ignorant men can know such 
principles as abstract truths. But those principles, none the 
less, reveal themselves to the mind in the concrete facts of 
every-day life as practical motives for judging and acting. 
It is true we cannot explain hotv these truths became thus 
practically apprehended in the objects and actions of our 

constant experience, but we are and must be ignorant of 
16 



242 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

'* how ** anything, which is for us ultimate, is, whf '^ui 
may be. The ** that " must ever be final. The ** 
can never be so, for the answer to every ** how " n oc 
a ''that.'' 

The first and most important of these principles is the 
perception of the reality of existence — that what we per- 
ceive to exist evidently does in truth so exist. This is often 
expressed by the formula, ** A is A," a formula which to 
some persons appears utterly trivial, but which, never^* 
less, lies at the basis of all our knowledge, and is a . 
mental certainty without which no science could even 
to be. 

Another principle is that known as " the e> - 

middle," which affirms that any given thing must eii 
or not be, closely allied with which is that great regu 
principle to which we have already adverted,* and wh 
called *' the principle of contradiction'' — the pri. 
namely, that nothing can, at one and the same time, 
be and not be. 

Now it has been strangely objected against this law r .he 
universe, that it is but a law of grammar, or, at most, of 
logic. It has been said * to be but *' a verbal conventi >n," 
not possessing " objective validity." 

But the objector might be (as, in fact, he was) asked 
" whether, if he had lost an eye, he would still remain, after 
that loss, in the same condition as he was in before ? " 

If anyone does not see the objective impossibility of such 
a thing in all places and at all times — /. ^., if he does not 
apprehend the application of the law of contradiction — then 
he either does not understand the question, or his mental 
condition is pathological. 

Men may pretend to doubt such principles, their own 

* See anUy p. 105. 

' See Nature for Dec. 20, 1891, and Feb. 11, 1892. 



i 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 243 

- ice, or the objectivity of mathematical truths. But 

' practice demonstrates their unfailing confidence in 
til. •"on each occasion as it arises — as when cheated by 
false accounts, personally injured, or busied with some 
serious investigation. That nothing can simultaneously be 
existent and non-existent does not at all depend on the 
words employed to denote that truth, but is "a law of 
things,'* It would not lose its validity and objective truth, 
*- only if there were no such things as ** words " at all, 
t would not lose them if the whole human race came to 
id. The necessity and universality of this principle is 
^ recognised. Thus if we think of what the condition 

'Jigs must have been a long while ago— in the days of 
I Caesar, or when palaeolithic implements were first 
• .*dned — we shall see that the law of contradiction is as 
^'and certain with respect to the past as it is with the 
ht. We do not " think," we actually *' know " with 
iute certainty that I^d Julius Caesar been drowned off 
L. coast of Britain he could not also have been assassinated 
t in re Roman Senate House, as also that at the time when 

1 some early palaeolithic man was in the act of fashioning a 

flinl? implement, he had not then both his hands empty. 
The same certainty exists as to the most distant regions. 
;: We are quite sure that the moon's surface cannot be both 

t mountainous and also absolutely smooth, and that the spec- 

trum of a fixed star which shows certain definite lines, can- 
t not at the same time be devoid of them. Such assertions 

1:: might well seem too superfluous and trivial did not men 

^ who have written letters to the journal named Nature^ make 

ta! it only too evident that they are sorely needed. 

This first principle, this law, then, is one of those which 
f, are at once both absolute and universally necessary, while 

they are incapable of proof and carry with them their own 
evidence. 



I 



244 ^^^ GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

But it is possible that one or two of our readers may be 
startled at those words which we have more than once used, 
namely, ** absolutely necessary " and ** universal." They 
may feel some vague doubt as to how this matter may be in 
the Dog-star now, or how it may have been long ages before 
our nebula was churned into worlds — supposing the solar 
system did so arise. We may be asked: ** How is it pos- 
sible for creatures such as men are, mere insects of a day, 
inhabiting a floating atom in an obscure corner of the uni- 
verse, to know that anything is, and must be, absolutely 
true for all regions of space and the most distant abysses of 
time?" 

Yet, in fact, we know much more even than this. How- 
ever poor, feeble, and incomplete intellectually human 
nature may be, it is nevertheless endowed with power to 
see necessary limits to the action even of Omnipotence itself. 

Let us suppose that our planet might have been the abode 
of vegetable life only ; its hills and*dales and plains abound- 
ing in forests in which the voice of no songster could be 
heard or even the hum of insect life. Let us also suppose 
that the world might have been devoid of dry land and 
covered everywhere by an ocean, in the waters of which 
animal life existed exclusively and abounded. However 
possible we may suppose each of these conditions to have 
been, it is manifest that no power, however omnipotent we 
may believe it to be, could ever have made both of these 
possible states of our globe simultaneously actual. Such 
considerations as these may help to give confidence to any 
of our readers who, from want of thought, may have been 
disposed to doubt their powers of perception as to necessary 
truths and truths of a lower order. It is necessary, indeed, 
to be careful not to declare anything to be certain till it has 
been seen to be clearly and indubitably true; but it is no 
less necessary that we should not shrink from declaring that 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 245 

to be true, the certainty of which is evident to our minds, 
however wonderful it is, and however inexplicable may be 
the fact of our knowledge of it. We are able to explain 
how it is we know many things, but how we know primary 
and fundamental truths which are self-evident and neces- 
sarily incapable of proof must ever remain for us entirely 
inexplicable. Were they explicable they could not be 
ultimate. 

The feeling of distrust which some persons experience 
when they are told they can know with absolute certainty 
certain truths to be both universal and necessary, seems to 
be due to a habit of mind which has been brought about by 
an unconsciously formed association between ideas. Things 
which are very remote in space or which happened ages ago 
are generally known to us as results of elaborate mental 
processes, and some uncertainty about them is by no means 
uncommon. On the other hand, we often feel very con- 
fident about matters the circumstances and conditions of 
which are within easy reach of our powers of observation. 
Thus we have come to associate a feeling of uncertainty 
with respect to statements concerning things which are 
very remote in either time or space. It is not, then, sur- 
prising that a feeling of vague distrust should arise when 
beginners, in philosophy hear it affirmed that the law of 
contradiction applies equally to whatever concerns the 
Dog-star and our portion of the universe, myriads of ages 
before the solar system had its first origin. 

It is, as we have before said, very wonderful that we 
should have this knowledge of necessary truths, but, as 
before ' pointed out, it is most wonderful that we should 
know anything. 

Yet if we deny or doubt ** the law of contradiction " we 
fall, as before said, into the most unutterable absurdity — 

* See anU^ p. 56. 



246 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

that of absolute scepticism, which shows, by a reductio ad 
absurdum, that our denial, or doubt, was itself absurd, and 
that we must admit that law's universal validity. 

But, once more, it is no mere law of our own minds, no 
affair of mere logic, since, if we are to accept as absolutely 
true what our reason declares to be self-evident, it is a law 
which applies to all things from physical phenomena to 
mental states. Such we have seen to be the case with re- 
spect to the various instances we have put forward as 
examples. When we say that the number of balls in a 
bag cannot at the same time be both " odd " and ** even," 
we are certain that this is not a truth due to our organ- 
isation, but to the real necessary objective conditions of 
existence of the balls themselves. Our reason declares 
that the law of contradiction is no " form of thought " im- 
posed on our intellect, but is a certain and inevitable law of 
objective existence independent of our intellect. 

To doubt this would be to destroy all certainty, since it is 
a fundamental truth on which all reasoning depends. 

If we could not be sure that the fact that ** all men are 
mortal " did not necessarily imply that none could live 
forever, we could never infer the mortality of anyone as 
a consequence of his humanity. Thus for anyone to 
attempt such a task as that of "proving" the law of 
contradiction would be, in the highest degree, absurd, 
since he would be compelled already to assume its cer- 
tainty at the very outset of his demonstration — at the 
very first assertion he made. 

Our perception, therefore, of the necessary validity of the 
law of contradiction, teaches us both an absolute verity with 
respect to objective existences — with respect to the matter 
of all science — as well as the existence of our own mental 
perception thereof. 

Another principle of universal application and self-evident 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 247 

validity is the well-known axiom : " Things which are equal 
to the same thing are equal to each other." 

As with the law of contradiction, so with this axiom — it 
is practically known and constantly acted on in every-day 
life without advertence to its axiomatic character, and even 
without any knowledge of it as a recognised truth at all. 
The familiar application of* a yard measure to different ob- 
jects is an amply sufficient demonstration that such rs the 
case. But the principle applies not only to the equality of 
material things but to every kind of equality — equality 
of motion, illumination, and feeling — and it is evidently a 
principle of objective validity, and is a law of things no less 
than of thought. 

This axiom about equality, though it can be illustrated 
by any number of instances, can never be proved by reason- 
ing. It is a self-evident truth which reposes on its own evi- 
dence — as do the other axioms of mathematics. The same 
may be said of the fundamental laws of mathematics and 
geometry. 

Yet a very curious argument against the objective validity 
of our perceptions in such matters has been put forward by 
persons no less distinguished than the late Professors Clif- 
ford and Helmholtz. Their object in advancing it was to 
show by an example how truths which appear necessary to 
us are not objectively necessary. But the result of their 
efforts was the direct contrary of what they intended. 
Their intention evidently was to support the proposition, 
" We can know no truths to be absolutely necessary," but 
the result was to show that even according to them some 
truths are (and were, even in their own eyes) absolutely ne- 
cessary. The necessary truths they proposed to controvert 
were : (i) " A straight line is the shortest one which can be 
drawn between two points," and (2) ** Two straight lines 
cannot enclose a space." 



248 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

To prove their contention they imagined the existence of 
curious living creatures possessed of length and breadth but 
devoid of thickness, living on a sphere with the surface of 
which their bodies coincided. They were supposed to have 
experience of length and breadth in curves, but none of 
height or depth, or of any straight lines. To such creatures, 
it was said, our geometrical truths would not appear to be 
" truths " at all. A straight line for them would not be the 
shortest line between two points, while two parallel lines 
prolonged would enclose a space. 

But beings so extraordinarily defective might well be sup- 
posed incapable of perceiving geometrical truths evident 
enough to others less imperfect — such as ourselves. Never- 
theless, if they could at all conceive of the things we denote 
by the terms " straight lines " and ** parallel lines," then 
there is nothing to show that they could not also perceive 
those same necessary truths concerning them which are 
evident to us. 

It is strange that the very men who brought forward this 
fanciful objection actually showed, by the way they made 
it, that they themselves perceive the necessary truths of 
those very geometrical relations the necessity for which they 
verbally denied. For how, otherwise, could they affirm 
what would or woirld not be the necessary results attending 
such imaginary conditions ? How could they confidently 
declare what perceptions such conditions would certainly 
produce, unless they were themselves convinced of the 
validity of the laws regulating the experiences of such 
beings ? Anyone who should affirm (as they did) that they 
can perceive what would necessarily be the truth with re- 
gard to the perceptions of such beings, would thereby im- 
plicitly assert the existence of some necessary truths, or else 
their own argument itself must fail as utterly futile. 

There is one more general principle which, for the end we 



INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 249 

have in view, we must endeavour to depict as fully as we 
can, namely, the principle of causation. It is, however, so 
important in our eyes that we will reserve its treatment for 
the following chapter, and terminate the present one by pre- 
senting to our readers the remarks we have yet to make 
with respect to the process of reasoning. 

The process of deduction, its validity, and the force of the 
word " therefore," have been already referred to in our 
fourth chapter,* but here they niust be considered more 
fully. 

Of the many truths to a perception of which the human 
mind has attained, a large proportion have been reached by 
reasoning, and the reasoning process is, as we all know, one 
so important even to the progress of science, that any at- 
tempt to dispense with its use would be an endeavour fit 
only for a lunatic. For an exploration of the groundwork 
of science, a clear perception of the validity of the process 
of reasoning is an indispensable antecedent. Of course, it 
is in the first place necessary that all reasoning should be 
strictly logical. Logic has two ends in view : one is to teach 
us how to avoid certain errors, the commission of which 
would vitiate all our reasoning ; the other is the manifesta- 
tion of truths which are involved in, and depend upon, the 
recognition of other antecedent truths,. from the truth of 
which they necessarily follow as consequences. It is with 
the latter end of logic we are here concerned, and we have 
to make manifest the fact that the conclusion of any prop- 
erly constructed syllogism, the premisses of which are true, 
is a proposition which, as a consequence, is necessarily and 
self-evidently true. 

If it is really a fact that all female whales have mammary 
glands, or organs for suckling their young, then if a particu- 
lar animal just caught turns out to be a female whale, we 

' See ante^ p. 103. 



250 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE 

may, in that case, most confidently expect to find it pro- 
vided with such organs. 

But many objections have been made to such syllogistic 
reasoning on the ground that the conclusion is already con- 
tained in the premisses. If " all men are mortal/' such 
objectors say, then those who know that, know that any 
special man, such as Socrates, is mortal also, and, therefore, 
the assertion that he is mortal can be nothing more than a 
repetition of part of th^ major premiss. Here then, they 
say, we have no true ** inference " at all, but merely a re- 
statement. We do not " conclude " that Socrates is mor- 
tal, but only say over again, with the use of his name, what 
was said before without the use of his name. 

Now, of course, the mortality of Socrates, and the mam- 
mary glands of the freshly caught female whale, were im- 
plicitly included in what was previously known about ** all 
men " and " all female whales." Unless they were thus 
** implicit," they could never be seen to follow as explicit 
consequences in the conclusions of the respective syllogisms. 
But the syllogism really does afford fresh knowledge to the 
mind, and often very important knowledge, by making 
truths explicit and manifest, so that they can be most clearly 
recognised, which before were merely implicit^ and so were 
not necessarily obvious. 

There is, indeed, a very