A handbook of the history of philosophy : for the use of students

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BAX # HANDBOOK OF HISTORY OF

PHILOSOPHY

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BOHITS PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY.

A HANDBOOK

HISTOEY OF PHILOSOPHY.

An^andbook , 63

OF THE

EISTOEY OF PHILOSOPHY.

FOB TEE USE OF STUDENTS,

BY

EENEST BELFORT^BAX.

EDITOR OF ' KAXT's PROLEGOMENA,' ETC.:
CTHOR OP ' JEAN PAUL MARAT, A HI6T0RIC0-EI0GRAPHICAL SKETCH,' ETC.

I,

ONDON: GEORaE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.

1S86.

t^

LONDON :

PKINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND feONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STEFET AND CHAKI^G CBOSS.

PREFACE.

When I was requested to undertake the editing and re-
^vision for Bohn's Philosophical Library, of a new edition
of ' Tennemann's Manual of the History of Philosophy,' a
"very brief examination sufficed to make it evident to me
that the amount of correction and alteration required
to bring the latter only approximately up to date would
be such, that the last state of that manual would bid
fair to resemble the condition of a certain relic associated
with the Thirty Years War, resj)ecting which we are
told, the "head, neck, legs and part of the body have
been renewed, all the rest is the real horse." It was
therefore decided that I should undertake an entirely
new volume on the subject.

The plan adopted has been to give a more or less
detailed account of those philosophers who either consti-
tute epochs in the history of speculation, or at least have
contributed something of their own toward its subsequent
development, without filling the work unnecessarily with
a mere crowd of names. Of course in the case of thinkers
of subordinate importance, a selection made on this
principle must always be open to criticism, but that there
)are no flagrant cases of partiality or carelessness is my
conscientious belief.

VI PREFACE.

It will be observed that there is a progressive expansion ■
in the treatment as modern times are approached. A
bibliography has been appended where it has been con-
sidered necessary, especially in the case of those earlier
periods of which the exposition has been more condensed.
As regards later \viiters, the view taken is that the
primary need of the student is to study the original
works themselves rather than what other people have
written about them, desirable as this may be as a
■ supplementary aid. AVorks, moreover, treating of these
thinkers are numerous, and their titles readily accessible
to the student. I must, in conclusion, beg the reader
to remember, as some extenuation of any short-comings
he may find, that this little work only professes to be
a " handbook " to the study of the subject, and not an
exhaustive treatment of it.

It should also be stated that I have been ably assisted
by Mr. Davison's compilation of the excellent index
which concludes the work.

HANDBOOK

TO THE

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION.

I. What is Philosophy?

Man finds himself conscious of being in a ready-made
world, of which he forms part and parcel. He apprehends
this fact long before the impulse arises in him to compre-
hend it. He is aware, that is to say, of this world in its
concrete actuality, long before he feels himself driven to
try and become aware of it in its abstract possibility.
ted But this impulse nevertheless arises at a certain stage
1 of man's development, and the result is philosophy, which
may be described as the offspring of the conscious endeavour
to reconstruct the given world of perceptive experience —
the world found constructed in actuality — according to its
possibility. This enormous and all-embracing problem, as a
matter of course, exhibits a variety of aspects, and has
naturally been approached by many paths. The History
of Philosophy shows us these aspects as they progressively
unfold themselves to the human mind, and the various
paths that have been struck out for their investigation,
one or two proving highways, many byways, and not
a few blind roads.

The first aspect under which the problem presented
itself in ancient Greece, whose philosophical develop-
ment may be taken as typical, was that of Being or
existence; the statement was — to discover the ultimate
constituent of the physical universe. In the next stage,
the problem became refined. It was no longer an ultimate

2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. [Introd.

cosmical principle that was sought for, but the ultimate
form of existence was conceived as one of which the world of
sense was a mere mode, if it were not indeed opposed to it.
The problem of philosophy continued to be attacked on the
side of being from these two points, the concrete and the
abstract, until the Sophistic Revolution which issued in
Socrates, when the standing-ground was radically changed.
It was now seen for the first time that inasmuch as
the possibility of formulating, much more of solving the
problem of the Being of the sensible world, presupposed the
capacity of Knowing, the first step in philosophy must be
an investigation of the conditions under which this know-
ledge comes to pass, in other words, an examination of
the capacity of knowing, itself. The philosophical labours
of the two typical thinkers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle,
were mainly occupied with this problem.

Philosophy distinguishes itself from mythology and
theology, by being essentially a conscious and reasoned
efi'ort to explain the universe, while mythology and theo-
logy are, at least in their genesis, essentially the uncon-
scious and spontaneous results of a primitive imagination,
which employs the notion of volition and personality as
the basis of causal condition. The fact of their being at
a later stage refined and presented in a quasi-philosophised
guise, or supported by philosophical arguments, does not
alter their intrinsic character.

The radical distinction between philosophy and special
science lies in that while the latter is concerned either
with the classification and description of certain isolated
groups of phenomena, or with formulating the real or
causal conditions of the possibility of these groups con-
sidered jjer se, the former is occupied with the t )tality of
all phenomena, either as concerns its real conditions in
time (cosmology and psj^chology), or its elemental conditions,
i.e. the conditions of its possibility (metaphvsic proper).*
Science is concerned with a part for itself alone, while
philosophy, if it concerns itself with any part or isolated
group of phenomena at all, only regards it in its relation

* Of the di-tinction between real and elemental conditions, we sliall
have occasion to treat more at length in a subsequent division of the
J) resent work.

Introd.] I. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 3

to the whole, or as a necessary propaadeutic to a coherent
view of the whole.

The word philosophy tradition states to have been fiist
used by Pythagoras. This semi-mythical 2:)ersonage, ac-
cording to the Avell-known legend, when asked by Leon,
the tyrant of Phloeus, what vocation he followed, replied
that he had none, but that he was a philosopher. On
being interrogated as to the meaning of the woid, he
replied, that as in the Olympic Games some sought glory,
others gain, while others, more noble, came to enjoy the
spectacle ; so in life, while there were many prepared to
work for honour, many for riches, there were yet a few
who, despising all these things, found their occupation in
the contemplation and knowledge of nature and man, and
that these were the philosophers.

In the dialogue Euthydemus, Plato defines philosophy
aTi(rL<; ivLaT-^/xr]<i. It is concerned alone with the ideal^
and is identical wdth ivisdom, as opposed to opinion, the
subject-matter of which is the sensible. Aristotle some-:
times employs the term in a general sense, so as to include
all science, but retains its narrower signification for what
would now be termed Ontology, namely, the science of
Being, in itself, as opjDOsed to the subject-matter of the
special sciences. The Stoics defined wisdom (o-o<^ia), as
the science of divine and human things, but philosophy
(<^tA.oo-o<^ta),* as the endeavour after perfection, theoretic
and practical, in the three departments of Logic, Physic,
and Ethic. Philosophy, with the Stoics, thus comprehended
the whole range of human interests, active no less than
speculative, but only as a disposition of character, not a
body of doctrine, for which the former term was reserved,
which hence corresponds properly to ' philosophy.' Epi-
curus,! in a similar way, calls philosophy the rational
endeavour after happiness.

The above were the leading definitions of the term in
antiquity. Turning to modern times, we find Christian
Wolff enunciating the following, in his ' Philosophia
Kationalis,' as an original definition of philosophical
knowledge : Cognitio rationis eorum, quse sunt vel fiant unde

* Plutarch, ' De plac. philosnp.' i.

* ' Empir. adv. Math.' xi. 169.

B 2

4 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ? [Introd.

intelUgatur cur sint vel Jiant. (A knowledge of the reason
of those things which are or come to pass, by which it is
understood why they are or come to pass.) Kant divided
all knowledge into historical, cognitio ex datis (knowledge
through facts), and rational, cognitio ex principiis (know-
ledge through principles). The last was again divided
into mathematical knowledge, through the construction
of conceptions, and philosophical knowledge, through
conceptions as such. The post-Kantian definitions of
philosophy in Germany have been in most instances
based on special systems. Thus Herbart defines philo-
sophy^ as the working-out of conceptions, this working-
out consisting in definition, classification, &c. He divides
philosophy into three main departments : logic, meta-
physic, and aesthetic, the last-named including ethic.
Schelling defines philosophy as the science of the abso-
lute identity of subject and object ; Hegel, as the science
of the absolute, as dialectical movement, or, again, as
the science of the self-comprehending reason. As inde-
pendent definitions may be cited, Professor Zeller's (' Pre-
Socratic Philosophy,' vol. i. p. 8, of the English trans-
lation) : " Thought that is methodical, and directed in a
conscious manner to the cognition of things in their interde-
pendence." In Schopenhauer (Parerga und Paralipomena^
vol. ii. p. 19), w^e find the following : " Philosophy, it is true,
has experience for its subject-matter, yet not like the
other sciences, this or that particular experience ; but
rather experience itself in general, as such, according to
its possibility, its range, its essential content, its internal
and external elements, its form and matter." For
Auguste Comte, philosophy consists in the methodical
filiation of the special sciences, according to a unifying
conception ; for Herbert Spencer, it is similarly the
" unification of knowledge."

It may not be out of place, in an English Manual of
the History of Philosophy to add a few words respecting
the perversion, and in some cases the degradation the
word has suff'err3d until recently in this country.

It will be seen that all the definitions of " Philosophy '*
we have cited have this in common, that they involve the
universal, as opposed to the particular, as the subject of

Introd.] I. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 5

investigation ; they all imply the conditions of the sum of
things as the subject-matter of inquiry, either directly or
indirectly. The remarks offered at the commencement of
this section on the scope of philosophy are sufficiently
comprehensive t(j cover all these definitions, while ab-
stracting from anything in them which would narrow
the term to any particular philosophical theory.

The Englishman, however, has until recently indulged
his fancy for garnishing his conversation with high-
sounding words by vulgarising the term philosophy into
meaning any kind of reasoning on any subject whatever.
Till within the last quarter of a century the expression
natural philosophy " figured, even in the syllabuses of
academic and learned bodies, as a designation for the
department of scientific research known as Physics, while
to the common man, chemistry, astronomy, physiology,
were no less " philosophy."

We have had, besides, philosophy of manufactures, of
love, of cookery ! There is a sense, of course, in which
the expressions " philosophy of history," or " philosophy
of nature," may be justifiably employed, where, namely,
history or nature, as wholes, are treated deductively in
the light of a philosophic theory or conception, as part
of a system ; but it is needless to say that it was not in
this sense that such phrases were formerly employed
among the English-speaking race. The salutary change
which has taken place in this respect within the last few
years is one more indication of the opening up of English
culture to continental, and especially German influences,
as well as of the philosophic revival visible throughout
English-speaking communities.

The ancient division of philosophy was into Logic,
Physic (including Metaphysic), and Ethic. It is said that
this division had its origin with the Stoics. It was
certainly first definitely formulated by them. But marked
indications of it are to be found in both Plato and Aristotle.
By Logic, or organon, was understood not merely formal
logic, but the doctrine of method in general, including
theory of knowledge (or what answered as such in the
ancient world), and to some extent psychology; under
physic was embraced cosmical theory, as well as ontology,

6 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. [Introd.

in short, all that pertained to the existence of things as
such; while Ethic covered the whole range of active
human interests, including politics, although its chief
problem was, in accordance with the later Greek attitude
of mind in such matters, the discovery of the ideal of life
for the individual. In the Middle Ages, when philosophy-
was subordinated to the dogmas of Christian theology, no
systematic division was made. In modern times philosophy
proper has been generally taken to include logic, meta-
physic, psychology, and ethic, the " practical philosophy "
of the Germans. The usual ill-fate that has befallen the
word in Great Britain, has not been wanting, however,
in this connection. Owing to the special line philosophical
development took in this island, to the influence, that is,
of Locke and the Scotch psychologists, the word showed
a tendency even where legitimately employed to become
narrowed to psychology and ethic, or, as these departments
were usually designated, " mental and moral philosophy."
A not unnatural reaction against this view of the scope
of philosophy has been recently exhibited in a desire to
exclude psychology altogether from the sphere of philo-
sophical studies. It has been argued that mental
phenomena being amenable in all essential repects to the
inductive method employed in the study of material
phenomena, and onl^-- differing in being the object of
internal rather than external observation (to use the
current phrase), there is no reason for regarding their
treatment in any other light than as constituting one
of the special sciences. To this it is replied, that
psychological investigation has a special, although in-
direct bearing on " theory of knowledge," and a fortiori
on the whole subject-matter of philosophy ; a bearing
which cannot be alleged of any objective science; that
only within certain limits do the methods of the ob-
jective sciences apply to psychology ; that " there is
something in Mind, as the subject-matter of Psych-
ology, unlike anything else," and that "the events
or states (however they are called) which psychology
investigates " being " apprehended only in the peculiar
attitude of introspection, makes a profound difference,"&c.*
* Professor Croom Eobertson in ' Mind,' vol. viii. p. 9.

Introd.] I. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 7

It must be admitted, I think, that a good case is made out
in these, and similar arguments — in addition to anything
that might be urged from the universal practice of historj^ —
for retaining Psychology as a department of Philosophy.
But conceding this, it must be none the less recognised as
holding a position quite subordinate to the higher depart-
ments, and the greater care must be taken to avoid
introducing psychological material into them, and thus
obscuring the main issue, one of the most fruitful sources
of fallacy and confusion. The leading problem of philosophy
is undoubtedly " Theory of Knowledge," to discover
the conditions under which knowledge, or experience, is
possible, in order to re-construct in the forms of abstract
thought according to its elements, the world given as
constructed in concrete intuition.

The advances made by science during the latter half
of the present century have resulted in a striking
rehabilitation of cosmology, i.e. the systematic doctrine of
nature, or the object-world, as a leading philosophical
discipline. The doctrines of the Conservation of Energy
and of Evolution have given to cosmology definite guiding
principles for the abstract explanation of the world
according to its causal conditions, which can never be
taken from it, however their application may be modified
by subsequent research.

The main departments of philosophic investigation are
these: — (1.) '■'• Tlieory of knowledge;'^ (2.) Ontology (if
such be admitted ; and (3.) Cosmology. To these must be
added as a pendent to cosmology, or the systematic
doctrine of objective or material nature. Psychology, or the
systematic doctrine of subjective or mental nature ; the
phenomenology of the moral consciousness falling to be
dealt with by cosmology and psychology at their point of
contact in sociology. But inasmuch as all these depart-
ments are simply aspects of one reality to be explained — -
to wit, the totality of knowledge — the great and ultimate
task of philosophy is to bridge over the chasms which
apparently divide them, to show their interconnection as
an organic whole, and their ultimate root in the conditions
of knowledge itself.

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. [Intr-qd.

II. The History of Philosophy.

As we remarked at tlie commencement of the last
section, the History of Philosophy is the history of the
unfolding to the Human Mind of the various problems
involved in experience, and the struggles of the reason
to resolve them. This has been sometimes attempted
in their entirety, but more frequently the necessity
has been felt of dealing with them separatel}'-, and it
has indeed not seldom happened that in the course
of their isolated treatment the view of the whole as the
end of philosophy has been left out of sight.

An olDJection has been raised to the history of philosophy
as an introduction to philosophic study, that in the neces-
sarily condensed expositions of systems which are given, the
true spirit of the founders is lost ; that the love of research
and devotion to truth which actuated them, and the steps
by which the systems reached their ultimate form, as well
as the conflict of tendencies of which they may be the
issue, can be at best but indicated in a dry and cursory
manner. It must be admitted that an amount of truth
underlies this criticism, especially as regards the greater
number of actually extant histories, and even the ideal
history, whenever it shall appear, we can scarcely expect
will deprive it altogether of its point; but it must we
think also be admitted that though no mere reading of
compilations will suffice for a serious philosophic culture,
yet that such compilations are a necessary aid to the
student, and further, that it is possible for a history of
philosophy to be presented in away in which the inherent
drawback complained of may be reduced to the minimum.
" The events which it is most important to comprehend,"
says Diihring truly, " do not stare one in the face." " He who
will give account of the spiritual working of the greatest
minds must himself be capable of descending into the
depths." * A history of philosophy, to be of real use,
must not merely be an abstract of doctrines, but afford an
insight into the historical and psychological genesis of
those doctrines; and although no history of philosophy

* Diihring, 'Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie,* p. 4.

Introd.1 II. THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 9

can approach the first-hand study of the works of philo-
sophers,* yet inasmuch as it is im2:)0ssible for any but
a very small number of students to construct for them-
selves even the history of a single period from original
sources, a surrogate is requisite, and need not of necessity
be an altogether inadequate one.

The history of philosophy has been written mainly
on three different plans. There is the compilation-history,
which consists in a collection of undigested anecdotes,
facts, and bald, and for the most part loose, statements of
opinion. Then there is the tendency-history, which reads
into the ideas of the past, the doctrines of a modern system
or code of ideas; and, in addition, seeks for conformity
with the method of this system in the course of historical
development. Lastly, there is the critical-history, in
which a sjoirit of scientific acumen and a comparative
criticism is brought to bear at once upon the authorities
used, the doctrines treated, and the filiation of those
doctrines.

Of these several plans, the first is the most utterly
execrable, and the last, it need scarcely be said, the only
one capable of furnishing a uniformly reliable history.
It must not be supposed, however, that in denying this
character of any tenderucy-history as such, we imply that
the history has no tendency ; for just as general history
exhibits a certain determinate course of development, so
does the history of j^hilosophy. But the duty of the
historian, as historian, is to maintain strictly an objective
attitude, merely pointing out that element in systems
which perpetually recurs — which in various guises is unmis-
takably present — in all the more important thinkers, from
those elements which are traceable to the personality and
the age or the country, while being cautious with appa-
rently striking anticipations of modern thought. It is
perhaps a failing in most existing histories, that the
evolution of philosophy is too much isolated. It is not
sufficiently brought into connection with the history of
civilisation or with historic evolution generally. It surely
cannot but lie within the province of the historian of

* This does not, of course, apply to the fragmentary works of ancient
authors, which require special research and critical treatment.

10 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. [Introd.

philosophy to trace the action and reaction of speculative
thought upon its surroundings, intellectual and material.
Although we cannot expect to carry out this principle
to its full extent in a volume like the present, an effort will
be made to indicate the leading points of contact between
the philosophy and the general intellectual conditions of
the several epochs.

The earliest, and the only ancient history of philosophy,
in the proper sense of the word, which has come down to us,
is that of Diogenes Laertius, who wrote probably about the
third century. It is a bad specimen of a bad class, the
compilation-history, but being one of the most copious
sources of information respecting the lives and characters
of the ancient philosophers, has been extensively utilised
by all subsequent writers. The work of Diogenes is,
however, so utterly uncritical, and in many respects
childish, that it requires to be used with the utmost
caution.

The first modern history is that of the Englishman,
Thomas Stanley, which wais originally published in 1655,
and passed through three editions, being re-i&^sued in 1687
and 1701. The work is confined to ancient philosophy,
and is a mere compilation from Laertius and other classical
writers. Contemporaneously with Stanley, a certain
Jacobus Thomasius published an ecclesiastical and philo-
sophical history combined, in Latin, at Leipsic. This was
succeeded in 1697 by the great Dictionnaire historique et
critique of Bayle, which, although not strictly-speaking a
history, nor concerning itself exclusively with philo-
sophical matters, is entitled to mention, on account of the
dimensions and importance of its articles on the Greek
philosophers.

The first history in which modern philosophy was
treated of appears to have been the Histoire Critique de
la Philoso])}iie, in 3 vols., by Deslandes. (Paris, 17;^0-6.)
More important than the last-mentioned was the Historia
Critica Philosophise a mundo incunahulis ad nostram usque
setatem deduda Johann Jakob Brucker (5 vols.; Leipsic,
1742). Brucker's work, although by no means critical iu
the modern sense of the word, is an undoubted advance
upon its predecessors, at once in scope, in method and in

Introd.] II. THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 11

style. The historical point of view is certainly absent,
but where not clouded by prejudice (for Brucker was a
tendeucy-writer of the most pronounced type), Brucker
exhibits an amount of discernment, to be looked for in
vain in previous wi iters. The standpoint is Leibnitzian.
Brucker's work was condensed into English, by Enfield,
and published in a single volume in 1791.

It was succeeded after the lapse of a few" years by an
Italian History of Philosophy, by one Cromaziano, subse-
quently translated into German. Next came Tiedemann's
Geist der Speculativen Philosopkie (Strasburg, 1791-7).
This work extends from Thales to Berkeley — the stand-
point is Leibnitz- Wolfian. Tiedemann was the first to
attempt an objective handling of the history of philosophy.
The method and style of the work is a marked advance
on Brucker's, in fact Tiedemann may be looked upon as in
Tttany respects the founder of the modern critixsal history
of philosophy. From this time forward, histories of
philosophy, and works on the history of philosophy, form
a leading feature in the literature of Germany. It will
be only necessary to mention and characterise the most im-
portant of these treatises. The great Kantian movement
produced several works of the kind, partly of a tendency,
and partly of a critical nature. First in order comes
Johann Gottlieb Buhle's Lehrhuch der Geschichte der Philoso-
phie (8 vols. ; Gottingen, 1796-1804). The work is Kantian,
leaning to the mystical tendencies of Jacobi and his school.
The most meritorious of the pure Kantian histories is
that of Tennemann, an unfinished work in eleven volumes,
an abridgment of which in English has formed one of
the volumes in Bohn's library. From the standpoint
of Schelling, we have Eixner's Handbuch der Geschichte
der Philosophie (3 vols.; Salzbach, 1822-23). Ernst Rein-
hold's Handbuch der Allgemeinen Geschichte der Philo-
Sophie (3 vols. ; Gotha, 1828-30,) which passed through
two or three editions, is spoken of as meritorious. But
the history which until recently has been unanimously
regarded as the standard authority, not only in Germany,
but throughout Europe, is Ritter's Geschichte der Philo-
sophie (12 vols; Hamburg, 1829-30: 2nd ed. 1836-38).
li liter's accurate scholarship combined with his impar-

12 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. [Introd.

tiality to give his work a value likely to endure, in spite
of recent advances in research.

In 1833, two years after Hegel's death, his disciple Karl
Ludwig Michelet* published his master's Lectures on the
History of Philosophy, in the collected edition of Hegel's
works. Hegel's history is the most perfect representative
of the tendency-history we possess. It is based on the
positions that, though every form of historical reality has
its relative justification, there exists beside these justifi-
able systems their negations, which are not even relatively
justifiable; that the Hegelian system forms, so far as
essentials reach, an absolute conclusion to the course of
historical development ; and that the historical sequence
of philosophical standpoints must coincide .wdth the logical
sequence of categories. These principles are carried out
in the course of the exposition with the rigour of logic,
and the clever manipulation of data characteristic of
Hegel.

By far the most popular history of philosophy is that
of Albert Schwegier, in one volume. Since its first
publication in 1848 it has passed through nearly a dozen
editions in Germany. It has also been twice translated
into English by J. H. Seelye, in America, and with an-
notations by Mr. Hutchison Stirling, the last-mentioned
rendering being now in its eighth edition. Schwegler's
work is rigorously impartial, and contains a mass of
closely-packed information ; but his presentation is some-
what arid and unappreciative. Of more recent treatises,
for the combination of exhaustive research and fulness of
detail, with critical appreciation, Ueberweg's History, the
English translation of which is well known, occupies the
foremost rank. The work of Johann Eduard Erdmann,
though not so well known in England, is almost as much
read in Germany at the present time. Erdmann's literary
faculty is much greater than Ueberweg's. Among those-
treatises whose renown is as much literary as philosophical,
may be mentioned Lange's ' History of Materialism,' trans-
lated into all the more important European languages,
and in Germany become almost a classic, and the small

* K. L. Michelet must not be confounded with Jules Michelet, the
eminent French historian and essayist.

Lntrod.] II. THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. ]3

GescMclite der Philosophie Jcritisch dargestellt of Duliring.
The latter, although so far as we are aware untranslated at
present, is as remarkable for the brilliancy and clearness
of its style as for its strongly marked tendency-character.

The Latin nations, not excepting France, have failed in
achieving great original research in the history of philo-
sophy. Among the principal modern French treatises on
the subject may be mentioned Degerando's Histoire comparee
des Si/stemes de la Philosojjhie (4 vols. ; Paris, 1822-3).
J. F. Nourrisson's Tableau des progres de la pensee humaine
de Thales jusqiia Hegel (Paris, 1858). Laforet's Histoire de
la Philosophie (Brussels and Paris, 1867). Alfred Weber's
Histoire de la Philosophie Europeenne ; Alfred Fouillee's
Histoire de la Philosophie (Paris, 1874). The best-known
French history is Victor Cousin's Histoire Generale de la
Philosophie depuis les temps les plus recides Jusqu'a la fin du
xviii^ siecle (5th ed. ; Paris, 1863). The few Italian and
{Spanish treatises do not call for any special notice.

The first English history of philosophy, after Stanley's ,
was the execrable compilation from Brucker by William
Enfield, first published towards the close of the last
century. This was followed by Johnson's translation of
Tennemann's small manual (subsequently reprinted,
with additions and annotations, in Bohn's Philosophical
Library). Robert Blakey's ' History of the Philosophy
of Mind' appeared in 1848; and shortly after the late
F. D. Maurice's, so far as style is concerned, cleverly
written ' History of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.'
But more widely read than any of these was the
' Biographical History of Philosophy ' of the late George
Henry Lewes, first published in 1845, in four pocket
volumes, and expanded in 1867 (2nd ed., revised 1871)
into ' The History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte,'
n two thick volumes (crown 8vo.). Lewes, who writes
nore j)articularly from the stand^^oint of the Philosophie
oositive, but generally from that of English empiricism,
urnishes an example of a probably unique development
of the tendency-history, to wit, the didactic-history.
There is no positive reading of the author's own position
nto the systems of older thinkers, or distortion of those
systems in the course of their development, as in the ten-

14 HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. [Lvtrod.

dency-history proper, but they one and all serve as foils to
the superior wisdom of the empirical philosophy in general,
and the positive philosophy in particular. This is their only
purpose save in so far as they, here and there, show weak
and faltering; adumbrations of the " one true method."

To Mr. Hutchison Stirling's highly successful trans-
lation of Schwegler reference has already been made.
The latest, and perhaps most important contribution to
works in English on the general histor}^ of philosophy
is the translation of Ueberweg's work, published a few
years since by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton. The present
work, although limited in point of size, it is our aim to
render as complete as possible in all points essential to
the student, while omitting unimportant details.

( 15 )

THE ORIENTALS.

At the outset of the history of philosophy, as of other
depai tments of culture, we are confronted with the pre-
historic region occupied by the primitive theocratic civili-
sations of the Oriental world, of Egypt and Asia. The
view largely prevalent, at the end of the last and begin-
ning of the present century, was that these social
organisations were the surviving monuments of a high
primitive culture. In the light of the scientific con-
ception of history, to which modern research and criticism
has accustomeii us, they are seen to be cases of arrested
development, or of premature decay. The evolutionary
principle in them, s > to speak, their capacity for spon-
taneous development and progress, exhausted itself before
the birth of that great world-evolution constituting the
Ihistory of Humanity jn'oper, and of which ancient
Greece and modern Europe, with its colonies, are the
extreme terms. The sixth century before Christ, or
thereabouts, the age of Gautama, Confucius, Zoroaster
and Thales, is the dawn of history in the latter sense.
The history of the modern world is closely and de-
finitely knitted to that of the Middle Ages, and this again
tc» the history of ancient Greece and Rome, the whole
forming an organise! system. But the direct influence
upon the classical civilisations of those of Assyria, Baby-
lonia, Palestine, China, India, or even Egypt, is at best
obscure. For this reason we do not purpose dwelling at
any length on the quasi-philosophies, or more properly
theosophies, of the East.

It is probable that a considerable body of theosophic lore
was enshrined in the Egyptian temples ; but encased as it

16 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

was in mythological language, and coming to ns as most
of it does through Greek sources, it is impossible to give
anything approaching a coherent and correct view of its
general features. The Semitic race, on the other hand,
has never in any of its branches produced an original
philosophic or even theosophic system of its own. The
Semitic mind is, in its pure state, anti-philosophical.
Though it has given to the world no less than three
important ethical religions, we search in vain through the
whole body of pure Semitic literature, that is, such as
reflects the Semitic intellect unaffected by non-Semitic
culture (e.g. the Hebrew Scriptures and the Koran), for a
single trace even of a philosophic thought, much less a
sj'stem, unless indeed we choose, as some have done, to read
a metaphysical meaning into the old Hebrew formula, " I
am that I am " — the general character and isolated position
of which, however, would give colour to the hypothesis
of an Eg5q3tian origin. The fragments of reputed Assyrian
and Akkadian literature are likewise entirely destitute
of a philosophical side. In the Medo-Persian literature,
as that of an Aryan race, we might naturally expect to
find something like a philosophy, and, in fact, the latter
portions of the Zend-Avesta show attempts to render the
theological doctrine of the dual principle philosophic.
But there is even here no sign of an independent
and original philosophical movement. In China the only
ancient writing possessing any speculative interest is that
of Lao-tse, born B.C. 604, and the main position of which
is practically identical with that of Indian Metaphysic,
though alleged to have been uninfluenced by it ; but
there is much in the treatise of a purely theological
character, and devoid of all philosophic interest.

It is in India, that we first find a distinct and unmis-
takable philosoydiic development. In the sixth century
before Christ, when the non- Aryan monarchies of Egypt,
Phoenicia, Babylonia, and Assyria, were sinking into
decay, and their empires fast becoming disintegrated by
foreign influences, the Hindoos felt the thrill of that
mighty wave of energy heralding the birth of the new
human consciousness — moral, intellectual, and religious
— which was consequent on the decline of the earliest

THE ORIENTALS. 17

forms of civilisation. But the philosophic development
of India is deprived of the interest vv^hich would other-
wise attach to it, owing to its separation from that of
the main trnnk of the historic races, and its consequent
crudity and limitation in scope.

The sacred philosophy (so-called) of India is contained
in the Upanischads, or third section of the Vedic scrip-
tures. Their main thesis consists of the monistic idea of
the one true existent Absolute, spoken of variously under
the names of Paramathman, Brahman, as opposed to the
world of falsity and appearance, or the Maya. The Maija
is the negation of Brahnan. In itself. Brahman is unthink-
able and undifferentiated in-ness of Being ; only through
the illusion, or the Maya, does it become conscious, mutable,
undividualised. " As the colours in the flame or the
red-hot iron proceed therefrom a thousandfold, so do all
beings proceed from the Unchangeable, and return again
to it." " As the web issues from the spider, as little
sparks proceed from fire, so from the one soul proceed all
living animals, all worlds, all the gods and all beings."
" Two birds (the Paramathman, the universal soul, and
Jivathman, the individual soul) inhabit the same tree
(abide in the same body), &c."

" As from a blazing fire substantial sparks proceed in a

thousand ways, so from the imperishable various souls are

produced, and they return to him." These, and numberless

other passages of similar purport, are to be found scattered

throughout the Upanischads. The one theme is varied in

a hundred different ways, but its substance is the same.

This Metaphysic of the Upanischads, as will be readily

seen, is, to the last degree, abstract. No modus vivendl

exists between the Absolute One and the world of " many-

hued reality " — between the real and the non-real. The

practical consequence of this is an Ethic of Asceticism,

which has absolute indifference and passivity for its ideal

f life.

A little later than the Upanischads, which are for the

ost part poetic in character — and rather semi-conscious

ttempts to picture the mystery vaguely felt, than con-

cious efforts to explain it — come the six philosophical

ystems — properly so-ealled. Their dates are supposed

c

18 HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY.

to lie between the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ.
The first in order is the Nyaya, founded by Gotama ; the
second, the VaiseJiiJca of Kanada ; the third, the Sdnkhya
of Kapila; the fourth, the Yoga of Patanjali; the fifth,
the Mimdnsd of Jaimini ; and the sixth, the Veddnta of
Badarayana or Vyasa. These systems are given in the
form of Sutras or Aphorisms. The Nyaya is essentially a
system of Logic, It deals at length with the proposition,
the syllogism, the category, the predicable, &c. The
VaiseshiJca is a supplementary development of the Nyaya,
but in addition to its elaboration of the categories fur-
nished in the former, it contains a definite cosmology of
an atomistic character. The resemblance of this to the
Greek atomism, and even in some respects to that of
modern science, is striking. The foundation of the
SanMiya philosophy is a Monism, which in the course of
the system issues in a species of Dualism. The distinction
between matter and spirit is insisted upon ; it being
laid down as an axiom that the production of mind from
matter, as of something from nothing, is an absurdity.
The Sankhya also contains a systematic theory of Emana-
tion. The Yoga is a kind of pendant to the Sankhya.
Its bearing is mainly practical. It treats of the means by
which the individual soul may attain union with the
universal soul, these means being asceticism of the most
drastic description. In the Mimansa we have no properly
philosophical doctrine taught, and indeed its claim to
rank among the philosophical systems rests solely on its
logical method. Its central idea is the deification of the
Veda and Vedic ritual. It is opposed to both rationalism
and theism, the Veda being the supreme authority. The
Vedanta is really little more than an expansion of the
doctrines of the Upanischads of the one Substance
Brahma realised in the world, or more accurately the one
really existent Brahma manifested in the world of illusion
and plurality, to which, at most, a practical existence can
be ascribed. The personal soul — the Jivatliman — through
ignorance mistakes itself and the world for real things.
Once it is set free from this ignorance, and arrives at a
proper understanding of the truth, the illusion vanishes,
and it sees the identity of itself and the woiid with the

en
iiji
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ffler
iieD(
Tlie
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Id

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\n\

THE ORIENTALS. 19

universal soul, the one Paramathman. As will be appa-
rent, wellnigh the whole theosophy and philosophy of
India turns upon a more or less poetically expressed
Monism. Its drawback consists in the fact that it is
abstract, and incapable of furnishing a coherent and
logically determined view of conscious reality as a whole,
and also from its vague and mystical character, which
V precludes scientific deduction of the data of consciousness
fvom the outset. Besides the six dogmatic systems we
haze noticed, the Hindoos possess an empirical, sceptical,
and materialist school in that of Carvaka and his followers,
whose doctrines and even their mode of statement bear a
close resemblance to those of La Mettrie, and the French
rationalism of the last century. Some also reckon the
eclectic Pantheistic doctrine contained in the Bhagavad-
gita, as forming a distinct system.

In reviewing the prehistoric civilisations, that is, such
as are found complete in all essentials at the dawn of
history, and even then laying claim to a remote antiquity,
we find that the great awakening of the sixth century
(circa) passed over some of them without response. Of
this class are the Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean, and
Phoenician, with probably the Lydian and other civilisa-
tions of Asia Minor. Others again, such as the Aryan
civilisations of Hindoostan and Persia, and to a lesser
extent that of China, responded to the impulse of the new
movement; but the results of the awakening sooner or
later became crystallised, thus resolving themselves into
mere accretions on the previously existing culture, which
hence speedily relapsed into its former state of stagnation.
The first had lost their independent vitality ere history
dawned. The second had enough vitality to respond to
the impulse agitating the world around them, but were
too old and set for its influence to be more than very
partial.

In contrast to these ancient Oriental civilisations already
" in the sere and yellow leaf," we find the Greek civilisa-
tion bursting into life, and forming the focus of the newly
iwakened individual consciousness. Here there was a
culture forming, and not fixed into a more or less rigid
groove. Hence with the Greece of the sixth century and

c 2

20 HISTOEY OF PHILOSOPHY.

its colonies, we enter on the history of the main stream of
human development. There is no longer the tendency to
universal crj^stallisation, discoverable in all the prehistoric
civilisations of the East. Henceforth the ever-widening
stream never becomes completely frozen over. There is
always a channel left for the currents of progress. For
this reason, it is only in so far as the ancient civilisations
acted or were reacted upon by the European civilisation of
the classical nations, or that of their successors, that they
have any real historical as distinguished from anthropological
significance. In concluding the present section, we may
observe that philosophy, as the product of a conscious
effort to explain the world, cannot be said to have existed
prior to the awakening of the human mind to definite
consciousness of itself. Xot until man cleUherately iormulsbtedL
to himself for their own sal^e, and not to subserve religious
or other ends, the problems. What am I ? What is my
relation to the world ? AYhat is the principle of the world ?
can he be said to have begun to philosophise. Hence we
may fairly deny the title philosophy to any such theories
of the world, as the theogonies, cosmogonies, and theo-
sophies which obtained previously to this epoch. In no
ancient country do we find an original movement of a
philosophic character outside Greece with, as we have seen,
the solitary excejDtion of India. But in India the move-
ment was but of short duration, and has exercised compara-
tively little influence on history. We pass on, therefore,
to a consideration of the first period of Greek philosophy.

As among the best authorities for Oriental thought, apart from the
ancient books themselves in their various translations, may be men-
tioned, for the Egyptians, Gardner Wilkinson's ' Ancient Egyptians,'
and Buusen's ' Egypt's Place in Universal History.' For the Chinese,
Pauthier's Esquisse (Vune histoire de la Philosopliie chinoise, and
Plath's Eeh'gion tind ddtus der alien Cliinesen. Among the numerous
works on the Indians. Monier Williams's ' Indian Wisdom,' contains a
good account of Indian thought; also Colebrooke's 'Essays on the
Philosophy of the Hindoos,' in his 'Miscellaneous Essays'; various
translations of the Eoyal Asiatic Society ; and Earth's ' Religions of
India,' which gives an excellent general view of the subject ; for
Buddhism, may be cited the various Eeview and other articles of
Mr. Pthys Davids ; Burnouf's Introduction a Vhistoire du Bouddhissme
indien; and Spencer Hardy's ' Legends and Theories of the Buddhists,'

( 21 )

GEEEK PHILOSOPHY

INTEODUCTION.

In Greek philosophy there are six well-marked periods. (I.)
that of the Pre-Socratic Schools ; (II.) the period of Socrates
and what are commonly termed the imperfect Socratists ;
(III.) the culminating epoch of Greek thought in Plato and
Aristotle ; (IV.) the commencement of its specialisation,
and decline with the Stoics, Epicureans and the various
Sceptical schools ; (V.) the period subsequent to the Eoman
conquest characterised by the recrudescence of the earlier
pre-Socratic doctrines, or what may be termed the anti-
quarian period; and (VI.) the period of Neo-Platonism.
with which ancient philosophy closes. Respecting this
arrangement, it may be desirable to remark that I have
filiated the imperfect Socratic schools directly on to
Socrates, in preference to placing them after Plato and
Aristotle, for the reason that they seem more immediately
the outcome of the actual Socratic teaching, so far as
it has come down to us. With the Cyrenaics, the
Cynics, the Megarics, the chief, where not the sole
subject-matter of philosophy, remains, as with Socrates,
ethical; the teaching was mainly oral, while, generally
speaking, the doctrines themselves are directly traceable to
utterances or actions of the historical Socrates. Plato and
Aristotle, on the other hand, cannot be said to have received
more than an impulse from Socrates. It is next to certain
that they could not have obtained a single speculative
doctrine from their master, while the extent to which the
dialectical method of Plato's dialogues is attributable to
Socrates or Plato himself, is, and will probably remain, a
matter of dispute. In both Plato and Aristotle, philosophy,
which Socrates had expressly subordinated to practical

22 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch i.

issues, is extended to the widest speculative questions —
questions which, so far as we know, never even occurred
to Socrates, as they had certainly not occurred to his
predecessors.

After the great original achievements of these two
giant thinkers, Greek thought ceased to be productive,
and confined itself to the reproduction and development of
pre-Socratic, Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian doctrines ; in
the end absorbing Oriental theosophy. The pre-Socratic
philosophy falls under two sections ; the first comprising
what are usually known as the Ionian, the Italian, and
the Eleatic schools ; and the second taking in Herakleitos,
Empedokles, the Atomists (Demokritos and Leukippus),
and Anaxagoras.

In considering these early stages in the history of
philosophy, we must guard ourselves from reading into
systems ideas pertaining to later phases in the evolution
of thought. There is a difficulty for many of us, ac-
customed as we are to modem rules of philosophising,
in realising the naive and crude fashion in which great
problems presented themselves to the early thinkers,
and the still more crude attempts at solution which
satisfied them. It is essential to bear in mind, especially
in the schools of our first section, that distinctions and
modes of statement, familiar to us now as household
words, were with them non-existent — such, for instance,
as Materialism and Idealism, Theism and Atheism, Subjec-
tive and Objective, Knowing and Being, ]\Iind and
Matter. Hence, for example, it is impossible to label
Thales as materialist or immaterialist, theist or atheist, and
the attempt to do so only shows an utter lack of historical
insight. The problems, or the aspects of problems, of
which these expressions connote the supposed solution,
had not as yet appeared above the horizon of speculation,
and hence this terminology is altogether devoid of meaning.
The lonians were merely naive Hylozoists, that is, they
simply took the world as they found it ; to them the object
of external perception (as existent), being the all, the
only thing standing in need of explanation. Accordingly,
the problem was to find the ultimate form of that object,
a particular form from which all other forms were deriva-

Epoch I.] THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. 23

tive. Thales pronounced this to be Water ; Anaximenes,
Air ; and Anaximander, a formless chaos. They might, and
it is likely enough did, believe in the gods of their age and
country ; but these gods, like the souls of men and demons,
were conceived, no less than the other objects of the world,
as entities constituted of this same primitive matter. The
attitude of mind represented by the early Ionian specu-
lators was that of a simple childlike questioning, which
readily accepts the first answer that offers itself, and with
this rests satisfied, without waiting to test its consistency
even with itself, much less with fact.

For Greek philosophy in general, the best work is Professor Eduard
Zeller's Philosophie der Grieehen, some of the volumes of which have
been published separately in English ; that on the pre-Socratic philosophy
is translated by S. F. AUeyne : also Dyk's Versokratische Philosophie.
Of the ordinary histories of Philosophy, Ritter's may be mentioned as
particularly full on the pre-Socratic schools as on ancient philosophy
generally. An English translation of this portion of Ritter (in 4 vols.)
exists, but is now out of print and scarce. Eitter and Preller's ' Selection
of Fragments ' is also a standai:d work. Brandis' Handbuch der Ge-
schischte der GriecMsch-Romische Philosophie has considerable value.
No good English work specially devoted to ancient philosophy exists,
with the exception of Ferrier's ' Pre-Socratic Philosophy.' Of the
numerous critical and antiquarian essays in Latin and German on
individual philosophers and special questions of scholarship, only those
of interest to the general student will be mentioned.

EPOCH L— THE PEE-SOCEATIC SCHOOLS.

I. THE IONIAN SCHOOLS.

Thales.

Thales, one of the seven sages, is the reputed founder of
Greek philosophy. He was born about B.C. 624, but the
exact date is uncertain, at Miletus, whence his ancestors
are said to have migrated from Boeotia. Of the numerous
saws attributed to him, and his knowledge of Mathematics
and Astronomy, it is not necessary to speak at length. It
is sufficient to observe that Thales was one of the most
famous mathematicians and astronomers of ancient times,
is alleged to have introduced geometry to the Greeks,

24 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. ^ [Epoch I.

and to have been the first to foretell eclipses. Some doubt
exists as to the authenticity of the story of his Egyptian
journey, and still more as to his having acquired his learn-
ing from Egyptian sources. Little or nothing is known
with certainty as to his life, though there are numerous
legends respecting it.

The claim of Thales to be the founder of philosophy
rests on his having been the first to attempt to explain
the world on a non-mythological and non-theological
principle. He propounded the question, What is the ulti-
mate substance to which all things are reducible ? and
answered it by asserting the primitive substance to be water.
How he arrived at this conclusion is not known, nor indeed
the manner in which he conceived the world to be evolved,
though, judging from the analogy of kindred systems, this
was by a process of condensation and rarefaction. There
have been plenty of theories as to how Thales was led to
his central doctrine (e.g. Aristotle's, that it was by obser-
ving that the seeds of all things are moist), but they are
one and all purely conjectural. Various cosmological specu-
lations were attributed to Thales in ancient times, among
others, that the earth was a flat disc floating upon water ;
that the heavenly bodies were glowing masses; also
theories respecting the nature of demons, heroes, &c.

All the reports concerning the doctrines of Thales are,
however, of so doubtful and contradictory a nature, that it
is impossible to assert anything with certainty respecting
them, except as concerns the cardinal thesis of water being
the principle of all things. If we are to believe some of
these reports, he seems to have been hardl}^, if at all, eman-
cipated from the animistic or fetischistic attitude of mind
peculiar to the early stages of human culture ; but this
would appear scarcely compatible with those which
credit him with a comparatively high degree of scientific
attainment.

Anaximandros.

Anaximandros, or, as it is usually Anglicised, Anaxi-
mander, was also a native of Miletus, and a younger con-
temporar}^ and some say pupil of Thales. The date of his

Epoch I.] THE PRE-SOCKATIC SCHOOLS. 25

birth is given as B.C. 611. Nothing is known of his life.
Report states that he was also proficient in geography and
astronomy ; that he designed the first map and celestial
globe ; and, according to some, invented the sun-dial, tlKjugh
others attribute this to Thales or Pherekydes. He un-
doubtedly wrote the first philosophical treatise, its main
thesis being that into that whence things arise, they must
return ; that this primal substance, which he is the first
to designate by the word principle (apx^)? is a formless
and infinite matter, incorruptible and eternal, and that of
its own inherent force things arise from it and pass into
it again, or perhaps we might say it determines itself in
forms which either give way to other forms or lose all
form whatever, ^.e. return again to the primal indefiniteness.
The first determination of primitive substance was heat
and cold, a fiery sphere arising surrounded by cold air.
From fire and air were formed the stars (Anaximandros
regarded the stars as animated beings or divinities,
according to the view prevalent in ancient times, and
subscribed to by no less a thinker than Plato), in the midst
of which floats the cylindrically-shaped earth, immovable,
owing to its equidistance from all points of the sur-
rounding heavens, which were apparently conceived as a
circumscribed space like the interior of a hollow globe.
The earth was originally fluid. Through the co-operation
of heat and moisture organic life originated, passing suc-
cessively into higher and higher forms. All land animals
were primarily marine organizations, becoming modified,
and gradually assuming their present characters as the con-
ditions of their environment changed. As the earth began
to dry, the fins gave place, among those inhabiting the
dry portion of its surface, to members more adapted to life
under the new conditions. This development from pre-
existent forms applied no less to man than to other
animals.

A moot-point as regards Anaximandros has been the
nature of his primitive essence. That it was conceived
as material substance, few scholars of any eminence have
doubted, but some, like Bitter, have been found to main-
tain that its differentiation existed in it from the begin-
ning, in other words, that it was an infinite aggregate of

26 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

determinate elements like the Jiomoeomoerioe of Anaxagoras.
That such an assumption is not only unsupported by-
evidence, but is foreign to the whole nature of the specu-
lation, has been conclusively shown by Zeller. All the
accounts respecting the primitive substance of Anaxi-
mandros emphasise the fact of its absolute formlessness.

The advance made by Anaximandros upon Thales will
be apparent to the most superficial student. There is little
doubt that Anaximandros w^as a speculative genius of the
first order. Prompted, in all jDrobability, merely by
the crude and disconnected dicta of Thales, he constructed a
coherent system on the hylozoistic basis, a system, consider-
ing the then state of knowledge, possessing considerable
plausibility, and containing one of the most remarkable
anticipations of the great cosmological truth of modem
times which history can offer. The wonderful guess of
Anaximandros on the subject of Evolution must ever
maintain his name as memorable in the annals of human
thought. It is noteworthy that this idea, if not consciously
deduced from his cardinal doctrine of a universal substance,
infinite in quantity and indefinite in quality ;per se, yet
possessing the inherent capacity for infinite modification,
nevertheless, logically follows from it. The forecast
of Anaximandros has slept for two thousand years.
It first began to awaken at the end of the last century, and
when in the fulness of time it burst into that richness of
life which has so jorofoundly influenced the thought of our
age, it was no longer on the shores of the ^gean,
deserted by the genius of speculation for many a long
century, but in the little village of Down in Kent. It is
a remarkable circumstance, as the late Dr. Thirlwall
observed (' History of Greece,' vol. ii. pp. 134-5), that the
speculations of Anaximandros were so little followed up
by later thinkers of antiquity, though it may be accounted
for in more ways than one.

Anaximenes.

The date of Anaximenes' birth is uncertain ; but he was
probably a younger contemporary of Thales and Anaxi-

Epoch l] THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. 27

mander, being by some asserted to have been a pupil of
the latter. He was, also, a native of Miletus.

Anaximenes re-affirmed the qualitative character of the
primal substance, but instead of identifying it, as Thales
had done, with water, asserted it to be air. The working
out of the system accorded with this alteration. As
Thales had conceived the earth to be a flat disc, floating
upon water, so Anaximenes described it as a flat disc,
floating upon air. The latter, however, definitely worked
out the notion of the production of the real world through
the condensation and rarefaction of the primitive element.
Heat and cold appear to have corresponded to this process
— heat representing rarefaction, and cold condensation.
Anaximenes is reported as maintaining the production of
clouds from air, of water from clouds, and of earth from
water. The earth was the centre of the universe, the
heavenly bodies, which consisted of a mixture of earth and
fire, circulating round it. All things were destined to be
ultimately resolved into air.

The work of Anaximenes in which these doctrines were
propounded, was known to Aristotle and his pupil Theo-
phrastus, but appears to have been lost soon after their time.

Diogenes of Apollonia.

A hiatus exists in the line of the Ionic physicists
between Anaximenes and the present philosopher, the
last of the school, only broken by one or two obscure per-
sonages, who are little more than names, such as Hippo,
a follower of Thales and Idaeus, who seems to have been
influenced by Anaximenes.

Diogenes is generally supposed to have flourished about
the time of Anaxagoras. Very little is known of his life,
and even the identity of his birthplace, Apollonia, is not
settled, but it is generally referred to the place of that
name in Crete, though the fact that he wrote in the
Ionic dialect, and belonged to the Ionic school, tends
to militate against this supposition. With Diogenes we
undoubtedly reach the highwater-mark of Ionic specu-
lation. To Diogenes, as to Anaximenes, the circumambient
air, which seems to interpenetrate all things, was the

28 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

essence of which all things consist, the primitive form of
matter of which all other forms are modifications, and into
which they must ultimately be resolved. 1'he great
philosophic merit of Diogenes consists in his being the
first to explicitly enunciate the principle of Monism. His
predecessors had, one and all, assumed this principle
implicitly at the outset, but Diogenes seeks to demonstrate
it. He urges the inexplicability of mutual action and
reaction, othei-wise than on a monistic basis. He shows
that the facts of nature and the real world all point to one
primitive substance as their substratum. This explicit
Monism denotes a considerable advance in speculation.
Another distinctive feature of the philosophy of Diogenes,
which some would maintain, though perhaps without
sufficient reason, to be not so much a develoj^ment on
older lines as a change of front, was the attribution of
intelligence to his ' air.' The soul, the intelligent element
in man, was of course nothing but breath or air. Hence
the question may have arisen. Why should not the air-
matter manifested as intelligent in us, be so in its
essential nature ? Diogenes, in his attempts to prove
this, gives us the earliest sample we possess of the
design argument. At the same time, we have in the
doctrine itself the first distinct expression of the theory of
an anima mujidi, which has played such an important part
in subsequent speculation.

In Diogenes the Ionian Physicism finds its culmination
and conclusion. The school had doubtless, in his time,
fallen into disrepute, and the plausibility and more recent
form its fundamental principles assumed under his auspices
failed to rehabilitate it. Such was the condition of philo-
sophy at the time of Anaxagoras. But as most of these
early schools overlap each other, so to speak, it is impos-
sible to deal with them chronologically, and hence we are
compelled to retrace our steps, in order to follow another
line of speculation, viz. the Pythagorean or Italian.

( 29 )

II. THE ITALIAN SCHOOL.

Pythagoras.

" Among all the schools of philosophy known to us,"
says Zeller, " there is none of which the history is so over-
grown, we may almost say so concealed by myths and
fictions, and the doctrines of which have been so replaced
in the course of tradition by such a mass of later con-
stituents, as the Pj^thagorean." It is indeed impossible
now to disentangle the doctrines of Pythagoras himself
with any certainty from those of members of his school.
A still greater mystery overhangs the life of Pythagoras,
the three biographies that have survived from antiquity
being altogether unreliable. That Pythagoras was the son
of a stone-cutter, named Innesarchus, and was born at
Samos, as well as that he was of Phoenician descent, all are
agreed ; while his birth is generally fixed at between B.C.
680 and 590. In his fortieth year he is said to have left
his home and started on his travels, extending over twelve
years, in the course of which he visited Ionia, Phoenicia,
and Egypt, finally settling down in the Greek city of
Crotona in Southern Italy. There are, however, various con-
flicting reports on the age at which he left Samos, and also
on the duration of his stay in the East, the only unanimity
being as to his ultimate place of residence. In ancient
times Pythagoras was commonly regarded as the main
original channel for the introduction of Oriental, and
es23ecially Egyptian, ideas into Europe.

Pythagoras, soon after his arrival in Crotona, became a
political and religious as well as a philosophical power
throughout the Greek colonies of Italy. There is eveiy
indication of a desire on his part to establish a cult and
polity on the model of the Eastern theocracies. Thus, we
have the division of doctrine into esoteric and exoteric,
with a corresponding distinction among its hearers, of the
introduction of mysteries, the prohibition of sundry articles
of diet, the institution of a special regime of life for the
elect and such as aspired to be so, and above all, the
attempt, for a time more than partially successful, to

30 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

acquire a political authority for himself and his followers,
amounting to the complete control of the state.

The circumstances of the death of Pythagoras are
variously related. According to some accounts he was
killed in one of the civil tumults which ended in the
destruction of the whole faction, and the massacre or dis-
persion of its members ; according to others, he died of
starvation at Metapontum (about B.C. 500), whither he
was compelled to fly to escape the vengeance of the
popular party. As it is practically impossible to furnish a
reliable account of the philosophy of Pythagoras himself,
we shall confine ourselves to giving a sketch of the
Pythagorean system as it has come down to us, without
attempting to enter into moot points of scholarship as to
the relative antiquity of its re23uted doctrines.

The Pythagohean System.

With the Pythagorean philosophy we enter upon a new
and more advanced j^hase of Greek thought than that of
the Hylozoists of Miletus. The Pythagoreans were
evidently capable of a high degree of abstraction. The
principle and essence of all things was now no longer
conceived as concrete, but as abstract.

The fundamental doctrine attributed to Pythagoras,
that " All is number," must be taken as meaning not
merely that everything can be treated numericall}^ but that
number is that by which the constitution of things is
determined. In other words, the matter as well as the
form of the real was deemed to consist in number,
although the antithesis of matter and form had not as yet
become explicit in thought. The Pythagoreans were
probably led to this theory by perceiving that all mathe-
matical conceptions are reducible to terms of number. It
was most likely to an attentive study of the mathematical
aspects of astronomy and music, sciences which the Pjiiha-
goreans especially cultivated, that the doctrine of numbers
is more immediately traceable. There is no doubt that the
ideas of proportion and harmony jjervaded the whole
Pythagorean sj^stem. The world was conceived as a
harmoniously articulated whole ; the doctrine of numbers
was merely the ultimate expression of this conception, an

Epoch I.] THE PRE-SOCRATIO SCHOOLS. 31

exj^ression which will a]3pear natural enough when one
considers that the, to us, familiar distinction of abstract
and concrete had not been made. This hypostasis, then,
of numbers naturally gave rise to an emanation-theory.
'J hat whence all numbers are derivable, their source or
generative parent, as it is termed, is the One or Unity.
From the One, as their common root, all numbers proceed,
and inasmu<5h as all numbers are contained therein, it is
often designated as " the number." From the One, there
issues the antithesis which plays so great a part in the
system, of the Indefinite and Definite,* or the unlimited
and the limiting, in which perhaps, we may see a faint
adumbration of the later antithesis of matter and form.
Thence proceeds the odd and the even ; the even being
identified with the indefinite, and the odd with the definite,
because the odd sets a limit to bi-partition which the
even does not. The definite or limiting is throughout
regarded as the higher principle, but is equally with its
correlate subordinated to Unity or the One.

from these main pairs (viz. the Indefinite and the
Definite, the Even and the Odd) proceed eight subordinate
couples, which, with the two primary, make up the sacred
number ten ; the complete Pythagorean categories being
as follows: (1) Definite and Indefinite; (2) Odd and
Even ; (3) Onet and Many ; (4) Right and Left ; (5) Male
and Female; (6) Resting and Moving; (7) Straight and
Curved ; (8) Light and Darkness ; (9) Good and Evil ;
(10) Square and Oblong. In so far as these contradic-
tions, immanent in the original unity, appear in opjDOsition
to each other outside this unity, arises the system of
numbers or things.

The application of this theory to the detailed expla-
nation of the concrete world could not be effected otherwise
than by a series of arbitrary combinations, ae that one is
the point, two the line, three the plane, that virtue is a
harmony of certain numbers, &c.

* Erdmann remarks as characteristic that in place of the physical
opposition of heat and cold as with the hylozoists, we have here a
logical opposition. (Erdmann, vol. i. p. 26.)

t Tliis antithetical unity was distinguidhed from the unconditioned
unity at the basis of the system.

32 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

In the Pythagorean cosmology, the universe was divided
into ten S23heres, which were regarded as revolving round
the central iire. The soul was of course conceived as in
essence number ; and cognition as arising in and through
number. That which could not be expressed mathemati-
cally was therefore incognisable and nothing.

The above is of course only a brief sketch of the
leading jDositions of a system which exercised a vast
influence ujion ancient speculation, but which nevertheless
suffered more variations in the hands of its individual
adherents than any other, for the reason that its founder
committed nothing to writing. Add to this, that the
earliest Pythagorean fragments probably date from a
century after Pythagoras's time, and the difticulty of ar-
riving at true Pythagoreanism with certainty, at present,
will be sufficiently apparent.

It will be seen, however, from what we have said that
the Pythagorean system (so-called) contains all the later
philosophical disciplines in germ. Thus in addition* to
an ontology proper, we have the first attempt on the
basis of this to solve the problems of Theory of Knowledge,
Psychology, Cosmology and Ethics. These attempts, it is
true, are confined to a few merely arbitrary and childish
dicta, but still they are significant as showing a recognition
of the existence of these problems, and of the duty of
philosoph}' to explain them on its fundamental principles.

But it is of the utmost importance to bear in mind that
Pythagoreanism was primarily a religion and a polity,
and that to this its philosophy was supposed to lead up as
its end and goal. It is in the character of hierophant,
rather than that of philo-opher, that the majestic and
semi-mythical figure of Pythagoras stands forrh so con-
spicuously in classical histor3\ The remembrance of the
personality of the great Samian as a religious leader
lingered with the world till the last ray of the afterglow
of ancient culture had died away.

The most interesting ancient sources for Pj^thagoreanism
are the" Golden verses," with the commentai y by Hierokles.

(33)

^OLS. 35

vcver slight,
THE ELEATIC SCHOOL. -» follows : If

st first reach
— »<>. — ^^ ' next

^ 'nt

Xenophanes.

The reputed founder of the Eleatic school was born at
Kolophon, in Ionia. The date of his birth is uncertain,
but he is said to have flourished about B.C. 530. He spent
the greater part of his life in travelling, in the manner of
an ancient baid, through the chief cities of Sicily and
Magna Greecia, finally settling in Elea, a town of Southern
Italy.

The burden of the poems which Xenophanes, sung,
was that the All or the One, as it was variously termed,
was God. As a pendant to this we have a polemic
against the current polytheism, and the immorality of the
narratives of the poets. Some of the fragments preserved
would seem to imply a theistic tendency,* but others dis-
tinctly identify " God " with the spacial universe. Thus
the statement that the shape of the deity was spherical is
plainly an inference from the apparent figure formed
by the sky and horizon. Passionless, without motion,
neither limited nor unlimited, " all eye, all ear, all
thought," such was the God, Being, or All, of Xeno-
phanes. It is the enunciation of unity and change-
lessness as the attributes of true Being against the multi-
plicity and change of the world of appearance, which
gives Xenophanes his place in the history of philoso-
phy. Otherwise he would have been no more than a
religious reformer. As it was, the religious element in the
teachings of Xenophanes remained almost still-born. The
philosophical alone has left a mark on history.

Parmenides.

Parmenides, of Elea, probably a pupil of Xenophanes
in his old age, and much esteemed in his native city for

* " There is one God alone, the greatest among gods and men, resem-
bling mortals neither in body nor in thought." Apud Clem. Alex, i. I.

J)

32 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

In the Pand statesmanship, embodied his philosophy in
into ten sp!?^ C)f which considerable fragments remain,
the central'^esides an introduction, of two main divisions,
ess' Jttrbo' treating of the doctrine of the true, and the
-r.cond containing a cosmical theory of illusory appearance.
In Parmenides, the theological terminology of Xeno-
phanes is abandoned. Being, as distinguished from
Xon-being, is the subject-matter of philosophy. True
knowledge, the knowledge of Being, is only to be
obtained through intellect ; the senses serve only to delude
us with an apparent reality, which is in truth non-existent.
Being is one, unchangeable, unbecome, infinite, and eternal.
The appearance of change, multiplicity, limitation, etc.,
in the sense world, is illusory. Parmenides enunciated
for the first time, in history, the doctrine of abstract
Monism, and an abstract Monism it is, of the crudest
and most uncompromising description.

Melissos and Zeno.

The distinguished Samian General Melissos, also be-
longs to the Eleatic school. His subject-matter is the
Ens, or being, which, like Parmenides, he regarded as
an immovable, indivisible unity. Like Parmenides,
Melissos has a polemic against the conception of a void,
which is declared impossible. His work is mainly
directed against the Ionian Physicists.

The Eleatic Zeno is stated to have been an adopted
son of Parmenides, whose doctrines he embraced in their
entirety. He was regarded as a man of heroic character,
and numerous stories of his fortitude are related. There
is no new doctrine taught by Zeno. His philosophical
work consisted of an attempt to fortify the positions of
Parmenides, and to clinch his arguments and demonstra-
tions. This he efiected or sought to efi'ect b}^ means of
Dialectic, or the reductio ad ahsurdum, a method of proof
which he was the first to employ. Numerous instances
illustrative of his skill in this kind of argumentation are
transmitted, of which the most noted is the so-called
Achilles-puzzle. The object was to prove the impossibility
of motion. If Achilles and the tortoise run a race, and

Epoch L] THE PRE-SOKRATIC SCHOOLS. 35

Achilles do but give the tortoise a start, however slight,
he will never overtake the tortoise. — Proof as follows : If
Achilles is to overtake the tortoise, he must first reach
the point where the tortoise was when he started ; next
the point it has attained in the interval ; next the point
arrived at, while he is making this second advance ; and so
on ad infinitum, which is obviously impossible in a finite
time.*

This is one of four arguments employed by Zeno to
prove the impossibility of motion. Arguments of an
analogous kind are brought forward to demonstrate the
impossibility of plurality. In Zeno the opposition of the
Eleatic philosophy to common sense is brought out into
the most prominent relief. Multiplicity and motion are
not encountered with general arguments, as with Par-
menides, but their impossibility is sought to be drawn
from their very conception. In this way Zeno's dialectic
started problems which philosophy has never since been
able to evade.

Soon after Melissos and Zeno, the Eleatic school seems
to have died out, its dialectic being absorbed by the
Sophists. It should be observed that several of the
Eleatics included a cosmology (not very consistently
perhaps) in their philosophy, of which, since it is destitute
of value or importance, either intrinsically or as bearing
on the system proper, no account has been given. One
point only is worthy of notice, namely, that the Eleatics
invariably assumed two elements as primal instead of the
one element of the Ionian Hylozoists. In this we may
perhaps see a transition to the four elements of Empedokles.
The way in which the Eleatic system, starting from a
polemic in the person of the founder against the current
theology, became purely philosophic, has already been
noticed.

* " The infinity of space in this race of subdivision is artfully run
against a finite time ; whereas if the one infinite were pitted, as m
reason it ought to be, against the other infinite, the endless divisibi-
lity of time against the endless divisibility of space, there would arise a
reciprocal exhaustion and neutralisation that would swallow up the
astounding consequences, very much as the two Kilkenny cats ate up
each other." De Quincey"s works, Vol. XVI., p. 154.

D 2

36 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

THE METAPHYSICAL-PHYSICISTS.

Herakleitos.

We have now reached a group of thinkers who com-
bined the Hylozoism of the lonians with the metaphysical
methods of the Pythagoreans and Xenophanes.* The
metaphysic of the Eleatics was purely abstract. It
admitted of no modus vivendi with the material world.
One unchangeable, immovable and eternal being alone
existed as the essence of the real, all else was absolute
illusion. The negation of the possibility of motion and
change was now met by their affirmation as the insejDarable
attribute of real being. Physics, or cosmology, ceasing to
be separated by an impassable gulf from philosoj^hy
proper, as with the Eleatics, was absorbed into its central
doctrine. The leading names in this group are Herakleitos,
Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Leukippus and Demokritos.

Herakleitos sprang from an ancient family of Ephesus,
claiming descent from the Homeric Nestor. He was an
arch-aristocrat, and a bitter hater of the democracy of his
native town. The date of his birth was probably about
B.C. 532. On account of the mystical language in which
his doctrines were couched, he obtained the cognomen of
the " Obscure."

The cardinal doctrine of Herakleitos : " All things
flow," was an aphorism for the great principle of
" becoming ; " of the identity in contradiction of all things,
which it is the undoubted glory of the Ephesian
thinker to have for the first time definitely enunciated.
Everything is and is not at the same moment ; it exists
only in transition. The inherent opposition of all
things, the strain of contradiction running through them,
he describes as " the harmony of the world like that of
the lyre and the bow."

PhysicalJy expressed, the ultimate essence of the real

* The work of Parmenides was subsequent to that of Herakleitos.

Epoch I.] THE METAPHYSICAL-PHYSICISTS. 37

was " fire," that element beiug symbolical of non-
stability, of ceaseless change. "The one world of all
things, has not been made either by a god or a man ;
but it was, and is, and will be, an everliving fire, kindling
itself according to measure and extinguisshing itself
according to measure." From the upper regions where
the fire was purest it descended to the middle regions
where it became water, less pure, less living ; till finally
it reached the lowest region of all, the region of least
life, least change, and least motion, viz. the earth. At
this point the reverse process commenced, the fire
gradually ascending to the sphere of its original purity.
From fire all things come, and into fire they must
return. The "fire" of Herakleitos must be understood
rather as an incandescent vapour than as actual flame.
The processes of the evolution and dissolution of the
world out of and into this fiery vaj^our are eternally
alternating.

Herakleitos employed various illustrations to bring
home to the mind the eternal flux of things ; as that one
could not step twice into the same river, etc. To
illustrate that everything existed in combination with its
opposite, he instanced sleep and waking, life and death,
youth and age.

It is a manifest historical misapprehension to describe
Herakleitos, as is done byUeberweg, as a " Hylozoist to the
backbone," * since the slightest acquaintance with his
doctrines suffices to show us that their salient point is
not so much the theory of a primitive fire, which is rather
inferential and illustrative, as the doctrine of the eternal
flux and reflux of things, and of contradiction and strife
as essential to existence.

The Herakleitan school continued to possess numerous
adherents, especially in Ephesus and the Greek cities of
Asia Minor, till the time of Sokrates. One of Plato's
teachers, Kratylos, was an Herakleitan.

The work of Herakleitos which bore the title, common
to most of the pre-Sokratic treatises, Trept </)i;o-ea>s, was
extant and much read by the Christians of the second and

* " Vom hause aus Hylozoist," Ueberweg, Vol. I., p. 46.

38 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

third centuries, — but fragments only have reached modem
times.

There are several monographs on Herakleitos, by
different Gi-erman scholars, the most celebrated being
Ferdinand Lassalle's great work. Die PJiilosophie Hera-
Jcleitos' des Dimkeln von Epliesos, 2 Bde.^ Berlin, 1858, the
critical value of which, however, is impaired by its strong
Hegelian tendency.

EmI'EDOKLES.

Empedokles was born at Akragas, in Sicily, B.C. 490.
His history is overlaid with legends, of which the well-
known storj^ of his suicide on Mount Etna is a specimen.
Empedokles, like Parmenides, embodied his philosophical
views in an epic poem.

The four elements (so-called), fire, water, earth and air,*
were to Empedokles the ultimate forms of the real, but
they were not like the Ionic primitive substance capable
of qualitative change. All things were composed of these
four elements, but by a mixture in various proportions.
In themselves they were absolutely statical, possessing no
inherent principle of determination, such as condensation
and rarefaction, as with the Hj-lozoists and Herakleitos.
The change and multiplicity of things is brought about
by mechanical principles foreign to their essential nature.
Those principles were love and hate, a uniting and a
separating principle. By this dualistic conception Em-
pedokles found the modus vivendi between the Absolute
Being of Parmenides, which excluded all becoming, and
therefore all reality, and the absolute flux of Herakleitos,
which seemed to exclude all self-existent Being.

Empedokles conceived of absolute existence, like Xeno-
phanes, as originally one unchanging all-encompassing
sphere, which the opposing influences of love and hate
first reduced to the world of change, motion, and plurality
by the comlDination and separation of the four " roots,"
as Empedokles terms them, which it implicitly contained.
Each of the two forces prevails alternately in the process

* We perliaps ought rathar to say, the solid, the liquid, the gaseous,
and the ethereal, i.e. the four forms of matter.

Epoch I.] THE METAPHYSICAL-PHYSICISTS. 39

of the world-formation. Originally, absolute love (i.e.
union) obtained. Hate gained an entrance and severed
the elements from one another, in which way individual
beings arose. But the power of hate reaching its ex-
tremest point, individual things cease to exist. Every
particle of matter is separated from every other particle.
The combining influence of love then enters again, and new
individual beings arise, till with the complete re-establish-
ment of the power of love all reverts to the primal state
of absolute quiescence and unity.

Empedokles' philosophy also contained a theory of the
order in time and the manner of the origin of plants and
animals. Sense-perception it explained by the out-flow-
ing of particles from external bodies, and their impinge-
ment upon the organs of sense, every element in bodies
being perceived by us through a corresponding element
in ourselves.

Anaxagoras.

Anaxagoras, who was born at Klazomenoe about B.C. 500,
of a noble family, subsequently migrated to Athens, and
became the friend of Perikles. Owing to an accusation of
atheism, he was compelled to leave the city, and fly to
Lampsakos, where he died at the age of seventy-two.

Like Empedokles and the Atomists, Anaxagoras postula-
ted qualitatively unchangeable substance, by the combina-
tion and separation of which, individual things arose. This
substance consisted of an infinite interpenetration of ele-
ments, an infinite chaos. It was neither increased nor
diminished, but suffered only combination and resolution
into infinitely varying forms. The primitive aggregate
was termed by subsequent exponents of the system Homoi-
omeroi. The union of these ultimate elements with each
other was so complete, that they were divisible to infinity,
there being no ultimate and irresolvable atoms at their
basis. This formless mass was subjected not to a necessary
law, but to vovs, or mind, an omnipotent and omniscient
power that produced order and harmony out of the chaos.
The separation is conceived as going out successively from
a middle point in ever-widening circles. As with most of
the ancients, Anaxagoras regarded the earth as the centre

40 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.

of the universe. His theory of the origin of organic beings
strongly resembled that of Anaximandros.

The two most noteworthy points in the philosophy of
Anaxagoras are the introduction of the notion of mind into
philosophic speculation, and the assertion of the infinite
divisibility of matter, or, as it is termed, Dynamism. A
great deal has been made of the first of these points, as
might naturally be expected, but so far from its supposing
any advance in conception, we may rather consider it as
philosophically a reaction to anthropomorphism. The
appearance of the problem of the ultimate constitution
of matter upon the arena of speculation, on the other
hand, undoubtedly marks an epoch in the history of
thought, and had immediate results.

The Atomists.

The reputed founder of Atomism in Greece was Leu-
kippus, respecting whom scarcely anything is known, not
even whether he committed his doctrines to writing or
not. According to Aristotle, he originally belonged to the
Eleatic school. The real literary founder of the school,
Demokritos, who is described as a pupil of Leukippus,
flourished about half a century later than Anaxagoras.
He was born at Abdera, and is stated to have employed
the large fortune he possessed in travelling throughout
Egypt and the East. He died at an advanced age, much
respected, in his native town. Demokritos composed a
large number of works, all of which, with the exception of
fragments preserved by later writers, have perished.

The Atomistic system connects itself by opposition, in
an unmistakable manner, with that of Anaxagoras. The
latter philosopher had assumed a chaotic aggregate divis-
ible to infinity as the primal substance of all things.
Demokritos postulates a plenum and a void, the former
of which he also terms existent, and the latter non-
existent. The existent consists of an infinite plurality
of atoms, each of which is indivisible. Between the
atoms is the void or non-existent. The connection and
distinction between this system and that of Anaxagoras is
obvious. AVith Anaxagoras the plenum was practically a

Epoch I.] THE METAPHYSICAL-PHYSICISTS. 41

continuous substance, for the plural designation can only-
have a qualitative application, the notion of the " void " or
empty space being excluded. The atoms of Demokritos, on
the contrary, were conditioned in their existence by the
void, in other words they were discrete substances. The
Homoiomerioi of Anaxagoras, again, were infinitely divisible,
the atoms of Demokritos absolutely indivisible.

The action of the atoms was conditioned in a triple way,
by their order, their position and th.Q\r form. Their size was
various, but upon it depended their weight, that is, their
tendency to move do^vnwards. The atoms, like the void,
w^ere eternal. Their motion was also original and eternal.
The weight of the atoms being unequal, some falling with
a greater velocity than others, gave rise, according to
Demokritos, to lateral motions, which again with the
original motion, constituted a circular or vortex motion,
which was ever extending itself, and w^hich was the
proximate cause of the world-formation. In this theory,
we have a distinct reminiscence of Anaxagoras. These
positions, the Atomists thought, sufficed to explain the
variety of phenomena.

The suj)er-sensible atoms and the void alone existed in
themselves, the real world existed for us only. Perception
was explained by the efflux of atoms from bodies producing
images on our mind through the medium of the organs
of sense. Demokritos was the last of the Metaphysical-
Physicists, and of the older Greek speculators. The
crisis produced by the Sophists had already begun ; the
attention of philosophy was already being drawn away
from the contemplation of Being to Knowing, from the
object to the subject, and Greek thought was fast becoming
ripe for the magical and renovating touch of Demokritos^^
younger contemporary Sokrates.

42 » GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. ^

TRANSITION TO SOKRATES.

The Sophists.

The founder of tlie negative and sceptical school of the
Sophists or "wise men" is usually designated as Protagoras.
This brilliant philosophical free-lance wasbomat Abdera, the
city of Demokritos, in a humble sphere of life, out of which
his abilities soon carried him. After travelling in Sicily,
he settled at Athens, where he made much money and
fame by his, teaching, for which he was the first to demand
payment. Led, it is stated, by the Herakleitan doctrines
to a sceptical attitude, his fundamental thesis gradually
acquired shape. It consisted, to put it in modern
language, in the denial of all objectivity and the
restriction of all knowledge to mere impressions of the
individual subject. Protagoras maintained that to every
assertion a contrary assertion could be opposed with equal
right. His favourite aphorism was : " Man is the measure
of all things." As a result, probability took the place of
truth, and immediate utility, of goodness.

Prodikos, born in the island of Chios, also came to
Athens while a young man, and adopted the calling of
Sophist. His chief merit lies in his having contributed to
fix the definitions of words, thus preparing the way for
the Sokratic dialectic. His lectures were so much in
request as to enable him to make a charge of fifty
drachmas a person.

Another eminent name in the Sophist school was
(rorgias, who, evidently influenced by the Eleatics,
maintained that neither being or non-being, one or many,
become or unbecome, had any reality or meaning. His
orations, in which a similar dialectical mode of argument
to that of Zeno was employed, were delivered publicly
on any given subject. Extemporaneous oratory and
oral disputation he attached much importance to, and
became eminent throughout Greece and the colonies
for his skill in these arts. Two orations, of doubtful
genuineness, have come down to us under his name.

Epoch L] THE SOKKATIC SCHOOLS. 43

Among other eminent Sophists may be mentioned
Hippias, Polos, Thrasymachos, etc.

The Sophists practically dealt a death-blow at the
earlier philosophies considered as independent systems, by
opposing them to each other and showing the one-sided-
ness of each, while the plausibility of the several doctrines
taken by themselves, combined with their mutually
exclusive character to produce a spirit of universal
scepticism throughout the philosophic world, even apart
from the arguments more especially directed to this end.
The individualist and utilitarian nature of the Sophistic
ethics naturally procured for the doctrine wide accepta-
tion at a time when the old civic feeling was beginning to
wane. The " gilded youth " of the Greek cities flocked to
the lectures of its professors, more to learn the art of
skilful disputation, for the profitable exercise of which
the public life of the Hellenic race afforded such a wide
field at this period, than from any intrinsic interest in
philosophical questions. As a natural consequence, the
whole Sophistic teaching ultimately came to have mere
rhetorical display for its end, by which those proficient
therein might make the worse appear the better reason, as
occasion required.

It was this empty dialectical art that reigned almost
supreme in Greece under the name of philosophy, when the
" Silenus figure " appeared in the Agora at Athens, with
a dialectic similar indeed in kind, but employed for
another purpose ; a dialectic which was destined to make
an end of Sophism, as Sophism had made an end of pre-
vious dogmatism. It has been often remarked, and with
justice, that the Sophistic movement was never strictly
philosophical, but was rather a popular rationalistic out-
burst, having its springs in the entire religious, political
and social life of Greece shortly before the Peloponnesian
war. As such it is difficult to fix upon any individual as
the acti^al founder of the movement, which, so far as names
are concerned, was rather consentaneous than successive.
The sudden appearance of the Sophistic orators throughout
Xhe Greek world is one of those phenomena in the history
of culture, for which not more than general causes can be
assigned in the absence of exhaustive historical data.

44 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

SECOND EPOCH.

SOKEATES.

We have now arrived at the first great land- mark
in Greek speculation. The personality of the son of
Sophroniskos is one of the few world-personalities whose
name and fame have found an echo amid all races, where-
ever human culture has existed.

The date of Sokrates' birth is approximately fixed at
from B. c. 471 to 469. He was the first philosopher born
in Athens, where his father was a sculptor, a calling he
himself followed during the early portion of his career.
After receiving the education prescribed by law, Sokrates
appears to have taken up the studies of astronomy and
geometry. The story of his having been a pupil of
Anaxagoras or Archelaus, is generally regarded as a
fabrication, though there is no doubt that he attended
the lectures of the Sophists, notably Prodikos. It is also
probable that he read most of the extant philosophical
literature ; he was certainly familiar with the treatise of
Anaxagoras. Plato relates that he came personally into
contact with Parmenides while a boy — a statement which
Ueberweg credits, though generally considered doubtful.

Sokrates took part in three campaigns during the
Peloponnesian war, in which he signalised himself by his
courage and endurance. Otherwise he held aloof from
public aftairs, onty once in his life occupying an official
position. Seldom leaving his beloved Athens, he daily
mixed with the crowds that thronged the Agora, willing
to converse with all who wished to do so. Young men
were especially attracted by him, and presently the world-
famous group, comprising among others, Plato, Xenophon,
Eschines, Euripides, Krito, etc., came to be formed.
Meanwhile, Sokrates had acquired a celebrity which
eclipsed that of his Sophist teachers, and which led the
comic poet Aristophanes, who hated philosophy, to satirise
it in his person in the ' Clouds.' It is a noticeable fact that
Aristophanes apj^ears to have been about as ignorant of

Epoch II.] SOKRATES. 45

the tiling he was satirising as many popular writers in
our own day, who, without his genius, attempt to make
fun of new truths and their advocates, for, like them, he
seemed to consider it immaterial, so long as he was
attacking philosophy, what distinctions of stand-point he
confounded. Thus Sokrates is represented in the character
of a Sophist, Aristophanes being apparently oblivious of
the fact that Sokrates led a polemic against the Sophists.

The main, and we may perhaps say, only, thesis in
Sokrates' philosophy was the assertion of the identity of
knowledge and virtue. No man was willingly bad, but
only from ignorance and confusion. As a corollary from
this we have the assumption that virtue is teachable, and
that as all knowledge is essentially one, so is virtue. The
revolution effected by Sokrates has been well described by
Cicero as consisting in the bringing down of philosophy
from heaven to earth. Had Sokrates written a treatise, it
would not have borne the traditional title of those of his
predecessors, " On Nature," but rather " On Man." The
immediate object of his teaching was the attainment of clear
ideas or concepts, the highest of all being that of the good,
or the Summum Bonum ; in order through this knowledge
to attain the perfect life. Eeferring to his mother, the
midwife Phanarete, he used to say that as her calling in life
was to deliver children into the world from the womb, so it
was his calling to watch over mental parturition, and deliver
ideas from the mind. The method he used to effect this,
was that of irony, or pretended ignorance. He would ask
questions on any subject, as though for information. The
oftentimes confident answers received would lead to
further questions, till in the end the luckless victim of
confused ideas and loose thought, would be brought to
silence, if not to an admission of the victory of the Sokratic
dialectic. Aristotle declares Sokrates to have been the
founder of the inductive method, though this could only
have been as applied to ethical subjects and the defini-
tion of words ; but here again it would seem only fair to
credit his master Prodikos with the foundation of this
logical art.

The Sophists had identified truth with individual
opinion or conception. Sokrates distinguished between

46 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

indivicUial conceptions as such, and those that, purified by-
Dialectic, were of universal application, i.e., true. All
learning was recollection ; all teaching the bringing to
light and clearness of ideas already existing, although
confusedly, in the mind of the taught. The result of
Sokrates' Dialectic was often simply to demonstrate the
reciprocal untenability of rival theories, without reaching
any positive conclusion. Much has been written respect-
ing the Scu/i-oi'tov of Sokrates. There seems every reason
for thinking that in accordance with the prevalent beliefs
he really regarded himself as under the supervision of a
tutelary supernatural agent, which warned him of the
danger attending certain courses of action.

The story of Sokrates' condemnation and death is too well
known to need repeating at length in a work of the present
scope. Having excited the enmity of the pietists, by his
refusal to be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, and
the hostility of the democratic party by his former friend-
ship with Kritias, one of the worst of the thirty tyrants,
for which the subsequent breach between them had not
atoned ; also probably by the fact of his having remained
unmolested in Athens throughout tlie worst period of the
tyranny ; he was impeached by JMeletos, an inferior poet,
Lykon, a Khetorician, and Anytos, a leather-dealer, on
three counts, charging him respectively, with "introducing
strange Gods," with corrupting youth, and with having
moulded the character of tyrants. He was convicted and
condemned to death, at first by a majority of six, but subse-
quently on appeal, of eighty votes. The circumstance that
the sacred vessel bearing the Athenian ofierings had just
sailed for Delos, allowed him nearly a month's respite —
during which he refused the means of escape ofi'ered him —
before, in April B.C. 399, he drank the hemlock in the
presence of his sorrowing disciples.

Much exaggerated blame has been bestowed on the
Athenians for the condemnation of Sokrates. There is
strong evidence that in its early stages at least he favoured
the Lacedemonian policy, while his known intimacy with
Kritias naturally threw grave suspicion on bis teaching.
As Thirlwall remarks, the strangeness consists not in the
fact of the conviction, but in the smallness of the majority

ErocH II.] THE SOKRATIC SCHOOLS. 47

by which the philosopher was at first convicted. But,
though even the external circumstances of the case are
sufficient to account for the action of the Athenians, there
is, we believe, a deeper significance in the attitude of all
that was conservative in the Athenian state towards
Sokrates. It was not zeal for the gods, qua gods, as we
take it, that formed the underlying ground of suspicion,
but zeal for the old civic spirit. The citizens of Athens
felt vaguely that the " Know thyself" of Sokrates was the
expression of a religion and an ethic, radically incom-
patible with the old spirit of solidaritj^ — an ethic of
individualism and introspection, which, if j^nshed to its
logical conclusions, must sap the ancient traditional ethic
of duty to the state as an organised whole at its very root.
This introspection was the " strange god " of which the
Athenians felt an uneasy dread, as destructive of the old
state religion and morality. It is somewhat of an irony on
the almost servile respect with which Sokrates generally
treated the established cultus, and his excessive care to
avoid any imputation of impiety, that this should have
constituted one (jf the main charges against him in the
capital indictment.

The revolution in thought inaugurated by Sokrates con-
sisted, (I.), in the retrospective method he employed, the
change in thesubject-matter of philosophy, from things to
ideas, from being to knowing, and (II.), in the ethical and
individualist tendency of all his work. Henceforward
ethics, and the ethical sciences, occupy, if not as with
Sokrates, an exclusive, at least a foremost, place in every
system.

The Sokratic Schools.

In the nature of the case, it was impossible for Sokrates
to leave behind him a school of pure Sokratists. His
philosophy was rather a mfethod than a doctrine. Sokrates
had said that the only sense in which he could interpret
the Delphic oracle's words, that he was the wisest man in
Greece, was, that while others thought they knew some-
thing, he knew that he knew nothing, and thus in his
person fulfilled the Delphic maxim "Know thyself."
Thus the Sokratic method of philosophy, of the search after

48 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

clear ideas and virtue, or the " perfect life," was pursued in
various directions, and led with diiferent temperaments
to different results ; for all of which, however, it was
possible to find some justification in the many-sided
utterances of the master. There were naturally, among
the disciples of Sokrates, personalities, like Xenophon,
mere men of the world, who had been generally influenced
and attracted by the conversation of Sokrates, but had no
independent interest in philosophy.

On the other hand, there were those who had a real
interest in the philosophical side of Sokrates, who sought
to derive some definite result from the life and teaching
of their master, to formulate for themselves and their
followers what his aims were, and what his teaching
really led to, when logically carried out.

These were the founders of the minor or " imperfect "
(because one-sided) Sokratic schools, as they are termed,
of which there are three, the Megaric, the Cyrenaic and
the Cynic. The originator of the first of these was
Euklid, of Megara. Before he became a disciple of
Sokrates, Euklid had embraced the Eleatic philosophy ^
which he never subsequently abandoned, interweavir. '
the Sokratic Ethics in an ingenious manner witn txa'
One-Being doctrine of Parmenides. As with Sokrates, th
proper subject-matter of philosophy was the Good ; br
Euklid identified this ideal Good of Sokrates with t^
ontological One of the Eleatics. To him virtue, kno
ledge, God, &c., were only diverse names for this absolu
fact. There was certainly little more than a formal
carrying out of the Sokratic doctrine in Euklid's system,
since Ethics, jjer se, appear to have been neglected by
him and his school, whose main interest centred in dia-
lectical polemic, after the manner of Zeno.

Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaic school, was the
son of a wealthy merchant of the gay and voluptuous city of
Gyrene. Attracted by the fame of Sokrates, he came to
Athens, and remained in close intimacy with him till his
death. Aristij^pus was much more of a Sokratist than
Euklid. He despised all speculation not having an
immediate bearing on practice. The life of man alone
had an interest for him. He diverged, however, from

Epoch II.] THE SOKKATIC SCHOOLS. 49

Sokrates on the opposite side to Euklid, in the vahie lie
ulaced on Dialectics and reasoning generally ; maintaining
.hat all knowledge was in essence merely that o^ our own
individual states of feeling. Hence the consideration of
these and their causes make up the whole subject-matter
of the theoretical side of his philosophy. All states
of consciousness are reducible to violent motion, moderate
motion, and the lack of all motion. The first is jDain, the
second is pleasure, and the third is apathy. Pleasure,
Aristippus boldly proclaimed as the only good. The
practical side of philosophy was the attainment of pleasure,
the great art of life that of avoiding pain and apathy. With
Aristippus, it was the immediate pleasure of the moment
that was to be sought, and which the " wise man " was to
seize. He was not, however, to be governed or controlled
by it, but, as it were, to ride it, as a horseman rides his
steed. On the other hand, the Cyrenaic " wise man "
w^ould not embrace a present pain even with a view to
future pleasure.

It was this point which mainly distinguished the
hedonism of Aristij^pus from that of Epicurus, of whose
ethical system he was otherwise the forerunner, and in
whose school the Cyrenaics became subsequently merged.
Numerous writings are attributed to Aristippus, as to
Euklid, but they have completelj^ perished in both cases.

The creator of the Cynic school, or rather sect, was the
Athenian Antisthenes, who, after an education at the
hands of Gorgias the Sophist, came to Sokrates. What
specially charmed him in the latter, was his independence
of external " goods " and what to others were the ne-
cessities of life ; his superhuman hardihood in adversitj'.
He subsequently set up as a teacher in the gymnasium of
the Kynosarges, whence the name of the sect. Antis-
thenes became enamoured of the notion of the pride of
virtue, upon which he heard Sokrates dilate, and it was
this that he and his followers caricatured in their own
persons. With Antisthenes, as with Sokrates, virtue
was the one thing worth living for, but his ideal virtue
Antisthenes placed in deprivation and asceticism. Ab-
solute indifference to circumstances was the first and the
last demand of wisdom, Avhich stood in no need of elabo-

E

50 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

rate argumentation, but only of strength of character.
Its sole end consisted in the avoidance of the pleasures
and desires that so readily gain the mastery over us, and
a fortiori of all that bears the impress of luxury or even
refinement. Accordingly the Cynics (of whom the best
known is not so much the founder of the sj^stem, as his
successor, the famous Diogenes of Sinope, but whose
lives were all cast in one mould) were content with at
most a wallet and a staif, ate anything they could obtain,
slept in the first place that presented itself, and jDcrformed
all the offices of life in public. The Cynics committed
nothing to writing, and all that has been handed down
from thein consists of j^ersonal anecdotes, miscellaneous
maxims and, to modern ears, somewhat feeble witticisms.

Epoch III.] PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 51

THIRD EPOCH.

TLATO AND AEISTOTLE.

This third epoch in Greek philosophy is a landmark
not merely in the history of philosophy but in the history
of human thought and culture generally. In these
two great typical thinkers the thought of all preceding-
ages converged as in a focus, while from them have
diverged rays, which have more or less guided all later
inquirers directly or indirectly, and influenced all the
more important currents of thought in the world's subse-
quent history. Plato and Aristotle are frequently regarded
as antithetic and mutually exclusive ; they are really
complementary. Plato is occupied mainly with an inquiry
as to the necessary and universal element in experience.
Aristotle supplements this inquiry, by one respecting the
contingent and particular element in the real, the em-
pirical laws to which special departments of phenomena
are subordinated. In this way, he became the founder of
the inductive method of physical science. Before com-
mencing o*ur analysis of the systems of Plato and Aristotle
it will be desirable to take a rapid survey of the ground
we have been traversing, and which has led up to them.
In this way we shall better be able to judge what is
their special individual contribution to human thought,
and what is merely the welding together into an organic
whole of the more or less fragmentary doctrines of their
predecessors.

The Ionian Physicists contented themselves with a
search after some primitive corporeal substance. In this
they implicitly assumed unity as the basis of the real
world. The last important member of the school,
Diogenes of Apollonia, explicitly formulated the monistic
doctrine, and endeavoured to show that the world must
be so to speak "cut out of one block," that there must he
one principle immanent in its multiplicity. This, the
Pythagoreans had already accentuated in their doctrine
of the Noetic one, or unity, in which all numbers, and, a

E 2

52 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

fortiori, all tilings were immanent. But the Pythagoreans,
besides this, removed the inquiry from the ground of
concrete substance to that of abstract mathematical
relations. These were of course hypostasized, and' made
the essences of which the real world was the manifesta-
tion, and which were in their turn the manifestation of the
original unity. Thus at the same time that an addition
to the range of philosophic inquiry was made by this
introduction of abstract notions, the monistic principle
was raised to an integral place in philosophy. The
Eleatics, by pushing this principle to its extreme limits,
forced into relief the opposition of the abstract and the
concrete, the one and the many, an opposition which
they made absolute.

They were thus compelled by their fundamental
principle to deny the sense-world, an issue which led to
the introduction of a Dialectic, based on an examination
of its fundamental notions. But the one-sided Monism
of the Southern Italians was encountered in Asia Minor
by a Monism embodied in perhaps the most V.. 'liant
of all the pre-Sokratic systems, that of Herakleitos. This
Monism took its stand on the fusion of the very contraries
whose opposition the Eleatics would have made absolute.
The other philosojjhers of the Metaphy si c£p1- Physicist
group attempted the solution of the same problem —
namely, to tind a modus vivendi between abstract absolute
Being and the multiplicity of the sense-world — but they
failed to formulate anything satisfactory. They all
sacrificed the one to the many at starting; their systems
are pluralistic ; in other words, the knot is cut but not
untied. Then came the Sophists, who placed all these
various systems on a level, by declaring man to be the
measure of all things, thereby practically denying the
possibility of truth in a higher sense. Following the
hint given by them, though despising their pedantry,
Sokrates abandoned the search for physical or meta-
physical truth, and applied himself to the search for
logical truth, to the definition and formulation of concepts,
and the attainment of " virtue " which necessarily followed
from a knowledge of the ideal " good." Sokrates was em-
phatically the philosopher and the apostle of inwardness.

Erocii III.] PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 53

^'Know thyself/' was the bepjuninpi; aD(L-_fiJ3iL of his
tgacliiiig! But this self-kno\vleclgo involved the , trans-
formation of the confused and ha})hazard thought of the
multitude, which the least criticism could involve in
hopeless contradiction, into clear, well-defined notions,
capable of universal application.

A development of three hundred years thus culminated
in Plato. Plato represents the synthesis of Sokratism and
Pre-Sokratism. In Plato the essence of the whole pre-
Sokratic philosophy is to be found transfused and trans-
formed by the Dialectic of Sokrates. The element which
is most prominent in the constructive portion of his
Avork is Pythagoreanism, but he owes scarcely less a debt
TO the Eieatics, to Herakleitos, and even to the sceptical
theories of the Sophists.

Aristotle, while starting from the synthesis of Plato,
brought the power of his mighty intellect to bear upon
it with the result that he effected a more complete fusion
of the pre-Sokratic thought than even Plato had done ;
that is, he seized more completely the meaning and the
essential in those systems. He more thoroughly separated
the ore, which they severally contained, from the accidental
dross with which it was combined. For instance, how
many a clumsily expressed doctrine and distinction of
Pythagorean and Eleatic lay hidden under the cardinal
antithesis of form and matter. What a light was cast on
the problems of philosophy by the at once definite and com-
prehensive expression (an expression covering neither too
much nor too little), of a principle which preceding thinkers
had been vainly groping after in the dark, now grasping it
for an instant, now blindly clutching at some other, quite
unessential fact in mistake for it. But Aristotle's more
popular, though not greater title to fame, lay in his
foundation of the inductive method, and of natural science
itself in the modern sense of the word. Observation
arul P.vpp.rjjmpmj^^ r.ollpr>.t,ir)n^_iiifting and COJuparison^of
facts, ~witli__a_viewL of through them arriving at general
principles, has its origin in the thinker of Stagira.

54 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

PLATO.

Plato, or to give liiin his correct appellation, Aristokles,
was bom at Athens about B.C. 429, his father's name being
Ariston, and his mother's Periktione. His youth was
passed amid the artistic splendours which the age of
Perikles had left behind it. Born of an aristociatic
family, he hated the democracy of Athens no less than his
master, Sokrates. As a youth, he appears to have occu-
pied himself with poetic attempts, which he committed to
the flames, when in his twentieth j^ear, he decided to
devote himself to philosophy. Previously to his acquaint-
ance with Sokrates, which occurred at this time, he
received instruction in philosophy from Kratylos the
Herakleitan, and probably from Epicharmos the Pytha-
gorean. He also seems to have been conversant with the
philosophy of the Ionian school, as well as with that of
Anaxagoras. Of his long and close intimacy with Sokrates,
in the course of which his own system gradually took
shape, it is only necessary to make mention.

After the execution of his master, he repaired to Megara,
remaining some time in companionship with Euklid, doubt-
less devoting himself with ardour to the Eleatic philo-
sophy, of which Euklid was the great post-Sokratic ex-
ponent. He subsequently entered upon a prolonged
period of travel, visiting first Ionia, and then Gyrene
and Egypt, and occupying himself with mathematical and
other studies. Of more influence on his subsequent in-
tellectual development was his journey to Italy, where
he became more intimately acquainted with the Pytha-
gorean system, and more thoroughly assimilated its doc-
trines, than previously. Possibly this influence induced
him to intermeddle with the political affairs of Syrakuse.
It was on his way home thence to Athens, that he was
(under circumstances variously related) captured and
sold into slavery ; a state in which he might have
remained but for the interposition of his friend, Annikeris,
the Cyrenaic, who ransomed him. On his arrival at Athens,
about forty years of age, he founded his school in the
groves of Akademos, subsequently purchasing the garden

Epoch III.] PLATO. 55

on the hill Kolonos, as its perpetual possession. With
the exception of two further fruitless expeditions to Sicily,
he remained in Athens, devoting himself to teaching and
writing for the remainder of his life, which terminated
B.C. 347.

Plato's Philosophy.

Plato is the first ancient thinker of whom we possess
anything more than fragments. All Plato's works are
exoteric, that is, suited not only for the school, but for
cultured readers generally. Critics, ancient and modern,
have exercised their wits in determining which of the
writings that have come down as Plato's are genuine, and
which are the works of disciples. Even in Antiquity
attempts were made to fix the order of the Platonic
Dialogues in a systematic manner. In connexion with
modern Platonic exegesis, it is sufficient to cite the names
of Schleiermacher (Plato's Lehen und Schriften), Socher
( Ueher Plato's Scliriften), Stallbaum (in his critical edition
of Plato's works), Hermann (Geschichte der Platonischen
Philosophie, ZeWer (Philosophie der GriecJien), Grote (Plato
and the other companions of SoJcrates), and Jowett (Plato's
works translated into English).

The content of Plato's philosophy naturally falls into
the well-known division of Dialectics, Physics, and Ethics,
although it is doubtful if he himself so formulated it. The
positive doctrines have to be sought out in the various
dialogues, each of which is, generally speaking, devoted
to the elucidation of some one point, but all of which
possess a merely negative and preparatory in addition to
their positive side. Plato, like any modern philosophic
writer, always pre-supposes in his readers a knowledge of
the chief philosophical literature of his time. His polemic,
in common with that of his master Sokrates, is mainly
directed against prevalent conceptions, and the doctrines
of the Sophists ; though there were not wanting sly shafts
aimed at the Sokratic teaching itself.

In the Theaisetus and the Parmenides, "common
sense " is attacked ; its object is shown to possess no
stability, and its existence to be at the best, probability
or opinion merely. The goal of all these discussions is to

56 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

produce scepticism of ordinary notions and the dictates
of unreflective perception ; and is thus identical with the
conviction of ignorance, which it was the aim oC the
Sokratic Dialectic to bring about. But this is with Plato
only the recoil previous to the philosophic spring about to
be made. All philosophy begins with the recluctio ad
absurdum of common notions. There is no true knowledge ;
wisdom, or even morality, but thaj: at j^ Tu^.d~thTT)u gTTph i 1 o-
_§^Mc^rej[ec"n'on.^~"The^ virtue Qjf^^ecommon man is the
e^ct of chance and — custom. TEe success even of a
Perikles, is merely due to a happy concurrence of character
and circumstances. In the ordinary sense the man is
termed brave, even though he fights from fear ; .but_ no
_actioiiJfijceally^yirtjwu^w^ full

conscioiisness_ gf^lts^grounds. It is not, as with the
Sophists, the individual perception or opinion that sums
up the truth for man, but that which is divine and univer-
sal in him, namely, the reflective, self-comprehending
Reason. Plato draws the distinction between impulse and
rational will, and shows that where pleasure is made of
set purpose the sole principle of action, the reverse of
pleasure is attained. (Gorgias.)

The subjective condition of true__knowlfid^e is jDhilo-
sophical yearning or desire. Neither the all-knuwing
(crocfios:) nor the wholly ignorant (d/xa^-^s) is concerned
therewith, but only the lover of wisdom (^tA.o(To</)os),
he, namely, who represents the mean between perfect know-
ledge and absolute ignorance. The philosophical impulse
is the germ from which art, morality and science proceed,
but it needs training and nourishment. The learning
which is the nourishment of the impulse, is the study of
the beautiful. Hence music* is named as the introduction
to philosophy. Mathematics is another stage midway
between sense-perception and intellectual intuition. But
the highest of all is the dialectical art. (Phsedo, Bejyuhlic.)
Dialectics stands in opposition to the Rhetoric of the
Sophists, which only teaches the art of expression. It is
injialogue, that by the^ifting and^ opposition of cojftmpn

* " Music," it must be borne in mind, with the ancients meant
general culture, excluding mathematics and philosophy.

Epoch III.] PLATO. 57

opinions, the true, the -univerBal is evolved. Antithetic
procedure is best for clear conceiving, as the consequences
of a conception and its opposite are then drawn from its
definition. But while the ironic method of Sokrates, the
Sophists, and of Zeno, is commended as a means, yet viewed
as an end in itself it is no less condemned. The ascent to
a correctly defined conception does not exhaust the process.
When it is reached, its grounds and its relations to other
concepts have further to be determined. Plato, in his
most subtle analyses, never loses sight of the fact that
philosophy is and must be a unity or nothing. Thus the
desire or love of knowledge (^eros) is not sufScient to make
the philosopher. He must understand and practise the
dialectical art. In the Symposium Sokrates is treated
as the incarnation of the Eros or love of wisdom. Plato,
it should be observed, speaks somewhat differently in
different places of Dialectics. Sometimes he identifies
it with truth or philosophy itself, while at others, he more
consistently sj^eaks of it as the ante-chamber to knowledge,
philosophy or truth.

Most of the more specifically dialectical among Plato's
dialogues {e.g., the These tetus, the Sophists, the Par-
menides, the Kratylos) are occupied with the attempt to
discover a via media between Eleaticism and Herakleitism,
between the conception of Being as one, self-existent, im-
movable, unchangeable, and the manifold, independent,
moving, changeful world of sense-perception. Plato saw a
half-truth in both of these doctrines ; he also saw their seem-
ingly contradictory nature. Hence his aim was to resolve
this contradiction in a higher unity. This could only be
efi^ected on Platonic principles by their mutual trituration,
so to speak. In the Parmenides,* Plato seeks to show that
Eleaticism is destroyed by its own arguments, since its
negation of the manifold, &c., leads to fully as great contra-
dictions as the opposite doctrine. The One in and above
the Many, Being in Becoming, Identity in Difference, and that
which, existent, cannot be thought of, except as limited
by non-existence is variously designated by Plato as ovrois
ov, as A.oyos (a word first employed in a philosophical sense

* The genuineness of the Parmenides has been more than once
disputed, but to all appearance on ground scarcely adequate.

58 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch TIL

by Herakleitos, whose subsequent history is both curious and
important as regards speculative thought), as oucrta, as
yeVos, as ctSo? vo-qrov, or finally as ISea. The last term
is the one with which Plato's system is most character-
istically associated. What Plato understood by Ideas is at
once seen when we remember that he says there are as
many Ideas as general names. The synthesis of qualities
cojmoted in a universal term constitute the archetypal
form or Idea of the concrete individuals which are (denoted
by it. Thus the general names " house," " bed," " animal,"
stand for the self-existent archetypal ideas of all the par-
ticulars and singulars falling severally under them, that is
at once for all particular kinds of houses, beds or animals,
and for every individual house, bed or animal. Plato's via
media between the Eleatic changeless one and the Herak-

leitan flux of the m^^ny nnnsisfprl in |.Via systp^TTi nfUflpaSj

A^hich showed a hierarchical order of gradation from the
highest and most alistract <;(»ncept to the concrete..real of
experience. Thus with i'lato the inchoate " non-existent "
world oTpure sense was no less an element in the reality
of consciousness than the self-existent world of pure in-
telligibility. The properly non-existent world of sense
acquired a pseudo-existence through its participation in
the world of ideas, the synthesis being our real world. But
the essence of the Platonic ideas is not exhausted in their
being the self-existent basis of the class they cover ; they
must also be regarded as potences positing their own ends.
AVith this notion of end we get into the region of ethics
and ontology or teleology. In the PJisedo, we are expressly
warned against conceiving the causal conditions of things
as their true basis (atria), for this latter can only lie in
their end or purpose. The teleological aspect of individual
things or of classes of things is indicated by the comparatives
better, best, which presuppose their relation to an absolute
universal ideal good, as the ultimate end, that in which all
other ends, and, a fortiori, all ideas, are, so to speak, gathered
up and concentrated. When we consider the ontological
system of ideas as also a teleological system of ends, it is
evident that this system must culminate in an Idea which
presents itself as the highest end, that to which all other
Ideas as ends tend to approach in varying degrees.

Epoch III.] PLATO. 59

Thus with Plato the highest Idea or ultimate end-in-
itself was manifested in a multitude of subordinate ideas or
"ends ;" and thus the problem of Pythagorean and Eleatic,
the problem of the One and the Many was solved, the vo9s
of Anaxagoras, and the " good " of Sokrates being embraced
in the solution. Hence, too, Plato achieved what his friend
Euklid the Megaric had attempted, namely, an ethical
Monism on the Sokratic lines. By Plato's highest and
comprehensive principle of the Good is to be understood
the universal world-order, natural no less than moral.
The absolute end or purpose as the " ov oi/ro^? " is the
object of Dialectics, inasmuch as this science leads from
the lower ideas, which are the determinations of things, to
that which is the determination of all determinations them-
selves. But the dialectician must not be satisfied merely
with ascending from the lowest to the highest, he must
also be able to deduce all lower ideas and all particular things
from this highest principle. In his later life Plato seems
to have more and more tended to Pythagoreanism, or at
least to a Pythagorean mode of statement. This appears
most prominently in the PMlehos. The mathematical
treatment of the doctrine of ideas which is there attempted
leads to results almost identical with the Pythagorean
theories. The idea of the good is identified with the Deity
or divine Eeason as well as with the Pythagorean Noetic
One. The high estimation of the mathematical sciences,
which is noticeable in the later writings, is not discoverable
in the Bepublic and other of the more important dialogues,
where they are spoken of merely as one of the preparatory
stages from mere " opinion " to the higher philosophical
insights obtained through the dialectical faculty, superior
indeed to the first but inferior to the second, inasmuch
as their subject-matter is still within the region of sense.

Plato's doctrine of reminiscence, as presented in the Meno,
the Phsedrus and elsewhere, is founded on the notion of
the ultimate identity of the divine and human minds. The
soul in its union with a material body enters on a period of
degradation in which it has fallen from its high estate as
a pure existent intelligible or formal essence, and become
contaminated with the non-existent world of sense. But,
however low it has sunk, it never entirely loses traces of

60 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

its origin. The possibility of its regaining its lost birth-
right, nay, even the possibility of philosophy itself lies in
this fact, in that it has a remembrance of the higher
realities it was wont to contemplate, and which it is the
object of the philosopher to disentangle from the confusion
of sense, and rehabilitate as far as may be in their purity.
- This, which is the end of the philosopher's life, can only be

^ proximately attained in this sphere of existence ; yet the
soul illumined by the philosophic contemplation may rise
in proportion to its light the more" speedily to be re-
absorbed into that divine essence, in which the material,

/ the sensible, has vanished, and the formal, and the intel-
ligible, alone remains. How much of this as of other
portions of Plato's doctrine was merely poetry or allegory,
it is impossible to decide with certainty, but there is
no serious reason for doubting that it was really held by
Plato.

Plato's physical speculations are contained almost in
their entirety in the Timseus. Inasmuch as the material
universe is only the object of perception and not of pure
intellection, no such strict deduction of principles can be
expected in dealing with it, as in subjects capable of the'
application of pure Dialectic. The most that can be
furnished is a body of probable opinion. The question
immediately arises, what is that which must be added to
the system or complex of Ideas in order that it may
appear as Nature, or in other words, as the Good in the
harmonious order of the sensible universe. The answer is,
that, in the first place, the superadded principle must be
foreign to the system of ideas itself ; the one being per se
the totality of absolute Being, the other must be that of
absolute non-Being ; since the one is the principle of all-
embracing and eternal unity, the other must be that of
self-contradictory, evanescent multiplicity.* This principle
must in short be none other than that unqualified, form-
less, inconceivable matter which is the object of pure sense.
Pure sense must not be confounded with conscious percep-
tion which involves a participation in the ideal or logical ;

* It may be observed in passing, that this is simply a roundabout
mode of stating the Aristotelian distinction of form and matter, which
all the dialogues of Plato are struggling to express.

Epoch III.] PLATO. 61

it is rather mere inchoate siih-conscions feeling (the hlinde
Anschauung of Kant). This is the properly non-existent
element in the real world, and this it is which added to,
or latlier limiting, and, so to si)eak, blurring the ideal
world transforms it into Nature or the world of actual
experience. The purely sensible or non-existent as
opposed to the purely intelligble or existent object seems
to be identified by Plato as by Aristotle, with pure
extension or space. Plato may have well seen in space
the medium by which the self-contained ideas were
confounded with one another and with their negation,
in the foi m of concrete objects.

The foregoing doctrine, though not expressed in so
many words by Plato, is implied more or less throughout
his writings, and is the only consistent mode of stating
in a few words his position. It is introduced here as
assisting the student to understand the transition from
the dialectical to the physical side of his philosojDhy, In
the Timseus the universe is conceived as an animated being,
" a blessed God," created by a Demiiirge or divine artificer,
a conception, however, difScult to reconcile with the
other side of the sj^stem, and illustrating the looseness
and essentially unsystematic character of Plato's ex-
position where it is so often hard to distinguish between
philosophy and poetry. But it seems that Plato identified
his creator with the sujDreme " Idea " or the " Good."
The soul of the world which pervades its every part,
manifesting itself in the numbers and harmony of the
spheres no less than in the laws regulating mundane
phenomena — was created prior to the body or material of
the universe. Time is coincident with its formation.
The universe represents the best possible of worlds.
As the chaotic matter took form and shape it assumed
determinate mathematical figures and relations. Thus
the elementary constituents of fire are of pyramidal
figure, those of water, icosahedral, those of air octahedral,
and those of earth cubical. The spheres once constituted
the deity proceeds to the creation of living beings. First
in order come the heavenly gods (which are identified in
part at best with the stars and other celestial bodies) ;
secondly, the creatures inhabiting the air ; thirdly, those

62 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

living in water ; and finally, those whose dwelling-place
is the earth. Plato then gives a mythical description of
the origin of those inferior species of animals which the
supreme deity himself has not formed, but whose creation
is delegated to the lower gods, with the exception of
whatsoever is immortal in their constitution. Man is the
analogue of the universe, in so far as, like the world, he
consists of body and soul in mysterious unity. His soul
is of a dual or indeed triple nature. In the head is lodged
the divine and immortal part ; in the breast the mortal and
human part, consisting of the passions ; while the liver
and spleen were constructed and placed where they are
for the purpose of divination and prediction of the future.
The later chapters of the Timseus show that Plato, like
most of his contemporaries, was a believer in metem-
psychosis, and contain some curious and fanciful applica-
tions of that widespread and time-honoured doctrine.
Such is a brief outline of Plato's cosmical theory.

The essence of the Platonic metaphysic we have seen to
consist in the doctrine, that to every concept or general
name, there corresponds an eternal, self-existent essence or
idea ; that the system of ideas thence arising has at once
as its basis and completion, the idea of the Good which is
the common principle alike of being and knowing, and
from which therefore all subordinate concepts and ideas
are deducible (according to the Philehos on mathematical
principles). This " good," it will have been apparent, is
aesthetic and teleological as well as specially ethical.
But inasmuch as it is the object of all philosophy, it is of
course none the less so of Ethics. In this connection we
have to regard it as constituting the content of the human
will. Plato in the Thesetetiis expresses himself ve-
hemently against the Cyi'enaic Hedonists who would
make pleasure the chief good. In the Philehos (as in the
Bepuhlic and elsewhere, though at less length) he de-
velops the thesis that only in the Beautiful and, a fortiori^
in the Proportionate (since to Plato beauty consisted in
nothing but symmetry, proportion, and harmony) does
the good lie, and hence that all excess either on the side
of asceticism or indulgence is evil, a position in consonance
with his general attitude. Intemperate and exaggerated

Epoch III.] PLATO. 63

tendencies and conduct he regards as diseases of the soul,
since they imply the ascendency of the merely human and
animal over the divine portions, in other words a lack of
the regulating power of insight and reason, and a conse-
quent blind irrational play of impulses, indicating a dis-
turbance of normal functions, corresponding to that
observable in bodily disease. We have seen how Plato
identifies the ethical with the sesthetic chief good which
was at the same time the highest end. We shall, therefore,
not be surprised at his teleological definition of Virtue as
the adaptability of the life to its end — a definition which
embraces all particular virtues and is coincident with
Justice. Virtue is to be pursued as an end in itself, and
on no account for subsidiary ends, such as pleasure and
pain, reward and punishment. To do evil is always
worse than to suifer evil.

In the Republic we have a presentation of the " good "
in the form of perfect virtue or justice as embodied in the
social order of a commonwealth, in the same way that in
the Timseus we had a presentation of the manner in which
this same idea embodied itself as harmony in the natural
order of the cosmos. The state is nothing but a magnified
individual. The highest function of the state is the
training of its citizens to be virtuous. The orders in the
state must correspond to the virtues of the human soul,
consisting of the rulers, whose specific virtue is wisdom,
corresponding to the divine part ; the guardians or warriors
whose virtue is courage, corresponding to the emotional,
active, or human part ; and the traders and labourers
whose virtue is self-control and obedience, corresponding
to the part of the soul concerned with nutrition and the
organic functions.* There are to be no private interests
or wealth, but all things are to be in common. Neither
is marriage, or the family relation to be recognised. The
condition of the realization of this ideal state lies in the
assumption of the helm of affairs by statesmen who are at
the same time philosophers. This platonic Utopia, though
based on the then actually existing Lacedemonian polity,

* The ancients knew nothing of any hard and fast distinction
between the " soul " and the life of the organism ; the one was a part
of the other.

64 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

Plato supplemented in his later years by a modified
version elaborated in the Laws which was put forward as
more easy of attainment.

Plato can hardly be said to have formulated a system
proper. He retained too much of the Sokratic spirit and
method of pretended ignorance ever to permit himself the
expression of a decided judgment. The form, moreover,
which he adopted for his writings rendered this impossi-
ble. His views on the various departments of philosophy
are not grouped in any way, and even those on any one
subject, often conflicting, have generally to be gathered
together from several different dialogues. Under these
circumstances the difficulty of furnishing a condensed
account of true Platonism is sufficiently obvious. Plato
may be considered as the founder of what is now known as
" Theory of Knowledge." The pre-Sokratic thinkers had
inquired for the principles of Being ; Sokrates opposed to
their inquiry that as to the principle of Knowing ; Plato,
Tvhile starting from the standpoint of Sokrates, sought to
show that the two inquiries were identical, that Being in-
volved Knowing, as Knowing involved Being. Plato was
thus the first consistent Idealist. The only existence to
him was the logical, the Ideal ; which was limited and
confounded by the non-existent Sensible.

Surprise has sometimes bc^n expressed at Plato's includ-
ing, besides abstract concepts proper, i.e., such as express
qualities, " natural kinds " or " class names " among his
eternal self-existent ideas. To us it seems that it was in
these latter that he believed himself to have found the
bridge between the seose-manifold of experience and the
intelligibles of Dialectics. " Natural Kinds," in other
words, universals connoting a ready-made synthesis and
only awaiting the " here" and "now " of sense for their
concrete realisation, were plainly the link between the
empirical and the intelligible worlds, between the world
of change and multiplicity given in ordinary conscious-
ness, and that world of abstract ideas, to the contempla-
tion of which the philosopher aspired. The objects of
the real world bore, doubtless, to Plato, much the same
relation to the natural kinds which denoted them, as the
system of ideas itself bore to the Supreme Idea.

Epoch III.] ARISTOTLE. 65

There are some stuclents who may be inclined to
wonder at Plato's deification of the concept-form or
universal ; at what seems to be mere logical subtlety
being constituted "our being's aim and end." Such
persons forget the fact that education and culture
itself is nothing other than self-universalisation. Every
advance the individual makes in the higher life of
thought means a breaking down of the limits which con-
fine him to the " here," the " this," and the " now ; " in
short, in a sense a suspension, or at least, an ignoring of
those space-and-time relations which rule supreme in
the every-day world of his and his neighbours' " con-
cerns." Listen to the conversation of a company of
tradesmen, or women ; of what does it consist, but of
gossip immediately bearing on concrete personalities and
their surroundings; every thing turns on this. Listen, on
the other hand, to the conversation of a company of
thinkers, and it will in all probability be found to consist
of discussion concerning, not the interests of any concrete
person or persons, leastways qua concrete, but of things
and places or events probably far distant in time or space,
but at all events in their abstract and general relations
and altogether aj)art from personalities as such and their
interests. It may be permitted us to regard this at least
as one of the side-truths shadowed forth in the work of
Plato. With this concluding observation, we pass on to
Plato's great pupil and successor, Aristotle.

ARISTOTLE.

The birth of Aristotle was cast in one of the most
critical periods of Grecian history. The old independent
political life of the Greek cities was being extinguished
by the monarch of a state that had hitherto taken little
or no part in the affairs of Greece. It was at Stageiros, or
Stagira— a city of this rising state, destined within the
next half-century to become the master of the greater
part of the then known world— that Aristotle was born
(B.C. 385). His father, Nikomachos, and grandfather,

66 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

Machaon, were both phj^sicians, an interesting circum-
stance to the student of heredit3^ Losing his father when
a boy, Aristotle was early thrown on his own resources,
and at seventeen years of age, came to seek his fortune in
Athens, where Plato, then in the prime of life, was
attracting to his lectures the philosophically-disposed
among his fellow citizens. Aristotle seems to have found
the leisure, in spite of his own professional avocations as
apothecar}^, to become a regular attendant at the Academy.
Some years later he set up as a professor of Ehetoric,
but after Plato's death, left Athens, and repaired with his
fellow-pupil, Xenokrates, to Hermeias, the tyrant of
Atarneus, whose brother's daughter he subsequently
married. On the death of Hermeias, he went to reside in
the island of Mytilene, till called away by the offer of
Philip of Macedon, to entrust him with the education of
his son Alexander, then thirteen years old. Aristotle
remained at the court of Macedon four years, and did not
quit the country for a further period of four years, when
he returned to Athens and established himself as teacher
of philosophy in the Lyceum, a building deriving its
name from the circumstance of its standing opposite the
temple of Apollo Lykeios. The name " perijDatetic," which
clung to Aristotle's school, arose from his habit of pacing
its halls while lecturing. His activity as lecturer only
lasted thirteen years, after which, in consequence of a
political accusation, he left Athens for Chalkis, where he
died, B.C. 322, just one year after his pupil, Alexander the
Great.

Aristotle's Philosophy.

The features mainly distinguishing the writings of
Aristotle from those of Plato, are their strictly philoso23hical
character, there being no trace in them of any artistic
purpose. A legend relates that though Aristotle began his
literary career by the composition of dialogues after the
manner of Plato, he soon abandoned that form in despair
of ever approaching the master. In addition to these
dialogues, he wrote other popular pieces, to which allusions
are made by many ancient writers, besides Aristotle him-
self, but these have all perished with the exception of one

Epoch III.] AEISTOTLE. 67

or two fragments. Aristotle's writings have reached ns
in a state of great confusion, and in some cases corruption,
while several treatises {e.g., the Eudemean and the " great "
Ethics) handed down as the Stagirite's, are now univer-
sally recognised as the compilations of disciples. Several
complete editions of Aristotle have appeared since the
Aldine, published at Florence, in five folio volumes, in the
15th century. The best is generally considered to be that
of Bekker and Brandis, issued under the auspices of the
Berlin Academy of Sciences (4 vols., 1831-35).

In the Aristotelian philosophy, the departments of
Logic, Physics, and Ethics become even more definitely
pronounced than in the Platonic. Eecognising, wdth
Plato, the indwelling yearning for knowledge as the
basis of philosopliy. Aristotle maintains that philosophy
is^othing but the extension and methodisation of common
experience ; that it does not, as Plato contended, involve a
complete break with the sense-manifold, but that on the_
contrary it has its origin in common perception, or in
other words, in particular objects. ^ExjDerience is merely
constituted out of the successive recognition of likeness
in jDercepJions. Common sense thus involves a universal
element no less than philosophy itself, although its relation
tophiTosopby is that of a particular. The whole of know-
lec^ is a scale or ladder in which there is, no break^jTui,
a continuous progressive ascent from the singular sense-
perception to the~higliest generalisation of speculative
thmight.

The occupation with mere logical forms, the uni-
versals of Plato, abstracts from an essential element in
all existence, the higher no less than the lower — namely,
the material element. The grounds of the reason can
never, according to Aristotle, attain to the accuracy of
sense-perception. Nevertheless, Aristotle assumes the
fundamental position of speculative thought. Ontology,
or the "first philosophy" of Aristotle, inasmuch as it
professes to deduce the existent from principles, presup-
poses the question, w^hat is a principle ? The answer to
this question is to be found in the four different senses
of the words ahia and ap^-q. The first book of the Meta-
physics, which is the earliest attempt at a systematic

F 2

68 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

history of philosophy, is an endeavour to illustrate these
four different senses by the various systems of philosophy.
With the lonians the principle or cause was matter ; with
the Pythagoreans, /onw ; with Empedokles, efficient cause;
with Anaxagoras, end or final cause. By matter (yX-q)
Aristotle understands the warp or basis, so to speak, to be
operated on, or which becomes. Thus bronze is the matter
of the statue, the acorn of the oak, the premisses of the
conclusion, the instrument of the music it produces, the
component sounds of the octave, the letters of which it
consists of the word, etc., etc. Matter is in short the un-
determined real. In the instances given it is of course
only relatively undetermined, but, em^Dloyed in an onto-
logical sense, the term means the ahsolutehj undetermined,
corresponding to the unqnalified Infinite of Anaximandros,
or the non-existent sense-object of Plato. Matter con-
sidered per se, that is, abstracted from all determination,
coincides with the potential. It is the mere possibility of
the Eeal ; the incomplete, the unbecome factor therein.

The second and opposite principle, that of form (ixopcf}-^,
Xdyos), denotes pure determination, the Platonic Idea.
This second principle is related to the first, as activity to
passivity, as actuality to potentiality. It is the figure
into which the bronze is fashioned, to constitute it a
statue ; the melody which is produced by the notes of the
flute ; the relation of the sounds which give the octave ; the
particular conjunction of letters which make the word ; the
articulate whole into which the parts are gathered up,
or the mass is moulded, etc. In an ontological sense it is
of course pure, absolute determination as distinguished
from the merely relative determination of the instances
given. In short, the form of Aristotle corresponds as
nearly as possible to the self-existent intelligible world of
Plato, just as the matter of Aristotle corresponds to the
non-existent sense-world of Plato. But with Aristotle
there was no such thing as pure form (ideas) existing per
se and apart from matter. Form only'existed in and for
matter, as a specific modification of matter. Aristotle is
vehement in his polemic against the Platonic Ideas, the
universalia ante res. But, while to assume as Plato did, the
existence of pure forms apart from the matter of which

ErocH III.] ARISTOTLE. 69

they are the form, is inadmissible ; it is equally plain
that pure unqualified matter can never be an object of
experience. Hence, to Aristotle, the two elements in
question were equally essential to» experience, and to all
reality whatever, as much to " true " as to emiDirical
being. This Aristotelian distinction of itself marks an
epoch, most momentous in the history of thought, and at
once clears the ground of a mass of extraneous. material.

As regards the third sense of the word princijyle (to
indicate which Aristotle makes use of a variety of ex-
pressions, but all of which are summed up with tolerable
accuracy in the well-known scholastic phrase causa
efficiens) it is enough to remark that it refers to the
immediate empirical cause, or antecedent condition,
(efficient cause) of anything, and is antithetical to re'Ao?, or
the fourth sense of the word, which is that oi final cause or
purpose. The reAos, it is imjDortant to remember, is the
ultimate and highest form of the reality of a thing, to
the attainment of which all the other forms are sub-
servient, and with reference to which they may be regarded
as means merely.

The four factors above enumerated furnish the data of
ontology. Foremost comes the negative result before
mentioned, that neither mere matter, nor mere form con-
stitute the existent Eeal, but the union or synthesis of
matter and form. This is insisted upon as regards matter
against the Hylozoists, as regards form against the Eleatics
and Plato. Matter is the hecoming — neither being nor
non-being, but, as Ferrier would have put it, more than
0 and less than I. There is no passage from non-Being to
Being, but only from the not-yet-existent to the at-present
existent. The ovo-ia (essence), though sometimes employed
as coincident with form, is generally used for the
synthesis itself. The whole essence or synthesis, the real
existent, is also said to be constituted out of the two
momenta, the genus and the differentia — the first cor-
responding to matter, and the second to form. Thus
Sokrates may be described as made ujd of the matter (genus)
of man and the form (differentia) of Sokratitij. But the
synthesis is not to be regarded as a fixed or static entity.
For Aristotle, all reality is expressed in the logical passage

70 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

from matter to form ; that is, from a lower, to a higlier,
from the less complex to the more complex — the lower
stage being related as matter to the incoming element, the
form, which denotes the higher stage. 'Yo take the above
instance, Sokrates pins the differentia of Sokratity, that
is, Sokrates qua Sokrates, involves a formal element, over
and above his material basis, Athenian. The Athenian
again qua Athenian is a formal modification of Ms material
basis, Greek, which as Athenian he presupposes. Once
more, the Greek qua Greek is a formal modification of
the material basis, Man ; as Greek he involves an element
of form additional to the human material (the common
humanity) of which he consists, &c., &c. The final terminus
a quo of the scale is thus pure undifferentiated matter.

We now turn to the third and fourth data in the Aris-
totelian ontology, the efficient and the final cause. Here
the element of determinate agency comes into play. The
first of these, the conditio sine qua non of the existence of a
thing, may be regarded as its material cause ; the second,
the end or purpose of its existence, its formal cause. In the
force or self-activity or actualisation (evreA.e;(€ia) which is
part of the essence of reality, the two elements of mover
and moved, the passive and the active are to be distin-
guished. The first is the formal, the second the material.
The one is the agent, the other the patient. But this
formative activity, or subordinate motive, itself presupposes
an end or purpose which it is to accomplish, and this leads
us to the final cause or the ultimate principle of motion,
that which moves but is not moved — pure energy. But
Aristotle does not deny substantiality to this pure energy.
On the contrary, just as matter j;er se is potentiality,
alwaj's becoming but never become, so this ultimate formal
princij)le is its counterpart, actuality, eternal self-sub-
existence. Thus Aristotle finds in this teleological con-
ception of intelligent purpose the terminus ad quern of
the scale of being, which the notion of mere form, per se,
could not give him. It is needless to remind the reader
that this aKLvrjTov of Aristotle is the representative, in his
system of the sujDreme idea of Plato. It is not difficult to
see how the Neo-Platonic harmonists of a later time might,
with some show of reason, maintain the essential identitj?

Epoch III.J ARISTOTLE. 71

of the systems of Aristotle and Plato when they found so
many cardinal features in common.

Aristotle is the first to distinctly apply the so-called
cosmological argument. As every individual object pre-
supposes a moving cause for all its changes, so the universe
itself presupposes an absolute first mover, a primal deter-
miner of its as yet undetermined matter. But Aristotle
soon leaves this mechanical theistic conception. This
principle (TrpoiTov kivovv) must be essentially pure energy
and form, untrammelled b}^ matter, pure actuality, in
which the shadow of potentiality is not; a conception
which, it need scarcely be said, is hard to reconcile with
Aristotle's assertions of the inseparability of matter and
form, or with his bitter polemic against the Platonic
system of ideal ends, which is its prototype. The
ultimate self-thinking and active principle, or God of
Aristotle, is not to be conceived as the creator of the world
in time (like the demiurge of Plato), but rather as the
immanent actuality of the world, the eternally complete
ideal purpose to which the real is ever approximating, and
which is at the same time its ultimate motive principle.*

Nature, according to Aristotle, is the totality of material
and moving objects. Change, or motion, may be divided
into origination (change or motion from the relatively non-
existent to the relatively existent) and destruction (change
or motion from the relatively existent to the relatively
non-existent), which is again divided into the species
quantitative, qualitative and spacial motion ; or increase
and decrease, change of quality and change of place.
The conditions of motion are place or space and time.
Place (T67ro<i) is the bounding of the encompassing body.
Time is the measure or numerical aspect of motion or
change. Time is endless, but space bounded. The world
is eternal. The spheres in wbich the fixed stars inhere,
possess the most perfect of all motions — the circular.
The motions of the planets are explained by the hypothesis
of immaterial essences or subordinate deities inhering in
them. The spherical earth is fixed in the centre of the
universe. The five elementary natural substances, ether,
fire, water, air and earth have respectively their determi-

* I mny point out here how nearly identical is Aristotle's conceptioD
with the Idea of Hei^el.

72 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

nate places in the cosmic whole. The place of the ether
is the celestial regions. Out of ether are formed the
spheres and celestial bodies. The other (traditional) four
elements belong to the terrestrial regions, but are distin-
guished by their heaviness and lightness, heat and cold,
dryness and moisture, and are all found in various propor-
tions in all bodies. The matter of earth is continually
passing into higher and higher forms in the shape of a
progressive scale (as it were) of living beings. Every
stage in this formal determination of course embraces the
whole of those below it, in addition to its own special and
distinctive character. The force or formative energy of
living beings in the widest sense, is, with Aristotle,
identical with their souls, or iffvx-q- Thus the capacity or
soul of the plant is limited to nutrition and growth accord-
ing to a certain figure ; the animal possesses in addition to
this the capacities of feeling, desire, and locomotion ; the
man again unites with all these capacities that of reason
(voGs), the manifestation of which is j^artly theoretical
(scientific) and partly practical (moral). The Keason is sepa-
rable into two elements or sides, the receptive, determined
and temporal, and the creative, determining and eternal.
The first of these elements is the material, the second the
formal side of the Reason. The synthesis of these two ele-
ments, the natural and the divine, constitutes the human soul
or life of the man as man. The discussion of these subjects
"will be found in Aristotle's Physics and in the De anima.
The goal of all human activity, the highest human
good, is happiness, which consists in the rational and
virtuous activity of the soul, while this activity has, as
its natural completion, pleasure. It will be seen by this
that Aristotle does not posit, like Plato, an abstract ideal
Good, Harmony or Proportion, as the object of Ethics,
but is satisfied with the highest attainable good to Man ;
that which all men implicitly or explicitly recognise as
such, however much they may differ as to the nature of
its content. But in so far as this goal (happiness) is human,
it must consist not merely in vegetating or living, but in
rational activity, as such. In accordance with the animal
and rational nature of man, there arise two classes of virtues ;
on the one side, the practical virtues proper, i.e. such as
consist in the mastery of the Reason over the sensuous

ErocH III.] ARISTOTLE. 73

impulses ; on the other side the dianoetic or logical virtues.
Aristotle shows that the true mean — that rational happi-
ness— consists in the art of bringing- the formal or determin-
ing Aoyos to bear on the material of impulses, passions and
desires, of which the merely natural man consists. The
capacity of doing this is not natural but human, inasmuch
as it involves action following upon reflection.

Aristotle is a pronounced upholder of the doctrine of free-
wdll, and polemicises in this character against both Sokrates
and 'Plato. In addition to the Platonic virtues of courage
and moderation, Aristotle enumerates liberality, magna-
nimity, love of honour, mildness, ojDenness, &c., &c., and
these are not as wdth Plato opposed to one only, but to
two extremes. Justice is treated separately in the fifth
book of the Ethics, as the foundation not only of all virtues,
but of all social life whatever. It is indeed regarded by
Aristotle as as much pertaining to the sphere of Politics
as of Ethics. In the sixth book Wisdom is proclaimed
identical with the highest happiness of man, being the
satisfaction of the highest within him, namely, the
vor5, or Eeason, though in practical life, prudence and
reflection are the more important, since they are concerned
wdth the singular.

The Nikomaclisean Ethics close with a chapter which
serves as a transition to the Politics, a science which
Aristotle regards merely as the continuation of Ethics.
The first book of the Politics deals with domestic
government, and affords some interesting glimpses into
the social life of ancient Greece. As the tribe is con-
stituted out of an aggregation of families, so the state
is constituted out of an aggregation of tribes. The
second book consists in a criticism of political theories
(Plato's among others), as well as of existing constitutions.
The seventh and eighth books are the most important, as
treating of the conditions of the greatest possible happiness
in a state, where personal and civic virtue have become
identical.* First, Aristotle places the natural conformation

* The idea of " personal " virtue belonged to the new ethics of
inwardness, of which Sokrates was the most prominent exponent, and
was foreign to the older ethics of the ancient world. In the Politics
Aristotle endeavours to find common ground for them.

74 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch III.

of the country, proximity to the sea ; neither too dense, nor
too sparse a population.* For the further conditions the
constitution of the state is responsible. Aristotle, while
diverging widely from the Platonic-aristocratic state, is
nevertheless not favourable to the Greek democracies.
\\ hile he would concede a large share of power to the middle
class, in other words the poorer freemen, which was as
far as the Greek conception of democracy extended, he
would at the same time have this power checked by the
existence of a sovereign.

The Art-philosophy or Esthetic of Aristotle is chiefly
contained in the Poetics, a work of which only frag-
ments remain ; but expressions on the subject are to be
found in the Metaphysics, the Ehetoric, and elsewhere.
Art is distinguished from virtue as creation from action.
It is further distinguished from the creative activity of
nature, which it most nearly resembles, by the fact that the
artist realises his end in another body ; thus the sculptor
fashions brass into a statue, while the plant forms itself,
and even the man creates himself, viz., his own character.
In spite of this, the analogy is great between natural and
artistic action. Art is of two kinds ; it may either be
designed to complete what nature has begun, as to make
man healthy, to protect him from weather, to prepare
food for his sustenance, to enable him to live in com-
munity, &c., such as, the arts of medicine, of architec-
ture, of cookery, of government, or, in other words, have
utility for its end. Or art may have for its end, like
nature, to create a world of its own, which since it cannot
be a real world must be a world of appearance. Art in
this sense, i.e. art whose end is its own creation, is termed
by Aristotle imitative art, which clearly proves that the
distinction between imitation and originality in the fine
arts so familiar to us, was not present to the mind of the
Stagirite. The sense in which the- word imitation
(lxiix7]TLKij) is used, is not quite clear, since Aristotle ex-
pressly cites music, the one we should regard as the least
so, as the most imitative of the arts. The content of art
(imitative) is the beautiful. Art exhibiting the highest

* It must be remembered that Aristotle's reft-reuces to population
only include the minority of actual inhabitants, i.e. the free population.

Erocn III.] AEISTOTLE. 75

end as accomplished before us, occupies a midway position
between theory and practice, between science and life ;
inasmuch as the object of art is the particular in the
universal. In art individual things are idealised, not pre-
sented either in concreto merely, as in ordinary reality, nor
in ahstracto merely, as in science.

It remains for us, before leaving Aristotle, to give a brief
sketch of his Organon, or theory of formal logic, which we
need scarcely remind the reader contains in all essentials
the completed science of the laAvs of formal thinking.
Logic, or Analytics and Dialectics, was to Aristotle merely
the propoedeutic to philosophy, and not, as with Plato, the
essence of philosophy itself. The classes of concepts, and
of jDropositions, answer to the formal side of reality. The
most universal of existence-forms are substance, quantity,
quality, relation, place, time, situation, possession, activity,
passivity.* The various general propositions respecting
the real which are furnished by these concept-forms,
Aristotle terms categories. The concept is part of
the essence of the real object. The conclusion, i.e. the
deduction of one judgment from another, is divided into
the syllogism which deduces the particular and singular
from the universal, and induction, which consists in the
assimilation of singulars and particulars, and the con-
struction out of them of universals. In the latter of
course we leave the region of the purely formal ; the
factors of observation and experiment coming into play.
The foremost logical principles to Aristotle are " the laws
of thought," viz., identity, contradiction and excluded
middle ; which are immediately cognised through Eeason.
But more easily (and hence earlier) attainable by the
human mind are the simple notions and facts directly
conveyed through perceptions — the co-ordination and
assimilation of which constitute induction — although in
themselves the principles of thought which this process
presupposes are prior.

The above brief and necessarily imperfect sketch will
suffice to show the enormous range as well as depth of

* "NVe need scarcely dbserve that, as has been often pointed out, this
list is at once defective and redundant.

76 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch in.

Aristotle's writings. AVe can scarcely wonder at tlie
mediaeval schoolmen conferring upon liim the title of the
philosopher, so far does his work at once in character and
amount surpass that of his predecessors. For even Plato,
owing partly to the strong influence of the Socratic method,
and partly to his natural temperament, left no Avorks which
could have served for ages as standard treatises on the
various departments of philosophy, as did Aristotle's Logical
treatises, his Ethics and his Psychology.

The bibliography of Plato and Aristotle would fill volumes. The
names of some of the best works on Plato have already been given
(see above, p. 55). For Aristotle's Metapliysic, Schwegler's Commen-
tary is the best book. For the Logical Treatises, Prantl's Gesckichte
der Logih is useful. On the syttem generally, may be consulted Franz
Biese's Die Philosopliie des Arutoteles (Vol. II. Berlin, 1835-18i2) ; also
Zeller's Aristoteles und die alte Peripatetiker.

The De Anima has been excellently translated, with scholarly
introduction and notes, by Professor Edwin Wallace (Clarendon
Press.) t

Epoch IV.] THE ACADEMICS AND PERIPATETICS. 77

FOUETH EPOCH.

ACADEMICS AND PEEIPATETICS, STOICS, EPICUREANS
AND SCEPTICS.

The Academics and Peripatetics.

This fourtli epocli of Greek tlioiiglit is characterised by
the elaboration and combination in various directions of
the ideas contained in previous systems. Among the
Academics, or Platonists, three periods or " academies "
are commonly distinguished, the Old Academy, the
Middle Academy, and the New Academy. To the first or
orthodox academy belongs Speusippus, the nephew and
immediate successor of Plato (347-339), w^ho accen-
tuated the pantheistic tendencies of his uncle ; Xenocrates
of Chalcedon, who next filled the chair, and w^ho
developed the Pythagorean side of the Platonic philo-
sophy; Heraklides of Pontus, the- astronomer Philippus,
Hermodorus, &c., &c. The middle academy w^as founded
by Arkesilaus (341-315), who took his stand on the
sceptical side of Plato, as exhibited in the Parmenides.
This soon drifted into the third school or New Academy,
the nominal founder of which is Karneades, and where the
sceptical direction was still further followed out with the
assistance of the theories of Pyrrho. In Philo of Larissa,
and his pupil Antiochus of Askalon, and their successors,
who, returning to a dogmatic standpoint, endeavoured to
read a Stoical tendency into the writings of Plato, some
historians have distinguished a fourth and even a fifth
Academy.

The Peripatetics, as the successors and disciples of
Aristotle were called (Theophrastus, Gadanus, Aristoxe-
nus, Dikearchus, &c., &c.,) directed their attention chiefly
to physical research, and to popularising the ethical
doctrines of their master, though attempts to modify the
main Aristotelian positions in a naturalistic sense were not
w^anting. With the later leaders of the school, however,
all such modifications were abandoned, the text of

78 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IV.

Aristotle being regarded as the final arbiter, and tbe
elucidation of its meaning tlie most important, if not the
Bole end of the teacher's function. Hence the later Peri-
patetics are chiefly noteworthy as textual critics and
grammarians. Probably the most remarkable of the suc-
cessors of Aristotle was Strato of Lampsacus (circa B.C.
288), whose teaching seems to have made for a material-
istic monism, in opposition alike to the spiritualistic
elements in Aristotle's speculation, and to the mechanical
and pluralistic materialism of the Atomist schools.

The Stoics.

The Stoics, notwithstanding the widely spread influence
their school exercised in later times, cannot be regarded as
having contributed any essentially new factor to the
history of philosophy. Their ethical doctrine has its
prototype in Cynicism, their physics in Herakleitanism,
and their logic in Aristotelianism. The founder of the
Stoic school was the Cypriot Zeno, who was born at Kitium,
B.C. 340. After a lengthened study of the post-Sokratic
literature he came to Athens, where he was instructed
successively by the Cynic Krates, the Megaric Stilpo, and
the Academic Polemon.

In opposition to Plato, Aristotle, and even to Sokrates, but
in full accordance with the spirit of the Cynical teaching,
Zeno so far subordinatedithe theoretical to the j)ractical, that,
not content with defining philosophy as the art of virtue,
he sought the ground of its division into Logic, Physics, and
Ethics (which he was the first to definitely formulate), in
the fact of there being logical, physical, "and ethical virtues !
The Logic of the Stoics falls into Rhetoric or the art of
oratory, and Dialectic or the art of disputation. It is the
auxiliary of Ethics, inasmuch aS it serves to enable us to
guard against errors. The soul, which is primarily a tahida
rasa, receives impressions either from external objects or
from changes in its own state, through the repetition and
remembrance of which an exjDcrience is produced. Hence
the Stoics maintained, in opposition to Plato, that univer-
sals existed merely in the mind, and that only singulars
were real. The test of truth was the conviction accom-

Erocii IV.] THE STOICS. . 79

panying an experience, whose declaration, when unshak-
able, must be regarded as final. A conviction or belief
of which it is absolutely impossible for us to free our-
selves, is true. This criterion was called by the Stoics,
the 6p06<; Aoyos, and is identical with the modern " ne-
cessity of thought." As a natural consequence of this
doctrine, follow the appeals to the universal consent of
manhinfi, which pervade the Stoic writers. Science is
merely the reduction to form and precision of the truths
guaranteed by unshakable conviction. Into the logic
projier of the Stoics it is unnecessary to enter, since
it differs only in a few points of detail from that of
Aristotle.

The Stoic Physics, based as they are on the Herakleitan
theory, have as their cardinal principle the doctrine of a
universal animating fiery ether, called variously Zeus,
Soul (TH/eu/xa), Reason (Aoyo?), and Intelligence (vovs).
The contention that the ultimate form of all reality was
spacial and material, was extended to the mind and its
states. The distinction was made, however, between the
finer and more subtle, the active and formative, matter,
which was identified with the divine ether or the world-
soul, and with the souls of men and gods, and the coarser
merely passive matter of which bodies consist. As with
Herakleitos, from the central creative fire arose all things,
and into it they must return. The ]Drocess seems to have
been conceived as one of condensation and rarefaction.
The opposition of heat and cold also plays a part in the
Stoic Physics, the former as active, the latter as passive.
The human soul as a fragment of the universal world-
soul is of course of the nature of fire. The Aristotelian
doctrine of the evolution of form and matter, seems to have
been interwoven with the physical theory of the Stoics.
Their Pantheism led up -to their characteristic fatalism,
and to a theory of magical practices, deduced from the
kinship, through the all-pervasive world-soul of every
portion of the universe.

The celebrated ethical formula of the Stoics, that man
is to live in conformity with nature, is attributed to Zeno.
By Chrysippus it was limited to living in conformity with
one's own nature, and finally assumed the form of living

80 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IV

in conformity witli the divine Eeason. In tlieir interpre-
tation of this doctrine at times they approached the
asceticism of the Cynics, though its crudity was mitigated
by the high place they gave to culture and meditation.
He is the " wise man," for whom all outward things are
superfluous, " who has that within " which renders him
independent of all that in its nature lies outside his
control ; who has no desires, and knows no envy.

Kleanthes followed Zeno as leader of the school, but
does not appear to have contributed anything new to its
doctrines. Chrj^sippus, his successor, on the contrary,
was a voluminous writer, and welded the system into a
coherent whole, besides introducing sundry important
modifications. Diogenes, a disciple of the last-named,
carried Stoicism to Eome, where it spread rapidly. The
names of Posidonius, the preceptor of Cicero, of the
emperor Marcus Aurelius, and of the slave Epictetus, will
at once occur to the reader as instances of Stoics cf the
Eoman period.

That such a thing of " shreds and patches " as Stoicism
should ever have attained the importance it subsequently
did, would be inexplicable were we to regard it as a philo-
sophical system alone, and forget that it was primarily
an ethical movement, and that its ethics partook of that
individualist and introspective character, which was yearly
growing upon the world, and which culminated in Chris-
tianity. Stoicism was no mere system of phj^sics, or logic,
or ontology, like Platonism or Aristotelianism, with no
very special, or at least, a remote practical bearing, but
a doctrine which held out to men a speculative yet
practical resting-place from the turmoil of a public life in
which the true public spirit was dying out.

The Epicureans.

The founder of the rival system to Stoicism — Epicure-
anism— was born in Samos B.C. 342, and was thus the
contemporary of Zeno. He came to Athens in his
eighteenth year, but not till he was thirty-one years of
age did he commence lecturing at Athens. Notwith-
standing his protestations of originality, there can be

Epoch IV.] THE EPICUREANS. 81

no doubt that for the entire framework of his sj^sfem,
Epiciirns was indebted to the Atomists and the Cyrenaics.
As with the Stoics, philosophy was to Epicurus simply
the introduction to the art of living. In the attainment
of a happy life, the first requisite was the absence of
superstitious fears, and to this end philosophy led up.
The Kanonik of the Epicureans, as they preferred to
term their logic, included, as with the Stoics, a theory of
perception. From the senses all knowledge originally
proceeds. Knowledge derived from the senses, without
the admixture of any judgment, is free from error. It is
in the employment of the understanding that error arises.
Repeated sense impressions leave in us the expectancy of
their future recurrence. (It is noteworthy how Ej^icurus
anticipated some of the conclusions of modern Empiricism.)
That which coincides -with " feelings," and with these
anticipations, is certain and true. On questions of logic
proper, Epicurus seems to have had little to say.

In Physics, he accepted the Atomism of Domokritos
with some slight modifications. The supernatural, as
embodied in the popular religion, he relegated to the
realm of superbtition. His well-known assertion to the
effect that the gods, in their state of perfect happiness,
abstained from all interference with the affairs of this
M'orld, was only a veiled way of jDutting the agnostic
position. The Epicureans naturally ridiculed the " Provi-
dence "and fatalistic Pantheism of the Stoics. The poijular
myths they seem to have explained in an Eiiliemeristic
fashion. Man, like every other being, is an aggregate of
atoms, the soul consisting of finer, the body of Cv)arser
atoms. In either case dissolution is equivalent to
destruction. " When death is, we are not," said Ej^iourus ;
" when death is not, ive are ; " whence the conclusion that
death in no way concerns us.

Epicurus reduces all affections to those of pleasure and
pain. The thesis that pleasure is the sole " good," is the
basis of the Epicurean Ethics. Virtue only possesses value
in so far as it leads to pleasure, but by this is not to be
understood (as with the Cyrenaics) immediate pleasure,
but the greatest sum of pleasure in the long run, or
which is the same thing negatively stated, the least sum

G

/4g2'0^

82 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IV.

of pain in the long run. This consideration may some-
times lead us to a course of conduct entailing an amount
of immediate pain, when this is the alternative to a greate-r
amount of future pain ; and in the same way a present
pleasure may be foregone, for the sake of greater pleasure
in the future. It is in the determination of the question
as to what is the greater and what the lesser jDleasure or
pain, that the philosopher shows his superiority to the
common man. Epicurus himself seems to have regarded
"moderation, "(coupled with as much as possible of " apathy"
((XTra^eta), as the key to the solution of this question.

Among the immediate followers of Epicurus may be
cited Metrodorus, his favourite pupil, whom he outlived,
Hermarchus of Mitylene, who succeeded him as teacher,
Polystratus, Apollodorus (the reputed author of four
hundred works), &c., &c. Like the Stoic, the Epicurean
sect attained considerable proportions in Eome, where it
was introduced by Zeno of Sidon, a pupil of Apollodorus.
The celebrated poem of Titus Lucretius Cams, " De
Natura Eerum," contains the most complete summary
that has come down to us of the Epicurean doctrine, at
least, in its Eomanised form. As regards this last point
it must be remembered, firstly, that the great successes of
both Stoicism and Epicureanism were attained after the
power and influence of Eome and Eoman thought were
already established to all intents and purposes throughout
the civilised world ; and, secondly, that all our informa-
tion respecting them, with the exception of a few frag-
ments, comes directly or indirectly through a Eoman
medium.

In Epicureanism we have a ' more coherent and self-
contained doctrine than in Stoicism. It is a doctrine,
moreover, embracing some important truths. But it is in
no sense original. It established no new truth in philo-
sophy, nor even gave rise to suggestions, by putting old
problems in new lights. While Zeno "adapted" in a
slipshod fashion the physical side of the philosojDhy of
Herakleitos ; Epicurus " adapted," in a manner perhaps
not quite so slipshod, but still rather for the worse than
the better, the physical doctrine of Demokritos. For
their Ethics the one went back to the Cynics, the other to

Epoch IV.] THE SCEPTICS. 83

the dyrenaics. The only original point Epicurus seems
to have made was the modification of the Hedonistic
doctrine of Aristippns, from the advocacy of the mere
immediate sense gratification to that of a calculation of the
greatest possible sum of haj)piness attainable on the whole.
It has been justly remarked that both Stoicism and
Epicureanism are rather ethical sects than philosophical
schools proper. The doctrines taught were put forward
as dogmas to be received and inculcated, rather than
sought to be demonstrated as propositions to be heard at
the bar of reason. In this respect they show a distinct
tendency to revert to a pre-Sokratic standpoint, and as
such may be regarded as the first symptoms of the decline
of Greek thought in the direction of a reactionary dogma-
tism. This tendency was encountered by another con-
temporary school or sect, that of the Pyrrhonists, or
Sceptics.

The Sceptics.

The Sceptical school proper has as its founder Pyrrho, of
Elis (born about B.C. 360). He was originally a painter,
and is said to have followed the expedition of Alexander
the Great to India, where he conversed with the Gymnoso-
phists. It is also stated that he studied under a disciple
of Stilpo the Magaric, and also of a follower of Demo-
kritos. Pyrrho left nothing in writing, confining him-
self to oral exposition. As a natural consequence, our
knowledge of his teaching is at once scanty and uncertain,
all that is really reliable being confined to two or three
propositions.

" He who would attain happiness, which is the object
of human life," said Pyrrho, " must consider the three
following points : What is the nature of things? What
should be our attitude towards them ? and What will
be the consequence of this attitude?" On the first
point there is nothing certain, inasmuch as to every pro-
position its negative can be opposed with equal justice,
since neither feeling nor reason can either separately
or in combination furnish any safe criterion of truth.
From this it follows, as regards the second point, that the
course of wisdom is to maintain an attitude of suspense,

G 2

84 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IV.

and to make no assertions concerning tilings. The answer
to every question should accordingly be "I assert no-
thing ;" and instead of saying " it is so," one should rather
say " it seems so to me." This applies as much to morals
as to knowledge ; for just as there is no such thing as an
absolute standard of truth valid for all, so there is no
such thing as an absolute standard of goodness, to which
universal appeal can be made. As to the third point,
namel}'-, the consequence of the following of this advice,
Pyrrho maintained that through it, and through it alone,
that perfect calm and equanimity (aTraOela) could be
acquired which was the ideal of the life of wisdom. ' In-
asmuch as the ordinary man is led by his feelings and the
appearances furnished by his senses, it is the business of
the philosopher, so to speak, to strip off the " man." In
practical life, however, Pyrrho advised an adhesion to
prevalent usage. The doctrines of Pj^rrho rapidly acquired
numerous followers, especially among the votaries of the
Asklepian art, but the school became subsequently obscured
by the success of Karneades and the " new academy,"
which latter was, nevertheless, considerably influenced by
it. In ancient Greece, as in modern Europe, the advantages
of a subsidised chair, and an " established position " could
not but make themselves felt. But the fame of Pyrrho
was vindicated at a later period after the " academy " had
lapsed into a reactionary dogmatism, when his sj'stem
was revived with considerable success.

In Scepticism philosophy is directed to the same aim as
in Stoicism and Epicureanism, and we may add there is
the same want of originality^ The positions of Pyrrho,
as of Arkesilaus and Karneades, had all of them been
forestalled by the Sophists. " Scepticism " was but a Neo-
Sophism. The apparently unconscious resuscitation of
pre-Sokratic doctrines is as characteristic of this period
as their conscious and acknowledged rehabilitation is of
the succeeding period, in which, notwithstanding, new
elements are introduced, in the shape of Eoman and
oriental influences.

On this period generally, Zeller's Stoics, Epicureans, and
Sceptics, msij be consulted. For Epicureanism especially,
see Lange's History of Materialism.

Erocu v.] THE KOMAN AND ANTIQUARIAN PERIOD. 85

FIFTH EPOCH.

THE EOMAN AND ANTIQUARIAN PERIOD.

The stagnation of thonght visible in the previous period,
that of the partitioning of the empire of Alexander and
the formation of dynasties by his generals, gaA^e way to a
steady retrograde • current when the victorious Roman
legions had finally disposed of the last vestiges of Greek
independence. The Greek grammarians and lecturers
now occupied themselves with translating Greek thought
into the Latin tongue, and attracted large audiences by
their exposition of its doctrines. But philosophy was
becoming emphatically a trade — a profitable profession —
owing to the new markets opened for it. At the same
time all that was required of the philosopher was the
statement of already existing systems. When the craving
for novelty was felt, there were the old pre-Sokratic
systems to go back to ; and finally there was the ingenious
patchwork of Sjmcretism, the attempted assimilation of
doctrines derived from various systems, to be elaborated.
New developments of thought seemed out of the question.
It was enough to show the authority of Plato, Aristotle,
Zeno, Epicurus, and to interpret, annotate and comment
on their written utterances. The three characteristics
of this emphatically doctrinaire period, were (1) the
establishment of the four chief schools as the recognised
jDhilosophicial systems ; (2) the resuscitation in their
original form and as systems, of older doctrines supposed
to have been long superseded ; and (3) the harmonisation
of various schools aftected by the Syncretists. Pitter
observes (' Geschichte der Philosophic,' vol. iv. p. 35),
*' Although the leading role was still played by the four
sects, which had, prior to this, attained the greatest
importance, namely, the Academics, Perij^atetics, Stoics,
and Epicureans, the philosophy of Herakleitos, of the
Pythagoreans, of the Cynics and of the Sceptics came once
more into prominence. Of these the two last are the most
noteworthy, inasmuch as the renewal of the Herakleitan

8(5 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch V.

doch'ine was very isolated, and the Neo-Pythagorean
owed its significance to the mystical tendencies of the
Greek-Oriental philosophy." In the present period the
theatre of the history of philosophy is removed from
Athens and Greece generally to Alexandria and Eome.
The history of Greek thought proper, closes with the
schools of the generation succeeding Alexander.

The interest the Eomans took in philosophy was almost
exclusively ethical, and hence it was the ethical side of
the Greek philosophies to which they mainly tnrned.
Epicureanism, Stoicism, Scepticism, and Cynicism proved
severally attractive to the various orders of Eoman
temperament. The Academics having somewhat reacted
from the Sceptical tendencies of the New Academy, it was
left for JEnesidemus of Gnossus, who, it appears, taught in
Alexandria in the first century after Christ, to revive the
Scepticism of Pyrrho, though its arguments he used rather
to establish the Herakleitan position than in the sense of
their author. iEnesidemus seems to have left a school of
some vitality behind him, which tended to revert more
and more to the Pyrrhonistic position.

The physician Sextus Empiricus (about A.c. 200), who
was its most prominent member, is justly celebrated for
his remarkable work entitled ' Pj^rrhonistic Hypotyposes,'
also that directed " against the mathematicians," in which
the Empirical-sceptical position is put with remarkable
clearness and force. The style of Sextus Empiricus has a
terseness not usual with ancient writers. Among the
other members of the Empirical or Sceptical school may be
mentioned Agrippa Saturninus (who must not be con-
founded Avith the Gnostic of that name), the pupil of
Sextus, and Favorinus, the preceptor of Aulus Gellius.
These later Sceptics put forward the following five argu-
ments in favour of susjDcnse : (1) The discrepancy of
opinions concerning the same objects ; (2) The progression
or regression ad wjinitum of the series of proofs required
to establish any given proposition ; (3) The relativity of all
things, since everything appears diiferently in different
connections and to difterent persons; (4) The arbitrary
nature of fundamental propositions, the dogmatist in
order to escape the regressus to infinity of demonstrations,

Erocii v.] THE ROMAN AND ANTIQUARIAN PERIOD. 87

seeking refuge in certain ultimate propositions which he
assumes without demonstration ; and (5) The diallele,
namely, that that upon which the proof rests, itself requires
proof. This is obviously only a restatement in another
form of the second of the five arguments. 8extus brings
forward a number of propositions to prove that all
demonstration is in its nature tainted with fallacy, inas-
much as it must necessarily move in a circle ; he also
anticipates Hume in his attacks on causality. The then
current theological conceptions, as well as the theories of
the Stoics on Providence, are also severely handled by him.

Of the earlier Syncretist schools, that of the Sextians,
which flourished in the early part of the first century in
Eome, and had considerable influence, seems to have been
a compound of Pythagoreanism, Cynicism, and Stoicism.
But little is known of the tenets of this school, and next
to nothing of its founder, Sextius. Seneca asserts it to
have collapsed very soon, in spite of its brilliant opening.

The most celebrated, as the most voluminous Latin
writer on philoso^Dhical subjects (who belongs, however,*
to a somewhat earlier date) was Marcus Tullius Cicero
(b.c. 106 to 43), who may be described as a disciple of the
New Academy tinged with eclecticism. His works con-
tain a mine of information concerning the philosophical
views current in his time as well as the manners and
customs of the last age of the Eepublic. In the ' De
Divinatione,' Cicero, in characterising the various objects
of his own works, states that the ' Hortensius ' was
designed to exhort to the study of j)hilosophy ; the
' Academics ' to show the most logical and elegant manner
of philosophising, namely, that of the New Academy ; the
* De Finibus ' to investigate the foundation of ethics ; and
the ' Qua3stiones Tusculana?,' which may be considered a
sequel thereto, to treat of the conditions of happiness ; the
' De Natura Deorum,' ' De Divinatione,' and ' De Fato,'
which deal with the attitude of philosophy towards the
popular beliefs, being designed to conclude the series.
Among the Eoman Epicureans Lucretius towers supreme,
both as regards literary merit and philosophical insight.
Stoicism, on the other hand, can boast several exponents
of the first rank. Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius

88 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch V.

all professed the Stoic creed, and all left important literary
monnments behind them.

It would be useless to enumerate the obscure gram-
marians who attempted to resuscitate the various older
systems. As a transition to our next epoch, in which the
intellect of the classical world makes one gigantic effort
to acquire new life and vigour by the absorption of Ori-
ental thought, we may briefly allude to the Neo-Pythago*
rean school, which arose in the first century before Christ,
its founder being, according to Cicero, one Nigidius
Figulus. Sextus Clodius, the preceptor of Mark Anthony,
apparently belonged to this school. Its most celebrated
representative was, liowever, the celebrated Apollonius of
Tyana, who imitated the life of Pythagoras, and achieved
enormous reputation for miracle-working.

Men's faces were now definitely set towards the past.
It was becoming an undisputed axiom with all thinkers
that the whole of wisdom, the key to the great secret, was
to be found in the literature and oracles of past ages ; the
task of the philosopher was henceforward to seek it out,
to pierce through the language in which it was hidden
and the ceremonies which were sujiposed to shadow it
forth. In a word, it was a kind of philosophical alchemy
which was practised, the aim of the philosopher being to
transmute the baser elements in all systems, creeds, and
formulas into the pure ore of esoteric truth,

Epoch VL] NEO-PLATONISM. 89

SIXTH EPOCH.

NEO-PLATONISM.

This last epoch of ancient philosophy is characterised by
the fusion of Greek and Oriental thought. Its seat was
Alexandria, the meeting- place of Europe and Asia.
Founded by the great conqueror who had broken down
the barriers betAveen the European and Oriental worlds,
had thrown open the mysteries of Egypt, Syria, Persia,
and India, it had by the Christian era become the second
city of the world. Traders of all nations met in its busy
streets and markets ; scholars of all nations in its library
and lecture halls. Alexandria was the emporium for the
exchange of goods between East and West, and not less
for the interchange of ideas between East, and West. A
crowd of grammarians, philosophers, and men of learned
leisure thronged the city of the Delta about the Christian
era, all of them aifected more or less in their habits of
thought by the cosmopolitan atmosphere around them ;
some finding in the older literatures, newly opened up to
them, anticipations of Pythagorean tenets, others dis-
covering that the wisdom of the East had been revealed
to the Greeks in the person of Plato, others again in
Herakleitos.

Amid these thinkers and wi'iters was a Jew named Philo,
one of the considerable colony which the tolerance of the
Ptolemies had induced to leave their own land and take
up their residence in lower Egypt. Philo, of whose life
we know little, was the leading representative of a school
of thought prevalent among the learned Jews of this
colony, which sought to combine Judaistic theology with
Platonic philosophj^. The writings of Philo have been
transmitted intact, and are of considerable interest in
throwing light on the thought of the period. The ten-
dency of Oriential speculation is seen to be just as much to
absorb the Greek as the tendency of Greek thought was to
absorb the Oriental. Thus in the non-canonical, or so-called
apocryphal books of the Old Testament, there are unmis-'

90 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch VI.

takable indications of this tendency; indeed a similar
leaning is discoverable even in the later canonical books
themselves. There was a growing anxiety, too, among>
the Jews to show that all Greek wisdom was implicitly
contained in their own Hebrew writings. The Therapeutas
absorbed much of the P^^thagorean doctrine. The Essenes
were also, in all probability, strongly leavened with
Hellenism. Perhaps one of the most remarkable phe-
nomena of this time is the appearance of pseudo-works
by semi-mythical personages purporting to be of prodigious
antiquity. Of this nature are the writings attributed to
the ancient prophet, priest, and king, Hermes Trismegistos.

In Philo himself we find the tendency of the epoch con-
centrated, and in him we have the germ of the system
known as Neo-Platonism, which played so momentous a
part in the final struggle of the old Pagan civilisation with
Christianity. According to Philo the senses and reason
are alike untrustworthy ; the highest truth ultimately rests
on an internal illumination or revelation, in respect of which
the human reason is passive. " God " is absolute being,
in whom there is neither quality, quantity, nor relation.
" God " is not the creator of matter, but is removed from it
by the Xoyos yei/iKooraros which is equivalent to the
supreme idea of Plato and the prime mover of Aristotle,
and which may be regarded as containing implicitly the
sum total of all the forms or ideas of the real world. The
relation of the Logos, or supreme idea, to the inconceivable
" God," or " One," is that of emanation, just as the material
world is in its turn an emanation from the Logos. The
world is often spoken of by Philo in similar language to
that of Plato as the " only begotten son of God." But in
Philo everything is personified and brought into connection
with the Judaic theology and angelology of his time. The
world he conceived as actually created by inferior beings
— angels and demons — which may be taken as answering
to personified ideas or class-names. Philo illustrates
his doctrine by the metaphor of rays of light spreading
from an effulgent centre, and decreasing in brilliancy
as they reach the circumference.

The characteristic of the school of which Philo may be
considered as the forerunner, and which was the last effort

Ei'OCH VL] NEO-rLATONISM. 91

of ancient tlionght, lay in the fact that in it human
reason fell into the background as insufficient to the
attainment of the highest truth. The " dialectic," which
for Plato was the great and only highway to supreme
wisdom, became subordinate with the Neo-Platonists to the
passive " contemplation " which to them was alone adapted
for the contemplation of the divine. The science of the
Greek world had to yield to the mysticism of Asia. This
transformation of philosophy into theosophy, is the key-
note of the wdiole Neo-Platonic movement ; in some of its
representatives it may be more pronounced, in others more
veiled, but it is always present. Neo-Platonism claimed
to be not only the reconciler of philosophical systems, but
of the diverse religious cults of the ancient world. It took
all philosophies and all religions under its wing. It
remains to trace briefly the career of this remarkable and
unique religio-philosophic movement, which not only
furnishes the material for the concluding chapter in the
history of the ancient world, but by leaving its impress on
its great rival and antagonist, Christianity, has indirectly
influenced the speculative thought of the ages which have
succeeded. As we have already seen, ever since Greek
philosophy ceased to be speculatively productive in the
generation succeeding Alexander the Great, and began to
confine itself to reproducing and piecing together older
doctrines, a change came alike over the object of philosophy
and the object of life. Knowledge of the great world-
secret was no longer sought after for its own sake, but as
a guide to life. It was no longer the welfare of the city,
or commonwealth, that concerned the philosopher, but his
owTi individual welfare.

It is true Sokrates was, so far as philosophy was con-
cerned, the father of introspection and individualism, but
the time of its triumph had not yet come. His great
successors, Plato and Aristotle, found no perfect virtue
and no perfect life save in the community. The end of
all virtue was still with them, the welfare of the " city."
The individual by himself was nothing but an element in
the whole. Such was the original view of all ancient
peoples, and not least of the Greeks. The beliefs and cere-
monials of the ancient religions all tended to this concep-

92 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch VL

tion of life. But as it declined, the antithetic conception
of the import of the individual qua individual, grew. The
conflict of Sokrates with the Athenians which resulted in
his condemnation and death, may be viewed as the first
episode in the struggle of the new individualist ethics with
the ancient social ethics. In philosophy proper, the success
of the Stoic and Epicurean schools may be taken as
indicating the beginning of its supremacy. The con-
solidation of the Eoman empire, and the extinction of the
free states of Antiquity, deprived men of even the interest
they had left in public life, and threw them more than
ever back upon themselves. Soon after this, a movement
originating in Palestine, where these ethics of " inward-
ness "had attained their highest development, spread over
the empire, attracting men and women of all conditions in
life, in a manner and to an extent, none of the philoso-
phical sects could have ever done. The whole history
of the struggle of Neo-Platonism with Christianity, is the
history of an effort to reconcile the introspective move-
ment with the existent speculative basis ; to satisfy the
new individualist cravings without the definite break with
tradition which Christianity involved. As such, Neo-
Platonism naturally borrowed much from the ethical side
of Christianity, but not without furnishing Christianity
in return with a groundwork for its theology.

Neo-Platonism* practically dates from Philo, but during
the first and second centuries its development is obscure.
It is not till the beginning of the third century that we
are confronted with a definite ^personality (if we except
the Syrian Numenius, who flourished at the time of the
Antonines) in Ammonius Saccas, who died in the year 243.
Ammonius, though the nominal founder of the system,
himself wrote nothing, and it is said, exacted a pledge of
secrecy from his disciples, which it is doubtful if any of
them kept.

Plotinus (born 205), his most famous pupil and the
typical representative of Keo-Platonism, was, on the other

* The term Neo-Platonism, though its connotation may be under-
stood by all students, is too narrow to indicate the great syntlietic
movement of Philosi»pliical Paganism which occupied the first four
centuries of the Christian era.

Erocn VI.] NEO-PLATONISM. 93

hand, a voluminous writer. The doctrine of Plotinus may
be briefly epitomised thus : — The highest truth, knowledge,
or Avisdom, is only to be a2:)preliended by intuition, the
highest grade of which is identity with the known —
wherein the distinction between being and knowing is
abolished. The highest principle is absolute and uncon-
ditioned. The " One," the '.' Existent," the " first God,"
are the various names which Plotinus employs to exjoress
this primal fact, in which all things " live and move and
have their being," but which is nevertheless, itself out
of all direct relation to the real world. But how can
the real world be deduced from such a principle as this ?
Plotinus replies, by a process of emanation. From
the first principle, namely, is eternally and necessarily
generated a second, the content of which is less than
the first; in other words, which is a weakening, a de-
terioration (so to speak), of its essence. This stage in
the degradation of the primal entity, is the vov<5 or
intelligent principle, which has as its final aim and goal
the Absolute, whence it emanates. Whereas, of the first
principle none of the categories of reality could be pre-
dicated, the vov<5, or second principle, may be said to unite
within itself all contradictions, as the one and the many,
rest and motion, the act of thinking and the object
thought. The vovs thus becomes the sum -total of all ideas
and general terms, from the highest to the lowest. The
third principle, or lujjpostasis (the term by which these
successive momenta of the emanation are commonly
described), is the i//i^x^, the universal principle of life and
motion, or the world-soul, which is in its turn a weaken-
ing, an inferior copy of the i/oi)?, from which it immediately
derives the degree of existence it possesses. As the mere
refle:^ and shadow of the rational principle, though it
acts and orders the world in accordance with reason, it
does so not by virtue of its own inherent intelligence, but
by that of the source whence it emanates. Hence it is,
that thought is embodied in all the processes of nature,
these processes simply indicating the presence of the ideas
which are planted by the vovs, and which the xl/vxq
mechanically translates into sensible reality. Plotinus in
some places speaks of the world-soul as dual — i.e., of a

94 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch VI.

soul tending to matter, which he designates ^vo-t?, and of
a soul tending to Eeason, for which the term i//vx^ ^^ ^P®'
cially reserved. These three hypostases ; the Trpojros ^eos or
primal principle, the vovs (Reason) or secondary principle,
and the if/vxr/ (World-soul) or tertiary principle, consti-
tute the so-called Alexandrian trinity. It may be viewed
as compounded of the " Good " of Plato, the " Reason " of
Aristotle, and the Zeus or universal life of Herakleitos
and the Stoics. This Neo-Platonic, ontological, trinity is
distinguished from the Christian, ^/^eoZo^z'ca^, trinity, by its
being essentially an immanent as opposed to a transcend-
ent conception of the universe, its momenta being, not
persons but aspects, and more definitely by the notion
of necessary emanation as opposed to that of arbitrary
creation. The " Matter " of Plotinus, which he ojDposes to
" God," was not corporeal substance, for this, in so far as
it is real possesses form, and in so far as it is i?iformed, par-
takes of the nature of the vovs, but like the non-existent
sense-world of Plato, or the -rrpojTY] vXtj (first matter) of
Aristotle, it was a mere formless negation — the negation
of the rational — as darkness is the negation of light. We
shall understand the root-idea of the whole Neo-Platonic
ethic, when we remember that it is essentially based on the
notion of disengaging the w^orld-soul from the non-exis-
tent element, the matter, on which it acts, and of which
activity the sense-world is the result. The stage of the
Reason is then reached, and lastly that of the Primal One
itself. This ecstasy, or absorption in absolute unity
without difference, motion, or change, was the aim of the
philosopher's life.

Plotinus was followed by his pupil Porphyry, who
represents the Roman Neo-Platonism, in which the
tendency to theosophy and mysticism was less marked
than in the Syrian Neo-Platonism represented by Jam-
blichos. Porphyry wrote several w^orks against Christi-
anity, which were subsequently burnt. The allegorisa-
tion of the Pagan myths and ceremonies occupied an ever
larger place in the teaching of Keo-Platonism in jDro-
portion as the power of Christianity grew. From the end
of the third century all trace of the division of sects is
lost, every Pagan thinker succumbing to the prevailing

Epoch VI.] NEO-PLATONISM. 95

eclecticism, and being classed as a Neo-Platonist. Com-
mentating on the works of Plato and Aristotle became
now the main occupation of the philosopher.

After the death of Hypatia, which took place in the fifth
century, philosophy was driven from Alexandria, and
strangely enongh its last place of refuge was Athens. It
was here that Proklos, the last eminent representative of
ancient philosophy, taught. Proklos was born a.c. 412,
at Byzantium. He studied under various teachers, and
early devoted himself to Plato. In Proklos the religious
side of Neo-Platonism culminated. He had himself been
initiated into every Pagan mystery within his reach, and
was proud of the title of hierophant of all religions.
Christianity alone he held in abhorrence. In philosophy,
Proklos approached the Syrian Neo-Platonism of Jambli-
chos rather than that of Plotinus. The primal principle
was with Proklos, itself threefold. From this triadio
principle the others emanated. The relation is invariably
that what the first is the second has as predicate. Being,
as the predicate of all things, stands above and before all ;
but inasmuch as reason (j/ovs) implies life as well as
being, the second hypostasis is not reason (vovs) but
life {^oiiji). From this latter emanates the reason, which
thus forms the third hypostasis. Each hypostasis like
the first is triply articulated. These three triads con-
tain the complex of all reality. The first is identified
with the divine world, the second with the demonic world,
the third with the world of human spirits. The physical
doctrine of Proklos differs in little from that of Plotinus.
The Platonic division of temporal, sempiternal and eternal,
is retained and made to correspond with the division of
somatic, psychical, and pneumatic. The first is under
the dominion of Fate, the last under that of Providence.
Of the Ethic of Proklos there is not much that is new to
be said. The end of life was to him as to other Neo-
Platonists, the comprehension of, or union with, the
divine principle. Immediate inspiration or ecstasy was
the highest source of knowledge. For this truth, the soul
may be prepared, however, by ceremonies and magical
practices. But Proklos, although in a sense a follower of
Jamblichos, was distinguished from him by his devotion to

96 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch VI.

all the great Greek thinkers, who, he contended, differed
only in form from each other, but whose teaching was
substantially identical — though Plato was the culminating
point. Proklos died towards the end of the fifth century
(485) at an advanced age.

He was succeeded in the chair at Athens by his bio-
grapher, Marines of Sichem ; he in his turn appears to have
been followed by Isidore of Alexandria, both mere gram-
marians of no original ability. Damascius of Damascus
was the last professional philosopher of Greece. In 529
the schools were closed by edict of Justinian, and Damas-
cius with six friends banished the empire. They repaired
to the court of Chosroes, the King of Persia, where they
hoped to find the opportunity of establishing a Platonic
republic, but returned disappointed ; Chosroes, in his
treaty with Justinian, stipulating that they should live
and die in peace.

About this time lived the senator Boethius, the last
surviving representative of philosophy in Eome, who
was executed on a false charge by the Gothic king
Theodoric. He is notable as occupj^ng a position apart
from the dying Keo-Platonism of the age, having helped
to lay the foundation of the Aristotelian supremacy of
centuries later. For although they produced no effect
whatever on the age in which he lived, his works were
counted among the chief text books of the mediasval
schools, and contributed largely in the formation of the
Scholastic philoso]^iliy. It is doubtful whether he was
Pagan or Christian, though more probably the former,
as even in his last work, De Consolatione Philosophise, there
is no allusion to Christianity.

Night was now fast closing around the ancient world.
The old classical civilisation, from which the life had long-
since fled, was falling to pieces limb by limb and shred
by shred. In the sixth century its final dissolution may
be said to have taken place. Within a space of little more
than fifty years occurred the fall of the Western empire,
the closing of the schools of philosoph}^, and the formal
abolition of the consuls. The barbarian was established
as master throughout the AVestern world, including Italy
itself, and was pressing hard on the confines of Justinian's

NEO-PLATONISM. 97

empire. The last remains of Paganism had almost dis-
appeared. In the cities the temples sacred to tlie gods
of yore were re-echoing to the litanies of priests and
acolytes, while in the country they were silent and
neglected. The ancient world was dead, the mediaeval
world as yet unborn. Such was the sixth century.

It is not without a certain sense of sadness that one can
look back at this corpse-like world. Neo-PJatonism had
succumbed before its great rival — the rival whose mental
attitude and spirit it had practically adopted. It would
be curious could we but transport ourselves to that age,
and inhale for a moment its intellectual and moral at-
mosphere, and understand the yearning looks cast back
toward the ancient traditional rites and faith by many even
professing Christians ; to talk with the grammarian in his
library ; feeling that the philosophy it was his delight to
study, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Herakleitos, had been
but ill exchanged for the martyrologies, legends of saints,
and disputes monophysite or monothelite of the church ; to
witness the midnight rendez-vous of the peasant, as the
rites of some local cult were celebrated in secrecy and in
silence at the sacred fountain, the traditional grove, or the
crumbling waj^side altar. One thing that may be regarded
as certain, is that the Christianity of that age, formulated
and organised indeed, but as yet unembodied in any
distinct civilisation of its own, and with the fragments of
Paganism, imperfectly assimilated, still clinging to it in
their cruder form, was something radically distinct from
anything that the word recalls to our minds to-day.

( 98 )

TEANSITIONAL THOUGHT.
THE GNOSTICS AND CHRISTIAN FATHERS.

We must now, before taking a final leave of antiquity,
retrace our steps in order to glance briefly at the course
of that speculation which was either Christian, or at least
dominated directly by the Christian idea, and which thus
forms the connecting link between the ancient world and
the media3val.

The attitude of Christianity, and that of all con-
temporary systems having their source in the Christian
idea, was one of hostility to " the world." Every world-
historic idea necessarily enters the arena of historj^ as the
negation of the actual status quo. But the anti-worldli-
ness of the Christian idea, though it included this, went
far beyond it. In theology it meant the appearance of
the conception of the su;pernatural in direct contradiction
of the natural ; while in ethics it meant the erection of
individualism in 02:)position to the ancient communism, the
old, " worldly " conception of citizenship. In short, the
aii^z-worldliness of Christianity meant o/Z^er-worldliness
This change is traceable in germ as far back as the sixth
century B.C. or even earlier. The Hebrew prophets, the
first Isaiah, Amos, etc., proclaimed the " gospel of inward-
ness," with the doctrine of a transcendent god, a " searcher
of hearts ; " the Buddha again, later, preached the doctrine
of individual salvation in Nirvana, from the curse of life,
the world, and consciousness; Pythagoras, in Europe,
seems to have had a glimpse of the same idea ; while, as
we have already pointed out, the decline of the old civic
or communal feeling threw men more and more back upon
themselves as individuals. Sokrates' "Know thyself"

THE GNOSTICS AND CHRISTIAN FATHERS. 90

was the first definite expression in the Greek world of
this ethic of individualism. Coincidently with this, and
intimately connected with it, arose the tendency to a
purification of the divine and supernatural, by its separa-
tion from the human and natural. To the cultured Stoic
of the later classical ages, the gods were exalted farther
above humanity than they were to the cultured Gieek
of the earlier age, for even to contemporary popular concep-
tion they were hardly any longer mere nature-gods. But
in Europe the movement of " inwardness " and super-
naturalism obtained, at least in any formulated shape,
only among the educated classes. In farther Asia, India,
China, and Persia, and also in Palestine, it indeed assumed
popular and organised forms, but in Buddhism, Confucian-
ism, Zoroastrianism, and the later Judaism, the future
existence of the soul, when taught at all, was taught in a
half-hearted, and faltering way; only in the two latter
creeds, if even in them, assuming at all a prominent
position. It is clear that the spiritualist-individualist
movement did not reach its highest phase of formulation
or of organisation in any of the faiths mentioned. It first
appeared in Europe in an organised and popular form as
Christianity. In Christianity, for the first time, more-
over, the ethics of individualism became definitely fused
with a spritual or supernatural theology ; the individual
became immortal, not in the vague, metaphysical sense of
Platonism or of Neo-Platonism, in which the individual
was merged in the Idea or the noetic One, still less in the
colourless sense of the primitive ghost, to which the goal
of existence was the quiescence of respectable interment, —
but immortal as an individual, pure and simple, the heir
to the life of the blest.

Some maintain the primordial idea of Christianity was
that of the messianic kingdom on earth. If it had been
so, or at least if it had remained so, it would have con-
tinued what it was at first, a mere Jewish sect. Its
world-supremacy was due to its being the complete ex-
pression in an organised form of the rising introspective
ethics, in combination Avith a spiritualist theology. These
ideas, previously put forward in an abstract form, and
isolated from one another, now became the living and real

H 2

100 TRANSITIONAL THOUGHT.

parts of a complete systepi. The movement of inward-
ness and mysticism ever progressing in an unorganised
form, and among the cultured classes, now took organised
expression among the masses.

The Gnostic systems were the grotesque results of an
imperfect assimilation of the new principle at a time when
its formulation was incomplete. The relation of the
natural and supernatural, and their union in a divine-
human being was not as yet crystallised into the same
rigidity of dogma that it was subsequently. This espe-
cially applies to the earlier period of Gnosticism, when
though it was, so to speak, " in the air," it had not attained
any definite expression.

The earliest traces of Gnosticism are discoverable in
the first generation of the Church. To this period be-
long the Simon ians, whose origin was attributed to the
mythical Simon Magus ; also the heresies of Corinth,
Thessalonica, etc., referred to by St. Paul ; but the most
noteworthy appears to have been the sect founded by one
Kerinthus. They are all connected with Christianity by
some form of the doctrine of incarnation.

It was towards the end of the first, or the beginning of
the second century, that Gnosticism first attained any real
importance as an element in ecclesiastical history. The
Gnostic sects may be divided into two categories, repre-
sented respectively by the Hellenic Gnosis, whose home
was Alexandria, and the Syrian Gnosis, whose home was
Antioch. At least, this division seems to have the most
to be said in its favour, although others have been made.
The Alexandrian Gnostics were dominated largely by
Platonic, and Neo-Platonic ideas, and the Syrian Gnostics
by the Persian dualism. The chief representatives of the
Alexandrian or Hellenic Gnosis are Basilides, who taught
about 125, Karpokrates, and Valentinus (circa 150), who
in all probability originally belonged to the Basilidean
school, but came to Kome, where he instituted a sect of
his own which attained considerable notoriety and
numerical proportions. He died in Cyprus. The Valen-
tinian sect boasted many well-known names, and lingered
on till far into the sixth century. The only original

THE GNOSTICS AND CHRISTIAN FATHERS. 101

Hnostic work that lias survived is the ttlcttls c-ocfiLa of
Valentinus.

Among the Syrian Gnostics, tlie most eminent names are
its reputed founder, Menander (said to have been a disciple
of Simon Magus), who taught at Antioch ; Saturninus,
Tatian and Bardesanes. As in a sense belonging to this
section of Gnostic teachers, though by many historians
placed in a division by himself, may be mentioned
Marcion, the distinctive feature in whose teaching was
the opposition to Judaism, and the Petrine Christianity,
and its insistance on a gnosticised form of Paulinism.
The notion of the utter corruption of matter may be
described as the ground principle of all the Gnostic
systems. From the Pleroma or inconceivable and un-
approachable Prius of all things, "the immeasurable,"
the "unfathomable abj^ss," proceed seons or emanations,
which in an order variously described in different systems
terminate in the sense-world. All the Gnostic principles
from the highest to the lowest are personified. It is in
the passage from the Pleroma to the world that the main
distinction of the various systems lies. The Alexandrian
Gnosis gives it, in Neo-Platonic fashion, as a continuous
progression, matter only becoming real in proportion as it is
infiltrated by some higher eeon. Both the Syrian
Gnostics, on the other hand, conceived the process in
Zoroastrian fashion, as the iuA^asion of the Kingdom
of darkness, matter, by the Kingdom of light, the system
of ideal emanations or geons. The dual principle is thus
present from the first in this latter case. It should be
observed that the process of world-emanation or creation
was apparently conceived as actually historical, that is,
as taking place in time and space. In Gnosticism, Christ
becomes one of the higher eeons, proceeding from the
personified ideal Kingdom of light, to redeem the world.
But the rank assigned to him ditfers in different systems.
In some the Christ is merely one of the lower angels allied
to the Demiurges, or immediate creator of the world,
while in others it appears as intermediate between the
Demiurges and the Pleroma. But in all cases, the Christ
is distinguished from Jesus the son of jNIary, into whom
it entered. The Demiurgos is commonly identified by

102 TRANSITIONAL THOUGHT.

the Gnostics with the god of the Jews — the Jahveh of
the Okl Testament. But here again there is a clifierence
of view. Thus to Basilides, Yalentinus, Karpokrates, etc.,
he Avas a fallen angel, whose Kingdom it was the mission
of the ajon Christ to destroy (a view apparently main-
tained by Marcion), while with Saturninus Bardesanes
and others, he was merely not " good " in the highest
sense, the Christ having appeared in order to supersede his
lower kingdom of mere righteousness by " goodness." *

Gnosticism forms a strange and fantastic episode in the
history of thought. Neither theology nor ^Dhilosophy, yet
something of both, neither Christian nor Pagan, yet some-
thing of both — bizarre in an age of prophets, soothsayers,
founders of new cults, and revisers of old cults — these
curious theosophic systems, originated in the iirst century,
rose to importance in the second, and died away practically
in the third, though some of the sects dragged on an
existence till the age of Justinian. Manichasanism,
which arose on their ruins, achieving a success at one time
threatening even to Christianity itself, was little but
a modified Zoroastrianism. Its reappearance in the
thirteenth century in a Christianised form, as Pauli-
cianism or Albigensianism, its rapid spread and as rapid
extinction, though one of the most stirring and re-
markable stories furnished by the history of the Middle
Ages, does not fall within the scope of the historian of
philosophj^.

The common doctrine of the absolute and inherent
evil of matter, and of its separation from the divine, led
wdth the Gnostics to strangely pp]30site ethical views.
With some, probably the majority, it was the basis of
an ethic of rigorous asceticism, but with others, notably
the Karpokratians, the Ophites, and the Kenites, it as-
sumed the form of an antinomianism, which regarded all
actions as indifferent, inasmuch as they all affected matter
onl}^, and with this the divine in man was in no way con-

* In some sects (e.g. the Ophites, the Kenites) the antipathy to
Judaism was carried to the extent of deifviug the thiugs and person-
ages supposed to be most obnoxious to the god of the Jews, as the
serpent, Cain, &c.

cerned. Epi])hanes, the son of Karpokrates, even enjoined
excesses on his followers.

The subject next to occupy our attention is the move-
ment contemporaneous with Gnosticism, going on within
the Church, in the persons of the ancient Fathers. This
movement had for its end, at once to justify Christianity
to the cultivated mind of the age, and to refute the
Gnostic heresies (so-called), the form of which was semi-
philosophical. The link which the early Fathers thought
the}^ discovered between Pagan philosophy and Christian
theology was — Plato. Pliilo and the Keo-Platonists had
evolved trinitarianism out of Plato. The task of the
" Platonising " Fathers, as those were termed who sought
to mediate between the speculative opposition of the old
world and the new, was to endeavour to show that what
Plato had dimly foreshadowed by the light of reason was
supernaturally revealed in the new religion. The great
historical importance, however, of the early fathers, con-
sists in their having laid the foundation of the cardinal
Christian dogmas.

The first of the philosophic Fathers was Justin, sur-
named the Martyr (103-167). He had received an
education at the hands of Platonic and Stoic teachers,
and we may imagine was of " good " family. It was
apparently in his later years that he became Christian.
The authorship of two apologies for the Christians, ad-
dressed to the Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Au»relius, are ascribed to him, as well as a dialogue between
himself and a Jew named Gryphon, and other pieces of
more doubtful genuineness. In opposition to the pre-
vailing Polytheism, he urged the impossibility of the
ingenerate, changeless essence from whom all things
proceed, being other than One. At the same time he
admits a measure of truth in the writings, and of goodness
in the lives of the ancients. In Sokrates especially, he
sees the manifestation of the logos, • a term he was
probably the first to employ in a Christian connection.
Plato and Herakleitos, no less than Moses and Elijah,
he was disposed to regard as forerunners of Christ, and
indeed actually applies to them the epithet Christian.

104: TEANSITIONAL THOUGHT.

The doctrines of the fall of man, freedom of the will,
hereditary sin, regeneration, are severally expounded on
Platonic and Stoic principles.

Next in order to Justin Martyr comes Athenagoras,
who also addressed an apology for the Christians to
Marcns Anrelius, in which he seeks to furnish a philo-
sophical basis for Monotheism, maintaining the Polytheist
to be deceived by demons, and led by them into a con-
fusion between the divine and natural. In this Athen-
agoras undoubtedly touches the key-note of the essential
distinction between Pagan naturalism and Christian super-
naturalism. With one the divine is immanent in nature,
the gods are simply the personified forces of nature, they
are the familiar friends or enemies of man, like himself
only more powerful ; to the other, nature, in itself dead,
is created, animated and governed by the will of a trans-
cendent deity, differing in kind and not in degree merely
from man as a natural being.

Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, about the middle of the
second century, wrote a treatise addressed to a Pagan
friend which contains the first distinct enunciation of the
Christian doctrine of the trinity, though the conception
of the Holy Ghost labours under some ambiguity, being
still partially identified with the logos. Iren^eus, the
pupil of Polycarp (executed 202, at Lyons, of which city
he was bishop), was specially concerned with refuting the
Gnostics, respecting whom he is one of our chief sources
of information. Hippolytus also dealt with the same
subject in a lengthy treatise. Minucius Felix defends
Christianity on the ground of its ethics. Polytheism he
seeks to explain away in Euhemeristic fashion.

More important than any of these from the standpoint
of the historian of philosophy is Clement of Alexandria,
who flourished in the third century. His Stromata are
not only a mine of interesting gossip respecting the
earlier Greek thinkers, but one of the cleverest of the
patristic attempts to found Christianity on a Platonic
basis. Clement distinguishes between the Trt'crrc?, or faith,
which is the root, and the yv^a-is, or knowledge, which is
the crown ; the means to the attainment of the latter
being the understanding {liridTy^iiri) of what had been

THE GNOSTICS AND CHRISTIAN FATHEIIR. 105

previously received by faith. The true Gnosis is dis-
tinguished from the false, by the morality and true
brotherly love it engenders. The theology of Clement
issues in a kind of Pantheism in which all life and activity
is identified with God. The Clementine thcosophy, as
may be imagined, shows many points of contact both with
Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism.

Clement's disciple, Origenes (said to have been also a
pupil of Ammonius Saccas;, is by far the most important
figure among the early Fathers. He it was who first
made any serious attempt to reduce Christianity to the
form of a coherent body of doctrine. Carrying out the
idea of Clement respecting faith (Tricrrt?) and knowledge
(yvwcns), he made it his task to formulate the latter, at
the same time combating the principles of the heretical
Gnosis, and acting as Christian apologist against Paganism.
According to Origen, in addition to their literal or jjsijchical
meaning, the Hebrew Scriptures have a pneumatic one.
The initiated may discover in them an esoteric significa-
tion to which the literal is merely the cloak. Origen,
with the Pythagoreans, regards the limited as superior to
the unlimited, and hence assigns a limit to the divine
power. In the doctrine of the trinity, we notice a
development on Justin and Theophilus, inasmuch as
Origen fixes the position of the second Person, and
pronounces his generation eternal. The Holy Ghost,
although spoken of as above all created things, occupies a
subordinate and intermediate position. With Origen all
creation is eternal, that is, creative activity has neither
beginning nor end. Though the present world is not
eternal, yet an infinity of worlds has preceded this one.
This is not intended to imply the eternity of matter,
since the doctrine of creation out of nothing is strongly
insisted upon.' The spirits which were created first
in order, having fallen, were assigned, according to the
degree of their transgression, various positions in the
hierarchy of existence, including human bodies. The
species subsequently took the place of the individual in
Origen's doctrine of the fall, individual pre-existence being
apparently surrendered. Besides the exoteric or personal
relation to the divinity, Origen postulated an esoteric or

106 TKANSITIONAL THOUGHT.

general one, viz., tliat of the Cliurch or comnmnity of
saints. Inasmuch, as all creation is destined to absorption
in this whole, it would imply a failure of the divine
purpose if even the greatest of the fiends ultimately
perished.

In proportion as the Church grew as an organisation,
gi'ew the desire for the formulation of its doctrines. The
Chiistianity of reminiscence and expectation, of sentiment
and vague belief, which had sufSced for the first century,
failed to satisfy the second ; as a natural result aspirations
began to crystallise into a definite system, assimilating
the while the various Alexandrian and Zoroastrian doc-
trines which formed a portion of the general intellectual
life of the age. By the second half of the third century
this process of crystallisation had approached completion.
But even yet the line between heresy and orthodoxy was
drawn in a comparativeh^ loose manner, as is evident from
the doubtful position Origen occupies in Church history.
From this time forward, however, when the position of
the Church was assured by its numbers, wealth, and
importance, against being crushed out by any persecution
that might arise, and when the purely defensive attitude
became less and less necessary, increased attention was
given to the codification of the mass of dogmas which had
now grown up, and to giving them severallj^ increased
precision. The apologetic Fathers now give place to the
dogmatic, the link between them being supplied by
Origen.

The foundation of dogmatic Christianity was obviously
to be sought for in the doctrine of the trinity. Hence it
was this which formed the main battleground of the
various sects and parties in the Church from the begin-
ning of the fourth century onwards. What relation did
the historical Jesus bear to the second Person in the
Trinity ? What was the relation of the second Person to
the first ? Were the three Persons co-ordinate ? AVas it
unity or triplicity which constituted the essence of the
Godhead ? All these, and many subordinate questions
began now to occupy the doctors of the Church.

That the Christian trinitarian doctrine first took shape
in Alexandria — that seething cauldron of s^^eculation —

THE GNOSTICS AND CHRISTIAN FATHERS. 107

during the second century there is no reason to doul)t.
But its earlier history is wrapped in obscurity. Of the
nature and extent of the intercourse between the schools
of philosophy and the leaders of the Christian Church
in the Delta city, we know nothing ; yet that there
was an intercourse is evident.* Ammonius Saccas, the
reputed founder of Neo-Platonism (which was really
founded in all essentials by the Platonic Jew, Philo, in
the first century B.C.), is by some writers alleged to have
been a Christian, at least originally, though it is evident
that during the period of his activity as a teacher, he was
altogether outside the pale of the Church. The truth
was probably that he took considerable interest in the
new system, and probably visited the assemblies of the
Christians. He might even have had himself initiated,
as a means of ascertaining the nature of the Church's
esoteric doctrine. In any case, it is interesting and signifi-
cant that the Christian Origen is said to have been one of
his pupils, in company with the Neo-Platonists Plotinus
and Herrennius. But whatever may have been the
genesis of the doctrine, the beginning of the fourth cen-
tury found its definition the subject mainly occupying
the attention of the Christian communities. The Judaic
monotheism of the Sabellians, in which trinitarianism is
reduced to a shadow, was opposed by the jDaganising
tendency of Arius, with whom the logos or second Person,
was a created being, subordinate in nature to the first.
As yet the dogma had not attained the consistency
requisite for it as a fundamental thesis of Christian
theology. The figure with whom its final formulation
as the canon of orthodoxy is indissolubly associated, is
that of Athanasius, (298-373), bishop of Alexandria. On
the thesis of Athanasius it is unnecessary to dwell, since,
after a desperate struggle with Arianism, it obtained
what proved a decisive victory at Nica3a, in 325, where
it was erected by a large majority into the orthodox
Christian doctrine, a position it has maintained through-
out Christendom ever since. The attempts subsequently

* According to the critics the fourth Gospel was the immediate
outcome of this intercourse.

108 TRANSITIONAL THOUGHT.

made to mediate between the two parties, the disputes
about a word, and the political, social and religious dis-
turbances caused by the question during the whole of
the fourth century, lie entirely outside the history of
philosoph}^

The last of the Church Fathers that need detain us is
St. Augustine (353-412), bishop of Hippo, whose specula-
tive career offers many points of interest, as connecting
the ancient and the medigeval world. Of Christian
parentage, Augustine subsequently became Manichfean,
but after a time reverted to the creed of his youth.
Augustine found a refuge from scepticism, like Descartes
at a later time, in the certainty of self-consciousness.
From this he argues the certainty of being, life, and
knowledge, which he maintains are involved in the
primary fact of self-consciousness. Reflection on the
highest stage of Being shows, he maintains, that the
reason in its acts of cognition and judgment, pre-supposes
certain fundamental principles, culminating in the eternal
truth Avhich unites them in that synthesis which is tanta-
mount to the supreme all-embracing idea of Plato or the
creative intellect of Aristotle, but which Augustine identi-
fies with the Christian Logos. That this identification of
knowledge or consciousness itself with the divinity, is in-
distinguishable from the Pantheism of the Neo-Platonists is
obvious. Indeed Augustine himself admits his Platonism,
often designating Plato " the true philosopher." For him
the distinction between Faith and Knowledge, Eevelation
and Reason, does not exist. The one is merely a prepara-
tory stage to the other. Everywhere faith is the begin-
ning, and precedes Reason, although intrinsically Reason
is higher than faith. Inasmuch as God is wisdom
itself, the philosoj)her, that is, the friend of wisdom, is
the friend of God. God, as the essential object of all
knowledge, cannot be conceived under the categories
which serve to determine mere objects of sense. He is
great without quantity, good without quality, every-
where present irrespective of space, eternal apart from
time. He cannot even be spoken of as substance, since
no accidents can be predicated of him. The best definition
that can be given is that of the essence of all things, for

THE GNOSTICS AND CHRISTIAN FATHERS. 109

outside of, and apart from, him, nothing exists. Since
his being knows no limitation, he is better defined in
a uegative than a positive manner. Being, knowledge,
will, action, are in him one. In short, God is the unknow-
able, absolute, and unconditioned fact which the known,
the relative, and the couditioned pre-supposes. But the
character of Augustine as Christian dogmatist required
that he should not stop at an unknowable God. Hence
he proceeds to a consideration of the manifestation of God
as revealed to us. This is nothing other than the doctrine
of the trinity. Here again the agreement with the Neo-
Platonists is strong, though the personal terminology
of the Christian doctrine is formally maintained. Indeed
Augustine, so ftir as the letter went, actually put the
coping-stone on the work of Athanasius, by not only
distinguishing the Holy Ghost from the other Persons,
but by co-ordinating it with the logos ; his doctrine being
that in each of the three Persons, the divine substance is
equally preseat

Thus to non-metaphysical ecclesiastics, Augustine might
well appear the champion of orthodoxy : though looked
at a little more closely, it would be difficult to find a
single heresy with which he might not be chargeable.*
With all his verbal adhesion to the Christian dogma, it is
plain that philosophically he is, in spite of himself, a
Platonist and a Pantheist. The world is for him " der
Gottheit den ewigen Kleid." The creative power with-
drawn, and the world would disappear. Into Augustine's
theory of the freedom of the human will, which he identi-
fied with the divine will, thereby opening a path to his
predestinarian theology, and his controversy with Pelagius
on this head, space precludes our entering. It is enough
to state that Augustine was, in the exoteric and practical
side of his theology, as much the type and embodiment of
the Christian theologian, as he was in the esoteric and
theoretical side of the Neo-Platonic philosopher. With
Augustine the constructive period of Christian dogmatics
finally closes. The whole Christian scheme was now

* The passages in which Augiistine repeatedly insists on the equal
participation of the three Persons in every creative act, might have
been written by Sabellius.

110 TRANSITIONAL THOUGHT.

mapped out in all its essentials, and many of its particn^
lars. All that remained was to apply this system to the
details of life. An f»;nstine practically conclndes the line
of the ancient Christian Fathers, as his contemporary,
Proklos, that of the ancient pagan philosophers. In
Augustine we take, as it were, a second, and this time a
final farewell of the ancient world. The curtain falls
once more. It will rise again on a Catholic and feudal
Europe, whjere the races of modern times furnish the
chief actors.

Among the best works on the Christian and semi-Christian specula-
tion of the first three centuries, may be mentioned : in English, Smith's
' Dictionary of Christian Sects and Heresies,' Hansel's * Gnostics of
the Second Century,' Article, " Gnosticism," ' Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica,' 9th ed., also separate articles, Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerinthus,
&c. ; in French, Matter's ' Histoire du Gnosticisme ' ; in German,
Baur's 'Drei erste Jahrhunderte des Christenthums,' Neauder's
' Kirchengeschichte ' (also translated in Bohn's library), and among
recent works Hilgenfeld's ' Ketzergeschichte,' &c., &c. The original
works of the early Fathers are translated in the Aute-Nicene library.

THE EARLIER SCHOOLMEN. Ill

MEDIiEYAL PHILOSOPHY.

THE EAELIER SCHOOLMEN.

The first representative of mediaeval philosophy occupies
80 far as speculation is concerned, a somewhat anomalous
position. He stands like a solitary obelisk between the
ancient world and the middle ages.

The rise and rapid decline of the pure Keltic civili-
sation is an interesting phenomenon in the history of
mediaeval Europe. Its greatest architectural monument
remaining is the cathedral of lona ; its greatest literary
monument, the works of Johannes Scotus Erigena.
Erigena, the first mediaeval philosopher, is the solitary
representative of Platonism among the schoolmen, if,
indeed, he can be properly classed as a schoolman.

The spirit of scholasticism, or at least of the earlier
scholasticism, was one of subordination. The function of
the reason was to act as j;he Jiandmaid of dogma, in
defining, applying, justifying it ; in Erigena, however, we
see a much freer tendency. In him, Eeason takes prece-
dence of dogma, since even the f]oo;]nas laid down and
formulated by the fathers, were arrived at by the help of
Eeason. Erigena is fond of saying that philosophy and
religion are one, that true philosophy is true religion, and
vice versa. At the same time, he proceeds to explain the
world on Platonic principles, into which the Christian
scheme enters only incidentally.

Scotus Erigena was bom in Scotland, or Ireland (it is
uncertain which, though most probably the latter), about
the year 800. He doubtless received his education in one
of the monastic schools which then covered Ireland and
Keltic Britain, and where Greek was still taught in
conjunction with Latin. In 843 he was called to the
court of Charles the Bald of France, and entrusted with

112 MEDIAEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

the Chair of the Schola Platina, a position he retained foi
many years. The tradition which assigns to him an
academical post in the University of Oxford, under Alfied
the Great, is generally considered nnaiithentic. Scotus
Erigena, in all probability, died in Paris about the
year 877.

The totality of all Being or Xature* falls, according to
Erigena, under four classes ; the Uncreated-Creating, thi?
Created-Creating, the Created -Uncreating, and the Uncrea.-
ting-Uncreated. By the first and the last of these classes,
God in His pure essence is indicated ; the former denoting
God as the ground of all Being, the latter as the final end
and goal of all things. The second, which stands in direct
opposition to the fourth, as does the third to the first,
comprise between them the totality of real or related
existence. It may be remarked that the first three
classes are discoverable in both Plato and Aristotle, not
to speak of later thinkers, while the fourth is plainly
indicated by the Neo- Platonic writers. Of the five books
into which the philosophical treatise of Erigena is divided,
the first treats of God as the Uncreated-Creating ; as that
in and through which everything exists. He is the begin-
ning, the middle, and the end, and hence, says Erigena,
justly regarded as the imity of three Persons. This trini-
tarian conception may also be viewed in another light, as
theunity of being, willing, and knowing, or again of essence,
potentiality, and actuality. The same trinity is discover-
able in the soul of man, the "image of God," it matters not
whether we adopt the first of the classifications just given,
which was that of Augustine, or the second, which is that of
the other Fatliers. In agreement with Augustine, Erigena
denies any of the categories of thought to the essence of
God, who he insists can best be defined as ^mre nothing.

The first passage or progression is to the subject-matter
of the second book, which deals with the created, which
is also creating. This is nothing other than the system
of the Platonic ideas, or ideal prototypes, in other words,
the logos which embraces all things as the beginning, in

* As will be seen, Erigena employs the word Nature as synony-
mous with Being, and not in the usual limited sense, of the world as
perceivable.

THE EARLIER SCHOOLMEN. 113

whicli all things were created, as the wisdom in which
they were intuited. Although created, they are neverthe-
less eternal, inasmuch as the process of creation is not in
time, but co-eval with time. As with the Neo-Platonists
these principles stand to each other in a graduated order
of participation. They Comprise within them the principles
and forms of all real things, which are only real in so far
as they participate in the essence of these forms. It is
thus that they may he regarded as the direct causes and
principles of the real world, or of that nature which is
created, but does not itself create. This complex of
indi\ddual objects forms the theme of the third book. The
latter comprises a cosmology with which, by a process of
allegorisation, the Biblical is forced into accordance. Man
is the officina creaturarum, in whom the consciousness
of the whole lower creation is gathered up. He is
now out of paradise, inasmuch as he is divided from
God by the sense- world. But this is not the end of his
being. He is destined to a reconciliation with God, a
reabsorption in the divine essence. Respecting this, the
fourth and fifth books treat. In these the Pantheism of
Erigena is most pronounced.

Evil has no substantial existence, since the ground
and essence of all reality is God. Similarly evil has no
positive cause. It is incausale. Free will, to which many
have referred the existence of evil, only determines it-
self to evil, through want of knowledge, that is, through
our mistaking evil for good. (We call the attention of
the reader to the fact that this is an echo of the Sokratic
doctrine.) Since its object is a mistaken one, since it is
evil, and therefore negation, the will remains unsatisfied,
its end being unaccomplished. This we term punishment,
and therefore that only can be punished which does not
exist. The purpose of punishment is hence, not the
destruction of the substance of the sinner, but merely
the accident of this substance, the misdirected, and there-
fore essentially negative, will. On this ground Erigena
insists with Urigen on the ultimate union of all things
in God, on the reabsorption of the whole creation into
the substance from which it sprang, after all that is
evil, i.e. J negative in it, has been finally purged away.

I

114 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

This re-absorption should logically exclude individuality ;
but Erigena does not appear to contemplate this, at least
more than to a limited extent. The antitheses of creator
and created, heaven and earth, male and female, indeed
disappear, but the individuality remains, though in what
sense it is difficult to determine. *As in the order of crea-
tion, so in the order of absorption or deification, there
are degrees according to purity, or the reverse.

Tlie great work of Erigena, De Divisione Naturse, is
written in the form of a dialogue between a master and
disciple.

Anselm.

We pass over a period of two hundred years, during
which no names of special note occur in the schools. This
brings us to the eleventh century, a most important one
in the history of scholasticism, since it gave birth to two
of its most prominent figures, Anselm and Abelard. The
former was born in 1035 at Aosta. He was educated first
at Avranches and subsequently at the Abbaie de Bee in
Kormandy, where he followed Lanfranc as prior, and
afterwards as abbot. In the archbishopric of Canterbury,
which he occupied from 1089 till his death in 1099, he
w^as also a successor of Lanfranc.

With Anselm philosophy becomes avowedly the hand-
maid of theology. Its object is the justification of dog-
matics, although its procedure, Anselm declares, must
be independent of dogma. In Erigena we saw that the
idea of personality and conscious volition in the Godhead
and the world-order (the fundamental feature in all
theology — as such. Christian or otherwise — the feature
which distinguishes it from metaphysic proper), was
left very much in abeyance. In Anselm, on the con-
trary, as might be expected, it assumes a much more
prominent place, since Anselm was no searcher after
truth, but a philosophical advocate on behalf of the doc-
trines of the Church. His chief wor]' is the Proslogimn^
which contains the first serious attempt i^j ^'ase rJieology
on the so-called ontological argument. Anselm argues
the existence of God from the mere conception of a
supreme being which obtains in the mind. All things,

THE EARLIER SCHOOLMEN. 115

inasmuch as they can be expressed by predicates, point to
this ultimate concept, just as the predicate great points
to the concept greatness, the predicate good tb good-
ness, &c. Ansehn agrees with Augustine in defining God
as the Essence of all things. In three dialogues de veri-
tate, de lihero arbitrio, and de causa diaholi, Anselm de-
velopes the thesis that the being of the real world is es-
sentially negative, and in this way explains creation out
of nothing ; the meaning of which is that the being of the
world is the negation of the being of the Deity. Its
purpose is the glory of the Deity, to which even the fall of
man has contributed, by enabling man to become conscious
of that glory. The freedom of the will is also dealt with,
in a libertarian sense.

Anselm occupies the position of a link between the
Platonism of Erigena and his successors, and the pure
Aristotelianism of the schoolmen proper. The great
scholastic controversy — Nominalism versus Eealism— was
yet to come, although near at hand. Its immediate
starting-point may be considered the, in the first instance,
purely theological polemic of Anselm against Roscellinus,
canon of Champiegne, whose doctrine on the subject of the
trinity tended in the direction of Tritheism. Anselm in
this dispute takes the realist position against Eoscellinus,
who is the representative of the most extreme nominalism.
The former, like all his predecessors, and in spite of the
Aristotelian tendency of much of his own thought, had
never doubted that universals were to be regarded with
Plato as having a substantive existence apart from the
particulars and singulars in which they were realised.
The latter maintained the then paradoxical (and in truth
equally one-sided) position that universals had no signifi-
cance except as words, that they were flatus vocis. It is
noticeable how the great metaphysical problem which had
occupied the ancients — the relation of matter and form —
was now becoming whilTtled down to a mere logical or
even psychological issue, in which its kernel was entirely
lost and its bearings totally changed. It is remarkable
also how this mere question of the schools was made the
arena for the strife of Church parties and the battleground
of twelfth-century orthodoxy and heresy. At first the

I 2

116 . MEDIAEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

weight of the Church's authority was thrown into the
realist scale. This was to be expected, not only owing to
the heterodox theological attitude of the first representa-
tive of nominalism, but also because it gave to sense-per-
ception the foremost place, besides cutting at the root of
the ontological and all similar arguments. The panthe-
istic tendencies of Eealism, when logically carried out,
were apparently not discerned at this time.

Abelard.

The leading representative of the great scholastic
controversy was Abelard (born 1079), a native of Pallet,
or Palais, near Nantes. He studied first under
Eoscellinus, and afterwards in Paris under the Eealist
William of Champeaux. The result was a dissatisfaction
with the teaching of either, but especially with that of the
latter, which led Abelard to challenge his master to a
public disputation. This ended triumphantly for Abelard,
inasmuch as William was compelled to a formal recanta-
tion of his extreme Realism. Abelard's reputation as the
greatest dialectician of the age now grew rapidly, and
scholars flocked from all sides to hear the PMlosojphus
Peripateticus, as he somewhat arrogantly styled himself.
Eising higher and higher in public estimation, in spite of
a lengthened remission of labour owing to ill-health, as
well as of the not unnatural animosity of his former master
and now humiliated rival, William of Champeaux, whom
he had literally driven from Paris, Abelard attained the
chair of the great Cathedral school of Notre-Dame, being
at the same tiYne nominated canon.

It was now that the romantic episode occurred which
was destined to overshadow the whole of Abelard's sub-
sequent career, and which has given to the dialectician and
schoolman the undying place he occupies in popular im-
agination. It would be out of place in a manual like the
present, to enter into a detailed account of the well-known
story of the seduction of the canon Fulbert's niece by
Abelard, of Abelard's passion, and Heloise's life-long
devotion. A subsequent secret marriage, though for a
time it appeased the indignation of Fulbert, did not

THE EARLIER SCHOOLMEN. 117

prevent the perpetration of the crime which, to a large
extent, shattered Abelard's subsequent life. He was not
born fur the cloisters, and his attempt to retire from
active work to the abbey of St. Denis was a failure. He
reapjoeared as teacher, seemed to be regaining his old
popularity, was condemned on a charge of heresy, again
fled from the world, this time into the wilderness, was
sought out by the students, again induced to teach, was
once more driven by new dangers to the desolate abbey,
Gildas de Rhuys, in Brittany, whence was penned his
share of the well-known correspondence with Heluise.
The final blow to Abelard's reputation was the fiasco of
his attempt to answer St. Bernard, to whom his dialectics
were an abomination. Condemned once more for heresy,
Abelard was on his way to plead his cause in person
at Eome when his health broke down, and he died shortly
after, on the 21st of April, 1142, at the priory of St. Marcel.
He was buried at the convent of the Paraclete (erected by
his own scholars), of which Heloise, who subsequently
shared his tomb, was Superior. Their bones, after many
vicissitudes, now lie in Pere la Chaise.

Abelard was in a sense the founder of Scholasticism,
that is, the method of philosophising (for a system
Scholasticism was not), which has for its end the rational
formulation of the Church's doctrines. In Abelard we
first find that exclusive ascendency of Aristotle, which
is its main characteristic. Plato, before the chief store-
house for the philosopher and theologian, henceforth
remained a sealed book until the Renaissance. It was
Abelard, too, who fixed the question of universal s as the
central one. In antagonism alike to the extreme Realism
of William of Champeaux, and the extreme Nominalism of
Roscellinus, he maintained, formally at least, the Aristo-
telian position, universalia in rebus. We say formally, as it
is doubtful how far Abelard saw the metajDhysical
bearings of the question. But at least he joined with the
Kominalists in ascribing full reality only to sensible
concretes, while he repudiated the fiatus vocis doctrine,
proclaiming the existence of the universal in the concrete,
and declaring it to emerge in the act of predication.

The doctrine of Abelard has been termed conceptualism ;

118 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

but the applicability of this desigTiation rests upon the
assumption that Abelard concerned himself with the mere
psychological question of the mental subsistence of the
universal. It is most probable that he never clearly
grasped the distinction between the metaphysical and the
psychological problems. He was pre-eminently a logician
who took delight in dialectical combats for their own
sake, as his contemporaries of the sword took delight in
combats with the lance for their own sake. With ethics,
however, Abelard occupied himself to some extent, and
some of his observations in this department are acute, and
in certain points even anticipate the remarks of modern
thinkers, although awe of the Church's authority pre-
vented him from treating the subject in any thorough
manner.

THE AKABIANS AND JEWS. 119

THE AEABIANS AND JEWS.

We must turn aside now from the Schools of Catholic
Europe, with the controversy raging between Nominalism
and Eealism, where Aiistotle was being exploited in the
interest of the Church, to a series also of Aristotelian
thinkers, trained, not in the fathers, but in the Koran,
and who appear first of all in the East, and afterwards in
Spain. For their acquaintance with the writings of the
Stagirite, the Arabians were largely indebted to the
Nestorian Christians of Syria. The physician of the
Prophet himself was a Nestorian. But it was not until
the reign of the Abbassides, in the eighth century, that
the medical and philosophical Greek literature came
generally into vogue with the learned Saracen. The first
Arabian' translation of Aristotle dates from the beginning
of the ninth century.

About the same time, or rather later, flourished Alkendi,
to whom the English Eoger Bacon was much indebted.
He was the first to attempt to place the Islamite theology
on a rational basis. As Professor Wallace observes
(Encyclopsedia Britannica, 9th ed., art. " Arabian Phi-
losophy "), " there were schoolmen amongst the believers
in the Koran, no less than amongst the Latin Chris-
tians. At the very moment when Mohammedanism came
into contact with the older civilisations of Persia, Baby-
lonia, and Syria, the intellectual habits of the new converts
created difficulties with regard to its very basis, and proved
tl^emselves a prolific source of diversity in the details
of} interpretation."

taking at the philosophical problem from the point of
vie\r'='lf Mohammedan monotheism, the difficulty was to
reconcile the ascription of manifold attributes to a being
whose essence was unity. The next in interest was the
relation of the Divine omnipotence to the freedom of the
human will. But the philosophical genius of the Semitic
mind was not sufficiently great to deal with these questions

120 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

satisfactorily to itself without the assistance of European
thought. It is a noteworthy circumstance that the phi-
losophy of Aristotle appears in its purest form in the
Middle Ages, in the works of the Arabian writers.
Next to Alkendi comes the so-called Alfarabi, who died
A.D. 050. His philosophy was buried in the darkness
of a secret order, such was the suspicion with which his
rationalising tendencies were regarded.

One of the most important of the philosophers of the
East, was Avicenna (born 980). In him the question of
Nominalism and Eealism resolved itself, not after the
manner of Abelard in the West, by a destructive criticism
of the rival theories, but by a recognition of their equal
justification. According to Avicenna, all universals exist
ante res in the Divine understanding, iyi rebus, as the real
predicates of things, and post res, as the abstract concepts
formed by the human mind. At the head of Avicenna's
metaphysic stands the absolutely simple, necessary, and
perfect essence. This is the Good towards which every-
thing tends, and from its particiiDation in which its relative
perfection is derived. Notwithstanding its unity, this
principle embraces as determinations of its thought, the
necessary (as distinguished from the merely contingent) in
all real objects. Opposed to this abstract principle oiform,
is the liyle or matter. The matter of Avicenna is, like that of
Aristotle, Plato, and their successors, merely the principle
of limitation, of non-being, of contingency, in which the
whole sense-world partakes ; in other words, the principle
of plurality and potentiality, as against that of unity and
actuality. Nature is the synthesis of these fundamental
principles. The passage from the higher to the lower is to
be conceived as eternal. The cause which gives reality to
things is equally necessary to preserve their reality. It is
an error to suppose that once brought into being, objects
would remain so of themselves. Avicenna, as a natural
consequence of this doctrine, teaches the eternity of the
world.

It is unnecessary to enter upon the manner in which
Avicenna brings this dualistic system into conformity
with his theological creed. Suffice it to say, that any
contradiction between the doctrine of reason and the

THE ARABIANS AND JEWS. 121

revelation of the Prophet, is to him an impossibility. In
practice he advocates asceticism as a means of freeing
the soul from the bondage of matter, and raising it to
the intelligible world, which is its proper destination.

Al Ghazzali (born 1059) represents the sceptical side of
Arabian philosophy, as Avicenna does the mystical.
.His work may be described, like that of the late Dean
Mansel's ' Limits of Religious Thought,' and Mr. Balfour's
* Defence of Philosophic Doubt,' as an effort to resuscitate
a popular theology by a demonstration that pliilosophic
conceptions are as unreliable, and as susceptible to
negative criticism, as those of common experience, which
philosophy pretends to undermine. The consequence of
the scepticism of Al Ghazzali was the triumph throughout
the East of unphilosophical Mohammelan orthodoxy.
Spain became henceforth the chief theatre of Saracen
learning.

The first figure that strikes us in the Moorish Empire is
Abu Beker, who was born at Saragossa, towards the end
of the eleventh century. He wrote only small treatises,
most of which are lost. The most famous of these, ' The
Guide of the Lonely,' treats of the stages through which
the soul rises from the instinct that it possesses in common
with the lower animals, to the active intellect, which is an
emanation of the Deity Himself. This is, as with Avicenna,
by a progressive freeing of itself from the potentiality and
multiplicity of sense. Abu Beker is chiefly interesting as
leading up to the greatest of all the Mohammedan thinkers,
Averroes.

Averroes was born at Cordova in the year 1120, and died
in Morocco, as physician, in the last year of the century.
His veneration for Aristotle amounted almost to adoration,
his works chiefly consisting of commentaries on the master,

Averroes is strong in his polemic against the doctrine
of creation out of nothing, and in his rehabilitation of the
Aristotelian principle of evolution. What is called crea-
tion is nothing but the transition from potentiality to
actuality. Matter ( ontains within it all forms, according
to their possibility ; they do not require to be super-
induced upon it from without, as in the Platonic doctrine

122 MEDIiEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

of Avicenna, but to be merely evolved, the distinction
betweeen potentiality or possibility, i.e., matter, and actuality,
i.e., form, existing only in our limited thought, The
philosopher should recognise this. He should see that the
oft-repeated question as to whether chaos or matter has
preceded or followed 07'der or form, from bis point of view,
has no meaning, since the merely temporal distinction of
possibility and actuality is for him merged in the higher
category of neceissity. Averroes found in his religion what
he was expounding in a rational form, shadowed forth in
images and symbols. Only a few could attain the highest
goal, viz. philososophical truth ; for the rest, the popular
creed was necessary. With Averroes the series of the
Saracen thinkers closes. Their influence is readily discover-
able in the writings of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas,
and indeed, all the later schoolmen.

Before proceeding to again take up the thread of Western
speculation proper, we must cast a glance at the con-
temporary Jewish philosophy, a type of which we may
find in Maimonides. This, although possessing no espe-
cial bearing on what immediately follows, will have its
importance when we come to treat of Spinoza.

The Jewish philosophy of the middle ages consists
partly in the Kabbala, which was a secret doctrine,
claiming great antiquity, but in all probability not dating
from earlier than the middle of the ninth century; and
partly in a Judaistic Aristotolianism, traceable immediately
to the Arabian thinkers, especially Averroes. The doctrine
of the Kabbala is comprised in two books, called resj^ectively
Jezirah, or Creation, and SoJiar, or Illumination. It is the
former book which contains the original Kabbalistic
doctrine, the latter being avowedly the production of a
Spanish Jew of the thirteenth century. It will suffice to
state that the doctrines contained in these books are simply
a mixture of Neo-Platonic, Neo- Pythagorean, Parsic, and
other theosophies.

The Moorish Empire was the happy hunting-ground of
all searchers after knowledge and si^eculative freedom in
the middle ages. In spite of not unfrequent bursts of
intolerance, thought was probably freer in Spain than in

THE ARABIANS AND JEWS. 123

any other European country. It was not alone Mussulman
thinkers and scholars that found a home there ; Christians
and Jews taught and studied side by side with them.
The civilisation which produced the Alhambra and the
Escorial can boast not only Averroes, but Avicebron and
Maimonides.

The first Jewish philosopher of any note is Avicebron,
author of the work Fons Vitse, mu(;h quoted by the
schoolmen. He was born at the beginning of the eleventh
century, at Malaga, and died aliout 1070. His main thesis
is the universality of the opposition of Matter and Form
(or, which is the same thing, of Genus and Differentia),
throughout the sensible, no less than the intelligible and
moral worlds ; and at the same time, their indissoluble
conjunction. Will alone transcends this opposition, and
hence cannot be defined, but only seized by intuition.
Avicebron was a pronounced Pantheist, and his work was
in consequence shunned by the orthodox, no less among
the Jews than the Christians.

Moses Ben Maimon, or Maimonides, who was a native of
Cordova, was born 1135, and died, 1204, at Cairo. He was
alike among his co-religionists and the outer world the
most highly esteemed of all the mediseval Hebrew thinkers.
Although much influenced by his Mohammedan con-
temporaries and predecessors in the field of i:)hilosophical
research, having studied under the famous Averroes, he
none the less cultivated with assiduity the writings of
Aristotle himself. He was a voluminous writer, not only
on philosophy but also on law and medicine. His main
doctrines were the impossibility of predicating any
positive attributes of the Deity ; with this was con-
nected his division of all existence into the Makrokosmos
and Mikrokosmos, terms which play such a large part
among the alchemists and the pseudo-physicists of a later
age. Maimonides, in spite of his devotion to Aristotle,
refused to admit the eternity of the world a parte ante.
The divine intelligence is, according to his doctrine,
connected with the singular or individual through the
human intelligence. In itself it only contains the
universal forms of things.

The writings of Maimonides soon became widely circu-

124 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

lated, and were much commented upon. It was chiefly
through his contemporary, Gersonides, that they were
made known to the Gentile world.

THE LATER SCHOOLMEN.

Albertus Magnus.,

This eminent schoolman and reputed magician was
born in Swabia, about the year 1193, receiving his
education at the university of Padua. In his thirty-sixth
year Albertus repaired to Cologne, as professor in the
Dominican College there. He is also said to have taught
in several other places, amongst them Strasbourg and
Paris, but subsequently returned to Cologne at a time
when Thomas Aquinas was beginning to achieve distinc-
tion. After much wandering in France and German}^ he
died in the year 1280, having outlived his famous pu2)il
*' the angelic doctor."

Albertus Magnus was the first of the schoolmen to
expound the Aristotelian philosophy in systematic order,
at the same time taking account of its various Arabian
commentators, and to seek to bring the whole mass —
original form and later developments — into possible
harmony with ecclesiastical dogma. He expounds his
modified version of " the philosopher " in a series of
writings which form a running commentary on the
Aristotelian text. His theory of the Universal is nearly
identical with that of Avicenna. It is universale ante rem
in the divine mind ; universale in re in the synthesis of
realit}'^ ; and universale post rem as the mental concept.
Albertus is careful to separate the Trinitarian doctrine of
the Church and the dogmas connected therewith from his
rational or philosophic theology. He none the less rejects
the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world,
holding fast in this case to the Church dogma of a creation
in time. Albertus, with Aristotle and Plato, contends for
the materiality of the soul and its independence of the
body so far as its existence is concerned, although not in

THE LATER SCHOOLMEN. 125

respect of it as an active agent in the real world. The
ethics of Albertns rest entirely on the principle of the
freedom of the will. His attempt to combine the
Aristotelian morality with the Christian is more ingenious
than successful.

Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas of Aquino, born 1225, at the castle of his father,
a Neapolitan count, is the central figure among the later
schoolmen. His abilities being early recognised, he was
sent to the Dominican School in Cologne, where Albertus
Magnus was then lecturing. He followed Albertus to
Paris, and back again to Cologne, there assuming the
position of Magister Studentium. He subsequently gave
courses of lectures in most of the chief universities of
Europe, while at the same time engaged in affairs of State,
both in France and Italy, and active in all the public
business of the Church. He died in 1274.

Thomas Aquinas may be described as the spirit of
Scholasticism incarnate. His Smnma Theologia is an
attempt to realise the scholastic ideal of an all-embracing
system of knowledge comprehending philosophy proper,
theology, and such physical speculations of an alchemistio
character, which then did duty for science.

The grand principle on which Aquinas based his
system was that there were two sources of knowledge, —

revelation, a,nd_rea&au. ThiLiiliiefldiaracterii^tic of i-evela-

tion is the mysterious and incomprehensible guise in
which its truths are conveyed, but which are to be
belieye^^in spite of this. The channels of revelation are
the Hebrew Scriptures and Church tradition.

The Eeason of Aquinas is not to be confounded with
the individual reason. It is the other main source of
knowledge, its artery being the writings of the Greeks,
especially of Plato and Aristotle. In both these two
channels of knowledge there is a higher and a lower
sphere, the latter of which, alone, man can hope to attain.
Though distinct for us, in the last resort. Reason and
revelation alike draw from the same ultimate source,
namely, God, or the Absolute One. Thomas Aquinas did
for the Christian theology what Averroes did for the

126 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY,

Moslem, and Maimonides for the Jewish. He supplied it
with a fairly coherent, philosophical dress. In his theory
of the universal, Aquinas follows his master, Albertus
Magnus, who, as we have seen, in his turn follows
Avicenna. Eealism (whether Platonic or Aristotelian),
and Nominalism, alike have their relative justification.
In the agreement of things with the eternal ideas consists
tlieir truth; in the agreement of our thoughts with the
things, consists the truth for us. The connection between
the metaphysic and theology of Aquinas is seen when he
comes to treat oiForm as independent Substance, in which
way the existence of spiritual being is explained. The
angels of Aquinas, like those of Philo, are simply
personified universals.

In treating the Scholastic period generally, but more
especially a writer like Aquinas, it is hard to say where
philosophy ends and theology begins, for in spite of
St. Thomas's primary distinction, we find the theological
method named pervading the whole current of his thought,
as of that of the Schoolmen generally.

The influence of the "Angelic Doctor," as he was
termed, on the thought, and more than all, on the
terminology of subsequent ages, must not be measured
by the comparatively limited space we can aiford, or,
indeed, that it is necessary, to devote to him, in a work
like the present. " Were the importance of a school
determined by the number of its adherents and its long
continuance," says Erdmann, "none could compare with
that of the Albertists, as they were originally, or the
Thomists, as they were afterwards called. There are
even many who see in Thomas at the present dsij the
incarnation of the philosophical reason." The present
pope Leo XIII., in 1879, constituted Thomas Aquinas the,
so to speak, official exponent of the philosophical side of
Catholicism. Not long after his death, however, he had
already obtained the same position among the Dominican
order to which he had belonged. There can b^s no doubt
or question, whatever may be our opinion of the value of
the scholastic philosophy in general, or of that of St.
Thomas in particular, that he was one of the subtlest and
acutest intellects that have ever lived. The s ervices he

THE LATER SCHOOLMEN. 127

has rendered in giving precision to philosophical termin-
ology mnst alone, apart from all question of the particular
tenets associated with his name, render him deserving of
the gratitude of all subsequent thinkers.

Duns Scotus.

John Duns Scotus, the precise year and place of whose
birth are somewhat uncertain, though the probabilities
seem in favour of a Scottish origin, flourished during the
latter half of the thirteenth century. He is reported to
have studied at Merton College, Oxford, where he became
remarkably proficient in all branches of learning, especially
mathematics. In 1301 he was appointed Professor of
Philosophy at Oxford, and attracted great attention, a
fact expressed in the legend that no less than thirty
thousand students attended his classes. He acquired his
title of " Doctor Subtilis," on account of the dialectical
ingenuity he displayed in bis defence of the doctrine of
the immaculate conception, a dogma which was main-
tained by the Franciscans, to whom Scotus belonged,
against the Dominicans. He died, it is said, in the thirty-
fifth year of his age at Cologne, in November, 1308.

Though the Scotists, or followers of Scotus, continued,
till the close of the Scholastic period, the rivals of the
Thomists in the learned world, it must not be supposed
that he was any the less a realist in philosophy than
Aquinas himself; indeed, Scotus nay be regarded as
rt-presenting the harder and more uncompromising form
of the realist doctrine. He als'^ indicates a reaction
against the eclecticism of Aquinas in another respect.
Aquinas, as we know, gave to reason an amount of
authority independent of dogma ; Scotus. on the other
hand, will not admit of any other channel of knowledge
than the ecclesiastical one. In accordance with this
position, he rejects the ontological arguments offered by
Aquinas in favour of the existence of the Deity, whose
being and attributes he proclaims altogether outsiclo the
sphere of reason. The most important of the writiiigs of
Scotus consisted of commentaries on Aristotle and Lom-
bardus. His strength consists rather in negative criticism

128 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

than in constructive thought. This is connected, according
as we view it, either as cause or consequence of his
fundamental position, which amounted to denying for the
reason any sphere of use other than that of undermining
its own pretensions. To him who proclaimed the un-
conditional acceptance of the Church's doctrines in their
very letter as the primary duty, it was not likely that
any attempt at constructing a rational theology would
find much favour. Scotus is what Occam was still more,
a Christian Al Ghazzali.

All things, according to Scotus, are constituted of Form
and Matter combined. The principle of individuation he
finds in Form. The special individual determination or
the Thisness (Jisecceitas) imposes itself as Form on the
Matter which is constituied of generic and specific
character. The essence of individuation is distinguish-
able in the things as well as in the intellect, although it
has no existence separable from them, i.e. the Universal
is not merely potentially present in the object, but
actually so. Scotus is particularlj^ strong in his assertion
of the freedom of the will, which he declares capable of
self-determination without motive. It will be sufficiently
clear from this brief sketch that by his doctrine of the
Thisness (JisBcceitas), or principle of individuation, not
implying any limitation or deterioration of the What-
ness, or quiddity, but rather the completion and perfecting
of it, Scotus has discarded the last remnant of the older
Platonic realism, according to which the sense element, or
in other words, this same principle of individuation was
the purely negative matter, limiting the perfection of the
universal form, which inhered in it.

William of Occam.

William, born at Occam (now Ockham), in Surrey, a
Franciscan and pupil of Duns Scotus, was for some time
professor in Paris. Opposed to the temporal power of the
Hierarchy, in accordance with the principles of his order,
he threw himself with ardour into the conflict between
the French Monarchy and the Papacy on the side of the

THE LATER SCHOOLMEN. 129

former. Persecuted by the papal party, he fled to Padua,
and subsequently to Munich, where he placed himself
under the protection of Ludwig of Bavaria. He died in
Munich about the year 1347.

In William of Occam, the swan of scholasticism sang its
death-song. For from Occam's new arguments and re-
statement of the position of Nominalism, which he
championed, resulted the bankruptcy of the school-
ardently philosoj^hy. Occam was as much opposed to
Scotism, the dominant philosophy of his order, as he
was to the Thomism of the Dominicans. His definition
of a Universal is interesting. " A Universal is," he
says, " a particular intention of the mind, itself capable
of being predicated of many things, not for what it pro-
perly is itself, but for what those things are ; so that
in so far as it has this capacity it is called Universal, but
in so far as it is one form really existing in the mind, it
is called singular."

With Occam the great controversy respecting Univer-
sals became consciously narrowed to a purely psycho-
logical issue. The coincidence between much in his
writings with the doctrines of the later English Em-
piricist school is, allowing for scholastic terminology
striking. According to Occam, the Species {intelligibiles)
of the Scotists are superfluous entities. It is rather
the actus intelUgendi itself which is the sign of the thing.
By sign, William understands that by which one thing
is distinguished from another thing. He draws a line
between natural signs, or signs of objects over which
our v/ill has no control, and those general terms forme p
in the mind which can be called up and dismissed
at pleasure. The former constitute our percej)tions or
thoughts of things, the latter are merely states or modi-
fications of the soul caused by these perceptions. But it
would be just as irrational to suppose that even the first
of these, i.e. our necessary thoughts, or our perceptions
through sense, resemble the things perceived, as to
suppose that the sigh resembles the pain which causes it,
or the smoke the fire. Here we have a plain statement,
albeit couched in scholastic phraseology, of the ordinaiy
empirical doctrine of a world of " things-in-themselves,"

K

130 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY.

which are the cause of our perceptions but concerning
which we know nothing more. The second order of signs,
our ideas or general concepts, have, according to Occam,
no connection whatever with things, but are merely built
up of our perceptions of things and serve to indicate
these. They are mere words or names, having no more
resemblance to the perceptions which gave rise to them
than the latter in their turn have to the things by
which they are caused.

The principle of Occam's philosophical method is well
expressed in his favourite maxim : entia non sunt multqjli-
canda p'seter necessitatem. Sufficiunt singularia, et ita tales
res universales omnino frustra jpommtur. He makes short
work of distinctions which, until then, had passed as the
common property of the learned. The same tendency to
simplification is observable in his theology. Like his
master Duns, he denies the possibility of basing theology
on reason.

With William of Occam, the philosophy of the Church
virtually closes. After him there is no original figure.
The various schools continued to furnish writings and
disputations up to the period of the Renaissance, and even
later, but there is little to record concerning them.

Among the best works giving a general view of the philosophy
of the Middle Ages may be mentioned Haureau, de la philosopMe
scolastique (2 Yoll. Par. 1850) ; Kaulich, Geschichte der sclwlastischen
Philosophie (Prague, 1863) ; Stocld, Geschichte der Fhilowphie dea
Mittelalters (Mainz, 1862-66); Frantl, Gesch. der Logic im Ahend-
Jande. Muurice, Medipeval ^Philosophy, in Vol. I. of his Moral and
Metapliysical Philosophy, which contains perhaps the best and fullest
English monograph on the subject. For the Arabians and Jews
may be consulted Munk, Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris,
1859); Ernest Eenan, Averroes et Vaverroisme (Paris, 1852 ; 2nd Ed.
1865); Geiger, Moses hen Maimon (Breslau, 1850); a\so Beer, Philo-
sophie und philosophische Schriftsteller der Juden (Leipsic, 1852).

About the time that Scholasticism was declining, a curious
niovementsprHng up in Germany. This was the so-called
" German Mysticism " of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. It is in the main concomitant with the rise of
that German national literature which was brought to an
untimety end by the Tliirty Years' War. This mystical
movement may be said to have originated with the Master

THE LATER SCHOOLMEN. 131

Ecliliart, who, tired of the teachings of the schools, broke
away from them in a direction which led directly to Jacob
Bohme, and indirectly to the Lutheran Keformation.
Johannes Tauler, of Strasbourg, may be also mentioned as
one of.the leaders of this movement. Though he did not
add much in substance to the speculations of Eckhart, he
was possessed of a literary style which his predecessors
lacked, and thus contributed to popularise them.

The most important work of this school in its influence
on German thought was one by an unknown author, sub-
sequently published by Luther as " A German Theology '*
{Eyn deutsch Tlieologia). The burden of the whole school
is the evil and unreality of the phenomenal world ; true
reality only being recognised in a world outside the limits
of time and space to which man must attain ere he rises to
his higher life. We have in them an apt illustration of
history repeating itself. To Eckhart and his followers, as
to Plotinus, the goal of the reason is found in the absolute
all-embracing Unity wherein all difference is abolished,
Indeed this German Mysticism of the later Middle Ages
is little but a reproduction of Neo-Platonic theories, con-
siderable as was it8 practical influence and results.

On the German Mystics the best work is Praegers Geschichte der
deutschen Mystik i-m MittelaUer (1st Part, Leipsic, 1875) ; Rosenhrantz,
Der Deutsche Mystik, Konigsberg, 1836). In French, Albert Barran,
Etudes sur qitelqties tendences du mysticisme avant la reformcitian
(Strasbourg, 1868).

K 2

( 132 )

TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE KENAISSANCE.

Feudalism was in ruins. Industry and Commerce were
rising into power. Catholicism was rapidly disintegrating
as a system even in spiritual matters, while as a con-
trolling factor in the affairs of the world it was merely
one, by no means the greatest, among several contending
forces. The philosophy of the schools was everywhere in
disrepute among earnest and independent thinkers. The
art of printing had just been invented, and was of itself
revolutionising older habits of thought. The New World
was being opened up by enterprising Spanish and Portu-
guese mariners. And last, but not least, Constantinople
had but recently fallen before the crescents and horsetails
of Mahomet II., and its treasures, literary and artistic,
been, in consequence, dispersed throughout the Western
World. Such was Europe as the fifteenth century closed,
and the sixteenth opened. Among a crowd of diverse, yet
connected factors, each contributing its quota to the for-
mation of the mental character of an epoch, it is difficult
to assign the relative importance of any one in particular.
Yet it is sufficiently obvious that it was the last event
mentioned which gave its immediate colouring to the
philosophy of the period.

Little as the so-called Renaissance has in common with
the Middle Ages pure and simple, it yet possesses a
distinct mediasval character of its own, just as the period
of the Christian Roman Empire has the stamp of the
civilization of antiquity upon it, notwithstanding the
gnlf which divides it from the ancient world properly so
called. The industrial middle class of the fifteenth
century were so far nearer allied to the yeomen and free
tenants of feudalism than to the commercial classes of
modern times. In the same way the hatred of scholasticism

FICINUS AND PICUS. 133

and the desire to start afresh on the lines of ancient
thought in its purity did not prevent the philosophical
literature of the period from having a distinct mediaeval
and scholastic flavour.

Early in the fifteenth century, there was a society esta-
blished in Florence by a Greek named Plethon, the com-
mentator of Plato, under the special j^rotection of Cosmo de
Medici, for the study of the works of Plato untrammelled
by theological scruples. Marsilius Ficinus (1433-1499),
who taught in the school, was 'the author, in addition to a
work entitled Theologica Platonica, of a well-known
Latin translation of Plato. Another prominent reviver of
Platonism was John Picus of Mirandola. Turning from
Platonism to Cabbalistic mysticism and charlatanry, Picus
of Mirandola repaired to Kome to propound nine hundred
theses on every conceivable subject, logical, ethical,
mathematical, metaphysical, theological, magical, which
he offered to defend against all comers. By these he suc-
ceeded in achieving great notoriety at the time, though
not without falling under the suspicion of heresy. Picus
died at the early age of thirty-one, in the year 1494.

Ficinus and Picus may be taken more or less as types
of the average philosophical product of the Eenaissance in
Italy. Scholars like them crowded the court of the Medicis.
The great speculative result of the classical revival of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries may be seen in the Pagan-
ism which became fashionable among the upper classes,
extending even to the Papal chair itself. A state of
things prevailed similar in many respects to that presented
by the French pre-revolutionary salons of the eighteenth
century, of which it was indeed the precursor. The
dominant classes, while amid their own circle avowedly
an ti- Christian, were publicly, and before the common
people, devout members of the Church.

The cultured indifferentism of Italy was in striking
contrast with the earnestness felt and displayed in religious
matters the other side of the Alps. To Leo X. the sale of
indulgences seemed a short and easy method of raising
money, as little objectionable as any. This opinion
was doubtless shared by the higher clergy, and all
those who, whether Italian or not, had come directly under

134 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE RENAISSANCE.

the influence of the Eenaissance. Populus vult decipi et
decijnatur was their motto; and it was surely only fair
that the populus should pay for its deception. To Luther
and his confreres of the German Reformation, whose contact
with the Eenaissance was only indirect and second-hand,
and who possessed in addition, the fierce earnestness of the
northern temperament, the whole body of Christian dogma
was of serious and vital moment. To the man who
believed himself to be continually wrestling with the
devil, it is obvious the said of free leave of sinning was
horrible in the extreme. The great religious conflict of
the period known as the Reformation, was not so much
the struggle of a new religious idea with the old Catholic
one, as with the class-culture of the Renaissance. It may
be roughly characterised as a conflict between the two great
natural groups of western Europe — the Latin and the
Teutonic. The former would have had two creeds, that of
a Paganised culture for the upper classes existing con-
currently with abject superstition in those below them in
the social scale ; the latter contended for the right of the
growing middle classes to independent judgment within
certain limits ; i.e. what they deemed the fundamental arti-
cles of Christian belief. To them the free-thought and eccle-
siastical superstition of the Latins were alike abominable.
But it was an indispensable condition, even in Italy
itself, great as was the latitude allowed in speculation,
that none should endanger the authority of the Church.
Giordano Bruno, born 1548, near Naples, originally a
Dominican, found this to his cost. In consequence of his
having come to disbelieve the ecclesiastical dogma, he left
his order, a fact which in itself must have constituted him
a fool, and a somewhat dangerous one to boot, in the eyes
of his brother Italian churchmen of the period. To this
noble-minded man the lip-service and speculative chicanery
of other clerical scholars was abhorrent. He, at least,
could not continue professing a creed, or serving a church,
in whose pretensions he disbelieved. He was hence com-
pelled to leave Italy. At first he repaired to Geneva, then
the capital of the Reformation ; but the " reformed "
doctrines, so-called, were to his logical mind even less
satisfactory than the Catholic orthodoxy he had forsaken.

GIORDANO BRUNO. 135

From tlience he went to Lyons, Toulouse, Paris, and
ultimately to Oxford and London. He found a temporary
resting;- place at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, and hold
disputations at Oxford, It has even been conjectured,
though on perhaps insufficient grounds, that while in
Londoh, Bruno made the acquaintance of Shakespeare,
and that certain philosophical allusions occurring in
"Hamlet" ma}'- be traced to the influence of his conversa-
tion on the poet. But the spirit of wandering again seized
Bruno ; he travelled to Wittenberg, thence to Prague,
subsequently visiting Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where he
remained some little time, and from which place an evil
fate seems to have drawn him once more across the Alps
into his native country. He fell into the hands of the
Inquisition soon after his arrival, and was conveyed to
Eonie in 1593. There he suffered an imprisonment of
some years' duration, during which time every attemj^t,
whether by force or cajolery, to induce him to recant his
views was nobly and successfully resisted. When, at the
beginning of 1600, he was sentenced to death, Bruno is
reported to have said in the presence of the Court, " It
behoves you to have greater fear in pronouncing this
sentence than I have in receiving it." He was burnt at
Eome on the 17th of February, 1600. A statue has been
erected to his memory at Naples, before which the students,
on one occasion, burnt an encyclical letter of Pope Pius IX.

Bruno is certainly by far the most important and original
philosophic figure to which the Renaissance gave birth.
An ardent disciple of the new physical doctrines of
Copernicus, he was not satisfied with philosojihising en
the old Platonic or Aristotelian lines, but sought a theory
of the universe which should embrace the new science.
Bruno's admiration for the older Greek philosophers
was great ; he placed them before either Plato or
Aristotle, for the latter of whom he seems to have had a
genuine hatred. An^ixagoras, Herakleitos, Pythagoris, he
held in high esteem; but the thinker wlio most immedately
influenced him was perhaps Nicolas of Chusa, the celebrated
German ecclesiastic and mystic of the fifteenth century.

To Bruno God was simply the immanent princix:)le of
the universe, or world-soul. Bruno attacks what he con-

136 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE EENAISSANCE.

ceives the dualism of Matter and Form; the Form is
immanent in all Matter of which it is only an aspect. Like
his enemies, the Scholastics and the Arabian Aristotelians,
he held to the three-fold existence of ideas, or universals,
ante res, in rebus, and post res — metaphj^sically in the
ultimate unity or world-soul, physically in the real
world, and logically in tlie sign, symbol or notion. God,
or the universal substance of all things, is related to the
real world as the universal to the particular. In the
laws of nature, which are the expression of his being,
Bruno discovers true freedom. But the determining
and infinitely actual principle presupposes a possible
principle, which becomes determined. The other pole
of the philosophic equation is therefore the old prin-
ciple of Matter, or the infinitely possible. Thus, as
might be expected from the nature of things, Bruno was
bound, when once he attacked the ultimate philosophical
problem, to express himself in that same Aristotelian fashion
which he elsewhere condemns as dualistic. The position
held by Bruno in reference to the problem of Monism or
Pluralism is not quite clear. His work De Monade Numero
et Figura, seems to incline to the latter; the De Immenso
et Innumerahilibus to the former ; but possibly he had never
clearly propounded the question to himself. God, or the
universal principle, inasmuch as it embraces the sum of
things, is the maximum possibile ; inasmuch as it is equally
present in every atom, the minimum possibile. It compre-
hends in itself every other contradiction ; thus, that which
is everywhere centre, is at once everywhere and nowhere
periphery, &c. The one principle is the same, not only in
kind, but in degree, whether in the plant, the animal, or
the stone. The infinite possibilities of the one substance are
realised successively in the order of time, which is also in-
finite. As Erdmann remarks, if on the one side Bruno may
be regarded as a forerunner of Spinoza, on the other he is
none the less a forerunner of Leibnitz. The monad is
the principle of the working of the soul. Every order of
beings is perfect according to its kind ; there is no absolute,
but only a relative evil. These principles are developed
on Pythagorean lines.

Bruno is remarkable for having been the first to attempt

REUCHLIN, ETO. 137

the incorporation of the new scientific conceptions into
a philosophical system. He is moreover interesting
from his having been the first thinker in the modern
world who openly and definitely broke with Christi-
anity. A true son of the Kenaissance, in spite of
his originality, his philosophy, like his character, was
essentially formed on a Pagan mould, and he knew it.
But unlike the rank and file of the scholars and gram-
marians of the age, he boldly attacked the dogmas which
he disbelieved, and which were abhorrent to him, and
attacked them too in no compromising or half-hearted
manner.

In this he was not followed by his countryman and
contemporary Thomas Campanella, also a man of con-
siderable original power, though inferior to Bruno. Cam-
panella is chiefly noteworthy as the immediate prede-
cessor of Descartes, in making the certainty of the actual
moment of consciousness the starting-point of his phi-
losophy ; and also in having employed the ontological
argument to prove the existence of the Deity. In many
respects he approached Bruno, even in the latter's Pan-
theism, but he nevertheless always contrived to keep on
good terms with the Church, being in his later years
a strong advocate of Papal domination.

THE SIXTEENTH-CENTUEY ALCHEMISTS AND
COSMIC SPECULATORS.

The sixteenth century was eminently an age of travelling
scholars. The whole of civilized Europe was at this period
of universally awakening intellectual activity, literally
overrun with students who contrived to support themselves
chiefly by obtaining hospitality in return for some slight
service, educational, medical, or divinatory; among these
were brilliant disputationists and scholars like Giordano
Bruno and Johannes Eeuchlin, &c., but the vast number
obtained a meagre subsistence by soothsaying, fortune-
casting and healing (or the reverse). It was an age of rest-
less intellectual cravings and of ceaseless wandering. The

138 ALCHEMISTS AND COSMIC SPECULATOES.

Faust legend — the last instance in history of the complete
envelopment of a personality in myth — is a perfect embodi-
ment of the spirit of the sixteenth century. . It was em-
phatically the epoch of the occult sciences, so-called. The
strange lore which had lain buried in monasteries, shunned
by all but a few doctors during the Middle Ages, was now
the common property of every man possessed of a little ,
learning. Add to this, that the new culture of Greek and
Hebrew had opened up sources hitherto sealed. As Italy
may be taken as the tj^pical country for the more purely
literary and artistic side of the Eenaissance, so Germany
(understanding by the term the German-speaking countries
of Central Europe) may be regarded as the typical country
of this magical-theosophic aspect of it, though, of course,
in neither case is any exclusiveness implied. The inter-
mingling of theosophic lore with the rising physical
science was most systematically carried out in Germany.
Most of the theosophic and alchemistic notions which now
became popular, the elixir vitas, the philosojDher's stone,
the elemental spirits, are immediately traceable to the
Kabbala (see above, p. 121), the authors of which probably
drew from Coptic, Persian and other Oriental sources, in
addition to the Talmud and other Rabbinical writings.*

The first to introduce the study of Hebrew, and especially
of the Kabbala, into Germany was Johannes Reuchlin, who
studied under Picus of Mirandola and Ficinus in Italy,
and subsequently settled at Tubingen. The story of his
successful conflict on behalf of Hebrew literature with the
monks of Cologne, in which he was supported by the re-
formers Melancthon and Ulrich von Hutten, is well known.
He wrote a treatise De arte cabhalistica. After Eeuchlin
maybe mentioned Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-
1530), who wrote a treatise De occulta pJiilosophia. Agrippa ^
was a true son of his century, spending his life in courts,
universities, on the battle-field, and anon in studious re-
tirement, seldom remaining more than two or three years

* The Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, the Illuminati of the eighteenth,
century, all date indirectly from this Alchemistic or rather physico-'
theosophic movement of the sixteenth century. The attempt to con-
nect Freemasonry with the mediaeval craft-guild of masons can only
pass muster with those who have not studied the period in question.

PARACELSUS. ' 139

at the utmost in the same place. Like Giordano Bruno,
these writers, especially Agrippa, drew much from the
writings of the mystic Nicolas of Chusa, whose mathe-
matical speculations furnished material for many of the
magical formula3 of the time.

Jjut the man in whom the whole intellectual and moral
temper of the century was most perfectly embodied is
in the erratic person who rejoiced in the name of
PJiilippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bomhastes von HoJienheim,
though better known by his surname of Paracelsus (1493-
1541). He is a true prototype of the Goethean Faust.
The contempt for traditional and academic teaching and
teachers, the universal scepticism culminating in the
attempt to wring from nature her secrets by magic ;

" Ob mich durch Geistes Kraft und Mund
Nicht manch Geheimaiss wiirde kund ; "

the ceaseless wandering, the alternations of drunkenness
and debauchery with real attempts to pluck out the heart
of the mystery of nature, make the parallel complete.
Some apology may be deemed necessary for introducing
the physical speculators, of whom we take Paracelsus as
the type, into a manual of the history of philosophy.
From a narrow interpretation of the word philosophy it
might perhaps be out of place, but the interest attaching
to the first dawnings of physical science, and the quaint
blending of theosophy and physics, which coloured more or
less the whole thought of this epoch will, we fancy, render
any formal apology unnecessary to those who take a broad
view of the evolution of speculative thought.

Paracelsus spent most of his youth in the manner we
have described as common at the time, that is, wandering
from city to city and country to country, practising
astrology, palmistry and magic and alchemy generally.
He is said to have been initiated in these pseudo-sciences
by sundry ecclesiastics. In the course of his travels
he visited nearly all the most prominent universities
of Europe. Owing to the reputation gained by some
cures effected on important personages, he obtained,
in 1526, the professorship of medicine in the Uniyer-
sity of Basel. His first act on assuming the chair was

140 ALCHEMISTS AND COSMIC SPECULATOES.

to publicly burn the treatises of Aristotle and Galen,
for whom be bad a special antipathy. His discourses
appear to have been delivered in a manner which, whether
Paracelsus originated it or not, has ever since been asso-
ciated with his name, the word bombastic dating from the
medical lectures of Bombastus Paracelsus at Basel.
Drunkenness compelled him to resign his chair, and again
take to the life of wandering medicus, divinator and
astrologer. He died, like his friend Cornelius Agrippa,
in great poverty, at Salzburg, in 1541.

Paracelsus was believed by his contemporaries to have
unveiled the secret arcana of nature, to have become
possessed not only of the power of transmuting metals,
but of the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, and
many other things. He is usually decried as a mere
charlatan by historians, but probably with insufficient
cause. There is little reason for doubting that Paracelsus
believed in the main in the principles he was propounding,
and at least in the general possibility of obtaining the
powers he claimed for himself. Living in a magical age,
the whole of Nature presented itself naturally enough to
his mind as a system of " occult " properties, affinities
and agents. Those who stigmatise Paracelsus as a con-
scious impostor must surely forget the state of science at
the time, and the universality among the learned of the
belief in astrology and alchemy. These beliefs were re-
duced to systematic form by Paracelsus. The idea traceable
throughout the period is that theosophy supplies a key not
only to the theoretical interpretation of Nature, but to the
practical application of its laws in medicine, &c. Still, on
the confines of the Middle Ages, when everything, from the
highest relations of Church and State to those of the trade
or handicraft, had a mystic religious significance, it was
but natural the new phj^sical science should be conceived
in this spirit. A scientific method did not exist, and men
had not as yet become accustomed to the habit of special-
isation, which characterises our thought in this transitional
age of mental and material anarchy.

The cosmological system of Paracelsus, for with meta-
physic he did not occupy himself, was based on the con-
ception of the tripartite division of nature and man. Nature

PARACELSUS. 141

was the macrocosm, man the microcosm. Man, as the
pinnacle of nature, embraced in his body the elements of
all other things. Without astronomical, physical and
theological knowledge, it is impossible for the physician
to understand the true nature of the human body or its
diseases. The trinitarian principle was all-pervading, the
prima materia, understanding by this a physical substance,
contains within it the potencies of all things ; but even in
this may be traced a triple nature, generally designated by
Paracelsus as salt, sulphur, and mercury, though sometimes
as Balsamum, Besina, and Liquor. Paracelsus is careful to
insist he does not mean these substances in the gross bodily
form presented to us, but their spiritual essences. All
material things contain these princij^les ; thus in wood that
which forms smoke is the mercurial princij)le, that which
burns is the sulphurous, while what remains as ash is the
saline. In man, the body represents salt, the animal soul
sulphur, and the intellectual principle mercury. In the
combination and separation of these, the variety of things
aj^pears. The so-called four elements as we know them
are the offspring of the spirit or vulcanus inhering in
them. What in the elements is vulcanus, appears in com-
posite individual things as their archeus, or individual
force. Man, who is the quintessence of all things, is depen-
dent upon all : his intellect is divine, his animal soul astral,
his body terrestrial. Hence his state in sickness can only
be understood by referring it to the particular element
which is its cause. A knowledge of water and earth only
gives the clue to the body of man. The macrocosm
embraces heaven as well as earth, and to man's spiritual
nature, which corresponds to the former, a knowledge of the
heavenly bodies is requisite, for with these it has its affinity.
To investigate this is the function of astrology. The
visible stars are to Paracelsus only the body (corpus) of
the invisible essences which animate them. But it is need-
less to enter further into the details of Paracelsus' system
(if it can be termed such), with its sylphs, gnomes, kobbolds
and salamanders ; its far-fetched and fanciful analogies ;
its strange medley of Cabbalistic, Platonic and Christian
doctrines. Its key-note is the corresj^ondence between
macrocosm and microcosm. As the macrocosm is divided

142 ALCHEMISTS AND COSMIC SPECULATORS.

into its upper and lower parts (the heavens and the earth), -
so is the microcosm into body and animal soul. Outside
these spheres which constitute the subject-matter of human
science is the divine order, the subject-matter of theology,
the divine science. To this belongs the rational and moral
nature of man, and the creative activity by which the
universe is sustained and governed. On this ground human
reason is inadequate, and revelation (esoterically inter-
preted) is the only guide. A point that strikes one in
reading Paracelsus is that with all his hatred of Aristotle
and Scholasticism, he is unable to dispense with the w^ell-
known Scholastic distinctions and terminology. The
school-philosophy, even in its decay, asserted its influence
on friends and foes alike.

It is an apt illustration of the truth of what we before
said as to the tendency of the age, that much the same
views as those of Paracelsus were enunciated by an
Italian contemporary, also a physician, who, so far as we are
aware, had no knowledge of him or his works. Hierony-
Mus Cardanus (or Cardano, as it is in Italian), well-known
for his interesting and curious autobiography entitled De
vita propria, was born in 1500, at Milan. His fame as a
mathematician and scientific investigator, which in his
own day was great, has not proved enduring, owing to the
fact, as observed by a recent writer, that he was compelled
to labour, " partly in fields of research where no important
discovery was then attainable, partly in those where his
discoveries could only serve as the stepping-stones to others
by which they were inevitably eclipsed." Like Paracelsus,
Cardanus was an ardent believer in astrology, which he
sought to establish on inductive principles, as well as in
the " occult sciences " generally. His two philosophical
treatises are entitled respectively De subtilitate rerum, and
De varietate rerum. In these, as we have said, we find much
the same order of speculation as in the works of Paracelsus ;
the same fanciful analogies ; the same subtle afiinities ;
the same haphazard guesses. The " elements " from which,
like his elder contemporary^ Cardanus excludes that of fire,
though for diiferent reasons, naturally play an important
part in his system. Even the elemental spirits and other
extra human intelligenci^s assumed by Paracelsus, are to

CARDANUS. 143

bo found in Cardanns. At the same time there are re-
markable glimpses of later thought which open out now and
again in the works of the Italian. Even the doctrine of
evolution apjDears in a crude form, while the truth that
the end of man's being is social rather than personal, is
clearly indicated in more than one place. Cardanus is
probably the first wa-iter who hinted at the idea of a philo-
sophy of history. In fact, the whole of his thought, even
where most fanciful, tends to the recognition of an orderly
sequence in events, in short, of the prevalence if not the
universality of law, in every sphere of existence. Cardanus,
who was also a great traveller, died at Eome in 1576.

Among works dealing with the physical speculations of the sixteenth
century may be mentioned Kixner und Siber's Leben und Meinungen
heruhmten Fhysiker im \Qten und 11 ten Jahrhundert, forming a part of
the Gesrhichte der Physiologie. Sprengel's Geschichte der Arzeneikunde,
Thiel III. ; Erdmann deals fully with thia subject in Vol. II. of his
History.

( 144 )

MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

FIRST EPOCH, A.

THE ABSTRACT-DOGMATIC SYSTEMS.

We have now traced briefly the development of specu-
lative thought from its rise in the sixth century B.C.
to the close of the ancient world ; we have seen the transi-
tion of philosophy in the hands of the Church from
its ancient forms into Scholasticism, in which it became
the slave of dogma ; we have witnessed the decline and
fall of Scholasticism at the Eenaissance, and its replace-
ment by the resuscitation of classical systems, through the
scholars of Italy, and the crude physical speculations of
men such as Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Cardanus. Hence-
forth we have done with the Middle Ages, and enter a
period with which current thought is directly affiliated ;
in short, the period of Modern Philosophy.

We noticed that, notwithstanding their declamations
against Aristotle and the schoolmen, the writers of the
Sixteenth century still employed scholastic expressions and
folio ^ved a more or less scholastic order of thought. The
great negative characteristic of the earlier stages of the
modern period (we say earlier stages, though it is a
characteristic which it has retained in some of its
most recent developments) is the entire absence of all
Aristotelean terminology and method. The reaction
against scholasticism had at last done its work. With
the quibbling and word-jugglery of the schoolmen were
swept away the all-important distinctions of the Stagirite
himself. But philosophy was now for the first time since
the earlier Roman Empire more or less independent, not
only of positive dogma, but of any special and determinate
intellectual tendency. In the Seventeenth century the
foundations of modern civilization in all its aspects were
laid ; the era of " free contract " (so called) had fairly
dawned ; the hierarchy of the Middle Ages was spasmodic-

Epoch La.] THE ABSTRACT-DOGMATIC SYSTEMS. 145

ally gasping in its death-throes ; authority and status were
undermined in all directions ; the middle class was assert-
ing its power against all forms of feudal domination ; the
battle between Catholicism and Protestantism, which had
raged in the preceding century in the various countries of
Europe, was now practically decided one way or the other ;
in those lands where the middle class was powerful,
Protestantism having become the dominant creed. Philo-
sophy, although now free from the physical persecution of
ecclesiasticism, still indirectly felt the influence of dogma,
an influence, however, which affected it less and less as
time went on, while the oppression it exercised was more
of a moral and social than a legal character.

There are two main contemporary streams of philosophic
development constituting the speculative history of the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, which may be
termed respectively the Abstract-Dogmatic and the Em-
pirical-Sceptical. The reputed founder of the first of these
lines was the French Descartes, that of the second the
English Bacon. The Abstract-Dogmatic schools consist (I.)
of the Cartesians proper, (II.) of Spinoza and his followers,
and (III.) of Leibnitz and those who drew their inspiration
from him, such as the Germans, Wolff, Baumgarten, &c.
The Empirical-Sceptical schools embrace the names of
Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Eeid, and the
Scotch psychologists. The French sensationists and ma-
terialists of the Eighteenth century are also an offshoot
of this line of thought.

The Abstract-Dogmatic schools postulate the reality out-
side of experience oi the forms of thinJchig which alone possess
meaning in the system of knowledge or experience. They
assume concreteness in what is really only a detached
element of the concrete ; they assume, that is, the condi-
tions of the whole synthesis as present, while ex JiyjyotJiesi
they are making abstraction from them.

The Empirical-Sceptical schools profoundly ignore
Metaphysic, and confine themselves to psychology ; yet
they in the long run usually fall into the metaphysical
assumption of an independent external world as the cause
of the individual mind's impressions. The next step is-
Scepticism, in which the mere individual impression or

L

146 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

idea per se is hypostasised ; that is, made the ultimate
reality. In Scepticism the bankruptcy of Empiricism
becomes manifest. PhiloS'ophy degenerates into a mere
negative criticism. There is, however, one way of escape,
and that is Materialism, in which the concrete corpoieal
substance of the universe is made al)Solute. In this
doctrine a truth is presented, though inadequately,
because torn from its connection. It is nevertheless the
truth of Empiricism, its logical and, in a sense, valid
result.

DESCARTES.

Eene Descartes was born on March 31st, 1596, at La
Haye, in Touraine, and educated in the Jesuit College of
La Fleche. The early training of Descartes in mathe-
matics and philosophy had the effect for many years to
disgust him of all such pursuits. For some time he
occupied himself with play and the chase. Subsequently
he entered the army of the Netherlands as a volunteer.
During this portion of his career he began again to
interest himself in intellectual pursuits. He soon ex-
changed his commission in the army of the Netherlands
for one at first in the Bavarian, and afterwards in the
Imperial army then engaged in the " Thirty Years' War."
It was now that Descartes began to occupy himself in
earnest with mathematical investigations chiefly con-
nected with algebra and geometry. He shortly after
resigned his commission and devoted himself to travel, as
a private individual, visiting in succession Holland,
France, Switzerland, and Italy. He afterwards settled
in Holland, occupying himself with his studies, until an
invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden induced him
to remove to Stockholm. The severity of the climate
proving too much for his health, never very robust, he
dned on the 11th of February, 1650, in the last-named city.
The principal philosophical Avorks of Descartes are his
Trincipia Philosophi. his 3Ieditationes de prima Philosopliia,
his earlier Essais Philosophiques, and his short treatise,
the Discours sur la Methode,

Epoch I.a.] DESCARTES. 14.7

Descartes' "Doctrines.

The system of Descartes starts from the celebrated
'Methodic Doubt,' as it is termed by his followers.
Descartes' earlier alienation from philosophy had been
largely due to the loose literary spirit of scepticism then
prevalent in France among the educated classes, and
which is embodied in the writings of Montaigne. It was
clear, therefore, that before Descartes could enter with
any zeal upon a new course of philosophic investigation,
he must make up his account with the scepticism that,
with him no less than with others, had discredited the
traditional methods of the schools, methods which he had
satirically characterised as affording the student the
means of " talking glibl}' on all subjects in a manner to
excite the wonder of the less instructed." With the
object, therefore, of forestalling the destructive effects of
sceptical arguments on the system he hopes to rear, he,
so to speak, inoculates it with scepticism at birth.

The ' Methodic Doubt,' above alluded to, forbade any-
thing to be taken for granted that could possibly be
questi( >ned. But could not everything be questioned ?
" No," answers Descartes, the evidences of the senses may ;
the most apparently indestructible declarations of the
intellect may ; but there is one thing which all doubt
itself presupposes, and that is the doubter. I exist
doubting, but doubting is only a form of thinking ; there
fore this is as much as to say I exist thinking. Descartes'
formula for this fundamental position of his philosophy is
the celebrated Cogito ergo sum. The logical form of this
proposition was obviously vulnerable, and Gassendi's
criticism of it, from his point of view, undoubtedly
justified. But the form of statement does not really affect
the point at issue. Descartes wished to insist upon the
intuitive character of the proposition, " I am conscious."
In this he regards as indistinguishable the fact of
existence and the fact of consciousness, of the matter,
7, and the form, thought , a circumstance which, as we:
shall see later on, has had a bearing on the Kantian

L 2

148 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. a.

and post-Kantian philosophy of Germany. Furnished
with this primal deliverance of consciousness, Descartes
thought he had discovered the one true foundation on
which j^hilosophy can stand. The Cogito was the philo-
sophic bantling whose system had been purified of
debatable matter, such as might subsequently prove soil
for scepticism, by the lymph of the " Slethodic Doubt."
Here, therefore, was the criterion of truth, all that stood
or fell with this axiom partook of its certainty, and
partook of it in proportion to its inseparability from the
act of consciousness. From the above criterion of truth
Descartes^j3^duces_jth^jth£Qrei^

conception is the test of its truth. This, however, is
limited by the possibility that a being superior to myself
might deceive me. Hence the necessity before proceeding
farther of determining the question of the existence and
attributes of such a being.

Now, no idea which obtains in the mind can repre-
sent more than the object from which it is formed or
which causes it. Of some ideas, as for instance that of
a doubting or thinking being, it is quite clear that I
might have them, even if I alone existed ; for I myself
should be their prototype. " But there is one idea,"
proceeds Descartes, " which it would be impossible could
arise within me in the latter case ; to wit, the idea of
an infinite Being. This I can neither draw from my-
self, since I am finite, nor can it come through an
abstraction from anything finite without me." I can
very well arrive by abstraction at the conception of a
negative infinite, in other words, of an indefinite, but not
at the positive concej)tion of an infinite excluding all
limitation whatever. I can think, for instance, of an
endless space by abstracting from the limits of the
known space. But this is infinite only in a particular
sense, it is not absolutely infinite. Every conception
of the merely negative infinite, the infinite of one kind
only (i.e. the indefinite) presu^Dposes that of the positive
infinite. The latter idea it is not in my power to
diminish by the abstraction or to increase by the ad-
dition of anything, and conseqnentl}^, says Descartes,
" nothing remains but to admit this idea as coeval with

Epoch I.a.] DESCARTES. 149

my creation, in other words, as co-extensive witli the idea
of myself."

The presence of the idea of the infinite within ns demon-
strates, according to Descartes, the existence of an infinite
Being without us who is its original, and who has Himself
implanted it in us. Even viewing the matter a posteriori, I
should require a cause, though I existed from eternity,
for without it I could not continue in existence. To be
maintained in existence is to be continuously re-created.
But the argument for the existence of God upon which
Descartes most plumes himself is his celebrated "onto-
logical " argument. The existence of God, according to this
i&rgument, must be drawn from his very conception itself ;
for inasmuch as the idea of a triangle contains that of
three sides, so does the idea of the Infinite contain that of
necessary existence, since contingent existence would
imply dependence or limitation and therefore contradict
the notion of infinity. Descartes distinguishes his onto-
logical argument from the somewhat similar one of
Anselm by the remark that it does not rest simply
upon the mere significance of a word, u]3on the fact
that we conceive God as existent — since all we think of,
in so far as we think of it, is thought of as existing —
but upon the necessity which attaches to the thought of
existence in this particular case, and upon the fact that
this thought is not a mere figment of the mind, but a
necessary, because innate, idea.

The existence of God is the second position in the
Cartesian construction. " Self" and " God " satisfactorily
accounted for, the next proceeding is to establish the
existence of the " World." Descartes having found as the
ultimate postulate of his philosophy the clear and de-
terminate conception of himself as a thinking being, and
having proclaimed clearness of perception the test of
truth, barring the possibility of deception from a superior
being, next proceeded to determine the existence and the
nature of this being. In the course of the investigation,
the notion of an infinite being was shown to exclude all
limitation and all imperfection of any kind whatever, in
other words, to involve the notion of absolute perfec-
tion. But the deception is irreconcilable with moral

150 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. a.

perfection, and hence must be excluded from our con-
ception of divinity. Yet were it the case that our per-
ceptions which appear to represent an existent world did
not really do so, we should be compelled to assume de-
ception, i.e. moral imperfection, in our Infinite Author.
The canon is therefore now established without reserve,
that that of which we have a clear perception exists. To
the objection that the above argument proves too much,
since it precludes the possibility of human error, Descartes
replies, that error does not consist merely in the imperfect
apprehension of things per se, but in the individual's act
of will by which that imperfect apprehension is accepted
as true. In this connection he draws a distinction between
the unsophisticated thought which instinctively accepts
the dictates of common-sense without hesitation (e.g. the
belief in external objects), and the thought which comes
of reflection and which is voluntary.

Now that the validity of his canon of investigation
has been settled, Descartes naturally proceeds more quickly
in the construction of his system. He distinguishes
between those conceptions which pre-suppose, i.e. are
limitations of, other conceptions or ideas, and those which
are independent, or which are conceived per se. The only
ideas which are capable of being conceived per se, Descartes
finds to be those "of extension and thought. Each of these
can be thought of without the assistance of the other or
of any foreign idea whatsoever except that of infinity.
These independent self-existent ideas, Descartes terms
attrihuta, which he derives from the etymology a natura
tributa sunt. The former class of ideas — those which are
derivative, that is, are merely limitations of other ideas
— he terms modi.^ Although extension and thought are the
only attrihuta of things known to us, Descartes declares
that in God, in whom of course there are necessarily no
modi, inasmuch as these would* imply limitation, " the
attributes are many." This portion of Descartes' system
is especially important in its bearing on Spinoza. In
this respect also Descartes' definition of the independent
subjects of the attributes, which he terms substances, is
particularly noteworthy. A substance, says Descartes,
is " that which requires nothing else to its being or con-

Epoch La.] DESCARTES. 151

ception;" in otlier words, it is an absolutely independent
existence ; for, as ho expressly asserts, an incomplete sub-
stance is a contradiction. Still further remarkable is it
that (in his Principia) he actual 1}^ touches Spinozism in
conceding that, according to the literal terms of his defini-
tion, there could only be one substance, namely, God. He
gets over this somewhat inconsequently by extending the
definition as regards the supposed created substances in
which the attributes of extension and thought are assumed
to inhere, namely mind and matter, by declaring that though
not absolutely independent, inasmuch as they have their
ground in the Supreme Being, yet they are relatively so,
that is, as regards all other created things. The existence
of body (^matter) and mind, as substances, Descartes finds
guaranteed by his conception of them as such, and a
fortiori, by the trustworthiness of the Deity. Inasmuch
as they are substances they mutually exclude each other.
TJiought is pure inwardness, having no analogy whatever
with extension, which is pure outwardness. There can be
no question of any community between them. This
extreme dualism was the rock upon which Cartesianism
split. It is true Descartes thereby separates himself from
Spinoza, but he also logicall}'- separates himself from
Leibnitz, although there are not wanting indications in
his works of a tendency, at times, to Leibnitzianism.

The practical consequence of the dualistic character of
Descartes' metaphysics is, that the two departments of
physics and psychology are entirely severed from one
another. Descartes always regarded his physics as the
most important part of his work. Its problem was to
formulate all that can be discovered in nature by reflec-
tion thereupon. In this, it is clear, abstraction must be
made from the sensuous qualities of objects, for these
sensuous qualities are no more than states or feelings of
the perceiving mind, which have as much resemblance to
that which causes the feeling as mere words have with
the ideas of which they are the signs : " All the sensuous
qualities of things lie in us, i.e. in the soul," Descartes
repeatedly insists. Hence physical investigation demands
that we abstract from all that does not pertain to the
objects themselves, or to the modes by which they are

152 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. a.

related to" us, as for instance time, mimber, &c. The only
quality whicli, according to Descartes, inheres in bodies
themselves is extension in its three dimensions of length,
breadth, and thickness. Space and matter are coextensive,
an emj)ty space involving a contradiction. Descartes
maintains extension as the sole quality of matter per se, not
even excluding gravity. The result of this is that he
was enabled to identify physics with mathematics, and to
claim for his physical doctrine the certitude of geometry.
In accordance with this view, he excludes all idea of
purpose in nature from his investigations. He, of course,
did not deny divine purpose in the world, but declared
speculation with regard to it impious. All which follows
from the conception of extension, and nothing but this, is
to be affirmed respecting this corporeal world. Hence
there 'are neither atoms nor limits in the world. The
capacity of division, of figure, and of motion, is comprised
in the conception of extension. To their realisation these
capacities require a cause outside themselves, which cause
is God. The first principle of realisation is motion ; the
variety of bodies consists in nothing but the different
motions of themselves or their parts. A curious anticipa-
tion of modern thought is seen in Descartes' principle of
the constancy of the sum of matter and motion in the
universe.

In his Monde, a work containing his theories on physical
science proper, he starts with the hypothesis of a new
world to be created on mechanical and mathematical princi-
ples alone. In this he furnishes many interesting anticipa-
tions of modern science, in addition, as might be exjDected,
to many untenable hypotheses, such, for instance, as the
celebrated " theory of vortices," and some of his theories
respecting physiology, though in this department he also
achieved some valuable results. Animal bodies, including
the human, he regarded, in accordance with his funda-
mental physical principles, as purely automatic. It is the
psychical principle, or soul, in man, which alone distin-
guishes him from the lower animals.

This leads us to the Cartesian Psychology, or doctrine of
the soul. As the attribute of body is extension, so the
attribute of soul is thought ; just as the material substance,

Epoch I.a.] DESCARTES. 153

inasmuch as extension is its attribute, can neither exist
nor be conceived without extension; so tbe mental sub-
stauce whose attribute is thought, can neither be con-
ceived nor exist apart from thought. The soul is always
conscious — always thinks — ^just as light always illumines,
as heat always warms, &c. Even the babe in the womb
is conscious. There is no such thing as dreamless sleep ;
it is merely memory failing us, which leads us to think this
possible, and memory, Descartes is careful to remind the
reader, is a purely bodily state.

Descartes divides ideas as concerns their clearness into
adequate and inadequate, or complete and incomplete ; as
concerns their origin, into self-made ideas (fictse), into bor-
rowed ideas (adveatitise), and inborn ideas (innatse). The
will is always dependent on consciousness, that is, on an
act of perception ; but there may be acts of perception
apart from any act of will. Error consists in the affirma-
tion by the will as true of an inadequate perception or
idea. Hence, in God, in whom is no inadequate idea,
error is impossible. In the latter case truth consists in
his affirmation of it, in the fact that he wills such and such
to be true. In the same way goodness is purely determined
by the Divine will. Truth and goodness are, therefore, with
Descartes, dependent in the last resort solely on the arbi-
trary fiat of a supreme being. Descartes, of course, maintains
the freedom of the human will, but at the same time regards
indeterminateness as the lowest stage of willing. He who
possessed clear and distinct ideas of the good and the true,
would never hesitate in choosing it, and hence would not
be indifferent. The highest freedom and the highest
perfection obtains, when error has become impossible
through knowledge. The Sokratic doctrine thus once
more appears in the history of ethical speculation.

When Descartes comes to speak of Anthropology, that is,
of man, as a personality in which thought and extension
appear in union, his dualism naturally gives him some
trouble. The union he declares to constitute only a
composition, which is purely empirical, resting upon a super-
natural fact, that is a special act of the Divine will. Al-
though the soul is in union with the whole body, this union
is effected immediately by means of a specific organ, to

15 J: MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

wit, tlie pineal gland, which according to Descartes, is the
source of the ' animal spirits,' and for this and sundry
other fanciful reasons the most suitable seat for it. On
the above theory, Descartes proceeds to explain the effects
of the emotions and passions. The contest of the mind
with the appetites is not one between a higher and a lower
soul, but between the soul and the so-called ' nervous fluids'
or ' animal spirits.' The practical side of Descartes' ethics
falls to be dealt with in this connection. The most im-
portant point, however, in his anthropological doctrine,
for the subsequent history of the Cartesian school, is the
virtual assumption of a perpetual miracle in the union
of body and soul.

In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to give
a clear general view of the Cartesian system as it left
the hands of its founder. Its strength and its weakness
will appear in the course of the succeeding historic de-
velopment. Criticism is unnecessary of a doctrine which
the average educated reader will now-a-days readily see
is fatally vulnerable in many of its cardinal principles.
The sceptical attitude assumed at starting gives way, after
the first stage in the construction has been reached, to so
much obvious sophistry even in essentials, that whether
they be right or wrong in fact, we can hardly wonder at
the attitude of those critics who have regarded it as a
*' blind," consciously put forward to guard certain vulner-
able points in the coming construction which had been in
reality assumed from the first. Facilis ascensus coeli, to the
aspiring philosopher. But be this as it may, Descartes'
position, as the founder of modern philosophy, is not to be
gainsaid. Of a rather feeble moral nature, he lived in a
continual dread of unpleasant notice being taken of him
by the Church ; his obsequiousness in this respect being
remarked even in an age of theological subservience.
This makes it difficult in estimating Descartes and his
work, to determine in some cases whether a particular
doctrine is to be attributed to mental servility or real
conviction. But the historian of philosophy must console
himself with the maxim chacun a les defauts de ses qualites.

Cartesianism, thougb in the end successful all along the

Epoch I. a.] MALEBRANCHE. 155

line, did not pass without encountering a brisk fire of
adverse criticism. Descartes himself formally replied to
the more important objections raised against his system in
a separate work. Amongst the critics with whom he deals
w.ere Hobbes and Locke; for in addition to objections from
the side of Scholasticism, and the resuscitated Greek phi-
losophy of the Eenaissance, Descartes had to encounter
the contemporary British movement. The new system
made its way notwithstanding. The university of Utrecht,
in Holland, was the first official home of Cartesianism.
But in Leyden we find the most brilliant series of teachers,
foremost among whom is Geulincx. The other Dutch
universities soon caught the infection, and Holland, which
had long been the home of Descartes himself, became
the principal seed-ground of his philosophy. Clerical
opposition, more or less successful, there was, of course, but
this in the long run rather helped than hindered its ger-
mination. In theology, in medicine, in physical science,
Cartesianiam became the order of the day throughout
Western Europe, Great Britain excepted. The philoso^^hy
of Descartes was not wdthout its influence on the decadence
in the belief in magic, witchcraft, and the " occult sciences,"
which took place so rapidly among the educated towards
the close of the century. Belthasar Bekker published
in 1691 his celebrated work 'The Enchanted World,'
in which he attacked these superstitions on Cartesian '
grounds. This treatise, originally written in Dutch, had
not been published long before it was translated into all
the more important European languages.

The celebrated Port-Royal Logic (L'art de penser) was
perhaps the principal product of Cartesianism in the land
of its founder's birth, upon the culture of which it made
a deep impression.

MALEBRANCHE.

The first successor of Descartes who can be regarded as
having at all developed the master's doctrines was the
Erench ecclesiastic, Nicholas Malebranche, born at Paris
in 1638. His BecJierche de la verite, first published in 1674,
passing through six editions during the lifetime of its

156 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. a.

author. It was followed by a large mimber of treatises^
metaphysical, theological, and ethical, up to the time of
the death of Malebranche, iu 1715.

The main problem for Malebranche was to bridge over
the gulf between the two opposed substances of Descartes'
Thought and Extension ; to define their relation alike to the
finite individual and their infinite ground. Malebranche
was not satisfied with the hesitating and superficial manner
in which Descartes had attempted to explain away the
difficulties which arose on this head. The arbitrary act of
the Divine will by which perception was produced was too
clumsy an hypothesis for him. The celebrated saying of
Malebranche, that he saw " all things in God," of itself
indicates the link between the dualism of Descartes and
the Pantheism of Spinoza. To the former the relation of
the two subordinate substances alike to each other and to
the one infinite substance was indefinite and arbitrary.
Malebranche sought to give that relation a systematic basis.
Starting from the conception of the Infinite Being, which
Descartes had formulated, he brought Thought and Extension^
and through them Individuation, nearer this being, deduced
them more directly from this being than Descartes had
dared to do. Unlike Descartes, he does not separate the
idea or notion, from the existence, of the infinite. " We
conceive of the infinite being," says Malebranche, "by the
very fact of our conceiving of being without thinking
whether it be finite or not ; but that we may think of a
finite being we are compelled to sever or deduct something
from the general idea of being, which we must therefore
possess beforehand ; thus, the mind apprehends nothing
whatever except in and through the idea it possesses of
the infinite ; so far is it from the truth that this idea is
formed by the confused mass of our notions of particular
things, as the philosophers maintain, that on the other hand,
all these particular notions participate in the general idea of
the infinite, in the same way that all crea1;ures imperfectly
participate in the Divine being, whose existence itself
cannot be derived from them." (^Becherche III., Part IL,
Chap. 6). The external world is unintelligible in itself,
and only becomes intelligible by our perceiving it in and
through the being who contains it in an intelligible

Epoch. I.a.] SPINOZA. 157

manner. "Hence," says Malebranche, "unless in some
sense we saw God, we shonld see nothing else." In short,
our consciousness, whether of ourselves or of external
objects, is nothing more nor less than a limited portion of
the divine consciousness. From this doctrine of Male-
branche of all " things in God " to the imica substantia
of Spinoza was scarcely a step. The only modus viiencli
between TJiougJit and Extension, mind and body, was found
in the divine essence or substance ; but Malebranche not
merely shrank from the obvious conclusion to which all
bis reasoning points, that of identifying them with the
substance, but, strange to say (that is, strange were it not
so common a phenomenon in history), denounces in scurri-
lous language the man who was at once honest and logical
enough to draw this conclusion.

SPINOZA.

Baruch de Spinoza, born Nov. 24, 1632, at Amsterdam,
belonged to a well-to-do Jewish family of Portuguese
origin settled in Holland. He received a thorough educa-
tion in the hands of the Eabbis of his native town in all
that pertained to Jewish learning as then understood,
besides studying Latin and natural science, under other
teachers. Previous reading of the semi-rationalising Jewish
philosophers of the Middle Ages, notably Maimonides, had
already given Spinoza a speculative groundwork when
he took up the study of the works of Descartes. Spinoza
occupies a unique position at this time. His heterodoxy
had already caused his expulsion from the synagogue, and
he thus found himself unpledged to any set of traditional
dogmas. To this fact we may attribute the perfect freedom
and honesty displayed in his writings. The fawning of
Descartes to Christian doctrines naturally disgusted the
man w^ho had severed himself from family connections,
social intercourse, and even risked life itself for his convic-
tions. But, nevertheless, the system of Spinozat^is._±]ie
direct_and logical outcome oftEe principles enunciated b^
l5escartes. After~a generally ^quiet and" uneventful life,
occupied either in the pursuance of his livelihood as a

158 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

glass-lens polisher, or in study and wi-iting, Spinoza died
at the comparatively early age of forty-five, in the year
1677. The respect with which he was regarded by all who
knew him is illustrated in the well-known story of his
landlady, who, aware that he belonged to no recognised
religious persuasion, asked his opinion as to whether she
wa-s justified in going to Church and otherwise practising
the rites of the orthodox Calvinistic faith. He had com-
paratively but few friends, but among these several corre-
spondents, notably Oldenburg, one of the founders of the
English Koyal Society.

Spinoza's Doctrines.

With Spinoza ^the method ,of philosophy if=t identical
with that of mathematics. In his Ethics he places Defini-
tions, Axioms, and Postulates, at the head of every book.
The Geometrical method appeared to him as the aiost
'grji^nijj^br the" expression ot ^^ clear ana aistinct ^' ideas,
and as^ the one wnich mosx etfectually excluded the
possibility of the entrance into philosophy of personal or
other bias — it was the only purely disinterested method.

Hegel observes, that Spinoza, the Jew, first^ mtroduced
into European thought the conception of thG.^a3liSju2i35^
in Avhich finite and infinite are merged. It would be per-
haps more correct" to say that he was the first to give dis-
tinct expression to this j^gjjjs^bDointo^jjigw, which is
ynplicitly present in many previous tniiTtCCTgr"^

Spinoza distinguishes two kinds of errors to which the
mind is subject, those of ahstraction and those oi imagination.
These two errors he finds invariably united in opinion. An
abstraction means any imperfect conception in which
the elements of a whole are separately treated as wholes.
Clear and distinct thought must discern the necessary
relation of any finite thing or notion to the whole system
of things or notions. This is expressed in Spinc)zistic
language by what is termed the distinction between mere
modes of substance and substance itself. The progress of
knowledge necessarily limits this abstracting tendency.
Imagination comes to the aid of abstraction in enabling
^ae mind to picture the thing without its surroundings, or

Erocii I.A.] SPINOZA. 159

in other words, apart from the conditions necessary to its
real existence. Such coucei)tions as that of a talking
animal, a horse with a man's head, an extended figure
without weight or resistance, are common and obvious
instances of this combined power of abstraction and imag-
ination. Teleological explanations of the world have their
root entirely in the foregoing tendency of the mind. " All
such oiuuions," says Spinoza, " spring from the notion,
commonly entertained, that all things in nature act for the
same reason as men themselves act, with an end in view."
Human will and action are abstracted from the only whole
of which they can form a part, namely the human being,
and transferred by the imagination to external nature, and
even the Absolute itself. The consequence of this is
exhibited in religion, in the anthropomorphic conception
of God as having " made all things for man, and man
that he might worship Him." Jn the Appendix to the first
book of the Ethics, Spinoza demolishes this view with hij
usual clearness and vigour.

In philosophy ^^inoza demands the elimination of all_
Uiiie-i'elations, in other words, that the philosopher should
be unaerstooa as viewing the world sub specie aeternitatis.
Bj^ this, of course, he meant that the province of meta-
physic is to expound the world in its logical, rather than
its temporal sequence. Hence, the starting-point of his
system is not any first cause of all things in the ordinary
sense of the word, but that which all -things Ipgiea^ly pre-
sujrmse ; that by mearisoF which all other things are con-
ceived, but which is in itself indej[3endent and ultimate*^

In this great advanT?g''g^niMeonr"I)escartes, whose God
was little more than the firslTcause of the worlds This un-
coj3^itioned__ground, the one substance of Spinoza, mntaTns

within Tt the sum-total of all reality. Although he did
homage to current prejudices by emplt>ying the word God
for his conception, it is only fair to remember that he dis-
tinctly disclaims using the word in any current sense.

Erdmann well observes that those who connect the usual
religious significance with the word God, had better, in
reading Spinoza, substitute for it the word Nature. It is
constantly insisted upon that all things proceed from the
One Substance by the same necessity as that by which it

160 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a,

exists, since they form an essential part of its existence.
Of the infinite attributes of the infinite, eternal, and aU-
comprehending substance, two only concern us, i.e. Thought
and Extension. As Ydth Descartes, they are mutually
opposed in every respect, in all save the one fact of their
common ground. At last the Cartesian problem is solved
in the only way possible on Cartesian principles. Thought
and Extension, Mind and Body, assume for the first time a
position of mutual equality ; while they at the same time
lose the last shred of their independence of the Infinite.
The real w^orld is simply made up of modes of these two
attributes. By mode, Spinoza understands that which
exists through something else, or which is the determi-
nation of something else. There are eternal modes, by
which is probably meant the necessary determinations of
things termed by us laws of nature, and individual or
finite things. As, however, the place of individuals in
Spinoza's system is not unobscure, we give some of his
utterances on this head in his own words. In Proposition
XXIII. of Part I. of the Ethics, we read, " Every mode, which
exists both necessarily and as infinite must necessarily follow
either from the absolute nature of some attribute of God or
from an attribute modified by a modification ivhich exists
necessarily and as infinite. Proof. A mode exists in some-
thing else through which it must be conceived (Def. v.),
that is (Prop, xv.), it exists solely in God, and solely through
God can be conceived. If, therefore, a mode is conceived as
necessarily existing, and infinite, it must necessarily be
inferred or perceived through some attribute of God, in so
far as such attribute is conceived as exj^ressing the infinity
and necessity of existence, in other words (Def. viii.),
eternally ; that is, in so far as it is considered absolutely."
" A mode therefore which necessarily exists as infinite must
follow from the absolute nature of some attribute of God,
either immediately (Prop, xxi.), or through the means of
some modification which follows from the absolute nature
of the said attribute ; that is (by Prop, xxii.) which exists
necessarily and as infinite (Prop. xxiv.). The essence of
things produced by God does not involve existence. Proof. This
proi30sition is evident from Def. i. For that of which the
nature considered in itself involves existence is self-caused.

Erocii I. A.] SPINOZA. IGl

and exists by the sole necessity of its own nature.
Corollary. Uence, it follows that God is not only the
cause of things coming into existence, but also of their
continuing in existence, that is, in scholastic phraseology,
God is cause of the being of things (Esseiicli rerum). For
whether things exist or do not exist, whenever we contem-
plate their essence, we see that it involves neither existence
nor duration ; consequently it cannot be the cause of either
the one or the other. God must be the sole cause, in as much
as to Him alone does existence appertain. (Prop. xiv.
Corollary 1.) Q.E.D. (Prop, xxv.) God is the efficient cause
not only of the existence of things hut also of their essence.
Proof. If this be denied, then God is not the cause of the
essence of things ; and therefore, the essence of things can
(by Ax. IV.) be conceived without God, This by Prop. xv.
is absurd. Therefore God is the cause of the essence of
things. Q.E.D. Note. This proposition follows more
clearly from Prop. xvi. for it is evident thereby, that
given the Divine nature, the essence of things must be
inferred from it no less than their existence — in a word,
God must be called the cause of all things in the same
sense as he is called the cause of Himself. This will be
made still clearer by the following corollary. Corollary.
Individual things are nothing but modifications of the
attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of
God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner."*

It will be sufficiently evident to the reader that Spinoza
has only carried to its consistent issue the Cartesian prin-
ciple which Malebranche had indeed enunciated, but with-
out admitting its full bearing, namely, that unless we
knew the Infinite, or God, we could know nothing else,
inasmuch as the human mind is simply a modification of
the Divine Substance. The idea of this absolute unity
is involved in the idea of every particular thing, and the
only reason ordinary men are unable to discover it is
because their ideas are confused, in short, because, owing
to the illusions of sense and imagination, they are unable
to arrive at a clear and distinct idea of anything.

* Xow and always I quote from the excellent translation of
Spinoza's works by Mr. Elwes, published in ' Bohn's Philosophical
Library.'

162 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

Spinoza insists on the parallellism between the world-
order in Thought and the world-order in Extension. " The
order and connection of ideas" he says (Ethics, Prop, vii.),
" is the same as the order and connection of things."" This
is as much as to say the One Substance may be viewed
either as thinking or as extended. " Whatsoever follows
from the infinite nature of God in the world of extension
(forrnaliter), follows without exception in the same order
and connection from the idea of God in the world of
thought (^ohjective)." And again : " Substance thinking
and substance extended are one and the same substance,
comprehended now through one attribute and now
through the other." " In the same way the mode of ex-
tension and the idea of that mode are one and the same
thing, though expressed in two ways. For instance, a
circle existing in nature and the idea of a circle existing,
which is also in God, are one and the same thing displayed
through diiferent attributes. Thus whether we consider
nature under the attribute of extension, or under the
attribute of thought, or under any other attribute, we
shall find the same order, and one and the same chain of
causes — that is, the same things following in either case."
" I said that God is the cause of an idea — for instance,
of the idea of circle — in so far as He is a thinking; thing-.
and of a circle in so far as He is an extended thing,
simply because the actual being of the idea of a circle
can only be perceived as a proximate cause through
another mode of thinking, and that again, through another,
and so on to infinity; so that so long as we consider
things as modes of thinking, we must explain the order
of the whole of nature, or the whole chain of causes,
through the attribute of thought onlj^ And in so far as
we consider things as modes of extension, we must explain
the order of the whole of nature through the attribute of
extension only ; and so on in the case of other attributes.
Wherefore of things as they are in themselves, God is
really the cause, inasmuch as He consists of infinite
attributes. I cannot for the present explain my meaning
more clearly."

The impressions of the senses and the mind, namely,
that which in the world of thought corresponds to the

Erocii I. A.] SPINOZA. 1G3

particular or finite modifications of extension, are termed
affectiones. There Las been much discussion among
students of Spinoza as to the relation of the attributes
to the individual mind. In his definition of attributes,
Spinoza says (1. Def. iv.) : "By attribute I mean that
which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence
of substance." This has been by some interpreted in the
sense of Psychological Idealism, as implying that the
attributes are simply the marks by which the One Sub-
stance is individualised in the finite mind, or by which
it becomes aware of itself. According to this view, the
attiibutes are not essential distinctions in the substance
itself, but only indicate its nature to the reflecting intellect,
that is, they are the form under which the latter appre-
hends it. On the other hand, there are Spinozists who
strenuously deny this phenomenal acceptation of the
doctrine, and maintain that the attributes represent a
noumenal fact. For the first of these views, it may be
alleged that Spinoza in his definition (Def. iv.) when he
refers to the perceiving intellect, seems to make an inten-
tional deviation from Descartes, who speaks of the attribute
simply as constituting the essence of the substance. The
second view, on the other hand, is supported by the asser-
tion of the infinity of attributes. We suspect that the
point was one upon which Spinoza was not very clear
himself; also that here, as eLsewhere in the Cartesian
school, the effects "of the reaction against scholasticism
which was manifested in the neglect of Aristotelian dis-
tinctions, is responsible for much ambiguity, and possibly
some confusion of thought.

Extension is spoken of by Spinoza as infinite, no less
than Thought; but the relation of the unconditioned
to the conditioned form of these attributes is imperfectly
indicated. All limitation must be abstracted from the
attributes conceived as natura naturans^ and this applies
as much to thought as to extension; hence, God is no
more to be conceived as will, which is only a particular
limitation of thought, than He is to be conceived as
body, which is only a particular limitation of extension.
Spinoza distinctly repudiates (Ethics, Part II. Prop, xliii.)
any such thing as an unconscious idea ; he carefully warns

M 2

164 3I0DERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

us against understanding by idea a mere prototype wliicli
can never enter into consciousness, and demands that we
should regard it as a conscious act of thought. Inasmuch
as the One Substance is the foundation of all being, it is
the foundation of corporeal no less than of mental pro-
cesses. Every such process is conditioned by another
such, and that by another, and so on to infinity. (See
quotation, p. 162, sujpra.) Of course this occurs only in
the same attribute, for we have already seen that there
is no passing over from the one to the other ; no more
from the mental to the corporeal, than from the corporeal
to the mental. By Spinoza's rigid division it is needless to
say all idealist explanations in physics, no less than all
materialist explanations in psychology, are excluded.

Turning now to natura naturata, we find the principles
of the corporeal w^orld were, to Spinoza, rest and motion.
All modifications of body he attributes to the velocity and
direction of motion in its parts. The so-called union of
body and sotil only means that the same thing is viewed
now^ under one attribute, now under another. The mind
is nothing more than the idea of the body, but inasmuch
as an idea is only a product of thought-activity, the idea
corporis is a conscious act of the mind with which is bound
up the reflected knowledge of this act, that is, the idea of
this idea, which is nothing other than the idea mentis.
Just as the modification of extension, or body, of which
the real or empirical world consists, is brought about by
differences of rest and motion — in short, as an individual
body is a determinate system of the modifications of body
or extension — so an individual mind is a determinate
system of the modifications of thought, i.e. of ideas. The
world of eternal modes, or natura naturata, roughly
corresponds to the world of Ideas in Platonic systems.
The natura naturata is, of course, also to be conceived
under the dual attribute. It consists of motion and rest,
and what Spinoza terms the intellectus infinitus.. Just as
motion and rest contains the possibility of the actual
coq^oreal world in its entirety, so the intellectus infitii-
tus is the complex of all ideas and minds, i.e. the possi-
bility of the actual ideal world in its entirety. Just as
every individual body is conditioned by motion and restj

Erocii I.A.] SPINOZA. 105

so is every individual mind conditioned by the intellectns
iiijinitus*

Inasmuch as Spinoza regards man merely as a portion
of nature, his Anthropology and Ethics are one. Man's
bodil}" slate is conditioned by the bodies which surround
him, his milieu^ as it might now be expressed. He is at
once active and passive. His activity is continually
obstructed and affected by his surroundings, and his
whole career is a continuous striving to realise himself,
or, which is the same thing, to assert his own being,
against this obstruction. The consciousness of stri^in^
is primarily appetite or desire, which leads, accor(';ing
as the struggle fails or succeeds in any particular in-
stance, to joy and sorrow ; hope and fear being further
modifications of these fundamental emotions (jpassiones).
With the passions are directly connected the conceptions
of good and evil, which can have no meaning in any other
than a human relation. The proposition, " this is good
for me," is perfectly justified, but not so the proposition,
*' this is good " (absolutely). The presence, with the
emotion of joy or sorrow, of the idea of the object causing
it, produces love or hatred.

The result of Spinoza's Ethics proper (contained in
the third part of the treatise under that name, the first
two parts being purely metaphysical), which, as we
before said, is identical with his Anthropology, is in
many points similar to that of his cuntemporar}^, Helvetius.
He is a rigid necessarian, and pure disinterestedness he
regards as an illusion, since man acts according to the
dictates of his nature, the stimulus to action in men
being only possible to be mortified or destroyed by a
stronger stimulus. This of course forms the foundation
for Spinoza's political theory. Spinoza was the first
consistent advocate of universal toleration, although
he does not recognise formally the " rights of man "
as such. Like most political theorists of the seven-
teenth century, all his hypotheses were based on the as-

* Between tlie individual mind, with its manifold of reality, and the
pure undetermined attribute of thought, stands the determination of
this attribute as Infinite Intellect, i.e. as comprehending under its
eternal modes the infinite complexity of the real world. .

166 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

sumption of the incurable stupidity of the many ; but he at
the same time regards that state as most secure in which
there is the greatest amount of personal liberty. The
great truth which the present century has brought to
light of the dependence of the political and other forms of
society upon its economical conditions had not then
dawned, any more than the truth that the social organism
obeys certain definite laws of development just as does
the animal organism.

Apart from this, however, perhaps what strikes one
most in reading Spinoza is the modernness of his style and
standpoint as compared with other seventeenth-century
thinkers. There are passages in the " Tractatus Theologico-
politicus," as well as in the " Ethics," which might have oeen
written by a modern scientist. As an instance of Spinoza's
capacity for scientific exposition, we quote a passage from
a remarkable letter of his to Oldenburg. He is endeavour-
ino- to explain to Oldenbnrg the principle that every part
of nature agrees with the whole, and is associated with
all other parts : " Let us imagine, with your permission, a
little worm, living in the bluod, able to distinguish by sight
the particles of blood, lymph, &c., and to reflect on the
manner in which each particle, on meeting with another
particle, either is repulsed or communicates a portion of
its own motion. This little worm would live in the
blood, in the same way as we live in a part of the universe,
and would consider each drop of blood, not as a part, but
as a w^hole. He would be unable to determine how all
the parts are modified by the general nature of blood, and
are compelled by it to adapt themselves, so as to stand in
a fi.xed relaiion to one another. For, if we imagine that
there are no causes external to the blood, which could
communicate fresh movements to it, nor any space beyond
the blood, nor any bodies whereto the particles of blood
could communicate their motion, it is certain that the
blood would always remain in the same state, and its
particles would undergo no modifications, save those
which may be conceived as arising from the relations of
motion existing between the lymph, the chyle, &c. Tho
blood would then always have to be considered as a whole,
not a part. But, as there exist, as a matter of fact, very

!,ErocHjX] LEIBNITZ. 167

many causes, which modify, in a given manner, the nature
of the blood, and are, in tuin, modified thereby, it follows
that other motions and other relations arise in the
blood, springing not from the mutual relations of its
parts only, but from the mutual relations between the
blood as a whole and external causes. Thus the blood
comes to be regarded as a part, not as a whole. So much
for the whole and the part."

In many points Spinoza anticipates Kant, but his funda-
mental conceiDtion is still abstract. The Unica Substantia
is, after all, at bottom, the Being-in-general of the Carte-
sians and of Malebranche. His system is an ontology,
and an ontology, too, in which all traces of " theory of
knowledge," as such, are absent.

Spinozism found an immediate success in Holland.
Numerous works appeared, some containing views ob-
viously drawn from the Ethics, others attacking those
views. About the close of the seventeenth century, it
appears to have gained some ground in France.

Spinoza's is the only pre-Kantian system which has
been revived in modern times. In fact, the interest in
Spinoza dates mostly from Goethe and Schleiermacher.
The works which have been published during the last
half-century, dealing with the Dutch thinker, would fill a
library. There are not wanting, at the present day, men
of eminence who declare that in him is contained the
fulness of modern science manifested. With Spinoza
closes the main line of Cartesian development. We now
proceed to consider a subsidiary branch springing from
the same stem.

Among recent English works treating of Spinoza and his philo-
sophy may be mentioned, Willis's ' Spinoza, his Life, Letters and
Ethics,' Frederick Pollock's ' Life and Works of Spinoza,' Martine.iu's
' Spinoza,' &c., &c. The German works ou the subject are numerous
and well-known.

LEIBNITZ.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was bom, 1646, at Leipsic,
and was educated in the university of that town. An
omnivorous reader, he early attained considerable ac-

168 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. a.

quaintance witli the history of philosophy. In Jena,
where he subsequently studied, he read Hobbes and Locke,
in addition to Kepler, Galilei, and other scientific writers.
His journey to Paris, though it failed in its immediate
purpose of inducing Louis XIV. to undertake an Egyptian
expedition, had as its result the mathematical education
of Leibnitz. It was in Paris, in 1676, that he discovered
the diiferential calculus. Here, also, he first began
seriously to study Descartes and Spinoza. In 1684,
Leibnitz removed to Berlin, and shortly after undertook
a lengthened archaeological expedition to Italy. On his
return to Berlin, he became president of the newly con-
stituted Prussian Academy, as well as the occupant of a
diplomatic post. With the death of the Queen of Prussia
in 1711, his connection with Berlin ceased. He died in
Vienna, in 1716, loaded with honours. The latter part of
his life is said to have been embittered by his quarrels
with the Newtonians.

Leibnitz's Doctrines.

In philosophy Leibnitz stands in one sense at the
opposite pole to Spinoza. JTa i« oLiAf r^^pxesentatiY^of
wjmt. IS coTnTnorjIy known as Pluralism in metaphysic,_ie.
hft rp.tya.frla iyn]pnVlnf)f.;.n^ as an ultiiuate and irreducijile
fact. The result of Leibnitz's scientific studies had led
him early to accept the atomistic theory of the ultimate
constitution of matter. This atomism he carried into
the sphere of metaphysic. To Leibnitz, substance was
mfinitely_jriany. The infinitely'^umerous eternal^ and
siniple substan(?es, unities, or forces, as they may perhaps
with equal right be termed, Leibnitz designates monads,
a word originally employed by Bruno. The inonads being
simple, could only come into being by creation, or cease
from being by annihilation, and besides them nothing
exists. Although destitute of parts, extension, figure,
or divisibility, they must, nevertheless, have qualities,
" otherwise," says Leibnitz, " they would not even be
entities ; and if simple substances did not difi'er in their
qualities, there would be no means by which we could
become aware of the changes of things, since all that is in
compound bodies is derived from simple ingredients ; and

Epoch I. a.] LEIBNITZ. 169

moiiads, being without qualities, would be indistinguishable
one from another, seeing also that they did not differ in
quantity." Every monad must differ from every other,
for Leibnitz postulates the axiom that " there gire never
Uvo beinfjj-s in nature perfectly alike^ and in whicE" it J
impossible to find,, an internal diiierence, or one founde
on intrinsic determination."

~liut the metaphysical monads of Leibnitz differ from
the physical atoms of Demokritos, in that they are de-
termined by an internal principle of change, and are
uninfluenced by anything external to themselves. " But
besides the principle of change," proceeds Leibnitz,
" there must also be a detail of changes, embracing, so
to speak, the specification and the variety of simple
substances. This detail must involve multitude in
litiity or in simplicity, for as all natural changes
proceed by degrees, something changes and something
remains, and consequently, there must be in the simple sub-
stance a plurality of affections or relations, although there
are no parts." (Monadologie, 12, 13.) The section which
follows is interesting as characteristic of Leibnitz's mode
of thought, and as showing the first distinct enunciation
of a doctrine which has played a not unimportant part in
subsequent speculation — that of the uncousciouj per-
ception or idea. " This shifting state, which involves and
represents multitude in unity, or in the simple substance,
is nothing else than what we call perception, which must
be carefully distinguished from apj^erception, or conscious-
ness, as will appear in the sequel. Here it is that the
.jJartesians have specially failed, making no account of
those"per^ptions~ of ^^Heb-3^'5HJ nut Grmsm'm^jg^ TX^
iMs-^EsithaS led them to suppose that spirits are the only
monads, and that there are no souls of brutes or other
Entelechies. It is owing to this that they have vulgarly
confounded protracted torpor with actual death, and have
fallen in with the scholastic prejudice, which postulates
souls entirely separate. Hence, also, ill-affected minds
have been confirmed in the opinion that the soul is
mortal."

Leibnitz, of course, strenuously opposes all mechanical
explanations of perception, "If we imagine a machine

170 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

SO constructed," he says, "as to produce thought,
sensation, perception, we may conceive it magnified
— the same proportions being preserved — to such an
extent that one might enter it like a mill. This
being supposed, we should find in it, on each inspection,
only pieces which impel each other, but nothing which
can explain perception. It is in the simple substance,
therefore — not in the compound, or in machinery — that
we must look for that phenomenon ; and in the simple
substance we find nothing else — nothing, that is, but
perceptions and their changes. Therein also, and therein
only, consist all the internal acts of simple substances."
Leibnitz recognises a progre-ssion or hierarchy among the
monads, from the simj3le monad which is purely unconscious
or confused,, to the monad which has attained to self-
consciousness or clearness. . The term soul he woujd
reserve Tur the latter. When we are in a profound and
dreamless sleep, or in a swoon, " the soul does not differ
sensibly from the simple monad ; bur'smc'e^thts^ state^iS
not permanent, and since' the soul delivers herself from it,
she is something more." In much of this we see Leibnitz
as a true successor of Descartes ; the Cartesian distinction
between confused and clear perception being made nou-
menal. The impossibility of the entire absence of
perception in the thinking subject here receives a new
application, in so far as perception is formally distinguished
from consciousness. If there were no distinction in our
perceptions, we should continue for ever in a state of
stupor : " and this," adds Leibnitz, " is the condition of
the naked monad." " Where there is a great number of
minute perceptions, but where nothing is distinct, one is
stunned, as when we turn round and round in continual
succession in the same direction, whence arises a vertigo
which may cause us to faint, and which prevents us from
distinguishing anything."

Memory, accordino; to Leibnitz, gives to the SQula
gonsfif^nt,ivft"ant,iori, hut m"u^t "h*^ fliKtiiio-nishfMl fr^pi reason .
Leibnitz is prepared to recognise a large measure oT'Tfuth.
in the English Empiricist school. ^1^^2^3^ ^"^ ^'^if"*
consecutiveness of perce^^t^'"^"; ^'« «hared in common-bv
^^u. ^n^ animals. It is th^ RnipTitijfic reason which

Eiocir I. A.] LEIBNITZ. 171

distin<yiiishcs maa, Tho distinction between

empirical knowledge derived from the former source, and
that derived from the latter, is illustrated by the following
familiar instance : when we expect the sun to rise to-
morrow, we judge so empirically, because it has always
done so hitherto ; but the astronomer makes the same
judgment by an act of reason. In the same way the
difference between a quack and a physician consists in the
fact that the one has only practice, or knowledge picked
up in a casual way to rely upon, while the other derives
his knowledge from scientific theory. The celebrated
proposition directed by Leibnitz against Locke, " nihil est
in intellectu quod non prius in sensu fuerit, nisi ipse in-
teUectus,'' expresses in a sentence this cardinal distinction
between empirical and necessary truth.

nnho_flr>jj2f^^b^^^7 is thft p_n]3reme mo'pg.d nr primitive
nrnj^yTthe _simple original substance ofwhich^aiCSifi,
nrftalgdoT]_j^i^^d— monadjsL-^ "the^p r orli i cts . and which
are"geherated, " so to speak, by continual fulgurations "oT
tEe divimty from moment to moment, bounded by the
receptations of the creature of whose existence limitation
is an essential condition." Like the God of the schoolman,
he is actus purus, to which tho created monads approach in
varying degrees, "according to the measure of their
perfection." The creatftd rponindn rnn ^nly riint upnn on^
another through the medii]m nf f,he divine monad. It is
only through it that one can be dependent upon the other.
Leibnitz bases his optimism on the principle of sufficient
reason. The principle of suffi,cicnt reason declares thait
no fact canBe*^ real, or existent, no statement true, unless
there be a sufficient reason whyiiTis thns^ aj|fl_T)nf. others
wise, altEgu.a:h these x^sons very often cannot be known"^
to us." 'rhis principle leads us to infer that since out of
the infinite number of possible worlds, this one has been
created by the Divine mind, it must contain within it the
greatest possible measure of perfection. " And this con-
nection, or this accommodation of all created things to
each, and of each to all, implies in each simple substance
relations which express all the rest. Each, accordingly,
is a living and perpetual mirror of the universe. And as
the same city viewed from different sides appears quite

172 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I. a.

different, and is perspectively multiplied, so, in the infinite
multitude of simple substances, there are given, as it
were, so many different worlds which yet are only per-
spectives of a single one, according to the different points
of view of each monad. And this is the way to obtain
the greatest possible variety with the greatest possible
order : that is to say, the way to obtain the greatest
possible perfection." Every monad contains the infinity
of being in itself. It would lose nothing if all other
monads were destroyed, nor gain anything if they could
act upon it. The monad is a self-sufficient microcosm,
and an omniscient eye might see in its present state the
whole past and future of the universe. " But each soul
can read in itself only that which is distinctly represented
in it. It cannot unfold its laws at ouce, for they leach
into the infinite." Every organic body is a species of
*' divine machine," surpassing all human mechanisms by the
infinite complexity of its relations. Each portion of matter
expresses the universe ; that is, each portion of matter
has its special formation energj^ or soul. " Every particle of
matter," say Leibnitz, " may be conceived as a garden full
of plants, or as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of
each plant, each member of each animal, each drop of their
humours, is in its turn another such garden or pond.'
Death, chaos, and barrenness, exist only in appearance,
owing to the imperfection of our point of view. It must
not be supposed, however, that each entelechy, force, or
soul, has a special portion of matter for ever united with
it ; for all bodies are in a perpetual flux, like rivers, their
particles for ever coming and going. " That which we
call generation is development and accretion, and that,
which we call death is envelopment and diminution."
There is no destruction either of the soul or the body,
strictly speaking. They each follow their proper laws,
and coincide by virtue of the " pre-established harmony,"
which exists between all substances as representations of
one and the same universe. Leibnitz maintains that had
Descartes known the laws of motion, he would have been
led to discover this principle of the "pre-established
harmony," by which, to quote his words, " bodies act as
if there were no souls, and souls act as if there v\ere:

Erocii I.A.] LEIBNITZ. 173

no bodies ; and j^et both act as if the one influenced the
other."

The foregoing exposition we have taken almost verbatim
from the summary of his system, written by Leibnitz in
1714, for Prince Eugene of Savoy, and published after his
death as the " Monadology." The inconsistency and
mutual incompatibility of several of the main joositions
taken up are apparent at a glance. Leibnitz is emphatic
in declaring that the monads have " no windows," while
at the same time postulating a direct relation between
them and the supreme monad, and an indirect relation
with one another. It is difficult to see, on Leibnitzian
principles, how psychological idealism is to be avoided;
The self-centred microcosm ex hypotliesi knows only its
own universe. In this it is absolutely shut up. How
then has it any right to pronounce on the absolute nature
of things outside this universe? It may be quite true
that other self-centred monads may exist as the centres of
different worlds, but of them it cannot possibly know
anything. Those who postulate a plurality of ultimate
world- principles can never logically answer the questions
raised by "theory of knowledge." Leibnitz is involved in
additional difficulties by his theism, and above all, by his
attempts to render his system compatible with theological
orthodoxy. A hierarchy of self-centered and essentially
independent beings, extending from the lowest sentiency
to the highest consciousness, may be a pretty and sym-
metrical conception, but will certainly not bear the test
of criticism, as an explanation of the universe.

But Leibnitz, who after all was more of a litterateur
than a philosopher, gives us, nevertheless, many acute
suggestions and able pieces of analysis in his writings.
His individualist Pluralism he was fond of placing in
opposition to Spinoza's Monism, when charged with the
latter by thinkers too logical to conceive the possibility of
a serious thinker treating individuation as an ultimate
metaphysical fact.

Leibnitz, of course, admits freedom of the will, but his
freedom is neither absolute indiflference, nor is it determi-
nation without motive. It is a free choice of one line of
conduct rather than another from among two or more

174 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

that are, physically speaking, equally possible. God alone
is absolutely free. Human freedom merely means that
the determination of the will is contingent upon the
character. In this sense, " the understanding may deter-
mine the will according to the prevalence of perceptions
and reasons of one kind which, since it is certain and
infallible, may incline without necessitating it " (Nouveaux
Essais, XXI.). In a certain sense, a ball might be said to be
free after it has been struck by a racquet, in so far as its
movement is not hindered. In another sense, the motion
of the ball is contingent, in other words, not free.

Leibnitz warns the student against the misuse of the
Cartesian principle of " clearness and distinctness " in
idea, as a test of truth. Very often that appears to us
clear and distinct, which is really dark and confused.
The test of clearness and distinctness is only applicable
when it is the result of exact observation and faultless
deduction. As we have seen, in one sense nothing is clear
and distinct ; for example, our perception of matter is in
its nature confused : matter which is composed of an
infinity of unextended substances, to our perception
appears as a continuously extended whole.

Leibnitzianism is in every sense the logical antithesis of
Spinozism. To Spinoza there existed naught but the one
substance and its modes ; to Leibnitz existence comprised
an infinity of monads and their perceptions. To Spinoza,
extension is an ultimate fact, co-relative with thought ; to
Leibnitz it is an illusion due to confused apprehension.
To Spinoza, all teleological explanations are to be rigidly
excluded in philosophy ; to Leibnitz, they form an integral
part of its method. To Spinoza, philosophy had no part
nor lot with theology ; to Leibnitz, the justification of
theology is its end and aim. Leibnitz was essentially an
eclectic ; an eclectic in religion (he had sought, as one of
the great objects of his life, to find a modus vivendi between
the Catholic and Protestant churches) ; an eclectic in philo-
sophy, an eclectic in science, and last of all, an eclectic in
his attempts to reconcile philosophy and theology.

The somewhat flashy system of Leibnitz, as was natu-
ral, made an immediate and widely extended imj^restiun

Epoch I.a.] I LEIBNITZ. 175

on the culture of Europe. It almost entirely su]-»erseded
Cartesianism in the university and in the salon, and
indeed was the dominant academical philosophy of the
Continent until the time of Kant, if not in its original
form, in one but slightly modified.

We pass over intermediate writers, and come to Christian
Wolff, the first follower of Leibnitz who erected an inde-
pendent system on the principles of the master. Wolff
was born in 1679 at Breslau, and became, in 1706, professor
of mathematics in Halle. He subsequently entered upon
a professorship at Marburg, but owing to alleged heretical
tendencies in his doctrines he was recalled, and retired
again to Halle, devoting himself mainly to literary work
till his death, on the 9th April, 1754. Wolff is noteworthy
as being the first academical thinker who wrote in German.
He was the author of a large number of works dealing
with every department of philosoph}'. He attempted
to combine Leibnitzianism with the older Aristotelian
doctrines of the schools. The pre-established harmony he
regards simply as an admissible hypothesis. He also
denies the unconscious perception of Leibnitz, that is, he
refuses to admit perception in any monads below the rank
of the Leibnitzian soul. On the other hand, he adheres to
the optimism of his master no less than to his doctrine of
the will. His division of philosophy into Ontology, or the
doctrine of being in general ; Rational Psychology, or the
doctrine of the soul as unextended and simple substance ;
Cosmology, or the doctrine of the physical universe ; and
Eational Theology, or the doctrine of the existence and
attributes of God, is interesting and noteworthy in its
relation to the " critique " of Kant, as we shall presently
see. Practical philosophy (an expression since much used
in Germany, of which apparently he was the originator) he
divides into Ethics, Economics, and Politics (the old
Aristotelian division). Wolff bases his " practical philo-
sophy " on the idea of perception, which is the law of our
rational nature.

Wolff left an extensive school behind him, the most
noteworthy name of which is that of Alexander Gottlieb
Baumgarten (born, 1714, in Berlin, died, 1762, in Frank-
fort). Baumgarten is chiefly remarkable for two things;

176 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.a.

firstly for having attempted to construct a philosophy of
{esthetics, and secondly for having been the thinker who
probably had most share in the earlier philosophical
education of Immanuel Kant. Baumgarten was Kant's
type of the dogmatic metaphysician, as often appears in
his works. The only other member of the school worthy
of notice, and for the same reason, is Christian August
Ceusius (born, 1712, died, 1776, professor of philosophy at
Leipsic). He also had an influence on the philosophical
education of Kant, and is often referred to by him.

( 177 )

MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

FIRST EPOCH, B.
THE EMPIKICAL SCEPTICAL SCHOOLS.

BACON.

We have now traced the course of the dogmatic schools
of the Continent from the rehabilitation of philosophy,
after the fall of scholasticism had been succeeded by the
brilliant literary revivals of ancient systems, followed
by the fantastic physical speculations of the sixteenth
century ; and after these in their turn had collapsed — in
other words, from the period of Descartes. We liave
followed this development to the middle of the eighteenth
century, that is, to the time of Immanuel Kant. Here we
must retrace our steps to the period at which we started
in the survej" just concluded, i.e. to the beginning of the
seventeenth century, for the purpose of following the
contemporaneous, though essentially distinct Empiricist
movement in the British Islands.

The first name we meet with in this Empiricist move-
ment is that of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. "By
eliminating the theosophic character which Natural
Philosophy had acquired during the transitional period,"
says Ueberweg (vol. iii. p. 35), " by the limitation of its
method to experiences and induction, and by raising the
fundamental characteristics of this method to a philo-
sophical dignity free from the narrowness attaching to
any special circle of physical research, Bacon of Verulam
(1561-1626) is the founder, not indeed of the empirical
method in natural science, but of the empiricist line of
development in modern philosophy." The notion of
reorganising human knowledge on a new basis was, it
is said, a favourite dream of Bacon, even in his boyhood.
Like his younger contemporary, Descartes, he had been
early disgusted with the metaphysic of the schools. The
growing enthusiasm for physical science had seized him

N

178 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

also ; but, unlike the Frenchnian, lie did not dream of
bringing knowledge back to the primitive cogito by any
drastic scepticism.

In his '111 Stan ration of the Sciences,' Bacon makes
a survey of knowledge, as it then existed, as a pre-
limiuary to the work of reform. It falls under three
heads, Memory, Imagination, and Eeason. In this portion
of his great work, Bacon points out what he conceived as
the fundamental sources of error in the human mind, to
which he gives the name of Idols in the Greek sense of
the word (ctSwAov). This, perhaps the most interesting
and important part of the work in question, is succeeded
by a dissertation on the three branches of human science
which fall respectively under the above heads, viz..
History, Poetry, and Philosophy. Philosophy, according
to Bacon, concerns itself with God, Man, and Nature. The
first department, that of natural theology, consists of the
attempt to show that the series of physical causes implies
a first cause and a Providence. On the positive nature and
attributes of God, natural or philosophical theology has
nothing to say. Siuiilarly, in the second department,
that which has Man for its object, it is not the immaterial
soul of man which is immediately breathed into him by
the Deity that jDhilosophy deals with, but the animal soul,
which is of a thinner, finer, corporeal nature than the
body, but not immaterial.*

Natural philosophy, the third department, is divided
into two sections, speculative and operative. Speculative
natural philosophy is again divided into physics and
metaphysics; the first in so far as it is concerned with
proximate causes, the second in so far as it deals with
ends. Operative natural philosophy is divided • into
two corresponding sections, as applied physic it is
termed mechanic,— as applied metaphysic, natural magic.
The fundamental conceptions and axioms which lie
at the root of all' philosophy, such as those of being
and non-being, similarity and diversity, &c., or such
an axiom as that two things that are equal to the same'
thing are equal to one another, form the subject-matter of

* The coincidence of this with the doctrine of Paracelsus is curious.

ErocTi I.B.] BACON. 179

what B<acon terms plnJosopMa prima or scientia universalis.
Mathematics is merely the auxiliary science of physics.
Anthropology, or the science of Man, refers partly to the
human body and partly to the soul, in the sense above
indicated. Bacon ascribes all the elements of bodies to
perception, which he explains mechanically as the result
of attraction and repulsion. Like Leibnitz at a later date,
he distinguishes between .mere perceptions, and feelings
accompanied by consciousness, although perhaps not so
clearly. Logic and ethics, no less than politics, fall to be
dealt with in this department. It is in the portion of the
*' Novum Organum " dealing with method, in which the idols
of the mind are treated of, that the doctrines are to be
found to which the subsequent philosophic development
may be most directly traced. Bacon discovers in the
natural constitution of the human mind a tendency
towards a deceptive anthropomorphism, as for instance, to
the substitution of final causes for proximate or efficient
causes in physic, fallacies occasioned by which are termed
by him Idola Tribus. He finds also many fallacies
attributable to some special bias of the individual, which
he terms Idola Specus ; or again, others occasioned by the
mis-use of language; yet others, which spring from tradi-
tional prejudice ; the latter being styled respectively
Idola Fori and Idola Theatri. The mind has to free itself
as far as may be from these infirmities before it is in a
pos\,tion to arrive at truth. "We mUvst," says Bacon,
"neither draw everything from ourselves, as the spider
its threads, nor merely gather together like the ants,
but gather together and work up as the bees their
honey." Induction, as taught by Aristotle and the
schoolmen, the so-called inductio per enumerationem sim-
plicem, he condemns, since it fails in this latter point,
namely, the subjective working-up, by which Bacon means
the methodical and systematic reduction of the individual
instance under the general rule. Negative instances are
to be taken account of as much as positive, as well as
differences of degree. The reduction is to be undertaken
with the greatest care, not by springing at once fi^om the
singular to the universal, but by proceeding step by step
through all the intermediate stages.

N 2

180 MODERN PHILOSOPHY [Epoch Lb.

HOBBES.

The next English thinker we have to notice is Thomas
HoBBEs, the contemporary and friend of Bacon. Hobbes
was born at Malmesbury in 1588, and as a young man
became tutor in the house of the Duke of Devonshire.
Subsequently, after a journey through France and Italy,
he studied Mathematics and Natural Science in Paris, and
became as enthusiastic as his nature allowed in the rising
physical science, as represented by Kepler, Copernicus,
Galilei, and Harvey. He produced a number of works,
the most famous being his treatise " On Human Nature,"
and the celebrated " Leviathan ; or the Matter, Form,
and Authoritj^ of Government." Hobbes died in 1679.

Hobbes_ defines philosophy as the cognition^ of effects or
phenomena from their causes,,^nd of the cau^esTFom th^
observed effects, by means of correct deduction. Its object
is practical, namely, that we may foresee effeiitSj and
thereby make use of them in life. Hobbes shares Bacon's
mecEahical mode of regarding things, which he in many
respects exaggerates. Jle may justly ^^ reg^'^^^d ^s thp,
father^ of British psychology. Without him fliere could
have been" no Locke. ^A distinct stand is taken on
experience and observation as the sole source of know-
ledge. There is no metaphysical problem any more than
one as to the constitution of our knowledge. " Concerping
the thoughts of Man," says he (Leviathan, Chap, i.), " I
will consider them first singly, and afterwards in a train
of dependence upon one another. Singly, they are every-
one a representation or appearance of some quality or other
accident of a boily without us, which is commonly called
an object, which object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other
parts of a man's body ; and, by a diversity of working,
produces diversity of appearances. The original of them all
is that which we call sense. There is no conception in a
man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by part,
been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are
derived from that original."

In Hobbes we have the first distinct expression of the
English empiricist doctrine — the doctrine which has main-

Epoch I.e.] HOBBES. 181

tallied its ground in this country up to the present time.
Philosophy in the Englifrh school, of which Hobbes is the
earliest direct representative, is reduced in its main issue
to a mere question of psychology. Is the mind a tabula
rasa receiving its knowledge ready-made from an exter-
nal source ? or does it possess innate ideas by which it
is enabled to form judgments of a higher validity than
those which can be referred to a succession of particular
experiences? In other words, is there any essential
distinction between contingent or empirical truth and
necessary truth, or is the distinction that exists between
them merely one of degree? The problem as to what
constitutes reality, which is of course involved in these
questions, is here altogether lost sight of. The completed
categories of consciousness which the real world implies,
the entire synthesis of experience, is assumed from the
outset.

The confusion between metaphysic, psychology, and
physics, so characteristic of the English school, is present
from the first. Hobbes sees that sensible qualities can
exist only in the percipient, but he nevertheless, as
appears in the above passage, assumes the existence of the
mysterious entity, a " body without us," which, in an
equally mysterious manner "worketh upon the eyes, ears,
and other parts of a man's body, and by diversity of
working, produces diversity of appearances." Hahhes,_Q£
course, postulates an atomism wViinVi |ie bases upon tha
assnu^ptioTi thattiiatwhich moves others ,nmfit- also in
itself be moved at least in its smaller parts, since motion
apart frmp Tna.tt^r or at a distance is anj^ppj-^^ibi^^'^^
The senses of men and animals are allected by motions
which propagate themselves from the senses to the brain,
and from the brain to the heart, whence the reverse
process takes place, which reverse process constitutes
feeling. AVe see an anticipation of Leibnitz in the asser-
tion that all matter possesses potentiality of feeling.
From feeling all knowledge is ultimately derived.
General notions, so called, are nothing more than words
serving as signs for an aggregate of similar objects.
All thought is merely the addition and subtraction,
the combination and separation of perceptions.

182 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

The original state of man in society, Hobbes declares
was that of war ; this was substituted at a later stage for
a formal contract by which unconditioned obedience to an
absolute ruler was pledged on condition that he, holding
the balance of power, should protect individual members
of the society to which this contract was to give birth,
against one another. This theory of society was accepted
in substantially the same form to that laid down by
Hobbes as axiomatic, by almost all political thinkers till
the end of the eighteenth century, and forms the basis of
that great text book of the French Eevolution, the
" Social Contract " of Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Morality
Hobbes regards as the direct result of the Political State.
That is good which is sanctioned by the absolute power
in the state ; the reverse, evil. Religion and superstition
have this in common, that they both imply the fear of
imaginary powers ; the difference between them consists
in that the fear or worship of those imaginary powers
which are recognised by the state is religion, while the
fear or worship of those not recognised is superstition.

LOCKE.

John Locke was born in 1632 at Wrington, near Brii^tol.
He studied at Westminster, and afterwards at Oxford.
In I66i he went on a diplomatic mission to Berlin, which
lasted some twelve months. A few years afterwards,
having in the meantime resided at Oxford, he undertook
a journey through France and Italy. For a long time he
remained as tutt»r in the house of the Earl of Shaftesbury.
The ' Essay on the Human Understanding,' though
commenced in 1670, was not published until some years
later. Shaftesbury's resistance to the absolute tendencies
of James II. brought him to the Tower; but being
acquitted by the jury, he repaired to Holland, where he
was followed by Locke in the year 1683. In consequence
of the revolution of 1688, which placed the Prince of
Orange on the English throne, Locke returned to his
native country ; he soon received an ofiicial appointment,
first as " Commissioner of Aj^peals," and afterwards as
" Commissioner of Trade and Plantao'es." Locke died in

Erocii I.B.] LOCKE. 183

the seventy- third year of his age, in 1704. In addition
to the famous ' Essay,' Locke was the author of numerous
treatiises on ethical, political, and economical subjects.

TJTo grp.f^.t principle of Locke's philosophy is, that the
origin 0^3,^1 imowledoje is in experience, ana tnat the,
derivation of all concents is from ftxpeneuce. The first.
book of his essay is occupied almost entirely with a
polemic against the doctrine of " innate ideas," that is,
of ideas existing in the mind independently of experience.
_J)id t.bp individual really possess such ideas, they would
be discoverable iTi children and savages. The fact that
tfie abstract notions supposed to be innate do not exist in
these cases, proves that they are not universal, while a
little consideration of their nature shows them to pre-
suppose a relatively high degree of culture. The case of
savages proves conclusively that there is no single
ethical proposition which is regarded as binding by all
men alike. The same reasoning applies to the elements
of our complex ideas as to the ideas themselves ; there
are none which are innate. The understanding;- js nrigjp-
ally a tabula rasa. The second book deals with how this
Blank tablet is engraved with the writing of experience.
^J^^^jifL^Z^J^!^!^^ rpppivprs " sQ.tp speak, of different ordexs.
ofi^perienceTthe external senses, sensation pro[»br, and the
tRjernaT sense, ^v t.hp. <^.fl.panity of -iv^^^^Z/nw.. But whether

lafSve perceive be an outward or an inward fact, our
understanding is in either case nothing more than the
mirror in which it is reflected — the smooth surface of the
camera ohscura which is the passive vehicle of the
influence of the light of experience. There are thus
ideas derived from sensation, and ideas derived from
reflection. The capacity of an object to produce an idea
in our understanding is called its quality. Where the
idea is similar to the state of the object producing it, it
is termed a primary quality. There are two j^rimary
qualities in external objects —extension and imjienetrability.
Our idea of an extended thing implies a real externality
of the particles to one another ; our idea of resistance a
real configuration of the body producing it. But with
most qualities the case is otherwise. These secondary
qualities^ as they a,re termed, such as colour, odour, taste,

184 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

roTigliness, smoothness, beauty, ugliness, pleasantness, and
unpleasantness, &c., only indicate a certain relation be-
tween our organs and the object, but nothing existent
in the object itself. Indeed, the object has as little
analogy with those ideas it produces in our minds, as the
heat of the sun has with the softness of the wax which it
melts. It is the cause of these effects in us, but no more.
This distinction of primary and secondary qualities is wdth
Locke a cardinal one. The ideas of sensation, then, are
the effect of the qualities of outward things upon our
understanding ; those of reflection, the effects of our own
inward states upon our understanding. Out of these
two kinds of ideas is made up the whole sum of our
knowledge.

As the immense variety of words is constituted of the
twenty -six letters .of the alphabet, so the number of
primitive ideas out of which all our concepts are con-
structed is relatively small, and may be readily enumerated.
In forming an inventory of them, it is advisable to begin
with those derived from a single sense, such as colour,
sound, odour, &c., and then to proceed to those which are
produced by a combination of several senses, such as that
of dimension, which involves the idea of a measured or
determined extension or space. We may then proceed to
ideas having their origin in reflection, such as thought,
will, duration, or measured time ; and finally to ideas
derived from both sources, namely, sensation and
reflection, such as those of unity, force, &c. The
complex ideas which are produced by the combination of
these simple ideas, Locke divides into three classes — ideas
of modes, of substances, and of relations.

By " modes," Locke understands " such complex ideas
which, however compounded, contain not in them the
supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered
as dependencies or affections of substances ; such are the
ideas signified by the words ' triangle, gratitude, murder,'
&c." — Book II., Chap, iii., 4. Modes are subdivided into
simple or mixed, the first kind being such as are produced
by the combination of the same simple idea, " as a dozen,
or a score ; which are nothing but the ideas of so many
distinct units added together," and the second being

Epoch I.e.] LOCKE. 185

compounded of various kinds of simple ideas, such as
" beauty," " theft," &c. Ideas of substances are " such
combinations of simple ideas as are taken to represent
distinct particular things subsisting by themselves, in
which the supposed or confused idea of substance, such as
it is, is always the first and chief." —(II. vi.) " Eolation "
consists in the "consideration and comparing one idea
with another." — (ib. vii.)

The simple ideas which come to us directly through
experience, are ektypal, i.e. they always have something
real corresponding to them. The complex ideas, on the
contrary, since they are the figments of our own minds,
are archetypal, and have no reality corresponding to
them. All words, except proper names, are concerned
with the latter order of ideas, i.e. general or abstract
concepts, and must therefore not be regarded as represent-
ing anything real, for there is nothing real but what is
individual. Here, we may remind the reader, we have
Locke taking up the parable, though possibly un-
consciously, of Occam, and the later nominalistic school-
men. The third book of the ' Essay ' is devoted entirely
to a discussion on the question of language, to the mis-
apprehension of the true nature of which Locke attributes
most of the fallacies of the metaphysicians.

One only of the complex ideas does Locke admit to
denote any reality ; this exception is the idea of substance.
We are compelled, says Locke, whatever be the reason, to
postulate a substratum as that in which the qualities of
things inhere, and which, although we have no evidence
of it in experience, and can even form no definite idea of
it, we cannot help regarding as real. The idea of sub-
stance, although a complex idea, corresponds therefore to
a reality, albeit an unknown reality.* Substances we
know only by their qualities, and hence we can only
classify them according to their qualities. In this way
we may divide substances into two classes — those capable
of thought or cogitative substances (mind), and those not

* We may observe that Locke's use of the word " substance " is not that
of Aristotle's ovaiaj or of most of the schoohnen, but answers rather
to the Aristotelian -n-pccTij uAtj, and to the Kantian thing-in-itselfj or
noumenon.

186 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch Lb.

■ so capable (matter). We are by no means justified, how-
ever, in dogmatically asserting tbe former class to be
immaterial, like Descartes ; indeed, their susceptibility to
decay rather gives colour to the hypothesis that they are
material in nature. Thought may very well be conceived
as quality of matter. It is just as incorrect to regard
the thinking substance as necessarily always conscious
(another error of Descartes) ; for this is plainly con-
tradicted by experience.

The further combination of ideas gives us cognition
or knowledge, expressed in language in the form of
the proposition, which may be either instructive or
demonstrative, according as to whether it is immediately
perceived or arrived at through the interposition of
middle terms. To these two modes of cognition, may be
added a third, namely : the immediate sensuous percep-
tion of external objects. Our conception of God is attained
by a process of reasoning, in other words, is demonstrative.
It is composed of ideas derived from our experience of
finite minds, with the idea of infinity, that is, the negation
of limits superadded. W hen the constituent elements
of a cognition are universal notions, it is a universal
axiom.

The utility of universal propositions shoiild neither be
over nor under-estimated. We should always bear in
mind, while emjDloying them, that they are ultimately
mere abstractions from our experience of individual
facts. It is also important to make a distinction between
those general propositions in which the predicate adds
something to our knowledge of the subject, and those
which are merely verbal and identical. The statement
that a triangle is a triangle, or that the triangle has three
sides, is a mere play of words, since the word triangle implies
a figure comprising three sides and three angles. On the
other hand, the assertion that the outer angle is greater
than either of the internal and opposite angles is a state-
ment carrying with it a distinct increase to our knowledge
of the triangle ; the predicate, in short, contains something
more than what is already contained in the subject.
This distinction appears hiter in Kant as that between
analytic and synthetic judgments.

Epoch Lb. J LOCKE. 1S7

Locke divides the whole of knowledge into natural
philosopliji which deals with things, moral j)hiloso)jliy^
which deals with the means Ly which the good and
useful is attained, and logic which deals with symbols
and words. Locke's treatise entitled the ' Elements of
Natural Philosophy,' is concerned with the first of these
departments. The second is treated of in a fragmentary
way in his ' Thoughts on Education,' in his two
* Treatises on Government,' and in his ' Letters on
Toleration,' &c. Nowhere, however, does he go into the
fundamental questions of ethics in any thorough manner.
The third or logical department, is discussed in the ' Essay
on the Human I'nderstanding,' as well as in that ' On the
Conduct of the Understanding.'

Locke's views on Education had a very wide influence,
and form the basis of Rouisseau's ' Emile.' His political
treatises breathe the spirit of the typical English Whig,
their ideas and reasoning having been since dressed up in
many a Whig speech and pamphlet. The resemblance of
certain of Locke's political doctrines to those of Hobbes as
expressed in the Leviathan would seem too strong to be
accounted for by mere coincidence or contemporaneity,
although Locke himself disclaimed all knowledge of the
Leviathan.

The influence of the writings of John Locke, especially
the ' Essay on the Human Understanding,' on the sub-
sequent course of philosophic thought has been immense.
Tliat it has been so, is in many respects surprising,
considering how little there is in his works that is
not to be found in those of his elder contemporary
Hobbes. His main position indeed is traceable much
further back, and amounts to little more than the nomi-
nalism of Occam and his followers as expressed in the
famous formula Nihil est in intellectu quod nan ])rius in
sensu fuerit. The popularity of his style, and the forcible
manner in which he returns again and again to the
charge in his efforts to refute his adversaries, real or
imagined (for it is extremely doubtful whether any thinker
ever seriously believed in the innate psychological con-
cepts which are Locke's particular hete noire), and to
establish his own position, will, however, account to a large

188 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch Lb.

extent for the hold he not only obtained but kept- on
men's minds. He gathered, so to speak, into one focns
the arguments against the older metaphysic, and gave to
the empirical doctrine of Bacon and Hobbes a definite
psychological standing-ground. Locke was an English-
man of Englishmen, alike in his character and writings.
There is in the latter all the common-sense force of the
English character, with all its lack of subtility, and we
may add, all its honest contempt for the qualities it does
not itself possess.

We have now to trace the development of the principles
laid down by Locke, first in the hands of Berkeley, Hume,
Reid, and the so-called Scotch Psychological School, and
afterwards in those of the French Sensationist and
Materialist School. .

BERKELEY.

Locke's ideas were developed in various directions by
his pupil Shaftesbury, by Clarke, Hutcheson, and others.
But the most important among his immediate successors
from the point of view of the historian of philosophy is
George Berkeley, born at Thomastown in Ireland, in
1685, of an old Royalist family. Berkeley studied with
avidity contemporary philosophical literature, especially
Locke and Malebranche. He took advantage of a visit to
Paris to pay his respects to the latter, but the interview
proved fatal to the aged ecclesiastic, then suffering from
inflammation of the lungs, who died a few days afterwards.
After spending s )me years in travel, he returned to
Ireland, having been meanwhile presented to the deanery
of Derry. This post he subsequently threw up, to engage
in an abortive missionary enterprise in the Bermudas.
It was on his return thence, that he was made Bishop
of Cloyne. He died at Oxford in 1753.

Berkeley's standing-ground is Lockeian ; Empiricism
pushed to its logical conclusion in the shape of a^thoroui^^
gwn^ nominalism, which denied abstraction altogether.
"KnowIecTgeand "clemonstration," it is true, are abntit
universal notions, but it does not follow they are formed

Epoch Lb.] BERKELEY. 189

by abstraction. The Tiiiivi'rsality consists rather in the
*'rchition it bears" to the partieiihirs signified or repre-
sented hy it, by virtue of which it is that things being in
their OAvn nature particuhir are rendered nniversal ""^
r^Prineiph'S of Unman Knowh'di^o' Introduction, XV.)
There is.jiiL-^uek. thinp; a,.s a^umxy^L^al^ idea. When I
speak of a triangle, says Berkeley, l' do not mean a
triangle that is neither "equilateral nor scalenor, nor
equicrural, but only that the particular triangle I con-
sider, whether of this or of that sort, it matters not, doth
equally stand for and represent all rectilinear triangles
whatsoever, and is in that sense universal." That which is
inseparable in existence is also inseparable in thought. It
follows that general names so-called, must be the names,
not of general ideas (which can have no existence), but
must be expressions by which we represent classes of indi-
vidual objects, characterised by common features with
special reference not to the individual peculiarities of the
objects, but to their common characteristics. It is in the
doctrine of abstract ideas that this belief in an inde-
pendent external world ultimately rests : " for can
there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish
the existence of sensible objects from their being per-
ceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived ? "
(Principles v.)

" If we enquire into what the most accurate philosophers
declare themselves to mean by material substance, we shall
find them acknowledge they have no other meaning at-
tached to these sounds than the idea of being in general, to-
gether with the relative notion of its supporting accidents."
(XVII.) Now all ideas, whether (in the language of Locke)
they be ideas of " sensation " or of " reflection," are nothing
but states of onr mind or spirit. Even the upholders of
the current doctrine admit with Locke, that the ideas of
colour, odour, &c., do not represent any independent quality
in things outside us, but they notwithstanding, incon-
sequently, assume them to express a relation to such
things. The distinction between primary and secondary
qualities is a purely arbitrary one, of no validity what-
ever in proof of the existence of an external world, since
the former can, by the same reasoning as is used with

190 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

regard to the latter, be shown to have no existence apart
from the mind perceiving them.

The material substance or substratum, which to Locke was
a necessary assumption, falls away therefore, together
with the inherence in it of the so-called primary qualities.
It is surely simpler and more rational, instead of imagi-
ning an unknown something behind the qualities perceived
in the sense-world, to acknowledge that matter is nothing
but the constant sum of these perceived qualities — that
the thing is what is perceived and nothing else — or once
more, that the being of things consists in their perception,
that their esse is percipi. But the assumption of a world
independent of perception is not merely gratuitous, it
involves a self-contradiction. The notion of hardness,
extension, figure, that is, of certain affections of our minds,
existing apart from our minds, is plainly absurd. All
v/ould recognise the absurdity if any one were to assert
the independent existence of the feeling of pain caused by
burning, apart from its being felt. Strange to sa}", they
do not recognise that the independent existence of the
fire itself, that is, of the assemblage of sense aifections or
ideas (as Berkeley, following Locke's terminology, calls
them) connoted by that word, is equally absurd on the very
Same grounds. The substratum of Locke and the philoso-
phers is just as untenable. For did such independent exis-
tence obtain, it is evident that we, neither philosophers nor
anj^one else, could know anything about it. In so far as
the philosophers predicate its existence, they profess to
know something about it, in which case it is not inde-
pendent of perception, since they must have arrived at it
sooner or later through perception, and therefore the same
reasoning will apply.

Under no hypothesis can one escape the dilemma : if
the term matter exjoresses something known, it is only
an idea; if not, it is for us an altogether meaningless
jDhrase. To the objection that the idea may be the
copy of a reality, Berkeley replies that an idea can
only resemble another idea : " If we look never so little
into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to
conceive a likeness, except only between our ideas.
Again I ask whether these supposed originals or external

Epoch Lb.] BERKELEY. 191

things of which our ideas arc the pictures or representa-
tions be themselves perceivable or not. If they are, then
they are ideas, and we have gained our point ; but if you
say they are not, I ap]^eal to anyone whether it be sense
to assert a colour is like something which is invisible ;
hard or soft, like something which is intangible, and so
of the rest." (viii.)

The conclusion Berkeley draws from his analysis is that
" there is not any other substance than spirit or that
which perceives." For, that an idea should subsist in an
unthinking substance is a manifest contradiction, to have
an idea being the same as to think or to perceive, and
hence the only possible substratum for external objects is a
mind or minds in which they are perceived. The distinc-
tion between ideas of sense and their reproduction in reflec-
tion is that the former are implanted in us immediately from
their source, the divine mind, while the latter are derived
immediately from our perception of the former. " Some
truths there are," says Berkeley, " so near and obvious to
the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them.
Such I take this important one to be, to wit, that all the
choir of heaven and furniture of the eai^h, in a word, all
those bodies which compose the mighty i'rame of the
world, have not any subsistence witliout a mind; that
their being is to be perceiveei or known ; that consequently
so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do
not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit,
they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist
in the mind of some eternal spirit, — it being perfectly
unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstrac-
tion, to attribute to any single part of them an existence
independent of spirit. To be convinced of which the
reader need only reflect, and try and separate in his own
thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being
perceived." (vi.) The existence of external things
consists in their being eternally present in the mind of
God, by whom they are revealed to us. Hence, in a sense,
it is true that they exist independently of our mind, but
only so far as they are present in the divine mind. There
exists, in short, only active entities (spirits) whose nature
consists in thinking and willing, and ideas or modifications

192 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch Lb.

of these entities. The resemblance of Berkeley's doctrine
to that of Malebranche in this point is not to be denied, but
the two men approached the question from opposite points
of view. Malebranche never relinquished the Cartesian
Dualism, while Berkeley's whole system is a polemic
against Dualism.

Our knowledge of an object is made up of distinct
kinds of sensations, e.g. sensations of sight and sensa-
tions of touch. These are absolutely independent and
distinct ; yet their constant association, by means of
which each becomes for us the " sign " which suggests the
possibility of expressing the other, is independent of any
control of the precipient mind. It follows for Berkeley
that this arbitrary yet orderly and invariable connection
must have its source in the work of a creative intelligence
outside our own.

Berkeley, it must be remembered, had a distinct aim in
view in his philosophical writings other than the mere
search for truth, to wit, to cut the ground, as he believed,
from under " scepticism, atheism, and irreligion." This
object he thought he attained through the refutation of
the doctrine of swi independent external world of matter.
Berkeley's system may be described as a thorough-going
phenomenalism or empiricism. How this system, which
was to annihilate all scepticism and atheism, was itself
the groundwork of a systematic philosophy of doubt, we
shall see.

The complete works of Bishop Berkeley have been more
than once republished, the best edition being that of
Professor Frazer, in four volumes, 8vo., London, 1873. In
addition to his main philosophical essay, entitled ' A
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,'
in which his leading positions are expounded at length,
he wrote 'Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous,'
containing the main arguments for immaterialism in a
more popular form. His celebrated ' Essay Toward a
New Theory of Vision,' contains an exposition of the
psychological side of optics which has formed the founda-
tion for every subsequent scientific exposition of the subject.
Berkeley there endeavoured to show that judgments of
distance rest entirely on an empirical basis. ' Alciphron,

Irocn I.B.] nUME. 103

T the Mimite Pliilosopher,' at the time his most popular
ork, is a dialogue desig-iiecl to ref.ite the fashionable
on-vivant "freethinker" of the day, a ligiire which belongs
that era, — the era of chap-books, " wit," coffee-houses,
ighwaymen — in short, which is peculiar to eighteenth-
ntury social life, and heard of no more after the French
evolution. In addition to some mathematical treatises, the
nlj other work of importance is the ' Siris,' written towards
e close of Berkeley's career, in which he starts from a dis-
ertation on the virtues of tar- water, and proceeds to descant
n the phj^sical nature of things in general, winding up
^ vith a learned disquisition on theosophy, Egyptian, Pla-
^ jtonic, and Christian. All Berkeley's writings are inter-
sting from their quaintness of style.

Berkeley's position may be summed up by saying that
e put a *' new question " as to the meaning of the general
'" bame " matter." Hume, as we shall see, in effect took up
'^ [the application of his method at the point at which
Berkeley dropped it, and proceeded to inquire into the

meaning of the general name " mind."

HUME.

David Hume was born on the 26th of April, 1711, in Edin-
burgh, at the university of which citj- he .was educated.
He subsequently entered a merchant's office in Bristol, but
finding the occupation little to his taste, availed hims^df
of a small independence to migrate to France, where he
remained four years. Hume's first j)hilosophical work,
the 'Treatise of Human Nature,' was published in 1728,
but fell almost stillborn from the j^ress. This was
followed in 1741 by a volume of general essays, entitled
Essays and Treatises on Various Subjects,' which
attracted considerable attention. Encouraged by this
success, Hume ventured upon a condensed restate-
ment of his philosophical position, which saw the light
3etween the years 1748 and 1752. It consisted of thiee
portions, the 'Enquiry concerning Human Understand-
mg,' the ' Die^sertation on the Passions,' and the 'Enquiry
;)oncerning the Principles of Morals,' besides appendices.

0

194 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.e.

The ' History of England ' which subsequently made his
fame in another direction, does not interest us here. His
final work was his autobioo;raphy. He died on the 26th
of August, 1776. The 'Dialogues concerning Natural
Keligion' and the 'Essays on Suicide,' were published
after his death.

Hume closes for practical purposes the great line of
British thinkers initiated by Bacon and Hobbes. We say
closes this line, inasmuch as there is little or nothing to
be found in the Scotch psychological school of Eeid,
Beattie, &c., which is not a repetition, or at most, ampli-
fication of what we find in the writings of these thinkers.
Hume's place in the history of philosophy is that of the
immediate successor of Berkeley. His main advance on
Berkeley was this : the Anglican bishop, while rejecting
the Lockeian substance — that is, the substratum of quali-
ties— in so far as the external or material world was
concerned, never once thought of rejecting the same con-
ception with regard to the internal or mental world. To
Berkeley " the only possible substratum for external
objects was the mind or minds by which thev are per-
ceived." To Hume, on the contrary, the immaterial
substance " mind," " spirit," or " soul," had' as little
justification in reason, as the material substance against
■"\vhicli Berkeley's polemic was directed. An achievement
in its consequences even more momeiilous for the subse-
quent evolution of thought, was the attention Hume called
to the problem of causation, for this it was which Kant
tells us first directed his thought towards the deeper
issues of which this was only one, involved in Theory of
Knowledge.

Locke and Berkeley had both of them employed the word
*' idea " for th^ objects alike of sense and reflection. Hume
makes a distinction between impressions and ideas. " We
may divide," he says (Inquiry, Sect. 2), *' all the perceptions
of the mind into two species, which are distinguished by
their different degrees of force and vivacity.* The less
forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts

* It is singular how persistently the thinkers of the empirical school
missed the point uf the distinction between the real and the psychological
order in resting satisfied with this pitiable makeshift of a dehnition.

Epoch I.b.] HUME. 195

or Ideas. The other species want a name in our language
and in most others ; I suppose because it was not requisite,
for any but philosophical purposes, to rank them under a
general term or appellation. Let us therefore use a little
freedom, and call them impi-ession, employing that word
in a sense somewhat different from the usual. By the
term impression, then, I mean all our more lively percep-
tions when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or
desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from
ideas, which are the less lively perceptions of which we
are conscious, when we reflect on any of these sensations
or movements above mentioned." Every idea has its
origin in an impression or combination of impressions.
The having of impressions is feeling, the having of
thoughts is thinking. Among ideas may be distinguished
those of memory, and those of imagination ; the former,
as being nearer their sense original, being the more, and
the latter the less, lively. The fundamental principles
of connection or association among ideas, Hume finds
to be three, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity, and Cause
and Effect. "A picture naturally leads our thoughts
to the original (Eesemblance) ; the mention of one apart-
ment in a building naturally introduces an inquiry or
discourse concerning the others (Contiguity) ; and if we
chink of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on
the pain which follows it (Cause and Effect). But that
this enumeration is complete, and that there are no other
principles of association except these, may be difficult
to prove to the satisfaction of the reader, or even to a
man's own satisfaction. All we can do in such cases is to
run over several instances and examine carefully the
principle which binds the different thoughts to each
other, never stopping till we render the principle as
general as possible. The more instances we examine, and
the more care we employ, the more assurance shall we
acquire, that the enumeration which we form of the whole
is complete and entire." (Inquiry, Sect. 3.) We quote
the above passage, as it contains a concise statement of
the empirical method in psychology.

The objects of human reason or inquiry maj^ be divided
into " relations of ideas," and " matters of fact." The

0 2

196 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

former alone are susceptible of demonstration. All reason-
ings concerning matters of fact are founded on the rela-
tion of cause and effect. And here comes in Hume's cele-
brated doctrine that " causes and effects are discoverable,
not by reason, but by experience." With this is connected
the categorical denial of any causal nexus, of any principle,
that is, uniting the cause with the effect. The belief in this
nexus is attributable, according to Hume, to the fact that
custom or habit leads us unhesitatingly to expect a certain
effect to follow a given cause ; in other words, it is by
experience alone that the belief in the necessary connection
of cause and effect is obtained. " The nature of experience
is this : we remember to have had frequent instances of the
existence of one species of objects, and also remember that
the individuals of another species of objects have always
attended them, and have existed in a regular contiguity
and succession with regard to them. Thus we remember
to have seen that species of object we call flame, and to
have felt that species of sensation we call heat. We
likewise call to mind their constant conjunction in all past
instances." (Treatise, Part iii.. Sect. 6.) The effect is
totally different from the cause, and can never be discovered
therein. There is nothing by which we could tell a priori
that the impact of one billiard ball with another should
result in the motion of the second. Constant conjunction
is all we can predicate of this or any other instance of
causation. It is custom or habit alone which leads us to
believe that the future will resemble the past. Hume in
a similar manner disposes of the ideas of power, force
and energy.

Hume's treatment of the subject of the freedom of the
will is based on his theory of causation. Because, he says,
we are accustomed to believe in the necessary connection
between a cause and its effect in the external world, and
do not feel any such connection between our volitions and
the acts which follow them, we regard our will as free, in
contradistinction to the necessity we imagine to exist in
other instances of causation. This distinction Hume, of
course, regards as altogether spurious, and therefore
as having no place whatever in philosophy. " All man-
kind," he says, " have ever been agreed in the doctrine of

Epoch I.e.] HUME. 197

liberty as well as in that of necessity," the whole discussion
concerning which "has been hitherto merely verbal."
" For what is meant by liberty when applied to voluntary
actions ? We cannot surely mean that actions have so
little connection with motives, inclinations and circum-
stances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of
uniformity from the other, and that one afibrds no
inference by which we can conclude the existence of the
other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of
fact. By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting
or not acting according to the determination of the imll ; that
is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may ; if we choose to
move, we also may. Now this hj^^othetical liberty is
universally allowed to every one who is not a prisoner
and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute."
(Inquiry, Part i. Sect. 8.) Being once convinced that we
know nothing of causation of any kind beyond " the
constant conjunction of objects and the consequent inference
of the mind from one to another, and finding that these
two circumstances are universally allowed to have place
in voluntary actions, we may be more easily led to own
the same necessity common to all causes." If man had
but begun by investigating the true nature of the belief
in the connection of cause and effect in the external
world, the free-will controversy would never have arisen.
The attack upon the doctrine of the Soul-Substance
occurs in the ' Treatise on Human Nature.' Hume con-
tends that this is no less an absurdity than an inde23en-
dent substance or substratum of matter. " This question,"
says Hume (Treatise, Part iv. Sect. 5), we have found
impossible to be answered with regard to matter and
body. But besides that in the case of the mind it labours
under all the same difficulties, it is burthened with some
additional ones which are peculiar to that subject. As
every idea is derived from a precedent impression, had
we any idea of the substance of our minds, we must also
have an impression of it ; which is very difficult, if
not impossible, to be conceived. For how can an impres-
sion represent a substance otherwise than by resembling
it? And how can an impression represent a substance,
since according to this philosophy it is not a substance,

198 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch Lb.

and has none of the peculiar qualities or characteristics
of a substance ? "

All we know respecting the mind is a succession of
certain states, seeing, hearing, feeling, willing, &c. ' The
assumption of a substratum in which they inhere has
no warrant in experience and is a purely gratuitous fiction
of the philosophers. Hence the question whether our
thought inheres in a material or immaterial substance
is altogether unmeaning. We have presented to us a
series of impressions and ideas. This is all we know
of matter or mind ; the assumption of anything further
is an illusion. Hume's speculative doctrine thus re-
solves itself into a systematic Scepticism or Phenome-
nalism. The transition of these impressions and ideas
is purely arbitrary. The Berkeleian conception of the
Divine " mind " having been shown to be as meaning-
less as the Lockeian conception of " matter," it is clear we
have no ground for belief — except what is entirely based
on association — in any uniformity of nature, whatever.
The only utility of metaphysics is to exhibit the limits of
human inquiry.

The proper objects of abstract thought are quantity
and number ; in Mathematics alone can we have demon-
stration. " All other inquiries of men," observes Hume
(Inquiry, Eule xii. Part 3), " regard only matter and
existence ; and these are evidently incapable of demonstra-
tion. Whatever is may not be ; n(j negation of a fact can
involve a contradiction ; the non-existence of any being is
as clear and distinct an idea as its existence. The propo-
sition which affirms it not to be, however, false, is no less
conceivable and intelligible than that which affirms it to
be. The case is different with the sciences, properly so-
called. Every prop' ^sition which is not true is there con-
fused and unintelligible. That the cube root of 64 is
equal to the half of 10 is a false proposition, and can never
be distinctly conceived; but that Ctesar or the angel
Gabriel, or any being never existed, may be a false pro-
position, but still is perfectly conceivable and implies
no contradiction." Questions of existence can only be
proved by arguments from caiise and effect, and hence are
merely contingent. Hume characteristically closes his

Erocii I.B.] HUME. 199

* Inquiry concernino; Human Understanding ' with the
following words : " When wo run over libraries, persuaded
of these principles, what havoc must we make ? If we take
in our hand any volume — of divinity or school metaphysics
for instance — let us ask : Does it contain any abstract reason-
ing concerning quantity or number^ ? ^ o. Does it contain any
experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and exis-
tence f No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can
contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Hume regards as much more important than any mere
theoretical research that into the basis of morals. Will
and action exhibit a perfectly regular mechanism, the laws
of which can be as clearly presented as those of motion
and of light. He is thus a thorough-going determinist,
as this doctrine is generally understood. The very
admission of motives involves this principle, according to
Hutne, while the punishment of tlie criminal is a practical
application of it ; for if his action were not the necessary
consequence of his character, no end would be served by
his punishment. This, however, does not exclude moral
jud^iment, any more than the fact of the beauty or ugli-
ness of an object, not being under its control, hinders
an artistic judgment on that object.

Hume's main division of the emotions and passions,
is into " calm," and " violent." " Of the first kind is
the sense of beauty and dt-formity in action, composition,
and external objects. Of the second are the passions
of love and hatred, grief and joy, pride and humility."
(Treatise, Book II. Part i., sect. 1). A further division of
the " violent " passions is into " direct " and " indirect."
" By direct passions," says Hume, " I understand such as
arise immediately from good or evil, from pain or pleasure.
By indirect, such as proceed from the same principles, but
by the conjunction of other qualities." Under the indirect
passions are included pride, humility, ambition, vanity,
love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity, with their
dependents ; and under the direct passions, desire, aversion,
grief, joy, hope, fear, despair, and security. From the
primitive impressions of " pleasure and pain " proceed the
" prepense and averse motions of the mind." The reference
of these to the cause of the impressions, according as it is

200 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

present or absent, produces joy or sorrow, hope or fear,
&c. These direct passions lie at the foundation of the
more complex, indirect ones. Hume endeavours to show
tlie results of association of ideas and impressions, in the
modification of the primitive passions.

The philosopher cannot properly accord praise or blame
to moral action; ethical judgments being on the same
footing as critidal (a?sthetic). Hume is thus in agree-
ment with Shaftesbury and Hutchison in placing virtue
in the same category with beauty, and in the hypothesis
of a moral sense, as the foundation of ethical judgments,
which he asserts express nothing more than the
pleasure or the reverse which an action occasions in the
spectator. The possibility of this is deducible from the
feeling of sympathy or reciprocal communicability and
receptivity, which unites us with all sentient creatures,
but especially our fellow men. The condition of a moral
judgment is, that the action should not be regarded as an
independent event, but as the sign of a disposition of
character. Hume divides all virtues into natural and
artificial, the first including such as spring directly from
sympathy, and which in themselves are good and useful.
The second arise through the exigencies of society, and are
hence conventional, although not arbitrary : such as
probity, truthfulness, &c. Hence the idea of an original
social contract is groundless, or rather, the reverse of the
facts. The societas becomes a civiias, when a definite
government arises. A dictatorship becomes necessary
when the .society is threatened from without, from which
it follows that the first form of government is absolute
monarchy. Since the state mainly exists for the sake of
protection, there are circumstances under which its
justification might cease.

Such is the course of the evolution of thought that, as
we have seen, what Berkeley had intended to j)ut an end
to " Scepticism " and " Atheism," became the most power-
ful solvent of the foundation of traditional belief that the
eighteenth century produced in this country.

Epoch I.b.] ( 201 )

EEID.

In Thomas Eeid we have the progenitor of the large and
long-lived school of the Scotch psychologists. His phi-
losophy, wliich started with a polemic against Hume, has
been the fountain at which psychological Scotsmen
have drunk from that time to this. His writings have
been read, re-read, annotated and amended by four gene-
rations of Scottish thinkers. Born in 1710 at Strachan,
in Kincardineshire, Eeid lived an uneventful life. He
graduated in due course at Aberdeen, where he afterwards
was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy. On the
resignation of Adam Smith, he succeeded to the same post
in the more important University of Glasgow. In 1780
Eeid resigned, passing the remainder of his life in study
and retirement. He died in 1796. Eeid's complete works
first appeared in 1785, but have been several times re-
printed, the best edition being that issued with annotations
by Sir William Hamilton.

The secret of the success of Reid among his countrymen
may be supposed to lie in his professed appeal to common-
sense, alike against the scepticism of Hume, and the
psychological idealism of Berkeley. To Eeid the well-
known aphorism will aptly apply, that he said many
things that were true, and some things that were new ; but
unfortunately, that the things which were true were not
new, and the things which were new were not true. His
appeal to common-sense, in-so-far as it meant anything, is
certainly not new ; his assumption that his contemporarits,
Berkeley and Hume, denied the fact of common-sense, or
that its dictates were practically irresistible, is as certainly
not true, notwithstanding some rhetorical passages in
Hume which might give colour to such a conclusion.

Eeid starts by taking for granted as axioms an
astounding number of propositions, the first and foremost
being the immediate dicta of consciousness. " If a man
should take it into his head to think or to say that his
consciousness may deceive him, and to require proof that
it cannot, I know of no proof that can be given him ; he
must be left to himself, as a man that denies first principles,

202 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

without wliicli there can be no reasoning. Every man
finds himself under a necessity of believing what conscious-
ness testifies, and everything that has this necessity is to
be taken as a first principle." (' Essays on the Intellectual
Powers,' I. 2). In this solemnly-expressed platitude is
summed up the whole of the Common Sense Philosophy.
This thesis, expanded into three volumes, may be apt to
suggest to the irreverent mind the hackneyed saying, by
no means always true, so far as our experience goes, about
the Scotchman and the joke. Eeid proceeds to " take for
granted," as he expresses it, personal identity based on
a " thinking principle " or mind. He sagely remarks
that " every man of a sound mind finds himself under a
necessity of believing his own identity and continued
existence. The conviction of this is immediate and irre-
sistible ; and if he should lose this conviction, it would
be a certain proof of insanity which is not to be remedied
by reasoning " (ibid.).

Eeid further as>umes as a first principle the very point
in dispute with Berkeley and Hume, namely, the existence
of external objects. Though he intends to take up the
argument against them, they would justly have in-
sisted that his whole attack was simply an ignoratio
elencM, and that that of which he ostentatiously paraded
the assumption they had never questioned.

But after all that may be justly said in derogation of
Eeid's claims as a thinker, it is not to be denied that
there are some acute observations scattered here and
there throughout his works, and also that he makes some
scores against his more brilliant adversaries, as for instance
(Essays I. 1), where he touches the vulnerable point in
Hume's doctrine (which he received, by the way, as a
legacy from Locke), viz. the formulation of the distinction
between the outer and the inner orders of conscious states
as one merely of " force and vivaci'y." Eeid truly
observes, " To differ in species is one thing ; to differ in
degree is another. Things which diff*er in degree only
must be of the same species. It is a maxim of common-
sense, admitted by all men, that greater and less do not
make a change of species. . . . To say, therefore, that
two different classes or species of perceptions are dis-

Epoch I.b.] THE FRENCH MATERIALIST SCHOOL. 203

tingnished by the different dco^rces of their force and
vivacity is to confound the diff«.'ren(e of degree with the
difference of species, which every man of understanding'
knows how to distinguish." And again : '\ Common-sense
convinces every man that a lively dream is no nearer to
reality tlian a faint one, and that if a man should dream
that he had all the wealth of Croesus, it would not put
one farthing in his pocket." All this is very apposite
criticism on Hume, so ftir as it goes, but it certainly does
not help the Keidian philosophy.

The fact is, that Reid saw a flaw in Berkeley and
Hume, and his whole system is a bungling attempt to
discover its real nature. But it was not iDy wholesale
assumptions and pragmatical assertions that this could
be done. Poor Reid's sti-Uirgies to extricate himself and
human reason from the meshes of Scepticism, only resulted
in worse entanglement. There was at this time a young
Privat-docent at the Prussian University of Konigsberg,
who was also trying his hand on the same theme, but of
him we shall hear more anon. Reid's philosophy continued
to be taught in the Scotch universities by James Beattie
(1735-1803), Dngald Stewart (1753-1820), Thomas
Brown (1778-1820), &c.

THE FRENCH MATERIALIST SCHOOL.

We now pass from Scotland to France, where we shall
see the influence of the same movement of thought,
namely, that originating with Hobbes and Locke, ex-
hibited in the writings of the Abbe de Condillac, Bonnet,
Helvetius, &c., leading up to the great French materialist
school of the eighteenth century.

Etienne Bonnot de Condillac was born in 1715 at Gre-
noble. He published his Essai sur Vorigine des Connaissances
Humaines, in which he introduced Locke to his countrymen,
in 1746. His most important work is, however, his Troite
des Sensations (1754), in which his special line of differentia-

204 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

tion from Locke is shown. His Logique appeared shortly
before his death in 1780. His completed works (Paris,
1798) comprise twenty-three volumes.

After carefnlly sheltering himself from the Church's
censure, Condillac proceeds to develop the thesis known
as Sensationism, namely, that sensation is the one source
and vehicle of knowledge, — the " thought " or " reflection "
admitted by Locke being nothing more than transformed
sensation. This he illustrates by the fiction of a statue,
endowed successively with the five senses. He first admits
the sense of smell, and seeks to show the extent of know-
ledge this sense alone would suffice to procure. He then
proceeds to discuss how the world would appear to a being
thus limited, on the addition of taste, hearing, &c. In
this he assumes that the simultaneity of an impression
with the remembrance of a previous one, in itself constitutes
a judgment. The sense of feeling is singled out by
Condillac from among the rest, as being that through which
alone is obtained the idea of objectivity proper ; the
remainder only furnishing us with the impression of our
own affections or states. It is only the solid which leads us
to the knowledge of a world outside our own organs. The
superiority of our sense of feeling primarily distinguishes
us from the lower animals.

The ideas of good and evil, like everything else, are
ultimately traceable to sensation. Condillac criticises
Locke's doctrine of the association of ideas, while adopt-
ing it in the main. liepeated coincidence of ideas leads
to their being necessarily combined. This is the origin
of complex ideas, which may thus be said to make them-
selves. Nothing facilitates so much the fixation of these
complex or combined ideas as the use of signs representing'
them. Hence the i)Ower of language. The want of the
capacity for language in animals is as great a drawback to
their intelligence as regards the combination of ideas as
their imperfect sense of feeling is as regaids the elements
of such a combination. But though ideas maybe combined
and recombined, it matters not in how complex a manner,
yet they are all ultimately reducible to sensations.
Penser c'est sentir, is the motto of Condillac's system.

Condillac's contemporary, Charles Bonnet (1720-1790),

Epoch I.b-] HELVETIUS. 205

was independently working out the same line of thought.
Curiously enough, Bonnet even hit upon the illustration of
the statue, when he became aware of the fact that Con-
dillac had worked out the same idea five years previously.
Bonnet was in many respects more widely read at the time
than Condillac, though his philosophical writings did not
exercise so great an influence on the French eighteenth-
centuiy movement. Bonnet was in a sense the founder
of what is known as physiological psychology. In both
his scientific and theological positions he approached
Priestley. He endeavoured to show the complete condi-
tioning of thought and sensation by cerebral and nervous
action ; but, like Priestley, he sought to elude the theo-
logical consequences of this doctrine by a resort to the
hypothesis of miracle.

Claude Adrien Helvetius, another contemporary writer,
(1715-17 71), further carried out the ideas of Condillac.
Helvetius declines to regard the " soul " as anything else
than the sum of its ideas. Since all ideas are ultimately
traceable to sensations or impressions of external objects,
all mental difierences which we find among men are the
result merely of chance and outward circumstance, the
most potent influence in the formation of character being
education. The end of life is happiness, by happiness
being understood the greatest possible amount of animal
pleasure. There is no such thing as disinterested conduct.
Since society is merely the sum of individuals, individual
satisfaction, as such, contributes to the general well-being.
Self-love is the only motive of conduct ; its import in the
moral world being analogous to that of gravitation in the
physical. It is the lever of psychological no less than of
practical action. All knowledge is dependent upon the
attention and study which arises from the desire to escape
ennui. Still more obvious is it that all practical action in
life is traceable to self-interested motives. From this it
follows that no moral teaching, whose aim is not to show
that virtuous conduct is that most conducive to individual
happiness, is of any value. The state, by acting on this
principle in its system of jurisprudence, that is, by making
punishment attend criminal conduct, shows the true
philosophic instinct. Helvetius is distinguished by con-

206 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch Lb.

siderable literary facility, and his works have been mure
than once republished in a complete form.

Another influential writer of this period was Julien
Offroy de la Mettrie (1709-1751) who was originally led
through observation of the delirium produced in fever, to
a conviction of the absolute dependence of the psychical on
the physical. Like Condillac, Bonnet, and Helvetius,
whom he preceded by a few years, he proclaimed the
ultimate reduction of thought and will to feeling. Intelli-
gence would be impossible in a man brought up outside
human intercourse. In ethics La Mettrie was the deter-
mined opponent of asceticism, his conception of life being
ably set forth in his "L'art de jouir." His polemic
against the convention and hypocrisy of human life
generally is especially effective. La Mettrie was a great
friend of Frederick the Great, who offered him an asylum
at his court from the persecutions on account of his
materialism which drove him successively from France
and Holland, and at his death composed an elegy on him,
which was read before the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
Voltaire facetiously styles him the " Court atheist."

A survey of any department of French eighteenth-century
literature would seem incomplete without some notice of
the great names of Voltaire and Rousseau. Their signifi-
cance for the history of philosoj^hy is, however, of the
smallest. Voltaire, whenever he touches on a philosophical
subject, does so from the standpoint of mechanical
eighteenth-century Deism. Eousseau is satisfied with a
sentimental Deism, and is extremely bitter against the
materialists. In his Social Contract, as already mentioned,
he develops in a remarkable manner hints which were
thrown out by Hobbes, Locke, &c. But original reflections
on philosophy proper are entirely absent.

DIDEROT.

The most important original figure produced by the
French eighteenth - century movement in its more
strictly philosophical aspect is undoubtedly Denis Diderot,
born 5th Oct. 1713. Diderot was originally destined for
the priesthood, but this career he soon abandoned for

Epoch Lb.] DIDEROT. 207

law, and this again for literature. Diderot had a truly
encyclopedic mind — a mind eminently adapted to be the
organising power of the great literary work with which
his name is most intimately associated. He possessed,
moreover, what in Voltaire and Rousseau was undoubtedly
lacking — a considerable speculative faculty. Diderot may
be said to have focuf-sed the materialist movement. The
reading and translation of Shaftesbury's works first shook
his faith in his early creed, and resulted in the Promenade
d^un Sceptique^ which, being impounded by government
before publication, did not see the light till after his
death. He soon developed into a deist in the ordinary
sense of the eighteenth-century man of letters, but was too
acute to rest long at this standpoint, and in the course of
a few years passed over to a logically cairied-out materi-
alism. Diderot, after a life of many vicissitudes, alter-
nately persecuted and patronised in France, finding a
refuge at the court of the Empress Catherine of Eussia,
i&c, died 13th July, 1784.

The pieces in which the mature Diderot is most clearly
exhibited on his philosophical side are the Interpre-
tation de la nature, the Entretien entre D'Alembert et Diderot,
and iife Beve de D'Alemhert, in the two latter of which,
as may be judged by the titles, his friend and coadjutor
on the Encyclojjedie, D'Alembert, plays a prominent part.
Several of the articles in the Encyclopedie itself are
rendered almost valueless owing to the fact that worldly
prudence induced the printer to modify them in an
orthodox sense before their publication.

Diderot may most accurately be described as a material-
istic monist. To him all nature was one ; the difference
between organic, inorganic, animal and human, were only
differences of degree. There was no such thing as dead
matter ; the molecule was no less an active agent than the
man. To employ an illustration of his : " the great musical
instrument we call the universe plays itself." It does not
require a demiuige or deus ex macJmid to evoke its harmonies
!8,nd discords. Matter is itself active by its very nature,
iitself sentient, itself conscious, potentially when not
actuallj^. In other words matter, i.e. physical substance, is
the ultimate ground of all existence ; nature is the sum of

208 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch Lb.

its combinations. One set of combinations manifests itself
as so-called inert, inorganic matter ; another set as organ-
ised sentient matter ; yet another as the thinking, feeling,
willing, animal or human body. Diderot admits, how-
ever, an original diversity in the primal constituents of
the various orders of material existences : " I term elements
the various and heterogeneous material substances necessary
to the general production of the phenomena of Nature,
and I term Nature, the actual general result, or the
successive general results, of the combinations of these
elements " (De F interpretation, Iviii.). Diderot proceeds to
suggest that animality had from all eternity its specific
elements," " confounded in the mass of matter," that they
gradually became united, and that thence vegetable, animal
and human life resulted.

The materialism of Diderot is rather akin to the doc-
trine of Anaxagoras, than to that of Demokritos (it was
Dynamism rather than Atomism). It is for this reason
that we class him as a monistic materialist, in spite of
certain passages which seem to make for a contrary as-
sumption ; more particularly since these are mainly to
be found in the earlier work just quoted. For instance,
in the Entretien we read : " There is but one substance
in the universe ; in man or in animal. The bird-organ is
of wood ; the man is of flesh. The canary is of flesh, the
musician is of a flesh differently organised ; but both have
the same origin, the same formation, the same functions,
and the same destiny." There is a remarkable passage in
the B>eve, where Diderot, speaking through the mouth of
the sleeping D'Alembert, gives an almost exact repro-
duction of the doctrine of the Homoiomerai. " Everything
is more or less some one thing, more or less earth, more or
less water, more or less air, more or less fire, more or less
of one kingdom or of another; for nothing is of the
essence of a particular being. No, assuredly, since there
is no quality of which some being is not participant, and
it is the greater or less amount of this quality which makes
us attribute it to one being rather than to another. You
speak of individuals, indeed, poor philosophers ! Let
your individuals be ; answer me ! Is there an atom in
nature strictly like another atom ? No. Do you not admit

Epoch I.e.] DIDEROT. 209

that everything in nature hangs together, and that it is
impossible there can be a break in the chain ? How then
about your individuals ? There are none ; there is but
one great individual, and that is the All. In this All, as
in a machine or an animal, there is a part which you call
this or that ; and when you give the name individual to
this part of the whole, it is by virtue of as false a con-
ception as if in a bird you were to give the name
individual to a wing or to a feather of the wing. And
you talk of essences, poor philosophers ! Let your essences
be ! Behold the general mass, or, if your imagination is
too narrow to embrace that, behold your first origin and
your last destiny. Oh Architas ! you who have measured
the globe, what are you ? A little ashes. What is a
being? The sum of a certain number of tendencies. Can
I be anything else than a tendency ? No, 1 am advancing
towards an end (Je vais aim terme). And species ? Species
are only tendencies towards a common end which is their
own. And life ? Life is a succession of actions and
reactions. Living, I act and react in mass ; dead, I act
and react in molecules. I do not die then ? No, assuredly
I do not die in this sense ; neither I nor anything else.
To be bom, to live and to pass away, is but change of
form. And what matters, one form or another ? Each form
has its own good and ill fortune. From the elephant
to the grub, from the grub to the sensible and living
molecule, the origin of all, there is no point in all nature
which does not suffer or enjoy."

And again, in the short essay Sur la Matlere et le
Mouvement : " I cast my ej^es over the general aggregation
of bodies ; I see everything in action and reaction ; every-
thing destroying itself under one form, everything recom-
posing itself under another ; sublimations, dissolutions,
combinations, of all kinds ; j^henomena incompatible with
the homogeneity of matter ; whence I conclude that it is
heterogeneous; that there exists an infinity of diverse
elements in nature ; that each of these elements, by its
diversity, has its particular force, innate, immovable,
eternal, indestructible ; and that these forces within the
body have their action without the body ; whence springs
the movement, or rather the general fermentation of the

P

210 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

universe." The force inherent in matter is at once the
varying and uniting principle of the whole. It will be
readily seen that the materialism of Diderot differs in
some not unessential points from the scientific materialism
of the present day, and also that his several statements
of the doctrine are not always consistent with one another.
The first is but natural and to be expected. Our admiration
for the luminous suggestions of the eighteeenth-century
writer will not be lessened bj^ the few crudities from the
point of view of modern science which cling to them ; while
as to the second point, it must be borne in mind that
Diderot was primarily a man of letters rather than an exact
thinker.

In method, Diderot is of course a thorough-going
empiricist. Materialism is the logical development of
empiricism, the tinith which it implicitly contains. In
the Entretien, D'Alembert is made to observe that according
to the system propounded by Diderot it is impossible to
conceive " how we form syllogisms, or how deduce their
consequences." To this Diderot replies that we do not
deduce them, that the}^ are deduced for us by nature.
" We do but proclaim conjoint phenomena of which tbe
connection is either necessarj^ or contingent, phenomena
which are known to us through experience ; necessary in
mathematics, rigorous in physics and other sciences ;
contingent in morals, politics and the rest of the specula-
tive sciences." To the question whether the connection
between phenomena is less necessary in one case than in
another, Diderot replies, " No, but the cause is subject to
too many particular vicissitudes which elude us, for us to
be able to reckon infallibly on the effect which will ensue.
The certainty we have that a violent man will be irritated
by an insult is not the same as the certainty that a body
which strikes a smaller one will set the latter in motion."

We have quoted from Diderot at comparative length,
inasmuch as he represents the most finished literary
expression of the materialist movement. But the classical
text-book of this movement is not to be found in the
elegant and chatty dialogues and essays of the French
litterateur, but in the more systematic thouoh drier pages
of the Systeme de la Nature^ originally published under ihe

Epoch I.b.] D'hOLBACH. 211

name of the elder Mirabeaii, but now known to be the
work of the Baron d'llolbach and the habitues of his
salon.

D'HOLBACH.

D'HoLBACH, or to give him his full title, Paul Heinrich
Dietrich, Baron von Holbach, was bom 1721, at Heides-
heim, in Germany, and educated in Paris, where he spent
the greater part of his life, amid the wits, men of letters,
and " philosophers " of the pre-revolutionary era. He died
21st February, 1789.

The Systeme de la Nature is a systematic embodiment
and exposition of the principles of the dominant mate-
rialism. In it we find the Empiricism of the British
school, the Sensationism of Condillac, its pendant, the
self-interest ethics of Helvetius, the physiology and epi-
cureanism of Lamettrie ; the whole forming the bible of
materialism as understood in France during the eighteenth
century. The only existence is matter, i.e. physical
substance and the motion that is inherent in it. The
complex of all things is termed nature, which constitutes
the whole, inasmuch as all things stand in a causal rela-
tion to one another. Hence ever^^thing in nature is
necessary. The three conditions of motion in the physical
world are inertia, attraction, and repulsion. Motion is
brought about through the inequalities in the degrees of
attraction and repulsion in bodies. The same forces
appear in the moral world as self-interest, love and
hate. The only difference between the physical and the
moral consists in the difference between the visible motion
of masses, i.e. of complex systems of molecules, and the
invisible motion of the molecules themselves. Thought,
will, and feeling consist in the molecular motion of brain
and nerve substance. Owing to this not having been
recognised, dualism, or the doctrine of two substances, a
mental and a material, with all its train of fallacies, has
arisen. Perception is nothing but the setting in motion
of the molecular system of the brain and nerves by
impact from without. It cannot be decided whether
sensibility is, as Diderot suggested, present in every

p 2

212 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch I.b.

portion of matter, or whether organisation is its essential
condition. Moral action is a necessary consequence of
temperament, which simply denotes the relative propor-
tions of the solid and the fluid matters in the system.
There is nothing more spiritual in love and hate, or in the
numberless passions of which these two are the foun-
dation, than there is in the phenomena of gravitation
or of impact. The only diiference is, as before said,
that in the one case we can see the material motion
which produces the phenomenon, in the other it is hidden
from us.

It was only natural, after men had constituted them-
selves into a double existence, that they should extend
this theory to the universe at large. Hence arose the
conception of a God over against the world, a conception
which explains nothing, does no one any good, frightens
the foolish, and the folly of which is manifest in the
fact that it can be expressed only by negations. The
contradiction of ascribing to the deity human passions
and morality, after removing him altogether from the
sphere of the conceivable, is dwelt on. To the rational
man there is no god beyond the force which moves the
universe, appearing now as mechanical motion, now as
sensibility, now as thought ; to him there is no providence
but the invariable laws of nature. D'Holbach and his
friends are uncompromising in their attacks on the
eighteenth-century theory, which justified superstition, on
the ground of edification. To teach error for the sake of
curbing the passions of men, is like instilling poison lest
strength and health should be misused.

The doctrine of free-will is stigmatised as a cunning
device for maintaining the credit of the deity in the face
of the evils of the world. The adherents of the doctrine
forget that an uncaused event would suppose quite a
different world from this, and that a really free agent couid
be nothing less than a creator. The immorality of the
belief in a future life is also insisted upon as tending to
the neglect of the real world and of its pleasures and
duties. A thorough-going materialism is alone consistent
with common-sense and human dignity, inasmuch as it
frees men from the degrading fear of imaginary evils and

Erocn I.e.] d'hOLBACH. 213

from useless regrets. The materialist has neither concern
for the future, nor remorse for the past ; all that happens,
moral no less than mechanical actions, being the necessary
outcome of the nature of things. Vice and crime are to
the materialist mere disease. The latter would supplant
the preacher and the judge by the teacher and the phy-
sician. He would be content to make men healthy in
body, and to train them to see that their own interest lies
in virtue, knowing that crime would thus become ever
more rare, until it altogether ceased.

The Systeme de la Nature marks an epoch. Though,
for obvious reasons, it has been persistently depreciated,
its power, honesty and logicality, produced an immediate
and widespread effect on contemporary thought. It suc-
ceeded in sweeping away the cobwebs of traditional belief
from many a mind, and in utterly discrediting the senti-
mental Deism then popular. As against the inconsequent
doctrines, philosophical and other, which were opposed to
it, it was unanswerable, while its noble and humane moral
teachings were the inspiring and sustaining power of
numbers a few years later, whether in civil conflict or in
the tumbril carrying them to the guillotine.

The ideas contained in the Systeme de la Nature were
developed on their scientific side by various savants,
notably Cahanis, Claude, and Testutt de Tracy. Cahanis
(1758-1808) made a distinct advance on D'Holbach by
identifying psychological processes rather with chemical
and organic than with mechanical action. Cahanis is,
however, chiefly famed for his crude and singularly
unhappy analogy between the cerebral and visceral
systems.

Of analogous nature to the error of D'Holbach in failing
to distinguish between organic or vital processes and
mechanical, is that which he exhibits in failing to see
the difference between physiological and social processes.
He would trace the existence of vice and crime to certain
pathological states of the individual's body or mind, rather
than to the economic and social conditions into which the
individual is born.

( 214 ) [Epoch n

MODEEN PHILOSOPHY.

SECOND EPOCH.
KANT AND THE POST-KANTIAXS.

INTRODUCTION.

Eetrospective and Prospective.

We have now passed in review since the beginning of
the modern period, two distinct lines of philosophic
thought, the one springing from Descartes and his school,
and the other from Bacon and Hobbes. In the first the
abstract concept arrived at by reflection is made ' the
unconditional test of truth, its validity that is, is apart
from and even outside all experience. Descartes began his
new departure in philosophy by the illogically constructed
proposition, / think, thevpfore I am. This was the funda-
mental axiom of all knowledge, the certainty of certainties.
But what was this / of which Descartes talked ? Upon
this question much hinges.

In the view of the present writer, eminent authorities
to the contrary notwithstanding, the result clearly showed
it to have been the " internal " object arrived at by
reflection — the individual mind. At least if Descartes
meant anything other than this at starting, he certainly
very soon lost sight of it ; for the whole of his philosophy
proceeds on the foregoing assumption, and proceeds on it
simply enough. The thinking individual once postulated
as the prius, " the clearness and distinctness " of its ideas
or abstract mental concepts, becomes naturally the basis
of truth and its only ultimate criterion, in other words, the
reflective reason is the key to the problems of philosophy,
unalloyed by the baser matter of sense. The idea of God
is attained ia this way, similarly that of an independent

Epoch II.] KANT AND THE POST-KANTIANS. 215

though created external world, Sec, Szg. The possession of
certain fundamental ideas justified the construction out of
them of a dogmatic sj'stem irrespective of experience.
Malebrauche, accepting the main Cartesian positions, and
taking his stand on the idea of substance, asked how two
distinct substances, mind and body, could come into a
position of reciprocal relation. This question he answered
by constituting the Divine substance which was the
origin of both, the modus vivendi between them. The
abstract conception substance as defined by Descartes
became the fulcrum upon which his philosophy turned.
This principle was further and independently carried out
by Spinoza, who, taking the same concept, denied, by its
very definition, the possibility of a plurality of substances.
He accordingly affirmed God to be the one substance, of
which mind and body or Thought and Extension were the
attributes, the reality and correspondence of which were
given only in their relation to this substance. Out of the
two psychologically " clear and distinct " ideas of substance
and attribute, the system of Spinoza was formed.

Leibnitz, starting essentially from the same principle,
though endeavouring to give it precision by sundry
limitations and corrections, the principle, namely, that the
" clearness and distinctness " of the mental concept is the
ultimate criterion of all truth, evolved a pluralistic
ontology, the antithesis on this historical plane of the
Spinozistic Monism. Wolff, Baumgarten, Crusius, &c., all
adhered to the same principle of method, though intro-
ducing various modifications into the results of the
Leibnitzian speculations.

These schools, springing from Descartes, are what are
termed the Dogmatic or Abstract metaphysical schools.
They are systems to be received from the hands of a
teacher — what the ordinary man has confusedly in his
mind when he rails at all things metaphysical. Side by
side with this development on the Continent, there was, as
we have seen, another going on in this country. Bacon
had laid down the inductive principle, had pronounced
the method of all investigation to be the observation,
collegation and comparison of individual facts. This
Hobbes had adopted in his philosophical investigations,

216 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IL

which consisted in the study of what passed in his own
mind, in other words, of the manner in which the
individual mind opens up (so to speak) to the perception
of a fullj^-fledged objective workl — of the world as known.
Locke, following on this line, attacked the theory of *' in-
nate ideas," as he termed them, by which he probably
meant the Cartesian mental concept, this polemic consti-
tuting the framework of his essay. For Locke, the main
question of philosophy was, is the individual born into the
world with any ready-made, concrete ideas in his mind, or
does he derive all his knowledge through experience?

The question as thus put, it was, of course, not difficult
to answer, and to answer in the sense in which Locke did
answer it. He said in efi'ect, all knowledge is derived
from experience, or to put it popularly, through the
senses. Berkeley pursued this idea to its logical con-
clusion on the one side, when he denied that an external
world of " matter " had any existence except in a perceiving
mind, for, said he, we only know it through experience
as perceived, any other kind of existence we can only infer,
and as he demonstrated, illegitimately infer. Hume,
accepting the conclusions of Locke and Berkeley, carried
them to an equally" logical conclusion, on another side,
when he showed " mind " or " soul " itself, regarded as an
entity, to be an illegitimate inference from the succession
of thoughts and feelings which is all that experience
gives us. Empiricism, the necessary outcome of inductive
psj^chology, issued as necessarily when fully carried out in
pure phenomenalism or scepticism. The French sensa-
tionists and materialists, starting from Locke's incomplete
Empiricism, are the counterpart of Berkeley's Idealism,
their analysis being equally correct as far as it went, but
equally incomplete and inadequate. While Berkeley
rejected the entity "matter" but retained the entity
" mind," they got rid of the entity " mind " but retained
the entity " matter." On the basis of his sole existence,
" mind," Berkelej^ sought to establish a dogmatic Theism
or Spiritualism. On the basis of their sole existence,
" matter," they sought to rear a dogmatic Materialism or
Mechanicism. Though we are far from placing the posi-
tive results of the two procedures on a level; we must

Epoch II.] KANT AND THE rOST-KANTIANS. 217

point out that, philosophically viewed, they are on
precisely the same plane. I'he practical difference between
their results is, that Berkeley's work, important as it was,
was mainly negative, while that of the materialists laid the
foundation, to a large extent, of modern science.

Both the foregoing lines of investigation, as will be
seen, started from the individual mind as object. It
was the "clearness and distinctness" of the concept
that the individual mind forms, which was the test of
truth for the Cartesian. It was the reproduction of a
world alreadj^ assumed as existent in the mind of the
individual, that was the yjroblem to be investigated for
Hobbes and Locke. Even for Berkeley, the "finite
spirits " and the " infinite spirit " respectively, in and
for which alone matter existed, were concrete individual
minds of men, and the similarly concrete and individual,
though magnified mind of the creator, which was, so to
speak, over against and distinct from them, as they were
from each other. Similarly for the Sensation ists the
problem was the action of the assumed material world
upon the sensory system of the individual. Hence it is
that Spinoza's Monism was such a riddle to his contem-
poraries and successors till the present century, dogmatic
metaphysicians and empirical psychologists alike.

The main speculative result of this evolution, both
dogmatic and empirical, was the distinction of subject
and object, that is, of perceiver and perceived, thinker
and thought, knowing mind and known world. This
was the main issue of a whole series of problems and
distinctions which had never troubled the schoolmen or
the ancients, but which rose up before the seventeenth
and eighteenth century thinker, once he had decisively
turned his back on the classical and mediaeval speculative
landscape. Not until Kant, however, did the distinction
receive definite expression and become cardinal. The
definite fixation of this distinction, which belongs essen-
tially to the empirical or psychological plane of thought,
discloses the inherent contradiction in Empiricism. Hence
Kant represents at the same time the culmination and the
bankruptcy of this line of thought. In the Critique he
endeavours to treat the deeper issues involved in ' Theorv

218 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

of Knowledge,' of which he was the first to catch a
glimpse, on the lines of this mere psychological distinc-
tion. His success and his failure were alike written in
the history of the subsequent philosophic evolution.

The above, then, was the state of philosophy in the
second half of the eighteenth century. On the one side
were the dogmatic metaphysicians, assuming the clearness
and distinctness of the thinkers' concepts, to be a test of
their objective truth or reality ; on the other, the em-
pirical psychologists, who maintained all concepts to be
^ originally derived from concrete experience, which was
hence at once the source and ultimate criterion of truth.

Kant, following a hint dropped by Hume, namely, his
distinction between the necessity attaching to mathe-
matics, and the contingency of " matters of fact and
experience," was led to put the crucial question, What is
experience ? i.e. what is this concreteness we call reality ?
With the Lockeian school, Kant admitted that every
concrete concept can come only through experience —
indeed, this was of the nature of a platitude to him — but
his great merit lies in having seen, if imperfectly, the issue
which lay beyond this mere psychological question, the
question, namely, as to the conditions of experience itself?
In investigating this, Kant found that experience or
perception was not wholly sensuous, that the pheno-
menon was more than a ready-made impression passively
received from without, that it involved a thought or
active element — in short, that the mere sense-impression

hM-^Ist_of.^^-tQJbe-deteimneiOiy--a^^ ^^^"p^^

concept before it could become experience. Further
investigation proved this to lie deeper than the object of
reflection, the individual self, with which alone philo-
sophers had been hitherto concerned. The pure concept,
which entered so intimately into the essence of the
concrete, was universal and necessary, while all that
existed for the individual as such was merely emiDirical
and contingent. Kant proceeded to trace the categories or
pure concepts, determining the real (which he had hit
upon in a somewhat haphazard manner) back to their
source, and original first principle. This proved to be,
not the self or mental synthesis determined in time by

Epoch II.] KANT AND THE POST-KANTIANS. 219

memory, bnt the I for which time is, and which Kant
designates the original synthetic unity of consciousness or
apperception. The oKl antagonism of Materialism and
Idealism is clearly absorbed in this more thoroughgoing
analysis. *' Mind " and " body " cease to be separate
entities, mutually exclusive of one another, and are dis-
closed as the same fact differently categorised. A short
sketch of the successive changes of attitude implied in the
passage from the common-sense view of the non-philoso-
phical man, through Empiricism to that of Kant and the
post-Kantian thinkers, may facilitate an understanding of
much that follows, which, without some kind of key, would
be scarcely intelligible to the reader unversed in the
matter.

The ordinary man believes the phenomena of the
world to be things existing in themselves and apart from
their cognition. The. Berkeleian or Humean philosopher
dispels this belief of his by a reductio ad ahsurdum, to
wit, by pointing out to him that the thing, object, or
matter, all, namely, that is perceived externally to our-
selves, is nothing but a congeries of affect ons or deter-
minations of consciousness, as much so as the thoughts,
feelings, and volitions which are unmistakably peculiar to
himself as an individual. He is therefore immediately seized
with a sense as of living in a dream-world, a world of phan-
tasms, since the outer world is shown to have no more in-
dependence of the fact of being known, felt, and perceived,
than the inner. Both alike consist of impressions and ideas,
and he fails to discover — his old land-mark, independent
existence, being removed — any ground of distinction be-
tween them. The real table and his recollection of the table
are alike determinations of his consciousness. But this
state of mind cannot permanently endure. The absurdity
of confounding empirical reality and empirical ideality in
one category, the instability of an attitude which logically
carried out makes the individual absolute, at once centre
and periphery of the universe, carries its own reductio ad
ahsurdum with it. The world refuses to be philosophised
away, and forces to a reconsideration of the problem.

The first departure from a state of innocence established
one fact, namely, that a world outside consciousness is

220 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch H.

nonsense and a contradiction in terms. A return to crude
realism therefore is out of the question. The head and
front of the offending diflficulty is not to be found in the
first position of philosophy arrived at in the departure
from common-sense, which reduced the world to a system
of determinations of a feeling and thinking subject. May
it not lie in a loose employment of the words knowledge,
feeling, consciousness? Our philosophical neophyte pro-
ceeds to examine them. This examination proves that
these words have been used in a different sense in the
premises of the argument to that in which they have been
used in the conclusion, in short, that it involves the fallacy
a dido simpUciter ad dictum secundum quid. The first posi-
tion of philosophy merely reduced reality to determinations
of knowledge, or feeling and thinking, i.e. of a conscious
Bubject. The conclusion implicitly or explicitly drawn as
to the illusoriness of reality is based on the assumption
that the subject referred to is the subject which is at the
same time object, the synthesis determined by memory,
that is, reproduced in time, the individual mind. All with-
in the sphere of this latter, or psychological synthesis, is
of course of merely individual significance, is purely em-
pirical. The conclusion arbitrarily imports into the terms
used a psychological meaning, as implying the completed
actuality immediately present in the individual mind, while
in the premises no such limitation is contained.

But, says our empiricist, I only know of thought or
feeling as appertaining to myself as an individual. No,
interposes the speculative thinker, who at this stage steps
in to the rescue. In this assumption consists the cul-de-sac
in which you find yourself caught. Vou assume know-
ledge or consciousness to be identical with the reproductive
synthesis constituting the individual mind, but analysis —
nay, ordinary experience itself — gives the lie to this as-
sumption. The objective world, which 3'ou have already
seen to be nothing more than related feelings (or states
of consciousness, if you will), refuses to be reduced to a
mere series of your personal feelings or states of conscious-
ness. You and I alike perceive the table, the same table,
not two different impressions of an occult table in itself,
as the imperfectly developed empiricist supposes, nor two

Epoch IL] KANT AND THE rOST-KANTIANS. 221

different tables, as the psychological idealist must needs
suppose ; else thought and language have no meaning.
This objective ixyint, at which our consciousness ceases to be
distinguishable as mine and yours, but which to me and to
you, so far as we are individuals, is given as for all possible
consciousness, is not a mere determination of me, i.e. of my
mind, like my personal thoughts, feelings, and desires,
but is a determination of that ego or subject for which
my mind itself is object, of tlie J which is never in con-
sciousness, inasmuch as it is the subject of consciousness.
The objective, then, is that element or factor in knowledge
which though per se extra-individual, the individual makes
his own by reproducing in his concepts. Psychology is
the science which traces the process of reproduction. For
the individual it is mediate, unlike his thoughts and
feelings which are immediate. This necessary and
universal or object-G\em.ent in knowledge or consciousness,
it is, which constitutes its reality. The term real dis-
tinguishes it from the merely psychological element which
is popularly expressed by* the word ideal.

In accordance with the foregoing, there are three points
of view from which the world may be regarded. There is
the standpoint of physical or natural science, which con-
cerns itself exclusively with the objectively real. Here
abstraction is made from the self-determining subject, and
the processes of the production of the real, as well as
those of its reproduction in the individual mind, in other
words, of the problems of metaphysic and psychology re-
spectively. The abstract real, the fully-fledged object in
space and time, but abstracted from the principle of
its generic possibility, and treated as an existent, is
viewed in the same way as by the unreflective common-
sense of the ordinary man and the crude empiricist.
The ultimate expression of the objective real is, j^hysical
substance, static and dynamic, the " matter and motion "
of the materialists. To physical substance and to its
categories of determination, and to this alone, the whole
sum of things is legitimately reducible from this point of
view.

Again, there is the standpoint of psychology, which
views the world simply as reproduced in the "mind.'

222 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch U

This is the standpoint of Berkeleian idealism proper,
As in science, " matter " is treated as an abstract entity, so
here, *'mind" is treated as an abstract entity, as the
receptacle of "impressions and ideas," also regarded as
independent existences. The universe of psychology is
*' mind " and " ideas."

Lastly, there is the synthetic point of view of the
speculative method, which treats the world under its most
comprehensive and concrete aspect, as a system of deter-
minations of knowledge or consciousness — or rather of the
Subject, the I, or I-ness, which is the ultimate condition of
the possibility of consciousness-in-general, and w^hich, as
such, can rever, per se, be object of consciousness, like the
self or mind of psychology. On this principle the con-
crete-real is seen in the last resort to consist in the
syntheses of relations, or /-determinations. How from
this is deducible the method by which all evolution is
determinable we shall see later on.

We may observe respecting^ the three ways of ap-
proaching the world-problem, that the materia prima of
natural science is corporeality, extending- resistance ; its
universal form is motion. This is the lowest term to
which the universe is reducible on the lines of " common-
sense " and "abstract" reality, i.e. the universe in space-
and-time. Outside this there is no rational principle of
explanation — in other words, there is no phenomenon in
space-and-time which cannot be expressed in terms of
matter-motion. Again, the materia prima of psychology is
mind, its universal form being ideation. The psycho-
logical universe which is in time merely, is reducible to
terms of mind (impressions and ideas). Finally, the raw
material, the matter of " Theory of Knowledge " is I-ness,
i.e. the potentiality of consciousness, its universal form
being experience, knoivledge, or consciousness - in - general.
" Theory of Knowledge," it will thus be seen, embraces,
while it transcends the two former standpoints.

It must not be supposed that the f )regoing is to be found,
in so many words, in Kant. Like all intellectual pioneers,
Kant clung to many of the crudities of his predecessors
even till the end. He never completely disengaged him-
self from crude realism, or a'- least from its survival in

Epoch II.] KANT AND THE POST-KANTIANS. 223

the Lockean doctrine ; for the " things-in-themselves " of
Kant are essentially a hybrid between the " substance "
of Locke and the Leibnitzian monads with which Kant's
earlier philosophical training had familiarised him. The
whole Critique of pure Reason (Kant's greatest work) is,
moreover, cast in a psychological form, although the true
nature of the problem it is concerned with continually
forces its way through.

But though the above exposition is not expressed in so
many words by Kant, it is indicated in every page of his
writings, and was substantially the result evolved from
his main position in the course of the post-Kantian
Movement.

224 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

KANT.

Immanuel Kant was born April 22nd, 1724, at Konigsberg,
in wbich city be resided witb but few intermissions
throngbout a long life. He was of Scotcb descent on bis
fatber's side, tbe name baving been properly spelt Cant.*
Kant entered tbe university of bis native city as a
tbeological student, a faculty wbicb be subsequently
forsook in favour of pbilosopby. His first work was an
academical essay entitled " Tbougbts on tbe true estima-
tion of tbe Vital Powers." Sbortly after tbe publication
of tbis treatise be left tbe city, and for several years
occupied tbe post of private tutor in various aristocratic
families. In 1755 be returned to Konigsberg, wbere be
obtained tbe position of Privat-docent in tbe university.
He now began to devote bimself in earnest to literary
■work. Tbe Latin essay wbicb preceded bis installation in
bis academical functions, sougbt to mediate between Wolff
and Crucius. His next important w^ork, tbe ' Greneral
Natural History and Tbeory of tbe Heavens,' is similarly
designed to effect a modus vivendi between Newton and
Leibnitz. Various logical, metapbysical, and scientific
essays foUow^ed in rapid succession. Tbe Latin disserta-
tion " On tbe form and principle of tbe sensible and
intelligible world," constitutes tbe turning-point in Kant's
pbilosopbical career. Tberein we find tbe awakened
Kant endeavouring to formulate tbe problem of w^bicb tbe
' Critique ' was to be tbe attempted solution. Tbis work
was bis test-essay for tbe professorsbip of pbilosopby,
wbicb be entered upon in 1770. For eleven years sub-
sequently, Kant was ceaselessly occupied witb tbe prob-
lems indicated in tbis dissertation, tbe result of bis cogita-
tions being tbe appearance in 1781 of 'Tbe Critique of

* The reason for change of orthography assigned by Kant himself,
is the rather enigmatical one that it was in consequence of the
tendency of his countrymen to pronounce the name as though it
began with Z (Zant).

Epoch II.] KANT. 225

the Pure Reason,' a work which, in spite of its long in-
ception, in actual writing out only occupied its author five
months. This was followed in 1783 by the 'Prolegomena
to every future Metaphysic,' an abstract of the last-
mentioned treatise ; by a second and somewhat mollified
edition of 'The Critique' in 1784; by 'The Foundation
for the Metaphysic of Ethic' in 1786 ; by the 'Metaphy-
sical Foundations of Natural Science' in 1787 ; and the
'Ciitique of Practical Reason' in 1788. In 1790
appeared the* ' Critique of Judgment,' a work exhibiting
a visible falling-off in power, which may also be said oi
'Religion within the boundary of Mere Reason' (1793).
The last important work from Kant's own pen was the
'Anthropology,' which saw the light in 1798. Sub-
sequently to this, however, Kant's lectures on " Logic," on
" Physical Geography," and on " Pedagogic," were all
published by his pupils during his lifetime. Kant died
the 11th of February, 1804, aged eighty.

Three complete editions of Kant's works have been
issued, that of Hartenstein (Leipsic, 1838-39, second
edition 1866) in ten volumes ; that of Rosenkranz and
Schubert, comprising a biography and a history of the
Kantian Philosophy (Leipsic, 1840-42) in twelve volumes ;
and the latest, that of Kirchmann (Berlin, 1868) in eight
volumes, with a supplementary volume of annotations by
the editor.

"The Critical Doctrine."

The guise in which the great problems comprised under
what is termed " Theory of Knowledge," problems which
touch the foundations of consciousness and reality, pre-
sented themselves to Kant, fresh from the reading of
Hume and the Empirical school, was the at first sight
unpretentious psychological question, " How are synthetic
propositions a priori possible?" The classification of
propositions into analytic, or those in which the predicate
is already contained in the subject, and which are there-
fore virtually identical ; and synthetic, or those in which
the predicate adds something to the subject which is not
already contained in its definition, we have already found

Q

226 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

in Locke, although in other words. The distinction is
practically the same as that between verbal and real
predication. Now there is no doubt that all analytic
propositions are a priori, that is, independent of any
particular experience ; also that they carry with them a
logical necessity and universality. There is equally little
doubt, that most synthetic propositions (the Empiricists
would say all) have their origin in particular experience,
in other words, are a posteriori. Kant, however, found
certain propositions, such, to wit, as the fundamental
axioms of mathematics, and some others of equal, or even
greater importance, whose nature we shall see directly,
which by the "universality and necessity" that charac-
terised them, proclaimed their origin, as independent of any
number of particular or individual experiences whatsoever,
in short, as a priori. Experience itself presupposed them ;
tbey formed part of the constitution of every particular
experience ; without them, experience would be impossible
or meaningless ; it would no longer he experience. This
universality and necessity was not merely logical, like
that of analytic judgments, but entered into the constitu-
tion of reality. The apparently simple and unpretentious
psychological query thus assumed a far more formidable
aspect. The question was now nothing less than : " How
is experience itself possible? " what is this " necessary and
universal " element that goes to the making of, or that
underlies that real experience, which the Empiricists take
as a matter of course, and about which they talk so glibly ?
What is the principle or principles from which it is
deducible, and what is the method and order of deduction ?
Such is the problem to which Kant addressed himself in
the ' Critique of the Pure Eeason,' and we may add also,
to which the series of German thinkers with whom Kant
was the starting-point, and which culminated in Hegel,
addressed themselves.

The disadvantage, as we have already observed in our
section on the transition to Kant, which Kant laboured
under, in attacking this problem from a psycho-
logical base (so to speak), from which he was unable
or unwilling to cut himself off, is manifest in every page
of his philosophical wii tings. A terminology derived now

Epoch II.] KANT. 227

from the old dogmatic systems, and now from empirical
psychology, hampers his thought at every turn, making
him in some cases inconsistent with himself, and in
others scarcely intelligible. Kant sometimes speaks as
though he viewed " Theory of knowledge," merely as
the vestibule of a possible metaphysic, at least he puts
it forward as the preliminary question, which all meta-
physicians must answer, before they can properly proceed
to construct a system, professing to deal with the time-
honoured problems of philosophy. He hesitated to
formally insist, as he might have done, and as indeed he
frequentl}^ hints, that the answer to this question exhausts
the whole problem of metaphysics, and of itself constitutes
philosophy. He felt that some place must still be left for
the old speculative inquiries. With Kant, the chief end
of philosophy still remained the answer to questions, as to
God, the Soul, and Freewill. It is true they were not to
be answered in the spirit of traditional dogmatism. They
had no longer any theoretical locus standi in philosophy,
but their determination, direction, and formulation, in
the interests of practice, was still its chief function. In
this, as in other respects, the separate influences of the
two sides of Kant's philosophical education display them-
selves. Empiricism proclaimed the limitation of all know-
ledge to' experience. The dogmatists of the Leibnitz-
Wolfian school, whose works formed Kant's earliest
philosophical pabulum, constituted the discussion of the
nature of God, of the human Soul as an independent
entity, and of the absolute constitution of the World-
order, as the sole end and object of philosophy. Although
Kant saw that " Theory of knowledge " was concerned
with nothing but experience ; although he saw that no
speculative science, as such, could be concerned with
anything higher than this ; he nevertheless felt himself
bound to make up his account, in some way or other, with
the old questions. The ingenuity with which he en-
deavoured to effect this without invalidating his main
speculative position we shall presently see.

Just as little as the Empiricists considered what was
implied in that experience to which they were so fond of
insisting (and with justice) that our knowledge is limited,

Q2

228 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IL

did the dogmatists consider the significance and applica-
tion of the conceptions which they so freely assumed to
transcend all experience. The former assumed experience
as a thing given, the latter assumed the absolute validity
of certain of the concepts which experience presupposes
as part of its own constitution beyond that constitution.
The Empiricist never stopped to ask himself what are the
conditions which render experience possible. The Dog-
matist never stopped to enquire whether hisr abstract
concepts had any validity outside experietx;e ; or how he
came by concepts which appear to transcend experience.

The thinker who wakened Kant from his dogmatic
slumber, as he expresses it, was Hume. Hume had shown
that the notion of causality does not spring from experience,
but is somehow or other imposed by us on the events
which are given us in experience. The sceptical attitude
assumed by Hume, as regards metaphysics, was merely
the result of his imperfect analysis. Had he not limited
his researches to the conception of causality alone, he would
have discovered that the whole of pure mathematics
consists of similar — as Hume would have deemed them —
arbitrarily constructed syntheses. This would have sufficed
to " give him pause," inasmuch as he must either have
straightway abandoned mathematical certainty, or have
reconsidered his position with reference to metaphysics.
To profit by Hume's genius as displayed in his researches
into the causation problem, and to repair the errors
arising from his shortsightedness, we must institute the
enquiry into how we come to form such combinations
or syntheses, which carry with them "necessity and
universality," in other words, as to the nature and con-
ditions of knowledge or experience-in-general— an enquiry
distinct from the merely psychological one, as to what
falls within individual experience. Kant, nevei-theless,
in spite of his insisting on the distinction, is apt only
too frequently, to mix ujd the respective points of view of
" Theory of knowledge " and psychology.

Epoch II.] KANT. 229

Transcendental ^Esthetic.

Kant understands by " Transcendental " all that be-
longs to the conditions or possibility of experience as
opposed to " Transcendent " by which he understands that
which professes to transcend, or pass beyond experience.
Transcendental enquiries are simply enquiries into the
conditions which experience presupposes, without refer-
ence to the content given in any particular or individual
experience. The sum of such enquiries constitute what is
called Transcendental philosophy. Transcendental ^Esthetic
'denotes therefore, with Kant, the enquiry into the a priori
or transcendental conditions of Sensibility. These Kant
finds to be space and time, together with all that is
directly deducible from them. In these two forms of
Sensibility are contained the possibility of the axioms
of mathematics. They are not given to us through
the senses, like our individual impressions; these latter
constitute the matter, or the purely empirical element
in our Sensibility. On the other hand, space and
time constitute the formal element, which helps to give
reality to these impressions. The formal element of
space-time combines the manifold matter of sensibility
into intuition or perception. Upon the matter, the sense-
impression which is received from without, Sensibility
imposes its own unifying forms. In space the manifold
impressions of sense are united in co-existence, in time in
succession. The a priori nature of space and time is
proved by the fact that we cannot make abstraction from
them even in thought, as we can from all that is merely
empirical. That they are different from conceptions ab-
stracted by the understanding is evident, since space or
time do not presuppose individual spaces or times, but on
the contrary, individual spaces or times can only be
thought of as parts of the one universal space or time.
Further, that they only reside in our Sensibility, and not
in the object itself, is evidenced by the fact that purely,
spacial distinctions cannot be described objectively, but
only with reference to the cognising subject. " What can

230 MODERN PHILOSOPHY, [Epoch II.

more resemble my hand or my ear, and be in all points
more like, than its image in the looking-glass ? And yet
I cannot put such a hand as I see in the glass in the
place of its original ; for when the latter is a right hand,
the one in the glass is a left hand, and the image of a
right ear is a left one, which can never take the place of
the former. Now there are no internal differences that
could be imagined by any understanding. And yet the
differences are internal, so far as the senses teach us,
for the left hand cannot, despite all equality and simi-
larity, be enclosed within the same bounds as the right
(they are not congruent) ; the glove of one hand cannot
be used for the other. What then is the solution?
These objects are not presentations of things as they are
in themselves, and as the pure understanding would
cognise them, but they are sensuous intuitions, i.e.
phenomena, the possibility of which rests on the relations
of certain unknown things in themselves to something else,
namely, to our Sensibility." (Kant's ' Prolegomena,' § 13,
Bohn's edition.) By means, then, of the forms of space
and time, we combine the various impressions of sense
together into a whole. Intuitions, presentations, or phe-
nomena (i.e. appearances) consist therefore of formed, or
in other words, timed and spaced, feelings or impressions.
It is, however, only time that can be predicated of all
phenomena whatever, for although space and time are
alike mere subjective conditions of our Sensibility, yet
space only belongs to the impressions of external Sensi-
bility, and does not apply to our internal states ; on the
contrary, time is immediately only the form of a connec-
tion of inward states or affections, in short, of internal
Sensibility ; but since there is no external impression
that is not accompanied by the internal intuition of self,
time is indirectly the form of external intuitions also.
The matter of Sensibility, that is, the manifold impressions
of sense therein, being the empirical and casual element,
it follows that this formal and necessary element of
space-time must be pure and a priori. But if space and
time are the a priori forms of all phenomena, intuitions, or
perceptions, it is obvious that all the temporal and spacial
determinations of phenomena admit of prediction in a

Epoch II.] KANT. 231

universal and necessary manner. Now these determina-
tions constitute the subject-matter of mathematical science.
Arithmetic (and those departments of mathematics based
upon it) is concerned with the repetition or succession of the
unit, in other words, is founded on time. Geometry again
deals with the configuration of space. The axioms and
postulates of these sciences, inasmuch, therefore, as they are
already implicitly present in our Sensibility itself, are
universally and necessarily predicable of all that falls
within it. But this also proves that mathematical pro-
positions are strictly limited in their application to the
phenomena given through sense, and in no way apply to
things-in-them selves.

In brief, according to Kant, Sensibility, with its pri-
mordial forms of space and time, is the receptive vehicle of
impressions received by it from without, though of this
*' without " we can know nothing whatever.*

Transcendental Analytic.

Transcendental Esthetic, while exhibiting the principles
of the passive or receptive side of knowledge or experience,
has also answered the question, How are synthetic pro-
positions a p'iori possible, in so far as mathematics is
concerned ? But as yet we have only one of the elements
constituting the completed synthesis of real knowledge.
We have next to treat of the active element which all
complete synthesis or unification implies. It has been
justly remarked that space and time, in " the critical
philosophy," are the warp of knowledge, across which the
shuttle of thought has to throw its woof before reality,
objectivity or experience can obtain. A world of three-
dimensioned space, and of one-dimensioned time, forms the
warp. This material is supplemented by the spontaneity
of the Understanding or pure form of thought. The

* This doctrine Kant designates as at once transcendental idealism
and empirical realism. He claims that it diifers from what he terms the
empirical idealism of Berkeley ; inasmuch as, while Berkeley denied the
existence of objects while admitting the existence of space, he would
deny the existence of space while admitting the existence of objects.

232 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IL

function of the understanding may be compared to tlie
action of tlie electric spark, passing along and illuminating
the whole series of sensations. Sensations, even though
unified in space or time, are, to use Kant's expression,
" blind," until they are reacted upon by the Understand-
ing. The Understanding synthesises them, and thereupon
a fully-fledged real or experienced world arises. This
system of experienced objects — the real world — is the
nature with which science is concerned. Science, no less
than common experience, is based upon the pure thought-
forms or categories, as Kant, following Aristotle, terms
them.

As in the case of Sensibility and its product, intuition
or perception, the pure form or necessary element dis-
closed itself after the matter or empirical (i.e. contingent)
element had been abstracted from, so here the pure con-
cept or category is arrived at, by abstracting from the
matter of the logical judgment ; we then see the necessary
conditions which every judgment presupposes. The clue
to the discovery of these universal categories of conscious-
ness Kant thus found in the ordinary logical table of
judgments.

The following is the list as given by Kant : —

Logical Table of the Judgments.

1. 2.

According to Quantity, According to Quality,

Universal. Affirmative.

Particular. Negative.

Singular. Infinitive.

3. 4.

According to Relation. According to Modality,

Categorical. Problematical.

Hypothetical. Assertoricul.

Disjunctive. Apodictic.

Parallel to this table runs the Transcendental table
of the categories which Kant derived from it, but of
which the logical judgments are, or should be if Kant's
derivation is correct, the applied form.

Epoch II.] KANT. 233

Transcendental Table of the Conceptions of the

Understanding.

1. 2.

According to Quantity. According to Quality.

Unity. Reality

Plurality. Negation.

Totality. Limitation.

3. 4.

According to Relation. According to Modality.

Substance and accident. Possibility.

Cause and effect. Actuality.

Community (action and reaction). Necessity.

As a matter of fact, Kant's derivation of the categories
from the judgments is in many cases forced and arbitrary.*
The distinctions contained in the original table are them-
selves often of doubtful value, and sometimes altogether
untenable. This, however, does not affect the philoso-
phical importance of Kant's analysis. The accuracy or
inaccuracy of the list of categories furnished, does not
touch the point that experience is determined by thought
in a manner at least generally corresponding to the
Kantian categories.

But to proceed with our analysis. Having gathered
together these categories in the somewhat hap-hazard
manner we have seen, it remained for Kant to justify
their place in a doctrine professing to be systematic by
deducing them from some primary datum or principle of
consciousness. This he seeks to effect in his sections on
the deduction of the categories, one of the most important
portions of the ' Critique.' It is necessary to remember
that the deduction is no demonstration, in the ordinary
sense of the word, but like every other " transcendental "
exposition, is designed to show that reality or experience
itself presupposes the successive stages of the argument
as its necessary conditions ; that on ultimate analysis, all
knowledge is resolvable into these, as its constituent

* The student may observe that in the categoiies of Quantity and
Qtiality (the mathematical categories, as Kant termed them), the
order of the corresponding table of judgments is reversed.

234 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

elements. The sections on the deduction of the categories
are very different in the two editions of the ' Critique.'
It is here that the crucial point, separating Theory of
Knowledge from Psychology, is to be found.

We have seen that the phenomena furnished by the
Sensibility to the Understanding are simply presentments
or presentations, in other words, determinations or limita-
tions of Sensibility. Looking at the question from the
standpoint of Psychology, with its hard and fast distinc-
tion of subject and object, inner and outer, mind and
matter, it seems utterly enigmatical that I should have a
right to affirm universal or objective validity of the
categories ; for instance, to say that the conception of
cause and effect can never be contradicted by any expe-
rience. " There are only two possible ways," says Kant,
*' in which synthetical representation and its objects can
coincide with and relate necessarily to each other, and, as
it were, meet together. Either the object alone makes the
representation possible, or the representation alone makes
the object possible. In the former case, the relation be-
tween them is only empirical, and an a priori representa-
tion is impossible. And this is the case with phenomena,
as regards that in them which is referable to mere sensa-
tion. In the latter case — although representation alone
(for of its causality, by means of the will, we do not here
speak) does not produce the object as to its existence, it
must nevertheless be a priori determinative in regard to
the object, if it is only by means of the representation
that we can cognise any thing as an object." (Kant's
' Critique,' p. 77 : Bohn's edition.)

We have, it must be remembered, to distinguish between
two distinct processes ; two presentations may combine
themselves in an individual consciousness, in a certain
time-order, i.e. in the empirical ego, which itself consists
simply in a synthesised series of impressions on the
internal sense determined in time. In this case the judg-
ment, together with its contained conception, its root, is
merely a, judgment of perception. These have merely a sub-
jective and individual validity ; in other words, they are
purely empirical and contingent. Or, on the other hand,
they may be combined in a manner valid not alone for

Epoch II.] KANT. 235

the individual consciousness, but for all possible conscious-
ness ; that is, they may be combined in a consciousness-in-
general. " The business of the senses," says Kant, " is to
intuite, that of the understanding to think. But to think
is to unite presentations in a consciousness. This union is
either merely relative to the subject, and is contingent
and subjective, or is given unconditionally, and is neces-
sary or objective. The union of presentations in a con-
sciousness is judgment. Thinking, then, is the same aa
judging, or referring presentations to judgments in general.
Hence, judgments are either entirely subjective, when
presentations are solely referred to a consciousness in ono
subject, and are therein united, or they are objective
when they are united in a consciousness in general, that
is, are necessarily united therein. The logical momenta
of all judgments are so many possible modes of uniting
presentations in a consciousness. But if they serve as
conceptions of the necessary union of the same in a con-
sciousness, they are therefore principles of objectively
valid judgments. This union in a consciousness is either
analytic by identity, or synthetic by the combination and
addition of different presentations to one another. Ex-
perience consists in the synthetic connection of phenomena
(perceptions) in a consciousness, in so far as this is neces-
sary. Hence, pure conceptions of the understanding are
those under which all perceptions must be previously sub-
sumed, before they can serve as judgments of experience,
in which the synthetic unity of perceptions is presented
as necessary and universal." (Kant's 'Prolegomena,*
§ 22 : Bohn's edition.)

But these pure conceptions of the understanding, to
which perceptions are immediately referred, before they
can become real or objective, themselves presuppose syn-
thetic processes lying (so to speak) still deeper in the
nature of consciousness. These are the synthesis of appre-
hension in intuition, of reproduction in the imagination, and
of recognition in the conception itself. The material origi-
nally supplied by sense requires a unification other than
that furnished by the passive forms of sense. This
unity is afforded in the primary act of intuiting, or
perceiving the sense-manifold furnished in time and

236 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

space. Each impression given in an instant of time
would be lost, were it not gathered up in the act of
intuition, and connected with those which precede and
follow it. This is what Kant terms the synthesis of ajjpre-
hension. More than this is necessary, if a unity is to be
formed out of these several points of perception. To this
end they must be reproduced in the imagination and
retained for combination with fresh impressions. This
synthesis of reproduction in imagination is therefore in-
separably bound up with the foregoing synthesis of appre-
hension, liastly, before the completed categories can come
into operation a further step has to be traversed. " With-
out the consciousness," says Kant (the passage, I may
mention, occurs in the first edition of the ' Critique '
only), *' that what we think is the same as what we
thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series
of presentations would be in vain. For there would be
a new presentation in the actual state, not in any way
belonging to the act whereby it must have been gradu-
ally created, and the manifold therein would still not
constitute a whole, inasmuch as it would lack the unity
which this consciousness alone can give it. If I forget
in counting that the unities which are at present before
my senses have been successively added together by me,
I should not understand the creation of multitude through
this successive addition of one to one, and hence I should
not understand number, a conception consisting simply
in the consciousness of this unity in synthesis." The
last-named consciousness is what Kant terms the recog-
nition in the conception, which is necessarj^ before the cate-
gories can obtain. Now we need scarcely say that all
these acts or processes are a priori, that is, precede all
particular experience; that they are further removed
from the latter, even than the categories themselves, not-
withstanding that each of them can be distinguished
empirically, that is, in its application to given experience.
The two first unite empirically in perception, and the
third gives us the empirical consciousness of the identity
of these reproduced perceptions, T\dth the phenomena
whereby they were originally given.

But deeper than any of these syntheses, deeper even

Epoch II.] KANT. 237

than the unitT/ of ajjprehension in sense, lies the original
synthesis of the consciousness, the uniti/ of apperception as
Kant terms it. All the unifying acts we have heen
considering find their ground in time; this one, on the
contrary, is not in time, but time is in it. The necessary
and universal identity of the knowing subject in respect
of all presentations, or determinations of consciousness
whatsoever, is the necessary condition of the possibility
of consciousness. This primary synthesis is identified by
Kant with the productive or pure ego, the ultimate
datum of " theory of knowledge," as opposed to the
empirical ego or subject-object with which psychology is
concerned. The transcendental synthesis of apperception
includes the secondary or psychological synthesis (the
empirical self) as it does the whole world of experience.
From the synthesis of apperception, the primordial " I
think," every other synthesis is deducible. In so far as
it refers to the categories and their conditions which we
have just been considering, it is the *' pure Understanding "
which creates them.

Having now arrived at the fundamental and general
grounds of the distinction between propositions which are
necessary and universal, and such as are contingent and
singular, it remains to deal with their application to
phenomena. We have now clearl}^ distinguished between
the world of sense as such and its ordered connection,
which we term Nature. Furthermore, we have seen that
the distinction does not lie in that the one resides more,
the other less in our consciousness, but that both elements
constituting real experience, the world of mere sense-
impressions, no less than the same world as modified by
Understanding, is in the one case a series, and in the other
a system, of determinations of a conscious subject possible or
actual. Kant, after repeatedly assuring us that this alone
is our world, proceeds somewhat inconsequently to postu-
late a world of things in themselves outside this system
or world of experience. With this, however, we are not
at present concerned.

Just as the laws determining intuition of phenomena as
sense-presentations, reside in the Sensibility itself and
constitute pure mathematics^ so the laws which regulate

238 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

the co-ordination of phenomena must be sought for in the
Understanding and constitute Pure natural science.

The transcendental Analytic falls into two parts;
analytic of conceptions, which is the statement of the
ultimate forms to which unification may be reduced, and
analytic of principles, which exhibits these elements of
unification, as syntheses in the concrete world itself. In
this way the question, " How are synthetic propositions
a priori possible ?" is answered generally so far as natural
science is concerned.

But although it has been shown how the universal
axioms of experience and of science are possible in
general, it remains yet to consider more nearly the manner
in which the sense-material is subsumed under the pure
conceptions of the Understanding. This is the problem
of those sections of the ' Critique ' which are occupied with
the schematism of the pure conceptions of the under-
standing. The mediator between the radicall}^ disparate
elements of sense and intellect is the pure form of time.
This, in the words of Kant, " is the third thing, which
on the one side is homogeneous with the category, and
with the phenomenon on the other, and so makes the
application of the former to the latter possible." " This
mediating representation," he continues, " must be pure
(without any empirical content), and yet must, on the one
side, be intellectual, on the other sensuous." But time is
at once sensuous and pure, and, therefore, answers this
condition. The immediate form of the category as applied
to the sense- world must, therefore, be one in which it is
united with time, or reduced to a time-determination.
This form is what Kant calls the schema, which gives us
the category as susceptible of direct application to the
phenomenon.

As the Sensibility is the faculty which furnishes the
sensuous-material of knowledge, the Understanding that
which creates the categories, so it is the productive ima-
gination which produces the schema, whose function it
is to determine time and space by means of the cate-
gories. There is naturally a parallelism between the
categories and the schemata. For the categories of
Quantity the schema is number, which we have already

Epoch II.] KANT. 239

seen to be a time-determination ; for those of Relation
the schema is the time-determinations — change and con-
timiance, succession, simultaneity ; for those of modality the
time-determinations — sometime, noio, always. All this is
plain-sailing enough, but the category of Quality offers
a little difficulty. The empirical element of feeling has
here to be introduced, and the category of Quality can
only be schematised as that of filled, filling, and empty
time. "Between reality (presentation of feeling) and
zero, i.e. the complete emptiness of intuition in time,
there is a difference which has a quantit3\ For between
each given degree of light and darkness, between each
degree of heat and complete coldness, each degree of
weight and of absolute lightness, each degree of the
containing of space and of totally empty space, pro-
gressively smaller degrees can be thought of, and
similarly between consciousness and complete unconscious-
ness (psychological darkness) continually smaller [degrees]
exist. Hence no perception is possible that would prove
an absolute void ; for instance, no psychological darkness
that could be viewed otherwise than as a consciousness,
which is but surpassed by another strongei- consciousness,
and the same in all cases of feeling." (Kant's ' Prolego-
mena,' § 24, Bohn's edition.) This Kant calls the second
application of mathematics to natural science (matliesis in-
tensorum) ; the first, of course, being the original schema of
number {matliesis extensorum). The schemata of Eolation
and Modality, which, like the corresponding categories, are
of course dynamic, are always subordinate to those of Quality
and Quantity, which are mathematic. To the schemata
naturally, as to every other stage in the construction of
experience, the synthetic unity of apperception, the ever-
present " I think," is the ultimate motive power.

These a priori categorised time-determinations may be
summarised as representing the time-series, the time-con-
tent, the time-order, and the time-complex. They seve-
rally furnish us with the metaphysical principles of science.
The schema of number or of the time-series gives us the
axioms of intuition or perception, which express in a general
principle the fact that an object of perception is always
an aggregate of parts, an extensive magnitude ; the

240 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

anticipations of perception supply the r.'iile for the fact that
every sensation, feeling or conscious state, though it have
no ea;tensive magnitude, has nevertheless mtensive magni-
tude or degree (qumititas qualitatis est gradiis) ; in other
words, both these principles are based on number ; in the
one case it is a number of parts outside one another, or
time-senes, in the other, a number of successive, and there-
fore anticipatory, gradations of feeling or time-content.
The principles corresponding to the schemata of Eolation,
viz. change and continuance, succession, and simultaneity,
and which fix the iimQ-order of the phenomenon, Kant calls
analogies of experience. Thej^ are, that the quantity of
material substance in the universe is unchangeable ; that
every change has an external cause, and that in the com-
munication of motion, action and reaction must always
be reciprocal. Finally, the three postulates of empirical
thought in general, based on the categories of Modality,
give us the rules for the physically possible, actual, and
necessary, or in other words, of the time-complex.

These principles Kant insists are all that a metaphysic of
nature can furnish us with a priori ; the rest must be left
to observation and experiment, according to the method of
induction.* There follows on this a long section on the
division of all things into " phenomena and nomena," in
which Kant develops at length his distinction between
the " thiug-in-itself " and the appearance or phenomenon
in consciousness — between sensible and intelligible being.
The appendix to this section on the "Amphiboly of the
concejDtions of reflection," deals with the subject of the
confusion of the empirical use of the Understanding with
the transcendental. To this confusion Kant traces much of
dogmatic metaphysics, notably the doctrines of Leibnitz.
At the close of the Transcendental Analytic, Kant, in the
second edition of the ' Critique,' aj^pends a dissertation on
the relation of criticism to the empirical and dogmatic
idealistic theories of Berkeley and Leibnitz which need
not detain us.

* For a full development of these fundamental principles in their
relation to matter and motion, the reader is referred to my translation
of Kant's ' Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science,' in Bohn's
Philosophical Library.

Epoch II.] KANT. 241

We have now reached the conclusion of the con-
structive or constitutive portion of Kant's Philosophy, that
is, the portion in which he seeks to lay before us what goes
to the making of experience, the data or principles which
completed or real experience presupposes. The question,
How is experience possible ? is now for Kant fully solved.
But how about the problems with which dogmatic meta-
physics had hitherto been concerned, which had exercised
the genius of a Leibnitz and the talent of a Wolff; which
were so essential to morality and political stability ;
questions as to the first cause, the immortality of the soul,
freewill, &c. Up to this point the tendency of" Criticism "
had been unmistakably to show the utter absurdity of all
such inquiries. In the next portion of the ' Critique '
the " Transcendental Dialectic," which Kant distinguishes
from the first part, by affirming it to deal with regulative
rather than constitutive conceptions, be proceeds to treat of
these problems in his own fashion, first " critically," and
afterwards " practically."

Transcendental Dialectic.

This third division of the ' Critique ' discusses the ques-
tion : How metaphj'sics in the dogmatic sense is possible ?
just as the two previous divisions had discussed the
question : How is experience possible ? We are here con-
cerned with the Pure Reason, properly so called, as we
have before been dealing with the Pure Understanding
and Pure Sensibility. The two latter were the faculties
of Perceptions and of Conceptions respectively ; the
Reason is the faculty of Ideas. By "Ideas " Kant under-
stands those conceptions which, though they do not enter
into the constitution of experience like the categories, are
nevertheless, according to Kant, universally present in
human consciousness as "practical" or "regulative"
principles, in the shape of problems, postulates and re-
quirements. Just as the material upon which the under-
standing exercises itself is Sensibility, so the material
upon which the Reason operates is the reality or experience,
constituted by the combination of the two former elements.

242 MODEKN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

For tHis reason the Ideas transcend alike sense-forms and
categories, while, at the same time, they have a determi-
nation entirely ditFerent from either of them. The former
are constitutive of experience itself; the latter, on the
other hand, are merely speculative, beintr concerned with
problems which experience indeed suggests but which do
not affect its constitution, and which its nature precludes
it from solving.

The distinction formulated by Kant himself between
the Understanding, the logical function of wdiich is judg-
ing, and the Eeason, whose logical function is syllogising
(if I may coin a word), is so obviously artificial, and
dictated by Kant's love of symmetry, that it need not
detain us, more especially as it plays no important part in
the subsequent exposition of the " Ideas." Sense and
Understanding are concerned with what is, the Eeason on
the other hand with what should be. Were we only sense
and understanding, we should have no impulse to travel
beyond the region of phenomena. This faculty of Ideas,
the Eeason, forces us, however, beyond the conditions of
the given world of experience. As the phenomenon only
exists in its relation to ourselves and to that which
produces it, the sphere of experience is essentially the
sphere of the relative, the finite, and the conditioned.
Now, all the demands of the Eeason turn upon the search
for the absolute, the infinite, and the imconditioned. The
great error we are liable to in the employment of the
Ideas of the reason, is to forget or to ignore their true
character, and to treat them as constitutive. The tempta-
tion to this is sometimes great, and when yielded to the
reason becomes sophistical or dialectical. Whenever the
reason dogmatises, that is, ventures assertions on matters
outside all possible experience, it falls into this error.
There are cases, how^e\er, in which such a proceeding
seems inevitable. And in these cases the sophistications,
or dialectic of reason, form part of its essential nature, and
we can no more help our subjection to them than we can
help ourselves being subject to the illusion that the sun
moves, or that the moon is larger wdien near the horizon
than at other times. But just as in the latter cases,
although the sense-illusion itself does not disappear when

Epoch II.] KANT. 243-

we know that it is the earth and not the sun that
moves, and that the moon does not vary in its dimensions,
yet it is nevertheless rendered harmless, inasmuch as «
we cease to treat it as reality. The same with the illii
sions of the reason. As soon as criticism has unmasked
their true character, philosophy must cease to rely upon
them.

The Ideas of the Pure Eeason embrace the Paralogisms,
the Antinomies and the Ideal of Pure Eeason. The first
concern the absolute nature of the soul, the second the
absolute constitution of the world-order, and the third the
absolute existence of God. The paralogisms are so called
because in them it is sought to show that the soul is
simple and therefore immortal ; that it is substance ;
that it is distinct from the body; all which propositions
are based on so many ]3aralogisms. In his treatment of
this subject Kant first deals with the arguments of Men -
delssohn and of Eeimarus, and, it may be added, that of
his teacher Knutzen, all of whom emphasised the unity of
the self-consciousness as the ground of proof of the soul's
immateriality and immortality. The paralogism here
rests on the fact that by means of the Idea of the uncon-
ditioned, the reason demands that the ego shall always
occupy the place of subject and never that of predicate ;
that all its presentations shall be referred to its own
unity ; and finally, that all which it perceives shall be
regarded as other than, and external to, itself. It is
sought to change these valid requirements, which are all
fulfilled in experience, into dogmatic assertions respecting
the nature of the soul apart from experience.

The confusion at the basis of this, as of the other para-
logisms, consists in the failure to distinguish between the
ego of the ])rimordial apperception which, inasmuch as it
is that which renders experience itself possible, can never
become an object of experience, with the sonl, that is, the
object of the internal sense (as Kant terms it), or in other
words, the individual mind or personality. This latter is
as Hnme had shown, given us as a series of " impressions
and ideas," but, as Kant added, knit together and realised
under the categor}" of "substance " and the schema of " per-
manence." This confusion is the parent of other fallacies ;

E 2

244 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

thus out of the logical unity of the subject is constituted
a real simplicity ; from the fact that I am for myself
.identical in every moment of consciousness, it is concluded
that the soul is objectively an identical personality ; lastly,
from the distinction between the internal and external
sense and its object, the subsistence of the soul independently
of the body is inferred. " From all this it is evident,'*
says Kant, " that rational psychology has its origin in
mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness,
which lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to
be an intuition of the subject as an object; and the
category of substance is applied to the intuition. But
this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by
which no object is given ; to which, therefore, the category
of substance (which always presupposes a given intuition)
cannot be a]:)plied." Consequently, the subject cannot be
cognized. " The subject of the categories cannot, therefore,
for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any
conception of itself as an object of the categories ; for, to
cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pure
self-consciousness (the verj' thing that it wishes to explain
and describe). In like manner, the subject, in which
the representation of time has its basis, cannot determine,
for this very reason, its own existence in time. Now, if
the latter is impossible, the former, as an attempt to
determine itself by means of the categories as a thinking
beiu!^ in general, is no less so." (' Critique,' Bohn's
edition, p. 249.)

The sum of Kant's investigations into the paralogisms
of the Pure Eeason is that every " rational psychology "
which claims to be dogmatic, that is, to establish doctrines
concerning the real nature of the soul, rather than to be
critical or determinative of our attitude towards the
question, is, and must be, a delusion and a snare.

The criticism of Cosmology consists in the discussion of
the antinomies of the pure reason. The Idea of the uncon-
ditioned requires us to expect a completed system of all
phenomena, or in other words, a world. This world-Idea
is determined according to the four classes of categories,
and may thus be split up into eight propositions, consist-
ing on the one side of the asseilions of the Wolffian

Epoch II.] KANT. 245

cosmology, and on the other, of their sceptical antitheses.
They are as follows : —

TJiesis. Antithesis.

The world has a beginning The world is infinite in time

(boundary) in time and space. and space.

Thesis. Antithesis.

Everything in the world con- There is nothing simple, but

sists of simple (parts). everything is composite.

Thesis. Antithesis.

There are in the world causes, There is no freedom, but all is

through Freedom. Nature.

Tliesis. Antithesis.

In the series of world causes. There is nothing necessary, bu\.

there exists a necessary being. in this series all is contingent

According to Kant, the natural dialectic of the Pure
Reason is exhibited in these propositions ; for, while th«
theses are grounded on universally admitted axioms, tlie
antitheses, which are equally well accredited, directly
contradict them. Each of the eight propositions is thus a
correct consequence from self-evident premises. The in-
herent contradiction is thereby shown to lie in the nature
of the reason itself. For of two mutually contradictory
propositions both cannot be false unless the conception at
their basis be itself contradictory. Kant's Transcendental
or Critical Idealism, which distinguishes between pheno-
mena and things -in -them selves, and rescues the word
" phenomenon " from its sceptical implication of " illu-
sion," is the sword which is to cut this Gordian knot.
The two first antinomies (the mathematical) are disposed
of by a demonstration of the fallacy alike of thesis and
antithesis, inasmuch as jphenomena are here treated as
things-in-themselves. It is just as impossible to say the
world is infinite as it is finite, for neither of these concep-
tions can be contained in experience, " because experience
is neither possible respecting an infinite space, or an
infinite time, or the boundary of the world by an empty
space or a previous empty time ; these things are only
Ideas." On the other hand, since both conceptions pertain
to the forms of sense, it would be manifestly absurd to

246 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

predicate eitlier of them of the world as thing-in-itself.
The same reasoning applies to the second antinomy which
concerns the division of phenomena. For here again the
parts only exist as given, that is, in the act of division, in
other words, in experience, and hence only extend as far
as experience reaches. But it is no less impossible for
experience to dogmatically fix a limit to the division of
phenomena than it is for it to follow out that division to
infinity.

The two second antinomial pairs are not like the first,
mathematical, that is, concerned with the quantum of the
world, but like their corresponding classes of categories,
dynamical, that is, concerned with a determination of the
world-order in a special manner. " In the first class of
antinomy (the matliematical), the fallacy of the assump-
tion consisted in that what is self-contradictoiy (namely,
phenomenon and thing-in-itself), was represented as
capable of union in one idea. But as regards the second,
or dynamical class of antinomy, the fallacy of the as-
sumption consists in that what is capable of union is
represented as contradictory, and consequently, as in the
first case, both contradictory assertions were false; so
here, where they are opposed to one another merely
through misunderstanding, both may be true." (Kanx's
* Prolegomena,' Bohn's edition, § 53.)

In this no less than in the previous instance, it is the
distinction between phenomena and thiugs-in-themselves
which solves the difficulty, though in another way. Both
propositions may here be true, if the thesis be referred to
things-in-themselves, and the antithesis to phenomena.
It is quite conceivable that, while in the phenomenal
world all the actions of man are the necessary con-
sequences of his empirical character, outside this phe-
nomenal world in his capacity of thing-in-itself, existing
out of time, man may be the self-determining cause of his
actions. It is thus that Kant reconciles liberty with
necessity. Similarly with the fourth antinomy, it may
be quite correct according to the assumption of the anti-
thesis, that, as in the world of phenomena, every event has
a cause — the regressus no less than the ])rogressus of causes
being infinite — the idea of a first or uncaused cause is

Erocii IL] KANT. 247

absurd, inasmuch as this could only be discoverable could
we arrive at the completion of the series of suboidinate
causes, which is obviously impossible ; and nevertheless,
the thesis may still obtain outside phenomena, i.e. outside
the world of experience, in that of things-in-themselves.
There is nothing contradictory here in the assumption of
a self-existent, necessary being, for although the existence
of such a being can never be proved, yet it can be just as
little disproved, time and causality only applying to the
phenomena of sense, and not to things-in-themselves.

The criticism of rational Theology is contained in the
section of the ' Critique ' on the Ideal of the Pure Keason.
Kant has already led up to it in his discussion on the
■fourth antinomy. In the Ideal of the Pure Benson the
Idea of the Unconditioned claims to be presented in
individuo but not in concreto, being determined by itself
alone. " The idea of humanity in its complete joerfection
supposes not only the advancement of all the powers and
faculties, which constitute our conception of human
nature, to a complete attainment of their hnal aims, but
also everything which is requisite for the complete deter-
mination of the idea ; for of all contradictory predicates,
only one can conform with the idea of the perfect man.
What I have termed an ideal, was in Plato's philosophy,
an idea of the divine mind — an individual object present
to its pure intuition, the most perfect of every kind of
beings, and the archetype of all phenomenal existences."
Q Critique,' Bohn's edition, pp. 350-1.)

This idea of the sum-total of all perfection, and of all
reality, conceived as concentrated in an individual being,
constitutes the idea of God, or the Ideal of the Pure Eeason.
Kant describes the progress of the reason in proceeding
first to the hypostasisation, and finally, to the personifica-
tion of this conception of a sum-total of all reality; but
that the reason itself has a lurking suspicion that in the
course of this procedure it has broken altogether with
experience, is shown by the desperate attempt to justify
itself exhibited in the three arguments (the ontological, the
cosmological and the teleological), which it puts forward
in proof of the objective existence of its ideal. Kant
proceeds to show the illusoriness of all these arguments.

248 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

But if all the pretended proofs of the existence of the
Deity are based on illusions of the Pure Eeason, the
atheistic demonstrations of the opposite are equally
baseless, on the other hand. The non-existence of God
can just as little be demonstrated as his existence.*

" The reason does not here," observes Kant, (with refer-
ence to this third or Theological Idea) " as with the pyscho-
logical and cosmological ideas, start from experience, and is
not by a [progressive] raising (Steigerung) of the grounds,
misled into an endeavour to contemplate the series in
absolute completeness, but wholly breaks therewith, and
from mere conceptions of what would constitute the
absolute completeness of a thing-in- general, consequently
by means of the idea of a most perfect original being,
descends to the determination of the possibility, and
thereby also to the reality, of all other things." (Kant's
' Prolegomena,' Bohn's edition, § 55.) Thus much as to
the form in which the Ideal is conceived. As regards its
content, its real purport and meaning, it is an indis-
pensable regulative conception for our study of nature,
no less than for our conduct ; that is, the reason requires
that we regard nature as though created and governed by
God, and that we act as though we were accountable to
God. The regulative, or disciplinary function of the Pure
Eeason as regards scientific method, and the systematisa-
tion of knowledge, is developed in the closing sections of
the ' Critique,' which treat of the " Transcendental doctrine
of method."

Kant's practical or moral philosophy is contained most
fully in ' The Metaphysic of Ethics,' and in the ' Critique
of Practical Reason.' The basis of Kant's Ethic is the
" categorical imperative " by which the Practical Eeason
affirms its domination over the natural impulses. 'Ihe
moral man is, according to Kant, not he who is by nature
benevolent, but he who acts well against his natural
inclinations. The great distinction of Transcendental

* From Kant's " practical " standpoint, this fact has an important
bearing, and therefore the stress he lays upon it is ju.-tified. Not so
with mir modern Positivists, Agnostics, and others with whom it is
no more than a verbal quibble, and whose repudiation of Atheism can
but denote mere social servility.

Epoch II.] KANT. 249

Idealism between noumenon or thing-in-itself and phenomenon
or appearance in consciousness, of course plays an even
more important role here than in the theoretical side of
the critical philoso{>hy. Man's will, as noumenon, proclaims
the moral law which man's will, as phenomenon, receives.
The categorical imperative, the " ought of that which has
never happened," as Kant expresses it, can only have a
meaning for me in so far as I feel within me the possibility
of my accomplishing the demand made upon me. The
fact that it does appeal to me affords all the proof requisite
for me that the will is free. Inasmuch as without free-
dom no ought or moral law is conceivable, the latter is itself
as much a demonstration of the former as the former is the
foundation of the latter. The conviction of this moral free-
dom must, however, in no way be conceived as extending
our theoretical knowledge. It simply affords a subjective
demonstration of what the Transcendental Dialectic had
already declared possible, though incapable of any positive
theoretical proof. We have at the same time a subjective
confirmation of another fact, which the I'ranscendental
Dialectic had proclaimed conceivable, though not demon-
strable, namely, that of our dual nature. While we are
sensuous beings in time, we are intelligible beings apart
from time. It is in my noumenal, intelligible, or which
is the same thing, my moral nature, that I am really free,
this freedom consisting in the power of the unconditioned
commencement of a series of events in time. Thus
practical necessity compels us to make assumptions which
would be unwarranted were we to confine ourselves to
the theoretical aspect of the case. In this we see the
superiority of the Practical over the Pure Reason. These
assumptions are the postulates of the Practical Reason by
which we are to understand its necessary presuppositions
for practical purposes, but which have no theoretical or
speculative bearing whatever. In this connection, Kant
steadily adheres to his original contention that a man is
no more able to increase his knowledge by meie concep-
tions, than a merchant is to increase his riches by adding
noughts to the balance of his account.

It will be seen from the foregoing that Kant's basis of
Ethics is absolute intuition. The dictates of conscience

250 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

are ultimate, and not traceable to any higher external
source. Kant polemicises against the moral philosophy
which places the principle of the action in the object
desired, snch as happiness, perfection, &c. It is cjuite
evident that that is desired which affords pleasure, but
this is obviously only an empirical principle. Even the
principle of perfection is open to the criticism that it only
puts forward conditional demands, and consequently
affords no adequate distinction between expediency and
morality. This objection is obviated, once we place the
criterion of morality in the commands of the Practical
Eeason, and recognise them as ultimate, and per se of
universal validity. The formula of this universal princi-
ple may be thus stated : so act that the maxims of your
conduct may serve as a rule valid for all.

The conformit}' of the action with the above formula
constitutes the conduct legal, the conformity of the motive
makes it moral. The metaphysic of Ethics may be divided
accordingly into the doctrine of right (jurisprudence)
and the doctrine of virtue (Ethics proper). The first
comprises the external and legally binding ; the second, the
duties with which conscience is concerned. The one is
treated of in Kant's " Theory of Jurisprudence " the other
in his " Theory of Virtue."

Kant's views on the philosophy of history, the conception
of which was at that time recent, are contained in a re-
markable little essay entitled, " Ideas for a Universal
History from a Mundane Point of View." Kant here enun-
ciates the now familiar <but then novel conception that
" individuals and even entire peoples, little imagine that in
following their own interest, and often in struggling with
one another, they pursue each in their own way, as a
conducting filament, the design of nature, to them un-
known, and co-operate in an evolution which, even if they
had an idea of it, would signify little for them." And
again, " there remains but one issue for the philosopher,
and that is, it being impossible for him to suppose in the
play of the actions of men a reasonable design of theii
own, he must endeavour to discover in the apparently
absurd eon«atenations of human affairs, a natural design
which renders it possible to trace among creatures, who

Epoch II.] KANT. 251

themselves proceed without plan, a history conformable to
a plan determined by nature." The following are the
principal points in the little brochure from the introduction
to which the above passages are taken. Kant admits a
continuous development, subject to constant laws, in
human history. The aspirations, the struggles, and the
work, of one generation, bear fruit and are realised
in the next, only to become in their turn the material
for further development. This conception gives to the
present a real bond of union with the past and the future.
The primitive savage condition, to a large ejj:tent abolished
in the relations between individual men, still exists in the
relations of states to one another. This can onl}' be
terminated by the institution of an international federation
of states. The solidarity of all the members of the human
family, their union in a world-republic in which the dis-
tinction between Ethics and Politics would cease, and the
conscious end of which would be the well-being and pro-
gress of humanity as a whole, such was fur Kant the goal
of history.

That Kant was stirred to these thoughts by the spirit
and events of the time (the essay was written in 1789)
there is no doubt ; but how different the scientific value
of Kant's contribution to the great question, trifling
though it is in dimensions ; how vastly deeper and more
comprehensive his conception of the true bearing of history,
than is to be found in any other of the writings of the
" age of reason ! " These, one and all, saw in the past little,
if anything, more than a seething mass of conscious
knavery and folly, which it was the function of mature
human reason to unmask and denounce. Kant saw in it the
parent of the present. He saw that history is no more ^he
fortuitous concatenation of knaveries and follies the men of
the Aufiddrung declared it, than it is the arbitrary dispensa-
tion of the suppsrnatural being the theologians declared it.
Of course we find the inevitable shortcomings of an eigh-
teenth-century view of the subject. That political forms
are merely the outcome and seal, so to speak, of the several
stages in the social, and, more particularly, the economical
development of society, was a truth not even the most far-
seeing eighteenth-century thinker could be expected to

252 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

grasp. And Kant, of conrse, did not grasp it. With him,
as with his contemporaries generally, the political and
juridical aspect of hnraan affairs was the fundamental one :
so far as progress was concerned, their reconciliation with
individual morality and liberty the final statement of the
problem to be resolved.

On the ' Critique of the Faculty of Judgment,' the
third of the great critical treatises of Kant, in which he
formulates a theory of the sublime and beautiful, space
precludes our entering. The work, as before remarked, is
vicjiibly inferior — look at it from what point of view we may
— to its predecessors. It is needless to say it is not with-
out happy and valuable suggestions, but, taken all in all,
it must be pronounced arid, confused and unappreciative.
Kant's character was especially deficient on the artistic
side, and it is not surprising that his efforts to deal with
art, and the emotions of which art is the expression, should
have resulted in something like a failure.

Upon the wide influence of Kant on y;eneral culture, it
would carry us bej^ond the province of the present volume
to dilate. Well-nigh every department of learning, received
an impulse from the founder of ' The Critical Philosophy.'
The reception which ' Criticism ' met with was un-
paralleled. " Many regarded Kant," says Yaihinger
(^Commentar^ pp. 9-10), " as a prophet of a new religion,
and Keinhold declared that in an hundred years Kant
would have the reputation of Jesus Christ. The Jena
Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung proclaimed a novus ordo rerum.
In the course of some ten' years three hundred attacks and
defences of Kant's philosophy appeared. The enthusiasm
aroused the hatred of opponents. Herder characterised
the whole movement as a St. Vitus dance, while fanatical
priests sought to degrade the name of the sage of
Konigsberg to a dog's name. We must not only be
acquainted with the books written from a more or less
impartial standpoint, but also with the subjectively
coloured pamphlets and letters belonging to the i^eriod,
if we are to form an adequate idea of the, at present,
almost inconceivable commotion. The powerful im-
pression of the Kantian philosophy on all classes in the
nation, implied a corresponding influence on every sphere

Epoch II.] KANT. 253

of intellectual activity. Theology, jurisprudence, philo-
logy, even natural science and medicine, were soon drawn
into the movement, quite apart, of course, from the special
philosophical disciplines which were subjected to its
mighty influence."

The effect produced, however, was not quite immediate.
Little notice was taken of the original "dissertation,"
which contained all the ideas of the ' Critique ' in germ,
while, as regards the only important review of the
* Critique ' itself, it cannot be denied that it justified
Kant's stricture, that the criticism had preceded the study
of the work ciiticised. Among the earliest and best
known of the popular writers on Kantianism was
K. L. Eeinhold, who, in his " Letters on the Kantian
Philosophy," endeavoured to show that all the oppositions
which had hitherto divided philosophy were disposed of
by the new sj'stem. The foundation in 1785 of the Jena
Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung contributed much to its spread.
By the last decade of the century there was scarcely a
German university in which the new philosophy was not
taught ; while its name at least, and in some cases more
than the name, had spread far and wide throughout
western Europe. Among the men of letters most power-
fully influenced by Kant, were, Frederick Schiller, and
Jean-Paul Friedrich Eichter.

Among the most prominent opponents of the ' Critical
Philosophy ' may be mentioned Johann Gottlieb Herder.
Herder was at one time a pupil of the Konigsberg sage,
but was more especially influenced by Haraann, a friend
of Kant, but at the same time an opponent of the Kantian
philosophy. The subtle distinctions of the ' Critique ' re-
pelled Hamann, who from a Humian-sceptical attitude in
philosophy, sought refuge in amystical religious illuminism.
Herder's position was similar; like Hamann, Herder lays
great sttess on language as that which crucially differenti-
ates man from the higher animals. But Herder none the less
insists on the natural or human, as opposed to the super-
natural origin of language. In the " Ideas for a philosophy
of histor}'- " he seeks to show that in order to understand
the microcosm, man, it is necessary to understand the
universe ; since man's place in or above nature is deter-

254 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II

mined by the planet in which he lives, by the geo-
graphical, topographical, climatic, environment into which
he is born, and finally by his original organisation. The
whole of Herder's thought is permeated by a poetical
pantheism and nature worship akin to the spirit of
the eighteenth century, but totally alien to that of
Kant, against whom Herder polemicises with bitterness
in his ' Metahitik.'

The special representative in philosophy of the above
religio-mystical opposition to Kant, however, was Friedrich
Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819\ Jacobi, while accepting
Kant's limitation of knowdedge to experience, and ac-
knowledging the invalidity of all reasoning respecting
the unconditioned, joins issue with him on the matter of
the " faith " which is to rehabilitate the dogmas that are
excluded from the province of reason. Kant's " jDractical
necessity " will not suffice for Jacobi. For him certainty
of the existence of God, the soul, &c., is afforded by an
immediate intuition which is itself ultimate. The power-
lessness of reason with regard to the question, is of the
same nature as its powerlessness to prove or disprove an
immediate intuition of sense, which is also ultimate. Of
the nature of such an intuition is the " faith " of Jacobi.
Jacobi's position, it may be observed, w^as but a revival of
the stoical test of truth as consisting in " strength of
individual conviction," and in a modified form, of the Neo-
platonic " ecstat^y." At such a point of view philosophy
necessarily ceases to be philosoj)hy, and becomes mere
theosophy and mysticism.

In the flood of philosophical literature which the Kantian
movement produced, the most prominent names beside that
of Eeinhold above mentioned, are those of Schulze, Fries,
Beck, Maimon, and Bardili, all of whom occupied a more
or less critical position with regard to the master, while
acknowledging the fundamental positions of the new
philosophy.

In attempting to discover a modus vivendi between the
Dogmatism which professed to transcend experience and
the Empiricism which accepted experience as an ultimate
fact, wdthout further inquiry into its nature or significance,

Epoch II.] KANT. 255

Kant struck upon the crucial distinction between elemental
or transcendental and real or empirical condition. For
the first, the self-consistency of thought, necessity in the
order of coherence in the given whole, is the ultimate
criterion ; for the second, the necessary relation of events
in time as determined by causality. Kant was unable to
keep the distinction steadily in view, a circumstance not to
be wondered at, considering the difficulties which he, as a
pioneer, had to contend with, in striking out his new " foot-
path " as he termed it. Many a time does he wander back
into the old beaten road of Empiricism or Dogmatism
unintentionally, and even without knowing it, when in
the midst of following out a transcendental argument.
This is facilitated by his employing on the one side the
arrangement and terminology of the empirical psycho-
logists, and on the other that of the Leibnitz-Wolffiau
dogmatists. The distinctions of subject-object, mind-
world, pJienomenon-noumenon, &c., frequently mislead him
as to the real bearing of his own thought, and make him
forget that his point of view properly transcends all
these distinctions. The pedantic working-out of the
system, the forced symmetry striven for at every turn,
which has been so often animadverted upon, on the other
hand, is largely to be accounted for by the influence of the
dogmatic system, which he made his model as far as the
order and arrangement of his exposition was concerned.
The symmetry is sometimes attained by the most obvious
verbal quibble, as for example, where in order to make a
perfect parallel between the ideas and the categories, a
laboured piece of augmentation is introduced to derive them
from the form of the syllogism, the categories having
been derived from the form of the judgment. Many other
instances will occur to the reader versed in the ' Critique.'
" Criticism " viewed as a system occupies a position of
unstable equilibrium. Its professed solutions, in almost
every case, have the effect of opening up deeper issues.
There are man 3^ things in it that are so plainly " survivals "
from the dogmatic and empirical schools which criticism
professed, and, in the main with justice, to have superseded,
that no student of logical mind, who had once grasped the
central thought of the new system, could rest satisfied with

256 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

it as it stood. For instance, he could hardly fail to see
that the Leibnitz-Lockeian " things-in-themselves," the
occult cause of the sense-impression, which were never-
theless wholly outside that " experience " for which alone,
as Kant had been careful to demonstrate, the conception of
cause and effect had any meaning or significance — were a
" survival " certainly not of the fittest. But, after making
all due detractions, Kant remains the most encyclopaedic
thinker the world had seen since Aristotle, a veritable sun
in the intellectual firmament. There is no subject which
Kant's philosophy did not cover, and to which he did not
himself apply it. But the great heritage he left was not
the " critical " system, but the " critical," elemental, or
transcendental method, the method which was discovered
in principle by Kant, himself by no means fully aware of
its wide-reaching importance, and perfected as regards
form by Hegel. This method, we must once more repeat,
consisted in the reduction by analysis of a given synthesis to
its elementary constituents in order to reconstruct it in the forms
of abstract thought from its jprimary datum. This method is
the method of philosophy par excellence. The thought of
Plato and of Aristotle is based upon it, but from their
time to that of Kant it had been more or less lost sight of.
In our next thinker, Fichte we shall see this "re-reading," as
it has been called, of experience, this reconstruction of the
concrete or real world according to its elemental conditions,
more successfully carried out than by Kant. Fichte found
the track already cut, and it only remained for him to
widen the path, and to clear away as far as possible the
dogmatic and empirical debris which still encumbered it.

FICHTE.

Life.

JoHANN GoT-fLiEB FiCHTE was bom. May 19, 1762, at
Eammenau in Ober-Lausitz. He received his higher
education at the universities of Jena and Leipzig, where
he entered in the faculty of Theology. For some years
subsequently he resided in Switzerland in the capacity of
private tutor. Shortly after he left Switzerland, having

Epoch II.] FICHTE. 257

meanwhile abandoned his intention of enterinpf the church,
he became acquainted with the new philosophy of which
the 'Ciitique' was the organon. His enthusiasm knew no
bounds, and resulted in the production of a work on
Kantian principles, entitled a ' Critique of all Iicvela-
tion,' for which Kant procured him a publisher, and
which was mistaken by many persons at first for an
anonymons work of the master, so thoroughly had he
assimilated the style, as well as the thought of the Titan
of Kiinigsberg, In Switzerland, whither Fichte again
repaired in order to get manied, in 1793, he published
anonymously a lecture ' On the Claims of Free I'hought,'
together with a work, ' Contributions towards Kectifying
the Public Judgment on the French Eevolution,' in which
he ardently championed the cause of the peo^^le against
the then governing classes, royal, noble, and ecclesiastical.
These were followed by some magazine articles on
Schulze's ' JSnesidemus ' in 1794. In the same year,
Fichte was called to Jena, to succeed Eeinhold in the Chair
of Philosophy. The small hrochure on the ' Conception of
Theory of Knowdedge,' which appeared soon after, contains
the programme of his lectures. This was followed almost
immediately by his first great w^ork, ' The Foundation of
the Complete Theory of Knowledge,' ' Grundlage der
gesammten Wissenscliaftslelire.'' Next came ' The Foundation
of Natural Right on the Principles of Theory of Know-
ledge,' in 1796, and the ' Theory of Ethics,' in 1798. A
cry of atheism that was raised against him, led to the
publication of his appeal to the public in 1799, but he lost
his professorship at Jena, notwithstanding. Fichte then
repaired to Berlin, and in a short time obtained the Chair
of Philosophy at Erlangen. Finally, in 1809, he became
professor at the Berlin University, and retained the post
till his death on January the 27 th, 1814.

He published his ' Destiny of Man ' and his' Close Com
mercial State ' in 1800; his ' Sun- clear Statement ' in 1801;
his ' Characteristics of the Present Age,' and 'Nature of the
Scholar,' in 1806; and his 'Addresses to the German Nation,'
in 1808. Fichte's complete works have been issued by his
son ; first the posthumous writings (vols, iii., Bonn, 1834),
and subsequently a collected edition of the works pub-

s

258 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

lished during the elder Fit^hte's lifetime (vol. viii., Berlin,
1845).

The Wissenschaftslehre, or " Theory of Knowledge."

Though Fichte's system, to which he gave the above
name, is ^^rimarily based on Kant, it was modified directly
by a study of the exponents and critics of ' Criiicism,'
lieinhold, Schulze and Maim.on. The influence upon it of
Fichte's early study of Spinoza is also not to be overlooked.
Spinoza's Monism had early attracted Fichte, and con-
tributed powerfully to mould his subsequent thought.
Fichte rightly signalises as the eiDOch-making work of
Kant, his having directed philosophy toward transcen-
dental inquiries. While other sciences investigate the
nature of known objects, it is the function of philosophy
to discover the nature and conditions of knowledge itself.
Philosophy is hence entitled to be called the " science of
knowledge," and its doctrine *' theory of science," jpar
excellence.

Inasmuch as philoi^ophy is occupied with knowledge
alone, as its subject-matter, the philosopher cannot
recognise any substantive existence or thing-in-itself
outside knowledge. Furthermore, philosophy which is
concerned not with the content, but with the conditions
of knowledge, has no more concern with the object of
psychology than it has with any empirical object of
external intuition. The task of philosophy is rather to
give a transcendental deduction of the process of knowing.
Scientific method demands that this deduction should
proceed from a single fundamental principle or axiom,
this fundamental principle being one which precedes the
distinction between speculative and practical that Kant
had formulated. The test of the correctness, nay of the
very existence, of a " theory of knowledge " consists in its
ability, from a fundamental axiom, to deduce the subor-
dinate momenta or syntheses of consciousness. Of course
since consciousness is the fact to be explained, this
principle cannot fall within consciousness as anyp«r/ of
its content. It must not be supposed, however, for this

ErociT TT.] FTCHTE. 250

reason tliat " Tlicorj^ of Knowledge " is a mere fiction of
the imagination : it is rather the disclosing of the
mechanism by which empirical consciousness comes to
pass — a mechanism which cannot j;er se be object of that
consciousness, inasmuch as it is the conditio sine qua non^
which that consciousness presupposes.

"Theory of Knowledge," as science, must constitute
a system which must contain implicitly the principles
of all other sciences. The fundamental axiom on which
" Theory of Know^ledge " rests, must be one by which
the matter and form of knoM^ledge are alike conditioned.
"We have," says Fichte {Wtrke, vol. i., p. 91), "to
search for the absolutely primal ultimate and uncondi-
tioned principle of all human knowledge. As an absolutely
primal principle it does not admit of demonstration or defini-
tion. It must exjorcss that deed-action (^ThatJiandlung)
which does not and cannot appear among the empirical
determinations of our consciousness, but which rather
underlies all consciousness, and alone makes it possible."
The primal act in and through which the unity of the
subjective and objective and all other syntheses is given,
Fichte finds in the assertion by the ego of its own being.
The form in which he expounds this ground-principle of
his philosophy is rather calculated to give rise to the very
misconception against which he guards his readers in the
passage above quoted, namely, that it can be proved. He
connects it at starting, that is to say, with the logical law
of identity of which the formula is A = A. Fichte's
only purpose in this, however, is to convince the formal
logician with wdiom the above principle is ultimate, that
this very " law of thought," ultimate as it seems, is only
valid provided that A be originally posited ; in other
words, that the law of identity is only the abstract formula
of the original act of " self-positing." The true formula
for the latter is the proposidon lam I.

This first position of Fichte, as will be seen, is identical
with the " oiiginal sjmthetic unity of apperception " of
Kant. " That whose being (essence) consists merely in that it
posits itself as existent, says Fichte, " is the ego as absolute
subject." Fichte wards off the common confusion between
the Jof apperception, the ego as absolute, universal subject,

s 2

2(50 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

and the Me of empirical thought, the ego as relative, in-
dividual object. " One often hears the question propounded :
icltat was I before I came to self-consciousness ? . . . The
possibility of the above question rests on a confusion
between the ego as subject, and the ego as object of the
reflection of the absolute subject, and is in itself utterly
inadmissible. The ego forms the presentment of itself,
articulates itself in the form of presentation and becomes
something, an object; consciousness acquires in this way a
substratum which is . . . such a state is postulated, and
it is asked what was I then, i.e. what is the substratum of
consciousness. But at the very time t'uLs question is asked
the absolute subject is assumed as the auove substratum of
intuition ; in other words, that is suireptitiously replaced
in thought of which abstraction was professed to have been
made ; and the question thus contradicts itself. We cannot
think at all without presupposing in thought the Ego as
conscious of itself ; we can never abstract from self-con-
sciousness, hence all questions of the above kind are
unanswerable, for they are, when properly understood, im-
possible (^Werlce, vol. i. p. 97).

From the Ego as absolute subject or activity all
reality is deducible. There is no reality but what is
translated, so to speak, by and from the absolute subject.
It will be now sufficiently clear to tlie reader that by
the I, or (to put it in its latinised form to which the
English reader is more accustomed) the Ego, Fichte
understands what Kant had confusedly in his mind wlien
he spoke of the jjure as opposed to the emjnrical Ego,
the pure self-consciousness which is the basis of all
empirical thought, and which the Konigsberg thinker
subsequently identifies with the Practical Reason. Fichte
clearly enunciates what Kant does but indistinctly suggest,
namely, that the individual Ego is in the order of tran-
scendental deduction at the opposite pole to the pure Ego.
What was with Kant merely a notion arrived at more or
less incidentally in the course of the working out of his
system, becomes with Fichte the cornerstone of the whole.
The attitude of the philosopher towards pure Egoition
(Iclilieit) is not that of mere introspection, but it may be
rather termed intellectual intuition in which individual

ErocH II.] FICHTE. 201

existence parses ont of view, and the object of intuition is
not so nnich existence as activity. That tliis primary act
of egoitioH snthces to exjiLain all the facts of conscionsness
it remains for the development of the system to show.
Inasmuch as the categories are only so many momenta or
determinations of the Ego, and inasmuch as it is they which
determine the possibility of the object, it is obvious that the
latter is only possible in so far as it is given by the Ego.

The second axiom of Fichte affirms the necessary op-
position of the non-ego as the correlate of the original
position. The corresponding logical form to this act of
op-position (Anstoss) is A is not B. The primary act of
position is incomplete without this secondary act of op-
position. With the fulfilment of these two postulates
the third is already given, for, as they mutually negative
one another and nevertheless are both of them absolute —
the one, absolute affirmation, the other, absolute negation,
their synthesis must be determination, that is, the abolition
of the absolute character of either of them per se, and the
assertion, so to speak, of absolute relativity. The first
axiom was unconditioned, alike as regards matter and
form ; the second is conditioned as regards its matter but
unconditioned as to its form; the third is unconditioned
as regards its matter but not as regards its form. In
these three axioms, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, we have
the framework of the Wissenschaftslehre.

The reader will observe in them a further progress
towards the completion of the Dialectical method. Ac-
cording to Fichte, we have here the categories of quality
and quantity in their pure form, and derive them from
their only source. In this primitive synthesis furnished
by (I.) the original self-positing I-ness or Egoition, (II.)
the non-ego posited by the first as op-position (Anstoss\
(III.) the resultant limitation of the former by the latter,
thereby abolishing its absolute character, all other syn-
theses are contained, ^\e have now a clear road before us
along which to arrive at the solution of Kant's problem :
How are synthetic propositions a priori possible ? or, which
is the same thing, How is experience possible ? a road
unencumbered by extraneous and useless hypotheses such
as " things-in-themselves," &c.

262 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Ei-och II.

As yet, however, we are far from tlie complex, concrete
synthesis — experience — of which we are in search. We
must first see whether the original synthesis itself does
not contain implicitly its own antithesis, which, in its
turn, may pave the way for a second synthesis. In this
analysis or search for antitheses, and their combination
into syntheses consists the method of philosophy, a method,
as before observed, already shadowed forth by Kant in his
table of the categories. This, of course, might be carried
on to infinity, were it not that the thesis embracing all
antitheses and syntheses, the self-identical Ego or absolute
principle of I-ness, forms at once the starting-point and
limit of our investigations. The goal of " Theory of
Science" namely, is to reach this principle which is its
absolute commencement at the completion of the circle of
its journey. It then appears as Kant's " law giving " or
*' practical " reason, as a striving for that which can never
be fully realised, in short, it re-appears at the limit of
the theoretic and practical, as idea. Midway, so to
speak, between the absolute commencement and the
absolute goal, falls the finite, limited, divisible Ego of
individuation. The third axiom or S3'nthesis, which
embraces the whole of " Theory of Knowledge," may be
briefly formulated thus : the Ego posits itself and the non-
ego as reciprocal and determining. It is plain that this
proposition involves two. First, the Ego posits itself as
determined b}' the non-ego; and second, the Ego posits
itself as determining the non-ego. In this distinction is
indicated the fundamental division of " Theory of Know-
ledge " itself into theoretical or speculative, and practical.
The first has to solve the problem of Kant's ^Esthetic and
Analytic, namely, how the Ego, or (which is the same thing
with Fichte) the pure and absolute Eeason can arrive at a
knowledge of the object? The second deals with the
problems of Kant's "Lialectic" and "Practical Eeason,"
and contains the answer to the question : How does the
Ego or Eeason come to ascribe causality to itself?

Epoch II.] FICIITE. 263

Speculative "Theory of Knowledge."

" Philosophy," says Fichte ( Werke, vol. i. p. 425), " has to
assign a foundation for all experience ; its object therefore
necessarily lies outside all experience .... finite reason
has nothing outside experience ; experience contains the
whole matter of its thinking. The philosopher necessarily
stands under the same condition, hence it seems incom-
prehensible how he can lift liimself above experience.
But he can abstract, that is, he can separate by the
free action of his thought what is combined in experience.
In experience the thing, namely, that which is determined
independently of our freedom, and to which our knowledge
has to direct itself, is indissolubly bound up with the
intelligence which cognises it. The philosopher can make
abstraction from either of them, and he has then abstracted
from experience and raised himself above it. If he
abstracts from the former, he retains intelligence per se,
that is, abstracted from its relation to experience ; if he
abstracts from the latter, he retains the thing per se, that is,
he abstracts from the fact that it enters into experience;
he retains it as the only ground of explanation of ex-
perience. The first proceeding is called Idealism, the
second dogmatism^ So much as to the standpoint of the
older philosophy ; but what as to that of " Theory of
Science," which cannot rest satisfied any more with the
mind-in-itself of the subjective Idealists than the thing-
in -itself of the dogmatists?

Kant, who saw that the empirical idealist and the
dogmatic materialist were each right as against the other,
endeavoured to unite them mechanically. Hence his
repudiation alike of idealism and materialism as such, and
hence, also, his characterisation of his system as at one and
the same time empirical realism and transcendental idealism.
This mere mechanical combination will not sufiBce for
Fichte. " Theory of knowledge " requires a deduction
from one central principle. The "productive imagination"
of Kant, by which Fichte understands the activity of the
Ego as self-determining, which we have arrived at as the
original synthesis of the absolute Ego and its negation, is

26 1 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Eioch II,

the basis of the distinction of subject and object on which
the old abstractions turn. We now see wherein tlie
shortcoming of the old idealism and realism, respectively,
lay. Inasmuch as the presentation is for the Ego a
limitation of its activit}^ it is regarded as foreign to it.

Let us hear Fichte on this point. " Taking our stand
firmly at the point at which we are arrived (namely, that
of the primary synthesis), an opposition (Anstoss) takes
place in the infinite activity of the Ego wdiich, because it
is infinite, contains no ground of distinction ; and the
activity thereby in no way destroyed is reflected, forced
back, and thus acquires a diametrically opposite direction.
AVe may represent the infinite activity under the figure of
a straight line passing from A through B into C, &c. It
might be arrested within C or beyond C. Let us assume
then that it is arrested at C. The ground thereof will
then, according to the above, lie not in the Ego but in the
Kon-Ego. Under the given condition the direction of the
activity of the Ego going from A to C is reflected from
C to A, but nothing can act upon the Ego, in so far as it is
Ego without an equivalent reaction. In the Ego nothing
can be destroyed, not even the direction of its activity.
Therefore the activity reflected towards A must, in so far
as it is reflected, at the same time react to C. And so
between A and C we have a double conflicting direction
in the activity of the Ego, in which that from C to A may
be regarded as passive, and that from A to C as mere
activity ; both together constitutiug one and the same state
of the Ego. This state, in wdiich diametrically opposite
diiections are united, is the activity of the ' imagination ' * ;
and we have now definitely obtained the object of our
search, an activity which is only possible through a
passivity, and a passivity which is only possible through
an activity." (Wevhe, vol. i. p. 4G.)

From this it will be seen why, on Fichtean principles,
an Idealism which would make the activity of the Ego the
immediate source of objects, is as incorrect and onesided as
the Realism according to which the object- world is entirely
independent of the activity of the Ego. The category of

* Of course the word is always employed in a trauscendcntal, never
in an empirical sense.

Erocii II.] FICHTE. 265

Ideal-iealism, as Fichte sometimes calls his system, is not
that of cau.se-and.-effect, or suhstaiice-and-accident, but
rather that of action-and-reaction. The formula for the
theoretical or speculative :side of the doctrine is indeed
that " the Ego posits itself as limited or determined by
the Non-Ego;" this is supplemented, however, on the
])ractical side by the formula, " the Ego posits the Non-
Ego as determined by itself (viz. the Ego)." Objecrs
then are given us through the '' productive imagination."
Needless to say, we are still dealing with momenta prior
in nature to empirical consciousness. The object appears
here merely as limitation. It yet remains for Fichte to
deduce the remaining stages in the production of concrete
experience. In this exposition (which is given most
fully in some of the shorter pieces written subsequently
to the Grundlage itself) the main feature is, always keeping
in view the fundamental axiom that there is nothing in
the Ego but what is posited by itself, ihat the object as
object is a reduplication, so to speak, of the original act
of opposition, in other wonls, that it must become for
itself what in the first place it was /or ws.* The Ego, in
order to reflect on any moment of it determination, and
thereby to constitute it object, must be already beyond
that moment — must have left it behind.

The first stage or moment is that of in-itselfness, mere
feeling, in which, as yet, there is no distinction between
outer and inner, feeling and felt. In the next stage the
Ego distinguishes itself from its feeling, and views the
latter as in a sense outside itself. In this moment of
outlooJcing, feeling becomes difterentiated, pluralised — it
becomes mutual independence (space) and onesided in-
dependence (time). At this point, says Fichte, the
student may take up Kant's Transcendental Esthetic.
Just as the indefinite possibility of feeling becomes by
limitation or differentiation, Intuition (^Anschauung), so the
indefinite possibility of Intuition becomes fixed, reduced to
actuality by the limitation imposed upon it by the
Understanding ( Verstand).

In the syntheses of the understanding the real is

* This is important in view of the Hegelian Dialectic.

266 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch TI.

properly contained. The intuitions ordered and fixed by
its categories became henceforward real objects. The
feeling which the " productive imagination " distinguishes
into inner and outer in the previous moment is the chaotic
sense-world of Kant. The categories must not, however,
as with Kaiit, be regarded as so many ready-made forms or
moulds, but rather like the schemata, as modes in which
the " productive imagination " operates in its creati(m of
objects. The necessity for smy formal deduction of the
categories is, of course, done away with, inasmuch as they
fall into the natural cour.se of the exposition itself.

The intelligence, when it passes beyond the limits fixed
for it by the Understanding, becomes abstract or reflective ;
in the consciousness of the possibility of this consists the
*' Pure Reason " of Kant, in which self-consciousness
j)roper is first explicitly given. The intelligence has thus
come to a consciousness of itself as such ; the circle is
complete. "Theory of Science" on its speculative side
is now perfect as a system. We close this section with
a quotation from Fichte on the method einploj'ed in the
deduction of the system : — " In realising this deduction,
he (the philosopher) proceeds as follows : He shows thai
the first fundamental law which ivas discovered in immediate
consciousness, is not possihle, unless a second action is combined
with it, luhich again is not possible without a third action ; and
so on until the conditions of the first are cornjjletely exhausted,
and it is itself now made perfectly comprehensible as to its possi-
hility. The teacher's method is a continual progression from
the conditioned to the condition. The condition becomes
again conditioned, and its condition is next to be dis-
covered. If the pre-supposition of Idealism be correct, and
if no errors have been made in the deduction, the last
result, as containing all the conditions of the first act,
must comprise the system of all necessary representations,
or the totality of exjterience ; — a comparison, however,
which is not instituted in philosophy itself, but only after
that science has finished its work." (Fichte, Werke,
vol. i. p. 446.)

Epoch II.] FICHTE. 267

Practical "Theory of Knowledge."

Speculative " Theory of Science " while explaining the
process by which consciousness comes to pass, the condi-
tions of its possibility, althongh it indicated the fact of
the opposition or limiting by the Ego of its own activity,
failed to demonstrate the ground of this limitation, a task
reserved for the practical side of the Fichtean philosophy,
which lias to answer the question, How the Ego becomes
conscious of itself as an active principle in the events of
the world ? — in short, as a moral agent. The answer lies
in the proposition above p;iven as constituting the formula
of the practical side of Fichte's doctrine, to wit, the Ego
posits itself as determining the Non-Ego. This, which is
its starting point, is also iis goal. Hence the supremacy
Kant had already averred the Practical Eeason to possess
over the Theoretical. The fundamental axiom of " Theory
of Knowledge " was the affirmation by the Ego of its own
being as abs^olute. The question now arises. How is the
finite objective activity which has been deduced reconcil-
able with this basal thesis? only in one way, answers
Fichte, and that is, If the finite activity be conceived as
means, and the infinite, end. This occurs when the Ego is
conceived as a striving towards infiidty, or, practically
expressed, as conscious of its own activity as cause, which
can only happen in so far as it overcomes a resistance ; all
striving implying resistance to be overcome.

*' By as much as the Ego opposes to itself a Non-Ego, it
creates limits and places itself in these limits. It distributes
the totality of the existence posited generally, between the
Ego and the Non-Ego ; and so far posits itself as necessarily
finite." (^Werhe, vol. i. p. 255.) This is as much as to
say, since the activity of the Ego is now no longer occupied
with itself, but with the Non-Ego, it has become objective
(Fichte clinches his argument by a reference to the German
word for object Gegenstand). " The object is only posited
in so far as an activity of the Ego is resisted ; no such
activity of the Ego, no object. The relation is, that of the
determining to the determined. Only in so far as the
above activity is resisted can an object be posited ; and

268 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

in so far as it is not resisted there is no object." (Ibid.
259.) The object, therefore, is necessary to the realisation
of the Ego's activity ; it creates the object-world not for the
sake of that world, but for the sake of realising itself in the
negation of that world. The Ego thus affirms itself in a
higher form, attains reality, in other words, consciousness
of its freedom, in the negation of its own negation — in
the ovt!i coming of that resistance which it has set up over
against itt^elf.

The Ego now affirms itself as Will. The correspon-
dence of Fichte's doctrine at this stage with that of Scho-
penhauer, it may be observed in passing, is noteworthy.
Here then we have the ground of the original antithesis or
opposition. This could not be deduced from a merely
theoretical or speculative point of view. The fii'st division
of Theory of Science was obliged simply to postulate
the antithesis as a necessary compliment to the thesis,
without being able to give anj^ further account of the
matter. "It is now," says Fichte, "obvious how this
question is to be answered. W ith the positing of the Ego
all reality is posited ; in the Ego all is posited ; the Ego
must be absolutely independent, but all must be dependent
upon it. The agreement of the object with the Ego is
therefore required, and the absolute Ego it is which for
the very reason that its being is absolute requires it."
(Ibid. 260.) Since Theory of Knowledge finds its highest
ground not on its theoretical but on its practical side, it
may be fitly called " Practical Idealism." " The result of
our investigations," says Fichte, " is accordingly as
follows : The pure activity of the Ego, which returns in
upon itself, in respect of a possible object is a striving, and
indeed, as above shown, an infinite striving. This infinite
striving is to all infinity the condition of the possibility of
all object ; no striving, no object." The same method
obtains in the practical as in the speculative side of the
doctrine — here as there progression is spiral, so to speak.
The in-itselfness of every moment of determination must
become a for-itselfness in the next moment. The " produc-
tive imagination," the striving after the creation and
articulation of the object, becomes, when pursued into the
region of the practical, the striving for moral satisfaction —

Erocii II.] FICIITE. 209

the ethical impulse or tendency. The basis of the Ego as
"rrodnctive imagination " was the Ego as Pure Appercep-
tion." The goal of the Ego as Freedom, Tendency, Will»
is the Ego as Idea or Ideal. The Ego as Absolute Subject
is unconditioned Possibilifij ; the Ego as Ideal is un-
conditioned Actiialiti/. Noither the one nor the other can
be realised in the plain of empii ical consciousness which is
the sphere of the limited or conditioned, although its know-
ledge presupposes the first and its ethical impulses the
second. In this the essential unity of the S3'stem is shown.
What Avith Kant had two distinct roots, namely the theoreti-
cal and practical, and which it was impossible to bring into
connection otherwise than in a purely mechanical manner,
is by Fichte identified in one fundamental fact. The
categorical imperative " the ought of that which has never
happened " of Kant, becomes, with Fichte, the universal
striving, the impulse, manifested on the one side in the
production of the real world as the presentment of the
Ego, and yet as independent of the Ego, and on the other
by the ethical tendency, the aim of which is to abolish
this independence and bring it back into subjection to
the Ego.

It has been remarked that there has never been a
system so antipathetic to "nature" as Fichte's. Since with
Fichte nature is identified with the non-ego, which it is the
ethical function of the Ego to abolish ; his position with
regard to it is identical with that of the Buddhist ascetic,
for whom it is the maija, " that which is not and ought
not to be," or with the less logical Christian ascetic. This
side of Fichte we shall find developed in Schopenhauer.
Just as Kant only admits theology in so far as it serves as
a prop to Ethics, so does Fichte. He stands, moreover, by
the distinction of Kant between the legal and the morale
between which Fichte maintains that there is no sort of
connection, the object of law being to supply the means
by which its mandates are to be maintained, even though
justice and good faith should have vanished from among
men. Hence law justly ignoies morality, for morality
deprives law of its raison d'etre ; the just man being a
law to himself. It is in dealing with these questions,
more especially in the Grundlage des Natiirrechts (^WerJce,

270 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

vol. iii.), that Fichte gives his deduction of a plurality of
individuals or rational beings. This deduction is on the
same lines as that of the original opposition (Anstoss). At
first sight it is not easy to comprehend the possibility of
deducing from the one indivisible Subject, or impersonal
Eeason, the plurality of individual subjects, but, says
Fichte, the Ego must be conscious of itself as active, that
is, must " ascribe to itself a free activity in the sense-
world." It cannot do this " without ascribing it to others,
and therefore assuming other finite rational beings out!>ide
itself."

The absolute Ego had already posited objects as the
material for its activity to work upon. But they can
only serve their purpose in so far as their necessity is
given. The seal is affixed on this necessity when the
testimony of others is added to my own. The universal
Ego or I-ness, which is the condition of all consciousness,
mufet therefore posit it>elf as individual Ego in a world of
individual Egos, united under the categoiy of reciprocity.
The conception of individuality " is obviously a reciprocal
conception, that is, one which can only be thought, in
and through the thought of another, and it is indeed con-
ditioned by the same thought as to its form. It is only
possible in any rational being in proportion as it is given
as completed by another ; it is therefore never mine, but
on my confession mine and his, Ms and mine ; a concep-
tion common to both, and in which two minds are united
in one. . . . The complete union of conceptions de-
scribed, is only possible in and through actions. The
consequence therefore is that it consists only in actions,
and can only be required for actions. Actions occupy
here the place of conceptions, and conceptions in them-
selves apart from actions do not and cannot concern us."
(Werhe, vol. iii. pp. 47-48.)

To each individual Ego a portion of the world-
wh(»le is preseived as the sphere of its own exclusive
freedom, and the limits of these spheres constitute the
rights of the individual. Within its own sphere the
individual Ego justly ascribes to itself causality. That
portion of my sphere of freedom wliich is the starting-
point of all the changes to be wrought by me in the world

Erocn II.] FKIHTE. 271

of sense, is my body. This therefore is the immediate
object of right or law. Tliere can be no question of any
obligation on the part of the individual to enter the statu
of h\w, but once entered therein, ir foHows as a natural
consequence that be respect this state. We see evidences
here of the inevitable social contract theor3\ Like Kant,
Ficbte sees in the state the instrument fur giving sanction
to rights by force, or, as he miglit define it, the condition
of the realisation of right. Fichte's view of the state is
that of the protector of the personality, in other words, of in-
dividual freedom. Property he considers as necessary to the
maintenance of the personality. But the state exists for
Fichte merely as a convenience, wliose highest aim should
be to abolish itself by rendering itself unnecessary. We
must not leave this subject without noticing the remark-
able anticipations of Socialism to be found in Fichte. In
his early essay on the French Eevolution he proclaims
labour the sole basis of wealth, and hence the sole justi-
fication f«»r its posse-sion. In speaking of the collective
organisation and subdivision of labour, and the posses-
sion by each citizen of the full product of his labour
and this alone, he says, " Property will thus be uni-
versalised ; none would have superfluities while there
were any wanting necessaries, for the right of property
in articles of luxury has no foundation while any
citizen lacks his necessary portion of property. Agri-
culturists and workmen will associate themselves for the 'pro-
duction of the greatest possible amount of wealth idth the
least possible amount of labour. " Other socinlistic passages
are to be found in the Geschlossene Handelstaat. " Each
desires to live as pleasantly as possible ; and since every
man demands this, and no one is either mote or less than
man, all have an equal right to make the demand. The
division must be made accordingly on the basis of this
equality, so that each and all may live as pleasantly as
possible." Fichte boldly proclaims it the function of his
" state " to secure an equal enjoyment of the products of
labour among its members.

Fichte's Ethics (Sittenlehre') are, like the " Jurispru-
dence " (^Bechtslehre), divided into three sections, the tirst
containing the deduction of the principles of morality, the

272 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II

second dedncinG!; its reality and applicability, and the third
dealing with the sj'stem of duties. Fichte maintains in
the liist the necessity, even in the absence of any end, of
regulating action in accoidance with a pre-determined
standard, to be the fundamental axiom of man's moral
nature. He here expresses, in a dry hard formula, the
basis of a whole school of Ethic — a school which embraces
all the so-called Ethical or universal religions of the
world. Wiapped up in imagery, in rhetoric, and concealed
b}" theological theories, the corner-stone of the morality
of thcise religions, all turn upon this arbitrary premiss, if
we do but pursue it far enough. As will be already
apparent to the reader, it is a legitimate consequence from
what Fichte terms the practical side of his " Theory of
Knowledge." He theie showed us the Ego erecting a
world over against itself for no other purpose than to
realise its power in the subjugation of that world. That
the individual should determine his actions for the mere
sake of determining them, is the necessary coioUary from
this. Fichte has the merit of being the only thinker
who has grasped the ground axiom of the morality
which has been current among men for ages, and has
logically carried it out. He proceeds to develop his
doctrine resjDCcting the moral tendency as causal factor in
the events of the world, distinguishing between the
sensuous impulse, or impulse to happiness, and the moral
impuls^e. The moral impulse leads to a satisfaction, a
happiness, v/hich could never be obtained were it the
object immediately sought after. Ethical theory frees
men from the worship of this idol, happiness, and proclaims
the end of all action to be the reallocation of the Ego as
Idea, viz. the " moral order of the world," to which
Fichte applies the teim " God." This is the basis of reli-
gion as understood by Fichte, which is identified with the
moral impulse in its highest form. Its object, as idea, can
of course never be realised in empirical consciousness ;
the relation of human life to this Idea nmst ever remain
like that of the asymptote to the hyperbole, a continuous
approximation, a becominuj which never becomes, which is
never finished. Jfichte polemicises ngainst the conception
of God as existing object. Those who conceive the Also-

Epoch II.] FICHTE. 273

lute as being have really emptied the coiKjeptidn of its
content. It is oBvious from the main principle of Ficlite's
philosophy that the Absolute must not be considered as
an existence over against ourselves. We must rather, in
our own peisonality, be it and live it. The conception of
the Deity as substance or personality, in however vague or
refined a form, Fichte stigmatizes as the last remnant of
Taganism from which it is the function of " Theory of
Knowledge " to deliver men ; any question as to an author
of the " moial order of the world," is to Fichte just as
inadmissible as the question as to the cause of the Deity
would be to the ordinary Theist. Existence is a sensuous
conception which has no locus standi in these matters.
\V ith the Ego as Idea, as " the moral order of the world,"
the system of Fichte reaches its final conclusion. It is
not uncommon to divide the Fichtean doctrine into two
periods ; the later developments of the syNtem, however,
show no essential points of diiference. The terminology
employed is sometimes more carefully chosen wdth a view
of accommodation to the Theological faculty which had
procured his expulsion from the university of Jena, but
that is practically all.

With Fichte, as with Kant, Ethics is conceived ab-
stractly. In this respect the systems of both thinkers may
be alike regarded m the light of attempts to reconstitute
the Christian and introspective Ethics, threatened by the
collapse of the dogmatic system of which they form part,
on a more secure basis. In many post-Kantian thinkers,
but notably m Fichte, we find this deification of
morality as such, this assumption of morality as an
end in itself, nay, as the telos of all. A great deal of the
enthusiasm called forth by Kant may oe referred to
the belief that he had rehabilitated the old theological
morality against the mere negations of the revolutionary
writers and effectually rendered it independent of any
theological basis. This hope, as might oe imagined,
proved but short-lived. The impossibility of a Christian
Ethic apart from a Christian Theology has been con-
spicuously illustrated in the collapse of the Kantian
and pobt-Kantian schools, a collapse almost wholly trace-
able to their staking their existence upon the achievement

T

274 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch U.

of tins impossible feat. The fallacy running throughout
them may be found in the hypostasis of the mere abstract
form of the moral consciousness, viz. freedom. The effect
of this galvanised introspective ethics was in the long run
decidedly chilling. Well might Maria von Herbert com-
plain to Kant that when put seriously to the test, his
*' categorical imperative" availed her nothing. It was no
abstract "imperative" or "freedom," with a personified
" sum-total of all reality," or an impersonified" moral order
of the world " as its goal that inspired a St. Bernard, a
St. Francis, or a Thomas-a-Kempis. The ethics of inward-
ness was in them a living reality, because it grew out of a
speculative belief which to them was a living reality also.

The distinction between the introspective ethics of
the old Christian theology and that of Kant and the
post-Kantian s, is as the distinction between life and
electricity, between nature and art. The sooner it is
recognised that the " ethics of inwardness " is a part
of a whole, that it cannot live separately from a particular
conception of the world, and of man's relation to the world, .
in other words, from a religion of the supernatural or spiritual
as such, the better for consistent thought. The non-recog-
nition of this is only an instance, albeit a serious one,
of the common fallacy of regarding as fundamental in
human nature what is merely the characteristic of a special
epoch of historic evolution.

In the earlier periods of history, — not to speak of
the vast pre-historic era — the individual, as such, did
not exist, morally speaking, so completely was he ab-
sorbed in the social wh(jle — in the gens, the tribe, the
*'city." Morality was then purely outward; men sac-
rificed themselves for the community as a matter of
course ; in active devotion to the community consisted
all religion and all duty. The decay of the old
social and race ideals was synchronous with the rise
of another religion and morality, that of the individual
as such. This was the religion and morality taught by
the so-called " ethical religions " of the world, and which
reached its ultimate expression in Christianity. It formed
part of a new conception of the universe, in which the
old standing-ground was radically changed, by the intro-

Epoch II.] FICHTE. 275

duction of the notion of the spiritual over against the
natural. Religion and morality, from being social and
natural, became individual and supernatural ; the test of
the value of the individual was no longer to be found in
his relation to the community existing without him, but
in his relation to the divinity revealed within him. The
spiritual or the supernatural abhors the natural as mnch
as the " nature " of our grandfathers abhorred a vacuum,
and hence the essence of the ethics of " inwardness " has
alwavs consisted in the negation of the " natural man,"
in other words, in self-renunciation for its own sake — in
asceticism. It is this ethics of " inwardness " which Kant
and the post-Kantian s thought to rehabilitate apart
from the supernatural theology, with which it is both logi-
cally and historically connected. The most pronounced
representative of this ill-fated attempt w^as Fichte.

The author of the WissenscJiaftslelire proclaimed in all its
baldness the doctrine that the negation of the phenomenal
individual is the final end of all morality. His desire to
assert the ethics of inwardness blinded Fichte to the
crudely abstract nature of the doctrine he proponiided.
As the outcome of supernatural religion, with its mystical
relation of ttie individual to the divinity, it is real enonuh.
The necessity of connecting it with something corresponding
to the old " spiritual '' ground was vaguely felt by Fichte,
as it had been felt by Kant, and is expressed in his con-
ception of the " moral order of the world " as idea ; but
the support was too weak to hold it.

All morality of course involves a j^f^ssible sacrifice of
the individual in the interest of something " not himself"
as individual. The fallacy of the introspective ethics
when proposed as a rational basis for conduct consists in
treating this purely abstract element — this negative
moment — of the moral consciousness as though it com-
prised the whole concrete synthesis of that consciousness.
Ethics, concretely viewed, does not, as the doctrine of
inwardness " assumes, either begin or end with the
lindividual per se, be it as regards affirmation or negation.
Its reference to the individual as such is purely secondary
and incidental.

The Fichtean negation of the natural impulses of the

T 2

276 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch n.

individual is therefore utterly barren and objectless, since
such negation only acquires meaning when directed
to a definite social end.* The bare form of the mural
consciousness, freedom, the glories of which Kant and his
successors trumpet so loudly, is a mere abracadabra apart
from a positive content? and such a positive content, if
not furnished it by the arbitrary mandates of a supernatural
being, revealing himself directly to the individual, must
be sujiplied by the needs of the social whole into which
the individual enters. The determination given to this
'• freedom," or which is the same thing otherwise expressed,
to this possibility of subordinating directly personal in-
terests to those which may be termed impersonal (i.e. as
to w^hat natural impulses shall be suppret^sed, and what
not suppressed) is conditioned entirely by the forms of
the social environment.

Any ethic which leaves this out of account, whether it
be based on the " categorical imperative," the idea of the
*' moral woi Id-order," or what not, remains abstract and
dogmatic, which is as much as to say, it belongs to the
past and not to the future. As a matter of fact neither
Kant, Fichte, nor their successors really rested satisfied
wdth the abstractions they professed to glorify ; they read
into their categories, and necessarily so, the current
morality. The result was to close up their avenue of
vision to a true view of the subject, by making them
postulate the morality of the age as absolute.

It will ])robably have been evident to the reader, apart
from all this, that there is a distinct line of cleavage

* In Ethics, if anywhere, we have presented the category of " reci-
procity," or mutual determination, rather than that of " causaUty," or
one-sided determination. In the individual resides the " moral
tendency," the potentiality to the pursuance of impersonal aims. This
is only actualised, only receives a determination when the individual
is regarded as entering into the constitution of Society. Here the
negation of individual interest is realised as affirmation of social
inteiest. For Fichte and his school {vide supra) society exists only as
food (so to speak) for individual '■ freedom '" (i.e. for the moral impulses
of the individual), which is its only 7-aison d'etre. This monstrous hypos-
tasis is, we are well aware, the basis of tlie current morality, but it is
as fallacious a " subreption " as any which Kant gibbets in his " para-
logisms." An act of self-resti aint apart from a definite social end is as
barren ethically as a proposition respecting " pure being' ia speculatively

Erocn II.] FICIITE. 277

between the speculafive and practical sides of " theory of
knowledge" as conceived by Fichte, which he vainly
endeavours to conceal. The fundamental opposition
between the moral and the natural, by which it is the
function of the Ego, as practical activity, to abolish that
which the Ego, as theoretical activity, had called into being,
can hardly fail, we think, to strike the average student as
a result somewhat arbitrarily imposed upon a doctrine
which begins by annulling the absohiteness of the dis-
tinction between the Ego and the non-Ego, upon which
the old dualism rested, and affirming their ultimate unity.
One would have imagined such a doctrine should rather
have led, as its practical issue, to a " rehabilitation of the
body " to a declaration of the unity of man and nature,
which it has shown to be, after all, a part of the ultimate
essence — a crucial moment in the realisation of con-
sciousness— rather than to an Ethic of asceticism and
self-negation. The negation of natuie would then mean
merely the negation of its antagonism to man, not the
absolute negation for which Fichte contended.*

The Wissenschaftslehre, as might be expected, found
oppositicm not only from the representatives of pre-Kantian
views, whose influence and numbers by this time had
considerably diminished, but also from the Kantians and
semi-Kantians, who were by no means disposed to recognise
Fichte for what he himself claimed to be, the representa-
tive of the logical development and perfecting of the
critical system. Not to mention the disciples of Kant, who
all took up the quarrel, the master himself disclaimed
all connection or sympathy with Fichte in the most
emphatic manner. Jacobi and his school also joined in the
onslaught. The Wissenschaftslehre thus found itself simul-
taneously attacked by Kantians, pre-Kantians, and religious
illuminists. In addition to these, there were of course the
popular writers, who, in spite of protestations and expla-

* For an interesting account of the life and philosophy of Fichte, the
student is referred to Professor Adamson's ' Fichte,' in Blackwood' :<
series. This Uttle volume also contains one of the clearest condensed
statements in popular English of the *' speculative " principle and
method, that we have seen.

278 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

nations, persisted in treating the absolute Ego of Fichte as
though it referred to the individual Ego, and who amused
themselves and their readers by affirming that " Professor
Fichte regarded himself as the Creator of the world." But
notwithstanding the opposition raised against him, Fichte
succeeded in gathering together a small but enthusiastic
circle of disciples. Foremost among these was the thinker
with whom we shall next have to deal.

SCHELLING.

Frederick Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was born January
27, 1775, at Leonburg in Wiirtemburg. In his sixteenth
year he entered the Theological Seminary at Tubingen,
where, in addition to theology, he occupied himself with
philosophical and philological studies. Some years later
lie went to Leipzig, where he devoted himself chiefly to
Mathematics and Natural Science.

In 1798, he taught, together with Fichte, at Jena; in
1803 he was called to the chair of philosophy at Wiirzburg.
He became subsequently secretary to the Academy of
Sciences at Munich, after which he lectured at Erlangen
for some years. The last official position he held was in
the university' of Berlin, but this he gave up some years
before his death, which took place in Switzerland, August
20, 1854. Schelling's works, which occupy 14 volumes, were
published in a complete edition, between 1856 and 1860.

System of Identity.

Schelling's Philosophy, or " The System of Identity," as
he termed it, exhil)its some not inconsiderable variations
in its earlier and later form. As already intimated, Schelling
was originally a follower of Fichte. His fundamental
divergence from the WissenscJiaftslehre consit^ted in an
accentuation of the indifference of the basal principle of
knowledge as regards the distinctions of subjective and
objective, real and ideal, mind and nature. These and all
minor distinctions are implicitly contained, and yet
resolved, in the original identity, the Absolute.

The Idealism of Fichte, Schelling found to be too sub-

Epoch II.] SCHELLING. 279

jective. AYe have already seen that Fichte started with
the Ego as the primordial activity', which all knowledge
presupposed, to end with the Ego as Idea, which all
morality presupposed. The Fichtean system is thus to
some extent open to the criticism Fichte had himself
made as regards the " Critical Philosophy," namely, tliat
it did not form, so to speak, a complete circle. The fault
is, according to Schelling, that it was one-sided; that
although it might lay claim to the title of " Ideal- Realism,"
it could not be called at the same time " Real-Idealism."

Knowledge consisting of an agreement of an objective
with a subjective, the problem of Philosophy or " Theory
of Knowledge," is, according to Schelling, to determine
how the object, the sum-total of which we call nature, can
enter into consciousness, and also how the subjective, or
rather the sum -total of its determinations, mind, or
intelligence, can become object as part of nature. " The
sum of all that is purely objective in our knowledge we may
call Nature, while the sum of all that is subjective may be
designated the Ego, or Intelligence. These two concepts
are mutually opposed. Intelligence is originally conceived
as that which solely represents Nature, as that which is
merely capable of representation ; the former as the
conscious ; the latter as the unconscious. There is, more-
over, necessary to all knowledge, a mutual agreement of
the two — the conscious, and the unconscious per se. The
problem is to explain this agreement." Philosophy
thus necessarily falls into two main divisions, " Nature-
Philosophy," which deals with the problem, so to speak,
of the subjectivisation of the object and " Transcen-
dental Philosophy," which treats of the objectivisation
of the subject. " Transcendental Philosophy," in Schel-
ling's seuse, regards Nature as the visible organism
of the Understanding, while " Nature-Philosophy " has
to explain the Understanding, as a product of Nature.
In order to account for the progress of Nature from
the inorganic to the organic and psychic, Schelling
has recourse to the time-honoured theory of a woiid-
fashioning principle or world-soul. " The necessary
tendency of all natural science," says Schelling, " is to
proceed from Nature to Intelligence, this and nothing else

280 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [ErocH II.

lies at the basis of the endeavour to reduce natural
phenomena to tiieory. The completed theory of nature
would be one which resolved the whole of nature into
intelligence. The dead and unconscious products of nature
are only the unsuccessful attempts of nature to become
conscious of itself. Dead nature is only unripe intelli-
gence, hence its phenomena, notwithstanding that they
are unconscious, reveal a character of intelligence. The
final goal of becoming completely object to irself is attained
by nature in its highest and final reflection, which is
nothing other than man, or, expressed more generally, than
what we term Eeason. It is here that natuie first returns
completely in upon itself, whereby it is evident that nature
is originally identical with that which is in us recognised
as conscious and intelligent."

Transcendental Philosophy has for its prol>lem to deduce
the necessity of our assumption that things exist outside
of us. It is not within everyone's power to do this, but
it requires a special faculty, that of " internal intuition."
The philosopher seizes the act of self-consciousness in the
moment of its becoming. In this of course Schelling is in
agreement with Fichte. Inasmuch as iu the free act of
the Ego, no other being is posited but itself, it has to
make an arbitrary act its object. The task of Transcen-
dental Philosophy on its theoretical side is from this act
to deduce the necessity present in objective experience.
" The one fundamental prejudice to which all others ar&
reducible, is this : that there are things outside of us ; an
opinion which, while it rests neither on proofs nor on
conclusions (lor there is not a single irrefragable proof of
it), and yet cannot be uprooted by any opposite proof
(naturam furcd ex^eUas, taraen usque 7'edihit), lays claim to
immediate certainty ; whereas, inasmuch as it refers to
something quite different from us — yea, opposed to us—
and of which there is no evidence how it can come into
immediate consciousness, it must be regarded as nothing
more than a prejudice — a natural and oiiginal one, to be
sure, but nevertheless a prejudice. The contradiction
lying in the fact that a conclusion which in its nature
cannot be immediately certain, is, nevertheless, blindly and
without grounds, accepted as Buch, cannot be solved by

Evor:u II.] SCHELLING. 281

transcendental philosophy, except on the assnmption that
this couclnsion is implicit]}', and in a manner hiiheito not
manifest, not founded upon, but identical, and one and the
same with an affirmation which is immediately certain ;
and to demonstrate this identity will really be the task of
transcen dental philosophy."

Schelling divides the process of the production of
the Keal into three stages; the first extending from
original blind feeling to productive intuition. Feeling, as
given limitation, has its ground in a previous activity
which cannot fall within consciousness, inasmuch as its
result, passive limitation of feeling, is the primordial stage
of consciousness. The progress from this stage to the
following one consists, according to Schelling, in the out-
going of the infinite activity beyond its previous point of
determination ; what it then was /or us it now is for itself.
At this point Schelling seeks to show why the perceived
or intuited feeling must appear spacially in three dimen-
f^ions, in other words, as matter. Then begins the second
period, from p-oductive intuition to reflection. Here again,
the course of the deduction consists in showing how the
intuition comes to be for itself what it was previously
for the act of contemplation. This period contains the
whole multiplicity of the objective world as the con-
sciousless pioduction of the Ego, besides the deduction of
time and space and the categories, which latter, however,
are much reduced by Schelling, the categories of relation
being indicated as the ground of all the rest.

1 he category of Eeciprocity phenomenalised in time and
space is expressed in Organisation. The interconnection of
the parts of an organism is not a case of cause and effect, but
of action and reaction. The universe viewed under the
category of reciprocity may thus be regarded as an organic
whole. In this also is given the ground of individuation
in the subject, the explanation why the Ego hitherto
limited merely by the object in general, passes into a
second limitation by which it is compelled to intuite the
universe from certain limited points of view, each one of
which stands in the relation of accident to the sum of
things. The third epoch embraces a third limitation,
which is the foundation of Will. It is clear that the

282 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II

question wliy I regard a portion of tlie -universe as
specially belonging to myself, as my organism, is intimately
connected with the question, how I come to regard the
remainder of the universe as altogether independent of
myself? Schelling's answer to this is that it takes place
through an act of will. The transition from the theoretical
to the practical sides of Schelling's philosophy are thus
effected in a manner precisely analogous to that of Fichte.
There is little indeed in Schelling's transcendental deduc-
tion which shows any essential variation on the correspon-
ding division of the Wissenschaftslehre. The gist of the
deduction is well given by Schelling himself when he says,
" As natural science produces idealism out of realism, by
mentalising the laws of Nature into the laws of intelli-
gence, t)r superinducing the formal upon the material, so
transcendental philosophy produces realism out of idealism,
by materialising the laws of nature, or introducing the
material into the formal."

In his practical philosophy Schelling is still mainly at
one with Fichte. What Fichte calls the deduction of the
opposition (Anstoss) constitutes the starting-point. The
act of wdll has to be explained, the inherent contradiction
between freedom and necessity which must be conceived
as united in it has to be resolved. The category of
reciprocity effects this, inasmuch as it is shown that this is
brought about by the action of intelligences outside the
individual Ego. The co-operation of many intelligences
produces a world common to all. Through the inter-
action of individual intelligences arises the limitation
of individuality. The world common to all is the
arena of our conscious action, the sphere within which
we know ourselves as causal agents. This turns ujDon the
fact (and here Schelling's substantial agreement with
Schopenhauer comes into view) that what we call action
is only a modified form of perception, since perception
itself is ultimately nothing but unconscious action. For
this reason, i.e. because they are ultimately identical,
Nature and Freedom can never really conflict. How at
once the objective world conforms itself to ideas in us, and
ideas in us conform themselves to the objective world, it
is impossible to conceive, unless there exists between the

Epoch II.] SCHELLIXG. 283

two worlds (the ideal and the real) a pre-established
harmony. But this pre-established harmony itself is not
conceivable, unless the activity, whereby the objective
world is produced, be originally identical with that which
displays itself in volition, and vice versa.

"Now it is undoubtedly a (productive) activity that
displays itself in volition; all free action is productive
and productive only with consciousness. If, then, we
suppose, since the two activities are one only in their
principle, that the same activity which is productive loith
consciousness in free action, is productive without conscious-
ness in the production of the world, this pre-established
harmony is a reality, and the contradiction is solved.''
Freedom can never transcend the laws of Nature, and the
fact that impulse falls within the sphere of Nature, does
not aifect its intrinsic character. (This, be it observed, is
nothing but Kant's phenomenal necessity united with
noumenal freedom otherwise put.) Schelling proceeds to
build up on the basis of the above a social, political, and
historical theory, which, in spite of occasional suggestive-
ness, shows no real advance upon Fichte.

The main difference between Schelling and the author
of the Wissenschaftslehre appears conspicuously in the
" Philosophy of Art," and here again we find a striking
correspondence with Schopenhauer. The fundamental
distinction between nature and art is that between con-
scious and unconscious production. Nature has the
appearance of design without being consciously formed
according to design. The Ego is /or itself smd in itself, at
one and the same time conscious and unconscious, in the
art-perception. In art, which is the product, so to speak,
of an inspiration which is itself unconscious, consciously
exercised, is realised that Ideal which practice or morality
is ever striving to attain but never reaches. Art is the
resolution of an infinite contradiction ; beauty is the
incomprehensible miracle by which the ideal is materialised
and the material is idealised, by which Nature is pre-
sented as the infinite possibility of freedom, and freedom
as the definite reality of Nature.

The aesthetic faculty occupies the same pre-eminent
position with Schelling that the moral impulse or

284 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

conscience does with Fichte. Artistic perception is the
objectivised transcendental. Art and philosophy have it
in common that their subject-matter is a reality, but an
idealised reality. The production of the artist and of the
philosopher is alike a reproduction of the world which is
in himself. The eesthetic or artistic consciousness forms
therefore the conclusion of the system. Its commence-
ment is intellectual intuititm, its close is artistic intuition.
Intellectual intuition, inasmuch as it does not fall directly
within empirical consciousness, can only be appreciated by
the philosopher who can distinguish ir, and hence philo-
sophy, as philosophy, will never be available for everybody.
The aesthetic intuition, on the contrary, is merely the
highest and most complete phase of empirical consciousness,
and therefore art is available for all, potentially, if not
actually. As Philosophy and Poetry were in the infancy
of mankind united in Mythology, so its maturity wdll
produce a new mythologj', which wall present in idealised
form, not the history of any individual hero, but of the
whole human race.

The departure of Schelling from Fichte is crucially
shown in his constituting " Philosophy of Nature," co-
ordinate with *' Transcendental Philosophy." In this, ob-
viously, " Transcendental Philosophy " is conceived as a
science purel}' of the subjective, to which a corresponding
science of the objective is a necessary complement. The
opposition between them is resolved by Sclielling's notion
of the Absolute as pure " inditit'erence " or '• identity." In
philosophy of Nature, Nature is regarded as productive
(iiatura naturans), not as product (natura naturata).
Nature is here viewed as self-limiting productivity; oa
the one hand maintaining its own infiniry, while at the
same time crystallising itself in limited products or
phenomena. As the stream flows endlessly on, notwith-
standing the continuous passage into notliingness of its
individual drops, so it is wdth Nature ; it is ceaselessly
creating and annihilating itself in its products. Nature
may thus be viewed as a struggle between the principles
of universalisation and individuation, a struggle mani-
fested in a series of attempts, so to speak, to realise an
equilibrium. This is called by Schelling the *' dynamic

Epoch IL] SCIIELLING. 285

process " of Nature, and is worked out by him in the form
of an emanation- theory.

Schelling, as we have already seen, defines the Absolute
Reason as the complete indifference between object and
subject. This conception is attained by distinguishing^
between the act of thinking and the thought. This
absolute identity is the true in-it>self-ness of things, and to
know "things in themselves," is to know them as they
are in the Absolute Reason.

The " absolute identity " of Schelling is, in spite of
Schelling's protestations to the contrary, in no way
distinguishable from the absolute Ego of Fichte, all
quantitative diiference, of course, falling within the
region of the finite. The fundamental formula for the
Absolute being A = A, that for the Relative is A = B,
subject and object being combined in various proportions.
In itself of course, nothing is relative. Were we
able to take in the universe in an " infinite glance,"
we should discover perfect quantitative equilibrium
between isubjective and objective ; it is only in individual
things that proportionate differences between these two
elements occur. There is nothing outNide the whole ;
the notion of anything existing apart from the system
of things which is the manifestation of the Absolute
is due TO the error of reflection which separates and
individualises the inseparable and the universal. The
quantitative differences existing in finite things as to the
subjective or objective element they contain are termed
by Schelling iwtences. The first potence is matter in
which the two elements or momenta are united as gravity.
Here we have the preponderance of the object ; the second
is light, the preponderance of the subject ; the third is
the synthesis of both— organisation — wliich, according to
Schelling, is common to all matter. The con espondence
of Schelling with Leibnitz is apparent when he speaks of
inorganic matter as a sleeping plant and animal world.
The doctrine of evoluti(m, it cannot be denied, is distinctly
present in Schelling's Naturpkilosophie. Man is simply
the result of the entire process of organic metamorphosis.
"What we term inorganic matter, contains within itself the
potentiality of life ; it represents, in its present form, the

286 MODERN PHILOSOrHY. [Epoch H.

abortive product of the attempt of nature to become
organic. In the ideal sphere the potences are, Knowledge,
Action, and Reason. The first gives ns the " true," the
subsuming of matter under form ; the second the " good,"
the subsuming of form under matter ; and the third, the
synthesis of these — the " beautiful."

The later developments of Schelling show an ever
increasing tendency to go off into mere mysticism and
theosophy. From 1804 onwards a strong Xeo-platonic
bias is shown in all his writings. This culminated after a
lengthened study of the mediseval mystics of Germany,
and of Jacob Boehme, in literary productions which
amount to little more than fantastic rhapsodies of a
religio-poetical nature. The exposition of these need not
detain us, inasmuch as they have no important bearing on
the subsequent history of philosophy in Germany, such
influence as they exerted being purely on mystical
litterateurs, such as Schlegel, Tieck, Novalis, &c., if we
except some slight impulse they may have given to
mythological studies.

Schelling's system as a whole can hardly be regarded
as embodying auy solid advance on Fichte, although there
are certain departments in which Fichte was especially
lacking upon which Schelling is suggestive. This is
notably the case as regards Art. Fichte, like Kant, in his
apotheosis of that emptiest of all simulacra " moral
freedom," entirely ignores the Art-consciousness. In
Schelling's Philosophy of Art, though there is much that
is artificial and of no speculative value, there are also
some luminous thoughts of which Hegel and later writers
on Esthetics have availed themselves. As regards
method, Schelling is distinctly retrograde, if indeed he
can be said to have any method at all. His system is,
moreover, based upon the purely psychological distinction
of subject and object, the importance of which Fichte had
to some extent gauged at its true value. Schelling
assumes the distinction as ultimate, and then endeavoui*s
to transcend it by a mere phrase. Well might Hegel
complain that Schelling's Absolute appears in his system
" as though it had been shot out of a pistol." The l^ter
writings of Schelling show him to have been essentially

Epoch II.] SCHELLING. 287

rather what the Germans called a sclwngeist — the cultured
man of letters with a religio-a3sthetic cast of mind — than
the philosopher pure and simple.

The " System of Identity " succeeded in obtaining a
following, not only in the philosophical world, but,
as was to be expected, amongst purely literary men.
It was eminently congenial to the spirit of the romantic
school, then in the height of its renown. That it should
have attracted men of science, may seem somewhat
surprising, yet so it was. The naturalist, Oken, the
botanist. Von Esenbeck, the physiologist, Buidach, among
others may be mentioned as disciples of Schelling. Among
the philosophical adherents and expanders of the system
may be named, G. M. Klein, J. J. Wagner the
theosophist, F. Von Baader and K. C. F. Krause. The
two latter, although they are sometimes regarded as
the founders of independent systems, have in all essen-
tials drawn from Schelling. The celebrated theologian
Schleiermacher also belonged to the school of Schelling.

Before entering upon an analysis of Hegel's system,
which at least, so far as method is concerned, forms the
culmination of the line of thought we have been consider-
ing, we propose to turn aside in order to take a survey of
two other schools of thought, which also have their
origin in the " Critical Philosophy." Kant, as we know,
makes an absolute distinction between Sensibility and
Understanding. Sense is always with Kant the material
principle. Understanding, the formative principle, in the
synthesis of Eeality. " Esthetic " and " Analytic " are
the two co-ordinate pillars on which the structure of the
Critical Philosophy rests. The Sense-element in Know-
ledge is as incapable of reduction to terms of the Under-
standing as the Intelligible-element is to terms of Sense.
Fichte, in his deduction of experieoce from the one funda-
mental principle of Egoition, took his stand on Kant's
formal element, the Understanding, the starting-point of his
isystem, being discoverable in the deduction of the cate-
gories from the original " unity of apperception." Fichte is,
perhaps, not always quite consistent, since he sometimes,

288 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch n.

especially in his later writings, seems to identify his
primordial activity with a mere alogical impulse ; but
nevertheless his sheet-anchor is, as he repeatedly insists,
self-consciousness — the formal unity, the "I think" — of
Kant. Fichte, in other words, starts with a formal
principle ; with him /or-itself-ness is practically ultimate,
and includes m-itself-ness ; concrete reality is thus dedu-
cible from the formal activity of thouiiht alone, the " I '*
is confounded or identified with the " think."

It is not proposed to pursue the subject further now,
inasmuch as we shall have to recur to it again in treating
of Hegel, in whom we find the principle fully and con-
sistently carried out. We shall then endeavour to show its
inevitable effect, as it appears to us, in the working out
of the speculative method. Our only object in mentioning
it here is to point out the position occupied by the line
of thought, of which Schopenhauer and Herbart represent
the two opposite poles, and which is based on the Transcen-
dental ^Esthetic. With these schools, the Alogical, whether
as impulse (will) or feeling, constitutes the prius of ex-
perience. Schopenhauer analyses experience into the
momenta of an impersonal all-determining Will; Herbart
into discrete self-centered units of feeling. For the one,
Eeality is a continuous whole ; for the other, a congeries, so
to speak, of separate points ; the basis of the one is
Monistic, that of the other Pluralistic. Both these schools
alike reject the sj^eculative method, as is only natural,
considering that they found on the "Esthetic" side of
the " critical philosophy." The idea which is confusedly
present in Schelling's system is distinctly formulated by
Schopenhauer. Schelling sought for a principle other
than thought, and imagined he had found it in the phrase
" Absolute Identity," or " Indifference." Schopenhauer
asserted that the principle other than thought — the matter
of which thought was the form — was Will undetermined
by any specific content. Schellinoj seems to have a
confused consciousness of what is lacking in Fichte when
he charges him with subjectivism, a defect he evidently
thinks his principle of " indiffei eiice " supplies. Schelling's
grasp of the speculative method was, however, so weak,
especially in the later \^ritings, that he has little
importance in this connyciiun.

Epoch II.] SCHOPENHAUER. 289

SCHOPENHAUER.

Arthur Schopenhauer, the founder of Modern ressiniism,
was born 22nd February, 1788, at Dantzig. His father,
a successful merchant in the old Hanseatio town, was a
great traveller for those dsijs, besides being a man of
considerable culture. The wandering life of his youth
was doubtless not without its influence in the formation
of young Schopenhauer's character. He resided for some
time both in France and England, the pietism of the
latter country proving particularly obnoxious to him.
Early in 1805 Schopenhauer entered a merchant's office,
where he remained, much against his inclinations, for
twelve months ; after which, his father ha^^ng died in the
meantime in consequence of an accident, he entered the
university of Gotha, with the intention of devoting
himself to literature. He subsequently left Gotha for
Weimar, then at the zenith of its literary splendour, his
own mother, Johanna Schopenhauer, the novelist, being a
j^rominent figure there. In 1807 he repaired to Gottingen,
where he matriculated in the medical faculty. Alter
some further travelling, in the course of which he visited
Italy, he finally settled down at Frankfort-on-the-Maine,
where he remained, with but little intermission, until his
death on September 21st, 1860, and where most of his
works were written.

Schopenhauer, though not so voluminous a writer as
Fichte or Schelling, possesses a literary charm, wanting in
all other German philosophers. He was an ardent
student of those remarkable products of Oriental thought,
the Upanischads, and it is to these, conjoined with Kant,
that his conception of a systematic Pessimism must be
immediately traced. Schopenhauer's chief work is his
' World as Will and Presentation.' He is also the author
of a treatise, ' On the fourfold Eoot of the principle of
adequate cause ' (his first work), of two charming volumes
of miscellaneous essays to which he gave the name of
* Parerga and Paralipomena,' of a treatise on ' Will in
Nature,' and other less important pieces.

u

290 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

Philosophy of Schopenhauer.

In his earliest work, ' The Fourfold Eoot,' Schopen-
hauer takes his stand on Kant's reduction of space and
time to subjective forms. He, however, blames Kant for
having assumed twelve categories where one only, that of
Causality, is necessary. He also criticises Kant's sepa-
ration of perception from thought, since space and time
themselves are but one of the four forms of the principle
of causation which is as much sensuous as intellectual.
The four forms of the principle of causality, in question,
are termed by Schopenhauer respectively the ratio essencU,
Jiendi, agendi, et cognoscendi. The two first forms are
constructive of the object itself. The ratio essendi is
nothing other than the space and time form of the inner
and outer sense— succession and co-existence. The ratio
fieiidi is the relation of things as cause and effect,
properly so called. By this relation, causality con-
stitutes the object in time and space, real. Through
causality alone can it become object; hence the notion
of an object apart from the relation implied in causality
(e.g. a first-cause) is a contradiction in terms. The
three chief phases of cause-and-effect are mechanical
impact (inorganic), irritability or reflex action (organic),
and motive (psychic). Every change of state pre-supposes
a prior state; hence the absurdity of the assumptions of
Theism. Matter is the only reality, inasmuch as a timed,
spaced, and caused object, must necessarily be material.
The ratio jiendi of Schopenhauer, unlike Kant's category
of cause and effect, is not, as it were, thought into the object
by the understanding ; the causal relations proper, of the
latter, are as much intuited as its time and space relations.
The third principle, the ratio cognoscendi, is not, like the
two former, constructive of the object, i.e. not creative ; it
is the faculty of discursive thought, which by Kant, Fichte,
Schelling, and their school, has been falsely, under the
name of the " Eeason," given a pre-eminence over those
principles which go to the construction of the real. The
ratio cognoscendi is, in short, merely the faculty of forming
abstract conceptions. The fourth form of the principle of

Epoch II.] SCHOPENHAUER. 291

Cause, the ratio agendi, shows us the principle as deter-
mined from within, but none the less 7?<?cess«n7// determined,
in other words as indirifJual icill or motivation. To sum
up : the principle of Cause in its four forms, interpenetrates
the world, but inasmuch as it is only a principle belonging
to our faculty of presentation, it follows that the world
itself is nothing but our presentation. The Ego itself is
but phenomenal, and appears as individual in so far
as it is an object in time and space, since they may be
called the pincipia individuationis. My body lias as much
right to the appellation microcosmos as the universe has
to the appellation maJcanfhropos.

The foregoing exposition, which is contained in ' The
Fourfold Root,' may be regarded, taken by itself, as little
more than a rectified Kantism. This view is modified
directly the main position of Schopenhauer is taken into
consideration. Schopenhauer's philosophy does not rest
satisfied with an analysis of the world as phenomenon,
that is, as subordinated to the principle of causation. It
claims to have a word to say on the world regarded as
thing-in-itself, as noumenon. The immediate investiga-
tion into the nature of experience discloses a something
which we call world, appearing under divers forms, all of
which may ultimately be regarded as modes of causation.
But what is this thing which appeals, which becomes
object of consciousness — what is the thing, that is con-
sidered fipart from its appearance ? Schopenhauer's answer
is, that wliicli appears is not consciousness, for the latter,
pursue it as far back as you may, still remains only the
form assumed by the thing itself; this, the matter of the
world, is not conscious but a-conscious, not Intellect but
Will.

'• The idea of the soul as a metaphysical being," says
Schopenhauer, "in whose absolute simplicity will and
intellect were an indissoluble unity, was a great and
permanent impediment to all deeper insight into natural
phenomena. The cardinal merit of my doctrine, and that
which puts it in opposition to all former philosophies,
is the perfect separation of the will from the intellect.
All former philosophers thought will to be inseparable
from intellect ; the will was declared to be conditioned

u 2

292 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

by the intellect, or even to be a mere function of it,
whilst the intellect was regarded as the fundamental
principle of our spiritual existence. I am well aware that
to the future alone belongs the recognition of this doctrine,
but to the future philosophy the separation, or rather the
decomposition of the soul into two heterogeneous elements,
will have the same significance as the decomposition of
water had to chemistiy. Not the soul is the eternal and
indestructible principle of life in man, but what I might
call the root of the soul, and that is the Will. The so-
called soul is alread}^ a compound ; it is the combination of
will and vovs, intellect. The intellect is the secondary,
the posterius in any organism, and, as a mere function of
the brain, dependent upon the organism. The will, on
the contrary, is primary, the prius of the organism, and
the organism consequently is conditioned by it. For the
will is the very ' thing-in-itself,' which in conception
(that is, in the peculiar function of the brain) exhibits
itself as an organic body. Only by virtue of the forms of
cognition, that is, by virtue of that function of the brain —
hence only in conception — is one's body something ex-
tended and organic, and not apart therefrom or immedi-
ately in self-consciousness. Just as the various single
acts of the body are nothing but the various acts of the
will portrayed in the represented world, so is the shape
of this body as a totality, the image of its will as a whole.
In all organic functions of the body, therefore, just as in its
external actions, the \^ill is the ' agens.' True physiology
shows the intellect to be the product of the phj^sical
organisation, but true metaphysics show, that physical
existence itself is the product, or rather the appearance,
of a spiritual agens, to wit, the will ; nay, that matter
itself is conditioned through conception, in which alone it
exists. Perception and thought may well be explained by
the nature of the organism ; the will never can be ; the
contrary is true, namely, that every organism originates
by and from the will." ( JJeher den Willen in der Natur,
2nd edition, 185-i, Frankfcrt, pp. 19-20.) The foregoing
quotation may fairly be taken as a succinct epitome of
the more purely metaphysical side of Schopenhauer's
philosophy.

Epoch IL] SCHOPENHAUER. 203

Our consciousness of ourself is a consciousness of ourself
as object; that which becomes consciousness of itself, in
other words, the in-itselfness of the world, and a fortiori,
of ourselves as individuals, is nothing other than that
element of our nature which we term Will. By the word
Will, in Schopenhauer's sense, is to he understood all
impulse whatsoever, mechanical, physical, chemical, no
less than organic and psychic. It is the same impulse
which is manifested in gravitation, in magnetism,
which expresses itself in the growth of the plant, in
the, reproduction and development of the animal, and
in the will of man. Why, then, it may be Hsked, does
Schopenhauer emplo}^ the word ivill rather than force
to designate this in-itselfness, this infinite potentiality
of the world ? His reply is, that he designates it by the
term connoting its highest expression (as it is immedi-
ately known to us) ; ivill is known immediately, force
mediately only. " The distance," observed Schopen-
hauer, "the indeed, in appearance, comj^lete diversity
between the phenomenon of inorganic nature, and that
Will which we perceive to be the inmost nature of our
own being, arises mainly from the contrast between the
fully determined regularity of the one, and the apparently
lawless independence of the other class of phenomena.
For in man the individuality comes strongly to the fore ;
each has a special character, hence the same motive has
not the same power over all, and there are thousands of
surrounding circumstances having their place in the wide
sphere of individual knowledge, but remaining unknown
to others, which modify its effect ; for this reason the
action cannot be predicted from the motive alone, inas-
much as the other factor is wanting, namely, the exact
acquaintance with the individual character and the
knowledge accompanyiug it. On the other hand, the
phenomena of natural forces exhibits the opposj^ite extreme ;
they act according to universal laws, without deviation,
without individuality, in accordance with obvious circum-
stances, and are capable of the most precise prevision, the
same natural force manifesting itself in millions of
phenomena precisely in the same wa.y " ( Welt ah Wille,
voh i. pp. 134-5),

294 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

The most immediate objectivation of the will is the
organism or body. For the Subject of knowledge the
body is given in a twofold way, as an object amongst
objects, biibject to the laws of matter, and as the direct
embodiment of Will. The act of the will and the act of
the body are not two things bound together by a causal
nexus, — the action of the body does not foUoio the action
of the will, as an effect follows a cause — but the two
states are the same fact differently viewed, in other words,
as above stated, the body is the immediate objectivation
of the will. The question as to the existence of the
external world resolves itself, when closely viewed, into
the question whether the objects known to the individual
merely as such, that is, merely as presentati< ms, are, like
his own body, manifestations of Will. We are justified,
according to Schopenhauer, in applying the analogy of
the object, our own body, which, as we have said, is
manifested in a double way, to other objects which
are not so manifested. They agree with it in that they
are phenomena of consciousness. Let us abstract from
this aspect of them, and they remain either nothing at
all, as the subjective idealist affirms (an assertion which is
obviously a reductio ad ahsurdum), or else they must be of
the same nature with that which in ourselves we term
will. As in man that which determines character is will,
so the quality which distinguishes things, which gives
them their specific character, consists in the particular
stage in the objectivation of the will which they represent.
The will, as manifested in time and space and subject to
cause, appears in an infinity of individuals, for time and
space are the principles of individuation. In itself, on
the other hand, the Will is absolutely one and indivisible.
Between the will as thing-in-itself, and the will as indi-
vidualised in space and time, we have to consider the will
as expressed in the several stages of its objectivation.
These stages of the objectivation of the will correspond to
the ideas of Plato. They are the eternal changeless forms,
the permanent entia, of which the evanescent flux of
individuals partakes, and by which they are more or less
imperfectly expressed. This doctrine furnishes the basis
for Schopenhauer's theorj' of Art, just as the doctrine

Epoch II.] SCHOPENHAUER. 295

of tlie Will (or as Schopenhauer sometimes terms it tlie
" will- to-live "), as thing -iu-itself furnishes the basis for
his theory of Ethics.

We have already seen that the will as thing-in-itself
is opposed to the Will as phenomenon or object of con-
sciousness, as which it tends to lose its essential cha-
racter. The essence of will consists in activity, in a
striving after something unattained. The essence of
intelligence or understanding, as Schopenhauer terms
it, that is, of completed consciousness, consists, on the
other hand, in passivity — in the contemplation of an
object as given. In ordinary Empirical consciousness,
however, which takes place under the forms of time and
space, the two aspects, that of the world as will, and the
world as perception appear, together. It is only in the
art-product, in the gesthetic consciousness, that intelligence
or perception is to be found pure and undisturbed by the
restless striving of Will. First of all let us hear
Schopenhauer on the essential nature of Will. " All
willing," he says, " arises from desire, that is from want,
that is from snifering. Satisfaction makes an end of this ;
but nevertheless, for every wish that is gratified, there
remain at least ten unfulfilled. Furthermore, desire lasts
long ; its yearnings are infinite, while satisfaction is
short, and sparingly measured out. But even the satis-
faction is only illusory ; the gratified wish at once gives
place to a new one ; the former is a recognised, the latter
a still unrecognised, mistake. Lasting, unfading satis-
faction, no desired object of the will can afi'ord ; it is like
the alms thrown to the beggar, which prolong his life for
the day, only to postpone his suffering till the morrow.
So long, therefore, as our consciousness is absorbed in our
will, so long are we given up to the stress of wishes with
its continuous hoping and fearing ; so long as we are the
subject of will, lasting happiness or rest will never be our
lot. Whether we pursue or flee, dread evil or strive after
pleasure, is essentially the same, the care for an ever onward
urging will, it matters not what be its shape, ceaselessly
moves and fills the consciousness; but without rest no
true happiness is possible. Thus is the subject of the will
bound eternally on the revolving wheel of Ixion, thus

296 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

does it ceaselessly gather in the sieve of the Danaids, thus,
like Tantalus, is it ever languishing " ( Welt als Willey
vol. i., § 38). In this fine passage the Pessimistic doctrine
is admirably expressed. Schopenhauer's pessimism is
something more than empirical pessimism. It claims a
character of a priori certainty. The absolute Will, in
sundering itself into I and not I, entered a fiery ordeal
which can only be terminated by the negation of the loill
to live, but of this more anon. To the common mind
pleasure is positive, and pain negative. For Schopenhauer
this is an illusion, the reverse being the truth. Pain is
the positive, and pleasure the negative. Pleasure being
nothing more than the cessation of a pain, or the satisfac-
tion of a want, consequent on which new pains or new
wants obtrude themselves. In short, since all Will implies
action, all action want, all want pain, it follows that pain
and misery are the essential condition of Will, and of that
ordinary empirical consciousness into which Will enters,
i.e. the consciousness which is subordinated to space, time
and cause, and which constitutes the illusory world of
multiplicity and individuation — the veil of the Maya, to
employ the language of the Upanischads. But as before
said, there is another kind of consciousness which is pure
and free from any admixture with Will as such.

It is this consciousness which contemplates the stages of
the Will's objectivation in their pure form and not as dis-
torted by the time and space world of individual things.
In this aesthetic contemplation the Will becomes more or lei?s
completely dominated by, or, we may rather say, metamor-
phosed into, " presentation '\Vorstellung), the latter in this
case not being, as in ordinary consciousness, merely " the
servant of the W^ill." The third book of Schopen-
hauer's Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, is occupied with a
discussion on the place occupied by the several depart-
ments of the fine Arts in the presentment of the Will's
objectivation. The idea, although not subject to the
various forms of the principle of causality, bears never-
theless the most universal characteristic of knowledge or
presentment, that of being an object for a subject. As
individuals, we have no knowledge but such as is involved
in causation, and from the knowledge of individual things

Erocii II.] SCHOPENHAUER. 297

we can only raise ourselves to the knowledge of the ideas
by virtue of a change in our cognitive nature, by which,
from being individual it becomes universal. The natural
state wherein consciousness or perception is at the service
of the Will is in the case of animals not to be transcended.
Man alone can attain to a knowledge of the idea in so far
as his consciousness severs itself from its natural obedience
to the Will. In the fixed contemplation of the object in
its intrinsic nature, the Why, the Wherefore, and the When
of things is neglected ; their Wliatness, their quality, is
alone considered, not in discursive thought but in imme-
diate perception. This peculiar mode of cognition is the
foundation of Art; in the Art-work the idea seized in
this act of contemplation, is reproduced under the forms
of empirical consciousness. The aim of Art is the pre-
sentment of these ideas, which are the essential and
permanent in all the phenomena of the world. What is
the process by which the creations of Art are produced ?
asks Schopenhauer. " It is suj^posed by the imitation of
Nature ; but wherein shall the Artist recognise the success-
ful in her and the work which is to be imitated, and pick
it out from among her abortive attempts, if he do not
anticipate the Beautiful pior to experience f* Besides, has
Nature ever furnished a human being perfectly beautiful
in every respect ? It has been supposed that the Artist
must gather together the beautiful sides of many indi-
vidual human beings, and out of these piece together a
beautiful whole, a false and foolish opinion ! For we ask
again, How shall we know that precisely these forms are
beautiful and those not ? * * * Purely a 'posteriori and
through mere experience no knowledge of the Beautiful
is possible ; it is always at least in part a priori, although
of course, in a different sense to the forms of the principle
of cause of which we are also conscious a priori."

The idea as such,which the Art-work reproduces, is apart
from space, time and individuation, but its reproduction
through a sensuous medium shows various gradations
represented by the various Arts. In Music we have the
purest and most immediate reproduction of the idea ; in
all the other Arts, notabl3'- Sculpture and Painting, this
takes place through special archetypal forms, the Platonic

298 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

ideas proper, but in Music without the intervention of
any special form. " After having," says Schopenhauer,
*' considered in the foregoing all the tine Arts in that
universality which our standpoint demands, beginning
from Architecture, whose end, as such, is to render clear
the objectivation of the Will at the lowest stage of its
manifestation, where it appears as dull, unconscious,
determinate impulse of the mass — though even here reveal-
ing differentiation and struggle, to wit, as between giaviiy
and fixity — and closing our consideration with the tragedy,
which, at the highest stage of the objectivation of the
Will, exhibits its conflict with itself in fearful magni-
tude and clearness, we find there is still one of the tine
Arts which has of necessity been excluded from our inves-
tigation, since there was no place for it in the systematic
connection of our exposition ; it is Music. It stands apart
from all others * * * The Ideas are the adequate objectiva-
tion of the Will ; to excite the knowledge of these through
the presentation of individual things is the end of all the
Arts. They all objectivise the AVill mediately, namely,
through the Ideas, our world being nothing but the
phenomenon of the Ideas in plurality, by means of the
principium individuationis which is the only possible form
of knowledge for the individual. Music, on the other
hand, inasmuch as it transcends the Ideas, is completely
independent of the phenomenal world, ignores it entirely,
and could, in a sense, exist, even though the world were
not, which cannot be said of the other Arts. Music is,
therefore, as immediate an objectivation and reflection of
the Will as is the \\ orld itself ; or as are the Ideas, whose
manifold phenomenon the world of individual things, is.
Music is thus in no wise like the other Arts, the copy of
the Ideas, but the copy of the Will itself, whose objectivity
the Ideas are. For this reason the eff'ect of Music is so
mnch more powerful and impressive than that of the
other Arts, for while they speak only of shadows, it speaks
of substance." (Welt ah 'Wille, vol. i., § 52.)

The delight afforded by the Beautiful, the joys of Art,
the enthusiasm of the Artist, all turn upon the fact, that
in Art the striving of the Will is temporarily stilled. In
aisthetic contemplation we cease to will, we become purely

Epoch II.] SCHOPENHAUER. 299

passive, we cognise merel3\ But Art, though a quietude of
the Will, does not deliver it for ever, but only during
moments of life, and i« therefore not the way out of the
struggle, Init at Lest, a temporary consolation within it.
The liiial deliverance which constitutes the main proljleni
of the Ethical side of Schopenhauer's philosophy, is dealt
with by him in the fuurtli book of the Welt als Wille.
The Will-to-live which involves a ceaseless strife, a never-
ending eifort to attain the unattainable, and therefore an
ever-present sufltering, may be, according to Schopenhauer,
either affirmed or denied. Jts affirmation takes place
when the individual surrenders himself to the Will which
is objectivised in him, by obeying his natural impulses
tending to the preservation of himself and the reproduc-
tion of the species. It is denied, when the Will-to-live —
not necessarily life itself,* but the desires which minister
to the preservation and rejjroduction of life — are ex-
tinguished within him. The basis of all practical morality
is sympathy with the suffering inseparable from life, a
sympathy which is the outcome of the consciousness, vague
or clear, of the ultimate identity of our own Will with the
AVill of all other sentient beings. The Ideal goal of
Ethics is the final negation of the Will-to-live, the way to
which is to be found in asceticism. Consciousness, the
last phase of the Will, must be played out before the
end can come. Not until all desire is extinguished in
case deliverance finally be accomplished. Schopenhauer
naturally found the type of his asceticism in the Buddhist
monk, and to a somewhat less extent in the Trappist.
" In this way," concludes Schopenhauer, " in the con-
templation of the life and career of the saints to meet
with Avhom is seldom granted to one's own experience,
but of which their written history assures us with the
impress of inner truth that is upon it, and which Art
brings before our eyes, we have the dark impression of
that nothingness that looms as the final goal behind all
virtue and holiness, and which we dread as children
dread the darkness. Instead of, like the Hindoos, seeking

* Suicide Schopenhauer regarded as a clumsy solution of the prob-
lem, since the will is not thereby destroyed, but only, so to speak,
temporarily inverted.

300 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

to evade it througli mytHs and meaningless words, such
as reabsorption in the world-soul, or the Buddhist Nir-
vana, let us rather confess freely that after the complete
destruction of the Will, what remains is, for all those who
are still immersed in the AVill, assuredly nothingness.
But on the other hand, for those in whom the Will has
already turned against and denied itself, this our so very
real world, with all its suns and galaxies, is also nothing-
ness." (Welt ah Wille, vol. i., § 17.)

In spite of the abuse and ridicule which Schopenhauer
heaped upon the Guild-philosophers, as he termed Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel, there is very little in his system
which is not discoverable incidentally at least in the works
of the two former thinkers. With Fichte, of course, self-
consciousness was a starting-point, but the self-conscious
Ego reappears later on in the system as moral impulse,
which for Fichte, as for Schopenhauer, consists in the
negation of the phenomenal world through Asceticism.
Schopenhauer is, of course, far more logical in this
respect than even Fichte, who does not carry the principle
of asceticism to its final issue of self-starvation, like the
pessimist writer. In Schelling, again, the conception of
Will as prius is clearly traceable. Schopenhauer's chief
merit lies in the clearness and consistency with which he
carries out positions which had heretofore been either
imperfectly developed or tlirown out more in the form of
suggestion than of positive theory. The prominence
Schopenhauer gives to the distinction between the Alo-
gical or Material and the logical or formal element in
experience, to which we have already alluded, is the most
original feature of the purely metaphysical side of his
doctrine, and may be undoubtedly traced to a reaction
against the formalism of Hegel. Schopenhauer has the
merit of being the first philosopher in modern times, if we
except some of the French materialists, who is honest
enough to refrain from the usual lip-homage to the domi-
nant creed. His " Free-thought " is, indeed, in some
instance, decidedly aggressive. He steadily refused to
employ theological terminology in a sense misleading even
to the '* vulgar." He did not, as many would have done,
import the term " God " (innocent little word, the friend

Epoch II.] HERBART. 301

in need of speculative time-servers) into his system,
well knowing that the notions it implied were foreign
thereto. His polemic against Theism extends even to the
term " pantheism," which he stigmatises as involving a
meaningless use of language.

For a long time Schopenhauer remained entirely un-
recognised. Towards the close of his life, however, a
circle of devoted admirers began to form around him.
Chief among these were his biographer, Dr. Gwinner, and
his editor and annotator, Dr. Frauenstadt, both enthusiastic
disciples. The subsequent development of the pessimist
doctrine in Germany, we shall deal with briefly later on.

HERBART.

JoHANN Friedrich Herbart was bom May 4th, 1776 at
Oldenburg, where his father occupied an official position;
Originally educated in the Leibnitz-Wolffian school, he
soon turned to Kant. In 1794, he attended Fichte's
lectures at Jena, and at this period he began to write
essays criticizing Fichte and Schelling. On leaving the
university he entered a Swiss family, as private tutor,
about the same time making the acquaintance of the
educationalist Pestalozzi, whose theories he warmly cham-
pioned. In 1802 Herbart became lecturer in philosophy
at the university of Gottingen, where he remained until
1809, when Wilhelm von Humbolt procured him the
professorship of philosophy at Konigsberg, just then
vacant. In Konigsberg he instituted a " pedagogic "
seminary which he himself directed. Herbart returned
in 1833 to Gottingen as professor, remaining there in
uninterrupted activity till his death on August 4th,
1841. Herbart's works were published after his death, in
twelve volumes, by his pupil Hartenstein (Leipzig,
1850-52).

302 • MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

Herbart's Philosophy.

Herbart frequently professes to be a follower of Kant,
but adds he is a Kantian of the year 1828, who rejects the
entire Idealistic side of the critical doctrine. Under these
circumstances it is difficult at the first glance to see how
he could have retained anything that was distinctive of
the system ; nevertheless, the fact remains that he was
influenced by Kantism, altliough rejecting its salient
features. Herbart took his stand on Kant's distinction
between phenomena and things-in-themselves, between the
sense-presentation and the hypothetic cause of the. sense-
presentation. But while the thing-in-itself, the external
cause of the sense-impression, was to Kant unkno\vn,
Herbart professed to be able to penetrate the phenomenon
and give some account of the producing noumenon. Herbart
may thus to a certain extent be regarded as a reaction in
favour of the old dogmatism which Kant had expressly
combated. All philosoph}^ according to Herbart, proceeds
from a reflection on psychological data. He somewhere
calls philosophy " the working out of conceptions," but
this working out difi'ers to some extent in method, in the
several departments of philosophy. In Logic, which is its
vestibule, it is concerned with rendering conceptions clear
and distinct which is efi'ected in the judgment. The two
first figures of the Syllogism correspond to the positive and
negative judgment, and may be cast together under the
name of the syllogism of subsumption. The third figure is
termed by Herbart the syllogism of substitution, inasmuch
as it is only valid where a substitution of the minor is
admissible. The great result furnished by logic to all the
departments of philosophy is the principle of " Identity,
contradiction, and excluded middle," in accordance with
which, conceptions which are mutually contradictory, must
be rejected and their opposite accepted. When we view
conceptions from the side of their content, we find that they
fall under tw^o classes. The conceptions b}^ virtue of which
we comprehend the given world form one class, and the
conceptions which do not afi'ect the reality of the thing

Epoch II.] HERBART. * 303

couceived, inasmuch as they are as capable of a^iplication
to an imaginary, as to a real fact, those, namely, of which
iEsthetics and Ethics treat, constitute the other class.
The working out of the first order of concepti(ms belongs
to metaphysics proper, that of the second to " practical
philosophy." The two departments are to be kept rigidly
asunder. Metaphysics has nothing to do with Ethics, nor
Ethics with Metaphysics. Herbart Idmself in the presenta-
tion of his system, contained in his " Introductory Manual
of PhiU)Sophy " (Lehrhuch ziir Einleitiing in die Pliilosopliie),
places the practical side of his system before the theoretical
— the Ethics before the Metaphysics— but for the con-
venience of exposition, we shall in the present sketch
follow the usual order in this respect, and give- a brief
statement of the metaphysics first, more especially as the
connection with Kant and the posL-Kantians is more easily
seen in this way. Under metaphysic, Herbart, like W olf,
includes the whole theoretical side of philosophy. It is
easy to see that the influence of his earlier Wolffian train-
ing is always uppermost in Herbart. He is essentially a
dogmatist with a superficial varnish of criticism. Kant's
great service consists to Herbart in the distinction
between appearance and thing-in-itself. All appearance
points to being, of which it is the ai:)pearance. Every
distinction in the phenomenon corresi3onds to a distinc-
tion in the thing-in-itself. The problem of philo-
sophy is to pierce through the given phenomena to the
reality of which it is the sign. Physics deals only with
the phenomenon, metaphysics, with the entity which the
phenomenon denotes. We are driven to investigate this,
inasmuch as the phenomenon as given, is seen on closer
inspection to involve a contradiction, and hence, by the
laws of thought, we are compelled to resolve this contra-
diction in order to make experience intelligible. Change,
for instance, is given in the phenomenal world ; but change
is a self-contradictory conception, as old Zeno had shown ;
the problem therefore arises (since, according to Herbart,
reality can involve no contradiction), to explain the con-
ditions which create for us the appearance of change.
Metaphysics, therefore (and be it remembered, Herbart is
speaking here of dogmatic metaphysics, that is, of meta-

304 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

physics in tbe pre-Kantian sense of the word) is not to be
rejected in the summary manner of the Kantians, but
rather to be reformed ; the reformation consisting in the
recognition of the fact that it is the science of the integra-
tion of empirical conceptions, by which the reality at their
basis is distinguished from the illusory form they assume
in ordinary consciousness.

Herbart retains Wolfs division of the science in the
main. He terms the first portion, " General Metaphysics,"
and the second, " Applied Metaphysics." " General
Metaphysics " covers Ontology, the special or " Applied
Metaph} sics," "Philosophy of Nature," (cosmology),
" Kational Psychology " and " Rational Theology." The
latter, Herbart, in this respect exhibiting his affiliation to
Kant, can only attain to from the " practical " standpoint.
The first part of the " General Metaphysics " is closely
connected with logic. Herbart here expounds his general
method. A contradiction occurs when intelligibility
and fact do not coincide ; for instance, where two terms
are found in combination, which can nevertheless onlj'
be conceived in separation. U'his is the case with the
connection of cause and eifect where the cause, inasmuch
as it precedes the effect, cannot be considered as equivalent
to the latter, and on the other hand, inasmuch as it
implicitly contains the efi'ect must be considered as
equivalent to it. This contradiction is resolved when the
first term, the cause, is conceived as a plurality, which,
taken individually, has no resemblance to the second term,
the efi'ect, but which, in its totality, produces the effect,
\^h.2it must be conceived, in short, but cannot be conceived
as one, must be conceived as many. This Herbart calls
the method of relations, and compares it to the reduction of
a composite direction of motion to its simple components.

The second part of "General Metaphysics," the Ontology,
opens with a panegyric on Kant for having showTi in his
refutation of the " ontological argument," that the con-
ception of being contains no distinct ichat, but only a that-,
in other words, that it is mere position, apart from all con-
tent. Inasmuch as the conception of being as mere position
excludes all negation, so the quality of being also excludes
all negation, in other words, all distinction of degree, and

Epoch II.] HERBART. 305

all change which necessarily implies negation. To have
seen this was the great merit of the Eleatics and their
successors the Atomists. It is only by the assumption of
a multitude of real essences, or as Herhart terms it, a
*' Qualitative Atomism " that the contradiction involved in
the inherence of many qualities in one substance can be
resolved. The conception of substance itself is capable of
reduction to that of causality. It is only thus that the
notion of substance can be rendered intelligible ; just as it
is only by the relation of cause and etfect that the ordinary
mind renders the fact of change intelligible to itself.
As we have seen above, the conception of causality itself
requires a " working-out " (Bearheitung), but in this process
of clarifying conceptions by purging them of the contra-
dictions they contain, we must not rest satisfied with the
merely phenomenal or physical, but must continue the
process until we arrive at the metaphysical — until we
discover the processes of the supersensible-real, itself.
We here find that by reason of its absolute simplicity,
though no change can take place in the individual essence,
yet that this may very easily be the case with the
combination of two or more such essences, in each of
which a disturbance, and in consequence a resistance, is
generated, as is the case with our own mind (the only
essence, whose inner processes can be directly known to
us) when we feel a contrast between colours or tones. Since
by these disturbances and resistances or " acts of self-pre-
servation," as Herbart terms them, all the phenomena of
physics and empirical psychology may be explained, they
may be regarded as the groundwork of the " philosophy
of nature," and of psychology.

Herbart gives the name of Synechology to that portion
of his doctrine which refers to space and time and matter.
According to this, space is indeed appearance, though not
as Kant imagined, a subjective merely, but rather an
objective appearance, in such wise that where objective
multitude is given uncombined, but so that it may be
combined, it must assume for every intelligence the form
of externality. This intelligible space of Herbart's is not
to be considered as a continuum like the " given " space of
the phenomenon. The latter involves a contradiction,

306 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

for the extended object covers many different portions of
space lying outside one another, and yet in extension
though the one is severed into many it is still thought as
one. In intension the same contradiction appears as in
extension. In conceiving matter, we begin a division
which we must carry on to infinity, because every portion
has to be conceived as extended. Each of the dimensions
of real or intelligible space is a rigid line differing
according to the sum of its tangents. Herbart expounds
this idea on geometrical piinciples with a fulness charac-
teristic of him in matters mathematicnl, into which
exposition we need not enter. As with space so with
time; it consists in a sum of points of buccession.
It appears a continuum because at the close of one
series of changes another immediately begins. The con-
junction of causality with space and time, gives us the
data for the explanation of matter, the attraction and
repulsion apparently inherent in which must not be
regarded as existent forces, but merely as the appearance
resulting from tbe primary combination of real essences —
a view which obviates the absurd assumption of action
at a distance. Since space is merely an accident of real
entity, it follows that real esf^ences are not necessarily
subject to space-relations, and therefore that that which
requires explanation is not so much motion, as rest, namely,
the particular case, from out of an infinite possibility of
cases, in which velocity = 0. Herbart seeks to deduce the
phenomena of chemistry and phj^sics from four cases of
the opposition of elements. These may be either strong
and equal, strong and unequal, weak and equal, or weak
and unequal.

The Eidology is, as it were, the vestibule of Psychology,
as Synechology is of Cosmolog}'. The conception of the
Ego involves the contradiction of the inherence of the many
in the one, a circumstance especially noticeable in this case,
inasmuch asself-consciousne>s presents the Ego in percep-
tion as a complete unity. Furthermore, it is a contradiction,
since the knowledge of the knowing subject seems to
demand in its turn a knowledge of this knowledge, and so
on to infinity ; again, there is a formal contiadiction also
involved in the identit}^ of the Ego as object with the Ego

Erocn II.] HERBART. 307

as subject ; this seeming identity remains therefore to he
explained. The sonl, in common with everything real (in
Ilerbart's sense), is an absolutely simple and indestructible
entity, and hence cannot be the substratum of a plurality
of faculties. Its quality is like that of every other entity,
unknown, although, as above observed, it is the only
entitj^ of which we can know immediately the internal
processes, namely tho^o disturbances and resistances or
" acts of self-preservation," which give rise to sense-
presentation. A thorough investigation of the nature of
the soul necessarily begins with the primitive impressions
of sound, colour, &c. The fact that these are quanti-
tatively distinct, and that " acts of self-preservation " since
they are positive cannot destroy, but only limit one
another, shows that these latter must be subject to a
mathematical regularity, a regularity already acknow-
ledged in one class of these reciprocal limitations, namely,
the harmony of musical tones. Herbart therefore claims a
mathematical treatment for the investigation. The clue
to the whole subsequent exposition is contained in
the sentence "every limited perception persists in the
soul, as an effort to perceive." This justifies, in the
opinion of Herbart, an analogy with the laws of elastic
bodies, and, other things being equal, even the assumption
of the validity of the same laws in Psychology. In
accordance with this, a " static of the mind " is furnished
in which the equilibrium of perceptions is discussed.
Herbart terms the sum of limitation the quantum of per-
ceiving contained in two combined presentments. That
which is not limited, or converted into effort, is termed the
" perceptive remnant," a mathematical calculation demon-
strating that no single perception, however strong, suffices
completely to displace another, to effect which it requires
at least two such perceptions. The jDoint which constitutes
the boundary between entity, as striving or effort, and as
conscious perception, is termed the "threshold of con-
sciousness." The union of perceptions of different classes,
as, for instance, sound and meaning in the spoken word,
Herbart terms comiolication ; the union of those of the
same class, blending. In the " mechanic of the mind,"
Herbart considers the movement of perceptions, their

X 2

308 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

sinking and rising, memory, association, &c., in the guise
of the same mathematical formulae as before.

In the analytical part of his Psychology he endeavours
to show how all given psychological phenomena may be
explained by the formulee without recourse to the hypo-
thesis of special faculties. It is scarcely necessary to say
that for Herbart the distinction between the empirical and
the pure Ego does not exist. For him, the mind, the
psychological object, is the only fact standing in need
of" explanation. Herbart, on the ground of his onto-
logy, notwithstanding, protests against psychology being
confounded with metaphysic or logic. All facts have a
psychological side, but this by no means exhausts their
whole significance. The confusion of the empirical or
psychological space, which is a continuum, with the intelli-
gible space, which is an interruptum, was, in Herbart's
opinion, one of the greatest errors into which Kant fell. The
same applies to time as to space. As to the categories,
when correctly viewed they are seen to coincide with the
forms of language, and a complete syst&m of them presup-
poses a universal grammar.

Esthetics is the science treating of that which pleases
on account of its beauty apart from any ulterior reason.
It has therefore to be distinguished from the desirable
and the pleasant, both of which have reference to a sub-
jective interest; after this, the problem, here as in every
other department, is to resolve the beautiful as given,
into its simplest elements. Such an analysis will show
us that these elements consist not of entities but of
relations; the problem therefore becomes, to exhibit the
simplest relations which can call forth a disinterested
sense of pleasure. This has, as yet, only been done
in one of the arts, namely, Music. What the theory of
harmony and thorough-bass does for Music, remains
a desideratum as regards the other Arts. Ethics itself
may be regarded as a branch of J^sthetics. In Ethics
we have to exhibit the simplest relations of will, or
combinations of motives which produce the sense of
moral beauty. To ask why such motives please and their
contraries displease, is as absurd as to ask why one chord
is agreeable to the ear and another not ? That these re-

ErocH IL] HERBAKT. 309

lations, which may be termed sample-conceptions, or Ideas,
are unconditionally valid, Kant felt, and he is much to be
blamed for having mixed them up with metaphysical
notions, such as power and he'mg, with which they have
no connection. Hevbart is especially severe on Kant's
*' Transcendental Freedom," an assumption on which
neither punishment nor education can be explained, since
they both presuppose actions to be the necessary results
of character. Duties may be divided into such as concern
oneself, such as concein society, and finally such as
concern the future of both the individual and society.

There are two points in which the theoretical and
practical sides of philosophy meet, and the consideration
of which pre-supposes a knowledge of both departments.
The combination of " practical philosophy " and " philo-
sophy of nature," furnishes the "theory of religion;"
their combination with Psychology the " theory of
pedagogic." The former Herbart did not systematically
work out, and his utterances respecting it are conveyed
in a somewhat detached form. Pedagogic, or the theory
of Education, is his great subject outside philosophy
proper. Its end is of course the moulding of the moral
character. Freewill and Fatrilist theories are alike to be
rejected. The practical ideas and the psychological
certainty of the action and reaction of particular per-
ceptions are a true guide for the teacher. Eegulation and
teaching should be combined. The object of both is
training, i.e. to give strength to the nioral character and to
enable the pupil in the end to undertake his own education.
Herbart sees in Politics merely an extended Pedagogic.
Political forms are for him of little account. His sheet-
anchor is the individual character.

Though it is not to be denied that there are suggestive
passages and some clever and just criticisms in Herbart's
writings, jQi as a system his philosophy may not unfairly
be described as a grotesque abortion. Its mathematical
dress has alone saved it from oblivion. An adept mathe-
matician can always present an idea in a shape to
command the attention of the learned world irrespective
of its intrinsic value. The attraction a mathematic
mode of treatment possesses for the modern " cultured '

310 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

mind is irresistible, and operates quite independently of
any consideration as to the susceptibility of the given
subject-matter to such a treatment. To wrap a theory up
skilfully in mathematical formula3, though in itself it may
be the baldest nonsense, is the surest passport in the
jDresent day to acquiring the reputation of a "serious
thinker." Herbart is in this happy position. Although
he commits all the errors against which Kant's ' Critique '
was directed, although he is essentially a pre-Kantian in
his construction, yet the magical charm of his mathematics
has sufficed to give him a place in the history of specula-
tive thought he certainly would not otherwise possess.
Herbart left behind him a school to which the editor of
his completed works, Harten stein (also the editor of the
well-known edition of Kant's works bearing his name),
belonged.

HEGEL.

Georg WiLHELii Feiedeich Hegel was born at Stuttgart,
August 27th, 1770. His father was an officer in the tiscal
service ; his mother, whom he lost in his thirteenth year,
seems to have been a woman of some little education, and
of more than ordinary intelligence. He studied 'at the
University of Tubingen, both in the philosophical and
theological faculties. As a student he was the author of
one or two essays on philosophical subjects, and he also
publicly defended two dissertations. His private reading
during this period, of the works of Kant, Jacobi, and
other philosophers, in addition to those of Herder, Lessing
and Schiller, seems to have powerfully influenced him.
Besides this, he carried on at the same time A^dth much
enthusiasm his studies in Greek literature and history.

Like Fichte and Herbart, on leaving the university
he took a position as private tutor, and to make the
parallel more complete, in Switzerland (at Berne). U'his
did not hinder his own studies, which he zealously followed
up, engaging at the same time in a correspondence with

ErocH n.] HEGEL. 311

Schelling who was still studying at Tiibingen. Curiously
enough, his first important work Avas a " Life of Jesus,"
which was based on the distinction already insisted upon
by Lessing, between the doctrines of the founder of Chris-
tianity and the dogmas of the Church. The influence of the
Auf Mar ling was, however, strong in Hegel at this time, the
special form it took being that of Hellenism. In 1797 he
entered upon a similar position to that whioh he had held
at Berne, at Frankfort-on- the -Maine ; but Hegel was irre-
sistibly drawn to Jena, the philosophical metropolis,
whither he repaired in Januarj^ 1801. It was here that
his thoughts began to assume a systematic form, though
he deemed himself at this time, in the main, a follower of
his younger contemporary Schelling, with whom he subse-
quently worked in common, for the spread of the " System
of Identity," on the Krittsche Journal der Philosophies to
which he contributed most of the articles.

The difterences between the two thinkers soon became
apparent on the departure of Schelling from Jena, and
with the production of Hegel's first great work, * The
Phenomenology of the Mind ' (Phanomenologie des Geistes)^
in 1806, the wide divergence in their intellectual capacities
became obvious. In consequence of the Napoleonic war
then raging, Hegel left Jena soon after this, and became
editor of the Bamberger Zeitung^ a post he subsequently
threw up for the directorship of a public school at Niirn-
berg. He remained here until the year 1816, and here,
among other works, his great " Logic " was written. In
the autumn of 1816 Hegel entered the chair of j^hilosophy
at Heidelberg, just vacated by Fries. During his stay at
Heidelberg he wrote his ' Encyclopedia of the Philoso-
phical Sciences.' Finally, on October 22nd, 1818, Hegel
became professor in Berlin. During the Berlin period, the
only large work completed by him was ' The Elements
of the Philosophy of Right ' (^Grundlinien der Fhilosophie
des Mechts). His disciples, however, after his death,
pxiblished the lectures delivered during this time on the
Philosophy of History, Art, and Religion, as well as on
the History of Philosophy. Hegel died at Berlin, of
cholera, on the 14th of November, 1831.

The life of Hegel was written by his disciple Rosen-

312 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

kranz. His complete works (including the lectures)
occupy eighteen volumes.

The Hegelian System.

We now take up again the direct line of thought
represented by Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, a line which
culminates in the great thinker whose name heads this
section. The system of Hegel may be best described as
Panlogism. The Real or Concrete is nothing but a s;yTithesis
of relations, each of which, taken by itself, and apart from
the whole into which it enters, is abstract, and therefore
unreal. The ultimate principle of all knowledge is of
course the pure form of the unity of the consciousness, the
•' Synthetic Unity of Apperception " of Kant, the " Pure
Ego" of Fichte. This is the "Concept" (Begriff) oi
Hegel. But the synthesis so stated, that is, by itself, is
formal ; it is a unity of thought, of consciousness as such,
and of nothing else but thought or consciousness. But
thought or consciousness is in its nature relative. Think-
ing or knowing implies a striking-out of relations, a fixing
of contrasts, a limitation of a conscious state, which is in
its turn nothing but the limitation of another conscious
state, and so on to infinity. But the infinity is not that of
an infinitely produced straight line (to employ an analogy),
but rather that of the circle ; or, better still, of the spiral.
The Concrete or the Eeal which is Experience-in-general,
is the system of all possible momenta or determinations
of knowledge, thought, or consciousness. This system,
which embraces all possible oppositions and antagonisms,
considered as a whole, is the Logos or Idee in its reality, the
*' Concrete Idea," as Hegel terms it. Considered abstractly,
the " Idea " is the formal unity spoken of above, which
embraces all differences, which maintains itself in all these
differences, and which is their final principle of explanation.
"VVe need hardly repeat what we have already said when
treating of Fichte, namely, that this unity, inasmuch as
the determinations of thought all and severally presuppose
it, can never become itself an object, or, which is the same
thing, a determination of thought — that is to say, it can
never enter the sphere of the empirical consciousness.

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 313

Empiricism and Scepticism in j)hilosopliy, in undermining
the distinctions of the ordinary consciousness, and of the
philosophy which takes its immediate stand upon it, paves
tlie "svay for the true synthetic view. Thus Scepticism
shows that on the ordinary crude dualistic assumption of
the absolute independence of subject and object, mind and
matter, perceiver and perceived, knowledge would be im-
possible. It forces us therefore to reconsider the prelimi-
nary assumption which we have hitherto received as an
unquestionable truth. The same with every fixed dis-
tinction, great and small, im^^ortant and unimportant;,
every such distinction will be found on examination, when
consistently carried out, to refute itself — that is, to contain
the germ of its own destruction or negation, or, as Hegel
has it, its own " internal dialectic."

In the word Dialectic we have the key to the whole
Hegelian system. The method of Hegel is the dialectical
method, and to have discovered the full significance of this
method, to have struck upon the innermost dynamic prin-,
ciple of the world, gives to Hegel a pre-eminence in a sense
above all other thinkers. Herakleitos of Ephesus caught
a glimpse of the principle when he said, " all things flow,"
and " there is nothing that comes into being but it forthwith
ceases to be." Zeno of Elea also caught sight of it when
he sought to convince the ordinary man, who could not
conceive of a world based on contradiction, of the truth of
Parmenides' doctrines, by placing him in the dilemma of
either admitting the sense-world to be contradictory, or
denying its existence altogether, not doubting but that he
would accept the latter alternative. The Sophists and
Sokrates saw in it respectively, the former the destruction
of all certitude, and the latter, a new means for the attain-
ment of truth from the very fact of its potency in under-
mining the would-be certitudes of current opinion. In
Plato, the principle obtained its fullest recognition in the
ancient world. Plato's philosophy is essentially an exhi-
bition of the dialectic immanent in all knowledge. Aris-
totle, although the general bearing of his mind might be
supposed to tend in a different direction, nevertheless
places it in the fore-front of his system in his distinction
of matter and form, and his recognition of all reality as the

314 MODERN PHILOSOPHY, [Epoch II.

s^-nthesis of matter and form. In all periods, when the
tWo great thinkers of antiquity have held a foremost place
in the higher thought of the world — periods, for instance,
Kuch as that of the decline of ancient philosophy and of
scholasticism — it has never been left quite out of view
however much obscured ; but from Descartes and Bacon
to Kant it had practically lapsed into oblivion. In Kant's
" Transcendental Analytic " and " Transcendental Dialectic,'*
it again appears, though overlaid with much extraneous
material. In Fichte it receives a fairly definite expres-
sion ; but it was reserved for Hegel to recognise its full
bearing as the principle of knowledge, and the method of
philosophic investigation. Among poets, Goethe has
best caught the beat of the world-rhythm when he makes
the Erdgeist in Faust exclaim

*' In Beiug's floods, in Action's stoi-m
I walk and work, above beneath,
Work and weave in endless motion!
Birth and Death
An infinite ocean,
A seizing and giving
The tire of Living:
'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply.
And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by."

Hegel claims for his system that all antitheses, all oppo-
sing principles, that have ever held sway in philosophy,
are therein at once recognised and transcended, that is,
shown to be necessary, but incomplete, taken by them-
selves. The first, condition of philosophising, as observed
in connection with Plato, is to lift ourselves above the
immediate — the liere, the this, and the noio of things. All
intellectual life is more or less an effort to break away
from immediate appearances and immediate interests.
Kant has said with truth that the Ptolemaic system of
Astronomy is the one naturally most intelligible to us, not
because it is simpler than the Copernican system, but
because, in spite of confusedness and clumsiness, it accounts
for astronomical phenomena on the hypothesis of all
things revolving round ourselves, viz. our Earth. The
superior simplicity and order of the Copernican system did,
notwithstanding, in the long run win the victory over

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 315

common -sense consecrated by tradition. The anthropo-
morphism and myth of primitive man is an expression
of the difficulty man experiences in divesting his view of
things of the influence of his immediate surroundings as he
conceives them to alfect his interests.

There is nothing which presupposes such a revohition
in our mental life as tlie ability to view the world from
the synthetic or sjieculative point of view — as a dialectical
movement. All accustomed habits of thought, all the fixed
distinctions in which the intellectual wealth of the average
man consists, have to be ruthlessly cast into the caldron
of an all-consuming Logic. Their hard outlines then
begin to alter shape, and finally to lose shape entirely, as
they become mixed in a seething mass where one distinc-
tion blends into its 023posite, the whole acquiring for a
moment a new shape only in its turn to give place to
another, and yet another. " So strong," says Hegel, speak-
ing of the exposition of his system, " is the sense of the
opposition of true and false, that it has accustomed men
to expect either agreement with, or contradiction of, some
existing philosojihical system, and, in explaining such,
only to see this or that." If we clarify our conceptions of
truth and falsehood — that is, subject them to the purifying
fire of dialectic — we shall see that they change their con-
tent with our jDoint of view, that their content is not fixed,
but fluid. " The bud vanishes with the appearance of the
blossom, and one may say that the one is contradicted
by the other; the fruit again proclaims the blossom a
spurious form of the plant's existence, the truth of the
one passes over to the other. These forms are not merely
distinct, but crush each other out as being mutually
incompatible. But their fluid nature constitutes them
none the less momenta of that organic unity wherein they
not alone cease to conflict, but to which one is as necessary
as the other, which equal necessity makes the life of the
whole."

The Hegelian dialectic is based on the recognition of
identity in difference, of the fact that all affirmation
implies negation, all negation afiirmation. In all things
there is a capacity unrealised, and a capacity realised;
the first is the material moment, the second the formal

316 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

moment. The acorn is the unrealised capacity of the oak,
it is realised as oak. The realisation of the capacity of a
thing is the negation of that thing as actually existent.
The possibility or capacity present in the child is realised
in the man, but manhood is the negation of childhood —
child qua child vanishes in the man, he exists no longer,
any more than though he were dead. Every step in the
growth or progress of the child is a step towards the
negation of childhood. Again, animal life exists only by
virtue of the continuous destruction or decomposition of
the tissues of which it is actually comjDOsed. Arrest this
process of destruction or negation, and the animal dies.
The fatal effect of many of the mineral poisons is simply
due to their action in stopping the natural process of the
destruction of the organic tissues, a jDrocess which is
essential to animal life. Animal life presupposes organic
life ; but the latter is, as Hegel would term it, the negative
moment of the former — it is the means only, and
not the end. The animal life can only realise or main-
tain itself in and through the negation of the nega-
tive moment; in other words, the continuous destruc-
tion of the organic matte?- (the tissue) is essential to the
reality of the animal form (the living body). This
dialectic runs through all things ; it is the ultimate ex-
pression of all reality, and it may be discovered by
analysis on every plane of reality. Its recognition cannot
fail to give us a completely new view of the world-order.
Uur ultimate aim in every science will be henceforward
to discover the course of its dialectic, or rather the
dialectic of its subject-matter, since this is the key to its
mysteries. The significance of formal logic with its laws
of thought will be seen to disappear Avhen experience is
viewed from this more comprehensive standpoint. So far
from its being the case, as the law of contradiction asserts,
that a thing cannot both be and not be, we now know
that, in a sense, everything is, and at the same time is not,
in so far as it expresses a determinate reality at all — omnis
determinatio est negatio. Since reality, i.e. the synthesis of
experience, consists alone in the union of contradictories,
it necessarily follows that for experience, for consciousness,
pui'e affirmation is precisely on a level with pure negation

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 317

since tliey are alike unreal and meaningless. This is all
Heg-el intends by the, at lirst sight, astounding proposition
with which his Logic opens, that " being and non-being
are the same."

In his first great work, the ' Phenomenology of the
Mind,' Hegel traces the natural development of the
human mind from the naive consciousness of the ordinary
man to the synthetic standpoint of philosophy. The

* Phenomenology ' is in fact a kind of philosophical

* Pilgrim's Progress.' " Inasmuch," says Hegel,, " as this
exposition only has phenomenal knowledge for its subject,
it does not exhibit the free movement of knowledge in its
scientific form, and must rather be regarded from the
present standpoint as the course the natural consciousness
takes in its progress towards true knowledge, as the
pathway of the soul, passing through the series of forms
which its nature prescribes as so many stages of self-
purification, until it attains through a complete expe-
rience of itself, to a knowledge of that which it is in
itself" {Phanomenologie^ Mnleitung, p. 61).

The immediate form of our knowledge is the object as
being or existent thing. In this we occupy a passive atti-
tude, the attitude of naive sense-perception. In this first
attitude of consciousness reality seems to be known in its
simplest and purest form. All that knowledge here tells
us is of the bare existence of the thing. The object is
presented, as this thing Jiere and now. The word this
itself simply means existence here and now. But what is
now ? " Let us say, for instance, noio it is night. To our
immediate consciousness this is a truth. We note it down
as a truth. At noonday we look upon this ci-devant
truth, and lo, it is a meaningless and palpable absurdity ! "
The noio, notwithstanding, remains, but with a totally
changed content. It proves itself to be what Hegel
terms a " universal negative." The same remarks apply to
the other form of the this^ namely, the here. " Here is, for
instance, a tree. I turn myself round, and this truth has
vanished — has , transformed itself into its opposite. Here
is not a tree, but rather a house. The here does not
vanish, but it is that which remains in the disappearance
of the house, the tree, and so forth, and is indifferently

318; MODERN FHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

house or tree" {PTianomenologie, p. 74). "Pure being"
is of the essence of this perceptive consciousness; for
pure being is its immediateness as abstract form. A com-
parison between the relation of knowledge to its object,
as it immediately presents itself, with the same relation
after it has been acted upon by reflection, shows a consi-
derable difference. The universal element, which seemed
to belong to the being of the object, is now^ seen to lie in
our knowledge of the object. The perceptive certainty
is seen to subsist not in the object, but in us. The now
and here is preserved in the Ego. " What does not
vanish is the I, as universal, whose seeing is neither a
seeing of the tree nor the house, but a simple seeing, which
is brought about b}^ the negation of this house, and so
forth, which is absolutely indifferent to anything outside
itself, alike to the house and the tree." Thus Hegel begins
his ' Phenomenology,' by showing the contradiction of
the empirical consciousness with its own prepossessions,
to lead up through the discussion of the scientific con-
sciousness, the Understanding — in which the abstract
procedure im^^licit in "common sense," or the ordinary
consciousness, becomes explicitly formulated — to the philo-
sophical consciousness, the Eeason, which sees the true
significance of these various standpoints as parts of an
organic whole, as related elements of a synthesis. This
is the ladder which, according to Hegel, the ordinary con-
sciousness has a right to demand, to lead it to the absolute
knowledge of itself. The task of the ' Phenomenology '
is thus to show the progress of knowledge from its lowest
to its highest stage ; each stage is in its turn shown to
involve a contradiction, which necessitates progress to a
a higher stage. At each of these stages the immediate
certitude or truth of the stage is proved to be illusory, to
involve a self-deception. This is corrected in the following
stage, the certitude is changed, in its turn to be subjected
to the same process, until all these stages are seen to be
inadequate in themselves, and to possess meaning and
significance only when regarded as the necessary momenta,
not of this or that particular limited "or individual
consciousness, but of consciousness conceived as one abso-
lute all-emb] acing totality — Absolute Geist.

ErocH II.] HEGEL. 319

Hegel's dialectic, we must again repeat, is simply the
perfecting, as regards its form of Fielite's dialectic. Fichto
had shown that the in-itselfness of the one plane of con-
sciousness, was the for-itselfness of the next plane. Hegel,
however, brings out into clear relief a point on which
Fichte was somewhat dubious (but Avhich Plato and
Aristotle had recognised), to wit, that the negation of the
opposite is not absolute, but is rather double-sided — that is,
that the opposite or preceding moment is no less preserved
than abolished in the succeeding moment. Hegel's aim is
to show that the mind is logically compelled, on pain of
its own reductio ad ahsurdum, to force its way on and on
until it arrives at the standpoint of absolute knowledge.
The six stages which the mind has to pass through in its
progress to absolute knowledge are from consciousness to
self-consciousness, thence to the scientific understanding
" the law making and law-finding reason," in the words of
Hegel, thence to the moral consciousness (Geist), thence to
the aasthetic and religious consciousness, and thence to the
consciousness of knowledge as absolute. But the world-
mind, as exhibited on the plane of History, is, equally with
the individual mind, under the necessity, by virtue of its
constitution, of passing through the same stages. The
' Phenomenology ' shows therefore the stages that humanity
has had to pass through, and which the individual must also
pass through, before it can attain to absclute knowledge.
Knowledge or science in the Hegelian sense consists in the
re-reading of experience, in the com^reliending of experience
in the fullest sense of the word.

Before we leave the ' Phenomenology,' the reader may
not take it amiss if we give a few extracts illustrative of
the style of this, in some respects, greatest work of Hegel.
Such extracts, of course, can give but a v^ry imperfect
idea of the whole to which they belong, as may be
readily imagined from the nature of Hegel's thought.
The impossibility, moreover, of rendering many passages
adequately in another language, is generally admitted.
In the preface (Phdnomenologie, p. 15) Hegel observes,
" The truth is the whole. But the whole is the essence
which completes itself in its develojDuient. It may be
said of the Absolute that it is essentially result, that not

320 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

before the end is it that which it is iu truth : and herein
consists its nature, that of being Eeality, Subject, or Self-
becoming. However absurd it may appear to regard the
Absolute as in essence, result, a very little consideration
will correct this appearance of absurdity. The beginning,
the principle or the Absolute, as it is primarily and im-
mediately spoken of, is only the universal. Just as little
as when I say all animals^ these words can stand in the
place of a Zoology, can the words Divine, Absolute,
Eternal, &c., express that which is not contained in them.
It is true that only such words can express the intuition
in its immediate form ; but this is not all ; a word which
is only a passage to a proposition contains within it an
otherness of becoming which has to be retraced ; it is a
mediation ( Vermittlung).^'

The Absolute, although it contains within it the syn-
thesis of all contradictions, considered as Absolute, of course
transcends its own immanent contradictions. Absolute
knowledge is the resting-point in which all contradictions
are at once preserved and abolished, aufgelioben*^ in the
language of Hegel. The word mediation ( Vermittlung) is
used by Hegel to denote the negative moment of the
Dialectical process, in its purity. This leads us to revert
to the question of the concepts true and false. Hegel
explains the distinction between them, as viewed from the
standpoint of ordinary consciousness, and from that of the
philosophical reason. After defining the false as the
otherness, the negativity of the substance of the true, as
an essential moment in the realisation of the true, and yet
as not constituting an element of the true as such, he
proceeds : " For the sake of clearness in indicating the
moment of complete otherness its terminology must no
longer be used where the otherness is abolished (aufgehohen).
Thus the expression, the unity of subject and object, of
finite and infinite, of being and thought, &c., has the in-
convenience that these terms themselves connote what
they are outside their unity, and therefore that in their

* Hegel's word aufheben, which means both "to preserve " and " to
destroy," is a survival of the unity of opposites upon which all primitive
languiige is based. (See Dr. Carl Aijel's essay, Ueber den Gegensinn
der Urwurte. — Leipzig, 1884.)

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 321

unity they do not mean what the phrase implies ; the
false, as false, is no longer a moment of truth. Dogmatism
as a mode of thought in Science, and in the study of
Philosophy, is nothing but the opinion that the true
consists in a proposition which is a fixed result, or in
that which is immediately known. To such questions, as
when Caesar was born, or how many toises made a stadium, a
concise answer can be given. Similarly it is definitely true
that the square of the hypothenuse equals the sum of the
squares of both remaining sides of the right-angled triangle.
But the nature of such so-called truth is difi"erent from
the nature of philosophical truth " (Phdnomenologie, pp.
30-1). A few pages farther on, after the subject of Mathe-
matical truth has been dealt with, and its imperfections
shown, we have the following pregnant sentences : " The
phenomenon is the coming and going, which yet does not
come and go, but is in itself, and whiqh constitutes the
reality and movement of the life of truth. The true is a
Bacchantian revel, in which there is no member that is
not drunken ; but yet because each, in so far as it severs
itself from the whole, is at once dissolved, this revel is none
the less transparent and simple repose. In judging the
movement, though individual forms of the mind do not
obtain as determinate thoughts, they are, notwithstanding,
just as much positive and necessary as they are negative
and evanescent momenta. In the totality of the movement
— in the movement conceived as rest — that in it which
distinguishes itself and acquires a specific reality, as such,
which recollects, preserves itself, whose reality is know-
ledge of itself, is the immediate reality " (Phdnomenologie,
j)p. 35-6). " In the nature of that which is," says Hegel,
*' to realise its conception in its being, consists logical
necessity generally. This alone is the rational, and the
rhythm of the organic whole ; it is just as much knowledge
of the content, as the content itself is concept and essence
— in other words, it alone is sppculative. The concrete fact,
as self-realising, constitutes itself simple determinateness ;
it thus raises itself to logical form, and is in its nature as
essence. In this movement consists its concrete reality
which is at the same time logical reality. It is therefore
unnecessary to affix to the concrete content a formalism

322 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IL

external thereto ; the former is itself the transition to the
latter, which latter ceases, however, to be external and
formal, since the form has become native to the process of
the concrete content itself" {Phdnomenologie, p. 43). One
more quotation before we leave the ' Phenomenology.' " Ex-
perience," Hegel observes, " is simply this, that the content,
that is, consciousness in itself, is substance, and therefore
object of consciousness. But this substance, which is
consciousness, is the process of its becoming what it is in
itself; and it is only as this Becoming, reflected into
itself, that it is, in truth, consciousness. In itself it is
the movement which constitutes knowledge — the trans-
formation of this in-itselfness into for-itselfness, the substance
into the subject, the object of consciousness, into the object
of self-consciousness — that is, into the object as in its turn
abolished, or in other words into the concept. It is a circle
returning in upon itself which presupposes its beginning,
and yet only attains it as end. Thus, in so far as conscious-
ness consists necessarily in this distinction within itself,
itself as the perceived whole, confronts its simple self-con-
sciousness, and inasmuch as it distinguishes the latter, it
is distinguished in its pure perceived concept — that is, in
time, and in its content, or in-itselfness. Substance has, as
subject, the primary inner necessity to display itself, as
what it is in itself — as consciousness. The complete
objective preseij.tation is primarily its reflection, or its
realisation as self" (PJidnomenologie, p. 585).

We now turn to the Logic of Hegel. In the Logic we
have the essential articulations, or momenta of conscious-
ness presented, not in the order in which they disclose
themselves to the reflective understanding, as in the
* Phenomenology,' but in the necessary or Logical order of
their deduction. The secret of Hegel's method, it will be
by this time suflicientl}' clear to the reader, lies in the triple
articulation of each stage or plane of reality. Matter or
in-itselfness becomes negated as form or for-itselfness. This
negation is in its turn negated ; but the negation is not ab-
solute in either case, the one form is preserved or, so to speak,
held in solution in the succeeding one, notwithstanding its
negative character considered j:»er se. Thus, in the third
term, which is the negation of the negative of the first, we

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 323

have the completed moment as such. Tlegel takes care to
observe, what indeed is sufficient!}' obvious, namely, that
his Logic might equally well have been termed Meta-
physic or Ontology, since, from the point of view of
speculative thought, this distinction of departments can
no longer be maintained/ The world, reality, experience,
consists merely in these logical determinations ; the sum
total of these determinations is the Absolute. Thus instead
of being able to adequately define the Absolute by a single
phrase, as Schelling thought he could, Hegel finds it im-
possible to do this, save in the complete exposition of a
science. Logic in Hegel's sense is this science ; it is the
science of the at once all-embracing, all-determining Logos
Idea, or Concept, i.e. of consciousness as absolute.

The categories of which the Hegelian Logic treats, of
course entirely traverse the empirical distinctions of mind
and matter, subject and object, &c., since they are pre-sup-
posed in these distinctions. Hegel somewhere calls them
" the souls of all reality." But taken by themselves, as
spread out before the reflective understanding, they are pure
abstractions, and the Logic is thus none the less, as Hegel
elsewhere calls it, " the realm of shades." It is necessary
to effect an entrance into this realm, notwithstanding, nay,
to exj^lore its inmost recesses, in order to attain the true
speculative insight, for, since the problem of all science is
to recognise the reason on the several planes of reality, this
problem can only be solved by knowing, first of all, what'
reason is ? — and, secondly, how to find it ? The Logic
teaches what the Idea or the Reason is, inasmuch as it
exhausts the sum of its determinations as they are pre-
sented in the forms of abstract thought ; it teaches how to
find the Idea or the Keason in so far as it is a doctrine of
method.

The Hegelian Logic falls into three main divisions :
Doctrine of Being, Doctrine of Essence, and Doctrine of
Concept. " The Logical has three sides," says Hegel, "the
Abstract, or that of the understanding ; the Dialectical, or
that of the negative reason ; and the Speculative, or that
of the positive reason. These three sides do not constitute
three parts of logic, but are the momenta of every logical
real — that is, of every conception or truth . . . thought as

Y 2

324 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

understanding cleaves to fixed determinateness, and to its
distinction from every other determinateness ; such a
limited abstraction counts with the understanding for an
independent existence." " The dialectical moment is the
special self-negation of such finite determinations and their
transformation into their opposite." Just as the previous
abstract or affirmative moment is the classical moment for
dogmatism, the mode of thought characterised by hard and
fast distinctions and one-sided theories, so the dialectical
moment is the classical moment for scepticism, the mode
of thought characterised by a criticism of the assumptions
made by dogmatism and the common understanding, having
as its uj)shot the special dogma of the illusoriness of Keality
and the vanity of Knowledge. These results of course
ensue, when the above momenta are isolated and considered
apart from their connection in the trichotomy, or system
of momenta.

The term Dialectic is often employed, as was the case
with the Sophists of old, to denote a mere barren art
of confounding an opponent by an appearance of con-
tradiction which does not really exist. In the Hegelian
sense, however, Dialectic, " is the true nature of the under-
standing's determination of things, and of the finite
generally. It is the immanent externalising, wherein the
one-sidedness and limitation of the understanding's de-
terminations presents itself as what it is, namely, as their
negation. It is the nature of everything finite to negate
itself. Dialectic is therefore the moving soul of the knowing
process, the principle, whereby alone immanent connection
and necessity enters into the constitution of knowledge ;
and whereby the true, as opposed to the external, trans-
cendence of the finite is possible " : " The speculative or
•positive-rational comj^rehends the unity of the determinations
in their opposition ; the affirmative element, which is
contained therein, is their dissolution and their trans-
formation. Dialectic has a positive result, inasmuch as its
result has a determinate content ; inasmuch, that is, as its
actual issue is not empty abstract nothing but the negation
of certain determinations, which are nevertheless contained
in the result, since the latter is not mere nothing, but
result. This rationality therefore, notwithstanding that it

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 325

is conceptual and abstract, is at the same time concrete,
since it is not mere formal unity, but the unity of deter-
minations, which are clearly distino-uished as such. With
mere abstractions philosophy has therefore nothing what-
ever to do ; it is concerned only with concrete notions. In
speculative Logic, the formal Logic of the understanding
is contained, and can easily be separated from it ; nothing
more is required for this than to eliminate the dialectical
and rational element therein ; when it becomes what
ordinary Logic is, namely, the summary of a variety of co-
ordinated thought-determinations which, although finite,
pass for something infinite." (Hegel's EncyHopddie der
PhilosopMschen WissenscJiaften im Grundrisse, § 79-83.)

The first division of the Logic treats of the doctrine of
Being, or Consciousness in its immediateness — the concept
in itself — in its various forms. These are quality, quan-
tity, and measure. Quality may be variously considered as
being, actuality, for-itselfness ; Quantity as pure quantity,
determined quantum, and degree. Measure is the synthesis
of quality and quantity ; it is " a quantum with which is
combined an actuality or a quality." This leads to the
consideration of the subject-matter of the second division
which treats of the doctrine of Essence.

Stated briefly. Essence may be defined as Being trans-
lated into appearance. The primary momenta of Essence
are the essence as ground of existence^ which is again deter-
mined as " pure reflection " (identity, difference, and cause)
" actuality " and " the thing ; " the phenomenon, which may
be reduced to the " world as phenomenon," " content and
form," and " relation ; " and, lastly, the unity of " re-
flection " and the " phenomenon," reality which is articu-
lated as " substance and accident," "cause and effect" and
" reciprocity " (action and reaction). " The manifestation
of the real," says Hegel, " is the real itself. This mani-
festation is, therefore, essential, and is only so far essential
as it is in immediate external actuality. Previously being
and actuality have appeared as forms of the immediate;
being is always unreflected immediateness and transi-
tion . . • The real is the positing of this unity, of this
relation that has become identical with itself; it is there-
fore rescued from transition^ and its energy manifested

326 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

as externality ; in this it is reflected into itself ; its actu-
ality is the manifestation of itself not of another." The
moment of reality gathers up, so to speak, into itself all
previous momenta ; it closes the circle. The highest
catagory of the Keal is that of reciprocity. The category
of reciprocity indeed carries us out of the sphere of Essence
into that of Concept, with which the third division of the
Logic is concerned.

^'he concept is the truth of Being and of Essence, and
the system of its momenta constitutes the totality of all
determinations of Consciousness. The forms of the con-
cept Hegel terms, " the living spirit of the Eeal," the
truth of the Eeal being given in and by these forms.
The leading momenta of the Concept are the subjective
concept, which embraces the forms of Logic, the object,
which gives the cosmical notions of Mechanism, Chemistry,
and Teleology, and the Idea in its totality and complete-
ness, which sums up the whole of the Logic. The Idea
as such may be viewed in its immediate form as life;
in its reflected form, as knowledge; and in its absolute
form, as unity of subject and object, or rather as the
"object," to employ Hegel's language, "in which all
determinations are concentrated." The Idea in this sense is
absolute truth, the ultimate end of Philosophy. The
absolute Idea is the ^^ pure form of the Concept which
contemplates its content as itself." This content, it is
scarcely necessary to say, is nothing other than the system
of the momenta of Logic which we have just been con-
sidering. The general form of the Idea is expressed in
the Dialectical method in accordance with which the
momenta are deduced, or rather which is the instrument
of their deduction. It may be useful to observe, as bear-
ing on the historical development from Kant to Hegel,
that the first division of the Hegelian Logic, the " Doc-
trine of Being," in which the mere immediateness of
Eeality is discussed, corresponds, roughly sj^eaking, to
Kant's "Transcendental iEsthetic;" the second division,
or " Doctrine of Essence " in which the reflected forms
which enter into the constitution of Eeality are dealt
with, corresponds to Kant's " Transcendental Analytic ; "
while the third division, or Doctrine of Concept, which

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 327

treats of the categories superimposed upon tlie synthesis
of the immediate Real by the Keuson, is represented in
the earlier (critical) philosophy, by the Transcendental
Dialectic.

The general scheme of Hegel's philosophy of nature will
best be understood from the following quotation : " Nature,'*
says Hegel, " is to be conceived as a system of gradations, of
which one necessarily proceeds from the other, and the
immediate truth of which is that from which it res'-^ts ;
this is not to be understood as meaning that one is naturally
generated from the other, the process only taking place in
the Idea, which constitutes the innermost ground of nature.
The metamorphosis applies only to the Concept, as such,
since change in the Concept alone constitutes development.
The Concept is in its nature partly inward, partly existent
as the living individual ; hence to the latter only is
existent metamorphosis limited." {Encyclojpadie, § 249.)
This passage, and the one which immediately follows it,
in which the doctrine of evolution conceived as natural
process in order of time is combated, exhibits one of the
most unfortunate blunders into which Hegel could possibly
have fallen. The answer of the Evolutionist, even without
departing from Hegelian principles, to Hegel's diatribe is
obvious. That the develoj^ment which Hegel admits to take
place in the order of time in the life of the individual
takes place on a larger scale in the life of the world's
history, is a direct deduction from experience, as real in
the one case as in the other, and no amount of arbitrary
dicta, for Hegel's attitude in this matter is purely arbitrary,
will deprive it of its reality.

Notwithstanding this gratuitously fallacious assumption,
Hegel's " Philosophy of Nature " contains some valuable
insights, though, on the whole, it is the least original
portion of his work, being borrowed largely from Rebel-
ling. Following Schelling, Hegel divides " Philosophy of
Nature " into Mechanic, Physic, and the synthesis of these.
Organic. In nature the Idea or the Absolute, which the
Logic has treated of in itself, is exhibited in the form of
external existence, of a determinate order. Nature is the
mediation ( Vermittlung') by which consciousness comes to a
knowledge of itself, and may thus be regarded as zjjso facto

328 MODEKN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

the out-of-itselfness of tlie Idea or tHe Eeason. It stands in
direct opposition to tlie Logic, " the reahu of shades," as
the region of determinateness, pa7' excellence. Hegel allows
his impatience at the fact that there are many natural
phenomena not yet reduced to law to manifest itself in the
frequent assertion, that nature is impotent to display
rational order in everything, and that there is much in
nature which we must regard as pure chance, and as
destitute of any philosophical significance. His general
attitude naturally leads him to be unjust to the claims
of natural science and its representatives ; against Newton
he is particularly bitter, though this is perhaps partly
attributable to the influence of Goethe. The main
momenta of mechanics are, " space and time," " matter
and motion," and their synthesis " absolute mechanic,"
in which matter appears as a completed quantum. This
leads us to the second division ; qualified matter or
Physic, the chief momenta of which are the physic of
" universal individuality," of " particular individuality,"
and of "total individuality," the final determination of the
latter, the chemical process, forming the transition to the
Organic sphere, the stages of which are " geological
nature," " vegetable nature," and the " animal organism."
With the consideration of the animal organism we are
already on the threshold of the ^Dhilosophy of mind
{Philosophie des Geistes), i.e. of the philosophy of Conscious-
ness, no longer manifested as out-of-itself, but as returned in
upon itself.

Hegel closes the *' Philosophy of Nature " with some
observations on the death of the individual. " His incom-
patibility with the universal," says Hegel, " is his original
bane and the innate germ of death. The abolition of this
incompatibility is the fulfilment of his destiny. Mind
presupposes nature, the truth of which it is. In this truth
nature has vanished, and mind has proclaimed itself as the
Idea attained to for itselfness, for- which the concept is no
less object than subject. This Identity is Absolute negativity,
inasmuch as, in nature, the Concept has completely
manifested its objectivity, but in mind this its manifesta-
tion is abolished, and it has become identical with itself
{Encyclopddiey § 381).

ErocH II.] HEGEL. 329

The triple division of the " Philosophy of Mind," is as
follows : first of all, the Subjective Mind, in which mind
is related immediately to itself as the ideal totality,
whose being is freedom ; secondly, the Objective Mind, or
mind in the form of reality, a world in which freedom is
reduced to necessity ; and, lastly. Absolute Mind, which is
the unit^T" of the two previous momenta. The first divi-
sion embraces " Anthropology," " Phenomenology," and
" Psychology," Hegel only employing this term for its
concluding section. Psychology considers mind theo-
retically as intelligence, practically as will ; and, lastly,
as the unity of these, as morality. The intelligence finds
itself limited, but posits this very limitation as its own in
recognising the all, as realising rational purpose. The
essence of morality is, that the will should have a universal
rational content for its purpose. The second division,
dealing with Objective Mind, shows the realised product of
freewill as exhibited in law and right, in a moral code,
and in social institutions culminating in the state. The
Absolute Mind, with which the third and last division is
concerned, is determined in the forms of Art, Eeligion,
and Philosophy. The Idea, as the Philosophic Reason,
forms the culmination of the entire system; it is the
Reason come to a knowledge of itself. In Art it is
presented to sense, in Religion to the reflective under-
standing, and in Philosophy to the Reason, which pre-
supposes yet transcends both.

Such is a brief outline of the Hegelian system. It remains
to notice briefly the working out of the several depart-
ments of its last and most practically important division.
Hegel's Ethic is apparently based on the doctrine of freedom
which had been common to his predecessors. He rehabi-
litates Kant's separation of the legal from the moral, in
admitting a sphere in which the individual subject is
completely controlled by the objective mind — in short, in
which its freedom is reduced to necessity. This is the
second of the cardinal momenta of mind. But Hegel does
not admit law to be a limitation of freedom ; it is merely
a limitation of the arbitrariness of the individual will.
Nevertheless, it is opposed to the principle on which
morality rests, which is conscience, the power wherein

^oO MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

good is combined with the possibility of evil ; both of these
departments are however one-sided, and are united, or find
their synthesis in what Hegel terms SittUchlceit, a word
generally identical with morality, but which Hegel
distinguishes from the latter, and which, employed in his
sense, may perhaps best be rendered as Virtue (the ancient
civic virtue), the Jjaiin jnetas. It is a morality with a definite
social content. The momenta of this substance or content
are, the family, the society, the state. In giving the highest
place to social obligation, Hegel shows that he is conscious
of the barren and abstract nature of the Ethics of Kant
and Fichte, for whom mere subjective freedom was the
ultimate goal. By this, he virtually surrenders the stand-
point of the " ethics of inwardness," as such, together with
its correlate, the " religion of the spirit," although profess-
ing to have placed them on an inexpugnable footing. The
fact that he finds in the state the culmination and realisa-
tion of the family and society, rather than in society the
realisation of the family and the state, is, however, one of
those strange perversions of view for which, we fear, w^e
must regard governmental patronage as largely respon-
sible. Both logically and historically, the family (or rather
the gens) is clearly negated in the state, the tendency of
which, qua state, must invariably be to abolish the ori-
ginal independence of the family. The complex state-
organization is the antithesis of the simple family-organi-
zation, which it, so to speak, swallows up. It is plainly
then in the negation of the state, in its self-abolition, in
which the state {cimtas) is transformed into a free
society, a higher family-organization (societas)^ that the
synthesis, the telos, of the two previous momenta is dis-
coverable.

Hegel's philosophy of history is in accordance with a
point of view founded on the conception of the political
moment being the essential one. For the rest, its leading
principle, though it may be easily inferred from the
general thought of the system, we give in Hegel's own
words : —

" The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it
to the contemplation of history, is the simple conception
of Beason ; that Eeason is the Sovereign of the World ;

Epoch H.] HEGEL. 331

that the history of the workl, therefore, presents us with
a rational process. This conviction and intuition is a
hvjiothesis in the domain of history as such. In that of
Philosophy it is no hypothesis. It is there proved by
speculative cop;nition that Reason ... is Sahstanre as well
as Infinite Power ; its own Infinite Material underlying all
the natural and spiritual life which it originates, as also
the Infinite Form — that which sets this material in motion.
On the one hand. Reason is the substance of the Universe ;
viz., that by which and in which all reality has its being
and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the Infinite
Energy of the Universe ; since Reason is not so powerless
as to be incapable of producing anything but a mere ideal,
a mere intention — having its place outside reality, nobody
knows where ; something separate and abstract, in the
heads of certain human beings. It is the infinite complex
of things, their entire Essence and Truth. It is its own
material which it commits to its own Active Energy to
work up; not needing, as finite action does, the conditions
of an external material of given means from which it may
obtain its support, and the objects of its activity. It
supplies its own nourishment, and is the object of its own
operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of exist-
ence, and absolute final aim, it is also the energizing
power realising this aim ; developing it not only in the
phenomena of the natural, but also of the Spiritual Uni-
verse— The History of the World. That this " Idea " or
" Reason " is the True, the Eternal, the absolutely poiverful
essence ; that it reveals itself in the World ... is the
thesis which, as we have said, has been proved in
Philosophy, and is here regarded as demonstrated " *
(Hegel's 'Philosophy of History,' Bohn's edition, pp.
9-10).

The lectures on the "Philosophy of History," consist
mainly in disquisitions on the various forms the state has
assumed in the different historic periods. Social and
economic conditions are of course viewed as completely
subordinated to political. In his younger days Hegel had
subscribed to the revolutionary views of Rousseau and of

* The reader will have no difficulty in reading between the lines of
the theistic or pantheistic colouring of this passage.

332 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

Ficlite, but at tliis time he had no expectations of patron-
age from the Prussian Government. For the official
philosopher of the great Bureaucratic system which was
centred in Berlin — a system the perfection of whose wisdom
had shown itself consummated in the choice of its philo-
sophic representative — the state as therein embodied could
hardly fail to express the highest incarnation of the
Reason. The extent of Hegel's adoration of authority, for
its own sake, will be estimated when we inform the
reader that he professed to regard marriage as more moral
when arranged by parents, than when dictated by the
inclinations of " parties " themselves ; that, like Schel-
ling, he was prepared to apostrophize the Kaiser, as
the political " soul of the world ; " that he was the sworn
defender (and this on grounds, not of antiquarianism
or expediency, but of principle) of monopolies, closed
corporations, &c. Erdmann has observed that Hegel's
' Philosophy of History ' combines the anthropological
view of Herder, according to which humanity passes
through four stages, with the political view of Kant,
according to which the Oriental state signifies the freedom
of one alone (despotism), the Classical state the freedom of
some (slave-holding oligarchy), the Germanic state (presu-
mably, as represented by the Prussian system before '48)
as the freedom of all (?).

Hegel's lectures on ^Esthetic, with the exception of the
' Philosophy of History,' are perhaps the most popular
of his works. Hegel felt with Schelling, and in opi30sition
to Kant and Fichte, that the moral consciousness was
after all not ultimate ; that there was a region in which
the -individual mind was freed from the restlessness of
natural and moral striving, and that this was the region
of Art (compare Schopenhauer, supra, pp. 296-9). The Art
work as the presentment of the Beautiful exhibits the
Absolute in sensuous existence ; it is an appeal to the
heart. It does not merely afford theoretical knowledge
or practical satisfaction, but it raises it above these finite
forms to a sense of infinite enjoyment.

The chief periods of Art are the Oriental, the Classical,
and the Romantic. In Oriental Art the special characteristic
of which is symbolism, the matter preponderates over the

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 833

form; in Classical Art, the characteristic of which is
grace, the form and the matter balance each other ; in
Eomantic Art, which is spiritual par excellence, sublimity
and beauty are combined ; the /orm asserts its pre-eminence.
In each of the fine Arts these momenta are discoverable
no less than in the Histoiy of Art as a whole. Thus, in
architecture, the art which is first in the order of time, the
moment of symbolism or sublimity may be seen in the
Monument {e.g. the pyramid, the tower, the obelisk, &c.)
characteristic of the ancient Oriental civilizations ; the
classical moment in the Greek Temple ; the romantic in
the Gothic Cathedral. The peculiarly Eomantic Arts of
Painting and Music present within themselves the same
stages which are all embraced and reduced to unity, in the
Art which is the Art of Arts, Art par excellence, viz.
Poetry. Hegel defines the form of the Beautiful as the
nnity of multiplicity. The progress of Art, according to
Hegel, consists in the gradual elimination of the spacial
and material element therein. The beginning of Art
Architecture, exhibits, as above stated, an enormous pre-
ponderance of the sensuous material. In Sculpture, the
peculiarly classical Art, the mere material is less oi)tru-
sive ; moreover, as embodying a definite form, that of the
human body, it is a step towards a higher ideality.
Painting, the earlier of the romantic Arts, the perfection
of which was reached in the middle ages, inasmuch as it
gets rid of the third dimension of matter, implies a
further advance towards the ideal, the supremacy of form ;
it is the objective art of form. Music, of which the
material is pure tone, and whose perfection has been
reached in the modern world, finally abolishes the element
of space altogether; its content is the inner emotional
nature, and hence it is the most subjective of all the Arts.
Lastly, Poetry dispenses with any specific material what-
ever, its material being simply language, the medium for
the expression of thought in general, and Poetry may be
truly termed the Art of universal expression. It compre-
hends all the other Arts in itself. Painting in the epos,
Music in the lyric, and the unity of both in the drama.
It is peculiar to no one period of history, but is present in
one or more of its forms in all periods.

834 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

Hegel showed a far deeper appreciation of the significance
of Art than Schelling. The latter could merely regard it as
a special department of modern culture, and the artist as a
professional man of talent or genius in no special manner the
product of his age or race. Hegel, on the contrary, took
an historical view; he saw in Art the expression of the life
of a period, or of a people ; he saw that all true Art, all
Art that is worth anything, is essentially social and not
individual. " Each generation hands its beauty on to the
next ; each has done something to give utterance to the
universal thought. Those said to have genius, have
merely acquired the particular faculty of expressing ihe
general social forms in their own work, some in this
respect, some in the other. Their product is not their
invention but that of the whole nation . . . Each adds
his stone to the structure, the artist among the rest, only
that he happens to have the fortune to come last, and thus
when he lays his stone the arch is self-supporting. '

The close of Hegel's Philosophy of -3i]sthetics as usual
contains an indication of the next division of the philoso2:)hy
of Absolute Mind, viz. that of Eeligion. Religion is the
form in which the Absolute is presented, not only to the
perceptive consciousness or feeling, but also to the
reflective understanding. The historical momenta of
Eeligion are, the nature-religions in which God is regarded
as mere natural substance (Fetichism and the lower
forms of Polytheism) ; those Religions in which the Deity
is conceived as Subject which comprise the Jewish Religion
or the religion of sublimity, the Greek Religion or the
religion of beauty, and the Roman Religion or the religion
of utility ; and, finally, the synthesis of nature-religion,
and of subjective-religion, viz. Absolute religion, the
ultimate expression of which, it is needless to say, Hegel
somehow or other manages to find in the special form of
Protestant Christianity established in Prussia. The
dexterous evolutions performed to arrive at this end are
more curious than instructive; especially the case as
regards the manner in wliich the leading Christian dogmas
are twisted into conformitj^ with the Hegelian doctrine.

As Art found its issue in Religion, so Religion finds its
culmination in Philosophy. Philosophy is truth in its

Epoch II.] HEGEL. 335

absohiteiiess, the thought of the self-thinking Idea, of
the self-comprehending Eeason. The development of
Philosophy shows a progress from the abstract to the
concrete ; the philosophy of the pre-Socratists, of the
Eleatics, of Herakleitos, and of the Atomists represents
respectively the momenta of Being, Becoming, and For-
itselfness; the i^hilosophy of Plato, the categories of
Essence ; that of Aristotle, those of the Concept ; that
of the Neo-Platonists, the totality of the Concrete Idea.
Similarly, the philosophy of the middle ages and of
modern times, is the philosophy of the Idea as self-
conscious, or as mind. The Cartesian philosoj)hy occupies
the standpoint of unreflective consciousness ; the Kantian,
that of self-consciousness ; the Hegelian, that of the
Eeason or Absolute knowledge. Hegel claims therefore
that, in his system, all earlier philosophies are implied
and embraced as essential momenta, at the same time that
they are superseded.

" In the peculiar form of external history^'' he says, " the
origin and development of philosophy is presented as the
history of this science. This form gives to the Idea's
stages of development, the appearance of accidental
succession, and of mere diversity of principles, with their
working out in philosophical systems. But the craft-
master of this work of ages is the one living spirit whose
thinking nature it is to bring what it is, to its conscious-
ness, and immediately this has become object to have
already in itself attained a higher stage, a stage which ig
above and beyond it. The History of Philosojphy shows us,
in a^^parently diverse philosophies, on the one hand, only
a philosophy at different stages of development, and on
the other, only the special principles, one of which under-
lies one sj^stem, and one another, but which are only
branches of one and the same whole. The last philosophy
in the order of time is the result of all previous philoso-
phies, and must hence contain the principles of them all ;
it is therefore, in so far as it is philosophy at all, the
most developed, the richest, and the most concrete of all
philosophies."

Hegel ianism had for some years previous to the death
of Hegel in 1831, overshadowed the intellectual firmament

836 MODEKN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

with its colossal structure. As before with Kantianisin, its
parent, so now, though even to a greater extent, with
Hegelianism, it was the dominant philosophy taught
throughout Germany, and asserting its influence in all
departments of culture. The term of Hegel's life coin-
cided with the culmination of the authority of his school,
and the C(jmmencement of its decline, considered as repre-
senting a system one and indivisible, as the doctrine
of the master, in its orthodox form, claimed to be.
Soon after Hegel's death, his disciples published his
completed works. But dissensions speedily became
apparent. The first crisis in the school occurred about
1835. "The school of Hegel," says' Eosenkranz, writing
in 1844, " in the sense that others must seek his instruc-
tion as that of an immortal master of speculation, not
only exists, but will continue to exist in the future, just
in the same way as after Aristotle there were still Aristo-
telians, and after Spinoza, Spinozists. But the school, in
the sense of a social union of disciples — in the sense, that
is, of a kind of corporate responsibility of one Hegelian
for his neighbour, has ceased. The Berlinerjalirhilcher, its
outward meetlDg-place, can moreover no longer be con-
sidered as the expression of the development of the
Hegelian philosophy, nor as the organ of its apologetics
and polemics. The most violent divergencies of disciples
from the master, as well as of disciples from each other,
have become notorious."

This break-up of the school, as a school, Eosenkranz,
although himself one of the original disciples of Hegel,
justly regards as inevitable, and indeed as a hopeful
reaction against the worship of phrases, and of the system
as a system, towards which there was a tendency in its
halcyon days. The collapse of the Hegelian school, he
asserts, does not mean the collapse of the Hegelian
philosophy, but rather the necessary condition of its
continued life and activity.

There is a passage of Hegel's own a-proj)os of this,
which is worthy of being inscribed in letters of gold, and
which the " man of the world," — who, strong in his smug
ignorance of history and " sound common-sense," jeers at
the internal difterences accompanying the growth of a

Epoch n.] HEGEL. 337

movement as signs of decay — would do well to remember :
*' A party shows itself to have won the victory first when
it has broken up into two parties ; for then it proves that
it contains in itself the principle with which at first it had
to conflict, and thus that it has got beyond the onesidedness
which was incidental to its earliest expression. The
interest which formerly divided itself between it and that
to whicli it was opposed, now falls entirely within itself,
and the opposing principle is left behind and forgotten,
just because it is represented by one of the sides in the
new controversy which now occupies the minds of men.
At the same time, it is to be observed that when the
old principle thus reappears, it is no longer what it was
before, for it is changed and purified by the higher
element into which it is now taken up. In this point of
view, that discord which appears at first to be a lament-
able breach and dissolution of the unity of a party, is
really the crowning proof of its success."

The success of Hegelianism as a distinct system was no
doubt partly due to its eclectic, and hence to some extent
conservative, and even reactionary tendencies. Hegel
restored to philosophy in a new form what Kant had
demolished in its older form, viz. Metaphysic proper or
Ontology. His Logic identified " Theory of Knowledge"
and Ontology in seeking to show that existence was only
one of the momenta of consciousness, and not vice versa.
Again, Hegel had sought to re-establish a modus vivendi
between Theology and Philosophy (albeit at the cost
of the former) in his Beligionsphilosophie, by an ingenious
esoteric interpretation of leading dogmas, and also by
taking under his wing the Prussian Church organization.
But Hegel difiered from his predecessors on a most
important point, the practical side of his philosophy,
to wit, the virtual surrender of the individualistic
Ethics so strongly accentuated by Kant and Fichte, and
the rehabilitation of the ancient conception of social
virtue, the morality which has for its end the family,
the city, and the state. That he was led to this partly
by his zeal on behalf of Prussian bureaucracy, does not
alter the intrinsic importance of the change of stand-
point. With the events consequent on the revolutionary

z

338 MODEKN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch n.

year, 1830, the conservative side, and therewith the
system as a system of the Hegelian philosophy became
shaken. The political ascendency of the middle class,
which was now everywhere the order of the day — the
temporary reaction consequent on the French revolution
havino' spent itself — ill accorded with the system which,
in a sense, apotheosized class-despotism of a different kind.
Hegelianism began to work out in opposite directions ; a
right and a left wing formed in the school ; and the in-
tellectual life of Germany during the seventeen years from
the period of Hegel's death to the revolution of 1848,
is mainly taken up with the controversies liberated by
the dissolution of the original Hegelian school, which
resulted in a severe struggle between the various sections
of the party. These controversies, religious, social, and
political, we shall briefly notice in the following pages.

The Hegelian School.

Attacks on the Hegelian system had already begun
before the death of Hegel, from standpoints which were
not opposed to the speculative method in general. Weisse,
professor of Philosophy at Leipzig, in an essay on the
" Present Standpoint of Philosophical Science," published
in 1829, criticised the Logic in a theistic sense, and subse-
quently attacked the system in detail in a series of
works. The Hegelian right consisted, among others, of
Gans, Heinrichs, Goschel, Michelet, Kosenkranz, and
Vischer. These men, all pupils of Hegel, adhered to the
doctrine, more or less, in its original form, though for the
most part emphasising the conservative side. Michelet,
who is still living, has recently published a summary
of the system. Of these more orthodox and conservative
disciples of Hegel, there is little to be said in a work
like the present, save that they took an active -psui in
the controversies of the period.

The most remarkable development of the Hegelian
doctrine was that accomplished in the left wing, and
which is associated with the names of Strauss, Feuerbach,
Bruno Bauer, Ruge, &c. Hegelianism, as a system, at

ErocH II.] THE HEGELIAN SCHOOL. 339

once tended to promote and to check the free tendencies
of the age in Theology, Politics, Sec. Its most noteworthy-
product in Theology, however, was the ccleljrated Tiibingen
school of biblical criticism, the best known names connected
with which are Ferdinand Christian Baur, and David
Friedrich Strauss. The first actual crisis in the Hegelian
party was indeed brought about by the publication of
Strauss's Lehen Jesii, although, considering that the notion
of the supernatural in Eeligion and History had been practi-
cally absent from the educated German mind since Kant,
it is difficult to understand the sensation produced by the
definite working-out of a "mythical theory" as to the
origin of Christianity by Strauss. But the main issue
in the religious sphere resolved itself into the question of
the compatibility of the Hegelian system with theism at
all. Hegel himself had of course maintained it to be the
only possible form of theism ; but this, it must be remem-
bered, was as he understood theism. He also (vide supra^
p. 334) affirmed its complete accordance with Christian doc-
trine, as established in Prussia, again with the important
reservation, however, that philosophy was to interpret
that doctrine, a reservation which effectually "kept the
word of promise to the ear," but as effectually broke it the
hoj)e of the orthodox. So with the theistic question ; it was
not long before the more advanced Hegelians made u^^ their
minds to expose and disavow what justly seemed to them a
merely verbal accommodation. In Strauss's second great
work, the ' Christian Dogmatics in their Development, and
in their Conflict with Modern Science,' the narrower and
the wider issue were brought out into clear relief, and the
view insisted on that Christian Eeligion and Modern Philo-
''• sophy are opposed to one another as Theism to Pantheism.
There is a sly hit at the master where Strauss, playing
upon the German word Grund (ground or reason), says
that a jDhilosopher may have very good grounds (Griinde^
for calling himself a Christian, but he can have no reason
[Grund). To the philosopher, for whom there is no
^^\ lard and fast distinction between this and the other
Kvorld, for whom all such distinctions, as mind and
natter, subject and object, divine and natural, are at once
mbraced and transcended in a higher unity there is no

z 2

340 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch H.

greater enemy than a doctrine which affirms and perpetu-
ates this dualism of conception. Inasmuch as the resolution
of these oppositions has already accomplished itself, the
criticism of dogma becomes identical with its history.
The aim of Strauss in the work in question is therefore to
point out the precise manner in which the ecclesiastical
dogma moulded itself out of the biblical doctrine ; how
with the Reformation the dissolution began; how the
tentative doctrines of the Eeformers were in their turn
reformed by the Socinians, Sj^inoza, and the English
Deists ; how the conclusions of these latter were pushed
forward by the French and German Aufkldrung, till
Schelling drew and Hegel formulated the conclusion that
there is no other Divinity than the thought in all thinking
beings ; no Divine attributes other than natural laws ; and
that the All knows no addition and no diminution, but is
continually manifested in the infinity of individuals.

Bruno Bauer, who originally belonged to the extreme
right, being bitterly attacked as a representative of this
direction by Strauss, and who had been accused of being on
the high road to join the then well-known pietist, Heng-
stenberg, startled every one, when, in 1839, he published
his "Herr Doctor Hengstenberg, a contribution to the
critique of religious consciousness," in which the arti-
fices of the orthodox apologists were scathingly exposed.
In a subsequent work, the notion of a Church organization
is treated as a survival, and religion declared to exist only
as religiosity — that is, the sentiment of devotion to a
higher power ; but at present, Bauer declared, there is no
power to which the individual can devote himself higher
than the state. Between the civil and the antiquated
ecclesiastical organization stands Science on the side of the
former, and where the State seeks to limit Science in the
interest of Theology, it is really fighting against itself.

Bruno Bauer was joined later on by his brother Edgar,
who put forward a doctrine, worked out in a meta-
physical form by Max Stirner, of whom we shall speak
presently, which may be regarded as the prototype of
modern Individualism. It proclaimed the individual
supreme, and denounced all government and organizations
whatever as destructive of the individuality. Thus Bruno's

EPOcm n.] THE HEGELIAN SCHOOL. 341

divinity, the state, was nidely swept away. Bruno and
Edgar Bauer were alike untiring in proclaiming that in
the individual human being was summed up all truth and
all reality.

The most prominent name in connection with this
movement was that of Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, who
was undoubtedly the most popular exponent of the in-
dividualist and empiricist reaction against the Hegelian
Monism. It is perhaps hardly fair to call the movement a
reaction, for strange as it may at first sight seem, it was
the natural working out of one of the sides of Hegel's
doctrine. Owing to the very synthetic nature of that
idoctrine, it only required a very slight change to transform
lit, on the one hand into pantheism, and on the other into
individualism. The moment the fundamental point of
view of " Theory of Knowledge " fell out of sight, and to
minds which could see in the distinctions it expresses, mere
word-jugglery, absolute individualism was the necessary
issue. Of course subjective Idealism of the Leibnitzian
type must have been the inevitable outcome in a meta-
physical point of view, but metaphysic was at a discount
just at this time, and in consequence, it was in practical
departments rather than in the region of pure speculation,
"that the new development manifested itself. All Feuer-
'bach's works have a distinctly practical tendency ; with
roure speculation he concerns himself little. His strength
tties in negative criticism. The salient points of Feuer-
Ibach's theory will be found in the " Essence of Christianity,"
tthe English translation of which, by George Eliot, is well
Iknown. Bruno Bauer and Feuerbach were naturally in
opposition to Strauss, who held strongly to the Pan-
iiheistic side of Hegelianism ; for Strauss, the individual
•mind was the reflection of " the All," the immanent divine
principle ; for Feuerbach, the divine principle was simply
•the reflection within itself of the individual mind. On
ithe political side the difference between them was even
more accentuated— Strauss was the Tory, Feuerbach and
tthe Brunos were Revolutionists. In a small hrochure^
entitled * The Holy Family Bauer,' the eminent Socialist
writers, Karl Marx and Friedrich En gels, criticised the
foregoing writers with characteristic humour.

342 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

The most remarkable product albeit tbe reductio ad
absurdum of tlie ex-Hegelian individualists, was the little
work of Max Stirner (Dr. Schmidt), entitled the ' In-
dividual and His Possession ' (Der Einzige und sein
Eigenthum), in which the author seeks to show the heresy
from their own point of view, even of Feuerbach and Bauer
themselves ; how, that is, even in their later writings the
religious principle still clings to them, as shown in their
admission of the Ideal of society or humanity as an object
of devotion for the individual. " The Individual and His
Property" might serve as a text-book for our modern
individualist-anarchists. The principle of Individualism
is there pushed to its only logical conclusion. The " self-
consciousness " of Bauer, the " humanity " of Feuerbach, the
*' society " of the Communists, are all stigmatised as relics
of superstition, as objects of worship. From these stand-
points, all and severally, the individual as such is lost
sight of, and yet only the individual is real. He who
devotes himself to aught outside himself, without receiving
an equivalent for his devotion, surrenders his individuality
— he is superstitious. The individual Ego is the only
concrete, all else is abstract and unreal. " The Ideal, the
Man, is realised when the Christian conception becomes
converted into the proposition, ' 1 this individual am the
man.' The conceptual question ' what is the man ? ' has
then resolved itself into the personal one * who is the man ? '
with ' what ' the conception was sought to be realised ; with
* who ' there is no longer any more question, but the answer
is immediately present in the question, the question answers
itself of itself ... I am the owner of my power, and I it
is who know myself as individual. In the individual this
owner returns to the creative nothing out of which he was
born. Every being that is above me, be it God, be it man,
weakens the feeling of mj^ individuality, and pales before
the sun of this consciousness. I place my interest in my-
self, the individual ; it stands then on the same footing as
its transient mortal creator, who thus feeds upon himself.
I may therefore say, * I have placed my interest in nothing'"
(Der Einzige und, sein Eigenthum, p. 491). This is
certainly a novel way of arriving at the Stoic " apathy,"
for such is practically the result of Max Stirner's reasoning,

Epoch H.] THE HEGELIAN SCHOOL. 343

as will be apparent from tlie concluding sentences of his
book, which we have jnst quoted. But the preposterous
result, and much besides in the work, which is merely
paradoxical and bizarre, does not detract from the fact of
there being much also that is valuable in the shape of
criticism scattered up and down the volume. The reply
of Feuerbach to this attack was hardly up to his usual
standard.

The chief organ of the Hegelian left at this period was
the Hallesclien JalirhiicJier, the editor being Arnold Kuge,
who was one of the foremost leaders of the German revolu-
tionary movement of 1848. Unlike Strauss, the Bauers,
and Feuerbach, who can hardly be regarded as belonging
to the Hegelian school at all, Ruge was, at least for a long
time, comparatively orthodox in the essentials of his
Hegelianism ; the Jahrhilcher nevertheless formed the
general meeting-ground for all groujDS of the party ; and
indeed it was in their pages that some of the earlier essays
of Edgar Bauer appeared. A manifesto, published in the
year 1840, by Euge and his co-editor, Echtermeyer,
nominally on " Eomanticism and Protestantism," but
which was really a thinly veiled political essay, had a
wide-reaching influence at the time.

The Jahrhilcher now began to directly attack the old
Hegelians for their superstitious reverence for the master's
doctrine, as well as for their political indifferentism. They
were accused of treating the Logic as a kind of Veda, while
Euge prophesied the rapidly approaching end of the
kingdom of the Hegelian Brahma. Hegel himself was
vigorously assailed for his reactionism. In July 1841 the
Halleschen Jahrhilcher appeared as the Deutschen Jahrhilcher,
the change of name being accompanied by a declaration
of principles in which the strict Hegelian orthodoxy was
formally renounced in its threefold character, philosophic,
religious, and political. All the fetters of superstition,
which had hitherto clung to the Jahrhilcher, were hence-
forward to be discarded. Henceforth it would openly
occupy the position of Strauss and Feuerbach in Theology,
while a determined war was to be waged against Feudalism
in all its surviving forms. The great merit of the
Hegelian philosophy would be recognised to consist in its

344 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch IL

having freed men from traditional prejudice. The time
had come, Euge declared, in a subsequent number, when
the Church should become the School, and Liberalism give
place to Democracy. The publication of the Jahrhiicher
ceased in 1843, and Ruge repaired to Paris, where, in con-
junction with Marx, he brought out a few numbers of
another journal, the Deutschfranzosischen Jahrhiicher. Ee-
turning to Saxony, in 1846, he produced his third venture,
the Beform^ and sat for some time in the parliament of
Frankfort. On the subsidence of the revolutionary move-
ment, in 1850, Euge came over to England, where he
continued to reside till his death, which occurred at
Brighton early in the year 1881. Euge is unquestionably
the leading figure of the Hegelian left on its political side,
and, as already observed, on the dissolution of the school
practical questions assumed a more and more exclusive
importance.

We have only mentioned a few of the more striking
names, connected with this period, the interest of which,
from a purely speculative jooint of view, is secondary.
With the revolution of 1848 conditions were changed ; the
Hegelian school was finally dissolved, and those who had
constituted it were scattered. Among the surviving
academical " monuments " of the older Hegelianism may be
mentioned, Erdmann, the author of the well-known
* History of Philosophy,' professor at Halle ; Kuno Fischer,
professor at Heidelberg, and Michelet of Berlin. Hegel's
pupil and biographer, Eosenkranz, died in 1883.

THE DEVELOPMENT FROM KANT
TO HEGEL.

KETROSPECT AND CRITICISM.

We have now reached the close of the movement inaiigTirated
by Kant, and therewith the close of the History of Philo-
sophy properly so called. The later speculation, that is,
such as is subsequent to the Hegelian movement, belongs
to current thought, and cannot as yet be assigned a place
in history. Of this we shall treat in the following and
concluding division of the present work. Our object in
this section is to take a general survey of the Kantian
and post-Kantian movement, and to endeavour to extract
from it its historical meaning.

Kant, we have seen, was the pioneer of a line of specu-
lative thought, which restored to philosophy the larger
basis it had occupied under the ancients, by re-opening
those wider issues, which had furnished the themes of
the treatises of Plato and Aristotle, issues which form part
of one problem — that as to the meaning and constitution
of reality. We have noted how Kant's simple psycho-
logical query. How are synthetic propositions a priori
possible? directly involved the question, How is ex-
perience itself possible ? and how this brought us back
to the fundamental inquiry of philosophy. The order
in which Kant discusses this problem in the ' Critique,'
and elsewhere, was immediately determined by the
course of his own thought. The key to the whole is
however, to be found in the deduction of the categories
from the ultimate unity of apperception or consciousness.
The question now arises. Is this thought-unity from which
Kant starts really ultimate ? Is the ultimate form of the
category absolute ? Is pure thought subject? Does not con-
sciousness presuppose that which becomes conscious ? In other

346 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

words, Is not tlie " I think " itself susceptible of further
analysis ? Is not this ultimate I distinguishable from its
thinking ? * We believe it is, and that the treatment of this
principle as final, and as a purely logical or formal unity,
is the origin of the tendency in speculation hitherto, even
where professing to be most synthetic, to become onesided.

The synthetic unity of the consciousness, the logical
element, presupposes the alogical element, the J, or the
principle, which becomes unified. This principle which,
considered per se, consciousness or knowledge itself presup-
poses, may hence be regard as the matter of which thought
or consciousness is the form. Now we contend that this
ultimate, all-penetrating material moment — the subject
as such — has been ignored by most of the leaders of specu-
lation from Plato to Hegel, and an appearance of having
transcended the distinction been obtained by the hypos-
tasis of form. At first sight this may seem a subtlety
which can have very little speculative, and certainly no
practical, importance ; but we shall endeavour to show that
it does, as a matter of fact, give a colouring to the whole
course of thought, being the general speculative expression
of an entire code of ideas ; and that the antagonism of
Materialism and Idealism, using these terms in their widest
sense, is involved in it. In the speculative or generic
method, which deals with a process out of relation to time,
the starting-point is also the goal, the beginning and the
end meet as in a circle. The ultimate principle which in-
volves and includes all others is necessarily the determinant
of the entire system of principles. Hence, whether that
ultimate principle be formal or material, logical or alogical,!
makes a profound difference, and decides indeed the whole
character of the system.

In Plato, what we are here contending for, is very plainly

* Descartes, in his famous Cogito, gave modern speculation at starting
a formalist impulse. (See p. 146, supra.)

t The word '* alogical," it has been suggested to me is objectionable,
as conveying the idea of an " unknowable," a " surd " outside the system
of experience rather than an element therein. The terms "positive
logical" and "negative logical," might be substituted for "logical"
and " alogical," though we venture to think the context will preclude
misconception on this head.

ErocH II.] KANT TO HEGEL. 347

exhibited. The iinifyiiip; tJiought-form the logos is abstracted
from its alogical matter, the Hylc, and hypostasized through-
out, as the system of Ideas, which reaches its cuhuination
in the all-embracing supreme Idea. Aristotle lights upon
the abstraction .so glaringly and consistently carried out
b}' Plato and energetically denounces him for it. But,
nevertheless, Aristotle himself falls into substantially the
same attitude. For him also pure form — in other words,
the Ideal, the ' creative intellect,' as actus purus — was
the determining element — the all-embracing fact — in the
constitution of the real. All systems founded on Plato
and Aristotle exhibit the same tendency, that namely, to
the hypostasis of the pure form of consciousness and
a fortiori of Thought or the Ideal as such.

We pass over those lines of development, such as the Dog-
matic and the Empirical, in which, since they are not based
on speculative or transcendental analysis, the abstraction
in question is not so obvious, or so easily pointed out in a
few words ; and coming to Kant, who re-affirmed the analysis
of experience or reality as the first problem of philosophy,
we find the same abstraction made at starting,* the
abstraction namely of the form of knowing, or thinking
from its matter, the alogical subject which it presupposes,
and whose self-determination thought is. Fichte, at first
sight, appears to adopt a more concrete standpoint. This
is even confirmed, as it would Seem by certain statements
and certain portions of his analysis. But when the
system is viewed as a whole (not to speak of reiterated
assertions to the same effect), it is seen that experience
with Fichte, no less than with Kant (in his transcendental
deduction), is analysed only into the formal unity of con-
sciousness, that Fichte's " ego " is pure thought, and not
that which thinks and which is the possibility of thought.
The moment of actual self-consciousness is the determining
moment of the whole. To Schelling the same remarks
apply, at least as far as the earlier form of his system is con-
cerned ;. the synthetic unity of apperception in Schelling's
system appears as the formal indifference or identity

* As regards this , it must be remembered, however, that the deduction
of the categories, with Kant himself, only concerned one side of his
system.

348 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch U.

between subject and object. There are modes of state-
ment in Schelling as there are in Fichte, which would
seem to indicate that they had a presentiment of the
abstraction involved in the procedure which they had
inherited from Kant. But these were not strong enough
to alter the fundamental character of their systems. Their
ultimate principle remained self-consciousness, that is,
not the Ego, but the Ego's consciousness of itself. They
w^ere formal, and abstractly Idealistic.

The principle which Fichte and Schelling were vaguely
cognisant of, but the real bearing of which they failed to
grasp, was seized by Schopenhauer, and placed in the fore-
front of his philosophy under the name of Will. We do
not of course mean to imply that Schopenhauer was led to his
principle by a systematically reasoned-out conception of the
defect of his predecessors, or that it adequately supplies
those defects. Schopenhauer was more the man of letters
than the exact thinker, and his " Will- to-live " was rather a
poetical expression than a result arrived at by any strict
process of analysis ; but his system embodies unmistakably
among other things a protest against formalistic Idealism.
This explains the favour with which he regards all
materialistic views of the universe. Schopenhauer felt that
in pure thought, considered per se, there was no dynamic
'principle; that the categories of consciousness, even the
highest, did not of themselves constitute reality, but pre-
supposed a matter — a subject — of which they were the
determinations. Essentially the same revolt against the
formalism of the thinkers in the direct line of development
from Kant underlies, as we take it, the system of Herbart.
The consciousness of the purely formal nature of thought
pel- se, it is only fair to remember, also underlies Kant's own
distinction between Sense and Understanding. The ele-
ment of feeling was to Kant as necessary to the constitu-
tion of Reality as thought itself. It is also expressed
in his distinction between Thing-in-itself and Phenomenon,
at least in one of its aspects.

The encyclopedic mind of Hegel, with its Titanic
grasp of method, could hardly be oblivious of the fact
we are here pointing out, leaving its track, as it does,
throughout the whole history of Philosophy. But Hegel

KrocH II.] KANT TO HEGEL. 349

evades, in his own case, the obviousness of the formal
nature of the standpoint he occupies in common with his
predecessors, at least as regards the working-out of his
system by his dexterous manipulation of terminology.
But it only requires the most cursory glance to see that
thfe taint of Idealistic formalism pervades the whole
Hegelian construction. With Hegel, the Concept or the
Idea — pure consciousness — is the totality of the Real. This
alone is the sharpest and most distinct pronouncement of
Thought as the prtus of the world-order. The way in
which Hegel covers up his formalism is ingenious, but
hardly convincing. Let us take as an instance, the passages
on page 29 of the ' Encyclopedia,' where Hegel defines
the Ego as " the universal in and for itself; " and again
as " pure self-reference," " the abstract universal " *' the
abstractly free," &c. Hegel here refers to the synthetic
nnity of apperception, the universal form — consciousness,
which is, as he insists, formal and abstract ; but in this he
clearly ignores that from which it is abstracted, the " self '*
of the "reference," the I which determines itself as
thinhing.

In his anxiety to grasp the whatness of experience, he let
go the thatness. The Hegelian would, of course, reply that
the fact referred to, inasmuch as it represents the possibility
of consciousness, that its whole positive determination is
exhausted in being the possibility of consciousness, it is
legitimate to regard merely as one of the momenta of con-
sciousness. To this we reply, that such a treatment in-
volves hypostasis, a seizure of the formal instead of the
material moment as the primal determinate of the realy
which although it matters little in pure speculation,
amounting to little beyond a difference of emphasis,
has important consequences when carried out in more
concrete spheres. The difference may be compared to two
lines gradually diverging from one starting-point. At first
the space between them is scarcely discernible, but the
end shows a wide discrepancy.

Mere subtle refinement, as it seems, this distinction
between the absoluteness of the actual, formal moment, or
consciousness itself, and of the possible, material moment,
or that which is conscious, that which thinks, reappears, as

350 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. [Epoch II.

already indicated, on another plane in the distinction
between the Idealist and Materialist views of the universe.
As a natural consequence, the Ethical problem of free-will
and necessity, of determination from within or without
the empirically-conscious personality, hinges largely upon
this. That man is able consciously to determine his actions
is the theory of free-will ; that his empirical conscious-
ness merely registers a determination, of which it is not
productive, is the doctrine of necessity as now understood.
If the real be simply a system of logical determinations
alone, if its totality is exhausted in the Logical ; if in its
leading momenta, the formal is their determining side;
then the philosophical-theistic, and free-will theory of
the Hegelians of the right is established ; if on the other
hand, consciousness is not creative ; if the Logical neces-
sarily involves an alogical element, and it is this alogical
element which determines, which is the 8wa/x.i9 in the
production of the experienced world, then we have dis-
covered the root-meaning of the protest of the left wing
of the Hegelian school against the theistic and ideal-
istic guise in which the doctrine was presented by the
conservative side.

Hitherto in all synthetic systems of philosophy it is
the moment of form of limitation, oi for-itselfness which has
dominated the whole ; it has been made both telos and
dynamis. For Plato, it was the Ideas which informed the
unreal matter of the sense- w^orld. For Aristotle, again the
logos, the entelecheia, was the determining principle of the
Hyle. For Hegel lastly the formal moment was absolute
exjDlicitly ; the Concept was self-existent.

But from another point of view, the matter may be
regarded as self-determining, and the form as its self-
determination ? The hypostasis of the formal moment
which has so long dominated the speculative world
then disappears. The ultimate principle of " Theory of
Knowledge," or philosophy, the science which. alone deals
with firs,t principles properly so-called, is no longer
" Consciousness," or thought as such, but the alogical
subject which determines itself as conscious, which is the
materia prima of consciousness. A little reflection, we
think, will enable the student to see that this initial

Epoch n.] KANT TO HEGEL. 851

chan<:^o of attitude shifts (so to speak) onr point of view
throughout every department of thought. The material
rather than the formal heneeforth becomes the determining
moment in the synthesis of all and every reality.'^

*' Thus nature is self-determining {jnd not determined ah extra by
its mere formal moment which constitutes what we term "natural
law."

352 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

RECENT AND CDEEENT PHILOSOPHY,

In this concluding portion of the handbook, we propose to
consider the state of Philosophy during the second half of
the nineteenth century. In doing so we shall pass over
lightly those writers whose general influence and impor-
tance is secondary in order, to afford more space for the
exposition of the views of men who may be regarded as in
some sense leaders of contemporary thought.

Since the break up of the Hegelian school, Germany
has fallen somewhat into the background in the matter
of speculation. Philosophical literature pours forth
abundantly from the press, but it represents for the most
part merely the survival or the revival of older standpoints,
without exhibiting any new development. The views of
Herbart and of Schopenhauer have met ^\ith amplification
and modification at the hands of fluent and able 'v\Titers.
As representative of these may be taken, on the one hand,
Von Hartmann, and on the other, Lotze.

Eduard von Hartmann (born 1842, at Berlin) claims
to be the reconciler of Hegel and Schopenhauer, but
is really in all essentials the follower of the latter.
In his leading work, ' The Philosophy of the Uncon-
scious,' Hartmann maintains the Spinozistic thesis of an
unconscious Absolute, with the dual attribute of "Will and
Idea. He rejects the Dialectical method, and claims for his
philosophy the inductive basis of physical science. " Ac-
cording to Hegel," says Hartmann, " only the Logical the
Idea is ultimate, while according to Schopenhauer, the
Alogical, the Will, is ultimate." The conception of the
Absolute, the prius of all reality, as including both Will and
Idea, reconciles the antagonism between them. " It is the
gi*eat service," as Hartmann thinks of Schelling, " to have

Epoch II.] MODERN rillLOSOPHY. 353

shown the possibility of a modus vivendi between the two
standpoints." Schelling, however, spoilt the fertility of his
conception by coquetting with theology, which misled him
into fantastic qnasi-porsonifications of these principles.
Hartmann will know of no distinction between the method
of philosophy and that of physical science : to jDroceed from
the known to its as yet unknown ground of explanation
is the true method in both cases. Hartmann's exposition
of his philosophy falls into three divisions, headed re-
spectively, " The phenomenon of the Unconscious in
corporeality;" "the Unconscious in the human mind;"
and " the metaphysic of the Unconscious."

In the first two divisions Hartmann seeks to sub-
stantiate and illustrate his fundamental assumption in
the regions of physiology and pathology ; in the third,
in the human mind and in society. The term " Conscious-
ness " with Hartmann, as with Schopenhauer, means the
empirical consciousness, and hence, like Schopenhauer,
Hartmann properly insists on the correlation of conscious-
ness "^dth cerebral and nervous action. But although
conscious activity (in the empirical sense) is inseparable
from organic function, this does not preclude us from
regarding unconscious activity of a subjective nature from
being the sine qua non of brain-function as of every other
material process, which may hence be regarded as its pro-
duct. This " unconscious " principle of Hartmann is not
to be identified with Schopenhauer's "Will." Schopen-
hauer, in proclaiming " AVill " the jprius of the world-order,
banished Intelligence, as a primary principle, altogether
from his system. This was the weak point, according to
Hartmann, in his doctrine, for Will alone, apart from In-
telligence, as the basis of the Eeal can furnish no rational
explanation of the experienced world, nor a fortiori of the
final purpose of such a world. In this particular the
Hegelian doctrine of the Idea or the Reason, as the ultimate
principle of Eeality, has the advantage over the doctrine
3f Schopenhauer; but Hegel, on his side, is unable to
explain the irrational element in the world-order, which
le glosses over under the name of chance.

I'he true inductive method which Hartmann claims to
ipply to speculation reveals to us, that instinct, i.e. uncon-

2 A

351 MODERN PHlLOSOrHY.

scious Will in inseparable combination with nnconscions
Intelligence creates the world : organic and animal func-
tions, arbitrary and reflex motions, sexual love, character,
genius, language (in its origin), nay, conscious thought and
perception themselves, are all reducible to manifestations
of an unconscious Will-Intelligence. The form, the adap-
tability to its end of the phenomenon, shows us Intelligence ;
the ]Dhenomenon itself in its activity shows us Will. The
conjunction of both, Will, which is jper se unintelligent,
and Idea or Intelligence, which is per se powerless, as the
dual attribute of one substance, suffices as the sole ground
of ex^Dlanation of the phenomenal world. The absence of
the principle of Intelligence in Schopenhauer's system
prevented his arriving at an explanation of the rationality
displayed in the order of the world ; the absence of the
motive power. Will, prevents Hegel from passing out of
the region of the merely logical into that of the real or the
existent. The conception of the union of Will and Idea,
of the realisation of the logical rational Idea by the
alogical non-rational Will, reconciles both systems by
supplying the defective element in them. Now, according
to Hartmann, the rational is real, and the real is rational.
The rational and intelligent order in the real is expressed
in a series of stages. The first is constituted by the
simple, attractive and repulsive force-centres, which are
the foundation of the corporeal world. They are the first
product of the will-im]oregnated Idea, and form the first
rung of the ladder which culminates in the conscious
organism. Each successive step expresses a victory of the
Idea over the Will, of Intelligence over blind im23ulse or
force, of the Logical over the Alogical. The easiest possible
way to the attainment of its immediate end is the one
chosen by the Idea. Thus nature prefers to bring about
improvement in species by *' natural selection," and the
*' struggle for existence," rather than to attain the same
object by a more cumbersome, even though a less wasteful
method. The goal of this w^orld-evolution is the complete
subjugation of the (non-rational) Will, by the (rational)
Intelligence. But the complete victory of the Logical over
the Alogical presupposes consciousness, and hence the pro-
gressive series of being in the order of evolution gravitates

IIARTMANN. cJOO

towards one point, to the point, viz., where the organism
has the conditions of consciousness complete within
itself. This completeness is first attained in the human
brain and nerve system. Conseionsness may be called the
final emancipation of the Intelligence or Keason from its
bondage to the Will.

The conscious organism once given, its happiness be-
comes henceforth the more or less immediate purpose of
the world ; but this notion of happiness is an illusion
which hides from us the higher and ultimate end of
consciousness, which is not human happiness, but the
emancipation of the world-principle. Here the coinci-
dence of Hartmann with Schopenhauer comes into view.
To Hartmann, as to Schopenhauer, existence is a huge
blunder. The more intelligence grows, the clearer it
becomes that the pleasure of the world is vastly out-
balanced by the pain ; and this applies alike to the indi-
vidual life, and to the life of the race. A crucial instance
of it is afforded by a comparison of the amount of pleasure
present in the animal which eats, as compared to the
amount of pain present in the animal which is eaten. In
human history the illusion of the possibility of realising
human happiness presents itself in three phases. In the
classical world happiness was believed to be attainable in
the present life of the individual. In the Christian world
happiness is believed to be attainable in a future life of
the individual. This belief, which modern science has
shattered, is now succeeded by the third phase of the
illusion, which conceives happiness as possible in the
future of the race. Once this illusion has been lived
through, the truth will be apparent ; there will be no
room for any further illusion as to the possible realisation
of happiness. The one end will henceforth be Nirvana,
though not the Nirvana of Schopenhauer, who takes
account of the individual merely, and not of the race.
The quietism which Schopenhauer preached is simply a
phase of the Christian religious spirit. There is no short
cut to Nirvana, such as Schopenhauer imagined, attainable
by the individual. The pietistic results of Schopenhauer's
philosophy must be given up for a more extended view,
which shows us the individual as powerless to arrest the

2 A 2

356 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

world-process, which exhibits the act of reminciation as
"brought about through the desire of happiness having
been, in the natural order of things, quenched, not in the
individual alone, but throughout all conscious beings.

Even the highest of all pleasures, literary and artistic
activity, in this third stage of the illusion into which Ave
are njow entering begins to wear itself out. All tends to a
low level of mediocrity. The combination of selfishness and
sympathy, which sees in the future happiness of the whole,
a reward for the sacrifice of individual well-being, will
have had its day, according to Hartmann, when wealth
and comfortable circumstances — in short, all that can be
effected alike for the race or the individual — is seen to be
of no lasting value in producing happiness, and this expe-
rience is being made by increasing numbers (?) in propor-
tion to the spread of civilization. This on the one hand.
On the other, the teaching of experience shows us that
the sum of actual pain in no wise tends to diminish.
Side by side with the advance of medical knowledge,
illness, more especially obscure and chronic maladies,
increase in greater proportion. Hunger consumes an ever-
widening social area with the necessary progress of
population. " The most contented peoples are the rude
nature races, and of the civilized races, the uneducated
classes ; with the growing culture of the people, grows, as
experience shows us, discontent." We must nevertheless,
by the force of an invincible and irresistible destiny, press
on along the road which inevitably leads to the dispersion
of our most cherished hopes, to the recognition of those
hopes as illusions. Nothing will be left then, the last
illusion having vanished, than the desire for euthanasia, a
painless extinction. " The Logical," says Hartmann,
" directs the world-process in the wisest manner towards its
goal — the highest possible development of consciousness
— which, once attained, consciousness sufSces to hurl back
the whole actual Will into nothingness, whereby at once
the process and the world comes to an end without leaving
so much as a fragment behind with which a further process
could begin. Thus the Logical constitutes the world in
the best possible way that it may most readily attain to
emancipation, and not in one whereby its pain would be

HARTMANN. 357

infinitely perpetuated " (Philosojphie des Unhewussten, 3id
ed., p. 756).

Wo do not propose to attempt any detailed criticism of
Hartmann's system. It is vulnerable at a hundred points.
Ilartmann, nevertheless, has a significance with relation
to the development of German speculation, and this
significance consists in his having emphasised the dis-
tinction already alluded to between the point of view
which analj'ses all experience into logical or jyositive
thought-determinations, and that which sees in the
alogical an element of prior necessity to the logos. This
is the point from which Hartmann's metaphj^sic starts.
But his system exhibits a hopeless confusion between the
spheres of "Theory of Knowledge," Physics, and Meta-
physics, which inevitably leads to a fantastic semi-theo-
sophicai treatment of the problem. His initial rejection
of the dialectical method and nane announcement of the
attainment of speculative results, according to the method
of natural science, many will think, puts the subse-
quent construction out of court at once, so far as serious
criticism is concerned. The " Philosophy of the Uncon-
scious," and indeed, more or less, all Hartmann's works are
without doubt suggestive, and apart from their readable
style, they will well repay perusal. Hartmann's pessimism,
which has descended straight from Schopenhauer, with,
however, the not unimportant modification already men-
tioned, is one of the most natural literary expressions of the
efiete civilization of an age of transition. This comes out
more especially when Hartmann criticises the jDresent order
of society with its dull level of mediocrity and growing
inequality of social conditions, as though it represented
the final stage of human progress. A 'part at least of his
argument in the cha2"»ter on the third stage of the illusion,
rests upon the assumption that the present basis of society
is necessarily permanent. Hartmann sees that things
perforce tend from bad to worse, proceeding on current
lines, but he ignores the possibility of a fundamental
change in the constitution of society, and therefore of
human life generalty. The all-degrading black coat of
the Bourgeois, covering, as it does, a mental and physical
constitution, sodden by profit-mongering in its various

358 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

phases, it does not seem to occur to Hartmann, may
possibly account for his pessimism as it does for many
other things ; and that pessimistic views of the universe
may pass away as a tale that is told, together with the
aforesaid black-coated creature, whom he justly takes as
the sign and symbol of universal mediocrity.

KuDOLPH Hermann Lotze (bom May 21, 1817, died July
1st, 1881) represents another phase of dogmatic reaction
against the formalism of Hegel. Just as Hartmann's
philosophy is a following out of the doctrines of Schopen-
hauer, so Lotze's may be considered as related to those of
Herbart, though the connection is, perhaps, not so close in
the latter as in the former case.

Lotze entirely repudiates the dialectical method and all
speculation immediately based on that method, though
without on the other hand regarding the methods of physical
science as in themselves ultimate. To understand the wait-
ings of Lotze, of which ' The Metaphysic ' and ' The Logic '
were the earliest, though the ' Microcosmos ' is the most
important, it is necessary to bear in mind that his mind
was essentially double-sided. Possessed of a consummate
reverence for the methods of physical science, he had an
artistic side which could not rest satisfied with those
methods considered as final. The following statement of
his position is taken froin Herr Merz's article " Lotze," in the
' Encyclopgedia Britannica,' 9th edition : " Lotze's definition
of philosophy is given," says Herr Merz, " after his expo-
sition of logic has established two points, viz. the existence
in our mind of certain laws and forms according to which
we connect the material supplied to us by our senses, and,
secondly, the fact that logical thought cannot be usefully
employed without the assumption of a further set of
connexions, not logically necessary, but assumed to exist
between the data of experience and observation. These
connexions of a real, not formal, character are handed to us
by the separate sciences, and by the usage and culture of
everyday life. Language has crystallized them into certain
definite notions and expressions, without which we cannot
go a single step, but which we have accepted without
knowing their exact meaning, much less their origin. In

LOTZE. 359

consequence the special sciences and the wisdom of common
life entangle themselves easily and frequently in contra-
dictions. A problem of a purely formal character thus
presents itself, viz. this — to try to bring unity and
harmony into the scattered thoughts of our general culture ;
to trace tlicm to their primary assumptions and follow
them to their ultimate consequences ; to connect them all
together ; to remodel, curtail, or amplify them, so as to
remove their apjoarent contradictions, and to combine them
in the unity of an harmonious view of things, and especially
to make those conceptions from which the single sciences
start as assumptions the object of research, and fix the
limits of their applicability. This is the formal definition
of philosophy. Whether an harmonious conception thus
gained will represent more than an agreement among our
thoughts, whether it will represent the real connexion of
things, and thus possess objective not merely subjective
value, cannot be decided at the outset. It is also un-
warranted to start with the expectation that everything
in the world should be explained by one principle, and it
is a needless restriction of our means to expect unity of
method."

Lotze's metaphysic starts with an examination of
causality, and the categories, in accordance with his defi-
nition of metaphysics, as the same which has for its objects
of investigation those conceptions and propositions which
in ordinary life and in the special sciences are applied
as principles of investigation. It is divided into Ontology,
Cosmology, and Phenomenology.

In entering upon the third division of his Methaphysic,
Lotze says (Grimclzuge der Metaphysic, § 26) : " Ontologically
we have spoken of the ' essence and states of the existent,'
without being able to indicate wherein they either of them
properly consisted. Cosmologically, we have assumed that
from the.se unknown reciprc^cal effects of things proceeds
for us the perceptive world of phenomena. Finally, at the
close of the Cosmology, requirements of the mind have
made themselves apparent which presumably are only to
be satisfied hj an insight into the real nature of the things
which constitutes that which the formal conditions of
Ontology and Cosmology demand. Now the inner states

360 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY.

of all other tilings are impenetrable b}^ ns ; only those of
our own soul which we regard as one of these essences do
we immediately experience. The hope arises to learn by
this example what properly constitutes \h.Q positive essence
of other things. We might therefore term the last
section of the Metaphysic as hithei to ' Pyschology,' were
it not that the soul is only of essential interest to us Jiere
in so far as it is the subject of knowledge."

In spite of his repudiation of Herbartianism, there is no
thinker from whom Lotze has borrowed more than from
Herbart. The method formulated by Lotze, that of the
reduction of conceptions to distinctness and consistency,
is almost identical with that of Herl^art. The extreme
pluralism of Herbart is indeed abandoned in favour of
what is in essence, a kind of Spinozistic Monism, though
it subsequently assumes the regulation theistic guise led
up to by " the idea of the Good." As its result Lotze's
Metaphysic gives three ultimate ideas, "(1) that of one
infinite essence, to whose necessity the ontology points;
(2) that which we have developed in brief that all true
reality) is possible only in the form of spirituality ; (3) the
one just indicated, although properly-speaking indemon-
strable by metaphysic itself, that the highest ground for
the determination of the world and of our metaphysical
thoughts thereupon must be sought in the idea of the
highest good."

" The union of these three projDOsitions," continues
Lotze, " gives the result that the substantial ground of
the world is an intelligence whose essence our cognition can
only indicate as the living actual good. Everything finite is
the action of this infinite. Eeal beings are those of its
actions which it continuously maintains as the active and
passive centres of out-and-in-going effects; and their
'reality,' that is the relative independence accruing to them,
consists not in a ' being outside the infinite ' (which no
definition can make clear), but only therein that they
are for themselves as spiritual elements ; this for-itselfness
is the real in that which we inadequately formulate as
' being outside the infinite.' What we ordinarily call
' things ' and ' events,' are the sum of those other actions
which the highest principle in all minds carries out in

DUHRING. 361

SO systematic and orderly a connection that this must
appear to constitute a spacial workl of substantial and
active things. But the meaning of the universal laws
in accordance with which the infinite mind proceeds in
the creation, maintenance, and regulation of this apparent
world of things are consequences of the idea of the good
in which its nature consists." (^Grundziige der ^letaphysic,
§ 94.)

The physiological researches of Lotze it is which have
given him his position in the world of thought. There is
little that is original in the purely philosophical side of his
speculation, which, after all is said, amount to no more
in the last resort than a quasi- Leibnitzian Theism, dressed
up with results derived from Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel
(albeit the speculative method b}" which those results are
obtained, and in the light of which they alone possess
meaning is rejected), and last, but not least, of Herbart.
The cleverness with which these ideas, derived from
different systems, are pieced together and the whole made
to acquire plausibility by being dexterously interwoven
with the results of the latest scientific research, has sufficed
to give the system a certain importance, which it would
not otherwise possess, in current i^hilosophical literature.
The best short account of Lotze is that given by Erdmann
at the close of the second volume of his history.

Among other representatives of current German philo-
sophy may be mentioned Eugen Duhring, whose standpoint,
that of a somewhat crude materialism, is worked out in" his
Cursus der Philosophie, Duhring attaches a high value to
Comte and Feuerbach as well as to Buckle and the
English empirical thinkers, with the exception of Herbert
Spencer, for whom he has a profound contempt.

The law of identity is the ultimate law of all reality.
(This is of course aimed at the Hegelians. ) It is a fallacy
to regard the conceptions of universality and law as ex-
changeable ; an individual fact may have the notion of
law or necessity attaching to it. Duhring is an 'Atomist.
The atom is the ultimate real. The complementary
principle to matter in the construction of reality is that
of change and permanence. For the cause of the primal

862 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

origin of motion or change in material substance, science
is at present unable to offer any satisfactory account ; this
is the task for Mechanics in the future. Antagonistic
motion is the sole method of progress. Diihring would
explain all phenomena on strictly mechanical principles.
Like all other cosmic processes, feeling is reducible to the
opposition of forces ; all feeling involves a sense of resis-
tance. In sense-perception nature, so to say, repeats her-
self, hence the natural assumption that perception corre-
sponds to objectivity is justified. What the feelings are
for knowledge, the emotions are for action. It is not,
however, in his philosopliy proper that such importance
as Diihring possesses is to be found ; but rather in his
criticism of society and in his insights into the future, in
which he has borrowed largely from Marx and Lasalle,
whom he at the same time attacks for their Hegelianism.

We must not omit to notice also the eminent author of
the History of Materialism, Fpjedrich Albert Lange
(1828-1875). Lange's great work falls into two divisions.
Materialism before Kant, and modern Materialism. The
first is divided into four sections, which treat respectively
of antiquity, the transition period, the seventeenth century,
and the eighteenth century. In the first of these Lange
explains how the earliest philosopical attempts necessarily
led to a materialism, of which the highest development
was in the theory of Demokritos, who undoubtedly gave
expression to some of the most important doctrines of
modern science. The complementary antithesis to materi-
alism in antiquity Lange finds in the sceptical sensualism
of Protagoras. These are alike opposed to the Sokratic-
Platonic philosophy. This portion of the work contains
much valuable and interesting criticism. The second
section, which deals, beside, with the attitude of the three
monotheistic religions to Materialism, shows the essentially
antipathetic nature of the Aristotelian philosophy, to the
pure empiricism of natural science, which latter indeed
only became possible, on the fall of Aristotelianism from
the supremacy it held during the middle ages. The third
section treats of Gassendi and Ilobbes as the fathers of
modern Materialism, and of their influence on the empiricist

LANGE. 363

movement in England ; also of the devleopment of the
Cartesian mechanical theory of the universe on the conti-
nent, into the thorough-going Materialism of La Mettrie
and his successors. This last is dealt with in the fourth
section of the first book, which also contains Lange's state-
ment of his own position towards Materialism. While
acknowledging the materialistic attitude to be the only-
one comj^atible with the true scientific view of the universe,
he finds its weak point in the non-recognition of the fact
that the scientific as2:)ect of things is not the only one, but
that there are other ways of envisaging the universe which
if ignored make man one-sided.

The second book treating of the history of Materialism
since Kant, is also arranged in four sections, the first deal-
ing with Kant himself and his relation to Materialism,
together with the post-Kantian materialists, Feuerbach,
Moleschott, Buchner, Czolbe, &c., in the course of which
Lange clearly shows Kant to be the dividing line which
has cut off the possibility of any return to the old naive
Materialism of the last century. The second section is
concerned more particularly Avith the questions raised by
recent scientific research. The result arrived at is that
while we have to thank Materialism for the banishment
of the notions of miracle and arbitrariness from nature,
and for its deliverance of men from the fear of super-
natural powers and agencies ; that notwithstanding, its
central positive dogma of the absoluteness of corporeal
substance cannot stand in face of the advances of modern
thought alike in physic and metaphysic. The law of the
persistence of force is altogether incompatible with the
dogmatic side of materialism. Johannes Mliller's researches
into the physiology of the senses bring us back from a
standpoint of physical science to the essentially meta-
physical result, that the sense-world, our own body of
course included, is only a product of our sense-organisa-
tion. The latter portion of the work contains an able
criticism of the current political economy. Lange strongly
deprecates the tendency to confound truth in the sense of
mere theoretical truth with worth or desirability. Man
has not only the impulse to attain to truth, but also to
the good in the sense of the worthful in-itself. Kant's

364 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Ideas are an instance of confusion between tliese two
essentially disparate things.

Our notice of Lange's book, one wliicli is perhaps more
widely read than any other philosophical work in Germany
at the present time, and which has been translated into
most European languages, aptly closes our brief sketch of
current German philosophical literature, since the philo-
sophical activity of Germany at the present time signalises
itself rather in the department of historical research than
in that of constructive thought. The names of Kuno
Fischer, of Erdmann, of Urberweg, of Zeller, and many
more, now living or but recently dead, that is well-nigh all
the most important German philosophical writers of the
present day, illustrate this remark. This tendency of
German philosophical thought to turn for its aliment to
historical studies is by no means an unmixed evil, if an
evil at all. The time has passed, if indeed it ever was,
when independent thought was of itself almost sufficient
for serious and lasting philosophical work. Henceforward
every new departure or development in philosophy must
not merely take casual account of, but be consciously based
on, the general evolution of philosophy in the past. He
who aspires to be a serious thinker and neglects the
history of philosophy seals the fate of his work. For this
reason the research of the Germans into the history of
philosophy is a necessary element in the future progress of
philosophy. We now leave Germany to consider the
recent and current movement of philosophy in France and
England.

The French as a nation have never been remarkable for
originality in speculative thought, setting aside one or two
noteworthy exceptions, of which Descartes is the most
striking. As a result, there is only one modern French
thinker who will fall within the scope of the present work,
and he not so much because of his originality as on
account of his relations to contemporary English thought
and of the influence he has exercised directly or indirectly
on the average "cultured" Englishman of the present
generation. The thinker referred to is Auguste Comte.
Comte was born at Montpellier in 1798, and died at Paris

COMTE. 365

in 1857. Originally a disciple of Saint-Simon, the most
learned and original of the Utopian-Socialist thinkers of
the first half of the present century, Comte's joolitical
and social speculations hear the unmistakable impress of
their original, though it may be fairly doubted whether
this has been improved by the transformation it has
undergone. The philosophical side of " Positivism," as
Comte designated his system, consists in a classification of
the mathematical and natural sciences and a systemati-
sation of the conclusions of scientific method. The net
result is not altogether unlike the system of Hegel in-
verted. The great polemic of the Philosophie Positive is
against what Comte terms the metaphysical spirit and
metaj^hj^sical entities, but which, translated into other
language, are simply the hypostasized abstractions proper
to the absiract-dogmatic phase of thought. This is all
that is meant by the second of the three stages through
which Auguste Comte claims the human mind to pass.

The parallel between Comte and Hegel, just referred to,
has been noticed elsewhere. " It is worthy of remark,"
says Mr. Shadworth-Hodgson (' Time and Space,' p. 399
et seq.), " that there are many points of resemblance
between the Logic of Hegel, the protagonist of Ontology,
and the Philosojyhie Positive of Comte, the protagonist of
Positivism. There is first the similarity of Hegel's
Absolute Mind and Comte's Vrai Grand Eire, or Humanity,
each of which is the concomitant result, if I may so speak,
of the evolution of the world-history; each of which is
personified as a single individual ; and each of which is
the object of divine honours; and these three points of
similarity suppose several minor ones. Then again, there
is the progression by triplets in Hegel, in which the first
member is the an sich, the last the an unci fiir sich, and the
middle the transition between them ; while the last stage,
when reached, throws back light upon the nature of both
the previous stages, not understood before they had pro-
duced their results. To this answers Comte's doctrine of
a triple stage in the actual history of all development, the
middle of which is but a transitional state, which cannot
be judged of till the last stage has been reached, for which
it was a preparation ; for instance, in the fields of the

866 MODERiq PHILOSOPHY.

intellectual, the active, and the affective functions of man,
three stages may be observed : in the first, the fictive, the
abstract, and the positive stage ; in the second, the con-
quering, the defensive, and the industrial ; and in the
third, the domestic, the civil, and the universal." Poli-
tique Positive, vol. 4, chap. iii. p. 177. And again ('Time
and Space,' pp. 401-2), Mr. Shadworth-Hodgson continues :
" Both writers, each from his own point of view, and in
his own half of the world, move round the same centre ;
for the principle which they share is the central truth of
their two systems. This truth in Hegel is, that the
universe can only be described, analysed, and known
within itself. In the Philosophie Positive, the ruling
thought, as exhibited in the Law of the Three States and
elsewhere, is, that the search after causes is vain, and is
superseded by the search after laws. In other words,
analyse the order of co-existence and the order of sequence
of phenomena within the world of phenomena, but seek
no cause for any of them that is not itself a phenomenon.
Both conceptions are the same, namely, to keep within
phenomena, to analyse their order and interdependence,
and to abstain from going beyond or seeking the Why of
the universe; instead of this, to seek only for the
necessary or universal antecedents of particular objects, as
parts of the whole. A difference between them there is,
and a wide one, namely, that this mode of philosophising
is in Comte a renunciation of an attempt as useless, while
in Hegel it is a claim to have succeeded in that attempt,
the attempt to seize the Absolute. Look only for laws
and not for causes, say they both ; philosophy is the dis-
covery of laws and not of causes ; the absolute is not to be
seized, remain within your fixed limits. But ^Nh.J is the
absolute not to be seized? With Hegel because it has
been seized already, is defined, and contains all causes
within it ; with Comte, because it cannot be seized at all,
and we must content ourselves without causes. Equally
however in both cases is the search for cause given up."*

* While quoting tlie above passages as expressing an undoubted
parallel between the two thinkers in question, the present writer must
not be understood as accepting every statement contained in them.

COMTE. • oC7

To this may be added that even Conite's polemic against
what he calls materialism, that is the explanation of the
phenomena of a higher plane of natnre by those of a
lower, e.g. the treatment of social phenomena on physio-
logical principles alone, or of vital phenomena on chemical
principles, and so on, has its parallel in the potences of
Schelling and the determinate momenta of the Natur-
philosophie of Hegel.

Comte's law of the three stages with which the Positive
Philosophy opens is as follows : " That each of our leading
conceptions — each branch of our knowledge — passes
successively through three different theoretical conditions :
the Theological, or fictitious ; the Metaphysical, or
abstract ; and the Scientific, or positive. In other words,
the human mind, by its nature, employs in its progress
three methods of philosophising, the character of which is
essentially different, and even radically opposed, viz. the
theological, the metaphysical, and the positive method.
Hence arise three philosophies, or general systems of concep-
tions on the aggregate of phenomena, each of which excludes
the others. The first is the necessary point of departure of
the human understanding ; and the third is its fixed and
definite state. The second is merely a state of transition "
CComte's ' Positive Philosophy,' Martineau, vol. i. pp. 1-2).
The employment of the word metaphysical to denote the
second of these stages is entirely arbitrary. The originality
and importance of the doctrine itself has moreover been
greatly exaggerated. Students of Hegel will be familiar
with the truth embodied in the conception, although
otherwise expressed. In the first of the three stages, the
modifications of phenomena are referred to the arbitrary
wall of a being or beings believed to be present in or
ruling over those phenomena ; in the second of the three
stages, the cause of the phenomena and their modifications
is referred to certain properties inherent in bodies, but
which are abstracted from the body or whole to which they
belong, and conceived as distiuct entities or powers acting
upon that body independently. The third, the so-called
positive or scientific stage, abandons the search for causes
which had characterised the two previous stages, and
restricts itself to the endeavour to discover the law, that

368 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY.

is the order of succession and co-existence obtaining
within the various groups or departments of natural
phenomena.

According to Auguste Comte, all sciences have reached
the positive stage, to a greater or less extent according to
the complexity or simplicity of their subject-matter, with
the exception of the last and most complex of them all, the
science of man considered as a social and a moral being.
Of this last science, as a science, he claims to have been the
founder, and to it he gives the name of Sociology. Comte
had inherited from Saint-Simon the idea that all mere
theoretical knowledge, and indeed all special departments
of human activity whatever, should be subordinate to one
great practical end ; the reorgani>sation o£ human life and
society. This it is only fair to remember was the goal he
set before him from the first, and to this goal, there can be
no doubt, he meant all his scientific work to lead. Hence
the filiation of the sciences in the form of a hierarchy
culminating in Sociology, and hence the importance
attached to the elaboration of the latter science. The
positive method hitherto had been confined in its appli-
cation to special groups or orders of phenomena, in other
words, the separate sciences, without those sciences ever
having been co-ordinated into a whole or complete philo-
sophy in accordance with that method. This co-ordination
it is the aim of the Positive Philosophy to accomplish.
The key to the arrangement of the sciences Comte finds
in the notions, (1) that the order of scientific study
follows the order of phenomena: and (2) that the more
special and complex phenomena depend upon the more
general and simple. The most general facts will therefore
be the first that will be studied, and the first to reach
perfection as regards their formulation, i.e. the positive
method. The hierarchy followiug these principles is ar-
ranged thus : Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry,
Biology, and Sociology; each step in this arrangement
involves something specially its ovra over and above that
involved in the previous step. It should be premised
that Comte makes a primary distinction between abstract
and concrete sciences ; the first (science proper) with which
the hierarchy is alone concerned, treats of the abstract

COMTE. 369

relations or general laws of the various groups of pheno-
mena, the second with the history or description of the phe-
nomena themselves, and with the special application of
those laws.

The Philosopliie Positive is comprised in six volumes, of
which the first three treat of the simpler or inferior
sciences, and the last three of Sociology, which, as we have
said, it is the great aim of Angnste Comte to establish on
a positive, that is, inductive, basis. The law of the three
states and the conception of the hierarchy of the sciences
together constitute the framework of the Comtian system.
The one shows us the necessary course of human know-
ledge ; the other the necessary dependecce of phenomena,
and brings the phenomena of human society as much
under the domain of law as those of Chemistrj^ or Physics.
This does not mean with Comte, that social phenomena
can be adequately treated on the methods of any of the
lower sciences ; on the contrary, he especially insists on
each science having its own special logic, terming the non-
recognition of this fact — the treatment of a higher science
on the methods of a lower — materialism ; all he means is
that social science is impossible a|3art from Biology, that
this again presupposes Chemistry, while Chemistry pre-
supposes Physics, &c. ; the whole series of the sciences
resting on the fundamental laws of number, proportion,
magnitude, &c., that is, on Mathematics.

Having given a brief view of the general principles on
which Positivism rests, we projoose to say a few words,
first on Comte's view of historic evolution and afterwards
on the scheme of social reconstruction, in the elaboration
i.if which the later period of his career was occupied.
The fundamental idea of Comte's philosophy of history
is the coincidence of the first or theological stage of the
nnman mind with a military state of society. This, on

-sing into Avhat Comte terms the metaphysical stage, is

■ompanied by a conflict between the military and the
industrial spirit, which last is the social expression of the
rial stage, the positive or scientific. Briefly expressed,
the division is into offensive militaiyism, defensive
aiilitaryism, and industry. The key to Comte's theory of
history is thus to be found in his law of the three stages,

2 B

370 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

from which it is further obvious that he regards the cardinal
factor in human development (a point in which the re-
doubtable founder of Positivism is in full accord with the
much decried " metaphysical " thinkers of the eighteenth
century) to be man's intellectual side.

" Though the elements of our social evolution are
connected and always acting on each other, one must be
preponderant, in order to give an impulse to the rest,
though they may, in their turn, so act upon it as to cause
its further expansion. AVe must find out this superior
element, leaving the lower degrees of subordination to
disclose themselves as we proceed ; and we have not to
search far for this element, as we cannot err in taking that
which can be best conceived of apart from the rest, not-
withstanding their necessary connection, while the con-
sideration of it would enter into the study of the others.
This double characteristic points out the intellectual evo-
lution as the prejDonderant principle. If the intellectual
point of ^dew was the chief in our statical study of the
organism, much more must it be so in the dynamical case.
If our reason required at the outset the awakening and
stimulating influence of the appetites, the passions, and
the sentiments, not the less has human progression gone
forward under its direction. It is only through the more
and more marked influence of the reason over the general
conduct of Man and of society, that the gradual march of our
race has attained that regularity and persevering continuity
which distinguish it so radically from the desultory and
barren expansion of even the highest of the animal orders,
which share, and with enhanced strength, the ajjpetites,
the passions, and even the primary sentiments of Man "
(Comte's ' Positive Philosophy,' Martineau, vol. ii. p. 156).

After stating the principles of the new science, Comte
proceeds to give a sketch of historic evolution in the light
of these principles. The theological and military system
already begins with the primitive stage of universal
fetichism in which every object is personified or endowed
with will. Its immediate development is the ascendency
of star-worship (astrolatry) merging into polytheism, the
most perfect type of which is to be found in the theocratio
civilisations of the East, which represent its first phase,

COMTE. 371

and of which the ancient Egyptian civilisation may be
taken as a model. In the second phase presented in the
earlier classical civilisation of Greece, we have what Comte
terms an intellectual polytheism. No priestly caste exists
snch as in Egjq^t. As a consequence, intellectual activity
has a free outlet. In the third or Eoman period, that of
the later classical polytheism, we have a civilisation in
which military ism is supreme, and conquest the all-power-
ful motive-power, nnd not as in Greece a mere co-ordinate
factor in social lilo, or as in Egjq^t subordinate to a
sacerdotal class. The old polytheism already undermined
by the metajDhysical thought of Greece, could now no
longer offer any resistance to the incursion of Semitic
monotheism. The prevailing conception itself even had
come to assume in the popular mind a form somewhat
analogous to this. "The popular idea of monotheism,"
says Comte, " closely resembles the latest polytheistic con-
ception of a multitude of supernatural beings, subjected
directly, regularly, and permanently to the sway of a
single will, by which their respective offices are appointed;
and the popular instinct justly rejects as barren the notion
of a god destitute of ministers. Thus regarded, the transi-
tion, through the idea of Fate, to the conception of Provi-
dence, is clear enough, as effected by the metaphysical
spirit in its growth."

The civilisation in which the new monotheism issued
was the feudal-catholic organisation of the middle ages.
This, the ideal period of Positivism, is characterised first
and foremost by the separation of the spiritual and
temporal powers, which is accompanied by the conversion
of slavery into serfdom, by the institution of chivalry, by
the domination of morality over polity, &c. With the
decline and break-up of mediaeval society commences the
transitional era of the " metaphysical sj)irit " par excellence^
which reaches its culmination in the revolutionary philo-
sophy of the eighteenth century, and in the ideas, such as
" natural religion," "popular sovereignty," " liberty," &c.,
characteristic of the revolutionary epoch of which the
great crisis was the French Eevolution, but through which
we are still passing. This is destined in its turn to issue
in the positive regime^ social, political, and religious, as

2 B 2

oi2 MODERN PHILOSOPHY

described in Comte's work, * The Positive Polity,' and in a
condensed form in the ' Positivist Catechism,' and the
' General View of Positivism.' This, as the reader is
doubtless aware, has been described as Catholicism minus
Christianity ; with how much of justice may be gathered
from what follows.

Comte's aim in the constructive portion of his work was
to reconstitute human life " without God or King " * (sans
Dieu ni Roi). It has been alleged by a certain section of
Comte's disciples that there is a diiference of attitude,
amounting, indeed, to a change of front, between the
earlier and the later sides of Comte's doctrine. An
examination of the works themselves will, we think,
convince the candid outsider that there is no adequate
ground for this assertion. In the later works, it is true, the
less pleasing sides of Comte's temper and character assume
greater prominence than in the earlier. Views which in
the Philosophie Positive are expressed with the modesty and
reserve of the philosopher, reappear in the Politique Positive
and other writings, belonging to this period, with all the
asperity of dogmas pronounced ex cathedra by a pontiff, and
to dispute which is impious. Comte's religious disciples
would probably defend this attitude as becoming the
prophet-priest of a new cultus ; but that of course is
their affair. It must also be remembered that the hypo-
thetical construction of a social order must necessarily
involve a play of the imagination which would be
altogether out of place in what claims to be a scientific
exposition.

Comte divides this portion of his system into the
" worship," the " doctrine," and the " regime,^' or " mode
of life." The worship has for its object Humanity
considered as a corporate being, past, present, and to
come. For this worship, public and private, an elaborate
ceremonial is mapped out, rivalling the Catholic ritual.
The priesthood of the Comtian cultus are to be entrusted
with the functions of teaching and moral exhortation.

* Not as Mr. Bridges reudefs it on the titlepage of his translation
of the ' General View of Positivism ' (presumably with a wholesome
dread of tlie British Philistine before his eyes) irrespectively of God or

Kin":.

COMTE. oY.J

They are to constitute a great spiritual power, resembling
the Catholic hierarchy of the middle ages, but posses-
sing neither wealth nor material influence. The doctrine
tiiught, the creed of the new religion, consists of course
of the Positive Philosophy. The third part, "the life,"
embraces a description of the Comtian social and political
organization which is to be the material basis of the
whole. Politically the Positivist world is to consist of a
commonwealth, at first composed of the five western nations
of Europe, though ultimately destined to absorb the whole
world. Socially, the modern distinction of classes with
some modification is to be maintained. The middle classes
are to form a hierarchy on an ascending scale, proceeding
from the agricultural interest, which is the lowest, to the
manufacturing interest, thence to the mercantile interest,
and culminating in the banking interest. Outside this
hierarchy is the bulk of the peo^Dle, the proletariat together
with the women who are to be rigorously excluded from all
industrial as well as public function, and of course the
priestly class. The various minute, and to the non-
PositiAdst, exceedingly funny regulations of public and
private conduct, may be perused in the works above
mentioned.

As regards the philosophical side of Positivism, it may
be and has been criticised from a variety of standpoints.
The most important ad liominem criticism is that of the
scientific specialist who declares Comte's treatment of the
special sciences in the first three volumes of the Philosojjhie
Positive to display inadequate knowledge of the several
subjects treated, and a dogmatism as to results, which was
not justified by the then state of those sciences, as is
proved by the fact that many of them have failed to stand
the test of later research. The hierarchy itself, as laid
down by Comte, has been severely challenged in various
quarters, and the artificial character of any purely linear
arrangement has been more than once pointed out.

Turning to what many of his disciples think Comte's
greatest title to philosophic fame, the foundation and
elaboration of the science of Sociology, we should begin by
denying his claim to originality. Kant clearly had the
conception of such a science, as already mentioned (see

374 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

above, p. 251); tlie same may be said of Herder ; while
Hegel distinctly formulated a sociological doctrine, besides
working out a philosophy of history on its lines. The
notion, therefore, of a continuity between the order of
nature and that of human society was certainly not new.
Just as little original was the notion of the main deter-
minant of human progress being the speculative side of
things; this was the view of the French eighteenth-
century thinker, of a Turgot and Condorcet, no less than
of the German metaphysician. That there are true and
valuable suggestions to be found in Comte's philosophy
of history, it would be unjust to deny ; but it Avould be
vain to deny that alike its fundamental principle and
much of its working-out belongs to an antiquated method
of dealing with history, and will not stand in face of the
light thrown upon social development by later thought,
in which, for the first time, we have the clue to a really
scientific theory of historical development — a theory which
finds the determining factor in progress, to lie in economical
and social condition rather than in speculative thought —
in short, which treats political, religious and social forms
as primarily growing out of material conditions, and not
vice-versa, as in all preceding philosophies of history.

Having said thus much in derogation of the exaggerated
claims to recognition sometimes made on behalf of Comt^
as regards Sociology, it remains to notice the real step he
undoubtedly effected ; this consisted in emphasising the
truth that the highest significance of the individual is to
be found in Society and a fortiori in Humanity. No one
before so distinctly seized the fact of the essential unreality
of the individual considered per se — the fact that his end
is social. The travesty of this doctrine furnished in the
religious cultiis of Positivism must not blind us to its
intrinsic importance.

There is one claim made by the Positivists on behalf of
their master, which we think every non-Comtian ac-
quainted with the information we possess as to his
character will be inclined to meet with an unqualified
denial. We are asked to admire, and indeed to regard as
in eifect a paragon of moral excellence, the personality
of Comte himself as exhibited in his life. Now we do not

COMTE. o75

hesitate to say that to most persons who have read Littre's
biography of Comte, and are tolerably familiar with the
later works, Comte's personality will appear as an exceed-
ingly repulsive one, judged by all ordinary standards.
Possessed of a personal vanity so oifensive in its manifesta-
tions and grotesque in its proportions, as to make us almost
pardon it on the ground of disease, a superficial reader might
be excused for supposing that the one object of the founder
of Positivism was its satisfaction. This of course would
be an unfair judgment, but the fact remains that before this
vanity no relation in life was sacred. After having absorbed
the thought of a man of far greater genius, if of less learning
and capacity for hard work than himself; a man who had
befriended him in his youth, when he most needed friend-
ship, he not only found no difficulty in casting him aside,
when he saw the way clear for posing as an independent
thinker, but with incredible baseness could stoop to vilify
his former friend, lest perchance that friend should carry
off a scintilla of the merit there was in his own works.
A somewhat similar occui-rence took place with regard to
John Stuart Mill, on whose generosity he lived for a
considerable time. When Mill found it impossible to
continue the assistance he, in conjunction with Grote and
Molesworth, had been affording, all the recognition
received was a rebuke savouring of the worst type of
pretentious charlatanry. These may be old charges,
but they have never been satisfactorily refuted, and
the opinion one unavoidably forms of the moral dis-
position they indicate is confirmed not only by number-
less other small traits (even if we exonerate Comte from
all blame in his relations to his wife), but by the tone of
many passages in the ' General View,' by almost every
page of the ' Catechism,' and by much in the ' Corre-
spondence.' In this particular instance one may be
excused noting these things, since it is by way of protest
against the attempt that is sometimes made to convert one
of the most morally inferior of mortals, into something
like an object of adoration.

The quite theological reverence with which Positivists
regard the scriptures of their Messiah is well known.
Since Auguste Comte wrote, and even since his death,

376 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

advances have been made in science, which to a great
extent have revolutionised conclusions accepted during the
earlier half of the century. It is not Comte's fault there-
fore if there is much in the scientific aspects of his doctrine
which is hopelessly obsolete. But the same cannot be said
of certain of his followers, when in their zeal for the infalli-
bility of the sacred text they resent advances in science
and even denounce those whose names are connected with
them. After this it can only excite a smile, that Comte
having been gifted with a particularly bad literary style,
it should be the mark of the good Positivist to underrate
matters of style in general.

Positivism, we may remark in conclusion, partakes of the
nature of those systems, the inevitable product of great
periods of transition, which are imperfect assimilations of
a new principle, and which appear as hybrids between
the existing yet decaying order of things and ideas
and the new tendencies which are beginning to destroy
it, manifesting itself of course in its main strength on
the particular side of human affairs on which the pro-
gressive movement primarily turns. During the period of
the decline of the Eoman empire the most prominent aspect
of the movement of change was Ethical and Speculative ;
its expression being in the Christian religion as opposed
to Paganism. Hence we have the Semi- Pagan, Semi-
Christian, Gnostic systems and subsequently that of
Manes, all of which combine elements belonging both to
Christianity and Paganism. The dominant aspect of the
new tendencies in our present period of transition is more
fundamental ; it is, that is to say, toward a material
reconstrudion of society on a basis of equality, apart from
the theological and ethical sanctions which have hitherto
obtained. Positivism in part recognises this; its main
interest lies in social renovation, but in this it seeks to
preserve the material basis of the present society while
rejecting its speculative counterpart. Even its ethics it
retains. The change is to be efi'ected on the old principles
of individual ethical initiative and regeneratiou from
within, rather than through economic and social recon-
struction. Its non-theological attitude, its profes.-ed devo-
tion to human progress as the supreme end of all institu-

MILL. o77

tions, ill accords with the superstitious reverence attached
to certain traditional social forms. The immolation of
human happiness before the Comtian Moloch " social
order " is in keeping with a cultas in which humaiiity is
transformed into a supreme fetich, demanding a drastic
asceticism as the highest expression of her worship, and
of which the prospective virgin mother is the symbol and
ideal.

The contemporary British philosophical movements were
until the advent of Herbert Spencer almost exclusively
confined to Psychology and formal Logic. In the past
generation the main i)hilosophical controversey was that
between the Empirical Associationists and Psychological
Intuitionists, represented on the one side by the younger
Mill, following the footsteps of his father, and on the other,
Sir William Hamilton, in conjunction with whom may be
mentioned his i)upil, Henry Longueville Mansel. The
results of Aesociationism and of the Scotch school of Psy-
chology, generally, have been s^^stematized and presented
a form adapted to university students by Alexander Bain.

The philosophy of Mill, and the modern empirical
school, generally, is really but little more than a restate-
ment of the principles laid down in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries by Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume.
The reduction of all mental phenomena to the em2:)irical
association of ideas is its characteristic. The intuitional
school, of which Hamilton may be regarded as the chief
exponent, was a development with modifications along
the lines of Reid. Both schools alike reject the ten-
dencies of German speculation, which at this period was
represented in this island by one writer only, namely
Terrier, the author of the ' Institutes of Metaphysic,' who,
although an original writer, had but imperfectly assimi-
lated its results.

Probably no one, with the exception perhaps of Herbert
Spencer, is more connected with philosophical studies in
the mind of the average Englishman than John Stuart
Mill. During the latter ]3art of his life he was eminently
the English philosopher. He undoubtedly contributed to
popularise the results of the associational school to an

378 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

extent whicli no one had done before him. The lucidity
of his style was sufficient to place the problems with
which he dealt before the minds of persons altogether un-
used to abstract thought. Nevertheless, Mill cannot be
said to have contributed any new development even to
psychology, much less to philosophy in general. His
father, James Mill, was in the direct line of the Scotch
Psychological School, in which the younger Mill in conse-
quence received a thorough training from his earliest
years. As a young man Mill met with the works of
August Comte, and acknowledges having received a
powerful stimulus from them. All Mill's work is essen-
tially critical. Nearly all his independent contributions
to Psychology are contained in his ' Examination of
Hamilton.' It is here that the dissertation on perception
is to be found, the result of which is Mill's well-known
definition of the objective-real as " permanent possibility
of sensation." The philosophical polemic of Mill's life as
expressed in his two great works — the ' System of Logic '
and the ' Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philo-
sophy ' above referred to — is with the somewhat crude
psychological theory of innate ideas against which Locke
had protested. The diiference is, however, that whereas
in Locke's time nobody had ever conceived such monstro-
sities, nor would have conceived of them had not Locke
found it convenient to set up the theory as a target to
attack ; Locke having once started the doctrine as the
object of his polemic, a school of intuitionists naturally
grew up who made it their business to champion this doc-
trine. Hamilton and his school were the upholders of
this rival psj^chological theory. We believe thinking
men will generally agree when we describe the main result
of Mill's work as that of a powerful stimulus. He stirred up
the minds of many to the consideration of problems which
had previously Jain outside their range of mental vision.

Alexander Bain is probably the best knoAvn and most
voluminous of contemporary British writers of the
psychological school. His ' Sensations and Intellect,'
and ' Emotions and Will,' his ' ]\lental and Moral Science,'
and his ' Logic, are more or less familiar to every student,
and any analysis of them will therefore be unnecessary.

LEWES. 379

We may, however, mention as the chief original result
arrived at by Bain his elaborate attempt in the second
volume of his ' Logic ' to identify the notion of the " per-
sistence of force " with that of causality, or more accurately,
to deduce causality from the "persistence of force."

The versatile writer and critic George Henry Lewes
(1817-78), although in his earlier years he maybe con-
sidered simj^ly as an adherent of the ' Philosoj)hic Positive,'
towards the close of his life elaborated a system of his
own, embodied in a work entitled ' Problems of Life and
Mind,' which although not completed in detail at the time
of his death, was sufdciently advanced to aiford a general
view of its leading principles. Lewes's deviations from
*' Positive" method lie rather in the direction of extend-
ing its scope. Problems which his master Comte, and he
himself previously, would have declared insoluble, he now
claims to treat according to the principles of science.
"While the first rule of his philosophy is : "no problem to
be mooted unless it be presented in terms of experience,
and be capable of empirical investigation," he refuses to
admit that problems hitherto regarded as essentially
metaphysical, such as matter, force, cause, law, soul, &c.,
cannot be presented in those terms, and solved on the
methods of induction. Lewes even retains the name
Metaphysics for these probleais, inventing the term
Metempirics for their treatment on non-empirical methods.
Each problem has what Lewes terms an " unexplored
remainder," that is to say, an unknowable element which
has to be eliminated before the problem can be dealt with
on the Positive method. No science is more than sym-
bolical of reality. " Its most absolute conclusions," says
Lewes, " are formed from abstractions expressing modes of
existence which never were and never could be real ; and
are very often at variance with sensible experience."
Scieace thus represents a transformed reality, an ideal
world of its own. " Science is in no way a plain transcript
of Eealit}^, in no respect a picture of the External Order,
but wholly an ideal construction, in which the manifold
relations of Reals are taken up and assimilated by the
mind and then transformed into relatious of ideas, so that
the world of sense is changed into the world of thought.^*

880 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

The aim of philosophy is not, therefore, to give a magnified
picture of the workl, as it might appear to enhanced
powers of sense, but to reconstruct an ideal world of
abstract relations. The difference between the recon-
structed ideal world of science and that of the Metaphy-
sicians, or Metempiricists, as Lewes would call them, is,
therefore, that the one can be verified and the other not ;
the one starts from experience and returns to experience,
the other altogether leaves the region of experience. The
result of Lewes's attempt to treat philosophical problems
on scientific methods, can hardly be described as satisfac-
toiy, as to some extent indicated in the comparatively
small success which, in proporti(m to the importance of its
claims, the work attained. The treatment of the cardinal
question of the relation of subject and object, as one might
expect from the standpoint occupied, exhibits confusion
between the scientific fact of the union of mental and
material ]>henomena in one organism, and the meta-
physical fact of all phenomena being determinations (jf
consciousness.

The Monistic position is arrived at in the form of an
inference from the parallelism discoverable between
physical and psychical processes. This fundamental con-
fusion between the physical and the metaphysical stand-
points, naturally pervades the treatment of each of the
'Problems of Life and Mind.' Lewes's accentuation of
the disiinction between the ideality of science and the
reality of " common sense " denotes nevertheless an
undoubted abvance on the previous thought of the
empirical school.

It remains now to give a somewhat more detailed notice
of the system of Herbert Spencer, whose influence has
been and still is wide-reaching and considerable. Spencer,
like Lewes, Mill, and the other English T^TL'iters of his
generation, has been strongly influenced by the writings
of A.uguste Comte.

'i'he philosophy of Herbert Spencer starts with the
distinction between the knowable and the unknowable,
the absolute and the relative. This pronounced de-
marcation, amounting almost to dualism, is the foun-

SPENCER, 381

dation of Spencer's system. The first and smallest
division of his philosophy, which deals with the unknow-
able, proclaims the existence of the Absolute or the
absoluteness of Existence (for the two expressions are
in Spencer's case almost interchangeable), outside the
phenomenal world, but at the same time Spencer proclaims
our nescience of all that concerns this Absolute. Our
very recognition of the relativitj' of knowledge is
meaningless except in contradistinction to a non-relative
or Absolute. "We have seen," he says in summing up
liis argument, " how in the very assertion that all our
knowledge properly so called is Eelative, there is involved
the assertion that there exists a Non-relative. We have
seen how, in each step of the argument by which this
doctrine is established, the same assumption is made.
We have seen how, from the very necessity of thinking
in relation, it follows that the Eelative is itself incon-
ceivable except as related to a Non-relative. We have
seen that unless a Non-relative or Absolute be postulated,
the Eelative itself becomes absolute; and so brings the
argument to a contradiction. And on contemplating the
process of thought, we have equally seen how impossible
it is to get rid of the consciousness of an actuality lying
behind appearances ; and how, from this impossibility,
results our indestructible belief in that actuality." (' First
Principles,' pp. 96-7.) In a chapter on " ultimate scientific
ideas," Herbert Spencer endeavours to show how all
scientific conceptions rest ultimately on the insoluble.
Matter, force, space, time on ultimate analysis, abut on
incomprehensibility, in other words, they commit us to
what Spencer terms "alternative impossibilities of
thought." He has already shown this to be the case
with ultimate religious ideas. The reconciliation Spencer
professes to effect between science and religion consists
in the recognition by the former of the existence of an
Absolute behind phenomena, and by the latter of the
absolutely inscrutable nature of this existence. The
relation of philosophy to science is that of the general
to the particular ; just as the relation of science to
ordinary knowledge is that of the general to the par-
ticular. " As each widest generalisation of science com-

382 MODEEN PHILOSOPHY.

prelicnds and consolidatos the narrower generalisations of
its own division; so the generalisations of Phih'Soplij-
comprehend and consolidate the widest generalisations ol
science. It is therefore a knowledge of the extreme
opposite in kind to that which experience first accumu-
lates. It is the final product of that process which begins
with a mere colligation of crude observations, goes on
establishing piopositions that are broader and more sej^a-
rated from particular cases, and ends in universal propo-
sitions. Or to bring the definition to its simplest and
clearest form : — knowledge of the lowest kind is un-unified
knowledge; science is 2^cirtially-unified knowledge; philo-
sophy is completely -unified knowledge." (' First Princi-
ples,' pp. 133-4.)

The positive or constructive side of the Spencerian
philosophy is based upon the doctrine of Evolution. The
data of science, space, time, matter, motion and force, are
treated at the outset from a psychological standpoint.
The psychological definition given of reality is interesting
and important. " By reality we mean persistence in
consciousness : a persistence that is either unconditional,
as our consciousness of space, or, that is conditional, as our
consciousness of a body while grasj^ing it. The real, as
we conceive it, is distinguished solely by the test of
persistence ; for by this test we separate it from what we
call the unreal." On the strength of this definition
conjoined wdth what has preceded, the conclusion is once
more drawn that we have " an indefinite consciousness of
an absolute reality transcending relations, which is pro-
dnced by the absolute persistence in us of something
which survives all changes of relation." Also, that we
have a definite reality, which unceasingly persists in us,
under one or other of its forms, and under each form so
long as the conditions of presentation are fulfilled. The
distinction between the two is consequently not one as
between greater and less reality, for both are alike real,
but between two different kinds of leality.

Spencer's test of truth — the ultimate criterion in philo-
sophy— is the " inconceivability of the opposite ; " that
is to say, where the opposite of a given proposition is
inconceivable, that proposition is true. This, be it observed,

SfENCEIi. 3S3

is only a roundabout way of affirniiug that self-consistency
of thought on -which the speculative or generic method is
founded. Reality has already been defined as persistence
in consciousness ; on the strength of this, Spencer is of
course a realist. He terms his doctrine transfigured realism
as opposed to the naive realism of popular conception.
The " indestructibilit}^ of matter," like the " persistence
of force," is deduced from the fundamental postulate of
the "inconceivability of the opp(»site," the contrary of
each of the.se assumptions being shown to involve an
impossibility of thought. No less axiomatic is the idea
of the continuity of motion. " The first deduction,"
says Spencer, " to be drawn from the ultimate universal
truth that force persists, is that the relations among
forces persist. Supposing a given manifestation of
force, under a given form and given conditions, be
either preceded by, or succeeded by some other manifesta-
tion, it must, in all cases where the form and conditions
are the same, be preceded by or succeeded by such other
manifestation. Every antecedent mode of the Unknow-
able must have an invariable connection, quantita-
tive and qualitative, with that mode of the Unknowable
which we call its consequent. For to say otherwise is to
deny the persistence of force. If in any two cases there
is exact likeness, not only between those most conspicuous
antecedents, which we distinguish as the causes, but also
between those accompanying antecedents, which we call
the conditions, we cannot affirm that the effects will differ,
without affirming either that some force has come into
existence or that some force has ceased to exist. If the
co-operative forces in the one case are equal to those in the
other, each to each, in distribution and amount, then it is
impossible to conceive the product of their joint action in
the one case as unlike that in the other, without con-
ceiving one or more of the forces to have increased or
diminished in quantity ; and this is conceiving that force is
not persistent." (' First Principles,' p. 193.)

The transformation and equivalence of force, the direction
of motion, which is shown to be in the line of least resis-
tance and in the direction of the greatest force ; the
Thythm of motion, by which is meant the oscillations

384 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

invariably accompanying motion in every department of
phenomena, are deduced fiom the ultimate principle of the
Persistence of force. 1 hese things are what Spencer terms
the components of phenomena. It now remains, after
" having seen that matter is indestructible, motion con-
tinuous, and force persistent ; having seen that forces are
everywhere undergoing transformation, and that motion,
always following the line of least resistance, is invariably
rhythmic ; it remains to discover the similarly invariable
formula expressing the combined consequences of the
actions thus separately formulated." The formula sought
may be defined as the law of the continuous redistribution of
matter and motion. All objects individually and collec-
tively are undergoing every instant some change of state.
In other words they are absorbing motion or losing motion.
The question to be answered is therefore what dynamic
principle obtaining at once in general and detail, expresses
this constant change of relation.

All processes of change may be divided into two classes,
those of integration or evolution, and those of dis-
integration or dissolution. Evolution always means in
the last resort the concentration of matter accompanied by
the dissipation of motion ; while dissolution means the
reverse process, that is, the diffubion of matter and the
absorption of motion. One or other of these processes is
going on in every perceived whole. Evolution may be
furtlier described as the progress from an indefinite and
homogeneous state to a definite and heterogeneous state.

Evolution may be simple or compound. Where the
onl}^ forces at work are those directly tending to produce
aggregation or diffusion, there will be no more than the
approach of the components of the aggregate or whole
towards the common centre ; in other words, the process
of evolution will be simple ; such will be the case, more-
over, where the forces tending towards the centre are
greatly in excess of other forces ; or when, on account of
the smallness of the mass, or the smallness of the quantity
of motion it receives from without, the process proceeds
rapidly. But when, on the contrary, from whatever
cause, the process proceeds slowly, then the mass will be
appreciably modified by other forces. In addition to

SPENCER. 885

the chief primary change of integration, secondary and
supplementary changes will be produced ; the process of
evolution will, in other words, be compound. This
principle Spencer proceeds to illustrate at length in
the course of the discussion, some important facts being
brought out, as that the quantity of secondarj' redistribu-
tion in an organism varies according to the contained
quantity of the motion we call heat, &c. The principles
of evolution are then discussed in detail ; first, in their
primary aspect of simple evolution, and afterwards more
especially with respect to the secondary redistributions
constituting compound evolution.

It having been shown that all existences must reach
their ultimate shape through processes of concentration.
it remains for Spencer to show how different orders of
phenomena do actually exhibit the process of the integra-
tion of matter, and the dissipation of motion. " Tracing,
so far as we may by observation and inference, the objects
dealt with by the Astronomer and the Geologist, as w^ell
as those which Biology, Psychology and Sociology treat
of, we have to consider what direct proof there is that the
Cosmos, in general and in detail, conforms to this law."
In the course of the ensuing discussion it is shown that
the same process is going on in the several parts or
members of aggregates, as in the wholes. Thus, while
there has been a gradual concentration of the Solar
system from its primitive nebulous state, there has been
none the less a concentration going on in each planet.
The same applies to the geological development of the
earth regarded as itself an aggregate ; to that of the
animal from the embryo ; to the differentiation of species
and to the development of society. '' Alike during the
evolution of the Solar system, of a planet, of an organism,
of a nation, there is progressive aggregation of the entire
mass. This may be shown by the increasing density of
the matter already contained in it ; or by the drawing
into it of matter that was before separate, or by both.
But in any case it implies a loss of relative motion. At
the same time, the parts into which the mass has divided,
severally consolidate in like manner. We see this in
that formation of planets and satellites which has gone

2 c

386 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

on along witli the concentration of the nebula out of
which the Solar system originated ; we see it in the
growth of separate organs that advances, pari passu, with
the growth of each organism ; we see it in that rise of
special industrial centres, and special masses of population,
which is associated with the rise of each society. Always
more or less of local integration accompanies the general
integration. And then, beyond the incieased closeness
of juxtaposition among the components of the whole, and
among the components of each part, there is increased
closeness of combination among the parts, producing
mutual dependence of them." (' First Principles,' p. 328.)

The secondary process which accompanies the primary
in evolution may be formulated as one from the homo-
geneous and indefinite to the heterogeneous and definite.
Spencer shows this exhaustively a posteriori in the
departments of Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Philology,
Psychology, and Sociology, &c. In the chapter on the
*' instability of the homogeneous," is illustrated with
characteristic wealth of examples the tendency of the
homogeneous and indefinite towards change ; how impos-
sible is the continuance of an aggregate in the state of
homogeneity. Another factor in the evolutionary process
is the " multiplication of eifects," that is, the tendency of
the incident force acting upon a uniform aggregate to
become itself differentiated in a ratio corresponding with
the differentiation of the aggregate. Thus, when one
body is struck against another, besides the visible
mechanical result, sound, or a vibration in the bodies and
in the surrounding air, is produced ; the air has moreover
had currents raided in it by the passage of the bodies
through it ; there is a disarrangement of particles of the
bodies around their point of collision ; heat is disengaged;
in some cases a spark or light is produced by the incan-
descence of a portion, while occasionally this is associated
with chemical combination. " Thus," says Spencer, " by
the original mechanical force expended in the collision,
at least, five and often more different kinds of forces have
been produced."

Thus far an explanation has been afforded of the
change from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from uni-

SPENCER. ^87

formity to miilfiforinity ; but tlic8e explanations do not,
of themselves, accoimt for the change from indefiniteness
to definiteness. The ground of explanation of this is to
be found in the principle of " Segregation." This
principle of Segregation, by which is meant the union
of like with like, and a consequent separation from the
unlike, may be variously illustrated ; a strong wind in
the autumn sweeps the dead leaves in masses to the
ground, while the living are left on the trees ; a similar
process takes place in the separation of dust and sand
from small stones, as we may see on any road in March.
In every river, again, the materials are deposited in
separate layers — boulders, pebbles, sand and mud. The
winnowing of chaff from wheat also illustrates this
principle, which is of common application in the indus-
trial arts. Spencer as usual traces it through the several
orders of phenomena, from the Astronomical to the
Social.

With the principle of Segregation, the discussion on the
factors constituting Evolution is terminated. The next
question is as to the final goal of the evolutionary process.
Does this process go on for ever, or is there a point
beyond which it can proceed no farther? Spencer replies
that there is such a point : — in short, that all evolution
tends toward equilibration ; that it finally comes to anchor
in absolute quiescence or equilibrium. The last point is
illustrated, in the usual manner, and it is then shown how
all this is a deduction from the primary principle of the
persistence of force. " Thus from the persistence of force
follows not only the various direct and indirect equilibra-
tions going on around, together with that cosmical equili-
bration which brings Evolution under all its forms to a
close ; but also those less manifest equilibrations shown in
the readjustments of moving equilibria that have been
ed listurbed. By this ultimate principle is provable the
by tendency of every organism, disordered by some unusual
nfluence, to return to a balanced state. To it also may
36 traced the capacity, possessed in a slight degree by
ndividuals, and in a greater degree by species, of becoming
idapted to new circumstances. And not less does it
fford a basis for the inference, that there is a gradual

0 2

8-8 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

advance towards harmony between man's mental nature
and the conditions of his existence. After finding that
from it are dedncible the various characteristics of
Evolution, we finally- draw from it a warrant for the be-
lief, that Evolution can end only in the establishment of
the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness."
('First Principles,' p. 517.)

Lastly remains the question of dissolution. The
equilibrium once attained, the point having been reached
when evolution ceases, the tendency must always be to a
reversal of the process. All change henceforth must be
in the direction of disintegration, of dissolution. This,
which is illustrated in detail by the life and death of
planetary systems, of individual animals, of societies, &c.,
is true no less of the nniverse as a whole; this also, on
the foregoing principles — its evolutionary process having
reached its term — must tend to dissolution. This portion
of the 'First Principles' recalls to our mind the theories
of the early Greek speculators, of Herakleitos, Empedokles,
and Anaxagoras, &c., with their eternally alternating
processes of world-formation and destruction. For
though Herbert Spencer finds Universal Evolution to
point to Universal Dissolution, yet this latter itself,
none the less, foreshadows a recommencement of the
proces.s, on the same reasoning. The summary and con-
cdusion of the ' First Principles ' consists of a restatement
of the doctrine of the Unknowable in antithesis to the
Knowable with which the book opened. " Over and over
again it has been shovkTi, in various ways, that the deepest
truths we can reach, are simply statements of the widest
uniformities in our experience of the relations of Matter,
Motion, and Force, and that Matter, ^lotion, and Ft^rce
are but symbols of the Unknown Ee ility."

We refrain ftom entering on the carrying out of the
" first jDrinciples " indicated in the foregoing pages, in
detail in the departments of Biology, Psychology, So-
ciology, &c., as embodied in the later works of Herbert
Spencer. The ' Principles of Biologj^ ' is universally
admitted to be a masterpiece of scientific generalization ;
but we venture to think that Herbert Spencer's most
devoted admirers will hardly seriously deny that the

SPENCER. 389

' Principles of Sociolog:y ' shows a falling off— a falling off
which others might add, that results in an inadec^uacy of
treatment verging at times on the pueiile.

Of Herbert Spencer's great powers fis a generalizer of
the results of modern scientific thonght, there can be no
doubt. These powers he indeed possesses in an almost
unique degree, but side by side with them, we find a total
incapacity to appreciate modes of thought foreign to the
special grooves in which his way of speculative life has
been cast. The most flabbjT- pretences of the Laissez-faire
economy are argued from as dogmas universally accepted,
to dispute which is imj)ious, much in the same way as
the Methodist preacher argues from the dogmas of
his Calvinistic theology.

Again, his attempted reconciliation of Science and
Theology, of Materialism and Idealism, on the basis
of a mechanically conceived abstiact Monism, betrays a
crudity of conception which argues a strange lack of the
speculative faculty. This is confirmed by the singular
ignoratio elenchi involved in his would-be refutations of
the Germans. But Spencer is n< t always consistent with
himself in treating of the abstractum he has set up as a
receptacle for "religious sentiment," "ultimate facts," &c.
The Positivists and the orthodox Empiricists would fling
aside the metaphysical problem altogether. Herbert
Spencer provides a home for it in the bosom of the
Unknowable. We say the Unknowable, since Spencer
tells us that the Absolute is unknowable; but, strangely
enough, it reappears on occasion in guises not quite so
unknowable as they might be. The most usual shape
which it assumes in the course of the exposition is
Force — the force behind phenomena — which is manifested
to us in the phenomena themselves. Yet another time it is
insi.'^ted upon that it is not to be identified either with the
sj)iritual or mateiial sides of the phenomenal world — the
world of relativity— although it is the ground-princi23le of
them both. The Spencerite Unknowable, view it as we
may, is a surd entirely cut off from the sj-stem of ex-
perience, notwithstanding that it is the cause of the
phenomena given in experience.

The influence of Herbert Spencer's system has been very

390 MODEKN PHILOSOPKY.

Avide. In tin's country and America lie is pre-eminently
the philosopher. His very failings no less than his merits
contribute to his popularity among the English-speaking
races ; but indeed the importance of the cosmical truths
Herbert Spencer has taught might well blind many of his
admirers to his defects.

The supremacy of the orthodox Biitish Philosophy,
Empiiicism, like the orthodox British economy Laissez-
faire, has been rudely shaken of late. The one doctrine
like the other has been practically driven to adopt the
defensive. In philosophy the new movement has been at
present chiefly confined to academical circles, but it is
already beginning to extend itself beyond this necessarily
limited area. The characteristic of this movement is the
attempt to rehabilitate in this country philosophy proper,
that is the great problem as to the constitution of ex-
perience or reality, which occupied the attention of Plato
and Aristotle in the ancient world and which was revived
in its full meaning by the main line of the German post-
Kantian thinkers. Among the names most prominently
connected with this movement may be mentioned those
of Eobert Adamson, Edward Caird, the late T. H. Green,
E. B. and J. S. Haldane, Andrew Seth, William and
Edwin Wallace, &c. These writers, though diiiering in
some respects among each other, have all made it their
task to present in as intelligible a form as possible to the
English mind the principle of the speculative method, and
to state in clear terms the problem which " speculation "
or "theory of knowledge" has to resolve — that namely
as to the meaning and constitution of reality. This school
is sometimes called the Neo-Hegelian school; and its
doctrine may be said to consist in a restatement of the
philosophical positions of the Hegelian right. We have
already (pp. 3i5-3ol) indicated what we conceived to be
the shortcoming of this standpoint. This shortcoming we
do not think is obviated in the more recent statement
of the doctrine. Briefly expressed, it is as follows : In the
synthetic unity of consciousness it is said the opposition
of the momenta of matter and form, potentiality and
actuality, &c., immanent in consciousness — i.e. the most

NEO-IIEG ELIAN SCHOOL. 391

ultimate vf all oppositions — is transcended. This being ad-
mitted, it is contending that the Iieal consists in a synthesis
of positive tlionght-determinations alone, in other words,
the position corresponds to that of Plato — the system of
ideas subsumed under the supreme idea ; or that of Aristotle
— the "creative intellect," the actus purus or first principle
of pure form which knowledge presupposes. The present
writer would suggest that so far from the opposition being
transcended in the ultimate unity of the consciousness, it
rather finds therein its supreme expression as the distinc-
tion between consciousness and its sul)ject, between the 1
of apperception and the think of apperception, or, otherwise
ex2:)ressed, between the primal thatness and the primal ivhat-
ness* From this ultimate expression of the antithesis of
matter and form all other expressions of the same antithesis
are deducible. The final interpretation of the universe is
thus pure potentiality. One other point. The concep-
tion of the world-synthesis as pure actuality naturally
leads to the dogma of the completed realisation of the
world-principle in man as organic individual, in other
words, in the individual mind or soul. Nature on this
view comes to a complete knowledge of herself in the
present human consciousness ; but have we any right to
make such an assumption? Is such an assumption com-
patible with a recognition of the social pur2")0se implied in
the moral tendency ? Does not this imply that the organic
synthesis, the human individual, the self-realisation of
nature is as yet incomplete, and awaits a higher de\'elop-
ment? Such a conception as that here hinted at it is
difficult to represent to one's self in thought, much more
to express in words, but the suggestion will not be an
altogether useless one, even though it merely acts as what
Kant would have termed a limitative notion in checking
the dogmatic assumption above noticed.

It may also jDOssibly have some bearing in connection
with an objection which Professor Caird observes (art.
" Metaphysic," Encyc. Brit , 9th ed.) is frequently urged
against an Hegelian Metaphysic : " The great objection to

* Of course the thatness here spnken of is not equivalent to the
emptiness of the concept pure being, inasmuch as it has a determination,
that of constituting tlie ground-principle ox ])ossihility of consciousness.

392 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

a inetapliysic like this, at least an objection which weighs
much in the minds of many, is that which springs from
the contrast between the claim of absolute knowledge
which it seems to involve, and the actual limitations which
our intelligence encounters in every direction. If the
theory were true, it is felt we ought to be nearer the
solution of the problems of our life, practical and specula-
tive, than we are ; the riddle of the painful earth ought to
vex us less ; we ought to find our way more easily through
the entanglement of facts, and to be able to deal with
practical difficulties in a less tentative manner." This
conception of the world-synthesis as form and actuality,
and of its final realisation in the psychological unity
re^Dresented by the organic individual, has, we think, much
to do with the apparent opposition of Hegelianism not only
to common-sense but also to the scientific intellect. Let
us take an instance of the inadequacy of the last-mentioned
point of view from the treatment it involves of the problem
of liberty and necessity. " Man," says Professor Caird, " is
determined' by his desires only so far as he makes their
object his object, or seeks his own satisfaction in them.
\Ve may admit that there is a sense in which the common
spying is true that a man's action is the result of his
character and circumstances. But this does not make
him a necessary agent ; for the cii-cumstances are what
they are for him by the action of consciousness, and the
character is the man as he has framed to himself an idea
of good, of a universe of satisfactions, in which he seeks
to be realised." ('Mind,' vol. vi. p. 550.) In the argu-
ment of which this passage is a sample, ihe action of the
social medium in framing for the man the universe of
satisfactions referred to is entirely ignored. The *' idea of
good " is regarded as framed by the man himself, rather
than by the social whole, past and present, into which he
enters. The formal principle, consciousness, as such, is
moreover treated as per se creative.

Now it may with fairness be contended that the man does
xiot identify the desired object with himself, as the late
Professor Green would have it, by any conscious act of self-
determination on his part, but that with his mental
concept of the object is already given the notion of it as

NEO-IIEG ELIAN SCHOOL. 393

an " end," which, if not counterbalanced by the presence of
other more potent ends, dotei mines his action, a fact which
is registered in the empirical consciousness, together with
the correlative possihilify of other ends having under other
circumst inces become motives, which formal registration
we term Freedom ! But notwithstanding all criticism, the
usefulness of the work done by these writers for English
students of philosophy can hardly be oveirated.* The
Neo-Hegelians, even if they have not said the last word
on the speculative problem, are ])y far the most important
school existing at present. The fact that they have intro-
duced the sjieculative problem at all to the English
reading public is of itself a by no means insignificant
service. The writings of the school form the best possible
introduction to Philosophy, and at least furnish a basis
for the discussion of its problems, which did not exist
before outside Germany.

* There is one point upon which we would like to hear an explana-
tion from one of the authoiitative leaders of the more pronouncedly
right wing of the school — that is, as to the theolo^acul terminology
affected, and especially as to the employment of the word "God!"
On the principles admitted by Professor Caird, for example, this
word, as popularly used, implies an antithesis to Nature and Man ; it
is used to express the opposition of finite and infiuite. This, we take it,
will not be tienied. Now we would ask, by what right is a term sug-
gestive of, and associated with, the most decisive aspect of the opposi-
tion employed in a connection where the opposition is abolished? A
similar line miyht be taken up as regards the reading of Hegeliani.'im
into Christian dogmas.

394 MODERN PHILOSOPHZ.

CONCLUSION.

In tlie course of the history we have just traversed, the
ordinary reader may see little but a chaos of theories.
fSuch a view, however, can only obtain where a super-
ficial glance has been taken of the whole. We have
again and again had occasion to point out the continuous
reappearance of the same doctrines in thinkers, widely
separated in time and intellectual surroundings, and who
approached the problem from altogether different and
even opposed standpoints. Such indications of what to
the superficial reader might appear coincidences could
have been almost indefinitely multiplied. This of itself
would lead to the suspicion of a central truth around
which the most seemingly antagonistic philosophies were
revolving. The History of Philosophy is indeed no
medley of mere opinions, but represents in various guises,
determined immediately by personality, age, surroundings,
&c., the several stages through which the human mind
must pass in its endeavours to arrive at the complete for-
mulation of the world-problem, together with its solution,
which is nothing other than the final rational exj)lanation
of the world. By the last expression is me;mt an expla-
nation which, while it includes all other explanations
attained from more limited points of view, yet neverthe-
less transcends them. Philosophy in the exact sense of
the word — philosophy jpar excellence — is, in short, the final
and most comprehensive interpretation of Eeality. It is
not a theory of how things may be, but the theory of how
tilings are.

Strictly speaking, we have no right to talk of philo-
sop>hies at all, any more than we have to talk of chemistries
or physiologies. The history of Chemistry shows us a

CONCLUSION. 395

series of attempts more or less crude, more or less success-
ful, to treat the problem of chemistry, i.e. the constitutioa
of bodies ; similarly the history of iiiolop^y offers a series
of attempts to treat the problem of Biolojzy, i.e. to
arrive at the theory (the most perfect interpretation or
explanation) of organic matter as such. But we do not,
nevertheless (nor would it have been fair to do so for
that matter, even in the days of " Phlogiston," or of the
*' animal spirits"), regard Cliemistry or Biology as a body
of more or less probable or improbable opinion; and
this, notwitlistanding the divergences of view existing
among scientific specialists in many cases on essential
points in their respective sciences, even at the present
day. We have no more right to regard philosophy as
simply made up of a mass of conjectural theories. There
is but one Philosophy as thei'e is but one Science; the
history of philosofihy, we again repeat, is the history of
the struggles of the human mind to attain the truth of
philosophy, that is the philosophic point of view.

It is important in dealing with the history of philosophy
always to distinguish between those systems or parts of
systems which mark distinct steps in the analysis of
experience and in the recognition of its meaning, and those
which are traceable merely to some bias of nationality,
religion, or personal temperament ; the former alone have
any true significance for history. Ordinary electicism or
syncretism pretends to find philosophic truth implied or
expressed in all systems collectively, forgetful of the fact
that philosophic reason or thought is always adulterated
more or less with local temporary or personal prejudice,
and that the true philosophic insight msij quite possibly
be whoU}^ absent from any particular system. Emerson's
distinction between man thinking and the theologian,
the attorney or the scholar thinking, applies here if any-
where. Here, more even than elsewhere in the attainment
of truth, it is only where the individual thinker becomes
the mere exponent of the universal thought that a genuine
insight is obtained. Only in very exceptional cases has
such an insight extended even imperfectly over the whole
range of the philosonhic problem; far oftener it has only
been a glimpse of a particular asjoect of that problem that

396 MODEKN PHILOSOPHY.

has been seized. What is more, such is the difficulty of
keeping the true nature of the problem and its interpreta-
tion Avithin the intellectual purview, that although it
has been disclo.-ed in its main outline more than once in
the history of speculation, the effect of such disclosure has
been like that of a flash of lightning — it has seemed only
to leave a more impenetrable subsequent darkness. Plato,
Aristotle, Spinoza, and the post-Kantian thinkers of
Germany, of whom it is usual to take Hegel as the type,
severally had the soluti<'n of the problem within their
grasp, but the inner meaning of the systems of these
thinkers was imperfectly seized by their successors, and
in some cases altogether lost. A crucial instance of this is
the treatment of Aristotle by the schoolmen with whom,
for the most part, he was whittled down to a mere
Psychologist and formal Logician. As regards Spinoza,
it mu!-t be admitted that the abstract dogmatic mould in
which he cast his speculation, almost courted miscon-
ception from the first; yet this can be hardly said of
Hegel, who is, nevertheless, to the " popular" no less than
to the "scientific" mind a kind of subjective idealist who
would make his own individual thoughts the criteria of
things. The above explains the charge of circularity of
movement brought by scientist thinkers against philo-
sophy. While science, it is said, ceaselessly progresses,
Philosophy is alwaj^s returning to the same point.
A very obvious explanation of this is, that the difficulty
involved in the mind's seizure and retention of the
philosophical point of view in its completeness, is so much
greater, that in the case of the more limited doctrine
of Phy.^ical Science, and also that in the case of philo-
sophy where the completeness of the view is lost, the
point of vantage gained is itself apt to be lost altogether.
Speculation in this case goes stumbling back into the old
beaten paths to which it had been accustomed, which lay
below and around the true jDhilosophical point of view,
and it is not until another speculative genius arises that
the lost t^tandpoint is recovered. There is gain of course
in this seeming fluctuation ; each time that the synthesis
of philosophy reappears it is enriched; it is clearer, more
explicit, possessed of a fuller content.

CONCLUSION. 397

The common notion is that Science and Philosophy or
metaphj'sic, represent two rival theories of the universe —
two not merely opposed but mutually incompatible
methods of approaching one problem. Nothing can be
farther from the tiuth. Tlie problem of pViilosoiDhy is
not identical with the problem of science (although it
includes it), and hence the methods are not the same. It
is really as absurd for science to rail at philosophy,
because philosophy in a sense transforms its conclusions
and supersedes its categories, as it would be for " common-
sense " to rail at science, because Si^cience transforms the
notions which common-sense is accustomed to employ.
Philosophy, it is true, does not stop at the categories of
science, but neither does science stop at the crude reality
of sense-perception. We can easily fancy the uncultured
man of sense sneering at the scientist as a dreamer, because,
forsooth, he declares that the earth moves and not the sun,
or because he asserts the rotundity of the earth and the exis-
tence of antipodes. The amount of transcendentalism, in
the popular sense of that much-abused word — if by it be
meant distance from the " solid ground " of sense-percep-
tion— in the higher mathematics, is truly something ap-
palling. In a sense, the conclusions of philosopliy are not
real, but then no more are those of science. Both alike
involve a departure from the concrete real of the ordinary
consciousness. Each, so to speak, moves in a world of its
own, which (according to the relative perfection attained
in the formulation of the respective standpoints) is a
world more or less perfectly coherent within itself, and
with the standpoint or standpoints which fall under it or
which it embraces. Science at once embraces and tran-
scends common-sense in the higher unity which consti-
tutes scientific truth; philosophy embraces, while it
transcends the standpoints alike of science and common-
sense in the ultimate all-comprehensive unity which
constitutes philosophic truth. Hence, as it has been justly
said, every serious philosophy, that is, every statement of
philosophic truth which claims to be even approximately
adequate, must include materialism — materialism being
the final expression of an interpretation of the universe
on strictly scientific lines. Any statement or pretended

S98 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

statement of the philosophic position v/hich conflicts with
any of the positive doctrines of a scientific materialism may
therefore be without hesitation ignored. "Philosophy,"
as Professor Seth has it, " is ready, accordingly, to accept
and patronise any theory which science and history may
establish. Idealism accepts all that Physiology has to say
about the dependence of thought on the organism, and is
not discomfited by the most materialistic statements of the
facts. It admits, as a matter of course, the empirical deri-
vation of all our conscious life from feeling or sensation."*
From the philosophical standpoint the old antagonisms
and controversies lose meaning, or at least their nature is
entirely changed ; they are sublimated, so to speak, and
reappear in a higher atmosphere. Distinctions which
tinder their former aspect appeared sharp, clearly de-
finable and irreconcilably opposed, now resolve themselves
into a mere question of emphasis. Such, as we take it, is
the case with Materialism and Idealism, Theism and
Atheism, &c. A formulation of the philosophic, interpre-
tation of the world which shall entirely abolish them
remains as yet a desideratum; but from even a more or
less inadequate statement of philosophic theory, such as
Hegeliani&;m, all their former importance has vanished ;
neither side is confirmed or refuted, but they are deprived
of interest in proportion as their opposition tends to
become insignificant.

To attain to a complete view of the worhl, such is the
end of philosophy. Science rationalises the material
furnished by common experience ; philosophy rationalises
the material furnished by science. The rationality of
either is not the coinage of our brain, but a part of the
nature of things. The categories of science are real, not-
withstanding that they may conflict with the cruder
notions of common-sense ; but, viewed from the standpoint
of common-sense, they are, nevertheless, ideal. The same
with philosophy; its categories also are real at the same time
that they are ideal. From the points of view of common-

* Of course it remains an open question whether current statements
of the HegeUan position do not have a formal bias wliich in effect
gives the whole an anti-materialist character. This question has been
already discussed.

CONCLdSION. 3fl9

sense and the sci(,'ntific intellect respectively, they ore ideal.
Philosophy .-ecs an n]tin)atu identity in the contradictions
which from lower planes of thought are irreconcilable ; it
sees idenlity in opposition, being in becoming, the poten-
tial in the actual, the matter in the form. These distinc-
tions are only maintained as aspects of a whole, and their
significance as opposites consists meiely in the generic
priority or jiosteriority of their respective momenta as
constitutive of the essence of this whole. The meaning
of the history of philosophy then consists in its being an
effort of the human mind to attain a view of this Essence —
Eeality— in the generic order of its deduction, by which
alone the truo meaning of the synthesis as a whole, no less
than that of the elements constituting it, is discernible.
There is, therefore, as we said before, but one philosophy as
there is but one physical science. Metaphysic like Physic
is a certain way of envisaging and transforming the real
world of .-ensible experience. Every system of any historical
significance has differentiated itself from other systems by
emphasizing some point or aspect which the rest had
neglected. Its defect as a system consists in its having
sought to give exclusive prominence to this particular
aspect to the exclusion of others — m its endeavouring to
constitute this abstracted element a whole in itself.

By the inner necessity of ]ts own nature the mind is
bound to pass through certain successive stages, such as
dogmatism, empiricism, scepticism, in one form or another
before it is in a position to grasp the properly philosophic
point of view. It is what we may term a part of the
natural freemasonry of things that the mind cannot reach
the superior without having previously passed over
the inferior steps. In the mysteries of the ancient reli-
gious cults during the earlier stages of his initiation, the
ultimate doctrine to the reception of which those stages
were preparatory, was carefully hidden from the neophyte.
In philosophy, on the other hand, there is no need of
artificial concealment ; the whole of Hegel may be an open
book to the student, so -far as paper and print is concerned,
and yet it will be absolutely sealed lore to him, as regards
discovering any meaning in it, if he have not passed
through the preliminary stages of his speculative initiation.

400 MODEKN PHILOSOPHY.

In the first blush of youth the mind unhesitatingly accepts
all things in their immediateness, be it " common-sense,"
*' morality," or what-not. The period of reflection follows,
in which common-sense and naive moral sentiment are
negated in scepticism and cynicism ; this phase of thought,
which the Germans term the AufkJdrung, is followed by
another which consists in the recognition that these things
are not entirely empty of all content as was at first sup-
posed, albeit the content they possess is entirely different
from that crudely attributed to them in the naive stage of
innocence.'''

Having once come to know the world in the generic
order of its articulation as a rational whole, we are iiTesis-
tibly driven to moot the problem of the end, purpose or
telos of this world ; that whither it — and a fortiori man, the
highest product up to date of natural revolution — is tend-
ing. The only way in which the final aim or ideal of pro-
gress can be formulated in a single sentence, is that it
consists in the realisation — the bringing to consciousness
of the world in its full meaning. This is, of course, only
another way of repeating that the end of progress is the
actualization of the immanent pui pose of the world. But can
we discover any adequate formula for this absolute world-
telos itself. The thinker who has faced the problem must
unhesitatingly answer no. We may, of course, make use of
phrases such as the time-honoured " good " of Plato, but
without nearer definition tliey must remain little more
than j^hrases. Turrhe]-, we are bound to regard, ex hypothesis
this telos as absolute finality, while we are conscious of

* To lake an illustration of this hap-li:izaid ; the unsophisticated
mind never doubts the existence of pure disinterestedness in moral
action; a follower of Helvetius demonstrates the non-existence of
purely disinterested action, the unsophisticated mind resents this
demonstration and endeaxours to defend its orthodox opinion, but in
vain — the cynic triumphs and the unsophisticated mind resigns itself to
despair. The philosopher at last appears, and proves the triumph and
despair to be alike irrational, since although it is true that the
bare abstract and immediate form of all motive whatever is self-interest,
yet that this does not in any way atfect the fact that ilxa content of the
motive, and therefore the real end of the action, may be wholly without
reference, or even opposed to the personal interest of the individual
performing the action, and that this is all that is really meant when
pure disiutore^tedness is spoken of.

CONCLUSION. 401

the fact that finality in this sense — a being in which there
is no becoming, a form with no material content — involves
an abstraction, and therefore no longer possesses the con-
ditions of a real synthesis.

Let ns approach the problem from another point of
view. Cannot we regard human happiness, it may be
asked, as the purpose of progress? To this it may be
answered that pleasure or happiness, be it individual or
social, can never be an end in itself, although, it
is true, it must form an element of every end, where
human action is concerned. It is a triter observation
that the search for pleasure qua pleasure invariably defeats
its own object. Pleasure or happiness is consequent on
the attainment of an end which constitutes, so to speak,
the substance or essence of which pleasure is a determina-
tion. The immediate pursuit of pleasure, therefore, con-
sidered as an end in itself, is the pursuit of an unreal
abstraction. The desired object, end, or ideal of action
is hence, we repeat, a substance or essence of which pleasure
must indeed be a predicate, but which is primarily pursued
for its own sake. On the hypothesis of pleasure per se ex-
hausting the whole content of the end sought after, the
ultimate distinction between higher and lower in taste
or in aim remain unaccounted for ; the old problem of the
pig happy and Sokrates miserable, in spite of all special
pleading, is left unresolved. But while contending thus
far against the view of Hedonism as commonly formu-
lated, we must not forget that the opposite school ignore
the fact that our only criterion of the intrinsic worth of
an action can but be as to whether it conflicts or not with
the free development of ourselves or others, or of society
collectively ; and that a fortiori the highest end of action
consists in the removal of the impediments in the way of
that free development — in other words, in that which tends
to the greatest possible satisfaction of the immediate wants
and aspirations of all men — which, it may be said, is only
another way of putting the hedonistic criterion. To
argue otherwise is to revert to a dogmatic standpoint
which arbitrarily fixes the purpose of Eeality. The
admission that hapjoiness per se cannot rationally be
conceived as constituting the telos of the world-order does

2 D

402 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

not preclude tlie conviction that it is logically indissoluble
from it ia itself, or that it is the primary condition of its
realisation. To imagine that this can yield to any a priori
assumption as to what tends to or is involved in the
ultimate realisation of the world-pnrpose, as is done by
the late Thomas Hill Green, and other Neo-Hegelians of
his school, can only be regarded as a disastrous attempt
to treat a purely regulative conception as con^titutive.

The endeavour to formulate the absolute end of con-
sciousness, or the immanent purpose of the world, and
to make this the basis of ethics, is tl:e great charac-
teristic of the ethical or quasi-universal religions. These
have one and all endeavoured, so to speak, to strike out a
short cut by which the grand denouement might be placed
within reach of the individual soul. Divers are the
methods in the various creeds by which perfection, the
perfect good, Nirvana, union with God, or what-not, is to
be attained, but they all lie in the severance of the in-
dividual from nature and society and the pleasures of the
phenomenal world, in the destruction of his natural
appetites and aifections, and in his complete withdrawal
within himself. In the individual sonl, the world-principle
is believed to realise itself. The primal impulse toward
regeneration and the realisation of the world-purpose is
hence supposed to come from within. The consciousness
is now awakening in men that there is no short cut
to perfection or to the Absolute, whether on its speculative
side, as first principle, or on its practical side, as final end
of the world, and that the attempt of impatient humanity
to make one is an illusion, in brief, that it involves an
unreal abstraction. The day of the etliical religions is
visibly weaning, and one can only view with regret the
futile efforts of able and earnest men like the late Professor
Green, who, following in the steps of Kant and the post-
Kantians, would stake their whole intellectual career in
the forlorn hope of resuscitating the " ethics of inward-
ness." With the decline of the religions of introspective
individualism, the significance of the individual as such
pales, and the consciousness grows, that only in and
through a weary course of social development, lies the
path of progress, the way of the woi Id-destiny. Freedom,

CONCLUSION. 403

wliicli im]ilies the satisfaction of existent want for each and
for all — first and foremost the animal wants the intro-
spectivist disdains — is the first condition of that higher
social life which is the farthest visible summit of progress.

This consciousness involves a radical change in our
ethical and religious attitude. Morality, as it becomes
political and social, loses its exclusively personal character.
»Sin and Holiness, the supreme ethical categories of
" introspection," are superseded henceforth in reality if
not in name.

The attempt to formulate the telos of the Eeal, the im-
manent purpose of the world, is surrendered ; much more
the vain etfort to reach it by the old methods. We
expect no longer to attain it as individuals by ecstasy,
contemplation, or inward illumination : " Immer holier muss
ich streben, Immer weiter mussich schaun," may still be
our motto, but our strivings and our constant looks are
directed not to possible heights enshrouded in cloudland,
but to the limit only of our clear and distinct vision. We
know, at all events, that this summit must be reached,
whatever may be beyond, before that beyond can become,
in its turn, a distinct ideal, much more a reality. This
point of view in its own way demands in very truth the
sacrifice, the negation, of the individual, but it is not as
with the intro.s2:>ective religions, the first step in a circular
process which begins with the natural indivi^lual, and
ends with the apotheosized individual, and hence which,
its primary negation of the individual notwithstanding,
remains individualistic ; but a negation of the individual
onl\' in so far as this is essential to the realisation of
that higher social whole into which he enters. In short,
the abnegation of self becomes on this view a mere
accident of morality, and not, as before, a part of its
substance.

" Philosophy," says Hegel, "deals only with the universal
individual ; " the general form of individuation or person-
ality may be deducible, but not the concrete personality
determined in a specific time-content. " The individual
in this sense," as Fichte has well said, "belongs to the
element of the purely contingent ; " and we would add its
meaning, its reality, is to be found in so-iety; for society

404 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

represents the highest actual realisation of the world
principle, by whatever name we call it, " nenn's Gliick,
Herz, Liebe, Gott." There is nothing above or beyond
society. Society or humanity stands for that universal
personality which is permanent and abiding in the tiux of
the particular, the individuals, constituting it. Whether
this larger life manifesting itself on the plane of history
as for-itself in the individual subjectivities, which are its
evanescent components, is destined to attain to in-and-
for-itse\fness in the time order, in other words, to be its
own subject, is a question which ever and anon recurs to
0]ie, more especially when one reflects on the ruthlessness
with which historic evolution sacrifices the individual
man on the altar of progress, and above all when one
feels that the noblest type of individual character is
that which is prepared for this sacrifice when the occasion
firises. Such a speculation, if we like to entertain it, is
as worthy as any which conceives of a perpetuity of
individual existence as such.

A word may be expected in conclusion, as to the
immediate future and prospects of philosophy. Since the
death of Hegel there has been no great original philo-
sophic genius, no thinker who has thrown any essentially
new light on the ultimate problem of philosophy. Dog-
matic Pessimism, that product of effete civilization, has
had a passing success. Great scientific generalizers like
Herbert Spencer have formulated the ultimate princij^les
of Cosmology, in the light of the two great scientific
achievements of the age, the doctrines of the " Persistence
of force " and of " Evolution." But, save for the recent
academic movements of Neu-Hegelianism, there is little
noteworthy to record. The immediate future of philo-
sophy, the next foi mulation of the ultimate world- problem
of being and knowledge, which Nhall appeal to the think-
ing portion of mankind, to a greater extent than even
Plato, Aristotle, or Hegel ever did, must, we believe, be
sequent on the realisation of that vast transformation with
which the current order of things is big. " The republic
has no need of chemists," Lavoisier was told. Thus with
brutal frankness was the truth expressed, that in periods

CONCLUSION. 405

of g;reat political and social change, Theory, as such,
be it .scientific or philosophical, must cede to the all-
absorbing questions of Practice. The stud(3nt as he lays
down this little volume, should he by chance take up a
newspaper, will inevitabl}?- light on accounts of great
strikes, of armaments, of the struggle for colonics called
imperial expansion, of vast popular revolutionary move-
ments, etc., all of which point to one thing, when followed
out in all their, bearings, the steady approach of the
great class struggle. Let him ponder on this and bethink
himself of the part even he, or if not he, his children, may
be forced to take in the resolution of that great living
contradiction — the contradiction between individual and
society — expressed in what we term Modern Civilization.

INDEX.

Note. — The names of philosophical works are printed in italics.

Abelard, 116; his doctrine, 117

Abstract-Dogmatic systems of
modern philosophy, 144 ; reac-
tion against scholasticism, 144;
Descartes, 146 ; Malebranche,
155 ; Spinoza, 157 ; Leibnitz,
167; Wolff, 175; Baumgarten,
175 ; Crusius, 176

Aim Baker, 121

Academics, the, 77

Achilles-puzzie to prove the im-
possibility of motion, 34

Adamson, Kobert, 390

j!Ene>idemus, 86

Esthetic, Aristotle's, 74; Her-
l^art's, 308 ; Hegel's lectures on,
332

Airrippa Saturninns, 86

Albertus Magnus, 124

Albigensianism, 102

Alchemists and cosmic speculators
of the sixteenth century, 137 ;
the epoch of the "occult sciences,"
138 ; Eeuchlin, 138 ; Agrippa,
von Netteslieim, 138 ; Paracelsus,
139 ; Card anus. 142 ; authorities,
143

Alexander the Great a pupil of
Aristotle, 66

Alexandria, the seat ctf Neo-Plato-
nism, 89

Alexandrian Gnostics, the, 100;
Basilides, 100 ; Karpokrates, 100 ;
Talentinus, 100 ; doctrines, 101

Alexandrian trinity, the, 94

A'farabi. 120

Al Ghazzali, 121

Alkendi, 119

Ammonius Saccas, 92 ; reputed a

Christian, 107
Annxao;ora8, life, 39 ; philosophy,

39, 68 ; teacher of Sokrates, 44
Anaximandros, 24, 68 ; inventions,

25 ; speculations on the primal

substance, 25 ; on evolution, 25
Anaximenes, life, 26; doctrines, 27
Anselm, 114; his philosophy

subservient to theology, 114;

doctrines, 114 ; dispute with

Roscellinus, 115
Antinomies of the pure reason, 244
Antiochus of Askalon, 77
Antisthenes, 49; founds the Cynic

school, 49 ; virtue to be attained

by asceticism, 49
Anytos, 46
Apocrypha, tendency to Greek

thought in the, 89
Apollodorus, 82
Apollonius of Tyana, 88
Aquinas, Thomas, 125; his doc-

trinep, 125 ; two sources of

knowledge, 125; hid influence

on later thought, 126
Arabian philosophers, 119; Al-
kendi, 119; Alfarabi, 120; Avi-

cennn, 120; Al Ghaz/ali, 121;

Abu Beker, 121 ; Averroes, 121
Aristippus, 48 ; founds Cyrenaic

school, 48 ; writings lost, 49
Aristophanes, ignorant satire of

phih'sophy, 44

INDEX.

407

Aristotle, birtli nnd education, 65 ;
tutor to Alexander the Great,
G() ; led uring and death, 66 ;
early writinsjs, 66

Aristotle's philosophy, definition
of philosophy, 3, 67 ; his doc-
triues not derived from Sokrates,
21 ; his school complementary,
not opposed, to that of Plato, 51 ;
Aristotle the founder of the in-
ductive method and of natural
science, 53 ; editions of his
writings, 67 ; division of philo-
sophy into logic, physics, and
ethics, 67 ; what is a principle ?
67 ; on matter and form, 68 ; on
efficient and final causes, 69, 70 ;
on reality, 69 ; cosmologii-al ar-
gument, 71 ; on Nature, 71 ;
happiness the goal of human j
activity, 72 ; virtues, 73 ; the [
Politics, 73 ; art-philosophv, 74 ; j
theory of formal logic, 75 ; the
range of his writings, 75 ; bib-
liography, 76; referred to, 60,
91, 112, 117, 120, 124, 396

Aj-istoxenus, 77

Arius, heresy of, 107

Arkesilaus, 77

Art, a quietude of the will, 298 ;
the chief periods of, and their
characteristics, Hegel on, 332 ;
the progress of, Hegel on, 333

Art, philofeophv of, Aristotle's, 74 ;
Schelling's, 283, 286

Athanasius, 107

Athenagoras, 104

Afomists, philcsophical system of
the, 40; nature and action of
atoms, 41 ; explanation of per-
ception, 41

Atoms, nature and action of, 41

Augustine of Hippo, 108 ; his be-
lief, 108; his Platonism, 108;
his orthodoxy only apparent, 109

Aurelius, IVlarcus, 80, 87

Autliorities for. Oriental thought,

20 ; Greek philosophy, 23 ; Hera-

kleitos, 38 ; Plato and Aristotle,

I 76; the Stoics and Epicm-eans,

I

84 ; the Gnostics and Christian
Fatliers, 110; tlie philosophy of
the Middle Ages, 130; the Ger-
ma-i jNIystics, 131 ; the sixteenth
century speculators, 143 ; Spinoza,
167

Averrocs, 121

Avicebron, 123

Avicenna, 120

Baadee, F., von, 287

Bacon, Francis, 177; founder of
the Empiricist movement, 177;
survey of knowledge, 178 ; philo-
sophy, 178, 215

Bain, Alexander, and his works,
378

Bardesanes, 101

Bardili, 254

Basilides, 100

Bauer, Bruno, 338, 340

Bauer, Edgar, 340

Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb,
175

Baur; Ferdinand Christian, 339

Bayle, Didionnaire, 10

Beattie, James, 203

Beck, 254

Bekker, Balthasar, 155

Berkeley, George, 188; account of
his work, 188, 216; no universal
idea, 189; what we mean by
" material substance," 189 ; con-
clusion from Ilia analysis, 191 ;
his aim and writings, 192 ; works,
193

Blakey, Robert, histoiy of philo-
sophy, 13

Boehme, Jacob, 286

Boethius, 96

" Bombastic,"' origin of the word,
140

Bonnet, Charles, 204 ; works, 205

Brown, Thomas, 203

Brucker, Johann Jacob, history of
philosophy, 10, 13

Bruno, Giordano, 134, 137; wan-
derings, 134; death, 135; philo-
sopliy, 185

Buddha, 98

408

INDEX.

Buhle, J. G., history of plnlosopliy,

11
Burdach, 287

Cabanis, 213

Caird, Edward, 390, 391. 392

Canijianella, Thomas, 137

Cardamis, Hieronymus, and his
works, 142

Carvaka, school of, 119

Causality, Schopenhauer's four
forms of the principle of, 290

Causation, Hume's theory of, 196

Champeaux, William of, 116

Chosroes, 96

Christ, Gnostic idea of the, 101

Christian Dogmatics in their De-
velopment, Strauss's, 339

Christian trinity distinguished from
the Neo-Platonic, 9-4

Christianity ; influence of Neo-
Platonism on, 92; of the sixth
century, 97 ; the anti-worldliness
of, 98 : the reason of its supre-
macy, 99 ; its dogmas formulated
by Athauasius, 107 ; at Nicaea,
107

Chrysippus, 79, 80

Cicero and his philosophical works,
87

Claude, 213

Clement of Alexandria, 104

Common sense, attached by Plato,
55 ; recognised by Aristotle, 67

Comte, Auguste, definition of philo-
sophy, 4 ; life, 364, 374 ; parallel
between the doctrines of Comte
and Hegel, 365 ; the Positive
Fhilosopliy, 367 ; Comte's law of
the three stages ot philosophy,
367 ; Sociology the goal of all
sciences, 368 ; arrangement of the
sciences, 368 : Comte's view of
historic evolution, 369 ; his
scheme of social reconstruction,
372 ; Sociology not founded by
Comte, 373 ; the real advance he
made, 374 ; his defective charac-
ter, 374 ; revered by his followers,
375 ; natm-e of positivism, 376

Condillac, Etieime Bonnot de. 203 ;

works, 203; Sensationism, 204
Cosmological argument of Aristotle,

71
Cosmology of the Pythagorean

system, 32 ; of Aristotle, 71 ; of

Paracelsus, 140
Cousin, Victor, history of philo-
sophy, 13
Critique of Practical Reason, Kant's,

225, 248
Critique of Pure Reason, Kant's,

217, 2:^3, 224, 234, 236, 238, 241,

244, 247
Critique of the Faculty of Judgment.

Kanfs, 225, 252
Cromaziano, history of philosophy,

11
Crusius, Christian August, 176
Cynic School, 49 ; origin of the name,

49 ; its sole end the avoidance of

pleasure, 49
Cyrenaic Scliool, 48

Damascits, 96

De anima, Aristotle's, 72

Degerando, history of philosophy, 13

Demiurge, the, 61, 101

Demokritos, 40 ; founder of the
Atomistic system, 40

Descartes, Ke'ne, and his works,
146 ; doctrines, 147 ; character,
154

Descartes' philosophy, 147 : ' Me-
thodic Doubt,' 147; the existence
of self, 147, 214; of God, 149;
canon of investigation, 149, 214;
independent conceptions, 150 ;
Descartes' dualism, 151 ; his
physics, 151 ; physical theories,
152 ; psychology, 152 ; anthro-
pology, 153 ; influence of his
doctrines, 155 ; referred to, 156,
159, 170, 186, 214

Deslandes, hi.^tory of philosophy, 10

Dialectic, the Hegelian, 313; use
of the term, 324

Diderot, Denis, life, 206 ; works,
207 ; materialism, 207 ; method,
210

INDEX.

409

Dikoarchus, 77

Dioirenes Laertius, history of philo-
sophy, 10

piogenes of Apolloiiia, birthpLice,
27 ; phHosophy, ^7 ; the fiivt to
stiite the principle of Monism,
28, /)1

piogenes of Sinope, 50

Diogenes the Stoic, 80

Diihring, Eugen, history of philo-
sophy, lii; dootrin<-s. 861

Duns Scotiis, 127 ; writings, 127 ;
doctrine, 128

ECKHART, 131

Ego, activity of the, 260

Eidology, 3("!6

Eloatic school. 33 : XenOi/Iianes,
33 ; Parmeuide.-i, 33 ; Meliosos and
Zeno, 34

Emotions, Hume's classification of
the, 199

Empedokles, birth, 38 ; doctrine of
four elements, and uniting and
separating principles, 38, 68 ; ex-
planation of Sense perception,
38

ETupirical-Sceptical schools of mo-
dern philosophv, 177 ; Baci^n,
177; Hobbes, 180; Locke, 182;
Berkeley, 188; Hiune, 193;
Raid, 201

Encyclopedie^ the. 207

EncyUofiddie, &c., Hegel's, 325, 327,
328, 349

Enfield, condensation of Brucker's
history, 11, 13

En gels, Friedrich, 341

Fvtretien evire D'Alemhert et
Diderot, Diderot's, 207, 208, 210

Ej.ictftus, 80, 87

Epicureans, doctrines of the, 81 ;
their kanonik, 81 ; pbysics, 81 ;
ethif^s, 81 ; their doctrines not
original, 82

Efticurus, definition of philosophy,
3, 67 ; life. 80

Epiphanes, 103

Erdmann, J. E,, history of philo-
sophy, 12, 314

Erigena, Jolinnnes Scotus, 111,
doctrines, 112

E;<enbeck. von, 287

Essay on ilw Iliciuan Understanding,
Locke's, 182. 187

Essenes, the, 90

Ethics, Ari>tntle's, 73 : Spinoza's,
l.nS, 159, 160. 1(52, 163. 106, 167

Euklid of Megaru, 48 ; founds
Megcirie school, 48 ; writings
lost, 49

Evolution, anticipation of, by
Anaximandros, 26 ; Hegel's error
concerning, 327; Spencer's defi-
nition of, 384 ; principles of, 885 ;
tendency towards equilibration,
387

Experience, nature of, 67, 196 ; all
knowledge derived from, 183 ;
how possible, 226

Fathers, tbe Christian, 103; the
philosophic Fathers, 103; Justin
Martyr, 103; Athenagoras, 104;
Theo'philus, 104; Irenajus, 104;
Hippolytus, 104 ; Minucius Felix,
104; clement of Alexandria, 104 ;
Oiiiien, 105 ; the dogmatic
Fi.thers, 106; Athanasius, 107;
Augustine of Hippo, 108 ; autho-
rities, 110

Favorinus, 86

FeiTier, 377

Feuerback, Ludwig Andreas, 341

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, life, 256 ;
works, 257

Fichte's philosophy. 258 ; ' Theory
of Knowledge,' 258 ; the task of
philosophy, 258 ; fundamental
axiom of the Theory of Know-
ledge, 259 ; second axiom, 261 ;
third axiom, 261 ; division of the
Theory of Knowledge into specu-
lative and practical, 262 ; ' Specu-
lative Theory of Knowledge,*
263 ; standpoint and system of
the ' Theory of Science,' 263 ; its
method, 266; 'Practical Tiieory
of Knowledge,' 2(i7 ; liow the Ego
comes to ascribe causality to

410

INDEX.

itself, 267 ; freedom of the indi-
vidual, 270 ; aniicipations of
Socialism, 271 ; Fichte's ethics,
271 ; the fallacy of the intro-
spective ethics as a basis for
conduct, 275; opposition to
Fichte's philosophy, 277 ; retro-
spect and criticism, 317 ; referred
to, 278, 280, 282, 284, 286, 287,
300, 319, 347, 403

Ficinus, Marsilius, 133

Figulus, Nigidius, 88

First Principles, Spencer's, 381, 382,

■ 383, 38(5, 388

Fischer, Kuuo, 344

Force, Principle of the pers^istence
of, and its consequences, 382

Form, as understood by Aristotle,
68

Fouille'c, Alfred, history of philo-
sophy, 13

Foundation for the Metaphysic of
Ethic, Kant's, 225, 248

Fourfold root of the principle of
adequate cause, Schopenhauer's,
289, 290

Frauensfadt, 301

Free-wilL, upheld by Aristotle, 73 ;
admitted by Leibnitz, 173 ; Hmne
on, 196; d'Hulbach on, 212;
Herbart on, 309

French materialist school, 203 ;
Condillac, 2iJ3 : Bonnet, 204 ;
Helvetius, 205 ; La Mettrie, 206 ;
Diderot, 206; d'Holbach, 211

Fries, 254

Gadants, 77

Gans, 338

German mysticism of fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, 130 ;
Eckhart, 131 ; Tauler, 131 ; 'A
German theology,' 131 ; autho-
rities, 131

Gersonides, 124

Gnosticism, 100: origin and pro-
gress, 100; Alexandrian Gnostics,
100; Syrian Gnostics, 101; doc-
trines, 101 ; idea of the Christ,
101 ; refuted by Irenaeus, 104

God, Descartes' argument for the
existence of, 149; the God of
Leibnitz, 171

Gorgias, 42, 49

Gorgias, Plato's, 56

Goschel, 338

Greek philosophy, periods of, 21 ;
authorities, 23; I. Pre-Sokratic
Schools, 23; IL Sokrates, 44;

III. Plato and Aristotle, 51;

IV. Academies and Peripatetics,
Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics,
77 ; V. Roman and Antiquarian
period, 85 ; VI. Neo-Platonism,
89

Green, T. H., 390, 392
Gwinner, Dr., 301

Haldane, J. S., 390

Haldane, E. B., 390

Hamann's opposition to Kant's
philosophy, 253

Hamilton, Sir William, 377, 378

Hartenstein, 310

Hartmann, EdAvard von, 352; his,
philosophy, 352 ; reconcilhig the
doctiines of Hegel and i^chopen-
hauc, „_:■; conjunction of will
and intelligence, 353 ; the happi-
ness of the conscious individual,
not the purpose of the world,
355 ; the possibility of realising
this happines;> an illusion, 355 ;
defects of Hartmann's system,
357

Hebrew prophets, the, and the
" gospel of inwardness," 98

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich,
life, 310 ; work with Schelling,
311 ; works, 311

Hegelian school, the, 338

Hegelian system, the, definition
of philosophy, 4 ; the ultimate
princif >le of knowledge, 312 ; dia-
lectical method of Hegel, 313;
basis of the Hegelian dialectic,
315; the progress of knowledge
sliown, 317 ; stages which the
mind and humanity pass through
before attaining absolute know-

INDEX. 411

Icrlge, 319; extracts from the
'Phenomenology' in illustration
of Hegel's style, 310 ; his logic,
322 ; its throe main divisions,
323; use of the word dialectic,
324 ; first division of logic, the
doctrine of being, 325 ; second
division, the doctrine of essence,
325 ; third division, the doctrine
of concept, 32G ; correspondence
of these divisions with Kant's,
326; Kegels philosophy of na-
ture, 327 ; his error concerning
evolution, 327; his division of
the philosophy of nature, 327 ;
on the death of the individual,
328 ; his philosophy of mind,
329 ; its triple division, 329 ; his
ethic, 329 ; lectures on the
philosophy of history, 330 ; Erd-
mann's opinion of them, 332 ;
lectures on aesthetic, 332 ; the
chief periods of art and their
characteristics, 332 ; progress of
art, 333; Hegel's view of the
significance of art, 334 ; phi-
losophy of religion, 334 ; har-
monisation between his system
I and the Prntestant Christianity
I of Prussia, 334, 337, 339 ; history
of philosophy, 12, 335 ; collapse
! of Htgelianism as a school, 336 ;
I its success as a distinct system,
I 337 ; controversies after Hegel's
' death, 338 ; retrospect and criti-
cism, 348 ; referred to, 288, 300,
347, 352, 365, 396, 403
leinrichs, 338
leloise, 116

lelvetius, Claude Adrien, 165, 205;
I doctrines, 205

lerakleitos, life, 36 ; cardinal
I doctrine of eternal fiux of things,

36, 52
leraklides of Pontus, 77
lerbart, Johann Friedrich, 301
lerbart's philosophy : definition of
philosophy, 4 ; position of his
philosophy, 288 ; influence of
Kantism on it, 302, 303 ; results

furnished by logic, 302 ; two
cliisses of conceptions, 302; re-
lation of physics and metaphysics,
303; division of metaphysics,
304 ; general metaphysics, in-
cluding logic and ontology, 304 ;
applied metaphysics, 305 ; syne-
chology, 305 ; eidology, 306 ;
psychology, 307 ; aesthetics, 308 ;
tlieory of religion, 309 ; theory
of pedagogic, 309 ; politics, 309 ;
success of Herbart's doctrines due
to their matiiematical dress, 309 ;
retrospect and criticit<m, 348

Herder, J. G., opposition to Kant's
philosophy, 253

Hereditary genius, Aristotle, an
example of, 66

Hermarchus, 82

Hermes Trismegistus, 90

Hermodorus, 77

Herrennius, 107

Hippias, 43

Hippo, 27

Hippolytus, 104

History of pliilosophy, objection
to a condensed history, 8 ; need
of such a history, 9 ; three plans
of writing a history of philosophy,
9 ; ancient and modern histories,
10 ; Hegel's, 335

History, philosophy of, first hinted
at by Cardanus, 143 ; Kant's
views on, 250 ; Hegel's, 330

Hobbes, Thomas, 180 ; definition of
philosophy, 180 ; experience and
observation, the source of know-
ledge, 180; doctrine, 180, 215;
theorv of society, 182

Holbach, Baron d', liff, 211 ; the
iSysteme de la Naiure,2\\', ma-
terialism, 211 ; conception of
God, 212; free-will, 212; in-
fluence of materialism on conduct,
212

Hume, David, 193; works, 193;
position in the history of phi-
losophy, 194 ; impressions and
ideas, 194 ; nature of experience,
196, 216 ; free-will, 196; doctrine

412

INDEX.

of the soul-substance, 197 ; in-
quiry into the basis of morals, 199
Hypatia, 95

Idea, the highest, to which all
others tend, 58

Ideal of the pure reason, 247

Ideas, as understood by Plato, 58 ;
Descartes' classification of, 153 ;
not innate, 183; of sensation and
of relation, 184; enumeration nf,
184 ; combination of, 185, 204 ;
all ideas only states of tiie mind,
189; Hume's dir,tinction between
impressions and ideas, 194; ideas,
as understood by Kant, 241

Ideas, ultimate scientific, 381.

Ideas for a Universal History, &c.,
Kant's, 250

Ideas of pure reason, 243

Identity, Scliellinjij's system of, 278

Indiviihial and his Property, Max
Stiraer's, 342

Induction, Aristotle's, condemned
by Bacon, 179

Inductive method, foundation of,
45 ; Aristotle the true founder, 53

Inquiry concerning Human Under-
standing, Hume's, 193

Instauration of the Sciences, Bacon's,
178

Interpretation delanature,DideToV a,
207, 208

Ionian schools of philosophy, 22,
6S; theirprobleras,22,51; Thales,
23 ; Anaximandros, 24 ; Aiiaxi-
menes, 26 ; Diogeues of Apol-
lonia, 27

Irenaeus, 104

Isidore, 96

Italian school of philosophy, 29 ;
Pvthagoras, 29 ; Pytiiagorean
System, 30

Jacobi, F. H., opposition to Kant's
philosophy, 254 ; to Fichte's, 277

Jamblichos, 94, 95

Jena Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung,
the, on Kant's ' Criticism,' 252

Jewish philosophers, 122 ; doctrine

of the Kabbala, 122; Avicebron

123 ; Mainionides, 123
Ju-tin Martyr, 103
Justinian, the Neo-Platonic school.

closed by, 96

Kabbala, doctrine of the, 122 ■
study of, 138

Kanonik, the, of the Epicureans
81

Kant and the Post-Kan tians. school
of, 214; Kant. 224; Fichte. 256
Schelling, 278 ; Schopenhauer
289; Herbal t, 301 ; Hegel, 310
the Heg.'lian school, 338 ; on th(
development from Kant to Hegel ,
345

K'Hnt, Immanuel, life, 224; works
224 ; editions of his works, 225
his greatness, 256

Kant's philosophy : definition o
philosophy, 4; outline of hi-
l^hilosophy, 217; ' The Critica
doctrine,' 225 ; how is experienc(
possible ? 226 ; disadvantage un
der which Kant worked, 226
'Transcendental Esthetic,' 229
meaning of ' Transcendental,
229; inquiry into the transcen
dental conditions of sensibility
229 ; ' Transcendental Analytic,
231 ; the function of the under
standing, 232 ; logical table o
judgments, 232 ; transcendenta
table of the conceptions of thi
understanding, 233 ; deductioi
of the categories from a primary
principle of consciousness, 233
' Transcendental Dialectic,' 241
ideas, 241 ; distinction betweei
the understanding and th(
reason, 242 ; ideas of pur(
reason, 243 ; paralogisms, 243
antinomies, 244 ; ideal of pure
reason, 247 ; Kant's moral phi
losophy, 248; metaphysic o
ethics, 250 ; philosophy of his
tory, 250 ; the goal of history
250 ; Critique of the Faculty o
Judgment, 252; reception of th<

INDEX.

413

,12:

tibrij criHcal pliilosophy, 252; early-
writers on Kantianism, 253 ;
opposition to Kant's doctrines, of
Uamann, 253; of Herder, 253;
of Jacobi, 254 ; the position of
Criticism ' as a system, 255 ;
the transcendental method Kants
great heritage, 256; retrospect
and criticism, 345, 347 ; referred
to, 167, 186, 217, 260, 262, 263,
266, 269, 283, 286, 287, 290, 291,
302, 314, 326, 345, 347
Ijarneades, 77
arpokrates, 100
enite;^, the, 102

jf( erinthus, 100
' leanthes, 80

fo, lein, G. M., 287

25 rates, 78

ratylos, Plato'^, 57
rause, K. C. F., 287
ritias, 46

A Mettrie, Julien Offroy de,

206

iaforet, history of philosophy, 13
ange, Friedrich Albert, 362 ;

History of Materialism, 12, 362 ;

first part, Materialism before

Kant, 362 ; second part, Modern

Materialism, 363
ao-tse, 16
laws, Plato's, 64
<eheti Jesu, Strauss's, 339
eibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 167 ;

studies, 168

i^eibuitz's philosophy, 168, 215;
I monads, 168, 172; their changes,
I 169 ; unconscious perception,
169 : proirression among monads,
170 ; distinction between emjiiri-
cal and necessary truth, 171 ; God,
171 ; inconsistencies on his sys-
tem, 173; freedom of the will
admitted, 173; his system con-
trasted with that of Spinoza,
174 ; its influence, 174
eukippus, 40
eviathan, Hobbes', 180
iCwes, George Henry, hifctory of

philosophy, 13; work, 379;
Problems of Life and Mind, 379 ;
the aim of philosophy, 380 ;
result of his work, 380

Locke, John, 182; account of his
philosophy, 183; ideas not innate,
183, 216; ideas of sensation and
reflection, 183 : enumeration of
ideas, 184; substances, 185; know-
ledge, 186; division of know-
ledge, 187; influence of his
writings, 187

Logic, Aristotle's theory of formal,
75 ; logic of the Stoics, 78 ; or the
Epicureans, 81 ; the Port-Royal
logic, 155 ; the Hegelian logic,
322 ; its division, 323

Logic, Hegel's, 311, 322

Logos, history and use of the word,
57, 103, 104, 107, 108, 112, 312

Lotze, Rudolph Hermann, 358 ;
definition of philosophy, 358 ; his
metaphysic, 359 ; ita divisions,
359; his method borrowed from
Herbart, 360; want of originality
in his philosophy, 361

Lucretius, 87

Lykon, 46

Maimon, 254, 258

Mairaonides, and his doctrines, 123

Malebranche, Nicholas, 155 ; his
main problem, 156, 215

Mauichfeanism, 102

Mansel, H. L., 377

Marinos, 96

Marx, Karl, 341, 344

Materialism, influence of, on con-
duct, 212; Lange's history of,
d62

Materialist school, French, 203

Matter, as understood by Arist(jtle,
68

Maurice, F. D., history of philo-
sophy, 13

Mediaeval philosophy, 111 ; the
earlier schoolmen. 111 ; the Ara-
bians and Jews, 119; the later
schoolmen, 124 ; authorities, 130

Megaric school, 48

414

INDEX.

Meletos, 46

IMelissos, work of, 34

Memory, Leibnitz on, 170

Menander, 101

Meno, Plato's, 59

Metaphysic, Lotze's. 358, 359, 861

Metaphysical Foundations of Natu-
ral Scimce, Kant's, 225, 240

Metaphj'sical - Physicists, the :
Herakleitos, 36 ; Empedoklts,
38 ; Anaxagoras, 39 ; the Atom-
ists, 40

Metaphysics, Aristotle's, 67, 74

Metempirics, meaning of the word,
379

Method, the Sokratic, 45

Metrodoius, 82

Michelet, K. L., edition of Hegel's
lectures, 12 ; his summary of the
Hegelian system, 338, 344

Mill, James, 378

Mill, John Stuart. 377 ; his work
essentially critical, 378 ; its value,
378

Mimansa, the, of Jaimini, 18

Minucius Felix, 104

Modern philosophy, transition to,
132

Modem philosophy : first epoch,
A. The Abstra'^-t-Dogmatic Sys-
tems, 144 ; first epocii, b. The
Empirical-Sceptical schools, 177;
second epoch, Kant and the Post-
Kantians, 214

Modes, the, of Spinoza, 160

Monadology, Leibnitz's, 173

Mysticism, German, of the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries,
130

Mythology distinguished from philo-
sophy, 2

Nature, philosophy of, Schelling's,

284 ; Hegel's, 327
Neo-Hegelian fcchool, 390 ; its

doctrines, 390 ; its importance,

393
Neo-Platonism, 89 ; its seat in

Alexandria, 89; Philo, 89; the

characteiistic of the school, 90;

struggle of, with Christianity, 9i
Numenius and Ammonius Sacca
92 ; Plotinus, 92 ; the Xe
Platonic trinity, 94 ; Porphyr
94 ; Jamblichos, 94 ; Hypati
95 ; Proklos, 95 ; Marinots, 9i
Isidore, 96 ; Damascius, 96 ; tl
school closed by Justinian, 91
decline of classic civiiisatio
96

Neo-Pythagorean school, 88

Nettesheim, Cornelius Agrippa, vc i
138

Nicolas of Chusa, 135, 139

Nominalism and Kealism, conti
versy between 115

Nourrisson, J. F., history of phil
sophy, 13

Nuvalis, 286

Novum Organum, Bacon's, 179

Numenius, 92

Nyaya, the, of Gotama, 18

Occam, William of, 128 ; doctrin
129; else of scholasticism, 13

Okeii, 287

Ophites, the, 102

Organon, Aristotle's, 75

Orieutals, qua^i-philosophy of tl
15; Egyptian, 15; Semitic, 1
Medo-Persian, 16; Chinese, 1
Indian, 17; authorities, 20

Oriuen, 105 ; his position in Chui
history, 106

Paracelsus, 139 ; character a
travels, 139 ; his cosmologi'
system, 140
Paralogisms of the pure reason, 2
Parmenides, philosophy of, 33, 4i
Parmenides, Plato's, 55, 57
Party, difterences in a, not a sign

its decay, 337
Paulicianism, 102
Perception, explanation of,
Empedokles, 3:*; by the Atomis
41 ; difference between percepti
and feeling, 179 ; mechanical (
planation of, opposed by Le
nitz, 169

INDEX.

415

tripatetics, orii^in of their name;
Gt) ; their work, 77

essimism, Schopenhauer the
founder of modern, 2:;i), 296

Vi,r.<h, Plato's, 50, 58

li.^jdrus, Plato's, 59

\^h('nomenolo(jij of the Mind, Hegel's,
:U 1,317, 318,319,821, 322

'hilebos, Plato's, 59, 62

Miilippus, 77

iiilo, 89 ; his doctrines, 90 ; the
characteristic of his school, 90

Philo of Larissa, 77

liilosophie Positive, Comte's, 365,
367, 369, 370, 372, 373

'liilosophy, the problem of, 1 ; its
scope, 2 ; ancient and modern
definitions of philosophy, 3, 358 ;
modern perversion of the word,
4 ; ancient division into logic,
physic and ethic, 5; modern
division into theory of know-
ledge, ontology and cosmology
(including psychology), 6 ; philo-
sophy become a profitable pro-
fession. So ; state of, in the second
half of the eighteenth century,
217: task of, 258; problem of
transcendental philosophy, 280 ;
Lotze's definition of, 358 ; Lewes
on the aim of, 380 ; unity of, 39 1 ;
rarity of true philosophical in-
sight, 395; explanation of the
apparent circularity of movement
in, 396 ; relations between science
and philosophy, comprehensive-
ness of philosophy, 397 ; the end
of philosophy, 398; the purpose of
the world, 400 ; the immediate
pursuit of pleasui'e not the end of
progress, 401 ; the dechne of the
ethical religions, 402 ; humanity
the highest actual realisation of
the world-principle, 404 ; the
future of philosopliy, 404

Philosophy of the Vncoiiscious, Hart-
raann's, 352, 357
hysics, Aristotle's, 72
Ll^icus, John, 133

iato, birth and youth, 54 ; studies

I and travels, 54 ; school in Athens
j founded, 54 ; death, 55

Plato's philosophy : definition of
philosophy, 3 ; his doctrines not
derived from Sokrates, 21 ; his
school complementnry, not op-
posed, to that of Aristotle, 51 ;
his philosophy combining the
essence of all pre-Sokratic philo-
sophies with that of Sokrates, 53 ;
exegesis, 55 ; division into dia-
lectics, physics, and ethics, 55 ;
' common sense ' attacked, 55 ;
dialectics the highest stage of
philosophy, 56 ; object of the
dialectical dialogues of Plato,
57 ; his system of ideas, 58 ;
the • highest idea ' the object of
dialectics, 59 ; doctrine of remi-
niscence, 59 ; physical specula-
tions, 60 : cosmical theory, 61 ;
definition of virtue, 62; his
ideal commonwealth, 63; Plato
the founder of the ' theory of
knowledge,' 64 ; nature of his
philosophy, 64 ; bibliography,
76 ; referred to, 25, 66. 6S, 73, 91,
103, 112, 117, 133, 161, 294, 313,
346, 396

Pleroma, the, 101

Plethon, 133

Plotinus, 92 ; his doctrine, 93 ; the
Neo-Platonic trinity, 94

Poetics, Aristotle's, 74

Polemon, 73

Politics, Aristotle's, 73

Politique Positive, Comte's, 366

Polos, 43

Polystratus, 82

Porphyry, 94

Port-Koy.il Logic, 155

Posidonius, 80

Positivism, founded by Comte,
365 ; its principles, 367

Pre-Sokratic scliools of philosophy,
23; Ionian schools, 23; Italian
school, 29; Eleatic school, 33;
the metaphysical physicists, 36 ;
transition to Sokrates, 42

Princijples of Biology, Spencer's, 388

416

INDEX.

Principles of Human Knowledge.
Berkeley's, 189

Problems of Life and Mind, Lewes's.
379

Prodikos, 42, 44, 45

Proklos and his doctrine, 95

Proleqomena to every future Meta-
physic, Kant's, 225, 230, 235, 239,
246, 248

Proslogium, j^nselm's, 114

Protagoras, 42

PsycLology to be considered a
department of philosophy, 6;
Fichte's opinion, 258

Punishment, purpose of, 113

Pyrrho, 77, 83 ; his doctrines, 83

Pyrrhonistic Hypotyposes, the, of
Sextus Empiricus, 86

Pythagoras: definition of philo-
sophy, 3 ; life, 29 ; influence, 30

Pythagorean system, 30, (5S ; funda-
mental doctrine of number, 30 ;
extension of theory, 31, 52 ; cos-
mology, 32 ; variations in, from
being unwritten by its founder,
32

Eeason, superiority of the practical
over the pure, 249

Keeent and current philosophy, \
352; Hartmann, 352; L .fzH,
358 ; Diihring, 361 ; Lange, 362 ;
tendency of German philosophers
towards historical research, 364 ;
Comte, 364; J. S. Mill, 377;
Bain, 378 ; Lewes, 379 ; Spencer,
380 ; the Neo-Hegelian school,
390

Reformation, the German, 134

Eeid, Thomas, 201 ; axioms, 201 ;
criticism on Hume, 2()2

Eeinhold, Ernst, history of philo-
sophy, 11

Eeinhold, K. L., on the Kantian
philosophy, 253, 258

Eeligion, Hegel's philosophy of, 334

Eeminiscence, Plato's doctrine of,
59

E' naissanoe, philosophy of the,
132; Plethon, 133; Ficinus,

133; Picus, 133; the Germat
Eeformation, 134 ; Giordanc
Bruno, 134; Campanella, 137
Eepuhlic, Plato's, 56, 62, 63
l^euchlin, Johannes, 137, 138
Eichter, Kant's influence on, 253
Eitter, history of philosophy, 11
Eixner, history of philosophy, 11
Ei>man and Antiquarian period ol
philosophy, 85 ; characterised bj
exposition of older doctrines, 85
-^uesidemus, 86; the later Seep'
tics, 86 ; the Sextians, 87 ; Cicero
87 ; Neo-Pythagoreans, 88
Eoscelliuus, 115
Kosenkranz, 312, 336, 33S, 344
Eousseau, 206
Euge, Arnold, 343

Sabelli^ns the, 107

St. Auguatine of Hippo : see Augus-
tine

Sankhya, the, of Kapila, 18

Saturninus, 101

Scepticism, arguments in favoui
of, 86

Sceptics, the, 83; their doctrines
83 ; not original, 84 ; authorities
84

Schelling, Frederick William Jo'
seph, 278

Schelling's philosophy : definitior
of pldlosophy, 4 ; the ' systeu
of identity,' 278 ; the problem o
philosophy, 279 ; nature-philo
sophy, 279 ; transceudenta
philosophy, 280; division of th<
process of the production of tht
real into three .>tage8, 281
category of reciprocity, 281
Schelling's practical philosophy
282 ; the main difference betweer
Schelling and Fichte, 283; philo-
sophy of art, 283; philosophy oj
nature, 284; correspondence oi
Schelling with Fichte and Leib-
nitz, 285; Schelling's later ten-
dency to mysticism, 286 ; his
system no great advance on
Fichte's, 286 ; his followers, 287 ;

INDEX.

417

retrospect and criticism, 347;
referred to, 288, 300, 334, 3i7,
353

k'hiller, Kant's influence on, 253

>chlegel, 286

Schmidt, Dr. : see Stimer, Max

Schoolmen, the earlier, 111 ; Eri-
gena. 111; Anselm, 114; Abe-
lard, 116

choolmeu, the later, 124; Al-
bertus Macrnus, 124; Thomas
Aquinas, 125 ; Duns Scotus, 127;
William of Occam, 128

Schopenhauer, Arthur : life, 289 ;
works, 289

Schopenhauer's philosophy : defi-
nition of philosophy, 4 ; position
of Schopenhauer's philosophy,
288 ; the four forms of the prin-
ciple of causality, 290; separation
of the will from the intellect,
291 ; use of the term ' will,' 293 ;
the body the objectivation of the
will, 294 ; on the nature of will,
295 ; pessimism, 296 ; place of
the fine arts in the presentment
of the will's objectivation, 296 ;
of art, 297 ; of music, 298 ; art
a quietude of the will, 298 ; the
will-to-live, 299 ; the merit of
Schopenhauer's work, 300; his
followers, 301 ; retrospect and
criticism, 348
chulze, 254, 258

■>chwegler, Albert, history of philo-
sophy, 12, 14

"science and ])hilosophy, relations
between, 381, 397

Science, special, distinguished from
philosophy, 2

Segregation, principle of, 387

Beneca, 87

^ensationism of Condillac, 204

5eth, Andrew, 390

Sextian school, 87

Sextius, 87

5extus Clodius, 88

^extus Empiricus, 86

Shakespeare, Bruno's possible in-
fluence on, 135

Simonians, the, 100

Social Contract, Kousseau's, 182,
206

Society, Hobbes' theory of, 182

Sociology not founded by Comte,
373

Sokrates : birth, 44 ; studies and
public life, 44 ; philosophy, 45 ;
method, 45 ; condemnation and
death, 46 ; the blame of his ac-
cusers exaggerated, 46 ; the revo-
lution in thought due to him, 47 ;
the apostle of self-knowledge, 52

Sokratic Schools: philosophv of
Sokrates, 45 ; his philosopliy a
method rather than a doctrine,
47; minor Sol^ratic scliools, 48;
the Megaric school, 48 : the
Cyrenaic school, 48 ; the Cynic
school, 49 ; referred to, 57, 64, 91

Sophistes, Plato's, 57

Sophists, school of the, 42, 52 ; its
teachers, 42; its opposition to
earlier philosophies, 43 ; decline,
43

Sophroniskos, 44

Space, according to Aristotle, 71

Spencer, Herbert ; definition of
philosophy, 4 ; his philosophy,
380 ; distinction between the
absolute and the relative, 380 ;
ultimate scientific ideas, 381 ;
relation of philosophy to science,
381 ; definition of reality, 382 :
his test of truth, 382 ; principle*
of the persistence of force and its
consequences, 383; definition of
evolution, 384; principles of
evolution, 384 ; change from
homogeneity to heterogeneity,
386 ; change from indefiniteness
to definiteiiess, 387 ; tendency of
evolution towards equilibration,
387 ; tendency after equilibration
to dissolution, 388 ; his Principles
of Biology and later works, 388 ;
his merits and defects, 389

Speusippus, 77

Spinoza, Baruch de, 157; his capa-
city for scientific exposition, 166;

2 E

418

INDEX.

Spinoza's philosophy, 158, 215 ; his
method, 158 ; errors of abstraction
and imagination distinguished,
158 ; starting-point of his system,
159 ; account of his system, 160 ;
anthropology, 165 ; ethics, 165 ;
success of Spinozism, 167 ; autho-
rities, 167 : his system contrasted
with that of Leibnitz, 174; re-
ferred to, 168, 214, 396

Stanley, Thomas, history of phi-
losophy, 10

State, function of the, 63, 200

Stewart, Dugald, 203

Stilpo, 78

Stirner, Max, 340 ; the Individual
and his Property, 342

Stoics, the, their definition of phi-
losophy, 3 ; their doctrines, 78,
80 ; their logic, 78 ; physics,
79 ; ethics, 79 ; Stoicism pri-
marily an ethical movement,
80

Strato. 78

Strauss, David Friedrich, 338, 339,
341 ; his Lehen Jesu, 339 ;
Chridian Dogmatics in their
Development, &c., 339

Stromata, the, of Clement of Alex-
andria, 104

Substance, Descartes' definition of,
150

Syncretists, work of the, 85, 87

Synechology, 305

Syrian Gnostics, 100 ; Menander,
101 ; Satuminus, 101 ; Tatian,
101 ; Bardesanes, 101 ; doctrines,
101

Systeme de la Nature, d' Holbach's,
210, 211, 213

Tatian, 101

Tauler, Johannes, 131

Teunemann, history of philosophy,
11,13

Thales : life, 23 ; knowledge, 23 ;
his claim to be the founder of
philosophy, 24 ; his central doc-
trine, 24

Tlmtaitusy Plato's, 55, 57, 62

Theology distinguished from phi
losophy, 2

Theology, Kant's criticism of ra^
tional, 247

Theophilus, 104

Theophrastus, 77

Theory of Knowledge, fundamental .
axioms of the, 258

Therapeutse, the, 90

Thomasius, Jacobus, history of
philosophy, 10

Thrasymachos, 43

Tieck, 286

Tiedemann, history of philosophy, 11

TimoRus, Plato's, 60, 61, 62

Time, according to Aristotle, 71

Tracy, Testutt de, 213

Transcendental, meaning of the
word, 229

Transitional thought, 98 ; the
attitude of Christianity, 98 ; the
Gnostics, 100; the Christian
Fathers, 103

Treatise of Human Nature^ Hume's,
193, 196, 197, 199

Trinity ; the Neo-Platonic, dis-
tinguished from the Christian,
94 ; the doctrine of the, the
foundation of dogmatic Christi-
anity, 106

Ueberweg, history of philosophy,

12,14
Unknowable, the, 383
Upanischads, the, 17

Vaisehika, the, of Kanada, 18
Valentinus, 100

Vedanta, the, of Badarayana, 18
Virtue, Plato's definition of, 63;

Epicurean idea of, 81
Vischer, 338

Vision, Berkeley's theory of, 192
Voltaire, 206

Wagner, J. J., 287
Wallace, Edwin, 390
Wallace, William, 390
Weber, Alfred, history of philoso-
phy, 13

INDEX.

419

lii Veifise, criticism of the Hegelian
system, 338

iVill : Schopenhauer's use of the
word, 293 : nature of the, 295 ;
art a quietude of the, 298;
Hartmanii on the conjunction of
will and intelligence, 353

Vill in Nature, Schopenhauer's,
289 292

jVill-to-live, the, 299

Wissenscliaftslehre, Ficht^'s, 257,

! 261, 277

jVolff, Christian, definition of phi-
losophy, 3 ; life, 175 ; his doc-

I trines, 175

W'orld as Will and Presentation,

Schopenhauer's, 289, 293, 290,
298, 299, 300

Xenocrates, 77

Xenophanes ; life, 33 ; theistic

tendency of writings, 33
Xenophon, 44, 48

Yoga, the, of Patanjali, 18

Zeller, definition of philosophy, 4
Zeno of Sidon, 82
Zeno the Cyprist, 78
Zeno the Eleatic, philosophical
work, 34

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( 23 )

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j ' His laborious comparison of twenty languages, though never pub-

I lished, bore fruit in his own mind, and his training placed him both in

I knowledge and judgment far in advance of Johnson as a philologist.

I Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language was pub-

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I successive re-editing Jias yet kept it in t/ie highest place as a practical

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( 24 )

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