Historical studies in philosophy

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY.

Class

MrlO-20M

on or before
- stamped below,
charge is made on all
books.

U. of I. Library

OCT 8'37

JUNt5'3i
OCT £U|S4
L 29

JW. 27 1346

OC! 88H943

-2

31

SEf> 2 0 1989
08

11148-S

HISTORICAL STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

HISTORICAL STUDIES

IN

PHILOSOPHY

BY

EMILE BOUTROUX

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE
PROFESSOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION

BY

FRED ROTHWELL, B.A.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1912

COPYRIGHT

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THIS book, which a careful and exact translation now
introduces to English readers, is a collection of studies,
independent of one another, and written mostly at the
express invitation of my pupils or colleagues. As I
had devoted numerous lectures at the fccole Normale
Superieure and the S or bonne to a minute analysis of
various philosophical systems, and as I was unable to
find time to set them forth in detail, the suggestion was
made that I might, at all events, publish a resume of
the conclusions at which I had arrived. My first
impulse was to decline a task which seemed somewhat
ingrate and risky. Indeed, it is no easy matter to act
upon the mind of the reader, unless you lead him,
to some extent, along the paths you have already
traversed, on to the position you yourself have reached.
And even though he may not feel inclined to make
your conclusions his own, he will regard them with a
certain amount of indulgence if he sees that you have
been at considerable pains to reach them. Frequently,
too, quite apart from your results, he will fully

V

26630

vi STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

appreciate the investigations you have made. As
Victor Hugo said :

. . . Dieu benit 1'homme
Non pour avoir trouve, mais pour avoir cherche.

It may be that there are critics good enough to be less
severe than God, but if scarcely anything beyond results
are set forth, the reader will not feel inclined to show
you much indulgence !

In spite of these scruples, the reason I consented to
write these short studies, almost devoid, as they are, of
the critical basis on which they are constructed, is that
I cannot accustom myself to the idea — often tacitly
admitted if it be not openly avowed — that in dealing
with the history of philosophy all inquiry into the true
and inmost thought of a master can never be other
than premature, and that a genuine savant should
concentrate his attention upon the search after texts,
their comparison with one another, and the discussions
to which they give rise. I am aware that Fustel
de Coulanges, one of our great historians, has said that
a single hour of synthesis presupposes centuries of
analysis. His own admirable generalisations, however,
form a magnificent contradiction of this formal, abstract
doctrine. Perhaps we should regard as more truly
in conformity both with the conditions of scientific
research and with the method actually adopted by
Fustel de Coulanges, the following maxim of an
eminent geographer, Professor W. M. Davis, of

PREFACE vii

Harvard University : Invention may advisedly go hand
in hand with observation. The analytical study of the
texts suggested to me a certain interpretation of the
works of the masters, just as certain previous hypo-
theses as to the meaning of these works had served me
as heuristic principles in the analytical study itself:
some of the best established results are given in the
present volume. I am disposed to regard them as
nothing more than starting-points for subsequent
research, ideas to be tested anew and revised by a com-
parison with facts ; still they form, in some measure,
the living synthesis of several of my previous studies.

Moreover, I do not think it will ever be possible,
in setting forth a system of philosophy, to content
oneself with collecting extant documents, manipulating
them, and finally extracting their substance, by quite
mechanical processes, after the fashion of a chemist.
One of our cleverest linguists, M. Michel Breal, in his
famous work, Essai sur la Stmantique, is altogether
opposed to the opinion that language possesses an
existence of its own, and is capable of being studied
per se, independently of the living mind of man who
is continually building it up and perfecting it. " Under-
neath the phenomena presented by language," he con-
cludes, " we feel the action of a thought releasing
itself from the form to which it is chained down . . .
Mens agitat molem"

A fortiori is this the case with systems of philo-

Vlll

sophy, which, assuredly, are something more than
a blind impulse, an enthusiastic aspiration of the mind :
they represent the methodical effort of an intelligence
employing all its knowledge and dialectic power in
an attempt to confine reality within clear and well-
connected formulas. Still, the living mind of the
philosopher is never absent from his work ; the
system should never be conceived as separate from
its creator, like fruit as distinct from the tree on
which it has grown. Consequently, in order to under-
stand an author's work in the way he meant it to be
understood, i.e. to understand it aright, we must make
it our constant endeavour not merely to search into the
visible letter of the text and all the details of docu-
ments, but also to think and live with the author
himself, to enter into his spirit. In reality, it is this
interior principle of development, — which, in truth,
cannot be isolated from the visible forms but rather
governs them and gives them their particular aspect,—
it is the active, ever-present soul of the author, that
the historian should endeavour to set before us,
enabling us to enter intuitively, as it were, into that
soul and attain to direct participation therewith.

If this effort be made, our understanding of the
work becomes as profound and adequate as we can make
it. Nor is this all. Just as we must enlarge our own
mind, if we would thus comprehend thoughts greater
than our own, so it would seem that to cultivate the

PREFACE ix

history of philosophy in this way is not only to learn to
know philosophers but also to become more capable of
philosophizing ourselves. To what heights might we
not aspire, what claims might we not make, if some-
thing of the genius of the masters could really live
again within us and enter into our thought ! " Das ist,"
said Goethe, " die Eigenschaft des Geistes, dass er den
Geist ewig anregt." Is not this submission — in a happy
blend of effort and abandon — to the potent influence of
the masters, this attempt to carry on their work and
message, the natural and legitimate object and end of
our historical investigations ?

£MILE BOUTROUX.

PARIS, March 7, 1912.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

THE word science throughout, and especially in the
essays on Socrates and Aristotle, has been frequently
used both in this translation and in the original work,
to render the word a-o<j>ia, as being preferable to wisdom
and to sagesse alike. It is therefore to be interpreted
as connoting the highest branches of learning and
philosophy.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ...... I

SOCRATES, THE FOUNDER OF MORAL SCIENCE ... 8

ARISTOTLE . . . . . . . .74

JACOB BOEHME, THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER . . . .169

DESCARTES. . . . . . . . . .234

KANT . . 255

INDEX ... ...... 331

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

i rb iSiov. — ARISTOTLE, Eth. Nic. i. 7. 1097 b 35.

THE more historical works on every subject multiply,
the more difficult does it become to find agreement as
to the object of history itself. Can the science studied
by a Renan, when investigating the moral laws of man-
kind and the universe, be the same as that studied by
a Fustel de Coulanges, who is ignorant as to the very
existence of historical laws, and whose sole ambition is
to connect a few facts with their immediate causes ?

The history of philosophy cannot escape this con-
dition of things. Hegel understands it in a far different
fashion from Grote. In turn, it is philosophical,
psychological, social, philological and naturalistic, nor
do we clearly see what definite form it tends to assume.
It has become necessary for any one who undertakes
this study, unless he wishes to confine himself to some
particular current of thought, to reflect upon the end
of this science and examine the various definitions that
may be given thereof.

What, then, is the proper object of the history of
philosophy ? What is the most suitable method to
adopt ?

Have we simply to collect and classify, geographic-
ally and chronologically, such facts as may rightly be
called philosophical ?

2 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Once this selection is effected, have we to connect
each of these facts with the particular environment in
which it happened, and also with its- conditions or
causes ?

Or rather, if we consider that philosophy, up to a
certain point, has an existence and development of its
own, and constitutes a kind of organism, shall we un-
ravel, as it were, and follow up this autonomous de-
velopment through the apparently capricious inventions
of individuals ? Shall we consider each philosopher as
the more or less docile instrument of an immanent and
universal spirit? Has our task to consist in finding
and completing those parts of each thinker's work which
are productive and likely to live, and neglecting those
which, sooner or later, time must destroy? Is it not
expected that a historian should read, study and criticise
everything, so that he may relegate to the waters of
oblivion such events as have no claim upon the memory
of mankind ?

But if we have scruples about thus judging of
philosophical productions in the name of the more or
less mystical idea of an eternal philosophy, should we
not like, at all events, to distinguish those conceptions
of a man of genius in which he is really himself and
is introducing innovations or preparing the future, from
those in which he shows himself nothing more, at that
stage, than an echo of his predecessors ?

In short, is there not a conception of the history of
philosophy — a very plausible one by reason of its con-
nection with the positive sciences — according to which
it seems to be the historian's task to take philosophers,
not philosophy, as the object of his investigations ; and,
by a process of psychological analysis, to show with
reference to each of them, the line of evolution he has

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3

of necessity had to follow — taking into consideration
his temperament, his education and the circumstances of
his life — in the production of the ideas he has given to
the world ?

Evidently each of these points of view has an interest
and importance of its own, but none of them seems
to be the special point of view of the historian of
philosophy.

To confine oneself to the collection and chronological
arrangement of philosophical manifestations would be
too modest a task ; for though we may somewhere find
a logical concatenation of facts along with the facts
themselves, still it is in doctrines and systems that
philosophy finds its realisation.

On the other hand, he would be a bold man who
would affirm that some particular conception has a future
before it, whereas some other has had its day. In
Voltaire's time, metaphysics was an utterly exploded
doctrine. Now, that was the very period when German
philosophy was beginning to become known.

And what an ambition, to find the historical and
unconscious origins, the mechanical genesis of a thinker's
ideas ! Which of us, even the most wide-awake and
skilled in analysing mental states, could correctly explain
the origin of his opinions and doctrines ? Amongst the
many influences under which our increasingly complex
life is continually bringing us, how can we set apart
those that have been deep and lasting, or state exactly
in what direction they have been exercised ? Besides,
why do we so strongly insist that our ideas spring only
from external influences and that we ourselves have
nothing to do with their production ?

Apart from these various conceptions of the history
of philosophy — conceptions in turn excessively timid and

4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

boldly venturesome — there is one of a less striking
nature, from the fact that it does not seem to be so
scientific, though perhaps it is more in accordance with
the nature of the subject under investigation. It is
also the one, unless I am mistaken, generally applied by
writers whose distinctive object is to take up the history
of philosophy, without troubling about anything else.

It consists in regarding as the subject of investigation
from the very outset, what to us are immediate data,
to wit, any particular doctrine that is one in its greater
or less complexity, any collection of ideas set forth by
the philosopher as forming a whole. Where this con-
dition is not fulfilled, we may indeed be dealing with a
shrewd moralist or a profound, original thinker, but
certainly we are not dealing with a philosopher. The
problem to be solved is that of finding out what logical
connection the philosopher has really set up between his
ideas, which he has taken as principles, and in what
order and fashion he makes the rest depend on the main
ideas. A philosopher is a man who sets up men's
knowledge over against their beliefs, and tries to find
their relations to one another. We want to know how
a Plato or a Leibnitz conceived of these relations. And
since the philosopher is not a seer to whom truth is
revealed in a flash, but rather a patient seeker who re-
flects and criticises, doubts and hesitates, and listens to
reason alone, we want to know the methods, observations
and reasonings by which our author has reached his
conclusions. We are not now dealing with the uncon-
scious, mechanical work of his brain, but with his
conscious, determined efforts to overcome the limits of
his individuality, to think in an all-embracing manner,
and to bring the truth to light.

If such be the case, it is neither philosophy in general,

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 5

throughout its development, nor the psychological
evolution of each philosopher in particular, that is the
immediate object of the history of philosophy : it is the
doctrines that have been thought out by philosophers.
To know and understand these doctrines well, to explain
them — to the extent of one's capacity — as the author
himself would do, to set them forth in the spirit of that
author, and to some extent, in his style : this is the one
essential task, to which all the rest must be subordinated.

It is, indeed, useful to consider the man, and not
the work only, but it is so because, in most cases, the
man helps us to understand the work. Cartesianism is
indebted for more than one of its characteristics to
Descartes, the man. And yet, what a mistake to insist
on regarding Cartesianism as nothing more than the
history of an individual mind !

It is likewise an interesting question to ask oneself :
What becomes of philosophy fer se throughout the
succession of systems? Does it advance or remain
stationary ? This general study of philosophy, however,
cannot replace that of the doctrines considered in them-
selves from each author's point of view : rather it pre-
supposes it.

Let it not, then, be said that some particular portion
of a philosopher's doctrines may be neglected, under the
plea that it is to be found in the writings of some
earlier philosopher. That is an insufficient reason. A
great mind does not seek after novelty or originality ;
it seeks after truth. Why should it refuse any portion
thereof under the plea that it was discovered by some-
one else ? In the classic ages of literature, authors did
not feel themselves bound to create, ex nihilo, after the
fashion of God. A Corneille and a Moliere make lavish
use of the works of their predecessors. No one finds

6 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

fault with their lack of originality when they take
advantage of this material in writing fine and noble
works. With still more reason, an Aristotle, a Leibnitz
and a Kant carefully retain whatever those who have
gone before have found to be of advantage. In reality,
they make it their own by the way in which they use it.
" When two men are playing tennis," said Pascal, " both
play with the same ball, but one of them places it better
than the other." It often happens that the most common-
place idea assumes a new aspect by reason of the new
relations in which it finds itself.

On the other hand, some idea destined at a later
period to prove an important and fruitful one, may
have played only a secondary or eclipsed part in the
system in which it first appeared. Though picking it up
as a chance find, so to speak, or regarding it as an interest-
ing presentiment, we must be careful not to place it in
the foreground under pretence of serving the author by
giving him a more modern aspect. It is not Descartes
as one would imagine he would be at the present time,
but the Descartes of 1 644, referring every problem to the
one of certainty, whom it is our object to make known.

The task in hand determines exactly the means it
behoves us to put into operation. In the ulterior
developments a system may have gone through, the
doctrines to which it has given birth, the appreciations
and interpretations of contemporaries and successors, or
even the historical and biographical information regard-
ing the author's person and works, we ought not to
look for anything else than sign-posts of the problems
we must set before ourselves, or material data which
determine the ground on which to work. The spring
and origin of the history of philosophy can be found
only in the monuments left by philosophers themselves.

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 7

Each philosophical work requires to be considered
both as a whole and in detail. The work of the mind
is one continual oscillation from the whole to the parts
and from the parts to the whole. Such is the method
applied in the understanding of a drama, a poem, or a
work of art. This alternate movement of induction and
deduction is the origin of the sciences. In the same
way, if we explain the author by himself, his general
ideas by his particular doctrines and his particular
doctrines by his general ideas, the probabilities are that
we shall thoroughly grasp his meaning and enter into
his thought.

It is not enough to discover curious — even un-
published— texts. Which of us can enter completely
into all an author says ? What likelihood is there that
a letter written to some correspondent or other, how-
ever ill fitted he be to understand the philosopher,
should prove of greater importance than treatises that
have been slowly matured and are destined for posterity ?
The historian, whose aim it is not to make a collection of
anecdotes, but to form a correct appreciation of a great
man's work, will be less anxious to marshal and array
an imposing number of disconnected texts than to
become increasingly imbued with the author's thought,
by reading the whole of his works not once, but many
times. His aim will be to see things from the author's
point of view, following him along the winding by-
paths of meditation, sharing in his emotions as a philo-
sopher, and, along with him, enjoying that harmony
wherein his intelligence has found repose.

Systems of philosophy are living thoughts. It is by
seeking in the written word for the means of reviving
these thoughts within ourselves that we may hope to
hear them deliver their message.

SOCRATES,
THE FOUNDER OF MORAL SCIENCE l

" Les memes pens6es poussent quelquefois tout autrement dans
un autre que dans leur auteur." — PASCAL.

AFTER the keen rivalry that has existed amongst those
most capable of dissipating the clouds and mists that
hang about the figure of Socrates, inquiring men of
letters, shrewd moralists, philosophers of penetrating
intellect, learned historians, and even doctors, whose
object it has been to collect and interpret such docu-
ments as are calculated to make him known to us, is
there anything left to say about him ? Is not the
writer on such a theme compelled to repeat mere
commonplaces if he is determined to say only what is
true, to give expression to paradoxes if he claims to
have anything new to advance ?

In this connection it would seem as though a dis-
tinction must be made. Doubtless, all possible light

1 The present essay deals less with the feelings and the soul of Socrates
than with his philosophy and his work. In one aspect Socrates, as a man,
is an enthusiast in the literal meaning of the word, almost a mystic. He
is Apollo's messenger, and feels within himself the divine afflatus. His
unique originality consisted in introducing religious zeal into the preach-
ing of rational morals. Here we confine ourselves to the consideration of
the doctrine which Socrates taught his disciples and bequeathed to man-
kind.

8

SOCRATES 9

has been shed on most of the details of the life and
teaching of Socrates, but it is not so certain that this
could be said concerning the ensemble of the man and
his doctrine. The reader is astonished when he com-
pares with one another those works of our contemporaries
that deal with Socrates. If we would know of his
life, the causes of his condemnation, the meaning of
maieutics, the doctrines of virtue, or some other
portion of Socratic philosophy, each of these authors
gives almost identical answers. But if we ask what
Socrates was in himself, the basis of his character and
the root idea of his teaching : regarding this question
— in which all the rest culminate — opinions are
contradictory.

Thus, according to Zeller,1 ancient physics having
finally disappeared beneath the action of sophistic,
Socrates regenerated philosophy by founding it upon a
new principle : the general or concept, regarded as the
object of science. The work of Socrates, then, was
the invention of a principle of theoretical logic.

Grote, in a series of life-like sketches, presents
Socrates as a religious missionary, appointed by the
oracle of Delphi for putting the would-be wise on the
rack and inducing them to confess their ignorance.
Socrates is the god of debate, " an elenchtic or cross-
examining god." 2 His work, religious in its inspira-
tion, is a living dialectic in itself.

Fouillee regards Socrates as a speculative philosopher,
who substitutes final causes for physical ones in the
explanation of all phenomena, both physical and moral.
He is the creator of spiritual metaphysics.

Leveque considers that Socrates endeavoured to

1 Die Philosophie der Griechen, 3rd edit. vol. ii. p. 93-94.
2 History of Greece, vol. viii. p. 566.

io STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

bring about the moral and political reform of Athens,
and, with this end in view, established morals as a
science independent of the physical sciences.

Janet's brief though important sketch in the Dic-
tionnaire philosophique shows us Socrates as a philo-
sopher above all else ; he mentions two main char-
acteristics of his : the moral sentiment, which dominates
his personality and appears throughout his doctrine ;
and maieutics, from which the Platonic dialectic was
to originate.

In a short work, published in 1881, Gustave
d'Eichthal considers the outstanding feature of the
Socratic doctrine to be religious instruction. Socrates,
he says, with a view to checking the evils he saw
ravaging his country, wished to give his fellow-citizens
what, to him, was the principle of all virtue and the
first condition of every reform, namely, religious faith,
especially faith in divine Providence.

Finally, Franck, in an article that appeared in the
Journal des savants on d'Eichthal's book, likewise
admits that Socrates was not only a reasoner and a
philosopher, but more than all else a profoundly
religious soul, in the real meaning of the word, a soul
in whom faith in God, admiration of his works, the
certainty of his kingdom throughout nature and of his
providence over men, were tinged with a certain degree
of mysticism.

All these interpretations, moreover, are based on
texts of the greatest importance. Thus, confining
ourselves to the three of our contemporaries who have
written most about Socrates, Zeller, in support of his
position, quotes that clear, precise passage in Aristotle *
where it is mentioned that Socrates seeks the ri

1 Met. xiii. 4. 1878 b 23 sqq.

SOCRATES ii

the general essence, though without regarding this
essence as existing apart, as Plato did. Grote draws
his conclusions from the Apology? which, indeed,
mainly shows us Socrates as having received from the
gods the mission of convincing men of their ignorance.
And lastly, the statement of Fouillee 2 appears inspired
by those luminous passages of the Phaedo? in which we
find Socrates reproaching Anaxagoras for omitting to
take into account, in his explanation of the details of
the world, that ordaining and regulating intelligence he
had so wisely proclaimed to be the universal cause ;
considering, for his part, that any purely mechanical
explanation was superficial ; and satisfied only with such
explanations as, in the ultimate analysis, were given by
final causes.4

But why is it that each of these authors has taken
up some particular text in preference to others ? In
all likelihood, personal preoccupation or different mental
habits may give a partial explanation. An old Hegelian
like Zeller, whose object above all is to find out the
place occupied by men and doctrines in the general
development of the human mind, was bound to take,
as his main guide, Aristotle, who emphasises in his
predecessors just those ideas that have paved the way
for his own. Grote, the historian, who would point
out the part played by famous men throughout the
entire social and political life of their times, was bound
to rely mainly on the Apology^ a life-like picture, it
would seem, of Socrates as he appeared to his fellow-
citizens. Lastly, Fouillee, the eloquent and profound
interpreter of the theory of Ideas, was naturally disposed

1 Grote, History of Greece, viii. 565.
2 La Philosophie de Platan, vol. i. p. 17 sqq.

3 Ch. xlv. sqq.
* Phaedo, ch. xlvi. p. 97 B.

12 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

to regard Socrates as the precursor of Plato, and to
find in his doctrines the germ of Platonic metaphysics.
It is not surprising that he should take as his starting-
point those passages in which Plato himself connects
his theory of Ideas with the speculations of his master.

In these investigations into the real character of
Socrates, Zeller appears to have adopted the standpoint
of absolute mind, Grote that of a cultured Athenian of
the fifth century, and Fouillee that of Plato. What
would be the result were we to adopt the standpoint
of Socrates himself, asking ourselves what Socrates
must have been, not in the eyes of others but in his
own ? The apostle of the yv&Oi o-avrov must have
been acquainted with himself. We should regard our-
selves as having sufficient knowledge of him were we
acquainted with him to the same extent.

But then, how can we enter into the soul of Socrates,
since he left nothing in writing? Is it not this very
difficulty of adopting his point of view which induces
historians to seek one from without ?

Perhaps the difficulty is partly artificial. It showed
itself most prominently when Schleiermacher advanced
the principle that, for an exposition of the Socratic
doctrine to be a faithful one, it must above all else
explain how Plato came to regard Socrates as the
promoter of his philosophic activity. From this stand-
point a comparison was made between the Socrates of
Xenophon and the Socrates of Plato and Aristotle, and
the two were found to differ widely. Naturally, the
followers of Schleiermacher adopted the views of Plato
and Aristotle, and so the authority of the only one of
our witnesses who was a historian by profession, and
who had made it his business to tell us what Socrates
had really been in his own person, was discredited.

SOCRATES 13

A change, however, has come about since then.
Whilst the champions of Xenophon and Plato were
wrangling over Schleiermacher's theory, a less biassed
criticism compared the testimonies of Xenophon, Plato
and Aristotle with one another. Now, these testimonies
have been found to agree as regards the main issue.1
Henceforth, to an impartial critic, the authority of
Xenophon was restored. The charge might still be
brought against him that he set forth the person and
teachings of his master more or less incompletely, though
not that he presented them in a wrong light. If such be
the case, the historian of the present day has the right,
not only to invoke the testimony of Xenophon, along
with those of Plato and Aristotle, but even to assign
the greatest importance to this testimony, for Xenophon
is the only one of the three who does nothing more
than repeat what he personally knew. True, the
immediate object of his work would appear to have
been to refute the harangue of Polycrates, the rhetor,
about the year 393 B.C. ; none the less, Xenophon
must have brought to his task those qualities of fidelity
and impartiality that distinguish his strictly historical
narratives.

Of course, we must not repeat the mistake made by
the historians of old, who, reading Xenophon in a very
superficial manner, saw depicted only the account of a
simple-minded moralist ; we must allow Plato and
Aristotle to breathe life into and complete the picture
sketched by Xenophon. Still, it would be wise to use
the contributions of the two former only as a scholar
uses a hypothesis, that is, in stating or asking questions,
not in solving or answering them. To analyse the
data of Xenophon, interpreting and developing them

1 Such is the opinion of Zeller, Grote and Fouiltee.

i4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

according to a scientific induction whose leading ideas
are to be supplied by Plato and Aristotle : such seems
to be the method we must pursue, if we would know
Socrates in a really historical fashion.

Along with Xenophon's Memorabilia we must con-
sider Plato's Apology, which most critics1 look upon as
trustworthy with regard to facts ; also certain portions,
difficult to define, it must be confessed, of the Crito,
Phaedo, Laches and The Banquet.

Now, what is the root thought of Socrates, regarded,
as far as possible, from his own point of view ?

II

The first result we obtain, if we take the Memorabilia
as the main source of the history of Socratic thought, is
a confession of ignorance as to what happened previous
to the last ten years of the philosopher's career. The
temptation is almost irresistible to seek in other works
for some means of going back to an earlier year in
Socrates' life than the Memorabilia allow. For instance,
Fouillee believes he has found, in the famous passage of
the Phaedo on the early philosophical reflections of
Socrates,2 and the coincidence of this text with the
Clouds of Aristophanes, the proof that Socrates, before
devoting himself to moral research, passed through a
previous stage, in which he was engaged in speculations
on nature. Disappointed in this direction, he would
appear to have fallen back on morals for a solution
of the very problem of ancient Greek philosophy : that
of the explanation of the universe. Besides the fact,
however, that the Memorabilia contain no indication

1 Schleiermacher, Zeller, tlberweg and Grote.
2 Ch. xlv. sqq.

SOCRATES 15

whatever of such a starting-point, the statement of the
Socrates of the Phaedo contradicts the formal declara-
tions of the Socrates of the Apology, where it is affirmed
that he never studied physics.1 The objection may be
urged that the character of Socrates in the Clouds must
rest upon some historical basis. But it is precisely
when speaking of the Clouds that Socrates makes this
solemn declaration in the Apology. True, the question
is decided by dismissing the Apology , under the pretext
that it is a speech, and alleging that the text of the
Phaedo itself gives one the impression of historical
reality. Such preference, however, is unjustified. As
it is the object of the text of the Phaedo to show us the
origin of the theory of ideas, which theory, moreover,
is likewise attributed to Socrates, it is best to attribute to
Plato himself the reflections with which this exposition
commences. The Apology is certainly possessed of
historical value, as is proved, along with other details,
by the strange prediction Socrates made to the judges,2
that, when he was dead, the Athenians would find a far
greater number of censors (eXey^oi/re?) rising up against
them, and these would be all the more unpleasant
because they would be younger. . This prediction,
which does not appear to have come to pass, would
certainly have been omitted in an apology invented by
Plato himself. But if Socrates indeed challenged his
listeners to prove that he ever even mentioned physics,3
how could we affirm the contrary ? Shall we set the
fiction of a comic poet above the testimony of Socrates
himself ?

Consequently, we will abandon the attempt to dis-
cover what ideas Socrates held in youth and even in

1 Ch. iii. p. 19 c D. 2 Ch. xxx. p. 39 c D. Cf. Grote.

3 Ch. iii. p. 19 D.

1 6 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

mature age. Besides, we have ground to suppose they
were in conformity with those he held at the end of his
life, for Socrates, in the Apology^ tells his listeners that
the reason they are prejudiced against him, and look
upon him as a physicist and a sophist, is that ever
since they were children they have been deceived by
his enemies regarding himself.1 At all events, to
claim to throw light on the Socrates of his latter years
by the Socrates of the Clouds period is trying to
explain the known by the unknown.

The starting-point of the established doctrine of
Socrates we shall find in his critical reflections on the
two disciplines which then occupied men's minds :
physics and sophistic.

Socrates never applied himself to physics. The
testimony of Plato 2 and Aristotle 3 is a proof of this,
without mentioning that of Xenophon. There can be
no doubt, however, that he had studied the subject,
though it was principally as a philosopher that he
was interested in it. It was not the details of the
science, the particular theories which in all probability
were the main object of research on the part of the
ancient physiologists, that he cared about, but rather
those general principles that controlled all the rest, the
mechanical or dynamical conceptions of nature which
led philosophers to explain everything without having
recourse to supernatural powers. Is being one or
multiple ; is it in motion or at rest ; is it subject to a
state of becoming and destruction, or is it exempt from
generation and corruption ? Such were the philosophical
questions that physiologists asked themselves.4

Socrates wasted no time in examining one by one

1 Ch. ii. p. 18 c. 3 Met. i. 6. 987 b i.

2 Apol. ch. iii. p. 19 D. 4 Xenophon, Mem. i. i. 14.

SOCRATES 17

the different doctrines to which the idea of natural
physics had given birth. He condemned them en bloc,
as being useless, barren and sacrilegious.

Physics was useless, for physicists were unable to
agree on a single point. Some maintained that being is
one, the rest that it is infinitely multiple ; some that
everything is in motion, the rest that everything is for
ever motionless, and so on.1 Now, contradiction is a
sign of ignorance.

And it was barren as well. Do those who trouble
about such matters, said Socrates, imagine that when
they have discovered the law of necessity according to
which everything is produced, they will be able to make
the winds, waters and seasons at their own pleasure ? 2

And these two features were themselves the result
of a radical vice : to wit, the sacrilegious nature of
the task. All that is, said Socrates, may be divided
into two categories,3 human things (ra avOpaTreia), such
as pious and impious, beautiful and ugly, just and
unjust, matters dealing with civic life and authority,4
and divine things (&u/*owa), such as the formation of
the world,5 or even the distant and final consequences
of our actions.6 Now, the gods have given us power
to know the former by reasoning ; the latter they have
reserved for themselves.7 Physicists, when speculating
on things divine and neglecting the human, invert the
order set up by the gods themselves : they disdain
knowledge which the gods have placed within our
reach, and try to acquire that knowledge the gods have
reserved for themselves.

It is noteworthy that Pascal makes a similar dis-

1 Xenophon, Mem. iv. 2. 4 Ibid. i. i. 16.

2 Ibid. i. i. z5. 6 Ibid. i. i. n.

3 Ibid. i. i. 12. ° Ibid. i. i. 8.

7 Ibid. i. i. 7-8.

i8

tinction. He also1 divides things into human and
divine, and accuses men of having perverted the order
established by God when they use profane things as they
ought to use sacred ones, and vice versa, that is to say,
when they consider profane things with the heart and
divine ones with the mind. To Pascal, however, it is
physical things that are profane and moral ones that are
divine.

Both this resemblance and this difference enable us
all the better to understand the thought of Socrates.
The same religious spirit, both in Socrates and Pascal,
sets a limit upon human reason. To the Hellene,
however, man himself is his own master ; it is nature,
with its mysteries and remoteness, that is divine. To
the modern man and the Christian it is the infinitude of
the interior life that is divine, and nature, brute, passive
matter, that is the object set before human activity.

The original cause of Socrates' condemnation of
ancient physics may be found in the stock or fund of
ideas peculiar to his nation. Greece could not wholly
adapt herself to those speculations on the principles of
things into which physiologists had plunged. Doubt-
less the power of reasoning, the ingenious subtilty and
wonderful sense of harmony displayed by these pro-
found investigators, were a good thing, but the imme-
diate application of these mental qualities to material
objects most foreign to mankind was opposed to the
genius of a race that was essentially political, and
mightily enamoured of fine speeches and noble deeds.
Besides, how could one reconcile a philosophy which
undertook to explain physical phenomena by perfectly
natural causes with a religion which everywhere intro-
duced the immediate action of the gods? Certainly

1 De I' Esprit giom. 2nd frag.

SOCRATES 19

they were Greeks who had planned these beautiful
systems in which nature was subject to the laws of
thought ; still, they were citizens of the colonies, and had
dealings with the Egyptians, Phoenicians and Babylonians.
They had created the form : the East had supplied
them with the matter. To detach human affairs from
the totality of things, to make them the proper domain
of man's activity and intelligence, and at the same time to
restore physical phenomena once more to the gods, was
to place oneself again in the position of the Hellene :
more especially of the Athenian. This was quite
natural for the philosopher who never left Athens except
to fight in the ranks of his fellow-citizens.

Socrates' judgment on physics, therefore, is no for-
tuitous accidental fact ; it is not the outcome of a posi-
tive, a prosaically utilitarian mind. It is not even
altogether that depreciation of the past, habitual to
innovators, that antagonism to a rival idea : the condi-
tion of the realisation and development of the new idea
which claims the right to exist. Socrates' objections to
physics are the philosophic expression of that antipathy
of a religious, artistic people to a mechanical explana-
tion of things, whereof Aristophanes set himself up as
the interpreter in the Clouds. The real Socrates flouts
the Socrates of Aristophanes, as do the people. The
only difference is that he knows better why he does so.

But this very discernment of his prevents him from
altogether condemning the work of the physicists.
Though declaring it useless, barren and sacrilegious, he
yet discovers in it a principle which he is jealously
anxious to adopt. This principle is the form and
mould, so to speak, of Hellenic thought into which the
physiologists cast the matter they borrowed from the
East : it is the consciousness, henceforth acquired by

20 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

the human mind, of its need of unity and harmony ;
the notion of an impersonal truth, distinct from opinion
and fancy ; the abstract idea of science. When
Socrates asks the physiologists l if the reason they
undertake to speculate on divine things lies in the fact
that they think they know enough of human things, he
evidently retains of ancient physics the general idea of
science as being a special, a superior mode of know-
ledge, whilst leaving on one side the object to which this
idea has hitherto been applied.

And so the general idea of science does not spring
forth all at once in the mind of Socrates, with the intui-
tion of genius, as one might imagine from Schleier-
macher's profound though abstruse dissertation. Nor
is it the reaction of subjectivism against objectivism, a
reaction which was evidently determined by the excesses
of objectivism itself, in accordance with the general law
of the development of the human mind, as appears to
be admitted by the former Hegelian, Zeller. This idea
of science is nothing else than the proper share of the
Hellenic genius in the formation of ancient physics.
Socrates' work lies in freeing it from the foreign
elements with which it was confused, owing to a subtle
distinction between matter and form which the different
opponents of the physiologists had been unable to draw.
In this he was doubtless aided by his power of inven-
tion, as well as by his singularly Hellenic turn of
mind. In him the Greek genius recognised its own
good fortune through the scientific form that the
physiologists had given to the practical knowledge or
astronomical speculations of the Orientals.

Though Socrates concerned himself with physics, he
paid even more attention to sophistic. Here he dis-

1 Mem. i. i. 12.

SOCRATES 21

tinguished two things : the end and the means. In his
opinion, the end or object of sophistic was to make
men capable of speaking and acting well, of managing
efficiently the business of city and home, in a word, of
being useful to others as well as to themselves.1 The
means consisted solely of exercise and routine, the
immediate practice of that action the capacity for
which it is one's object to acquire, and so the Sophist,
in the mind of Socrates, is the man who identifies the
means with the end, who considers, for instance, that,
in order to learn to speak well, all that is necessary is
to hear others speak and to speak oneself, without
taking the trouble to study theoretically the conditions
of eloquence. Practice is sufficient in itself. Talent is
like some physical aptitude which men acquire by being
shaped and drilled to acquire it.

Socrates approved of the object of this discipline,
though he condemned the method employed.

It was not ironically that he called the sophistic art
the finest and greatest of them all, a truly royal art.2
If we consider nothing but the end set up for human
activity, we find that Socrates is not only in agreement
with the Sophists, he is himself one of them. Like the
Sophists, he considers that man should trouble himself
about none but human affairs. Like them, he thinks
that, apart from and above men engaged in special pro-
fessions and trades, carpenters, pilots, and doctors, etc.,
there is man, pure and simple, who calls for and
deserves distinct culture and training. Evidently
Socrates does not limit philosophy to the study of
human things for the same reason as do the Sophists.
The latter extolled mankind because they denied the
existence of the gods. Socrates sees the proof of the

1 Mem. iv. 3. i ; iv. 2. n. 2 Ibid. iv. 2. ti.

22 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

existence and greatness of the gods in the very limits
imposed on man. Socrates and the Sophists arrive at
the same conclusion, though along different paths.

In this comparison between Socrates and the Sophists
there is nothing disparaging to our philosopher if we
form a correct idea of sophistic. The Sophists were
something more than the destroyers of whom Zeller
speaks, something more than that impersonal echo of the
prevailing morals that Grote would have us believe. It
fell to the creators of sophistic, men like Protagoras and
Gorgias, to be the first to conceive of the legitimacy
and utility of intellectual culture of a general nature,
applied not to some particular faculty, but to the man him-
self, in such a way as to make him capable of acting nobly
under all circumstances. To gymnastics the national
education had now added music, or the teaching of
knowledge which moulds the intelligence.! The Sophists,
however, rose to a loftier conception of education, the
end of which they regarded as being not only the intro-
duction into the mind of more or less determined
knowledge, but also the creation of universal aptitudes.
In doing this it may be said that they brought within
the sphere of consciousness the principle which had
long controlled the practical life of the Hellene^ and
which showed itself in a strange admiration for men
fertile in expedients, and skilled in getting out of a
difficulty under all circumstances j men like Ulysses,
Themistocles or Alcibiades. The special form the
Sophists gave to their principle indicates even more
clearly its Hellenic nature, for it was essentially in the
ability and skill to speak and debate that they placed a
man's peculiar wortrj it was to develop this virtue in
their pupils that they established what might be called
intellectual gymnastics.

SOCRATES 23

No wonder Socrates approved of whatever there was
in sophistic that was lofty and in conformity with the
genius of the race. But he did not therefore accept the
principles of the Sophists.

Indeed, the thought came to him to find out if per-
formance came up to promise, and if the Sophists really
carried out that intellectual and moral education the
excellence of which they well understood. It must be
confessed that the process he adopted to assure himself
thereof was that of a man prepossessed in favour of a
contrary doctrine, rather than that of an impartial critic
who unreservedly sees things from the point of view of
his interlocutors. He did not trouble about seeing
people at work, or trying to discover if the pupils of
the Sophists behaved as clever politicians, just, clear-
sighted men. He started with the idea that the proof
of ability was knowledge, and that the proof of know-
ledge was the power to explain to others what one
knows.1 Then he went about the town, questioning
the Sophists and their pupils, calling upon them to tell
him what piety, justice, courage and virtue were, and
satisfactorily to answer all possible questions thereon,
without ever contradicting themselves. Not one came
successfully out of this test ; so Socrates concluded that,
though the Sophists made fine promises, their perform-
ances were not in conformity with them.

Now, what but the method employed by the Sophists
could be the cause of their failure ? This method con-
sisted of practice left to itself and rejecting all theory
as vain and useless ; it was art considered as its own
means and end.

Here Socrates saw a double error. In the first place,
art cannot be an end unto itself. Consider bodily

1 Mem. iv. 6. i ; iii. 3. n. Cf. Laches, 190 C.

24 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

gymnastics. If you admit this to be an absolute end,
you will be led to attach as much importance to tricks
of strength which deform the body as to the well-
planned exercises which make it supple and strong.
It is the same with intellectual gymnastics. In itself
it is quite as likely to make men more unjust and
wicked as to make them more just and noble.1 Will it
have the same value, then, in both cases ?

There is more than this, however. Not only cannot
art be an end unto itself; it cannot come into being
from exercise and practice alone. If art for art's sake
is dangerous, art by means of art is impossible. Is it
imagined, as Aristotle says later on, that, according to
Socrates' meaning, in teaching a man the trade of a
shoemaker, it is sufficient to place in his hands a collec-
tion of ready-made shoes ? 2 To call forth art itself is
a very different thing from imparting the products of
art. A pupil trained by external means can, more or
less faithfully, reproduce whatever he has seen his master
do, but he has not within him that general, self-sufficing
ability which constitutes true art. Art is independence,
whereas such a pupil is his master's slave.3

Art by means of art is, in a word, routine, ignorance,
chance. Now, a man must be very simple-minded if
he thinks that, whereas it is impossible to become a
carpenter, pilot, or general unless one possesses special
knowledge of these different professions, all the same,
skill in the general conduct of life can spring up within
us as the result of mere chancel Take any mental
quality you please, if, in acquiring it, you restrict your-
self to practice alone, you can never be certain you will

1 Mem. iv. 3. i. 2 Arist. Soph. Elench. 184 a i.

3 Mt'm. iv. 7. i : a&TdpKeis iv rcus 7rpocnr;Koij<rais Trpd^effiv.

4 I*>id. iv. 2. 2 sqq. ; iii. 5. 21 sqq.

SOCRATES 25

not end in the very opposite of what you are aiming at.
Take justice, for instance. The man who has learnt it
by nothing but practice and routine will regard it as
consisting of certain determined modes of action : e.g.
never stealing or deceiving another. Deceit is just, when
you are dealing with enemies ; and so is pillage, when
it is the foe you are plundering.1

But if art is insufficient unto itself, where can it find
the rule and principle it needs ? Nowhere but in just
ideas on the use of mental qualities, and on the con-
ditions of these very qualities : in a word, it can find
them only in science. \The Sophists missed their goal
because they were too eager, and made straight for it,
instead of proceeding along the winding path which
alone could have led them to it. Before laying claim
to skill in practical speech or deed, one must acquire
that theoretical knowledge which alone confers general
ability.2 We are good at the things with which we are
acquainted, and bad at those we know nothing about.3
Art implies science : a thing the Sophists did not see.

Such were the views of Socrates regarding physics
and sophistic. One judgment was the reverse of the
other. He blamed the physiologists for not having
that sense of human affairs which he praised the
Sophists for possessing : he blamed the Sophists for
being without that conception of science which he
found in the physiologists. The latter had applied the
form of science to something that goes beyond it: the
Sophists had omitted to apply it to the thing that re-
quires and admits of it. Physics was science isolated
from art and practical life, losing itself in empty specu-
lations; sophistic was art isolated from science and so
reduced to dangerous routine.

1 Mem. iv. 2. 14 sqq. 2 Ibid. iv. 3. i ; iii. 9. 4. 3 Laches, 194 D.

26 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Such an appreciation of physics and sophistic natur-
ally led Socrates to collect and combine the principles
which to him appeared viable in each of these two
disciplines, i.e. scientific form, on the one hand, and
exclusive preoccupation about human things, on the
other. By applying to the object of sophistic the scien-
tific form invented by the physiologists, there would be
established a wisdom as useful as art and as universal
and communicable as science, capable of moulding man
and influencing his morals, capable also of being self-
sufficient and defending itself against objections, in a
word, proportioned to the forces and the needs of
human nature.

iThis idea of a union of science and art is the very
germ of Socratic philosophy.) Socrates does not first
cultivate science and art separately, and make them
serve each other afterwards. To his mind, each strays
from the path whenever it claims to be journeying alone.
In their close co-operation, their mutual penetration, lies
the condition of their existence and success.

Here we find determined the general object of
Socrates' investigations. This object is the domain he
clearly discerned and circumscribed between things divine
and the mechanical arts, i.e. human nature in what-
ever it offers of a general and definable character ; l it is
real and substantial human happiness, as distinct from
imaginary, fragile and delusive happiness ; 2 it is the art of
using men and human things well, not only under certain
circumstances and by chance, but with certainty and under
all circumstances ; 3 in a word, it is all that is necessary
and sufficient for the making of an honest man.

Such was his idea when he went about repeating
the Apollonian maxim : Tif&Ot a-avrov. According to

1 Mem. i. i. 16. 2 Apol. 36 D. 3 Mem. iv. i. 2.

SOCRATES 27

Socrates to know oneself was not simply to be con-
scious, under all circumstances, of what one is or is not,
capable. It meant entering deep into one's own soul,
beyond the particular and the fleeting, to find the one
identical, permanent substratum. It meant finding that
secret nature we carry about everywhere with us, and
which contains within itself the conditions of our wisdom
and happiness far more than do external things. In a
word, the Socratic maxim is an exhortation to become
conscious of whatever in us is general.

Socrates does not consider the Tvwdt <ravrov as simply
the first step in the search after the whole of truth. He
does not mean that knowledge of self is the condition of
attaining to all other knowledge, and that once it is
acquired we shall be in a position to enter upon the
search for all the rest. The TvwOt, a-avrov is the end
as well as the beginning of science ; there can be no
other science for man to acquire than that of himself.

True, we read in the Phaedrus of Plato l that Socrates
regards it as ridiculous to trouble about other things,
when one is still ignorant of oneself ; this passage would
seem to indicate that Socrates merely postpones physical
and theological research, not that he rejects it. Here,
however, he is speaking ironically. To his mind, the
time will never come for taking up the science of
universal being, because man will never know himself
completely. Probably no one, before the time of Socrates,
was as conscious as he was of the infinite complexity and
the unfathomable profundity of man's moral nature, as
we see from the passage just quoted in the Phaedrus :
" I am trying to find out," he says, " whether I am
more complicated and wicked than the serpent Typhon,
or if I am of a simple nature, participating in divinity."

1 229 E.

28 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

How could Socrates recognise research — even so far as
to postpone it — which had not man for its object ? Apart
from human things, there are none but physical or divine
things and the mechanical arts. Now, the former are
beyond man's reach,1 and the rest, such as the art of the
shoemaker, the carpenter, the wrestler, and the pan-
cratiast, are practised very well by special men, without
the aid of theoretical science.2

Moreover, wisdom, when thus restricted to man, is
that which is of the greatest interest to him. Indeed,
what most dignifies human nature if it be not freedom,
independence with regard to other men and external
matters, and the possession of everything necessary for
good conduct and happiness ? Now, what kind of
occupation is capable of conferring on us this divine
independence ? Not the mechanical arts, subjected to
the needs of the body ; not advanced astronomy and
geometry, difficult and useless sciences, whose object
is quite foreign to the human soul.3 Close investiga-
tion will reveal to us the fact that, under all circumstances,
it is one and the same thing that makes man dependent
and a slave, to wit, ignorance of real good and evil,
ignorance of himself.4 Therefore, what is to set man
free and enable him to be sufficient unto himself, under all
circumstances,5 is science, not any particular science, but
the knowledge of what we are and of what tallies with
our nature.

(Thus, Socrates regards the science of human things
as the object most worthy of man's powers^ Great is
the distance, however, between the idea of such a science
and its realisation. The scientific form, as we find it in
ancient physiology, is not adapted to things dealing with

1 Mem. iv. 7. 6. 2 Ibid. iii. 5. 21 ; iv. 2. 12.

3 Ibid. iv. 7. 2. 4 Ibid. iv. 2. 22-23 ; i. i 16. 6 Ibid, iv, 7 i.

SOCRATES

29

the moral life, nor does art, as the Sophists conceived it,
lend itself to scientific development. For the physicists
science consisted in knowing the generation of things,
in being able to say whether there is only one substance
or several, whether everything is immovable or in
motion. How can these categories be applied to
intellectual and moral things? (On the other hand,
for the Sophists there is nothing fixed or universal in
human nature, good and happiness are entirely relative
to individuals) Human things offer for our study only
an infinite number of particular cases unconnected
with one another. How can such material be an object
of science ?

The idea, then, of a moral science such as Socrates
had conceived it, called forth a double task. On the
one hand, the idea of science had to be elaborated so
that it might be adapted to moral things ; on the other,
moral things had to be looked upon from such a bias,
so to speak, as to make them appear fit to become
objects of science. A mould suited to the matter had
to be made, and the matter rendered capable of flowing
into the mould. The mind of Socrates was directed to
the solution of this double problem. The results of
his reflections on both points may be grouped together
under the terms dialectic and ethic. Still, we must
not attribute to Socrates a dialectic and an ethic distinct
from each other. The characteristic of his dialectic is
that it is built up with a view to his ethic, and the
characteristic of his ethic is that it is the working out
of his dialectic. They are only two phases of one and
the same discipline : the more or less artificial duplica-
tion of the " Moral Science."

In this sense, in what do the dialectic and ethic of
Socrates consist ? In the details of his philosophy shall

30 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

we find those characteristics that seem to us to have
indicated his general conception of human wisdom ?

Ill

Both Zeller and Schleiermacher maintain that
Socrates, far from being a merely popular moralist,
does not limit himself to moral philosophy : he follows
after true science, the science of the essence of things.
First of all, he forms a universal conception of science,
regarding it as consisting of the methodical determina-
tion of the concept or the expression of the general
element of the things given. Then, in accordance with
the law of the human mind, he applies this universal
form to the particular incomplete object with which
experience supplies him. This object happens to be
human life. The subsequent task of the Socratics
consists in applying this very form to the other domains
of reality.1

According to this interpretation, the Socratic theory
of science would appear to have a distinct existence.
Logically, if not chronologically, it would seem to be
anterior to and independent of the Socratic ethic ; a
system of symbols which the philosopher had created
from quite an abstract point of view, and without con-
sidering the peculiar nature of the things he had
undertaken to investigate.

It cannot be denied but that this interpretation
accords with the destiny of Socratic philosophy. Indeed,
we find Plato and Aristotle applying to the whole study
of nature a method analogous to the one employed by
Socrates in the investigation of moral questions.

1 Schleiermacher, Werke, iii. 2, p. 300 sqq. ; Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. 3rd
edition, vol. ii. 93 sqq.

SOCRATES 31

But does an interpretation need only to be in
agreement with the historical fortune of a philosophy
for us to regard it as the faithful expression of the
thought of the philosopher himself? To find out what
a thing is in its true nature by what it subsequently
becomes is a method dear to Hegelians. Indeed,
to their mind, creation is being itself. It does not
seem, however, to be without reason that Pascal said :
"Sometimes the self-same thoughts develop quite
differently in others from the way in which they
develop in their author." How many principles
expand or shrink, become modified or transformed,
when they pass from one mind to another which
examines them from its own point of view ! We
could not say with Schleiermacher and the Hegelians :
u To know what Socrates was, we must above all find
out how Plato came to regard him as his master."
For Plato may have applied the Socratic method to
objects for which it was not meant.

Now, if we consider the main elements of this
method, one by one, we shall find that, in the form
in which they appear in Socrates' speeches, they can
be explained only by a continual preoccupation upon
the moral object to which they are to be applied. We
shall not find Socrates determining the idea of science
for itself, and afterwards applying it to morals. Science,
he imagines, can be separated from morals only in a
totally abstract manner, in language, if you will, never
in the nature of things. In a word, we shall find
Socrates stating the logical problem in the following
terms : of what should science consist, in order that
virtue and happiness may become objects of science ?

First of all, the criterion of science, in the mind of

32 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Socrates, is agreement with itself, and the power to
get accepted infallibly by all, what one thinks he
knows.1 Socrates does not show himself anxious to
confront philosophical doctrines with the nature of
things as this nature is capable of existing in itself,
independently of the conceptions of the human mind.
According to him, the necessary and all-sufficient con-
dition of certainty lies in the double agreement of man
with himself and with the rest of mankind ; in other
words, in the agreement of the human mind with itself.

Now, this principle, new to philosophy, would
indeed be strange were the knowledge of being and
of the universal principles of nature the object of
philosophy. In that case, if we would understand
Socrates' doctrine, we should have to infer that he was
already identifying human thought with the principle
of being in general. But such identification was
possible only when several regions had been distin-
guished in the human mind, and the existence of an
eternal reason had therein been found. Such an
analysis was the distinctive work of Plato and Aris-
totle. Socrates, for his part, clearly distinguishes
opinion from reasoning, but he goes no farther ; he
considers that our power of reasoning cannot claim to
know the first principles and final ends of things.

On the other hand, it may well be understood that
the agreement of the human mind with itself should be
looked upon as the criterium of truth, if we are dealing
only with truth in moral affairs. For it is quite
natural to admit that, innate in the human mind, there
is the general idea of what is suitable for man, and that
this intellectual substratum is the same in all individuals.
It is this that is called common sense, a sure guide so

1 Alcibiades I. iii. D-E ; Mem. iv. 6. i and 15.

SOCRATES 33

long as we are concerned with the conduct of life, but
pregnant with error when dealing with the knowledge
of the laws of the universe.

Now, to what object must one apply oneself to
realise that agreement with oneself and the rest of the
world which forms the condition of certainty ? In
other words, what is the matter proper to science ?

Here we find what constitutes the essence of the
logical doctrine of Socrates, that original and fruitful
principle which was to remain the guide of the human
mind for two thousand years. Science, asserted Socrates,
has for its object that which is general. There is no
science of the individual, of the accidental, of particular
things as they are presented to us. The object of the
science of courage, for instance, is not courageous
deeds, it is that which is common to all courageous
deeds, it is the answer to the question : rL ea-rcv q
avSpeia ; it is, as Plato says later on,1 TO Bia Travrav
Trepl avSpeias 7r€(f>v/c6<;.2

This maxim is the very one advanced to prove that
Socrates considered science in itself, apart from the
matter to which it must be applied. But though it
is true that the maxim of Socrates became after his
time a logical and even metaphysical doctrine superior
to any particular domain, it does not therefore follow
that it was so to himself. This will be evident if,
instead of considering it separately, it is replaced in
the ensemble of the Socratic philosophy.

The whole work of Xenophon 3 clearly shows that
Socrates never sought the general except in human things.

Consequently the matter at issue has less bearing on
the question of fact than on that of right.

1 See Mem. i. i. 16. 2 Laches, 192 E.

3 See principally Mem. i. i. 16.

34 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

What was it that Socrates meant by the general, and
why did he see in it the only object that admitted of
scientific knowledge ?

By the general, Socrates did not mean the simple
permanent element which may lie hidden in the com-
pound things that strike our senses. In reality, that
is not the general ; it is rather substance, that is to say,
the very object which physicists had considered and
which Socrates regards as inaccessible. On the other
hand, the general is not yet to him what it will be to
Plato and Aristotle : the normal type of a species, the
natural being as it would be if the cause peculiar to it
were acting alone without being opposed, as happens
in the sensible world, by outer influences. The general,
of which Socrates speaks, is not related to the material
world, nor even to an intelligible world : strictly
speaking, it is the common substratum of men's
speeches and actions. Socrates starts with the idea
that the reason we use one and the same word, justice,
to designate quite different modes of action, such as
doing good to one's friends and doing evil to one's
enemies, lies in the fact that we have in mind a certain
notion which is single in its nature, and the object of
which we find in the various actions we designate as
just. And as men, when they talk to one another in
good faith, come sooner or later to agree as to the use
of their words, the ideas represented by these words are
bound to be identical in the minds of all.

And now, why does Socrates make the general, thus
understood, the proper object of science ?

Because he finds in it the necessary and sufficient
condition of that agreement with oneself and others
which, in his mind, is the mark of knowledge.

Apart from these determined, fixed notions, which

SOCRATES 35

form the foundations of words, there is no guiding-
mark for the mind in its reasonings, and therefore no
means of coming to an understanding with oneself and
others. On the other hand, it is sufficient to make
one's discourse conform to those general notions on
which all men are agreed, to be sure of obtaining the
assent of one's interlocutors. Why does Homer call
Ulysses an orator sure of success? Because Ulysses,
in his discourse, is guided by ideas which all men
accept : Sia rwv SOKOVVTOW dvdpcorroi^.1

Francis Bacon, the modern legislator of the sciences
of nature, said, not without reason, that from human
language one can deduce only words, not things, if we
would know the nature of the external world ; but
human language is certainly the first testimony that
must be consulted if it is desired to become acquainted
with the thoughts and wishes of the human mind.
There is nothing to indicate that the categories of
language reproduce those of things ; but it is evident
they are an image of the categories of our thoughts
and actions. The discourse of men can supply the
physicist only with an altogether provisional ensemble
of signs and conjectures. Such language, when dealing
with moral philosophy, is the very thing we have to.
fathom.

If we now consider in detail the method of Socrates,
we find that it consists of two parts which may be
designated by the names of exterior form and logical
substratum. The former consists of dialogue along
with certain features peculiar to Socrates, such as irony
and maieutics, as well as the leading rble assigned to
self-possession and love. Logical substratum consists

1 Mem. iv. 6. 15.

36 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of definition and induction. Each of these parts, accord-
ing to Socrates, has a special aspect.

Zeller says that the reason Socrates makes use of the
dialogue form is that he is conscious of his own ignor-
ance, because of the contradictions he finds in the
various systems of philosophy, and that it is his desire
to escape from this state of ignorance. Hence, accord-
ing to Zeller, his disposition to appeal to others, with
the object of discovering if perchance they are in
possession of the very science he lacks.

This explanation is not altogether satisfactory. In
the first place, Socrates does not consult his interlocutors
on things in general, but only on what concerns man-
kind : he expects to learn nothing from the dialogue
form — any more than from any other method of in-
vestigation— about physical things. Then, too, Socrates
does not see in the dialogue form merely a convenient
and suggestive method of philosophising ; to his
mind dialectic cannot be distinguished from wisdom
itself.

Though investigation into the causes of the world is
a matter of solitary speculation, it is not the same with
investigation into the conditions of human life. How
can man be known, except by conversing with men ?
And if science consists in discovering the points on
which all men are agreed, and which form the substratum
of all their judgments (ra fiaKicrra opoX.oyovfjieva), what
shorter and more certain method can one have than to
bring together men's opinions and compare them with
one another ? In a word, if science must be used for
instructing men and persuading them of things of which
we have become certain, once for all, is not methodical
conversation, from its beginning right on to its end,
an integral part of philosophy and wisdom ?

SOCRATES 37

Consequently, it is not from modesty, from deference
to the science of others, that Socrates constantly speaks
of examining things in common, Kotvfj (3ov\€ve<r0ai,,1
Koivrf a-KeTTTecrOai,, tcoivf) tyreiv, (rvtyrelv : this form of
investigation is implied in the very object he has in
view. For a dissertation on the principles of nature,
writing is sufficient ; but to know men and succeed in
convincing them, one must converse with them.

Socratic dialogue frequently assumes the form of
irony. Socrates puts his questions without ever answer-
ing them,2 and thus brings his interlocutor either to the
point of contradicting himself or coming to a dead stop,
and acknowledging his ignorance of the very things he
thought he knew.3

Now, the use of such a method is far more compre-
hensible when dealing with the knowledge of human
things than when dealing with that of nature. How,
when dealing with external things, can a man confine
himself to questioning others without bringing their asser-
tions face to face with reality itself? In order profitably
to undertake such questioning, would not a man need
previously to have shown himself competent in both
physics and metaphysics ? And again, would not the
listeners also need to be specially competent if their
judgment on the discussion is to be of any value ? But
when dealing with human things, every one is competent,
for he bears within himself just the touchstone needed
for the testing of opinions. In conversation itself, the
questioner may find all that is needed for proving that
his interlocutor is not only in flagrant contradiction with
himself, but with the very nature of things as well.
Moreover, is it not especially such human qualities as

1 Mem. iv. 5. 12. 2 Arist. Soph. el. ch. xxxiii.

3 Plat. Repub. i. 337 A E ; Sophistes, 183 B.

38 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

piety and justice, courage and virtue, with whose nature
every man thinks he is acquainted, though really such
is not the case ? The physiologists would not have
accepted the contest to which Socrates invited his inter-
locutors. Only such men as were occupied in moral
affairs could submit to such a mode of questioning :
only they, in fact, did so.

It is the same with maieutics. Socrates would have
us think that he is barren as regards wisdom ; but by
his questions he helps others to bring to birth what they
bear in their own mind, and that unconsciously. Then,
after thus eliciting the secret ideas of his interlocutors,
he carefully examines whether the offspring of their soul
is nothing but fancy, or fruit that is real and capable of
living.1 What must we think of such a method ?

Socrates, we are told, considers himself barren as
regards wisdom. What kind of wisdom is here meant,
if not practical wisdom, which indeed has the strange
characteristic of being, in one aspect, incapable of com-
munication, of existing within us only if it is ourself,
of being produced within our person only if it springs
forth from our own inmost nature ?

How is Socrates able to generate, in the minds of
his interlocutors, ideas likely to be true and capable of
living ? This doctrine is a very strange one, if we are
dealing with physical or metaphysical truths. That
audacious doctrine which identifies the mind of man
with the principle of things is nowhere to be found in
Socrates : if it happens that he predicts the future 2 it
is not by the might of his intelligence alone, but owing
to a mysterious and quite supernatural revelation.
Maieutics, however, is a very reasonable and legitimate
method, if our object is to bring moral truths before

1 Theaet. 149, 157 c. 2 Mem. i. i. 5.

SOCRATES 39

men, for these truths are nothing but the expression
and reflective knowledge of human nature : and human
nature is what every man has within himself. The
fiction of Meno is a Platonic and paradoxical extension
of Socratic maieutics. Socrates, for his part, elicits
from the minds of his listeners only knowledge that
relates to piety, justice, temperance, courage, urban
government, and everything that goes to make up an
honourable man.1

Finally, how can Socrates, who professes to be ignor-
ant, rightly estimate the true value of the fruit which
he assists human intelligence in bringing forth ? Are
we not here dealing exclusively with those moral and
practical ideas upon which every man, in his human
capacity, is competent, when in forming his judgments
he imposes silence on his distinctive tastes and passions
and puts himself just at that point of view, superior to
the individual, which Socrates had defined ?

Dialectic, besides, possesses two very remarkable
moral conditions : self-possession and love : eyKpdreia
and 6/9o>9*

" To those who are self-possessed, and to them only,
is it given to investigate the best in everything, and,
distinguishing things by a dialectic of actions and words,
according as they belong to the good or the evil, to
choose the one and abstain from the other." 2 It is
because dialectic has for its object the determination of
the value of things, from the moral and human point
of view, that self-possession is its essential condition.
Indeed, the true moral value of things lies in the interest
they offer to human nature in general, not to the indi-
vidual, regarded from the standpoint of his tastes and
passions, which are superficial and fleeting. Now, it is

1 Mem. i. i. 16. 2 Ibid. iv. 5. n.

40 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

owing to self-control that man, in his judgments, lays
his individual and accidental preferences on one side.

And finally, love, epw?, plays an important part in
the dialectic of Socrates. The same may be said regard-
ing all the Socratics. Not only Xenophon and Plato,
but also Euclid, Crito, Simmias and Antisthenes, have
written on the subject of love. What is the love\that
is here meant ? Doubtless Socrates does not mean
friendship, pure and simple, but rather affection mingled
with sense attraction. It is a kind of spiritual ardour
that enters the whole man, causing in him an emotion
that has nothing to do with mere friendship. Evidently
Socrates disparages physical love, though not in all its
elements. He retains its soul-uplifting charm, which
is lacking when the intelligence alone is at play.
He keeps, one might say, its vital impulse, if not its
object.1

This love, moreover, could not go to the point of
passion and frenzy, like the love of which Plato speaks in
Phaedrus. Even here self-possession is still a superior,
inviolable duty. The Platonic distinction between good
and evil frenzy would have been rejected by Socrates,
to whom all frenzy is slavery.

How is the rule that governs such a mental state to
be explained ?

Certainly Socrates does not dream of investing love
with the rble that Plato assigns to it, and which consists
in introducing us into the world of beauty, as into the
vestibule, as it were, of divine, transcendent truth. In
order that love might appear as endowed with such
power, it would have to be a state of rapture and ecstasy,
whereas Socratic love is inseparable from self-possession.
Already Socrates condemns poets for writing poetry

1 Xen. Banquet, ch. viii.

SOCRATES 41

not by science but by enthusiasm, a kind of divine
inspiration.1 With all the more reason would he have
condemned as sacrilegious the claim that the secrets
the gods have removed from our mental grasp could
be reached in a state of frenzy.

In investigations upon human things there is room
for a kind of love which combines sense attraction and
self-possession. In accordance with the principle of
maieutics, the soul must bring forth its wisdom from
itself, just as the body brings forth from itself the fruit
to which it gives birth. Therefore the soul, as well as
the body, must be impregnated. Love here intervenes
for the purpose of playing a part similar to that it
plays in physical procreation. Intelligences impregnate
each other, as bodies do. By the influence of noble
love the soul becomes big with noble thoughts and
feelings. " Orestes and Pylades, Theseus and Pirithous,
and several other demi-gods are famous . . . because,
admiring one another, they performed together the most
glorious deeds." 2 Moreover, it was a familiar idea
amongst the Greeks that the mutual love of youths
exalted their courage, and made them capable of mighty
actions.

And so we find that dialogue, irony, maieutics, self-
possession and love, all of which are elements of the
Socratic method, if regarded not as abstract formulas
but rather in their historical aspect, testify to a reflective
and exclusive preoccupation to establish the science of
morals. But, so far, these are nothing but the externals
of the method. What must we think of that which
constitutes their basis, to wit, of the process of refu-
tation which, in some way, makes up the negative
method, and of the processes of definition and induction

1 Plat. Apol. 22 B-C. 2 Xen. Banquet, ch. viii.

42 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of which the positive method consists ? Does it not
appear that here, at all events, we have to do with
instruments that are really of universal importance, and
with conditions, not merely of the science of morals,
but of science in general, whatever be its object ?

Of what does the Socratic refutation consist ? Socrates
begins by eliciting or drawing forth from the problem
in question the very datum he presupposes.1 For
instance, if he is told that any one man is a better
citizen than another, he asks his interlocutor what, in
his mind, constitutes a good citizen. When the other
man has replied, Socrates asks him additional questions,
dealing with cases to which the term " good citizen " is
generally applied. By this method he makes him give
answers that are incompatible with the original reply :
the result being that the definition put forward was
either too restricted or too wide, or defective in some
other way.2

Socrates applies this method of refutation to the
judgments either of ordinary men, politicians, poets and
artists of renown,3 professors of eloquence and virtue,
or of sophists ; in a word, he applies it to all ideas that
deal with morals ; but we do not find that he made use
of it to refute physical or metaphysical doctrines. As
regards the latter, he contents himself with emphasising
the contradiction that prevails between the various ideas
of philosophers.

Naturally, the Socratic method of refutation may be
employed under all circumstances, but its most legitimate
use is in regard to morals. If we carefully notice, we find
that Socrates bases the truth of any given particular asser-

1 Mem. iv. 6. 1 3 : tvl rrjv vir&deffw fTravrjyev &v Trdvra rbv \6yov.

2 For instance, Mem. iv. 2 : Conversation between Socrates and
Euthydemus.

3 Apol. ch. vi. to viii.

SOCRATES 43

tion on knowledge of the general principle relating to
that assertion. Now, such a method is incomprehensible,
if we are dealing with the order of physical realities, where
the particular is given before the general. Is it con-
ceivable that, when affirming we see the sun turning
round the earth, we should be interrupted and asked
whether, before expressing ourselves in this way, we
have assured ourselves that we know what sight and
movement are ? All philosophies — even ancient philo-
sophy— have necessarily subordinated knowledge of the
principles of physics to the facts and appearances that
have to be explained, not the existence of facts or
appearances to a knowledge of the principles. In the
moral order of things, however, the particular is not
" given " : it is to be sought for. Aristides is not
" given " to me as a virtuous man : I ask myself if I
ought to declare him to be so. The conduct I should
observe if I would practise piety is not " given " : it is
to come, it is only possible. And how can it be deter-
mined except by starting from the general idea of piety?
Socrates is therefore right in subordinating the truth of
particular judgments to the knowledge of the general,
if he is specially considering the moral domain ; for
here the particular is nothing more than we make it ;
and we make it of such or such a nature only by virtue
of the ideas inherent in our own mind. Now, universal
principles exist in most men only under the form of
habits or blind instincts ; hence the principitancy and
inconsistency noticed in their judgments. It is the
very object of the method of Socrates to substitute
deliberate, resolute maxims for these blind, wavering
opinions.

But we have not yet entered upon the two Socratic
processes, which, more than all others, appear to be

44 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of universal, theoretical application : definition and
induction ; l definition, the supreme object of dialectic ;
induction, the methodical march leading to definition.

Definition is the adequate expression of that general
essence which is the object of science. The Socratic
definition possesses this in particular : it does not con-
fine itself to offering a distinctive sign of things ; it
claims to set forth the necessary and all - sufficient
condition of their existence. It not only states what
the thing is, seen from without, it even tries to discover
what is capable of producing it. For instance, to call
a just man the one who does just things is not to
define him. It is possible to do just things by chance,
not by justice ; and one may be just without mani-
festing justice within oneself. On the other hand, to
say that the just man is he who knows what the
laws ordain with reference to men, is to offer a true
definition. For we do not find that men ever do
anything else than what they 'think they ought to do,
and those who know justice will necessarily do just
things under all circumstances.2 They have within
themselves the universal capacity for justice.

Thus the Socratic definition consists of the declara-
tion of the inner capacity, of which the thing to be
defined is the outer manifestation.

Now, where, in the first place, is this distinction
between the concrete, particular thing and the invisible,
general power to be found, if not in man ? And does
not this search after a metaphysical essence — justified,
if we are dealing with the human soul, by consciousness
itself — become extremely rash and dangerous if we
claim to practise it with regard to the outer phenomena
of nature.

1 Arist. Met. xiii. 4. 1078 b 25. 2 Mem. iv. 6. 6.

SOCRATES 45

Why, too, does Socrates regard the capacity, or
total principle of the action as reposing in an idea, in
the knowledge, pure and simple, of the conditions of
action, leaving aside the force necessary to realise it?
The reason is that, in man, force or activity is ever
present, and is always determined conformably with
knowledge. Such, at all events, is the opinion of
Socrates regarding will. Will is, as it were, a constant
datum which it is practically needless to mention.
It would not be so were we dealing with the pro-
duction of physical phenomena, for in the latter case
the nature of the generating causes and their mode
of action are unknown and inaccessible.

To arrive at definition, thus regarded, the method
Socrates uses is induction. This operation consists of
two parts, which may be called invention and discussion.

To discover the general essence, Socrates takes as
his starting-point a certain number of instances of the
thing to be defined. These instances, however, do
not consist of natural facts, directly observed : Socrates
takes them exclusively from human discourse. Language,
opinions, ordinary judgments or even nature seen
through man : such is the material of which his
induction is formed, such the ground in which it
must germinate. From the outset Socrates interests
himself preferably in the feelings of men regarding
paltry matters and commonplace pursuits.1 Initiation
into the lesser mysteries, he says, must precede initiation
into the greater. This is the reason he is constantly
speaking of shoemakers and smiths, carpenters and
drovers : a reproach brought against him by his
enemies.2

To observation, as thus understood, Socrates adds

1 Gorgias, ch. li. p. 497 B-c. 2 Mem. i. 2, 37.

46 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

analogy. He appeals to things his interlocutor knows ;
and, showing him the resemblance between these things
and those that form the subject of conversation, he
draws him on to the discovery that even the latter
were not really unknown to him.1 What, for instance,
constitutes a just man ? We know that a carpenter
is a man who knows carpentry ; a musician is one who
knows music ; a doctor, one who knows medicine.
Our conclusion, by analogy, will be that the just man
is the man who knows justice.2 The usual and, as it
were, essential theme of these analogies consists in the
transition from mechanical, special arts to moral and
general art ; in a word, the transition from things of
the body to those of the soul.

Still, observation and analogy give only provisional
results : discussion alone affords decisive ones. Having
once invented a general formula by means of carefully
chosen cases, Socrates considers the greatest possible
number of cases and applies his formula to all these
instances, retaining it unmodified if it emerges success-
fully from the test, and suitably modifying it if it docs
not. Not only does he vary, he even reverses the
experiment, trying to find a definition for the contrary
object, and ascertaining whether this new definition
is to the former what negation is to affirmation.

Such is Socratic induction. Now, all the details of
this process are applicable to human things, whereas
they are inapplicable to physical or metaphysical things.

To take as one's starting-point the language and
discourse of ordinary life, and not external facts, is a
method that may rightly be regarded as meaningless
and fantastic if our object is to know the absolute
essence of being and of things ; but it is a very natural

1 Xen, Economicus, 19. 15. 2 Gorgias, 460 B.

SOCRATES 47

and legitimate method if our object is to find out what
lies at the bottom of human judgments. It is also
quite conceivable that the philosopher should bestow
particular attention upon common and ordinary things,
if his express purpose is to know man, for it is in this
order of things that human nature appears as it really
is, stripped of the mask of convention and false
knowledge.

The complaisant use of the method of analogy and
the fact that this mode of reasoning is regarded as
proof, would indicate anything but a scientific mind
if one's investigation were compelled to cover every
domain of reality. But if we are to move in one and
the same domain only, and that the domain of human
things, then analogy is a useful method to follow.
For then, its action is limited to passing from one
species to another in the same genus, and that, too,
in the order of things most familiar to us, in which we
need only retire within ourselves to find points of
reference at each step.

In short, the Socratic process of discussion and
control is a very uncertain and inadequate method,
if we would have knowledge of the things of nature.
Socrates endeavours to verify his induction by examin-
ing every instance that offers itself. But how can one
gather together all the instances of one and the same
genus in the order of physical and material things?
How can we call up at will the manifestations of the
essence contrary to the one whose definition we are
seeking ? Doubtless modern experimentation must
have realised these conditions to some extent ; but
the ancients had no idea whatever of such a method
of investigation. On the other hand, they must have
thought that, in human things, the conditions in

48 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

question were quite realisable. Though it is foolish
to claim to know all the different cases in which cold
and heat, generation and destruction may be met with,
it would seem easier to set forth a complete list of
such actions as we call just and of those we call unjust.
The number of names representing these actions is
limited and they are all at the disposal of man, for
they are his work. This possibility of comprehending
the entire domain of moral things must, above all,
have been recognised in a nation where the conditions
of human life were relatively simple, where the totality
of human duties naturally clustered round a few pre-
cise, concordant ideas, and there was entire ignorance of
those conflicts between the individual and society, con-
science and public interests, family and country, country
and humanity, physical comfort and lofty culture, that
have introduced inextricable confusion into the moral
life of modern nations.

The logical method of Socrates is limited to in-
duction and definition as thus understood. Aristotle
finds fault with this dialectic, which is carried on
exclusively by a process of questioning, because it pins
its faith to common opinion, and goes no farther than
probability. His appeal is to special, direct intuition,
the indispensable condition of a complete, infallible
demonstration. Aristotle's reproach is comprehensible,
if our object is to go back to the first principles of all
things. But if we have only to find in human nature
a rule for human judgment and conduct, to discover and
set forth the principles applied by human reason when
tranquil and free from routine and passion, with the
object of discovering in these principles, which are now
objects of clear consciousness, a weapon against routine
and passion themselves ; in a word, if we have to set

SOCRATES 49

man free by enabling him to know mankind, we can
understand why Socrates contented himself with the
observation of human phenomena, and made no attempt
to pierce, by metaphysical intuition, into the mysteries
of absolute thought.

IV

Thus we see that the nature and import of the
Socratic method are in exact proportion to the object
Socrates had in view, which was nothing less than the
constitution of ethics as a science. Conversely, the
concrete doctrine of Socrates, his conclusions on things
and on man himself are exactly what might have been
expected from the use of such a method. Matter
responds to form as form responds to matter.

It may seem, if we cast a general glance at the
teaching of Socrates, that the science of which it con-
sists does indeed go beyond the limits marked out by
his method, and, in a sense, includes not only human
but also physical and divine things.

Is not his reason for throwing overboard the
mechanistic physics of the ancient philosophers, that he
wishes to substitute therefor a teleological system of
physics ? l Though he condemns cosmological theology,
the investigation into the way in which the gods
formed the universe, does he not extol what may be
called moral theology in his endeavour to demonstrate
the existence of a divine intelligence and providence ?
The considerable importance given, in the Memorabilia,
to speculations of this kind, the originality of Socrates'
views on these matters, have induced several critics
to regard them not only as significant parts of his

1 Mem. i. 4, iv. 3.

50 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

philosophy, but even as its very centre and ground-
work. Thus, to Fouillee, Socrates is essentially the
promoter of a system of teleological metaphysics,
whereas to Franck1 he is above all else a theological
philosopher.

But in order to discover if teleology and moral
theology form an integral part of the object of science
according to Socrates, it is not sufficient to examine and
see whether Socrates advanced profound ideas on these
subjects or not. We must also ask ourselves what
relation these ideas bear to the fundamental principles
of his philosophy.

Now, one can, it would appear, divide the teleo-
logical and the theological ideas of Socrates into two
parts ; the one overstepping the limits of ethics, though
at the same time offered us as the fruit of supernatural
inspiration superior to science ; the other, of a more
scientific nature, though connected with ethics as its
source and raison d'etre. When Socrates speaks of his
daemonic sign and of the power it sometimes affords
him of foreseeing the future ; 2 when he speaks of the
divinity that is not far from each one of us and is
ready to utter a warning call to the man who listens in
silence ; when he declares that to fear death is to believe
oneself wise without really being so, for it is to believe
that one knows what one does not know,3 he is evi-
dently speaking of those things which, as they are
beyond our power to control, are also beyond the reach
of our science.4

When, on the contrary, he deals with physical and
divine things in a scientific method, we see him pre-
occupied about considering things, not in themselves,

1 Journal ties Savants, October 1881.
2 Mem. i. i. 3-5. 3 Apol. 29 A. * Mem. i. i. 9.

SOCRATES 51

but from without and with reference to man. Thus,
he constantly tends to substitute for the gods the
daemons, who are nearer to ourselves, and for the
daemons the mere daemonic phenomena or visible signs
of the gods, perceived directly by man.1 He believes
that we cannot see the gods ; that we see nothing but
their manifestations to us.2 The order and harmony
the gods have introduced into things consists in the
appropriation of these things to our needs.3 In this
way, physical or teleological objects are brought within
the compass of moral and human ones.

These conjectures on the adaptation of the outer
nature to the needs of man, besides the fact that, in the
case of Socrates, they spring naturally from a very
sincere and deep religious sentiment, are called for, or
required, by his ethical doctrine, in accordance with
which the happiness of man depends on himself, on
nothing whatever but self-knowledge. Since, in spite
of his efforts to suffice unto himself, man cannot free
himself from physical nature, he. must admit, if he
claims to be good and happy without occupying himself
with externals, that the gods are occupied with them on
his behalf, and control them so as to meet his needs.
Teleology and the doctrine of providence were the
necessary postulates of Socratic morals.

This very role shows us that they are complementary,
not essential parts, of the philosophy of Socrates.

The proper object of this philosophy, not only in
theory but in fact, is the one that the Sophists had
brought into credit ; that is, art, or practical skill,
understood, however, in an original manner, which we
have now thoroughly to investigate.

Art, in the mind of Socrates, is not the search after

1 Apcl. 27 B, E. 2 Mem. iv. 3. 13. 3 Ibid. iv. 3. i, 4.

52 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

absolute good, the power to regulate our actions by
the whole of the consequences which must result there-
from, so as to perform only those whose consequences,
even the most far-reaching, are in conformity with our
wishes. The gods have reserved to themselves the
knowledge of the final result of our actions. Does the
man who plants an orchard know who will gather the
fruit thereof? Does he who builds a house know who
will dwell in it ? 1

On the other hand, however, art worthy of the
name resembles no special profession such as that of
the carpenter, the shoemaker, or the armourer. These
men have in mind the realisation of some particular
material object ; whereas art pursues a general, im-
material end, viz. the happiness and good of man.
This is what the Sophists had already taught, and
rightly taught. But though they had the idea of what
may be called the moral end, they were mistaken as to
the manner of attaining to it. They imagined this
could be effected by regular practice, similar to that
which proves successful in special professions. But,
even in these latter, regularity or routine is far from
being sufficient. Every good artisan possesses not only
the practice but also the science of his trade, in so far
as his trade is capable of being an object of science. A
well-drawn analogy will lead us to think that moral art
also must be a science, according to the acceptation of
this word in the moral domain.

To sum up, moral art, occupying a position midway
between religion and the special professions, art which
has for its aim the present good and happiness of man,
and for its province the science of human things : such
is the object of Socrates' reflections.

1 Mem. i. i. 8.

SOCRATES 53

'It is this object that exactly answers to his idea of
science. Science tries to discover that which is general,
and which forms the material for the discourse of men ;
i.e. the categories in which they place particular things.
But is it not in moral things that we find a perfect
instance of that relation of genus to species, of principle
to application, of latent to manifest knowledge, which
such an idea of science implies ? Moral things do not
contain within themselves the absolute, the one in itself,
the supreme principle of being and knowing ; but then,
Socratic science does not aim so high as that. On the
other hand, however, and in contradistinction to the
opinion of the Sophists, in human nature itself there
are certainly fixed, solid points, which enable one to
gain a satisfactory science of the general.

Moreover, is it not moral things that form the usual
matter of human discourse ? Is it not on these questions
that each man has acquired experience and is capable of
advancing an opinion worthy of consideration? If so,
then it is along this line that there will be the best
chance of success for a science that seeks its various
elements in the discourse of men, even of the humblest
and most ignorant.

When considered with a view to the knowledge of
moral principles the Socratic method thus reacts on the
conception of moral things themselves. In the light of
the idea of science, Socrates found in human nature that
substratum of common and invariable notions that had
escaped the notice of the Sophists ; thereupon, every-
thing human was invested with new dignity in the mind
of the philosopher.

This reaction of method on object appears no less
clearly in the details of Socratic morals.

Here two essential parts may be distinguished : ist,

54 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

the general principle : all virtues are sciences ; l 2nd,
the deduction of the virtues, which deduction is supplied
by this principle.

In what sense did Socrates claim that all virtues are
sciences ?

According to Zeller,2 the science here in question is
evidently science in general, the science of the nature of
things. But in none of the texts dealing with our
question do we find this abstract expression : science.
They all state more or less explicitly : the virtues are
sciences.8

Consequently, virtue is not identified with science in
general, but with some particular science. Now, what
is this science ?

Fouillee4 says that the science of which Socrates
speaks is probably the science of good in itself, i.e. the
science of the real and absolute worth of things.

Such an object, however, would go beyond the end
aimed at. When, says Socrates, one is thinking of
becoming a good shoemaker, or pilot or musician, the
science each man regards as indispensable is that of
shoemaking, ship-management or music: that special
science alone, in each category, makes the man com-
petent. Now, competency is also what Socrates extols
in moral matters. The analogy he is constantly drawing
between the special professions and the practice of
virtue shows that he places the condition of this new
competency not in a universal and necessarily vague
science, but in the science of virtue itself. Though
Socrates does not agree with the Sophists, who made too
close a comparison between moral art and the mechanical

1 Aristot. Eth. Nic. vi. 13. 1144 b 28. 2 ii. (3rd edit.), 93, 117.

3 Mem. iii. 9. 5, iv. 2. 22, iv. 6-7 ; Aristot. Eth. Nic. vi. 13. 1144 b 17.
* La Phil, de Socrate, i. 177, 281, 285.

SOCRATES 55

arts, he yet does not go so far as to abolish all analogy
between these latter arts and the former. Virtue is still
a special, determinate art ; just men as well as artisans
have their own distinctive work.1

Science, thus determined, i.e. the special science of
virtue, is, according to Socrates, the very definition or
essence of science. Socrates means thereby that it is
its necessary and all-sufficient condition.

It is the necessary condition of virtue. If com-
petency is necessary in mechanical arts, how can it be
superfluous in an art that is surely more delicate and
complicated, since it has to work upon things that are
invisible, accessible to the understanding alone ? The
masses are wrong when they think that nature in moral
matters is all-sufficient. In vain did the Sophists substi-
tute practice for nature. He who is ignorant of the
definition of good may, by a happy chance, sometimes
meet with it, but he will never be certain that he has
not altogether passed it by. He will even run the risk
of taking evil for good, and vice versa. For instance, if
one does not possess a definition of justice, one may regard
it invariably as unjust to deceive and injure others,
whereas it is just to deceive the enemies of the State, and
to reduce an unjust nation to a state of subjection.2
Again, if one is without this definition, one will stop to
examine such a question as the following : " Who is the
more unjust : the man who wittingly deceives, or the
man who unwittingly deceives ? " One will be astonished
at finding arguments in support of both positions,
whereas, at bottom, the question is an absurd one, since
the terms " unjust " and " unwittingly " immediately
exclude each other. Science renders certain actions good,
which, without it, would be indifferent or even evil ; for

1 Mem. iv. 2. 12. 2 Ibid. iv. 2. 14-15. 3 Ibid. iv. 2. 19.

56 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

instance, the use of money. By science and science
alone does skill in speech and action become a virtue :
this skill, if left to itself, might readily cause men to
become more unjust and maleficent than nature made
them.1

Science is not only necessary, it is all-sufficient for the
engendering of virtue. This doctrine is what may be
called the Socratic paradox. Perhaps the paradox is not
so pronounced as it at first seems.

It would, indeed, be strange for Socrates to attribute
such efficacy to science, if we were dealing with a
purely theoretical science, or even with the science of
good in itself and of the rational value of things. At
the outset the objection will be made that such know-
ledge supplies a law to the intelligence, but that it does
not determine the will.

The science, however, of which Socrates speaks, is
distinctly the science of the suitability and utility of
things from the human point of view ; it is the know-
ledge of the relation that exists between things, and the
end that man follows of his own accord, naturally and
of necessity. u In order to be obeyed by my sub-
ordinates," said a cavalry officer to Socrates,2 " will it
suffice if I show them that I am their superior ? " " Yes,"
was the answer, " provided you prove that obedience
to you is safer and more beautiful for them than
the contrary (/caXXtoi/ re ical awT'rjpKOTepov aurot?)."
Socrates reasons in this fashion : it is acknowledged that
men invariably do what they believe they ought to do,
i.e. what they look upon as most profitable to them-
selves. If, then, it is demonstrated to them that virtue
is most profitable, they will infallibly practise virtue.
In a word, our philosopher transfers to the science of

1 Mem. iv. 3. i. 2 Ibid. iii. 3. 10.

SOCRATES 57

the good the practical efficacy he usually notes in the
mere opinion of the good. More than this : the science
of the good seems to him as though it must be even
more efficacious in determining the human will than
the mere opinion of the good can be, because science is
immovable, whereas opinion is at the mercy of circum-
stances.

Fouillee l considers that the Socratic paradox consists
essentially in the negation of free-will. It rather con-
sists in the claim to demonstrate that virtue is always
that which is most advantageous to man.

(As regards free-will, Socrates neglects to take it
into consideration rather than denies it) And, indeed,
free-will is almost useless in a doctrine which only
requires man to decide in the way he considers most
beautiful and advantageous. This method of determi-
nation, according to Socrates, is that of the masses ; it
is quite spontaneous, and does not imply the conscious-
ness of being able to determine in favour of the opposite
course of action.

True, the objection may be advanced that, for a man
to regard as insufficient the mere opinion of good, and
try to discover the constituents of real good, he must
make an effort which involves the intervention of
free-will.

Socrates is far from denying the necessity of such an
effort ; though he connects it with self-control and
temperance, which latter is itself, in his mind, a science,
and the most important of them all.2 The obligation
of self-control and temperance is demonstrated in the
same fashion as that of all the other virtues : by its
useful effects. It by no means follows that, in acquir-
ing this virtue, the first condition of all the rest, free-will

1 La Phil, de Socr. i. 173. 2 Mem. i. 5. 4.

58 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

has no part to play. The negation of free-will might
be deduced from the doctrine if Socrates distinctly set
up self-control (eyre pare to) between science (cro^ta) and
temperance (a-atfypoa-vvrj) as being a consequence of the
former and nothing more, as Fouillee l states. Socrates,
however, regards self-control as both a condition and a
result of science. " Do you not think," he says, " that
lack of self-control (arcpaa-ia) turns men away from
science (<ro<£ia), the greatest of all things, and drives them
to its opposite ? " " Only to such as are self-possessed,"
he says in another place, "is it given to practise
dialectic." 3 It is, therefore, no abstract science, but a
living science, action and knowledge combined, which
is the root of virtue.

Thereby we find clearly determined the relation
Socrates sets up between science and practice. He
maintains that science engenders virtue to which it plays
the part of an efficient cause ; but he also maintains
that the search for science has, for its province, the
desire to attain to virtue, and thus virtue plays the part
of final cause, as regards science. Science is both cause
and means, virtue both end and result. Between the two
terms there is solidarity, mutual action. It must be
granted that such a relationship raises difficulties for
him who would understand it thoroughly. Socrates,
however, must have found it tolerably clear, at a period
when neither the efficient nor the final cause had yet
been studied for themselves and no clear line of demar-
cation drawn between will and intelligence.

Though such is the Socratic doctrine as to the
relation between science and virtue, Socrates, doubtless
explicitly, went beyond the stand-point of ordinary

1 La Phil, de Socr. i. 173. 2 Mem. ix. 5. 6.

3 Ibid. iv. 5. n.

SOCRATES 59

morals which merely sets forth isolated precepts without
connecting them with any principle. He also went
beyond that of the ancient sages, as well as of the great
writers of his time, who confined themselves to deriving,
direct from their own consciousness, maxims that were
frequently profound, without attempting to demon-
strate them scientifically. He was the first to make
science an integral element of morals ; the first to
bring action, which appears as individual, within the
compass of true knowledge, which is universal.

But this does not mean that he applied to morals
the universal idea of science, and not merely that idea
of a science of man which appears as the term of his
dialectic. Where can Socrates obtain the rational
knowledge of good and virtue, which is all that he here
means by science, except in the discourse of men, that
immediate testimony of their desires, their needs and
experience ? What more certain method of giving a
practical definition of things, expressing the interest
they offer to man, than that of using the analogy and
induction which take human facts themselves for their
basis, and interpret them in the light of human
reason ? Likewise, what science will have most chance
of acting upon the will, what science will better
merit those bold words of praise : ovSev lo-^vporepov
ffrpovrjcrews,1 than that truly living science which Socratic
maieutics evolves from our soul, and which is, at bottom,
only the consciousness of our own nature ? If care be
taken, the details of the doctrine of the relations that
exist between virtue and science, coincide, step by step,
with the details of dialectic ; in such fashion that, the
latter being posited, the former necessarily follows.

Dialectic, sprung from the general and still vague

1 Eth. Eud. vii. 13.

60 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

idea of moral science, reacts upon this idea and
determines it. Moral science is but dialectic in action.

We reach a similar conclusion if we examine the
second part of Socratic morals, to wit, the deduction of
the virtues, supplied by the general principle of morals.

What are the chief maxims of this science of good
which is the necessary and all-sufficient condition of
virtue ?

In this connection Socrates distinguishes between
good in general and particular good.

Good in general is the truly useful as distinguished
from the pleasant.1 The whole of morals consists in
distinguishing what distinctly constitutes our own good
from what seems to do so, though in reality giving us
only passing pleasure, perhaps even loss. Why is in-
temperance evil ? Because, says Socrates, it turns man
aside from useful things (w^eXoOz/ra) and inclines him
towards pleasant things (^Sea).2

Though Socrates makes a broad distinction between
what is good in appearance and what is good in reality,
we do not find that he is thinking of an absolute good,
of which the good of man would seem to be only one
particular manifestation. He appears to have com-
pletely identified the good with the useful,3 and the
reason he recommends the acquisition of science, the
practice of justice, soul-culture and the attainment of
the loftiest virtues, is that he regards them as useful for
man's happiness. Even when he prefers death to
shame, the reason he gives is that, in the absence of the
daemonic sign which usually warns him whenever he is
about to do something destined to injure him, he is
convinced death will do him no harm.4

1 Mem. iv. 6. 8. 2 Ibid. iv. 5. 6. 3 Ibid. iv. 6. 8.

4 Apol. CC. xxix. sqq.

SOCRATES 6 1

Clearly, this doctrine, in the Socratic philosophy, is
the reaction of form on matter. Matter was first the
vague idea of pleasure and well-being, as found in the
reasonings of the Sophists concerning the goal of our
actions. Now, science, according to Socrates, is the
search after the general. Therefore, when brought
into contact with the idea of science, the idea of well-
being becomes two-fold, engendering, on the one hand,
the idea of pleasure, pure and simple, or a chance, fleet-
ing enjoyment, incapable of becoming an object of
science, and, on the other hand, the idea of true utility
and happiness, corresponding, in its generality, with the
conditions of dialectic. True utility is that object, at once
stable and human, the type and standard of which each
of us bears within himself and which it is for maieutics,
induction and definition to find out and determine.

Now, what is the teaching of Socrates regarding
particular good ?

Socrates is sometimes represented as deducing a
priori particular good from the idea of absolute good, and
judging custom and legality in the name of reason and
justice. This is by no means his method of procedure.
Instead of criticizing tradition and the positive law
in the name of reason, it is in the traditional and the
positive that he seeks the expression of the rational.
According to Socrates, particular good consists of those
things that men are agreed in regarding as good :
health and strength of body and soul,1 easy domestic
circumstances,2 useful knowledge,3 family and friendly
relations,4 civil society and the country's prosperity,5
good repute,6 and, speaking generally, skill in the
management of life.

1 Mem. in. 12. 4, 6. 2 Ibid. ii. 17. 3 Ibid. iv. 2. 23-35.

4 Ibid. ii. 3. 19. 6 Ibid. iii. 7. 9. ° Ibid. ii. i. 31.

62 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Socrates distinctly identifies justice with legality, and
piety with the observance of the religious laws of one's
country. <f>r)fu yap eyo> l TO vofupov Si/caiov elvai . . .,
TO avro vofit/jiov re ical Siiccuov : " I say that justice con-
sists in the observance of the law ; that the just and
the legal are both the same thing." After all, what is
law ? It is what the citizens, gathered together, have
decreed, in writing, as something that must either be
done or avoided.2 Piety itself is nothing else than the
knowledge and practice of those laws of one's country
which refer to the gods : TO, frepl rov<s 0eou? vofupa.3

True, Socrates also speaks of divine, unwritten
laws.4 By these he means not laws of an abstract,
universal nature, but laws that are quite as positive
(yofiL^ov) as human laws. These laws are written in
the soul, though they may not be found on material
tablets. When Socrates wishes to cite examples thereof,
he speaks of the recommendation to honour the gods,
the prohibition from marrying one's own children :
maxims that partake of the nature of particular and
positive statutes. In his own words : " In the divine
as in the human order of things justice is identical with
legality."6

The doctrine of Socrates regarding particular good
is, however, not limited to this. To common, tradi-
tional morals as matter he connects the idea of science
as form ; and, by contact with this new element,
morals is completely transformed without this appearing,
externally, to be so.

The first function of science is to justify, to deduce
what common sense and tradition offer to us only as
independent facts.

1 Mem. iv. 4. 12. 2 Ibid. iv. 4. 13. 3 Ibid. iv. 6. 4.

4 Ibid. iv. 4. 19. 6 Ibid. iv. 4. 25.

SOCRATES 63

This deduction is effected by demonstrating that all
actions which common sense and tradition prescribe to
us are calculated to procure advantages for us, whereas
the opposite of these actions must sooner or later do
us harm. For instance, temperance is a good thing,
because it is the condition of pleasure, helps us to bear
privation, and makes us esteemed by our fellow-beings.
If a general, a tutor, or a steward is wanted, the
temperate man, not the intemperate, is the one who
will be chosen.1 The observance of civil laws is a good
thing, for, under all circumstances, those who observe
the laws are the ones best treated in the State ; in
public or private life it is they who inspire most confi-
dence.2 The same reasoning holds regarding unwritten
laws. It is good to observe them, for the man who
violates them is punished : thus, parents who marry
their own children have misshapen offspring.3 In this
sense Socrates affirms that what is legal is likewise
just. A law is just, in so far as its observance procures
advantages, whilst its violation has disastrous conse-
quences.4

Science thus deduces and justifies the established laws.
Nor is this all. As the wise man, by means of science,
searches into and understands the rational value of
tradition and legality, and thus learns to conform
with the laws of his country, not blindly, as do the
masses, but by reflection and reason, he regards action
inspired by science as superior to that emanating from
instinct or custom. Science no longer seems to him
merely to confirm the positive rules of morals : it
becomes itself an indispensable condition of virtue, the
root of all virtue : virtuepar excellence. To act under the

1 Mem. iv. 5. 2 Ibid. iv. 4. 17. 3 Ibid. iv. 4. 19 sqq.

4 Ibid. iv. 4. 25.

64 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

influence of nature alone, like prophets and soothsayers,1
means not only exposing oneself to continual failure in
some direction or other, it likewise means having
nothing but the mask of art or virtue. He alone who
is virtuous through science (o-o^ta) truly merits the title
of virtuous. Nothing blind or inconsiderate could be
really good : on the other hand, once a man acquires
self-possession, his actions are of necessity good. And
so Socrates, when accused, refuses to move his
listeners to compassion, because compassion is a blind
sentiment.2 On the other hand, he declares that, as he
has never, willingly and knowingly (e/e&>i>), done wrong,
he is certain he has never really done wrong at all.3

The mental state which immediately corresponds to
science, because it is both its condition and first result,
is self-control (ejicpdreia) or freedom (e^evOepLa}. f Self-
control thus becomes the first of all virtues^ the one
whose possession is both necessary and all-sufficient for
the performance of good under all circumstances. To
know how he ought to act, the wise man has definitively
only one question to ask himself: is this particular
line of conduct seemly in a free man, or not ?

On several puzzling occasions, this doctrine explains
^jhe line of conduct adopted by Socrates.] The reason
he refused to accept money from his listeners, was not
liberality on his part or the fear of slanderers, it was
because he considered that to receive money from
another was equivalent to acknowledging that man to
be one's master.5 The reason he extolled manual work
was not from sympathy with the occupations of the
humble, but because he saw in such work a source of
independence and easy circumstances from a material

1 Apol. 22 B. 2 Ibid. 35 B. 3 Ibid. 37 A.

4 Mem. i. 5. 4. 5 Ibid. i. 5. 6.

SOCRATES 65

point of view.1 If it is true that, on one occasion, he
walked barefoot on the ice, and on another, remained
standing for a whole day and night in the self-same
spot,2 this was not done in a spirit of folly or boasting,
though it might have been an instance of mystic con-
templation ; perhaps, too, these experiments were made
for the purpose of seeing how far his independence of
the external world could be carried. Again, the reason
he endured the peevish temper of Xanthippe his wife,
was not from resignation or good temper, it was be-
cause his wife offered him a splendid opportunity for
practising self-control. The reason he delighted in
banquets and feasts, conversed in perfect freedom with
Tljeodota, the courtezan,8 considered it quite right that,
in the relations between the sexes, one should obey
the promptings of nature, provided one is caused no
embarrassment thereby,4 acknowledged so strange and
dangerous a kind of love between young men ; was to
be found in the fact that he saw nothing in all this,
irreconcilable with self-possession, nothing but a witness
to or an instrument of freedom.

In this dignified conception of life, the positive and
traditional rules of morals are by no means neglected ;
but from the role of principles they descend to that of
matter or external conditions. The wise man has • self-
possession, and that is enough for him ; after all, he
speaks and acts like the rest of mankind. He is con-
scious of his freedom in the very act of observing the
laws and customs of his country. These laws govern
his outward actions, just as science governs his inner
disposition, and harmony between the two disciplines
is all the better established in that self-possession, the

1 Mem. ii. 7. 4. 2 Plat. Banquet, c. xxxv-xxxvi.

3 Mem. iii. n. 4 Ibid. i. 3. 14.

F

66 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

supreme command of the inner law, becomes reconciled
of itself with the most multiple and diverse modes of
outer action. Besides, it is evident that amongst the
various positive disciplines conceivable, the wise man
will decide for that of his own nation. What, indeed,
could be more favourable to the inner freedom after
which he aspires, than to live in harmony with those
around him ? What, on the other hand, could be more
prejudicial to quiet and self-possession than that dis-
turbing, harassing conflict with things which makes us
lose control of ourselves ?

The whole of this doctrine was summed up in two
famous aphorisms : " Virtue is one in JUself." and
" Virtue can be taught."

o

By the oneness of virtue, Socrates did not mean,
after the fashion of the mystics, the elimination of all
particular virtues in favour of some transcendent
perfection. He simply meant that all virtues have one
common root, to wit, the science of good, as he under-
stood it. To the wise man, the diversity of virtues
held in honour amongst men is nothing but the
multiplicity of the aspects shown forth by the one
sovereign virtue, according to the various objects to
which it applies. Thus, virtue was neither absolutely
one nor altogether multiple : it was unity in multiplicity,
self-possession and the science of good realised in the
virtues sanctioned by tradition.

Socrates claimed that virtue is taught, but he by
no means meant thereby that it is taught by purely
theoretical teaching or speculation, like the doctrines
of the physiologists. Nor, in his opinion, is it taught
by practice alone, as the Sophists had imagined.
Virtue is taught, said Socrates, by instruction combined
with exercise or practice (fidd^cn^ and /ueXen?). All the

SOCRATES 67

texts dealing with this doctrine J clearly show that
Socrates invariably employs these two words together.
This is the natural outcome of the intimate union of a
theoretical and a practical element in the very science
which is the principle of wisdom.

If such is the doctrine of Socrates upon particular
good, it bears the impress of the Socratic dialectic, as
does his doctrine of the good in general. Scrupulous
respect for tradition and for the laws of one's country
is in conformity with this method, which places the
starting-point of knowledge not in pure reason, but
rather in general ideas. The philosopher, without
contradicting himself, could not turn against these
ideas the very principles he extracted from them.

On the other hand, the dialectician must go back as
far as possible into antiquity when seeking the general
principles implied in human discourse. Now, in the
accomplishment of this task, Socrates comes to regard
the essence of virtue as existing not in external acts
that conform with legality but in self-possession and
the science of good, which form the common, permanent
substratum of these acts. Self-possession and the science
of good bear the same relation to good actions that
definition does to the class of objects to be defined.

In short, the special sense in which Socrates teaches
that virtue is one and can be taught, exactly answers to
the nature of the general in Socratic dialectic. This
" general," indeed, has by no means a distinct existence,
it is only what is continually assumed in human
discourse ; and, since it is drawn from the common
ideas relating to social and private life, it possesses,
of necessity, both a practical and a theoretical nature.

1 Mem. m. 9. 2 ; iv. i. 3 ; i. 2. 19. Cf. Laches, 190 E.

68 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Thus do Socratic dialectic and ethic interpenetrate
and determine each other. yThe idea of moral things
as an object of science, leads Socrates to invent a
scientific method applicable to such an object.) On the
other hand, the use of this method reacts on the object
itself, giving it a new aspect. From the elaboration of
the form with a view to the object arose the theory of
practical induction and definition ; from the elaboration
of the object by means of the form arose the doctrine
of virtue, dwelling in the free and deliberate observance
of positive laws and maxims.

\ The expression " moral science " thus would seem
to characterize the invention of Socrates exactly and
fully, provided we mean by these words, not morals
founded on the science of things in general, but rather
an effort of the human mind to build up a science
without leaving the circle of moral facts themselves,
and confining itself to the fertilisation of moral ex-
perience by an appropriate mode of reflection.

Here, indeed, is the centre of Socrates' doctrine, the
principal mobile of his thought.

It is because he institutes a new order of investiga-
tion that he rejects and dismisses the investigations of
his predecessors. All innovators possess this disdain of
the past : it forms part of their faith in their own
mission.

Because his conception of science is exclusively
calculated with a view to the reasoned knowledge of
human things, he says, along with Protagoras, that
science does not attain to things divine. Stricter in
his reasoning, however, he has not the impertinence to

SOCRATES 69

suppress a given object, under the 'pretext that our
intelligence cannot grasp it : on the contrary, he
acknowledges the limits of our faculties as soon as he
discovers their powers ; and, faithful to his country's
religion, he trusts to the gods in regard to everything
beyond the reach of human understanding.

The belief of Socrates in an Apollonian mission and
in the supernatural warnings of a protecting divinity
can be perfectly reconciled with this doctrine, which
both respects the domain of the gods and takes
possession of that of men.

flThat it was the ambition of Socrates to restore the
political fortunes of his city by a moral reformVwas
only natural and legitimate for one able to distinguish
the principles of virtue and of success in human things,
and whose very philosophy gave him a fresh motive for
gratitude and attachment to his country.

Finally, that Socrates submitted to death rather
than renounce the testing of the Athenians for the
purpose of convincing them of their ignorance, is, as
he says himself, the logical consequence of a doctrine
which looks upon self-examination as the principle and
condition of all things good, and expects the gods to
complete what human wisdom began.

Of Socrates' many preoccupations, the idea of setting
up morals as a science is the principal one ; for it alone
brings harmony and light into this apparently strange,
contradictory character. It alone explains how Socrates
is both a believer and a free thinker ; positive and
speculative ; a man of his own age and country, ever
disposed to adapt himself to his environment, and yet
one who retired within himself, was ever master of
himself, obstinately jealous of his freedom and independ-
ence ; an aristocrat attached to the past, contemptuous

yo STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

towards popular caprice, and at the same time a
revolutionist, demanding that the functions of the State
be given to the best instructed citizens ; in a word, to
sum up everything perhaps, it alone explains how he
was both a philosopher and a man of action.

The idea of Socrates is not only novel and original,
it has occupied a prominent place in the intellectual
and moral history of mankind. This r6le has been a
double one : showing itself both in the order of the
practical and in that of the theoretical sciences.

In vain did Socrates scrupulously confine himself to
the study of human things ; the productiveness of his
method in this domain, and its conformity with the
Greek genius, quickly caused it to be regarded as
applicable to all objects, physical and metaphysical.
Plato and Aristotle set forth the principle of Socrates :
" The only science is that of the general," as including
not merely the science of human things but also
universal science.

The syllogism, or deductive reasoning in qualitative
matter, the final definitive form of the Socratic method,
was regarded as the expression of the connection
between things in nature herself. From Aristotle this
method passed on to the Schoolmen, who misinter-
preted it, substituting for the living discourse of men
which the Greeks had taken as the starting-point of
their discussions, the mute, rigid text of some particular
book, which was looked upon as being truth itself.
Nevertheless, positive science gradually developed.
On attaining to self-consciousness, so to speak, it
declared, with Bacon, that syllogistic science was nothing
but a science of words ; and with Descartes, that the
general essences of the Socratics were only empty

SOCRATES 71

fiction, that science had as its object not quality or
the general, but quantity or the relations of dimension.
The progress of science has proclaimed Descartes to
be more and more in the right, and one is nowadays
tempted to ask oneself whether the Socratic principle :
" The only science is that of the general," when applied,
as it has been, to the investigation of the laws of nature,
has not rather bewildered and unsettled the human
mind than helped it.

Even were such to be the case, Socrates, who de-
nounced all investigation into moral causes, and claimed
only to build up moral science, would not be responsible
for it. This extension of the Socratic method, how-
ever, was by no means an aberration of the human
mind. Before knowing things in themselves, they
must be known in their relations to us, and it is this
indispensable provisional knowledge that we obtain
from Socratic induction and definition. It may be that
in all things the element of quantity is the ultimate
object for which science ought to look. But it could
not attain to this all at once : it must first define the
qualities which form its support. In every department
of knowledge, classification and induction must precede
the application of mathematical analysis.

Anyhow, the Schoolmen with their syllogistic
science, even Plato and Aristotle, in so far as they
place being, strictly so called, in forms expressed by
our concepts, are not the true successors of Socrates.
Those he would have recognised as such, are the
philosophers who, taking as their starting-point the
observance of the moral facts of human nature, have
endeavoured to set up morals as a distinct and self-
sufficient science. tThe purest and finest fruit of the
Socratic method consists of the Nicomachean Ethics,

72 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

in which, without appealing to the physical sciences or
demanding of metaphysics anything else than an ardent
flow of the mind and general views on finality and
activity, Aristotle condensed in a series of maxims
the very thought of those who have experience of life
think vaguely regarding the conditions of virtue and
happiness.

Nor is the influence of Socrates, along this line of
investigation confined to antiquity. When the Christian
religion, after proving adequate to the moral needs of
men for fifteen centuries, began to lose its power
over their souls, the Socratic study of man was restored
to favour. They were not content with finding the secret
springs of human actions in any particular case, after
the fashion of the moralists. Morals was proclaimed
anew as a distinct and separate science, with an object
and a method of its own. So great an advance was
made in this direction that a daring system of philo-
sophy, that of Kant and Fichte, not content with claim-
ing a place for moral science, began by making a clean
sweep of the whole of metaphysics, in order that morals
might establish itself, unchecked, in its own fashion ;
nor would this philosophy acknowledge that theoretical
reason had any other rights than those admitted by
moral science, thus organised. And soon afterwards,
just as in former times Plato and Aristotle had built up
a metaphysical philosophy on the basis of Socratic
morals, we find Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel founding a
new philosophy of the absolute on the morals of Kant.

Moral science, though for a brief space compromised
by the excess of its claims, now that it has been restored
within the limits marked out for it by Socrates, has
acquired fresh precision and vitality at the present time.
Even nowadays, there are many who consider that the

SOCRATES 73

time has not yet come — if it is ever to come — for morals
to assume the same scientific form as physics or even
the natural sciences, and yet they consider that it
admits of something else than the particularities, in
which the moralist confines himself, or the oratorical
developments that suffice for the man of action. The
truth in this matter would seem to be, even nowadays,
that morals has a distinct domain, i.e. the sum total of
the moral facts of human nature, a method proper to
itself, to wit, qualitative induction and definition, and
that, by modestly confining itself to its own domain
and scrupulously adapting its means of investigation to
the object under study, it can attain, more certainly
than by any other means, to the twofold end it has in
view : the knowledge and the direction of human
activity. ^The man whose ideas are most instinct with
life in contemporary society! is Socrates.

ARISTOTLE

Tb irpwrov ov anrepfia CCTTLV, dAXa TO reAaov.

ARISTOT. Met. xii. 7. 1073 a i.

IF it be true that the genius of a people is sometimes
incarnated in certain men, and that these mighty, com-
prehensive minds form, as it were, the act and perfection
in which a whole world of virtualities finds its goal and
completion, then Aristotle, more than any one, was such
a man : in him the philosophic genius of Greece found
its universal, its perfect expression. It is therefore
something more than the thought of a single individual,
far-reaching and profound though it be, that we now
summon forth ; it is the spirit of Greece itself, which
has reached the highest pitch of its intellectual great-
ness. It will be conformable to the analytical tempera-
ment of the philosopher with whom we are now
dealing, and also practically indispensable to set up
numerous divisions in so vast a subject, and consider
its different parts one after another.

I. — BIOGRAPHY *

Aristotle was born at Stageira, a Greek Ionian
colony of Thrace, situated on the coast of the peninsula

1 The ancient writers who deal with the life of Aristotle are the follow-
ing : (i) Diogenes Laertius, v. 1-35 ; (2) Denys of Halicarnassus, letter to
Ammaeus, 1.5; (3) the anonymous author of a biography of Aristotle,

74

ARISTOTLE 75

of Chalcidice, in the year 384 B.C. He died, aged
sixty-two, at Chalcis, in Euboea.

His father, Nicomachus, was a doctor, as also were
his ancestors. They traced their descent back to
Machaon, son of Aesculapius ; and, like many others,
were called Asclepiads. Nicomachus was physician to
the king of Macedonia, Amyntas II., Philip's father.
This circumstance may have brought it about that
Aristotle was summoned to the court of the king of
Macedonia to undertake the education of Alexander.
It is probable that, as an Asclepiad, Aristotle was
instructed in anatomy at an early age.

When about seventeen years old, he lost his parents.
Being now independent an£ in possession of a large
fortune, he was attracted to Athens. He went to this
city the following year. Plato, who had founded his
school there about 387 B.C., was then absent ; he had
started for Syracuse, 368 B.C., left that town three years
later, and returned about 360 B.C. Aristotle joined
Plato's pupils, remaining with them for twenty years,
until the master's death. Here we find refuted the
story of a quarrel, which was alleged to have arisen
between the master and the disciple long before the
death of Plato, and to have been caused by Aristotle's
ingratitude and lack of consideration. It is said that
Plato, having remarked Aristotle's zeal and keenness of
mind, called him " the reader," and " intelligence." In

published by Menage in the second volume of his edition of Diogenes
Laertius ; (4) the Pseudo - Ammonius ; (5) the Pseudo - Hesychius ;
(6) Suidas, under the article, 'Apto-roT-A^s. These texts may almost all be
found in vol. i. of the edition of Aristotle's works undertaken by Buhle,
between 1791 and 1800. The relative importance of these different
sources cannot be determined a priori. All that is possible is the separate
examination of each hint or indication from the standpoint of its internal
and external probability.

76 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

all probability he studied not only Platonism at Athens,
but also the other systems then in vogue.

Long previous to the death of Plato, he gave proof
of his independence of thought and action. Quite
possibly, as a member of the Platonic school, he had
already taught on his own account. At all events, he
began to write at that period, and though his early
works were Platonic in form and substance, none the less
did they contain, even then, objections to the theories
of ideas along with the affirmation of the eternity of the
world. He tells us that it is with regret, and because
of his zeal for the superior interests of truth, that he
thus opposed his master. Moreover, he set an example
of respect for the genius of Plato. In a poem which
has come down to us, he celebrates his master as one
whom the wicked have no right to praise, and who
showed, both by his life and his teachings, how a good
man is also a happy man.

The death of Plato (347 B.C.) begins a new period
in the life of Aristotle. He left Athens, accompanied
by Xenocrates, and went to Atarnea, in Mysia, to his
friend and fellow-disciple, Hermias, the ruler of that
town, whose sister, or niece, Pythias, he subsequently
married. Later on, he married a woman named Her-
pyllis. After the fall and death of Hermias (345 B.C.)
Aristotle went to Mytilene. From there he would seem
to have returned to Athens and opened the school of
rhetoric, in which he set up as an opponent to Isocrates.
In 342 B.C., he responded favourably to the summons
of Philip, king of Macedonia, who requested him to
undertake the education of his son Alexander, at that
time about fourteen years of age. He remained at the
court of Macedonia until Alexander undertook his
expedition into Asia (334 B.C.). Without losing him-

ARISTOTLE 77

self in pursuit of an ideal too far removed from the
conditions of practical life, Aristotle appears to have
instilled generous qualities in the mind of his pupil.
Throughout his life Alexander retained feelings of
respect and love for his master, though after the death
of Callisthenes, Aristotle's nephew, in 325 B.C., all
relations between the two were discontinued.

In 335 B.C. or 334 B.C., Aristotle returned to Athens,
and at Lycaeum opened what was called the Peripatetic
School, probably on account of the master's habit of
walking about with his disciples as they talked of science
and philosophy. In the mornings, relates Aulus-Gellius,
Aristotle gave, to a chosen body of hearers, acroamatic,
or esoteric, instruction, dealing with the most difficult
portions of philosophy, mainly dialectic and the philo-
sophy of nature. In the evenings he gave exoteric
instruction to all who offered themselves, dealing with
rhetoric, topics and politics. His teaching took the form
both of classes and lectures ; and his school, like that
of Plato, was a band of friends who assembled on fixed
days, and took their meals in common.

Wealthy himself, and able to rely on the assistance
of the king, Aristotle was in a position to obtain all the
scientific resources the society of the times could offer.
It is said that Alexander sent him eight hundred talents
to enable him to complete his Historia animalium. It
is even related that he placed at his disposal millions of
men, whose duty it was to seek out animals of every
kind, especially fishes, to maintain in perfect order
aviaries and gardens filled with animals, and to keep
the philosopher informed on such observations and dis-
coveries as were calculated to advance science. These
are, doubtless, mere inventions, though facts were at the
bottom of them. Certainly Aristotle gathered together

78 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

all the documents of every kind it was possible for him
to obtain. He was the first to form a large collection
of books.

Although Aristotle had broken off all relations with
Alexander in 325 B.C., none the less did the king's
death, two years afterwards, prove an occasion of peril
for him. When the Lamian war broke out, he was
looked upon as a friend of the kings of Macedonia and
Antipater, and was prosecuted on the charge of atheism.
He left Athens, so that the Athenians, as he said, might
not a second time be guilty as regards philosophy.
He fled to Chalcis, in Euboea, where he fell sick and
died in the summer of 322 B.C., a few months before
Demosthenes, who was born in the same year as himself.
He was sixty-two years of age.

Though early attacked by his political and scientific
opponents, he would appear from his writings to have
been of a noble, humane, and loyal nature, and we are
acquainted with no actual proved fact to the contrary.
His life bears the impress of moral philosophic dignity.
Aristotle was both a creative and a universal genius, and
an indefatigable worker. He is devoid of the ardent
buoyancy of Plato. With mind bent on the reality
presented to him, whatever bears no relation thereto he
looks upon as fantastic ; he does not bury himself in the
facts of the sensible world, however, but is always look-
ing for the intelligible. In all things he recommends
moderation, the golden mean. A moderate fortune,
government by the moderate classes : such, to his mind,
is the best condition both for the individual and for
society.

We are told that he was short and thin, with small
eyes and an ironical expression playing about his mouth.
By Pythias, his first wife, he left a daughter of the same

ARISTOTLE 79

name ; and by his second wife, Herpyllis of Stageira,
a son Nicomachus, whose name we find in the Nico-
machean Ethics. In his will he speaks affectionately of
both his wives and of his two brothers and their children ;
he also refers in sympathetic terms to his friends and
distant relatives.

II. — ARISTOTLE'S WRITINGS

The story of the preservation of Aristotle's works is
but little known. According to Strabo and Plutarch,
the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, after the
latter's death, fell into the hands of Neleus, who took
them to his home in Skepsis, Mysia. There they would
appear to have been hidden away in a cellar, where they
were discovered by Apellicon, in the time of Sylla. The
latter is reported to have had them transferred to Rome.
Whatever degree of truth there may be in these anec-
dotes, the texts that had been preserved were revised and
classified in the first century before Christ by Andronicus,
a Peripatetic philosopher of Rhodes, who published a
complete edition about 60-50 B.C. It is this text of
Aristotle, more or less remodelled, that we now possess.
In all probability our collection contains everything
authentic that existed in the time of Andronicus, and
we have good grounds for regarding as apocryphal the
works mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, that are absent
from this collection. Most likely, however, all that is
contained in the so-called Andronicus edition, is not by
Aristotle ; even the authentic works themselves are not
free from additions and changes. There have also come
down to us the titles of works that are certainly authentic,
and yet are lacking in our collection, having apparently
been lost at the time of Andronicus. All the same, it

8o STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

would appear that the most important works on Aris-
totelian philosophy and science have been preserved.

Which of the works we possess are to be laid aside
as unauthentic ? In many cases the question cannot be
answered with any degree of precision or certainty. The
following are the results reached by Zeller in his Philo-
sophic der Griechen, 3rd vol. 3rd edition. The authen-
ticity of the following works is either inadmissible or
very doubtful : — De Xenophane, Zenone et Gorgia ; De
animalium motu ; De plantis ; De coloribus ; De audi-
bilibus ; De mirabilibus auditis • Physiognomonica ; Me-
chanica problemata ; De indivisibilibus lineis ; De
mundo ; De respiratione ; De virtutibus et vitiis ;
Oeconomica ; Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. The Eudemian
Ethics and the Great Ethics are alterations of the Nico-
machean Ethics. Such fragments of letters as we possess
have undergone considerable additions and changes.

The works left by Aristotle may in all probability be
placed in the three following categories : —

I st. Books of instruction and science properly so
called : summaries and treatises of which he made use
in his classes. He did not publish them, but merely
imparted their teachings to his pupils.

2nd. Published writings : intended for the masses
of the people. They were written, we are told, with
considerable fluency and charm, and were partly in the
form of dialogues.

Using Aristotle's own terms, the unpublished writ-
ings have been called acroamatic or acroatic, and the
published ones exoteric. These expressions clearly
answer to a fundamental distinction in Aristotle's
philosophy. In his. mind, there are two modes of
instruction, proportioned to the two degrees of know-
ledge. That which is cognizable as necessary and

ARISTOTLE 81

absolutely certain is a matter of demonstration strictly
so called ; that which is cognizable as being only likely
is a matter of dialectic. In his classes Aristotle taught
complete science ; he gave demonstrations ; the pupil
had nothing to do but to listen. Apart from these classes,
however, Aristotle directed dialectic conversations, in
which reasoning from probabilities, and from considera-
tions more or less foreign to the subject in question, was
carried on ; to these conversations others were admitted
as well as pupils. Such is the significance of the words
acroamatic and exoteric, used with reference to the
teaching of Aristotle. He himself does not apply
them to his works, though such application may well
be made.

3rd. To these two categories must be added a third,
viz., notes intended for the personal use of Aristotle.
These latter writings may be called hypomnematic.

Last of all, Aristotle left behind him speeches, letters
and poems. Of these three classes, only the first have
come down to us, and a few fragments of the second
and third. Amongst the lost works, the most important
are, in the first category : the Treatise on Plants, Anatomy,
Astrological Theorems ; in the second : the Dialogues,
and the History of Rhetoric ; in the third : extracts from
some works of Plato, and writings on the Pythagoreans
and other philosophers. In this third category, evidently,
we must place the Constitutions (HoXtretai), in which
were to be found all kinds of information about 158
Greek and foreign cities, a lost collection of which we
possess many very interesting extracts. The treatise
entitled The Constitution of the Athenians was recently
discovered on a papyrus, and published in 1891.

We may classify as follows the scientific, properly
so called, or unpublished writings, in our possession,

G

82 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

representing, in a probably complete manner as regards
essentials, the philosophical work of Aristotle :

i st. Works on logic, collected at the Byzantine
period only under the name of opyavov : Karyyopiat
(categories), partially added to and altered ; Hepl
eppyveias (on speech or propositions) — this appears
to be the work of a Peripatetic of the third century
before Christ ; 'AvaXim/ca Trporepa (Prior Analytics),
dealing with syllogism ; 'AvaXvTiKa wrepa (Posterior
Analytics), dealing with demonstration; Tom/cd (Topics),
dealing with dialectic, or reasoning in probabilities.
The ninth book of this work is usually given as a
special work, entitled Hepl a-ofaa-Tiicwv eKeyxwv (On
Sophistical Refutations).

2nd. Works on natural philosophy : Qvaiicr) a/cpoacr^
(Physics), in eight books, the seventh of which, though
edited from Aristotelian notes, does not appear to
have been written by Aristotle ; Hepl ryeveaeax; KOI
<f>0opas (On Generation and Destruction) ; Hepl
ovpavov (On the Heavens) ; MerewpoKoyt/cd (Meteoro-
logies) ; Hepl ^/ru^5 (On Soul), and divers treatises
referring thereto, entitled Parva Naturalia ; Hepl
ra %wa iaroplai (Animal History), in ten books, a
work that has undergone considerable changes and
the tenth book of which is not authentic ; Hepl
fjbopiwv (The Parts of Animals) ; Hepl Tropelas
(The Motor Organs of Animals) ; ITe^l tyw
(On the Generation of Animals), a work that has been
considerably changed.

3rd. So-called metaphysical works, dealing with what
Aristotle calls first philosophy (TT/JCOTT; ^tXoo-o^ta) :
the work called Metaphysics, in fourteen books, is a
collection made, in all probability, shortly after the
death of Aristotle ; it comprises all that his papers

ARISTOTLE 83

contained referring to first philosophy. These writings
owe their present name (Ta /tera ra <j>v<ritca) to their
position after physics in the edition of Andronicus.
The substance of these writings is comprised in Books
i., iii., iv., vi. to ix., x. (numbers of the Berlin edition).
Book ii. and Book xi., from chapter viii., 1065, a, 26,
are unauthentic.

4th. Works on the practical sciences : 'HOnca
Nt/co/ia^em (Morals addressed to Nicomachus, or Nico-
machean Ethics) ; IIo\m/ca (Politics), an unfinished
work. According to Zeller, Books vii. and viii. of
the Politics ought most probably to be inserted between
Books iii. and iv. ; Te^v^ pyropiicij (Rhetoric) ; Hepl
TroiriTucfy (On Poetry).

With regard to the didactic works, the question of
chronology is only of moderate importance. Indeed,
they were all written during the last twelve years of
the philosopher's life (335-322), they make references
to each other, and, in their ensemble, offer us the com-
pleted system, without any proof of progress. So far
as can be judged by the paltry indications that may be
obtained from historical testimony and the examination
of the works in themselves, Aristotle first wrote the
works on logic (except the notes from which the liepl
epWveLas were compiled, and which appeared after the
Hepl ^v%^?). Then the writings on natural history
appeared, followed by the physiological and psycho-
logical works and those relating to the practical
sciences ; last of all, most probably and in any case
subsequent to the physics, the collection called meta-
physics. Thus Aristotle appears to have proceeded
from the abstract to the concrete, and, in the domain
of the concrete, from changing being to immutable
being.

84 STUDIES IN. PHILOSOPHY

III. — THE ENSEMBLE OF ARISTOTLE'S WORK

As indicated by the very title of his writings,
universality is the first characteristic of Aristotle's
work. Theory and practice, metaphysics and the
science of observation, erudition and speculation, his
philosophy includes everything. It is, or would like
to be, knowledge in its totality. The idea of science,
considered as the loftiest object of activity, stands out
in Aristotle as more precise than in Plato and more
general than in Anaxagoras and Democritus. It is
not the curiosity of a scholar, it is the ambition to enter
into the very essence and cause of things. Without
exception, everything that is, even what appears mean
and insignificant, calls in this sense for the philosopher's
investigations. He knows he will find the divine and
the intelligible in all the productions of nature, even
those that are apparently the humblest.

It was thus that he approached everything accessible
to human intelligence ; and, provided with all the positive
knowledge it was at that period possible to acquire, a
philosopher of penetrating intuition and strict reasoning
power, he either created or constituted most of the
sciences which the genius of mankind was subsequently
destined to develop. The list of the sciences he thus
organised is but the list of those he himself studied :
the history of philosophy, logic, metaphysics, general
physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, archaeology,
literary history, philology, grammar, rhetoric, poetics
and the philosophy of art. In each of these sciences
Aristotle is at home ; for each of them he lays down
special and appropriate principles. A pure ethicist when
dealing with justice and friendship, he is a professional
naturalist when dealing with zoology.

ARISTOTLE 85

Are we then to conclude that Aristotle comprises
many human beings in himself, so to speak ; is his
vast work nothing but the juxtaposition of the most
diverse labours, such as might result from the collabora-
tion of many learned men ? Such an appreciation
would certainly be a superficial one. First and foremost,
there is community of spirit and method between the
different works of Aristotle. This common substratum
might be defined as a harmonious blend of idealism,
observation and logical formalism. Aristotle always
seeks for the idea in the fact ; for the necessary and
the perfect in the contingent and the imperfect ; every-
where he endeavours to substitute fixed conceptions
and definitions for the fleeting data of sensible observa-
tion. Nor is this all ; according to him, the different
parts of knowledge hold a fixed relation to one another,
and this relation he very clearly defines. Speaking
generally, the superior is known only after the inferior,
and that only by the help of the knowledge of this
inferior ; at the same time, however, the true cause and
raison d'etre of the inferior is to be found in the superior.
For instance, the soul can be known only after the
body, which is its basis and the condition of its exist-
ence. But the body exists only for the soul ; from
this latter it obtains the regulated movement which con-
stitutes its being. This principle of Aristotle's will
assist us in classifying the many forms of his philo-
sophical activity.

IV. — CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

Without attaining to precision or even permanence
in detail, Aristotle was none the less the first to con-
ceive of science from an encyclopaedic point of view

86 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

and to endeavour to discover a principle for the com-
plete classification of knowledge.

In the first place, science stands clearly out from
the very things to which it relates. It consists of the
conception of things as necessary, and admits of different
degrees according as the object under consideration
itself admits of necessity or only of probability.

Science, in its ensemble, follows a double line of
direction, according as the human mind adopts as its
starting-point that which is first from its own point of
view, or that which is first absolutely. These two
steps are the very opposites of each other : for facts
are what is first to us, and, in the internal order of
nature, facts are what exists in the last resort ; and vice
versa, what is first in itself consists of principles, and
principles are the last thing to which we can attain.

Philosophy, in the broad sense of the word, is science
in general. In the first place, it comprises first philo-
sophy or the science of unconditioned principles ; in
the second place, the totality of the particular sciences,
the chief of which are : mathematics, physics, ethics
and poetics. Philosophy is one, thanks to first philo-
sophy, which is the common reservoir whence all par-
ticular sciences draw their principles.

This division, although fundamental, does not always
reappear in Aristotle's classifications of the sciences.
In certain places he divides the propositions, after the
fashion of the Platonists, into ethical, physical and
logical, these latter comprising the very propositions
that refer to first philosophy.

More frequently he divides the sciences into theo-
retical, practical (or relating to action) and poetical
(or relating to production by means of matter) ;
placing, from the logical and absolute point of view,

ARISTOTLE 87

theory before practice, and practice before poetics.
Then he subdivides the theoretical sciences into theo-
logy, mathematics and physics. Theology may be
brought under first philosophy, of which it forms the
summit. Mathematics deals with essences still stable
though not separable from matter, except by abstraction.
Physics deals with sensible — i.e. movable and perishable
— substances. The practical sciences, or sciences of
human things, are subdivided, if we proceed from
potency to act, i.e. from that which is first for us to
that which is first in itself, into ethics > economics and
politics. In fact, economics is often given by Aristotle
as included in politics. Rhetoric is more particularly
set forth as an auxiliary science to politics. Poetics
includes all the arts, the most important of them being
poetry and music. No mention is made of logic in
this classification, doubtless because the latter embraces
only the sciences dealing with realities, whereas logic
deals with concepts.

V. — METHOD AND THE POINT OF VIEW

The object Aristotle has in view is essentially theo-
retical. To know in order to know, to understand, to
adjust things to the intelligence : such is the end of all
his efforts.

All men, he says, have a natural desire to know.
We love science quite apart from any advantage to be
gained thereby. Wisdom is independent of utility ;
in fact, the greater it is. the less useful it is. The

o -

highest science is that of the goal or end, in view of
which, beings exist. This science alone is truly free,
because it alone exists solely in view of knowledge
itself. It is the least necessary of all sciences, and

88 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

therefore the most excellent. Science enables us to
become acquainted with the intelligible reasons of things.
The ignorant man, who all the same observes, is
astonished that things are as they are, and this very
astonishment is the beginning of science : the wise man
would be astonished were things otherwise than as he
knows them.

How does Aristotle proceed in order to acquire
science, thus understood ? Aristotle is neither the
dogmatic idealist that Bacon supposes, building up the
world with nothing but the categories of language, nor
the empiric that many moderns see in him. • He is both
an observer and a constructor : speaking generally, he
closely allies and combines the scrupulous study of facts
with the effort to make them intelligible. For him,
facts are the starting-point, but he does not stop there :
he tries to distil from them the rational truths he knows
beforehand to be contained therein. The end he has
in view is the knowledge of things in demonstrative
form, i.e. in the form of a deduction in which the
properties of the thing are known by its very essence.

Most frequently, and especially when dealing with
metaphysical or moral matters, before entering upon
the study of things in themselves, he investigates and
discusses all the opinions of others thereon. This is
the dialectic method ; drawing its arguments not from
the essence of the thing, but rather from the admissions
of one's interlocutor, it does not go beyond proba-
bility. In using this method, Aristotle frequently begins
with popular conceptions : he finds a philosophical
meaning in them and utilises it in constructing his
theory. He also starts with language which, for him,
is a sort of intermediary between things and reason.
He pays special attention to the doctrines of his pre-

ARISTOTLE 89

decessors, carefully going over all the opinions they have
upheld ; and even when rejecting these opinions, he tries
to find out the reason they were held and the degree
of truth in them. His philosophical dissertations are
generally composed as follows: ist, he determines the
object of investigation, so as not to be exposed to mis-
understanding, as is the case with Plato ; 2nd, he
enumerates and estimates the indications and opinions
held on the matter in hand ; 3rd, he investigates and
examines as completely as possible the difficulties or
airopiai offered by the question asked ; 4th, considering
things in themselves, and utilising, in his reasonings, the
results of the foregoing discussions, he seeks for the
solution of the problem in the determination of the one
eternal essence of the object in question.

VI. — ARISTOTLE, THE HISTORIAN

We see from the preceding that Aristotle is a his-
torian above all else. He began by learning as much
as possible. According to report, Plato called him
the reader. But history was not a final end for him,
although he manifested extraordinary curiosity regarding
facts ; it was, however, an indispensable means to an end.
It supplied the mind with materials without which it
would have nothing to work upon. Aristotle gave
himself up to profoundly historical studies in every
domain of science.

As regards the history of philosophy, he wrote mainly
on Platonism and the Pythagoreans. The whole of
the first book of the Metaphysics is full of historical
research: it is a summary of the principles set forth
from the time of Thales to that of Plato. But as the
object he has in view is dogmatic, he makes previous

9o STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

systems fit into the framework of his own philosophy.
He tries to find their perfect form, the idea within
each, their end and completion ; he is determined to
understand them more profoundly than even their
authors did, and he summarises them into rules created
by himself, which rules are used as stepping-stones to
his own system. When he classifies doctrines, he does
so according to the resemblances and differences they
offer from his own point of view, not according to the
influence they have had upon one another. Thus, the
summary contained in the first book of the Metaphysics
is intended to prepare the ground for the Aristotelian
theory of the four causes. Aristotle shows that, before
his time, the material, motive and formal principles were
more or less discerned and rightly estimated, but that
the final cause was spoken of as though by accident, as
something unessential. Anaxagoras, who had caught a
glimpse of the final cause, stands out, says our author,
as a sensible man amongst men who speak at random.
Chronological investigations have little to do with these
considerations. Aristotle, likewise, troubles himself
little with the relations of master to disciple. He notes
the services rendered by each of his predecessors to
philosophy in general, as he conceives it ; he points out
anything of a lasting nature that each thinker has found,
and mentions the inventors and promoters of ideas that
have played some part in the development of science
and appear to him deserving of examination. In a word,
making no attempt to find out the historical origins of
the systems, he all the same elicits from the crude mass
of facts, the logical formation of definitive philosophy.

With political history are connected the famous
TroTuretat in which Aristotle set forth the constitutions
of 158 Greek and foreign cities. This collection

ARISTOTLE 91

of treatises belonged to what we call archaeology and
the history of civilisation. In them were to be found
many a striking national custom, and even the proverbs
and popular songs of different peoples. According
to certain Greek commentators, the order of the con-
tents was alphabetical. Diogenes says that the con-
stitutions were classified according as they resembled
democracies, oligarchies, aristocracies or tyrannies. We
can nowadays form some idea of the iro\Lrela^ thanks
to the recently discovered treatise on the Constitution of
the Athenians. The first part of this treatise is an
explanation of the political transformations of Athens
from its historical beginnings. The second describes
the political and administrative organisation of Athens
about the time of the Crown trial (330 B.C.).

In the literary order of things, Aristotle had written
the history of rhetoric and poetry. This history, which
has not come down to us, was greatly praised by Cicero.
" Aristotle," he said, " had noted down all the precepts
given by the rhetors, and that, too, with such a degree
of perfection that these precepts were found to be more
clearly set forth by him than by their authors them-
selves ; so that when one wished to become acquainted
with them, it was in Aristotle's works that search was
made."

He had also drawn up chronological lists of dramatic
performances as well as lists of the victors in the Olympic
and Pythian games. These works are lost.

As may be seen, Aristotle's curiosity is insatiable and
embraces every department of nature. Still, he is
determined to know and understand, not to amuse him-
self with the mere statement of facts : history for him
is nothing but an instrument of science, and a fact has
no value except as the vehicle of an idea.

92 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

VII.— LOGIC

Aristotle is determined to become acquainted with
facts, not only as regards what they are, but as regards
what they ought to be ; he wishes to resolve the con-
tingent into the necessary. First, then, he has to find
out under what conditions the mind conceives some-
thing as necessary ; in other words, he has first to
consider science in its form, putting on one side its
content : this is the object of logic.

Logic is the determination of the laws of reasoning
and of the conditions of science. In knowledge Aristotle
makes a distinction between form and matter, he regards
form as possessed of an existence and laws of its own.
Its existence lies in the reality of stable concepts, or
general, single ideas, exactly determined both as regards
their comprehension and their extension. Its funda-
mental law is the principle of contradiction : " It is
impossible for one and the same attribute to belong
and not to belong to a given subject, regarded in one and
the same connection." Moreover, according to Aristotle,
there is proportion as well as agreement between thought
and being ; consequently, our philosopher does not
object to the introduction into his logic of many
elements of a metaphysical nature.

Aristotelian logic is the rational analysis of the condi-
tions which any reasoning must satisfy for its conclusion
to be regarded as necessary. The thing is not to know
how, as a matter of fact, we reason in ordinary life, but
rather how reasoning must be built up in order that the
necessity of the connection it establishes may appear
immediately and irresistibly evident. This is why the
problem of the psychological analysis of natural reason-
ing, indicated by Locke, could be substituted for that

ARISTOTLE 93

of Aristotle only by admitting the reduction of the
necessary to the contingent, the ideal to the real,
precept to fact, and art to nature.

It is advisable to distinguish between : ist, the
instruments of thought ; 2nd, the role and value of
these instruments in the constitution of science.

The instruments of thought are : notions, proposi-
tions and reasoning.

The general heading of notions includes the predic-
ables, the categories and the notions of logical relations.

The predicableSy which Aristotle, it would seem, calls
the genera of problems, are the universal notions that
relate to the general modes according to which one
thing may be enunciated with reference to another.
These are what are called the universals, viz. genus,
species, difference, property and accident.

The categories are the irreducible genera of words,
and consequently of things, for classes of words are the
classes of the things themselves. These are the ultimate
genera. The categories are ten in number : ist, essence,
for instance, man, horse ; 2nd, quantity : two ells long ;
3rd, quality : white ; 4th, relation : double, half ; 5th,
place : at school ; 6th, time : yesterday ; yth, position :
to be seated, lying ; 8th, possession : to be shod, armed ;
9th, action : to cut, to burn ; loth, passivity : to be cut,
burnt. The categories are divided into two classes,
essence alone forming the first, and the nine other
categories constituting the second.

This table of categories seems to have been drawn
up empirically by comparison of the words with one
another. It differs fundamentally from Kant's, which
sets forth the different ways of connecting, a priori and
necessarily, the various elements of an intuition in general,

94 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

i.e. of bringing this scattered matter under the unity of
transcendental apperception.

The different logical relations of terms to one another
are identity and opposition, the latter including con-
trariety, contradiction and the relation between
deprivation and possession.

The general principle with regard to opposition is
that two terms opposed to each other always depend on
one and the same science.

Propositions result from the union of concepts.
They are affirmative or negative, universal or particular.
They alone admit of truth or error, whereas isolated
concepts are neither true nor false. The result is not
the same, when two judgments are contradictory to
each other, as when they are simply contrary. Two
contrary judgments cannot both be true, though they
may be false, whereas one of two contradictory judg-
ments is of necessity true and the other false : this
results from the principle of excluded middle, a par-
ticular expression of the principle of contradiction.

Propositions admit of conversions or inversions of
subject and predicate, the rules of which are determined
by Aristotle.

Reasoning consists essentially of syllogism. The
theory of syllogism and of demonstration, or perfect
syllogism, is called by Aristotle analytics. Aristotle
claims to have invented it. He affirms that, previous
to his time, there existed nothing on this subject, that
he had not merely to improve but to invent, and that
he attained his end by dint of laborious attempts.
Kant said regarding the theory of the syllogism that,
ever since the days of Aristotle, it had not moved a
step, either backwards or forwards.

The syllogism is a process of reasoning in which,

ARISTOTLE 95

certain things being posited, something different
necessarily results. The property of the syllogism is
that it makes evident the necessity of the conjunction.
This result is obtained by the use of elements adapted
to an exact application of the principle of contradiction.
These elements are terms regarded as holding to each
other the relation of the part to the whole. Granted
that A contains B and B contains C, it necessarily
follows, in accordance with the principle of contradiction,
that A contains C. This is the type of the syllogism,
and the three terms it implies are therefore called
major, middle and minor. This relation of extent is
regarded by Aristotle as equivalent to the relation
between general and particular. The genus is a kind
of definite circle, containing the various species.

The syllogism is perfect or imperfect, according as
it conforms immediately to the type we have just in-
dicated, or becomes conformable thereto only by the
aid of transformations or reductions.

The origin of this theory may be found in mathe-
matics. It consists in an adaptation to the qualitative
notions of the relations of dimension. It was natural
that Aristotle should seek, in an analogical imitation of
mathematics, for the means of demonstrating necessarily
in qualitative matter ; since it was acknowledged by all
that mathematics realised that necessity in the con-
catenation of the terms, which he had in view. In the
syllogism the instrument of necessary connection is the
middle term.

Of the particular cases of syllogism, the most im-
portant is induction, or the reasoning which proceeds
from particular to general. The following is an in-
stance of this reasoning : " The man, the horse and the
mule live long. Now the man, the horse and the mule are

96 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

animals devoid of gall. Therefore, all animals devoid
of gall live long." The condition of the legitimacy of
the conclusion lies in the convertibility of the minor
premise. Here, for instance, for the proposition :
" The man, the horse and the mule are animals devoid
of gall," we should have to be permitted to substitute :
" All the animals devoid of gall are man, the horse and
the mule." The legitimacy of this substitution is no
longer a matter of logic. In fact, the series of animals
devoid of gall is an infinite one. But the essence of
the animal devoid of gall is entirely in each animal
devoid of gall. The question is to discern this
essence, to find the type of the animal devoid of gall,
so as to distinguish the characteristics belonging to
animals devoid of gall, in this particular condition of
being devoid of gall, and separate them from the
characteristics belonging to them independently of this
condition. To effect this, we consider a certain number
of animals devoid of gall, compare them with one
another, find out what they have in common, and so
what there is in them that is essential and necessary.
In other words, we consider the beings of nature not
only with the senses, but with the vovs — the seat of the
essences — which is capable of finding and recognising
them in the data of the senses.

Aristotle's induction thus aims at the classification
of beings and facts, and also at a natural classification.
In so far as it is applied in distinguishing necessary
relations from contingent ones, it makes prediction
possible, and thus supplies us with true laws, in the
modern sense of the word. This possibility of pre-
diction, however, is restricted to the facts that proceed
immediately from a determined essence ; it does not
extend to the facts that result from the mingling of

ARISTOTLE 97

several essences. There is no necessary reason for
the mingling of the essences ; this is something purely
contingent. The genera, according to Aristotle, are
radically separated from one another ; each of them is
an absolute. In this doctrine of the independence of
genera, the Aristotelian theory of induction is opposed
both to Cartesianism, which reduces physical laws to
mathematical determinations, the heterogeneous to the
homogeneous ; and also to evolutionism, which re-
cognises the present existence of species, though
attributing to them a natural genesis in the past,
starting from one common origin.

Syllogism, properly so called, and induction are
to each other, says Aristotle, as the order of nature
and that of human knowledge. In itself, syllogism is
the more intelligible ; to us, induction is the more
distinct. A syllogism starts from the general. Now,
it is impossible for us to have knowledge of the
general except by induction. Not that general prin-
ciples rest on sensation and induction as their founda-
tion ; it is rather that induction discovers these principles
for us and supplies us with the intelligible elements
which the i/oO? acknowledges to be both necessary and
true.

Such are the instruments of science. How, by
means of them, is science formed ?

Science is the knowledge of things in so far as they
are necessary. A thing is known scientifically when
we know that it could not be otherwise than it is.
Now, this knowledge is realised when we succeed in
connecting the given thing with its cause.

In nature there are three kinds of connections : ist,
conjunctions that are always realised, for instance : the

H

9 8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

relations of astronomical phenomena ; 2nd, conjunctions
that are usually realised, for instance : the relations of
physical things to one another, and, even more so, of
moral things ; 3rd, chance, i.e. the coincidences that are
but seldom, or never, reproduced. The first kind of
connection admits of perfect science ; the second, of
imperfect science, limited to probability ; the third is
outside of the domain of science. There is no science
of what is passing away.

Neither opinion nor sensation can produce science,
for as they are both incapable of perfect determination
and finity, they cannot grasp the finite and immovable.
Platonic dialectic, too, is powerless to afford us science,
for as it consists of questions and answers, it relies only
on the consent of the opponent, not on truth in itself.
Starting from hypothesis, it does not go beyond a
purely formal and logical inference. It is by demon-
stration that we arrive at science. Apodeictic, or the
theory of demonstration, differs essentially from
dialectic.

Demonstration is effected by direct syllogism of the
first figure. Reductio ad absurdum and syllogisms of
the second and third figures are not yet demonstration,
which has its starting-point in a principle that is not
only granted by the opponent, but is necessary in
itself. This is how the mathematician reasons.

Demonstration comprises three elements : ist, the
subject ; 2nd, the predicate, which has to be linked to
the subject by a bond of necessity ; 3rd, the general
principles on which demonstration is based. These
latter are the principle of contradiction and its de-
rivatives. Though indispensable, they are empty
and insufficient in themselves. It is in the nature
of the subject that the basis of demonstration lies.

ARISTOTLE 99

There are, in effect, principles proper to the subject,
for instance the continuous, inherent in extent ; and
the discontinuous, inherent in number : it is these
special principles that have a content and are productive.
On these principles it is good to rely, and, in deduction,
we should never pass from one genus to another unless
the one is properly subordinated to the other. Thus,
geometry could not be explained by arithmetic ; it
would be impossible to adapt to dimensions of ex-
tension demonstrations proper to number. When
this rule is violated, we have for our guidance none but
the principles common to all sciences ; and so the con-
nections established are known only as accidental and
contingent, not as essential and necessary : we have
been proceeding by analogy, not by demonstration. The
impossibility here seen by Aristotle was at a later date
removed by Descartes and Leibnitz.

Proper principles cannot be proved like common
ones. To claim to demonstrate everything would be
to condemn oneself either to progress ad infinitum or
to the argument in a circle. Thus each science has its
special irreducible principles.

Whence come these principles? They are neither
innate, nor received purely and simply from without.
There is within us a disposition to conceive them ;
and, as the result of experience, this disposition passes
into action. It is in this, after all, that induction con-
sists, and so it is by induction that we know the first
principles proper to each science.

Demonstration implies definition. There must be
undemonstrable definitions : otherwise we should pro-
ceed ad infinitum. There is no definition, either of the
individual or of the accident — or the indeterminate
general — but only of intermediate species between the

ioo STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

general and the individual. Definition is effected by
indicating the next genus and the specific differences.
In order to constitute a definition, we must proceed
from the particular to the general and verify this induc-
tion by a deduction proceeding from genus to species.

To sum up, a thing is known as necessary when
connected, by deduction, with a specific essence.

Below apodeictic, which teaches how one comes to
know a thing as necessary, stands dialectic, or the logic
of the probable : we find it set forth in the Topics.
The domain of dialectic is opinion, a mode of know-
ledge admitting of truth or of falsehood. The
dialectician takes, as his starting-point, not definitions
necessary in themselves, but opinions or theses pro-
pounded either by philosophers or by common sense ;
he tries to discover which of these divers opinions is
the most probable. Proceeding by means of questions
and answers, he contradictorily examines the yes and
the no regarding each subject. Thus, he arranges his
questions in such fashion as to present first a thesis,
then an antithesis ; afterwards he discusses both pro-
positions. This discussion consists in examining the
difficulties that arise, when we wish to apply the pro-
position to particular instances. The dialectician
reasons syllogistically, though he starts with the pro-
bable. The probable, taken as the given, is in reality
the purely generic essence, not yet determined by the
specific difference. Only by the addition of the specific
principle to the generic principle could the conclusion
be made necessary. The specific principles, however,
cannot be deduced from the generic ones, for every
genus admits alike of different species.

The rble of dialectic is important : it is the only
possible mode of reasoning in things which do not

ARISTOTLE 101

admit of necessary definitions. And in the search after
necessary truths themselves, dialectic is the indispensable
preliminary of demonstration.

What dialectic is in logic, rhetoric is in morals.
If the former seeks after the probable, the object of
the latter is to commend it to acceptance. And so
rhetoric and dialectic go well together, or rather, as
practice is to theory what the particular is to the general,
so rhetoric is a part of dialectic. The mode of reason-
ing proper to rhetoric is the enthymeme, a syllogism in
which one of the three propositions is left unexpressed,
and the reasons are not obtained from the essence of
things, but from probabilities and signs. The main
element of the enthymeme that rhetoric uses, is analogy,
or the induction which proceeds from particular to
particular.

Finally, a distinction must be made between dialectic
and eristic. Whereas the former has to deal with
things that are general and ordinary, without being
necessary, the latter deals with pure accident, and that
deliberately. Eristic contents itself with a probability
that is accepted by the hearer ; consequently eristic
reasonings are pure sophisms. Aristotle minutely
exposes and describes them.

Below things that always happen, which depend on
an essence both generic and specific and are capable of
being known as necessary, even below things that
usually happen, which depend on a simply generic
essence and are capable of being known as probable,
there are those that happen accidentally, apart from
any rule at all. As things that usually happen result
from the mingling of species, so isolated phenomena
result from the mingling of genera ; but whereas that
which is not determinable by species is still determin-

102 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

able, to some extent, by genus, the common substratum
of several species, that which is not even determinable
by genus is no longer determinable at all, since, above
genera, there are none but universal principles, which,
as they apply to everything, determine nothing. There
is no science, then, of hazard, as such, the meet-
ing with the two genera. Only the elements of which
the fortuitous phenomenon consists can be known as
necessary or possible, in so far as they are connected
with their respective specific or generic essences : the
union of these elements, which, properly speaking,
constitutes the fortuitous phenomenon, is without
reason, because genera, as such, are without mutual
connection.

Aristotelian logic held undisputed sway down to the
time of Bacon and Descartes. From the beginning of
modern philosophy, it has been attacked and battered
on every side ; either reproached for being the logic of
exposition, and not that of invention, or else regarded
as artificial and illegitimate. Discussion bears mainly
on the value of the concept or general idea, the basis of
the theory. The empirics, in particular, to whom ideas
are only traces of sensation, estimate the value of
generalities by the number of ascertained facts they
represent ; they maintain that, as the truth of the
major premise of a syllogism implies that of the con-
clusion, the syllogism is necessarily an argument in a
circle.

Here the thing to discover is whether a concept
is anything else than a collective idea, or a static or
dynamic unity, valid for an indefinite series of past,
present and future facts. But even should the Aris-
totelian concept not exactly coincide with the nature
of things, as would be the case were continuity the

ARISTOTLE 103

fundamental law of being, the logic of Aristotle would
none the less retain real value. Not only would it
subsist as an analysis of the conditions of ideal know-
ledge for the human mind, but it would be legitimate
in proportion as there exist species in nature. Now,
these do exist, if not in an eternal, primitive fashion,
perhaps, at all events in actuality and at the present
time. Superior beings, especially, form relatively stable
groups. Even though continuity were the fundamental
law, none the less would it be necessary to recognise in
nature a tendency to discontinuity and specification.
Aristotelian logic would answer to that part or side of
nature which is governed by the law of specification.
Deprived of the metaphysical and absolute value its
founder attributed to it, it would retain a relative and
experimental value.

VIII. — METAPHYSICS

Whereas each science considers some particular
species of beings ; physics, for instance, considers being
in so far as it has matter and motion ; mathematics, the
form of mobile being in so far as it is isolated by
abstraction from the matter in which it is realised ;
first philosophy, as Aristotle calls it, considers being, in
so far as it is being, TO ov, y ov, and in this way tries to
discover its principles.

Aristotelian metaphysics has been set up as opposed to
Platonic philosophy. Thus, we find Aristotle beginning
his exposition by a criticism of his master. Plato, he
says, seeks both the object of science and being, in
so far as it is being, in the general essences conceived
of as existing apart, outside of things and also outside
of one another. Now, here, the true is confounded with

io4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

the false. Plato clearly saw that the general alone can
be an object of science and that the sensible world as
such cannot, therefore, be known scientifically. But he
was mistaken in thinking that genera can exist apart, that
they are themselves principles and substances. Genera
•exist only in individuals. We get entangled in in-
extricable difficulties if we insist that they exist per se.
Under this hypothesis, what will be the relation of
things to their respective genera ? Will it be one
of participation ? Then how can this participation
be conceived ? Besides, how many substantial genera
will there be ? How can the idea, the one substance,
be met with in an infinite number of individuals ? If
the general idea is substance, either there are no
individuals or there is only one. In addition, the
general cannot be principle and substance, because it
is devoid of force and cannot exist per se. The general
is always an attribute, a predicate : substance, on the
other hand, is a subject, a thing existing apart. There-
fore, it is quite true that the general alone is an object
of science ; substance, on the contrary, can be only
individual.

Here, however, a difficulty arises. If, on the one
hand, all science rests on the general, and, on the other,
substance can be only something individual, how can
there be a science of substance ? Does not our theory
end in the following result : a science whose object is
not in being ; a being which cannot be an object of
science ?

To solve this difficulty, we must enlarge our notion
of science. All science does not rest on the general.
Science has two modes, two degrees. There is science
in potency and there is science in act. The former has
the general for its object, but it is not so with the

ARISTOTLE 105

latter, which has for its object the perfectly determined
being, the individual.

In this doctrine we find the central idea of Aris-
totelianism. The general is not the constitutive prin-
ciple of being, it is nothing but the matter thereof.
Though determined in one direction, it is indeterminate
in another : every general type may be realised in
divers ways. A real being, a substance, is a completed
being, which, in every respect, is this and not that :
consequently, in any real being whatsoever, there is
something more than in any general idea. The entire
science of the general could not build up the in-
dividuality of Socrates. There are necessarily two
things outside of this abstract science : accidents, be-
cause they are below the general ; individuals, because
they are above it. The knowledge of individuals is
effected by an intuition, which, immediately, grasps the
x substantial unity that could not be deduced.

This irreducibleness of the individual to the general
will be seen through the philosophy of Aristotle. By
virtue of this principle, abstract speculation will be power-
less to enable us to know nature ; to do this, experience
will be necessary. And in the moral order of things, laws
will be inadequate to bring about the reign of justice ;
the magistrate must be brought in, empowered by law
to apply general rules to the endless diversity of
individual cases.

What are the principles of being ? Being, which is
given to us, is subject to a process of becoming. Now,
becoming, in so far as it exists, implies principles that
have not been generated : a halt must necessarily be
made in the retrogression towards causes, when we
have to find out what are the integral elements of
'present existence.

io6 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

What are the principles required in order to explain
becoming ? They are four in number : ist, a sub-
stratum or matter, the scene of change, i.e. of the
substitution of one mode of being for another ; 2nd,
a form of determination ; 3rd, a motor cause ; 4th, an
aim or end. For instance, the principles of a house are :
the timber, as matter or material, the idea of the house,
as form, the architect, as motor cause, and the dwelling
to be realised, as object or end.

These four principles, in turn, may be reduced to
two : matter and form. In fact, the motor cause is
nothing more than form in an already realised subject :
thus, the motor cause of the house is the idea of the
house, as conceived by the architect. And the final
cause is also the form, for the final cause of each single
thing really consists of the perfection or form towards
which it is tending.

And so matter and form are definitely the two non-
generated principles that are necessary and sufficient to
explain becoming. Matter is the substratum. It is
neither this nor that ; it is capable of becoming this or
that. Form is that which makes of matter a deter-
minate (roSe rt) and real thing. It is the perfection,
activity or soul of the thing. As Aristotle interprets
it, the word form has quite a different meaning from
ours. For instance, in Aristotle's phraseology, a
sculptured hand possesses the figure and not the form
of a hand, because it cannot perform such functions as
are proper to the hand.

There is a scale of existences from lowest matter,
which has no form at all, to highest form, which is
devoid of matter. Absolutely indeterminate matter is
non-existent. Form without matter is outside of
nature. All the beings of nature are compounds of

ARISTOTLE 107

matter and form. The opposition of matter and form
is relative. That which is matter from one point of
view is form from another. Timber is matter in
relation to the house, and form in relation to uncut
wood. The soul is form with regard to the body,
matter the intelligence.

Aristotle does not content himself with this reduction
of the four principles to matter and form ; he attempts
to bring together these two principles themselves. To
effect this, he brings them within the scope of potency
and act. For him, matter is not mere receptivity, as it
is for Plato : it has a propensity to receive form, it
desires form. The latter is not something hetero-
geneous as regards matter : it is its natural completion.
Matter is potency, potency that is capable of two
determinate contraries. The logical mechanism of the
substitution of forms in inert matter thus resolves itself
into a metaphysical dynamism. There is an inner
action in the transition from potency to act. This is
no longer a juxtaposition or separation of inert, pre-
existing elements : it is a spontaneous creation of being
and perfection. If a force of determinate quantity,
says Aristotle, is needed to produce a certain effect, the
half of this force, applied separately, does not produce
this effect at all. Were it not so, given a ship which
several men, with united effort, set in motion, a single
man would be able to communicate a certain amount
of motion to the ship, but this, as we know, is contrary
to experience. Any particular part, which produces
motion when united with the whole, if taken separately
and acting alone, becomes altogether powerless. Truth
to tell, the part has no existence as a part in what is
really a whole : a part exists only potentially in the
whole from which it may be taken.

io8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

As we see, the Aristotelian concept of potency and
act is very empirical. Aristotle takes it for granted
that the effort of a single man produces no result on a
ship, because he does not know that the work which
does not become manifest in the form of movement, at
all events, generates heat. None the less is the push of
a single man really ineffective, so far as actual removal
from one place to another is concerned. Even at the
present time, there is a school of chemists who reason
like Aristotle, and do not regard hydrogen and oxygen
as existing in water in act, but, relying on experience,
these scientists say that hydrogen and oxygen exist in
water in potency, in this sense that, if water is subjected
to certain conditions, hydrogen and oxygen may be
obtained.

To sum up, becoming, according to Aristotle, origin-
ates neither in absolute being nor in absolute non-being ;
it originates in being in potency, midway between being
and non-being.

From this being in potency, or matter, proceeds all
that is indetermination and imperfection in the world.
Matter is the principle of brute necessity or dvdy/cr),
which is mechanical and blind causality, in contrast with
the motor cause which acts with a view to an end. If
such necessity exists, it is because nature is compelled
to employ material causes in its creations. Now, in a
sense, matter is resistant to form. That is why the
creations of nature are invariably imperfect ; there are
even produced many things that are devoid of purpose,
in so far as they come into being by the action of
mechanical forces only. Slaves, for instance, whose
actions are regulated often, nevertheless, act on their
own account, quite apart from regulations. Matter
is the principle of the contingence of future events.

ARISTOTLE 109

As regards the future, the position of a determinate
alternative is alone necessary : the realisation of either
term of this alternative is indeterminate. From matter
proceeds hazard. In any given being, those phenomena
are fortuitous which do not spring from the essence of
that being, but are the result either of its imperfection
or of the influx of extraneous causes. Hazard manifests
itself by the rarity of the event. The fortuitous event
is mechanically necessary, though necessary only from
this point of view : in relation to finality it is indeter-
minable and uncognisable. Matter is the cause of the
imperfection of beings as well as the cause of evil.
It is likewise the cause of the multiplicity of species,
for, in all their infinite variety, the beings of nature
are only more or less complete realisations of one and
the same type supplied by the form. Animals are only
incomplete men, arrested at a certain stage of their
natural development. From the presence of matter in
natural things, it follows that these things cannot be the
object of perfect science, i.e. they cannot be known as
fully determined. In itself, the material element of
things does not admit of science.

Such are the proximate causes of being when sub-
mitted to a process of becoming. We could not have
a full explanation of this being, however, were we to
confine ourselves to a consideration of its elements.
Being in process of becoming finds its ultimate explana-
tion only in an eternal being.

The existence of God is already proved, in a popular
way, by the gradual perfection of beings and the finality
that reigns throughout nature. Scientifically it is proved
by the analysis of the conditions of motion. This is
what is called the argument of the prime mover.

no STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Motion is change, the relation of matter to form.
In this sense, the motion of the world is eternal. In-
deed, time is necessarily eternal ; now, without motion or
change, time could not exist. But motion implies both
something movable and a moving principle. Motion,
then, in so far as it is eternal, presupposes something
eternally movable and an immovable first mover.
The " eternally movable " moves in a circle ; this is
the first heaven, the heaven of the fixed stars. The
immovable first mover is what men call God.

This proof may be generalised as follows. The
actual is always previous to the potential. The first,
in the absolute, is not the germ, but rather the com-
pleted being. Besides, actuation could not take place
were not pure act already in existence. God is this
pure act.

In a word, demonstration of the existence of God
is based on the following dual principle : ist, act, from
the point of view of the absolute nature of things, is
anterior to potency ; 2nd, the conditioned presupposes
the unconditioned.

What is God? His nature is determined by his
rtle as first mover. God is pure act, i.e. he is exempt
from indetermination, imperfection and change. He is
both immovable and immutable. He is thought which
has thought — and nothing else — as its object (rj vorja-is
z/oTjcreo)? vori<n<^. He sees not the world, for when
we are dealing with imperfect things, not to see
them is better than to see them : the dignity of an
intelligence is gauged by the perfection of its object.
He is eternal, all-excelling life, and therefore supremely
happy.

To this thought which thinks itself the world is
suspended, as a thought which does not think itself

ARISTOTLE 1 1 1

and tends to do so. This is how God moves the
world. What is desired and thought moves without
oneself moving. It is the intelligible that determines
intelligence, not intelligence that determines the intel-
ligible. Now, God is the supremely desirable and the
supremely intelligible. God, therefore, moves the
world as final cause, without himself moving. God is
not the ultimate product of the world's development ;
logically, he is anterior to the world. Nor is he
immanent in the world, as order is immanent in an
army : he is out of the world, as a general is distinct
from his army.

The immediate effect of divine action is the rotatory
motion of the whole universe, which gives rise to
the motions or changes of perishable things. The
world is one, because God is one. Because God is
intelligent, the world is a harmonious whole, a well-
composed poem. Everything therein is arranged with
a view to a single end. The relation of the various
beings to the whole is all the closer from the fact that
these beings are higher in the scale of nature ; just as, in
a well-ordered house, the actions of free men are more
regulated than those of slaves. God, moreover, to
whom the world is as though it did not exist, intervenes
in no single detail of his own events.

This theology is an abstract monotheism. All the
beings and facts of nature are wholly referred to natural
causes. It is only nature, regarded in its entirety, that
is made contingent on divinity. There is neither special
providence nor supernatural reward in another life. The
only thing in popular religion that Aristotle admits to
be true is the general belief in divinity and in the
divine nature of the sky and the stars. To his mind,
the rest consists of nothing but mythical additions, the

ii2 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

explanation of which a philosopher finds either in the
tendency of men towards anthropomorphic conceptions,
or in the calculations of politicians.

IX. — GENERAL PHYSICS

The object of first philosophy was immovable and
incorporeal being ; the object of physics, or second
philosophy, is movable and corporeal being, in so far
as the latter has within itself the principle of its motion.
<&vo-i,<s is spontaneous motion, in opposition to that which
results from compulsion.

Does nature exist as such ? Is there, in the universe,
an internal principle of motion, a tendency to an end ?

According to Aristotle, it is the fundamental principle
of physics that God and nature do nothing in vain ; that
nature always tends towards something better ; that, as
far as possible, it always brings to pass what is to be
the most beautiful. The existence of finality in the
universe is proved by observation. In the smallest as
in the largest things, if we take notice, we find there
is reason, perfection, divinity. Nature converts even
its own imperfections to good.

But if order and harmony exist throughout the
universe, does it follow that the universe is the product
of a <£vo-£9 properly so called, a divine creative power ?
Is not there some other possible explanation of this
order and harmony ? Why, for instance, should we
not say : Jupiter does not send the rain in order to
make the corn grow ; the corn grows because it rains.
Necessity makes the rain fall, and when this pheno-
menon takes place, the wheat profits thereby. Necessity
likewise makes the organs of animals, and of these they
make use. Whereas everything appears to take place

ARISTOTLE 113

with a view to an end, it is really only things that
survive, because they happen to have been constituted
by chance so as to conform with their conditions of
existence. And those things which did not happen to
be constituted in that way, die out, and have always
died out, as, according to Empedocles, happened in
the case of the oxen with human faces.

A vain explanation, replies Aristotle, for the organs
of animals and the majority of the beings with which
nature brings us in contact are what they are, to wit,
harmonious compounds, either in every case, or in most,
at all events. Now, it is never so with things produced
by chance ; here, fortunate occurrences are never any-
thing but exceptions.

But, we shall be told, there exist monsters.
Monsters are but incomplete pieces of work, the
results of effort which is incapable of realising the
perfect type. Nature, as well as art, may make
mistakes, by reason of the obstruction which the very
matter, on which it is working, sets up against it.

Finally, will the objection be raised that we do not
see the mover deliberating and choosing ? That matters
little, for art does not deliberate either ; it acts
intelligently, without giving account of what it does.

Nature, then, is a cause, and a cause that acts
with a view to an end. It must, however, be recog-
nised that it is not the only cause in the universe.
Its action is only possible owing to the co-operation
of the material or mechanical cause, which, though
yielding to its attraction, never allows itself to submit
completely. . Along with finality, then, we find every-
where throughout the universe, a certain proportion of
brute necessity and chance.

This explains why, on the one hand, the principle

n4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of the best may legitimately be employed in explaining
the things of nature ; though, on the other hand, the
things of nature can never come within the domain of
perfect science, wherein everything seems wholly deter-
mined from the point of view of the intelligence.
The science of nature is always imperfect in some
direction ; it admits of degrees, as do the parts of
nature itself. In accordance with these principles, the
cause of natural things may be found, either in their
matter, or in their form or destination. And, as far as
possible, the teleological explanation should complete
the mechanical one, which, however finished it be,
leaves things indeterminate in the sight of reason.
Such is the method Aristotle is to pursue in his
investigations into natural things.

Motion or change is the realization of a possible.
There are four kinds of change : ist, substantial change,
which consists in being born and in perishing. This is
motion which proceeds from relative non -being to
being, and from the latter to the former. There is
no such thing as absolute generation and destruction.
Individuals alone are born and die : genera remain.
2nd, quantitative change : increase or diminution ; 3rd,
qualitative change, or the transition from one sub-
stance to another ; 4th, spatial change, or displacement.

All modes of change are conditioned by motion in
space. Aristotle makes a profound study of this
motion. He brings against the arguments of the
Eleatics, who deny the possibility of motion, the
doctrine that the infinite exists only in potency, not in
act. The infinite consists only in the possibility of an
indefinite increase of numbers and in the indefinite
divisibility of dimensions : it cannot be the given.

ARISTOTLE 115

When, therefore, we reason about the real, we should
presuppose only finite quantities.

As regards space, Aristotle investigates the nature
of place. The place of a body is not something in
itself, it is the interior limit of the surrounding body.
It is like a motionless vase which contains the body.
Consequently, all bodies are not in a place, but only
those enclosed in other bodies. The sky, the universal
container, is not itself in a place. Space, or rather the
extent of the world, is limited.

Time is the number of motion as regards before and
after. It is limitless in both directions.

Continuousness is the characteristic of time and space.
It is divisible ad infinitum, though in dimensions that
are themselves continuous : not, as Zeno supposed,
in indivisible points. All dimension is divisible into
dimensions. Moreover, continuousness is an imperfect
notion, and relates to sensible things, for it is divisible
ad infinitum, and consequently is indeterminate as
regards the number of its elements.

From these principles Aristotle concludes that, out-
side the world, there is neither space nor time, that the
vacuum of the atomists is inconceivable, that all motion
takes place in the plenum by a process of substitution,
and that time, which is a number, presupposes, as does
every number, a soul which counts its units. Motion
in space, the condition of all other motions, is the only
one that is continuous. And circular motion is the
only kind that is capable of being both one and con-
tinuous, without beginning or end.

Aristotle does not regard it as possible to explain all
changes by motion in space alone. He looks upon
qualities as realities, and admits that qualitative change
is incapable of being reduced to motion in space. This

n6 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

theory he sets up in opposition to the mechanism of
Democritus and the mathematisme of Plato. He raises
two objections to the doctrines of these philosophers :
1st, Democritus and Plato reduce dimensions to in-
divisible points : now, all dimension is divisible ad
infinitum ; 2nd, however we set about it, it is impossible
to extract quality from quantity, pure and simple.

It is for this reason that Aristotle lays down the
principle of a qualitative distinction in substances.

And, just as there is a qualitative nature, there is
likewise a qualitative transformation. One substance,
acted upon by another, becomes modified in its inner
nature. This phenomenon is possible when two bodies
are partly alike and partly unlike, that is to say, when
two substances are opposed to each other within one
and the same genus, and it is possible only in this case.
The changing of one of these substances into the other
is no mere mechanical displacement, in which the
elements remain identical throughout the change in the
compound substance : it is really the formation of a
new substance, fundamentally different from the former.
The given substance bears the same relation to the
substance resulting from the qualitative change that
potency bears to act.

X. — MATHEMATICS

Mathematics considers relations of dimension,
quantity, and continuousness, neglecting the other
physical qualities. Thus, it deals with things that are
immovable without existing apart, essences intermediary
between the world and God. By a process of abstrac-
tion the mathematician isolates form from matter, in
sensible things.

ARISTOTLE 117

Mathematics is either pure or applied. Geometry
and arithmetic constitute pure mathematics. Mathe-
matics may be applied either to the practical arts,
geodesy, for instance, or to natural sciences, such as
optics, mechanics, harmonics, or astrology. In the
latter case the question of fact is the business of the
physicist, the why or wherefore is the business of the
mathematician.

Mathematics makes use of the notions of the good
and the beautiful, because order, symmetry, and deter-
mination, all of which are pre-eminently mathematical,
are some of the most important elements in the good
and the beautiful.

None of Aristotle's mathematical works have come
down to us. His principal ones were treatises on
mathematics, unity, optics, and astronomy. In the
works we possess we frequently come across examples
taken from mathematics.

XI. — COSMOLOGY

From the eternity of form and matter follows the
perpetuity of motion, as well as that of the existence of
the world. Species in themselves are eternal, and there
have always been men : individuals alone are born and
perish. As the world is eternal, the science of the
world is not a cosmogony, but rather a cosmology.
Aristotle has not the formation of the universe to
explain, but only its system.

The world is one, finite and well regulated. It is a
work of art, as beautiful and good as the resistance of
the material element permits. It has a perfect form,
the spherical, the only one, moreover, that enables the
whole to move without causing a vacuum outside itself.

n8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

It consists of two unequal halves: ist, the supra-
lunar or celestial world, the vault to which the fixed
stars are attached ; 2nd, the infralunar or terrestrial
world.

The celestial world is animated with a rotatory
motion produced directly by God. The imperishable
nature of the stars and the unchangeable regularity of
their motions prove that they differ, as regards matter,
from terrestrial things, which are subject to continual
change. The matter composing the stars is ether, or
the fifth element (quint-essence), the body that is with-
out a contrary, and is therefore incorruptible, admitting
of no other change than that of place, and no other
motion than a circular one. The other elements, on
the contrary, being formed of terrestrial bodies, are
corruptible and admit of motion from below, upwards,
and from above, downwards, that is to say, from centre
to circumference and from circumference to centre.
The heaven of the fixed stars is the abode of being, of
perfect life, and of unchangeable order. The stars are
beings which are not subject to old age, beings that live
a life of happiness whilst exercising eternal and inde-
fatigable activity. They are far more divine than man.
Our ancestors had a vague intuition of the truth when
they regarded the stars as being gods.

Within the heaven of the fixed stars is the region of
the planets, including, says Aristotle, the sun and the
moon, as well as the five planets known to the ancients.
In the middle of the world is the earth, spherical in
form. The heaven of the planets is made of a sub-
stance that is less and less pure in inverse ratio to its
distance from the heaven of the fixed stars. In contra-
distinction to the first heaven, which is a single sphere
bearing all the stars, the heaven of the planets consists

ARISTOTLE 119

of a multiplicity of spheres, for the movements of the
planets, being relatively irregular, presuppose a multi-
plicity of movers whose actions combine with one
another.

Beings other than the fixed stars are made of the
four elements. Each element has a motion of its own,
the rectilineal march towards the place natural to it.
Hence we obtain weight and lightness. Weight is
the tendency of each body to follow its own direction.
It is not possible to say, with Democritus, that all
motion is simply the result of impacts ad infinitum. A
halt in retrogression must be made, in the logical order
of things, at all events. The motion that results from
compulsion presupposes spontaneous motion.

It is the property of the terrestrial element to in-
cline towards the centre, hence the position of the earth,
immovable in the centre of the universe. The earth is
spherical. Its elements are in double opposition — of
weight and quality — to one another. On the one
hand, they are heavy or light ; on the other, they are
hot or cold, dry or moist. The result of this opposi-
tion is that the elements of the earth are constantly
changing into one another. Heat and light are
generated by the friction to which the air is subjected
owing to the extreme velocity of the celestial spheres.
By reason of the inclination of the ecliptic, light and
heat are produced in different degrees in different
regions of the earth and at different times of the year.
This is the origin of the circulus of generation and
destruction, that image of eternity in perishable nature.
Action proceeds from periphery to centre ; the heaven
of the fixed stars representing highest form, the earth
representing lowest matter. The various mineral and
organised bodies are formed by the mutual action of the

120 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

two active potencies, heat and cold, and of the two
passive potencies, moisture and dryness.

Terrestrial beings form a hierarchy, extending from
the being which is nearest to brute matter up to the
male human being. Each lower form is the basis of
the higher ones ; each higher form the relative comple-
tion of the lower ones. The principal stages in the
hierarchy are represented by lifeless bodies, plants,
animals, and man.

XII. — ASTRONOMY

Aristotle made much study of astronomy. Simpli-
cius, so Porphyry tells us, relates that, with a view to
investigations in this science, he instructed Callisthenes
to collect the astronomical observations made by the
Chaldaeans in Babylon, especially those that dated back
nineteen hundred years before the time of Alexander.
Aristotle himself tells us that he utilised the observa-
tions of the Egyptians and Babylonians, dating back to
a very distant age. He wrote an 'Ao-rpovofurcov, which
is lost.

All the celestial beings, according to Aristotle, are
spherical. The first heaven, that of the fixed stars, is a
sphere. The planets are moved by spheres ; the earth
is spherical.

All simple motion is rotation round an axis. The
heaven of the fixed stars has only one motion. The
heaven of the planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury,
Mars, the Sun, the Moon) has several for each planet.
The earth is without motion.

Aristotle maintains the doctrine of the sphericity of
the earth, and gives the correct explanation of the
phases of the moon.

ARISTOTLE 121

He worked with the astronomer Callipus in com-
pleting and rectifying the theory of the spheres formed
by Eudoxus, the first astronomer of his day, as well as
the theory of Callipus himself. His theory may be
summed up as follows : —

We must admit, said Aristotle, along with Plato —
who in this matter followed the lead of Eudoxus and
Callipus — the number of spheres and their mode of
motion, necessary for the explanation of the revolutions
of the planets, as they appear under observation, with
no other elements than uniform rotatory motions.
Presenting the problem in this way, Eudoxus inferred
that there were twenty-six spheres, Callipus thirty-
three. Aristotle accepts the latter figure. But since,
in his philosophy, the exterior spheres are to the
interior what form is to matter, he is obliged to add
antagonistic spheres, in order that each exterior sphere
may not communicate its motion to all the spheres
interior to itself, as does the sphere of the fixed stars.
For each planet, then, there are as many antagonistic
spheres as are needed to counteract the action of the
exterior planetary spheres. The supplementary spheres
are twenty-two in number, and these, added on to the
thirty-three of Callipus, make fifty-five spheres. But if
we consider that the sun and the moon, being far away
from the rest of the planets, have no need of antagonistic
spheres, the total number of the spheres will be reduced
to forty -seven. This, says Aristotle, is probable
enough.

To each of these spheres motion must be communi-
cated, as it was to the first heaven, by an incorporeal
substance, a spirit, or a god. The constellations, the
object and end of the motions of the spheres, are
moreover, for that reason, their true causes. Conse-

122 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

quently the constellations are animated beings, endowed
with reason and superior to man.

XIII. — METEOROLOGY

Meteorology had been much studied since the time
of Thales. Aristotle profited by the labours of his
predecessors, though he also made original investigations
in this science along the lines of his own philosophy.

Meteorological phenomena are the result, he says, of
the action of the four elements upon one another. In
accordance with the nature of these elements, the results
of their mutual action are less determined and obey less
strict laws than the phenomena that take place in the first
element : the ether. It is for this reason that Aristotle,
when considering meteors, seeks after explanations
that are mainly of a mechanical and empirical nature.
He attributes a preponderating influence to heat. In
this way he explains comets, the Milky Way, clouds,
fogs, winds, the relations between seas and continents
and the formation of the sea. His explanations often
testify to exact observation and skilful reasoning.
Winds, for instance, are explained by the motion of
vapours, as a result of their differences of tempera-
ture. Earthquakes are due to the action of subterranean
gases. The rainbow is but a phenomenon caused by
reflection : in the sun's light, the spray composing the
clouds acts as a mirror.

These investigations are purely theoretical : Aristotle
does not dream of using them for the purpose of pre-
dicting phenomena.

XIV. — MINERALOGY

Minerals are homogeneous bodies which remain so,
without becoming organised into individuals consisting

ARISTOTLE 123

of different parts. These bodies are formed by cold
and heat, combining or disintegrating — in so far as
they are active properties — the moist and the dry, which
play the rtk of passive properties.

XV. — GENERAL BIOLOGY

Biology forms a considerable portion of Aristotle's
scientific work. He probably utilised many of the
works of his predecessors, mainly those of Democritus,
but he went so far beyond the rest that he stands out
as the true founder of biology in Greece. He works
mainly by observation, the determination of phenomena
being made to precede the investigation of causes. To
simple observation he would appear to have added
dissection. He proceeds from anatomy to physiology
and, speaking generally, regards biology as the ground-
work of physics, basing it on a knowledge of the
four elements. He deals not only with every conceiv-
able problem of his own times, but also with almost all
the problems that engage the attention of modern
scientists. The solutions he offers are, for the most
part, carefully set forth ; and, considering the state of
knowledge at the time, his reasonings are correct
and ingenious. It must be confessed, however, that his
explanations are frequently arbitrary or rather meta-
physical ; at times, even, he appears to have given
demonstrative value to mere legends.

Life is motion. Now, all motion presupposes a
form that moves and matter that is moved. The form
is the soul ; matter the body. The soul is neither body
nor without body. It moves without moving ; it is
immovable, not self-moving, as Plato imagined. As
being the form of the body, it is its goal ; the body

i24 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

is nothing but the instrument of the soul, and its
structure is guided by this destination. Aristotle
correctly defines the soul as the first entelechy of an
organic physical body. This means that the soul is
the permanent force which moves the body and deter-
mines its constitution.

It is natural for the finality of nature to appear in
living beings more clearly than anywhere else, because
everything, in them, at the outset, is calculated with
a view to the soul. But just as form only gradually
overcomes the resistance of matter, so there are degrees
in the psychic life, and these are essentially three in
number : nutritiveness, sensibility, and intelligence.
Nutritiveness is the fundamental quality of living
beings ; from it proceed vital development and death.
It exists both in plants and in animals. The latter
possess sensibility in addition. Man, a superior animal,
possesses all three : nutritiveness, sensibility, and
intelligence.

Aristotelian biology deals principally with animals.
The body of an animal consists of homoeomerous
substances : a mixture of elementary substances. The
immediate matter of the soul is breath (Trvevpa), the
principle of vital heat, a body akin to ether, along with
which the soul is transmitted, in the semen, from father
to child. The principal seat of heat is the central
organ, that is to say, the heart, in animals endowed with
blood. In the heart the blood is cooked, after being
formed of the nutritive substances introduced by the
veins, and blood, as final, definite nourishment, feeds
and sustains the body. It becomes flesh and bone, nail
and horn, etc. The nutritive power of foods is not
the result of their containing particles of flesh, bone,
and marrow, which would go to unite directly with like

ARISTOTLE 125

substances existing in the body, it is rather owing to the
food being cooked several times that it reaches a state
enabling it to be assimilated by the organism. Though
very precise on the matter of assimilation, Aristotle
would appear never to have thought of disassimilation.

XVI. — BOTANY

Aristotle's works on botany are lost, but he certainly
gave an impetus to the investigations made on plants
in his school ; he seems to have largely contributed to
the creation of scientific botany.

XVII. — ANIMAL ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY

A distinction must be made between general
anatomy and physiology and comparative anatomy and
physiology.

The parts of the animal organism are of two kinds :
the homogeneous, such as the tissues ; and the hetero-
geneous, such as the organs. Each organ has a
function, the tongue, hand, etc. The tissues have
properties. Aristotle studies first the homogeneous,
then the heterogeneous parts.

The homogeneous parts are : ist, veins, bones,
cartilages, nails, hair, horn, etc. ; 2nd, fat, grease,
blood, marrow, flesh, milk, semen, membranes. In
many cases, Aristotle's explanations regarding these
parts are finalistic, and derive the nature of the part
from its function. For instance, he says the incisors
appear before the molars, because food must first be
cut up or torn to be in a fit state to be ground.

The anatomical study of the heterogeneous parts is
not distinct from their physiological study.

126 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

The first of all the organs is the heart. Aristotle
has no notion of the circulation of the blood, as we
understand the word, nor does he say anything of the
two kinds of blood ; he acknowledges, however, that it
is carried throughout the body by the veins, as by
canals. The heart is the centre of the living being, the
seat of the forhiation of the blood, and the source of its
heat. All animals possess a heart and blood, or substi-
tutes for these primary conditions of life. Those
animals that can be divided or cut up without the parts
immediately ceasing to live, are not simple animals, but
rather aggregates of animals. The degree of unity is
the standard of the perfection of the being. No
mutilated animal recovers from its injuries as does the
plant, in which the life principle is dispersed throughout
the entire being.

The other heterogeneous parts are : the diaphragm,
the sense organs, the organs of motion, the encephalon,
the lungs, the abdominal viscera, and the sex organs.

Aristotle enlarges on the senses. Sensation consists
in being moved, in experiencing some change. There are
two kinds of senses : the mediate, which act through the
medium of the atmosphere, as sight, hearing, and smell ;
and the immediate, which act by contact, as touch and
taste ; the latter being more important for the preserva-
tion of the individual. The mediate senses estimate
either differences in the nature of objects, or else
distances ; consequently we must make a distinction
between their acuteness and their sphere of action.

The eye is not a mere mirror : the presence of an
image would not suffice to produce vision : there is
required a psychic property, which a mere mirror does
not possess. The inmost recesses of the eye not only
reflect the image, they have the property of seeing as well.

ARISTOTLE 127

Indirectly, hearing is the most intellectual of all the
senses, for it enables ideas to be communicated by means
of language. Speech is nothing but a sequence of sounds
that have entered the ear ; it is one and the same motion
diffused from ear to throat.

Touch differs from the rest of the senses in that the
latter supply us with oppositions or contrasts of a single
kind only, whereas touch enables us to distinguish hot
and cold, dry and moist, hard and soft.

Aristotle is acquainted with no other organs of
motion than the tendons, and these he calls nerves.
He tries to discover the principle thereof, not in the
limbs themselves, but in a central organ of motion.
The principle of motion is the heart, or, in the case of
animals that have none, the corresponding organ.
Motions are of two kinds, voluntary and involuntary.
The beating of the heart, for instance, belongs to the
second type of motion.

As the heart is a calorific organ, so the encephalon
and the lungs are refrigerant organs.

Of the abdominal organs, Aristotle carefully studies
the stomach, giving remarkably correct descriptions as
regards ruminants, birds and the organs of sex upon which
his observations are frequently very apt and successful.
His investigations lead him to discuss the part played
by both sexes in the production of the new being.

He also applies himself to the question of heredity.
He rejects pangenesis (which states that the parents
contribute germs resembling themselves), alleging that
there are products which do not resemble their parents :
for instance, caterpillars born of butterflies. According
to Aristotle, the material that goes to the formation of
the new being is made up of substances different from
that of the parents themselves. There is a male seminal

128 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

fluid, the sperm, and a female one, the menstrua. From
the blending of these two elements, as from the union
of form with matter, results the germ. Thus, from the
man there is born the soul, and from the woman the
body, of the child resulting from their union.

The difference in the sexes may be reduced to a
difference in degree. In the woman food has not
received so complete an elaboration as in man, the
creative power has not finished its work.

In like manner Aristotle explains instances of tera-
tology. Monstrosities are only greater or less dis-
similarities, the result of excess or defect. They deviate
from the ordinary course of events, though having their
basis in natural forces.

In the same spirit Aristotle dealt with embryogeny.
Interpreting the results of his delicate observations in
accordance with the principles of his philosophy, he admits
that the development of the germ is an epitome of the
general progress of life in nature. First, the life of the
germ is comparable to vegetable life ; afterwards, the
embryo is in a state that may be compared to sleep :
sleep, however, from which there is no awakening. The
foetus becomes animal when it acquires feeling ; then
only is it capable of genuine sleep. The order in which
the organs appear is determined by their utility and by
the share they have in the formation of the other organs.
Thus, the heart is the first organ to be developed.

In Aristotle we find numerous aphorisms and biolo-
gical considerations resulting from what we call com-
parative anatomy and physiology. He makes a careful
study of organic resemblances and differences. Organs
may resemble one another in form. Organs apparently
different may be only more or less complete develop-
ments of one and the same type, so that, at bottom,

ARISTOTLE 129

excess or deficiency really constitutes the whole differ-
ence. There may be resemblance by analogy ; for
instance, the feather is to the bird what the scale is to
the fish. There is the same relation between the bones
of land animals and those of fishes, between nails and
horns, etc. Different species may have the same organs
diversely situated. Different organs may perform the
same function.

Aristotle determines numerous organic correlations.
For instance, all animals have blood, or its equivalent.
Animals with no feet at all, and those with two and four
feet, possess blood ; in those with more than four feet
lymph takes the place of blood. In ruminants there is
a correlation between the possession of horns and the
lack of canine teeth. The lateral movements of the
lower jaw are found only in such animals as grind their
food. All truly viviparous animals breathe in air, etc.

The law regarding division of work is clearly formu-
lated. Nature, says Aristotle, if there is nothing to
hinder, always employs two special and distinct organs
for two different functions. When this cannot be done,
the same instrument is used for several purposes ; though
it is preferable that the same organ should not be used
for several functions.

The influences of environment are shown to con-
tribute to the determination of animal forms. In hot
climates, says Aristotle, it is principally animals which
are cold by nature, such as serpents, lizards and
those covered with scales, that grow to considerable
dimensions.

Aristotle also studied physiognomy, or the relation
which the physical bears to the moral. In all probability
the Physiognomonica is not an authentic work, though
doubtless it owes its origin to his teaching. In the

K

130 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Historia animalium we find him trying to find out to
what moral differences the physical differences in the
human face correspond.

According to our philosopher, the species, properly
so called, are stable and separated from one another.
Along with the absolute, however, Aristotle recognises
the existence of the contingent. Consequently, there
is a certain freedom of action in nature, and organic
forms and faculties admit of restricted variability. An
apparently insignificant difference, found in small parts,
may suffice to produce considerable differences in the
ensemble of the animal's body. For instance, only a
small portion of an animal's body is removed by castra-
tion, and yet this removal changes its nature, bringing
it into closer resemblance with the other sex. When
the animal is in the embryonic state, a very slight differ-
ence will cause it to be either a male or a female. The
difference between the terrestrial and the aquatic animal
results from the different arrangement of small parts.
In a word, says Aristotle, in nature there is unity of
composition and progressive continuity. Man himself,
who, as far as we know, is at the top of the ladder, is
only separated from the animals, physically speaking,
by more or less pronounced differences. The transition
from one kingdom to another is imperceptible. Thus,
in the sea we find beings at a stage intermediate between
animals and plants, e.g. sponges. The principal types
and stages of growth, as it were, are none the less
determined and mutually irreducible.

XVIII.— ZOOLOGY

Aristotle was the first classifying zoologist. Truth
to tell, he does not appear to have had any intention to

ARISTOTLE 131

set up a zoological classification, and his attempts in
this direction are offered only as examples. Nor did he
make any sharply-drawn distinction of animals, distri-
buting them in a hierarchy of genera and species ; he
merely assigned limits to the principal groups. He
clearly saw, however, that the criterion of species is
obtained through reproduction — interfecundity. He
regards as of the same species only such animals as
spring from common parents. His classification aims
at being natural, that is to say, it tends to bring together
those animals that have a fundamental resemblance to
one another. Here, as elsewhere, his object is to
distinguish essence from accident.

The first division is that between animals that have
blood (our vertebrates) and those that have no blood
(our invertebrates). The divisions between sanguineous
animals are mainly based on embryogeny and a considera-
tion of the element in which they live. Sanguineous
animals are divided into true vivipara, ovovivipara and
ovipara. Animals devoid of blood are divided into
mollusks (corresponding to our cephalopoda), Crustacea,
testacea (corresponding to our mollusks, with the excep-
tion of the cephalopoda) and insects.

In his description of the species — he mentions about
four hundred of them — Aristotle shows that he pos-
sesses extensive knowledge. Amongst other things, he
deals with the mental and moral faculties of animals.
Bees he calls the wise — the well-behaved — ones.

As regards the first origin of man and of the other
sanguineous animals, he is inclined to think that they
proceed from a sort of scolex (head of the tapeworm), or
else from a perfect egg, in which only a portion becomes
the germ, developing at the expense of the rest. He
considers the spontaneous production of a perfect egg

1 32 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

as not at all likely, since we never meet with an instance
of it. Testacea and worms, on the contrary, have
spontaneous birth.

XIX. — PSYCHOLOGY

That which differentiates man from the rest of the
animal kingdom is the 1/01)9, which, in him, is united
to the animal soul. He possesses faculties common
to himself and the animals, and faculties peculiar to
himself. In common with the animals, man has sensa-
tion and the faculties derived therefrom.

Sensation is the change effected in the mind by a
sensible object, as by a contrary, through the agency
of the body, and consisting in the form of the object
that is sensed being communicated to the subject that
senses. Thus, sensation is the common act of a
sensible objec^and a sensing subject.

Each sense gives us exclusive information regarding
the properties of those things with which it specially
deals ; what it tells us of these properties is always
true. General properties are known by the sensorium
commune, in which all sensible impressions meet. Here,
too, sensations are compared and related to objects as
causes, and to ourselves as conscious subjects. The
organ of the sensorium commune is the heart. Its data
may be either true or false.

Sensation is the basis of animal psychic life. Both
from the theoretical and the practical standpoint it is
capable of a development which brings several other
faculties into being.

When motion in the sense-organ continues beyond
the duration of the sensation, extends to the central
organ, and there causes a new appearance of the sensible

ARISTOTLE 133

image, we have imagination. The products of this
faculty may be either true or false. When an image
is recognised as the reproduction of a past perception,
we have memory. Aristotle adds to the study of these
faculties investigations as to the nature of sleep, death
and dreams, from the psychological point of view.

Looked upon from the practical standpoint of good
and evil, sensation admits of development along the
lines just mentioned. From the sole fact that an
animal is endowed with sensation, it is capable of
pleasure and pain. When its activity is unchecked,
we have pleasure ; in the contrary event, pain. Plea-
sure and pain, in beings fully susceptible to them, are
really judgments upon the true value of things. Con-
sequently, beings capable of pleasure and pain have
desire, which is nothing but the seeking after what is
agreeable. They also have passions.

All these functions already appertain to animals,
though they are realised to perfection only in man.
Man possesses intelligence in addition to the rest.
Hitherto we have seen that there has been continual
development and progress. Between the animal soul
and the i/oi)?, however, there is a break of continuity.
The vovs is the knowledge of first principles. It has
no birth, but is eternal. Exempt from passivity, it
exists in act. Being without organ, it is not the result
of the development of sensation, but comes from
without, and is separable.

Human intelligence, however, is not merely this com-
plete, immovable z/ov?. It learns, becomes acquainted
with perishable things, things capable of being as they
are or otherwise. The z/ofc, therefore, in man blends
with the soul : there is a lower intellect, intermediary
between the absolute vovs and the animal soul. This

i34 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

intellect may be called vovs Tra^ri/co?, passive intellect,
in opposition to 1/01)9 airadr)?, or active intellect. This
lower i/oi)? is the subject, but not the object ; perishable
things are its object. Depending on the body, it
perishes with the body. There are rudiments of this
passive intellect in certain animals, e.g. in bees, but
only in man is it fully developed.

The I/oik 7ra077Tt/co5 has two kinds of functions,
theoretical and practical.

From the theoretical point of view, the 1/01)5 7ra^7/Tt/co5,
at first, is 1/01)5 only in potency. It is a tabula rasa on
which nothing has yet been written. The z/ov5 ira&prMcof
thinks only by the aid of images, and under the
influence of the higher 1/01)5. It thus deduces from
sensation the general contained therein, and which
sensation reaches only by accident : it gradually becomes
determined by reason of these general essences. Per-
fect science, however, belongs only to the z/o£>5 OewprjriKos,
the higher 1/01)5, which, starting from causes, proceeds
a priori.

The i/ou5, as regards its practical use, has no prin-
ciples of its own : practice consisting only of the
application of theoretical ideas. This realisation comes
about in two ways : ist, by production (Troielv) ; 2nd,
by action (Trpdrreiv).

With regard to action, Aristotle offers a theory of
will, the spring of action. Will is the combination of
intellect and desire. As desire, it posits ends to be
realised ; as intellect, it determines the means that
correspond to these ends. \The objects of will are
determined with reference to two principal ends : the
good and the possible.

Free-will is connected with the existence of will.
In beings devoid of reason, desire can only spring from

ARISTOTLE 135

sensation. In man, it may be engendered either by
sensation or by reason. Engendered by sensation, it is
appetite ; engendered by reason, it is will. Between
appetite and will we have free-will : the faculty of self-
determination. Virtue and vice depend on ourselves ;
each man is the principle of his own actions. The reality
of free-will is proved by moral imputability, which
legislation, praise and blame, exhortation and prohibi-
tion imply. .The essence of free-will is spontaneity^ in
more precise language, that spontaneity which mani-
fests preference ; for children and animals show con-
siderable spontaneity, but man alone is truly free, for
he alone is capable of choice.

\J

XX. — MORALS

In the case of beings without intelligence, ends
are attained immediately and of necessity. Man has
a loftier end, which is not only realised by the sole
operation of natural forces, but also by using his free-
dom. The problem is to find out how to organise
one's life in order to realise the human idea, to act
according to one's own essence, and not from necessity
or chance. Hence the idea of practical philosophy :
the philosophy of human affairs. The aim of this
philosophy is to find out what are the end and the
means of that activity which is proper to mankind.

Practical philosophy comprises three parts, corre-
sponding to the three spheres of action that open out
to man : ist, ethics > or the rules of individual life ; 2nd,
economics, or the rules of family life ; and 3rd, politics,
or the rules of social life. In chronological order,
ethics precedes economics which itself precedes politics.
In the order of nature and perfection, the relation is

136 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

inverted. Politics, indeed, is the completion of econo-
mics, which itself determines human activity with
greater precision than ethics, pure and simple.

We will begin with ethics or morals. Morals may
be divided into general and particular morals.

In Aristotle morals does not bear the same relation
to physics as in Plato. The good is not transcendent ;
nature is not hostile or simply passive when brought
in contact with the ideal. As form exists in potency
in matter, so nature is inclined to virtue, which is only
the normal development of natural tendencies. We
may not be born virtuous, but of ourselves we tend
to become so : culture and art are the completion of
nature. Moreover, we must distinguish between good
in itself and good for mankind. The good which is
taken into consideration by morals is not good in itself,
but only so far as it deals with human nature.

What is moral good ? ( Since all action has an object,
there must be a supreme object, and this can only be
that good which is superior to all other good, the best.
What is this best ? The general impression is that it
is happiness, but there is no agreement as to the defini-
tion of happiness. We must try to find out in what
it really consists.

For every living being, good consists in the perfec-
tion or full realisation of the activity peculiar to itself.
Such is the distinctive mark of true happiness. This
happiness, then, cannot be said to be either in the
enjoyment of the senses, which is common to man and
animal, nor in pleasure, which is not an end in itself
but is pursued only with a view to happiness, nor in
honour, which does not lie within our power and comes
from without. Perhaps even virtue alone does not

ARISTOTLE 137

afford happiness, for we could not designate as happy
a virtuous man, hindered in his activity or suffering
acutely. Happiness consists of the constant exercise
of our strictly human, i.e. intellectual, faculties. Happi-
ness is action guided by reason, in circumstances
favourable to that action.

If such be the case, the element that constitutes
happiness is doubtless virtue or the self-realisation of
the higher part of the soul : virtue plays the part of
form and principle as regards happiness. But happiness
has also, as material to work upon or condition of
existence, the possession of external forms of good :
health, beauty, birth, fortune, children and friends ;
although it is true that even the greatest of misfortunes
cannot make a virtuous man really miserable.

Pleasure, regarded as an end, is not an integral
element of happiness ; since, however, it naturally
accompanies action, being its complement, it is closely
allied to virtue. Pleasure is inherent to action as
vigour is inherent to youth. It is the consciousness
of activity. The value of pleasure may thus be gauged
by that of the activity it accompanies. Virtue carries
with it a special kind of satisfaction, necessarily pos-
sessed by the virtuous man. Pleasures are admissible
in so far as they spring from virtue or can be reconciled
therewith. Coarse or violent pleasures, which disturb
the soul, ought to be spurned. In a word, pleasure
has its place in happiness not as an end, but ratKer
as a result.

Finally, happiness implies leisure, one condition of
activity. This latter, indeed, needs relaxation ; it is
not, however, leisure that is the end of work, but work
that is the end of leisure. Leisure should be devoted
to art, science, and above all, philosophy.

138 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

And what is virtue, the principle of happiness?
What are the principal virtues? Virtue is a habit
whose characteristic is the complete realisation ot the
powers of man. Now, human nature is two-fold, to
wifTTntellectual and rnoraL The intellectual element
has thenecessary for its""object, and is immovable ; the
moral element, in so far as it is connected with the con-
tingent, desires and acts. Thus there are two kinds of
virtues : the dianoetic or intellectual, and the ethical or
moral.

The dianoetic virtues are the higher of the two
kinds ; they can only be acquired by instruction, not
by an effort of the will. The virtue that affords the
greatest felicity is science or contemplation. This is
the noblest of all human occupations, for the vovs, its
organ or instrument, is the most divine of all things.
It is the most disinterested activity, the one that causes
least fatigue, and most readily admits of continuity.
And it is the calmest, the one that best suffices unto
itself. It is by science that man draws nearest to divinity.
Therefore we must not follow the advice of those who
maintain that we should have only human feelings
because we are men, and only aspire after the destiny
of a mortal creature because we are mortal. As far
as in us -lies, we should do our best to make ourselves
worthy of immortality.

Supreme felicity, however, joined to the possession
of perfect science, falls but seldom to the lot of man.
It is the ethical or moral virtues that are truly congenial
to him and adapted to his condition as spirit joined to
a body. Ethical virtue is a mental habit or disposi-
tion which tends, in all things, to choose the golden
mean suitable to our nature, and is determined by the
practical judgment of the intelligent man.

ARISTOTLE 139

It is a habit, a mode of the will. Socrates, who
made a science of it, forgot that, in considering virtue,
we have nothing to do with the knowledge of moral
rules, but only with their realisation. Moreover, to
constitute virtue, there is needed not only a present
determination of the will, but rather a habit, a lasting
mode thereof.

Again, all virtue is a mean between two vices, and
this mean varies in different individuals. Virtue in
a man is different from virtue in a woman, a child
or a slave. Time and circumstance must likewise be
taken into account. Thus, courage is the mean between
rashness and cowardice ; magnanimity is the mean
between insolence and baseness, and so on.

Finally, it is the good man who is the rule and
standard of the good in each particular instance.
Indeed, abstract rules determine only what is good in
a general way. In each instance that offers itself there
is something unique which these rules neither could
nor must have foreseen. The living, universal judg-
ment of the highly gifted man makes up for their
insufficiency.

Aristotle studies in detail the different virtues, both
dianoe"tic and moral.

The dianogtic virtues are the perfect habits of the
intelligent part of the soul. Now, the intellect is of
two kinds : scientific and logistic. The virtues of
the scientific intellect are : ist, the 1/01)9, which knows
the principles of things ; 2nd, science, which, from
these principles, deduces particular truths. The union
of the z/o£/s and science constitutes wisdom (<ro<£ia).
The virtues of the logistic intellect are : the art or
capacity of producing with a view to an end ; 2nd,
judgment, or practical intelligence.

140 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

The moral virtues are as numerous as the different
relations in human life. Since the number of these
relations is indeterminate, no complete list of the moral
virtues is possible ; a fortiori^ these virtues cannot be
reduced to a single principle, as Plato insists upon.
Aristotle investigates the most important of the moral
virtues. His dissertations are very remarkable, abound-
ing in keen psychological and moral observations. His
analyses of justice and friendship are particularly deserv-
ing of mention.

Justice, he says, is the restoration of true or pro-
portional equality in social life. Equity is more perfect
than justice, for whereas the latter takes actions into
consideration only from a general and abstract point of
view, equity takes account of the particular element in
each separate action. It is the completion of justice,
demanded by reason, since the law cannot provide for
every individual case. It is concrete, actual justice
superposed on abstract, and still indeterminate justice.

Friendship is supreme justice, delicate and perfect,
wherein a blind, dead rule is entirely replaced by the
living intelligence of the good man. Friendship has
three sources : pleasure, interest and virtue. Virtue
alone creates firm and lasting friendships.

XXI. — ECONOMICS

Man, in family life, attains to a degree of perfection
superior to that of which individual life admits. The
family is a natural society. It comprises three kinds of
relation : that between man and wife, that between
parents and children, and that between master and slave.

The family relation between man and wife is a moral
one, based on friendship and mutual service. The wife

ARISTOTLE 141

has her own will, her own virtue, different from the
man's : she ought to be treated not as a slave, but as
a free person. Still, as the wife is less perfect than the
man, the latter ought to have authority over her. The
family is an aristocracy or community of free beings, to
whom different attributions are assigned. The wife,
man's free companion, ought to have in the home her
own sphere of influence, with which man does not
interfere.

The relation between parents and children is that
between a king and his subjects. Parents and children
form a monarchy. As regards his father, the child has
no rights whatsoever, for he is still a part of the father ;
it is the father's duty, however, to watch over his
child's best interests, for the child also has a will and
a virtue of his own, imperfect though they be. The
father should transmit his own perfection to his son,
and the latter appropriate to himself the former's per-
fection.

Aristotle makes a special study of slavery, showing
its necessity and justifiableness, and determining the way
in which slaves ought to be treated. Slavery is neces-
sary, for the home has need of living and intelligent
workers. And slavery is justifiable. Given, indeed, a
being fit only for bodily labour, such a being is the
justifiable possession of one who is capable of intellectual
activity ; the relation of the former to the latter being
that of matter to form. Now, such a relation actually
exists between the Barbarians and the Greeks. Thus,
the free man is owner of the slave. None the less
ought he to look upon the slave as a human being, and
treat him as such.

1 42 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

XXIL— POLITICS

Aristotle's politics deals : ist, with the State in
general ; 2nd, with the Constitutions.

Politics is the end and completion of economics, as
the latter is the proximate end of morals. The indi-
vidual, of himself, cannot attain to virtue and happiness.
Now, the tendency towards social life lies in the very
nature of man. This kind of life, which is one of the
conditions of human existence, is likewise a means of
moral improvement. Politics, which sets forth the ideal
and the rules relating to human communities, is thus
intimately linked with morals : it is the whole, whereof
morals and economics are but parts ; the act, of which
they are the potency. Politics is the true name of all
practical science. Philosophy should set forth the
ideal of politics ; but just as morals, in its application,
takes individuals into account, so applied politics will
take circumstances into account.

How is political society formed ? In the order of time,
the family is the first society to be formed. Then we
have the union of several families, or the K^^TJ. Finally
comes the State, or city (-TroXt?) : the highest society of
all. This is the chronological order ; from the stand-
point of nature and truth, however, the State is before
individuals, family and village, as the whole is before its
parts : the latter having in the former their final cause
and loftiest realisation.

The end of the State is the highest that can be
conceived, for the State is the most perfect expression
of the social tendency. This end is neither the mere
satisfaction of physical needs, the acquisition of wealth
commerce, nor even the protection of the citizens by
means of laws. It should consist in the happiness of

ARISTOTLE 143

the citizens. It is the mission of the State to see that
its citizens possess, first, inner good, or virtue, and
afterwards, outer good. The State completes the pro-
gress of human nature, rising from potency to act.

Although in agreement with Plato as regards the
final good of politics, Aristotle is none the less led
to criticise his master in things that concern the rights
and duties of the State. He opposes the Platonic
doctrine that tends to dower the State with the greatest
possible unity, from which doctrine resulted the necessity
of sacrificing property and family to the State. Unity
belongs only to the individual. Already the family has
ceased to be a unit. By nature, the city is a plurality, and
a heterogeneous one. The Platonic theories of property
and the family cannot be admitted. Not only are they
inapplicable ; they even misunderstand both the tendency
of nature and the interests of the State. Property and
the family are by no means artificial products, they are
the objects of natural tendencies. Besides, they are
useful to the State, procuring for it advantages it could
not obtain by any other means. The State, therefore,
ought to regulate property and the family, not to do
away with them. In practice, of course, Aristotle often
agrees with Plato, whom he opposes in theory ; but the
conclusion could not therefore be drawn that there is
no difference between Platonic and Aristotelian politics.
The importance assigned to nature in the latter turns
it in quite another direction.

The following, then, is the essential tendency of
Aristotle's politics. As supreme good lies in intellectual
leisure, the useful professions are incompatible with the
title of citizen : farmers, business men, workmen, cannot
be members of the city ; of an ideal one, at all events.
The rtle of the State is to educate its citizens ; its efforts

i44 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

are directed to regulating their actions. The worst of
States is that which allows every man to live as he
pleases. The State regulates the age and the season for
procreation, fixes the number of the population, orders
that abortion be practised, in case this number is likely
to be exceeded, and likewise the exposing and abandon-
ing of crippled children. Education should be public,
ever keeping in view the good of the intellect through
the attention bestowed on sensibility, and that of
the soul through the attention bestowed on the body.
It includes grammar, gymnastics, music and drawing.
In all things, its aim is to form the moral habits of the
child. It is essentially liberal ; such arts and sciences
as are of a mechanical and utilitarian nature being
eliminated. The essential virtue of the State is justice,
i.e. the order by virtue of which each member of the
State occupies the post and condition of life suitable
to him, and is entrusted with the function he is able and
worthy to exercise.

The maxim by which the Constitutions ought to be
regulated is as follows : — the realisation of the end of
the State presupposes two instruments : laws and the
magistracy. The true sovereign, the only ruler, is reason,
order. As this sovereign or ruler is invisible, reason, in
practice, must be represented by laws. But laws are,
of necessity, set forth in general formulae. Now, how-
ever comprehensive a formula, Tt necessarily allows of
an infinity of particular cases escaping through its toils.
Hence the necessity of the magistrate. He is sovereign
arbiter whenever the law is unable to solve a difficulty,
owing to the impossibility of specifying all the details
of the case under general regulations.

Aristotle does not, like Plato, lay down one form of

ARISTOTLE 145

government as being good, and all others bad. He says
that the Constitutions ought to fit in with the character
and the needs of the nations for whom they are framed ;
that the one which is worst in itself may be the best
under certain circumstances. He also examines how
bad governments may be utilised, when they alone are
possible. With these reservations, he classifies the
different forms of government.

There are three kinds of government, differing in
the number of those who govern : power may be in the
hands either of one, of several, or of the majority of the
nation. Each of these has two forms, the one just, the
other corrupt, according as those who govern have in
view the general interest or their own private interest.
To the just forms of government, Aristotle gives the
names of royalty, aristocracy and polity ; the corrupt
forms he calls tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.

The best Twm of government is a republic which
combines order with freedom. This is an aristocracy.
All the citizens are allowed to participate in public
functions ; only those, however, are citizens, whose
position and culture enable them to fulfil civic duties.
All corporal toil, especially agriculture and the various
industrial arts, must be done by slaves or half-
breeds.

Lower than this ideal form of government we have
forms less perfect, though justifiable according to cir-
cumstances. The most practical of these, under ordin-
ary conditions, is a temperate republic, a mean between
democracy and oligarchy. Democracy is characterised
by freedom and equality, as well as by the fact that the
government is in the hands of the majority of free men
and of the poor. In an oligarchy the government is
carried on by a minority of the wealthy and the noble.

146 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

A temperate republic bestows power on the middle
classes. It is the political equivalent of moral virtue,
which is the mean between two extremes.

Evidently Aristotle's political ideas are often only
the putting into theory of the facts that fall under his
observation ; still, it would be an exaggeration to see
in them nothing else. Though the means he advocates
are frequently the result of a necessarily restricted ex-
perience, the ends he has in view are determined by
reason and philosophy, and even nowadays Aristotle's
politics is a mine of information for statesmen and
historians.

XXIII.— RHETORIC

In rhetoric, Aristotle tells us, he had nothing to
create, for this science had been developed before his
time by Tisias, Thrasymachus, Theodorus and many
others. These authors, however, confined themselves
to the particular, never going beyond the empirical
point of view. To Aristotle belongs the idea of
scientific rhetoric, and more particularly the determina-
tion of a close connection between rhetoric and logic.
Plato had unsuccessfully endeavoured to base rhetoric
on science. Aristotle, thanks to his logical theories,
finds in dialectic, as distinguished from apodeictic, the
very basis of rhetoric. Rhetoric is the application of
dialectic to politics, i.e. to certain practical ends. Logi-
cally, dialectic is anterior to rhetoric ; it is the whole
of which rhetoric is only a part. In the order of time,
rhetoric is anterior to dialectic ; but in the order of
science, it is the contrary that holds good.

Rhetoric teaches persuasion by likely reasons. Thus,
the essential part of rhetoric is the doctrine of oratorical

ARISTOTLE 147

means. These are of three kinds : ist, those referring
to the object ; 2nd, those referring to the speaker ;
3rd, those referring to the listener.

The first consist in making affirmations appear true.
They are based on proof. Proof is thus the main
element in rhetoric ; it is also the one on which Aristotle
insists most. As dialectic proves by means of syllogism
and induction, so rhetoric proves by means of enthy-
meme or imperfect demonstration, and by example or
imperfect induction. There is no kind of proof, it
would appear, that cannot be reduced to these two
arguments. The enthymeme is a syllogism in which
reasoning is carried on by probabilities or signs. Ex-
ample, like induction, consists in judging of a thing by '
other particular things similar to the one in question,
but example does not proceed from the part to the
whole, it proceeds only from the part to the part.
Rhetoric determines the points of view that give rise
to enthymemes and examples : this determination is the
object of oratorical topic.

Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of speech : the
deliberative, the legal and the epideictic ; he also lays
down the rules governing each.

Such are the oratorical means relating to the object.
The speaker's rtk is to have himself regarded as
intelligent, upright, and benevolent.

Finally, the means relating to the listener consist in
being able to rouse passion and to lull it to sleep.
Aristotle dwells at length on this part of his subject,
giving proof of a very shrewd psychological sense.
He makes an interesting study of the influence of
age and environment on character and disposition.

Following on these theories, which constitute the
basis of rhetoric, come studies on elocution and dis-

148 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

position, denoting a considerable degree of truth and
sagacity in judgment, along with a profound knowledge
of the matter in hand.

XXIV. — ESTHETICS

Aristotle divided philosophy into three parts : the
theoretical, the practical and the poetical, or the one
relating to art. Though he made no attempt to develop
this latter, the proofs and examples he gives show him
to be the founder of esthetics.

Aristotelian esthetics does not proceed so much from
the concept of the beautiful as from that of art ; all the
same, a theory of the beautiful is therein outlined.
According to Aristotle, coordination, symmetry and
precision form the essential characteristics of the
beautiful. Sensible manifestation is not an essential
element of the beautiful, which shows forth as being
realised more especially in the mathematical sciences.
The beautiful dwells in the general. Poetry, which
bears upon the general, is more beautiful, more serious
and philosophical than history, which is contained in
the particular.

Aristotle, like Plato, regards imitation as the essence
of art. Art results from man's tendency to imitate
and the pleasure he thereby obtains. What man
imitates is nature, that is to say, according to the
Aristotelian philosophy, not only the outer appearance,
but the inner, the ideal essence of natural things. Art
is capable of representing things as they are or as they
should be. The representation is all the more beautiful
in proportion as the artist proves himself able to com-
plete, in the way in which nature herself was going, the
work she necessarily leaves unfinished. All art tends

ARISTOTLE 149

to represent the general and the necessary. This is
true even of comic poetry, the real aim of which is the
representation of characters.

The arts include more than one kind of utility, or
service. They produce distraction, moral culture, intel-
lectual enjoyment, and that particular effect which
Aristotle calls cleansing, or purification (/edBapo-is).
Purification is the proprium of the highest arts, more
especially of serious poetry.

What is this famous purification ? It is not exactly
moral improvement, but rather the suppression, by
homeopathic treatment, of some passion that troubled
and domineered over the soul. Moreover, it is im-
portant to note that not all excitation to passion is
capable of producing this curative effect. Excitation
of a salutary nature is that which comes from art, it is
subject to law and propriety, and, by magnifying the
object of the passions, detaches them from the circum-
stances of individual life in order to apply them to the
destiny common to all men.

Aristotle gives no systematic classification of the
arts, the highest of which, according to him, are music
and poetry.

XXV.— POETICS

Almost all that is left of Aristotle's Poetics deals
with the study of tragedy, though he is known to have
dealt fully with poetics.

Poetry arises from the tendency to imitation. A
tragedy is the imitation of a serious and complete
action, of a certain extent, in noble language and
a dramatic form devoid of narrative : an imitation
that excites terror and pity, thereby cleansing the soul

150 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of these passions. In the persons and destinies of his
heroes, the tragic poet offers us general types of nature
and human life. He shows us immutable laws which
dominate and control apparently accidental events.
Hence the efficacy of tragedy in cleansing the soul of
all its inordinate affections.

The most important part of tragedy is action.
Action ought to be natural. Not that the author
should simply set forth what has happened, he ought
also to show what might have happened, what is pos-
sible either according to the laws of probability or
according to those of necessity. Action ought to be
one and complete. It should be impossible to disturb
or curtail any part of the work without disuniting and
spoiling the ensemble. For, in any whole, that which
can be added or taken away, without the change being
noticed, forms no part of that whole.

The only unity on which Aristotle insists is that of
action. He does not mention unity of place, and, as
regards unity of time, merely states that, speaking
generally, in tragedy an effort is made to confine the
action within a single day or to go beyond that limit
but slightly.

He determines the rules that refer to the parts of
the action, to the characters, which ought to be more
finished and beautiful than they are in real life, and also
to composition and elocution.

He regards tragedy as superior to epic poetry
because its unity is more strict and confined, whereas
an epic poem includes parts, each one of which would
suffice to form material for a tragedy.

ARISTOTLE

XX V I. GR A M M A R

151

In ancient times Aristotle was looked upon as the
founder of grammar and criticism, for he had written
works — now lost — on the subject of poetical explana-
tion and the criticism of poets. Such indications with
reference to grammar as we possess are not given for
themselves, but only as they affect something else.
None the less are they important in the formation of
the science of grammar. Aristotle applied his usual
powers of observation to the subject of grammar ; but
the theory of language was then in its infancy : hence
the vagueness and obscurity frequently met with in his
assertions.

He recognises three parts of speech : noun, verb
and conjunction. The two former are subject to
inflection. Nouns are divided into masculine, feminine,
and neuter.

Words are based rather on mutual agreement
amongst men than on nature. Subsequently, in their
formation, it is less the principle of analogy than the
arbitrary that dominates.

XXVII. — SPEECHES AND POEMS

Several speeches of Aristotle are mentioned, includ-
ing a ^0705 SiKaviicos or Apology, in which he defends
himself against the accusation of impiety, a Eulogy of
Plato, a Eulogy of Alexander ; but the authenticity of
these works — now lost — has been much disputed.

He also composed poems, a few authentic lines of
which remain, though many fragments are of very
doubtful authenticity. The most important of these
is a portion of a scolion in honour of Hermias of

152 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Atarnea, his friend. Aristotle here sings of virtue,
to which, like the ancient heroes of Greece, Hermias
has sacrificed his life. Mention may also be made of
a few distachs of an elegy to Eudemus, composed in
honour of Plato, " a man whom the wicked may not
even praise."

The following is the fragment of the Scolion to
Hermias : —

Virtue, object of effort on the part of the race of mankind,
supreme reward of life ! For thee, O virgin, for thy beauty,
the Greeks are ready to brave death, to endure terrible, never-
ending toil. So beautiful is the fruit thou dost engender in
the heart, immortal fruit more precious than gold, nobility or
soft-eyed slumber ! For thee, Hercules, the son of Zeus, and
the sons of Leda bore many a trial, for they were noble hunters
in pursuit of the power thou bestowest. Through love of thee,
Achilles and Ajax entered the abode of Hades. Thou, too,
wert ever the object of the love of Atarnes' son ; for the sake
of thy beauty he deprived his eyes of the glorious light of the
sun. That is why he is praised in song for his noble deeds ;
the Muses shall magnify his name and make it immortal, the
Muses, Mnemosyne's daughters, who honour the majesty of
Jupiter the protector of hospitality, and who likewise honour the
glory of faithful friendship.

XXVIII.— LETTERS

Aristotle's letters have been celebrated by Demetrius
and other authors as being models of epistolary style.
Simplicius states that the style of these letters com-
bined clearness with charm of diction to a degree
attained by no other known writer. Diogenes men-
tions letters to Philip, the letters of the Selymbrians,
four letters to Alexander, nine to Antipater, and others
to Mentor, Ariston, Philoxenes, Democritus, &c. As
the fragments that have come down to us are for the

ARISTOTLE 153

most part unauthenticated, we are unable to judge
for ourselves of either the contents or the form of
Aristotle's letters.

XXIX. — ARISTOTLE AS A WRITER

Aristotle wrote in the Attic language of his age.
The multitude of new ideas he undertook to express,
however, had a considerable influence upon the instru-
ment he used. The consideration of things in their
individuality, the clear delimitation of scientific domain,
the effort to form concepts exempt from every sensible
element, are all reflected in his language and style.
As Aristotle's logical analysis only ceases when it has
grasped the final, specific differences, so also, in Aris-
totelian language, apparent synonyms are distinguished
from each other and defined with great preciseness.

Aristotle had two ways of defining terms : the
scientific determination of the meanings of traditional
words, and the creation of new terms. He used both
methods, especially the former. He mainly starts with
an ordinary term ; and then, sometimes restricting,
sometimes extending its meaning, he makes it the exact
expression of a logical concept. Traditional language,
however, was full of gaps. To fill them up, Aristotle
coined words, always, as far as possible, seeking a basis
to work upon in tradition itself. Owing to the perfec-
tion of the terminology thus constituted, he proved
himself the true founder of the language of science
throughout the world.

The following are instances of expressions coined by
Aristotle : aSialperos (individual) ; aireia-Qat TO ev
(petitio principii, begging of the question) ;
(immediate) ; avd\va-t,<s (analysis) ; avo/j,oiopepr)s (hetero-

154 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

geneous) ; dvrtyacris (contradiction) ; dTroSeircriKos (de-
monstrative) ; a7ro^)aa-49 (affirmation) ; yevirco? (generic) ;
SiXOTopia (dichotomy) ; e'yu/Tret/H/co? (empiric) ; evavnor^
(opposition) ; evepjeta (energy) ; every? (unity) ; eWe-
Xe^eta (entelechy) ; egwrepiKos (exoteric) ; e7ra/cTt/co9
(inductive) ; erepor^ (alterity or otherness) ; rj0uc6s
(morals) ; 0eo\ojtK^ (theology) ; KariyyopiKos (categori-
cal) ; \oytKos (logical) ; opyaviicos (organic), &c.

The following instances may be quoted in which
Aristotle confined himself to a scientific determination
of the meaning of the term : avrlOea-is (antithesis) ;
aglmjua (axiom) ; evavrios (contrary) ; ewTrdp^eiv (to be
immanent) ; eTraywyij (induction) ; ea-^arov (last) ;
iSiov (characteristic property of a species) ; o-vfifiefirjKos
(accident) ; crv\\oY%ecr0ai (to reason) ; a-vve^? (con-
tinuous) ; crvve^eta (continuity) ; crvv6\ov (whole) ;
v\t) (matter) ; v-rrofceifjievov (substratum).

Finally we will take a few instances of the distinc-
tions he draws between concepts, by means of analysis
and opposition : 761/05 (genus) ; etSo? (species) ; /az^o-t?
(movement) ; evepyeia (act) ; dvTi<j>ao-i<; (contradiction)
and evavriov (opposition) ; iroietv (to make) and
(to do) ; Svva/Mi? (potency) and evepyeia (act) ; eT
(induction) and o-v\\oyia-fj,6<; (deduction) ; ovo-ia (essence)
and <rv/j,{3€{3r)tc6Ta (accidents) ; StaXe/crt/co? (dialectic) and
aTToBeiKTiKos (demonstrative) ; irporepov ry fyvaei (anterior
per se) and Trporepov Trpb? ^a? (anterior from our
standpoint).

Aristotle's style is no less personal than his language.
The ancients extolled his fluency and charm ; the
words flowed from his lips, said Cicero, in a golden
stream. Such praise evidently applies to his dialogues,
his published works. In his didactic works (Trpay-
which alone have come down to us, we note

ARISTOTLE 155

the exactness of his definitions, inimitable clearness,
precision and brevity, a strictness and exactness in the
meaning of words, suggestive of the language of
mathematics. In a word, Aristotle's style is dis-
tinguished by an exact appropriation of form to content.
Frequently, however, especially in such of his works as
are incomplete, Aristotle writes with a certain degree of
aridity and carelessness. Not only are the sentences
not arranged in periods, but there are numerous anaco-
lutha and parentheses, which, in no small measure,
militate against clearness. At times, too, in these
abstract dissertations, we come across passages that are
not lacking in fire and eloquence. Of such a character
is the end of chapter 7, book 10, of the Nicomachean
Ethics :

The life of the statesman and of the soldier, then, though
they surpass all other virtuous exercises in nobility and grandeur,
are not leisurely occupations, but aim at some ulterior end, and
are not desired merely for themselves.

But the exercise of the reason seems to be superior in
seriousness (since it contemplates truth), and to aim at no end
beside itself, and to have its proper pleasure (which also helps
to increase the exercise) ; and its exercise seems further to be
self-sufficient, and leisurely, and inexhaustible (as far as anything
human can be), and to have all the other characteristics that
are ascribed to happiness.

This, then, will be the complete happiness of man, i.e.
when a complete term of days is added ; for nothing incomplete
can be admitted into our idea of happiness.

But a life which realised this idea would be something more
than human ; for it would not be the expression of man's
nature, but of some divine element in that nature — the exercise
of which is so far superior to the exercise of the other kind of
virtue (i.e. practical or moral virtue), as this divine element is
superior to our compound human nature.1

1 I.e. our nature as moral agents, as compounds of reason and desire.

156 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

If, then, reason be divine as compared with man, the life
which consists in the exercise of reason will also be divine in
comparison with human life. Nevertheless, instead of listening
to those who advise us as men and mortals not to lift our
thoughts above what is human and mortal, we ought rather,
as far as possible, to put off our mortality and make every
effort to live in the exercise of the highest of our faculties j
for though it be but a small part of us, yet in power and value
it far surpasses all the rest.1

XXX. — ARISTOTLE'S INFLUENCE

The first effect of Aristotle's teaching was to bring
into being the Peripatetic school, which flourished for
a period of from two to three centuries, and whose
principal representatives are : Theophrastus of Lesbos
(372.^287 ? B.C.), Eudemus of Rhodes (fourth century),
Aristoxenus of Tarentum (born about 350 B.C.), sur-
named the Musician, Decearchus of Messena (flourished
320 B.C.) and Strato of Lampsacus (flourished 287 B.C.).
Critolaus, a member of the embassy sent to Rome
in 156 B.C., by which philosophy was introduced into
the Roman world, was a Peripatetic philosopher. The
school was distinguished for its minute investigations in
logic, morals and natural science, but the naturalistic
tendency gradually prevailed over the metaphysical.
Strato even went so far as to identify divinity with the
<f>va-is which acts unconsciously throughout the world,
and to substitute for the Aristotelian teleology an
altogether mechanical explanation of things, based on
the properties of heat and cold.

With the publication of Aristotle's works by
Andronicus of Rhodes, about 70 B.C., began the long
list of interpreters and commentators of the Stageirite,

1 F. H. Peter's translation.

ARISTOTLE 157

including Boethus of Sidon, Nicolas of Damascus,
Alexander of Aphrodisias in Cilicia, surnamed the
Exegete far excellence (icar egoxtfv), Porphyry of Bat-
anaea, the Neoplatonist, Themistius of Paphlagonia,
Philopon of Alexandria and Simplicius of Cilicia.

Though the Peripatetic school consists mainly of
disciples not very advanced in metaphysics or of purely
erudite commentators, still, the master's doctrines are
very vigorous and instinct with life in philosophies
which did not originate with him but were largely
inspired by his influence. The principle of the Stoics,
intermediary between potency and act, and limited by
tension, immanent in all things, the intelligent and
supreme final cause, would indeed appear to be nothing
else than the <f>v<n,s of Aristotle, into which the vovs would
seem to be absorbed. Through the precise distinction
he made between mechanism and finality, between the
physical and the metaphysical order of things, between
chance and intelligent action, Aristotle rendered possible
Epicureanism, which seems largely to be made up of
the doctrines which Aristotle defined or created for the
purpose of refuting them. Neoplatonism itself, in the
matter of its doctrine regarding the vovs, is greatly
indebted to Aristotle. The Neoplatonists endeavoured
to reconcile Plato and Aristotle ; and Plotinus main-
tained that his doctrine of the transcendent one from
which the vov? emanates, was the inevitable consequence
of Aristotelian teaching.

After defending ancient philosophy to the very end,
Aristotelianism, becoming embodied in the beliefs of
the Middle Ages, transformed them into philosophical
doctrines. It was mainly owing to the influence of
Aristotle that there developed, in that period of religious
mysticism, the spirit of logic and of rational speculation.

158 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Tardily and indirectly did Aristotle's writings pene-
trate into the western world. Even in the middle of
the twelfth century, only small portions of the Organon
were known, to wit, the Categories and the Hermeneia,
in the Latin translation of Boetius. These, along with
the EtVo7&>y?7 of Porphyry and the Timaeus of Plato,
formed almost the entire possessions of philosophical
antiquity. From A.D. 1150 to 1210, the other works
of Aristotle appeared in the form of a Latin version of
Arabic translations, which in their turn had been trans-
lated by Christian Syrians, from Syriac translations, in
the ninth century. Shortly afterwards (thirteenth cen-
tury), the Greek text was communicated to the scholars
of the West, mainly by Greeks from Constantinople ;
and a translation direct from the Latin was substituted
for the indirect translations. Robert Greathead, Albert
le Grand and Saint Thomas were the principal persons
engaged in this refining process of translating into Latin.

As showing how dependent on his will is man's
intelligence, people of the most diverse opinions,
strangely enough, found in Aristotle a rational basis
for their beliefs and aspirations. There could be
nothing apparently more one than the Middle Ages,
for Aristotle was invoked by everybody, though, as a
matter of fact, there were as many Aristotles as
philosophers. There were even Aristotles who had
only the name in common with the Stageirite.

It was Aristotle's Organon that gave rise to the
famous quarrel between the universities, which lasted
from the ninth to the end of the eleventh century.
About this time, complete systems of Aristotelian
philosophy grew up amongst the Arabs and Jews, who
had possession of all the master's writings. The Arabs,
who were naturalists and monotheists, were captivated

ARISTOTLE 159

by Aristotle's teachings about God and by his investi-
gations into natural history. AverroSs, of Cordova
(A.D. 1126-1198), regards himself as a true Aristotelian
when maintaining that active understanding is an
emanation from God, that it is one for all men and
alone is immortal. Moses Maimonides, a Jew of
Cordova (A.D. 1135-1204), finds no difficulty in re-
conciling miracles and the creation of matter with
Aristotelianism.

The most brilliant period of Christian scholasticism
is also that during which Aristotle's authority is at its
highest. Though his doctrines on physics, which are
regarded as advocating the eternity of the world and of
time, are for a certain period regarded with suspicion,
from the year A.D. 1230, the whole of his works begin
to be used as text-books for lessons in philosophy. Just
as the truths of faith are the expression of supernatural
illumination, so the Aristotelian doctrine is the ex-
pression of natural illumination. Reason does not
coincide with faith, but it is moving towards it.
Aristotle, as representing reason, is the forerunner of
Christ in the things of nature, as Saint John the Baptist is
his forerunner in those of grace. Thus defined, circum-
scribed and subordinated, Aristotelianism becomes the
origin of what has since been called deism and natural
religion. At that time there was found in it all that
theology required. Naturally it cannot demonstrate
the truth of the dogmas, for that would be contradictory ;
still, it refutes objections brought against them and
establishes their probability. In particular, it sets up a
theory of substantial form and of real and separable
accidents, which makes transubstantiation conceivable
in the persistence of the same sensible elements in the
Eucharist.

i6o STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

And, indeed, Aristotelianism is as favourable to dis-
sent as it is to orthodoxy. Amaury of Chartres and
David of Dinant (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries)
claim that it upholds pantheism, for the one identifies
the God of the Stageirite with form, the other with
universal matter. The German mystics, too, Theodoric
of Freiburg and " Meister Eckhart " (thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries), present their doctrine of the
substantial union of the soul with divinity, as the
development of the Aristotelian theory of the

And lastly, Aristotle is not only the master of
philosophers in the Middle Ages ; he is even regarded
as the patron of those who, in opposition to the Church
and the philosophy of the times, claim to harness and
control the mysterious forces of nature. These re-
probates look upon Aristotle as a magician. He is
credited with having written alchemical treatises on the
occult philosophy of the Egyptians, and is placed, with
Plato, at the head of the list of oecumenical alchemists.
Alchemists called themselves the new commentators of
Plato and Aristotle.

Thus we find Aristotle, in the Middle Ages, every-
where stirring up the minds of men and regarded as an
authority : his main work, however, was undoubtedly
the organisation of that Christian philosophy which was
so complete and detailed, so logical and firmly based
throughout, that it seemed destined to last for ever. This
philosophy held sway in the] colleges of the University
of France up to the eighteenth century. In the Sorbonne,
in 1624, it was forbidden, under penalty of death, to pro-
pound doctrines opposed to those held by the ancients.
Even in 1671, the professors were called upon to
respect Peripateticism under penalty of exclusion. Only

ARISTOTLE 161

at the beginning of the eighteenth century did scholastic
Aristotelianism make way for new ideas.

It was from faith, not from reason, that the first
really savage attack came. Not only did Luther
note how important were the differences that divided
Aristotelian philosophy from Christianity, he even re-
garded it as impious to seek for a reconciliation
between God-given faith and sin-stained reason. Aris-
totelian philosophy, the work of man, with its claim to
deal with things divine, could be nothing else than
error and sacrilege ; religion, once reconciled thereto,
could only become distorted and misrepresented. Aris-
totle was an arch-heretic : religion would only be safe
on condition his doctrines were utterly abolished.

Opposed in the name of the Christian religion,
Aristotelianism, in spite of its glorious revival by the
scholars of the Renaissance, Pomponatius, Scaliger,
Vanini, Gennadius, and George of Trebizond, speedily
became an object of attack by science and philosophy.
Bacon saw in the Aristotelian method nothing but
deduction applied to the data of opinion and language ;
in his eyes, Aristotelian metaphysic was only the claim
to explain things, exclusive of mechanical causes, by
supernatural and divine actions. He therefore con-
demned the philosophy of Aristotle, as being contrary
to the conditions of science, which latter seeks
mechanical explanations and proceeds by induction.
Descartes looked upon Aristotelianism as the doctrine
that realised sensible qualities, and explained phenomena
by these chimerical entities. Barren and obscure ideas,
these abstractions could not possibly be the principles
of things. In direct opposition to Aristotle, Descartes
restores quality to quantity, not quantity to quality.

It appeared as though the Aristotelian doctrine would

M

1 62 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

have definitely lived, when Leibnitz triumphantly re-
stored it to philosophy, declaring that in the theory of
substantial forms and entelechy, when rightly under-
stood, there was more truth than in the entire philo-
sophy of the moderns. Following in the steps of
Aristotle, Leibnitz placed substance in a principle of
action, relegated extent and matter from the class of
substance to that of phenomenon, and reconciled final
with efficient causes by making mechanism dependent on
finality. Aristotelianism, since the time of Leibnitz,
has maintained a place of its own in philosophy, more
particularly playing an important part in the formation
of the Hegelian system.

However great his place in history, can it be said
that Aristotle, even at the present time, is one of the
masters of human thought ?

As regards philosophy strictly so called, there can
be no question as to the answer that must be given.
It appears as though Aristotelianism responds particu-
larly to the preoccupations of modern times. The
two doctrines that until recently, have occupied the
largest place in the world of philosophy were Kantian
idealism and evolutionism. Now, Aristotle's system
may without disadvantage be set up against these two
systems.

It is opposed to Kantism. As a matter of fact,
Kant rejects the dependence of the mind in respect of
being, the ontological value attributed to the laws of
the mind, the theoretical unconditioned and the sub-
ordination of practice to theory ; all of which belong to
the very essence of Aristotelianism. The philosophy of
Kant has been set up in direct opposition to dogmatic
philosophy, of which Aristotle is the representative

ARISTOTLE 163

par excellence. But if Kant discovered a new conception
of things, a conception which must henceforth be
examined by all interested in philosophy, it cannot be
affirmed that he fully succeeded in getting his hypo-
thesis accepted universally. If this hypothesis has
on its side the testimony of conscience, which, by the
way, it undertakes to satisfy, it cannot obtain the
frank, complete approval of the intellect. This latter
persists in saying, with Aristotle : " Everything has a
reason of its own, and the first principle must be the
final reason of things. Now, explanation implies deter-
mination, and the final reason cannot be anything else
than fully determined being. When we consider the
infinite and the finite, it is the finite, in so far as it is
intelligible, that is the principle ; the infinite, in so
far as it is unintelligible, can only be phenomenon." As
regards Aristotle and Kant, what we have to do is to
find out whether the supremacy must be attributed to
the will or to the intellect ; now, even at the present
time, this question does not appear to have been
answered once for all.

The position of Aristotelianism as compared with
evolutionism is quite different. Not only does it not
oppose the latter, it even recognises and includes
it, at the same time affording the means of going
beyond it. Historically, it is one of the most direct
antecedents of evolutionism. Whether in nature or in
man, Aristotle shows that everywhere we have con-
tinuity— a process of development from the lower to
the higher. Plants imply minerals, animals imply
plants, man implies animals, and man is nothing but
the completion of the being roughly outlined in the
lower productions of nature. Even in man, imagination
springs from sensation, memory from imagination, and

1 64 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

the intellect cannot think without images. We can find
no scientific thesis of evolutionism that would be in-
compatible with the natural philosophy of Aristotle.
But is this mechanical order of things the absolute
order ? Do these explanations fully satisfy the in-
telligence ? This is the question Aristotle asks, a
question he finds it impossible to answer along the
lines of spiritualistic metaphysics.

To our philosopher, the order which proceeds from
the indeterminate to the determinate, from genus to
species, cannot be regarded by the intellect as the
absolute order of the generation of things, for the in-
determinate always admits of other determinations than
those it receives in the real world. Though man is the
completion of the animal, still, the animal admitted of
other determinations than those that made it into a man.
Why do genera find their realisation in certain species
rather than in others ? The reason of this choice from
amongst all possible developments can be found only
in the very being which is the term of the development.
The perfection of this being must be a force controlling
the evolution of the matter from which it is to be born.
In this way, the order which proceeds from the inde-
terminate to the determinate does not exclude ; it calls
for a symmetrically contrary order, the hidden principle
of its direction and realisation. And so Aristotle
reconciles the evolutionistic mechanism with finality by
making a distinction between the order of things in
time and that of things in the absolute. Evolutionism
is truth from the standpoint of the senses ; from that
of the intellect, however, the imperfect exists and is
determined only with a view to the more perfect.
The finalistic explanation is the justifiable and indis-
pensable complement of the mechanistic one.

ARISTOTLE 165

Thus Aristotelianism still has a place of its own in
philosophy. But has it not become, for the future,
banned and barred from science ?

Here a distinction must be made between the
moral sciences, on the one hand, and the mathematical
and physical sciences on the other. Aristotle's ethics,
and even, in many important respects, his politics, far
from being forgotten, are in greater vogue than ever
nowadays. The recommendation to live as a man
when one is born a man, and to attribute real
sovereignty in politics to reason and law, are by no
means on the point of sinking into oblivion. But the
sciences dealing with nature, all henceforth positive,
seem to have little in common with the natural philo-
sophy of the great metaphysician.

In order to express a fair judgment on this subject,
it should at once be stated that a man may have exercised
great influence on the development of the sciences
without any of his ideas being recognised in present-
day teachings. The sciences are built up stage by
stage ; and though some particular ancient theory may
not be recognised in modern theories, it may well have
played its part in paving the way for their reception.
Now, merit of this kind may certainly be attributed to
Aristotle. He advanced theories and concepts which
may be vastly different from modern methods and
principles, and yet have none the less controlled the
formation of these very principles. For instance, we
have the Aristotelian theory of induction which doubtless
determines rather the end to be attained than the means
to be employed, and prefers to regard this end as being
the discovery of types and not that of laws, but which
is none the less very important because of the precision
with which, in induction, it shows how we have to set

1 66 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

free the necessary from the contingent, the universal
from the particular. Such also are the ideas of genus
and species, potency and act, mechanical blending and
qualitative combination, chance, in reference to the con-
junction of causes independent of one another, con-
tinuity in the scale of beings, classification of the
sciences, etc.

But the simple acknowledgment that Aristotle has
supplied science with many starting - points is not
sufficient. Many of his principles may still quite well
be recognised in the spirit of contemporary science
itself. His great principle that there are laws in
nature and that they can be discovered only by deducing
them from experience by the aid of reflection, his
constant wish to investigate things in their details, to
understand them not by means of vague formulae, but
in themselves with their own characteristics, his definition
of cause as existing in that element which makes pro-
duction known as necessary, his doctrine of biological
continuity and of the solidarity of the higher with
respect to the lower ; all these essential features of
Aristotelian philosophy may be met with in modern
science. Though an authority belonging to the past,
Aristotle has not ceased to be a master, even in these
days.

The objection, however, will be urged that Aristotle
is finalistic and that science does not now trouble itself
with the consideration of ends.

Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here.
Aristotelian finality is not the building up of the world,
as though it were a watch, by an artisan who sets
before him an idea and calculates how to realise it. It
consists, we may say, of the three following principles :
ist, throughout the world, order is the rule, disorder

ARISTOTLE 167

the exception ; this is equivalent to saying that the
combinations of phenomena which result immediately
from the laws of nature, harmoniously united in types,
and consequently normal in their development, are far
more numerous than the combinations due to the
fortuitous conjunction of laws independent of one
another ; 2nd, in every individual there is an organising
force or Averts by virtue of which it tends to be and to
realise a certain form ; 3rd, the specific types are strictly
determined, separated from one another, and immut-
able. Is it quite certain that finality, thus interpreted,
is altogether absent from modern science ?

The first of these three principles signifies that it is
possible to obtain knowledge of fundamental laws by
means of observation and induction. In contrast with
this theory we have the mathematical theory of Descartes,
according to which there are really no qualitative and
multiple laws of nature, but only various determina-
tions of homogeneous and mathematical quantity.
But though we have the Cartesian conception as an
ideal representing complete science, the Aristotelian
method of advance is still the one best suited to our
means of knowledge. The only thing in which Aristotle
erred was in imagining that by the process of induction
we could arrive at simple and absolute laws which
presuppose nothing anterior to themselves.

The second principle bears a striking resemblance
to that of the struggle for life. Here, too, we pre-
suppose in every individual a tendency to exist and
develop along fixed lines. It is true that modern
science would like to reduce life itself to a mechanism ;
all the same, it acknowledges that life, as we find it,
plays the part and possesses the characteristics that
Aristotle attributed to it. The entire difference con-

1 68 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

sists in regarding as derived what Aristotle looked upon
as primitive ; but until this reduction is effected, we do
not think we are wrong in saying: everything takes
place as though there were in each living being a
tendency to exist, and that in some determinate manner.
Finally, the third principle, which still counts
adherents amongst scientists themselves, is not, as
Aristotle understood it, in absolute contradiction to the
teachings of the evolutionists, from the physical point
of view. What is it that Aristotle means ? He does
not wish to affirm that the history of the beings of
nature began in time, with the creation of separate
species : he means that the realisation of a certain
number of types, both distinct from and in harmony
with each other, is the end and rule of the productions
of nature. He admits that nature, for the most part,
succeeds in realising this end ; but, apart from the
perfectly regular productions of nature, he acknow-
ledges productions partly regular, partly irregular.
Now, if we leave the past out of account, and also any
beginning in time, about which Aristotle did not trouble
himself, we shall find no very great divergence between
this point of view and that of evolutionism. In contra-,
distinction to materialism and the doctrine of chance,
evolutionism recognises that species exist, at the present
time, at all events. It also recognises the tendency in
nature towards an increasingly complete specification.
The principle of Aristotle, then, subsists, even in these
days, in the hypothetical form at any rate, the only
form a principle can admit of in science ; everything
takes place as though there were a hierarchy of ideal
forms, distinct from one another, and which the beings
of nature tend to realise.

JACOB BOEHME, THE GERMAN
PHILOSOPHER

" Gott ist von der Natur frei, und die Natur ist doch seines
Wesens." — J. BOEHME (Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschens).

I

IT is not the custom, even in Germany, to assign a
place of importance in the history of philosophy to
Jacob Boehme, the shoemaker theosophist of the Renais-
sance. Along with Hegel, he is recognised as a man of
powerful mind ; but whilst it is admitted that from the
whole of his obscure, involved writings a certain number
of doctrines capable of being understood to some extent
by the intellect can be evolved, these doctrines are
regarded as coming under the category of theology and
Christian edification rather than as monuments of profane
and rational science. Such appreciation is natural in
France where philosophy, in the spirit of Descartes,
mostly depends on the understanding, and is suspicious
of anything resembling mysticism. In Germany, how-
ever, philosophy has not adopted the rationalistic form
in so constant a fashion. Alongside of Leibnitz, Kant,
Fichte, and Hegel, the Schoolmen, so to speak, of
modern Germany, we find philosophers of belief, religion,
or feeling, such as Hamann, Herder, Jacobi, Schelling
the theosophist, and the famous Christian philosopher
Franz von Baader. These latter, as against the former,

169

170 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

are mystical dissidents, just as, in former times, Eckhart
and Tauler were opposed to Thomist rationalism. Even
the German philosophers of concept and reflection, the
followers of Kant and Hegel, if we consider the basis
and spirit of their teaching, and not the form in which
they set it forth, are not so free from mysticism and
theosophy as would seem to be the case, or even as they
state. For they too look upon the veritable absolute as
being not in space or thought, but rather in spirit, which
is regarded as superior to the categories of the under-
standing ; they too endeavour to base nature on
this absolute. Now, taking into consideration this
element of mysticism and theosophy, set forth in
Germany not merely by a whole series of important
philosophical systems, but even by the preeminently
classical systems, if we inquire into the origins of
German philosophy, we can hardly fail to bestow con-
siderable attention upon the shoemaker theosophist. We
will seriously ask ourselves whether he did not deserve
the name of German philosopher given him during his
lifetime by his admirer and friend, Dr. Walther.

True, at first sight, the name scarcely seems to suit
him. Boehme is neither a scientist, a dialectician, nor
even a disinterested investigator. The son of peasants,
his first occupation was that of a cowherd. Then he
became a shoemaker at GOrlitz, the town adjoining his
birthplace, and here he conscientiously practised his trade
in the fear of the Lord. He married the daughter of
a worthy butcher living in the town, Catharina Kuntz-
schmann, by whom he had four sons, and, it is said,
two daughters. He brought up his sons in his own
station of life and made workmen of them. He lived
in piety, simplicity, and Christian meekness, and was
ever engaged in meditation on religious things. But

JACOB BOEHME 171

it was his continual desire, he tells us, to seek in the
heart of God for a refuge from divine wrath and the
wickedness of the devil. He wrote a considerable
number of books. But what was the source of his
inspiration ? He had read neither the classic authors
nor the Schoolmen, and was acquainted only with
mystical and theosophical writings. And even for
what he knows he is indebted to personal and super-
natural revelations. Four times the heavenly light was
revealed to him, when he saw either Christ or the
eternal Virgin ; during the few moments these visions
lasted he learned more than he would have done had he
attended classes for years. At the beginning of each of
his books we find the words geschrieben nach g'ottlicher
Erleuchtung, written by divine enlightenment.

The work corresponds with the conditions under
which it was composed. It is a mixture of abstruse
theology, alchemy, speculations on the undiscernible,
and the incomprehensible, fantastic poetry and mystic
effusions ; in fact, a dazzling chaos. His first book is
entitled, The dawn at its rise, or the root and mother of
-philosophy r, astrology, and theology considered in their true
principle : a description of nature, in which is seen how all
things were in the beginning, etc. Boehme herein sets
forth the genesis of the holy Trinity, the creation and
fall of the Angels, the creation and fall of man, the
redemption and the end of the world. He sees, and
would have others see, far more than he demonstrates ;
his science is a metaphysical hallucination. Accord-
ingly he is constantly doing violence to language, requir-
ing it to express the inexpressible. He uses the terms
of ancient mysticism, of alchemy and philosophy ; he
imposes on them meanings of extraordinary subtilty,
and insists on there being the infinite and the mysteri-

172 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

ous at the base of all thought. Is it possible that from
such a work anything can be gleaned by the historian
of philosophy, unless by an arbitrary interpretation he
transforms into concepts what, on the part of the author,
is pure intuition and imagination ?

In forming an opinion of this man, whose sole aim
was to set the spirit free from the letter, it would be
unbecoming to judge by appearances. In reality, Boehme
is not the simple, ignorant man he tells us he is. He
was open-minded and possessed of a keen intellect, as
his first teachers immediately recognised. He lived in
a country and at an epoch in which the greatest of all
problems were being discussed. The mysticism of old
was still flourishing in Germany during the times of
Schwenckfeld and Sebastien Franck. At the same time,
ever since Nicolas de Cusa, there had been developing,
beneath the influence of Italian naturalism, a profound
and brilliant theosophy represented by Agrippa von
Nettesheim and Paracelsus, the rehabilitation and deifica-
tion of that nature which the mystics of the Middle
Ages were destroying. In another direction, over against
the moral optimism of Eckhart and his disciples, Luther
had recently set up the doctrine of a positive, radical
evil, rising up to oppose God and incapable of being
brought within the compass of mere diminution or
deprivation. The new principles had early entered
either into connection or into conflict with the principle
of ancient mysticism. Protestantism was already attempt-
ing that reconciliation of its mystical with its Pauline
origins, its spiritualistic monism with its moral dualism,
and its principle of liberty with that of discipline, which
she is still following. Theosophy was united with
mysticism in Valentin Weigel, who submitted as matter
for the subjective reflection of Eckhart, the man of

JACOB BOEHME 173

Paracelsus, a resume and perfection of the three natures,
the terrestrial, sidereal, and the divine, of which the
created universe consists.

From his youth onwards, Boehme eagerly took an
active part in this movement of ideas. In his wander-
ings to and fro as a journeyman before becoming a
master-shoemaker, he conversed of things religious and
theosophical ; he observed, read, and reflected. Though
he read but little, what he did read was important and
full of profound thought. The Bible was for him the
book of books, that thrilling, deep word which, especi-
ally since the days of Luther, has ever been the most
powerful incentive to reflection. But Boehme read the
writings of many other masters besides. He read
Schwenckfeld, noting his objections to that doctrine
of vicarious atonement which tends to replace by ex-
ternal and accidental action the internal working of
grace, the only possible source of essential conversion.
He read Paracelsus, and was delighted to find in him
an enthusiastic apostle of life, a revealer of the magic
power of imagination, a seer who finds, in the world
and in natural man, that image of God which mystics
had ceased to find therein. He studied alchemy, trying
to discover its true, its spiritual meaning. To him,
transmutation was the symbol of the new birth to which
man is called ; the philosopher's stone found its realisa-
tion for him in the power of faith and of surrender to
God. He read Valentin Weigel, and became imbued
with the spiritual mysticism this pious pastor inherited
from Tauler, from German theology, from Schwenckfeld,
and from Sebastien Franck ; thanks to him, also, he con-
ceived the idea of combining mysticism with theosophy.

Boehme read not only books of written characters,
he also read the book of nature. Every manifestation

174 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of nature is instruction for him ; matter is not a being
apart, foreign to spirit ; it is spirit itself, revealed and
visible. The stars, the sun, the elements of the earth, life
everywhere, in its origin and in every one of its phases,
the growing tree, the animal with its desires and dis-
interested instincts, man with his inner life, his struggle
with evil, his defeats and triumphs — all these things
Boehme contemplates and meditates upon, and in this
immediate and religious communion with nature, waits
for her to infuse into him her own spirit and reveal the
mysteries of being.

It is eternal, interior, and living being that he seeks
everywhere and in all things. Thus, the phenomena of
nature, like the teachings set forth in books, are
signs for him to decipher, not the object about which
knowledge is sought. The reason why he reads and
observes is to have matter on which his spirit may
dwell for reflection. It is Boehme's endeavour to set
the spirit free from the letter, to find out the force
which works at the heart of inert phenomena, and to
penetrate to the very source of all reality. Therefore
inner experience and reflection are, once for all, his true
means of investigation. True, he was an illuminate ;
his meditation was a prayer ; his discoveries, divine
revelations. Still, what matters the explanation the
individual himself gives of the channel along which
his ideas entered his consciousness ? Is Descartes'
analytical geometry any the less true because he claimed
that he owed its invention to the assistance of the holy
Virgin ? It may be because of the way in which the
human mind is constituted that he at first attributed to
supernatural revelation the new ideas that arose within
him, impressing him by their beauty and illuminat-
ing power, and that he regarded them as entering his

JACOB BOEHME 175

mind from without. Plato's essences, the z/oOs of Aris-
totle, the Christian ideal, the supreme principles of
knowledge and action, were looked upon as beings and
things in themselves, before they came to be explained
by the laws of the human mind. The natural has first
been supernatural ; for the genius does not know how
he arises ; to himself he appears as a god visiting his
creature. Boehme, indeed, is not content to receive
into his own intelligence the revelations of divine
intelligence ; he is a seer of visions. Increate wisdom,
the eternal Virgin, appeared to him several times.
But enthusiasm, even when of a somewhat sickly
nature, is just as likely to strengthen as it is to
weaken the powers of the human mind, and a shock to
the organism is nothing but the result of the excessive
tension to which the mind has had to subject the body
for the realisation of its creations. The thinking reed1
bends beneath the effort of thought, even more than
beneath the weight of matter. After all, there is only
one interpretation, only one standard of either a thinker's
or an artist's work, and that is the work itself. The
author is the mould which is broken that the statue
may be made visible.

II

What is it, then, that we find in the work of Boehme
when considered in itself, both in its spirit and inner mean-
ing, as the author would have it studied, and in its real
and objective content, as history would have it studied ?

First of all, what is the motive of the theosophist
shoemaker's reflections ?

1 Pascal in his Pens&s (Edition Ha<vet, i. 6) says : " L'homme n'est qu'un
roseau le plus faible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau pensant." (Translator's
note.)

1 76 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

" From my youth up," he tells us, " I have sought
only one thing : the salvation of my soul, the means of
gaining possession of the kingdom of God." Here,
apparently, is nothing more than an altogether practical
and religious object ; but in Boehme's mind, this object
is destined to raise the most profound, metaphysical
speculations.

He learnt from the mystics what it means to possess
God. One must take care, so these masters teach, not
to liken the possession of God to the possession of any-
thing material. God is spirit, i.e. for the man who
understands the meaning of the term, a generating
power previous to all essence, even the divine. God
is spirit, i.e. pure will, both infinite and free, with
the realisation of its own personality as its object.
Henceforward, God cannot be accepted by any passive
operation. We possess him only if he is created
within us. To possess God is to live the life of
God.

On the other hand, Boehme learnt from Luther
that the natural man is not simply a son separated
from his father, that between God and his creature
there is something more than inert space, unresisting
non-being. The natural man has rebelled against his
creator : between him and God, sin raises its head,
like a real, positive power, endeavouring to defeat the
divine action. Evil is not non-being, it is a real being
that combats the principle of good. Everywhere in
nature Boehme finds that effective warfare being waged,
which Luther enabled him to see in the human con-
science. Whether he beholds sun and stars, clouds or
rain or snow, creatures with reason or creatures without
reason, such as wood, stones, earth, or elements ;
no matter in which direction he turns, he sees every-

JACOB BOEHME 177

where evil over against good, anger opposing love,
affirmation opposed to negation. Even justice, here
below, is at grips with its contrary. For the godless
are as prosperous as the god-fearing, barbarous nations
possess the richest lands and enjoy the good things
of earth more than do the servants of God. Observing
these things, Boehme tells us, I fell into a state of deep
melancholy and my spirit was troubled. Not a single
book, of all those with which I was acquainted, brought
me any consolation. And the devil was there, watching
for me, and filling my mind with heathenish thoughts
such as I should be ashamed to express here. Is it true
that God is love, as Christianity teaches, that God is
omnipotent, that there is nothing which has reality
in his presence ? Such, doubtless, are the questions
Boehme felt starting to life, deep in his consciousness.
Gladly would the devil have seen him give up all
hope of fathoming the mystery and sink to sleep in
indifference. Boehme, however, guessed his designs
and determined to foil them.

How was he to reconcile the end of human activity,
of which mystics had so noble a conception, with the
reality of things, so concisely stated by the founder
of Protestantism ? If mankind and the whole of nature
have radically rebelled against God, how can one main-
tain the possibility of the birth of God within the
human soul ? If man, like a decayed tree, can will
and do nothing but evil,1 there is no middle course
to adopt, it would appear, between leaving the tree to
rot, and, after uprooting it, flinging it into the fire.
If nature is absolutely opposed to God, either God
has no power over her, or he ought to destroy her.

To maintain the spiritual and optimistic ideal of the

1 According to Luther's expression.

N

178 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

mystics, whilst at the same time regarding nature from
the pessimistic standpoint of Luther, and, in a more
general way, from a realistic standpoint : such is the
task Boehme sets himself. This task determines itself
in his mind as follows. Whereas the mystics wished to
know how God can be born in that which is not himself,
Boehme asks himself how God can be reborn in that which
has violently separated from him. Now, he imagines
he can solve this problem if he is able to discover both
the source of divine existence and the origin of the
world and of sin. This science will be regeneration
itself. For knowledge, when it penetrates to its source
and origin, blends and unites with action and reality.
To see things from the standpoint of God is to be
reborn to divine life.

The following, therefore, is to be the fundamental
division of Boehme's system : ist, How does God
engender himself? 2nd, Why and how did God
create the world and how did evil enter therein ?
3rd, How can God be reborn in the heart of the
corrupt creature, and what is the final end of all
beings ?

As we see, this is the question of the beginning and
the end, stated in all its generality and dominating all
others. Whereas the ancients tried to discover a
posteriori what stable, determinate principles lie hidden
beneath the movement and indetermination of pheno-
mena, and knew no mean between an altogether
illusory, indeterminate absolute such as chance, and a
full and perfected absolute such as intelligence, our
philosopher, for whom the whole of nature is the result
of an action, tries to find out how the absolute itself
came into being, in so far as it is this and not that ;
even as regards God, he descends from infinite power

JACOB BOEHME 179

to the production of determinate being. The philosophy
of the ancients was a classification, more than anything
else, that of Boehme is to be a construction. The
problem of the genesis of things has been substituted for
that of their essence. And as the being whose genesis is
here sought and whose internal movement should explain
nature is distinctly the conscious, free and acting person,
the system we are about to study appears before us as
the dawn of a new philosophy, which may be called the
philosophy of personality, considered in itself and in its
connection with nature.

What method does Boehme recommend in this
enquiry ?

The problem now before us, we must remember, is
to see being proceed from its primary source, that is,
to apprehend the transition from nothing to something.
Now, the means at the disposal of ordinary philosophy
are powerless for such a task. What will erudition
give us, except opinions, abstract ideas ? The Bible
itself, if we seek enlightenment therein without going
farther back in time, is nothing but a dead letter, a
symbol that cannot be explained. It is the same with
the senses and the reason as it is with erudition. The
senses enable us to know only the cut-and-dry appear-
ances of things and their products, not their real nature
and inner life. Exterior reason, or the natural elaboration
of the data of experience, is as dead as the materials it
brings together. It analyses and separates ; and the
objects it considers, thus snatched from the living
whole of which they formed part, are no more than
fictitious beings, incapable of telling us anything of
their origin and true nature. It is this exterior reason,
which, seeing the wicked in this world of ours prosper
equally with the good, insinuates to man that evil is the

180 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

equal of good, and consequently that the existence of
the God of religion is problematical.

All these methods have the same flaw : they are
passive and dead. They presuppose a given, realised
object, and set the mind, like a motionless mirror,
opposite that object. A living method, alone, enables
us to penetrate into the mysteries of life. Being, alone,
knows being ; we must generate with God in order to
understand generation. Therefore the true method
consists in witnessing, or rather taking part in the
divine operation whose end is the blossoming and
dominion the rule of the personality ; it is knowledge as
consciousness of action: a method, indeed, which proceeds
from cause to effect, whereas any purely logical method,
limited to the working out of the data of experience,
is and can be nothing more than a vain effort to rise
from effect to cause.

But then, how can man thus place himself at the
standpoint of God ? It is impossible for him to ascend
to God : there is no transmutation of creature into
creator. Still, though man cannot ascend into God,
God can descend into man. Not that God can be
evoked and materially constrained, as it were, by the
practices of false magic or outward devotion, but rather
that God descends into man, when man dies to his
corrupt, inborn nature, to give himself up to divine
action. Christ said that you " must be born again," if
you would see uthe kingdom of God." The conversion
of the heart opens the eye of the intelligence. Just
as the exterior man sees the exterior world, so the new
man sees the divine world in which he is living. And
this return to God is possible for man, since man was
created in the image of God. He has only to go down
to the deepest recesses of himself and set free the interior

JACOB BOEHME 181

man from the exterior man in order to participate in
divine life. " Reflect on thyself, search thyself, find
thyself: this is the key of wisdom. Thou art the
image and child of God. Such is the development of
thy being ; eternal birth in God. For God is spirit,
and likewise in thee that which commands is spirit and
is the creation of divine sovereignty."

Once man thus adopts the eternal standpoint of
universal genesis, everything which at the outset was
only veil and mist interposed between himself and the
light, becomes a transparent symbol, a faithful expres-
sion. Erudition, the Bible, tradition, concepts, the
phenomena of nature, all these things, though dead in
themselves, become animated and living when regarded
with the eye of the spirit. The eternal word, speaking
within ourselves, tells us the true meaning of the written,
the sensible word. Nor is this all, for between the
within and the without there is reciprocity of action.
Of a surety, the sight of exterior things, in itself alone,
would never have revealed to us the principle which
these things manifest, this principle wills to be under-
stood in itself. Primary being, however, is to us
nothing but empty form ; it is by the correct inter-
pretation of phenomena that it assumes body and is
determined. All the same, it could never find adequate
expression in phenomena. Being infinite, spirit could
not be wholly manifested, for all manifestation takes
place by means of the finite. Spirit is eternal mystery
in its essence. Therefore not only should we make
use of phenomena in order to catch a faint glimpse of
the details of divine perfection, but we should also
remember that phenomena are never anything else than
an imperfect manifestation of this perfection. And
when we speak of the origin of God and of things, we

1 82 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

ought to appeal to all the images with which our senses
and reason supply us, and always look upon these images
as but clumsy metaphors which should be understood in
spirit and in truth. The wisdom of God is beyond all
description.

Ill

This maxim meets with its application at the very
first step theosophy attempts to take. To begin with,
we have to set forth the birth of God, the way in which
God generates himself. To speak of the birth of God,
however, taking these words literally, is to speak the
devil's language ; it is saying that eternal light flashed
out of darkness, that God had a beginning. Still, I am
compelled to employ this term : the birth of God ;
otherwise, thou couldst not understand me. Restricted
as we are, we speak only by parcelling things out, by
breaking the unity of the whole. In God there is
neither Alpha nor Omega, neither birth nor develop-
ment. I, however, am compelled to place things one
after the other. The reader must by no means read
me with the eyes of flesh.

Eternal nature generates itself without any begin-
ning. How does this generation come about ?

Boehme here sets himself the famous problem of
self-originated existence — of aseity. Whereas, however,
by this term the Schoolmen understand a mere property
of perfect being, a property, too, that is, above all,
negative ; Boehme insists that the strange expression,
" God self-caused," shall have a precise, concrete and
positive meaning. To fathom the mystery it contains
is, to him, the first and main question, the solution of
which will throw light on all other questions. Nor does
he think he ought to abandon the search until he has

JACOB BOEHME 183

reconstructed in thought the logical sequence of the
operations by which God rises from a state of nothing-
ness to one of fulness of existence.

What, then, was there in the beginning ? From
what germ did God generate himself?

In the beginning was being which presupposes
nothing anterior to itself; in which, consequently,
nothing is essence, or nature, or finite, determinate
form : for everything that exists as a determinate thing
demands a cause and a reason. We, for our part, can
conceive of this being only as the eternal no-thing, the
infinite, the abyss, the mystery. Boehme uses the word
Ungrund to designate this first source of things, mean-
ing thereby that, beneath God, there is nothing to serve
him as a foundation, and also that in the first being
the ground or reason of things is not yet manifested.
Thus, the primordial infinite in itself is nothing but
silence, rest without beginning or end, absolute peace
and eternity, unity and identity. In it is neither goal,
nor place, nor even the impulse to seek and find. It
is free from suffering, that companion of desire and
quality. It is neither light nor darkness. It is an un-
fathomable mystery unto itself.

Such is the initial condition of divinity. Is it also
its fulfilment? If the answer is in the affirmative,
God is reduced to being nothing more than an abstract
property, wanting in force, intelligence and science ; he
is rendered incapable of creating the world in which
the very perfections he lacks are to be found. But it
is impossible that God should be an inert being, dwell-
ing somewhere beyond the skies. The Father is omni-
potent and omniscient ; he is the essence of gentleness
and love, pity and blessing. The world, too, derives
from him all the perfections to be found therein. Then

1 84 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

how is the transition to be brought about from God,
who is nothingness, to God the person and creator ?

Here we come to the main point in Boehme's
system. The solution of the problem of eternal
generation, given by our theosophist, is the distinctive
task he set himself; it opens up a new path along
which many philosophers were subsequently to proceed.

Of course, the mystics of old had already taken up
this line of research. Eckhart asked himself how
merely potential, motionless and inactive divinity, which
is the first being, becomes the living and personal God,
who alone is true God. He explained the transition
from the one to the other, by considering the part
played by the image or idea of God, which emanates
spontaneously from primordial power, just as from
each of our tendencies there goes forth an idea that
makes it objective and manifest. Beholding itself in
its own image, absolute substance became conscious of
itself and was constituted a person.

Boehme is inspired by this doctrine, but he does
more than return to and continue it ; with that sense
of concrete existence, of life and nature, which char-
acterises him, he can find no satisfaction in the abstract
God of the mystics of old. Eckhart had almost ex-
plained how God becomes conscious of himself ; con-
sciousness of self, however, is no more than the shadow
of existence. In order then that God may really be
a person and that nature may find in him the elements
of a positive existence, divine generation must be some-
thing different from what Eckhart teaches.

Boehme starts with the principle that God, who is
mystery, wills to reveal himself in all the fulness of his
being, i.e. to manifest himself as a living person, capable
of creating. In so far as he pursues the revelation of

JACOB BOEHME 185

himself, God wills and posits all the conditions of this
revelation. Now, according to Boehme, there is one
supreme law which governs all things, both divine and
human : that all revelation calls for opposition. As
light is visible only when reflected by a dark body,
so anything whatsoever is posited or constituted only
by being set over against its opposite. That which
meets with no obstacle always goes forward and never
returns within itself, never manifestly exists, either for
itself or for another. Two moments may be distin-
guished in the relation of the given principle to its
contrary. The mere presence of the negative principle
over against the positive principle manifests the latter
only as a potency or a possibility. If it is desired that
this potency become reality, it must act upon the
negative principle, discipline it and make thereof its
instrument and expression. This law of opposition
and reconciliation governs divine genesis. If the divine
spirit is to be revealed, it will not remain within itself,
it will create its contrary. Nor is this all ; for, acting
on this contrary, it will assimilate it to itself and
spiritualise it. And so we find that Boehme is to
involve God in a series of oppositions. In proportion
as contradictions and reconciliations come about, in like
proportion will divine personality be realised. The
contrary essence or nature on which God will rely in
order to personify himself, will constitute, within God
himself, the eternal basis of our created nature.

Such are the ideas that govern Boehme's system
and give it its distinctive character. They have their
centre in a principle which may be formulated as
follows : being is constituted as potency by opposing
itself and as reality by reconciling to itself that which
is opposed to it. These general ideas, however, are not

1 86 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

so much formulated in one special place, as employed
in the development of the system.

In the beginning was no-thing. This no-thing is not
absolute nothingness. On the contrary, it is being
itself, eternal Good, eternal gentleness and eternal love,
but still, being in itself, i.e. non-manifested. And so
in this no-thing there dwells an internal opposition. It
is nothing, and it is all ; it is indifference and it is
excellence. That is the reason this no-thing must
appear to us as unstable and living. It will move
itself, in order to become reconciled with itself.

The first result of the opposition just noticed is the
scission of the primordial infinite into two contraries :
desire (Sucht) and will (Wille). No-thing is desire,
because it is mystery, and mystery tends to manifest
itself; no-thing is the desire to become some-thing.
But the object to which it tends is not an indeterminate
one : it is the manifestation and possession of oneself.
And so the infinite is desire on the one hand, and what
is called will on the other. Unconscious and un-
assuaged desire generates will ; but will, to which
belong knowledge and understanding, regulates and
determines desire. The one possesses motion and life ;
the other, independence and power of command. Will
is greater than the power which gave it birth.
This duality is the origin of all the oppositions which
the march of divine revelation will arouse. Will is
the germ of divine personality and the basis of all
personality ; desire, the essence and body of will, is
the germ of eternal nature and the basis of sensible
nature.

And so will is manifested because of the presence of
desire, with which it is contrasted. Yes and no, how-

\

\

JACOB BOEHME 187

ever, are not two things outside of each other ; they
are one and the same thing, divided only to allow the
yes to reveal itself. That is why separation, in its turn,
is an unstable condition. The yes which, in this
separation, is per se devoid of essence and looked
upon as no-thing, endeavours to make itself concrete
by absorbing the no and reconstituting unity to its own
advantage. On to the two opposite terms, desire and
will, there is now added a third, the idea of a recon-
ciliation of the first with the second. The production
of this third term is the work of imagination. Speak-
ing generally, this faculty of imagination is desire,
applied to an image and tending to absorb it — as
hunger absorbs food — and then to produce it in the
outer world, transformed into a living reality by the
action of the subject itself. Now, the will which is mind,
and whose object is the revelation of itself, unites with
desire, in order to imagine this revelation ; and, in
doing so, become capable of realising it. Imagination
makes the will into a magician. What the will wills is
determined in the very effort it makes to represent it
to itself. It wills to find and lay hold upon itself ;
consequently, to form an interior mirror of itself ; and
as desire is the matter on which it works, it wills that
infinite desire, fixing itself on the Good, shall become
this mirror.

The task, then, before God or the will is the follow-
ing : the regulating of desire according to the law of
the Good, and hence, the forming of an object which is
a mirror of the will, and wherein the latter can con-
template and recognise itself. In accomplishing this
task, divine will is to issue from a state of nothingness
and attain to reality.

God wills to manifest himself, to form a mirror of

1 88 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

himself. He can do this only in a threefold manner.
First, he must posit himself as indeterminate will,
capable of willing good or evil. Such a will, however,
is neither good nor bad : God must come out of this
indifference. He does this by generating within him-
self the one, eternal Good, or determinate will. This
good, which is God, is not an object or a thing ; it
remains will, though strong, infallible will. With the
generation of this will, a beginning has been constituted
in the infinite, a foundation has been formed in the
abyss, and a reason for things has been superposed upon
the eternal mystery. Nevertheless, the first will has
not exhausted itself in the generation of determinate
will : it retains its infinite fecundity. Thus, from the
conjuncture of infinite will and determinate will springs
a third will, to wit, will that goes forth of itself to
produce an object. The object resulting from this
threefold action is none other than the mirror of will
itself, eternal wisdom. This image is not God, it is
only the image of God. Still, by it, God is henceforth
self-revealed, he sees himself as a will that is threefold
and one at the same time. These three moments of
divine activity may be characterised by the names of
willy strictly so called, reason and force. They may
also be named Father, Son and Spirit. These are not
three gods, for each of the three is a spiritual being,
and separation of substances exists only in the material
world. Nor are they even three persons ; for will, as
against its image or idea, is only knowledge and
consciousness of itself, it does not yet exercise that
empire over a thing-being, which is the condition of
personality. In truth, God is person only in Christ.
In the generation that has just been considered, there is
nothing else than a threefold action of the one will.

JACOB BOEHME 189

Eternal wisdom, whose production is the result of
this action, in which, too, the Trinity sees and finds itself
acting, is not a fourth will, but is set over against the
Trinity as its representation or object. It is this
reconciliation of desire with will that the latter had
undertaken to effect. Like every mirror, it is passive and
does not generate at all. It is the eternal virgin. In it
are all the divine perfections, though rather as ideas and
paradigms than forces and living beings. For these
perfections are objects of will, not wills themselves : and
life could not exist without will, on which it is founded.
Life and fruitfulness belong not to ideas or generalities,
but to persons only, in so far as they act in accordance
with ideas.

Such is the divine genesis following the appearance
of desire and will in the heart of the primordial infinite.
Here, indeed, we have God far removed from a state
of nothingness. He knows himself as will, and even
good will. But is he God the Father, omnipotent and
omniscient, love and pity, light and joy, of whom we
try to catch a glimpse and whom we seek ?

This God, if we note well, by no means realises
personality yet. He is intelligence ; he knows himself.
But intelligence, such as we see it within ourselves, is
not something concrete, something we can grasp. It is
not an essence, but rather the potency or germ of an
essence. The God, whose action, altogether interior,
has no other object than himself, is still a hidden, an
incompletely revealed God. He is God as far as possi-
bility will allow : the divine ideal. In order that this
ideal may be realised and God be the living person, will
must continue the work of eternal generation, which, so
far, has only been begun. God must have a second birth.

Here, more especially, the law of contraries will find

1 9o STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

its application. If we consider' all the things that really
exist in this world, we find they are made up of yes and
no : In Ja und Nein bestehen alle T)inge. Day could
not be without night, nor night without day ; cold is
the condition of heat, and heat of cold. Do away with
opposition and struggle, and everything will return to
silence and immobility, everything will revert to a state
of nothingness. The one, in so far as it is one, has
nothing that it can will. For it to will and live, it must
divide into two. In the same way, unity cannot sense
itself, but in duality sensation is possible. For a being,
then, to be posited as real, it must be opposed against its
contrary, and the degree of opposition is the measure of
the degree of realisation.

Now, in the development of the divine activity just
considered, God was not opposed against anything which
might rightly be called his contrary. The power of
objectivation in whose presence he has found himself and
which he determined and limited so as to form his true
image of it, differed from him only as idea differs from
intelligence. In this passive principle, there is nothing
to oppose divine action : a mirror reflects — without
resisting — the rays that fall upon it. In this altogether
ideal opposition, God could acquire only an ideal
existence. In order that he may assume bodily form,
as a person, he must be engaged in strife with a real
contrary, i.e. with a positive power whose action is
opposed to his own. Therefore God must raise up
such a contrary, become connected with it, oppose it
and finally discipline and permeate it ; only thus will
the work of divine generation be accomplished. How
is this new development to be effected ?

The will that has realised itself in the evolution
through which we have just passed, and which may be

JACOB BOEHME 191

called reason, is still pure spirit, infinitude, a mystery.
But mystery, whilst it continues such, calls for revela-
tion which alone determines it as mystery. Like all
contraries, mystery and revelation imply each other.
Therefore, the will could not remain the obscure dark
potency it still is (Finsterniss). Within its murky gloom
is kindled a new desire, the desire to exist in a real,
concrete, that is to say, corporeal fashion. But it is not
of itself that darkness glows and becomes fire, or that
motionless reason is changed into the desire to live. The
term or goal to which divine will tends is the realisation
of the personality, the excellent form of life. At the basis
of reason, then, there was light as well as darkness, the
dawn of perfect life as well as the dim desire of
life in general ; and it was by contact with the new-
born light that the dark was kindled and became fire.
The desire to live is, at bottom, the will to live well.
And so the possible God divides himself into desire
of life in general and will to realise perfect life.
These are no longer two abstract, ideal entities, but
rather two forces, alike positive and living. And these
forces first appear as two rival energies, ready to enter
upon a struggle with each other. For the love of life,
when left to itself, impels the being to exist in every
possible manner : it makes no distinction between good
and evil, the beautiful and the ugly, the divine and the
diabolical. On the contrary, the will to live well and
be a person requires a choice from amongst all possible
forms of life, and excludes those that do not conform
with the ideal. The dividing of the eternal no-thing
into passivity and activity, desire and will, had produced
only the logical opposition of subject and object. The
dividing of will into negative and affirmative will,
fire and light, force and love, results in a real opposition

192 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

and the beginning of internal warfare within the heart
of divinity. The first of the two rival powers, force or
life in general, is the principle and the mother ; the
second, love or enlightenment, is the law and the end.
The one is the substratum of real nature, the other that
of divine personality.

In this second opposition, God awakes to personal
life ; set over against nature, however, as against some
inimical power, he is at first nothing more than latent
energy, mere capacity for love and light. In order
that this energy may be displayed and realised, love
must enter into relation with force, imposing its law
on this latter. And so the progress of divine revelation
demands a reconciliation of the two contraries that have
sprung up in the heart of will. Now, that this recon-
ciliation may come about, it must in the first place be
posited as both idea and goal : afterwards, the divine will
must work to realise this idea. But the reconciliation
of force with love, or of fire with light, is nothing else
than the realisation of that eternal wisdom, which divinity
has formed as a mirror wherein to contemplate and know
itself. Thus, what has to be done is to bring down the
idea from the empty heights of a transcendent heaven, in
order to blend it with living forces and manifest it in
a corporeal nature. Ideal wisdom as an object to be
realised : that is the third term superposed on the two
contraries into which divine will has divided itself.

How will the new task resulting from the position
of these three terms be accomplished ? Here we are on
the plane of life : matter, agent and end are, each of
them, beings endowed with force and activity. It is by
the cooperation of these three principles that reconcilia-
tion will be brought about. If love is an action that
tends to temper force, force is an unconscious impulse

JACOB BOEHME 193

towards love ; and the idea itself, ideal wisdom, seized
with the desire to live, tends to its own realisation :
the virgin, God's companion, aspires after the mani-
festation of the divine wonders slumbering within her.
From these elements, eternal magic forms God in
person. Will is linked in imagination to the idea it pur-
poses to realise ; contemplating, it becomes enamoured
of it ; and, eagerly desiring union, seizes upon and
absorbs it. It absorbs it in order to generate it within
itself and produce it in the form of a reality. On its
side, too, the idea is active and desires existence : it is
a soul seeking for itself a body. It goes to meet the
will that is calling to it. The idea is accordingly
realised, beneath the generating action of imagination
and desire : spirit, by a wholly interior operation,
devoid of any pree"xistent corporeal reality, takes to
itself a nature, an essence and a body.

This realisation of divine wisdom is a wonderful and
complex work which it is important to consider in
detail.

God effects it by means of seven organising spirits
which he generates with a view to this task. These
spirits are the forces born in the heart of the dark
element beneath the influence of the light element, forces
whose mission it is to transform the will which says
" no " into the will which says " yes " ; to discipline
and deify nature. Boehme here resumes and adapts to
his system the ancient kabbalistic doctrine of the seven
natural essences, the last of which is the divine kingdom.
According to Boehme, the seven spirits are born in
succession from one another, and their succession marks
the progress of nature in the direction of God. The
first three bring nature or the dark element to the point
at which contact will be possible between itself and the

o

1 94 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

light element. The fourth realises this contact, and the
last three cause light and love to reign over nature, now
prevailed upon and induced to follow spontaneously.

First, there springs up in the will, desire properly
so called, or the egoistic tendency. The will wills to
be something. Now, there is nothing over against it, the
possession of which is capable of determining it. There-
fore it takes itself as object and wills everything for
itself. It then imagines itself to be something, though
it is still nothing but hunger and emptiness. This first
essence is the dark, the solid, the force of contraction,
the salt of the alchemists.

Then there comes about motion, as the second essence
or second natural spirit. For, as it is infinite and void,
the will cannot find any satisfaction in taking itself as
object. Therefore it turns without and becomes the
acute, the bitter ; pain : that spur of sensibility, the
force of expansion, the mercury of the philosophers.

Meanwhile the two forces thus produced are in con-
flict with each other. The first directs being towards
itself, the second directs it towards something else. The
result of this opposition is the third essence, restlessness,
the incessant motion of a soul that cannot find its good
within itself and knows not where to look for it. The
two forces in the soul, the forces of contraction and
expansion, are contradictory, and yet they cannot be
separated from each other. The soul, void in itself,
cannot remain fixed in egoism : moved by ego'fsm even
when it goes forth from itself and seeks its good without,
it cannot attain to abnegation and love. It is con-
tinually fleeing from and seeking itself. This restless
motion is that of a wheel, a motion which reaches no
goal and yet is in perpetual pursuit of itself. Thus,
the third essence has for its expression : rotation, or

JACOB BOEHME 195

the combination of the centripetal and the centrifugal
forces. It forms the base of the sulphur of the
alchemists.

Nature rises to this point of herself, but here her
power stops. She has shaken off the dull slumber and
ignoble ease of ego'fsm, and sought without for the
thing she could not find within. To the eye of the
body, however, the exterior infinite is just as void as
the interior infinite ; and the soul has done no more
than abandon itself to two contradictory impulses and
bring itself into a state of embarrassment, placing itself
before a spinning-wheel, as it were. This interior con-
tradiction in a being which seeks for rest by means of
agitation, is an intolerable torture ; but nature, of
herself, cannot put an end to it. She has exhausted
all her resources : nothing within will extricate her from
the state in which she is. Salvation can come only
from what is above nature, i.e. from God or eternal
freedom. But how will these two contrary powers
succeed in reuniting with each other ?

The restlessness with which nature is tortured has
this advantage, that it manifests her weakness and cries
out to her that she cannot suffice unto herself and form
a whole. The man who knows his wretchedness is not
so wretched as he who is ignorant of it. Under the
influence of the spirit hovering above nature, the latter
soon feels an anxious desire for freedom. Something
tells the soul that it must give itself to that which is
superior to it, that in self-sacrifice it will find itself, that
in dying unto itself it will be born in very truth. On
the other hand, spirit and freedom need nature in order
to manifest and realise themselves. If nature has a dim
consciousness of her own law and harmony in spirit,
the latter seeks in nature his own reality and body.

196 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Spirit wills to exist, as nature tends to free herself from
suffering. Thus impelled in the direction of each other,
spirit and nature approach each other. Nature, how-
ever, has her own distinctive motion, and her force
of inertia. The new desire she feels only just shows
itself, it does not modify her wonted course. And
so nature comes into collision with spirit whom she is
seeking and who now comes down to her ; from the
impact a new phenomenon is born : the lightning flash.
This is the fourth moment in the march of existence,
the fourth essence. This moment is the manifestation
of the contact of nature and spirit. In the flash of the
lightning, the dark, the coarse and the violent, all that
makes up the ego'lstic tendency of nature, is swallowed
up and reduced to nothingness. The darkness is illu-
mined and becomes living, manifest fire, the centre of
light. Henceforth, nature is subject to and capable of
realising spirit. There has come to pass a divine law
which will henceforth apply to all beings. All life, accord-
ing to this law, implies a dual birth. Suffering is the
condition of joy, only through fire or by way of the
cross do we attain to light. Per crucem ad lucem. Both
in the intellectual and the physical order of things,
parturition is preceded by a state of unrest and anxiety.
Nature labours and suffers, feeling she has not the
strength necessary to bring forth the fruit she has con-
ceived. Suddenly, however, a supernatural effort, as it
were, takes place ; suffering and joy clash together in
one indivisible instant, the lightning flashes forth and
the new being passes out of darkness into light. Hence-
forth the child of flesh is in possession of his own form
and will develop by himself in accordance with his con-
trolling idea ; the fruit of intelligence is no longer a
chaos of vague, incoherent ideas, it is a conscious thought,

JACOB BOEHME 197

sure of itself, entering unhesitatingly into the expression
which manifests it.

With the appearance of the lightning flash, the first
existence of divine nature, the development of the
negative triad, comes to an end. At the same time
there begins the development of a positive triad, repre-
senting the second and definitive existence of nature.
Contraction, expansion and rotation, will be found in
the march of this regenerate nature, though in a new,
a supernatural sense.

The new concentration is the work of love : the uni-
fying power of the spirit. Beneath its influence, forces
abandon all their violence and take delight in each other.
Ego'fstic passions die away, and in place of the unity
of individuals, each one of whom claims to exist alone,
there is substituted a unity of penetration where each
seeks, in its accord with the whole, a participation in
true unity. Thus, love is the fifth spirit, the fifth
essence. Its symbol is water, which extinguishes the
fire of desire and confers second birth, birth according
to the spirit.

Still, beings ought to do more than simply melt
into each other. Their unification cannot be absorption
and annihilation. The march of revelation ought to
make multiplicity perceptible, even to that profound
spiritual unity conferred by love. And so there appears
a sixth spirit, which releases the elements of the divine
symphony and causes them to be heard in their indi-
viduality as well as in their relation to the general effect.
This sixth spirit is the intelligent word, or sound, by means
of which voices cease to be indistinct noises, for they
acquire that determination which makes them discern-
ible and comprehensible in themselves. As love was
the unification of the multiple, so the sixth essence is

198 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

the perception of the multiple in the heart of unity
itself.

All that now remains to be done, in the completion
of the task of realising God, is to collect and coordinate
all the forces that have successively created each other.
If the higher is to govern the lower, it is not to
substitute itself therefor and annihilate it, for the lower
is its reality and its very existence ; deprived of this
support, the higher element would be dissipated in the
void of transcendent space. Light can only exist with
darkness as its background. Therefore there appears
a seventh spirit which, winning over the lower to the
higher by persuasion, and bringing down the higher
into the lower by grace, summons the whole of nature,
great and small, first and last, to the manifestation of
the divine will. This essence is body or the spirit of
harmony. By its action the revelation of the Eternal
is finally accomplished. Wisdom is no longer an idea.
It is a kingdom of living beings, the kingdom of God
or of Glory.

Thus Boehme regards as a reality and an essential
condition of divine life, this uncreated heaven, the
kingdom of the Father, the glory of God, of which
the Scriptures speak in so many places though the
language used is often interpreted metaphorically. The
lily is clad in beauty, a beauty surpassing the splendour
of Solomon. Man has his vesture of glory : his wealth
and his home, power and honours, all that manifests his
invisible personality. God, too, reveals himself in a
phenomenon that has no other content thaa himself, and
yet is distinct from him. The Glory of God is his
vesture, his outer form, his body and reality : it is God
seen from without.

To describe the harmony and beauty of this kingdom

JACOB BOEHME 199

of Glory is impossible. It sums up all we see on earth,
though in a state of perfection and spirituality to which
the creature cannot attain. Its colours are more brilliant,
its fruits more savoury, its sounds more melodious, and
its whole life more happy. Along with purity of spirit,
divine beings possess the full reality of body. Their
life is not an imperfectly satisfied desire : it is being
in all its fulness and completion. Above all else it is
harmony, reconciled with the free and perfect growth of
all individuals. Consider the birds in our forests : each
praises God in its own fashion, in all keys and modes.
Do we find God offended by this diversity, does he
impose silence on the discordant voices ? All forms of
being are precious in the sight of Infinite Being. But if
divine gentleness is manifested in our world, a fortiori,
beings in the kingdom of Glory are free from all restraint,
since all in that kingdom, each according to its nature,
not only seek God but also possess and manifest him.

Such, in its completion, is eternal nature, the revela-
tion of the divine mystery. She carries within herself
three principles, the three reasons, as it were, or bases
of determination, born of primordial no-thing. The
first principle is the substratum of the first three qualities,
or of nature left to herself. It is darkness, or latent
fire, waiting for the spark in order to become manifest.
Boehme generally calls it fire. The second principle is
the substratum of the last three qualities, i.e. of the
form or expression of ideal wisdom. This is the prin-
ciple of light. Each of these principles is eternal ; and,
in a sense, they exclude each other. Fire admits of no
limit, it devours everything with which it is brought
into contact. Light is the absolute of sweetness and
joy, the negation of darkness, the goal of all aspiration.
The former is the life of the all or of the inde-

200 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

terminate infinite : the latter is the life of God or of
the excellent, the determinate one. Still, neither of these
two principles can suffice unto itself. In vain does fire
will to be the whole, it is only a part. In vain does
light scorn darkness : it is realised only when reflected
from the dark. That is why a third principle is neces-
sary, which will unite the first to the second, in such a
manner as to produce real existence. This third principle
is body. By it, spirit incarnates in matter and becomes
real and living. This union of the first principle with
the second is, after all, not a complete absorption, and
the three principles remain irreducible. Indeed, the
operation which places fire under the laws of light does
not annihilate even the basis of fire. Infinitude of life
subsists beneath the form of perfection that determines
it. The divine command is not addressed to slaves ;
it wills to have free beings and finds them. Fire, light,
body, i.e. life, good and their union in one real being ;
such are the three principles of divine nature.

We must now take care not to identify this nature
with the true God. However excellent she be,
divine nature exists neither in herself nor for her
own benefit. She is the realisation of the perfections
comprised in the idea of wisdom. She is the eternal
virgin, who, at the voice of God, has come down from
the limbo of the possible into the paradise of actual
existence. Nature will now return thanks to her
creator, handing over to him her life and her bodily
existence. The eternal virgin, fecundated by spirit,
henceforth brings to birth, and the fruit of her womb
is God the person, i.e. the God who not only knows
and possesses himself, but also projects himself with-
out, in love and action. Whereas the latter, God the
person, set before himself, as a mirror of his infinite

JACOB BOEHME 201

will, eternal wisdom or the idea of divinity, God con-
stituted himself only as ideal trinity, a possible person-
ality. By giving himself in nature a living contrary,
and bending this contrary to the laws of his good will,
God enters upon a differentiation which is real and no
longer ideal, and hence attains to effective personality,
that of the Christian trinity. Self-knowledge confers
only existence for self; action alone generates absolute
existence and completes personality.

Now, this action is threefold : it posits three per-
sons corresponding to the three principles of nature.
In the first place, God is the will that presides over
life in general, or over eternal fire. In this sense he is
the Father, power, justice, divine wrath : he is, as it
were, the consciousness of infinite vital activity. God,
however, does not desire life for life itself. His will
is to have life as a realisation of idea, to generate the
living word. This is why the Father gives birth to
the Son, who is the consciousness of the second prin-
ciple or of light, and wills the subordination of life to
good, its raison d'etre. By the Son, the God of love
and compassion, the fire of wrath is for ever appeased.
Accordingly, the Son is greater than the Father. Still,
the existence of the good will as against the universal
will to live is not sufficient to realise the good ; these
two wills must come together and become reconciled,
and this is what takes place in a third consciousness
and a third person, whence proceeds the third principle
called the Holy Ghost.

Thus, whilst forming eternal nature, and by reason
of the very activity expended in forming it, God truly
constitutes himself Father, Son, and Spirit, without on
that account abdicating his unity. Because the three
realisations of God are indeed persons and not things,

202 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

they do not come under that law of time and space
which insists that unity is incompatible with multi-
plicity. Personality admits of mutual penetration :
further than that, it implies it. Only in its union
with other persons can a personal being be constituted
as such. In so far as a being is conceived as external
to other beings it is constituted in space and attributes
to itself individuality, that enemy of true personality.
Ego'fsm is the basis of individuality : it is the gift of
oneself that makes the person.

The generation of God is now accomplished. God
is perfect personality realised in three persons, each of
which is the part and the whole, at one and the same
time. These three persons are the Father, or the con-
sciousness of force ; the Son, or the consciousness of
good ; and the Spirit, or the consciousness of the
harmony set up in God between force and good. And
over against God, as being his work and his glory,
stands arrayed eternal nature, in whom all possibilities
are realised, in proportion as they express divine per-
fection.

Such is the teaching of Boehme regarding the birth
of God. Through the theological and alchemical
symbols in which this teaching is clothed for the pur-
pose of self-manifestation is it not clear that it pos-
sesses a philosophical meaning and import ? The main
idea of the teaching is that the person is the perfect
being and must exist ; consequently, that all the condi-
tions of the person's existence must themselves be
realised. From this principle all else follows. Per-
sonality, says Boehme, implies thought and action ;
now, in order to think and act, one must be in rapport
with something opposed to oneself. Thought must
have some object to consider and resolve into itself ;

JACOB BOEHME 203

action must have matter which it may subdue and
spiritualise. This law is universal ; absolute person-
ality itself could not escape from it without contradic-
tion. On the other hand, absolute being must be self-
caused, must depend on nothing foreign to itself. Thus
if absolute being wills to become person, it must draw
from itself an object opposed to itself, to which its in-
telligence applies, and which its activity modifies. It is
necessary that the one infinite divinity be transformed
of itself into a duality, one of whose terms will be the
true God, and the other will be nature, of whom this
God has need. Thus conceived of as being subject
and agent as against object and matter springing from
his own inmost being, God has a task to perform : the
solution of the antinomy he has created within him-
self; and by the accomplishment of this task he realises
himself qua person. His action and thought, life and
existence, are henceforward something else than the
shadow of human life and activity : they are perfect
types of which the existence of creatures affords us
nothing but feeble images.

Now, what is this system wherein God generates
himself by positing and rising above his contrary ? Is
it not that ancient doctrine of Night as a first principle
which Aristotle had already repudiated in his prede-
cessors ? The first being, said Aristotle, is not the
imperfect, but the perfect ; in the order of phenomena,
the perfect is subsequent to the imperfect ; but in the
order of being, it is the perfect that is first and
absolute. Boehme's doctrine, like that of the old
theologians, appears to be only an anthropomorphism
or a naturalism. He noticed, we may say, that in the
case of man, indetermination precedes determination ;
that struggle is the condition of life and progress ;

204 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

that an image is necessary for the understanding, and
matter for the will ; that the action of our faculties
consists in assimilating to oneself external objects ; and
he transferred to God this condition of human existence.

Even were this judgment well founded we could not
regard it as a condemnation of the doctrine, purely and
simply. Though Boehme's system were, in reality, to
apply only to finite beings, it would not, on that
account, be without importance. We must forgive
our theosophist for his imperfect teaching as to the
history of the divine trinity, if, when thinking he is
speaking to us of God, he is really speaking of our-
selves, and that with much sagacity. The great prin-
ciple that will is the basis of life and existence, and
that, in its turn, life finds in freedom its end and raison
d'etre^ will lose none of its interest by being concerned
only with the created world instead of being applied to
the Creator as well. This strange system, whose very
opulence is utter confusion, and whose glory is dazzling
lightning, contains many a delicate, modest, and psycho-
logical observation, many a wise, practical, and moral
reflection. As Boehtne tells us, it is in the depths of
his consciousness that he seeks after divinity ; it is
because God generates himself in man that man can
be made acquainted with divine generation. What
wonder if his knowledge of God is, above all, knowledge
of ourselves ?

Moreover, it does not follow that Boehme, from the
metaphysical point of view, is a mere naturalist. With-
out delighting, as he does, in speculations that we
cannot possibly verify regarding the birth and develop-
ment of God, at all events we can see the difference
between his teaching and that rejected by Aristotle.
According to the ancient philosophy of chaos and the

JACOB BOEHME 205

infinite, the generation of the perfect by the imperfect
was the absolute reality of things. To Boehme there is
no before or after in God, the absolute. It is our con-
dition as finite and belonging to nature that forces us
to regard God from the standpoint of nature, and to
picture to ourselves his life as being progressive.

This is not all, however. The chaos of the ancients
was a given nature, a thing, and that the most confused
and indeterminate conceivable ; and from this thing, by
a necessary process of development, determinate and
perfect being was brought forth. The standpoint of
the ancients was an objective one. Aristotle, under the
name of pure action, contrasts the thing that is wholly
determinate with the thing that is wholly indeter-
minate ; whereas Neo-Platonism, returning to the idea
of progress, posits, as first being, a unity which, superior
or inferior to intelligence and life, unnamable and
unintelligible, still seems to be only the thing, stripped
of the last of its qualities by the final effort of abstrac-
tion. The principle of our theosophical mystic is
something quite different. A Christian and a spirit-
ualist, he assigns the first place to personality in its
most perfect form. From the point of view at which
he is placed, indetermination, infinitude, no-thing have
quite different meanings from those contained in ancient
philosophy. No longer is no-thing the lack of quality
and perfection in a thing that can exist only if it is
determinate ; it is the infinite fecundity of a spirit
which is by its very potency, and is exhausted by none
of its productions. Negative, from the outer stand-
point of objectivity, Boehme's principle is altogether
positive from the inner standpoint of life and genera-
tion. In itself this principle is not the imperfect, it is
the perfect ; and the progress admitted by Boehme,

206 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

though in a way relative to the human mind, is pro-
gress in manifestation, not in the intrinsic perfection of
God. The system of the metaphysical world has been
inverted ; no longer is it intelligence that depends on
the intelligible, it is the intelligible that depends on in-
telligence. It is no longer the subject that derives its
existence from the object, it is the object that exists by
the subject. The reason this substitution has come
about is that man has discovered in that which consti-
tutes the foundation of the subject, in mind and will,
something irreducible that baffles description, and which
he regards as more real in its indetermination and
nothingness than all the tangible realities of given sub-
stance.

Thus, Boehme's course is by no means that of
the Pythagoreans or even of the Neo-Platonists. The
progress which proceeds from will to its workings
cannot be assimilated to the progress which proceeds
from the indeterminate thing to the determinate.
The theology of Boehme is not an evolutionistic
monism.

Nor, on the other hand, is it a system of dualism :
Does it not, indeed, appear as though Boehme escapes one
danger only to fall into an opposite one ? How does
Boehme maintain the perfection of the divine principle
unless it be by positing, outside of God, as a subject of
evil, a hostile and coeternal principle ? And, accord-
ing to him, God himself is one with and responsible for
this latter principle. Per crucem ad lucem : this is both
the divine and the human law. No light without dark-
ness, no action without matter, no subject without object,
no God without nature. Is it not just this universal
and necessary coexistence of two principles, the one
positive, the other negative, that is called dualism ?

JACOB BOEHME 207

It cannot, indeed, be denied that Boehme sees in
matter the condition of the manifestation of spirit ; this
is even an essential part of his system. But Boehme
does not regard himself as a dualist on that account.
In his eyes it is monstrous to make evil the equal of
good, and nature the equal of God. The negative
principle does not exist in itself, but only by the action
of the positive principle, which creates it in order to
manifest therein. God alone is sovereign ruler, and
it is the internal motion of divine will that posits
matter, outside of God, as the condition of this very
motion. Matter is the exterior aspect, the phenomenon
of the invisible action of spirit. It fixes in dead forms
the continuous flashing forth of living light. Dependent
on spirit as regards her origin, nature is subject to
spirit as regards her final purpose. Her end is to supply
spirit, by manifesting it, with the object it needs in
order to lay hold of and personify itself. She resists
spirit only in order to afford it an opportunity to display
its might, her instinct is an intelligence that is ignorant
of itself ; her passion, an unconscious desire for freedom.
Far from nature being the equal of God, it is at God's
summons that she begins to exist, and the limit of her
development is her exact adaptation to the will of
spirit.

Thus Boehme's theology borders on dualism as it
did on evolutionism without running counter to it or
foundering therein. At bottom, Boehme purposes to
find a middle term between these two doctrines. In
his opinion, the mystics of old were in the wrong when
they rejected dualism altogether. This was the reason
they could not realise the philosophy of personality that
they had conceived. Their God lacks the conditions
of real existence, he does not outstep the limits of ideal

208 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

existence. It is only by borrowing from dualism
the idea of the eternal existence of matter as contrary
to spirit and giving this matter as a body to divine
spirit, that divine personality can be conceived of as
really existing. But, on the other hand, God the
person must remain infinite being outside of which
nothing exists in itself. Dualism is repugnant to
religious thought which would have God not only a
form and an ideal, but also omnipotent and independent
being. Thus, matter must not be a first being for the
same reason that God is, its very existence must result
from the working of divine power. How can matter
issue from God and yet, at the same time, be the con-
trary of God ? Boehme solves the difficulty by saying
that God, in order to reveal himself, makes himself
objective and real, and that this object and this exterior
reality, though posited by God, are not confounded
with him, because will, which is the basis of his being,
is infinite ; its efforts cannot possibly be wasted. Thus
God has a nature or body that is not himself and that
forms his real existence ; but this body is posited by
God and is none other than his will itself, seen from
without. In this phenomenon of God, the eternal
mystery is revealed, without the revelation ever dispelling
the mystery. Nature is of the essence of God but God
is independent of nature. This system is a kind of
concrete or naturalistic spiritualism.

IV

The knowledge of divine genesis is the first we need,
in order to attain to the possession of God. But this
knowledge is not enough. It was a mistake on the
part of the mystics to believe that all science was com-

JACOB BOEHME 209

prised in the science of God. Nature and man cannot
be explained by a mere diminution of perfect essence.
In creatures there is something peculiar to themselves
that distinguishes them from God and even allows them
to rebel against him. Evil, the work of creatures, is
not a non-being, it is a being that says no ; hatred that
would destroy love ; violence that would break the law.
Accordingly, there is a science of nature, apart from
the science of God. The difficulty consists in account-
ing for this distinction whilst maintaining that relation
of dependence which should link all science with that of
absolute being.

The first problem raised by the existence of nature is
that of creation. On this point Boehme cannot adopt
the doctrine usually called theism. According to this
doctrine, it would appear that God made the world
from absolute no-thing, i.e. created it by his infinite
will alone, without using any matter at all, either
sensible or suprasensible. But such a world would have
no true reality, for its reality would not be founded in
God. It would be simply a possible and ideal world,
like the very principle to which it would owe its birth :
intelligence without matter creates only ideas. There-
fore there is no true personality in creatures. The
reason some are good and others bad, some predestined
to happiness and the rest given up to damnation, is not
because there are living and opposite energies in the
souls of creatures, it is because it has so been willed
by the God who transcends all arbitrary wills. Idealism
and fatalism are the consequences of the doctrine of
theism.

Still, if Boehme rejects theism, will he not, as a con-
sequence, sink into pantheism ? We know that he
recognises in God the existence of a nature. Is it not

p

210 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

this nature that is to constitute the substratum of
visible nature ? Can the latter be anything else than a
development of the former ; and must we not say, with
the pantheists, that the world is, if not God himself, at
all events the body and manifestation of God ?

Certainly such an interpretation would be contrary
to Boehme's plan, which is even more energetically
opposed to pantheism than to theism. Surely, he says,
in one sense God is everything, heaven and earth, spirit
and world ; for everything has its origin in him. But
then, what becomes of his glorious immensity if the
world is the standard of his perfection ? Doubtless he
created the world by his wisdom and might : but he did
not form it so that he himself might become more
perfect. His perfection is complete independently of
all creation. God formed the world so as to be mani-
fested in a manner that would be sensible. Let not
sophists tell me that, in my doctrine of the divine
nature, I am confounding God with the world. I am
not confounding exterior with interior nature. The
latter is truly living and is perfect. The other has
nothing but a derived life, and remains imperfect. No,
the exterior world is not God, nor could it without
blasphemy be called God. To say that God is all, that
God is himself and heaven and earth and the outer
world, is to speak as the heathen, to make profession of
the devil's religion.

Boehme's problem, therefore, is to derive matter
from spirit and yet not sink into theism, and to base
sensible nature on divine nature without falling into
pantheism. How does he solve the problem ?

Whereas the birth of God was a mere generation,
i.e. a magical production accomplished by spirit through
its two powers at once homogeneous and contrary,

JACOB BOEHME 211

and without any pre-existing matter, the birth of the
world is a creation, or production brought about by a
spiritual agent through matter. The spiritual agent is
the one God in three persons. Matter is eternal
nature. Neither of these two principles is the world, or
contains it. God the person, as such, is pure spirit.
Eternal nature is perfect harmony, in which beings,
although distinct, interpenetrate : it is a multiplicity
each part of which, in its own way, expresses the unity
of the whole. These perfections radically distinguish
God and the divine nature from the sensible and
created world, which, on the one hand, is material, and
on the other consists of parts and fragments exterior to
one another. But though God the person and eternal
nature are not the world, they contain its elements ; the
world has its own mobility and reality so far as there is
in it something of the divine perfection. And first ,God,
seeing, from all eternity, in wisdom, the ideas of things,
formed the design of creating the world, i.e. of causing
to exist in corporeal fashion what existed in him in
essential fashion, or rather of causing to appear separate
what, in him, was together. He formed this design
from love alone, without being constrained or forced
thereto in any way. There is not the slightest reason
for creation. Its wherefore is a mystery and admits of
no revelation whatsoever. If creation had its first
origin in the manifested God and not in the primordial
abyss, it would be explained, it would be necessary, and
would force itself upon God. But God wills to have
children, not masters. Though the world depends on
God, God has no need of the world.

The world was not made from some thing, i.e.
brute matter, the absolute contrary of a person. It was
made of the divine nature, in the sense that the seven

212 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

spirits constituting this nature realised in the form of
bodies the ideas contained in wisdom. The productions
of these spirits in the world of Glory were figures with
floating contours, instinct with life and spirituality : the
infinite visible in the finite. The same spirits now
fix the idea in hard compact matter which conceals
the infinite that it realises. In the world of Glory the
real and the ideal balance each other : in the created
world, it is the real that predominates.

Such is the portion of God the person, such the
portion of the divine nature in creation. A third
worker, however, intervenes in order to realise the
world, this worker is the creature itself. Just as when
the artist is working, the work itself, that wills to be,
furthers by its distinctive life the efforts of will and
intelligence ; so the creature, when brought to the
threshold of existence by the union of spirit and increate
nature, endeavours to cross this threshold and display
itself in fulness of light. All spirit is a soul which desires
a body. Now, the creative word had the effect of
breaking the bond that held together the spiritual forces
in union and harmony. Each of them, thenceforward,
wills to exist for itself, to become manifest in accordance
with its distinctive tendency.

What, then, is creation ? It is the introduction of
space and time into the world of particular wills. Deep
in the heart of eternity, wills, individual in themselves,
were universal in their object. Realised in bodies
separated from one another by time and space, wills are
thereby detached from the all and thrown back upon
themselves. Thus, space and time are the special
foundation of the reality of the sensible world. Here,
there is nothing that does not come from God, but
nothing that was in God could produce this form of

JACOB BOEHME 213

existence by mere development : it is by a free, original
act, a veritable creation, that God causes the world of
discontinuity and exteriority to appear.

God, then, is by no means swallowed up in his
creation, any more than the intelligence of man is
exhausted by being manifested. The divine will is as
tenuous as a no-thing. No given solid being is capable
of enclosing it within itself and making it immovable.
Besides, the world does not issue from God himself, but
from his glory, i.e. his exterior form. And this very
glory, the periphery of divinity, remains after creation
what it was before. For if the less is included in the
more, the more is not included in the less ; a fortiori^ the
different cannot be included in the different. Neither
as subject nor as object is divinity absorbed in its
sensible manifestation. Creation is not at all a trans-
formation of force.

Thus God creates, at the same time, from nothing
and from matter. God the person creates with the
divine nature as matter, but personality and the divine
nature alike have their root in the primordial no-thing,
in the mystery of infinite will.

Now what is it that God creates, what are the
essential parts of the world system ? The model and
instruments of creation are found, under the form of
eternity, in the divine wisdom and nature. Creation is
to be the realisation of this wisdom and nature under the
form of time and separation. And so there is a relation
between created things and eternal things, and it is
to a certain extent possible to deduce from the latter
the knowledge of the former, by placing oneself at the
standpoint of God. This deduction is what is called
the philosophy of nature, a speculation destined later
on to assume a considerable degree of development

2i4 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

in Germany, and rudiments of which we find in
Boehme's theosophy.

The construction of the exterior world is brought
about in a manner similar to that of the interior, divine
world. In sensible bodies as in eternal nature, it is
personality that seeks manifestation for itself : the only
difference is that this manifestation, which is fully
effected in eternal nature, remains of necessity incom-
plete in sensible nature. In the world there will then be
three principles corresponding to the three divine prin-
ciples : fire, light, and the union of these two principles
in corporeity. Of the first and second, without appeal-
ing to the third, God forms the angels, who are still
as near to divine perfection as the created condition
permits of. The angels are spirits only. They do not
exist of themselves, however, and their body, though
spiritual, is harder and more compact than the glorious
body of divinity. The angels are not yet placed in
time ; they enjoy a derivative eternity intermediary
between absolute eternity and the succession of parts
independent of one another. At the same time that
God formed the angels from the first two principles, he
formed from the third a terrestrial nature, more concrete
and material than the divine though still subject to spirit
and relatively harmonious. This nature is governed by
the angels. All these beings were created in order that
divine light, reflected from harder surfaces, might
appear more shining, that sound might have a clearer
ring, and the kingdom of joy extend beyond the circle
of divine glory. Not that the manifestation of God
might thereby become more perfect, for it is at the cost
of a diminution of harmony that any particular quality
thus becomes more vivid, but rather that it was ex-
pedient for infinite power and love to realise possibilities

JACOB BOEHME 215

which, though they had no place in the divine nature,
still showed forth the signs of perfection.

To fulfil their destiny, the angels must proceed from
Father to Son, from wrath to love, after the fashion of
God himself. Besides, they were created free, and, like
God, determine themselves, without compulsion from
without. They are masters of their determinations.
Now, whereas one portion of the angels made their own
freedom of will conformable with the divine will, another
portion rebelled against God. Lucifer was the chief of
these rebel angels and the first author of evil : he sinned
freely in accordance with his own will and without
compulsion.

Sin came about in the following manner. A com-
pound of nature and spirit, Lucifer, employing his own
free will, fixed his imagination on nature. Beneath the
gaze of this magician, nature was transformed; from
being dark she became shining ; full of defects, she
decked herself with all simple perfections ; from being
a part she became so puffed up as to appear like the all.
The soul of the angel became enamoured of this idol,
desiring it exclusively. In doing so, it rejected God
and separated from him.

Then hell was created. Lucifer obtained what he
wished for : separation. This result he obtained not
by the transcendent intervention of God, but by the
immediate effect of wrath or nature to whom he had
devoted himself. Hell is the principle of darkness,
nature, force, life pure and simple, given up to itself
and henceforth contradictorily opposed to love and light,
and so deprived of all direction, control, and harmony.
Hell is life that has no other end than to live. Thanks
to Lucifer, it was now let loose.

Nor was this all ; Lucifer was created eternal. The

2i 6 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

desire for life and the desire for good, which God had
implanted within him, had not as their common support
a sensible body subject to succession and consequently
capable of breaking with its past habits. The free will
of a mere spirit is exhausted in a single act. Lucifer's
fault, therefore, is irremediable. No conversion is
possible for him, for he is nothing more now than fire and
wrath, and light has no longer any hold upon him. The
hell he has created is as eternal as his own will itself.

And yet, the terrestrial nature ruled by the angels
suffers from the effects of their wrongdoing. Con-
fusion finds its way into this nature. Love, being exiled
therefrom, the bond uniting the forces is broken, and each
of these latter escapes and goes wherever it pleases. We
no longer have personal unity, in which the parts are
the organs of a whole ; but individual multiplicity, in
which each part regards itself as the whole to the
exclusion of the rest.

Such now is nature : the earth is formless and void,
darkness covers the face of the deep. The spirit of
God, however, hovers above his shattered work, and
the Father resolves to effect a new creation by drawing
nature out of the darkness into which she has fallen.
This creation is the one related by Moses. God said,
" Let there be light ! " and the light was separated from
the darkness. In seven days, in accordance with the
number of divine spirits, God restored nature to a
state of harmony. He did not, purely and simply,
destroy Lucifer's work ; he gave nature a weapon
against evil and an instrument of regeneration, to wit,
time. Thanks to succession in time, to conceive is no
longer to act ; will may halt at the very brink of the
precipice. Even when accomplished, the act no longer
exhausts activity. Henceforth, the good are neither

JACOB BOEHME 217

fixed in good nor the evil in evil. To time is attached
space, which makes individuals relatively independ-
ent of one another. Life in space and time has
for its object sensible matter, i.e. matter properly so
called.

The term and perfection of creation is man, the
excellent and harmonious concentration of the three
principles. There are in man three parts : soul or the
infinite power of good and evil ; mind or intelligence
and sound will ; and body, or concrete reality. The
first of these three parts corresponds to the principle
of fire, the second to that of light, and the third to that
of essence or reality. The three principles are mani-
fested in man with all the perfection that existence in
time and space implies.

Man's duty is to subordinate within himself two of
these principles to the third, i.e. will and action to
the law of good, and his end is to generate the king
of nature, whom God has resolved to create in order
to dethrone Lucifer. As God the Father eternally wills
to generate his heart and his Son, so the soul ought to
fix its will in the heart of God. Adam is to be the
seed of the Christ. The task that has fallen to man,
however, is by no means a purely spiritual one. The
paradise in which he is placed and which he must cause
to blossom forth is a sensible nature. It is by working
to draw out of this nature all the treasures she
contains, and bring them to light, that man prepares
for the coming of the Son. The world, developing in
time and space, consists of individuals separated from
one another : these individuals have to be united in one
common homage paid to the Eternal, and, without their
distinctive characteristics being effaced, these latter must
be raised to participation in absolute personality.

2i 8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

This is the destiny prescribed for man, though not
imposed upon him. His will is free. In him there is
fire and light, violence and gentleness, egoism and self-
denial. In addition, as the result of his terrestrial
nature, there is a temporal will, set between these two
principles and capable of being turned in the direction
of the one or the other. Man, therefore, possesses all
the conditions of freedom, and is able, as he pleases,
either to be lost himself or to find himself effectively by
self-renunciation.

How has he used this power ? That is a question
of fact, it finds an answer in tradition and experience.
Now, we know that man, following the example of
Lucifer, disobeyed God and fell from his original state
of nobility. The fall of man, according to the Mosaic
account, when interpreted in the light of the spirit,
was brought about in the following manner.

Giving reins to his imagination, man began to con-
template and admire nature, in preference to God. By
degrees, he attributed to his idol every imaginable per-
fection, making her the all, including even divinity
itself. Then he grew enamoured of her and ardently
longed to engender her as he saw her in his imagination.
Forgetful of the rights of spirit, he wished nature,
untrammelled, to be all she was capable of being.
Soon afterwards, in accordance with the law of being,
the idea of image and desire became a body ; nature
proclaimed her autonomy, and man fell beneath the
sway of the violent, egoistic forces he had let loose.
Such, abridged, is the story of the fall. The sacred
text, however, enables us to distinguish its different
phases and note its various stages.

The starting-point was the desire to know things,
no longer in their union and harmony, as God had

JACOB BOEHME 219

made them, but by separating and analysing them,
attributing to them a fictitious individuality. Man
was determined to know what hot and cold, moist
and dry, hard and soft, and all the other qualities,
taken separately, were in themselves. In death, the
congealer and disperser, he was determined to dis-
cover the secret of life, the organiser. No longer had
that divine fruit, concrete knowledge, any savour or
attraction for him : he was determined to taste of
abstract knowledge, parcelled out, the fruit of terrestrial
nature. Nature, thereupon, responded to his desire by
making this latter objective in the form of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree of
temptation is none other than the sensible realisation
of the will to know good and evil separately, in so
far as they are opposite and contradictory. Through
it, man sees good and evil as two things exterior to
each other, according to the condition of objects set
in space : he is able to choose the latter to the exclusion
of the former. The fact of having raised up the tree
of analytical science is the first sin, that of under-
standing. This is a dangerous declivity, for man now
conceives evil, and, consequently, is capable of willing
it; still, this does not yet constitute the fall, since he
possesses the power to choose between good and evil.

A second temptation follows the first. Hitherto,
Adam has had the eternal virgin for his companion ;
hitherto, the ideal or the image of God has been the
object of his thought. Having begun to look upon
things from the view-point of analysis, in their ter-
restrial form, he became enamoured of the world of
forces and instincts which henceforth appeared before his
gaze. He wished to live an animal life, to reproduce
himself after the fashion of the beasts. The image of

220 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

God was effaced, the virgin fled before the passion
kindled within him. Then Adam fell asleep : for the
image of the world is not of like nature to the
image of God. The latter, which slumbers not, con-
stantly keeps awake the spirit contemplating it. But
the image of the world, being subject to succession
in time, tires the sight and engenders sleep. A change
of condition was then brought about. Man had fallen
to sleep in the world of angels, the world of eternity :
he awoke in time, in the exterior world. Before him
he saw the human objectivation of his earthly desire in
the form of a woman created by God during his sleep.
Aware that the woman came from himself, man sought
to unite with her, to unite with her in body. This is
the second sin, the sin of sensibility. Man has taken
another step towards perdition. Still, he is not fallen,
for carnal desires, in themselves, do not deprive man
of self-possession ; his will still remains his own.

The fall, that neither the perversion of the intelli-
gence nor that of sensibility has brought about, is to
be effected by the perversion of the will. The devil
breathed into man the desire to live by his own distinctive
will, to suffice unto himself, to make himself God. Man
consented to the temptation, and, by disobedience, set
himself over against God as his equal. From that
time he was not only inclined towards evil, he plunged
therein. He became what he had willed to be, though
in a way contrary to what he had imagined. He
became god, not the god of love, light, and life, the
only true God, but the god of wrath, darkness, and
death, who is nothing more than the sacrilegious and
diabolical personification of the mysterious substratum
of divinity.

Thereupon, man was cursed ; or rather, he declared

JACOB BOEHME 221

himself to be the child of the devil. His will, evil in
itself, separated him from God, and dedicated him to
wrath. Following on this curse, the world, of which
man was both the resume and the mover, passed from
a condition of harmony to one of individual dispersion.
Each human being claimed to live in the world for
himself alone, and to effect his own development with-
out any thought for his neighbours. The struggle for
life became the world's only law.

Still, man was not condemned by God for all
eternity as Lucifer had been ; the conditions of the
fall were different. The devil, of himself alone, was
the entire cause of the sin he had committed. Before
him, indeed, evil was non-existent, there was only the
possibility of evil. Of this possibility, Lucifer had
formed evil with all that it comprises, its matter as
well as its form : he was the author of the motives
that had tempted him, as well as of the determination
he had arrived at in accordance with these motives.
The position of man was quite different. Before him,
evil was already in existence as a given reality, and,
along with evil, a downward tendency to new falls.
It was at Satan's solicitation that man sinned. Though
the decision he came to was his own, the motives of
this decision were not at work. They were within him
as instincts, a pre-existing nature. Man is thus respon-
sible for his own determination alone, not for the
motives to which he has yielded. This is the reason
why the fall of Adam, which indeed would be a mortal
one were man left to himself, is not irremediable. It
is possible, if not for justice, at all events for divine
mercy, to set the tendency towards good, deep in the
human soul, in opposition to evil solicitations, and to
give man's will, which is temporal in its nature, the

222 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

power to retract its resolution. Will God now come
to the aid of man, who has rebelled against him ?
Will he send man a redeemer and saviour ? This is
what no necessity either commands or excludes, it is
something to be decided in the mysterious depths of
infinite will.

God, having already restored harmony to the world,
harmony that had been disturbed by Lucifer, resolved
to summon man to regeneration. Good and evil were
now in the presence of each other, not only in eternity
but also in time : God decided to bring about, as far as
possible, the reconciliation of these two principles. In
accordance with the divine decrees anterior to the fall
of man, the Son was some day to be born in human
form, so that the word might be manifested in time.
As man was given up to wrath and the devil, God
decreed that the coming of the Christ should be not
only the coming of one who would compass human
perfection, but also that of a redeemer and saviour.
He prepared for this coming by the series of events
related in the Old Testament, and finally gave up his
Son to the world to be crowned with thorns and
crucified. Per crucem ad lucem ! The Christ is a
human creature, and he is the Son of the eternal Virgin.
In him death is overcome. He who suffers with him
is also glorified with him.

Still, we must examine more closely and see how
man's salvation is realised by Jesus Christ.

When the reason hears mention of God, of his
nature and will, it imagines that God is something
foreign and far away, living outside this world and
above the stars, ordaining things mechanically after the

JACOB BOEHME 223

manner of a force situated in space. Hence reason,
assimilating God to his creatures, attributes to him a
mode of thought and action analogous to that of man.
It believes that God, before creation, deliberated within
himself as to the place he should assign to each creature.
It also implies that God decided to summon a portion
of mankind to heavenly joy, in order to manifest his
grace, and condemned the rest to damnation, in order
to manifest his wrath. Thus, God would appear to
have made a difference, for all eternity, between men,
for the purpose of manifesting his power in the direction
both of wrath and of love.

Most certainly there is an election of grace, though
it could not come about in the way reason imagines.
Were God to deliberate and come to a decision as we
do, were he to govern things from without, he would
be divided against himself, he would be changeable,
not eternal. Besides, how could God will to condemn
a portion of his creatures ? God is love ; he wills the
good of all beings. Election and damnation are not
the act of a will exterior to man. Man is free,
absolutely free ; for the root of his being is plunged
in the eternal, infinite substratum of things. There
is nothing behind the human will capable of constraining
it. Itself is the first beginning of its own actions.
Election or damnation is the result of this very freedom.
By it, man can turn, as he pleases, towards light or
towards darkness, towards love or towards egoism :
man can make either an angel or a devil of himself.
Within himself he bears his own paradise and hell : the
exterior paradise and hell are nothing but symbols of
good and evil will. Not that man is sufficient unto
himself and can do without divine grace. His good
will is but a prayer, unavailing without the help of

224 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

God ; God has foreseen from all eternity that he either
would or would not offer up this prayer. Free actions,
however, remain free in divine foreknowledge, which,
sunk in the primordial deep, cannot be distinguished
from the common substratum of all wills.

The first sign and the first effect of election is faith.
Like election, faith is often misunderstood. Every one
boasts of having faith. Where is it in reality ? Present-
day faith is nothing but a story learnt by heart. Where
is the man with a child-like faith in the birth of Jesus ?
Did he really believe it, he would draw nigh to the Infant
Jesus whom he would welcome and tenderly nurture
within himself. No : he is acquainted only with the
historic child, deceiving his conscience with vain erudi-
tion. Never has there been so much talk of faith, and
never was real faith more lacking. Would you have a
proof of this ? Never before has there been so much dis-
puting, so much judging and condemning of one another.
Does God judge and condemn the birds of the forests
because each of them praises him in his own way, and
in a different tone from the rest ? Does not the
infinite might of God admit of an infinite variety of
expressions of homage ? You, who persecute your
brothers, are more useless than the flowers of the fields,
more foolish than beasts lacking in intelligence. You
are the birds of prey that affright the other birds,
preventing them from chanting the praises of God.
To believe in Jesus Christ from an historical point of
view is no more helpful than believing a fable. How
many Jews and Turks are more Christian than those
sham Christians who know what Jesus did and yet do
what the devil does ! But, the answer will come,
we believe in the word. Then we must try to under-
stand what the true word is. The Scriptures are

JACOB BOEHME 225

helpful, but they are not the word, they are only its
mute, obliterated signs. The word is living, for it is
the vehicle of the spirit. No formula can define it,
for it is infinite as God himself. That is why true
faith is, in fine, a righteous will, freely subject to the
law of the spirit. It consists in renewing within
oneself the birth and life of Christ, his baptism and
temptations, sufferings and death. The imitation of
Christ is the distinctive mark of the children of God.
Consequently, the true Christian is of no sect ; he may
live in one, but he does not belong to it. His religion
is interior, it cannot be confined within any form.

Faith, when thus understood, is the beginning of
regeneration. What is to be thought of the exterior
means and methods that the Churches add on to it?
Speaking generally, works are nothing in themselves,
and the Roman Catholic Church, which attributes value
thereto, is the Babel of the Christian world. Erroneous
also is it to believe that faith saves us because through
it the merits of Christ would be attributed to us from
without, just as a new form may be given to passive
matter. Such an operation would not change the root
nature of the soul, it would not be a second birth.
Faith could not save us by some theurgic operation
that compelled divine justice to benefit us : it saves us
only by the sanctifying grace it bears within itself, and
which, from without, engenders within us both penitence
and the redeeming Christ. Justification is sanctifica-
tion. It is not the object of faith that regenerates us,
it is faith itself.

For this reason no particular means of regeneration
is efficacious if faith be not the soul thereof. True
prayer is not a passive request for divine assistance, it
is the humble action of the will that recognises its

Q

226 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

need and goes to God as for food ; it is the soul
beseeching and receiving sanctifying grace. True
preaching is not the teaching specially given by the
priest or even by the Bible. The faithful who see and
hear with the spirit learn from all creatures. Sacraments
are not aids granted to man without himself contributing
thereto. The true sacrament consists of divine grace
descending upon the soul, which can appropriate it only
by faith. And regeneration, the object of prayer, of
sermons and sacraments alike, is not a new nature
grafted on to the old : it is the spirit, awakening and
expanding, deep within the nature ; it is the person
creating himself by renunciation of the individual I,
the interior man who is substituted for the exterior man.
Now, of what nature is the life of the regenerate
man ? Is it only apathy and indifference, mere reflec-
tion of the spirit upon itself, annihilation deep in
primordial no-thing ? Spirit, we know, is not this inert
no-thing at the conception of which, by suppressing
differences, human logic arrives. All interior being tends
to become exterior, all infinitude is the desire to take
form, all mystery is an effort to reveal itself, all spirit
is the will to become a body. So also is it with the
Christian virtues. They do not remain abstractions ;
they develop and become manifest. They become
manifest by complete renunciation of self, by total
abandonment to the will of God, by meekness, by
human love, by communion of souls in spite of all
outer differences, by mastery over nature, i.e. over
earthly desires, and by joy, that foretaste of eternity.
The new man does not destroy the old, the outer man,
though he takes care not to forget himself therein.
Thou art in the world, Christian ! Thou art engaged
in an honourable trade. Remain in it, work, act, earn

JACOB BOEHME 227

the money thou need'st, make the elements produce
all they are capable of producing, dig in the ground for
silver and gold, make them into works of art, build
and plant. All this is well and good. Listen, however,
to the A B C of wisdom : Put not thy soul into this
exterior life. Chain not thy free spirit down in this
prison. If thou retainest thy freedom, all that thou
do'st in the world will prosper. For everything sings
forth the praises of God to him who has ears to hear.
Even the backslidings of thy earthly companion shall
not harm thy soul, but they will be beneficial to him.
A single action is not a habit ; a powerful tree stands
erect before the raging storm. When thou see'st the
exterior man offend, thou wilt the better understand
the frailty of nature, the greatness and might of divine
mercy. Let not man, however, imagine that in his
life on earth he can ever dispense with prayer and effort.
Man is and remains free ; consequently, he is never
established in good. Time cannot hold eternity. How-
ever strong be our link with God, we remain in the
devil's power. Resistance to evil is our condition
in this world, right on to the end. If we grow
remiss, nature once more lays hold upon us : the form
in which the spirit is manifested binds and imprisons
this latter as soon as it ceases to act. Each moment
we must correct ourselves, revive our new birth, create
God anew within ourselves. Only when life comes to
an end does the tree of faith, hope and love, nurtured
by our own unremitting efforts, stand erect and in-
capable of being uprooted.

And so, in the world of time, there is being prepared
the rapprochement of the good and the evil principle,
and the conscious, definitive reconstitution of primor-
dial unity. All end has a tendency to rejoin its beginning,

228 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

though on a higher plane, ascending right to the fixed
point on which this beginning depends. As long as man is
a terrestrial body, he can and ought to choose. Along
with his temporal nature, however, disappears the con-
tingency of his actions. Death introduces him to eternity.
The fruit of his free determinations is now ripe : he
detaches himself ; that which he is, he is once for all.
Man, then, according to the nature he has created
within himself, henceforward belongs either to God or
to the devil. His free will has become changed either
into freedom and love or into caprice and violence.

And so the final end of things is the definitive
dualism of good and evil, so far as they are the products
of a will that is free. In the beginning, God engendered
good and evil considered as possibilities, i.e. he created
the conditions and materials of good and evil actions.
From the way in which free beings acted, there resulted,
in fact, the realisation of the two possibilities God had
formed. On both sides, being has passed through
three phases : possibility, the contingent fact, definitive
determination. It was by thwarting conscious will that
idea became thing ; and possibility, necessary. The
kingdom of God is the harmony, henceforth inde-
structible, between spirit and nature. Individuals subsist
therein, and continue to be distinguished from one
another, otherwise there would be no more nature ; but
they live without strife, each according to his character :
they subsist by love alone and have nothing to do with
hatred. They have attained true unity which is not
an exterior rapprochement practised with a view to the
satisfaction of egoistic interests, but rather the common
participation of individual souls in divine personality.
In the kingdom of the devil, on the other hand, the
will to live has definitively thrown off all law and

JACOB BOEHME 229

direction. It has what it willed : life as the sole end
of life. Henceforward, there is no harmony, goodness
or love. Ego'fsm and anarchy reign without a rival.
The individual is his own master ; and this sovereignty,
which rests on rebellion, not on obedience, is the endless
struggle, infinite torment.

VI

Boehme's doctrine concludes with an exposition of
the final ends of all things. This doctrine presents
itself to us as the metaphysical history of Being, apper-
ceived by intuition deep within its physical history.
Starting from the eternal, we have come back, through
time, to the eternal. The circle is closed again :
revelation is accomplished.

Now, what is this doctrine which is called by its
author Aurora or the Morning Redness, the explanation
of the celestial and terrestrial mystery, the setting forth
of the genesis of God and of all things, and, speaking
generally, Christianity interpreted after the spirit ?

There can be no doubt but that it is, first of all, a
religious doctrine, and it is only natural that Boehme's
disciples should mainly be found amongst theologians.
But would it be legitimate to abide by the letter of the
doctrine in judging one who ever affirmed that truth
is in the spirit, not in the letter, and that it is the
characteristic of the spirit to be for ever impossible of
expression? Evidently, by this theory alone, Boehme
relegates to a second place, religion properly so called,
religion that is inconceivable without some given reve-
lation, some positive fact, and puts in the first place
philosophy, or rather, religion so far as it is allied with
philosophy. Indeed, whoever reads Boehme's works

230 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

in the way he himself recommends us to read them,
trying to discover the spiritual meaning in sensible and
intellectual images, finds that doctrines of a philosophical
character appear at each step beneath his religious
outpourings.

The theological mysteries of the Trinity, the Fall
and the Redemption are, of a certainty, the promptings
that cause him to reflect. But beneath these mysteries
he sees the problem of the reconciliation of evil and the
finite, as positive realities, with infinite personality as
the first and only source of being. And the way in
which he solves this problem is certainly metaphysics
under the cloak of theology. From the finite and evil,
to whose existence our senses testify, the suprasensible
conditions of finite nature and evil action are distin-
guished, and these conditions are deduced from the
divine will, in so far as that will wills to be manifested
and posited as a person. No manifestation without
opposition. And so God posits his contrary in order
to lay hold upon himself, by distinguishing himself from
this contrary and imposing on it his law. This contrary,
or eternal nature bound to the very existence of God,
without itself being the finite and evil, is the foundation
of their reality. The finite is the dissemination — freely
effected by God, by means of time — of the essences
contained in the divine nature. Evil is nature, which
is only a part, posited as the all by the untrammelled
will of created beings. The finite and evil, after all, as
regards their matter, are deduced from the conditions
of existence of the personality, whereas in their sensible
form and realisation they result from the free initiative
of the will. Consequently the world is something quite
different from mere non-being or the unstable effect
of an act of arbitrary will : it possesses reality, a true,

JACOB BOEHME 231

internal existence : though founded on God it is not
God : it is based upon the very nature God needs in
order to become manifest.

It cannot be denied that in these ideas, clearly ex-
pressed by Boehme in all his metaphors, are the germs
of a philosophic system. But what is the value and
signification of this system ? Is it not an isolated work,
without any important relation to the general history of
philosophy ?

It must be confessed that — with the exception of
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (the " Unknown Philo-
sopher"), Baader the Catholic theologian, and Schelling
in the final phase of his philosophy — the philosophers
by profession, after reading and forming an opinion on
Boehme, are rather inclined to bestow on him vague
encomium than to attempt to assimilate his doctrines.
Saint-Martin's ideas have scarcely been mentioned in
France except by historians ; and the Germans have
developed more especially the intellectualist philosophy
born of Leibnitz, Kant and Spinoza, which rejects the
absolute reality of nature and the freedom of the will,
those essential elements in Boehme's system.

On this point, nevertheless, we must guard against
judging by appearances or details. Two traits, in a
word, mainly characterise the speculations of our theo-
sophist : spiritualism, posited as a fundamental truth ;
and realism, admitted on the faith of experience and
connected by way of deduction with the spiritualist
principle. On the one hand, Boehme holds that spirit
alone is the first and true being : spirit, i.e. infinite
freedom, that creates for itself objects and forms, and
remains infinitely superior to all its creations, imper-
ceptible being that is everywhere in action and itself
incapable of being realised and becoming an object of

232 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

experience ; the perfect person, in word, living and
truly metaphysical existence, of which all given, deter-
minate existence can be nothing but an imperfect mani-
festation. But, on the other hand, Boehme is a realist.
He does not admit that the multiple and the diverse
may be a vain image of the imagination, or the purely
phenomenal effect of a transcendent cause ; he does not
acknowledge that evil may only be a lesser good.
Nature has her own principle of existence, contrary to
that of spiritual existence. Evil is a living force that
tends to destroy good. To posit spiritualism as a thesis
and realism as an antithesis, and, in a synthesis, to
reconcile the reality of the objects of experience with
the supremacy of spirit : such is Boehme's task.

Such, too, in fine, is the ground of the principal
German systems. With Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling
and Hegel it is spirit that is being, and spirit is the
living infinite that no form can contain. For all these
philosophers, however, the world has a reality of its
own, a reality that is a stumbling-block to spirit and
yet must be deduced from the nature of spirit. It is
in this antinomy of spirit as principle, and matter as
reality, that German philosophy flounders ; and monad-
ology, transcendental idealism, the philosophy of the
absolute, and absolute idealism are only different solu-
tions of one and the same problem. Nor is this all.
Idealism, realism, and the search after the reconciliation
of the latter with the former, are traits of German
philosophy that are, it would seem, to be met with in
the nation itself; so, at all events, historians have
observed. Thus, whatever may have been the exterior
link between the German philosophers and Jacob Boehme,
they are united to him by a stronger and closer bond
than mere influence, they are his brothers, at least, if

JACOB BOEHME 233

not his sons, children of one and the same genius,
expressions of one and the same aspect of the human
mind. Was he, then, a false prophet, who, in 1620,
after reading the Psychologia vera of Jacob Boehme,
greeted its author by the unexpected name of "Philoso-
phus teutonicus " ? J

1 "He is known," says Hegel, "as the Philosophus Teutonicus, and
in reality through him for the first time did philosophy in Germany come
forward with a characteristic stamp. The kernel of his philosophizing is
purely German" (Gesch. Ph. iii. 1836, p. 300) (Translator's note).

DESCARTES

REGARDING things only from the historical standpoint,
Cartesianism dominates the entire development of modern
philosophy. Amongst others, the German savants,
intent on finding the internal principles of historical
developments, took delight in discovering, in Cartesian
problems, the starting-point of all the great questions
that have stirred the minds of modern philosophers.
More particularly, they saw, in the Cogito, the living
germ from which, by immanent dialectic, all the great
systems that have so far appeared were to blossom
forth. Thus, Kuno Fischer distinctly regarded Cartes-
ianism, and the antinomies into which it enters as it
develops, as the origin or necessary condition of the
occasionalism of Malebranche, the monism of Spinoza,
the monadology of Leibnitz, the sensualism of Locke,
the materialism of La Mettrie, the idealism of Berkeley
and the criticism of Kant. In most of the German
historians of philosophy similar deductions may be
found.

Speaking generally, it may be said that the central
problem of Cartesian metaphysics was the transition
from thought to existence. Thought alone is indis-
solubly inherent in itself: how, then, by what right
and in what way, can we, in our judgments, affirm
existences? There is one case, and only one, wherein
existence is immediately connected. with thought in the

234

DESCARTES 235

intuition of the understanding : and that is when we
say : " Cogito, ergo sum." How and in what way can
we extend to other existences the certainty we directly
attribute to that of thought ? This is the knotty point
in the Cartesian philosophy. Now, this problem of
existence controlled the investigations of Locke, Hume,
Reid and Kant, as it did those of Malebranche, Spinoza
and Leibnitz. Existence, which, to the ancients, was
a thing given and immediately apprehensible, and that
had only to be analysed, is here something far away,
which has to be attained to, if that be possible. There
we find the distinctive characteristic of modern as
compared with ancient philosophy, and this characteristic
is the mark of Cartesianism itself.

Not only does Cartesianism thus control the progress
of modern philosophy, it is also of considerable im-
portance in the general history of the human mind.
Doubtless, our seventeenth century in France largely
drew upon Christian and classic sources, but science
developed alongside of literature ; and science, in those
days, was the Cartesian conception of the world : it was
the control of the mathematical mechanism over all that
was not thought strictly so called, the condition of this
very mechanism. As Huyghens wrote on the occasion
of the death of Descartes :

Nature, prends le deuil, et pleure la premiere
Le grand Descartes ! . . .
Quand il perdit le jour, tu perdis la lumiere :
Ce n'cst qu'a sa clarte que nous t'avons su voir.

And when Newton reformed Cartesianism, did he not
do so by adopting this very basis of natural philosophy,
treated mathematically, which Descartes had discovered
and assured ?

Nor is this all : as Descartes is a dualist and looks

236 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

upon all blending of philosophy with religion, corporeal
with spiritual philosophy, as spurious, so too the
seventeenth century is simultaneously religious and
rationalistic, partaking both of the moralist and of the
scientist, without these various disciplines interpenetrat-
ing or being weakened by one another. Pascal the
mystic does no harm to Pascal the physicist, and vice
versa.

^ In a word, Descartes regards thought as without an
equal ; he sees in it alone the principle of certainty.
The seventeenth century, likewise, considers that in
thought lies human dignity, that by it, and not by
material greatness, can we rise to our true stature. The
conviction of the power of reason creeps into the minds
of men to such a degree that the obstacles, both
provisional and even definitive, which Descartes had set
up, are speedily overthrown. Social and political ques-
tions which could not, for a long time, in his opinion,
be accessible to science ; religious questions which went
altogether beyond it, were submitted to the examination
of reason. The eighteenth century dedicated itself to
this work ; it has even been said that the French
Revolution had its origin in the Discours de la Methode.
A false statement, if it means that Cartesianism contained
such a consequence ; and yet an assertion capable of
being upheld, if the statement is taken as signifying
that it was in the name of the Cartesian principle of
rational evidence that society was revived in 1789.

And so we see that Cartesianism is an essential
element in the philosophical and moral history of modern
times. But does it belong only to history ? Has it no
longer anything to teach us ?

Huxley, the English philosopher and scientist,
affirmed that Descartes' system, far from being a

DESCARTES 237

subject of scholarly curiosity, was the very soul both of
contemporary philosophy and science. Our philosophy
is idealistic, and it is the Cogito of Descartes that is the
principle of this idealism. Our science is mechanistic,
and it is the Cartesian reduction to extent of all that is
not spirit, which has founded this mechanism.

Independently of these general tendencies, many
questions more especially connected with contemporary
speculation have been bequeathed to us by Descartes'
philosophy.

Such, in metaphysics, are the problem of existence,
that of the relations between will and understanding,
that of certainty, that of the relations between science
and metaphysics, and that of the relations between
spirit and matter. The philosophy of science is specially
concerned nowadays with the question of the relation
between mathematics and experience. How and in
what sense can that which is proved by demonstration
agree with that which is known by perception ? How
comes it to pass that physics can be treated mathe-
matically ? Now, this is the very question Descartes
first asked himself, and he may be said to have con-
structed his system of metaphysics for the purpose of
answering it.

As regards science, the alliance between geometry
and analysis, the mechanical interpretation of phenomena,
the exclusion of final causes, mathematical mechanism
applied not only to the systematisation of phenomena
but also to the explanation of the genesis of the world ;
not only to the study of inorganic bodies but also to
that of life itself, are all to be found, as so many essential
elements, in the Cartesian philosophy. It is also the
Cartesian spirit that has brought into existence certain
special modern sciences, such as experimental psychology

23 8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

and positive sociology, which attempt to examine
psychical or social facts in their elements or mathematic-
ally measurable equivalents.

Moreover, let it not be said that, in order to possess
these leading ideas, it is enough to receive them from
present-day savants in the form they have assumed as
the result of two centuries of discussion. It is not the
same with ideas as with facts, the knowledge of which
almost inevitably becomes more and more perfect.
What advantage is it for a man to acquire a rough
measurement of some phenomenon when he can
become acquainted with an exact one thereof? An
idea, however, is a mysterious plant which does not
always develop in another in the same way as it does
in its originator, without counting the fact that it may
have long to wait before encountering soil favourable
for its perfect fruition. This is the reason it is so
important to consider ideas as they appeared to the
genius who gave birth to them. How often have they
thus shown themselves to be greater and more fertile than
they had seemed as interpreted by disciples incapable of
thoroughly understanding them ! " Philosophia duce
regredimur " was a profound motto of the Renaissance.

Is it necessary to call to mind Descartes' excellence
as a writer ? From this standpoint, too, his importance
could not be exaggerated. As regards the part he
played in history, Desire Nisard has shown that he was
the first to offer a perfect model of French prose. The
language of Descartes is the fabric on which the
style of our great writers is woven. Considered in
itself, this language, stamped with the philosopher's
method, possesses in the highest degree the noblest
qualities of every language : propriety of terms, and the
expression of order in ideas. Cartesian intuition and

DESCARTES 239

deduction have left their impress on the style of the
Discours de la Mtthode. Not that this language is
abstract or impersonal. Descartes' reason is a living,
enthusiastic reason ; it does not merely put acquired
truths in the form of syllogisms, but rather endeavours
to discover and create, to communicate its creative
activity to men's intellects. This life of thought
animates the style itself, which, in a surprising way,
unites to precision and demonstrative order, motion,
accent, originality, colour, wit, and even charm, or
irony or pride, according to the intellectual passion
which is pouring into the soul of this lover of truth.
Whatever impression may at first be felt, when one
at times becomes bewildered with those long sentences
which demand an alert reader, capable of making his
own deductions, one speedily comes under the charm
and power of this masterly style. Even nowadays, if
an author's manner merely suggests that of Descartes
in some respect or other, people vie with each other in
praising its superiority and austere seductiveness.

In a word, why should we not call to mind the
special motives which cause us to desire that the works
of Descartes should be read by as large a circle of
readers as possible, both in France and abroad ?

Descartes is one of the purest and finest expressions
of the genius of our race : the diffusion of his thoughts
represents our life and influence.

We love reason, a middle path between the spirit
of positivism, which contents itself with facts, properly
so called, and the spirit of mysticism, which tends to
believe without demanding proof. Of all intellectual
qualities, the one we most prize is the faculty of
judgment, in whose sight even experience and reasoning
are sources of truth only on condition they have been

24o STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

submitted to the control of the mind. It is in this
direction that we seek after clarity and order in ideas.
For a system to be well constructed and consistent is
not sufficient for us, we want every part of it, taken
separately, to be intelligible and true, and we would
rather hold separately the two ends of the chain of
reasoning without apperceiving the intermediary links,
than let slip the truths we have won in order to
grasp the hypothetical connection between them. Qne
•ofL_ih£^dences.- in. which-JBce -~exceL is... mathematics.
Our sense of clarity and logic is here afforded un-
restrained activity. In the moral order of things,
we love reason with an ardent, enthusiastic love,
that has at times gone astray or formed a striking
contrast with the very object of that love ; but through
all our fluctuations the goal of our endeavours is
clearly a harmonious blending of individual freedom
and rational law, in which neither would be sacrificed.
And whilst seeking, in a practical spirit, for what suits our
own nation, it is impossible for us to separate in thought
the happiness of others from our own, or to desire good
in any other than the universal form which reason ordains.

Now, we find in Descartes these different traits,
which are amongst the principal ones in our nature.
A clear-headed and profound philosopher and mathe-
matician, excelling in finesse and in geometrical precision
alike, jealous of independence though obedient to reason,
solicitous of the practical ends of life and ambitious to
work for the happiness of all mankind, he offers us, pre-
eminently, the model, and, as it were, the archetype of
the qualities we aspire to show forth.

To study Descartes and make him better known is
to work for the fulfilment of the scientific and civilising
mission of France.

DESCARTES 241

ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORALS
AND SCIENCE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF
DESCARTES

Mirum mihi videtur, plerosque homines plantarum vires, siderum
motus, mctallorum transmutationes, similiumque disciplinarum
objecta diligentissime perscrutari, atquc interim fere nullos de bona
mente . . . cogitare, quum tamen alia omnia non tarn propter se
quam quia ad hanc aliquid conferunt, sint aestimanda. — DESCARTES,
Reg. ad dir. ing. Reg. i .

That portion of Descartes' writings referring to
morals is not insignificant, though neither in form nor
content does it, at first glance, appear to belong to his
philosophical work, properly so called. It consists
mainly of the letters to the Princess Elizabeth and the
Queen of Sweden ; in them Descartes visibly adapts
himself to the needs and desires of his illustrious
correspondents. True, a sketch of practical morals
forms part of the Discours de la Mtthode. According
to a document published in 1896, by Ch. Adam, it
would appear that Descartes added these rules some-
what against his will, because of the pedagogues and
others of the same type who were quite ready to
accuse him of having neither religion nor faith, and of
wishing to destroy both the one and the other by his
method. As regards the contents of these writings on
morals, they are certainly very dignified and lofty in
thought and admirable in form, though evidently
possessed of little in common with the philosopher's
doctrine itself. Borrowed from St. Thomas, as Baillet
says, and intended, according to Descartes himself, to
reconcile the teachings of Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurus1
with one another, they seem to have been particularly

1 OEuvres philos. de Descartes, edit. Gamier, iii. 184-5.

R

242 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

stamped with the impress of stoicism. Now, stoicism
was then a well-known and popular philosophy. Des-
cartes is a stoic, as the heroes of Corneille are stoics.
His mathematics has nothing to do with his stoicism.
It would therefore seem either that Descartes, so far as
he personally was concerned, had no interest in moral
research, or that, if he did make profession of moral
maxims, they resulted rather from individual feelings or
outer influences than from the logical development of
his philosophy.

I

It is worthy of note that this appreciation, which the
first rapid examination of Descartes' moral writings
induces us to make, by no means conforms with the
continually repeated declarations of the philosopher
concerning the object of philosophy.

What, according to the Regulae? is the earnest way
of seeking after truth ? It is to think solely of increasing
the natural light of reason, not for the solving of any
particular scholastic difficulty, but rather, at every
conjuncture in life, for the purpose of making the
understanding capable of prescribing to the will the line
of action it ought to choose. The reason Descartes is
keenly desirous of learning to distinguish the true from
the false is, as he tells us in the Discours de la Mhhode?
because he knows this to be the means of seeing clearly
into his own actions and going through life with calm
assurance. Again, in the Preface to the Principes? he
defines philosophy as the study of wisdom, which, he
says, consists of a perfect knowledge of everything a
man is capable of knowing, both in the conduct in life,
the preservation of health and the invention of all the

1 i. i. 2 i. 14. 3 Baillet, La Vie de M. Descartes, i. 115.

DESCARTES 243

arts. This study, he adds, is more necessary for the
regulation of our morality than the use of our eyes for
the guidance of our steps.

And indeed, according to Clerselier, who appears to
have known him most intimately, morals was the object
of his most frequent meditation.1 True, he did not
like writing about such matters, but that is from a
feeling of prudence, as he himself explains.2 In physics,
also, he more than once preferred silence to the risk of
persecution.

All the same, we may ask ourselves whether, in the
work he has left us, the moral ideas and the physical
doctrines really form part of one and the same system,
or whether they are not like two streams which flow
parallel to each other, without their waters ever mingling.
Certainly Descartes offers us the rules of his provisional
system of morals as being deduced from his method.
But then, of what use is it to affirm this, if he intro-
duced these rules only to throw pedagogues off the
scent ? In themselves, they appear anything but part
and parcel of his philosophy. It is also true that, in
the Preface to the Prmcipes5 he speaks of a definitive
system of morals which presupposes a complete know-
ledge of all other sciences. Many, however, consider
that he did not even outline this system of morals,
and that it is his provisional system which is in reality
his final one.4

The question is a puzzling one. It would be unfair
to judge Descartes solely by those portions of his work
which his prematurely curtailed life enabled him to
complete. In creations of thought the inner tendency
and the living principle of development are frequently

1 Baillet, La Vie de M. Descartes, i. 115. 2 ii. 282.

3 Edition Gamier, i. 592. 4 Cf. e"d. Gamier, iii. 179.

244 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

more important than the immediately observable results.
The reality of a Cartesian system of morals would be
satisfactorily proved if it were shown that the philo-
sophy of Descartes contained within itself the germs of
such a system.

II

There can be no doubt but that this philosophy,
speaking generally, deals with practical experience.
Although fond of withdrawing into solitude and seclu-
sion for the purpose of meditation, Descartes is anything
but an armchair philosopher. He possesses in the
highest degree the sense of reality, interests himself in
the doings of his times, converses with men of divers
stations and temperaments, and listens attentively to
the remarks of each on his own particular subject. He
considers that our highest duty is to bring about the
general good of all men, to the best of our ability >-j
Consequently his chief grievance against the scholastic I
philosophy is that it is purely speculative and gives no^l
results. Instead of this philosophy of arguers and
disputants, he seeks after a practical system of philo-
sophy calculated to place at man's disposal the power
and action of fire, water, air and all the other bodies
around us, and which will make him, as it were, master
and owner of nature.1 It is his dream to preserve
mankind from illness and disease, perhaps even from
the debility of old age. His death was announced in
the Gazette d' Anvers in the following terms : 2 "In
Sweden there has just died a fool, who said that he
could live as long as he wished."

Descartes, like Bacon, following the traditions of

1 Mfth. vi. 2.

2 Adam, GOttingen MS. (Revue bourgnignonne de I'Enseignement
suptneur, 1896).

DESCARTES 245

the magicians and alchemists, was inspired with the
ambition to dominate that nature which the ancients
had contented themselves with gazing upon.

The alchemists, however, believed that in order to
make nature act as they pleased, all that was needed
was to set it going by an altogether external and
empirical imitation of its processes. The magicians
regarded nature as a mysterious, perhaps diabolical,
power, whose will had to be chained down by means
of formulas. Bacon himself, in his immediate search
after an active philosophy, can find no reason for
admitting that nature will respond to human promptings,
except that such response is necessary in order that man
may be able to act upon her. His science remains
blind because, confounding the means with the end, it
recognises no other principles than the rules that admit
of being applied, just as they stand, to practice.1

Descartes' originality consisted in regarding the
legitimacy of the problem of man's rule over nature as
uncertain, and its solution doubtful, as long as no
attempt was made to discover by what internal mode of
working, nature really brings about any particular effect -
from any particular cause. He considered that practice
implied theory in the real sense of the word ; the
knowledge of the interior of things. To his mind it
was from this standpoint that nature must be considered,
if we would succeed in becoming master of her. So,
too, in the past, dealing with the moral order of things,
Socrates had taught that the practical skill, quite legiti-
mately sought after by the Sophists, could only be
attained in a roundabout way, viz. by a rational know-
ledge of the essence of virtue. And since, to Descartes,
the very type of theory, the king of sciences, was

1 Nov. Org. i. 4.; ii. 1-5.

246 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

mathematics, he made it his object to demonstrate that
everything in nature is brought about mathematically ;
hence his metaphysical speculations. He proves, both by
the perfections of God and by the clear, distinct nature
of the idea of extent, that we are entitled to consider
mathematical qualities as the essence of material things.

Consequently, he studies mathematics, and his whole
work is dominated by this science ; only, however,
because, according to him, it is by considering things
from this point of view that we can really make them
our own.1 And it is this practical end, ever present
in his mind, that determines the general line of his
investigations. He does not dwell upon the develop-
ments of science, which would be merely of speculative
interest. He is content with setting up, in mathematics,
the few general principles which will enable him to base
mechanics and physics on this discipline. These two
sciences, in turn, need to be developed only in the
direction and degree necessary to make possible the
science of life. His object is to prove that life itself
is nothing but a mechanism, and is, consequently, subject
to our control. Whilst studying one science, Descartes
is thinking of the science which, in the nature of things,
is to come after, and bring him nearer to practice.
The idea of the goal in view, which never leaves him,
controls and restrains his efforts. Semper ad eventum
festmat.

This method enabled him to conceive the possibility
of carrying through, alone, his project of instituting a
universal science. In 1637 ne came to the conclusion
that the truths he had found in the various sciences
were nothing but the consequences of five or six main
difficulties he had overcome, on which they depended ;

1 Baillet, ii. 227.

DESCARTES 247

and he imagined he needed only to win two or three
other like battles to bring his plans to a successful issue.1

Here, too, is the explanation of his apparently
capricious passing from one science to another. From
1623 he began to neglect geometry,2 and six years
afterwards plunged into metaphysical meditation, to
which, however, he devoted only nine months. A year
afterwards he reminds Mersenne that he has long ago
abandoned the study of mathematics, anxious not to
waste his time any longer in unproductive effort. From
1629 to 1633 he is mainly occupied with physics. At
the end of the Discours de la Methode he announces
his intention to spend the rest of his life in wresting
from physics a more certain medicine, or art of curing
disease, than the one in vogue.

This, in short, is the explanation of that particularity
of his system for which Newton reproached him so
strongly, viz. hypothesis, regarded in certain cases as a
sufficient explanation of phenomena. A strict adherent
of the principle of following the line of least resistance
in his own method of work, Descartes contents himself,
in his theories, with what is indispensable for practice.
Now, from this point of view, provided it be possible
to make a forecast of the result, it matters little that
the mechanism of nature, in detail, should be in every
respect what it has been conceived to be. Well aware
that in mathematics several solutions are often possible,
Descartes comes to regard it as sufficient, even in physics,
if he obtains one. He believes he has done everything
necessary if the causes he has explained are such that
all the effects they are capable of producing are similar
to those we find in the manifested world. He considers
it useless to inquire whether the effects are really brought

1 Mfth. iv. 4. 2 Baillet, i. in.

248 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

about by these causes or by others. He thinks it is as
useful in life to know causes thus imagined as to know
the real ones.1 On this point he is satisfied with moral
certainty.2

In the progress of knowledge, as thus understood,
morals cannot fail to find a place, all the more so
because, according to Descartes, the root and trunk of
a tree are mainly held in esteem on account of the fruit
they should produce, and it is mostly on the sciences
which should come last, medicine, mechanics and morals,
that the primary utility of philosophy depends.3 And
Descartes does not despair of satisfying himself as
regards these ultimate objects, in spite of the shortness
of human life and the limits of our intelligence, for the
very reason that he is able to economise his strength
and demand of each science only what it can and should
give him for the carrying out of his plans. The pro-
ductiveness of knowledge lies not in its extent, but
rather in its clearness and precision.

Ill

But now, what is the nature of the morals to which
this progress will lead ? Does it not merely tend to
enable us to dispose of human nature, by means of the
science of man, just as we dispose of the corporal nature,
by means of the science of the body ? Is not psychical
mechanics all that Descartes has in view ?

As a matter of fact, Descartes laid the foundations
of some such morals in his Traite des Passions, in which,
expounding the principle governing these mental
activities, he teaches us to modify and control them.

1 Prindpes, iv. 104. 2 Baillet, ii. 227-8.

3 Pref. of the Prin. Gamier, i. 192.

DESCARTES 249

As, moreover, this study shows us how far the mind
depends on the temperament and arrangement of the
organs of the body, Descartes distinctly concludes that,
if it is possible to find any means whereby men, gener-
ally, may be made wiser and more skilful, this means
must be sought for in medicine.

Thus would appear to be completed the edifice
planned by our philosopher. Its culminating point is
a system of morals, though how different from that
indicated in the Discours de la Methode and the Lettres \
This latter, instinct with the spirit of antiquity or
with Christian influences, was either an exhortation,
a metaphysic or a religion. That of the Principcs and
the Traite des Passions was only the final and most
immediately practical application of modern science.
According to the Lettres, man ought to seek outside
of the world, in those perfections that depend solely
on free-will, resignation, constancy, and the mystical
love of God and men, for those things to which he is
to bend his will. According to the Traite des Passions,
man, a mere part of nature, could aim at nothing
else than maintaining the integrity of his existence
by utilising the mechanism of the universe for his
own advantage. Now, it is easy to see how these
scientific morals are the fruit of the Cartesian philo-
sophy, whereas the former seem to remain outside the
logical development of this philosophy.

And yet, is it right to content oneself with this
result, and declare that Descartes, as a philosopher,
knows no other morals than applied science ?

It is unnecessary to have recourse to such of
Descartes' writings as deal specially with morals in
order to see how narrow and incomplete such an inter-
pretation would be. Speaking generally, it is not

250 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

science that is the centre of the Cartesian philosophy ;
it is man, or rather the reason within man. Even when
studying the sciences of nature, it is not science itself
that our philosopher has in view, it is the formation
of the judgment by science. Judgment is the power
to distinguish the true from the false in all things
without hesitation or uncertainty. To do this we
must develop within ourselves a kind of sense of truth.
Mathematics, especially algebra, is a wonderful help in
this respect.1 By accustoming the mind to feed upon
truth and never be satisfied with false reasons, mathe-
matics compels it to quit its natural indifference and
leads it in the direction of its own perfection. It is
this mental culture, not the knowledge of particular
truths, that forms the real utility of the sciences.2
They cannot be detached from reason, as the fruit is
detached from the tree, for it is in reason that they
have both their principle and their end.

Descartes, however, does more than train his reason
mechanically by exercise and habit ; he uses the intel-
lectual force thus gained in studying the nature of
reason itself, analysing its content, gauging its power
and trying to discover its purpose. He rises above
science to metaphysics. Not that this makes it neces-
sary that he should free himself from the requirements
of science. Rather is it science which, properly inter-
preted, opens up the path leading to this higher know-
ledge. He remarks that the mathematical method,
however perfect it be, is nothing but the outer cover
of the true method.3 The latter, apart from the parti-
cular form given to it by geometricians, is of universal
import, and allows of the truths contained in any sub-
ject being obtained. By the use of this method, then,

1 Regulae, i. 2 M/th. iii. 5. 3 Regulae, iv. 20.

DESCARTES 251

one may succeed in strictly demonstrating the truths
of metaphysics as well as those of geometry. To
attempt thus to know God, oneself and the first prin-
ciples of the science of nature, is the main use man
ought to make of his reason.1

If, therefore, it is conceived that a purely natural
philosophy has for its ultimate object the supremacy of
man over nature, a more complete philosophy sees in
this very supremacy only a means at the service of a
loftier end. No longer is it merely a question of
governing, but of doing so in the name of, and with
a view to, reason. To moderate the influence of the
body by medicine is indeed the most practical external
means of helping men to become wise ; but medicine is
not wisdom, any more than the tool is the work upon
which it is used.2 In the same way, to control one's
passions, owing to our knowledge of their mechanism,
is not the same as directing them to their true use.
Not any thought we please should we attempt to sub-
stitute for those which passion suggests, but rather the
thoughts which really free the soul, those of which the
reason approves. For it is the duty of reason to
examine the correct value of the various benefits, the
attaining of which depends on ourselves.3 And even
above the right use of the passions, which concerns the
soul from the standpoint of its union with the body,
Descartes places the benefits of the soul itself from the
standpoint of its own life. There is a joy that is purely
intellectual.4 The soul can have its own pleasures
apart from all else.5 The practice of virtue, to which

1 Letter to Mersenne, i5th April 1630, Garn. iv. 303.

2 Baillet, ii. 11-12.

3 Passions, art. 144. Cf. Letter to the Princess Elizabeth, ist June 1645,
Gamier, iii. 189.

4 Passions, art. 91. 5 Ibid. art. 212.

252 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

these pleasures are linked, is not only a sovereign
remedy against the passions,1 it is also the greatest
perfection to which one can lay claim, for it is the
genuine action of a will that is free.2

Above the morals of means, then, which is hardly
anything but applied physics, Descartes conceives of
a morals of ends which is founded directly on the
loftiest elements of metaphysics. Both of these morals
are based on science, if this word is taken in its Cartesian
sense, i.e. as signifying the clear, distinct knowledge
both of corporeal and of spiritual things. The second,
however, cannot be derived solely from the science of
nature, whose domain does not include reason and will.

Now, when Descartes undertakes to define this
superior morals, it is only natural that he should again
come into touch with the Stoics and other philosophers
of antiquity, to whom the culture of reason formed
the main interest in life. Human reason has not
changed its nature, from the time of Aristotle to that
of Descartes. The most perfect expressions it has met
with, ever since men have been able to reflect, thus find
their place in the Cartesian system, and that not as
mere patchwork, but as integral parts thereof.

They have not, however, been transferred into that
system just as they were. Stoic morals, in particular,
is for Descartes nothing but a provisional system of
morals. To try to conquer oneself rather than fortune
is surely the wisest decision to arrive at, as long as we
are powerless to modify the outer world. But it is this
very power that the Cartesian philosophy confers upon
us ; therefore, in place of morals inculcating abstention
it substitutes positive and active morals. Likewise,
to endeavour to find the rules of conduct in the outer

1 Passions, art. 148. 2 Ibid. art. 17-18.

DESCARTES 253

order of things themselves is the best course to follow, as
long as we are ignorant of the first principles of which
this order is a continuation. But when, as the result
of a methodical culture of reason, man has come to
know the principal truths from which the laws of nature
are derived, he substitutes — -and that in a precise and
positive sense of which the ancients knew nothing —
for the maxim : " Follow nature," that other maxim :
" Follow true reason." *

The doctrine of a proper content of reason, and of
man's possibility to conform things thereto, gives an
original stamp to Cartesian morals. When brought in
contact with a mysterious, inflexible nature, the ancients
could only contemplate and acquiesce in it, or else
retire within themselves. In the case of Descartes,
reason, grounded on a science which opens out things
for its consideration, becomes an efficient power, a
natural force ; it assumes the task of employing in its
own perfecting the mechanism of external things.
And so, whereas Socrates regarded the claim to investi-
gate the causes of physical phenomena as vain and
sacrilegious, and the Stoics looked upon resignation and
detachment from the world as the principle and the
goal of all felicity, Descartes can see no limit to the
conquests that science — and by means of science, human
reason — will achieve over the world. Whereas the
Stoics only condemned passion, — in which they recog-
nised the violence and indiscipline of brute nature, —
Descartes, by the aid of a science which penetrates to
the causes of passion, subjugates and converts it into
an auxiliary of reason. Man is no longer crushed by
nature, he makes use of her. The soul, no longer a

1 Letters to the Princess Elizabeth, ist and i5th May 1645, Gamier,
Hi. 181, 183.

254 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

prisoner of the body, guides and controls it. Morals
is no longer the art of retiring from the world and
being sufficient unto oneself; it is the command to
make of reason — which is our very essence — a living,
sovereign reality, the queen of nature.

And this very sovereignty of reason over things is,
to Descartes, nothing but the means it has for pursuing
the ends proper to itself, such as the love of God,
and interest in the all, of which one forms part.1 Car-
tesian metaphysics, by its method, enables us to know,
with certainty these ultimate truths which are the
indispensable illumination of the will. This gives
us another originality of Descartes' morals. Most
certainly the ancients raised the virtues to a lofty pitch ;
but as they were ignorant of true metaphysics they
could not possibly become well acquainted with the
virtues, and what was called by so fine a name was
frequently nothing more than an aberration of the will.2

Thus it is really for its close union with science that
Cartesian morals is distinguished throughout. Still,
the pure and simple statement that it is derived from
science, especially the science of natural things, could
not be made. In all its phases it makes use of science
for the attainment of its object : the complete deter-
mination of will by reason. The full realisation of
reason is the end : all else is but the means. In all
things, said Descartes,3 what we must seek after is
the bona mens ; nothing else deserves to be taken
into consideration except in so far as it contributes
thereto.

1 Letter to the Princess Elizabeth, i5th June 1645, Gamier, iii. 192-3.

2 Mtth. i. 10. 3 Reg. i.

KANT

"Was uns zu thun gebtihrt, dess sind wir nur gewiss." — KANT (1782).

THE philosophy of Kant is one of the most important
facts in the history of the human mind. Kuno Fischer,
the well-known historian of modern philosophy, affirmed
that it represents nothing less than a revolution of like
nature to that wrought by Socrates when he brought
mankind back from the study of the world to the study
of self ; indeed, it sets before the human mind the task,
not of discovering the principles of being and forming
a conception of the universe, but rather of looking for
the conditions of knowledge itself, the origin of our
representations and judgments, and their importance.
Windelband shrewdly said that the rationalism of Kant
is the concentration in a living unity of all the motor
principles of modern thought.

Kant's philosophy, in fact, was the beginning of the
development of German philosophy, strictly so called.
From Fichte or Schelling on to Wundt or Riehl, there
is not a single German philosopher who does not either
continue or elaborate Kantian ideas. But even outside of
Germany, Kantianism exercises an influence that grows
greater and greater the better it is known. Though
refuted by some, it is accepted by the rest and is one
of the essential factors of contemporary philosophic
thought. In France, particularly, it attracts not merely
a keen historical interest, but a theoretical one as well.

255

256 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

There exists a very flourishing French neo-criticism and
scarcely a single philosophic dissertation appears in which
Kant's point of view is not discussed, whilst its action
makes itself felt even in literature and social life.

It is no easy task to set forth the true nature of a
doctrine dealing with present-day preoccupations and
controversies. The safest course to pursue will be to
leave on one side the many developments it may have
undergone, and look upon it, as far as possible, from
the philosopher's own standpoint.

I. — BIOGRAPHY

Kant was a contemporary of Frederick the Second and
the French Revolution. His principal works appeared
between 1770 and 1797. Though he valued the
triumphs of right more highly than those of might,
yet he would never agree to separate freedom from
order and discipline. The moral environment, in which
his thought developed, was Pietism on the one hand,
and the philosophy of the eighteenth century on the other.
Pietism, which is opposed to abstract, theological Pro-
testantism, set practice before dogma ; it extolled feeling
and the spirit of devotion, interior piety and the private,
individual interpretation of the Scriptures. The philo-
sophy of the eighteenth century, the philosophy of en-
lightenment (Aufklarungsphilosophie), as it was called in
Germany, teaches that all the evil from which mankind
suffers, is the result of ignorance and of the bondage that
succeeds it, and also that the progress of enlightenment, in
itself alone, procures happiness and its ensuing liberation.

The life of Kant may be divided into three main
periods, that correspond to the different phases of his
philosophic development : ist, childhood and youth

KANT 257

from 1724 to 1755, a Peri°d °f study and preliminary
essays ; 2nd, the years he spent as Privatdozent, from
1755 to 1770, immediately preceding his critical work;
3rd, his professorship, from 1770 to 1797, devoted to
criticism and the development of his teachings.

Immanuel Kant was born in KOnigsberg on the
22nd of April 1724. This town, in which the whole
of his life was destined to be spent almost without a
break, was a large commercial centre to which there
flocked a considerable number of Jews, Poles, English
and Dutch. Here the philosopher found ample material
for psychological and moral observations. KOnigsberg,
a university town, was likewise the centre of intellectual
and political life in the Duchy of Prussia.

The family of Kant was of Scotch origin. His name
was spelt Cant, which, as it was pronounced tsant in
German, he changed to Kant. His father was a saddler,
poor and of stern morality. His mother, Anna Regina
Reuter, says our philosopher, was a woman of consider-
able intelligence and lofty ideals ; she was an earnest
and devout Pietist, though her religion was free from
both mysticism and fanaticism. Kant was the fourth in
a family of eleven children. The importance of and
respect for everything that was religious and moral was
inculcated on him from his earliest years. He quietly
acquiesced in this influence and retained a keen and
pious memory thereof throughout life.

At the age of nine he entered the Collegium
Fredericanum, the master of which was Franz Albert
Schulz, professor of theology at the University of
KOnigsberg. Schulz was Kant's first master. An
ardent Pietist, he put his entire soul into his teachings.
From him Kant learnt to regard interior piety as
superior to reasoning, and practice as more important

s

258 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

than dogma. It may be noted that he invariably spoke
with respect and gratitude of his Pietist masters. Was
it the philosopher, or was it the former Pietist, who, in
1782, wrote in the epitaph of Lilienthal, the minister
who had married his parents, the line :

Was uns zu thun gebiihrt, des sind wir nur gewiss ? l

Kant spent seven years at the Collegium Fredericanum.
He was devoted to Latin and to Roman stoicism, which
he looked upon as the religion of discipline. Right to
the end of his life he adopted as his motto these lines
of Juvenal :

Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori
Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

In 1740, at the age of seventeen, he entered the
University of Konigsberg, intending to study theology.
His idea at the time was to become a minister, but he
quickly changed his mind. At first he attended the
classes of Martin Knutzen, professor of mathematics
and philosophy. Knutzen was his second master, and
he too was a Pietist. Although a disciple of Wolf in
philosophy, he was opposed to dualism, and came round
to the genuine teaching of Leibnitz, according to which
representative and motor force participate in and imply
each other.

Kant was indebted to Knutzen for his acquaintance
with the works of Newton, who may be called his
third, and perhaps his principal master. The New-
tonian philosophy was to Kant an experimental proof
of the possibility of an a priori knowledge of nature.
Henceforth it was his object to explain this possibility,
and along that line to become, in a way, the Newton
of metaphysics.

1 What duty calls upon us to do, of that alone are we certain.

KANT 259

Knutzen did much to turn Kant from theology to
philosophy. And, by degrees, he dropped the strict
orthodoxy of his Pietism, retaining nothing but its
moral rigidity.

Unable to obtain a living on the fees from his
lessons, Kant became a private tutor in 1746, in which
capacity he remained for nine years. He was thus
brought into connection with foreigners and the
nobility, and began to take considerable interest in
foreign literature and politics. He went into society,
anxious to show himself a worthy citizen.

This the first period of his life concluded with the
anonymous publication of his Universal History of Nature
and Theory of the Heavens (1755), a work that prepared
the way for the theory of Laplace on the formation of
the heavenly bodies.

After obtaining promotion by the writing of a dis-
sertation on fire, and habitation by one on the first
principles of metaphysical knowledge, he was appointed
Pr'matdozent. He taught mathematics, physics, the
theory of fortification, pyrotechnics, logic, morals, and
philosophical Encyclopedism. His teaching was full of
life. Whatever his subject, he spoke as one possessed
of special knowledge, the result being that he met with
considerable success. Between 1760 and 1769 he also
lectured on natural theology, anthropology, criticism of
the proofs of the existence of God, and the doctrine
of the beautiful and the sublime.

Here we find the influence of Rousseau, whose
works were then becoming known and being consider-
ably discussed. Kant devoured Rousseau's books and
was thus brought to take a passionate interest in moral
problems, the combat against prejudice, and the return
to nature and reason. Rousseau taught him, he tells

260 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

us, not to despise man's natural tendencies. Physical
science a priori as a fact was what he had found in
Newton ; Rousseau now made him see morality as a
fact. These facts he purposed to analyse.

With the object of thoroughly investigating moral
questions, he read the English moralists : Shaftesbury,
Hutcheson and Hume. Shortly afterwards, about
1762, he became acquainted not only with the moral
but also with the metaphysical theories of Hume. This
initiation proved to be a psychological moment in the
development of his thought. " Hume was the first,"
he says, " to shake me out of my dogmatic indolence
and start me on a fresh line of investigation in the
domain of speculative philosophy." He adds immedi-
ately afterwards : " Of course, I was careful not to
accept his conclusions." To his mind, Hume's skepti-
cism was adequately refuted by the reality of moral
action. His object was to do justice to Hume's
criticisms in so far as they were well founded without
agreeing with his conclusions, to steer his course safely
between the Scylla of skepticism and the Charybdis of
dogmatism. A slight clue which he found in Locke
(book 4, chap. 3, § 9, etc.) proved the starting point
of his own theory. And so Hume's influence, though
certainly considerable, manifested itself in Kant as a note
of warning or a stimulus for reflection. There is no proof
that Kant passed through a phase of skepticism ; it was
to escape from Hume's skepticism that he sought to
take a stand outside traditional dogmatism.

It may be that his transcendental idealism drew its
inspiration from the teaching of Leibnitz, now set forth
in all its purity in the New Essays, which appeared in
1765. Leibnitz demonstrated how the principle of
innateness may be held, whilst considering experience

KANT 261

as indispensable to the formation of knowledge. Kant's
forms and categories, however, are quite different from
the Leibnitzian virtualities.

To become an ordinary professor, Kant wrote and
defended a dissertation in Latin on the form and prin-
ciples of both the sensible and the intelligible worlds
(1770). He was appointed to the University of
KOnigsberg by Frederick II., at a salary of 400 thalers
(60 pounds sterling). From that time he refused all
invitations from other Universities. He now lectured
publicly only on logic and metaphysics, and privately
on natural law, morals, natural theology, anthropology
and physical geography. His ability as a professor was
wonderful ; he did not teach his pupils philosophy, he
rather trained them to become philosophers. His lessons
were simple, clear and attractive ; he reserved all
abstruse deductions and special terminology for his
books intended for scholars. On moral subjects he
spoke with warmth and conviction ; his eloquence was
virile, leaving a profound impression on the souls of his
hearers.

The problem of the criticism of human knowledge was
not long before it captivated him. How can we explain
why ideas, conceived of a priori, conform with things
that exist outside of ourselves ? At first he thought he
would be able to answer the question in a few months :
he spent twelve years on it. Even then he allowed
himself only four or five months to put his thoughts
into words, for fear of delaying the solution too long.
It was at Riga, in the beginning of 178 1, that the Critique
of Pure Reason appeared, one of the pillars of human
thought. Kant was then fifty-seven years of age. The
originality and purport of his book were not at first

262 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

understood. No one cared to regard him as anything
else than a Platonic dreamer or a Cartesian idealist;
Hamann called him a Prussian Hume. Kant stoutly
explained his position in a treatise entitled : Prolegomena
to all Future Metaphysic that may present itself as Science
(1783), and also in the preface to the second edition of
the Critique (1787). Sure of his principles, he con-
centrated his efforts more and more exclusively on
developing their consequences, finishing his work of
criticism, and establishing on this basis a complete
doctrine of speculative and moral philosophy. His
writings devoted to this task appeared between 1785
and 1797.

His reputation began to increase. In 1790, Fichte,
then quite a young man, forwarded him his Aphorisms
on Religion and Deism, along with an enthusiastic letter.
Schiller studied his teachings on esthetics and induced
Goethe to do the same. J. P. Richter recorded his
opinion that Kant was not so much a light of the
world as an entire system of dazzling suns. His fame
spread to Holland and England. His dissertation on
eternal peace, published in 1795, was translated into
French.

The government accorded him its esteem and pro-
tection. Once only was he near receiving a check in
the promulgation of his doctrines : when writing on
religious subjects. In 1792 he had sent an article on
the root evil in human nature to the Berlin Monthly
Review, and the Board of Censors had authorized its
insertion. A second article, however, on the struggle
between the good and the evil principles, was not
accepted. Now, Kant had still two more to bring out.
Refused by the Board, he applied to the Faculty of
Theology, who granted the imprimatur. The four

KANT 263

dissertations appeared under the title, Religion within
the Limits of Reason alone (1793). The government
grew alarmed at the success of the book, and on
the ist of October 1794 Kant received a letter asking
for an explanation and commanding him never again
to write on the subject of religion. Outwardly Kant
yielded, and gave a written promise not to teach or
write on religion " as a loyal subject of His Royal
Majesty." When the king, however, died in 1797,
he regarded himself as released from his promise.

In other respects he lived quietly enough, though he
was very sympathetic towards the French Revolution.
This sympathy is a special characteristic of his moral
make-up. He looked upon the Revolution as an effort
to establish the organisation of human societies on
reason. Even after 1794 he persevered in his political
convictions though he despaired of a favourable issue to
events in France itself. To the very end he believed
in the justice and practical value of theory ; in right, as
a principle ; and in eternal peace, as the practicable goal
of politics. Behind personal disputings he saw the
conflict between history and philosophy, between the
positive and the rational ; in all things he relied on the
triumph of reason.

After the year 1790 his intellectual powers began to
decline, and in 1797 he resigned his professorship. All
the same, he continued to work right on to the end.
The book on which he was engaged was to be his
chef-d" ceuvre, his object being to explain the transition
from the metaphysics of the science of nature to physics.
This work, which he left unfinished, was lost ; it has
been found recently. Kant's last year of life was
marked by ever -increasing feebleness of body. He
died on the I2th of February 1804. His last words

264 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

were : Es ist gut (It is well). His funeral took place
amid universal homage and admiration. The body was
interred beneath the arcades of Konigsberg Cathedral.
Several statues were erected in his honour, the most
famous being the one by Rauch in Konigsberg. Kant
was a man of small, short stature, only a little over five
feet in height, with poorly developed bones and muscles,
a narrow, almost concave chest, the right shoulder joint
slightly displaced, high forehead and fine blue eyes. A
cast of his head was taken by Knorr, and his remains
were exhumed in 1880.

Kant lived for philosophy alone. He held no
political office and never married. All the same, he
did. not consider it possible to be a philosopher, without
at the same time being a man, and so regarded it as
necessary to come into contact with the realities of life
before attempting to understand and regulate them.
In his loftiest aspirations he was careful not to overstep
the limits of this terrestrial world of ours. His object
was to live here below in accordance with his own
principles, which he looked upon as absolute and followed
out to the letter. To his mind, the reconciliation of
law and independence was to be found in reason ; by
it he determined to form his opinions and control his
life. In politics he professed liberalism, but would
not admit of any separation between liberty and order,
whilst he maintained a conscientious respect for estab-
lished power. In religion he was a rationalist, though
he deemed it right to uphold the spirit of Christianity,
and valued the work done by the positive religions. In
philosophy he attacked dogmatism, though rejecting
skepticism. In morals he repudiated all exterior laws,
though obeying an interior command of greater severity

KANT 265

than the laws he rejected. Boldness in speculation,
respect towards practical life and the material order of
things : such were his distinguishing traits.

Kant was a thinker more than a writer. Some of
his earlier works such as the Observations on the Beautiful
and the Sublime ', the Methodology of the Critique of Pure
Reason, and, speaking generally, the passages in which
he expresses his moral convictions, manifest a facile,
pleasing and vigorous style. In metaphysical analysis,
however, his style is complicated, laboured and redun-
dant, and often only the more obscure from the fact that
the author has made every effort to be clear. Kant's
work is a thought seeking its form. In more finished
shape, would it have stirred the human intellect to the
same degree ?

The following is a chronological list of Kant's
principal works, written, for the most part, in German :

Thoughts on the True Estimate of Living Force (Vis Fiva}^
and an Investigation into the Proofs of Leibnitz and other
Mechanical Philosophers thereon (1747). Kant, in this
work, reconciles the doctrines of Descartes and Leibnitz
with each other, as regards the measurement of the force
of a moving body.

Has the Earth^ from its Origin^ undergone any Modifications in
its Rotatory Motion ? (magazine article, 1754). Relying
on Newton's principles Kant clearly shows that the speed
of the earth's rotation must have diminished.

Is the Earth growing Old ? A research made from the physical
standpoint (article, 1754).

A Universal History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens^
dealing with the System and Mechanical Origin of the
Universe^ in accordance with Newton's Principles (1755), a
famous work that appeared anonymously, with a dedica-
tion to Frederick II., and serving as a kind of prelude to the
exposition of the world-system, published by Laplace in 1 796.

266 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Brief Account of some "Thoughts on Fire (in Latin) (1755).
Heat, like light, is a vibratory movement of the ether.

A New Explanation of the First Principles of Metaphysical
Knowledge (1755), a thesis in Latin; written to obtain
the right to be appointed privatdocent. It deals with the
principles of contradiction and determinative reason.

Three dissertations On Earthquakes that took place at £>uito and
Lisbon in 1755.

Physical Monadology (1756), Latin thesis; Kant defended this
thesis with a view to a professorship which he did not
obtain. In it he transformed the monad of Leibnitz into
a physical atom.

Explanatory Remarks on the Theory of the Winds (1756), a
precise explanation of periodical winds.

A New Conception of Motion and Rest (1758).

A Few Thoughts on Optimism (1759). Kant claims that
everything is good if we regard things as a whole. At
the end of his life he repudiated this work, inspired by
Leibnitz.

The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures (1762). The
first figure alone, he affirmed, was pure and primitive.

An Attempt to Introduce into Philosophy the Notion of Negative
Quantities (1763). Real opposition, in which the two
terms are equally positive in themselves cannot be reduced
to logical opposition, in which one of the terms contradicts
the other.

The only possible Foundation for a Demonstration of the Exist-
ence of God (1763). The possible, regarded not in its
form but in its matter or data, presupposes existence, and,
in the final analysis, the existence of a necessary being.

An Essay on the Evidence of the Fundamental Propositions of
Natural Theology and Ethics (1764), a work written for a
competition inaugurated by the Berlin Academy. Kant
obtained only the accessit^ the prize being awarded to
Mendelssohn. Both contrast philosophy with mathe-
matics, and Kant concludes that the methods employed in
the latter are not suitable for the former.

Observations on the Sentiment of the Beautiful and the Sublime
(1764) ; a work on morals and criticism.

KANT 267

Programme of Classes for the Winter Session (1765-17 66). The
education of the various faculties of the mind should
precede the acquiring of knowledge. In this treatise a
critical propensity begins to show itself.

Dreams of a Spirit-seer (or Clairvoyant] explained by the Dreams
of Metaphysic (i 766, anonymous). This work was inspired
by Swedenborg's visions. Kant here appears in a skeptical
and somewhat inconsiderate vein, a la Voltaire. The
only difference between illuminism and metaphysics, to his
mind, is that the former is the dream of sentiment, the
latter that of reason ; one is no better than the other.
Let us not claim to know the unknowable.

Grounds for distinguishing Positions in Space (1768). A refuta-
tion of the Leibnitzian theory which posits things before
space, this latter being reduced to nothing but a concept.
According to Kant, we must admit the existence of
universal, absolute space.

Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible Worlds
(1770), a dissertation in Latin, written in order to
obtain the right of being appointed professor of logic
and metaphysics. Kant breaks away from dogmatism as
regards sensible — though not intelligible — knowledge.

Letters to Marcus Herz^ from 1770 to 1781. Kant endeavours
to find some mean between idealism and realism.

The Different Human Races. The races are varieties that
have become stable. A true history of natural beings
would doubtless reduce many so-called species to the
position of simple races, the offshoot of one common
species.

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Theoretical knowledge
implies both intuition and necessary connection. As we
can realise the first condition only with regard to sensible
things, these latter are the only ones we can know
theoretically. In 1787, Kant published a second edition
of the Critique. Whether the changes in this second
edition refer to the substance or only to the form is a
much-disputed question. Rosenkranz, Schopenhauer and
Kuno Fischer agree that a thorough modification took
place, tending to restore the " thing-in-itself," which,

268 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

they alleged, the first edition had abolished. According
to Kant himself, the second edition merely emphasises
the realistic side of the doctrine, an aspect that had been
disregarded by certain readers. Kant's affirmation may
very well be maintained. The first edition did not abolish
the " thing-in-itself," but rather the theoretical knowledge
of the u thing-in-itself," a very different matter.

Prolegomena to all Future Metaphysics which may present itself
as Science (1783). This short work gives an analytical
exposition of the doctrine which the Critique of Pure
Reason had set forth synthetically, and rectifies the mistakes
made with reference to certain points in this doctrine.

Notion of a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan Sense (magazine
article, 1784).

Answer to the question : What is enlightenment ? (magazine
article, 1784). Enlightenment, says Kant, is the emanci-
pation of the intelligence.

An Account of Herder s work entitled : Ideas on the Philosophy of
the History of Mankind (magazine article, 1785). Kant
rejects the doctrine of the essential unity of nature and
freedom.

Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785; 4th edition,
1797). Here Kant determines and affirms the funda-
mental principle of morality.

Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science (1786 ; 3rd edition,
1800). In this work the axioms of pure physics are given.

Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History (1786).

Corporeal Medicine in so far as it comes under Philosophy ', a
discourse in Latin (1786 or 1788).

The Employment of Teleological Principles in Philosophy (article,
1788).

Critique of Practical Reason (1788; 6th edition, 1827). A
determination of the nature of the moral law, and of the
kind of adhesion that practical principles allow of.

Critique of Judgment (1790; 3rd edition, 1799). Here Kant
deals with the basis and value of the ideas of beauty and
finality.

Illuminism and the Remedies against it (1790). Dissertation on
Cagliostro.

KANT 269

The Failure of all Philosophic Effort in Theodicy (1791).

Religion within the Bounds of Reason only (1793 ; 2nd edition,
1794). The deduction or legitimation of religion. Only
what relates to morals is founded on religion. We must
tend to make religion purely rational.

The Commonplace Remark : " That is all Right in Theory but
Worthless in Practice" (magazine article, 1793). Kant
rejects this well-known aphorism not only as regards
morality, but also with reference to political and human
right.

The Influence of the Moon upon the Weather (article, 1 794).

Eternal Peace, a Philosophical Essay (1795). Eternal peace
Kant regards as the goal of the historic development of
mankind, and that, not from sentiment, but from the idea
of justice.

Metaphysical Principles of the Theory of Right (1797 ; 2nd
edition, 1798). The theory of right or legality as deduced
from the criticism of practical reason.

Metaphysical Principles of the Theory of Virtue (1797 ; 2nd
edition, 1803). The theory of morality, also as the result
of criticism. These two latter works bear the title :
Metaphysics of Morals.

Contest of the Faculties (to this work is added an article that
appeared in 1797 : The Power of the Mind to Master its
Morbid Feelings by Will alone] (i 798). This was the conflict
of the Faculty of Philosophy, representing rational truth,
with the three other Faculties : Theology, Law, and
Medicine, representing the positive disciplines.

Anthropology Treated from the Pragmatic Point of View (1798 ;
2nd edition, 1800). Pragmatic anthropology is the art of
using men for one's own purposes.

Logic, a work published by Jasche (1800).

Physical Geography, published by Rink (1802-1803).

Paedagogics, published by Rink (1803). Notes taken from

several lectures delivered by Kant on this subject.
Transition from the Metaphysical Principles of the Science of
Nature to Physics, an unfinished work, written between
1783 and 1803, first published by Reicke between 1882
and 1884 in the Altpreussische Monatsschriften, and then,

270 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

more completely, by Albrecht Krause (1888). Here we
have the progress of deduction proceeding from the meta-
physics of material nature to experimental physics regarded
as a science, i.e. as a system.

Kant's Reflections on Critical Philosophy^ published by Benno
Erdmann (1882-1884).

Letters. About a hundred, nineteen of which were addressed
to Marcus Herz.

II. — THE ANTECRITICAL PERIOD

On the 2Oth of August 1777 Kant left it on record
that his investigations, hitherto professional and frag-
mentary, had finally taken systematic form and brought
him to the idea of the whole. Thus, in the first place,
the development of Kantian thought shows a long
period of formation, during which works of different
kinds were undertaken for themselves alone without
reference to a general standpoint, and afterwards
brought together with a view to being reconciled with
each other. And so Kant's thought progresses from
the parts to the whole. His main idea is arrived at by
a process of synthesis. This first period extends to
the time of his elaboration of criticism, i.e. up to and
including the year 1770.

The starting-point of Kantian thought is, on the
one hand, a substratum of Christian, and more especi-
ally of Pietistic beliefs, faith in duty, the cult of moral
intention, conviction of the superiority of practice over
dogmatism ; on the other, a very clear, keen sense of
science, the determination to be guided, so far as a
knowledge of nature is concerned, only by the evidence
of experience and mathematical reasoning. Hence-
forth Kant is principally concerned with the connec-
tion between science and religion ; this, too, after both

KANT 271

have been developed in his mind independently, each
according to its own method.

During the antecritical period Kant meditates in
turn on the divers objects presented both by his studies
and by the circumstances of life.

From 1747 to 1755 he is a Leibnitzo-Wolfian,
though with a tendency to accentuate the difference
between the mathematical and the real.

With Newton, he studies the mechanism of the
heavens, from 1754 to 1763. Like him, he determines
to employ experience only in conjunction with mathe-
matics. Newton, however, did not state the problem
of origins. Kant believes that the method which has
established the present system is capable of going
back to the genesis of this very system : the forces that
preserve must also be the forces that have created.
He undertakes to trace not only the possible but the
real, the actual history of the formation of the world.

In the beginning was one homogeneous, elementary
matter, moved by forces of attraction and repulsion : a
gaseous chaos. This matter was maintained in a state
of extreme tenuity by being kept at a very high
temperature. In obedience to the forces contained
within itself this chaos is subjected to a movement of
rotation. Purely as the result of these physical condi-
tions the homogeneous becomes differentiated. Rota-
tion occasions the formation of nebulae, which themselves
acquire a rotatory movement. In turn these nebulae,
as the result of the centrifugal force, produce rings, and
these rings represent the orbits of future planets. Then
the rings break, and collect together again in planets.
Satellites are formed in the same way.

The scientific value of this theory is now recognised
even by such men as Helmholtz (Mdmoire sur la conser-

272 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

vation de la force •, 1847) anc^ Fave (Revue scienttfique^
1884).

The theory was the result of purely scientific con-
siderations. Kant, however, at once confronts it with
the teachings of religion. Religion, he says, has
nothing to fear from a doctrine which, though dis-
missing accidental and extrinsic finality, as met with in
the works of men, implies, on the other hand, a fruitful
and essential finality, which alone is truly worthy of
God. Besides, who will ever be able to say, " Give
me matter and motion and I will make a snail " ? At
its very lowest stage life is immeasurably superior to
mechanism ; it is a witness to God.

Following on Wolf, Kant studies the relations
between possibility and existence (1755). The prin-
ciple of contradiction is the law of the former ; the
principle of determining reason, irreducible to that of
contradiction, is the law of the latter. Determining
reason is either antecedently determining and a reason
of existence, or subsequently determining and a reason
of knowledge. Antecedently determining reason alone
gives us complete science. From these principles Kant
deduces the impossibility of, explaining, solely by the
analysis of their distinctive essence, either change or
the real connection between substances* All rela-
tions between substances must come from without.
Thus, succession has its foundation in an external
action which constitutes the reality of the world, whilst
coexistence is based on an extrinsic connection which
implies the existence of God. And so, speculating
on Wolr's metaphysics, Kant ends in a deduction of the
principles of Newtonianism. His system at this period
may be defined as realistic mechanism dependent on
natural theology.

KANT 273

Dealing with the relations between philosophy and
mathematics, as did his contemporaries (1756-1764),
Kant neither admits that the concepts of the mathema-
ticians, infinite divisibility, an absolute plenum, the
exclusive mechanism of all notion of force, are intel-
ligible to the understanding, nor that these concepts
are meaningless and devoid of real value. Though a
stumbling-block to the logician, mathematics is none
the less the key of the science of nature, as Newton
proved. The problem is to reconcile mathematics
with transcendental philosophy, not to sacrifice the one
to the other. Now, if we analyse the conditions of
mathematical speculation, and those of philosophic
speculation, we find that in both cases the object is a
synthesis, but that in the former it is built up by the
mind, and in the latter it is given to the mind. Hence,
the method that suits the one is useless for the other.
Everything referring to dimension will be dealt with
mathematically, but if we would know qualities and
existences, we shall use experience and metaphysical
systematisation, along with Newton. There are two
certainties, two outlooks upon nature : that of mathe-
matical proof and that of experience. These two
paths of knowledge, starting from opposite poles, can
never meet.

Yielding to the influence of the aesthetician Baum-
garten, Rousseau and the English philosophers, Kant
takes up the questions of taste and morals (1763-1766).
His method consists in taking, as his starting-point,
an impartial observation of human nature. We must
proceed, he says, from what is to what ought to be.
His observation, however, in spite of himself, is tinged
with metaphysical analysis. In the given he is about
to discover the absolute. What he thinks he ought

T

274 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

to observe is not so much ideas and things as the inner
movements of sensibility. Taking this point of view,
he is led to make a profound distinction between the
beautiful and the sublime. This distinction introduces
enlightenment and precision into literature and art.
Thus, it is the province of tragedy to be sublime, that
of comedy to be beautiful. The distinction likewise
applies to morals. True virtue is sublime ; good quali-
ties : a kind heart, the sense of honour, modesty, are only
beautiful. The spring of virtue is the sentiment of the
beauty and dignity of human nature, regarded as a
motive of action. This principle must be understood
in a formal sense : it consists essentially of an obligatory
rule. This principle, too, is impossible of demonstra-
tion ; and it is good that it should be so. Providence
has not willed that knowledge indispensable to our
happiness should depend on subtle reasoning ; it has
entrusted such knowledge to natural common sense.

Swedenborg's claim that he held direct communica-
tion with spirits, affords Kant an opportunity to examine
the value of metaphysics, so far as it also affirms the
possibility of becoming acquainted with suprasensible
existences (1763-1766). Metaphysics seems to meet
with unexpected confirmation in the facts affirmed by
illuminism. It is apparently justified by the theory it
advances thereof, as Newtonianism is justified by the
explanation it affords of the experimental laws of motion.
Unfortunately, illuminism can be explained in a far
simpler and more satisfactory manner, as hallucination
caused by certain organic disturbances. Might it not
then possibly happen that metaphysics had a like origin ?
What if it were, after all, a mere hallucination of the
understanding, endowing the phantoms of sensible
hallucination with an apparently logical existence ? All

KANT 275

the same, we must beware of leaping to the conclusion
that metaphysics is altogether inane. In one scale of
the balance it places the hope of a future life. Now,
we could not will that this weight remain actionless on
our mind. What we do know, is that we can expect
nothing from experience calculated to confirm our moral
and religious beliefs. But these beliefs need no experi-
mental confirmation ; they both will and ought to be
free. In a word, the result of our examination is that
we must offer the following new definition of meta-
physics, one alike favourable to practice and imposed
upon theory : metaphysics is the science of the limits
of human reason.

Kant, like Leibnitz, studies the nature of space and
time (1768-1770). Several facts of experience, includ-
ing the real existence of symmetrical figures, prove that
geometrical space is no mere consequence of the relations
between things in point of position, but rather the basis
of the possibility of these relations. The reality of
absolute space being thus established, Kant asks himself
how space is possible, i.e. conceivable without contra-
diction. Space and time are known a priori ; at the
same time they are intuitions. How can these two
characteristics be reconciled ? The only way of doing
so, is to regard space and time as the conditions imposed
on the human mind, by its very nature, for the percep-
tion of sensible objects. Space and time do not concern
things as they are in themselves, but only as they
appear to our sensibility. The " critique " idea has
come to birth, but Kant applies it, so far, only to
sensible or mathematical knowledge.

It was through Hume's influence that Kant's thought,
which had hitherto wandered over all kinds of subjects,
was finally to become concentrated and steadied (1762-

276 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

1780). Hume's dialectic made such an impression on
Kant's mind that he soon thought of nothing else than
solving the difficulties raised by the famous skeptic. In
this task his true originality was shown, and there
blossomed forth the idea which was to be the soul of his
philosophy. Kant had long ago pondered on the rela-
tion between cause and effect, he soon saw the element
of strangeness in a connection which could not be
analytical, and yet was necessary. Still, he did not
think of criticising its legitimacy. It was Hume who
roused him out of his dogmatic calmness, proclaiming
that the concept of causality — a concept foreign to
reason, formed by nothing but imagination on the occa-
sion of a mere habit and under the influence of some
obscure instinct — could have no object outside of our-
selves. Kant refused to follow Hume in the deductions
the latter claimed to found on this analysis of his.
Indeed, what would become of the freedom of the will,
the condition of moral determination, if there existed
for us nothing but phenomena ; and what would become
of science itself, the knowledge of things as necessary,
if causality were nothing more than a subjective con-
nection ? In Kant's mind, science and morals are given,
as are also the characteristics peculiar to them ; it is
the part of philosophy to explain their possibility or
conditions, not to discuss their reality.

And so Hume's thesis was not a doctrine, but rather
a problem, a starting-point for Kant. How comes it
to pass that a relation, the terms of which are hetero-
geneous, should also be posited as necessary as valid
for things ? This was the question to be answered.

First, he had to satisfy himself that the principle of
causality did not proceed from experience, for in that
event its necessity would have been radically unintelli-

KANT 277

gible. Having noticed, however, that many other
concepts, such as those of substance, mutual action, etc.,
held the same position as the one with which Hume had
grappled, and having succeeded in determining the exact
number of these concepts by means of a single principle,
a thing impossible in the case of concepts of experience,
Kant from that time regarded it as established that the
concept of cause may be acknowledged to have an origin
a priori. And yet, can there conceivably be concepts
that are at once a priori and synthetical ! Have we
not here two incompatible characteristics? This was
Hume's idea, and so he gave up the problem, discarding
causality in favour of experience. The reason was that
he shared a prevailing error of the age upon an im-
portant point closely connected with the question : the
nature of mathematical judgments. These latter he
regarded as analytical, and so refused to consider them.
In reality, they are synthetical ; and as their character
of necessity and apriority is indisputable, and even un-
disputed, they afford an instance of the effective union,
within our knowledge, of apriority and synthetic con-
nection. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent the
judgment of causality from being both synthetic and
necessary.

Nevertheless, it is not enough for it to be necessary
in the sense that mathematical judgments are necessary.
Necessary, in the sense of causal connection, means :
applicable a priori to real things. How is such a
property possible ? If objects were produced by the
understanding, or ideas by objects, the agreement between
concepts and things would afford no difficulty ; but such
is not the case : mind and things form two distinct
worlds. Then how does the mind come to have the
right to dictate laws for things ? It acquires this right,

278 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

answers Kant, from the conditions of experience itself,
both inner and outer : no other explanation is possible.
This view, the origin of transcendental deduction, is
the goal of the regressive movement occasioned by
Hume's criticism. It includes the formula of Kant's
criticism, and the central idea of the system he is now
to build up.

III. — CRITICISM

The Kantian criticism of pure reason is strictly a
theory of science. As Newton sought for the principle
governing the system of celestial bodies, so Kant seeks
for the principle governing the system of our knowledge.
Science is given, just as the universe is given ; philosophy
does not ask whether it is possible or not, but how it
is possible, i.e. conceivable without contradiction.

Science consists of two disciplines, mathematics and
physics, and the union of the two ; we must take these
facts into account. Mathematics consists of a priori
synthetic judgments, i.e. judgments in which the subject
is attached a priori to a predicate not contained in it.
It is the same with physics. Ever since the time of
Newton, the certainty of physics, which deals with
things themselves, is in no way inferior to that of
mathematics, which deals only with relations of dimen-
sion. How are these characteristics intelligible, whence
do they proceed, and what is science, considered in its
generating principles ? It is the object of Kant's in-
vestigations to answer these questions.

And it is the province of philosophy to institute
these investigations. Now, the inviolable principle
philosophy gives us in this matter, is the following :
all our knowledge has its starting-point in experience.
We have to discover if, from this principle, there can

KANT 279

be deduced the theory of science, as given to us.
Thus, the problem resolves itself into the following
question : " What is experience ? Is it an irreducible
unity, or can analysis discern different elements in it ?
Of these elements, are there any a 'priori ? Will these
a priori elements account for the necessity proper to
the judgments of science, and in what way ? "

In experience, an object is first given, secondly
thought. How is that possible ?

For an object to be given to us, it must be presented
in space and time. Are the notions of space and time
supplied by experience ? No, for before experience,
we know that the objects given will be given in space
and time. Consequently, they are a priori elements.
What is their nature ? Are they concepts ? No, for
space and time are objects that are integral, homo-
geneous, and infinite, characteristics opposed to those
offered by the objects of the concepts. Space and
time are substrata of the things and objects of intuition.
Then, are they suprasensible realities outside of our-
selves ? No, for the conception of two infinite non-
beings as substances is impossible. After all, the
representation of space and time can only be an intuition
resting on the form of our sensibility. Space and time
are our way of seeing things.

But then, if such is the case, are not our ideas of
place and duration purely subjective ? With such
a doctrine, what is to become of the truth of mathe-
matics ?

The objection is groundless, for, as a matter of fact,
it is in dogmatic theories, isolating the sensible from
the mathematical, that the agreement of the one with
the other is undemonstrable. Mathematics is justified
if regarded in its true nature as a system of a priori

280 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

synthetic judgments, when once objects are capable of
affecting us only by becoming subject to the laws of time
and space. Doubtless we cannot say that things, in
themselves, possess modes of being that we can only
explain as forms of our power to feel. But we know,
a priori^ that every object of our sensibility will con-
form with mathematics, and that is sufficient to insure
the objectivity of this science. Transcendental ideality
and empirical reality are the two characteristics of time
and space. They explain and determine the possibility
of mathematics.

This is the explanation of the first condition of
experience : there is a second. For an object to be
given is not sufficient, it must also be thought. Does
thought imply a priori elements ?

Thought consists in setting up between two terms
an objective relationship of subject and predicate, i.e. in
affirming that the one, really and of necessity, belongs
to the other. This is what takes place, for instance,
when we say that one thing is the cause or substance
of another. Such a connection cannot be supplied by
experience, which gives nothing necessary. There-
fore, it is known a priori, though in what way ? If we
consider logic as it has been conceived of ever since the
time of Aristotle, we note that it supplies many necessary
connections, but yet is unable to determine one term as
being a real subject regarding the other. In every
declaration relative to existence, there is something
more than simple logic. To affirm of an object that it
is a cause, is to go beyond the limits of its concept.
Now, we are without that intellectual intuition of the
whole, which alone would enable its parts to be dis-
closed by a process of analysis. We proceed, in discur-
sive fashion, from the parts to the whole. On what

KANT 281

principle, then, do the different relations that constitute
thought, depend ?

Apart from those we have had to reject, there
remains only the understanding itself, or the faculty
of judging. As relations of dimension are, at bottom,
only the forms of our sensibility, so qualitative relations
of things cannot be anything else than the categories of
our understanding.

If this is so, the logical function of the under-
standing will enable us to detect and systematise all
the concepts that control judgments of existence. For,
on both sides, it is the province of the understanding
to unify ; the extent of this unification alone causes
difference. The table of the modes of logical unification
thus supplies a model for the table of categories.

The following is the logical table of judgments :
ist, from the standpoint of quantity : universal, par-
ticular and individual propositions ; 2nd, from the
standpoint of quality : affirmative, negative and in-
determinate propositions ; 3rd, from the standpoint
of relation : categorical, hypothetical and disjunctive
propositions ; 4th, from the standpoint of modality :
problematical, assertorial and apodeictic propositions,

The following is the transcendental table of the
concepts of understanding : ist, from the standpoint of
quantity : unity, multiplicity, universality ; 2nd, from
the standpoint of quality : reality, negation, limitation ;
3rd, from the standpoint of relation: inherence and
subsistence, causality and dependence, reciprocal action ;
4th, from the standpoint of modality : possibility or
impossibility, existence or non-existence, necessity or
contingency.

This is the system of concepts or categories by whose
aid we unite our representations of things. As these

282 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

concepts are only the modes of action of our under-
standing, in themselves they are devoid of all content.
They can find a use only if they are supplied with
matter, and the only matter at our disposal is sensible
intuition. Have concepts, then, only a subjective
value ; and whereas transcendental esthetics or the
analysis of sensibility may have pronounced for mathe-
matical realism, will the analysis of the understanding
or transcendental logic have to confine itself to that
logical idealism which resolves things into modes of
thought ?

Here we have the famous transcendental deduction
whose object is to establish the objective value of the
categories, i.e. the possibility of obtaining, by means
of the categories as they have been determined, the
knowledge not only of our way of thinking, but of the
things themselves. This possibility will be demon-
strated if it can be proved that the categories are them-
selves the condition of the existence of realities, from
our standpoint. Categories apply to things, if things,
to us, are possible only by their means.

According to our condition, in order that there may
be knowledge of a thing, there must be distinction
between subject and object : " I think " should accom-
pany all our representations. For such a condition to
be possible, however, there must exist between the
two terms a relation analogous to that between positive
and negative quantities in mathematics, a relation of
opposition on a common ground. The subject being
a unifying action, the object must be a unified multiple.
And so it is because things are unified, and unified for
the subject, that they can be presented as an object.

Now, how could this condition be satisfied, were
not the multiple unified by the subject itself? Doubt-

KANT 283

less the empirical consciousness does not perceive this
formation of the object. The operation takes place in
the depths of transcendental apperception implied by the
empirical consciousness ; and when the particular I is
posited, it finds the object ready formed before it, and
takes it for a brute thing. This thing, however, is the
work of thought, therefore thought, in each of us,
recognises its own laws therein. Thus the categories
are necessarily applied to the things themselves, so far
as they exist for us ; consequently they have an
objective value.

Again, as the only intuitions at the disposal of our
understanding, for the forming of objects thereof, are
our sensible intuitions, and as the latter do not represent
things as they are in themselves, but only the exigencies
of our sensibility, one consequence of our human con-
dition is that even our intellectual knowledge is unable
to attain to the absolute, it remains confined to the
world of experience. Empirical realism, and trans-
cendental idealism are allied and correlative terms.

Thus, on the other hand, we find a place reserved
for the suprasensible itself. Indeed, the concept of the
" thing-in-itself," whilst limitative of the claims of our
science, enables us to conceive of a world other than
the one with which we are acquainted, and there-
fore susceptible of being freed from the conditions
of our knowledge, and especially from the necessary
connection which is opposed to freedom.^ We are
permitted to superpose the noumenon on to the pheno-
menon.

It is essentially this doctrine that contains the philo-
sophic revolution wrought by Kant. Instead of
admitting, as appearances would seem to indicate, that
thought gravitates around things, Kant, like a modern

284 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Copernicus, causes things to gravitate around thought.
From this point of view, he says, the disorderly and
the inexplicable give way to the orderly and the intel-
ligible. The agreement between the laws of nature
and the laws of our mind is no longer either an in-
soluble problem or an object of faith : it is a scientifi-
cally demonstrated truth. And this revolution, which
guarantees the objective value of science, is equally
favourable to morals, which latter, in the field opened
up by criticism, can now be developed unhindered, in
conformity with the laws proper to itself. " It was
only by abolishing learning," says Kant, with reference
to the so-called knowledge of the suprasensible, " that
I could find room for belief."

It is not enough, however, to lay down that, in
order to be thought of and to become objects, the
divers elements of intuition must be brought under the
concepts of the understanding. How will concept, the
one and universal, unite with phenomenon, the diverse
and particular ? How shall we be brought to apply
to intuition any one category rather than any other ?
A middle term is here necessary.

This middle term is supplied by a faculty inter-
mediary between understanding and sensibility : viz.
imagination. In the form of the inner sense, i.e. in
temporal intuition, imagination traces out, a priori^
frames into which phenomena are capable of fitting,
and which indicate under what category they are to
be brought. Kant calls these frames schemata of the
concepts of pure understanding. Each category has its
own schema. The schema of quantity is number, that
of substance is the permanence of the real in time ;
that of causality, the regular succession of phenomena,
and so on. The observance of regular succession, for

KANT 285

instance, is a signal to us that the category of cause is
being employed.

Still, the schemata are not yet sufficient to objectivise
phenomena, because they only call forth the employ-
ment of a given category, without justifying this
operation. But they make possible a priori synthetic
judgments which complete the elimination of the
subjective. These judgments are the principles of pure
understanding. Understanding forms them a priori^
by determining the conditions of an objective employ-
ment of the schemata. They are : the principle of
quantity : " All intuitions are extensive dimensions " ;
the principle of quality : " In all phenomena, sensation,
as well as the real which corresponds thereto in the
object, possesses an intensive dimension, a degree " ;
the principle of relation : " All phenomena have a
necessary connection in time." The principle of
modality indicates the way in which a thing should
agree with the conditions of experience, in order to be
possible, real, or necessary. The proof of these prin-
ciples consists in showing that, without them, the
meaning of the schemata remains indeterminate ; that
the sensible can be determined and objecti vised only by
the intellectual. Thus, succession, for instance, instead
of itself founding causality, can be regarded as objective
only if it is founded thereon.

On reaching this stage, Kant was enabled to accom-
plish the second of the two tasks he had set himself :
that of justifying physics and its alliance with mathe-
matics. The first two principles — so-called mathema-
tical— establish the application of mathematics to the
science of nature. The second two — so-called dynamic
— establish the physical laws strictly so called. In
their entirety, the principles of pure understanding

286 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

constitute the first distinctive features of natural
philosophy. This theory, whilst being the meta-
physical justification of Newtonian science, was the
starting-point of that speculation which, with Schelling,
enjoyed so dangerous a renown, under the name of the
philosophy of nature.

Up to this point, Kant has analysed sensibility and
understanding. There remains reason, properly so
called, the object of which faculty is the complete
unification of knowledge. Its syllogisms infer the
unconditioned as their starting-point. So we see that
reason is the faculty of the ideas, or concepts, of the
total synthesis of the conditions.

From what precedes, we find that the ideas of
reason have no real object. Going beyond all possible
experience, they can be nothing but regulative, non-
constitutive principles of knowledge. The illusion,
however, which makes us believe in their objectivity, is
natural, as is that of the man who believes the moon to
be larger at its rise than at its meridian. To destroy
this illusion it is not enough to demonstrate the falsity
of our opinion ; its origin must be disclosed, it must
be shown that, in this domain, in contradistinction to
what takes place when dealing with objects of possible
experience, it is wholly illegitimate to pass from the
logical to the real ; and that the dialectic which lies deep
hidden in dogmatic metaphysics must be denounced.

Reason thinks it can build up : ist, a rational
psychology, on the idea of the soul-substance ; 2nd, a
rational cosmology, on the idea of the world as absolute
reality ; 3rd, a rational theology, on the idea of God as
the absolute basis of the possibility of being in general.
In each of these domains it is mistaken regarding its
own power.

KANT 287

When inferring the existence of an absolute subject
from the reality of the thinking being, it illegitimately
passes from a unity of form to one of substance, and
commits a paralogism.

When attempting to determine the absolute existence
it attributes to the world, reason becomes involved in
insurmountable antinomies. Indeed, it proves, with
like rigour, by the absurdity of the contradictory
proposition, that the world both has, and has not,
limits ; that it consists of simple parts, and is divided
ad infinitum ; that freedom exists and that nothing free
exists ; that there is a necessary being, and that there
exist only contingent beings. The very production of
these antinomies proves the illegitimacy of the point of
view that gives birth to them, that is, of the supposition
of a world existing in itself. In the first two anti-
nomies, thesis and antithesis are alike false. In the
latter two, they become true of each other if we have
recourse to that distinction between phenomenon and
noumenon called forth by analysis of the understanding.
The free and the absolute are possible in the world of
noumena, whereas natural causality and contingency
hold sway in that of phenomena.

Finally, when reason speculates on perfect being,
it gratuitously converts into a reality, a substance, a
person, the ideal in which it unites all the modes of
being possessed by finite things. Consequently, the
reasonings it forms to prove the existence of this
supreme person will not hold together. The onto-
logical argument, the basis of all the rest, wrongly
considers existence as a predicate, which can be obtained
from a concept by analysis : existence is the position of
a thing outside of thought and is absolutely inaccessible
to analysis. To this error the cosmological argument

288 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

adds the affirmation of a first cause in the name of
the principle of causality, and this principle, just in
so far as it is vouched for, excludes the possibility of
a first cause. Lastly the physico-theological argument,
or the argument of final causes, adds to the defects of
the first two the false comparison of the world to a
work of man, and the arbitrary transition from an
" architect " God to a perfect " creator " God.

The general cause of this dialectic of our reason is
our natural disposition to believe that the conditions of
our thought are also the conditions of being, that the
laws of our knowledge are the laws of reality. Criti-
cism alone can dispel this illusion ; but the necessity
of criticism is seen only in the consequences of this
very illusion. The ideas of our reason correspond to
nothing real : none the less are they useful as excitative
and regulative principles. They forbid our halting in
our search after causes. We cannot begin with God,
but our efforts should tend in his direction.

And so criticism is established, wherein Kant sees
the goal of the education of reason. The human
mind began, and was compelled to begin, with dog-
matism, or a blind belief in the absolute existence of
the objects of our thoughts : Leibnitzo-Wolfianism is
the complete expression thereof. Then came skepticism,
excellently represented by Hume, who inferred, from
the vices of dogmatism, the impossibility of knowing
reality and the absolute subjectivity of knowledge. But
skepticism is only a warning to mistrust dogmatism.
Criticism, or the science of our ignorance, forbids us to
speculate on the nature of things as they are in them-
selves ; at the same time, it withdraws experience from
imagination and the individual sense, to make it an
object common to all human intelligences and conse-

KANT 289

quently substantial and real to ourselves. At the same
time, criticism frees being in itself from the fatum
which the presumption of the understanding caused to
lie heavy on it ; it makes conceivable a world wherein
freedom and the moral laws would hold undivided
sway. The advantage is twofold, being both practical
and speculative ; it attests to the providential harmony
of our needs with our powers of knowing.

The " critique " of pure reason has explained the
possibility of science ; in the same way, the possibility
of morals must now be explained. We are not trying
to find out if morality is possible, since it exists, but
rather on what it rests and what its meaning is. Here,
too, a sane philosophy can recognise no other starting-
point for knowledge than experience, but this ex-
perience must be analysed.

The general idea afforded, in this connection, by
common reason, is the concept of good will. Is this
concept altogether empirical ?

When examined, it is found to imply the idea of a
law which ought to be observed for itself, without
regard for the consequences of the actions it enforces.
This law is not a hypothetical imperative, dependent
on such or such an end to be attained : it is a categori-
cal imperative. It can be formulated only in the
following terms : act in such a way that you would
wish the maxim of your action to be set up as a uni-
versal Jaw. Now, such a principle does not proceed
from experience, it is known a priori.

Can we find its origin ? If we try to discover under
what conditions a practical principle may be universally
obligatory upon us, we shall find that it ought to imply
no object or matter as a mobile of the will. Indeed,

u

290 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

given the faculties we possess, there are none other than
empirical objects as far as we are concerned, the only
matter at our disposal in the practical order of things
is pleasure or the satisfaction of the love of self ; and
pleasure cannot supply a universal, obligatory prin-
ciple. The intention of our will, alone, depends entirely
on ourselves and fulfils the requisite conditions. Law,
then, is a purely formal principle which implies nothing
else than itself and a will free to accomplish it. It has
its root in the autonomy of the will.

But even in this, is it not illusory ? Detached from
things and referred to the subject, is it not purely sub-
jective ? Can we escape from idealism in the practical,
as we have done in the theoretical order of things ?

To deduce the moral law from the conditions of
experience is impossible, since every object of experience
ought to be separated from moral determination ; but,
on the other hand, the moral law itself establishes a
deduction from freedom. If I ought to, it is because
I can. Moreover, if speculative reason has had to
be debarred from knowing freedom, it has none the
less regarded it as possible, even theoretically ; and
thus the moral law has a basis in the reality of things,
as this reality is theoretically known to us, viz. in that
region of existence to which the knowledge of things as
phenomena refers us. If the moral law is the ratio
cognoscenti of freedom, the latter supplies the former
with its ratio essendi.

So far, however, we have only reached a principle, a
formal law. Now, morality also offers us concepts, the
two principal of which are those of good and evil. Can
we search into and understand these concepts ? After
eliminating all empirical matter, we have to deduce fresh
matter from a principal posited as purely formal.

KANT 291

The course we must take is apparently paradoxical.
Is it not duty that is deduced from good, and not good
that is determined by duty? The ancients, in their
search after the sovereign good, constantly followed the
first, the dogmatic course. Now, willingly or unwillingly,
it came about that they founded morals on empirical
data. It could not be otherwise. From good, one
cannot deduce duty, unless this good is already moral
good, and it is only moral if there has previously been
instilled into it the very duty it is desired to deduce
therefrom. On the other hand, it is possible, by means
of duty, to determine good ; it is possible for law
posited as primary, to find a suitable object in the
sensible world itself, the only one we can affect. For
this sensible world not only does not clash with the
universality characterising the moral law, but is itself
subject to universal laws. Good, therefore, is the realisa-
tion in the sensible world of a form of universality
capable of being the symbol of practical reason.

This doctrine of Kant's rejects mysticism as well as
empiricism. Though the principle of determination
ought to be obtained from the world of noumena, it is
in the world of phenomena that morality will be realised
and practised. And the very principle of determina-
tion will not remain unrelated to nature. There exists
a feeling which is within nature and which likewise
goes beyond it, and that is respect, a special affection
aroused by the idea of law in a soul endowed both with
sensible tendencies and with reason. Respect is the
moral mobile. The inclination it enshrouds, and which
comes from the will, does no harm to the disinterested
practice of duty.

And so the'given morality is explained and defined
in all its elements : mobiles, concepts, and principles.

292 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Here, too, we had only to go back from experience to
its conditions, in order to explain whatever is absolute
in our knowledge, without detracting from the general
principle of modern science and philosophy.

And not only does criticism thus insure the founda-
tions of morals, it also discloses the spring and reason
of religious beliefs from the very point to which this
investigation has brought it. Reason requires the full
performance of duty, it exacts the union of virtue with
happiness. How can such an object be realised ?

The necessity of answering this question leads us on
to theoretical propositions that cannot be demonstrated
as such, but are inseparably bound to practical truths
of an absolute character. These propositions Kant
calls postulates. They are three in number :

1. Freedom : necessary in order that man may
determine himself, apart from all sensible attraction,
in accordance with the laws of a purely intelligible
world. Doubtless, freedom does not intervene in the
course of phenomena, which would cease to be objects
of possible experience if the law of cause and effect
were violated in them. It is complete and entire, how-
ever, in the world of noumena, in which it establishes
personality and creates within each of us an intelligible
character, of which our empirical character is the symbol.

2. Immortality : necessary in order that indefinite
progress may be realised, without which the perfect
adaptation of our will to the moral law is inconceivable.

3. God : necessary in order that we may establish
that agreement which reason demands, between morality
and happiness, and the principle of which is contained
in neither the one nor the other.

Thus, morality leads to religion, not as to some
theoretical science explaining the nature of things, but

KANT 293

rather as to the knowledge of our duties in so far as they
are divine commands.

And so criticism, continuing its progress, gradually
re-establishes all the suprasensible existences it had
overthrown. Is it self-contradictory in doing this?
By no means ; since it no longer regards these exist-
ences in the same manner. The criticism of pure
reason has demonstrated that such objects cannot be
known theoretically, i.e. by the aid of intuitions which
determine them. This result subsists. The criticism
of pure reason, however, did not prevent our conceiving
of objects above experience, on the contrary it allowed
and invited this. On the other hand, the criticism of
practical reason in no way shows us the world shut out
from us by the criticism of pure reason, it does not
give us an intuition thereof, but offers us, as connected
with the existence of duty, the objects on which theo-
retical reason could not declare itself. It brings us to
say, not : It is certain there is a God and immortality ;
but rather : I will there to be a God, I will my being,
in one aspect, to be free and immortal. That is not
a matter of science, it is a practical, pure, and rational
belief. We can neither see the object nor deduce it
from what we see ; we can only conceive of it. How
fortunate this inability ! For were we in possession of
the missing faculty, instead of duty tempering and
ennobling our will, God and eternity, with all their
awful majesty, would ever be before our eyes, and
would reduce us, through fear, to the condition of
marionettes, making the proper movements but devoid
of life or moral worth. " The mysterious wisdom by
which we exist is no less admirable in the gifts it has
refused than in those it has granted to us" (Critique of
Practical Reason, Part i. Book ii. Chapter ix.).

294 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Criticism has explained the existence of science and
morals. To complete the different orders of our know-
ledge, it remains for us to examine the notions of taste
and finality. Will experience be able to supply us
with their principle and their limits ?

The experimental datum here considered is judg-
ment ; not determining judgment, which proceeds from
the general to the particular, but reflecting judgment,
which rises from the particular to the general. This
judgment is that which affirms the existence in nature,
not only of laws in general, but of certain determinate
laws. It calls for a special principle which can be only
the following : just as the universal laws of nature are
based in our understanding, which prescribes them to
nature, so, as regards empirical and particular laws,
everything takes place as though they also had been
dictated by an understanding that purposed to make
intelligible and objective the very details of the pheno-
mena. This reason of particular laws may be sought
for, either in the agreement of things with our faculty
of knowing, i.e. in the beautiful, or in the agreement
of things with themselves, i.e. in finality.

Appreciation of the beautiful cannot be explained
by sensation alone, as Burke would have it. The
beautiful is not the agreeable ; it is disinterested, the
object of a real judgment. Nor is it explained by
reason alone, according to Baumgarten the Wolfian.
The beautiful is not the perfect : it dwells only in the
form, not in the matter, of the object, and it pleases
without aiming at pleasing but solely by reason of its
harmony, by a kind of endless finality : in a word, it
has something of feeling in its nature. Formed a
priori and being subjective at the same time, what is
the origin of the judgment of taste ?

KANT 295

It can only be explained as the working of an
aesthetic common sense, or the faculty of perceiving
some agreement between our sensible faculty of know-
ing and our intellectual faculty. Those objects are
beautiful, before which our imagination finds itself, of
its own accord, satisfying our understanding. The
beautiful is the feeling that our faculties are at play,
somewhat analogous to a physical pastime, wherein the
spontaneous observance of a rule freely laid down in
no way trammels the free expression of activity. Con-
sequently, the beautiful dwells only within ourselves ;
it has no other origin or rule than the special sense in
which sensibility and understanding meet each other.

From the beautiful, properly so called, that we are
now analysing, we must distinguish the sublime, as
being another species of the same genus. Whereas the
beautiful object is the adequate sensible realisation of
the idea, the sublime object utterly routs the imagina-
tion, which spends itself in vain attempts to represent
an idea transcending it. There are no images, but only
symbols, of the infinite. The substratum of the sub-
lime and the beautiful alike can therefore be nothing
else than our suprasensible nature, and the need of
agreement between that nature and our sensible nature.

But then does not this analysis result in the judg-
ment of taste being denied all objective value ? Such
would be the case, had the objectivity of the beautiful
to consist, in our mind, of some property of things in
themselves : such an objectivity, however, is an illusion.
The sense of taste that we have found, has an objec-
tive import, in so far as it alone makes intelligible the
characteristic of beauty that we attribute to objects,
and in so far as this very sense should be considered
identical in all beings capable of sensibility and dis-

296 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

cursive understanding. The universality of the faculty
is sufficient to establish the objectivity of the operation.

But if we now consider things of taste, especially art,
whose existence is given, our doctrine will supply die
theory thereof. Art is a product of intelligence, and
ought to appear a product of nature ; it has an object
and ought to seem not to have one ; it punctually
observes rules and does this without manifesting effort.
All these characteristics are explained as soon as man
possesses a faculty wherein the understanding, which
thinks and rules, coincides with the imagination, which
sees, feels, and invents. The spring of genius is dis-
covered in the general essence of man. And it is also
seen that the more human the object of an art, the
more sublime that art is.

Moreover, the ideality of the beautiful is the only
doctrine that enables us to solve the antinomy to which
the judgment of taste gives rise. We discuss about the
beautiful, and yet we cannot account for it by demon-
stration. This would be incomprehensible, did the
beautiful belong to things in themselves. But then, on
the other hand, the beautiful could not, like time and
space, be enclosed within the sensible world. We
discuss about the beautiful and yet we cannot demon-
strate anything, because the judgment of taste is based
on a principle connected both with concept and intuition,
on an indeterminate concept : that of a suprasensible
substratum of phenomena. The beautiful is the symbol
of moral good, and it is towards this good that taste
dimly leads us.

The second principle of particular natural laws is
derived from finality. Do there really exist in nature
harmonies that cannot be explained by mechanism or
the system of causes and effects ?

KANT 297

Wherever finality is only exterior, consisting only in
the utility of one being with reference to another, the
mechanical explanation is sufficient, for this agreement
of different beings with one another is far from being
the rule in nature. But there is one case in which
finality, being internal, cannot be explained by the
hazards of mechanism : the case of organised beings.
That which is living produces itself, both as species and
individual, and the parts thereof are conditioned by the
very ensemble which is to result therefrom. The effect
here is the cause of its cause ; the cause is the effect of
its effect. Such a relation goes beyond mechanism, such
a being is an end, as well as a product of nature. How
is that possible ?

In vain does dogmatism attempt to reply either by
hylozoism, which looks upon nature as intelligent, or
by theism, which weaves the action of intelligence into
the tissue of phenomena : the former attributes to
matter qualities opposed to its essence ; the latter vainly
claims to pierce the designs of God. Organisation,
the internal finality, is not cognisable in its cause.
Finality, to us, can be nothing but ideal : it is our way
of looking upon a certain class of phenomena.

Is such a doctrine a purely negative result ? By no
means.

Some knowledge of nature is implied if we simply
know that, in certain of its products, nature cannot be
known by us. This principle is instructive, either in its
restrictive or its positive bearing. It is regulative, not
constitutive. In this capacity it serves science. Though
it does not make the production of things more
intelligible, all the same, it supplies anticipations by
which we are enabled to discover the particular laws of
nature. It sets up beacon-lights throughout infinity.

298 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

So far as metaphysics is concerned, only such a con-
ception of finality enables one to escape from the
traditional antinomy of mechanism and teleology. On
the ground of being in itself, wherein both systems are
placed, neither the first is able to explain what it calls
the illusion of finality, nor the second to prove that the
transcendent explanation of it is necessary. On the
other hand, the principle of final causes becomes unas-
sailable when there is only one point of view upon
things.

And it opens up to our conception, if not to our
knowledge, a perspective upon the absolute itself.
Indeed, how do we come to posit the idea of an end
as the cause of a phenomenon ? The impossibility of
deducing the particular from the universal comes from
the fact that understanding and intuition are separate
in us ; our concepts are void, our intuitions powerless
to connect themselves into laws. Then how can we
affirm the existence of particular laws ? The problem
is solved as follows. We can conceive that the difficulty
in our way would be non-existent to a mind in which
understanding were one with sensibility : to an intuitive
understanding. Such a mind, instead of proceeding
from the parts to the whole, as does our discursive
understanding, and, consequently, seeing a contingent
result in the whole, would proceed from the whole to
the parts, and, in a flash, would see the latter in their
necessary connection. To this mind, mechanism and
finality would coincide. Now, once the idea of such
an intelligence is conceived of, our understanding, in
order to approach it in its own way, substitutes for the
whole the idea of the whole, and posits this idea before
its intuitions as the cause of the special relations that
unite them. To the employment of the notion of an

KANT 299

end is thus linked on the conception of an intuitive
understanding, as a possible foundation, in the absolute,
of the sum total of the harmonies of nature.

This deduction from teleological judgment deter-
mines the use we ought to make of it.

As regards the explanation of the phenomena of
nature, we have the right, as far as possible, to assume
the mechanical point of view, but we cannot do this on
all occasions with like success. In the fact of life we
are brought in opposition against an invincible barrier.
We cannot picture to ourselves living bodies as capable
of coming from inorganic matter. Doubtless, it is not
inconceivable that from one common, originally organ-
ised, matter, all living bodies might have issued by
purely mechanical changes. In this way, the explana-
tion of things would be the province of mechanism ;
their origin, that of teleology. Indeed, the comparison
of organic forms enables us to conjecture the relation-
ship of all that lives, and encourages us to hope, however
feebly, that it will be possible to refer them to one
common origin. Then one could picture to oneself
the womb of the earth as giving birth, first to creatures
ill-suited to the conditions of their existence, and then
to these same creatures as becoming more perfect, gener-
ation after generation, until finally the creatress, in a
state of congealed ossification, so to speak, limited her
productions to a certain number of clearly defined and
henceforth immutable species. This is a brilliant hypo-
thesis of reason, but apart from the fact that so far
experience does not seem to warrant it, instead of
excluding, it would imply as a condition of its con-
sistency the primordial life of the universal womb.

As regards the general conception of the world, we
have the right to complete by thought the unification

300 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

to which teleological concepts tend, provided we place
this ultimate end outside the sphere of sensible pheno-
mena. And as this end can be only a being that has
within itself the object of its activity, and consequently,
is capable of positing ends and using nature as a means,
man alone, not as a part of nature, but as intelligence
and will, can be the end of the universe. We must
not, like Rousseau, expect nature to satisfy our longings,
to give us happiness ; that is out of her province, and
she will play us false. But she will not belie the
expectations of the man who, through her, endeavours
to realise moral good.

Finally, in the matter of our conception of God as
the principle of finality, it has not been without purpose
that men, at all times, have been influenced by the
argument of final causes. This argument well expresses
man's impression when he sees the order of nature :
the aspiration towards something that goes beyond
nature. We must always speak of this argument with
respect, for it is the most persuasive, popular, and potent
one of all. To be really solid and sound, however, the
argument must be understood in its true meaning. Not
as an architect is God revealed to us by the world, but
rather as the condition of an agreement between nature
and morality. In trying to discover the attributes
needed to play this part, we shape for ourselves a moral
theology which leads us on to a moral religion.

IV. — THE METAPHYSICAL DOCTRINE

Criticism is not the abolition of metaphysics, it is
the introduction to metaphysics as a science. In realising
the plan it here marks out, the method to be followed is
the one inaugurated by the famous Wolf. We know that

KANT 301

transcendental logic does not break through the frame-
work of general logic : it fills it in. We shall find meta-
physics changing its meaning without changing its form.
Human reason is legislative in two ways : by its
understanding, in the domain of nature ; and by its
will, in the domain of freedom. Hence the idea of a
double metaphysics : of nature and of morals. There
are no others.

Kant deals first with the metaphysics of the science
of nature.

Corporeal matter, being alone lasting, can alone give
rise to metaphysics. The latter seeks amongst the
sensible data or properties of matter, for some object
to which the synthetic laws of understanding are
applicable, and this it finds in motion. Once this
single result has been obtained from experience, meta-
physics pursues its course, proceeding a priori.

Determined solely by the notion of quantity, motion
is nothing but dimension in time and space : it does not
yet imply cause of production or of modification. In
this connection it gives rise to phoronomics, which we
now call kinematics.

Determined, besides, by the notion of quality, it
envelops an intensive dimension or force, as the cause
of its existence and of our sensible affections. The
theory of force is dynamics : the essential element in
this portion of Kantian metaphysics. We admit as
many simple forces as it is necessary to posit, in order
to distinguish movements in a straight line, conse-
quently we admit a force of repulsion and one of
attraction. From the first, there results divisibility
ad infinitum ; from the second, a limitation of the first.
These two forces are solidary : solidity, which the

302 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Newtonians found themselves compelled to add on to
attraction, unless it be an occult quality, implies a
repulsive force. Matter results from the equilibrium
of the two.

Determined by the notion of relation, matter
assumes properties which are investigated by mechanics,
properly so called. Here, Kant establishes the law of
the persistence of material substance, the law of inertia
and that of action and reaction.

Finally, regarding modality, we have to find out
the rules followed by the mind when distinguishing
possible, real, or necessary motion : this is phenomenology.
Rectilinear motion is only possible, it appertains to
phoronomics ; curvilinear motion is real, and appertains
to dynamics ; motion conceived of as communicated by
a mover to something movable is of necessity deter-
mined as regards existence and speed ; it appertains
to mechanics.

From these metaphysical principles Kant en-
deavoured to pass on to physics itself. Physics
would evidently be constituted as a science, if only
we could determine a priori the forces that produce
sensation. Now, we see from the Critique that these
forces, being bound to the life of the mind, must, after
all, be of the same nature as the mind. They can be
nothing else than the action exerted upon our empirical
I by our spontaneity, i.e. our understanding. And
it is because this action is transcendental that, in our
endeavours to picture to ourselves the cause of our
sensations, we imagine things outside of ourselves in
space. Henceforth, the principle of the deduction of
material species is in our hands : it is none other than
the principle of the functions of the subject itself.
It is in this way that Kant, by the light of the cate-

KANT 303

gories, undertakes the deduction of the different kinds
of forces, of first matter or ether, of bases or specific
matters. In all probability, he would have reached a
rational deduction of the system of the world itself,
such as Newton had constituted it.

The second and last part of metaphysics is the
metaphysics of morals.

In the moral as in the physical order of things, it is
the task of method to bring the given empirical condi-
tions under the laws of reason, and thence deduce the
complete system of fundamental laws. Moral legisla-
tion has a double object in view : action and its mobile.
Harmony of action with the law is legality , that of the
mobile is morality. This distinction results in the
division of the metaphysics of morals into the theory of
right and the theory of virtue.

Right consists of the whole of those conditions that
are universally required in order that the free-will of
each individual may be reconciled with that of the rest.
External free-will commands respect, because it is the
form of moral freedom, the latter being realised only
by action and action implying a connection with some-
thing external. Consequently the science of right is
distinct from, though dependent on, morals.

There are two essential principles that control the
development of the theory of right : 1st, right is alto-
gether based on the suprasensible nature of man so far
as it is manifested in time, i.e. on personal dignity ;
2nd, legal restraint is legitimate, so far as it is neces-
sary for suppressing the obstacles that one will may
arbitrarily set up against the development of the rest.
The consequences of these principles are as follows : —

So far as private right is concerned, there belongs of
necessity to each man such a portion of freedom as is

304 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

compatible with the freedom of the rest of mankind.
But here we can deal only with freedom regarded in its
external existence. This external expression of freedom
is what is called possession.

There are as many kinds of rights as there are of
possessions.

The first has reference to things, and gives rise to
real right. This right is not a relation between the
owner and the thing, it is rather one between persons.
How can its realisation be legitimate ? On the one
hand, possession in common is the primitive right ; on
the other, the given fact is individual property. Here
we should have an insoluble antinomy, if possession in
common were regarded as a fact that has existed histori-
cally. It is not a fact, however, it is the command of
reason. Consequently, the actual fact does not go against
a previous realisation of justice. Till further orders,
it is the only effective realisation of the principle that
attributes things to persons. None the less should it
be sanctioned by a contract between wills for it to
become juridical ; all appropriation, in the state of
nature, is only provisional.

The second kind of possession refers to the actions
of persons, and creates personal right. This is realised
by contract, the value of which lies in the stability and
simultaneity of suprasensible wills.

The third kind of possession refers to persons
themselves and creates real personal right. Its domain
is the family. How can a person become a thing ?
Here we should have an intolerable contradiction, if
the owner of the person did not restore that person's
dignity, by also giving himself, re-establishing by an
act of freedom the moral order which is threatened by
nature. Thus, marriage is the only legitimate relation-

KANT 305

ship between the sexes, for it alone safeguards the
dignity of the woman.

As regards public or civil right^ Kant lays it down
as a principle that, since the natural state of mankind
is war, it is necessary to constitute a civil society in
order to make possible a regime of right. The laws
that create such a regime are divided into -political right^
the right of nations and cosmopolitical right.

Political right rests exclusively on the idea of
justice. Sovereignty originally belongs to the people ;
the State can only be the result of a contract, by which
men give up their natural freedom, to recover it intact
under a legal regime. But this contract is not an
historical fact, it is an idea of reason : this is the
point of view that both citizens and legislator must
adopt, in the performance of their respective tasks.
Consequently power must be obeyed without inquiring
into its origin. However vicious a social form may
be, it is not a falling away from a primordial state of
justice : it is the degree of reality that the idea of right
has been able to reach in the world of time. To amend
it by reform is legitimate, but not to overthrow it by
revolution.

If such is its principle, the State has, for its mission,
to guarantee the natural rights of man. It will trouble
itself about morals only in so far as they interest public
order. It will respect religious beliefs, but will resist
political influence on the part of the Churches. It has
the right to abolish all privileges which are only facts
devoid of rational foundation.

The realisation of the idea of the State requires the
division of power into legislative, executive and judicial
power. The most important of these is the legislative,
which ought to be the full complete expression of the

306 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

collective will. Government is more or less despotic
in proportion as it departs from the representative
system. The republic, an ideal, rational form, is a
government that is representative in its three powers.
In practice, Kant, as became a loyal subject of Frederick
II., recognises an autocratic regime, wherein power,
thanks to the generosity of the prince, is in conformity
with the philosophical principles of right.

Ever relying on the idea of justice, Kant regards
penal right as based not on utility but on reward ; he
defends the death penalty against the sentimentality of
Beccaria.

The right of nations extends to States — with certain
modifications — the relations which public right sets up
between individuals. Their original condition is war, —
not a regime of right. In order that juridical relations
may be established between them, they must form and
maintain, in accordance with an original contract, an
alliance or federation, by which they undertake not to
intervene in internal discords, and also to unite for
mutual protection against external attacks.

Finally, cosmopolitical right insures for each man
the power to enter into communication with all.
Nations should allow foreigners access to their terri-
tories. Colonisation is a right ; all the same, it should
not violate any acquired right : injustice is not per-
mitted, even with the object of extending the domain
of justice.

Right comes indefinitely near to morals, without
being able to attain to it. It requires that it be
possible for the rule of our external actions to be
set up as a universal law : morals puts forward the
same demand as concerns the maxim itself, the internal
principle of our actions. Thus, the duties of virtue

KANT 307

differ from those of right, both in their object, — for
they determine the intention, not the act, whereas the
duties of right determine the act and not the intention ;
this is expressed by saying that the latter are strict
and the former accommodating ; — and in their motive,
for the subject imposes them upon himself, whereas
duties of right are imposed by external compulsion.

What are the ends that are, at the same time,
duties ? There can only be two : one's own perfection,
and the happiness of others. I ought to aim after my
own perfection, not happiness : whereas, I ought to aim
after the happiness, not the perfection of others. As a
matter of fact I can neither make myself happy, nor
can I work out the will of others ; whereas the deter-
mination of my will does concern me, as also the
condition of the rest of mankind.

The detailed list of duties will comprise nothing
referring to family or State. Kant sees in these com-
munities only juridical relationships, so he has already
said all he wished about them, in the theory of right.
Morals will be essentially individual and social.

We have duties only towards ourselves and other
men, not towards God or the animal world. For we
can be under obligation only towards persons who are
objects of experience to us : and one or the other of
these two conditions falls through, in the case of beings
superior or inferior to ourselves.

Respect for human dignity, in oneself and in others,
is the one preeminent duty. This duty admits neither
of conditions nor of temperament : it is absolute and
immutable. Love of one's neighbour, and benevolent
feelings in general, can become duties only in so far
as we are dealing with active benevolence, not with the
sympathy of complaisance or pathological love.

3o8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

From these principles proceed such maxims as the
following : — Allow no one with impunity to trample
your right under foot. Never incur a debt, without
giving security. Lying, whether to others, or more
especially to oneself, is moral suicide. Meanness is
unworthy of man ; he who crawls like a worm cannot
complain if he is trampled upon. The violation of the
duty of love is only a sin, that of the duties of respect
is a vice ; for in the latter case man is insulted, in the
former he is not. Moral gymnastics is not mortifica-
tion, it is the will practising to overcome one's inclina-
tions so as not to be hindered by them, and joyfully
exulting in its regained freedom.

Naturally following on the metaphysics of morals,
comes religion, not as implied, but as demanded by
morality. Religion consists in looking upon moral laws
as though they were divine commandments. It cannot
increase our knowledge either of God or of nature ; it
ought not to aim at this. Its sole object is to extend
the ascendency of the moral law over the will.

Thus understood, it is in conformity with and
sanctioned by reason. But the positive religions add
on to the moral postulates and the law, traditional and
statutory elements : it is important for us to find out
how far this addition can be justified by reason.

If we examine the Christian religion : an excellent
form of religion, we find four essential ideas in it : that
of original sin, that of Christ, that of the Church, and
that of worship. What value have these ideas ?

In the dogma of original sin lies concealed a phil-
osophic truth. There are two characters in each of us :
the empirical and the intelligible. The vices of the
one, whilst attesting an innate tendency towards evil,
indicate a radical failing in the other. This failing

KANT 309

consists in reversing the order which ought to regulate
the relations between sensibility and reason ; in placing
the latter at the service of the former. Morality, to
the one who has been guilty of this failing, cannot from
that time be anything else than conversion, a new birth,
as it is called in Christian theology. In this sense, dogma
is justified.

The idea of Christ, too, is accepted by criticism, if
by Christ we mean the ideal of the human person.
This ideal descends from heaven to earth, not historic-
ally, of course, but in the sense that, whilst belonging
to the intelligible, it is manifested in the sensible world.
This ideal redeems us, for whereas punishment affected
the guilty man, it is the man who is converted by the
conception of the ideal, the new man, who suffers and
struggles in order to free the former man from evil.
The good man takes upon himself the sins of the
wicked, and stands in his place before the judge.

The Church, also, is recognised by reason, so far as
it is an association whose members mutually fortify
themselves in the practice of duty, both by example
and by the declaration of a common moral conviction.
In itself, it is one, like rational faith, but human weak-
ness demands that there be added to this faith, in
order to make it sensible, various historical dogmas
that claim a divine origin. Hence, a multiplicity of
churches, and antagonism between heretics and ortho-
dox. The history of the Church consists entirely of
the struggle between rational and positive faith ; and
the goal to which it is advancing is the effacement of
the latter by the former.

Finally, worship itself is a rational matter, provided
it be assigned a place in moral intention and in the
realisation of that intention. All that man thinks he can

310 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

add on to virtue in order to honour God is but false
worship and vain observance. The consequence of the
illusory value attributed to this false worship is the
subordination of the laity to the Church, and all the
evils to which this subordination gives rise, such as
hypocrisy and fanaticism. The positive faith the Church
enjoins has, for its true object, to make itself super-
fluous. This faith has in the past been necessary as a
vehicle ; it remains useful until mankind comes of age.
Once this time arrives, however, the leading strings
of tradition become mere fetters. The very ecclesiastic
who, as a minister of religion, is bound down to symbols,
as a scholar has the right to examine dogmas : to decree
the unchangeableness of statutory faith would be an
outrage on human nature.

V. — APPLICATIONS OF THE METAPHYSICAL DOCTRINE

It is Kant's constant preoccupation to unite concrete
reality to practice. His principles, obtained by meta-
physical analysis from the given itself, ought rationally
to reconstitute and govern the given. In the material
order of things, he sought the transition from meta-
physics to physics ; so also in the moral order he again
descends from idea to action.

In this connection, the history of mankind is his
principal theme. He purposes deducing its main phases,
not describing them. Here, too, he makes a distinc-
tion between the natural and the moral history of man ;
the latter having its beginning in the former.

On the subject of natural history, Kant deals with
the question of races. Is there a distinction amongst
the human races, of such a kind that one of them

KANT 311

should have the right to claim for itself alone the
dignity of manhood and reduce the rest to a state of
slavery ? The question is answered by a consideration
of origins. Fecundation is possible between human
beings of all races ; consequently they have one identical
origin and form only one species. Races are stable
varieties ; unalterable by intermixture and transplanta-
tion. They have become differentiated by adapting
themselves to climatic conditions. As there are four
climates, so there are four races : the white, the yellow,
the black and the red. In the formation of these races,
external causes have played an indispensable role, but
these alone could not have brought about stable changes ;
they merely developed the internal dispositions of the
species. The real cause of the existence of races, is
man's capacity for adapting himself to external con-
ditions.

In answer to the attacks of Forster, who would
explain life by none but geological causes, Kant, from the
year 1788 onwards, affirmed the necessity of a special,
immaterial principle as alone conforming to the require-
ments of criticism. To attribute to matter a power of
organisation which observation could not find in it,
is to reject the guiding clue of experience. Doubtless
Forster's explanation is neither absurd nor impossible,
but it goes beyond our means of knowing. The only
finality we can grasp is in ourselves, in our conscious
activity ; nothing authorises us to admit that an uncon-
scious thing has the power of acting with a view to an
end. We do not know what causes life, but we explain
it by finality : this is the point of view taken by
criticism.

Whereas the natural history of man goes back to
his origin, moral history considers his end. The philo-

3i2 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

sophy of history finds its principle in the idea of this
end, as natural philosophy does in the idea of attraction.
Now, the development of reason, the essence of man,
cannot tend to anything else than the establishment of
a regime of freedom, i.e. to the realisation of justice.
Consequently the historian ought to find in facts the
various phases of the realisation of justice.

History begins when man becomes a moral being,
i.e. when he acts by will instead of by instinct. His
primitive state was one of innocence ; his abode, paradise.
He formed one with nature, wherein his will was buried.
The awakening of his will showed itself by a desire
for rule, an act of pride, rebellion against the nature
to which he was united. Original sin is freedom's
first step. From that time, a new life begins for
man. In order to dominate nature, he must work.
From work there arise discord, society, property, civil
inequality : civilisation has succeeded a state of nature.
What does this new condition stand for ? Had human
activity no other end than individual happiness, then
Rousseau would be quite right in longing for a return
to the paradise of innocence. But what man wills is
to be free, and effective freedom can be found only in
the disinterested agreement of wills, on the ground of
reason. Now, civilisation, the conflict of wills, is the
necessary antecedent of their reconciliation. The reign
of justice, the source of moral harmony, is the third
phase of universal history.

In the realisation of this progress of freedom, the
will is not left to itself. It is aided by nature ; con-
sequently, progress is constant and has the character of
a natural law. A law beneficent and necessary, for
were man to believe that his works perish wholly with
himself how could he keep alive an earnest desire to

KANT 313

work for the good of mankind ? Nature stirs up man
to quit nature ; she stimulates his freedom. She is an
artist, a providence, capable of bringing forth good out
of evil. She makes men selfish and violent, and violence
engenders war ; but war calls a judicial regime into
existence. She separates men through differences in
constitution, language and religion ; but these differ-
ences render universal domination impossible. Whilst
evil succumbs, sooner or later, to the contradiction
within itself; good, which reason substitutes therefor,
when once established, continues and increases, because
it is in harmony with itself. For logic is the one
supreme force. At first, man wills union, and believes
himself wise ; but nature knows better what is suitable
for him, she wills a state of war.

The first object of this collaboration between nature
and will, is the establishment of the rational State, a
combination of freedom and legality. The second
object is the establishment of an Amphictyonic council
of nations, ensuring the maintenance of peace. Without
such an institution, mankind cannot advance to its goal.
War is a return to a state of nature. In the ideal of
reason is implied the idea of eternal peace. If this
object is unreal isable, then Rousseau is right in advocat-
ing a return to a savage state. Better barbarism than
culture without morality.

But is not this a purely theoretical conception ?
Will real humanity accept such views ? Has not Hobbes
shown that the real man is influenced only by interests,
not by ideas ? Such a doctrine must be utterly rejected ;
the belief must not gain ground that what is good
in theory can ever be impossible or evil in practice.
What, indeed, is not practical is that unlimited power
Hobbes confers on sovereigns, and the rebellion he

STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

admits of in subjects. Interests, certainly, in the State,
should have a place of their own, but does it follow
that principles should be excluded ? Can one not be
both as wise as the serpent and as harmless as the
dove ? To the man who guards against both idealism
and empiricism, the real and the ideal, instead of ex-
cluding, include each other, and politics ceases to be
incompatible with morals. There is a practical means
of bringing the former into harmony with the latter :
publicity. Whosoever thinks he can be useful to his
country ought to seek publicity. Now, only what is
in conformity with justice can bear publicity. Here
as elsewhere, universality is the point of contact
between the real and the rational, the form and token
of truth.

According to this theory, what is the present phase
of the history of the human species ? It is the phase
of enlightenment {Aufkl&rung), and its characteristic is
the emancipation of the intelligence. Man, reflecting
upon himself, finds that there is a contradiction between
his reasonable nature and his position as a minor : ' he
makes an effort to liberate his reason. Sapere aude is
his motto.

The progress of enlightenment cannot be realised by
overthrowing political institutions, by revolution, which
has no other result than the substitution of new for old
prejudices. Personal reflection alone can truly enlighten
a man. Consequently freedom to think and make
known his thoughts is the condition of the progress of
enlightenment.

How can this freedom be reconciled with the rights
of the State ? Here, a distinction must be made between
man as a citizen of a limited community, and man as
a citizen of the whole world. In his dealings with the

KANT 315

members of his community, man is bound to submit to
the statutes by which it is governed ; but as a citizen
of the world, he is free. As such a person, indeed, he
speaks from the summit of reason, for the generality
of reasonable beings, whereas as a citizen of a State,
he limits his action to some particular place and time.
Only by identifying itself with the universal does the
will attain to freedom. Therefore each citizen will
unresistingly pay taxes, though retaining the right to
dispute such payment. The teacher, as an official, will
respect such symbols as are recognised in his own
country ; but as a scholar, he will have the right to
criticise all doctrines. In accordance with these prin-
ciples, the rights both of legislators and of citizens are
clearly defined.

And so, fully maintaining the harmony of nature
and of freedom in the moral history of man, Kant
guards against asserting that progress is a mere develop-
ment of natural powers. To his mind, the Leibnitzian
theory of Herder is radically erroneous. In nature
dwells the means ; but the end, which is the spring of
progress, can come only from moral reason, superior to
nature. This is why the moral ideal can never be
expressed by the individual as such ; it cannot be
represented except in the whole of mankind. True
history is, of necessity, universal. Certainly, the indi-
vidual is a reality, but in the whole, there is something
that goes beyond it, and only by union with the whole
can it attain to freedom.

Not content with expounding his general views as
to the ends of human activity, Kant, in some things,
deals with practice proper. We here refer to his ideas
on education and university instruction.

316 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

It is impossible for education, in its present state,
to satisfy him. It neglects the will, drills and over-
burdens the mind instead of moulding it for reflection.
Here a radical reform is necessary. The pedagogic
theories of Rousseau, the practical attempts of Basedow
come just at the right time to support his criticism.
He is passionately in favour of these innovators, and
demands the organization of elementary schools as the
indispensable condition of reform. But he remains
himself, even on this ground, subordinating all authori-
tative direction to moral ends.

The body, he tells us, ought to be hardened and
exercised, subjected to such discipline as will make it
the powerful and obedient auxiliary of the mind. Let
the child grow up in perfect freedom, but at the same
time teach him to moderate his movements : one can-
not accustom oneself too early to live according to rule.

As regards the intellect, a sane education awakens
and guides the mental faculties instead of loading the
memory with facts. There are two exercises of the
faculties : the one, which is free, is play ; the other,
which is imposed from without, is work. The latter
is obligatory in itself, and, in instruction, it could not
be replaced by the former. The faculty of intuition
should be formed before the understanding. Thus, all
instruction will at first be intuitive, representative, tech-
nical. A beginning may be made with geography. So
far as it has the cultivation of the understanding for its
object, instruction will be Socratic and catechetical. It
will go to the root of things, and make the pupil really
master of his knowledge. A robust intellect is the
condition of a will that is free.

Paedagogics has the formation of the moral per-
sonality as its end. Here education is needed, for

KANT 317

virtue is not innate. This education comprises moral
instruction and its corresponding practice.

Moral instruction is catechetical. Aiming at demon-
strating obligatory laws, it proceeds by principles, not
examples : if examples come in, that is only in order
to prove the principles to be really applicable. Kant
left in writing a fragment of moral catechism, wherein
the pupil, prompted by questions, discovers for himself
moral conceptions of life.

Practice, or moral ascetics, cannot create morality,
which must come from ourselves ; it does, however,
produce in man the disposition that favours morality.
It aims at a hardening process, for effeminacy or indol-
ence is opposed to virtue. Instead of destroying the
will, it strengthens it. It makes us masters of ourselves,
contented and happy. Moral, education tends to
develop the inner aversion to evil, self-esteem and
dignity, the domination of reason over the senses.
It does not reward, but it punishes. It never humiliates,
lest it make the child despise himself, except when he
has been guilty of that one fault which effectively degrades
mankind, to wit : falsehood. In all things it puts for-
ward the moral motive, the law of duty itself, certain
that this motive, when set forth in all its purity, will
be more powerful than any material stimulus, any
assurance of benefit or harm.

With paedagogics we may compare the question of
university instruction. On this point, too, the Critique
throws fresh light. A University consists of four
Faculties : Theology, Law, Medicine, the so-called
superior Faculties, and Philosophy, the so-called inferior
Faculty. Between the first three and the fourth, con-
flict naturally arises. The object of the latter, indeed,

3i 8 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

does not differ from those of the former, but the one
studies from a universal and theoretical point of view
what the others study from a special and immediately
practical one. This gives rise to jealousy and rivalry.
Each of the two sides, claiming the whole realm of
knowledge, repels the other as a usurper. The title of
superior, borne by the first three Faculties, is nothing
less than the superiority that tradition attributes to the
positive over the rational. Is this hierarchy justified ?

The conflict between theologians and philosophers
is based upon the use to be made of the holy Scrip-
tures. The Critique does not deny the legitimacy and
utility of the sensible vehicle of religious truth ; but it
claims for reason the right to distinguish, in the Scrip-
tures, between the moral and eternal substratum, and
the sensible outer form, made up of narratives and
contingent circumstances. To understand the Scrip-
tures is to interpret them in a moral sense. Theology
presupposes this mode of interpretation, and so cannot
condemn it. How, indeed, does it distinguish true
from false revelation, except by the rational idea of
God. How can it maintain the divine character of
consecrated texts, in detail, except by making frequent
use of an allegorical, moral interpretation ?

The conflict between philosophers and jurisconsults
is based on respect for law : the Critique shows that
legality has a good foundation, consequently it condemns
the revolutionary spirit. But, in addition, it claims the
right to examine existing laws. And who can refuse it
this right? Jurisconsults, in order to attain to their
practical ends, need to know whether mankind is going
backwards or forwards, or remaining stationary. Now,
this is a question that cannot be solved empirically : it
concerns reason. And reason answers it by postulating

KANT 319

indefinite progress in the name of the moral law. But
what if the commandment is only an idea incapable of
realisation ! Experience, under the guidance of reason,
removes the doubt. Beneath our very eyes, we can see
where reason and history coincide. There is one fact
which is at the same time an idea. This fact is the
French Revolution. Whatever comes of this enter-
prise, writes Kant in 1798, whether it succeeds or fails,
it stirs up a sympathy that is akin to enthusiasm in all
who witness it by reason of the object it has in view :
now, a purely moral ideal is alone capable of affecting
the soul of man in this way. The Revolution is the
effort of man to create a rational State, it is the
eternal entering into time. Such a phenomenon, once
witnessed, can never be forgotten.

The problem for philosophers and doctors to
solve, is whether the art of healing depends on
experience alone, or whether reason has any share in it.
Now, the Critique demonstrates that reason may be
will, and that will bears some relation to phenomena.
Reason, then, must also possess a healing virtue. And,
indeed, man can do a great deal in modifying his
physical condition by the sole exercise of his will.
Here, Kant relates his personal experience : by moral
force, he is able to keep himself free from hypochondria,
and even to master spasmodic states. Once the disease
has entered, the will may be unequal to the task before
it, but at all events it can do much to prevent it, and
keep the body in a state of health. The will is the
first condition of health. Far from reason ever being
the servant of experience, it is the latter that, under all
circumstances, borrows from the former its truth and
possibility.

320 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

VI. — KANT'S INFLUENCE

The Kantian philosophy had difficulty in making a
way for itself in the field of thought already occupied
by the Leibnitzo-Wolfian, the English, French and
popular philosophies, without counting the increasingly
flourishing positive sciences. Kant did not deceive
himself as to the strange novelty of his work, which
met with its first favourable reception at lena, thence
spreading by degrees all over Germany and finally
throughout the world. Not only was metaphysical
speculation renewed, as it were, thereby : most of
the departments of intellectual activity felt its in-
fluence.

In Germany, the history of Kantianism forms an
important element in the general history of ideas and
sciences.

Amongst its first opponents may be cited : Selle and
Weishaupt, followers of Locke ; Feder, Garve and
Tiedemann, electics ; Platner, Mendelssohn, Nicolai
and Meiners, representatives of popular philosophy ;
Ernst Schulze, the skeptic ; Jacobi, the philosopher of
belief, and along with him, Hamann ; Herder, who
reconciled nature with history. The main reproach
these philosophers bring against Kant is that the
affection or action of things on sensibility, implied by
his system, is made impossible by the abolition of all
casual connection between " things-in-themselves " and
the feeling subject. Consequently, the system was
alleged to be fundamentally contradictory.

Among Kant's immediate disciples may be mentioned
Johannes Scultz, the first commentator on the Critique
of Pure Reason ; Karl-Leonhard Reinhold ; Krug ;
Fries, who attempted to give criticism a psychological

KANT 321

basis ; Salomon Maimon, who deduced from con-
sciousness both the matter and the form of our re-
presentations and so abolished the " thing-in-itself " ;
Beck, and Bardili.

Whether in the way of development or by combining
with foreign elements, Kantianism gave birth to a
number of important systems. The philosophies of
Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are so many stages, as it
were, in a connected line of thought dealing with the
problems he raises. The subjective idealism of Fichte
deduces the theoretical from the practical I, regarded
as originally unconscious, and so makes of none effect
the concept of the " thing-in-itself." Schelling objects
to call I this first principle of Fichte, for, in reality,
it is neither subject nor object : to his mind, the
principle is absolute identity, no less superior to the
I than to the not-I, an identity that is first realised
as nature and afterwards as spirit : his system is ob-
jective idealism. Hegel establishes, defines and
methodically develops the principle of this new
idealism. The absolute cannot be absolute identity,
otherwise it would be immovable : it must of necessity
be spirit. Its movement is the methodical effort it
makes to remove the ever-recurring contradictions
developed by reflection deep in its own nature. The
philosopher's dialectic gives itself up to the objective
movement of concept and thus brings forth in suc-
cession : logic, the philosophy of nature and the philo-
sophy of spirit. Idealism has become absolute.

Apart from this somewhat organic development,
several German systems sprang from a fusion of Kant-
ianism with other doctrines.

Schleiermacher, placing Spinoza, Plato and Christianity
alongside of Kant, compares being and thought, and

322 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

regards space, time and causality as forms both of
things and of knowledge. God becomes the unity of
the universe. Supreme good, the unity of the real and
the ideal is, in morals, substituted for the purely formal
principle of Kant.

Herbart draws upon Kant, the Eleatics, Plato and
Leibnitz. Like Kant, he sees in philosophy the
criticism of experience. According to him, however,
the " thing-in-itself " is not inaccessible. It is obtained
in its true form, if we eliminate from the data of
experience all the self-contradictory and consequently
subjective elements found therein. It consists of a
plurality of simple beings with no real relation to one
another : it is we ourselves who introduce relations and
a process of becoming.

Like Kant, Schopenhauer limits space, time and
causality, to phenomena ; but instead of considering
the independent reality of our representation as in-
capable of being known, he places it in will, as given by
internal perception.

All the same, the difficulties inherent in these
divers systems, more particularly the foolish claim —
set up by absolute idealism — to build up in detail the
laws of nature, very quickly brought these developments
of Kantianism into disfavour. It was considered that
Kant's system of thought had been perverted by his
successors, and that the line of reflection must be
picked up just where Kant had dropped it. Such was
the idea of an important school of philosophers, called
the Neo-Kantian, especially after a famous lecture by
Zeller on the theory of knowledge, published in 1862.
They proposed either to defend Kant's own principles,
or to develop them — without considering the great
metaphysical systems that have sprung therefrom — in a

KANT 323

manner strictly suited to the spirit of our times. The
principal members of this school were : Lange, Cohen,
Liebmann, Bonna Meyer, Paulsen, Krause, Stadler,
Riehl, Windelband, Schultze. Most of them, along with
Lange, insisted especially on the distinction between
knowledge and belief, corresponding to that between
phenomena and " things-in-themselves," so far as this
distinction guaranteed the possibility of science, whilst
at the same time limiting it. Philosophy ought to be
a theory of knowledge, not a conception of the world.
Moral things may be a matter of faith, not of science.
With few exceptions, including Paulsen, these philo-
sophers put in the background, or even neglected
the moral and religious part of Kant's work, and
emphasised the critical and antimetaphysical part.

Apart from philosophy, Kantianism in Germany
has long since left its mark on the majority of in-
tellectual disciplines.

Following on Kant, Schiller entered into philosophic
speculations on esthetics, endeavouring to define the
connection of beauty with nature and morality.

In theology, Kant initiated a moral rationalism that
long held sway. Even of recent years, Ristchl, the
theologian, has returned to Kant, protesting against
the metaphysical fancy which claims to know the
suprasensible.

In jurisprudence, the Kantian theories of natural
right are found as leading ideas in the works of
Hufeland, Schmalz, Gros, Feuerbach, Rehberg and
Zachariae.

In science, Kantianism has exercised a varied in-
fluence according to the way in which it has been
understood. Radically idealistic in interpretation —
though, truth to tell, this interpretation was repudiated

324 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

by Kant — there came into being the famous philosophy
of nature, which, bringing matter entirely within the
compass of unconscious thought, boldly deduces the
phases of its development from the laws of the for-
mation of consciousness itself. On the other hand,
the Kantian theory of experience, as the sole origin of
knowledge, is accepted by many modern scholars in
quest of a rational justification of their own methods.

In mathematics, the Kantian point of view is char-
acterised by the admission of synthetical a 'priori
principles, or extralogical rational principles, and in
particular by the negation of the metageometrical
space of the Leibnitzians, as an object of possible
intuition.

In the psycho-physiology of the senses, the negation
of Johannes Muller, who maintains, in opposition to
empiricism, the primitive character of the representation
of space, is based on transcendental esthetics.

Finally, Kantianism exercises considerable influence
over the political life of Germany. It represents the
idea that reason, even in politics, is the true norm, and
commands man to act in accordance with the universal
idea of duty and humanity : a highly philosophical
doctrine, which has certainly not altogether given way
to that of historic right and an exclusively national ideal.

In other countries besides Germany, the influence
of Kant's philosophy is still great, though more tardy
in making itself felt, and less profound in the im-
pression it has made.

In 1773, Kant began to be appreciated in Stras-
bourg. In 1796, the translation of his works into French
was begun. In 1799, Degerando sets forth his system.
Mme. de Stae"! speaks enthusiastically of the man she
looks upon as an apostle of sentimental spiritualism.

KANT 325

In 1818, Victor Cousin lectures on Kant's morals;
in 1820 he expounds on the Critique of Pure Reason.
In his own theory of reason, he is indebted to Kant
for several of his ideas. After being thus utilised in
doctrines based on other principles, such as electicism,
positivism, and independent morals, Kantianism was
studied and developed for its own sake, especially by
Renouvier, Janet, Lachelier, and Pillon. Renouvier,
Pillon, and Dauriac advocate, under the name of
criticisme, a doctrine which, in contradistinction to
German Neo- Kantianism, emphasises the excellence
of Kantian morals. They directly subordinate theor-
etical to practical reason, looking upon the will
as the first principle of all certainty ; and not only
that, but, doing away with the noumenon, they set
up natural laws as ultimate reality, and, following on
phenomena, they prepare a place for the initiative of
freedom. Under Kant's inspiration, also, M. Secretan,
of Lausanne, limits the rights of science, and places
above it belief in freedom. In divers forms and
degrees, Kantianism even now-a-days is to be found in
most of the doctrines whose aim it is to reconcile science
with morals, without injuring either.

In England, Kant's influence was mainly felt by
Hamilton and the agnostics. Combining Kant's
doctrine with that of Reid, Hamilton maintained that
the representation of the absolute was impossible for a
mind limited to human knowledge. Spencer's agno-
sticism, also, though dependent on positivism, owes
much to the Kantian antinomies. In the realm of
psychology the revolutionist school claims to be the
reconciler of Kantian apriorism with Locke's empiricism.
At the present time, Kant is scrupulously studied for
his own sake. In the translation of the Critique of

326 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Pure Reason which Max Miiller published in 1 8 8 i , he
declares the work to be an Aryan monument as precious
as the Vedas, and says that throughout all time it may
be criticized but never ignored.

In Italy, the Critique of Pure Reason was translated
in 1821-1822, and Jose del Perojo translated it into
Spanish in 1883.

Looking at the matter from a general point of view,
what was the historical role of Kant ? What relation
has his philosophy with present-day speculation ?

Kant's main purpose was analogous to those of
Socrates and Descartes. Socrates undertook to show
that practice, even regarded as the end of human
activity, cannot exclude science, because in reality it
implies this latter. Descartes grants that a commence-
ment be made with universal doubt : this doubt does
not abolish certainty, but rather creates a foundation
for it. Kant, in turn, declares that experience is the
starting point of all our knowledge. Are we to conclude
that reason is a mere word ? By no means, for
experience is based on reason. And in the very
development of the doctrine, analogy follows its course.
Deduced from practice, the science of Socrates is
limited to morals and the objects connected therewith.
Cartesian certainty at first extends only to thought, the
condition of doubt ; it restores the objects that doubt
had overthrown, only in so far as they are capable of
being connected with thought. Kantian criticism, like-
wise, allows to persist only that in a priori notions
which is required for experience ; it makes the possi-
bility of this latter the norm of the entire use of pure
reason.

Like Socrates and Descartes, Kant contends that his

KANT 327

method is constructive rather than destructive. Science,
limited as regards " things-in-themselves," is at all events
the abode of certainty. Idealism melts away before
empirical realism. Nor is this all : criticism is to give
even better results. The very deduction that establishes
science allows morals to stand by its side, without risk
of offending it. True, morals also must put up with
limitation. It must be based on an exclusively formal
principle, the simple notion of duty. But here again,
criticism restrains only in order to secure. Morality
may be absolute and remain practical, if it has no other
object than the determinations of the will that is free.
The insoluble antinomy of mysticism and eudemonism
vanishes in the system of rational autonomy.

Indeed, throughout Kant's philosophy, it is reason
that creates as well as destroys, that supplies principles
to replace those it has abolished. In Descartes, it had
already discovered within itself, in its faculty of intuition,
that principle of certainty which it found neither in the
senses nor even in demonstrations. Kant shows us
reason making an inventory of its content, and finding,
in its very constitution, all the principles necessary for
science and morals. Naturally, it does not suffice unto
itself, the absolute goes beyond it. Its science, con-
sequently, is relative ; its morals, in application, limited
to endless progress. None the less does reason offer
man all the resources he needs to realise the ideal of
mankind, for it is freedom and, at the same time, law.

Such being the essential elements of Kantianism, this
philosophy stands at the term of the rationalistic
development which began with Descartes. Reason,
according to Kant, drives to the utmost limits both its
renunciation of the comprehension of absolute being
and its efforts to provide, by the principles it finds

328 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

within itself, for the intuition in which it is lacking.
One more step in either direction, and rationalism will
lose itself either in skepticism or idealism. Kant, whilst
shutting himself up in the world of time, claimed that
he found in the heart of reason, which forms part
thereof, a means of converting this world into a symbol
of eternal being.

Such is the historical signification of his work.
Regarded theoretically, it is of supreme interest, even
in our days.

The human mind, influenced by the positive sciences
and by philosophy alike, asks itself more than ever
what is our relation to the reality of things, and whether
or not it is possible to know that reality. Now, tran-
scendental idealism has an answer to give to this
question. Beyond phenomena, according to Kantianism,
we can yet grasp the laws of thought by which
phenomena are conditioned, and constitute philosophy
as a theory of knowledge ; but as for forming an
ontological theory of the universe, as the ancients did,
we must give up all ambition in this direction : a plain
solution, and one of grave consequence, finding much
support in present-day science.

On the other hand, the progress of the positive
sciences, in extent and in certainty, makes us wonder ,
if whatever interests man cannot at least be dealt
with according to the methods of these sciences, and if
morals itself cannot be assimilated thereto. Kant
answers this question with his stern dualism, limiting
science in order to give it a basis, and establishing morals
in the domain opened up by this very limitation. Now,
neither the sovereignty of science in the practical order
of things, nor the theoretical impossibility of freedom,
are, even in these days, sufficiently clearly demonstrated

KANT 329

for it to be possible to relegate to the past the Kantian
solution.

As regards the philosophy of science, Kantianism
deals just with those problems that increasingly occupy
the modern mind. How can experience alone afford
certainty, how can the knowledge of a law, in the exact
meaning of the word, be purely experimental in its
origin ? Aristotle taught that the general, so far as it
is known by experience alone, necessarily includes excep-
tions, and that only intellectual knowledge can have
universal value. And this has been the classic doctrine
up to the present. Descartes, however, had already
declared that there is a true science of phenomena, that
what is transitory in its nature may be reduced to
immutable essence ; and science, in its onward march,
has been increasingly unconscious of Aristotle's objec-
tion. And yet, what right have we to reject a doctrine
which seemed to be evidence itself ? How, and in what
sense, can a fact be a law ? Kant accepted this question
as modern science states it ; it is the object of his
doctrine of forms and categories to answer it. The
solution is a profound one ; it cannot be avoided by any
who persistently determine, without fearing contradic-
tion, to unite experience with certainty.

Kant's system of morals, too, is far from having
become foreign to us. We are at present, as regards
action, in a position similar to that in which science
places us as regards being. We accept only facts, and
yet we cannot renounce certainty, law, belief in duty.
We are determined to reject every motive of action
adopted from the idea of a suprasensible world, and yet
we claim to maintain a system of absolute morals, a
doctrine of obligation. Are we not, then, almost
prepared to appreciate a philosophy which actually

330 STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

brings duty out of the very heart of experience, and
holds aloof from mysticism and utilitarianism alike ?

And if, in social, religious and political questions,
we are troubled by the conflict between history and
reason, between what is and what ought to be, between
form and idea, between fact and right, between the
national ideal and the human one, do we not thereby
find ourselves somewhat in the same position as Kant
when he was investigating the relations between theory
and practice and reconciling the necessity of nature
with the sovereignty of reason in his doctrine of moral
progress ?

Not in vain, then, was it that Kant endeavoured,
both in the sphere of action and in that of knowledge, to
adopt that point of view of the universal, at once
real and ideal, which is also the point of view of reason :
his doctrine thereby receives a lofty, positive character,
such as could not be met with either in the pure
generalisations of experience or the dreams of imagina-
tion. It is not the mirror of a single epoch, nor even
the expression of a nation's thought : it belongs to
the whole of mankind.

INDEX

Acroamatic, instruction, 77, 80, 8 1

Adam, 217-221

Adam, Charles, 241-244

Aesculapius, 75

Alexander, 75-78, 120, 151, 152

Alexander of Aphrodisias, 157

Alexandria, 157

Amaury of Chartres, 1 60

Amphictyonic council, 313

Amyntas II., 75

Anaxagoras, n, 84

Andronicus, 79, 156

Antipater, 152

Antisthenes, 40

Apellicon, 79

Apodeictic, 98

Apollo, 69

Arabs, 158

Aristides, 43

Ariston, 152

Aristophanes, 14, 19

Aristotle, 6, 175, 203, 204, 205, 241,
252, 280, 329; biography, 74-79;
writings, 79-83 ; ensemble of his work,
84, 85 ; classification of sciences,
85-87 ; method and point of view,
87-89; historian, 89-91; logic, 92-
103; metaphysics, 103-112; general
physics, 112-116; mathematics, 116,
117; cosmology, 117-120; astro-
nomy, 120-122 ; meteorology, 122 ;
mineralogy, 122, 123 ; general bio-
logy, 123-125 ; botany, 125 ; animal
anatomy and physiology, 125-130;
zoBlogy, 130-132; psychology, 132-
135; morals, 135-140; economics,
140, 141 ; politics, 142-146 ; rhetoric,
146-148 ; esthetics, 148, 149 ; poetics,
149, 150; grammar, 151 ; speeches
and poems, 151; letters, 152; lan-
guage, 153-156 ; influence, 156-162;
Aristotle's system compared with
Kantian idealism and with evolution-
ism, 162-164; the essential features

of Aristotelianism retained in modern
science, 164-166 ; the three principles
of Aristotelian finality, 166-168

Aristoxenus, 156

Asclepiads, 75

Aseity, 182

Atarnea, 76, 152

Athenians, 69

Athens, 75-78

Aufkl'drungsphilosophie, 256, 314

Aulus Gellius, 77

Aurora, 229

Averroes, 159

Baader, 231

Babylon, 120

Bacon, 35, 70, 88, 102, 161, 244, 245

Baillet, 241, 242, 243, 246, 247, 248,251

Barbarians, 141

Bardili, 321

Basedow, 316

Batanaea, 157

Baumgarten, 273, 294

Beccaria, 306

Beck, 321

Berkeley, 234

Bible, 173, 226

Boehme, Philosophus Teutonicus, 169-170.
His first book, Aurora, 171 ; Pro-
found influence of the Bible, 173 ;
Meditation on the phenomena of
nature, 174; his life-aim, the enter-
ing into the Kingdom of God, 175-
1 76 ; the nature of evil, 1 77 ; his
task : to enquire into the genesis of
things, 178 ; threefold division of his
system, 178 ; methods of ordinary
philosophy useless, 179, 180; man
must adopt the standpoint of God,
181 ; problem of aseity, 182; exami-
nation of Eckhart's doctrine, 184 ;
revelation requires opposition, 185 ;
expose of Boehme's teaching on the
birth of God, 186-202; comparison

331

332

STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

of his philosophy with that of the
ancients, 202-206 ; his theology
neither monism nor dualism ; per
crucem ad lucem : the human and
divine law, 206-208 ; opposition to
pantheism and to theism ; solution
of problem of creation, definition
of creation, 208-215 ; origin of sin
and hell, 215-217 ; man's three parts,
soul, mind, and body, correspond to
the principles of fire, light, and
essence or reality, 217-218 ; spiritual
interpretation of the Fall of Man,
218-222 ; reconciliation of good and
evil ; realisation of man's salva-
tion by Christ, election by grace ;
faith, the sign of election and the
beginning of regeneration ; contrast
between faith and works, prayer and
sacraments, 222-226 ; life of the re-
generate Christian, 226-228; Aurora:
the spiritual interpretation of Chris-
tianity, 229-231 ; spirit, i.e. infinite
freedom, alone is true being ; evil is
not a lesser good but rather a living
force that tends to destroy good, 231,
232 ; characteristics of German philo-
sophy, 232, 233

Boethus, 157

Boetius, 158

bonk metis, 254

Br£al, Michel, quoted, vii

Buhle, 75

Burke, 294

Cagliostro, 268

Ca ili pus, 121

Callisthenes, 77, 120

Cartesianism, 5, 97, 326

Chalcis, 75-78

Chaldaeans, 120

Christ, 159, 171, 188, 217, 222, 225,

308, 309
Christian, 224, 225, 226, 235, 270,

308, 309
Christianity, 72, 160, 169, 175, 177,

201, 205, 229, 264, 321
Church, 305, 308, 309, 310
Cicero, 91, 154
Cilicia, 157
Clerselier, 243
Cogito, 234, 235, 237
Cohen, 323

Collegium Fredericanum, 257, 258
Copernicus, 284
Cordova, 159
Corneille, 5, 242
Cousin, Victor, 325
Criticisme, 325

Critique of Pure Reason, 261, 262, 302,

3X7> 3l8» 3J9» 325» 326
Crito, 40
Critolaiis, 156

Damascus, 157

Dauriac, 325

David of Dinant, 160

Davis, Prof. W. M., quoted, vi

Decearchus, 156

de Coulanges, Fustel, I, vi

de Cusa, Nicolas, 172

Degerando, 324

d'Eichthal, Gustave, 10

del Perojo, Jose, 326

Demetrius, 152

Democritus, 84, 116, 119, 123, 152

Demosthenes, 78

Denys of Halicarnassus, 74

Descartes, 5, 6, 161, 167, 174, 265,
326, 327, 329 ; The Cogito, the living
germ from which have sprung all
great modern systems of philosophy ;
problem of transition from thought
to existence, 234-236 ; in thought
alone lies human dignity and the
principle of certainty, 236 ; Cartesian-
ism was the soul of contemporary
philosophy and science, affirmed Hux-
ley, 237 ; Descartes' style, a perfect
model of prose, 238-240; relation
between morals and science, 241-244 ;
everything in nature is brought about
mathematically ; life itself is a mech-
anism and is subject to our control,
245, 246 ; purpose and aim of the
Discours de la Methode, the Lettres, the
Principes, and the Traite des Passions,
248-252 ; no limit to the conquests
of science over nature ; the sovereignty
of reason ; Cartesian morals closely
united with, though not derived from,
the science of natural things ; the
full realisation of reason is the goal
of life ; the bona mens is the supreme
aim, 253, 254

de Stagl, Madame, 324

Dialectic, 100

Diogenes Laertius, 74, 75, 79, 152

Discours de la Methode, 236, 239, 241,
242, 247, 249, 250, 254

Dynamics, 301

Eckhart, 160, 170, 172, 184

Egyptians, 120, 160

Eleatics, 113, 322

eX^7%o^res, 15

Elizabeth, Princess, 241 251, 253, 254

Empedocles, 113

INDEX

333

Encyclopedism, 259

Epicureanism, 157

Epicurus, 241

Eristic, 101

Eucharist, 159

Euclid, 40

Eudemus, 152, 156

Eudoxus, 121

Exoteric instruction, 77, 80, 8 1

Fall, 230

Faye, 271

Feder, 320

Feuerbach, 323

Fichte, 72, 169, 232, 255, 262, 321

Finsterniss, 191

Forster, 311

Fouillee, 9, II, 14, 50, 54, 57, 58

Franck, 10, 50, 172, 173

Frederick II., 256, 261, 265, 306

French Revolution, 236, 256, 263,

3'9

Fries, 320

Garve, 320

Gazette <f Anvert,, 243

Gennadius, 161

George of Trebizond, 161

God, no, in, 112, 116, 118, 159, 171,
173, 176-193, 195, 198-231, 246,
249, 251, 254, 259, 272, 286, 288,
292, 293, 297, 300, 307, 308, 310,
318, 322

GSrlitz, 170

Goethe, 262 ; quoted, ix

Gorgias, 22

Greeks, 141

Gros, 323

Grote, i, 9, n

Hamann, 169, 262, 320

Hamilton, 325

Harvard University, vii

Hegel, i, 31, 72, 162, 169, 170, 232,

233. 3ZI
Helmholtz, 271
Herbart, 322
Herder, 268, 315, 320
Hermias, 76, 151, 152
Herpyllis, 76, 78
Herz, Marcus, 267, 270
Hhtoria animalium, 77, 130
Hobbes, 313
Homer, 35
Hufeland, 323
Hume, 235, 260, 262, 275, 276, 277,

278, 288
Hutcheson, 260
Huxley, 236

Huyghens, 235
Hypomnematic writings, 81

lena, 320
Isocrates, 76

Jacob!, 169, 320
Janet, 10, 325
Jesus, 222, 224
Jews, 158, 159
John the Baptist, 159
Jupiter, 112

Kabbah, 193

Kant, 162, 163, 169, 170, 231, 232, 234,
235 ; the influence of Kantianism,
255; biography, 256-264; his poli-
tics, religion, morals, 264 ; chrono-
logical list of works, 265 - 270 ;
theory of actual history of the forma-
tion of the world, 271 ; relations
between possibility and existence,
philosophy and mathematics, 272,

273 ; how far can one become ac-
quainted with supra-sensible existences ?

274 ; nature of space and time, 275 ;
principle of causality, 276-278 ; ex-
planation of the conditions of ex-
perience, 278-288 ; what is morality
and on what does it rest ? Kant's
categorical imperative, 289-291 ; his
postulates, 292., 293 ; the notions of
taste and finality, 294-300 ; meta-
physics of the science of nature, 301,
302 ; the metaphysics of morals, the
various kinds of rights and possessions,
303-306 ; duties, 307 ; maxims, 308 ;
the four essential ideas of the Chris-
tian religion, 308-310; applications
of the metaphysical doctrine to the
natural and the moral history of man ;
Aufktirung, the present phase of
human history, 310-314; freedom
to express thought, the condition of
the progress of enlightenment ; re-
conciliation of freedom with the
rights of the State; taxation, 315;
reform needed in methods of educating
will, intellect, and body ; the goal of
education is the formation of virtue,
316, 317; university instruction, the
conflict between philosophers and
(i) theologians, (2) lawyers, (3) doc-
tors, 318, 319; influence of Kantian
philosophy, systems born of it ; various
developments in esthetics, theology,
jurisprudence, science, mathematics,
sense psycho-physiology, and German
politics, 320-324; appreciation in

334

STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

France, England, Italy, and Spain,
325, 326 ; the historical role of
Kant's philosophy ; experience, based
on reason, the starting point of all
knowledge ; reason creates as well as
destroys, it is both freedom and
law, 326-328 ; world-wide scope and
import of Kant's doctrines, 329,

33°

KdBapffis, 149
Knorr, 264
Knutzen, 258, 259

KUl/JLTj, 142

K8nigsberg, 257, 258, 261, 264

Krause, 323

Krug, 320

Kuno, Fischer, 234, 255, 267

Kuntzschmann, Catherina, 170

Lachelier, 325
La Mettrie, 234
Lamian war, 78
Lampsacus, 156
Lange, 323
Laplace, 259, 265

Leibnitz, 6, 99, 162, 169,231,232,234,
235, 258, 260, 261, 265, 266, 275,

3i5» 3"
Leibnitzians, 324
Leibnitzo-Wolfian, 271, 288, 320
Lesbos, 156
Lettres, 249
L6v6que, 9
Liebmann, 323
Lilienthal, 258
Lisbon, 266

Locke, 92, 234, 235, 260, 320, 325
Lucifer, 215, 216, 217, 218, 221, 222
Luther, 161, 172, 176, 177, 178
Lycaeum, 77

Machaon, 75
Macedonia, 75, 76
Maieutics, 38]
Maimon, Salomon, 321
Malebranche, 234, 235
Martin, Saint, 231
Mechanics, 301
Meiners, 320
Mendelssohn, 266, 320
Mentor, 152
Mersenne, 247, 251
Messena, 156
Meyer, Bonna, 323
Milky Way, 122
Moliere, 5
Moses, 216

Moses Maimonides, 159
Miiller, Johannes, 324

Miiller, Max, 326
Mytilene, 76

Neleus, 79

Neo-Kantianism, 322, 325

Neo-Platonism, 205

Neo-Platonist, 157, 206

Newton, 235, 247, 258, 260, 265, 271,

^73> *78> 303

Newtonianism, 258, 272, 274, 286, 301
Nicolai, 320
Nicolas, 157

Nicomachean Ethics, 71, 79, 155
Nicomachus, 75, 79
Nisard, D£sir6, 238
vovs, 96, 97, 132, 133, 134, 138, 139,

157, 160, 175

Olympic games, 91
Orestes, 41
Organon, 158

Paphlagonia, 157

Paracelsus, 172, 173

Pascal, 6, 8, 17, 18, 175, 236

Pauline origin, 172

Paulsen, 323

Peripatetic school, 77, 79, 82, 156, 157,

160

Phenomenology, 302
Philip, 76, 152
Philopon, 157
Philoxenes, 152
Phoronomics, 301
$&ris, 112, 157, 167
Physiognomonica, 129
Pietism, 256, 259, 270
Pietist, 257, 258
Piety, Socrates' definition of, 62
Pillon, 325
Pirithous, 41
Plainer, 320
Plato, 11-16, 27, 30-34, 40, 70, 71, 75,

78, 84, 89, 103, 104, 116, 123, 140,

143, H4, 146, 148, IS1. 152. !57»

158, 160, 175, 321, 322
Plenum, 115, 273
Plotinus, 157
Plutarch, 79

7r6Xts, 142
Polycrates, 13
Pomponatius, 161
Porphyry, 120, 157, 158
Postulates, Kant's, 292
Principes, 242, 243, 248
Protagoras, 22, 68, 89
Protestantism, 177, 256
Pseudo-Ammonius, 75
Pseudo-Hesychius, 75

INDEX

335

Pylades, 41
Pythagoreans, 206
Pythian games, 91
Pythias, 76, 78

Quintessence, 118
Quito, 266

Rauch, 264
Redemption, 230
Regulae, 241, 242, 250, 254
Rehberg, 323
Reid, 235, 325
Reinhold, 320
Renaissance, 161, 238
Renan, I
Renouvier, 325
Reuter, Anna Regina, 257
Rhetoric, 101
Rhodes, 79, 156
Richter, 262
Riehl, 255, 323
Riga, 261
Ristchl, 323

Roman Catholic Church, 225
Rome, 79, 156
Rosenkranz, 267

Rousseau, 259, 260, 273, 300, 312, 313,
316

Satan, 221

Scaliger, 161

Schelling, 72, 169,231, 232, 255, 286,321

Schiller, 262, 323

Schleiermacher, 12, 13, 20, 30, 321

Schmalz, 323

Schoolmen, 70, 71, 171

Schopenhauer, 267, 322

Schultze, 323

Schulz, 257

Schulze, Ernst, 320

Schwenckfeld, 172, 173

Scolion, 152

Scotland, 257

Scriptures, 318

Selle, 320

Selymbrians, 152

Sensor mm commune^ 132

Shaftesbury, 260

Sidon, 157

Simmias, 40

Simplicius, 120, 152, 157

Skepsis, 79

Socrates, 245, 255, 316, 326; modern
writers' accounts of, 9-12 ; testimony
of Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle, 13-
14 ; judgment of physics and sophistic,
16-26; "Know thyself," 26-29;
science and morals, 30-34 ; method :

maieutics and irony ; definition and
induction, self- possession and love ;
refutation, 35-46 ; teleology and moral
theology ; virtue and the science of
good ; <ro(pta the virtue par excellence,
49-65 ; "Virtue is one and can be
taught," fj.d6r]ffit and fj.e\frri, 66-67 5
" moral science ": the central fact of
his teaching ; science does not attain to
things divine ; belief in an Apollonian
mission ; philosopher and man of
action alike, 68 - 70 5 " The only
science is that of the general " ; the
Nicomachean Ethics ; influence on
modern philosophy, 71-73

Socratics, 70

ffcxpla., ix

Sophists, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 51-55, 61,
66, 245

Sorbonne, 160

Spencer, 325

Spinoza, 231, 234, 235, 321

Stadler, 323

Stageira, 75

State, 305, 306, 307, 313, 315, 319

Stoics, 157, 252, 253

Strabo, 79

Strasbourg, 324

Strato, 156

Sucht, 1 86

Suidas, 75

Sweden, 241, 244

Swedenborg, 267, 274

Sylla, 79

Syracuse, 75

Tarentum, 156

Tauler, 170, 173

Thales, 89, 122

Themistius, 157

Theodoric of Freiburg, 160

Theodorus, 146

Theodota, 65

Theophrastus, 79, 156

Theosophist, 169, 184, 231

Theosophy, 172, 173, 182

Theseus, 41

Thomas, Saint, 241

Thomists, 170

Thrasymachus, 146

Tiedemann, 320

rl tffrl, 10

Tisias, 146

Traite des Passions, 248, 251, 252

Trinity, 189, 230

Ulysses, 35
Ungrund, 183
University of France, 160

336

STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Vacuum, 115

Vanini, 161

Vedas, 326

Victor Hugo, quoted, vi

Virgin, the Eternal, 174, 175, 189, 219,

222

Voltaire, 3

Von Baader, Franz, 169

Von Nettesheim, Agrippa, 172

Walther, Dr., 170
Weigel, Valentin, 172, 173
Weishaupt, 320

Wille, 1 86

Windelband, 255, 323
Wolf, 258, 272, 300
Wundt, 255

Xanthippe, 65
Xenocrates, 76
Xenophon, 12, 13, 33, 40

Zachariae, 323

Zeller, 9, II, 20, 22, 30, 36, 54, 80, 83,

322
Zeno, 241

THE END

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh

By Dr. F. C. S. SCHILLER

HUMANISM. Philosophical Essays. 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.
STUDIES IN HUMANISM. 8vo. los. net.

RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX. A Study in the
Philosophy of Humanism. New and Revised Edition.
8vo. i os. net.

FORMAL LOGIC. A Scientific and Social Problem.
8vo. i os. net.

IDOLA THEATRI : A Criticism of Oxford Thought
and Thinkers from the Standpoint of Personal Idealism.
By HENRY STURT. 8vo. xos. net.

PERSONAL IDEALISM. Philosophical Essays. Edited
by HENRY STURT. 8vo. los. net.

THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUALITY AND
VALUE. Being the Gifford Lectures for 1911. By
BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L. 8vo. los. net.

THE MEDIEVAL MIND. A History of the Develop-
ment of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages. By
HENRY OSBORN TAYLOR. Two vols. 8vo. 2is.net.

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE
MORAL IDEAS. By EDWARD WESTERMARCK, Ph.D.
Two vols. 8vo. 145. net each.

A SHORT HISTORY OF ETHICS— GREEK AND
MODERN. By REGINALD A. P. ROGERS, Fellow and
Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. net.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

THE IDEALISTIC CONSTRUCTION OF EXPERI-
ENCE. By Prof. J. B. BAILLIE, M.A., D.Phil. 8vo.
8s. 6d. net.

THE ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF HEGEL'S
LOGIC. By Prof. J. B. BAILLIE, M.A., D.Phil. 8vo.
8s. 6d. net.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF GASSENDI. By G. S.
BRETT. 8vo. xos. net.

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. With Especial Refer-
ence to the Formation and Development of its Problems
and Conceptions. By Dr. W. WINDELBAND. Translated
by J. H. TUFTS. 8vo. 1 75. net.

HISTORY OF THE PROBLEMS OF PHILO-
SOPHY. By PAUL JANET and GABRIEL SEAILLES. Trans-
lated by ADA MONAHAN and Edited by HENRY JONES, LL.D.
Two vols. 8vo. i os. net. each.

THE SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY

A HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF

PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

BY VARIOUS WRITERS

EDITED BY

SIR HENRY JONES

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Ready.

THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY.
By Professor JOHN ADAMS, M.A., B.Sc., LL.D. 8vo.
i os. net.

In Preparation.

THE HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY FROM
THALES TO ARISTOTLE. By Professor JOHN
BURNET, LL.D.

THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
FROM HOBBES TO REID. By Professor G. F. STOUT.
Other -volumes to follow.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

y