A HISTOEY OF
THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
4*
A HISTORY OF THE
PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
T
BY
PAUL JANET & GABRIEL SEAILLES
Membre de L'Institut Docteur es Lettres
Professeur a la Faculte des Lettres Maitre de Conferences a la Faculte
de Paris des Lettres de Paris
TRANSLATED BY
ADA MONAHAN
EDITED BY
HENRY JONES, LL.D.
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow
VOL. I.
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK : THK MACMILLAN COMPANY
1902
GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
Introduction, - - - vii
PART I. PSYCHOLOGY.
I. What is Philosophy 2 .... . . . \
II. The Psychological Problem, 27
s III. The Senses and External Perception, ... 47
y IV. Reason, - - 80
' V. Memory, - - - - - - - - - -144
*VT. The Association of Ideas, - - - - - 166
VII. Language, - - - ..... 202
VIII. The Feelings, ._.-..... 249
*<[X. Freedom, - - ... . . 314
X. Habit, ----------- 351
INTRODUCTION
The poets of this country have been bold and very great,
its philosophers timid and, on the whole, of a moderate
reputation. Our genius is practical, and has shown itself so even
in this matter ; for poetry reaches the results of philosophy by
short cuts, and without the endless linkage of argumentation. A
practical people is always prudent, and seeks aims well within
its reach ; and we have cultivated science rather than philosophy
and the inventive applications of science more than its abstract in-
quiries. We shun adventurousness even in the world of thought
except that of the imagination, which has the freedom of irre-
sponsibility ; and it is not strange that we should refuse the most
adventurous of all enterprises, namely, that of constructing
schemes of thought which shall explain the Universe of Being.
For, amongst civilized nations, England ranks with Rome the
great practical people of ancient times in the comparative
barrenness of its speculations. It has originated no systematic
interpretations of reality able to command the allegiance and
dominate the thought of other countries. Our greatest philo-
sophers either have been critics or they have been defenders of
foregone conclusions ; they have not had in their disposition enough
either of heroism or Quixotism to put the lance in rest against
the world. Locke and Hume investigated the Human Under-
standing, and sought to make human thought more sober in its
undertakings ; Berkeley, the most boldly constructive of all our
philosophers, worked in the service of theology, and sought pre-
misses for its conclusions ; Hobbes, the hardiest of all our
thinkers, not even excepting Hume in some respects, left behind
him no theory of the world. We cannot even translate the
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
Weltanschauung of our German neighbours. We are very
conscious of our limitations, are much afraid of appearing
ridiculous, and like to feel that we have solid ground beneath
our feet.
These characteristics are conspicuous in our bearing towards
the History of philosophy, as well as other universal undertakings.
We can boast of no serious attempt at presenting in rational
order the great systems of philosophy, which are the successive
exponents of the main stages of Western civilization. We have
written text-books for students, and some very competent and
illuminating monographs on individual thinkers. But there has
been no attempt at the effective co-ordination of these, nor have
we sought to give effect to the conviction that philosophy is, in
truth, a continuous endeavour, and the reflection of a continuous
experience. And yet one has to go but a little way in philosophy
to realize that its great systems can be interpreted only in their
context, and its problems effectively handled only through their
history. We have to go back to the past not merely because
here, as elsewhere, we require the help of earlier thinkers so as
to start from their results, but because philosophy must reflect
life. It is the exposition of experience. It is experience itself
breaking out into explicitness, blossoming into clear consciousness,
comprehending itself at least to some extent. And experience
always garners its past into its present : what it is can be
discovered only by laying out what it has been, by following
the steps of its self-articulating, self-concreting process. Both
on account of the bearing of philosophy upon life, and of
the history of philosophy upon philosophy itself, one may
say that a competent account of its great systems is the most
urgent desideratum of English reflective thought at the present
time.
In lieu of seeking our own interpretation of the evolution of
philosophy through its sequent systems, we have borrowed those
which have been offered by German thinkers, amongst whom
prudential motives are usually less operative, and who have
been as ready to reconstruct one another as to construct the
universe. Aristotle said of Plato that he was too good a man
for the wicked even to praise : and, verily, the praise of the
histories of Zeller, Erdmann or Hegel comes ill from English
INTRODUCTION ix
lips. The debt of English philosophy to their mastery of the
history of reflective thought is hardly measurable ; and we have
done well to borrow from them and to translate them into our
own tongue. But translated philosophy, like translated poetry,
has in it something that is radically unsatisfactory even when
the translations are competent, which is by no means always the
case ; for, like poetry, philosophy must be the outcome of our
proper and personal experience, and its intimate suggestiveness
cannot be borrowed. Hence, as every experienced teacher of
philosophy will acknowledge, one hesitates to place translations
of these great works into the hands of students. They will
rarely overcome their externality. They rind them foreign not
only in garb but in spirit : a collection of dead doctrines, unillu-
minating and forbidding. And it is partly to this cause, I
believe, that, in this country in particular, the history of philo-
sophy has been deemed to be a record of exploded systems,
which can only with difficulty be conceived as having had at
any time living significance.
In these circumstances it seems paradoxical to introduce
to English readers another foreign history of philosophy, and
especially one which naturally carries within it defects of its
own, in addition to the disadvantage of being a translation. I
shall indicate these defects in the proper place, though it is
not usual to cry down the ware one brings to market. In
the meantime I desire to point out the reasons which have led
me to entertain the belief that, in spite of its shortcomings,
this History of Pldlosophical Problems will prove exceedingly
valuable to students of the subject.
In the first place, it is French, and not German ; and, if that
implies, as some believe, a lack of profundity and of the exhaus-
tiveness which comes from inexhaustible patience, it also carries
with it a certain lucidity, directness and effectiveness apt to be
lacking in German writings. In philosophy everything is pre-
ferable to fog. Through error the student may find his way
into truth ; but lack of clearness, where the subject is at
once complicated and to be dealt with only by reflection, is noth-
ing less than fatal. An indefinite thinker should take to
mathematics rather than to philosophy ; for the problems of the
former are at least explicit and, in that province, he can, at the
x INTRODUCTION
worst, be convinced of his helplessness. The highly technical
character and abstractness of language characteristic of the pro-
founder philosophical thought of Germany is apt, at least with
English students, to foster this indefiniteness ; and it is not
without some reason that even official exponents of philosophy
have accused some of the greatest thinkers of that country of
writing "jargon." Such an accusation, however, recoils on those
who make it ; it means that they have found nothing else in
their writings : they are unconsciously frank. For it is quite
impossible to believe that "jargon" (such as Hegel's!) could
move European thought. But a charge of this kind cannot
have even the show of truth if directed against the philosophical
writers of this country; and still less, against those of France.
For, in the qualities of concreteness and clearness, French
philosophy shares the excellence of French literature in general.
It is a clearness that extends not only to the language, itself
concrete and direct, but to the arrangement of themes and the
whole method of exposition. And if the grapes one gathers
from it are not like those found by Joshuah and Caleb at the
brook of Eshcol, at least we are not condemned to wander forty
years in the wilderness.
In the second place, the relative emphasis laid by the historians
upon the different systems varies greatly. Apart from Plato,
Aristotle and the Stoics, whose conceptions have penetrated the
best thought and practice of all the Western nations, the philo-
sophers who have dominated the mind of France, Germany and
England, respectively, have been different. Germany and England
have owed much more to Kant and his Idealistic successors than
France : France and England have owed more to Descartes and
Locke than Germany, and at the present moment Leibnitz occupies
in France a place analogous to that of Hegel in England. It is a
natural consequence that the German historians should have
treated English systems inadequately even Hegel, who was, in
some ways, the most encyclopaedic of them all, has done so and
that their treatment of French philosophy should be more slight
still. Our own efforts would, no doubt, have been similarly one-
sided only, we have not made any. It is manifestly to the
interest of the study of philosophy in this country, that we should
observe how its great systems appear when refracted through
INTRODUCTION xi
another atmosphere, through minds deeply influenced by Des-
cartes and his school, and to which our own quasi-psychological
philosophers, from Locke to Spencer, have been of momentous
significance.
I cannot, indeed, pretend that by confining ourselves to the
French versions of this history we should not lose more than we
should gain. The present work, scholarly as it is, contains grave
defects of omission, and its accent is sometimes false. For instance,
the story of German philosophy since Kant is very imperfectly told,
and one might conclude that in this country, except for Mill and
Spencer, the Scottish philosophy, whose echoes have been silent
for many a year, has had the last word. In fact the Idealistic
theory, which originated in Kant, and by its development both in
Germany and in this country has swayed, with almost tyrannic
power, not only philosophic reflection but science and theology
and much of our common thought, creating new intellectual con-
ditions, is treated in a way which can only be called perfunctory.
This is a graver omission than can be laid to the charge of any
great German history of philosophy. But, on the other hand, so
constant is the pressure of Idealistic thought upon the mind
of this country, and so many and varied are the means of becom-
ing acquainted with these systems, that teachers of philosophy
will the less regret the defectiveness of the book on this side.
The omission is much more serious for French students than
for ours. To us the freshness of the treatment, the new
emphasis laid upon other ways of thought and the attention
accorded to the systems that have here fallen under comparative
neglect, will more than compensate for the omission of what lies
otherwise ready to our hand.
In the third place, and this is in some respects the most impor-
tant consideration, the history of philosophy is in this work
approached in a fresh way. " It is," say the authors in their Preface,
" conceived on an entirely new plan." " Our idea is, indeed, simple
enough, but it does not seem to have been easy to light upon or
to carry out, for to no one has it occurred before : nowhere not
in France, nor in England, nor in Italy, nor in Germany
is there a work composed on the same, or even on a similar plan."
And their claim is on the whole valid. I know no proximate
exception except Windelband's history, and even Windelband's
xii INTRODUCTION
plan is different in essential ways. What we have, then, is not
a history of systems of philosophy, or of schools, in their historic
order, such as we have had hitherto ; but a History of Philo-
sophical Problems. " We have taken, one after another in their
dogmatic order, the great problems of philosophy and given their
history, indicating their origin, their various aspects and forms,
and the stage they have reached in our day."
The objections that may be urged against this method are
sufficiently obvious. In incompetent hands it may easily issue in
detached disquisitions, or in an unsystematic collection of views
and conspectus of results, which have just as little value in philo-
sophy as a collection of answers to problems in mathematics.
Even in the best hands, the special doctrines advanced must lose
philosophical value and character just in the proportion in which
they are isolated from one another and from the systems of
thought of which they are parts ; for none of the individual
systems is presented as a whole.
But, on the other hand, in the case of any significant philo-
sophical thinker his treatment of all the profounder problems of
experience is always ruled by a few great conceptions. It is the
condition of his having a system at all that it should issue from,
and be the articulation of, great principles. He has his working
hypotheses, which he applies to the facts of experience, in a manner
not radically different from that of a great physicist. And when
such a thinker is approached through his special doctrines, one
strikes again and again upon these ruling hypotheses. His
central ideas are approached inductively, so to speak, through
their concrete exemplars and particular instances. There results,
it is true, an apparent iteration ; but the iteration of principles
in facts is the very making of sound thought ; it is not a defect,
but a main excellence.
Again, it is, I believe, a profound truth, never laid sufficiently
to heart by philosophical teachers and writers of text-books, that
the only true method of instruction is that which follows the
path of discovery. To understand a philosophical system we
must retrace the steps of its construction, and accompany the mind
of its author in its quest for the truth. And I think it is univer-
sally true that philosophers are driven to construct their systems
by the pressure of particular problems. The creation of a philo-
INTRODUCTION xiii
sophical system is a work of necessity, which no one would under-
take if he could avoid it. But when some trusted conviction
proves false, or some principle on which theoretical or practical
life appears to rest seems itself to be without foundation, and
experience is found to be like a house divided against itself,
there is no option left to those who have been called to think
except that of building up their world anew. Kant's Critiques^
for instance, are not intelligible except in the light of one or two
problems whose solution had become categorically imperative to
him ; and, in the case of every other great philosopher, it is some
particular cry that breaks his dogmatic slumber, and sets him
to reconstruct his experience on a higher principle. Nor are
the conditions entirely different for the lesser spirits, whose
utmost hope is merely to interpret for themselves the thoughts
of others. They, too, once the study of philosophy has become
real to them, seek, in the first place, for answers to problems set to
them by their own experience. Intellectual inquiry is never at its
best except when it springs from practical needs, and these are
always particular. The scientific investigator in the physical
laboratory does not attack nature at large, but through clearly
defined problems, and by means of specific experiments ; and the
true student of human experience must follow the same method,,
and ransack the learning of the ages because he is impelled thereto
by definite problems arising from his own life. He will, no
doubt, find the search longer than he expected. For in the world
of spirit one problem leads to another, as in the province of
natural facts. Nay, the problem with which he sets forth, like
all the rest of the inquiries that it startles into life, deepens as he
ujoes on.
In this context, I may indicate another respect in which I find
this new method of studying the history of philosophy more
true to its real spirit than the old. It is a history of the problems
of philosophy. That is to say, it represents each result that is
gained as a starting-point for a new endeavour ; and, in every
instance, after following the evolution of a problem down the
ages from the time of Heraclitus, the Dark, to our own, what is
reached is still a problem.
It might be concluded from this fact that this newer method
differs from the old only by making still more distressingly clear
xiv INTRODUCTION
the necessary failure of philosophic systems. And, no doubt,
there are minds by which this conclusion will be drawn. The idea
of Evolution, of which the history of philosophy is the greatest
concrete illustration, in the same way presents each stage attained
as only a new beginning, and is therefore capable of a double
rendering. We may accentuate each stage either as a terminus
ad quern or as a terminus a quo. " Last year's nuts are this
year's black earth," says Mowgli ; but it is just as true that " Last
year's black earth is this year's nuts " ; and the whole truth can
be expressed only by both of these statements. If both aspects
of the complex fact of growth be kept in mind, we shall find
a solution to be valuable, precisely to the degree in which
it is suggestive of further problems, which are themselves in
turn only more comprehensive restatements of the old. Indeed,
the supreme test of the real significance of a problem and of
the method of seeking an answer to it is that it goes on
reverberating through the experience of the ages of mankind.
If our questions really reach down to experience, they touch what
is in constant process of growth through reconstruction, in which
there is nothing old because there is nothing new. Knowledge,
like conduct, turns, after all, on a few great principles, and life, on
its theoretical and practical side, is a process through which these
are deepened by their application in a growing experience. In
the last resort we are always engaged upon the same problems,
but, in the last resort, too, the meaning of a problem depends
upon the massiveness of the experience which propounds it. On
these grounds I cannot but consider the experiment of teaching
philosophy through the history of its problems as likely to be in-
structive in a high degree ; and, especially so, if it be a history of
those greater problems whose very permanence indicates their
significance and their vital hold upon human experience.
It is not my part to endeavour to show in detail how far the
authors of this work have done justice to their own method. But
I may indicate one other feature of their book which I deem valu-
able, namely, the frequency and comparative fulness of their cita-
tions from the original authorities. For, after all that can be said
for a history of philosophy, it is most instructive when it falls into
a second place and serves as means of introducing students to the
great masters of human thought. No account of Plato or Aris-
INTRODUCTION xv
totle, Spinoza or Kant can serve as a substitute for the study
of these thinkers themselves ; and it is no slight commendation
of our authors to say that they have consistently regarded
themselves as media. They have not forced the views of the
philosophers into any pre-conceived scheme, nor allowed them-
selves to become advocates of a special theory ; they have done
their work in that impersonal wajr, which is characteristic only
of true scholarship.
The references, which are very numerous, are by no means
uniformly accurate in the original, and the translator's task of
verifying them and of correcting them when necessary has been
very laborious. That no errors remain is improbable ; but
the care spent upon the references and the use made by the trans-
lator of the best known English renderings, wherever that was
possible, will, it is hoped, make it easier for the student to read
the quotations in their original context.
Amongst the graver difficulties in the way of making this work
widely useful to English students was that of reducing its com-
pass. The easiest way of overcoming this difficulty would have
been to omit either the quotations, or portions of chapters in
which the treatment might appear somewhat prolix. But both
of these methods are objectionable ; the former on the ground
that it would sacrifice one of the best features of the work ; and
the second on the ground that it would distort the intention of
its authors and reduce the value of the book for English students
by shifting the accent from what is less to what is more familiar
to them. In these circumstances it was deemed best to omit,
first, the chapters which deal with problems that are only of
secondary importance, namely, Chapter III. (in the original)
dealing with La Vie Animate, and Chapter V., dealing with Le
Problems de la Conscience ; and, secondly, a long continuous
treatment of Logic and the systematic account given, on the
ordinary method, of the philosophical schools which is added as
an appendix to the original work. Both of these latter might be
issued as independent treatises, but, on the whole, their place is
not inadequately filled by text-books in logic and the history
of philosophy already extant in this country. The similar
independent and continuous account of the history of morals
has been included in the translation, both on account of its
b
xvi INTRODUCTION
excellence and of the poverty of the literature of this subject in
our language.
Professor Mahaffy has read most of the proofs of these
volumes, and both Miss Monahan and myself owe to him im-
portant criticisms and deep gratitude for his valuable assistance.
HENRY JONES.
The University,
Glasgow.
AVERTISSEMENT
L'Introduction, que M. le Professeur Jones a pris la peine
d'ecrire pour cet ouvrage, me dispenserait de rien ajouter, si
je ne tenais a lui exprimer publiqueraent raes sentiments de
gratitude, pour le soin avec lequel il a surveille cette traduction
et pour le point d'excellence auquel il a su l'amener. J'ai lu
avec une veritable surprise cette traduction, dont l'auteur
montre, avec une egale connaissance des deux langues, une rare
souplesse a transposer l'une dans l'autre, sans alterer l'accent
de l'oricnnal.
Cette histoire de la philosophic est concue sur un plan nou-
veau. Nous avons pris l'un apres l'autre, dans leur ordre
dogmatique, les grands problemes de la philosophic, et nous en
avons fait l'historique, en en marquant les origines, les phases
diverses, enfin le point ou ils sont arrives aujourd'hui.
L'histoire des problemes est, en general, noyee dans l'histoire
des dcoles philosophiques, et il faut un travail considerable pour
Ten degager ; encore n'y est elle jamais d'une maniere complete
(ou trouver par exemple une histoire suivie de la question du
langage, de la question de l'habitude ?) ; ou bien elle est mele'e
aux traites dogmatiques, mais d'une maniere tout a fait
accessoire et encore incomplete ; ou enfin elle est dispersee dans
un nombre infini de monographies difficiles a reunir, ou sans
suite et sans unite.
Nous avons done cru faire une ceuvre utile en rassemblant
en un seul tout ces fragments epars et imparfaits, en faisant la
synthase de l'histoire des doctrines sur les questions fonda-
mentales. Cette ceuvre est, en quelque sorte, intermediaire
xvii
xviii AVERTISSEMENT
entre la theorie et i'histoire. Decomposed en ses differents
problemes, la philosophie dans son histoire se presents sous
une forme plus scientifique. On y voit mieux la suite et le
progres des ide'es. II y a grand interet, pour l'etudiant qui
aborde l'etude d'une question, a connaitre I'histoire de cette
question, a se rendre compte des solutions qui en ont ete pro-
pose'es, des grandes hypotheses qui souvent continuent de
s'opposer en se transformant. Rien n'est plus propre a defendre
l'esprit d'un dogmatisme e'troit et outrecuidant.
A ce plan on peut opposer qu'une the'orie n'a de sens que dans
son rapport au systeme dont elle est un organe, qu'elle n'en
peut etre detache'e que par un artifice qui la fausse. Par la
les diverses philosophies tiennent des oeuvres de l'art et ne
sauraient etre decomposers en fragments qu'on rapporte et qu'on
juxtapose. Sans doute, mais notre effort a ete precisement, en
reliant les problemes particuliers et leurs solutions aux principes
gene'raux des systemes, de montrer ces systemes eux-memes de
points de vue divers, qui en developpent la richesse sans en
alterer F unite.
On peut aller plus loin, se demander s'il y a vraiment en
philosophie des problemes permanents, invariables, dont il soit
possible de faire I'histoire. D'Aristote a Descartes, de Descartes
a Kant, tout grand progres de la pensee philosophique ne
consiste-t-il pas dans l'invention d'une me'thode nouvelle, dans
la decouverte d'un point de vue original sur les choses qui a
precisement pour effet de substituer aux problemes anciens des
problemes nouveaux qui jusque la ne se posaient point ? Une
philosophie nouvelle est elle autre chose qu'une transformation
du probleme de la connaissance et de l'univers ? II est tres vrai
que les questions ne restent pas posees dans les memes termes,
que de nouvelles questions surgissent, qu'il serait parfois possible
d'assigner la date et l'origine d'un probleme jusqu'alors inapercu ;
il est vrai encore qu'une question secondaire, traitee incidem-
ment, prend dans un systeme nouveau une place preponderante.
Mais, quoi qu'on en puisse dire, il y a des problemes primordiaux,
qui renaissent en la pensee de la nature raeme des choses, et qui
se retrouvent transposes d'un systeme a l'autre (ame du monde >
harmonie preetablie, etc. . . .). Pas plus que les problemes, les
methodes et les hypotheses, appliquees a leur solution, ne sont
AVERTISSEMENT xix
en nombre indefini : la nature de l'esprit les limite, et d'age en
age elles se repetent et s'opposent en se perfectionnant.
En pre'sentant ce livre au public anglais, je dois prier ceux qui
le jugeront de n'y point chercber autre chose que ce que nous
avons eu l'intention d'y mettre. Ce livre n'est pas un livre de
pure science ; il y aurait injustice a le comparer aux grands
travaux parus en Allemagne et a l'ecraser du poids de la com-
paraison ; il est destine aux eleves de nos lycees et aux etudiants ;
il ne se propose rien de plus que de les aider a entrer dans
l'intelligence des problemes philosophiques, en leur montrant
comment ils se sont poses, et quelles solutions en ont ete donnees
au cours de l'histoire. Bref ce livre est ce que nous appelons un
livre de classe : pour juger ce que nous avons fait, il est equitable
de tenir compte de ce que nous avons voulu faire. Dans ce
travail de pretention modeste, nous nous sommes d'ailleurs
efforce de suivre les regies de la methode historique ; nous
remontons aux sources, nous multiplions les textes, nous ne
substituons pas des interpretations ingenieuses a la pensee vraie
des philosophes dont nous exposons la doctrine.
Le caractere de cet ouvrage, le public auquel il est destine,
explique des lacunes et des omissions qu'il est trop facile d'y
relever. D'une maniere general e nous avons surtout insiste sur
les doctrines qui appartiennent desormais a l'histoire, en y
comprenant la doctrine de Kant, dont l'intelligence est necessaire
a qui veut suivre le mouvement de la pensee contemporaine.
A partir de Kant, nous nous contentons d'indications sommaires
sur les divers systemes qui continuent de se partager les esprits.
Mais il se trouve que je semble avoir fait une exception, et
precisement en faveur de deux philosophes anglais. II en
re'sulte que depuis l'ecole Ecossaise et Hamilton, la philosophie
anglaise semble tenir et se resumer dans l'empirisme associa-
tionniste de John Stuart Mill et l'evolutionisme d'Herbert
Spencer.
Je n'ignore pas les penseurs qui ont repris en Angleterre,
avec une veritable originalite, la tradition des Fichte et des
Hegel, en se gardant des temerites dangereuses. Mais le plan
meme de mon travail m'amenait a insister sur les theories de
Mill et de Spencer, parceque ces theories completent et achevent
l'empirisme, en le portant a ses dernieres consequences. Cette
xx AVERTISSEMENT
erreur par omission, peu importante pour des lecteurs anglais,
comme le remarque M. le Professeur Henri Jones, est au con-
traire propre a favoriser en France le prejuge que la philosophie
anglaise est necessairement empirique. Mais les peuples se
simplifient pour se juger, et il est entendu que les Anglais sont
empiriques, comme il est convenu que les Francais sont clairs et
superficiels.
Je demande done que ce livre soit pris pour ce qu'il se donne,
pour un livre destine a introduire les eleves a l'etude de la
philosophie et de son histoire, et mon voeu, en terminant, est
qu'il trouve aupres des dtudiants de langue anglaise le succes
qu'il a obtenu aupres de nos eleves et de leurs maitres.
GABRIEL SEAILLES.
Septembre, 1902.
INDEX TO PROPER NAMES
Albertus Magnus (1193-1280 a.d.). Reason, 1 96.
Alcm^eon of Crotona (contemporary of Pythagoras). Sensation, 48.
Alexander of Aphrodisias (nourished circa 200 a.d.). Reason,- 97 ;
language, 207.
Anaxagoras (born circa 500 B.C.). The NoDs, 29 ; sensation, 48 ; distinc-
tion between rational and sensible knowledge, 81.
Anselm, St., of Canterbury (1033-1109). Faith and reason, 9 ; realism :
the ontological argument, 94.
Apollonius of Tyana (time of Nero). Mysticism, 8.
Aquinas, St. Thomas (1225-1274), Faith and reason, 9 ; psychology, 34 ;
reason, 95 ; the passions, 273, 274 ; freedom aud divine fore-
knowledge, 327, 328.
Arcesilaus (315-241 B.C.). Perception, 57.
Aristippus of Cyrene (born circa 435 B.C.). Pleasure, 251, 252.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). The object and characteristics of the science
of philosophy, 5, 6 ; psychology, 30, 31 ; sensation, 52, 53, 54 ; import
of sensible knowledge, 54, 55 ; reason : passive and active in-
telligence, 85-89; memory, spontaneous and voluntary, 145-147;
the association of ideas and its laws, 167-169 ; language, 206, 207 ;
the feelings : desire, 257-259 ; theory of j^leasure, 259-261 ; the
passions, 261, 262; proofs of freedom, 318-320; theory of habit,
352-355.
Augustine, St., of Hippo. (354-430 a.d.). Psychology : importance of
self-knowledge, 33 ; on reason, 93, 94 ; memory, rational and empiri-
cal, 149, 150 ; pleasure and pain, 272, 273 ; freedom, Providence and
foreknowledge, 226, 227.
Averroes (1126-1198 a.d.). Doctrine of reason : unity of the active
intellect, 96, 97.
Bacon, Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626). Definition of philosophy :
the first philosophy, 10, 11; conception of science : induction, 98 ;
language and signs, 212, 213.
xxi
xxii INDEX TO PROPER NAMES
Bain, Alexander (born 1818). Physiological m&hod of psychology, 43 ;
motor activity in external perception, 75 ; Aristotle and the laws
of association, 168.
Basil, St. (329-379). On language, 212.
Beattie, James (1735-1803). On Reason : the philosophy of common
sense, 131.
Bell, Sir Charles (1774-1842). Physiological theory of natural signs,
245.
Berkeley, George (1685-1753). His conception of philosophy, 14 ; he
denies reality of external world, 65, 66; our knowledge of the
sensible world and the association of ideas, 181 ; habit and know-
ledge, 368, 369.
Bernard of Chartres (1070-1160). Doctrine of a world-soul, 34.
Bonald, Louis G. A. de (1753-1840). Divine revelation of language,
233-235.
Bonnet, Charles (1720-1793). On memory, 159, 160.
Bopp, Franz (1791-1867). Comparative grammar, 239.
Bossuet (1627-1704). Reason : God and the eternal truths, 103 ;
language, 216, 217 ; pleasure and pain, 293, 294 ; the passions, 294,
295 ; proofs of freedom : theories of theologians, 336 340.
Boutroux, Emile (born 1845). Contingency of the laws of Nature, 349.
Breal, Michel (born 1832). On roots of languages, 243.
Brosses, Charles de (1709-1777). Mechanical formation of languages,
226-228.
Brown, Thomas (1778-1820). Associationism, 191, 192.
Buffier, Claude (1661-1737). Treatise on first truths, 131.
Burnouf, Eugene (1801-1852). His work on language, 239.
Cardano, Girolamo (1501-1576). Epicurean theory of pleasure, 275.
Carneades (214-129 b.c.). On sensible perception, 57 ; on freedom, 323.
Chrysippus (282-209 b.c.). On external perception, 56 ; the feelings,
265 ; attempted reconciliation between determinism and freedom,
321.
Cleanthes (pupil of Zeno the Stoic). On external perception, 56.
Condillac (1715-1780). His view of philosophy, 14; language and
reasoning, 220-223 ; origin of language, 223-226 ; habit, instinct
and reason, 371-373.
Cousin, Victor (1792-1867). Conception of philosophy, 21, 22 ; psycho-
logical method, 40; external perception, 76; reason, spontaneous
and impersonal, 131-133.
Cratylus (a pupil of Heraclitus). On language, 204-206.
Darwin, Charles (1809-1882). On the expression of the emotions, 245,
246.
Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802). Associationism, 191.
Democritus (born circa 460 b.c.). On sensation, 49, 50 ; reason and the
senses, 81 ; probable theory of memory, 144 ; on language, 204 ;
pleasure and paiu, 250, 251 ; on necessity, 316.
INDEX TO PROPER NAMES xxiii
Descartes, Rene* (1596-1650). Definition and division of philosophy,
11-13 ; his psychology, 35 ; physiology of the senses, 57, 58 ; reality
of the external world, 59, 60 ; primary notions and truths : mathe-
matical rationalism, 98-103; physiological theory of memory, 150,
151 ; physiological theory of the association of ideas, 171, 172;
language, 216; physiological theory of the passions, 277-279 ; pleasure
and pain, 279 ; use and dangers of the passions, 280-282 ; free will,
333, 334 ; physiological theory of habit, 360-363.
Destutt de Tract (1754-1836). External perception, 74, 75.
Dumont, Le"on (born 1837). Quoted on Cardano, 275.
Duns Scotus (died 1308). Superiority of the will to the intellect, 34 ;
on universal ideas, 95 ; freedom and contingency, 328.
Eleatics, The The distinction between matter and mind, 28 ;
determinism, 315.
Empedocles (born circa 492 B.C.). External perception, 49 ; distinction
between sensation and reason, 81 ; the feelings, 250.
Epicurus (341-270 b.c). Conception of philosophy, 7; perception:
theory of the d5co\a, 55 ; sensation the principle of knowledge, 90, 91 ;
memory and imagination, 147-149; association of ideas: its double
role, 170, 171 ; psychological theory of the origin of language, 209 ;
theory of pleasure, 269, 270, 271 ; theory of desire, 271 ; the Clinamen
and freedom, 322, 323 ; mechanical theory of habit, 359, 360.
Eunomius (4th century). On language, 212.
Fechner (1801-1887). Psycho-physics, 43, 44, 77.
Fenelon (1651-1715). God and reason, 103, 104.
Fichte (1762-1814). Definition of philosophy, 18, 19; conception of
psychology, 43 ; on reason, 129, 130.
Ficino, Marsilio (1433-1499). Attacks the doctrine of Averroes, 96.
Fouillee, Alfred (born 1838). On the determinism of Socrates, 317 ;
on determinism and freedom, 349.
Galen (131-200 a.d.). On the passions, 268.
Garnier, Adolphe (1801-1864). On motor activity in external perception
74 ; on the faculty of expression, 246 ; desires and passions, 308, 309.
Gassendi (1592-1655). Theory of memory, 151.
Gilbert de la Poree (pupil of Bernard of Chartres). Reason and
revelation, 94.
Gregory, St., of Nyssa (331-394). Divine revelation of language, 212.
Grimm, Jacob (1785-1863). Experimental science of language, 239.
Guyau (1854-1888). On the doctrine of Epicurus concerning freedom,
322.
Hamilton, Sir William (1788-1856). On our immediate consciousness
of external objects, 74 ; the relativity of knowledge, 133-135 ;
memory and latent ideas, 156, 157 ; association of ideas, 190, 191 ;
pleasure, 308.
Hartley, David (1705-1757). Method of psychology, 38 ; memory, 159;
association of ideas and cerebral mechanism, 187.
xxiv INDEX TO PROPER NAMES
Hartmann (born 1842). Positive pleasures, 306.
Hegel (1770-1831). Conception of philosophy, 19, 20 ; conception of
psychology, 43 ; reason, 130.
Helmholtz (1821-1894). Sensation, 76, 79.
Heraclitus (born circa 500 B.C.). Sensible knowledge, 28 ; sensation,
48 ; reason opposed to the senses, 80, 81 ; language, 203.
Herbart (1776-1841). Psychology, 43 ; the feelings, 307.
Hermogenes. His theory of language refuted by Plato, 204.
Herodotus (born 484 B.C.). Uses the term philosophy, 1.
Hesiod (flourished circa 735 B.C.). Term philosophy not found in his
writings, 1.
Hobbes (1588-1679). Association of ideas, 178, 179 ; the feelings :
egoism, 296 ; determinism, 329.
Homer, term philosophy not found in, 1.
Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm von (1767-1835). Science of language,
239.
Hume, David (1711-1776). Philosophy the study of human nature, 14 ;
founder of associationist psychology, 39 ; the external world reduced
to representations, 67-70 ; the principles of knowledge and habit,
114, 115 ; association of ideas the universal principle of life and of
thought, 182-187; the feelings, 304; freedom, 342-346; habit ami
the laws of thought, 369-371.
Hutcheson (1694-1746). The affections, 303, 304.
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinricii (1743-1819). The feelings, 302.
Jamblichus (died circa 330 a.d.). Freedom and divination, 325.
Jones, Sir William (1746-1794). Relationship of languages, 238.
Jouffroy, Theodore (1796-1842). The object of philosophy, 1 ; distinc-
tion between psychology and physiology, 40 ; the faculty of ex-
pression, 246 ; the affections, 308.
Kant (1724-1804). Conception of philosophy, 14-18 ; psychology and
criticism, 42, 43 ; external perception, 72 ; reason : analytical and
synthetic judgments, 116-118 ; the matter and form of knowledge,
118-120 ; transcendental aesthetic, 120, 121 ; transcendental analytic,
121, 122 ; transcendental schematism, 122, 123 ; transcendental
dialectic, 124-127 ; critique of judgment, 128 ; practical reason, 128 ;
desire and pleasure, 305-307 ; noumenal freedom, 346-348.
Lachelier, J. (born 1832). Quoted on Descartes' theory of reason, 101 ;
theory of reason mentioned, 136.
Lamennais (1782-1854). Language, 235.
Lami, le Pere (1636-1711). Divine revelation of language, 232.
Larochefoucauld (1613-1680). Self-love the principle of all human
affections, 295.
Laromiguiere (1756-1837). External perception, 74.
Leibnitz (1646-1716). Metaphysical psychology, 37, 38; external per-
ception and the pre-established harmony, 62, 63 ; experience and
reason, 108-112 ; memory and latent perceptions, 154, 155 ; the
INDEX TO PROPER NAMES xxv
association of ideas and animal intelligence, 178; founder of scientific
philology, 217, 218 ; theory of lauguage, 218, 219 ; theory of the
passions : activity and passivity, 297, 299 ; three degrees of appetition,
299-302 ; pleasure and pain, 301, 302 ; psychological determinism,
340, 342 ; metaphysical theory of habit, 365, 366.
Liard, L. (bom 1846). Work on positivism referred to, 23.
Locke (1632-1704). Empirical science of mind, 38, 39 ; the data of the
senses, 63, 64 ; reason reduced to discursive understanding, 112-114 ;
memory, 153 ; personal identity, 154 ; association of ideas, 179-181 ;
ideas and words, 214-216 f the passions, modes of pleasure and pain,
296, 297 ; freedom and the will, 330-332 ; desire and will, 332 ;
habit and innateness, 367, 368.
Lucretius (95-52 B.C.). Memory and imagination, 147, 148 ; language,
209, 210 ; freedom, 322, 323 (see Epicurus).
Maine de Biran (1766-1824). Eclecticism, 21 ; psychology and its
method, 41, 42; sensation and perception, 74; consciousness and
reason, 135, 136 ; language and voluntary motion, 235-238 ; laws of
habit, 375-378.
Maistre, Joseph de (1754-1821). Language, 235.
Malebranche (1638-1715). Psychology and the experimental method,
35, 36 ; external perception and the theory of occasional causes, 60,
61, 62; vision in God, 104, 105 ; memory, 151, 152 ; association of
ideas and cerebral mechanism, 172 ; precursor of the associationists,
174-177 ; the desires, 287-289 ; pleasure and pain, 289, 290 ; the
passions, 291-293 ; God the principle of human activity, 336 ;
physiological theory of habit, 363 ; spiritual habits, 364, 365.
Mill, James (1773-1836). Associationist psychology, 44, 136 ; insepar-
able association, 192, 280.
Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873). Associationist psychology, 42, 43 ; the
world a permanent possibility of sensations, 79 ; the principles of
knowledge and the association of ideas, 137, 138 ; the Absolute and
the Infinite, 139, 140 ; the laws of association, 193 ; habit and insepar-
able associations, 380.
Molina (1535-1600). Doctrine of freedom, 339.
Montaigne (1533-1592). On pleasure, 275.
Muller, Max (1823-1901). On language, 211, 212, 218, 239 ; first
elements of language, 240-243.
Ockam, William of (died circa 1349). Revival of nominalism, 10 ; on
intuition, 34 ; foreshadows later empirical psychology, 96.
Parmenides (born circa 515 B.C.). Opposes the unity of being to the data
of the senses, 50 ; reason, 81 ; determinism, 315.
Philo the Jew (born circa 25 B.C.). Endeavours to reconcile Judaism
with Hellenism, 7, 8.
Plato (428-347 B.C.). The object of philosophy, 3, 4 ; portrait of the
philosopher, 4, 5 ; science of the soul, 29, 30 ; doctrine of external
perception, 51, 52 ; reminiscence and reason, 82-85 ; memory and
xxvi INDEX TO PROPER NAMES
reminiscence, 144 ; empirical reminiscence, 144, 145, 167 ; theory of
language, 204-206 ; love, 252-254 ; pleasure and pain, 254-257 ; free-
dom, opiniou, and science, 317, 318 ; habit and knowledge, 351, 352.
Plotinus (died 269 a.d.). -Conception of philosophy, 8 ; psychology, 32 ;
reason and ecstasy, 93 ; pleasure and passion, 271, 272 ; freedom and
the Divine action, 324, 325.
Posidonius or Rhodes (teacher of Cicero). Passion, 267, 268.
Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804). Associationism, 191.
Prodicus (see Sophists).
Protagoras (born circa 491 B.C.). Man the measure of all things,
29 ; relativity of sensible knowledge, 50, 51 (see Sophists).
Pythagoras (born circa 582 B.C.). Meaning of the word philosophy, 2.
Pythagoreans. Sensible knowledge, 28 ; the feelings, 250 ; responsi-
bility, 315.
Ravaisson (born 1813). Quoted on Aristotle, 31, 89 ; consciousness and
reason, 136 ; memory, 158 ; language, 247 ; laws of habit, 378-380.
Reid, Thomas (1710-1796). Conception of philosophy, 21 ; object of
psychology, 40 ; realism and external perception, 72, 73 ; reason and
common sense, 131 ; memory, an immediate knowledge of the past,
155, 156; association of ideas, 188, 189; the feelings, 304, 305; habit,
373, 374.
Renan, Ernest (1823-1892). On the modern method of the science of
language, 240 ; origin of language, 243, 244.
Renouvier (born 1815). Theory of reason, 136 ; freedom, 349.
Ribot (born 1839). His Psychologie Allemande and Psychologic Anglaise
quoted, 43, 44, 45; physiological theory of memory, 161-164;
diseases of the memory, 164, 165.
Richard of St. Victor (died 1173). Stages in the ascent of the soul into
ecstasy, 34.
Roscellinus (born circa 1050). Nominalism, 95.
Rousseau, J. J. (1712-1778). The origin of language, 229-232 ; the
feelings, 302, 303.
Royer-Collard (1763-1845). Psychology, 40 ; memory, 157.
Schelling (1775-1854). Conception of philosophy, 19, 20 ; psychology,
43 ; reason, 129, 130.
Schlegel, Carl W. Friedrich von (1772-1829). Essay on the Language
and Wisdom of the Hindoos, 238, 239.
Schmidt, H. On memory, quoted by Hamilton, 156, 157.
Schopenhauer (1788-1860). His pessimism derived from Kant's theory
of pleasure, 306.
Scholastics. Conception of philosophy, 9, 10 ; psychology, 34 ; the
senses, 57 ; theories of reason, 93-95.
SecriStan (born 1815). Freedom, 349.
Seneca (3-65 a.d.). Definition of philosophy, 7 ; the passions, 265; habit,
357, 358.
Shaftesbury (1671-1713). The affections, 303.
INDEX TO PROPER NAMES xxvii
.Smith, Adam (1723-1790). Origin of language, 228, 229 ; moral senti-
ments, 304.
Socrates (born circa 469 died 399 b.c). Conception of philosophy, 3 ;
self-knowledge, 29; reason : truth is innate, maieutic, 81, 82 ; desire,
251 ; freedom, 316, 317.
Sophists. Psychology, 29 ; relativity of knowledge, 50, 81 ; doctrines
refuted by Socrates, 81.
Spexcer, Herbert (born 1820). Psychology, 43 ; transfigured realism,
79 ; the principles of knowledge and the theory of evolution, 138,
139 ; the idea of the absolute, 140-142 ; memory and instinct, 160, 161 ;
evolutionist theory of association, 198-201 ; pleasure and pain,
309-31 2 ; habit and heredity, 382-387 ; physiological explanations
of habit, 385-387.
Spixoza (1632-1677). Deductive psychology, 37 ; sensible knowledge,
62 ; rational and intuitive knowledge, 105-108 ; memory, 151, 152 ;
empirical association and intellectual association, 177, 178 ; tiie
passions, 282-2S7 ; negation of freedom, 335, 336.
Stewart, Dugald (1753-1828). Conception of philosophy, 21 ; reason
and common sense, 131 ; association of ideas and habit, 189 ; acci-
dental and necessary relations, 190 ; habit, 375.
Stoics. Conception of philosophy, 6, 7 ; psychology, 32 ; activity of the
mind in sensible knowledge, 55-57 ; empirical theory of the principle
of knowledge, 89, 90 ; memory, 147 ; association of ideas, language,
208, 209 ; theory of passion, 263-266 ; opposition between Zeno and
and Chrysippus, 267 ; logical, physical, and moral proofs of deter-
minism, 320, 321 ; habit, knowledge, and virtue, 355, 359.
Taine (1828-1893). On modern psychology, 78 ; reason, 136.
Thales (born circa 640 B.c.).--28.
Themistius (born circa 317 a. d.). On the passive and active intellects, 96.
Theophrastus (born circa 372 b.c). The passions, 262.
Thomas, St. See Aquinas.
Thucydides (471-401 b.c). Uses the word philosophy, 1, 2.
Tracy. Destutt des. See Destutt.
Vacherot (born 1809). Reason, 136.
Verri (1741-1816). Pleasure, 306.
Warburton (1698-1779). Language, 233.
Weber (1795-1878). Physiological psychology, 44, 77.
Wundt. Psycho-physics, 43, 44, 77, 78.
Xexophox (born circa 444 B.C.). Use of the word philosophy, 2 ;
Socrates and self-knowledge, 29 ; Socrates and determinism, 316, 317
Zeller, Eduard (born 1814). On conception of philosophy in the last
period in Greece, 8 ; on the Pythagoreans and the problem of
freedom, 315.
Zexo the Stoic ,(350-258 b.c). Sensation, 56 ; the passions, 263, 265, 267.
NOTE
The following are the chief English translations from which
quotations have been made :
Plato's Dialogues, ------- Professor Jowett.
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, - - - - F. H. Peters.
Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers, - Bohn's Series.
Descartes' Altthode ami Meditations, - - - Professor Veitch.
Spinoza's Ethics, - - - W. Hale White and that of R. H. M. Elwes.
Leibnitz's Monadology, Professor Latta.
Leibnitz's New Essays, - - - - A. G. Langley.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, - Professor Meiklejohn,
Kant's Critique of Judgment, Dr. Bernard.
Zeller's History of Philosophy, - A. Alleyne and Evelyn Abbot.
PART I.
PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY
According to Theodore Jouffroy, the subject of which Philosophy
should properly treat has not yet been determined. This is
indeed a grave accusation for a philosopher to bring against
philosophy. We must turn to history for a reply. History
will tell us whether there has been so much ignorance and so
little agreement regarding the object of philosophy, as Jouffroy
would have us believe ; or whether beneath many different
formulae there does not lie one idea, more or less vague in the
beginning, but which, remaining on the whole unchanged, gains
in clearness and distinctness as the science progresses. Philo-
sophy is in this not different from other sciences. The first
philosophical problem, therefore, to be considered is : What
conceptions of philosophy did the philosophers form at the
different periods of its history ?
The term " Philosophy " originally used in a ivide sense.
The words (ptXoo-ocpos, cpiXoa-ocpla do not occur either in
Homer or in Hesiod. Originally, a very wide meaning was given
to the term <pi\6cro<pos. It was used to indicate the spirit of
enquiry, intellectual culture, every effort of the mind to acquire
fresh knowledge. We find it for the first time in Herodotus :
Croesus says to Solon : " We have heard much of thy wisdom,
and of thy travels through many lands, from love of wisdom
and a wish to see the world." cog (piXouocpeoov <yr\v izoWriv
Oecopir]<? elveicev eireXi'jXvOag (Her. I, 30).
In Thucydides we meet the following phrase in the famous
funeral oration of Pericles : " We are lovers of the beautiful, yet
A
2 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of
manliness." <pi\oKa\ou/ui.et> fxer evreXetas, kcu (piXocrocpov/uev
avev /jLokaKias (Thucydides, II, 40). (pt\oo-o<peiv should here
be taken to mean the love of truth in all its forms, the art
of speaking and thinking correctly and well, everything, in
short, that tends to make man more truly man. The word
continued long to be used in this wide sense. Euthydemus
thinks himself " far advanced in philosophy," because he has
collected many works of celebrated poets and sophists
(Xenophon, Mem. IV, II, 23). Isocrates calls his rhetoric rrjv
7repi tow Aoyof? <pi\ocro(p[ai>, sometimes simply (piXocrocpia,
<pi\ocro(peiv (Panegyricus).
The tradition is, that Pythagoras was the first to give an
exact meaning to the term " philosophy." " Wisdom," he says,
" belongs to no man, but to God alone ; it is enough for man
to love and pursue wisdom" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of
Philosophers, Pref.).
In a conversation between Leo, tyrant of Phlius, and
Pythagoras, Cicero puts these words into the mouth of the
latter, Paws esse quosdam qui, caeteris omnibus pro nihilo
habitis, rerum naturam studiose intuerentur : hos se appellare
mpientiae studiosos (id est enirn philosophos) (TuscuL V, 3).
Until the time of Socrates, philosophers, in the more exact
sense of the word, were called Sages (o-ocpol), or Sophists
(<ro(pi<TTal), or again Physicists ((pvaiKol, (pvcrioXoyoi).
Philosophy originally Universal Science.
The earlier thinkers included in philosophy, both what we
call theoretical knowledge, that is, the explanation of things, and
what we call wisdom, namely the practice of virtue, or prudence
in the conduct of life. Their " wisdom," however, was entirely
practical, and their science concerned itself with the external
world only. Taking up the problems that had exercised the
minds of the ancient poets, of the authors of theogonies, who
founded their explanation of the universe on the history of the
gods, these first philosophers also endeavoured to account for
the formation of the universe, and for the existence of man.
They sought the origin of things either in the elements, or in
atoms, or in numbers. Their philosophy was a cosmogony, and
covered the whole range of human knowledge at that period.
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 3
Socrates leads mankind from the study of the universe to the
study of Man.
Socrates brought about a revolution in philosophy, and gave
it a new aim by turning from the investigation of nature to
the study of man. As Cicero puts it in a well-known phrase :
" He brought down philosophy from Heaven to earth and intro-
duced her into cities and houses." That is to say, he
turned philosophy from speculations on the Universe and its
origin, to the consideration of political and ethical questions.
But Socrates is not only the founder of moral science ; for
twenty centuries the principle underlying his method of
reasoning has served as guide to the human mind. To him
the aim of science is the discovery of the permanent element
which lies beneath things contingent and particular. This
permanent element is the general notion, or the concept, and the
end of science is to find its definition. The Socratic method,
carried further by his followers, developed into Plato's dialectic,
and into Aristotle's syllogistic, and in the latter form it per-
sisted through antiquity, and through the middle ages. Thus,
until the time of Descartes, the task which philosophers set
before them was the abstraction of universals from particulars,
the definition of the former, and their systematic co-ordination.
With Plato, Philosophy is again characterised by its Universality.
Its object is Being, the Good, the order and harmony of things.
With Plato and Aristotle, the universal character of philo-
sophy, which Socrates had left too much in the background,
reasserts itself. To them philosophy is not merely physical
or moral science, nor the aggregate of all the sciences ; it is
the supreme, the only true science, the science which dominates
all the other sciences.
Philosophy, according to Plato, is the acquisition of true
knowledge (/ct^o-j? eTna-n^?). It has not for its object things
of sense, which are in a state of perpetual flux and possess no
reality or stability : nor is it even correct opinion {opQrj So^a),
in which a man hits upon the truth by a lucky chance with-
out being able to defend it logically. Philosophy deals with
Being, or that which is wholly real, wholly knowable (to fiev
iravrekw? ov, 7ravTe\u)? yvwvTov). Its object is, therefore, the
immutable, the self identical, that which in each thing is the
4 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
very being of that thing : tov$ clvto apa eVao-rov to ov aa-Tra(o-
fxeuov?, (pi\ocro(pov$ k\)'itov {Rep. 480 b). This is what Plato
calls the Idea (Efo^o?, 'iSea), the principle of truth for the in-
tellect, and of existence in things. These Ideas, these eternal
archetypes of things, dwell in the Divine Being ; all are summed
up and included in the highest Idea, the Idea of the Good.
Thus Philosophy with Plato is distinguished from, and placed
above physical and moral science, and becomes in fact
Metaphysics, though it is not yet called by that name.
To Plato, philosophy is not only an enquiry into what is im-
mutable and essential, into the ideal and absolute element in
things, but it is also, or rather for that very reason, a vision
of the whole, a synthesis : 6 /xei/ yap o-vvotttikos SiaXeKTiKos {Rep.
537 c). It is the principle of harmony in life, and in thought :
6 (pt\6o-o<po9 [xovcriKos ; and so philosophy is identified with
wisdom, <pi\o<ro(pLa. with <ro(pia, knowledge with virtue. It is
this perpetual seeking after the true and the beautiful, which
is also the Good, to KaXoKa'yadov, that lifts the philosopher
above the prejudices of the vulgar. Mindful not only of his
own good, but also of that of others, he is the only true
statesman, the only legislator into whose hands the happiness
and virtue of the state can safely be committed.
" When he appears in a law court, or in any place in which he has to
speak of things which are at his feet and before his eyes, he is the jest
not only of Thracian handmaids, but of the general herd.
" When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer to the
civilities of his adversaries. . . . Hearing of enormous landed proprietors
of ten thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this to be a trifle,
because he has been accustomed to think of the whole earth ; and when
they sing the praises of family, and say that some one is a gentleman
because he can show seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks
that their sentiments only betray a dull and narrow vision in those who
utter them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, and
to consider that every man has had thousands and ten thousands of pro-
genitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves,
Hellenes and barbarians, innumerable. . . . The Freeman, who has been
trained in liberty and leisure (whom you call the Philosopher), him we
cannot blame because he appears simple and of no account when he has
to perform some menial task, such as packing up bed-clothes, or flavour-
ing a sauce, or fawning speech ; the other character is that of the man
who is able to do all this kind of service smartly and neatly, but knows
not how to wear his cloak like a gentleman ; still less with the music of
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 5
discourse can he begin the true life aright which is lived by immortals or
men blessed of heaven" (Theaetetus, 174-175).
Aristotle's conception of Philosophy does not differ from that
of Plato. Characteristics of the Philosophic Science.
By Aristotle the term (piXoaocpla is still used in its widest
sense, denoting all knowledge and scientific research. (pi\o-
a-o(pta is science in general, and comprises three different
kinds of sciences : the speculative, the practical, and the
artistic.
"The poetical and practical sciences treat of things that might be other-
wise than they are, and that therefore depend more or less upon the will.
The theoretical sciences treat of that which is necessary, at least in its
principles, and cannot be altered by the will. But a distinction must also
be made between art and practice. The former aims at something
outside the agent, which is to be the realization of his will ; practice finds
its end in the volition itself, in the mental act of the agent" (F. Eavaisson,
Essai sur la me'ta physique d'Aristote, I, p. 250).
Aristotle sometimes uses the plural, al (piXouocplai, to indicate
the different branches of science. Speaking of Mathematics,
Physics, and Theology, he calls them the three <pi\o<ro<piai
OeoopqTtKai.
But the philosopher's proper sphere, philosophy in the true
sense of the word, h tov (ptXoaocpov eTna-Ty/a*], is the izpw-rr]
(piXocrocpia, the first philosophy. In his conception of this
supreme science and of its object, Aristotle, says Zeller, {Hist, of
Greek Philosophy, II, 2nd pt., p. 161, 3rd ed.), agrees in the main
with Plato. Its office is the investigation of Being as Being :
(tw ovti fj ov e<TTi Tiva. 'iSia, xai ravr ccttc 7repi <ov tov
<pi\ocr6(pov 7ri(TKeyp-acr6ai raX)]6e?, Metaph. IV, 1004 h 15),
the essence, or, to be more exact, the universal essence of
the real (Jivev piev yap tov kuOoXov ovk ccttlv Tna-Ti)prjv \a(3eiv).
It enquires into causes and principles, that is, into the first
principles and ultimate causes of things (Set yap TavTriv
(crocbiav) tcjov TrpwToov apyfov ko} uiticov eivai OeooprjTiKr'jv), finally
reaching the absolute principle which presupposes nothing
beyond itself. Regarded as the science of first principles,
philosophy is, in a sense, universal science. Plato distinguished
science, the knowledge of what is eternal and necessary, from
sensation and opinion, whose province is the contingent.
Aristotle makes the same distinction : he, too, thinks that
6 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
.science is born of wonder, and that whereas opinion only aims,
at the contingent, philosophy on the contrary is occupied with
the universal and the necessary.
Thus we see that Aristotle's conception of philosophy was a
very lofty one. He has admirably described its peculiar
characteristics.
1. Universality, the spirit of unity, of synthesis : Philosophy
is to be conceived as embracing as far as possible the whole of
things. (Metaph. IY, I.)
2. Abstraction and lofty speculation :
"The wise man, especially, is acquainted with all things scientifically.
. . . (For perception by the senses is common to all, wherefore it is a
thing that is easy, and by no means wise") (Ibid.).
3. Disinterestedness :
"That science, without doubt, is more adapted towards giving instruc-
tion which speculates about causes. . . . Therefore, indeed, nearly
all sciences else be more requisite than this one ; but none is more
excellent" (Ibid.).
4. Independence and supremacy :
"The wise man ought not to be dictated to, but should dictate unto
others ; and this person ought hot to be swayed in his opinions by
another, but one less wise by this man. . . . As we say a free man
exists who is such for his own sake, and not for the sake of another, so,.,
also, this alone of the sciences is free, for this alone subsists for its own
sake" (Ibid.).
5. Lastly, the divine character of philosophy :
" For that (science) which is most divine is also most worthy of honour.
But such will be so in only two ways : for that which the Deity would
especially possess is a Divine one among the sciences. . . . The acquisi-
tion of this science may be justly regarded as not human. . . . But
neither does the Divine essence admit of being affected by envy" (Metaph.
Bk. 1, dll).
With the Stoics Philosophy takes a more practical turn, but
retains its character of Universality.
With the Stoics, the fundamental idea of philosophy remains,
unchanged, but their definition is more concrete and more
intelligible to the vulgar. Wisdom, or cro(pla was the
knowledge of things human and divine. Sajnentia est notitia
rerum humanarum divinarumque : Ttjv <To(ptav Oeicov re teal
avdpunrlvwv e7ri<TTi']/uLr]v (Plutarch, De Placitis Philosophorum, 2)..
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 7
But, like Socrates, they brought all science back to matters
of morality and practice. They sought nothing by means
of philosophy except the principles of a rational system of
ethics. ^Locpla is a science ; <piXoao(pia is " the practice of
a useful art"; ri]u $e (piXo(ro(piav a<TKt](riv reY/79 e-wiT^elov
(Plut. Be Plac. Phil. 2), the striving after virtue: Philosophia
studium virtutis est, sed per ipsam virtidem (Seneca, Epist.
LXXXIX, 7). In order to emphasize the connection between
speculative and practical life, the Stoics called logic, physics,
and ethics, virtues ; aperas ras yeviKwraras Tpeis, (pvaiKrjv,
jQucriv, Xoyunjv (Plut. Ibid. ; Diog. Laert. VII, 92). They in-
sisted, however, on the unity of philosophy, and Diogenes tells
us of the different comparisons they used in order to make
this unity intelligible (Life of Zeno). Philosophy is like an
animal : the bones and sinews are logic, the flesh is ethics,
the soul physics. Philosophy is like an egg : the shell is logic,
the white ethics, the yolk physics. Again, they compared
philosophy to a fertile plot of ground. Logic is the fence that
surrounds it, the fruit is ethics, the tree or the earth is physics.
In all these comparisions logic is, as it were, the framework,
the means of defence, the part that protects -and/contains ;
physics is the productive part : ethics is the result, the fruit.
Epicurus.
Epicurus gave to philosophy a more practical turn than
even the Stoics. He defined Philosophy as an activity that
realizes a happy life through ideas and discussions. 'T&iriicovpos
eXeye t1]v (biXocrocbiav evepyeiav elvai Xoyois koi SiaXoyiar/ixoh
tov evSal/ULOva fiiov irepnroiova-av (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus
Ethicos, XI, 169). And he, too, divided it into logic (or
canonic) physics, and ethics. But he makes logic and physics
subordinate to moral dogmas, and for abstract science,, for
mathematics, for astronomy, for all that is not of immediate
utility, he affects a contempt which bears witness to the
decadence of the speculative spirit at that period.
Triumph of Mysticism in the last period of Greek Philosophy.
The peculiar note of the last period of Greek philosophy
was theosophy, a mysticism that sometimes degenerated into
superstition. It was during this period that Greece and the
East met and were fused in Alexandria ; that Philo, the Jew
8 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
(born about 25 B.C.), made his attempt to reconcile Judaism with
Hellenism ; that Apollonius of Tyana (reign of Nero) com-
bined the working of miracles with the revival of Pytha-
goreanism ; that Plotinus (204-266 a.d.) transformed the
Platonic doctrine, and preached the return to God by means of
ecstasy. Science was more and more confused with
mythology. " The term Philosophy lost all exact meaning "
(Zeller). A Linus or an Orpheus were now considered to be the
fathers of philosophy. To them apocryphal poems were
attributed, which in their vague mysticism were supposed to
contain all wisdom. Consecrations, theurgical superstitions,
the hallucinations of ecstasy, all announce the end of Philo-
sophy in Greece.
Recapitulation and Conclusion : What ivas the Greek Conception
of Philosophy ?
It is clear that the term Philosophy was never strictly
defined by the Greeks. Nevertheless, is it not possible to
discern in these divers definitions certain common elements,
by which we can trace the general character of Greek
philosophy, and determine its role and nature ? Two points
stand out clearly. In the first place, what distinguishes the
philosopher from others is, that he does not study the
different branches of science for their own sakes, but
regards them as the materials of the system which he is
constructing. In the second place, every system is an
endeavour to form a conception of the world and of man in
their mutual relation ; to discover the universal laws by which
nature as well as individual and social life are governed ; to
find the universal principles that apply to all Being. The
earlier philosophy included, it is true, all the sciences, but only
in order to gather them into a whole, and to get beyond them
while reducing them to unity. Human experience was
limited ; the thinker in forming his system was not over-
whelmed by the amount of material at his disposal.
Philosophy, however, is neither a special science, nor the
collective total of all the sciences. It is a synthesis, a
consideration of things in so far as they form a whole, and are
related to, and in harmony with one another. It sees man in
Nature, and Nature in man. It dwells upon those ever-
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 9
present, ever-active principles, in virtue of which the world is
truly a universe. In a word, philosophy is, as Aristotle himself
puts it, the science of principles and of causes.
Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Attempts to reconcile Reason
and Faith.
During the first centuries of the Christian Era, Philosophy
became involved in the formation of Dogma. The Mediaeval
philosophers directed their efforts towards the reconcilia-
tion of reason and faith, in order to harmonize the two
great acknowledged authorities, the science of antiquity,
and the new religion. To show that the system of revealed
truths is the expression of the intelligible, the consum-
mation of human reason, and thus to prove that in the
formulae of Christianity the laws of matter and of mind, of the
whole nature of man, of his intellect and his soul, hold good ;
this was the desire and the hope of the great thinkers of the
middle ages. St. Anselm, the greatest of the scholastic
Platonists, writes : credo ut intelligam. " I believe, that I
may understand." He holds that faith is necessary to
intellect, that it is the condition even of its validity. He
describes his work as Fides quaerens intellectum. On the
other hand, Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the scholastic
peripatetics, is less ambitious ; he distinguishes the province of
reason from that of faith. Reason prepares the way and leads
us to faith : grace does not suppress Nature, but on the con-
trary perfects it. Gratia naturam non tollit scd p&rficit.
The truths given by faith cannot be proved by reason.
Eeason can conceive the unity of the Divine Essence, but not
the triplicity of the Divine Persons. Fa quae pertinent ad
unitatem essentiae non ea quae 'pertinent ad distinctionem
personarum. He who would prove the Trinity by any natural
process disparages faith, fidei derogat (Summa Theol., quest.
32, Art. I).
But if our reason cannot establish the truths given by
faith, it can at any rate overthrow the objections that are
brought against these truths : Solvere rationes quas inclucit
adversarius contra fidem, sire ostendendo esse falsas, sive osten-
dendo non esse nccessarias. For a time it seemed as if St.
Thomas had succeeded in reconciling reason with faith, but
10 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Occam, the reviver of nominalism in the 14th century, declared
that everything that is beyond experience is beyond reason,
and hence is an object of faith. The mystics, on the other
hand, maintained that no amount of reasoning is worth one
pious aspiration of a soul towards God.
'!-*
Bacon : Philosophy synonymous with Science. First Philosophy.
With the Renaissance philosophy recovered its indepen-
dence. Religion is respectfully excluded from rational
speculation by Bacon and Descartes, the founders of modern
philosophy. " It were vain," says Bacon, " to endeavour to
adapt the heavenly mysteries of religion to human reason."
Da fidei quae fidei sunt. {Be dign. et augm. scient. Ill, 2.)
Bacon divides human knowledge into three branches : History,
Poetry, and Philosophy, corresponding to the three faculties of
the human mind : memory, imagination, and reason. Hence
everything that is an object for reason, is an object for
Philosophy. Philosophiae objectum triplex. Beus, natura et
homo (III, Ch. I). It is the whole of science, but a special
place must be given to First Philosophy.
" But because the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like
several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point ; but are
like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and
quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and
break itself into arms and boughs ; therefore it is good, before we enter
into the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science
by the name of 'Philosophia prima' primitive or summary philosophy, as
the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide
themselves. . . . Being examined, it seemeth to me rather a depre-
dation of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms
rather than any thing solid or substantive of itself" {Advancement of
Learning, Bk. II).
This first science has a double object. It deals with the
axioms that are common to the several sciences ; secondly, with
the transcendental conditions of the existence of things (that
which by nature is either large or small, like or unlike,
possible or impossible, with Being and non-Being).
The science of God comprises the science of God properly
so called, or Natural Theology, and the science of the Angels
and Spirits. The science of nature is either speculative or
practical. When speculative it includes firstly, Physics, the
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY IT
object of which is the discovery of the efficient and the-
material causes : secondly, Metaphysics, which considers the
final and the formal causes of things. Mechanics as a practical
science corresponds with Physics, and Natural Magic, which,,
through the knowledge of forms, should make it possible to
introduce any nature into any kind of matter, corresponds
with Metaphysics. Mathematics is merely an auxiliary of
science, an appendix to Physics. Bacon does not set much
value on the deductive sciences, and has a low opinion of their
methods. He constantly contrasts the fruitfulness of induc-
tion with the sterility of the scholastic method. He is the
founder of modern empiricism. Est vera philosophia quae
m undi ipsius voces quam fidelissime reddit, et veluti dictante mundo
conscripta est, nee quidquam de propria acldit, scd tantum Herat
et resonat.
Descartes : Philosophy is Universal Science, but deduced from
First Principles. Division of Philosophy.
Like Bacon, Descartes regards philosophy as, in truth, the
universal science. But he shows more clearly the connection
between this First Philosophy and the other sciences which
it involves and governs. Philosophy is not the collection or
sum of particular truths. It is the science of principles, of
the highest laws of all the particular sciences. Philosophy is.
both speculative and practical, but it is theory that lays the
foundations for practice. In short, to him, as to Bacon, phil-
osophy is the science of nature, of man, and of God; but its
basis and its unity are to be found in the principle that thought
turned in upon itself reaches therein the idea of the perfect
Being, God, the principle of all being, the source and guarantee
of all truth.
In his preface to the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes gives
his views concerning the object of Philosophy :
"The word Philosophy signifies the study of wisdom, and by wisdom is
to be understood not merely prudence in the management of affairs, but
a perfect knowledge of all that man can know, as well for the conduct of
his life as for the preservation of his health and the discovery of all the
arts. And that knowledge, to subserve these ends, must necessarily be
deduced from first principles."
Thus it is the aim of this science not only to know, but to
12 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
insure the well-being and felicity of mankind. From this point
of view Descartes' conception of Philosophy appears perhaps to
be less elevated than that of Aristotle, who regarded disinter-
estedness as its peculiar characteristic ; but Descartes adds :
" Men, of whom the chief part is mind, ought to make the search after
wisdom their principal care, for wisdom is the true nourishment of
the mind. . . . There is no mind, how ignoble so ever it be, that
remains so firmly bound up in the objects of the senses, as not some
time or other to turn itself away from them in the aspiration after some
higher good, although frequently not knowing wherein that good consists.
.... But the supreme good considered by natural reason without the
light of faith is nothing more than the knowledge of truth through its
first causes, in a word, the wisdom of which philosophy is the study."
How are we to reach this precious knowledge ? For the
vulgar, and even for the greater number of philosophers, there
are four kinds of knowledge.
~o v
" The first degree contains only notions so clear of themselves that they
can be acquired without meditation; the second comprehends all that
the experience of the senses dictates ; the third, that which the conversa-
tion of other men teaches us ; the fourth, . . . the reading ... of books."
These are the lower forms of knowledge.
" There have been, indeed, in all ages, minds which endeavoured to find
a fifth road to wisdom, incomparably more sure and elevated than the
other four. The path they essayed was the search of first causes and true
principles, from which might be deduced the reasons of all that can be
known by man ; and it is to them the appellation of Philosophers has
been more especially accorded."
How are these first principles to be recognized ? By two
signs. The first is that they are so clear and evident that the
mind can have no doubt of their truth; and the second, that it
is possible to deduce all other things from them.
" It will be necessary to endeavour so to deduce from those principles
the knowledge of the things that depend on them, as that there may be
nothing in the whole series of deductions that is not perfectly manifest."
Thus the true method of Philosophy is the deductive method.
Its criterion is the clearness, distinctness, and concatenation of
ideas. Philosophy falls naturally into several parts.
" The first part is Metaphysics, containing the principles of knowledge,
among which is the explication of the principal attributes of God, of the
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY IS
immateriality of the Soul, and of all the clear and simple notions
that are in us ; the second is Physics, in which, after finding the true
principles of material things, we examine in general how the whole
Universe has been framed ; in the next place, we consider, in particular,
the nature of the earth, and of all the bodies that are most generally
found upon it as air, water, fire, the loadstone, and other minerals. In
the next place, it is necessary also to examine singly the nature of
plants, of animals, and above all of man, in order that we may hereafter
be able to discover the other sciences that are useful to us. Thus, all
Philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the root, Physics is the
trunk, and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of this
trunk ; and these can be reduced to three, namely, Medicine, Mechanics,
and Ethics. By the science of Morals I understand the highest and most
perfect, which, presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is
the last degree of wisdom " (Pref . to Les Principes).
Characteristic note of Modern Philosophy : Its starting-point,,
the examination of Mind.
Modern philosophy, which begins with Bacon and Descartes,,
does not differ in its aim from ancient philosophy. Descartes'
system is as comprehensive as any, and included all the
scientific experience of his time in the materials out of which
it was constructed. But although the problem is the same, the
spirit in which it is faced is different. The early philosopher
turned his attention to objects, studied the world around him,
and, accepting the ideas it suggested, rested content with the
result of his speculations. The modern philosopher, on the
other hand, turns his attention to the subject which knows.
Even Bacon prepares his mind for the investigation of truth
by forming a theory of error, and by a critical analysis of the
logical methods of his predecessors. Descartes goes further.
He makes total doubt the starting-point of his philosophy,
thus admitting that the value of science depends on the worth
of the intelligence which creates it.
With Locke and his successors Philosophy becomes a Critical
Analysis of the Human Understanding.
This truth indicates the way to be taken henceforth more
and more exclusively by modern Philosophy. With Bacon
and Descartes Philosophy did not lose the character of univer-
sality given to it by the ancients, but the 18th century
philosophers tried to separate it from other sciences, and to
establish it as an independent special science. Philosophy
14 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
becomes the study of the human understanding with Locke, of
human nature with Berkeley and Hume, of sensation and the
analysis of sensation with Condillac.
" Metaphysics," says Condillac, " is the science that contributes most
towards making the mind clear, accurate, and broad ; and therefore it
should serve as a preparation for the study of all the other sciences. In
France it is now so much neglected that to many of my readers the state-
ment will doubtless seem paradoxical. But there are two kinds of
metaphysics. One is ambitious, and would penetrate every mystery.
The nature, or essence of things, and their hidden causes are the pro-
blems which attract it and which it expects to solve. The other is more
modest, and proportions its researches to the weakness of the human
mind. As indifferent to what is necessarily beyond its scope as it is
eager to grasp what is within its reach, it knows how to remain within
the proper limits. Our principal object, which we should never lose
sight of, is to study the human mind, not with a view to ascertaining its
nature, but in order to know its operations, to observe with how great
an ingenuity they are combined, and by learning how to govern them, to
acquire as much understanding as we are capable of. We must trace our
ideas to their origin, explain the order in which they are evolved, follow
them to the limits prescribed by nature ; and, having travelled once more
over the whole realm of human understanding, we shall be able to
determine the extent and limits of our knowledge" {Essai sur Vorigine
des connaissances humaines, Introd.).
In France, at the end of the eighteenth century and at the
beginning of the nineteenth, philosophy was regarded as having
become properly a science from the moment the problem of
the origin of ideas had been substituted for the insoluble
problem of the origin of things. Philosophy was now
Ideology.
Kant opposed both to English Empiricism and to the Mathema-
tical Dogmatism of the Cartesians.
With Kant a loftier conception of the subject matter and
aim of philosophy begins to reappear. An endeavour was
made to reconcile the old ideal of a universal science with the
modern notion of an exact science founded on the criticism
and analysis of ideas. Kant denies that empiricism has
succeeded in determining, by its physiology of the human
understanding, the extent and limits of human knowledge.
"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no
doubt. But ... it does not follow that it arises from experience. For
it is quite possible that even our empirical experience is a compound of
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 15
that which we receive thi'ough impression, and that which our own
faculty. of knowledge (incited only by sensuous impressions) supplies
from itself" (Critique of Pure Reason, Introd.).
As against empiricism, the existence and necessity of
universal and necessary judgments can be proved. (1) Their
existence : it is enough to quote the mathematical propositions,
or, as belonging to another class, such propositions as the
following : Every change must have a cause. (2) Their
necessity : " They are the indispensable basis of the possi-
bility of experience itself. . . . For whence could our
experience itself acquire certainty if all the rules on which
it depends were themselves empirical and consequently for-
tuitous ? " (Ibid. II).
On the other hand, Kant also attacks the mathematical
dogmatism of the Cartesians. He devotes a whole chapter
in his Critique of Pure Reason to the distinction between
mathematics and philosophy (2nd Part, Methodology, Ch. I).
" The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant
example of the extension of the sphere of pure reason without
the aid of experience." This explains the attempt which was
made by the Cartesians. " Hence pure reason hopes to be
able to extend its empire in the transcendental sphere with
equal success and security, especially when it applies the same
method which was attended with such brilliant results in the
science of mathematics." This is exactly what Descartes says
in the Discours de la mUhode. " But we must distinguish
two kinds of rational cognition : philosophical cognition, which
proceeds by concepts ; and mathematical cognition, which pro-
ceeds by the construction of concepts."
Let us examine this difference, so that we may see why it is
that the mathematical method cannot properly be applied to
philosophy. According to Kant, to construct a conception is
to bring before the mind, a, priori, the perception that corre-
sponds to that conception. Take, for example, the conception
triangle ; I can call up, a priori, the object corresponding to
this notion, that is, I can construct a triangle that will
represent it in concreto, through the medium of an intuition
which I do not owe to experience.
" The individual figure drawn upon paper is empirical ; but it serves,
notwithstanding, to indicate the conception even in its universality
16 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
because in this empirical intuition we keep our eye merely on the act of
the construction of the conception, and pay no attention to the various
modes of determining it ; for example, its size, the length of its sides, the
size of its angles, these not in the least affecting the essential character of
the conception " {Critique of Pure Reason, p. 436).
It is the same with the notion of number, which I construct
by adding unit to unit ad libitum. But with philosophical
notions, reality, cause, substance, etc., the case is different,
since the mind does not discover in itself a priori intuitions
through which these notions could be realized and represented.
" No one can find an intuition which shall correspond to the
conception of reality except in experience." In the same way,
" I cannot represent an intuition of a cause except in an
example which experience offers to me " (Ibid. p. 436). The
philosopher cannot, therefore, construct his conceptions, like
the mathematician. When the philosopher proceeds according
to mathematical methods, he merely analyses his conceptions
without getting beyond them, that is, without getting beyond
empty forms, or what is subjective and illusory. Iieality,
i.e. the object, evades him, for he is unable to create it
for himself. Consequently the mathematical dogmatism of
the Cartesians must be abandoned.
..." The geometrician, if he employs his method in philosophy, will
succeed only in building card castles. ... It is not consonant with the
nature of philosophy, especially in the fields of pure reason, to employ
the dogmatical method, and to adorn itself with the titles and insignia of
mathematical science. It does not belong to that order, and can only
hope for a fraternal union with that science" (Ibid. 448.)
The Aim of Philospohy is to determine the a priori Elements
in Thought and Action.
What, then, is philosophy ? It is the legislation of human
reason. Its task is to determine the a priori elements in
thought and action, to show their relation to one another, to
connect them in a system. Philosophy is either theoretical or
practical. Theoretical philosophy determines an object, defines
its nature and its laws. Practical philosophy realizes the
object, that is, makes it pass out of the sphere of thought into
that of action. The former is the science of what is, the latter
of what ought to be. One is the science of nature, the other of
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 17
freedom {Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd Part, Chap. Ill, Archi-
tectonic).
All philosophy, whether practical or theoretical, may also
he divided into two parts, the one pure, the other empirical.
Philosophy is pure when it rests exclusively on the principles
, that are the necessary conditions of experience, empirical when
it derives its principles from experience. Pure theoretical
philosophy is philosophy in the proper sense of the term, and
can he again divided into two parts, of which one treats of
the matter, the other of the form in thought. To investigate
notions in regard to their form, that is, in regard to their
universal laws, is the function of Logic. Metaphysics considers
notions in regard to their matter, that is, in their relation to
objects. To put it in more familiar language : the object of
logic is truth, that of metaphysics reality, or rather reality in
so far as it is subjected to rational and absolute, that is, to
a priori laws.
Metaphysics is, therefore, the science of the a priori laws of
thought in their relations to objects. Kant holds this defini-
tion to be more exact than that of Aristotle. According to
the latter, philosophy is the science of first principles.
But which are the first principles ? They are, we are told,
the most general principles. But what degree of generality
constitutes a first principle ? What would be thought of a
system of chronology that divided the different periods of the
world's history into first centuries and succeeding centuries ?
One might ask, Does the fifth century or the tenth, etc.,
belong to the first centuries ?
Again, metaphysics is divided by Kant into two parts : the
first, which is preliminary and preparatory, being by far the
most important in his system. This is the Critique. The
second part deals with the systematic concatenation of con-
cepts, and is metaphysics in the proper sense of the term.
Kant gives little space to it, but it was to have due promi-
nence in the systems of his followers.
" Metaphysics, therefore that of nature as well as that of ethics, but
in an especial manner, the criticism which forms the propaedeutic to all
the operations of reason forms properly that department of knowledge
which may be termed, in the truest sense of the word, philosophy " {Ibid.
p. 514).
B
J 8 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Kant foresees an objection to this definition or division of
philosophy. He has left no place for empirical psychology as
founded by Locke.
" What place shall we assign to empirical psychology, which has always
been considered a part of metaphysics, and from which in our time such
important philosophical results have been expected, after the hope of
constructing an a priori system of knowledge had been abandoned?"
(Ibid. p. 513).
According to Kant, the proper place for empirical psychology
is among the empirical sciences. It should form part of
Anthropology or the science of man, which is the highest in the
order of the empirical sciences, that is, of the natural or
physical sciences.
As for practical or moral philosophy, it falls naturally into
two divisions : pure ethics and empirical ethics. The subject
matter of the former is the a priori laws of freedom, that is,
the law of duty. Empirical ethics deals with the laws of
prudence or of practical skill, and it is connected with anthro-
pology or the empirical science of man.
In short, with Kant, philosophy is substantially limited to
critical analysis and to ethics, or rather to criticism alone ; for
there is a Critique, of Practical Reason as well as a Critique
of Pure Reason, and philosophy is in fact the analysis of the
a priori laws of the understanding and of the will. Thus,
whereas Locke, in order to define philosophy and to mark its
limits, made the facts of consciousness its starting point, Kant,
on the other hand, endeavoured to make it once more the
fundamental science by defining it by means of a priori laics.
Locke confines himself to experience, but gets no further than
subjective experience as given in consciousness. Kant also
moves within the medium of consciousness, but with the sole
object of discovering therein the ultimate and absolute con-
ditions of experience. The human understanding is the object
of both of these philosophers, but one is concerned with
empirical, the other with pure understanding.
Fichte : Philosophy the Science of Science.
With Kant's successors, philosophy showed an increasing
tendency to resume its authority as a universal and absolute
science, without losing its individuality as a separate science.
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 19
Fichte, though he admits the legitimate claims of the
positive and exact sciences, desired above all that the existence
< >f a Science of science ( Wissenschaftslehre) should be recognized.
Of what value is knowledge, if we do not know what it is to
know { If, as Kant says, science is a series of propositions
that are related according to certain principles, philosophy will
not be a science until it also answers that description.
Philosophy, therefore should form a whole, a system. It
should come before all the other sciences. Every science
has its object and its form (logical method). All the other
sciences take for granted both their matter and their form.
Geometry, for instance, accepts the notion of space and the
deductive method. Physics assumes the notion of body and
the inductive method. Now, it is the office of the Science of
science, of philosophy, to inquire into the principles, both formal
and material, of the other sciences, that is, into their contents
and into their method. But the Science of science has, like
other sciences, its matter and its form. How are these to
be determined ? Shall it be through another science ? JSTo ;
for such a process would go on ad infinitum. The Science of
science being the first science, and having for its object first
principles, must be its own justification. Thus Fichte's defini-
tion does not differ from those of Aristotle and Descartes.
Schclling and Hegel restore the Universality of Philosophy.
Fichte's definition, like that of Kant, gave an exact meaning
to philosophy, and restored to it the rank of first science, of
which it had been deprived by Locke. But in this definition,
philosophy is confined to the region of pure subjectivity. To
Kant, philosophy means the Criticism of Eeason ; to Fichte,
it is the systematic development of the idea of the Ego, the
science of the necessary acts of the intelligence. The essential
and absolute character given to philosophy by Kant and Fichte
was maintained by their successors, who continued to regard it
as the science of the a priori laws of Eeason, that is, as the
Science of science. But by widening its sphere, by ascending
to the idea of the universal principle of the ego and the non-
ego, they restored to philosophy the universality it had
possessed in the systems of the ancients and of Descartes,
without, however, like them, confusing it with the concrete and
20 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
particular sciences. With Schelling the subject and the
object, nature and spirit are identical in the absolute; we
recognize this identity through intellectual intuition {intel-
lectuclle Anschauung). Philosophy develops the two terms
of this identity, and comprises consequently two fundamental
sciences. Either objectivity is taken as the starting point,
and then the problem is to show how from the object there
proceeds a subject in agreement with it. This is speculative
physics. (The perfect theory of nature would be a theory that
resolved the whole of nature into intelligence.) Or, secondly,
it brings the object out of the subject ; actual and uncon-
scious reason is brought back to ideal and conscious reason
{Die reelle oder hewusstlose Vernunftthdtigkeit auf die ideelle oder
bewusstc), revealing in nature the visible organism of our
understanding. This is transcendental philosophy. " It is
the business of all philosophy to evolve either nature out of
intelligence or intelligence out of nature."
Hegel resumed Schelling's philosophy of identity, but he
professed to give it scientific and definite form. We have
not on the one side the real, and on the other mind on
the one side the phenomenon, and on the other the noumenon.
Only thought exists, thought which gives to things their
truth and reality ; and in it is the Absolute, all that is, all
that can be. Its principle and its form are the necessary,
universal laws, and the dialectical movement is the history of
things. Thought being the Absolute, all reality is a determination
of thought ; the real is identified with the intelligible, logic
with metaphysics, and the dialectic of reflective intelligence with
the necessary relations of the notions and categories of nature.
Thus philosophy is the thought of the absolute truth, the
idea thinking itself {die sick denkende Idee), the self-knowing
truth {die sich wissendc Wahrheit). It comprises Logic, the
science of the pure Idea, the science of the Word, of reason
anterior to all that is, the philosophy of nature ; and the
philosophy of spirit considered in itself and in its progressive
development : philosophy of right, of art, of religion, and
the history of philosophy.
Reid and his disciples reduce Philosophy to Psychology.
While Kant and his successors were restoring to philosophy
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 21
its former dignity, the Scottish philosophers, Iieid and Dugald
Stewart, although they differed from Locke in their fundamen-
tal doctrines, nevertheless formed a conception of philosophy
that was practically the same as his. They both discarded
metaphysics, or the science of first principles, as raising insoluble
problems, and reduced philosophy to psychology.
" As all our knowledge of the material world is derived from the in-
formation of our senses, natural philosophers have in modern times
wisely abandoned to metaphysicians all speculations concerning the nature
of that substance of which it is composed. ... A similar distinction
takes place among the questions which may be stated relative to the
human mind . . . questions perfectly analogous to those which meta-
physicians have started on the subject of matter. It is unnecessary to
inquire at present whether or not they admit of answer. It is sufficient
answer for my purpose to remark that the metaphysical opinions
(which we may happen to have formed concerning the nature either of
body or of mind . . . ) have no necessary connexion with our inquiries
concerning the laws, according to which these phenomena take place.
Whether, for example, the cause of gravitation be material or immaterial
is a point about which two Newtonians may differ, while they agree
perfectly in their physical opinions. ... In like manner, in the study of
the human mind, the conclusions to which we are led by a careful
examination of the phenomena it exhibits, have no necessary connexion
with our opinions concerning its nature and essence " (Dugald Stewart,
Vol. I, pp. 48-9).
The Eclectic School.
In France there flourished, at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, what is known as the eclectic or spiritualistic
school. Founded by Eoyer-Collard, established by Victor
Cousin and his disciple Jouffroy, this school owes its
originality and true form more particularly to the doctrines of
Maine de Biran, whom Cousin called the first metaphysician
of his time. What were the views of this school concerning
the real object of philosophy ? From its first origin the
school was divided into two branches, the German and the
Scottish, the first being represented by V. Cousin, the second
by Jouffroy. Victor Cousin's opinion on this subject was the
same as that of the German philosophers. In 1818 he was a
follower of Fichte, in 1828 of Hegel.
"In my opinion,'' he said, in 1818, "just as every truth is in the first
place such and such a truth, and has besides something in it which makes
it a truth, so also every science is composed of an individual element in
22 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
virtue of which it is this particular science and not another, and of a
superior non-individual element which gives to it the character of science.
But what is it that constitutes truth qua truth and science qua science 1
This fundamental question when analyzed gives rise to many other
questions, and hence to a whole science which might be called the science
par excellence, the first science, more strictly speaking the science of
science."
In 1828 Cousin no longer regards philosophy as the science
of science merely, but as thought thinking itself and containing
in itself all the elements of reality: this is Hegel's conception.
" Philosophy," he said, " is in fact a method ; there may be no truth
belonging to it exclusively, but all truths belong to philosophy, in as
much as philosophy alone can give the explanation of them, test them by
examination and analysis, and convert them into ideas. Ideas are the
adequate form of thought ; in other words, they are thought thinking
itself, knowing itself, having itself for its object."
Thus philosophy is no longer merely the science of science
a kind of superior logic ; it is the science of the whole realm
of thought, of all its forms and all its fundamental notions
(the Useful, the Just, the Holy, the Beautiful). It embraces
reality itself in its essential and universal elements. It is no
longer only a system of logic, it is metaphysics.
While Cousin was returning to the most lofty conception
of philosophy, Jouffroy, more faithful to the spirit of the
Scottish school, seemed to postpone metaphysics indefinitely,
and severed himself from Cousin, classing him among those
whom he calls the seekers after the Absolute. He divides
philosophical questions into two classes : questions of fact
and ulterior questions (Preface to Ueid, p. lxvi.), hut the latter
he only admitted in so far as they are related to and solved
by the former. According to him, what constitutes the unity
of philosophy is that it comprises every question of which the.
answer must he sought in a fact or a law of the human mind.
All philosophical questions have their common root in
psychology. In other words : " All philosophy is a single
tree, of which pyschology is the trunk, and the other parts
are the branches."
Negation of Philosophy : Positivism.
Having questioned philosophers on the subject of philosophy,
let us now turn to those who make it their boast that they
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 23
are not philosophers. If we are to believe the Positivisms,
philosophy, in the proper sense of the term, has ceased to
exist. It had a raison d'etre at the time when it was
possible for one mind to contain the comparatively few
existing elements of experience. Then philosophy was indeed
synonymous with science, and men were stimulated by its
vain dreams. To-day the sciences are divided, and they
multiply in proportion to the number of subjects for in-
vestigation that are discovered. There is no place left for
metaphysical philosophy which, banished from the human
mind as well as from the external world, from psychology as
well as from physics, is reduced to wandering about in an
imaginary region. Its very history condemns it. After
centuries of existence, not only has it not reached any final
and universally accepted solutions, but even its proper aim
and its method are still matters of dispute. Compare the
progress made by positive science with the impotence of a
priori speculation : the inference is inevitable. We must
conclude that everything beyond positive knowledge is in-
accessible to the human mind. " No proposition that is not
finally reducible to the simple enunciation of either a par-
ticular or a general fact can contain any meaning that is real
and intelligible." Facts and their laws, phenomena and their
fixed relations to one another, this is the true province of the
human mind.
The reason why all speculation as to the Absolute is in-
admissible is that all human knowledge is relative. The
positivists do not prove the relativity of knowledge by an
analysis of mind, but by a history of the sciences. Every
science before it became a positive science, well defined in its-
aim and method, passed through two preparatory stages :
the theological and the metaphysical. All the sciences have
passed through these two transitory stages : the more simple
were the first to free themselves ; the more complex have
scarcely yet reached the positive stage. And let no one here
object that there would be always reserved for metaphysics at
least the role of a universal and synthetic science, for it is
precisely the business of positive philosophy to satisfy the
desire of the human mind for unity. The different sciences
are distinct from one another, but they are not isolated.
24 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Apprehending phenomena in their mutual relations they tend
hy their very progress to form a whole, and to become science.
True philosophy consists in the discovery of the connection
between the sciences, and in the consequent co-ordination
of their results and principles. In the realm of facts, in the
first place, the most simple facts are the most general ;
generality is in inverse ratio to complexity : for example,
physical phenomena are more simple and more general than
biological phenomena. Secondly, every order of existence
presupposes as its condition an inferior and simpler order of
existence ; for instance, organic matter presupposes inorganic
matter. Hence it is possible to discover in the sciences, as
well as in the objects they are concerned with, a system of
subordination and inter-dependence, and to form therefrom a
hierarchy, in which the most abstract and general science is
the starting point, the condition, the basis of the more con-
crete and particular science which immediately follows it in
this scheme of classification. Mathematics, being presup-
posed by all the other sciences, has the highest place, the
mathematical properties are the most simple, and the most
universal (Algebra, Arithmetic, Geometry, Mechanics) ; then
follow in order of decreasing generality and increasing
complexity, Astronomy, which could not exist without Mathe-
matics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Sociology, or the science of
human societies. This is not an arbitrary classification. It
determines the connection between the sciences, their
reciprocal relations and the order of their historical progress ;
and at the same time it represents the actual relations which
exist between phenomena. This method of classification con-
stitutes scientific philosophy, the only philosophy that will be
henceforward possible or legitimate.
Recapitulation and Conclusion. Distinction between Science
and Philosophy.
Notwithstanding the strictures of the Positivists, it may be
said that two notions more or less connected appear to be the
result of the work done by modern philosophy. On the one
hand philosophy is the science of science, the science of the
a priori laws of thought and Being. Again philosophy is the
science of the human mind. It is distinguished from other
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY 25
sciences by two of its data : (1) the fact of consciousness, in
which the subjective is opposed to the objective whence
Psychology ; (2) the notion of the universal, or of unity, to
which all the other sciences are subjected even while they
seem to contradict it whence Metaphysics. Philosophy has
oscillated between these two points of view for two centuries.
Many different ways of reconciling them have been proposed.
Kant discovered the a priori laws through the criticism of
mind ; Victor Cousin admits these laws as laws of conscious-
ness. Biran going deeper deduces them like Fichte, but in a
different manner, from the reflective analysis of the ego. In
short, that there is a necessary connection between these two
notions is proved by the fact that every great philosopher
has had a system of metaphysics as well as of psychology.
We need not discuss Positivism here. Suffice it to say that
the problem of philosophy is not the same as the problem of
science, and this fact in itself justifies and assures the
existence of philosophy. In presence of the same world, this
same intellect of man will ever attempt to solve the same
problems. Positivism would forbid man the fruit of the tree
of knowledge. We may be sure that the human mind will
always seek the forbidden fruit. To generalize is not to
explain. The universal law would be merely a very general
fact, which, by comprising what is common to all other facts,
would co-ordinate them. In vain we ascend from one law to
another. By this method we never reach either reasons or
causes. Were the task of positive science completed, the
human mind would still be unsatisfied, for it demands a
science of the whole, of the absolute, the necessary, of
principles and causes. The metaphysical problem has still to
be faced, because many of the questions that force themselves
on the mind have not been solved, and scientific knowledge is
not adequate to the solution of them.
Again, science itself is only a fact among other facts.
How is science possible ? Under what conditions are we to
conceive the universe ? A science of science, an analysis of
the mind and of its laws, is needed. Here is another opening
for metaphysics. An object only exists for me because I per-
ceive it, the world exists only because it becomes my thought ;
to the objective point of view the subjective is now opposed,
26 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the point of view in which if it were not for thought every-
thing would melt away. The mind is now no longer satisfied
with a statement of facts, and of laws, which are only more
general facts. It longs to understand, to pursue thought to
the end, and thereby to reach the truly intelligible. Philosophy
is just this striving after the intelligible, this desire to dis-
cover the meaning of things. It cannot disappear from the
world, for it will ever spring up again from reflection on the
part played by the subject in knowledge.
CHAPTER II
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM
What is Psychology ?* What is its object ? Is it the science
of the mind and its faculties, or the science of the phenomena
of consciousness, or the investigation of the nervous phenomena
that are accompanied by consciousness ? These definitions,
which are less opposed to one another than at first appears,
imply at any rate the existence of a separate science of the
human mind. On this point there seems to be a general
agreement. As we shall see, it was long before the psycho-
logical problem was made distinct from the problem of
philosophy, taken as a whole : and when we have followed the
history of Psychology, we may perhaps also find that the
attempts made in early times to grasp phenomena in their
mutual relations were not altogether mistaken ; for the fact
remains that all things are interdependent man and the world,
mind and body, subject and object, that which is thought
and the mind that thinks it are all part of the same whole.
Psychologists may separate their science from the science of
metaphysics ; they may take up a position in the midst of
phenomena, and refuse to consider anything except phenomena ;
but metaphysics can never cease to be interested in the study
of mind, which is, after all, its centre of perspective.
1 The word Psychology is of recent origin. In ancient times the study of
the soul was a part of the philosophy of nature. In the Middle Ages the
Science of Spirits (Souls ?) is called Pneumatology. It comprises the study of
Viod, angels, mau, and even of animals so far as they are intelligent. The
word Psychology was first used in Germany at the end of the 16th century :
the psychology of angels held a place side hy side with the psychology of man.
28 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Between the time of Thales and that of Socrates, the Human
Miiict, which had been at first altogether occupied with External
Things, began gradually to turn upon itself.
Pre-Socratic philosophy was a philosophy of nature. Men
accepted the ideas suggested by sensible impressions, and, being
solely occupied with the world about them, they never thought
of observing their own minds. The experience of death, it is
true, soon led to the distinction between soul and body, but
the soul was conceived as a subtle and vivifying breath of air,
which escaped through the mouth, or through the open wounds
(Homer, Eiad, XVI, 505, 856; XXII, .362). The earliest
philosophers hardly went beyond this point of view, for
they did not distinguish between the corporeal and incor-
poreal, between the extended and the unextended. Neither
the Pythagorean Number nor the Unity of the Eleatics were
spiritual essences. Number and Being were the substance of
bodies, the matter out of which they are made, and the need
of a science of mind was not felt.
Before Psychology could begin to exist it was necessary that
the world should engross the attention of man less exclusively,
and that spirit should turn away from things and back upon
itself. From Thales to Socrates we can trace this progress
towards subjective reflection. In art the epic was succeeded
by lyrical poetry, then by the drama. The drama first took
the form of the epic, the plastic tragedies of Aeschylus ; then
there followed the thoughtful, religious, and moral tragedies of
Sophocles ; finally, the psychological, controversial, subtle
tragedies of Euripides. In politics a democracy fickle and
excitable, founded on free discussion, succeeded an aristocracy
which had been nourished on traditions.
In philosophy, Heraclitus, the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics,
and the Atomists all agreed in declaring that the true, nature
of things is not learnt through the senses, and this suggested a
criticism of the mind and of its powers of knowing. At last,
Anaxagoras makes the distinction between mind and matter.
In order to bring harmony from chaos, the intervention of a
regulating and motive power was needed. This power, he
said, must be intelligence, vov$, a simple substance omnipotent
and omniscient. OKoia e/xeWev ecrecrOai kou OKOia >)v kul ticrcra.
vvv ecrTL ku\ OKoia ecrTUi iravTa <^e/co'cr,u?/cre poo?.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 29
With Anaxagoras vovg seems to have been still only a force
of nature, but the role which he ascribes to intelligence, the
idea of which was taken from the human consciousness, pre-
pared the way for the philosophy of Socrates. By the Sophists,
creative thought is identified with the human intellect. Prota-
goras regards man as " the measure of all things " : apOponros
fxerpou irdvrwv (Diog. Laert. IX, 51).
Socrates. The yvwOt aeavTov : Self-examination.
Socrates was the first to make of self-examination a philo-
sophic method. His principle was, Tvwdi treavrov : nosce te
ipsum. Socrates says :
" ' Tell me, Euthydemus, have you ever gone to Delphi ? ' ' Yes, twice.'
'And did you ever observe what is written somewhere on the temple
wall Know thyself?' 'I did.' 'And did you take no thought of that
inscription ; or did you attend to it, and try to examine yourself to ascer-
tain what sort of character you are V 'I did not indeed try, for I
thought that I knew very well already, since I could hardly know
anything else if I did not know myself.' ' But does he seem to you to
know himself who knows his own name merely 1 . . . Is it not evident
that men enjoy a great number of blessings in consequence of knowing
themselves, and incur a great number of evils through being deceived in
themselves ? For they who know themselves know what is suitable for
them, and distinguish between what they can do and .what they cannot
and by doing what they know how to do, procure for themselves what
they need and are prosperous ; and, by abstaining from what they do
not know, live blamelessly, and avoid being unfortunate'" (Xenophon,
Mem. Book TV, Chap. II).
Socrates saw clearly the principle of the return of mind
upon itself. Still we cannot attribute to him the intention of
making the human mind the object of a distinct science. With
him all knowledge is implied in the yvcoOi creavTov.
Through self-knowledge w T e discover the logical processes by
which tfivfeh is acquired, and also the rules of moral conduct.
It teaches us what we are and what is suitable to our nature,
and what it is that truly constitutes good and evil. In short,
Socrates identifies self-knowledge with dialectic and ethics.
O"
Plato: The Science of Mind included in Physics and Meta-
physics.
To Plato, as to Socrates, the ultimate cause of events and
beings is the Good, which is the principle of knowledge, the
30 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
supreme end of all action. But this idea of the Good was
by Plato developed into a vast system in which the universe,
the state, and the individual are co-ordinated, ami which makes
the present, the future, and the past of all existing things into
an organized whole. The human soul cannot be understood
apart from other things; it has its own place in the system of
things, and the study of it is a branch of physics. Between
the sensible world, such as it appears to us, and the world of
ideas revealed to us by Reminiscence, a medium was needeX
This medium is the soul of the world, the creation of which we
witness in the Timaeus. The world-soul is the principle of all
life, of all order, of all motion, and of all knowledge here
below. It is of this world-soul that individual souls are
parts. In its nature and composition, the explanation of the
faculties of the individual soul will, on a last analysis, be found.
Psychology, therefore, as a distinct and specialized science of
mental phenomena, does not exist for Plato ; nevertheless, he did
much to advance the knowledge of the human mind. In the
Phacdo, the distinction between the soul and the body and the
supremacy of the former over the latter ; in the Republic (v.),
the division of the soul into three parts (Voj??, Ov/lio?, eiriOufxla)
corresponding to the three souls in the Timaeus, and having the
head, the breast, and the belly as their respective seats ; the
theory of degrees in knowledge (eiKacria, 7ti(ttis, So^a, v6t]<rig)
in the Republic (vu.) and of earthly and heavenly love in the
Symposium ; the theory of pleasure in the Philebus ; the
opposition of sensible and intelligible things (to aicrOyrov, to
votjtov) in the Theaetetus and in the Republic (iv. v.) ; lastly,
the final triumph of the Good through the punishment of evil
in the Gorgias : these are great theories which constitute what
may be called the psychology of Plato, though it as true that
they are part of his metaphysics and physics.
Aristotle, though he did not separate the Science of the Soul
from Physics and Metaphysics, yet made a Sp>ecial Study of it.
Aristotle was the first to give special attention to the phe-
nomena of soul as we observe them in ourselves. To him
philosophy was a vast encyclopedia of sciences, all of which
were related by their principles, but distinct as to their objects.
Amongst these what place does he give to the science of the
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 31
soul ? He regarded it as part of physics (the science of nature),
which itself depends on First philosophy or Metaphysics,
the science of the principles of all being. Its method is that
of every science, namely, observation and analysis, but always
from a speculative and metaphysical point of view. And now,
what does this science deal with? Aristotle does not admit
the existence of the world-soul. He does not exactly look upon
the world as an organized living whole, an animal governed
by one and the same soul, but rather as a collection of beings,
united only by a common tendency towards a higher end,
towards a perfection that is above them all. (F. Ravaisson,
Essai sur la Me'thode d'Aristote, Vol. II, p. 155). The science
of the soul is, with him, a general and comparative science of
every kind of soul, of the soul which is the principle of organiza-
tion in plants, which is the cause of motion and sensation in
animals, and which thinks in man. The soul is the principle of
life, which in the case of man rises to intelligence. Aristotle
distinguishes in the soul four parts, namely, the nutritive, sensi-
tive, and intellectual faculties, and the faculty of locomotion
(to OpeirTiKov, aicrOrjTiKov, SiavorjTiKou, k'iviictis, De Anima, II, 2.)
The lower faculties may exist without the higher, but the latter
cannot exist without the former, except in the case of the
rational soul (OeooptjTiKyj), the only one that is separable
C^u/pio-Tos), and it is a different kind of soul (erepov \|/u^>?9
yeVo?, De Anima, II, 2). But Aristotle not only defines' the
nature of the soul and distinguishes its powers, he also in-
vestigates its phenomena, and in his investigation gives evi-
dence of his remarkable genius for observation. To the three
books of the Uepl -^svxfjs he adds short treatises on special
questions : sensation, memory and reminiscence, sleep, divination
in dreams. His analysis of sensation, of memory and its laws,
his definition of pleasure and of voluntary activity, are the first
examples of a scientific theory of mental life.
Epicureanism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism.
With Epicurus, philosophy meant the application of reason
to the pursuit of happiness. Psychology he treats as a branch
of physics, which again he makes subordinate to ethics.
Atomism presupposes a sensualistic theory of knowledge, but
by reason of the swerving or declension of atoms (a motion
32 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
which 1ms no cause) man has free will. In the Stoics we find
the same attention to the practical side of life, and the same
connection made between psychology and physics, and between
physics and ethics. The world was conceived by them as a
living organized body, whose soul, regarded as both material
and intelligent, both extended and exercising providential
foresight and care, w r as God. The distinction between what
is corporeal and what is spiritual was still so vague, that it
disappeared altogether. The human soul was to the human
body what the divine soul was to the world: that is activity,
effort, tension (eiri<TTi)iJ.iiv ev tovw kui Svudfxei KeiaOai, Stob. Erf.
II, 130). For the explanation of psychical phenomena they
have no principles except those of physical phenomena. The
human soul, which is material, knows itself by a kind of
internal contact : knowledge is a kind of tension. Neverthe-
less, the conception of consciousness and of the ego is dis-
cernible in Stoicism, and according as men became absorbed
in ethical problems, their attention was more and more drawn
to the problem of human nature.
The psychology of the Neo-Platonists was, like the rest of
their philosophy, of an entirely theological character. Their
world-soul was the third hypostasis, emanating from the vov$,
the Word was a kind of eradiation of it, just as the vovs itself
emanates from the Supreme Unity. Like Plato and the Stoics,
Plotinus looks on the world as a single, organic, and living
being, pervaded by a great soul in which are contained all the
individual souls, though it is difficult to understand how they
are to be distinguished or separated from it. Thus with
Plotinus also, the science of the human soul was merely an
appendage of the science of the world-soul, and its principles
were borrowed from those of cosmogony.
Summary.
In conclusion, we may say that psychology as a distinct and
independent science of the human soul, or of its phenomena,
did not exist for the ancients. Until Socrates, psychology was
altogether ethical. To Plato it was an episode in cosmology,
a deduction from his theory of a world-soul. Aristotle indeed
suppressed this single primitive soul, but his science of
individual souls was not the science of the human soul, for it
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 33
was dependent on his metaphysical theory of the four causes
as well as on his physics.
In the Epicurean system, the soul is merely an accident ;
the Stoics and Neo-Platonists, on the other hand, introduced
once more a world- soul, thereby condemning themselves to a
search in the unknown after the causes of mental phenomena,
instead of observing the latter directly in themselves.
St. Augustine : Supreme Importance of Self-knowledge.
The Christian religion naturally led the human mind to
examine itself. St. Augustine foresaw the new direction which
philosophy was to take, and proclaimed it in an authoritative
manner.
To the question "What is the object of philosophy?" he
answers, It is the knowledge of God and of self. " Deum et
animam scire cupio. Nihilne plus ? Nihil omnino." (Soliloq.
I, 7). In his contempt of physics, he naturally gives the
highest place to the science of the soul. Nihil enim tarn novit
mens, quam id quod sibi praesto est, nee menti magis quid-
quccm praesto est, quam ipsa sibi (Be Trin. XIV, 7). We
should look unto ourselves, rather than out on the world. In
order to make the foundation of science secure, St. Augustine
begins with an examination of scepticism. Through doubt,
reflection discovers the highest among truths, the existence.,
namely, of thought.
" Utrum aeris sit vis Vivendi . . . an ignis . . . homines dubitaverunt
. . . vivere se tamen, et meminisse et intelligere, et velle, et cogitare, et scire,
et jndicare quis dubitet ? Quandoquidem etiam si dubitat, vivit . . . (De
Trinitate, X, 14). From the knowledge of himself, as a being who doubts,
and aspires after truth, man is able to ascend to God. Noli foras ire, in te
redi ; in interiore homine habitat Veritas, et si animam mutabilem, inveneris,
transcende te ipsum " (De vera relig., 72).
Beside these formulae which remind us of Descartes, we
occasionally find in St. Augustine analyses that make us think
of Locke or Thomas Eeid (See the remarkable passages on
memory in the Confessions, X, Chaps. VIII-XVI). But with
him, especially in his later works, psychology began to be
subject to theology\|and hampered by insoluble problems, such
as, for example, that of predestination.
c
34 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Influence of Nco-Platonism and of St. Augustine and Aristotle
in the Middle Ages.
The thinkers of the middle ages contributed no new idea and
no new method in philosophy. They adopted the theories of
St. Augustine, of the Alexandrian mystics and of Aristotle, but
under the influence of Christianity the feeling of the inward
life grew stronger and the consciousness of self became more
clear.
Some of the mediaeval philosophers, as Bernard of Chartres
(1070-1160), and William of Conches, adopted Plato's theory of a
world-soul. The school founded by Hugh (1096-1141) and
Eichard of St. Victor (died 1173), invented, on the other hand, a
kind of progressive method, in which the soul is lifted by six
stages to ecstasy, the final goal of contemplation. In a
remarkable treatise, De Anima, William of Auvergne (died 1249)
clearly distinguishes psychology from physics, and declares that
to deny the existence of the soul is a contradiction, because this
negation itself presupposes thought. Thomas Aquinas resumed
the theories of Aristotle, making such alteration in them as
orthodoxy demanded. Duns Scotus, a more original thinker,
opposed to the Determinism of St. Thomas a theory in which
Divine Liberty is the principle of all that exists, and human
liberty the highest of all man's faculties voluntas superior
intellectu. The superiority of intellectual intuition over the
intuition of sense, was affirmed by William of Occam, the
reviver of Nominalism, who seems to have had a presentiment
of the empirical psychology of his English compatriots.
Intellectus noster non tantum cognoscit sensibilia, sed etiam in
particulari et intuitive cognoscit aliqua intellectibilia, quae nullo modo
cadunt sub sensu, cujusmodi sunt intellectiones, actus voluntatis delectatio
tristitia et hujusmodi, quae potest homo experiri in se, quae tamen non
sunt sensibilia nobis, nee sub aliquo sensu cadunt {Sentent.., Prolog, q. I).
This intuition, moreover, reaches only the states, and not the substance
of the soul (Quodlibet, I, q. 10).
Mediaeval pneumatology was, on the whole, then, more a
theological commentary on the psychologies of Plato, Aristotle,
and St. Augustine, than a scientific development or a revival of
psychology itself. It was a science not of the human mind,
but of spirits, and boldly dealt with such cpaestions as the
nature of the soul and the knowledge of the angels.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 35
The Cartesian Reform.
Descartes escaped from scepticism by his Cogito ergo sum,
and found in this truth the criterion of evidence. May lie
therefore be called the founder of psychology, as the science of
mental phenomena ? Yes, in a sense : for instance, in the
Meditations, he distinguishes three kinds of ideas, the factitious,
adventitious, and innate ideas (III), and analyzes the idea of the
infinite in such a manner as to supply in advance a reply to
the objections urged by Locke (III). He also proves that the
will has a part in judgment and in error (IV), and he anticipates
the Scottish school in his analysis of the illusions of sense (VI).
All this, however, was connected with and formed an essential
part of his metaphysics. Still, by taking the subjective point
of view, and by substituting the criticism of knowledge
(methodical doubt) for the old dogmatism, Descartes may truly
be said to have opened out a new road to thought, and to have
founded modern philosophy. Our knowledge of the body is
not immediately certain, and may be doubted ; but the mind
cannot doubt its own existence, because all thought involves the
certainty of the existence of the ego which thinks. It is when
the mind reaches itself that it for the first time reaches
reality. Descartes, by putting the reflection of thought on
itself before everything else, prepared the way for the empirical
psychology of Locke, who sought to mark the range and limit
of human knowledge through the study of the human under-
standing ; for the spiritualistic metaphysics of Leibnitz, in which
the universe is constituted after the model of the soul ; and
lastly, for the criticism of Kant, who sought in the analysis of
the cogito the laws of the phenomenal world. We must
remember too, that, in his TraiU cles Passions, Descartes pre-
pared the way also for the physiological psychology of our day,
which seeks in the facts of organic life, and more especially in
the cerebral mechanism, the laws of internal phenomena.
With Malebranche Psychology begins to be an Experimental
Science.
Malebranche seems, at first sight, to have been even further
than Descartes from making a science of psychology ; for, while
the latter taught that our knowledge of the mind is clearer
than our knowledge of the body, Malebranche, on the contrary,
36 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
teaches that we have a clearer knowledge of our bodies than of
our minds.
"Although we know the existence of our souls more distinctly than the
existence of our own bodies, or of the bodies that surround us, still we
have not so perfect a knowledge of the nature of the soul as of the nature
of the body. (Recherche de la Ve'rite', III, 7, 4). We only know the soul
through conscious7iess, and it is for this reason that our knowledge of it is
imperfect (Ibid.). I know clearly the parts of w r hat is extended, because I
can easily see the ratios between them. It is not the same with my
being. I have no idea of it. I cannot see the archetype of it. I am un-
able to discover the ratios between the modifications which affect my
mind. The consciousness which I have of myself informs me that I am,
that I think, and desire, and feel, and suffer, etc. But it does not tell me
what I am, or the essence of my thought, or of my will, my feelings, my
passions, and my pain ; nor do I learn through it the ratios between all
these things, because again, having no idea of my soul being unable to
see its archetype in the Divine Word I cannot discover by contemplating
it, either what it is, or the modes of which it is capable, or, lastly, the
ratios between these modes, relations of which I have a lively conscious-
ness without knowing them " (3rd Entretien sur la Metaph.).
In other words, psychology is an imperfect science, because
it does not admit of the application of the mathematical
method. But it is just because " we only know of the soul
what we feel takes place in it," that the experimental method
must be used instead of the deductive method in the science-
of the mind.
" It were very useless to meditate on the things that take place within us.
if it be clone with the purpose of discovering their nature. For we have no
clear idea either of our being or of any of its modifications, and the
nature of things is only discovered by examining the clear ideas which
represent them. But we cannot reflect too much on our feelings and
internal actions, in order to discover the connections and relations between
them, and the natural or occasional causes that excite them. For this is
of the greatest consequence to ethics. The knowledge of man is of all
sciences the one most necessary to our subject. But it is only an experi-
mental science resulting from reflection on what takes place in our-
selves ' ; (Morale, I, Ch. V, 16 and 17).
Thus in Malebranche's system Psychology is separated from
Metaphysics even more than Physics, and in his analyses of the
errors of the senses, of memory, and of imagination, as well as
in his theory of occasional causes, he appears as the precursor of
modern Associationists.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 37
Spinoza : Deductive Psychology.
Spinoza, like Malebranche, asserts that the mind has only an '
inadequate and confused idea of itself ; but he concludes that
the true science of the soul is not to he sought in internal
observation : it should be entirely deduced from the nature of
God. Man is not in nature like " an empire within an
empire " : he does not disturb the order of the universe, he forms
part of it.
"... For Nature is always the same, and everywhere one and the
same in her efficacy and power of action ; that is, Nature's laws and
ordinances, whereby all things come to pass and change from one form to
another, are everywhere and always the -same ; so that there should be
one and the same method of understanding the nature of all thiners
whatsoever, namely through Nature's universal laws and rules. . . .
I shall, therefore, treat of the nature and strength of the emotions
according to the same method, as I applied heretofore in my investigations
concerning God and the mind. I shall consider human actions and
desires in exactly the same manner as though I were concerned with lines,
planes, and solids" (Ethics, 3rd Pt. Introd.).
Notwithstanding this semblance of a geometric deduction, we
find in the second book of The Ethics (Be Mcnte) some very
interesting observations on the intellectual faculties, and the
third book (Be Affectibus) contains one of the most complete
and powerful analyses of the phenomena of feeling and passion
that has ever been made.
Leibnitz : Combination of Metaphysics and Psychology, the latter
remaining subordinate to the former.
The metaphysics of Leibnitz is permeated with psychology.
The world, he teaches, is composed of simple substances,
spontaneous activities, forces which are to be conceived in the
same way as we conceive our own souls, spiritual atoms, whose
reality is expressed in the activities of perception and appetition
{perceptio, appetitio). Still Leibnitz was not a psychologist,
but a metaphysician. He only saw details in their relation
to the whole; even when he considers a fragment, it is in
the whole that he is interested. Being, like Descartes,
enamoured of mathematical analyses and of clear and dis-
tinct ideas, he reasoned more than he observed. If he
made consciousness his starting point, it was because his
dialectic, leading him to the notion of force, brought him
38 THE PROBLEMS OE PHILOSOPHY
back to himself, and constrained him to adopt a subjective
point of view. " While seeking the ultimate causes of
mechanism and the laws of motion, I was very much surprised
to see that it was impossible to find them in mathematics alone,
and that it was necessary to go back to metaphysics" (Letter
to Remond de Montmort, Opera philosophica, ed. Erdmann,
p. 720). His analysis of the Cartesian mechanical theory
proves the existence of force as well as of extension. " Thus the
results of the analysis of external facts call forth reflection on
our own minds, by which these results are completed. On this
notion of substance, already brought to a high degree of
distinctness by analysis, reflection comes to throw from within
a further light, which finally enables us distinctly to know its
contents " (Monadologic, ed. E. Boutroux). Lastly, the method
of Leibnitz is definitely characterized by his Hypothesis of Pre-
established Harmony, and by his constant use of the principle
of Sufficient Reason. Still, like Malebranche and Spinoza,
Leibnitz has his psychological theories. They appear in the
New Essays on the Human Understanding, and are indeed more
independent than those of his predecessors. It must be
recognized, however, that in this work he follows Locke
step by step, and usually gives completion to the observations
of the English philosopher by means of his metaphysical
doctrine.
John Locke, Founder of the Empirical Science of Mind.
The true founder of empirical psychology, of psychology
regarded as a science of mental phenomena, is John Locke.
Bacon, in making induction the universal method, gave to the
philosophical spirit of England its special character ; and Locke,
by a fruitful application of the inductive method to the study
of the human understanding, continued the work of Bacon.
With Locke a tradition began, which was destined to continue
without interruption, for it was carried on by Hume, Hartley,
Thomas Reid, and the Scottish School ; in France, by the school
of Eoyer-Collard and Jouffroy ; and it persists in our own
time in Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer. Locke distinguishes
clearly psychology, as he understands it, from physics and
metaphysics.
" This therefore being my purpose to inquire into the original, certainty
and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 39
of belief, opinion and assent, I shall not at present meddle with the
physical consideration of the mind, or trouble myself to examine wherein
its essence consists, or by what motions of our spirits, or alterations of our
bodies, we come to have any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in our
understandings, and whether those ideas do in their formation, any or all
of them, depend on matter or not. ... It shall suffice to my present
purpose, to consider the discerning faculties of a man as they are
employed about the objects which they have to do with" (Locke, On
the Human Understanding, Introduction).
David Hume, Founder of the Psychology of Association.
Hume, continuing the task of Locke, practised mental
observation, the difficulties of which he recognized.
" It is remarkable, concerning the operations of the mind, that, though
most intimately present to us, yet, whenever they become the object of
reflection, they seem involved in obscurity ; nor can the eye readily
find those lines and boundaries which discriminate and distinguish them.
The objects are too fine to remain long in the same aspect or situation ;
and must be apprehended in an instant, by a superior penetration, de-
rived from nature and improved by habit and reflection. It becomes,
therefore, no inconsiderable part of science, barely to know the different
operations of the mind, to separate them from each other, to class them
under their proper heads ... to make a sort of Mental Geography"
(Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, I, 8.).
But philosophy cannot rest content with this description.
" But may we not hope that philosophy, if cultivated with care and
encouraged by the attention of the public, may carry its researches
farther and discover, at least in some degree, the secret springs and
principles by which the human mind is actuated in its operations ?
Astronomers had long contented themselves with proving, from the
phenomena, the true motions, order, and magnitude of the heavenly
bodies, till a philosopher at last arose, who seems, from the happiest
reasoning, to have also determined the laws and forces by which the
revolutions of the planets are governed and directed. . . . And there
is no reason to despair of equal success in our inquiries concerning the
mental powers and economy, if prosecuted with equal capacity and
caution " (Ibid. I, 9).
'By this method the science of the mind will discover the
particular laws which will resolve themselves into more general
laws. Hume thought he had discovered this psychological
law in the association of ideas, which is, he says, in the moral
world what the law of gravitation is in the world of bodies.
Hume is the true founder of the associationist psychology,
40 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
which has been developed in our day, more especially in
England. He formulated and used its method, which con-
sisted in reducing complex to simple phenomena, and in
determining the laws of their combination.
Scottish School : Thomas Reid. Psychology becomes an Inde-
jjendent Science.
It was with the Scottish School that psychology first really
became an independent science. For while Locke and Hume
still regarded it as the means of determining the limits and
-extent of human undertanding, Thomas Eeid did not treat
psychology as subordinate to logic any more than to meta-
physics. An opponent of Hume, he attacks scepticism in the
name of common sense, but in psychology he adheres to the
traditions of Locke.
" Human knowledge may be reduced to two general heads, accord-
ing as it relates to body or to mind ; to things material or to
things intellectual " (Pref. to Essaj/s on the Intellectual Poivers of Man).
" By the mind of a man we understand that in him which thinks,
remembers, reasons, wills. The essence both of body and mind is un-
known to us. We know certain properties of the first and certain
operations of the last, and by these only we can define or describe them."
How are we to arrive at an exact knowledge of the mind and of its powers ?
Reid replies, "... By attentive reflection, a man may have a clear and
certain knowledge of the operations of his own mind" (Essay, I, 1).
The French School : Royer-Collard, Victor Cousin, Th. Jouffroy,
Maine de Biran.
In order to refute Condillac's sensationalism, Eoyer-Collard
made use of Eeid's psychology, but, in accordance with the
French cast of mind, he carried it out to its ultimate conse-
cmences with strict and relentless logic, just as Condillac had
done with the theories of Locke. Theodore Jouffroy translated
the works of Eeid and Dugald Stewart. Like Locke and Con-
dillac, he distinguished psychology from physiology ; but he
also endeavoured to prove that this distinction which had been
made, as it were instinctively by Locke and Condillac, is a
legitimate one, for this had lately been contested by psycho-
logists. Jouffroy shows with great clearness the difference
between internal and external observation (Pref. de la trad. fr.
des Esquisses cle jihilosophic morale de Dugald Steivart).
Subjective facts are perceived by their own light. Physical
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PEOBLEM 41
facts, on the other hand, always seem to our consciousness to
be objective. Although, therefore, these two kinds of facts
constitute one and the same being, they are the object of two
distinct sciences.
" Physiology studies the animal, psychology the man ; that is, psychology
investigates the principle in which we each of us feel distinctly that our
personality is concentrated, which is the intellectual principle. That is
the ego or the veritable man, and it is in this sense only that psychology
is the science of man" {Melanges, de la Science psychologique, I).
Having defined the subject-matter of the science, he describes
its method.
" The obscure consciousness which we all have of ourselves becomes the
science of the ego as soon as it has been made clear by independent
reflection. What do we find in the consciousness which each one of us
has of himself ? The whole of psychology is in the answer to this
question " {Ibid. Ill and IV).
Jouffroy and his disciple, Ad. Gamier, did not improve
much upon the doctrines of the Scottish School, but Victor
Cousin, whose ideas had been enlarged by intercourse with
Germany, did not confine himself to treating psychology
as the inductive science of psychical phenomena. To him
psychology was above all a method, the method of philo-
sophy in fact, by which we endeavour to rise from mental facts
to their spiritual principle, and from the soul to God. He
founded metaphysics on psychology, thus taking a middle
course between the Scottish and German Schools.
But it was especially through Maine de Biran that French
spiritualism acquired its distinctive and original character.
The Scottish psychologists attempted to apply Bacon's method
to the study of the soul, and to pass by induction from the
examination of inner phenomena to the principle which pro-
duces them. But though induction may enable us to ascertain
the constant relation between phenomena, it can in no case
enable us to reach substance through phenomena.
The leading idea of Maine de Biran is that a being who
knows himself must consider himself from a point of view
different to that from which he regards a thing known
externally and objectively. The method of psychology is
therefore not the method of physical sciences. The great
42 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
mistake made by the sensationalists was that they confused
spiritual forces with physical causes. We do not know
physical causes in themselves, they are for us only abstract
terms, by which we indicate a group of phenomena (attraction,
affinity, electricity). Hence the sensationalists were led to
regard intellect, will, and subjective causality in general as mere
abstractions. But by what right is a being who is conscious
of his acts, and of the activity by which he performs them, to
be treated as an external object ? No doubt the mind in its
absolute substance is unknowable, but between the point of
view of the pure metaphysicians, who take their stand upon
the Absolute, and that of the empiricists, who only consider
phenomena and their relations, there is a third point of view,
that of self-reflection, which enables the subject to distinguish
itself at once from its own modes and from the hidden causes,
the existence of which outside ourselves we assume. The
primary fact of consciousness is voluntary effort, by which we
know the ego and the non-ego in their mutual opposition.
The matter of knowledge is the object that opposes
the ego : its form is in the act of volition, and it is there-
fore not given a priori, but abstracted by reflection from
external experience. Consciousness is no longer made
sul (ordinate to reason; it is, on the contrary, the principle of
reason. In short, psychology is identified with metaphysics.
Psychology in Germany still subordinate to Philosojjhy in
general.
While in France and England there was a tendency to con-
fuse philosophy with psychology, in Germany the latter
continued to be treated as subordinate to the general and
systematic science of philosophy. Kant's three great
Critiques correspond exactly with the three great faculties
which he attributes to the human mind. The Critique of
Pure Reason answers to the faculty of knowledge, The Critique
of Judgment to our sensibility, and The Critique of Practical
Reason to our activity. But Kant's method is neither
empirical, like that of Locke or the Scottish philosophers, nor
intuitive, like the method of Maine de Biran : it is critical.
By means of analysis Kant disengages the a priori forms
which are the conditions of all determinate thought; and he
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 43
subjects to these forms both the phenomena of mind and the
phenomena of the external world. The mind does not perceive
itself in its reality ; it is only known as it appears, not as it is
in itself. We must not expect to know the soul intuitively,
nor even through inference from psychological phenomena, to
reach the immaterial entity underlying them. Empirical
psychology, as understood by the Scottish School, does not
belong to pure Philosophy, but under the name of Anthropology,
to the physical and natural sciences. To Pichte, Schelling,
and Hegel, psychology was neither an empirical study of the
facts of consciousness nor the science of the ego and its facul-
ties, but the history of Spirit constructed a priori in its suc-
cessive moments ; it has its place in the deduction of all that is.
It is from the definition of Spirit that the necessary phases of
its progressive development are made to arise. Herbart was
the precursor of the German scientific psychology of to-day.
Psychology is still with him dependent on metaphysics ; his
starting point is the definition of Being. But he is led by his
conception of Being to define psychology as the " mechanics of
the mind," and to look for the model of the psychological
method in the method of mathematics. As in physiology the
body is built up of fibres, so in psychology the mind is built
up of representations" (Ribot, Psych, allemande, p. 6). Our ideas
oppose one another. They react on and balance one another
in obedience to mechanical laws. This is the whole life of the
mind, and psychology is nothing but the endeavour to discover
the mathematical laws governing this action and reaction.
Modification of the Object and Method of Psychology. Associa-
tion^ School. Psycho-physical School.
To-day, owing to the psychologists of the Associationist
School, John Stuart Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer, and the
psycho-physicists of the German School, Fechner and Wundt,
psychology tends more and more to become separate from
metaphysics. ISTo longer the science of the soul, psychology is
now the science of inner or mental facts, and of their relations
to their physical and physiological concomitants. To look
for laws instead of causes, to add to the observation of
consciousness (which has been too exclusive, and tends to the
identification of the human mind in general with the mind of
44 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the philosopher), all the facts furnished by animal life, b) r the
life of primitive races, by mental physiology and pathology,
languages, and the remains of bygone civilizations : in a word, to
gather together all the elements of a free inquiry into mental
life, this is the present method of psychology in all its
compass. (See Bibot, Psychologic anglaise, 1875; Psychologic
allemande, 1885.)
The English associationist psychology, founded by David
Hume, continued by Thomas Browne, developed by James
Mill and his son the famous John Stuart Mill is still, like
the Scottish psychology, the science of subjective and in-
ternal observation, but it is no longer a theory of direct
intuition by consciousness, which too frequently represented
complex facts as simple phenomena and acquired faculties as
innate principles. In the endeavour to find, through psycho-
logical analysis, the irreducible elements and the laws of
association according to which they are combined, their
psychology goes further than mere description ; it emancipates
itself from metaphysical hypotheses, and claims thereby to have
assumed a scientific character. Subjective analysis has in the
works of Hartley, and amongst contemporary writers, in those
of Bain and more especially in those of Herbert Spencer, been
accompanied by an analysis of physiological conditions.
This last point of view prevails also in Germany. The first
principle of the physiological psychology of Wundt, Weber
and Fechner, is that " every psychical state is connected with
one or several physical events" (Bibot, Introduction, XI).
Consequently, physiological psychology " has for its object the
nervous phenomena that are accompanied by consciousness, of
which the type most easily known is found in man, but which
are also to be traced throughout the whole animal series.''
The difference between psychology and physiology is, that
the latter investigates nervous phenomena apart from, and
the former nervous phenomena accompanied with consciousness.
The method of this new psychology is experimental. As
external and internal phenomena are intimately conjoined, in
causing the former to vary we make the latter change also.
This is the method described by Mill, as the Method of
concomitant variations. In virtue of this change of method
psychology claims to be no longer merely descriptive, but to
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM 45
have become an explicative science. This new psychology
opposes to the natural knowledge of consciousness, which is
direct, knowledge which is scientific and indirect (Ribot, Introd,
XI-XV). The experimental methods of psycho-physics are,
however, as Wundt allows, only applicable in cases where sub-
jective phenomena are in regular dependence on the external
objects, with which our consciousness is in relation. This is to
admit that in psychology the field of physical experiment is
singularly limited.
Thus from physical experience, which is manifestly inadequate,,
we are brought back once more to physiological observation and
experiment. The very nature of psychical phenomena leads us
moreover to employ, in addition to these modes of investigation,
a new method, which may be called the ethnical method (Eibot,.
Psych, allern., p. 41 sq.). Mind expresses itself in its products :
there it shows itself as it is and realizes its laws. We are
able therefore to examine not our own mind, but the human
mind as it appears outside itself, in different customs, amongst
different races, and in history. An examination of the methods
employed by the learned and of works of literature and art may
also afford valuable data, but nothing is so instructive as the
study of language and its laws ; because language is an
embodiment of the mental acts wdiich the mind creates
spontaneously and models after its own image without
disturbing, through reflection, the operation of its own laws.
Conclusion. Psychology cannot dispense with the Subjective-
Method.
The science of psychology has been obliged to turn from the
introspective to the objective method. May we not find that
it is after all necessary to complete all these objective methods
by returning to the subjective method, which in any case we
employ whether we will or no, everywhere and at all times ?
No doubt it is necessary to make a study of the products of
thought ; but it is in what these things reveal to us of the
thought behind them that their importance to psychology
consists. One may visit all the museums of Europe, and
examine all their masterpieces without gaining any clearer idea
on the subject of aesthetic creation or feeling. Mind can only
be known by mind. We do not study the products of thought
46 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
from without, we witness them from within. " One only
knows what one does oneself," said Aristotle. This is especially
true of the science of the mind. Psychology, though it may
call other sciences to its aid, though it may change, be utterly
transformed, will always remain a science of mental observation,
a creation of sympathy. Reflection will always be the true
principle of psychological investigation, for it alone can give
voice to the mute products of thought. But instead of guessing
and inventing theories and subjecting facts thereto, psychology
will learn the patience of scientific research, and the resignation
which is content with provisional and unavoidable gaps in
knowledge. It will seek its inspiration in realities, in
experience, in history. The spirit of science will change, its
methods will be perfected. We shall seek for ideas in
facts, but in the last resort these ideas will be due above all to
the reflection of the mind upon itself. It will seem that one
looks at mind from outside ; whereas, without this inner light,
we could know nothing from outside.
Psychology, like all the other sciences, has parted from meta-
physics, for this is the law of scientific progress. The mind
may be considered as an object, and in this respect it belongs
to the realm of the positive sciences. This is the fact upon
which contemporary psychologists in England and Germany,
and even in France, have justly founded their methods. But
the mind remains the subject, the principle of all knowledge.
No doubt psychical facts are only the subjective side of
physiological facts ; but we may say at the same time, and with
still more truth, since psychical facts are the only ones we
know immediately, that physical facts are the objective side of
psychical facts. By the very fact of our perceiving it the object
brings us back to the subject, the world to thought.
If empirical psychology were complete, there would still
remain for examination the conditions of all thought, the
categories under which all facts must be brought before they
can belong to the unity of the same consciousness. But the
consideration of things from the standpoint of mind is meta-
physics, which is the end of the criticism of knowledge, the
study of the necessary conditions of thought.
CHAPTER III
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION
The problem of external perception comprises two distinct
questions. The first is a question of^iaet, quaestio facti.
How, and by what kind of process do we enter into
relations with the external world ? The second is a question
of right, quaestio juris. What do we really know of the
external world ? The first question belongs to empirical
psychology, the second to the criticism of knowledge.
The history of the problem of external perception includes then
these two questions which have never been properly separated.
The First Philosophers did not recognize the part which the
Subject plays in Knowledge. Sensation explained by the Contact
of Like or Contrary Elements.
Even in pre-Socratic philosophy we already find a physiology
of the senses, and a crude attempt at an analysis of the know-
ledge acquired through them. But in order rightly to under-
stand these first attempts, there are two things which it
would be well to bear in mind. Firstly, that even those
notions which now seem most clear to us were at that time
in the human mind still confused and indistinct, like the
different parts of an organism in the unity of the germ.
Secondly, that, before the Sophists, the part played by the
subject in knowledge had not been suspected ; it had never
occurred to anyone to speculate as to how much of itself the
mind may project into a knowledge which presupposes its
activity. The prevailing idea in this first period was that
sensation is explained by the contact of like elements.
48 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Alcmaeonof Crotona. Heraclitus and Anaxar/oras. Leucippus
and Democritus.
The oldest description of sensible perception that we know
of is that of Alcmaeon, a physician of Crotona, a contem-
porary and perhaps a disciple of Pythagoras. The brain,
according to him, is the seat of the soul, and sensations reach
it through the medium of channels which start from the organs
of sense. "We perceive smells when in breathing they reach
the brain through the nose. The ear is hollow, and all hollow
things resound, therefore the ear resounds when struck by the
air in motion : the auditory duct of the ear is the path by
which the sound makes its way to the brain. Sight is ex-
plained by the reflection of brilliant and transparent bodies,
the medium here being the water contained in the eye
(Theophr. Be Sens). In this theory the quality of the
external body passed into the brain, and the problem was to
discover the means by which this passage was possible.
According to Heraclitus and Anaxagoras, sensation is not
produced by the like, but by the unlike. A consequence
of this doctrine was, in the teaching of Heraclitus, that
the opposition and union of contraries explain all reality.
According; to Anaxagoras, there can be no action of like on
like, as no change can be produced thereby. Our eyes which
reflect objects are obscure bodies. We only feel temperatures
which are different from the temperature of our bodies.
The theory of the senses held by Empedocles is part of his
general teaching. All bodies have pores (iropoi), and moreover
there are from every body emanations, effluences (a-woppoa'i),
so small as to be imperceptible, but which penetrate into the
pores of other bodies which correspond to them. All change
being caused by mixture or separation, there is no other way
of explaining action at a distance. This general law accounts
for sensation. Like is known by like, water by water, earth
by earth, etc. Hence sensation arises when fhe particles
detached from objects come in contact with the similar parts
of the sensorial organs ; whether these particles come into
contact with similar parts through the pores, or inversely as
in visual perception, the similar parts are projected through
the pores into external bodies. The diversity of the senses and
of sensation is explained by the difference in the pores ; each
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 49
sense only perceives what is symmetrical with its pores and
penetrates into it. The particles that enter the nose or the
mouth prochice smell and tastes. The air being set in motion
penetrates into the auditory duct, " as in a trumpet," and
produces sound. The eye is a kind of lantern. Empedocles
imagined that he had explained sensation when he had proved
the contact of two like elements, one of which belonged to the
organism. But on the other hand, in his theories on hearing,
and still more in those on sight (relations between two terms),
we seem to find a faint idea of the role of the subject
in sensation.
Tn the atomistic hypothesis of Leucippus and Democritus,
all our mental images may be reduced to corporeal phenomena
(to.? ai<r6ij<Tis kou tus vori<reis eTepoiooo-eis elvai too crw/xaro?,
Stob. Floril. ed. Mein. IV, 233). Sensations are changes
produced in us by external impressions. Since every action
of one body upon another originates in an impact, sensation is
itself traceable to a contact or touch, and this contact is in
its turn explained by the emanations, which are presupposed
in action at a distance. We have representations of things
when their emanations reach our bodies, and are diffused all over
them (Theophr. Dc Sens. 54). Only like can act on like, our
senses are affected only by things that are similar to them.
Emanations become detached from sensible objects without
losing their form, and these images (e'lScaXa), being reflected in
the eye, are the cause of vision. Sound is a stream (pevfj.a)
of atoms which, flowing from the object, sets the atoms of the
air in motion, and when, owing to the symmetry of the
elements, this stream of atoms penetrates into the body and
comes in contact with the atoms of the soul, sound is pro-
duced. Although sounds as well as visible images penetrate
the body everywhere, we only hear with our ears and see with
our eyes, because these organs are constructed so as to receive
the largest quantity of sounds or images and to afford them
the most rapid passage.
First Attempts at Criticism. Rational Knowledge opposed
to Sensation. Protagoras : the role of the Subject in Sensible
Knowledge.
Side by side with this physiology of the senses, we find
D
50 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the earliest attempts at a criticism of sensible knowledge. By
the Pythagoreans, by Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and
even by Democritus, true knowledge is contrasted with
sensation. To the knowledge derived from the senses
Parmenides opposes the unity of Being, Heraclitus absolute
plurality, Anaxagoras the chaos, the mixture of corporeal things,
and Democritus the impossibility of perceiving the atoms and
the void, which, according to him, are the elements of all
reality. Still, we must bear in mind that none of these
philosophers made any .pretence of examining our knowledge
of the subject in the light of the laws of subjective thought.]
Their philosophy was not critical, but dogmatic. In these
first attempts at psychology, we also find the distinction
between primary and secondary qualities. To Democritus
belongs the credit of having first made this distinction. Ac-
cording to him, the qualities of bodies are ultimately
reducible to the quantity, magnitude, form, and reciprocal
position of the elementary atoms, and they are all derived
from the quantitative relations of the atoms. But a distinction
must be drawn between these qualities : some of them, such
as weight, hardness, and density, may be immediately deduced
from the nature of the atoms themselves ; others, as colour,
temperature, or sound, depend indeed on the different com-
binations of the atoms, but only represent the particular way
in which we perceive their combination (Theophr. De Sens. 63).
With the Sophists the point of view changes. The re-
lativity of knowledge to the mind is discovered. All is
motion, says Protagoras with Heraclitus, but he does away
with the absolute reason by which in the teaching of the
latter the flux of things is directed'. All knowledge is sensa-
tion, and every sensation can be traced to the reciprocal action
of subject and object, to the impact of their different motions.
Prom this Protagoras infers that there is no reality in sensa-
tion, or in sensible qualities ; that they only exist one through
the other at the moment of the contact of the two phenomena.
" Man (i.e. the individual man) is the measure of all things "
(Plato, Thecctetus, 152 a). That is to say, all things are
relative, nothing exists, everything is in a state of becoming.
Thus of a newly-discovered truth, scepticism was the first
result.
II
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 51
Plato : Physiology of the Senses, Part played by Se nsatio n mjj
Knowledge.
Plato recognizes with Protagoras that sensible qualities
result from the relation between subject and object, and that
consequently they are a sign, or an expression of reality, not
reality itself. The world can act upon the body, which is
composed of the same elements as itself. Sensation is only an
external impression continuing itself by way of the body
into the soul. The diversity in sensible qualities is caused
by the diversity in the motions, which the impression com-
municates to the body, and which the body propagates to
the soul (Tim. 43, 6-4, 75). The sense of touch is all over the
body, and gives general sensations (koivo. 7ra6^fxaTa), like those
of heat, cold, heaviness and lightness, softness and hardness.
In every case it is the movement communicated to the cor- -
poreal elements which becomes the sensation. The sensation
of heat, for instance, arises from the fact that fire, owing to
the small size, sharpness, and extreme mobility of its atoms,
penetrates into and decomposes the elements of the body.
Taste and smell are intermediate senses, by which we ascend
to the higher senses of hearing and sight. Sound is the dis-
turbance of the air transmitted by the ear through the brain
and the veins to the soul. Plato is always bent on determining
the media by which the external motion is propagated to
the soul. In vision, the medium is no longer air but light, a
kind of fire which is at once in the eye and outside it. The
light that radiates from the eye goes out, so to speak, to meet
the light radiating from the object. Thus vision is the result
of an external motion, which is transmitted, in the first place,
to the environing light, then to the light of the eye, and finally
to the soul. At night the light of the eye no longer meets
the external light, and, the continuity of the transmission
being broken, we cannot see (Tim. 45). Since the light
belonging to the eye has a part in perception, the latter must
have a subjective character. Plato admits and proves this
when he shows that the principle of divers visual sensations is
contained in the relation between the two lights (the subjective
and the objective) on their coming together.
And now, what, in Plato's opinion, is the value of sensible
knowledge ? He does not deny the reality of space or of
52 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
motion: but, according to him, it is not bodies, such as appear
to our senses, that move in space, but mathematical elements,
small triangles, the combination of which constitutes the four
elements (Tim. 53 c). He holds, with Heraclitus, that
sensible things have no substantiality : that they are in a
state of perpetual 1 >ecoming ; that they are incapable of
definition. They who rely on their senses are therefore like
prisoners in a cave, who only perceive the shadows of objects
thrown upon the side of the wall on which the light falls
(Rep. VII).
Sensible knowledge is of two kinds. When concerned with
bodies it is a belief (7rtcrn9) ; when it only reproduces the
images of bodies or their shadows, as in dreams, for example,
it is merely a conjecture (eiKarria). Still, sensation has a place
in the systematic whole of our knowledge. It is the function
of thought to ascend from the sensible to the intelligible, and
sensation is the starting point of this progress towards the Idea.
Some sensations awaken in us the sense of the intelligible
those, namely, which involve a contradiction (Hep. VII). The
same object is at once heavy and light, large and small, one
and many : on encountering these contradictions thought is
awakened, and rises from sensations to the ideas of greatness
and smallness, of the one and the many. This is the first
effort of the mind to reach the intelligible.
Aristotle : Conditions of Sensation. Special, Common, and
Incidental Sensiblcs.
According to Aristotle, the sensitive soul is the principle
of animal life. For the animal, to live is to feel. Sensible
perception (aiarOfitrtg) is, in the first place, potentiality (Swa/uis) :
each of the senses oscillates between two contrary qualities.
Sight perceives whiteness and blackness ; hearing, sharpness
and flatness ; taste, sweetness and bitterness. But aurd^tris is
not mere potentiality or absolute indifference. It tends to
activity, eig tovto ayei (Be Sens. 4, 10). Its activity is a
changing, aXXo/tocr/?, but a changing that causes the soul to
pass from an imperfect state in which she is prepared to feel,
to a state of greater perfection, in which she actually does feel.
What are the conditions presupposed by the passing from
potential cuarQijcrK to actual alo-dtjo-i? ? They are the presence
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 53
of the sensible object, together with the concurrence of the
media and organs. The aia-Or/ais is extended all over the
body, but has its principal seat in the heart, the latter being
the centre in which all particular impressions meet. Besides
this general organ, there are the organs of the special senses.
It is not the organ that feels for sensation is not an extended
thing but the form, the end (reXo?), the soul, as it were, of
the organ. In addition to the action of the bodies and of the
organs, there is needed, for the production of sensation, a
medium, which, being set in motion by the sensible object,
transmits this motion to the organs. In the sensation of
touch this medium is the flesh ; with the other senses it is
either air or water. The e'lSwXa of Democritus are thus shown
to be unnecessary.
Having established the conditions of all sensation, Aristotle
attempts a classification of the data of the senses. There are,
in the first place, the special sensibles. Each sense is potentially
the group of contrary qualities which the object it is destined to
perceive may possess. Touch is potentially tangible qualities ;
sight is potentially black or white, and the intermediate shades
of colour. In the case of each sense, Aristotle describes
(besides the organ and the medium) the special data that we
owe to it. But how do we know that whiteness is not sweet-
ness, that blackness is not bitterness ? It must be through a
sense, since it is a question of sensible qualities ; but it cannot
be either through vision or through taste, since there can lie
no common measure or connection between these two senses.
To account for this comparison between the data of the divers
senses we must admit the existence of a common sense. This
' common sense,' whose seat is in the heart, and which is the
principle of all sensation, sees through sight, touches through
touch, and subsequently centralizing the data of all the senses,
combines and compares them. Finally, it is this sense which,
assisting in all particular sensations, extracts from them the
common sensibles ; that is to say, the general qualities which each
sense only perceives under a certain aspect, but which belong to
all, namely, motion, rest, extension, figure, number, and unity.
Aristotle, in his admirable analysis, arrives at another dis-
tinction. Besides the special and the common sensibles there
are the incidental sensibles, what we now call acquired per-
54 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
ceptions. The action of the senses is simultaneous. When
I taste a fruit I at the same time see it, consequently its
colour will in future suffice to suggest its flavour. This is a
sensibile per accidens. Like modern psychologists, Aristotle
finds herein the explanation of the supposed errors, of the
senses. When referred to its proper objects, to that which is
of itself sensible, sensation never deceives ; but when referred
to the sensibilia per accidens it may be either true or false. If
from a noise that I hear I infer that a carriage is passing, it is
neither the sense of sight nor of hearing that deceives me.
On the other hand, the higher faculties may assist in the
rectification of these errors. '
Tlie Import of Sensible Knowledge.
What do we perceive through the senses ? aiaOtjo-ig is the
potentiality of the soul to receive sensible forms without their
matter, "just in the same way as wax receives the impress
of the seal without the iron or the gold of which it is
composed" (De Animcc, II, 12). We must not therefore say
with the ancients (Empedocles, 1 )emocritus) that, as only like
knows like, sensation is the union of the material elements with
the elements that correspond to them in us. Things are in the
L^soul as form, but not as matter. The soul becomes what it
perceives, it is all things the form of the stone, of the house
and it is the dwelling place of the forms (ro7ro? twv eiSwv).
Therefore it is not necessary to assume behind each sense the
existence of a second sense, which feels what we feel by means
of the first. The being in seeing becomes so to speak the colour
which it sees. The same sense, we learn, enables us to know
both the object and its own activity, which are in fact the same
thing. But where then is the sensible quality : where is the
whiteness or blackness ? Aristotle replies, the sensible quality
is in the soul. " For just as active motion is produced in
that which is moved passively, so the act of the sensible object
and that of the sensibility both take place in the being that is
sensitive " (De Anima, III, 2, 6). But this sensible quality is
the common activity of the sensible object and of that which
perceives it. Thus the colour red was, before I saw it, potentially
in my eye and in the sun. Where there is no eye there is no -J
redness. This does not mean that sensible qualities have no
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 55
existence at all in things, for they are there potentially ; but
it is in the soul that they attain actuality (De An. 425 b 25 sq.).
What we are to understand by Aristotle's theory is, I think, that
the sensible qualities are subjective in the sense that they only
exist through us, but nevertheless there is something in the
objects corresponding to them. In sensible perception it is the
form which presents itself to us, and hence, according to Aristotle,
the essence, the true reality ; but it is form mixed with the
matter. It is the function of thought more and more to dis-
engage this form which is the essence and truth of all things.
Sensible knowledge is therefore a sort of symbolism of reality,
and is to rational knowledge what the reflected ray of light is
to the direct ray.
Epicurus returns to the Theory of Democritus. Proof of the
Veracity of the Senses.
Epicurus returned to the theory of the elScoXa of Democritus
(Diogenes Laertius, X, Letter to Herodotus) and to his distinction
of primary, and secondary qualities. In the critical part of
his system he tries to prove the veracity of the senses. His
arguments are as follows :
Firstly, through the senses we only receive some external
thing into ourselves. The senses do not move themselves, they
can therefore neither add to nor diminish the motion communi-
cated to them ; therefore, if I have a sensation of redness, there
must exist a red etSuikov. This argument presupposes that the
senses are entirely passive. Secondly, sensation is an immediate
act unaccompanied by reflection or memory, therefore it gives
the impressions just as they are, without being able to alter
them. This is the first argument in another form. Thirdly
we must accept our sensations, since we have no means of
controlling them. No sense can control itself, much less two
distinct senses. Lastly, the senses cannot be controlled by
reason, because it only exists through them. To these theoretical
arguments Epicurus adds the practical reflection, that if we
were to doubt the veracity of the senses, tollitur omnis ratio
vitac gerendae (Cicero, Be Fin. II, 64).
Stoicism : Mental Activity necessary to Sensible Knoivledge. -
Principle of Pudiscernibles. Objections of the Nciv Academy.
According ,to the Stoics, every thing that is real is corporeal,
i56 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
hence all reality is perceived by a sense. But in this, as
in all other matters, they disagree with the Epicureans : in
opposition to the passivity of the latter, they insist on activity ;
and in contradiction to the Epicurean relaxation (avecris) they
urge the necessity of effort, tension (tovos). Only voluntary
activity on the part of the mind can transform sensation
into knowledge. In the first place, the external ohject
makes an impression on the soul {tvttoxjis ev \jsv ^>;). ( leanthes
took this expression literally, and believed in a Tinroocris
that was hollow and in relief. Chrysippus only admitted
an alteration, a change in the state of the soul, erepolwaris
^X^ 9 ' ^he impression leaves in the soul an image, (puvraa-la,
visum (Cicero, Acad. I, 11). This was a passive phenomenon,
TrdOos ; and in order to have knowledge, there must be added
to the (pavraa-ta the o-uyKaTaOecris, or the assent of the mind.
Knowledge only exists owing to the assent which we give to
an image, in referring it to an external object. Our sensations
are themselves so many assents ; sensits ipsos assensus esse (Cicero,
Acad. II, 33), and they presuppose the exercise of a force which
is in our power, and which depends on ourselves alone. Sed ad
haec quae visa sunt, et quasi accepta sensibus assensioncn adjungit
Zeno animorum ; quam esse vult in nobis positam et voluntariam
(Cic. Acad. I, 11). By this act of assent the (pavTacrla becomes
(pavTama /caTaA//7TTi/o/, corner ehcnsio. Just as light manifests
both itself and the objects it illumines, so the cpavracria Kara-
\tj7rriK}') enables us to know both itself and its cause. It comes
from a reality and represents iSiwfxara, the special qualities
which distinguish each object from all others (principle of in-
discernibles) and it cannot deceive. The (pavracria KaraXtjirTiK}'/,
is recognized by its own evidence, by the force of its impact
upon the soul ; it is evapyijg kou 7tA>;/ct//c>/, and in contrast with
the (pavraala aiu.vpa or k\vtos is a sensation that forces us to
assent. But we must remember that the force of the external
impression is proportionate to the voluntary tension of the
sense that receives it, to the energy with which the regulating
principle reacts against the impulse coming from without.
" Mens, quae sensuum fons est, naturalem vim habet, quam
intendit ad ea quibus movctur " (Cic. Acad. II, 10). What strikes
us most in this theory of the Stoics is the keen sense it shows
of the part played by mental activity in perception.
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 57
In opposition to the Stoics, the philosophers of the new
Academy, Arcesilaus and Carneades, maintain, firstly, that
perception is passive ; secondly, that there are indiscernihles
and consequently inevitable confusions, and that it is impossible
through auyKaTaOecris to obtain evidence of this (bavTaalu
impyvs, which is the guarantee of sensible knowledge.
Mediaeval Philosophers, owing to a Misinterpretation, ascribe
to Aristotle the Theory of Representative Ideas, or eiSa>\a.
The Schoolmen adopted the Epicurean theory of representa-
tive ideas, which they ascribed to Aristotle. They thought
that by the form of objects he meant their images, their
elScoXa, and they endeavoured to reconcile this hypothesis
with the spirituality of the soul. Objects emit images, forms
(species), and these forms are, so to speak, their substitutes
(vicarios) ; but since they emanate from matter, they must be
material. How then do these corporeal forms act on the
incorporeal soul ? First, they affect the organs physically,
and then they are species impressae ; and the mind afterwards,
by its own activity, transforms them into species expressae -
that is to say, species drawn from the organs and spiritualized.
Descartes : Physiology of the Senses. The Existence of the
World proved by the Divine Veracity. Primary and Secondary
Qualities.
There are, according to Descartes, three kinds of notions.
Notions of spiritual substances, notions of extended things, and
notions connected with the union of mind and body. These
last notions constitute sensibility. Descartes distinguishes
seven senses : an internal sense, a sort of vital sense by which
we localize sensible data within the body hunger, thirst, pain,
etc. ; the five external senses by which we localize sensations
coming from without ; and lastly, the passions, with which we
are not here concerned.
Descartes' physiology of the senses is very remarkable.
Whatever the external apparatus which receives the impression
may be, th e media of sensati o n are always, the nerves, and
nothing b ut the nerves. The skin is no more the organ of
tmwh LlTan arethe gloves when we handle some body with our
gloves on. Passed evenly over a body, the nerves of touch give
58 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the sensation of a smooth body, passed unevenly, of a rough, un-
equal surface. Likewise, according to the divers ways in which
they are affected, they will give us all the other qualities
belonging to touch in general humidity, weight, dryness. Smell
and taste are only more delicate kinds of touch. Descartes
made a special study of the sensations of hearing and sight
(Compendium musicce; Dioptrique). The perception of a harsh or
soft sound depends on the force with which the ear is struck.
Harmony or discord depend on the intervals between the
small vibrations or agitations of the air. By sight we perceive
from a distance the external qualities of bodies ; therefore
between vision and a distant object there must be a medium.
This medium is what is called lio;ht.
"In the bodies that we call luminous, the light is simply certain
motions, or a very prompt and lively action, which passes to our eyes
through the medium of the air and of other transparent bodies, just as
the motion or resistance of the bodies which a blind man meets reaches
his hand through the medium of his walking-stick."
Descartes examines the anatomy of the eye, and analyzes
with great accuracy its different layers and humours, and then
shows by experiment how it is that objects come to be painted
on the retina (Dioptrique, p. 42), his inference being that in
vision the eye plays the part of a camera obscura.
The duality of the organs of sight and hearing, and also the
connection which we establish between the data of the different
senses, oblige us, Descartes says, to admit the existence of a
single centre, a kind of scnsorium commune. External impres-
sions act on the nerves, which are tubes filled with animal
spirits. The latter are a kind of subtle fire, a material
substance in a state of commotion, an elastic fluid, vapours of
the blood elaborated in the heart and set in motion by the
slightest shock. All these tubes go up to the brain and meet
in the pineal gland, which is the principal seat of the soul.
" Since we only see one and the same thing with our two eyes, and only
hear one sound with our two ears, and, lastly, have never more than one
thought at a time, it must necessarily be that the species which enter by
our two eyes or by our two ears join somewhere in order to be considered
by the mind, and in the whole head it is impossible to find any place
where this could happen except the pineal gland" (Ed. V. Cousin,
vol. VIII, p. 200).
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 59
And now, what are the inferences to be drawn from sensible
knowledge ? As the notion of extension is itself a distinct
notion, an external world is possible. But the idea of exten-
sion does not, like the idea of God, involve existence. We have,
therefore, to prove that there is a reality corresponding to our
sensations, (a) In the first place, sensations are more vivid
than images, But this criterion is insufficient : for in dreams,
images are often as clear as are our perceptions when awake.
(b) But while this is true, a man does not link the images
of his dreams together, still less does he connect different
dreams together, whereas our perceptions, on the contrary,
are linked together according to the laws of nature. And
hence we are able to distinguish between our dreams and
our waking hours. Nevertheless, to distinguish between
dreams and perceptions is not to prove the reality of a
world that is external to the mind that thinks it. The
connection between our sensations does not enable us to
get outside ourselves, (c) My sensations are involuntary : it
is not I who gave them to myself. To every idea there
must correspond a reality, which contains formally (really)
as much perfection as the idea contains objectively (repre-
sents). As I do not give myself my own sensations, there
remain two hypotheses. Either the reality corresponding
to my sensations is an external world relative to them, or it
is God who causes these sensible modifications in my mind.
But as on the occurrence of sensations we are irresistibly led to
imagine the existence of an external world, to suppose that
God deceives us by causing directly in us sensations to which
there corresponds no real extended thing, would be to doubt
His veracity.
Are we then to understand that all our sensations are
qualities of objects outside ourselves that the heat is in the
fire ; that the perfume is in the rose ? This inference was pro-
hibited to Descartes both by his theory of knowledge and by
his mechanical conception of the universe. The omnipotence
of God makes it permissible to assert that there is a reality
corresponding to every clear and distinct idea. On the other
hand, our sensations of smell, taste, sound, light, and heat, are
only lively but confused affections. Of all that we know of
the material world, extension alone, with which geometrv has
60 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
to do, is a clear and distinct notion. Extension, therefore, is
the only real and objective thing in the material world. It is
as extension and motion, or changes of situation in space, that
we arc to conceive the universe. But the sensations of sound,
heat, and light have no immediate relation to extension, and
consequently have no existence in things. They have no basis
except certain movements, concerning which we learn nothing
through them (6th Medit.). Moreover, every other theory leads
to absurd consequences. To regard heat as a quality of bodies
would be to suppose that lire has alternately contrary qualities,
according as we go nearer to or further from it and find its
heat pleasurable or painful ; or that the pin has a sensation of
being pricked analogous to that which it causes us to feel.
There are, therefore, secondary qualities without which matter
is conceivable, and which only exist through the relation of
things to us ; and one primary quality, namely, extension, with-
out which it is impossible to conceive matter, since extension
alone constitutes its reality.
Malebrcinchc applies the Theory of Occasional Causes to Ex-
ternal Perception. He is the Precursor of the Associationists.
Descartes' physiology and his theory of animal spirits were
adopted by Malebranche ; he accepted the Cartesian mechanism,
and hence the distinction of primary and secondary qualities.
But to him external perception was only a particular case of
the general problem of the intercommunion of substances.
How do bodies communicate with the soul ? In the first
place, he refutes with much force the mediaeval theory, and
ridicules those material ambassadors which are sent out by
things, and find their way in space so well that they never get
mixed. The doctrine of the etScoXa is therefore false, but this
does not mean that w T e perceive objects directly. There is no
direct action of matter on mind. A reciprocal influence
between two unrelated substances is inconceivable. The im-
mediate object in our mind " when it perceives the sun, for
instance, is not the sun, but something closely united to our
mind, and this is what I call an idea" (Recherche de la Ve'rite',
Vol. Ill, Pt. 2, Ch. I). AVhat produces these ideas in us ? Here
Malebranche applies the theory of occasional causes. In the
world of spirits, as well as in the world of bodies, all positive
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION GI
action comes from God. The ideas corresponding to an im-
pression come therefore neither from objects nor from me. It
is God " who, on the occasion of the impressions made on the
brain," reveals to us, as far as he deems it proper, his own
ideas of objects. Sensations are merely obscure and confused
modifications of the idea of extension, which is the one clear
intelligible idea. The senses only make us know things in so
far as they are related to the preservation of our bodies, and
not as they are in themselves {Ibid. I, Ch. V, 3).
But is there a real world corresponding to these sensa-
tions ? To this question reason gives no answer.
The foregoing theory in itself proves the supermiousness of
an external world. Objects are not known directly. When
I am affected in a certain way, God suggests to me, for instance,
the idea of a rose. If we did away with the external world
everything would go on as before. It is enough if by a direct
action God produces the ideas which He suggests to me on the
occasion of there being such or such an object. But if this be
the case, the world must be composed of ideas, and this in fact
is the hypothesis of Malebranche. The object, instead of having
a real existence, would be a collection of sensations constantly
associated with one another. This is the hypothesis of
Berkeley. Thus to reason the existence of bodies is pro-
blematic, and even useless ; but, on the other hand, it is proved
by faith and by revelation.
" Faith alone can convince us that there are bodies. It is not even
possible to know with certainty that God is the creator of the world, for
such a certainty can only arise from the perception of necessary relations,
and there are no necessary relations between God and such a world.
Fides ex auditu : this at first applies only to human appearances. But
what we have learnt through these appearances is incontestable. Now
the appearance of Holy Writ teaches us that God created a heaven and
an earth, etc. Therefore through faith it is certain that there are bodies,
and through faith these appearances become realities" (6 e Entret. met.).
With regard to the illusions of the senses {Reck, de la Vet\
Vol. I, Chap. VII, 9), Malebranche was one of the first
philosophers who analyzed some of our apparently simple and
irreducible perceptions to composite sensations or subconscious
acts of judgment. He was the first to offer those psychological
explanations, the use of which was with Berkeley and the
62 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
English psychologists, and is to-day with physiologists {e.g.
Hehnholtz), a regular method. Malebranche points out, for
example, that no physical reason can be found for the fact
that the moon appears to us larger at the horizon than at its
zenith. There must in this case be an unconscious mental
act, founded on the association of ideas an illusion strength-
ened by habit. By this explanation, Malebranche reduces
what appears at first to be an immediate and simple perception
to a complex mental act, and this is the method that has
been adopted by our contemporary English psychologists.
Spinoza.
In Spinoza's system the divine substance reveals itself to
us in two parallel attributes, extension and thought. To
every mode of extension there corresponds a mode of thought.
The human soul is only the idea of the human body. When
our bodies are affected we perceive the foreign body as acting
upon us. This is a corollary of the parallelism of the two
divine attributes. But this knowledge, which is acquired
through the senses, is necessarily inadequate and confused, for
it only represent^ the relation of our body to another body.
Leibnitz makes External Perception depend on Pre-establish ed
Harmony.
The monads of Leibnitz have no windows looking out by
which the species might reach them. The monad is a simplo
spiritual force, and its essential attributes are perception and
appetition. All its acts are spontaneous and represent its
own development : but as the acts of each monad have been
calculated by God in relation with all the acts of all the other
monads, all the monads represent the universe, each from its
own point of view. Hence Leibnitz, like all the other Cartesians,
defines sensation as a confused perception. " It is our confused
perception of the logical and true relations between things
that causes them to appear to us as objects in space and time "
(E. Boutroux, Monadologie, p. 60). The external world as it
appears to us is, therefore, the product of our imagination.
Nevertheless the real world is not a dream ; for, in the first
place, the monads and their relations are symbols of it they
are phenomena well founded bene fundata, (Erdmann, 426 b).
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 63
In the second place, our perceptions are linked together accord-
ing to general rules which make prediction possible.
"... The ground of our certitude in regard to universal and eternal
truths is in the ideas themselves, independently of the senses ; just as
ideas pure and intelligible do not depend on the senses for example, those
of being, unity, identity, etc. But the ideas of sensible qualities, as
colour, sense, etc. (which in reality are only phantoms), come to us from
the senses, i.e. from oui confused perceptions. And the basis of the
truth of contingent and singular things is in the succession which
causes these phenomena of the senses to be rightly united as the in-
telligible truths demand" (New Essays on the Hitman Understanding, Bk.
IV, Ch. IV).
Locke : Empirical Study of the Data of the Senses.
In the Cartesian school, the problem of external perception
was treated as part of the metaphysical problem of the
relations of mind and matter, the same solution being
applied to both. Locke, on the other hand, took the empirical
point of view. In the first place he separates Psychology
entirely from Physiology. He does not, like Descartes and
Malebranche, insist on the existence of animal spirits, and on
the mechanical nature of perception. According to him,
perception takes place when the impression made on the organ
is transmitted to the mind. The mind is a purely passive
faculty, it cannot do otherwise than perceive what it perceives.
Sensible cp^alities are simple ideas, that is to say, they are
not "distinguishable into different ideas " (On the Human Under-
standing, Vol. I, Bk. II, Chap. II). Some of these simple ideas
" have admittance to the mind only through one sense, which
is peculiarly adapted to receive them " (Ibid. Chap. Ill),
such are colours, sounds, smells, tastes, solidity. The ideas
we get by more than one sense are, of space or extension,
figure, rest, and motion ; for these make perceivable impres-
sions both on the eyes and touch " (Ibid. Ch. V). Locke
explains the education of our sight by a process of induction,
which owing to habit has become unconscious. " A round
globe appears at first to the eye as a flat circle variously
shadowed. . . . Habits come at last to produce actions in
us which often escape our observation " (Ibid. Ch. V).
As regards what we really know by the senses, Locke
says :
64 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" It is evident the mind knows not things immediately, but only by
the intervention of the ideas it has of them. Our knowledge therefore
is real only so far as there is a conforaiity between our ideas and the
reality of things " (Bk. II, Ch. IV).
How can we be sure of this conformity ? Sensible know-
ledge is neither a simple intuition nor a knowledge capable of
proof, but there are good reasons for believing that a reality
corresponds to our ideas : sensations are involuntary, they are
not produced by one's self, they are more lively than images,
they corroborate one another's testimony. Like Epicurus, Locke
arrives at the conclusion that knowledge derived from sensation
is as certain as pleasure or pain (Ibid. Ch. II). " But we
must not think that our ideas are exactly the images and
resemblances of something inherent in the object." Sensible
qualities are of two kinds : firstly, the original or primary
qualities, as solidity, extension, figure, and mobility ; these
are so inseparable from the body that it keeps them always,
whatever other changes it may undergo : secondly, the
secondary qualities, such as colours, sounds, tastes : these
secondary qualities have no reality.
" Such qualities, which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves,
but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities
. . . the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them,
and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves ; but the ideas
produced in us by Secondary qualities, have no resemblance of them at
all . . . they are only the power to produce those sensations in us.'
(Bk. II, Ch. VIII).
Berkeley : Psychological Method. Influence of Mcdebranche and
Locke. Idealism.
What Stuart Mill calls the psychological method, and
opposes to the introspective method, was first introduced by
Berkeley. The peculiarity of the psychological method is,
that instead of being content with the mental analysis which
arises out of the reflection of the ego on itself, it discerns in
apparently simple and direct intuitions an already complex
collection of elementary phenomena fused and fixed into a
combination, the complexity of which, owing to habit, we do
not suspect.
"The Psychological Theory maintains that there are associations
naturally, and even necessarily generated by the order of our sensations,
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 65
which, supposing no intuition of an external world to have existed in
consciousness, would inevitably generate the belief, and would cause it to
be regarded as an intuition " (Mill's Examination of Hamilton 's Philo-
sophy, Chap. XI, p. 190).
This is exactly Berkeley's thesis. He endeavours to
explain our apparent intuition of an external world, which,
according to him, does not exist, by the association of con-
stantly connected sensations. In Malebranche and Locke we
find the antecedents of Berkeley's theory. Locke denies tha f
we know sensible things directly, and reduces the notion of
substance to a collection of qualities that are always perceived
together. In Malebranche's theory the reality of an external
world was, as we have seen, superfluous. It would have been
better to do away altogether with this unnecessary medium, and
to admit an immediate action of the Divine mind on the human
mind, a direct suggestion of ideas, whose constant relations are
exactly the same as those which we observe in the world of
phenomena. Berkeley's idealism is merely the theory of Male-
branche simplified, and combined with Locke's empiricism.
That the secondary qualities depend on the subject seemed,
after Descartes' demonstration, to be undeniable. The
same water seems to be at one time hot and at another cold,
or even cold to the left hand and hot to the right, if our
hands happen to have a different temperature. Are we then
to ascribe more reality to the primary qualities ? According
to Berkeley, the primary as well as the secondary qualities
are merely sensations or ideas, as he calls them. An idea, he
says, can only exist in the mind perceiving it (Principles of
Human, Knowledge 33). If this is the case, if neither the
secondary nor the primary qualities have any existence outside
ourselves, when we imagine that we perceive an object we are in
reality only combining elementary sensations. In the opinion
of the vulgar, there is, for instance, a connection between the
visil le and the tangible extension of this table : they are two
qualities of the same object, two modes of the same substance.
Berkeley declares that there is a visible extension and a
tangible extension, that the two are of an entirely different
nature, and that there is no necessary connection between them .
"The ideas of sight and touch make two species entirely distinct and
heterogeneous ... so that, in strict truth, the ideas of sight, when we
E
66 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
apprehend by them distance and things placed at a distance do not sug-
gest or mark out to us things actually existing at a distance, but only
admonish us what ideas of touch will be imprinted on our minds at such
and such distances of time, and in consequence of such or such actions.
. . . visible ideas are the language whereby the governing Spirit, on
whom we depend, informs us what tangible ideas He is about to imprint
upon us, in case we excite this or that motion in our bodies " (Prin. of
Human Knowledge, 1st part, 44).
" We perceive distance not immediately, but by mediation of a
sign which hath no likeness to it or necessary connection with
it, but only suggests it from repeated experience, as words do
things " (Alciphron, 4th Dialogue). The Divine will has estab-
lished a constant relation and correspondence between the
visible size and figure of objects and their tangible size and
figure. To every modification of the one there corresponds
a parallel modification in the other, and owing to this
correspondence we learn by experience to know the tangible
size and figure of an object by its visible size and figure.
Such judgments are so familar and habitual to us, that we
are quite unconscious of them, and that we imagine ourselves
to have an immediate perception of the tangible qualities, which
through habit we infer from the visible qualities that have
become to us a sign of them. What is true of touch and vision
is equally true of all the other sensations. They are so many
ideas, and have no connection with one another, beyond that
which has been established by the divine Will and Intelligence.
What then is an object ? It is a collection, a sum of sensations,
which experience has always given to us together, and which
owing to habit we are unable to dissociate in our minds.
Berkeley foresaw an objection which must inevitably be
brought against his theory. If there is no real object outside
us corresponding to those purely mental modifications which we
call the sensations, how are we able to distinguish fact from
fancy, sensations from images ? The first mark which enables
us to make this distinction is the liveliness of our sensations
as compared with images. Sensations are awakened in us
directly by the divine action, whereas images are only the reflec-
tions of these ideas. In the second place, there is more order and
coherence in things than in the fictions of our brain, for they
succeed each other and are linked together by necessary laws
which correspond to the laws observed by the Supreme Mind.
THE SENSES AND EXTEENAL PERCEPTION 67
It is the invariability of certain purely ideal relations that
constitutes the objective value of our perception. {Principles
of Knowledge, 33). The permanence of sensible things implies
the existence of a permanent and unchanging Providence. We
are therefore able to distinguish real things from the chimeras
of phantasy ; but these real things are none the less ideas, and
ideas can only exist in the mind. Berkeley's conclusion is
that what we feel are our sensations themselves, and there is
no need to look for anything beyond these ; for the world is
nothing more than the sum total of these sensations. " Esse est
percipi"
Berkeley's Idealistic Analysis resumed and developed by David
Hume.
Berkeley's analysis was continued and developed in a
masterly manner by Hume.
" It seems evident that men are carried by a natural instinct or pre-
possession to repose faith in their senses ; and that, without any reasoning
or even almost before the use of reason, we suppose an external universe
which depends not on our preception, but would exist though we and
every sensible creature were absent or annihilated. . . ." (Inquiry
concerning the Human Understanding).
As long as men follow this instinct they never have any
suspicion that these objects are nothing but representations of
the mind. Whether I am here or not this table will exist : it
is not my presence that gives it being. This is the first stage.
" But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed
by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be
present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are
only the inlets through which these images are conveyed, without being
able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the
object " (Ibid.).
Thus we advance from the opinion of common sense to the
first stage in philosophical reflection.
"... No man who reflects ever doubted that the existences which we
consider, when we say, this house and that tree are nothing but perceptions
in the mind, and fleeting copies or representations of other existences
which remain uniform and independent."
But it is difficult to persist in this reflective and philo-
sophical realism.
68 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" By what argument can it be proved that the perceptions of the mind
must be caused by external objects, entirely different from them, though
resembling them (if that be possible), and could not arise either from the
energy of the mind itself, or from the suggestion of some invisible and
unknown spirit, or from some other cause still more unknown to us ? "
(Ibid.). " It is acknowledged that, in fact, many of these perceptions
arise not from anything external, as in dreams, madness, and other
diseases. And nothing can be more inexplicable than the manner in
which body should so operate upon mind as ever to convey an image
of itself to a substance supposed of so different and even contrary a
nature. . . ."
" It is a question of fact whether the perceptions of the senses be
produced by external objects resembling them : how shall this question
be determined ? By experience surely, as all other questions of a like
nature. But here experience is and must be entirely silent. The mind
has never anything present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly
reach any experience of their connection with objects " (Ibid.).
To these arguments Hume adds those that can be drawn
from the analysis of perception. It is universally allowed that
the secondary qualities only exist in the mind, and all the
arguments that are employed to prove this apply also to the
primary qualities. " The idea of extension is entirely acquired
from the senses of sight and feeling."
But if we only know our own mental states, how is it that
we are able to distinguish what .we imagine from what is real,
or, as Hume puts it, fiction from belief ?
"The difference between fiction and belief lies in some sentiment or
feeling, which is annexed to the latter, not the former, and which depends
not on the will nor can be commanded at pleasure. It must be excited
by nature like all other sentiments and must arise from the particular
situation in which the mind is placed at any particular junction "
(Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding^ Sect. V, Part II).
Everyone knows what is meant by belief: it is a feeling as
difficult to define as would be " the feeling of cold, or passion of
anger to a creature who had never had any experience of these
sentiments." It must be admitted that this is not very
satisfactory. The following is more clear :
" The sentiment of belief is nothing but a conception more intense and
steady than what attends the mere fictions of the imagination, and that
this 'manner of conception arises from a customary conjunction of the
object with something present to the memory or senses" (Ibid.).
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 69
Hume's distinction rests, then, on the difference between the
livelier and the feebler consciousness, and on the habitual con-
nection between ideas. For instance, a present sensation will,
in accordance with the laws of association, awaken such and
such an idea, and this idea is distinguished from mere fancy
by its connection with the actual sensation.
" When I throw a piece of dry wood into a fire, my mind is immediately
carried to conceive that it augments, not extinguishes the flame. This
transition from the cause to the effect proceeds not from reason. It
derives its origin altogether from custom and experience. And as it first
begins from an object present to the senses, it renders the idea or concep-
tion of flame more strong and lively than any loose floating reverie of the
imagination. That idea arises immediately, the thought moves instantly
towards it, and conveys to it all that force of conception which is derived
from the impression present to the sensation " (Ibid.).
Thus, according to Hume, belief is distinguished from fancy
by an unanalyzable feeling. This feeling corresponds to certain
livelier, more intense states of consciousness, and also to an
expectation of these states of consciousness under certain
circumstances. Berkelev had said the same. Sensations are
more lively than images, and are linked together according to
certain laws. But in Berkeley's doctrine these laws are rules
which the Divine will imposed on itself, whereas with Hume
our expectation is merely the result of experience and custom.
The consequence of this doctrine would be absolute phe-
nomenalism : but having got so far, Hume appears to have
been seized with doubts. The constant agreement between
nature and mind aroiises his wonder. Why does the course
of nature correspond to the law of association by which our
ideas are governed ? We expect that the same antecedents
will be followed by the same consequents, but why do facts
correspond to our expectation ? Hume here departs from the
mere sceptical empiricism with which his philosophy is usually
associated. In virtue of the relations established by nature,
he says, every idea calls up in the mind a correlative idea, and
by an easy and imperceptible transition draws our attention
to it.
" Here then is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course
of nature and the succession of our ideas ; and though the powers and
forces by which the former is governed be wholly unknown to us, yet our
thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train
70 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
with the other works of nature. ... As nature has taught us the use of
our limbs without giving us the knowledge of the muscles and nerves by
which they are actuated, so has she implanted in us an instinct which
carries forward the thought in a corresponding course to that which she
has established among external objects, though we are ignorant of those
powers and forces on which this regular course and succession of objects
totally depends" {Ibid, Sect. V, Pt. II).
Kant's Criticism : Space an a priori form of Sense. Real
Existence of Things in themselves. Refutation of Idealism.
To Hume must be given the credit of having awakened
Kant from his " dogmatic slumber." Kant wished to escape
from the scepticism which, by a logical and necessary evolu-
tion, had been the result of the empirical doctrines of the
school of Locke, and this he did by distinguishing two things
in knowledge : its matter and its form. The matter is the
manifold variable element, the form is the totality of the
necessary laws by which alone thought is possible. Even in
the mental act that appears to be most simple, namely,
the perception of external objects, the distinction between
matter and form applies. External perception is not a faculty
with which we have been endowed : it is a form of the mind,
it is space. To perceive external things is to add the quality
of externality or of being spatial to our sensations. Sound,
colour, and resistance are only mental modifications. The
external world only exists for us when these modifications are
situated in space, and it is the mind that provides the space :
therefore it is the mind that makes the external world. To be
capable of perception, and to provide the form of space, are one
and the same thing.
Spatium non est aliquid objectivi et realis, nee substantia, nee
accidens, nee relatio, sed subjectivum et idcale, e natura mentis
stabili lege proficiscens, veluti schema omnia omnino externe sensa
sibi coordinandi {De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et
principiis, 1770).
Hence when we try to reach through our sensations a world
which is really extended, and forms a whole independent of
the mind, it is not surprising that we should fall into hopeless
contradictions. Not that Kant was an idealist in the usual
sense of the word. The mind supplies the form of knowledge,
but not its matter. If we cannot reach this matter, it is
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 71
because it is beyond our grasp, because it is in itself unattain-
able, and only reaches us when it has passed through the forms
of sense. The matter of our knowledge has none the less a
real and separate existence.
Kant confirms this doctrine of the real existence of things
by his refutation of Idealism. There are, according to him,
two kinds of Idealism : firstly, the 2 jr ble'm<citical Idealism of
Descartes, who asserts nothing as to the existence of external
things, but merely says that we are unable to prove any
existence except our own : secondly, the dogmatic Idealism of
Berkeley, " who maintains that space, together with all the
objects of which it is the inseparable condition, is a thing in
itself impossible, and consequently the objects in space are
mere products of the imagination."
Berkeley's Idealism is unavoidable if we regard space as a
property of things in themselves ; for space thus conceived being
non-existent, all those things of which it is a condition melt
away with it. Kant considered that he had adequately refuted
this form of idealism when he proved in the Transcendental
j Aesthetic that space is not a property of things, but a form of
' the mind.
There remains problematical Idealism. In order to refute
this, we have to prove that " we have experience of external
things, and not mere fancies. For this purpose, we must
prove that our internal, and to Descartes indubitable, experience
is itself possible only under the previous assumption of external
experience." Kant's conception is, then, that our internal and
external experience are interdependent ; that we only know
ourselves by knowing something external to ourselves ; and,
consequently, that we have an immediate consciousness of
external things as well as of ourselves. Hence this theorem
of Kant's. " The simple but empirically determined conscious-
ness of my own existence proves the existence of external
objects in space." The proof is as follows : " I am conscious
of my own existence as determined in time. All determina-
tion in regard to time presupposes the existence of something
permanent in perception. But this permanent element cannot
be in the representation themselves, none of which are per-
manent, since they are manifold, distinct from each other,
and fleeting. There must therefore be something permanent
72 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
that is distinct from my representations, namely, an
external existence. Why should this permanent something
not be within me as well, instead of being external to
me ? Kant's explanation of this is most obscure. At any
rate, according to him, " the consciousness of my own exist-
ence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of
the existence of other things without me " (Critique of Pure
Reason).
Thomas Rcid, in order to escape from Humes Scepticism,
returns to Realism. Striking Analyses and Descriptions.
Thomas Keid, alarmed at the inferences that had been
drawn by Berkeley and Hume from Locke's empiricism,
endeavoured to escape from scepticism by bringing philosophy
back to common sense. He dwells more especially on the
psychological problem, and gives some remarkable analyses
and descriptions of psychological facts. He describes the
physiological conditions of external perception (the impression,
the organ, the brain), and distinguishes between the faculty of
perceiving and the organ of perception. He points out that
sensation, a subjective feeling, is not to be confused with per-
ception, which is a knowledge. He distinguishes our original
perceptions, which are ultimate and may be compared to a
natural language, from our acquired perceptions, which are the
result of the association of ideas and which he compares to an
artificial language. Lastly, he gives some very ingenious
and correct explanations of the so-called illusions of the
senses.
In the critical part of his work he refutes, at great length
the doctrine of representative ideas, which, according to him,
was accepted by all philosophers without exception, from Plato
down to Hume. The seed of scepticism lies, he says, in
every theory that admits the existence of media, of ideas or
images of the real object, between the object perceived and the
perceiving subject. Against this hypothesis, according to which
the existence of bodies would have to be proved, Eeid urges
firstly its inconvenient consequences, and secondly the testi-
mony of common sense. Men believe that they see not the
images of objects, but the objects themselves. Beid's own
theory is therefore that of immediate perception. But what, on
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 73
his theory, is this perception ? Merely a necessary sugges-
tion, a belief.
" If, therefore, we attend to that act of our mind which we call the
perception of an external object of sense, we shall find in it these
three things : first, some conception or notion of the object perceived ;
secondly, a strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its present
existence ; and thirdly, that the conviction and belief are immediate and
not the effect of reasoning" (Reid On the Intellectual Powers, Essay II,
( 'hap. V).
Thus sensations, according to Reid, are not images but signs.
Our original perceptions are like a natural language, our
acquired perceptions like an artificial language. But can this
be called immediate perception ?
" A third class of natural signs [our sensations] comprehends those
which, though we never before had any notion or conception of the thing
signified, do suggest it or conjure it up as it were by a natural kind of
magic, and at once gives us a conception and creates a belief of it " (Reid,
On the Human Mind, Ch. V, Sect. III). " In what manner the notion of
external objects and the immediate belief of their existence is produced
by means of our senses, I am not able to show. I do not pretend to
show. If the power of perceiving external objects in certain circum-
stances be a part of the original constitution of the human mind, all
attempts to account for it will be vain " (On the Intellectual Powers,
Essay II, Ch. V).
The whole difference between the primary and secondary
qualities is that, " of the primary we have by our senses a
direct and distinct notion ; but of the secondary only a relative
notion, which must, because it is only relative, be obscure"
(Ibid. Chap. XVII). In both cases there is first a sensa-
tion, then the suggestion of a cause ; but with the primary
qualities the cause is clearly represented, whereas with the
secondary it is hidden. Keid's theory does not exclude the
medium which is necessary to any knowledge of an object
external to the ego ; in fact he virtually admits the necessity
of a medium in saying that sensations are signs. In the
second place, he should, to be logical, have shown the cause
of the immediate suggestion by which the mind passes from
the sensation to a reality which has no connection with the
sensation, and this would have led him back to some hypothesis
similar to that of Malebrancbe or of Berkeley.
74 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Hamilton : We have an Immediate Consciousness of External
Objects.
Hamilton declares that we have not merely a suggestion
but a direct, immediate intuition of external things. I am
conscious at once of subject and object ; the intuitive know-
ledge which I have of perception also extends to the object of
perception ; the ego and the non-ego are given in an original
antithesis.
" We are immediately conscious in perception of an ego and a non-ego,
known together and known in contrast to each other. In this act I am
conscious of both existences in the same indivisible moment of intuition.
. . . We may therefore lay it down as an undisputed truth that con-
sciousness gives as an ultimate fact a primitive duality a knowledge of
the ego in relation and contrast to the non-ego, and a knowledge of the
non ego in relation and contrast to the ego. The ego and the non-ego
are thus given in an original synthesis, as conjoined in the unity of
knowledge, and in an original antithesis as opposed in the contrariety of
existence. In other words, we are conscious of them in an indivisible
act of knowledge together and at once, but we are conscious of them as in
themselves different and exclusive of each other" {Lecture XVI, pp.
288, 292).
Hamilton objects to treating consciousness as a special
faculty, which looks on while the mind acts. Consciousness
he holds to be the universal form of mental facts. If we
can be said to have an immediate knowledge of external
objects, it is in the sense that we are conscious of an external
vjorld. We must not understand Hamilton to mean that the
external object is known in itself, for he holds that we never
reach things in themselves. External objects are only ap-
pearances and modes of the external thing in so far as they
are relative to our powers of knowing. Thus consciousness in
one and the same act gives us both subject and object, and
also the immediate conviction that they are distinct from one
another : but our knowledge is still relative knowledge.
The French Psychologists : Destutt cle Tracy : External Percep-
tion dependent upon our Motor Activity. Maine dc Biran : Theory
of Effort. Victor Cousin.
The French psychologists, Destutt de Tracy, Laromiguiere,
Maine de Biran, and Adolphe Gamier, attach great importance
to the part played by our motor faculty in external percep-
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 75
tion. This is a correct theory, the germ of which is first
to be found in Stoicism, and it has been adopted and de-
veloped by Alex. Bain, W. Wundt, and by all the physiologists
and psychologists of our time. Destutt de Tracy makes a
distinction between active and passive touch ; the perception of
resistance has its origin, according to him, in our sense of
effort. He maintains that in order to acquire the notion of
externality we must first have the experience of motion
{Mem. de I'lnstitut, 1798). His theory is summed, up in the
significant title, which he gives to Chap. XII of his Elements
d'ide'ologie : " That it is to the faculty of motion that we owe
our knowledge of bodies."
These ideas were further developed by Maine de Biran,
who distinguished sensation, as a mere sensible affection, from
perception, which is due to our own activity, and even regards
them as opposed to one another. Examining each of the senses
separately from this point of view, he showed that the propor-
tion of the two terms varies in the different senses, and
that the senses are higher or lower according as their organs
depend more or less on our activity.
The organic sensations rank lowest : next come the sensa-
tions of taste, " which more nearly resemble a perception,
inasmuch as they are less emotional and depend more on the
voluntary, slow, and protracted motion of their special organ."
After these come smell, then hearing, which owes its importance
to the connection that exists between our auditory and vocal
organs ; then there is vision, the organ of which is so varied in its
motions. Lastly, the sense of touch in the hand, that earliest
and most marvellous instrument of analysis (Me'm. sur Vhab.).
It is on the part played by activity in our knowledge that
Maine de Biran based the transition from the ego to the ex-
ternal world. The primary fact of consciousness is that of
voluntary effort, which in its unity comprises two things : the
act of will and the resistance of the organ that is set in motion.
Through this resistance the ego discovers that it is limited, and
thus with the consciousness of itself it acquires the conscious-
ness of a not-self, as of a necessary term opposed to the ego.
This is an original antithesis, in which both terms are given at
the same time, so that the external reality is as certain as the
internal.
76 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Victor Cousin adopted a theory similar to that of Keid.
Iteid reached the external world by immediate suggestion,
based apparently on the principle known as that of sub-
stance. " I cannot conceive extension without an extended
subject." Victor Cousin arrives at the external world through
the principle of causality, which is, he says, " the bridge 1 iy
which we pass from the ego to the world" the "father"
of external things. My ego is modified by a sensation ; but it
is not I who have willed this modification ; hence my mind is
forced by an immediate application of the principle of causality
to infer an external cause of the sensation, that is to say, an
external world. We are compelled by reason to refer the
phenomenon of sensation to an existing cause, and since this
cause is not the ego, and the action of reason is irresistible,
we must necessarily attribute the sensation to another cause,
one different from me, i.e. to an external cause. Cousin thought
that by this argument he had, with one stroke, proved our
sensible knowledge to depend on rational knowledge, and re-
futed sensationalism.
Recent Progress in Physical and Physiological Knowledge of
the Senses.
In our times the physiced antecedents of sensation are being
determined with increasing accuracy by science. The vibration
of the air and of the ether have been observed, together with the
harmonious relations which are expressed by and translated into
the language of sensation (Helmholtz). The unity of physical
forces which was suspected by Democritus, and by Descartes
inferred from his mechanical theory of the universe, has now been
established on scientific grounds (Grove, Meyer, Joule, Hirn).
And thus the distinction between the primary and secondary
qualities of matter has received further corroboration.
The results arrived at by physical science are carried still
further by physiology, which enquires into the nervous system
and the organic antecedents of sensation. To physiology we
owe the distinction between the sentient and motor nerves
(Magendie, Hourens, CI. Bernard); the description of the organs
of sense ; the occasional discovery of some marvellous apparatus,
such as the fibres of Corti (a kind of keyboard or resonator in the
inner .ear), also the discovery of a difference in the degrees of
THE SENSES AND ENTEENAL PEECEPTION 77
sensitiveness in different surfaces, as in the various parts of
the eye the blind spot, etc. Plvysiologists are endeavouring to
specify the sensorial centres in the brain : they are determining,
with increasing exactness, the relation between the organs of
sensation and those of motion, thereby showing the full sig-
nificance of Maine de Biran's psychological observations ; finally,
by the law of the specific energy of the nerves l (discovered by
Miiller), Physiology has confirmed the psychological results of
the law of the unity of physical forces, and thus shown that
the same cause will, if applied to different senses, produce
different sensations.
The progress made by physical and physiological science
suggested the idea of extending to psychology itself the exact
methods of the physical sciences, that is, experiment and
measurement. The psycho-physics of contemporary German
physiologists and psychologists Weber, Fechner, Hering,Wundt
(who were preceded in this line in France by Delezenne and de
Lille, 1827) aims, generally speaking, at determining with mathe-
matical accuracy, the ratios between physical or physiological
antecedents and their psychological consequents. In psycho-
physics sensation is regarded as a fact having a certain duration
and intensity, and consequently susceptible of measurement.
As variations in sensations cannot lie effected directly, the ex-
ternal phenomenon is acted on so as to vary the internal
phenomenon. Attempts have been made to measure the
duration of psychical states, allowing for the time required for
the transmission of the nervous current (Donders, Wundt), and
even to measure sensation itself, by observing the connection
between the changes perceived by consciousness in sensation
with the changes discovered through delicate instruments of
measurement in the stimulation of the nerve. Hence Weber's
law : " Sensations increase by equal quantities when the stimuli
increase by quantities that are relatively equal," a law of the
greatest significance which had already been used by Laplace,
and applies exactly to all mental phenomena. Hence, also
Fechner's law, which is merely Weber's stated differently :
" That the sensations vary in the same proportion as the
logarithms of their respective stimuli."
1 The expression is incorrect, for the nerves are never conductors :
he should say, "the specific energy of the sensorial centres."
78 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Parallel Progress in Psychology and in the Criticism of
Sensible Knowledge.
Meanwhile, Psychology proper has advanced on similar lines.
Starting from the general principle, that we must not be misled
by seemingly immediate intuitions, nor take our actual con-
sciousness as a type of primitive consciousness, psychology now
subjects to analysis all those phenomena which, though they
now appear to be simple, may, nevertheless, be discovered to be
complex. " Psychology to-day finds that it has to deal with
supposed simple sensations, just as Chemistry had in its infancy
to deal with the so-called elements of the ancients " (H. Taine,
De V Intelligence). A single sensation of vision, or of hearing,
may be decomposed into a considerable number of elementary
sensations (Taine). Furthermore, what appears to be merely
a sensation, is frequently a complex, though unconscious act of
judgment (Helmholtz, Optics). But, if sensation is complex,
perception is still more so. In order to distinguish the
elements of perception, it is necessary, according to Wundt
{Psychol- Physiol.), to employ experiment, as in physical science,
and to follow two methods : the one being direct or synthetic,
the other indirect or analytic. The first, which consists in the
reconstruction of a perception (for instance of sound), given its
elements, can be applied only in rare cases. The second, or
analytic method, consists in varying the antecedent conditions
of perception, and in drawing from the results of these experi-
ments conclusions as to the elements combined in sensation.
(See Wundt's interesting work on Vision, and notably on the
functions of the different points of the retina, and of the motor
muscles of the eye.) Finally, if the experimental method cannot
be applied, there is the psychological method of analysis, that
of the English school, which rests on the laws of the association
of ideas and on habit, the two principles of the education of the
senses which so transform the original data of the latter as to
render them irrecognizable. The perception through vision of
extension and of the tangible forms, the localization of sensa-
tions in the body and in space, are thus regarded as so many
complex acts which psychology has to analyze and reduce to
their original elements.
The criticism of sensible knowledge has been facilitated by
the results of these purely scientific inquiries. Even if we
THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 79
refuse to accept Mill's doctrine of the world as a permanent
possibility of sensations, or as reducible into expectations of
the same sensations under the same circumstances, we still
owe to his theory an admirable description of the processes by
which the mind builds up the idea of objects and an external
world. Herbert Spencer has returned to the realism which
is implied in evolution as he conceives it. According to
him the arguments of metaphysicians are complicated, and fre-
quently incorrect. Why, he says, should indirect knowledge
be preferred to direct knowledge ? Why accept the evidence
of our reason and not that of our senses ? (Here we have an
improved form of the argument of the Scottish school.) The
realistic hypothesis is the clearest, the simplest, and most
natural, while the longer the chain of reasoning, the more chances
there are of error. Moreover, ideas or conceptions (which
are mental states of the faint order) have become possible
only through the previous occurrence of perception (vivid
mental states, 1st Principles, Part II, Chap. II, 43), and
between these two terms there are differences which make it
impossible to reduce the latter to the former. The final proof
of the reality of an external world is to be found in force and
resistance. We have as much reason to believe in an external
world as in the existence of other men. Not that our sensa-
tions are an image or exact reproduction of things, but each of
our representations correspond to some real (external) force.
This is his Transfigured Realism ! Helmholtz expresses a similar
conception when, having pointed out the difference between
sensation and the vibrations which precede it, he adds : " We
should be grateful to our senses for conjuring up {hervorzau-
bern) colours and sounds out of vibrations, and for bringing us
in sensations as in a symbolic language, news of the external
world."
CHAPTER IV
REASON
Is the mind a kind of tabula rasa, a blank page on which
phenomena are inscribed from without ? Or is it not rather
a primordial activity, an original faculty which acts according
to its own laws ? Is human knowledge purely empirical, or
does it not presuppose certain notions, certain principles, which
are always present in the mind, govern all its acts, and are a
guarantee of their validity ? Is the mind, in short, gradually
built up of those phenomena which, owing to their constant
relations, stand out, as it were, in relief from the confused
mass of facts ; or rather, shall we not find in it some primary
notions which go beyond experience, some universal and neces-
sary principles which govern the relative, and enable us to
establish fixed relations between phenomena, to bind together
their fluctuating matter, and to construct out of it the
systematic edifice of human knowledge ? It is proximately in
these opposite ways that the problem of the nature of reason
has been stated and developed in the course of the history of
philosophy.
Heraclitus and the Eleatics. Earliest Forms of the Opposition
of the Sensible and the Rational.
The problem of knowledge was not clearly recognized by the
first of the Ionic philosophers, nor even by the Pythagoreans.
With Heraclitus the opposition of rational to sensible know-
ledge appears for the first time. He complains bitterly of the
ignorance of men. " An ass prefers bran to gold, and a dog-
barks at every one he does not know" (Fr. 28). What is the
REASON 81
reason of this folly ? It is that men rely on their senses.
" The senses make bad witnesses when they are in the service
of irrational minds," fiap/3dpov$ \j/t^a? (Fr. 11). Wisdom
consists in comprehending reason which governs all things, in "
discovering the nature of Fire, the law of contraries, the har-
monious unity which arises unceasingly out of strife and
change. This Divinity, this law of the world, this primordial
reason is not distinct from the substance of things, from the
primitive fire, for it constitutes us as well as all other things :
therefore we must follow the ideas that are common to all
(eireardai too jZyvcp) and not particular opinions (iSiav (ppovrjo-iv,
Fr. 7). Thought is common to all men (WoV ecrri iraari to
(ppovelv, Fr. 123). Reason is both the element out of which all v -
beings are made, and the universal law of all that exists.
The theory of the absolute unity of Being is so opposed to
the reports of the senses, that it was natural that the Eleatics
also should attack this means of acquiring knowledge. Pytha-
goras discriminates clearly between the things of opinion (ra
7T|Oo? So^av) and the things of truth (tcc irpos aXifieiav). True
science with him is the deduction of the attributes of Being.
The idea of Being is not an abstract idea, but one that is sug-
gested by sensible intuition. The real is the plenum, that
which fills space. When Parmenides speaks of the identity
of Being with Thought, he means that Thought only exists
through Being, is not distinct from it, but comprised within
its unity.
Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras also began, each
from his own point of view, to make the distinction between
reason and the senses. But in reality reason itself was
confused by them with sensible knowledge, thought being only
distinguished from sensation by its contents. Both were a
function of the organism. The reproach made by each of
these philosophers against the senses is that they contradict
his theory. Nevertheless, these early criticisms of the senses
were the first step towards a theory of rational knowledge.
Socrates calls Attention to the Activity of the Mind in
Knowledge.
The Sophists had noticed the part played by the subject in
knowledge, but, as we have seen, they drew sceptical conse-
F
82 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
quences from this fact. In order to overthrow their dangerous
conclusions, Socrates sought in the subject itself for the cause
of knowledge and for the guarantee of its validity. By a
thorough investigation of the nature of the mind, he hoped to
discover the necessary conditions of true knowledge. " Know
thyself " was his first precept. Knowledge, according to him,
depends primarily on the activity of the mind. The first
result of self-knowledge in a man is the discovery and avowal
of his own ignorance. But this avowal implies the idea of
true knowledge and the possibility of attaining it. Truth is
innate in the mind ; therefore to learn is, once more, to know
one's self. Hence his maieutic or spiritual midwifery. This
hypothesis of the innateness of truth appears to have been in
Socrates a presentiment of a rational faculty, which is anterior
in a manner to sense-knowledge, and gives it systematic form.
" He proceeded upon propositions of which the truth was
generally acknowledged, thinking that a sure foundation was
thus formed for his reasoning " (Mem. IV, 6). The principal
steps in the maieutic were induction, definition, and deduction,
three operations that are closely related to each other. The
business of Philosophy is laXeyeiv Kara yev>i, to resolve
things into general conceptions which represent their essences.
The first step in the Socratic method being induction, there
might seem to be a contradiction between his way of procedure
and his general theory of the innateness of knowledge, and it
is perhaps true that Socrates is not very clear on this point.
He meant, no doubt, that truth is reached only through the
action of the mind, that it is due to its own activity, that the
mind creates it itself, and consequently that it is by
knowing itself that the mind gets to know the conditions of
truth.
Plato : Knowledge innate in the Soul. Dialectical Progress ,
towards Truth. Reminiscence. Ascending and. Descending Dia-
lectic.
Socrates had said that knowledge is innate, but in his
purely discursive method he seemed to derive knowledge from
phenomena quite as much as, or even more than from mind.
The theory of Socrates was completed and perfected by Plato.
With the latter, knowledge is truly innate, and has to do neither \/
EEASON 83
with sensible and ephemeral things, nor even with the general
notions that are abstracted from the data of experience by
the discursive understanding. Science is attained by rising
out of the world of sense, and entering into the world of Ideas
which are the eternal, immutable principles of both reality and
knowledge, and can only be revealed to the soul when it has,
so to speak, learned to know itself. But this intuitive act
is not accomplished all at once, or without difficulty, for it
requires a preparation, an initiation. Imagine prisoners
chained in a cave who are accustomed to watch the shadows
of things passing on the side of the wall opposite to them on
which the light falls. Bring them out into the daylight and
they will be dazzled by it. A long education is needed before
they are able to discern real objects and to face the splendour
of the sun {Rep. VII).
The refutation of false theories is a purification (KaOapcris)
and at the same time a first effort towards knowledge, but the
real starting point of the dialectical ascent towards truth is
sensation. There are sensations which, by their contradictions
and their very inability to solve these contradictions, surprise
the mind and awaken reflection in- us. The same thing is one
or many, great or small, according as we compare it to different
other things. What, then, the mind asks, is the one or the
many, the large or the small ? The true way to rise from
sensible things to the ideas, from opinion {$6a) to knowledge
{eiricTTTt'ifxt]), is to cultivate the sciences, which rest on these
notions of the one and the many, of the equal and the unequal
{Rep. VII,) ; it is to study arithmetic, geometry, music,
astronomy always provided that these sciences are not
treated empirically or as a kind of routine, and that the
mind is fixed on mathematical and intelligible relations, on
proportion, on number and measurement. The soul being
prepared in this way, by the consideration of that which in
sensible things is analogous to the Ideas, feels within itself
the awakening of the veritable Ideas.
Plato's reminiscence is a direct, or immediate intuition of J
the Idea which is in the soul. It is, properly speaking, a kind
of awakening in which the soul regains possession of what it
had formerly known, of what it even now virtually knows. To
learn is to remember (ai/a/xi^/cn?). When we say that two
84 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
things are equal, we have a conception of an equality that is
absolute, invariable, and unique, and with it we compare the
equality of the things themselves which is always imperfect.
We must possess the measure before we can apply it.
" Then before we began to see or hear or perceive in any way, we must
have had a knowledge of absolute equality, or we could not have referred
to that standard the equals which are derived from the senses ? for to
that they all aspire, and of that they fall short " (Phaedo, 75 I>).
This theory appears in an allegorical form in the Phaedrus,
in the hypothesis of a former life of the soul in the world of
essences, when it used to mingle in the choir of the gods.
" But when the soul is unable to follow, and fails to behold the truth
. . . her wings fall from her, and she drops to the ground. . . . But the
soul, which has never seen the truth, will not pass into the human form.
For man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from
the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason this is the
recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God
when, regardless of that which we now call being, she raised her head
up towards true being " {Phaedrus, 248, 249 c).
Does Plato intend us to take this myth literally ? It is
not easy to know how far poetry was by him distinguished
from philosophy in those early days of youth and daring.
The exercise of the rational faculty (VoVn?) was not limited
by Plato to the intuitive act of reminiscence. It is completed
by a special kind of discursive and dialectical process (Sidvoia),
by which the intuition of the Ideas is made fruitful. Theo
rational dialectic comprises an ascending progress and a
descending one. The first consists in abstracting from sensible
things this general notion, in finding the principles, the
sufficient reasons (iKavov ti) of things, in rising step by step
to that which suffices to itself and presupposes nothing else
{avviroBeTov). This Idea of the Ideas is the Good. The
descending dialectic is more important than the ascending.
It consists in dividing (Siaipea-ig) the general idea into its
genera and species (see the Sophist and Parmenides), these
divisions being made by a sort of a priori analysis. The
dialectic, and consequently thought, is possible, because the
Ideas interpenetrate, and combine with one another (Parm.
129, Soph. 251a, 253 c). Is not a proposition the blending
REASON 85
(/*<'?) of the subject and its attribute ? But since the Ideas
are Being itself, dialectic is metaphysic. By disentang-
ling the fu^K elSuip, dialectic gives at once the primary
elements of things through the simple notions, and, by the
combination of the latter, the knowledge of reality and of its
elements. Plato was the first to urge strongly the necessity
of a reasoning faculty, of an a priori element in knowledge.
He saw that knowledge is possible only through the universal
and the necessary, and, above all, he recognized the role of the
ideal in human activity. But, as Aristotle objected to him,
instead of explaining things, he only doubled them ; and since
there was no way from the knowledge of Ideas to the know-
ledge of the sensible worlds, from dialectic to physics, Plato
was driven to saying that in physics we must be satisfied
with probabilities, the world being no doubt only a kind of d
symbolism in itself unknowable. The problem left to Plato's
successors was how to effect this connection between dialectic
and physical science, to explain by what laws, by what synthesis
of ideas and principles, knowledge of the world of appearances
becomes possible.
Aristotle. Necessity of Experience and of Reason. Passive
and Active Intelligence.
To Aristotle, as to Plato, the object of knowledge is the
essence, the being in itself. In sensation we only reach what
is relative ; therefore true knowledge does not come to us
through the senses {Post. An. I, 31). Man gives it to himself
through the original activity of thought {vovs). Aristotle is,
however, more concerned with reality than Plato. He urges
against the separate Ideas (-)^x)pi(TTa) that they do not explain
our knowledge of the world ; and he compares his master to a
man who, finding it difficult to count a certain number of
things, would double them in order to make his task easier.
The possibility of knowledge should be explained by reason.
Knowledge cannot be a reminiscence which takes us out of the
present world. The intelligible forms are contained in sensible
things (ev tois eiSecri toi? aicrOtjToig to. vorjra e<7Tiv, De Anima,
III, 8). It is therefore from sensible impressions that general
notions are to be abstracted. Rational knowledge implies
knowledge by means of the senses, but we must know what
86 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
we mean, and not mistake the condition for the cause. We
do not get knowledge through vision, but in consequence of
vision ; not through experience, but in consequence of
experience. Let us trace the steps by which the mind
gradually ascends to the intelligible forms, until as pure
activity, free from all matter, it becomes one with the
Divine Spirit. Without an image there can be no notion
(ovoev votjfxa avev (pavTao-juuTOS. De Anima, III, 7). But
before it becomes an element of thought, the sensible
image has to be subjected to a mental operation. It must
become (pavracrla XoyarriKy ; so that instead of being a slavish
reproduction of such and such a sensation, it represents some-
thing of the universal, that is, the general qualities. The
image thus transformed is to the concept what a geometrical
figure is to the truth demonstrated by means of it (De Anima,
III, 10). The mathematician employs a figure, but he goes
further by taking away from this figure all that is sensible
and limited. If thought is always supported, as it were, by
an image, it is because the intelligible forms (e'/oV/ vo>ird) are
contained in the sensible forms (ala-Q^Ta), and it is the business
of the vovs, of thought, to abstract the one from the other.
We have to distinguish in the vovs two parts that are closely
related to each other, one being, as it were, the matter of
which the other is the form : the vous iraOyriKo^ and the vov$
ttoi>itik6s, the passive intellect and the creative intellect.
" Now in nature there is, on the one hand, that which acts as material
substratum to each class of objects, this being that which is potentially
all of them. On the other hand, there is the element which is causal and
creative in virtue of its producing all things, and which stands towards
the other in the same relation as that in which art stands towards the
materials on which it operates. Thus reason is, on the one hand, of such
a character as to become all things ; on the other hand, of such a nature as
to create all things" (De Anima, III, 5, 430 a. Trans, of E. Wallace).
What is the nature and what are the functions of the vov?
TraOrjTiKo? ? The passive intellect is a kind of tabvda rasa, a
blank page on which originally there is as yet nothing written
(De An. Ill, 4) : ypajujuareioi' cp /u.t)6ev virupyei evTeXe^eia yeypaju-
/aevov. It is potentially all the intelligible forms, and only
attains actuality through experience. Its functions correspond
approximately to those ascribed to the discursive intellect.
EEASON 87
"From sense, therefore . . . memory is produced, but from repeated
remembrance of the same thing, we get experience, for many remem-
brances in number constitute one experience " (Post. Annal, II, 19).
The general ideas are gradually arrested and fixed in the
vov$ ira.6r]TiKO$.
"As when a flight occurs in battle, if one soldier makes a stand,,
another stands, and then another, until the fight is restored " (Ibid.).
Induction abstracts the universal from sensation and gives-
us the terms that are to become the attributes, the predicates
of the syllogism, of which Aristotle constructed the theory.
Induction which gives the elements of the syllogism, deduction
which puts them into operation, herein is contained the
whole of knowledge kiria-r^jxr], which rests on experience and
is the fruit of reason.
So far, we do not seem to have got beyond empiricism, but
the lower is only understood by means of the higher, matter
through form which is its end. As the world is unintelligible
until we have reached God, so it is with knowledge until we
have recognized the function of the divine element in the
mind. Induction as well as the syllogism presupposes
principles. All knowledge therefore depends on reason as-
much as on experience.
"... It is impossible to have scientific knowledge through demon-
stration without a knowledge of first principles . . . but since the
principles are the better known, and all science is connected with reason,,
there cannot be a science of principles ; but since nothing can be more
true than science except intellect, intellect is the faculty of demonstrative
principles, and ... it is evident also that as demonstration is not the
principle of demonstration, so neither is science the principle of science.
. . . As, then, the intellect is the principle of science, it must also be
the principle (of the knowledge) of its principle" (Post. Annal. II, 19).
Thus knowledge involves the immediate intuition of principles
by the vov$ iroitiTiicos, upon which everything ultimately depends.
The passive intellect receives the form only because the
creative intellect gives it. It is indeed on the occasion of
sensible representations that notions are formed in the vovs
iraOfjTLKo? ; but these notions are abstracted from the sensible
representations only because the vov$ iroirjTiKos has produced
them. The active intellect is to the intelligible element
contained in sensible forms, what the light itself is to the
88 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
light reflected by bodies (Be An. Ill, 5). Light, whether it
comes directly or is reflected from bodies, acts on the sense of
vision, and gives actuality to the colours which this sense
contained potentially. In the same way the active vov<s acts
either directly or by a sort of reflexion (by means, that is, of
the intelligible element which is in sensible things either as
essence, law, cause, or end) on the passive intellect, and causes
the intelligible forms which are in it potentially to become
actual ; the active intellect is thus itself what is intelligible,
but it is the intelligible that has become thought. It pro-
duces every intelligible idea in the mind, either directly or by
perceiving itself in the intelligible forms contained in the
sensible forms. If the light is extinguished there will no
longer be any colour. If the vous iroirjTiKo? is extinguished
there will be no truth, no knowledge. We may say further
that the active intellect, i.e. the intellect in the form of
thought, can alone discover by a kind of contact and sympathy
the truly intelligible principle in the world.
Aristotle does not enumerate the primary notions, those
highest principles which are apprehended immediately by the
vov$ and are the necessary conditions of thought. He contents
himself with stating that every science has its own special
principles (definitions), and involves hypotheses regarding its
particular object, and the essence thereof, which it is unable to
establish by demonstration ; he also acknowledges the existence
of some common principles (axioms) which cannot be subjected
to demonstration, but without which demonstration would not
in any case be possible. Highest amongst these ranks the
most evident and general principle of thought : the principle
of contradiction which lies at the root of the syllogism.
All that is positive in knowledge is then really due to the
vov$ TroiqriKos. Being itself the intelligible, living and active
in the mind, it alone is capable of recognizing itself in the
world, of abstracting itself from sensible forms. But the
vov<? TrotrjTiKo? does not reach its highest realization in know-
ledge, for knowledge still implies a matter, an image.
Above all reasoning, higher than dialectical process is the
intuition of reason by which man, free at last from all matter,
reaches pure actuality. This pure actuality unmixed with
potentiality, this matterless form, this necessary and single
REASON 89
being is God. God, pure actuality, is no longer separated by
matter from the mind which thinks it. For what is sensa-
tion ? It is the form of the object without its matter. In
pure thought, the object itself has no longer any matter to
prevent it from existing entire in the soul. In this intuition,
the object of knowledge and the soul which knows it are one
and the same thing. It is a veritable communion of the
human mind with the pure form, with God, on Whom the
whole universe depends.
It is more difficult to determine exactly the metaphysical
nature of this active vovs. Is it the last effort of nature,
moving towards God, and reaching Him at last without de-
parting from her laws ? Or is it God Himself who enters into
the human mind by some kind of supernatural intervention ?
One text seems to confirm this second interpretation. The
vov? exists before the body and enters into it from without
like something divine : \ei7rerai tov vovv /aovov OvpaOev
7rei<rcevaL Kat Oelov eivai fxovov {De Gen. et Corr. II, 3). What
is certain is, that the vovs has a separate existence, xoopio-ro? ;
that it is pure, unmixed, impassable, always by its essence actual ;
that it alone is immortal, eternal, whereas the passive in-
tellect is perishable, 6 $e 7ra6>iriK09 vovs (pdapro? ; lastly, that
reason is itself the intelligible, and consequently the soul con-
tains in itself the principle and measure of all that is
intelligible.
" The reason of the resemblances between things is in their relation to
common principles, and these depend ultimately on pure intelligence.
The mind in passing from the particular to the general merely goes back
to relations, of which it finds within itself the basis, and returns from
sensible things, which are one with it only potentially, to the actual
reality of its own nature" (Felix Eavaisson, Essai sur la Me'taph.
d'Aristote, t. II, p. 133).
In the aspiration after God, matter gradually becomes
imbued with reason, and because, in its inmost nature it
itself is God, the soul has the power of discovering the
intelligible principle in things and in itself.
Empiricism of the Stoics. Activity of the Mind in Knowledge.
In the systems of the Stoics and the Epicureans, these
high conceptions were abandoned for an empiricism more
90 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
timid and of no great originality. Theirs was the theory of
Aristotle, without his vov$ 7toi>jtik6?. The Stoics placed the
vye/uoviKov, the superior part of the soul, in the heart. At the
beginning of life the f/ye/uoviKov is a kind of tabula rasa, a
blank page ready to receive the impressions of things (^apriov
evepyov eh airoypucpi'iv). The first impressions are made by
sensation, and sensation is followed by memory. Out of
several memories of the same kind experience is formed (to
twv oiuLoetScov 7r\rj6os eju.7reipla). General ideas are divided into
notions, properly so called evvoiai, and anticipations irpo\i'i^ei<;
or Koivai evvoiai. The first are the result of an operation of
the mind which combines (combinatione), or grasps resemblances
(similitudinc), makes comparisons and establishes relations
(collatione rationis). The second are formed by a kind of
spontaneous act ; they are natural ((pucriKai), and in this sense
they are as it were innate (e/acpoToi irpoX^et?) ; not that they
are anterior to all sensation, but that they are common to
all men and express the invariable relations of things.
Science consists in forming out of the general notions a system
(a-vcTTr]jUia) which shall bind together and give coherence to the
ideas furnished by sensation. This is a work of art, an act of
will. Science is a possession (e^?) of the representations
which is firm and unshaken by reasoning, and which consists
entirely in tension and energy, ev tovw km Swafiei (Stobaeus
Eel. II, 128). Thus science is measured by force or energy,
and force by a kind of material tension of the soul. The
Stoics deserve credit for having thus emphasized the necessity
of activity in knowledge. Their conception of God corre-
sponds to their theory of reason ; God with them was the
material, subtle world-soul, to be conceived after the image of
man as a rational animal. The existence of God was estab-
lished, and his attributes determined, not by rising above
experience, but by interpreting and developing experience
through reasoning and analogy.
Epicurus : Sensation the Principle of all Knoioledge.
Epicurus regards sensation as the primary source of all
knowledge, as the ultimate criterion of all truth. His second
criterion is anticipation (7rp6Xt)\^i<:), meaning that by which
we anticipate or forestall sensation. It is the general
REASON 91
notion derived from the memory, from the impression (tuttos}
of many similar sensations (D. L. X, 33). Without this
7rf)6Xr]\^iii there is no knowledge, but we must not forget that
knowledge has its origin in sensible perception, which is
its only guarantee. Opinion (S6j~a), the hypothesis (v-n-oXt^i?),
formed by means of anticipation, may be either true or false.
Opinion refers either to the future Trpoo-fxevov, in which case it
is a prevision, an anticipation (for instance when I judge from
a distance of the shape of a tower, or again that I see Plato),
or to things imperceptible to the senses aSrjXov, for instance the
atoms, the void. When the opinion is an anticipation, it is
correct if the sensation confirms or bears witness to it (av
eTTi/j-aprvpriTai) ; when it refers to aSyXov it is correct if the
facts do not contradict it {m cn'ri/u.aprvptJTai), as for instance
the theories of Epicurus (D. L. X, 33 Sext. Emp. Adv. Math.
VII, 211). This inadequate criterion shows clearly his con-
tempt for science. The existence of the gods is revealed to us
by sensible intuition. We see them in fact. From their
bodies, as from all others, flow out emanations (e'tScoXa), which
bring us a palpable proof of their reality.
Neo-Platonism. Metaphysic of the vovs : Gh-adual Ascent from
Sensation to Discursive Thought, JRational Intuition, and Ecstasy.
In Xeo-Platonism we find an attempt made to reconcile, in
one vast syncretism, the three great philosophic systems of
Greece. Each of these is, so to speak, realized in one of the
primordial hypostases (apyj.Ka\ inrocrTao-eis), and all three were
reconciled and blended in their Trinity. Platonism is repre-
sented by the One, the ineffable Being from whom all things
proceed ; Peripateticism, by the first emanation, the vow,
reason ; and Stoicism by the world-soul. The vow is Aristotle's
pure activity, the thought of thought. Above the sensible
world there is the world of Ideas, the intelligible world com-
posed of Ideas, where the things represented to us by the
world of sense as extended and dispersed in Space and time,
exist in their essence, concentrated into an incorporeal sim-
plicity. The Ideas are intelligences for ever given up to
self-contemplation, whose whole Being is in fact this self-
contemplation ; and they are not only involved in one another,
but also ascend to a highest Idea, which embraces and includes
92 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
them all. The intelligible world and the intelligence are one ;
reason is thought become actual, pure actuality, thought
thinking itself.
As the vovs contains within itself a multitude of ideas, so
also does the Universal Soul contain within itself a multitude
of individual souls. Deceived by a kind of mirage, these
souls descend " as if summoned by a herald's voice," into the
bodies that are appropriate to them. The soul, once it has
fallen into a body, may find delight in its degenerate state,
forgetting its Heavenly Father. But it may also be with-
drawn from its own body, and, even here below, turn to God ;
it is never entirely separated from the Universal Soul, and
though it is not clearly conscious of it, its dwelling-place is
still in the Intelligence. In order to return to God, it is
therefore not necessary for the soul to go out of itself.
As a middle term between the perception of sensible things
and the contemplation of the Ideas, there is on the Alexandrian
System discursive thought (SiavorjTiKov). Reason {yov<s) is the
same in every individual, but that which discursive thought
reveals of its contents varies in different individuals. Know-
ledge, which is based on reasoning, partakes of the nature of
both rational and sensible intuition, and is the connecting link
between them. By the application of intuition to experience
in knowledge the unity of the Idea is destroyed ; but, on the
other hand, knowledge enables us to perceive the intelligible in
the sensible, and prepares the way for the emancipation of the
soul. Corresponding to knowledge, in practical life are the
political virtues (temperance, courage, prudence, justice), which
had been preached by the Stoics. Knowledge is followed by
contemplation of the ideas, and the political virtues by the
purifications (KaOapcreis) which free the soul from all error,
from all illusion. Once returned to its own nature, to the
Unity of the Intelligence, the soul is able to contemplate the
pure Ideas in all their spiritual splendour, and itself also
without any intervening obstacle or medium. Finally, there
are the virtues by which men become divine (fi a-irov^rj om e^w
<'i/j.apTia9 eivai aWa deov etvai). This is the contemplation of
the One, of the Ineffable Being, the highest term both in the
practical and speculative life ; and the soul reaches it, not by
intuition, but by rising above every intellectual act for all
REASON 93-
thought still implies motion (/cm/crt?) and a certain duality of
subject and object by an ecstasy, by setting itself free of
every form, even the most ideal, by returning to the absolute
unity, eK(TTa<Ti<j-aTr\u>(ri<;-a(p)j. Thought has value only because
it lifts us gradually to heights whence we can discover God..
Logical thought is the intelligible, developed, as it were, by the
false show of sensible things ; pure thought is an intuition of
the intelligible, in its unity and ecstasy incapable of further
description. Thought is like a wave which bears us on its.
crest, and swelling lifts us so that all at once we are able to
see (Enn. VI, vii, 36 ; Felix Kavaisson, Ess. sur la Metayh.
d'Aristote, t. II, pp. 451-452). The soul is then God, and finds
in Him the source of life, the principle of Being, its own
origin. It is the Being, the Being is in it, it is filled,,
intoxicated with love, and is perfect felicity. This state
is seldom experienced, and then only for a brief moment-
Plotinus admits that he himself only reached it three times in
his life.
Christian Platonism. St. Augustine. St. Anselm.- Peripa-
tetic Realism. Thomas Aquinas. Nominalism.
As they were chiefly concerned with the higher truths and
with the salvation of souls, it was natural that the Christian
thinkers should only give a small part of their attention to
the physical sciences and their principles. There was, more-
over, at the beginning, an affinity between the Christian
teaching and the Platonic and Neo-Platonic doctrines.
Among the early fathers who followed Plato, St. Augustine is
the most renowned. He despised physical science, because it was
of no use for the bliss of the soul ; what he sought was know-
ledge of God and of himself ; and consciousness or internal ex-
perience became with him the centre and heart of philosophy.
To doubt that one possesses the truth is still to have the idea
that the truth exists. Human reason apprehends itself as
variable, uncertain ; but it has, at the same time, both the idea
of, and the desire for a truth that is immutable and eternal.
What the mind has to do, therefore, is to rise above itself, to
ascend towards the source of all light. The immutable truth
is God. He is the Intelligence, the Eeason which illumines
us. {Confess. X, 65 ; XII, 35. De Trinitate, XII, 24). He is-
94 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the eternal principle of all the forms in which His creatures
Appear. He is the ahsolute Unity, the Supreme Beauty. Tn
Him are the Ideas.
" The Ideas are the immutable forms or reasons of things {rationes rerum) ;
they are uncreated, eternally self-identical, and are contained in the divine
intelligence. And since they are not born, and never perish, it is on the
model of the Ideas that all things that perish are formed, all that which
is born and dies (De Ideis, 2). For neither are there many wisdoms, but
one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things intellectual,
wherein are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things visible and
changeable, which were created by it" (De Civ. Dei. XI, 103).
This is the theory of Plato, without his dialectic and without
the intermediate world of mathematics, which enables us to
have at least a glimpse of the connection between the sensible
and the intelligible things, and of the way in which our know-
ledge of the world has its principle in the Ideas.
In the Middle Ages the problem of reason formed part of
the great discussion on the reality of general ideas, and. of the
"violent disputes between the realists and the nominalists. The
Platonic realists of the first period, St. Anselm, William of
'Chanipeaux, etc., asserted with Plato the reality of the general
ideas and their existence prior to things (universalia ante rem).
The idea of humanity is anterior to individual men. Since
knowledge has to do with general ideas, if these did not exist
knowledge would be concerned with the non-existent, with
nothing. St. Anselm (and later the Platonists of the twelfth
century, Bernard of Chartres, Gilbert de la Porree) thought to
demonstrate even revealed truths on rational grounds. His
realism was founded on St. Augustine's theory of Ideas. The
Ideas, he taught, exist eternally m God. " They are the
intercourse of God with Himself, as thought is man's intercourse
with himself " (Monol. Ch. XXVII). Thus all knowledge has
its source in God. He is the supreme truth which makes all
truth, the sovereign good which involves all particular goods,
the absolute through which alone the relative is comprehensible.
We always speak comparatively of greatness, of goodness ; there
must exist therefore a model, an immutable type to which we
refer. In order that the existence of the absolute should not
be made to depend on the existence of the relative, St. Anselm
sought a direct and immediate proof of the existence of God.
BE A SON 95
This he thought to have found in the ontological argument, in
the idea of the greatest good that could possibly be conceived.
(Aliquid bonum quo maj'us cogitari nequit). This idea is present
in every mind, and it involves existence ; therefore, for the sole
reason that we have a conception of it, perfection must exist
(existit ergo procul dubio aliquid quo majus cogitari non valet, et
in intellectu et in re). This argument is the boldest application
that has ever been made of the theory of realism.
The Kealists of the second period, being influenced by the
teaching of Aristotle, were more moderate. To Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus universals have no sub-
stantial existence outside things. As Aristotle said, they exist
in the individuals and through them, non ante rem, sed in re :
not that the doctrine of ideas was to be rejected. Universals
exist ante rem, not as independent and actual beings, but as
exemplars or intelligible forms in the Divine Reason. According
to Thomas Aquinas, man cannot think without images.
The forms received by the passive intellect from sensible
impressions, are only made truly intelligible through the
active intellect, just as light alone makes the colours of bodies
visible. By a sort of abstraction, the active intellect makes
the images received through the senses intelligible. Intellect us
agens facit phantasmata a sensibus accepta intelligibilia per modum
abstractions cujusdam (Summa Theol., I, qiuest. 84). This is
Aristotle's theory deprived of some of its force. The principles
of Thomas Aquinas are not in agreement with Anselm's
ontological proof. As it is from the sensible that he abstracts
the intelligible, so also it is from the world that he reaches
God, whose existence he proves by the necessity of a first
mover, by the impossibility of infinite regression in the series
of secondary causes, by the design manifest in nature which is
of itself unintelligent.
Nominalism in the Middle Ages represents or corresponds to
empiricism, and consequently, as has always been the case,
implied a certain scepticism. The Nominalists, since they refused
to attach any value to general ideas, could not admit any more
than an entirely relative value in knowledge ; reason being
impotent could not be reconciled to faith ; the two terms
tended to become divergent. The great opponent of realism
in the first scholastic period was Iioscellinus. In the 14th
96 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
century William of Occam, born in England and the precursor
both of Luther and of English empiricism, gave to nominalism
a new lustre. His doctrine was that the universal does not
exist in things but in the mind, as a concept uniting in one
word several singulars, conceptus mentis significans univoce
plura singularia. Nor have the ideas more reality in the
mind of God, being no more than His knowledge of particular
things which alone exist. Since only individual things are
real, intuition, either of the senses or of consciousness, is the
only source of knowledge. Science was reduced to formal
logic the principles of which were arrived at by induction,
and which dealt with conventional signs, the epitome of
particular intuitions. The attempted reconciliation of Faith
and Keason was unnecessary, for in truth the latter was
non-existent ; and all truth was relative, for it was based on
individual intuition,
Arabic Theory : Identity of the Creative Intellect in all
minds ; Averroes.
We cannot leave the philosophy of the Middle Ages without
giving some account of the great Arabic theory regarding the
creative reason. The name of Averroes (born at Cordova,
1126-1198) became in the Middle Ages symbolic of infidelity
and blasphemy. To him is attributed the famous book of the
three impostors (Moses, Mahommed, Jesus Christ), which no
one has ever seen, but which was the cause of the burning of
so many philosophers. The old Italian painters represent
Averroes being cast into hell, grimacing in a demoniacal
manner, and again as conquered and utterly crushed by the
dialectic of the triumphant Aquinas. The doctrine of Averroes,
which was attacked by all the great peripatetic and ortho-
dox Scholastics (Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and his
disciples), and later by the Platonists of the Eenaissance
(Ficinus, pre/, to trans, of Plotinus) prevailed as early as the
middle of the 14th century in Northern Italy, especially in
Padua, and held its ground there until the middle of the 17th
century. Thomas Aquinas sums up the doctrine of Averroes
in these terms : " It is not in the power of God to create more
than one intellect. The intellect is a power entirely distinct
from the soul, and it is one in all men." Aristotle had said
REASON 97
{De Anima, III, 5') that the active intellect enters into the soul
from without, and that it alone is distinct, imperishable,
eternal. This doctrine of the master was developed by
Averrocs and his disciples. He tried to reconcile the opinion
of Alexander of Aphrodisias with that of Themistius. Accord-
ing to Alexander the passive intellect is only a disposition,
a potentiality belonging to animal life to which the active
intelligence, that is God Himself, gives actuality. Themistius,
on the other hand, taught that these two intelligences are in
each man of the same substance, and distinct from the body,
and this ensures the individual immortality of souls. The
doctrine of Averroes was, that the potential or material
intellect was more than a passing disposition, but at the same
time there could not exist more than one active intellect.
Man has in himself merely an aptitude to be affected by the
active understanding. The potential intellect is the result of
the contact of this aptitude with the active intellect. The
latter is therefore a kind of mixture or compound of the
aptitude which is in us, and the active intellect outside us.
The active intellect is to the plurality of souls what light is
to the objects which reflect it without depriving it of its unity.
The potential intellect attains actuality by means of the active
intellect after it has also in a manner been created by the
latter, which at the same time absorbs it ; and consequently,
as the active intellect is imperishable, our vov$ is immortal :
not, it is true, as an individual substance, but in as much as it
is a moment of the universal understanding. This universal
understanding is a divine emanation, it flows from the lunar
sphere, from the mover of the last of those heavenly circles
which, rising one above the other, finally reach up to God.
With Bacon and Descartes the Object of Knowledge no longer
General Notions. Mathematical Rationalism of Descartes. Pri-
mary Notions and Truths.
In their inquiries concerning reason, the ancient and
mediaeval philosophers had occupied themselves mainly with
the problem of general notions. By them science was con-
ceived as a system of classification, as a means of arresting the
flow of sensible phenomena, of finding a fixed object for
thought, of gradually lifting thought up to the immutable, to
G
98 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
God. But with the progress of science, which in the 16th
century extended in every direction, the problem underwent a
change. Broadly speaking, the aim of philosophy now was to
abstract from complex phenomena the simple elements of
which they are composed, to find the laws governing their
combination so as to be in a position to reproduce it. The
theory of induction was discovered by Bacon, and he (as well
as his followers) was possessed by the idea of the advancement
of the natural sciences. Descartes was more ambitious, and as
a confident rationalist with a very clear conception of the
scientific ideal, hoped to effect the completion of science by
giving to it from the beginning the desired deductive form.
He tried to reduce the universe as it appears to us, to a com-
bination of intelligible elements. Mathematics was, in his
opinion, the model and the type of science, which should be a
vast encyclopaedia, all the branches of which should be related
to one another and to one common principle. His object
was to " imitate those long chains of quite simple and easy
reasoning which mathematicians are in the habit of employing
in order to reach their most difficult proofs."
"All things to the knowledge of which man is competent are mutually
connected in the same way, and there is nothing so far removed from
us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it,
provided only we abstain from accepting the false for the true, and
always preserve in our thoughts the order necessary for the deduction
of one truth from another" {Disc, de la Methode, 2nd Part).
Natural science should be made as clear as that two and two
make four, and hence it must be founded on notions that are,
in the first place, intelligible in themselves, and, second]}",
linked together in accordance with evident relations.
In this conception of science, as independent of the senses
and of experience, which are merely its occasion, the most
important part is assigned to reason, since it is to reason
that we owe simple and primitive notions, and the principles
which rule the combination of these intelligible elements.
In Descartes' method there are two steps. Firstly, intuition ;
not indeed sensible intuition, which only gives us notions that
are confused and already very complex, but rational intuition,
to which we owe, besides simple notions, primary truths and
axioms. Secondly, deduction, which is the source of progress
REASON 99
and movement in thought, a succession of intuitions revealing
the relations between ideas.
Which, then, are the a priori notions, the primitive, innate
ideas ? The most important primary notion, and the most
natural to us, is that of God, of Infinity, of perfection. " By
the name of God I understand a substance infinite, eternal,
immutable, independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, by which
I myself, and every other being that exists, if any such
there be, were created " {Meditation, III). The characteristics
of our idea of the Infinite are as follows : Firstly, it is a posi-
tive notion. It is an error to maintain that this notion is only
acquired by the negation of what is finite, as rest and darkness
are conceived only by the negation of motion and light.
" On the contrary I clearly perceive that there is more reality in the
infinite substance than in the finite, and therefore that in some way I
possess the notion of the infinite before that of the finite. . . . For how
could I know that I doubt or desire, that something is wanting to me, and
that I am not wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more
perfect than myself, by comparison with which I know the deficiencies of
my nature ?" {Medit. III).
It cannot therefore be asserted that this idea represents
nothing to me, and may consequently arise out of nothing,
since, on the contrary, this idea represents more reality than
any other.
2. Not only is this idea positive, but it is also clear
and distinct. It is true that I do not understand the Infinite ;
1 ut on the one hand I know that he possesses all the perfections
of which I have an idea ; and on the other, I understand very
well that the Infinite cannot be perfectly understood by a
finite being like myself. Hence I have an idea of the infinite
which is quite distinct, though very imperfect (Ibid.).
3. Might not the perfection which I attribute to God
be merely my own perfection magnified ? Perhaps it exists
potentially in me. This power of acquiring, by degrees, all the
perfections is enough possibly to produce the idea of them
even now.
" Although it were true that my knowledge daily acquired new degrees
of perfection, although there were potentially in my nature much that was
not as yet actually in it, still all these excellencies make not the slightest
100 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom nothing exists in ;i
state of mere potentiality, hut everything exists actually and really"
(Ibid.).
In the second place, the Infinite cannot lie reached by
successive additions. It is contradictory to suppose that a
finite being could ascend by degrees to the Infinite.
" I readily perceive that the objective being of an idea, i.e. that which
is represented by an idea, cannot be produced by a being that is merely
potentially existent (which, properly speaking, is nothing), but only by
a being existing formally or actually " (Ibid.).
It is therefore impossible to derive from a potential infinity
the idea of actual infinity.
4. Could our idea of the Infinite or of the Absolute
be explained then by adding together all the perfections of
which the universe is composed ?
" But," says Descartes, " It cannot be supposed that several causes
concurred in my production, and that from one I received the idea of one
of the perfections I attribute to Deity, and from another the idea of some
other, and thus that all those perfections are indeed found somewhere in
the universe, but do not all exist together in a single being, who is God ;
for, on the contrary, the unity, the simplicity or inseparability of all
the properties of the Deity is one of the chief perfections I conceive Him
to possess ; and the idea of this unity of all the perfections of the Deity
could certainly not be put into my mind by any cause from which I did
not likewise receive the ideas of all the other perfections" (Ibid.).
To sum up : according to Descartes (3rd Mcdit.) our idea of
the Infinite, or of God, being an eminently positive idea, cannot
be obtained by negation. 2nd. Being positive, it is there-
fore clear and distinct, although imperfect. 3rd. Since it is
the idea of an absolute actuality it cannot be derived from
what is merely potential. 4th. As it is the absolute unity of
all perfection, it cannot be the sum of the perfections that are
to be found scattered throughout the universe. Seeing, therefore,
that it is not attainable through either external or internal ex-
perience, the idea of infinity is one of those original innate
ideas which are not formed by us ; and it is, moreover, the
first of these ideas, the idea by which both reality and our
knowledge are established.
As regards the other primary ideas or intelligible elements,
Descartes distinguishes three kinds of ideas : adventitious
REASON 101
ideas, i.e. those derived from the senses, factitious ideas (for ex-
ample, a centaur, Pegasus) and innate ideas (as of God, of mind,
spirit, body, or of a triangle) (Vol. VIII, pp. 510, 511).
Elsewhere he goes so far as to say, " I hold that all those
[ideas] which involve neither affirmation nor negation are in-
nate" (Vol. VIII, p. 534). By this he means that all primitive
notions are innate. The adventitious part is the particular
knowledge of the moment, the experience in which we see such
and such a figure realized in space. " We have within us the
material of our thoughts ; what we learn by experience is the
manner in which this material is shaped " (Lectures of M. J.
Lachcllier in the Ecole normede). The understanding alone would
give us the corporeal world without any actual determination,
extension without motion. From our senses we learn that
extension actually takes such and such a shape through motion.
The object of science is to trace back what is adventitious to
what is innate, to explain experience by reason, what is sensible
by what is intelligible, by discovering the rational laws which
are the cause of the actual determinations of space.
In what sense are these simple ideas, these intelligible
elements, innate ? On this point Descartes' doctrine is quite
clear.
" When I say that an idea is born with us, I merely mean that we have
within us the faculty of pi'oducing this idea. I have never held nor
written that the mind requires natural ideas distinct from its powers of
thinking. But as I perceived that there are certain thoughts which pro-
ceed neither from external objects nor from the determination of my will,
but solely from my faculty of thinking, I called these ideas natural ; but I
merely said so in the same sense as we say that generosity or some disease
is natural to certain families" {Letters, Cousin's Edition, Vol. X, p. 70).
If after this assertion a further proof were needed, we have
only to point out that Descartes, by his demonstrations of the
existence of God, of the distinction between the soul and the
body, by his reduction, of the secondary qualities of matter to
extension, repeatedly makes the mind discover ideas which it
] ( issesses implicitly.
We have still to determine the rational principles which
enable us to connect together simple notions. The first of
these principles, the one which governs all knowledge, is the
principle of divine veracity. Man, by only reflecting on his
102 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
own nature, arrives at the idea of a perfect Being - , of God.
This perfect Being cannot wish to deceive us and we may
therefore without fear accept as the expression of reality all
that we conceive clearly and distinctly.
u The existence of God is the first and the most eternal of all possible
truths, and from it alone all other truths proceed (Letter to M. Mersenne).
The knowledge of an atheist is not true science, because any knowledge
that could be made doubtful cannot be called by the name of science"
(Answer to 2nd Objection).
The real alone being intelligible, Descartes does not see the
necessity of enumerating all the rational principles. That is
true which, after we have taken every precaution, appears so to
us. The primary truths are the axioms those self-evident pro-
positions which make deductive reasoning possible and the
most important of these is the principle of contradiction. The
problem of our knowledge of the world may be stated as
follows : given a composite thing (for example, the world as it
appears to us) to find an equation that will express it in
simple and intelligible notions. The only clear and distinct
notion which we have of the world is that of extension.
Physical science should therefore be a mathematical system.
" The world is a machine in which we have nothing to consider
beyond the- figure and motion of its different parts." The
world being a mechanism, the science of it is deductive. The
principles governing this science are innate, but only in the
sense that reflection of itself reveals them to us.
"I have also observed certain laws established in nature by God in
such a manner, and of which He has impressed on our minds such
notions, that after we have reflected sufficiently upon these, we cannot
doubt that they are accurately observed in all that exists or takes place
in the world " (Discourse on Method, Pt. V).
in what does this reflection by which we discover the laws
of nature consist ?
i
"I have pointed out what are the laws of nature ; and with no other
principle upon which to found my reasonings except the infinite perfec-
tions of God, I endeavoured to prove all those of which there could be
any doubt, and to shew that even if God had created more worlds, there
could have been none in which these laws were not observed" (Ibid.).
God is the principle of motion and He is Himself immutable,
REASON 103
hence the law of the permanence of the quantity of motion in
the world.
To sum up : the problem of science was for Descartes not
only to discover generalities, to reach the immovable, but also
to find the explanation of things as they appear to us. Experi-
ence is no more than the occasion of this science, which consists
in reducing the sensible world to simple and intelligible notions
(such as extension), these being combined according to natural
laws, all of which depend on the idea of God.
Bossuet and Fe'nelon : the Eternal Truths are in God ; they
are God Himself 'present in the Human Mind.
Bossuet was influenced by Descartes, but he was at the
same time mindful of the doctrines of St. Augustine and
Thomas Aquinas. " Reason," he says, " is the light given to us
by God for our guidance" (Conn, de Dieu et de soi-meme, I, 7),
and it has for its object the eternal truths. Which are these
truths ? Bossuet cites (Ibid. IV, 5) the mathematical truths
the laws of motion and the principles of morality. " There is
an extremely close connection between law and reason. Order
could not exist in things if it were not for reason, and it can
only be comprehended by reason ; law is the ally of reason,
and its special object."
Bossuet is never weary of repeating that the eternal truths,
the principles of our understanding, are "something of God, or
rather are God Himself " (Ibid, IV, 5). He thus holds with
Fenelon and Malebranche that every relation of our reason to
an eternal truth is a direct intercourse of the human mind
with God. But he probably would not have agreed with the
former that reason is something external to us, and he cer-
tainly would not have held with the latter the doctrine of
passive vision in God. What he, as well as all the Cartesians,
asserted was that our idea of perfection is the positive idea
par excellence, and that imperfection necessarily implies the per-
fection from which it has, so to speak, fallen away (Ibid. IV, 7).
Fenelon appears to have had beside him a copy of the
TraiU de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi meme when he wrote
his TraiU de Vexistence de Dieu. He adopted Bossuet's theory,
giving to it, however, a more mystical and idealistic expression.
He begins by declaring that our idea of the Infinite is a real
104 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
and positive idea, and that it is implied in all our other ideas.
" It is true, I am not able to exhaust the infinite, nor can I
understand it, that is to say, I cannot know it to the extent
that it is intelligible. . . . But such as it is, my idea of the
infinite is not confused, nor is it a negative one " (2nd Part,
Chap. II). " It is not a confused idea, for I affirm all that
is predicable of it: I deny all that is not predicable. If one
were to say to me that the Infinite is triangular I would reply
without any hesitation that what is without limits can have
no shape " (1st Part, Chap. II). " It is not a negative idea,
because it is not by excluding indefinitely all limits that I form
an image of the Infinite in my mind. He who speaks of limits
merely makes a negative statement, and, contrariwise, he who
denies this negation affirms something very positive indeed : a
double negation is equal to an affirmation " (2nd Part, Chap.
II). This idea of the Infinite is not without an object.
" Besides the idea of the Infinite " says Fenelon, " I have also
universal and immutable notions which rule all my judgments " :
and he gives as examples the mathematical and ethical truths.
Malcbranchc gives a Systematic Form to the Ideas of Bossuet
and Fenelon : Vision in God.
Neither Bousset nor Fenelon made any attempt to establish
the relation between the universal truths and our idea of the
Infinite, or of perfection. They merely asserted the two terms
to be identical. Malebranche's treatment of the question was
more strictly philosophical. He adopted the Cartesian system,
at the same time giving it a simpler form. Descartes had
separated the object from the idea ; with him the divine veracity
is our warrant of the agreement between our clear and distinct
ideas and their objects. Thus in his system there were three
terms to be considered God, the object, and the idea. With
Malebranche, these three terms are reduced to one, namely, the
idea, which he regards as the sole object of knowledge. God
is the source, the reality, the place of ideas. Whenever we
think clearly and distinctly, we are in God, we see God ; this is
the theory of Vision in God.
"God alone is known in Himself. Him alone do we see with an
immediate and direct perception. Note well that God, or the Infinite, is
not visible through the medium of an idea. The Infinite is its
REASON 105
own idea, and has no archetype. It is only creatines that are
perceived through ideas which represented them even before they were
made. One may perceive a circle, a house, a sun where no such thing
exists, for anything that is finite may be perceived in the Infinite, which
contains its intelligible ideas. But the Infinite can only be seen in itself,
for nothing can represent the Infinite. If we think of God, it must be
that God exists" (2nd Entret. Me'taph.).
Thus God is the only Being immediately present to our
thought. I do not know Him in the same way as other things,
i.e. through the medium of an idea ; I know Him immediately
in Himself. Now, " God contains the intelligible world, where
are found the ideas of all things . . . the archetype which I
behold of the created world in which I live. In Him is
reason, which enlightens me through purely intelligible ideas,
with which it abundantly provides my mind and the minds of
all men." I am not distinct from Him ; He is " the place of
Spirits as space is the place of bodies ; I am immediately united
to Him " (Iicch. ele la Ver. Pref.). All that is positive in the
world is effected by Him (doctrine of occasional causes), and in
the same way it is He who acts in me ; He is the author of truth
as well as of reality. As on occasion of the heat of the sun He
makes the plant to grow, so also does He on occasion of diverse
movements in myself, of which He is the ultimate cause,
condescend to reveal to me something of the world of ideas
which is in Him. The mind's attention is as it were devotion,
a prayer in which I summon the divine aid ; it is an effort of
the mind turning to God for light. We have of ourselves only
an imperfect and confused inner feeling. We do not perceive
our soul in its idea, we observe its modifications, but are unable
to reduce them to simple intelligible notions. Sensations, as
such, only relate to the perservation of the body, but on their
occurrence God reveals to us the idea of intelligible extension,
the relation between His modifications and His essence, which
is the archetype of the world we inhabit and the sole object of
true science. The theory of Vision in God results in an entirely
mathematical view of physical science like that of Descartes.
Spinoza : Four Degrees in Knowledge- -His Contempt for
Empirical Science. Rational and Intuitive Knoiolcd <je .
Spinoza, like Malebranche, was a disciple of Descartes, and
he also regards mathematics as the ideal of all knowledge.
106 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Mentis eaim oculi quibus res videt observatque, sunt ipsce demonstra-
tions (Et/i. Y, Xote to Prop. 23). True science should there-
fore he entirely rational and deductive. Spinoza distinguishes
four kinds of knowledge : 1st, per auditum, by hear-say, by which
I know, for instance, the day of my birth. 2nd, per experientiam
rcujam, ordinary induction, chance and niethodless generaliza-
tions from sensations. 3rd, rational knowledge {ratio), which
corresponds to the e-mo-Ti'iixri of Aristotle, that is, to demonstrative
science. In this rational knowledge we pass from an effect to
its cause without apprehending the mode of generation of the
effect by the cause, or, again, we apply a general rule to a
particular case. 4th, there is the intellectus, scientia intuitiva,
that is the immediate knowledge of principles, the vov$ ttouitikos
of Aristotle. Spinoza explains his theory by means of an
illustration. Let it be given that 2 : 3 : : 4 : x. Tradesmen
know that 3 is to be multiplied by 4 and divided by 2 :
this is knowledge per auditum. By operating upon simple
numbers, it is easy to discover the practical rule ; this
is knowledge per eoeperientiam vagam. If we formed our
knowledge on the demonstration of Euclid, it is of the 3rd
kind, that is per rationem. Perfect knowledge, the scient ia
intuitiva, consists in perceiving directly and without calculation
that 4 being twice 2, is twice 4. This knowledge is not only
the most direct but also the only kind that explains the
generation of the 4th term {De Emendatione Intellectus. Ethics,
II, Note 2 of Prop. 40).
Empirical knowledge is necessarily inadequate because it
only expresses the relation of our bodies to foreign bodies, and
consequently expresses neither the one nor the other clearly.
It is founded on a medley of impressions to which correspond
only confused and inadequate representations. Hence Spinoza
is led to despise both general ideas, which are abstracted from
sensations, and inductive science as we understand it now.
General notions according to him are merely enfeebled sensa-
tions, fainter images, which become more confused in propor-
tion as their extension is greater. We do not arrive at
anything through abstract ideas, such as those of Being, of the
One, the True, the Good, all of which are only modes of thinking.
Spinoza is in fact a nominalist. He allows that empirical
science has its uses, but he is not concerned with it, because it
REASON 107
is not true knowledge, because it has to do only with appear-
ances, with the outside of things, and merely connects pheno-
mena with phenomena, carrying on the infinite series of finite
modes, each of which is determined by another, without ever
reaching anything that is conceivable in itself and of itself.
True science, that is to say, rational knowledge (ratio), rests
not on abstract and general notions, but on the properties
which are common to the whole and to its parts, and which
consequently can be abstracted from all experience. These
common notions or properties, of which we have an adequate
idea, are the mathematical properties : extension, figure, motion,
rest. The first effort towards scientific knowledge is therefore
the endeavour to acquire simple and adequate notions, which
are clearly and distinctly understood without any possibility of
error. It is the function of reason to resolve compound things
into these intelligible elements. Thus, like Malebranche's
theory of Vision in God, Spinoza's ratio brings us back to
the mathematical physics of Descartes, in which our confused
sensations, the complex properties of bodies are translated into
simple intelligible notions, whose relations have been established
by deduction. This science, which deals with general properties
that arc above time, is deductive, and reveals the necessary
relations between ideas, and cannot therefore consider things
as contingent (Ethics, 2nd Part, Prop. 44). It is the nature
of reason to perceive things sub specie ovternitatis, under the
form of eternity (Ibid. Coroll. 2).
But with Spinoza reasoned knowledge is not the highest
form of knowledge. Simple ideas and their relations express
only the possible : true science is knowledge of the real, of
effects by their causes. Hence the necessity of a knowledge
that shall be not demonstrative but intuitive (scientia intuitiva),
and this is the knowledge of God, to whom all things are to
be referred and from whom all things are to be deduced. In
knowledge of this fourth kind the essence of each thing is
known as having its necessary foundation in the essence of
God. The mind is passive when it is subject to the influence
of things (as in sensation and imagination), but does not appre-
hend their generation ; and it is active when it reproduces the
movement of nature, of the divine thought which engenders all
that is. Spinoza was a kind of nominalistic Plato. True
108 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
science, he taught, is not concerned with the sequence of
phenoniona, hut it constructs the world by means of simple
notions and adequate ideas. True deduction deduces things in
their essence.
" Ut mens nostra omnino referat naturae exemplar, debet omnes
mas ideas producere ah ca, quae refert originem et fontem totius
naturce, ut ipsa etiam sit fons caeterarum idearum" (De Emend.
Intell, Chap. VII).
The ideas that are innate to the mind, and ahove all others
their common principle, namely, the idea of God ; the principles
of deductive reason which render possihle the concatenation and
combination < >f these ideas (concatenatio intellectus) : these are
the functions of the intellect (scientia intuitiva, pure reason),
the elements and the object of true knowledge.
Leibnitz endeavours to reconcile Descartes and Locke. Ex-
perience and Reason : First Principles : Degrees of Knowledge.
Leibnitz was an eclectic and liked to reconcile different
schools of thought. Like Descartes he was a rationalist, and
had a passion for deductive and mathematical methods, but at
the same time he sought to expand the Cartesian rationalism
by the introduction of new elements. Descartes held that our
primary ideas and principles were innate, imprinted in us by
God. Locke traced them to experience either internal or
external. Leibnitz now endeavoured to reconcile these two
theories. Locke's attack was of service inasmuch as it went
against that facile philosophy which proceeds by multiplying
principles. And when he objected to Descartes, that children
have no consciousness of these so-called innate ideas, he was
irrefutable.
But on the other hand, since the objects we reach by
experience have only a contingent existence, experience can do
no more than provide us with examples or particular facts; it
never gives us necessary truths or principles. What escape
is there from this dilemma ? The difficulty disappears if we
distinguish between two things which were confused by these
philosophers, namely, perception and apperception, or distinct
consciousness. As middle term, between mere potentiality and
perfect actuality there is virtucdity. Our innate principles are
not always objects of apperception to us, but this does not
REASON 109
mean that we do not always possess them virtually. The mind
has special possessions, and these are the innate principles, but
experience is needed before what is thus virtually in us can
attain actuality. Innateness does not lie in an explicit know-
ledge, but in potentialities and tendencies. The mind is not
a tabula rasa ; it reseml >les rather a block of marble, the veins
of which prefigure the statue, which will be carved out by
experience.
But how is the part thus assigned to experience by Leibnitz
to be reconciled with that other theory of his, according to
which the monad has " no window to the outside," and must
therefore be the principle of all its own modifications ? The
essence of the monad is perception and appetition, or the
tendency ever to rise to a more distinct perception ; and since
owing to the pre-established harmony, the acts of one monad
are in agreement with all the acts of all the other monads,
every perception represents dimly the whole universe. If all
the potentialities of a monad were suddenly to be realized, if
all that is within it were developed, the monad would be the
equal of God. The life of the mind is a continual progress
from confused to more distinct perceptions. Distinct percep-
tion presupposes then confused perception, but the confused
perception is the one which in a monad represents the other
monads, and arises in the mind from its relations with other
monads : in other words, our confused perception is experience.
We may therefore grant with the empiricists that there is
nothing in the intellect which was not in the senses ; nihil est
in intellcctu, quod non prius fuerit in sensu. But, on the other
hand, although all our ideas are in one sense acquired and
imply experience, they all have their origin in our own
minds as well, and express that spontaneity and productiveness
which is peculiar to the mind. We must therefore make the
formula of the sensationalists complete by adding nisi ipse
intellect us. Experience is thus only a moment of our own
development.
" A little reflection leads us to believe that we neither act nor think
except under the influence of things ; but deeper reflection shows that
even our perceptions and passions originate with perfect spontaneity in
our own minds " (Erd.'s Edition, 591 b).
Which are now, according to Leibnitz, the innate principles,
110 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
and how do they harmonize with his conception of science?
Leibnitz, like Aristotle and the Scholastics, distinguishes
necessary truths from contingent truths. Necessary
truths which are found not only in mathematics, but also
in logic and metaphysics, and even in ethics, are dis-
tinguishable by the sign that their negation is self-contra-
dictory. They are the necessary, eternal truths, the contrary
of which is impossible; and all that is deduced from them has
the same characteristic. But as they only unfold by the
attribute what is already contained in the subject, without
establishing the reality of the latter, these truths refer to the
possible, not to the real. Things do not exist, whatever
Spinoza may say to the contrary, in virtue merely of their
conception. There are in God an infinite number of possibles
which express every form of being that is exempt from internal
contradictions, but they do not attain actuality. Contingent
truths, or truths of fact, are those which we know by our
senses, or by our own consciousness. For example, Descartes'
*' Cogito ergo sum" The necessary, then, is that of which the
contrary involves contradiction, as that 2 + 2 = 4. The con-
tingent is that the contrary of which involves no contra-
diction, as, for instance, that Spinoza died at the Hague. To
these two kinds of truths two laws correspond. The law of
Contradiction governs rational knowledge, and applies to the
possible. The law of Sufficient Reason relates to contingent
truths, which become intelligible to us the moment we are con-
scious of the reasons of that which is given to us as real in
experience. It is in obedience to the principle of the Best
that God, by a wise and intelligent choice, in which the
maximum of perfection is realized, causes certain possibles to
pass into existence. Everything is determined, for this is the
necessary condition of the harmony which God has pre-estab-
lished between all the acts of all the monads ; but there is
agreement between the order of efficient causes and the order
of final causes, and this agreement results from the subordina-
tion of efficient to final causes (Erd. 144 a). There are thus, so
to speak, three worlds : the world of possible things, which is
governed by the law of contradiction ; the world of existing
things, which is governed by the principle of Sufficient Reason ;
and the world of phenomena, the mechanical world, which is
REASON 111
subject to the law of efficient causes, and which in the last
resort is only a symbol of the law of final causes.
The conception of science formed by Leibnitz is in harmony
with his theory of reason. Induction only applies to a
greater or less number of particular cases, and it results in
an empiricism, a collection of general rules, rather than in a
science. But in mathematics we have the model of true
science, and philosophy should imitate it by finding exact
definitions, and then proceeding regularly by syllogisms (Erd.
381, 487). Hence the idea always present to Leibnitz of a
philosophical language, a language truly scientific, a universal
symbolism {caractJristique univcrsellc) which would make it
possible to prove by a sort of algebraical calculation the truth
of every proposition, and even to discover new truths. For
this purpose it would only be necessary to discover those con-
cepts from which others are formed, and to determine the
possible combinations of these concepts. This is the dream of
a mathematician, and is in keeping with his liking for
mechanical physics. He rejects the methods of the Platonists
and theosophists, who made God, or spiritual principles, or
ap^al, intervene directly in individual phenomena (Erd. 694 b).
He attacks Newton's theory of attraction as an occult
quality, and he tries to explain weight, elasticity, and magnet-
ism mechanically by a current of light or of ether emanating
from the sun. But even in this mechanical physics he is
obliged to go beyond the law of contradiction and pure mathe-
matics. It is only in the Principle of Convenience, or of the
Pest, that he finds the foundation of the laws of nature. The
laws of continuity, of the persistence of force, of indescernibles,
are not absolutely necessary or geometrically demonstrable.
They are the maxims of a higher philosophy, applications of the
principles of Sufficient Reason (Thcod. 345 ff.). Thus Leibnitz
regards science as a continuous whole, which, starting with
common experience and induction, leads up to mathematics and
to a mechanical explanation of the world ; and thence, through its
very inadequacy, to metaphysics, to the principle of reason, to
the discovery that the laws of motion, and consequently the
laws of nature, are subordinate to the law of design.
Finally, all these ideas depend on the idea of God : the idea
of God is therefore the most intimately one with tbe mind, the
112 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
idea to which it is constantly brought back. The law of
Sufficient Reason is the supreme principle of philosophy, and
the one truly Sufficient Reason is God.
Locke attacks the Doctrine of Innate Ideas. Reason reduced to
Discursive Understanding.
In his Essay on the Human Understanding, Locke seeks, by
an application of the inductive method, to determine the origin
of human knowledge.
The Cartesian philosophers had been throughout influenced
by the mathematical ideal which they took to be the ideal of
every science. To the English empiricists, who were in this
preceded by Telesius and Campanella, the natural sciences were
the model, and the inductive method was the condition of every
science. At the same time, theories concerning reason under-
went a change. Locke begins by attacking Descartes' theory
of innate ideas. Neither in the speculative nor in the prac-
tical sphere is it possible, he says, to discover a notion or a
truth that can rightly be called innate. Take the most self-
evident propositions, as that " A is A " : " Do unto others as
you would be done by " : they are so far from being innate that
neither children nor savages, nor idiots, possess them. The
mind must, in that case, possess ideas of which it is uncon-
scious ; and, indeed, how could propositions or truths be innate
when the concepts joined by them are not innate ? The ideas
of identity, of difference, of the possible and the impossible, are
extremely abstract ideas, which we are so far from possessing
at birth that we only acquire them after long experience.
^'ll tlv^Jd^a, of Q-H i g 1-in t i"na.t-,ft ; for, yi nt to Speak of the
different conceptions that man has formed of the divine Being,
th ere are races who have no suspicion even of His existe nce.
The partisans of Descartes object that there are theoretical and
practical truths on which all men are agreed. But by the
errors that were for centuries universally accepted, by the
strange customs of barbarous and even civilized races, history
proves that there are no such truths. And even if this supposed
agreement between men did exist, it would not prove the in-
nateness of our ideas. For men may have been led by other
reasons to agree upon certain principles.
But the best way to prove that there are no innate ideas
REASON 113
is tO Show that alj _pnr Vnnmkke. is rlprivpd frrn^ PYpprjpnpp
The mind is, at the beginning, a tabula rasa, and acquires
simple unanalyzable ideas, the elements of all knowledge,
through the senses and through reflection (which reveals to us
the" operations of ou r own mind ). All our other ideas are com-
pound. The mind is passive when it receives simple ideas ;
but it operates on these simple ideas, and, by diverse processes,
forms out of them comple x idea s. Th us reason is. by Locke,
reduced to the operations j)f jthe_discursi\e understandings to
those of distinction, comparison, abstraction, combination. All
our knowledge is, according to him, explained by empirical
analysis and synthesis, and our complex ideas of modes, sub-
stances, and relations have no other origin.
"... Not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves,
we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do sub-
sist, and from which they do result, which therefore we call substance
... so that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure
substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only
a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities, which are
capable of producing simple ideas in us " {Essay on the Human Under-
standing, Bk. 11, Ch. 23).
In our daily experience we perceive alterations in the objects
of our simple ideas ; we notice that a thing has ceased to be,
that another has taken its place ; we observe the perpetual
changes in the representations of consciousness brought about
either by external impressions or by our own will, and every-
thing leads the human mind to the conclusion that the same
changes will take place in the future whenever the same causes
are present. In this way the idea of causality and, in general,
uil our ideas of relations are formed in the mind.
Even our idea of the infinite can be explained by experience.
Tb,p jrW nf theu-milnitp is a. mode of- quantity, and is applied
chiefly to tilings that have parts and are capable of being
greater_or le ss, such , as the ideas__ofspacR. of duration, and of
number.
"... "When we apply to that first and supreme Being our idea of
infinite in our weak and narrow thoughts, we do it primarily in respect
to His duration and ubiquity " {Ibid. Ch. 17). "How do we come by the idea
of infinity ? Every one that has any idea of any stated lengths of space,
as a foot, finds that he can repeat that idea, and joining it to the former
make the idea of two feet, and by the addition of a third, three feet, and
H
114 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
so on without ever coming to the end of his addition. The power of
enlarging his idea of space by further additions remaining still the same,
he hence takes the idea of infinite space " (Ibid.).
Even our idea of God has an empirical origin according
to Locke.
" Though God has given us no innate ideas of Himself, though He has
stamped no original characters on our minds wherein we may read His
being ; yet, having furnished us with those faculties our minds are
endowed with, He hath not left Himself without witness : since we have
sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want clear proof of Him as long
as we carry ourselves about us " (Bk. IV, Ch. 10).
Through reflection on our nature and intelligence we reach
by a kind of analogy the idea of an intelligent Creator ; by
extending indefinitely our ideas of power, duration, under-
standing, and will, we come to form an idea of God. What
Locke undertook to prove was that out of the simple ideas
given to us by sensation and reflection the activity of our
understanding builds up all our ideas, including those of the
infinite, of God, all the principles of mind, even those which
appear to be the necessary condition of experience.
David Hume : The Principle of Knowledge explained by
Association and Habit.
Hume did away with the small amount of activity which even
Locke allowed to mind in cognition. In order that the science
of mind might resemble the natural sciences, he tried to find
general laws that would be analogous to the physical laws, and
according to which the data of knowledge could be proved to
be combined by a kind of mental necessity. Locke had
reduced the notions of substance and essence to a collection of
images associated in the mind and summarized in words. David
Hume seized iipon this idea, developed it, and made it the
principle of his whole philosophy. Impressions (the data of
sense, emotions, volitions), and ideas, i.e. faint images of
sensations : these were according to him the only original data
of knowledge. How then is knowledge possible ? By what
principles are these scattered elements bound together ? Ideas,
Hume answers, are associated in our minds without any
intervention on our part, and in accordance with laws of their
own. These laws are to mental phenomena what the law of
REASON 115
gravitation is to physical phenomena. The relations which
arise between ideas rest on the three laws of association :
resemblance, contiguity in space and time, and causality. The
natural sciences are nothing else than a perpetual application
of the principle of causality. It is important, therefore,
to know what is the origin of this law and what is its value.
The law of causality is not innate to the mind, for nothing is
innate. Nor is it a perception, an immediate knowledge of a
secret power by which one thing produces another. Experience
gives us, indeed, the succession of two phenomena, but it does
not show the necessary connection by which one is the effect
of the other. We see that two billiard balls move successively,
but we do not see how the motion of the first produces the
motion of the second. How is it, then, that we expect that
the same antecedents will be followed by the same consequents ?
The relation of causality is, Hume says, not even an ultimate
law of the association of ideas ; for there are only two primary
relations, those of similarity and contiguity in space and time.
The relation of causality can be reduced to the two former,
from which it is derived. And it may be stated as follows :
The same antecedent is always followed by the same consequent
a formula which embraces contiguity in time (sequence) and
similarity (same causes, same effects). If therefore we expect
that the same causes will be followed by the same effects, it is
solely owing to a custom or habit, strengthened by repetition.
When similar cases arise the mind is forced, by habit and in
virtue of the inevitable laws of association, to expect the same
consequents and to believe that they will be produced in
reality. The principle of causality is a subjective habit, an
expectation in us, which we have come to look upon as a law
of things. Thus, for Hume there could be neither necessary
truths nor true principles ; since he makes everything reducible
to experience and habit. It is therefore by a merely arbitrary
distinction that he attributes to mathematical truths, which
refer to relations of ideas and not to facts, an absolute validity,
under the pretext that truths of this kind are discovered by
simple operations of thought, and do not depend on anything
outside' our minds ; for, as we have seen, he traced all the opera-
tions of thought to impressions and ideas that are associated with
one another according to relations depending on experience.
116 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
The Doctrine of Kant. Mind legislative over Things. Ana-
lytic and Synthetic Judgments. Are there any a priori Syn-
thetic Judgments ?
Kant treated the problem of reason from an entirely new-
point of view. Struck by the impotency of metaphysics, of
" this old and worm-eaten dogmatism," and by the inadequacy
of " the physiology of the human understanding " as conceived
by Locke and his successors, he sets out to examine de novo in
all its elements, and without any prejudice, the great problem
of reason, no satisfactory solution of which had hitherto
united philosophers in a common doctrine. " It has hitherto
been assumed that our cognition must conform to objects.
. . . Let us then make the experiment whether we may not
be more successful in metaphysics if we assume that
objects must conform to our cognition " {Critique of Pure
Reason, Preface to 2nd edit.).
This is the leading idea in Kant's philosophy. He himself
compares the revolution which he sought to bring about in
philosophy to that brought about in astronomy by Copernicus.
" When he found that we could make no progress by assuming that all
the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process,
and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved while
the stars remain at rest" (Pref. to 2nd edit.).
It is not in things that we are to look for the reasons of the
laws of mind. It is, on the contrary, in the mind that we must
seek the reason of the laws of things.
The questions on which empiricism and rationalism are
divided may be briefly stated in the following terms : Is an
a priori knowledge, that is, a knowledge independent of ex-
perience, possible ; and if so, how ? In order to answer this
question we must first distinguish between two kinds of judg-
ments, namely, analytical and synthetical judgments. Judg-
ments that are analytical or explicative {Erlduterungsurtheile)
add nothing to the subject, which they only develop and
resolve into its divers elements by means of analysis. Syn-
thetical or augmentative judgments (Erwciterungsurthcile) add
to the conception of the subject a predicate that was not con-
tained in it, and that could not be drawn from it by any
analysis.
REASON 117
"Judgments of experience as such are always synthetical. For it
would be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgment on experi-
ence, because in forming such a judgment I need not go out of the sphere
of my conceptions, and therefore recourse to the testimony of experience
is quite unnecessary" (Introduction, IV).
The association of ideas accounts for synthetical, a posteriori
judgments. We can easily understand that, having seen water
first in a liquid and then in a solid state, we should say the
water is frozen. This is a synthetical judgment, but a
posteriori. As for analytical judgments, they are all a 'priori, for
they are all necessary. But they in no way extend our know-
ledge, since they only draw the predicate from the subject,
according to the law of contradiction. We can understand that
it is possible to say a priori : the whole is greater than its parts,
for he who says " whole" says " greater than its parts." But to
say that every phenomenon has a cause is, in the first place, a
synthetical judgment, for the predicate, having a cause, is not
contained in the subject, phenomenon. In the second place, it is
an a priori judgment, for experience cannot tell us that every
phenomenon has a cause. Here then we really have a priori
knowledge. We have added to our knowledge without having
had recourse to experience. But how can we possess a priori
and without having learnt it the attribute of a proposition ?
The problem which we set before ourselves, ' Is a priori know-
ledge possible ' ? may then be stated as follows : Are synthetical
a priori judgments possible ?
Kant does in fact prove the existence of such judgments,
and he divides them into three kinds. First, mathematical
judgments are all synthetic a priori. Second, the science of
nature or physics {Naturwissenschaft) has for its principles
synthetic a priori judgments ; and Kant gives as examples
the following propositions : " The quantity of matter is in-
variable " ; " Action and reaction are equal to one another."
Third, and lastly, metaphysics, whether it be possible or not,
must contain synthetic a priori cognitions, since its object is
not only to analyze given concepts, but to develop and extend
our knowledge a prim*i. The criticism of pure reason will
have then to solve this triple problem : First, how are pure
mathematics possible ? Second, how is pure natural science
possible ? Third, and finally, as metaphysics has a real
118 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
existence, if not as a science, then at least as a natural dis-
position of the mind, one may ask : how is metaphysics
possible as a natural disposition of the human mind ? (Introd.
to the Critique of Pure Bcason).
Synthetic a priori cognition cannot relate to the object
which we only know through experience ; it can only relate to
the subjective forms or the conditions of thought. " We only
cognize a priori in things that which we ourselves place in
them" {Critique of Pure Reason, Pref. to 2nd edit.). Instead
of assuming that all our knowledge conforms to objects, Kant,
as we have seen, starts with the assumption that it is, on the
contrary, objects that must conform to our knowledge ; and
this, according to him, is the only hypothesis on which the
existence of a priori knowledge is comprehensible. " If the
intuition must conform to the nature of the objects, I do not
see how we can know anything of them a priori " {Ibid.).
But, on Kant's hypothesis, " experience itself is a mode of
cognition which requires the aid of the understanding. Before
objects are given to me, that is a priori, I must presuppose in
myself laws of the understanding which are expressed in
conceptions a priori. To these conceptions then all the objects
of experience must necessarily conform" {Ibid.). These a priori
laws, these forms of thought, presuppose a content which can
only be given by experience.
" For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened
into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses,
and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers
of understanding into activity, to comjDare, to connect or to separate these,
and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a
knowledge of objects which is called experience" {Critique of Pure Reason,
Introd.).
Consequences of this Hypothesis. The Distinction between
Matter and Form in Knoivledge.
From this follow several important results, the first being
that :
" In respect of time no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience,
but begins with it" (Introd.).
Secondly, " It is not possible, through our a priori faculty of cognition,
to get beyond the limits of possible experience, since it is precisely the
EEASON 119
part which we bring a prion into our knowledge of nature that serves
to make this knowledge possible, and outside this use it can have no
signification."
Thirdly, " It is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a com-
pound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the
faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous expressions giving
merely the occasion)" (Ibid.).
In other words, in knowledge we have to distinguish between
the matter which is given by sense, and the form which is
supplied by the mind. Experience is the fusion of matter and
form. It is in this view that the great originality of Kant's
doctrine lies, that which distinguishes him from the mere
idealists, and gives a practical value to his theory. His object
was to prove the possibility of a science of the world as it
appears to us.
"The thesis of all true idealists, from the Eleatics down to Bishop
Berkeley, is contained in the following statement : All knowledge
acquired through the senses and experience is a mere illusion, and the
truth exists only in the ideas furnished by pure understanding and
reason. The principle that governs and determines the whole of my
idealism is, on the contrary, that any knowledge of things that proceeds
from pure understanding or reason is a mere illusion, and that truth is
found in experience alone."
We now know what we are to understand by this. The
forms of thought have no significance without phenomena.
Their value lies in the fact that they are the conditions of
knowledge. In order to grasp Kant's conception we must dis-
tinguish it from the doctrines held by other philosophers. In
what, then, do his a priori forms differ from the innate ideas of
Descartes and Leibnitz ? In this, that for Descartes, as well
as for Malebranche, and even Leibnitz, the understanding is
intuitive. Its ideas reach the real being (whether of mind or
of God) immediately. But in Kant the understanding is formal.
It has no object of its own, but merely provides the laws which
connect phenomena and brings unity into the multiplicity of
experience.
" All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to
understanding, and ends in reason." Firstly, sense gives the
object, the phenomenon. Secondly, our understanding gives
us the principles by which we are able to connect these pheno-
mena with one another, and to make out of them a systematic
120 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
whole. Thirdly, the ideas of pure reason merely express the
desire for unity felt by the human mind, which would pursue
the chain of phenomena beyond all possible experience, and
consequently set itself insoluble problems. Hence there are
three divisions in the Critique : 1st. The Transcendental
Aesthetic, in which the a priori principles of sensuous percep-
tion are considered. 2nd. The Transcendental Analytic which
determines the categories of the understanding, the necessary
conditions of experience. 3rd. The Transcendental Dialectic
which proves the impossibility of a scientific metaphysic or of
an a priori knowledge transcending experience.
The Transcendental Aesthetic : Space and Time. The a priori
Forms of Sense.
"... All thought must directly or indirectly, by means of
certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions, and consequently,
with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object
be given to us (Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction). But
our perceptions contain more than what is given by our senses.
We have to abstract from sensation the forms under which we
experience them, and which are provided by the mind. These
a priori forms of sense are space and time. Sensations such
as those of resistance, smell or taste do not constitute an
external world, for the characteristic of an external world is
that it has extension. Kant's theory is, that it is the mind
that furnishes space, and thus becomes capable of perception.
In the same way I can only perceive the phenomena which are
within myself under the form of time. Time is the immediate
condition of internal phenomena and the mediate condition
of external phenomena, since these only exist for us in as
much as we are conscious of them.
"... If we take away the subject, or even only the subjective consti-
tution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of
objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear "
(Transcendental JSsthetic, II, 59).
The immediate result of this profound and novel theory is,
that we know only phenomena, and not things in themselves.
And the theory has considerable advantages. It would, if
universally accepted, in the first place, do away with the
insoluble problems arising from any theory in which an abso-
REASON 121
lute reality, either as substance or as quality, is attributed to
space and time. In the second place, the a priori determina-
tion of space by the mind explains the universality and
necessity of the mathematical propositions. Thus the existence
of mathematics becomes a proof of Kant's theory, which alone,
according to him, makes them possible.
Transcendental Analytic : Phenomena in order to be thought
must be subjected to the Conditions on which Experience is
possible.
But if perception is to become experience it is not enough
that phenomena should co-exist in space and succeed each other
in time. It is not enough that objects are given to us, they must
also be thought. Space and time being indeterminate or un-
limited, phenomena would float about in them like scattered
dust. Phenomena must have a fixed order, they must be
linked to one another by invariable relations. The principle
of this connection cannot be in the things themselves, for we
only know them through experience ; and although experience
gives us existing relations it tells us nothing of the necessary
relations, of the universal inviolable laws, in virtue of which
knowledge is possible. It follows that it must be our
understanding itself, with its conceptions and principles, that
is the author of experience, and that we ourselves through the
unity of our consciousness give the necessary connection to
phenomena. All thought, every exercise of the understanding,
involves the representation to ourselves of this connection.
The primitive unity of self-consciousness expressed in the " I
think " is the first principle of the exercise of the understand-
ing. All the forms of thought are only forms that reduce the
multitude of sensible perceptions into the unity which makes
consciousness possible ; in other words, thought presupposes self-
consciousness. The conditions that make consciousness possible
are therefore the laws that govern the world, since the world
only exists for us as it becomes an object of our thought.
This universal form of consciousness is subdivided into a
certain number of particular forms representing the divers
logical judgments, and corresponding to the same number of
categories of the understanding. The function of the categories
is to give to the matter of knowledge (sensible perceptions)
122 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the form that is necessary in order that they may be know-
ledge. " Thus the same understanding, by the same operations,
whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it pro-
duced the logical form of judgment, introduces by means of
the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcen-
dental context into its representations, on which account they
are called pure conceptions of the understanding" (Transcen-
dental Logic, III). In order to obtain the categories of the
understanding, we have only to take the table of the logical
forms of judgment. Kant recognizes twelve forms of judgment.
There are therefore twelve categories, that is to say twelve
fundamental notions, twelve a priori conceptions. These
categories applied to phenomena 1 ecome the 'principles of pure
understanding.
How Phenomena are brought under the Categories of the
Understanding. Transcendental Schematism.
But how can sense and understanding work in concert ?
How can the manifold of sense be reduced to the unity of the
concept ? The two terms seem to be utterly opposed. " For it
is impossible to say, for example, that causality can lie intuited
through the senses and is contained in the phenomenon "
(Transcendental Analyt. Bk. II, Ch. I). There must therefore
lie a third term which shall act as medium, " which, on the
one side, is homogeneous with the category, and with the
phenomenon on the other, and so makes the application of the
former to the latter possible " (Ibid.). This middle term is*
time. It is a product of the imagination, and Kant calls it a
transcendental schema. Time as an a priori form is of the
same nature as the categories, as a form of sense it is of the
same nature as the phenomenon. It is therefore through a
transcendental determination of time that the application of
the categories to phenomena is possible. The understanding
furnishes the categories, but the manifold (that is to say
phenomena), is given to us in time. If the categories are to
be applied to phenomena there must first be a general
application of these categories to time. To each category
there corresponds a certain modification of the intuition of
time. This is what Kant calls a schema. But the schema
must be distinguished from the image. The schema of a dog;
REASON 123
is not a confused image of a dog, but a product of the
imagination, of a kind of instinctive art by which the mind
traces the characteristic lines of every dog. The general idea
of body is not an image of body, but a rule for its construction,
for tracing the outlines of body with a regard for its pro-
portions. In the same way, in the transcendental schematism
imagination traces, as it were, in time certain figures or forms
which shall apply universally to all the phenomena considered
under a category, and thus determines the relations by which
the passage from sense to understanding is possible. To take
an example : In order to conceive any magnitude we must
add part to part, and the process of adding part to part, and
so producing number, is the schema of quantity. The schema
is here a general rule by which I construct in time a certain
magnitude. The schema of reality is existence in time, the schema
of substance the permanence of the real in time ; the schema of
causality is the regular succession of phenomena in time.
Application of the Categories to Phenomena. The Principles
of Pure Understanding.
Owing to the schematism, that first and most general
application of the categories to the intuition of time, these are
capable of being further applied to phenomena, which them-
selves belong to time, since they are necessarily perceived in
time. Hence come the principles of pure understanding, the a
priori conditions of all experience through which it is possible
to combine our perceptions into a whole, by means of concepts,
and thus to reduce their variety to the essential unity of
consciousness. There are four kinds of principles correspond-
ing to the four classes of categories : quantity, quality, relation,
and modality. 1st. Quantity. "All objects of sense are ex-
tensive magnitudes." 2nd. Quality. " In every phenomenon
the real, which is an object of sense, has intensive quantity,
that is degree!' 3rd. The categories of relation are of
the greatest importance. Applied to objects of a possible
experience they result in this general principle : Experience
is possible only through the conception of a necessary con-
nection between perceptions. On this general principle the
three following depend : (a) " The substance remains the same
amid all the changes of phenomena and neither diminishes
124 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
nor increases in quantity." (b) " All changes obey the law of
the connection of cause and effect." (c) " All substances, in so
far as they are perceived as co-existent in space, act re-
ciprocally." 4th. In the category of modality we have the
three following principles : (a) " What agrees with the formal
conditions of experience (the forms of sense and the categories
of the understanding) is possible." (b) "What agrees with
the material conditions of experience (sensation) is actual."
(c) " What is connected with the real through the universal
conditions of experience is necessary."
We are now able to understand Kant's point of view and
to perceive the part he assigned to the mind in knowledge.
The matter alone is given to us; we ourselves provide the
form. It is not our mind that is subject to the laws of
things, but things that obey the laws of our mind. The
world only exists for us in so far as we think it. The
conditions of thought must therefore be the necessary laws
of the world, the violation of which would cause both our
thought and the world which is its object to disappear.
Sensations are given to us ; they are the matter of our per-
ceptions. But to them we add the a priori forms of sense,
space, and time. It is through the operation of our under-
standing and imagination that phenomena appear to us as
subject to universal laws, as linked together by causality, by a
determinism, which blends them, as it were, into a single
phenomenon, and that at the same time our own mental states
are concentrated in the unity of a permanent ego.
Transcendental Dialectic : Reason. We only know Pheno-
mena. The Sold, the World, God.
Space and time are only forms of sense. The categories
of the understanding are only forms of thought, and these
forms are only the laws of things in so far as they are
objects of knowledge to us. It is our mind that imposes on
things these forms which are the conditions of experience and
which have no significance without experience. For, he says,
" They (these principles of the pure understanding) would not even be
possible a priori, if we could not rely on the assistance of pure intuition
in mathematics, or on that of the conditions of a possible experience "
( Transcendental Dialectic, II, A).
REASON 125
/ As the sole function of the understanding is to make ex-
perience possible, it were absurd to expect to transcend
experience by means of the forms of the understanding.
Since we only see things under these forms it is evident that
we only know phenomena and not noumena, or, m other words,
we only know things as they appear to us and not as they are
in themselves. Over against the idea of the sensible world,
we have thus the idea of a world of noumena, of things in
themselves : a purely negative idea, but one that has at least
the advantage of abating the pretensions of sense. The latter
would pass off its world of phenomena as being the world of
things in themselves ; but criticism, on the contrary, leaves a
place for a reasonable belief. Metaphysics, as the science of
noumena, has already been condemned in the investigation of
the understanding.
The object of the Transcendental Dialectic is to show that
the mind, is by its nature, at once both forced to pursue the
absolute and incapable of attaining it. The logical function of
Eeason ( Vernunft) is ratiocination. But an act of reasoning is
not in itself sufficient, for it starts from a general principle
which should itself be derived from another principle, until at
last a principle is reached which would contain the totality of
the conditions of all that is thinkable. Thus the idea of the
unconditioned, of the absolute, is in a sense implied in every
act of reasoning, and is the special datum of reason. The under-
standing connects phenomena together ; its categories have an
objective validity, apply to things given, are controlled by
experience. But reason would follow up the chain of
phenomena beyond all possible experience ; reason aspires
after complete and absolute unity, after a perfect under-
standing ; reason furnishes ideas to which no sensible per-
ception can correspond. The ideas of reason are only
demands, a priori needs of the mind. Their sole function
is to lead on the understanding, and to sustain it in the effort
ever to rise to a more complete synthesis of phenomena. The
moment it attempts to do more than this, reason is bound to
fall into error : into a kind of error, moreover, that results from
its very nature, and " which it is as impossible to avoid as to
prevent the moon from seeming bigger at the horizon than at
its zenith." Reason, then, is the faculty of the absolute ; the
126 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
absolute merely represents a need, a demand of the mind.
And " Transcendental illusion " consists in that we convert this
subjective need into an objective reality.
The object of the Transcendental Dialectic is, as far as
possible, to expose this illusion. Since the absolute is the
condition of reasoning, there are, according to Kant, as many
kinds of absolute as there are kinds of reasoning. Now, there
are three forms of logical reasoning : the categorical, the
hypothetical, and the disjunctive ; and consequently the Absolute
has three forms. Categorical reasoning presupposes a subject
that is not itself an attribute : this is the e^o, the soul.
Hypothetical reasoning implies a supposition that presupposes
nothing further, and consequently embraces the whole of the
conditions of phenomena ; this is the universe. Disjunctive
reasoning, which embraces totality, implies the ultimate con-
dition of totality, namely, the supreme Being, the Being of
beings, God. These three absolutes give rise to three forms of
the dialectic reasoning, named by Kant respectively : The
Paralogisms of Pure Reason ; The Antinomies of Pure Reason ;
The Ideal of Pure Reason. To these three absolutes correspond
Kational Psychology, Kational Cosmology, and Eational Theology.
Eational Psychology rests on mere paralogisms. The mind
has no immediate perception of itself, it perceives itself in
tin^e, and is to itself a phenomenon. The substance, soul, is like
the substance, body, merely the product of the forms of the
understanding which reduce the manifold phenomena to
the unity of thought. What right have we, then, to pass
from the subject as it appears to an ego in itself; or from the
unity and identity of thought, which are purely formal.to infer
the existence of a substance, single, simple and self-identical ?
If Eational Psychology results in paralogisms, Eational
Cosmology only leads to contradictory propositions, insoluble
antinomies. In order to reach the absolute, or the totality of
the conditions of phenomena, we have to assume either a
highest term on which all things depend and which itself
depends on nothing, or a series in which each term is in
itself relative, but which, taken as a whole, is necessary. In
the first case we assume the commencement of the world in
space and time of simple elements, of a first cause, of a neces-
sary being. In the second case, the world has no limits either
REASON 127
in space or time ; there are no simple elements, the series of
secondary causes goes back ad infinitum ; and only contingent
interdependent beings exist. And Kant declares that reason
cannot escape from these antinomies. For example, if we
admit that the world has no commencement in time, we must
suppose that up to every given time an eternity, an infinite
series of successive periods, has elapsed ; but this is self-con-
tradictory, because the infinity of a series consists in the fact
that it can never be completed by a successive synthesis. If, on
the other hand, we admit that the world had a beginning in time,
then an empty time must have preceded this beginning of
things ; but there is nothing in an empty time to account for
the appearance of things.
Rational Theology attempts to prove that the Ideal of pure
reason, the perfect reality, the principle of all reality, actually
exists. Now all the proofs of the existence of God are, Kant
says, nothing but different forms of the ontological proof, and,
in this proof, existence is, without any grounds, inferred from
the idea ; an Ideal of reason, a subjective need, is transformed
into a real being, into a substantial and personal God. We
are unable to reflect on the possibility of anything without
ascending to the notion of a primary being, whom we call the
supreme Being, the Being of beings ; but this does not prove
that w r e must necessarily admit the existence of such a being.
We remain in this respect in a state of complete ignorance. 1
Conclusions arrived at in the Critique of Pure Reason. Possi-
bility of Mathematics ami Pure Physics : Impossibility of
Scientific Metaphysics.
To sum up : in his criticism of pure reason Kant en-
deavoured to establish at once the possibility of mathematics
and pure physics and the impossibility of a science of meta-
physics. The most remarkable thing in his philosophy is,
that whereas the majority of rationalists make light of ex-
perience and regard it only as a confused knowledge, Kant, on
the contrary, adopting the point of view of science, sought to
prove the validity of our knowledge of phenomena and of their
laws, i.e. the reality of the world as it appears to us.
1 This part of the Critique will be further dealt with in the History of the
Religious Problem.
128 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Principle of the Particular Laws of Nature : The Critique of
Judgment.
But if the most general laws of Nature have their root in
our understanding (which, in thinking nature, imposes them on
her), the particular laws, since they cannot 1 >e deduced a priori
from the forms of thought (from the universal determination),
are all empirical and contingent. It follows that induction is
not a scientific method ; it is founded on no principle, and there
is no warrant for its validity. The laws of this determination
might be observed, and there yet might be no order, no
harmony in the universe. They leave room for an infinity of
empirical laws, and even for disorder. But induction pre-
supposes the recurrence of the same phenomena, the fixity of
genera and of their relations. Kant saw this difficulty, and
endeavoured to solve it in his Critique of Judgment (1790).
The human mind is forced by its very nature to regard the
empirical laws as having been established by a mind similar to
itself, and it aims at making a system of experience possible.
Design can be proved neither by experience nor a priori. In
virtue of the laws of the understanding all design implies
mechanism ; but there is only one way of understanding why
the determination of causes gives rise to one combination
rather than to another, and this way is to assume that the idea
of the combination itself has determined the movements in
which it is realized. We do not know if there is really design
in nature, but where a mechanical explanation is impossible,
we are authorized and forced to assume design, order in nature,
the fixity of genera, and consequently laws expressing their
relations. The notion of design as the condition of the
empirical laws, and consequently of induction, is then, only a
regulative principle, a subjective need, the objectivity of which
remains unproved. In allowing only a hypothetical value to
the principle of final causes, the basis of the inductive sciences,
Kant seems to go back to the Cartesian ideal of a mechanical
and mathematical philosophy.
Kant substitutes Moral Faith for Scientific Metaphysics.
Critique of Practical Reason.
The result of Kant's philosophy would seem to be the
imprisonment of the mind in our present life ; for is not the
REASON 129
supersensible world according to him necessarily beyond our
knowledge ? But what is prohibited to Pure reason is not
prohibited to Practical reason. The moral law and duty, these
are the special data of practical reason. The characteristic of
this law is that it does not, like a law of nature, realize
itself, but that it has to be realized by us, that it is a cate-
gorical imperative. This law is an a priori law, and therefore
purely formal, since no real object can be given us outside ex-
perience. Practical reason commands us to bring our actions
under the form of Duty. But if the moral law is universally
binding it must be that all are able to realize it ; " thou canst,
because thou oughtest," says Schiller after Kant. The conse-
quence of obligation is possibility : the first postulate of morality
is therefore freedom. We should work towards the realization
of the sovereign good, which would be the harmony between
morality and felicity. Therefore we must believe that this
harmony is possible, for here again obligation implies possi-
1 lility. Now the sovereign good which contains both holiness and
happiness is not of this world ; and hence the second postu-
late of morality is the immortality of the soul. But in
Nature there is nothing to convince us of the ultimate
triumph of the good, and yet we find ourselves forced to believe
in this triumph, and consequently, in what is for us its
necessary condition, namely, the existence of God, which is the
third postulate of morality. Thus, for metaphysical science,
Kant substitutes a moral faith resting upon the certainty of
duty ; and for a dogmatism that is always insecure and open to
attack, beliefs which, being bound up with human morality, can
never be shaken by speculative doubt.
Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Metaphysical Theories of Reason.
Of all the solutions of the problems of Eeason which had
hitherto been proposed, that of Kant was perhaps the first in
which all the elements of the problem were included, and
an effort made to bring them to unity. But the
evolution of philosophic thought was not to be arrested.
Kant's method was the source of new speculation ; and his
criticism gave birth to a dogmatism more bold than any that
had ever yet been formulated. Foresaid his successors, why
assume the existence of a thing in itself when we know
130 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
nothing of it ? Fichte accordingly abolished it. There
remained on his theory only the absolute ego as source both
of the content and the form of knowledge. The object
of philosophy was, he said, to start with a single principle,
and from it to deduce all things. Philosophy discovers
the necessary acts of mind, in which it finds the basis of all the
particular sciences, and establishes their possibility and their
principles. The terms of a deduction are necessary only when
they are derived from the ultimate and necessary principle,
and this principle is the absolute activity of the ego. In
positing itself, and in order to posit itself, the ego sets up against
itself the non-ego. The categories are only the necessary forms
of this creative activity. The special function of reason,
properly so called, is, by the abstraction of all objects, to attain
consciousness of the absolute ego as the sole and only reality,
the principle of principles.
Schelling takes as his starting point the Absolute, which is
immediately reached by intellectual intuition (intellectuelle
Anschauung), a,n intuition above consciousness and understanding,
and in which the distinction between subject and object, the
antithesis between knowledge and existence disappear. The
absolute is absolute indifference, the identity of the subjective
and the objective. It is the principle of the conscious and the
unconscious, of Nature and of mind. Everything is contained
in Reason, which is identical with the Absolute itself, and out-
side which there is nothing. From this Absolute all things
must be deduced. " To philosophize on nature is to create
nature." The function of reason is not only to provide science
with principles ; its work is science itself, absolute science.
Hegel, like Schelling, claims to deduce from the Absolute
absolute science ; and instead of proceeding at random he
sought to establish both the necessity of this speculative
method and its fixed laws, its dialectic processes. Logic and
metaphysics, as well as the real and the intelligible, are made
identical. This is called Panlogism. All that is required is
to give oneself up to the dialectical movement of thought, in
order, by means of theses, antitheses, and syntheses, to con-
struct the whole of reality.
With these three great German idealists, Eeason, which by
Kant had been reduced to the modest role of a regulative
REASON 131
principle, resumed its supremacy ; aud at a time when positive
science was discouraging all attempts at a knowledge of the
Absolute, a last endeavour was made to construct the universe,
and to formulate a theory which should be final.
Scottish School : Reason reduced to Common Sense.
While Kant had opened out a new road in philosophy as a
means of escape from Hume's scepticism, the Scottish School,
on the other hand Eeid (1710-1796), Beattie (1735-1803),
Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) contented themselves with bring-
ing forward in opposition to Hume's conclusions the deliver-
ances of common sense. They developed a theory that had
already been propounded in France by P. Buffier in his TraiU
des premieres vdrites (1724). They accepted without discussion
all such principles as are generally accepted by all men, and
are so necessary in the conduct of life, that without belief in
them a man must be led into a thousand absurdities in
practice (Eeid on The Intellectual Powers, Essay VI, Ch. IV).
These principles, which were neither classified nor made to
depend on any higher principle, comprised matters of fact,
gratuitous assumptions {e.g. everything which is affirmed by
conscience really exists : the thoughts of which I am conscious
are the thoughts of a substance which I call my mind, my
thought, my ego : we have some power over our actions, etc.),
the principles necessary to the mathematical or positive
sciences, the laws of aesthetic taste, the first principles of
ethics and of metaphysics (substance, cause, design). This
common-sense solution of the problem of reason which
scandalized Kant so much is not a solution at all, but an
abandonment of the problem.
Nevertheless, amid the sensualistic and sceptical views
which at that time prevailed in France and England, it was
something to have re-asserted, even if only under the some-
what vague designation of common sense, the claims of a
higher faculty.
Victor Cousin : Reason is Spontaneous and Impersonal.
In France the leader of the Eclectic School, Victor Cousin,
having first borrowed from Kant the principles of his polemic
against the empirical school, then endeavoured to return to an
132 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
ontological doctrine of reason. He dwelt especially on two
distinctive characteristics of reason its spontaneity and its
impersonality. By establishing and proving the spontaneity
of reason, Cousin hoped to escape from Kant's subjectivity,
even while he admitted with the latter the existence of a
priori principles, which he calls absolute truths. He regarded
Kant's subjectivism as the result of contemplating the laws
of mind at the reflective instead of at the spontaneous
stage. The impossibility of denying, or, as it is now ex-
pressed, the inconceivability of the opposite was the
criterion of truth adopted by Kant. This criterion is, how-
ever, merely relative and subjective, and if w T e confine our-
selves to it, these a priori principles are mere forms of the
understanding, laws of mind. But this mark of necessity
only appears in a later stage of the mind's development, that
is, the reflective stage. It is through reflection that the
subjective element is introduced into any knowledge. Before
reflection is possible, there must be an anterior act of mind, a
spontaneous act which cannot be cpiiestioned. Victor Cousin
calls this the Pure Apperception of truth. It is only when
this first apperception comes to be doubted and contested that
the intellect brings itself to the proof of the truth. It is then,
and not till then, that the subjective powers of understanding
or the categories appear. Before this, the truth presents itself
to us not as necessary but simply as true. " All subjectivity
disappears in the spontaneous apperception of pure reason."
Spontaneous reason is, in short, nothing but an inspiration.
Reason is not only spontaneous, it is also impersonal. If
reason were an individual faculty it would be free like our
will or variable and relative like our senses. But I do not say
my truths. Beason is the truth manifesting itself in each
man. In order to grasp the meaning of this doctrine, which
reminds us of that of Averroes concerning the unity of
intellect, we must remember that it was put forward in
opposition to Lammenais, who w r as against all freedom
of investigation or of thought, maintaining that it implied
an appeal to the individual as supreme. But if individual
reason is supreme, then the individual is the only judge of
things, and there would no longer be any criterion of truth ;
the spiritual unity of society would be broken up and anarchy
REASON 133
would reign in the world of thought as of politics. Hence
the necessity of an external authority for the making of laws.
In order to avoid this conclusion, Cousin had to prove that an
appeal to reason is not an appeal to the mere individual, that there
is something common to all individuals, namely, reason, whose,
authority is the supreme judge, and which is the bond of
union between the minds of men. But Cousin did not
confine himself to this general theory. He also attempted a
reduction of the primary notions to two, namely, Substance and
Cause, which, according to him, are represented by the absolute
and the relative, the one and the many, the real and the
phenomenal, the finite and the infinite. To these two funda-
mental ideas he added in 1828 a third, namely, the relation
between the Infinite and the finite, though on his doctrine, the
idea of the Infinite and Absolute, that is, of God, or of Being
in itself, is the foundation even of reason and of thought.
" Leibnitz had said that there is being in every proposition. Now a pro-
position is only the expression of a thought, and there is being in every pro-
position, because there is being in every thought. But the idea of being in
its lower degree implies a more or less real but clear idea of Being in
itself, namely, God. To think is to know that one thinks, to trust one's
thought, to believe in the principle of thought, to believe in the existence
of this principle ... so that all thought implies a spontaneous belief in
God, and there is no such thing as natural atheism."
Hamilton, in Opposition to the Successors of Kant and to Victor
Cousin, adheres to the Theory of the Relativity of Knowledge.
Whilst Schelling and Hegel in Germany, and Victor Cousin
in France were making the whole theory of knowledge
dependent on the principle of the absolute, the last represen-
tative of the Scottish School of Philosophy, Sir W. Hamilton,
interpreting Eeid's doctrine in a Kantian sense, was bringing
forward many forcible arguments to prove the relativity of
knowledge. " Our whole knowledge of mind and of matter is
relative, conditioned, relatively- conditioned. Of things abso-
lutely or in themselves, be they external, be they internal, we
know nothing, or know them only as incognizable ; and we be-
come aware of their incomprehensible existence only as this is
indirectly and accidentally revealed to us through certain
qualities related to our faculties of knowledge " {Discussions,
134 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
p. 644). In his arguments against Cousin and Schelling, who
maintained that we have knowledge of the infinite and absolute,
Hamilton endeavoured to prove that these ideas are irreconcilable
with the laws of consciousness, and the conditions of thought.
He makes a distinction between the absolute and the infinite,
regarding them as two species of one genus, i.e., the uncondi-
tioned. He defines the infinite as the unconditionally unlimited,
and the absolute as the unconditionally limited, a com-
plete whole ; and he declares these two terms, which were
identified by Cousin, to be contradictory. He even denies the
possibility of these ideas, first, because they are purely negative ;
secondly, because they are contrary to the fundamental law of
mind, winch is that " to think is to condition."
"The unconditionally unlimited or the Infinite, the unconditionally
limited or the Absolute, cannot positively be construed to the mind ; they
can be conceived only by a thinking away from, or abstraction of those
very conditions under which thought is realized ; consequently, the notion
of the Unconditioned is only negative negative of the inconceivable
itself (p. 13). . . . He [Kant] ought to have shown that the Unconditioned
had no objective application, because in fact it had no subjective
affirmation . . . because it contained nothing even conceivable ; and that
it is self -contradictory, because it is not a notion, either simple or positive,
but only a fasciculus of negations " (Discussions).
This is Hamilton's first argument. The ideas of the
absolute and the infinite are only a negation of the finite, of
the relative. His second argument, which is closely connected
with the first, runs as follows :
" To think is to condition. . . . For as the greyhound cannot outstrip his
shadow . . . nor . . . the eagle outsoar the atmosphere in which he floats
and by which alone he is su]:>ported ; so the mind cannot transcend that
sphere of limitations within and through which exclusively the possibility
of thought is realized. . . . How, indeed, it could ever be doubted that
thought is only of the conditioned may well be deemed a matter of the
profoundest admiration. Thought cannot transcend consciousness, con-
sciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of
hought, known only in correlation and mutually limiting each other "
Ibid, p. 14).
In short, the second argument amounts to this : Every act
of thought or of consciousness consists in establishing dis-
tinctions and relations, therefore the infinite, which admits of
REASON 135
no distinction, and the absolute which ex hypothesi excludes
all relations, are inconceivable terms. Hamilton's third argu-
ment refers to the theory of Cousin, which represents the
absolute as cause. The idea of cause implies a relation, there-
fore the absolute when conceived as a cause becomes relative.
" What exists merely as a cause, exists merely for the sake of something
else, is not final in itself, but simply a mean towards an end. . . .
Abstractly considered, the effect is therefore superior to the cause"
(Ibid, p. 35).
Hamilton connects the principle of causality with his theory
of the impossibility of conceiving the absolute. He explains our
belief in causality as derived " not from a power, but from an
impotence of mind," that is to say, he explains it by the law of
the conditioned, by our incapacity to conceive an absolute
beginning.
Hamilton, however, gives back in his theory of belief, all
that he seemed to have irrevocably taken away by his theory
of knowledge.
" The sphere of our belief is much more extensive than the sphere of our
knowledge, and therefore when I deny that the infinite oan be by us
known, I am far from denying that by us it is, must, and ought to be
believed " (Lectures, Vol. II, p. 530).
He recognizes that the governing principles of the mind
themselves rest on belief.
" But reason itself must rest at last upon authority ; for the original
data of reason do not rest on reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason
'on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data are therefore in
rigid propriety beliefs or trusts. Thus it is that in the last resort we
must perforce philosophically admit that belief is the primary condition of
reason, and not reason the ultimate ground of belief. We are compelled to
surrender the proud intellige ut credas of Abelard, to content ourselves
with the humble Crede ut intelligas of Anselm " (Dissertatio7is on Reid,
p. 760).
Maine de Biran. Relation between Consciousness and
Reason.
The doctrine of Thomas lieid was accepted by a certain
number of French psychologists, but the teaching of Maine de
Biran suggested a more scientific and fruitful method. Maine
de Biran followed Kant in the distinction between the matter
136 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
and the form of knowledge, but with the former the form of
knowledge was not a collection of empty categories anterior to
all experience. The categories were only divers points of view
of reflection, or of internal experience. Thus, for instance, the
consciousness of our activity gives us the notion of cause, which
becomes the principle of causality. " The whole mystery of a
priori notions is dispelled by the light of internal experience,
by which we learn that our idea of cause has its primitive and
only type in the consciousness of the ego identified with that
of effort." Here he adopts the theory of Leibnitz, inasmuch
as he says that the mind is innate to itself and contains as the
laws of its own activity the principles which render all things
intelligible. But Maine de Biran does not tell us by what
right the laws of our empirical consciousness are thus transformed
into universal laws. Eavaisson makes consciousness a meta-
physical faculty. He identifies reason with reflective conscious-
ness, the principles of knowledge with those of being, and these,
according to him, we apprehend immediately within ourselves,
in an experience which is unique. To connect the
categories with the activity of the mind, and the mind itself
through its necessary laws with the absolute ; to reconcile
Leibnitz with Kant, by showing that the principles of all the
sciences were to he found in this theory : this was the task
attempted by the French spiritualists a formidable task, which
was not pursued by them with a sufficiently resolute and
systematic spirit. We can here only mention the recent
original theories of Messieurs Vacherot (antithesis between the
infinite which is realized in the universe and the Perfect, the
existence of which is purely ideal), Lachelier, Renouvier, etc.
M. Taine represents in France doctrines similar to those of
Stuart Mill.
English Empirical School : Stuart Mill. Psychological
Explanation of our Belief in Universal and Necessary Laws.
Basis of Induction. Axioms and Definitions.
Meanwhile, in England, the philosophical tradition which
had begun with Hume had not been interrupted (T. Brown,
James Mill). Out of this tradition, combined with the
influence of Comte's positivism, according to which the whole
history of the human mind goes to prove that we can only
REASON 137
know facts and their relations, the English contemporary school
of thought arose. Kant's Critique called for a reply on
the part of the Empiricists, and awakened them to the
necessity of perfecting their system. According to Kant, the
distinctive characteristic of the primary truths is, that they are
universal and necessary. Experience, indeed, tells us what is,
but not what must be ; it shows what exists at a given time, but
not what must be always and everywhere. Stuart Mill does not
deny this fact. Men believe themselves to possess universal
and necessary principles, but he traces this belief to a sub-
jective illusion, of which he gives a psychological explanation.
Two ideas that have always presented themselves together, or
in succession, tend to suggest each other. This is the law of
the Association of Ideas. Two ideas that have always occurred
together, and that have never occurred the one without the
other, become so strongly associated that their union becomes
indissoluble, and by the very nature of the human mind
they appear incapable of existing apart.
As regards the possession by all men of the primary
truths, it is sufficiently explained by the fact that there
are experiences which all men have, and which they cannot
but have. Thus, as Hume had already discovered, these
primary truths are only habits of the mind which time
and repetition have rendered irresistible. It is a fact that
anything which is violently opposed to our habits of mind
appears to us to be inconceivable, and that what seems to us
to be inconceivable we also think of as impossible. But the
inseparable associations created by experience may also be
destroyed by experience. In the history of science we find
that many of the theories which are now universally accepted
were once declared to be absurd, such as the existence of the
antipodes, the law of the permanence of force, etc. The
criterion of certitude is the inconceivability of the opposite, a
principle which is itself founded on habits of mind, on associa-
tions of ideas created by experience.
We have now to discover the origin of the principles of
human knowledge. The basis of Induction is our expectation
that under the same circumstances the same phenomena will
arise, and this is our belief in the uniformity of nature. That
the same antecedents will always be followed by the same
138 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
consequents is the principle upon which the positive sciences
are based. But this principle, according to Mill, is itself
only the result of an inseparable association. We observe
gradually from time to time that under the same conditions
the same facts arise. All our experiences go to confirm this
law of the regular sequence of events. Every law discovered
by science bears witness to it, repeats it in a different form ; in
short, this law impresses itself on our minds as the universal
result of experience.
But if the principles of positive science can be traced to
experience and association, can the same be said of the science
of mathematics and its axioms ? Did not even Hume place this
science on a different footing, and admit that its principles
are self-evident ? But Mill, who is more consistent and more
daring, maintains that even mathematics is an experimental
science. He tries to show how from real forms we abstract
clearly defined mathematical figures, and that the mathematical
axioms are the result of an indissoluble association of ideas,
which has its origin in experience. If we affirm that two inter-
secting straight lines cannot enclose a space, " it is because we
cannot look at any two straight lines which intersect one
another without seeing that from that point they continue to
diverge more and more." As to the law of identity, it is
merely a generalization from experience founded on the fact
that " belief and disbelief are two different mental states
excluding one another " {Log. II, 7).
Herbert Spencer completes the Theory of the Association of
Ideas by his Theory of Evolution and Heredity, and the Psycho-
logical by the Physiological View.
Mill, from the point of view of psychology and logic,
traced the principles of thought to individual experience,
by the progressive association of ideas in a given mind.
Herbert Spencer, as a biologist and evolutionist, sub-
stitutes the experience of the race for the experience of the
individual, hereditary habits for inseparable associations.
Intelligence is a vital function, and, like life itself, a continuous
adjustment of mind to its environment, a harmony or correspond-
ence ever advancing towards perfection, between thought and
nature. The activity of thought is not distinct from the activity
REASON 139
of the cerebral organs. Two associated ideas represent the con-
nection between cerebral cells. These connections correspond to
impressions and their relations within us ; to phenomena, and
their relations outside us. Heredity is a law of life. As
Generations succeed one another the human brain is modified,
transformed in its organization, and expresses ever more
clearly certain principles corresponding to the universal law of
things. Leibnitz was right when he declared, in opposition to
Locke, that there is something innate in the mind. To rest
with the unqualified assertion that, antecedent to experience,
the mind is a blank, is to ignore the questions whence come
the powers of organizing experience ? Whence arise the
different degrees of that power possessed by different races
and by different individuals of the same race ? {Psych.
IV, 7).
These instincts originate, like others, in association and habit,
but that which is habit with the father is nature with the child.
The principles of reason require not only a psychological but
also a biological explanation, namely, that of hereditary trans-
mission.
"The universal law that, other things being equal, the cohesion of
psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which they have
followed one another in experience, supplies an explanation of the so-
called ' forms of thought,' as soon as it is supplemented by the law that
habitual psychical successions entail some hereditary tendency to such
successions, which under persistent conditions will become cumulative in
generation after generation " {Ibid.).
Stuart Mill on the Idea of the Absolute and the Infinite.
It is curious that Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, the
two great expositors of later empiricism in England, should
have maintained, in opposition to Hamilton, that the absolute
is not inconceivable. Mill shows that Hamilton's arguments
fall through, if instead of saying the infinite or the absolute,
we say " something infinite, something absolute." " "When we
are told of an absolute in the abstract or of an absolute Being,
even though it be called God, we are bound to ask, absolute in
what ? " The absolute Being should possess in his plentitude
all the attributes ; he should be absolutely good and absolutely
bad. Such a conception is " worse than a fasciculus of
140 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
negations, it is a fasciculus of contradictions." In the same way
the abstract infinite would have to be infinite in greatness and
infinite in littleness. It is evident that we cannot think this
mass of contradictions. But it is not contradictory to think
an absolute Power and an absolute Intelligence.
" Hamilton has not shown that we cannot know a concrete reality as
infinite or as absolute. Infinite space, for instance : Is there nothing
positive in that ? The negative part of this conception is the absence of
bounds. The positive are the idea of space and of space greater than any
finite space. . . . The conception of the infinite, as that which is greater
than any given quantity, is a conception we all possess sufficient for all
human purposes, and as genuine and positive a conception as anyone need
wish to have. ... If I talk of an Absolute Being, I use words without
meaning, but if I talk of a being who is absolute in wisdom and goodness,
that is, who knows everything, and at all times intends what is best for
every sentient creature, I understand perfectly what I mean. . . . The
leading argument of Hamilton . . . holds good only of an abstract uncon-
ditioned which cannot possibly exist, and not of a concrete Being supposed
infinite and absolute in certain definite attributes" (Mill's Exam, of Sir W.
Hamilton? 8 Philosophy, Ch. IV).
As regards Hamilton's statement that the Absolute cannot
be a cause, that is to say enter into a relation, Mill remarks
that the only relation that must be excluded from the notions
of the Absolute is the relation of dependence. Hamilton was
right in saying that to think is to condition. We cannot escape
from the relativity of knowledge, but we can conceive the
infinite and the absolute under the form of relativity. We have a
positive conception of absolute knowledge in the same sense
that we have a conception of absolutely pure water.
"To think a thing is thus to think it as conditioned by attributes which
are themselves conceivable ; but it is not necessarily to think it as con-
ditioned by a limited quantum of such attributes ; on the contrary, we
can think it under a degree of these attributes which is higher than any
limited degree, and this is to think it as infinite " (Ibid.).
Herbert Spencer : We cannot comprehend the Absolute, never-
theless the Absolute is a Positive Notion.
Herbert Spencer also adopts the theory of the relativity of
knowledge, using the same arguments as Hamilton and
Mansel. To think the Absolute is to place oneself in opposition
and to it, and consequently to limit it. To be known, the absolute
REASON 141
would have to be given in consciousness, hence to enter into
relation with consciousness, and hence to cease to be absolute.
Moreover, Spencer adds, every act of knowledge implies rela-
tions of difference and resemblance. Again, intelligence is a
vital function, and, like every function, is co-ordinate with its
environment, and involves a perpetual adjustment of internal
relations to external relations, and is therefore essentially
relative. It would seem that we are now for ever imprisoned
in the relative.
At the same time Spencer agrees with Descartes and
Fenelon in declaring that the absolute and the infinite are the
most positive of our notions. His theory is that we cannot
comprehend the absolute, but that nevertheless the absolute is
a positive notion.
" Besides that definite consciousness of which logic formulates the laws,
there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated"
{First Principles, I, Ch. IV).
All the arguments employed to prove the relativity of know-
ledge presuppose something beyond the relative.
" To say that we cannot know the Absolute, is by implication to affirm
that there is an Absolute. The noumenon, everywhere named as the
antithesis of the phenomenon, is throughout necessarily thought of as an
actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a
knowledge of appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a
reality of which they are the appearances " (Ibid.).
The absolute is not a mere negation of the relative. " Take
for example the limited and the unlimited. ... In the
antithetical notion of the Unlimited, the consciousness of
limits is abolished, but not the consciousness of some kind of
being." This argument is similar to that of Fenelon, namely,
that the infinite is the negation of a negation, and consequently
an affirmation.
" It is forgotten that there is something, which alike forms the raw
material of definite thought, and remains after the definiteness which
thinking gave to it has been destroyed. And this indefinite something
constitutes our consciousness of the non-relative or absolute. Impossible
though it is to give to this consciousness any quantitative and qualitative
expression whatever, it is none the less certain that it remains with us as
a positive and indestructible element of thought" (Ibid. pp. 90, 91).
142 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Our conception of the relative disappears if we assume our
conception of the absolute to be a mere negation. " How can
there possibly be constituted a consciousness of the unformed
and the unlimited, when by its very nature consciousness is
possible only under forms and limits." In everything we
think there is something which persists under all modes ; this
permanent element we are unable to grasp or determine or
isolate ; we cannot think that 1 >y means of which we think.
But if we abolish it we abolish thought. The absolute is,
therefore, the substance of thought.
" This consciousness is not the abstract of any one group of thoughts,
ideas, or conceptions ; but it is the abstract of all thoughts, ideas, or
conceptions. That which is common to them all and cannot be got rid of,
is what we predicate by the word existence. Dissociated as this becomes
from each of its modes by the perpetual change of those modes, it remains
as an indefinite consciousness of something constant under all modes. . . .
By its very nature, therefore, this ultimate mental element is at once
necessarily indefinite and necessarily indestructible. . . . An ever-present
sense of real existence is the very basis of our intelligence. ... At the
same time that by the laws of thought, we are rigorously prevented from
forming a conception of absolute existence, we are by the laws of thought
equally prevented from ridding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute
existence : this consciousness being, as we here see, the obverse of our self-
consciousness " (Ibid.).
Conclusion.
We have now followed the history of the problem of reason
in its gradual development, from the vague declamations of the
earlier philosophers against sensuous knowledge to the Cartesian
theories, the criticism of Kant, and the empiricism of Mill and
Herbert Spencer. The problem of reason is at any rate now
clearly defined. On what principles are the mathematical
sciences based, and what is the origin of these principles ? Do
they not, by their universality and necessity, lead our minds up
to the primary notions of the infinite and the absolute, being
at the same time a warrant of the validity of our knowledge of
the phenomenal world ? These are the elements, or data of
the problem. According to the empiricists, these principles of
knowledge are habits of mind, corresponding to the most
universal relations between phenomena. Our primary notions
they explain by generalization and abstraction, or by a kind of
REASON 143
addition to and extension of experience. Herbert Spencer,
however, makes the notion of the absolute arise out of the
nature of the mind itself. The Kantians uphold the uni-
versality and the necessity of the principles of knowledge, but
for them, these principles are forms of thought which have
significance only when applied to phenomena, and so cannot put
us in possession of the absolute. Finally, the Rationalists
would endeavour to establish a relation between the necessary
principles of thought and the necessary principles of things, and
thus give as much certainty to our knowledge of phenomena as
to mathematical deductions, and the higher ethical or meta-
physical truths. This is how the problem stands to-day. In
his theory of heredity, Herbert Spencer has pursued the
arguments of empiricism to their utmost limits, but by his
defence of the notion of the absolute, which was abandoned by
Kant and Hamilton, he has restored a part, and that the
larger part, of the disputed ground.
CHAPTER V.
ON MEMORY.
Plato : the avafxv^di^ and the juvi'i/m.}].
The problem which the earlier philosophers set before them-
selves was too vast to allow them to give much attention to
the details of psychological phenomena. Democritus may have
anticipated the Epicurean materialistic theory of memory, but
it is not till Plato that we find texts directly bearing upon
the subject, and his theory is clothed in such obscure meta-
physical language that its meaning is not easily discovered.
It is, however, clear that there were for him two kinds of
memory, one of which may lie called transcendental memory,
and the other empirical memory. The first is rational
reminiscence. Awakened by contact with the intelligible
elements in this world, the mind sees once more the world of
the Ideas, which it had known in a former life, and which since
then had slumbered within it. If we discover once more the
Ideas in our soul, it is because they have never ceased to exist
there, because they have always been in us in a latent state
unillumined by the light of consciousness. There is then an
entirely spiritual memory, to which the body cannot serve as
instrument. Put what then is the nature of empirical memory (
" ' And memory may, I think, be rightly described as the preservation of
consciousness,' ' Right.' ' But do we not distinguish memory from recollec-
tion ' ' I think so.' ' And do we not mean by recollection the power which
the soul has of recovering, when by herself, some feeling which she
experienced when in company with the body V " {Philebus, 34 a, b).
What we have called Plato's empirical memory involves
ON MEMORY 145
then two steps, the mere persistence of sensations, and active
recollection which is characterized by the independent effort of
the mind. As regards the nature of the process by which
former cognitions are preserved and revived in the mind, the
theory of reminiscence (ara/zw/cn?), whether it be rational or
empirical, assumes that Ideas that have once been present to
the mind form, as it were, a part of it, and that the mind has
the power of reviving them by an act of spiritual energy. On
the other hand, the comparisons used by Plato to illustrate
memory would seem to indicate a physiological theory. The
soul, he says, is a book and memory, a scribe (ypaiufxaTev?), who
writes therein what the senses dictate, and a painter
(Qaypdfpos), who illustrates the text with corresponding
pictures {Phil. 39 a).
" I would have you imagine then," Plato says elsewhere (Thecetetus,
191), "that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax which is of
different sizes in different men ; harder, moister, and having more or less
purity in one than another, and in some of an intermediate quality. . . .
Let us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother of the muses ;
and that when we wish to remember anything which we have seen
or heard or thought in our own minds, we hold the wax to the percep-
tions and thoughts and in that material receive the impression of them as
from the seal of a ring ; and that we remember and know what is
imprinted as long as the image lasts ; but when the image is effaced, or
cannot be taken, then we forget and do not know."
Aristotle ; Description of the Phenomena of Memory. Dis-
tinction between Memory and Imagination. Spontaneous and
Voluntary Memory.
Aristotle devoted to the subject of memory a special treatise
(De Memoria et Reminiscentia), in which he gives a remarkably
accurate desciption of the phenomenon.
" Let us first see what are the objects with which memory is con-
cerned. In the first place, we cannot remember the future ; the future
can only be to us an object of conjecture, of expectation (iXvis). Nor has
memory anything to do with the present, for that is the object of sensa-
tion. Memory is concerned with the past only. . . . When, the objects
themselves being absent, we have the knowledge and sensation of them,
then it is memory that acts. . . . Every time we make an act of memory
we say to ourselves that we have heard that thing before, or that we
have felt it or thought it. . . . Thus memory is not to be confounded
K
146 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
with sensation or with intellectual conception, but is the possession (e's)
or the modification of either one or the other with the condition of past
time. There is no memory of the present moment at that moment itself,
as has just been said, but only sensation as regards the present, expecta-
tion as regards the future, and memory as regards the past. Thus
memory is always accompanied by the notion of time 1 ' {Be Mem. et
Remin. Ch. I).
In short, memory relates to the past as distinguished from
the present and the future. Memory and imagination
((pavracria.) resemble each other in some cases so much that
it is impossible to distinguish them. They both depend on
the sensus communis and not on the thinking mind, and both
result from and are continuations of the motion of the
senses. This motion, which is the original occasion of the
sensation, leaves in us an impression of the object perceived,
as the impress of a seal is left on wax. Thus it is
preserved in the organs and may spontaneously recur. We
can, it is true, recall acts of reasoning, or demonstrations, as, for
example, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right angles ; but these intellectual conceptions are always
joined to some image ((pavracr/na). What then is it that
distinguishes memory from imagination ? It is that the latter
does not imply recognition, or the return to past perceptions,
that it does not present the image as a copy. In memory, on
the contrary, we recognize that what is at this moment present
to our mind is a copy of something that was present to it
before, either as a perception of the senses or as actual know-
ledge.
But if memory is only the knowledge of the movements
which have determined sensations, how are we to explain the
fact that the remembrance differs from the sensation itself ?
Aristotle replies by a comparison.
" An animal in a picture is at once an animal and a copy, and though one
and the same it is nevertheless both these things at the same time. . . .
We may represent this picture to ourselves, either as an animal or as the
copy of an animal. We must suppose that the image which is painted in
us exists there in exactly the same manner, and that the notion which is
contemplated by our soul is something in itself, although it is also the
image of some other thing. Thus inasmuch as it is considered in itself,
it is a mental representation, while inasmuch as it is relative to another
object, it is as it were a copy of a recollection " (Be Mem. et Rem. Ch. I).
ON MEMORY 147
The object of memory is therefore a present image assimi-
lated to a past impression. " Memory is the possession (ei$)
of an 'image as copy of the object of which it is the image."
Memory (/uw/mi) is a property of the sentient soul, a func-
tion of the sensus communis, and is consequently to be found
in a great many animals. But no animal except man possesses
the faculty of reminiscence (ava/uLviicriv). Eeminiscence is
memory under the direction of the will, and, like the syllogism,
can only belong to a mind capable of reflection and calculation.
Memory is a movement which begins in the sensus communis
and extends to the soul. Eeminiscence is a movement the
reverse of this, and goes from the soul to the organs of sense.
When we wish to recall something we have once known, we
succeed because the psychical movements, like the physical
movements, have a regular sequence, and their consequents
follow their antecedents in obedience to certain laws. In this
way, when, for instance, we wish to recall a verse or a phrase
that we have forgotten, we begin by repeating the first word.
Success in reminiscence depends on the association of ideas
and of movements. . This theory of Aristotle is remarkably
exact, at least as regards the description of the phenomena. We
must observe, however, that in reality the association of ideas
plays as great a part in spontaneous recollection as in volun-
tary and reflective reminiscence.
Theories of the Stoics and Epicureans.
The soul . being on the doctrine of the Stoics a material
thing, Memory could be for them only an impression left by
sensation. But just as sensation, to be perceived, presupposes
the activity, the assent of the mind, so is memory also due to
an action of the mind, which stores up, as it were, the sensa-
tions it is to revive (visa quasi recondit, Cic. Acad. II, 10, 30).
The Epicurean theory is so far original that it offers a
different explanation of imagination and memory. " The soul,
an eminently mobile substance (mobilis egregie), is composed
of atoms which are small, smooth, and round " (Lucr. Ill, 205).
This material soul enters into relation with the external
world by means of simulacra (Lucr. IV, 34), which detach
themselves like small membranes from the surface of the body
and fly about in the air. These images, these thin shapes, are
148 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
like the rinds (corte,v) of things, and have the same form and
the same appearance as the bodies from which they are
detached.
"... Like the gossamer coats which at times cicadas doff at summer,
and the vesture which the slippery serpent puts off among the thorns,"
(Lucr. IV, 56 sq.). 1 These simulacra are not only the cause of our sensa-
tions. There are some yet more thin : " these enter into the porous
parts of the body and stir the fine nature of the mind within and provoke
sensation" (Lucr. IV, p. 101 of trans.). The simulacra are of such a fine
tissue that "when they meet they readily unite like a cobweb or piece of gold
leaf." "... Therefore we see centaurs and limbs of scyllas and cerberus
like paws of dogs and idols of those that are dead."
Thus images do not arise in our minds spontaneously they
are not a reproduction of past sensations, but correspond to
external phantoms which mingle in a thousand different ways.
The visions (cpavTacriuaTa) of insanity and sleep have a real
object, for they act upon us, and that which has no reality can
produce no action (D. L. x, 20). To the objection that our
mental images correspond to our desires, that in sleep our
dreams correspond to our individual and subjective pre-occupa-
tions, Lucretius replies :
" Because they are so thin the mind can see distinctly only those which
it strains itself to see . . . and whenever men have given during many
days in succession undivided attention to games, we generally see that
after they have ceased to perceive them with their senses, there yet
remain passages open in the mind through which the same ideas of things
may enter" (IV, 780 sq.).
This is the Epicurean explanation of the imagination. As f < >r
memory it is merely the impression (rinros) left by a sensation
that has been frequently repeated (fxv}'ifx.t] too 7roAAa/a? ej-wOev
(pavevTos). Even -general ideas are images, exact copies, and
it is for this reason that they have the intuitive evidence and
the infallible certainty of sensation (D. L. x, 21, 22). This
impression, once it has been made on our mind, enables
us to read the future by the past, and becomes anticipation.
This 7T|OoX>;\^/9 of the Epicureans resembles the expectation of
contemporary English associationists. At the same moment
that we utter the word man, we conceive the figure of man, in
virtue of a preconception which we owe to the preceding
operations of the senses (D. L. x, 21).
1 Munro's trans.
ON MEMORY 149
Thus memory as well as every other mental process is re-
duced by Epicurus into an organic phenomenon.
Metaphysical Theory of the Neo-Platonists.
This materialistic theory held by the Epicureans and Stoics
could not possibly be accepted by the Neo-Platonists. Ac-
cording to the latter the individual soul is not separated from
the universal soul from which it emanates, but is still part of
this universal soul, and through it belongs to the second
hypostasis, that is, to Eeason (vovs).
It is in Intelligence, which alone knows itself, that we are
conscious of ourselves. Reason is therefore the ultimate basis
of memory (Erin. IV, iii, 26, 30 ; viii, 6, 13). But as we
are united to the body, before what takes place in the superior
part of the soul can reach our consciousness or be preserved in
memory, Eeason extracting indivisible thought from the depths
where it lay concealed must unfold its complexity and display
it to our imagination as in a mirror (Enn. IV, iii, 30).
Platonic Theory of St. Augustine : Memory Rational and
Empirical. Latent Memories in the Mind.
St. Augustine divides the faculties of the soul into three
great powers : memoria, intellectus, and voluntas. He assigns to
memory an important part in cognition, for according to him it
is memory and not phantasy or imagination {(pavraaria) that
acts as medium between the senses and the intellect. He
gives the following poetic description of memory :
" These things do I within that vast chamber of my memory ; for there I
call up to my sight heaven, earth, sea, and whatever I have received from
them, excepting those things which I have forgotten. There, also, do I
meet with myself what, where, and when I did a thing, and how I was
affected when I did it [Law of Association cf. Hamilton's Law of Redinte-
gration]. These are all which I remember, either by personal experience
or on the faith of others. Out of the same supply do I myself with the
past, weave a tissue of the likeness of things, which either I have
experienced, or from having experienced have believed ; and thence again
future events and hopes, and upon all these again do I meditate as
if they were present. . . . Great is this power of memory, exceeding
great, O my God ! An inner chamber, large and wondrous ! Who has
plumbed the depths thereof ? Yet it is a power of mind and appertains to my
nature ; nor do I myself grasp all that I am. Therefore is the mind too
150 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
narrow to contain itself. And where should that overflow which it
cannot contain within itself? Is it outside and not in itself?" (St. Aug.
Conf. X, Ch. Vllf).
St. Augustine's theory appears then to be that we are not
conscious of all the ideas that are in us, that some of these live,
as it were, in a latent condition in the mind, which contains
infinitely more than we are conscious of. This interpretation
is confirmed by his doctrine of a metaphysical memory or
reminiscence, in the Platonic sense, which is not a distinct
faculty, but a function of memory. Memory is thus a
consciousness of the eternal truth in which time, with its three
periods, the present, the past, and the future, has no longer any
meaning, and in fact disappears.
"Behold, how I have ransacked my memory seeking Thee, O Lord ;
and out of it have I not found Thee, nor have I found ought concerning
Thee but what I have retained in memory from the time I learned Thee.
For from the time I learned Thee I have never forgotten Thee. For
where I found truth there I found my God, who is truth itself. ' Thus,
since the time I learnt Thee Thou abidest in my memory, and then do I
find Thee whensoever I call Thee to remembrance and delight in Thee "'
{Ibid. X, xxiv).
Thus for St. Augustine, as for Plato, memory has two
functions : it preserves and revives the data of experience,
and it also enables us, in certain states of attention, love,
and goodwill, to discover the Eternal Ideas which have been
deposited in the soul by God, the immutable truth. This theory
implies that we have within us a multitude of latent ideas
which are visible, but remain dim until revealed to us by
the light of consciousness.
"*
Descartes : Physiological Explanation of Memory. The
Animal Spirits and their Traces.
The peculiarity of the Cartesian theory of memory is
that it is entirely physiological. According to the teach-
ing of this school, thought and extension are two clear and
distinct notions, and consequently there correspond to them
two antithetical realities which, being opposites, can have
no direct or immediate action on one another. The
soul dwells in the body, but does not mingle with it.
The body is a perfect machine, all the functions of which
ON MEMORY 151
are explained by the working of its component parts. " The
nerves are like little threads or little tubes which all start
from the brain, and contain, like the brain, a kind of air
or very subtle wind, which is called the animal spirits " (Des
Passions, I, 7). " The animal spirits are merely the most
lively and subtle parts of the blood which have been rarefied
by heat in the heart, and unceasingly enter in large quantities
into the cavities of the brain " (Ibid. I, 10). As new
animal spirits continually rise to the brain, others are
continually being forced out through the pores of the brain
" into the nerves, and thence into the muscles, by means of
which they move the body in all the divers ways in which it
can be moved " (Ibid. I, 10).
Animals being only bodies are mere automata. But in man,
when the nerves are set in motion by the action of external
objects, this motion spreads to the brain, which is the seat of
the soul, and which represents these objects to the soul. But
it may happen that " these animal spirits being set in motion
diversely, and meeting the traces of divers impressions which
have preceded them in the brain, may chance to take their
course through certain pores rather than through others "
(Ibid. I, 21). Thus, -" all those things which the soul per-
ceives by the medium of the nerves may also be represented
to it by the fortuitous course of spirits, without there being
any difference except that the impressions coming from the
brain through the nerves are usually more lively and more
clear than those awakened by the animal spirits. On which
account I have said (I, 21) that the latter are a shadow as it
were and picture of the former " (I, 26). Descartes explains
his theory clearly in the following passage which occurs
in one of his letters :
" The traces left in the brain incline it to move the soul in the same
way as before and also to recall something to the soul, just as the folds in
a piece of paper or linen make it more apt to be folded again in the same
way than if it had never been folded so before."
This theory of Descartes was the one that was current in the
17th century. Gassendi, the atomistic philosopher and opponent
of Descartes, had already expounded it, and it was also adopted
by Bossuet, Malebranche, and Spinoza. According to the
latter,
152 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" The mind imagines a body because the human body is affected and
disposed by the impressions of an external body, just as it was affected
when certain of its parts received an actual impulse from the external
body itself. . . . We clearly understand by this what memory is. It is
nothing else than a certain concatenation of ideas, involving the nature of
things which are outside the human body, a concatenation which
corresponds in the mind to the order and concatenation of the affections
of the human body " (Spinoza, Ethics, Bk. II, Prop. XVIII).
According to Spinoza and Malebranche, the phenomena of
memory and of the association of ideas are intimately related
and may be explained on the same principles.
Incompleteness of the Cartesian Mechanical Theory. Descartes
Admission.
In order rightly to understand the Cartesian theory, it
must be remembered that according to it the body does not
act directly on the soul, and therefore that acts of memory
are spiritual phenomena which occur on occasion of and in
agreement with physiological modifications.
It is certain that without the body there would be neither
memory nor association of ideas; there would remain, as Spinoza
would say, only the vision in the eternal. Does not this
physiological theory leave unexplained the phenomenon most
characteristic of memory, namely, recognition ? In order to
have memory it is not enough that an idea be reproduced, it
must also be recognized. This Descartes himself admits.
Arnauld had objected that, if the mind always thought, a
child would be able to remember his earliest thoughts. To
this Descartes replies :
" All vestiges left by former thoughts are not of a kind to permit of
recollection by us, but only those which enable the mind to know that
they have not always been in us, but were formerly freshly impressed on
the mind. For the mind to be able to recognize this, I consider that the
first time these impressions were made, the mind must have employed
a pure conception, and by this means was able to perceive that the thing
which then came into it was new, that is to say it had never before been
in the mind, for there can be no trace by which we can recognize
that the thing is new." {Letter to Arnauld, edn. Cousin, Vol. 10).
On this theory the true principle of memory would be a
sustained action on the part of the mind, and the physiological
ON MEMORY 153
phenomenon would merely be the occasion of the mental action
or fact of recognition which, properly speaking, would con-
stitute memory.
Locke : The Conditions of Memory. Its Use and its Defects.
Memory the Principal Basis of Personal Identity.
Locke gives a very good description of the phenomena of
memory {Essay on the Human Understanding, II, Chap. iii.
On Retention).
" This laying up of our ideas in the repository of memory signifies no
more than this, that the mind has a power in many cases to revive
perceptions which it once had, with this additional perception annexed to
them, that it has had them before. And in this sense it is, that our ideas
are said to be in our memories when indeed they are actually nowhere"
(Bk. II, Ch. X).
Attention and repetition, pleasure and pain help to fix ideas
in the mind. Those which only occur once, or a few times,
frequently grow faint and even disappear, never to return ;
those with which the mind is continually occupied (such as
the qualities of bodies, existence, duration, number), remain as
long as a man has a gleam of intelligence. Sometimes ideas
recur spontaneously " they are roused and tumbled out of
their dark cells into open daylight by some sudden passion."
Frequently " the mind sets itself on work in search of some
hidden idea, and turns, as it were, the eye of the soul upon it."
The two great defects of memory are complete oblivion and an
excessive difficulty in recalling the ideas which the memory
has, so to speak, stored up. As regards the explanation of this
faculty, Locke refuses in the chapter on Retention to enter
into the Cartesian theory. " How much the constitution of
-our bodies and the make of our animal spirits is concerned in
this, whether the temple of the brain makes this difference
that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like marble,
in others like freestone, and in others little better than sand, I
shall not here inquire." But in his chapter on the Association
of Ideas, he is less guarded, and adopts the opinion of Descartes
as the most probable.
As to explaining memory itself, that is to say the fact of
recognition, Locke will not attempt it. All that he can say of
154 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
it is, that the soul has the power of awakening its ideas when-
ever it wills. But as Leibnitz said, is not this power a kind of
scholastic entity ? And indeed Locke regards memory as an
ultimate inexplicable fact. In his famous chapter on Identity
(Chap. XXVI I), he even goes so far as to make memory the
basis of personal identity.
" As far as consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action
r thought, so far reaches the identity of that person." ... " For as far
as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the
same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it
has of any present action, so far it is the same personal self. 1 ' . . .
" [Personal identity] consists not in identity of substance, but ... in the
identity of consciousness, wherein, if Socrates and the present mayor of
Queensborough agree, they are the same person" (II, Ch. XXVII).
Leibnitz: Explanation of Memory by Latent Perceptions.
Memory Implies Personal Identity.
The universe for Leibnitz is composed of monads, or spiritual
atoms whose whole essence is perception and appetition. Each
of these monads has an independent existence, and is only
related to other monads by a pre-established harmony between
its own acts and the acts of all the other monads. If a monad
were to know itself in all its relations, it would know the
entire universe in the present, the past, and the future.
To know is thus to reveal the self, to unfold in the light
of consciousness the perceptions dimly contained in ourselves.
The existence of unconscious sensible perceptions is not an
exception, but the rule. Thus we are able to understand how
it is that ideas we have once had, remain unperceived in
our minds until some occasion brings them once more into
consciousness. "... These are dispositions which are the
remains of past impressions in the soul as well as in the body,,
but of which we are conscious only when the memory finds
some occasion for them. And if nothing remained of past
thoughts, when we no longer think of them, it would be
impossible to explain how the memory can preserve them"
(Nouv. Ess. II, Ch. X). " The insensible perceptions preserve
the seeds of memory " {Ibid. Ch. XXVI).
Leibnitz maintains, moreover, against Locke, that apparent
identity has its foundation in real identity, that is to say that
ON MEMORY 155
memory is only comprehensible if we assume the identity of a
spiritual substance, all the states of which are linked together
in a series.
" An immaterial being or a spirit cannot be stripped of all perception
of its past existence. There remain to it some impressions of all that has
formerly happened to it, and it even has some presentiments of all that
will happen to it ; but those feelings are most often too small to be
capable of being distinguished and perceived, although they may perhaps
sometime be developed. This continuation and bond of perceptions
constitute in reality the same individual, but the apperceptions {i.e. when
past feelings are jaerceived), prove besides a moral identity, and make real
identity appear " {Ibid. II, Oh. XXVII).
Thomas licid : We have an Immediate Knowledge, of the Past.
The Scottish and French Psychological School could not fail
to devote some attention to the phenomena of memory, and it
is also not surprising, considering the method of self observa-
tion which they exclusively practised, that they were against
the physiological hypotheses which are again coming
into fashion. In lieu of this material symbolization of
psychical facts, they have left us some excellent descriptions
and a collection of all the observations that consciousness is
capable of, when reflectively aware of its processes. Eeid
holds that, as consciousness is an immediate knowledge of the
present, so memory is an immediate perception of the past.
" Memory is always accompanied with the belief of that which we
remember, as perception is accompanied with the belief of that which we
perceive. . . . Memory is an original faculty, given us by the Author of
our being, of which we can give no account, except that we are so made.
The knowledge which I have of things past by my memory seems to me
as unaccountable as an immediate knowledge would be of things to come,
and I can give no reason why I should have the one and not the other,
but that such is the will of my Maker" (On the Intellectual Powers, III,
Oh. I and II).
Tims Eeid regards memory as an intuitive original faculty,
no explanation of which need be sought. Memory is a
looking backward, and is not more difficult to conceive than a
looking forward into the future. He denies Locke's doctrine
of personal identity as a consequence of memory, but does
not think of reversing the terms and making identity the basis
of memory.
156 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" What evidence have you that there is such a permanent self which
has a claim to all the thoughts, actions, and feelings which govern all
yours ? To this I answer that the proper evidence I have of all this is
remembrance. ... It may be here observed that it is not my remember-
ing any action of mine that makes me be the person who did it. This
remembrance makes me to know assuredly that I did it, but I might
have done it though I did not remember it. . . . To say that my
remembering that I did such a thing, or as some choose to express it, my
being conscious that I did it, makes me to have done it, appears to me as
great an absurdity as it would be to say that my belief that the world
was created made it to be created " {Ibid. Ch. IV).
Hamilton refutes Reicl : Memory is a Knowledge of the Present
with a Belief in the Past. Latent Ideas.
Hamilton declares that Eeid's doctrine concerning memory is
not merely false, but " involves a contradiction in terms " (Lect. on
Metcvph. I, 218-221). Memory is an act, and an act "only exists
in the present," therefore memory can only have knowledge of
what exists now, and in memory what is present is not the
object remembered but the image of the object. "An act of
memory is merely a present state of mind, which we are
conscious of, not as absolute but as relative to, and represent-
ing another state of mind, and accompanied with the belief
that the state of mind as now represented has actually been.
. . . All that is immediately known in the act of memory
is the present mental modification, that is, the representation
and the concomitant belief. . . . While in philosophical
propriety it is not a knowledge of the past at all, but a know-
ledge of the present and a belief of the past" (p. 219 sq.).
Hamilton follows Leibnitz in his theory that all the ideas
acquired by us remain in a latent state in the mind. " I know
a language or a science not merely while I make a temporary
use of it, but inasmuch as I can apply it when and how I will.
Thus the infinitely greater part of our spiritual treasures lies
always beyond the sphere of consciousness hid in the obscure
recesses of the mind." In support of this theory of the
survival of all our ideas in a latent state, Hamilton quotes
.some pages from the German writer, H. Schmidt, who was
himself inspired by the theories of Leibnitz.
" But the mental activity, the act of knowledge of which I now speak
... is an energy of the self active power of a subject one and indivisible :
ON MEMORY 157
consequently a part of the ego must be detached or annihilated, if a cogni-
tion once existent be again extinguished. Hence it is that the problem
most difficult of solution is not, how a mental activity endures, but how it
ever vanishes " (Lectures on Metaphysics, II, pp. 211, 212).
Thus, the explanation of memory is that the mind is a
truly self-identical force, an activity which cannot be inter-
rupted or resolved into scattered elements, and which com-
municates its own continuity to all its acts. We have now to
account for the phenomenon of oblivion.
"The solution of this problem is to be sought for in the theory of
obscure or latent mental modifications (that is, mental activities, real but
beyond the sphere of consciousness, which I formerly explained). The
disappearance of internal energies from the view of internal perception
does not warrant the conclusion that they no longer exist ; for we are not
always conscious of all the mental energies whose existence cannot be
disallowed. ... To explain therefore the appearance of our mental
activities, it is only requisite to explain their weakening or enfeeblement..
. . . Every mental activity belongs to the one vital activity of mind in
general, it is therefore indivisibly bound up with it, and can neither be
torn from nor abolished in it. But the mind is only capable, at any one
moment, of exerting a certain quantity or degree of force. This quantity
must therefore be divided among the different activities, so that each has
only a part ; and the sum of force belonging to all the several activities
taken together is equal to the quantity or degree of force belonging to
the vital activity of mind in general. Thus, in proportion to the greater
number of activities in the mind, the less will be the proportion of force
which will accrue to each ; the feebler, therefore, each will be, and the
fainter the vivacity with which it can affect self-consciousness. ... In.
these circumstances, it is to be supposed that every new cognition, every
newly-excited activity, should be in the greatest vivacity, and should
draw to itself the greatest amount of force ; this force will in the same
proportion be withdrawn from the other earlier cognitions, and it is
they consequently which must undergo the fate of obscuration" (Ibid.
pp. 212-14).
Boyer-Collard : We can only remember Ourselves. F. Bavais-
son : Metaphysics of Memory.
Eoyer-Collard adopted the theory of Eeid, with some happy
modifications.
"The objects of consciousness are the only objects of memory. Pro-
perly speaking, we never remember anything but the operations and diverse
states of our minds ; we never remember anything that has not been an-
immediate intuition in consciousness. . . . This assertion appears con-
158 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
trary to common sense, according to which we do not hesitate to say : ' /
remember such a person,' but the contradiction is only apparent. ' I
remember such a person,' means ' I remember having seen such a person.'
The vision of the person is therefore both the object of consciousness and
of memory ; but for the latter the act of seeing is the immediate object
and the person the mediate object, for it would not be the object of
immediate perception except to the senses" (Fragments de Royer-Collard,
Works of Eeid, trans, by Jouffroy, IV, p. 357-398).
The theory of Boyer-Collard may be summed up as follows :
We only remember our own states ; memory is a prolonged
consciousness.
F. Eavaisson, influenced by Leibnitz, gave this theory a
deeper meaning, and connected it with his metaphysical
principles. It is in the activity of the mind, he says, that
we are to seek for the principle of memory. In the rational
laws by which the mind, as well as the world, is governed we
must look for the ground of the relations according to which
ideas revive one another.
" The cause of oblivion is the materiality under the dominion of which
our senses are partly placed. The pure spirit, on the contrary, being all
action, and hence all unity, all duration, all memory, always present to
everything and to itself, having before it unremittingly, unceasingly
all that it is, all that it was, and if one may go as far as Leibnitz, all
that it will be, sees all things, according to a saying we have already
quoted, under the form of eternity. The doctrines of positivism or niere
empiricism profess to explain the formation of our cognitions and memory
by accumulated sensations alone. They forget the intellectual action,
which having, out of sensible elements, formed such or such a perception
makes out of several perceptions groups, wholes, the different parts of
which subsequently recall one another" (Rapport sur la Philosophic
Franca ise au 19 me - siecle, p. 166).
In a word, it is the activity and the identity of mind that
constitute memory ; and as regards the relations between ideas
that suggest each other, these are merely the relations
between the mental acts. Hence if we admit that the laws of
spiritual activity, in their agreement with the laws of things,
are rational laws, one may say that "the principle of associa-
tion and memory is in fact Beason."
Revival of the Cartesian Hypotheses. Hartley and Charles
Bonnet.
To the Scottish and French psychological schools we owe
ON MEMORY 159
some excellent descriptions of the phenomena of memory.
They pointed out the characteristics which distinguish memory
from perception and imagination, determining its qualities
(facility, tenacity, promptitude), its conditions (physiological,
psychological, and metaphysical), its function in knowledge,
and its laws (vividness of the impression, attention, repetition,
association of ideas), which they endeavoured to reduce to one
general law, namely, the activity of the mind. But the
progress of physiology could not fail to cause a revival of the
Cartesian hypotheses, which had never indeed been altogether
abandoned. Hartley, one of the founders of the associationist
theory, tried to prove that the mental mechanism depended
on a cerebral mechanism which was subject to the laws of
matter and motion.
" External objects impressed upon the senses occasion, first
in the nerves on which they are impressed, and then in the
brain, vibrations of the small, and as one may say, infinitesimal
medullary particles.
"The vil rations mentioned in the last proposition are
excited, propagated, and kept up, partly by the ether (i.e. by
a very subtle and elastic fluid) and partly by the uniformity,
continuity, softness and active powers of the medullary
substance of the brain, spinal marrow and nerves " (Observ.
on Ma 71, Part I, Props. 4 and 5).
These vibrations are connected with and excited by one
another, and the sensations and ideas arising from them are
in their turn also associated and recall one another. The
doctrine taught by Charles Bonnet of Geneva was very similar.
" The cerebral movements are, as it were, natural signs of the
ideas they excite, and an intelligence that was able to observe
these movements would read them like a book. . . . Not
only is the original formation of ideas due to these movements,
but the reproduction of them would seem also to depend on
the same cause " (JEss. de Psych. Introd. Part 2). " Owing to
the action of a fluid which is almost as elastic and subtle as
light or ether, the fibres are again set in motion just as before
in the presence of the objects themselves, and, in virtue of the
hidden law of their union, the sensations belonging to these
vibrations are instantly revived. The degree of force and
vividness with which this recurrence of the sensations takes
160 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
place always depends on the intensity of the vibrations caused
by the object, the frequency of their recurrence, and the
constitution of the fibres " {Ibid. Ch. XXVII).
Theory of Evolution : Memory a Fact as general as Life.
The theories of the transmutation of energy and of evolution
gave a new importance to the physiological explanations of
memory, and to the fact of memory itself. In this theory
mind and body, intelligence and life, follow a parallel develop-
ment. There is a close connection between the organ and its
function : the function creates the organ which is its
necessary instrument.
Whoever undertakes to explain the genesis and progress
of the nervous system is bound to explain by the same
principle the genesis and evolution of thought. Now, it is
habit which, by modifying the organism, gives fixity to the
modes of activity which heredity then transmits as instincts.
But habit and memory are identical phenomena. It follows
that memory can no longer be regarded as a physiological
phenomenon presupposing consciousness. Memory is a fact
that is co-extensive with life ; it is the very principle by which
organisms rise from the lowest to the most complex forms.
And thus the question became wider and the method of
treating it different. " Psychological memory," says M. Eibot,
" is merely a particular case of biological memory." By
re-establishing the continuity of apparently unrelated
phenomena, the psychologists of the physiological school come
unintentionally nearer to the metaphysicians than those
psychologists who, having separated man from nature and
mind from life, confine themselves to the method of
introspection.
Herbert Spencer : Relation of Memory to Instinct,
"Instinct," says Herbert Spencer, "may be regarded as a kind
of organized memory ; and memory, on the other hand, may
be regarded as a kind of incipient instinct. The automatic
actions of a bee building one of its wax cells answer to outer
relations so constantly experienced that they are, as it were,
organically remembered. Conversely, an ordinary recollection
implies a cohesion of psychical states which becomes stronger
ON MEMORY 161
by repetition, and so approximates more and more to the
indissoluble, the automatic, or instinctive cohesions " {Principles
of Psychology, I, Ch. VI, p. 15). "This truth that memory
comes into existence when the involved connexions among
psychical states render their succession imperfectly automatic
is in harmony with the obverse truth, that, as fast as those
connexions among psychical states which we form in memory
grow by constant repetition automatic, they cease to be part of
memory. We do not speak of ourselves as recollecting relations
that have become organically registered. We recollect those
relations only of which the registration is incomplete. No one
remembers that the object at which he looks has an opposite
side, or that a certain modification of the visual impression
implies a certain distance, or that the thing he sees moving
about is a live animal" (Pbid. p. 450)..
Tli. Ribot : Memory the Universal Function of Organic
Matter ; Physiological Conditions of Memory ; Localization of
the Object of Memory in the Past.
M. Eibot has summed up with great clearness all the
modern physiological theories of memory. " By common
usage the word memory has a triple meaning : the conservation
of certain conditions, their reproduction, and their localization
in the past. This, however, is only a certain kind of memory,
that which we call perfect. The three elements are of unequal
value : the first two are necessary, indispensable ; the third,
which in the language of the schools is called ' recollection,'
completes the action of memory, but does not constitute it.
Suppress the first two, and memory is annihilated ; suppress
the third, and memory ceases to exist in an objective, but not
in a subjective sense" (Diseases of Memory, p. 10, Eng. trans.,
Puter national Scientific Series).
Even in the inorganic world, and in the vegetable world, we
find phenomena which resemble those of memory. In the animal
kingdom the muscular tissues, and even more so, the nervous
tissues present the two properties, conservation and repro-
duction. Memory would thus appear to be a " general function
of organic matter " (Hering, quoted by M. Eibot). But the
true type of organic memory is to be found in those acquired
movements which are accomplished unconsciously (such as,
L
162 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
seeing, walking, writing, etc.). If we examine its mode of ac-
quisition, preservation, and reproduction, we shall find that
this organic memory resembles psychical memory in all things
except one, and that is the absence of consciousness. Ideas,
like movements, are acquired more or less quickly, retained
more or less perfectly, and reproduced with greater or
less ease and promptitude, a thing which causes either skill
or awkwardness.
As regards the modifications of the organism implied in
organic memory, M. Eibot says : " If organic memory is a
property of animal life, of which psychical memory is only
a particular phase, all that we are able to conjecture with
regard to its ultimate conditions will apply equally well to
memory as a whole" {Ibid. p. 19).
In the first place, what is the seat of memory ? Bain says
" that we may almost regard it as proved that the renewed
feeling occupies the very same parts, and in the same manner,
as the original feeling." Wundt gives the following proof of
this fact : If we close our eyes and hold up before our imagina-
tion a picture of a very vivid colour, and then open our eyes
suddenly, and turn them on to a white surface, we shall see
for an instant the image beheld in imagination, but with a
complementary colour. Thus we have not one but several
memories ; there is not only one seat of memory but special
seats for each individual act of memory.
The general physiological conditions of memory are reduced
by M. Ribot to tw r o : 1st, A particular modification of the
nervous elements (cells) ; 2nd, An association, a special con-
nexion between these elements. These dynamical associations
are of great importance. The seemingly most simple act of
memory involves the working of a very large number of
nervous elements. Each nervous element may enter into
different combinations. " The secondary automatic move-
ments employed in swimming or dancing require certain
modifications of the muscles and joints already used in
locomotion, already registered in certain nervous elements :
they find, in fact, a memory already organized, many of whose
elements are turned to their own use, causing them to enter
into new combinations and concur in the formation of another
memory. . . ." Eibot compares the modified cell to a letter
ON MEMORY 163
of the alphabet, which, itself remaining unchanged, has helped
to form millions of words.
Add consciousness to these phenomena and we have
psychical memory. Consciousness is a fact, the conditions of
which are a nervous phenomenon, a certain intensity, and a
certain duration. " If every state of consciousness implies as
an integral part a nervous action, and if this action produces a
permanent modification of the nervous centres, a state of con-
sciousness will also be recorded in the same place and manner "
(p. 40). Whenever, for one cause or another, the same nervous
condition recurs, the condition of consciousness will also recur.
In physiological language, a good memory is : "A great number
of nervous elements, each modified in a special manner, each
forming part of a distinct association, and probably ready to
enter into others ; and each of these associations containing
within itself the conditions essential to the existence of states
of consciousness " (p. 45).
The distinctive characteristic of psychical memory is recogni-
tion. How are states of consciousness recognized, and attributed
by the individual to himself, which would seem to imply
either the identity of a being which comprehends and directs
its own successive states or the paradoxical hypothesis of " a
series of feelings which can be aware of itself as a series ? "
(Mill's Examination of Hamilton, p. 235). For this question, M.
Eibot substitutes the following: By what mechanism is an object
of memory localized in time ? The explanation given by him is
very ingenious. States of consciousness have a certain dura-
tion ; they are, moreover, as it were, joined together end to
end, the present by its anterior end is joined to the past, by
its posterior end to the state that is about to arise. " The
image travels backwards and forwards along the line of the past "
(Taine, de VIntell., II 1, Ch. 2, 7), until after a number of
oscillations more or less extended, it is fixed. " We determine
position in time, as we determine position in space- by refer-
ence to a fixed point, which in the case of time is the present "
(p. 49).
We judge distance in the past to be greater or less according
as we travel back more or less along the line of the past, and
according as the intervening number of memories is, conse-
quently, larger or smaller. Localization in time is, therefore,
164 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
no more a primitive fact than is localization in space, and it
may be said that " memory is a vision in time." In practice
we very rarely pass through all the intervening stages, we
simplify the process by the use of reference points. The most
important events of my life exist for me at a known dis-
tance from the present moment ; given a memory, it is
sufficient for me to refer it to one of these great divisions, in
order to localize it with sufficient accuracy in the past. The
art consists, therefore, in passing rapidly over long intervals,
as with one glance. " We arrive, therefore, at this paradoxical
conclusion, that one condition of memory is forgetful ness.
Without the total obliteration of an immense number of states
of consciousness, and the momentary repression of many more,
recollection would be impossible" (Eibot, p. 61).
The Physiological Theory confirmed by the Diseases of Memory.
To sum up, the physiological theory is that, memory is a
biological fact. In its highest stage it comprises recollections
that are fully conscious and partially organized (for instance, a
language that one is engaged in learning). These tend to
retire from the sphere of consciousness and to approach
organic memory (e.g. native language). Next comes the com-
pletely organized, and almost unconscious memory (e.g. the
musicians' art). Lower still there are the registered ex-
periences that imply the exercise of our senses (e.g. sight, touch,
locomotion). Below the compound reflex action representing
organic memory in its lowest term, there are simple, reflex
impressions which result from innate physiological conditions.
It may be that even these reflex impressions have been
acquired and fixed by long continued experience in the
evolution of species, and are thus the result of a specific
memory.
In the investigation of Diseases of Memory, M. Eibot finds a
confirmation of his theory. Partial amnesia (e.g. the loss of a
group of recollections, of a foreign language, of a class of words,
etc.) proves that there is not one only but several memories.
Progressive amnesia, which by a slow and continuous process of
dissolution leads to complete loss of memory, follows an equally
interesting law. The destruction of memory " advances pro-
gressively from the unstable to the stable. It begins with the
ON MEMORY 165
most recent recollections, which, being imperfectly fixed upon the
nervous elements, rarely repeated, and consecpuently having no
permanent associations, represent organization in its feeblest
form. It ends with the sensorial instinctive memory, which,
having become an integral part of the organism, represents
organization in its most highly developed stage. From the
first term of the series to the last, the movement of amnesia is
governed by natural forces, and follows the path of least re-
sistance that is to say, of least organization. Thus pathology
confirms fully what we have already asserted of memory, viz.
that it is a process of organizations varying between the two
extreme limits of a new state on the one hand and organic
registration on the other (Ibid. pp. 121, 122). According to
Ribot, this law of reversion, or regression, is further confirmed
by the fact that when memory is re-instated it follows an
order the inverse of that in which it was lost.
Conclusion : Progress of the Psychology and Physiology of
Memory. The Mechanical Theory explains everything in Memory,
except Memory itself.
From the above historical survey it is easy to perceive
the progress which has been made in the physiology and
psychology of memory. This progress is above all due to the
labours of the Scottish and French psychologists, and to the
Associationist school. The connection between, or one might
almost say, the identity, of memory and habit, the physiological
conditions, the psychological laws, the diseases of memory and
their regular course, are now well known. But we must not
forget that memory involves the idea of time, that it also
seems to imply personal identity, and that consequently, like
most of the problems of psychology, it leads to a criticism and
metaphysic of mind. Everything in memory is explained by
mechanical laws except memory itself, nisi ipsam memoriam.
How do we recognize the revived phenomenon ? How are
we to explain the persistence and resurrection of a fact which,
ex hypothesi, is nothing but a mere fact, which has no special
reality, and which ceases to be for ever the moment it passes
out of our perception ?
CHAPTER VI.
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.
By the Association of Ideas is meant the fundamental law in
virtue of which ideas in the absence of their objects suggest
each other, and are linked together in memory and imagination.
As Keid remarks, the expression ' Association of Ideas ' is
inaccurate, since not only ideas, but volitions, feelings, and all
mental operations in fact, are linked together in this way.
" An idea awakens a judgment which gives rise to a feeling :
from this feeling is born a resolution ; the resolution in its
turn awakens other judgments, and so on. Thus all the
different kinds of mental phenomena are linked together and
mutually suggest one another." The history of this law is
the more interesting, that from having been first noticed by
psychologists in connection only with memory and imagination,
it has gradually invaded, as it were, the whole realm of
intelligence. For the English Associationist school, this law is
the most general principle of the intelligence, the law that
explains the increasing complexity of mental phenomena, and
makes it possible to find by analysis the elementary facts of
consciousness, and by synthesis to trace their progressive
complication.
Plato : Empirical Reminiscence.
Plato was the first to draw attention to the law of associa-
tion. Eeason with him is reminiscence of the Ideas, a
re-awakening within us of the intelligible. But there is an
empirical reminiscence which, in the realm of opinion, is
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 167
analogous to the rational processes whereby we come into
possession of true knowledge. In the Phaedo, Plato, by
starting from the laws of empirical reminiscence, arrives at
the formulation of the laws of rational reminiscence.
"And what is the nature of this knowledge or recollection ? I mean to
ask, whether a person, who, having seen or heard or in any way perceived
anything, knows not only that, but has a conception of something else
which is the subject, not of the same but of some other kind of know-
ledge, may not be said to recollect (dve/xp-riadri) that of which he has the
conception " (Phaedo, 73).
Here we have the Association of Ideas in general. Plato
gives two examples of it.
" The knowledge of a lyre is not the same as the knowledge of a man ?
' True ' ! ' And yet what is the feeling of lovers when they recognize a lyre,
or a garment, or anything else which the beloved has been in the habit of
using ? Do they not from knowing the lyre, form in the mind's eye an
image of the youth to whom the lyre belongs ? And this is recollection.
In like manner anyone who sees Simmias may remember Cebes ; and
there are endless examples of the same thing'" (Ibid.).
In this passage Plato refers to cases where two objects
having been perceived simultaneously, the idea of one calls up
the idea of the other. This is what we now call the law of
contiguity in time.
" ' And from the picture of Simmias you may be led to remember
Cebes ? ' ' True.' ' Or you may also be led to the recollection of Simmias
himself ?'' True.'
This is an example of the law of similarity, to use the
expression of the English Associationists. Plato concludes that,
' In all these cases, the recollection may be derived from things either
like or unlike'" (Ibid. 73 d).
It must be admitted, however, that, though the facts were
correctly observed by Plato, his statement of them is wanting
in precision.
Aristotle : the Association of Ideas is the Principle of Reminis-
cence ; Laws of Association ; Suggestion by Resemblance, Con-
trast and Contiguity.
In his treatment of this question, Aristotle gives an
example of his marvellous powers of observation. Hamilton
168 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
claims for him the honour of having discovered the three great
laws of association (Keid's Works, Note D), and on this point
A. Bain agrees with him (Aristotle's Psychology : The Senses and
the Intellect, Appendix). Aristotle discriminates between
memory (/ulv/j/ult]) and recollection (avdfxvtjcns). The fj-v^fxr] is
passive memory, the spontaneous reproduction of past percep-
tions. The avo\fxvr](7i<; is the active reproduction of these same
perceptions and implies an effort or will to recover a past
cognition. It is peculiar to man, who is the only being capable
of judgment and reflection. The problem then is, How is
it possible to recover a lost cognition ? The solution of this
problem is to be found in the association of ideas, in the
relations connecting them with one another, which tend to form
a continuous series (Dc Memor. ct Reminisc. Oh. II). Phenomena
follow each other in a regular sequence, and likewise impres-
sions, and the movements communicated by them to our
bodies (w? yap eyei ra izpayfxaTa Trpog aWrjXa to e<pe^t]<? ovto)
kcu at Kiv)')crei<;). The Soul is the form of the body, and can only
be separated from the body by an act of mental abstraction.
Hence, there is between the two terms a continuous parallelism,
and what are impressions in the soul are in the body sensa-
tions and images. The series of external phenomena become,
in the body, a series of movements, and, in the mind, a
corresponding series of sensations and images. Thus there is
a regular order in the succession of mental facts. Cognitions
tend to be reproduced in the same order as that in which they
were acquired. The consequents follow their antecedents
either by a necessary sequence (e avaytaj^), or owing to habit
which is more frequently the case (eOei 009 eirl to 7ro\u).
In the sequence that arises from habit, the consequent
either resembles its antecedent (a<p' ojuoiou), or is the contrary
of it, the law of contrast ($ evavrlov), or has been perceived in
contiguity with it (rj tov cruveyyus). It is easy to see how
these relations between our ideas render reminiscence possible.
We look for the required idea by starting from some antece-
dent with which it is connected, then we proceed from one
remembered object to another, until we come on the one in
which we are interested. When, for instance, we wish to
recall a forgotten line or verse, we begin by repeating the
first word. The same antecedent may, it is true, reawaken
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 169
different consequents at different moments, but it generally
recalls the one that habitually followed it in the past. We
may then conclude with Hamilton :
1 "That Aristotle observed the relation of succession which in the
reproduction of internal movements connects the consequent with the
antecedent ; 2 that he observed the similarity between the movements
attending reproduction, and those which accompany the production of
cognitions, and also the harmony between the order of cognitions and the
order of objects ; 3 that he made a distinction between necessary
sequences in the chain of mental images, and sequences that are con-
tingent and formed through habit ; 4 that he noted the relation in
virtue of which the facility of recollection is subordinate to the order of
the ideas ; 5 that having first, drawn a distinction between voluntary
and involuntary reminiscence, he reduced the general laws of repro-
duction to the three relations of similarity, contrast, and contiguity in
space and time" (Luigi Ferri, Theories of Association, p. 340).
We must, however, not forget that the association of ideas
is a universal law, which governs passive memory as well as
voluntary and human memory. The characteristic of what
Aristotle calls reminiscence or active memory is not so much
the association of images as the act of making use of these
laws with a definite object in view.
Stoics : Law of Similarity. The Epicureans : Double Function
of Association.
The theory of the Stoics concerning intelligence was purely
empirical. The processes by which they explain the formation
of general ideas, of the 7rpo\i'i\p-ei? or anticipations, the elements
and principles of reasoning, are laws of association.
" All our thoughts [according to the Stoics] are formed either by
indirect perception, or by similarity, or analogy, or transposition, or
combination, or opposition. By a direct perception we perceive those
things which are the object of sense ; by similarity those which start
from some point present to our senses ; as, for instance, we form an idea
of Socrates from his bust. We draw our conclusions by analogy, adopting
either an increased idea of the thing, as of Tityus, or the Cyclops ; or a
diminished idea, as of a pigmy. So, too, the idea of the centre of the
world was one derived by analogy from what we perceived to be the case
of the smaller spheres. We use transposition when we fancy eyes in a
man's breast ; combination when we take in the idea of a centaur ;
opposition when we turn our thoughts to death" (D.L. VII, 52, 53).
170 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
These statements of Diogenes Laertius are confirmed by a
passage in Cicero. Cicero mentions four different ways in
which the irpoX^e^ are formed : usu by experience, through
which we acquire the most general and common notions, as of
red, white, etc., conjunctions by combination, sirn.ilitudine by
resemblance, collatione rationum per analogiam by comparison
of relations. From this we see that the Stoics gave most
prominence to the law of similarity, as it is now called,
and to its divers forms, namely, to resemblance, properly so
called, analogy, or the discernment of the relations amongst
difference, and combinations and contrast.
Although they did not admit the existence of any a priori
principles, or principles anterior to experience, the Stoics
attributed the principal part in cognition to the mind's
activity. The more crudely empirical Epicureans, on the
other hand, based the whole of empirical knowledge on
sensation.
" Every notion proceeds from the senses either directly or in conse-
quence of some analogy, or proportion, or combination " {D.L. X, 32).
What Epicurus calls Tr^oAr/xJ/et? or antecedent notions, notitia
rcrum (Cic. Acad. II, 44), are the
" Recollection of one or more external objects often perceived before.
Such, for instance, is this idea : 'Man is a being of such and such a nature.'
At the same moment that we utter the word man, we conceive the figure
of a man in virtue of a preconception which we owe to the preceding
operation of the senses" (D.L. X, 33).
Does not this amount to saying that all intelligence can be
traced to the association of ideas ? First we have sensations,
then the general notions, man, animal, etc., abstracted from
sensations by resemblance, analogy, and combination ; lastly,
we apply these general notions to particular cases. For
instance, before we can judge whether a distant object is a
horse or an ox, we must first have an idea of these two
animals. From the sensations produced by a large number
of oxen, we have disengaged by means of analogy, resemblance,
and composition the general idea of an ox : and whether we
hear the word ox pronounced, or perceive in the distance an
animal of the species, the general idea of the ox and the
images which are condensed into it are suggested to us by
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 171
association. To sum up, association plays a double part in
the theory of Epicurus. It is by association that we abstract
from sensations the antecedent notions, the general principles
by which phenomena are comprehensible and have orderly
coherence. Again, it is by association that we apply these
antecedent notions, these general forms to particular cases.
It is impossible to deny the analogy between this doctrine
and that of modern empiricists. In its details it is less-
complete, but the principle is the same. Experience provides
us with the notions and general laws by which it is possible
to comprehend experience, and these notions and laws are
merely habits which correspond in the mind to analogy and
to the resemblances and combinations of sensation.
Thus we see that the law of the association of ideas was
not unknown to the ancients, and that in the Stoic and
Epicurean theories of cognition this law plays a most important
part. These schools had, however, directed their attention
chiefly to the associations of similarity, and they neither
attempt to make any strict classification of the laws of
association, nor to connect them with any universal law of
thought. Aristotle alone gave the problem a psychological
solution, and his successors were able neither to adopt nor
to develop it. It was left to modern philosophy to accomplish
this task.
Descartes : The Association of Ideas depends on the Relation
of Mind to Body. Physiol ogiccd Theory.
Experience, in the Cartesian school, was only a confused
knowledge depending on the union of mind and body. The
association of ideas, as well as memory (see above), resolves
itself into the laws of this union. The two problems were
confounded by the Cartesians, who treated the association of
ideas, like memory, as both a psychological and physiological
fact. " All the most lively and subtle elements of the blood,"
says Descartes, " which are rarified by the warmth of the
heart, enter continually in large quantities into the cavities
of the brain. . . . These extremely subtle elements of
the blood constitute the animal spirits " (Passions, I, A, 10).
By the impulse of external objects the animal spirits are
moved in divers ways, and, being diffused through different
172 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
channels, ascend to the pineal gland, the seat of the soul.
Hence arise sensations. But " it must be observed that all
the things which the soul perceives through the medium
of the nerves may also be represented to it by means of the
fortuitous course of the spirits " (Pass. I, A, 26).
The repetition of nervous vibration modifies the cerebral
matter, and a path is formed in which the animal spirits will
in future travel more easily. Now, in virtue of the laws of
the union of mind and body, the animal spirits cannot meet
and fall into these tracks and open ways, so to speak, without
awakening in the mind an image corresponding to the original
sensation.
MalebrancJie : The Traces in the Brain, and their Connection
with Ideas : Relations between the Ideas themselves.
The Cartesian theory was developed by Malebranche and
Spinoza, and applied by them to the association of ideas.
According to Malebranche, the body does not act on the mind,
nor the mind on the body. "The only connection between
them is a natural and mutual correspondence between the
thoughts of the mind and the traces in the brain " (Rcch. dc la
Ve'rite', 1st Part, V). The problem of the association of ideas
is therefore twofold. We have to discover the laws which
govern 1st, the connection between ideas and the traces in
the brain ; 2nd, the connection between these traces, and,
consequently, between the ideas themselves.
Malebranche reduces the causes of the connection between
the traces in the brain and the ideas to three :
" The first and most general cause is the identity of time. If, when the
idea of God arose in my mind, my brain was at the same time struck by
the sight of those three letters Jah, or by the sound of that same word, it
will be enough that the tracks produced by these letters or their sound
should recur, in order to make me think of God ; and it will be impossible
for me to think of God without there appearing in my brain some con-
fused tracks of the letters or the sounds which accompanied the thoughts I
had of God. The second cause of the connection between the ideas and the
traces (and this second cause always presupposes the first), is the humanwill.
As an example of this, we may mention language. Without the constant
will of men, the connection between signs and ideas would be a fortuitous
and, consequently, ephemeral one. The third cause of the connection
between the ideas and these tracks is Nature or the constant and immutable
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 173
will of the Creator. There is, for instance, a connection which is natural
and in no wise dependent upon our will, between the two traces produced
by a tree or a mountain which we see, and the ideas, tree, or mountain.
These natural connections are the strongest of all ; they are, in general,
the same in all men, and they are absolutely necessary for the preserva-
tion of life " {Ibid.).
The traces in the brain and the ideas being of a hetero-
geneous nature and there being no point of contact between
them, they cannot act upon one another. But according to
the theory of occasional causes, there is no movement of the
body on the occasion of which a movement does not occur in
the mind ; and conversely. There is, therefore, a constant-
relation between the traces in the brain and the ideas. This
connection has three causes. The first, which is involved in
the two others, is the identity of time. The second is the
human will, which, utilizing the identity of time, creates, for
instance, language. The third is the Divine institution, by
which the same traces always correspond to the same ideas.
Let us now consider the association of ideas, properly so
called.
" This relation consists in. that the traces in the brain are so closely
connected one with the other, that it is impossible for any of them to
recur without all those also recurring which were impressed at the same
time. If a man, for instance, assists at some public ceremony, observes all
the circumstances and all the principal personages present at it, the time,
the place, the day, and every other detail, it will be enough for him to
recall to his memory the place or some circumstance belonging to the
ceremony even less remarkable, in order that all the others may also
come back to his mind. . . . The cause of this connection between several
tracks is the identity of the time in which they were impressed upon the
brain ; for it is enough that several traces were produced at the same
time, to make it impossible for any of them to be reproduced without all
the rest ; for the reason that the animal spirits, finding the path made by
all the traces left at the same time open, continue to travel along this
path, because they can do so there more easily than in any other part of the
brain ; and this is the cause of memory and of other bodily habits which
we have in common with animals " (Ibid.).
Besides the case of contiguity in time, as it is called by the
\ Associationists, Malebranche also noticed what they call the law
of similarity, but he saw in it only the most common cause of
the confusion and deceptiveness of our ideas.
174 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
"We imagine things more vividly according as the tracks are more
deeply and better engraven, and the animal spirits have travelled along
them more frequently and with more force ; and when the spirits have
passed sevei'al times through them they enter into them with more ease
than into other places which are quite near, but through which they have
either never passed or have not passed so often."
What is the result of this ?
" The animal spirits which have been set in motion by the action of
external objects, or even by command of the soul, in order to produce
certain tracks in the brain, frequently produce other tracks which, in
truth, resemble the first in something, but are not the tracks of exactly the
same objects, nor those which the soul desired to represent to herself ;
because the animal spirits finding some resistance in the parts of the brain
whereby they should pass, are easily turned aside, and crowd into the
deeper tracks of ideas that are more familar to us. Thus it is, for
instance, that some short-sighted persons think they see a face in the
moon. This is because we often look at faces, and that the spirits enter
more easily into the tracks to which the ideas of face are connected
by nature " (Reck, de la Verite, II, I, 2nd Part, Ch. II).
In a word, there are in the brain, as it were, paths traced
out. When the animal spirits, in making for themselves a
new road, intersect one of these widely opened paths, they are
carried away in it by their own force, and it is thus that
association by similarity is caused, as when the mind passes,
for instance, from the idea of the moon to the idea of a face.
Association by similarity is ultimately traceable to associa-
tion by identity in time. Two ideas which suggest one another
by similarity are ideas which have common elements, the
traces of which, consequently, intersect each other at a given
point. What awakens the idea of a face when I see the moon
is the element common to a face and the moon. If the idea
of the face reappears, it is because the common element in the
face and the moon was perceived in the face and the moon at
the same time, and because this element and the other elements
in the face formed part of the same act of cognition. Thus
Malebranche anticipated the reduction of the laws of associa-
tion into what Hamilton calls the law of redintegration.
Malebranche anticipates the Associationist Doctrine.
Malebranche not only pointed out the laws of association,
and gave an ingenious physiological explanation of these laws,
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 175
but he was also, in fact, the precursor of modern associationism.
We recognize in his work the two leading ideas of this doctrine :
that of the complexity of phenomena that appear simple to
consciousness, and the reduction of causality to constant suc-
cession. In connection with the illusions of the senses, he
applied what Mill called the psychological method, in contrast
to the introspective method. How is it that the moon
appears larger at the horizon than at its zenith 1 This seems
to be a simple intuition, immediately given by the senses. In
reality the moon appears to us larger because we think it is
further off, and this unconscious and natural judgment, as
Malebranche calls it, is a complex fact implying a large num-
ber of anterior experiences.
Malebranche does not, it is true, deny causality, but he will
not admit that it is to be found anywhere except in God,
who alone acts in the universe. He has consequently to
account for the delusion which makes us attribute causality
both to the bodies which surround us and to our own minds;
and the arguments by which he refutes our supposed knowledge
of causes are the same as those used by Hume later, and, like
Hume, he reduces the idea of cause to the idea of constant
succession. What does the knowledge of causes imply ? A
true cause is a cause between which and its effect the mind
perceives a necessary connection {Rcch. de la Ver., VI, 2nd
Part, Chap. II, 3). But do we ever apprehend such a positive
effectual action, such a real production of one thing by another \
Can we in physical phenomena find the effective action of
created things ?
"Let us suppose that a ball is moved, and that in its line of motion it
meets another ball which is at rest, experience tells us that this other ball
will infallibly be moved, and that to an extent which can be exactly
calculated " (7th Entretien m&aph.).
But experience cannot tell me that it is the first ball that
moves the second. Shall we be more successful if, instead of
things, we consider ourselves ?
" Because they are inwardly affected by the consciousness of their own
efforts, men are led to believe that the soul is the true cause of the move-
ments of the body (7th Entret. met.). But what connection is there
between my volition and the movement of my arm, between that spiritual
act and the motion of the animal spirits, which out of a million others
176 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
choose certain nervous channels which are unknown to me, in order to
cause in me the movement I desire, by means of an infinity of movements
which I do not desire V (Ilech. de la Verite', 15th Eclaircissement).
How is it, then, that something outside us seems to corre-
spond to our notion of causality ? How is it, for instance,
that my volition to move my arm is always followed by a
movement of my arm ? The constant relations which we
observe between phenomena rest " on the immutable founda-
tion of the divine decrees " (7th Entretien mttaphysique).
"God willed, and still unceasingly wills, that the modes of the mind
and of the body should be in mutual correspondence. Herein lies the
union and the natural interdependence of the two elements of which we
are composed. God has bound together all His works ; not that He has
created in them connecting entities ; He has made them subordinate to
one another without investing them with efficient qualities" (7th Ent.
me'taph.).
In a word, God alone acts : He is the only cause. But in
His supreme wisdom He does not act at random : His univer-
sal action is in conformity with universal immutable laws. In
the world of phenomena the notion of causality is, therefore,
reducible to the idea of law, or of constant relation, and this
is also the theory of modern science. The illusion of the human
mind lies, as Hume said afterwards, in changing constant
succession into a cause. To use Malebranche's own words,
" We consider that a thing is the cause of some effect when
it is always accompanied by the latter " (Rcch. de la Verite,
IV, Oh. X).
" Men never fail to imagine that a thing is the cause of a certain effect
when the two are joined together, even in cases where the true cause of
that effect is unknown to them. It is for this reason that every one infers
that a ball which is in motion and meets another ball is the true and
principal cause of the motion which it communicates to the second ball ;
that the will of the soul is the true and principal cause of the movement
of the arm, and other similar prejudices ; because it always happens that a
ball is set in motion by the impact of another ball, that our arms are
moved every time we will it, and that we cannot sensibly perceive what
other thing could be the cause of this movement " (Rech. de la Verite, III,
2nd Part, Ch. III).
Thus the origin of our idea of cause, although Malebranche
does not say it in so many words, is to be found in the law
of association by identity of time. Historically, Malebranche
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 177
is the forerunner of the associationist theory. The idealism of
Berkeley was derived from the doctrine of occasional causes ;
and the scepticism of Hume, who himself profited by the
teaching of the French philosophers, is merely the logical
development of the idealism of Berkeley.
Spinoza : Distinction between Empirical and Intellectual
Association.
Spinoza adheres closely to the Cartesian theory, of which he
gives an accurate exposition. " Memory," he says, " is nothing
else than a certain concatenation of ideas, involving the nature
of things which are outside the human body, a concatenation
which corresponds in the mind to the order and concatenation
of the affections of the human body " {Ethics, Part II, Prop.
XVIII, Scholium). The human body has only to be once
affected simultaneously by two external bodies, for the image
of one to be suggested by the image of the other. It is a
mere matter of accident, and varies with individuals.
" In this manner each person will turn from one thought to another,
according to the manner in which the habit of each has arranged the
ideas of things in the body. The soldier, for instance, if he sees the
footsteps of a horse in the sand, will immediately turn from the thought
of a horse to the thought of a horseman, and so to the thought of war.
The countryman, on the other hand, from the thought of a horse will
turn to the thought of his plough, his field, etc."
Spinoza distinguishes this connection " which takes place
according to the order and concatenation of the affections of
the human body," " from the concatenation of ideas which
takes place according to the order of the intellect and enables
the mind to perceive things through their first causes, and is
the same in all men" (Eth. II, 13, SchoL). As external
objects do not always follow one another in the same order,
the imagination is subject to a kind of fluctuation, and
represents things belonging to the future as contingent. For
instance, a boy will see, several days in succession, Peter in
the morning and Simeon in the evening, but one evening he
sees James instead of Simeon. " Therefore, his imagination
will fluctuate, and will connect with a future evening, first
one, and then the other" (Ibid. 44, SchoL).
The peculiar characteristic of reason, that which distin-
guishes it from mere empirical expectation, is that it perceives
M
178 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
things as necessary and under the form of eternity, sub specie
wtcmitatis. Thus the association of ideas varies with in-
dividuals and in the same individual ; it depends on the
succession of phenomena in time and creates the appearance
of contingency. Eeason is self-identical, immutable, sees things
under the form of eternity, and, in the consciousness of an
absolute necessity, dispels the illusion of chance or accident in
things.
Leibnitz : The Association of Ideas the Basis of Animal In-
telligence.
Such was the theory of the great Cartesian School. The
association of ideas was, like memory, referred to organic
modifications. But we must notice two things. The first is,
that what is spiritual in the phenomenon does not depend on
the body, but on its union with the soul. The second is, that
the association of ideas, which is purely empirical and only
reproduces the sequence of external phenomena, could in no
case furnish the principles by which the consciousness of it is
possible. Leibnitz regards the association of ideas as being
characteristic of animal intelligence (New Essays, II, 33 ;
Monadology, 26, 27, 28). " Memory furnishes the soul with a
kind of consecutiveness which resembles (imitates) reason, but
which is to be distinguished from it " (Monad. 26).
" Man as well as the animal is inclined to put together in his memory
and imagination what he has observed united in his perceptions and
experience. It is in this that all the reasoning, if so it may be called, of
animals consists, and often that of men, so far as they are empirical, and
govern themselves by the senses and examples, without examining whether
the same reason still has force" (New Essays, II, 33).
These " non-natural " associations of ideas are clue to the
repetition of an experience, or to a single very violent impres-
sion. " For often a strong impression produces all at once the
same impression as a long-formed habit, or as do many, or oft-
repeated ordinary impressions " (Monad. 27).
Increasing Importance of the Part played by Association in the
Empirical Theories of Cognition. Hobbes : Discursiis Mentalis.
In the English empirical school, the association of ideas
assumed an importance which went on increasing until this
law came to be regarded as the sole principle of life and
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 179
of thought. In a chapter of the Leviathan (Chap. Ill, de
consequentia sive scrie imaginationiim), Hobbes reduces the
series of psychical phenomena, which he calls discursus
mentalis, to a series of physical movements. He traces
thought back to images, these images to the sensations of which
they are a continuation, and sensations to the movements
which cause them. " The order of the images is the same as
that of the sensations, which in its turn follows the order of
the motions in the brain, and those motions that immediately
succeed one another in the sense continue also together after
sense ; in so much as the former coming again to take place
and be predominant, the latter followeth by coherence of the
matter moved, in such manner as water upon a plane table is
drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger "
{Leviathan, Chap. III).
The train of thoughts, or discursus mentalis, is irregular in
reverie and in dreams, " regular when it is regulated by some
desire and design. . . . From desire ariseth the thought of
some means we have seen produce the like of that which we
aim at " (Lbid.). Even the inquiry into the unknown, which
is peculiar to man, is nothing else than the establishment of
a train of thought going from consequent to antecedent, or
from antecedent to consequent. The principal relations which
govern this train of thought are those of resemblance, time,
space, of cause to effect, principle to consequent, means to
end, sign to the thing signified.
Locke distinguishes between Natural and Accidental Associa-
tion of Ideas. He allows a Place to the Activity of the Mind
in Association.
In the chapter which he devotes to the association of ideas
(Essay on the Human Understanding, II. 33), Locke comes near
to the doctrine of the Cartesian School. He adopts the
physiological explanation by the animal spirits, " which once
set agoing, continue in the same steps they have been used to;"
and he distinguishes clearly between the rational relations
established by reason and those which are due to a chance
simultaneous perception.
" Some of our ideas have a natural correspondence and connection one
with another ; it is the office and excellency of our reason to trace these,
180 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
and hold them together in that union and correspondence which is
founded in their peculiar beings. Besides this, there is another connec-
tion of ideas wholly owing to chance or custom ; ideas that in themselves
are not at all of kin come to be so united in some men's minds that it is
very hard to separate them ; they always keep in company, and the one
no sooner at any time comes into the understanding, but its associate
appears with it, and if they are more than two thus united, the whole
gang, always inseparable, show themselves together " {On Human Under-
standing, Bk. II, Ch. 33).
Locke traces to the association of ideas a great many
superstitions and prejudices, but he never thought of profes-
sing to find an explanation of mind, of its faculties, and of the
whole mechanism of thought in this principle. It is by the
activity of the mind itself that he accounts for the combina-
tion of the elements of thought. This mental composition, as
he understands it, is quite distinct from mere passive asso-
ciation. But having made these reservations, it must be
acknowledged that his works contain theories which justify us
in regarding him as one of the precursors of the associationist
doctrine. The primary elements of thought are, he teaches,
the simple ideas furnished by sensation and reflection. All
the complex ideas are compounded of these ideas, and can be
reduced to three classes : ideas of modes, of substances, and of
relation. The simple modes are composed of simple ideas
belonging to the same species (number, space, duration). The
mixed modes are composed of simple ideas belonging to
different species. The ideas of these mixed modes, such as those
of beauty, justice, obligation, and in general, all the ideas we
have concerning theology, morality, and jurisprudence, are
composed of several simple ideas joined together, which the
mind by a kind of illusion regards as a single idea. Can
we not here discern the germ of the associationist's explana-
tion of things ?
And Locke comes still nearer to these philosophers in his
theory of substance as a collection of simple ideas, which are
always present together, and which, consequently, the mind
joins in a supposed substance which it regards as their
substratum. Matter, mind, all particular substances are thus
to him combinations of simple ideas that are always present
together at the same time, and end by becoming blended into
one idea which embraces them all, but has no meaning or
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 181
content without them. We must observe, however, that
Locke does not deny the existence of substances. He only
declares that we know nothing about them, that as far as we
are concerned, they are reducible to a collection of associated
simple ideas.
BnJ^dtii .: Our Jyjw ti'lcdi/e of the Sensible World explained Jnj
Association.
Berkeley goes even further than Locke. He is not con-
tent to point out, in his theory of vision, the part played by
association in the acquisition of ideas of magnitude, shape,
distance ; he also tries to prove that sensible things are merely
assoc iated i deas. He maintains that material substances have
no existence, that their whole being is in our perception of
them, their esse est pcrcipi. " Take away the sensations of
softness, moisture, redness, tartness, and you take away the
cherry. Since it is not a being distinct from these sensations,
a cherry, I say, is nothing but a congeries of sensible impres-
sions or ideas perceived by various senses ; which ideas are
united into one thing (or have the name given to them) by
the mind ; because they are observed to attend each other "
(3d Dial, of Hylas and Philon).
Sensations are pure ideas which we passively receive by
the direct action of the Divine mind. The sensations belong-
ing to the different senses have no real relations, or necessary
connection with one another. They are not different modes
of a same reality, or of a same substance ; but owing to experience
and habit, we associate those sensible ideas which are always
accompanied by one another.
" And as several of these [ideas] are observed to accompany each other
they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing.
Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and consistence
having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing,
signified by the name apple ; other collections of ideas constitute a stone,
a tree, a book, etc." (Principles of Human Knowledge, Pt. I, 1).
Given the human mind, the ideas produced therein by the
action of the Divine mind, the constant relations which are
shown by experience to exist between these ideas and which
come finally to be indissolubly associated in our minds, and the
existence of a material world are easily explained.
182 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
David Hume : Association of Ideas the Universal Principle of
Life and of Thought ; the Notion of Causality.
The foregoing theories were generalized and made into a
complete system by Hume. The fundamental principle in
Hume's doctrine is that we must not accept as original and
ultimate all that actual consciousness reveals to us. Many
complex acts, many ideas which were gradually formed by
experience and habit, now appear to us to be simple acts and
ideas, or primary data of thought. " Such is the influence of
custom that where it is strongest it not only covers our
natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to
take place merely because it is found in the highest degree "
(Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding, Sect. IV,
Part I). Therefore the method, which in the positive
sciences is applied to physical phenomena, should also be
applied to psychical phenomena. That is to say, we must first
analyze them into their elements, and then determine the laws
according to which these elements are combined.
" We may," says Hume, " divide all the perceptions of the
mind into two classes or species, which are distinguished by
their different degrees of force and vivacity " (IMd. Sect. II).
By the term impression he means " all our more lively
perceptions when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or
desire, or will." Thoughts or ideas are " the less lively
perceptions of which we are conscious when we reflect on any
of those sensations or movements above mentioned. Thus
the elements of our spiritual life are impressions and ideas
which are enfeebled images of impressions ... all our
ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our im-
pressions or more lively ones." Hence every idea to which
we are not able to assign a corresponding impression is a
complex whole, an artificial compound, the elements and
origin of which can be discovered by analysis. As regards
the laws by which these elements are combined, Hume says :
" To me there appear to be only three principles of connection
among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or
place, and Cause and effect " (Ibid. Sect. III). " All reasonings
concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation
of Cause and Effect" (Sect IV).
To explain the notion of causality by the laws of association
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 183
is therefore to trace to the same source all the knowledge which
bears upon anything that is not a mere abstraction. What is,
then, the origin of our notion of cause ? No intuition reveals
to us " the secret power " by which one object produces another.
A billiard ball moves and knocks against another billiard
ball, which then begins to move also. There is nothing in the
motion of the first to suggest the necessity of the motion of
the second. All we see is that one phenomenon follows the
other. Our senses cannot, then, give us the idea of power or
of a necessary connection. Let us see whether this idea is
derived from reflection on the operations of our own minds ;
whether we shall not find in our own consciousness the
original impression from which the idea of cause is copied
(Sect. VII, Part I). " The motion of our body follows the
command of our will. Of this we are every moment
conscious. But the means by which this is effected, the
energy by which the will performs so extraordinary an
operation, of this we are so far from being immediately
conscious, that it must forever escape our most diligent
inquiry " (Ibid.). We observe a fact, or rather the succession
of two phenomena nothing more.
But, it will be said, are we not conscious of power, of
energy, when by a command of our will we call up an idea
and fix our mind on it ? It would seem that here there was
no medium. To know a power would be to know that which
in the cause renders it capable of producing the effect, and
this would be to know both the cause and the effect by
apprehending the relation between them. Now, we perceive
no necessary connection between the command of the will
and the appearance of an idea. Here again all we know is
the fact ; all we know is that the command of the will is
followed by an idea. And do we owe to reasoning this idea of
cause which cannot be given to us by intuition ? Certainly not ;
for it is impossible to say a priori what will be the effects of
any given object. " Adam, though his rational faculties be
supposed at the very first entirely perfect, could not have
inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that it
would suffocate him" (Sect. IV). " The mind can never possibly
find the effect in the supposed cause by the most accurate
scrutiny and examination, for the effect is totally different
184 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
from the cause, and, consequently, can never be discovered in
it " (Sect. IV).
Eeason cannot even authorize us to expect that the same
causes will be followed by the same effects. Where is the
medium that will enable the mind to go from the proposition:
" ' I have found that such an object has always been attended
with such an effect,' to this other proposition, ' I foresee that
other objects which are in appearance similar will be attended
with similar effects ' ? . . . It is impossible, therefore, that any
arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the
past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on
the supposition of that resemblance " (Sect. IV).
" Upon the whole there appears not, throughout all nature, any one
instance of connection which is conceivable by us. All events seem
entirely loose and separate. One event follows another, but we never can
observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected.
. . . But as we can have no idea of anything which never appeared to
our outward sense or inward sentiment . . . we have no idea of connec-
tion or power at all " (Ibid. Sect. VII, Pt. II).
It is in experience and the association of ideas that we
must look for the origin of our notion of cause and of the
principle of causality. " Similar objects are always conjoined
with similar. Of this w T e have experience. Suitably to this
experience, therefore, we may define a cause to be an object
followed by another, and where all the objects similar to the
first are followed by objects similar to the second. We may,
therefore, suitably to this experience, form another definition
of cause, and call it an object followed by another, and
whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other "
(Ibid.).
The relation of causality which Hume had first distinguished
as original is thus ultimately reduced by him to the double
relation of similarity and succession. The principle of
causality was for him therefore not an a priori law of thought,
but merely a habit of mind, having its origin in experience and
the association of ideas. As to the consciousness of determina-
tion joined to it, it is only a subjective illusion, which no
doubt characterizes our idea of causality, but for that very
reason makes it false. Our idea of power, of force, arises
partly from the sensation of effort, and partly from the sensa-
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 185
tion accompanying the habit. In both cases it is illusory, and
only shows the tendency we have to attribute to external
objects, feelings analogous to those which they cause in us.
" No animal can put external bodies in motion without the sentiment of
a nisus or endeavour ; and every animal has a sentiment or feeling from
the stroke or blow of an external object that is in motion. These sensa-
tions, which are merely animal, and from which we can, a priori, draw no
inference, we are apt to transfer to inanimate objects and to suppose that
they have some such feelings whenever they transfer or receive motion.
With regard to energies, which are exerted without our annexing to them
any idea of communicated motion, we consider only the constant
experienced conjunction of the events ; and, as we feel a customary
connection between the ideas, we transfer that feeling to the objects, as
nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal
sensation which they occasion " {Ibid. Note).
Thus, the determining habit is not the cause any more than
the effort is, but merely a sensation arising from and depend-
ing upon the conjunction of phenomena, which by a common
illusion we project into external things.
The Association of Ideas accounts for our Belief in the
Existence of an External World, of the Ego, and of Volitions and
Emotions.
But it is not only the principle of causality that Hume
reduces to the association of ideas. The whole of our mental
life, our knowledge of matter and of mind, and the phenomena of
the emotions and the will are all explained by him in the same
way. " Here is a kind of attraction, which in the mental
world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the
natural, and to show itself in as many and as various forms "
(Green's Hnme, Vol. I, p. 321).
Here again Hume sets forth all the principles that were to
be developed by the associationists of to-day. We have no
more notion of substance than of cause. There is no impres-
sion corresponding to substance. Hume takes Locke's criti-
cism of this question to be final. We only know modes or
qualities. Bodies are therefore merely groups of sensations
bound together by association, and it is we ourselves who con-
vert a constant relation into a reality. The idea of substance,
like that of cause, is a superadded idea, a subjective illusion
186 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
which corresponds to a habit of mind ; and everything that is
said of matter may with equal truth be said of mind. " There
are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment
intimately conscious of what we call our Self ; that we feel its
existence, and its continuance in existence " {Treatise on Human
Nature, Part IV, Sect. VI). But this is another subjective
illusion which can by analysis be traced to custom and
association. " It must be some one impression that gives
rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any
one impression, but that to which our several impres-
sions and ideas are supposed to have a reference." The
case is therefore the same as with matter. We convert
the relations which bind our states of consciousness together,
into a substantial reality. And if we turn from the intellect
to the emotions we shall find that the association of ideas also
plays the most important part in the generation of our passions
(See Ch. VIII). As to our notion of will, it is explained
not by the chimerical idea of cause, but by the constant
relations between volitions and the motives which precede
them. The same motives are always followed by the same
actions.
Hume did not, it is true, invent the whole of his method of
critical analysis. He had precursors in Berkeley and Male-
branche, but he was the first to attempt a general explanation
of our mental life by the association of ideas. He stated the
problem, and supplied a method for its solution. His
successors had only to continue his work. For him, as for
Mill, our apparently most simple intuitions are in reality very
complex mental acts ; our natural beliefs are subjective
illusions.
In order properly to study the mind, we must apply the
method of analysis, and seek thereby to discover the original
elements of thought and the laws according to which these
elements are combined. We have no original faculties. There
is no such thing as power. There are only phenomena and
constant relations between these phenomena. Consequently,
we have no innate principles, no a priori laws. The principles
of experience are derived from experience. The principle of
causality can be reduced to the expectation of the same
phenomena in the same circumstances. Our certainty is there-
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 187
fore altogether subjective, and rests on habits of mind, on the
impossibility of getting rid of certain associations of ideas.
The associationists have not been able to add anything to
Hume's method or to his principles. There is only one
inconsistency with which Hume can be reproached, and
that is his distinction between relations of ideas and matters
of fact.
"All the objects of human reason or inquiry," says he {Inq. on Hum.
Understanding, Sec. IV, Pt. 1), "may naturally be divided into the two
kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind
are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic, and in short,
every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain.
That the Square of the hypotenuse is equal to the Square of the two sides, is
a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That
three times Jive is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between
these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discernible by the mere
operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent
in the Universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature,
the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty
and evidence."
Hartley : Thought explained by Association, and Association
by Cerebral Vibrations.
D. Hartley, a doctor, also made an endeavour to prove that
the whole of our spiritual life was the result of association.
But while Hume was above all things a psychologist and a
logician, whose method foreshadowed that of Stuart Mill,
Hartley was, on the other hand, as much a physiologist as a
psychologist ; and he inaugurated the method which has been
adopted by Alexander Bain, and more especially by Herbert
Spencer. In parallelism with the theory of ideas, he proposed
a theory of cerebral vibrations, and tried to prove that there was
a close and continual correspondence between the two terms.
Vibrations, like ideas, become associated when they occur
simultaneously or successively. Hartley thought he could
explain all mental facts in terms of relations of co-existence
and succession, and, simplifying Hume's doctrine, he abolished
resemblance as an original and ultimate relation. He returned,
in fact, to the doctrines of Descartes and Malebranche, only
substituting the vibrations of the nerves themselves for the
circulation in the nerves of the animal spirits.
188 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Reid : Reaction against Hume's Doctrines ; Influence of the
Will on the Sequence of Ideas.
In order to escape from Hume's scepticism, Reid multi-
plied the primary principles of thought, the necessary truths
which cannot be derived from experience. Association could
thus only play a secondary part in his system. He very
properly remarks that :
"Memory, judgment, reasoning, passions, affections, and purposes in
a word, every operation of the mind, excepting those of sense, is exerted
occasionally in this ti'ain of thought ... so that we must take the word
idea in a very extensive sense, if we make the train of our thoughts to be
only a train of ideas. . . . The trains of thought in the mind are of two
kinds. They are either such as flow spontaneously . . , without any
exertion of a governing principle to arrange them ; or they are regulated
and directed by an active effort of the mind, with some view and intention.
. . . These two kinds, however distinct in their nature, are for the most
part mixed in persons awake and come to yeai^s of understanding " (On
the Intellectual Pozvers, IV, Ch. IV).
" To account for the regularity of our first thoughts, from
motions of animal spirits, vibrations of nerves, abstractions of
ideas or from any other unthinking cause, whether mechanical or
contingent, seems equally irrational " (Ibid.). Eeid maintains
that the sequence and tendency of our thoughts can to a great
extent be controlled by the will. He denies that our
intellectual life can be explained by inevitable laws of associa-
tion, or a kind of fatal attraction. As against the " natural
and disorderly course of the ideas," he insists on the sequence,
" the order, which is produced by reflection, and an act of Will,"
and does not find in the former the principle of the latter.
" We seem to treat the thoughts that present themselves to the
fancy as a great man treats those that attend his levee. ... If we pay no
attention to them, they pass with the crowd, and are immediately forgot
as if they had never appeared. But those to which we think proper to
pay attention, may be stopped, examined, and arranged for any particular
purpose we have in view " (Ibid.).
Through habit, a train of thought which had at first cost
much labour and reflection ends by occurring of itself to the
mind, by becoming, as it were, spontaneous. This explains
the differences in the talents, aptitudes, and opinions of men.
But the first origin of these series of ideas was not something
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 189
special, irreducible, a mere collection of inevitable laws, but
" the will setting in action the faculties of the intellect."
Dugald Stewart : Distinction between Associations through
Accidental and Necessary Relations; Association the Cause of
Habit.
Dugald Stewart, a disciple of Eeid, gives a minute descrip-
tion of the phenomenon of the association of ideas. He
thinks, however, that it is not possible to enumerate all the
causes of association, and then to reduce all the relations
between our ideas to one or two laws, as Hume did. His
reason for this is based on a misapprehension. " There is,"
he says, " no possible relation among the objects of our
knowledge which may not serve to connect them together in
the mind, and therefore although one enumeration may be
more comprehensive than another, a perfectly complete
enumeration is scarcely to be expected " {Elements of the
Philosoiihy of the Human Mind, Ch. V). Hume might have
replied that it matters little what the objects of our know-
ledge are ; that, for example, whatever the objects may be to
which our ideas correspond, those ideas which have occurred
together or successively will suggest one another. Dugald
Stewart himself attempts, however, to distinguish and classify
the relations by which ideas are associated.
"The relations upon which some of them are founded are perfectly
obvious to the mind ; those which are the foundation of others are dis-
covered only in consequence of particular efforts of attention. Of the
former kind are the relations of Eesemblance and Analogy, of Contrariety,
of Vicinity in time and place, and those which arise from accidental
coincidences in the sound of different words. These, in general, connect
our thoughts together, when they are suffered to take their natural course,
and when we are conscious of little or no active exertion. Of the latter
kind are the relations of Cause and Effect, of Means and End, of
Premises and Conclusion ; and those others which regulate the train of
thought in the mind of the philosopher when he is engaged in a par-
ticular investigation " {Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Vol. II, p. 263).
This distinction between relations that are accidental and
purely subjective, and logical and necessary relations which
have an objective validity, was adopted by the majority of the
French psychologists of the spiritualistic school. Dugald
Stewart showed also that the action of our will on the
190 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
sequence of ideas is an indirect one, and merely consists in
profiting by those laws of association that have most influence
on mind, character, and conduct. Finally, instead of tracing
the connection between ideas to habit, he thinks it " more
philosophical to resolve the power of habit into the association
of ideas than to resolve association of ideas into habit."
Habit does not seem to him to 1 >e " an ultimate fact nor
incapable of analysis." The facility engendered by it is
precisely due to the fact that through repetition, ideas,
feelings, and movements tend to become associated in a more
and more irresistible manner.
"In the case of habits which are purely intellectual, the effects of
practice resolve themselves completely into this principle, and it appears
to me more precise and more satisfactory to state the principle itself as a
law of our constitution than to slur it over under the concise appellation
of habit, which we apply in common to mind and body" (Elem. of the
Philosophy of the Human Mind, Ch. V).
Hamilton reduces all the Laios of Association to one.
Hamilton endeavoured to simplify the theory of association.
First he reduced all the relations between ideas to two,
namely, simultaneity and resemblance or affinity. Then he
reduced even these two laws to one, which he calls the law of
redintegration or totality, and states as follows : " Those
thoughts suggest each other which had previously constituted
parts of the same entire or total act of cognition."
Consciousness obeys two laws : the laws of succession and
of variation. This successive variation being a continuous
one, there is between the modes or acts of the mind a law of
dependence or determined consecution. Each successive modi-
fication in the mental series is the effect of its immediate
antecedent.
This law of dependence implies a law of relativity and
integration. Thoughts depend on one another only inas-
much as they stand with regard to one another in the relation
of parts of the same whole. But this whole is of two kinds :
subjective or psychological, and objective or logical. Hence the
distinction between extrinsic or contingent connections, and
intrinsic or necessary connections. The latter explain them-
selves ; since they are a consequence of the nature of mind,
and are based on the logical impossibility of separating the
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 191
terms joined together by them. But the subjective conse-
cutions, association properly so called, cannot be explained by
the necessary connection between ideas. They are the result
of the unity of the mental act of which they previously
formed a part. Ideas are connected together when they have
formed part of the same integral act of cognition. As regards
association by simultaneity, there would seem to be no
difficulty. Ideas acquired together at the same time are, as
it were, parts of the same whole, elements of a single mental
act which preserves its integrity (law of redintegration).
But in the case of associations by similarity, the theory is
less obviously applicable. How can it be said that two ideas
whose relations resulted in the discovery of something new to
the mind, were included in the same mental act ? The
answer is, that here the middle term which connects the two
ideas is the element common to them both, an element which
belonged to each of them as a part of its whole ; consequently
it is this common element, this identical act, which, while
reconstituting at the same moment the two different ideas,
connects them with one another. Thus association by simi-
larity may also rightly be said to be reducible to the law of
redintegration.
The Assoeiationist Tradition : Thomas Brown.
The Scottish School, Eeid, Dugald Stewart, and Hamilton,
while investigating the laws of association, and allowing
to them a share in the explanation of phenomena, refused
to regard these laws as the sole and exclusive principle
of intellectual facts; for these philosophers were opposed
to the assoeiationist theory of Hume. In the meantime, this
theory had always had its representatives. Erasmus Darwin
(1731-1802), a naturalist, and the ancestor and precursor of
Charles Darwin, and the scientist, Joseph Priestley (1733-
1804), had accepted the psychological doctrines of Hartley.
Even the Scottish School itself, as represented by Thomas
Brown, a disciple of Eeid, and the friend and successor of
Dugald Stewart, returned to the explanations of the asso-
eiationist school. Brown's doctrine marks " the transition
between the decline of this school at the end of the eighteenth
century, and its restoration by James Mill at the beginning of
192 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the nineteenth" (Luigi Ferri, The Psychology of Association,
p. 80).
Brown does not, like his predecessors, regard the laws of
association as being merely laws of the reproduction of our
thoughts. He makes them play a part in the production of
our cognitions, attributing to them the formation of a certain
number of faculties, which he does not admit to be original.
As the term ' association ' appeared to him to be ill-chosen, he
substitutes for it the term ' suggestion.' He draws a distinction
between simple suggestion and relative suggestion, and deduces
from these two principles all our intellectual faculties. A
simple suggestion is an accidental association (such and such a
place reminds me of such and such an individual). Eelative
suggestion is the perception of relations, the foundation of
general ideas and of reasoning, as, for example, when thinking
of a right-angled triangle my mind goes from the square on
the hypotenuse to its proportion to the squares on the two
other sides.
James Mill : Inseparable Association ; Contrast between the
Psychological and the Intuitive Methods.
James Mill, says his son, accomplished the task which
Brown had proposed to the psychologist, for he shows that
chemical decomposition is the model of the method of
analysis which would lead to the discovery of the elements
that go to make up the phenomena of mind. We have
already come across this doctrine in Hume ; but where James
Mill was original was in his theory of inseparable association as
the principle of the subjective illusions of which our common
sense beliefs are made up, and which are the foundation of the
doctrines of the intuitionists. In the first place, he says, when
two ideas, owing either to the force or the frequency of their
association, are closely connected in our minds, they irresistibly
suggest each other. This would explain many of our so called
ultimate and innate principles. In the second place,
" Ideas, also, -which have been so often conjoined, that whenever one
exists in the mind, the other immediately exists along with it, seem to
run into one another, to coalesce as it were, and out of many to form one
idea ; which idea, however in reality complex, appears to be no less simple
than any of those of which it is compounded" (Ass. of Ideas, Ch. III).
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 193
This kind of chemical mental synthesis explains, for instance,
the formation of what we call external objects, which are only
inseparable combinations of sensations. Even the will he
traces to association. The object of our desire is always
pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The means employed
vary according to the experiences we have made and the asso-
ciations between the end and the circumstances which enable
us to attain it.
John Stuart Mill : Laws of Association ; Illusions of Intu-
ition ; Psychological Theory of our Belief in Matter and in
Mind.
John Stuart Mill took up his father's work, developed and
expanded his theory, and gave it new force. In his hands
Associationism came to be not merely an English doctrine, but
one of the great systems of philosophy. The following are,
according to him, the laws of the association of ideas :
"1st. Similar phenomena tend to be thought of together. 2nd. Phe-
nomena, which have either been experienced or conceived in close con-
tiguity to one another, tend to be thought of together. The contiguity is
of two kinds, simultaneity and immediate succession. Facts which have
been experienced or thought of simultaneously recall the thought of one
another. Of facts which have been experienced or thought of in imme-
diate succession, the antecedent or the thought of it recalls the thought
of the consequent, but not conversely. 3rd. Associations produced by
contiguity become more certain and rapid by repetition. When two
phenomena have been very often experienced in conjunction, and have
not in any single instance occurred separately either in experience or
in thought, there is produced between them what has been called
inseparable or, less correctly, indissoluble association. . . . 4th. When an
association has acquired this character of inseparability when the bond
between the two ideas has thus been firmly riveted, not only does the idea
called np by association become in our consciousness inseparable from the
idea which suggested it, but the facts or phenomena answering to those
ideas come at last to seem inseparable in existence : things which we are
unable to conceive apart appear incapable of existing apart, and the belief
we have in their co-existence, though really a product of experience,
seems intuitive" (Mill's Examination or Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy,
Ch. XI).
Given the human mind as we now know it, a complex whole,
a synthesis of elements so blended that they appear as an
indivisible unity, we have next, with the help of these laws, to
N
194 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
dissolve by analysis the compact mass of coherent facts, and to
discover the original phenomena in their primitive simplicity.
This task Stuart Mill accomplished in the most ingenious
manner. The external world, the ego, the laws of thought, the
principles of the mathematical and positive sciences, our ethical
ideas, all these apparently simple intuitions were by his analysis
resolved into their elements, the laws of their connection being
at the same time revealed.
Our belief in the existence of an external world is explained
by the association of ideas. The external world seems to have
an existence independent of our sensations, and to be perceived
by an immediate intuition. The problem here is to prove that
this belief is irresistible only on account of the force of the
inseparable associations which have produced it in the mind.
With the sensation that I feel in the present instant, I con-
trast the multitude of sensations which I might experience
under other circumstances. " I see a piece of white paper on
a table. I go into another room, and though I have ceased to
see it, I am persuaded that the paper is still there " {Ibid.
pp. 192, 193). In other words, there exists for me a possibility
of sensations in given circumstances, and what characterizes
this possibility of sensations, what distinguishes it from any
actual sensation, is that it is permanent. " These various
possibilities are the important thing in the world. My present
sensations are generally of little importance, and are moreover
fugitive." One can follow here the mechanical process which
ends by placing the substance, which is permanent, in oppo-
sition to the actual, fleeting sensation. Moreover, these
possibilities of sensation are co-ordinated groups of sensations
belonging to different senses {e.g. the smell, colour, form, etc., of
a rose), and by this again they are distinguished and separated
from the particular sensation. What I call a body is a group
of co-ordinated sensations, and it is between these groups that
experience has shown constant successions. For instance, fire,
which is a group of sensations, melts wax, which is another
group of sensations.
" Hence our ideas of causation, power, activity do not become connected
in thought with our sensations as actual at all . . . but with groups
of possibilities of sensation . . . the sensations, though the original
foundation of the whole, come to be looked upon as a sort of accident
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 195
depending on us, and the possibilities as much more real than the actual
sensations, nay, as the very realities of which these are only the repre-
sentations, appearances, or effects " (Ibid. p. 1 95).
As we reify groups of sensation into bodies, we refer the
whole of our sensations to a material substance as its
principle or cause. Thus our belief in an external world is
not the result of an immediate, primitive or ultimate in-
tuition. Psychological analysis resolves it into a necessary
illusion, which is explained and produced by the laws of
association.
The distinctive characteristic of our notion of mind as of
matter is the idea of something " whose permanence contrasts
with the perpetual flux of the states of consciousness which
we refer to it."
" The belief T entertain that my mind exists, when it is not feeling or
thinking, nor conscious of its own existence, resolves into the belief of a
permanent possibility of these states. . . . Thus far, there seems no
hindrance to our regarding mind as nothing but the series of our
sensations (to which must now be added our internal feeling) as they
actually occur, with the addition of infinite possibilities of feeling,
requiring for their actual realization conditions which may or may not
take place, but which as possibilities are always in existence, and many
of them present " (Ibid. Ch. XII, pp. 205, 206).
The explanation of the fact that the mind regards itself
as something distinct from the facts of consciousness is that
our actual states of consciousness have only the minimum of
importance as compared with the imposing mass of past facts
reproduced by memory. The process is the same as in the
formation of our idea of matter. The association of ideas
co-ordinates the states of our consciousness into a sort of sub-
stance which we call the Ego, and thus gives them a cohesion
which explains everything. Mill, however, himself admits that
in this respect his theory is not quite satisfactory, since it
accounts neither for the facts of memory nor of foresight,
both of which imply the identity of the subject that remembers
and foresees.
" If, therefore, we speak of the mind as a series of feelings, we are
obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which
is aware of itself as past and future ; and we are reduced to the alternative
of believing that the mind or ego is something different from any series
196 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
of feelings or of possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox that
something which ex hypothesi is but a series of feelings can be aware of
itself as a series" (Ibid. Oh. XII).
Psychological Escplanation of the- so-called Rational Prin-
ciples ; Theoretic/ a ml Practical Principles.
Besides our notions of matter and mind, Mill also explains
the laws of thought, our so-called rational and a priori principles,
by the laws of association. They constitute for him the same
problem. We have before us notions or truths which appear
to be original or ultimate, and acquired by an immediate
intuition ; these must be analysed into their simple elements,
and the laws by which these elements are combined so as to
produce the illusion of an a priori knowledge, must be dis-
covered. The great objection brought against empiricism by
its opponents is the necessity and universality of our rational
principles ; " but," says Mill, " as for a feeling of necessity, or
what is termed a necessity of thought, it is ... of all
mental phenomena the one which an inseparable association is
most evidently competent to generate."
When two ideas have always occurred together, when one
has never occurred without the other, they become inseparably
associated in our minds, and we are unable to conceive one
without the other immediately appearing also. As for the
universality of the necessary truths, that is to say, the exist-
ence of these associations in every mind, it is explained by
the fact that there is in the experience of all men something
common, which imposes on them the same principles. Thus
J. S. Mill does not deny that men think they discover in
themselves universal and necessary principles, only he reduces
this belief to an illusion.
The mathematical as well as the positive sciences are
derived from experience. Geometrical figures are not a priori
constructions ; they have their origin in real forms, in which
certain features are either exaggerated or omitted. The
mathematical axioms are experimental truths. Two straight
lines cannot enclose a space. Why not ? Because I have
never seen two straight lines enclose a space, and I cannot,
by looking back on my past experience, find any image which
would enable me to resist this inseparable association.
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 197
Every science, therefore, rests ultimately on induction. But
what is the basis of induction ? It is, says Mill, our foresight
and expectation that the same antecedents will be followed by
the same consequences. Thus the basis of induction is the law
of causality, or, in other words, it is the principle of the
uniformity of Nature, or of invariable succession. Is this
principle a priori ? No. Like every other principle it is
explained by the association of ideas. " We learn by experience
that there exists in nature an invariable order of succession,
and that every fact in nature is always preceded by another
fact. We call the invariable antecedent cause, and the
invariable consequent effect."
In virtue of the law of the association of ideas, our imagina-
tion tends to reproduce phenomena in the same order as that
in which they first appeared to our senses. This is the first
form of induction, induction per enumcrationem simplicem, in
which from what has been we reason to what will be, without
criticism or hesitation. Hence such practical judgments as
" fire burns," " water quenches thirst." But every fact that
confirms a particular law deposes at the same time in favour of
the law of causality, which thus collects for itself as many
favourable witnesses as all the others taken together. In this
way, the association which from the beginning joins the ideas
of the antecedent with that of the consequent, and tends to
make them suggest one another, becomes an inseparable
association, a universal and necessary law.
We must not omit to mention the important part played in
all these explanations by what Mill calls the laws of oblivion.
What does not interest me disappears almost immediately
from my consciousness. I do not remember, for instance,
having turned the leaves of the book I am reading. It is in
this way that the facts of consciousness , to which the associa-
tion is due are forgotten, and, as the association alone remains,
it appears to be a primary law.
The same explanation applies to practical life. Our ethical
ideas of virtue, of disinterestedness, our moral sentiments, such
as remorse, are so many complex groups of ideas and feelings
which have been combined according to the laws of association.
Things originally indifferent, but which serve for the satis-
faction of our primitive desires, or which were formerly
198 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
associated with these, become in themselves sources of pleasure
more precious than the primitive pleasures, owing to their
stability, to the space of time during which we are able to
enjoy them, and also owing to their intensity. This is a form
of the law of oblivion. We love virtue as the miser loves
money, on account of an illusion founded on the laws of
association. In the beginning man had no other reason to
desire and practise virtue except its tendency to produce
pleasure, and, above all, as a means of avoiding pain : but r
owing to this association, virtue has come to be regarded as a
good in itself and to be as desirable as any other good.
What we love is pleasure. From our childhood the idea of
virtue has been connected with the idea of reward. We forget
that in virtue we sought pleasure, and we have come to love
virtue for its own sake.
Herbert Spencer : Evolutionist Theory of Association.
As J. S. Mill was the logician and psychologist of associa-
tionism, so Herbert Spencer is its naturalist and physiologist.
Taking up the hypotheses of Hartley, he studies the human
mind in its relations to the organism and to the whole of nature.
Two great scientific laws dominate his psychology : the law of
the persistence of force and the law of evolution, transmutation
or change. Consciousness implies an unceasing change of states,
a continuous differentiation. Consciousness is the perception of
difference. A sensation can only be perceived in contrast to
another sensation which it follows, and from which it is distin-
guished. But by change alone I could neither remember nor
foresee things. In order that thought may be possible, the
sensation must leave a residuum after the external cause has
ceased to act. This residuum, this faint copy of the original
sensation, becomes then a term of comparison, by which we
are able to perceive resemblances.
" Differentiation, integration of states of consciousness, these are the
two antagonistic processes by which consciousness subsists the centrifugal
and centripetal actions by which its balance is maintained. That there
may be material for thought, consciousness must every moment have its
state differentiated. And for the new state hence resulting to become a
thought, it must be integrated with before experienced states " {Priv. of
Psych., Vol. II, p. 301).
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 199
" This perpetual alternation is the characteristic of all
consciousness," and it explains the constitution of the mind.
Thought is the continuous assimilation and integration, accord -
ino- to fixed relations, of states of consciousness that are
constantly changing. Herbert Spencer is led by this theory
to reduce the relations according to which our ideas are
associated, to those of difference and resemblance, from which
by an ingenious analysis he derives the relations of contiguity,
co-existence, and succession.
But in order to understand the process by which the intellect
ascends by successive complications, we must consider mind in
its relation with the organism and with the external environ-
ment. Thought is accompanied by a change in the nervous
current : there is a relation of equivalence between the two
terms. To each sensation there corresponds a cerebral
modification, and to the connections between sensations there
correspond connections between the nerves. The progress of
intelligence is thus a gradual perfecting of the cerebro-spinal
system, a gradual adjustment of the internal to the external,
and, at the same time, a more and more perfect correspondence
between the cerebral mechanism and the external phenomena
by which it has been gradually formed. In a word, the
relations between internal phenomena become relations between
nervous elements, which in their turn are the same as the
relations between our thoughts. The laws of mind are merely
laws of phenomena which have been gradually organized into
the nervous system.
The strength of the tendency with which the antecedent of
any psychical change calls up its consequent is proportionate
to the persistence of the union between the external things
they symbolize (Prin. of Psych. IV, Ch. II, 186).
As the nervous system is transmitted by heredity, habits
are gradually fixed in the organism, the structure of which has
been modified by them. Thus the progress of thought is only
comprehensible on the evolutionist theory of the more and
more perfect adaptation of beings to their environment. " If
creatures of the most elevated kinds have reached those highly
integrated, very definite and extremely heterogeneous organiza-
tions they possess, through modifications upon modifications
accumulated during an immeasurable past if the developed
200 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
nervous systems of such creatures have gained their complex
structures and functions little by little ; then, necessarily, the
involved forms of consciousness, which are the correlatives of
these complex structures and functions, must have arisen by
degrees" {Ibid. Ill, Oh. I, 129).
The hypothesis of a tabula rasa is false. There is something
innate in the individual, namely, the acquisitions of the race
which are fixed in the structure of his cerebro-spinal system.
To sum up : Herbert Spencer holds that every act of
intellect is an association, but he does not, like Mill, confine
himself to subjective consciousness ; he denies that the ex-
perience of the individual can account for intellectual life. It
is the experiences of the race which, according to him, by an
infinite repetition in innumerable successive generations, have
established certain sequences as organic relations.
Since he evolves thought from the external world, Herbert
Spencer cannot define the external world in terms of thought
or reduce it, as did Mill, to a permanent possibility of sensations.
Herbert Spencer therefore had to return to realism, but to a
transfigured realism in which psychical and physical facts, in
a constant parallelism, are the symbols of a double aspect of a
reality which itself remains unknowable. In short, while Mill
supplied the psychological method, and the chief steps in the
explanation, Herbert Spencer, with greater power of synthesis,
has expanded and transformed this method, co-ordinating the
laws of mind with the laws of things.
*o"
Conclusion.
We have seen in the history of the law of the association
of ideas how it has gradually risen from being the law
that governs the reproduction of mental phenomena, to the
rank of a universal law of thought. In our time Empiricism is
synonymous with Associationism, and association with universal
evolution. It is impossible not to recognize the services that
have been rendered by the English school, from Locke and Hume
down to Herbert Spencer. The task this school achieved was
the application to human thought of the processes of scientific
analysis and synthesis. It considered the mind as an object
among objects, and even the Kantian idealists allow that this
view contains a certain degree of truth. The question remains
THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 201
whether the mind is merely an object amongst objects,
whether the fact that it knows itself does not give it a place
apart among objects ; and secondly, whether the very act of
examining the mind as an object does not involve the intro-
duction into this examination of certain notions, certain a priori
forms (space, time, causality), which are the very conditions of
all thought.
We have seen that while Herbert Spencer explains experience
by the laws of the knowable, he at the same time places apart,
under the name of the unknowable, a higher notion, which is
no other than the Absolute. Notwithstanding these reservations,
the English school must still be given the credit of having
applied the methods of science to mind, of having at any rate
shown by what steps, by what succession of experiences, the
mind determines, fixes, and defines its data.
CHAPTER VII.
LANGUAGE.
A language is a collection of signs which are used to express
thought, or, in general, any state of consciousness, that is to
say, feelings and volitions as well as ideas. A sign is a fact that
is perceived by the senses, and reveals another fact which, owing
to accident, or by its very nature, is not perceptible by the
senses. Thus, the smoke we see is a sign of the fire we do not
see. A cry is a sign of pain which, by its nature, is invisible.
The signs used in language may be perceived either by
touch (tactual language), or by sight (visual language), or by
hearing (oral language). The tactual language has been
employed in the education of deaf and dumb blind
children, e.g. in the case of Laura Bridgeman : and we have an
example of visual language in the collection of signs by which
the deaf and dumb communicate their thoughts. But the
most valuable language of all, the one best adapted for the
following of all the movements of the mind, is the oral
language. It consists of inarticulate sounds or cries, and
articulate sounds or words.
If now, instead of the nature of the sign, or the material of
language, we consider the connection between signs and
thought, we find that there are two kinds of languages as there
are two kinds of signs, namely, a conventional and a natural lan-
guage. A conventional or artificial language is a language
invented by man, one that he has deliberately chosen and
systematically formed. A natural language is, on the contrary, a
collection of signs that are used involuntarily and without know-
LANGUAGE 203
ledge of the end to be attained, by which man in the beginning,
without any act of volition, expresses his states of conscious-
ness. As examples of artificial language we may mention the
scientific language (chemical nomenclature, algebraical terms,
etc.), the stenographical language, the deaf and dumb language.
As for the natural language it consists chiefly of (1) cries ; (2)
facial expressions ; (3) gestures and movements, and in general
bodily attitudes. Speech is the language par excellence, for it
not only expresses thought, but assists in the formation and
development of thought. Indeed, the two terms have for us
become inseparable. " Thought," says Plato, " is an interior
and silent conversation of the soul with herself" (6 evros tjJs
Y V X^ 7r | 00 ^ a vTr]V oiaXoyos avev cboovrj? yiyi'6/u.ei'o?).
We may study the language of speech in its development and
changes, compare the various vocabularies and forms of syntax,
and, from this comparison, elicit general laws. This is called
Philology. But the only problem connected with language, in
which psychology is directly concerned, is that of its origin
and relations to thought. Is speech a natural or an artificial
language ? Is it to a divine revelation, to an original faculty,
that man owes the power of expressing his thoughts and of
understanding those of his fellow creatures by signs, or did
he acquire this power himself; and, if so, was it through an
arbitrary convention, or through the natural development of a
primitive, spontaneous language ? These are the questions
that have always arisen out of the subject, and have, with time,
become more clearly defined. We shall now proceed to give
an account of the different solutions of them which have
successively been proposed.
The Problem of Language before Plato. Heraclitus and
Dcmocritus ; Hennogenes and Cratylus.
Heraclitus took pleasure in play upon words and in deriva-
tions, as we can see from the fragments of his writings which
have come down to us. Are we to suppose that in this
analysis of terms he sought a confirmation of his philosophical
theories, that he held that speech was given to men by the gods,
and that the essence of things is revealed by their names ?
This doctrine, which was held by some of his followers, can
scarcely be traced to Heraclitus. We know, at any rate,
204 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
that, for Democritus, language was an arbitrary institution, that
names did not depend on the nature of things, but were chosen
by convention (Oecrei). In proof of this he points out, firstly,
that many words have more than one meaning (-7ro\vart]fxov) ;
secondly, that many objects have more than one name
(icroppoTTOv)] thirdly, that there are other objects which by
analogy ought to have a special designation and have none
(vwvv/jlov) (Proclus, Comment, on the Cratylus, Zeller's edition).
Plato devotes a whole dialogue (The Cratylus) to the subject
of language. We find that even in his time there were already
two distinctly opposite theories on the problem of the origin of
language. He puts into the mouth of Hermogenes the theory
of Democritus :
" I cannot convince myself that there is any principle of correctness in
names other than convention and agreement (i-wO-fint) nal 6fxo\oyia) any
name which you give, in my opinion, is the right (opdbv) one, and if you
change that, and give another, the new name is as correct as the old we
frequently change the names of our slaves, and the newly-imposed name
is as good as the old " (Cratylus, 384 d, e).
This is the first theory, the theory of the arbitrary institu-
tion of language.
According to Cratylus, a disciple of Heraclitus, names are, on
the contrary, " natural and not conventional ; not a portion of the
human voice which men agree to use ; but that there is a truth
or correctness in them, which is the same for Hellenes as for
barbarians " (Cratylus, 383 a). Words reveal to us the nature
and essence of things. Therefore, by studying words we can
arrive at knowledge of things. Nay, more, " he who knows the
one will also know the other " (Ibid. 435 d).
Finally, Cratylus is driven by Socrates' logic to saying :
" I believe, Socrates, the true account of the matter to be, that a power
more than human gave things their first names, and that the names which
are thus given are necessarily their true names " (Ibid. 438 c).
Plato refutes the Theories of Hermoyenes and Cratylus.
Plato will not allow that words are arbitrary. As each
thing has its special nature, independently of our way of
feeling, it is evident that our actions are determined, not by
our caprice, but by the nature of the things to which we apply
them. In order to cut or burn, one must use the appropriate
LANGUAGE 205
instrument. In the same way, the action of naming must have
its special nature. For every action we have a special
instrument ; for piercing, for instance, we have the awl, for
weaving, the shuttle, for naming, the name. Just as the
shuttle is an instrument for distinguishing the threads of the
web, so a name is an instrument for distinguishing the natures
of things {Cratylus, 388 c). The shuttle is the work of a
particular artizan, the carpenter, and can only be made by one
who is skilled in that art. The name is the work of a
superior artizan, for not everyone is able to give a name ; and
this artizan is the legislator. Xow, as the carpenter in making
the shuttle looks to the nature of the operation of weaving,
and, on the other hand, imitates a form of shuttle of
which he has the idea, and which may be called the true, or
ideal shuttle, so the legislator should look to the nature of
the things to be named, without ever losing sight of the idea
of the name {to ckucttco (pucrei ire<pvKO<? ovo/j-a. Ibid. 389 d).
But as a smith can make excellent instruments without
always using the same iron, so names can be made out of
different sounds and syllables, provided they are properly
applied to each thing. Finally, as the best judge of a shuttle
is he who uses it, so the best judge of a name will be he who
is to use it, that is, he who is to question and answer, namely,
the dialectician. What constitutes the propriety and suit-
ability of a word is imitation, not external and sensible
imitation, but imitation of the special nature of each thing.
'' If one could express the essence of each thing in letters and
syllables, would he not express the nature of each thing ? "
{Ibid. 423 e). The letter " p," for example, expresses motion ;
the sibilant letters give an idea of blowing : the letters " d "
and " t " are expressive of binding and resting in a place.
This being the case, must we not agree with Cratylus that
he who knows words knows things, reduce the dialectic to
etymology, and give to the gods the credit of having invented
speech ? Plato will admit none of these inferences. He
rejects the hypothesis of a divine revelation : in the first place,
many particular words are badly formed : in the second place,
if we look into language as a whole for the conception of nature,
we shall find that among etymologies some favour the theory
of Heraclitus, that is to say, of universal becoming, and others
206 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the unity and immobility of Parmenides. Are we then to
believe that the gods contradicted themselves ? Or can it be
granted that the science of words is the science of things ?
Everything is not capable of being expressed in its essence by
a corresponding letter. Who could find for the name of every
number a natural and appropriate form ? In this case and in
many others, the meaning of the words has been determined
by custom and convention. How then could the study of words
instruct us as to the nature of things ? Moreover, shall not he
who confines himself to the study of language be reduced to
accepting only the thought of those who made languages ?
But those who made the first words made them in accordance
with their particular way of conceiving things, and if they
were mistaken, we must be mistaken too. Again, how did the
first inventors of language form it, if they had not already the
knowledge of things ? And how could they have had this
knowledge, if things are only known by their names ? It is
impossible, then, to find in names the measure and the
absolute sign of truth : things must be studied, not in their
names, but in themselves.
Thus, according to Plato, it is possible to conceive a perfect,
ideal language, which would be the adequate expression of
truth ; and, so far, Cratylus is right. In truth, it was not a
dialectician who presided at the formation of language ; there-
fore, it must be partly conventional, partly arbitrary, and
partly the result of chance, and truth is not to be sought
in the analysis of words. Setting aside the puerile attempts at
etymology in the Cratylus, we find that Plato recognized, in the
first place, that words are instruments of analysis, the name is
an instrument of instruction used to distinguish the nature of
things ; secondly, that language is natural, and not, as Demo-
critus thought, conventional, although in many cases convention
and use have determined the meaning of words ; thirdly, that
thought does not spring from language, but language from
thought. P>efore we can name things, we must first know them.
Aristotle : Sjiecc/i is a Natural Faculty, Language a Con-
vention.
We have only a few lines of Aristotle on the psychological
theory of language. From them we see that he opposed Plato's
LANGUAGE 207
theory, without, however, accepting that of Democritus in a
literal sense. " Speech," Aristotle said, " is a representation
of the affections of the soul " (rvfxfiokov twv ev t>j "^1%''
iraOrjuaTaw), as writing is a symbol of the modifications of the
voice. The affections of the soul, expressed by words, are the
same in all men, but the representation of them by words is a
matter of convention, and, consequently, varies in the different
races, like the written symbols.
Thus, Aristotle does not hold that words reveal the nature
of things. His definition of a name implies that he rejects
Plato's view, and, a fortiori, that of Cratylus. "Ovo/xa /uev ovv
(TTC (ptoV)] (JP,fXaVTlKl] KO.TU (TVI'6>]K>]1> fXVU ^pOVOV })? JUDjSeV yUe'/OO?
can <7i]jj.avTiKov Ke^u}pi(rfXi'oi'. A name is a word whose
entirely conventional meaning does not involve the idea of
time, and no part of which has any meaning when taken
separately. The proof of this is that the name has not a
natural existence, that it only acquires existence the moment
it is used as a symbol (orav ykvrfrai <tvju^o\ov). From which
it follows that speech itself, which is composed of a noun and
a verb, has, like its component parts, only a conventional
meaning. This being the case, it is absurd to expect to find
knowledge of things by an etymological analysis of the terms
used to indicate them. At the most, one might by this
means find an image of the different states of mind caused by
things. Aristotle does not seem to have made the most of
this connection between the states of the soul and the words
which represent them, in his explanation of the origin of
language. We must not suppose, however, that Aristotle
carried to an extreme the theory of language as an arbitrary
institution. For him man alone among animals has been
endowed with the faculty of speech. Nature has given us
speech as well as motion. Speech consists of words, as
dancing consists of bodily movements. Thus the origin of
speech is providential and natural, it is only the use made of
it that is fortuitous and voluntary.
The theory of the arbitrariness of language appears to have
been exaggerated in the Peripatetic school. Alexander of
Aphrodisias regards speech as a sound produced by an
animated being, on the occasion of an image or an emotion,
the character of which is, moreover, not determined by the
208 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
nature of the internal phenomenon, for the latter depends
altogether on convention (Be Anima, 132 a).
The Stoics insist on the Connection between Language and
Thought.
As Empiricists and Nominalists, the Stoics naturally identi-
fied language with thought in its general and abstract form.
Their doctrine may be summed up in two equally true though
apparently contradictory statements : Man speaks because he
thinks, and thinks because he speaks. Dialectic is the science
or the art of speaking well (eTrto-Ti'iiuDjv too ev Xeyeiv) ; but to
speak well is to speak what is true (to aXijOtj Xeyeiv), and
fitting (irpoa-i'iKovTa). Correctness of expression is the same
as correctness of thought : for the thought and the word
are one and the same thing regarded from different points of
view. The Xoyos, which is thought considered as inward,
hidden in the breast, becomes a word in being uttered
(irpoc^opiKos). Voice ((pwvi)) may be defined in a general way
as air that has been struck (aijp TreirX^y/jLevosi) ; an animal's
voice is the air smitten by passion ; human speech is different,
inasmuch as it is articulate (evapOpos) and emitted by thought
(kou airo oiavolas eKireiJ.iroiJ.ev)]).
The Stoics held that discursive thought was necessarily
connected with language (Siavoia e/cAaX^-n/o/) (D. L. vn, 49), and
this theory is the logical consequence and the expression of
their Nominalism.
Formal Logic, according to the Stoics, has to do with what
is expressed, what is said, to Ae/cToV. By the word Xcktoi
they meant the content of thought, the idea, as distinct,
in the first place, from the external thing to which it refers
(to Ti'yxuvov) ; secondly, from the sound by which it is
expressed ((poovrf) ; thirdly, from the activity of the think-
ing mind. The object, the word spoken, the activity of the
mind even, which is merely a modification of the irvev/xa or
psychic breath, are all material things. The Xcktov alone
is incorporeal. But, in the teaching of the Stoics, what is
not corporeal is not real ; therefore, the idea for them is only
an abstraction, it is nothing until fixed by the word which
gives it body and reality. Thought has a content which
can only be expressed by speech, and deserves more especially
LANGUAGE 209
to be called by the name of Ae/c-roV, that which is said.
The Stoics' theory may be summed up by saying that reason
was with them discursive in the proper sense of the term, and
the \6yos was at once both reason and speech.
And now, was language, thus identified with abstract
thought, arbitrary ? The Stoics held that from the heart,
which is the centre of the governing principle (the t'lye/uoviicov)
there emanates a breath which extends and reaches the vocal
organs. Hence the faculty of speech. But if man has by
nature the faculty of speech, are not, at any rate, the words
themselves arbitrary ? Words, as Plato said, are not formed
by chance, the sounds of which they are composed imitate the
properties of things, and these can be discovered by etymolo-
gical analysis.
It is difficult to see how the Stoics could reconcile this
theory with their grammatical observations. They had noticed
that dissimilar words are used to indicate similar things, that
each term has several meanings, and that the same thing is
designated by several synonymous terms facts which had
been used by Democritus to prove the arbitrary origin of
words. But this school gave more attention to questions
that were purely grammatical than to the philosophy of
language.
Epicurus : First Attempt at a Psychological Theory of the
Origin of Language.
So far, the question whether spoken language is conventional
or arbitrary, was merely a question as to whether words do, or
do not, imitate the nature and essence of things. The
Epicureans were the first to consider language as a historical
fact, and to seek a psychological solution of the problem of its
origin. The nature of man, with his needs, his emotions, and
his experience, explains the origin and development of languages.
In the first place, the hypothesis of the arbitrariness of
language must be rejected (t ovofxura e ap%fjs /ut] Qeuei
yeveaOai), (Epic, apucl D. L. x. 75). To suppose that someone
first distributed the names of things, and then taught these
names to men, is absurd (Lucretius, V, 1040). For by
what privilege could this man have done a thing of
which others were incapable ? How, in the second place
o
210 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
could he have made himself understood by men who had
no acquaintance with speech ? Finally, how could he have
propagated his invention ? By violence ? but he was one
against the whole world : Through reason ? but he could not
have persuaded those who were deaf (Lucr. V, 1040-1055).
Thus, every theory of a conventional creation of language
presupposes language.
The true origin of languages is to be found in the nature of
man and in his needs.
" Nature prompted men to utter the various sounds of the tongue, and
convenience drew from them the names of things, almost in the same manner
as inability to use the tongue seems to excite children to gesture, when it
causes them to point with the finger at objects which are present before
them. For every creature is sensible that it can use its own faculty.
Even before horns are produced on the forehead of a calf, it butts and pushes
fiercely with it when enraged ; and the young of panthers and whelps of
lions contend with their talons, and feet, and teeth, when their teeth and
talons are yet scarcely grown. . .". Lastly, what is there so wonderful in
this matter, if the human race, whose voice and tongue were in full
vigour, distinguished various objects by sounds, according to their various
feelings ; when dumb cattle, and even the tribes of wild beasts, are wont
to utter different and distinct cries when terror or pain affects their
hearts, and when joy prevails in them ? . . . If various feelings, there-
fore, impel the inferior animals, though they are destitute of speech, to
utter various sounds, how much more consonant is it to reason, that men,
even in those early days should have been able to distinguish different
objects by different names ! " (Lucretius, 1027 ff.).
Every emotion affects the organ of breathing in a special
manner : the earliest language was an emotional language
resulting solely from the nature of man. Each race, on ex-
periencing the emotions (!Sia Ttaa-^ovcrug TrdQij) and receiving
the images (ISia Xajufiavovcras (hai>Tdcr/ut.aTa) peculiar to it,
uttered sounds related to these sentiments and impressions.
Hence the diversity of languages (Epic, apud D. L. x, 75).
The first foundation of language, was thus, not the result of
an arbitrary institution, but, as it were, a kind of product of
nature. This first foundation being given, convention, stimu-
lated by the wants of men, may then intervene. Each race
has agreed to impose certain names on things in order to
make them known to others in a less equivocal way, and to
express them as shortly as possible (Epic, apud D. L. x, 75).
It was then also that individual influence had an opportunity
LANGUAGE 211
of making itself felt, and it especially affected the forma-
tion of words indicating abstract conceptions. In short,
the Epicureans regarded speech as a natural language. On
their theory, every man possesses in his vocal organs the
instrument of language, and tends to make use of it. There
is nothing artificial in the expression of feelings and ideas by
sounds. If each race has its own language, it is because every
race has its own peculiar emotions and ideas. Convention can
only modify, and prune, and give precision to the natural
language. The influence of individuals is only felt in the
formation of terms that correspond to abstract conceptions,
because these conceptions themselves are the result of reflection.
Summary i Conceptions of Language formed by the Ancients.
To sum up, we find among the ancients two theories con-
cerning the origin of language. The first, that of the innateness
of a primitive language, appears to have been held by the
vulgar only. It was not adopted by any philosopher, but it is
implied in the experiment made by the Egyptian King
Psammetichus, who, in order to discover whether the
Egyptians or the Phrygians were the older race, ordered two
children to be brought up by goats, and forbade their guardians
to let them hear the sound of any language. " The first word
uttered by these children, fieKos, which in the Phrygian
language means bread, thus proving, it was supposed, that the
Phrygian was the primitive language of mankind, is probably
derived from the same Aryan root which exists in the English,
to bake. How these unfortunate children came by the idea
of baked bread, involving the ideas of corn, mill, oven, fire, etc.,
seems never to have struck the ancient sages of Egypt" 1 (Max
Midler, Science of Langvxige, Vol. I, Ch. 14).
In general, all the ancient philosophers, except Cratylus,
agreed in regarding language as a human creation ; but, while,
to some, words were purely artificial signs, to others they were
an imitation of the essence and nature of things, a hypothesis
which only the fantastic etymology of which we find an
example in the Cratylus would justify. The Epicureans, who
1 Similar experiments are said to have been made by the Swabian Emperor
Frederick II., by James IV". of Scotland, and by the Mongolian Emperors of
India (Max Midler).
212 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
had a conception of a psychological study of language, held that
words do not imitate the nature of things, but rather correspond
to the mental states of the men who made the language.
Christianity : Divine Revelation of Language.
In Christian philosophy we find the hypothesis of a divine
revelation of languages for the first time clearly expressed.
The heresiarch Eunomius (fourth century) accused St. Basil of
having denied Providence, because he would not admit that God
created the names of things, but attributed the invention of
language to the faculties which God gave to man. St. Gregory
defended St. Basil. In the Book of Genesis it is not the
Creator who gives names to all things, but Adam : " And
out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the
field, and every fowl of the air ; and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them : and whatsoever Adam called
every living creature, that was the name thereof" (Gen. II,
19). Though God has given to human nature its faculties,
St. Gregory writes : " It does not follow that therefore He
produces all the actions which we perform. He has given us
the faculty of building a house and doing any other work ; but
we surely are the builders, and not He. In the same manner
our faculty of speaking is the work of Him who has so framed
our nature ; but the invention of words for naming each object
is the work of our mind" (Max Mtiller, Science of Language, Vol.
I. p. 30).
Throughout the middle ages, names were considered more
especially from the point of view of their generality and
connection with general ideas. The history of the Nominalistic
theories belongs, however, to grammar and logic rather than to
philosophy.
Bacon on Signs and Language.
Bacon observes that speech is not the only possible language.
"Whatever can be divided into differences sufficiently numerous to
explain the variety of notions (provided those differences be perceptible
to the senses) may be made a vehicle to convey the thoughts of one man
to another. For we see that nations which understand not one another's
language carry on their commerce well enough by means of gestures.
And, in the practice of some who had been deaf and dumb from their
birth, and were otherwise clever, I have seen wonderful dialogues carried
LANGUAGE 213
on between them and their friends who had learnt to understand their
gestures" (Ad cane, of Learning, Ed" Ellis and Spedding, Vol. IV,
p. 439).
Speech is then only one species of the genus sign. Among
signs, some are founded on analogy, as gestures and hierogly-
phics ; others, such as the characters in handwriting, are
purely conventional and arbitrary.
But is the spoken language conventional or arbitrary ?
Bacon does not at all approve of inquiries into the original
imposition of names, or such etymologies as those of Cratylus.
"That curious inquiry . . . concerning the exposition and original
etymology of names ; or the supposition that they were not arbitrarily
fixed at first, but derived and deduced by reason and according to
significance ; a subject elegant indeed, and pliant as wax to be shaped
and turned" (Ibid.).
Bacon allows, however, that names are " the vestiges of
reason," and he dreams of a philosophical grammar, based on a
comparison of the different idioms. Such a grammar would
lead to the formation of a perfect language, in which " the
several beauties of each [language] may be combined (as in the
Venus of Apelles), into a most beautiful image and excellent
model of speech itself, for the right expressing of the
meanings of the mind" (Ibid.). This curious theory pre-
supposes the possibility of creating a language, merely by
convention and artifice, and this in fact would seem to have
been Bacon's theory : " New words," he says, " being commonly
framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar"
(Novum Organum, 59). In his classification of errors, Bacon
mentions those which result from the use of language, the idola
fori, idols of the market-place. We have words for some
things which do not exist, and no words for others that do
exist. Moreover, there are confused names corresponding to
casual and inexact abstractions. " For men believe that their
reason governs words ; but it is also true that words react on
the understanding ; and this it is that has rendered philosophy
and the sciences sophistical and inactive " (Ibid.).
Locke connects the Study of Words with the Study of Ideas.
The empirical school was obliged by its theory of the
intelligence to unite, in the closest way, the study of language
214 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
with the study of thought. Admitting the existence of neither
first principles, nor of ideas innate to the mind, they were
forced to seek in the instrument of thought, that is in speech,
the principle which fundamentally transforms knowledge.
" I find," says Locke, " that there is so close connection between ideas
and words, and our abstract ideas and general words have so constant a
relation one to another, that it is impossible to speak clearly and
distinctly of our knowledge, which all consists in propositions, without
considering first the nature, use, and signification of language" (On the
Human Understanding, Bk. II, Ch. 33, end).
God, having made man a sociable being, endowed him with
the faculty of speech, " which was to be the great instrument
and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by nature
his organs so fashioned as to be fit to frame articulate sounds,
which we call words " (Bk. Ill, Ch. 1 ). The first condition of
speech is, therefore, a natural aptitude of the organism. But
that is not enough, as we see by the example of parrots
and other birds. Man must, in the second place, " be able
to use these words as signs of internal conceptions, and to
make them stand as marks for the ideas within his own
mind " (Ibid.). Given these two conditions, a language might
exist, but it would still be imperfect. The multiplication of
words would have perplexed their use, had every particular
thing a distinct name to be signified by ; " to remedy this
inconvenience, language had got a further improvement in the
use of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a
multitude of particular existences."
As man possesses by nature the faculty of forming
articulate sounds, it is for him to use and develop this faculty,
to invent words, in fact, and their meaning. The invention
of language arose out of the need of communicating to others,
through external and sensible signs, ideas which are invisible.
There is no natural connection between particular articulate
sounds and particular ideas. It is by an arbitrary convention
that such and such a word has become the sign of such and such
an idea. This can be proved in two ways : 1st, if there were any
natural connection between sounds and ideas, all men would
speak the same language ; 2ndly, it is a fact that words often
fail to excite in others (even that use the same language) the
same ideas that we take them to be signs of (Bk. Ill, Ch. 2).
LANGUAGE 215
It is, therefore, through an illusion, arising from the
association of ideas, that men are inclined to think that there
is a connection between words and ideas. We can even
conceive how language came gradually to be formed. The law
of this process was the gradual passage from the particular to
the general, from the sensible to the spiritual. We see this in
children ; their first ideas are evidently particular.
" The ideas of nurse and mother are well framed in their minds ; and,
like pictures of them, only represent these individuals. . . . The names
they first gave to them are confined to these individuals ; and the names
of nurse and mama the child uses, determine themselves to those persons '
(Bk. Ill, Ch. 3).
Observing subsequently a large number of other beings who
resemble their father and mother in shape and other qualities,
they form an idea in which all these beings participate, and they
call this idea, as well as the former, by the new name of man. In
so doing they invent nothing new ; but merely abstract from
the complex idea which they had formed of Peter, James,
Mary, and Elizabeth, the qualities which were peculiar to each of
them and only retain what is common to all. In this way they
arrive at a general idea and a g-eneral name.
Thus, in the beginning, words must have been particular,
and applied to individuals. By degrees, general ideas were
formed and the general terms, which by connection express
these ideas, were invented. There is another fact which may
throw light on the origin and progress of language, namely, the
fact that " those [words] which are made use of to stand for
actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise
from them, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to
more abstruse significations, and are made to stand for ideas
that come not under the cognizance of our senses : e.g. to
imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, etc., are all
words taken from the operations of sensible things and applied
to certain modes of thinking. Spirit in its primary significa-
tion is breath ; angel, messenger ; and I doubt not but, if we
could trace them to their sources, we should find in all
languages the names which stand for things that fall not under
our senses to have had their first rise from sensible ideas."
In short, Locke's theory is, that if our faculty of uttering
articulate sounds is natural, the invention of names is con-
216 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
ventional and arbitrary. In the beginning, words were, in the
first place, particular and only used to indicate individuals, and,
in the second place, they only signified notions of sensible
things. Owing to the progress of thought, general terms
were created to correspond to general ideas, and words which
had their origin in sensible ideas were, by analogy and
metaphor, transferred to spiritual notions.
Cartesian School : Descartes. Bossnet.
With their rationalistic theories of the nature of language
as well as of the origin of ideas, the Cartesians were naturally
opposed to Locke's empiricism. Descartes does not go much
into the question of language, 1 he merely mentions in con-
firmation of his theory of the automatism of animals, the
absence of signs among them.
" For it is highly deserving of remark that there are no men so dull
and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together
different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to
make their thoughts understood ; and that, on the other hand, there is no
other animal, however perfect or happily circumstanced, who can do the
like. . . . And this proves not only that the brutes have less reason
than man, but they have none at all : for we see that very little is
required to enable a person to speak " {Discourse on Method, Pt. V).
Thus, in Descartes' opinion, speech is not only the sign of
thought, but the proof of its existence. The being who thinks,
speaks ; thought creates language. Descartes does not say
whether primitive words were particular or general ; but he
does not wish words to be confounded with " those natural
movements which express the passions, and may be imitated
by machines, as well as by animals." Thus speech was not
originally the cry of emotion, but was from the beginning the
expression of thought.
Bossuet (Logique, 1, Ch. Ill) holds that words are arbitrary.
" Thought is natural and the same in all men : terms are
artificial, that is to say, artificially invented, and each language
has its own." By use and habit, ideas are now so joined to
terms as to make them inseparable in our minds. Bossuet's
theory differs from that of the empiricists in that, for him,
1 He was, however, interested in the question of a universal language [Edn.
Cousin, VI, p. 61].
LANGUAGE 217
words, instead of being a condition of understanding, only serve
to fix ideas in the mind. Language depends on thought which
precedes and creates it.
" There can be no doubt that the idea is separable from the term, and
the term from the idea. For we must understand things before we can
name them, and moreover, the term, if it is not understood, suggests no
idea. The idea comes before the term, which is invented for the purpose of
indicating it : we speak in order to express our thoughts."
Leibnitz, the Founder of Scientific Philology.
Among the Cartesians, Leibnitz was the only one who
occupied himself especially with the problem of language.
He did not confine himself to advancing a rationalistic theory
in opposition to Locke's empirical theory. He is the true
founder of scientific philology, whose method he fixed with
marvellous acuteness of mind.
The traditional view had been that Hebrew was the original
language of the human race ; and hence many vain attempts
on the part of philologists to trace Latin, Greek and all the
languages to the Hebrew. Leibnitz was the first who tried to
destroy this prejudice. " There is as much reason," he said, "for
supposing Hebrew to have been the primitive language of man-
kind, as there is for adopting the view of Grotius, who
published a work at Antwerp, in 1380, to prove that Dutch was
the language spoken in Paradise" (Max Mliller, Science of
Language). But Leibnitz not only rejected the theological
assumption which had rendered the labours of previous
philologists fruitless, he also both pointed out the proper
method of the science (i.e. the comparative method), and the
light which it might be expected to throw on the early history
of the world.
" And if there were no longer an ancient book to examine,
languages would take the place of books, and they are the most
ancient monuments of mankind. In time all the languages of
the world will be recorded and placed in the dictionaries and
grammars, and compared together ; this will be of very great
use both for the knowledge of things, since names often
correspond to their properties (as is seen by the names of
plants among different peoples), and for the knowledge of our
mind and the wonderful variety of its operations : not to
218 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
speak of the origin of nations, which is known by means of
sound etymologies which the comparison of languages will best
furnish " {Nouv. Ess. Ill, Chap. IX).
Languages in general being the most ancient relics we have of
the races of men being older, that is, than literature and art
give us most information as to their origin, relationships and
migrations. Leibnitz himself began this collection of facts, which
is the necessary preliminary to a science of language. He
applied to missionaries, ambassadors, and travellers ; he wrote
to Peter the Great, with the request that " dictionaries, or at
least small vocabularies should be collected of the numerous
languages " which were current in his empire. Later,
Catherine II, following out this idea, had a comparative
glossary published of "all the languages of the world." This
glossary contained a certain number of words in nearly three
hundred languages. (See Max Midler).
Leibnitz : Words vjere originally general ; their Institution
not entirely arbitrary.
In the New Essays, Leibnitz gives his views on the philosophy
of language, in opposition to those of Locke. Locke's theories
may be reduced to two formulae: 1st, words originally refer to
individual objects and to sensible ideas ; 2nd, words are arbitrary.
Leibnitz will not accept either of these formulae. The first he
emphatically rejects, maintaining that words, in the beginning,
do not refer to individuals. " General terms serve not only for
the perfection of languages, but they are necessary even to
their essential constitution. For if by particular things we
mean individual things, it would be impossible to speak if
there were only proper names and not appellatives, i.e. if there
were words only for the individuals " {Nouv. Ess. Ill, Chap. I).
How, indeed, could the mind give names to individual things,
of which there is an indefinite multitude ? It would be over-
whelmed by the number of the words it would have to create.
It is as natural to employ general terms as to observe
resemblances between things. " And, indeed, the most general,,
being less burdened with relation to the ideas or essences they
include, although they are more comprehensive in relation to
the individuals to which they apply, were very often the
easiest to form and are the most useful " (Ibid.). Experience
LANGUAGE 219
goes to confirm this opinion. " Thus you see that children
and those who know little of the language which they
wish to speak, or of the matter of which they speak, avail
themselves of general terms as thing, plant, animal, instead of
employing the proper terms which they lack " (Ibid.).
A philological investigation of proper names would make
the proof of this theory complete. Particular terms are so far
from having preceded general terms that individual or proper
names were all originally appellative or general (e.g. Brutus,
Caesar, Augustus).
"Thus I would venture to say that nearly- all words are originally
general terms, because it will only rarely happen that an express name
will be invented without reason, to indicate one such individual. We can
say then that the names of individuals were names of a species which
was given par excellence or otherwise to some individual, as the name
large head to that one of the whole city who had the largest or who was
the most important of the large heads which were known."
In the second place, Leibnitz only accepts the theory of the
arbitrary origin of speech with certain reservations. He
does not believe speech to be innate or to have been directly
revealed to us by God, but he thinks that there must
generally be some reason for words being what they are.
" I know it has been customary to say in the schools, and almost every-
where else, that the meanings of words are arbitrary (ex institute), and it
is true that they are not determined by a natural necessity ; but they are,
nevertheless, determined by reasons sometimes natural, in which chance
has some share, sometimes moral, where choice enters " {Ibid. Ch. II).
To prove this, he returns to the hypothesis advanced in the
Cratylus, and points out in words a kind of imitation of the
things named.
" It seems that the ancient Germans, Celts, and other peoples allied to
them, have employed, by a natural instinct, the letter R to signify a
violent movement and a noise like that of this letter. It appears in pew,
ruo,rinnen,riiren . . . the Rhine, Rhone. . . . Now, as the letter R signifies
naturally a violent movement, the letter L designates a gentler one. . . .
Not to speak of an infinite number of other similar appellations, which
prove that there is something natural in the origin of words, which
indicates a relation between things and the sounds and movements of the vocal
organs" (Ibid.).
Nevertheless, he admits the possibility of languages that
220 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
are " artificial, dependent on choice, and entirely arbitrary,
as the language of the Chinese is supposed to be."
All his life Leibnitz dreamed of the possibility of what he
calls a " earacUristiqui universale," a philosophical language
analogous to the language of mathematics. To achieve this,
it would be necessary, first, to discover the elementary
concepts of which all others are forms ; secondly, to deter-
mine all possible combinations of these concepts, so that,
simply by a mathematical calculation, it would be possible
not only to prove the truth of every proposition, but to find
new propositions. To simple concepts and their combinations
there should correspond signs of an absolute value, which
would be capable of constituting a universal language.
The Eighteenth Century Philosophers. Condillac : Languages
are Analytical Methods ; To Reason is to Calcidate ; Marks of
a well-formed Language.
It is in the eighteenth century that we find philosophers
attaching most importance to the study of language and its
relation to thought. Condillac exaggerated the importance of
signs to a paradoxical extent. He went so far as to sub-
ordinate thought to language, even saying that we have an
innate language, although we have no innate ideas. To reason
well is to speak well. Science is nothing more than a well-
constructed language. Is not speech the condition of abstract
and general ideas ; and are not these ideas the condition of
reason ?
" If we had no names, we should have no abstract ideas ; and if we had
no abstract ideas, we should have neither genera nor species ; and if we
had neither genera nor species, we could not reason about anything.
Now, if we can only reason with the help of these names, this also proves
we only reason well or ill because our language is a good or an inferior
one. Analysis will therefore teach us to reason only in so far as, by
teaching us to determine abstract and general ideas, it teaches us to con-
struct our language well, and the whole art of reasoning may be reduced
to the art of speaking well " (Log. 2nd Part, Ch. V).
Let us try to understand Condillac's theory. According to
him there is only one method, the method of analysis. The
whole work of thought consists in analysing confused and
complex knowledge, in abstracting, by this means, its
LANGUAGE 221
simple elements, and the relations between them, in proceed-
ing, in short, from the unknown to the known ; and this is
possible only if what is unknown is contained in what is
known, and can be discovered there by means of analysis.
" Every language is an analytic method, and every analytic method is
a language (Langue des calculs, Preface). It is impossible to speak without
resolving thought into its different elements, in order to express them
singly one after another ; and speech is the only instrument by which this
analysis of thought is possible. Languages are therefore, properly
speaking, methods. Reasoning can be perfected only in so far as they
are made perfect, and, when reduced to its simplicity, the art of reasoning-
can be nothing else than a well-constructed language " {Log. 2nd Part,
Ch. VII).
Condillac's theory is, however, not altogether paradoxical. It
rests on his conception of science and of the processes of logic.
Descartes aimed at the imitation of " the long chains of
simple and easy reasonings, by means of which geometers are
accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult
demonstrations " (Disc, de la Methode, 2nd Part), and Condillac
was a Cartesian inasmuch as he would only admit the exist-
ence of one method the mathematical. " We have in
Algebra," he says, " a striking proof of the fact that the
progress of science depends solely on the progress of
languages " {Log. 2nd Part, Ch. VII).
To the objection that algebra deals with quantity, and
proceeds by equations and not by propositions, Condillac
boldly replies : " Equations, projjositions, and judgments are in
reality the same thing, and consequently the same method of
reasoning is used in every science " (Log. 2nd Part, Ch. VIII).
He gives a more precise statement of his theory when he adds
that, " to calculate is to Teason and to reason is to calculate.
We have here two names, but not two operations " (Langue
des calculs, I, Ch. XVI). We find what we do not know in
what we do know, for the unknown is in the known, because
it is the same thing as the known. To go from the known to
the unknown is, therefore, to go from the same to the
same. To pass from one proposition to another identical
proposition, and to reason, is the same thing. What is called
progress of thought is merely a progress of expression. To
reason is to translate a proposition which implicitly contained
222 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
a truth into another proposition in which we have a glimpse
of this truth, and the second proposition into another in
which it is completely revealed (Laromiguiere, Paradoxes de
Condillac).
" Every act of reasoning consists in the substitution of one ex-
pression for another, the same idea being preserved in both. Now,
in calculation, sums, differences, products, and quotients are only
abridged expressions, which are substituted for other less convenient
ones, but which contain the same idea. Therefore, to reason is to sub-
stitute, and to calculate is also to substitute " (Laromiguiere, Ibid.).
" Reasoning is merely a calculation, and the operations of calculation are
mechanical, therefore the operations of reasoning are in every science
mechanical. To say that reasoning is mechanical is to say that it refers
to words and signs, hence a chain of reasoning or a science is merely a
language. It may perhaps be objected that the inference from this is that
the general ideas of metaphysics are not ideas, that they are only signs,
and that, consequently, the reasonings of a metaphysician, like the calcu-
lations of a mathematician, are mechanical operations. This is true. No
one is more convinced than I am of this truth, which is confirmed by my
experience every day " (Langue des calcids, I, Ch. XVI).
In his Langue des calcids, a work which was unfortunately
never finished, Condillac tried to prove by examples that " to
create a science is nothing else than to construct a lanoriao'e "
{Langue des calculs, I, Ch. XVI). In this work he proceeds
without any fixed plan, allowing himself to be guided by the
analogy of terms. He shows us the unknown in the known,
by a substitution of expressions. " Thus we see that mathe-
matics are formed according as language is formed " (Ibid.).
A science is therefore nothing but a well-constructed
language. What then are the marks of a good language ?
In the first place, it must be simple, so that the mind may not
be overwhelmed by the signs, which it should be able to
manipulate with ease. What would a man do in whose
language there were a hundred different words for the first
hundred numbers ? In the second place, the signs must be
rigorously determined. Their meaning must be exact, unique,
and well defined. Lastly (and this quality is implied in and
implies the two others), a language must be formed according
to the laws of analogy. The words, when analysed, must
correspond to the elementary ideas they express. It is only
on this condition that language can be a guide to the mind,
LANGUAGE 223
or that one sign can lead to another according to the laws of
analysis.
" The whole art of reasoning, like the whole art of speaking,
may be reduced to analogy " (Langue des cedents, Pref.).
Everything depends on the order. One expression leads to
another and truths are followed by truths when nothing
intervenes. There is no great mystery in genius. " A man
of genius begins at the beginning, goes straight ahead. His
whole art is in this" (Ibid. II, Ch. I). A good language
would fill the place of genius.
" To reason mechanically does not mean to reason like a machine or
an automaton. Mechanical reasoning is the employment of a language
so clear, so exact, so definite, in a word, so perfect, that without any
trouble, analogy alone calls up and brings together the signs, and merely
by bringing them together shows us the truth."
Origin of Language according to Condillac ; The Language
of Action and of Speech.
In his Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge (1746),
Condillac, unwilling to go against the religious traditions,
accepts the theory that Adam and Eve, " when newly created
by God, were, by an extraordinary gift, in a condition to reflect
and to communicate their thoughts " (2nd Part). But he
supposes that some time after the deluge two children of
different sexes lost their way in the desert before they had
learnt the use of any sign ; and, " who knows," lie says, " that
there is not a race which owes its origin to such an event ?
The question is, how did this new nation invent a language for
itself ? " Condillac admits, then, that language may have had
a natural origin. In his Logique (published in 1781, after his
death), he does not even allude to the divine revelation of
language.
The earliest form of language is the language of action.
The soul and the body are closely united. " Our external
structure is designed to express everything that takes place
in the soul " (Logique, 2nd Part, Ch. II). The characteristics
of this language are that it is, in the first place, synthetic
and confused. " It does not belong to action to be analytic.
As our action only represents our feelings because it is the
effect of them, it represents all together those which we feel
at the same time " (Ibid.). In the second place, this language
224 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
is neither conventional nor voluntary. Men obey nature.
" They begin to speak the language of action as soon as they
feel ; and they speak it then, without the object of communica-
ting their thoughts " (Ibid.).
" We can see, now, in what sense language precedes thought.
Man cannot think without signs, therefore he does not invent
his first language but discovers it. The elements of the
language of action are born with men, and these elements are
the organs which the Author of our nature has given us.
Thus, there is an innate language, although there are no innate
ideas ; for it was necessary that the elements of some kind of
language should precede our ideas, because without some kind
of signs it would be impossible for us to analyse our thoughts "
(Ibid.). Thought presupposes language, and language thought.
How are we to avoid this contradiction ? By the innateness of
the language of action. In bodily movements, which are
the natural expression of his mental states, man possesses a
language even before he knows it, or has the desire to use it.
But there is no language of action in the proper sense of the
word until the movements of the body are interpreted, and
understood as signs of mental states. And the principle of
this development is need. Men need one another's help, hence
they must be able to make themselves understood, and con-
sequently to understand themselves. Without being conscious
of it, and without willing it, he who " listens with his eyes "
analyses the action of another in order to observe his successive
movements. Sooner or later he observes that in order to
understand others he analyses their actions, and in order to be
understood, he analyses his own. And in analysing his action,
man analyses his thought, for himself, as for others; and
henceforth becomes " the language of action is an analytic
method " (Log. II).
By obeying the laws of analogy, there is no reason why
this kind of language should not be given an increasing
exactness. " There are no ideas that cannot be rendered by
the language of action, and it will render them with the more
clearness and precision according as the analogy will be more
sensibly apparent in the series of signs chosen " (Ibid.).
Speech, in succeeding the language of action, preserves the
character of the latter.
LANGUAGE 225
"Thus, as a substitute for violent gestures, the voice rose and fell at
clearly perceptible intervals. . . . One language did not suddenly
supplant the other ; there was for a long time a mixture of both, and it
was not till much later that speech prevailed. Now each one of us
knows by his own experience that the inflections of his voice are more
varied, in proportion as his gestures are more varied " (Essai sur VOrig.
des Connais. Hum. 2nd Part, Sect. I, Ch. II).
The first language must then have been a kind of chant,
with violent inflections accompanying the movements of the
1 tody. As nature has prepared in gestures the elements of the
language of action, so she has also provided in cries the
elements of the spoken language. " To express their feelings,
men had for a long time only natural signs, to which they
gave the character of conventional signs " (Ibid.). In the
beginning, therefore, speech consisted only of interjections, or
of cries varying in different notes according to the feelings
expressed. By the imitation of the cries of animals and
of the sounds of nature they enriched their vocabulary.
There were at first only names of things (water, tree,
etc.), then the different sensible qualities of objects were
gradually noticed, and the circumstances under which they
might be found, in this way adjectives and adverbs were
invented. " The first verbs were invented to express passive or
active states of mind only ; " their meaning was undetermined,
as in the case of the infinitives to go, to act : the accompanying
action supplied the rest, that is to say, tense, mood, number
and person (Essai sur l % Orig. ales* Connaissances Hum. 2nd Part,
Sect. I, Ch. IX). Abstract words (e.g. magnitude, vigilance)
were created much later, and are all derived from some
adjective or verb. Finally, Condillac, like Locke, asserts
that words indicating abstract or spiritual ideas had their
origin in sensible ideas.
To sum up : language is not a purely arbitrary institution.
Nature has, in the movements of the body, given the elements
of the language of action, and in the cry of passion she has
given those of the language of speech. Man finds through
experience that, impelled by need, he speaks before he has
willed to speak. Convention, therefore, only perfects and
extends what was begun by nature.
" Men know not what they are able to do until experience has taught
them the things they do quite naturally. This is why the only things
P
226 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
they ever do intentionally are things they have already done without
having formed the intention of doing them. . . . They thought of
analyzing only when they observed that they had already done so ; they
thought of making themselves understood by the language of action only
when they noticed that they had already made themselves understood by
it. In the same way, they must have thought of speaking by articulate
sounds, when they observed that they had already spoken by means of
such sounds, and languages began to exist before the project of making
them was formed. . . . Everything was begun by nature, and well begun ;
this is a truth which cannot be too often repeated" (Log., Part II,
Ch. III).
Originally languages were narrow in extent, but well con-
structed. " Their methods were exact so long as only things
concerning needs of primary necessity were spoken of." Mis-
takes were then immediately followed by punishment. In order
to make languages perfect we must proceed as men did in
those days ; that is, " we must endeavour to find new words
by analogy, only when a correct analysis has really given us
new ideas " (Ibid.).
De Brosses : Mechanical Formation of Languages.
De Brosses, first president in the Parliament of Burgundy
(born at Dijon, 1709, died 1777), published in 1765 an Essay on
the Mechanical Formation of Languages. Like all the philosophers
of the 18th century, he thought that language was very poor
in the beginning and developed slowly. But he denied that
the origin of words was arbitrary. The reason of words lies in
the nature of the vocal organs by which they are uttered, and of
the things which they designate. To speak is to act : an action
is not due to chance, but determined by the instrument by
which it is accomplished, and the end for which it is accom-
plished. What the President de Brosses wished to show was
then that words are not formed by chance ; that, given
the structure of the vocal organ and the things to be named,
words were what they had to be and could not have been
otherwise.
" The system on which language was first built up and names imposed
upon things was not, as is generally supposed, arbitrary and conventional ;
but a truly necessary system which was determined by two causes : the
first is the construction of the vocal organs which can only utter certain
sounds corresponding to their structure, the second is the nature and the
properties of the things to be named."
LANGUAGE 227
It must therefore be proved that there is a connection
between the " external and physical object, the impression left
by its image on the brain, and the expression of this image by
a vocal sound, which has either a real or a conventional con-
nection with it."
Feelings are connected with the vocal organs and naturally
expressed by certain interjections. As regards things, man can
only have named them " by sounds which describe them,
establishing between the thing and the word a relation by
which the word mav excite an idea of the thing. The first
fabric of the human language must have consisted of a more or
less incomplete description of the things, named, as far as it
was possible for the vocal organ to effect this, by a sound
imitative of real objects." Language then, according to de
Brosses, was originally onomatopoeic.
But how, on this hypothesis, were men able to name objects
that cannot manifest themselves to the organ of hearing by
any sound ?
" This imitative description extended step by step, advancing from one
shade of meaning to another, by every possible means, good or bad, from
names of things that were most susceptible of imitation by vocal sounds,
to those that were least easy to imitate in this way. That the spread of
language took place in one way or another on this plan of imitation as
dictated by nature is jjroved by experience and observation."
If this view is correct, if it is true that not only are words
not of arbitrary origin, but that their form was inevitably
determined by the structure of the vocal organs, and by the
nature of the things to be named, it follows as a logical con-
sequence that there can only have been one primitive language ;
that given man, and such and such an individual thing to be
named, this thing could only have one name, which would be
produced, as it were, by a kind of mechanism. De Brosses
saw this consequence of his doctrine and accepted it. " This
being the case," he says, " there exists a language which is
primitive, organical, physical, and necessary ; a language which
is common to the whole of mankind, which is not known or
practised in its original simplicity by any race, but which is
spoken nevertheless by all men, and constitutes the first
foundation of language. This foundation, owing to the immense
edifice of accessories built on it, is now scarcely recognizable."
228 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
As proof of this thesis, he instances certain expressions,
' which are first regularly developed, as soon as the faculty of
speech begins to be exercised; expressions native to the human
race, and resulting necessarily from the physical structure of
the vocal organ, and from the product of its simplest exercise."
De Brosses proceeds by the comparative method, and gives a
large number of derivations. His theory was most ingenious,
and the fruit of a truly scientific mind, but he exaggerated and
falsified it. The structure of the organ has no doubt a part in
the creation of words, but does this necessitate the use
of a particular sound to represent a particular object ? Will
all men imitate the same sound in nature in identically the
same way ? Up to the present, at any rate, the hypothesis
of a primitive language common to the whole human race,
has not been confirmed by science.
t
Adam Smith develops Locke s Theory.
In his Essay on the Origin of Language, Adam Smith adopts
Locke's theory, and gives it further development. Condillac
had shown that the first rudiments of language are provided by
nature ; the President de Brosses, going further, had introduced
the hypothesis of mechanical necessity. Adam Smith re-
turns to the idea of a purely conventional origin. Man, he
thinks, must have lived for a time in a mute state, his onlv
means of communication consisting in gestures of the body and
in changes of the countenance ; so that at last, when ideas
multiplied that could not be counted on the fingers, it was found
necessary to invent artificial signs of which the meaning was
fixed by mutual agreement. Adam Smith would wish us to
believe that the first artificial words were verbs. Nouns, he
thinks, were of less urgent necessity, because things could
be pointed at or imitated; whereas mere actions, such as are
expressed by verbs, could not. He therefore supposes that
when people saw a wolf coming they pointed at him, and simply
cried out, ' He comes ' (Max Muller, Science of Language,
2nd Lesson).
In the beginning, according to Locke, every word- indicated an
individual object. Imagine two savages who had lived far
from any other human beings, " the particular cave whose
covering sheltered them from the weather ; the particular tree
LANGUAGE 229
whose fruit relieved their hunger ; the particular fountain
whose water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by
the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appella-
tions they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to
mark them. . . . Afterwards, when the more enlarged experience
of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary
occasions obliged them to make mention of, other caves, and
other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow
upon each of those new objects the same name by which they
had been accustomed to express the similar object they were
first acquainted with. . . . When they had occasion, therefore, to
mention, or to point out to each other many of the new objects,
they would naturally utter the name of the correspondent old
one, of which the idea could not fail, at that instant, to present
itself to their memory in the strongest and liveliest manner.
And thus those words, which were originally the proper names
of individuals became the common name of a multitude. A
child that is just learning to speak calls every person who
comes to the house its papa or its mamma ; and thus bestows
upon the whole species those names which it had been taught
to apply to two individuals. I have known a clown who did
not know the proper name of the river which ran by his own
door ! ' It was the river,' he said, and he never heard any other
name for it. His experience, it seems, had not led him to
observe any other river. The general word river therefore
was, it is evident, in his acceptance of it, a proper name
signifying an individual object. If this person had been
carried to another river, would he not readily have called it a
river V {Ibid. Ch. XII).
This, as we see, is the exact reverse of the view held by
Leibnitz.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Discourse on the Origin of In-
equality : Essay on the Origin of Languages.
In his Discourse on the Origin and, Grounds of the
Inequality of Men (1753) J. J. Eousseau was led by his subject
to treat of the origin of language. On this matter he
accepts and at the same time criticises the theory of Oondillac,
a theory which, although incomplete, would seem to have
appeared to him the only possible hypothesis. The first
230 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
language was the natural cry. When ideas multiplied men
multiplied also the inflexions of the voice, and added gestures
to them. " They expressed visible and mobile objects by
gestures, and those that struck the ear by imitative sounds.
But because gestures can hardly do more than indicate objects
that are present or easily described, because, also, they are not
universally used, since darkness or the interposition of another
body renders them useless, it occurred at last to men to substi-
tute for them the articulations of the voice, which, although they
are not connected in the same way with some of our ideas, are,
as established signs, more adapted to the expression of them all."
In the beginning each word signified a whole proposition.
When the subject began to be distinguished from the
attribute and the noun, which required no small effort on the
part of the human mind, substantives were at first only so
many proper names, for general ideas presuppose the existence
of signs ; and the present of the infinitive was the only tense
used. As for adjectives, they only appeared much later,
because abstraction is a troublesome and unnatural operation.
This is exactly Condillac's theory, and the only one which
would account for the origin of language. But what a number
of difficulties it involves ! In the first place, if men lived
scattered about in a state of nature, what need had they of
language ? In the second place, if men required speech in
order to learn how to think, " they required much more to
know how to think before they could discover the art of
speaking." Lastly, the substitution of articulate sounds for
cries and gestures implies a common consent and agreement ;
but there must have been a reason for this general accord, and
speech would thus appear to have been necessary for the
establishment of the use of speech.
J. J. Eousseau's conclusion amounts to the hypothesis of a
divine revelation, although he does not expressly say so.
" As for me, alarmed as I am by the increasing difficulties of the
subject, and being yet convinced that it is almost proved that languages
cannot possibly owe their origin or establishment to purely human means,
I leave to whomsoever will undertake it the discussion of the following
difficult problem : Which was most inevitable, that society, being already
established, should proceed to institute language, or that language,
already invented, should be the cause of the establishment of society ? "
LANGUAGE 231
In his Essay on the Origin of Languages J. J. Bousseau
shows more originality, and also states his views more clearly.
Instead of repeating Condillac's arguments he makes his
views concerning the first language depend on his theory of the
predominance of feeling in the primitive man. He accepts
a common thesis of the 18th century, namely, that " speech,
being the first social institution, must owe its form to natural
causes." But he does not think with de Brosses that words
are mechanically determined by the structure of the vocal
organ and the impressions of things : he recognizes the exist-
ence of a special faculty of language. Sight, hearing, and
even touch are capable of providing signs of thought.
Animals have an organization which is more than sufficient
for communication between themselves : those which are
gregarious have a kind of natural and instinctive language.
" Conventional language belongs to man alone. The discovery of the
art of communicating ideas depends therefore less on the organs which
serve for this communication than on a faculty peculiar to man which
causes him to use his organs in this manner" (Ibid. Ch. I).
As regards the origin and nature of the earliest language,
J. J. Bousseau differs from Condillac. He says :
" It is probable that the first gestures were inspired by need, and that
the first sounds were drawn from men by passion (Ch. II). Men are
divided, set one against the other by their needs. Passion draws them
together. Men, who by the necessity of struggling to live are forced to
fly from one another, are, by all their passions, drawn together. It was
neither hunger nor thirst, but love, hatred, pity, and rage that drew
from them the first sounds."
Condillac was wrong in maintaining that the first language
was a perfectly-formed language, an analytic method express-
ing by analogies the relations between ideas.
" We are told that the language of the first men was a language of
mathematicians, and now we see that it was a language of poets (Ch. II).
The first language was figurative ; it expressed the passion roused by an
object rather than the object itself. The word giant was created by
terror before comparison gave the word man (Ch. III). The first
language was much more like singing than speech ; most of the root-
words were sounds which imitated either the accent of passion or the
effect of sensible objects ; we constantly trace onomatopoeia in them
(Ch. IV). J. J. Eousseau connects the difference in languages with the
differences in climate. The southern languages are the daughters of
232 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
pleasure and not of need, they are lively, sonorous, well accentuated ; the
languages of the north, where life is harder, are harsh and strong, rough
and inarticulate " (Ch. IX, X, XI).
Reaction against the Philosophy of the 18th Century. De
Ronald : Divine Revelation of Language.
As we have seen, the hypotheses of the philosopers of the 18th
century were far from agreeing in every particular, but they
had one common characteristic, that of representing language
as an invention comparable to any other human invention.
" There was a time when, as the ancients thought, man was no
more than a ' mutum et turpe pecus.' The simplest needs of
society first brought about the creation of a natural language
consisting of certain facial expressions, certain movements of
the body, and certain intonations of the voice. According as
ideas were multiplied, men perceived how inadequate such a
language was, and they sought a more convenient means of
communication. Then the idea of speech occurred to them ;
they agreed together, an amicable arrangement was made (on
sarrangea a V amiable), and in this way artificial or articulate
language was established " (E. Kenan, Originc du Langagc,
pp. 78, 79).
The reaction in philosophy felt at the beginning of the 19th
century naturally affected the solution of the important
problem of language in which the thinkers of the preceding
century had been so deeply interested. " The 18th century
had attributed everything to the freedom, or rather to the
caprice, of man. One of those schools which endeavoured to
uphold the cause of spiritualism and religion attributed
everything to God" (Ibid. pp. 80, 81).
But two remarks are necessary here. The first is, that the
theological solution was not without antecedents, and had in
fact always had its partizans. In ancient times this view of
the question was attributed to Heraclitus, and certainly upheld
by Cratylus. The polemic of Eunomius againt St. Basil
proves that it had defenders in the early Christian schools.
Father Lami (I' Art de parler, 1670) maintained that man
could never have produced anything but inarticulate cries if
God had not expressly taught him to speak. Warburton, the
English philosopher, quoted by Condillac, adopts a middle
course. According to him, the hypothesis of an. artificial
LANGUAGE 233
creation of language would seem, judging merely from the
nature of things, to be the most acceptable. "God, we there
find {i.e. in Scripture), taught the first man religion, and can we
think He would not at the same time teach him language ?
But though, from what has been said above, it appears that
God taught man language, yet we cannot reasonably suppose it
any other than what served his present occasions, he being now
of himself able to improve and enlarge it as his future
necessities should require" {Divine Legislation of Moses, Vol. II).
The second thing to be remarked is, that de Bonald, the boldest
and most brilliant of the defenders of the theological theory,
starts from principles that were borrowed from Condillac. In
his later works, Condillac appears to be more than ever con-
vinced of the importance of the part played by language.
" Language," he says, " is anterior to thought it explains mind
and the processes and evolution of intelligence. ' De Bonald
starts from the same principles, but reverses Condillac's
interpretation of them. The problem of language is, for him,
not a special problem, but the whole problem of philosophy.
Man cannot get to know himself by reflection on his own
consciousness, a thankless labour, a working of thought on
itself which can produce nothing.
"As God. the supreme intelligence, can only be hnoion through His
Word, which is the expression and image of His substance ; so man, a
finite intelligence, is only known through his speech, which is the
expression of his mind ; and this means that the thinking being is
explained by the speaking being. The following rational proposition :
Thought can only be known through its expression, that is to say through
speech, contains the whole of human science, just as the Christian saying
that God can only be known through His Word contains the whole of
divine science, and for the same reason" (Legislation primitive, Disc,
preliminaire).
In order to understand de Bonald aright, we must bear in
mind that he does not propose merely to solve one particular
problem. For him the problem of language is the whole of
philosophy, and the solution of this problem is the solution of
the philosophical problem in general " The mystery of an
intelligent being " is explained by the fact that an original
language was given to man at the moment of creation.
Man only thinks because he speaks. Meditation is an
inward and silent speech.
234 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" The solution of the problem of speech may be stated as follows :
Man must necessarily think his speech before he speaks his thought {Legist,
prim., Disc, prelim.). An intelligent being conceives his speech before he
produces his thought. . . . External speech is only a repetition, the
echo, so to speak, of the inner speech. . . . What does the mind seek
when it is seeking a thought ? The word that expresses it, and nothing
else."
We require speech, " not only for the communication of our
knowledge to others, but in order that we ourselves may
have intimate knowledge or consciousness." J. J. Rousseau
had said, " One must enounce propositions, one must speak,
in order to have general ideas ; for as soon as imagination
comes to a standstill, the mind can only advance with the
assistance of speech." De Bonald takes up this idea and
expands it.
"Just as man cannot think of material objects without having in his
mind an image of them, so also he is unable to think of incorporeal
objects (spirits, relations, general conceptions) without having within
himself and before his mind the words that are the expression of these
ideas. That is to say, it is possible to conceive animal intelligence without
speech, but not human intelligence. The idea presupposes the word.
Their appearance is simultaneous ; but nevertheless, the idea must be prior
to the word, since every object is necessarily prior to its image. But
although it is true that the idea is logically prior to the word, the former
only appeal's in the light of consciousness with the word and through the
word. Ideas dwell in us unperceived, latent, outside time. Words, by
a marvellous correspondence, by a kind of pre-established association
have the power of making them pass into actuality, or of bringing them into
the light of consciousness. Thought, then, manifests or reveals itself to
man with, or through, the expression of it. As the image presented to me
by a mirror is indispensably necessary to me that I may know the colour
of my eyes or the features of my face, so also do I require light in order
to see my own body " {Le'gisl. prim., Disc, prelim.).
The faculty of thought is inborn in us, says de Bonald, but
without the faculty of speech it is nothing. " Every day the
intelligence of man is drawn out of non-existence by speech."
As it has been justly remarked, words have, in de Bonald's
theory, the same property as that which Plato ascribed to sensible
phenomena. They cause us to recollect the idea. The ideas
are there in the mind. " The aim of moral philosophy is not
so much to teach men things they do not know, as to make
them admit things they do know" {Le'gisl. prim., Disc, prelim.).
LANGUAGE 235
Language (by which we are to understand speech) gives us
our ideas, since it reveals them to us ; but to whom do we owe
language ? The hypothesis of an arbitrary human institution
is absurd in itself, and irreconcilable with the theory of the
simultaneity, at least in time and for us, of the word and the idea.
Rousseau had rightly said that " speech would be necessary for
the establishment of the use of speech." What a genius it w T ould
have required to rise to the conception of speech, and of
the elements of which it is composed I And if such a genius
had ever existed, how could a language have been taught to
beings who knew no language, and consequently could not
understand the one in which they were addressed 1 More-
over, how could it be supposed that God created man a sociable
being without giving him speech, which is the instrument and
condition of every social relation ? The impossibility of the
invention of language by men would in itself lead us to the
conclusion that man was created with speech, as with sight
and hearing. In the second place, if, as de Bonald maintains,
every idea presupposes language, then the idea of the invention
of language presupposes the possession of language. The
existence of ideas to be indicated by words might have given
rise to the invention of speech, but the idea only appears with
the word. Language, therefore, cannot have been invented,
and, since it exists, it can only have been given to us by God.
To sum up : ideas are revealed to us by language and language
is revealed to us by God. On the other hand, thought is
logically anterior to words, and innate to the mind : it is not
created by experience, but discovered. Therefore thought has,
like language, a divine origin. God has given to us both a mind
and the instrument for awakening the ideas which slumber in
it. De Bonald's theory is thus a kind of Platonism in which
words are the principle of reminiscence.
Maine de Biran: Language connected with Voluntary
Motion.
De Bonald's theories were accepted by followers of the
traditionalist and theological school, such as J. de Maistre
and L'abbe de Lamennais, and rejected by independent philo-
sophers. In his Examen Critique des Ojnnions de M. de Bonald
(written in 1818), Maine de Biran refutes the doctrine of the
236 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
divine revelation of language. He shows that this theory
carries the difficulty a step further back, but does not get rid
of it. Signs that were invented by God would be to us not
signs, but things which we, in our turn, would have to trans-
form into signs, by attaching a particular meaning to them.
" Those who think that man could never have invented
language if God Himself had not given or revealed it to them,
appear to me not clearly to have understood the question of
the institution of language ; they perpetually confound the
substance with its forms. Suppose God had given to man a
ready-made language or a perfect system of articulate or
written signs adapted to express all his ideas, man would still
have had to attribute to each sign its peculiar value or
meaning, in other words, he would have to make it a real sign
conveying the intention and aim of an intelligent being, just
as a child employs his first signs when he transforms the
cries which have been given to him by nature into real signs
of distress." Thus, according to Maine de Biran :
" The difficulty of the psychological problem, which consists in deter-
mining the faculties which must have co-operated in the institution of the
first language, remains the same, whether the signs which are the form,
and, as it were, the material of this language, were given or revealed by
the Supreme Intelligence, or invented by man, or suggested by the ideas
and feelings of which they are the expression."
We see here how, with different philosophers, the problem
changes. With de Bonald the question was, how could
man have invented language ? To Maine de Biran it matters
little whether the material of language was revealed by God
or invented by man ; in either case there remains to be
discovered what faculties must have co-operated in the
institution of the first language. This would seem to involve a
paradox, or even a contradiction ; for if language was revealed
to man by God, how could faculties be required for its institu-
tion ? But this apparent paradox is, in fact, Maine de Biran's
theory. The word becomes a sign only when it is voluntarily
produced. Man appropriates a language only by remaking it
himself, and it may literally be said that when he receives it
he gives it to himself. Speech is, like effort, the characteristic
fact of human life ; man speaks because he is not merely
passive, because he acts, and in acting is conscious of his will
LANGUAGE 237
as of a force which is distinct from the end to which it is
applied.
" Why do animals which are formed like us for speech remain always
dumb ? It is, I think, difficult to answer this question on the hypothesis
that derives all the faculties of the human mind from simple sensation.
On our theory this question solves itself. Animals do not speak because
they do not think, or, in other words, because they are not persons,
and because a free activity independent of sensation does not belong
to them ; and having thus neither the feeling nor the idea of a subject
as distinct from its attribute, or of a cause as distinct from its effect,
they are incapable of forming the first of all judgments, which is the
basis of all the others, they cannot attach any meaning to the word / or
to the verb is."
What, then,, are the successive acts which must be accom-
plished by man before he can acquire language ? The child
must, above all, first learn to understand himself to form the
idea of a sign.
" Nature provides the young at birth with instinctive signs adapted to
the manifestation of their needs. These signs are nothing to the sensitive
being which is ignorant of them, and they are true signs only to the
nurse, who hears and interprets them. Before these first signs can have
any meaning for the individual who uses them, he must institute them a
second time, by his own activity. In other words, he must attach a
meaning to them. . . . The passage from animal to intellectual or active
life manifests itself in the child the moment he transforms his wailing or
first cries of pain into signs of calling, which he uses voluntarily in
order that his nurse or parent may come to him, change his position, etc.
. . . This first transformation is most remarkable. It is the first
human act, the first and true foundation of language."
Thus, what are required before all else are the intellect and
will, which out of gestures and cries can make signs ; there
must be a being who is capable of distinguishing between
himself and his feelings, and of taking possession of his own
activity. Language will then develop through the analogical
extension of natural signs and onomatopoeia. Man is, in the
second place, adapted for speech by the connection between his
acoustic and vocal organs.
"The sounds that reach the organ of hearing, and, through it, the
cerebral centre, determine not only the action of the auditory muscles, but
also those of the vocal organ which repeats, imitates, and reflects them.
The individual himself is his own echo : the ear is struck both by the
direct external sound and by the internal reflected sound."
238 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Our vocal organs associate themselves instantly with the
impressions received by the ear from the voices of others.
There is thus something infectious in language. It is
naturally passed on to others and propagated. Lastly, we
voluntarily imitate sounds that we recollect having heard.
This is personal speech. Thus Maine de Biran regards
language as a form of activity. It is, according to him, as
indispensable to the clearness and distinctness of thought as
voluntary effort to the consciousness of personality. " There
can be no real ideas where there are no voluntary signs."
It may be granted to de Bonald that all ideas, even that of
the ego, not to speak of " the production of the ego," presuppose
a language of some kind ; and a language is not a succession
of sounds, but a voluntary muscular movement. Thus Maine
de Biran regards language as merely a series of movements,
and makes its formation, as well as intelligence itself, depend
upon activity and its laws.
Result of Recent Inquiries into the Subject of Language.
Comparative Philology. Physiological Theory of Natural Signs.
In our times the problem of language, of its origin, and its
relation to thought, has been revived, on the one hand, by the
progress of comparative philology, and on the other, by the
physiological theory of expression, physiognomy, and gestures,
or in short, of natural signs. The result of these discoveries is
that the inadequacy of the hypotheses of the 18th century has
been shown ; for it has been proved that language is not a
product of reflection, nor an invention in the usual sense of
the word. Furthermore, the two theories of an artificial
institution and of a natural origin of language, which had
hitherto been continually brought forward as opposed to one
another, were now reconciled in one theory, which was both
more in accordance with facts and more comprehensive.
The science of language, of which Leibnitz had provided the
method, and, so to speak, traced out the plan, made immense
progress towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth centuries. Already, in 1787, William Jones, the
celebrated English orientalist, asserted a relationship between
Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin. In 1808 Frederick Schlegel, in his
Essay on the Language and Wisdom of the Hindoos, by applying the
LANGUAGE 239
comparative method, united into a single group the languages
of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Germany, which he
designated by the common name of Indo-Germanic languages.
In 1816 Francis Bopp published his treatise on the System of
conjugation of the Sanscrit tongue, compared with that of the
Greek, Latin, Persian, and German the first truly scientific
comparison that was established between the grammars
of the Indo-European languages. He completed his work by
publishing, between 1833 and 1852, his Comparative Grammar
of Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Slavonic, Gothic, and,
German. William Humboldt, Jacob Grimm, Eugene Burnouf
(Studies on the Ancient Language of Persia) completed the
foundation of an experimental science of language. The result
of these inquiries was a genealogical classification of languages.
It was known that from the Latin had come Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, French, Wallachian, and Eoumanian ; now it was
proved that Latin, Greek, the Celtic, and Teutonic and Slavonic
languages, as well as the ancient dialects of India and Persia,
had all come of a primitive language, the common mother of
the whole Indo-European family. By the same comparative
method the Semitic family (Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, etc.)
was discovered. The existence of a Turanian family (lan-
guages of the nomad races of Asia, Thibet, etc.) has been
asserted by some philologists and contested by others.
While this affiliation of languages was being proved, the
laws of derivation, by which the original idiom is changed, often
to the extent of becoming irrecognizable, were also studied. It
was shown that this derivation takes place according to fixed
laws, of which man is unconscious at the time he applies them,
and which the philologists only perceive to-day by dint of
analysis and comparison. " What distinguishes phonetic from
dialectic changes," says Max Miiller, " is that the former can
be reduced to very strict rules, while the latter cannot, or at
least not with the same unerring certainty. In the growth of
the Modern Eomance languages out of Latin, we can perceive
not only a general tendency to simplification, not only a
natural disposition to avoid the exertion which the pronuncia-
tion of certain consonants, and still more of groups of conson-
ants, entails on the speaker ; but we can discover tendencies
peculiar to each of the Eomance dialects, and laws so strict as
240 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
to enable us to say that in French, and in French only, the
Latin 'pattern would of necessity dwindle down to the modern
pdre. These changes take place gradually, but irresistibly ; and
what is most important, they are completely beyond the reach
or control of the free will of man." By showing that languages
are modified according to inevitable laws of which those who
obey them are unconscious, comparative philology has com-
pletely overthrown the hypothesis of the 18th century ; any
notion of convention or contract must now be abandoned.
Languages are natural products, living things which obey the
laws of life.
" Instead of, like the ancient philologists, proceeding from resemblances
that were purely artificial and external, language is now taken as an
organic whole, possessing a life of its own : the laws of this life are sought
for ; and each family of languages is found to have ramifications which
obey uniform laws. As long as each language was regarded as an inor-
ganic aggregate over the formation of which no inner reason had presided,
only crude material solutions could be found for the problem of the origin
of language " (E. Penan, Origine du Langage, pp. 86, 87).
Among the philologists who have attempted to make use of
the discoveries of linguistic science in the solution of the philo-
sophical problem of language, Max Midler and Kenan have
most strongly insisted on the fact that it could not possibly
have been an arbitrary human institution.
Max Mihiler The First Elements of Language are Abstract
and General Roots.
According to Max Midler comparative philology should be
counted among the natural sciences. Language is not an
invention in the same sense as painting, architecture, writing,
or printing are inventions. Like other natural products, it
has had a development rather than a history. <: . . . Although
there is a continuous change in language, it is not in the power
of any man either to produce or to prevent it. We might
as well think of changing the laws which control the circula-
tion of our blood, or of adding one cubit to our stature, as of
altering the laws of speech, or inventing new words according
to our own pleasure " {Science of Language, Ch. II).
It is therefore impossible to accept the theory that was
current in the 18th century. Philosophers, on the contrary,
who " imagine that the first man, though left to himself, would
LANGUAGE 241
gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have
invented words for every new conception that arose in his
mind, forget that man could not by his own power have
acquired the faculty of speech which, so far as our experience
goes, is the distinctive character of man, unattainable, or, at all
events, unattained by the brute and mute creation " (Ibid. Ch.
XIV).
Nor does the theory of a divine revelation account better
for the facts.
"Theologians who claim for language a divine origin drift into the
most dangerous anthropomorphism, when they enter into any details as to
the manner in which they suppose the Deity to have compiled a dictionary
and grammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a schoolmaster
teaches the deaf and dumb. And they do not see that, even if all their
premises were granted, they would have explained no more than how the
first man might have learnt a language if there was a language ready
made for him. How that language was made would remain as great a
mystery as ever" (Ibid. Lect. IX, p. 331, 1st Series).
Can comparative philology not assist us in solving the
problem ? Everything which, in a language or family of
languages, cannot be reduced to a simpler or more primitive
form is called a root. The ultimate result of the analysis of
the languages of the Aryan and Semitic families has been the
discovery of four or five hundred monosyllabic roots, or
irreducible and constitutive elements : Ar, to plough ; /, to go ;
Ad, to eat ; Da, to give ; etc., etc.
What are these roots ? Two theories have been proposed :
that of onomatopoeia or the imitation of natural sounds, and
that of the interjection. But neither theory coincides with the
results arrived at by comparative philology, for the roots are
neither onomatopoeic nor interjectional. Most frequently when
we think we have discovered an imitative harmony in a word,
we have only to trace the word to its origin to see that it was
not created by a direct imitation of a natural sound. It is
left to us to look for another solution which, though apparently
less simple, is more philosophical, and the only one that
appears to be reconcilable with the data of the science of
language. Man is differentiated from animals by two faculties :
speech and the power of generalization. Now, comparative
philology, by tracing language back to roots, each of which
expresses a general idea, has proved that to speak and to
Q
242 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
generalize are only two aspects of one and the same act.
Adam Smith declared that all names were originally individual
names. Leibnitz held, on the contrary, that they were all
appellative or general. They were both in a sense right.
"... Adam Smith would be perfectly right in maintaining
that this name [cavea or .caverna], when first given, was
applied to one particular cave, and was afterwards extended to
other caves. But Leibnitz would be equally right in main-
taining that in order to call even the first hollow cavea, it was
necessary that the general idea of hollow should have been
formed in the mind, and should have received its vocal ex-
pression cav. It is the same with all nouns. They all express
originally one out of the many attributes of a thing, and that
attribute, whether it be an action or a quality, is necessarily a
general idea. The word thus formed was in the first instance
intended for one object only, though of course it was almost
immediately extended to the whole class to which this object
seemed to belong " {Ibid. Ch. XIV).
The following then are the steps in the formation of
language. We begin by knowing general ideas (hollow, cavea).
In the second place, thanks to general ideas, we are able
to know and name particular things (cav-cavea). Lastly,
the objects thus known and named represent whole classes, and
their proper names are changed into appellative names. The
difficulty in Max Midler's hypothesis is to understand how the
sound is related to the thought. What connection is there
betw-een the words and the ideas, between the root ga, for
instance, and the action of going ? We cannot see here, as in
the onomatopoeic theory, what can have led man from the
thought to the sign that expresses it. Max Miiller's reply is
merely a re-affirmation of his theory. The general idea calls
up and suggests the word. This is an original law of mind.
" The 400 or 500 roots which remain as the constituent elements in
different families of language are not interjections, nor are they imitations.
They are phonetic types produced by a power inherent in human nature. . . .
There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that every
thing which is struck, rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. . . .
It was the same with man. . . . Man, in his primitive and perfect state,
was endowed not only, like the brute, with the power of expressing his
sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoeia. He
possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expression to the
LANGUAGE 243
rational conceptions of his mind. That faculty was not of his own
making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind, as irresistible as
any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct,
it belongs to the realm of nature " (Lect. IX, 1st Series).
Max M tiller's theory may be summed up in two statements :
Firstly, language is a product of nature ; Secondly, man speaks
by a sort of instinct, which necessarily involves two steps :
the formation of general ideas, and the creation of words to
express them. This second thesis rests entirely on the fact
that philological analysis has reduced all the original
material of a language or of a family of languages to four or
five hundred abstract and general roots. Now M. Michel
Breal (Mdangcs de Mythologie et de Linguistique, 1878) has proved
that these roots cannot be regarded as constitutive elements of
a first language : they are, on the contrary, the remains of
former substantives, originally concrete words, which took an
abstract meaning, while passing through the form of the verb.
The abstract monosyllables obtained by comparative analysis
can therefore tell us nothing as to the first language spoken
by men.
E. Renan : Language is not the Residt of Reflection, hid a
Spontaneous Product.
M. Renan does not believe that men began by having general
ideas, or that the first words were abstract monosyllables. He
ascribes the chief role in the formation of language to onoma-
topoeia, to analogical metaphor, maintaining moreover that
reason, though as yet unconscious of itself, took an active part
in the first creation of language. He is of opinion that
synthesis, complexity, exuberance of forms, indefiniteness,
extreme variety, and uncontrolled freedom must have been the
distinctive features of the first human language. But, like Max
Miiller, he cannot believe that language was invented in
cold blood, with a deliberate intention, as the result of a
convention or contract.
" If speech is neither a gift from without nor a slow mechanical
invention, there only remains one possible view, namely, that its creation
is to be attributed to the spontaneous and combined action of human
faculties. The need of giving outward expression to his thoughts and
feelings is natural to man ; all his thoughts are internally and externally
expressed by him, nor is there anything arbitrary in the use of articu-
244 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
lation as a sign of ideas. It was neither with a view to suitability or
convenience, nor in imitation of animals that man chose speech as a means
of formulating and communicating his thoughts, but rather because
speech is natural to him, as regards both its organic production and its
expressive value. For, if we attribute originality to animals in their
cries, why should we deny originality to man in speech?" (Orig. du Lav-
gage, p. 90).
Man is by nature a speaking being, as he is by nature a
thinking being. It is as unphilosophical to assign a deliberate
beginning to language as to thought. Languages should be
compared to the products of genius, or, better still, to the old
popular poems, the great anonymous epics. The action of one
family, of one individual may have been decisive in those
far-off ages, but that was because there lived in this family
or in this individual the spirit of the whole race.
"The true author of the spontaneous acts of consciousness is human
nature, or, if you will, a cause which is above nature. When we have
reached this point it matters not whether we attribute causality to God
or to man. What is spontaneous is at once human and divine, and herein
we find a means of reconciling opinions, which are incomplete rather than
contradictory " (Ibid. p. 94).
Language is a human, but impersonal product. It is the
development, the visible expression of thought, " the living-
product of the whole inner man " (Fr. Schlegel). We must
always return to the idea of Life, to understand the birth and
progress of languages. A seed is sown which contains poten-
tially all that the living thing will one day be. The germ
develops, organs are differentiated, functions distinguished. But
in the germ the law was contained, the form and the type of this
evolution were implied. Similarly, " it was not by successive
juxtapositions that the different systems of languages were
formed. Like the living beings in nature, language was, from
its first appearance, endowed with all its essential elements.
. . . Languages must be compared not to the crystal which
is formed by agglomeration around a nucleus, but to a germ
which owes its development to its own inner force and to the
inward necessity of its elements " (Ibid. pp. 100-101).
In this sense it may be said that each family of idioms was
created " at one stroke" that it came out of the genius of each
race, without effort and without any preliminary groping for
LANGUAGE 245
words. " An original intuition revealed to each race the
general fashion of its speech, and the great act of agreement it
was to make once for all with its thought " (Ibid. p. 20).
Physiological Theory of Natural Signs : Charles Bell, Darwin.
Physiology, like comparative philology, has provided new
data for the solution of the problem of language ; for it has
explained the production and significance of natural signs.
How have gestures and changes in countenance come to express
emotions and passions ? The parts, says Charles Bell, which
are used for expression serve also from the first as functions
both of the lower or organic life and of the higher or relational
life. Now a gesture which expresses an emotion is the begin-
ning of an action, of one, namely, that would be necessary in
order to get rid of the emotion or to prolong it, according as it is
pleasant or painful. A sign or expression is thus the beginning
of an action. The same applies to facial changes. These are due
to the working of certain muscles which do not, like the rest,
move under the skin, but are attached to it, and so draw
it along with them. If the face by a particular contraction
expresses a particular passion or appetite, it is because this
contraction is precisely the mechanical condition necessary to the
satisfaction of this passion or appetite. If rage is expressed by
a rictus which draws back the lips and uncovers the teeth, it is
because this is the very movement by which one animal prepares
to seize another and to tear it to pieces with his teeth. This
theory of Bell's was accepted and expanded by Gratiolet.
In his treatise on the Expression . of the Emotions, Darwin
adopts Charles Bell's ideas, treating them, however, from a
new point of view. He, too, starts from the principle that
none of our organs were originally intended for expression,
and that certain movements of the organism only became the
signs of certain internal states in consequence of their habitual
co-existence with the latter. He then tries to account for all
the phenomena of expression by three general principles : The
'principle of serviceable associated Habits ; the principle of Anti-
thesis ; the principle of actions due to the constitution of the Nervous
System, independent from the first of the will, and independent
to a certain extent of habit.
The principle of antithesis is somewhat hypothetical. Darwin
246 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
declares that certain expressive movements have no other-
reason than an original and universal inclination to accompany
a feeling with gestures contrary to those which would express
the opposite feeling. To show her affection, a cat stiffens
herself, draws herself up on her paws, arches her back, cocks
up her tail, points her ears, because all these movements are
the exact opposite of those she would make when about to
make an attack or to defend herself. The principle of the
association of useful habits is, in fact, Charles Bell's law traced
to its origin. Movements that are useful for the satisfaction
of a desire, or for the relief of a painful emotion, become finally,
through repetition, so habitual that they recur every time this
desire or emotion re-appears, even though it be in a feeble
degree, and when their utility no longer exists or is very
doubtful. Many natural signs are actions of which, through
hereditary habit, we make a beginning when our ances-
tors would have been prompted by need to carry them out.
Dogs have the habit of licking their young in order to clean
them ; this action was by degrees associated with feelings of
affection, and became an expression of tenderness which they
extended to their masters, and to all those with whom they
wished to make friends. In the same way a man, when insulted.,
unconsciously puts himself in the attitude which would be
proper for attacking his adversary, although he has no intention
whatever of doing so.
The third principle, that of the direct action on the organ-
ism of the stimulation of the nervous system, is independent
of the will, and, to a great extent, of habit. Experience shows
that every time the cerebro-spinal system is excited, a certain
quantity of nervous force is generated and set free ; hence
movements, gestures, various cries, laughter, clapping of hands,
gambols, which may, by the association of ideas, become indi-
cations or signs of the emotions. These two principles of
habitual action and of nervous excess may act simultaneously.
The gestures of a furious man may be attributed partly to an
excess of nervous force, and partly to the effects of habit.
These gestures frequently represent, more or less correctly, the
action of striking.
Eeid, Jouffroy, and Adolphe Gamier had regarded the
faculty of expression by, and the comprehension of, signs as one of
LANGUAGE 247
our original ultimate faculties. But if expressive signs are
merely the movements natural to such and such an action,
there is evidently no need of a special faculty for their pro-
duction, nor would there seem to be any need of a special
faculty for understanding them. If this is the case we would
seem to have found a key to the much controverted question
of the origin of language.
The fact that language may be an organic whole (as in the
hypotheses of Max Mtiller and Eenan) does not exclude the
possibility that its formation has come about to a certain
extent by successive steps, nor prevent its causes from being
susceptible of analysis.
" It had already been clearly proved that the more or less artificial and
conventional signs out of which language is formed owe their origin to
certain natural signs. We now know further, owing to the observations
made by Charles Bell, what these signs are, and how they are to be
accounted for, at least in certain cases ; we are able the more clearly to see
how it is possible through our will to extend the use of these signs, to
develop, transform them, to derive from them a veritable language. The
need of respiration and divers impressions cause the new-born child to-
utter the cry which will bring him assistance ; later he will understand
the use he can make of this cry ; he will repeat it, thus imitating himself :
this is the earliest language. This earliest form of language, modified
and extended, will, with the co-operation of nature and volition,
give rise to what is called the words of a language. These words, either
joined one to the other or modified and inflected in accordance with
certain laws which are the laws of thought itself, and which taken col-
lectively are logic, these words, when subjected in this way to rules which go
to make up what is called grammar, are a complete language. In this
theory we seem to find the rudiments of a truly philosophical explanation
of the origin of languages" (F. Eavaisson, Rapport sur la Philosophie
en France au dix-neuvieme Steele, pp. 217, 218).
Conclusion.
All these apparently contradictory solutions of the problem
of language would seem to be gradually converging towards one
point, and likely to become reconciled in a theory which will
embrace all the different truths to which they correspond.
Among the ancient thinkers we found two great theories :
according to one of these, words have a natural origin ((pvcrei),
by which was meant that they imitate the nature of things;
according to the other, they were regarded as being arbitrary
(Oecrei), and hence as having no connection with the nature of the
248 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
objects they indicate. There is some truth in both these theories.
We no longer believe, like Cratylus, that the science of words is
the science of things : so far his opponents were right. But it
is true that at the beginning words corresponded to certain
qualities in objects, and still more to the impressions they
made on the mind of the primitive man : and thus Plato gives
evidence of more than a correct intuition in his ingenious
derivations in the Cratylus. Now we no longer speculate as to
whether words imitate the nature of things or not. When
inquiring into the origin of language we seek, in the first place,
to determine its relation to thought. We no longer ask,
like the ancients, Is it possible to know things through the
analysis of words ? but : Is it possible to think without the
help of language ? And can language consequently have been
created by thought ? To this question two answers have been
given the first being, that language is a divine revelation ;
the second, that it is an arbitrary human institution. The theory
resulting from the progress of comparative philology, and of
the physiology of natural signs, includes as much as is correct
in the modern theories, and admits of a relative reconciliation
of those of antiquity. No one now disputes that language is
a human product ; on the other hand, it is universally allowed
not to be the effect of a contract or convention, but a product
of nature, the result of human spontaneity, of the spirit and
disposition of primitive races.
Thus we have every day more reason to consider language
as a living thing, and to seek its explanation in the laws of
life. Its first stage is the intentional use of a cry that was
originally only a sort of reflex movement. Its first elements
are interjections drawn forth by emotions and signifying them,
and onomatopoeia, which, by imitating external sounds, indi-
cates external objects. The meaning of the words thus formed is
extended to other objects by more or less far-fetched analogies,
the nature and variety of which it is now sometimes difficult
to divine. These elements are co-ordinated by all races in
obedience to laws, the logic of which has something that is
universal and human, but on which the genius of each race
impresses its own character.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FEELINGS.
Being chiefly concerned with the problems of knowledge and of
morality, philosophers have seldom made an independent study
of the phenomena of feeling and passion. They have considered
them incidentally in connection with ethics, and occasionally
even with the theory of knowledge : but they have not gone back
to their origin, nor seen the necessity of verifying the somewhat
vague analysis of them which is implied in common language.
Moreover, each school has directed its attention to such facts
concerning this side of our nature as are of special interest to
itself, or which serve to corroborate its theories, but has not
troubled itself about other elements. Again, whereas the pro-
cesses of thought are a matter of indifference to the majority
of men, there is hardly a person but has had the opportunity
of observing more or less correctly in himself, or in others,
those phenomena on which human destiny so often depends.
The result has been that the vulgar have in a way co-operated
in the formation of theories, and that there exist in everv
language ill-defined words which are nevertheless the ex-
pression of emotions frequently subtle though confusedly felt.
Emotions, sentiments, affections, passions, are so many terms
whose uncertain meaning varies at the pleasure of philosophers.
It is only by a clear comprehension of the different theories,
and by referring to the facts they neglect as well as to those
they take into account, that it is possible, in spite of the twists
and turns of language, to steer one's course in the history of
the different theories concerning this subject.
250 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
The Earliest Philosophers : the Pythagoreans ; Empedocles ;
Democritus ; Socrates.
In this, as in every other respect, the psychology of the
predecessors of Socrates was rather weak. The soul was to
the Pythagoreans, a number. Number contained a finite
element, the principle of unity, of measure, of harmony, and an
infinite element, the principle of multiplicity and disorder. It
is probable that their principle of unity was Season, as opposed
to the appetites and passions, and all those hidden anarchical
powers, by which the soul is troubled, divided, and torn
asunder. The Pythagoreans would seem, then, to have been
especially impressed by what is dangerous and excessive in the
emotions ; a one-sided view, which, as we shall see, has been too
often adopted by philosophers, as, for instance, by the Stoics.
Heraclitus calls the state of the divided being, " want "
(X_p>)(Tiu.o(Tuv>], Xijulo^), and the unity resulting from the universal
fire " plenty " (Kopos) ; and between these two states, according to
him, the life of the universe, and of the individuals of which
it is composed, alternates. Here we can discern a foreshadow-
ing of the theory of the inclinations and desires. The theory of
Empedocles is more developed and more definite. The living
being is a compound of the elements found in all things. All
living things, plants, animals, and men, desire that which
shall complete and perfect the mixture which constitutes their
being. Desire is the tendency to assimilate the elements, by
which the normal combination is re-established. All that is
not in accordance with the nature of the being, all that
differs radically from it, is both an object of aversion and the
principle of pain. Pleasure corresponds to satisfied desire,
to the restoration of the equilibrium. Thus emotions, as
well as the intellect, are explained by the affinities of like for
like.
The theories* of Democritus concerning pleasure and pain
are closely connected with his ethical doctrine. He identifies
the pleasant with the useful, and regards happiness as the end
of life. But pleasure, he says, is not sensuous enjoyment, for
its principle is in the soul.
" Happiness and misery do not depend upon gold or herds of cattle ;
for it is in the soul that the daemon dwells (rfv^rj 8' oiKtjTijpiov
Satfxovos), (Frag. I. in the Fragmenta Philosophorum, ed. Didot). Bodily
THE FEELINGS 251
goods are human, but the goods of the soul are divine (Frag. 6). The
chief good he asserts to be cheerfulness, by which he means a condition
according to which the soul lives calmly and steadily, being disturbed by
no fear or superstition or other passion. He calls this state evdvfiia. and
evio-Tw, and by several other names " (D. L. ix, 45).
Hence the necessity of moderation in our desires and
pleasures.
" Our wants increase witb our desires ; insatiability is worse than
extreme poverty. Excess turns pleasure into pain. . . . 'Tis best
always to observe the due mean (koiA.ov cttI 7ravri to i'crov). . . . Too
much of anything and too little are both evils."
It is easy to perceive the psychological conceptions implied
in these precepts. We shall recognize their influence in
Aristotle's theories of the hierarchy of pleasure and of the
happy mean.
Socrates, the restorer, or we may even say, the founder of
moral philosophy, did little to advance the psychology of the
passions. For him it was only a part of ethics. The
principle of all human action is the desire for happiness.
This desire may take many forms, but ultimately analyzed, it is
always found to be the desire for the good. And the good cannot
be separated from the useful. Man commits evil only when
he mistakes his true interest. Desire does not know the
good ; it is merely our irresistible inclination to will and to do
what vje think is the good. To enlighten our desires, not to
confound happiness with pleasure, or the useful (to. uHpeXovvra)
with the agreeable (t y$ea), and in order to accomplish this,
to know ourselves, and what we truly want, such is the
end of human life. Thus theory and practice are one :
Virtue is knowledge.
Aristvpims : Pleasure is a gentle, Pain, a violent Movement.
Aristippus was at once a disciple of Socrates and of the
Sophists. He despised mere theory, and declared that the
soul knows only her own states, and that sensation is altogether
subjective. This led him to make pleasure the end, and the
entirely relative end, of life. But in his analysis of pleasure
lie shows much ingenuity. The desire of pleasure lies at the
base of human nature, manifests itself from childhood, and is
spontaneous (airpoaipero^), or instinctive. In the same way a
natural repugnance makes us avoid pain. When we possess
252 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
pleasure we wish for nothing more, which proves that it is
our end. What then is the nature of pleasure ? Our
organism is in a state of perpetual movement ; when this
movement is strong enough to be perceived by consciousness
there results an emotion which we call pleasure or pain,
according as the movement is gentle (Xeia k'ivii<tis) or violent
and rough {rpa-^ela). Thus pleasure and pain are merely
organic movements perceptible in consciousness, and both
states are positive. It is not true to say, as Epicurus did
afterwards, that the absence of pain is pleasure, or conversely ;
this negative state is a state of immobility, of inertia,
resembling that of a man asleep. All pleasures have the
same cause, namely, a movement that is gentle and in accord-
ance with nature. All pleasures are therefore equal. There
is no need to distinguish between true and false pleasures.
" Pleasure is a good even if it arises from the most unbecoming causes
(as Hippobatus tells us in his treatise on sects) ; for even if an action
be ever so absurd, still the pleasure which arises out of it is desirable
and good" (D. L. n, 88). . . . "The Cyrenaics deny that pleasure
is caused by either the recollection or the anticipation of good fortune
though Epicurus asserted that it was for the motion of the mind is put
an end to by time " {Ibid. 89).
Aristippus, however, made a distinction between the
pleasures of the body and those of the mind, but without
departing from his principle ; for he maintained that in
general the former are a necessary condition of the latter.
Plato : Theory of Love ; Love the Desire for the Good ;
Ascent of Love towards the Good.
It is not easy to co-ordinate the theories of the passions and
emotions, which Plato sets forth in the Timaeus, the Symposium,
the Philebus, and the Republic. He was chiefly interested in
the study of thought and in Ethics. If, however, we com-
pare these different passages we may discover his views on the
subject of the feelings. Like Socrates, he says that men love
and pursue the good alone (ovSev y aWo ecrrtv ov epaxTiv
avdpwTroi i'i ayaOov, Symposium, 206 a). " For you may say
generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great
and subtle power of love (to /fev Ke<pd\ai6v ecrri irdaa fj twv
ayaOwv 7ri6u/ut.ia kcu too evoaL/j-oveiv 6 [xeyicrTOS T kui oo\epo<?
THE FEELINGS 25$
epm Travri" Symp. 205). Love, being desire, presupposes a
want. One does not desire that which one possesses. " Love
is the son of Poros (Plenty) and Penia (Poverty). Like his
mother he is poor, but, like his father, he is always plotting
against the fair and good . . . keen in the pursuit of wisdom
{(ppoui'ia-eoog extOi^T?/?) . . . a philosopher at all times
((piXoo-crtpoov Sia iravrbs tov fiiov) . . . he is a mean between
wisdom and ignorance (crocpla? t av km cifiaOias ev fxecrw eernV).
. . . For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and love is of
the beautiful, and therefore love is also a philosopher or lover
of wisdom. Being a lover of wisdom he is in a mean between
the wise and the ignorant " {Symposium, 203 d, e).
We know what the nature of love is and what is its true
object. The soul is essentially (piXo/maO)}?, she tends by
nature towards an ever higher knowledge because she is at the
same time united to and separated from the divine, because
she knows enough to desire always to know more. Mortal
love, which so violently disturbs the heart, has its principle in
this spontaneous aspiration towards that which is highest and
most beautiful. Whether she knows it or not, what the soul
seeks in the beauty of sensible forms is that supreme, invisible,
eternal beauty, of which she has a presentiment and which
alone can satisfy her.
" And the true order of being led by another to the things of love, is
to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards for
the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two and from two to all
fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices
to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute
beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is" (Symposiion,
211c).
If the soul were all intelligence she would possess wisdom,
and would consequently not have to desire it. For the same
reason that she is drawn to the supreme beauty, the soul also
deviates from it, is held by illusions, takes pleasure in the
lesser good. The soul tends towards truth only because she
occupies a middle place between wisdom and ignorance. In
conflict with the vov$, the principle of knowledge, there is
the e-rnQv/jLia, the principle of material desires. The source
of the spirited passions is the Ov/no?, the middle term, which
binds the two extreme parts of the soul. To these three
254 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
parts of the soul correspond three classes of inclinations,
three kinds of desires, rpirai eiriOv/uLiai {Rep. IX, 580 d).
That by which we know {S> ye /mavOdvo/uev), the superior
and divine part, which in a well ordered soul governs,
is wholly directed to the truth. " Lover of wisdom, lover
of knowledge (<pi\o[xa6>is kcu (pi\d<ro(pos) are titles which
we may fitly apply to that part of the soul " {Rep. IX, 581 b).
This is the disposition towards the true good, which belongs
essentially to the nature of the soul. " The passionate element
(to 0v/j.oeies) is wholly set on ruling and conquering and
getting famous, is the contentious or ambitious part." " The
third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted
by the general term appetitive (eiridvixriTiKov), from the extra-
ordinary strength of vehemence of the desires of eating and
drinking and the other sensual appetites . . . also money-
loving {(piXoxpi'inaTov), because such desires are generally
satisfied by the help of money " {Rep. IX, 580 e).
Furthermore, every desire has its source in the soul. To be
thirsty is to be empty ; thirst is a desire {cTriOu/mtu). " Thus he
who is empty desires the contrary of what he feels ; being
empty he desires to be replenished. . . . This appetite {% $'
opixrj) which draws him to the contrary of what he feels proves
that he has within himself a memory of things opposite to the
affections of his body." This reasoning, while it shows that
it is memory that draws the animal towards the object of
his desire, proves at the same time that every kind of appetite,
every desire has its principle in the soul, and that it is the
soul that rules in all living beings. "As in the soul one part
predominates to the detriment of the others, so there are three
classes of men {Tpirra yevrj, (pi\6cro(pov, <pi\oveucov, <pi\oKepe$),
lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain, and three
kinds of pleasures corresponding respectively to these charac-
teristics " {Rep. IX, 581 c).
Theory of Pleasure and Pain : Disorder and Re- Establishment
of Harmony : Pleasure not the Absence of Pain : True and
False Pleasures.
A modern psychologist would have made his theory of
pleasure depend upon his theory of desire. The method which
Plato follows in the Philebus is quite different, and shows how
THE FEELINGS 255
far the ancients were from the conception of an independent
science of mind. To define pleasure Plato starts from the
idea of Being {iravTa to. vvv ovtu ev too ttoivti oia\d(3(viu.ev, Phil.
23 a). There are, according to him, four modes of existence ;
the infinite or indeterminate (cnreipov), that which is capable
of the more or the less ; the finite (7repa$), which is characterized
by number, measure ; the mixture of the finite and the infinite,
which embraces all harmoiry ; and finally, the cause of this
mixture, which can only be intelligence. Pleasure and pain
are placed in the category of the infinite, because they are
capable of the more or the less. But the genesis of pleasure
or pain belongs to the third class, to the mixture of the finite
and the infinite, like harmony and health (eV tw koivw /uloi yevei
cifxa ipaivearQoi \inrrj re kcu fjSovli ylyuecrOai Kara (bvcriv, Phil. 31 c).
"When the harmony in animals is dissolved (apuovias Xvofxevr/s) there is
also a dissolution of nature (Ai'crtv ttjs (/n'o-ew?) and a generation of pain.
. . . And the restoration of harmony and return to nature is the source
of pleasure. . . . Hunger is a dissolution and a pain (Ai'ctiskcu Awn;). . . .
Whereas eating is a replenishment and a pleasure (eSwSi] 8e 7rA?ypaicrts
yiyvouevi] ttuXlv r/Sovij). Thirst again is a destruction and a pain, but
the effect of moisture (?) tov vypov Se Srva/xts) replenishing the dry place
is a pleasure" (Philebus 31 d).
In a word, when the living harmony (eix^v-^ov etSos) composed
of the finite and the infinite in accordance with nature, is
disturbed, this disturbance is a pain ((pOopup Xvtt^v). The
movement towards the natural order, the return of things to
their true essence (rqv $' ei? t^v uutwv ova-lav 6S6v) is pleasure.
In this theory pleasure is motion (Kivticris), a generation, a
becoming (yevecri?). One might be inclined to attribute to
Plato the theory that pleasure is only the absence of pain, that
it always presupposes some antecedent suffering, that it is
only the correction of some disorder. To support this opinion
we have the words said in the Phacdo by Socrates, when freed
from his chains :
" How singular is the thing called pleasure and how curiously related
to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it ; for they are
never present to a man at the same instant, and yet he who pursues either
is generally compelled to take the other ; their bodies are two, but they
are joined by a single head " (Phaedo 60 b).
But in the Philebus, Plato expressly and repeatedly refutes
this theory. He grants that there is between pleasure and
256 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
pain a third state (rpirt] Siddecris), a state of indifference.
There is, no doubt, always movement in the body, but the
animal is not always conscious of all that takes place in its
body (as for example, growth) : only great changes excite in us
pleasure and pain, the smaller ones w T e do not perceive.
There is a life that is exempt from pleasure and pain.
Pleasure is therefore not the absence of pain (ovkovv ouk av e'lt]
to /ul>] \v7reirr0ai irore tuvtov tw *x_a.ipeLv), and it is a mistake
to say that the happiest life is the life that is free from pain,
and to believe that one rejoices when he is only free from all
suffering {Phil. 43 d). Pleasure is then the truly positive state,
and it accompanies all the progress of a being towards the
harmony which is the fulfilment of its nature.
There are physical pleasures and spiritual pleasures. In the
Philebus and the Timaeus, Plato determines the conditions of
the emotion which has its source in a corporeal impression.
This impression must be strong and sudden, and must be
transmitted by the organ even while the latter resists it.
" Let us imagine affections (irady/xaTa) of the body which are
extinguished before they reach the soul, and leave her unaffected ; and
again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and body, and
impart a shock to both and to each of them" (Phil. 33d).
There are also pleasures and pains that are purely spiritual.
" In the soul herself there is an antecedent hope of pleasure (airr?/s rrjv
ipvxrjs cHa irpooSoK tas) which is sweet and refreshing, and an expectation
of pain, fearful and anxious" (Phil. 32 c).
Among spiritual pleasures there is the pleasure of the
intellect, the highest of all, for it consists in being filled with
knowledge, which has more of essence than the objects of sense
(Hep. IX, 585).
Plato allows that there are true and false pleasures. No
doubt it is impossible to be mistaken as to the presence of
pleasure : we either feel it or do not feel it ; but it is possible
to be mistaken as to the pleasure itself. For is there not in
the first place a pleasure arising from a correct image and one
which is the consequence of error ? Is not a man full of
chimerical hopes wrong to rejoice, just as, when we look at
things from too great or too small a distance our vision is
deceptive ?
THE FEELINGS 257
" But now it is the pleasures which are said to be true and false,
because they are seen at various distances, and subjected to comparison ;
the pleasures appear to be greater and more vehement when placed side
by side with the pains, and the pains when placed side by side with the
pleasures. . . . And suppose you part off from pleasures and pains the
element which makes them appear to be greater or less than they really
are ; you will acknowledge that this element is illusory, and you will
never say that the corresponding excess or defect of pleasure or pain is
real or true " (Phil. 41, 42, c).
Again, it is through an illusion that we take the cessation of
pain for a pleasure, and the cessation of pleasure for a pain.
Frequently, also, we mistake for a pleasure what is in reality a
mixture of pleasure and pain. The true pleasures are those
that are pure ; those that come, for instance, from sounds,
colours, perfumes, all those that give an unmixed satisfaction,
and, above all others, the joy arising from a knowledge
of truth. It is not the force, or the intensity which makes
true pleasure, but its purity, or the absence from it of all pain.
Excessive pleasures are a mark of corruption either of the soul
or of the body.
Finally, Plato considers the cases in which there is a
combination of pleasure and pain. Thirst is a pain, to drink is
a pleasure ; he who is thirsty and drinks has a feeling combined
of pleasure and pain. And it is the same with every bodily
appetite. Plato discriminates between purely bodily or purely
spiritual combinations and those in which are blended pleasures
and pains of both kinds. Sometimes the two opposite terms
balance each other ; sometimes one is the stronger, and accord-
ingly the combination is either pleasant or painful. There are
also, as we have said above, pure pleasures, that is to say
pleasures that are unmixed with pain.
Aristotle : Metaphysical and Psychological Theory of the Feelings.
In his theory of the feelings Aristotle as usual joins specula-
tion to observation. He collects the truths which had been in
part recognized by Plato, completing them, and more precisely
determining their connection with one another. The conception
of a first immovable mover, of a God towards Whom the whole
universe is tending, serves to make us understand the impulses
of the human soul.
R
258 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" All living things," says M. Ravaisson, "all substances have a funda-
mental and habitual manner of being, a form which is their essence and to
which they of themselves tend as towards their end and their good. This
essential, substantial form is what is called their nature. The definition of
natural beings as distinguished from aggregates formed by art, or force,
or chance, is that the former contain in themselves the principle of their own
motion, a motion whose final end is their nature and their essence. But this
is not all. This end of the natural movement is at the same time its principle,
its efficient cause. It is through the actuality towards which it tends
that the being is moved. It is this actuality which, being its end and its
good, excites in it the desires from which is born the motion, and which,
being immediately present in the potentialities of matter, draws the
latter on and realizes them more and more " {Ess. sur la met. d'Arist. Vol.
II, p. 11).
The following is the psychological theory contained in this
metaphysical conception. With the sensitive soul (to atarOijTiKov)
appears desire, properly so called (opefys). The aicrOtjriKov and
the opeKTiKov are one and the same part of the soul considered
from two different points of view. Animals have therefore
impulses which are, however, confused like their sensations.
Every animal has at least one sense, namely, touch, and where
there is sensation there is pleasure and pain, and where there is
pleasure and pain there is desire. Aristotle compares the two-
fold movement by which we make for pleasure and turn from
pain, to the acts of affirmation and negation.
In the sensitive life, desire (opefys) has two forms (7ri6u/uta
and Oufios). The Tn6vjj.la is desire, the seeking after what is
agreeable, the natural spontaneous movement towards pleasure.
The (9f/xo? with Aristotle has almost the same meaning as with
Plato ; that is to say, it is desire rising above blind instinct,
approaching intelligence ; the inclination, which is still an
animal one, to do good to our friends and evil to our
enemies (<^/A>/T</co'i/-jouo->/-n/coV). There are irrational natural
desires (aXoyov) which are common to all men, and there are
besides individual ideas ( 'ISiot kou eirideroi), such as the desire
for honours, which imply a certain intervention on the part of
the intellect and are the result of habit, of certain organic
tendencies ; in these the e-TriOvuia and the 9u/u.6$ are most
frequently combined and blended.
The ope^is is not confined to sensitive life ; it is modified
through the intervention of thought and becomes will
THE FEELINGS 259
fiou\>]cris.) Aristotle uses this word in the same sense as
Malebranche the word " will." It is the general tendency towards
:he good, appetite regulated by reason. Volition is not liberty.
3ne may will (fiovXeo-Qai) that an athlete may win, but one
cannot bring it about (TrpoaipeiaOai, free choice). The /3ov\j]crtg
rjelongs only to rational beings, for it implies the (pavracrla
SovXeuriKi'i, the discursive power which out of sensible images
"orms materials for thought. The chief distinction between
kvill and desire is that desire cannot see beyond the
Dresent moment, whereas will, enlightened by intelligence,
compares images with one another, takes the future into
iccount, calculates and foresees future pleasures and pain. It
.s owing to the opefy? that the desire when conceived becomes
movement, real action. The kivyjtikov (faculty of motion) is
connected with the opeKTiKov. It is the same as with the
universe : the immovable mover is the good to be obtained
[irpaKTov ayaQov). Desire is at once moved as regards the
^ood towards which it tends, and mover as regards the organism
which it moves. The organism can only be moved. So also, in the
universal system, God is the immovable mover, the firmament
is the movable mover, and the sublunary world is that which
is moved but is not a mover {Be Anima, III, 10).
Theory of Pleasure as the Complement or Perfection of Normal
Activity.
Aristotle's theory of pleasure depends on his theory of
desire. A being has tendencies because its potentialities have
not reached complete actuality. Pleasure (rj^ovi)) corresponds
to actuality. It cannot be separated from the action which it
completes and perfects. Pleasure is not, as Plato has said, a
becoming, it does not increase with duration ; it is a positive
state, a whole, not a movement the successive stages of which
can be followed. Pleasure is a complete reality, an end in
itself (evepyeia k<u Te'Ao?).
" Now, the pleasure makes the exercise complete (rcAeiot oe r>/v
Zvepyuai' t) -i')8ovi'i), not as the habit or trained faculty does, being already
present in the subject, but as a sort of superadded completeness (tcAos
kiriyiyvojxevov) like the grace of youth (olov rets d.K[xaioLs i) w/oa). So
long, then, as both the object of thought or of sense, and the perceptive or
contemplative subject are as they ought to be, so long will there be
pleasure in the exercise " (Nic. Ethics, X, 4).
260 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Thus pleasure arises from the free and unimpeded exercise
of a faculty of the soul (evtpyeia rrjs Kara (pvcriv eea>s
ave/uLTroSicTTOs) ; pain (Au7r>/) is the consciousness of an obstacle
to this perfect activity. If every sensation is either agreeable
or painful, it is because every sensation is either favourable or
in conflict with a present state which is in accordance with
nature.
From this definition of pleasure several consequences follow
which are confirmed by psychological observation. Pleasure
being the complement of activity cannot be set aside any more
than the activity itself.
"The desire for pleasure we should expect to be shared by all men,
seeing that all desire to live. For life is an exercise of faculties (?/ Se ay
evepyeia tis ecrTt ). . . . But pleasure completes the exercise of faculties,.
and therefore life, which men desire. Naturally, therefore, men desire
pleasure too, for each man finds in it the completion of his life, which is
desirable. . . . How is it, then, that we are incapable of continuous
pleasure ? Perhaps the reason is that we become exhausted ; for no
human faculty is capable of continuous exercise. Pleasure, then, also
cannot be continuous, for it is an accompaniment of the exercise of
a faculty. And for the same reason some things please us when new, but
afterwards please us less " (Nic. Ethics, X, 4).
" The exercise of a faculty is increased by its proper pleasure,.
e.g. people are more likely to understand any matter, and to go
to the bottom of it, if the exercise of it is pleasant to them.
Thus, " those who delight in geometry become geometricians
and understand all the propositions better than others ; and
similarly those who are fond of music, or of architecture, or of
anything else, make progress in that kind of work, because
they delight in it." But " the exercise of a faculty is spoilt by
pain arising from it ; as happens, for instance, when a man
finds it disagreeable and painful to write or to calculate, for he-
stops writing in the one case, and calculating in the other,
since the exercise is painful " {Nic. Ethics, X, 5).
From the nature of pleasure it is easy to see that there
must be several kinds of pleasure.
" Pleasures differ in kind, since specifically different things we believe
to be completed by specifically different things. . . . The exercises of the
intellectual faculties are specifically different from the exercises of the
senses, and the several kinds of each from one another ; and therefore
the pleasures which complete them are also different " {Nic. Ethics X, 5).
THE FEELINGS 261
The divers living species have respectively their character-
istic actuality which corresponds to their essence and completes
their nature. For each species there is therefore a particular
pleasure suitable to it. The special function of man, the one
which above all others is proper to him, is thought. The
human pleasure par excellence is the pleasure of thought, the
most free from all admixture of pain, the one also that most
approaches permanence. It can, therefore, only be owing to a
corruption for which man is responsible, if pleasure is opposed
to virtue. Pleasure corresponds to perfect activity. Virtue is
the highest perfection of our natural activity ; the two terms
are identical.
Analysis of the Passions.
Aristotle distinguishes the passions from the primitive
impulses, and from pleasure and pain ; but he does not treat the
passions in detail, except incidentally, and in connection with
rhetoric. He gives a subtle analysis rather than an exact theory
of them. Passion is a movement of the soul (Kivtjms \^x7?), that
is to say, since the soul is the form of the body, it is a movement
of the body which reaches the consciousness of the soul. Passion
arises without reflection, spontaneously ; it is at once a lasting-
tendency towards certain types of action (?*?) and a passive
state (7ra0o9). That it is a modification of the body as well as
of the soul, is sufficiently proved by the blushing and pallor,
the heat and the coldness, and all the organic disturbances
which accompany it.
Aristotle places the passions under two categories, in one of
which pleasure predominates (love, <pi\ia, courage, 6ap<ros,
benevolence, x f V t? ) '> m ^ ne k ner pain, and these are by far
the most numerous (rage, opytj, hatred, ni<ro?, fear, (pofios,
pity, e\eo<?, just indignation, ve/meo-is, envy, (pOovos, shame,
aio")(yvri, jealousy, (^7X09).
Each passion is both a state of the soul and a principle of
action ; it is an element of the character. It should be studied,
in the first place, in him who feels it; secondly, in its object; and,
lastly, in its motives, ve/mecrig, for instance, is a painful feeling-
aroused by the sight of the prosperity of those who do not
deserve it, especially when this prosperity is not inherited, but
has been acquired by a stroke of luck. In this case the senti-
s
262 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
luent experienced is indignation, its object is ill-acquired
prosperity, its cause the unworthiness of the prosperous.
Aristotle points out the influence of age on the passions.
" The young are ardent but inconstant, their insults are mischievous,
not malicious. All their errors are on the side of excess ; they are not
desirous of wealth, because they have never yet experienced want ; they
are sanguine in their expectations, because they have never yet met with
many repulses. And they are high spirited, for they have not as yet been
humbled by the course of life. They are likewise prone to pity, from their
conceiving everyone to be good and more worthy than in fact he is. The
passions of the old are different, or at least arise from different causes ;
they too, for example, are prone to pity, but their pity proceeds from
fear, from the feeling that every calamity is at hand to every man "
{Rhet. Bk. 11, 15).
Aristotle does not regard the suppression of the passions as
possible or desirable. Well employed they may be the
weapons of virtue. The sage does not avoid the passions,
for they are, as it were, the raw material of virtue ; he mode-
rates them, philosophizes with them ((rvfx(pi\ocro(pi roh
TraQecri).
Importance given to the Psychology of the Passions after
Aristotle: Theory of Theophrastus : Opposite Views of the Peripa-
tetics and the Stoics.
After Aristotle, the theory of the passions occupies an im-
portant place in Greek philosophy. Great speculative con-
structions were abandoned, the main object henceforth was to
insure to man an impregnable refuge within himself. It was
desired above all that in those troubled times, whatever might
happen, man should preserve inward peace. Sceptics, Stoics,
Epicureans, all on different grounds teach airaOeia, and refuse to
regard passion otherwise than as the effect of a disordered reason.
The Peripatetics alone upheld the traditions of Aristotle : the
passions, they said, are in conformity with nature, they are the
matter of virtue, which consists in organizing them and in
bringing them into harmony. In all the schools this question
is discussed : Are passions in conformity with, or contrary to
nature ? A question which belongs more especially to ethics,
but could only be solved through a psychology of the passions.
Even Theophrastus (b.c. 372-288), the successor of Aristotle,
appears to have had occasion to oppose the Peripatetic to the
THE FEELINGS 263
Stoic theory. Thought is altogether within the soul, the active
intellect is beyond and above the soul, while desires and
passions have their origin in corporeal movements. These
movements are, however, only their occasional cause ; the real
principle of passion is in the soul. Passion in its turn re-acts
on the body, modifies the elements of the latter, and the
relations between them : pleasure increases the powers of the
body, pain contracts them; both may go so far as to destroy
consciousness by acting on the respiratory organs. Pain,
pleasure, and enthusiasm, by acting on the vocal organs, pre-
dispose a man to song and music. The Peripatetics deny the
identity of passions, which was held by the Stoics. If all
passions were identical, that is to say were only the one and
the same passion, how is it that, in the first place, pleasures
vary like the activity to which they correspond ; and,
secondly, that simultaneous sensations of pleasure, instead of
being accumulated, obstruct one another in consciousness ?
Cicero expounds the .theory of Zeno (Acad. 1, 10) as against
that of the Peripatetics, and, in so doing, he merely conforms
to the traditions of the schools which discussed these questions.
"The old school (i.e. the Peripatetic) did not eradicate emotion from
the heart of a man, declaring it natural to feel pain and desire and fear,
and to be excited by pleasure, but merely restricted these feelings and
brought them within narrow bounds (sed earn contraherent in angustumque
deducerent). The Ancients maintained these emotions to be due to nature
(naturales), reason having no share in them (et rationis expertes), and
placed feeling in one portion of the mind, reason in another" (Cicero
Academics, I, 10).
Stoicism. Distinction between the Impulses and the Passions ;
Passion is a Corruption of Reason ; Classification of the Passions.
One may say of the Stoic theory that it is the exact reverse
of the Peripatetic. According to Zeno all passions are volun-
tary. Pcrturbationes voluntarias esse putabat. They arise in
consequence of a judgment, of an opinion (opinionesque judicio
suscepto). Far from being natural, they are diseases of the
soul (morbi) (Cic. Acad. 1, 10). To understand them aright
we must distinguish them from natural impulses (6p/u.al,
appetitus).
" The first impulse which an animal has is to protect itself. . . . Nature
has bound the animal to itself by the greatest unanimity and affection, for
264 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
by that means it repels all that is injurious, and attracts all that is akin
to it and desirable " (D. L. vn).
Even a plant has a tendency within it in virtue of which it
seeks its end ; but it has no consciousness of its own nature.
In animals nature varies her methods. She employs im-
pulse (op/ixi)) and sensation (alo-6>](Tis), but as a sort of luxury ;
for the impulse involved in the tendency to motion only
serves to direct the animal towards the same ends as those
at which nature aims. It is a mistake to think, like the
Epicureans, that the first impulse is an impulse to
pleasure. Pleasure is not primitive, but a supplement, an
accident. Pleasure arises when nature, by its spontaneous
movement, has found what is suitable to the constitution of the
being (D. L. vn, 86).
In man nature chooses another way, namely, that of reason.
Eeason is the most perfect way that nature could take to
reach her highest goal. For man, to live according to nature
is to live according to reason. Eeason is, as it were, the
artist, whose function is to form the impulses into a har-
monious whole (Tei(WT)|? yap ovtos eiriyiveTai Ttjs opfxrjs, D. L.
vn, SQ).
Up to this point there is nothing contrary to nature in the
desires. But when the opfx>) or the impulses throw off the
yoke of reason, passion is born. Passion is an excessive and
irrational desire ; 6p/u.>] TrkeovaXpvaa, aXoyos, cnretO)]? X6ya\ The
Stoics simplified Plato's and Aristotle's psychology, for they did
not accept the theory that there is, in the soul, one part
passion, and the other pure reason. There is, they said, only
one will, which is rational by nature, but subject to weaknesses.
It is reason herself (Xoyos) which becomes irrational (aXoyos)
when she yields and allows herself to be carried away by the
excess of the op/j.i). Passion is a vicious and disordered reason
(Xoyos Trovtjpos koi ciKoXacrTos.) It derives its strength from
an erroneous judgment. If the judgment were correct there
would be no passion. (Omnes perturbationes judicio censent fieri
et opinione, Cic. Tusc. IV, 7.) But opinion is itself the conse-
quence of a weakness, of a consent forced from the fainting
soul (aaOev^g (TvyKarddemg). As virtuous constancy comes
from the tension, the energy of the soul, so passion comes from
THE FEELINGS 265
a relaxation of it {arovia, acrOeueia). Omnium perturbationum esse
matrem immodcratam quandam intemperantiam (Cic. Acad. 1,10).
It follows from this that all passions are bad ; pleasure is not
a good, pain is not an evil.
All the Stoics agree in regarding a false judgment as the
principle of passion, but, as to the interpretation of this
formula they are divided. According to Chrysippus it is the
false judgment itself (Kpiaeis, Soyiuara) that is passion, and
gives rise to the violent movements which follow passion.
The opinion of Zeno, which was more generally accepted in
the school, was that passion was not the judgment itself, but
the disturbance in the soul, the state of depression, of
inflation or exaltation {eTrapo-eis, olPeis, crva-roXal), which
follows in its train (Cic. Tusc. IV, 7; Tusc. Ill, 11). One of
the curious results of this Stoic definition is that passion,
since it presupposes reason and will, is peculiar to man. But in
order to be in harmony with fact they admitted the existence
in animals of something resembling passion {simile quiddam).
Animals, says Seneca, have images from which arise impetuous
movements {impetus) ; but these outbursts are violent, obscure,
and fleeting. What is anger in man is ferocity in the brute.
The Stoic school does not appear to have considered the
relations between soul and body in regard to passion till a late
period of its existence. Seneca perceived that passion is pre-
ceded and accompanied by certain organic movements which
are independent of the will (heat, coldness, blushing, paleness,
tears, etc.). This physical disturbance is succeeded by a
corresponding judgment, such as the following : an injury calls
for vengeance. But this judgment owes its effective force
only to a voluntary act, to the consent of reason (Seneca,
De Ira, II, 14). A natural movement becomes a passion when
exaggerated by opinion and carried beyond its proper limits. Is
it not a fact that grief is assuaged much more quickly when we
do not excite and entertain it by endless meditation on the
greatness of the loss sustained ? In order to know whether
passion exists or not, we must not look to external signs, to tears,
or trembling ; but ask whether reason has any control or not,
for that is the whole question (Seneca, De Ira, II, 2). Thus one
may find in the sage a shadow, an image of passion, but never
passion itself. The Peripatetics were wrong in maintaining that
266 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
moderate passions were good ; one can never know how far a
passion may go when once it is let loose.
The Stoics made a systematic classification of the passions.
Passions are excited, either by what appears to be good, or by
what appears to be bad. But what appears to be good or
bad may belong either to the present or to the future. Hence,
there are four ruling passions: pain, aegritudo, \inrt], correspond-
ing to a present evil ; fear, metus, (p6/3os, to a future evil ;
pleasure, voluptas or laetitia, ^ow/, corresponding to a present
good ; desire, eTriOu/nia, libido, to a future good. In Cicero,
Diogenes Laertius, and Stobaeus we find numerous subdivisions
of these primitive passions.
Wisdom is opposed to passion, as health to disease. The
Stoics, in spite of their systematic consistency, could not
exclude all sensibility from the soul of the sage. They had to
admit the existence of legitimate affections, of calm sentiments,
of wise impulses, which, far from disturbing the soul, are the
outcome of strength and health. As the wise man is in no
way affected by the present evil (praesentis mali sapienti affectio
nulla est, Cic. Tusc. IV, 6), there is in him nothing corre-
sponding to aegritudo. He possesses the true good. In order
that we may not be disturbed, it is enough if our reason
refuses to regard as evil either physical pain or the
accidents of life. But to our blind, passionate impulse
towards what appears to us good, there corresponds in the
wise man a prudent and constant search for the good. This is
the will fiou\ti(ri<}, voluntas {Id quod constanter prudenterque fit,
ejusmodi appetitionem Stoici, fiovXtjcriv, appellant, nos ap])el-
lamus volvntatcm, Tusc. IV, 6). As we pursue the good, so
also we avoid evil by a natural instinct. This instinct, when
regulated by reason, becomes caution (evXdfieia), which is
quite different from fear. Lastly, in place of lawless pleasure
there is a continuous calm and intelligent joy (x a / a > gaudium).
Nam quum ratione animus movetur placide atque constanter,
turn Mud gaudium dicitur, Tusc. IV, 6).
These three great classes of normal affections are subdivided
into species, in the definition of which Diogenes Laertius
employs the same expressions as in the case of the passions,
only adding the epithet, rational, euXoyog (x a P u ^ 7ra p (r ^
evXoyog).
THE FEELINGS 267
Disagreement between the Disciples of Chrysippus and Zeno
in their Definition of the Passions. Posidonius returns to
Plato's Theory. Seneca and Galen.
In their definitions, as in their conceptions of passion, the
Stoics were divided. For Zeno and his disciples, passion was
a disturbance, a movement of the soul (ope^is, en/cXio-is,
e-n-apcris, ctwttoA>/), judgment being only an occasional cause.
Chrysippus, on the other hand, taught that the principal fact
was the mental illusion ; passion is defined as a false judg-
ment ; its violence and suddenness is explained by the novelty
(7vp6<T<paTos) of the judgment. Sometimes Cicero gives Zeno's
account, as, for instance, when defining fear, he says: declinatio
a malis sine ratione et cum exanimatione humili et fracta (Tusc.
IV, 7, 15). More frequently, however, he quotes Chrysippus or
his disciples : aeyritudo opinio recens (Trpo&tyaTos) mali pracsentis
in quo demitti contrahique animo rectum esse videatv.r. Diogenes
Laertius; on the contrary, defines the passions after the manner
of Zeno : (pofio? aXoyos exr/cAw*?. The school would seem
later to have tried to reconcile these two contradictory
theories. This is how the Eclectics define fear : " Pear is an
impulse which is opposed to reason, and caused by the
opinion that an evil is imminent " (eKKXicri? aireiBi^ Xoyw,
aiTiov o' avTov to So^a^eiv kukov e-KKpepearQai). In their
description of particular passions the Stoics were too often
content to add to the name of the typical passion some
characteristic which belongs either to the object of the passion
or to the nature of the judgment implied in it, or even to
the circumstances accompanying it, or its physical effects.
Terror is a fear accompanied by an extinction of voice :
enjoyment is a pleasure which charms the mind through the
ears, etc. (D. L. vn, 112-114).
The psychology of the Stoic school was modified by an
independent member of it, called Posidonius, who taught at
Rhodes, where Cicero became his disciple and Pompey went to
hear him. According to Posidonius it is not possible to
accept the absolute unity of the human mind, or to explain
everything by reason. How is it that the wise man, who also
deems some things desirable, is not subject to passion ? Is
passion, then, distinct from judgment ? Why do men who
resemble each other in their way of thinking sometimes differ
268 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
so profoundly as regards the influence of passion upon them ?
Posidonius returned to the Platonic division of the soul and
sought the principle of the passions in the two inferior parts of
the soul (Of/xo?, 7rtdviuLLa). This explains the fact that certain
animals have passions, that the violence of a passion depends
on the state of the body, and that time may by itself calm and
weaken passion. The lower parts of the soul being intimately
united to the body, and worn out and exhausted by their own
agitation, allow themselves to be more and more guided by
reason, just as a horse, tired out by his own struggles, allows
himself to be guided by his rider (Galen, de Hipp, et Plat.
IV, 5-V, 1).
According to this theory, between which and that of the Stoics
the minds of men were divided in ancient times, passion does not
spring up in the mind to descend into the body, but, on the
contrary, begins in the body and in the lower parts of the soul,
which are closely united to the body. Even Seneca, in the Be
Ira, recognizes the influence of temperament on the passions.
It is the amount of warmth in the organism that is the cause
of anger, which arises out of the heating of the blood in the region
of the heart. Women and children, having humid constitutions,
are less violent in their anger. In middle age, when the dry
element predominates, anger rises quickly but does not last,
because there is a rapid transition from the hot to the cool
stages. In old age heat decreases, and anger gives place to
persistent ill-temper. The great physician, Galen (about
150 a.d.) agrees with Plato and Posidonius as to the three parts
in the soul, and attributes passion to the irrational soul. As
regards the question whether passion is passive or active
(evepyeuu or irdQri) Galen observes that the two terms are not
mutually exclusive : action in one part of the soul may pro-
duce a passive state in another, and even in the active part, if
the action is excessive. If the beating of the heart is ex-
aggerated to the point of becoming palpitation, the heart
suffers. As actions of the two lower parts of the soul, the
passions are, then, in a sense, conformable to nature. But if
they go beyond this limit they may disturb, not only the
whole body, but reason itself. In no case is it, as the Stoics
declared, reason departing from its own nature and becoming
its own contrary, i.e. irrational.
THE FEELINGS 269
Epicurus : Pleasure the Absence of Pain : Pleasures of the
Mind and Pleasures of the Body : Theory of Desire.
The Stoic theory of pleasure remained somewhat vague.
The animal tends to self-preservation and desires what is
proper to its constitution, and by obeying this earliest natural
instinct it discovers pleasure. Pleasure is therefore not a
primitive fact, but an accessory, or result. It would seem that
even on this hypothesis pleasure must still be desirable, if not
in itself, at least as corresponding to the perfection of a
natural activity. Nevertheless, Cleanthes would not grant
that pleasure was conformable with nature, and all the Stoics
maintained that pain was not an evil, and could not disturb the
happiness of the wise man. According to Epicurus, on the
contrary, the love of pleasure is a primitive instinct which
gives the impulse to activity and determines its end.
"Every animal the moment that it is born seeks for pleasure, and
rejoices in it as the chief good ; and rejects pain as the chief evil, and
wards it oft* from itself as far as it can ; and it acts in this manner
without having been corrupted by anything, under the prompting of
nature herself, who forms this incorrupt and upright judgment " (Cic. de
Fin. I, 9).
What then is pleasure ? Aristippus and Plato had taught
that pleasure was a movement, a becoming. Aristotle had said,
on the contrary, ovk co-tip ovSe/uia rjSoi'ij yeve&is, pleasure
might, no doubt, be preceded by a movement, but in itself it
corresponds to the act which it completes, and consists less in
movement than in repose (*]Sovtj fxaWov iu vpefxla 3y ev Kivi'icret,
Nic. Etli.). Epicurus was mindful of Aristotle's doctrine. He
distinguishes two kinds of pleasure : one, calm, persistent,
lasting, that is, pleasure in repose, which is freedom from all
physical pain and from all mental unrest ; the other, lively and
fleeting, pleasure in movement, which is excited in us by the
titillation of the flesh (fjSovij ei> o-Tacret, >/<W// ev Kim'/a-ei). The
true pleasure is pleasure in repose, constitutive pleasure (/cara-
a-T7]fxaTiKi')). Pleasure in movement is only a means employed
by nature to reach her end, which is the absence of pain. The
limit of the greatness of pleasures is the removal of everything
that can give pain. ""Qpos rov /ueyeOovs rHov rjSovm* *)
7ravTO<; too aXyovvTOS vire^aipecri^ " (1"). L. X, 139).
270 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
The consequence of this psychological theory is that there is
no intermediate state between pleasure and pain.
" Epicurus would not admit that there was any intermediate state
between pleasure and pain ; for he insisted that the very state which
seems to some people the intermediate one, when a man is free from every
sort of pain, is not onl} 7 pleasure, but the highest sort of pleasure . . . He
thinks that the highest pleasure consists in an absence of all pains ; so
that pleasure may afterwards be varied, and may be of different kinds,
but cannot be increased or multiplied" (Cicero, de Finibus, I, 11). ovk
hrav^eraL . . . a\\d [xovov TroLKiWerai (Ep. ap. D. L. x. 144).
Such was the novel idea of Epicurus. If only pain be
absent we enjoy all the pleasure that is possible. The r t ovt] ei>
Kivi'jcrei can only vary, pass into the ySovrj Karao-Tv/marao'i, and is
a useless luxury.
As ideas are formed by the recollection of past sensations,
so the pleasures of the mind are the remembrance of pleasures
of the body, accompanied by the hope that they will recur.
" For I do not know what I can consider good if I put out of sight the
pleasures of eating and drinking, and of love, and those which arise from
music, and from the contemplation of beauty " (D. L. Ch. X. 5). The
origin and root of all good is the pleasure of the stomach (Athenaeus,
XII, 6, 7).
But the originality of Epicurus lies in his having first
reduced the pleasures of the mind to the remembrance or
anticipation of pleasures of the body, and then declared that
the former are greater than the latter.
"For with the body we are unable to feel anything which is not
actually existent and present, but with our mind we feel things past and
present" (Cic. de Fin. I, 17).
Thus the soul may rise above the present pain ; it may
enjoy life as a whole, and also pleasures that are past but
capable of being recalled. Epicurus complained that men were
ungrateful to life. He desired them to drive away the
momentary suffering by all the pleasant memories they have
stored up, and to free the mind from actual pain by occupying
it with former joys and future hopes. This teaching is con-
firmed by the psychology of pain. The only primitive pains
are bodily ones. Pleasure being the sovereign good and re-
ducible to the absence of pain, it necessarily follows that pain
is the greatest of evils. Fortunately, by a kind of favour of
nature :
THE FEELINGS 271
" If the pain is excessive it must needs be short. . . . Suffering of
long continuance has more pleasure in it than uneasiness " (Cic. Ttisc. II
19).
" Pain does not abide continuously in the flesh. . . . Long diseases have
in them more that is pleasant than painful to the flesh " (Ep. apud D. L.
x. 140).
It is therefore always open to man to be happy and free.
" If a wise man," says Epicurus, " were to be burned or put to
torture, or even if he were in Phalaris's bull, he could say :
How sweet it is ! How little do I regard it ! " (Cic. Tusc. II,
7). The Epicurean theory of passion is connected with this
theory of pleasure. Pleasure is the absence of pain. This
stable pleasure may be varied but cannot be increased by
active pleasure. We have therefore attained the end of nature
when we are free from all pain. Nature is not exacting, she
does not plunge men into the trouble of passion. Epicurus
distinguishes three sorts of desires. The first are natural' and
t necessary (hunger and thirst, etc.). The second natural but not
necessary (love, family). The third are neither natural nor
necessary (wealth, honour) ; they arise out of false opinion.
To be happy it is enough to be able to satisfy the desires that
are natural and necessary.
" Nature demands only things easy to find ; things rare and exceptional
are useless, except for excess and vanity. Bread and water are an
admirable dish to a hungry and thirsty man " (D. L. x).
The wise man may marry under certain circumstances, but
he will never be the dupe of the illusions of love. As for
superfluous desires, they will vanish with the false opinions on
which they rest. Thus, for quite other reasons and in quite
different ways, through timidity and weakness rather than by
strength of mind, the Epicurean, like the Stoic, practises
airaBeia (impassiveness).
Neo-Platonism : The Soul only participates indirectly in
Pleasure and Passion.
In the iSTeo-Platonic school, the theories concerning the
emotions were dominated by metaphysical considerations.
Plotinus was anxious to reconcile pleasure, pain, and the passions,
with the impassiveness of spiritual substances (cnrdOeia roov
aa-w/uLUTwu). The soul, even when acting on the body, has its
21-1 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
own independent life, remains altogether within itself. What
is incorporeal is subject to no passivity ; those who speak of a
passive part of the soul, forget that the soul is a formal cause
(etSos), and consequently inaccessible to disturbance or passion.
What then is the explanation of pleasure, pain, and all the
emotions ? According to Plotinus the body alone is affected ;
the soul merely perceives what takes place in the body. When
we experience a bodily pain or pleasure, these states are in the
body and in the (pvcris, the principle of animal life ; but the
soul has a passionless perception of them. When we perceive
that our body is becoming separated from our soul, pain arises.
When we perceive, on the other hand, that our body is more
closely united to our soul w T e feel pleasure. The soul is in the
body like fire in the heated and illumined air. Pleasure and
pain are those conditions of the body in which it is filled with
the rays of the soul. It is the same with sensuous desire. The
body alone would be inert, the soul by itself has no sensuous
desires. A movement arises in the body, in consequence of
which a desire springs up in the lower part of the soul (cpva-i?)
which is connected with the body, and this desire awakens in
the superior, the real soul, images by which it is either satisfied
or repressed. Passion has sometimes also its starting point
in the soul. Anger always implies a disturbance of the blood
and of the bile, but this organic disturbance is sometimes a
starting point and sometimes a consequence, and is caused in
the soul by the idea of injustice. Thus feelings and desires
that are purely spiritual may be awakened in the soul, such as
joy, the desire for knowledge, and the love of beauty, which
prepare us for the pure contemplation of the true.
St. Augustine : Pleasure and Pain. Thomas Aquinas : The
Irascible and Concupiscent ImiJidses ; Love the Principle of all
the Passions.
The Christian philosophers, one of whose characteristic
doctrines was contempt of our sensible nature and the morti-
fication of the fiesh, were more inclined to condemn the
emotions than to study them. St. Augustine accepts the
Neo-Platonic view. The soul is independent of the body, which
cannot act upon it. It is the soul which in the body acts on itself.
When there is a change in the relations between the corporeal
THE FEELINGS 273
elements, the soul perceives it and reacts upon it in order to bring
the impression into harmony with its own regulative activity.
If to accomplish this, only a feeble effort is required, the soul
experiences pleasure. If, on the contrary, the resistance is too
great and the effort too violent, pain arises. Pain is therefore
not a proof of the passivity of the soul, for it arises from
excessive activity. If the soul is frequently conquered by
passion, it is because it has lost its true nature through the
corruption of sin.
The most important and most scientific theory of the
emotions, belonging to the middle ages, was that of Aquinas.
Here as elsewhere he owes much to Aristotle, but he also
contributed observations entirely his own. Like the Cartesians
later, he referred the passions to the body, at least so far as
the depressing passions are concerned.
Passio cum, abjectione non est nisi secundum transmutationem
corporale7?i ; itnde passio proprie dicta non potest competere animae,
nisi per accidens (Summa theol. l a , 2 a Quest. XXII, Art I).
These depressing passions are more deserving of the name of
" passion " than those which are elevating :
Quando hujusmodi transmutatio Jit in deterius, magis proprie
habet rationem passionis quam quando fit in melius ; itnde tris-
titia magis proprie est passio quam laetitia.
In his classification of the passions Aquinas divides
them, in the first place, into two great types : the concupiscent
and the irascible. The concupiscent appetite arises when an
object presents itself simply sub ratione boni, as a cause of
pleasure or pain. It has reference solely to the good, or what
we regard as such. The irascible appetite arises when the
object presents itself sub ratione ardui, and refers to obstacles
which hinder us from the attainment of good or the avoidance
of evil. The particular passions are classified as follows :
(1) The Concupiscent Appetites. (2) The Irascible Appetites.
Love Hatred. Hope Despair.
Desire Aversion. Courage Fear.
Joy Sadness. Anger.
In the first place, an object excites in us either love or hatred,
according as it is suitable or repugnant to our nature. Love
gives birth to desire, hatred to aversion ; and we feel joy or sad-
s
274 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
ness according to the success of our efforts. So much for the
concupiscent appetite. As for the irascible appetite, if the
obstacles which separate us from a good can be surmounted,
we experience hope ; in the contrary case, despair. When
threatened by an evil which we are able to avert, we feel
courage. In face of an inevitable evil we feel fear. An evil
which has befallen us may excite anger, if vengeance or resist-
ance are still possible, but when the desired good is attained we
feel no passion corresponding to this anger.
Aquinas- next considers the different forms and degrees
of these master passions. We find in his works many
scholastic divisions and definitions ; but there are also many
truths which succeeding philosophers remembered. He makes a
distinction between amor, which is love based on sensuous desire ;
dilectio, in which reason and will have a part ; and finally,
caritas, which is love in the highest or Christian sense of
the word. In connection with hatred, he remarks, like Aris-
totle, that it owes its existence entirely to love, and if it seems
to be more violent it is only by a pure illusion. Again, like his
master, he regards activity as the chief source of joy. He
distinguishes two kinds of fear : one which arises from a feeling
of personal weakness, the other from the idea of an invincible
power in the object. To the first class belong segnities, the fear
of work ; erubescentia, the fear of failure ; verecundia, the fear
of deserved blame. The second class includes admiration
(admiratio), amazement (stupor), and terror (agonia).
To these divisions and sub-divisions he occasionally adds
profound remarks. Love is at the root of all the passions.
It underlies every form of the concupiscent appetite,
and without love, without this natural impulse towards the
good, there would be no effort required to turn away from
evil, there would be no irascible impulse. The irascible
passions may be mixed with the concupiscent, and may sup-
plement them. It is thus hope that causes effort to arise
out of desire and brings about the satisfaction of the soul.
Fear adds to aversion a feeling of depression. We fear
sadness much more than we desire joy. We feel much more
acutely the deprivation of a good than the pleasure of the
desired possession. The emotions that imply a positive desire
do not disturb the vital motion (vitalis motio), unless they are
THE FEELINGS 275
carried to excess ; but, on the other hand, those by which we
are turned away from an evil that we fear tend to weaken the
vital flow. For this reason all kinds of sadness are injurious
to the body.
Renaissance : Revival of the Epicurean Doctrine. Cardan
and Montaigne.
The Epicurean theory, which had been forgotten in the middle
ages, reappeared at the Renaissance. " According to Cardan,
good things please us the more when they come after the less
good ; and, conversely ; thus, light after darkness, the sweet after
the bitter, harmony after discord. For every joy and every
pleasure must necessarily lie in a sensation. Now, every
sensation implies a change, and every change is from one
opposite to another. If it is from good to evil the result is
sadness, if it is from evil to good the result is pleasure. Evil
must therefore have preceded. Who takes pleasure in eating
unless he is hungry, in drinking without being thirsty ? It is
& curious thing to note that Cardan's inference from this
theory is directly opposed to that of Epicurus. He declared
that we must seek as much as possible the causes of suffering,
so as to experience in their cessation the largest sum of
pleasure. If we are to believe his biography, Cardan seems to
have made his life conformable to this singular precept, which
would lead to asceticism by way of a refinement of voluptuous-
ness " (Leon Dumont, Thiorie Scientifique de la Sensibility).
It is not easy to discover in Montaigne's writings any pre-
cise doctrine concerning the emotions. He would seem,
however, to have shared the views of Epicurus.
" Our well-being is but the privation of ill-being. That is
why the sect of philosophy which has set most value on
pleasure also placed it in indolence. To endure no ill is the
highest well-being that man can hope for. Now, this same
tickling and pricking which a man feels in certain pleasures
and which seems to some far beyond mere health and
indolence this active and moving pleasure and as I may
term it itching and tickling pleasure, aims but at indolence "
(Essais, II, xn).
Many other passages might be cited in which the spirit, if
not the doctrine, of Epicureanism re-appears.
276 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" I am seized by the worst of maladies, the most sudden, the most
painful, the most deadly, the most incurable. Of these attacks I have
already endured five or six, and they were long and painful. Yet, either
I am mistaken, or there is in such a state that which will give support to
one whose soul is free from the fear of death, free, too, from the threats,
conclusions, and consequences with which medicine doth disturb our
minds."
Montaigne does not, however, seem to rely much on the
recollection of past pleasures as a means of mitigating the
present pain.
" For not only to a strict philosopher, but simply to any settled man
when he by experience feeleth the burning alteration of a hot fever, what
current payment is it to pay him with the remembrance of the sweetness
of Greek wine " ?
And as for trying to forget past evils, " Nay," says
Montaigne, " there is nothing so deeply imprinteth anything
in our remembrance as the desire to forget the same."
L o v
Summary : Contradictions and Relative Agreement of the
Doctrines set forth.
It must be admitted that, so far, we have not found much
harmony between the psychological theories of the emotions held
by different philosophers. For Aristippus pleasure was merely
a bodily movement. For Epicurus this titillation of the rlesh
was only a means or antecedent of true pleasure which
consists in the absence of pain. For Plato, Aristotle, and
even the Stoics pleasure implies desires and an ideal, and
accompanies normal activity. The Pyrrhonists and Epicureans
would do away with the passions, which they regard as only
false opinions. Plato, Posidonius, and Galen taught that
passion arises out of the irrational element in the soul,
whereas the Stoics held that passion was reason degenerated
into unreason. Christian philosophers taught that the principle
of passion was in the body, in the flesh, of which the soul
through sin has became the slave. But the majority of
philosophers, having first inveighed against the disturbance and
disorder of a soul that is no longer mistress of herself, do at
least some justice to the emotions. Plato only demands that
the 7ri6i>iuia be subject to the Ovjulos, and the Ov/mog to the vov<s ;
Aristotle opposes the >}6o? to the irdOos ; the Stoics the con-
stantiae, eviraQeiai, the happy and constant dispositions of a.
THE FEELINGS 277
soul regulated by reason, to the passions properly so called.
Even Christians regard the love of God and charity as
legitimate emotions. These points of agreement as well as
these divergencies of opinion are instructive. Each theory is
supported by facts, that are sometimes exaggerated and
insisted on to the exclusion of all others, but which would
not be neglected in any complete theory. We shall now
examine the doctrines of the great Cartesian school.
Descartes Physiological Theory of the Passions : Classification
of the Passions : Theory of Pleasure.
Descartes defines the body as extension, the soul as thought.
Extension and thought have nothing in common. I can
conceive one without the other ; therefore the things of which
they are the essential attribute are absolutely distinct. If
to the body a soul is joined, what will happen ? The soul
is united to the whole of the body, but it has its principal seat
and exercises its functions in the small pineal gland. The
result of this union is that the soul receives within itself as
many different impressions, that is to say, it has as many
different perceptions as there are different movements in this
gland. Everything that arises in the soul on occasion of the
movements in the body might be called passion. But, in
order that the meaning of this word may be precise, it is better to
restrict it to those " perceptions, sentiments, or emotions of the
soul which are particularly referred to it, and are caused,
sustained, and strengthened by some motion on the part of
the spirits " (Pass, a 7), such as joy, sadness, and anger.
Passion in the soul corresponds to purely mechanical action
in the body. The sheep that flees from the wolf is not afraid,
animals being automata, yet everything takes place as if it
were a prey to the most lively terror. Man is afraid when
his body is in the same condition as the body of the sheep
before the wolf ; the man and the sheep are both automata,
but the man has a soul, into which is translated under the
form of a passion certain movements of the machine.
" The ultimate, immediate cause of the passions is merely the disturb-
ance by which the animal spirits set the small gland, which is in the
middle of the brain, in motion. It is therefore an error to place the
seat of the passions in the heart. No doubt the passions cause some
disturbance to be felt in the heart, but this is through the medium of a
278 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
small nerve which descends from the brain to the heart, just as stars
are perceived in the sky through the medium of their light and our
optic nerves ; so that it is no more necessary that our soul should
exercise immediately its functions in the heart in order to feel
passions, than it is necessary for it to be in the sky in order to see the
stars" (Passions, I, 31, 33).
Passion depends so much on the machinery of the organism,
that a slight modification in the construction of the machine is
enough to transform a passion. " The same impression made
on the gland by a terrifying object may arouse fear in some men,
and excite courage and boldness in others ; the reason of which
is that all brains are not made alike, and that a move-
ment of the gland which excites fear in some, will in others
cause the spirits to penetrate into the pores of the brain,
whence they descend, some into the nerves through which we
move our hands in defence, and some into those which stir
the blood and drive it to the heart in the way required for
the production of the spirits necessary to the continuance of
this defence, and for the sustenance of the will " (Ibid. I, 39).
Thus Descartes does not hold with the Stoics that passion is
reason perverted into unreason, nor, with Plato, that it is a
revolt of the irrational part of the soul.
" We have in us only one soul, and there is in this soul no diversity of
parts. The sensitive and the rational soul are one and the same, and all
its appetites are volitions. The mistake of making it play divers parts,
which are usually conflicting, arises from the fact that its functions have
not been clearly distinguished from those of the body, to which alone must
be attributed all that is noticeable in us as repugnant to our reason" (Poid.
I, 47).
Having explained how the passions arise, Descartes attempts
to classify and enumerate them. His principle of division is
founded on two observations.
The first is that "All our passions may be excited by objects that
move the senses, and that these objects are the most usual and chief
causes of passion." The second is that "Objects that move our senses, excite
different passions, not by reason of the diversity in them, but solely
by reason of the divers ways in which they may injure or profit us, or
are in general of importance to us" (Ibid. II, 51, 52).
These objects are innumerable, but they only effect us in a
certain number of ways, which depend, so to speak, on what they
can do for us. It is these different ways in which objects affect
THE FEELINGS 279
us that we have to determine. Descartes distinguishes six
simple and primitive passions admiration, love, hatred, desire,
joy and sadness. In this classification the novel idea of placing
admiration at the head of the passions is noticeable. With
admiration are connected esteem and contempt, generosity or
pride, humility or meanness, veneration or disdain. " When a
thing appears to us as good for us, that is to say as being
suitable to our nature, this makes us feel love for it, and when
it appears to us as bad or injurious, our hatred is excited " (Ibid.
II, 56). From the same consideration of good or evil, arise
all the other passions, and, before all else, desire, which
refers to the future. Out of desire spring the secondary
passions hope, fear, jealousy, confidence, despair, irresolution,
courage, boldness, emulation, cowardice, terror, and remorse.
The two last primitive passions are joy and sadness, with which
are connected derision, envy, compassion, self-satisfaction and
repentance, favour and gratitude, indignation and anger, shame
and glory, disgust, regret, and joyfulness. Having enumerated
the passions, Descartes studies them in detail, analyzes them
one after the other, explains their causes, and describes their
characteristics and their effects as regards the soul and the
body. In his remarks we find a curious medley of psycho-
logical observations, which are sometimes very ingenious, and
physiological fictions w r hich provide a solution for every
difficulty.
In his definition of joy and sadness are to be found
Descartes' theory of pleasure and pain. " Tota nostra voluptas
posita est tantum in perfectionis alicujus nostrae conscientia,"
he writes to the Princess Elizabeth. " All our pleasure lies in
our consciousness of some perfection in ourselves."
"Joy is an agreeable emotion of the soul which consists in its
enjoyment of a good which the impressions of the brain represent to it
as being its own " (Ibid. II, 91).
" Sadness is an unpleasant state of languor caused by the discomfort
which the soul experiences from an evil or a defect which the impressions
of the brain represent as belonging to it " (Ibid.).
Thus through their different movements the animal spirits
are the occasional causes of the passions of joy and sadness ;
but joy and sadness themselves consist in the consciousness of
some perfection or imperfection.
280 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" The reason why pain usually produces sadness is that the feeling we
call pain always comes from some action which is so violent that it shocks
the nerves ; so that pain being instituted by nature for the purpose of
informing the soul of the injury received by the body through this action,
and of the weakness of the body in that it was unable to resist the injury,
the body conveys to the soul that both this weakness and the injury
received are evils, and always disagreeable to it " (II. 94).
This theory of pleasure and pain is what might be expected
of a philosopher who defined soul as thought.
The Use and Bangers of the Passions.
Descartes does not condemn the passions, on the contrary
he declares that they are intrinsically good.
"The use of all the passions lies solely in that they incline the soul to
will the things that nature tells us are useful, and to persist in this will ;
just as the same agitation of the spirits which habitually causes them,
disposes the body for movements which serve to the execution of these
things" (Pass. II, 52). "The utility of all the passions lies solely in that
they strengthen, and cause to last in the mind, thoughts which it is good
for it to preserve, and which might otherwise easily be effaced from it "
(II, 74). " We must observe that according to the institution of nature
the passions are all connected with the body, and are found in the soul
only inasmuch as it is joined to the body ; so that their natural use is to
induce the soul to consent to and contribute actions which may serve to
preserve the body, or make it in some way more perfect" (II, 77).
But if the passions are naturally good they also have their
dangers. In the first place, there are many things which cause no
sadness at the beginning, and even give us joy, and which yet are
injurious to the body; and there are others which are useful to the
body, although at first disagreeable. Secondly, the passions almost
always exaggerate goods or evils, in such a way as to incite us to
seek the one and fly the other with much more eagerness than
is proper ; just as we see animals frequently deceived by snares,
and in avoiding small evils fall into greater ones (Ibid. II, 138).
Descartes shows how the soul can struggle against the excess
of passions. They cannot be suppressed all at once ; for, by
acting on the heart they disturb all the blood and the animal
spirits, so that until this emotion has ceased they remain
present to our thought, in the same way as sensible objects are
present to it while they act on our organs of sense. But the
soul may at least always arrest the effects of passion, suspend
the actions to which it is prompted ; and it may find distraction
THE FEELINGS 281
in other thoughts, until time and calm have entirely exhausted
the disturbance of the blood (III, 211). The soul can do more,
it can excite or suppress the passions, if not by a direct act of
volition, at least by dwelling on ideas calculated to awaken or
destroy them.
" Our passions cannot be directly excited or removed by the action of
our will, but indirectly they can through the representation in the mind
of things which are usually connected with the passions which we desire
to have, and which are contrary to those we would reject. Thus, if we
wish to excite courage in ourselves and to get rid of fear, it is not enough
to have the will ; we must set ourselves to consider the reasons, objects,
or examples which would persuade us that the danger is not great ; that
there is more safety in defence than in flight, etc." (Art. 45).
Finally, we can even go further. Between the movements
of the body and the thoughts of the soul there is a natural
correspondence, and it is this correspondence which threatens
man with the slavery of passion. But man has the power of
altering this correspondence ; he can, through habit, affect the
relations of soul to body, and join any thought he wishes to
any movement of the pineal gland. Owing to this power, man
may become once more master of himself, since, instead of
obeying nature, he creates within himself a second nature.
" Although each movement of the gland appears to have been
joined by nature to each of our thoughts from the beginning of
our life, it is possible, nevertheless, through habit to join them
to other thoughts " (Ibid. I, 50), "and such is the connection
between the soul and the body that when we have once joined a
certain bodily act to a certain thought, the one will, in the
future, never occur without the other" (Ibid. II, 136).
To sum up : before there can be passion the body must inter-
vene, there must be motion of the animal spirits ; but regarded
from the point of view of the soul, passions are thoughts, judg-
ments. To understand Descartes' theory of the emotions
rightly we have to distinguish in them three degrees. In the
lowest degree passion arises in the soul from a disturbance in
the blood and in the animal spirits ; the thoughts are imme-
diately imposed upon the soul by the body, the states of
which they express. In the second degree passion commences
with judgment, and is caused by the action of the soul, which
sets itself to conceive certain objects. The soul is now no
282 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
longer obliged to express the body ; the terms may even be
reversed, and the body may be said to express the soul by its
movements. Thus there is a passion that corresponds to
virtue ; generosity, for example, is virtue manifesting itself in
the body : it is right notions, or the moral principles strength-
ened by the movement of the animal spirits. It is virtue
becoming a passion, which is excited by a movement made up of
admiration, joy, and love {Ibid. II, 153-160.) Lastly, there are
emotions which are purely spiritual.
" I say that these emotions {love and hatred) are caused by the spirits^
in order to distinguish love and hatred, which are passions and depend
on the body, both from those judgments which incline the soul to unite
herself voluntarily to the things she deems good, and from the emotions
which these judgments by themselves excite in the soid."
Purely intellectual joy comes to the soul through its own
action alone. It is its enjoyment of the good which appears
to the understanding as its own. " Now good and evil
depend principally on the inward emotions which are excited
in the soul by the soul ; and therein they differ from those
passions which depend always on some movements of the
spirits. And although these emotions of the soul are often
joined to passions which resemble them, they may also exist
with others and even arise from their contraries" (II, 147).
These purely spiritual passions correspond to the einraOelai of
the Stoics, and may serve to make the latter theory compre-
hensible.
Spinoza applies the Mathematical Method to the Study
of the Passions, The Three Primitive Passions and their
Composites : Intellectual Love.
Spinoza was not satisfied with Descartes' theory of the
passions. In his opinion, Descartes accomplishes nothing
beyond displaying the acuteness of his own great intellect
{Eth. Part III, Pref.).
" I shall therefore treat of the nature and strength of the emotions
according to the same method as I employed heretofore in my investiga-
tions concerning God and the mind. I shall consider human actions and
desires in exactly the same manner as though I were concerned with
lines, planes, and solids " (Ibid.).
It would be interesting to follow Spinoza's deduction step
by step, to analyze his demonstrations, to see whether no new
THE FEELINGS 283-
idea is introduced into them, whether he really does always
proceed a priori, whether he always accurately analyzes the
facts which he observes with so much perspicacity, whether
he does not sometimes trace to some complicated process
passions that arise spontaneously in the soul. Here, however,
we can do no more than give the principal features of his
doctrine.
Spinoza commences with a definition of what he under-
stands by passivity and activity.
" I say that we act when anything takes place, either within us or
externally to us, whereof we are the adequate cause ; that is, when
through our nature something takes place within us or externally to us,
which can through our nature alone be clearly and distinctly understood.
On the other hand, I say that we are passive as regards something when
that something takes place within us, or follows from our nature
externally, we being only the partial cause" {Eth. Part III, Def. II).
Spinoza, like Descartes, defines the soul as thought, as a
succession of ideas. The soul acts, therefore, in so far as it has
adequate, that is, clear and complete ideas ; and in so far
as it has inadequate ideas it suffers certain passions (Ibid.
Part III, Prop. I). Nevertheless, like Descartes, he connects
passion with bodily movement.
"Emotion, which is called passivity of the soul, is a confused idea,
whereby the mind affirms concerning its body, or any part thereof, a
force for existence (existendi vis), greater or less than before, and by the
presence of which the mind is determined to think of one thing rather
than another " (Ibid. Part III).
Like Descartes, too, he makes passion a pure mode of
thought, but he adds something to his master's theory. As.
indicated in the second part of the definition, passion is
accompanied by a movement of thought, a tendency: Leib-
nitz's appctitio, the transitio ad novas perceptiones. For
Spinoza derives all the passions from desire. What, then,
is desire ? Every particular being is a mode of the absolute
substance, that is, of the infinite power by which God is and
acts. Infinite activity being the reality of all particular
beings, they contain within themselves nothing which could
destroy them. " Nothing can be destroyed except by a
cause external to itself. This proposition is self-evident, for
the definition of anything affirms the essence of that thing,
but does not negative it " (Ibid. Part III, Prop. IV).
284 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
If every being participates in the divine power, and is
active in the same measure as it is real, and if it contains
nothing within itself to destroy its existence, it follows that
everything strives, as far as it lies within its power, to per-
severe in its own being, and that this effort is the actual
essence of the thing itself, and does not involve limited, but
indefinite time (Book III, Props. VI, VII, VIII). This is
Spinoza's main principle ; let us now consider its conse-
quences.
"The mind, both in so far as it has clear and distinct ideas, and also in
so far as it has confused ideas, endeavours to persist in its being for an
indefinite period, and of this endeavour it is conscious" {Prop. IX). " This
endeavour, when referred solely to the mind, is called will, when referred
to the mind and body in conjunction, it is called appetite. It is, in fact,
nothing else than man's essence, from the nature of which necessarily
follow all these results which tend to its preservation, and which man has
thus been determined to perform. . . . Desire is appetite with conscious-
ness thereof. It is thus plain from what has been said that in no case do
we strive for, wish for, long for, or desire anything because we deem it
to be good, but, on the other hand, we deem a thing to be good because
we strive for it, long for it, or desire it " {Prop. IX, note).
The soul is the idea of the human body. Between these
two terms there is an exact parallelism, a real, pre-established
harmony.
" Since the first element that constitutes the essence of the mind is the
idea of the human body as actually existing, it follows that the first and
chief endeavour of our mind is the endeavour to affirm the existence of
our body {Prop. X).
The effort of the mind to persevere in its being thus
necessarily involves an effort to maintain and strengthen the
body which is its object, without which it would not be.
*' Whatsoever increases or diminishes, helps or hinders the
power of activity in our body, the idea thereof increases or
diminishes, helps or hinders the power of thought in our mind "
{Prop. XI). Hence arises the effort of the mind to imagine
the things which increase the body's power of action and to
repel thoughts that will prevent or diminish it. The tendency
to persevere in being does not seem to imply an effort needed
to escape from an evil state and seek a better one. Spinoza
arbitrarily introduces into his theory of desire the idea of
design. There is a striving after the most perfect existence,
THE FEELINGS 285
the highest reality ; an effort not only to repel all that
diminishes life, but to attain all that increases and enriches it.
When the soul reaches a greater perfection it feels joy, when
it reaches a lesser perfection, sadness. Perfection and reality
are the same thing. Spinoza proves that from these three
passions, joy, sadness, and desire, all the others can be derived.
" Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external
cause: Hate is nothing else but pain accompanied by the idea of an
external cause. He who loves necessarily endeavours to have, and to
keep present to him, the object of his love ; while he who hates endeavours
to remove and destroy the object of his hatred" {Prop. XIII, note).
We cannot here follow the details of this deduction. We
may, however, remark that the principal springs of this
mechanical process are the association of ideas, imagination,
and sympathy.
1. Effects of the association of ideas.
' " If we conceive that a thing, which is wont to affect us painfully, has
any point of resemblance with another thing which is wont to affect us.
with an equalty strong emotion of pleasure, we shall hate the first named
thing and at the same time we shall love it " {Prop. XVII).
2. Effects of imagination.
"A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a
thing past or future as by the image of a thing present " {Prop. XVIII).
3. Effects of sympathy.
" By the very fact that we conceive a thing, which is like ourselves and
which we have not regarded with any emotion, to be affected with any
emotion, we are ourselves affected with a like emotion" {Prop. XXVII).
In this way Spinoza accounts for commiseration, emulation,
benevolence, and also, by means of an ingenious demonstration,
envy. " If we conceive that anyone takes delight in some-
thing which only one person can possess, we shall endeavour
to bring it about that the man in question shall not gain
possession thereof" (Prop. XXXII). Proof: "From the mere
fact of our conceiving that another person takes delight in a
thing we shall ourselves love that thing and desire to take
delight therein {Prop. XXVII). But we assumed that the
pleasure in question would be prevented by another's delight
in its object : we shall therefore endeavour to prevent his
possession thereof " (Prop. XXVIII). " We thus see that from
the same property of human nature whence it follows that
286 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
men are merciful it follows also that they are envious and
ambitious " {Prop. XXXIII, note). Spinoza also explains by
sympathy the secret bitterness mixed with the false pleasures
of hatred and vengeance. " Joy arising from the fact that
anything we hate is destroyed, or suffers other injury, is
never unaccompanied by a certain pain in us " {Prop. XLVII).
Proof : " This is evident from Prop. XXVII. For, in so far
as we conceive a thing similar to ourselves to be affected with
pain, we ourselves feel pain.'"
The same mechanical process explains how it is that passions
conflict and interfere with, or combine and are added to one
another.
" I think I have thus explained, and displayed through their primary
causes, the principal emotions and vacillations of spirit which arise from
the combination of the three primary emotions, to wit, desire, pleasure,
and pain. It is evident, from what I have said, that we are in many
ways driven about by external causes, and that like waves of the sea
driven by contrary winds, we toss to and fro unwitting of the issue and
of our fate " {Prop. LIX, note).
Although Spinoza holds in general with Descartes that
every passion corresponds to a state of the body, yet, like
Descartes also, he recognizes the existence of a higher emotion,
which corresponds to the mind's own special activity. " Besides
pleasure and desire, which are passivities or passions, there are
other emotions derived from pleasure and desire which are
attributable to us in so far as we are active " {Prop. LVIII).
The soul, inasmuch as it possesses adequate ideas, tends to
persevere in its own being. In this case, desire is pure action,
in which sadness has no place. The adequate idea is the
highest degree of our active power, and sadness being that
which diminishes or hinders the mind's power of thought, no
affection of sadness can reach the mind, in so far as it is
active.
There remain now only two primitive emotions : cupiditas
and laetitia, desire and joy, and of these there are two forms,
strength of mind and generosity. Strength of mind is the
desire by which each person endeavours, from the dictates
of reason alone, to preserve his own being. Generosity is a
reasoned, virtuous sympathy, which induces us by means of the
dictates of reason alone, to endeavour to assist other men, and
THE FEELINGS 287
bind them to ourselves in friendship To change inadequate and
confused ideas into adequate ideas, and thus to make the desire
and joy that spring from the activity of the soul alone take
the place of passion properly so called, thereby eliminating all
sadness, is, through the vision of things under the form of
eternity, to emancipate oneself from the bondage of passion, to
live in God, and to find in the intellectual love of Him happi-
ness and virtue, which are identical.
Malebranche : Development of the Preceding Ideas ; Passions
and Impulses ; Classification of Desires.
Malebranche's theory of the passions bears a great re-
semblance to that of Spinoza. Like Spinoza, he applies the
rational method, and reduces the passions to three primitive
forms. And he follows both Descartes and Spinoza in making
the passions depend on the body, while holding, on the other
hand, the existence of a pure emotion higher than those bodily
passions, an intellectual love, the love of God. But Male-
branche went more deeply into these theories and developed
them further.
For Descartes the soul was one, and all that was irrational
in us was explained by the action of the body alone. The
passions, properly so called, arise out of a disturbance in the
animal spirits. The soul escapes slavery only because it is
able, in the first place, to modify through its judgments the
movements of the pineal gland, and consequently the passions ;
and secondly, to lead an entirely spiritual life. This theory
was developed by Spinoza. The soul is passive because it is
limited in its being, because everything that is in it is not
explained by its own nature, because it is the idea of a body
which is affected by all other bodies. The cause of passion
is also in another sense external to the soul : it is meta-
physical. But for that very reason passion depends on the
nature of the soul, on the limitations of its essence.
With Descartes feeling has not, so to speak, any special
principle ; it is a pure mode of thought : in Spinoza the
tendency to persevere in being ultimately appears as a general
law, in virture of which every idea involves affirmation.
Malebranche seeks in the soul itself a principle which may
account for its movements. He believes in an original
288 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
tendency and derived impulses. With his master, he explains
the passions by a physiological cause, but he makes them
depend on these impulses, and hence on the normal activity of
the soul and hence on the action of God. Finally, he finds
the reason of their excess and danger in a corruption of our
original nature.
His method is the same as that of Spinoza. He admits that
introspection has a certain value, but declares that it cannot be
an adequate or scientific method.
" If our nature were not corrupt, it would not be necessary to seek to
discover by means of reason, as we are about to do, what must be the
natural inclinations of created minds ; we would only have to look into
ourselves, and we should discover by our inner sense of what takes place
within us, all the inclinations that must be natural to us. But because
we know by faith that sin has reversed the natural order, and because our
reason itself tells us that our inclinations are disordered, we are obliged
to find some other means " (Reck, de la Vfr. I, IV, Ch. I, 1).
We must through reason discover what our true nature is.
This nature we shall find in the action of God in us. God can
only have Himself for his principal end, but, as a secondary end,
He may have the preservation of created beings, because they
all, in different degrees, participate in his perfection.
"Since the natural inclinations of minds are certainly continuous
impressions from Him Who created and preserves them, these
inclinations must, as I think, be in every way similar to those of their
Creator and Preserver. They can, therefore, naturally have no other
principal end than His glory, and no other secondary end but their own
preservation, and the preservation of others, but this always with a regard
to Him who gave them being " (Ibid. I, IV, Ch. I, 2).
This being the case, the principle of all particular inclina-
tions must be the love of God for Himself, for again it is His own
perfection that He loves in His creatures. " As there is pro-
perly speaking only one love in God, and as it is through this
love since God can only love things as in relation to Himself
that God can love things, so God only impresses on our souls
one love, which is the love of the good in general, and we can
love nothing unless it be through this love, since we can love
nothing that is not, or appears not to be good. The principle
of all our love for particular things is the love of the good in
general, because this is our will ; for will is nothing else than
the continual impress of the Author of nature, which inclines
THE FEELINGS 289
the mind of man towards the good in general " (Ibid. IV,
Ch. I, 3). Thus, whatever our inclinations may be, their
true principle and object is God.
Malebranche classifies our particular inclinations under three
principal ones. The first is curiosity, that is, that uneasiness of
the will which makes us seek all that is new in the hope of
finding the desired satisfaction. This uneasy curiosity has its
dangers, but
" It is most suitable to our condition ; for it is infinitely better to seek
anxiously truth and happiness which we do not possess, than to remain in
a state of false repose, content with the lies and false goods with which
most men are satisfied."
The second inclination which the Author of our nature
impresses unceasingly on our will is the love of ourselves and
of our own preservation.
" We have already said that God loves all His works, that it is by
this love alone that they are preserved, and that He wishes all created
spirits to have the same desires as Himself. He wishes them therefore
all to have a natural desire for their own preservation and happiness,
and to love themselves" (Ibid. Ch. V, 1).
Self-love includes the love of greatness and of pleasure, the
love of being and of well-being. Through the love of greatness,
we seek power and independence. " We desire in a manner
to have necessary being, we wish in a sense to be like gods."
In the love of pleasure we desire not only being but well-
being, " since pleasure is the thing that is best and most
agreeable to the soul : I say expressly, pleasure as pleasure."
Greatness and independence consist usually in our relation to
the things around us, but " pleasures are in the soul itself.
They are real modes of it, and by their own nature are capable
of satisfying it."
Malebranche rejects the paradoxes of the Stoics. " We
must state things as they are ; pleasure is always a good, pain
is always an evil ; but it is not always to our advantage to
enjoy pleasure, and it is sometimes to our advantage to suffer
pain" (Bk. IV, Ch. X, 1). For what is pleasure? "It is
the sign of the good. Whatever causes pleasure is certainly
much to be loved and very good " (Ibid. 2).
It is not the objects we feel that really act on us, since
bodies cannot act on minds ; nor is the soul itself the cause of
T
290 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the pleasure or pain it feels on the occasion of these objects;
for if the feeling of pain depended upon the soul, it would
never feel any pain : " God alone has the power to act on us
and to make us feel pleasure and pain." But, " usually we
should only do good to anyone in order that he may do a
good action or as a reward for such an action ; and we should
usually cause anyone to suffer an evil only in order to
prevent him from doing wrong, or to punish him for having
done so. Thus since God always acts in accordance with order
and with the rules of justice, every pleasure as instituted by
Him either impels us to, or rewards us for, some good action,
and every pain either deters us from, or punishes us for, some
bad action."
Whether it be ancedent pleasure exciting us to action,
or pleasure which results from action, pleasure is always
a mark of the good, the sign of a perfection. How, then, is
it that there are pernicious pleasures ? In the first place,
it is because there are actions which are good in one sense
and bad in another. In the second place, as we say that
a thing is a cause of an effect when the one is always
accompanied by the other, so we imagine that it is sensible
objects that are acting on us, and we separate ourselves from
God, Who alone is capable of causing pleasure, in order to
unite ourselves to some vile creature.
" Since every pleasure is a reward, it is an injustice on our part to
produce in our bodies movements which, oblige God, in consequence of
His first will or of the universal laws of nature, to make us feel jjleasure
when we do not deserve it. God being just, it cannot but happen that
He will punish us some day for having forced His will by obliging Him
to reward by pleasure crimes committed against Him."
Our third natural affection is that which we feel for those
with whom we live, and for all the objects surrounding \is.
" In order to understand the causes and effects of these natural
affections, you must know that God loves all His works and
unites them closely one with another for their mutual
preservation."
" Lest this affection should be stifled by self-love, He has caused us to
be so bound up with all that surround us, and principally with beings of
the same species as ourselves, that their misfortunes naturally afflict
us, and their joys give us joy, and their greatness, or humiliation, or
abasement seems to increase or diminish our own being."
THE FEELINGS 291
Such, then, is Malebranche's theory of the affections.
His view of the passions closely resembles that of Descartes.
The occasional cause of passion is always a movement of
the animal spirits. The mind of man has two essentially
different relations. As pure spirit it is essentially united
to the Word of God, to Sovereign Eeason ; as a human spirit
it has an essential relation to the body. Our natural affections
are all those movements of the soul which are common to us
and to pure intelligences. Passions are all the emotions which
the soul feels naturally, on occasion of abnormal movements of
the spirits and the blood. These passions are inseparable from
the affections. Man is capable of a sensible love or hatred,
only because he is capable of a spiritual love or hatred.
God, the principle of all movement, is the principle of the
movement of the passions. It is impossible to conceive any
direct or reciprocal action between thought and extension,
between spirit and body.
Without a disturbance of the animal spirits and of the blood
there is no passion. But Malebranche does not, any more than
Descartes, pretend that every passion begins necessarily with
a movement in the body ; this only happens in cases when the
passion is excited by confused feelings, and when the mind
does not perceive the good or the evil which is the cause of
the passion.
In all other cases the following seven elements can be
discerned in every one of our passions :
" 1. The act of judgment made by the mind with regard to the object,
or rather the confused or distinct perception of the relation of the object
to ourselves ; 2. An actual determination of the movement of the will
towards this object, assuming the latter to be or to appear a good ; 3. A
feeling of love, or aversion, of desire and joy or of sadness ; 4. A further
determination of the course of the spirits and of the blood in the direction
of the external and internal parts of the body ; 5. The sensible emotion
of the soul, which feels itself disturbed by this sudden overflow of
spirits ; 6. The different sentiments of love or aversion, joy, desire, or
sadness caused, not by an intellectual perception of the good or the evil
as in the case of those of which we have just spoken, but by the divers
disturbances which the animal spirits cause in the brain ; 7. A certain
feeling of joy, or rather of an inward sweetness which holds the soul in
her passion."
Passion may thus begin with a movement of the animal
292 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
spirits, but more often this movement is preceded, and the way
prepared for it, by purely spiritual phenomena.
We may even have purely spiritual affections that are by
accident accompanied by physical phenomena.
"It is one of the laws of the union of body and mind that all
affections of the soul, even those it has for goods which have no connec-
tion with the body, are accompanied by disturbances of the animal
spirits, owing to which these inclinations become sensuous. . . . Tims
our love of truth, of justice, of virtue, even of God, is always accompanied
by some movement of the spirits, which makes this love a sensuous love.
We are therefore united in a sensuous manner, not only with all those
things which relate to the preservation of life, but also with the spiritual
things to which the mind is immediately united by its own nature."
Not that the intellectual joy, which accompanies the clear
knowledge of the good estate of the soul, is to be confounded
with the sensible pleasure, which accompanies the confused
consciousness of the good condition of the body. Intellectual
pleasure is stable, free from remorse, as immutable as the truth
which causes it ; whereas, " sensuous pleasure is nearly always
accompanied by sadness of mind, or remorse of conscience,
and is as uneasy and as inconstant as the disturbance of
the blood which produces it " (Bk. Y, Ch. III).
What are the effects of the passions, and why are they capable
of excess ? All the passions have two very remarkable effects :
they cause us to apply our mind and they engage our hearts.
In so far as they cause us to apply the mind the passions
may be very useful in the acquirement of knowledge; but in so
far as they engage our hearts they have always a bad effect,
because they only possess the heart by corrupting our reason,
Dy making things appear to it, not as they are in themselves
or according to the truth, but according to their relation to
us (Bk. Y, Ch. VIII).
The danger of passion is a consequence of original sin.
" Before the existence of sin the soul- was able to efface the too lively
image of a bodily good, and to cause the sensible pleasure which
accompanied this image to disappear. The body being subject to
the mind, the soul was able in one instant to cause the disturbance of
the fibres of the brain and the emotion of the spirits to cease
through the sole consideration of her duty, but since sin began to exist
this has no longer been in her power (Bk. Y, Ch. IY). Our nature is
now corrupt. The body acts with too great force on the mind . . . the
THE FEELINGS 293
mind became as it were material and earthy after sin. Its close
relation and union with God was lost. I mean that God withdrew from
it as much as He could without losing or destroying it. A thousand
disorders followed from the absence or withdrawal of Him Who preserved
the mind in its due place " (Bk. V, Ch. I).
In his classification of the passions Malebranche adopts the
same principle as Descartes. " The number of the passions is
not to be multiplied according to the number of objects, which
are innumerable, but according to the principal relations that
can exist between them and us." The first of these passions
is admiration, but it is an imperfect passion, because it is not
excited by the conception or sense of the good. Love and
aversion are the mother passions (passions metres) ; they
generate no other general passions except desire, joy, and
sadness, which are the three primitive passions ; " the
particular passions are composed of these three primitive
passions alone, and they are the more complex according as
the principal idea of good or evil which excites them is accom-
panied by a larger number of accessory ideas " (V, Ch. VII).
The particular passions are thus distinguished, not only by
the fact that the three primitive passions may be diversely
combined in them, but also by the judgments and perceptions
which cause or accompany them. "The chief difference
between passions of the same kind (gaiety, exultation, bene-
volence, gratitude, laughter, or amusement, are all different
kinds of joy ; disgust, grief, regret, compassion, indignation are
different kinds of sadness) can be traced to the different
perceptions or different judgments that accompany them."
Bossuct: The Psychology of Thomas Aquinas and the Cartesian
Physiology.
Bossuet's philosophy is a combination of scholastic and
Cartesian doctrines, of the psychology of Aquinas and the
physiology of Descartes. The operations of the senses are
accompanied by pleasure and pain. Both of these are sensa-
tions, " since they are both a sudden and lively perception
which we experience in the first instance in the presence of
objects that are pleasant or painful. . . . Pleasure is a
feeling that is agreeable and in harmony with our nature ;
pain is a feeling that is unpleasant and contrary to our
294 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
nature" (Connaissancc de Dicu ct de soi-memc, Ch. I, 2). This
is not very instructive, at least if taken literally. Bossuet's
definition of the passions is more satisfactory.
" Whenever we feel or imagine pleasure or pain we are attracted or
repelled. . . . Passion is a movement of the soul which, being affected
by the pleasure or pain which it either experiences or imagines in an
object, pursues or avoids that object" (Ibid. 6).
He places the principal passions under two categories: those
whose object is regarded simply as being present or absent and
which taken together constitute the concupiscent appetite; and
those whose object is considered sub ratione ardui, according to
the expression used by Aquinas, as being hard to attain or
to avoid, and which constitute the irascible appetite. To the
first category belong love, hate, desire, aversion, joy, sadness ;
to the second, courage, fear, hope, despair, anger. There are a
great many secondary passions : shame, envy, emulation,
admiration, etc., but these are all connected with one or
more of the principal passions. One may even say that
all the passions depend on love alone, that all are comprised
in or excited by love.
"The hatred we feel for one object comes only from our love for
another. Desire is nothing else than love extending to an object not
possessed, as joy is love of the object possessed. . . . Courage is a kind
of love that undertakes the most difficult things in order to possess the
loved object, and fear is a kind of love that, in finding itself threatened
with the loss of that which it seeks, is disturbed by the danger. . . .
Take away love and there will be no passions, and, on the other hand,
where love is there all the passions are found " (Ibid. 6).
So far Bossuet follows Aquinas ; let us now see in what
sense he is a Cartesian. " If," he says, " we consider the
passions as being merely in the body, they would seem to be
nothing else than an unusual disturbance of the animal spirits
on the occasion of certain objects, which are to be pursued or
avoided. Thus it must be that the passions are caused by the
impression made and the motion excited in the brain by an
object possessing great force" (Chap. II, 12). The passions are,
therefore, entirely involuntary movements of the soul, co-ordi-
nate with bodily movements that are themselves determined by
those of the object. "The co-operation of the soul and body
in the passions is evident, but it is clear that the good or bad
THE FEELINGS 295
inclination must have its commencement in the body. . . .
In the passions the soul is passive, it does not rule over the
dispositions of the body, but subserves them " (Ch. Ill, 2).
Bossuet's remedies for the passions are the same as Descartes'
and, like his, derived from that correspondence owing to which
all the thoughts of the soul are followed by some modification
of the body.
La Rochefoucauld : Self -Love the Principle of all Human
Affections.
La Eochefoucauld was not a philosopher, but a man of the
world, who, without seeking to connect his theories on human
nature with any general system, merely sets forth the results
of his observations of himself and of others. He traces all
human emotions and passions to self-love, and, in the various
metamorphoses of this single impulse, he finds an explanation
of all our desires.
" Self-love {amour propre) is the love of self and of all things for the
sake of self. ... It takes every contradictory form : it is imperious and
obedient, sincere and deceitful, merciful and cruel, timid and courageous.
Its tendencies vary according to the diversity of temperament by which
it is directed and devoted, now to fame, now to riches, and now to
pleasure. They change with age, fortune, and experience. But it matters
not whether self-love takes several directions or only one, because it is
broken into many or concentrated in one, at its pleasure, and according
as is needful. It adjusts itself to things and to the want of them. Self-
love will even take the part of those that -are against it, will forward their
purposes, and, what is even more wonderful, will hate itself with them,
will conspire for its own destruction, work towards its own ruin. In
short, the only desire of self-love is to be, and so long as it can exist it is
ready to be its own enemy."
Thus self-love is the principle of even those affections which,
deceived by our pride, we regard as disinterested. " Self-
interest speaks to us every kind of language and plays all kinds
of parts, including that of disinterestedness. . . . Generosity
is the skilful use we make of disinterestedness in order to attain
the sooner a larger interest. . . . Compassion is often a
feeling for our own misfortunes in the misfortunes of others, a
prudent foresight of evils into which we might fall. AVe assist
others in order to oblige them to assist us on similar occasions,
and the services we render them are, in fact, benefits which
we render to ourselves in advance."
296 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Hohbes deduces his Theory of Egoism from a Materialistic
Psychology.
Hobbes shares La Rochefoucauld's theories, but, with a more
merciless logic, he deduces them from an entirely materialistic
psychology. All that is real is corporeal, every phenomenon
can be reduced to motion.
"Conceptions and apparitions are nothing really but motion in some
internal substance of the head, which motion, not stopping there but pro-
ceeding to the heart, must there either help or hinder the motion which is
called vital ; when it helpeth it is called delight, contentment, or pleasure,
which is nothing really but motion about the heart, as conception is
nothing but motion in the head ; and the objects that cause it are
called pleasant or delightful, or by some name equivalent ; the Latins
have jucundum, a juvando, from helping ; and the same delight
with reference to the object is called love. But when such motion
weakeneth or hindereth the vital motion, then it is called pain ; and in
relation to that which causeth it, hatred, which the Latins express some-
times by odium and sometimes by taedium. This motion, in which con-
sisteth pleasure or pain, is also a solicitation or provocation either to draw
near to the thing that pleaseth, or to retire from the thing that dis-
pleaseth ; and this solicitation is the endeavour or internal beginning of
animal motion, which, when the object delighteth, is called appetite ; when
it displeaseth it is called aversion, in respect of the displeasure present ; but
in respect of the displeasure expected, fear" (Human Nature, Ch. VII,
1, 2).
From Cartesianism Hobbes borrowed its mechanism only.
There are some points of resemblance between his doctrines
and those of Spinoza, but thought was for Hobbes only a mode
of extension. Such a theory naturally leaves no place for any
disinterested passions.
" Repentance is the passion which proceedeth from opinion or know-
ledge that the action they have done is out of the Way to the end they
would attain : the effect whereof is to pursue that way no longer, but, by
consideration of the end, to direct themselves unto a better. . . . Pity is
imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from
the sense of another's calamity. . . . There is yet another passion, some-
times called love, but, more properly, good will or charity. There can be
no greater argument to a man of his own power than to find himself able
not only to accomplish his own desires, but also to assist others in theirs,
and this is that conception wherein consisteth charity " (Human Nature,
Ch. IX, 7, 10, 17).
According to Locke, Passions are Modes of Pleasure and Pain.
Locke did not construct any theory of the passions, but
THE FEELINGS 297
only considered them in connection with the ideas which
correspond to them in us. " Pleasure and pain, and that
which causes them, good and evil, are the hinges on which our
passions turn " (Bk. II, Ch. 20). " The passions are modes of
pleasure and pain, resulting in our minds from various con-
siderations of good and evil " {Ibid.). While reflecting on the
pleasure which a thing that is present or absent may give us,
we have the idea of what we call love. On the other hand,
reflection on the pain which a thing present or absent may
cause in us produces the idea of what is called hatred. " The
uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of
anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight
with it, is what we call desire . . . the chief, if not only, spur
to human industry and action is uneasiness " (Ibid.).
Joy, sadness, hope, fear, despair, anger, envy are all, in like
manner, modes of pleasure and pain and different forms of the
uneasiness which is caused by the absence of a good or the
presence of an evil. These diverse passions are often mixed
in life. " There is, I think, scarce any of the passions to be
found without desire joined to it " (Ibid. Ch. XXI).
Locke defines pleasure and pain by ideas ; the passions,
being modes of pleasure and pain, are therefore modes of
thought, and in this view we recognize the Cartesian influence.
But by introducing a state of uneasiness, and by assigning to
this uneasiness the most important part in the determination
of human actions, Locke would appear to hold the existence of
a principle distinct from thought, a collection of tendencies of
which the definite desires are only manifestations.
Leibnitz : Metaphysical Theory of the Passions; Activity and
Passivity. Psychological Theory : the Th ree Degrees of
Appetition ; Theory of Pleasure.
In Leibnitz we find once more the great Cartesian
tradition, the union of metaphysics with psychology. The
monad, a spiritual atom, the only true reality, possesses,
besides perception, appetition, or the tendency to pass to new
perceptions. " The activity of the internal principle which
produces change or passage from one perception to another,
may be called appetition. It is true that desire (fappetit)
cannot always fully attain to the whole perception at which it
29S THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
aims, but it always obtains some of it and attains to new
perceptions" {Monad. % 15). This tendency of every monad
to advance in being is, in the human soul, the principle of
the passions and emotions. But this tendency towards a
higher perfection would not in itself suffice to explain the
emotional life of mankind, the mysteries and errors of passion.
The monad is not an isolated thing, for, owing to the pre-
established harmony, it is in agreement with all the other
monads ; and it is in this metaphysical law, in this inter-
dependence of creatures, that the principle of passion is to
lie found.
" A created thing is said to act outwardly in so far as it has perfection,
and to suffer (or be passive, pdtir) in relation to another, in so far as it is
imperfect. Thus activity {action) is attributed to a Monad in so far as it
has distinct perceptions, and passivity {passion) in so far as its preceptions
are confused. And one created thing is more perfect than another, in
this, that there is found in the more perfect that which serves to explain
a pi-iori what takes place in the less perfect, and it is on this account that
the former is said to act upon the latter {Ibid. 49, 50).
Thus, for the very reason that they are in harmony with one
another, the monads also limit one another. Not one of them
is purely active ; for that would mean that all things
were made for this monad, that it was the universal end, God
Himself. " The soul would be a divinity, if it had no other
than distinct perceptions" {TMod. 62). It must be
remembered that, according to Leibnitz, " a created monad can
have no inward physical influence on another monad. The
influence of one monad upon another, is only ideal, and it can
have its effect only through the mediation of God, in so far as
in the ideas of God, any monad rightly claims that God, in
regulating the others from the beginning of things, should have
regard to it" {Monad. 51). For Leibnitz as for Spinoza, \\/
passion is a limitation of action, an imperfection of our essence.
It does indeed attach us to ourselves, but only in so far as we
express other beings by confused ideas. " Thus although
each created monad represents the whole universe, it represents
more distinctly the body which specially pertains to it, and of
which it is the entelechy ; and as this body expresses the whole
universe through the connection of all matter in the plenum,
the soul also represents the whole universe in representing this
body which belongs to it in a special way" {Monad: % 62).
THE FEELINGS 299
Passion therefore does not, as Descartes seemed to think,
merely correspond to an action of the bod)* to which we are
joined, bnt, as in Spinoza's theory, to a metaphysical law, the
mutual limitation of beings which according to Leibnitz
expresses the universal order, the harmony preestablished by
God. Far from the body being the cause of passion, it is
passion that is the cause of the body. It must be said that,
strictly speaking, the soul has within itself the principle of all
its actions and even of all its passions (Th6od. 65). But, the
soul in so far as it is active derives everything from itself, has
no use for a body ; the latter only expresses its law of limitation
and its relation of dependence on and harmony with the
other monads.
Let us now see how these metaphysical views are confirmed
by psychology. The first form of appetition in us is an
inquietude (the uneasiness of Locke), a confused desire.
" For I should prefer to say that in the desire in itself there is rather a
disposition and preparation for pain than pain itself. . . . Hence the
infinitely wise Author of our being arranged it for our good, when he so
arranged it ihat we should often be in ignorance and among confused
perceptions, in order to act more promptly by instinct, and in order not
to be disturbed by too distinct sensations of a multitude of objects, which
we cannot altogether grasp, and which nature, for her ends, has not been
able to do without" {New Essays, Bk. II, Ch. XX, 6).
" These impulses are like so many little springs which try
to release themselves, and which make our machine go" (Ibid.).
" These little impulses consist in delivering ourselves
continually from little obstacles at which our nature works
without our thinking about it " (Ibid. Ch. XXI, 36). Thus
in the lowest stage we find that uneasiness, those insensible
inclinations of which we are unconscious (Ibid. 42). And
above these there are " sensible ones whose existence and
object we know, but whose formation we do not feel, and there
are confused inclinations which we attribute to the body,
although there is always something corresponding in the mind "
(Ibid. 42), and these latter are the passions properly so
called.
'' The Stoics regarded the passions as thoughts ; thus hope was to them
the thought of a future good, and fear the thought of a future evil. But
I prefer to say that the passions are neither satisfactions nor displeasures,
300 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
nor thoughts, but tendencies, or rather modifications of the tendency which
come from thought or feeling, and which are accompanied by pleasure or
displeasure" (Ch. XX, 10).
Lastly, above the passions proper " there are distinct
inclinations which reason gives to us, whose force and
formation we feel." These inclinations do not depend on
the body, but express the very nature of the soul ; they
correspond to distinct ideas, and are veritable activities.
Under all these different forms appetition is always ecpii-
valent to the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The
good is that which tends to produce or increase pleasure, or
to diminish or lessen the duration of pain. Leibnitz has been
reproached with having held contradictory opinions concerning
pleasure, with having spoken at one time like Aristotle at
another like Epicurus (L. Dumont, Theorie Scicntifiquc de la
Sensibility) but this is because it was not understood that
his conception of human nature admitted of the reconciliation
of these two opposite theories.
" It is also for the sake of this skill that natui'e has given us the
stimuli of desire, like the rudiments or elements of pain, or, so to speak,
of semi-pain, or (if you wish to speak extravagantly in order to express
yourself more forcibly) the little imperceptible pains, in order that we
might enjoy the advantage of suffering without its inconvenience ; for
otherwise, if this perception were too distinct, we should always be
miserable while awaiting the good, while this continuous victory over
these semi-pains which are felt in pursuing our desire and satisfying
in some way this appetite or this longing, gives us a quantity of semi-
pleasures whose continuity and mass (as in the continuity of the impulse
of a heavy body which falls and acquires momentum) becomes at last
a complete and genuine pleasure ; and finally, without these semi-pains
there would be no pleasure at all, nor any means of perceiving that some-
thing aids and relieves us by removing some obstacles which prevent us
from putting ourselves at ease. It is furthermore in this that we
recognise the affinity of pleasure and pain, which Socrates in Plato's
Phaedo noticed when his feet itched " (New Essays II, Ch. XX, 6).
Might we not infer from this that pleasure is the absence
of pain ? And vet Leibnitz says a little further on (Ch. XX,
41):
" And I believe that, at bottom, pleasure is a feeling of perfection and
pain a feeling of imperfection, provided it be marked enough to make us
capable of perceiving it." Again elsewhere he returns to the formula :
Voluptas seu delectatio est sensus perfectionis, id est, sensus cujusdam rei qua;
juvat aut quce potentiam aliquam adjuvat."
THE FEELINGS 301
These two views are not contradictory. We tend towards
the infinite, but there always remains in us some passivity,
hence some imperfection, hence some uneasiness, which, even
in the midst of joy, urges us on towards a higher state. It is
because our nature is great that no pleasure here below can
fully satisfy us, that every pleasure is preceded by an
uneasiness which it causes to cease, and followed by an
uneasiness which calls for another state of perfection.
" And very far from being obliged to regard this uneasiness as incom-
patible with happiness, I find that uneasiness is essential to the happiness
of created beings which never consists in complete possession this makes
them insensible and as it were stupid but in a progress continuous and
uninterrupted towards the greatest good, which cannot fail to be accom-
panied by a desire, or at least a continual uneasiness, but which, as I
have just explained, does not go so far as to inconvenience, but limits
itself to those elements or rudiments of pain, partly unconscious, which
are nevertheless sufficient to serve as an incentive and to arouse the
will {New Essays II, Ch. XI, 36).
Thus, the reason why some uneasiness precedes every
pleasure and ceases with it is that this uneasiness belongs to
the very essence of man, whose limited nature tends to the
infinite; but it is none the less true that each pleasure by
appeasing this ever-recurring uneasiness " for we are never
without some activity and motion " {New Essays, II, Ch. XXI,
36) is the feeling of a higher perfection. " All action
is a step towards pleasure, and all passion a step towards pain "
{Ibid. 72). Every time that we experience a pleasure it is
because, in different degrees, we set ourselves free from the
bonds of passivity.
As there are three kinds of inclinations, so there are also three
kinds of pleasures. There are some pleasures which correspond
to our unconscious inclinations, others which correspond to the
passions, and others, lastly and these are the purest, the most
valuable which correspond to the activity of the mind. We
have, therefore, rational, enlightened {lumineux) pleasures
"which are found in knowledge and in the production of har-
mony," and which should be set against the pleasures of sense,
which are confused, though lively. The conflict between the
spirit and the flesh " is nothing but the opposition of the
different tendencies arising from the thoughts that are confused
and those that are distinct." As the feeling of our own
302 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
perfection, pleasure in itself is good. But our tendency towards
pleasure is like the tendency of the stone which goes by the
shortest way towards the centre of the earth, and is incapable
of foreseeing the rocks on which it will be shattered. Thus
it comes that, while making straight for the present pleasure,
we sometimes fall into the abyss of misfortune.
Happiness, on the contrary, is a lasting pleasure, which
implies a continuous progress towards new pleasures. This
progress is only possible through the intervention of reason,
which is the principle of order and foresight, which looks
to the future, and, proceeding by a road which it knows,
meets no unexpected obstacles. Happiness, therefore, can be
reduced to the cultivation of reason, to a constant movement
towards more distinct perceptions. " Virtue itself consists
in a pleasure of mind " (Ibid, II, Ch. XX, 2).
Jean Jacques Rousseau : Superiority of Nature, and conse-
quently, of Emotion, to Reason.
We can ouly just indicate the main outlines of the more
recent theories concerning the feelings. In France, in the 18th
century, by a recoil from the analytic spirit which had been
cultivated to excess, J. J. Eousseau proclaimed the excellence of
nature. " Do away with our pernicious progress, our errors and
our vices, do away with the work of man, and all will go well "
(Ernile, IV). In the intuitions of feeling we have a primitive
light, more brilliant and more pure than the light of reason.
We must, therefore, always listen to " the holy voice of
nature." All our first inclinations are legitimate. . " What-
ever the cause of our existence may be, it has provided for our
preservation by giving us feelings suitable to our nature, and
it cannot be denied that these at least are innate." " The first of
all these is the love of self ; but we also desire the happiness of
others, and when it costs nothing to our own, the latter is
increased by it." With these benevolent affections our moral
sense is closely connected. " Love of good and hatred of evil
are as natural to us as the love of ourselves. The behests of
conscience are not judgments but feelings." In Germany
Jacobi attacked the ethics of Kant as being too abstract, and
supported theories similar to those of J. J. Eousseau. He
declares that there is a light of the heart which cannot
THE FEELINGS 303
penetrate into the understanding without being extinguished.
He professes to be a pagan in understanding, a Christian in
feeling.
English and Scottish Moralists Shaftesbury : Classification
of the Affections according to their Objects. Hutcheson ; Hume ;
Thomas Reid : Appetites, Desires, and Affections.
After Locke, several subtle minds in England and Scotland
devoted their attention to moral philosophy. These phil-
osophers adopted the psychological method, that is to say,
they made the study of the impulses and the feelings of the
human mind their starting point. While endeavouring to
discover what man ought to do, what objects he should choose
as the end of his activity, they modified the Cartesian principle
of classification, and arranged the affections, not according to
their different modes, but according to the objects towards
which they are directed. Shaftesbury discovered in man self-
regarding impulses and benevolent or social impulses, which
cause us to love the happiness of others for its own sake,
and without anv regard to our own. To these two classes
of impulses he adds rational or reflective tendencies, which
imply reason ; these consist in the sense of esteem or
contempt which we feel in the presence of moral beauty
or ugliness, and have for their object human actions, or
rather, the thoughts and affections which are _ their source.
When we imagine an action we experience a feeling which is
either painful or agreeable, as when we hear a harmony or a
discord. We distinguish good from evil by a kind of delicate
sense, an innate moral sense, whose existence manifests itself
in our rational impulses. These impulses not only give rise
to judgments, but also intervene as determining forces, as
springs of action. Virtue consists in the harmony between
our personal and benevolent impulses, induced by our
rational impulses. Virtue and happiness are identical. " The
summit of wisdom is rational self-love."
Hutcheson draws a sharp distinction between egoism and
benevolence. We desire the happiness of others as directly as
our own. Benevolence is an ultimate feeling. Besides these
two affections, we find within us the primary idea of the
moral good. And this simple quality of moral goodness can
304 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
only be perceived by a special sense. This is the moral sense,
whose perceptions, like all sensible perception, are accompanied
by pleasure and pain. Adapted to the perception of a quality
which is to be found in our intentions and acts only, our
moral sense is not an external but an internal sense. More-
over, Hutcheson sees goodness in those actions only which
tend to the happiness of others : universal benevolence con-
stitutes moral excellence.
In Hume's theory of the emotions, as in his theory of mind,
the principle of association plays an important part. He
draws a distinction between simple and complex passions.
Joy, sadness, desire, aversion, hope, fear, are simple passions
arising from the simple consideration of good and evil. The
complex passions are explained by the laws of association
(association of ideas according to the relations of resemblance,
contiguity, and cause association of similar emotions co-opera-
tion of these two kinds of association). Hume proves his theory
by an analysis of pride, humility, and the benevolent affections.
All advantages, such as wit, beauty, wealth, rank, which,
when associated with the idea of ourselves cause pleasure, may
produce pride. In our benevolent and malevolent passions
also Hume discerns the operation of the. laws of association.
"The virtues, talents, accomplishments and possessions of others make
us love and esteem them ; because these objects excite a pleasing sensa-
tion which is related to love (association of similar emotions), and as they
have also a relation or connection with the person, this union of ideas
forwards the union of sentiments according to the foregoing reasoning "
(On the Passions, Bk. IV).
Our reason forms judgments on the true and the false,
but is never in itself a motive to the will. Therefore we act
only through passion ; and what we call reason in human
conduct " is a calm passion which causes no disorder in the
soul," and does not interfere with foresight. Hume assigns a
most important part to disinterested benevolence, and, like
-I. J. Eousseau, he finds in feeling and sympathy the founda-
tion of morality. To this theory a systematic form was given
by the great political economist, Adam Smith, in his " Theory
of Moral Sentiments " (See below " The Ethical Problem ").
Thomas Eeid made use of the previous work of the Scottish
School in his description of the " Animal principles of action."
THE FEELINGS 305
These principles are " such as operate upon the will and inten-
tion, but do not suppose any exercise of judgment or reason,
and are most of them to be found in some brute animals, as
well as in man."
Eeid, in the first place, points out the appetites (hunger,
thirst, lust, need of action and rest), which are preceded by dis-
agreeable sensations and periodic. Desires differ from appetites,
firstly, in that they are not accompanied by a disagreeable
sensation ; secondly, in that they are not periodic. The chief
among them are the desire of power, the desire of honour, and
the desire of knowledge. The principle of the desires is not,
any more than that of the appetites, the pursuit of pleasure :
the appetites tend to the preservation of the body, desires
have been given to us for the furtherance of social life.
Those principles of action which have persons for their
immediate object, and which imply that one is either ill or
well disposed towards a man, or at least towards a living-
being, are the affections. The benevolent affections cannot
be reduced to egoism. Naturally pleasant, they are directed
towards the happiness of their object (gratitude, compassion,
esteem, friendship, love, patriotism). Even the malevolent
affections, the chief among which are emulation, anger and
resentment, serve a purpose in the plans of Providence.
The meaning of the word passion is so uncertain as to have
given rise to endless discussions, which would have been
avoided by a good definition.
" I shall," says Eeid, " by the word 'passion ' mean not any principle of
action distinct from those desires and affections before explained, but
suck a degree of vehemence in them, or in any of them, as is apt to produce
those effects upon the body or upon the mind which have been above
described."
The passions differ therefore not in nature but in degree
from the principles which we have described. Thus passion
tends to good, and it is only by accident that it leads us into
evil.
Kant : Distinction and Connection between Desire and
Pleasure ; Different forms of Desire.
" All the faculties or capabilities of the soul," says Kant,
" can be reduced to three, which cannot be any further derived
u
306 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
from one common ground : the faculty of knowledge, the feeling
of pleasure and pain, and the faculty of desire " {Critique
of Judgment, Introd.). Thus Kant draws a distinction
between the feeling of pleasure and pain and the faculty of
desire. At the same time he recognizes the relation between
them. " Pleasure or pain is necessarily combined with the
faculty of desire, either preceding this principle as in the lower
desires, or following it as in the higher, when the desire is
determined by the moral law " (Ibid.).
As regards pleasure and pain, Kant adopts the view of the
Italian philosopher Verri (18th century), and repeats the
Epicurean arguments.
Pleasure, Verri had said, is not a positive state, but merely the
cessation of pain. Man's sole motive principle is pain. Pain precedes
every pleasure. Every pleasure, says Kant, must be preceded by
pain, pleasure cannot follow another pleasure. Pains that pass slowly
are not followed by a lively pleasure, because we are not conscious of the
transition. ... To feel that one lives, and that one is in enjoyment, is
nothing else than to feel that one is being forced continually to pass
from the present state (Anthro. II, 59, 60).
This theory of pleasure was to be used later by Schopenhauer
as a foundation for his pessimism. " Alles Leben ist Leiden."
To live is to suffer, because to live is to strive, and striving-
implies pain. Hartmann admits that there are positive
pleasures, such as those of Science and Art, which do not
presuppose any antecedent pain ; but, on the other hand, his
theory of consciousness as arising out of opposition, out of
contradiction, leads him to the conclusion that " numerous
difficulties lie in the way of the theory that consciousness
perceives the satisfaction of will, while pain brings conscious-
ness with itself."
Kant in his theory of desire points out the distinction
between emotion (Affect) and passion (Leiden schaft). Desire
(Begierde, Appctitio) is the spontaneous direction of the force
of a subject by the representation of something that is
to follow as the possible effect of this force. A sensible,
habitual desire is called an inclination (Neigung). An inclina-
tion which is little or not at all under the control of reason is
passion (Leidenschaft). On the other hand, the vivid conscious-
ness of an actual pleasure or pain, which allows of no reflection
THE FEELINGS 307
in the subject, is emotion {Affect). Emotion is a seizure of
the soul, is violent, fleeting, and may be compared to intoxica-
tion (Rausch). Passion moves slowly, reflects, is like a disease
resulting from the absorption of a poison, or from a vitiated
constitution. Where there is much emotion, as with the French,
there is usually little passion. Emotion is like water bursting
its dykes, passion like a torrent, which cuts an ever deeper bed.
As examples of emotion, Kant cites excessive joy, hopeless
melancholy, fright, anger, anxiety. Among the passions he
makes a distinction between those that are natural, innate,
ardent (Passiones ardentes), such as love of liberty, sexual love ;
and the acquired passions which are calmer (frigidae), such as
ambition, desire of ruling, and avarice.
Herbart : Emotions traced to the Reciprocal Action of Repre-
sentations.
Herbart and his disciples sought to explain the whole life
of mind, and hence of feeling, by the reciprocal action of
representations or perceptions {cms dem gegenseitigcnVcrhdltniss der
Vorstellungen) : and thus they are inclined, like Descartes, to
reduce feeling to intelligence. Herbart distinguishes two
classes of feelings : those which depend on the quality of the
object felt, and those which depend on the condition of the
feeling subject. The former have their principle in the manner
of combination of the partial representations of which they
are composed ; when apperceived these are aesthetic feelings.
when not apperceived they are sensations. The latter, which
he calls emotions (Affect), depend solely on the co-operation or
reciprocal opposition of the representations, and not on the
content of these representations (joy, sadness, hope, fear). For
Herbart, it is from the movement of the representations alone
that emotion arises. Desire (Begehren) is the presence of a
representation struggling against obstacles and thus becoming
the principle which determines the other representations.
While thus returning to the theory of feeling as a mode of
intelligence, Herbart at the same time gives a new form to
this theory : by making feeling depend on the composition
and movement of the representations, he draws attention to
the conditions of complex sensations and feelings, which are too
often overlooked.
308 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Hamilton returns to the Aristotelian Theory of Pleasure.
Hamilton, like Kant, defines emotion proper as the capacity
of feeling pleasure and pain ; in his theory of pleasure, how-
ever, he returns to the theory of Aristotle, and affirms that
pleasure is the result of activity.
"A feeling of pleasure is experienced," he says, " when any power is
consciously exercised in a suitable manner ; that is, when we are neither,
on the one hand, conscious of any restraint upon the energy which it is dis-
posed spontaneously to put forth, nor, on the other, conscious of any
effort in it to put forth an amount of energy greater either in degree or in
continuance than what it is disposed fully to exert. In other words, we
feel positive pleasure in proportion as our powers are exercised but not
over-exercised ; we feel positive pain in proportion as they are compelled,
either not to operate, or to operate too much. All pleasure thus arises
from the free play of our faculties and capacities ; all pain from their
compulsory repression or compulsory activity " {Lectures II, p. 477).
Th. Jouffroy : Distinction between the Impulses and Feeling
Proper. Adolphc Gamier.
Th. Jouffroy, the translator of the works of Eeid, distin-
guishes as ultimate, " firstly, our natural primary impulses
or that collection of tendencies or instincts which impel us
towards certain ends and in certain directions prior to all
experience, and which at the same time indicate to our reason
the destiny of our being and incite our activity to pursue it ;
secondly, feeling, or that susceptibility of being affected pain-
fully or pleasurably by any internal or external cause, and of
reacting against such causes by movements of love or hate,
desire or repugnance, which are the principle of all passion "
(Mdanges Philos., p. 272). While distinguishing, like Kant,
the appetitive faculty from feeling (pleasure and pain)
Jouffroy, at the same time, regards feeling itself as belong-
ing to appetite, calling it love, hatred, and desire. The
sequence of the phenomena according to him is as follows :
primary impulses or passions, namely, pleasure or pain,
which are results of the impulses satisfied or thwarted
secondary affections, namely, love and hatred. " These
only arise in us on the occasion of external objects, which,
by favouring or interfering with the development of our
primitive passions, excite them in us " (Droit. Nat., I, p. 32).
THE FEELINGS 309
The theory expounded by Gamier in his Traite des facultes
cle I'dme humainc differs from that of Jouffro'y rather in
language than in substance. With Jouffroy he holds, in
the first place, that we have primary tendencies : " an instinc-
tive impulse is a disposition to feel pleasure in the presence
of an object or pain in its absence, or to feel pleasure in the
absence of the object and pain in its presence." We feel
pleasure or pain according as our impulse is satisfied or
thwarted. " The impulse towards pleasure or pain precedes
the pleasure or pain." Pleasure and pain are followed by love
and hatred. " When the pleasure or pain have been ex-
perienced, the affection becomes love or hatred." Pleasure and
pain are the only simple primary passions, "all the others are
mixed with intellectual elements " such as love, hatred,
desire, aversion. The same impulse may run through all the
passions. We have here an obscurity of language which arises
out of the complexity of the phenomena themselves. Pleasure
and pain are states ; and as applied to them the word
" passion " appears to be taken in its etymological sense, and
to signify something that suffers, or is passive ; but love,
hatred, desire, etc., imply activity, motion, and as applied to
these impulses the word "passion" appears to have a different
meaning. Gamier distinguishes the impulses as they are
directed, firstly to personal objects, secondly to impersonal
objects (the true, the beautiful, the good) ; thirdly, to living-
beings (sociability, family love). To these primary impulses
he adds certain complex passions, such as friendship, patriotism,
and the love of God.
Herbert Spencer : Evolutionist Theory ; Principle, of Heredity.
To the Scottish and French psychological school belongs the
credit of having described and classified mental phenomena.
Herbert Spencer, on the other hand, seeks in the theory of
evolution, the principles of an explanation in agreement with
the general laws which, according to him, are operative in all
phenomena. While seeking to define pleasure and pain, Herbert
Spencer observes that there is a pain, or rather an uneasiness,
which comes from a state of inaction, and that, on the other
hand, there are pains of an opposite kind which accompany
excessive action.
310 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
"Thus recognizing, at the one extreme, the negative pains of inaction,
called cravings, and, at the other extreme, the positive pains of excessive
action, the implication is that pleasures accompany actions lying between
these extremes" {Princip. of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 276, 2nd Edn.).
Iu a general way, therefore, pleasure corresponds to an
activity which is neither too small nor too great. But here we
are confronted by the objections brought by Stuart Mill against
Hamilton's doctrines. For, as Mill says : What constitutes a
moderate activity ? What is the lowest degree of pleasurable
activity above which there is pleasure, and the higher degree
above which there is pain ? How is it that in certain states
of consciousness, as for example in tasting and smelling, some
tastes and some smells are always disagreeable no matter
what their intensity may be ? (Mill's Exam, of Hamilton).
The only reply to these questions is to be found, according
to Herbert Spencer, in the theory of evolution.
" Those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average,
agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to the
maintenance of life, while disagreeable and habitually -avoided feelings
went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive of life "
{Princip. of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 280, 2nd Edn.).
It follows that there may be actions that are agreeable or
disagreeable in every degree; and secondly, that as the
moderate activities are the only ones in harmony with that
normal equilibrium which constitutes health, these must
produce pleasure. If pleasure is not an infallible guide, it is
because the environment of the animal changes, and it is
sometimes placed in new conditions to which it is not yet
adapted.
How then are we to explain the higher forms of feeling, or
our disinterested affections ? On this point, as in the theory
of knowledge, we find two great hypotheses. According to the
empiricists, our impulses are merely habits fixed in us by the
experience of pleasure and pain, and consequently they vary
with the temperament and education of individuals. But,
for those who maintain the theory of innate ideas the
principles of pleasure and pain, otherwise inexplicable, are to
be found in inborn tendencies. Herbert Spencer professes to
explain the forms of feeling as well as the forms of intelligence,
THE FEELINGS 311
by a theory in which these opposite views are reconciled.
"Those psychical states which we class as feelings, are involved
with, and inseparable from those which we class as purely
intellectual processes " (Ibid. p. 584, 1st Edn.). It is, there-
fore, by the same kind of progress that man rises to a higher
knowledge and to higher emotions. The most lofty knowledge
we possess is made up of very simple perceptions, our most
elevated feelings are the result of the composition of sensations.
In what then does knowledge differ from feeling ? We can see
the distinction clearly by the difference between sensation and
perception. In sensation, we are conscious of certain affections
of the organism. In perception we are conscious of relations
between these affections. In perception the changes of state
take place very rapidly, and the sensations are only present
just long enough for the establishment of relations between
them, and consciousness is almost entirely occupied with
these relations. In sensation, on the other hand, the changes
take place with comparative slowness " Or more probably
when like affections of consciousness are not permanently
destroyed by the changes, but continually return, and are thus
only broken by the changes so far as is needful to maintain
consciousness " (Ibid. p. 587).
In the same way, feeling, which is merely a more or less
complex compound of sensations and representations, implies a
certain duration of the psychical state. When a series of
psychical changes take place within an instant, there can be
no emotion. It is for this reason that when psychical acts are
perfectly automatic, feeling does not arise. This also is the
reason why it is blunted by habit. Feeling being a compound,
the more numerous are the groups of secondary feelings of
which it is composed, the more powerful it is. The higher the
evolution, the stronger the emotions. The passion by which
the sexes are united, which is spoken of as a simple feeling,
love, is in fact the most complex of all the passions, and hence
the most powerful. " This passion fuses into one immense
aggregation nearly all the elementary excitations of which we
are capable, and from this results its irresistible power " (Ibid.
p. 602).
The active and impulsive element in our feelings is suffi-
ciently explained by the close relation between stimulation and
312 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
reaction, which has been proved both by the examination of
the nervous system and by the fact of retiex motion.
" And to have in a slight degree those psychical states involved in the
processes of catching, killing, and eating, is to have the desires to catch,
kill, and eat. That the propensities to the acts are nothing else than
nascent excitations of the psychical states involved in the acts is clearly
proved by the natural language of the propensities " {Ibid. p. 596).
So far, Herbert Spencer only gives a more precise form to
the empirical theory and analytic method. But, according
to him, the existence of primary and distinct impulses is
a necessary result of evolution and heredity.
"As the forms of thought, or the accumulated and transmitted modifi-
cation of structure produced by experience lie latent in each newly-born
individual, are vaguely disclosed along with the first individual experience,
and are gradually made definite by multiplication of such individual
experiences, so the forms of feeling likewise lying latent are feebly
awakened by the first presentation of the external circumstances to which
they refer, and gradually gain that degree of distinction which they are
capable of through often-repeated presentations of these circumstances "
{Ibid. Vol. I, p. 493, 2nd Edn.).
Conclusion.
The history of the different theories which have been held
concerning the passions and the emotions is instructive in
many ways. It shows, in the first place, how difficult it is to
separate psychology from systematic philosophy. The views of
philosophers regarding the emotional side of human nature
vary according to their speculative ideas and their conceptions
of human destiny. The nationalists hold the existence of
a priori elements in feeling as well as in intelligence ; of
primitive affections and inclinations, which, as they exist prior
to experience, mark out broadly in advance the line it is to
take. The Empiricists start from a fact, namely, pleasure,
and will see in the affections nothing more than habits
derived from experience, varying with individuals, and without
any other fixity than that which results from similarity of
circumstances. But here the most recent form of empiricism,
by the substitution of heredity for habit, seems to admit of
the possibility of reconciliation with the opposite theory
at least in the domain of pure psychology. For the theory
of heredity implies innate elements, at least in the actual
THE FEELINGS 313
individual, who is the true object of psychology properly so
called. The doctrine of origins would belong then to what
might be called psychological embryology. Moreover, this theory
admits, in any case, of the existence of an innate, primary
appetite which is the primtim movens of the whole sensitive
and emotional development of man.
It is also impossible not to perceive how theories concerning
pleasure and the passions have been influenced by the different
conceptions of human destiny. The psychology of Aristippus
and Aristotle, of Epicurus and of the Stoics, of the Christian
philosophers and the modern pessimists, can only be interpreted
through their views on the moral end of mankind. According
as a philosopher is weary and despondent, or courageously
accepts our present life, or even sacrifices it to a future and
higher life, he will advance different theories concerning the
nature of pleasure and the passions. The indenniteness of
words has done much to prolong discussion. Nevertheless,
even the divergencies of philosophers, their foregone con-
clusions, and their prejudices have not been unfruitful. Each
one sees what he does see all the better because it is
exaggerated in his eyes by the attention he devotes to it.
Thus in these exclusive theories many subtle analyses are
found, by means of which, one by one, the divers elements
of human feelings are distinguished.
A complete doctrine would be one that had profited by
all the efforts we have reviewed: by the theory of Aristotle as
well as by that of Epicurus; by the physiology of Descartes and
the psychology of the Scottish philosophers ; by the metaphysics
of Spinoza and of Leibnitz. The theories of the empirical
school would also be given a place, and would be found to have
their true root and their true reason in the speculations of
the metaphysicians.
CHAPTER IX
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM
Is Man free ? Can he perform of two possible actions either
the one or the other, of his own choice, without being forced
thereto by any internal or external necessity ? Is what we
call "deliberation" the act of an independent being, of one who
is his own master, who controls his actions and is their true
cause ? Or does this term merely express the equilibrium or
oscillation of the forces which constitute such a being, and
which determine his action by inflexible mechanical laws ?
Such is the problem of Freedom, a problem formidable both
on account of the antinomies it suggests and of its logical
relations to our conceptions of the universe.
The idea of Freedom seems to contradict the laws of science,
which are the laws of Nature herself. It breaks the continuity
of phenomena, and is opposed to the hypothesis of the unity of
force in nature. Freedom seems also to contradict the laws of
thought, which has unity only in virtue of the principles of
causality and sufficient reason. Lastly, Freedom seems to be a
contradiction of the attributes of God, whose foreknowledge
embraces all time, whose providence allows nothing to remain
outside His omnipotent action. And yet man feels that he is
free ; the notion of liberty seems to be inherent in the notions
of justice, of responsibility, of merit and demerit, reward and
punishment ; it is on this notion that the whole practical life
of mankind rests. On this ground battle has been waged since
the beginning of philosophy. And the history of this contest
is a curious and dramatic one. It shows on the one hand the
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 315
natural tendency of the human mind towards unity, and on
the other our irresistible consciousness of individuality, of multi-
plicity, which distinguishes itself from unity while it gives it
variety and wealth of content.
Notion of Responsibility with the Pythagoreans. Eleatic
Pantheism and Atomism exclude Freedom.
The first Greek philosophers did not attempt the problem
of Free Will, for the excellent reason that it did not
present itself to them. They were occupied mainly with
physical questions, they had not yet clearly distinguished
matter from life and mind. Their way of thinking was
at once synthetic, concrete and confused. The Ionic philo-
sophers derived the world and all its particular forms from
a living substance water, air or fire, to which they some-
times, a in the case of Heraclitus and Diogenes Apollonius,
attribute intelligence. As this principle of the world is
at once physical and spiritual it becomes the human soul
by a natural evolution. The Pythagoreans however appear to
have had some dim perception of the problem of freedom.
It was as a punishment for sin and as a kind of expiation
that the soul was thrown into the body. After death it went to
Konnos or Tartarus according to its merit, or was condemned
to make new peregrinations through the bodies of men or
animals. This theory seems to imply a notion of freedom, but,
" we do not know whether the Pythagoreans regarded the
union of the soul with the body as being founded on choice or
on a natural affinity, or on the arbitrary will of the gods "
(Zeller). It is most probable that the question never arose
with them and that they included the transmigration of souls
among the harmonious movements of the revolving universe.
The Eleatics professed a kind of pantheism in which, in the
supreme, eternal, immutable principle, both the corporeal and
the incorporeal are merged. " Parmenides and Democritus say
that everything happens by necessity. According to them
the same principle is at once destiny, justice, providence and
cause of the universe." HapjuevlSrjg kcu AtnuoKpiro? irdvTa kut
avayicrjv Ttjv avTr\v o eluai kcu elfj.apfxevr\v kcu olkijv kcu irpovoiav koll
Koa-fxo-Koiov. As regards Democritus this is only partly
accurate. Democritus places the essence of the avdyicr] in the
316 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
avTiTvirla kou <popu koi 7r\>]yii t>7? v\>js, that is, in the resistance,
the displacement, the impact of matter (Plut. de Plac. I,
25, 26).
The Atomists find the ultimate explanation of everything in
changes of situation in space, and of these changes themselves
in the impact, (irX^yi)) rebound, 7raAyuo'?, a7ro7ra\/uo9 of the
atoms which are determined one by the other ad infinitum.
The consequence of this is universal necessity. ovSev xP^ a
/uLCiTijv yiyverai, aWa iravTa e/c \oyou Te kul V7r' uvayK>i<;.
Nothing happens by chance, everything is born of reason and
necessity (Stob. Eel., I, 160). Democritus acciperc maluit
necessitate omnia fieri, quam a corporibus individuis naturales
motus avellere (Cic, de Fat. 10, 23).
Socrates : No One is Voluntarily Wicked.
The speculative scepticism of the Sophists resulted, in
practice, in the absence of any moral principle, in the insolence
of a Callicles who accepted no rule of conduct except the art
of satisfying all his own desires, while trading on popular
credulity. Individual fancy was not freedom, but the capri-
cious tyranny of desire and passion. Socrates, in his violent
reaction against Sophistry, indentified morality with knowledge,
maintaining that the good, being the same as the true,
imposes itself, as soon as it is known, irresistibly on the will, as
on the intelligence. Every man necessarily wills his greatest
good or his true happiness, and his particular acts are only the
means to this universal end. Now, the greatest good of an
individual is the good itself. It is therefore enough to know
the good in order to practice it. All virtue is knowledge.
\6you$ ra? apeTag wero elvai (Nic. Eth. VI, 13, 1114, b-29).
He who commits evil does so out of ignorance and because
he is mistaken as to the means to the end he is pursuing.
The wicked man does not really do what he wills, although he
does what seems to him to be the good. Oi'<5e/9 KaKog ckwv e-wi
to. /ca/ca oi^eJ? eiclcv epy(erai (Protagoras, 358 c). " Eight judg-
ment, self-control, prudence and temperance he did not
distinguish (<rod>lav kou crwcf) pocruvijv ov Siwpi^ev) ; for he deemed
that he who knew what was honourable and good and how to
practise it, and who knew what was dishonourable and how to
avoid it, was both prudent and temperate " (Xen. Mem.
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 317
III, 9). They asked him whether he considered those men to
be wise and temperate (crocpovs kou ejKpareis) who know
what they ought to do, and do the contrary. He answered :
"No more than I think the openly imprudent and intemperate to be
so ; for I consider that all persons choose from what is possible what
they judge for their interests, and do it, and I therefore deem those who
do not act thus judiciously to be neither prudent nor temperate. He
said, too, that justice and every other virtue was (a part of) prudence for
that everything just and everything done agreeably to virtue, was
honourable and good (kclXu re ko.1 dyaOd) that those who could discern
these things would never prefer anything else to them " (Xen. Ibid.).
M. Fouillee considers that in order to establish his doctrine
of determinism, Socrates gives here a reductio ad absurdum of
the common opinion, according to which, it is possible for any
one to do evil voluntarily even when he knows the good. The
same argument is reproduced by Xenophon and developed by
Plato in the Hippias Minor. A man who runs badly volun-
tarily, would be better than one who runs badly unwillingly,
through a natural incapacity. In the same way it would be
better to limp, to sing badly, to be beaten in the wrestling
match voluntarily than involuntarily. For he who in all these
cases voluntarily does things badly has the knowledge of good
and the power to do it. So also in the moral life, the voluntarily
unjust man is better than he who is unjust involuntarily, for
he knows justice and is capable of practising it. " There I
cannot agree with you," says Hippias " Nor can I agree with
myself," Socrates replies, ' and yet that seems to be the
conclusion which, as far as we can see at present, must follow
from our argument.' ' This paradox is an argument against
free will. A good runner might run badly because he has
some higher end in view ; but a man who knows the good
cannot be determined to evil by an idea of a good that is higher
than the true good. The hypothesis of free will is refuted by
the absurd consequences it involves ; the knowledge of the
good is irresistible.
Plato Modifies the Doctrine of Socrates : Opinion and Science.
Plato, while holding with Socrates that our will tends
necessarily to the good, at the same time modifies his master's
doctrine. According to him there is in the soul an irrational
part always ready to revolt. Opinion, (So^a), having no firm
318 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
basis and being easily shaken, is not strong enough to struggle
against this irrational element. Man may therefore do the
contrary of that which appears to him to be the good. True
science alone is invincible. But opinion is a kind of ignorance,
it only comes upon the truth by chance. For Plato, as for
Socrates, virtue is therefore the determination of the will by
the knowledge of the good ; it is true freedom, true happi-
ness ; the wicked man is ignorant, unhappy, and a slave.
Plato sometimes appears to transfer the freedom of our
present life into a prior existence. Although in the Phcedrus
(248 c) he shows us the souls falling by a kind of chance {<tw-
rv)(la rivi), yet in the tenth book of the Republic (618 c-619 b) he
represents them as choosing their future state : " the respon-
sibility is with the chooser, God is justified." Is then the
whole future life of a man decided by his own free choice ?
Has the determination of our present particular acts its
principle in an absolutely free act done in a former state of
existence ? Did Plato in a manner divine Kant's noumenal
freedom ? No ! The choice is determined by the state of the
soul which chooses, and depends upon its relative knowledge
of the good. " Let each one of us leave every other kind of
knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure
he may be able to learn, and may find some one who will
make him able to learn and to discern between good and
evil, so as to choose always and everywhere the better life as
he has opportunity " (Rep. 618).
Aristotle refutes Socrates and Plato; Proof of Freedom from
Rcspo7isibility and by Psychologiccd Analysis; Consequences of
Freedom.
Aristotle refutes the arguments of Socrates and Plato.
"Socrates, indeed, contested the whole position, maintaining that
there is no such thing as incontinence : when a man acts contrary to
what is best, he never, according to Socrates, has a right judgment of
the case, but acts so by reason of ignorance. Now this theory
evidently conflicts with experience . . . There are other people (tiv9,
Plato) who in part agree and in part disagree with Socrates. They allow
that nothing is able to prevail against knowledge, but do not allow that
men never act contrary to what seems best ; and so they say that the
incontinent man, when he yields to pleasure, has not knowledge, but only
opinion. . . . But if, in truth, it be only opinion and not knowledge,
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 319
and if it be not a strong but a weak belief or judgment that opposes the
desires (as is the case when a man is in doubt), we pardon a man for not
abiding in it in the face of strong desires, but, in fact, we do not pardon
vice or anything else that we call blameable" (Nicom. Ethics, VII, 2).
Besponsibility implies freedom. If we adopt the view held
by Plato and Socrates there is no merit in virtue any more
than there is demerit in vice.
"And so the saying, 'none would be wicked, none would be blessed,'
seems partly false and partly true ; no one indeed is blessed against his
will, but vice is voluntary. If we deny this we must dispute the state-
ments made just now, and must contend that man is not the originator
and the parent of his actions, as of his children" (Ibid. Ill, 5).
This indirect proof of freedom is confirmed by psychological
analysis. The will (/3ouA;/<r/?) is a rational and painless
inclination, the object of which is the real or apparent good.
It is a form of that desire (ope^i?), by which the whole of
nature is carried on towards perfection. The end of the will
must be the good ; but this universal end does not determine
the means. Our particular acts are contingent and depend on
our choice. Choice (7rpoaipe<Ti$) is distinct from desire and
passion, since it is often in conflict with them ; it is also
distinct from opinion and knowledge, since it is not always he
who has the most correct knowledge that acts the best. We
deliberate on future things, which it depends on us to do or
not to do, and about which a choice is possible. Our deter-
mination is not the result of inclination alone, nor of
reflection alone, but implies both inclination, since it tends
towards good, and reasoning, since it is the result of delibera-
tion. A free act is one which is deliberate (to eicovo-iov
7rpofie(3ou\eviu.ei'ov). Freedom belongs to a being who is at
once intelligent and sensitive, whose actions are not necessarily
determined either by his ideas or his desires, but who pursues
happiness by directly intervening in his own actions.
If our freedom is a reality and not an illusion, it
follows that we cannot foresee everything in the sequence of
phenomena ; that it is possible for man to introduce into the
world unexpected acts, and that of two contradictory pro-
positions bearing on the future, one is not necessarily true and
the other false at the moment they are uttered. The existence
320 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
of free will alters the theory of contradictory propositions.
The psychological problem becomes now a metaphysical and
logical problem, and the solution of the former involves that
of the latter. Aristotle sees these consequences and un-
hesitatingly accepts them.
" If every affirmation or negation is either true or false, it is also
necessary that everything must either be or not be ; for, if one man says
that a thing will be and another' denies the same, one of them must
evidently speak the truth, if every affirmation or negation be either true
or false. Indeed there is nothing which either is, or is generated
fortuitously, nor casually, nor is there anything that has the power either
to be or not to be, but all things are from necessity, and not due to chance.
. . . [Otherwise] it would not be necessary to deliberate nor to reflect
before we act. . . . But that is impossible ; for we see that there is a
beginning of future things both from our deliberation and from our
practice, and among those things which have not always an actual existence
there are some which may either be or not be, in the case of which
it is possible either that they may be or not be, or that they may be
either generated or not generated. It is therefore evident that all
things neither are, nor are generated by necessity, but that some things
subsist casually, and that their affirmation is not more true than their
negation " (On/anon, Ch. IX).
The Stoics : Physical, Logical, and Ethical Proofs of
Determinism.
After Plato and Aristotle, rival schools, each of which
claimed to have found the secret of happiness, were further
divided on the subject of freedom. "We can here only give a
summary of a dispute which lasted through many centuries.
The subtleties of a logic that was sometimes sophistical, the
arguments of common sense, psychological analysis, physical
and metaphysical hypotheses, all of which have since been
resumed, developed, and completed, had their beginning in the
schools of Greece. For the Stoics, the world was a whole
sympathetic to itself (7rav rrv/j.-waQe^ eavTw), a kind of immense
animal, filled in all its parts by the one soul, and vibrating all
over at the slightest movement. The negation of freedom was
a necessary consequence of this pantheism.
The Stoics multiplied arguments in favour of determinism.
Everything, they said, goes to prove it. In the first place, it is
proved by logic. Of two contradictory propositions one is
necessarily true ; therefore of these two propositions, 'A will be,
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 321
'A will not be,' the necessity of one at the moment I speak
excludes the possibility of the other : Ex omne aeternitate fluens
Veritas sempiterna (Cic. De Divin, I, 55). In the second place,
determinism is proved by the laws of nature. These are
the principle of causality the principle that nothing
happens without anterior cause (for, to say that something
exists without a cause is to say that something comes from
nothing) ; and the principle of design. The world is not an
ill-constructed poem made up of scraps and pieces. All things
in it work together. It expresses the unity of a providential
design, in which the capricious interference of a chance power r
like free will, is not tolerated. Thirdly, determinism is proved by
common sense and the beliefs that are most dear to mankind.
Prophecy implies foreknowledge and foreknowledge determinism.
It is because nothing is left to chance, because all things hang
together and work together that an inspired mind can see the
future in the present, discern in the flight of birds or the
entrails of victims signs of future things. To accept free will
is to break the bond by which man is united to the gods, and*
to deprive him of the precious help of the divine counsels.
Finally, determinism is proved even by morality. The serenity
(evapecrT>]<Tis) of the sage is only possible through the provi-
dential necessity which leaves no room for regrets.
Pressed by their opponents, the Stoics sought to disguise
the repulsive consequences of their doctrine. Chrysippus, the
great doctor of the school, attempted to bring about a kind of
reconciliation between determinism and freedom. It is not
correct to say that everything is necessary, for the contrary of
what happens is, in itself, logically possible. To us who do not
know what it is that makes the fact inevitable, it is as if
it were not determined, and we should act as if we were free.
The consequence of determinism is not inertia ; facts are only
necessities in relation to other facts, tarn necesse est medicum
appellate qurnn convalescere (Cic. De Fato, 12).
There remains the question of moral responsibility. It is
falsely said that circumstances fashion men's conduct, for men
of different characters do not behave in the same way under
the same circumstances. We are determined by facts, ut mentis
proprietas ct qualitas est (Aulus Gellius, Noctes Att. VII, 2).
We must distinguish the causae principales and the causae aclju-
x
322 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
vantes (De Fato, 18). Chrysippus illustrated this by a cylinder
on an inclined plane. It requires an impetus to set the
cylinder in motion (causae adjuvantcs), but it is on account of
its form that it rolls down (causae principales). In the same
way events are an impetus to man, but it is his character that
determines the way he will move (Ibid., 18). However, all
these subtleties do not prove the freedom of our will, but only
a sort of spontaneity, a determinism by character, as opposed
to determinism by things.
Epicurus : the Clinamcn or Siverving of the Atoms, and Free-
dom in Man.
In connection with the subject of free will Epicurus appears,
curiously enough, as the disciple of Aristotle (Guyau, Revue
philos. July, 1877).
" It would be better to follow the fables about the gods than to be a
slave to the fate of the natural philosopher ; for the fables which are told
give us a hope of being able to move the gods by honouring them, but
one cannot turn aside necessity, ourapatTijTov Trjv dvdynrjv" (Epicurus
apud D. L. x, 134).
Where shall we find a principle by which the links of fate
may be broken, and cause prevented from following cause
ad infinitum ?
Principivm quoddam, quod fati fcedera rum/pat,
Ex infinito ne catisam causa sequatur (Lucr. II, 255).
As a way of escape from determinism (oVo)? t e<p' tnj.lv fit]
aTToXrjrai, Plut. de Solert. Anim. 7), Epicurus endows the atoms
with a spontaneous power of moving themselves, analogous to
that of which experience makes us feel the reality in ourselves.
" The action first commences in the will of the mind, and next is trans-
mitted through the whole body and frame (Lucr., II, 269). As nothing
comes from nothing, the power which is in us must have its cause in the
germs of things, in the atoms."
Quare in seminibus quoque idem fateare necesse est,
Esse aliam, prceter plagas et pondera, causam
Motibus unde hcec est nobis innata potestas :
De nihilo quoniam fieri nil posse videmur (11, 284).
This cause is the clinamcn, the power of the atoms to
swerve from the straight line into which they are impelled by
necessity ; in a word, the power of creating a new movement
by an arbitrary change of direction.
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 323
"That the mind itself does not feel an internal necessity in all its
actions, and is not as it were overmastered and compelled to bear and
put up with this, is caused by a minute swerving of first beginnings, at
no fixed part of space and no fixed time" {Ibid. 290 sq.).
Id facit exigmim clinamen principiorum
Nee ratione loci certa, nee tempore eerto {Ibid. 292-3).
Thus our freedom does not place us outside the laws of
nature; it is only a form of the universal contingency of things.
If everything is determined,
Libera per terras unde hcee animantibus exstat,
Unde est hcee, inquam, fatis avolsa potestas,
Per quam progredimur quo ducit quemque voluntas ?
Declinam-iLs item motus, nee tempore certo,
Nee regione loci certa, sed ut ipsa tulit mens.
" We change the direction of our motions neither at a fixed time nor
fixed place, but when and where the mind itself has prompted" {Ibid. 256).
Epicurus attacks the doctrine of logical determinism as well
as that of physical determinism. He declares with Aristotle
that of two contrary propositions concerning a future event,
neither the one nor the other taken individually is necessarily
true. He also attacks the doctrine of moral determinism, and
restores to the notion of responsibility its former value,
" Necessity is an irresponsible power, and fortune is unstable,
while our will is free : and this freedom constitutes, in our
case, a responsibility which makes us encounter blame and
praise" (D. L. x, 133).
Opposition of the New Academy to the Stoic Dogmatism.
Cameades : Freedom a Cause.
Carneades accepted neither the Stoic nor the Epicurean
doctrines. There was at that time a keen and continuous
struggle between the three great schools which were disputing
the possession of men's minds. The probabilists of the Middle
and New Academy endeavoured to overthrow the Stoic dogma-
tism ; Carneades, parodying a celebrated line used to say ei p.t]
yup i]v yLpvcwrirog, ovk av ijv eyoo (instead of (TTod).
The Epicureans, according to him, might have proved their
thesis of freedom without encumbering themselves with the
clinamen. His argument is remarkable in that it is purely
psychological ; it is, in fact, the argument of lleid, Victor Cousin,
and Jouffroy.
324 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" For in saying ' without cause,' we mean without antecedent external
cause, not without any cause whatever. As when we say that a vessel is
empty, we do not mean empty in the sense of the natural philosopher,
who denies the existence of absolute emptiness, but we merely mean that
the vessel contains no water, wine, oil, or other liquor. So when we say
that our soul is moved without cause, we mean without antecedent ex-
trinsic cause, not independently of all cause whatever. As of an atom,
when it moves through void space by its specific gravity, we may say that
its motion has no cause, meaning no cause extrinsic to itself. Therefore,
not to expose ourselves to the ridicule of the natural philosophers by
asserting that anything happens without a cause, we must distinctly
propound that the nature of an atom is such that it may be moved by its
own specific gravity, and that its intrinsic nature is the very cause of its
motion. And in the same manner we need not seek for an external cause
for the voluntary motions of the mind. For such is the nature of
voluntary motion, that it must needs be in our own power, and depend on
ourselves, otherwise it is not voluntary. And yet we cannot say that the
motion of our free-will is an effect without a cause, for its proper nature
is the cause of this effect " (Cic. Be Fato).
This is the argument of the modern upholders of free will :
the principle of causality is not violated by the freedom of our
will, because freedom is itself a cause, the nature of which is
to be. free.
Neo-Platonism : Metaphysical and Theological Difficulties.
The Neo-Platonists accepted and defended the freedom of man,
but they did not succeed in reconciling it with their meta-
physical and religious doctrines, nor even with their theory of
the soul. Plotinus says more than once that our will is free,
that virtue has no master, aperi] aSecriroTos, that each man
bears the punishment of his misdeeds. Without free will we
should be, not men, not independent subjects, but particles
carried along by the universal movement. If all things be
subject to necessity, ev ecrTai tu iravTu. "Qcrre oure rjjueh *)fJ-els,
ouTe ti tjixeTepov epyov owe \oyi{6jue6a avrol, aW kripov
\oyi(T/uLO$ tu r}[xerepa fiov\ev/u.uTa owe TrpaTTo/ixev tj/meh
(Enneades III, I, Ch. IV). " In that case we shall not be
ourselves. No action would be our own. It would no longer
be we ourselves, but another principle that was reasoning,
willing, and acting in us." The fatalism of astrology deprives
us of our will, our passions, our vices, and makes of us stones
carried along down an inclined plane (XlOot (pepo/uevoi), not
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 325
men possessing activity of themselves and by nature (III, 1, 5).
But, having accepted free will, how are we to reconcile it with
Providence, with the organic harmony of the world ? Plotinus
replies that virtue is free, but that each of its acts is included
in the whole of things, that each one plays his own part, but
is given by the author of the universal drama the role that
suits him best (Ibid. IV, 4, 39).
But there is another difficulty. Plotinus says that virtue
has no master, that the wicked man condemns himself ; but on
the other hand he affirms, like Plato, that all evil-doing is
involuntary, that the good alone are free, and that there is true
freedom only in pure contemplative activity. Plotinus re-
plies, as the Stoics had already done, that he who follows
his nature is free because he depends on no one but
himself, and again, that though involuntary, the action is
still attributed to him who accomplishes it, because it is
he who does the evil (Ibid. Ill, 2, 10). Iamblichus was
anxious to reconcile freedom with divination, for it was in
this form that the antinomy between freedom and foreknow-
ledge, the solution of which was sought later by theologians,
presented itself to philosophers at that time. The Stoics, in
order to preserve divination, sacrificed free will; Iamblichus, like
the Christian doctors, desired to reconcile the two terms, but
he did no more than assert that even what is undetermined
and uncertain is known with certainty by the gods. They
know the present, the past, and the future, /uua kui wpia/jievn
Kai afxeTafidrM yvuxrei. They know the indeterminate as
determinate, aopta-rov wpia-ixevoo^, as well as the successive in the
eternal. This is the solution afterwards given by the theo-
logians. But is an antinomy solved by simply accepting its two
terms without discussion ? The precise problem to be solved
is how it is possible for a thing that is uncertain and
undetermined to be foreseen with certainty ?
St. A ugustine : The Will is Free ; Foreknowledge and Provi-
dence ; Freedom and Ghxice. Thomas Aquinas and Dims Scohis.
With the Christian theologians the problem of free will
takes the following form : admitting the existence of free will
as necessary for the justification of God and for the moral life
of man, how is it to be reconciled with divine foreknowledge
326 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
and with grace ? According to St. Augustine, the very notion of
will implies freedom. It is a sophism to oppose the concatena-
tion of causes to the freedom of our volition. Volition is not
an effect, it is the cause of all human actions. The will is the
foundation and, as it were, the substance of all the actions of
a spiritual life : Voluntas est quippe in omnibus : imo omnes
nihil aliud quam voluntatis sunt (Aug. De Civ. Dei, XIV, 6).
The will, far from being determined by intelligence, precedes
it ; to know and to possess the good we must love and will it.
But, as theologian, he takes away from us all that was
conceded by the psychologist : St. Augustine is indignant
with those who would deprive providence of the determination
of human actions.
" Now the expression, ' Once hath He spoken,' is to be understood as
meaning ' immovably,' that is, ' unchangeably,' hath he spoken. But it
does not follow that though there is for God a certain order of all causes,
there must, therefore, be nothing depending on the free exercise of our
own wills. Our wills themselves are included in that order of causes
which is certain to God, and embraced by His foreknowledge, for human
wills are also causes of human actions . . . and, therefore whatever power
they have, they have it within most certain limits ; and whatever they
are to do they are most assuredly to do" (Be Civ. Dei, III, 9). " How can
God foreknow the possible, what may or may not be ? In the Eternal
nothing passeth away, but the whole is present" (Conf. XI, 11). "The
words ' never,' ' before,' ' at that time,' have no signification in the divine
life "(Conf. XI, 13, 14, 30).
God both sees together and is the author of all the
phenomena which unfold themselves in time. Contingent
things do not take place because God foresees them, but God
foresees them because they will take place.
There remains the question of grace. The freedom of Adam
was posse non peccare, the being able not to sin. The freedom
of the blessed is the non posse peccare, the impossibility of
sinning. In consequence of original sin, the present state of
man is the non posse non peccare (not to be able not to sin).
Human will is therefore powerless without grace. Anything
good that man does is done by God in him : potestas nostra
ipse est, He Himself is our power.
"'Therefore,' says Pelagius, 'God foresaw who would be holy and
immaculate by the choice of their free-will, and on that account
elected them before the foundation of the world in that same foreknow-
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 327
ledge of His in which He foreknew that they would be such . Therefore
He elected them,' says he, ' before they existed, predestinating them to
be children whom he foreknew to be such as would be holy and immacu-
late ; " (Aug. Be Praedest. Sanct. X).
St. Augustine rejects this doctrine. He even attacks the
semi-Pelagians, who allowed to the freedom of the will the
initiative of good, a kind of spontaneous solicitation of grace,
maintaining that efficacious grace determines and precedes
this desire of the good or this appeal to God. Hence his
conclusion is absolute predestination. Freedom, which seemed
to be man's all, was only used once by Adam for his damnation:
hinc est universa generis humani massa damnata, quoniam qui
hoc primitus admisit, cum ea quae in illo fuerat radicata sua
stirpe punitus est, ut nullus ab hoc justo debitoque supplicio nisi
misericordia et indebita gratia liberetur. Such was St. Augus-
tine's hard doctrine. Even Bossuet admits that it has " des
inconvenient s fdcheux."
Aquinas, the angelic doctor, amends St. Augustine's
doctrine. He gives a clear statement of the objection that
springs from foreknowledge.
" All that is known by God must necessarily be ; for even that which
we know necessarily is ; and God's knowledge is more certain than ours.
But of no future contingent thing can it be said that it necessarily must
be. Therefore no future contingent thing is known by God." The
answer runs thus : " Omnia quae sunt in tempore, sunt Deo ab aetemo
praesentia. God knows all things, not only those which actually exist,
but also those which either He Himself or any creature can bring forth.
Thus all future contingent things as they are in themselves and according
to their actual condition are known to Him all at once and infallibly. . . .
Eternity exists as a whole, and embraces all time ; whence it is clear that
contingent things are infallibly known to God in so far as they are
present before the divine vision, and that at the same time contingent
things are future when compared with their immediate causes" (Summa
Theol. I, Qu. 14 a, 13).
Imagine a man standing on the top of a tower who sees
at one view travellers passing in the road, whom, if he were
lower down, he would only perceive one after the other. It
is thus with God. From the heights of immovable eternity
He sees at once all the successive acts of His creatures, and
while He sees them by His prescience, He at the same time
determines them by His providence. Thus, according to
328 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Aquinas, our free acts are not only foreseen hut pre-
determined. This is called the theory of physical preniotion.
God wills and foresees all our actions. He wills that they
should be such and such, but at the same time He wills them
to be free. I am moved beforehand naturally (physical pre-
motion). I am predetermined by God, but predetermined
to act freely in a certain way. In short, my actions are at
once free and necessary a bizarre solution which seems to
identify contradictions.
Mediaevalism had its philosopher of freedom, namely.
Duns Scotus, the Franciscan doctor, and the great antagonist
of Aquinas. Duns Scotus asserts the contingency of the
world, and maintains that there are causes that are free to
act or not to act, facts that may or may not take place.
Voluntas est superior intcllcctu : the will is above the intellect.
It is by a free assent that we accept the truths of faith
which elude any demonstrative certainty. Freedom in man can
only be understood through freedom in God. God does nut
find in His mind ready-made ideas or truths that impose them-
selves on His actions like a kind of fate : it is by a free act
that God creates the true and the good.
If the first cause acted by necessity, it would impose on
the secondary cause necessary action, and thus the necessity
of the first principle would extend to the last consequences.
If the whole world is not the result of a free act, there can be
no freedom in the world.
The Problem of Freedom from Descartes to Kant. The
Mechanical Materialism of Hobbes.
The problem of freedom had to be faced by modern phil-
osophers, as well as by those of the middle ages and antiquity.
The empiricists, the sensationalists, the materialists, Hobbes, and
Locke all those who sought in external phenomena and their
relations the reason of the laws of spiritual life deprive
man of all initiative in his actions. Among the metaphysicians,
some, like Descartes, refuse to sacrifice free will ; others, like
Spinoza and Leibnitz, despair of being able to reconcile it with
the determinism forced upon them by the laws of thought, or
by the principles of their systems, and they substitute for it
some intellectual equivalent. At last, Kant thought he had
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 329
found the long sought reconciliation ; but his theory only gave
rise to further endeavours to find one more satisfactory still.
Hobbes' mechanical materialism logically excludes all
freedom from the human mind, and he boldly accepts the
consequences of his doctrine. Our conceptions and imagina-
tions are in reality nothing more than a movement excited in
the brain. As this movement does not stop there, but com-
municates itself to the heart, it must necessarily either assist
or hinder the motion that is called vital. In the former
case there is pleasure, and in relation to the object there is
what we call ' love.' In the latter case there is pain, and
relatively to the object, hatred. " This motion, in which con-
sisteth pleasure or pain, is also a solicitation or provocation
either to draw near to the thing that pleaseth or to retire
from the thing that displeaseth ; and this solicitation is the
endeavour or internal beginning of animal motion, which, when
the object delighteth, is called appetite, when it displeaseth, it
is called aversion, in respect of the displeasure present, but in
respect of the displeasure expected, fear " {On Human Nature,
Ch. VII).
Desire, fear, and aversion are the primary, though hidden,
motives of all our actions. These passions are the will itself.
A man can no more say that he wills to will than he can go
on saying that he wills to will to will, repeating the word
' will ' ad infinitum. As to what is called deliberation, it is
merely a succession of appetites or fears.
" Either the actions immediately follow the first appetite . . . or else
to our first appetite there succeedeth some conception of evil to happen to
us by such actions, which is fear, and which holdeth us from proceeding.
And to that fear may succeed a new appetite, and to that appetite another
fear alternately, till the action be either done or some accident corae
between, to make it impossible. This alternate succession of appetite and
fear ... is what we call deliberation. ... In deliberation the last
appetite, as also the last fear, is called will. Forasmuch as will to do is
appetite, and will to omit, fear ; the cause of appetite and fear is the cause
also of our will " {Ibid. Ch. XII).
According to Hobbes, everything is ultimately reducible to
a movement of material particles, which are necessarily deter-
mined. The will of man is no more free than the will of
brute beasts. Will and desire are one and the same thing
considered from different points of view.
330 THE PBOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
Locke : Psychological Method ; Freedom is the Power of Doing
what one Wills ; But does not apply to Volition ; Distinction
between Desire and Will.
Locke rejects the doctrine of free will, not for a priori
reasons, as irreconcilable with the consequences of a material-
istic metaphysics, but on the ground of psychical experience.
We have a clear and distinct idea of active power, only
through reflection on the operations of our mind.
" We find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end
several actions of our minds and motions of our bodies, barely by a
thought or preference of the mind ordering, or, as it were, commanding
the doing or not doing such or such a particular action. This power is
what we call will" (On the Human Understanding, Bk. II, Ch. 21, 5).
Before entering into the question whether man is free, let
us determine the meaning of the word freedom. All the
actions of which we have any idea are reducible to these
two, moving and thinking. " So far as a man lias power to
think or not to think, to move or not to move, according to
the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a man
free " ( 8). A paralysed man who wishes to walk but whose
limbs refuse their office is not free. We do not say of a ball
that it is free, because the ball does not think, and freedom
implies understanding and will. Freedom does not, however,
belong to volition. " Suppose a man be carried while fast
asleep into a room where is a person he longs to see and speak
with, and be there locked fast in, beyond his power to get
out ; he awakes and is glad to find himself in so desirable
company, which he stays willingly in, i.e. prefers his stay to
going out. I ask, is not his stay voluntary ? I think nobody
will doubt it, and yet, being locked fast in, it is evident he is-
not at liberty to stay, he has not freedom to be gone " ( Ibid.
10). Will and freedom are therefore entirely distinct things.
The volition must precede freedom and the latter is merely
the power a man has of doing what he wills to do.
" It is as insignificant to ask whether a man's will be free as to ask
whether his sleep be swift or his virtue square, liberty being as little
applicable to the will as swiftness of motion to sleep or squareness to>
virtue" ( 14).
So far Locke wins his case easily, for he has defined
freedom in such a way that it could not possibly belong to the
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 331
will, but he has not yet attacked the real difficulty. Leibnitz
{New Essays) points out that we must distinguish between
freedom to do and freedom to will. Why should it be
assumed that the upholders of free will do not know what
they mean ?
" This is what is called free will, and it consists in this, that one sup-
poses that the strongest reasons or impressions which the understanding
presents to the will do not prevent the act of the will from being con-
tingent, and do not give it an absolute and, so to speak, metaphysical
necessity ; ' {New Essays II, Ch. XXI, 8).
Locke, however, comes finally to the real question, which he
states thus : " Is man free to will ? "
" This then is evident, that in all proposals of present action a man is
not at liberty to will or not to will, because he cannot forbear willing,
liberty consisting in a power to act or forbear acting and in that only "
(On the Human Understanding, Bk. II, C'h. 21, 24).
For example : a man who in walking, proposes to stop
walking, is no longer free to will that he will ; for he must
either stop or go on, and, by hypothesis, he wills to stop ;
the act is voluntary, but the volition itself is not free. But
if we insist, and ask further " Whether a man be at liberty
to trill which of the two he pleases, motion or rest ? " This
question is absurd, for it is the same as to ask " whether a
man can will what he wills or be pleased with what he is
pleased with ! . . . they who make a question of it must
suppose one will to determine the acts of another, and another
to determine that, and so on ad infinitum " ( 25).
If our will is not free, by what then is it determined ?
"The motive for continuing in the same state or action is only the
present satisfaction in it ; the motive to change is always some uneasiness"
( 29).
The will, then, according to Locke, is determined by the
uneasiness of desire, by the most pressing uneasiness we feel
at the moment.
"... A constant succession of uneasinesses out of that stock which
natural wants or acquired habits have heaped up, take the will in their
turns ; and no sooner is one action dispatched, which by such a deter-
mination of the will we are set upon, but another uneasiness is ready to
set us on to work " ( 45).
"332 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
It is a mistake to say that the will is determined by the
greatest good. A good that is absent does not give rise to a
pain equal to the degree of excellence that it has, or even
that we recognize it to have ; every pain, on the other hand,
causes a desire equal to itself. The drunkard knows the
harm he is doing himself: he makes excellent resolutions, but
when the time comes he cannot resist the uneasiness which
results from his bad habits. The greatest good, even when
recognized as such, only determines the will in cases where it
excites a desire in proportion to its excellence, and thus our
desire arouses in us a corresponding uneasiness.
Thus, according to Locke's profound remark, our will is in
the first place determined by the desire to avoid pain. In
order to explain this determination of the will by our uneasiness,
it need only be said that all our actions are directed to our
happiness, the first condition of which is the absence of pain :
secondly, our mind is often too much occupied with present un-
easiness to consider other goods. How little weight in the
conduct of men has their belief in eternal pains and punish-
ments. On the other hand, " any vehement pain of the body,
the ungovernable passion of a man violently in love, or the
impatient desire of revenge, keeps the will steady and intent "
< 38).
Locke, though apparently so little in favour of the doctrine
of free will, nevertheless pointed out an important distinction
which throws a great deal of light on the question and which
philosophy has retained the distinction, namely, between will
and desire. He does not wish these two terms to be con-
founded. A man desires to be rid of his gout, yet, " whilst he
apprehends that the removal of the pain may translate the
noxious humour to a more vital part, his will is never deter-
mined to any one action that may serve to remove this pain "
( 30). It must be admitted, therefore, that there are
exceptions to the law that the greatest and most pressing-
uneasiness determines the will to the next action ( 47).
"' We are endowed with a power to suspend any particular
desire, and keep it from determining the will and engaging us in
action " ( 50). We are at liberty to compare our desires, to
consider their objects and calculate their consequences. "In this
lies the liberty man has" ( 47). What in this case deter-
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 333.
mines the will is the " last judgment of good or evil " ( 48)..
To will and to act in accordance with the final result of a
strict self-examination is a perfection rather than a defect of
our nature. Our choice is regulated by our knowledge. The
more w T e are determined by our reason to what is best, the
freer we are. Man's freedom consists then in opposing
reflection to the impulse of immediate desires, in giving an
effectual force to the notion of true happiness. " . . .So the
care of ourselves that we mistake not imaginary for real
happiness is the necessary foundation of our liberty " ( 51).
Descartes firmly asserts the Freedom of our Will ; Proof by
Consciousness ; Infinity of the Will ; Solution of Apparent
Contradiction ; Omnis peccans est ignorans.
The firmest defender of freedom in modern philosophy is
Descartes. If, on the one hand, his doctrine appears as an
entirely mathematical one, it may, on the other hand, be con-
sidered as a philosophy of freedom. The soul, to Descartes,
was not only intelligence, it was also freedom. " By the
understanding alone I neither assert nor deny anything, but
merely apprehend the ideas regarding which I may form a
judgment" (1th Meditation). It is our will that gives its assent
to what we have perceived by our understanding. The intel-
lect itself is in a sense subordinate to the will {Principles of
Philosophy, I, 34).
To judge is to will. The distinctive characteristic of the
will is that it is free. By this we are to understand that we
have " a positive power of determining ourselves to one or
other of two contraries, that is to say, to pursue or to avoid,
to affirm or negate the same thing " (Letter to Ptre Mers. ed.
V. Cousin, Vol. VI, 134). This power is known to us through
our consciousness of it while exercising it. Whilst all in me
is limited, " my will alone, that is to say, the freedom of my
will, I find by experience to be so great that I cannot conceive
the idea of any other freedom mora ample and extended. So
that it is principally by this freedom that I know myself to
bear the image and likeness of God " (3rd Meditation).
Having said that freedom consists in choosing between two
opposites, Descartes elsewhere seems to contradict himself and
to profess determinism.
334 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" Indifference, he says, is the lowest degree of freedom ; if I always
knew clearly what was good and what was true I should never have to
deliberate as to what judgment and what choice I should make, and
therefore I should be entirely free without ever being indifferent. I do
not think that in order to do evil it is necessary to see clearly that what
we are doing is bad ; it is enough if we see it confusedly, or remember to
have judged formerly that it was so ; for, if we saw it clearly, it would be
impossible for us to sin at a time when we saw it in this way. For this
reason it has been said ' omnis peecans est ignorans ' " (Letter to a Jesuit
Father, ed. V. Cousin, Vol. IX, p. 168).
*" Does this not almost appear to be a return to Plato's theory ?
But this apparent contradiction is solved in the following way:
with the evidence before us we cannot refuse our assent, but
it is our freedom which, through examination, gives the evidence
and thereby determines itself. The evidence is therefore, so
to speak, a reward of our endeavours to see rightly.
" As man may not always give his whole attention to the things he
ought to do, it is a good action to give such attention ; and, by this means,
our will so follows the light of our understanding as not to be at all
indifferent" (Ibid.).
Thus, assent to the truth, however evident it may be, is
always meritorious. " It is the nature of the mind that it
attends for scarcely more than one moment to the same thing.
As soon as our attention is turned away from the reasons by
which we know that this thing is right, and we retain in our
memories only that it was desirable, we may imagine in our
mind some other reason which makes us doubt of it, and
perhaps suspend our judgment, or even form a contrary one "
(Ibid.). We may even openly resist the evidence.
" Even when we are compelled to a thing by a very evident reason,
although morally speaking it is difficult for us to do the contrary, never-
theless, speaking absolutely, we can do it ; for we are always free to prevent
ourselves from pursuing a good that is clearly known or from accepting a
truth that is evident, provided only that we think it is well thus to prove
the truth of the freedom of our will" (Letter to the. Pere Mers., ed.
Cousin, VI, p. 134).
To sum up : we are determined by evidence, but we remain
nevertheless free ; because, in the first place, assent to the
truth is always meritorious ; secondly, we can always disregard
the evidence through inattention, and give force to the reasons
for doing ill : thirdly, nothing can prevail over the desire of
proving to ourselves the freedom of our will.
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 335
Spinoza : Refutation of the Doctrine of Freedom by Meta-
physics and Psychology.
The great reform brought about by Cartesianism was the
application of the mathematical method to philosophy. The
resolution of all things into clear ideas and the co-ordination
of these ideas under one supreme idea, the idea of God, which
should be the guarantee of their deductive concatenation, such
appears to have been Descartes' conception. But, at the same
time, we must remember that, according to Descartes, everything,
even mathematics, depends upon the will of God, which is free.
Thus his mechanism presupposes freedom. Spinoza, seeing in
Descartes' work its mathematical side only, was not unjustly
accused by Leibnitz of an immoderate Cartesianism. Suppress-
ing Descartes' radical and substantial distinction between
thought and extension, he makes them both the attribute of
one substance, from which all the modes of being can be
mathematically deduced. Deus munclus im/plicitus, munclus
deus explicitus. Spinoza refutes the doctrine of free will, a
priori and a posteriori.
" Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned
to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine
nature {Ethics, Part I, Prop. XXIX). In the mind there is no absolute
or free will ; but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause
which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another
cause, and so on to infinity " (Part II, Prop. XLVIII).
This a priori argument recurs throughout Spinoza's works.
It constitutes, in fact, his system, and he confirms it by an
a posteriori argument borrowed from psychological observation.
" There is in the mind no volition or affirmation or negation,
save that which an idea, inasmuch as it is an idea, involves "
(Ibid. Prop. XLIX). Will and Understanding are one and
the same thing. "When we say that anyone suspends his
judgment, we merely mean that he does not perceive the
matter in question adequately. Suspension of judgment is
therefore, strictly speaking, perception and not free will "
(Ibid. note). Whence, then, comes our consciousness of
freedom ? It is a subjective illusion, arising from the fact
that men are " conscious of their own actions and ignorant of
the causes by which they are conditioned" (Prop. XXXV, note).
336 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
"Thus an infant believes that of its own free will it desires milk, an
angry child believes that it freely desires vengeance, a timid child believes
that it freely desires to run away ; further, a drunken man believes that
he utters from the free decision of his mind words, which when he is
sober, he would willingly have withheld ; thus too, a delirious man, a
garrulous woman, a child, and others of like complexion believe that they
speak from the free decision of their mind, when they are in reality
unable to restrain their impulse to talk. . . . All these considerations
clearly show that a mental decision and a bodily apjietite or determined
state are simultaneous, or rather, are one and the same thing, which we
call decision when it is regarded under or explained through the attribute
of thought, and a conditioned state when it is regarded under the
attribute of extension and deduced from the laws of motion and rest "
(Part III, Prop. II, note).
Malcbranche : God the Principle of Human Activity.
Malebranche sacrifices the creature to the Creator, but at the
same time he tries to avoid the extremes of Spinozism. In his
theory of Occasional Causes, while allowing real action to God
alone, he affirms the distinct existence of beings, to whom lie
denies any initiative. His theory of freedom is only a corollary
of his more general one of occasional causes. " Whatever effort
of the mind I may make, I can find no strength, or efficiency, or
power outside the will of the infinitely perfect Being " (Beck, de
la ViriU, XVth eel.). God must then be the principle of human
activity, as He is the cause of all the movements of nature.
Volition is merely our natural impulse towards the good in
general, which is indeterminate." It is God " who impels us
irresistibly towards the good in general." It is He " who
gives us the idea of a particular good and the affection for
it." It is He who directs us towards this particular good.
" Thus God is the author of all that is real in the movements
of the mind, and in the determination of these movements.
Nevertheless He is not the author of sin " {Reck, de la Ve'rite,
1st Book). "The sinner does nothing, for sin is nothing,
but he ceases to act, he stands still, he does not follow God."
Malebranche does not see that in order to arrest the impulse
given by God, an efficient force would still be needed, and that
this theory compromises both the freedom of man and the
universal action of God.
Bossuet : Proofs of Free Will, firstly, by Consciousness ;
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 337
secondly, by Reasoning ; thirdly, by Revelation. Freedom as
Conflicting with the Foreknowledge and Providence of God.
In his Treatise on Free Will, Bossuet seeks at once to
establish free will, and to reconcile it with Providence and the
Divine foreknowledge. This treatise also gives an excellent
summary of all the principal solutions that have been offered
by theologians. " The question is whether there are things
that are in our power, and at the disposal of our choice, to
such an extent that we are able to choose or not to choose
them." Bossuet sums up with his usual clearness the classical
arguments in favour of freedom.
" I say that freedom or free will, in this sense, is certainly possessed by
us, and that this freedom is made evident to us, first of all, by the testi-
mony of feeling and experience ; secondly, by the evidence of reason ; and
thirdly, by the evidence of Revelation, that is to say because God has
clearly revealed it to us in the Scriptures" (Ch. II).
As regards the evidence of consciousness, let each one consult
his own mind ; he will feel that he is free, just as he feels that
he is rational. This is the direct proof, the proof by the lively
inward feeling, as Leibnitz called it. To the objection that in
important deliberations there is always some motive which
determines us, Bossuet, like Eeid later, replies by citing cases of
indifference, where on examining ourselves we can find no
motive of action. The will is, therefore, capable of self-deter-
mination without motives. " When I have no other intention
than that of moving my hand in a certain direction, I find that it
is my will alone that impels me to this movement rather than
to another " (Ibid.). The testimony of consciousness is ratified
by reasoning. All languages contain words and modes of speech
which imply belief in freedom. Responsibility, repentance,
praise, blame, punishment, deliberation have no meaning apart
from liberty. " Hence we have clear ideas of many things which
can pertain only to a free being " (Ch. II). This is what is now
called an indirect proof, for it is based on the absurd conse-
quences of the negation of freedom. Thirdly, as regards the
proofs derived from Scripture, Bossuet merely remarks that " in
the Bible we find all the expressions employed by which men
are in the habit of expressing their freedom and its consequences"
(Ibid.). Having in this way established freedom, Bossuet then
states the endless problem of its reconciliation with the divine
Y
3S8 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
providence and foreknowledge. " God directs the will of men to
any end He pleases." Moreover, "God knows only what he Him-
self does " ; He cannot borrow His knowledge from without, and
since He sees everything there can be no action of which He
is not the author. " If He has nothing in Himself whereby
He can cause in us free actions, far from foreseeing them before
they take place, He will not see these actions when they do
take place" (Ch. III).
Bossuet acknowledges that the difficulty is great, but, he
says, before we attack it we must be firmly resolved to sacrifice
neither freedom nor the divine attributes.
"The first rule of our Logic is that we must never abandon truths we
have once known, whatever difficulties may arise when we attempt to
reconcile these truths ; but that we must, on the contrary, always, so to
speak, keep a firm hold of the two ends of the chain, though we may not
always be able to see the connecting links between them."
This suggestion, strictly construed, would involve nothing less
than the negation of the principle of contradiction; unless, indeed,
some rule were laid clown by which one could distinguish the
cases where the contradiction is evident from those in which it
is not, though the means of reconciling it are not known to us.
Having made these introductory remarks, Bossuet proceeds to
examine the problem itself. Your solutions have been proposed.
The first, which is the one adopted by the Protestants and the
Jansenists, and " which is attributed to St. Augustine," consists in
placing the essence of freedom in what is voluntary. 'Voluntary'
in the 17th century meant, that which we do willingly, libenter.
What are we to understand by this formula? Before the first
sin, we were, in the proper sense of the word, free, and while we
were in that state " God left the will entirely to itself." There
was therefore no need to reconcile man's freedom with the
divine decrees. Subsequent to the original sin, God " regulates
in an absolute decree the things that depend on our wills, and
in that omnipotent manner makes us will that which pleases
Himself." Hence, there is no difficulty in understanding that
He foresees our acts and their consequences. But this solution
merely does away with the problem altogether : before original
sin there was freedom, but not foreknowledge ; since original
sin there is foreknowledge, but no freedom.
The second theory examined by Bossuet is that of scientia
media. The modern Franciscans and Jesuits, says Leibnitz,
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 339
are rather in favour of the doctrine of scientia media (Theod. I,
39). In the 16th century the Jesuit Molina, in a treatise
de Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, had upheld this
doctrine. The objects of the divine knowledge are three :
possible things (knowledge by simple intelligence) : actual
events (knowlege by vision) ; conditional events which have an
intermediate place between the actual and the possible {scientia
media). (Ibid.) God knows from all eternity what His
creatures will do freely, at whatever time He may take them
or in whatever circumstances He may place them. This divine
knowledge does not affect man's freedom, for to know a thing
is not to change its nature. Now God regulates His decrees
in accordance with what His creature, who is free, will freely
do on such and such an occasion. He waits to see the
direction of our wills and then forms with certainty of
success (a jeu stir) His decrees on our resolutions (Bossuet,
ch. IX).
Thus God, while distributing His graces, takes into account
the freedom of man and his decisions, which He knows
by a scientia media that is neither knowledge by simple
intelligence nor knowledge by vision. Bossuet objects that the
decrees of God would on this theory no longer be the first
causes of things (Ch. VI). We ourselves would add, How
could a free act, that is, an act that is contingent, be known
from all eternity ?
The third doctrine of the theologians is that of contemner atio.
God draws us on towards certain actions (1) through the dis-
position of objects and through the circumstances in which He
places us ; (2) through the thoughts He puts in our minds : (3)
through the emotions He is able to excite in our hearts.
" There is nothing which the Almighty cannot cause to co-
operate in the accomplishment of His designs. If, therefore,
He chooses to win over my toill and, at the same time, to leave it
free, He is able to accomplish both (Ch. VII). According to this
manner of reasoning no contradiction is impossible to God,
and consequently there is no contradiction which may not be
found in things. If man at first resists God's influence, God
returns to the charge, and that so often and with such force,
that man, who through weakness and being much importuned
does things disagreeable to himself, will not resist doing those
340 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
which God has undertaken to make pleasing to him." This
theory makes God into a kind of seducer or suborner of man.
Moreover, it is impossible to reconcile the freedom of our will
with this suaviM privenante, this delectation victorieuse.
Bossuet adopts the fourth solution, which is that of the
Thomists, and is called the doctrine of premonition or 'physical
predetermination. " God acts immediately upon our minds,
in such a way that we determine ourselves to act in a certain
manner; but our determination is nevertheless free, because
He wills it to be so. We harass ourselves vainly when we try
to discover the means by which God does what He wills to
do ; since by the fact that He wills, that which He wills
exists. . . . God is the cause not only of our choice, but of
the freedom of our choice " (Ch. IX). God is the cause of our
freedom, because He makes our action such as it would be if
it depended on us alone.
" For we may say that God makes us such as we would ourselves be if
we could exist of ourselves, since He makes us with all the principles and
with the whole condition of our being. For the condition of our being is
to be all that God wishes us to be. Thus He causes that which is man to
be man, that which is passion to be passion, and that which is action to
be action, and that which is necessary to be necessary, and that which is
free in its activity and exercise to be free in its activity and exercise."
But does not this ingenious solution involve a confusion
between freedom and spontaneity ? All these attempts show
that while it is necessary from the point of view of morality
and of conscience to accept our freedom as a fact, the difficulty is
extreme when we try to explain this fact or to find the theory
of it.
Leibnitz : Liberty of Indifference and Moral Necessity ;
Psychological Determinism ; Influence of Motives ; Characteristics
of Freedom, Intelligence, Spontaneity and Contingency.
Leibnitz is opposed both to the doctrine of Descartes and to
that of Spinoza. Descartes, like Duns Scotus, had held that
there is in God absolute indifference, and in man free will.
Spinoza had identified the possible, the real and the necessary,
and subjected the universe to a logical deduction of con-
sequences of which God Himself was the principle. Between
this fatalism and the doctrine of indifference, Leibnitz
PKOBLEM OF FEEEDOM 341
discovers an intermediate theory that of moral necessity,
which inclines without compelling : inclined non necessitat. The
doctrine of liberty of indifference is irreconcilable with divine
foreknowledge. " No knowledge however infinite can make
God's knowledge and providence consistent with the action of an
indeterminate cause, in other words, with something chimerical
and impossible." This doctrine is also irreconcilable with the
laws of nature and of reason ; for, according to it, the soul at
the moment of deliberation is in a state in which everything is
perfectly balanced, either because the will has no motive for
action, or because it is solicited by equally strong motives. But
the principle of indiscernibles is inconsistent with any such pure
equality in the sphere of nature. For the action to take place,
the principle of sufficient reason requires, besides the force, an
end towards which it tends, a good by which it is determined.
Spinoza's mistake was to have confounded the real and the
necessary. Anything which, taken absolutely, does not imply
contradiction is possible. In this sense one may say that the
contrary of all that happens in the world is possible, and that
consequently all phenomena are contingent. It is necessary
for a triangle to have three angles because it is contradictory
to say that a triangle could have more or less than three
angles. But we cannot deduce the universe logically from the
nature of God. Out of an infinite number of worlds God
chose the best. The true, the only necessity, is the necessity
of the good.
Although the best of all possible worlds was chosen and all
its phenomena predetermined, foreseen, co-ordinated by God,
necessity reigns nevertheless. " All things are certain and
predetermined in man as in everything else, and the human
soul is a kind of spiritual automaton " (Theod. 52). The mind
is a balance ; the motives are the weights ; and again, " the
mind is a force which endeavours to act in many directions,
but does so only where it finds most facility and least resist-
ance. For instance, when air is too closely compressed in a
glass receptacle it will break the latter in order to escape from
it. It will press on every side of the receptacle, but it will
finally rush through on the weakest side. Thus it is that the
inclinations of the mind move towards all the goods that
present themselves ; these are the antecedent volitions : but
342 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the consequent volition, which is the result of them, is deter-
mined towards that by which it is most strongly affected "
(Theod. 324-325).
In what sense, then, can we attribute freedom to man ?
Freedom implies three things Intelligence, or the facility of
choosing, spontaneity and contingency. Intelligence is a
distinct knowledge of the object of deliberation, the exact
and perfect perception of the differences between the divers
possible courses, and of the relation of those differences to the
principle of the best. The perfect use of reason, which would
consist in having only distinct thoughts, is denied to us ; but
for this very cause we possess the intelligence characterised
by hesitation, and the faculty of choosing, which is required for
freedom. Spontaneity is the power of acting and of being at
the same time oneself the principle of one's own action.
Now all beings have this spontaneity, since the world is
made up of monads, or spiritual atoms. Between these there
is no direct or reciprocal action, and the agreement between
their independent acts is due solely to the harmony pre-estab-
lished by God. There remains the characteristic of contingency.
As we have seen, all that is not absolutely impossible, that is
to say, contradictory, is contingent. In this sense, not only
human actions, but all the phenomena of the real universe are
contingent. It is easy to see that all Leibnitz preserves of
freedom is the word. What use is it that the contrary of my
action is logically possible, if it is really, and in our actual
world impossible ? Still we must not confound the moral
determinism of Leibnitz with Spinoza's logical fatalism. The
psychological consequences of the two doctrines may be the
same, but the spirit by which they are inspired is quite
different.
Hume : Men hold at the same time the Doctrine of Free
Will and that of Necessity ; Indirect Proofs of the Necessity of
our Acts.
David Hume applies in an ingenious manner his doctrine
of causality to the problem of freedom. In his opinion there
is in the world, properly speaking, neither necessity nor
freedom, but only a constant succession of phenomena. His was
not a rationalistic method like that of Leibnitz, nor yet an em-
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 343
pirical one like Locke's ; it was critical, and consisted in forcing
the mind by analysis to give a clear account of its own thought.
All disputes arise out of the ambiguity of words. Let us agree
once for all as to the ideas which really correspond in the
mind to the words necessity and liberty, and the discussion
will be closed. " I hope,"' says Hume, " to make it appear that all
men have ever agreed in the doctrine both of necessity and
of liberty, according to any reasonable sense which can be
put on these terms, and that the whole controversy has hitherto
turned merely upon words " (Enq. Cone. Human Understand-
ing, Sect. VIII, Part I).
Let us, in the first place, see in what sense men may be said
to be partisans of the doctrine of necessity ; but before we do
this we must decide what is the origin of our idea of necessity.
"Our idea therefore, of necessity and causation arises entirely from
the uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where similar
objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is determined by
custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other" (Ibid.).
A constant conjunction of similar phenomena, a consequent
habit of inferring one from the other this is the only notion we
have of necessary connection. If we can show that all men
without hesitation or doubt agree that our voluntary actions
are subject to the law of regular connection, and that,
consequently, they constantly give rise to inferences, we shall
thereby prove that all men agree in accepting the doctrine of
necessity. The same actions spring from the same motives.
The same causes are always followed by the same events ;
ambition, avarice, self-love, generosity, public spirit, etc., have
been at all times the great motives of action. " Would you
know the sentiments, inclinations, and course of life of the
Greeks and Eomans ? Study well the temper and actions of
the French and English."
If the experience of life is useful, it is precisely because
such experience enables us to determine the connection between
men's actions and their constant antecedents, and thus to
foresee, prevent, or be prepared for them. No doubt human
actions differ according to age, sex, country ; hence age, sex,
education, prejudices, must all be taken into account. Even
the peculiar character of each individual will have a certain
uniformity in its influence, otherwise we should not be able to
344 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
regulate our behaviour to other men on a knowledge of their
character. No doubt it is possible to find actions which seem
not to have any regular connection with known motives, but it
is the same with certain natural phenomena, for instance winds,
rain, clouds, under the apparent irregularity of which are con-
cealed laws that remain hidden from us merely on account of
their complexity.
"The most irregular and unexpected resolutions of men may frequently
be accounted for by those who know every particular circumstance of their
character and situation. A person of an obliging disposition gives a
peevish answer ; but he has the toothache, or has not dined " {Ibid.).
One may say of the inferences which we make concerning the
actions of our fellow-creatures, that it is upon them that the
whole of human life rests. Almost all human actions imply
inference from the foreseen actions of others. The labourer
who brings his goods to market and offers them at a reason-
able price, counts on finding a buyer, and on being able to
obtain from other men what he requires for his subsistence by
means of the money he will get from this buyer. History,
politics, ethics, literary criticism, all imply that we have a right
to infer the actions of other men from their motives, and to
reason about these actions in the same way as we reason about
natural phenomena.
Now, if all men in their practice thus profess the doctrine of
necessity, how is it that they have such difficulty in admit-
ting it in words ? It is because they have formed a false
conception of necessity. Invariable connection between natural
phenomena, habitual transition in the mind from the appearance
of one thing to the expectation of another, this is all that is
involved in our notion of causality.
But, in spite of everything, men have a tendency to believe
that they can penetrate more deeply into the powers of
nature, and perceive a necessary connection between the
cause and the effect. When they subsequently reflect on the
operations of their minds, not feeling such a connection between
the motives and the act, they assume that there is a difference
between the effects of a material force and those of thought
and intelligence. 1 But, as we have seen, the notion of necessity,
1 Hume explains this in the Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding,
Sect. VIII, part I (note). "The prevalence of the doctrine of liberty may be
accounted for from another cause, viz., a false sensation or seeming experience
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 345
once it has been traced to its true origin, applies to voluntary
acts as well as to natural phenomena. There is one sense,
however, in which men rightly accept the doctrine of freedom,
this is in the sense given to the word by Locke, that of the
power of doing what we will when we are not prevented.
If all human actions may be foreseen when the motives are
known, it follows that the consciousness we think we have of
freedom is an illusion. Nor have the indirect arguments usually
given in favour of free will any more validity. It is a deplor-
able habit, says Hume, that of refuting doctrines by their
dangerous consequences. Such arguments do not assist in the
discovery of truth, they only serve to make an adversary odious.
The upholders of necessity, however, may turn against their
opponents the arguments used by the latter. Hume does this
with great skill, declaring that his doctrine is absolutely
essential to morality. " All laws being grounded on rewards
and punishments, it is taken as a fundamental principle that
these motives have a regular and uniform influence on the
mind, and both produce the good and prevent the evil actions."'
In the second place, actions are momentary, fleeting, if
their source does not lie in the character and disposition
of the person who does them. But if they are thus, as it
which we have or may have, of liberty or indifference in many of our actions.
The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly
speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being,
who may consider the action ; and it consists chiefly in the determination of
his thoughts to infer the existence of that action from some preceding objects ;
as liberty when opposed to necessity is nothing but the want of that deter-
mination, and a certain looseness or indifference, which we feel, in passing, or
not passing, from the idea of one object to that of any succeeding one. Now
we may observe, that, though in reflecting on human actions we seldom feel
such a looseness or indifference, but are commonly able to infer them with
considerable certainty from their motives and from the dispositions of the
.agent, yet it frequently happens that, in performing the actions themselves,
we are sensible of something like it : And as all resembling objects are
readily taken for each other, this has been employed as a demonstrative and
even intuitive proof of human liberty. We feel that our actions are subject
to our will, on most occasions ; and imagine we feel that the will itself is
subject to nothing, because, when by a denial of it we are provoked to try,
we feel that it moves easily every way and produces an image (or a Vellt'ity, as
it is called in the schools) even on that side on which it did not settle. This
image, or faint notion, we persuade ourselves, could at that time have been
compleated into the thing itself ; because, should that be denied, we find,
upon a second trial, that at present it can. We consider not that the
fantastical desire of showing liberty is here the motive of our actions, and it
seems certain that however we may imagine we feel a liberty within ourselves,
a spectator can commonly infer our actions from our motives and character."
The consciousness of freedom is, therefore, only a subjective illusion. This is,
in substance, the same explanation as that given by Spinoza.
346 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
were, detached from the person, they do not make him worthy
of praise or blame. " The person is not answerable for them,
and as they proceeded from nothing in him that is durable
and constant, and leave nothing of that nature behind them, it
is impossible he can upon their account become the object of
punishment or vengeance."
According to the principle of indifference, Hume says, " a
man who has committed an abominable crime is as innocent as
on the day of his birth." As against the doctrine of the parti-
sans of freedom, one may say that all the moral notions of
mankind imply a relation between the actions of a man and his
nature. Why is it that an action is more blameable the more
it is premeditated, if it is not " because the criminal action in
this case is a proof of bad principles in the mind ?"
Kant : Phenomena and Noumena, the Empirical and the
Intelligible ; Noumenal Freedom.
The solution proposed by Hume was only an apparent one.
The meaning he attaches to the word freedom was only a
means of insuring the triumph of determinism. After so
many fruitless attempts, so many antithetical systems, history
seemed to have proved the impossibility of reconciling natural
necessity with human freedom.
It is one of Kant's merits that he offered a new hypothesis
which, like any other undemonstrated hypothesis, one may refuse
to accept, but which, at any rate, includes both determinism and
freedom without requiring the human mind to affirm at the
same moment two contradictory propositions. According to
Kant, we can only represent phenomena to ourselves under
the form of space and time, and phenomena represented
in space and time cannot be brought into harmony with the
unity and identity of consciousness unless, in their reciprocal
action, they are linked together by an inflexible determinism.
" But since all the concepts and principles of our understand-
ing are altogether void if applied outside the limits of our
understanding, it is an illusion on the part of reason when it
attributes objective validity to entirely subjective maxims
which, in reality, it only accepts for its own satisfaction."
In this way we get rid of fatalism. The world as it
appears to us is subject to determinism. But it is only an
PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 347
apparent world. The world of the thing-in-itself, the world
of realities, of noumena, is independent of laws which have
meaning only through and for the subjective forms of sense.
In a word, we have not the right to infer from what appears
to what is. The Critique of Pure Reason proves that freedom
is possible, the Critique of Practical Reason, that it is necessary.
Duty, the categorical imperative, has no meaning unless there
is freedom ; it demands freedom and communicates its own
certainty to freedom.
No doubt in our present life our actions, taken collectively,
are only phenomena and form a system the parts of which are
linked together according to the laws of determinism; but this
series, which is manifold, successive and divisible, because un-
folded in time, is the expression of an act that is simple, single,
free, accomplished outside time, in the eternal. Necessity is the
appearance, freedom the reality ; and Kant " abolishes know-
ledge to make room for belief " (Pref. 2nd ed. of the Critique
of Pure Reason).
Thus, for Kant, there are two worlds, the world as it appears
to us, the world of 'phenomena which, being subject to the
form of time, can only be thought as determined ; and the
world of noumena which exists outside of time, which alone has
real being and to which we have not the right to apply the
categories, since these have no meaning except in connection
with the entirely subjective forms of sense. The world of
phenomena is ruled by empirical causality, that is to say, by
the continuous concatenation of the same antecedents with the
same consequents ; in the noumenal world there is no time, no
before nor after, hence no antecedents, no consequents. Here
we have the reign of intelligible causality, that is to say, of
freedom.
Let us apply these principles to man. There is a
phenomenal and a noumenal man. Man, as he appears
to others and to himself, is only the phenomenon of himself.
All the actions of that phenomenal man, occurring in
time, are connected according to the laws of a necessary
succession. If we could take into account all the principles
by which he is determined "we should be able to calculate the
future conduct of a man with as much certainty as we
calculate an eclipse of the sun or moon." When from the
348 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
actions of a man we have inferred his habitual springs of
conduct, what Kant calls his empirical character, can we not
with relative certaintv determine what he will do under given
circumstances ? This is the case for determinism.
But where does this empirical character come from, this
Jaw, this general rule, from which it is possible to infer the
manifold actions of an individual ? The empirical character,
like everything else that manifests itself in time, merely
expresses the thing-in-itself, the absolute, eternal reality. Its
principle is therefore not to be found in phenomena. The
reason of our empirical character is to be found in the
intelligible character which, in its unity, implicitly contains
all that our entire life unfolds in its successive variety. "We
will all our actions, in principle, freely and outside of time.
It is this noumenal free choice that, in spite of determinism,
justifies remorse in the guilty, indignation in the spectator of
evil doing, and that explains the fact that precocity in evil, a
kind of fatal tendency found in certain children, appears to us
not as an excuse but as an aggravation of the evil. Such, at
least, is the conception of Kant, who, filled like St. Augustine
with the idea of the wickedness of man, substitutes the idea of
the radical sinfulness of man for the theological doctrine of
original sin.
Conclusion.
The problem of freedom continued to exist after Kant, as
it did before him. It has been questioned whether all the
elements of his doctrine were in harmony, and whether the
doctrine itself was as favourable to morality as he thought it
was. Does not the determinism of phenomena extend, by a
kind of logical necessity, to the world of noumena ? And does
not absolute predestination deprive our present life of all
meaning, of all moral value ? Philosophers tried to restore to
freedom its right of interfering in the course of phenomena,
and the dispute between the libertarians and determinists was
reopened. Determinists, without being able to add anything
very new to the psychological arguments of the ancients, but
finding constant support in the progress of science, have, by
the mechanical theory of the universe, by the relations between
mental and physiological life, which are being defined every
PEOBLEM OF FREEDOM 349-
day with increasing clearness, and by the inferences to be drawn
from statistics {e.g. of murders, suicides, and marriages), made the
most of the authority of science.
The upholders of free will have, for this very reason,
thought themselves obliged to seek an explanation of facts
in a region behind human freedom, and would place it at the
very origin of things.
The author of a philosophy of freedom, M. Secretan of
Lausanne, has with greater boldness resumed the arguments of
Duns Scotus and Descartes, and, after Kant's example, making
metaphysics subordinate to morality, he has sacrificed divine
foreknowledge to freedom, and co-ordinated all his. ideas, all
his theories, all his hypotheses concerning the origin and
nature of things, with the reality of free will. M. Em.
Boutroux asserts the "contingency of natural laws." He
reduces laws to the habits of causes that are creative and
spontaneous. These causes are called into being and main-
tained by the infinite freedom which divine perfection, as
Descartes said, has given to itself. Others (M. Eenouvier and
his disciples), making use of the category of number, ask us to-
reject substance, the infinite, the necessary, all of which,
according to them, are unintelligible things ; and, in order to
satisfy reason, while preserving free will, they propose absolute
beginnings, phenomena arising out of nothing, phenomena in
themselves and by themselves, and make the relative absolute.
Some (MM. Delbceuf, Boussinesq) find in the mechanical laws
themselves, or rather in certain cases of indetermination which
are reconcilable with these laws, reasons for accepting the
doctrine of free will.
M. Alfred Fouillee, on the other hand, finds in determinism
itself a " kind of practical equivalent of and indefinite approxi-
mation " to free will, by inserting a succession of intermediate
terms between the extremes : the idea of freedom, the desire
of freedom, and the love of freedom. " We no longer regard
freedom as a magical power nor as a completed thing, but as
an end, an idea which can only be realised progressively and
methodically by means of a regular determinism."
Notwithstanding all these attempts the problem of free will
has not been solved. But can it ever be solved after the
manner of a mathematical problem ? We may doubt it. The
350 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
very nature of the problem precludes such a solution ; but what
one may assert is that it is now stated more precisely than
heretofore. The progress of determinism has itself led the
partisans of freedom to strengthen their arguments and to
extend their application of them. They grant that freedom
cannot be a miracle, nor can man, as Spinoza said, be an empire
within an empire. If man is free it is because freedom is the
principle of things, because it exists everywhere, because
determinism itself is only a product of freedom. And it is
towards this final solution that the followers of Maine de
Biran, as well as those of Kant and Schelling, seem to be
advancing.
CHAPTER X
HABIT
Habit is a disposition acquired or contracted through the
repetition or continuation of impressions or actions.
There is an obvious analogy between habit and memory, and
we must expect to find that the theories of habit correspond to
those we have set forth in connection with memory. The
history of this problem has, however, a peculiar interest, because
habit, which was first studied by moralists in its relation to the
will, has in our days come to be regarded as one of the great
principles of speculative philosophy. Here again we have an
example of the law of philosophic progress. Truths are added
to one another, not by constant accumulation as in the positive
sciences, but points of view are changed, and all possible
principles of explanation are tried and followed up to their
ultimate consequences ; and from these attempts at system,
from these syntheses, which although only partial are often too
ambitious, some permanent truths are attained.
Plato : Antithesis between Habit and Knoivledge.
Plato inquires into the nature of habit, and in the main
condemns it. Man's task is to set himself free from opinion,
which is always relative and changing, and to rise to absolute
knowledge, the object of which is the eternal and the im-
mutable. True virtue is knowledge. To know is to do, and
to do well is to know ; therefore one cannot but despise a
virtue that rests on mere habit. It is a thing of routine,
without principle, and just as uncertain as the opinion on
352 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
which it is founded ; and those who possess it are incapable of
communicating it to others. The great Athenian politicians
had no disciples. Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, were
not able to leave to their children the inheritance of their
political knowledge (Meno, 99). Consisting as it does in prac-
tices that are frequently contradictory, and not derived from
any single principle, the virtue that rests upon habit is
incapable of making of life a harmonious whole. Habit
applies to evil as readily as to good ; and if it alights upon
the good, it is only by a happy chance. It is not led by
the feeling of beauty to recognize that nothing is desirable
except the good. Moreover, habitual conduct is generally
determined by lower motives, virtue is not loved or desired
for its own sake, but for the sake of pleasure or some
other advantage. This is the virtue of a slave ; this is being
" brave through cowardice, temperate through intemperance "
(Phaedo, 82 a).
Plato makes those men live again in the form of bees, wasps,
and ants, " who have practised the civil and social virtues,
which are called temperance and justice, and which are
acquired by habit and attention without philosophy and mind"
(Phaedo, 82 a). (ol ty\v Sij/uiotikjjv re koi itoXltik^v apeTt]v
exzTeTJ/oeu/coVe? . . . e e6ov? re teal fxeXerrjg yeyovvlav avev
(piXorrochia? re kcu vov.)
In the tenth book of the Republic (519), when the souls are
choosing their future destiny, one unhappy man chooses the
condition of tyrant, and thus condemns himself. " He . . .
had dwelt in a former life in a well-ordered state, but his
virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy "
(e6ei avev dn\ocroipia<; cifjeTrj? /J-eTeCK^choTu, Ibid. 619).
Aristotle: The Origin, Nature, and Effects of Habit : The part
played by Habit in Knowledge and Virtue.
To Aristotle belongs the credit of having been the first to
propound a psychological theory of habit. Further truths have,
no doubt, been added to those which he discovered, and a more
scientific classification of facts has been made ; but his theory
remains none the less admirable for its depth and precision.
Habit, he says, is formed gradually, and is the result of a
movement which is not natural or innate, but which is fre-
HABIT 353
quently repeated. Thus the origin of habit is the repetition of
an act : it has for its principle the acts which are similar to
those which it itself engenders. " It is our actions that
determine our habits or character " (Nic. Eth. II, 2). " It is
absurd to say that he who acts unjustly does not wish to
become unjust " {Nic. Eth. Ill, 5).
The origin of habit being thus determined, let us now see what
habit itself is. Habit is like nature. Just as in nature things
follow one another, so is it also with acts of the mind, and what
is frequently repeated creates a second nature ('Q<nrep yap
(poo-is >)6i] to eOos . . . cocnrep yap (pvcrei to jucto. ToSe eaTiv, ovrw
koll evepyeia, to Se iroWaias (bvarip 7roiel " {De Memoria et
Reminisccntia, 2, 452 a, 27). Habit and nature are not, however,
identical.
" That which is habitual becomes (by that time) natural (as it were) ;
for in a certain way custom is like nature, because the idea of. frequency
is proximate to that of always ; and now nature belongs to the idea of
always, custom to that of often" {Rhet. I, 11,370 a, 7).
Another proof of the analogy between habit and nature is
found in the effects of habit. In the first place an act
becomes less difficult through habit.
" By doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance
and courage we become temperate and courageous ... in a word, acts of
any kind produce habits or characters of the same kind, e' 6yu.otW
ivepyelwv at e^ets yiyvovrai " {Nic. Ethics, II, 1).
Pleasure is attached to habitual as to natural acts. Perfect
virtue is the virtue that takes pleasure in itself and in its own
actions. He is not truly virtuous who does not delight in
being so, and whose virtue is not the source of all his pleasures,
and all his joys.
Thus virtue should come to be our nature, and the normal
act should be the virtuous act. Every being applies its activity
to that which it loves best. Not only does habit make an act
less difficult, not only does it get rid of the necessity of effort,,
but it also produces a tendency to repeat the act ; for the soul
begins to take pleasure in it, and the more often it acts in a
certain way the more it desires to act again in the same
way. The soul delights in doing what it has already done.
The repetition of an act gives to the activity a form which is as
inseparable from it as a second nature. Thus custom (the
z
354 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
repetition of an act) produces habit, habit produces desire, and
desire produces action.
Inanimate tilings are incapable of contracting habits : the
repetition of an act will not change their nature.
"For instance, a stone naturally tends to fall downwards, and you could
not train it to rise upwards though you tried to do so by throwing it up
ten thousand times, nor could you train fire to move downwards " {Nic.
Ethics, II, 1).
Habit makes its appearance with life, but the human soul
alone is capable of adding to nature, and of giving herself the
higher forms of knowledge, art, and virtue. Science is not
merely the faculty of attaining truth ; it is an acquired facility, a
tendency to act, to think ; it is a knowledge that is ready to pass
into action. In the same way, virtue does not consist in an
indefinite capacity for acting, nor even in a natural inclination
to the good. Virtue is a e]~i$, an active habit, a thing we possess
and are prepared to make use of.
It is not enough to will once what reason commands.
Human life is not a thing of one day, one' swallow does not
make a spring. Virtue is the mean between two opposite
extremes, and an invariable habit of moderation with regard
to the passions. And since, in order to make pur definition
complete, we must include reason, which alone can determine
the due mean, and our freedom which is the principle of habit
itself, let us say that virtue is a fixed habit of moderation with
regard to the passions, which is voluntary, and determined by
right reason (Nic. Etli. II, 6).
The repetition of an act engenders a habit, but the original
cause of the act itself was our own free will. " He who
knowingly commits such actions as will make him unjust is
voluntarily unjust " (Nic. Eth. Ill, 5). It is true that when
injustice has become habitual, the individual no longer has
it in his power to become just, but the habit itself de-
pended on him. Just as he who throws a stone is unable to
call it back once it has gone, although, in the first instance, he
was free either to pick it up and throw it or not : so, in the
first instance, it was in the power of the licentious and unjust
man not to be licentious and unjust, h jo-p "PX'i f7r ' uvtw
(Ibid. 1114 a, 19). Thus man is responsible for his habits,
because he is their true author.
HABIT 355
Aristotle may be regarded as the inventor of the great
theory which represents habit as the development of a spon-
taneity through which an act becomes a permanent activity.
The nature of a living thing is not fixed or imprisoned once
for all in an immutable form. A living being can gain new
aptitudes through training and action : he can add mobile
forms to those that are fixed ; and in this way he may endow
himself with a new nature which depends on himself and on
that which he does.
Stoicism : Definition of the ej^is ; Knowledge is a e^t? ; Virtue
is not Habit; Correction of this Paradox; Theory of the irpoKoin'];
Summary.
The Stoics borrowed the word efys from Aristotle, but they
extended and modified its meaning. In Aristotle the word e^t?
-corresponds exactly to our ' habit.' Whereas the e<9 of the
Stoics represents a much larger genus, of which habit,
properly so-called, is only a species. The e^is is the quality
(7rofOT>79, to itolov) which comprises the essential characteristics
of a thing, in contrast to its manner of being (a-^ecrig, to 7nw
e'x 1 ')- The e*9 has its origin in the very nature of the
object : it presupposes an internal and innate principle of self-
conservation. The <T)(ecris, on the other hand, is acquired (Va?
fxev yap aryeaeis Tals e7UKT}JTOig KaTatTTatreai ^apaKT^pL^ecrOai,
tcc9 Se ej^eis Tah e eavTCOu evepyela? : Simpl. 61 /3). When the
ee<9 admit neither of the more nor of the less, and are suscep-
tible neither of tension (eiriTaari?) nor of relaxation (apecrig),
they become what are called the SiaOecreis. The distinctive
characteristic of the efys, strictly so-called, is that it is capable
of degrees, of less and more. The efys always implies some
spontaneity : it can also diminish or increase, and by these
two characteristics we can see how it is that habit may be
considered as one of its species.
The quality which imposes a form on indeterminate matter
is a reality, and for the Stoics every reality was corporeal.
Quality is therefore a body penetrating another body, a force
extending throughout all the parts which it binds together (tus
oe 7rotOTr]Ta$ irvevfiaTa kcu tovovs, overlap kui awfxaTa : Pint.
de Stoic repugn. XLIII, XLV, XLIX). The e*9 is an aerial
tension, an ether, a breath in circular motion (fi e e^ig ecrn Trvev/xa
356 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
avTurrpecpoi' e(p' eavro), which goes from the centre to the
periphery, returns from the periphery to the centre, and thus
holds together the whole body, whose form and unity it is. It
had already been said by Aristotle that even a stone, in order to
keep its different parts together, required something analogous
to a soul. The Stoics place in the stone, in every organised
being, a quality, a force, which, by binding its elements
together, contains them, and is thus their constant habit (<?).
' 'Av ay Krj e to eV (Tcojucx viro /xta?, w? (bauiv, eeft)S crvve^ecrOai
(Alex. Aphr. de Mixtis, 143 a).
As in nature the e<? is a force which contains and binds
together the elements of the stone and of the wood, the bones,,
and the sinews of the animal, so science is a force which
unites representations once they are understood, and makes
them into a system (a-vurrjfxa). Science is therefore a habit, a
e*9, which consists in an energy and in a voluntary tension
of the soul.
" Science is a possession, or habit of the representations, which is firm
and incapable of being affected by reasoning, and which consists entirely
in tension and energy. eiv (fravracriuiv SeKTiKrjv d/j.eTdirTO)Tov vtto \6yov
t^VTivd cjiaa-LV ev tovw kcu Swafxei KdcrOai " (Stob. Eel. II, 130).
Such is the nature of knowledge. As regards virtue, the
Stoics abandon the theory of Aristotle, and return to that of
Socrates and Plato. Virtue is knowledge and can be taught :
Vice is ignorance : eivai S' ayvoia? ru? Ka.Kia<;, 3>v al aperai.
7ri<TTt]fxai (Diog. L. vii, 93). Thus practice with them was
identical with theory. Goodness that is natural, or a mere
habit, they despised.
" Cumque superiores (Aristotle) non omnem virtutem in ratione esse
dicerent, sed quasdam virtutes natura aut more perfectas, hie (Zeno) omnes
in ratione ponebat" (Cic. Acad. I, 10, 38).
The divers virtues are inseparable from one another ; we
either have all the virtues, or none of them, for the different
virtues cannot exist apart from one another. Virtue is the
expression of right will, it is a force that affects all the actions
of our life. There are no degrees in virtue ; it either is or is
not, just as a line must either be straight, or not straight, and
there is no other alternative (Diog. L. vn, 127). Between
vice and virtue there is no middle stage : he who is not wise ia
mad.
HABIT 357
The obvious conclusion is, that Aristotle was wrong in
defining virtue by the et?, for the e<? is susceptible of degrees,
of more and less. Virtue is a SidOecris, and is subject neither
to tension nor relaxation. Virtue is not acquired gradually,
by a series of acts that are in conformity with reason ; it
appears all at once, and is the soul herself in a state of strength
and perfection from which she cannot fall. Decrescere summum
honum non potest, nee virtuti ire retro licet. . . . Incrementum
maximo non est ; nihil invenies rectius recto (Seneca, Epist.
LXVI, 5).
The Stoics might, in theory, deny any connection between
habit and virtue, but, in so doing they seem to have placed
virtue on an inaccessible height, to which there was no road.
In order to find a wise man, they had to go back to Ulysses,
or even as far back as Hercules. But the very necessity of
distinguishing themselves from the common herd compelled
the Stoics to correct and soften their own paradoxes, to re-
establish the existence of certain intermediate states between
virtue and vice, and consequently, to allow once more that
habit has its place and function in human life. Passion, they
said, is a disturbance of the soul, a momentary weakness,
{Motus animi improbabiles subiti et concitati, Seneca) ; but if
passion is not controlled, or if it arises frequently, it becomes
a disease of the soul.
The Stoics divided the diseases of the soul into diseases
proper (voo-i'i/uaTa, morbi) and into weaknesses (appoxTT^/uLaTa).
The disease of the soul is opinion, which is the cause of desire,
and has degenerated into a rooted habit (So^a einQviJ.ia<;
eppv>]Kvia eig e^iv), opinion which makes us consider some things
as most worthy of pursuit which are not so {/jltj alpeTa). And
there is a false fear, which corresponds to this false desire :
opinio vehemens, inhacrens atgue insita de re non fugienda
tanquam fugienda (Sen.).
It is somewhat difficult to see the distinction between the
uppoocm'ifxa and the vocry/na. The former is a weakness of
the soul, a relaxation, which accompanies disease, and is at
once the source and the consequence of it. As some bodies
are predisposed to physical diseases (eve/jL-KTaxjlai) so there is
also in certain souls a predisposition to spiritual diseases, they
358 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
are evicaTucboptai ei$ ttolOos. The vocrot, the appco<TTi'//ui.a.Ta, and
the emaraipopiac are e^eis, habits.
Thus the Stoics acknowledged the part played by habit in
vice : they also found themselves obliged to recognize its
importance in the attainment of virtue. Just as the soul may
degenerate, so also it is possible for it to make progress,
towards the good. In the first place, every man has a primi-
tive inclination to virtue ; omnibus nettnra fundamenta declit
semenque virtutum (Sen. Epist. CVIII, 8). In the second place,
a man may, without attaining perfect wisdom, gradually come
to resemble the sage by imitating his behaviour, by performing
the same actions, namely those medium duties, ojpcia media
which the Stoics call kuQi'ikovtu in contrast to the perfect duty
(KaTopdw/ua) which is accomplished by the sage alone. Thus
man is capable of a continuous progress towards virtue. Such
is the theory of the irpoKo-n-ri.
"Socrates, Diogenes, and Antisthenes made great progress in virtue"
(D. L. vn, 91). "When the two Decii, or the two Scipios are com-
memorated as brave men, or, when Fabricius and Aristides are called just,
is either an example of fortitude looked for from the former, or of justice
from the latter, as from wise men ? For neither of these was wise, in such
a sense as we wish the term wise man to be understood. Nor were those
who were esteemed and named wise, Marcus Cato and Caius Laelius, wise
men. But, from the frequent performance of mean duties, they bore
the similitude and appearance of wise men " (Cicero, de Off. Ill, IV, 14).
In this progress towards wisdom, there are three stages. In
the lowest, a man is free from most vices, but not from all,
extra multa et magna vitia seel non ultra omnia. Then follow
those who are free from the passions, but are still exposed to
the danger of a relapse into them. Lastly, he who has reached
the highest term of this progress, is no longer subject to a
relapse, and for perfect wisdom, only lacks the consciousness of
his own wisdom (Seel hoc illis ele se nondum liquet. . . . Et scire
se nesciunt ; Seneca, Epist. LXXV, 8).
This theory of progress would seem to imply a return to the
Peripatetic view ; for does not the constant practise of all the
Kadi'iKovra constitute a progress towards wisdom ? But the Stoics
adhered nevertheless to their original paradox ; between true
virtue and the virtue of the vulgar, there is always a chasm.
What matters it whether one is drowned near to the shore or
HABIT 35
far from it ? True virtue is a SidOeo-is ; it appears entire, all
at once, at the extreme end of the progress. It is an indivis-
ible thing which must be possessed in its entirety or not at alL
Let us now see whether it is possible to abstract some
common conception from the diverse meanings attached to the
word e^m. The e^ig is always a quality, a force capable of
degrees of less or more : a cause that is at once formal and
corporeal, and imposes a certain unity upon the elements which
it pervades and binds together.
By their indifferent use of the word e^i? to indicate either
the force which in nature is the cause of the cohesion of in-
organic things, or the force which in knowledge connects our
representations into a system ; from their use of the same word
to express also, both natural dispositions (such as the emara-
(poplai i<? 7r(9o?) and those which are acquired through the
repetition of the same acts (such as the diseases of the soul or
progress in virtue), it is clear that the Stoics recognized the
connection between the force that is operative in nature, and
that development of our spontaneous activity which we call
habit. Thus a wider meaning was given to Aristotle's maxim,
now a commonplace, that habit is a second nature.
Epicurus : Mechanical Theory of Habit.
Epicurus taught that virtue consists both in knowledge and
in habit, but he did not advance any special theory of the
latter. Habit would seem to have been to him merely a
means, a provisional instrument ; for he holds with the Stoics
that wisdom, when once it is acquired, can neither increase,.
nor diminish, nor be lost.
But although Epicurus offers no general theory of habit, he
explains the association of ideas by means of a mechanical
doctrine which reminds one of the Cartesian view. The soul
is corporeal, and is composed of very fine atoms which pervade
the whole body. When an impression causes a movement in
the soul, this movement produces, in its turn, movements
similar to those by which it has on a former occasion been
followed. In this way are connected with a present sensation
the recollection of past perceptions, or the movements of the
body that stand in some relation to that sensation. On
hearing the word snow, we think of coldness and whiteness ;
360 THE PKOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
when we see acid fruit, the taste of which we know, there is
an abundant secretion in our salivary glands. Atumi casu
quodam et sine ratione concurrentes in unum ct animam
creantcs, ut Epicuro placet, quarum una commota, omnem
spiritum, id est animam, moveri simul. Unde plerumquc audita
nive candorem simul et frigus homines rccordari, vel quum quis
edit acerba quaedam, qui hoc vidcnt, assidue exspucre ineremento
salivae (Chalcid. in Tim. 213).
In the mystic philosophy of the Neo-Platonists, the part
assigned to habit was naturally of minor importance. Practical
virtue belongs to the soul, in as much as the latter is joined to
the body ; it moderates our desires, calms our passions, frees
us from false opinions, and presents in the sensible world an
image of the true harmony. But virtue has another function
besides that of regulating our sensible nature ; it separates
the body from the soul and prepares man for ecstasy, which is
the immediate possession of the Good.
Descartes : Physiological Theory of Habit. Bodily and
Mental Habits.
The mechanical theory of habit, of which we found the
original conception in Epicurus, was developed by the
Cartesian school. Descartes regards the soul and the body as
distinct substances. Body is extended, and, like the material
universe, subject to mechanical laws only. The soul is pure
thought, and has its own law, and its own life. From
the union of soul and body there results a third life,
which has something from each. The body is an auto-
matic machine ; and animals, being only bodies, are mere
machines, all of whose movements can be explained by the
arrangement of the works and the action of the springs in the
machine. Our bodies, like those of animals, are marvellous
automata, and are set in motion by the warmest and most
subtle elements of the blood, that is, by the animal spirits,
which ascend to the brain, and, according to the different
movements of the pineal gland (the principal seat of the soul
in Descartes' theory), flow rapidly into the muscles, and
by distending and contracting the latter produce the move-
ment of our bodies.
HABIT 361
" All our limbs can then be set in motion by the objects of sense, and by
the spirits, without the aid of the soul. . . . All the movements we make
without any intervention of the will (as it often hapjaens that we breathe,
or walk, or eat, in fact that we perform all such actions as are common to
us and animals), depend solely on the structure of our members and the
course which the spirits, excited by the heat of the heart, naturally take
in our brains and nerves and muscles, just as the movement of a watch is
produced by the force of its spring and the construction of its wheels " (On
the Passions, a 16).
Given this bodily mechanism, it is easy to deduce from it
the origin of habit. When the spirits have once passed
through certain pores of the brain, these pores are more easily
re-opened than others by the return of the spirits into them
{Ibid, a 42).
Habits are formed in us just as rivers hollow out and alter
their beds by flowing through them. Thus there are purely
corporeal habits, which are due to the sole fact that a move-
ment when repeated traces out an easy road for the spirits to
travel in ; and, as everything that takes place in the body is
re-echoed in the soul, we have in this the source of a real
dependence and slavery.
But we must remember that soul and body act and re-act
upon one another. Having examined habit from the point of
view of the body, let us now consider it from the point of
view of the soul. " Our will has by nature such freedom that
it can never be forced" (a 41). Even after the emergence
of a particular thought the soul may come to any one of a
number of resolutions. " We do not always connect the
-same action with the same thought" (Ibid, a 136). When
we want to speak we do not think of the movements of our
tongue and lips, but only of the meaning we wish to convey.
This is because, through habit,
" We connect the action of our soul, which, through the medium of the
gland, is able to move our tongue and lips, with the meaning of the
words which follow these movements rather than with the movements
themselves " (Ibid, a 44).
Habit is therefore not forced upon the soul by the
mechanism of the body. The soul makes use of the laws
of its union with the body in order to realize in this
mechanism the mode of action it has chosen. We can
362 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
imagine what takes place. " What constitutes the whole
activity of the soul is that, merely by willing a thing, it
causes the small gland, with which it is closely connected, to
move in the way required in order to produce the effect
referred to by this act of will" (Ibid, a 41).
According to this law, the volitions of the soul, which are
free, are followed by such movements of the gland and of the
spirits as are necessary to the execution of these volitions.
Now, we have seen that, in virtue of purely mechanical laws,
the spirits enter more easily into those pores of the brain
which have been frequently opened by them, and fall naturally
into the paths they have already cut out for themselves. The
soul can therefore, through its own volition, make the spirits
form throughout its body paths, which answer to the inten-
tions it has formed and to their execution.
There would seem to be greater difficulty in explaining
mechanically how it is that the soul is able to join to any
movement of the gland whatever thought it chooses to have ;
Descartes nevertheless grants it this privilege.
" Although each movement of the gland appears to have been joined by
nature to each one of our thoughts since the beginning of our life, it is
possible nevertheless, through habit, to join them to other thoughts"
(a 50). "And such is the connection between the soul and the body, that
when we have once joined a certain bodily act to a certain thought, the
one will in future never occur without the other" (a 136).
In virtue of this law man is able, on the occurrence of
bodily movements that would naturally occasion fear, to excite
within himself the passion of courage ; and it is the same with
all the other passions. In such cases the bodily mechanism is
not affected, the habit no longer has a physical origin, and
would seem to consist altogether in the development of a
spiritual spontaneity.
I )escartes affirms indeed the existence of habits in the purely
spiritual life. He writes to the Princess Elizabeth (15th of
June, 1(545) :
" Besides our knowledge of truth, habit also is necessary if we are to
be always disposed to judge aright. For inasmuch as we cannot always
be attentive to one thing, however clear and evident the reasons may have
been which at one time persuaded us of a truth, we may later be induced
HABIT 363
to disbelieve the same truth, unless by long and frequent meditation we
have so impressed it upon our mind that it has become a habit ; and in this
sense the schools were right when they said that virtues were habits."
Malebranche : Physiological Theory ; Mechanism of Habit ;
Habits of the Soul ; Innate and Instantaneous Habits.
Malebranche develops and expounds with great clearness the
mechanical theory of habit, and of its relation to memory.
" There are always in some parts of the brain, wherever they may
be situated, a somewhat large number of animal spirits, which
are in a state of commotion caused by the warmth of the heart
whence they come, and quite ready to flow into any place
where they can find an open passage. All our nerves meet in the
repository of these spirits, and the soul has the power of deter-
mining the movement of the spirits, and of conducting them
through the nerves into any of the muscles of the body. The
spirits, when once they have entered these muscles, cause the
latter to swell, and consequently to become shorter, and in this
way they set in motion the parts to which the muscles are attached.
But we must observe that the spirits do not always find the
paths by which they are to pass sufficiently open and free, and
it is for this reason that we have, for example, difficulty in
moving our fingers with the rapidity required in order to play
musical instruments, or in moving the muscles used in
speaking for pronouncing the words of a foreign language ;
but, by their continual course through them, the animal
spirits gradually open and smooth out these paths, so that
with time they no longer find any resistance. Now it is
in this facility which the animal spirits have of passing into
the limbs of our body that habits consist " (Eech. de la Ve'rite',
Bk. II, 1st Part, Ch. V).
Malebranche at the same time points out the relation
between memory and habit.
" It is evident from what we have just said that memory and habit are
in many ways connected, and that, in a sense, memory may pass for a kind
of habit. For just as bodily habits consist in the facility the spirits have
acquired of passing into certain parts of our body, so memory consists in
the traces which these same spirits have impressed on the brain, and
which enable us to remember things with ease. So that, if there were no
perceptions attached to the course of the animal spirits which is connected
with these traces, there would be no difference between memory and the
other habits " (Ibid.).
364 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
But to consider habit merely from the point of view of the
connection between soul and body would be an arbitrary limi-
tation of Malebranche's psychology. There are spiritual habits,
modifications of our own being, inner tendencies which are
stable and permanent. Here Malebranche gives a wider, more
general meaning to the word habit. His habit is the Greek
e/9. Habit, he says, may be innate. " For instance, a child
coming into the world is a sinner, and deserving of God's anger,
because God loves order, and the heart of this child is not
well ordered, and it turns to bodily things from the habitual
inclination of an inevitable, natural, or purely involuntary
love, which it has derived from his parents without consent
on his part " {Morale, 1st Part, Ch. III). Man's task is to
give himself a second nature in place of this first nature, to
substitute the acts of a love that is free, for the acts of a
love that is natural. " Natural love leaves in the soul a
tendency to natural love, and the love that is the result of
choice leaves the habit of that kind of love. When a man
has often consented to entertain the love of a good, lie
acquires a tendency or a facility of consenting to it again "
(Ibid).
We should never weary of doing again that which ought to
be done. As Malebranche forcibly puts it in a formula which
sums up the origin and effects of habit :
"Acts produce habits, and habits acts" (Ibid. Ch. IV). "It scarcely
ever happens that the stronger habits are formed by a single act, or that
the inveterate disposition to obey the movements of self-love is destroyed
by an actual movement of the mind. On the contrary, habits are stable"
(Ibid. Ch. III). " Virtues are usually acquired and strengthened by acts "
(Ibid. Ch. II).
We must notice here the expressions hardly ever, usually.
For Malebranche, the spiritual habit is so far from being a
mechanical or inevitable thing, that it can be acquired or lost
at a stroke. Human life is not, like a natural whole, subject
even in its progress, to the law of continuity. In considering
it we must take into account a supernatural element, namely,
divine grace, which will sometimes cause a sudden change of
direction. Naturally we are only able to contract habits
through acts, and to strengthen them by practice (Ibid. 1st Part,
Ch. VIII, 1), but " through the sacraments of the new law
HABIT 365
we receive justifying grace, or habitual charity " (Ch. VIII,
2). For instance the priest, in giving absolution, transforms
our present good intention into a constant disposition, into a
e^is, as the Stoics called it. In the same way a good habit
may be lost in a single instant.
"The habit of charity is much more frail, much more difficult to
acquire and to preserve, than the habit of crime, because a single
deliberate act, a single mortal sin will always destroy it. The principal
reason of which is that we cannot love God without the assistance of
grace, and it is just that we should lose our right to this assistance by
one voluntary act of infidelity" (Morale, 1st Part, Ch. Ill, 17).
To sum up : Malebranche propounds a theory of habit
which only refers to the habits that result from the union of
the soul and the body, and this theory is a purely mechanical
one. As for the habits of the soul, he certainly recognizes
their existence ; but though he gives a theological explanation
of the natural tendencies which depend on original sin, and of
those which are due to the action of efficacious grace, he
makes no attempt to account for habits properly so called,
which arise from the repetition of acts,
Leibnitz : Metaphysical Theory ; The Principle of Habit is
found in the Laws and the Nature of Spiritual Spontaneity.
Leibnitz deduces habit from the principles of his metaphysical
system, and in particular, from the law of continuity : Non
clatur saltus in natura. In the Monad everything comes from
the Monad itself; but as each Monad is in harmony with all
other Monads, so also are its own acts in harmony with one
another : they form a continuous series and depend upon and
explain one another. Therefore, a thing that has once been
never absolutely ceases to be ; something of it always survives
in the actual phenomena. " The present is big with the future,
and laden with the past " (New Essays, Pref.). Habit, in this
sense, is a universal metaphysical law, a necessary consequence
of determinism, of the law of continuity, and of the pre-
established harmony. The soul is not indifferent to its own
acts ; they express its nature, determine what it will be, and
thus become for ever part of itself.
" An immaterial being or a spirit cannot be stripped of all perception
of its past existence. There remain to it impressions of all that has
formerly happened to it, and it even has presentiments of all that will
366 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
happen to it ; but these feelings are most often too feeble to be capable
of being distinguished and perceived, although they may perhaps at some
time be developed into clearness" {New Essays, II, Ch. XXVII, 14).
Thus habit consists of our past actions, which persist in
activity in a latent state, survive in the spontaneity of the
Monad, and intervene, whether we are aware of it or not, as
determining causes in our present behaviour. What has been
cannot altogether pass away, because all things are linked
together, and depend upon one another.
" Now, if this transmigration of souls were true, if it were true that
souls retaining subtle bodies, passed on a sudden into other coarser
bodies, then the same individual might continue to exist in Nestor or
Socrates and in some modern person, and could even make his identity
known to any one who could penetrate sufficiently into his nature, by the
impressions or marks which remained of all that Nestor or Socrates did,
and which any mind sufficiently penetrating might there read" {Ibid.)
As against the mechanical view of habit, Leibnitz brings
forward a theory, according to which, the principle of habit is
found in the laws and development of our spiritual spontaneity.
We have within us many things whose existence we do not
suspect. Those small perceptions which we do not perceive
'" have more effect than w r e think."
"These unconscious (unfelt) perceptions also indicate and constitute
the identity of the individual, who is characterized by the traces or
expressions of his previous states, which these unconscious perceptions
preserve, as they connect his previous states with his present state ;
and these unconscious perceptions may be known by a higher mind
although the individual himself may not be conscious of them, that is to
say, though he may no longer have a definite recollection of them. But
they (these perceptions) furnish also the means of recovering this
recollection when it is needed, through periodic developments which may
some day occur " {New Essays, Preface).
In the Modem Empirical School Habit becomes a Universal
Principle of Explanation. Malebranche, the Precursor of the
Associationists.
So far, habit has only been considered by philosophers as a
mode of activity, and chiefly in its relation to the moral life.
We shall now see how the importance attached to it has
grown in modern times. Habit has come to be regarded as
the universal law of speculative, as well as of practical life, as
HABIT 367
the central fact of the whole of nature, as the explanation of
the apparently innate elements of mind. Through habit the
a priori has been reduced to the a posteriori, rational to
empirical elements. It is not sufficiently well known that it
is to Malebranche that the origin of this explanation of things
by habit is to be traced. Not only did he recognize the
importance of the association of ideas, and find in it the
explanation of apparently primary intuitions (see External
Perception) ; he even maintained that man's conception of
the universe is merely an illusion caused by habit and the
association of ideas.
According to Malebranche, God alone acts in the universe;
no movement is ever caused except by Him and on the
occasion of some other movement. Now, we attribute
causality to material things ; we imagine that a ball really
pushes the ball that moves after contact with it, whereas, in
fact, there is only a succession. " We think that a thing is
a cause of some effect when the one is always accompanied by
the other." This view, which reduces causality to invariable
succession, and the principle of causality (as applied to
phenomena) to a subjective illusion strengthened by
repetition, recurs in all the following theories.
Locke : Habit Explains the Apparent Innateness of our
Practical Principles.
It was natural that empiricism, as it came into fuller con-
sciousness of itself, should ascribe a larger part to habit. For,
does not the negation of all a priori elements, the derivation
of all things from experience, amount to making of nature
itself, to use Pascal's expression, " a primary custom " ?
Locke, however, recognizing, as he did, the existence of an
activity peculiar to the mind, does not go so far as this.
Still not to speak of some of his particular theories, such as
that of substance, for instance (see Assoc, of Ideas) it is by
habit that he explains the apparent innateness of the principles
of practical life.
" It may come to pass that doctrines that had been derived from no
better an original than the superstition of a nurse or the authority of an
old woman may, by length of time and consent of neighbours, grow up to
the dignity of principles in religion or morality" {On Human Under-
standing Bk. 1, Ch. II, 22). Here education plays the principal part.
368 THE PEOBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" When men so instructed are grown up, and reflect on their own minds,
they cannot find anything more ancient there than those opinions which
men taught them before their memory began to keep a register of their
actions, or date the time when any new thing appeared to them ; and,
therefore, make no scruple to conclude that those propositions, of whose
knowledge they can find in themselves no original, were certainly the
impress of God and nature on their minds, and not taught them by
anyone else " {Ibid. 23).
Thus our respect for moral and religious principles seems to
us natural and innate, only because we cannot remember the
time when we began to form ideas of them. Everything is
explained, in the first place, by habit ; secondly, by the fact
that we cannot remember when we formed this habit :
"And custom, a greater power than nature, seldom failing to make
them worship for divine what she had inured them to bow their minds
and submit their understanding to" {Ibid. 25).
Berkeley : All the Principles of Connection between our Ideas
are Habits ; Idealistic Empiricism.
If we abolish the real existence of extended matter, and
substitute for Malebranche's Vision in God an immediate
action of the divine mind upon the human mind, we have
Berkeley's idealism. In his system everything is reduced to
ideas and relations between ideas : but these relations are not
necessary relations, they do not flow from the nature of things
or from their mutual interaction. If there is causality
there must be reality, and nothing is truly real except
spirits. Berkeley's philosophy eliminates all causality from
the external world, and only admits relations of co-existence
or of constant succession between phenomena, that is to say,
between ideas. The laws of nature are merely rules in accord-
ance with which God excites ideas in us ; and yet it is our very
observation of those laws that has led us to deny this fact.
" For, when we perceive certain ideas of sense constantly followed by
other ideas, and we know this is not of our own doing, we forthwith
attribute power and agency to the ideas themselves, and make one the
cause of another, than which nothing can be more absurd and unintelli-
gible " {Principles of Human Knowledge, 32).
The constant relations between ideas are not declucible from
the ideas themselves, but merely express the divine wisdom
and will. The changes in the material world form a kind of
HABIT 369
language which expresses the volitions of the supreme mind.
Therefore, it is only by experience that we can learn the
constant relation between ideas. " Now the set rules or
established methods wherein the mind we depend on excites
in us the ideas of sense, are called the laws of nature "
{Ibid. 30).
" And these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such
ideas are attended with such and such other ideas in the ordinary course
of things. This gives us a sort of foresight which enables us to regulate
our actions for the benefit of life. And without this we should be
eternally at a loss ; we could not know how to act anything that might
procure us the least pleasure, or remove the least pain of sense. That
food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us ; that to sow in the
seed time is the way to reap in the harvest ; and in general that to obtain
such or such ends, such or such means are conducive all this we know,
not by discovering any necessary connection between our ideas, but only
by the observation of the settled laws of nature, without which we should
be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how
to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born"
{Ibid. 31).
Habit is the source of foresight. " We may, from the
experience we have had of the train and succession of ideas
in our minds, often make, I will not say uncertain conjec-
tures, but sure and well-grounded predictions concerning
the ideas we shall be affected with pursuant to a great
train of actions, and be enabled to pass a right judgment
of what would have appeared to us, in case we were placed in
circumstances very different from those we are in at present "
{Ibid. 59). Thus, according to Berkeley, there are no other
relations between our ideas than those of co-existence and
constant succession which we discover by experience, and
which, being fixed into habits, become the regulative principles
of human life.
David Hume : Habit the Principle of all the Laws of Mind ;
Exception in the Case of Mathematics.
Hume's system is a generalization of the foregoing principle
of explanation. Habit with him becomes the universal law of
mind. Not only external perception, but all our experiences, all
our inferences are explained by habit. Empiricism becomes
Associationism. We find once more in connection with the
2a
370 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
question of habit, all those arguments which we stated in
giving an account of Hume's theories of reason and perception.
Whenever we find two objects or two events constantly joined
together, we immediately infer one from the other. And yet
we have not by all our experience acquired any idea or know-
ledge of " the secret power by which the one object produces
the other"; nor is it by any process of reasoning we are engaged
to draw this inference. How is it then that we inevitably
arrive at such a conclusion ? There is some other principle
which determines us to form such a conclusion " this principle
is custom or habit."
" Whenever the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a
propensity to renew the same act or operation, without being compelled
by any reasoning or process of the understanding, we always say, that
this propensity is the effect of custom. By employing that word, we pretend
not to have given the ultimate reason of such a propensity. We only
point out a principle of human nature, which is universally acknowledged,
and which is well known by its effects. Perhaps we can push our
inquiries no farther, or pretend to give the cause of this cause, but must
rest contented with it as the ultimate principle, which we can assign, of
all our conclusions from experience" (Enq. cone, the Human Understanding,
Sect.V, Pt. 1).
Hume cannot see any other way of explaining the fact that
several experiences are required to establish a general law, and
that a single one is not sufficient.
"Custom, then, is the real guide of human life. It is that principle
alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect for
the future a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the
past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of
every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory
and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to
employ our natural powers in the production of any effect " (Ibid.).
To the objection that there is a distinction between
experience and reason, Hume replies : " If we examine those
arguments, which in any of the sciences above mentioned, are
supposed to be the mere effects of reasoning and reflection,
these will be found to terminate, at last, in some general
principle or conclusion, for which we can assign no reason but
observation and experience" (Ibid. note). In short, habit is the
principle of our belief in matters of fact.
HABIT 371
" Having found . . . that any two kinds of objects flame and heat,
snow and cold have always been conjoined together : if flame or snow
be presented anew to the senses, the mind is carried by custom to expect
heat or cold, and to believe that such a quality does exist, and will
discover itself upon a nearer approach. ... It is an operation of the
soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the passion of
love, when we receive benefits, or hatred, when we meet with injuries.
All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning
or process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or
to prevent " (Ibid.).
Thus, according to Hume, it is not by intuition or by reason-
ing that we are able to know the future in the past, to infer
what will be from what has been ; such inference is merely
the effect of habit. As for the fact that an irresistible belief
springs from habit, this is a kind of natural instinct the
explanation of which it is useless to seek.
Hume allowed, however, that there is a certainty of a
peculiar character in Mathematics. " The conclusions which
it [Season] draws from considering one circle are the same
which it would form upon surveying all the circles in the
universe." This exception was to be abolished later by a
more logical empiricism which includes mathematics among
the inductive sciences, and admits of only one single principle
of belief, namely habit.
Condillac : Habit, Instinct, and Reason.
Condillac's ingenious psychology added some new elements
to the empirical theory. His views on the relations between
habit and reason resemble those of Herbert Spencer, but he
omitted the element of heredity, and claims to explain by
the experience of the individual, what the evolutionists of to-
day explain by the experience of successive generations
Still Condillac deserves the credit of having traced the path
which was to be followed by the philosophers of his school.
The latter have gone further than he did, but in the same
direction. Actions are conditioned by our needs. The same
acts are conditioned by the same needs, and thus habits are
formed. There is no radical difference between human and
animal activity. Animals begin by acting with reflection,
but,
372 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" As they have few needs, the time soon comes when they have done all
that reflection can teach them. There only remains for them to repeat
every day the same things ; they must therefore finally have nothing but
habits, they must be limited to instinct . . . instinct is nothing but a
habit out of which the element of reflection has been eliminated" (Traittf
des Animaux, Ch. V).
By this we see how it is that instinct is the same for all
individuals belonging to the same species.
"Since all individuals of the same species are moved by the same
principle, which acts toward the same ends and employ the same means,
they must necessarily contract the same habits, do the same things and do
them in the same way" {Ibid. III).
Habit in animals is instinct. What is it then that
characterizes habit in man ? In the first place, we have many-
needs, in consequence of which we have many habits ; and
since these habits can only be fostered at the expense of one
another, they are more subject to change, and are less narrow. In
the second place, as Condillac ingeniously remarks, men imitate
one another, so that individual traits, instead of disappearing,
tend to spread : hence the multiplication of needs and ideas, of
means and ends. " Men end by being so different only because
they begin by imitating one another and continue to do so "
(Ibid.). Finally, as our habits are few in proportion to the
variety of our circumstances, reason must come to our aid. This
is also Herbert Spencer's theory. There is no absolute difference
between instinct and intelligence; reason appears when acts are
no longer performed with automatic certainty, and when
circumstances are too complex and occur too seldom to give rise
to an instinctive habit. As Condillac very clearly puts it: "The
amount of reflection which we possess over and above our
habits, is what constitutes our reason." We have therefore
an ego of habit, which regulates all our animal faculties, and
an ego of reflection which is characterized by invention and
skill.
As regards the connection between habit and the regulative
principles of knowledge, Condillac is not as clear or as.
complete in his analysis as Hume. " We have instinct since
we have habits; our instinct extends even further than that of
animals, for it is not only practical but theoretical. Theoretical
HABIT 373
instinct is the effect of a method that has become familiar."
Every man who speaks a language, for instance, has a more or
less perfect method.
" By dint of repeating the judgments of those who superintend our
education, and of reflecting ourselves on the knowledge we have acquired,
we contract such a strong habit of apprehending relations between things,
that we sometimes divine the truth before we have grasped the demon-
stration : we discern it by instinct."
Here Condillac refers to an acquired aptitude ; he does not
trace the principles of knowledge to habit. On the subject
of our judgments of taste he is more explicit.
" The instinct by which we judge of the beautiful is the result of certain
judgments which have become familiar to us, and which, for this reason,
have been transformed into what we call feeling, taste ; so that feeling or
tasting the beauty of an object was originally merely judging it in com-
parison with other things {Ibid. Ch. V). The tastes of men differ
according to the different habits which circumstances have made them
contract. The sense of beauty or taste originates in a very slow process
of judgment" (Ibid.).
Thomas Reicl : Reaction against the Doctrine of Hume ;
Habit the Mechanical Principle of Action.
On this, as on all other subjects, Reid sought to bring
about a reaction against the scepticism of Hume. He returns
to the common-sense view, considers habit in relation to our
active faculties, and, far from finding in it the principle of
belief and the source of certitude, asserts that it is merely
a mechanical principle of action.
" Habit differs from instinct not in its nature, but in its origin ; the
latter being natural, the former acquired. Both operate without will or
intention, without thought, and therefore may be called mechanical
principles" (On the Active Powers, III, Part I, Ch. III).
We recognize here the descriptive method which dwells on
distinctive characteristics rather than on analogies. It did not
occur to Reid to reduce instinct and habit to a more general
fact, which would include and explain the apparent antithesis
between them. He criticises the definition usually given of
habit as " a facility of doing a thing, acquired by having done
it frequently." This definition, he says, is only sufficient as
regards habits in matters of art.
374 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
" But the habits that may with propriety be called principles of action
must give more than a facility, they must give an inclination or impulse
to do the action. ... I conceive it to be part of our constitution that
what we have been accustomed to do, we acquire not only a facility but a
proneness to do in like occasions, so that it requires a particular will and
effort to forebear it, but to do it requires very often no will at all. We
are carried by habit as by a stream in swimming if we make no
resistance {Ibid.).
Eeicl repeats Aristotle's observation that habit is not found
in the inorganic world or in human works of art. " A
clock or a watch, a waggon or a plough, by the custom of going
does not learn to go better, or require less moving force, the
earth does not increase in fertility by the custom of bearing
crops." Here Eeid means by habit the mere repetition of an
action. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of the acclimatization of
plants shows that habit appears with vegetable life ; it is much
more complex in the animal : and in human life it plays a
very considerable part. Besides habits properly so called, man
has acquired appetites.
" Some habits produce only a facility of doing a thing without any
inclination to do it. All arts are habits of this kind ; but they cannot be
called principles of action. Other habits produce a proneness to do an
action without thought or intention These we considered before as
mechanical principles of action. There are other habits which produce a
desire of a certain object and an uneasy sensation till it is obtained. It
is this last kind only that I call acquired appetites" {On the Active Powers,
III, Part II, Ch. I).
These ingenious observations were to be further explained
and reduced to simple laws by a French psychologist, Maine de
Biran. Eeid points out with much ingenuity the uses of
habit. As without instinct a child would not reach manhood,
so without habit a man would remain in childhood all his life.
He dwells on the example afforded by language : " This art, if
it were not more common, would appear more wonderful than
that a man should dance blindfold amidst a thousand burning
ploughshares without being burnt." But having arrived at the
question of the origin of habit, Eeid as usual refuses to
face it.
" We can assign no cause of this instinct and habit other than the will of
Him who made us. . . . No man can show a reason why our doing a
thing frequently should produce either a facility or inclination to do it."
HABIT 375
Dugald Stewart : Habit traced to the Association of Ideas
and Volitions. Hamilton returns to Leibnitz's Theory.
On the question of habit Dugald Stewart parts from his
master. Eeid regards habit as a mechanical principle of
action, independent of will and of intelligence, and of the same
nature as instinct. According to Dugald Stewart, habit does
not differ from conscious and voluntary action. He explains
it by the rapidity with which ideas and volitions follow each
other when they have been frequently joined together and
repeated. Thus he traces habit to the association of ideas
and volitions. When we are learning to play the piano, each
movement of our fingers is preceded by a conscious act of
volition ; but by degrees, after sufficient repetition, we execute
the movements without being able to say afterwards whether
we were conscious or not of the volitions which preceded
them. Not that, according to Dugald Stewart, habit differs in
its nature from will ; but, with the practised performer, the
volitions follow each other with such rapidity through his
consciousness, that they leave no trace there, and consequently
cannot be recalled by memory.
Hamilton differs from both Eeid and Dugald Stewart.
When we read aloud, he says, if the subject does not interest
us we can pursue a serious meditation on a totally different
subject, which would be impossible if we had a distinct per-
ception of each of the smaller changes which go to make up
these two operations, or if we gave to each a special attention.
Hamilton asserts that habit can only be explained by the
Leibnitzian theory of unconscious mental modifications.
Maine de Biran : Laws of Habit ; its Effect on Feeling.
Maine de Biran determined the laws of habit with
much penetration. When he wrote his Memoire sur
I'habitude, he had not yet separated himself from the
sensationalist school. He speaks like Stuart Mill. " What
we find in our consciousness at the first glance are masses of
phenomena" (p. 10). Habit at once complicates mental facts
by combining them, and effaces the traces of this combination,
so that we take what is complex to be simple. The psycholo-
gist's task is to reconstruct all these habits which constitute our
376 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
understanding, to discover the simple phenomena and the laws
of their combination.
Still, throughout the Mimoire, he distinguishes the passive
from the active elements in the life of mind, a process
which is equivalent to abandoning mere sensationalism.
This distinction is confirmed by the difference of the effects
which habit has on feeling and on our active powers.
As regards the effects of habit on our emotions, " all our
impressions," he says, "of whatever nature they may be, become
gradually feebler when they have continued for a certain time,
or been frequently repeated. The only exception is in the
case when the cause of the impression goes so far as to injure
or destroy the organ " (p. 73). " Our sensations alter or dis-
appear more rapidly and more completely in proportion to the
passivity of their special organs " (p. 84). Maine de Biran
tries to explain this effect of habit on sensation by the
hypothesis of a sensible principle, which acts unconsciously, a
kind of vital principle which is " distinct from our motor
activity, or from our voluntary determinations." The weaken-
ing of continued or repeated sensations does not depend on
mechanical causes, but is a result of the activity of the
principle which produces these sensations (p. 80). If a
sensation grows feebler, it is because the reaction which is its
condition becomes less. " When the cause of a sensation
has acted long enough and with enough force on an
organ, it modifies the latter, and raises its relative tone ;
but, on the other hand, the sensible principle also raises
the forces of our system, in order to place them, as it were,
on a level with this stimulation, and to preserve the former
relations. The organ persists for a certain time in this
condition, and if, while it lasts, the same cause acts again, it
is evident that this cause will produce less change than the
first time; because it will find the organ and the whole system
already partly tuned up to the pitch to which it tends to
bring them, and consequently it changes the relations between
the forces much less than before, and consequently the sensa-
tion will be less lively. The more frequent the repetitions are,
and the shorter the intervals, the nearer will the effects
approach continuity. If the intervals are long enough for the
system and the organs to return to their original state, it is
HABIT 377
evident that the sensation, when repeated, will be like a new
one (p. 82). And what is true of our physical sensibility is
equally true of our moral sensibility. " Every continuous or
repeated excitation of our sensibility, whatever may be its
moving cause or inner centre, must have parallel and corre-
sponding results in our sensations and in the sentiments of our
soul, in the physical and moral part of our being."
Maine de Biran makes the profound remark that if
sensation is blunted by habit, habit, on the other hand, often
develops passion and desire. This fact, according to him,
cannot be made to agree with the mechanical hypotheses of an
increase of mobility or of an artificial callousness of the
parts, hypotheses which are often employed to explain the
weakening of repeated impressions (p. 84).
On the other hand, the hypothesis of a sensible principle
enables us to imderstand " the increase of needs and the
violence of desires on the one side, corresponding to indiffer-
ence on the other." Considered as the causes of stimulation,
the impressions become necessary as they grow feebler. " Accord-
ing as the sensation grows feebler and has less effect on the
organ, the system or the centre that is most directly concerned
remains none the less fixed at the same pitch ; and the sensi-
tive principle always preserves a more or less persistent
quality (or determination) of the sensation. It will therefore
still act even when the stimulating cause fails. According as
the pitch of the organ becomes lower, a kind of effort is
required to raise it again, and to restore it to its former activity.
The failure of this effort will produce disturbance, uneasiness,
.anxiety, and desire. It is for this reason that a being accus-
tomed to factitious stimulants feels no enjoyment in their use,
y r et suffers real torment when deprived of them " (p. 90).
Maine de Biran's general principle is, that while habit
weakens in us all that is passive, it at the same time renders
every kind of activity more perfect.
" Every voluntary movement when frequently repeated becomes
gradually easier, more rapid, and more precise, whilst the effect or
impression that results from the movement becomes less in the same ratio
as that of the increase in the rapidity, precision, and facility ; and in the
final stage of this increase the movement becomes entirely insensible, and
affects consciousness only through the results in which it co-operates or
378 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
the impressions with which it is associated " (p. 96). This effect of habit
on the phenomena of action explains the fact that perception becomes,
more distinct according as sensation is less acute ; that through education
the senses work together in harmony, that one may take the place of
another, and that finally perceptions become associated by simultaneity
and succession. " If all our faculties, however we may distinguish them in
name," Maine de Biran concludes (p. 296), "are nothing but modifications
of the faculties of feeling and of motion, they must all share in the one or
the other of these two effects of habit ; that is to say, they will, as
sensations or feelings, all degenerate, become weaker (in certain cases
stronger), whilst as movements they will become developed, acquire
greater perfection, more precision, rapidity, and facility."
M. Eavaisson : the Two Laws of Habit reduced to One ;
Metaphysical Conseqiience.
M. Eavaisson returned to the problem of habit and its laws
and simplified the above solution. Maine de Biran had ex-
plained the different effects of habit by the difference in the
activities which are modified, and pointed out the opposition
between the law of life and the will. M. Eavaisson sought and
discovered a universal law in harmony with all observed
phenomena. He begins by laying down the two antithetical
laws which Maine de Biran had already formulated :
" The general effect of any continuity or of any change caused in a living
being by any thing other than itself, is that if this change does not go so-
far as to destroy the being, the latter is always less and less affected by
it ; on the other hand, the more the living being repeats or prolongs a
change originating in itself, the more often he will go on repeating it and
the stronger becomes the tendency to do so. The change that comes to it
from outside becomes more and more foreign to it, the change which
comes to it through itself becomes more and more its own. Receptivity
diminishes, spontaneity increases, this is the general law of habit " {De
J' Habitude, p. 9).
But are not these two laws the corollary of a more universal
law which includes and explains them both ?
" Continuity and repetition weaken passivity and heighten activity. But
in the opposite histories of these two opposite powers we find a common
feature. Whenever the sensation is not painful, according as it is pro-
longed and repeated, according as it consequently grows fainter, it
becomes more and more a need. On the other hand, according as in the
movement effort disappears and action becomes more free and more rapid,
it also grows more and more into a tendency, an inclination which no longer
awaits the command of will, but forestalls it and even often escapes will and
HABIT 379
consciousness altogether. Thus, in sensation and in activity a kind of obscure
activity, which anticipates more and more, in the one case, the will, in the
other the impression of external objects, is equally developed whether
by continuation or by repetition. . . . Thus sensation is lowered and
mobility heightened by repetition, but for one and the same caitse, namely,
the development of an unconscious spontaneity, which penetrates and
becomes more firmly established in the passivity of the organism, outside
and below the region of will, of personality, and of consciousness. . . . The
law of habit can only be explained by the development of a spontaneous
activity, which is at once and equally different from both mechanical
necessity and conscious freedom " (pp. 25-28).
A sensation when repeated grows feebler, because it no
longer causes an abrupt change, because it is a permanent
state of the mind, something belonging to ourselves, an element
of our inner life ; for the same reason it becomes an ever more
imperious want, which calls for satisfaction. In the same way,
an action when repeated is performed with increasing facility,
because this action becomes a special faculty, a new power,
which acts of itself and realizes its own object.
From this theory of habit M. Eavaisson thinks that important
metaphysical consequences may be deduced. Habit is a force
which springs from that force which we ourselves are, and in
no way differs from it. But if habit begins in consciousness
and will, does it not tend to end in an unconscious spontaneity ?
If it sets out from the mind, does it not do so only to get
ever further away from the mind and nearer to nature's mode
of action ? And does not this seem to invite us to carry the
light of consciousness into the lowest depths of the life of
instinct ?
In that continuity, which by insensible degrees leads from
spirit to nature, M. Eavaisson thinks he has found a clear
proof of the unity of Being. The upholders of the mechanical
theory professed to derive the spiritual from the physical, to
reduce to a material necessity all order, all harmony which
would seem to imply direction, and hence design. M. Eavaisson
boldly adopts the opposite standpoint. In the gradual degrada-
tion of our own activity, which, having begun with a conscious
effort, seems through habit to return to the sureness of
instinct, he finds the middle term which unites the two
apparently opposite extremes : nature and spirit. But, on
this view, that which is mechanical is not the first but the
380 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
derived : it is a symbolic expression of spiritual activity,
arrested and crystallized into a form in which it imprisons
itself. Mechanism does not exclude design, but is the first, the
simplest application of it. Mechanism can no more be separated
from design than language from the thought which it expresses ;
the word is necessary to the idea, but it only exists through
and for the idea; in the same way the end can only be
attained through movement, but movement exists only through
and for the end to be attained. To do away with direction
is to do away with the movement, therefore to suppress design
is to suppress mechanism.
James Mill and John Stuart Mill folloiv Hume : Inseparable
Associations, Unconscious Syntheses.
In England the tradition of Hume's teaching, carried on
by Hartley, was never broken. James Mill, the father and
master of John Stuart Mill, regards habit, through which the
association of ideas gradually becomes inseparable, as the great
principle of human thought.
" Where two or more ideas have been often repeated together, and the
association has become very strong, they sometimes spring up in such
close combination as not to be distinguishable. Ideas, also, which have
been so often conjoined that whenever one exists in the mind the others
immediately exist along with it, seem to run into one another, to coalesce
as it were, and out of many to form one idea ; which idea, however in
reality complex, appears to be no less simple than any one of those of
which it is composed. Some ideas are, by frequency and strength of
association, so closely combined that they cannot be separated. If one
exists, the other exists along with it, in spite of whatever effort we make
to disjoin them " (Analysis of Human Mind, I, 68).
Hence the illusions of intuitional psychology ; complex col-
lections of ideas are taken for simple ideas, and truths which have
been gradually cemented by experience, for immediate data of
consciousness. This law of association, according to James Mill,
plays the chief part in some of the most important phenomena
of the human mind ; it explains the formation of our ideas of
external objects, our faculty of classification, all the advantages
of language, the relation of cause and effect, and even the
primary laws of logic. Stuart Mill gives precision to James
Mill's system by adding to it his theory of inseparable associa-
tion (see Ass. of Ideas, p. 193).
HABIT 381
In this theory Stuart Mill breaks up all these apparently-
simple intuitions, and traces them to syntheses, the complexity
of which we are, owing to habit, no longer able to perceive.
External objects, the mathematical axioms, the principles of the
positive sciences (e.g. the law of causality) are so many pro-
ducts of habit and results of inseparable association.
Hamilton had attacked the doctrine which professes to
explain the a 'priori principles of thought by habit. Stuart
Mill endeavours to refute his arguments.
" Hamilton says : ' We can think away each and every part of the
knowledge we have derived from experience.' ' Yes,' says Mill, ' associa-
tions derived from experience are doubtless separable by a sufficient
amount of contrary experience'" (Mill's Examination of Hamilton, p. 264).
Again Sir W. Hamilton says :
" When association is recent the causal judgment should be-
weak, and rise only gradually to full force, as custom becomes
inveterate." And how do we know that it does not ? answers
J. S. Mill. The whole process by which we acquire our belief
in causality takes place at an age of which we have no recollec-
tion, so that the verification of the fact by experience is
impossible. But Hamilton's great argument is the feeling of
necessity which accompanies these a priori truths.
" The necessity of so thinking cannot be derived from the custom of so
thinking ; and the customary never reaches, never even approaches to the
necessary. Association may explain a strong and special, but it can -never
explain a universal and absolutely irresistible, belief. What I cannot but
think must be a priori or original to thought ; it cannot be engendered
by experience upon custom."
Mill is amazed at this argument.
"For if there be any one feeling in our nature which the laws of associa-
tion are obviously equal to producing, it is that [of necessity.] The neces-
sary, according to Kant's definition, and there is none better, is that of
which the negation is impossible. If we find it impossible by any trial to
separate two ideas, we have all the feeling of necessity which the mind is
capable of. Those therefore who say that association cannot generate
a necessity of thought must be willing to affirm that two ideas are
never so knit together by association as to be practically inseparable.
But to affirm this is to contradict the most familiar experience of life "
(p. 264).
If we believe these principles to be a priori, it is because of
the associations we formed at the very beginning of our life,.
382 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
at a time of which we have no recollection. If these principles
are universal, it is because these associations are common to all
men, or to the majority of mankind. Thus Stuart Mill reduces
certainty to the impossibility of conceiving the contrary. And
this impossibility is itself merely the result of a habit created
by the regular succession of phenomena.
Herbert Spencer adds Heredity to Habit ; Nature is a Primary
Custom ; The Transition from Instinct to Reason and from
Reason to Instinct.
We have already seen that Herbert Spencer adds to Stuart
Mill's doctrine the element of heredity. It is he especially
who has made habit the sovereign law, the principle of all
explanation. But habit is no longer regarded as merely
individual. By modification of the organism, it is transmitted
from generation to generation ; it becomes an inheritance, which
ensures that evolution is a continuous progress. Thought is a
consequence of life, and like life itself it is a perpetual adapta-
tion of the being to its environment.
"All intelligent action whatever is the establishment of a correspon-
dence between internal changes and external coexistences and sequences
. . . through insensible gradations" (Princ.of Psychology, 194, 1st ed.).
Thus it is external phenomena that gradually create the
organism and constitute thought. There is no break, no sudden
advance ; a slow evolution leads, through the progress of habit,
from the simplest of organic forms to the most complex, from
reflex action to instinct which is only a compound reflex action,
from instinct to memory, reason, and will.
It is a mistake to make any radical distinction between the
innate and the acquired, between nature and habit. Xature is
merely a primary custom, a habit which has been made definite
by constant repetition. It can be proved that the parallel
evolution of life and of thought must necessarily, at a given
moment, cause the infallibility of instinct to be replaced by
the uncertainties of rational activity, and automatic action by
action that is habitual in different degrees. We can also say
directly that an act that was once conscious may gradually
become purely automatic, and thus insensibly we return
to the instinct from which we set out. " Instinct may
be regarded as a kind of organized memory ; on the other
HABIT 383
hand, memory may be regarded as a kind of incipient instinct "
(Ibid, 190)."
In the first place, let us see how it is that memory and
reason take the place of instinct. "The cohesion between
psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which
the relation between the answering external phenomena
has been presented in experience" (Ibid, 195). There
must be indissoluble psychical relations corresponding
to the simple, universal, and constant relations that exist in
the environment. " Yet it is manifest that with relations
increasingly complex and decreasingly frequent, there must
come a point at which the answering physical relations will no
longer be absolutely coherent" (Ibid, 189). It must be
that while, in instinct, the correspondence is between inner
and outer relations that are simple or general, in reason, on
the contrary, the correspondence is between inner and
outer relations that are complex, or special, or abstract,
or infrequent. " But the complexity, speciality, abstractness,
and infrequence of relations are entirely a matter of
degree ; of each there are countless gradations by which its
extremes are united" (Ibid. 194). Thus it inevitably
happens that a great number and variety of psychical
relations are finally established in the organism; and
that these relations possess divers degrees of coherence,
beginning with instinct, and going through all the stages of
habit, finally reaching conscious action, which implies a new
adaptation of already existing relations.
From this, according to Herbert Spencer, it is easy to see
that in virtue of the laws of evolution, the cause of thought is
found in life and that of reason in instinct. It is still easier
to see how instinct is formed. There is no commoner experi-
ence than the passage in us from the voluntary and rational to
the automatic stage. " The rational actions pass, by constant
repetition, into the automatic or instinctive" (Ibid, 195). Thus
the mind passes from reflection to habit, and from habit to
instinct just as from instinct it proceeded to habit, and from
habit to reflection.
" Take as one example the actions gone through in such a process as that
of shaving, or that of tying a neck-kerchief. Every man will remember that
when, as a youth, he first attempted to guide his fingers in the proper
384 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
direction by watching the reflections of them in the looking-glass, he was-
greatly perplexed to move them rightly. The ordinary relations between
the visual impressions received from his moving fingers and the muscular
feelings arising from their motions no longer holding good when he had
to deal with the images of his fingers as seen in the glass, he was led to
make movements quite different from those he intended ; and it was only
after setting himself deliberately to watch how the motions and the
i-eflected appearances were related, and then consciously making a certain
motion in expectation of a certain appearance that he slowly mastered the
difficulty. By daily praci ice, however, the impressions and motions have
become so well co-ordinated that he now goes through them while busily
thinking of something else, they have more or less completely lapsed from
the rational into the automatic. ... In fact it will be found on con-
sidering them that the greater part of our common daily actions actions,
every step of which was originally preceded by a consciousness of conse-
quences, and was therefore rational have, by habit, merged more or less
completely into automatic actions. The requisite impression being made
on us, the appropriate movements follow, without memory, reason, or
volition coming into play."
" Perhaps the most marked instance of the gradual lapse of
memory into automatic coherence is that seen in the musician.
. . . The visual impression produced by the crotchet or
quaver, the consciousness of its position on the lines of the
stave and of its relation to the beginning of the bar, the con-
sciousness of the place of the answering key on the piano, the
consciousness of the muscular adjustments required to bring
the arm, hand, and finger into the attitude requisite for
touching that key, the consciousness of the muscular impulse
required to give a blow of the due strength, and of the time
during which the muscles must be kept contracted to produce
the right length of note all these states of consciousness,
which at first arose in a distinct succession and thus formed
so many recollections, ultimately constitute a succession so
rapid that the whole of them pass through consciousness in an
inappreciable time " {Ibid. Ch. VI).
Here Herbert Spencer seems to agree with Dugald Stewart :
but, for the former, absence of memory depends on absence of
consciousness. Habit cannot be reduced to a series of ideas
and volitions too rapid for distinct recollection. It is a series
of acts which have become gradually automatic.
" As fast as they cease to be distinct states of consciousness as fast as
they, by consequence, cease to be represented in memory, so fast do they
HABIT 385
become automatic ; the two things are two sides of the same thing. And
thus it happens that the practised musician can continue to play while
conversing with those around, while his memory is occupied with quite
other ideas than the meanings of the signs before him."
Physiological Explanation of Habit; Habit transmitted by
Heredity ; Habit the Law of Every Form of Existence.
Habit is the most general law of psychical phenomena.
But intelligence cannot be separated from life, nor life from
the organism which is its condition. The last question con-
cerning habit is : " By what physical process does an external
relation that habitually affects an organism, produce in that
organism a corresponding internal relation ? " Herbert Spencer
considers that the following principle can be deduced from the
universal mechanical laws :
" When a wave of molecular transformation passes through a nervous
structure, there is wrought in the structure a modification such that, other
things being equal, a subsequent like wave passes through this structure
with greater facility than its predecessor ..." And he regards nervous
evolution as " an accumulated result of such changes " (Ibid. 249, 2nd ed.).
We see from this that, in a general way, the connections
between the nervous elements correspond to the relations
between the external phenomena. The internal is formed by
the external. We are also by this enabled to understand
certain laws of habit which are proved by experience. The
more intense two simultaneous or successive sensations are,
the more their relation tends to become fixed in the organism.
The repetition of the relation between two states of conscious-
ness strengthens their connection. An action which was at
first repugnant, usually becomes with time less disagreeable,
and ends by being altogether indifferent or even pleasant.
The principle of these three laws is the same. A very
intense current may produce all at once the same effect as
a very feeble current would produce only after frequent
repetition. The painful feeling that accompanies some kinds
of action arises from the resistance offered to them on the part
of the organism ; but when this action is repeated it establishes
nervous connections, creates an apparatus corresponding to
itself, and may thus become one of the necessary forms of the
flow of nervous force.
386 THE PROBLEMS OE PHILOSOPHY
"It will be obvious that these and other traits of progressing intelli-
gence harmonize with the principle that lines of nervous communication
are formed by the passage of waves of molecular motion, and become the
more permeable the more frequently such waves are repeated" {Ibid. 252).
It is only through this physiological explanation of habit
that we are able to understand fully the evolution of thought
and of life. The organism is transmitted in the state into
which it has been modified by habit. What was habit in the
father becomes nature in the child. There is no break
in the life of successive generations. Individual experience
cannot account for all internal facts. The human race
is, in truth, like one vast individual ; in fact, it is
not enough to say the human race ; man owes some-
thing to the humblest of his ancestors. He is the result
of an immense experience : that of all the species which, by
their metamorphoses, have prepared the way for his advent.
"... The simple universal law that the cohesion of psychical
states is proportionate to the frequency with which they have
followed one another in experience requires but to be supple-
mented by the law that habitual psychical successions entail
some hereditary tendency to such successions, which, under
persistent conditions, will become cumulative in generation
after generation, to supply an explanation of all psychological
phenomena, and, among others, of the so-called laws of
thought" {Ibid, 1st ed. 197).
In this way, according to Herbert Spencer, we are able to
reconcile the hypothesis of the empiricists with that of the
transcendentalists. The former are right in a ffirmin g that
everything comes from experience, and the latter in maintain-
ing that there are innate elements in the mind. The solution
of this difficulty is found in the principles of heredity.
"To rest with the unqualified assertion that, antecedent to experience,
the mind is a blank, is to ignore the all-essential questions whence
comes the power of organizing experiences ? whence arise the different
degrees of that power possessed by different races of organisms, and
different individuals of the same race ? If, at birth, there exists nothing
but a passive receptivity of impressions, why should not a horse be as
educable as a man ? "
Therefore, we must have recourse to the hypothesis of
innateness, and wo must interpret it " in the sense that
HABIT 387
there exist in the nervous system certain pre-established
relations answering to relations in the environment. There is
truth in the doctrine of ' forms of thought ' not the truth
for which its advocates contend, but a parallel truth. Corre-
sponding to. absolute external relations there are developed in
the nervous system absolute internal relations relations that
are developed before birth, that are antecedent to, and
independent of, individual experiences, and that are automati-
cally established along with the very first cognitions" (Ibid.).
" The corollary from the general argument that has been elaborated is,
that the brain represents an infinitude of experiences received during the
evolution of life in general, the most uniform and frequent of which
have been successively bequeathed, principal and interest, and have thus
slowly amounted to that high intelligence which lies latent in the brain
of the infant which the infant in the course of its after life exercises
and usually strengthens or further complicates and which, with minute
additions, it again bequeaths to future generations" (Uriel.).
Thus habit perfected by heredity, which is only a consequence
or result of habit, becomes the most general principle not only
of mind but of life. All in us that we were inclined to regard
as being really primary and innate and essential, is in
fact only the result of a slow process of evolution, of a
successive acquisition. We must return to the maxim of
Heraclitus : nothing is, all things are becoming. When we
remember that habit itself is only an application of the
universal law of mechanical action, a corollary of the law of
the persistence of force, we may assume that the whole of
nature, that every constant form is a product of analogous
laws. Thus the philosophy of evolution is the triumph of the
doctrine of habit, as the law not only of the living and spiritual
world, but of every form of existence.
Conclusion.
The result of this review is that we find, in the first place,
two great opposite theories concerning the question of habit.
The first, foreshadowed by Epicurus, upheld, at least as regards
the union of soul and body, by the Cartesian school, and
developed by contemporary physiology (see Theories de la
Memoirc, Th. liibot), represents habit as a physical and
mechanical phenomenon and reduces it to a mere automatism.
The second theory, from which M. Kavaisson has sought to
388 THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY
draw all its metaphysical consequences, is that of Aristotle, of
the Stoics, of Leibnitz, of all those who believe that life has in
it something which is higher than mechanism. This theory
(DO v
considers habit to be the modification of a spiritual activity.
The history of this problem shows, in the second place, that
philosophical progress consists not so much in the addition of
particular truths, as in the discovery of new points of view for
the explanation of things as a whole. And is not this a real
progress, is it not to the advantage of the mind to be able to
take into account the many different possible conceptions of
the universe ? By its logical development, empiricism was led
to make habit the great principle of spiritual life, and to
associate itself with the mechanical theory of habit in which
the spontaneity of living things is resolved into inertia.
But can we be satisfied with the empirical solutions ? In
the first place, granting that it reduces a great number of
phenomena to unity, habit cannot explain itself ; it carries the
problem a step further back, but does not solve it. Can we
say that the mechanical theory offers any real solution ?
Mechanism implies elementary ideas, such as those of space
and time, of motion itself, and of the communication of motion,
concerning which it would be well first to be agreed. In his
Mdmoire sur V habitude Maine de Biran, who was then still a
sensationalist, admits that the hypotheses concerning the
cerebral mechanism are symbols by which thoughts become as
it were visible, rather than real explanations. Again, the
reduction of all things to habit is a contradiction. Habit is
an acquired thing. The term habit presupposes something
elemental, something absolute, or at least a distinction
between a being and its modes. To reduce everything to
habit would, if taken literally, mean to reduce everything to
nothing.
And this particular conclusion applies to all psychological
problems. We have seen empiricism offer in every case an
explanation which is useful and sufficient as regards the
concatenation of phenomena and the conditions under which
they are produced, but in every case we have also seen the
failure of empiricism to render a final explanation. For passivity
always implies activity, the external implies the internal,
mechanism implies spontaneity, the acquired implies the innate.
HABIT 389
If everything could l>e explained by the external, this external
would again imply something external to itself, that is to say
something else heside itself; and if we must always go in this
way from one thing to something else, we shall never reach
true being. We may therefore say of the whole of psychology
what we have just said of the theory of habit : to explain the
internal by the external, activity by passivity, spontaneity by
mechanical laws, the primitive by the acquired, is to explain
everything by nothing.
END OF VOLUME I.
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