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PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

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PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

IN HONOR OF

JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON

FORMER STUDENTS

IN THE SAGE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY

IN COMMEMORATION OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' SERVICE AS
TEACHER AND SCHOLAR

$fork

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1917

EDITOR

GEORGE HOLLAND SABINE

BY GEORGE HOLLAND SABINE

Published June, 1917.

QJo

JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON
TEACHER, SCHOLAR, FRIEND

THESE ESSAYS ARE DEDICATED

BY SOME OF HIS FORMER

STUDENTS AS A MARK OF

THEIR GRATITUDE

AND ESTEEM

PREFACE

I HAVE been asked to give a brief account of JAMES EDWIN
CREIGHTON as a teacher.

I deem it a privilege and it affords me genuine pleasure
to join his former students in this tribute to Professor
Creighton's work and worth.

The ideal professor to-day as always must be character
ized by genuine unworldliness. He is in the world, — and
the more he participates in the life of the world the fuller
and the more vital will his personality become. Yet he is
not of the world. The objects which most men pursue,—
material possessions, place, and power, — are not for him
the chief ends of existence. Intellectual development is
the aim and business of his life, — intellectual development
first in himself and then in others. In a world given over
largely and enthusiastically to other pursuits he stands for
the things of the mind. He realizes himself as a loyal mem
ber of the kingdom of ideas, of knowledge and science, of
truth and beauty. In Heine's phrase he is a knight of the
Holy Spirit.

Professor Creighton for a quarter of a century has em
bodied this spirit at Cornell University. He has not been
indifferent to the practical problems of university adminis
tration and business; he has taken his full share of that sort
of work in faculties and on committees; he has recognized
and asserted that even the highest functions of a university
may be conditioned by its income and endowments: but
he has always stressed and kept in the foreground ,the ideal
ism in which a real university lives and moves and has its
being. He has always seen clearly what the proper work
and function of the professor are, and that insight has fur
nished the regulative and dominating conception of all his
thought about colleges and universities. Such a man is an
invaluable asset to any university faculty. And that Pro-

viii PREFACE

fessor Creighton's colleagues at Cornell recognize his in
spiring leadership is manifest from their election of him as
Dean of the Graduate School, — that department in which
the spirit of the university touches the culmination of its
development.

It is very important to have sound views of the place and
function of the university in that complex whole which we
call human civilization. It is still more important to con
vert this intellectual apprehension into life and practice.
Now Professor Creighton has for many years seemed to me
one of the most dynamic and vital embodiments to be found
anywhere of the highest spirit of the modern university.
Others may have sought different objects, none of them
unworthy, as, for example, large classes, popularity, eco
nomic advantages, public recognition; but for him the
supreme aim and business of life has been growth in knowl
edge and thought and the stimulation of thinking in his
students. Others may have become discouraged from failure
to achieve their objects, but with him, the condition of
success being in himself, failure was impossible. Others
may have lost faith in the worth and the supremacy of the
intellectual life; he, always achieving inner growth, has
been a live coal on the altar of truth. His faith and the
faith of others like him among the teachers of Cornell Uni
versity has kept the institution, if not like Moses' bush
"aglow with God," at least with lamps filled and wicks
burning in preparation for the coming of a new and fuller
revelation of the Holy Spirit of Reason.

In the class room Professor Creighton's work has been
highly stimulating. He has had no desire for big numbers,
but his students include many of the ablest and most
thoughtful in the University. And for a not inconsiderable
proportion of them his work marks an epoch in their intel
lectual history. Sometimes Professor Creighton lectures,
oftener he practices the Socratic art of questioning, always he
sees to it that the students read, write, and think for them
selves. It is a serious business, — opening the eyes of the
mind, awakening reflection, bringing young persons to a new

PREFACE ix

consciousness of themselves, of the world which they per
ceive, and of the relation of both to the Infinite Reality on
which somehow both seem to depend, their being's source
and destiny. It is a high privilege and a deep responsibility
to traverse themes like these with aspiring and ingenuous
youth. Every one who knows him recognizes that Professor
Creighton, in the language of Scripture, has been ordained
and sanctified for this high calling. And his students, many
of whom are teachers scattered all over the Continent,
loyally and affectionately recognize the debt of gratitude
they owe him for stimulating them to venture on that self-
creative activity in which the highest intellectual develop
ment must always consist.

It was said of Dr. Arnold, the famous headmaster of
Rugby, who was also professor at Oxford, that his chief aim
as a teacher was to produce moral thoughtfulness in his
pupils. I think we may truthfully say that Professor Creigh-
ton's aim has been to develop in his students intellectual
seriousness as well. Perhaps, as the world is rational as
well as moral, there may not be so much real difference in
the aims of these two teachers as the verbal discrimination
implies. Be that as it may, I am sure that all former stu
dents of Professor Creighton will feel that I am correctly
voicing their sentiments in applying to him the words writ
ten of Dr. Arnold by his son in the beautiful memorial poem
entitled "Rugby Chapel":

And there are some, whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent,
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
******

But thou would'st not alone
Be saved, my father! alone
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary, and we
Fearful, and we in our march

x PREFACE

Fain to drop down and to die.
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.
******

Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.

That this "faithful shepherd" may for many years to
come continue at Cornell University those stimulating and
uplifting ministrations whose first two and a half decades
this volume commemorates, is a consummation devoutly
to be wished. That certainly is the hope and fervent desire
of our academic community, — of the teachers and students,
past and present, who know and appreciate the inspiring
service he renders and the ennobling influence he exerts.

JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS i

Ernest Albee, Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 26

Katherine Everett Gilbert.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 42

George Holland Sabine, Professor of Philosophy in the University
of Missouri.

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE: KANT 61

Radoslav Andrea Tsanoff, Professor of Philosophy in the Rice
Institute.

MILL AND COMTE 78

Nann Clark Barr, Instructor in Philosophy in the Connecticut
College for Women.

THE INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM OF ALFRED FOUILLEE 95

Alma Thorne Penney.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 112

Edgar Lenderson Hinman, Professor of Philosophy in the Uni
versity of Nebraska.

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 133

G.|Watts Cunningham, Professor of Philosophy in Middlebury
College.

TIME AND THE LOGIC OF MONISTIC IDEALISM 151

Joseph Alexander Leighton, Professor of Philosophy in the Ohio
State University.

THE DATUM 162

Walter Bowers Pillsbury, Professor of Psychology in the Univer
sity of Michigan.

THE LIMITS OF THE PHYSICAL 175

Grace Andrus de Laguna, Associate Professor of Philosophy in
Bryn Mawr College.

Is THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 184

Henry Wilkes Wright, Professor of Philosophy in Lake Forest
College.

xii CONTENTS

PAGE

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 202

Alfred H. Jones, Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Brown
University.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 214

Edmund H. Hollands, Professor of Philosophy in the University
of Kansas.

PRAGMATISM AND THE CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF TRUTH 229

Ellen Bliss Talbot, Professor of Philosophy in Mount Holyoke
College.

IDEA AND ACTION 245

E. Jordan, Professor of Philosophy in Butler College.

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING 266

Harvey Gates Townsend, Associate Professor of Education in
Smith College.

SELFHOOD 277

Emil Carl Wilm, Professor of Philosophy in Boston University.

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 290

Robert Morris Ogden, Professor of Education in Cornell Univer
sity.

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING 307

John Wallace Baird, Professor of Psychology in Clark University.

THE RELATION OF PUNISHMENT TO DISAPPROBATION 318

Theodore de Laguna, Professor of Philosophy in Bryn Mawr
College.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION: A CRITIQUE 328

Edward L. Schaub, Professor of Philosophy in Northwestern
University.

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

THE CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES IN SPINOZA'S

ETHICS

ERNEST ALBEE

THE consistency of Spinoza's philosophical system has
been very differently rated, on the whole, by the earlier and
by at least some of the later critics. Of course it was long
before his philosophy received anything like fair criticism
at all, on account of odium theologicum; but then most ac
credited critics tended to over-emphasize the supposed in
exorable logic of Spinoza's procedure, while looking askance
at his premises and deprecating his conclusions. An in
stance of this was Jacobi's extravagant statement that one
could not be said to understand Spinoza at all, if a single line
of the Ethics remained unclear. On the other hand, Professor
Erhardt, in his comparatively recent and very able critical!
work on Spinoza,1 is willing that we should regard the
philosopher as a thinker of the first class only on condition
that we clearly recognize that the system itself is distinctly ,
second class.

It is a little hard to see how the general belief in Spinoza's
thoroughgoing consistency arose, — probably the earlier
critics were imposed upon by the external and essentially
misleading form of mathematical demonstration, as there is
some reason to suppose that Spinoza himself was, — but if we
should find ourselves obliged even to reverse the former
estimate and regard his system as one of the most incon
sistent, instead of the most consistent, of the important
systems in modern philosophy, this would not necessarily
reduce Spinoza himself to the rank of a second-rate thinker.

1 Die Philosophie des Spinoza im Lichte der Kritik, Leipzig, 1908.

2 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

The great fault of a mediocre thinker usually is that, having
been born with a capacity for only the narrowest vision, he
hits upon some one category or set of categories, and then
either employs his one method recklessly for all purposes or
obstinately refuses to take into consideration the many sides
of experience to which his method obviously does not apply.
In the latter case, he may attain to a considerable degree of
consistency, but at the expense of truth in the larger and
more vital sense. Spinoza's fault was plainly the opposite:
standing almost at the threshold of technical modern philos
ophy, he had a dazzling vision of the world as a knowable
totality; but, when he came to work out his system in detail,
when he came to deal with the most various aspects and
implications of experience on the assumption that they must
all contribute to our comprehension of reality as a unified
whole, he more or less unconsciously employed and in an
important sense helped to develop various categories, which,
however valid within their own sphere of relevance, could by
no means be employed in the sweeping way that Spinoza
did actually employ them without serious danger of conflict
v or even of essential contradiction.

The first category that we meet with in Spinoza's Ethics
will have to be treated with rather scant courtesy, even
though it be the traditional conception of ^substance': (i)
because it seems, if not obsolete, at any rate decidedly ob
solescent; but more particularly (2) because we are here
concerned primarily, not with the validity of the category
itself, but rather with its logical significance for Spinoza's
characteristic treatment of the problems of ethics. It must
be frankly acknowledged that the well-worn formula, "The
order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and
connection of things," was a good deal more than a mere
catchword for early rationalism of the Cartesian type, though
it would be a wild and illiterate interpretation to assume that
this was merely a typical case of the fallacy of 'representa
tive perceptionism.' We are not so much concerned with the
fact that reality itself is here regarded as a quasi-logical
order, with which the order and connection of our ideas, so

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 3

far as logical, may well correspond, as with the fact that we
are here confronted with the fundamental assumption of a
logical and an ontological prius: for all truth there must
be an ultimate logical ground; for all reality, a correspond
ing ontological prius. This was the characteristic procedure
of rationalism of the Cartesian type, when it had been re
duced to logically consistent form, as by Spinoza. Leibniz,
indeed, profoundly modified this method by his conception
of the world as a system of unique but interrelated sub
stances; but even he held firmly to the belief in certain
logical * first truths,' which were supposed to be such in
their own right, so that they would hold equally well in a
world fundamentally different in its actual constitution
from this present existing one.

But we are here concerned only with Spinoza's concep
tion of an ultimate Substance, which he calls indifferently
Deus sive Natura. And, for the present purpose, we may
safely omit all consideration of the well-known technical
difficulties involved in the important distinction between
Natura naturans (God and his * attributes') and Natura
naturata (God and his ' modes'). The really important
consideration is, that substance is regarded as that which
can exist in itself, while everything besides substance must
exist in or by reason of something else. Here we find, in its
baldest form, the conception of the logical and ontological
prius, always tending to emerge in this type of early ra
tionalism. Moreover, it is explicitly stated, — what in any
case would be logically implied, — that, in the case of sub
stance as here conceived, any determination would be a
negation.1 So much for substance, whether the attributes
be taken as subjective or objective in their ultimate signif
icance, and, at this distance, it is not difficult to see that
the Erdmann-Fischer controversy on this question was
largely irrelevant; for, if "the order and connection of ideas
is the same as the order and connection of things [reality],"
the attributes must be both subjective and objective. For

1 The contrary logic of Leibniz' conception of substance is worth notic
ing in this connection.

4 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

want of a better name, I shall call this assumption the pos
tulate of ' logical parallelism.' - It is highly convenient to
have a label, for we shall soon encounter another postulate,
equally important for Spinoza, which cannot be reconciled
with this.

Now the question naturally arises, whether substance,
in this sense, is a legitimate principle of explanation at all,
or merely the hypostatization of the conception of ultimate
logical ground. At any rate, we are confronted with the
apparently contradictory ideals of an absolutely indeter
minate substance, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
a world in some sense determined in infinitum. The mys
terious transition from the one point of view to the other
is apparent. The world regarded as absolutely determined,
in some as yet undefined sense, finds its ultimate ground in
substance; while the only thing that we are supposed really
to know about substance is that, in its true nature, if such
an expression be permissible, it is absolutely indeterminate.
The infinites of mathematics are now held to be amenable
to strictly scientific treatment; but the Absolute is more
refractory, particularly when taken abstractly as that which
exists 'in itself.'

The first fifteen propositions of Part I of the Ethics prac
tically amount only to a more comprehensive definition of
substance as ultimate ground. In_J^roposition xvi we are
told: "From the necessity of the divine nature must follow
an infinite number of things in infinite ways — that is, all
things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect." 1
This reminds one too much of the crude and literal inter
pretation of the logic of chance, according to which all
computations would actually be realized in an infinite series.
But it is more pertinent to remark that this is the very

1 Vol. II, p. 59 of the Elwes translation of Spinoza's ' Chief Works,'
which will be followed in quotations. Page references will also be to this
translation. The White-Stirling translation might have been preferred for
quotations, except for certain peculiarities of philosophical terminology,
which make it inconvenient for the purpose. The Van Vloten and Land
text of the original is, of course, taken as standard.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES

opposite of any intelligible application of/the conception
of logical ground: nothing (in) particular is here regarded
as the ultimate ground of everything in particular. Of
course we are not disposing of the Absolute thus' easily;
the conception of the Absolute and the Finite as essential
correlatives gives rise to problems that we cannot even
glance at here. On the other hand, the Absolute as the
In-Itself, upon which all that is finite depends, while it
exists in happy unconcern of the Finite in all its practically
infinite specific manifestations, is already discredited. That
this is not an imaginary difficulty will be seen from Proposi
tion xxix, the 'caption' of which reads: "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." l In other words, the world con
sidered as Natura naturata, with its endless relativity and
complete determinateness, is referred to Natura naturans,
where any determination would be a negation, — apart from
the differentiation of the ' attributes' themselves, presum
ably an illogical exception.

The famous Appendix to Part I of the Ethics, in which
Spinoza seems to dispose summarily, not only of all anthro
pomorphic conceptions of (Divine) Final Cause, but of all •
moral values as well, is less important than would appear,
for the absolute determinism apparently contended for is
not as yet referred to any intelligible logical ground or
practical category.2

It is different when we pass to Part II, "Of the Nature and
Origin of the Mind." Here we find the original form of the
theory of parallelism, although the motive of the philosopher
in developing this conception was presumably metaphysical
rather than scientific. The assumption of an infinite number
of attributes, — as if anything less than an infinite number
would be unworthy of the 'infinite essentiality' of God,—
we may, of course, pass over as irrelevant: the only attributes
that we know of are Thought and Extension, and to these

1 P. 68.

2 This whole problem will be considered later in another context.

6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

alone, naturally, Spinoza devotes his attention. The two
'substances' of Descartes are simply degraded to * attri
butes' or aspects of the one only Substance, Deus sive Natura;
and the assumption is, that any mode of substance is neces
sarily manifested on the plane of both attributes and with
equal adequacy. Like most ontological explanations, this one
is lacking in real cogency; for Spinoza pays the price of prac
tical dualism for the theoretical satisfaction of maintaining
an ontological monism. At any rate, however, he has a real
working hypothesis at last, even if we must regard the met
aphysical justification of this hypothesis as questionable.
But it will soon appear that he has adopted a hard task
master. He has evaded, rather than solved, the difficult
philosophical problem regarding the relations between mind
and body; and, in adopting this standpoint of parallelism,
convenient and legitimate for many practical purposes of
science, so long as it is not taken in a metaphysical sense,
he has cut off all possibility of consistently maintaining, in
the logical sense, the original and fundamental postulate,
that "the order and connection of ideas is the same as the
order and connection of things/' — a postulate crude enough
in its original formulation, but in some sense true, if thought
is able to cope with reality at all, — and, what is even more
important from the point of view of the present inquiry,
he has adopted a principle which can never so much as per
mit a serious consideration of moral values, however uncon
ventionally regarded. Physical and mental processes do
factually correspond, and that is the end of the matter.
For convenience, I shall call this assumption the postulate
of 'psycho-physical parallelism,' in spite of the unfortu
nately modern sound of the term; for it suggests both the
possible legitimate application and the inevitable limitation
of the sphere of application of this category.

It must be remembered that what is attempted here is a
logical analysis and criticism of Spinoza's procedure, not a
running summary of his actual treatment of the problems
examined. The bulk of Part II is devoted to the con
sideration of metaphysical and logical problems, although

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 7

the postulate of ' psycho-physical parallelism,' as I have
ventured to call it, assumed throughout this Part, is really
relevant only to the psychological method. The result
ing confusion of metaphysical, logical, and psychological
problems hardly need detain us; for the really essential
matter, from the point of view of ethics, is, that Spinoza
here first develops, in intelligible form, the conception of
a thoroughgoing quasi-physical determinism, which would
really be as fatal to a satisfactory treatment of theory of
knowledge as to a satisfactory treatment of ethics itself.

Proposition xxxvi reveals the essential difficulty. The
' caption' reads: "Inadequate and confused ideas follow by
the same necessity as adequate or clear and distinct ideas." x
"Inadequate and confused ideas" may or may not follow
i necessarily'; but it is fair to assume that they do not
"follow by the same necessity as adequate or clear and dis
tinct ideas," if there be such a thing as truth at all. This is
simply a case of the confusion of categories. That Spinoza
himself saw no difficulty here is sufficiently evident from
the fact that he first explicitly states the postulate of
* logical parallelism' in this Part, which is dominated, on
the whole, by the postulate of 'psycho-physical parallelism.'
In truth, it is difficult to escape the belief that the first
formula is sometimes understood in an ambiguous sense by
Spinoza, so that it answers equally well to express the logic
ally distinct postulates of 'logical' and 'psycho-physical par
allelism.'

It is generally assumed that in Part III of the Ethics, "On
the Origin and Nature of the Emotions," Spinoza's problem
is almost wholly scientific, though it is plain from the start
that he proposes to use his results in the interest of his ethical
theory. It must be admitted that he himself says, at the
close of his preliminary observations : " I shall consider human
actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I
were concerned with lines, planes, and solids." 2 And yet,
the 'caption' of Proposition i reads: "Our mind is in cer
tain cases active, and in certain cases passive. In so far
1 P. 109. 2 p. I29>

8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

as it has adequate ideas, it is necessarily active, and in so
far as it has inadequate ideas, it is necessarily passive."
This distinction, all-important for both Spinoza's theory of
knowledge and his ethical theory, as will presently appear,
is plainly out of place in the present connection, where the
explanations are doubtless intended to be causal in the sense
of ordinary science.

The preliminary definitions of pleasure and pain are con
fusing, because, taken literally, as they sometimes are by
popular commentators, they seem to imply that all emo
tions are ' passions/ a position perhaps compatible with
the characteristic standpoint of psychology, but which, if
accepted in the ultimate sense, would make Spinoza's ethical
theory (and, for that matter, any real ethical theory) im
possible. These definitions, as given in the 'note' to Prop
osition xi, are as follows: "By pleasure ... in the fol
lowing propositions I shall signify a passive state wherein the
mind passes to a greater perfection. By pain I shall signify
a passive state wherein the mind passes to a lesser perfection" 1
Desire has been defined already as "appetite with conscious
ness thereof"; and Spinoza adds: "Beyond these three
[pleasure, pain, desire] I recognize no other primary emo
tion," — a simplification that is supposed to be a radical im
provement upon Descartes. Spinoza's matter of fact ex
planation of the origin of the passions, — which has often
been over-praised, but which must always be treated respect
fully as an interesting pioneer attempt in a difficult field,—
need not detain us in so far as it is merely a psychological
explanation, good or bad in the scientific sense; but the cross
currents of the argument need watching. The first part of
the 'note' to Proposition xxxix reads: "By good I here
mean every kind of pleasure, and all that conduces thereto,
especially that which satisfies our longings, whatsoever they
may be. By evil I mean every kind of pain, especially that
which frustrates our longings." In this particular case, the
context seems to imply that this is only a provisional defini
tion; and so it must emphatically be regarded, for in his

1 P. 138.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 9

treatment of ethics proper Spinoza is as far as possible from
holding to ' quantitative hedonism/ though he is equally
far from subscribing to any form of mere asceticism. The
confusion is made worse by the contrary implication of
Proposition LVI, the ' caption ' of which reads: "There are as
many kinds of pleasure, of pain, of desire, and of every emo
tion compounded of these, ... as there are kinds of objects
whereby we are affected." l

But the transition from the (predominantly) psychological
to the (predominantly) ethical point of view takes place
suddenly enough in the next proposition but one (Prop.
LVIII): "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." And Proposition LIX reads: "Among all the emo
tions attributable to the mind as active, there are none which
cannot be referred to pleasure or desire."

Here, then, at the end of Spinoza's (mainly) psychological
treatment of the emotions, as given in Part III, we are in a
position to look forward as well as back. The main drift of
the argument has been that our emotions are as susceptible
of causal explanation as are any of the other phenomena of
nature. From this point of view, of course, it makes no real
difference whether the mind is determined by 'adequate'
or by * inadequate' ideas; the all-important consideration
is that it is always determined, not 'free.' But, from the
point of view of logic and theory of knowledge, as well as
from the point of view of ethics, it makes every difference
whether we are 'active' (determined by adequate ideas)

1 P. 168.

2 P. 171. It should be noted that cupiditatem is translated 'pain' by
Elwes, not 'desire,' as in the above corrected translation. Of course
this is only 'a slip of the pen' in the literal sense of the words (the text
used is not at fault in this case); but it should be noted that, whereas the
emotions which are 'passions' are variously explainable in terms of
pleasure, pain, and desire, according to Spinoza, pain cannot be involved
in the case of the emotions which are 'activities' as opposed to 'pas
sions,' for pain goes with 'passivity' alone. The meaning of 'activity'
and 'passivity,' as understood by Spinoza, will be more evident later.

io PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

or * passive' (determined by inadequate ideas). Not that
we are ever determined by ideas as such, whether ' adequate'
or 'inadequate,' — for Spinoza realizes that the mind func
tions as a whole, — but we are as capable of being determined
by emotions inseparably connected with our intellectual
nature as we are of being determined by emotions that are
mere ' passions.' Hence the possibility of truth and free
dom, though the consideration of these problems carries us
far beyond the ordinary point of view of psychology.

In turning to Parts IV and V, we are prepared to find
Spinoza's direct treatment of the problems of ethics, sup
posed to be based upon the foundations already laid. The
titles are sufficiently descriptive of the main trend of the
argument: it will be remembered that Part IV is "Of Human
Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions;" Part V, "Of
the Power of the Understanding, or of Human Freedom."
Even from the beginning of Spinoza's argument (in Part IV),
however, confusion is apparent to the careful reader. He
first practically recapitulates the drift of the argument of
the Appendix to Part I. 'Perfection' and 'imperfection'
are purely relative and human designations; the standard
is always a preconceived idea, traceable to some subjective
desire on the part of him who evaluates. As in the previous
form of the same argument, Spinoza holds that "the eternal
and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the
same necessity as that whereby it exists." x Accordingly,
"a cause which is called final is nothing else but human
desire, in so far as it is considered as the origin or cause of
anything." The reason why this fundamental truth is not
generally recognized is that "men are generally ignorant of
the causes of their desires." This brief argument requires a
little dissection; the last part is plainly a reaffirmation of the
position previously taken by Hobbes, that all so-called
'final' causes are reducible to terms of 'efficient' causes.
But what was consistent for Hobbes, who regarded mechan
ism as the ultimate category, was plainly inconsistent for
Spinoza, whose whole procedure tends to reduce what we

1 P. 188.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES II

ordinarily mean by 'efficient' causality to terms of logical
ground and consequent. We are not yet concerned with the
question whether freedom can be provided for in Spinoza's
system: we are merely bound to recognize that the possibil
ity of freedom cannot be brushed aside in the name of
mechanism, unless Spinoza is prepared to recognize mech
anism as the ultimate category. The 'necessary existence'
of God, from which the mechanical 'necessity' of natural
events is supposed to derive, is of course to be understood
as a logical and ontological necessity, and therefore as on
an entirely different plane.

Again, as in the Appendix to Part I, Spinoza holds that
the terms 'good' and 'bad' "are merely modes of think
ing, or notions which we form from the comparison of one
thing with another." "For instance, music is good for
him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him
that is deaf, it is neither good nor bad." But this is a puz
zling introduction to what follows, for we are immediately
told that these terms should be retained. The philosopher
says: "In what follows, then, I shall mean by 'good' that
which we certainly know to be a means of approaching more
nearly to the type of human nature, which we have set before
ourselves; by 'bad,' that which we certainly know to be a
hindrance to us in approaching the said type." l This sounds
as dogmatic on the side of constructive ethical theory as the
preceding passages had been to the contrary effect, and the
same tone is preserved in the 'Definitions.' There Spinoza
says: "By good I mean that which we certainly know to be
useful to us." And again: "By evil I mean that which we
certainly know to be a hindrance to us in the attainment
of any good." His manner of justifying our 'certainty'
as to what is good or bad for us in the ethical sense will be
considered in due time. Here we need only notice that
Spinoza has already turned his back upon all points of view
which rule out ethical evaluations as subjective and illusory.
This means an essential reversal of what had before seemed
to be his attitude toward the problem of morality.

1 P. 189.

12 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

The general standpoint of Part IV, "Of Human Bondage,
or the Strength of the Emotions," presents no special dif
ficulty, at any rate so long as we confine ourselves to the
attempt to understand Spinoza's own position. From his
point of view, it is useless to discuss human conduct on the
basis of abstract ideals conventionally accepted. We must
begin by definitely recognizing our human limitations, and
that means regarding man, from one point of view at least,
as a part of the order of nature, "infinitely surpassed by
the power of external causes" (Prop. in). And he adds:
"It is impossible, that man should not be a part of Nature,
or that he should be capable of undergoing no changes, save
such as can be understood through his nature only as their
adequate cause" (Prop. iv). In other words, the power
of mere passion is not our own power, but rather that of
external causes, for here we are by definition 'passive' or
'in bondage.' And we must not look for release to 'rea
son,' abstractly considered. Later rationalistic moralists
might well have given more heed to Spinoza's frank ac
knowledgment: "An emotion can only be controlled or
destroyed by another emotion contrary thereto, and with
more power for controlling emotion" (Prop. vn). This is
reenforced by the later statement: "A true knowledge of
good and evil cannot check any emotion by virtue of being
true, but only in so far as it is considered as an emotion"
(Prop, xi v).1

It will soon appear that Part IV is not by any means
wholly or mainly devoted to a consideration of "Human
Bondage." In the 'note' to the proof of Proposition xvui,
Spinoza says: "In these few remarks I have explained the
causes of human infirmity and inconstancy, and shown why
men do not abide by the precepts of reason. It now re
mains for me to show what course is marked out for us by
reason, which of the emotions are in harmony with the rules
of human reason, and which of them are contrary thereto."
And he anticipates his further argument by showing in a
general way that "reason makes no demands contrary to

1 P. 198.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 13

nature." After insisting upon the necessity of self-preserva
tion in terms that suggest Hobbes, he concludes in a differ
ent spirit: "Therefore, to man there is nothing more useful
than man — nothing, I repeat, more excellent for preserving
their being can be wished for by men, than that all should
so in all points agree, that the minds and bodies of all should
form, as it were, one single mind and one single body, and
that all should, with one consent, as far as they are able,
endeavor to preserve their being, and all with one consent
seek what is useful to them all." 1

In the argument that follows, Spinoza endeavors to ex
plain the function of reason in the moral life. If the de
tailed treatment of this problem leaves a good deal to be
desired, as judged by the more exacting technical standards
of to-day, it should always be remembered that our philoso
pher was the first great rationalistic moralist in the sense
of modern philosophy, and that, when he finally comes to
deal with the special problems of ethics, he shows far greater
consistency and real philosophical grasp than in the first
three Parts of the Ethics. In other words, Spinoza was not
merely a great pioneer in ethical theory, but a pioneer who
instinctively avoided many of the mistakes that we have
come to regard as characteristic of the procedure of later
rationalists. In spite of certain infelicities of expression,
he always tends to regard reason as internally regulative
rather than as externally legislative. For example, he says:
"In so far as men are assailed by emotions which are pas
sions, they can be contrary one to another" (Prop, xxxiv);
whereas, "In so far only as men live in obedience to reason,
do they always necessarily agree in nature" (Prop. xxxv).
This may sound commonplace enough; but the meaning,
plain from the context, is, that the true difference between
the life of unregulated passion and the life of reason is not
the difference between being determined by feeling alone
and being determined by reason alone, — both obvious
impossibilities, — but rather the difference between being
determined by 'external causes' ('bondage'), where the

1 P. 202.

I4 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

internal rational control is perhaps at a minimum, and
being determined by emotions that themselves bear witness
to the internally organizing agency of reason (' freedom').
"The highest good of those who follow virtue is common
to all, and therefore all can equally rejoice therein" (Prop.
xxxvi). The harmony suggested is not an externally
arranged harmony, 'preestablished' in the bad sense, but
a harmony developing from within in proportion as the
emotional life is organized in terms of reason.

And Spinoza's ethical ideal, exacting as it will prove to be
in some respects, is singularly free from that rigorism for its
own sake that has done so much to discredit some of the
later forms of rationalistic theory. Though not the end
directly to be sought, "pleasure in itself is not bad but
good: contrariwise, pain in itself is bad" (Prop. XLI). In
deed, one is not likely to forget the rather quaint remark
made in a later 'note' (appended to Prop. XLV) : "I
say it is the part of a wise man to refresh and recreate
himself with moderate and pleasant food and drink, and
also with perfumes, with the soft beauty of growing plants,
with dress, with music, with many sports, with theatres,
and the like, such as every man may make use of without
injury to his neighbor." 1 There is no word of disparage
ment here or elsewhere in the Ethics for the commonly
recognized 'good things of life,' which the philosopher
himself sacrificed so cheerfully for freedom and the higher
'blessed life.' 2

The often quoted theses that "Pity, in a man who lives
under the guidance of reason, is in itself bad and useless"
(Prop. L); that "Humility is not a virtue, or does not arise

1 P. 219.

2 The difference between the tone that Spinoza adopts here and that
which he had employed in the Improvement of the Understanding and,
still more, in the earlier Short Treatise, is too obvious to require more
than passing mention. Of course this does not mean on the part of Spinoza
the concession of anything essential, but merely the broadening of his
moral point of view; nobody could have understood better that, when
the hour strikes, sacrifice (as regarded from the finite point of view) may
have to be absolute.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 15

from reason" (Prop. LIII); and that "Repentance is not a
virtue, or does not arise from reason; but he who repents of
an action is doubly wretched or infirm" (Prop. LIV), lose
much of their apparently paradoxical character, if we re
member that in each case Spinoza is speaking of mere emo
tions, unregulated by reason, which, therefore, according
to his view, belong to the * passive' as opposed to the * ac
tive' side of our human nature. In all three cases he recog
nizes that, "as men seldom live under the guidance of rea
son," these passions do more good than harm.1 Of course
this is not to say that the philosopher really takes the con
ventional attitude toward these distinctively Christian
emotions; but it will be best to pass on at once to what will
be found to be the key to his position.

Many misconceptions of Spinoza's meaning, at this the
crucial point of his argument, would have been avoided, if
more attention had been paid to Proposition LIX: "To
all the actions, whereto we are determined by emotion
wherein the mind is passive, we can be determined without
passive emotion [dbsque eo] by reason." This is very
badly expressed (in the ambiguous original text), but we
need not be in doubt as to the philosopher's meaning. It
will be remembered that Proposition vu of this Part reads:
"An emotion can only be controlled or destroyed by another
emotion contrary thereto, and with more power for con
trolling emotion." Spinoza never forsakes this position,
which fact differentiates his ethical method from most of
later ethical rationalism. At first, it might seem to commit
him to some form of determinism of the purely ' naturalis
tic' type, which would rule out any further consideration

1P.223.

2 It is unfortunate that this very important passage should have been
mistranslated in both the Elwes and the White-Stirling versions. Elwes
translates the last clause: "... we can be determined without emotion
by reason" (Vol. II, p. 227); the White-Stirling translation reads: "...
we may, without the affect, be determined by reason" (Second edition,
p. 228). The original text is ambiguous because elliptical, and the trans
lations criticised are grammatically possible, but philosophically they
mean the opposite of what Spinoza certainly meant.

1 6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

of the problem of moral 'freedom.' But this is not the
case: even in the 'note' appended to his original definition
of 'emotion' at the beginning of Part III, Spinoza says:
"If we can be the adequate cause of any of these modifica
tions [of body and mind, involved in emotion], I then call
the emotion an activity, otherwise I call it a passion, or
state wherein the mind is passive." 1 In other words, not
all 'emotions' are 'passions'; those most often so called are
doubtless such, and, as such, are due mainly to 'external
causes' (i. e., they constitute our 'bondage'); but the
emotions that not only accompany, but also help to sustain,
our rational comprehension of things in their essential rela
tions are not 'passive,' — rather are they 'activities' and
constitute the only possible dynamic of the truly moral life.
Our 'passions,' in Spinoza's technical sense (where we
simply give way to strong feeling), are not only signs of our
'bondage,' but actual links in our chains, while our 'active'
emotions, already bearing witness to the organizing activity
of reason, are our only hope of 'freedom' and our only
promise of the 'blessed life.'

Such, then, are the very important implications of Prop
osition LIX. The immediately following propositions are
consistent enough with what precedes and wholly worthy
of consideration, but they are hardly more than a clumsy
introduction to Proposition LXVII: "A free man _thinks of
death least of all things; and his wisdonTls^a"lneditation not
of death but of life." 2 Here, then, practically at the end
of the Part of the Ethics ostensibly devoted to a considera
tion of "Human Bondage," we find the key-note of all that
is best and most profoundly true in Spinoza's ethical theory.
Perhaps this is the only perfect expression of "The Ever
lasting Yea"; certainly Carlyle's famous chapter with that
title in his best known book is shrill and inadequate in com
parison.

It will be seen that Spinoza's conception of moral ' ac
tivity' or 'freedom,' as opposed to non-moral or immoral
'passivity' or 'bondage,' has already been indicated in a
1 P. 130. 2P. 232.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 17

general way in Part IV, "Of Human Bondage, or the
Strength of the Emotions." It is equally plain, however,
that we must look to the concluding Part V, "Of the Power
of the Understanding, or of Human Freedom," for both
the further development and the vindication of Spinoza's
ethical theory. The philosopher's mode of approach to his
fundamental problem is not wholly reassuring. The Preface
is mainly devoted to a rather acute criticism of Descartes'
failure to reconcile his sweeping indeterminism with the
necessary demands of the mechanical theory, to which (as
was natural for its author) Descartes himself attributed an
almost ontological character. But Spinoza begins (Prop, i)
by reasserting what I have ventured to call the hypothesis
of 'psycho-physical parallelism' in the most uncompromis
ing terms: "Even as thoughts and the ideas of things are
arranged and associated in the mind, so are the modifica
tions of body or the images of things precisely in the same
way arranged and associated in the body." l We have
already seen that, taken as ultimately true, this postulate
conflicts with that other one called for convenience the
postulate of 'logical parallelism' (i. <?., "The order and
connection of ideas is the same as the order and connec
tion of things"); for plainly it is one thing to assert the
merely factual one to one correspondence of certain mental
processes and their physiological (perhaps ultimately physi
cal) correlates, and quite another thing to assume that the
world-order is a quasi-logical order such that, in the last re
sort, cause and effect reduce to logical ground and conse
quent.

It is equally clear that one cannot at the same time and
for the same purpose hold to the postulate of ' psycho-
physical parallelism' and entertain even such a concep
tion of moral ( freedom' as Spinoza himself is bound to
contend for. This is simply another confusion of two dis
tinct problems and correspondingly distinct methods. But
almost immediately we come to a proposition (Prop, in)
which is ambiguous and has led to much discussion: "An

1 P. 247.

1 8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon
as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof." Here we must
put ourselves in Spinoza's place, if we would understand
him. It is, of course, a commonplace of modern psychology
that it is difficult to deal with the emotions introspectively,
since, in proportion as we become interested in the scientific
problem, the emotion in question is bound to disappear.
It is fair to assume that Spinoza, who presumably knew
little or nothing of the technical difficulties of introspective
psychology, is not here merely turning to the advantage of
ethics a law of our mental life that tends to thwart psychol
ogy. On the other hand, nothing can be said for the popular
misconception that Spinoza wished to rule out or transcend
the life of feeling altogether in the interest of moral develop
ment, and that, in this proposition, he is merely pointing
in that direction. The fact seems to be that, although the
philosopher has just reaffirmed the naturalistic postulate
of ' psycho-physical parallelism,' the distinction which he
has in mind is essentially ethical rather than psychological.
For psychology, as for science in general, there is no * bet
ter' or ' worse'; here the implied distinction is that between
mere 'passion' (non-moral or immoral) and that 'active'
life of feeling where the organizing and transforming agency
of reason is to be found. The one spells 'bondage,' which,
as moral beings, we are trying to put behind us; the other,
that 'freedom' which is our only hope.

The 'corollary' to this proposition helps to explain
Spinoza's meaning: "An emotion, therefore, becomes more
under our control, and the mind is less passive in respect to
it, in proportion as it is more known to us." Robbed of
their mystery and seen in their proper context, even our
strongest passions cease to be mere 'passions'; and, speak
ing generally, our emotional life is capable of becoming
progressively organized, and therefore 'active,' in pro
portion as we understand better our relations to our fellow
men and to the world-order as a whole. As Spinoza remarks
in the 'note' to the next proposition, "all appetites or
desires are only passions, in so far as they spring from in-

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 19

adequate ideas; the same results are accredited to virtue,
when they are aroused or generated by adequate ideas." 1
And he characteristically adds (Prop, vi) : "The mind has
greater power over the emotions and is less subject thereto,
in so far as it understands all things as necessary." 2

After attempting to indicate more in detail the principles
involved in this progressive organization of the emotions,
Spinoza proceeds to expound his conception of the ultimate
synthesis. Proposition xv reads: "He who clearly and
distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God,
and so much the more in proportion as he more understands
himself and his emotions." 3 And the following proposition
reads: "This love towards God must hold the chief place
in the mind." While this ideal of 'the intellectual love of
God/ taken as representing our supreme duty and, at the
same time, as pointing the only way to the ' blessed life,'
presents many difficulties, we are not here primarily con
cerned with the metaphysical issues involved and still less
with their bearing upon popular religion. It must be frankly
admitted that this apparent identification of the intellectual
and the religious experience, when both are taken at their
highest, hardly corresponds to any easily recognizable
trend of recent thought.4 Certain of the more ambitious

* P. 249.

2 P. 250. It will be remembered that there is a serious ambiguity in
Spinoza's conception of 'necessity,' but here he need not necessarily
be understood as meaning more than that the world may and must be
regarded as a knowable order.

3 R 2?5'.

4 In his interesting address on "The Real University," delivered at the

opening of Columbia University last autumn and published in the Educa
tional Review, November, 1916, Professor Seligman says: "To many, . . .
especially in this audience, the only church is the laboratory; the only
religion is science." (P. 327.) This passing remark is quoted, not be
cause it really indicates the speaker's own point of view (for he suggests
the necessary qualifications), but because it illustrates a popular use of
language that is rather misleading unless it is clearly recognized as figura
tive. Of course an investigator in physics or chemistry might take a
personal attitude of self-devotion, etc., toward his science that would
have something in common with what is ordinarily meant by the religious

20 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

flights of Absolute Idealism might perhaps be cited as a
contemporary parallel, but the relevance of the comparison
would largely disappear when the necessary qualifications
were made.1 But, on the other hand, what may well seem
foreign and dubious to us doubtless seemed plainly inevitable
to Spinoza : no attempt at an ultimate solution of the ethico-
religious problem could have seemed to him more in accord
with his general standpoint and method. The fatal difficulty
is that his characteristic standpoint and method involved
that very confusion of categories to an examination of
which this article has been devoted.

We must clearly recognize that, while Spinoza avoided
the highly abstract ethical rationalism that was soon to be
developed, and that was bound sooner or later to put ra
tionalism itself at a needless disadvantage as a possible
ethical method, he was, after all, a dogmatic rationalist.

attitude; at the same time, the fact remains that scientific procedure itself
is as impersonal as the religious experience proper is bound to be personal
(certain of William James's more paradoxical arguments to the contrary
notwithstanding). That anything in our experience can be merely 'per
sonal' or merely ' impersonal,' the writer would, of course, be the first
to deny. So much for the figure of speech; if, on the other hand, it were
conceivable that a scientific investigator should make a 'religion' of
science to the extent of recognizing no human obligations or minimum
limits of common decency, he would naturally be shut up, — the question
whether he were criminal or merely insane, hard perhaps to settle, would
after all be a relatively academic one. Perhaps more relevant to the
main discussion is the remark of Carlyle that "the man who had mas
tered the first forty-seven propositions of Euclid stood nearer to God
than he had done before." (Quoted by John Nichol in his volume on
Carlyle, "English Men of Letters" series, p. 20.) If Carlyle had really
meant this and lived up to it, he would have been elucidating Spinoza's
meaning rather than propounding a paradox.

1 There is no surer way of misunderstanding Spinoza than by assuming
that he was a premature Absolute Idealist. He was an Absolutist, of
course, but a good deal of water flowed under the philosophical bridge
during the next century and a quarter, or more. Lest this be thought a
criticism in particular of Mr. Joachim's already classic Study of the Ethics
of Spinoza (1901), the writer begs to admit that he has learned as much
from this admirable book, which he cannot follow in all respects, as from
any one commentary.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 21

His earlier statements as to the inevitable relativity of
moral conceptions must not be allowed to confuse us on this
point; for in the passages referred to he was really insisting
upon the * necessity' of the world-order from the point of
view of mechanism, provisionally assumed as an ultimate
account of the structure of the world as knowable. Here,
when discussing the moral problem, he has unconsciously,
if not consciously, shifted his point of view. The moral
order is still regarded as, in a sense, 'necessary,' but the
' necessity' contended for is moral and not physical or
quasi-physical necessity. Even when Spinoza was about
to consider "Human Bondage," the Good, it will be remem
bered, was defined as "that which we certainly know to be
useful to us," while evil was correspondingly defined as
"that which we certainly know to be a hindrance to us in
the attainment of any good." What we call 'early ra
tionalism' was for Spinoza simply another name for philoso
phy itself; and he naturally assumed that the rationalistic
method was as applicable to the problems of ethics as to
those of metaphysics. The real alternatives for him were
ethical rationalism of the most thoroughgoing type and
theological superstition, which he regarded as the enemy
to be defeated at all hazards. This explains why he so
readily takes refuge in what might seem the partly mystical
conception of 'the intellectual love of God.' For him the
only 'free' or 'active,' and therefore ethically or reli
giously worthy, 'love of God' must needs be this 'intel
lectual love,' since all other love for Him could only be a
'passion,' ultimately due to superstition. That religion
could really involve a synthesis of experience on a higher
plane than that of our emotions progressively purified in
proportion to our ever-advancing intellectual comprehen
sion of the world as a whole, he does not seem to recognize
as a possibility.

It might seem that we have now considered, however
cursorily, all that properly comes within the scope of our
proposed examination of 'the confusion of categories' in
1 Definitions I and II, Part IV, p. 190.

22 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Spinoza's Ethics. At the same time, it would perhaps be
thought an evasion, if one should omit all mention of the
undoubted difficulties involved in the philosopher's attempt,
at the very end of the Ethics, to deal with the 'eternity'
of the human mind. Even the little that really need be said
here requires a word of introduction. We are not directly
concerned with the strictly metaphysical difficulties in
volved in Spinoza's conception of 'eternity,' including, as
these do, not only the problem as to the place of time, but
also that as to the meaning of 'reality,' in his system; and
still less are we concerned with any speculation as to the
possible reconcilement of Spinoza's apparent solution with
what seems really fundamental in religion itself, as opposed
to various forms of more or less popular theology. The ques
tion before us is wholly one as to categories or methods em
ployed and their possible confusion.

From this point of view, the difficulty for the technical
student of philosophy is almost the opposite of that of
common-sense. An intelligent student of the world's lit
erature, reading the Ethics as a classic, much as he might
read Plato's Dialogues, would be likely to feel that there was
something rather perfunctory in Spinoza's attempt to vin
dicate the 'eternity' of the human mind, after insisting so
strongly upon the necessary connection between mind and
body as to make the belief in any recognizable form of im
mortality the height of unreason. But what appears as a
paradox or worse to common-sense must be recognized by
the serious student of philosophy as rather a fairly logical
corollary from Spinoza's fundamental assumptions, though
a corollary which very strongly accentuates some of the
essential difficulties of his system. No real student of the
history of philosophy need be reminded that Spinoza's whole
ideal is to view things sub specie czternitatis ; but in exactly
what sense the philosopher proposes to transcend the tem
poral standpoint is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.
His over-emphasis of the mathematical method, as he mis
conceives it, is rather a defect to be excused than a possible
means of vindicating his characteristic, if hopelessly vague,

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 23

position. Everything that ' necessarily' follows from the
'essence' of God or Nature, must be conceived as having
a non-temporal significance and reality. This may seem
plausible as a general statement; but, unfortunately, we
have found that * necessity' is a very ambiguous term in
Spinoza's philosophy: we cannot afford to lump together
logical, ontological, physical, and moral 'necessity,' if we
would make any pretence to exact thinking. The underlying
assumption seems to be that reality as a whole is essentially
a logical or quasi-logical order, and that, therefore, to under
stand this order in its true nature is so far forth to transcend
the temporal point of view. In spite of the fascination that
more sophisticated versions of this ultra-logical assumption
still seem to have for a certain type of mind, one must protest
that this was the very fallacy that Hume, consciously or
unconsciously, made forever impossible for his more dis
cerning successors. And that is why philosophy has never
been easy since Hume published his Treatise of Human
Nature (1739-40). For those who naturally sympathize with
what they regard as Spinoza's larger purpose, the temptation
is great to over-interpret his meaning in terms of Absolute
Idealism and invoke on his behalf arguments which one may
fairly assume the philosopher himself would not even have
understood.

Here, indeed, we find the ultimate conflict between the
postulates of 'logical parallelism' and 'psycho-physical
parallelism.' The former is, of course, fundamental for
Spinoza's thinking as a whole, though so vague as almost
inevitably to lead to inconsistent applications. This postu
late, it should be observed, is ambiguous as to the significance
of time for the system, though pointing in the direction of
the non-temporal or 'eternal.' On the other hand, it is
difficult to assign any definite meaning to the postulate of
'psycho-physical parallelism' that does not take time at its
face value. And Spinoza clearly recognizes that, from this
latter point of view, the 'eternity' of the mind is not even
a problem. Proposition xxi is perfectly explicit on this
point: "The mind can only imagine anything, or remember

24 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

what is past, while the body endures." 1 The wording of
Proposition xxm, on the other hand, is rather unfortunate;
Spinoza says: "The human mind cannot be absolutely
destroyed with the body, but there remains of it some
thing which is eternal." Since 'eternity,' as understood by
Spinoza, has no reference to time, but only to the ultimate
'necessary' order, this concession to the ordinary use of
language is likely to be misleading.

But, while we find here an evident confusion of categories,
there is no greater difficulty in understanding the philos
opher's probable meaning than there always is when he
attempts to show the relation of the temporal to the 'eter
nal.' For (i) everything whatever has its 'eternal' as well
as its temporal aspect: in this respect, the most insignificant 2
thing or event that could be mentioned is 'eternal' as well
as the individual mind. But (2), as Spinoza says in the
rather confused 'note' to this proposition, — after recog
nizing the impossibility of anything like the mythical 'mem
ory' of 'pre-existence,' — "Notwithstanding, we feel and
know that we are eternal. For the mind feels those things
that it conceives by understanding, no less than those things
that it remembers. For the eyes of the mind, whereby it
sees and observes things, are none other than proofs." 3 In
other words, the very fact that the mind is capable of rec
ognizing non-temporal, i. e., logical 'necessity,' makes it
certain that the mind itself is 'eternal' in the same non-
temporal sense. In this form, the argument seems not only
inconclusive, but irrelevant.4

1 P. 259.

2 Of course nothing, in the last resort, can be regarded as 'insignificant'
for a closed system where everything is 'necessary.' We have already
seen reason to doubt, however, that Spinoza consistently keeps to the
idea of a ' closed system ' in the original sense. 3 P. 260.

4 Nineteenth century Idealism argued, with considerable force, that
even our recognition of temporal succession involved something more
than, and different from, a mere succession of 'states of consciousness'
on our part; here, on the other hand, Spinoza seems to argue that the
mind must be 'eternal,' in the sense that logical and mathematical truths
are 'eternal,' since otherwise it could not comprehend such truths.

SPINOZA'S CONFUSION OF CATEGORIES 25

And yet Spinoza's intuitions seem to have been more
sound, at any rate, than his logical procedure. Perhaps the
religious side of his philosophy could be partly characterized
by the words that Professor A. C. Bradley employs in his
Oxford Lectures on Poetry, when attempting to define the
better side of Wordsworth's optimism: "The gulf which
for Byron and Shelley yawned between the real and the
ideal, had no existence for him. For him the ideal was real
ized, and Utopia a country which he saw every day, and
which, he thought, every man might see who did not strive,
nor cry, nor rebel, but opened his heart in love and thankful
ness to sweet influences as universal and perpetual as the
air." l In other words, the ideal does not merely point to
an unknown future; it involves also an ( eternal' present.2
Not only is 'the Kingdom of Heaven' 'within us': it is
'eternally' here and now, though the extreme of temporal
evil may obscure its presence. The concluding proposition
of the Ethics is one of the best of commentaries: "Blessed
ness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do
we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but, con
trariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control
our lusts."

1 P. 107.

2 The immense difference, on the whole, between Spinoza's characteris
tic position and that of Wordsworth hardly needs to be mentioned: the
mystical or semi-mystical apprehension of the 'eternal' realization of
the ideal can only follow the most long sustained use of reason for Spinoza,
while for Wordsworth it must come as a result of that 'wise passiveness'
which he delighted to defend.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA
KATHERINE EVERETT GILBERT

IN spite of the fact that some of the most important
recent commentaries on Spinoza have attributed to him an
almost modern concreteness, Hegel's interpretation of
Spinoza as essentially an Eleatic is still commonly accepted.
When his philosophy is classified or briefly summarized,
the unprofitable theory of substance is likely to be empha
sized. The term Spinozistic has even become a convenient
designation of metaphysical abstractness wherever found.
For example, when Professor Pringle-Pattison wishes to
distinguish between the abstract and concrete phases of
Mr. Bradley's theory of reality, he characterizes them as
the Spinozistic and Hegelian phases respectively. Since it
was Hegel who, by the extent and consistency of his criticism
and from the vantage-ground of his own more synthetic
theory, first stamped Spinozism as an abstract ontology,
it is worth while examining his view in some detail if we wish
to determine the justice of the entire interpretation.

In one important respect Hegel found himself in agree
ment with Spinoza. He believed that Spinoza had grasped
correctly the first stage of a true philosophical procedure,
for all valid philosophy must begin, as Spinoza began, with
the doctrine of the essential unity of the world and the
relative unreality of perceived things. We must abandon
the common uncritical assumption that things are as they
in the first instance seem, if we hope to learn the truth about
reality. "The soul must commence by bathing in this ether
of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as
true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular,
to which every philosopher must have come, is the libera
tion of the mind and its absolute foundation." l

1 Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, tr. by Haldane, Vol. Ill,
pp. 257!.; see also The Logic of Hegel, tr. by Wallace, 2d ed., pp. is8f.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 27

But just as a right beginning, — the renunciation of all that
is determinate and particular and the restricting himself
to the One, — "constitutes the grandeur of Spinoza's manner
of thought," l so the inability to move beyond this starting-
point is its weakness. The One must, indeed, sustain all
that is real by being its foundation and essence, but it must
do more than this; it must change itself into divergent forms
and move in a process of development. The category of
substance should be transmuted and exalted into the cate
gory of subject, spirit, or person; the clue to ultimate reality
is the human consciousness. But as it is, Hegel finds the
Spinozistic substance "rigid," "unworkable," "unyielding,"
"motionless." He contrasts with it Boehme's conception
of the unity of the Father as "an inward spring and fermen
tation," 2 and his "originating spirits" which "energize
and expand in one another." 3 "Each spirit in the seven
spirits of God is pregnant with all seven." 4

The dead and abstract character of substance implies a
complementary abstractness in the particulars of the finite
world. They are a "bare finite and adventitious congeries
of existence." They lie about as sheep having no shepherd.
Substance lacks any principle of motion or individuation,
and cannot show itself, therefore, as the truth and being of
things. Since Spinoza cannot deduce them from his first
principle, he is forced to assume them as immediately given
in experience.5 Strictly, therefore, his individual things \
are mere nothings, because they cannot be exhibited as
determinations of that which can alone give them a degree
of substantiality. This annihilation of the concrete world
is the logical implication of the Spinozistic doctrine that all
determination is negation.

Substance is an empty and independent universal; things
are empty and independent particulars; the connection
between them can only be one of absolute divergence or,
in the attempt to combine them, absolute identification.

1 History of Philosophy, Vol. Ill, p. 258.

2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 202. * 7^., Vol. Ill, p. 202.

3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 288. 5 /^., Vol. Ill, p. 289.

28 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Considered as entities, things are completely separated
from substance; that is, they are without being; considered
as modes of substance, they are completely identified with
it and lose their individuality; they are "cast down into
this abyss of annihilation." l

There can be little doubt, I think, that in this criticism
Hegel has set clearly in the light the weak side of Spinoza's
philosophy. In the abstract ontology of Part I 2 of the
Ethics, Spinoza fails to demonstrate any organic connection
between the ultimate reality of substance and the concrete
world of things. But of course a failure in achievement
does not necessarily involve a corresponding inadequacy
in theoretical ideal. To Hegel's reiterated criticism,-—
that Spinoza merely assumes individual determinations and
does not deduce them from substance, — it may be replied
that Spinoza at least repeatedly asserts the existence of such
a development and sequence. He says, for example, that
"from the necessity of the divine nature must follow an
infinite number of things in infinite ways," 3 or, as he para
phrases himself a few lines below, "From God's supreme
power, or infinite nature ... all things have necessarily
flowed forth;" 4 and he characterizes God ajs the "emana-
tive," "productive," "active," or "operating" cause of all
his works.5 Indeed, Spinoza has seemed to some critics
to insist as strongly upon the doctrine of the evolution or
emanation of God's nature as upon the affirmative character
of substance.6 This is not so slight a retort as might be at

1 History of Philosophy, Vol. Ill, p. 288.

2 It was this part of the Ethics which chiefly occupied Hegel. He says
that all Spinozism is summed up in the first seven definitions. Ibid.,
Vol. Ill, p. 263.

3 Ethics, Pt. I, Prop, xvi; p. 59. Page references to Spinoza's writings,
unless otherwise specified, are to Elwes' translation of the ' Chief Works,'
Vol. II.

4 Ibid., Pt. I, Prop, xvii, note; pp. 6of.

5 Short Treatise, tr. by Wolf, p. 41.

6 For example, Lovejoy, "The Dialectic of Bruno and Spinoza," Uni
versity of California Publications: Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. I4iff. Saisset
says that the sixteenth proposition, quoted above, is the whole of Spino
zism; Introduction critique aux ceuvres de Spinoza, 1860, pp. 38f.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 29

first supposed, for it is doubtful whether, even with Hegel's
emendation, Spinoza could do much more than assert that
the development was logically bound to occur, if he were
to begin with the type of principle which he actually em
ployed. Spinoza's original premise was fatal to any kind
of concrete conclusion. But this is just the point that Hegel
missed. Indeed, in spite of the important differences in
point of view, there is an interesting coincidence in the
logical demands of the two rationalists which we shall pro
ceed to examine.

Hegel, as we noticed, approved of Spinoza's initial stand
point. That there is one correct way to begin philosophical
speculation, and that that way is by " bathing in the ether
of the One Substance and negating all that is particular,"
both philosophers agree. As Spinoza's Ethics begins with
the definition of substance, Hegel's dialectical unfolding of
the pure logical idea begins with "thought in its merest
indeterminateness, . . . the original featurelessness which
precedes all definite character and is the very first of all." 1
Through a process which is supposed to express the inherent
nature of reason, everything evolves for Hegel from this
simple beginning. The category of being realizes itself in a
comprehensive system of ideas which in some sense was all
implicit in the origin. The objection that there are after all
important differences in the two methods is not precisely
relevant. It is true that for Spinoza reality was postulated
in its completeness in the initial idea of substance, while for
Hegel the largest part of reality was yet to appear when the
first thought was given. But the point is that, for both,
pure thought may properly begin with an empty category.
There is divergence too in their theory of deduction. For
Spinoza the succession of essences that flows from the
fountain-head of being does not involve any idea of increase
or necessary completion, but rather a diminution or falling
away; for Hegel the rational process is the supplying of the
indispensable implications of the original idea: but for both
the sequence of thought is a deduction to this extent, that
1 Logic, tr. by Wallace, p. 159.

30 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the particular is evolved in a process of the necessary forma
tion of concepts. It is not relevant, in the second place, to
say that the Logic is part of a larger work and its standpoint
deliberately abstract; its scheme is supposed to be identical
with that of actual intellectual development. Hegel doubt
less transcended his abstractness in his numerous discussions
of definite problems, — of the state, the family, history, and
religion, — but it is here a question of the logical ideal stated
abstractly. Spinoza, too, gave content to substance and in
dividuality to man when he was investigating the problems
of the moral life, as we shall presently see.

Now in opposition to Hegel it may, I think, be maintained
that it was Spinoza's preoccupation with a right beginning
and an infallible deduction, and his renunciation of partic
ularity, which were important causes of that very abstract-
ness to which Hegel objected. The assumption, characteris
tic of early rationalism, that there was only one correct
beginning and one correct procedure for thought, forced him
to seek some idea which was everywhere relevant and there
fore relevant exactly nowhere. Substance was posited in the
attempt to give once for all the ultimate ground of all events,
regardless of reference to particular purposes. It is a com
monplace of modern logic that a cause or ground cannot be
thus an unconditioned condition but must be ideologically
determined; that is, its significance and scope are restricted
by the significance and scope of the facts under investigation.
The fruitfulness of scientific endeavor has resulted in large
measure from the restriction of the attempt, and the an
nihilation of limitation is as fatal to philosophy as to
science.

Let us turn from Hegel's favorable to his unfavorable
criticism. Spinoza began right, Hegel says, but he failed to
follow his first principle out into its determinations. How
did Hegel propose to transform Spinozism to make it a true
philosophy? He would supply a demonstration of the modus
operandi by which necessary unity becomes free individual
ity. The abstract point of view of the whole is a legitimate
beginning; the defect consists in not showing how the whole

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 31

moves from stage to stage in a process of self-realization.
The instability and imperfection of the abstract category is
the notion which Spinoza lacked. But by both Spinoza and
Hegel categories are treated as if they had an inherent and
absolute potency. Thought in the abstract has its own law
of progression, whether, as for Spinoza, this law is taken
from the analogy of geometry, or, as for Hegel, it is a dialectic
with its thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; the thinking of
particular human beings may acquiesce in or penetrate to
"that core of truth which, originally produced and producing
itself, . . . has become the world, the inward and outward
world, of consciousness," 1 but it can scarcely shape it or alter
its significance. Spinoza speaks of the "happy chance"
by which some person might fall into the correct order at the
outset of his reflection, and the development of rationality
is for Hegel the evolution of the Absolute Idea in itself, to
itself, and for itself.

Upon this special point, then, it would seem that criticism
may be directed at both Spinoza and Hegel. The laws of
thought cannot be reduced to a single order of categories or
truths. Concepts are not powers, independent of their use
in a specific investigation. Their satisfactoriness and im
portance depend on their capacity to meet a particular in
tellectual need; their function is not absolutely but relatively
defined. In so far as Hegel pointed out the unfruitfulness of
the conception of substance, he was doubtless right; but in
so far as he would substitute for substance some other ab
solute or universal which should furnish an ideal method of
thought, he was merely advocating one kind of rationalism,
even if a better kind, in place of another. How speculation
can start with an absolute whole, devoid of determination,
and reach determination must always remain a problem.
The point may perhaps be made more vivid by an analogy.
The human figure represented in a picture has more points
of resemblance with a living being than the background

1 Logic, tr. by Wallace, p. 9.

2 On the Improvement of the Understanding, p. 16. The original reads
fato quodam.

32 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

of a picture, and so the concept of spirit may designate
more exactly than the concept of substance the con
crete life of thought; but it is no more possible to elicit
the functions of a living being from the representation
of a human figure than from the background, and simi
larly the concept of spirit, so long as it is uninformed
with the determinations of experience, cannot any more
than substance give birth to a living process of think
ing.

The most interesting consequence of Hegel's own point of
view for his criticism of Spinoza is yet to appear. Hegel not
only found abstractness in Spinoza where it actually existed,
but, because of his own impatience with an empirical be
ginning, he found it where it was at least partially superseded
by concreteness. In an interesting passage in his Philosophy
of Religion l he says that Spinoza did not attempt any con
crete science except ethics, and that in that he failed because
its principles, content, and starting-point were taken from
experience and not deduced from that substance which should
have been its moving principle and method. It starts with
what is perceived by the senses, Hegel complains, and so,
although it may be logical enough in itself, it is a mere " or
dinary science," lacking any unifying principle. If Spinoza
had only conceived of God as a subject or creator instead of
as a necessary foundation, human virtue might have been
exhibited as a high manifestation of his power. But nature
and human life are necessarily abstract if God is abstract;
they must be the other incomplete, unrelated half of the
universe. They are pure appearance, as God is pure being.
Finite things have a false individuality because they are
external to substance; and they must be external, because
the metaphysical system has not shown them as necessary
moments in an evolution. In this passage Hegel does not
seem to admit that an empirical fact or sensuous datum may
be a valid beginning for any genuinely philosophical in
vestigation. It is true, of course, that Hegel stands in the
history of thought for his insistence on the inseparability
irTr. by Speirs and Sanderson, Vol. Ill, p. 327.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 33

of thought and reality, and thought and experience, but it
seems as if in passages like this his practice falls short of his
best theory.

Now Spinoza himself, while always keeping in the back of
his mind his ideal of a perfect, logical deduction, recognized
its impracticability for particular matters of study In his
treatise On the Improvement of the Understanding, for example,
he describes the progress of science in a surprisingly modern
spirit. Learning the truth, he says, is like making tools. We
make simple tools first and accomplish with them simple
feats; gradually we make more complex tools, until finally
we make complicated mechanisms. "So, in like manner,
the intellect, by its native strength, makes for itself intellec
tual instruments, whereby it acquires strength for performing
other intellectual operations, and from these operations gets
again fresh instruments, or the power of pushing its investiga
tions further, and thus gradually proceeds till it reaches the
summit of wisdom." l Of course, Spinoza believed that,
ideally, all reasoning should flow from the adequate concep
tion of God, but he admits that this "never, or rarely, hap
pens," 2 and failing this ideal beginning, his instructions were
to begin anywhere and achieve whatever was possible. It is
conceivable, to be sure, that Spinoza might have recognized
theoretically the necessity of limitation in intellectual en
deavor and the importance of reference to experience, and
yet in practice have left the determination of particular
problems to rationalistic preconceptions. It was Hegel's
opinion, we have noticed, that Spinoza's treatment of the
moral life exhibits a sharp change in method, that he turns
from rationalism to empiricism. This, I believe, is true if
empiricism is broadly interpreted. We find Spinoza himself
contrasting his method in Part I of the Ethics with his
method in Part V. "Although in Part 1,1 showed in general
terms," he says, "that all things . . . depend . . . on God,
yet that demonstration . . . does not affect our mind so
much, as when the same conclusion is derived from the actual
essence of some particular thing." The superiority lies in the
lPp. i if. * Ibid., p. 16.

34 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

fact, he says, that now "the manner and way" become clear
to us.1

The true test of the validity of Hegel's interpretation
appears at this point. Granting to Hegel that the content
and starting-point of Spinoza's treatment of the moral life
are taken from experience, does Hegel's conclusion follow,
namely, that Spinoza's ethical system is applicable only to a
world of appearance and possesses little or no philosophical
significance? Or is it possible that Spinoza, in leading us, as
it were, by the hand, from a consideration of particular
things to a knowledge of our highest blessedness, so trans
forms his conception of substance and mode that at least
a degree of organic interdependence is exhibited? If he did
this, he not only transcended the abstractness of his own
earlier point of view, a possibility which does not seem to
have occurred to Hegel, but he did it by employing a method
which Hegel considered fatal, by starting with man's expe
rience instead of with God.

Spinoza's more abstract view of the relation of things to
substance is that of a falling away, diminution, or emanation.
God is necessary to things, but things are not necessary to
God. It is difficult to see how they could stand otherwise to
each other when the logical ideal is deduction. If true
thought is bound to proceed by drawing particulars out of
an original universal conception, the dependence must be
one-sided. But when in Part V Spinoza comes to the anal
ysis of man's power and virtue, he seems to become impressed
with the truth that "the more we understand particular
things, the more do we understand God." 2 Everything in
the world, inanimate nature as well as animate, the actions
of the wicked as well as those of the good, come from God
and depend on Him in some sense, but they are not equally
close to or representative of Him. This insistence on degrees
in reality and distinction between a greater and less capacity
to express God's nature is an essential aspect of a concrete
view of the relation of things to God. On the basis of such

1 Ethics, Pt. V, Prop, xxxvi, note; pp. 265 f.

2 Ibid., Pt. V, Prop, xxiv; p. 260.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 35

a distinction Spinoza says that dependence on God may
best be understood "by considering, not stocks and plants,
but the most reasonable and perfect creatures." l "A mouse
no less than an angel, and sorrow no less than joy depend on
God," but the angel and joy are better indices of God's
character.2 If we ask what is most God-like in this world,
Spinoza would answer: God is clear thinking, free activity,
and joyful emotion. He is these things, for "Our mind in so
far as it knows itself and the body under the form of eternity,
has to that extent a knowledge of God." 3 When Professor
Pringle-Pattison is criticising Mr. Bradley's theory of the
Absolute, he identifies that phase of the metaphysics in which
individuality is lost in the Absolute as Spinozistic, and that
phase which insists upon degrees in reality as Hegelian. To
call the loss of all individuality in substance the sum of
Spinozism is to adopt the Hegelian interpretation as a whole,
to say that things are dropped into 'an abyss of annihila
tion,' and to neglect what we may call this Hegelian aspect
of Spinozism.

The objection may be raised at this point that Spinoza and
Hegel meant different things by degrees of reality, that for
Spinoza the conception signified nothing more than quantity
of abstract being. If this were true, Hegel's objection would
hold: "Mind to be sure is more than Nature and the animal
is more than the plant: but we know very little of these
objects and the distinction between them, if a more and less
is enough for us." 4 But by saying that mind in its eternity
is God, Spinoza meant that God is of that distinctive quality
or kind that clear thinking is. Spinoza's statement that he
will undertake to examine only those particular determina
tions of God which will help us to understand ourselves and
our highest happiness,5 prepares us for the revelation of an
ideal experience which shall include clear thinking, free
activity, and joyful emotion. We are to be led from the
notion of things to the notion of perfection. This is, I think,

1 Correspondence, p. 342. 3 Ethics, Pt. V, Prop, xxx; p. 262.

2 Ibid., p. 348. 4 Logic, tr. by Wallace, p. 188.

5 Ethics, Pt. II, Preface; p. 82.

36 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

quite in the spirit of some remarks of Professor Bosanquet,
whose view of reality is unquestionably concrete; for exam
ple: "The general direction of our higher experience is a clue
to the direction in which perfection has to be sought." 1 It
is not strange that in this perfection or ideality the missing
community of significance between God and His manifesta
tions is found. But if it be found, we are far removed from
the abstract ontology of the doctrine of substance, and
Hegel's interpretation is only half true; for with mutual im
plications and identity of meaning between the universal
and the particular the notion of their absolute separation is
abandoned, and there is movement toward an organic view
of the universe.

To develop this concrete phase of Spinozism it ought to
be possible to define more or less in detail the ideal experience
in which man and God meet. A complete demonstration of
the manner in which man realizes God's nature and power
cannot be required, for that would presuppose omniscience
in the demonstrator; but the outlines of the method should
be plain.

The organizing principle of the moral life, then, is reason or
clear thinking. Good conduct is action in the light of ad
equate ideas. Exactly what does Spinoza understand ^the
function^oLhuman^ reason to be? We have already seen that,
ideally, reason traces a necessary connection of essences
from a logical prius. Spinoza got this ideal from philosoph
ical rationalism and from mathematics, not from observa
tion of the ordinary organization of experience. But when
Spinoza is confronted by a specific problem, his theory of
the understanding undergoes a process of definition or concre
tion. It then becomes apparent that Spinoza's fundamental
concern was not after all so much for the tracing of nec
essary connection in the form of deduction as for the realiza
tion of the necessity of the connection. What the Spinozistic
reason cannot admit is the taking refuge in "the sanctuary
of ignorance"; reality is intelligible through and through.
It is not cause in general but relevant cause in which Spinoza
1 The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 19.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 37

is finally interested, explanation how an event came nec
essarily from a particular situation. For example, the rem
edy which he suggests for excessive appetites and desires
is not a stiffening of the will but the perception of the
conditions which give rise to the undesirable passion, the
substitution of a complete analysis of the situation for
a vague idea. An immoderate love of money or an over-
concern with the arts of gain cannot be transformed into
a saner emotion by the acquisition of the desired wealth,
but rather by reflection upon the true sources of content
ment, the true uses of money, and the measure of wealth
which is necessary for our actual needs.1 When a man
realizes that the happiness which he has lacked is to a large
extent within his own power, the true knowledge fills his
spirit with joy. Wrath at an insult may be best overcome
by reflecting on the ways in which human nature responds
to different types of treatment. An imperfect theory would
prescribe the return of insult for insult, but adequate think
ing shows that the analogy of physical conquest does not
hold in the world of free spiritual activity. "He who chooses
to avenge wrongs with hatred is assuredly wretched. But
he who strives to conquer hatred with love fights his battle
in joy and confidence; he withstands many as easily as one,
and has very little need of fortune's aid. Those whom he
vanquishes yield joyfully, not through failure, but through
increase in their powers." 2 "Minds are not conquered by
force, but by love and high-mindedness." 3 Similarly lust
and false ambition may be corrected. The seeker after
virtue is to frame a system of right conduct for himself by
imagining the particular temptations and dangers to which
he is liable and by thinking carefully how they may best be
met. These are illustrations of the fact that when Spinoza
deals with a specific problem he conceives of the intellect as
an organ of specific response and of the necessary order and
connection of ideas as a concrete coherence determined by

1 Ethics, Pt. IV, Appendix, xxix; p. 242.

2 Ibid., Pt. IV, Prop. XLVI; p. 220.

3 Ibid., Pt. IV, Appendix, xi; p. 238.

38 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

individual needs. Now the more a man grows toward per
fection, the more extensive and pertinent his body of knowl
edge becomes; as Spinoza would put it, the more he is able
to refer ideas and bodily modifications to the idea of God.
If, on the basis of the doctrine of degrees of reality, we carry
this conception of concrete logical connection to its limit,
we reach the conception of God as the absolute coherence
of thoughts and things. That is to say, the early dogma
that "the order and connection of ideas is the same as the
order and connection of things" is converted through the
agency of specific problems into an at least partially grasped
notion of a concrete universal. Spinoza is half conscious
of his method and half unconscious, but he comes nearer to
Hegel's own organic view than Hegel ever admits.

The conative aspect of the ideal experience is called by
Spinoza action as distinguished from passion and freedom
as distinguished from slavery, and here the life of man and
the life of God again meet. At first it is possible to observe
only a general identity of meaning in the fact that "God
acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is not con
strained by anyone," 1 and that the free man is, of all par
ticular things, least determined to action by outside forces
and most perfectly explained, as to his conduct, by his own
nature. That is, Spinoza rejected the definition of freedom *
as indetermination. As substance is that the very concep
tion of which excludes the conception of any other being to
limit it, so a free man is his own master and does not lie at
the mercy of fortune.

But the similarity lies deeper. So long as it is found only
in the lack of coercion from without and not in the char
acter of the agents themselves, doubt is cast upon the very
existence of the similarity, for how can the action of an
insignificant creature be compared with the action issuing
from the omnipotence of God? The contention must be
supported, then, by a demonstration of the degrees of reality .
as manifested in active selves. In a word, free action is self- '
determination. But how comprehensive a thing may a
1 Ethics, Pt. I, Prop, xvn; p. 59.

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 39

self be, and does it include a principle of development? The
self is conceived by Spinoza not as a fixed and limited point,
but as a principle involving definite relationships. In the
first place, it is a social principle, binding man to his fellows.
Free men are thoroughly grateful to each other through their
identity of aim. If an act is willed by a consciousness in
which this sense of social solidarity is highly developed, it
proceeds as it were from a more comprehensive unity than
the act of a man who holds himself in opposition to his
fellows. But this principle is ultimately more than social; it
is religious. It leads the expanding human consciousness
through the feeling of union with his fellow-men to a feeling
of his union with nature and God. "The endeavor of the
better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature
as a whole." 1 In his treatise On the Improvement of the
Understanding Spinoza describes his ideal as follows: "As it
is a part of my happiness to lend a helping hand that many
others may understand even as I do," so it is my chief good
to "arrive, with other individuals if possible, at the knowl
edge of the union existing between the mind and the whole
of nature." 2 Our conclusion is that the greater the freedom
or power of activity pertaining to the self, the more com
prehensive the individuality to which it pertains. If this be
true, God, as the absolutely free, is the absolutely individual.
Compare this interpretation with Professor Bosanquet's, for
example; he says, "When freedom and spontaneity reach
their climax in religion, the self no longer insists on its
exclusive claim, and the whole being goes out together into
the service which is perfect j; freedom," and, "It is plain that
the height of individualitjGs to be looked for in experiences
which raise to the acutest pitch the sense and fact of identity
with man nature and God." 3

Besides reason and freedom, there is the emotion of pleas
ure as a third thread of connection between human moral *
striving and the perfection of God's nature. It is one proof
of the dependence of Spinoza's theory on empirical observa
tion that he recognizes the fact that the stimulus of feeling

1 Ethics, Pt. IV, Appendix, xxxn; p. 243. 2 P. 6. 3 Op. cit., p. 271.

40 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

is necessary to provoke action. Rationalist though he is,
right reason, in the absence of the warmth of emotion, cannot
guarantee virtuous conduct.1 But surely pleasure, taken
abstractly, may incite to any kind of conduct, and may ac
company conduct remote from divine. The question arises
for the third time: Did Spinoza recognize degrees of worth?
There are in his theory two kinds of pleasure, the passion,
which may be excessive or localized or dependent for its
continuance on the continuance of an external stimulation,
and which may quickly change into dejection; and the active
emotion, which is simple and abiding and is the result of an
enlarging vision and an expanding personality. We have
seen that an individual may grow until he approaches God
by means of the assertion of more and more necessary connec
tions between things, and that finally he comprehends in his
own understanding, as nearly as may be, the universal
coherence of nature. There is no substitute for Spinoza's
own description of the increasing joy that accompanies this
growth in understanding. "The power which clear and dis
tinct knowledge . . . possesses . . . causes the passions to
occupy a very small part of the mind. . . . Further, it
begets a love toward a thing immutable and eternal, whereof
we may really enter into possession; neither can it be defiled
with those faults which are inherent in ordinary love; but
it may grow from strength to strength, and may engross the
greater part of the mind, and deeply penetrate it." 2 On the
whole Spinoza is here again forced away from his doctrine
of an indeterminate substance, for he perceives that man,
when affected by the highest type of emotion, is experiencing
a divine experience. Just as the love of God is the crowning
form of the emotional life for man, so God's love of himself
is God's pleasure. "The intellectual love of the mind to
wards God is that very love of God whereby God loves him
self." 3 It is in harmony with Hegel's own more concrete

1 Ethics, Pt. IV, Prop, xiv; p. 198.

2 Ibid., Pt. V, Prop, xx, note; p. 258.

3 Ibid., Pt. V, Prop, xxxvi; p. 264. Even Hegel admits that at this one
point there is some sort of logical connection between Spinoza's system

HEGEL'S CRITICISM OF SPINOZA 41

view of reality to say that God may be expressed in the
essence of the human mind and that human understanding
and freedom and joy are God's nature shining through par
ticularity.

A sense of oneness with God is for Spinoza the spring of
virtue in humanity. The source of virtue and virtue can no
more be separated in Spinoza's theory than the reward of
virtue and virtue. The realization of the unity which exists
between man and the whole of nature is the positive and
moving principle to righteousness, and blessedness is the
sense of having acted in accordance with that principle.1
Spinoza evidently neither separated motive and endeavor
nor endeavor and fruition; they are all united in the ideal
experience.

These are some indications of the concrete aspect of
Spinoza's thought, and they are, it seems to me, a sufficient
refutation of the strict Hegelian view that, according to
Spinoza, God forever remains separate from His world and
never pervades it, and that the moral struggle of man is a
mere phenomenon in the abstract world of appearance.

of ethics and his principle of absolute substance; Philosophy of Religion,
tr. by Speirs and Sanderson, Vol. Ill, p. 327.
1 Ethics j Pt. V, Prop. XLII; p. 270.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY
GEORGE HOLLAND SABINE

THE writing of the history of philosophy falls inevitably
into certain conventional interpretations which serve the
purposes of rough classification but which, for that very
reason, frequently lead to formalism. Such classifications
can never do more than schematize a few of the actual his
torical relations of systems and they easily become mis-
representative by what they leave out . and one-sided by
what they include. A case in point is the usual interpretation
of the philosophy which is universally described as English
empiricism. Nobody can doubt that English philosophy
from Locke to Hume represents the evolution of a certain
point of view. But it is at best a doubtful terminology to
pre-empt so broad a word as empiricism for this single period
and it is positively misleading to represent the period as a
self-contained process in which empiricism pure and simple
came to its final expression.

It is indeed common to recognize that the immediate
stimulus to Locke's philosophy was the Cartesian rationalism
and that at most Locke was an empiricist only so far as his
theory of the origin of ideas is concerned; his account of
knowledge in the Fourth Book of the Essay is quite man
ifestly rationalist. This rationalism, however, is usually
regarded as a foreign element in Locke which it was the
problem of the later empiricists to remove. It is indeed
a fact that Berkeley and Hume were largely engaged in
following the lead given by Locke's Second Book. Berkeley's
analysis of the visual perception of depth, his reduction of-
material substance to sensations, and his explanation of the
physical order as a coherence of sensations may all be re
garded in this light, as may also Hume's analysis of nec
essary connection in cause and effect and his reduction of

t
RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 43

the self to a bundle of sensations. ,A11 these investigations
were certainly, on one side at least, a search for the impres
sions from which ideas originate. In addition, however, it
has commonly been inferred that the extension of this search
over a broader and broader field meant that empiricism was
gaining a more and more consistent expression. Hence it is
often said that the logic of English empiricism completes
itself in scepticism. "It is in virtue of the relentless faith
fulness with which he [Hume] follows out the consequences
of the empirical point of view that we are compelled to admit
that in the Treatise of Human Nature the logic of empiricism
works itself out to its inevitable conclusions. ... He is an
empiricist pure and simple, and he shows us with singular
insight the ultimate meaning and consequences of pure
empiricism." l

It by no means follows, however, that the extension of
empiricism meant the extrusion of rationalism, or that this
element of Locke's thought was successfully sloughed off
by Hume. It is indeed true that Locke's rationalism failed
to develop, and it is part of the purpose of this paper to
show that this part of his philosophy was so devitalized, so
false to the insight of rationalism as a living method in the
hands of Descartes, that it was not capable of developing.
But Locke's rationalism did not disappear, and it will be
shown further that it remained as firmly imbedded in the
philosophy of Hume as ever it had been in that of Locke.
Hence it is seriously misleading to say that Hume was an
empiricist "pure and simple"; such a view arises by neglect
ing the more or less tacit assumptions that lie in the back
ground of Hume's philosophy but none the less effectively
determine the nature of his conclusions. So far as his ideal
of what ought to constitute true knowledge is concerned,
Hume is almost if not quite as much a rationalist as Locke;

1 J. Seth, English Philosophers and Schools of Philosophy, p. 150. The
quotation is given merely as an illustration of the usual interpretation
of Hume; Professor Seth goes farther than many critics in recognizing '
the effects of rationalism upon the English philosophy of the eighteenth
century.

44 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

his extension of empirical principles consists largely in
irrefutable proofs that the rationalist ideal is unattainable,
a suspicion which Locke shared, though with only the most
confused perception of its consequences. From this con
junction of ideals and results Hume's scepticism inevitably
follows. His ideal of science is a system of judgments de
ductively related, while the materials of knowledge are
sensations. Between sensations deductive relations are not
discoverable, and the materials with which we work are
therefore quite incapable of giving the results which the
ideal demands. The point of view which we find developing
from Locke to Hume is therefore not empiricism pure and
simple, but empiricism on a persistent background of ill-
conceived rationalism. Hume's scepticism is not the in
evitable result of empiricism; it is the consequence of devel-
oping an empirical method and judging the outcome by a
rationalist standard.1

In order to appreciate properly the influence of the ra
tionalist ideal of science upon English philosophers, it will
be necessary to observe briefly the source from which that
ideal was derived. No other special science has ever dom
inated theory of knowledge to anything like the same extent
as mathematics during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. The unquestionable certainty of mathematical
knowledge was universally recognized, not less by those who
were called empiricists than by the rationalists. It appeared
as obvious to Locke as to Descartes or Spinoza; the accept
ance of mathematics as the very type of scientific certainty
is indeed a common characteristic of the period, shared by
philosophies otherwise the most diverse. With this exalta
tion of mathematics came, moreover, the conviction that
the method of mathematics is the key to certainty in all
sciences. This belief in a single, all-inclusive method was
another common characteristic of the period. The mediaeval
lesson of universalism had not as yet been unlearned. It
was not more obvious to the theologian that there must be
one and only one true church than it was to the philosopher
1 Cf. Windelband, Gesch. d. n. Ph., Vol. I, p. 346.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 45

that human knowledge must be all of one piece, developed
throughout by the application to all subject-matters of a
single intellectual activity. The failure of mediaeval philos
ophy to create such a system, and the inadequacy of the
Aristotelian logic to carry such a burden, were indeed man
ifest, but the ideal persisted and the hopes of the moderns
centered for the time being in the method of mathematics.
The classical expression of this ideal and the first systematic
effort to carry it through is the rationalism of Descartes.
In his early Rules for the Direction of the Mind,1 he presents
philosophy as a universal mathematics, a general study of
order and measurement by a method which alone can im
prove the "natural light of reason" and thus do away with
that patchwork of tradition, prejudice, and unfounded sur
mise which he regarded as the scandal of the accepted learn
ing. How persistently he clung to this ideal of a universal
method may be seen in the later Discourse and indeed in
almost any of his writings upon philosophy.

A unanimity so general as this acceptance of the math
ematical ideal can be explained only by a deep-lying cause,
and this cause is to be found in the pre-eminent importance
of mathematics in the method of the new natural science.
This method involved, indeed, the systematic use of observa
tion and may therefore be called in a general sense empirical,
but its novelty depended in a far more profound sense upon
the guiding of induction by the ideal of a mathematical
formulation of results. The induction is directed essentially
to the exact measurement of phenomena and to the discovery
of constant numerical relations. This is the new form which
modern science gave to the ancient ideal of simplicity and
harmony in nature. The combination of deduction and
induction is the new logical discovery of the physical sciences.
Only mathematics offers a sound means of deduction; only
measurement offers the means of really objective observation.
"What shall we say, Simplicio?" says Sagredo in Galileo's
Dialogues concerning Two New Sciences.2 "Must we not con-

1 Written in 1628 but not printed until 1701.
2Tr. by Crew and de Salvio, p. 137.

46 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

fess that geometry is the most powerful of all instruments
for sharpening the wit and training the mind to think cor
rectly? Was not Plato perfectly right when he wished that
his pupils should be first of all well grounded in mathemat
ics ? " And Simplicio answers, " Indeed I begin to understand
that while logic is an excellent guide in discourse, it does not,
as regards stimulation to discovery, compare with the power
of sharp distinction which belongs to geometry." Again,
observation guided by the assumption that nature must
show simple mathematical relations is recognized by Galileo
as the essential novelty of his own method when he points
out, in the opening sentences of his discourse De motu locali,
that he has created a new science dealing with a very old
subject by bringing to light such facts as that the distances
traversed by a freely falling body in successive units of time
are in the ratios 1:3:5, etc., or that the path of a projectile
is a parabola.1 The triumph of Galileo's science lies in his
conception of uniformly accelerated motion, a conception
which led eventually to the clarification of the conceptions
of mass and force, in a word, to nothing less than modern
dynamics.2 He described accurately the point of view of
physical science when he said that the only qualities which
we are obliged to attribute to things are figure, magnitude,
and motion. The rationalism of Descartes derived its
vitality from the fact that it was at bottom a generalization
of the ideals which actually guided the scientific study of
moving bodies. When he makes extension the essence of
matter, he is merely saying what Kepler had said more
picturesquely in his famous dictum, Ubi materia, ibi geo-
metria. Rationalism was in a special sense the philosophy of
exact natural science; it stood for the scientific achievement
of the period in a way that English empiricism never did.

Thus we find at once the cause for the overshadowing in
fluence of mathematics and the reasons which determined
the form of Descartes' theory of knowledge. This theory
turns upon his belief in clear and distinct ideas. The attain-

1 Two New Sciences, tr. by Crew and de Salvio, p. 153.

2 E. Mach, Science of Mechanics, tr. by McCormack, pp. I28ff.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 47

ment of knowledge depends upon observing the rule that
nothing is to be asserted which is capable of being doubted.
The first step, accordingly, must be the discovery of the
simplest intuitive truths, — the simple aspects of things and
the simple logical relations between them, — which by their
inherent clearness and distinctness carry the guarantee of
their certainty with them. Knowledge must begin with
innate ideas or simple natures. This search for the simple_
is the secret of scientific success, as the vulgar tendency to
depreciate the simple is for Descartes the fatal weakness of
earlier philosophy. When knowledge passes beyond the
simple natures it still proceeds by intuition, for deduction
advances by a series of intuitions which bring to light the
necessary connections between simple natures. Deduction,
therefore, shares and extends the original certainty of our
innate ideas, for each step is clear and distinct. Thus knowl
edge advances triumphantly from a fixed center, setting all
in order as it goes, by constructing a single deductive system
of concepts. It follows that knowledge of the senses can
never attain this ideal, for the senses present us with highly
complicated matters of fact. We find, indeed, from our
experience that certain things occur together, but we are
able to perceive no necessity in their connections, and con
sequently we do not scientifically understand them until
we have, by a series of intuitions, logically interrelated the
simple natures presented.1 In practice it is the concept of
motion which enables us to reduce the empirical variety of
the physical world.2 An adequate knowledge of the laws
of motion would enable us to foretell sensuous qualities and
to understand their necessary connections.

It is abundantly evident that the theory of knowledge
thus formulated by Descartes corresponds in a very real way
to the most fruitful scientific procedure of the time. The
vitality of the mathematical ideal is derived from the close
ness of its contact with the method of exact physical science.
It is equally clear, however, that his statement of the theory

1 Cf. Meditations, II; tr. by Haldane and Ross, Vol. I, pp. 1545.

2 Cf. Principles, II, 23; ibid., p. 265.

48 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

hovers always upon the verge of falsifying the method which
gave it life. In the hands of a scientific genius like Galileo,
mathematical formulation never loses touch with experience
and induction; in the hands of Descartes the epistemologist,
it too frequently suggests the evolution of experience from
the mere logical manipulation of concepts. His distinction of
clear ideas and confused ones constantly tends to become
identified with that between reason and the senses, and as he
advances in his theory of knowledge and his metaphysics,
sense and reason become ever more sharply opposed. So
long as he keeps himself in touch with actual scientific pro
cedure, this tendency is held in check by his perfectly clear
perception of the need for experiment and of the impossibility
of using deduction as a substitute for experience. Consider,
for example, the following admirable statement of the rela
tion between experiment and logical construction: "In
subsequently passing over in my mind all the objects which
have ever been presented to my senses, I can truly venture
to say that I have not there observed anything which I could
not easily explain by the principles which I had discovered.
But I must also confess that the power of nature is so ample
and so vast, and these principles are so simple and general,
that I observed hardly any particular effect as to which I
could not at once recognize that it might be deduced from
the principles in many different ways; and my greatest
difficulty is usually to discover in which of these ways the
effect does depend upon them. As to that, I do not know
any other plan but again to try to find experiments of such
a nature that their result is not the same if it has to be ex
plained by one of the methods, as it would be if explained
by the other." l Unfortunately, in his theory of knowledge
Descartes constantly tends to regard science as a product
of pure thought which owes nothing essential to the senses.

The ideal of a purely conceptual science thus established
by Descartes is adopted without qualification by Locke.
Between Locke and Descartes, however, there is this fun
damental difference. In Descartes the ideal always had been
1 Method, Part VI; tr. by Haldane and Ross, Vol. I, p. 121.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 49

qualified by his first-hand knowledge of mathematics and
its use in scientific investigation; in Locke it has the stiffness
and artificiality of an ideal taken at second-hand by a man
who has no conception of it as a working method. Locke
adopts entire Descartes' theory of intuition and deduction
and regards mathematics and rational ethics as the only
subjects in which scientific certainty is possible. A science
of bodies is flatly declared to be impossible because we cannot
know the 'real essences' upon which the operations of bodies
depend,1 or as Locke sometimes says, because we cannot
know the relations between the primary and the secondary
qualities of bodies. Scientific explanation is thus naively
equated with the scholastic search for real essences, physico-
mathematical analysis with the pursuit of a 'cause of being.'
Moreover, by an extension of the Cartesian dualism which
consists in taking it on its least tenable side, Locke interprets
Descartes' simple natures and their interdependences as
ideas and the "connection and agreement, or disagreement and
repugnancy of any of our ideas." The ideas of mathematics
are 'archetypes of the mind's own making' and are certain
for precisely this reason; so far as real existence is concerned,
knowledge cannot go beyond 'probability.' In Locke's in
terpretation, Descartes' deductive science becomes a mental
science and the ideal is completely emasculated, so far as its
relation to the methods of physical science is concerned.
The ideal is retained, but retained in such a form that it
negates the very science whose method gave it vitality.
With the unerring instinct of an amateur, Locke clutches
all the easy abstractions in Descartes' account of his method
and lets slip all the points of contact with reality which gave
the method life.

The rationalism of Locke's Fourth Book was of a sort
which offered no possibilities of development; the 'histor
ical plain method' of the Second Book, on the other hand,
almost immediately gave rise to a brilliant scientific dis
covery. This was Berkeley's introspective analysis of the
visual perception of depth in his New Theory of Vision, 1709.
1 Essay, Bk. IV, Ch. vi, § 11; Frazer's edition, Vol. II, pp. 26off.

50 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

This discovery, as the successors of Berkeley were not slow
to see, exhibits the true genius of the method which Locke
had contributed to philosophy. What they did not see was
that this method is not the empiricism of the exact physical
sciences. The essence of Berkeley's discovery lay in the fact
that he showed an apparently simple visual perception,—-
that of depth in the third dimension, — to be capable of
analysis into various sensational factors which fuse in the
production of the total perception. As Berkeley never tires
of insisting, these sensational elements have no intuitable
relation with each other; there is no agreement or disagree
ment between them. They merely fuse to form a compound
qualitatively distinct from any of them, and no knowledge
of the separate elements would ever enable anyone to deduce
the nature of the compound. The fusion is exclusively qual
itative; no possibility of measurement exists and math
ematics is of no service whatever in the formulation of the
results. The principle discovered is simply the statement
of an empirical correlation, and it rests primarily upon the
enumeration of instances. It is of course true that such
empirical correlations are to be found in the physical sciences,
but they are not typical of mechanics and it is sheer confu
sion to equate enumeration with experiment. On the other
hand, correlation by enumeration is thoroughly typical of
psychology, at least in its pre-experimental stage, and of
ethics, economics, and political science. English empiricism
was the empiricism of enumeration, that is, of the psycholog
ical and social sciences, which, far more than natural science,
formed the intellectual environment in which English philos
ophy developed.

Berkeley's work confirmed the already existing tendency
to identify empirical method with the counting of instances.
It remained to be seen what effect this method would have
upon the categories of cause and substance and how these
categories, conceived as they were in the light of rationalism,
would welcome the newcomer. It is at this juncture that
Hume's theory of knowledge comes upon the stage.

Hume's theory of knowledge requires to be treated under

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 51

two aspects, his general account of the nature of knowledge,
to which his very unsatisfactory treatment of space and time
is in a general way subsidiary, and his analyses of bodily
substance, cause and effect, and personal identity. The
first of these aspects is commonly admitted to show the
remnants of Locke's rationalism but it is supposed that this
rationalism was laid aside when he went forward to the
second aspect, which comprises the three great tasks of his
philosophy. This is not, however, a fact; rationalism in the
peculiar form given it by Locke remained to the end an essen
tial factor in shaping Hume's conclusions.

In the Enquiry 1 Hume clearly divides all objects of knowl-
edge into relations of ideas and matters of fact. To the first
belong the sciences of geometry, algebra, and arithmetic;
their certainty is either intuitive or demonstrative and the
reason for this certainty is that there is no implication of
existence in this sort of knowledge. It deals only with the
relations of ideas. Matters of fact, on the other hand, de
pend upon a different principle, for the opposite of a matter
of fact is entirely conceivable and involves no contradiction.
Demonstration regarding matters of fact is impossible; our
knowledge here rests upon cause and effect. In the Treatise
this distinction and the corresponding classification of
sciences is not used with equal clearness but it is everywhere
made. The relations, contradictions, and agreements of
ideas are asserted to be the foundation of all human knowl
edge, and demonstration is described as a type of knowledge
so certain that it will not even tolerate a difficulty.2 The
name knowledge, strictly used, applies only to those rela
tions which depend wholly upon ideas, while all inferences
which involve real existence are to be called either proofs
or probabilities.3 The only substantial difference between
the Treatise and the Enquiry is that in the former Hume in
cludes geometry among sciences of observation, since it has

1 § IV, Pt. I; Essays, edited by Green and Grose, Vol. II, pp. 2off.

2 Bk. I, Pt. II, § 2; pp. 29ff. The page references throughout are to
Selby-Bigge's edition of the Treatise.

3 Bk. I, Pt. Ill, § i; pp. 69rL; § 11; p. 124.

52 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

no exact standard of equality or other relations of quantity;
algebra and arithmetic alone are recognized as exact sciences.1
It is clear, then, that aside from removing the manifold
obscurities and confusions in Locke's way of presenting the
matter, Hume has not altered the conclusions in any mate
rial respect; he is in principle not a whit less a rationalist
than his predecessor. There is not the slightest evidence
that demonstration was for him less the ideal of what gen
uine knowledge must be than it had been for Locke. If he
had little to say about demonstration, it was doubtless be
cause a rationalism conceived in Locke's fashion left little
to be said.

So far as concerns the method of the demonstrative
sciences Hume has no more to say than is given in the passing
remarks just alluded to. His discussion of space and time,
which should naturally belong to this part of his system, is
difficult to make anything of, because he crudely regards
geometry as a science of mere observation, though it is not
concerned with matters of fact or cause and effect. The
fact appears to be that he had no settled convictions re
garding the matter, for he does not hesitate to use geomet
rical theorems on occasion as examples of exact knowledge,
in contrast with inferences based on causes. Unsatisfactory
as the whole discussion is, one can easily see that Hume did
not in fact apply the same method to space and time as to
substance and causation. Despite his scepticism regarding
>- geometry, he could not bring himself to regard space and
time as fictions of the imagination, though his own account
of them leads readily enough to this conclusion. His convic
tion that mathematics, even including geometry, is a real
science, was too strong to permit him to lay irreverent hands
upon space and time. Had he done so, the reductio ad ab-
surdum of his own rationalism would have been too manifest.
The essence of Hume's account of space is his effort to
derive it as a ' distribution or order' of colored and tangible
points. Least visible and least tangible impressions are
mathematical points which have a sort of mental substance
* Bk. I, Pt. II, § 4; PP. 45ff-; Pt. HI, § i; p. 71.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 53

because of their visibility and tangibility but which are not
extended, because they are simple impressions which could
not be diminished without ceasing to exist.1 The possibility
of this curious notion is supported, be it said, upon frankly
a priori grounds; it could hardly have been defended empir
ically. Space is a complex idea arising by the combination of
these simple and unextended points; time is a similar com
plex idea derived from the succession of perceptions of all
kinds. Now Hume is perfectly explicit in his statement that
there are no impressions of space and time distinct from
sensations of vision, touch, etc. These ideas arise only by
attending exclusively to the manner in which colored and
tangible points are distributed or in which impressions suc
ceed one another. They cannot be conceived apart from
these impressions, though we can attend to the spatial or
temporal distribution alone. In this case, therefore, Hume
qualifies his denial of abstract ideas in the same fashion as
Berkeley. It is clear that his demand for an impression
corresponding to the ideas cannot be satisfied any more than
it can in the case of substance and cause. Space and time
are fictions of the imagination just as much as the concepts
which Hume calls so. The fact is concealed only because
he confuses an order of points with the mere addition of them.
We turn now to the part of Hume's system which made up
his real contribution to philosophy and which has been re
garded as a pure development of empiricism, his analyses
of cause and effect and of substance, bodily and mental.
What Hume does in fact is to elaborate and clarify the prop
osition already laid down by Locke, that between a great
part of our simple ideas no logical agreement or disagreement
is to be found. In interpreting this proposition, however,
Hume invariably follows another principle which also he
derived from Locke, viz., that in order to make valid knowl-
edge possible, such logical relations must be found. This
proposition, which constituted the peculiar form of Locke's
rationalism, is as persistently present in the so-called empir
ical parts of Hume's philosophy as in the parts already
1 Bk. I, Pt. II, §§ 2 and 3; pp. 29ff.

54 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

examined. We shall now examine briefly the logical frame
work of Hume's arguments on cause and effect, bodily sub
stance, and personal identity.

The course of Hume's argument is in general the same in
each of the categories examined. He first shows that it .
cannot be derived from reason and then the manner in which
it does arise from the imagination. Accordingly, the first
step in his analysis of cause and effect is to show that the
relation is not demonstrative; it is impossible to prove that
every event must have a cause.1 The chapter really centers
about a bit of negative criticism of the kind in which Hume
excelled, his exposure of the fallacy in the arguments of
Hobbes, Locke, and Clarke to prove the necessity of causes.
Aside from these criticisms, Hume's own argument is exceed
ingly simple. It consists in pointing out that as the ideas
of cause and effect are distinct and therefore separable, it is
impossible to proceed from one idea as cause to another idea
as effect. No intuitive relationships exist which enable us
to make this transition deductively. Hence, Hume con-!
Deludes, cause and effect cannot arise from reason; it must; r
therefore arise from imagination. This argument, which
recurs again and again, gives us the clearest insight into the
form of Hume's system, i Only one test of rationality is
contemplated, namely, the possibility of discovering im
plications by the mere inspection and comparison of ideas.
A category not established by this test is attributed to the
imagination, and what arises from the imagination is de- *
void of validity. The argument is the baldest form of dis
junction; it leaves no place for degrees of validity or distinc
tions of method. Since it is manifestly impossible to justify
cause and effect as a comparison of ideas, this is enough in
% itself to condemn causality. The conclusion is reached not
' by the empirical analysis of cause and effect but by the fact
that no analysis of cause and effect can bring it into line
with the pre-conceived principle that knowledge is nothing
but the perception of relations between ideas. N

The point is made more clear when we examine Hume's
iBk.I,Pt.III,§3;pp.78ff.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 55

account of the empirical origin of cause and effect. If we
analyze particular instances of causes and effects, we can
detect that the cause is contiguous to the effect and prior
to it in time; in addition, we attribute necessity to the rela
tion but in particular cases no ground for this necessity
appears. All that can be seen beyond contiguity and priority
is that the relation is attributed to objects which are con
stantly conjoined. Hume therefore infers that the idea of
necessary connection is the effect of the repetition of these
conjunctions. It is a habit of the imagination, the result
of custom.1 Now it appears self-evident to Hume that rep
etition can have no relevance to the validity of the relation.
For this validity, if it existed at all, being detected by a
comparison of the idea of the cause with that of the effect,
would be as perceptible in the first instance as in the thou
sandth. On the other hand, if the relation cannot be de
tected, no number of repetitions contributes to its validity;
repetition contributes only to the strength of the habit. The
dilemma is perfectly plain: Hume's view of knowledge is
such that the enumeration of instances is perfectly irrelevant;
he is of course quite right when he says that geometry does
not prove its theorems by observing a thousand circles and
summating the observations. On the other hand, his anal
ysis of cause and effect is confined to cases in which the
enumeration of instances is not only relevant but substan
tially the sole method possible. Clearly it is a foregone con
clusion that, if this procedure is judged by a standard derived
from a quite different procedure, the result must be scep
ticism.

In order to grasp the peculiar logic of Hume's argument,
it is necessary to perceive, first, that his method consists in
placing side by side two extremely divergent theories of
knowledge and, second, that these two theories, in so far as
they have any basis in fact, are interpretations of two
scientific procedures which in turn are the most widely
divergent to be found. On the one hand, Hume's empiricism
is not that of the experimental physical sciences, which were
1 Bk. I, Pt. Ill, § 6; pp. 86ff.

56 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

a closed book for him as for Locke and Berkeley. Exper
iments carefully devised to offer a crucial test of rival rational
explanations are in no wise mere enumerations of instances;
as Mill observed long after, despite his inherited inclination
to identify the empirical method with enumeration, one such
experiment may be worth a thousand random observations.
The certainty reached by this means is not at all a function
of the number of observations. The enumeration of in
stances belongs more typically to those social sciences in
which alone Hume and his English predecessors were at
home. Even here, however, it is epistemological theory
rather than scientific practice which identifies the method
with enumeration of instances pure and simple. It was the
peculiarity of English empiricism to neglect the hypotheses
by which enumeration is guided, a neglect which rendered
the English theory of knowledge seriously one-sided even
where it is most clearly applicable. On the other hand,
Hume's rationalism, like Locke's, was quite false as a theory
even of pure mathematics. No theorem in mathematics
is proved by the mere contemplation of ideas, even though
the most extreme claims of mathematics to the character
of an a priori science are admitted. Both Locke and Hume,
therefore, had an erroneous notion of the scientific method
which they conceived to be the only valid one. They had
also an inadequate though not altogether an erroneous no
tion of the procedure of those psychological and social
sciences of which alone they had any first-hand experience.
The conclusions of Hume's system are the result of placing
the inadequate view of one method beside the erroneous
interpretation of the other and comparing them in the light
of the assumption, common to all theories of knowledge of
the period, that one method alone can be correct.1

1 It should be insisted that this interpretation of Hume in no sense
denies the fruitfulness of his analysis of cause and effect. So far as this
was empirical it was indisputably fruitful. What was not fruitful was
his wholly non-empirical prejudice against his own analysis. Instead of
regarding the enumeration of instances as justified by the fact that for
some subject-matters it is quite indispensable, he discredits it by a pre-

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 57

When we turn to Hume's treatment of substance we find
that his conclusions are determined by an exactly similar
discrepancy between erroneous ideal and inadequate empir
ical analysis. The form of the argument is precisely identical
with that already used in reference to cause and effect. The
senses do not show us body, because we never perceive any
thing except an impression. Moreover, the reason does not
enable us to prove the distinct and continued existence of
body. Hence the belief must be entirely owing to the imag
ination.1 As the argument proceeds, we get a clearer insight
into this incapacity of the reason; we can see what substance
would have to be in order to be valid according to Hume's
standard. In accordance with the principle used throughout
his philosophy, Hume points out that all perceptions are
distinct and therefore separable. Each perception is numer
ically identical with itself and distinct from every other,
however similar in quality they may be. Our successive
perceptions of any object possess these two properties of
numerical diversity and qualitative similarity. As often as
I see my table, I see the same shade of brown, but my seeing
it at one time is numerically distinct from seeing it at an
other, if any other perception has intervened to interrupt
the sight of the table. The similarity operates upon our
imaginations to make us think the similar impressions are
identical; the slightest attention to reason shows us that two
perceptions separated by an interval cannot be one. Our
experience being hopelessly at odds with itself, we feign an
explanation which permits us to satisfy both tendencies:
we attribute the identity to something we call body, which
we imagine to exist continuously and independently of the
perceptions, while we attribute the interruptions and dis
continuity to the perceptions.

The burden of this argument evidently falls upon what
Hume regards as the irrationality of the notion of identity
as used of substances. It is neither unity nor multiplicity:

conception of what the method ought to be, though the preconceived
method has no application at all.
* Bk. I, Pt. IV, § 2; pp. i9iff.

$8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

not unity, for the proposition, 'A body is itself/ cannot
mean anything if the subject and predicate are indistinguish
able; not multiplicity, for if objects are different, it is a con
tradiction to say they are the same. Identity, then, is "an
idea which is a medium betwixt unity and number;" it means
"the invar iableness and uninterruptedness of any object, thro'
a suppos'd variation of time." 1 Hume at once proceeds,
however, to the conclusion that this idea, because it is a
medium between unity and multiplicity, must be a confusion
of them. Since different impressions are different and not
the same, "the opinion of their identity can never arise from
reason, but must arise from the imagination." The supposed
continued existence of bodies is a fictitious identity, since
the numerically different impressions cannot be the same,
and this fictitious identity is the effect of the resemblances
between the interrupted impressions. Thus after showing
that identity cannot be the same as unity, Hume discred
its it because it is not the same. The object is not a pure
unit in which no differences are discernible, and conse
quently its supposed identity must be a fiction, while the
rational ideal of identity as pure unity, though it never has
a factual existence, is the only sense in which identity has
any rational justification. The sceptical conclusion man-
\ifestly rests not on the empirical analysis of identity, for
/Hume's analysis is unexceptionable so far as it goes, but
jupon an unwillingness to abide by the empirical analysis
Cafter it is made. The category of substance, as Hume says,
"has no other effect than to remedy the interruptions of our
perceptions;" 2 it is called into being to remove a contradic
tion. Surely on any empirical grounds this ought to be
enough to justify it, but the truth is that Hume was con
vinced in defiance of experience that substance ought to be
a 'real essence.' Since it cannot be this, it must be "the
monstrous offspring of two principles," a bastard born of
the misalliance of reason and imagination. As in the case
of cause and effect, it is the dead hand of Locke's rationalism
that holds back the fruit of Hume's empirical analysis.
1 Bk. I, Pt. IV, § ^\ p. 201. 2 Ibid., p. 209.

RATIONALISM IN HUME'S PHILOSOPHY 59

Hume's discussion of personal identity 1 follows so closely
the treatment of bodily substance that it can be disposed of
in a few sentences. Here also the empirical analysis, when
allowed to stand by itself, is fruitful. At one blow Hume
disposes of the monstrous assumption that a category so
complex as personal identity is to be justified after the man
ner of Descartes and Locke by the appeal to an isolated in
tuition. He shows that what we actually mean by personal
identity involves diversity and succession in relation, that
it involves ' sympathy of parts to a common end,' and that
it is of the same type as other concepts, such as the state,
in which a functional subordination of parts is implied. That
such concepts are useful and even indispensable Hume does
not doubt. Nevertheless the identity of the mind "cannot
run the several different perceptions into one and make them
lose their characters of distinction and difference which are
essential to them," and therefore the identity is fictitious;
it is due solely to a confusion of relatedness with identity.
It apparently did not occur to Hume that if personal iden
tity could 'run the different perceptions into one,' it would
have lost whatever usefulness it had. His criticism of the
concept is entirely obsessed by the preconception that a
concept is not justified by its empirical function in analyzing
and relating phenomena but only by a sort of esoteric, logical
self-evidence.

In conclusion, then, we may repeat what we asserted at
the beginning, that it is a misconception of Hume's system
to regard it as showing the inevitable logical consequences of
empiricism. Even though we confine ourselves to the in
adequate empiricism of English philosophy in the eighteenth
century, it is not true to say that Hume was an empiricist
pure and simple. The heritage of Cartesian rationalism,
in the emasculated form given it by Locke, runs through it
all and at every turn limits the fruitfulness of the empirical
principles. The later history of English thought shows that,
even on the narrow ground occupied by the empiricism of
the eighteenth century, these principles were not incapable
iBk.I,Pt.IV,§6;pp. 25iff.

60 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

of great development. The associational psychology was in
substance an extension of Hume's method of empirical
analysis and, in spite of its glaring faults, it was an indis
putable contribution to the empirical study of mind. Its
achievements are not to be separated from the development
of the Utilitarian ethics which, again allowing for all its
defects, was the first incontestably modern theory of moral
phenomena and an indispensable instrument in the progress
of liberal political theory and the rise of economics. If it
were true that Hume's scepticism is the final outcome of
empiricism, these facts would be the most incomprehensible
in the history of philosophy. They would mean nothing
less than that the most fruitful applications of a set of phil
osophical principles were made after the ablest exponent of
them had demonstrated their logical futility. So fantastic
an hypothesis is quite untenable. If Hume's scepticism was
not refuted by his successors, it was certainly neglected.
With eminent good sense, most later English philosophers
regarded his scepticism as irrelevant and devoted them
selves to the elaboration of empiricism in those social sciences
upon which English philosophy has always nourished itself.
The final scientific fruition of these methods came in the
biology of Charles Darwin, where they become the point of
departure for a newer and more adequate empiricism. On
the side of the physico-mathematical sciences a like result
was achieved in the long run through the effect upon Kant
of Hume's empiricism, though Kant also struggled more or
less ineffectually with misconceptions bred of rationalism.
In respect to both departments of science, the final outcome
of Hume's philosophy was to destroy the false simplicity
engendered by the radically non-empirical prejudice that
one simple method can alone possess logical validity, though
Hume himself remained entangled in this preconception to
the last. This result was but a clearing of the ground for a
more thorough-going empiricism.

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE: KANT
RADOSLAV ANDREA TSANOFF

IN the history of ethical thought, especially since Augus
tine, the service into which the idea of human freedom has
been pressed in connection with the problem of evil has
brought the libertarian issue into the very heart of ethical
inquiry and has tended to make the problem of freedom a
distinctively ethical problem. Freedom and determinism
have been referred traditionally to the department of morals.
It is the purpose of this paper to consider whether ethics has
anything to gain by identifying itself with the libertarian
controversy, indeed whether or in what sense freedom can
be regarded as an ethical postulate at all. To that end we
shall inquire into the precise meaning and into some of the
implications of the classical theory of freedom as an ethical
postulate, the theory of Kant, and shall then consider very
briefly the bearing which the results of this inquiry have
upon the role and the significance of freedom as a notion in
ethics.

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant undertakes to explain
and establish epistemologically the universal validity of
scientific laws and so to safeguard science from the embar
rassment in which Hume's scepticism had placed it. The
Transcendental ^Esthetic and the Transcendental Analytic
lead to the conclusion that experience is inevitably spatial-
temporal. The categories of the understanding condition the
possibility of experience; the world of possible experience is
a necessarily connected world in space and time. Things-
in-themselves are of negative significance for knowledge;
theoretical reason can neither describe them nor deny their
reality, since by definition they are trans-experiential. The
universal validity of the laws of science is thus based on the

62 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

organizing role of the understanding, which makes experience
and nature possible.

It is with such an epistemological background that Kant
approaches the problem of freedom in the third antinomy
of the Transcendental Dialectic. He attempts to solve this
third conflict of the transcendental ideas by showing the
compatibility of the thesis and the antithesis. The thesis
declares: "Causality, according to the laws of nature, is not
the only causality from which all the phenomena of the world
can be deduced. In order to account for these phenomena
it is necessary also to admit another causality, that of free
dom." * Absolute spontaneity of causes is thus assumed in
order to avoid the endless series of conditions which would
make the completeness of the world-system impossible.
The antithesis, on the other hand, asserts that everything
in the world takes place entirely according to the laws of
nature and that there is no freedom. The proof of the an
tithesis is unnecessarily obscure; stripped of involved ver
biage, it amounts to this: a free-acting cause cannot be an
event in the space-time world that we know, since that world
is a world of necessary connection. The antithesis thus
merely restates the conclusion of Kant's own epistemology.

Kant endeavors to overcome the conflict by reconciling
the thesis and the antithesis : that is, by showing that theoret
ical reason can somehow maintain both without contradic
tion. Conceived as the faculty of beginning a state spon
taneously, "freedom is a purely transcendental idea, which,
first, contains nothing derived from experience, and, secondly,
the object of which cannot be determined in any experience;
because it is a general rule, even of the possibility of all
experience, that everything which happens has a cause, and
that therefore the causality also of the cause, which itself has
happened or arisen, must again have a cause. In this manner
the whole field of experience, however far it may extend,
has been changed into one great whole of nature." But Kant
goes on to say, "as, however, it is impossible in this way to
arrive at an absolute totality of the conditions in causal
1 Kr. d. r. V., 1781, p. 444; tr. by Max Miiller, p. 362.

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 63

relations, reason creates for itself the idea of spontaneity,
or the power of beginning by itself, without an antecedent
cause determining it to action, according to the law of causal
connection." 1 The idea of freedom is created by pure
theoretical reason for the purpose of arriving at an absolute
totality of the conditions in causal relations. That is to say,
Kant admits the claim of the antithesis and then proceeds
to make room for freedom by demanding absolute complete
ness for the world-system. In doing this, however, he vi
olates the first condition upon which the antithesis rests its
argument, namely, that the world of experience is not an
absolutely complete system, but a system of uniformity
in which any event A is regarded as the effect of some other
event B, and that in turn the effect of some other event C,
and so on ad indefinitum. The same Kantian epistemology
which makes free spontaneity inadmissible in the causal
series of experience precludes the notion of an absolute
totality of that series. Kant's theory of experience, there
fore, justifies the antithesis of the third antinomy, since it is
concerned only with experience and knows nothing positive
about things-in-themselves.2

All empirical libertarianism has, accordingly, been dis
credited. In the sphere of theoretical philosophy, freedom
remains only as an abstract notion with metaphysical im
plications, and Kant is satisfied if he can merely entertain
the notion of freedom without logical self-contradiction. In
deed, this indecision in which the theoretical reason leaves
the problem is precisely in line with Kant's position, since
it prepares the way for what he considers the true and real
establishment of human freedom, which properly is not a
theoretical but an ethical notion, a postulate of practical
reason.

1 KT- d. r. V., 1781, p. 533; tr. by Max Miiller, pp. 432f.

2 This, of course, is Schopenhauer's conclusion. Cf. in this connection
Schopenhauer's Werke, Grisebach Edition, Vol. I, pp. 63 21.; Haldane
and Kemp's translation of The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II, pp. niff.
Cf. also the present writer's Schopenhauer's Criticism of Kant's Theory of
Experience, pp. 57ff.

64 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

"If freedom is to be a property of certain causes of phe
nomena, it must, as regards these, which are events, be a
faculty of beginning them/row itself (sponte), that is, without
the causality of the cause itself beginning, and hence with
out requiring any other ground to determine its beginning.
But then the cause, as to its causality, must not rank under
time-determinations of its state; that is, not be a phenomenon,
and must be considered as a thing per se, and its effects only
as phenomena. If we can think such an influence of the
things of understanding (Verstandesweseri) on phenomena
without contradiction, then natural necessity will attach
to all connexion of cause and effect in the sensuous world,
but, on the other hand, freedom can be granted to such
cause, as is itself not a phenomenon (though the basis of one).
Nature therefore and freedom can without contradiction be
attributed to the very same thing, but in different rela
tions — on one side as a phenomenon, on the other as a thing
per se." 1

This is a typical passage. The problem becomes one of
discovering in our nature some fact which, transcending
experience in its implications, would necessarily involve free
dom as a rational postulate. This fact Kant finds in the
categorical imperative, in the unconditional 'ought.' The
moral law differs from the laws of nature, for, while these
are all hypothetical and valid only within their particular
spheres of reference, it possesses unconditional obligation.
On that very account it cannot be grounded in experience,
since experience, as Kant has defined it, is a system of rela
tions in which everything depends on something else. The
entire content of experience, accordingly, is relative in char
acter, and thus incapable of providing a fundamental prin
ciple of morals. Nothing can be called good without qual
ification except a Good Will, that is, a purely rational will,
conceivably autonomous, operating in the realm of pure
ideas. Such a will recognizes the sublimity of its rational

1 Prolegomena, Werke, Vol. IV, p. 344; tr. by Mahaffy and Bernard,
pp. 1091. All references to Kant's Werke are to the edition by the Prussian
Academy.

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 65

essence but it also feels the fetters of sense. Hence the sig
nificance of the categorical imperative. "What makes
categorical imperatives possible is this, that the idea of free
dom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in con
sequence of which, if I were nothing else, all my actions
would always conform to the autonomy of the will; but, as I
at the same time intuite myself as a member of the world of
sense, they ought so to conform." 1

Morality thus arises out of the conflict between our
empirical and our intelligible characters. The categorical
nature of moral obligation indicates the pure rationality of
the will which it moves; it therefore transcends the empirical
world of necessity and implies freedom. But its imperative
character, the very idea of ought, implies the uncongeniality
of the sphere of sense-experience in which the ideally free
will actually operates. Thus the one fact of moral obligation \
logically necessitates the postulation of human nature as at
once determined and free, determined by the necessity of
the phenomenal nexus in which it is involved, yet acting ;i
spontaneously in its noumenal capacity. That whichj
theoretical reason could only conceive as a mere concept, —
the notion of a two-faced character and of a twofold world, —
practical reason has now demonstrated as a certainty. The
oretically we are not prohibited from entertaining the notion
of freedom; ethically we are compelled to maintain it, if
morality is to have any significance. This, in the main, is
Kant's theory of freedom as an ethical postulate.

While the above account indicates what appears to be
Kant's distinctive theory of freedom, we find in his works
a variety of statements suggesting a possible vacillation on
Kant's part with regard to the problem before us. It would
be possible to interpret Kant's language occasionally as
implying the belief in psychological freedom or in self-
determinism; but psychological freedom is out of harmony
with the fundamental tenor of Kant's ethical system, for
the individual's motives are themselves involved in the
intricate nexus of conditioned events in experience and can-
1 Qrundlegung, Werke, Vol. IV, p. 454; tr. by Abbott, pp. 73f.

66 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

not provide the basis for an ethical doctrine of freedom in
the Kantian sense. Kant has been thoroughly consistent
in tracing the strands of necessity through the entire fabric
of experience and has left no room for psychological freedom
in his system. He distinctly repudiates it in the second
Critique.1 Again, he defines freedom as "the faculty of a
cause to determine itself to action, untrammeled by sense
conditions," and as "the independence of causality from the
conditions of space and time." 2 It is not easy to ascertain
the precise significance of such definitions. Does Kant mean
to imply a capacity in each individual of freely intruding
into the causal series, that is to say, of actually producing
empirical effects in defiance of the causal system? One
would hesitate even to suggest such an interpretation were
it not for the fact that Kant himself, in a passage in the
second Critique, speaks of man's capacity to have left undone
an action that he has performed,3 in a way ominously rem
iniscent of the old scholastic freedom of indifference. This
view of freedom, however, as the context of the passage in
question itself clearly shows, is so obviously out of place in
Kant's philosophy that it may forthwith be dismissed.

But, if the possibility of beginning a new causal series
within or alongside of the phenomenal nexus is thus ruled
out, it may yet be possible to originate spontaneously the
very ground of causation. Every event in experience may
of necessity be the effect of a cause, and still the causal sys
tem itself may conceivably be grounded in a spontaneous
act of freedom. This point of view, however, reveals a
difficulty regarding the relation of the empirical nature of
man to his intelligible character, a difficulty which seems to
cripple Kant's entire argument. It may be stated briefly
thus: Kant calls our attention to a Janus-like personality/
one face turned toward the phenomenal world of necessary

1 Kr. d. pr. V., Werke, Vol. V, pp. 93*?.; tr. by Abbott, pp. iS/ff.

2 Observations 1533, 1541 (Kant's Reflexionen). I quote from Professor
Felix Adler's paper, "A Critique of Kant's Ethics," Mind, N. S., Vol. XI,
1902, p. 168.

3 Kr. d. pr. V., Werke, Vol. V, p. 98; tr. by Abbott, p. 191.

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 67

connection, the other freely directing its gaze toward the1
eternal course of reason. Man's empirical character is
thoroughly involved in the causal order, as truly subject to
scientific calculation as are the orbits of the celestial bodies,
while his intelligible character is purely rational, sponta
neously active in the noumenal realm of ideas, sublimely
independent of the causal system, and indeed originating
the very basis of that system. And yet these two charac
ters, each of which is the negation of the other, are not to be
regarded as being out of touch. The intelligible character
is hampered by the empirical; wherefore arises the categor
ical imperative of unconditional obligation, 'Thou oughtest';
but ideally the intelligible character also dominates the
empirical, whence springs the moral faith, 'Thou canst.'

Kant's own reasoning apparently leads from the fact of
the categorical imperative to the conclusion of the dual
character of man and the postulate of transcendental free
dom. We need not press here the question whether, in de
riving these two conceptions, he is involved in a circle, a
charge against which he defends himself in the Grundlegung.1
The real difficulty is to be found in this, that Kant, while
upholding the unquestioned reality of the moral fact upon
which he bases his theory, nevertheless claims as an argument
of the first importance that his theory of transcendental free
dom is not inconsistent with the demands of theoretical
reason. Has he succeeded in establishing this latter conten
tion? Can the mind think of a timeless, free, intelligible
character directing and affecting a temporal, determined,
empirical character? If it does actually affect it, it must do
so in the medium of time, which is the only medium in which
the empirical character can be affected, and in that case it
must itself enter into the temporal series, which it by def
inition transcends. And if, starting the other way, we con
ceive of the intelligible character as affecting the empirical
without descending from its timeless sublimity, then we are
forced to the conclusion that the empirical character, existing
in time, points to and demands an over-phenomenal, time-
1 Werke, Vol. IV, p. 453 ; tr. by Abbott, p. 72.

68 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

less explanation, a claim diametrically opposite to the con
clusion of Kant's epistemology. In other words, Kant's
theory of the empirical and the intelligible character, which
is involved in his notion of transcendental freedom, does con
tain a theoretical self-contradiction so long as we regard the
intelligible character, and thus freedom, as in any way
actually operative in human conduct.

Moreover, the intelligible character itself, just because of
its pure rationality, appears incompatible with freedom in
any intelligible sense. That which the ideally good will
would do, and which the good will, hampered by the im
pediments of sense-experience, ought to do, is by no means
absolutely elective. It is the inevitable expression of the]
will's rationality. Kant has pushed the entire discussion!
one step back, but there the same issue confronts us. In
what sense is the individual free, if his empirical character
is a link in the causal chain, and his intelligible character the
immutable manifestation of eternal reason? Thus consid
ered, Kant's theory not only does not overthrow determin
ism, but indeed reaffirms, enlarges upon, and universalizes
it. Psychological determinism denies the actuality of free
dom in the world of experience. This denial Kant's epis
temology validates. To this conclusion of empirical deter
minism of the antithesis in the third antinomy, Kant now
virtually adds a metaphysical theory which excludes free
dom from the eternal essence of human nature, with which
essence the empirical determinist has not concerned himself
at all.

All this contention, be it repeated, holds good only if we
interpret Kant to mean that the intelligible character is
actually operative in the world of experience. A Kantian
libertarian may protest, however, that, in proceeding from
the standpoint of theoretical reason, we have violated Kant's
chief injunction. This protest is entirely just, for Kant up
holds the primacy of practical reason and insists that, if we
start from experience and theoretical reason, we can never
prove the actuality of freedom, which is a postulate of prac
tical reason grounded in the moral fact of categorical obliga-

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 69

tion. But the violation of Kant's injunction is also justified
because of his contention that his doctrine of trans
cendental freedom does not involve any theoretical con
tradiction.

Once more we are advised to stand upon the solid rock
of the categorical imperative, the one immutable support
of any true theory of morality and freedom. Let us accord
ingly examine our problem with reference to this proposed
base. Is this ' ought' a fact of consciousness? That would
hardly do, for in such a case it would be empirical, psycholog
ical, and therefore unfit to serve as a foundation for a cat
egorical ethics or for a purely rational theory of freedom.
But if it is not a fact of consciousness, what is it? How did
Kant arrive at it? How can it be instrumental in uncon
ditionally compelling human conduct unless it relates itself
to the empirical consciousness? And how can it do that if
it completely transcends it? Again, how is Kant's argument
to appeal to the man who, unfortunately, discovers no such
categorical imperative in himself? It is readily granted that
one would be responsible if he transgressed the categorical
imperative which he recognized in his moral nature. But
how is one to be held responsible for the absence from his
nature of the imperative which is professedly the very source
and ground of all responsibility? To be sure, Kant claims
as the unique characteristic of his categorical imperative
that it precludes any questions as to its justification or origin.
An orthodox Kantian rules all the above questions out of
court. But what is an orthodox Kantian to say to a man
who does not even understand the language of the categorical
ethics ? Is he to cast him into the outer darkness as a creature
forever incapable of morality? In that case the creature
thus cast out may turn and openly challenge the categorical
excommunicator, branding him, Nietzsche-wise, as morally
diseased. In such a conflict one is at a loss to think of a
possible arbiter. Or is there a way in which a man may
finally be led to a recognition of this categorical fact? Then
it would seem that the recognition of the categorical im
perative can be attained by the empirical path, which fact

70 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

would deprive Kant's ethical theory of its unconditional
foundation.

There is no refuge from this dilemma in any appeal to the
general consciousness of responsibility. It is true that the
average human being is inclined to accept praise or blame for
his actions, but this tendency in human nature is itself after
all an empirical fact, and its analysis can yield ethical truth
only to him who does not reject an empirically grounded
ethics. To the moralist who turns his back on experience
the sense of responsibility may be the utterance of the moral
'ought' of the homo noumenon; but, the unbeliever rejoins,
it may with equal probability be the last vestige of super
stition. Men considered themselves responsible and were
praised or blamed by others for things which the progress
of human knowledge has shown to be mere illusions of ig
norance. We no longer burn witches for starting pestilences,
nor do we burn candles to saints and holy men for blessing
our crops. Science is weaving more and more closely the
fabric of causal connections. Whether it can banish from
the consciousness of man the sense of responsibility itself
is not a matter to prophesy about, but assuredly it is a
possible alternative which can be accepted or rejected only
on the basis of experience. At any rate, few theories leave
moral responsibility in so ambiguous a position as Kant's
doctrine of the empirical and the intelligible character.
How can an intelligent man regard himself in any way
'responsible' (in the Kantian sense) for an act which, on
its empirical side, is a necessary link in a causal chain in
which he himself is thoroughly entangled and, on its nou-
menal side, is the expression of his intelligible character,
which is the inevitable manifestation of eternal reason?
These are some of the difficulties in which the notion of the
categorical imperative is involved; they show the actual
uncertainty of the supposedly unquestionable fact upon
which Kant depends for the basis of his whole theory of
transcendental freedom.

It thus appears that, if we interpret Kant's freedom as
actual and the intelligible character as truly influencing the

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 71

empirical, — that is to say, if we regard Kant's moral law as
indeed legislating in the realm of human conduct, — we are
involved in radical inconsistencies from which no escape
seems possible. It has also been seen that such an inter
pretation of Kant's theory not only does not overthrow
scientific determinism, but indeed reaffirms and universal
izes it and provides it with a metaphysical substructure.
If we are bound in search of freedom, therefore, we seem
compelled to accept the other interpretation to which Kant's
elastic theory lends itself, namely, that the ideas of the moral
law and transcendental freedom are not to be regarded as
certainties but only as practical postulates. We are to act
as if we were legislators in the moral world. That is to say,
we have been forced to reject as possible alternatives empir
ical freedom of choice, the actual power of spontaneously
inaugurating a causal series, or even of freely originating the
basis of the system of necessity itself. We ask now, not
whether one's acts are the acts of a free man, but whether
his attitude towards his acts is the attitude of a free man.

In this sense freedom is not the characteristic of certain
acts, of certain specific events, nor yet does it refer to a nou-
menal substrate of the entire causal series. It expresses
itself rather in a certain point of view from which we may
regard every act of ours. So Kant himself wrote in the
Prolegomena: "I may say without contradiction: that all
actions of rational beings, so far as they are phenomena
(occurring in any experience), are subject to the necessity
of nature; but the same actions, as regards merely the ra
tional subject and its faculty of acting according to mere
Reason, are free." * We may regard our every act as if
it were the act of a free rational will. Our very rationality
would show us, on every occasion, that such is not the case;
but the ethical assertion of our freedom in the face of actual
necessity changes our whole attitude toward our acts and
thus elevates us; we become, if not legislators and executives
in the field of human conduct, at least its ethical judges.
Our acts are what they are but we are free in that we may
1 Werke, Vol. IV, p. 345; tr. by Mahaffy and Bernard, p. in.

72 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

rise above our acts and pronounce judgment upon them.
We may thus ideally raise our very acts from the level of
necessity to the plane of freedom. But only ideally, only as
a postulate of practical reason is transcendental freedom
admissible. In the same way as Epictetus, though in shack
les, was yet a free man, so our ethical will may perform its
part in the necessary machinery of human action and yet
maintain towards it an attitude of true liberty.

This is a complete swing of the pendulum of argument;
from the freedom of the act we have passed to the freedom
of the agent, or rather to his ideally free attitude. It would
be misunderstanding Kant, however, if we said that such a
moral agent recognizes his acts as necessarily determined,
yet comforts himself with his idea of being free anyhow. No,
it is the empirical subject that feels the pressure of necessity;
the moral will manifests its morality precisely in this attitude
of freedom towards its acts. That is its ethical essence.
Our acts are the expression and inevitable result of our being;
operari sequitur esse. We actually do what we must do, what
we cannot help doing. But our ethical attitude towards our
conduct is free, in the sense that we evaluate and pronounce
judgment; we ought to act as if we were free agents. This
seems to be the last form which Kant's theory of transcen
dental freedom assumes.

Yet how is even this attitude of the will towards its acts
intelligibly free? If this attitude is essential to all moral-
rational beings, as Kant claims, then it is hard to see in what
sense it could be regarded as spontaneous. For if it is the
essence of our moral nature to judge what we ought to do
in accordance with the idea of the moral law, then our judg
ment of ought is itself a must; our ethical will 'freely' judges
in the way in which it eternally must judge. And this must
into which the ethical ought has changed is in no way ge-
nerically different from the must of the scientific law. The
scientific law formulates relations which express the inev
itable coherence of organic experience. The maxim of the
moral will, its categorical imperative, is likewise the for
mulated expression of its inevitably rational character. On

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 73

the other hand, should we refuse to admit Kant's claim that
this 'free' attitude of the agent is essential to human nature,
Kant would be confronted with the dilemma encountered
above in connection with the categorical imperative; he
would be forced either to seek uncertain refuge in the rel
ativism of empiricist ethics or risk abandoning his whole
position.

Kant's so-called theory of freedom is indeed, in spite of
Kant, virtually a theory of determinism. It validates the
contention of the antithesis in the third antinomy. Regarded
as actually originating the timeless basis of the causal series,
it involves us in insuperable difficulties and, in its implica
tions, points not to actual freedom but to what is almost
fatalism. Interpreted, on the other hand, as an ethical
attitude, an fas if,' freedom becomes a defiantly resigned
consciousness of determinism.

The first radical defect of Kant's ethical system is due to
his very conception of the scope and of the role of morality.
A morality which seeks its basis above, that is, apart from,
the world of possible experience, is a morality which, in its
first chapter, would appear free from the impediments of
space-time necessity, and which on that account would admit
of a more sublime statement than is possible in the case of
a morality grounded in experience. But this apparent free
dom from empirical entanglements, so sublime in prospect,
shows itself illusory in the last chapter. A morality exalted
above experience finds the noumenal dignity of its laws im
paired by the fact that they fail to have any meaning in the
very sphere in which they are to apply. Transcending expe
rience and yet not conditioned by experience, such a moral
ity has itself no meaning for experience and is therefore
an illusory morality. The 'as if of Kant's system means
either too little or too much: The moral law either applies
really in the empirical sphere, in which case the description
of the moral law and of the empirical sphere must be revised
so as to make possible their organic relation; or else the moral

74 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

law does transcend the empirical sphere, in which case its
4 as if application to experience is the naive illusion of our
moral consciousness. The notion of freedom, noumenally
regarded, is seen to change before our very eyes into a no
tion of determinism. Estimated in terms of our experience,
Kant's ethics is too remotely sublime to affect our lives, and
his freedom too elusive to explain our moral strivings.

Should we, accordingly, read all noumerialism out of Kant's
ethics and find its true core in the empirical consciousness of
duty and responsibility, then his notion and his treatment
of freedom would require a radical revision. The problem
of bringing Kant's ethics down to earth in a way consistent
with the fundamental spirit of the Critical Philosophy,—
"the Holy Ghost in Kant," — is a problem too complex to be
undertaken here. The above discussion has perhaps thrown
some light on the true significance of freedom as a notion in
ethics, and it may be worth while, in conclusion, to indicate
that significance in very broad outline.

In championing freedom as a sine qua non of morality and
in thus condemning moral inquiry to the futilities of the
freedom controversy, the libertarians have been to a large
degree responsible for the barren dogmatism which has char
acterized so much of ethical thought. The Christian doc
trine of salvation, requiring the recognition of the reality of
evil in this world, required also that it be not laid at God's
door and accordingly demanded freedom as a prime condi
tion of explaining the ethical course of man. A hoary dog
matism, theological in its origin, which isolated man from
God above and from nature about him and treated the human
soul as sui generis and transcending the world of things,
led ethical speculation into the quandary of being compelled
to treat the human will as affecting the course of nature and
yet remaining unaffected by it or by its inadequately con
ceived law-conforming mechanism. The scientific and phil
osophical implications of this dogmatism, insufficiently
appreciated during the period of theological domination in
European thought, became increasingly manifest as modern
science proceeded to establish on solid foundations the con-

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 75

ception of the world as a law-conforming system and to
banish the notion of absolute chance. The realization of
these implications, involving ethics in the conflict between
freedom and determinism, and indeed making the issue of
this conflict vital to the very possibility of morality and of
ethics, resulted in an entanglement of ethical inquiry with
metaphysical speculation essentially irrelevant to it and
thus retarded the progress of ethics as a possible science.
Kant's treatment of morality is the most instructive example^
of the futilities to which vigorous ethical thought is con
demned, so long as it follows the insidious bias of theological
dogmatism and seeks the guarantee of freedom in a morality
transcending the world of possible experience. That Kant, $,
the practical task of whose epistemology was to free the
mind of man from the dogmatism of his predecessors, was
himself the child of the old order and manifestly unable to
overcome its bias in the field of morals, is the less surprising
when we consider that Schopenhauer himself, a professed
completer of Kant's work and an arch-enemy of theological
ethics, remained under the sway of that ethics in his whole
sale adoption of Kant's doctrine of the empirical and the
intelligible character and of some of the most confusing
elements of Kant's notion of freedom involved in that doc
trine.

With the realization of the true origin of dogmatic liberta-
rianism in ethical theory, however, it becomes manifest that
the conflict in ethical theory between freedom and determin
ism is but a stage, perhaps the last stage, in the effort of
thought to realize itself as self-consistent and law-conforming,
and it becomes apparent also that the issue between deter
minism and indeterminism is not, strictly speaking, a dis
tinctively ethical issue. Moreover, the issue, as it is sharply
conceived in ethics, is itself unreal, an anachronism in morals,
where it has survived owing precisely to the fact that the
too slowly relaxing pressure of theological dogmatism has
kept ethics divorced from actual experience.

The fundamental metaphysical problem as to the admis-
sibility of the absolutely spontaneous is not raised here at all.

76 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

If it can still be regarded as a problem, it is certainly not a
part of our present undertaking to attempt its solution.
The only point to be kept in mind here is that it is a problem
of metaphysics, the solution of which is not a sine qua non
of scientific ethical inquiry. By this I do not mean to divorce
ethics from metaphysics or from theory of knowledge, but
I do mean to point out that the progress of ethical science,
in this as in other respects, requires a more complete libera
tion from metaphysical as well as from theological dogma
tism.

The genuine problem of freedom is essentially a problem
affecting the ultimate description of the universe: Does it
or does it not involve the absolutely spontaneous, the ab
solutely indeterminable? To the solution of this problem
every science contributes, and the deterministic tenor of
modern scientific thought is accordingly significant. Ethics,
like every other science, must approach its material, human
conduct, with a view to describing its actual character, with
a view moreover to estimating that character in accordance
with the criteria revealed in the process of description. And
in such a process of concrete ethical thought, the notion of
the absolutely spontaneous can enter, if at all, only in so
far as it is relevant to moral valuation proper. That is to"1
say, freedom can be entertained as a possible ethical pos
tulate or category only in so far as it is necessitated by char
acteristically ethical notions, such as responsibility, praise
and blame, or moral valuation in general. An ethical theory
which passes beyond this point in its dealings with the prob
lem of freedom is an ethical theory which forces itself into a
metaphysical issue and by so doing frustrates the successful
prosecution of its own task. As ethical science realizes the
extent to which the problem of freedom is relevant to its own
specific inquiry, it realizes the necessity of analyzing anew
and more carefully the significance of the notions of respon
sibility, praise and blame, and the implications of conduct-
evaluation! It then appears with increasing clearness that*
approval and condemnation are not limited to the field of
morals, but apply intelligibly in fields which the most ardent

FREEDOM AS AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 77

libertarian would describe in deterministic terms. It would
be dogmatic, to be sure, to maintain that the analysis of
responsibility and of moral valuation generally will lead to
the ethical confirmation of a deterministic metaphysics.
But.it is significant that the scientific tendency in recent
ethics is one of comparative indifference towards the tradi
tional libertarian controversy. This tendency on the part of
contemporary ethical science indicates its determination to
approach its own distinctive problems unimpeded by dog
matic prepossessions and, by a distinctively ethical analysis
of the experience with which it deals, to make its own real
contribution to the metaphysical solution of the knotty
problem of freedom.

MILL AND COMTE
NANN CLARK BARR

THE relation of Mill to Comte is of special significance in
the attempt to define Mill's place among the various currents
of contemporary thought for two reasons: First, for the
obvious reason that Mill himself refers to Comte as one who
has exercised profound influence over his mind; but secondly,
on evidence of a more internal character, because the two
men represent two widely divergent reactions on the in-
tellectualism and individualism which characterize eight
eenth century thought, and because, from fundamentally
the same theory of the nature of knowledge in relation to the
world of experience and to ultimate reality, they arrive at
opposite solutions of the more concretely complex problems
of man's practical relations, moral and social, to the human
world. As Mill puts it in his Autobiography, they agree as
logicians but not as sociologists.

The influence of Comte stands in the sharpest possible
contrast to the influence of Bentham on Mill's general mental
attitude. Although it is impossible to trace a single line
of development in Mill's thought, which contained con
flicting and unassimilated tendencies to the end, it is perhaps
the point of crisis in his mental career when he first super
imposed on the analytic, egoistic, atomic, discontinuous
method of Bentham, the socialistic, synthetic, and historical
vision of Comte and, in lesser degree, of Coleridge, as rep
resentatives of a new tendency in philosophy. The essays
on Bentham and Coleridge, which manifest so strong a
sympathy with what Mill himself considered the spirit of
the nineteenth as opposed to the eighteenth century, ap
peared in 1838 and 1840 respectively, after the publication
of the first two volumes of Comte's Positive Philosophy in
1837. Though Coleridge is taken as the type of the new

MILL AND COMTE 79

movement, he represents an attitude rather than a system,
and it is to Comte that we must look for specific influence
over important elements of Mill's doctrine.

When in a letter to Comte written in 1841 Mill announces
his withdrawal from his adherence to Bentham, "in which I
was brought up and in which I might almost say I was born,"
he overestimates the extent of the rejection. The rift which
he even then recognized in the lute of his new discipleship
was not closed, as he confidently hoped, by thorough dis
cussion, but became wider when the subject was not scientific
methods in general, but the nature and extent of the union
and subordination of individuals in and to the whole of
society. But if the individualism of Bentham may be traced
in that hatred of "spiritual despotism" which leads Mill to
say of Comte's work that "the book stands as a monumental
warning to thinkers on sociology and politics, of what hap
pens when once men lose sight in their speculations of the
value of liberty and individuality," l still it is Bentham with
a difference. The reduction to self-interest of all the motives
which guide men in society and in moral conduct is modified
by Comte's sense of the inadequacy of laissezfaire to express
the solidarity of the social order and his emphasis on the
social feelings in the moral life. ^/

In their ideas of the fundamental basis of all knowledge,
Comte and Mill stand on common ground. We have no
knowledge of anything but phenomena. To attempt to
transcend appearance, either by searching for an underlying
substance of reality or by seeking a genuine cause outside
the series, which produced it, is fruitless. We can .study
the 'how,' but not the 'why' of the world; we can observe
Constant Delations JD£tween facts, which we formulate as
laws of resemblance and sequence^ these generalizations of
the way things work are the utmost we can attain within
the limits of scientific procedure. This, then, is the pre
supposition from which both Mill and Comte set out.

Since the^goal of .knowledge ^cannot be ultimate truth, but
only provisional, working truth, the object cannot be to seek
1 Autobiography, p. 212.

8o PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

that which we can never hope to reach; it must have its
value within the realm of phenomenal experience. The aim
is practical. Comte's formula, savoir pour prevoir, expresses
on the intellectual side what the utilitarian criticism of moral
acts by their consequences expresses on the ethical side. This
dealing with knowledge as instrumental to conduct is char
acteristic of Mill's whole attitude; the study of the past
is valuable for the sake of the lessons of guidance which it
furnishes; moral judgment depends on the way in which
an act takes effect in the world. In this practical anti-
intellectualism, the subordination of knowledge to our action
and reaction on environment, Mill can go the whole way
with Comte. But this view is not at variance with the in-
tellectualism which places the speculative intellect at the
head as the main agent in the progress of mankind, as the
instrument of co-operation which by its method and standard
unites conflicting passions. "The history of opinions and of
the speculative faculty has always been the leading element
in the history of mankind." 1

If the theory that the main determining cause of social
progress is intellectual activity, so that the state of knowl
edge and the prevalent beliefs give the clew to the general
character of an age or a people, is one-sided and lays too
exclusive an emphasis on ideas, this is by way of counteract
ing that subordination of the intellect to the heart which
led Comte, with his fantastic fetich-mythology, to seem to
say, "Believe what you know to be untrue, for the sake of
the emotional stimulus." If Mill over-emphasized reason, it
was that it might be given due importance again after the
over-emphasis of instinct in morality by Carlyle and the
intuitionists generally, and of feeling in science by Comte in
his later writings. "It is one of the characteristic prejudices
of the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eight
eenth to accord to the unreasoning elements in human nature
the infallibility which the eighteenth century is supposed to
have ascribed to the reasoning element. For the apotheosis
of reason we have substituted that of instinct." 2 Salvation,
1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 102. 2 The Subjection of Women, p. 6.

MILL AND COMTE 8 1

according to Mill, lies in the intellectualization of feeling and
instinct; that is, in the study of psychology, which will reveal
the true structure of "what is bowed down to as the inten
tion of nature and the ordinance of God."

But this dependence on psychology and hence on in
trospection Comte refuses to countenance. His phenom
enalism is not built on the belief that the mind can know only
its own states; on the contrary, it is just these which it cannot
know. Psychology is so often the court of appeal for Mill
because it is the key to the inner progress of character in
relation to circumstances, while for Comte it is only the
morphology and physiology of the brain. Comte's rejection
of the method of introspection in psychology strikes at thej
root of Mill's reduction of logic and the theory of knowledge
to psychological terms, which is a fundamental tenet of his
philosophical faith.

In rejecting also any science of method in general, that is,
any canon of proof which is universally applicable, Comte,
in Mill's eyes, makes the mistake of treating the philosophy
of science as consisting only of the methods of investigation.
This is the carrying out of his tendency to begin with the
concrete and particular which is his characteristic method of
treating the science of society. But this is not enough.
"We are taught the right way of searching for results,"
says Mill, "but when a result has been reached, how shall
we know that it is proved?" This test of proof is the func
tion of logic. Method, according to Comte, must be marked !
out for each science separately; there is no method apart
from its specific operations, no logic except in its application.
Not only does Mill oppose Comte's subjugation of reason
to feeling, but, while accepting the doctrine that usefulness
is the sole aim of knowledge as fundamentally true, he does
not thereby, like Comte, ban all research which has not an
immediate practical bearing. "No respect is due to any
employment of the intellect which does not tend to the good
of mankind." 1 Thus far there is agreement. But Mill does
not demand that truth shall have proved its usefulness before
1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 172.

82 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

it is accepted; rather he has faith that the truth, however
remote it may seem from life, belongs to a continuous reality
which reaches down to human concerns. Therefore knowl
edge may be sought for its own immediate sake; the world
will some time find use for it; it will not forever remain
isolated but will take its place in the scheme of things. Un
expected applications of pure science teach us that, while
some truths are of more certain and present utility than
others, nobody can predict what may be useful: "Who
can affirm positively of any speculations, guided by right
scientific methods, on subjects really accessible to the
human faculties, that they are incapable of being put to
use?" l

But however arbitrarily Comte may define the limits of
the exercise of the cognitive function, he is yet, in Mill's
opinion, the greatest living authority on scientific methods
in general. Though we cannot arrive at non-phenomenal
causes of the phenomenal world, causality in another sense
is universally present and is the basis of all our scientific
judgments. The cause which we seek in order that we may
control the effect or adapt ourselves to it is a link in a chain
of sequences. This conception of causality as the observed
succession of invariable antecedents is common meeting
ground for Comte and Bentham and James Mill, though all
three err in failing to distinguish between merely invariable
and unconditional invariable sequences. So conceived, the
reign of law is universal: "All phenomena without exception
are governed by invariable laws with which no volition,
either natural or supernatural, interferes." 2 Man takes his
place in the natural world as the object of inductive study
and in the terms of this naturalistic view a social science
correlative with the other natural sciences is possible. For
social phenomena conform to the same invariable conditions
as physical phenomena and can be reduced to as firmly co
ordinated and coherent a body of doctrine: "The method
proper to the science of society must be, in substance, the
same as in all other sciences." 3

1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 173. - Ibid., p. 12. 3 Ibid., p. 83.

MILL AND COMTE 83

In this statement of the problem Mill concurs. And he
regards as mere difference in order of procedure what at
first looks like a more formidable disagreement. For Mill
holds that "social science must be deduced from the general
laws of human nature, using the facts of history merely for
a verification." l As social causes "cannot have been known
by specific experience, they must have been learnt by deduc
tion from the principles of human nature. . . . Nor, in
fact, will the experimental argument amount to anything
except in verification of a conclusion drawn from those gen- -
eral laws." 2 On the other hand, as expounded by Mill,
Comte's view is, that "as society proceeds in its develop
ment, its phenomena are determined more and more, not
by the simple tendencies of universal human nature, jry.v
but by the accumulated influence of past generations
over the present. The human beings themselves, on
the laws of whose nature the facts of history depend, are
not abstract or universal, but historical human beings,
already shaped, and made what they are, by human
society." 3

But these two modes of approach to social science, the
psychological and the historical, the deductive and the
observational, are not contradictory, but are complementary
elements in one whole. Reasoning without verification by
facts, or collections of facts without reference to law, are
alike worthless. A right scientific method recognizes that
either element implies the other; the order in which they are
to be taken, whether the verification be experience or reason
ing, whether the conclusion be logically deduced or pro
visionally derived from experience, makes no essential dif
ference so long as their relations are kept clear, but depends
on the degree of complexity in the particular subject studied.
There can be a direct deduction of tendencies, if not of facts,
so that social science need not in all cases be looked upon, as
by Comte, as "essentially consisting of generalizations from

1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 63.

2 Logic, Bk. VI, Ch. VII, § 5; 8th edition, p. 613.

3 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 84.

84 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

history, verified, not originally suggested, by deductions
from the laws of human nature." 1

When we pass from metaphysical and methodological con
siderations to the problems of human life in their application
to individual and social conduct, Comte represents a reaction
against the views which Mill developed; he revolts against
the past of which Mill is the fulfillment. Comte denounces
Rousseau for finding reality only in the individual, idealizing
the natural man in isolation from society, and goes to the op
posite extreme in the declaration that "the true human point
of view is not individual but social. . . . Man is a mere ab
straction, and there is nothing real but humanity;" 2 whereas
Mill, though he corrects Bentham's over-emphasis of self-
interest, which unwarrantably restricts man's impulses
solely to those referring to self, by admitting the elementary
and inescapable character of social relations, yet he does this
by way of the needed supplementation of a half-truth in
stead of by a complete rejection of it, and still lays stronger
emphasis on the individual than on society as an entity.
It is equally true that the individual cannot exist as an in
dividual apart from society, by which he is defined, and that
society is real only by means of its component individuals.
Comte denied this last in his conception of humanity as a
being in a sense external to individual men, real in a meaning
deeper than their reality.

But Mill does not go all the way to the counter extreme.
While primarily insisting on the relations of individuals in
partial independence of each other, he does not ignore that
aspect of the truth which lays stress on the incompleteness
of that independence. He accepts, albeit with qualifications,
the organic view of society set forth by Comte. According
to this view the race is a single, evolving unity of self-
development, of which individuals are members or organs,
having no function apart from the furtherance of the race.
Temporally this race-life is one, a continuous, unified process,

1 Logic, Bk. VI, Ch. IX, § i; 8th edition, p. 621.

2 Auguste Comte, Philosophic positive, Vol. VI, p. 692; tr. by Harriet
Martineau, Vol. II, p. 508.

MILL AND COMTE 85

because the present is inseparable from the past, is modified
by all the cumulative reactions which have preceded it, so
that "the living are always more and more dominated by the
dead."

Since progress is thus regarded, not as a web, but as a single
thread whose strands cannot be separated, every attempt to
treat certain relations to the exclusion of others involves an
abstraction from which we must return to that unity of
reality in which all influences modify and interpenetrate
each other, if we are to know the truth. Now while Mill is
ready to acknowledge the interaction of the various phases
of the social order, he is awake to the practical difficulties of
a procedure which demands that we attend to everything
at once. Mill contends that the separation of the depart
ments of social inquiry is not a matter of wilful abstraction
from what may be studied as a single whole. For progress
is not unilinear. Certain aspects develop at a more rapid
rate than others, and moreover the interdependence is not
perfect but is more intimate between some parts than others.
Different species of fact depend on different kinds of causes
and therefore must be studied by themselves as " distinct
and separate, though not independent, branches or depart
ments of sociological speculation." 1 Conditions may be
further isolated even in a given special department, by
treating as constant those which change most slowly and
considering the law of variations with reference only to those
selected conditions which remain. This modification of the
organic view of society substitutes for Comte's unbifurcating
broad highway a pluralistic conception of paths which meet
and interlace and separate again on the plain of social
reality.

Mill is therefore prepared to consider the relations of the
parts to one another, rather than to regard the parts as
altogether subservient to the simple and perfect whole, when
the question is one of the authority of society over the free
dom of individual development, as well as when it is one of
right to existence of sciences which apply to only partial
1 Logic, Bk. VI, Ch. IX, § 3; 8th edition, p. 623.

86 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

aspects of social life. This opposition in their views of the

connection between whole and part, humanity and men, is

| represented by Mill's passionate protest against, and Comte's

I allegiance to, the unlimited power of the government, the

' practical authority of men over women, and the restriction

of intellectual freedom in investigation and speech; that is,

in the formation and expression of opinion, and of practical

freedom in putting those opinions into effect. In all these

points it is the total static outcome which Comte holds of

value, not the highest possible attainment through effort, by

which the largest number of individuals is progressively

realized. For him the independence of thought and action

is not essential to healthy growth, but a mere destructive

and negative revolt against the supreme authority which

holds the keys of truth and morality.

This authority, so far as conduct is concerned, is central
ized by Comte entirely in the government. Social reform
cannot aim at general reconstruction; it can do no more than
restore the spirit of willing subordination on the part of the
masses to leaders inspired by the sense of social duty. The
working of the system may need reformation, but not the
structure of the system itself. Democracy means no more
to him than the rule of the superior by the inferior. How
can the inferiors, the common people, be capable of distin
guishing as rulers, their superiors? Ultimate power is in
such a case vested in the hands of those least fitted to wield
it; the weak are made judges of the strong. The mode of
selecting officials, according to Comte's scheme, should be
appointment by their predecessors in office, subject to the
approval, not of their inferiors, the common people, but of
their official superiors. Moreover, the idea of equality is
only another obstacle to efficiency. If society is an organism,
it can run smoothly only if different organs have different
functions. This may be true, but it makes a great deal of
difference whether, from a basis of initial equality as perfect
as possible, that is, equality of the external conditions and
equality of opportunity, individuals freely choose what or
gans they will be and what functions they will perform, or

MILL AND COMTE 87

whether certain disqualifications attend some of them from
the beginning.

Mill's positive position on the limitation of the power of
government over the individual, his insistence on natural
equality of ability and the essential justice of the laissez
faire doctrine, has been considered. His difference from
Comte in these respects is founded on a difference as to the
whole end in view, the entire justification of life. "It is not
the uncontrolled ascendancy of popular power but of any
power, which is formidable." * The object is not accomplish
ment of a definite purpose by humanity at large, the main
tenance of a state devoid of friction, in which the inferior are
always obedient to the superior, but devoid of initiative.
The ideal is rather a voluntary union of freely active in
dividuals. A given result may be reached by circuitous
routes, by doubling back and blind straying from the path,
by mistakes innumerable; but they are the errors of men
who do not follow in darkness the light of leaders with whose
direction and destination they have no concern, but of men
each one of whom bears a light of his own, be it but a glim
mering rushlight, and knows where his feet will fall, be it
for only a few steps in advance. External perfection may be
attained more quickly by the 'benevolent tyrant,' but it
will not be so well worth attaining. If society progresses at
the expense of the individual, it will be "dead perfection, no
more," devoid of the spirit of adventure, of the lure of un
tried possibilities, the glory of dangerous mistakes, the
responsibility which the lowest member of it may share and,
by so sharing, take a conscious and creative, not a merely
mechanical, part in the life of the world.

In the position which he gave to women, Mill discerned in
Comte an instance of a class of human beings isolated ab
initio from the activities of the community, a class differen
tiated for the performance of certain functions and debarred
from others, regardless of individual capacities. Comte's
attitude towards women underwent a radical change, which,
however, did not affect the point at issue, their freedom as
1 Bain, John Stuart Mill, p. 80.

88 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

individual human beings. He first regarded them as in all
respects inferior and subordinate to men. Later his opin
ions were modified without, to Mill's mind, becoming more
rational. "Instead of being treated as grown children, they
were exalted as goddesses: honours, privileges and immu
nities were showered upon them, only not simple justice." 1
They were to take no part in public affairs, to be allowed no
self-expression or economic independence by means of an
occupation, but were to serve as the guardian angels of the
men, — a mission for which by no means all women, by virtue
merely of being women, are peculiarly fitted. Of Comte's
two points of view, the first is probably the less galling. It
has at least the advantage of straightforward sincerity. The
second cages woman just as effectively away from her place
as man's comrade in the world's activity, under the pretence
of honoring her. The pedestal is not an acceptable sub
stitute for room in which to work. Whether, when the
obscurities of sex psychology are brought to light and clearly
formulated, Mill's contention of equality of the sexes be
justified or no, he at any rate follows the path which the
modern movements are taking.

Mill opposes what he conceives to be the tyranny of the
mass over the individual, which Comte upholds, whether it
be in terms of class or of sex. The laissezfaire principle holds -
even in the latter case, where special legislation has been
most demanded. " Women are as capable as men ... of
managing their own concerns, and the only hindrance to
their doing so arises from the injustice of their present social
position." : A woman's right over her own person and prop
erty should not be interfered with by such legislation as that
on factory labor, which ignores the fact that women in fac
tories are the only women of the laboring classes who are not
bound down by oppressive laws which make them slaves and
drudges to their husbands. Even in the marriage contract,
which Comte views as inviolable, no iron-bound law should
compel people to follow a course of conduct which may in

1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 92.

2 Political Economy, Bk. V, Ch. XI, § 9.

MILL AND COMTE 89

the concrete case be inexpedient or definitely harmful.
Marriage is a contract which should be revocable. So only
can voluntary co-operation, the free choice of the individual,
supplant mechanical obedience to a decree imposed from
without.

The principle of equality, which is bound up with that of
laissez faire, leads Mill to consider difference in sex alto
gether irrelevant to the freedom to exercise political rights or
to choose the occupations by which economic independence
may be established. "All human beings have the same in
terest in good government; the welfare of all is alike affected
by it, and they have equal need of a voice in it to secure their
share of its benefits." 1 The main point is that of individual
freedom. Society cannot decide for the individual woman,
any more than for the individual man, what she is fit to
attempt. The only thing to do is to try it out, by the aboli
tion of all exclusions and disabilities which close any honest
employment to anyone. If such a course entails a decrease
in general efficiency until the slow process of natural adjust
ment has set things straight, the disadvantage is not equal
to the deadening influence of an a priori decision in the
appointment of tasks. "The same reasons which make it
no longer necessary that the poor should depend on the rich,
make it equally unnecessary that women should depend on
men. . . . The ideas and institutions by which the accident
of sex is made the groundwork of an inequality of legal rights
and a forced dissimilarity of social functions, must ere long
be recognized as the greatest hindrance to moral, social, and
even intellectual improvement." 2

These dissimilar views of the civic and political relation
between authority and individual activity are further carried
out in the realm of thought, both in theory and as exemplified
in practice. For Comte t,he right of private judgment is a
rebellious emancipation from spiritual authority. The whole
course of education is to stifle questions and to accept every
thing on the unchallenged authority of the teachers. It is

1 Representative Government, p. 29.

2 Political Economy, Bk. IV, Ch. VII, § 3.

90 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

again the emphasis on the result instead of the process; the
aim is to hand on certain established facts, not to teach the
student how to think for himself so that he may learn how
to test the claimants for acceptance as truth. No proofs,
therefore, need be given; for an over-anxiety for proof breaks
down existing knowledge. Comte ignores the consideration
that existing knowledge which can be broken down by the
zeal for proof is not genuine knowledge at all. On the con
trary, he condemns revolt against tradition as in itself bad.
Thus the statement that the living are always more and more
dominated by the dead is re-interpreted to mean that we
should submit to the authority of the past, not doubt its
judgment nor test by our own reason or discoveries the
grounds of its opinions.

In this moral and intellectual authority whose judgments
are to be unquestioned Mill sees one of those half-truths
which constitute the worst error. It is indeed incontrovert
ible that most opinions are received on the authority of
experts who have devoted time, labor, and exceptional
ability to their working out. Such a division of labor is
essential, since no man can be a compendium of universal
knowledge, and it involves faith in the conclusions of men
whose work cannot be examined in detail by the layman*.

iBut the danger lies in vesting this leadership with a'n au
thority other than the place which it wins by its own merit.
An "organized body'' whose edicts are above question
"would involve nothing less than a spiritual despotism,"
worse even than a temporal despotism, as the force of an
irresistible public opinion" is more subtly penetrative
than the force of government.1 The people "should feel
respect for superiority of intellect and knowledge, and defer
much to the opinions on any subject of those whom they
think well acquainted with it." But the allegiance is freely
given, not demanded. "They will judge for themselves of
the persons who are and are not entitled to it." 2

This liberty in the formation of opinions carries with it

1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 98.

2 Political Economy, Bk. IV, Ch. VII, § 2.

MILL AND COMTE 91

freedom of expression. No authorized body can be the in
fallible teacher who can say, This shalt thou think, and This
shalt thou speak, and to doubt whom is heresy. "The no
tion . . . that a government should choose opinions for the
people, and should not suffer any doctrines in politics,
morals, law, or religion, but such as it approves, to be printed
or publicly professed, may be said to be altogether aban
doned as a general thesis. . . . The human mind, when
prevented either by fear of the law or by fear of opinion
from exercising its faculties freely on the most important
subjects, acquires a general torpidity and imbecility, by
which, when they reach a certain point, it is disqualified
from making any considerable advances even in the com
mon affairs of life, and which, when greater still, make
it gradually lose even its previous attainments." 1 Here
again the vital thing for Mill is not the acceptance of an ex
ternally complete and inviolable set of truths, but the realiza
tion of the powers of each mind affected by those truths.

Moreover, in his essay On Liberty he maintains that truth
is not established by the suppression of controversy but is
brought clearly to light only by the recognition of what may
be said against it. Only so, and not by unchallenged re
iteration can the meaning be constantly renewed and kept
vivid in the minds of its supporters as in the minds of those
who first had to fight for its acceptance. If the opinion in
question is error mistaken for truth, its error can obviously
be made plain only if freedom of attack be permitted. But
for Comte there are no such contested points. He assumes
that the class set apart as investigators will do nothing
which needs to be revised or reversed by the discoveries of
a succeeding generation.

As to the realization of thought in action, Comte again
prefers a blind right course to an intelligent mistake. The
entire responsibility for conduct devolves on the aristocratic
caste set apart for the purpose. "Liberty and spontaneity
on the part of individuals form no part of the scheme." 2

1 Political Economy, Bk. V, Ch. X, § 6.

- Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 123.

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

And with that liberty and spontaneity is taken away the
freedom of choice which takes its chance of error and hews
out the form of the moral character of a man. "Every
particle of conduct, public or private, is to be open to the
public eye, and to be kept, by the power of opinion, in the
course which the spiritual corporation shall judge to be the
most right." Against this Mill sets his doctrine that, "as a
rule of conduct, to be enforced by moral sanctions, we think
no more should be attempted than to prevent people from
doing harm to others, or omitting to do such good as they
have undertaken." 1 The difficulty of drawing the line, of
measuring the extent of man's partial independence and his
connection with the social whole, so that application can
b- made of the formula, "The individual is not accountable
to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the in
terests of no person but himself," belongs to Mill's social
theory as a whole. Since for him society is not the end in
itself, but the condition for the development of individual
character, the freedom to work out one's will in the external
world, the carrying of freedom of thought to its natural
outcome in life, must be preserved as far as possible to each
individual.

The ideas on which these two conceptions of the relative
value of freedom and obedience to authority are based re
duce to a difference of ethical ideals and methods. Is the
highest good the minimum of discord and friction with the
maximum of efficiency in the general progress of humanity,
or is it the development of the largest possible number of
persons into autonomous personalities which include, but
are not entirely absorbed by, the relation to others which
binds them together into a society? As Comte endorses
the first ideal, he maintains not merely that the line be
tween self-regarding and other-regarding acts is hard to
draw, but that there should, as nearly as possible, be no
self-regarding acts at all. He is as one-sidedly social as
Bentham is one-sidedly egoistic. Self-interest, so far from
being the ultimate motive for all conduct, must, in his view^
1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 145.

MILL AND COMTE 93

though originally strong, be conquered and superseded by
an exclusive attention to the good of others as the only in
ducement on which we should allow ourselves to act. Al
truism is not merely the most important moral motive but
the only one. Personal satisfaction should be starved to the
last degree in the endeavor not to love ourselves at all.
Comte, says Mill, adapting Novalis's characterization of
Spinoza, was a morality-intoxicated man.1 Mill's own view
is in a sense a synthesis of the two opposing ethical theories :
the egoistic hedonism of Bentham and the equally one
sided altruism of Comte. He does, it is true, set the egoistic
and altruistic impulses over against one another as conflict
ing, not as involving each other. My self-regarding and
other-regarding acts can be tabulated, — a proceeding ex
ceedingly difficult in practice. But he also maintains a
relation between them other than that of mutual negation;
he holds that a reasonable gratification of the egoistic feel
ings is favorable to the growth of benevolent affections.
"The moralization of the personal enjoyments we deem to
consist, not in reducing them to the smallest possible amount,
but in cultivating the habitual wish to share them with
others, and with all others, and scorning to desire anything
for oneself which is incapable of being so shared."

Comte's insistence that morality can include only one
set of motives with which all others are in eternal conflict
is an example of the passion for unity which results in an
over-simplification and over-systematization of life and
conduct. Mill has always an eye for the concrete complexi
ties, the infinite variety in experience, which, in its joyous
recognition of differences and refusal to throw them all into
one pot and make them one by the crude process of melt
ing, makes pluralism immediately appeal to our sense of
the genuine intricacy of reality. Why, asks Mill, must man
care for only one thing, not self and others? Why is it
necessary that all human life should point to but one ob
ject, and be cultivated into a system of means to a single
end? When thus thrown into relief against Comte's ex-

1 Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 145. 2 Ibid., p. 141.

94 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

treme socialism and monism, Mill's individualism and
pluralism do not take an extreme and abstract form, but
appear as the effort to achieve a synthesis between the
spirit of Bentham on the one hand and that of Comte on
the other. The attempt to assimilate the best of the new
into the development of the old may not always be perfectly
successful, but the impression left is of one who came nearer
to the truth of our social and moral experience than did
either of the upholders of the opposing positions.

THE INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM OF
ALFRED FOUILLEE

ALMA THORNE PENNEY

IN the philosophy of Alfred Fouillee the two main
currents of nineteenth century thought are brought to
gether to form a comprehensive whole. The synthetic
character of his work remains the same from the earliest
inception of the doctrine of idee-force to the posthumous
Esquisse d'une interpretation du monde, which he was pre
paring for publication when he was overcome by his last
illness in the summer of 1912. For more than forty years,
during which time thirty-four books appeared from his
prolific pen, Fouillee devoted himself to the consistent
presentation of a system developed from the conception of
intellect and will as fundamentally one. In his later works
he called this philosophy an intellectualistic voluntarism.
No better term could be used to describe it. It is not an
eclecticism, such as the work of Victor Cousin, nor is it a
dualism of Will and Idea, such as Schopenhauer's. It is a
monistic system involving a synthesis of naturalism and
idealism by means of psychical factors common to both.
In this synthesis, the underlying principle of which is idee-
force, causality is shown to be psychical and ideas are shown
to be not only facts of consciousness but forces. Reality is
will, but it is not merely will. It is impossible to speak of
will as a thing apart. Will is indissolubly joined with intel
ligence, and it is in the 'conscious subject' that Fouillee
finds the only original and sure manifestation of the Real,
existing in itself and for itself. The essence of his whole
philosophy is crowded into the phrase with which he even
tually characterized this conception of reality: la volonte
de conscience.

Voluntarism is no new philosophy in France. Founded

96 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

by Maine de Biran, who died in 1824, the voluntaristic
school of thought has gathered to itself a long line of dis
ciples, including writers of such widely differing opinions
as Renouvier, Ravaisson, Boutroux, Bergson, Le Roy, and
Wilbois. Fouillee is allied with none of these, save in regard
to a few scattered details of doctrine, because Fouillee con
sistently emphasizes the oneness of mental life and refuses
to erect a metaphysic upon a partial view of reality. Volun
tarism by itself seems to him as one-sided as the old ra
tionalism which it opposes. From Maine de Biran to Berg-
son, voluntarists have neglected the part played by the
understanding. In the philosophy of Bergson this neglect
is more than a mere omission. It is a militant anti-intellec-
tualism. All of these thinkers, however, agree in regarding
volitional activity as fundamental to reality and to a theory
of knowledge. All of them lay more or less emphasis upon
the psychological fact of the immediate consciousness of
personal activity. The dynamic character of reality re
ceives different names according to the divergent concep
tions of these voluntarists. Maine de Biran calls it spiritual
istic activism; Ravaisson calls it liberty; Boutroux pleads
for contingency in the laws of nature; Fouillee conceives of
it as volonte de conscience, a continuous elan en avant, a never
ceasing evolution novatrice; Bergson, in strikingly similar
language, describes reality as change, an elan vital accom
plishing a perpetual evolution creatrice.

In all of these conceptions there is involved a rejection of
mechanistic materialism. From the time of Descartes the
French mind has delighted in the clearness and distinctness,
the neat exactness, and the perfect rationality of mechanical
science. The Cartesian dualism of mind and matter afforded
a starting point for the materialistic movement of the eight
eenth century. If Descartes could explain a dog by means
of mechanical laws, why should not La Mettrie explain man
in the same way? Why delve into the mysteries of soul,
when the brain could be dissected to demonstrate the non-
mysterious character of mind? Matter and motion being
the ultimate explanation of everything, thought is best

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM 97

employed in discovering the laws of a mechanical universe.
In this field the metaphysical aspect of materialism was
represented by Holbach's Systeme de la nature, but its great
est achievements were within the realm of exact science.
In the discoveries of La Grange and La Place, the keenness
of the French intellect is demonstrated. In the field of
natural science men like Lavoisier, Berthollet, Pasteur,
Ampere, Cuvier, and Lamarck were known as widely as the
subjects they investigated. It was an age of empirical in
vestigation. The orderly processes of scientific method
appealed to the tidy mind of the French thinker. Small
wonder that Comte found here the ideal for his Positivism.
Nor is it to be wondered at that out of this empirical era
there should grow a new philosophy, at once constructive
and sceptical. Littre, Taine, and Renan are but three rep
resentatives of this school of thought, and its influence has
been very far-reaching. One of its notable results has been
an increased interest in psychological investigation, though
Comte's Positivism vehemently denied the right of psychol
ogy to exist. From Taine's work, De V intelligence, we may
trace the beginnings of several lines of thought, some of
which have resulted in a reaction against science itself, as a
construction of the intellect. It is due to this supposed over
emphasis of intellectual elements in science and philosophy
that voluntaristic philosophy has arisen to plead the cause
of the volitional elements. Modern French thinkers and
writers in every field show a widespread revolt against that
"nightmare" conception of the universe which seeks the
progress of science in "the gradual banishment from all
regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spon
taneity." l

Materialism, positivism, intellectualism, and voluntarism
alike fail to satisfy the requirements of a complete philos
ophy. No amount of scientific method, and no amount of
unscientific intuitionism, can save a doctrine from the charge
of superficiality, if it is based upon a partial or one-sided view
of reality. This sort of superficiality is not to be confused
1 Huxley, Collected Essays, Vol. I, p. 159.

98 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

with the sort that results from inadequate language. Pro
found doctrines are quite able to be expressed in simple
language; and we all know how much shallowness of thought
may be concealed by the ponderous obscurity of an uncouth
terminology. In the case of the French doctrines in ques
tion here, there is no obscurity. Their inadequacy is mainly
due to their failure to take account of the whole of reality.
To separate matter and mind for purposes of discussion is
justifiable; to divide the mind up into compartments of
intellect and feeling and will may be equally justifiable; but
to build a world-view upon any one of these fragments is
to construct a superficial and unsatisfactory metaphysic.
It is axiomatic that the whole is greater than the part, and
it follows that any attempt to promote a fragmentary con
ception of reality to the dignity of the whole is foredoomed
to failure. It was this aspect of earlier French philosophy
that Royce had in mind, when he compared it to "a rel
atively bare room, full of electric lights, that shine with
brilliancy upon a few diagrams, which pretend to be a pic
ture of the universe." l It is this aspect also that engages
the attention of Fouillee and leads him to attempt a syn
thesis which shall be comprehensive enough to include the
truth of all these divergent systems.

The synthetic character of Fouillee's philosophy was estab
lished in his doctoral thesis on La liberte et le determinisme
in 1872, but it reached its most definite expression in 1879,
when he published in the Revue philosophique an article en
titled, "La philosophic des idees-forces comme conciliation
du naturalisme et de Pidealisme." In this article he out
lined for the first time that "methode de conciliation" which
he applied to all of his subsequent work, both historical and
constructive. The chief feature of this method was the use
of mean terms to reconcile differences between philosophical
theories. The intercalation of such a series of mean terms
reduces the opposition of contraries to an infinitesimal dif
ference. Fouillee was indebted to Leibniz for the suggestion
that differences may be so reduced as to be negligibly small.
1 "Jean Marie Guyau," Studies of Good and Evil, p. 360.

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM 99

Though such an intercalation of mean terms may not result
in a complete identification of opposites, it does result in
their progressive approximation toward unity. It succeeds
in introducing harmony where there was discord, and con
vergence where there was divergence.

The first application of this method had appeared in La
liberte et la determinisme , in which Fouillee had advanced
the theory that the idea of freedom serves as an intermediary
between freedom and determinism. The force of the thought
itself is such that it is bound to arouse a striving and to
generate power. Scientific determinism then loses its hold
on moral activity. Moral freedom becomes progressively
more assured as we strive more and more to conceive our
auto-determinism. In an unpublished fragment the idea
of freedom is defined as "the self having consciousness of its
own power in its tendency to break down all barriers and
surmount all obstacles." It is the self at once conceiving
and desiring its own independence. This idea of individual
causality is the first stage of freedom; but the second stage,
in which alone freedom is complete, is dominated by the
idea of universal finality. The first stage posits the self;
the second stage unites the self to the whole. The passage
from one stage to the other is assured by the psychological
origin of the consciousness of self-activity. There is always
a non-self acting on the self, and the self is always reacting
on the milieu which limits it. In this way there arises a
recognition of the obstacle as another will, then a recognition
of a plurality of wills. The subject thus objectifies itself and
passes from the conception of another will to the conception
of a universality of causes and effects. The will is a "per
petual marche en avant" or a perpetual induction. "It is
possible for it to expand toward the universal because it is
a force, and that expansive power is the very essence of
force." *

The method here outlined was amplified greatly in the
statement given it in 1879. The distinct steps to be taken
were clearly described and the application of the method to
1 La liberte et le determinisme, p. 274.

100 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the history of philosophy pointed out. As a matter of fact,
Fouillee had already employed the method in his own His-
toire generate de la philosophie, which appeared in 1875. In
reconciling opposing philosophies the historian should con
struct as well as criticise. He should carry out principles to
their consequences and realize the ideal of the doctrines he
interprets. "It is better to complete than to refute." We
cannot complete a theory until we comprehend it, and to
comprehend a philosopher we must place ourselves at his
point of view rather than our own. The historian of philos
ophy must enter into the spirit of systems and interpret
them as they aspire to be interpreted, by their great elements
rather than by their imperfections. True appreciation is a
complement of comprehension, and it consists in two main
moments: the correction of errors and the reconciliation of
truths. Incomplete theories are to be joined to each other
only through their relation to the complete whole, the per
fect unity, of which they are a partial expression. The
completion of philosophical systems by means of absorp
tion in others is, in Fouillee's opinion, of the greatest im
portance to their existence. Progress is achieved in thought
much in the same way as in the evolution of the animal king
dom. A limit of development having been reached, dete
rioration follows, unless new blood be added by selection.
So, too, philosophical systems must be renewed by other
systems, in order to preserve their vital force. The method
of reconciliation is one of progress from the good that is old
to the good that is new. All that is merely eclecticism or
syncretism disappears, till only the true synthesis remains.

From the foregoing brief statement of the early work of
Fouillee it will appear that he was already far on the road
of synthetic philosophizing when he first gave the name of
idee-force to the principle which is the unifying element in
his constructive synthesis of voluntarism and intellectualism.
From 1879 till his death in 1912 his philosophy was known
to the world as the "philosophic des idees-forces."

In order to understand what is connoted by these thought-
forces it is necessary to know their genesis. Fouillee frankly

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM IOI

bases his doctrine on psychology. His point of departure is
that of the 'thinking subject/ for whom reality is immanent
in his own consciousness. Reality can be reached only
through experience, and principally through psychological
reflection. Consciousness is the condition of all experience.
More than that, it is the primordial experience itself, the
irreducible and ultimately real Being. Psychological re
flection, then, is something more than the discovery and
enumeration of successive states of consciousness. When
we enter into ourselves to investigate the nature of this
immanent reality, we do not leap into a void, but (the
phrase suggests Bergson) we "plunge into the real." Psy
chology must be taken as the basis of general philosophy be
cause it is the study of the indissoluble union of thought and
will. To know what Being is, we have only to ask ourselves
with what fundamental characteristics it is felt, known, and
willed. This seems to Fouillee not only the most direct
method of approaching the essential problems of meta
physics, but the only one which does not exclude in advance
every intelligible solution. We cannot put ourselves out
side of the universal reality, for then it would no longer be
universal. The metaphysician must not regard thought as
a necessary evil, a limitation of his power to engulf himself
in the real, but rather as an indispensable element in the
solution of his problem. He cannot amputate the real
world from his thought about it. If he could, his success
would result in a sort of intellectual suicide, for the world
thus obtained would no longer be the world which meta
physics seeks to represent to itself. It would no longer be
the whole. Therein lies the source of the falsity which
Fouillee ascribes to the systems of exclusive materialism
and exclusive idealism, and likewise to exclusive intellec-
tualism and exclusive voluntarism.

In the construction of a monism based on consciousness
as the fundamental type of existence, Fouillee endeavors to
prove that force is an element in all facts of consciousness.
He uses * force' in a sense larger than that conveyed by
mechanics. From the point of view of mechanical science,

102 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

there are only movements and mathematical formulas ex
pressing the succession of these movements. There are no
forces. Force, activity, efficient causality, all these are
terms that are excluded from mechanics as much as from
logic. An explanation of psychological facts which is guided
by the principle omnia mecanice fiunt is only partially true.
Where we deal with physical or physiological facts, such as
cerebral activity, we remain in the realm of mechanism.
But facts of consciousness may not be thus dismissed. There
must be a mean term between the mechanical action of the
milieu upon consciousness and the representational character
of so-called 'pure' intellection. Such a mean term is found
in the appetitive process, at once mental and mechanical,
since it consists of the three moments, sensation, emotion,
and motor reaction. It contains all the necessary elements
for the explanation of both automatic, mechanical move
ments and simple, voluntary movements. Movement, force,
activity, or whatever it be called, is thus restored to a mental
basis. The psychical and the mechanical are not two as
pects. They are one single reality which is revealed to
itself in appetite by direct and immediate revelation. Con
scious activity is psychical. It is the appetitive and percep
tive nature of consciousness which renders it capable of
producing changes. Whether its activity shall evolve toward
mechanical action, on one hand, or toward willed action,
on the other, is simply a question of the diminution or in
crease of consciousness. Its relation to the brain is one of
collaboration, not of parallelism.

It is mainly in his Psychologic des idees-forces (1893), a
two-volume work of great importance in the realm of volun-
taristic psychology, that Fouillee expounds the theory of
the appetitive process which is fundamental to his principle
of thought-forces. There are also a number of valuable
statements of the doctrine in other works, notably in his
Evolutionisme des idees-forces (1890), the Introduction to
which furnishes a succinct summary of his synthetic philos
ophy, and in La morale des idees-forces (1908), which de
velops its ethical aspect.

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM 103

The appetitive process, in brief, is a process of external
action and internal reaction. Even in the most rudimentary
consciousness, according to Fouillee, there appear three
terms: (i) Some sort of discernment, whereby a being per
ceives his changes of state; (2) some sort of well-being or
ill-being, wherein he is not indifferent to the changes; (3)
some sort of reaction, which is the germ of choice or prefer
ence. As soon as the process reaches the stage of reflection
upon itself, it constitutes the 'idea,' which Fouillee takes
in the Cartesian and Spinozistic sense, he says, "as a dis
cernment inseparable from a preference." l From discern
ment there is born intelligence; and from preference, will.
The idea is thus an internal revelation of an energy and of
its point of application.

The appetitive process is thus seen to determine the
character of the intellectual element in consciousness.
4 Pure' intellection is an abstraction. Every conscious state
is an 'idea' in so far as it is apprehension; but it is also a
'force,' because it involves a preference, or a form of willing.
No 'idea' can be a mere static representation of an object,
a picture projected from an external world into the camera
obscura of the mind. If ideas could be so acquired, they
would be the resultants of the action of the object upon the
brain of the subject, which would be a biological, not a psy
chological, phenomenon. Taking the word 'idea' in a larger
sense than that connoted by its representative aspect alone,
Fouillee is able to emphasize the oneness of the mental life
to a degree which is impossible for any philosopher who
would erect into an absolute a single element of the threefold
process rooted in appetition.

The same mutual implication of these three elements is
shown in Fouillee's discovery of the "foundation of exist
ence " in the principle, volonte de conscience, which is the
phrase most used in his later works to designate his synthesis
of voluntarism and intellectualism. He chose the expres
sion "volonte de" in conscious contrast with the various
presentations of voluntarism which have followed Schopen-
1 Psychologic des idees-forces, Vol. I, p. ix.

104 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

hauer's theory of the will. His opposition to these philoso
phies of the will is based on the same objection as his opposi
tion to a 'pure' intellectualism, namely, that they erect into
an absolute some one particular manifestation of will. The
total activity of the will includes all such partial manifesta
tions as the 'will for power,' the 'will for life,' and the will
for practical 'activity.' Their relation to the 'will for con
sciousness' is that of part to whole.

The conscious subject wills to be pour soi. That is to
say, he wills to be as conscious as possible. The maximum
of consciousness involves the maximum of its elements,
thought, feeling, and action. The intimate union of these
three elements has been discovered in the appetitive process
underlying the law of idees-forces. It is but a further de
velopment of the same theory of the will which appears
here as "one will with three functions." The correspondence
of the three functions, intelligence, jouissance, and puissance,
to the former trinity indicates at once their psychological
origin.

The first function, intelligence, is derived from the psy
chological relation of subject and object. The conscious
subject is in perpetual relation with other subjects, whence
arises a feeling of difference, a distinction between the
'self and the 'non-self.' The genesis of this idea of self
is explained by the formation of centers in consciousness
which end by being called 'I,' 'you,' 'he,' 'it,' etc. "Con
sciousness spontaneously polarizes itself," says Fouillee,
"and the two poles are the willed and the non-willed." 1
The idea of self, when once formed, becomes a center of
gravitation, seeking to make other beings its means of
action, feeling, and increase of consciousness. As intelligence
grows, the modification of the subject's consciousness be
comes another object, through the spontaneous judgment
of discrimination. That is the dawn of reflection. Reflec
tion inevitably turns inward upon the activity of the con
scious subject, to discover within the functions of conscious
ness the dynamic character of reality. Intelligence implies
1 Psychologie des idtes-jorces. Vol. II, p. 18.

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM 105

the relation of consciousness and the world, and this re-
latedness is present from the beginning. Objectivity is
inherent in subjectivity itself.1 The problem is no longer
the question, Does the subject exist? but, How does it act?
The conscious self is never solitaire but always solidaire,
because its functions of thinking, feeling, and acting all im
ply the ceaseless action and reaction of subject and object.
Neither subject nor object can be comprehended by itself.
To be intelligent at all is to be in relation, in action and
reaction, with an object.

The second function of the will-for-consciousness, la
jouissance, or sensibility, is almost equally significant for a
synthesis of intellectualism and voluntarism, for it links the
other two functions together in a manner that renders their
union more intelligible. Briefly, the subject acts with an
enjoyment both of his activity and of the idea that directs
it. In fact, Fouillee goes even further than this and remarks
that, "Without this immanent jotiissance, he would not
act at all." 2 Such a function is indispensable to ethical
activity, and it is in the field of ethics that Fouillee develops
its possibilities most fully. He does not arrive at hedonism
in following out the relation of pleasure and activity, but
maintains consistently that the act is done for its own sake.
It is not done for pleasure but it is always done with pleasure.
In La morale des idees-forces he shows us how moral activity
is governed by a "persuasive ideal" instead of by an abstract
imperative. We are drawn, not driven, toward morality.
The more joy there is in moral behavior, the more moral it is,
and the greater the idee-force of the ideal. But because this
jouissance is rooted in the will-for-consciousness and is in-
dissolubly connected with intelligence, we find that it is at
once subjective and objective. The intelligence cannot com
prehend without enjoying, nor enjoy without comprehending,
its objects. We have here, then, an intellectual joy which
carries with it its own impulsive power through its connection
with the third function of consciousness, and which is at
once an idee-force and an idee-joie. The subject-object rela-
1 La pensee, p. 27. 2 La morale des idees-forces, p. 123.

106 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

tion involves either the acceptance or the rejection of obli
gation, but in this respect, too, Fouillee finds the will fun
damentally in agreement with the intelligence. He finds
obligation to be a persuasion of the will by the intellect,
constituted by a spontaneous expansion of both intelligence
and will. When the individual will expands toward the
universal, as it constantly tends to do, there may arise a
feeling of obligation which is clothed with the authority of
an imperative, but it is not primarily an imperative. It is
an idee-force derived from the content of the moral ideal,
which excites in us an idee-joie simultaneously with the
'ought.' It is only when the expansion of the will is opposed
by obstacles that the ideal cherished by the will becomes an
ought. Left to its natural development, the will would need
no 'must' to thrust obligation upon it. Obligation is sec
ondary to the supreme persuasive, which operates not by
virtue of necessity and constraint but by virtue of their
progressive disappearance. In this conception of the free
man as one whose will is at one with the will of the universe,
Fouillee approaches the grandeur and simplicity of Spinoza's
philosophy.

The third function, la puissance, is the tendency toward
realization which was emphasized by Fouillee as early as
1872 in La liberte et la determinism*. Taken here as a func
tion of the will-for-consciousness, it signifies that elan en
avant which has just been called the expansion of conscious
ness toward universality. In this spontaneous expansion
we find the explanation of evolution itself. It is the struggle
of the will-for-consciousness to be as greatly increased as
possible, to expand toward infinity. There is no equilibrium
in the mental world, no conservation of energy, because
etre must also be plus-etre. Because of the conscious power
which characterizes voluntary activity, individuals endowed
with it tend to "persevere in their own being," as Spinoza ex
presses the same thought; and the universal will-for-conscious
ness tends to expand into that indefinite development which
constitutes revolution novatrice. Evolution is always en train
de se faire. It is in this that the essence of power consists.

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM 107

Although the language of Fouillee suggests the philosophy
of evolution developed later by Bergson, who dwells upon
the creative force of the elan vital, there are fundamental
differences in the two points of view. Both Fouillee and
Bergson are ranked with the voluntarists, but Bergson's
voluntarism seems to have descended from the spiritualistic
activism of Maine de Biran and to have become imbued with
the doctrines of spiritual liberty and radical contingency that
dominate the theories of Ravaisson and Boutroux. Fouillee's
voluntarism, on the other hand, departs from the line of
direct descent and develops the tendency found in Taine's
intellectualism. There is the same insistence upon coherence
and the same synthesis of those psychological elements which
are usually divorced from one another in anti-intellectualistic
voluntarism. In Taine, as in Fouillee, the essential connec
tion of motor elements and ideational elements in our mental
life is strongly emphasized. In Bergson there is a basic
division between these elements. At the very outset of
their evolution, according to Bergson, thought and move
ment parted company. The original elan of consciousness
developed in two directions, instinct and intellect. Instinct
remained identified with the spontaneous activity of life;
intellect merely looks upon life from the outside. Intellect,
then, must ally itself with a mechanistic explanation of the
universe. Intellect may make itself tools, or mechanical
instruments for measuring and computing, but it can never
enter into the heart of reality and know life as it is. It may
formulate sciences but it can never comprehend anything
save the inert and lifeless. It is identified with matter; and
matter and life, or matter and mind, are found by Bergson
to be a dualism. Dualism in any form seems to Fouillee to
be artificial. He declines to accept as philosophy a view of
life which cuts it in two, puts instinct and feeling on one
side and intellect and idea on the other. He repudiates the
bifurcation of the evolutional elan by means of which Bergson
opposes the psychical and the physical, the temporal and the
spatial, the intuitive and the intelligible, the quick and the
dead.

108 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Fouillee gives a much more satisfactory account of in
telligence and its evolution than Bergson; without employing
dichotomies, he demonstrates the indissoluble union of
thought and movement in their common source, appetition.
His doctrine of will as the ultimate reality revealed to itself
in consciousness involves a recognition of the psychical
character of force, and consequently a recognition of the
psychical element in natural forces. Idealism and naturalism
may then be reconciled, for both will find a mean term in the
psychological nature of reality. The functional unity of the
mental and the physical in appetition makes it impossible
to erect either into an absolute, and likewise renders a double
flow of the life impulse absurd. " There are no more two
evolutions in us than there are two or three distinct facul
ties." l The very term, 'life-impulse,' seems to Fouillee to
be used in a vague and irrational manner by Bergson, to
denote something which eludes the clear-cut expressions of
a conceptual philosophy, because it is itself formless and in
conceivable, — " a romantic name for unintelligibility." That
this formless impulse may be divined by intuition is true
only in so far as intuition is at one with the intellect; for the
intuitive sympathy which enters into reality and ' lives it' is
helpless either to gain or to impart its priceless knowledge
without the categories, which are but " abstracts of our
selves, generalized and universalized." In Fouillee's met
aphysics the categories of the will-for-consciousness are not
points of view but points of contact, or identities between
the intelligible and the real.2 All of them are necessary to
intuitive knowledge, with the possible exception of causality.
Causality is excepted by Fouillee because, as he ironically
observes, " Intuition is like ecstasy in never raising the ques
tion, Why? That is what makes it so little philosophical."

In Fouillee's attitude toward intuitionism as an inter
pretation of the universe there is to be found a vigorous
restatement of his abhorrence of one-sidedness in philosophy.
It would not involve a long search to discover in his works

1 La pensee, Preface, p. xi.

2 Esquisse (Fune interpretation du monde, p. 158.

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM 109

passages in which he deplores the unilateral views of con
ceptual philosophy quite as earnestly as he here deplores
the lack of concepts in Bergson's intuitionism. It is not
inconsistency, however, that appears in this critical inter
pretation, to which he devotes nearly one hundred pages
in La pensee et les nouvelles ecoles anti-intellectualistes. Both
concepts and intuitions are partial, unilateral views of the
whole; but concepts prove to have a scientific and philo
sophical value which intuitions lack. It would be vain to
urge that science is outside the realm of intuition and that
intuition therefore need not concern itself with the applica
bility of its findings to science, for it is just in respect to
scientific exploration that an enlightened intuition is most
brilliantly exhibited. It is because the kind of intuitions
which Bergson describes are not enlightened that they are
useless for philosophy as well as for science. When intui
tions confine themselves to obscure feelings, affections, emo
tions, and vague divinations, they may have a psycho-
physiological value, but they have no value for philosophy
until controlled and interpreted by reason. They must be
universalized or they remain mere sudden and spontaneous
revelations of that which is transitory: intuitions without
the tueri and without the in. To become useful for our
interpretations of reality, they must enter into a synthesis
with concepts and all other partial approaches to knowl
edge; they must become unified in consciousness and ex
pressed in intelligence. Intuitionism rightly appeals to the
most immediate possible consciousness, but it wrongly at
tributes to this immediate consciousness a mass of data
which are really only ulterior concepts. Conceptual philos
ophy, on the other hand, rightly sees in ideas the formulas
of relations appertaining to the real, but it wrongly wanders
into abstractions. Both views are needed, in so far as both
contain true elements, but neither must be regarded as suf
ficient in itself. Of the two methods, intuitionism seems
the less able to serve philosophy, because it is fore-ordained
to be mute, and the human mind can gather very little solace
from an oracle that is dumb. Fouillee's own condemnation

1 10 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

is more sweeping than this, and even more so than Kant's
famous epigram. He says that intuitions without concepts
are not merely blind; they are non-existent.

Another phase of the divergence in the evolutional doc
trines of these two noted voluntarists is disclosed in their
radically different theories of the relation of instinct and
intelligence. Fouillee's account is the earlier and more satis
factory. Both instinct and intelligence have their basis in
appetite, which has been shown to form the intermediate
stage between reflective thought and brute mechanism.
Having the same origin, instinct is not different in kind,
but in degree of consciousness, from intellect. In the be
ginning of conscious life motor reaction is inseparable from
the conscious excitation. Habit and heredity tend to or
ganize the mechanical structure of an animal in such a
way that consciousness and appetite are less and less needed
to instigate or direct each repetition of the act. Since
natural selection will eliminate whatever is not useful, the
utility of an act need not be represented beforehand. The
inevitable accompaniment of pleasure or pain serves to
impel reaction quite as readily as would an intellectual
representation of an end to be served. The directive idea
is virtually preformed in the structure of an organism, and
it becomes actual under the influence of sensations, emo
tions, and appetitions. An instinct is neither a transformed
mechanism nor a lapsed intelligence, but a transformed
appetite. Intelligence itself is this same appetite, become
more and more progressive and reflective, until it takes the
form of a superior instinct, a superior adaptation to a larger
milieu.1 In his later statements of the same topic, Fouillee
reiterates the fundamental likeness between all forms of
conscious activity. Instinct and intuition are no nearer
the heart of reality than is intelligence, nor are they any the
less utilitarian. To say that the intellect falsifies the real,
as Bergson does, is to misunderstand the nature of the real
as well as the nature of the intellect.

It is a presupposition of modern philosophy that reality
1 ttvolutionisme des id€es-forces, pp. 209-229.

FOUILLEE'S INTELLECTUALISTIC VOLUNTARISM III

is intelligible. Experience is possible for the knowing sub
ject because the mind has points of contact with the object
known. A psychological theory of reality such as Fouillee's
is never in opposition to a logical interpretation of the na
ture of things, because subject and object are unable to
sever their relation of functional unity. The intellection
of the real is the highest effort of that will which is the foun
dation of our being. "Intelligence, immanent in the life
of instinct, and not externally patched upon it, is unable
not to pursue its exercise, which is knowledge; its object,
which is reality; its law, which is truth; or its development,
which is indefinite progress toward the real and the true." 1
Philosophy is thus the idee-force of reality itself.

1 La pensee, p. 31.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA
EDGAR LENDERSON HINMAN

THE attempts of western philosophy to formulate a
thorough-going system of idealistic monism have persistently
suggested to many minds the substantial identity of such a
mode of thought with the philosophical pantheism of India.
To some thinkers the suggestion has been distinctly a con
genial one, and it has been gladly fostered by such writers as
Schopenhauer, Max Miiller, and Paul Deussen. The repre
sentatives of the Hegelian tendency, however, have in
general repelled this view. They are willing to strike hands
with Spinoza, it is true, provided a certain rendering of
Spinozism is pushed into the foreground; but the regular
exponents of the Vedanta quite commonly draw their fire.
Perhaps the Hindu scholars are less hesitant to admit kin
ship. Certain of them, at any rate, aim to commend Ve-
dantism to western thought by urging its essential identity
with the Absolute Idealism of the Hegelian school.

But whatever the representatives of western monistic
idealism themselves may say, their critics and the educated
public in general seem to feel that there is probably a great
deal of truth in the charge that they are essentially panthe
ists of the orthodox Brahmanical type. The assertion is an
old one, of course, but perhaps no other single contention
has functioned more largely than this in the recent out
burst of criticism against all forms of Absolute Idealism that
have learned anything from Hegel. Pragmatist and Berg-
sonian writers, in particular, have made a large handling
of it, and it is scattered at large throughout philosophical
literature.

At the same time, a thoughtful reader is impressed that
this charge, in the form commonly found in recent philo
sophical discussion, is quite loose and indefinite. It regularly

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 113

dispenses with all analysis and is too indiscriminating con
cerning the exact meaning of the doctrines which it is striv
ing to identify. Indeed, the precise sense in which they
may be identified is normally left vague.

The critic can hardly be understood to allege, of course,
that the two philosophies are flatly one and the same. The
enormous differences in point of historical setting, method,
goal, internal development, and cultural results preclude
such a suggestion. He must mean, then, that in spite of the
obvious differences which separate two great historical sys
tems of thought, there are similarities on certain issues which
are of so great importance that in comparison with them
other differences are dwarfed. The issue becomes, then, one
of decision concerning dominating significance; and this
needs to be much more accurately defined and argued than
is usually done.

Further, the careful student is impressed that the writers
who urge this identification uniformly omit to make an
analysis of the meaning and interpretation of Vedantism
and to discriminate the different schools in its development.
And yet that is of the utmost importance to any fruitful dis
cussion of this matter. There exist many different editings
of the Vedanta. Two, in particular, have attained to marked
prominence. The followers of Sankara present an abstract
monism that is frankly and avowedly pantheistic, perhaps
the only Simon-pure pantheism that the world has ever seen.
The party of Ramanuga, on the other hand, present monism
in quite a different light, a concrete monism, one may say,
which would seem to be rather more theistic than pantheis
tic. Both are Vedanta; both rest upon a philosophical inter
pretation of the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Vedanta-
sutras. Now a comparison with Hegelianism which holds
good of one of these lines of development may not and often
does not hold of the other at all.

Is Hegelianism like the Vedanta? That depends upon
whose Vedanta one is talking about. If the Vedanta of
Sankara is under discussion, — the pantheistic Vedanta, the
world's arch representative of abstract monism, — then the

114 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

present writer is convinced that the two philosophies are
essentially unlike, and are even opposed. But if the reference
is to the Vedanta of Ramanuga, — the Vedanta of neo-
Brahmanic reform, of Vishnuite theism rather than orthodox
Brahmanic pantheism, — then it would seem that, in spite of
obvious differences, the similarities are so genuine and sig
nificant that the two may be regarded as essentially similar
in their philosophical import. I should like to develop this
view, so far as somewhat narrow space limits make possible.

The factors which argue for the easy identification of
Hegelianism with the orthodox presentation of Brahmanism
may be hastily surveyed. They are: the strongly marked
negative movement in each, whereby everything that is
limited and finite is branded as unreal; the radical monism,
whereby the Absolute alone is regarded as truly real; and
especially, the doctrine of the Universal Self, according to
which every finite mind is vitally one with the Infinite
Spirit, and finds its * truth' and its good in coming to the
consciousness of that union. And when these things have
been said, the case seems to many minds to be really closed.

But "when two men say the same thing, yet are they not
the same." A discriminating study will show, I think, that
each of these fundamental teachings bears a quite different
significance in western monism from that intended by San-
kara, and that the differences are really the matter of capital
importance in the comparison. In order to bring out such
differences, we may make a brief analysis of the two philos
ophies, especially in regard to (I) the method by which each
is controlled, (II) the doctrine of appearance which results,
and (III) the doctrine of the Absolute Self and its signif
icance for the finite individual.

The method which is prevailingly used in the Vedanta,
and which comes to its climax in the speculation of Sankara,
is that of a pure and unrelieved abstractionism which neg
lects or negates all differences. One could assemble from the

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 115

sacred literature pages on pages of passages which commend
this method, passages which have become famous in Hindu
discussion.

Thus, in the Khandogya-Upanishad, we read:
"My dear, as by one clod of clay all that is made of clay
is known, the difference being only a name, arising from
speech, but the truth being that all is clay;

"And as, my dear, by one nugget of gold all that is made
of gold is known, the difference being only a name, arising
from speech, but the truth being that all is gold;

"And as, my dear, by one pair of nail-scissors all that is
made of iron is known, the difference being only a name,
arising from speech, but the truth being that all is iron, —
such, my dear, is that instruction."

This, then, is the central account of the method "by which
we hear what cannot be heard, by which we perceive what
cannot be perceived, by which we know what cannot be
known." 2 It is the quest of the universal, it is true, but of
a universal defined in a purely negative way, by the simple
process of throwing away all differences.

"Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, under
stands nothing else, that is the Infinite. Where one sees
something else, hears something else, understands something
else, that is the finite."

"Sir, in what does the Infinite rest?"
"In its own greatness — or not even in greatness." 3
A passage in the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad carries this
method up to the non-duality standpoint of Sankara: "For
when there is as it were duality, then one sees the other,
one smells the other, one tastes the other, one salutes the
other, one hears the other, one perceives the other, one
touches the other, one knows the other; but when the Self
only is all this, how should he see another, how should he
smell another, how should he taste another, how should he
salute another, how should he hear another, how should he
touch another, how should he know another? How should

1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. I, pp. Q2f .

2 Ibid., p. 92. * Ibid., p. 123.

Ii6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

he know Him by whom he knows all this? That Self is to
be described by No, No!" l

It was on this basis, then, that Sankara founded his ex
planation of Vedanta as advaita, — non-duality, — radical,
abstract monism. He must at once admit the authoritative-
ness of a sacred literature which was somewhat popular in
its thought, and therefore penetrated by complex and in
consistent motives, and also bring everything to a rational
interpretation in terms of philosophical conceptions con
sistent with a high order of reflection. He dealt with the
problem by grasping firmly the logic of abstraction as his
controlling method, and purposed to accept rigorously the
results in which it would issue. But the situation, which is
really unworkable at the best, would have been obviously
impossible, if he had not called to his service a distinction
between two orders of philosophical knowledge. The higher
order (para vidya) was supposed to afford the true Vedantic
insight, the teaching of absolute non-duality. All elements
of difference or distinction being then illusory, the Absolute
stands as a blank, characterless unity. The lower order of
knowledge (apard vidya), although still speculative, is the
level at which the Upanishads normally move. Here the
writers speak of the Universal Self, indeed, but ascribe to it
thoughts and purposes, creative activity, and various char
acteristics and relations to man. Now all these modes of
expression of the lower knowledge must, in the opinion of
Sankara, be regarded as symbolical. In the philosophical
sense they convey no truth whatever. They may be em
ployed, however, so far as their use serves to suggest the
true, undifferentiated Brahman. Sankara supports himself
by such Upanishad passages as, "He is not this, not this,"
"Without parts, without action, restful, faultless, stainless,"
and many more. And yet after all, his real defence in making
this distinction is in his clear consciousness of the necessary
drift of an abstractionist logic.

"If you assert that Brahman must have manifold powers
[the actual contention of Vishnuite theism], because, ac-
1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XV, p. 185.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 117

cording to the scripture, it is the cause of the creation, sub
sistence, and extinction of the world, we say No! For the
passages of scripture which deny difference to it can have
no other sense [but the literal one]. But the passages about
the creation and so on can likewise have no other sense?
This is not so; for their aim is [only] to teach the identity
[of the world with Brahman]. For when the scripture, by
the examples of lumps of clay and the like, teaches that 'the
Existent,' the Brahman, alone is true, but that [its] trans
formation [into the world] is untrue, it cannot have the aim
of teaching a creation and the like. But why should the
passages of scripture about the creation and the like be sub
ordinated to those about the negation of differences, and
not conversely the latter be subordinated to the former?
To this we answer: Because the passages of scripture about
the negation of all differences have a meaning which leaves
nothing more to be wished for " 1

The method, then, is clear. A few passages in the sacred
literature meet the demands of abstractionist logic to com
pleteness; these therefore are ' higher knowledge' and are
true. Most passages do not, and are therefore not to be
taken as true at all, but as symbolical. The procedure of
Sankara at this point is clearly a high-handed one. The
man had not only the courage of his convictions, but also
the convictions which were the logical outcome of his
method.

And yet, as the method of abstraction is essentially an
unsound one, its difficulties are promptly visited upon its
devotee. Already in the Upanishads there is a passage
which might have conveyed to Sankara a different sugges
tion from the one he seems to have taken from it. A pupil
addressed to a master the request, "Tell me the Brahman."
Then the master "became very silent." When the request
was urgently reiterated, however, he replied, "I am telling
Him to you, but you do not understand."

The sage of the Upanishads would seem to have been

1 Sankara's Commentary as quoted by Deussen, System of the Vedanta,
p. no; see also Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 395.

Ii8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the only really consistent representative of Vedantic pan
theism that literature accredits to us. Any philosopher who
attempts to expound the logical meaning of the doctrine
which turns upon this method would have to " become very
silent" — and remain so. A meaningless doctrine cannot be
expounded. But Sankara did not follow the Upanishad
example; his voluminous writings testify to that. Through
out the great extent of his expositions, however, he is mov
ing in terms of the Mower order of knowledge.' The situa
tion which results is thus described by Professor Deussen:
"But the great difficulty for the philosophical understand
ing of the Brahma-sutras lies in the fact, that neither in the
text nor in the commentaries are the two conceptions clearly
separated from each other, but rather meet us everywhere
interwoven with each other, in such sort that the funda
mental texture of the whole consists of a representation of
the exoteric, or, as we may call it (with an extension of the
conception, whose justification will be given in what fol
lows) the lower doctrine (apard vidya), which, however, is
penetrated in every province by the esoteric or higher doc
trine (para vidya), standing in contradiction to it." *

The substantial soundness of the suggestion of Deussen
is apparent to any critical reader of Sankara's great Com
mentary. This means, then, that the great volume of his
expositions, to say nothing of the text of the Upanishads,
does not aim to express the real teaching of Sankara's pan
theism. That teaching is in fact inexpressible, and the sym
bolic language in which one hopes in some measure to sug
gest it does not put the real truth of the matter, not even
in a partial degree.

Now of course the genuine esoteric teaching of Sankara,
after one has thus cleared it from confusion with symbolical
elements that are not meant to be taken seriously, is highly
repugnant to the Hegelian thought. It is indeed the deifica
tion of the abstract category of Pure Being, destructively
criticised by Hegel in the Science of Logic and by many
other writers of the school. That the Hegelians do not

1 Op. cit., p. 98.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 119

mean to establish such an outcome will doubtless be ad
mitted by all. But that their method implies it, and would
really give it if carried out as remorselessly as with Sankara,
seems still to be believed by many. Hegelian reflection
also, it is urged, is driven by the * negativity of the finite.'
It is accustomed to set aside one stage of existence after
another as 'mere appearance.' It moves towards an Ab
solute which is not only one, but is the negative of every
particular type of thing which appears in our experience.
Wherein then, it is asked, is the essential difference?

But in fact the method of the Hegelian philosophy is
widely different in character and has a totally different
philosophical significance from that of Sankara. Its con
scious aim, as is well known, is to seek a reconciling synthesis
between opposing factors. The contesting parties are not
simply thrown away, then, as in the Vedantic scheme;
rather, their vital and viable elements are conserved in the
principle which is to synthesize them. And it results that
the reconciling principle must always afford the affirmative
basis for every characteristic which comes out in the finite
factors to be interpreted. When the western idealist says
that the negativity of thought has driven him to a higher
synthetic principle, he means that the partisan views have
not affirmed the nature of the real as profoundly or as ade
quately as the fuller reflective thought is forced to do. Such
partisan views are inadequate and require to be negated;
but the ground and significance of such negative movement
is to be found in the rich and full positive nature of the
real. Now this view would seem to have a much closer
affinity with the Vishnuite doctrine of sakti, or manifold
powers, than with its great opponent, the orthodox Brah-
manical teaching of non-difference. But its more genuine
relations, of course, are with the Platonic emphasis upon
structural order, rather than with the Hindu deification of
the formless; with the Aristotelian conception of the perfect
ideal as the first principle that energizes all process; or even
with Paul's conception, in Colossians, of the Son who is
before all things and in whom were all things made.

120 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

To many writers it has seemed that such an estimate of
the method of western Absolute Idealism has become anti
quated since Mr. Bradley's negative dialectic has taken
its well-known form. They believe that the cloven hoof of
Brahmanism is thereby fully displayed. But this conten
tion must be judged unsound, I think, for two main reasons.
In the first place, Mr. Bradley's personal tendencies have
led him to give a much more negative form to the discussion
than the nature of the case demands; he is not a good in
terpreter of the conservative or positive element in the
method. And in the second place, even those manifold ex
plicit assertions of a positive truth in the order of finite ex
perience which are contained within Appearance and Reality
have been overlooked or denied to an amazing degree by
his critics. Certain ineptitudes of the author's phraseology
have reinforced certain other ineptitudes of his genuine
thinking to produce a reaction that is out of all proportion
to the merits of the issue. Mr. Bradley is not nearly so
Brahmanistic as his pragmatist critics allege, but he seems
to be somewhat more so than the idealistic method would
properly warrant.

Hegelian idealism demands, according to its historic
formula, the conception of the concrete or system-founding
universal. Now one may indeed urge the criticism that
such a conception is impossible, that all conception must
involve a dash of abstraction. But this is another story.
To determine whether such a contention is sound or not
would take us too far afield. The point to be noticed is,
however, that the ideal of a concrete universal, rich in con
tent, has been deliberately placed before the western idealis
tic monist, and his method is adapted to establish that out
come. Before Sankara, on the other hand, stands the ideal
of an abstract monism, a universal devoid of all systematic
content, and his method makes any other outcome impos
sible. If the conception of a concrete universal be not in
any sense possible, western idealistic monism may be a
failure, indeed, but that is not saying that it teaches the
same thing as orthodox Vedantism.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 121

Now the unorthodox editing of the Vedanta message by
Ramanuga and his followers is imbued with a spirit more
congenial to western thought. It is still monism, to be sure,
and therefore avails itself of the regular Sanskrit designation,
non-duality (advaita). But the unity which it teaches is one
that is modified or qualified by the inclusion of differentia
tions. This enables it to ascribe to finite things, and espe
cially to the selves of men, a relative reality in the system
which the universal establishes and maintains. The Hindus
call this visishta advaita, — qualified monism, or concrete
monism, — a monism admitting the presence of genuine
differences within its unity.

The tendency of such a doctrine is towards a form of
theism based upon the philosophical teaching of the im
manence of God, to be sure, but avoiding the all-devouring
consequences of consistent pantheism. It is by no accident,
then, that the Ramanugists have been in general sym
pathetic with the philosophical ideas underlying the teaching
of the neo-Brahmanical reforming sects. In their historical
development as positive religions these sects have been char
acterized, of course, by many usages of a type common to
all Hinduism and alien to us, but their philosophical theology
is capable of a high development. The Vishnuite theology,
in particular, while it has shown a remarkable power to be
come all things to all men, can be so unfolded as to present
a very high and pure form of philosophical theism. It is this
which has made the largest use of Ramanuga and which his
followers have aimed to serve.

Professor Thibaut 1 has shown that Ramanuga's inter
pretation of Vedanta is as genuinely founded on the Upan-
ishads and the Vedanta-sutras as is that of Sankara himself.
It is unorthodox, to be sure, for two reasons, neither of which
impugns its validity. In the first place, Sankara lived first,
and his great authority had been established for perhaps four
centuries when Ramanuga came upon the scene. As a con
sequence of Sankara's genius, the character of strict Brah-
manism was already determined before Ramanuga taught,
1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXIV, Introduction.

122 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

and he could exercise influence only as an innovator. In the
second place, the abstractionist logic is deeply imbedded in
the Vedanta literature, is easily grasped, appears profound,
and plays entirely into Sankara's hands. It is easy on that
account to argue that Ramanuga was less than logical or
thorough-going. And yet, in fact, it was Sankara who was
most deeply inconsistent, for he availed himself constantly
of the formulas of the lower knowledge, which on his view
could have no real truth within them.

To illustrate the two interpretations and the appeal which
each could make to the scriptures, we may take a brief pas
sage from the Khandogya-Upanishad : "As the bees, my son,
make honey by collecting the juices of distant trees, and re
duce the juices into one form, and these juices have no dis
crimination, so that they might say, I am the juice of this
tree or that, in the same manner, my son, all these creatures,
when they have become merged in the True (either in deep
sleep or death), know not that they are merged in the True." l

The direct purpose of the passage is to answer the ques
tion how it happens that those who are sleeping, and there
fore merged in the All, do not know that they have obtained
true Being. But the answer implies an ambiguity of inter
pretation familiar to students of Spinoza. How are Spinoza's
attributes related to substance? Do they exhibit its essence
truly, or are they simply appearances to the observer? Are
the juices really in the honey, or has their distinction been
totally lost in the unity? The first interpretation gives qual
ified monism, the second gives abstract monism, but each
can appeal to the text.

It is by working along the first line that Ramanuga comes
to the definition of Brahman as "the highest Person, who is
essentially free from all imperfections, and possesses num
berless classes of auspicious qualities of unsurpassable ex
cellence." 2 In his Commentary he comes to a direct reckoning
with the abstractionists. He first states their view with re
markable fairness. He assembles two pages of scriptural
quotations in its support, which seem crushing. He ex-

1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. I, p. 101. * Ibid., Vol. XLVIII, p. 4.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 123

pounds also the basis of its doctrine of nescience. He de
velops the philosophical arguments which lead that way.
And then he turns upon it in the following smashing counter
attack: "This entire theory rests on a fictitious foundation
of altogether hollow and vicious arguments incapable of
being stated in definite logical alternatives, and devised by
men who are destitute of those particular qualities which
cause individuals to be chosen by the Supreme Person re
vealed in the Upanishads; whose intellects are darkened by
the impression of beginningless evil; and who thus have no
insight into the nature of words and sentences, into the real
purport conveyed by them, and into the procedure of sound
argumentation, with all its methods depending on perception
and the other instruments of right knowledge. The theory
therefore must needs be rejected by all those, who, through
texts, perception, and the other means of knowledge —
assisted by sound reasoning — have an insight into the true
nature of things." l

He then proceeds to argue at large that perception in
volves distinction; that plurality, although not ultimate, is
certainly not unreal; that there is no consciousness without
an object; that all knowledge involves distinction and syn
thesis. In short, he develops the essential positions of a con
crete monism when opposing an abstractionist method. He
then attends to the exegesis of the scriptural texts which had
been adduced in favor of Sankara. "We now turn to the
numerous texts which, according to the view of our opponent,
negative the existence of plurality. But what all these texts
deny is only plurality in so far as contradicting that unity
of the world which depends on its being in its entirety an
effect of Brahman, and having Brahman for its inward ruling
principle and its true Self. They do not, on the other hand,
deny that plurality on Brahman's part which depends on its
intention to become manifold." 2

In Ramanuga's opinion, then, concrete, spiritualistic
monism is the teaching of the scriptures, but by no means
pantheism. He sets aside the high-handed assumption of

1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLVIII, p. 39. 2 Ibid., p. 84.

124 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Sankara that all texts not pantheistic belong to the lower
order of knowledge. In general, Ramanuga, like the Hege
lians, finds a measure of truth in the categories and inter
pretations of ordinary life and reflection. To give these over,
therefore, with Sankara, to utter illusion or empty symbol
ism is quite impossible.

We should notice that the issue is fought by Ramanuga
on the basis of an appeal to sound logical method, to com
petent critical reflection, and to a fair interpretation of the
sacred literature. This needs emphasis the more because
the regular Brahmans throughout the centuries have fos
tered the opinion that Ramanuga was vastly inferior in
point of thoroughness and logical consistency to their own
great leader. When this opinion is reflected in the medium
of a western scholar's mind, it tends to take shape in such
a passage as the following: "It must be admitted therefore
that in India, instead of one Vedanta-philosophy, we have
really two, springing from the same root but extending its
branches in two very different directions, that of Sankara
being kept for unflinching reasoners who, supported by an
unwavering faith in Monism, do not shrink from any of its
consequences; another, that of Ramanuga, trying hard to
reconcile their Monism with the demands of the human
heart that required, and will always require, a personal god,
as the last cause of all that is, and an eternal soul that yearns
for an approach to or a reunion with that Being." 1

But this view should no longer be allowed to pass current.
The issue between the two types of Vedanta is both literary
and philosophical. Dr. Thibaut has made clear that on the
literary question Ramanuga is at least as well fortified in his
interpretation of the scriptures as is Sankara; and even Max
Miiller, in other passages, accepts that estimate.2 On the
philosophical question the almost unanimous verdict of
western thought, I believe, would ascribe the superior force
and value to the method of Ramanuga. Personally I should
make only this reservation: If it is stipulated that the Ve-

1 Max Miiller, Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, p. 252.

2 Ibid., pp. 245, 247, and 249.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 125

danta is to stand as an abstract pantheistic monism, then
of course we ought to go the whole figure and hold with
Sankara even to the extreme of his esoteric teaching. And
some such stipulation really seems to be in the minds of those
critics who think of the western Absolute Idealism as Brah-
manical pantheism.

The doctrine of appearance developed by the orthodox
Vedanta is the well known teaching of Maya, the veil of
systematic illusion. Appearance is manifold; Brahman is
without differences. No part, phase, or aspect of the order
of appearance, then, can present anything that even in a
relative degree bodies forth the real. It is true that this
account of appearance is contradictory. Maya can no more
be united with an undifferentiated Brahman than the
Parmenidean Way of Opinion could be reconciled with the
Way of Truth. The present point, however, is that it is
the only view that is even in any degree compatible with
Sankara's Vedanta.

The interpretation of appearance given by the Hegelian
form of idealism is of course entirely different from this.
Hegel defends the power of human categories to seize truth,
but regards such seizure as a matter of varying degrees,
depending upon the adequacy of the categories employed.
The doctrine of degrees of reality, professed by our absolute
idealists throughout, is then the rejection in principle of
the pantheistic Vedanta. If the categories of man's thought
and experience grasp the real in varying degrees, and if
some estimate may be formed concerning which are more
adequate and which are less so, we are in a totally different
world of thought from that of the orthodox Brahman. In
fact, we are in the thought world of Aristotle rather than
Sankara, of philosophical theism rather than of pantheism.

It is true that, in the view of western idealism, any or
dinary or finite category is less than absolute. It always
presents a matter which is an aspect of a larger whole and
is real only as upborne by the larger whole. If, then, we

126 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

use Mr. Bradley's language, we shall soon be talking of
such things, — everything, — as "mere appearance," and not
" reality." Such a mode of speech may mislead even the
very elect and it is almost certain to cause trouble for prag-
matists. But it must be remembered that the doctrine of
degrees of reality, which a careful reader will find deeply in
volved even in Mr. Bradley's text, is no clever device ar
ranged to save the idealist from the charge of pantheism,
but is rather of the very essence of both the Aristotelian
and the Hegelian modes of thought.

Now on this conception of Maya Ramanugists, as is well
known, oppose the followers of Sankara all along the line.
Isvara, the Lord through whom the world is created, is
illusion to Sankara; to Ramanuga this conception of the
Godhead, as forming the ground of the order of experience,
presents the "very God of very God." Indeed, the material
world itself, while its inner truth is a Universal Self, is re
garded by Ramanuga as having a relative existence expres
sive of the genuine nature of things. He is fond of speaking
of the material world, together with the souls of men, as
forming the "body of Brahman." The argument against
the doctrine of Maya pervades Ramanuga's Commentary.
Plurality and distinction from Brahman, he urges, although
never amounting to absolute separation, must have an un
deniable recognition in our world system.

A recent Hindu writer, after making explicit acknowledg
ment of his obligations to Ramanuga, sums up his own con
clusions in a way that splendidly embodies the teaching of
the ancient sage of the theistic Vedanta: "We are, therefore,
compelled to admit the existence of a material or objective
world distinct though inseparable from the world of spirit.
We are compelled to recognize a world to which the concep
tions of space and time, quality and quantity, substance and
attribute, cause and effect, apply in contradistinction from
the world of spirit, to which these conceptions do not apply.
Here Absolute Monism, like that of the great Sankara, fails
us. Its analysis of experience is halting and one-sided. It
sees enough to detect the error of popular Dualism. It sees

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 127

that Nature is not independent of God, that it has only a
relative and not an absolute existence. This relative ex
istence it interprets as non-existence. Agreeing with popular
thought in thinking that absolute existence is the only form
of existence, it denies existence to Nature as soon as it finds
out that it has no absolute existence. Again, sharing in
the popular mistake that unity is opposed to difference, —
not knowing that unity and difference are both implied
in relation, — it denies that Nature is distinct from God, when
it sees that it is one with him in the sense of being indis-
solubly related to him. There is, therefore, to it only one
existence, unrelated to any other existence. The one ab
solute existence is above space, time, quality, quantity,
cause and effect, without any relation to anything in space
and time, anything admitting of quantity and quality, any
thing under the law of cause and effect. The latter order
of existence is only appearance, the result of ignorance,
and has no relation to knowledge properly so called. Such
Monism does not see that the Absolute, the Spaceless, the
Timeless, the Unchangeable, necessarily implies a world
of space, time and change, and is inconceivable and un
meaning without the latter. Absolute Monism, therefore,
such as denies the real existence of the world of time and
space, has no place, we see, in the Theism that a correct
analysis of knowledge reveals to us." !

This author recognizes that the view which he is ex
pounding as his own is identical with the Absolute Idealism
of western philosophy; and indeed its thoroughly Hegelian
spirit will be discerned at once by all students of these sub
jects. But it is Vedantism, used in the service of the teach
ing of the Brahma Somaj, in contradistinction to the or
thodox Brahmanical doctrine.

Ill

All Vedantism culminates, of course, in the doctrine of
the Universal Self, as at once the inward life of all Being and

1 Sitdnath Tattvabhushan, The Philosophy of Brahmaism, pp. i66f.

128 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the true essence of every finite self. But the exact sweep
and meaning of this doctrine, as consistently interpreted ac
cording to the viewpoint and method of the straitest sect
of the Brahmans, is perhaps too little appreciated by western
students. If that were clearly grasped, we might hear less
of the charge that it is identical with the Hegelian concep
tion on this point.

The difficulty with our western appreciation is that it
is apt to be founded upon the Upanishad literature or other
semi-popular expositions. But such accounts belong, at
least prevailingly, to what Sankara calls the lower order of
knowledge. They are not really true at all. And I believe
that our western student rarely contemplates the genuine
esoteric teaching of Brahmanism.

We are apt to think that the finite self is regarded as a
part of Brahman. Indeed, one of the Vedanta-sutras de
clares so in set terms. Sankara, however, deliberately in
serts into the text at this point the Sanskrit word iva, "as
it were," and then proceeds to explain that, since the Brah
man has no parts, this cannot be regarded as strictly true.
That is, it is a viewpoint belonging to the lower order of
knowledge and is not really true at all.

The esoteric doctrine, then, declares that the finite self
is the Universal Self, without restriction or qualification;
" there is no difference." It is not a genuine concreting or
specifying of the universal life to an individual point of
view or center of personality; it simply is God in his fulness,
and nothing more can be said. Sankara speaks, to be sure,
of the individual soul as presenting the Universal Self sub
ject to the limitation of the unreal upadhis due to Maya.
But since Maya is total illusion, and the upadhis totally
unreal, it follows that self and God are absolutely identical.
There is no real discrimination or difference of viewpoint
possible.

Western students often think of Brahmanism as teach
ing that the soul at the last will return to Brahman, "slip
into the shining sea," and be merged and lost in the Infinite.
Indeed, certain Upanishad passages so declare. But this

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 129

also is a mode of speech, a viewpoint of the lower knowledge.
Sankara says: "Some maintain that the passages of scrip
ture as to going [to the Brahman] refer to the higher [not to
the lower, attribute-possessing Brahman]. This cannot be,
because a going to the Brahman is impossible. For the all-
present highest Brahman, inmost of all, who is the soul
that is within all, of whom it is said: . . . 'Self only is
this universe' . . . etc., — to this Brahman whose character
is determined by passages of scripture like these, there can
not now or ever be a going in. For we cannot go to a place
where we already are; but on the contrary, according to
common acceptation, only to another place." l The great
maxim of Vedantism, "That art Thou," when interpreted
in the orthodox manner, also carries with it the denial of
any difference whatever.

Now this whole doctrine is, of course, fairly incomprehen
sible to the absolute idealist of the West. The point is not
at all that the western scholar cannot fathom it; one may
believe that we do as well in this respect as the Hindu. The
point is rather that it is repugnant to the entire theory of
thought and predication upon which western idealism rests.
Identity without difference is a meaningless category, and
all attempts to utter the esoteric Brahmanical teaching
upon this subject are struck with an inevitable blight.

Hegelianism holds, as is well known, that the finite in
dividual is real, not in his own right, but through the pres
ence within him of the Absolute Self. This Universal Spirit,
then, is the source and inspiration of knowledge, morals,
religion, and the entire cultural and spiritual life of man.
But here we are dealing with a concrete, system-founding
universal, one which bears up within its life the essential
ends of finite individuality. For such a view, even the nat
uralistic or temporal phases of the conscious life of the in
dividual have a relative reality for the system, and the full
meaning of the individual's life, the completed ideal of con
creted personality, would of necessity be deeply embedded

1 Quoted from Deussen, System of the Vedanta^ p. 109; see also Sacred
Books of the East, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 394.

130 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

in the nature of the real. To the Hegelian it seems absurd,
it is true, to attempt to safeguard finite personality by mak
ing war upon the dominant sway of the Universal Spirit;
but if the kind of Universal Spirit that is postulated is one
that is interesting itself in finite individuals, a genuinely
'concrete universal,' it may be to each finite self "a rock,
a fortress, and a might." So far as these phases of Hegelian-
ism are developed, it would seem to point towards a theistic
interpretation of the meaning of the world-system. At any
rate, it affords to finite individuality, in the order of time, a
vastly more affirmative status than orthodox Brahmanism
gives; and even if we recognize that its suggestions of a
timeless basis of personality are perhaps crossed by other
motives, it still fortifies the essential ends of human en
deavor in the cultural process as strict Brahmanism does
not even attempt to do.

When we turn to the meditations of Ramanuga on this
problem, however, we find ourselves again in an atmosphere
more congenial to a western idealist. He first defends the
plain natural meaning of the sutra which holds that the
finite self is part of Brahman. This is at best, however, a
very uninstructive and inadequate conception, and Ra
manuga does not stop there. For he observes: "To hold
that the individual soul is a part of Brahman does not ex
plain matters; for by a 'part' we understand that which
constitutes part of the extension of something. If, then,
the soul occupied part of the extension of Brahman, all its
imperfections would belong to Brahman. Nor can the soul
be a part of Brahman if we take 'part' to mean a piece;
for Brahman does not admit of being divided into
pieces, and moreover, the difficulties connected with
the former interpretation would present themselves here
also." 1

If he still defends, then, the language of the sutra, that
the soul is a part of Brahman, it is with the purpose of vin
dicating man's genuine membership in the organic system
of reality. He next studies the relation of the finite to the
1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLVIII, pp.

HEGELIANISM AND THE VEDANTA 131

Infinite, with the result of establishing for the finite a very
significant measure of being for itself. As Thibaut expresses
the matter, "The individual soul of Ramanuga, on the
other hand, is really an individual; it has indeed sprung
from Brahman, and is never outside Brahman, but never
theless it enjoys a separate personal existence and will re
main a personality forever." 1

The problem of human destiny can be touched only
briefly. Here the orthodox doctrine can hardly be stated
without accommodation to the language of the lower knowl
edge, but the teaching of Ramanuga is straightforward.
Thibaut summarizes it as follows: "The release from the
round of rebirth means, according to Sankara, the absolute
merging of the individual soul in Brahman, due to the dis
missal of the erroneous notion that the soul is distinct from
Brahman; according to Ramanuga it only means the soul's
passing from the troubles of earthly life into a kind of heaven
or paradise where it will remain forever in undisturbed
personal bliss."

The philosophical idea that is involved in Ramanuga's
view is based upon the logical motives that pervade his
entire method and system of thought. It happened to en
gage, however, with the mythological conception of Vishnu's
heaven, already developed among the teeming millions of
the Vishnuite religion. Accordingly, the crude popular
thought of that sectarian movement, partly theistic, as it
was, and partly pantheistic, began to form itself under
Ramanuga's influence. Partly because the pure philosoph
ical influence could never largely dominate the mass, and
partly, one may judge, because of certain inadequacies of
his own thinking, the result has been equivocal in many
ways. And yet, it is fair to say that since his time the in
tellectual forces in India which have attempted to resist
pantheism while remaining true to the Vedanta have owed
most of their power to him.

The charge that Hegelianism is Brahmanistic pantheism
is usually made, we noticed, in a form quite loose and vague.
1 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXIV, pp. xxxf.

132 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

We are now forced to conclude that in what seems to be its
substantial meaning the contention must be entirely re
pudiated. If the critic really wishes to press the case, he
should be required to present a thoroughly drawn bill of
particulars.

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION
G. WATTS CUNNINGHAM

FROM time to time within recent years the idealist has
been challenged to show cause why his doctrine of truth as
logical consistency should not be drummed out of camp as
a wholly vacuous, useless, and even meaningless conception.
"As a special favor," Professor Dewey pleads, "will not the
objective idealist show how, in some one single instance, his
immanent * reason' makes any difference as respects the
detection and elimination of error, or gives even the slightest
assistance in discovering and validating the truly worth-
ful?" * Dr. Schiller, less prone to compromise, unqualifiedly
condemns the doctrine: "The doctrine that only the Whole
can be true is seen to mean that humanly nothing can be
true, and, indeed, to be ultimately meaningless, because it
construes truth in such a way that it is no longer distin
guishable from error." 2 Even within the house of its
friends the coherence theory is not wholly free from sus
picion. "Whether or not idealism will ultimately succeed
in its task," Professor Bode believes, "the reconciliation
and blending of the particular and the transcendental is at
all events its peculiar and pressing obligation." 3 And he
is apparently inclined to think that the task cannot be ac
complished, is indeed a hopeless one, since the transcendental
element, which "somehow holds over from one moment of
experience to another" and which obviously is essential to
the coherence tljeory, is frankly branded by him as a 'vicious
abstraction.' Likewise, Professor Sabine in his thoroughly
searching and very suggestive criticism of Bosanquet's
Logic raises the following questions concerning the theory:

1 Philosophical Review, Vol. XV, 1906, p. 474.

2 Proc. Arist. Soc., 1910-1911, p. 156.

8 Philosophical Review, Vol. XIX, 1910, p. 608; see also pp. 601, 604.

134 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

"If truth is the whole, and if totality is the ultimate prin
ciple of individuality and value, and if thought is just the
nisus of experience toward its completeness, what is this
more perfect experience to which judgment is not the key?
Is it altogether perverse to suspect that the defect is not
in the relational form of judgment but in the coherence
theory of truth? Is it not really more probable that the
concrete universal is an inadequate logical principle?" l

Such criticisms as these strike at a very vital spot in the
idealistic theory. If they are justified, idealism stands in
need of pretty drastic revision; for surely idealism cannot
surrender the coherence theory and at the same time retain
its traditional form. Can the idealist satisfactorily meet
these objections? The aim of the present paper is to indi
cate in outline the way in which they may perhaps be met.
My excuse for venturing to discuss a problem which others
more competent have discussed before me, — if an excuse for
an independent consideration of a basic question be neces
sary, — is that to my mind something yet remains to be said
on the problem which has not, so far as I am aware, been
explicitly said. My thesis is that, if the coherence theory
is to be saved, the transcendental principle of unity within
experience upon which it insists and which it calls ' thought'
or 'reason' must be brought definitely into touch with
the concrete situations in which it is supposed to function
and must be so defined as to imply an intelligible view of
the temporal order; in short, that coherence must be so
construed as to place the emphasis on organization of ends
rather than mere abstract logical consistency.

Historically, the coherence theory had its origin, I suppose,
in the obligation which thinkers felt to meet the atomism of
Hume and the utter scepticism implied by it. On the basis
of such a theory as that which Hume, — logically enough, it
would seem, — reared upon the premises of empiricism, no

1 Philosophical Review, Vol. XXI, 1912, p. 564.

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 135

tenable doctrine of truth could possibly be constructed.
Kant's 'transcendental unity of apperception' was a state
ment of the counter theory. Hume places all of the em
phasis on the discontinuity and discreteness among expe
riences; Kant, on the contrary, directs attention rather to the
unity among experiences and to their mutual interrelations
and implications. All of your experiences, Kant says in
effect, from those of sensibility to those of the understanding,
from sense-perception to scientific insight, have significance
and meaning, and so may be called true or false, only as
they are included within some sort of system, only as they
are bound together in a kind of network of relations. And
the coherence theory as thus put by Kant has been, in prin
ciple, the basis for all the later forms which the theory has
taken. All along, then, the coherence theory has emphasized
system as the criterion of meaning, and it has persistently
insisted that apart from system there is no standard.1

As I apprehend the matter, this theory has been subjected
to attack by pragmatists and others not primarily because
it lays emphasis upon system and unity within experience,
but rather because of the sort of unity upon which the chief
emphasis is laid. According to the theory, the unifying
principle is a kind of immanently 'constitutional' and 'or
ganizational' reason, a thought-element which somehow
holds over from one moment of experience to the next, an
intellectual principle which is in some sense 'transcenden
tal.' But the critics find that such a conception as this is
open to at least two basic objections. In the first place, they
hold, the unity thus posited by the theory is too far removed
from, too externally related to, the concrete situations in
which it is supposed to function; it is too much "a form or
mode of some supra-empirical ego, mind or consciousness." 2
Hence "we must replace it by the doctrine that only the
relevant can be true, and that the relevant must always be
relative to a purpose." 3 And in the second place, it is held,
the principle of unity assumed by the theory fails to do jus-

1 Cf. Bradley, Essays on Truth and Reality, Ch. VII.

2 Dewey, loc. cit. 3 Schiller, loc. cit.

136 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

tice to the sort of unity which is actually found within con
crete experience. As a matter of indisputable fact, expe
rience grows in time and as a result it involves a considerable
degree of discontinuity and hesitancy; but the unity posited
by the coherence theory is timeless, and therefore the theory
fails to discover any ultimate significance in the temporal
order. Temporal discreteness seems on the face of it to
have little to do with abstract consistency. In short, the
coherence theory is incompetent to account for the reality
of the time-order and implies that ultimately the temporal
must be transcended as belonging to an inherently imperfect
type of experience which cannot be regarded as of ultimate
worth.

As regards the Kantian conception above referred to, it
seems to me that such objections hold without question. In
the place of Hume's atomic chaos Kant substitutes an a priori
absolutism and calls it experience; but so far as one can see,
nothing of value is gained by substituting one abstraction
for another. It is perhaps natural that the theory in its
origin should have taken such an abstract form, especially
since the environment of its birth was as it was; but that is
no justification for the theory in its abstract form. The truth
is, the Kantian theory cannot do service as a genuinely help
ful conception; the * transcendental unity of apperception'
is too high and dry, too much a deus ex machina forcibly
introduced into the flow of experience for the purpose of
redeeming it from sheer discontinuity and utter disruption.
The principle here invoked is wholly outside of time, sep
arated by an impassable chasm from every concrete situa
tion in experience, and is as a result incapable of performing
the very function which is its only excuse for being. The
form which the coherence theory takes in the hands of Kant
must therefore be surrendered; the pragmatists and tem-
poralists are right in urging against it that it is an unworkable
hypothesis and that it does violence to some rather obvious
facts.

That the same objections hold with equal force against the
later forms of the coherence theory is, however, not quite so

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 13?

clear. The development of the theory since the days of Kant
has changed it in certain important respects. It is a very
serious mistake, I think, to put the so-called neo-Hegelian
conception of coherence on a level with the Kantian doctrine
and assume that they are equally abstract and vacuous.
Certainly it is true that Hegel and the neo-Hegelians gen
erally have aimed to define thought in terms more concrete
than Kant was able to use and to bring the transcendental
element within experience into more direct and vital contact
with the concrete empirical situations in which it is meant to
function, and they believe themselves to have succeeded.
Nor can any one study Hegel's treatment of rationality as
set forth in the Phenomenology and summarized in his con
ception of Absolute Knowledge, or a treatment like that
which Professor Bosanquet, — to mention only one neo-
Hegelian, — gives us in his Logic and his recent Gifford Lec
tures, without realizing this. And this fact should cause us
to hesitate before lumping together without distinction all
forms of the coherence theory and dealing with all as if they
were in detail one and the same, and as if a criticism of one
were likewise a criticism of all. The tendency on the part
of the pragmatists to do precisely this has, as I grasp the
controversy, rendered much of their polemic irrelevant.

Nevertheless, it undoubtedly is still open to question
whether the coherence theory has yet been explicitly stated
in such a way that it satisfactorily meets all of the difficulties
which empiricists seem to find in it. Particularly does it seem
true that the objections raised by temporalists have not
sufficiently been taken into account. Any theory which
confesses its incompetency to provide for the significance of
the temporal order, — as the coherence theory does, for ex
ample, in the hands of Bosanquet and Bradley, — would seem
to come dangerously near confessing bankruptcy. For
surely, if there is any one characteristic of experience as we
know it which is fundamental to it, it is its temporal aspect;
what experience would be without this aspect no one can
imagine, because it is absolutely basic. Bergsonism em
phasizes something which is fundamental, and no theory of

138 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

truth and reality can explain that away and at the same time
expect to have smooth sailing. I believe that the coherence
theory can satisfactorily meet the objections of the pragma-
tists and temporalists, but in order to do so the systematic
unity of experience upon which it insists must in certain
respects be re-stated; at least the locus of emphasis must be
shifted. What is needed seems to be not a denial of system,
but a definition of system in terms of organization of ends.
The exponents of the view have hitherto placed the emphasis
too much upon logical consistency; and the result of this
has been to produce in them a bias which has caused them
to neglect to take account of the full significance of the fact
that, by the implication of their own views, logical consist
ency is something which cannot be defined in the abstract
and without direct reference to specific situations.1

It is not my purpose to enter here into a discussion of the
merits of the coherence theory. Space will not permit this,
and in this paper my interest lies in another direction. I
will presume, however, to state dogmatically my conviction
that it is useless to talk of a theory of truth and error apart
from the assumption of some sort of unity within experi
ence. Presumably we have outgrown the old correspondence

1 "When we say that logical consistency is the end and criterion of
truth, we must give these terms a broader and more inclusive meaning
than that which is often ascribed to them." Professor Creighton, "The
Nature and Criterion of Truth," Philosophical Review, Vol. XVII, 1908,
p. 602. Professor Creighton has frequently urged the necessity of this;
see particularly his articles, "Purpose as Logical Category," Philosophi
cal Review, Vol. XIII, 1904, p. 284, and "The Copernican Revolution in
Philosophy," ibid., Vol. XXII, 1913, p. 133. As I suppose, the later
form of Professor Royce's philosophy tends more and more to a recogni
tion of the same point. The changing emphasis of his views he himself
notes in the preface to his GifFord Lectures, The World and the Individual,
while in the second volume of The Problem of Christianity he presents
what Professor Howison is inclined to call a new, — new, that is, for Profes
sor Royce, — theory of knowledge.

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 139

theory, and there is no possibility of discovering either truth
or error in such a mere string or succession of experiences as
Hume would have us accept. To my mind truth is a value,
and as a value it implies a standard. Furthermore, truth
is a peculiar sort of value, — a value which, like goodness,
requires a system in which to exist. Everything which is
agreeable to the palate is pleasurable whether it is nutritious
or the reverse; but not everything which we believe, indeed,
not everything which we desire to believe and which we
might perhaps be better off for believing, is on that account
true. Truth is the expression of system; within the expe
rience of which truth and error are in any intelligible sense
predicable there must be some degree of unity. So much
seems to me obvious. "There is meaning and rationality,
law and unity in the mental life because we find them
there;" l if we did not find them there, I do not see how we
could intelligibly define truth. Furthermore, I am at a loss
to know how to define this unity except in terms of thought
or reason. There is no other feature of experience which
could serve as the principle of such organization as we
seem to find there. To call the principle 'life' or ' interest'
does not help us much unless we state what precisely such
terms are to be taken to mean; and when we attempt to
define them we are ultimately driven back to rationality.
At least so it seems to me. And consequently I am compelled
to hold that some form of the coherence theory of truth is
the only test of truth which we either have or need. And
having said so much I will now pass on to Jthe main issue.
If we assume^that coherence is our

,by_ coherence ? Can the doctrine
that * truth is the whole' be so interpreted as to meet the
criticisms which we have noted above? I think so. But in
order thus to define it, there are certain basic features of
thought which must be explicitly recognized and insisted
upon and the implication of which must be set in bold relief.
In the space at my disposal here I can only refer to, and

1 MacDougall, "The Self and Mental Phenomena," Psychological Re
view, Vol. XXIII, 1916, p. 7.

140 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

briefly attempt to justify, four which seem to be funda
mental.

In the first place, thought must be explicitly defined as
the principle within experience which includes the various
so-called states of consciousness, both cognitive and emo
tional. It cannot be regarded as something radically and
fundamentally different from perception, conception, mem
ory, imagination, feeling, purpose, interest, and ideals; on
the contrary, it must be conceived as manifesting itself
precisely in and through these. It is not to be looked upon
as an event over against these experiences, but as the prin
ciple which penetrates them and links them into a unitary
whole. In short, it must be unequivocally identified with
that principle of organization by means of which the various
experiences of the individual may be said to belong to one
and the same experience. This seems to be the first point
on which the coherence theory must insist if it is to stand.

I am, of course, well aware that all of this will prove to
be a very hard saying indeed in this day when i behaviorism'
and the new realism are contending that consciousness,
even in the modest form of an inoffensive sort of 'aware
ness/ shall not retain its place in the sun. It requires some
temerity to suggest not only that consciousness must be
supposed to exist, but that it must be supposed to exist as
a full-fledged and militant principle of organization within
the various data which constitute its content. However,
I do not see how the coherence theory of truth, — and it is
the fortune of that theory we are here chiefly interested
in, — can maintain itself without making precisely this asser
tion. Unless it is willing to go back to Kant's abstract
'transcendental' element, it cannot afford to separate
thought and its manifestations; and, on the other hand,
unless the theory digs the ground from under its own feet,
it cannot deny connectedness among these data. Nor can
I discover that the assertion thus forced upon the coherence
theory is without justification on the basis of the facts; on
the contrary, there seems to be ample warrant for it. Un
questionably there is some reality corresponding to what

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 141

has hitherto been called consciousness, and this reality is
not a bare string of wholly disconnected and unrelated dis
cretes. "Unity is an immediate and indefeasible reality
of our experience. It is a fact, — if that of which one is thus
immediately aware can be called a fact, — whose existence
is neither posited nor inferred, but intuited." * At least it
is certain that within any given pulse of attention, or within
that sort of complex which we used to designate as a pulse
of attention, there is unity, even if it consists in nothing
more than preference of one datum over others. And where
there is unity some principle of connection must be func
tioning, nor can I see how else that principle can satisfac
torily be described except as judgment.

In the second place, if the coherence theory is to stand,
thought must be interpreted by it as just that element which
holds over from one moment of experience to another. Past,
present, and future must be regarded as three aspects or
phases of its total content. It cannot be conceived as a
mere psychological event happening at a given moment and
dying with it; it belongs to no single moment as an isolated
part of the temporal flux. It is a principle rather than an
event and its very nature is to be past, present, and future
at once; it exists only in this tripartite manner. Such a posi
tion would seem to be essential to the coherence theory.

Just here we are face to face with the pragmatist's execra
tion of the 'transcendental.' If thought is defined in this
way, is it not abstracted from the concrete flow of experi
ence and given a mysterious and equivocal character? How
can thought function in a concrete situation if by hypothesis
it cannot be identified with any given situation, cannot even
be regarded as an element within such a situation? The
complete answer to this question will concern us later. For
the present what I wish to say is that, if the coherence theory
is to hold its own, it seems to be reduced to the necessity of
contending that thought is, in the sense above defined,
'transcendental/ For unless thought in some genuine sense
overarches time, it is incompetent to bring the moments
1 MacDougall, he. cit.

142 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

of the time-order into vital contact with each other and
consequently is incompetent to introduce continuity into
the flux of experience. And once again, I cannot see but
that such a position is well taken. Every normal individual
acts, he acts in the light of ends, and these ends are to some
extent and in some manner an expression of the individual's
past history. It is in this way that character is built and
knowledge grows, and it is after this fashion that each one
is the architect of his own fortune. Within such a tripartite
experience there must be some organizing principle which
is neither wholly past nor wholly present nor wholly future,
but in some real sense is all at once. To deny such a prin
ciple is to deny such an experience, and to deny such an
experience is to make inscrutable intellectual achievement
and to nullify the whole process of character-building. What
this principle can be other than judgment it is not easy to
see; certainly it seems true that thought is the characteris
tic of mind most nearly adequate to perform such a func
tion. And if the principle is there and is of the nature
described, then there is no great objection to dubbing it
' transcendental,' if by the term is meant just such a principle;
obviously, the 'transcendental' in this meaning of the term
is neither mysterious nor abstract.

In the third, place, thought must be explicitly defined as
a process of experimentation, trial and error, essentially
temporal in its nature. Nor is this inconsistent with the
characteristic just discussed; on the contrary, it would
seem to be implied by it. Just because thought is inclusive
of several moments of the temporal series, it cannot be said
to belong to any one moment; precisely because it somehow
overlaps past, present, and future, it can never be just past
or present in its totality; in other words, thought by its very
nature cannot be static. Since it is the principle of organiza
tion within the flow of experience, it must ipso facto be
dynamic and evolving. The coherence theory must em
phasize this point more unhesitatingly than it at times
seems inclined to do; it must take seriously its contention
that thought is a principle, not an event or 'state' of con-

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 143

sciousness, and it must not hesitate to draw the conclusion
which this doctrine implies; otherwise, the theory will tend
more and more to separate sharply meaning and time and
to deny the real value of the temporal order.

That the coherence theory minimizes, if it does not com-
pletely deny, the significance of time is in the minds of many
exponents of the theory no very serious objection to it.
With such an opinion, however, one cannot unhesitatingly
agree. Because time seems to be so fundamental in our
experience, the theory which involves the necessity of re
ducing time to mere appearance gives us pause; such an
implication is at least sufficient to establish a strong pre
sumption that the theory is somehow poorly conceived.
In any event, truth as we know it and must define it con
cerns present concrete experience, and such experience is
without doubt shot through and through with time. And
any definition of truth which is to hold its own cannot
afford to overlook the apparent discreteness and discon
tinuity that are found there. Furthermore, one is at a loss
to see how, if thought is defined as suggested above, it can
be regarded as other than temporal in its nature. If it
manifests itself in the various states of consciousness as the
principle through which they secure that degree of organiza
tion which they do actually possess, and if this 'manifesta
tion' of thought is taken in a sense sufficiently concrete to
escape the sting of the pragmatist's unrelenting opposition
to the ' transcendental/ then to my mind the criterion of
truth as logical consistency turns out to be a progressive
co-ordination of ends; that is, the criterion falls once for all
within the temporal stream.1

In the fourth place, and finally, the coherence theory
must go the length of saying that thought is in a very real
sense objective. That is to say, the proponents of the

1 "That what is ultimately real — the Absolute — must be beyond time
and change and process, present all at once, does not seem to be a genuine
requirement of our thought, but only a consequence of a system of logic
from whose authority we find it difficult to free ourselves." Professor
Creighton, Philosophical Review, Vol. XXII, 1913, p. 143, note.

144 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

theory must insistently urge that thought is not a mere
conscious state existent within some particular psychological
history, not even the organizing principle of such an isolated
experience taken in its isolation. They must rather contend
that thought is to be found chiefly in the physical and social
orders, in the world-process itself. Of course, they cannot
deny, there is no reason why they should care to deny, that
thought exists in psychological experience; but there they
must regard it as something gradually to be attained, as
an acquisition and not an endowment, a progressive process
of creative effort which matures only through contact
with the objective order and which becomes aware of its
j own fundamental nature through its unfolding. In short,
^P' thought must be said to have its habitat primarily in the
objective order and only secondarily in the individual.

Any such position as this, however, will inevitably be an
object of vigorous attack. If this territory is definitely
occupied, all the heavy artillery of the enemies of the ' supra-
empirical' and ' supra-psychological ' will begin at once to
thunder. If the coherence theory gives explicit or implicit
recognition to any such trans-experiential principle as is
suggested here, does it not thereby confess its own bank
ruptcy and justify its opponents' contention that it should
forthwith and forever be consigned to the outer darkness
of by-gone superstitions? In answer there are at least two
things which ought to be said. The first of these is that any
theory of truth which is worth considering must base its
claims on some principle which in a very genuine sense
transcends the limits of purely individual or psychological
experience. If there is any one lesson which the history of
philosophical inquiry from the time of the Sophists down to
the present has taught us with unmistakable certainty,
I should hold that lesson to be that a theory of truth which
seeks its criterion in merely subjective experience ends at
last in giving us no criterion at all. The basic difficulty which
most of its critics have found in the pragmatic test itself
is that it narrows its horizon to the subjective and conse
quently offers us no satisfactory and efficient standard; and

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 145

in every case the pragmatist feels it incumbent upon him
self to point out that this is a mistaken interpretation of what
he really means. Whatever may be the objections to the
so-called ' supra-psychological' and however great may be
the obstacles to occupying this 'no man's land,' the fact
yet remains that the standard of truth exists there or no
where; we, — all of us, pragmatists and idealists alike,—
find our standard there or we fail in our quest. But are the
obstacles involved in the occupancy of this territory real
or imaginary? Do we have to leap over insuperable barriers
to get there ? This brings me to the second point I desire here
to make. So far as the various 'states' of consciousness are
concerned, it seems we must admit at once that they exist
nowhere outside of a psychological experience; certainly
this would appear to be true of all feelings, of memory and
imagination, and of pure intuition, if there be such. But it
hardly seems to be true in the same sense of rationality.
Of course, no one can dispute the truth of the statement
that my reason exists in my own individual mind; this fact
undoubtedly has metaphysical implications of far-reaching
importance. But it would seem to be equally true that my
reason transcends my experiential limitations. In order to
identify ourselves with objective rationality there is no
obligation imposed upon us to lift ourselves by our own boot
straps; to be rational is just to be thus identified with the
objective order of the universe. Surely science exists in no
man's mind; but surely, also, every lowest son of Adam is
in some sense capable of science. If reason were not 'supra-
psychological,' the whole history of scientific achievement
were utterly inscrutable, and, for that matter, the whole
history of society and even of the individual himself. I
have not space here to enter further into these matters; but
I do not see how we can afford to deny, or why there should
be any advantage in denying, what would seem to be an
evident aspect of rationality, namely, that it is in a very
intelligible sense more than merely psychological in its
nature and function.

What I have been attempting to say in this section may be

146 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

summarized in some such way as the following. Thought,
upon which the coherence theory lays so much emphasis,
must not be supposed to be an abstract principle, standing
over against the various states of consciousness which it
somehow mechanically and mysteriously binds together
into a unity; nor, on the other hand, must it be identified
with these states. Rather must it be conceived as the prin
ciple of organization through which these states exist as
they do exist and which, because it is a principle, is more than
these states taken either distributively or collectively. Once
again, because it is a principle of organization within expe
rience, it must hold over from one moment to another; on
the other hand, it is not non-temporal and cannot be so con
ceived, since organization ipso facto involves time. To speak
of a timeless act of thought, as Green does, is a contradiction
in terms, if thought is taken in the sense here insisted upon.
Finally, thought is not a process which is confined wholly to
an individual biography, as is a feeling of pleasure or a par
ticular desire; thought is rather the principle of objectivity
which spans the gulf between the individual and the world.
All of these points perhaps have been made at one time or
another by the adherents of the coherence theory; I am sure
that some of them have elsewhere found expression in un
mistakable terms. But they are points which more often
than otherwise are ignored by the critics of idealism, and
some of them even idealists themselves seem to my mind too
prone to neglect. This is the excuse which I plead for having
stated them once again; and if this brief account serves even
to direct attention to them and to suggest their basic im
portance for the coherence theory, it will not have failed of
its purpose.

Ill

We are now in a position to inquire how the coherence
theory may meet the two objections with which we began.
Since these objections are basic and are the ones most fre
quently pressed, it may be assumed that others would
hardly prove to be more formidable. Our discussion of them

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 147

must necessarily be very brief, but the analysis of the pre
ceding section is perhaps sufficiently extended to suggest
the lines along which a more elaborate discussion might pro
ceed.

As regards the first objection, namely, that the coherence
theory is too abstract to be of service in the detection and
elimination of error and in the determination of truth, the
answer must be that it does not hold of coherence as organiza
tion. Rational organization is in no sense abstract and it
can only verbally be separated from the concrete situation.
For organization is precisely the determination of the more
and the less worthful within a given set of circumstances.
The doctrine that 'the truth is the whole' means nothing
more than that, under the conditions as they are discovered
to be, the true is just that which meets the demand of expe
rience for rational unity.

The pragmatist lays a great deal of emphasis, and rightly,
upon the importance of the concrete problem which thought
has to solve; and he defines truth in terms of that which is
relevant to the problem in hand. And all of this, he is
apparently inclined to think, is precluded from the coherence
theory by the very nature of the theory itself. Such an
assumption, however, is unjustifiable, if by coherence is
meant organization. With the pragmatist's assertions that
'only the relevant is true' and that 'the relevant is relative
to a purpose' the coherence theory is in complete agreement.
But it does not stop here. It goes further and offers a stand
ard by which the varying degrees of ' relevancy,' as well as the
origin of the purpose through which the relevant has a mean
ing, may be determined. It is precisely because the prag
matist fails to do this that the idealist finds his theory of
truth wanting in definiteness and finality. In order to supply
this deficiency in the pragmatic method, the idealist feels
that he must carry his quest for the goal beyond mere
isolated, and therefore logically valueless, desires and in
terests; and he finds no place to rest short of the conception
of a 'whole,' the organization of desires and interests. In
short, coherence as organization lays as much emphasis as

148 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

pragmatism upon the problem which thought has to solve,
and at the same time does not leave the question of the
problem itself an unintelligible mystery. Thus, in answer to
the pragmatist's challenge that the idealist show how his
theory of coherence aids in the detection and elimination of
error and in the definition of truth, the idealist may justly
say: The coherence theory aids in this enterprise by explain
ing how it is possible for intellectual problems to emerge
within experience and how what is relevant to the solution
of those problems can be determined.

Nor does the coherence theory necessarily reduce all
problems to one kind, namely, logical contradiction. It
would perhaps do this, provided the reason ' immanent'
within experience were defined entirely in isolation from the
concrete situations in which it functions. But to give such
an abstract definition of reason is just what the organiza
tional theory refuses to do Reason must be conceived con
cretely as the organizing principle within the total situation
or it is incorrectly conceived.l Hence the rational cannot
be reduced to terms of mere abstract contradiction, nor can
all intellectual problems be regarded as aspects of such con
tradiction. "For the thought which has become expert in
this world, such media as sound, colour, form, rhythm, and
metre have undoubtedly a logic and a necessity of their
own. . . . The rhythm that completes a rhythm, the sound
that with other sounds satisfies the educated ear, the colour
that is demanded by a colour-scheme, are I take it as nec
essary and as rational as the conclusion of a syllogism." l
And the same may be said of interests, purposes, and feelings
in so far as these are components of an organizational com
plex; they have a necessity, a rationality of their own. This,
as I understand it, is precisely the position which the coher
ence theory is compelled to take. And from this point of
view intellectual problems may be as varied as you please
and any particular problem may be as novel and unique as
experience can furnish.

The second objection, — that the unity implied by the
1 Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 62.

COHERENCE AS ORGANIZATION 149

coherence theory is not the sort of unity found within actual
experience, — is to my mind an objection which holds against
the theory as generally conceived. For the coherence theory
has tended to exaggerate the continuity of experience and
to minimize the obvious discontinuity and disruption which
are found there. It finds difficulty in satisfactorily dealing
with the novel in experience and in giving due weight to the
significance of the fact of selective attention. The supporters
of the theory have not infrequently ended by insisting that
selective attention is characteristic of an essentially imper
fect type of experience, that teleology is an inadequate
category, and that the novel is in the last analysis unintel
ligible, — in short, that, the real is timeless and the temporal
order is mere appearance. Indeed, this conclusion is so gen
erally held by idealists that it has usually been taken as an
inevitable implication of the coherence theory, an implica
tion which the critics regard as fatal.

However, I cannot but feel that if coherence is in dead
earnest identified with organization, the situation must be
differently viewed. For, in the first place, organization im
plies discontinuity and hesitancy, selection and evaluation;
apart from these organization is impossible. If there were
an experience in which disruption and selection did not
occur, it would be an experience of which organization could
in no intelligible sense, in no sense comprehensible to us, be
predicated. Out of selection, and out of selection alone,
comes organization. But selection is by implication a proc
ess. And this leads me to remark, in the second place, that
organization is by its very nature expressible only in time.
If there were a timeless experience, an experience which
knows no leanings and possesses no will, it also would be an
experience of which organization could in no intelligible
sense be predicated. Organization is in its very essence
dynamic and could not characterize that which by hypoth
esis is static.

From these considerations two conclusions seem to me to
follow. The first is that, so far as concrete human experience
is concerned, coherence as organization satisfactorily meets

ISO PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

all of the relevant facts. It is certain that disruption and
selection are no obstacles in the way of its acceptance; on
the contrary, one finds it impossible to imagine what or
ganization could possibly mean apart from them. Selective
evaluation and the progressive introduction of continuity
within discontinuity is precisely what we mean by organiza
tion. The second conclusion is that, if coherence is identified
with organization, then it is inconsistent to hold that the
coherence theory of truth saddles us with a block universe
and a timeless Absolute. From this point of view the only
intelligible definition of reality which can be given is that
it is a purposive, selective, volitional process; and such an
assertion as Professor Bosanquet's, that "it seems unintel
ligible for the Absolute or for any perfect experience to be a
will or purpose," 1 appears to be wholly without justification.
The truth is that a perfect experience defined in terms other
than those having a temporal reference is to us incomprehen
sible; the temporal alone is intelligible. This implication of
the organizational theory undoubtedly leads us into new
difficulties. But whatever these difficulties may prove to be
and however formidable they may appear, it is better for us
to accept them and resolutely grapple with them than to
minimize and ultimately deny the significance of some of the
obvious facts of experience. For the alternative confronting
us really seems to be this: either the organizational theory,
accepted with explicit avowal of its implications concerning
the ontological value of time, or the admission of the final
bankruptcy of the concept of a 'world.'

I0p. cit., p. 393.

TIME AND THE LOGIC OF MONISTIC IDEALISM
JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

I UNDERSTAND by monistic idealism the philosophical
standpoint common to Hegel, Bradley, Bosanquet, and
Royce (in his earlier writings, including The World and the
Individual). It identifies the characteristic features of truth
and reality, to the extent of holding that the standard is the
same for both. Systematic coherence, harmonious organiza
tion, the wholeness of a cosmic individuality which takes up
into itself and transforms into constituent factors in one
perfect totality all lesser degrees of individuality, — these
are various ways of stating the absolute standard of truth
and reality. Nothing is real in isolation or in independence
of anything else. The reality of any thing, person, or event
is determined by its degree of organization, of individuality,
as a constituent factor in the absolute and perfect totality
of being. So also with the system of truth. No single judg
ment is true out of relation to all other judgments. Truth
is a coherent organization in the all-inclusive whole, a super-
organic system of truth. Truth, like reality, is a systematic
individuality. Some sub-systems of judgments are truer than
others, because the former have more systematic coherence,
more organization, more individuality; that is because they
have at once more sweep of import and more internal har
mony of texture.

That coherence or freedom from contradiction in a system,
membership in an organized totality of experience, is a valid
criterion of truth I do not question. I am prepared to main
tain that the harmonious organization of experience into a
reflectively apprehended and coherent totality of insight, in
which every single item of knowledge or experience, and con
sequently every specific judgment, develops its full intent
and implication only when seen in relation to other items of

152 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

knowledge and other judgments, is the most adequate
regulative ideal of truth. I should be ready to show (if this
were the place) that pragmatism as a method really pre
supposes, when its implications are fully thought out, the
coherence criterion and that without it the new logical realism
can be nothing more than the subjective and introspective
analysis by every thinker of what he finds in his own so-
called intuitions.

But monistic idealists have been wont to go farther than
this (Hegel, Bradley, and Bosanquet, for example), and to
maintain that the coherence ideal is more than a regulative
ideal in truth-seeking. They have been wont to affirm that
it expresses the ultimate and eternal structure of reality, and
they have understood this to mean that absolute reality is
forever one completely harmonious and timelessly perfect
whole.

Their metaphysical use of the principle of coherence in
volves the reduction of the whole temporal order of expe
rience to a mere appearance of a timeless whole, with the
additional result that they are equivocal (Hegel), or cryptic
and unintelligible (Bradley and Bosanquet), both as to how
the timelessly perfect reality comes to appear as a discrete
succession of temporal events, and as to what may be the
status of the humanly significant features of the temporal
order in this timeless absolute.

The treatment of the problems of causality and teleology
by monistic idealists affords capital illustrations of these de
fects. The difficulties involved in thinking out causation, —
the puzzle of continuity, that is, the selection of a point when
the cause ceases and the effect begins; the question whether
there is any interval of time between them; the manner in
which empty time can make a difference in the maturation
of a causal process; the fact that what are commonly selected
as the causes of a phenomenon are more or less arbitrarily
picked out from an indefinite multitude of conditions; the
problem of the endless regress of terms and relations and
the so-called plurality of causes, — all these are regarded as
inescapable difficulties, to be solved only by recognizing that

TIME AND MONISTIC IDEALISM 153

the causal relation is an incomplete or phenomenal expression
of the principle of timeless ground or logical system. Carry
out this solution to its logical conclusion and the causal rela
tion is then simply one of the forms of illusory (and unac
countable) appearance, in a temporal plurality, of the one
eternal system. If there are no real elements, really inter
active and inter-patient, then the whole temporal process is
inscrutably appearance. The monistic idealist, when asked
what use causal conceptions have in practical life and in
science, can only reply that they are useful fictions for dealing
with phenomena. In the system of timeless reality there
can be no causes and no effects. The idealist of this type
never faces the dilemma: either causal changes affect 'real'
reality and reality is then not a timeless totality, or they do
not affect reality and then experiential actuality is an illu
sion. No wonder that the biological evolutionist or the
experimental physicist, when told that this is philosophy,
passes it by with silent contempt.

On the other hand, the monistic idealist's treatment of
causality is a natural consequence of his manner of taking
the principles of identity of nature, and continuity of being,
as logical leit-motifs for a theory of science and reality.
Bosanquet has, with especial insight and fertility of illus
tration, argued for the principle of identity-in-difference as
the fundamental law of thought and reality. But I think
that he transcends the bounds of a logic of science or a logic
of experience in his use of this principle. He passes insen
sibly from similarity of type, in quality or relationship, be
tween discrete entities to ontological identity. All that a
logic of science need postulate of its objects is that, though
both qualitatively and quantitatively discrete, they are
operative in relations which can be classified into types.
All the community of condition that the objects which enter
into a specific field of science need possess is mutual relevancy
of behavior.

Elemental entities may be related so that they are capable
of being made a whole for thought, as exhibiting an intel
ligible tissue of relationships, while yet they are discrete

154 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

members in a moving or developing system, such as the cells
in an organism or, still better, the individual members of a
society. The law of identity properly means that to judge
and infer we must postulate that there are individua which
may be regarded for purposes of logic and science as invariant
objects of thought.

I am willing to admit that all actual entities or individua^
and all relationships which they sustain, must be, now or at
any other given moment of time, internal to the totality of
the real. To say this is to say no more than that, in knowing,
we are dealing with our data as parts of a universal order,
whatever that may be. But this settles nothing as to the
relative degrees of independence and self-determination to be
accorded to the individual members of the total reality. It
settles nothing whatever as to the specific characters and
degrees of interrelationship of any two or more entities or
types of entity.

I admit that, to comprehend the ground of the being and
behavior of anything, or of the occurrence of any event, is to
gain an insight into the system of connections or determinate
orders in which that specific datum lives and moves and has
its being. Every sustained effort towards the reflective or
ganization and the unification of empirical data involves
the faith that the Universe with which thought traffics is in
a considerable degree an orderly or systematic whole, the
successive phases of whose history are in part at least intel
ligibly continuous.

But to admit all this settles nothing as to the precise de
gree and manner in which the being and behavior of any
elemental entity has its ground respectively within and with
out itself, or as to the degree in which the successive phases
of the actual behavior and qualities of anything that is real
could be now determined, if one had a complete insight into
the totality of relationships in which all real entities at
present stand to one another.

If time and change are to disappear from our interpretation
of reality just in the measure in which that interpretation
nears completeness, then both mechanical-causal and tel-

TIME AND MONISTIC IDEALISM 155

eological interpretations of the experience-process vanish or
become meaningless just when they reach their fruitions. In
brief, if the logical ideal of knowledge is taken to involve the
absolute monistic conception of reality as the timeless whole
or system, then both the experience from which the thinker
sets out and the logical activity of his thinking are illusory
guides which lure him only to self-annihilation and the
annihilation of his world.

Knowledge means the comprehension at once of the mu
tual relevancies or orderly relationships of the many dis
tinct entities which constitute reality, and of the uniqueness
of the being of each entity. It means both the grasp of
the successive phases of actuality as orderly series or con
tinuous sequences, and the recognition of the uniqueness of
each phase in the temporal process or order.

The principle of continuity is illegitimately used as a
scientific method, if it be taken to mean that, in the deter
mination of causal sequences and in the formulation of laws
of change, the discrete moments of experience must be made
continually smaller and smaller until they disappear in a
timeless continuity of being. The principle of continuity
legitimately means that analysis of a process or complex
should be carried as far as possible. But there are elemental
discontinuities in the qualitative processes of even the phys
ical world. There are many kinds of critical points in phys
ical and chemical changes. There are still more complex
and striking discontinuities in vital and psychical processes.
All that continuity means, with reference to the analysis and
comprehension of change, is contained in the notions of order
or serial sequence and of the conservation of the most elemental
features of the process throughout the transformation; for
example, the continuity of space, time, energy, and mass in
physics. Continuity means in physics the quantitative con
servation of energy, but with significant qualitative dis
continuities; in the philosophy of spirit, the metaphysics of
ethics and religion, it means conservation of values with
significant creativity of values.

The treatment of teleology in the logic of eternalistic or

156 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

monistic idealism is even more equivocal than the treatment
of causation. Although idealism would seem to imply, if
it have any single implication, a teleological conception of
reality, yet since teleology involves time and discrete terms
or novelties, the eternalistic or monistic idealist is forced to
regard teleology as a form of appearance just as causation in
general is, though indeed a higher and somewhat truer form
of appearance, since teleological continuity has more in
dividuality of organized system than causal continuity.
Even Royce, notwithstanding his speculative ingenuity in
the treatment of time and the deeds and destinies of finite
selves, fails to show how these temporal deeds and lives can
be constituent elements in a timeless whole, the Eternal
Self. Bosanquet's position is more consequent. For him,
the absolute timeless whole is not a self and teleology is a
sub-form of individuality. Therefore, personality is, of neces
sity, an appearance, although, since one appearance differeth
from another in glory, a personality is more real than a mere
biological individual and this in turn more real than an atom.
But personal immortality is of no central importance in eter-
* nalistic idealism. Progress takes place in the absolute whole
or individual, but this does not progress as a whole. How
progress can take place in such a whole we are not told. What
sort of teleology is admissible from this viewpoint? The
teleology of an eternally perfect organization, a cosmos, the
timeless self-maintenance of the absolute individuality.
By an endless series of compensating adjustments, interplays,
and redistributions of factors in its finite and temporal con
stituents, the timeless Absolute maintains its equipoise.
Let us be specific. In that minute, ephemeral part of the
Absolute's life which we may call the present terrestrial in
ternational maelstrom, what appears to its constituent
atoms to be a considerable disturbance is now going on.
Suppose the United States enters the fray, and suppose,
further, that the Central Powers are forced to sue for peace
in 1918. A redistribution of political sovereignties takes
place. A League of Democratic Nations to enforce peace
is formed. A profound and far-reaching social reorganiza-

TIME AND MONISTIC IDEALISM 157

tion and integration is slowly and toilsomely achieved.
Political, economic, and social life; art, literature, science,
education, and religion are greatly modified. Suppose that
in the total outcome the twenty-first century should differ
from the nineteenth much more than the sixteenth from the
tenth century of our era. What has happened from the
standpoint of the Absolute? This important teleological
alteration in civilization (important from the most compre
hensive human point of view) cannot alter the absolute
individual, or disturb its passionless serenity one whit. Sup
pose we call the change i progress.' Then, in the Absolute,
there must have been going on, in the opposite direction, a
retrogressive equalizing change, by which the serene equi
poise of the Absolute is maintained. In the Absolute there
is neither gain nor loss in existence or value, only the Eternal
Calm. Human beings strive with might and main for the
creation of new values, but there must be always a com
pensating process of annihilation of values, in order that the
Absolute's perfection may not be marred or its repose
ruffled.

Thus, on the whole, progress is an illusion. And what mo
tives dictate the conclusion? Not the motives of a logic of
experience, but of a logic by which the meaning of experience
is condemned ab ante under the rule of the canons of absolute
self-identity, changeless self-maintenance, the exclusive per
fection and value of the timelessly coherent system, a logic
which springs from the same motives as quietism in morals
and contemplative, world-fleeing mysticism in religion.

I submit that the idealist cannot keep his cake and eat it
in this temporal world. If he can do both in his Absolute,
he is more than human, and mere humans cannot follow him.
He cannot be a devotee of the timeless Absolute and a tel-
eologist. Purpose, value, progress, selfhood, individuality,
are categories that have meaning and validity only in applica
tion to a temporally pluralistic universe. The absolute, all-
inclusive, timeless individual is a static mechanism, even
though it be christened 'spirit' by its devotees. The bap
tismal ceremony does not magically spiritualize it. Intrinsic

158 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

values inhere and operate only in conscious selves who act
to achieve and create and conserve experienced values.
This activity is the only kind of purposiveness one can
clearly conceive. Unconscious teleology is such only in the
light of, and in subservience to, conscious teleology. Tel
eology means process and hence involves time. A timeless
whole is non-teleological, hence mechanical.

The fundamental issues in a philosophy which faces the
problem of time and evolution, and is not content to pass it
over with cryptic sayings as to its being an * appearance,'
'transmuted,' 'absorbed,' or 'transcended' in the Eternal
Absolute, are the relative positions to be occupied by the
categories of continuity and discreteness in the interpretation
of experience. Continuity and discreteness are the basic
categories of science and metaphysics and hence of logic.
Every other category, — causation, change, substance, tel
eology, individuality, — is a sub-form blended of continuity
and discreteness, of the universal or relation, which, taken
by itself, seems a timeless type, and the individual, the
'this,' which is the discretely experienced fact or appreciat
ing, interested, attitude-taking self that lives and traffics
in time. Bradley and Bosanquet have indeed seen the
problem in its irreducible elements, but their Absolute solves
the problem by abolishing its more basic and substantive
factor, the immediate, discrete, temporal reality. Their
absolute, timeless individuality abolishes individuality.

I have not space here for more than dogmatic assertion
and hints. I must, therefore, be content to say that, in logic
and metaphysics, if our interpretations are to be adequate
to the nature of experience and the ineluctable quality of life,
which we seek to understand and to sublimate into thought-
forms, we must recognise that discreteness, in the form of
qualitative novelty as well as of quantitative multiplicity
in its elements and in the serial orders of its evolutionary
processes, is to be taken as an inexpugnable feature of reality.

The same logical error is found in the absolute monistic
idealists as in Spinoza. The principle of ground, located in
a timeless sytem, is made both the canonical criterion of

TIME AND MONISTIC IDEALISM 159

knowledge and the constitutive principle of being. But, for
a logic of experience, the principle of ground is neither log
ically nor psychologically primitive. It is derived, by a
process of abstractive construction, from the principle of
causation, which I take to be identical with the principle of
sufficient reason. There must be sufficient grounds for every
occurrence: this is a postulate of science. * Cause' is the
sufficient temporal ground of an event. The relation of
cause and effect is logically primitive. It is not legitimate
to seek the sufficient ground of temporal occurrence in a non-
temporal systematic ground. Such procedure is a passage
into an entirely different genus. And it is absurd to seek
a sufficient ground for the original structure of reality. That
structure is its own eternal ground.

It follows that the postulate of continuity or uniformity
is illegitimately used, if it be taken to imply that all qual
itative discreteness and temporal discontinuity must be
metamorphosed into absolute homogeneity and timeless
continuity. The monistic idealist seems here the slave of the
logical vice of which Herbert Spencer's legerdemain in pro
ducing heterogeneity from homogeneity is so signal an
example. ^Continuity means nothing more than that there
are types of relationships or relevancies of one element of
reality to others (the types to be empirically determined),
and that, in so far as qualitatively similar elements are found
in temporally discrete situations, qualitatively similar se
quences may be expected. The postulate of uniformity is
that the same causes will probably have the same effects.
Nothing is implied as to how far the same causes are ever
actually repeated.) Reality as experienced (including the
results of the most rigorous analysis in 'experience') is an
indefinitely vast and loosely related system of qualitative
complexes, ever producing new qualitative complexes. Ac
tual reality shows indefinite gradings of relevancies and
irrelevancies among its individua. (We isolate now this now
that type of relevancy, but perhaps no two moments in the
temporal process are ever exactly the same.)

I would then substitute for the principle of identity-in-

160 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

difference, as the primary postulate of scientific thinking,
the principle of relevancy or the principle of similarity of rela
tionships. All science and all intelligent practice proceed
upon the assumption that there are discoverable types of
relationship between the qualities of the real and between
those complexes of qualities which constitute individual
elements of the real. To say that one type of sequence or
co-existence is relevant to another case, present or prospec
tive, is to say that there is here a similarity of relationship
in the behavior of different groups of things, sequent or co
existent as the case may be.

Instead of turning the postulate of continuity into the de
mand for a timeless identity of being, a changeless self-
maintenance of being, I hold that continuity, as a logical
postulate, means nothing more than the demand that analy
sis of the co-existential or sequential data shall be carried to
as fine a point as may be, without substituting for experienced
fact conceptual fictions that are non-experiential in the sense
that they never have been and never could be experienced
under conceivable conditions. Such a conceptual fiction is
the principle of 'timeless ground.' {^Instead of taking the
principle of coherence or consistency to mean that every
thing and event must somehow now and always be trans
muted into the timeless perfection of the absolute system, I
would take the principle of coherence as a regulative ideal or
demand of both thought and feeling- volition : the demand of
thought to satisfy itself by attaining the fullest consistency or
coherent relevancy in the interrelationships of the elements of
the temporal process; the demand of feeling volition for the
fullest harmony of organic unity of personal experience. J

Thus, the sound standpoint in both logic and metaphysics
for me is not an organic eternalism but organizational Tem-
poralism. In other words, experience is in process of or
ganization, — personal, social, and cosmical, — and the func
tion by which it fulfils itself and ministers to life is the
furtherance of the organization of reality and, through this
organization, the harvesting of richer values in experience.

A ideologically ordered universe must be pluralistic in

TIME AND MONISTIC IDEALISM 161

the status and relationships of its elements. The kinds and
degrees of unity and continuity in such a universe can be
determined empirically only in the light of a recognition of
original and persisting discretenesses, the plurality of many
individua or unitary, qualitative complexes in multiple re
lationship. The original continuity of the universe can con
sist only in the original interdependencies, or orders of rela
tionship, among the plural entities which constitute it. The
permanent continuity (if there be such) can consist only in
the active perduration and increase (perhaps) of the societal
or solidaire interdependence of its elements, as these are
modified and modify others, are engendered and engender
other elements, in the ordering process of the whole. Thus
the only admissible eternity is that of the perduration of an
active ground of order, direction, and harmony, enduring
and growing in its scope as energizing being, through the in
crease and fruition of the elemental constituents of its world
in their internal harmonies and societal interdependences.
The only metaphysical conception that will square with
the logic of actual experience is thus temporalistic plural
ism. By this I mean a metaphysics which holds that there
can be no reality which does not traffic in time, no timeless
being or beings; which holds it absurd to suppose time and
process to have had beginnings, since beginnings imply tem
poral antecedents, and therefore equally absurd to suppose
a surcease of temporal process; which holds that the actual
changefulness, the epigenetic movement of reality towards
fuller, richer, more harmonious individuality, as one passes,
in one's survey, from qualitative discontinuities in the phys
ical order to more striking discontinuities in the vital,
psychical, and historical-cultural orders, is inconceivable, un
thinkable, and inexplicable, unless we suppose that a plural
ity of discrete elements (many individua), entering into a
multitude of transactions with each other, give rise to further
temporally discrete, and therefore novel, entities in the cease
less dynamic process of actuality.1

1 The above essay is a very summary abstract of the underlying logic
of my forthcoming work, Personality and the World.

THE DATUM
WALTER BOWERS PILLSBURY

EVERY philosophy, and for that matter every science,
presupposes a datum, something upon which it may build.
This it is that gives justification for the later developments
and upon it later statements are made to rest. Unfortu
nately in science and philosophy, and even in common sense,
no agreement exists as to what the datum is or even as to
what its function should be. One man's datum is another
man's conclusion, and vice versa. Systems can obviously be
divided into two great groups on the basis of the kind of
datum they assume or seek. For one, the datum is a gen
eral principle or a system of principles, or abstractions of
other sorts; for the other, the datum is a more or less con
crete experience. On the one hand, we have Plato, Spinoza,
Kant, and Hegel, together with the mathematicians and all
rationalists; on the other, stand Hume and the positivists,
in less degree, Locke, Condillac, Avenarius, and the empir
ical scientists. For the first school, observation must give
way to universal laws and pre-established principles; for the
second, these principles derive their validity, so far as they
have validity, from their agreement with experience. The
two schools are as far apart as it is possible to be in state
ment and in temperament.

Closer examination shows that the differences are more in
the general statements and the ideals of what should be the
nature of truth or of proof than in the actually accepted first
principles. Neither accepts the actually experienced as the
given, and both implicitly or explicitly look to the given for
the justification of their principles. This first statement is
self-evident and self-asserted for the conceptualists. They
deny that they need, or even that there is, immediate expe
rience. The warrant they usually find in something superior

THE DATUM 163

or anterior to experience. As we shall see, however, they
all finally come back to the primary experience they deny
to exist as final warrant for their statements. The soi disant
empiricists, however, are not so close to immediate expe
rience as they would have us believe. What they assume is
really not experienced, but is a concept assumed to explain
experience. The sensations of Locke and Condillac, even
the impressions and ideas of Hume, are never found in real
consciousness. They are unlike any actual objects or men
tal states. They are regarded as elements from which real
things or ideas may be compounded, but the strongest up
holder of the sensational doctrine would not claim that any
one actually experiences them. Like the general principles
of the rationalists, they are constructions, and their only
excuse for being is that they may serve to explain how expe
rience is possible or might be possible. These views are
empirical only in so far as they assert that all must have
come in some way through experience, but when they at
tempt any positive explanation, they at once deviate widely
from experience. Even Hume in his positive constructions
lays himself open to the same charge, although on the neg
ative side he disposes of all that any one could wish to
eliminate.

In the more recent systems, the theory of Avenarius and
the similar doctrine of Wundt in some of his later writings
most nearly approach a truly empirical datum. The assump
tion is that all goes back to a pure experience in which at
first there is neither mental nor physical, but from which all
that is physical or mental may develop as a result of more
or less conscious thought and comparison. The original
experience has neither things nor mental states and even
nothing of reference to things or mental states, but out of it
we build our things or substantive elements and also our
general laws. Even in this theory we do not get back to real
experience. Their immediate experience is unintelligible
because it has not been interpreted; the world as we know
it is a development of a more or less arbitrary sort from that.
Here again we deal not with the immediately known but

164 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

with an inference from that known, which has been made to
explain it. The world of pure experience is a pure assump
tion, on the same level as Plato's ideas or Kant's categories or
Locke's sensations. It is an imaginary picture of how knowl
edge might have developed. It is assumed, not really given.
While none of these theories discovers the real datum,
they all imply it. All that is necessary to find it is to put
their implications in the place of their direct assertions.
What all imply is that we are immediately aware of some
thing, — that we know, without emphasis upon either the 'we'
or the knowing or the thing known. After accepting this
they each and all try to reduce it to something else, to sensa
tions or mental states, to atoms or to ions, to concepts or
categories, and when once they have started upon the process
of reduction, they forget the starting point and mistake
their assumptions and conclusions for the really given or the
immediately known. As opposed to the pure experience of
Avenarius, it is that experience as it has been developed by
each individual for his practical needs and before he has
transformed it by trying to discover what it is as knowledge
and how it originates. It is just the table as I write upon it
and the pen with which I write and the ideas that come or
will not come or at least the feeling of discouragement that
I fail to express them as I wish that I could. These are the
realities; these are immediate; these are the data with which
every science, every philosophy, and for that matter every
practical man in his practical moods must start, whether he
explain them or merely use them. In other words, it is the
real experience as it exists at any given moment; it is expe
rience produced by all of the forces of life, after everything
has acted upon it that really does act upon it, rather than
any abstraction, whether the simple elements out of which
experience may be assumed to be compounded or an un
developed matrix assumed to be present before the various
forces have worked upon it in any way. It is the completed
knowledge, or at least the actual knowledge, rather than the
embryo knowledge. It is the whole and the immediate
rather than the analyzed or the abstract.

THE DATUM 165

To make the assumption that the given is the experience
as we actually have it, rather than some abstraction which
will explain that experience, amounts almost to an inversion
of the ordinary statement. It consist practically in standing
the usual philosophical or scientific system upon its head. To
be sure, such systems tacitly assume this datum as they begin
their discussions but assume it only to forget it. They be
come involved in sensations or concepts or universals or a
priori forms or categories, on the one side, and in atoms,
ions, ether, and what not, on the other, and in these they
forget the reality with which they started. They even
attempt to pass off these assumptions as reality when they
become fully sophisticated, although they are struck now
and again with the differences between what they have in
immediate experience and the results of their various con
structions. They check up by comparison with the real
from time to time. Like Antaeus, they receive new strength
when they touch the earth, but the contacts are so far apart
that they are prone to disregard the source of their virility.

Granting that the datum is the immediate knowledge or is
to be found in things as they are, obviously we must attempt
to come to closer quarters with it by way of description or
definition. This is difficult because of its very simplicity or
immediateness. One cannot describe the datum without
comparing it with something else, and the description is
likely to be taken seriously as meaning that it is something
else. One may attempt, as in the game of twenty questions,
to run it to earth by answering yes or no to a number of the
more frequent disjunctions. First, is it mental or material?
One must deny that this question may be asked. The datum
is indifferent to the distinction. Mind and matter are both
ways of interpreting the actually given, but the datum itself
may be regarded as either or both without changing its
fundamental character. One thing must be asserted pos
itively, and that is that the given as such does not divide
into two parts, a mental and a physical. It may have mental
aspects and physical aspects, but one part cannot be said
to be mental, the other physical, as is so frequently asserted.

166 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

In any case the datum is primary and real; the interpretation
is secondary. One may therefore leave the discussion of the
interpretations for the present.

A second fundamental question is whether the datum has
meaning or acquires it. To this the answer is unquestion
able: the datum is meaning. Nothing can be appreciated
without meaning. One must assert with Woodbridge that
awareness and meaning are identical. The datum is just
what it means.1 What it may be as thing or idea may be
open to dispute; it may even be disputed whether it be thing
or idea, but there never can be any dispute over whether or
not it has meaning. One must object to the assertion of
Bradley that one may be aware of mental states first and
ascribe meaning to them later. Awareness and meaning go
hand in hand and one cannot be discriminated from the other.
Something does not come into awareness as a meaningless
somewhat and then gradually assume meaning; on the con
trary, it does not exist before it acquires meaning and when
it exists it is just that meaning. Much the same statement
may be made with reference to Dewey's assertion that the
judgment confers a meaning upon a meaningless somewhat
and thus makes possible the distinction between the mean
ingful and the antecedent meaningless. Everything in
experience must have already been judged before it can be
an experience. We have in awareness only the results of
judgments. Nothing exists before judgment of some sort
has been passed upon it. In short, then, all philosophy and
all science must begin with a material that has already been
interpreted and understood, not with any form of raw mate
rial. It has for the most part been interpreted and under
stood only in the light of practical needs; the question as to
what it may be in itself has not yet been asked about it,
but it must be assumed to be the result of much elaboration
rather than a mere first raw material.

To assert that the given is just the real experience does not
take us very far on the way to an answer to any of the ques-

1 Cf. the writer's "Meaning and Image," Psychological Review, Vol. XV,
1908, p. 150.

THE DATUM 167

tions that any one is really interested in. One cannot have
real explanation or any science or philosophy if one stops
with that statement. One may be quite willing to admit
that trees and men are seen, that men reach certain con
clusions as they reason, that they feel certain emotions when
defeated, but no one who thinks at all deeply can stop there,
and most are inclined to feel that any one of these admitted
facts is subordinate to and less real than its explanation.
One must not merely insist that all goes back to the given
but must also leave room for an explanation of the given.
The most frequent interpretation of the datum is found in the
assertion that experience is of things, is of external reality,
with the implication that this external reality is to be taken
for granted. In the different sciences the original experience
is referred to laws, particular or general, and to elements of
one type or another. In the crudest forms of these external
explanations, reality is said to be composed of atoms or of
four elements, combined in different ways. These are ob
viously only explanations or interpretations; there is nothing
in them of direct observation. Yet the men who proposed
them took them with the utmost seriousness and believed
that the atoms were real, while the actual experience was only
appearance.

This tendency to believe in the interpretations as the
realities, and in the datum, — sounds, colors, sticks, and
stones, — as deceptive, is universal. Explanations are and
must be made by every one in all connections, whether he be
scientist or philosopher or the man in the street. There is
also a tendency with every one to regard the interpretation as
real, as even more real than the datum. But when asked
what the real interpretation is, difference of opinion is bound
to arise, since in almost every case there is not one inter
pretation but many, and the advocate of each holds his alone
to be adequate. One can both illustrate what must be meant
by the given and show the necessity for interpretation, if
one considers the position of a red light in space. The imme
diate datum is that the red light is directly ahead ten feet
distant from the eye. That all would agree upon. It is the

168 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

datum for each observer in the same position. But the
physiologist will at once say that the red color cannot be in
space because there is nothing there to appreciate it. It can
be no more than a stimulus of some sort upon the retina of
the eye. The physicist must then explain that it is only the
source that is ten feet away, but that from the source the
light is carried in some way. The psychologist connects
this fact, that lights always seem to be where they (or the
stimuli) are not, with a statement of the conditions of seeing
distance. This solves the problem from his standpoint.
One may add the interpretation of the physiologist regarding
transmission to the cortex and any of the psychological laws
involved. Each of these is an interpretation from a different
point of view and each may well claim to be real. Obviously,
however, not all can be real, and in strict impartiality it is
difficult to see that one has a better claim to reality than any
of the others. The one thing that cannot be doubted is that
the red light is out there ten feet from the eye. All explana
tions start from that and none can be true that does not in
some way harmonize with that statement, whatever form
it may be given in the course of the explanations.

This does not mean that the realist's interpretation of the
given is any more true than any of the others. The datum is
not necessarily given as a thing. The assertion that it is
external is no more immediately certain than the assertion
that it is mental. To assert that it is externally real at once
raises the question whether it is real as a red color, real as a
vibration rate, and if a vibration rate whether in ether or
as a form of electrical energy, or real as a chemical substance
or as a continuing chemical reaction. It must be at least
three of these at once and no one can be said to be more
real than any other. Probably neither the physicist nor the
chemist would be willing to admit the real existence of the
red color, although that alone is really experienced, and no
two interpreters would quite agree as to where the end of the
analysis that constitutes the real is to be found. This asser
tion of external reality does not simplify our problem, does
not furnish an unambiguous interpretation upon which all

THE DATUM 169

can agree, and obviously therefore cannot be assumed as an
axiom. With that assertion we pass away from our datum
to an explanation.

Exactly the same remarks may be made of the idealist's
attempt to reduce all experience to sensation or conscious
ness or idea. This again is an explanation for which much
evidence can be brought, but to reduce a red light ten feet
from the eye to a red sensation plus double images of back
ground, plus strain sensations, plus memories of other spaces,
etc., in the familiar psychological way, does not leave the
original experience in existence. The datum must be the
more real and unless these explanations can be shown to
make possible the original they fail even as explanations.
Of the two forms of explanation the realistic more nearly
conforms to the natural inclinations of the ordinary man.
Still neither is real in the same sense as the datum, if univer
sal acceptance be taken as the test of reality.

But to assume that the datum, the immediate awareness,
is the real does not mean that explanation is to be denied all
value. It is not necessary that an explanation be accepted
by all, or even that the different explanations should be con
sistent, to give each value. The utility of the explanation
needs no advocate. The explanation that is no more than
a reference of one event to other similar ones makes state
ment more easy, and at the same time gives a basis for the
anticipation of other events. In practice it is easier to foresee
the future, if one has a theory and the outcome justifies the
theory. Much of the test as well as the justification of
theory or any ot<her form of explanation is pragmatic: partly
the test of practical application, partly the test of working
in harmony with other experiences. It is this effectiveness
of explanations in furthering practical ends, in furnishing
the means of advancement, in the designing of instruments,
the building of useful articles and machines that tends to
make the explanation seem more real even than the datum.
All of the illusions and inconsistencies of immediate expe
rience can be made to disappear in the conceptual construc
tion, so that each in its place will provide a safer ground for

170 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

thought and for action than the datum itself. For all of
these reasons, as well as because it satisfies the instinct of
curiosity, we cannot avoid theorizing and explaining.

Even in the most fundamental theories, where incon
sistency is most prevalent, there need be no difficulty in
making use of explanations. One must in these cases, how
ever, accept the explanation as a means to an end, must
consider its utility, and not expect absolute consistency.
If the justification of an explanation is its usefulness, there
is no reason why one should not use one as far as it will go,
then choose another. Our red light may be a vibration
rate, the decomposition of lithium salts, the stimulation
of a peculiar nerve tissue, and even an elementary sen
sation, all at the same time. The objection felt by the
traditional philosopher seems to depend upon the belief that
his explanation must be something final and absolute, that
it, not the datum, is real. If that be real, it is assumed that
it is the real and that to assert two reals at the same time
and in the same place involves inconsistency. To permit
different explanations reduces the universe to chaos. Take
the explanation less seriously, assume that facts are facts no
matter what they are called, and the difficulty vanishes. The
red light is the real. You do not change it by calling it a
sensation or an electric wave or a retinal excitation; you
change the class into which you put it, — you change its
name, — but all that does not affect the reality. Thinking
about it or talking about it does it neither good nor harm,
whatever good or harm it may do the philosopher himself or
however it may advance or retard the science.

There is no reason why one should not be both a realist
and an idealist, or admit the truth of one's realistic and
one's idealistic attitudes. One must admit that there are
subjective phases of experience and objective phases of ex
perience. While it is good discipline and good exercise in
argument to reduce all external reality to idea, or all ideas,
through complicated mechanical hypotheses, to interactions
between different forms of matter, it does not change the
character of the datum, and does not show that the other

THE DATUM 171

interpretation is not still possible. In connection with the
body-mind relation, for example, one can find good proof
that an experience is conscious, that it is made possible by a
brain state, and that it is ultimately a thing in the physical
universe, but it is not possible at present to show that either
one or the other is not true nor is it possible to reduce all
three separate explanations to a single consistent one. From
our present point of view it is convenient to let them all
stand side by side. The primary fact or datum is the same
whichever be true. One may add the pious hope that some
day it will be possible to combine them all and that this
ultimate explanation, whether formula or phrase, will be the
real truth. But that does not prevent one from accepting
as true the separate partial explanations even if they be
inconsistent.

Nor need we be prevented from carrying on the search for
new explanations and new facts by this acceptance of the
indifference to the facts of the explanations that are given
of them. Practical demands for short-hand expression of
facts, the value of the formulations in foreshadowing other
events, and above all the instinct of curiosity, which demands
that every event be related to some other, are sufficient to
keep the process of interpretation and the consequent devel
opment of science and philosophy continuously progressing.
Even if my assertion that explanation is always less real
than the thing explained be accepted, it would have no in
fluence upon the movement, for to be consistent I should
have to admit my interpretation of the nature of thought and
of investigation to be less real than the science itself. It is
not only important that the elements of the datum be clas
sified properly, that observations be correlated, but this
activity could not be stopped if one tried. While explana
tions need not be regarded as ever giving the ultimately real,
perhaps never the ultimate truth, they have an important
function in the theoretical and practical life, a function that
is sufficiently appreciated in common usage and discussion
and need not be insisted upon here.

It must also be emphasized in justification of the felt

172 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

reality of explanations that it is very difficult, even in the
simplest cases, to distinguish between the immediate datum
and its explanation. The accepted explanations of percep
tion indicate that merely receiving an object into awareness
involves additions, involves comparisons similar in char
acter to the explanations of the scientist. One does not even
read the words as they stand on the printed page, but must
interpret and add to them elements not seen, which from
the context must be assumed to be present. At the same
time misprints are suppressed and ideas are supplied in
addition to the words or to take the place of words. All this
is probably as much interpretation as inferring the presence
of copper when a solution turns green, and it is only a more
elaborate interpretation for the physicist to deduce the
size of atoms from markings on a photographic plate, when
X-rays have been passed through a given crystal before they
fall upon that plate. But to assert that one cannot distin
guish between the processes involved in ordinary percep
tion, the processes that go to constitute the given, and the
interpretations that are made of the given, need not be fatal
to the view. Our statement that perception is made up of
the effects of immediate stimuli, plus old memories and other
additions, is itself a psychological interpretation, not an
immediate datum. Each interpretation may be a datum for
another interpretation; in fact, that seems essential if psy
chological or logical or philosophical investigations are to
be carried out. The conclusion reached by the physicist is
a datum for the logician who is seeking to understand think
ing, in the same way that the immediate appreciation of
matter is the datum for the physicist or chemist who reduces
that matter to atoms or ions. The explanation of one mo
ment becomes the datum of the next, but the datum is
fundamentally real as datum rather than as explanation.
The physicist will continue to think as he does whether his
thinking does or does not accord with the interpretations of
the process given by the logician, just as the scientist con
tinues to see colors long after he has shown that they are
only electro-magnetic waves. While the particular element

THE DATUM 173

in experience is frequently at once datum and interpretation,
it is quite easy to distinguish the function; as event we take
one attitude towards it and as explanation quite another.
It is always real and true as datum, while as explanation it
may certainly be false and even unreal.

It is from these similarities between explanation and
datum that the conclusion has been drawn on the one hand
that the datum is itself the result of inference, and on the
other that the explanation is immediately known. The one
is the favorite statement of the idealist, the other of the
realist. Strictly speaking both are wrong, since to reach the
conclusion each introduces a slight difference in the meaning
of the middle term or assumes a third proposition not ex
plicitly present. The idealist takes it for granted that all
explanation of the immediate stimulus must be by means of
transformation into ideas. Since all must be interpreted in
order to become known, all must be idea. The realist, on
the contrary, assumes, as we have seen, that the datum is
immediately known but, misled by the frequency of the
realistic interpretation in popular speech, he assumes that
it is known as things outside the datum, such as the atoms
or ions of the chemist or the cells of the biologist. Each
interpretation has justification in its place, but obviously
it is true neither that all interpretation is by ideas, as the
idealist understands the term, nor that the realistic inter
pretation of the datum is the datum itself.

Were there space, it would be interesting to work out the
relations of the different forms of interpretation, the anal
ogies that make them plausible, and the relative probability
of each, but this would require writing a system of philos
ophy. The scope of the present paper is limited to the sug
gestion that the philosophers re-examine their premises and
make them square with the fact they have overlooked, that
the datum is not an assumption but the actual experience,
immediate knowledge, or awareness, that this is the measure
of the truth of all statements, general as well as particular,
of axioms and general principles, as well as of immediate ob
servations. To take this point of view does not change the

174 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

present systems except in so far as it makes it impossible
to be dogmatic and makes it necessary to admit that many
explanations may, nay must, be given of each phenomenon,
and that the sole test of any theory or system is not the in
conceivability of the opposite, or its deduction from prem
ises which all have assumed to be true, but simply whether
or not the theory or system offers a convenient way of inter
preting or using the datum. Usefulness is the only measure
of adequacy and adequacy is truth. This means again that
any interpretation that is useful is justifiable, and does not
prevent, — what we find in fact, — the acceptance of different
theories that are at present irreconcilable. All this would not
in the least change the actual character of science or philos
ophy, but it would make for less dogmatism, less acrimony
in discussion, less conceited intolerance for opponents of one's
own latest fad in opinion. Each might continue with full
vigor upon his own experiments in interpretation without
bestowing contempt upon his fellow worker whose stand
point reveals a slightly different vista.

THE LIMITS OF THE PHYSICAL *
GRACE ANDRUS DE LACUNA

IT is a familiar reflection that the classic dichotomy of
physical and psychical is the natural result of that vision of
the universe which so stirred the generation of Descartes,
and which has loomed so large upon the horizon of all
philosophic thinkers down to our own day, — the mechanical
theory of the universe. This vision had its birth in the dis
covery, or rather the analytical isolation by physical science,
of classes of phenomena of universal occurrence, and the de
scription of these in universal terms. The behavior of the
falling body, of the evenly swinging pendulum, of the re
bounding elastic ball, is the same wherever it is observed.
And there seems to be no set of things in the world, no class
of events, no nook or corner of the universe, which is beyond
the long reach of physical science. Whatever exists or oc
curs anywhere apparently falls under one or more of these
* cases' or universals of physical science. It matters not
whether this vision of the world takes the form of an intricate
dance of atoms, or endless transformations of energy, or the
interplay of centers of force; it is the same vision and its
consequences are identical.

For, in every case, the harshness of the vision must be miti
gated; and mitigated it always has been, and is, by the pic
turing of the psychic as a realm antithetical. The sole ideal
limit to the physical has always been sought in its alleged
opposite, the psychical. Those who have accepted the vision
of a universal mechanism have traced alongside, or behind,

1 This paper was read before the American Philosophical Association
in New York, December, 1916. The writer gladly avails herself of the
opportunity to publish it here as a mark of her esteem for Professor
Creighton, though she regrets that circumstances made it impossible to
prepare a special paper for this volume.

1 76 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the physical universe another universe of the psychic to
complete it. Those to whom the vision has been abhorrent,
and who have stoutly defended to the last the little domain
of living beings as a realm where physical uniformities are
interrupted, have attributed the interruption to the presence
and operation of a spiritual being. For even vital force is a
vaguely conceived impulse, subconscious, but continuous
with the conscious.

Among modern thinkers, the majority of whom, on
epistemological grounds of one sort or another, deny ultimate
ontological validity to the distinction, the dichotomy of
physical and psychical still persists in spite of its altered
status. No epistemological theory since Locke has accepted
the ontological dualism of physical and psychical. No care
ful thinker today would consider the dualism as a possible
basis for epistemological inquiry. Because, then, the episte
mological theorist has been convinced that the distinction
between physical and psychical is not ontologically ultimate,
it has ceased seriously to trouble him. He has been too
deeply interested in his own concerns to note that the di
chotomy still persists, albeit with altered status. That it does
persist is evidenced by the fact that neither Berkleyan nor
absolute idealist nor even pragmatist has succeeded either
in avoiding or in settling the classic controversy between
interactionism and parallelism. At least, prominent repre
sentatives of all three schools have expressed themselves
upon the issues of this controversy in terms which Descartes
might have used, and have vigorously defended one or the
other alternative. I would not assert that none of these
philosophic systems is capable of affording a restatement of
the problem in soluble form; I merely point out as significant
that no attempt to do so has met with general acceptance
even within its own school.

We are now in the midst of a new and widespread revolt
against this persistent antithesis. But it is noteworthy that
a majority of recent formulations of the mental or psychical
have defined it either as that which is non-physical, or as a
special class of the physical. In a word, we are still engaged

THE LIMITS OF THE PHYSICAL 177

in the old enterprise of describing the mental in its relation
to the physical. The very statement of the problem is based
on the presumption that there is some systematic connection
between the two classes of phenomena. We would not dis
cuss the relation of physical and psychical if we did not as
sume that the distinction between them was significant and
fruitful. But is this assumption well founded? What is its
genesis and upon what considerations does it rest?

The classic formulation of the dualism of physical and
psychical, we have observed, was consequent upon the con
ception of physical uniformities as universal. Just because
the whole natural world was conceived as a physical world,
determined throughout by mechanical laws, it became im
perative to relate the mental to this world, and to treat this
relationship as definitive. Hence, if we are to succeed in our
revolt against this dualism, it would seem at least advisable
to examine its historical and logical foundations.

Our present attitude toward the mechanical theory is
marked by two apparently opposed tendencies. The first
of these is a widespread and, I venture to think, growing
conviction of the wrong-headedness of those who point to
certain organic processes and functions, and say, "These are
inexplicable in terms of physical science and therefore we
must resort to some hypothesis different in kind, an en-
telechy, or soul." It has proved in the past a losing game to
set specific limits of that sort to the possibilities of physical
analysis. Besides, we are doubtful of the fruitfulness of
explanation in terms of entelechies or souls. We may be
ready to admit that the physical explanation of organic and
nervous processes will involve modification and development
of the concepts and theories of physical science itself, just
as the extension of physical science to outlying phenomena
in the past has involved reorganization within the science.
But however great this development may prove to be, it
will be a continuous development of the science, not leading
in the direction of entelechies and souls. This is debatable
ground, I am well aware, and perhaps this tendency to dis
credit the enterprise of the vitalist and the animist is less

1 78 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

widespread than my own predilections lead me to sup
pose.

However that may be, whether or not we believe that
limits to the extent of physical science are to be found in
certain specific processes of organisms, we do all of us be
lieve, tacitly at least, that there are limits to the relevant
and significant extension of physical description and ex
planation. Is the German army a physical entity, and will
its future triumph or defeat be describable in terms of trans
formations of energy, or chemical recombinations? Or if
such description is inadequate, can it be satisfactorily eked
out with descriptions of psychical processes going on in the
minds of officers and men? Again, is the commerce of
the United States a physical phenomenon describable as a
set of complex redistributions in time and space? Or are
the economic laws which it exemplifies physical uniformities ?
Or if not, are they describable as psychological uniformities?
In these, and a host of cases like these, we have passed beyond
the legitimate limits of physical science. But it is not be
cause we find here exceptions to physical laws, or a breakdown
of physical continuity which we may attribute to the opera
tion of a mental factor. No, the actual limit to the physical
is not the psychical, but the essential irrelevancy of the
physical categories. They are fundamentally and essentially
inapplicable to a wide range of the things and events of
common life and of science. Nor is this to be set down to the
relatively undeveloped state of the sciences. It is outgrown,
doctrinaire folly to suppose that the future development of
such a science as economics, for example, will result in the
exhibition of its phenomena and their laws as special cases
of physical phenomena and physical laws. The development
of economics is not in that direction, as we all know, nor is
such an outcome an actual ideal.

But to recognize that the fruitful and significant applica
tion of the physical categories is thus limited is not enough.
The ancient claim of the mechanical theory to universal
sufficiency must be directly adjudicated. The source of
what we have termed its fundamental and essential in-

THE LIMITS OF THE PHYSICAL 179

applicability must be exhibited. For the vision is still com
pelling, even though we believe it illusory.

If we consider the events which are taking place in the
world at any time, from a great historic event, such as the
conflict going on in Europe, to our own recent national
election, the spread and subsidence of infantile paralysis, or
even your yesterday's conversation with a friend, all these
events seem resolvable into physical occurrences. Even if
it be maintained that many, or even all, of these events were
the outcome of human purposes, nevertheless the purpose
manifested itself, and could have manifested itself, only in
physical occurrences. We can envisage them all, and con
ceive them as wholly describable down to the last detail, as
redistributions of mass and transformations of energy.
Moreover these occurrences, each and all, have their places
in a vast interconnected complex of such processes, stretching
out indefinitely in space and back indefinitely into the past.
Unless we suppose the continuity to have been interrupted
by the operation of psychic factors, we conceive each item
of these events, such as the discharge of a projectile from
a German trench or the dropping of a marked ballot into
the ballot-box, to have been determined by antecedent
physical conditions. We thus find ourselves involved in an
apparent antinomy. On the one hand, it seems impossible to
admit that mechanical explanation is ultimate or sufficient;
on the other hand, it seems impossible to deny it. Perhaps
it will help us to escape from this embarrassment, if we take
for consideration some familiar and typical concrete ex
ample: the recent Democratic victory.

The particular event which occurred last November is
resolvable into a vast mass of occurrences, such as the going
to the respective polls of the voters all over the country, the
marking of ballots, the subsequent fall of the ballots into the
boxes, etc. And each of these occurrences may be similarly
broken up, until, as an ideal limit, we may conceive that
whole group of events which constituted the election and
the Democratic victory as a multitude of redistributions of
mass and transformations of energy. Every detail is ac-

l8o PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

counted for, nothing is omitted. In a like manner we may
conceive other events of the same class, Democratic victories
of former years, described in detail as groups of physical
occurrences.

But if we now proceed to collate and compare these de
scriptions of the particular cases, in order to formulate a
general description, we find that they present no character
istic identity. If they were not already given as belonging
to the same class, we should never be led by our physical
analysis to class them together. But this means that the
phenomenon ' Democratic victory' is not a physical event.

Let us take a very simple analogy. On a piece of squared
canvas, such as our great-grandmothers used for working
samplers, one may embroider in cross-stitch all sorts of
figures by filling in the squares in rows according to direc
tions. One may, for instance, embroider a series of figures
of dogs of different kinds and in different poses. Each such
figure may be described as made up of designated squares in
designated rows, and a mathematical formula may thus be
given which will serve as a description, or as a rule for mak
ing such a figure. Similarly, any and every dog which it is
possible to embroider may be so described. But if we were
asked to give a formula for dog in general, which would serve
as a general rule for embroidering dogs, we simply could not
do it. The common property which all figures of dogs have
is not to be found by such an analysis of structure, for it is
constituted by relationships not expressible in terms of or
dered and numbered squares.

Similarly, that which is common to all Democratic vic
tories is not exhibited by an analysis of each such event into
physical occurrences. Physical science does not yield ade
quate principles of classification for the articulation of our
world.

We may then, in part at least, ascribe our contradictory
attitudes towards the claims of the mechanical theory to
the confused assumption that because any particular thing
or event may be described in physical terms, the class to
which it belongs may also be so described. In terms of logic,

THE LIMITS OF THE PHYSICAL 181

the error lies in failing to recognize that what is true of all
the members taken distributively is not necessarily true of
the class as such.

But the further question at once arises, whether, if every
particular thing or event in the world is completely de-
scribable in physical terms, we must not after all admit that
the claims of the mechanical theory to supremacy are valid?
If such an event as the recent Democratic victory is re
ducible to physical occurrences, is it not wholly determined
by physical conditions? How can there be room for any
further determination, e. g., by social conditions? Must not
any class not definable by physical principles be merely
fictitious? Or, if we insist that both sorts of determination
are equally valid, are we not committed to a parallelism more
hopeless than the alleged psycho-physical relation?

Such a conclusion seems unavoidable if we accept the
analysis of the particular event into physical occurrences as
legitimate. This point now demands closer scrutiny. The
Democratic victory of last November is resolvable, we said,
into a multitude of physical occurrences. But when so re
solved, it has lost all claim to be considered as a single event.
It is not even a complex of physical occurrences, for the
physical occurrences which constitute it have no physical
connection with each other except via the whole universe.
From the standpoint of physical science the selection of the
scattered occurrences which constitute this event is per
fectly arbitrary. It would be just as reasonable to group to
gether the falling of snowfiakes over the mound which marks
Scott's grave in the Antarctic, the spring of a tiger in the
jungles of Africa, and the purchase of a set of furs by the
czarina of Russia, and call them an event. The slipping a
dollar into the hand of a negro voter in Ohio and the marking
of a ballot in California have no more physical connection
than the former events. Physically speaking, your marking
your ballot is far more directly determined by the tempera
ture of the atmosphere than it is by the war in Europe, while
its relation to the cerebral structure of Mr. Hughes or Mr.
Wilson is altogether negligible. No, what we said before of

1 82 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the class 'Democratic victory,' that it was not a physical
phenomenon, we must now say of the particular event which
took place in November. It, too, is no physical event, either
simple or complex. And to our previous generalization, that
physical science does not yield adequate principles of classi
fication for the articulation of our world, we must now add
that it does not yield adequate principles of individuation
for the furnishing of our world. For physical science there
are neither German armies nor Democratic victories, neither
cabbages nor kings. To speak of such a thing or event as
being mechanically determined is to talk nonsense.

We must not forget that the sciences, and above all the
physical sciences, deal only with the abstract. The phe
nomena of science are universals, and it can take cognizance
of the particular only in so far as the particular presents itself
as a case of the universal phenomenon. The concrete particu
lar event which we designate 'the dropping of your ballot
into the ballot box' may be dealt with by physical science
in so far as it is considered a case of a falling body, or a case
of degradation of energy, but as that concrete particular,
standing in an indefinite complex of relationships, it is not
to be exhausted by physical analysis any more than it is by
any other sort of scientific analysis. Similarly, what science
can exhibit as determined is always the particular case of
some universal phenomenon, the abstract particular, and
not the concrete particular. As a 'falling body' the drop
ping of your ballot may be exhibited as an event determined
by the masses and distance from each other of the piece of
paper and the earth, but as a concrete, particular occurrence
it cannot be exhibited as determined. The attempt to con
ceive it as determined, even ideally, involves a resort to the
whole universe. One might as well resort to the Deity as an
explanation. What must be conceived as determined by the
universe is, for purposes of scientific description and ex
planation, indeterminate.

To sum up the argument: The traditional assumption that
the limits to the physical are to be found exclusively in the
psychical is not well founded. On the contrary, the limits

THE LIMITS OF THE PHYSICAL 183

to the physical description and explanation of the things and
events of common life and of science are set by the intelligible
applicability of the concepts of physical science to such de
scription, and of the laws of physical science to such ex
planation. This is not to be determined a priori by meta
physical considerations, but empirically. In general it may
be said that phenomena are legitimately to be considered as
physical only if the principles of their individuation and
classification can be stated in physical terms.

The problem of the relation of physical and psychical is
thus seen to be not a metaphysical problem, since there is
no ontological dualism. Furthermore, we have no ground
for the presumption that there is any systematic relationship
of the one to the other such that the psychical is most fruit
fully to be defined in its relation to the physical. The
specific problem of the relation of the psychical to bodily
behavior (the discussion of which cannot be undertaken in
the limits of this paper) thus presents itself freed from meta
physical implications. The question which we have to ask
(and it is a question whose importance I believe it would be
difficult to exaggerate) is : Is the behavior of organisms, and
in particular of organisms with nervous systems, a physical
phenomenon? Are the characteristic phenomena which it
presents, and the characteristic uniformities which these ex
hibit, capable of description in terms of physical science?
More particularly, is it fruitful, or even possible, to describe
in physical terms those characteristic modes of behavior
which we by common consent associate with distinctively
psychical processes, such as instinct, emotion, perception,
and the rest? If it is not, if such uniformities of behavior
are not describable as physical uniformities, then the mind-
body relation is not properly speaking a psycho-physical re
lationship, and the problem of the relation of the psychical
to the physical, like many another problem with which
philosophy has long struggled, has no determinate solution.

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL?
HENRY WILKES WRIGHT

IT is a common reproach flung at philosophers that they
only renew from generation to generation the ancient con
troversy between idealism and materialism. And the candid
philosopher is constrained to admit that appearances go far
to justify the charge. The history of philosophy records a
genuine progress in the solution of philosophical problems;
there can be no doubt of that. This progress consists, how
ever, in making each of the two conflicting views less one
sided and more adequate to the facts; it does not remove
the deep-seated cause of their antagonism nor unite them in
a lasting synthesis. The controversy is ever renewed, only
on higher ground. Idealism forswears subjectivity, becomes
'objective,' and gains a precarious supremacy which it
maintains more or less successfully through the vicissitudes
of a century. But its inherent inadequacy provokes the
inevitable reaction. Materialism, laid away with many an
eloquent funeral oration, reappears upon the scene, very full
of life and flushed with youthful enthusiasm. But now it
appears in the guise of realism and through its deference to
logical forms and processes pays tribute to the power and
potency of thought.

It is my wish to show, first, that the opposition between
materialism and idealism is rooted deep in human experience;
second, that intelligence furnishes no category already formu
lated which is able to reconcile teleology and mechanism;
and, third, that it is only through a study of man's social
development and cultural achievements that we can hope to
discover such a principle of synthesis.

Nothing that is experienced is alien to philosophy. The
sole qualification which an object must possess in order to
become subject-matter for philosophical investigation is
that it be experienced. The experience in question is primar-

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 185

ily the universal experience of mankind; experiences peculiar
to individuals are not excluded, to be sure, but they must
bear some relation to human experience in general if they are
to be even intelligible as material for study. If the student
of philosophy assumes, in order to gain for his conclusions
the kind of objectivity possessed by the principles of natural
science, that everything real exists in mathematically deter-
minable relations or that all behavior takes the form of re
sponse to external stimulation, he defeats the purpose of
his philosophizing at the very beginning. For he begins
with an assumption in regard to the subject-matter of his
investigation that denies to the sciences of value due con
sideration; thus he pre-judges the whole philosophic problem
at the start and condemns his own conclusions to one-
sidedness and inadequacy. Such well-intended but ill-judged
efforts to make philosophy 'objective' in the narrower sense
commit the unforgivable sin, philosophically speaking, of ac
cepting without criticism the principles and presuppositions
of natural science, when it is the first and primary task of
philosophy to subject these to analysis and criticism, to
criticise in fact all the categories of experience.1

We begin, therefore, with experienced objects. These, we
find, fall into two classes according to their characteristic
mode of activity. To the first class belong all the objects
whose activity is determined by other objects, is externally
determined. This class includes the objects which make up
the so-called physical world. The movement of each of these
is circumscribed and delimited by the movement of all the
other objects embraced in the system. Into a second class
fall all those objects whose activity is ^//-determined, i. e.,
determined by their own intrinsic potencies of development
and self-expression. The "intrinsic potencies" of an object
are the powers or capacities which are peculiar to it and
render its behavior in some measure unique. Their char
acter is, moreover, fully revealed only in actual expression
and cannot be fully foreknown or predicted on the basis of

1 Cf. Professor Creighton, "The Copernican Revolution in Philosophy,"
Philosophical Review, Vol. XXII, 1913, p. 139.

1 86 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

previous performances of the object itself or any other
agency. To this class belong living organisms, conscious
individuals, free persons. Of course this difference in modes
of determination does not divide the objects of experience
into two entirely separate groups: many are subject to, or
seem capable of, both kinds of determination. Thus the
living individual as a physical object is subject to external
determination, while physical agencies do, on their part, occa
sionally manifest unsuspected capacities for self-development
and individuation (as must have been the case when life
originated on this planet). But these complications are,
comparatively speaking, superficial; the distinction between
the mechanical and the teleological goes to the very root of
our experience, cleaving it in twain and supplying an essen
tial principle for dividing its objects.

As this distinction between external determination and
self-determination underlies all other distinctions, the ques
tion next occurs, What is our original experience of each of
these kinds of determination? Our original experience of
external determination is given, it would appear, in our
efforts to move our own bodies in spite of the resistance of
fered by objects external to them. And our original expe
rience of self-determination seems to come in the direction
which we, through the choosing of ends, give to our bodily
movement. Now it is a remarkable fact that both of these
root-experiences unite in the experience of voluntary action.
Indeed, they do in their unity constitute this experience:
voluntary action is the attainment, through external ad
justment, of ends which as chosen express the intrinsic capac
ities of the agent. Since volition occupies this central posi
tion in our experience, it is not unreasonable to expect that
a thorough-going analysis of its activity will bring us into
touch with fundamental realities and thus open the way to
a solution of the problem of the mental versus the material.

Let us therefore find out if we can what powers or capac
ities are regularly employed in voluntary action, what is
their method of operation, and what are the conditions under
which they work.

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 187

The first capacity that comes into play in the regular
working of will is ideation (or free imagination). We com
monly say that the power of will is first shown in the choice
of an end. By this we mean that volition is able to imagine
qualities or groups of qualities which are possible of realiza
tion. By identifying itself with these ideal qualities rather
than with those which are actually present, the will projects
the course of its own future activity. The ideal qualities in
question, which become ends of future action and sources of
future satisfaction, are themselves universals, inasmuch as
they retain their characteristic meaning through changing
experiences of choice, pursuit, and realization. They do,
as a matter of fact, give expression to the self-identity of
volition, maintained through a succession of changing acts.

The second factor essential to the working of will is the
capacity for effort. As long as the end of action remains a
mere possibility, it is opposed to the actual situation of the
agent with its existing opportunities for self-realization. If
the end is to be realized, the actual situation of the agent
must be altered. Such readjustment of existing conditions
requires effort, since objective reality resists readjustment
or transformation. This resistance is encountered by the
agent at one point, at several points simultaneously, or in
succession at the same point or at several points. Hence
the responding effort takes the form of movement having
three parameters, or occurring in tri-dimensional space.
These movements, since their character is objectively de
termined, are particular events occurring at certain times
and (in relation to other movements) certain places; they
are particular episodes in the life-history of individual or
ganisms.

The realization of the ideal objective constitutes the third
moment in the operation of volition. The chosen end is
realized when the voluntary agent through his own effortful
movement so alters existing conditions that the movements
at his command are such as no longer to thwart or exclude,
but rather to sustain, reinforce, and intensify the qualities
he desires to experience. Thus the ideal end is brought into

1 88 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

dynamic continuity with the system of motor co-ordinations
established by the agent; its distinctive qualities may be
re-experienced at will; it thus becomes a permanent, a real,
means of self-expression, and may constitute the starting-
point for new activities.

We have discovered the two agencies which underlie the
operation of volition and determine the character of its ac
tivity. The first is the subjective principle, the will itself,
an originating source of self-directed activity. The second
is the objective factor, having a reality equally underived and
original, which limits the range of voluntary activity, some
times checking and thwarting it and at others permitting
its expression along chosen lines.

The two agencies, subjective and objective, whose ex
istence is implied in all voluntary action, have been taken
abstractly and, when thus treated, appear as purely formal
principles. They do not, when thus understood in terms of
their general character and distinctive function, furnish any
explanation of the content or material of the existing world.
It is not as formal principles, however, that these two
agencies appear in our actual experience. There we always
find them working with, or upon, a body of material. Our
constructive imagination in the choice of ends unites qualities
in varying combinations, but the qualities themselves are
presupposed; we essay and effect different co-ordinations of
movement, but the species of movement we co-ordinate are
themselves given as original endowment. The philosophical
thinker who is interested in explaining the facts of experience
by a few fundamental principles is tempted to deduce or
derive, if he can, the actual content of experience from its
formal principles, but such attempts can be given the ap
pearance of success only through a logical legerdemain
which is as disastrous to the philosophy perpetrating it as
it is sophistical in itself. Renouncing any such mistaken
ambition, therefore, and accepting the content of experience
as given along with its formal principles, we must indicate
the material with which volition works in its choices and
its actions.

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 189

The qualities that constitute the object-material with
which our imagination works in the formulation of ends are
given in a system of original interests. (These interests we
usually think of as the outcome of actions performed before
the advent of volition under the influence of instincts which
have been developed in man or the lower animals by natural
selection. Since, however, the relation of stimulus to re
sponse is itself a category of intelligence and all thinking is
an expression of will, such explanations are subject to the
reservation that they all presuppose will as the fundamental
activity of human experience and hence cannot possibly
reduce it to a negative or derivative status.) The interests
in question are ends or objects of established value. They
represent permanent prospects of satisfaction, each within
the limits of its own content offering to volition a reliable
opportunity for free self-expression. In idea they mean a
variety of existing objects necessary for man's physical se
curity and comfort, such as articles of food and drink, ma
terials for clothing, places of shelter, sources of parental and
sexual and social satisfaction. All these interests are com
binations of qualities, the same qualities being components
of different interests. The qualities (identical with the
familiar sense-qualities, primary and secondary) are uni-
versals and, entering themselves into different combinations,
bind the totality of interests into a system. Of course the
interests under consideration are not to be understood as a
limited number of ready-made and unchangeable alterna
tives to which the choice of human agents is limited. They
do offer such ready-made alternatives in the way of guaran
teed satisfaction, but they offer much more, inasmuch as
they are severally capable of analysis and recombination to
an unlimited extent, thus opening to the choice of the agent
an indefinite number of new ends whose possibilities he may
at will explore by action.

The qualities which enter as constituents into the original
interests are easily distinguishable into a few main classes.
First, and in the beginning most important because of the
promise they hold forth of immediate satisfaction, are those

190 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

qualities which we, in the language of psychology, call tactual
and organic. Such are, — to take random instances, — the
taste and savour of nourishing food, the satiety which follows
eating, the softness and warmth of firm, flexible clothing, the
vital exaltation of victorious combat, the pressure of friendly
hand-clasp, the thrill of sexual contact. The second class
of qualities is kinaesthetic. Images and ideas of the move
ments required to approach with the body or follow with
the eye the source of expected organic satisfaction are closely
associated with the ideas of such satisfactions. In addition
to these two classes of qualities there are two others which
originally seem to serve as signs of their presence or guides
to their realization: ideas of colors and of sounds. Color
with its many hues and shades possesses interest primarily
because it identifies objects as offering specific satisfactions
and indicates the sequence of movements that must be made
to approach them. Auditory images, particularly ideas of
spoken words, are connected with the objects that appeal
as ends of action and signify either their location or their
value or both.

Turning now from imagined ends to the motor adjustments
by which they are realized, we find that the movements pos
sible to man as a voluntary agent fall into a few general
classes. There are first the movements of the whole body,
trunk and limbs, as it changes its position relative to other
objects, and grasps, holds, or otherwise manipulates or moves
them. In a second class are the movements involved in ad
justing the sensory apparatus, primarily that of sight and
hearing. Stationary objects are fixated and surveyed, mov
ing objects are followed, their changes being compensated by
readjustments of the visual mechanism. Into a third class
fall the movements of the vocal apparatus in speech, by
which the human individual communicates to others his
experiences of pursuit and satisfaction and by this means
influences their behavior.

The fact that a system of interests and a capacity for
movements such as have just been described are given along
with the power of volition itself has important implications

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 191

which must now be made clear. The existence of the afore
said interests and capacity for movement implies the ex
istence along with volition of a world of sense-objects and a
society of free agents.

The original interests from which man selects his ends of
action are at once plans of movement and promises of sat
isfaction. Since all movements are of the tri-dimensional
order, and identical qualities are present in different com
plexes, it is evident that all movements fall within one space
and all qualities are included within one teleological system.
Hence an extended world containing a multiplicity of objects
of different kinds may be taken for a pre-condition of any
voluntary action whatsoever. But the world of sense-objects
as actually perceived depends for its character and ar
rangement upon the motor adjustments of the perceiving
individual. Such motor adjustment, usually of the visual ap
paratus of the agent, signifies the presence of expected qual
ities (of color, form, figure, etc.) and in some measure locates
the object. The results of such visual adjustment are con
firmed by bodily movements towards or away from per
ceived objects, accompanied by a visual readjustment to
compensate for shifting of objects in altering perspective.
The arrangement of objects in the sense-world depends upon
the individual point-of-view and changes with every change
of individual position. The order of these changes is noted
and remembered by the individual, is compared with the
experiences of others who themselves figure in the changing
panorama and with whom the individual is in constant com
munication, and thus a system of spatial relations is pro
jected whose objectivity is generally acknowledged.

The voluntary agent is not merely capable of movement
under the limitations imposed by objective reality, he is
also capable of determining his own activity by a free choice
among ends. These ends are, as we have seen, universals;
they are possible modes of activity which promise to yield
their specific satisfactions whenever engaged in. They re
tain their value and significance as long as the voluntary
agent retains his identity; their universality is in fact an

192 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

expression of the identity of the voluntary agent as a self-
determining center or source of activity. Now the recog
nition by a number of individuals of the same system of
permanent values would constitute them a society of free
persons. It has been pointed out that the interests of which
the human individual finds himself possessed imply the ex
istence of other individuals and that any action on his part
in fulfillment of these interests involves the perception of
such others as objects in the physical world. The original
interests, moreover, come to the human agent in association
with words. Such articulate sounds serve to symbolize the
identical meaning possessed by a number of particular ob
jects or experiences and their use for this purpose would be
impossible apart from the ability to appreciate permanent
meanings and values. But the human individual is not left
to manufacture his own stock of words to serve as signs of
universals; he receives them ready-made as a part of his
social heredity. Such a system of verbal symbols as the
human individual finds in existence and use implies the
existence of a number of others recognizing identical mean
ings and pursuing common ends. The original conditions of
action, therefore, constitute the human individual a member
of a society of free agents; his will is a social will from the
start.

Volition thus proves to be the key to the structure of the
experienced world; an analysis of its activity brings to light
the determining factors of human experience. The first of
these real agencies is the human will itself, endowed with the
power of directing its own activity and of effort in extending
the range of its free choice. The second is objective reality,
which limits and circumscribes the action of the will. The
material of human choice is given, furthermore, as a variety
of sensory qualities, and the components of human action
as a system of motor co-ordinations. Volition, in so far as
we have experience of its powers, operates through a multi
tude of individual wills; these wills, moreover, act in a
common world of sense-objects and are in verbal communica
tion with each other. The aim of will is its own development

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 193

as a self-determining agency; it seeks to enlarge the scope of
its own free activity by increasing the number and variety
of objects which it may at choice experience. The opportu
nities for choice among possible ends of pursuit are practically
limitless. But such unlimited choice among ideal possibil
ities does not constitute real self-expression for will, since
ideas are realized only when brought into harmony with the
motor adjustments of human individuals. Volition seeks to
increase the variety of objects whose reality is thus open to
its experiencing; it does this in actual practice by endeavor
ing through the effort of motor adjustment to realize those
ends which, when they are realized, open to the choice of
the agent the richest content of qualities, the most diverse
detail of activities.

Have we gained from our analysis of experience in terms
of will any hint of a solution for the problem of the dualism
of mind and matter? Our results thus far seem rather to
confirm than to remove the opposition in question. Ex
perience proves to have its source in the action of two
antagonistic principles or agencies, the subjective principle
being a self-determining activity and the objective factor
setting limits to its free play. The world of objects as we
know it is a joint product of these two agencies. The ob
jective factor supplies none of the qualities which enter into
its constitution unless, indeed, we suppose that the system
of interests, given along with volition and containing all the
qualities predicated of existence, comes originally from ob
jective reality.1 Objective reality does, however, determine
the order and arrangement which these qualities have in the
existing world. It does this through the control which it
exercises over the action of voluntary agents, performed
under the guidance of ideas adopted as ends. When the
attempted motor adjustments are hindered or prevented,
the idea which governs the action as a working hypothesis is
proved false and its hypothetical object non-existent. When,
on the contrary, the action which is expected to revive and

1 This subject is more fully discussed by the writer in an article, "The
Principles of Voluntarism," Philosophical Review, Vol. XXIV, 1915, p. 297.

194 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

intensify the chosen qualities is permitted to proceed un
hindered to its intended outcome, the idea is (as we say)
realized; its constituent qualities are given objectivity.
Since rational will and objective reality thus co-operate in
the production of the experienced world, it is in a certain
sense itself a synthesis of mind and matter. But how does
it unite self-determination and externality? Do we find any
relation established among its objects which stands as a
genuine reconciliation of teleology and mechanism? At this
juncture it will be well to remind ourselves that the question
of a synthetic principle capable of reconciling the categories
of teleology and mechanism is an intellectual one. Now
thought is itself an expression of will; hence its activity is
subject to explanation in terms of the voluntaristic prin
ciples just formulated. The bearing of these principles upon
the mind-matter dualism can be fully understood only if
we first determine the part played by thought in the compre
hensive activity of volition and also consider how the op
posing categories of teleology and mechanism have come to
conscious recognition in the course of intellectual develop
ment.

The power of ideation has been shown to be a necessary
factor in volition, its function being freely to imagine objects
as ends of choice and pursuit. The faculty of thought is a
development of this original capacity for ideation; as a spe
cialized form of voluntary action, it has its characteristic aim
and distinctive technique. The aim of thought is to discover
truth, that is, to formulate in an ideal system all objects that
can be realized. As an authentic expression of will it ex
hibits, under its own distinctive form, the three essential
moments of ideation, effort, and realization. Since the
thought-object or idea is primarily an end of action, its
validity is tested by the results of action.1 The true idea is
the idea that can by effortful movement be brought into
such dynamic continuity with the established motor ad
justments of the agent that it can be re-experienced at

JC/. H. W. Wright, "Practical Success as a Criterion of Truth,"
Philosophical Review, Vol. XXII, 1913, p. 606.

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 195

will and made the starting-point for new courses of ac
tion.

In perception the distinctive character of the cognitive or
intellectual first declares itself. The perceived object is an
end of action, to be sure; better, it is a plan of action involv
ing an anticipation of motor adjustment and a promise of
satisfaction. Such a perception is, moreover, verified through
action and by the results of action. But the movements by
which the perception is verified are not ordinarily those
which are anticipated in its meaning, nor are its qualities
the results desired. The movements represented in the per
ception are primarily those of the whole body in appropriat
ing the object, while the satisfactions are those expected
when it is put to the use for which it is intended. The move
ments instantly evoked by the initial interpretation, however,
are adjustments of the sensory apparatus (usually of sight
and hearing), suited to prove the existence of qualities in
the object (for the most part, colors and sounds) whose
presence guarantees, in advance of more extensive move
ment, that the results desired will follow when these latter
movements are made. The perception qua perception gains
objectivity when the sensory adjustment which it prompts is
permitted to proceed unhindered and intelligence is stimu
lated thereby to fill out and complete the interpretation
which evoked it. The world of perception is a world of ma
terial objects externally related to one another and to the
body of the percipient. To be sure, these physical objects
are centers of characteristic qualities themselves universal;
many different objects possess the same qualities; therefore
objects may be classified according to their kind in a teleo-
logical system. But this feature of the sense-world is alto
gether over-shadowed by the fact that its objects owe their
standing and existence to the widely differing motor adjust
ments of different individuals and are hence particular things
externally juxtaposed.

But thought is not content with interpreting the succes
sive situations in which different individuals find themselves
with a view to possible action; it endeavors to extract the

196 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

essential significance of the passing experiences of all in
dividuals and give to the meaning thus discovered and
defined, valid as it is for all human agents, permanent ex
pression through the medium of language. By means of the
concept, thought advances toward the attainment of its aim
of formulating in an ideal system all objects that can be
realized. The concept is an identification of objects that
play a similar part in all human conduct, this identical func
tion being symbolized by a word. The relations which con
stitute the meaning of such concepts are of two kinds, because
the functions which objects discharge in voluntary action
are of two main sorts. Such objects are either links or steps
in sequences of movement or else they are sources of satis
faction. Conceptual objects are therefore possessed either
of spatial attributes, and thus are subject to mechanical
causation, or of the properties of freedom and self-develop
ment. The meaning of most familiar concepts is constituted
by both these types of relation; they are at once extended
objects having location, size, shape, etc., depending in their
construction and employment upon definite kinds of motor
adjustment, and also objects of value having many possibil
ities of use and promising a variety of satisfactions. Terms
which thus symbolize the permanent significance, mechanical
or teleological, of the changing objects of experience are
themselves combined according to their essential relations
into propositions and propositions are woven into larger
bodies of discourse. Such systems of discourse, developed
by individual thought and general discussion, when freed
from inner contradiction and tested by common human ex
perience, stand as the accepted truth. When a statement of
supposed fact conforms to, or is implied in, this body of veri
fied knowledge, it is judged true; but when it contradicts
established propositions, it is judged false and its object
unreal.1

1 In this and the foregoing paragraph quotations are made from the
writer's article, "The Object of Perception versus the Object of Thought,"
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. XIII,
1916, p. 437.

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 197

Conceptual thought cannot be freely exercised until in
dustrial and political development have proceeded far enough
to make possible an orderly social life in which individuals
are free to exchange ideas and to engage in constant and
systematic discussion of their experiences. When these con
ditions were fulfilled, it is not strange that human thought
should have turned its attention away from the outer world
of sense-objects to the inner realm of purpose and ideal, and
devoted itself to an investigation of the possibilities of satis
faction offered by the different ends of human action. Ob
jects were then classified into a system in accordance with
the kind or degree of satisfaction they promised and thus
constituted a realm of ends or ideals. The formulation of
such a system of values was tantamount to the discovery of
a new world, different from and in many ways contrasting
with the natural. This ideal or spiritual realm was found to
have its own structure and organization: ends could be
classified in accordance with their generality and all sub
sumed under one, the summum genus; they could also be
organized according to degree of comprehensiveness, all
being finally included within one absolute and all-compre
hensive good.1

If it is possible to conceive of objects altogether in terms
of the variety of satisfactions which they offer, it is also pos
sible to conceive of them exclusively in terms of their me
chanical conditions. This modern physical science has done;
it has eliminated all secondary qualities from the actual world
and reduced its phenomena to terms of mass and motion.
Hence the two worlds, that of value and that of mechanism,
confront one another in the systematic thought of the pres
ent: they are not merely different, they are opposed; they
are not merely antagonistic, they seem out of all conceivable
relation to one another. Yet both formulations are valid
because, as we have seen, the categories on which both are
based, of teleology and mechanism, are grounded in the na
ture of volition, which is fundamental to human experience

1 Cf. H. W. Wright, Faith Justified by Progress, New York, 1916, Lecture
IV, "The Supernatural Life."

198 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

and conditions the existence of thought itself as a form of
voluntary activity. Despite the apparent finality of this
dualism, our thought chafes under it, and it is the special
task of present-day philosophy to find some principle com
prehensive enough to reconcile these two orders of movement
and choice, necessity and freedom, matter and spirit.

The question of transcending the dualism of mind and
matter now recurs in a somewhat different form: Does not
our experience of voluntary activity supply such a synthesis
as we require? Is not the realization of the end itself a recon
ciliation of free choice and effortful movement? More
specifically, does not the experience of realization establish
a relation of adjustment between free choice and mechanical
determination, and does this relation not furnish us with the
reconciling category which we seek? Evidently this relation
is not as obvious as those which gain expression in mechanism
and teleology or it would have influenced human thought as
decisively as the other two. But, however obscure, it is
worth investigating, for in it lies the only apparent hope of
a solution for the crucial philosophical problem.

An idea is realized, according to the account already given,
when the movements at the command of the agent are such
as to revive and reinforce rather than to exclude its con
stituent qualities. Now the movements at the command of
the agent are principally the movements of his own body,
muscular co-ordinations established by heredity or practice
and performed without effort or attention. An idea realized
is an idea brought into existence, and an existing object is
an object that the agent sees or hears, handles or manipu
lates, describes to himself or otherwise reacts to. What dif
ference does it make to an ideal quality thus to be brought
into harmony with the motor adjustment of the human or
ganism? It means, in the first place, that the qualities in
question may be re-experienced by the agent whenever he
chooses to repeat the movements necessary to their revival.
It means, in the second place, that the object may also be
experienced by all other individuals who, imagining its char
acter from the speech and expression of the agent, watch

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 199

and imitate the movements by which he has realized it.
For an end to be realized signifies, therefore, that it ceases
to be the momentary choice of an individual will and becomes
the potential property of all individual wills, a permanent
source of social satisfaction. The human organism is the
medium or instrument through which ends are thus social
ized. Influenced by convention, we often think of human
bodies as strictly individual possessions, expressing individ
uality in its most private and exclusive character. This is
far from the truth; it is his body with its inherited mechan
isms that allies the individual with his race or species. In
dividuality finds expression in those purposes and preferences
which are shaped and formulated by the free imagination
of the individual and which are original with and distinctive
of him. His body is the instrument by which he converts
these original purposes into sources of social satisfaction.
It appears, then, that the relation brought to light in the
realization of an end is that of association, since the objects
experienced are determined neither by the free choice of an
individual will nor by the constraint of objective reality but
by the conditions of social life and activity.

The conclusion to which we come is that the association
of individual wills who pursue correlative ends under the
same objective limitations is the comprehensive relationship
which reconciles mechanism and teleology. The experience
of realizing an end is an experience both of movement and
of choice; with the object once in his possession the agent
makes the bodily adjustments which are necessary to rein
force those of its qualities which he may choose to expe
rience. But necessity and freedom are not simply combined
in an external way in realization; they are both transformed
through integration in a higher unity. The experience of
movement is no longer the experience of overcoming re
sistance, of expending effort; it takes the form of kinaesthetic
qualities which have meaning because they identify them
selves with other actions of the agent and his fellows. This
is true of the movements of the body and sensory apparatus
by which we maintain our positions and adjust ourselves to

200 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

one another in the common world; it is also true of those of
the speech-mechanism, which, as an instrument of communi
cation, has always a social reference. It has been generally
recognized that kinaesthetic qualities perform an important
office in imparting objectivity to the other qualities with
which they are interwoven; this is because they give these
latter qualities, whose experience is desired, a definite place
in the common world of human occupations and intercourse.
Nor is the freedom which we exercise in the enjoyment or
use of the object realized identical with the freedom we enjoy
when we imagine its various qualities. The ability to follow
the play of imagination in projecting objects for possible
realization is freedom in the more restricted and proper
sense; its activity has, however, a certain arbitrariness be
cause subject solely to the individual will. But the freedom
which we exercise in choosing this or that quality or char
acter of the existing object for our use or enjoyment is
limited by the fact that all these qualities have been brought
into definite relations with the determinate motor adjust
ments of a human organism. The choice of the individual is
no longer determined solely by his own will and the character
of his own experience; it is determined by the general will
of mankind and the conditions of social life.

The social significance of the experience of realization is
frequently obscured by the fact that the experience in ques
tion is exemplified by the attainment of some particular
desire. Not that the social implication is absent in this case;
qualities which, when imagined as desirable, express the will
of a single individual become in the process of realization
associated with movements which take place in the world
of common perception and which can be imitated and em
ployed by others to induce an experience of the same char
acter. But this social reference becomes much plainer in
the realization of a comprehensive purpose whose attain
ment involves the employment of tools and the control of
natural forces and whose satisfactions extend over a con
siderable period of time. Consider, as an example, the pur
pose to grow a crop of grain for the winter's food-supply.

IS THE DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER FINAL? 2OI

The successive movements by which the end is realized, de
pending upon the use of tools and following uniform se
quences of nature, become generalized community practices,
established arts, and, because of the opportunities they offer
for co-operation, independent sources of satisfaction. And
the satisfactions which these movements bring about are
enjoyed by several individuals in association and imply an
orderly community life with its many and varied possibilities
of intercourse, companionship, and play around the fireside
hearth or on the village common. The social character of
our experience of reality is fully revealed, however, only in
the achievement of the three universal ends sought by voli
tion in its specialized capacities of thought and action and
feeling, viz., Truth and Power and Beauty. Each of these
ends is being progressively realized: the system of verifiable
ideas is being enlarged and co-ordinated; more methods of
operation are being devised and machines invented; new
arrangements of form and color and tone are being effected
which stimulate the imagination and arouse the feeling of
beauty. In each case, the movements involved are them
selves instruments of association: language of communica
tion, industrial technique of co-operation, aesthetic contem
plation of fellow-feeling. And these ends have all of them in
their realization the same social implication of the establish
ment of a society of free persons united by mutual under
standing, co-operation, and sympathy in the experience of a
common world of intelligible objects, manageable forces, and
enjoyable harmonies of sight and of sound.

If these conclusions are warranted, philosophy has erred
when, influenced by the definitive opposition of mechanism
and teleology, it has conceived reality either as a kinetic
system or as a hierarchy of ends, rather than as a social life.
Our social experience presents a reality more concrete, if
less definite, richer and more varied, if less easily formu
lated; surely there is no more promising field for philosophical
investigation than that of man's developing social life, his
progressive cultural achievements.

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM l
ALFRED H. JONES

U!T is a commonplace of our philosophical tradition that
Kant marks a turning point in the history of modern thought.
The Kantian and post-Kantian systems are forces with
which we have to reckon at the present day, . . . while the
earlier theories of the modern period, though not lacking in
suggestion, are generally taken to represent standpoints and
methods which have been definitely transcended. . . . Kant
himself was so impressed with the importance of the new
principle which he introduced into philosophy that he spoke
of it as a revolution comparable to that which Copernicus
had brought about in astronomy. And, in spite of occasional
dissenting voices, this verdict seems to have been generally
accepted, not only by his immediate successors, but also by
philosophers of the present day. . . . Kant's own state
ment of the nature of the change which he had brought
about is well known. Whereas previous philosophy had
proceeded on the assumption that the mind is determined
in the process of knowledge by an object external to itself,
his philosophy is the proof that the object must conform to
the conditions prescribed by the knowing mind. Thus the
centre of the philosophical universe is changed from the ob
ject to the knowing subject: we have to recognize that the
understanding gives laws to nature. Now, if Kant is himself
the final authority regarding the meaning of his philosophy,
and if this statement is to be taken literally as complete and
final, then one would be justified in feeling that his new
principle is of questionable validity. . . . The 'mind' in
the sense of the older philosophy, has no advantage as a

1 This essay, so far as it deals with the philosophy of Thomas Reid, is
similar to the writer's article entitled, "The Problem of Objectivity,"
Philosophical Review, Vol. XXV, 1916, p. 778.

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 203

principle of explanation over the merely external object.
Mere subjectivism is no advance on mere objectivism: they
rest on the same fundamental assumptions and have so much
in common that their differences are almost negligible. . . .
Kant begins clearly enough with the ordinary dualism, which
was common to both the earlier schools of modern philos
ophy; and at first he appears to be bringing together in a
merely mechanical way elements derived from these his
torical sources. . . . But, as one can see through the per
spective afforded by the intervening time, the significance
of the Critical philosophy is not dependent upon its success
in carrying out this program, but is due to the fact that the
logic of its procedure transformed the standpoint from which
this problem had been formulated, and thus revealed that
the problem itself was not a genuine one. . . . His real
method of procedure, . . . i. ^., the procedure by means of
which he obtained fruitful results, assumes knowledge and
its organization, and proceeds by reflective analysis to bring
to light the assumptions which are involved in it as con
structive principles. . . . The critical method, then, does
not attempt to construct knowledge or to prove its existence,
but to formulate and systematize its necessary assumptions."
Such, in the clear language of Professor Creighton,1 was
the significant revolution wrought by Kant in modern philo
sophical thought. It was not, however, until Hegel that the
revolt thus falteringly initiated against dualism attained full
consciousness of itself. It was Hegel's proud boast that he
'broke through to reality;' that, premising a ready and
authentic intercourse with things, he expended the labor of
his thought wholly on the analysis of the real and the prin
ciples by which we apprehend it. Philosophy, so considered,
is a * criticism of categories.' Shunning the ancient ambition
to leap from the possessed to a severed and foreign reality,
philosophers of this type limit the excursions of their thought
to the world of present proprietorship; their universe is a
single-chambered affair. In curious contrast stands the pro-

1 "The Copernican Revolution in Philosophy," Philosophical Review,
Vol. XXII, 1913, pp. 133-136.

204 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

cedure of British metaphysicians, committed by dualistic
premises to the insoluble problem of unifying a world
regarded, in its inmost nature, as severed and split. Begin
ning with the assumption that matter is an absolute,
English thinkers early encountered the problem of error,
for real things do appear falsely. To solve this difficulty,
they postulated a second absolute, the mind, in the dark
recesses of which vagrant illusions might find shelter and
a home. Thus arose the classic doctrine of the twin
store-houses, in one or the other of which the entire con
tent of experience must lie. But this radical separation,
while settling one problem, gave rise to another no less urgent
and perplexing. " Is the reality thus locked and barred out
side of mind perceivable," it was asked, "and if so, how is
this perception possible?" To this inquiry there was no
satisfactory answer. Thus the content of the external store
house was gradually shifted to the mind, and the real became
hypothetical, a mere ghost of its former self. "The great
advantage of ... [the dualistic] theory," remark the Plat
form Realists, "is that it ... accounts for error and illu
sion; the disadvantage of it is that it appears to account
for nothing else." 1

The reasoning just sketched reveals at once the achieve
ment and failure of British metaphysics. To attain construc
tive significance, this philosophy must reject mind and matter
as substances and conceive them as reciprocal functions of
a self-determining experience. It can hardly fail to strike
one as strange that a program so natural and promising as
this has, in the entire history of philosophy in English, been
tried but twice, first by Thomas Reid, second by the new
realists. Of the terms of traditional dualism, Reid challenged
and re-interpreted only the doctrine of mind. Aroused from
the dogmatic acceptance of the Berkeleian theory by its
sceptical issue in the philosophy of Hume, Reid examined
the foundations of the classic structure, and discovered, not a
little to his surprise, that it "leans with its whole weight
upon a hypothesis, which is ancient indeed, and hath been
1 The New Realism, pp. 4f.

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 205

very generally received by philosophers, but of which I could
find no solid proof. The hypothesis I mean, is, That nothing
is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it:
That we do not really perceive things that are external, but
only certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon
the mind. ... If this be true, ... I cannot, from their
existence, infer the existence of anything else." l

Reid's polemic was directed not against all conceptions
of ideas, but solely against the notion of them as exclusive
objects or termini of knowledge, motes and beams in the
eye of the subject.2 Good dogmatist that he was, Reid holds
it self-evident that knowledge is principally engaged, not
with its own ideas, but with objects. "When we see the
sun or moon, we have no doubt that the very objects which
we immediately see are very far distant from us, and from
one another." 3 "A second reflection . . . is — that the
authors who have treated of ideas, have generally taken their
existence for granted, as a thing that could not be called in
question; and such arguments as they have mentioned in
cidentally, in order to prove it, seem too weak to support the
conclusion." Only two arguments, he finds, have been ad
vanced in defense of the conception. The first, succinctly
stated by Clarke, sets forth that "The soul, without being
present to the images perceived, could not possibly perceive
them. A living substance can only there perceive, where it
is present." 4 Of such reasoning Reid makes short work,
showing that whatever cogency it possesses is due to the
unacknowledged premise that mind is quasi-material. The

1 The Works of Thomas Reid, edited by Sir W. Hamilton, Vol. I, p. 96.
"If by ideas are meant only the acts or operations of our minds in
perceiving, remembering, or imagining objects, I am," he affirms, "far
from calling in question the existence of those acts." Ibid., Vol. I, p. 298.
Cf. James's statement: "Whoever blots out the notion of consciousness
from his list of first principles must still provide in some way for that
function's being carried on." Essays in Radical Empiricism, p. 4.

3 All quotations, unless otherwise specified, are from the excellent
summary which constitutes the fourteenth chapter of the second of the
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man; Works, Vol. I, pp. 298-306.

4 Quoted by Reid, ibid., p. 30x3.

206 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

second arid weightier argument arises from the fact of the
variability of perception and illusion. "The table . . . ,"
Hume remarked, "seems to diminish as we remove farther
from it: but the real table . . . suffers no alteration. It
was, therefore, nothing but its image which was present to
the mind." 1 To this, the true ground of all subjectivism,
Reid has no adequate or convincing reply. He merely affirms,
partly on the right track, that there is no reason why real
objects, under different conditions of perception, should not
array themselves in different garments; and further reminds
us that the forms and successions of appearances are as
predictable as those of real things themselves — a fact, he
believes, consonant only with the hypothesis of realism.2
"Thus," he concludes, "I have considered every argument
I have found advanced to prove the existence of ideas . . .
in the mind; and, if no better arguments can be found, I
cannot help thinking that the whole history of philosophy
has never furnished an instance of an opinion so unanimously
entertained by philosophers upon so slight grounds."

Reid's remaining criticisms have a common aim, to reduce
the theory of ideas to an absurdity. "If ideas be not a mere
fiction, they must be, of all objects of human knowledge, the
things we have best access to know . . . ; yet there is noth
ing about which men differ so much." He observes further
that "ideas do not make any of the operations of the mind
to be better understood, although it was probably with that
view that they have been first invented. . . . We are at
a loss to know how we perceive distant objects; how we re
member things past; how we imagine things that have no
existence. . . . They are all by means of ideas reduced to
one operation — to a kind of feeling, or immediate perception

1 Quoted by Reid, Works, Vol. I, p. 302.

2 "Shall we say," he inquires, "that a false supposition, invented by
the rude vulgar, has been so lucky in solving an infinite number of phe
nomena of nature ? This, surely, would be a greater prodigy than philoso
phy ever exhibited : add to this, that, upon the contrary hypothesis, . . .
no account can be given of any of these appearances, nor any physical
cause assigned why a visible object should, in any one case, have one
apparent figure and magnitude rather than another."

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 207

of things present and in contact with the percipient; and
feeling is an operation so familiar that we think it needs no
explication, but may serve to explain other operations. But
this feeling, or immediate perception, is as difficult to com
prehend as the things which we pretend to explain by it."
Finally, it is in consequence of this doctrine that subjectiv-
ists feel it "necessary to prove, by philosophical arguments,
the existence of material objects. And who does not see
that philosophy must make a very ridiculous figure in the
eyes of sensible men, while it is employed in mustering up
metaphysical arguments, to prove that there is a sun and a
moon, an earth and a sea? . . . However [he concludes], as
these paradoxes have, with great acuteness and ingenuity,
been deduced by just reasoning from the theory of ideas,
they must at last bring this advantage, that positions . . .
so contrary to the decisions of all our intellectual powers,
will open men's eyes, and break the force of the prejudice
which hath held them entangled in that theory."

There is in these statements much that is ill-considered
and utterly dogmatic; but we should not, on that account,
fail to observe that they set forth, for the first time, in opposi
tion to British dualism, the outlines of a doctrine of imme
diate perception of reality. It is the more to be regretted,
therefore, that Reid failed to sustain and develop this sugges
tive insight. That mind was a substance or agent, and that
sensation and feeling formed the material of such substances,
he never questioned. " By the mind of a man," he writes, " we
understand that in him which thinks, remembers, reasons,
wills." Sensation, he continues, "hath no object distinct
from the act itself"; "the feeling and the thing felt are one
and the same." 1 Perception, memory, and imagination,
according to Reid, reveal to us objects independent of our
selves; but sensation and feeling have no content save their
own character and state. It was at these points, accordingly,
that the germs of subjectivism entered Reid's system, and,
after the manner of their kind, multiplied and spread, until
they infected most of it. By degrees, the secondary and
1 Works, Vol. I, pp. 220, 229, 230, respectively.

208 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

then the primary qualities contracted the ailment, and be
came, in effect, mere states of mind. The result is an incon
sequential doctrine of perception for which Reid, owing to
the misdirected efforts of his expositors, is mainly known:
the theory that sensations are but signs or signals which
initiate in the mind a ' conception' of objects and an irre
sistible belief in their existence. According to this inter
pretation, what assures us of reality is no direct seizure of it,
but a common-sense conviction of its existence, supposed for
theoretical as for practical purposes to be authoritative and
ultimate.

This summary suffices to exhibit the grave manner in
which Reid's house is divided against itself. Affirming, in
opposition to Berkeley and Hume, a suggestive doctrine of
immediate perception, this author, determined by subjective
premises, insensibly drifted back, in the constructive move
ment of his thought, into the very theory of ideas which he
proposed to controvert. Nor was the breach thus left open
satisfactorily closed by any succeeding philosopher of the
Scottish School. Influenced by Hamilton, a man of prodi
gious learning but of little genius, these philosophers re
jected Reid's suggestion of monistic realism, following instead
the familiar theory of representative perception. Not un
til the last decade, and then outside of Scotland, and with
out historical relation to Reid, has there been a fresh attempt
to formulate the sole original feature of Scotch meta
physics. This formulation has been undertaken by the new
realists.

The new realism, particularly that of Professor Perry,
in its relation to dualism, consists in developing the con
sequences of a single postulate, viz., that the content of
experience is 'neutral' in character. Is the l psychical' an
aspect or relation of that which is likewise 'physical,' or are
they separate and unique existences? l Modern realism
returns to the first part of this question an affirmative, to

1 Cf. "Topic for Discussion at the 1916 Meeting of the American Philo
sophical Association," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods, Vol. XIII, 1916, pp. 573!.

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 209

the second part, a negative reply. "In so far as I divide
them into elements," writes Professor Perry, "the contents
of my mind exhibit no generic character. ... It is only
with respect to their grouping and interrelations that the
elements of mental content exhibit any peculiarity." "The
same elements," viz., sensible qualities and logical cate
gories, "compose both mind and body," so that, "instead of
conceiving reality as divided absolutely between two im
penetrable spheres, we may conceive it as a field of inter
penetrating relationships, among which those described by
physics and psychology are the most familiar and typical,
and those described by logic the most simple and universal."
Mars, in brief, is ' mental ' in "relation to my perceiving ac
tivity, . . . my memories, plans, feelings, etc."; 'physical'
"by virtue of its volume, and its distance from the sun." l
"There must be," exclaims a vigorous critic of this doc
trine,2 "more than an external correspondence between the
'idea' and the object. The idea ... is the interpretation
of the object, the revelation of its nature. This revelation
finds illustration in the fact that cognitive experience may
always be read both in internal and external terms; as the
ideas and judgments of a mind, and as the determinations
of real things. In its concreteness, it is both." In every
monistic metaphysics the doctrine of neutral elements, or
its equivalent, is manifest.3

1 Present Philosophical Tendencies, pp. 277, 311, 312.

2 Professor Creighton, "The Determination of the Real," Philosophical
Review, Vol. XXI, 1912, p. 314.

s Cf. Professor Dewey, "The Concept of the Neutral in Recent Epis-
temology," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods,
Vol. XIV, 1917, p. 161. Professor Dewey points out that the neutral
may be conceived in either of two senses and recommends greater ex-
plicitness in the use of the term. "In one sense to call anything neutral
means neutral in a specified respect or reference; that is, with respect to the
application of a particular set of alternatives. . . . To say, for example,
that certain things are neutral with respect to the distinction of mental
and material would be to say that there are things such that intelligent
discussion of them is not forwarded by applying to them, without further
specification, the distinctions marked out by the terms 'mental — material.'
What is asserted is the irrelevancy of a certain type of distinction. . . .

210 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

This central conception has two evident applications.
First, it denies that mind and ideas are substantial entities.
Consciousness, it affirms, is an attribute or relation. Though
general and ambiguous in form, this dictum has in practice a
definite and specific meaning, viz., that the content of per
ception is a datum that is, or may be, objective. This is the
essence of monistic metaphysics. Introduce any cleft be
tween the material known and that which exists, — let the
first be of one order and the second of another, — and the
face of things is veiled from us forever. All that an hypothe
sis of immediate perception need maintain, all that its for
mulae can possibly mean, is that the content of knowledge
belongs exclusively neither to the world of ideas nor to that
of things. It is precisely to make intelligible such dual citi
zenship as this that members of the current school define
mind as a function or relation. The content of consciousness,
considered as substance, must partake exclusively of the na
ture of that substance, but the datum of thought, regarded
as relation, is not necessarily of this single, one-dimensional
character. On the relational view, that which in virtue of one
connection is known may in virtue of another exist. By the
simple device of substituting a dualism of relations for a
dualism of worlds the new realist exhibits reality as knowable.

The second application of the doctrine concerns the notion
of reality. It will be recalled that Reid, apart from the
negation of ideas, was a naive, a common-sense realist. Like
all metaphysicians influenced solely by English tradition, he
accepted without question, as warranted by the senses, the
notion that matter is primordial and unique, one of two
charter members in the corporation of the universe. In op
position to this time-honored belief, the members of the new
school assume that, save for a difference of relation, reality
and true knowledge are identical. They maintain with

In contrast with this conceivable meaning of the term neutral, which
might be called the logical, stands another which might be called the
metaphysical or ontological, namely, that there is a certain sort of stuff
which is, intrinsically, neutral." The word neutral is here used only in
the first of these senses. No value, I believe, attaches to the second usage.

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 211

Berkeley that existence is akin to thought; with Reid that it is
no mere state of mind. Berkeleianism robbed of substantial
mind and idea, naive realism stripped of matter as absolute,
dualism shorn of both additions, yield alike the simple con
struction of the new realism. To view the manifold content
of experience as unsupported and unexplained by any tran
scendent factor is to arrive at the central insight of the
current doctrine.

It is accordingly only in a specific and defined sense that
reality is independent of, or external to, the process by
which it is perceived. It stands outside the perceiving re
lation in the circumstance that it is regarded as real solely
in virtue of its relation to other objects, not because of its
connection with the subject. Thus the moon is external to
my perception in that its position and motion are deter
mined, not in terms of my apprehension, but in relation to
the motion of other spheres. Objects, in brief, are inde
pendent of perception, but not of conception. To affirm the
independence and externality of the real without qualifica
tion is to identify the new doctrine with dogmatic or naive
realism.

Reality, in such a view, is deprived of all stiffness; it is a
conceptual construction, a product of the activity of thought.
It is true that objects are relatively self-enclosed and stable,
but this character, so far from being original and inherent,
is secondary and derived. Cut out of a larger and plastic
context by thought, objects are endowed with the marks of
the real by the very process to which they are commonly
considered antithetical. Such a flexible notion of matter
entails no insoluble problem of appearance. For reality and
appearance, on this view, differ not as one order from another,
but as a section of cloth differs from a larger piece from which
it has been excised. The part cut out, because more useful,
is called real; the remainder, mere appearance. The true dif
ference between the two sections is one of value to the cutter.
Reality and appearance are in truth but concepts of praise
and blame; we employ the first or the second according as
we desire to extol or disparage. The hoary problem of

212 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

locating vagrant illusions thus loses its meaning. The wheel
has come full circle; the fact of appearance, though ad
mitted, no longer threatens or disturbs.

The essential character of the new realism should now be
evident. So far from being a party, as is supposed, to the
ancient dispute between subjectivism and naive realism, the
new doctrine is rather critic as much of the second as of the
first of these theories, whose premises are the same. Its
salient feature is the negation of the conception of substance.
Some exponents of the doctrine, imperfectly grasping its
logic, have, it is true, denied spiritual substance while affirm
ing the cognate conception of matter. But so evident is it
that the two absolutes stand or fall together, that this error
could hardly have been committed, save that the new inter
pretation was elaborated in opposition to subjectivism, and
so temporarily made an alliance with dogmatic realism.
Had the latter been orthodox and regnant, it is probable
that the nascent hypothesis, developing with a new emphasis,
would have been called the 'new idealism.' Certain it is
that the designation ' realism' here loses its historic signifi
cance. In the circumstance that subjectivism is to some
degree critical, the current doctrine stands, on the whole,
in closer relation to it than to common-sense realism. It
might perhaps most fittingly be entitled the 'new empiri
cism.'

What is the significance of the new realism? It is signifi
cant, I believe, solely as a revolt against the premises of
dualism. Like Reid's reply to Hume, it is chiefly a critical,
not a constructive, undertaking. By it, philosophers indoc
trinated with the postulates of British thought may be con
ducted to the standpoint of monistic metaphysics, but in
the elaboration of the latter system they will be advanced
scarcely a step. It is for this reason, no doubt, that philos
ophers like Professor Creighton, though standing in no es
sential opposition to the new doctrine, view it neverthe
less with indifference. For while it is the merit of the
new realism to have rejected as pseudo-problems the con
struction of knowledge and the demonstration of its va-

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM 213

lidity, it is its defect not to have sharpened its con
cepts with reference to any other difficulties. Indeed, the
sole aim of the doctrine is just to construct, on the as
sumption of immediate perception of reality, a system
of principles opposed point for point to the structure of
dualism, and so to refute the latter. But as not infrequently
occurs, this aim entailed a degree of bondage to the concep
tion controverted. To refute the notion that mind and
matter are substances, the new realism committed itself
thoughtlessly to an image no less concrete and picturable,
that of discrete neutral states. Though effective against the
inveterate dogmas of an ancient tradition, this static and
atomistic notion is far too crude a tool to serve in the erec
tion of a complex monistic metaphysics. Justly to view the
world from this standpoint, the philosopher must attain to
the subtle, unpictureable conception of experience as self-
sustaining and self-determining, a process that reveals re
ciprocally the nature of subject and object. The central
doctrine of the new realism is thus a ladder by which to
mount from the plains of dualism to the heights of a strictly
empirical philosophy; once this elevation is attained, it be
comes thereafter an intolerable burden.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM
EDMUND H. HOLLANDS

SOME fifteen years have passed since the critics of prag
matism first objected that it had taken no account of the
oretical truth as distinct from 'practical'; that the thought-
situations which it discussed were always cases of 'finding
one's way out of the woods,' 'discovering the remedy for my
dyspepsia,' and so on; and never cases of 'finding the alge
braic equation to a geometrical locus,' 'ascertaining the
relation of the hypothetical judgment to the disjunctive,' or
' determining the true cause of the ostracism of Themis tocles.'
The criticism seemed to hit a tender spot; at all events,
the supposed restriction of pragmatic theory was at once
disclaimed, and rather indignantly. It was explained that
the 'practical' had been meant to include all interests, and
of course that of theoretical cognition among the rest. "It
is ... simply idiotic," said Professor James, for example,
"to repeat that pragmatism takes no account of purely
theoretic interests. All it insists on is that verity in act
means verifications, and that these are always particulars." 1
Such verifications for James meant attaining, getting to, a
sought percept, or a sought concept; for concepts belonged
to the manifold reality, he held, quite as much as percepts,
though in a different order.

James did not leave a finished system of metaphysics
behind him; it is left doubtful, for example, how far he would
have required or accepted panpsychism in completing his
account of the real. Things-percepts-ideas and ideas-
concepts, the physical order and the psychical order, are
classes which cut across each other in his conception of
them; but they get into working connection, so to speak,
in the activities of living bodies, or at least in those of some

1 The Meaning of Truth, pp. 21 if.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 215

of them, — 'psycho-physical organisms.' This is the position
in which James's theory of reality and truth agrees with
that of Professor Dewey and the instrumentalists; but while
he did not develop it, and continued to use the terminology
of introspective analysis and empiricism, they have based
their whole philosophy on an explicit use of organism and
environment, stimulus and response, in short, the categories
of biology.

The most important example of this difference in emphasis
and method, it seems to me, is to be found in the contrast
between James's attempt at solving the classical problem
of the 'meaning of an idea,' and the answer given by the
instrumentalists. Using the traditional terminology, we say
that the true idea must agree with its object. Of course,
James remarked, we must not take 'agreement' too liter
ally; any kind of resemblance, or getting at, or substitut-
ability, that meets the needs of the particular case, will be
'agreement.' But the object with which the idea agrees
must be the object which the idea 'means'; accidental agree
ment, of course, is not enough; agreement must be intended.
The question at once occurs, since the whole connection re
ferred to is described as a process in time, how we know in
advance what the idea means, unless it transcends itself, as
the 'idealist' logicians sometimes say; and James answered
that we did not, that we find out what an idea really means
by seeing to what it leads. In other words, its meaning
really is its agreement! Meaning is simply a process of
leading begun, and agreement the same process terminated.
On this view, truth is very literally something which happens
to an idea. The circle in the original definition, taken in this
way, seems evident; we ought not to say, the true idea agrees
with its object, but, the true idea agrees with some object.
But what becomes then of the caution that it must agree
with an object which it means; that "if it resemble without
operating on, it is a dream; if it operate without resembling,
it is an error?" l

James did not allow himself to be troubled by the paradox ;
1 The Meaning of Truth, p. 28.

2l6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

and this was undoubtedly, I should say, because he felt that
the whole interest of the question, as he viewed it, lay in the
'operation ', of which the 6 resemblance ' was only the result;
' meaning' really made ' agreement', brought it into being.
In fact, agreement is the means, and successful operation
(operation with resembling) the end. The operation of a
true idea (whatever that may be, and it must be admitted
that the term was a vague one when extended to cover the
oretical knowing) is a process, then, which produces its own
means. But this is exactly one thing which we say of life;
it is a process which produces its own means.

This is the dialectic by which the pragmatism of James
passes over into the instrumentalism of Dewey. The in
strumentalists attacked the same problem by making knowl
edge from the first and throughout an incident in organic
behavior of a certain type. Intelligence is regarded as a
series of fulgurations, so to speak, elicited by special diffi
culties in the adaptation of a living individual to its environ
ment, which require a new kind of response. ' Agreement'
from this point of view is successful functioning in such a
response, the fact that the 'idea' has been a means in the
prosperous preservation and redirection of the organic ac
tivities. Meaning is always a prospective matter, a leading,
which gets made and established, originally at least, in the
active process of choice and discovery when the originally
presented responses to the given situation are incompatible
courses of action. How the idea can mean in advance what
it agrees with is thus an idle question. "The process of
organization is as much a process of securing a stimulus"
(i. e., meaning) "as it is a process of securing response"
(i. e.y agreement).1 The paradox is thus avoided, and mean
ing is accounted for without appeal to any factor transcend
ing the momentary situation, which in the end, as it extends
beyond the focus of adjustment, is just the physical world.
How, at such points, it proves capable of modification into
meanings, how existents can become subsistents, how the

1 B. H. Bode, "The Psychological Doctrine of Focus and Margin,"
Philosophical Review, Vol. XXIII, 1914, p. 403.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 217

outside has an inside, — this is a mystery; but no more so
than any other complexity appearing in the course of things
over and above its more elemental factors. "That suggestion
occurs is doubtless a mystery; but so is it a mystery that
hydrogen and oxygen make water. It is one of the hard,
brute facts that we have to take account of." Use a sug
gested thing, "develop it in connection with other meanings
and employ it as a guide of investigation," and "you have
a full-fledged meaning." 1

The metaphysics implied in this logic, so much more con
sistently worked out than that of James, is evidently natural
ism. What produces and supports all values, including
truth, is the physical world, nature with living men as in
cluded in it. All verification is, in the last resort, physical.
"Overt action is demanded if the worth or validity of the
reflective considerations is to be determined. Otherwise, we
have, at most, only a hypothesis that the conditions of diffi
culty are such and such, and that the way to get at them
so as to get over or through them is so and so. This way
must be tried in action; it must be applied, physically, in
the situation. . . . That all knowledge, as issuing from re
flection, is experimental (in the literal physical sense of ex
perimental) is then a constituent proposition of this doc
trine." I continue to quote, because these statements of
Professor Dewey are the clearest and most definite in regard
to this side of instrumentalism that I know. " The reason
it [thinking] is not an armchair thing is that it is not an event
going on exclusively within the cortex or the cortex and the vocal
organs. . . . Hands and feet, apparatus and appliances of
all kinds are as much a part of it as changes in the brain. . . .
Thinking is mental, not because of a peculiar stuff which
enters into it or of peculiar non-natural activities which con
stitute it, but because of what physical acts and apparatus
do; the distinctive purposes for which they are employed and
the distinctive results which they accomplish." And "mere
meaning" is "supernatural or transcendental nonsense.
'Terms' signify that certain absent existences are indicated
1 John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. 49, 50.

2l8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

by certain given existences, in the sense that they are ab
stracted and fixed for intellectual use by some physically con
venient means, such as a sound or a muscular contraction of the
vocal organs" *

It is evident that imageless thought would be indeed the
great scandal of instrumentalism, worse than the incom
mensurability of the square's diagonal was for the Pythag
oreans. But this is perhaps too controversial a matter to
insist on now, though it seems to me of considerable im
portance in this connection. Imageless thought would mean
a gap in that physical series which instrumentalism requires
to be absolutely continuous, since it identifies terms entirely
with things. If for the moment we pass over this, and some
other questions which might be raised about the meaning of
what is past, and so on, we must admit, I think, that the
instrumentalists' account of the production of meanings in
practical situations of physical adjustment really does clear
many things up. In fact, its straightforward naturalism and
realism, so far taken, are genuine elements of appeal and
strength in their position.

But while the instrumentalists succeed better with the
question of meaning than did James, it is doubtful whether
they can as readily find room for theoretical knowing within
their account as James could in his less strait and consistent
theory. In one matter, to be sure, I believe that Professor
Dewey's account is to be preferred here also. James usually
regarded concepts as having two kinds of value. Their
primary and direct use, of course, was to take the place of
the many percepts which temporal and spatial limitations
prevented our attaining and having directly; but then, in
the second place, concepts have certain values of their own
for our appreciation, especially as they fall into the systems
of logic and mathematics. The enriching overtones and
wider significances which such general meanings add to ex
perience, and the thorough change in the perceptual which
is thus accomplished, James did not emphasize. He had

^ohn Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. I3f., and 51, note.
Italics mine.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 219

something of the impressionist about him, and his ideas and
impressions rather co-existed than fused. Professor Dewey
adequately recognizes this enriching character of the con
cept: "While reflective knowing is instrumental to gaining
control in a troubled situation, ... it is also instrumental
to the enrichment of the immediate significance of subse
quent experiences. And it may well be that this by-product,
this gift of the gods, is incomparably more valuable for living
a life than is the primary and intended result of control,
essential as is that control to having a life to live. . . .
There exists no disjunction between aesthetic qualities which
are final yet idle, and acts which are practical or instru
mental." l This states the matter well; but ought not such
a recognition of the work of mind, and of the smooth con
tinuity of the notional with the total texture of experience,
to have some modifying effect upon the naturalistic basis of
this theory?

These functions of concepts are, however, only a small
part of the problem of theoretical truth. The real question,
of course, is whether there are not thought-situations never
adequately to be stated in naturalistic terms. That the situa
tions with which the theorist deals have, taken in their en
tirety, physical factors and effects, may be in one sense true;
but can they be adequately defined in terms of these, or are
these relevant to his specific interests in them? Once on a
time, the scientific account of comets destroyed some false
beliefs concerning their ominous significance for human
affairs, and thereby changed men's actions. That result is
over and done. Should the scientist now withdraw his
interest in comets as no longer vital, or is he justified in con
tinuing to study them? And if so, why? How can the study
in any way help us to a desired control which is other than
intellectual? I can think of but two replies to such questions
as these, from the point of view of a naturalistic instru-
mentalism: either it might be said that such study and in
terest is a prophylactic against the superstition which might
return if it lapsed, or a faith might be asserted that no knowl-
1 Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. lyf.

220 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

edge whatever will be without practical effects sometime,
somewhere. Neither answer seems very satisfactory.

Professor Dewey, of course, recognizes the scientific in
terest; but it is described as a professional or specialist
interest. "In the actual stress of any needed determination
it is of the greatest importance to have a large stock of
possible meanings to draw on, and to have them ordered in
such a way that we can develop each promptly and ac
curately, and move quickly from one to another. It is not
to be wondered at then that we not only conserve such sug
gestions as have been previously converted into meanings,
but also that we (or some men at least) turn profes
sional inquirers and thinkers; that meanings are elaborated
and ordered in related systems quite apart from any im
mediately urgent situation." "As a specialised class of
scientific inquirers develops, terms that were originally by
products of reflection become primary objects for the intel
lectual class. The troubles which occasion reflection are
then intellectual troubles, discrepancies within some current
scheme of propositions and terms. . . . The resulting ob
jects — the terms and propositions — are for all, except those
who produce them, instruments, not terminal objects." 1
How such discrepancies are physically present, as the general
theory seems to require, is not stated. Presumably they
must be incompatible contractions of the vocal organs or
other like activities of gesture or speech, such as terms are
defined as being. It has been said that the imagery of Platon-
ists is probably of the visual type, and the same remark, I
believe, has been made concerning the British Empiricists.
One wonders whether a psychological census of the instru
mentalists would not put most of them, — or all, — in the
'motilist' class. However this may be, such statements as
those just quoted concerning theoretical reflection seem to
take two things for granted : first, that naive experience
raises no problems save those of action; and second, that
the theoretical interest makes no appeal to any but the
specialistic few.

1 Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. 49, $9f.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 221

But is it not true, in the first place, that it is common sense
which produces most of the problems for which Professor
Dewey sometimes reproaches philosophy, since he regards
them as unreal and futile? How a mind can know things,
how the soul and body are related to each other, — these and
other problems are involved in notions which are earlier
than philosophy. What philosophy has done is to help men
to think their way through them, and sometimes out of
them, or, in sheer weariness, by them. The enthusiastic
return of the instrumentalist to "naive realism'' is that of a
highly sophisticated wanderer, and its full meaning can be
appreciated only by those who have likewise wandered.
Deliberate abstinence from metaphysics is an unnatural and
laborious attainment, to achieve which requires the arduous
training of philosophy.

For, in the second place, it is true that to theorize is natural
to man. Men delight in theorizing, in taking synoptic views
of experience, and the contemplative mind has its own
rights, — and duties. A philosophy which devotes itself to
the reflective satisfaction of this interest in theory is not
"undemocratic," but more broadly humane than one which
rejects this task. Some years ago a book was written in
which pragmatism was described as the philosophy of a
materialistic democracy, envying and suspecting intellectual
superiority, and bent on comfort and success at the expense
of truth. James thereupon characterized the book as a
"sociological romance." Is there not something of the
sociological romance in the frequent assumption that only
instrumentalism is genuinely democratic, since other philos
ophies are devoted to the t aristocratic' end of contemplation,
and scorn to concern themselves with the urgent difficulties
of ordinary men? Philosophy as a program of social re
form is not a new thing in the world, and it is the business
of thought to enable men to appreciate the good they already
have as well as to enable them to bring new good into being.
It is the business of philosophy, also, to raise the principles
on which men act to the level of explicit reflection and sys
tem, in order that they may be criticised and tested, and

222 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

also in order that the ideal achievement of one generation
may be preserved for the generations that follow. These
are all human interests, and their successful realization can
be only through speculation and theory.

It is characteristic that instrumentalism, speaking broadly,
has been most successful in the field of ethics, where its
methodology is practically a theory of the subject matter
as well. No system which omits a metaphysic is a complete
philosophy, and such systems in the past have never pre
served their equilibrium against the normal metaphysical
impulse. But while instrumentalism in its present form is
certainly naturalistic, Professor Dewey tells us that it neither
will nor can be a metaphysic. Particular explanations of
particular facts are all it either gives or requires. "The chief
characteristic trait of the pragmatic notion of reality is pre
cisely that no theory of Reality in general, uberhaupt, is
possible or needed. It occupies the position of an eman
cipated empiricism or a thoroughgoing naive realism. It
finds that 'reality' is a denotative term, a word used to desig
nate indifferently everything that happens. . . . Pragma
tism is content to take its stand with science; ... for
science finds all such events to be subject-matter of descrip
tion and inquiry. " J The meaningless problem of determin
ing the real by way of contrast with the unreal is thus re
jected; but along with it goes every discrimination between
the constituents of the real as to significance for a general
theory of reality. In fact, there is no such theory; the
sciences are enough.

Two questions arise in regard to this refusal to be meta
physical: (i) Is it consistently adhered to? (2) Is it a suffi
cient justification, supposing its propriety were admitted,
for a certain noteworthy gap in instrumentalism?

Instrumentalism takes its stand with the sciences. But
among the sciences, for its own purposes as a general theory
of control, it finds biology especially significant. Now the
most striking characteristic of modern biological theory is
that it comprises two classes of ideas, widely different in
1 Creative Intelligence, p. 55.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 223

nature and tendency. To the one class belong the ideas of
organism and environment, stimulus and response, adapta
tion and selection, and all the intellectual apparatus of the
evolution-hypothesis; to the other belong Mendelian deter
minants, unit-characters, and all the mechanics of heredity.
The latter may be congenial matter for the contemplation
of an analytic realist; but they have no special appeal for
the instrumentalist, and they are in logical contradiction
with any genuine evolution. This does not especially per
plex the working biologist, perhaps, so far as he is not con
cerned with ultimate logical consistency; he is dealing with
particular 'events' as "subject-matter of description and
inquiry." But it is a matter of vital interest for the instru
mentalist, and he does not hesitate to select the first set of
ideas as his categories, because they enable him to reflect
ively construe experience, while the other set, used in the
same inclusive and analogical way, do not. Now what is this
selective use of categories, so far as it goes, but the method
of a critically speculative metaphysics? And what forbids
us to push it farther, to recognize frankly the limits of
naturalistic explanation, and so add to this view of things
the peculiar qualities of the real that thought reveals as it
frees itself from the network of immediate circumstance?

I come in conclusion to the "noteworthy gap" mentioned
above. It has been sometimes objected that instrumentalism
does not face the mind and body problem; that the reflex-arc
theory might perhaps state the conditions under which in
tellection appears, but did not account for consciousness.
Now the instrumentalist, so far as he conducts his discussion
with the idealist, may counter with the remark that neither
does idealism account for mind. But it must be replied that
idealism presupposes mind systematically, which is a very
different matter: it regards reality as always and every
where involving thought as well as things. Thus, making
thought an ultimate factor in experience, Hegel for instance
may be asked what work or place is left for individual mind,
perhaps; or he may be asked how mind and body are related
in an individual conscious organism. Such questions may

224 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

be reasonably addressed to the objective idealist; but he
cannot be reasonably asked to account for mind in general.
But this is just what instrumentalism must be asked to do,
since it systematically refuses to presuppose mind, and
recognizes only particular cases, so to speak, of mind arising
from situations in which there was no mind in any sense.
And this is just the question which instrumentalism is neces
sarily incapable of answering, because it insists on remaining
a method of particular cases, and relying on the naturalistic
explanation of these.

These statements require some further explanation. Re
flection, as the instrumentalist rightly insists, arises in situa
tions which are non-reflectional : "situations of prizing and
aversion, of seeking and finding, of converse, enjoyment and
suffering, of production and employment, of manipulation
and destruction." Such phrases, the use of the term 'ex
perience' to cover the whole continuum of situations and
reflections, and the description of these situations as "social,
affectional, technological, aesthetic, and so on," apparently
imply that another form of consciousness is present where
reflection is not. But we must not suppose that this is meant
universally; we are warned against such an understanding
of these statements. "Consciousness is only a very small
and shifting portion of experience. . . . In the experience,
and in it in such a way as to qualify even what is shiningly
apparent, are all the physical features of the environment,
extending out into space no one can say how far, and all the
habits and interests, extending backward and forward in
time, of the organism. . . . And if we are asked why not
then use a general objective term like 'world,' or 'environ
ment,' the answer is that the word 'experience' suggests
something indispensable which these terms omit: namely, an
actual focussing of the world at one point in a focus of im
mediate shining apparency." 1

The instrumentalist use of the term 'experience,' then,
does not connote that consciousness is present even when
reflection or judgment is not; but it means rather that con-

1 Quotations from Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. 2, 3, 6-7.

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 225

sciousness is present somewhere in the world, and that the
rest of the world is in ' dynamic connection' with it. There
remains the question: Is consciousness in some form present
sometimes when reflection is not? In other words, is there
such a thing as non-reflective, "immediate" consciousness?
And, as far as Professor Dewey is concerned, the answer
seems, at first glance, to be plainly affirmative. The pas
sages already quoted concerning the enrichment of subse
quent experience by reflection which appears primarily as
control, and many others of the same kind, plainly indicate
this.1 In fact, the ideas of tension, conflict, and so on, as
yet unsolved, but stimulants to intellectual activity, connote
such non-reflective consciousness. And if we have some
lingering suspicion that its status is left uncertain, and that
after all it may be taken as physiological behavior with no
conscious side, these may be removed by examining such a
fuller statement of instrumentalist psychology as that now
given by Professor Bode.2 It is there made plain that what
is essential is the explanation of consciousness as an organiza
tion of behavior with regard to future consequences: "The
rendering of future stimulations or results into terms of
present existence. Consciousness is a name for a certain
change that takes place in the stimulus; or, more specif
ically, it is a name for the control of conduct by future re
sults or consequences." This applies to perception as well
as to judgment, "to every form of quality and relation." 3

Consciousness then has two forms: unreflective and re
flective. But it is always a particular activity of individual
organic adjustment, and judgment is simply the sort of ad
justment or control required when the kind of response
needed is as yet unknown. It is worth noticing, also, that
there is a very pretty correspondence between Professor
Dewey's account of judgment and Professor Bode's account
of consciousness, so far as the latter reinterprets the current

1 Cf., for example, Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. 4, 23 (the remark
about "imagination"), 62f.

2 See his essay in Creative Intelligence, pp. 228-281.

3 Ibid., pp. 243, 244.

226 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

psychological distinction of " focus and margin." What judg
ment terminates in is a thing known, and not knowledge, says
Professor Dewey; what is at the focus is a thing in the
physical world, a thing perceived, and not consciousness,
says Professor Bode. Consciousness is the ' margin,' where
control is in the making, where the stimulus is chang
ing.

As it stands, then, this psychology is consistent as well as
acute; there are certain parallels in it to Hegel's account of
subjective mind which are interesting, but must be omitted
here. My present question is: Is this psychology a sufficient
account of mind? It confines itself to the topics of percep
tion and of judgment. What can it do, at one extreme, with
feeling, and at the other, with the recognition of other minds,
with knowing the same truth as others do, and with the ac
knowledgment of the social institutions which embody com
mon interests and ideals? What can it do, that is, with en
joyments and aversions? And how can it account for the
universal and the social in conscious experience, and for
what Hegel called ' objective mind'?

That enjoyment and aversion may be elements in control,
or results of control, is admitted. On the theory proposed,
however, they can be elements only if they have already
been results; and as results (that is, as ' focal') they are not
consciousness. One may be ready to grant the truth of
James's shrewd remark that pleasures and pains are am
biguous things, which may be taken as either * physical' or
'psychical.' But to take them as ever not ' psychical' at all
seems absurd.

The second question is, of course, a more serious one. At
first sight, it may seem surprising that it should be asked.
Is instrumentalism, which makes so much of the social, in
capable of really recognizing it, compatibly with its general
theory? The answer is: Yes, if it remains naturalistic and
positivistic; if it insists on regarding everything that is real
as a particular fact or event in the physical world. Take
the character of my friend, for instance. It is something
which I judge and infer; but it is even more something which

SOME COMMENTS ON INSTRUMENTALISM 227

I sympathetically appreciate. It is good for what it is, more
than for what it does. It belongs to an order of ideal goods,
which rise out of nature but are not physical; and my adapta
tion or response to it must take place by an inner assimilation
to it. It is no event, or series of events, though it may be
in part a result of events, and a cause of further events.
How can it be known, on the account of the instrumentalists'
psychology, for which mind is always particular reactions
in a particular organism?

Or again, take any institution of organized society, such
as a school system. It is the product of human wills and
purposes, it is a means to realize certain interests, and it
makes use of and includes physical things as well as human
acts. But what holds it together, maintains it, and keeps it
going, is a common recognition of an end as valuable. This
end is subject to revision and change; but for the most part
it serves as a standard to judge by, instead of a problem to
judge about. How is it known as a common end ? It is not,
while being used as a standard, the result of that judgment;
and it is not, of course, in a sensational margin. So ap
parently it is not in 'consciousness'; but neither is it any
other event or fact in nature.

All of this corresponds to the remark already made that
thought must enable us to know and appreciate attained
good as well as to create new; or again, to the statement that
developed social control involves a factor which is at once
independent of that particular case of control, and also not
adequately described as a fact, event, or thing in the physical
world. For what happens in such cases as these is no pre-
established harmony, but a unity of action created from
within by a common recognition of a common good. Nature
thus turns out to be more than its first appearance as
physical.

Any reader who has followed to this point will, I hope,
have read between the lines of the objections to instrumenal-
ism an acknowledgment of its real achievements. The con
clusions of the argument may be summarily stated as follows :
First, the naturalism of instrumentalism, as it stands, is at

228 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

odds with its insistence on moral values; second, instru-
mentalism ought to subordinate naturalism, and become
whole-heartedly metaphysical. If it did so, it would make
instrumentalism itself a chapter in a new development of
idealism.

PRAGMATISM AND THE CORRESPONDENCE
THEORY OF TRUTH

ELLEN BLISS TALBOT

THE task of this paper is to consider the correspondence
theory as contrasted with the pragmatic doctrine of the
nature of truth. In the main its purpose is defensive; that
is, we shall be concerned chiefly with trying to show that the
theory in question is not in quite so perilous a situation as
the pragmatists would have us believe. Further, we shall
take the theory in itself, free from entangling alliances with
certain other doctrines which pragmatists commonly, but I
think erroneously, assume to be a necessary part of it. Chief
among these are the doctrines that reality is a unitary whole,
that it is essentially changeless, and that it is an all-inclusive
spirit. It is possible to be in doubt with regard to any or
all of these, — or even to reject them, — and still to maintain
that what we mean by truth is the agreement of thought
with reality; and it is with this latter proposition that we
are here concerned.

In trying, then, to defend the correspondence theory we
are not assuming a hostile attitude toward all features of
pragmatism, and the question whether we should be called
'intellectualists' will depend upon the definition of that
term. This poor word has fallen upon days so evil that one
could hardly be blamed for preferring another appellation;
but since we shall need in this discussion a name for those
who differ from the pragmatists chiefly in espousing the
correspondence theory, I shall use the term 'intellectualist'
in this sense, and in this alone.1

My own position, then, may be called moderate intel-
lectualism. I heartily assent to the doctrine that change is

1 And corresponding with it, the word 'intellectualism.'

230 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

an essential feature of reality.1 In an important sense also
I should agree that our thinking alters reality. And finally,
I believe that all thought is for the sake of some end (though
I may not be in full agreement with pragmatism as to the
nature of this end). But on the other hand, I am not able
to accept the pragmatic doctrine of truth; I believe that the
truth of a theory consists, not in its successful working, but
in its correspondence with reality.2

The first thing to be said is, that if the controversy as to
truth is simply with regard to the particular meaning to be
given to a certain term, no sensible person would think it
worth while to carry on a long argument about it with the
pragmatists. We all believe, I presume, that there is such
a thing as the successful working of a theory. Some of us
think also that there is such a thing as the agreement of a
theory with a reality other than itself. And if the question
is merely to which of the two the word 'truth' shall be ap
plied, I, for my part, have no wish to quarrel with our prag-
matist friends. To be sure, one might make out a fair case
of grievance against them by urging that for many genera
tions the word t truth' has been used to connote the agree
ment of a judgment with reality, and that even if they are in
need of some word to stand for 'successful working,' this
need hardly justifies them in committing highway robbery
and forcibly appropriating a term in which some other con
ception has good property rights. One might, I say, make
out such a case. But not being of a litigious disposition, I
am not inclined to quarrel about the ownership of any word.
If the pragmatist will grant that the utility of a theory and
its correspondence with reality are two distinct conceptions,
both valid and both important, I for one shall be willing to
let him christen his infant prodigy 'truth' and shall set out
cheerfully in search of another cognomen for the now name
less and despised offspring of intellectualism. The change
would indeed have some unpleasant consequences, such as

1 Meaning by this, that whether all reality is in process of change or
not, at least some large and important realms of being are.

2 /. e., with the particular reality with which it professes to correspond.

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 231

the necessity of translating into the new terminology most
of the philosophical literature prior to the year 1900. But
if pragmatism is not deterred by unfortunate practical con
sequences, who is intellectualism that she should raise her
voice in protest?

If, then, the dispute were simply as to the property rights
in a certain philosophical term, I should have no interest
in it. But while in some cases it looks as if the pragmatist
were arguing merely about the application of a word, there
can be little doubt that the divergence between him and the
intellectualist is usually more serious.

As a preliminary to considering the nature of this diver
gence, I shall try to say what I mean by the correspondence
of thought with reality. And in order to avoid needless com
plications, let us refrain from assuming any reality other than
experience. The 'radical empiricism* of Professor James,
the 'instrumentalism' of the Chicago School, and the
' humanism' of Dr. Schiller, all seem to involve the identifi
cation of reality with experience.1 We need not stop to ask
whether this identification is really essential to pragmatist
doctrine, nor even whether it is correct.2 What I wish to
do is rather to point out that even if it is true that there is
no reality other than experience, it does not follow that the
conception of the correspondence of thought with reality
has no meaning.3 For it is surely still conceivable that one
portion of experience may profess to represent or correspond
with some other portion. In such case, the portion that
professes to represent is called the ' thought/ and the other
portion the ' reality' (or the 'object').

Now it may be conceded to the pragmatists that it is not
easy to say just what we mean by 'representing' or 'corre-

1 And apparently with experience of the human type, if not, in all cases,
with human experience.

2 Certainly we may grant that if there is any reality wholly unrelated to
experience and incapable of coming into relation to it, there is no occasion
for our troubling our heads about it.

3 Unless what is meant is that all reality is my present experience; and
he pragmatists of course do not mean this.

232 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

spending.' In some cases, as Professor James h'as pointed
out, it may, without any great stretching of the term, be
called * copying.' When, for example, I believe myself to
remember in detail a former experience of mine and to
remember it in terms similar to that of the original experi
ence,1 I believe that my present thought 'copies' that earlier
experience. To be sure, I do not assume that it is altogether
like its predecessor. There are the differences in time-
setting, the differences between image and perception, and
still others that need not be mentioned here. But although
I am more or less aware of these differences, still I believe, —
when I say that I 'remember,' — that my present experience
is what may fairly be called a copy of the earlier one, just
as we might say that a photograph is the copy of a landscape,
in spite of its lack of color, its smaller size, and so on. When
we say that my memory copies that earlier experience, we
mean that it is like it in certain important points, though
unlike it in others.

But also I may be ready to say that my present idea agrees
with my past experience, even though I am aware that the
two are quite different in their terms. Suppose, for example,
that I profess to remember the substance of something that
you said to me months ago. I may not recall the sound of
your voice, as you spoke, nor the expression of your face;
I may not be sure of the particular words that you used.
Yet I insist that my memory of that past event is accurate.
Why? Because I believe that the words in terms of which
I am now thinking have a meaning similar to that of the
words that you employed. That is, I insist that my thought
corresponds with that past reality because the two are alike
in meaning.

It is clear, then, that when we assume the correspondence
of our thought with something other than itself, the similar
ity may be of various sorts. But in each case the two are
supposed to agree in some respect that is important for the
purpose involved. If I am trying in vain to recall the sub-

1 /. e.j to remember in visual terms what was originally visual experience,
in auditory terms what was originally auditory, and so forth.

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 233

stance of what you said on that past occasion, it boots little
that I can remember where you sat, how you looked, and
how your voice sounded. For my thought does not agree
with its reality in the respect in which it means to agree; and
so long as it does not do this it is futile. When we say that
a judgment is true, we mean that it agrees with some par
ticular portion of reality in the respect in which it intends
to agree.

Having shown what we understand by correspondence, we
may now try to offer some defense of the conception. I have
sa'id that even if we assume that there is no reality other
than experience, it is still conceivable that one portion of
experience may profess to correspond with some other
portion. Now I submit that this which I have declared con
ceivable is something that on the face of it seems also to be.
It certainly seems as if there were parts of our experience
that assume to correspond with something other than them
selves. As has already been suggested, it is not necessary
for us to decide here whether that 'other' is also in every case
a portion of experience. We are trying to establish the
validity of the conception of correspondence. And for that
purpose it does not matter whether the correspondence be
between a present and a past experience of mine, between
my experience and yours, between my experience and that
of 'the Absolute,' or finally between my experience and a
'physical object.'

This, then, is my first contention, that thought professes
to agree with some reality other than itself. And my second
is that there is a reality other than thought, — that is, than
a particular thought, — and that therefore the question
whether a particular thought does or does not agree with its
reality 1 is not meaningless.

As to the first of these two points, the question is this:
When we form a theory, do we believe ourselves to be making
a plan of action,2 or on the contrary to be making some as-

1 /. e.j the reality with which it means to agree.

'2 The pragmatists usually alternate, I think, between the two views
that a theory is a plan of action and that it is the anticipation of conse-

234 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

sertion about the nature of reality? To this the ordinary
man would reply, I think, that a plan of action is one thing
and a theory another, and that when he makes a theory he in
tends to make some assertion about the nature of reality.
For example, the physician to whom you recount your symp
toms tells you that you have appendicitis. Now it may
quite well be that he has a plan of action, — either medical
treatment or surgery; let us hope that he has, since obviously
something ought to be done. And further it may quite well
be that his plan is vitally related to his theory; let us hope
that this also is the case. Still it does not follow that the
plan and the theory are identical. And that they are not one
and the same thing for the ordinary man seems to me clear.

And not only is this true of the non-scientific minds, which
form the greater part of mankind, but it seems also to be
true of the majority of scientists. The scientific man may
indeed hold that most of our theories, — even of the best
ones, — fail to correspond perfectly with reality. But if he
believes this, he believes at the same time that most of our
theories are not completely true. With comparatively few
exceptions, I think, the scientist still means by truth what
ordinary folk mean. And in saying this I am not unmindful
of the pragmatist's contention that his notion of truth is
that of the scientist. It seems to me, however, that this
assertion still remains to be proved.1

quences. But inasmuch as the consequences in question are the conse
quences of the action, this wavering is not altogether unnatural.

1 E. g., Dr. Schiller says, "The physicist . . . more and more clearly
sees both that he does not know what 'matter' ultimately is, and that for
the purposes of his science he does not need to know, so long as the term
stands for something the behavior of which he can calculate." "Axioms
as Postulates," in Personal Idealism, 1902, p. 55. Yet, I reply, physicists
still seem tremendously interested in the question what matter is and are
ever and anon formulating new theories as to its constitution, in an effort,
apparently, to get a description that shall come nearer to the reality than
any hitherto proposed. It is doubtless true that there are physicists who
are not interested in this question; but in view of the recent work that
has been done I cannot see how any one can think that this represents the
attitude of the majority of physicists.

That science, at least until the most recent times, conceived of truth

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 235

But in insisting that both ordinary folk and many scien
tists accept the notion of correspondence as valid, we are
dwelling upon a relatively unimportant matter. For the
pragmatist might concede the point and still urge that this
widespread belief is erroneous. This brings us, however, to
the second of my two contentions. For if you say that my
thought believes itself to be making statements about real
ity, but is actually planning and initiating some operation
or other, your assertion, it would seem, must rest upon the
conviction that 'correspondence with reality' is a meaningless
phrase. We may pass on, then, to our second thesis, namely,
that there is something other than itself to which a particular
thought points and that consequently there is meaning in
the question whether the thought agrees with this reality.

To this, three important objections seem to have been
made by the pragmatists: (i) that even if the agreement in
question is conceivable, it is of no consequence because all
that we ever care for is the successful working of our theory;
(2) that even if there were agreement of our thought with
reality, we could never know in a particular case whether
we had attained it; and (3) that the notion of correspondence
is meaningless because there is no reality apart from thought

as the correspondence of our judgments with reality seems to have been
clearly recognized by Professor James himself (cf. Pragmatism, 1907, p. 56).
And even when he goes on to define what he believes to be the attitude of
contemporary science, I cannot see that his account excludes the concep
tion of correspondence as I have described it. "As the sciences have de
veloped farther," he says, "the notion has gained ground that most, per
haps all, of our laws are only approximations. ['To what?' one is tempted
to ask.] . . . Investigators have become accustomed to the notion that no
theory is absolutely a transcript of reality, but that any one of them may
from some point of view be useful. Their great use is to summarize old
facts and to lead to new ones. They are only a man-made language, . . .
in which we write our reports of nature" (ibid., pp. 561.). Certainly, but
we still write our reports of nature. And we still maintain, when we
formulate a scientific theory, that although it may not be, and may not
profess to be, "absolutely a transcript of reality," it is like reality in the
respect in which it undertakes to be like it. And whenever we have reason
to think that it is not like reality in this respect, we say, "I was mistaken;
my theory is not true (or not completely true)."

236 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

in the sense which the intellectualist assumes. Let us take
these objections in order.

(i) That all thought is purposive in character, that one
never puts oneself to the trouble of thinking except for the
sake of some end, is at present seldom denied. And the
unanimity upon this point is in large measure due to the in
fluence of the pragmatists. For while they were not the
first to show that thinking presupposes an end, the vigor and
persuasiveness with which they have preached the doctrine
have had much to do with winning adherents to it. But to
admit that thinking is purposive is not necessarily to grant
that when we frame a theory our interest is confined to its
practical consequences. The question hinges, of course, upon
the meaning of the word ' practical,' and about this there
has been vigorous debate. I shall try to state my own posi
tion as clearly as I can.

There is, of course, no question that in many cases our sole
concern is with the successful working of our theory: what
we are after is practical results, and given these we have no
further interest in the matter. If, for example, I have started
out to walk to a certain spot and can save myself a detour
by crossing an ice-covered pond, the question whether the
ice is strong enough to bear my weight is one whose im
portance for me is purely practical. All that I care for is to
be able to shorten my walk without subjecting myself to
an icy wetting and to other consequences that might be even
more unpleasant. But while there are many cases of this
sort, in which we care only that our theory shall work, there
are others in which our desire seems to be for truth in an
other sense. We want to be assured that our thought corre
sponds with the reality that it professes to stand for; in
other words we want knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

Why men are so constituted that they wish to understand
for no other reason than that they wish to understand may not
be easy to explain in detail. But that they are so constituted
seems to be shown by observation and experience. And it
can hardly be denied that the existence of the instinct, if
instinct it be, justifies itself from the point of view of utility.

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 237

It is not difficult to see that it may often be highly desirable
that a man should want knowledge solely for its own sake.
That such a desire has been the motive of most of our philo
sophical thinking may not seem to all an indication of its
utility; but that it has also been the source of a large part
of our scientific achievement can hardly be denied. Pure
science seems usually to have been inspired, not by the
desire to control reality, but by the desire to understand it.
And this has often been the case even when the final outcome
of the scientific activity has been of great practical im
portance. Just as happiness is more likely to come as a by
product than as the result of a deliberate effort to gain it, so
practical benefits of the highest order are often won for the
race by men whose powers have all been given to the quest
of something quite other than practical benefits of any sort.

(2) The second objection is that even if the conception
of the agreement of thought with reality is admissible, still
we cannot know in any particular case whether or not this
agreement exists, because we cannot get the reality and the
thought apart from each other so as to compare them.1 To
this the intellectualist commonly replies that successful
working, in the broad sense, is the best indication that we
have of the correspondence of our thought with reality.
The theory is to be tested by the way in which it works,
and its success is a sign of its truth.

As a matter of fact the intellectualist has as good means
of knowing whether and to what extent his theory is true
as the pragmatist has. For strictly speaking, the pragmatist
himself cannot have absolute assurance of the truth of a
theory. Successful working, he tells us, constitutes truth.
But when we ask, "Successful for whom?" and "Successful
for how long?" we are usually told that only those theories
are true that work on the whole and in the long run.2 Now it

1 Cf. Schiller, Humanism, 1903, p. 46.

2 This statement is correct, I think, so far as most pragmatists are con
cerned. And in the cases in which it is not correct, there is the difficulty
that apparently any theory that works well for any one must be called
true. This difficulty is often to some extent hidden by the useful, — and
hence, of course, unimpeachable, — phrase, "in so far forth."

238 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

is clear that no one can be sure that a given theory will work
on the whole and in the long run; for 'the whole' and 'the
long run' are quite as inaccessible to the pragmatist as
'reality' is to the intellectualist. In other words, for prag
matist and intellectualist alike the completely true is the
ideal, which in a given case certainly cannot be known to
have been attained and in all probability has not been
attained.

The pragmatist might contend that in thus appealing to
practical consequences the intellectualists are stealing his
thunder. But to this we can reply that successful working
has been regarded as the test of truth throughout the history
of modern science, and that at least until the most recent
times modern science has conceived of truth as agreement
with reality.1 And since intellectualism in the person of the
scientist has for centuries been testing its theories by the
appeal to facts, we can hardly deny the right of the intel
lectualist philosopher to make use of the same criterion.

But there is another ground on which one might object
to our contention that the intellectualist can test the truth
of his theory by its consequences. How, it may be asked,
can one who conceives of truth as agreement know that the
successful working of a theory is in any degree an indication
of its correspondence with reality? That a given theory is
at present working fairly well, in the limited field in which
we are attempting to apply it, we can often know through
observation, through the experience of its consequences.
Pragmatism, then, because it identifies truth with successful
working can at least say that the theory is true "in so far
forth." But how can intellectualism be sure that successful
working, either now or through a long period, points to
even a partial agreement with reality? Why may it not as
well be, — for aught we know, — that theories that work ill
are the ones that agree with reality, or again that there is no
connection of any sort between 'working' and 'agreement'?

1 That this conception of truth was held by practically all scientists until
our own day has been recognized by Professor James, as was pointed out
above.

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 239

To this we may reply as follows. When you urge that in-
tellectualism cannot know that successful working betokens
agreement with reality, you of course assume, for the sake
of the argument, that some theories do agree, — fairly well,—
with reality and that others do not. Now on the basis of this
assumption, how can there be doubt in the mind of anyone
that, in general, theories that agree will be successful, when
tried out, and those that do not agree will be unsuccessful?
To suppose anything else would be to assume such a divorce
between reality and our experience as no one to-day, — prag-
matist, moderate intellectualist, or absolutist, — could con
template as a possibility. The intellectualist, then, may
assert as confidently as the pragmatist that the success
ful working of his theory gives reason for believing in its
truth.

(3) We come finally to the third objection to the doctrine
of correspondence, — namely, that the notion of agreement
is nonsense because there is no such distinction between
reality and our thought as the conception implies. This
objection is voiced by Professor Dewey and Professor Moore
in their protests against what the latter calls "the private-
consciousness-outer-reality view of thought." l

My reply to this objection must begin by assenting to a
large part of what I understand Professor Dewey and Pro
fessor Moore to be contending for. The vital relation of our
thought with reality must be granted by the intellectualist,
if he maintains that we can know anything at all about the
real, and also if he urges that the successful working of a
theory is a sign of its truth. Both these doctrines imply
that thought is in intimate contact with reality. And further
I agree that thought "operates within reality." For in the
first place it is an integral part of reality; every act of think
ing is itself real. And in the second place thought, — itself a

1 For Professor Moore's discussion see Pragmatism and Its Critics,
pp. 225ff. Cf. Professor Dewey's articles on "The Experimental Theory
of Knowledge," Mind, N. S., Vol. XV, 1906, pp. 293$., and "The Logical
Character of Ideas," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods, Vol. V, 1908, pp. 375ff.

240 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

part of reality, — issues in action, which modifies other
parts.

But while I believe that every thought is itself a part of
reality and that through its connection with volition it may
indirectly alter other parts, I do not see what is to be gained
by confusing the cognitive function with the alterative.
And it is with the cognitive that we are here concerned. Now
in order that we may understand this function or even admit
its possibility, we must assume, I have said, that thinking
is intimately connected with the rest of reality. Thought
reaches out and lays hold upon some portion of the real
whenever we succeed in forming an approximately correct
theory. That this reaching out and laying hold, — this which
the intellectualist is fond of calling 'the self-transcending
function of thought/ — is possible at all means that thinking
is not cut off from the rest of what is, that we do not live
in a world of phenomena, to be sharply distinguished from
another world of things-in-themselves.1

But assuming thus, as we must, that thinking and the
rest of reality are closely connected, we do not necessarily
assume that they are connected in such a way that the notion
of their agreement is meaningless. And when we ask why,
on the other hand, this notion seems to be required, I think
the simplest answer is that it is required by the conception
of other persons. What I mean is this. Professor Dewey,
for example, recognizes that in a sense we must distinguish
between a thought and the reality that it means; that is,
they may be distinguished as two factors in a total situation.
But when we ask what we are to understand by 'thought's
meaning an object,' we are told that the thought is an

1 But here the pragmatist may protest that whereas he has good right to
assert the vital connection of thought with its object, the intellectualist
has no such right. I reply that all argument presupposes the possibility of
the cognitive function, and that any one who admits its possibility must
deny that there is an impassable gulf between thought and reality. Hence
the pragmatist cannot say, even to the intellectualist, How do you know
that thought can lay hold upon the real? For to ask the question is to
admit the possibility of such a divorce between these two as would make
the asking of all questions futile.

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 241

expectation of and demand for certain experiences that
are to result from that manipulating (of the situation)
which grows out of and is continuous with the think
ing.1

Now in cases like the one that Professor Dewey uses for
illustration, — where the thought is a smell and the object
a rose, — one might let his statement pass without trying to
challenge it.2 But suppose that the object is a person and
the thought is a belief, on the part of some one else, that this
person is in a state of deep grief. I submit that in this case
at least, — whatever may be true of odors and roses, — we are
describing the situation falsely when we say that my belief
that you are in sorrow is an expectation of experiences of
mine that are to ensue upon the operation of that belief.
It may be that there will be experiences and that they will
be such as to verify my conjecture. But to say that my belief
is the expectation of these and that its truth consists in their
coming to pass is to ignore your existence as a person. For
whether a rose is anything in its own right or not, — a ques
tion that we need not discuss here, — a person, if there be
any such, is something in his own right. And either we
should say that it is doubtful whether there are persons, or
we should see to it that our theory of the nature of truth
leaves room for them.

The pragmatists, as we know, protest that it is an act
of injustice to accuse them of solipsism. Professor Moore,
for example, reminds us of their "social conception of con-

1 In Professor Dewey's own words, the "cognitional" experience is
"fated or charged with the sense of the possibility of a fulfilment" of a
certain character. It "is aware of something else which it means, which
it intends to effect through an operation which it incites and without which
its own presence is abortive." "The Experimental Theory of Knowledge,"
Mind, N. S., Vol. XV, 1906, p. 299. It is true that Professor Dewey calls this
"cognitional experience" a "knowledge" (rather than judgment or belief);
but he explains that he is using the word * knowledge' in the sense of some
thing that precedes verification, something that is "hypothetical, lacking
in assurance, in categorical certainty." Ibid., p. 298.

2 1 do not mean to say that there is not good ground for challeng
ing it.

242 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

sciousness" and joins Professor Dewey in urging that the
charge of solipsism can be established only if we make the
false assumption that pragmatism accepts such antiquated
notions as "private stream of consciousness/' " other real
ities," and "correspondence" between these two. But I
reply that unless you admit, in a case such as I have sup
posed, a consciousness in some degree private, and other
reality in relation to it, and the possibility of correspondence
between these two, I cannot see that you are admitting the
reality of other persons at all. And if you are not, what shall
it profit you to insist that your "conception of conscious
ness" is "social"?

I do not, of course, suppose that pragmatism intends to
deny the reality of * persons.' It seems to me, however, that
the failure of the pragmatic theory of truth is most obvious
when we try to apply it to a case in which one person makes
some judgment about another person. When I have an ex
perience of smell and exclaim, "There must be a rose in this
room!" one might possibly say * that ultimately this means
merely, "If I act thus and so, I shall have such and such
experiences." 2 But when I say, "There is some other
person in this room!" this cannot be interpreted as meaning
merely, "If I act thus and so, I shall have such and such
experiences." For when I assert the presence of another
person, I not only imply that if I do certain things I shall
have experiences of a certain sort; I also imply that I stand
in relation to a reality over and above any experiences of
mine, past, present, or future: I assert the reality of that

I 1 do not mean that this expresses my own belief in the matter, but
simply that it is a position that one might conceivably take.

2 1 take ' thought' here as meaning for the pragmatist the anticipation
of consequences and leave out of account the fact that he also often de
scribes it as a plan for bringing these consequences to pass. I do this be
cause I can put more simply the point that I wish to make, if I select that
aspect of the pragmatic conception which seems to me the less open to
objection. For one might be willing to interpret the judgment, "There is
a rose in this room," as meaning, "If I act thus and so, I shall have such
experiences," and yet dissent from the other interpretation, "I purpose to
act in this way in order that I may have these experiences."

PRAGMATISM AND CORRESPONDENCE 243

which, so far as I can see, not only is not, but never can be,
my experience.1

To this, one must suppose, Professor Dewey would reply
that in talking thus of what is and what is not 'my' expe
rience I am begging the question: I first take for granted that
he admits my private consciousness and then accuse him of
denying the other private consciousness, whereas in fact he
rejects them both. His point would be well taken, but the
objection can be obviated by a slight change in our previous
statement. Instead of saying that Professor Dewey's con
ception of the nature of thinking seems to ignore the reality
of other persons than the thinker, we should have said that
it seems to ignore the reality of all persons. My criticism,
then, of the pragmatist's rejection of the notion of corre
spondence, more accurately put, is this. Such members of
the pragmatic fold as would admit the fitness of the phrase
'my experience,' 2 in the case before us, cannot deny the
validity of the conception of correspondence without vir
tually ignoring the reality of that other person to whom my
judgment refers. And this seems to furnish some justifica
tion for the charge that pragmatism involves solipsism. If,
however, a pragmatist, wishing to prove that he is not a
solipsist, points triumphantly to his rejection of the "private-
consciousness-outer-reality view of thought," we can answer
that he has avoided the mistake of ignoring the reality of
other persons only by the device of ignoring the reality of
all persons. And the single point in this that is to his credit
is its absolute impartiality.

With this I must bring my discussion of the correspondence
theory to a close. But I am unwilling to stop without a word
of explanation as to my attitude in the last argument. It is
not, in its intent, an argumentum ad populum. In raising

1 That it is possible for a judgment to mean something that can never
be a part of "the same continuous experience series" with itself is well
brought out by Professor Rogers in his "Statement of Epistemological
Dualism," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods,
Vol. XIII, 1916, p. 181.

2 1 venture to think that there are some.

244 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the objection that Professor Dewey's theory seems to ignore
the existence of persons, I do not mean to imply that the
reason why this should not be ignored is that personality is
important or sacred, though in another connection I should
not hesitate to express my conviction that it is both important
and sacred.1 The only reason why a theory of knowledge
should not ignore persons, it seems to me, is that to do so
is to give a false account of our experience. That some ex
perience at any rate, namely, that which I designate by
calling it 'mine,' is personal, — that it is, at the very least,2
a centralized whole of functions which are not adequately
described by calling them 'intra-organic,' — this, I am old-
fashioned enough to be willing to say, seems certain if any
thing at all is certain. And it is this centralized character,
which I express when I say 'my' experience, that the "ex
perimental theory of knowledge," like some other new
theories, seems to ignore.

1 A conviction which doubtless many pragmatists share.
2 1 think that we might say somewhat more than this, but I wish to
restrict my assertion to the minimum possibile.

IDEA AND ACTION
E. JORDAN

SINCE the discovery some years ago of the importance for
psychology of the reflex-arc concept there has, it would seem,
been instituted a general propaganda in the interest of apply
ing the notion to the methods of all the sciences which touch
in any way the human element. Not only has a very large
part of the output of the psychological laboratory been
committed quite exclusively to the mechanism involved in
the concept, but recent attempts to go beyond the presup
positions of experiment merely, in the direction of a devel
oped psychological theory, also seem to assume that all
thought on matters psychological can consist only in de
scriptions of the way consciousness 'behaves.' And be
havior as thus conceived is simply the sum of things done
by consciousness through the instrumentality of the or
ganism, in the interest of results achieved in the immediate
material environment. Even the most refined value-aspects
of ideas and feelings are but fluttering attempts to 'do
things,' which somehow get smothered in the depths of the
organism. Consciousness gets up in the morning, stretches
its behavioristic legs, and its half-waking awareness of things
is nothing more than the reverberation through the 'or
ganism' of leg-stretching movements or tendencies to move
ment. It puts on its behavioristic clothes by hitching itself
up to previous reflexes somehow left vibrating in the hy
pothetical organism; it recognizes itself as the same 'motor-
complex' that went to bed the night before by tendencies
to carry through the same motor reactions involved in lock
ing up the house, which reactions still synaptically persist;
its decision to meet the day's work is duly 'prefigured' in
muscular effigiations, and it goes forth to conquer, reflexly
rejoicing as a strong man.

246 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Under the influence of the further assumption that all
things can be explained psychologically, the same attitude
has dominated other interests than those of scientific psy
chology. In economics the individual is now an economic
force, — is, in fact, merely an element hopelessly involved in
a system of * economic forces.' With reference to produc
tion he is a 'cost' or a 'resource' or a labor 'supply'; his
existence is measured in 'wants' which are estimated in
terms of 'prices' in distribution; he suffers dissolution
through 'consumption' and his bones are gathered to his
fathers in the potter's field of economic waste. Sociology
makes of him a tissue in the social organism (or 'organiza
tion,' as they seem to prefer to say now), girds up his loins
with social forces, fulfills his destiny in social instincts, turns
him over to the social reformers, who mark him off a lot
in the New Jerusalem of socialized conditions.

To put the case briefly, from the point of view of the hu
man sciences of the present, the human individual dissolves
into a calculable sum of physical, biological, and psycho
logical 'conditions.' It will be contended in this paper
that this point of view originates in a psychology which has
wrongfully appropriated the name of empirical or experi
mental and in a psychologized philosophy which has adopted
a naive, realistic materialism falsely supposed to rest on the
principles of scientific method, and that its basis is to be
found in the dogma that the essence of the idea is action.

The principle that every mental process or state of mind
or idea (it makes no difference for our purposes what name
is given it) tends to express itself either mediately or imme
diately through movement in the organism is, perhaps, well
founded. But that this tendency to expression explains any
thing more than certain elementary structural characters of
the idea may very well be questioned. The case is quite
clear with the ordinary ideas or mental contents which
accompany the simple necessities of action involved in daily
life. As I go through the daily round of duties, my conduct
is adequately described as a complex series of sense images
together with series of muscular movements more or less

IDEA AND ACTION 247

appropriate thereto. Here we are on the simple plane of
reflex or sensori-motor reaction, and the quality of the
sensation constitutes perhaps all the ' consciousness ' I
have, certainly all I need in this action-context. The same
mechanism disposes of the entire life of habit, so long, at
least, as habit flows on undisturbed. Similarly, the sensory
reports from deep-lying, organic functions touch the key
for the discharge of movements in instinct, so that the entire
life as organic may be described as nervous and muscular
automatism. And in so far as we are content to assume that
the entire content of 'mind' is disposed of on the principle
of organic automatism, the basis of our psychology, and of
the philosophy that depends upon it, is simple and very at
tractive. But may it not be too simple? It seems that our
employment of this assumption would necessarily commit
us to the further assumption that the age-long metaphysical
problem of the relation of mind and body has been solved,
and that an empirical demonstration of the solution can be
given. But it is just in this assumption that the difficulty
lies. That is, the validity of the assumption rests upon
the reality of the problem, which ought to be avoided if the
principles of the philosophy of action are to be consistently
followed. A problem set for us in immediate, empirical fact
is dodged by uncritically accepting the identity of its two
terms. In the face of the facts and of their concreteness and
disparateness, we assume that mind is essentially nothing
but functionings in the organism.

The question takes on sharp outlines when we employ
actionist presuppositions in the description of certain types
of mental facts. It can, of course, be objected that descrip
tion does not require any presuppositions, and the objection
is valid, if and after we have accepted the attitude that
presuppositions (that is, ideas which are not immediately
identifiable with organic response) are not involved in the
mental life at all, but that that life is merely organic. But
even a superficial examination of the images involved in
perception and memory will set out in clear contrast to each
other two characters, both of which seem to be root-elements

248 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

of the image. If Bergson has meant anything in the discus
sion of current psychological problems, it certainly is that
mental facts are not as simple as they have seemed. On this
point Bergson has been led to adopt a position that might
be characterized as radically empirical, in spite of the fact
that the rationalism inherent in his modes of thought spoils
much of his discussion by trying to join together what God
hath put asunder. Note for a moment his handling of the
facts of perception. In the experience of immediate fact the
unique factor is that an object offers a clue to the organism
upon which the latter is to react in some way advantageous
to itself. Presented fact is either useful or not, and the gist
of perception is disclosed in the choice which the body makes
among prefigured modes of reaction; the reaction not chosen
degenerates in the situation in a way which renders it merely
'virtual.' This virtual action is the pure perception and is
distinguished from actual perception by the fact that the
latter passes off reflexly through the organism. Because the
latter is immediately accounted for in terms of organic re
sponse, no consciousness in the strict sense is involved, and
we have merely the case of automatic adaptation between
one 'real image' and another, the unique element being
simply the fact that one of the images is privileged. But in
case the adaptation does not take place in this immediate
and automatic fashion, when there is a hitch between stimu
lus and response, the action originally meant by the stimu
lus, that is, the real content of the object presented as this
meaning, is seen from the point of view of the real situation
to become precipitated or 'prefigured' as virtual action.
It is then, it would seem, act as viewed from the side of its
representative or cognitive function, the idea of the logicians.
Thus the attempt to force the duplicity of fact into the
simple form of an outward act, regarded as homogeneous
throughout, defeats its own end by showing clearly the con
trary fact, that the image invariably presents two faces, the
one being the motor tendency to reproduce its object, the
other the representative function of intending or meaning
its object. And Bergson's laborious analysis makes it fairly

IDEA AND ACTION 249

evident that the image can never be so simple as not to
consist of both. Further, his method of reaching simplicity
here is significant, and possibly illustrates all methods hav
ing similar purposes, that is, one of the aspects of the image
is found to be merely * theoretical.' But this looks like
neglecting a fact because it does not behave as theory re
quires.

Clearly, then, although the assumption is that action is
the only element involved in any real situation, that same
element seems to split itself into two very different parts,
the one being the action as a fluent and living relation be
tween real things, — an act which occurs and in occurring
actually creates, — the other fulfilling its function by merely
* meaning' an action which is deferred. But being deferred
means that it does not occur, and failing to occur means
that it does not express itself through the organism. Thus
the crux of the matter for a psychologized logic is just the
fact that the break between the neural or physical conditions
on the one side, and the act which is to modify that set of
conditions on the other, is the slip betwixt the cup and the
lip. And while most idealistic schemes have thinly covered
the breach with assumptions, and have beclouded it with
fine-spun logical trivialities, the best that modern actionists
seem able to do is to bridge the gap with a hypothetical con
tact mystified under the name of synapse, thus trading one
mystery for another. For the synapse is now a physical or
neural connection, now a poetic or energic 'as if.' It is as if
two liquids were separated by a membrane of rather high
degree of impermeability. And the result is that continuity
of action between the organism and its environment, which
was established in the first place by assumption, now re
quires a second supposition, — and one of rather doubtful
probability, — to render its position secure. But when we
have to bolster up one presupposition by another, by what
compulsion are we obliged to stop with two? It would be
far simpler to take the common sense view that an act is an
indivisible unity, which, as unity, can have whatever func
tions or characters it has in fact, and that it requires none

250 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

of the ingenuity of psychological atomism to ' establish'
its simplicity. Bergson's purpose seems to be to show that
the depths of ontology, which are included, of course, within
the profundities of epistemology, are fathomed when knowl
edge of the act leads us to the vision of duration and futurity.
But it is just this vision that many of us do not survive.
And yet "how goodly had the vision been." For, when ac
tion is thus caught on the wing, it vouches for its existence in
another form, viz., that in which it does not act, but simply
represents. While the latter as pure perception exists only
theoretically, its import becomes significant as a troublesome
negative limitation to the out-reaching ambition of the form
which exists practically. That is, its theoretic persistence
posits the whole field of reality as cognitive and interpreta
tive, and as not requiring in any sense the urgencies of me
chanistic energies as a final guarantee of its right to reality.
And this means that a static world of representation is,
after all, behind Bergson's attempt to create a world of pure
functional reals. The same dualism of psychological reals
persists throughout Bergson's work, and the problems it
presents give him occasion for most of the significant insights
which that work offers for modern thought. We have seen
that perception is, on the one side, pure act as prevenience,
and, on the other, act as carried through to response. Mem
ory shows the two forms as pure memory and habit-memory.
And although the pure forms are 'only theoretical,' yet it is
apparent that his thought would not hold together for a
moment, if they were not given equal status with the prac
tical forms of experience. It seems clear that not every
aspect of experience is necessarily included in the notion of
action.

If we should consider the most potent factors in the
thought of the present, it would become more and more
evident that the emphasis is in every field upon the dynamic
and living, rather than upon the eternal verities of an older
type of thought. And by dynamic and living we do not
mean the spiritual impulsions of a life assumed to be made
up essentially of comfortable accomplishments and close-

IDEA AND ACTION 251

fitting realizations, but rather the ruder and cruder life
which embodies insatiable urgencies arising from the neces
sities imposed upon the organism by a world of like structure.
The home of the spirit is to be found and founded in the
flesh, and the life of the spirit is to be saved to the flesh.
Philosophy glories in the fact that it is of the earth earthy.
It may be worth while to note some of the many directions
in which this motive is finding expression. And first, re
membering that the spirit of the modern age is scientific
and positivist, one would naturally expect that science would
show the first and fundamental postulate of the modern
mind in the principle that matter is to be defined in terms
of energy. The old atom of homogeneous stuff is displaced
by the new center of forces, and the latter receives definition
in terms of mathematical relations, which, in their turn,
seem to be exchanging their old-fashioned stability and
'universality' for functional relations to their 'conditions,'
which conditions are, once more, functional intersections of
other dynamic lines of force. Logic follows suit by regarding
the hypothetical judgment, once conceived, perhaps, as
foundation and superstructure, as representative of a course
of evolutional progress, and the fact that little seems to
have been accomplished in the way of developing the con
ception may merely argue the truth of the generally accepted
dogma that logic must await the realization of definiteness
in scientific method. And just now the scientific method
seems fairly to wallow in insurgent fluidity with its conse
quent indefiniteness. Action, movement, change, — these
are the categories that are fundamental everywhere.

But the interest in change is temporal and practical and
human. It is, then, in the fields of the practical interests
that we may expect to find the most interesting attempts to
apply the principles of actionist philosophy; at least, it is
for those interests that most of our philosophers show special
concern. It might seem a rather precarious procedure to
undertake to incorporate the uncertainties of changing fact
into the instrument whose function it is to find definiteness
(however low a degree) in the very inwardness of the facts

252 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

themselves. And yet that seems to be what is attempted,
and results so far do not look reassuring. That is, a logic of
change has perhaps not yet been worked out, — the * logic of
evolution' to the contrary notwithstanding, — and it may
be that the very notion of ordered knowledge within an ex
perience of fluent fact is what Hobbes called a 'metaphorical
speech.' If one accepts a philosophy or logic of change,
one is committed to the acceptance also of a world which
consists of other things than facts, a world in which anything
becoming another thing is a serious problem. For under this
condition the idea as act becomes a cause which may upset
the world of fact at any point or at any moment. The act
becomes free, its effects unpredictable, thus contravening the
very scientific method which called it into being. And this
difficulty is only avoided by reflecting that, while an act
of creative power, the idea is also a represented value.

The philosophy whose theoretical form we are here at
tempting to state may be summarized thus. The idea is
an act and nothing else; and further, the act which is the
idea is the action or movement involved in the functioning
of the organism. Then every situation which has hitherto
been erroneously supposed one in which we should think
ourselves straight and then 'give the thought his act' is
really a situation in which an act of ours is included as an
element in a larger functional whole, this inclusion being
the essence of consciousness and the process of thought.
Yet thought may, after the act is completed, dwell on the
question whether the act was successful with reference to
other possible acts, possible acts having reference to alter
natives of action distinguishable in the situation as a whole.
That is, consciousness is reflexive rather than reflective.
Thought is then co-terminous with the physical and physio
logical processes of movement, these processes being charged
with the further capacity for post mortem examination of
the relations between the situation which they constitute
and other situations of the same sort. Life is action; thought
or consciousness is useful, that is, real, in so far as it renders
action successful; that is, it is successful action. Successful

IDEA AND ACTION 253

action is that which issues in proper conditions of further
action. But action may embody and fulfill the finer needs
(avoiding the term purposes) of the aesthetic and religious
experience, as well as the coarser and commoner needs of
the organism.

There is much that is satisfying and attractive about such
a scheme, and most persons will find little difficulty in ac
cepting it, — so far as it goes and with the proper restrictions
and limitations. And if belief in idealism (for which the
above is supposed to be an antidote) ever involved the con
ception of the life-process as a complacent contemplation
of consummate truth, then idealists should ask pardon for
their sins. There are, however, two parts to this creed, and
these will not permit of being confused without serious con
sequences. Nor will they permit of over-emphasis on either
part without destroying the balance of forces which repre
sents the truth of the creed. The two clauses are that life
is action, either as (i) the act of critical estimation or evalua
tion, as for example in aesthetic or logical experience, or as
(2) the act of the organism in accomplishing results which
condition its further action, that is, results in what are or
dinarily called material things.

An emphasis upon either of these two tenets which carries
with it neglect of the other is fatal to any well-ordered social
or individual life, and as a social order of individual lives is
the highest of conceivable human ends, undue emphasis in
either direction entails a misunderstanding of human motives
and a confusion of the meaning of the term practical. As a
case of overworking the first of the principles might be named
any of the ancient or modern logical idealisms which stand
out so attractively in the history of philosophy. As poetic
schemes of pure values known in placid contemplation, they
issue in the ideal of a timeless, universal Garden of Eden,
such as appears again and again from Plato's Republic to
Wells's New Worlds for Old. These have been real in so far
as they have stimulated men's minds to try to work them
out in the flesh. But their notorious falsity 'on the whole'
is well exemplified in the actual history of the New Jeru-

254 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

salem, the supposed 'reality' of which has drugged with
overdoses of 'hope and trust' the spirit that should have
accomplished a good human state, expecting thus to conquer
by waiting and through inaction deferring to the timeless a
human ideal which should have been operative here and
now. There has been further confusion by compounding this
idealistic view with scientific atomism, in the hope of saving
the individual from the melee occasioned by the attempt to
get things together iiberhaupt. An idealism saved over from
the period of mediaeval universalism runs hopelessly together
with modern scientific atomism, and the result is the absurd
confusion of economic individualism in practical affairs and
the hopeless effort to identify the individual with the uni
versal by sheer force of logic. And when the outcome of the
attempt is accepted as a principle of philosophy, any and
all morality seems to be rendered impracticable thereby.

But if, on a basis of the philosophy of the pure thought-
act, we come to grief in mere contemplative appreciation,
the issues of the opposite point of view are worse. Action
being accepted as the basis of the reality of life, emphasis
comes to be laid on the mere gaining of results, without
taking the trouble to inquire whether our results are of any
consequence. Indeed, the only criterion imposed by our
actionist principle upon any result is that it serve as a con
dition for further results, which in turn are judged by the
same standard. Hence the apotheosis of 'process' and
'tendency' in theoretical affairs, and the Mammonism of
'getting things done' in practice. The weaknesses of the
philosophy of evolution and the indefiniteness of its cate
gories probably find their roots here. A full discussion of
these weaknesses would sooner or later implicate the prin
ciples and practices of scientific method itself, but that lies
outside our present purpose. On the other hand, a scheme
which looks for justification to practical consequences should
welcome an analysis of some of the interests within which
practical consequences are the desideratum. Let us there
fore look at some of the current motives involved in our
more important practical disciplines, with a view to seeing

IDEA AND ACTION 255

their relations to the prevailing direction of present-day
thought, thus briefly suggesting what the application of ac-
tionist philosophy to the interests of education, politics, and
ethics brings forth as its more weighty practical conse
quences. Even at the risk of overstepping the bounds of
philosophy, we may attempt to disclose the * business' mo
tives which actionist principles seem to make dominant
everywhere. One begins to suspect that the degree to which
* practical' interests dominate the present social and political
situation constitutes the reductio ad absurdum of the phi
losophy of action.

A superficial glance at current educational tendencies is
perhaps conducive to hopefulness. Many movements seem
to be indicative of an approaching democracy hitherto not
conceivable. We hear proclaimed in nearly every educa
tional address the principles of democratic or universal
education laid down in the governmental schemes estab
lished by our fathers. Educational journals are filled with
the same sentiment. The interest in education is declared
to be wide and popular. There was never a time when well-
trained persons were in such demand. Even business is
supposed to require persons of largeness of mind and round
ness of character. The i people' are clamorous for educa
tion. And if our notions of education were determined by
current discussion, we would be obliged to conclude that
the American people have risen as one man and declared
that education is the panacea for all the ills of life. No doubt
there is a fundamental faith in education, even a belief that
it constitutes for us an only hope; but there is no correspond
ing degree of intelligence in our attempts to understand what
the process means. And in our zeal for education we are
ready to 'do' anything except to try to think clearly.
Many things are done already, so many, it may be, that a
generation of clear-headedness will have to pass before we
shall see that many of the same things will require to be
undone. Briefly, the notion of what is involved in education
as a process and as an accomplishment has recently changed;
but it seems never to have occurred to our experts that the

256 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

change may be for the worse. Since the initiation of the
elective system there has steadily been growing up the con
viction that anything which may happen to interest the in
dividual provides satisfactory matter for the educational
process. But a little critical analysis of this principle would
have shown that it rests upon a questionable sensationalistic
or rather impressionistic psychology, and further, that it
implies that the standard for education rests upon the ca
price of the person to be educated, rather than upon the
judgment of the person who is educated. It is he that is
sick that is to be the physician. In practice, therefore, since
the child is fundamentally active rather than thoughtful,
his interest demands that the process be adapted to things
he can do. Consequently the curriculum must be made over,
first, in the interest of laboratory science at the expense of
languages and the so-called cultural subjects, and secondly,
in the interests of the ' practical' at the expense of the
knowledge-aspects of the sciences. First Latin, Greek, etc.,
had to give way to physics, chemistry, etc.; and as for the
rest, the sciences themselves soon were superseded by voca
tional subjects; now we have ' shop-work.' A list of the
'practical5 subjects now occupying a place in the curriculum
is enough to fill with dismay and despair the mind of any one
not committed entirely to commercialized materialism. It
can be confidently asserted that a large majority of those
engaged in the actual work of teaching are skeptical of the
results obtainable in these subjects. And while it is sincerely
hoped that sooner or later serious permanent results may be
obtained from these interests, the intelligence required to
direct them to that end does not now exist in the minds
either of the experts or of the business men who (actionists
all) are jointly responsible for their incorporation in the
school system. But things are done nevertheless; also pell-
mell. From the point of view of the philosophy of action
the situation begins to look like this: Practical men, dis
cerning that the older education based on ideas and com
mitted to the belief that significant results must involve
ideas, see that results in this form are not immediately

IDEA AND ACTION 257

practical, not convertible into cash. They cannot be con
verted into things of value, — value meaning what can be
represented by economic activity. For them, to learn is to
do; to do is to make; to make is to produce the conditions of
further action; in short, the educative process is the com
mercial process. To prove the point our experts commit
the fallacy of converting, "The commercial process is educa
tive," into "The educative process is commercial."

A similar arraignment must be made of practical politics.
It would perhaps be contrary to every American tradition
to ask that a legislator be prepared with ideas, or that he
should defend his action by appealing to ideas. The only
requirement is that he get results, these being usually in the
form of 'pork' or of a shave in the tax-rate. The latter
result may be obtained (however unjustly) by shifting the
burden from the constituency to the shoulders of a section
or class unable to defend itself by reason of numerical or
commercial weakness or of ignorance. No questions of the
right constitution of the social order seem to be worthy of
consideration, but each problem that arises must be settled
with reference only to immediate material results. Aside
from the possibility of dollars and cents to be made either
for the legislator or for the constituency, the next and per
haps most important consideration is the influence of a vote
on the likelihood of re-election. Again, the ideal is to do
things, or to get or have things done. That considerations
of a purely speculative or, so far as immediate consequences
go, impractical character might contribute after all to the
accomplishment of results more satisfactory, even from the
material point of view, than mere dependence upon methods
and processes, is a principle whose statement will evoke only
merriment from our practical men of affairs. Once more
the emphasis is placed upon action to the utter neglect of
ideas or principles. Thought is necessary; yes, but only to
distinguish methods, never ends. Thinking is doing, or
perhaps better, getting things done.

It is, however, in the interest of morality that this criticism
of actionist principles is undertaken. Under these principles

258 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the conscious life is identified with, or involved in, the com
plex of physical or physiological conditions which constitute
a situation of fact. Ethics is then a purely descriptive
science, hypothesis itself being a descriptive process; all ques
tions are questions of fact. Morality is that life which
knows, or rather senses, or perhaps better still, tends to
reproduce, its relations to its evolutional conditions, its
mores. The mores are a set of conditions which determine
both the processes and the results of present action. Causa
tion is the moral law. Whatever is, is right; morality is
custom, and "It is being done" is the last word. Yet this
scheme of activity is offered as a substitute for older idealistic
schemes on the ground that the latter furnish no room for
spontaneity; that the life of humanity is tied up hard and
fast in a system perfected from the beginning. The older
views can offer, it is asserted, nothing as possible in new
and significant and creative activity which was not contained
already in a world bound tight by systems of immutable law.
There can happen nothing which was not implied in reality
from everlasting to everlasting. When something occurs, it
is but a rendering explicit what already incorrigibly and
completely was implicit and given. And much fine sport
has accrued from the sorry predicament of something which
'is' but still is not ' given.' But an act described as implied
in the complex of ideas which make up the character of a
conscious individual is no more predetermined than the same
act described as a tendency in hypothetical nervous con
nections in the organism, or as tendencies in the social group.
That the idealistic language refers to fact immediately open
to common sense is evident by the moral response (we are
appealing to the actionist's principle of significant action)
which it elicits from a very wide diversity of persons to whom
the mere scientific argument will mean nothing. In other
words, that a given course of action is the normal outcome
of the presence of a given set of ideas probably means more
(in terms of behavior even) than to say that the course of
action had its conditions in mores or causes apostrophically
described as tendencies to act. But the actionist or be-

IDEA AND ACTION 259

haviorist will probably insist that he has never meant what
is here attributed to him. Then what has he meant?

After all, from the moral point of view, what is the differ
ence whether you conceive your world as fixed and transfixed
by relations which hold together systems of ideas, or as
bound up and determined by natural laws which knit to
gether complexes of facts and tendencies to movement ? As
a criticism of the idealism which gets lost in a maze of con-
tactless relations, the call for a return to facts is a propos;
but when facts have no meaning except what they can sur
reptitiously obtain from fictions, one begins strongly to sus
pect that the criticism is merely negative and skeptical.
Likewise it may not be altogether out of place to suggest that
the skeptical critic is either consciously or unconsciously
replacing his own ideas with hypothetical entities, such as,
for example, the potential energy of the physicist. In any
case, a 'fact' is as easily represented by the idea of relation
as by a tendency to movement; it is as simple to explain
potential energy, considered as the fact that certain conse
quences will result when certain conditions are fulfilled, by
referring the situation to the purpose which may reach the
consequence through fulfilling the conditions, as by describ
ing the consequences and conditions after the event has oc
curred. And apart from considerations of simplicity, the
demand that the ideas be made functions in real situations
is met already when we assume purposes as elementary to
the situations, whereas the 'epistemological' difficulties so
much flouted of late have to be met only when we begin
with the 'facts,' which we tend to regard as independent
ultimates. There seems to be, then, logically, no advantage
which either of these points of view can claim over the other;
one justifies itself by reference to certain typical characters
of experience, the other by reference to other characters; and
each type seems as 'real' as the other.

To cover this logical impasse the philosophers of action
take refuge in the practical, in much the same way and per
haps for the same reason that some, possibly all, types of
idealism resort to the contemplative. The practical means,

260 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

so far as any statement yet produced is concerned, the at
tainment of results through action of the type which is to be
found in "the concrete, living experience of every-day life."
Thought-action involved in scientific research is of this type;
in fact, all processes of thought or experience are funda
mentally identical in this form, in so far at least as they can
attain to this form. The only theoretical considerations
which seem to be necessary are involved in seeing merely
that a given process is true to type, that it conforms to the
condition-activity-result standard. Conformity of a given
process or fact with this standard is truth. Failure to con
form is falsity, but is yet fact, so error is real. Thought is
practical, or better, is practice, action. Its interest is not
in results as ends, for results are of consequence only as
conditions of further action. Reality is the complex within
which the common factor is the movement of thought (and
this is organic with physiological movement) or what may
become thought, — the apotheosis of process.

It will be readily admitted, I think, that such a scheme
corresponds closely to the facts of actual life. The ' thought'
process here described is a fairly faithful account of what
actually takes place in the world, of what actually is done.
It has probably represented the dominant human attitude
of the past century, perhaps also of the preceding century.
It is certainly the attitude of scientific interests throughout
the entire modern period, and the tremendous advances in
natural science are due to it. The accomplishments of man
in political history are results of a method of thought or an
attitude which could be properly described in the same way.
The English political method being taken as typical (and we
must remember that it is perhaps to the English that the
greatest advances in scientific thought are due), that method
has consisted in the reference of present action to past results
in the interest of new results of the same kind, — precedent.
The development of America materially and politically has
followed the same course, in spite of some idealism which, in
an unguarded moment of enthusiasm, crept into the original
governmental scheme. There is no end of the illustrative

IDEA AND ACTION 261

proofs which might be adduced to show that the method of
human success is trial and error.

But what has been the total result? Have we after all,
granting that philosophy is interested in life, attained to a
life that we can unreservedly call worthy or significant?
Have we not, if we look at the matter from the point of view
of actual practice, failed to reach a 'life,' in the sense in
which every person demands life, but have succeeded merely
in expressing a blind will to succeed? It may be very
strongly suspected that in the enthusiasm for getting things
done we have substituted for the truth-values and appre
ciation-values that make up the content of life a system of
abstract method-values and thing-values which furnish
merely the conditions of living, not well, but anyhow. And
our suggestion made above that a wrong emphasis here is
fatal, now seems to convict us of having committed ourselves
to a life of material or economic determinism, in which the
thought-life is a mere instrument for the accomplishment
of external results. It would be hardly to the point to argue
that such a consequence is not meant by explaining thought
in terms of action, or to insist that thought-action is re
stricted to solving real problems on the higher planes of vital
activity, while insisting continually that philosophy must
keep in touch with actual life. In this case actual life must
be the test of our thought-system, and the life that we find
actual is one which, practically, is determined by principles
unworthy of any serious effort of thought. Nor is this a
merely temporal or personal pessimistic judgment. The
present industrial system with its methods is generally
recognized to represent the life-scheme of practically every
individual, whether the individual is aware of the fact or
condemns the system or not. And this system, although it
fulfills the requirements of a life modelled after the prin
ciples laid down by a philosophy of action, stands condemned
as unworthy of a human life by every person who can think
at all. It would be simple to explain the great war in terms
of conditions and results in the complex of life-action, but
can the life that is wasted be explained in terms of war-

262 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

action? At a certain point explanation must become justi
fication; and it is hard to get justification out of a mere com
plex of impersonal situations. It is admitted, then, that our
philosophy must be based upon life. But a reference of
philosophic thought to actual life, without any consideration
of its unrealized possibilities, only condemns the mode of
life and the philosophy that is found to agree with it. And
a continual emphasis on the practical will never supply the
checks necessary to keep the life-movement on the upward
trend. What has perhaps actually happened is that we have
been so drugged by continued material success through mere
doing that we have at last attempted to accept the ethics of
modern industry as a principle for a universal philosophy;
we have accepted the philosophy of a life for a philosophy
of life. And just now, in the welter of world murder and in
the living death imposed by the industrial system, life is pay
ing the forfeit.

No doubt a new philosophy is at present required. But
it cannot be one which expresses no more than life as it is,
but must show that what is, contains suggestions of new di
rections of worth. And things of worth (except economically)
are not discovered or produced through action alone, but
rather through emphasis on critical reflection after action
has laid down the bases of life. It is only upon correction of
action that life can begin. At least, corrective reflection is
a fair substitute for that bumptious strenuosity which follows
the placing of emphasis upon action. Maybe we shall all
be willing to accept the philosophy of doing, when men are
thereby shown how to act as men and not simply as instru
ments in that specific unhuman or inhuman situation which
happens to exist and to catch men's fancy, or which may
artificially and in the interest of gross material results be
constructed with the purpose to take advantage of human
weakness. We may then come to the point of asserting the
truth of the principle that thought is action. But there are
acts and acts. And the qualitative differences between acts
make all the real differences in the world, although they
may be only differences in degree. That thought is action

IDEA AND ACTION 263

does not entitle us to say without qualification that action
is thought, as undoubtedly is the tendency in discussions of
the practical. The production of material results through
organic response, or the resolution of unsatisfactory inner
situations, however real such situations may be, are not the
only types of action that are significant in life. Much of
the thought-action which furnishes the content of an in
telligent life has no immediate reference to overt action, and
possibly in most cases when the act is being performed, there
is no immediate or remote intention of producing results
outside of the present consciousness. And much of the
thought that has been responsible for past human achieve
ment has been obliged to lie dormant as value until future
situations arose in which it might become practical. This
means that thought may and does determine the situations
in which it is to be useful, and while it may have grown out
of previous situations, its contact neither with those situa
tions nor with the situations in which it is to be useful is
known to it when the thought-act is accomplished. Thought
is then often an end in itself, so far as its own act is con
cerned, and this is true in spite of the fact that it may turn
out to be useful. That it may turn out to be useful is evi
dence of further thought. Granting that all thought is
sooner or later useful and has connection with practical
situations, it still may be argued that those situations are
not consciously involved in the thought process while it is
going on. But this is one of the cases where appeal to the
unconscious will settle all difficulties. And the settlement
on these terms looks very much like a refusal to recognize
any problem. The tendency to refuse to recognize problems
is often shown by those who argue most strenuously for the
problematical character of all thought.

This argument, it must be confessed, begins to savor too
much of old-fashioned ' reason.' What we are after, it is
insisted, is to force reason to make room for other forms of
experience like feeling and will. As directed against a con
ception of reason which makes it act like an efficient cause to
produce results ideally out of nothing; as against a reason

264 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

that permeates the whole of what is, reducing what is to
eternal rationality; as against reason which is regarded as
anything else than the life-process in the individual human
being, the criticism is accepted as valid. But to many
persons it has not occurred to make of reason anything other
than reflection held as dominant in the life-process of the
individual. It is not necessary to think of it as separated
from the life-process and somehow eternally hostile to it.
It may be said frankly that there is no 'reason' any more
than there is a principle of synderesis. Still it may be allow
able to use the term to designate what is most characteristic
in the life-process, even if that function should turn out to
be on occasion 'irrational,' as it doubtless often does. In
any case we have no right to impose on that function the
obligation to guarantee results, even at the expense of sub
verting the world, as we do when we insist that since reason
ordinarily functions in an orderly way, it must therefore
guarantee a world rationalized throughout as a product of
original design.

But if we remember that by reason we mean simply the
fact that memory and imagination function together in the
life-process of the individual, the difficulties mentioned above
will be met by anticipation. By memory and imagination
we mean no mythical entities or powers or faculties, but
simply the fact that the past is envisaged and the future is
constructed. Recalling further the factors that furnish the
content for both processes, it will be clear that there is no
single aspect of life that is not represented in 'reason' as
we now understand it. Memory is largely the feeling that
accompanies and characterizes the recognition of 'action'
implied in spatial and temporal relations experienced pre
viously, and in connection with imagination these feelings
function as plans in further action designed to accomplish a
satisfaction or fulfill a purpose. Thus memory cannot be
described without involving the imagination, and the de
scription of imagination involves memory. And the two
processes taken together constitute the one invariable ele
ment within the life-process. This common element has

IDEA AND ACTION 265

been inadequately described, and, under the name of 'cog
nition,' has been represented as a free cause, but that does
not argue away the fact that what is better called recognition
is a factor common to all experience that is significant or
that may become significant.

It thus seems that 'intellectualism' in some sense or in
some degree is unavoidable, and the problem is to find the
sense in which, and the degree to which, the principle of rea
son will stand emphasis. That it has been over-emphasized
in the past is shown by the criticisms for which empiricism
has forced recognition. A more or less satisfactory balance
has, however, been reached between the intellectualists and
the empiricists, and the problem now seems to be whether
further concessions must be made on the part of reason in
the interest of action. The point of view of this essay is that
already the impulse to do in practical affairs has been over
worked as an epistemological motive, and what is necessary
now is that the attempt should be made to think out a
proper balance and harmony in the present chaos of life-
processes. A philosophy of action, particularly in the de
generate form of efficiency philosophy now employed to dis
place ethics as the science of practice, may work satisfactorily
as a principle in business where men are things or parts of
machines; but in education and politics and ethics where
men are, or hope to be, men, something is yet to be learned
from the doctrine of 'pure ideas.'

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING
HARVEY GATES TOWNSEND

DEFINITIONS of judgment have been taken out of the
mouths of metaphysicians and logicians and so transformed
by biology and psychology that considerable imagination is
required before we can get back to a common understanding.
The older logicians discussed judgment in terms of form and
content. Under the first head formal logic has flourished in
the schools for many centuries; under the second, advanced
logical and metaphysical speculation (sometimes called epis-
temology) has been the greatest single motive in modern
philosophy, at least since the days of Kant. The great
philosophical question has been, Is a judgment true? It
seems that this question obtains its fascination by appealing
to disinterested motives: the love of truth for its own sake,
the desire to know, the hope of satisfying the ultimate ques
tions of the human mind regarding truth, beauty, and good
ness. It is a question concerning the real world and also
concerning our knowledge of the real world.

With the ascendency of the biological sciences, however,
new categories have taken the place of the old ones and the
meaning of judgment has been transformed before our very
eyes. The omnivorous dogma of the survival of the fit has
consumed the distinctions formerly supposed to exist between
man and his fellow creatures. The quasi-theological phrases
of our fathers representing man as a creature able to know
the reality of things and to share divine purposes have been
replaced by the new estimate of man as a 'psycho-physical
organism.' This means that whatever a man does is to be
understood and interpreted no longer by reference to his sup
posed destiny, but rather by reference to his recorded past.
If he shaves, stands with his back to the wall, wears clothes,
associates with his fellow men, makes war, establishes gov-

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING 267

ernments, strives to be reasonable, hopes for heaven, or
saves a child at the cost of his own life, it is perforce because
these acts have survival value and not because he judges
them to be worthy. In fact his judgment itself is but an
other unconscious means of survival. More broadly speak
ing, mind, the archetype of judgment, is transformed into
a function of cellular matter, developed in the struggle for
existence and preserved automatically by its survival value.
"Biologists," says Hobhouse, "may be careful to eschew
metaphysics and may avoid the charge of materialism by a
judicious selection of phrases. None the less it lies in the
nature of the biological treatment to think of mental activ
ity like all activity, like muscular contraction or glandular
secretion, like respiration or digestion, as the function of a
structure." l Mind has thus become an instrument of the
body.

In such an intellectual atmosphere the old question, Is a
judgment true? seems strangely unmeaning, or if it still
has meaning, it is at least treated as unimportant. By a
little shuffling in the definition of the word true, however, it
may be made the equivalent of useful, whereupon the ques
tion becomes transformed into one which the biologist will
understand and accept. The coin of this realm is life, and
the way to test a judgment is to find out how much life it will
buy. In such calculations the dominant consideration is
quantity, and qualitative distinctions seem irrelevant. Even
though this interpretation of judgment is not wholly satis
factory, it is not my purpose to deplore the interpretation
but to understand it and to point out its practical bearings.
The most obvious result of this view of judgment is to fasten
attention on the function of judgment as a means to a
further end and to obscure, perhaps all but obliterate, the
value of judgment as a process and an end in itself. It is as
if one who set out to achieve the reasonable life had come to
seek life first with reason only as a means thereto.

Before self-consciousness became a myth, some persons,
after a debauch of introspection, used to testify that a deep
1 Development and Purpose, p. 8.

268 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

and lasting satisfaction was to be derived from thinking for
oneself. On its psychological side thinking has in it some
thing akin to the instinct of possession. To be able to say
truly, ' I think,' is to take a long step forward in self-respect.
The desire for the possession of ideas is as keen as the desire
for the possession of things. Whoever has seen the compre
hensive smile of a child who has learned to do something for
himself need not rely upon his own experience to be convinced
that self-activity brings rich satisfactions, irrespective of the
results of that activity. Psychologically the process of
thinking brings the permanent satisfactions of self-knowledge
and self-control and may in so far be rated as a good in itself.
But the psychological significance of thinking cannot be
long separated from its ethical or political significance. At
this point, at least, thinking seems to be primarily an end
rather than a means to some further and external end. In
spite of the prevailing utilitarianism of British ethical theory,
the older dictum of Kant, that nothing is good except the
good will, still carries conviction to plain people because it
is based upon a very common and homely experience. This
experience may be called the experience of personal re
sponsibility, as distinguished from another experience which
we may call the experience of observing the results of overt
action. The latter experience may be temporarily ab
stracted from the former. That is to say, the person may
take the attitude of an impartial spectator. Whether the
act be his own or another's, the effect of the act works itself
out in the same terms. Morality on this plane is capable of
scientific generalization and control. Personal responsibility
need hardly be mentioned. The experience of personal
responsibility, however, is more immediate and more con
crete. It is more immediate in the sense that it is an un-
analysed idea developed without the machinery of science or
scientific method. It is closer to feeling and aesthetic ap
preciation than it is to logic or technique. It is concrete be
cause it is completely, although not explicitly, bound up
with the objective aspect of moral action. If we start with
the mass feeling of guilt or of essential goodness, we can

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING 269

easily and must necessarily raise the issue of causes, results,
and connections. If, on the other hand, we start with the
mechanism of morals, we may be permanently caught within
it and see no need of escape. We get into an infinite regress
which will never carry us beyond itself. Thus, a judge, ex
cept for court traditions, might examine the overt act of a
criminal without reference to the criminal. In case he looks
upon the accused as a link in a chain of social unpleasant
nesses rather than as a person, he might even go further and
sentence the criminal without reference to the criminal.

Perhaps modern legal procedure tends in the direction of
dehumanizing morality. No one can tell where it will lead.
The other view, — that of personal responsibility, — is usually
associated with our religious or theological heritage. It
starts from the assumption that "all other values are rela
tive to value for, of, or in a person." l From this point of
view a person is not a 'psycho-physical organism' but a
judging, unitary center of value. It seems, moreover, quite
absurd to leave out the word judging in such a formula.
To leave it out would look in the wrong direction to discover
the center of value. Without reference to personal judgment
value becomes a mere pawn or symbol. Like our currency,
it must be secured somewhere for its face value. Like our
currency, also, it is secured in the last analysis in the intan
gible region of faith, good will, and personal responsibility.

The indefinite multiplication of such centers of value has
been taken to be the goal of democratic institutions. This
multiplication, however, cannot be directly secured by in
creasing the birth rate, or lowering the death rate, or avoid
ing devastation and war, or increasing the product of fac
tories. It can be secured, if at all, by the hard and inefficient
road of trial and error for each person or generation of per
sons. To be sure, the trial and error need not be about the
same details of mastery, but trial and error there must be
wherever persons are to exist. This is a symbol of the per
petual struggle of mind to master the conditions of its lasting
satisfaction. Judgment, even for the biologist, functions
1 Green, Prolegomena, § 184.

270 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

only in contact with the new and untried present. Biology
declares that judgment was developed in the face of a
rapidly shifting and hostile environment. The creatures
other than man who for any reason live in a static environ
ment have no need for judgment or thinking. Man, however,
with his easy locomotion and versatility on land and water,
must have perished but for his wits. It is upon this capacity
of man that ethical value rests. If this statement is not
true of all ethical value, it certainly is true of the first kind
mentioned above, that is, the personal kind of morality.
This is the ideal of freedom running through all philosophy
from the Greeks to our own day, the freedom of autonomous
action. Autonomous action is nothing but action accom
panied by conscious purpose made more and more free as
complete awareness of the whole situation is approached.
With this view of morality must go a faith in the ultimate
unity of wills, a faith that as many persons become more self-
conscious and more intelligent they will become more har
monious and unified. This is the hope of a democracy, but
it is also the despair of a democracy. The way to such a goal
seems infinitely slow and uncertain. The goal itself may be
a mirage. Every generation and every individual at some
time despairs of this goal, or, what amounts to the same
thing, conceives the idea of a short cut to the desired haven,
a royal road to human felicity. This is the attitude that
has led to the substitution of other mental processes for
thinking. It is the purpose of this paper to point out some
of the substitutes at present offered as panaceas for social
evil and to suggest in what respect they attempt to avoid
the issues implied in the foregoing statement of the nature
of judgment.

The reader of educational discussion must have been im
pressed with the great frequency of reference to habit-
formation as the chief aim of the common school. The con
tention does not always appear in just this form. Sometimes
it comes under the guise of drill and sometimes under the
name of vocational training. One does not have to take
Rousseau too literally when he says, "The only habit which

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING 271

a child should be allowed to form is that of forming none," 1
in order to grasp the essential truth which such an extreme
statement conveys. Rousseau's theory in this is democratic
or it is nothing. We are to understand that he considers
habit a poor substitute for that creative, personal activity
which he calls nature. Wherever there is an uncritical de
mand that the school prepare its pupils to fit into the in
dustrial or economic status quo, there is involved the issue
of habit versus thinking. This fact is often vaguely dis
cerned and as a consequence ineffectively attacked. Aside
from individual differences, all systems of industrial or voca
tional training in the common schools seek to develop the
skill demanded by industry and practical economic condi
tions. The school is supposed to look forward to discover the
environment of the pupil and then to set itself the task of fit
ting the pupil for the environment; in doing this the school
neglects not only and perhaps least of all the right of an
individual to his own mature judgment in the matter, but
it neglects the incalculable and unpredictable nature of a
changing environment. We are solemnly told that country
schools, for instance, should confine their efforts to the
training of farm hands, yet the imagination is not unable to
see the farmer's child in a radically different environment
during his mature life. The teacher sets himself up to think
for the pupil and to crystallize his thought in the pupil in
the form of skill or habit. When teachers get a little wiser,
they may think so well that the rest of the people will not
have to think at all. The antidote for this school theory is
to teach the pupil, whether in city or country, to think and
judge and will for himself. That is all very well, say the
advocates of vocational training, but how shall we accom
plish this idealistic aim without danger to society? The
answer must be that it cannot be accomplished without
danger to society. Give to each the tools of knowledge and
let him use them as and when and how he will, so that life
for him and for us all is then an adventure rather than a
prearranged, * safety-first' affair.

* Smile, Bk. I.

272 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

I would not be understood to say that thinking cannot be
developed along with and through vocational training, but
it is important to recognize the development of thinking as
the aim and not the means of vocational training. As sug
gested above, Rousseau's epigram cannot be taken literally.
No one in his senses pretends that education can function
without habit, but we are perfectly sure that habits can and
do function without education. No habit is good enough to
be a perpetual substitute for thinking. And this is precisely
because habit is thinking — dead. It is thinking petrified by
contact with a static environment. When the environment
changes, habit becomes an evil positively interfering with
the good of the organism. But this is not all; biology and
ethics go this far together. Ethics may now insist that there
is value in the freedom of new and living thinking quite apart
from its service in saving the biological organism. The ques
tion is not, Does it preserve life? but, Does it make life worth
preserving? We might make the habit perpetually effective,
but only at the cost of making life perpetually the same.
The inner experience of growth and action could not be
known. In a word, all the pragmatic results of thinking
might be secured in an individual through habit without
securing one moment of valuable existence.

Another substitute for thinking may be presented under
the head of social control. The study of psychology, for
instance, has made it possible for a leader to relieve his fol
lowers of all thinking. The same result that may be secured
by the aristocracy of military control may also be secured by
the more subtile control of suggestion. The soldier who puts
on the uniform puts off the right and eventually the ability
to think. If he thinks, one of two things will happen : he will
either be put in command or in the guard house. The former
positions are rigidly limited; the latter are potentially in
finite. It is, therefore, the rule that thinking is uncalled for.
Democratic society may congratulate itself if it has escaped
the evils of militarism, for those evils are the negation of the
aim of democracy. However this may be, the psychology of
social control offers a practical substitute for military control.

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING 273

In fact, military force is only an early and particularly gross
form of social control.

It is immaterial that in the long run social control may de
feat its primary intention. An advertising manager is hired
to sell goods by means of suggestion and plausible assertion.
Advertising may indirectly affect the character of the prod
uct, but in the first instance it has nothing to do with the
thing it advertises. Its purpose it to turn some people into
money in order to satisfy the aims of some other people. In
so far as this is true, it is fundamentally averse to the de
velopment of individual thinkers and thus may be said to
run, superficially at least, counter to the aim of democracy.
Like habit, social control is offered as a substitute for think
ing. The difference between the two is that habit indicates
the presence of thinking at some time in the individual who
uses the habit, while social control is the thought of one
individual imposed from without upon another.

The case of advertising serves as an illustration of all forms
of social control. A certain kind of sociologist is pathetically
concerned in securing the results of his thinking for other
people. His generosity may be conceded without admitting
that he serves anybody well but himself. He desires to
think for others because he supposes that thinking is of
instrumental value and worth whatever it will buy, rather
than a process of spiritual evolution, of value only to the
person of the spirit. Many social reforms fall upon society
as dead weights crushing out the real life of the spirit because
they are not the product of spiritual travail in the persons
for whom they are intended. Indeed, they are not intended
by those to whom they are applied. Any social control that
stops short of intelligent co-operation is a failure. It may get
the result of thinking, but unless it gets also the process of
thinking, it is only a mill-stone hung about the neck.

Another growing means of suppressing the growth and
vigor of thinking is the cult of the expert. It seems that the
world needs a periodical demonstration of the fallibility of
the expert. In these times it has taken the form of the
ridiculous pronunciamentos of famous scholars regarding

274 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

world issues. It is not enough merely to say that they have
ventured out of the field in which they are expert. The fault
inheres in the nature of expert knowledge, for how else can
expert knowledge be defined than by using the trappings of
dogmatism? It has been said, — with how much truth I do
not pretend to know, — that the mantle of dogmatism is
slipping from the shoulders of the priest and resting upon
the shoulders of the scientist. If such a position offends by
its obscurantism, judgment should not be passed lightly until
the characteristic manner of science has been recalled. What
science is presented without recourse to "it was once sup
posed but we now know"? Or, the "opinion" of others is
contrasted with the "truth" of science. The demand is
made that those who are expert should be given complete
control of public or institutional programs, and much amuse
ment is had over the notion of a grocer or a teamster on the
school committee. But why? The implicit answer is that
a grocer is just a grocer and nothing more. The presumption
is also that members of school boards must be members of
school boards and nothing more. This is a characteristic
assumption of the expert and is contrary to some rather
broad human points of view. Even if we should grant that a
person expert in school administration would make a better
school committeeman, which may be doubted, still there is a
large question unanswered. It is, Suppose the grocer is to
be just a grocer, and the carpenter just a carpenter, and so
on with all the rest, must it not lead to a static condition of
society in which each is less than himself because he is not
more? This is the paradox which the expert seems never to
grasp. Thinking is a process, not a result.

To those who read only the best and greatest science the
above description will seem more like a caricature than a
portrait. It is in fact not the great scientist who loses touch
with reality in developing his power of analysis. I am speak
ing of the expert and his follower and with this purpose only
in mind: to suggest that expert knowledge is a shield of ig
norance and a substitute for judgment. Probably the expert
is not more to be blamed for this attitude than the rest of us,

SOME PRACTICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR THINKING 275

for even otherwise sensible people who possess a bit of know-
edge soon begin to treat it as a finality. This is involved in
the distinction which we make between thinking and know
ing. The expert is the one who knows and knows that he
knows. Such an attitude is dogmatism and dogmatism of
the most fatal variety. Dogmatism is about the most com
mon substitute for thinking and is the bitterest enemy of
democratic government. It matters very little whether it
takes the form of the idols of the theater or the idols of
science, for scientific truth is just like any other truth: as
soon as it is accepted it must be revised. It is this process of
revision which I have spoken of as judgment or thinking,
which has worth independent of its pragmatic product.

A typical outcropping of the cult of the expert has been
naively expressed by a recent writer in the discussion of
academic freedom. The expert usually stops in his theory
with the praise of expert farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and
statesmen, but this writer bluntly tells us that "it is a decree
of human nature, a principle ever more emphasized by the
growing intensity and complexity of modern society, that
a few should do the thinking for the many." 1 At a somewhat
later point in his discussion he expresses the logic of his own
position in the remark, "The goal [of democracy] must be a
social order in which equality of opportunity is made the
instrument for assuring a dynamic, progressive society based
upon socially valuable inequalities." 2 A better statement
could hardly be made of the theory that thinking has instru
mental and merely instrumental value. But democracy
requires a theory that thinking is of value as a goal, not as a
mere means to a goal. If experts are to do our thinking for
us, they would be put into exclusive possession of the only
valuable existence. It is possible to show that practical
evils would flow from turning over the thinking to the few,
largely because the few who think also desire, but it is not
to the present purpose.

Thinking is theoretically and practically the hardest and
most unpleasant task that the natural adult faces. Bio-

1 School and Society, Vol. Ill, 1917, p. 625. 2 Ibid., p. 629.

276 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

logically it means lack of adjustment and danger. The
course of least resistance must be abandoned for the good
of the organism when it is confronted with a new situation.
It has been the purpose of this paper to set forth one or two
common experiences from this point of view and to suggest
in what manner the substitute will never quite serve for the
original. If an individual is face to face with a situation that
demands thought, he will at first try to escape. He may say,
I have thought (habit) or, Another has thought for me
(dogmatism). The situation will answer, That does not
count; you must think for yourself now. There is even,
therefore, a biological necessity for individual thinking, but
in the realm of biology the value involved is mere life and
might be secured by habit or by expert knowledge; or, if
these two could not save life, the loss would be slight. In
ethics and politics, however, the value involved is a way of
life, and in this case to offer a substitute for thinking is to
lose all that one has to lose. In the first field one loses only
if the habit or information fails; in the second field one loses
whether the substitute fails or succeeds.

Under the influence of biological science we have gradually
come to think of judgment as a mere means of survival and
this theory has led directly and surely to the conclusion that,
if we can get the result without the hard discipline of think
ing, we make a good bargain. When this is taken together
with the suppression of consciousness in psychology and the
decadence of individual responsibility before the law, it is no
wonder that mechanical efficiency is judged to be more
worthy than personal expansion and intellectual develop
ment.

SELFHOOD
EMIL CARL WILM

SINCE Hume's justly celebrated discussion of the self,
many efforts have been made to render the theory of the
self more articulate and to place it upon a broader basis of
empirical fact. If the results appear disproportionate to the
length of the discussion and the prominence of the partici
pants in it, one reason for this is doubtless that there has
been little agreement either as to the precise objects under
discussion, or as to the methods competent for the solution
of the problems at issue. The mooted question of the
prevalence of self-consciousness in experience, one phase
only of the general self-problem, is a case in point. "Das:
Ich denke," wrote Kant, "muss alle meine Vorstellungen
begleiten konnen." This view, which in recent discussions
is emphatically expressed by Professor Calkins and other
psychologists of standing, meets with a flat denial from other
writers equally skilled in introspection and equally accredited
spokesmen of modern psychology. "All consciousness,"
asserts Professor Calkins, "is self-consciousness, that is, one
never is conscious at all without an awareness, however
vague, confused, unanalyzed, and unexpressed, of oneself-
being-conscious." J Again, "always in being conscious I am
aware not only of myself but of other-than-self (either per
sonal or impersonal)." 2 This view is rejected by James, on
the other hand, as "a perfectly wanton assumption." "As
well might I contend that I cannot dream without dreaming
that I dream, swear without swearing that I swear, deny

1 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. V,
1908, p. 68.

2 Philosophical Review, Vol. XVII, 1908, p. 274, and in other places.
The position is of course more sweeping than Kant's, who treated the
omnipresence of consciousness as only potential.

278 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

without denying that I deny, as maintain that I cannot
know without knowing that I know. I may have either
acquaintance-with, or knowledge-about, an object O without
thinking about myself at all." 1 Equally emphatic is the
rejection of the omnipresence theory on the part of Professor
Titchener: "It is often said, in the psychological text-books,
that a conscious self forms the permanent background of
consciousness, and that we have but to direct our attention
to this background, to bring the self to full realisation. The
statement is made so frequently and so dogmatically that
the author inclines to suspect the existence of individual
differences. It may be that some minds are cast, so to say,
in a personal mould, and that others are relatively imper
sonal. In the author's experience, the conscious self, while
it may always be constructed by a voluntary effort, is of
comparatively rare occurrence."

The real reason, however, for the fundamental disagree
ment (I venture to think) is not so much the existence of
individual differences, although these doubtless prevail, as
the fact that in the discussion of selfhood, as in so many
other philosophical debates, there is usually little pretense
of agreement as to the definitions of the terms employed in
the discussion. Self is a broad and loose term, and it would
seem a matter of the first importance, in any consideration
of the subject, to indicate in advance just what meaning a
writer intends when he uses the term. This meaning will
at the outset have to be somewhat arbitrarily chosen and
may in the end prove indefensible; but whether it is defensi
ble or not could never be shown, unless it is first understood.
It will be the attempt of the present paper (i) to restate
somewhat systematically certain distinctions which have
been generally recognized by those who have dealt with the
self-problem, and (2) in the light of these distinctions to
reconsider briefly in what sense, if any, the self exists.

According to a time-honored view, deeply imbedded in

1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 274.

2 A Text-Book of Psychology, p. 544. See also the same author's excel
lent discussion of the subject in his A Beginner's Psychology, Ch. XII.

SELFHOOD 279

the language of common sense and elaborately articulated in
philosophy, experience is bipolar in its constitution. It con
tains within itself the double aspect of knower and known.
There is the empirical self, the content or object side of con
sciousness, composed of so-called states or processes of con
sciousness like perceptions, memories, emotions, and conative
experiences, and the subject, the transcendental self in the
Kantian terminology, which is aware of these experiences,
to whom these experiences, in some sense, belong. The
structure of the empirical self is usually represented as dis
crete. As Hume expressed it in the oft-quoted passage, it is
"nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity,
and are in a perpetual flux and movement." This view of
the empirical self is of the largest historical importance, since
it forms the presupposition of nearly all the discussion of the
self since Hume's day. Writers have either regarded the
self's contents as permanently discrete, with all the conse
quences which this view entails, or else have expended their
efforts in devising something to provide the systematic con
nection within the self which was originally lacking, to weld,
as it were, the sundered elements of experience and make
out of them a rational whole.

The discussion since Hume has largely centered around
the question of the transcendental self, around the question
whether the existence of the self as knower, understood to
be a permanent entity of some sort, other than any transitory
process or content within the conscious stream itself, is
scientifically defensible. It is at this point that a funda
mental divergence of opinion as to the methods which are
fruitful in such discussions has made itself most severely felt,
and a difference of findings is probably inevitable so long
as no initial agreement on methodological principles exists.
One group of writers, following Hume, recognizes only the
immediately given; their appeal is to * facts' revealed to ob
servation, which are to be described and explained, all ex
planation, in turn, being in terms of the conscious stream
itself. Another group of writers is convinced that the

280 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

experiences immediately given find their adequate explana
tion only in entities or principles which lie outside immediate
experience, entities which can be reached only by a process
of logical inference. That anything more than an advance
in the solution of the problem under discussion is to be ex
pected, even if the disputants could be forced to some com
mon methodological basis, is probably too much to hope, in
view of the fact that, even where such a common basis ap
pears to exist, serious differences of opinion remain. The
fact is, that, so far from finding agreement in results among
those holding similar methodological points of view, we find
four distinct positions maintained by writers of standing.
There are those who recognize the self as a permanent entity,
existing over and above the discrete ideas and functions
which are said to compose the stream of consciousness, as
an object of immediate experience (Calkins) ; 1 another group
of writers disclaims an immediate experience of such an en
tity, and does not regard extra-psychological considerations
as admissible in the discussion (Titchener) ; a third class of
writers agrees that a separate self fitting the traditional de
scription of the transcendental self is logically implied by
the facts of experience, or is required as an explanatory
principle (the Neo-Kantians) ; and, finally, there is a fourth
class of writers who, although admitting the scientific status
of entities logically implied by the data of immediate ex
perience, or required for their explanation, do not recognize
the logical necessity of postulating the self's existence (James,
Pillsbury).

I shall set down, in what follows, with as much support as
the limits of my space permit, a few points which, while in no
sense new, may prove useful in dealing with the self-
problem.

It seems to me an indefensible position, in the first place,
to suggest that psychology is, or must be, presuppositionless,
and that it cannot, as a science, admit the existence of any

1 This seems to be the position of Professor Calkins, but I am not at
all confident that I understand her view of the relation of the self to the
empirical data of consciousness.

SELFHOOD 281

entities which do not come in the guise of presented facts,
but are merely explanatory postulates suggested by the pre
sented facts. If this is really the case, psychology stands
alone among the sciences in this regard. The method of
science, as of philosophy, it seems to me, must be experience
and legitimate inference from experience; and I do not think
that it would be difficult to show that every psychologist, no
matter to what tendency in psychology he adheres, recognizes
and employs logical constructions of various types for which
only the suggestions are contained in the empirical materials
with which he works. The real, as Dr. Bosanquet somewhere
says, is what we are obliged to think, and the knowledge of
reality which science affords would be immeasurably im
poverished if the hypothetical and logical elements which it
contains were eliminated from it. If the separate self, there
fore, were clearly required by the facts of psychology, I do
not see why the self should not be admitted for what it is:
not as an experienced fact, as a datum on the same plane
with Hume's impressions, but as an explanatory principle
without which the observed facts of consciousness would be
unintelligible. Its justification would be pragmatic: it would
be justified by its success in explaining characteristics of ex
perience which would remain unintelligible without its as
sumption.

Nevertheless, it would be clearly needless to treat the per
manent self as a logical construction, if it proved to be an
empirical datum. That it is such a datum is asserted by
Professor Calkins, for example, according to whom the self
is not only immediately known to exist, but is immediately
experienced "as persistent, inclusive, unique, and related."
Only as immediately experienced, she adds, have we a right
to use these characteristics in describing consciousness.1

It seems pertinent to inquire whether such characters as
are here enumerated can be data of immediate experience
at all. To the present writer it seems as improbable that

1 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. V, 1908,
pp. 64-68. See also the same author's A First Book in Psychology, p. 3,
and elsewhere.

282 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

these characters can be given in immediate experience as
that Hume's bundle of perceptions should be a datum of
immediate experience. The characteristics which Professor
Calkins ascribes to the self, as well as those which Hume
ascribes to it, imply a knowledge of the self in its entirety,
in some sense; but the history of the self as a whole cannot
possibly be an object of immediate experience.1

In other passages of Professor Calkins's account, however,
the term self does not seem clearly to stand for a separate
self, or for a type of activity, as it does in Kant; it appears
rather as a generic term, denoting a "complex of ideas, func
tions, experiences." How one is to reconcile the trait of
"inclusiveness," in the sense just defined, with the trait of
"uniqueness," as next described by Professor Calkins, is not
easy to see. When we "reflect upon" the self (is 'reflect
upon' the word?), "we may describe it as a consciousness of
a this-which-could-not-be-replaced-by-another. Now we
simply are not conscious of ideas and functions as, in this
sense, unique. A given self, with a different idea, is still this
self," etc.2 How a self can gain and pay off ideas indefinitely
and itself remain unperturbed and unaltered in its essence is
perhaps a problem for those versed in the ways of the
Absolute. That the empirical self should be able to maintain
a consciousness of self-identity after a partial alteration of
its contents, owing to the loss of some elements and the
acquisition of new ones, is, however, not in the least sur
prising, when one remembers the enormous scope of the self's
history and the comparative unimportance, therefore, of
the changes wrought in it by any passing experience. The
fact that the consciousness of self-identity does actually
become uncertain when the changes in its experience are
sufficiently radical and abrupt, or when they affect its more

1 This is a fact which, when clearly recognized, is seen to invalidate
either Hume's theory of the self, as set out in his famous definition, or
else his theory that the only valid knowledge is that which originates in
impressions.

2 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. V,
1908, p. 66.

SELFHOOD 283

characteristic phases, as in the more serious perversions of
bodily sensibility, is, I believe, not without significance for
our problem. Whatever our decision on this may be, we
are safe in asserting that a self which persisted unchanged
and unique in spite of its changing ideas, functions, and ex
periences, if such a self indeed existed, could not possibly be
an object of immediate experience. The self, whether re
garded as a name for the conscious life-history of the in
dividual or as an entity or function outside of and separate
from the stream of individual experience, is surely an ideal
construction, a conceptual generalization of which the im
mediately given experience forms merely the nucleus or core.
By self-consciousness, I conclude, we mean, or ought to
mean, merely the felt togetherness, the continuity, of any
present experience with the other constituents of the con
scious stream. Interpreted in this sense, James's assertion
of personal selfhood possesses absolute validity. " It seems
as if the elementary psychic fact is not thought or this thought
or that thought, but my thought, every thought being
owned. . . . Every one will recognise this to be true, so
long as the existence of something corresponding to the term
'personal mind' is all that is insisted on, without any par
ticular view of its nature being implied. On these terms the
personal self rather than the thought might be treated as
the immediate datum in psychology. . . . Thoughts con
nected as we feel them to be connected is what we mean
by personal selves." l Of the existence of the self, thus
interpreted, there cannot be the slightest doubt. In the
writer's own introspection, the focal elements of conscious
ness are merely emphasised phases of a more or less distinct
background of marginal experiences, of which the feeling of
the body is by far the most frequently recurring constant
feature, although this may, in moments of higher attentive
concentration, entirely disappear. In addition, there is a
large field of other marginal constituents, of which the ideal
associations and meanings clustering around the more
prominent-appearing perceptual and imaginal structures
1 Psychology: Briefer Course, p. 153.

284 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

form ever-present, though constantly shifting, features. In
the empirical sense here explained, consciousness and self-
consciousness, indeed, turn out to be indistinguishable terms.
They are as correlative as perception and apperception, fore
ground and background, focus and margin. Our answer,
then, to the question what the self is, would be that it is a
name for the experiences of the individual felt and reflectively
conceived as forming in some sense a unity or system; it is
the stream of consciousness itself, viewed as coherent and
continuous. If an answer were demanded as to some specific
or permanent structure within the conscious stream which is
the self, I should reply (although reluctantly), the body.1

It is the recognition of the continuity and coherence of
mental states, just referred to, however, that offers the self-
psychologist of the traditional Kantian type the cue for his
crowning argument. The native stuff of consciousness, it is
said (with what warrant does not always appear), is a chaotic
manifold. Now it is the function of the self to remove the
heterogeneity, to overcome the discreteness, which primordial
experience presents. This is indeed the fundamental view
of Kant, according to whom the Durcheinander, the natural
chaos of sense experience, is ordered and organized through
the synthetic activity of intelligence. "Die Verbindung
eines Mannigfaltigen," he wrote, "kann iiberhaupt niemals
durch die Sinne in uns kommen. . . . Alle Verbindung ist
eine Verstandeshandlung." What is true of the raw ma
terial of sense is true of ideas as well. Each idea, too, is
distinct from every other, and the recognition of relations,
of whatever type, among ideas implies the self as a relating
principle or agent. This view, thoroughly domesticated in
English philosophy mainly through the influence of Green,
is typically expressed in a passage of Lotze's Metaphysic:
"Any comparison of two ideas, which ends by our finding

1 If the organic connection between any given mental content and the
rest of personal consciousness to which it belongs is definitely recognized,
the objections often urged against writers, that they employ terms imply
ing the existence of the self when they deny its existence, are seen to be
groundless.

SELFHOOD 285

their contents like or unlike, presupposes the absolutely in
divisible unity of that which compares them; it must be one
and the same thing which first forms the idea of #, then that
of by and which at the same time is conscious of the nature
and extent of the difference between them. . . . And so
our whole inner world of thoughts is built up; not as a mere
collection of manifold ideas existing with or after one an
other, but as a world in which these individual members are
held together and arranged by the relating activity of this
single pervading principle. This then is what we mean by
the unity of consciousness; and it is this that we regard as
the sufficient ground for assuming an indivisible soul." 1

Without delaying to discuss the now partly obsolete con
ception of Kant, that primitive experience consists of isolated,
uncompounded elements which are united into wholes by a
subsequent process of mental synthesis, it is perhaps suffi
cient to point out that, in order for the relations between
different contents to appear, it is only necessary that these
contents should be assembled into larger units of conscious
ness in which the contents in question, together with the
relations appearing between them, will be comprehended.
If the objection is raised that the formation of such larger
units would not provide for the permanence of the self, the
reply is that this does not necessarily follow and that the
objection is, in any case, irrelevant, since the permanence of
the self is one of the questions at issue. The permanence of
the self, argued from its synthetic function, would under any
view be no greater than the range of the objects which it
synthesizes; that is, it would be finite and variable. A
similar statement would apply to the alleged unity of the
self asserted to be implied by its unifying function. Here too
we reply that its unity would be merely as great as, but no
greater than, the unity belonging to its objects. But its
objects always fail of being perfectly systematic. The finite
self's world (whatever might be said of the Absolute's) is
always in part incoherent.

If, then, the question is asked, Who is the knower? What
1 Tr. edited by Bosanquet, 2d edition, Vol. II, pp. i/of.

286 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

is it that apprehends relations between the parts of a mani
fold? perhaps the best reply that can be given is in the tradi
tional terms: It is the mind or the self. Only by the self
is not now meant some non-empirical principle, forever
identical with itself, existing over and above the stream of
consciousness, but the concrete stream of consciousness
itself. Not only is the self as thus understood the knower; it
is the agent in every other mental operation as well. The
self, as Professor Pillsbury has well put it, "is all that we
are and know, organized, self-unified, and self-identical, a
growing vital unity that as a whole is effective in every
experience. When it is directed towards the control of ac
tion, we know it as will; when choosing from the many
stimuli that offer, as attention; when interpreting the
stimulus, as perception or judgment; when constructing new
forms from old experiences, as reason. But it is the same
everywhere, always active, and active in very much the
same way in every kind of mental process." 1 That such an
empirical knower is, from a scientific point of view, incom
parably preferable to the hypothetical self of traditional
metaphysics goes without saying, since the problem of ex
plaining how the synthesis of a manifold is effected is by no
means lightened, but only aggravated, by invoking a unitary
substance placed outside the stream of consciousness, and
hence beyond the reach of empirical observation. "The
idea of a self or Ego," as Mr. Bradley says, "joining together
from the outside the atomic elements, and fastening them
together in some miraculous way, not involved in their own
nature, is quite indefensible. It would be the addition of
one more discrete to the former chaos of discretes, and it
would still leave them all discrete. The idea of anything
being made wholly from the outside into something else . . .
seems in short utterly irrational."

Whether the stream of consciousness itself is capable of
bearing the burden placed upon it is a question which cannot
be answered by mere assertion, but only by actually demon-

1 Philosophical Review, Vol. XVI, 1907, p. 406.

2 Mind, N. S., Vol. IX, 1900, p. 37.

SELFHOOD 287

strating this possibility in connection with the various mental
functions in turn. The illustrations of the success of psy
chology in the explanation of the mind's various functions
without the hypothesis of the traditional self are found in
abundance in every modern psychological text-book. Not
only in the literal reinstatements of memory, where the past
history of the individual's consciousness is of course of prime
importance, but in the more selective functions of attention,
perception, association, conception, reasoning, emotion, and
action, the controlling influence of experience as a whole is
being demonstrated with a constantly increasing complete
ness and detail. Mental functions formerly assigned to a
set of mythical faculties or to a discarnate soul are seen to
be the activities or effects of systems of earlier experience
which project themselves into the present, determining the
further developments of experience at every step.1 The
completion of this work of retrospective explanation must, of
course, be viewed as a scientific aspiration rather than as a
humanly possible achievement. Nor can the assertion of
Professor Pillsbury, that no part of past experience is ever
lost or is without a determining influence upon present con
sciousness or behavior, be viewed as anything more than an
hypothesis, the truth of which lies wholly beyond the pos
sibility of scientific determination.

A type of explanation of the self's unity, to which prom
inence has often been given, is by reference to the existence
within the self of characteristic interests and purposes which
remain relatively permanent throughout the various muta
tions which the self otherwise suffers. According to this view,
the unity of the self is a teleological unity, like that of a
drama or a game of skill, a unity imparted to it by an under
lying plan, aim, or interest which the self is striving to realise
or fulfill. The two types of explanation, although appearing
at first sight to involve different principles, are related to
each other as causal and teleological explanation in general.
They are hence not contradictory but supplementary.

1 For a brief summary of the progress of recent psychology in empirical
explanations of this sort, see Pillsbury, loc. cit., especially pp. 393-400.

288 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Nevertheless, it must be recognized that, owing to the feeble
operation of the conative tendencies represented by the self's
current aims and interests, the organization and integration
of the inner life remains always at any given time imperfect,
to say nothing of the fluctuations of the interests and ideals
themselves, incident to maturation and decline, and to the
various crises to which the inner life is always exposed. Not
only is there at any given time a more or less permanent
stratification of the self into systems of different and more
or less incompatible interests and aims, but the history of
any life is often little more than a succession of different
groups of interests and aims, each of which arises only to
dissolve and give way to its successors. It may thus easily
happen that two stages of a man's life, removed from each
other by considerable periods of time, resemble each other
less than two parallel stages of different men's lives, so that
individual identity would here evidently be little more than
a name. The actually verifiable identity of the self, we con
clude, no matter from what view it is regarded, is a partial
and variable, not an absolute, quantity, which belongs to it
in its own right.

A word might be said in conclusion about the bearing of our
results on the question of the survival of the self after the
disappearance of the body, upon the relation to which, as
we have seen, its self-identity so largely depends. But I do
not wish to go into the question here, since I have dealt with
it somewhat fully elsewhere,1 beyond the statement that
the self's survival, in so far as it does indeed survive the body,
will probably depend upon the extent to which it has achieved
unity of life through the consistent pursuit of some aim,
interest, or plan, and upon the degree to which this aim,
interest, or plan coincides with the fundamental purpose of
the universe in which the self is to exist. Even this belief,

1 The Problem of Religion, Ch. VI, and Henri Bergson, Ch. XVII. There
is a particularly valuable discussion of the self and its place in reality as a
whole in Professor A. E. Taylor's Elements of Metaphysics, from which I
have received important suggestions, although I find myself dissenting
on some points.

SELFHOOD 289

it is seen, implies a conception of the universe which must
probably be viewed as an object of faith and hope, rather
than of logical demonstration. Nothing finer has been said
upon this than by Lotze: We have no other principle for
deciding the probability of immortality "beyond this gen
eral idealistic conviction, that every created thing will con
tinue, if and so long as its continuance belongs to the meaning
of the world; that everything will pass away which had its
authorised place only in a transitory phase of the world's
course. That this principle admits of no further application
in human hands hardly needs to be mentioned. We certainly
do not know the merits which may give to one existence a
claim to eternity, nor the defects which deny it to others." l

1 Metaphysic, tr. edited by Bosanquet, Vol. II, p. 182.

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT

ROBERT MORRIS OGDEN

THERE exists at the present time a wide range of opinion
concerning psychology as a science: its aims, its point of
view, its fundamental principles, and its methodology. On
one hand, we have structuralists holding more or less con
sistently to the description and analysis of conscious con
tents. In order to explain the conscious continuum, a sort
of psychical linkage between contents is assumed. This
linkage is usually referred to underlying physiological proc
esses in the nervous system. These nervous processes may
then be conceived as affording the only real basis for a causal
interpretation of mind. Some, however, lay stress upon
associative linkage within consciousness, even leaning to
wards a conception of psychical causality distinct from,
though possibly still paralleling, the physical causality of
nervous processes. Among the more extreme structuralists
we find a tacit renunciation of the problems of behavior, of
learning, of meaningful interpretation, and the like. The
contents of consciousness which appear in such functions
are described for themselves alone, while the function itself
is relegated to the sphere of the ' practical' and non-scientific.

In some sense as a reaction against the limitations set by
a 'pure' psychology which makes the definition of conscious
structures its chief or only concern, we have the program of
the behaviorist. Realizing that the practical problems must
be solved, the behaviorist has proposed a solution in ob
jective terms. These terms are nervous processes in causal
sequence. The behaviorist starts from the general assump
tion of nervous connections mediating between external
situations (stimuli) and internal responses (mainly muscular
and glandular). His aim, then, is to understand the nature
of these connections as laid down in the nervous system at

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 291

birth, and as modified through subsequent training, by
establishing the causal connection between situations and
responses, each of which can be directly analyzed and its
effective nature determined.

The limitations which are self-imposed alike in the doc
trines of the structuralist and of the behaviorist indicate
both the strength and weakness of these respective views.
It is not undesirable that one should concern himself with
the purely existential in consciousness, in order that he may
push his analysis to its furthermost bounds without ulterior
considerations. Neither is it undesirable that one should
attempt a study of behavior in terms of nervous processes
and connections that are purely objective. But to those
who are interested in the question: What is mind for?
neither the structuralist nor the behaviorist gives a satis
factory answer. The former does not raise the question of
behavior, while the latter, making it his chief concern, neg
lects conscious participation as in no wise relevant to his
problem. Each rejects a functional interpretation of mind,
although it is only by functioning that mind can possibly
be of use.

It is with some of the more general aspects of functional
psychology that we are concerned in this paper. The point
of view from which the problem is treated is mainly that of
the so-called " Wiirzburg School." As a result of the contro
versy which arose regarding the existence of imageless con
tents, the main trend of the investigations of the thought-
processes directed by the late Professor Oswald Kulpe has
been somewhat obscured. From personal conversations with
Kiilpe, I gathered that his chief object was to determine the
significance and variety of mental acts and functions. Un
fortunately, his career was closed before the experimental
foundations of such a program had been completely laid.
Among the products of his laboratory, the investigation of
Ernst Westphal, "Uber Haupt- und Nebenaufgaben bei
Reaktionsversuche," 1 is perhaps the most important con
tribution to this particular end. Special reference to this
1 Arch.}, d. ges. PsychoL, Vol. XXI, 1911, pp. 219-434.

292 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

work is made here because the doctrine of the "stages of
consciousness" which Westphal developed has furnished the
point of departure for our general theory of mental activity
and conscious content.

Taking as his problem the primary and secondary tasks
which any situation is likely to suggest, Westphal set about
to determine the nature and interplay of such functions.
As material he drew a variety of polygons on cards. These
were exposed with the aid of a card-changer, and the observer
was instructed to determine the number of angles and the
longest side. These determinations served, now the one,
now the other, as his primary and secondary tasks.

From the introspective reports of his observers, Westphal
was able to differentiate the following five "stages" in the
solutions of his problems :

1. The result is merely given in consciousness. This means
that the object representing the solution of the problem, as
for instance the contour of the figure, is seen in a clear and
definite manner. Yet it is only seen. No conscious relations
are established, for the particular point of view of the task
is not brought to bear consciously upon the object. The
observer reports that "nothing was done with it;" "it was
not evaluated;" "no notice was taken of it," and the like.

2. The object is noted from the point of view of the task.
Nothing is altered in the content. The object is not clearer,
at least not necessarily so, yet the point of view afforded by
the task is now directed upon it. While the contour was
previously quite definite, it is now noted to be straight or
curved; it is seen as straight or curved.

3. The object is potentially known, though still unformu-
lated and unexpressed. When the task is not too difficult,
the stage of noting leads immediately to a potential knowl
edge of the result. That is, if the contour of the figure has
been noted as curved, the observer now knows that it is
curved, without, however, being expressly confronted with
his knowledge. If a decision was to be reached between a
triangle and a square, the observer knows what kind of
figure it is without an expressed knowledge of the number of

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 293

sides or angles. He knows without naming. He has a kind
of knowledge of three-sidedness or four-sidedness, but it is
unformulated in his mind. It is not an actual but a potential
knowledge. When the task is too difficult, noting does not
always suffice for potential knowledge of the result; the
formulation must be completed by another step which may
rest directly upon noting, without the mediation of a stage
which can be termed potential knowledge.

4. The object is known and formulated (konstatiert) . The
observer experiences here an expressed knowledge of his
result. The contour of the figure is determined as curved
rather than as straight. The sides which have been seen
are determined as being curved sides. Words are not an
essential part of this formulation, yet they are usually in
readiness for its expression. The definite act of establishment
is the important factor, though it is somewhat difficult to
describe. The observer refers to it as the act of "establish
ing," "determining," "nailing fast," etc.

5. There is also a lower stage than the first mentioned,
at which the result is in no sense achieved, yet data are
given from which it may be subsequently obtained (er-
schliessbar). This is inferred from later reproductions and
conclusions, which appear to require that a characteristic
right angle, or some other detail, has been presented, in order
to justify the judgment now reached.

It will be seen that these distinctions bear closely upon the
special problem of WestphaPs investigation. Although they
have a wide range of application, as the author has clearly
pointed out, they are not inclusive enough to afford a com
plete survey of mental functions, since they are limited to
the genesis of a special problem-consciousness. The scope
of the mind's activity must be wider than this, if only to
afford the presentations upon which the problem-conscious
ness may operate. Accordingly, we shall suggest a revision
of Westphal's doctrine to embrace the following three stages :
(i) Simple Presentation, (2) Awareness, (3) Cognition.

The first of these stages is analogous to Westphal's fifth,
or lowest, stage; yet it is not identical with it. The erschliess-

294 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

bar stage embraces data which, though not acted upon
at the time, are nevertheless selected for later activity be
cause of their relevancy to the problem at hand. The data
are relevant data, though their relevancy is not at the time
cfelt.' The stage of Simple Presentation may embrace such
objectively relevant contents, but it also includes others
having no connection with the task. These others may be
present simply because the sense receptors have been ap
propriately stimulated, or because the associative mechanism
has been operative.

The definition of presentation here adopted is nearly that
of Stout when he designates the objective facts of "imme
diate experience" by this term.1 But when Stout refers to
the function of presentations "present objects which are not
themselves presentations," 2 and upon this elaborates a
doctrine of the direction of thought, our agreement is only
partial. According to our view, presentations as such do
not function at all. Association is the chief function which
may be operative at this stage. No other functioning is
implied, though another is possible, as we shall see later. An
object when presented opens the way for others not presented,
through its associative connections with them. Previously
formed associations make possible readiness for revival. The
formation of new associations at the stage of Simple Pres
entation is also probable, though some investigators have
concluded that attention is a necessary factor. We need
not concern ourselves here with this question, except to
remark that many of the mental acts commonly attributed
to the 'unconscious mind' seem at least to demand the
formation of new associations, if not a more rational type
of functioning. Therefore, these acts may occur without
conscious awareness.

The stage of Simple Presentation affords a wealth of
sensory, imaginal, notional, and affective material, and a
diversity of associative connections. It is in a sense hy
pothetical, because it is not directly subject to observation.
At this level a strict differentiation of the physiological and

1 Manual of Psychology, 3d ed., 1913, p. n. 2 Ibid., p. 171.

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 295

the psychological is impossible. All we can know of it is
known indirectly. We assume that the bit of color now
clearly within our range of vision was there somehow before
we noted its presence, but whether its thereness was physical,
physiological, or psychological is a matter of hypothesis.
Later revival, and modifications of behavior that can be
traced to such a source, justify the assumption of actuality
for these contents in simple presentation as mental, though
not necessarily as conscious facts.

The second stage of consciousness, which we have called
the stage of Awareness, is effected by the action of attention.
Attention, as here defined, has the single function of clarify
ing the contents upon which it acts. It is important to note
this limitation upon the function of attention. The term
has a number of meanings. It is frequently used in so broad
a manner that it may embrace awareness of momentary and
irrelevant distractions at one extreme and concentrated
thought at the other. In the interests of greater precision in
the characterization of mental activities, we have purposely
renounced all but the narrow function of clarification as
being specifically that of attention.

The conditions of attention are varied, and we should
describe them much as do other psychologists. Briefly con
sidered, we may say that they are both external and internal
to the organism. Externally, changes of stimulation through
addition, subtraction, and alteration of stimuli are productive
of varying degrees of clearness in conscious contents. Par
ticipating reciprocally with these are internal conditions of
the physiological and mental state: dispositional traits, con
genital and acquired; associative connections; the imme
diately preceding activities, etc. What we wish to insist
upon is that attention, however aroused, has the sole func
tion of rendering the contents upon which it acts vivid and
clear. The number of different contents that may emerge
simultaneously with varying degrees of clearness is a problem
of the 'span of attention,' or more properly the span of
awareness. It would appear that several different contents
may manifest themselves in this way simultaneously from

296 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

out the larger field of Simple Presentation. The field of
consciousness is a shifting mass of contents, some few of
which emerge into clearness, while the rest constitute a sort
of undifferentiated background.

We have called the third and final stage of consciousness
Cognition or the consciousness of knowing. This stage is
achieved by a unique function, the Relating Activity, which
is responsible for the problem or task, bearing upon the data
which the mind affords. The selective activity of this func
tion is different from that of attention, since it selects from
a "point of view." It groups and unifies into meaningful
wholes those contents which have been offered and are found
suited to its purpose. All the stages which Westphal differ
entiates are determined by this functional activity. Even
the erschliessbar stage, in so far as it selects relevant data
because of their relevancy, gives evidence of relational ac
tivity, though it be quite unconscious. It should be noted,
however, that the relevancy of such contents is at times
fortuitous.

A further analysis of relational activity may be under
taken from many different angles. We have already ex
plained Westphal's genesis of the function of interpretation.
Ernst Durr has offered a useful classification of the relations
in his revision of Ebbinghaus's Grundzuge der Psychologie.
Though essentially logical in its form, his consideration ap
pears to be based upon the fundamentally psychological
act of relating by comparison. There are, he tells us,1 four
chief types of relation: similarity, difference, equality, and
identity. To this list he adds, though he does not develop,
a fifth type, Besonderheit or particularity. This relation
would appear to have a genetic significance by intimating
that the first appearance of the relational function is a crude
setting-off of contents. The particularizing of parts in wholes
is a primitive differentiation without reference to an explicit
category. Such particularization is dichotomous, emphasiz
ing the part which is thus set off from all the rest of expe
rience. Though naturally founded upon an act of attention,

i Vol. II, p. 278.

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 297

particularization is still distinguishable from emergence into
clearness. Attention selects and may provoke associative
trends, but it does not "set off," for it involves no point of
view, however vague. Attention clarifies discrete contents,
one or several. To particularize, however, is to group, to
assemble, and thus set off a part from all the rest of experi
ence. Out of this primitive function arise the more refined
similarities and differences, identities and equalities, which
summarize abstractly the bases of our logical categories and
systems of knowledge.

Other lists of mental functions, including the relations,
are given by many writers, including Stumpf in his paper,
"Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen," 1 Calkins in
her Introduction to Psychology,2 Dunlap in his System of
Psychology,3 and Coe in a paper entitled, "A Proposed
Classification of Mental Functions." 4 For Stumpf the chief
functions are : the noting of ' appearances ' and their re
lations, the combining of contents into complexes, con
ception, apprehension and judgment, feelings of agitation
(Gemutsbewegungeri), desire and volition. He does not of
fer this as an exhaustive list, but rather as illustrative of
the distinction he is drawing between function and content.
Calkins gives a tentative list of the relations, while Dunlap
writes: "As examples of relations which are probably ele
mentary we may name the following: difference, identity,
similarity, greater, less, betweenness, direction (peculiar to
space), a relation peculiar to time, agreement, and possibly
the relations of good and bad. At any rate, it is difficult to
see how these can be resolved into any other relations: but
the list is only a suggestion." Coe gives five "biological"
and six "preferential" functions. The subdivisions of the
first group are: "i. Increase in the spatial range of objects
responded to. 2. Increase in the temporal range of objects
responded to. 3. Increase in the range of magnitudes to

1 Abh. d. kgl. Akad. d. Wiss. z. Berlin, 1905.
z New York, ist ed., 1901, pp. I3of.

3 New York, 1912, p. 149.

4 Psychological Review, Vol. XXII, 1915, pp. 87-98.

298 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

which response is made. 4. Increase in the range of qualities
responded to. 5. Increase in the range of environmental
co-ordinations to which co-ordinated responses are made."
Those of the second group are: "i. To be conscious. 2. To
multiply objects of consciousness. 3 . To control objects, one
self included. 4. To unify objects, oneself included. 5. To
communicate, that is, have in common. 6. To contemplate."
Each of these lists has its suggestive value, yet none of
them tells us very much about the analytic nature of the
functions named. If we assume a fundamental impressi
bility which is, in a way, the function of experiencing per se
and the occasion of all presentations, then the three addi
tional functions of associating, attending, and relating seem
to furnish us with a means of analysing all the more complex
activities of mind. For example, let us consider Stumpf s
list. His ' noting of appearances ' would be the same as our
act of attention, while for us relations are not 'noted/ but
cognized or known. His ' combination into complexes'
would appear to be associative in the main, though it is
probable that particularization is also involved. 'Con
ception' is but the act of relating from a definite and re
stricted point of view. 'Apprehension' is defined with less
certainty, for it may mean presentation, awareness, or cog
nition. 'Judgment' may be defined as an expressed rela
tionship, i. e., one falling within Westphal's fourth stage of
consciousness. Functionally, it is hardly to be distinguished
from the act of conception, except in so far as the latter
involves a more complex series of judgments that are cumu
lative and thus give rise to the 'concept' which is a general
idea. We might similarly distinguish inference as being a
series of judgments, not cumulative, but leading to a final
judgment. All such logical distinctions are essentially one
in the fact that they involve the establishment of more or less
subtle relations. The affective and volitional functions
which Stumpf adds to his list are somewhat different. Here
the aesthetic and the ethical are suggested. Yet it is doubtful
if a unique function can be discovered in the acts of will
or emotion, in appreciation or desire. The differentiae are

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 299

more especially due to formulations resting upon the precise
contents that enter into the associational, attentional, and
relational acts. Affections undoubtedly arise in functional
settings, yet we may conclude, tentatively at least, that
these arise as affective contents, and not as functions.

Calkins' and Dunlap's lists need not detain us, for they
are expressly lists of the relations. Coe's * biological' func
tions likewise may be dismissed because we are dealing now
with mental rather than with physiological activity. The
connection is not so remote, however, as this summary dis
missal might suggest. As regards Coe's first two f preferen
tial' functions, 'to be conscious' and 'to multiply objects of
consciousness,' these appear to be embraced by the general
function of experiencing per se that we have assumed. The
third and fourth, 'to control' and 'to unify objects, oneself
included,' involve association, attention, and relation in
varying degrees which the specific acts alone would indicate.
The fifth function, 'communication,' is based upon reflexes
and may be to some extent instinctive, yet it involves re
lational acts manifest at the stage of cognition, since it ex
presses a formulated knowledge. 'Contemplation,' the sixth
of these functions, is also a relational activity. Its unique
ness as experience seems to rest upon a certain immediacy of
the related contents. Without seeking after points of view
or categories to classify with, and without motivating re
actions of an adjustive sort, we take the object of contem
plation at its face value. It has no ulterior meanings. This
implies subtleties of usage, but it hardly proclaims the pres
ence of a unique function.

Although we have done scant justice to many of the sug
gestions included in these lists, our comment may perhaps
serve to indicate that the functions of association, attention,
and relation can be applied in a reasonably broad and in
clusive manner, without losing their distinction.

Returning to our revised stages of consciousness, it must
be admitted that the term "stages," which we carried over
from Westphal, is not quite so appropriate in our scheme as
it was in his. Westphal's stages are the steps of a progressive

300 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

development which may terminate at any one, leaving those
above it unattained. In the typical instance this is true of
Presentation, Awareness, and Cognition. Many mental
objects remain at the level of simple presentation, while a
few emerge into attentional clearness, to become, all or part,
the subject of further selection by the relating function.
One cannot insist, however, that the last two stages must in
variably follow in the order named. Westphal has pointed
out that the different stages he names are accomplished with
varying degrees of attention and that they are quite inde
pendent of attention as such. Still, he has not shown that
contents which are cognized are ever totally without the
range of attention. For evidence of this sort we must turn
to explorations in the debatable land of the 'sub-conscious '
and the 'unconscious.' Here we find suggestion, if not
proof, of a wider range of relational activity than is normally
met with. Cases such as those of 'double personality,'
where the individual seems able to converse on one theme
while writing automatically, yet intelligently, upon another,
call for special consideration. Therefore, we shall not deny
the possibility of a relational activity of some order imme
diately upon presentation. More importance attaches to
the essential difference in the three functions than to a fixed
order of their appearance.

The doctrine of these discrete functions suggests a general
interpretation of psychology and is significant for many re
lated disciplines such as education, the normative sciences,
and epistemology. For education, concerned as it is with
the process of learning and the development of personality
and character, it is evident that the functions of association
and attention, although of fundamental importance, are yet
inadequate. The growth of intelligence rests upon the unique
activity of relating. This is the truly creative function of
mind. Association and attention are in some measure inde
pendent of individual initiative. The mere sequence of con
scious events, and of associated acts of behavior, may pro
vide learning of a kind, but it is arbitrary and non-selective.
The relating of contents furnishes the sole method of gaining

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 301

insight and knowledge. By an appropriate selection of ob
jects and the conditions of their presentation, one can force
upon a pupil the acts of association and attention. The re
lating act is more strictly individual and is much less com
pletely within the control of the instructor. Presentation
and awareness condition thought, but thinking, or the es
tablishment of meanings, follows the individual's own
initiative. This is why teaching depends so largely upon the
art of arousing interest and individual responsiveness. A
deal of unsound pedagogy is rooted in the theory that to
attend and to associate is all that is necessary in order to
know. The case of the imbecile who may be quite proficient
in association and attention, yet without the ability to relate
cogently, is a striking evidence of the fallacy of this view.
Mental tests indicate that individuals of sub-normal intelli
gence may be able to perform mathematical operations in
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as well as,
and sometimes better than, normal individuals of their
mental age. But when more concrete problems are set,
such as that of determining the amount a farmer receives for
639 bushels of wheat at $.98 a bushel, they are unable to
comprehend the relations.

The normative sciences, logic, ethics, and aesthetics, treat
each of a special mode of relationship from a certain point
of view.1 It is likewise through the establishment of rela
tions that the foundations of a theory of knowledge are laid.
Reality is a product of relational activity. The adequacy of
any such concept is determined by the nature of the demand
for existential facts to justify relations which the mind
establishes.2

These brief comments must suffice, in order that we may
devote the remainder of our paper to a consideration of the
conscious contents upon which the mental functions operate.
We may designate the elemental contents as being of four

1 Cf. the author, An Introduction to General Psychology, New York, 1914,
pp. 253ff.

2 Cf. the author, "The Relation of Psychology to Philosophy and Edu
cation," Psychological Review, Vol. XX, 1913, pp. i86ff.

302 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

kinds: sensations, images, affections, and thoughts. Of the
first three classes we shall say but little, since all are com
monly accepted and their respective characteristics reason
ably well known. Association, attention, and relation act
upon elements of each of these classes and likewise upon
their attributes. The contents of thought demand some
special consideration, both because they have been fre
quently rejected and because they are dependent for their
existence upon the function of relation.

The unfavorable reaction which attended the discussion
of 'imageless' thought was largely due to the insistence of
its critics that these contents should substantiate their claim
to existence by direct comparison with the accepted elements,
sensation, image, and affection. The criteria advanced by
structural psychology, especially those concerning the at
tributes, were not appropriate for a convincing demonstra
tion. It is upon functional rather than upon structural
grounds that the thought contents must be considered.
Indeed, but for an explanation of their existence such as is
afforded by the doctrine of mental acts of relation, thought
contents would have no place in systematic psychology.
They are not contents which can be described in terms of
extensity or intensity. Their duration is difficult to deter
mine, and while their qualities are unique, they are not sub
ject to a classification such as we can apply to the other
elements.1 The question as to the existence of thought
elements resolves itself into the question of a structural
versus a functional psychology. We must therefore recon
sider our foundations before we can justify the acceptance
of this new category of conscious contents.

In a purely structural psychology existential qualifications
are paramount. In so far as the province of psychology is
limited to the existential facts 'adduced from introspective
description and analysis, it is difficult to establish any ele
ment save sensation. For this reason neither affection nor
the image can be said to have won an incontestable place in
the scheme of elements. Yet, even though we assume all

1 Cf. K. Biihler, Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol., Vol. IX, 1907, pp. 315, 36if.

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 303

three elements with their respective attributes, and the
usual views regarding association, memory, attention, etc.,
still the interpretation of human action and conduct is in
complete. Realizing this, the behaviorists support their
point of view by contending that the results of introspection
are not practical. At least, it must be admitted that the
basis for an applied psychology receives but scanty consid
eration in the restricted program of the structuralist. As a
result, the interests of many psychologists seem to waver at
present between mental tests, on the one hand, and recourse
to physiology, on the other. To be of use, mind must func
tion. For those who find the problem of mental activity no
less worthy of investigation than the problem of an organ
ism's action-system, the need of a more thorough-going
functional psychology than we now possess is quite evident.

The mental functions here advanced as a contribution to
the solution of this problem are three in number: Association,
Attention, and Relation. The first operates, or may op
erate, at all stages of consciousness, including even the hy
pothetical stage of Simple Presentation. The second op
erates at the stages of Awareness and Cognition, while the
third acts typically, though perhaps not exclusively, at the
last stage, that of Cognition. By means of association,
contents are connected by bonds conditioned through simul
taneity or close succession in experience. By means of at
tention, certain contents emerge into consciousness by rea
son of the clearness or vividness which is thus attached to
them. By means of relation, contents are set off and com
pared with one another; they are received or rejected as
suited or unsuited to the purpose of the problem at hand:
in the final step they are formulated and established as
meanings.

Strictly speaking, no one of these functions need be de
scribed as conscious in order to effect its end. We experience
association not so much through a consciousness of the as
sociative bond, as through the facts of revival. Yet associa
tions must have been formed before a revival can take place.
Similarly attention is marked by the attributive clearness of

304 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the content rather than by an aspect of consciousness which
is itself the act of attention. As for relation, although it
occurs typically at a stage of consciousness more accessible
to observation, the act of relating need not itself be a con
scious act. No mental activity is of necessity a conscious
activity. Still, it would be perverse logic to require that
relational acts must be unconscious because association and
attention are commonly so judged.

But what is the conscious mark of a relating act? It
is an element of thought, the consciousness of relation. Two
straight lines of unequal length may be regarded as differing
in length, as like or unlike in direction, or as alike in being
straight. These aspects are conscious factors that change
as the sensed contents, or their attributes, are variously re
lated. The act of relation may be attended by a unique ele
ment of consciousness which is imageless, i. e., non-sensory
and non-affective. The doctrine of the 'threshold' may ob
tain here as it does for sensation. Still the consciousness of
the relation is not an existential content in the same way in
which a sensation is, for it is tied to the contents that are
being related. The terms being related constitute its founda
tion, and the relation subsists, as it were, upon these founda
tions. Relational elements are not independent; they are
not 'free' ideas. Yet from them, from the mind's capacity
to particularize, then to differentiate from a point of view,
then to equate, identify, compare, etc., there gradually
evolve the 'free' ideas, the independent, existential mean
ings which we may term the notions of things. From a cer
tain conscious relation of lines comes the notion of length;
from others come the notions of direction, straightness,
equality, inequality, etc. Notions thus created constitute
an additional fund of contents, which in their turn may be
acted upon by association, by attention, and by the relating
function. In this manner we are enabled to create and en
rich our mental furnishings, to enlarge the scope of our ideas,
and to bring meaning into what would otherwise be a chaos.
Not all relational acts are productive of 'felt' contents. Yet
the act of relation conditions such a conscious insight, just

MENTAL ACTIVITY AND CONSCIOUS CONTENT 305

as the act of attention conditions clear contents, and the act
of association, among other things, conditions the image.

It is the process of abstraction that makes possible the
crystallization of the notion from the tied but 'felt' relations.
Relational aspects, subsisting in perceptual and ideational
complexes, are known and may be nucleated and detached
from their settings. We call this abstraction. Possibly it
is a unique function, yet such an assumption is hardly neces
sary. Abstraction may be regarded as an act of relation
whose terms are the conscious relations already subsisting in
other relational processes. In this manner a relation is lifted
out of its subsistency and achieves independent existence.
It is abstracted from its context. As a very simple example, a
child is shown an apple and an orange. They are so pre
sented that the likenesses of the two as regards rotundity and
edibility are emphasized. A likeness of impression and re
sponse is thus 'felt' in noting the two objects. Two relations
are established, for each is round and each may be eaten.
When, however, the two similarities are compared, the con
cept or notion of similarity itself may become the object of
thought. Rotundity and edibility are based upon quite dif
ferent sensory contents yet the likeness of an apple to an
orange in being rotund, and the likeness of the same two
objects in being edible, can be related and thus coalesce to
form one abstract notion of similarity. This example is far
too simple. No child gains abstract knowledge so easily.
Instead of a single relation of relations, many must be
formed before the aspect to be identified can be lifted out
of its various concrete settings. Nevertheless, the process of
abstraction appears to be given an explanation in some such
way as this. If the explanation is satisfactory, abstraction
may be placed among the relations, which obviates the
necessity of a special category for it.

Introspective evidence for the existence of notions which
embody the meanings of past experiences is very strong.
Competent observers report an experience of the meaning
' red,' yet they are aware of its image neither as a quality
nor as a word. Likewise, they report the presence of such

306 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

meanings as straightness, curvedness, direction, length,
squareness, roundness, without imagery, pictorial or verbal,
and without kinaesthesis. Three-dimensional geometric con
cepts, points of view, human qualities of goodness, badness,
beauty, ugliness, truth, and falsity, all seem to exist in
notional form to be operated upon, associated, attended to,
and related, as entities equally distinct and independent
with those of the sensational and imaginal order.

It is the act of relation that gives meaning, but not neces
sarily as a conscious content, though this occurs with the 'felt'
relation. Meanings of previous formation may be abstracted
and revived as notions, thus constituting a further category
of thought-elements. As contents, relations subsist in the
conscious stream, inasmuch as they are always dependent
upon other contents between which the relation is estab
lished. But notions are truly existential and take their place
among the entities of consciousness along with the sensa
tions, the images, and the affections.

Functional psychology may freely accept all the facts a
structuralist can demonstrate, as well as all those the be-
haviorist may adduce. Yet over and above the aims of these
investigators, the functionalist proposes a study of mental
activity and its bearings both upon conscious content and
upon behavior. Much remains to be done before the various
functions can be regarded as fixed, or the scope of their in
fluence fully understood. In the course of more detailed
experimentation and theoretical consideration, many changes
in such a scheme as here offered may be expected. The
obvious connection of mental functions with physiological
processes calls for a comprehensive examination. We must
learn more of the influence of mental acts upon the nature
of conscious contents, especially the affections. The bear
ings of mentality upon behavior are very obscure. All these
are problems which we can more readily set than solve. Yet
if our proposals but commend themselves as a program for
further investigation, we have at least defined our aims.
The way is then open for the more detailed and arduous task
of determining the precise nature and connection of mental
activity and conscious content.

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING
JOHN WALLACE BAIRD

AN important contribution to psychology has resulted
from the investigation of the influence which one's purpose
or intent or point of view exerts in determining and directing
one's mental processes. Numerous investigators have at
tacked the problem, and their findings agree in testifying
to the fact that the intent is of paramount significance in
mental functioning. The findings of these investigators un
doubtedly bring us nearer to an understanding of the nature
and the magnitude of this * intentional' influence; but they
still leave us in doubt as to the details of the mental mechan
ism by means of which it is exerted and controlled.

The phenomenon is a familiar one, at least in certain of its
grosser and more general aspects. Every normal individual
finds that he is somehow capable of directing his mental
energies, more or less at will, to the solving of any problem
which he may choose to attack; he finds, too, that having
once selected his problem, he is capable of holding himself
tenaciously to his task. He observes, meanwhile, that his
mental procedure consists essentially in adhering rigidly to
a consistent train of ideas, and that that in turn involves
an excluding or banishing of such ideas and ideational trains
as are extraneous and irrelevant to his task.

This selective and directive function seems to be an es
sential characteristic of all mental activity. Its presence
and potency are no less evident at the lower levels of ob
serving, learning, and remembering than at the higher levels
of abstracting, judging, and reasoning. The reader who
sets himself the task of mastering the meaning of an author
may become so absorbed in his reading that he wholly fails
to notice other stimuli from his environment which, under
other conditions, would undoubtedly be observed and noted.
He fails to observe misprints and misspelled words in the

308 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

text which he is reading. His process of observing is essen
tially a selective process, — certain stimuli find access to
his consciousness while others find that their entrance is
barred. This process of selecting takes place under the
direction of the task which he has undertaken or the purpose
which he has in view. And the directive power of the task
may reach such magnitude as to distort one's apprehension
of the object to be observed, the distortion being in conform
ity with the ideational train induced by the task; the reader
actually misperceives the misprinted words and apprehends
the text as though it were printed in conventional verbal
forms. That 'suggestion' and 'expectation' exert an in
fluence upon the process and the product of observing is a
commonplace.

If, however, the reader of our illustration should adopt
the point of view of the proof-reader, if he should read the
text with the intent to discover typographical errors, his
change in attitude would bring with it a corresponding
change in mental product. On the positive side, he would
now detect misprints which formerly escaped his notice;
but on the negative side, he would obtain a less definite and
detailed knowledge of the author's meaning.

The degree to which one's intent determines what shall
be observed and what shall be ignored has been brought to
light in various experimental investigations. Myers l and
others have found that students of average intelligence are
wholly unable to recall certain details of familiar objects, —
the sizes of coins, bank notes, and postage stamps; the num
ber of steps in a familiar stairway; the number and arrange
ment of windows in a familiar building; the furnishings of a
familiar room, and the like, — the obvious reason being that
these details failed to be observed because of a lack of in
tention to observe them. Myers found, too, that when he
exposed a group of letters with the instruction that the O's
in the group were to be counted, the observers succeeded in
accomplishing this task but failed to observe what other

1 Garry C. Myers, " A Study in Incidental Memory," Archives of Psy
chology, No. 26, 1913.

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING 309

letters were present, what was the arrangement of the let
ters, and what was the color of the background; in short,
they observed only that feature of the complex which they
had intended to observe, and all of the other features escaped
their notice.

Kulpe's findings l show that the intent to observe may be
of a highly differentiated sort; and that each differentiation
of intent results in a highly differentiated result of observa
tion. In this investigation, groups of nonsense-syllables were
exposed for a brief period of time and various tasks were
assigned to the observers. In one case they were instructed
to observe how many letters were present; in another case,
to observe the general form of the group; in another case,
to observe the colors of the letters; in a fourth case, to ob
serve the syllables themselves; while in a fifth case no specific
task was assigned. Kulpe's results show that that feature
of the complex upon which the intent was directed in any
case was usually observed with twofold greater accuracy and
completeness than were the features which did not fall
within the range of the task. For instance, when the ob
servers were assigned the task of noting the colors of the
letters, they made a score of sixty per cent correct in the
observing of these colors but of only thirty per cent correct
in observing how many letters and what syllables were
present; when instructed to observe how many letters were
present they accomplished this task with a degree of ac
curacy amounting to sixty-three per cent, but the accuracy
of their observation of the colors now dropped to thirty-five
per cent. Besides furnishing a quantitative measurement
of the significance of these differentiated and artificially
imposed intents, Kiilpe's findings show that when no specific
task is assigned, certain features of his complex stimuli were
more accurately and more completely observed than other
features, — form being most accurately perceived, while num
ber was least accurately perceived. This latter finding in
dicates that the human individual possesses certain natural

1 O. Kiilpe, "Versuche iiber Abstraktion," Bericht tiber den I. Kongrtss
fiir experimentelle Psychologic, Leipzig, 1904, pp. 56-68.

310 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

or habitual intents and attitudes, or that certain features of
a complex situation are inherently more 'interesting' than
other features.

The influence of intent is equally significant in the process
of learning; and here, too, the intent may be of a highly
differentiated sort. That learning cannot be readily accom
plished by an individual who does not really intend to learn
is shown by an incident reported by Radossawljewitsch.1
The experiment consisted in exposing a list of nonsense-
syllables, the arrangement being that the syllables should
be presented over and over again until the learner signalled
that he had memorized them. On account of unfamiliarity
with the language, one of his observers failed to understand
that his task was to consist in learning the syllables. It
turned out that, in the absence of an intent to learn, the suc
cessive presentations of the series proved to be almost wholly
barren of result in the case of this observer; forty-six readings
of the syllables under these conditions gave rise to a lesser
degree of learning-effect than resulted from ten readings
when the intent to learn was present.

Not only, however, must one will to learn, but as numerous
investigations have shown, one must will to learn for a par
ticular purpose and in a particular way if the best results
are to be achieved. Aall 2 reports a series of experiments in
which he presented materials to be learned by six hundred
children. In one case he stated that their remembrance
would be tested on the following day; in another case he
stated that the test would take place after the lapse of several
weeks. Instead, however, of following this plan as stated to
the children, he deferred the test of all of his learners for a
period of a month or more. It turned out that these delayed
reproductions were more accurate and more complete in the
case where the material had been learned with the intent to
remember it for a considerable period.

1 P. Radossawljewitsch, Das Behalten und Vergessen bei Kindern und
Erwachsenen, Leipzig, 1907, p. 127.

2 A. Aall, "Ein neues Gedachtnisgesetz? " Zeitschrift fur Psychologies
Vol. LXVI, 1913, pp. 1-50.

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING 311

The purpose for which a given act of learning is under
taken may vary between wide limits. In numerous instances
data are memorized exclusively for the purpose of immediate
recall; in other cases it is the purpose of the learner to acquire
a permanent remembrance of the data. When we consult
the telephone directory, we ordinarily make no attempt to
remember the telephone number permanently; we wish to
retain it in memory only long enough to transmit it to the
operator, after which we usually forget it forthwith. This
type of purely temporary acquisition, for use in the imme
diate future, is exceedingly frequent, and exceedingly val
uable, in our everyday activities; and a characteristic in
tent or attitude is involved in the process of acquiring data
for temporary as opposed to permanent retention.

In writing from dictation the stenographer endeavors to
carry the dictated material in mind only long enough to
permit of its being transcribed to paper; and Bryan and
Harter's study of the acquisition of telegraphy 1 reports that
in receiving messages it is the custom of skilled teleg
raphers to lag behind, since this procedure enables them to
get a better survey of the material and hence a clearer appre
hension of it, before committing it to paper. It is essential,
however, that so soon as the stenographer or the telegrapher
transcribes any group of words, he should thereupon forget
them and devote his attention to the following group. The
phenomenon of temporary retention and subsequent dis
missal from memory is a valuable asset here as in numerous
other instances. For example, in the answering of questions
we seek to retain the question in memory only long enough
for our immediate purposes of answering; the student who
draws from a model, or the histologist who draws from a
microscopic slide, must possess this capacity of temporary
retention and immediate reproduction in order to proceed

1 W. L. Bryan and N. Harter, " Studies in the Physiology and Psychol
ogy of the Telegraphic Language," Psychological Review, Vol. IV, 1897,
pp. 27-53; Vol. VI, 1899, pp. 345-375- See also W. F. Book, "The Psy
chology of Skill," University of Montana Publications in Psychology,
Vol. I, 1908.

3 1 2 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

efficiently with his task. There are numerous instances
where maximum efficiency of performance demands that,
after delivering an address on a particular topic and upon a
particular occasion, the speaker should thereupon forget all
about it and turn his attention to other matters; or where
the lawyer, after having first saturated himself with all avail
able knowledge regarding a case, and after having then
made use of this particular store of knowledge in pleading his
case, should promptly forget at least the details in order to
devote his mental energies to another case. And it is in con
sequence of the diversity of learning-intent, with the con
sequent diversity of learning-effect, that this state of affairs
is possible.

These illustrations show that the act of learning may be
undertaken for wholly different purposes and that the intent
of the learner may vary widely. The degree to which this
specialization and differentiation of intent in learning may
be carried is shown in numerous investigations of the Lern-
prozess. Investigators in this field have devised a consider
able number and variety of methods of testing the effect of
learning, and these methods differ widely from one another
in nature and in principle. Now it frequently happens in
laboratory investigations that, before undertaking his task
of learning, the learner inquires what method is to be em
ployed in the subsequent test of his remembrance. The ex
perienced learner has at his command a variety of procedures,
and in any given case he tends to employ that procedure in
learning which seems most appropriate and economical in
view of the nature of the test which will subsequently be
employed. Not until he knows what test will be employed
does he feel prepared to enter upon his task of learning.

The fact that each differentiation of intent in learning has
its own peculiar differentiation of learning-effect has been
demonstrated by Meumann.1 This investigator found that
when retention is tested by means of the method of paired

1 E. Meumann, "Beobachtungen iiber differenzierte Einstellung bei
Gedachtnisversuchen," Ze itschrift fiir pddagogische Psychologie, Vol. XIII,
1912, pp. 456-463.

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING 313

associates,1 the experienced learner tends to memorize only
the second member of each pair of syllables; he persists in
this selective procedure even when he is required to read
the material in trochaic rhythm, that is, when in reading the
syllables he is obliged to accentuate the initial member of
each pair. And it frequently happens that the learner who
is able to make a perfect score in the test (that is, who is
able to reproduce all of the even-numbered syllables of the
series) is wholly unable to reproduce the odd-numbered
syllables. It would appear that the learner had here been
content to hold the experimenter responsible for the repro
ducing of the odd-numbered syllables and had devoted him
self almost exclusively to the learning of the even-numbered
syllables, and that he has done this notwithstanding the fact
that in his reading of the syllables he accentuated the odd-
numbered members of the series. In other words, the effect
of his intent was of such magnitude as to give rise to the
paradoxical result that a trochaic learning is accomplished
by means of an iambic reading.

Not only, then, is the intent a potent factor in the work
of establishing associations between mental contents; its
influence is perhaps even more clearly manifested in the
subsequent coming into operation of these associations.
Associative bonds seldom exist in one-to-one form. In con
sequence of his many years of experience, an intricate net
work of associations and inter-associations comes to be
established among the various mental contents of every
adult. Each datum of experience is associatively connected
not with a single other content but with hosts of other con
tents. And this multiplicity of associative bonds is a de
sideratum, since it conduces to definiteness of meaning and
clearness of understanding. But if the associative mechan
ism were the sole determinant of mental functioning, as
certain psychologists have held, this very complexity of

1 When the method of paired associates is to be employed, the materials
to be learned are presented in pairs; then the test of retention consists
in the experimenter's presenting the first member of any pair, the learner
being required to reproduce the second member of the pair.

314 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

mental associates would result in mental incompetence.
The associative bond which at any given moment is most
ready to come into operation would inevitably come into
operation; and the corresponding idea, however relevant or
irrelevant, would thereupon be thrust into consciousness.
Then, too, in cases where two or more associative bonds
were present in equal or approximately equal strength, they
would all tend to come into operation simultaneously; asso
ciative inhibition would inevitably result and mental ac
tivity would come to a standstill. In the former case, wealth
of mental associates would conduce to irrelevance and redin
tegration; in the latter case it would conduce to a suspension
of mental activity.

In view of the multiplicity of mental associates, it is indis
pensable that, if the mental mechanism is to function effi
ciently, the process of selecting that associative bond which
shall come into operation in any given case shall not be
determined by the fortuitous circumstance of greatest as
sociative strength at that particular instant. And as a mat
ter of fact, it is the intent which frees us from the fetters of
associative bondage, because it is one's momentary purpose
or attitude which determines what selection shall be made
from among the numerous mental associates which are
available in any given case.

For instance, in the association experiment the experi
menter gives the instructions: "I am going to present the
name of a country, and you are to respond with the name
of its capital;" he then presents the name "England" and
the reagent responds with the word "London." In a second
case the instructions are: "I am going to present the name
of a country, and you are to respond with the name of its
most important river;" here, when "England" is presented,
the response is "Thames." In a third case the instructions
are: "I am going to present the name of a country, and you
are to respond with the name of its form of government;"
here, on "England" being presented, the response is "Mon
archy." In a fourth case the instructions are: "I am going
to present the name of a country, and you are to respond with

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING 315

the name of its most noted dramatist;" here, on "England"
being presented, the reagent responds "Shakespeare." And
in a fifth case the instructions are: "I am going to present
the name of a country, and you are to respond with the
name of one of its universities;" here, on "England" being
presented, the response is "Oxford." What, now, is the
reason why in the first case the reagent reproduced only the
word "London" and did not reproduce, or even tend to
reproduce, "Thames," or "Monarchy," or "Shakespeare,"
or "Oxford," in response to the stimulus-word "England?"
From the fact that the five response-words are different it
is obvious that at least five ideas have become associated,
in the mind of the reagent, with the name "England." How
are we to explain this fact of selective response, — the fact,
namely, that but a single one of the various possible asso
ciations came into operation in each case? This remarkable
diversity (and appropriateness) of selective response can
only be accounted for in terms of the diversified intent, or
purpose, or attitude of the reagent; and of the consequent
diversity in degree of functional preparedness of the various
associative bonds concerned. Moreover, this diversity and
appropriateness of selective response seems to represent the
type of functioning which is fundamental to all consistent,
coherent, and constructive thinking.

But for the influence of this factor, controlled and selective
thinking would be impossible. Instead of sticking to his
subject the thinker would wander into countless irrelevancies,
because he would at every moment be a prey to that asso
ciation which chanced at that moment to be functionally
most efficient. The pathological phenomenon which is
known as 'flight of ideas' furnishes an illustration of the
rambling which is characteristic of every ideational train
which is not directed and guided by an intent. And on the
other hand, obsessions illustrate the type of ideational train
whose course is determined and directed by a permanently
immutable intent.

The mechanism by means of which this 'intentional' in
fluence is exerted and controlled has not yet been sufficiently

316 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

investigated. That the phenomenon is volitional in its
essential character there can be no doubt; indeed, there
seems every reason to identify the intent with a phase of the
volitional process, and hence to believe that coherent think
ing is at bottom quite as much volitional as it is intellectual.
Ach and others have shown that, temporally, the intent
belongs to the fore-period, — that is, that its advent is an
terior to the process of attacking the problem in hand or
attempting to accomplish the task in question. Although
Ach has done pioneer service in emphasizing the significance
of the Aujgdbe, he has thrown no light upon its modus
operandi. Two envisagements of the mechanism have been
advocated. Ach conceives that it operates as a vis a tergo;
others conceive it as a force which attracts from in front
rather than as a force which impels from behind. According
to Ach, the task which is accepted during the fore-period
determines and directs the course of the train of ideas which
follows in its wake. According to the view of AschafFenburg,
Meumann, and others, the task exerts its influence in in
direct fashion; it gives rise directly to the setting up of a
goal-idea, and this in turn attracts the ideational train
toward it.

Several genetic stages may be differentiated in the intent.
At the outset, at its earliest genetic stage, the intent is ini
tiated by a definite process of volition; and during this stage
the intent is clearly and definitely present to consciousness.
In the course of time, however, in consequence of its being
frequently initiated, its conscious representation becomes
gradually more vague and indefinite, until finally it no longer
exists as a datum of consciousness. In its later stages, there
fore, the presence of the intent can only be inferred from the
fact that its results are manifestly present. What was at
the outset a volitional and deliberate and conscious intent
has now become an habitual attitude or a customary point
of view. Yet the functioning at this ultimate stage is no less
effective and facile than at any of its earlier stages. In
cases of doubt or difficulty, however, where one is confronted
by a novel task or an intricate problem, the automatized

THE ROLE OF INTENT IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING 317

and mechanized type of functioning no longer suffices. One's
only recourse is to initiate an appropriate intent, and to
envisage it in such definitely conscious fashion as shall insure
its successful functioning in the novel or intricate situation
where selective reaction of a highly complex and differenti
ated sort is imperative and where automatized and mechan
ized functioning proves to be ineffective.

It is difficult in the present status of neurological knowl
edge to envisage the details of a neural mechanism which
could serve to make it possible that intent and attitude may
be capable of so profoundly influencing (neural and) mental
functioning. The phenomena revealed by the complication
experiment and by the simple reaction experiment, — the
phenomenon, namely, that one may at will bring this or that
impression more promptly to consciousness, and the phe
nomenon that one may at will react either more promptly or
more discriminatingly (in muscular or in sensory fashion), —
these and other phenomena of analogous character have long
since shown us that nerve conduction may be accelerated,
retarded, inhibited, diverted, or otherwise modified by
purely subjective factors. Hence there is nothing unique in
the hypothesis that the mere act of willing, of intending, or
of assuming an attitude may somehow serve to throw a
synaptic switch into the position which is momentarily ap
propriate; that by thus setting the switch in any given posi
tion one may guide the ideational train in any desired direc
tion; and that in consequence of being repeatedly set in a
given position the switch may tend not only to assume that
position more readily but also to remain in that position more
permanently.

THE RELATION OF PUNISHMENT TO
DISAPPROBATION

THEODORE DE LACUNA

IT is too much to expect from the frankest of physicians
that he should give us a candid criticism of the practice of
medicine as it exists today. But he has no scruples against
telling us how ignorant and often harmful it was a generation
or two ago. The profession then still retained a naive faith
in the virtues of various drugs as 'cures' for various diseases,
which later investigation has not justified. Outside the
profession, indeed, the use of dangerous household remedies
and patent medicines prevailed almost unchecked. Our
fathers, and even more our grandfathers, were dosed with
physic, upon the slightest excuse, to an extent that seems
appalling, until it is suggested that the endurance which they
displayed is a most convincing evidence of the toughness
of our stock. If it could stand that, it can stand pretty
nearly anything.

So the genial monitor of our homes now informs us; and
he even goes so far as to say that the fewer prescriptions
he writes the better he earns his fee. If, then, we turn upon
him and ask how, among a civilized and enlightened people,
the belief in drugs could so long persist, he answers, first,
that no doubt the drugs did sometimes do substantial good;
and, secondly, that, as most men would recover from most
diseases without medical assistance, they will also generally
recover unless the drugs they take are decidedly injurious
to them; so that almost any drug can show a handsome
percentage of cures. Besides, when a man was sick, to whom
could he turn if not to the physician; and to what could the
physician turn if not to his drugs? Something, it was felt,
had to be done. It was easy, like Moliere and Rousseau, to
talk against physic; but what could they put in its place?

PUNISHMENT AND DISAPPROBATION 319

What the practice of medicine was a generation or two
ago, such is punishment as it is administered in our homes
and in our penal institutions today. I do not mean to say
that punishment is upon the whole a bad thing; and I am
far from wishing to suggest its abolition. But it appears to
me that it is administered with as little real knowledge of
its possible or probable effects as our forebears had of the
virtues of the dark-brown doses which they prescribed and
swallowed. The situation is precisely analogous. A wrong
has been committed and something must be done. You and
I were punished when we were young, and behold us now!
If we had been punished a little more frequently and severely,
perhaps it would have been better for us. The sensible men
of old imprisoned and hanged criminals; and society is pre
served to us. If they had imprisoned and hanged a few
more, so much the more stable our social institutions might
be. And, as the physician could always point with impres
sive effect to the unfortunates who had despised his ministra
tions and had died in consequence; so the parent and the
judge can point to many a culprit who has been spared the
lash, and who has grown up in iniquity and social rebellion.

Very curious has been the attitude of moral philosophy
toward punishment. Except on the part of a comparatively
few radical skeptics, the assumption has been made that
punishment is, of course, on the whole efficient in accom
plishing its purpose. There has been some disagreement
as to whether punishment is good or bad for the individual
punished; but its utility to society has been acknowledged
without hesitation. The question has been: What is this
utility? Why is punishment right? or, at best: On what
principles can it be most effectively administered? The
philosopher, like the man in the street, has had a faith in
punishment altogether comparable to the old-fashioned faith
in drugs. The broader question, whether there are not other
agencies that can accomplish all or most of what is expected
from punishment, and accomplish it with more certainty
and with less incidental loss, has not only been generally
neglected, but even been set aside as foolish or wicked.

320 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

I do not now propose to enter into a discussion of the va
rious theories of punishment. My former pupil, now my
colleague, Dr. A. L. Kellogg, is about to publish an important
study of that subject; and I could say little or nothing about
it that I have not learned from her. I shall take for granted
that the rationalistic dogma of a peculiar a priori appropriate
ness of punishment to crime is a delusion; that the juristic
theory of deterrence is inadequate, because, except where
an indiscriminate 'frightfulness' is practiced, punishment
does not effectually deter; that the humanitarian theory of
reformation is inadequate, because, generally speaking,
punishment has no direct reformatory influence; and that
the real value of punishment is, for the most part, as one
means among others whereby the sentiment, or attitude, of
respect for authority is fostered, — by no means always the
best means, sometimes useless, sometimes indispensable. As
such, I shall assume, punishment does important service in
maintaining domestic and civil peace and order, and thus
helps to ensure the necessary conditions under which the
development of good character takes place. I dare say there
will be few readers that will not be willing to concede all this.

But the altered views of the function and value of punish
ment that are now prevalent among us, suggest an over
hauling of our notions of the relation of punishment to moral
disapprobation. Is Westermarck, for example, right in main
taining that approbation and disapprobation are essentially
retributive emotions, belonging thus to the same general class
as anger and gratitude, and, in particular, that disappro
bation is a species of resentment? And is he, accordingly,
further right in maintaining that punishment is simply an
overt expression of more or less intense moral disapproba
tion, the severity of the punishment being in general an
index of the intensity of the disapprobation? It appears to
me that he is clearly and demonstrably wrong.

I. Students of ethics everywhere are so deeply indebted to
Westermarck for the immense array of detailed facts which
he has gathered and arranged for their benefit, that to point
out a neglected field may well seem ungrateful. The fact

PUNISHMENT AND DISAPPROBATION 321

remains that there are wide and important categories of moral
ideas which his treatment has left almost entirely untouched;
and, if I am not mistaken, his general theory has suffered
seriously in consequence.

It is noteworthy, for example, that in his two bulky
volumes the virtue of courage is only incidentally mentioned.
And yet nothing is more characteristic of the morality of a
people than their notion of courage. Courage may be recog
nized in insensibility to pain and danger, in joyous enthusi
asm, in confident superiority, in ferocity, in desperation, in
grim determination, or in a sweet serenity; and where one
sees courage another sees brutishness or fanaticism or even
outright cowardice. The Stoic emperor saw no courage in
the Christian martyrs. The American soldiers saw no cour
age in the ' treacherous' Filipinos. German soldiers have
gleefully told of their success in using non-combatants as
a shield. Was this cowardice?

Similarly, Westermarck has nothing to say in any sys
tematic way with regard to the virtue of temperance, though
that too has undergone some surprising modifications. It
may be indifference to a particular temptation or to the
common sources of illicit pleasure. It may be the modera
tion of good taste. It may be egoistic prudence. It may
be the self-denial of extreme asceticism.

He has nothing to say of the virtue of wisdom, whether it
be the experience and common sense of Nestor, the craft of
Ulysses, the political foresight of Solon, the self-analysis of
Socrates, or the philosophical insight of Plato, — to choose
only a few illustrations from the developing standards of a
single people.

2. And now let it be observed that cowardice, intem
perance, and folly are generally unpunished. There are, to
be sure, conditions under which the punishment follows.
Cowardice in battle, for example, when it leads to a distinct
dereliction of duty, may be severely punished. But cow
ardice that does not lead to crime generally goes scot-free,
no matter how ignoble it may be. The like is true of intem
perance, and, more generally, of all lack of self-control.

322 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

Drunkenness is punished when it leads to disorderliness, or
when it occurs in a place where the mere exhibition of it is
regarded as an infraction of the public order. The soldier
who sleeps at his post is shot, not because he lacks self-
control, but because he has slept at his post. And it goes
without saying that no one is punished simply for being a
fool.

It may be added that the moral faults comprehended under
the name of ' selfishness' are generally unpunished. Avarice,
though it be plainly vicious, is safe so long as it keeps within
the law. Lack of public spirit or of love of country is not
punished. Even cruelty, though it rouses protective sym
pathy and anger, is often beyond the range of punitive
measures.

These facts may be summed up in the statement that, in
general, the only moral standards that are enforced by means
of punishment are the standards of duty, — not those of vir
tuous character or of benevolent intention. But it is not
even the case that all standards of duty are enforced by
punishment. Lying is generally unpunished, even when it
is extremely shameful; though perjury is punished very
severely. The most shocking disregard of a father's duties
is rarely punishable. Inhospitality may be punished by the
gods above, but not by men below.

What then is punished? Non-submission to authority;
that is to say, disobedience either to the commands of a
superior or to the law of the land.

3. It may be objected, that serious breaches of custom
are punished, where no law in the proper sense of the term
exists. That is true, if ' punishment' is given a sufficiently
wide denotation. I do not care to attempt a definition in
this place; not because a tenable definition would not be
useful, but because an elaborate discussion would be neces
sary in order to prove its tenability. It is simpler to point
to the nature of those primitive practices which may be
called 'punishment.' In the first place, revenge exists, — as
it does even in certain of the higher animals, — and a crowd,
whether of savages or of civilized men, may be at least as

PUNISHMENT AND DISAPPROBATION 323

angry and revengeful as an individual. When a whole com
munity is roused to revenge, the action may be difficult to
distinguish from a punishment. In the second place, the
need for purification from the pollution of guilt, and for the
appeasing of offended deities, exists; and because pollution
is contagious, and the anger of the gods, too, is liable to
attach not simply to the offender but to all who are connected
with him, purification and atonement easily become com
munal concerns. If, then, by washing or burning or exiling
a man and his family, a grave danger can be averted from
the larger group, the whole group will very naturally take
a hand in seeing that this precaution is taken; or, if there
are special functionaries entrusted with the magical or re
ligious welfare of the community, these may well take upon
themselves the performance of the necessary rites. Such
action also may be regarded as punishment, if the means of
purification or atonement involve the infliction of pain or
loss upon the guilty party.

Apart from such exceptions, the principle which is stated
above, — that only non-submission to authority is pun
ished, — is, I believe, generally valid.

4. I should like in this place to make a suggestion with
regard to the historical origin of punishment. Does it spring,
as has been widely held, from revenge, as appears, for ex
ample, in the case of the cessation of the blood-feud? The
appearance, I think, is deceptive. Blood-revenge does not
grow into punishment. On the contrary, it is suppressed
largely by means of punishment, and punishment takes its
place. I can find no evidence of any real continuity in the
alleged development. Or does punishment arise from rites
of purification? Is chastisement, as the Socrates of the
Gorgias conceived it, essentially a means of freeing the soul
from the evil of iniquity? I can urge but little against such
a view, except that there is little or nothing to be urged for
it. The plain fact, it appears to me, is that the rise of punish
ment is part and parcel of the rise of authority: the authority
of chiefs, of heads of households, of gods, and of states. The
punishment, by new-born states, of deeds of violence that

324 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

have hitherto been held in check only by revenge, is simply
a case in point.

If the inquiry be pushed back a step and the origin of
authority itself be sought, a partial answer, — perhaps the
most significant part of a complete answer, — is that it arises
from the increased necessity of co-operation in work. This
is, of course, Rousseau's great sociological principle: "Corn
and iron have enslaved the human race." Where, for ex
ample, children do not work under the direction of their
elders, the latter feel little desire to assert authority over
them and seldom punish them. Under such circumstances, a
parent may, on occasion, get terribly exasperated at his
child, — though even this is rare, — and strike him brutally
in consequence. But he has, in general, no commands to
give him; the child lives his own life, except as he comes to
the women for food; and as there is little authority to be
enforced, there is little enforcement of it. Similarly, the
authority of tribal chiefs is no doubt mainly due to the ne
cessity of effective co-operation in war. It may be limited
to periods of actual war. Whether temporary or permanent,
it must be actively exerted; and thus punishment is involved.
What, then, is the primitive motive of punishment? The
resentment of the superior at not being obeyed. There is no
project of reformation. Among people of a low grade of
culture there is surely no project of deterrence; that belongs
to a reflective theory. On the other hand, the actual effect
of punishment is not simply to compel obedience. Obe
dience may, within a very limited range of conditions, be
compelled by torture. But more than this is required; and
more than this is in general secured without anything ap
proaching torture; namely, the conscious duty of obedience.
The superior punishes because he feels that he ought to have
been obeyed. The punishment has the moral support, as
well as perhaps the physical support, of the community.
And the culprit feels not only the physical blows, but also
their significance. To the question, therefore, what the
primitive function of punishment is, I would answer: Pre
cisely what its proper function to-day is. It is one of the

•PUNISHMENT AND DISAPPROBATION 325

agencies through which willing submission to authority is
secured.

It is worth notice that in early society there is no specific
duty of punishment. It is a right. If the superior wishes to
pardon, he does so without committing any injustice; just
as, generally speaking, an injured man does no injustice if
he fails to revenge himself on his enemy. Such a conception
sometimes persists, especially where there is an autocratic
government, to an advanced stage of culture. The good-
natured caliph, on the occasion of his marriage to a fourth
wife, or of the birth to him of an heir to the throne, sets free
a multitude of jail-birds; and the people applaud his clem
ency. Punishment may become a duty through custom. It
necessarily becomes so, when the officer who directs it acts
as the servant of a God or of an earthly sovereign; and this
happens equally when, through reflective thought, punish
ment comes to be regarded as a means of fulfilling various
responsibilities which custom has laid upon husband, parent,
master, or sovereign. "Spare the rod, and spoil the child/'
is, of course, in the first instance, a prudential maxim: if
you want children that are worth having you must beat
them into form. But let a responsibility for moral education
arise, so that the community looks to the parent to "train
up a child in the way he should go," and then chastisement
is a duty that is owed either to the community or to the
family or to the child himself. In this case punishment may
go beyond its primitive and normal limits. Since it is sup
posed to improve the child, any moral fault may be regarded
as calling for it: cowardice or meanness, for example. Yet
even here, I think, most men would hesitate. It is impos
sible, they would say, by means of penalties, to make chil
dren brave and generous.

Enough has been said, I think, to show that punishment
is not essentially an expression of moral disapprobation as
such. There are important classes of adverse moral judg
ments that seldom issue in punishment; and when punish
ment is inflicted it is not, as a rule, for a moral offense
sitnpliciUr, but for insubordination.

326 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

5. What, then, shall we say of the attitude of moral dis
approbation itself? Is it one of hostility or resentment?
Undoubtedly it may be; but also undoubtedly it need not be,
and generally is not. An exhibition of cowardice arouses
contempt, in extreme cases even loathing. The coward is
jeered at; men shrink from contact with him, as if he were of
some despised lower race. But of resentment there is none,
unless on the ground of particular offenses into which his
cowardice has led him. The like is true of the intemperate
man and of the fool. And the like is also true of the offender
against many of the standards of duty. To be caught in a
lie is a shame and disgrace. That is enough, perhaps; but,
at any rate, it is all, — unless, indeed, the lie is itself a means
of further injustice or a case of insubordination. Even where
the offense against duty is one that distinctly calls for pun
ishment, it by no means follows that in all who condemn the
fault there is a feeling of resentment against the culprit.

The phenomena of self-condemnation are here of especial
significance. When the moral sentiments are regarded as
essentially retributive, their direction toward the self is
necessarily conceived as a secondary development. Now I
would not deny that states occur which may fairly be de
scribed as moral resentment against oneself; for example,
the feeling that one ought to be severely punished, not be
cause punishment is a good, but because one has deserved
ill. Under such circumstances a man may proceed to impose
a penalty upon himself very much as a stern judge might
do. But surely this is not the usual type of self-
condemnation. As the attitude toward another is less often
one of resentment than one of contempt, so the attitude
toward oneself is far less often one of self-antagonism than
one of shame.

It may be urged that anger and resentment are older than
contempt and shame. And doubtless so they are; but they
are all older than morality. The moral sentiments in their
development were thus quite as free to grow upon the latter
stock as upon the former. And there is indirect evidence to
show that moral contempt and shame are at least as old as

PUNISHMENT AND DISAPPROBATION 327

moral resentment. Neither the civilized man nor the savage
passes moral judgments upon anyone whom he does not
credit with a capacity of passing moral judgments upon
himself. The self-judgment, therefore, can hardly be re
garded as a secondary outgrowth of the judgment upon
another. The two have most assuredly developed together.
The application of the foregoing remarks to moral appro
bation is obvious.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION:

A CRITIQUE

EDWARD L. SCHAUB

To characterize modern thought and civilization as scien
tific is to imply that the dominating interest is fundamentally
practical. For even where the concern is not with invention
and machinery, with a search for methods in the direct in
terests of control, or with the utilization of scientific laws in
the achievement of human purposes, the orientation of the
scientific is towards the practical. This fact, it is true, is
one of which the devotee of so-called 'pure science' is some
times unaware. He may, indeed, repel as an affront the
claim that his efforts, beyond those of all other men perhaps,
are directed fundamentally and constantly by the demands
of human life upon the physical and the social environment.
But if there is one thing which history and logic substantiate,
and upon which widely differing philosophical schools may
agree, it is the fact that the underlying motives determinant
of the presuppositions, the methods, and the problems of
modern science are essentially, even if not exclusively, prac
tical. If, therefore, the life of to-day is correctly apprehended
by those who characterize it as scientific, if our social ex
perience is constructed of the results of science and is per
meated by its spirit, we need not be surprised to learn that
the central values and the religion of the age focus on achieve
ment.

Relatively unfettered by firmly established tradition and
stimulated by the opportunities of a new and a richly en
dowed land, it is Americans especially among whom this
impulse for achievement is paramount. In this country
particularly would assent be spontaneously given to a psy
chology which dethrones intellect and gives the place of pre
eminence in human experience to volition. Not that the

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 329

displacement of rational psychologies by voluntaristic inter
pretations was conditioned by the peculiar temper of modern
interests or of American life. The latter merely give what
seems the clear and distinct ring of genuineness to a psy
chology whose immediate springs are to be found elsewhere.
The influence of comparative psychology, the analysis of
the mental development of the individual and the race,
various experimental investigations, the phenomena of ab
normality, and interpretation of social actions, — all have
conspired to shift the psychological emphasis from ideas,
theories, and cognition generally, to impulses, instincts,
desires, habits, emotional dispositions, and valuational atti
tudes. Supplementing the factors that have brought about
this change were potent influences emerging from evolu
tionary conceptions and, more particularly, from biology
itself. In certain instances these latter influences were far
indeed from being merely auxiliary. On the contrary, they
asserted a dominance, subordinating to themselves such
tractable facts and conclusions as otherwise appeared, and
giving their own particular stamp to voluntarism as a whole.
Under these conditions the emphasis came to be placed al
most exclusively upon the practical. The mental life lost its
status of relative independence and primacy. It was dis
possessed of any ends or problems of its own setting and
regarded as an expression of the life-principle of physiological
organisms. Not merely was conation believed to be the
fundamental characteristic and capacity of the human in
dividual, but conation, — indeed, mental life as a whole,—
was interpreted as "an instrument of adaptation by which
the organism adjusts itself to the environment." 1 Not

1 Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 15. It is this general
principle that Ames adopts as the basis of his account of religious experi
ence. Four facts, however, should be noted with reference to Ames's
standpoint: (i) Mind is also described as more specific in function, namely,
as "the means by which adaptations occur in novel and complex situa
tions " (p. 15). The limitation of mind's function to novel and complex
situations, however, is obviously unwarranted if, as Ames does, we include
within the concept 'mind' instinctive processes (cf. p. 16), as well as
desire, habit, and emotion (cf. p. 303). (2) No one view is consistently

330 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

merely were appreciative and valuating attitudes given a
priority over cognitive interests, but they were held to
originate in, and to derive their sole significance from, the
stresses and strains, the embarrassments and the difficulties,
attending the demands of the life-process upon a more or
less foreign and refractory environment.1 The psychologist,
King tells us, "should attempt to treat the acts and states of
consciousness with reference to their setting and function
in the general life-process." 2 According to the functional
position thus suggested, even the most complex and the most
valued of human activities are ultimately traceable to the
needs of the organism, or, at any rate, to simple activities
characteristic of the initiative (if there be such) and the re
sponses of the life-process. Closely dependent upon the

adhered to regarding the relation of the "instrument" to the "organism"
which through it "adjusts itself to the environment." The passage quoted
implies a subordination of the mind to the organism; in other connections,
however, it is the latter that is represented as secondary, the neural ac
tivity and the objective effects being said to express or to register the
adjusting activity (p. 15). (3) Similarly, the reader is confused by an
ambiguity in the term ( mind-body.' At the outset, a * mind-body'
process is described in terms of a relation between mental and bodily
states (p. 18); somewhat later a ' mind-body ' process is interpreted as an
activity of the organism (p. 20) ; still a different view is implied when the
question, "What is the organism, the mind-body, doing?" is followed by
the sentence, "In other words, What is the will, or purposeful activity,
accomplishing?" (p. 20). (4) Ames describes the adjustment as one of the
organism to the environment (p. 15) but also as "an adjustment in the
psycho-physical organism" (p. 18), and still again as one which occurs
"through the psycho-physical organism" (p. 15). In the opinion of the
present writer the various ambiguities and inconsistencies which we have
mentioned represent not mere carelessness or accident; they are outcrop-
pings of serious difficulties that inhere in the adopted standpoint.

The fourth of the points that we have noted is mentioned also in Pro
fessor Coe's recent Psychology of Religion (p. 30, note). The appearance
of this volume makes it necessary to say that, while it also utilizes in part
a point of view that may not improperly be termed 'functional,' the
standpoint is radically different from that which we have set out to dis
cuss in this essay.

1 The standpoint of King in his treatises, The Differentiation of the Re
ligious Consciousness and The Development of Religion.

2 The Development of Religion, p. 23.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 331

various activities, simple and involved, are the feelings and
sentiments experienced by the individual; emerging from
them, moreover, as plans of procedure in times of difficulty
and conflict, are ideas, whose very significance, therefore,
is determined by the situations that generate them, whose
importance to the individual is conditioned by a direct per
sonal experience of the obstacles to be overcome, and whose
validity is solely a matter of successful guidance in practice.

The standpoint thus hastily sketched is, of course, a
matter of common knowledge, and this renders it super
fluous further to fill in the details of the outline. In many
of their applications and developments, moreover, the va
rious doctrines involved have time and again been subjected
to criticism and have in turn received defense or restatement
on the part of able champions. There is a manifest need,
however, for further appraisal, as concerning more specifically
the utilization of the functional principle in the interpretation
of religious experience. True, King, Ames, and others have,
by their demonstrations in fact, removed from the region of
debate the question as to whether functionalism may offer
any genuine contribution to our knowledge concerning the
origin, nature, and development of religion. The very im
portance of their discussions, however, promises a degree of
profitableness to one who seriously questions whether the
accounts which they have given may be regarded as entirely
successful.

The outstanding characteristics of functional interpreta
tions of religion and the features that have contributed most
to their attractiveness and their significance are perhaps
three in number: (I) a persistent emphasis on the volitional
and, more particularly still, the practical character of re
ligion, as well as on the intimacy of the relation between
religion and life; (II) a conviction that religion may be under
stood only through a study of its development and of the
development of culture as a whole, — hence a single-minded
devotion to a genetic method of treatment; (III) a recogni
tion of the essentially social character of religion, as regards
origin and nature as well as development, motives as well

332 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

as interests and ends. Were one to inquire whether a func
tional standpoint is capable of furnishing a satisfactory
account of religion, many far-reaching questions of a general
nature would at once arise. Is a functional statement cap
able, for example, of giving full recognition to the fact and the
import of the contemplative, passive, and receptive phases
of religion? Can it provide in any thorough-going way for
the insistence of the religious consciousness that its object
is in a very true sense both transcendent of experience and
free from the mutability of the here and now? Does it
enable one to admit that religion connotes, not so much ad
justment to particular situations in the physical or social
environment, as the search for such things as a new center
of experience, a deeper life, a personal appreciation of the
value and meaning of reality, or an identification of one's
self with that which is felt to be alike most real and of highest
worth? These and other questions are of serious importance
to one concerned with an estimate of the possibilities and
the limitations of the functional standpoint as such. Our
present purpose, however, is of a more restricted scope. We
undertake merely an examination of the more important
accounts of religion which functionalism has thus far actually
produced and we further restrict our discussion to three sets
of considerations, determined by those features of functional
interpretations which we have just singled out as most
characteristic and significant.

To the man of common sense it must be puzzling to under
stand how even eminent writers, — among them psycholo
gists, — could come to define religion in terms of some idea or
set of ideas, or some faculty or capacity of cognition. Even to
the most superficial glance, if only it be naive, religion is un
mistakably distinct from creeds or from any knowledge about
realities or facts; individuals and peoples to whom theories
are matters of utter indifference may find in religion that
which is of greatest moment to them. Now, whatever may
be the particular mental bias resulting from continuous pre-

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 333

occupation with functional conceptions, it is not such as
readily to cause a confusion between religion and theory, or
any undue exaltation of the role of ideas in religious expe
rience. Not cognition or even emotion, but action, is felt to
constitute the inmost being of religion, as of life. Hence the
emphasis upon custom, ritual, and ceremony. It must not
be inferred, however, that the functionalist possesses any
peculiar fondness for action as such; rather must he contend
with a deep-seated aversion to anything, even in the way
of action, that appears from the point of view of utility
as superfluous. As keen as is his eye to detect the practical
character of motives and results, so reluctant is his disposi
tion to admit the presence or the worthwhileness of the
unnecessary. It is not in the literature of functionalism,
therefore, that the beauty, impressiveness, and sheer inevi-
tableness of ritual receive their finest portrayal. Our indebt
edness to this literature is connected rather with our present
appreciation of the extent to which ritual and ceremony
contribute to the actual needs of life.

Merely to say that, for the functionalist, religion is prima
rily an attitude, and an attitude fundamentally practical in
character, is not as yet fully to define his conception. All
theorists have more or less clearly recognized the bearing of
religion upon life, though, of course, the life to which they
have referred has not always been that of the present world
or that of the socially-minded individual. There has, more
over, also been fairly general agreement as regards the con
verse fact. Religion, it has repeatedly been emphasized, has
been profoundly modified, both in form and in spirit, by the
conditions of life, the nature of its problems, the direction of
its aspirations, and the character of the social, economic, and
political institutions in which it has found embodiment.
Even to put the matter thus, however, implies a dualism, or
at least a distinction, between life and religion which the
functionalist seeks to avoid. Says King, "Religious beliefs
and practices are not merely modeled upon the analogy of a
people's economic and social life. The religious life is this
social life in one of its phases. It is an organic part of the

334 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

activity of the social body, not merely something built upon
it." l

The contentions both of the essential identity of religion
with life in one of its phases and of the instrumental char
acter of religion find their clearest illustration and corrobora-
tion in the early stages of culture. It is to these especially,
therefore, that functionalists preferably turn and it is with
reference to them that their interpretations are most definite
and convincing. Writes King, in a passage which Ames has
incorporated in one of his chapters: 2 "Religion in primitive
society may be regarded as primarily a system for the con
trolling of the group with reference to the ends which are
felt most acutely by the group as a group. . . . All prac
tices designed to do this are religious, whether they are
definite forms of worship or not." 3 Quite in agreement is
the view of Henke. "A rite or ceremony," he tells us, "is
the observance of some formal act or series of acts in the
manner prescribed by custom or authority, and from the
point of view of functional psychology must be considered
as a type of overt action performed for the purpose of
control." 4 Hence, "even as the first locomotive, impractical

1 The Development of Religion, p. 89.

2 The Psychology of Religious Experience, pp. 72f.

3 The Differentiation of the Religious Consciousness, pp. 38f.

4 A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism, p. 8. In the same paragraph
Henke refers to the ceremonial as "designed for control." This state
ment, however, is so obviously incompatible with the psychological
standpoint of the essay that it must be regarded as an inadvertence, un
less the expression is intended as the equivalent of "performed for the
purpose of control."

As of the origin, so of the perpetuity of ritual. "The ritual that has
lost its vitality cannot survive" (p. 82). What preserves the statement
from tautology is the preceding sentence, "Practicality is, withal, the
keyword to the situation." "The survival of ritualism," we are told, "is
dependent upon keeping intact a type of social consciousness that finds
the ritualistic reaction a valuable method of control" (p. 81). "Wherever
a comparatively primitive type of ritual survives in higher stages of
culture, the social consciousness back of it still finds it a practical method
of control" (p. 10). "Ceremonial performances that have lost their prac
tical significance, though they may continue for awhile through sheer

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 335

as it may be to-day, grew out of practical demands, so the
ritual has been an instrument of practical control." l

Only through an unusual extension of the term may we
call i religious' all those practices of primitive life by which
a control is effected over such acts as are thought to be of
greatest social import. Instead of insisting on a narrower
delimitation of the concept 'religious,' however, we wish
rather to dispute the thesis that either rites and ceremonies
or primitive religions (whose central features, in the view of
functionalists, are customs and ceremonies of various sorts)
are definable as systems or agencies of practical control,. We
call attention to three very general and fundamental facts.

(l) It is, indeed, unquestionable both that some cere
monies are essentially agencies of practical control and also
that very many others exhibit the influence of the motive of
control. The amazing diversity and complexity of primitive
ceremonies, however, makes it difficult to believe that they
all are utilitarian either in origin or in purpose. Nor is au
thority lacking behind which such a doubt may shield itself.
Durkheim, for example, whose interpretation of Australian
totemism is one of the most thorough as well as the most
recent that we possess, maintains that "we have here a
whole group of ceremonies whose sole purpose is to awaken
certain ideas and sentiments, to attach the present to the
past or the individual to the group. Not only are they
unable to serve useful ends, but the worshippers themselves
demand none." 2 One who lays aside for the time being all

force of habit, soon lose their vitality and fall away" (p. 81). Inciden
tally it may be remarked that inertia is not as negligible a factor as func
tionalists are inclined to assume. What we shall contend with reference
to the origin of ceremonial, moreover, holds true also of its survival: a
variety of non-practical considerations must be recognized. As Stratton
says in his analysis of the various "inner supports" of ceremonial: "But
religion does not forever keep its eye on tangible benefits to be obtained;
the ritual is expressive, and has in it no more of mere prudence and calcula
tion than has the gold upon a state-house dome, or the bannered proces
sion of a party victorious at the polls." The Psychology of the Religious
Life, p. 145.

1 Henke, op. cit., p. 10.

2 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, tr. by J. W. Swain, p. 378.

336 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

allegiance or deference to a particular psychological school,
will be able to catalog a considerable number of other than
strictly practical motives that operate in the genesis and
development of ceremonial. Such motives are: (a) The
pleasure derived in various ways, as, for example, from the
mere actions, motions, and gesticulations,1 from the element
of rhythm in movement and speech, or from the heightening
of emotions; 2 (b) the play impulse, as expressed either in
physical movements or in the creations of the imagination; 3
(c) the mere repetition, through suggestion and imitation,
of various sorts of accidental and spontaneous actions, and
of such as result from inhibitions, super-excitations, or dis
charges of energy generally; (d) the consciousness of doing
things as they have been done, of continuing the ways of
earlier generations and thus of maintaining continuity, —
hence a certain regard for the permanent, together with a
sense of safety and the feeling of relationship to a larger
company; (e) the passion for embellishment; (f) desire for
self-expression, as well as publicly to acknowledge that cer
tain beliefs or relations are cherished; (g) sense of fitness,
that which is peculiarly important or honored demanding
formality or pomp; (h) the impulse to imitate and to render
vivid through action deeds and events in the lives of the
gods; 4 (i) the commemoration and recollection of the past,
"in a way making it present by a means of a veritable
dramatic representation;" 5 (j) the renewal by the group of
"the sentiment which it has of itself and of its unity;"6

1 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, tr. by J. W. Swain, p. 381.

2 Cf. Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology, tr. by E. L. Schaub, p. 95.

3 Cf. Seashore, "The Play Impulse and Attitude in Religion," American
Journal of Theology, Vol. XIV, 1910, pp. 505-520, and Psychology in
Daily Life, pp. 22ff.; Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious
Life, pp. 379ff.; for the inclusion in ceremonial of humorous episodes, cf.
Wundt, op. cit., p. 464.

4 For an admirable discussion of this and the three preceding motives,
see the chapters on ritualism and public worship in Stanton Coit's Na
tional Idealism and a State Church and The Soul of America; see also Strat-
ton, The Psychology of the Religious Life, pp. I4iff.

5 Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, p. 372.

6 Ibid., p. 375.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 337

"rites are means by which the social group reaffirms itself
periodically." 1 Of these various motives, functionalism, in
its concern to discover the practical in religion, is for the
most part oblivious. King, whose attitude is considerably
more plastic than that of the other writers of the group to
which he belongs, does indeed recognize the importance for
ceremonial not merely of "unconscious changes . . . trans
mitted by imitation and social heredity" 2 but also of the
play impulse.3 But even this slight departure from the con
cepts of adjustment and practical control is regarded du
biously by a fellow-functionalist. Commenting on it, Henke
remarks that "the place of play appears of minimum im
portance in the origin of ritualism. Practical interests are
by far the most important. Play itself, when viewed from
the agent's standpoint, is largely a practical interest. . . .
In the development and survival of the ceremony, so-called
play activities may emerge, but not without practical
implications." 4

(2) When we turn from ceremonial to the question of the
objects regarded in early religion as sacred, we find functional
interpretations somewhat less guilty of purchasing con
sistency at the cost of a full recognition of the various psy
chological factors involved. Says Ames, with reference to
the development of Hebrew religion: "The first and lowest
stage ... is that in which anything which catches attention
and excites wonder is considered sacred. The Semitic folk
lore and custom show the evidence of such a stage when
rivers, springs, trees, stones, caves, and animals, particularly
such objects as were unusual in appearance or in value, were
sacred." 5 Henke likewise emphasizes the role played by
"the moving object" as well as by "anything unusual in
shape, size, position, or color." 6 Similarly, King acknowl-

1 Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, p. 387.

2 The Development of Religion, p. 48.

3 Ibid., pp. s8f.

4 A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism, pp. 34f.
6 The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 172.

6 A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism, pp. 48f.

338 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

edges that various animals and forms of vegetation, as well
even as inanimate objects "may easily and in quite explain
able ways arouse a sort of spontaneous attention in people." 1
"There can be no doubt," he writes concerning the Niger
tribes, "that it is some physical peculiarity of tree, shrub,
or animal, a peculiarity of some practical significance, pos
sibly, which has thrust it upon their attention and thus made
it an appropriate dwelling for the ancestral spirit." 2 The
very presence in this last quotation of the parenthetical
phrase, "a peculiarity of some practical significance, pos
sibly," of itself tells a story. Why should the phrase have
occurred to the writer at all? And might not an objector to
functional interpretation with equal truth have written "a
peculiarity of no practical significance, possibly?" King's
parenthetical phrase but prepares for a later assertion of a
stronger nature: "So also with physical objects of unusual
size or shape, or such as possess dangerous qualities. In all
cases it should be borne in mind that the occasion which
excites attention, i. e., the strange and unusual object or
phenomenon, is first recognized because it seems to have a
close connection with some of the already existing activities
of the individual or the group. ... It is often said that
for the savage the idea of the supernatural has its rise in
that which appears to him in some way unusual. . . . This
is all true, but it is important to remember that these things
attract the savage because of the part they appear to play
in something he is occupied in doing." 3 Thus, whereas func
tional writers generally admit into their accounts of the
sacred and the supernatural, factors emphasized more es
pecially by Max Mtiller, Marett, and Clodd, King (and,
though perhaps less clearly, Ames and Henke also) recognize
that this might be a cause for challenging their orthodoxy.
Hence the but partially true, if not wholly unwarranted,
thesis that, after all, to receive recognition and to impress
themselves forcibly upon the mind, objects must be con-

1 The Development of Religion, p. 231.

2 Ibid., p. 232, note.

3 Ibid., p. 315.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 339

nected with the various activities or practical interests that
represent the life of the individual and of the group.

(3) It is becoming increasingly clear that, second in impor
tance to no other element in primitive thought, is the belief
that there is operative in nature generally, as well as in hu
man affairs and in the capacities particularly of exceptional
individuals, a mysterious, impersonal, quasi-mechanical
power, variously called manitou, wakonda, orenda, mana,
pokunt, yek, nauala, etc.1 That this concept has "probably
played a large part in the unfolding of human thought, and
has consequently reacted in important ways upon behavior
and custom," l King himself is forced to recognize. If,
however, "the mysterious power" has been an important
factor in the genesis and development of customs, cere
monials, and religion generally, the inadequacy of the func
tional standpoint is clear. In fact, speaking of this concept,
King himself makes the following frank admission: "It is
difficult to relate it exactly to what has thus far been said of
the development of the value-consciousness, and yet it has
had a part in that development which we trust will not seem
to be altogether adventitious, even though we should stand
firmly upon the theory as thus far outlined." 3

The three broadly important considerations which we have
thus indicated render unsuccessful functionalism's restriction
of the motives and the factors even of early religion to such
as are of practical import or as relate to control. Numerous
are the characteristics which enable objects to arouse atten
tion and interest; very rich and diverse are the activities and
the emotions, the longings and demands, of individual

1 Cf. more particularly the discussions and the bibliographical refer
ences of Lovejoy, "The Fundamental Concept of the Primitive Philoso
phy," Monist, Vol. XVI, 1906, pp. 357-382; King, The Development of
Religion, pp. 132-164; Leuba, A Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 70-84,
I22f., 163; Goldenweiser, "Spirit, Mana, and the Religious Thrill," Jour
nal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. XII, 1915,
pp. 632-640; Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life,
pp. 62, 188-239.

2 King, The Development of Religion, p. 132.

3 Ibid.

340 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

minds and of groups. As Mr. Eastman states in a paper
which appears as these words are being written, "life has an
interest in living," " organisms seriously thirst after experi
ence in general"; 1 and, as we shall imply in what is now to
follow, individuals seek for meanings no less than for ways of
adjustment and they strive for greater fullness of personal
and of social life.

The attitude of the functionalist in its polemic phase is
vigorously expressed by King when he affirms that "the old
method of trying to determine the essential qualities of the
religious consciousness ... by an analysis of religion in
and of itself is scarcely more profitable than the scholastic
explication of concepts." 2 So severe an indictment as this
of the value of structural analysis cannot be expected to
receive universal assent. Even the dissenters, however,
would gladly join in the functionalist's insistence that it is
both unscientific and futile to account for religious phe
nomena in terms of some postulated religious capacity,
whether this be described as a special faculty, as an instinct,
or as a perception of the infinite. Religion is not as inde
pendent an element of experience as these latter interpreta
tions imply. It is involved, body and soul, in the fortunes
and transformations of experience as a whole. This being
the case, religion cannot be significantly interpreted except
by such methods as are capable of disclosing the meanings
of experience generally as these come to light either through
logical analysis or, more particularly, in and through the
process of development by which individuals become con
scious of their own nature and of the world in which they
live. In any account of origin and growth, however, it is
but an expenditure of breath to explain in terms of hy-
pothetically given capacities to do or to bring forth given
results. To a certain extent, therefore, we must sympathize

1 "The Will to Live," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods, Vol. XIV, 1917, pp. 104, 107.

2 The Development of Religion, p. 22.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 341

with the initial attitude of the functionalist. But may one
say, as King does, that "the scientist cannot be satisfied to
regard anything as innate. His so-called ultimate data are
ultimate only for the philosopher or for the non-scientific
mind." 1 Is not the very opposite true? In so far as one
wishes to distinguish between philosopher and scientist, or
between the philosophy and the psychology of religion, must
it not be said that some of philosophy's most important
problems relate to assumptions which the scientist accepts
without further ado and which are in this sense ultimate
data for him?

The significant fact is that the functional interpretation
of religion, even in the skillful hands of King, does start at
a beginning which is assumed without any effort toward
examination. The world of mere objective fact and of ex
istences independent of interests and strivings, indeed, is
held to emerge, through processes of abstraction and idea-
tional construction, from an experience which is funda
mentally appreciative or valuational. This latter experience,
furthermore, though described as "a relatively primary form
of conscious process," 2 is brought into connection with
"man's active relation to his environment, both physical and
social." 3 Man's active relation, however, is an expression
of his instinctive and impulsive equipment, and this it is
which (although, as we shall presently see, not always clearly
or consistently) represents King's ultimate datum. We
shall not stress the point that there are here simply assumed,
as matters of fact, those particular objective existences
(namely, organisms or, to use King's term, 'men,' charac
terized by impulsive tendencies of various sorts and therefore
by active relations with other particular objects, physical
and social) which are represented in the analysis of experi
ence as intellectual abstractions justified only by reference to
interests that are fundamentally appreciative or valuational.
Our immediate concern is rather to point out that functional
interpretations of religion, although aspiring to be genetic,
nevertheless do assume certain data as given, do actually

1 The Development of Religion, p. 26. 2 Ibid., p. 44. 3 Ibid.

342 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

assume certain qualities as innate in a very important sense
of that term.

It is in the writings of Ames and Henke that we find the
most definite statements both as to what specific interests
or instincts are, for functionalism, fundamental in early re
ligion, and as to the precise character of these interests and
instincts. Says Ames, "Food and sex are the great interests
of the individual and of society. These may work out in
various secondary forms, but the 'ground patterns' of man's
life are determined by these two elemental forces." l With
great care, therefore, Ames traces the ramifying influences of
food and sex upon social and economic organization, custom
and taboo, ceremonials and magic, sacrifice, and other ele
ments that have either entered into or have conditioned the
development of the various religions. As regards the exact
nature of the interests of food and sex which are said to func
tion in connection with religion, Ames does not leave us in
doubt. They are " basal instincts " and are " so characteristic
of the whole range of sentient life preceding man and now
existing below him in the biological scale that it involves
no daring assumption to infer that he possessed them from
the most rudimentary stage of his existence." 2 Henke
agrees with Ames in emphasizing the interests of food and
sex. He feels the necessity, however, of adding at least two
other instincts, fear and anger, though admitting that these
are "derivative," inasmuch as they appear as "distinct
emotional reactions," when, respectively, "the animal had
experienced actual danger and pain in quest of food," 3
and when "the animal was frustrated in its quest for food." 4
Here again the fundamental factors of religion are conceived
as identical with instincts as they manifest themselves on
the prehuman level of existence. "Primitive man's cere
monies," it is contended, "represent the functioning of in
herited tendencies to action. . . . Primitive man has the
sex impulse, and consequently the marriage ceremony." 5

1 The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 33. z Ibid., p. 34.

3 A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism, p. 26. 4 Ibid., p. 31.

5 Ibid., p. 36.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 343

We read, indeed, that "to the writer many of the ceremonies
described by the anthropologist seem to give evidence of
thought as well as of instinct and impulse," and yet it is
assumed that ceremony may be "an expression of innate
hereditary acts and nothing more." 1

The attitude of King with reference to the points just
discussed is somewhat elusive. At times he would appear
to be more persistent even than either Ames or Henke in
his search for origins. More positively, certainly, and with
greater emphasis, does he insist on the necessity of exhibiting
the genesis of the values which attach, in the consciousness
of the individual and of the group, to certain objects and
practices. With less hesitation than is sometimes displayed
by those who restrict mental life to a means of adjustment,
he admits that "in a very general sense . . . everything
which attracts attention may be the subject of a value-
judgment." 2 Nevertheless, in allegiance to the principle
with which he operates, King contends that it is only when
response is delayed and a series of mediating acts conditions
the desired satisfaction that objects or situations acquire
any considerable value for consciousness. King's account
of the ways in which intermediate processes originate and
thus generate such valuations as precondition religious at
titudes represents a highly suggestive bit of analysis.
Nevertheless, a close study of the argument leaves one in
some uncertainty as to whether or not there is agreement
with the view of Ames and Henke, that the basal impulses of
religion are to be found, not in the experience of conscious
individuals as members of a social order, but in something
far more primitive, namely, in the demands of organisms
upon their environment. On the one hand, King's analysis,
as has already been indicated, seems to terminate in impul
sive and instinctive activities and there are suggestions every
now and again of a biological point of view. On the other
hand, we read the positive statement, "In no intelligible
way can the religious consciousness or religious acts be

1 A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism, p. 36.

2 The Development of Religion, p. 46.

344 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

thought of as directly related to the biological struggle for
existence." l It may not be altogether without significance
that King speaks preferably in terms, not of organism, but
of life-process.2 The latter term possesses a certain flexi
bility and indefiniteness and one cannot avoid the impression
that it is these qualities which have commended it. It seems,
somehow, to stand now for biological processes but again
for the general movement of a dynamic experience. In any
event, the life-process is not represented as merely practical
in its concerns; to it are ascribed all sorts of spontaneous
manifestations, play interests, and other non-utilitarian
activities.3 King's account does not avoid a similar vague
ness as regards the manner in which conscious values are
thought to emerge through complications and delays of re
sponse. The initial explanation is based on the failure of
individuals to secure an immediate satisfaction of needs and
desires. Nevertheless, as King assures us in a footnote, "we
do not ignore the social factor in the valuational conscious
ness. It is of the greatest importance, but we shall reserve
it for treatment in another connection." 4 What we find in
these other connections, however, is the statement either
that the group creates certain values or that it enhances
and renders permanent "the simple values brought to con
sciousness by the growth of intermediate activities," causing
the latter to appear "genuinely ultimate and universal." 5
Even such statements as these scarcely dispel one's doubt
as to King's precise position. Are the valuations involved
in all religions intelligible except by reference to conscious
individuals living among and affected by others of their kind,
and seeking, more or less clearly and more or less deviously,
wider and deeper social relationships? King seems to shy
at a view as biological as that of Ames and Henke and yet
his functional predilections prevent a negative answer to
the question.

1 The Development of Religion, p. 26.

2 C/., for example, ibid., pp. 18, 22, 23, 26, 37, 59, 61, 62, etc.

3 Cf., for example, ibid., pp. 83, 100, 103, in.

4 Ibid., p. 45, note. 6 Ibid., p. 68.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 345

Similar differences of emphasis occur in connection with
the accounts which the various functional writers give of
the development of religion. For example, the more unam
biguous stress which Ames and Henke place upon certain
instincts and interests of the organism causes them to sug
gest, at times, that the development may be read in terms
of an increasing refinement and specialization of desire.1 In
the main, however, functionalists agree that, inasmuch as
religion arises in connection with those interests which in
dividuals within a group share and pursue in common, the
development of religion corresponds with the changing char
acter of that which is of most vital significance to the group
as a whole. The appearance of higher types of religion,
therefore, is an expression of widened and elaborated social
interests. King even goes so far as to say that "the deistic
conceptions of different times and races are, in the main,
quite discrete and unrelated to each other except in the fact
that they are all varying modes of social reaction and social
determination." 2 For the functionalist, of course, changes
in social interests are explicable in terms of changed adjust
ments which have become necessary on the part of the or
ganism or the life-process. Throughout their writings, there
fore, much stress is laid upon such factors as "the failure
of the food supply through natural causes or through the
encroachment of other tribes, the discovery of new lands
or resources, the invention of tools or weapons," 3 as well as
upon tribal struggles, warfare, and migration.

Admitting that the phenomena of religion cannot be
understood without employing a developmental point of
view and acknowledging the suggestiveness with which
functional writers have performed their task, one may never
theless inquire whether all of the demands of genetic inter-

1 C/., for example, Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience,
p. 117: "To a far later day than is usually recognized the governing im
pulse in these [the sacrificial] rites, is the desire for food, though this
may become refined into the desire for a particular kind of food more
potent or spiritual than others."

2 The Development of Religion, p. 226.

3 Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 170.

346 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

pretation have been complied with. To such an inquiry we
believe that a negative answer must be given. Our reasons
are the following:

(i) Functional accounts violate those principles of genetic
logic which Baldwin has termed "Canon of Progression,"
" Canon of Modal Relevancy," and "Canon of Modal
Unity." 1 To illustrate: They identify the food-interest
as it functions in the rise and development of religious ex
perience with the food-impulse of the "whole range of sen
tient life." To do this, however, or even to describe the
former as a 'refinement' of the latter, is highly misleading.
Human individuals not merely have certain feelings and
impulses, but they are conscious of these and of themselves
as experiencing them. Indeed, as Green and many others
have repeatedly urged, man may so detach himself from
any desire as to conceive himself "in possible enjoyment of
the satisfaction of other desires . . . and the desire itself is
more or less stimulated or checked, according as its gratifi
cation in this involuntary forecast appears conducive to
happiness or otherwise." 2 Thus, as organic impulses and
instincts become elements in the self-conscious life of in
dividuals, vast changes are wrought. On the one hand, the
impulses and instincts themselves become transformed; on
the other, new desires and, with them, new values arise
through the comparison, stimulation, and repression of its
acts by the self, and through the aspiration of the self to
acquire a nature which as yet reveals itself only to the con
structive imagination. A genetic account which fails,
through its point of view, even to recognize the changes just
indicated or to present an analysis of the food-impulse and
other interests as these come to manifest themselves in the
actual experience of human individuals, cannot be regarded
as satisfactory.3 Functionalism, as represented at any rate

1 Thought and Things, or Genetic Logic, Vol. I, p. 23.

2 Prolegomena to Ethics, § 127.

3 For an interesting account of the new forms and the changed signifi
cance assumed by the food-impulse in human life, see Wundt, Ethics,
Vol. I, tr. by Gulliver and Titchener, pp. 169-177.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 347

by King, has indeed undertaken to point out the conditions
under which impulsive acts come to acquire a value for con
sciousness, but the consciousness of the value has for the
most part been treated as epiphenomenal rather than as
itself a transforming and a creative factor within experience.
There is a general failure on the part of functional writers,
moreover, to do full justice to those changes in impulsive and
instinctive acts which result from the fact that human life
is essentially social. It is not the bare performance of in
stinctive acts, the satisfaction of appetite, or the adjustment
to the environing conditions of nature, that is focal in con
sciousness even in the case of primitive man. On the con
trary, the concern is with matters of recognized social in
terest. Custom, taboo, ceremonial, expressions of approval
and disapproval, of encouragement and of command, sur
charge even the simplest acts with values and emotions not
attached to them in prehuman stages of conduct. The mean
ing which acts and objects possess for the human individual,
therefore, cannot be arrived at by any method that considers
merely the function which the acts subserve and the role
which the objects play in the life-process. Consider, by way
of illustration, the phenomenon of sacrifice. Ames believes
that he can safeguard his interpretation by studying the
results which the acts involved effect. This leads to the
conclusion that the "central feature" in the rite, "the most
basic and characteristic act," and "the governing impulse,"
all relate to the food-process.1 How remote all this is from
expressing "the meaning attached to these [sacrificial] acts,"
should be clear to anyone who has not set out to study them
with definite psychological prepossessions.

(2) Closely related to the foregoing is a second failure of
functionalism as a genetic account. The commendable en
deavor to avoid the errors of those who would find through
out all the various stages of development the characteristic
traits of advanced religions,3 leads too frequently to the

1 The Psychology of Religious Experience, pp. n6f.

2 Ibid., p. 116.

3 That is, in the language of Baldwin, the "fallacy of Implication, or

348 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

converse fallacy of interpreting the higher religions in terms
of the lower.1 Geneticism demands that each stage be dealt
with according to principles determined by its own nature.
Even granting that, in the case of primitive religions, one
cannot avoid depending very largely upon the point of view
of adjustment, of acts involved and results effected, such
external or objective considerations fail hopelessly to ex
hibit the meaning of the higher forms of religious experience.
What has just been said with reference to sacrifice affords a
clue as to the reason for a complaint recently made to the
writer by a thoughtful student. He expressed disappoint
ment over the fact, that, while functional accounts intro
duced for him a greater measure of order and meaning into
the highly diverse and chaotic religious phenomena of
primitive peoples, they continued to impress him as utterly
strange and artificial with reference to any religious experi
ence of which he had direct knowledge.

(3) In discussing the higher manifestations of religion,
functionalists of necessity shift on occasion from the point
of view of adjustment or adaptation to that of personal
realization. This fluctuation of viewpoint, however, occurs
without any conscious, or at any rate any explicitly indicated,
appreciation of the difference between them. Nor, of course,
is there any endeavor to trace the steps by which a transition
occurs from the stage of religion characterized in terms of
adjustment to those higher stages in which the latter is
either displaced or supplemented by the motive of personal
realization.

(4) Without question there is truth in the functionalist's
contention that "religious types are not related to one an
other in causal or sequential terms," that " there is no con
tinuum of reason or perception," and that we may not
"trace a gradual unfolding of some innate concept of a di
vine or ethical ruler of the universe." 2 On the other hand,

the Implicit, or the Potential." Thought and Things, or Genetic Logic,
Vol. I, p. 24.

1 Baldwin's "fallacy of Equality," ibid., p. 23.

2 King, The Development of Religion, pp. 214, 216, and 226, respectively.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 349

there is an underestimation of the role that thought does
play and therefore also of the degree of continuity actually
present, if one asserts that the various stages of religion are
"quite discrete and unrelated to each other except in ...
that they are all varying modes of social reaction and social
determination." 1 The development of religion cannot,
indeed, be regarded as the evolution of an idea or of a
thought. Nevertheless, thought is a genuine, and, it is im
portant to note, a constantly increasing factor in the de
velopment. Moreover, it does more than merely secure
particular satisfactions and adjustments; its acts and its
results are far less discrete than the functionalist holds,
(a) Thought is concerned not alone with the situations of
practical difficulty that arise from time to time but also with
questions that have arisen in the course of its own activity
and with the examination and elaboration of earlier conclu
sions. Thus, there is a measure of continuity within the
thought-life of peoples, and this continuity reflects itself to a
certain extent in their religion, (b) Thought is instrumental
not merely in effecting adjustments to stimuli but in modi
fying the stimuli through changes which it inaugurates in
the environment. To this extent thought becomes objecti
fied and a certain continuity results, (c) Similarly, thought
not merely serves the demands of impulses and instincts but
it judges the latter, controls and reshapes them; it introduces
a measure of harmony and unity, and it evaluates and directs
the self which it thus creates towards goals which it postu
lates. It is but a partial truth to affirm that "the knowing
process, wherever it is alive and urgent, is concerned with
action, with the adjustment of means to ends." 2 Thought
is operative in the forming of ends as well as in the devising
of means. Thus again does thought find an incarnation
which lends a certain rational continuity to life and to re
ligion, (d) Thought effects an expansion of one's world
and, proportionately, alters actions and reactions; in this way
again it is operative in introducing a measure of rational

1 King, The Development of Religion, p. 226. Quoted above, p. 345.
• Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 315.

350 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

sequence into those human attitudes and evaluations which
for the functionalist constitute religion.

(5) Functionalism is inadequate as a genetic account be
cause of its failure thoroughly and consistently to recognize
that religion is not merely a derivative or secondary phe
nomenon,1 but is itself an important factor in social evolu
tion, that religion is not merely an expression of those values
which social groups have in various ways come to regard as
most vital, but powerfully determines what at any given
time are regarded as the most vital values. The indefinite-
ness of functional conceptions of religion 2 makes them ex
tremely elusive. The emphasis of the discussions, however,
is entirely in harmony with the standpoint from which re-

1 Cf. King, The Development of Religion, p. 214.

2 Leuba is quite justified in his criticism that King has "singled out
a means of connecting together the whole of life, and not one that can be
used to differentiate any particular portion of it," and in his contention
that Ames's discussion of religion in its relation to social interests and
social movements involves much confusion due to "juggling with the
word." Cf. A Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 50 and 54, respec
tively.

Ames, for example, sometimes teaches that in advanced civilizations
religion exists along side of law, art, and science, not merely as a separate
but sometimes even as an antagonistic interest (The Psychology of Relig
ious Experience, p. 279), that the religious nature, "though not some
thing distinguishable and separable in any mechanical and exclusive
way," possesses just as much "independence and uniqueness" as "one's
artistic nature or one's scientific nature" (ibid., p. 290). On the other
hand, however, religion is defined as "just the consciousness of the great
interests and purposes of life in their most idealized and intensified forms"
(ibid., p. 280); or, somewhat differently still, as a "phase of all socialized
human experience" (ibid., p. 280); or again, as " a participation in the
ideal values of the social consciousness" (ibid., p. 356). At times, more
over, religion is defined in terms of the inclusiveness of its ends (ibid.,
p. 302); at other times, in terms of the felt value of its ends (ibid., p. 168).
To give one more example of a confusing ambiguity in the concept 're
ligious:' we are told that "religion, in a psychical, as well as a scriptural
sense, is a matter of the spirit rather than of the letter" (ibid., p. 368).
In spite of this fact, Ames writes: "In primitive groups there could be no
non-religious persons. The customs were imperative and inexorable.
Anyone who would not conform was punished or expelled from the group
and not infrequently was put to death" (ibid., p. 356).

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 351

ligion appears as a product of various psychological and
economic causes and as an expression or reflection or phase
of the most idealized interests, of social experiences, or of
the ideal values of the social consciousness. If, however, as
an unbiased scrutiny inevitably reveals, religion has through
out been one of the most important factors both in its own
further development and in the modification of those condi
tions that have reciprocally influenced it, functionalism must
in so far also be pronounced unsatisfactory as a genetic
account of religion.

Ill

No less insistent than its emphasis upon the develop
mental approach has been functionalism's contention of the
fundamentally social character of religion. It is by reference
to the social quality that the religious experience is differ
entiated from the valuational attitude generally,1 that re
ligion is distinguished from magic,2 that religious ceremonial
is set apart from custom as such,3 that religious persons are
contrasted with the non-religious.4 It is through changes in
the social consciousness that modifications and developments
of ritual are accounted for,5 and that the growth and decay
of creeds are explained.6 Indeed, the persistent claim of the
essentially social character of all that falls within the sphere
of religion, coupled with statements to the effect that "the
man who enters thoroughly into the social movements of his
time is to that extent genuinely religious though he may
characterize himself otherwise," 7 results in the obliteration
of any discernible distinction between the concepts ( re
ligious' and 'social.' Accordingly, Ames describes non-
religious persons as "those who fail to enter vitally into a

1 Cf. King, The Development of Religion, pp. 63 ff.

2 Cf. ibid., pp. iSyff.; Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience,

P-79-

3 Cf. Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 72.

4 Cf. ibid., pp. 358ff.

5 Cf. Henke, A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism, pp. 57, 63.

6 Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, pp. 3 Soft., 396!!.
' Ibid., p. 358.

352 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

world of social activities and feelings." 1 But is not theory
here riding roughshod over classifications well-nigh univer
sally accepted? Does not religion itself, as Stratton has so
suggestively pointed out, involve conflicting motives, in
ducing, it is true, participation in social action and feeling,
but also the very contrary, namely, withdrawal from, if
not actual repudiation of, all obligations to the interests or
welfare of fellow-men? The list of those who have been
acclaimed 'saints' by widely different religions of varying
levels of development contains the names of many who, by
Ames's definition, would be excluded entirely from the
circle of the religious! But we would not dwell on this
anomalous situation or on the difficulty which Ames's con
ception encounters in finding a place for those religious
prophets and geniuses who are antagonistic to the values
and attitudes characteristic of their groups and who so broke
with the social consciousness as to fall martyrs to it. In
stead of discussing the respects in which the religious and
the social are too closely identified, let us raise the question
whether functionalism has adequately recognized the es
sentially social phases which religion does possess. In at
least three respects do there seem to be shortcomings.

(i) As we have already had occasion to notice, functional
accounts fail to take notice of the peculiarly subtle and in
tricate ways in which social feelings and attitudes are en
tangled in even the simplest of human actions. It is not
sufficient simply to point to the influence of social factors in
the differentiation of the religious from the valuational life
generally. Social factors enter in an essential way into the
genesis of all human values. They affect decisively such
matters even as the procuring and consumption of food, sex
relations, and the attitude of hostility, to say nothing of the
selection of names, the phenomena of initiation, the con
struction of huts and lodges, clan relationships, etc. It de
notes an inadequate recognition of the social phase of re
ligion when functionalism represents religious acts and rites
as concerned primarily, if not exclusively, with such external
1 Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 359.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 353

ends, for example, as the securing of food or the multiplica
tion of food objects, an interpretation that must seem almost
grotesque to the one engaged in such acts or rites.

(2) The functionalist does indeed emphasize the fact that
it is only those acts which are done in common and those
values which are shared by members of the group that can
acquire the intensity, ideality, and permanence requisite to
make them religious. He points out also the dependence of
certain types of ceremonial upon specific sorts of social
structure. Moreover, he admits incidentally, though, as we
have seen, with inadequate appreciation, that the per
formance of religious rites does, as a matter of fact, con
solidate the interests and vivify the spirit of the group. But
more than all this needs to be said by one who would fully
express the social motive in religion. For, surely in its
higher stages and even, as we are coming more clearly to see,
in its elementary forms, religious acts are a direct evidence
of man's longing for a more complete and social selfhood and
of his endeavor to participate more fully in the social con
sciousness. In exposing the fallacies of the earlier gift-
theories of sacrifice, Robertson Smith maintains that sacri
ficial rites assumed the form of a meal, but of a meal which
was essentially an act of communion in which the deity was
believed to participate along with the worshippers. Whether
the elimination from sacrifice of the features of oblation and
renouncement is justified, as Wundt maintains,1 or leads to
a distorted interpretation, as Durkheim holds,2 need not
here concern us. The important consideration is the ever
increasing evidence that sacrifice, in common with other re
ligious acts, expresses, as an essential motive, a desire both
for a certain enlargement such as comes through communion
and for identification with a more inclusive spirit than that
of the human individual. Basing the assertion on the earlier
work of Spencer and Gillen, Ames maintains that the In-
tichiuma ceremonies of the Australian tribes "were originally
elaborate efforts to increase the food supply by increasing

1 Elements of Folk Psychology, p. 434.

2 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, pp. 34off.

354 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

the totem." l The evidence which Durkheim has assembled
is sufficient to indicate that such a view should not stand
unchallenged, even though this writer may be passing to
an equally unsatisfactory extreme when he asserts that In-
tichiuma ceremonies contain as two essential elements, "an
act of communion and an act of oblation," 2 and that even
the most rudimentary cults known to-day exhibit "the most
mystical form of the alimentary communion." 3

(3) A third shortcoming which we find in functionalism,
so far as its recognition of the social is concerned, can here
but receive mention. To enter into a discussion as to
whether such a standpoint as that represented by Ames and
King can sufficiently escape subjectivism to provide logically
for the existence of any reality or objects independent of the
experience of human individuals, or even of a single in
dividual, would be to repeat numerous arguments and coun
ter arguments that have been advanced and readvanced
during recent years. But even such objective existence as
King gives to many other concepts he denies to those of
religion. "Since the concepts of religion symbolize values
rather than describe an objective order of existence," he
writes, "the psychologist must be careful to avoid treating
them in the same way as he would the concepts of science." 4
What the religionist regards as an order of reality, according
to King and functionalists generally, is in the last analysis
a manifestation of the way in which imagination portrays
the fact of certain valuational experiences enjoyed by the
individual. It is true, of course, that, in addition to deities
who are the direct embodiments of existing valuational at
titudes and are therefore vital to experience, there are oc
casional deities who, though believed to exist, are not wor
shipped. For the functionalist such deities as the latter
cannot be different in origin from those about whom scrupu
lously observed cults center. In so far, therefore, as he does

1 The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 118.

2 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, p. 342.

3 Ibid., p. 340.

4 The Development of Religion, p. 263.

FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION 355

not find them to be purely "play deities" constructed upon
the analogy of those who are actually worshipped, he is
compelled to regard them as " stranded " 1 deities, survivals
of a period whose interests radically differed from those of
later times. He is unable to admit that the lack of a cult, in
the case of certain deities, can be due to the fact that these
particular deities originated, not in human needs, but as a re
sult of causal inquiries or of intellectual processes.2 Nor
could he concede that the deity-concept is one to be tested
and examined by methods such as are employed to determine
whether or not an objective fact of existence is being de
scribed. Gods, in brief, are not known but are used; they do
not belong to the plane of the actual but to the realm of
values. "A deity," says King, " is a symbol, more or less per
sonal in form, of a value or values which have arisen in the ex
perience of some individual person or people." 3 Let us grant
that man may not worship the merely actual, that religion by
its very nature involves a reference to human needs and as
pirations. But is not the religious object regarded by the re
ligious consciousness both as genuinely objective and as no
less truly existent than any reality which may be mentioned ?
Deprive the religious object of actuality, furthermore, and
does it not lose that which makes it social in character? Ex
cept in the realm of the actual, how may an object be one
which is shared in common, while nevertheless differing from
such entities as moral or aesthetic norms in that the relations
between it and human individuals are social? The func
tional standpoint, therefore, leads quite naturally to the
insistence that religious experience does not, or at least need
not, involve a social relation between worshipper and deity.
Says Ames, "It is as possible to have prayer which is not
prayer 'to' some person or thing, as to have sacrifice which

1 Cf. The Development of Religion, pp. 236 and 237.

2 For a contrasting view which at the same time discloses with greater
completeness the motives fundamental to ideas of great unseen beings,
see Leuba, A Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 86ff., particularly pp.
96ff., and Stratton, The Psychology of the Religious Life, pp. 314^; com
pare with Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology, pp. 93f.

3 The Development of Religion, p. 261.

356 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

is not sacrifice 'to' some person or thing." l Far truer than
this to experience are the repeated assertions of Miss Strong
to the effect that "prayer is the direct interaction of two
selves arising simultaneously in consciousness;" "it is a
relation of selves, and aims at the production of another
self;" as is universal in the relations between selves, more
over, there are two phases of prayer, — the practical concern
for strength, inspiration, and the insight necessary for the
bearing of burdens and the performance of tasks, and also
the aesthetic interest expressed in a "contemplative sharing
of the life of a larger self," in "the enjoyment of God, as an
end in itself." 2

Thus we are forced to the conclusion that those functional
interpretations which, under the influence of biological and
evolutionary conceptions, interpret religious experience in
terms of its setting in the life-process, of adjustment, or of
practical control, so impoverish and enslave mind as to be
inadequate as accounts, not merely of the nature and genesis
of religion and of the course of its development, but also of
certain of the social characteristics which religion must be
conceded to possess.

1 The Psychology of Religious Experience., p. 141.

2 The Psychology of Prayer, pp. 24, 25, 90, and 96, respectively. The
fact that we have quoted these passages does not imply an endorsement
of the method employed in the essay. The very approach that is taken
seems to lead to a degree of confusion. We read: "Any self which we
know and distinguish from other things is not something which has con
sciousness . . . but something which arises in consciousness," and fol
lowing this is the statement that "the consciousness in which it arises
is of a social type" (p. 18). But, the reader will at once ask, is it not the
selves which arise within consciousness that should be described as social,
rather than the consciousness within which they both arise? And, indeed,
the writer herself implies this when she says that "consciousness begins
in the child" and that "he attains self-consciousness through personal
relations" (p. 19, italics mine). After being thus told that the child
himself attains to consciousness and to self-consciousness, we are dis
turbed to learn that "the selves which enter into relation ... are mental
facts, states of consciousness. It is an idea of myself and an idea of you
which relate themselves in such a way as to produce a new self" (p. 20).
Similarly, prayer, though described as a relation between selves, becomes
at times but a relation between two ideas of selves.

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