An introduction to philosophy

AN INTRODUCTION
TO PHILOSOPHY By

WILHELM WINDELBAND

Translated by JOSEPH McCABE

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON : ADELPHI TERRACE

First published in English

•31 76

(/I// r;^/i/s reserved]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

THE Introduction to Philosophy which I here offer to
the public gives a general view of philosophical problems
and explains the tendencies of the various attempts to
solve them. It seeks to provoke the reader to think
over the great problems of life. It is in no sense an
introduction to a special philosophical system, but it
makes a very wide survey of all the possibilities in the
way of solutions. Naturally, it is based upon the author's
personal view, as the student of philosophy will easily
perceive ; but this will not be pressed, or suffered to
influence the author's judgment in appraising other
systems of thought.

In view of the aim of the work I have not found it
necessary to burden it with literary references to the
historic systems to which reference is made in its pages.

WILHELM WINDELBAND.

HEIDELBERG,
February 1914.

AN INTRODUCTION
TO PHILOSOPHY

By RUDOLF EUCKEN

RUDOLF EUCKEN : His Life.
Work and Travels. By Him-
self.

SOCIALISM : An Analysis. By
Rudolf Eucken.

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.

LONDON

CONTENTS

PAGE

PROLEGOMENA 13

Aim of the Introduction — Craving for a philosophy of
life — Difficulty of philosophy — Presuppositions of philo-
sophic thinking — The problems and the solutions of
them — The history of philosophy — Antinomianism — His-
torical, systematic, and critical methods — Literature —
Knowledge and values — Distribution of the problems.

PART I. — THEORETICAL PROBLEMS (Questions of

Knowledge) 33

§ i. REALITY AND APPEARANCE 34

"True and apparent reality — Metaphysical and empirical,
absolute and relative reality — Objective and subjective
appearance — Positivism — Metaphysics and religion — Meta-
physics as a hypostasis of ideals — Philosophic methods
— "-The unconditioned — The transcendental appearance.

CHAPTER I.— ONTIC PROBLEMS 47

v § 2. SUBSTANCE 47

The category of inherence — The thing and its properties —
The identity of the thing — Essential and unessential
properties — Identity of mass, form, and development —
Elements — Absolute qualities : ideas — Atoms, entelechies,
and monads — Universalism and Individualism — Attributes
and modi — The ego — Coherence of the properties.

»'§ 3. THE QUANTITY OF BEING 72

Number and magnitude — Simplification of the world in
thought — Henism and Singularism — Monotheism — Pan-
theism, Deism, Theism — Immanence and transcendence —
Oneness, infinity, indefiniteness — Acosmism— Pluralism —
Monadology — Measurement — Finitism and Infinitism —
Space and time — Recurrence of all things.

- § 4. THE QUALITATIVE DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY . . 101
* Original and derivative properties — Primary and secondary
qualities — Quantitative outlook of men of science — The
material world and consciousness — The soul as vital force

8 CONTENTS

PAGE

and vehicle of consciousness — Intellectualism, Voluntarism,
and Emotionalism — The Unconscious — Psycho-physical
parallelism — Materialism and spiritualism (idealism) —
Theoretical and axiological duality — Monism.

CHAPTER II.— GENETIC PROBLEMS 121

§ 5. THE EVENT 121

Succession in time — Continuity and discontinuity of events
— Immanent and transgredient events — The necessity of
succession in time — Causal and teleological dependence.

§ 6. CAUSALITY 126

Four usual forms of causality — Plurality of causes-
Primary and incidental causes — Postulate of the identity
of the world — Law of causality — Conservation of energy —
New elements in the psychic life — Causal equation — In-
comprehensibility of the causal relation — Experience of
action — Universality of the time-succession — Conformity
of nature to law.

§ 7. MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 143

Convertibility of natural laws — The mechanical and the
organic whole — Originality of action — Aim and purpose —
Sound and spurious teleology — Unconscious teleology —
Teleology and vital capacity — Development — Causality in
the service of teleology.

§ 8. THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 152

Psychic and corporeal events — Psycho-physical causality —
Psycho-physical parallelism — Conservation of energy — Con-
sciousness as an epiphenomenon — Reflex movements —
The brain as an asylum ignorantice — Discontinuity of the
psychic event — Psycho-physical duality as appearance—
Panpsychism — The unconscious.

CHAPTER III.— NOETIC PROBLEMS . . 166

§ 9. TRUTH 166

Theories of knowledge — Science and knowledge — The
judgment — Transcendental, immanent, and formal truth —
Truth as value — Pragmatism — Opinion, belief, and know-
ledge.

§ jo. THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE 176

» Thinking and perceiving — Rationalism and empiricism
(sensualism) — Hominism — Apriorism and aposteriorism —
Psychologism.

•4 § ii. THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 182

Psychological and logical validity — Validity and being —
Consciousness in general — Theory of knowledge as meta-

CONTENTS Q

PAGE

physics — Dogmatism : naiive realism — The controversy
about universals : •Realism and Nominalism — Scepticism —
Problematicism and Probabilism — Phenomenalism — Mathe-
matical Phenomenalism — Semeiotics — Ontological Pheno-
menalism— Idealism — Solipsism — Spiritualism — Absolute
Phenomenalism : Agnosticism — Conscientialism.

§ 12. THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 196

Transcendental method — Function and content of con-
sciousness— Being and consciousness — Synthesis of the
manifold — Objectivity as real necessity — Abstraction —
Selective synthesis — Rational sciences : sciences of nature
and culture — The position of Psychology — Knowledge
without and with value — Autonomy of the various sciences.

PART II. — AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (Questions of

Value) 208

§ 13. VALUE . . . . . 209

Psychological axiology — Valuation as feeling or will —
Primary feeling — Primary will — Reciprocity of values —
Conversion — Morality — Valuation of values — Conscience —
Postulate of the normal consciousness — Logic, ethics, and
aesthetics.

CHAPTER I.— ETHICAL PROBLEMS 218

§ 14. THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 219

Imperativistic and descriptive morality — Many meanings
of the moral principle — Universal moral law — Teleological
fundamental law — Eudaemonism — Egoism — Hedonism — •
Epicureanism — Morality of soul-salvation — Altruism —
Utilitarianism — Morality of perfectibility — Rational
morality — Definition of man — Emotional morality —
Morality and legality — The categorical imperative — Moral
order of the world — Morality of personality.

Empirical and rational morality — Morality of feeling —
Intuitionalism — Morality of authority — God, the State,
and custom as legislators — Heteronomy and autonomy.

Reward and punishment — Altruistic impulses — Sym-
pathy and fellow-feeling — The beautiful soul — Strata of
morality.

The freedom of the will — Freedom of action and choice —
Determinism and indeterminism — Responsibility — Meta-
physical freedom as causelessness — Practical responsibility.

§ 15. COMMUNAL WILL 253

Individual and common will — Voluntary and pre-existing
unions — Natural and historical unions — The family, nation,
economic community, State, and Church — Custom, morals,
and law — End of voluntary communities — Civilization —

10 CONTENTS

PAGE

Sociology — Natural law and jurisprudence — The definition
of law — Legal duty, legal claims, legal rights — Law as the
ethical minimum — Purpose of the State and law — Liberal-
ism and Socialism — The national State — Object of the
State — Real rationality of the legal order.

§ 1 6. HISTORY 277

The philosophy of higher research — What happens in
and around man — Individuality and personality — Self-con-
sciousness— Emancipation of the personality — History of
language — Collectivist and individualist history — Super-
personality of values — Unity of the human race — Concept
and idea of humanity — Historical unification — Moral order
of the world — Progress in history — Indefinite perfectibility
— Intellectual, moral, and hedonistic progress — Old age
and death of humanity — Life as the greatest good —
Reality with and without time.

CHAPTER II.— AESTHETIC PROBLEMS 3°°

§ 17. CONCEPT OF THE ESTHETIC 301

History of the word " aesthetics " — Disinterested pleasure
— Freedom of wish and will — Toward a system of values —
Beauty in nature and art — Esthetics from above and
below.

§ 18. THE BEAUTIFUL 306

Differences of taste — Criticism of the idea of equal diffusion
— Majority and authority — Play of the intellectual forces —
Formalistic aesthetics — Play of the feelings and moods —
Emotional sympathy — Importance — The sensuous and
suprasensuous — The beautiful as a symbol of the good —
The sublime — Freedom in the appearance — Illusion — The
aesthetic object — Sensuous appearance of the idea.

§ 19. ART 316

Imitation — Entertainment, education, improvement — Play
and the impulse to play — Aimless self-presentation —
Genius — The unconscious-conscious in art.

CHAPTER III.— RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS . . . . 323

§ 20. THB SACRF.D . 324

The sacred not a special province of values — Conscience
as an otherworldly phenomenon — The superempirical
union of persons — God as a suprasensuous reality —
Ejection of the mythical from religious philosophy —
Relation of religion to the other provinces of culture —
The classification of religions — Pious sentiment and its
influence on ideas — Two meanings of the suprasensuous.

CONTENTS 11

§ 21. THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 334

Faith and knowledge — Natural religion and rational
religion — The immortality of the soul — The transmigration
of souls — The substance of souls — The postulate of freedom
— Posthumous justice — The Faust-like impulse to live on —
Personalistic pluralism — Soul and spirit — The philosophical
idea of God — Proofs of the existence of God — The onto-
logical proof and Pantheism — The cosmological proof and
Deism — The teleological proof and Theism.

§ 22. REALITY AND VALUE 351

Subjective and objective Antinomianism — Optimism and
pessimism — The problems of theodicy — Physical evil —
Moral evil — Dualism of value and unity of the world —
The will as the principle of the temporal.

INDEX 361

\

PROLEGOMENA

Aim of the Introduction — Craving for a philosophy of life — Difficulty
of philosophy — Presuppositions of philosophic thinking — The
problems and the solutions of them — The history of philosophy —
Antinomianism — Historical, systematic, and critical methods —
Literature — Knowledge and values — Distribution of the problems.

WE to-day find the words " Introduction to Philosophy '
as the title of a book more frequently than we used to
do. This assuredly means that there is a growing demand
for philosophy, and we see this reflected more and more
distinctly in our whole literature, in the experience of
booksellers, and in our academic life. The demand
plainly implies a craving for a philosophy of life. This
feeling, which Schopenhauer has, with his customary
felicity, called " the metaphysical craving," lives inex-
tinguishably in human nature, though it assumes different
forms in different ages, according to their spiritual
character. There are ages in which it almost entirely
fades from view : ages which seem to be almost absorbed
in the definite tasks set them by their own pressing
problems, either of the politico-social, the artistic, the
religious, or the scientific life. These are times which
vigorously pursue such special aims, work unswervingly
for their accomplishment, and find a complete satis-
faction in their task. They may be entitled " positive
ages." Such a period, certainly, was the second half
of the nineteenth century, which has been characterised
with equal justice as the scientific or the technical or the
political age.

It is evident that a change has taken place. Our life
to-day is assailed by a multitude of tasks that go right
down to its roots. Our people betray something of a
desire to get beyond themselves, to strain out toward

13

14 PROLEGOMENA

the undefined and unknown. We live in a ferment of
forces that is, like all periods of deep human emotion,
permeated with religious elements. We see the fact in
literature and art, where there is, though unhealthy
excesses mingle with sound impulses, a seeking and
groping of vigorous originality and compelling pressure.
We feel that we live in an age of transition, and the poet
has devised a formula for it in his " transvaluation of
all values." It is not so much as it was in the time of
Romanticism, for we have more hope. It is more like
the period of the Renaissance. We find the same craving
as there then was for a philosophy of life in which a new
creative power may strike root. In Germany there is
for the younger generation the additional incentive,
which gradually forces itself into recognition, that it is
time to reconsider the spiritual foundations of our national
life, the appreciation of which threatens to disappear
in the intoxication of material success or under the hard
pressure of secular labours.

Hence it is that people turn to philosophy for a new
creed of life. It is true that each brings with him such
a creed already made. No one approaches such a task
with an entirely open mind ; for every man needs, and has
in some form, an expansion of his knowledge which
amounts to a view of the world as a whole, and generally
of the place which man occupies, or ought to occupy,
in it. Thus there is a metaphysic of the nursery and
the fairy-tale, a metaphysic of practical life, a philosophy
of religious doctrine, a conception of life which we enjoy
in the work of the poet or artist and seek to assimilate.
All these varieties of a creed of life have grown up and
hardened more or less involuntarily. Each of them has
its natural, personal, historical assumptions, and its
usefulness is accordingly limited. It is the task of ph
sophy to determine whether there is in them anythin
of absolute value, which may be held intellectually, and
need not merely be an object of desire, affection, or
faith. In accordance with the demand which has always
been made of philosophy, and is made to-day with greater
emphasis than ever, it must always be a metaphysic or

PROLEGOMENA 15

at least a criticism of metaphysics. Will the philosophy
of our time meet this imperious demand ? It, at all
events, endeavours to meet it. The resignation which
covered itself with the name of Kant, the narrow con-
ception of its task which we inherited from preceding
generations, have given place to a new resolution. The
courage of truth, which Hegel preached when he mounted
his chair at Heidelberg, is once more awake.

Many wish to know something about this work, and
they ask for a special introduction to it : an introduction
more lengthy than is customary in the other sciences
and of a different character. Philosophy has long had
the reputation of being a particularly difficult study, an
abstract and abstruse science for which one needs a special
equipment. This is certainly true in regard to the great
creative achievements of philosophers ; and it is more true
than in the case of other sciences. For here there is
question, not merely of severe mental operations, but of
artistic originality in the conception of the whole. Yet
such equipment is not needed by the man who asks only
to understand and assimilate these achievements. As
Kant said of Newton, there is in the highest productions
of the scientific spirit nothing that any man cannot under-
stand and make his own.

The truth is that it is not so much the difficulty of
philosophy as the poor literary standard of philosophical
writers which perplexes the student. They cannot liber-
ate themselves from academic formulae and attain a free
and living contact with the thought of their time. Their
obscurity is, it is true, not without excuse, in a certain
sense. They have made use — often an excessive use —
of a right which is in itself quite justified. It is certainly
necessary in some circumstances to adopt a special ter-
minology to express scientific ideas and keep them dis-
tinct from the vague phrases of daily life and popular
speech, and so protect them from confusion and abuse ;
and, as experience teaches and psychology can easily
explain, words taken from the dead languages, which
stand out as something independent and fixed from the
current of modern speech, are the best for this purpose.

16 PROLEGOMENA

We allow the chemist, the anatomist, or the biologist
to coin such terms habitually, yet would forbid the
philosopher to do the same, and we express annoyance
when he makes any extensive use of the right. That is
inconvenient for philosophy, but it is, if you regard it
properly, not unflattering. It seems to mean that the
things with which the philosopher has to deal concern
everybody, and ought therefore to be accessible to every-
body and expressed in terms that can at once be under-
stood by all. This is, however, not entirely true. Indeed,
it is particularly incumbent on the philosopher, precisely
because he deals with things of universal interest, to
rid his ideas of the common crudity and looseness and give
them scientific form and expression ; and it is accordingly
both his duty and his right to stamp his name upon the
results of his work. This lays upon any Introduction to
philosophy the task of initiating the student to this difficult
and inevitable terminology.

Yet the finer quality of the artistic expression can
only be mastered by entering intimately into the problems
from the study of which the leading ideas have arisen.
We have, therefore, to deal here especially with the sympa-
thetic approach to the problems and the scientific treat-
ment of them. The student does not, however, need
any special equipment for this. He needs only a strict
discipline, earnest and conscientious thought, and, above
all, the avoidance of prejudices. The man who asks,
or even expects, of philosophy that it shall tell him
something of which he was already convinced had better
not waste his time over it. The man who has a creed of
life already formed, and is determined to retain it in
any circumstances, has no need whatever of philosophy.
For him it would mean merely the luxury of finding
proof that his beliefs were true. This applies not only
to religious ideas, which are usually regarded in this
connection, but even more particularly to the attitude
of those who trust to find in philosophy a confirmation
of the views they form in the course of daily life. It is
quite easy, but not very honourable, to win the kind of
popularity which people express when they say : " The

PROLEGOMENA 17

man is right ; that is what I always said." That is, as
the poet says, a ware that always finds a large public.
The man who wishes to make a serious study of philosophy
must be prepared to find that in its light the world and
life will present a different aspect from that which he
saw previously ; to sacrifice, if it prove necessary, the
preconceived ideas with which he approached it.

It is quite possible, perhaps inevitable, that the results
of philosophy will diverge considerably from the con-
clusions that one had in advance, but the things which
philosophy discusses are not remote and obscure objects
that need some skill to discover them. On the contrary,
they are precisely the things which life itself and the
work of the various sciences force upon a man's attention.
It is the very essence of philosophy to examine thoroughly
what lies at hand and all round us. In the whole of our
intellectual life there are uncriticised assumptions and
ideas lightly borrowed from life and science. The prac-
tical life of man is pervaded and dominated by pre-scien-
tific ideas, naively developed, which usage has incorporated
in our speech. These ideas, it is true, are modified and
clarified in the special sciences as far as it is necessary
for their particular purpose of arranging and controlling
their material ; but they still demand consideration in
connection with the problems and inquiries of philosophy.
Just as life affords material to the scientific worker in its
pre-scientific ideas, so life and the sciences together
provide, in their pre-scientific and pre-philosophic ideas,
material for the operations of the philosopher. Hence it
is that the frontier between the special sciences and
philosophy is not a definite line, but depends in each
age on the state of knowledge. In common life we con-
ceive a body as a thing that occupies space and is endowed
with all sorts of properties. Out of this pre-scientific
notion physics and chemistry form their ideas of atoms,
molecules, and elements. They were first formed in the
general impulse to acquire knowledge which the Greeks
called " philosophy." To-day these scientific ideas are
pre-philosophic concepts, and they suggest to us so many
problems of philosophy.

2

18 PROLEGOMENA

These assumptions which have not been thoroughly
examined have a legitimate use in the field for which
they are intended. Practical life manages very well
with its pre-scientific ideas of bodies ; and the pre-philo-
sophical ideas of atoms, etc., are just as satisfactory for
the special needs of physics and chemistry. While,
however, they are thus suited to the demands of empirical
theory, it may be that they will present serious problems
in the more general aspects in which philosophy has to
consider them. The idea of natural law is an indispensable
requirement both for practical life and for scientific
research, which has to discover the several laws of nature.
But what a natural law is, and what is the nature of the
dependence of our various concrete experiences upon
this general idea, are difficult problems which must be
approached, not by empirical investigation, but by
philosophical reflection.

In the special sciences and in common life, therefore,
these fundamental assumptions are justified by success ;
but the moment they are considered more deeply, the
moment a man asks himself whether these things which
are naively taken for granted are really sound, philosophy
is born. It is, as Aristotle says, the Qav^d^Lv, the hour
in which the mind is puzzled and turns upon itself. It
is the e£eTa£eti>, the demand of proof, with which
Socrates disturbed the illusory self-complacency of .himself
and his fellow-citizens. It is 'complete honesty of the
intellect with itself. We can never reflect on things
without assumptions which must be taken for granted ;
but we must not leave them indefinitely without inves-
tigation, and we must be prepared to abandon them if
they are found to be wrong. This testing of one's assump-
tions is philosophy.

Every great philosopher has passed through this phase
of examining what had been taken for granted, and it
is the same impulse which directs a man to the study
of philosophy. In the life of every thoughtful man there
comes a time when everything that had been assumed,
and on which we had confidently built, collapses like a
house of cards, and, as during an earthquake, even the

PROLEGOMENA 19

most solid-looking structure totters. Descartes has very
vividly described this, with the most exquisite simplicity
and fineness, in his first Meditation. He experiences, as
Socrates did, the real mission of scepticism ; which is,
both in history and in the very nature of human thought,
to lead us onward to a final security through the dis-
solution of our unreflecting assumptions. Herbart has
the same idea when, in his Introduction to Philosophy,
he, in his usual dry way, discusses the nature of
scepticism.

Our Introduction to philosophy has, therefore, to
formulate the fundamental problems which emerge from
this disturbance of the nai've assumptions of daily life
and of the sciences. It begins with current and appar-
ently quite intelligible phrases. In these things we,
taught by the lessons of history, find the starting-point
of our problems ; and we have to show how necessarily
they arise out of the vigorous and dispassionate examina-
tion of the assumptions of our mental life. When that is
understood, we see clearly from moment to moment the
nature of the connection between the leading ideas whose
relation to each other constitutes our problem, and we
understand the divergences of the attempts which have
been made to solve each problem. We may thus hope
that, as we realise the inevitability of the problems, we
shall understand and appreciate the lines along which
efforts have been made, and can and must be made, to
solve them.

Once we have conceived the task of philosophy from
this point of view, we find the best answer to a number
of criticisms which are commonly urged against it.
These prejudices arise not unnaturally from the impression
which a history of philosophy makes upon an outsider.
But — and this should arouse one's suspicions — they tend
to take two quite contradictory forms. The history of
philosophy does, in fact, present a totally different aspect
from the history of any of the other sciences. The latter
have a more or less clearly defined subject, and the history
of each of them represents a gradual mastery of it. Take,
for instance, the history of physics or of Greek philology.

20 PROLEGOMENA

In each such case we see a gradual expansion of the
knowledge acquired and a clearer understanding of the
subject ; extensively and intensively there is an unmis-
takable, if not a continuous, progress. A history of this
kind is able to describe achievements which are recog-
nised as permanent, and it can regard even errors as partial
truths. It is otherwise in philosophy. The moment you
attempt to define its subject-matter, you find the philo-
sophers themselves failing you. There is no such thing
as a generally received definition of philosophy, and it
would be useless to reproduce here the innumerable
attempts that have been made to provide one. The
outsider, therefore, gets the impression that in philosophy
there is question de omnibus rebus et de quibusdam aliis.
Each philosopher seems to work as if no others had
existed before him, and this is particularly noticeable
in the case of the most distinguished. Hence it is that
the history of philosophy gives one an impression of
something disconnected, something that is constantly
changing, something wanton and moody. Nothing in it
seems to be beyond dispute. There seems to be nothing
that one can point to as definitely established. There is
no science of philosophy in the sense that there is a science
of mathematics or law, and so on. It looks therefore
as if people are right when they see in this fruitless series
of mental efforts only a history of human weakness or
human folly.

On the other hand, however, one gets the impression,
especially when one compares the great figures of the
history of philosophy critically with each other, that, in
spite of all the changes of view, it is always the same thing.
The same questions, the same " tormenting riddles of
existence," recur in each age. They merely change the
garment of their verbal expression, the outer aspect of
their features, from one age to another. The substantial
content is always the same unanswered question. And
even the attempts to answer it have something stereo-
typed about them. Certain antithetic views about the
world and life recur over and over again, and they attack
and destroy each other with their mutual dialectic. Here

PROLEGOMENA 21

again, therefore, though for quite other reasons, one gets
the impression that something is attempted with inade-
quate resources, an impression of sterility and senseless
repetition.

This is not the place to show how this not unnatural
impression may be disarmed, and how, in spite of all,
an extremely valuable meaning may be read in the history
of philosophy. But we may draw attention to one point
in connection with these criticisms. This undeniable
vacillation from one side to another clearly shows that
the problems of philosophy, in their entirety and their
connections, are not so plainly indicated as problems
are in the other sciences ; that the totality and the system
of the problems themselves have first to be discovered,
and that this may perhaps be the last and highest problem
of philosophy. However, the discontinuity in the emer-
gence of the questions is best understood when we reflect
that the various elements of those assumptions about
life and science, to the disturbance of which we trace
the birth of philosophy, are only called into question
and awake reflection successively in the course of time,
from various historical circumstances that are due partly
to the features of personal, and partly to the character-
istics of general, intellectual life. Hence the problems
of philosophy are brought forward from different points
of view at different times, and the energy with which
now one question and now another forces itself upon our
attention is not so much determined by the systematic
connections as by the historical constellations of the
fundamental ideas.

And if, in the end, it is always the same problems
and the same general lines of solution that we find, we may
see in this precisely the best title of philosophy to recog-
nition. The fact proves that its problems are inevitable ;
that they are real and unescapable problems which no
thoughtful intellect, once it is awakened, can succeed
in ignoring. The perpetual recurrence of the same
solutions of problems, which seemed at first sight to be
a reproach, really shows that there are certain inevitable
relations of thought to the subject-matter, and that,

22 PROLEGOMENA

in spite of the constant change of the historical stimu-
lation, they are bound to return. To explain these essen-
tial elements in the questions and answers is the chief
task of an Introduction to philosophy. It has to show
that philosophy is no idle play of the imagination, no
hopeless tangle of arbitrarily conceived difficulties; but
that it concerns itself with very real things and very
serious questions, and explains this intrinsic pressure of
its irrepressible subject.

Thus both the problems and the solutions of them
become intelligible as a necessary correlation of the mind
and the objects it desires to know. This relation itself
is, it is true, one of those assumptions we have described ;
a pre-philosophic way of looking at things which certainly
must not pass without scrutiny, but from which the
introductory consideration is bound to start. And in
regard to this relation between the intellect and its object
we must at once put a point of view which cannot be
justified, but merely stated, here, because the entire
contents of this book, as a whole and in detail, go to prove
it. It is the point of view which we call Antinomianism.

All our knowledge is an interpretation of facts by
reflection ; and for reflection we need an intellect of a
certain character. It is of the innermost essence of this
intellect to have certain assumptions which we usually
call, in the scientific sense of the word, " prejudices," or
pre-judgments ; that is to say, judgments which form
the foundation and starting-point of all reflection. In
so far as these serve us as norms we call them axioms ;
but in so far as they are supposed to hold also for objects,
and we expect that these will conform to them, we name
them postulates. In virtue of this relation we may, to
use a modern way of looking at things, regard the intel-
lectual process as an adaptation of our assumptions to
the facts and of the facts to the assumptions. In the
choice and schematisation of the facts, which we accom-
plish by means of our axioms and postulates, we always
get this double process of adaptation. But it is clear
that, besides the substantial conformity of the two
elements, there is also a certain unconformity. The

PROLEGOMENA 23

conformity is, as Kant and Lotze have pointed out, the
fortunate fact which makes it possible for us to receive
the material which we experience into the forms of our
reflection, its comparative and relating activities. The
partial unconformity, on the other hand, which we find
between the two elements affords a starting-point for
that revision of our assumptions which is the essence of
philosophy.

The result of this revision may either lead to a recon-
ciliation and removal of the differences, or at least indi-
cate ways in which the work may be pursued with some
prospect of success, or it may end in a recognition that
the problems are insoluble. Which of these lines the
inquiry will take cannot, of course, be determined in
advance ; we must, in fact, stress from the first the fact
that we cannot expect the inquiry to have the same
success in regard to all problems. It is, on the contrary,
not only quite possible, but even probable, that many
of the problems will be found to have been already solved,
or at least proved to be clearly soluble, while in the case
of others, perhaps, we may see that all efforts to solve
them are hopeless. For if there are in fact definite limits
to the possibilities of scientific knowledge, we must
suppose that, while many of the questions with which
the metaphysical craving assails philosophy lie beyond
those limits, yet at least a certain number which are
capable of a satisfactory answer will be found within them.
In any case, our task is to take this element of adaptation
and understand the necessity with which the various
attempts at solution, together with the problem itself
and the antithesis of mental attitudes, arise therefrom.
In doing so we must not overlook the fact that the actual
form in which these solutions appear in history is due
to the personal work of distinguished individuals. This
element must be fully appreciated ; and it is especially
in the complication of various problems, which makes
their solution more difficult, that the historical and per-
sonal element comes chiefly into consideration. The
difficulties, however, are chiefly due to the relations them-
selves, and we shall direct our attention mainly to these,

24 PROLEGOMENA

in order to understand and appreciate both the problems
and the attempts to solve them. In sum, our task is
to expound, establish, and comment on the chief problems
of philosophy, and the lines on which the solution is to
be sought, with a full account of their historical appear-
ance. In this way an Introduction to philosophy becomes
a critical inquiry into the possible forms of a philosophic
view of life.

In meeting such a task we may adopt either a pre-
dominantly historical or a predominantly systematic
method. The former would, in view of what we have
already said, be open to the objection that the philosophers
themselves, at least in their purely historical succession,
seem to be a confusing and conflicting group, in the study
of which one is apt to lose the real thread or to miss the
most important points. The danger is least if one begins
with Greek philosophy, especially in its earliest develop-
ments. It is of a highly instructive character, because
of the splendid simplicity and resolute onesidedness with
which these gifted founders of science, not yet distracted
by an abundance of material, conceived their intellectual
work and naively accomplished it. Great as is this
didactic value, however, the grandiose and primitive
schemes of these pioneers do not meet the more com-
plicated problems of modern times. Their simple, strong
lines cannot provide an expression of the finer structure
of modern thought, which goes deep into the multiplicity
of the individual.

The systematic method of solution has appealed chiefly
to philosophers because it could be used as an introduction
to their philosophies. Fichte conceived his two Intro-
ductions to the Theory of Knowledge rather in this sense.
For him the theory of knowledge is what is generally
called philosophy, and of his two Introductions, one is
intended to teach those who know nothing about
philosophy, and the other to educate those who have a
philosophy, from Fichte's point of view. Herbart also,
the only one of the more eminent philosophers to write
an Introduction to Philosophy under precisely that title,

PROLEGOMENA 25

was chiefly concerned to introduce his readers to his own
philosophy, to the obscurities of his ontology.

Treatment of this kind is more to the taste of the
author than of the reader, for the reader, as a rule, desires
an introduction to philosophy in general, not to a par-
ticular system. It is true that any man who makes the
attempt will find it difficult to exclude his own views
in constructing his work and in dealing with the various
sections of it. We do not anticipate any objection to
the following sketch on that ground. One cannot speak
about these things, which stir the thoughtful mind to its
depths, without betraying one's own point of view. But
that must not be our goal, and it shall not be our chief
concern.

An Introduction to philosophy must be neither a mere
historical survey nor an apology for some special system.
It must rather introduce the reader to the science of
philosophising, to the living work of reflection, to the
direct understanding of its themes, its intellectual stresses,
and the various attempts to relieve them. It is only in
this sense that it must take up a position in regard to the
systematic development of that inner necessity which
is at the root of the problems, in the historical forms of
philosophy ; which often, indeed, contain a clue to their
solution, if not the solution itself. The Introduction,
therefore, proceeds from the standpoint of immanent
criticism in face of the systematic and historical material,
and in this way it must, in the forms of modern thought,
accomplish what Hegel once attempted in his Pheno-
menology of the Mind. It must point out the necessity
by which human thought is driven, from the standpoint
of philosophy, from its naive ideas of the world and life
on account of the contradictions which they involve.

We should not, it is true, imitate to-day the way in
which Hegel pursued his task. Neither his confusion of
the logical, psychological, historical, and philosophical
movements, nor the mysterious explanations by which
he covers the change of his point of view, would be
tolerated to-day ; the less so as the broad historical know-
ledge which such a method implies, both in author and

26 PROLEGOMENA

reader, is no longer possible. Moreover, we can no longer
share the confidence with which Hegel, at least in prin-
ciple, believed, in his historical optimism, in the identity
of the historical and the logical necessity of progress.
We must rather admit, as has been said previously, that
the order in which history unfolds the problems of
philosophy is immaterial to their systematic connected-
ness f and that therefore this systematic connection of
the problems cannot be deduced from history, but is,
on the contrary, the last and highest problem of philosophy.
Yet it is the imperishable merit of Hegel that he recog-
nised the organon of philosophy in the history of concepts.
To him we owe the perception that the shaping of the
problems and concepts, as the evolution of the human
mind in history has brought it about, is for us the only
satisfactory form in which we can arrange the tasks
of philosophy for systematic treatment. This historical
equipment alone will save us from discovering afresh
truths which were known long ago or from attempting
the impossible. It alone is fitted to orientate us securely
and fully as to the problem-content of philosophic
thought. For man cannot deduce out of his own self,
but must learn from the interpretation of his nature
by history, the proper attitude to take up in regard to
the necessary contents of rational consciousness in general,
which is the ultimate object of philosophy.

The literature which might be quoted for the purpose
of an Introduction to philosophy in this sense is very
extensive when one considers that, in substance, the
whole literature of philosophy is relevant to it ; but it is
extraordinarily scanty if we confine ourselves to special
treatments of this theme. Hardly one of the older
encyclopaedic works which call themselves Introductions
to philosophy need be rescued from its oblivion. Of the
works actually in circulation which bear the title, the
least fortunate is that of Wilhelm Wundt. The distin-
guished psychologist obviously intended in this work to
expound his not very profound views on the history of
philosophy, and he has added to these only a few schematic
observations, which are surprisingly inadequate, on general

PROLEGOMENA 27

philosophical tendencies. The most attractive of such
works is that of Friedrich Paulsen. He confines himself,
on the whole, to the theoretical problems, and completes
his work by a study of ethics ; and both his volumes
are written in an easy and graceful style which makes
them suitable for any man of average education. By
far the most scientific and instructive work is that
of Oswald Kiilpe ; but this also is rather valuable for
its distribution of the various philosophical disciplines
than as an organic development from the standpoint
of a formative fundamental principle. Less important
attempts, such as that of Cornelius, which is mainly
concerned with the theory of knowledge, and the purely
psychological work of Jerusalem, need only be mentioned.
On the whole, one finds this scantiness of material
for our purpose quite intelligible. The more profound
the subject is, the less are pioneers in teaching and writing
disposed to venture to deal with it ; for the task demands
not only a most extensive knowledge of the historical
forms of philosophy, but also a great deal of work of
one's own in elaborating the whole material and formu-
lating afresh the problems and their solutions in a living
philosophy. In this sense we may recommend, rather
than any of the books already mentioned, several works
which are really Introductions to philosophy without
bearing that title. To this class I especially assign Otto
Liebmann's Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit (4th ed.,
Strassburg, 1911) and its continuation, Gedanken und
Tatsachen (2 vols., Strassburg, 1904), and the Esquisse
d'une classification systematique des doctrines philo-
sophiques (Paris, 1885) of Charles Renouvier.

As the science of a creed of life philosophy has to meet
two needs. Men expect of it a comprehensive, securely
based, and, as far as possible, complete structure of all
knowledge, and at the same time a definite conviction
which will prove a support in life. This indicates the
theoretical and the practical importance of philosophy.
It must be both wisdom about the world and wisdom
about life, and any form of philosophy which confines

28 PROLEGOMENA

itself to only one of these tasks would now seem to us
one-sided and undesirable. The union of the two elements
is so characteristic of philosophy that the division of its
historical details into really distinct periods can best be
derived from the changes of the relations between the two.
We see what we call philosophy arise in Greece from a
purely theoretical interest and gradually come under the
power of a practical need ; and we follow the triumph
of the latter through the long centuries during which
philosophy is essentially a doctrine about the salvation
of man. With the Renaissance a predominantly theo-
retical interest again gets the upper hand, and its results
are used by the Aufkldrung in the service of its practical
aims ; until at last the intimate connection between the
two aspects of philosophy is clearly impressed upon the
mind by the works of Kant.

This relation is, as we now clearly see, based really
upon the nature of man. He is not only a perceptive,
but a willing and acting, being ; he is an organism moved
by judgments, not merely a machine moved by impulses.
The judgment itself, in which all knowledge is found,
is an act in which presentation and will are both active.
All our views pass spontaneously into conceptions of
value and motives ; and, on the other hand, our will
requires views or impressions as its basis of action.
Knowing and willing are not two powers casually bound
up together in us, but they are inseparably connected
aspects of one and the same indivisible being and life,
which can only be distinguished in psychological reflection.
Hence all knowledge tends to become a power in the
life of the will, to affect our appreciation of things, to
alter, create, satisfy, or repel our cravings. Hence, on
the other hand, the tendency of the will to determine
the goal or direction of our knowledge. It is true that
in some men we find extreme developments of one or the
other, according as thought or will predominates. The
solitary thinker, who is content with the bliss of deojpia,
is estranged from the mass of men, who lead practical
lives. The separation is right, as it is only an application
of the principle of division of labour, in accordance with

PROLEGOMENA 29

which really fruitful knowledge comes only to the entirely
disinterested inquirer. But in the general life of man
the two elements, the theoretical and the practical, are
interwoven. The results of knowledge are at once con-
verted into appreciations of value, and the need to appraise
things furnishes the objects of inquiry.

And not only the objects. The general lines of the
solution of problems and the answers to questions are
for the most part determined by ideas of value. We
may deplore and criticise this, or we may approve and
confirm it — to that we return later — but it is a fact which
we must note here, and a fact which will be explained
and critically considered throughout this work. If the
views of the individual, the direction of his attention,
the sphere of his intellectual interests, the choice and
connection of subjects and the appreciation of them,
are determined by the special needs of his profession or
his position — in a word, by the personal will — can it be
otherwise with the whole human race in its historical
development ? Are these motives of the will likely to
be entirely eliminated in the mutual adjustment of the
individual's ideas, or is it not more likely that the more
closely related of such motives will strengthen each other
and thus increase their control of the judgment ? We
cannot keep the will clear of our thoughts. Indeed, from
the psychological point of view the whole energy of
thought depends upon such values. It is a source of
error ; it is also the powei of truth.

This relation between thinking and willing, between
intellect and character, is plainly seen even in the case
of the greatest philosophers. It is, in a sense, peculiarly
characteristic of philosophy ; for, as we shall see in a
later section, in philosophy knowledge without value and
knowledge with value have a quite special relation to each
other. Philosophy is science ; it is, like other sciences,
a process of thought, the arrangement of the data of
experience in concepts. But it is also distinguished by
an impulse to turn back from the abstract and conceptual
to life, to views and actions. It needs to work up its
material into a comprehensive view of reality, which is

30 PROLEGOMENA

equivalent to an inspiring conviction. Philosophy can
never be mere knowledge ; it must also be artistic and
ethical life. Philosophical systems have been called
conceptual poems. They are ; though not in the cap-
tious sense that the conceptual construction is charac-
terised by unreality, but in the higher sense ihat genuine
poetry always is moulded and moulding life. The aesthetic-
ethical element in philosophy is at the same time the
personal, j It determines the importance and the active
influence of the great personalities in its history.

This intimate unity of the theoretical and the practical
had especially to be stressed here because the distinction
between the two will be the basis of the following work
on problems and theories. The division of philosophy
into theoretical and practical, which Aristotle initiated,
has proved up to the present time the most permanent,
and we will therefore find it best to divide the subjects
with which we have to deal into problems of knowledge
and problems of life, questions of being and questions of
value, theoretical and practical — or, as is now said,
axiological — problems.

But it is only the problems, the subjects, the questions
which may be thus divided. In our attempts to find a
solution we shall always discover that, in the actual,
historical work of thinking, the results of which will be
critically reviewed in this book, the division has not been
sustained. That is apparent on both sides. The practical
or axiological problems, under which head we include
all ethical, aesthetic, and religious questions — or questions
about value generally — cannot be scientifically solved
without regard to theoretical views. The solution cannot,
of course, and ought not to, be determined by any purely
rational knowledge of reality ; in the end there is always
a stat pro rations voluntas. Yet the solution cannot,
on the other hand, be reached without a scientific know-
ledge of the data. No knowledge of duty can be put
into action without a knowledge of being. Hence our
theoretical judgments become motives, if not the exclusive
motives, in the practical problems of philosophy. But,
on the other hand, our practical interest constantly

PROLEGOMENA 31

invades our purely theoretical reflection for the purpose
of decision. We need only recall the many historical
deviations which the purely intellectual process of thought
has suffered, as Lotze points out in the Introduction to
his Microcosm, from the pressure of the heart. There is in
philosophy a special and frequent case of this : the case in
which the practical postulate gives the decision when there
is theoretical uncertainty, in which theoretically equal pos-
sibilities in opinion leave the decision dependent upon
the purpose, so that once more stat pro rations voluntas.
We have a conspicuous illustration of this in the case
of Kant. It constitutes the most intimate connecting-
link, even the decisive and characteristic point of his
teaching ; and he has given us an explicit treatment of
it, in which his teaching is justified by an interest of
the reason.

We must therefore be prepared to find these amal-
gamations of theoretical and practical elements in the
solution of problems of both sorts. They are, in fact, a
special incentive to inquiry. And precisely on that account
this unfailing relation points to a final connection of the
two groups. It positively requires a binding link between
questions of being and questions of value. This must be
expressed in the sense that the highest of all philosophical
problems concern the relation of being to values, and of
value to being. Hence, as we shall see more fully at a
later stage, we get religious problems as the last of the
axiological group.

*o ;:

.
Uttn

PART I

THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

(QUESTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE)

WE may make a preliminary survey of the range of
questions of being by reflecting upon the ideas we use
in daily life. In our experience we believe that we
perceive things between which something happens, and
thus, to use the brief form of a catechism, we may reduce
the theoretical problems to the three questions : What
is that ? How does that happen ? How do we know
that ? We have therefore to deal with being, happening,
and the possibility of a knowledge of the world ; and
the questions take the form of three 'sorts of problems,
which we may, without doing violence to their inter-
connections, distinguish as ontic, genetic, and noetic
problems.

But before we approach them in detail, we must make
an inquiry which is common to them all. These elemen-
tary questions, as we have stated them, already imply
a disturbance of those common ideas which we derive
from simple perception and the views which spontaneously
develop therefrom. Without such an unsettlement our
common experience would never become a problem to us.
We have these ideas of things and of the processes which
take place between them, and this is supposed to be our
knowledge of them. The questions, therefore, mean that
it has occurred to us to doubt if things and events are
really such as we naively represented them ; behind the
questions is a suspicion that we may be wrong, and that
our supposed knowledge may have to be replaced by
something better. This feeling of misgiving opens out

3 33

34 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

the possibility that behind what we first thought we had
perceived as reality there may be another reality which
we have yet to discover. This problem we describe as
the conceptual relation of being and appearance.

§ i

Reality and Appearance. — True and apparent reality — Metaphysical
and empirical, absolute and relative reality — Objective and sub-
jective appearance — Positivism — Metaphysics and religion — Meta-
physics as a hypostasis of ideals — Philosophic methods — The
unconditioned — The transcendental appearance.

The distinction which is indicated in these categories
is the fundamental assumption of all scientific and there-
fore of all philosophic thought : the most general form
in which it finds expression. It means that a man is not
satisfied with his prima facie view of the world and life ;
that he may be able to get behind it and learn what it
really stands for. There is in it a vague idea, a sceptical
surmise, that reality may be something quite different
from what man imagines in his naive perceptions and
opinions. Possibly reality is not what it appears to be.
The superficial ideas formed from our daily experience
have " merely " the value of appearance. Things seem so.

This fundamental consideration pervades all philosophic
thinking. All our research may be characterised in the
words which Mephistopheles applies to Faust :

Far removed from all that seems,
Into being's depths he peers.

It is customary to call this the' search for " the thing-
in^itself"] but this phrase, which has been used since
the time of Wolff and Kant, indicates something that
has been known for ages. The thing-in-itself has had at
least sixteen ancestors. With the ancient~Ionians, the
Eleatics, and Plato it meant the innermost • essence of
the world. When the Milclians seek the essence "of" the
world, the o.pxn, and find it in matter, in the arreLpov ;
when the seeming reality of the~senses~ is replaced by

REALITY AND APPEARANCE 35

the " elements " of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, the
numbers of the Pythagoreans, the atoms of Leucippus
and Democritus, the ideas of Plato, or the entelechies of
Aristotle — what is all this but a search for the reality
behin9~appearances ? The mind is ever seeking to con-
ceive the genuinely real, as Democritus said (the trefj 6V),
or the truly real, as Plato called it (the oVroj? 6V).

This antithesis of true and apparent reality implies a
differentiation of value in the concept of reality itself.
The apparent multiplicity of things must not be regarded
as non-existent, as a mere seeming. Appearance must
be considered a secondary reality, a reality of the second
class, or even a " merely apparent ' reality. Modern
men of science, for instance, tell us that the real nature
of things, the primary reality, is in the atoms, and that
what seems to our simple perception the real thing is only
a phenomenon or appearance it presents to us.

For the truly real in this sense Plato has given us the
term ovaia, which corresponds to the concept of
" essence." In the Latin terminology of the Middle
Ages it is called the essentia, and is opposed to existentia.
Wolff and Kant change these terms into " thing-in-itself '
and appearance, while Hegel draws the distinction between
being and existence. We shall learn the various shades
of meaning of these expressions more fully at a later
stage. The commonelfirnp.nt_oj[jthem_is the divisioiL of
reality irjtp" a. tme"""self -existent realty nnrl an inferior.
apparent^ reality— on^ Qrig-jpa.T a^rifl gpnnjrjp, the other
dexivecl jind only ja^half^rgjil reality. The latter expression
is occasionally to be taken quite literally in philosophers,
when they, as Plato does to some extent, regard appear-
ance as a mixture of being and non-being. As opposed
to this the genuine reality is called " pure 1! being.

From the first, thinkers were aware that this distinction
is due to a psychological difference ; that the appearance
is in perception and the opinions formed therefrom by
the spontaneous play of the imagination, whilst the essencs.
reveals itself only to .jieliberate conceptual reflection.

^^^*^ *»^ijt»«~«^»» X _ •

Thus the antithesis of essence and appearance corresponds
to the antithesis of thinking and perceiving. The essences

36 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

are the voov^va. conceived by reason ; the appearances
are the (^aivo^eva given in perception. In accordance
with this, the general aim of philosophy is, by means of
thought, to get behind the appearances which are pre-
sented in perception to real being. In this we find the
genuine meaning of the word "metaphysics." It arose,
as is known, accidentally and from an extrinsic reason,
through Aristotle calling his work " the books after the
Physics ' —TO. /zero. TO. (f>vau<a. j3t/3At'a. The inquiry into
the ultimate principles of being and thought, which is
undertaken under various aspects in these books, does
in reality go behind the sensible presentation, or pera
TO. (f)v^.Ka. We therefore give the name " metaphysics '
to the philosophic science of genuine reality ; and we
call the effort to reach a conceptual view of life ' the
metaphysical craving."

In this sense we also, when there is a question of essence
and appearance, speak of metaphysical reality, which
belongs to the essence, as compared with the inferior,
derivative reality which suffices for the appearances;
and in the same connection the latter is described as
empirical reality — that is to say, the reality or half-reality
of existence which is given in experience and perception.
In this terminology, which opposes the metaphysical
and empirical to each other in the same sense as essence
and appearance, there is, it is true, a certain noetic tinge
of a fundamental assumption which we will examine
more fully later. For the present we have to deal with
another form of the same categories, which describes
them as absolute and relative reality. The primary,
genuine, seji-ejd&ting_reah'ty. true being, theessence, or
metaphysical reality, is called the absolutely real, or even
t.hft^AbsohitQ ; the secondary, dejpj^njiejiLxealLty, ejdslence,
or empirical reality-, is only relative — that is to say, a
reality wlTtcnrnerely owes its form of being to a relation
of the genuinely real. This relation may be conceived in
two different ways. The appearances, beyond which we
must penetrate to the truly real, are either themselves
real experiences and events of the originally real, though
of a derivative and secondary class, or they are simply

REALITY AND APPEARANCE 37

the ideas with which the mind conceives the true reality
in accordance with its own nature. We cannot very
well express this distinction except by the use of the
words " objective " and " subjective," though the abuses
which have crept into the use of these terms would make
it advisable to avoid then.' In the present case they
can, however, scarcely giw Tise to a misunderstanding.
The antithesis which they convey is easily explained by
a reference to metaphysical theories which are widely
known. In Spinoza's system the r^al being is the Deity
or Nature as the one jjubstance ; relative being, or modi,
are objective _nppp.axajices thereof. In Schopenhauer's
system the real being is the_\Vill.; relative being is the
empirical world_as a subjective appearance in conscious-
ires3~slTapetHiccording to space, time, and causality. This
double relativity, in which the appearance is conceived
either objectively, as an outcome, a real self-expression
— exprimcre, Spinoza says — of the primary and essential
real, or subjectively, as a mental presentation of the
genuinely real, prepares us for the division of ontic
problems — questions concerning real being — into genetic
and noetic ; that is to say, questions as to the possibility
of events and questions as to the possibility of knowledge.

The very multiplicity of the terms in which the anti-
thesis of being and appearance is expressed, in spite of
the various shades of meaning of each, apprises us that
it is one of the permanent aims of philosophy to seek a
true reality behind apparent reality. What is the founda-
tion of this persistent effort ? What sort of unsettlement
of our ideas leads to it ?

It certainly does not pass unchallenged. There is a
strain of thought which regards it as the highest principle
of wisdom to be content with what we perceive. To-day
we call this the positive point of view. We use the word
in the same sense as when we call it " positive " to regard
a thing as settled without criticism. Positive religion,
for instance, is a given religion which, without challenge,
is recognised, or claims to be recognised, as dominant.
We speak of positive law as existing law in contradistinc-
tion to an ideally and critically desirable law. Again, by

38 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

positive theology and jurisprudence we mean disciplines
which are simply expository and remain within the sphere
of the actually existing ; and in them we recognise as
positive tendencies those which in principle put forward
the actual as legitimate. In a general way, in fact, we
call positive sciences those which have no other aim or
desire than to establish facts. In fine, we give the name
of positive philosophy, or Positivism, to a system which
is based upon a combination of the positive sciences,
and holds that all thought and knowledge can and ought
to have as their object only the facts we perceive ; and that
it is therefore illusory and morbid to try to get beyond
these to a " truly real."

Positivism bases its claim upon the conviction that there
is no such being behind appearances. It is a fiction,
a phantom. In this we have, as will be more fully ex-
plained later, when we come to deal with noetical ques-
tions, the radical difference between the critical or agnostic
school and the positivistic. The former equally denies
that we can know the thing-in-itself, the Absolute, but
only to affirm more emphatically its real existence beyond
appearances ; the latter declares that the Unknowable is
an illusion. As its chief representative says : " Tout est
relatif, voila le seul principe absolu." There is nothing
behind appearances ; not only nothing for us, but nothing
there at all. This view, of which we seem to find traces
in antiquity, and certainly find in modern times before
Auguste Comte, is in our days also upheld by what is called
the immanent philosophy. It has had this name since
Avenarius, and it purports, as Berkeley did in his way,
to bring us back to the simplest and most natural theory
of reality. To it, therefore, all forms of metaphysics
are vain struggles, condemned in advance, of artificial
and transcendental thinking to discover another and more
genuine nature behind the facts. The positive or imma-
nent school thus challenge our right to describe the
facts as appearances in the sense of our category ; for this
at once implies a relation to a being that appears in them,
a trr'ng-in-itself.1

1 Jacobi, for instance, contended against Kant, though not in the

REALITY AND APPEARANCE 39

Immanent Positivism of this kind is, in the light of
all that we have said, nothing less than a denial of the
possibility of philosophy, for it rejects our essential
stimulus to research. As history shows, our irrepressible
impulse is to seek the metaphysical reality, and in this
sense philosophy is necessarily a process of transcendental
thinking. If it were true that this is only a continual
aberration, a self-deception of tfie scientific mind, philo-
sophy is impossible, and we might as well give up the
name with the reality. If there is no absolutely real,
there is no such thing as philosophy, which is supposed
to deal with it. In that case we should have only the
various empirical sciences ; and philos< > ,y ought to be
too proud to give its name to a synthesi? n which we might
gather together the most important facts of these sciences.

When Positivism, which on that account calls itself
" scientific ' philosophy, disowns the search after a real
essence of things, it appeals with some success to the
fact that the motives which have induced the mind to
strive to pass beyond the facts are not of a theoretical
character. On the lines of the doctrine which Turgot
and Comte developed as the law of the three stages, it
stresses the fact that the human mind, as it gradually
advances, passes from the theological and the meta-
physical to the positive stage, and that it was detained
in the earlier stages by the persistent force of transcen-
dental impulses. That is certainly true. We cannot
more correctly describe +he fundamental religious senti-
ment than by tracing it . as we trace the metaphysical
craving, to the dissatL .tio.n of the mind with facts,
with the things of the world. We recognize in it, as in
metaphysics, the fundamental impulse toward the higher
and deeper, the supramundane. Religion is a mood of
discontent with the world, a search for something purer,
better, more lasting, for things above space and time.
This affinity between religion and metaphysics is clear
and unmistakable. As an instance we need only quote

Positivist sense, that it is a petitio pvincipil to call the contents of
experience "appearance," and to conclude from this that there must
be a corresponding " thing-in-itself."

40 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

the deepest elements of Plato's philosophy, and we at
once find that the vigour with which he proves the reality
of the suprasensible world is certainly due to a religious
feeling. The mood of discontent with the given facts
inspires the assumption that there is another and a
higher world, which lies mysteriously behind the world
of sense. Plato calls this religious-metaphysical impulse
the epcos, the yearning of the soul for a better home.
And many other metaphysical systems are just as deeply
rooted in religious feeling and familiarity with religious
ideas as is that of Plato. We need only recall how
Descartes, in his Meditations, even when he is building
up his purely theoretical doctrine, without any intrinsic
religious interest, reconciles himself with the current
implications of the idea of God. But we may go further.
What powerful elements of metaphysical thought there
are in the aesthetic impulse to conceive the world as
a harmonious whole, a living organism, a single work
of art ! The philosophy of the Renaissance and that of
German idealism afford instances in every phase. How
clearly we see imagination helping to round out the facts
as fragments of the whole, to think things out from
beginning to end, to soar above the confines of the empirical
and the unsatisfactory into the broad realm of infinite
and true reality !

But why need we heap up instances ? This religious,
ethical, aesthetic woof in the tissue of philosophical systems
is the most conspicuous of facts. Philosophy is never
detached from ideas of value ; it is always strongly and
consciously influenced by them. It has never restricted
itself to what is supposed to be established in what we
call the exact sciences. It has always taken its elements
from the entire province of culture, from life and the
appeals of the religious, moral, political, and artistic
consciousness and aspiration. It has always claimed the
right to conceive the world in such fashion that beyond
all the unsatisfactoriness of its phenomena, in its deepest
depths, the appreciations of value are the living reality
of the mind. Metaphysics is the hypostatisation of
ideals.

REALITY AND APPEARANCE 41

Possibly the philosopher himself is often unaware of
this. It may be that the course of his critical search
will show to what extent his convictions, his judgments
of value, have influenced him in the enlargement and
completion of his knowledge. This correlation of elements
was very clearly brought out by Kant. He found that
theoretical reason threatened to call into question, not
only the knowableness, but even the thinkableness — that
is to say, the metaphysical reality — of the suprasensible,
or at least to make it entirely problematical ; then his
practical reason " realises " the suprasensible, and inspires
a conviction of the higher world of ethical-religious meta-
physics lurking behind the appearances.

Thus practical elements are seen to be at work even
in the general statement of our problems, and these deter-
mine the search for " genuine ' reality. The right to
seek this may be affirmed with Kant or denied with the
Positivists. We have not to decide that here, as it is
clearly a noetic problem of the first importance. We will
be content here to grant the fact that this transcendence
beyond the facts has really often been inspired and
influenced by practical impulses of this kind. But we deny
that Positivism has the right to say that these elements,
which it regards as scientifically unjustified, are the only
ones at the basis of metaphysical thought. We cannot
concede that this fact vitiates the impulse in its root.
We must rather ask whether there are not purely
theoretical reasons — indisputable and unassailable reasons
— for this search for a truly real.

This question must be answered emphatically in the
affirmative. There is, in the first place, a strong his-
torical presumption in favour of it. It is the ancient
lonians, the founders of philosophy, who point the way for
us ; and they are certainly above all suspicion of emotional
prejudice. Victorious assailants of religious fancy on the
intellectual side, coldly indifferent to men's ideas of values,
they are the true types of pure theoreticism. Undis-
turbed by religious, ethical, or aesthetic interests, they
follow only the impulse to acquire knowledge. That is
their boast and their strength — the strength of their

42 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

narrowness. They oppose all dogmatic tendencies ; they
have no ethic ; they ask nothing about beauty. Yet these
ancient lonians are pronounced metaphysicians — seekers
of the real being behind appearances. What else was it
when Thales said that all the variety of nature meant
changes of the one Proteus — water ? Or when his friend
Anaximander said that water could not be the real
essence, the original thing, since it is finite and would
be exhausted in the combinations, and we must therefore
imagine an eternal, infinite matter (TO aneipov), which
produces temporary things out of itself by ever new
creations ? There you have, literally, an advance of
thought juera ra tfrvaiKa, beyond things physical ; yet it
was due to purely theoretical reasons. What was the
reason ? Because the facts given in appearances do not
satisfy the scientific demands of conceptual reflection,
and therefore something has to be "thought out," con-
ceptually constructed, which may be regarded as the
genuine and true reality. It was thq jiypostatisation of a
logical ideal7\ and it is entirely wrong to call these hypo-
theses " fictions." Philosophers consider that in these
things they have a knowledge of true reality. Hence
metaphysical thought shows in its very origin that it is
logically compelled to assume something that will satisfy
the claim of the interpretative reflection, and it is not
afraid, when the actual world of perception furnishes
nothing of this kind, to set forth the conceptual postulate
as the true reality behind it. Much the same was done
by the Eleatics with their concept of being. They insist
—and here again the impulse is purely logical : there is
no ethical or aesthetic or other axiological impulse — that
there must be in existence some being (ecm yap elvai)
that is enduring, and not merely relative ; while what
seems to be in the world of facts does not exist in this
sense. There was a time when it was not, and a time
will come when it will be no more ; it is therefore only
apparent, only a deception of the senses. Thought re-
quires something more — the one true absolute being —
though it cannot go further and discover what it is.
In this first dialectic, though so hampered by poorness

REALITY AND APPEARANCE 43

of language, the concept (of being) is so strong that it
is affirmed, while the entire perceptual world opposed
to it is denied. Thought is braced to such a degree of
self-consciousness as to regard itself as real knowledge
in opposition to perception. In these experiences of the
thinker we see the origin of the belief that knowledge
of the imperceptible true being must be a quite distinct
activity of thought, and so we need a special method
in philosophy, which shall be quite different from the
method of the empirical sciences. Plato himself regards
his dialectic as the method of philosophic knowledge
(emcm^ny) as distinct from opinion based upon expe-
rience (Sofa) ; and from that time to Herbart's elaboration
of concepts by the method of relations and Hegel's dia-
lectical method we get all sorts of attempts to accomplish
this, with a more or less enduring success.

In this we may distinguish two main tendencies, which
correspond to the double relation of being and experience.
On the one side, being is assumed to be something other
than the appearances ; and any man who places decisive
emphasis on this, ami therefore brings out most strongly
the dualism of true and apparent reality, will always be
disposed to seek in pure thought the means of knowing
being, and will use some sort of constructive method
for that purpose. On the other side, however, it is held
that the essence is precisely that which appears in
appearances ; and any man who bears in mind this positive
aspect of the relation, who says with Herbart, " So much
appearance, so much indication of being," will have to
strive to get beyond the appearance, in the ways which
are used in the special sciences or ways analogous to
those, to real being ; much as Democritus formulated
the principle of conceiving true being in such a way that
the appearances remain (Stao-c6£eii> ra ^awo/iem) . The
one school is in some danger, in reaching the essence,
with which it alone is concerned, of losing sight of the
explanation of the appearances, on account of which it
is really necessary to conceive the essence. The other
school, devoting its attention mainly to the appearances,
is exposed to the opposite danger of not getting beyond

44 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

the appearances themselves and the ideas of the special
sciences.

In any case we must insist that metaphysics is a hypo-
statisation of ideals, and, in the purer cases, of logical
ideals. Pure and true being is, either in virtue of appre-
ciations of value or the postulates of conceptual thought,
what ought to be, yet is no part of empirical reality, and
therefore is, and must be, conceived as the metaphysical
reality behind it. Amongst these elements of the theo-
retical postulates we must lay special emphasis on one,
because, recurring as it does in various forms, it is well
calculated to show at once the irrepressibility and the
insolubility of the problems. This fundamental meta-
physical element is the infinity which we find in all aspects
of the given facts. Every experience we have is limited,
and it points to something beyond with which it is con-
nected, and with which it forms some sort of unity. This
is due to the fundamental synthetic character of the
mind itself, as it always gives some sort of unity to any
multiplicity which it embraces ; and in this sense all
knowledge is directed only to think such conceptual
interconnections as are based upon the actual coherences
of the contents of presentation. But each of these forms
points most pressingly in its applications toward infinity.
We see this clearly in the conception of space. Every
shape which we perceptually experience is limited, and,
with whatever limits it, forms an overlapping unity in
the space which is common to them and their surround-
ings. We come to no limit. Beyond every limit which
we try to assign there are always wider and more com-
prehensive unities. In the same way every thing that we
try to conceive as a separate reality is related to others,
and these again to others, and so on to infinity. Every
event, in the same way, points back to another, of which
it is the continuation and modification, and onward to
another in which it will be continued and modified ; and
these lines in turn lead in both directions to infinite time.
This infinity of the finite, of what cannot be defined and
conditioned except as finite, does not allow the intellect,
which would completely embrace this definiteness and

REALITY AND APPEARANCE 45

conditionedness, to come to any rest within the world
of appearances, as far as it can measure this even with
the aid of imagination. It does not rest until it has
reached the idea of an infinite, which is something different
from the individual conditioned thing or even the sum
total of all individual conditioned appearances. Thus the
one infinite space is something quite different from the
totality of all that we experience, or even of all the infinite
spaces imagined in connection with experience. It is
not an object of perception. It is unknown to the naive
consciousness ; it is an outcome of metaphysical thought.
It is the same with the concepts of the absolute thing,
absolute causality, and so on. In every case the logical
postulate passes beyond the facts to the construction of
absolute reality.

Thus precisely in this intractability of the illimitable
facts we get the Antinomianism which entails that the
demands of the intellect, since they cannot be realised
in experience, shall lead to the construction of a supra-
empirical, metaphysical reality. Kant showed this in
his criticism of metaphysics ; which was at the same time
a proof of the necessity of metaphysics. In the Intro-
duction to his transcendental dialectic he pointed out
this relation and called it " transcendental appearance."
The phenomenal world of sense points to endless chains
of the conditioned, and the understanding, with its craving
for definiteness, demands for the totality of the conditions
a limit of these series which we can never find in the
sensory perception of appearances. It has, therefore, to
think out such a limit ; but it can never know it, just
because neither a single one of the experiences nor the
sum total of them provides such a knowledge. Hence
the unconditioned is never given in experience, though
it is ' conceded ' of real necessity. The problems of
metaphysics are unavoidable, but ever insoluble, tasks
of reason. So we have in Kant's Criticism of Puye Reason
the new concept of " the idea " and " the transcendental
appearance," which at once explains the actuality of meta-
physics and is fatal to its claims, due to a confusion by
which the necessity which compels the formation of the

46 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

idea and the definition of the task is retained for the
accomplishment of the task and for acquiring knowledge
of an object — the true reality. Kant's conception of
transcendental appearance is, in fact, the key to an
understanding of the history of metaphysics. It implies
the undeniable fact that our thought is on all sides pressed
irresistibly beyond our actual experience of empirical
reality ; yet as regards the possibility of solving the
problems ... At all events, we need no further proof
that in the work of philosophy we have no cobwebs of
the brain, but very real and solidly grounded tasks.

CHAPTER I
ONTIC PROBLEMS

THE path to being leads philosophic thought from pre-
scientific and pre-philosophical ideas, beyond appear-
ances, to metaphysics : from the plain man's ideas of
the world, through the special sciences which have the
first task of modifying and correcting them, to the
problems which they leave untouched.

What we conceive as being are things that are vari-
ously conditioned in time and space, and are distinguished
from each other by different properties. Every thing is
something — somewhere — some when. In our conception
of it this multiplicity of properties and relations is brought
into some sort of unity, and this unity we call a thing.
But in practice this idea of a thing is subject to much
change. We find that the things which are empirically
perceived or supposed are superficial ideas, with which
' the matter does not end/' and so the question of seeking
the real things arises. We speak of this as the concept
of substance.

§2

Substance. — The category of inherence — The thing and its properties
— The identity of the thing — Essential and unessential properties
—Identity of mass, form, and development — Elements — Absolute
qualities: ideas — Atoms, entelechies, and monads — Universalism
and Individualism — Attributes and modi — The ego — Coherence
of the properties.

The form of thought which lies at the root of the
formation of concepts of things, and therefore of the
search for substances as the real things, is in logic called
the category of inherence. It is the first of all the

47

48 ONTIC PROBLEMS

categories in the sense that it is the fundamental con-
stituent form of our whole view of reality. It is this
which first and above all others objectifies, projects, or
externalises — that is to say, gives the form of an existing
reality to — the content of presentation. For a long
time, under the influence of Schopenhauer's teaching, to
which the physiologists subscribed under the lead of
Helmholtz, this primary function of objectivisation was
attributed to the other fundamental constituent category,
causality. That is, however, a mistake, due to the fact
that the idea easily occurs to the inquiring mind when
a doubt has been started. It is only when we reflect
what right we have to regard our states of conscious-
ness as a knowledge, or at all events the elements of
a knowledge, of a world that exists independently of
us that we perceive that the cause of these states is not
in ourselves, but must be sought in the objects. Such
a reflection is very far removed from the unthinking
mind. Without the aid of such a thought it converts
the impression, which is at first (as Lotze says) nothing
but a sort of feeling, into the idea of a thing in the simplest
of all ways, as speech enables us to see. I have a sensa-
tion of green, and I say : " I perceive something green "
— that is to say, a green thing, or something of which
green is a property. Lotze has pointed out in the begin-
ning of his Logic that this is the first logical work of the
intellect. The words themselves show this, as the adjec-
tive is converted into a substantive. The substantive
is the verbal expression for the conceptual form of the
thing, the substance. But once we have thus elaborated
our experience into the object, we ask further what sort
of properties green has : where it is, how large, what shape,
whether smooth or rough, hard or soft, and so on. We
only attain a complete idea of the thing by a synthesis
of many properties, which in the long run we receive
through different senses ; but this union of the various
conditions into the unity of the idea of the thing already
includes the logical assumption that all these different
elements belong to one and the same thing, and that
they together represent a coherent unity.

SUBSTANCE 49

All reality given in experience consists of such things.
Each of them signifies a number of conditions linked
together in a unity, and these conditions belong to it
and are called its properties. We can only think of or
define a thing by its properties ; we can only distinguish
things from each other by their different properties.
From this it seems at once to follow that we can only
speak of a thing as the same at different times as long as
it has the same properties ; and, on the other hand, that
we have to do with different things when we find different
properties and combinations of properties.

But this assumption is not consonant with empirical
reality. On the one hand, we do not find it surprising
that one and the same thing changes ; that is to say,
has different properties at different times. On the other
hand, it does not trouble us to imagine two different
things with precisely the same properties. We find
such things, perhaps, not so much in nature as in the
products of human industry (for instance, two steel pens
or needles of the same pattern from the same works),
and we find it in its most pronounced form in the con-
ceptions of scientific theory, as in the case of atoms.
This shows that the metaphysical " identity " of the
thing with itself is not the same as the permanent identity
of its properties. We must neither infer at once an
identity of things from a similarity of two impressions
nor make a mistake as to identity because of different
impressions. Two different billiard balls may seem
perfectly alike to us, and the same ball seems to us
different when it is dusty from when it is clean. What
we really perceive is only the similarity or dissimilarity
of impressions. An inference from this to metaphysical
identity is justified only by arguments which are based
upon general assumptions and habits and often very
intricate and far-reaching considerations. If I find my
writing-desk in the morning just as I left it the night
before, I assume that it is the same, provided I have
only one and there was no possibility of an entirely
similar desk being substituted for it during the night.
In thus assuming identity on the ground of similarity

4

50 OXTIC PROBLEMS

of impressions we are, notoriously, very liable to make
mistakes. We need only recall the part played in
Goethe's Elective Affinities, in the case of Edward,
by the superstitious delight in the treasured glass with
interlaced names on it. Toward the close of the tragedy
it appears that the old glass had been broken long before
and secretly replaced by a new one. It shows how diffi-
cult it is to affirm the identity of things which are not
continuously within our perception, such as lost or stolen
things. All that we can swear to with complete con-
fidence is the similarity of the impression. Identity
is a deceptive assumption, though in certain circum-
stances it may be fully sustained. If I lose my watch,
and some one puts before me another that is not only
just like it, but has the numbers engraved in precisely
the same place as they had been in my watch, it is
extremely probable that I have here, not merely a watch
from the same factory, but my own watch. But what
justifies me in assuming this is not the sameness of the
impression ; it is a series of considerations which are
based upon a knowledge of the entire circumstances.

This belief in the existence of things which are identical
with themselves we may contrast with the change of
either like or unlike impressions. It is an assumption
by means of which we interpret the facts of experience ;
a conceptual postulate which we think into the facts.
Let us try how far we can do that, and whether there
really are identical things of this kind amongst the ap-
parent things of our perceptual experience. I have here
a stone, a piece of chalk, a thing having a number of
properties which distinguish it from all other things.
I break it up, and now I have two or more things, each
differing from the others in its properties, at least in shape
and size. The same reality presented itself first to me
as one thing, then as a number of things. Where, then,
is the thing identical with itself which I look for and
assume in this same reality ? On the other hand, I take
several lead pencils, clearly different things. I throw
them into the fire, and they become one thing of a definite
shape and size. Further, the wood which seemed to

SUBSTANCE 51

me from a distance a unity plainly marked off from
the rest of the landscape becomes, on closer inspection,
a collective mass consisting of a number of trees. Each
tree, in turn, seems to me a single thing until a woodman
cuts it down, and then trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves
lie before me as so many different things. Was the
tree, like the forest, a collectivity ? Now I take one
of these things, say a piece of wood, and throw it into
the fire. It turns into ashes : to my eye a number of
minute things which have not the least resemblance to
the piece of wood. If I, in fine, see a chemist analysing
something into two substances which are far removed
from each other and from the object analysed, I find
it quite impossible to say where the reality identical
with itself is in all these changes.

It follows, at all events, that our empirical notions
of things are for the most part superficial, and do not
hold good, either in the empirical reality or in my
thought, with the postulate of identity. The question
arises, therefore, whether there are at all fixed and
unchanging concepts of things, and whether by means
of these we know things which really are and remain
identical with themselves. It seems quite possible that
we might have here only a constitutional necessity
of our mental processes. The category of inherence
is, as we saw, the highest form of the intellect which
works up our impressions. With its co-operation the
sensory elements of our perception are arranged in thing-
unities ; and we should therefore be compelled to
think of the world in things even if it did not consist
of them. It is also undeniable that we often use the
concept of thing quite wrongly. We should certainly
not go so far as to say that, whenever we use a substantive,
we wish to indicate a thing, yet it is incontestable that
this form of speech disposes us to ascribe a certain sort
of thing-like reality to such expressions, such as ' ' free-
dom ' and " evil." And does not the Platonic theory
of ideas seek to give a higher reality to all generic con-
cepts ? Or do not both language and psychology tend
to assign a thing-like reality as parts of the same to such

52 ONTIC PROBLEMS

concepts as will, understanding, and so on ? If critical
consideration compels us to regard these expressions
as superficial, with no serious claim to be things in the
proper sense of the word, does this apply also to other
ideas of things which the ordinary mind takes for granted ?
Is it possible that all our ideas of things are merely super-
ficial forms, a scaffolding put together at one moment
and after a longer or shorter period taken down again,
by means of which we try to reach the structure of reality
from without ? In any case, we cannot be content
with this arbitrary use of the category of inherence.
We must look for criteria which will enable us to attain
stable and permanent concepts of things. And if this
cannot be done in the world of experience, there is
nothing for it but to seek the reality of such things behind
experience. If it cannot be done physically, it must
.be done metaphysically. In both cases we call these
real things, as distinct from the apparent, substances.

All the paths which lead thought to this goal start
with the familiar fact that, even in the case of apparent
things, the properties are not all of the same value. They
differ from each other, really and logically, in value,
as far as the identity of the thing is concerned. Even
when we do not use the words, we are all accustomed
to distinguish essential and unessential properties in
our things : that is to say, those which may change
or disappear without destroying the identity of the
thing and those which cannot be removed without
destroying or casting doubt upon the identity. Essential
properties are those which belong to the true, absolute
being ; unessential, those which belong to the appear-
ance, the relative reality, the existence of a thing. In
concepts of things we also call these essential and acci-
dental features. Clearly, when we thus distinguish
between the essential and unessential in a thing, we, even
if not always consciously, make a selection amongst
the variety of elements which, under the category of
inherence, are bound together in the unity of the con-
cept of thing. On such a selection not only the notions
of things in common experience, but even all concepts

SUBSTANCE 53

of substance in science and philosophy, are based. From
this we see that scientific and even philosophic thought
moves more and more critically along the line marked
out by pre-scientific thought. The concepts of sub-
stance arise from a progressive selection of the essential
conditions, and at every step which knowledge makes
we have to consider the reasons and the justification
of this selection.

In order to test this, let us first see how we make this
selection in daily life : that is to say, what we consider
accidental and what indispensable in things, in con-
nection with their empirical identity. The first thing
we may take is the place in which the thing is — the
" where." A rolling billiard ball is the same wherever
it is and no matter how it moves. This indication of
space in our impression is, it is true, bound up with the
whole of our perception ; but in most cases the position
is immaterial as regards the object itself. It is the same
wherever it is. It is, however, not always immaterial.
In an aesthetic sense, for instance, it may be very
material what position a thing has in a landscape or
a picture. In the same way there are things, such as
organisms, for which it is a most important matter where
they may be : the plant, for instance, in relation to
the soil, and the animal in relation to its whole environ-
ment. These things, however, concern only the rela-
tions, the activities, or the means of development. As
regards that which the thing essentially is, place seems
to be a matter of indifference.

This, as we saw, makes clear a great difficulty of
Atomism. Each atom is supposed to differ from others
as a primordial and self-identical reality. But atoms
of the same element and, according to hypothesis, of
the fundamental matter are entirely alike in everything
that can be used in defining them. They differ from each
other only in difference of position. Yet this position
is immaterial to each ; each remains the same atom
no matter how much it moves. An atom of oxygen
remains the same whether it rushes along in a brook
or is in a stagnant pond ; whether it rises in vapour and

54 ONTIC PROBLEMS

is carried through the air, or is taken in with the breath
and enters the blood. In each of these positions, which
are quite immaterial to its nature, it could be replaced
by an entirely similar atom. Yet we regard the two
as two different realities. As a matter of fact, if we
apply to Atomism what Leibnitz called the principium
identitatis indisccrnibilium, we find that we can dis-
tinguish the atoms only by their position, and that this
is not at all part of their essence. Atomism distinguishes
between its substances only on the ground of their most
accidental features.

But let us leave atoms and come back to apparent
things. The least essential thing is position. The ball
is just the same in each stage of its movement. The
shape, colour, elasticity, etc., constitute the thing. Let
us suppose, then, that a white ball is painted red. Is
it still the same thing ? At first we answer this ques-
tion unreflectingly in the affirmative. In that case, there-
fore, the colour is not material to the identity of the
thing, however much we may like or dislike it, or how-
ever important it may be in a game of billiards. The
essential qualities of the thing, which remain, must be
mass and shape. It would no longer be a billiard ball
if it were cut into a die, and it would not be the same
if it were replaced by another, even one made out of
the same piece of ivory. In this case form and mass
are equally essential.

Well, let us take a ball made of wax, or of compressed
breadcrumbs. We can mould this into an oval or cubical
shape, or any other form. It remains the same piece
of wax and therefore, in this respect, the same thing.
It is clear that the form is now immaterial to the identity
of the thing, and all that remains is the mass.

We might, however, take it in the reverse way. Who
does not at once think of the illustration of a river, which
Heraclitus used so effectively ? The river is, in our
impression, a permanent figure of an identical being,
a permanent thing ; yet we know that the form alone
is permanent, while the volume of water changes
unceasingly. By means of this comparison of the

SUBSTANCE 55

mutually contradictory processes, this eVaimorpom'a, the
sage of Ephesus explained the illusion by which we see a
permanent thing in what is constantly changing. Per-
manence of form in certain circumstances suffices for us
to constitute the identity of the thing. A man has,
perhaps, had a new handle put on an old walking-stick,
renewed the ferrule many times, and possibly at some
time broken the wood and had it replaced. It remains
the same dear old stick, though not an atom of the
original material remains. The ancients used to illustrate
this by the " vessel of Theseus," which was for centuries
sent by the Athenians to the annual festival at Delos.
Although its masts, decks, oars, etc., had been successively
replaced, it was still the same ancient and sacred ship.
It seems, perhaps, trivial to quote such an instance in
this connection, but have we not an illustration of a
much more subtle and gradual transformation in the
case of our own body ? Does not physiology teach
that the organism is perpetually renewed, giving off as
much of its structure as it receives in the form of
nourishment ? Even the solid frame of the bones, grow-
ing constantly from within, is renewed in its material,
and after a number of years — it does not matter to us
in this connection what the number is — not a single atom
is left in our members of the stuff which once composed
them, apart from atrophied deposits which are not vital.
Hence this thing, the organised body, has its identity,
not in its mass as such, but in the permanent form in
which this is moulded.

But even constancy of form is not essential to identity.
The organic being, at least as far as immediate and external
observation goes, undergoes in certain circumstances
a number of material changes of size and shape. The
plant is one and the same, the same thing, from the acorn
to the oak. It may be possible to speak of an identity
of form throughout the whole development in a micro-
scopic, scientific sense, but certainly not in the sense
of ordinary observation. Further, the organism cer-
tainly remains identical when it has lost several mem-
bers. The amputation of a finger, an arm, or a leg does

5C ONTiC PROBLEMS

not destroy it. We say at once that the identity is at
an end when the head is cut off, but is it not as if the
organism were the same as before when an experimental
biologist cuts off the head of a frog ? Where is the limit
in this case ? What change of form is immaterial to
the identity of the organism ? What type of form is
indispensable ? If we cared to put this in the abstract,
we should say : Wrhen what remains as a connected
whole after the loss of various parts can go on living
as such, it is the same individual as before. If this is
so, it is neither form nor mass, but continuity of life,
continuous sameness of function, in which we must find
the identity of the living thing. When this remains,
the matter and form may change without leading us
into any error as regards the identity of the thing. We
see the same in other connections, where verbal expres-
sion would, perhaps, not use the word " thing " as readily
as in the preceding illustrations. Even in the case of
man's psychic life we speak of the identity of the per-
sonality as a thing complete in itself, and we are not
intimidated by the fact that such a being, in the course
of life, changes its ideas, feelings, views, and convictions
to a very great extent. These changes may be quite
radical transformations — religious claims such as that of
' new birth " show how possible this is — and even quite
apart from pathological cases, the gradual replacement
of the psychic contents in the course of life may be so
great that here again we have only the continuity of
life on which we may base an affirmation of identity.
W7e have another conspicuous instance when we speak
of the people or State as one being. Here again we
have a constant coming and going of the individuals
which compose the people or masses, so that at the
end of a century hardly a single one of the earlier
component parts survives. Besides this succession of
generations, the identity of the people is not affected
by the historical events by which some sections are
detached from it and new sections are added to it. We
take the continuity of language in this case as a criterion.
It is the same in historical culture as regards the meaning

SUBSTANCE 57

of the State. A State, as an historical unity, undergoes
considerable changes. It has its growth; it may con-
tract, and then expand again ; and it survives the change
of its inner life-form, its constitution. Yet in spite of
all these profound alterations we still in such cases speak
of the same people or State ; and this is not merely a
retention of the name because the changes only occur
gradually in our experience, but we are really thinking,
though not strictly in the category of inherence, of an
identical reality throughout all the changes.

When we regard all these different attempts of our
ordinary thinking to determine the essential, which
constitutes the identity, it seems that this essential is
always selected from the non-essential and accidental
from a definite point of view. And what may be essential
from one point of view need not be essential from
another. The elements which in each case lead to the
determination of the identity, which is never perceived
as such, differ according to our way of looking at them.
The principle of the selection which enables us to dis-
tinguish between the essential and the accidental changes
with the point of view of each science. This has been
shown by the illustrations we have taken from ordinary
life, as well as from the scientific procedure of physicists,
chemists, biologists, psychologists, and historians, and
we have found that three things are chiefly used in deter-
mining the essential : mass, form, and development.
They explain that which directed us in forming the con-
cept of substance — namely, the unchanging being which
persists throughout the changes of experience. This
temporal element, the relation of the unchanging to
the changing, was the first criterion of even pre-
scientific thought for fixing its concepts of things. In
the various sciences, however, this reflection on the per-
manent takes the deeper form of conceptual relations,
and in this we find, in the main, two routes adopted.
One of them runs on the line of the reflective category
of the general in relation to the particular ; the other
proceeds on the constitutive relation of causality.
Upon these logical forms rests the general validity which

58 ONTIC PROBLEMS

the scientific concepts of substance seem to possess,
and which as a matter of fact gives them their pre-
philosophical significance.

According to the first form the constant general ele-
ment in the contents of experience is the truly real, of
which the various appearances are merely fleeting
secondary realities. This procedure of thought follows
the actual connections which are constantly repeated
in our experience and seem to be the permanent element
amidst the changes. The earliest Greek thinkers occu-
pied themselves in many ways with the problem of
qualitative change (oAAotcoms), which seems to present
to us the real from moment to moment, and sought to
show that in this we should see only a fleeting appear-
ance and disappearance of unchangeable elements of the
true reality. More than one of these ancient thinkers
pointed out to his fellows that they were wrong in speak-
ing of origin and end in the case of apparent things. It
was, they said, only a combination and division, a
mingling or separation, of the truly real, and that the
latter is an unchangeable reality, without beginning
or end. If one sought in this sense the immutable
elements, out of which we see that empirical things
were composed when they dissolve, one discovered the
important difference between unequal and equal con-
stituents. When one seemed, in the case of the latter,
to have reached the limit of qualitative divisibility, one
must suppose that one had come to something of the
permanent nature of reality, some aspect of real being.
In this way the chemical idea of ' elements ' was
discovered, especially by Anaxagoras, and also the ideas
of homoomeria, which we seem to owe to Aristotle. The
genuinely real things are those which, when one is able
to divide them at all, divide always into like parts. The
qualitative general concepts which constitute substances
of the nature of the chemical elements according to this
view, clearly depend upon the means of division which
are at the disposal of the student of science, and we
cannot therefore be surprised that to Anaxagoras the
number of elements seemed to be infinite. When modern

SUBSTANCE 59

chemistry tells us that there are more than seventy such
elements, it makes it clear that this enumeration is
temporary and determined by the limits of our means
of subdividing them, and it keeps in mind all the time
the idea of an ultimate and entirely simple primitive
matter.

But what physical division cannot do may be attempted
with more prospect of success in the way of logical
analysis. The Greeks very soon saw the analogy between
chemical structure in the material world and the gram-
matical structure of language. Just as the multi-
plicity of apparent things may be reduced to a limited
number of elements, so the whole immense variety of
our language may be reduced to the comparatively small
number of its constituents, the letters of the alphabet.
As early as Plato we find the same word (aroix^ov]
used for the elements of the material world and the letters
of the alphabet, and it seems that even in the Latin
language elementum meant at first the letters with which
the alphabet was learned in school. Plato, in fact, elabo-
rated this analogy, and extended the comparison to the
unchanging elements of thought. The moment we reflect
on this we notice that every word we utter has a general
signification. When I say " this green thing," it is not
merely the something " green ' which might be said
of many other things, but the demonstrative pronoun
itself, which is supposed to refer directly to an individual
thing, may also be applied to countless other things.
It is so with all qualities of things without exception.
Each of them has a generic significance, and may be
verified in the case of many individuals. These " abso-
lute qualities," as Herbart called them, seem to represent
the generally and immutably real, of which the indi-
viduals of appearance are compacted in much the same
way as, from the chemical point of view, material indi-
viduals arise from the cohesion of general elements and
disappear when they are separated. Herbart rightly
pointed out that this analogy is one of the foundations
of the Platonic theory of ideals. According to Plato, a
thing is beautiful because the idea of beauty is incorporated

CO ONTIC PROBLEMS

in it. A body becomes warm when the idea of warmth
is added to it, and it becomes cold when this idea departs
and gives place to its contrary. In exactly the same
way that Plato (in the Phcedo] speaks of the coming and
going of ideas as the true meaning of changes of pro-
perties, Anaxagoras also contended that each individual
thing owes its properties to the elements which are in
it ; that it acquires a new property when the corre-
sponding element is added to it, and loses a property when
this is removed. We find the same idea, in a subtler
form, in the modern theory of the constitution of
molecules. If from a certain molecule I extract an
atom of bromine and replace it with an atom of iodine,
I get a different substance with correspondingly different
qualities.

In all these theories of elements, in spite of their
differences from each other, there is the common idea
that the truly real, the substantial, consists in the general
and homogeneously permanent, and that the apparent
reality which we perceive in individuals owes its pro-
perties to its participation in the general. From this
arises the system of Universalism, according to which
the individual exists only in so far as the general
momentarily unites with it.

These general substances, however, whether matter
or ideas, are really only denaturalised concepts of things :
gold or radium or oxygen is not strictly what we call a
thing according to the original structure of the category.
The danger of this use of the word is particularly clear
in the case of the generic ideas with which we describe
the fundamental forms or states of the psychic life. When
we speak of the intelligence or the will, the substantive
expression easily disposes us to conceive them as things,
whereas critical consideration does not find this justi-
fied. This view of the psychic generalised ideas as real
' faculties " must be extruded from scientific psychology
as quite mythological, though it remains useful in popular
thought and speech.

In addition to this, the process of abstraction on which
these generic concepts depend inevitably urges us to

SUBSTANCE 61

form higher and higher analogies and contrasts, and comes
to rest only in the ultimate and simplest general reality.
Thus we find chemistry, when what were thought to
be elements prove, on closer examination, to be com-
pound, leaning to the hypothesis of one fundamental
element ; and for a time it was believed that this was
found in hydrogen. It is true that this turned out to
be erroneous, yet such facts as the series of atomic weights
compel us to continue to search for some absolutely
simple element as the truly existent. The simpler these
generic ideas become, however, the more they diverge
from the original meaning of the category of things,
which, as inherence, always implies the arrangement
of the manifold in a unity. Thus the Cartesian ideas
of extended and conscious substance, and to some extent
Herbart's " reals," which are supposed to have only one
simple quality, are in the end denaturalised concepts
of things. And the same applies to such generalised
ideas as matter or spirit or even " nature." It is sheer
Universalism when we find Goethe in his well-known
hymn to nature speaking of it bringing forth individuals
prodigally yet being quite indifferent to their fate. It
makes nothing for itself out of individuals ; it reabsorbs
them in itself and creates others. It gives them only
a secondary reality. This Universalistic way of thinking
is quite familiar even in scientific work when it regards
matter, with its general forces, elements, and laws, as
the true and enduring reality, and the individual as a
temporary phenomenon.

There is a certain religious attitude that coincides
with this metaphysical way of looking at things, namely,
the attitude of those who regard the individual as sinful
and unworthy of existence, and think the absorption
of the individual in the whole the proper goal of all aspi-
ration. The mystic idea of deification, or the merging
of the individual in the divine whole, is the religious
form of Universalism ; and this played a great part in
medieval Realism. But, on the other hand, it is ideas
of value which oppose this conception : ideas of value
by which the personality, conscious of its freedom and

62 OXTIC PROBLEMS

responsibility, asserts its own feeling of reality and
originality, its proud sense of " aseity " or self-contained-
ness. Even apart from these feelings, however, there
are grave theoretical objections to Universalism. It
cannot solve the problem of individuality ; it cannot
intelligibly explain how individual things proceed from
the general reality, or why the elements unite to form
the individual thing precisely at this spot, at this time,
or in this particular way. If things are supposed to
be products of change in the substances, why the change ?
It has no foundation in the nature of substances. In
seeking an explanation we rather find ourselves driven
to other and earlier individual things, and thus get a
regressus in infinitum. The only thing for us to do seems
to be to assume that the true substances are originally
existing individual things. Individualism of this kind
may take various forms, according to the different ways
in which it conceives the individual things. There is,
in the first place, the Atomism of Democritus, which
was much more Individualistic than the modern atomic
theory. The latter recognises only chemically differ-
entiated elements, and, owing to the disintegration
of the atoms by cathode rays and their dissolution into
electrons, is well on the way to complete Universalism.
Democritus, on the contrary, conceived the atoms as
all qualitatively alike, but individually quite different
from each other in size and shape. He spoke of the
occupation of space or impenetrability, as we now say,
as the one general quality of all reality, and then described
individual realities as differing in " shape." He, for
instance, spoke of hook-shaped and sickle-shaped atoms,
and he required such shapes in order to be able to explain
the interlocking of the atoms. Each atom had not only
its particular shape, but 'also its own original movement,
of a definite direction and velocity. In the corpuscular
theory of the Renaissance this view was for a time revived,
but it is not retained in modern physics and chemistry.
Our modern sciences have quite abandoned Individualism.
The form of Individualism introduced by Aristotle,
the biological form, has held its ground much more

SUBSTANCE 63

effectively. In his idea of Entelechy Aristotle has con-
ceived the individual life-unity of the organism as the
true ovala ; as the entity which realises its form
in association with matter. The material elements used
for this purpose are no more than general possibilities ;
they only attain to living reality in the individual exist-
ence. That is a conception of thing which keeps very
close to the original category of thingness, and has there-
fore proved historically one of the best ideas for the
interpretation of phenomena. Hence our common use
of the words individual and " individuality ' to-day
has lost the original sense, in which it meant the arojuov,
the indivisible particle of matter, and usually implies
the organic individual, if not the spiritual individual
or personality. It is no longer the mass, but the form
and function, which is indivisible, as the members cannot
continue to live apart from the whole.

We thus understand a third form of metaphysical
Individualism, which occurs in the case of Leibnitz's
Monadology. According to this the universe consists
of spiritual individual elements, monads, all of which have
the same life-content, but each develops it in a different
way. Individuality here consists in the degree of
intensity of the clearness and explicitness with which
the monad becomes a mirror of the world The chief
objection to this is seen when we ask the question, what
it is that is to be differently mirrored in all these
monads. If each of them reflects only itself and all
the others, we have no absolute content in the whole
system of mutual mirroring. That is, in a certain sense,
a concentration of all the dialectical difficulties which
arise between Universalism and Individualism precisely
when the conflict takes its highest form in the case of
spiritual reality.

These difficulties recall to us that it is, as a fact, im-
possible to form a quite definite idea of individuality.
All the properties which we use for this purpose are in
their turn generic ideas : that is to say, definitions which
will apply to other individuals as well. The unique
and special thing about the individual is its combination

64 OXTIC PROBLEMS

of the manifold. But what this constitutes cannot
properly be expressed in words which, on account of
their general significance, will always apply to some-
thing else. Individnum est ineffabile. Individuality
cannot be described ; it is felt. This is true of great
historical personalities like Napoleon and Shakespeare,
Goethe and Bismarck. It is true also of the inner nature
of great characters in literature such as Hamlet or Faust.
The more a personality can be described or defined, the
less is its individuality and originality. Each quality
and achievement even of the greatest man can be ex-
pressed in words ; but the prepondering element has
to be experienced. Hence the intimate nature of a
personality is missed by those who try to express it in
analogies and comparisons ; as that prince of dilettanti,
Houston S. Chamberlain, tries to do with Kant. Indi-
viduals and individual qualities can never be intellectually
conceived ; the reader must be made to experience them
aesthetically, the description of their lives in each phase
being so shaped that it will present to the mind a unity
such as we have in the living reality.

These are matters of importance which it is for the
methodology of the higher sciences to explain. But
even as regards the metaphysical formulation of problems
we have here very serious questions, and they imply
very marked limits of possible intellectual knowledge
in an individualistic metaphysics. We can conceive,
genetically understand, and axiologically interpret the
various elements of individual natures by means of the
historical definiteness of all their phenomena. All that
pertains to this historical appearance of theirs is rational.
But in the end their substantial individuality consists
in that inexpressible unity which can never be an object
of thought and knowledge, but only a postulate of com-
prehension, only irrationally felt by intuition. Hence
Individualism frequently assumes a mystical form, and
from this arise questions which we will discuss later
when we come to deal with problems of value. We
notice them here only in order to characterise the ex-
tremes of Universalism and Individualism in this aspect

SUBSTANCE 65

also. The contrast between them is just as important
to a philosophy of life as to the theory and practice of
historical research. Fichte's saying, that the sort of
philosophy a man chooses depends upon the sort of man
he is, is verified here in the fact that whoever is content
to be an outcome of general states and conditions,
and is guided by these in his conduct of life, differs
fundamentally from the man who is convinced that
his feeling of personality is something special, and is
determined to stamp this personality upon circum-
stances. Thus we have in historical science the theory
of the milieu, which regards general movements as the
essential thing and the activity of the individual as
merely a secondary phenomenon in the total process,
opposed to the older idea that it is the great personalities
which make history and represent its meaning. The
theory of the milieu is therefore close akin to Rationalism,
whilst individualistic history neither can deny, nor
wishes to deny, that it contains irrationalistic elements.

Considered from the purely logical point of view, the
antithesis of Universalism and Individualism is directly
due to the structure of the concept of things. The thing
that we would definitely conceive consists of properties
all of which have universal significance, and this par-
ticular thing differs from all others only in virtue of
a special association of these properties. Universalism
seeks the true substantial realities in the general pro-
perties which are necessary in order to give shape and
secondary reality to apparent things by some special
combination of them. Individualism, on the contrary,
regards the synthesis itself as the substantial in a sense
of value, and the properties therein associated only as
mutable elements of a secondary reality of the possible.
Thus, in respect of the question of substance, Uni-
versalism coincides with the chemical-mechanical, and
Individualism with the organic, view of life. They
differ in their selection of the elements combined in the
empirical conception of the thing.

We have similar antitheses of views when we follow
up the difference between the enduringly essential and

5

60 ONTIC PROBLEMS

the changeably unessential in the relation of the original
and the derivative. A real inequality of this kind
amongst properties is often expressed by the antithesis
of constitutive and derivative characters. Certain pro-
perties, it is said, belong to the thing only in so far as,
and because, it has certain other and original properties.
The latter are supposed to be the permanent and essen-
tial as opposed to the mutable and unessential. A
tree develops leaves and flowers and fruit, and then
sheds its leaves. None of these states, which give it
very varied properties, belongs to its real and enduring
nature. The latter consists rather in its morphological
structure and physiological functions. From these arise
the phenomenal derivative properties, as states con-
ditioned by the changing relations of the environment
— the seasons, climate, etc. To the same difference
we may trace the scholastic distinction between attri-
butes and modi. The attributes constitute the nature
of the thing ; the modi are the conditions of its appear-
ance which arise from the attributes or are made possible
by them. Thus Descartes, for instance, defined bodies
by the attribute of extension. All their other properties
were supposed to be derived from this as modi. He
gave thought, [cogitatio] as the attribute of the soul, and
the various modifications of this are the psychic activities
and states of the mind, feeling, and will. The modi,
however, derive from the attributes only in virtue of
certain relations or under certain conditions. They
are therefore relative in regard to the nature of the thing,
while the attributes represent the absolute properties
which constitute the thing in itself. We constantly
think and speak in the sense of these categories. The
constitutive nature of things is distinguished from the
changing modi and states which it assumes in virtue of
certain relations to its surroundings. Thus the chemical
nature of a body consists in the fundamental properties
of the substances which constitute it, whereas such
properties as colour, odour, and taste are modi, which
are due to a relation to particular organs of sense, and so
on. In the same way we speak of a man's character

SUBSTANCE 67

as his real nature, and, in opposition to these enduring
qualities, we call his several activities and states deri-
vative and phenomenal things — modi of his real being.
It is evident that this distinction is fully justified as
long as it keeps within the limits of empirical knowledge
and the various divisions of it. It is based upon real
views of causal dependence, or at least (much the same
as with a man's character) on views and assumptions
about it. We are therefore dealing, not with matters
of formal logic, but with real relations which are indis-
putably based upon experience. They, however, have
no more than a practical utility in this field for distin-
guishing between the essential and the unessential. If
they are extended beyond it, they lead to insoluble meta-
physical difficulties. The attributes are supposed to
represent the essential nucleus in the plurality of per-
ceived properties, and to indicate something permanent
which meets the postulate of identity ; and this nucleus
is supposed to hold together in unity the whole cloud
of its transitory modifications. We speak thus of the
nature of a man as contrasted with his various states
and activities. Not only in speech, however, but in
thought also we distinguish even these permanent
and constitutive properties, the attributes, from the
thing itself, and we conceive this as what has the
properties, essential as well as unessential, attributes
as well as modi. The verbal expression in the predi-
cative judgment ' A is b ' by no means implies an
identity of subject and predicate, as was thought by
Herbart, who derived the whole artificial construction
of his theory of reality from this fundamental error.
We have no idea of saying that sugar is identical with
white or with sweet. The copula, which may express
very different categories as forms of combination of
subject and predicate, and may in some cases, as in
mathematical propositions, imply identity, has in this
case the meaning of the category of inherence ; the words
might just as well run, " sugar has sweet " — namely,
as a property. To give a logical explanation of these
aspects of the copula would be a more worthy object

68 ONTIC PROBLEMS

of the zeal of the inventors of Esperanto,' Ido, and
similar artificial languages. And the thing is no more
identical with the sum of its qualities than with any one
in particular. There remains always something that
possesses these qualities, and is therefore distinct from
them, and may be distinguished from them. It would,
of course, be quite impossible to describe the thing apart
from all its properties. Every qualification would be
itself a property, even if we take such a fundamental
property as extension or thought : a property which the
thing as such must have, and from which it must be
distinguished. The thing therefore remains as an unde-
finable substratum of properties, incapable of repre-
sentation by any quality, TO vTTOKei^vov, the " thing in
itself" ; in which we state a problem, but do not imply
that it is insoluble. In this sense Locke speaks of sub-
stance as the unknown bearer of the properties, of which
we can only say that it is, not what it is.

Have we then any sound reason to conceive this un-
knowable ? It has been denied ; indeed, this denial
is not only the chief historical element, but a permanent
source of strength, in Positivism. It began with the
English idealist Berkeley. In the development of the
problem of substance after Descartes the concept of thing
had been more and more deprived of its contents. The
things equipped with one single attribute, the res
cogitantes and res extensa, had been taken over by Locke
as cogitative and non-cogitative substances, but he had
gone on to the idea of unknowable substratum. When
we strip a thing of all its properties there is nothing left,
and so Berkeley concluded that there was nothing ; that
the being of the thing is not to be distinguished from
the sum of its properties, and that it is a mere fiction
of the schools, a phantom. If being coincides with per-
ception (if esse = percipi), substance is something we
have not perceived, but merely imagined from habit.
It is not real. If from a cherry I abstract all that I can
see, touch, taste and smell, there is nothing left. In
this way Berkeley abolished material substances. For
him they were merely complexes of sensations, bundles

SUBSTANCE 69

of ideas, as was then said ; and for that reason his theory
has been called Idealism. But he regarded these ideas
as states or activities of spirit. He allowed the res
cogitantes to remain. Then came his great successor
Hume. He showed that what was true of the cherry
was true of the self. It is a bundle of sensations. Hume
expounded this in the work of genius of his youth, the
Treatise, and then abandoned it in his later work, the
Inquiry, apparently because it gave great scandal to
his countrymen to find their beloved selves argued out
of existence. In his first work he showed that the as-
sumption of identity or substance can be explained,
on the lines of the association of ideas, by our being
accustomed to constant connections of ideas. The sub-
stance is not perceived, but merely gathered from
the repeated connectedness of similar elements of
presentation.

This development of thought may be made clear
in the following way. Accustomed to distinguish, in
the changing qualities of the empirical thing, between
i nucleus of essential, permanent, and original qualities
md the unessential, we fall into the error of supposing
that we can make the same distinction in regard to the
essential properties, and here also discover a nucleus
within the nucleus. This illusion is the transcendental
ippearance which leads thought pera TO. <f>vau«i, to the
problematic concept of the thing-in-itself. So far the
Positivist claim seems to be justified in this case. But
sve ask ourselves whether we can rest content here.
Let us, for example, look more closely at the idea of
the self. It is quite true that we cannot define it, and
that in this sense the individual is certainly ineffabile.
What can a man say when he is asked, or asks himself :
' Who art thou ? ' He may give us his name ; and, if
ive ask what that means, he may refer us to his bodily
frame, his physical individuality. But this is not the
self ; it belongs to it. Even quite apart from the
question of immortality or the transmigration of souls,
^very unprejudiced mind distinguishes itself from the
body which it possesses. In answer to further questions

70 ONTIC PROBLEMS

a man gives his social position, his profession, and so
on, as what constitutes his self. But he must soon per-
ceive that all these things are shells round the nucleus,
relative determinations of the nature of the self. We
then seek this in the psychic contents. But these also
belong to the self as its presentations and ideas, feel-
ings and volitions ; and if in the end we say that the
nucleus of our being is in our views and convictions,
it is clear that these do not constitute an absolutely
identical self from childhood to old age. We speak
of an identity of personality even in conditions of mental
disturbance in which it seems to be entirely replaced
by another. Religious ideas and claims, such as that
of being born again, certainly imply the possibility of
a complete change of one's inmost being, yet assume
an ultimate identity of the self throughout. We need
not inquire here how ideas of this kind — in Schopenhauer,
for instance — can be reconciled with the indestructi-
bility of man's nature in itself ; but it is at all events
clear how we always distinguish the self from all
tendencies and contents of the mind and will. It is not
these things, but has them. It is, in fine, precisely this
fact which gives birth to so impracticable an idea as
the liberum arbitrium indiffer entice, in which it is as-
sumed that the self decides, according to its mysterious
nature, between its own motives, gives an unintelligible
verdict when they are equal, and even victoriously over-
comes them. What there really is in this so-called
' free will ' no one can tell, because an act of will is
always characterised by its object. The individual will
must therefore always be determined by a definite object
or group of objects, and so must, as regards its content,
be empirically conceived as something else ; and this,
again, is not the intelligible character, but has it.

We thus cannot really say what the self is as
distinguished from all its properties and states. Yet
our feeling of personality strongly opposes the bundle-
theory and postulates that we have a real unity, even
if it can never be expressed. And there is a theoretical
element in addition to the emotional. The unity of

SUBSTANCE 71

the phenomena, which is supposed to indicate the thing
or the substance, cannot be merely an accidental juxta-
position, but is conceived as the reason for the inter-
connection of the manifold. This nucleus within the
nucleus is the containing or binding element, and we
may apply to all concepts of things and substances what
Lotze said of the meaning of the categories ; it has to
feel as a connected whole what comes together in con-
sciousness. The thing is, therefore, always the con-
nectedness of its properties, a synthetic unity, in virtue
of which they are not merely found together, but are
necessarily interwoven. Thus we define chemical sub-
stances as the molecular unity of atoms which do not
casually co-exist, but belong to this unity. The atom
itself is a unity of functions which are usually denned
as forces ; a force-centre, much in the sense in which
the Energetic school of physics gives a dynamic inter-
pretation of matter. This applies also to the entelechies,
the unities of the manifold in the living individual,
except that here the necessity of the interconnection,
or the connectedness of the elements, is conceived teleo-
logically, as in Kant's theory of the organism, not
mechanically.

In science, therefore, the thing or substance as the
conceptual fundamental form for the interpretation of
experience has the sense of establishing intellectually
the associations of the manifold into a permanent being.
All ideas of things or substances are outcomes or products
of judgments about the enduring connectedness of
original elements of experience. It is only in philosophy
that the further question arises, What is the real nature
of this coherence ? Popular, and to some extent even
scientific, thought treats it as an independent reality,
which possesses all the properties. It must, with Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume, be convinced that in such case
it can affirm no property whatever — in other words,
nothing — about the thing itself. We then have only
two alternatives. Either the synthesis of properties
in the thing is a merely psychological fact, a habit of
experiencing such coherences, and therefore a merely

72 ONTIC PROBLEMS

psychic (" subjective ") transformation of connected
experiences into connected reality — the hypostatisation
of a synthetic form of thought, the category of inherence
• — or we must be clear that this form of thought is of the
nature of knowledge only when it has a real significance,
when the connectedness presented in the category
holds good for the object. That is precisely Kant's
case against Hume. In either case, however, we must
give up the idea that we can speak of the thing as a
reality distinct from this interconnected complex of
its properties. The synthetic unity is, even in respect
of its formal nature, not really definable ; nor is it to
be conceived as something really separable from the
complex of the manifold associated in accordance with
it. For the practical work of acquiring knowledge,
therefore, our business is to disengage from the connec-
tions given in experience the concepts of substances
which, with their essential properties, lie at the root
of the preliminary ideas of things in experience. In
this search for the essential elements of being we have
to distinguish between qualities and quantities, the
intrinsic properties and the form-conditions of number
and size. In this way we get further ontic problems,
and these also belong to the category of substance.

§3

The Quantity Of Being. — Number and magnitude — Simplification of
the world in thought — Henism and Singularism — Monotheism —
Pantheism, Deism, Theism — Immanence and transcendence —
Oneness, infinity, indefiniteness — Acosmism — Pluralism — Monad-
ology — Measurement — Finitism and Infinitism — Space and time —
Recurrence of all things.

Quantity as a category represents a coherence of the
most elementary sort, and in two different ways. In
either case there is always question of a coherence of
the manifold into the unity of the particular conscious-
ness ; and for the determination of quantity we have
the correlative processes of distinguishing and com-

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 73

paring. When we count, we have always to deal with
a plurality of contents, and these must in some sense
be like each other or capable of being brought under
the same generic idea ; they must be different from each
other, yet conceived together as a unity. We see this
quite plainly in the case of the striking of a clock, where
we unite the strokes in a definite number. The things
counted make a whole, of which each element in the
count forms a part. But this quantitative relation
of the whole to its parts has, in addition to the arith-
metical form, a purely intellectual form of immediate
application, or certain special forms in our appreciation
of magnitudes of space and time ; so that number and
size are the two relations with which we have now
to deal.

If we turn first to the numerical definition of reality,
apparent reality presents itself to our experience as an
uncountable plurality. For the limitation of the mind,
which can only embrace a part, and indeed a very small
part, of the whole, contrasts with the endless manifold-
ness of what we perceive. The selection which we thus
make depends not only on the limited nature of our
experience, but also on apperception, which even amongst
our experiences admits ^only aTlimited part according to
what already exists in our memory. Even in the un-
controlled play of the psychic mechanism this linking
of the new to the old leads to general ideas, and the
deliberate direction of our thought tends always to
simplify the world for us by omitting what is strange.
The simplification in thought must always have the
form of a generic idea, which scientific men use for this
purpose ; but it may also consist in a general view, a
means adopted in the mental sciences. In either case
we drop the unessential, and the conceptual simplification
is brought about by a selection, the principles of which
have to be determined by methodology for the various
sciences according to the diversities of their objects and
aims. In the case of philosophy this tendency aims at
achieving a simplification of the whole. It is guided
by the assumption that there is one world, to which

74 ONTIC PROBLEMS

the entire immeasurable variety belongs. In the last
resort we think of all being and all happening as unity.
We thus speak of the physical universe and the historical
universe.

In regard to being, this search for the unity of the
world in the numerical aspect, and in connection with
the concept of substance, discloses itself as an attempt,
in face of the plurality of the ordinary ideas of things
of prescientific thought, and also in face of the plurality
of the concepts of substance in pre-philosophic scientific
thought, to postulate the oneness of the real substance.
At one time this was called Monism, or a Monistic ten-
dency of thought, but these names have become repug-
nant in our time, as in recent literature a timid sort of
Materialism, which we will consider later, has covered
itself with them. So we will choose the equivalent terms,
Henism or Singularism. In the Henistic sense the one
true being, the original reality, the all-embracing exist-
ence, is also called God by philosophers. Anaximander
himself gave the name of the Divine (TO delov) to
the Infinite, in which he sought the ultimate principle
of all things, and in recent philosophy we need only
quote Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher,
etc., as examples of this use of the word ; a use which,
we must admit, has led to much misunderstanding on
account of its confusion with the popular religious idea
of God. In justification of this custom of philosophers
we might plead that the prescientific mythical ideas of
God, and the pre-philosophical dogmatic ideas, differed
considerably from each other in content, and in part were
flagrantly opposed to each other. Positively speaking,
however, this right is based upon the transcendental
identity of religious and metaphysical thought, to which
we referred in the first section of this work. In virtue
of this affinity, religious Monotheism, which recognises
only one God, is an essential element and support of
metaphysical Henism ; though we must add that this
Monotheism is itself a product of intellectual culture.
It is a sure mark of a civilised religion. Just as primi-
tive thought does not yet conceive the idea of world-

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 75

unity, so the primitive religious imagination is thoroughly
pluralistic in its myths. It admits a multitude of divine,
supra-mundane Powers. It is Polytheism and Poly-
demonism. Even the great religions, though in theory
thoroughly Monotheistic, in practice made considerable
polytheistic concessions amongst the mass of the people ;
and even in religious metaphysics the monotheistic
theory finds itself compelled at times, in the interest
of the freedom and responsibility of personalities, to
admit an amount of metaphysical originality which
cannot very well be reconciled with the strict idea of
Monotheism.

We will not discuss these secondary motives here,
but will follow the purely theoretical arguments for the
Henism of the theory of substances. All are based upon
the fact that the numerous things of experience do not
simply occur together in mutual exclusiveness, but, just
as they have real affinities which enable us to unite them
in thought, so they are involved in a common flux of
things, they pass into each other in movement, they
mingle and blend with each other. In the last resort
everything that we experience or can imagine is, directly
or indirectly, related to everything else in these ways.
Mechanics formulates this fact in the mutual attraction
of all molecules. Kant found this commercium sub-
stantiarum most important for the development of his
ideas, and finely elucidated it, in his third Analogy of
Experience, by means of the light which plays between
us and material things. Even the Stoics used to speak
of av^nvoLa Trdvra ; and, though according to this a
thing is where it works, in the end everything is in
everything, as in the words of Anaxagoras (o^ov iravra)
or the common phrase of the Renaissance, omnia
ubique. According to this view all things really form
a single unity. In whatever direction the thinker looks
(as Timon said in ancient times about Xenophanes),
all things seem to him to blend into the unity of
nature, JLUCX <j)vms. This alone therefore merits the
name of the true thing or the substance. Apparent
things are not true substances. They lack permanence ;

76 ONTIC PROBLEMS

they change, and come into and pass out of existence ;
they are merely states or modi of the true substance,
the Deity. The Deity is one, and as the modi all belong
to him, is also everything : eV Kai TTO.V. This form of
Monotheism is known as Pantheism, and it is found
in its purest form in Spinozism, the simplest and most
instructive type of Pantheism. It is a theory of God-
Nature, in which plurality gives the appearance and unity
the reality ; and the conceptual relation between the
unity and plurality is simply that of inherence. God
as the primal reality has his attributes, and in these
as limitations we have the individual things of experi-
ence, his modi ; much as we may say that a piece of
wax has an extended mass as an attribute, while the
various shapes it assumes are its modi, or as, in common
speech, the human soul has will as an attribute and the
various acts of will as special modi. Applied to the uni-
verse, this means that all the special things of experience
are in their nature and essence one and the same, or
merely existing modi of it. The substance, the God-
Nature, is, as the poet has well said, the thing of all things;
The secondary reality of experience consists, on this
theory, of modi of the one true thing.

But this is only one form in which we may conceive
the real unity of the apparent many. Besides the
category of inherence we have the second, and equally
important, category of causality. When we apply this,
the unity is the cause, the plurality represents its effects.
This relation will, naturally, call for closer consideration
when we come to deal with genetic problems. Here
we need only observe that, in applying this category,
God, as the productive being, is substance in a different
sense from the things produced by him which constitute
the world. In this sense some have spoken of the one
original substance and the many derivative substances.
Thus some amount of substantiality is left to the things
of appearance ; though this, as the Occasionalist move-
ment in the Cartesian school showed, is extraordinarily
difficult to understand. On the other hand, full sub-
stantiality, metaphysical originality, the aseity of the

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 77

causa sui, is reserved for the one, the divine, substance.
This is Monotheism in the Deistic or the Theistic form —
two shades of expression which cannot very well be dis-
tinguished historically, and must be understood from
an axiological point of view. Individual things have,
on this theory, only a lesser, derivative, debilitated sub-
stantiality. They are, in a sense, degraded substances.
In this way we get two relations between the one
primary being and the plurality of individual things :
the Pantheistic according to the category of inherence,
the Deistic according to that of causality. In the one
case God is the original thing : in the other case the
original cause. For these two positions we use the words
immanence and transcendence. According to the first
the individual things of "experience have no being of
their own, and no other essence than the divine, of which
they are the modi. From the second point of view indi-
vidual things have a sort of being of their own ; not of
themselves, however, but from the Deity, yet in such
a way that they retain their substantiality, especially
in relation to each other. According to the first theory,
therefore, God and the world are not distinct from each
other ; God is immanent in all appearances as their
essence. According to the second, the things which make
up the world have a being of their own, though it is not
original, and in virtue of this they are distinct from God,
who transcends all as their cause. It is clear that from
the point of view of the problem of substantiality, and
exclusively from that point of view, Pantheism affords
the simplest and most successful solution. The difficulty
was that the apparent things do not meet the postulate
of identity, which holds good for true things, substances ;
and they are therefore, according to Pantheism, not sub-
stances, but modi of the one true substance. Deistic
transcendence, on the other hand, would save a certain
amount of substantiality for individual things, but
without being able to say satisfactorily in what it con-
sists. Hence in the controversies of the Cartesian school,
which arose out of these problems, it frequently came
to such a point that the antithesis seemed to be a mere

78 ONTIC PROBLEMS

verbal quarrel as to what ought to be called " substance,"
or whether we should say res or substantice. There are,
of course, axiological as well as genetic elements at work
in this antithesis of immanence and transcendence, and
we will consider them later.

Here we are concerned only with the common element,
that both theories lay equal stress on the uniqueness
of the primal being. On this account they have a second
point in common in their characterisation of this primary
being. The many apparent things, as definite contents
of our experience, limit each other : they are finite.
But the primary being, whether we regard it as primal
thing or primal cause, cannot be subject to such defini-
tions and limitations : it is infinite. Thus infinity is
closely connected with uniqueness, as Spinoza showed
with classic lucidity in the early part of his Ethics. The
one substance of Pantheism is infinite ; the modi are
its finite appearances. The one world-cause of Deism
is the infinite divine substance ; the individual things
of the world, bodies and souls, are expressly opposed
to it as finite substances. In the end these lines of
thought always lead to the conclusion that the real unity
of apparent things, in whatever way we conceive it, is
one single infinite substance.

We are led almost to the same conclusion by the
different line of thought which starts from the affinities
which we detect amongst the things of experience. We
refer to the logically Universalistic line of thought
which led to the conception of elements, forces, ideas —
in a word, to generic concepts. It was a conceptual
process which constantly abstracted from differences
and concentrated on what was common. In this, how-
ever, we discovered that the process is always forced
to go beyond itself. Chemical substances postulate in
the end an ultimate simple fundamental substance ;
physical forces involve one fundamental force — the
' energy," as is now said, which may change into many
forms (kinetic, potential, etc.) ; and the idea of psychic
powers points to a single consciousness as their simple
common element. This simplification of the world in

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 79

thought, which, the further it carries its process of
selection the more it abandons the special contents of
experience, clearly follows the law of formal logic that,
the more general concepts are, the richer they are in ex-
tension but the poorer in content. If we seek the true
substance in this way, we end in the most general and
most empty concepts, in which the extension <x> corre-
sponds to the content o. The Eleatics, who reached
the goal at one stride, were the first to find this. They
arrived at their idea of being (emu) partly on dialec-
tical lines, concluding that "to be " as a copula meant
the same in all propositions. In their ev, therefore,
the concept of uniqueness is identical with that of
simplicity. The primary being excludes all multiplicity
as well as all change. But this simple primary being
is then inexpressible, because none of the predicates
of the reality we experience can be applied to it. Thus
we have in the writings of Plotinus, the father of Neo-
Platonism and of the whole of medieval mysticism, this
inexpressible One, raised above all differences, as the
simple primal being of unknown character. And the
same line of thought has, in what is called ' negative
theology," taken the form of saying of God that, because
he is all things, he is nothing in particular, and no name
is applicable to him ; he is the deos 0.77010$. Thus
the primary being is raised above all the antitheses by
means of which our thought discriminates between the
various contents of our experience ; it is, as Nicholas
of Cusa and Giordano Bruno said, the coincidentia oppo-
sitorum. On the other hand, Spinoza's substantia sive
deus (this empty category of inherence, which has an
infinite number of attributes, but is itself nothing) is
an illustration of how all individuals disappear in the
thought of the One. On that account the All-One is,
not merely to our mind, but in itself, " the Indefinite "
(aopurrov) , and this is the same thing as ' the Infinite."
We see here how in the ideas offered to us the two
characters of the Infinite and the Indefinite are com-
bined, as seems to have been the case in the teaching
of Anaximander. In any case when there is question

80 ONTIC PROBLEMS

to-day of an infinite God, as contrasted with the world
as the conceptual whole of finite things, this implies
God's illimitability, a quantitative predicate, on the
one hand, and his inexpressibility, a qualitative pre-
dicate, on the other ; if one can give that name to the
denial of all qualitative predicates. This conception
of the infinite Deity is found developed with special
strength in all mystical doctrines as the sufficient object
of religious emotion, to which this empty indefmiteness
is particularly suited. Thus Schleiermacher, for instance,
relates the pietist's simple feeling of dependence with
the Spinozistic All-One.

Nevertheless, however congenial that may be to the
emotions, it is very unsatisfactory to the cravings of
the intelligence. Its emptiness makes this idea of the
world-substance useless for the purposes of thought.
Its oneness makes it unsuitable to explain the plurality,
its simplicity renders it unfit to explain the variety, of
experience. The Eleatics pointed this out with extreme
plainness and almost grotesque indifference to the con-
sequences. They deny the plurality and variety. They
deny even that change and movement exist. The One
cannot produce them. They are only an illusion —
though in the Eleatic doctrine there is not a trace of
an explanation where and how this illusion is possible.
This is what we call Acosmism : the world of experience
vanishes in and before the truly real. It is the tragedy
of this way of thinking that it denies what it ought to
explain. Less explicitly, though it is not less difficult,
the insoluble question, how the primary being stands
in regard to the varying plurality of its appearances
or its creations, lurks behind the other and later forms
of Henism. How can Spinoza explain why his infinite
substance presents itself in these finite modi ? Can
theology tell why the transcendental world-cause has
created precisely this multitude and variety of finite
things ? It constantly tries to evade the difficulty by
talking about some inscrutable design of the divine will,
some motiveless arbitrary act. But a problem is not
solved by putting it out of sight with the word

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 81

" freedom." When Fichte described the self-limitation
of the All-One Self to the endless fullness of the contents
of experience as an arbitrary free act, he knew well that
this meant that he abandoned the idea of explaining
it. All the methods that philosophers have conceived
in order to explain by logical operations, in which, of
course, negation as the one pure formal kind of disjunction
must play a leading part, this evolution of the one into
the many — whether it be the Neo-Platonist or the
Hegelian dialectic — have quite failed to accomplish their
purpose of deriving the finite from the infinite, the
definite from the indefinite.

That is the limit of Henism, and at the same time
the starting-point of its opposite, Pluralism. Most
instructive in this respect is the contrast between
Herbart's ontology and the philosophy of identity.
Herbart reminds us that, the moment we assume a single
and simple entity as principle, we cannot derive plurality
and events from it. Plurality cannot be got from unity ;
diversity cannot be got from simplicity. On the con-
trary, even in empirical relations all apparent variety
is based upon the plurality of the relations of each thing
to many others. All properties of things are relative
in the sense that they always imply a relation of one
thing to other things, and never mean something which
pertains to the thing alone. Physical properties, such
as colour, assume a relation to certain conditions, such
as light and illumination ; psychic properties mean
tendencies of the mind and the will to certain definite
contents, and so on. The event also is quite unin-
telligible if it is to happen to one thing alone. There
would be no beginning, no direction, no object of activity
to assign, unless we think of relations to other things
Every action is conceivable only as reaction. The world,
with its varied things and their actions and reactions,
is a network of relations between countless individuals.

This opposition of Herbart to the philosophy of
identity is clearly inspired by the idea of evolution, which
the scientific theories of the first Greek investigators
derived from the metaphysic of the Eleatics. The latter

6

82 ONTIC PROBLEMS

excluded movement and plurality from their simple
reality, but they were undeniable facts, and could not
be banished from the world by logic. Hence it seemed
to men like Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus
that one could only retain the idea of identical being,
with its qualities of eternity and immutability, by multi-
plying it. They gave up the numerical unity, the one-
ness, in order to be able to leave the simplicity to each
individual being, and to explain phenomenal things
with their changes as varying combinations of a plurality
of substances.

This led to the various shades of scientifically-minded
Pluralism. It was possible to speak of the elements,
the homoomeria, or the atoms, as really existing things,
and these scientific ideas were for a long time satisfactory
in science, even though they were not philosophically
worked out to the end. Thus earlier chemistry was
content with the idea of matter as a body that could be
divided into equal parts. Physics, especially mechanics,
was content with the idea of an atom that had the
sole properties of occupying space, impenetrability, and
inertia, and perhaps attraction and repulsion. These
things were satisfactory as long as physics wanted to
study only those processes and relations of bodies which
were independent of chemical constitution. Fechner
himself, however, pointed out in his work on the
physical and philosophic theory of the atom that these
various ideas of the atom were not satisfactory. Since
then the problems of physical chemistry and the ques-
tions raised by electrical research have made their ap-
pearance, and to-day we cannot find any conception
of the atom which is equally applicable in physical and
chemical problems. Considered from the most general
point of view, the constitution of matter cannot be in-
terpreted by different theories. This is an illustration
of the relation of scientific hypotheses and research to
the problems of philosophy. Special research does not
need to wait for the settlement of these ultimate ques-
tions. The man who is working on benzol-derivatives
or hydrostatic laws is not bound to take up a position

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 83

on the question how we must conceive the primary atom.
It is a problem that arises in philosophy.

The philosophic theory of substances has, however,
to meet other points of view than those of chemistry
and physics. It therefore produces other pluralistic
systems, though they are fewer in number and less im-
pressive than the singularistic, which pay more attention
to the scientific impulse to simplify the world in thought.
But even in the field of psychic experience it is possible
to sum up the world-reality, not under a single head,
but in a few co-ordinated powers. Indeed, the theory
of the originality of the intellectual characters or that
of the independence of individual ideas at times leads
in metaphysical theories to a preponderance of the
pluralistic tendency, and this seems to be reconcilable
with a vague Henistic background, just as the history
of religions often shows us polytheistic systems with
an infusion of Henism. That applies, for instance, to
Schopenhauer's metaphysic, and still more to many
of his followers, such as Bahnsen.

We see the fundamental type of pluralism best in
Herbart's theory of the real. It considers the diversity
and changes of experience to be intelligible only if the
things-in-themselves, which are simple and unchange-
able, furnish some reason for them. These unknowable
realities have therefore to be conceived in relations by
means of which we may understand the variety of their
apparent properties and their changes. This implies
a " coming and going" of the substances, as Anaxagoras
said more or less clearly of his elements and Plato of
his ideas. In the case of Herbart, however, these rela-
tions are raised to the emptiest degree of abstraction,
and precisely on that account this most tortuous and
unsuccessful and almost forgotten system of metaphysics
shows us most plainly of all the inevitable difficulty of
all pluralistic systems. For this " coming and going "
of substances, which is supposed to be the real event,
we have to find a reason in " intelligible space." What
Herbart meant, or could mean, by that — whether in the
end the relating mind alone remains as the intelligible

84 ONTIC PROBLEMS

space in which realities are to attain their relations to
each other, which otherwise remain accidental — we do
not attempt to say. In any case the idea is constructed
on the analogy of the empirical space of appearance,
which makes possible the combinations and separations
of physical things such as the elements or atoms. We
thus see that every pluralistic idea, precisely because
it is invented for the explanation of the variety and
changes of the data of experience, presupposes a com-
prehensive unity in which these conditions take place
and change. In the case of physical substances this
part is played by empty space, and therefore the atomists
found themselves compelled to ascribe reality to empty
space (the ^ ov of the Eleatics) as well as to being ;
to the empty (KCVOV) as well as to the full (TrAeov). From
which we begin to perceive that the fact of something
happening, the fact that things are related to each
other or, as Lotze said, take notice of each other, shows
that they all belong to a single whole. Atoms which
whirled about in different spaces could not have any-
thing to do with each other. This is one of the chief
arguments against pure Pluralism and in favour of
Singularism.

These objections have given rise to a system which
combines Singularism and Pluralism ; a system which
undertakes to reconcile the cognate elements of Uni-
versalism and Pluralism, and which we have in its most
perfect form in Leibnitz's Monadology. The funda-
mental idea, it is true, goes back as far as Nicholas of
Cusa and Giordano Bruno. It is an idea of impressive
simplicity. Abstract unity cannot engender the mani-
fold. There is no parthenogenesis of plurality out of
unity. But a scattered and dissociated diversity is
equally unable to bring forth a unity. The two — unity
and plurality — are reconciled only if they are both
original. We must conceive the world as essentially a
unity in diversity.

Of the many meanings of the word unity — TO eV —
which were perilous to the Eleatic dialectic, and have
haunted metaphysics ever since, we now get another.

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 85

In addition to "oneness" and "simplicity," we now
have the idea of " unifiedness," which means that we
must conceive the world as a unity in plurality, neither
the unity engendering the plurality, nor vice versa. This
condition corresponds best, indeed corresponds entirely,
to the nature of our own intellect. Every state of con-
sciousness, whether the apparently simplest perception
or the most abstract thought, contains a plurality and,
as it has different elements, a diversity of content ; and
this is combined by a form into a real and indivisible
unity. Kant described the nature of this synthesis,
in which neither form produces content, nor content
form. Indeed, this unification of the content by the
form is the typical structure of consciousness. If we
conceive the world as unity of the manifold according
to this model of the synthesis in our own consciousness,
as the Leibnitzian Monadology requires, we see the real
and profound affinity of Leibnitz and Kant. It is the
root of the influence of the Nouveaux Essais upon
criticism which begins with the Inaugural Dissertation
and extends over the Critique of Pure Reason.

In the metaphysical development of this in Monad-
ology we get the relation of the part to the whole and
the principle of the equality of the part to the whole.
The universe is unity in plurality in the sense that-each
of its parts is equal to the whole and therefore to all
the others. But equality does not mean identity. We
get identity rather (as we saw above) in modern
Atomism, since all the primary substances are quali-
tatively equal and indistinguishable, and differ only in
position, which is quite immaterial and unessential to
them. Monadology, on the contrary, represents that
each substantial being — they are called monads pre-
cisely in this sense — is a peculiar form, not capable of
repetition, of unification of the same for all equal con-
tents of the world. This takes equally into account
the universalistic and the individualistic element on
the one hand, and the henistic and pluralistic on the
other. The same life-content of the universe is sup-
posed to be bound up in each of its parts in a peculiar

86 ONTIC PROBLEMS

and original combination into a special unity. Hence
all these parts are equal to the whole and to each other ;
and each has its own being. The equality and unity
are in the content ; the variety and multiplicity are in
the form of combination. Each part is therefore a mirror
of the world of special character and shade ; each indi-
vidual is the universe in little, a microcosm. It is
characteristic that the one amongst modern thinkers
who is nearest to Leibnitz, Lotze, gave this title, The
Microcosm, to the most significant of his works.

Leibnitz calls this system " Pre-established Harmony,"
and it assumes that everything is present or " repre-
sented " everywhere in everything. But how can a sub-
stance be in, or represented in, others ? There is only
one way of imagining this by means of an element of
our experience ; one substance is represented in another
when this " presents " it. The double meaning of repre-
senter and representation, which Leibnitz fully recog-
nises, has a quite sound foundation. The world, the
sum-total of the other monads, is contained and repre-
sented in each in the sense that it mirrors the world.
Hence the monads must be conceived as psychic beings.
The content of their presentation is everywhere the
same — the universe ; they differ in the intensity of pre-
sentation, on which depends the measure in which this
content is in each case associated in a conscious unity.

We will not consider here the difficulties which beset
this able and ingenious theory. We need only point
out an element of our experience which is calculated
to give us a concrete example of this abstract view. We
often speak of the mind of the people, or the spirit of
the times, or the civilised consciousness. What spiritual
reality do we mean by this ? On reflection we do not
mean that this " spirit of the nation," etc., is a substantial
reality, a being outside of and above the individuals.
We mean a unified life-content which is common to a
mass of thinking and willing individuals. This common
thing, however, is felt and understood by each only in
his own way. He experiences it in his consciousness
according as his profession, age, position, development,

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 87

etc., but especially his personal disposition, enables
him to do so. Much of this general content is quite
unknown to one individual, while another endeavours
hali-consciously to get at the heart of it. Few have
a full consciousness of it, and even amongst these few
some have more and some less. The whole is not com-
pletely represented in its full extent and strength in
any one individual. Even great individuals, like Goethe
and Bismarck, who represent their times in nuce, are
only distinguished by the fact that what constitutes
the really valuable common element of life comes to
full consciousness or conscious activity in them. Yet
all these individuals, whose minds represent restricted
and separate segments of the common life-content, lead
a common and unified life, which, in its continuous
gradation and the interlacing of its various parts, forms
a connected whole. That is a unity in plurality known
to us all, in which we constantly experience the meaning
of Monadology.

Monadology leads us to conceive substances as per-
ceptive beings, and thus helps us to understand the
qualitative relations of being which we have to consider
later. But before we do so, we have to deal with the
other aspect of quantitative problems of being, the ques-
tion of the size of the real. Appreciation of the sizes
of things in the phenomenal world is, firstly, a matter of
impressions in which we always make a comparison of
experiences. The fact that we are restricted to making
comparisons is the most important element, both really
and methodically. We pass confident judgments on large-
ness and smallness, and are quite able to say whether
the differences in size are comparatively great or slight.
But in order to have a quite definite and useful estimate
of sizes we need measurement, an act of enumeration,
which expresses how often a certain unity of mass is
contained as a part in a whole. Such a numerical deter-
mination of size has only one possible form : comparison
of spans of space. In all measuring it is, directly or
indirectly, laid down how many times the mass which

88 ONTIC PROBLEMS

is selected for each special form of measuring is con-
tained in a given whole. Thus we measure magni-
tudes of space, and even of time, by the motion of
uniformly moving bodies ; and, in the third place, we
measure magnitudes of intensity — forces, etc. — by the
spans of space over which their action is distributed,
heat by the expansion of bodies, and so on. How we do
this, and how it is justified, is an important subject of
methodological consideration in the various sciences.
In general one has to bear in mind that all this depends
on definite and already acquired knowledge ; that our
assumptions run more or less in a circle ; and that the
unity of mass is in all cases arbitrary and conventional.
We have to know the expansion of bodies by heat in
order to measure heat by them. We have to know
Ohm's law of electro-magnetic resistance in order to
measure the magnetic-electric force by the movements
on the dial. For the numerical determination of magni-
tudes of time we need bodies in uniform motion, and we
cannot know that a body is in uniform motion except
by comparison with another of which it holds good, and
so on. Nothing but a complete uniformity of movement
of all such bodies (and we may notice incidentally that
our clocks go more uniformly than cosmic bodies, for
instance, the earth round the sun) could guarantee the
truth of these assumptions. Even in measurement of
space the unit is arbitrary ; a foot or a yard, or some
scientific convention like the metre, which is the ten-
millionth part of a quadrant of the earth between the
Equator and the North Pole. For the measurement of
intensive magnitudes, such as heat, light, sound, etc.,
the units have always to be determined on the strength
of previous knowledge.

We see that there are really many small or large
problems in this apparently simple matter of measuring,
but we note especially that in the case of magnitudes
the action of which cannot be represented by comparative
stretches of space, no measurement — no numerical ex-
pression of the magnitude — is possible. This is true,
in spite of all the work of the psycho-physicists, of

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 89

psychic magnitudes. The intensity of feelings and
volitions is so far from measurable, even indirectly, that
it has no intelligible or useful meaning to use an
analogical expression (as we do in daily life) and say,
for instance, that a particular pain, say a toothache, is
twice, three times, or ten times as great as another. It
further follows that even in corporeal things there are
no absolute determinations of size ; that all measure-
ments are relative, since they are related to an arbitrarily
chosen standard. In recent natural philosophy the
most desperate efforts are made to justify the unprovable
assumptions which are made in determining the con-
stancy of the speed of light and its position in regard
to the relativity of all measurements of movements.

Hence when we speak of the magnitude of the genuinely
real, we refer, not to a numerical and comparative
determination that we reach by measurement, but to
the question, to be solved intellectually, whether the
real, the magnitude of which plainly transcends all our
ability to measure and count, is in its totality finite or
infinite. In this respect human thought has, during
the comparatively short time in which we can review
its historical development, experienced a very inter-
esting change, a reversal ; and axiological elements
have had just as much to do as theoretical with this
change. That the primary reality, the substantial being
of the world, must be infinite was very early seen by
purely theoretical thought. Thales was driven by the
metaphysical impulse eV aTrdpova TTOVTOV — to the infinite
sea. The chief point which urged him to seek the primary
matter in water was the thought, which coloured also his
imagination, of the life-element of his people and race, the
sea with its ceaseless movement, with its unlimited possi-
bilities of change, upheaving and swallowing up the land,
creating and destroying it. Anaximenes at a later date
similarly looked to the infinite ocean of air, which plays
about everything, for the primary matter. Between the
two Anaximander gave intellectual expression to the fact
that the world-stuff, the One, that must be all, must
be conceived as infinite, as otherwise it would be ex-

90 ONTIC PROBLEMS

haustcd in the infinite transformations and generations.
That this Infinitism (as we call the theory of the infinity
of the world) is necessarily connected with Singularism
was recognised by one of the later Eleatics, Melissos,
when he said that any limitation that is supposed to
exist in the One would have to be due to a second being.
A limited being cannot be the sole being. Melissos
was in this more consistent than the founders of the
Eleatic School, Xenophanes or Parmenides. When these
represented being as the rounded globe of the universe,
they were expressing a thoroughly Greek idea. All that
is real has form and shape, so even the highest reality,
the most perfect and true reality, must have a shape.
Only something definite and complete in this way is real ;
the infinite, the unfinished or undefined, is never real.
The infinite is not only inconceivable to us, undetachable
to the mind's eye, but it is so in itself ; and an incom-
plete thing of this kind ought not to be called reality,
least of all the true and highest reality. Hence for
the Eleatics and their followers infinite space was non-
entity. The infinite in this sense is merely the possible,
the unfinished ; yet this indefinite possibility is the con-
dition of the phenomenal world. Thus the Pythago-
reans conceived the universe as the drawing in or
pouring out of empty space by the world-force ; and
the Atomists represented infinite space as that in which
things moved. The real itself always has an outline,
whether t'Se'cu or ax^ara, forms or shapes. Hence the
unlimited coincides once more with the indefinite, and
we understand how the Greek word opos could mean both
limit and conceptual feature. Qualitative indefiniteness
also belongs to unlimited space ; it means the dark, the
empty, nothing. Thus Plato says of this non-entity,
empty space, that it can be neither perceived nor thought,
and is totally unimaginable, yet it must serve all things
as the possibility of shaping (eV^ayetoi/), the receiver
(Se^a^eV??) ; because they, in their secondary reality,
are a mixture of the unlimited and limitation. For
Aristotle, also, matter, as pure possibility, is the un-
limited and indefinite, whereas the truly real is to be

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 91

sought in the pure form, in God, and in the entelechies
as individual definite and limited beings. All these
theories, which have rightly been regarded as a con-
necting link between Greek science and Greek art, are
undoubtedly due to the form-loving character of the
Greek mind. The Greek is a creature of eye. He lives
with the eye. All his knowledge is vision, the perception
of a figure. His arts are those of the eye ; arts that
delight in form, or in which the finite things of reality
lead the life of the blessed.

Ancient thought thus regards the limited as the
genuinely real, and ascribes to the infinite only a secondary
existence of imperfect, incomplete reality. Since the
Alexandrian age all this has been changed. Religious
motives had a good deal to do with this. The Greek
gods were compact, luminous shapes. As time went
orr, the Deity retreated further and further. What
lay beyond the world of experience became more and
more remote, strange, mysterious, shapeless, and inex-
pressible, until at last the God of " negative theology,"
without properties, the unbounded and indefinite One,
was reached. • In addition to this, in the mystical school
deep religious interest came to regard the will, both in
man and God, as the highest and last reality. The
intellect is the limited and definite : the will the un-
limited and indefinite. Hence absolute will was con-
ceived as the omnipotence of God, and man ascribed
a certain measure of it to himself ; he had a feeling that
his will was unrestricted. A man can will or wish any-
thing whatever. That is what Descartes means when
he says that the will, in its indefiniteness and un-
limitedness, is the God-like force, the Divine, in man.
When in this standard form of modern metaphysics
infinite substance is opposed to finite substances, the
finiteness consists in the limitation of extension or
consciousness ; but in their unbounded will spiritual
substances have a reflex of the divine infinity. We
have thus become entirely familiar with thinking and
speaking of infinity as the essential thing in God, the
absolute reality, and of phenomenal things as the finite.

92 ONTIC PROBLEMS

Yet even in the time when the contrast of God and
the world was most emphatic, it was possible to regard
the totality of finite things as something infinite. The
transcendental theory of Deism favoured this view. Even
in Aristotle, who first expressly formulated the trans-
mundane character of the Deity, the world, it is true,
was supposed to be a limited sphere in point of space ;
but he admitted no limit of time. It was in the dog-
matic theories of a later age of monotheistic religion,
in the form of ideas of a beginning and end of the world,
creation and last judgment, that finiteness of time played
a great part. The Pantheistic reaction of Neo-Platonism,
on the other hand, emphasised the point, since the
Renaissance, that if the All is infinite and God is identical
with the universe, even this form of his appearance,
representation, or expression must also be infinite.
Nicholas of Cusa, however, had already deduced from
this that, if we pay attention to value in the distinction
between essence and existence, being and appearance,
the infinity of the universe must be different from, and
inferior to, that of the Deity. He therefore distinguished
between the Infinitum and the Interminatum, as others
have since distinguished between positive and negative,
or good and bad (Hegel), infinity. The infinity of God
implies that he is raised above time and space, or at
least outside of time and space, or that no space and
time predicates can be applied to him ; but the infinity
of the world means boundlessness in space and time,
In this sense the divine predicate of timelessness and
spacelessness, or eternity, must be carefully distinguished
from the idea of a duration in time without beginning
or end. Ordinary phraseology, when it contrasts time
and eternity, almost always means the wrong infinity,
boundless duration ; the idea of eternity in the sense
of real infinity is very rarely understood.

In the singularistic idea of God the postulates of
infinity have so far come to be taken for granted that
we hardly see any problem in them at all. When, there-
fore, we speak of the antitheses of Finitism and Infi-
nitism, we raise the question what we are to make oi

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 93

the limits of the world as the totality of finite things
in time and space. As is well known, these antitheses
have been discussed by Kant in the Antinomies of Pure
Reason from the point of view that the question is
wrongly put, or it is at least represented as lying beyond
man's capacity, since the two contradictory answers
of Finitism and Infinitism are equally demonstrable
and equally refutable. We must emphasise the fact
that the problem here refers to the reality of time and
space, and that the infinity of time and space is assumed
without contention.

This infinity of time and space is not a fact of direct
experience, but it is a natural presupposition of all the
experiences by means of which we believe that we know
something of phenomenal reality. What we perceive
in detail is always a limited portion of space. The
infinity of space is not experienced, even in the vast
distances of astronomy. The latter are immeasurably
and inexpressibly large phenomena, yet they are always
relative, and we can always imagine vaster spaces beyond
them. The infinity of space itself, which we do not
directly experience, goes with its unity or oneness, which
is also an assumption developed in the mind on the
strength of separate perceptions. In this Singularism
and Infinitism coincide.

The connectedness of all our fleeting perceptions of
portions of space in one and the same field of vision,
or the location of various perceptions of touch in one
and the same space-sphere of touch, is our first step
toward the formation of the idea of the oneness and
unity of space. The co-operation of vision and touch,
which are the two constitutive senses for the idea of space,
leads us to identify the space of vision with the space
of touch. The ordinary man regards this coincidence
as an outcome of the experiences which he had in the
earliest and most instructive years of his life, when he
discovered the identity of surrounding objects and his
own limbs which he touched with the same objects and
limbs as he saw them. That no such identification
arises spontaneously is seen in the case of those born

94 ONTIC PROBLEMS

blind, who have to learn it. Then we locate all our
successive experiences of space — here and there, yester-
day and to-day — in one and the same general space ;
everything in the nature of space that we perceive is
a part of this. And in ordinary life we identify also
the various experiences of space that different indivi-
duals have ; and in this identification of all as the same
one infinite space, it loses the central point which each
individual space had in the perceiving personality, and
thus becomes infinite. Whatever experience of space
anybody ever has belongs to the same one infinite space.
But this oneness and identity are not directly perceived.
They are postulated ; though many men are never con-
scious of the postulate, and it is only perceived when
one remembers that every attempt to find a position
or direction in space has at the base of it the assumption
of relations to the whole. That is precisely what Kant
meant when he spoke of the apriority of the idea of space.
It does not mean a kind of psychological apriority, as
if we brought into the world with us an idea of some
unbounded giant box into which everything in the world
was packed. It means this fact, that, when we speak
of contiguity, or of a limited span of space, or even of
a limit which separates an enclosed space from what
encloses it, we must always assume that these mutually
limiting things, or the enclosed and the enclosing, are
parts of one and the same infinite space. Thus this
assumption of one infinite space always includes the
metaphysical postulate that the world is a unity.

These observations apply also in part to time. The
oneness and infinity of time is not a matter of direct
perception, but a genuine assumption that lies at the
root of our perceptions, and is due to the idea that all
being and happening really belong to a single world.
What the individual directly experiences is always a
detached number of finite time-magnitudes and relations.
For each person his individual (" subjective ") time
consists in the sum-total of his states of consciousness,
which differ from each other in their contents. These
separate elements join on to each other ; for instance,

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 95

the moment of awakening and the moment of going
to sleep. It is only by daily life and conversation that
we learn that between the several elements of our ex-
perience there was other time, and in some cases con-
siderable intervals of time. Here again we have a
synthesis of the various directly experienced portions
of time into one infinite time, of which all time-mag-
nitudes and relations perceived by all persons are parts.
It is only because bodily movements, which are funda-
mentally determined by passage through continuous
stretches of space, also belong to what is arranged in
this common objective time, that the element of con-
tinuity is superimposed upon the discontinuous idea
of time which we got from our original experience. It
is most important to understand clearly that there is
here an essential difference between the idea of space
and the idea of time. The unity of space is in itself
one of continuous progress, but the experience of time
is one of separate acts of consciousness, the combination
of which into the familiar course of time only assumes
a character of continuity which is analogous to that of
space. Hence we understand how in recent times
Bergson (though partly for an opposite reason) found
in the space-like conception of time the fundamental
error of all naturalistic psychology and metaphysics.
In any case we can now recognise that the completely
parallel, twin-like treatment which time and space have
had in philosophy since Leibnitz and Kant must not
be regarded as beyond question.

A further element of distinction between the two
is the difference of their relation to the idea of
the empty. Of empty space we all have a long-stand-
ing idea, and with this we picture to ourselves the
changes of position of things in space. This assumption,
however, is not indispensable. Not only the scientific
successors of the Eleatics, but Descartes and his school
also, and especially certain theories of the latest natural
philosophy, have rejected empty space, and have there-
fore to conceive each individual movement as a frag-
ment of a total movement. But when Kant says (in

96 ONTIC PROBLEMS

the proofs of his transcendental aesthetics) that we can
think of everything out of time and space, but cannot
think away time and space themselves, this " necessity "
is true for space, but not for time. An entirely empty
time is absolutely unthinkable. If we fill up the intervals
between the separate elements of our individual time
with the events given in the objective world by the
motion of bodies — if our estimate of time-lengths or
of the speed of any movements, or of the shortness or
length of a period of time, is always based upon com-
parisons of the changes experienced in ourselves and
in other things, we have the idea of absolute time as it
was defined by Newton — tempus est quod cequabiliter
fluit — united with the assumption that certain uniform
movements occur in it. If this movement and all
happening were to cease, time would not be empty ;
it would disappear. We cannot speak literally of empty
time, but only, on the analogy of empty space, of time
which we do not know to be filled with movements or
other processes, but for which we tacitly assume some
such processes.

For ordinary purposes, however, space and time are,
in an analogous way, presuppositions for existence ;
and, as all reality occurs to us as full space or full time,
and empty space and time are at the base of it as pos-
sibilities, the one infinite is, as ever, the prerequisite
for the manifold finite. Empty space and time are a
great nothing which is nevertheless required as a basis
for all ; two great nothings without which we cannot
conceive any reality. Quite apart from the naive ideas
of space and time as two vast boxes which are partly
filled with the individual and finite, we often find this
nothing not only turned into a reality, but even into
a real power. In the mechanical theory it is the size
of the empty space between two atoms which deter-
mines the measure of their mutual attraction or repul-
sion ; and in this we have the motives for all the
attempts to conceive this empty space as filled with
ether or something of the kind. It is popularly sup-
posed that time slows down the motion of a body,

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 97

whereas this is due to friction or something similar. We
also speak of the destructive action of time, or the
" healing hand of time," and so on, whereas it is reality
alone which brings about these results in the course of
time. The hand of time belongs really to the things
which are in time.

These reflections naturally lead to the question
whether space and time as such — that is to say, empty
space and time as something to be rilled with beings
and events — have a metaphysical reality of their own.
Opposed to the naive idea which finds expression in this
question we find in scientific discussion — in Aristotle,
for instance — a disposition to treat space and time as
relations or aspects of the real, the existing, or the event.
But that always leads to a feeling of scepticism about
our postulate of the unity and identity of the world,
which are expressed in the idea of one infinite empty
space and one infinite empty time.

Hence Leibnitz and Kant saw no alternative but the
philosophic theory that both are forms of perception,
not metaphysical realities in the naive sense. In favour
of this — to touch lightly on these noetic problems at this
stage — is the fact that the problems of continuity and
emptiness seem to be antitheses of perception and its
needs, not realities, and that infinity in particular, con-
ceived in the nature of a function, seems to require no
longer the idea of an unfinished or incomplete reality.
On the other hand, however, one may well ask whether
the problems have not been evaded rather than solved
by relegating them to the subjective field. For indi-
vidual magnitudes of space and time are certainly given
as phenomenal reality, and indeed as different apparent
realities. If we now assume that as such they have,
not a metaphysical, but only a phenomenal reality, we
have to ascribe to them in the true reality just so many
and diverse relations ; and if we grant that we have
no knowledge of such real relations, it follows that, as
in every system of quantities, this unknowable multi-
plicity of true relations also involves the problems of
continuity and discontinuity, as well as the problems

7

98 ONTIC PROBLEMS

of finiteness and infinity. Hence by this duplication
of the principles that are involved we gain in the sense
that we can conceive analogous features in true reality
to the phenomenal magnitudes of space and time, but
we gain nothing in regard to the problems which prompted
this phenomenological evasion. The problems are, in
other words, not solved, but put back into the
unknown.

Anothei line of thought amidst the mass of difficulties
that arise in this field must be considered. The pheno-
menal nature of space has been affirmed at various
periods in the history of philosophy, and it has suited
the spiritualist systems of metaphysics which we will
see in discussing qualitative problems. On the other
hand, the phenomenal nature of time has rarety been
affirmed and is much more difficult to sustain. It
at once encounters the objection that the interconnection
of the psychic states and activities has, though no spatial
aspect, yet certainly a time-relation. It has then to
meet the graver difficulty that all the changes, in part
changes into the opposite of the properties of things,
which now seem to us natural enough when distributed
over different periods of time, become explicit con-
tradictions if we are to attribute them as properties
to the same substance with no discontinuity of time.
The coincidcntia oppositorum may suit a mystic view
of the unity of the world, but it will not do for the intel-
lectual conception of the multiplicity of real existence.
In fine, the metaphysical reality of time seems to lack
any proper relation to the will. Since all action and
willing is directed to the future, it seems to become
illusory the moment the time-change is struck out of
the nature of things. A world without time would be
one in which there would be nothing more to do ; a
world from which the will, with all its effort, with its
satisfaction just as much as its restless unsatisf action,
would be excluded as quite meaningless.

On the other hand, this attempt to conceive the meta-
physical reality of time brings out, precisely in connec-
tion with the will, the whole difficulty of the antithesis

THE QUANTITY OF BEING 99

of Finitism and Irifinitism. The idea of Finitism implies
an end of time, and therefore an end of happening,
change, and volition. Infmitism, on the contrary,
opens out a view of an infinite series of events in infinite
time, and therefore implies that the will can never come
to rest. These ideas will be, respectively, congenial
to different men according to temperament. But if
we look closely at them, we find it difficult to say which
idea is the more intolerable : that of an absolute rest
or that of a never-ending restlessness of the will. Both
elements have their emotional value in relation to the
finite time-aspects of empirical reality arid our varying
experience of it. At one time rest is welcome after long
unrest ; though it is tolerable only if it does not last too
long. By others the struggle, even if it does not attain
its end, is gladly welcomed ; yet if such a state of things
is conceived absolutely, it threatens to make the will
itself illusory. Thus we see that the things which are
certainly real in the finite world of experience become
impossibilities the moment they are converted into
absolute realities by metaphysical thought.

Another form of the antithesis of Finitism and
Infinitism relates to the mass or the number of reality
in the world, whether we think of atoms, elements,
entelechies, monads, real entities, and so on. Here
again the immeasurability and uncountability are facts,
and the problem can therefore only be solved by theories
or dialectical arguments. The ancients generally leaned
toward Finitism in this matter. In modern times, for
the reasons we have given above, Infinitism is predo-
minant ; though there are theories, such as Diihring's
metaphysics or Renouvier's Neocriticism, which run
on the lines of Finitism.

The arguments oppose each other much as in the case
of space and time, and here again we perceive the great
mathematical difficulties which arise from the idea of
definite infinity or of infinities differing from each other.
The layman can understand it by a simple illustration.
If we imagine a line a — b prolonged beyond b to infinity,
this infinite line is longer in one direction than in the

100 ONTIC PROBLEMS

other. In pure thought that seems to be an insoluble
contradiction, yet it is quite inevitable.

In this case succession in events is most important.
Infinitism grants that it is possible for the series of causes
to have a starting-point, though this is by no means
necessary ; on the contrary, it seems to be improbable.
Finitism, on the other hand, is compelled by the mathe-
matical principles of probability to say that the group
of elements of reality which is regarded as the initial
stage must, after an indefinitely great but always finite
period of time, be repeated. Hence the Finitist systems
of antiquity taught " universal restoration," or the
return of every state of things ; and the poet Nietzsche
gave an ethical turn to a reminiscence of this in his last
years. Whether the impressive enforcement of responsi-
bility which is involved in this attains its end must,
when we examine the matter closely, be pronounced
very improbable. For if the state of the will is to be
repeated an infinite number of times, it must have already
occurred an infinite number of times, and it thus assumes
a fatalistic character, the dread of repetition being
neutralised by the paralysing feeling of inevitability.

Antinomies of this kind appear if, in this case, we
conceive the number of the masses as finite and the
time as infinite ; and we get other antinomies according
to the various ways in which we may apply finiteness
and infinity to space, time, and number of realities.
Instead of going on with these, we will pass to another
general consideration. In order to clear up these anti-
nomies we may, as Kant did, point to the mutual
antagonism of our means of knowledge, the senses and
the understanding. The difficulty is that this may
be done with quite the opposite effect. On the one side
it is pointed out that everything perceived by the senses
represents, in its vast diversity, something indefinite,
stretching out beyond itself on every side ; while the
understanding is the principle of conceptual deter-
mination, of a mind arranged and limited in itself
according to the categories as the forms of its synthesis.
On the other side it may be affirmed that the know-

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 101

ledge we get from the presentations of sense always gives
us a finite arid definite shape, and that it is only the
reflection of the intelligence upon this that, in its inde-
pendence and spontaneity, has no limits. However
that may be, we see that the ontic problems lead us
on to the genetic on the one hand and to the noetic on
the other.

§4

The Qualitative Determinations of Reality. — Original and derivative
properties — Primary and secondary qualities — Quantitative out-
look of men of science — The material world and consciousness —
The soul as vital force and vehicle of consciousness — Intellectual-
ism, Voluntarism, and Emotionalism — The Unconscious — Psycho-
physical parallelism — Materialism and spiritualism (idealism) —
Theoretical and axiological duality — Monism.

Apparent reality exhibits an infinite variety of pro-
perties by means of which things differ from each other,
and which even in the same things are constantly
changing. It is just this latter fact, that one and
the same thing presents itself with one property at one
time and another property at another, this fact of
dAAotcuCTis-, which gives rise to the question about the
genuine and true qualities of the real. If we first con-
sider the matter within the limits of experience, we have
already frequently seen how our mind is accustomed
to distinguish the persistent properties of things as
the original from the variable properties as derivative.
The chemical correction of the naive idea of a thing, the
discovery of the elements, was guided by this aim.
Things which arise by the mixture or combination of
elements have quite different properties from those
of their constituents. We know that water is composed
of oxygen and hydrogen in a certain proportion, yet
we find in water entirely different physical and chemical
properties from those of the gases which compose it.
In this we assume, and probably have a right to assume,
that the properties of the compound bodies arise from

102 ONTIC PROBLEMS

those of their constituents, and that the proportions
in which they are combined are of importance. But,
however confident we are of this dependence in principle,
it is extraordinarily difficult to grasp and explain in
concrete. No one can say why combination gives us
a body of this particular colour, taste, or smell. We
can only establish the fact ; and this inability of the in-
telligence or of deduction applies also to such proper-
ties as crystallisation, atomic weight, melting-point,
electrical behaviour, etc. Even our modern theories
of atomic structure do not make these things clear,
and we are, in principle, no further advanced than
Empedocles was when he said that each single thing
receives its properties from a combination of the four
elements — fire, air, water, and earth — and that the
blood, for instance, has the advantage of being the finest
and most perfect of such mixtures ; yet Empedocles
was quite unable to show how certain combinations led
to certain sets of properties.

It is important, however, to have this reference to
the quantitative conditions of the combination. From
this we get the constant effort of men of science to reduce
even the qualitative differences of the properties of
things to quantitative. The tendency has even led to an
attempt to explain the reality of the material properties
of things by relating them to the variety of our organs
of perception, our senses. To each sense is allotted
a certain group of qualities, which belong exclusively
to it and to which it is restricted. Thus colours belong
to the eye in so far as no other sense can experience them,
and, on the other hand, the sensation which is peculiar
to the eye is called colour. The ear has the same relation
to sounds, the nose to odours, and so on. This relation
has been called the specific energy of the sense-organs,
and modern physiology partly explains it, on evolutionary
lines, by the adaptation of the peripheral endings of
the sensory nerves to receive and conduct certain move-
ments which provide the proper stimulation for those
organs — light-waves for the eye, sound-waves for the
ear, and so on. Even ancient thinkers drew a distinction

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 103

between these specific qualities of the various senses and
the perceptions of spatial form, position, and corporeal
movement, which are common to all. It is true that they
belong primarily to sight and touch, but in a secondary way
they are connected also with the work of the other senses.
Hence it was assumed that there was a " common sense '
(KOIVOV alaQrirripiov , sensus comnmnis), and to this was
attributed a higher value than to the qualities of the
special senses. In regard to the latter it was early per-
ceived that they represented, not properties inherent
in the things themselves, but their action upon the
perceiving mind. It was therefore necessary to correct
popular language, which describes even pleasantness
and unpleasantness as properties of things, whereas in
this case it is clear that they are merely effects of things
upon beings that can perceive and feel. The Pythago-
reans seem to have been the first to see that it is the
same with musical notes ; but since Protagoras, Demo-
critus, and Plato the subjectivity of all specific sense-
qualities has been generally recognised ; and, although
in the Middle Ages it was put aside in favour of Aris-
totle's contrary view, it was restored at the beginning
of modern times by the leaders of science, Kepler,
Galilei, Descartes, and Hobbes, and was formulated
by Locke and Robert Boyle as the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities.

This theory is confirmed by our increasing ac-
quaintance with the regular correlation between the
movements that serve as stimuli and the sensations
they provoke. The best known instance is the con-
nection between musical notes and the period of
vibration of the strings, or the waves in the air We
must admit that these connections can only be estab-
lished as facts; they cannot be understood. The
dependence of the quality on the quantity is a synthetic,
not an analytic, matter. No one can tell why the sensa-
tion of red is produced by 450 billion ether-vibrations
per second, or the sensation of blue by 640 billion per
second. This actual co-ordination is, however, the basis
of the scientific theory that only quantitative deter-

104 ONTIC PROBLEMS

ruinations belong absolutely and primarily to the nature
of reality, while the qualitative belong, being relative
and secondary, to its appearance in consciousness.
Objectively, for instance, the reality is a chord vibrating
at a certain rate ; subjectively I can see, hear, and in
a sense, with the finger-tip, feel the vibration. A
colour is a real property of a body only in the sense
that it indicates a certain configuration of the body's
surface, in virtue of which it reflects predominantly a
particular kind of light-waves. According to this " night-
theory ' (as Fechner called it) the physical world is in
itself colourless and soundless, merely an empty move-
ment of atoms in space ; all the varied vitality, with
which it speaks to us, means merely a phenomenon
developing in the perceptive consciousness.

If we seek the motives on which, especially in recent
times, this choice between equal elements of perception
and this difference in appreciating the qualitative arid
quantitative are based, we find the chief in the require-
ments of mathematical theory, which needs measurable
magnitudes and therefore regards that as real which
is capable of being expressed in quantitative formulae.
Kepler, Leonardo, and Galilei have expressly said this;
and Descartes (in his sixth Meditation) has laid it down
that, in the case of bodies, that is true which a man can
conceive intellectually — dare et distincte — not in vague
imagination — obscure et confuse.

Thus the right to make the choice sends us back to
scientific theory, and we understand that it will not
be recognised by men who have not an exclusive
interest in this, or may not have any interest at all.
Hence the above "night-theory" was opposed by Kant
and Goethe, though for different reasons. Kant
regarded space and time determinations only as modes
of perception of the human mind, and therefore as
mere phenomena. Goethe, in his theory of colour,
pitted life against theory, attributing a? much reality
to these qualities as to the quantitative properties which
we learn by abstraction. The typical contrast is seen
in his detestation of Newton, and it may be traced in

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 105

the favour which his theory of colour found with such
antipodal thinkers as Hegel and Schopenhauer, and
even with natural philosophers of the Schelling school
such as Fechner.

The whole controversy, however, presupposes on
every side that, for there to be any appearance, there
must not only be something that appears, but someone
to whom it appears. Thus the reality of consciousness,
the inner side of reality, is the completion of the various
views as to what is being and what is appearance in
physical properties. In this it is assumed that in con-
sciousness there is a totally different qualification, and
therefore a totally different reality, than in the material
world ; and from this fact we get the chief questions
and antitheses in the philosophic theories of the quality
of the real.

In a realistic and literally substantive view of the
matter consciousness is called the soul, and the inquiry
is consequently directed to a study of the relations of
soul and body. We find the origin of the idea of soul
in the riddle of life. The distinction between the living
and non-living is certainly, as one notices in the case
of quite young children, original and extraordinarily
vivid. It is based upon the fact that a thing seems
to us to be alive when it moves, without this movement
appearing to be a continuation of some other move-
ment. The non-living and the dead move only when
the movement is imparted by another. The living
thing, on the contrary, has the power of self-movement,
and the principle of this spontaneous movement is called
the soul. Even in Plato's arguments in the Phcedro
or the Laws, we plainly see this primitive connection.
On them is based, amongst all peoples, the idea that
the vital force may, as sleep and death indicate, leave
the body, return to it, or definitely abandon it ; that it
is therefore something quite distinct from the body,
which is merely its temporary residence.

But when this principle of life leaves the body, it takes
with it, apparently, its capacity for all such functions
as presentation, feeling, desire — in a word, all mental

106 ONTIC PROBLEMS

opeiations. The sleeping, and especially the dead, body
shows no further trace of the phenomena which we are
accustomed to regard as the expression or the conse-
quence of states of consciousness. Hence the idea of
the soul contains from the start the two characters of
vital force and basis of consciousness ; two features which
are closely related as capacities for sense-directed, pur-
posive action. These two elements, however, which
were originally combined in the thought of primitive
peoples, have diverged more and more from each other
in the course of scientific research. Aristotle's three-
fold division of the vegetative, animal, and human soul
cuts off the vital force as a lower level from the rnind,
and the Neo-Platonists expressly distinguished between
two souls, one (also called (f>vais) related to the physical
world, the other, the soul proper, related to the hyper-
physical world. In the Middle Ages this dualism,
which regards the vital force as entirely belonging to
the body and the true soul as pertaining to the supra-
sensible world, was held especially by the mystics of
St. Victor ; and it later became a fixed custom in speech
to represent the soul (mens, spiraculum, the " spark ")
only as the possessor of consciousness, while the vital
force, or rather vital forces (spiritus animates), stood
for purely corporeal things or forces. This is familiar
also in the philosophy of Descartes.

But the vital force became in the course of time less
and less necessary for the purposes of scientific research.
Many of the apparently spontaneous movements turned
out to be due to outside influence. This destruction
of the primitive " Animism," the exclusion of the soul
from nature by science, has often been complained of
by poets :

Where now, our wiser modern men relate,
Revolves a ball of flame without a soul,
Once Helios in tranquil pomp of state
Drove o'er the sky his chariot of gold.

So Schiller said in his Gods of Greece. The substitution
of physical and chemical forces for souls has, in fact,

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 107

made continuous progress even in the science of the
organic world. The more it succeeds, the more con-
fidently it is assumed that even in organic movements
we have no other forces and laws than those which we
find in the inorganic world. Although, however, there
has been no lack of attempts to prove this as a general
truth, it has never been accomplished, and we are not
surprised that the vital force continues to haunt even
serious science. It is all very well to talk about ions
and electrons, dominants and determinants, but vital-
istic theories are always returning to the old feeling
that some peculiar principle accounts for the unity of
the living organism. The general tendency of science,
however, is to put the vital force more and more out
of the field. At times, in fact, it has looked as if
the same fate, a sentence of superfluousness, must fall
upon the soul even in its second character, as bearer
of consciousness. But even if it came to this — we shall
return to the point later — we should have to admit that
this psychic life of consciousness had a reality of its own,
different from material reality.

Here we have the second province of reality, and it
exhibits just as innumerable a variety of qualities as the
physical world does. Whatever the thing or substance,
the " soul," may be, it certainly has countless proper-
ties ; and in this case they are rather in the nature of
functions, or present themselves to us as capacities,
powers, forces, activities, etc. In face of this variety
we again find attempts to distinguish between essential
and unessential, original and derivative properties, and
to separate the substantiality of the soul from its
relative and temporary expressions and effects. It is,
as in the case of the outer world, a sort of simplification
of the world in thought. In this connection we have
first the antithesis of intellectualist and voluntarist psy-
chology. The old controversy of the Scholastics — utra
potentia major sit, intellectus an voluntas ? — is always
with us, and each side has a large number of arguments.
When one reflects that each activity of consciousness
is directed to a content, which has to be presented, even

108 ONTIC PROBLEMS

if it is an object of feeling or will, we see that the pre-
sentations are fundamental functions, and the activities
of feeling and will only strains or relations between the
presentations and therefore dependent on them. That
is the main idea of intellectualist psychology, which
Herbart introduced from the eighteenth century to the
nineteenth. If, on the other hand, the fact is empha-
sised that consciousness, as activity, differs from cor-
poreal movement in being willed, we get the will as the
fundamental function and presentation as the incidental
method by which it objectifies itself. Voluntarist psy-
chology of this kind was involved in the entire scheme
of thought which developed in the German philosophy
founded by Kant, and it found its typical expression
in Schopenhauer's system. In fine, we have an attempt
to reconcile these opposing theories in modern Emo-
tionalism, which takes feeling to be the primary pheno-
menon and tries to show that will and presentation are
equally implicit in this, and develop from it in continual
relation to each other. That is pretty much the idea
of Herbert Spencer ; and it, perhaps, comes nearest
to the truth if it is meant in the sense that the three
fundamental functions are not isolated activities or
strata of action, but different aspects of one and the
same living being and activity.

Without this supposition the anti-intellectualist
theories of modern psychology lead to a peculiar dia-
lectic and to the self-destruction of their fundamental
idea. If, for instance, presentation is regarded as the
outcome of a fundamental function of the will or of
feeling, this fundamental function itself must be some-
thing unconscious. Now this theory of unconscious
psychic states or activities, to which many other ele-
ments of psychological science have pointed for more
than a century, and which is now so strong that to-day
the unconscious is often taken to be the very basis
of psychic life and the region of consciousness is regarded
as merely a superstructure on this foundation, is in plain
opposition with the results of historical development,
which always regarded consciousness (cogitatio) as the

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 109

essential, if not the only essential, thing in the definition
of the soul. If we are to fiame a new definition of the
soul, we must bear in mind that the unconscious is,
from the nature of the case, never experienced, never
given in thought, but merely assumed hypothetically
for the explanation of processes and states of con-
sciousness which seem otherwise quite incomprehensible.
This hypothesis, therefore, ought to be used only when
it is altogether impossible to assume psychic realities
as the conditions of those conscious states which are
supposed to be explained by unconscious. In this
there are methodical and real difficulties, if not impos-
sibilities, which are mainly responsible for the imper-
fect condition of psychological science. They have also
a metaphysical bearing in the sense that in the last resort
they impel us to set up a third province, the region of
the unconscious, beside those of the physical and the
psychical ; a region which would coincide with neither
of the others, but have a separate reality, although it,
being from the nature of the case not given in conscious-
ness, can only be assumed, in regard to its contents,
on the analogy of one of the other provinces, the psychical.
Apart from these difficulties, which have as yet little
to do with general ideas and have received very scant
attention from empirical psychologists, consciousness
(cogitatio) is by the overwhelming majority of people
regarded as the attribute of psychic activity ; not
" thought," in the one-sided intellectualist sense which
is often given to it by inaccurate translation, but in the
sense in which Descartes and Spinoza sufficiently indi-
cated it, by enumeration and reflection, as the inde-
finable, ultimate, common element in all such activities
as sensation, judgment, deduction, feeling, choice, desire,
etc. And this is something quite different from bodies
with their quantitative properties. Hence the Cartesian
distinction, based upon the na'ive idea of individual
substances, between res extensce and res cogitantes, bodies
and souls or minds, is in complete agreement with the
general belief, and there is no difficulty in thinking with
Spinoza that extension and consciousness, or with Neo-

110 ONTIC PROBLEMS

Spinozism that matter and spirit, are entirely separate
attributes of the Deity. They represent the ultimate
general concepts of abstraction working logically upon
the multiplicity of qualities ; beyond them abstraction
comes only to an empty ' something," the indefinite
substance, the mere form of the category. In our
knowledge of the world, however, the dualism remains,
whether we put it as an antithesis of body and spirit,
sensible and suprasensible, or material and imma-
terial. These things mean two really different and
distinct provinces of perceptible reality ; and in con-
formity with them we have, in general usage, dis-
tinguished two formally different kinds of perception
and perceptive knowledge, the outer and the inner sense.
Under the names of " sensation ' and " reflection '
Locke thought that he had reduced the metaphysical
dualism of the Cartesian theory of substances to an
innocent psychological dualism, presumably based upon
the nature of knowledge. He calls the objects of know-
ledge of the inner and outer sense the ' cogitative "
and " non-cogitative " substances.

Now, what is the relation to each other of these two
kinds of qualitatively defined reality ? Can the mind
rest content with the dualism ? For the prescientific
mind this dualism is a matter of course ; but in scientific
thought, and still more in philosophy, one of the funda-
mental ideas is, as we have seen, that of the unity of
the world, the unifying impulse. It has, naturally, to
be brought to bear upon this question, and this means
that we must try to reduce the two kinds of reality
to some sort of unity. This may be done either by re-
garding one of them as original and essential and the
other as a phenomenon of it, or by tracing both to a
third, even if this has to remain unknown, unknow-
able, and inexpressible. The first alternative again
divides into two : either the spiritual reality may be
regarded as a phenomenon of the corporeal, which is
then supposed to be the genuine and original reality,
or vice versa. We thus get the familiar antithesis of
Materialism and Spiritualism.

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 111

We may take two of the chief arguments of Material-
ism. One is the metaphysical argument, and it holds
that all reality is identical on account of its existence
in space. To be real is, for the ordinary man, the same
thing as to be somewhere in space. That holds good
for the psychic activities and states. They are some-
where— in this particular man, in his brain, his nervous
system, and so on. Even if the soul is regarded as im-
material and separable from the body, it is assumed
that in the after-life it lives somewhere above in the
stars. The spirits which are conjured by mediums have
to be summoned from their distant abodes, and have
to manifest themselves in material form at some point
in space, where they may be photographed by certain
especially gifted people. The religious imagination, in
fact, does not take even the supra-spatial nature of God
so seriously as to be prevented from fancying him as
occupying the whole of space. Any man who seriously
works out these ideas will see that, as Kant well pointed
out in his Dreams of a Seer, anything which is in space
fills it, and so is a body. For this reason the ancient
Atomists were Materialists. So also were the Stoics,
who expressly held that reality and materiality were
the same thing. From them even the Church-Fathers
Tertullian and Arnobius adopted Materialism, without
it doing any prejudice to their religious dogmas. In
recent times this Stoic Materialism has been represented
chiefly by Hobbes, who indicated space as the pheno-
menal form of true substance (phantasma rei existcntis),
and therefore regarded all philosophy as a science of
bodies, including artificial bodies like the State, which
have reality because they are in space.

The second chief argument is anthropological. It
is based upon the dependence of the "soul" upon the
body, which we are supposed to find in all its functions,
normal and abnormal. All psychic states are, both per-
manently and temporarily, determined by age, sex,
health or illness, and degree of bodily development.
We need no special soul as a distinct principle from
the body to explain the activities, even the purposive

112 ONTIC PROBLEMS

activities, of the organism. This view has been par-
ticularly strengthened since the seventeenth century
by the study of reflex movements. These show in a
very high degree the marks, not merely of purpose, but
of adaptation and improvability. The influence of these
phenomena upon Descartes and his school was so great
that they regarded the organic movements in the animal
body as entirely reflex movements. But if we can do
this, without any " immortal soul," in the case of the
animal, why not in the case of man ? That was the
question put in ironic reference to Descartes by
Lamettrie in his L'homme machine, and worked out in
favour of Materialism. He was followed in this by all
later Materialists — by the author of the Systeme de la
Nature, the materialistic physicians of Fiance in the
nineteenth century, Cabanis and Broussais, and by Vogt
and Moleschott in Germany. Incidentally they replaced
the mechanical vibrations of the nerves, of which the
earlier physiologists had spoken, by chemical ideas, and
put the psychic activities on the same footing as other
secretions of the organs.

About the middle of the nineteenth century these
metaphysical and anthropological arguments were com-
bined in Feuerbach's dialectical Materialism, which turns
inside out Hegel's theory that nature is the mind in its
other being and its self-alienation, and represents the
mind as nature alienated from itself. From this source
came the whole stream of Materialistic literature which
flooded the second half of the nineteenth century.
Typical instances of it are Biichner's Force and Matter
on one side, and Diihring's works on the other ; and
the system assumed its finest and ablest form in David
Friedrich Strauss's Old and New Faith.

It is precisely these finer presentations of Materialism
which make it clear that in the " so-called ' psychic
activity we are supposed to have at least a special sort
of matter or of its functions ; as when Strauss uses the
genuinely Hegelian expression, that in these spiritual
activities " nature reaches beyond itself." Democritus
Jong ago found the psychical in the atoms of fire, which

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 113

were distinguished for their fineness and mobility. The
Systeme de la Nature explained that what the ordinary
man calls activities of the soul consist in subtle, invis-
ible movements of atoms ; and in recent times Ostwald
maintains that consciousness is a special form of energy,
like heat, motion, electricity, etc. Every such state-
ment, however, that consciousness or psychic activity
is merely some superior sort of material existence or
movement, is a quite arbitrary pronouncement, and
tries to give unusual meanings to the words. In face of
our direct experience, which continually teaches us that
physical and psychic reality are fundamentally differ-
ent, the Materialistic position remains a paradox. One
might just as well say : Apples are a sort of pears, or,
A dog is a sort of cat. There cannot be any reasonable
question of identity of the psychic and the physical.
But it is just as impossible to derive one from the other :
to conceive psychic states as the outcome of material,
or deduce them from some sort of subtle combination
of material elements. Movement and consciousness are
in their nature heterogeneous. No matter how much
one seeks to bring them together by refining the one
and simplifying the other, one always fails to bridge
over the gap which, in principle, separates them. This
has been recognised by some of the most distinguished
men of science, such as Du Bois-Reymond in his
" Ignorabimus Speech." The saying about " secretions '
is nothing but a crude analogy, and cannot be taken
seriously. All that empirical research can establish
in regard to the correlation of the stimulus and the
sensation, or the perception and the purposive move-
ment, is at the most, according to our way of thinking
and speaking, a causal relation in which certain states
in one region are clearly co-ordinated to states in the
other. If we proceed carefully, we shall scarcely venture
even to speak of causality, and shall confine ourselves
to registering certain constant correlations. In no case
can we say that states of consciousness are themselves
states of corporeal movement. There is no question
whatever of identity, but merely of some connection

8

114 ONTIC PROBLEMS

which is probably of a causal nature. But this causal
connection is merely established in empirical research;
it is not capable of logical analysis. No one can ex-
plain how it happens that a certain physico-chemical
stimulation gives rise to a certain sensation of colour.

In contesting Materialism we have to rely on these
difficulties and impossibilities, and in point of fact
they put an end several decades ago to the domination
of Materialistic thought. It is quite foolish to attack
Materialism as a theory with evil consequences. This,
it is true, has often enough been done, and, unfortu-
nately, the practice was started by Plato himself. But
men like Democritus, and even Epicurus, have suffi-
ciently proved that theoretical Materialism is consistent
with a high and pure moral culture ; and English
thought of the eighteenth, and partly of the nineteenth,
century shows us, in the typical personality of Priestley,
for instance, a union of Materialism and religious
devotion.

However, this purely theoretical criticism, which shows
that Materialism cannot sustain its thesis of the identity
of consciousness and material states, has a counterpart,
mutatis mutandis, in the insuperable difficulties of the
theory at the opposite extreme, Spiritualism. By this
we mean the theory which regards the material world
as an appearance on or in a spiritual substance. It used
to be called, and is still called, Idealism, but this expres-
sion is so ambiguous that it is better to avoid it as far
as possible. The term Idealism is, in the first place, used
in the anti-Materialistic sense that bodies are merely
presentations or, as was said in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, ' ideas ' of spirits. This was the
meaning of Berkeley and Malebranche, and there is no
objection to this use of the word. But the word " idea '
had formerly a different meaning, and it has a different
meaning again in modern times. Plato's Idealism is
a metaphysical theory of the higher reality of pure forms,
which are conceived as immaterial, but not as conscious
states or activities. Kant's Idealism, and in part that
of his followers, is the theory that the meaning of the

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 115

world must be sought in those ' ideas ' which are not
given as objects of knowledge, but postulated as values
and aims of life. If, in fine, we take the secondary
meaning of the " ideal " as a mental attitude which
looks to the suprasensible, we have Idealism opposed
to Positivism as a mental attitude which restricts itself
to facts. This multiplicity and variety of shades of
meaning, mostly of an axiological character, which make
the word Idealism so ambiguous, compel us to avoid
the word as far as possible in severe intellectual work,
and we must seek a more accurate and less equivocal
substitute.

In the first simple sense of the word, Berkeley's
" Idealism " contended that the being of the material
world meant no more than that it was perceived (esse =
percipi). The unknown substantial basis of properties,
which Locke had suffered to remain as the thing-in-
itself, was supposed to be an academic fiction. The
cherry was merely the sum of its properties. These
properties, these " ideas," are states or activities of the
res cogitantes, the spirits. These then — the infinite
divine spirit and the finite spirits, amongst which, on
the ground of experience, we include the human— are
the sole substantial realit}7. Hence it is better in meta-
physics to call this theory Spiritualism. Other forms
of Spiritualism, apart from certain forms of theo-
logical dogmatism, are the Monadological Spiritualism
of Leibnitz, the transcendental-philosophical of Fichte,
and the dialectical-metaphysical of Hegel. They differ
especially on the question of the spiritual substance —
whether it is to be sought in individual spiritual beings,
in " consciousness generally," in the universal Self, or
in the world-spirit. To these Spiritualists, moreover,
we must add the Voluntarist metaphysicians, who
regard the will as the genuine reality and the material
world merely as its phenomenon, as Schopenhauer,
Maine de Biran, etc., do.

The chief argument of all these forms of Spiritualism
was formulated by Augustine and Descartes : namely,
that while all our knowledge of external things is un-

116 ONTIC PROBLEMS

certain and changeable, we have an absolute and certain
knowledge of our own existence as spiritual beings. It
does not matter whether we are supposed to have this
primary experience of our spiritual being in the intellect
or the will ; it does not matter whether we use the
formula, " Je pense, done je suis," or the words, " Je
veux, done je suis." In either case our experience of
the psychic reality is held to be primary, and therefore
for metaphysical theory it means the genuine and true
reality.

Nevertheless all these forms of Spiritualism are ex-
posed to an objection analogous to, though the con-
verse of, that we found in the case of Materialism. We
come always to the unanswerable question : How do
the spirits get these "ideas" of a totally different kind
of reality, the material world ? The more, for instance,
the Cartesian theory emphasises that the self-conscious
substance has no trace of the attribute of extension in
it, and therefore none of its possible modi, the more
insoluble the problem becomes. No one can give an
intelligible account of the origin of the idea of matter
in a spiritual mind. Certainly not Berkeley, who thinks
that finite spirits get these ideas from the Infinite, but
has no rational answer to the question why the purely
spiritual Deity should have such ideas of bodies.
Neither can Leibnitz, for whom the lowest stages of
consciousness of the Monads are physical states, just
as the Materialist converts the subtlest movements into
sensations ; in both cases the neTafiams els aAAo yeVo?
is quite arbitrary. Neither can Fichte, who treats the
sense-elements of experience as motiveless free self-
limitations of the Self, and thus merely acknowledges
that the Self finds them in itself as an unintelligible
something else : a non-Self. Neither can Hegel, whose
dialectical pulses of the mind in its otherness are quite
unable to explain the appearance of nature in its various
shapes.

Thus the physical can neither be regarded as a form
of the psychical nor derived from it in any way.
Materialism and Spiritualism are open to precisely the

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 117

same objection, differently applied, and the only alter-
native is to recognise that the material and the spiritual
are both primary contents of reality. As a matter
of fact, that is the general way of looking at the matter,
and it is usually called Dualism. But how, we must ask,
is such a Dualism conceivable without injury to the
unity of reality which is an inalienable element of
thought ? Clearly Dualism is the most prominent and
most definite form of Pluralism, and it is open to all
the general objections which have been urged against
this in an earlier page. This Dualism, however, is con-
firmed when we go closely into the antitheses in the
world and the theoretical relation of soul and body. We
see struggle and strife everywhere in the world. War
was hailed by Heraclitus as the father of all things,
and he taught us to regard the world as a divided unity.
Thus Dualism is reinforced by an axiological experience,
which is expressed in the ethico-religious duality of
values. Good and evil, lawabidingness and lawless-
ness, are found in every stratum of human life ; and
even in nature we find everywhere the senseless and
aimless irrational beside the purposeful rational. The
simple candour of Greek thought never attempted to
explain away these antagonisms by dogmatic theories.
If we are correctly informed by Aristotle, Empedocles
made the theoretical duality of world-forces, which
he needed for his mixtures and separations of the
elements, correspond to an axiological duality, accord-
ing to which love was the cause of the good and
hatred the cause of evil. Everybody knows the classic
saying of Plato, that, since God as the good can only
be the cause of good, he cannot be the cause of all
things, and we must assume another cause, imper-
fectness or badness — a good and a bad world-soul
Aristotle in the same way distinguished between form
and matter as the principles, respectively, of pur-
posiveness and unconscious necessity. So the process
continues in ancient thought until it culminates in the
dualistic religions, especially Manicheanism. Primitive
mythologies, in which heaven and earth, light and

118 ONTIC PROBLEMS

darkness, are thus pitted against each other, are con-
firmed by the fact that scientific research (amongst
the Pythagoreans and in Anaxagoras) found unity and
order, beauty and perfection, only in the heavens, while
the life of man was full of strife and wickedness.

These antitheses of values were, in the develop-
ment of religious ideas during the Alexandrian period,
identified with the highest theoretical dualism of meta-
physical thought. It is one of the most important com-
binations of thought in human history that spirit and
matter as good and evil, as the rational and the irra-
tional, were thus brought into antithesis. It was an
outcome of the ascetic mood, which began to frown upon
the flesh as sinful, to despise, abstain from, and repress
the material, and to seek happiness in dread of and flight
from nature, in a hatred of the material world. This
blending of theoretical and axiological Dualism, just
as dangerous as it is psychologically intelligible, was
in principle dissolved and conquered by the Renaissance
with its sound and comprehensive life, its art and science ;
but it crops up occasionally and unpleasantly in our
time, and we have to bear in mind constantly that the
two dualities are not identical. In the spirit, the soul,
we have both good and bad ; and how close they are
to each other ! In nature there is assuredly much that
is irrational and aimless, but how much also that is
rational, that is true and beautiful in the rational sense !

From the purely theoretical point of view, which we
have here to disengage from axiological considerations,
the two kinds or spheres of reality, the material and
the spiritual worlds, remain distinct. To reduce them
to a unity, or to derive them from a unity, is quite im-
possible. They remain an undeniable dualistic fact,
even if we attempt to conceive the constant association,
the inseparable connection, of the two aspects as a third
thing which we cannot further define. Such an attempt
we have in Spinozism and, with certain modifications,
in the Neo-Spinozism of German philosophy. In recent
times it has assumed a specific form and adopted the
name of Monism.

DETERMINATIONS OF REALITY 119

It is certainly true that the Cartesian attempt to
ascribe the primary qualities of consciousness and
materiality to two different kinds of substances went
too far in some respects. There are neither formal nor
real d priori reasons which forbid us to ascribe both
attributes to one and the same thing. Why should
not a conscious being have extension ? Why should
not a material being think ? The rule of formal logic
which declares the compredicability of disparate and
heterogeneous features — affirms that they may be united
in one and the same concept — is rather in favour of than
against this supposition. The disjunction, ' either con-
scious or extended," which since the time of Descartes
has been regarded as self-evident, is not contradic-
tory ; the incompatibility has yet to be proved. In
Spinozism the totality of reality, the one Nature or sub-
stance, has the two attributes simultaneously. Recent
thought has proceeded on much the same lines with
its theory of the Unconscious, which, not given in ex-
perience itself, is assumed to be the third thing between
the physical and the psychic. Hartmann's Philosophy
of the Unconscious runs on these lines ; it is a Monism
of the Unconscious.

If this is true of God or the universe, it may very well
be true of the several individual constituents of reality.
Bacon said that atoms had perceptions, and in recent
natural philosophy since Fechner the idea that all reality
is at once material and spiritual has been very prominent.
If we take Monism from this metaphysical point of view,
there is nothing to be said against its tendency ; which,
indeed, we find based in more than one respect upon
the nature of our intellect. But the difficulties of this
duplication of the real are not removed by this mere
postulate of the unifying impulse of the mind. Some
effort is made to meet them by saying that the duality
belongs to the phenomenal world, and supposing that
the one reality of things merely assumes in the human
intellect this division into external and internal experi-
ence. Those who do this overlook the fact that this
duality of the intellect then becomes a problem, and

120 ONTIC PROBLEMS

that we have merely put back the metaphysical
difficulties.

The serious objections to modern Monism begin when
the duality in which the primary being and all its original
constituents express themselves is declared to be real.
The difficulty then is, not so much in the association
of the two attributes, as in understanding what happens
when the attributes develop into modi. If the develop-
ment of the two attributes is supposed to proceed at
equal pace, the simplest way to represent it is to assume
that one series is a by-product, an epiphenomenon, of
the other. Modern Monism is therefore disposed to
regard the physical series as the original, and the
psychical series as dependent thereon. Then, however,
whether it admits the fact or no, it is sheer Materialism.
We shall therefore have to return to these questions
when we come to genetic problems ; and we thus see
again that on tic problems always lead us either to genetic
or noetic problems.

CHAPTER II
GENETIC PROBLEMS

IN ontic questions the thing or substance is the central
point ; in genetic questions it is the category which is
best called " the event." This is the general expression
for the Greek yiyveaQaa. This antithesis of the thing and
the event is better than the earlier antithesis of being
and becoming; for "becoming' is only one aspect of
the process of happening, which means, not only that
something appears which was not there previously, but
also that something which was there previously ceases
to exist. This opposite process to becoming was called
by the older mystics by a word which we have no longer
(entwerderi) and must replace by "ceasing" or perish-
ing. In the event, therefore, something becomes different
from what it was before, and hence genetic problems
may be resumed (as was done by Herbart) under the
heading of change, the Greek /xerajSoA^, which may be
either a change of place, a movement (nepi^opd or
Kivqcris} , or a change of properties (aAAoiojat?) . The word
" change," however, points clearly to the thing which
changes, and thus we mean a thing which experiences
various states in succession, yet persists in its own
reality. In this we are either referred back to the
problems of thingness or to the universe as the one
subject of all changes.

§5

The Event. — Succession in time — Continuity and discontinuity of
events — Immanent and transgredient events — The necessity of
succession in time — Causal and teleological dependence.

Amongst the general elements of all events we at once
fix our attention upon two which are fundamental and

ui

122 GENETIC PROBLEMS

equally essential : (i) the clear determination in time of a
series of states (of which, therefore, there must be at least
two), one of which must succeed another, and (2) a con-
nection between these successive states, in virtue of which
their plurality can be reduced to the unity to which we
give the name of "event."

In the category of the event, therefore, we have first
of all the feature of a definite succession in time. There
was no such feature in the category of inherence. The
coexistence of properties in the thing is in itself apart
from time ; it is only by a methodological relation that
we seek to recognise, within our experience, substantial
inherence by the clue of permanent simultaneity. In-
herence, as we may take this opportunity to observe,
does not necessarily presuppose a spatial relation. It is
true that we find this as the form of coexistence in our
first conceptions of material things, but such conceptions
as those of psychic or divine substance entirely exclude
the element of space. The event, on the contrary, abso-
lutely implies this element of time, that one is real after
the other and that the series is not interchangeable. This
circumstance gives us, in our experience, for instance, the
criterion by which we may decide whether a multiplicity
successively perceived in consciousness is a real succession
or a coexistence.

Without this time-element the event is unthinkable,
and therefore a reality without time would also be a reality
without events. When we regard the world sub specie
ceterni, nothing happens in it. In this, clearly, there is a
grave difficulty for the theory of the phenomenality of
time. In a thing-in-itself which is raised above time
nothing can happen. Religious ideas like that of being
born again or of a total change in a man's intelligible
character or innermost nature are irreconcilable with
theoretical Phenomenalism, whether in the case of Kant
or of Schopenhauer. Thus also in the case of Herbart,
when, in order to explain the apparent event, he declares
that " the coming and going of substances in intelligible
space " is the real event, we see that our mind, when it
deals with the event, cannot divest itself of the time-

THE EVENT 123

element. In addition, our will requires that we conceive
the world as a sphere in which something is to be other-
wise ; in other words, that something may happen. For
all these reasons it is clear that if we strike the time-
element out of the event, there is nothing left that
could be called a real event. We see therefore that if
we would remove the time-element from the causal rela-
tion, which from the first overshadows every consideration
of the event, the residual dependence means, not the
real relation of cause and effect, but merely a logical
relation of antecedent and consequent ; just as, in the
case of Spinoza, consequi is a mathematical relation, but
is as little a real relation as the equivalence of the
angles of a plane triangle with two right-angles is an
effect of the triangle.

However, the time-element in the event takes very
different forms in the two provinces of reality, with the
distinction between which we closed our survey of ontic
problems : the external world and the inner world. Every
event in space is movement, or change of position of bodies
in space. This is the ultimate type of all happening in
the chemical and even the organic world. To get from
the point A to the point B, moreover, the body must tra-
verse the entire continuity of the intermediate space, and
therefore the spatial event is also continuous in time. On
the other hand, we noted previously that there never is a
continuity of this kind in the psychic event, which gives
us our experience of subjective time ; that the successive
acts of consciousness, of which the individual experience
consists, are discrete or discontinuous elements. We
cannot therefore speak of a gradual transition in asso-
ciative imagination, logical deduction, or emotional trans-
port. As we pass from image to image, thought to thought,
motive to motive, in our inner experience, these various
elements are definitely separated from each other, and
there is nothing between them that has to be traversed
from moment to moment. Still more pronouncedly
discontinuous is the psychological time-life of perception.
The hearing of one noise after another, the seeing of
moving pictures, the alternation of hearing and seeing,

124 GENETIC PROBLEMS

seeing and touching, etc., takes places without any con-
ceivable transition from one to the other. There are no
such intervals covered as when a ball rolls from A to B.
Experienced time is therefore discontinuous. It is only
objective time that is assumed to be continuous, because
it is taken from bodily movements which we measure at
different points of space. Here again, therefore, the con-
tinuity is in space. In projecting time into space we make
the continuum quod cequabiliter fluit out of the discon-
tinuous experience. It follows from this that we shall
find the ideas of the event differentiated in time, accord-
ing as they relate to the inner or the outer event in its
typical form.

Yet a definite succession in time is not enough for the
definition of the event. A word spoken in the house,
followed by the whistle of a passing locomotive, does not
make an " event," no matter how objectively the succession
is determined. They lack any real connection, and there-
fore, in spite of the succession, they do not constitute
that unity of the manifold which we call an event. If
we ask in what this unity consists, we get various answers
which partly depend upon relations to the category of sub-
stance. One case is where the event occurs in one thing.
In one and the same thing A appear the states a^ and a2
in a definite succession. The thing, in other words, passes
from one of its states to another. We will call this variety
the immanent event. In our experience it is found chiefly
in the psychic life, in which one presentation or emotion
follows another in definite succession in one and the same
subject of consciousness. This immanent change of
state may, however, occur in a body : in one, for instance,
which continues to move in a given direction at a certain
speed in virtue of inertia. As a rule the material event
is of the other type : it occurs between several different
things. With state a of the thing A state b of the thing
B is connected in a clear and invariable sequence. If
we call this the transgredient event, because it passes from
one thing to another, we must admit that we have no
experience of such direct happening between different
souls. If an event is to pass from one soul to another,

THE EVENT 125

it must be done by the mediation of bodies ; and we thus
get two sorts of transgredient events — the physical,
between two bodies, and the psychological, between
soul and body or body and soul. In such cases, where
is the unity of the event, which in the immanent event
is based upon the identity of the thing ? What in the
case of transgredient events holds together the different
states of different things in a unity ? We conceive this
unity in the sense that the sequence is not merely a fact
(like the word and the whistle in our preceding example),
but that the states, which together make up the event,
are necessarily connected in this sequence. The event
therefore implies the necessity of a clear and invariable
succession of states. In this we assume that the one state
is not real without the other which is correlative with it
in the sequence, or, as Kant said in his Analogies of
Experience, that the one determines the existence of the
other in time. That is the real dependence, the temporal
as distinguished from the ideal or logical, which is in itself
timeless.

This real dependence constitutes the problem of the
event, since it holds also of the immanent event. The
invariable sequence of states of one and the same thing
is conceived either in the sense that one of these states
necessarily determines the existence in time of the other,
as happens in the succession of reflections, deductions,
and conclusions, or in the sense that, as in the sequence
of our perceptions, the varying states of one and the same
conscious being become necessary through a transgredient
event — that is to say, through changes of relations to
other things.

To these general remarks on the event and the problems
connected therewith we have to add one more. This
plain, invariable and necessary sequence of states which
constitutes the event is, from the nature of time, divisible
into two different and opposite classes. The linear or
one-dimensional character of time allows us, from any
given point, to measure time only backwards and for-
wards. From every present we may proceed in either
direction, toward the past or the future. Thus the neces-

126 GENETIC PROBLEMS

sity of the sequence is to be conceived either in the sense
that the antecedent element determines the existence in
time of the following or, conversely, that the antecedent
is determined by the following. In the former case we
say : If A is, B must follow. In the latter case : In order
for B to exist, A must precede. In the one case A is the
cause and B its effect ; in the other case B is the end and
A the means. The necessity therefore that exists between
the elements of one and the same event is either conse-
quence or indispensability ; and the dependence is either
causal or ideological. We shall have occasion later to
go more closely into this distinction and protect ourselves
against misunderstanding. Here we formally notify it
as part of the nature of the event, and we will keep in mind
in the following observations the various possibilities which
it suggests. There can be no question but that to the
more or less scientific mind the first of these forms of real
dependence, consequence, is much the more familiar,
and so from it we first develop the problems of the event.

§6

Causality. — Four usual forms of causality — Plurality of causes —
Primary and incidental causes — Postulate of the identity of the
world — Law of causality — Conservation of energy — New elements
in the psychic life — Causal equation — Incomprehensibility of the
causal relation — Experience of action — Universality of the time-
succession — Conformity of nature to law.

The categorical relation of cause and effect is one of
the most familiar, but most ambiguous, in our thought
and speech, and is precisely on that account a mass of
misunderstandings. It is the source of many difficult
and very important, and also of many fictitious, problems.
Almost everything is regarded as cause and effect in
popular usage. The application of the category is especi-
ally complicated in part by its relation to the superficial
ideas of things in experience, and above all by the circum-
stance that perception never gives us simple elements,
but always complexes of them, which for the most part
have already been formed and set in contrasted groups

CAUSALITY 127

by the category of inherence. Hence all sorts of ambigui-
ties in the application of the causal relation on the one
hand to the complexes, and on the other hand to the
several elements of which they consist. If we try to make
our way through this confusion under the lead of the
ideas which are commonly used for such orientation, we
have to take as our guide the very category of inherence
which is chiefly responsible for the confusion. On this
basis we distinguish, to begin with, between four types
of causal relation.

i. One thing is the cause, and another thing is the
effect. That is the original form of the use of the causal
relation, and it is chiefly found in organic life. The flower
comes from the plant, the fruit from the tree, the ovum
or the young from the mother. In such expressions as
springing from, growing from, coming from, etc., in using
the preposition " from " for the causal relation, language
bears witness to trie impression which contained this first
form of causality. But if we interrogate science it
assures us that this relation holds only for phenomenal
things, for the momentary inherence-complexes of per-
ception. The true things, the substances, neither come
into existence nor pass out of it. " The Greeks say
falsely," said Anaxagoras, " that things come into and go
out of existence ; in reality there are only mixture and
separation of incomplete and transitory elements." This
idea has become such a truism in science, in much the same
form as Kant formulated it as the law of the persistence
of substance, the quantity of which can neither be in-
creased nor lessened, that a man would now be regarded
in scientific circles as negligible if he talked about a sub-
stance originating or being produced by another. It is
only in religious metaphysics that the old idea has held
its ground, in the search (as we saw above) for the ulti-
mate cause or Creator of all things. We find this Deistic
form of causality in Descartes's theory of an infinite
substance which has created the finite, or in Leibnitz's
idea of the Central Monad which created all the other
monads and originally communicated to them their
reflection of the universe.

128 GENETIC PROBLEMS

2. The thing is regarded as the cause of its states and
its activities. We thus speak to some extent of man as
the cause of his actions, of the soul as the common cause
of its various functions, of the body — especially the organic
body — as the cause of its movements. In developing
these ideas we interpose, between the one thing and the
multiplicity of its effects, the forces by means of which
the substance exercises its causality. By this we under-
stand certain general properties, capacities, or powers ;
and in this sense the attributes are at times called the cause
of the modi. In the inner world the will is supposed to
be the cause of volitions, the intelligence the cause of
opinions, and so on. In the external world we find gravity,
inertia, and vital forces filling the gap. Force is expressly
defined as the cause of movement, and is thus regarded
as a property of the thing, the substratum, the matter,
the substance. From the logical point of view all these
forces are general concepts, assumed as the causes of the
various functions. We easily see that this general thing,
the force, is never the exclusive cause of the activity in
question. In order to pass into such a special function,
it always needs some occasion of action. We therefore
distinguish between efficient and occasional causes : causa
efficiens and causa occasionalis. It is clear that the two
together make up the entire "cause"; just as in the
analogous case of a syllogism the full ground for the con-
clusion is in the combination of the two premisses, the
" major " and the " minor." This also is a very familiar
way of looking at things, and there are many variations
of it ; but it shows us from the start how uncertain it is
which is the real cause, the efficient or the occasional or
both together.

3. The converse of the preceding : states and activities
are the causes of things. It is often said, for instance,
that the wind (which is a state or mode of motion) causes
clouds. Many people say that insects are produced by
the rain, which we regard as essentially a process, without
inquiring into the thing that is moved. A house is put
together by a number of activities ; who exercises them
is immaterial, as the functions are the immediate causes

CAUSALITY 129

of the house. If in this way we come to treat the functions,
detached from the things which discharge them, as inde-
pendent causes of other things, we come in the end to the
theory of the complete detachment of forces and functions.
The dynamic view of nature, which Kant and Schelling
held, falls into this class. Attraction and repulsion are
forces of the primary reality, and matter is merely pro-
duced by them. The system is developed in a much more
complicated form in Schelling's philosophy of nature,

Dynamism of this kind seems to the ordinary mind
thoroughly paradoxical. It demands things of which
the forces shall be functions. These functions suspended
in the air, which are supposed to produce things, have no
meaning for the ordinary mind, however much philo-
sophers might like to see the contrary, in order to teach
people to think philosophically. No one desired this more
strongly than Fichte and his followers, for whom action
was the first thing, and reality the product of action.
And in Fichte's case it is particularly clear how he came
to this view — from his experience of the inner event. If
in the province of the inner world there is to be any real
meaning in talk about a psychic substance, the Self is
not from the start a persistent and rigidly self-identical
thing, like an atom, but an organic and interconnected
complex of ideas, feelings, and volitions, which function
in the processes of apperception — that is to say, in the
reception of everything new that enters this psychic
organism. Every element of it has, however, been pre-
cipitated by an activity, as the content of this remains
persistent and alive, active and capable of assimilation.
The Self is identical with its history. In this case we must
admit that substance comes into existence, and it is formed
by states and activities for which we can prove no original
basis that can be given in experience. The relation of
substance and function is therefore fundamentally different
in the internal and the external event. What is physically
unthinkable is a fact in the internal world : substance
originates, and from functions as its causes. The dynamic
view of nature extends this causal scheme of internal
experience to the external world. We find this in modern

9

130 GENETIC PROBLEMS

Energetics, which means that the atoms are dissolved
into movements without there being question of anything
behind which moves itself or is moved. These things
are clearly seen in Heinrich Hertz's Principles of
Mechanics.

4. The causal relation is between states : one is the
cause and the other the effect. This situation holds for
the immanent as well as the transgredient event. In the
hrst case it is psychic, as when we say that perception
causes memory (by association), or the willing of the end
is the cause of the willing of the means (resolution), or
the knowledge of the reason is the psychic cause of the
knowledge of the conclusion (deduction). But even in
the case of the physical immanent event we have this
form of causality, especially in such complex structures as
organisms. The digestion, for instance, is understood to
be the cause of the formation of blood, or the peripheral
stimulation of the nerves the cause of the central process
in the brain. From the purely physical point of view,
it is true, processes of this kind are resolved into trans-
gredient events from member to member, and ultimately
from atom to atom. It is in these mechanical trans-
gredient events that we find this fourth form of causality
in its simplest shape : the movement of the impelling body
is the cause and the movement of the impelled body is
the effect. We may say that since Galilei this form of
causality has been recognised as the only form of use in
science. Since the substance is now, as it neither comes
into nor goes out of existence, so far removed from the
process of happening that this takes place independently
in substance or substances, we have, in regard to events
in the material world, only to deal with the question :
What modes of motion are the causes of what other modes
of motion ? The answers to this question constitute
what we call the laws of nature. They give us the rhythm
of all events, since they determine the sequence of states
in the changes of substances, either transgredient for
physical events or immanent for psychological.

When we look back upon these four very different
forms of application of the causal relation in our ordinary

CAUSALITY 131

mental life, we see how different the matter is according
as the relation is between things and states ; and if we
further assume that our common experience has always
to do with complexes, either of things or of changing
states, we perceive that the causal aspect of the same
fact may be very different according to differences in
our direction and selection. When we clearly understand
this, we see the solution of all sorts of controversies in
regard to the problem of causality, which have occasioned
a good deal of superfluous trouble. There is, for instance,
the question, at one time much discussed, of the time-
element : whether the cause ceases when the effect begins,
or whether it persists in the effect. It goes without say-
ing that if (on our fourth type) the causes are conceived
as states which condition other states, the time-element
is merely the moment of their mutual contact ; the
motion of the moving body ceases when that of the
moved body begins. If, on the other hand (on our second
type), the cause is sought in a force, it is clear that this
force remains as a general capacity after a particular
event has been produced by it.

This is true also of the plurality of causes, which, in-
evitable as it is in the complexity of our experience,
raises serious difficulties in modern methodology. In
our ordinary way of thinking and speaking we select
various elements out of the complex features in order to
confine our attention to them, and it may be that, as
this selection is at times influenced by quite other motives
than the theoretical interest of causal explanation, we
can no longer clearly trace in these incomplete parts the
causal relation which in reality holds good for the whole
or for the correlated parts. The difficulty is especially
great when we can consider an event simultaneously
according to the second and the fourth form. The
entire cause is always merely the force together with
the occasion for its action. But, just as Plato distin-
guished between the alnov and the ^wainov, the latter
being the condition of the real cause, we now speak of
principal and subsidiary causes. In this distinction,
however, it is by no means always certain what we shall

132 GENETIC PROBLEMS

regard as principal cause and what as incidental ; the
matter is often determined by arbitrary interests of the
dissecting intelligence, and the uncertainty is especially
great when the cause is to be held responsible. In an
explosion we have the powder, the material with the force
and capacity to produce it, and the spark which lets loose
this formidable force. Which of these is the principal,
which the subsidiary, cause ? And is the man respon-
sible who put the powder there, or the man who caused
the spark ? Clearly, the answer may be given very differ-
ently in different circumstances. Take an inundation as
an illustration. Someone has broken the dam, or left
open the sluices which were committed to his charge.
He is the responsible cause of the damage which the water
does. We thus take the two forms of causality together
in one phrase, but we cannot ignore the fact that from
the physical point of view the water is the principal
cause and the release of it at a given point is a subsidiary
cause ; but that from the legal point of view, which has
to do with human acts, it is the breaking of the dam or
neglect of the sluice which is the responsible and principal
cause. On the same lines run the historical controversies
in regard to great events : as Thucydides, in the intro-
duction to his History of the Peloponnesian War, raised
the question what was the cause of it and what the
occasion. To this day we still dispute in the same way
about Bismarck's Ems telegram.

It is the same with the magnitude-relation of cause
and effect. Descartes naively adopted the scholastic
formula, that there must be at least as much reality in
the cause as in the effect ; and in mechanics the principle
of the equivalence of the two (causa cequat effectum)
has been accepted since the time of Galilei. Yet in
ordinary life we often hear people speak of " small causes
of great events," or we regard a large apparatus of forces
and activities as producing a very small effect — nascetur
ridiculus mus. These differences in appreciation of size
depend upon what, in any given case, we call the cause
and what the effect. These are merely superficial
applications of the category of causality. The real

CAUSALITY 133

scientific conception of the event is to be sought behind
them.

The most important step in this direction is assuredly
the separation of being or substance from the process
of happening, which we first attain in our knowledge of
the external world. Modern science thinks it meaning-
less to ask about the origin of reality. Yet how difficult
it is to rid ourselves of the old ideas, by which we imagine
things as effects, may be realised from the attempts of
the Scholastics to do so. When aseity is ascribed to sub-
stance, and it is called causa sui, this is merely a form of
words in which the idea of causedness is applied to some-
thing to which it is not applicable. Substance has no
cause. We say this in other words when we say that it
is " of itself ' and is its own cause. We have other
examples when the original, which is not necessary through
another, is described as adventitious.

The really necessary we see in the event, in so far as
it is conditioned by another event. This feature is very
plainly seen in the transgredient event, in which the causing
and the caused movement seem to be directly connected
with each other. What combines them into a unity seems
to the ordinary observer to be the apparently visible
transmission of movement from one body to another.
The striking body gives up its movement to the body
that is struck. When this view is followed, as Descartes
follows it in his mechanics, the movement is supposed
to be something independent, which belongs to none of
the three bodies, but is borrowed by one and passed on
to another. Thus two movements of different bodies
make up an event, when and because they are identical.
The ultimate ground of this idea is, therefore, the assump-
tion of the identity of the world with itself which we en-
countered in our analysis of the definition of substance.
In spite of all changes of appearances the world remains
the same ; not only in its substances, which do not really
come into and pass out of existence, but also in movement,
which constitutes the event within the province of appear-
ance. The new movement, which we call an effect, is
really the old movement, the cause. This assumption

134 GENETIC PROBLEMS

of identity is rooted in our craving for causality and in
the general principle of causality, in which we assert
the validity of the former : every event has a cause.
This assumption of identity applies, as far as time is
concerned, both backwards and forwards. When we
experience something new, we ask : Whence comes it ?
We thus betray a belief that it must have been some-
where, in some form, previously. When something
goes out of experience, we ask : Where has it gone ?
What has become of it ? Again we seem to think that
it cannot have perished. In this sense we may even
so far modify the idea of mechanical causality as to say :
The cause is the form of reality which the effect had
previously ; the effect is that which the cause now assumes.
If then both things and their movement persist, if we have
to add to the principle of the persistence of substance
(Kant) that of the persistence of movement (Descartes),
and thus get the principle of the conservation of energy
in its modern form, the real meaning of the principle
of causality is seen to be that there is nothing new in
the world, or that the apparently new is always really
the old. When the Leibnitz- Wolff philosophy derived the
principle of the reason from the principle of identity, it
was no mere feat of formal dialectics, but in its real
meaning a typical expression of all scientific metaphysics.
Hence there is nil novi in natura ! But do we not in
this way take all rational meaning out of an event ? If
nothing new appears in all these changes, if the timeless
primary reality remains always the same, why does
anything happen at all ? Why does not the matter end
with this timeless identical being ? Why does this being
have in itself an event which changes nothing in it ? Or
is the timeless incomplete ? Has it to become complete
in time-events ? These hypercritical questions seem to
be of a purely theoretical character, but when we remem-
ber that the reality of time seemed to us necessary in
order to make possible the event which our will seeks,
we recognise once more the axiological influence at work
in these ultimate and insoluble problems of being and
happening.

CAUSALITY 135

Returning from these to purely theoretical considera-
tions, the meaning of the event from this point of view
consists in the change of combination of something that
remains identical in itself. We now ask further : Whence
the change, and what is the connection between the old
and the new form ? These questions, which lie behind
mechanical causality, are the more important because
we human beings are much more interested in these
combinations and their changes than in the ultimate
and always identical quantum of being and happening
behind them. Our own psychic experience depends
essentially on new elements. We might, in fact, say that
it is here we have to seek the great and decisive differ-
ence between the internal and external event. In our
simplest sensation something new comes into reality :
something that did not exist previously, and can only
mean a transformation of something previous. The
psychic event is one in which something really new
appears ; and this character of it culminates in what we
feel as freedom, though it means no more than the idea of
a psychic event which was not already present in another
form. Thus one of the most important antitheses in our
philosophy of life, the antithesis of mechanism or freedom,
determinism and indeterminism, arises from the nature
of these fundamentally different types of the physical
and the psychic event, and therefore we come to a parallel
antithesis in genetic problems to that we found in ontic
problems.

This assumption of the identity of cause and effect is,
however, a postulate which is expressly opposed to what
we know of the nature of our intellect. When we assume
causal relations in ordinary life or in any special branch
of knowledge, or when we speak of various causal laws in
science, the states which are synthetically combined as
events, the beginning and end of the process, seem to be
very little like each other. They are most like each other
in that purely mechanical event, the passage of movement
from one body to another. They are very different in
chemical changes or other processes, as when lightning
seems to be the cause of thunder. Electric friction and

136 GENETIC PROBLEMS

the dancing of little balls, sunshine and the melting of
ice or the opening of a flower, a shot and the cry and
defensive movement of any animal, the lifting of a stick
and the running away of a dog — these are cases of cause
and effect in which we find an increasing dissimilarity
between the two. But the greater the dissimilarity,
the more incomprehensible we find the relation between
them. This incomprehensibility, of which so much is
made in works on the problem of causality, consists
essentially in the fact that no logical analysis w:ll enable
us to excogitate or construct the effect out of the cause
or the cause out of the effect. Where, on the other hand,
the two are similar, as push and counter-push, pressure
and counter-pressure, the change from one to the other
seems to offer no difficulty, and we therefore find the matter
comprehensible. In this sense we have a complicated
process, of which the beginning and end lie far apart,
made more intelligible by resolving it into separate pro-
cesses which, on account of the comparative similarity of
cause and effect, seem to offer no particular difficulty ; like
the transmission of movement from the wheels and
cylinders of a machine to other parts of it. The causality
of the dissimilar is more intelligible if it can be resolved
into causalities of the similar. Hence science has an
inevitable tendency to explain in mechanical terms every-
thing that happens in the material world, or to reduce
everything to the transmission of movement from atom
to atom. Heat is supposed to be understood when it
is interpreted as molecular movement : light and elec-
tricity when they are reduced to vibrations of ether,
and so on. The craving to understand is the postulate of
identity, and the phenomena of nature are intelligible
to the extent to which they can be resolved into these
simple forms of causal similarity. The whole problem
of the mechanical interpretation of life or of organisms
may be brought under this formula.

It is the same with the psychic processes in relation to
each other. How complex presentations combine the
contents of their constituent elements seems so simple
as to offer no problem at all. But as soon as we compare

CAUSALITY 137

the beginning with the end in a long sequence of reflections
or a complicated process of motivation, they seem so
different that we are compelled to ask how the issue was
brought about. If, however, we set out in detail the
various stages of the process, we cease to be surprised.
Every " psychological " poem, novel, etc., poses the prob-
lem how the hero passed from the ordinary human
conditions of experience to the exceptional intellectual
or emotional position which holds the interest of the
reader and the author. Thus we treat all causal pro-
cesses of a complicated nature as intelligible if they can
be reduced to familiar elementary functions of causal
similarity.

That is why complete causal similarity is in principle
unintelligible ; and that was the problem of the Cartesian
school. It did not call into question the comprehensi-
bility of the physical or of the psychical event, but it
emphasised all the more the incomprehensibility of the
psycho-physical event — that is to say, the reciprocal
causality between states of the body and states of the
soul. From this point onward the problem became more
serious, and it was Arnold Guelincx who further developed
the incomprehensibility of the causal relation. This in-
comprehensibility means, in the logical relation of cause
and effect, that the content of the one is not present in
the other. But this analytic incomprehensibility holds
also of movements transmitted from one body to another.
It is not logically intelligible why one state must neces-
sarily be followed by another which is really distinct
from it, no matter how similar it may be. This is just
as true of the immanent as of the transgredient event.
The causal relation is in every case of a synthetic character,
and therefore incomprehensible. It cannot be rationally
established or analytically proved, but only synthetic-
ally experienced. Only where in some way empirically
known causal relations combine together can we foresee
and construct a priori an entirely new effect ; and even
here only because and in so far as we know all the elements
in advance. In the end, therefore, causality is analytically
not comprehensible ; the identity which we assume in

138 GENETIC PROBLEMS

it as the link between cause and effect is not rationally
discoverable.

From this point we survey the various positions which
modern thinkers have taken up in regard to the problem
of causality. When we take away the rational element
which is always thought into the actual experience,
nothing remains but the time-relation, which we really
experience. What we perceive is the post hoc, and the
right to turn it into a propter hoc is questionable. We
no more perceive the necessity of any issue from the
sequence than we perceive the thing as a link that holds
the properties together. Hence causality is not to be
known either rationally or empirically, and from this
it seems to follow that it cannot be known at all. Those
are the arguments we find in David Hume. Strict Posi-
tivism also holds that the determination of the sequence
in time is all that we can legitimately do. Even our
knowledge that such sequences in time are regularly
repeated is confined to the synthetic relation. For if in
individual cases the time-sequence alone tells us nothing
about its necessity, it cannot tell us anything, no matter
how often it is repeated. Hence for strict Positivism
the only thing that has any claim to scientific recognition
is the registration of the detailed facts of the sequence
and of the " general facts " of regularly repeated sequences.

Yet it is beyond question that we can distinguish
amongst sequences in time some which claim to be causal
in character and ascribe to them alone the feature of
necessity. We may adjust ourselves to this fact in
various ways, and thus give a different emphasis to different
elements of our idea of cause. One of these lines was
followed by Hume when he sought the origin of the idea
of cause, which is given neither in reason nor experience,
comprehensible neither analytically nor sensuously, in
the internal experience which arises from a repetition of
similar sequences. The habit of passing in presentation
from A to B makes it easier for the associative imagina-
tion to pass from A to B, so that when the impression of
A is renewed we feel a sort of compulsion to pass on to
the idea of B. This feeling of compulsion is the source

CAUSALITY 139

of the idea of the necessity which we assume in the causal
relation, not now between the presentations of A and B,
but between A and B themselves. What we really experi-
ence is that one of our presentations necessarily brings
the other into consciousness. We thus experience inter-
nally the action by means of which the cause determines
the existence in time of the effect. This experience
of action pointed out by Hume is later pushed aside by
other experiences. A man seeks something in his memory,
and what he seeks comes into being. Here my will is
the cause of an idea ; I do not know how it can accom-
plish this, but I experience it as a fact. Further, I wish
to raise my arm and I do so ; again I do not know how
I do it, but I experience it — the action is a fact. In
other cases my will meets resistance, partly in my own
body and partly in other objects. What the other cause
of this resistance is I know not, but I experience it ; it
is a fact. In both cases I have in this experience of action
an internal feeling of the necessity with which the cause
produces the effect. This is, as a matter of fact, the
real origin of the idea of force, and if we try to define it,
in its significance for our knowledge of the external world,
as the cause of movement, we have a real interpretation
of external experience by means of internal. The external
experience, taken strictly, gives us only sequences in
time, some of which are repeated with more or less fre-
quency ; and the Positivistic mechanics, as represented
in Germany by Kirchhoff and Mach, would confine itself
to the description of these individual or general facts
of succession in time. It would exclude the ideas of force
and work from the science of the material world.

In opposition to this the necessity asserts itself as the
decisive element in the relation of cause and effect ; for
it alone combines the various elements into the unity
of the event, and by it alone we select from the immense
mass of time-sequences the particular connections which
we describe as causal. This necessity is, as we saw,
primarily given psychologically in the feeling of work.
But it has also a logical aspect, and this consists in the
universality of the time-sequence. When I say that A

140 GENETIC PROBLEMS

necessarily follows B, this implies a real and unambiguous
connection between these two elements ; and this involves
the consequence that, wherever and however A may
appear, B must appear as an effect of it. In this sense
of the causal necessity it is quite immaterial whether
A is active only once or several times, and whether the
sequence A—B is or is not repeated. It is therefore no
use objecting that the logical aspect of the causal relation
would not be verified in cases where the processes cannot
be repeated. The causal necessity always involves the
assumption that, if A is repeated, B must inevitably follow.
Causal relations are, therefore, those time-sequences
which are special cases of general time-sequences. The
methodological character of our knowledge justifies this
logical sense of the causal relation. Intuitive perception
often enables us to convert a single experience of a suc-
cession directly into a causal relation. That happens, in
part, with a sort of instinctive correctness ; but, on the
other hand, it is exposed to many illusions and mistakes.
To avoid these we have, in the last resort, no means
except observing the repetition. The more frequently
the same post hoc appears, the more confidently we may
claim it as a propter hoc. Yet, we must repeat, we get
from this repetition no sort of analytic proof of the causal
relation. The regular repetition gives us an occasion
and a right to assume a causal relation only because it
is itself a fact for which, according to the general law of
causality, a cause must be assumed. This may consist
in the causal relation between the two phenomena which
always appear in succession ; but it may have to be sought
in more remote causal connections which are an indirect
source of the combination in time. Hence the constant
succession of two events (a familiar example is day and
night) is not eo ipso of a causal character, but merely one
of the methodological reasons for assuming it ; and, on
the other side, it is not indispensable in cases in which
we feel ourselves justified in gathering a causal relation
inductively from a single observation. The chemist,
for instance, unhesitatingly expects to find the same
behaviour in the substances with which he is experiment-

CAUSALITY 141

ing in cases of repetition. Hence the element of necessity
in a single experience seems to us justified by a general
principle, a rule of succession ; and it is in this sense
that Kant defined the causal relation as such that " one
determines the existence in time of another according to
a general rule." In this general principle we have the
link which holds together the two elements of cause and
effect in the unity of the event.

A rule of this kind is called a law ; and therefore this
special causal thesis points to a causal law, according to
which certain states have other states connected with
them as their consequences. In virtue of this con-
nection the principle of causality, according to which
every event must have a cause, takes the form of a
principle of the uniformity of nature, or the conformity
of nature to laws. For modern scientific thought this
connection has in the course of time become so evident
that the axioms of causality and uniformity are quite
interchangeable. In itself that is not necessary ; it
depends on how we formulate the category of causality.
In the sense of work, for instance, the causal relation is
chiefly applicable to isolated cases which do not admit
repetition, and which therefore entirely ignore or even
deny the uniformity of nature. In such ideas as creation
and miracle causality is not denied, as is generally said
in scientific circles. They expressly involve a cause of
the origin of the world or of some extraordinary process.
All that is denied is that in the particular event there was
conformity to law. In the same way the isolated events
of the course of history are not calculated in their totality
to bring out this causal relation to uniformity. The
unrepeatable individual structure of any such event in
the world-process makes the idea that the world is ruled
by law seem meaningless for the whole of these isolated
cases. We do not find regular repetitions and similari-
ties between the complex states which we experience as
a whole, but only between the elements of which the com-
plexes are composed ; these exhibit comparable repeti-
tions and similarities. Just in the same way as all the
presentable properties of a thing are of a general character,

142 GENETIC PROBLEMS

and the individual always consists of a unique and un-
repeated combination of a certain number of these
generalities, so the event, in its experienced totality, is
composed of various connections which may be repeated
in other and very different complexes, and therefore
have the significance of laws. As the individual properties
have a permanent being as generic concepts or Platonic
ideas, which we have to extract from the variety of pheno-
menal things, so the causal rules which, as general prin-
ciples, express the necessity of the time-sequence between
different states have to be elicited by abstract knowledge
from the rich variety of the individual complexes of the
real event. It is only in such knowledge that the law in
its generality contains the reason why the individual
event is accomplished. But this assumption is at the
root of all our predictions of future phenomena, all our
inductive thought, investigation, and proof. To this
extent the postulate of causality coincides with that
of uniformity. The necessity which makes a causal
relation of the sequence in time consists mainly in the
capacity for constant repetition, the uniformity.

The dependence of the particular on the general, as it
is conceived in the idea of law, is the logical shape of the
principle of causality, and this must take the place of that
analytic connection of cause and effect which we sought
in vain. General synthesis is the essence of the necessity
which must bind the elements of the event. Thus we
find in the category of causality two elements which are
inseparably united : the individual experience of work
and the logical assumption of a dependence of the par-
• ticular on the general. It is the stronger or one-sided
emphasis of one or the other of these elements that
gives us the different ideas of cause in ordinary life and
in the various sciences.

MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 143

§7

Mechanism and Teleology. — Convertibility of natural laws — The
mechanical and the organic whole — Originality of action — Aim
and purpose — Sound and spurious teleology — Unconscious teleology
— Teleology and vital capacity — Development — Causality in the
service of teleology.

The more carefully we consider the scientific applica-
tion of the category of causality, the more emphatically
we must abandon the superficial ideas which look upon
these things as direct and self-evident data of experience.
In particular we must rid ourselves of the assumption
that there must be between cause and effect such simple
relations as equivalence or similarity. One of the most
important witnesses to the inexpressible multiplicity of
reality is precisely the inexhaustible variety of the causal
relation. Hence the more carefully we apply this causal
relation, the more convinced we are that we find in the
outer world all the forms of ordered and purposive activity
which we seem to experience constantly in our own
rational life. The conception of the material world as
the theatre of purposive forces is one of the oldest and
most widespread of human ideas. The phenomena of
life, of the organic world, with their evolution and build-
ing of frames, seem especially to the plain mind to be a
field of purposive events. As to its relation, however,
to the purposeless causality of movements, reflective
thought has taken many different lines, some of which
have been obscured by verbal misunderstandings. We
have already, in considering the general features of the
event, pointed out a fundamental difference in this
respect ; though it by no means coincides with the
popular idea of the distinction between mechanism and
teleology.

The unambiguous succession in time which is essential
to every event left us free to choose two alternatives
in the specification of work : the beginning might deter-
mine the end, or the end might determine the beginning.
The necessity, we said, is either consequence or indis-
pensability. In the first case we mean that, given A,

144 GENETIC PROBLEMS

B is bound to follow ; in the second case that, in order to
produce B, A must precede. That is not always the same
thing, because B might follow upon C or D. Motion
may be caused by pushing, pressure, heat, magnetism,
or design. It is the same with real dependence as with
logical : given the ground of it, the result always follows,
but the ground is not always correlated with the result,
as the same result may follow from various grounds.
We might pursue this as far as the interesting problem
of the convertibility of natural laws. We have clearly
every reason to assume that the same causes will always
produce the same effects. But it is quite different with
the question whether the same effects must always have
the same causes. Yet this is assumed as an integral
part of the principle of the uniformity of nature, which
is the fundamental presupposition of all inductive thought
and reasoning. This clearly applies in the highest degree
to the most general forms of the event and the most
intricate complexes of our experience. Hence this reci-
procity has become most familiar in our ordinary life and
in scientific research. In the provinces of physics and
chemistry we naturally express ourselves in mechanical
terms : in the province of biology in teleological language.
When oxygen and hydrogen combine in the proportion
i : 2 we get water ; but we may just as well say, if there
is to be water, oxygen and hydrogen must, etc. On the
other hand, we say that if an organism is to have differen-
tiated sensations of light, it must have a peripheral struc-
ture like the eye ; and in this case a converse mechanistic
expression would not suit our purpose, at least unless
we express the invertibility of the causal relation by adding
the word " only." Thus we may say : Only at a moderate
temperature are organisms produced, and therefore, if
organisms are to be produced, a moderate temperature is
needed. This form of expression is most frequently
found in connection with the complex isolated events of
history. Only where we have a spiritual atmosphere
like that of Germany in the eighteenth century and a
genius like Goethe is a Faust possible ; in order to
have a Faust we need, etc.

MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 145

When we inquire into the correctness of these expres-
sions, we must first make their meaning quite clear. Let
us take the classical illustration of the organism. Its
vital activity and its development are made possible
only by these definite organs and their no less definite
functions. But these definite organs and functions are,
in turn, only possible in this organism. Hence the whole,
which causes the effect, determines the parts which are
required for it. They are only in it ; and it is possible
only through them. In this reciprocal dependence of
the whole and the parts Kant has given us the classic
definition of an organism. A watch is a whole that may
be put together out of pre-existing wheels, etc. But
the organism must itself produce the parts of which it
is to consist. From this we get two fundamental types
of the construction of a whole : the mechanical and the
organic. In the one the parts precede the whole and
produce it by being put together. In the organic whole,
on the other hand, the parts themselves are conditioned
by the whole and are only possible in it. In the organic
whole, therefore, the end, which is to come out of it,
determines the beginning.

This latter formulation is at first sight too much for
our ordinary views of causation. The determination of
the beginning by the end seems paradoxical and impos-
sible. That the pre-existing should determine the present
seems natural enough, though it is not quite so self-evident
as it seems at first sight ; but how can the future, which
does not yet exist, do anything ? How can it itself deter-
mine the process of an event to which alone it will owe
its existence ? It seems to be, not merely incomprehen-
sible, but impossible. We may, however, at once weaken
the force of these objections by a few general considera-
tions. In the first place, it has already been shown that
causal determination by something pre-existing is, though
a very common idea, yet one that proves logically in-
comprehensible when it is closely studied. Then there
is another thing. If we, for instance, regard the time-
relation as phenomenal, we see that pre-existence or
post-existence is merely a thought-form of our restricted

10

146 GENETIC PROBLEMS

intellect, which ought not to make so much of the paradox
of teleological dependence ; the less so, as this way of
looking at things is found to be impossible for certain
groups in the phenomenal world. Both Aristotle and
Schelling laid stress on this principle of indispensability,
and Fichte, when he so clearly grasped that what ought
to be is the reason of all being, pointed out the source of
the prejudice against teleology : it is based upon the con-
cept of substance and the assumption, connected there-
with, that something must exist if anything is to come
into being. The opposite conception, which regards
original action as directed toward its achievement and
therefore determined by it, is the true, genuine, and pure
teleology of the organic view of the world.

But the whole problem has been perverted by a
/LterajSaori? els aAAo yevos. The problem of the future
reality which is to have some effect on the pre-existing
seems to be thrust aside when it is not the future reality
itself which acts and determines, but the idea of it — when
the effective thing is not the end, but the design. When
the idea of the future, together with the corresponding
act of will, determines the existence in time of its content,
this seems to be the kind of action of the future which we
know in our own experience ; in so far, that is to say,
as it is preconceived and willed. It can then act because
it is already there — namely, as an idea and volition. But
this design precedes the effect ; it is therefore a kind of
cause, and so this sort of teleology merely means a form
of causality — the causality of the design.

We must, in the interest of clearness, distinguish these
things very carefully. The genuine and true teleology
is that of the end ; and it affirms that this end, as the
future reality, itself determines the means which precede
its realisation and are necessary thereto. The false and
perverse teleology is that of the design ; and it affirms
nothing more than that amongst the causes which precede
their effects there are some which consist in the idea of
the future reality and acts of will directed thereto. How
difficult it is to keep these things apart, and how easily
they run together, is best seen in Kant's position in the

MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 147

Critique of Judgment. His philosophy recognises only
one kind of scientific explanation of events — that of
mechanical causation. Now it has to be made clear
that, not only in view of the actual implements of human
knowledge, but as a matter of principle and from the
nature of the case, the purposiveness of organic life
cannot be understood on the lines of this mechanical
causation. In this case, as a matter of fact, the future
form, which it is to produce, conditions the apparatus
which is to produce it — the end conditions the means of
its realisation. The only way to understand this causally
would be to assume, on the analogy of man's technical
activity, the existence of forces working with a purpose :
a form of causation which is familiar enough in human
life. But nature, even organic nature, is the kingdom
of the unconscious ; it has no designs. All the causes
which we know and can understand in it are mechanical.
If, therefore, we are forbidden to assume the existence
in nature of technical forces working with a purpose,
we have no alternative, in face of its purposive structures,
but to give up the idea of knowledge and simply
" regard them as if " nature worked according to design
in them. Kant found himself driven to this transcen-
dental view only because he could not fit into his system
of categories the genuine teleology, the real determination
of the pre-existing by the future ; because his system was
based upon the philosophical substructure of the New-
tonian theory of mechanics.

Now if one is not prepared to recognise the teleological
in the proper sense, as Aristotle and Schelling formulated
it, yet is not satisfied with the problematic "as if" of
Kant's system, the only alternative is, as we see in modern
Vitalism, to assume unconscious purposive activities in
organic nature. We are thus driven once more into the
intermediate realm of the unconscious, which is supposed
to be neither physical nor psychic, neither experienced
nor perceived, but merely hypothetically introduced in
order to explain our experience. Whether the uncon-
scious is brought in as a psychological or a metaphysical
hypothesis, according to the various shades of meaning

148 GENETIC PROBLEMS

we find in Leibnitz, Fichte, and Hartmann, it always
means that the explanation of processes given in experi-
ence requires us to suppose that they are not conscious,
yet cannot be regarded as physical. We are not lightly
to suppose that everything that is not in consciousness
is unconscious. For some time the physiology of sense-
perceptions worked fairly well, with the assumption of
unconscious reasoning and similar phrases, which meant
no more than that men were content with words. From
the point of view of psychology I can see only two lines
on which it seems necessary to assume the unconscious.
On the one hand it is the condition of the mental contents
that may be recalled to mind ; they are not conscious
and cannot be nothing, yet cannot be conceived as a
physical something in the brain which would explain
the reproduction of impressions. On the other hand
we have volitions and states of feeling without conscious
motive, in the case of which we are very largely exposed
to self-deception as to our own feelings and views. Hence,
since there is a psychological basis for the assumption
of an intermediate realm of the unconscious, it may be,
with proper caution, extended to the provinces of natural
philosophy and metaphysics. If organic purposiveness
compels us to assume conditions which we cannot satis-
factorily regard as physical, yet they are not, as far as
our knowledge goes, conscious processes, we seem to be
justified in supposing that they are unconscious purposive
powers, whether we call them vital forces, entelechies,
dominants, or anything else. But we must be quite clear
that in either case the unconscious is only a name for
something that is assumed on the analogy of the psychic,
without anybody being able to say, apart from this
analogous feature, what it really is — in fact, only a name
for an unsolved problem. The causal-mechanical thought
of science must always endeavour to find a way out of
this difficulty, and it therefore rejects the vital force and
all such hypotheses.

With Kant we may formulate the problem of teleology
in a different way. The purposive is always one amongst
many possible combinations of atoms. That there is

MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 149

such a combination at work is logically immaterial, and
it can therefore be regarded as necessary only in the
teleological sense of being indispensable. In this respect
it had often been pointed out before Kant, and has often
been pointed out since, that according to the principles
of probability (particularly on the lines of Finitism) the
purposive combination must arise at some time like all
other combinations. Thus we have been referred to the
purposive regularity of the stellar world, and Empedocles
long ago pointed it out in the organic world. We have,
further, Fechner's theory of the tendency of nature, and
especially of the organic, toward stability ; and, in fine,
that is the meaning of the Darwinian theory of the survival
of the fittest. To many it seems that in this way the
teleological problem has been solved, or explained away,
mechanically. It is a question, however, if this is not
merely playing with words. What is the purposive in
this connection ? In astronomy purposiveness means
merely a regularity which leads to the stability of its
contents ; in the biological theory of evolution the pur-
posive is only that by means of which the organism
preserves itself and its species — fitness. It is not over-
whelmingly astonishing that the fittest survive. These
theories mean nothing but the survival of the fittest.
The illusion of supposing that they give us some further
synthetic knowledge is due to the fact that another mean-
ing is put upon the word " purposive." It is an idea of
value, and means the realisation of something that,
without respect to vital fitness, corresponds to an idea,
an object, an ideal. It is now said that the discovery
of the survival of the fittest has also proved that every-
thing purposive in the wider sense of the word is an
outcome of mechanical evolution and means a selection
of the fittest. That is really not the case ; the purposive
as an idea of value is not the same thing as the purposive
as the biological principle of vital fitness. The processes
of biological necessity very often lead to the survival of
structures which must be described as purposive — as
fitted for the purposes of life — in this sense, yet have no
positive relation to purposiveness in the sense of value.

150 GENETIC PROBLEMS

The predominant elements in modern biological theories
of evolution, and partly in the philosophical theories
which depend upon them, seem to represent a surviving
fragment of the naturalistic optimism which regarded
a natural event as eo ipso purposive and of value.

In this respect a good deal of mischief is done with
ambiguous terms. By evolution (apart from the mathe-
matical idea of evolution, such as that of a fraction or
of a sinus in a series) we understand chiefly two closely
related types of event which must be clearly distinguished
from each other. In the first place we call evolution
the process by which all the possibilities in a given complex
are realised in their several forms : a process the purely
causal nature of which is entirely independent of any
ideas of value. In this sense the original gaseous sphere
evolves into a manifold planetary system ; and in this
we have merely the distinction between the simple and
the complex. But in our ordinary way of looking at
these things we have a tendency to regard the more
complex state as the higher, that is to say, of higher
value, and thus to conceive the process of evolution as
an advance from the simpler and lower to the more com-
plex and higher. That is, in effect, the whole artificial
structure of Herbert Spencer's theory of evolution. As
a matter of fact, if the unfolding of possibilities is thus to
be regarded as a progressive " evolution," an idea of value
must in some way be introduced to provide a standard.
If, for instance, we say that the organic is something
higher than the inorganic, and if, within the organic world,
we distinguish between lower and higher forms of life,
we have a pronounced idea of value in this theory of
evolution in the gradual approximation to psychic life
and to the human standard. If evolution is to be a pro-
cess toward an end instead of a merely physical develop-
ment, we are regarding the event from the point of view
of a judgment of values. Causal changes are only
advances, and in this sense evolution, when they are
successfully adapted to the end which provides a standard
for judging them. That holds good in politics, literature,
or agriculture just as much as in botany and zoology.

MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 151

The only thing needed is that one shall understand clearly
what is to be regarded as end and standard of judg-
ment. Not every change that means development is an
advance ; Auguste Comte reached the acme of phraseo-
logical vagueness when he indicated "progress' as the
" aim " of the historical life of society.

The realisation of such an era of evolution is always
accomplished by causal processes, and this opens out a
final consideration which we must now analyse. We
invert the causal relation teleologically when we say that,
if B is to occur, A must precede it ; and in this we imply
that A is the sole possible cause of B. In order therefore
to express a teleological relation of this kind, we must
know, or at least think we know, the reciprocal causal
relation. All reflections on the means with which we would
attain our ends work with known causal ideas. We
assign A as the means for B because we know or assume
that A is the cause of B : is in general, and will be in
any particular case. All purposive teleology therefore
implies conscious and willed causality.

We thus place causality in the service of teleology ;
and in practice machines are the familiar type of this
state of things. Their functions are purposive because
we are in a position to control with perfect confidence
the causal connectedness of their activities. This, as is
well known, seemed to the great naturalists of the seven-
teenth century, such as Boyle and Newton, to be the solu-
tion of the teleological problem of metaphysics ; the
teleology of divine action was confused with the real and
true teleology which we defined above. Amongst the
philosophers Leibnitz, and in recent times Lotze, adopted
this idea, in order to reconcile a universal mechanism
with an equally universal teleology. The decisive element
in this is the contrast between the theory of nature which
ascribes to it an indifferent causality, entirely devoid of
value, as essential and the purposiveness of nature which
we perceive, or think we perceive. It is true that this
purposiveness of the natural order must not be assumed
without good reason. To an impartial observer it must
always seem to be restricted ; and hence the dysteleologi-

152 GENETIC PROBLEMS

cal facts of reality conflict, as we shall see later, with the
development of the problems of theodicy. We are brought
back to the dualism to which we referred on an earlier
page ; in this case it is the antithesis of purposiveness
and determinism. The candour of the older thinkers
led them in this matter to be content to say that the
world is good within the limits of the possible (Kara TO
Swarov) ; and we have an echo of this dualism in all
those ideas of religious metaphysics which lay special
stress on the need of amelioration by means of miracles.
The world, it is true, is regarded as the most perfect of
all machines ; but even the best machine is more or less
thrown out of order at times and needs the hand of the
divine artificer.

§8

The Psycho-physical Event. — Psychic and corporeal events — Psycho-
physical causality — Psycho-physical parallelism — Conservation of
energy — Consciousness as an epiphenomenon — Reflex movements —
The brain as an asylum ignorantics — Discontinuity of the psychic
event — Psycho-physical duality as appearance — Panpsychism —
The unconscious.

Amongst the dualistic elements of thought which are
thus constantly recurring the most important, even in
connection with problems of the event, is the antithesis
of body and soul. There are, in point of fact, such pro-
found differences between corporeal and psychic events
that their union and their interaction form one of the
most difficult problems that ever confronted, and will
continue to confront, the philosophic mind.

In recapitulating the more important of these differences
we think first of all of that which relates to continuity.
The material event as movement is always continuous,
since it is a change of place in space. To pass from A
to B a body must cover every part of the intermediate
space. There is no such continuity of transition,
apparently, in the psychic event. The successive acts
of consciousness are discrete events, between which there
is no gradual transition : it has no meaning for them.

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 153

We hear one sound after another. Each is distinct in
itself and not connected with the other, as is the case
with the positions of a ball that rolls from right to left.
Hence the time we personally experience is a sum of dis-
crete points, and our idea of objective, continuously
flowing time arises only from our need to understand
the events which we are compelled by our external experi-
ence to interpolate between the elements of our personally
experienced time. Hence our way of looking at these
things : time does not stand still, nor do bodies in space,
but our consciousness stands still, for a longer or shorter
time. On this are based all our ordinary estimates of time,
in which we compare the proportion experienced by our-
selves with that of continuous objective events. An hour
is short if we experience a good deal in it : long if we
experience little or nothing in it.

A second main distinction is that the movement of
spatial substances — whether we speak of visible bodies
or atoms — is external and passes from them the moment
it is over, whereas the content of the psychic event
persists, whatever kind of experience we had. There is
a certain medium between these extremes when we find
in such material complexes as organisms something analo-
gous to the psychic life — a trace or a habit of the function
remaining after the event. It has been called the memory
of matter. The real material substance, however, the
atom, has nothing happening to it ; it remains the same
whatever its movement is, and when it leaves the complex
to which it belonged for a time it is just the same as
before, as if it had experienced no movement whatever.
Hence the immutability, the persistency, of material
reality, whereas what we call the substantial content of
ideas, the spiritual existence, the apperception-masses of
feelings, and volitions, only come into being gradually in
the course of our psychic experience. In the individual,
and not less in the entirety of cultural development,
there is a permanent deposit from the event. Hence
souls, as we have seen several times, are not substances
in the same sense as bodies, and, if we press the category
of inherence explicitly in its physical application, psycho-

154 GENETIC PROBLEMS

logy has to be "without soul." For the external world
we are bound to assume something in the nature of a thing,
if we would have a clear idea of a function, an event.
For the psychic life the fact is that the event is the primary
experience, and the substantial reality is to be regarded
as an outcome of it. This is very clear in the case of the
socio-psychological process, which in recent times has
again received the infelicitous name of " folk-psychology."
For the life of the individual soul ordinary thought easily
finds a substratum in the physical organism. For those
general states and movements which we attribute to the
spirit of the nation or of the times we do not, in these
terms, indicate any substances that can be proved to
exist or even be intellectually defined. In those cases
it is notorious that the substantive expressions have
only the value of functions.

A further distinction between material and psychic
events is found in the way in which we define progress.
From the material point of view it depends entirely on
the spatial features of position and movement. Chemi-
cally and physically, and in the end even organically,
position and motion are the decisive factors whether
there shall next be rest or movement, persistence or
change. In psychic events, on the other hand, the
consequent is determined by the antecedent according
to rational relations which have, in principle, nothing to
do with spatial conditions. In the association of the
dream the predominant elements are similarities and
contrasts ; in judgment and reasoning, real connections
between the contents of the mind ; in conviction and
will, the relation of means to end, and so on. These
differences in the progress of the event enable us to under-
stand how it is that from common points of departure,
such as we have in sense-perception, the two series of
events, the physical and the psychic, follow quite different
and very divergent directions.

In fine, one of the greatest differences is the manner
in which the variety of simple or elementary impulses
are connected in a complex event in the two cases. In
the physical world we have the scheme which is expressed

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 155

in the parallelogram of forces. The components fade out
of recognition in the resultant. From the diagonal, which
may be the same for any number of pairs of cathetes,
we can never tell what their components will be in
any given case. In consciousness, on the contrary, the
elements which enter as parts into a complex idea remain
unchanged, and they are only bound up in a new unity
by some form of relation. This closely agrees with the
feature of the psychic event in virtue of which all its ele-
ments persist as such, so that, if they enter into a further
event, they do not lose their identity, but remain un-
changed. This is, perhaps, the most important and most
radical difference between the two kinds of event.

As we saw above, the causality of similar things is sup-
posed by ordinary people to be intelligible and self-evident,
and each of the two series of events, that of movements
and that of states of consciousness, seems to offer no diffi-
culty as long as each series is complete in itself. It is
only when they cross each other, or disturb and interpene-
trate each other, that we get the great problem of the
psycho-physical connection as, in the strict sense, an
incomprehensible causality of dissimilar things. We must
observe, first, that in point of fact we experience this
psycho-physical causality just as much as we do the
others, the psychic and the physical. We experience
them in the same degree as facts which we understand
in the same degree — that is to say, they are no more
capable of analysis. The change of stimuli in perceptions
or of designs in purposive movements is just as certain
to our perception as the transition from one form of
material movement to another or the advance from one
psychic state to another ; but the real nature of the
connection of cause and effect is incomprehensible in
each case.

We experience psycho-physical causality mainly in
ourselves, and it is primarily an anthropological problem.
So it seemed to Descartes and his immediate pupils, the
Occasionalists. It seemed to them an exception to the
general separation of the two worlds, that of consciousness
and that of extension. It was soon found, however,

'•ft

156 GENETIC PROBLEMS

that this relaxation of the exclusiveness of the two worlds
was really a metaphysical problem of the first magnitude.
On the one side, by means of psycho-physical causality
there enter into consciousness states of presentation,
feeling, and will which would never arise simply from the
nature of consciousness itself. Descartes thinks it im-
portant to trace all that is obscure and confused, erroneous
and sinful in the soul, to this disturbance of its pure
intellectuality by influences of the material world. On
the other hand, the purposive acts with which man reacts
on the influences of the external world lead to these
changes, which they could not do by the mechanism of
their own movements alone. Would the elements unite,
without the intervention of mind, to form houses and cities,
bridges and ships, sewing-machines and airships ? The
world is changed wherever mind deals with it, just as the
mind is changed whenever it takes the world into it.
These facts are undeniable, and therefore we have to
adjust ourselves to the causality of dissimilar things, how-
ever incomprehensible or even impossible it may seem.

Recent science has found a way out of the difficulty
in a theory which was started by Guelincx and Spinoza,
and was introduced by Fechner into modern psychology
and metaphysics. It is the hypothesis that, as a matter
of fact, each of these worlds, the psychic and the physical,
is complete in itself, and there is no influence from one
to the other, but that events in the two worlds proceed
step by step in complete agreement with each other,
since the same primary reality evolves, expresses itself,
and appears in each series. This we call psycho-physical
parallelism. Perhaps it would have been better to call
it psycho-physical correspondence. Many of our modern
men of science cautiously regard it as merely a working
hypothesis, useful in investigating the facts of the psycho-
physical connection and not implying anything further,
but it naturally, in the course of research, becomes a
metaphysical theory which makes the same claim to
interpret the world as Spinozism once did. This theory
is that each of the two worlds, that of cogitatiu and that of
extensio, the psychic and the corporeal, passes through

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 157

various stages, in accordance with its general laws, with-
out being influenced by the other ; in other words, that it
would develop just the same as it does even if the other
world did not exist at all. The appearance of psycho-
physical causality, therefore, is merely due to the fact
that each modus of one world is exactly correlated to a
modus of the other. This is supposed to be true of the
relation of soul and body from the point of view of reality,
and the relation of consciousness and movement from the
point of view of function.

From the extensive discussions of this theory which
have taken place during the last few decades — so extensive
that it is impossible to suggest any new philosophical
consideration — it will suffice here to quote the main
argument that has been used in favour of the metaphysical
soundness of psycho-physical parallelism. It at the same
time introduces us to the most general correlations, and
leads from the anthropological impulses which lay, and
lie, at the root of the problem to the ultimate metaphysical
consequences on which it is to be decided whether the
hypothesis is to be accepted or rejected. It is a question
of its relation to that supreme postulate of modern science
which goes by the name of the Conservation of Energy ;
though its special scientific meaning is not always correctly
understood. From the point of view of this principle the
theory of ps3^cho-physical parallelism seems to be quite
impossible. For if, according to the principle of the
conservation of energy in the physical world as a self-
contained whole of material reality, the distribution of
kinetic and potential energy is plainly determined from
moment to moment according to the direction and inten-
sity of movements, and is regulated by mechanical laws,
it is certainly unthinkable that these physical movements
should have other causes than physical movements,
or that they could be caused by psychic states. And if
the processes of organic life, in which, on the theory of
psycho-physical causality, there seems to be a reciprocal
change of designs into movements and movements into
sensations, constitute an infinitesimal part in proportion
to the enormous mass of inorganic events, we should have

158 GENETIC PROBLEMS

here, if we admit psycho-physical causality, a transgres-
sion of the principle of the conservation of energy which
deprives it of its axiomatic validity. Hence theoretical
physicists naturally have a strong bias for parallelism.

We do not get rid of these difficulties by pretending
that there is no danger to the conservation of the quantum
of energy as long as we confine psycho-physical causality
to its distribution. The sensory processes and the inner
processes of the nervous system have, it is argued, stored
a sum of energy in the brain, and this is converted by
the motor processes into purposive movements. We must
bear in mind that the psychic states which we call pur-
poses, and which consist of ideas of the future and functions
of the will directed thereto, decide in what direction this
potential energy is guided in order to be converted into
motor functions and therefore definite actions ; and,
on the other hand, that the vital force which is released
by the stimuli in the sensory nervous system is directed
by psychic elements along the paths by which it accumu-
lates in central nervous states. The principle of the con-
servation of energy is not called into question if the
distribution which they experience in the brain is
ascribed to psychic causes. But this is certainly not the
case. In its mathematical-physical sense the principle
of the conservation of energy applies plainly and inexor-
abty to its distribution, its division into potential and
kinetic energy, from moment to moment, arid it there-
fore leaves no room for any other principle. It is only
the vague popular idea or formulation of the principle
that makes possible dilettante arguments of this sort.
The exact mathematical-physical definition absolutely
excludes them.

Still more childish is the attempt at evasion cnce made
by Robinet and repeated by many in recent times : the
mind is supposed to play the part of a special form of
energy. Just as movement is converted into heat and
heat into movement, so the energy of the stimulation of
the sensory nerves is supposed to pass into consciousness,
and, as psychic energy, to undergo all sorts of changes
until at last it is, in the final form of a purpose, recon-

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 159

verted into movement. The organism is thus supposed
to be really a grave of physical energy and a cradle of its
rebirth. The various types of organisms are distinguished
from each other in the greater or less quantity of energy
which undergoes this occasional conversion from the
physical form to the psychic ; but in the last resort the
loss and gain are always equal, so that the integrity of
the principle of the conservation of energy is preserved.
We need, however, little penetration to see that in argu-
ments of this sort we have, once mere, a metaphysical
dilettantism playing with the various meanings of the
word " energy." Psychic reality can never be described
as substance or function in the same sense as physical
reality in our formulation of the principle of the conserva-
tion of energy.

The strict definition of the great physical principle
forbids dialectical performances of this sort, and it is no
less irreconcilable with the idea that consciousness is a
by-product of the physical process, an epiphenomenon,
as is said. By this is meant that the conversion of the
sensory energy into motor, which is the chief performance
of the organism, and especially of its nervous system,
may very well take place in accordance with the principle
of the conservation of energy ; that the peculiarity of
the organic world is merely that these movements in the
brain have, besides their physical causal relations, states
of consciousness, from sensation and perception to purpose
and volition, as accessory phenomena. But from the
point of view of the conservation of energy even this
means an unthinkable and impossible release of force ;
and this weak compromise is not more fitted to meet the
need of a recognition of the psychic activity. An accom-
panying consciousness of this sort, not itself a cause,
but merely a continuous mirror of an active arid inde-
pendent causal series of bodily states, is one of the most
superfluous and tedious things in the world. It would
be condemned to be a sinecure, in flat contradiction to
the most valuable witness to the physical in our experi-
ence ; for the psychic is to us the active, the very principle
of movement in the world— wens agitat molem. What

160 GENETIC PROBLEMS

is called Monism, which often tries to make capital out of
this epiphenomenal idea of consciousness, is merely
concealing with it its Materialistic tendency.

None of these subterfuges helps us. We must grant
that, if the principle of the conservation of energy is
affirmed as a metaphysical principle of reality, if it is
regarded as really valid for the world of material reality,
psycho-physical causality is inconsistent with it, and there-
fore psycho-physical parallelism is the simplest and best
substitute for it. But, on the other hand, what mon-
strosities arise when one attempts to take this theory
seriously and think it out in detail ! In the first place,
the course of physical events, all the movements that
occur in the body, must be regarded as entirely inde-
pendent of any psychic cause, and the course of the psychic
life must be equally independent of any causes in the
material world ; and their complete and invariable
correspondence, in spite of their utter heterogeneity, has
then to be explained in some way or other.

In regard to the corporeal processes it is sought to
make this view plausible and attractive by referring us
to reflex movements, which are well known as functions
of all organisms, especially the human organism, and
which occur, with fine shades of transition, either without
consciousness or with that " epiphenomenon." To an
astonishing, and sometimes alarming, extent we have
the experience of processes, which properly and originally
had the character of conscious, voluntary movements,
and were therefore ascribed by the plain mind to psycho-
physical causes, so changing in certain circumstances
that they are no longer accompanied by consciousness,
and could not possibly be attributed to psycho-physical
causality. Purposive movements like writing, shooting,
piano-playing, etc., which have been learned and prac-
tised, are accomplished in such a way that consciousness
needs only to give the initial impulse and does nothing
more ; in some cases, indeed, it seems to be absolutely
excluded as the cause. We know quite well that we can
at times make quite coherent and satisfactory speeches
while our mind is taken up with something quite different.

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 161

To many questions we give, as we say, purely mechanical
answers, the contents of which, however relevant to
the question, do not seem to be in the least dictated by
consciousness. Facts of this sort may be interpreted in
the sense of the general possibility that the physiological
process which takes place between the states of stimula-
tion of the sensory and motor nerves takes the same
course, in the same sense and with the same results,
as the psychic process which simultaneously goes on
in the mind. But that process does not help us out
of the difficulty. On the one hand, we cannot
confidently show to what extent half-conscious, to
say nothing of unconscious, psychic processes, which
determine these physiological processes, may accom-
pany those which are in the foreground of conscious-
ness and seem to occupy it exclusively. It is, on the
contrary, a fact that different ideas may be at work in
different strata of consciousness at the same time, without
interfering with each other. We can simultaneously
dictate and read a letter, play the piano and listen to a
conversation. It is not necessary to assume that we have
here a jumping backward and forward of the mind from
one activity to another ; each train of thought goes its
own way, uninterrupted by the others. That may hold
good for unconscious processes as well as conscious, and
in the above cases it is always possible that we have the
psycho-physical causality of conscious or half-conscious
functions. Moreover, in all these instances there is
question of acquired movements which owe their appear-
ance of reflection to laborious practice, and every such
act of practice had to involve a conscious relation of
stimulus and reaction. Hence these automatic pro-
cesses presuppose an initial performance in which there
is no room for the theory of the accompanying action of
consciousness, and it is repeated in virtue of an idea of
which we are conscious as a psychic act. All these argu-
ments, therefore, do not get over the fact that in these
purposive bodily movements we have physical processes
which, if not at the time they are performed, at all events
in their remoter causes, compel us to assume conscious

11

162 GENETIC PROBLEMS

functions amongst their causal elements. Wherever in
the material world organic beings, especially human beings,
are at work, the purely mechanical-physical process is
interrupted by psychic functions.

It is all very well to urge against us the inexpressible
fineness and the unimaginable intricacy of the structures
which the organic elements exhibit, particularly in the
brain, and say that these seem to make an explanation
of purposive movements as reflex actions not impossible.
In this we are simply once more taking the intricate
structure of the brain as an asylum ignoranticB to which
we can always retreat and bury ourselves under sugges-
tions of possibilities which no man can get to the bottom
of. It remains, however, extremely probable that the
bodily mechanism, in the sense-stimulations which need
a psychic interpretation, accomplishes the purposively
adapted movements only in virtue of its reflex habits,
its associative connections, and its differentiated reactions.
All these intricate arrangements of the nervous system
itself are best understood as an outcome of psycho-
physical causes. When, in the " telegram ' argument
which was first advanced by Albert Lange, the purposive
reaction to the reading of the words is supposed to be
explained in the sense that this releases all the connections
in the brain which are, in their corresponding psychic
forms, meanings, recollections, considerations, and resolu-
tions, it is unintelligible how all these states of the brain
themselves could come into being without the action
of the psychic states, merely by spatial storing and in
accordance with physico-chemical laws. But however
improbable the Materialistic interpretation may be, we
have to admit that in view of the unlimited possibilities
of the cerebral structure it can never be proved to be
wholly impossible.

Much more grotesque are the demands on our credulity
of the hypothesis of parallelism if we start from the con-
sideration of the internal life and psychic causality.
This internal life seems to proceed in its own inevitable-
ness as if it were not accompanied by or dependent upon
any bodily process. Our imagination, our thinking,

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 163

our practical reflections, go on with a certain continuity
of purely psychic causality. In this it is to be noted
that the psychic elements which are found in such a move-
ment are, as to their origin, only intelligible as a reaction
upon the external world. Apart from this, however, we
have the difficult question : When these processes are
suddenly interrupted by a pain, for instance, which the
plain mind traces to a knock or a blow as its cause, what
is the psychic cause of the pain and the interruption ?
The discontinuity which characterises the psychic event
as distinguished from the spatial, the intermittence and
recommencement of the course of the psychic life, is never
intelligible in itself ; it needs always to be explained by
influences from the external world — that is to say, by
psycho-physical causes. This is at all events true of the
inner life-process in the individual consciousness, and it
is true of this especially in view of those influences which
it experiences from the mental life of other persons. These
are always brought about by psycho-physical processes.
Of any direct causal relation between different persons
without corporeal mediation, of a psychic causality that
works purely internally and without a physical medium
between soul and soul, of any telepathic possibilities of
this kind, we may hear from poets and visionaries, but
we learn nothing whatever from experience. This shows
us that all the recommencements of which we are indi-
vidually conscious are connected with influences of the
physical world. If, in spite of this, we regard the psychic
process as purely immanent and self-contained, we have,
in the case of those interruptions which naive thought
attributes to psycho-physical causality, to assume un-
conscious psychic causes corresponding to the bodily
processes which psycho-physical causality regards as the
cause of the discontinuity.

The hypothesis of parallelism, therefore, would have to
be developed, not merely as a psychological or anthropo-
logical theory, but, as in its original Spinozistic form, as
a metaphysical philosophy, universal Panpsychism. It
must be assumed that to the entire system and course of
spatial-corporeal states there corresponds an equally

164 GENETIC PROBLEMS

continuous system and an equally uninterrupted series
of psychic states — of which our consciousness knows
nothing whatever ! That is making a very large demand
on our credulity. A psychic causality of meanings,
values, and purposes, and parallel with it a physical
causality of position and direction, with their various
forms of motion ; and the two supposed to correspond
at every step ! That is the strangest adventure we were
ever asked to believe ; indeed, to believe it would be an
act of despair. Hence it is the lesser evil, the smaller
miracle, to admit the common causality of the dissimilar
in the action of body on soul and soul on body.

The Monistic defenders of Parallelism cannot concede
that for them the physical and psychic systems are two
separate realities, in some inexplicable correspondence
to each other. They say that the two systems are merely
parallel phenomena of the primary reality, arid in this
we are supposed to find precisely the reason for their
invariable correspondence. In opposition to this we may
observe, first, that we by no means get rid of the para-
dox of the hypothesis by removing it from the realm of
primary reality to derivative reality, from the essence to
the appearance. On the contrary, we are now confronted
with the very serious question why the one reality develops
in two entirely different modes of appearance. This
question is for parallelistic Monism just as prejudicial and
insoluble whether we take the idea of " appearance '
in an objective or a subjective sense. If the two realms
are conceived as two sorts of derived reality proceeding
from the one primary reality — which is then incompre-
hensible— all the difficulties return which we saw pre-
viously in the discussion of ontic problems ; and if the
appearance of the psycho-physical duality is restricted
to human consciousness it is not one whit more intel-
ligible, as we also saw previously.

The most important point in these problems, however,
is that here again we find ourselves compelled to assume
unconscious states which are not physical, yet are not
in the proper sense of the word of a psychic character —
in the sense in which the idea of the soul has come to be

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EVENT 1C5

identified with that of consciousness. In modern thought
this has had the peculiar result of interpolating a third
realm, the realm of the unconscious, between the realms
of cogitatio and extensio, into which the Cartesian school
distributed reality. However, the fact that all the argu-
ments in favour of this intermediate realm are derived
from psychology and its attempts to explain conscious
phenomena necessarily implies that this unconscious
must be more closely related to the psychic world than
to the physical. The hypothesis of psycho-physical
parallelism therefore combines the unconscious and the
conscious in a unity which is independent of the physical
world. All these problems, in fine, are metaphysical
problems, and the difficulties which were experienced by
the hypothesis of parallelism that was based upon the
older metaphysics merely show that the ultimate solution
depends upon the question how far human knowledge
can be confident of passing beyond the two kinds of
experience, the external and the internal, and attaining
to the nature of reality.

CHAPTER III
NOETIC PROBLEMS

THE obvious postulate for all ontic and genetic problems,
from the simple assumptions of the untrained mind to
the mature theories of science, is that our ideas must
be knowledge, and at the same time true knowledge.
This postulate is so obvious that it does not always,
especially in the beginning, come into consciousness at
all, yet it is the driving force in the progress of thought.
For the element of dissatisfaction in our first impressions,
which is always the stimulus to the formulation of prob-
lems, is the feeling, or even the fear, that these immediate
ideas, which we regard as knowledge, may not be true.
From this we understand how it is that we have at first
very inadequate and in part untenable ideas as to the
meaning of that feeling, the meaning of the value of
truth. Yet these ideas are amongst the last to be un-
settled and called into question. Rational reflection turns
last of all upon itself. The Greeks called this rational
reflection voelv, and we therefore call these problems,
which arise from the direction of knowledge to its own
task and the means of fulfilling this task, noetic.

§9

Truth. — Theories of knowledge — Science and knowledge — The judg-
ment— Transcendental, immanent, and formal truth — Truth as
value — Pragmatism — Opinion, belief, and knowledge.

The first of these problems is the definition of truth
itself. Unsettlement on this point occurs only in a
mature stage of mental life, and the questions which it

166

TRUTH 167

suggests are therefore the latest in historical development.
At first we are content with the simple confidence, the
" courage of truth," which accompanies our mental
operations : we simply think, ask, inquire, investigate.
In the course of time the inevitable antitheses and failures
baffle our mind, and we ask whether we can accomplish
the task of attaining real knowledge. As soon as this
stage is reached, our intellectual conscience feels that
it must settle the question of the possibility of know-
ledge before acquiring anything further. It is as well
that the sciences have generally accomplished, and
to-day accomplish, their work before asking this prelim-
inary question, as it is these sciences themselves which
must provide the material for answering it. As a subse-
quent question, however, the noetic problem is quite
inevitable.

The necessity of it is so obviously based upon the nature
of things that it is quite independent of the question
what position is assigned in the system of sciences to the
solution of these noetic problems. As a special and
coherent inquiry it is now often called " the theory of
knowledge " or Epistemology (or, sometimes, Noetics),
and it is assuredly the final science in the sense that it
presupposes all the others. There must be knowledge
before it can be the object of a theory. Thus, in the
history of philosophy noetic questions were first raised
by the Sophists, and then by Socrates and Plato, and
they had been preceded by a long and fruitful develop-
ment of scientific knowledge which had at length turned
upon itself. This beginning led to the Aristotelic logic,
which is the culmination of the self-consciousness of
Greek science.

The starting-point was the Platonic distinction between
knowledge and opinion, eTrtonjfwj and So|a. It contains
a first glimpse of the various kinds of verification ; and
the more proudly knowledge opposed itself to opinion
in this distinction, the more confident science became
as to its own nature and procedure. From that time
onward there has been included in the inventory of every
complete philosophical theory a discussion of the nature

168 NOETIC PROBLEMS

of knowledge, its vindication, range, and limitations ;
and in most cases the views on this subject were the
final result, in a certain sense even the crowning test,
of the whole philosophical system. The renewal of the
conflict of metaphysical systems in modern times has
thrust the question of the theory of knowledge into the
foreground. Locke demanded that, before any discussion
of the difficult problems of metaphysics, the range of
the instrument with which we hoped to solve them
should be investigated — that is to say, the human faculty
of knowledge. Then Kant claimed that this inquiry
into the possibility of knowledge should precede all
knowledge, at least metaphysical knowledge, and therefore
be the first science.

We will not go further into the question whether the
theory of knowledge should be the test or the foundation
of all metaphysics, but will select from the discussion
of this matter a point which is of very great importance
for the understanding of these things. Kant's claim,
that an assurance of the possibility of knowledge ought
to precede actual knowledge, seems at first sight extremely
plausible, yet it is open to the objection that it involves
a vicious circle : an objection that no less a person than
Hegel urged against Kant. The theory of knowledge, it
is said, is knowledge, and so it assumes the proof of that
very possibility which it sets out to prove. To attempt
it is much the same as the case of the man who wants
to learn to swim before he goes into the water. This
objection would be justified if the theory of knowledge
wanted to make a tabula rasa of the mind and begin to
think ab ovo, from an entirely new starting-point. That
is impossible, because every thought is permeated with
relations to others. Hence the theory of knowledge
cannot be isolated from the contents of the sciences,
which were acquired without it. The formal suspension
which Kant required for the solution of the critical ques-
tion referred only to metaphysics. The results of the
other sciences have to be used by the theory of knowledge
as the only available arguments for the solution of its
problems.

TRUTH 169

We can explain the situation best by examining an
unsound defence which was put forward, against Hegel,
on behalf of Kant's claim. It was said that knowledge
is a fact ; and if science is to explain all facts, it must
explain this fact also, if not before any others. The
theory of knowledge has the same relation to science as
physiology has to life. We will not inquire here whether
that was Kant's view. It is, at all events, a bad defence
of his position, because there is no room for an inquiry
into the possibility of knowledge if you postulate in
advance that it is a fact. Whatever exists is possible ;
the only question, then, is how it is possible. If the
theory of knowledge, moreover, were something like a
physiology of knowledge, it would be neither psychology
nor metaphysics, and would therefore be not the begin-
ning, but the end, of knowledge. But the question
^precisely is whether there is such a thing as knowledge.
The fact from which the theory starts is not the fact that
we have knowledge, but that in our science we claim to
have it ; and the task of the theory is to investigate
whether the claim is sound. Theory, therefore, in this
sense means, not an explanation of a given fact, but
philosophical theory, a critical inquiry into the soundness
of the claim. It means something quite different from
the explanatory theories which have to show the possi-
bility of a reality. Physiology never raises a question
about the justification of life.

The situation of the theory of knowledge is therefore
this : for a number of ideas which in science represent
facts we make the claim that they are knowledge, and
the question is whether this science of man is really
knowledge. Formulated thus, the question presupposes
that we define knowledge differently from science. Science
is something that we actually have : knowledge is a task
which this actual science has to fulfil. Thus in noetic
problems we have the fundamental antithesis of reality
and value, the relation between being and the norm of
judgment upon it, in a very pronounced form ; and on
that account they are a transition from theoretical to
axiological problems. Science is in this connection the

170 NOETIC PROBLEMS

historically given content of ideas to which, as distin-
guished from the opinions of individuals, we ascribe a
general validity and normative necessity ; and the
philosophical question which we here approach is merely
whether this claim, which we implicitly grant, not only
in ordinary life but in the course of scientific research,
is justified. The claim is, in sum, that these scientific
ideas have the value of truth. Thus truth is the central
idea round which all noetic problems turn.

The distinction between truth and falseness in our
ideas is so familiar and taken for granted in our intellectual
life that the great majority of men never reflect what
they really mean by it. It is certain — it is beyond ques-
tion on all sides — that the predicate " true " is a predicate
of value which we grant to certain ideas in preference
to others. But when we look closely into it, both the
meaning of the valuation and the form of the ideas to
which it is to be applied are very difficult to define. We
shall come to an agreement first, perhaps, as to the form
which the ideas must have in the strict sense for us to
receive them as true or reject them as untrue. The un-
trained mind, it is true, speaks of the truth or falseness
of particular ideas and concepts, as when we ask whether
the concept of the atom is true or not ; but we see, on
looking more closely, that this use of the word is deriva-
tive. Originally the predicate of truth — as Descartes
developed it for modern philosophy — applies only to
the connections of ideas which we verbally express in
propositions and logically call judgments. As a psycho-
logical process, however, judgment is a highly character-
istic structure, in which we have, perhaps, the clearest
and most complete expression of the whole spiritual
being with its two typical features, the theoretical and
the practical. To judge means not merely to connect
ideas with each other, but to affirm this connection as
valid and true ; or, in negative judgments, to reject it
as false. We have therefore in this dgicDpa, as the
Stoics very well called it, not only the intellectual element
of bringing various contents together in a certain relation,
but also the voluntarist element of affirming or denying

TRUTH 171

this relation. The act of will which in judgment is
associated with the action of the mind was called by
the Stoics ' assent ' (awyKardadeais) , and we now ask
what this assent means. Naturally the untrained mind
approaches this question by taking for granted the
meaning of assent — namely, the sense of truth must
always be the same and capable of definitive deter-
mination.

That is not the case, however, and it needs very little
consideration to show that truth is taken in very different
senses. The truth of a mathematical proposition, the
truth of an historical hypothesis, the truth of a natural
law — can we describe these things in the same way ?
We shaD, perhaps, find this question answered by the
untrained mind in the affirmative ; we shall be told that
in every case truth is the correspondence of an idea with
reality. But it is easy to see that this is scarcely the
case even in the three examples we have just given.
For an historical hypothesis we might be able to use this
criterion of correspondence with reality, but if we want
to apply it to mathematical propositions, or such intel-
lectual constructions as laws of nature, we shall have to
use very strained methods. As a matter of fact, this
superficial meaning of truth is derived from ordinary
empirical thought, and from this it has been extended
to the idea of things and their activities. This definition
of truth implies a relation of pictorial correspondence
between man's idea and the reality which it regards as
its object. In this we probably have the most complete
expression of the naive view of things, which supposes
a perceptive mind in the midst of a surrounding world
that is somehow reproduced in it. All the sensory images
with which we verbally express the process of knowledge
— to reproduce, mirror, embrace, grasp, etc. — and which
are taken from the action of the various senses, show
only the many ways in which the reproduction may be
imagined.

Now the theory of sensitive perception has completely
destroyed this supposition that external reality is repro-
duced internally, and the transcendental truth — as this

172 NOETIC PROBLEMS

first and naive conception of truth may be called —
cannot be sustained in its original sense. Moreover,
every attempt to prove seriously the correspondence of
experience and reality shows only the agreement of
presentations of different origin, and never shows the
correspondence of the presentation with the thing. We
can compare presentations in our immediate experience
with memories or with imaginative pictures, and refer
them both to the same object ; but we can never compare
a presentation with the object itself. However, the
main idea of transcendental truth, as a relation of the
thought to a reality which is supposed to be reproduced
in it, is found in a more or less attenuated form in other
ideas of truth, and it can never be wholly suppressed.

When, for instance, we find offered to us an immanent
definition of truth, which affirms only the agreement of
presentations with each other, this hope of finding them
in agreement is always based upon the expectation that
they will therefore be related to the same object. We
have, in fact, the subtle influence of the feeling that the
two magnitudes are equal to each other because they
are equal to an unknown third, or at least " correspond '
to it. If the ideas which we form in scientific theory are
to agree with those we gain in experience, the real reason
for our seeking this is the thought, lurking in the back-
ground, that in both the same reality is presenting itself
to the mind. Thus the " picture theory ' is the most
primitive and the most persistently active form in which
truth is represented as a relation between the presentation
and the object which it signifies.

This, however, by no means exhausts the realm of
truths. There are some in which there can be no ques-
tion whatever of an object in this original sense of the
word — the sense of a reality which is supposed to be repro-
duced in thought. To this class belong all mathematical,
logical, ethical, and aesthetic truths. The only criterion
of truth in those cases is the necessity and universal
validity with which they present themselves in conscious-
ness, and which in the case of the other truths seemed
to be due to the relation to the object. We must, however,

TRUTH 173

very carefully define the two characters of this formal
conception of truth, if we are to avoid misunderstanding.
Universal validity, in the first place, which is related to
the plurality of the knowing subjects, cannot be conceived
as an actual fact ; it is quite impossible that concordant
recognition of any statement could be empirically attained
and proved even for all members of the species Homo
sapiens. On the contrary, the actual validity of all
truths must be very restricted, or they surfer the fate
of being born as paradoxes and ending as trivialities.
Moreover, universal validity, as far as it can be approxi-
mately attained empirically, does not guarantee a truth,
because it is notoriously often attained in the case of
errors — a fact so well known that we need not trouble
to heap up historical instances. Hence the universal
validity of which there is question in the definition of
formal truth is merely one that is desired : one which
ought to be found, in virtue of the necessity, in all normal
thinking subjects. This necessity in turn, however, is
not the same thing as the necessity of a law of nature.
The processes of presentation which lead to error are
subject to the same necessities of the psychic laws as
those which lead to a knowledge of truth. The necessity
of thought, therefore, of which we speak in logic, is not
psychological, but is rather the immanent and actual
necessity of the contents of presentation. And in this
element of actuality the conception of formal truth also
returns to the relation to the object, even if it no longer
conceives this relation in the crude form of an assumption
of a reality outside the mind, but modified in a way
which we shall consider later.

Thus the purely theoretical relation of knowledge to
its object is by no means free from ambiguity. Even if
we consider only the three forms of truth given here, we
understand why it is that the later ancient philosophy
had such an extensive and fruitless contest about ' ' the
criterion of truth." The difficulties which were then
brought to light will always reappear if it is sought to
give one single and quite universal definition of truth
which shall be applicable in all cases. The only thing

174 NOETIC PROBLEMS

we can do is to say that truth is in all cases that which
ought to be affirmed. From this it will be understood
that in modern logic the theory of truth is treated as a
part of the theories of value or duty. This, however,
leads to new difficulties. It is at least doubtful, and
probably a matter of temperament and character rather
than of intellectual decision, whether this theoretical
' ought," which constitutes truth, is absolute. The duty
to affirm the truth is not recognised by everybody as
of complete universal validity. The logical imperative is
hypothetical, not categorical. I can only expect a man
to recognise the truth on the condition that he knows it,
or ought to know it. And since knowledge means thought
deliberately directed to truth, we find ourselves once
more in a vicious circle.

An attempt is made to meet this by assigning to know-
ledge a different aim, so that the truth seems to be only
a means for the attainment of this aim. Hence axio-
logical theories of truth have in recent times shown the
tendency which goes by the name of Pragmatism. The
chief idea on which it is based is that thought, to become
knowledge, is exercised by man for the sake of action
(77pay/Lta), for which he needs the lead of presentations.
It is true that originally a man thinks only in order to
act, and that the psychological process which leads to
judgment, to affirmation or denial, is entirely of an
emotional character — that is to say, is permeated with
processes of feeling and volition. The element of assent,
the voluntary element in judgment, requires motives for
the affirmation or denial ; and these motives, for the
individual as for the masses, are feelings of desire and
aversion, hope and fear, and also the volitions which are
at the root of these feelings. But we have hitherto given
the name of opinions to this natural process of finding
a sanction in feelings and needs ; and, even in regard to
opinion and its mode of origin, we have considered that
its validity was merely relative and restricted to the
individual. Even when these emotional motives of assent
arise from the persistent and consciously fixed tendencies
of feeling and will which we call character, and when we

TRUTH 175

therefore speak of the opinions as convictions — a kind
of assent which is usually called belief — they are still
valid in the sphere of emotional verification. It is the
remarkable feature, and at the same time the moral
significance, of scientific knowledge that it will acknow-
ledge no other means of verification than the reasons
which are contained in the object of presentation and
the laws of thought. Such an attitude, to desire truth
for its own sake and not for the advantages it may secure
in the struggle for life, is an outcome of psychological
processes of transference which have developed in the
course of human history, but have obtained influence as
yet over relatively few individuals. Pure motivation of
assent of this kind we call evidence, and for this a theory
of truth like the Pragmatist is wholly unsuitable and
inapplicable. For, however clearly it may be shown
that men are actually influenced in verifying then- opinions
by their needs, and hold that to be true of which they
can make some use, even here the utility is not identical
with the truth, but merely a feature which determines
the appreciation of truth. From the logical point of
view Pragmatism is a grotesque confusion of means and
end. From the historical point of view it is an entirely
different matter, as it represents a victory of noetic indi-
vidualism which, in the decay of our intellectual culture,
would release the elementary force of the will and let
it pour itself over the realm of pure thought. It calls
into question one of the greatest achievements of civilisa-
tion, the purity of the will to truth.

Under the lead of the definition of truth the theory
of knowledge has to understand human knowledge in
its development and in regard to what it has done for
the value of truth. It has therefore first to deal with
the actual origin, and then with the validity and objective
relation, of knowledge.

176 NOETIC PROBLEMS

§10

The Origin of Knowledge. — Thinking and perceiving — Rationalism
and empiricism (sensualism) — Hominism — Apriorism and apos-
teriorism — Psychologism.

The antithesis of knowledge and opinion has developed
out of the self-consciousness of great intellectual person-
alities who opposed the results of their own reflections
to the traditional views of the majority. Even when
they diverged so widely from each other as did Heraclitus
and Parmenides, they were always conscious that their
scientific thought was due to some other source than
the direct experience which they shared with the despised
majority. Hence in the earliest days of science the
Greeks opposed reason (vovs) and rational thought
(voelv] to perception (audhjcns} ; and, however much this
antithesis was weakened by psychological and meta-
physical theories, and in the end destroyed, it remained
unchallenged in methodology and the theory of know-
ledge. It reached its culmination in Plato's theory of
knowledge as memory (avdfjivrjaLs) . In this the vision of
ideals is, it is true, represented as a perception of the
true incorporeal reality, but a perception raised above
terrestrial and fundamentally different from corporeal
experience. In their psychological theory the Greeks
always regarded the intellect as passivity, or as a receptive
activity, and to them the reception or mirroring of
reality in the soul, not mingled with any disturbing or
distorting activity of one's own, was so peculiarly know-
ledge that this unresisting reception would find its religious
completion in the vision of the mystic.

This psychogenetic view of knowledge corresponds
entirely to the picture-theory which is contained in the
naive transcendental idea of truth. But it was partly
corrected by the very nature of perception. However we
may imagine this as an impression which the soul, like
a wax tablet, receives from the environing world, never-
theless such expressions as " grasping " and " conceiving '
show that even in this sphere of sensory

THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE 177

knowledge of truth a certain activity of consciousness is
not to be ignored. Indeed, quite early, in the Sophistic
teaching, we find the theory that all perception arises
from a double movement, of the object on the subject
and the subject on the object. We further clearly see
that in sensory perception we have rather an effect of
the object and a subsequent reaction of the soul, whereas
in thought the nature of the soul itself is active, and from
the object it receives only the stimulus to concern itself
with it. Hence the ancient and ever-new question, which
Goethe thought the nucleus of Kant's criticism, whether
our knowledge comes more from without, from things,
or from ourselves, from the ordered nature of the soul.

The answers to this question are radical if they insist
on the Either — Or. On the one side we have Empiricism,
which leans to the formula that all knowledge comes
from experience ; on the other side Rationalism, which
finds all knowledge based upon rational thought. The
earlier centuries of modern philosophy, the movements
from Bacon and Descartes to about the end of the
eighteenth century, were characterised by this contrast
of Empiricism and Rationalism, and were filled with the
struggle about " innate ideas." In the refined termin-
ology of the later Scholastics the word " idea ' had
become so vague in meaning as to be applicable to all
sorts of presentations, and thus the noetic problem came
to a point in the question whether there were ideas which
did not come directly from experience, but belonged to
the nature of the soul. Empiricism denies this, and it
has therefore to explain all knowledge as originating in
perceptions. The classic form in which this is done is
Locke's theory. It assigned two sources of empirical know-
ledge, internal and external experience, the soul's know-
ledge from its own activities and, on the other hand,
from the impressions which it receives through the body
from the environing world in space. This is the theory
of knowledge of the plain mind cleverly grafted on the
dualistic metaphysic of the distinction between conscious-
ness and extension, spirit and matter. Moreover, there
were two main arguments in this rejection of innate

12

178 NOETIC PROBLEMS

knowledge. On the one hand, if there was such knowledge
given in the very nature of the soul, it ought to be common
to all men ; which is certainly not true as regards the
conscious life of the majority. On the other hand, we
could not speak of an unconscious presence of these ideas
as long as we regarded the idea of the soul as identical
with that of consciousness (cogitatio). Even Empiricism,
however, must take account of some elaboration of the
data of perception in knowledge, and Locke had therefore
to fall back upon the capacities, faculties, and forces of
the soul, which develop in connection with the contents
of the presentations and are supposed to reach conscious-
ness in the inner perception. In this way he thought
that he had taken sufficient account of the rational ele-
ment of knowledge ; but some of his followers pointed
out that even this development of inner perception
always presupposes the external perception, so that in
the end the latter alone provides the contents of know-
ledge. If it is meant that in these contents we have all
the elements which Locke traced to functions of the soul,
Empiricism becomes Sensualism, or the theory that all
knowledge conies from corporeal, sensory, external per-
ception. Sensualism would derive from the mere combina-
tion of the elements in consciousness all those relations
between them that we find in knowledge. It has to hold
that it always depends on these contents themselves
what relation between them can or ought to exist. But,
however true this may be, we must urge against Sensualism
that these relations — for instance, the elementary relations
of comparison and distinction — are not given in any
single datum, and therefore not in the sum of them ;
but that they are something new and additional to these
contents.

We then have the contrary position of Rationalism,
which derives these relations, which combine and work
up the contents of experience, from an act of the soul,
and therefore thinks that we have aboriginal knowledge
and innate ideas in these forms of combination. The
Neo-Platonists of the Renaissance, following the example
of the Stoics, had regarded this aboriginal knowledge, as

THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE 179

belonging to the soul from its very nature and in virtue
of its divine origin ; and Descartes and his school had
adopted the view, although in the main body of the
Cartesian philosophy innate ideas had passed as, not
properly psychological, but logical, as self-evident truths.
Now if these ideas were to be described, especially in the
case of Descartes's followers, as psychogenetic, it was
clear that they could not be given actually as conscious
ideas, but functionally or virtually, as unconscious capaci-
ties, as Leibnitz afterwards fully developed in his Monad-
ology and the criterion of knowledge in his Nouveaux
Essais. In this, however, Empiricism and Rationalism
had come so close to each other that the conflict between
them had become almost meaningless. Empiricism must
grant that the data of perception only become experience
through a rational elaboration which is not contained
in themselves ; and Rationalism cannot ignore the fact
that the relating forms in the reason need a content
that must be given in perception. The classic form
given to this situation is when Leibnitz, taking the
Scholastic thesis which the Empiricists repeated, " Nihil
est in intellects quod non fuerit in sensu," added, " nisi
intellectus ipse."

In a sense we might say that this settles the psychological
question of the origin of knowledge, as far as the answer
to it concerns the theoty of knowledge. But we must
not omit to notice a modern variation of this ancient
controversy. Empiricism cannot deny that in an advanced
stage of civilisation there is for each civilised adult direct
evidence of rational truths which can never be based
upon his own experience ; for instance, in the confidence
with which, in accordance with the principle of causality,
we assume a cause for every event. In this case the
Empirical theory now calls in the aid of the evolutionary
interpretation of this virtually innate knowledge. These
truths, which have not been acquired by the individual,
must have been acquired by the race in the course of its
evolution, and implanted in the individual by heredity
and custom, imitation and language. This is the more
likely as, according to the Pragmatist principle, these

180 NOETIC PROBLEMS

habits of thought which have in time assumed a character
of self-evidence have a use for man's knowledge and
conduct, and they thus owe their validity to a survival
of the useful. Any person who adopts this interpretation
divests rational truth of its real nature, and represents
it as a useful intellectual habit of the empirical man ;
and it is only in this sense that Pragmatism is also called
Humanism — though, in order to avoid confusion with
an older and better use of the term, it would be advisable
to say Hominism. According to this all " truth ' is
based upon human needs, and is merely a human value.
Clearly this modern form of Relativism does not go
beyond the saying which the ancient Sophist formulated
much more clearly and forcibly : Man is the measure
of all things.

The psychological antithesis of Empiricism and Ration-
alism is raised to a higher level when one bears in mind
the logical meaning which is at the root of the contra-
dictory positions. Experience, as the sum of presentations,
consists in the long run of particular acts of knowledge,
whereas the rational view, which pre-exists for the work
of elaborating these, always contains more or less general
propositions. Empiricism therefore formulates the state-
ment that in the last resort all knowledge originates
from particular experiences, whereas Rationalism seeks
the final ground of all knowledge in aboriginally evident
general principles. But it is clear that these extreme
statements are at the most restricted in their value to
a very small sphere. There is very little in our knowledge
which indicates merely a particular experience ; and,
on the other hand, there is just as little in the nature of
a general principle not based upon experience. In the
totality of human knowledge we always have the two
together ; the particular and the general are not found
singly. In this logical respect we speak of the anti-
thesis as that of Apriorism and Aposteriorism. These
expressions are due to the changes which the Aristotelic
terminology underwent amongst the Schoolmen. Greek
logic distinguished between general being, the earlier
in reality and later in knowledge, and the particular

THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE 181

appearances, which were later in reality and earlier in
knowledge. But in Scholastic language the inductive
course of thought, which rises from the particular to the
general, was d posteriori, and the deductive process,
from the general to the particular, d priori. Even in
modern methodology we thus distinguish between d
posteriori empirical reasoning and d priori rational reason-
ing. Empiricism may, however, concede a relative
d priori, while denying the absolute. For when we have
once attained general principles by inductive methods,
particular knowledge may be derived from them d priori.
Rationalism, on the other hand, cannot dispense with
empirical elements ; it needs them indispensably in order
to get from general to special knowledge.

In this modification of the ancient antithesis we realise
the uselessness of the psychogenetic point of view for
the solution of noetic problems. It is clear that the
way in which a man actually arrives at a judgment, or
at the assent which is the essence of the judgment, is
quite irrelevant to the justification of the judgment or
assent. Most of the statements which men make are
imitative and due to authority — though they are often
quite the opposite, and purely personal. Hence it is that
the actual judgment is, as we have seen in other connec-
tions, generally emotional and based on feeling and
volition ; and all these natural processes which result
in judgment by no means justify it. We give the name
of Psychologism to the artless notion that would deter-
mine by their origin the value, in either a logical or
aesthetic or ethical sense, of psychic states. It was the
main idea of the philosophy of the eighteenth century,
and was typically expressed b}' Locke, the leader of this
philosophy. In sj^stematic elaboration it seemed essen-
tial in the theoretical field as an evolution of the " ideas '
from their sensory beginnings to their subtlest and highest
developments, and therefore the narrowing of philosophy
in virtue of this method in France was called Ideology
— a word which led to calling philosophers Ideologists,
though it ought to have been confined to its original
meaning. To-day Psychologism still lingers in a sort of

182 NOETIC PROBLEMS

dilettante form, but it has not been taken seriously in

philosophical circles since the time of Kant. In the

theory of knowledge there is question, not of the causes,

but of the justification, of judgment. The former is a

matter of fact which proceeds according to psychological

laws ; the latter a matter of value, subject to logical

norms. It was the essence of the Kantist development

to advance from the psychogenetic (or, as he said, physio-

logical) treatment of the problem of knowledge with

increasing confidence to the logical (or, as he said,

transcendental) treatment. The essential connecting link

between the beginning and the end of the development

was the influence of the Nouveaux Essais of Leibnitz,

in which the conversion of the psychological antithesis

of Empiricism and Rationalism into the logical antithesis

of Aposteriorism and Apriorism was accomplished. Hence

in the mature form of the critical philosophy the familiar

phrase a priori never has the psychological, but always the

logical, meaning. All wrong versions of Kant's teaching

are due to a confusion of logical apriority with psycho-

logical apriority. The noetic question was definitively

transferred by the critical philosophy from the field of

psychological struggle to that of logical inquiry. It is

no longer a problem of the origin of knowledge, but of

its validity.

The Validity of Knowledge. — Psychological and logical validity —
Validity and being — Consciousness in general — Theory of know-
ledge as metaphysics — Dogmatism : naive realism — The con-
troversy about universals : Realism and Nominalism — Scepticism

— Problematicism and Probabilism — Phenomenalism — Mathe-
matical Phenomenalism — Semeiotics — Ontological Phenomenalism

— Idealism — Solipsism — Spiritualism — Absolute Phenomenalism :
Agnosticism — Conscien tialism.

The word ' to be valid ' [gclteri], which occurs in
ordinar}' language but received at the hands of Lotze a
special meaning, has become of great importance in
recent logic. We must not, however, suppose that by
merely using this convenient word we can escape all
the difficulties which it covers, We must, on the contrary,

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 183

distinguish all the more carefully between the psycho-
logical and the logical meaning of the word. In the
former sense to be valid means a recognition of a fact ;
as when, for instance, we speak of a valid or existing
law as distinguished from a desirable or conceivable
law. In this sense it is always related to a particular
mind for which it is valid ; as, psychologically, all values
are related to a mind for which they are values. But
the meaning of truth demands a validity in itself, without
relation to a consciousness, or at least to a particular
empirical consciousness. For the postulate of general
recognition is so surely at the root of the logical meaning
of validity that it is based upon the actual condition
of the content of consciousness. Thus mathematical
principles are valid, and compel general recognition,
because they necessarily follow from the nature of mathe-
matical conceptions. Hence this philosophical idea of
validity always points beyond the process of knowledge
in empirical subjects. The validity of truth is independent
of all behaviour of fallible and evolving subjects. A
mathematical truth was valid long before anybody con-
ceived it, and it is valid even if an individual errone-
ously refuses his assent to it. For this reason the meaning
of validity-in-itself has become one of the main problems
of modern logic. In this there is especially a question of
the relation of validity to being. The more we think
of being as empirical or sensible reality, the more pro-
nounced is the contrast between being and validity.
Even a psychic reality does not suffice for the claim of
the logical idea of validity. On the other hand, the
independence of validit}' of all the psychic processes
in which it is recognised is a measure of its own character,
and for this there is no better word than highest reality.
Hence it is paradoxical to speak of the valid as unreal,
and that is why such inquiries can scarcely avoid regarding
validity-in-itself as validity for an absolute consciousness,
a ""Consciousness in general," and therefore interpreting
it metaphysically. This, then, becomes the chief
problem. What separate problems may be implied in it
we shall see later. We have first to consider the various

184 NOETIC PROBLEMS

methods by which it is sought to make clear the validity
of knowledge.

The most original of these forms is the picture-theory
involved in the transcendental idea of truth. On closer "
consideration, however, it proves to be only one of the
possibilities which we find in the chief principle which
is assumed for the purpose. We may, for instance, in
virtue of what we have already seen, formulate as follows
the task of the theory of knowledge. The sciences offer
us in the sum of their results an objective picture of
the world — which we expect, and ought to expect, every
normal thoughtful person to recognise ; and we find it
recognised wherever there are not antagonistic influences
of other views and convictions. The theory of know-
ledge, which does not in the least enfeeble the actual
validity of the sciences, which adds nothing and sub-
tracts nothing from them, has no other task than to
investigate the relation of this world-picture to the absolute
reality which it is supposed to signify ; that is to say,
its problem is to find out what is the relation of the objec-
tive in our consciousness to the real. In other words,
it is the relation of consciousness to being that constitutes
this last problem of all scientific thought. The value
of truth consists in some sort of relation of consciousness
to being, and in the theory of knowledge we have to
discover this relation. From this it follows that we cannot
deal with knowledge without at the same time dealing
with being ; and, if the science of the absolute reality
is called metaphysics, the theory of knowledge neither
precedes nor follows it — is neither the presupposition
nor the criterion of metaphysics, but is metaphysics
itself. That is the consequence which Fichte's Theory of
Knowledge and Hegel's Logic deduced from Kant's Cri-
tique of Pure Reason.

There are therefore as many tendencies in the theory
of knowledge, as many answers to the question of the
relation of consciousness and being, as there are conceptual
relations, or categories, that are applicable to it, and we
may deduce the various points of view from the system
of categories. The fundamental category, which is up

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 185

to a certain point decisive for all the others, is identity ;
and this in the present case gives us the transcendental
idea of truth. Consciousness and being are opposed to
each other, according to it, yet declared to be identical
in their contents. A true idea is supposed to be one
the content of which is real extra mentem. We see at
once the difficulty that is involved in this apparently
plausible theory. Consciousness, presentation, judgment,
and knowledge are themselves real, and this naive idea
of truth supposes that something is repeated in conscious-
ness that happens in another being. This other being
is conceived in the naive view as originally the corporeal
reality which surrounds the knowing mind ; and from
this it follows that such an idea of truth becomes useless
as soon as knowledge extends to other than physical
realities.

Undisturbed by these considerations the naive mind
clings to its idea of truth, and, in view^ of its persistency,
we may, with Kant, speak of a Dogmatist theory of
knowledge, which without further criticism affirms the
validity of its ideas as a grasping or picturing of reality.
We thus have in the first place the Dogmatism of sense-
perception, which yields the world-theory of ' naive
Realism." The world is as I perceive it. The various
illusions of sense-perception ought not to lead us to make
a mistake about this view, because these illusions are
themselves corrected by other perceptions. More serious
for naive Realism are the objections which we had to
notice in connection with ontic problems : the considera-
tions which led us to see that all the content-determinations
which in perception we ascribe to things belong, not to
them, but to the perceiving consciousness. All these
considerations, however, which seemed to justify us in
running counter to the impression of our own experience,
were based on the fact that we relied upon our conceptual
reflection, on which scientific knowledge depends, rather
than upon our naive perception. In this we have the
Dogmatism of conceptual thought which dominates our
whole world-view in the axiomatic belief that the world
is such as we necessarily think it.

186 NOETIC PROBLEMS

This conceptual Dogmatism finds its most important
development in the classical controversy as to the validity
of general concepts, the struggle over Universals. The
antithesis of thought and perception, to which the atten-
tion of the earliest Greek science was directed, came to
a head in Plato's theory of ideas. In this the things of
external perception were granted only the same fleeting
and imperfect reality as the perceptions with which we
reach them. On the other hand, the enduring and self-
contained results of conceptual thought were granted
the validity of a higher and absolute reality. It is well
not to be misled by ingenious modern misinterpretations
into thinking that Plato did not wish to ascribe to the
ideas — as he and his school called the contents of the
general concepts of scientific thought — a validity in
the sense of material reality, or that he taught anything
about any other kind of validity. It is only in this way
that we can understand that his theory brought out the
critical inquiry how these contents of concepts can be
real and indeed condition all other reality. From this,
in antiquity and also in the Scholastic movement, there
developed the antithesis of the two points of view on
the theory of knowledge which we call Realism and
Nominalism. Realism (universalia sunt realia) affirms.
in the terms of Plato, that, as our knowledge consists
of concepts and must be a knowledge of reality, the
contents of the concepts must be regarded as copies
of being. This Realism is maintained wherever our
views recognise in reality a dependence of the particular
on the general. Hence the knowledge of laws of nature
is the chief form of Realism in this sense of the word.
But from the time of Plato onward the serious difficulties
of Realism arise from the fact that it is impossible to
form a satisfactory conception of the sort of reality that
ideas can have, or of the way in which they condition the
other reality, that of the particular and corporeal. These
difficulties have driven thought in the opposite direction,
into the arms of Nominalism, which regards the concepts
as intermediate and auxiliary constructions in the reflecting
mind, not as copies of something independent of the

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 187

mind and existing in itself. Their importance is still
further reduced if they are supposed merely to be common
names of similar objects (universalia sunt nomina}.
Nominalism will freely grant that the particular elements
of our perceptive knowledge have a direct relation (either
as copies or in some other way) to reality, but it declares
it inconceivable that the results of conceptual reflection,
which is a purely internal process of the mind, should
have an analogous truth-value. It must, however, con-
cede that this purely internal reflection is actually deter-
mined by the contents which it combines in its entire
movement and its outcome, and that, on the other hand,
the process of thought with its concepts leads in turn
to particular ideas which prove to be in agreement with
perception. It therefore finds itself confronting the
problem, how the forms of thought are related to those
of reality : whether they, as belonging to the same total
system of reality, point to each other and are in the end
identical, or whether, since they belong to different worlds,
nothing can be settled as to their identity or any other
relation. We thus see that in the last resort it is meta-
physical motives which must pronounce in the contro-
versy about universals. All the forms of world-view
which we describe as Henistic or Singularistic are from
the logical point of view Realistic ; whilst all forms ot
Individualism must have a Nominalistic complexion.

The two forms of Dogmatism differ generally in the
sense that that of perception — naive Realism — belongs
rather to the prescientific mind, while that of conceptual
thought is found in science. Both have to be disturbed
and called into question in some way before the noetic
problems arise. We speak of this disturbance as " doubt,"
and therefore the inquiry which issues from the doubt is
the first and essential phase of the theory of knowledge.
We give it the Greek name Skepsis, and we call Scepticism
the attempt to remain at this point of view of doubting
inquiry and to hold that it is not possible to get beyond
it to any permanent results of knowledge. Scepticism
of this nature is revealed even in prescientific thought
by the numerous complaints about the narrowness of

188 NOETIC PROBLEMS

human nature and the limitations of our knowledge.
These limitations are first conceived in the quantitative
sense ; they are the limits in space and time which confine
our knowledge, in so far as it depends upon experience,
within a very narrow circle. A simple scepticism of this
kind is, it is true, quite reconcilable with a claim to em-
pirical knowledge. But it is quite otherwise when, after
we have attained scientific knowledge, the question is
raised whether this really fulfils its aim, and when the
outcome of this query is a negative answer. Even in
this case men of science usually mean that they have
complete confidence in their knowledge, and merely regard
every effort to pass beyond positive knowledge and solve
final problems as futile. As a systematic conviction,
therefore, Scepticism always refers to questions of general
views — in the philosophical aspect to metaphysics ; and
in ordinary life the sceptic is first and foremost the man
who will not accept at once the metaphysic of religious
belief. The phrases in which ancient Scepticism, with
its doctrinaire tendency and its rhetorical habit, asserted
that there is no knowledge whatever — that man cannot
attain any real knowledge either by means of perception
or of thought or, least of all, by using both, and that
his mind and reality may be two completely separated
worlds — may not, in their general sense, have been meant
seriously ; for, if they are scientific statements, and not
mere rhetorical phrases, they must profess to have some
foundation and must therefore contain some sort of
knowledge. On that account, as we saw above in formu-
lating the task of the theory of knowledge, the positive
contents of the various sciences do not fall within the
province of the sceptic's plaint, which is directed rather
to problems transcending the positive, such as are given,
partly in science, but chiefly in philosophy. This philo-
sophical Scepticism is not only the necessary transition
from Dogmatism to any general view of things which has
any scientific or extra-scientific confidence in itself, but
it may in cases cease to be merely temporary and become
an established conviction. More than once in our dis-
cussion of ontic and genetic problems and the solution

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 189

of them we came to a point where different, and eventu-
ally contradictory, solutions, with arguments and counter-
arguments, could be advanced. If we draw from this
the antinomian inference that no conclusion is possible
in such cases, we have Problematic Scepticism, or Prob-
lematicism; a position which one has a perfect right to
maintain.

From this point of view there are again many shades
reaching to the various forms of prudent and inconclu-
sive statement. Naturally, where argument and counter-
argument are equal (laoaOeveia TO>V Aoywv), there can
from the purely theoretical point of view be no assent,
and therefore no assertion, and judgment must be sus-
pended (the €77-0x77 of the ancient Sceptics), but the
will, in the shape of needs, wishes, and tendencies, may
throw its weight into one of the scales. We have here a
guarantee by interest, and the interest may be of many
different kinds ; it may be a need of the individual or of
an empirical community, or it may be an interest of the
reason. For the purely theoretical judgment all these
practical considerations have no justification whatever,
and all are open to the same severe censure. They do
indeed relieve the intellect from the discomfort of doubt,
but they do this at the risk of leading it into error. This
risk, however, has to be faced in commerce, which often
requires a decision, and in many respects in practical
life a man has to do it because it is the lesser of two evils ;
but we must not infer from this that these substitutes are
real knowledge, or behave as if they were.

A certain measure of a theoretically sound means of
dulling the edge of Scepticism may be found where the
relation of arguments and counter-arguments is of such
a nature that the one group is in its entirety decisively
stronger than the other. In these cases one proceeds, as
all knowledge (even philosophical) does, by way of prob-
ability. We give the name of Probabilism to the view
which abandons the idea of attaining a full and complete
solution of philosophical problems, but regards it as pos-
sible to come to probable conclusions. In ancient times
what was called the Middle Academy, the Platonist

190 NOETIC PROBLEMS

school of the third and second centuries B.C., gave this
Probabilistic turn to Scepticism ; and this is the character
of the men-of-the-world philosophising adopted by the
Romans through Cicero, and in the Renaissance taken
up as " Academic Scepticism " by such a general thinker
as Montaigne. It combines the positive knowledge of
the special sciences with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders
at the ultimate problems. It is the chief preparation for
Positivism, as we find it in David Hume.

Problematicism as a general theory culminates in the
thesis that we can tell nothing about the relation of know-
ledge to reality, and that, in particular, we cannot say
whether it is a relation of likeness. But it easily passes
on to another position, which it dare not strictly appro-
priate, yet which seems to most people to be very like it,
namely the statement that the relation is one of unlikeness.
For if this unlikeness cannot be proved for the same reasons
and in the same measure as likeness, the doubt about
the likeness easily passes — not with a logical, but with
a psychological, necessity — into a belief in unlikeness.
Moreover, there is in favour of unlikeness, in regard to
one's general view of things, the assumption of a difference
between consciousness and the remainder of being, and
we thus reach the attitude which is known as Pheno-
menalism ; the theory, namely, that human knowledge
is indeed related to a reality independent of it, but it is
not a copy of this, and must not be cited to serve as such.
In this, however, the ordinary idea of truth is left so far
behind that such an attitude seems always to be tinged
with a certain resignation. The statement that our
knowledge reaches appearance " only," that it is " merely '
presentation, easily carries the secondary meaning that
it ought properly to grasp and contain reality, and that
it is regrettable that man's faculty of knowing is unable
to do this.

But the basis of the Phenomenalistic theory of know-
ledge varies considerably according to the extension
which it claims to have. Partial Phenomenalism contains
an appreciation of the value of the different strata of
human knowledge, claiming the transcendental truth of

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 191

agreement with reality for one and assigning the character
of p>henomenality to the other. In view of our earlier
distinction between percepts and concepts we may
recognise two forms of Phenomenalism. The first is the
' sensualistic, according to which the contents of sensory
perception are real, while the concepts are regarded as
mere ideas or names — at all events, as something the
validity of which is restricted to consciousness. This
is a view that comes very close to the popular attitude
of naive Realism, but it also belongs to medieval
Nominalism, and it is repeated in many echoes of this
in recent philosophy. As an example we need quote
only Materialism in the form in which it was expounded
by Feuerbach. Opposed to this sensualistic Pheno-
menalism we have the rationalistic, which, on the contrary,
regards all sensory presentations as only appearances
of reality in consciousness, and finds reality in the con-
cepts, the contents of thought (voov^va). This form
may have either a mathematical or an ontological com-
plexion. Its mathematical form is the view of scientific
theory, which takes all the sensory qualities of things
to be appearances or phenomena, and grants real validity •o t\
only to the quantitative relations which are amenable
to mathematical treatment. We have fully expounded
it, and considered it in its various aspects, in an earlier
chapter. In this the category of causality has gradually
displaced that of likeness as the relation between con-
sciousness and being. Presentations are supposed to
be effects of things on consciousness, and physico-physio-
logical theory shows the strict and graduated correlation
that exists between the real arid the perceived, being
and consciousness. As far as the theory of knowledge
is concerned, the centre of gravity of this view of the
relation of consciousness and reality is in the fact that,
according to it, the presentative forms in consciousness
are not reflections of reality, but represent it, as a drawing
represents the thing drawn. Hence this form of Pheno-
menalism has been called the " Drawing Theory," or
Semeiotics. In ancient times it was held chiefly by the
Epicureans ; in the Middle Ages by Occam and the

192 NOETIC PROBLEMS

terministic logic ; and in modern times by Locke and
Condillac. It forms the groundwork of the philoso-
phising of modern men of science, such, as Helmholtz.

The other form of rationalistic Phenomenalism, the
ontological form, is the attitude of conceptual meta-
physics, as it was founded in Plato's theory of ideas and
re-echoed in Leibnitz's Monadology or Herbart's theory
of reality. According to this the entire world of the senses,
in its quantitative as well as its qualitative relations,
and therefore including also its mathematical determina-
tions in time and space, is merely an appearance of an
incorporeal or supra-corporeal reality. A special impor-
tance attaches in this shade of Phenomenalism to the
determinations, given in experience, of inwardness, the
qualities of consciousness. The two forms of experience,
external and internal, are clearly not open in the same
way to the Phenomenalist argument. This is best seen
in the history of the word Idealism, which, as we saw,
leads to so much misunderstanding. The sensory pro-
perties which perception shows us in things are supposed
not to be realities, but " merely " presentations or " ideas."
Hence Idealism originally meant this theory which reduces
the external reality to presentations. But the ideas as
such are something real — real activities, real contents
in real spirits ; and this metaphysical aspect of the matter,
which really ought to have been called spiritualistic,
has been called Idealism. That is the chief reason for
the change of Phenomenalism, which we so often encounter
in history, into spiritualistic metaphysics. For if anything
is to appear, there must not only be a reality that appears,
but something to which it appears ; and that is con-
sciousness. Thus of the two forms of experience the
internal is constantly predominating over the external.
External perception, which is supposed to be merely a
knowledge of the states into which the perceptive being
is thrown by the action of the external world, thus appears
to be only a province within the entire domain of internal
perception. The originally and indubitably certain thing
is the reality of consciousness and its various states,
while, on this theory, the reality of the external world

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 193

is supposed to be believed only on the ground of various
more or less unsafe deductions. On this chain of thought
depend all the philosophic systems which regard any
fundamental qualities of consciousness — whether intellect
or will — as the true nature of things, and the entire
external world as merely a phenomenon of this. The
preponderance of the internal sense is a remarkable fact
in the whole of modern metaphysics and theory of know-
ledge. In this the fact is expressed that the quality of
truth as a copy of reality is refused to our knowledge of
the external world on the lines of Phenomenalism or
Serneiotics, but this quality is only affirmed the more
emphatically in regard to the mind's knowledge of itself
and its states of consciousness. In point of fact, the
self-knowledge of the soul is, if we do not interpolate
into it some metaphysical transcendence with the aid
of the concept of substance, the only knowledge in which
we can be convinced beyond doubt of the likeness between
knowledge and its object. All psychological knowledge
is based upon this self-perception, which in the long run
means a knowledge by means of memory, and in this
we confidently assume that in this memory of self-know-
ledge the psychic experience is perceived precisely as it
is in reality.

We have thus come to what Kant called a " scandal '
in the history of human knowledge : that we could seri-
ously call into question the reality of the external world
as contrasted with that of consciousness and then re-
affirm it without any indubitable reasons. The pre-
dominance which the internal life has thus, for purposes
of theory, gained over corporeal reality led to the set-
ting up of another category, that of inherence, between
consciousness and that which, as a corporeal reality
distinguished therefrom, was called ' being." In this
Phenomenalistic (or, as was wrongly said, Idealistic)
metaphysic consciousness played the part of substance,
and its states and activities were supposed to be the ideas,
the presentations, to which the reality of the outer world
was reduced. The fantastic form which this theory
assumed is theoretical Egoism, or Solipsism, which would

13

194 NOETIC PROBLEMS

retain only the individual philosophising subject as sub-
stance. Certainly this was hardly ever seriously affirmed ;
it was rather used as a piece of intimidation in the con-
flicting arguments about consequences. To affirm it
strictly is merely a ' monologue," which refutes itself
by the very fact that it seeks to prove its position to other
knowing subjects. Far more plausible was this Pheno-
menalism when it disguised itself in the Berkeleyian form
or in Leibnitz's Monadology. But we. have already clearly
shown how even in this form it is quite unable to deduce
a foreign content like the external world from the nature
of consciousness. A last form of Phenomenalism is that
which seeks reality in a super-individual consciousness,
or " consciousness in general," as has been attempted
in the metaphysical elaborations of Kant's teaching.
These, however, no longer keep to the original and purely
logical sense in which Kant himself constructed " con-
sciousness in general ' ' as the correlative of the validit v-
in-itself which he claimed for knowledge attained by
reason.

All these views are based upon the old idea of the anti-
thesis of the spiritual and material ; they regard the
latter as appearance and the former as the reality which
appears therein. This position can only be evaded by
regarding both, the psychic and the corporeal, as appear-
ance ; and then we have behind them only an entirely
unknowable (because inexpressible) being, the thing-in-
itself. This Absolute Phenomenalism, which later re-
ceived the name of Agnosticism, is partly found in Kant's
theory of knowledge. It is, in fact, one of its character-
istic features that the soul, as the substance of the pheno •
mena of the internal sense, must be just as unknowable
as bodies, as the substance of the phenomena of the ex-
ternal sense. But this holds only in so far as this theory
of knowledge is directed polemically against metaphysics,
and particularly against its spiritualistic forms (Berkeley
and Leibnitz). In this respect it is quite true that in
Kant even the mind's empirical knowledge of its own
states, its presentations, feelings, and volitions, does not
grasp their absolute nature, but their phenomenal nature,

THE VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE 195

their self-appearance in consciousness. With this develop-
ment, however, if it is left incomplete, Phenomenalism
dulls its own edge and digs its own grave. For since
everything we can present belongs in its content either
to trie world of the external sense or the province of the
inner sense, the thing-in-itself remains a postulated nothing,
to which no real definition and no formal relation can be
applied. It is then an assumption of no use whatever
to thought ; not the slightest explanation can be given
of it. From the unknowable thing-in-itself we get no
meaning either of the appearances of the external world
or of those of the internal world ; the very division of
appearing reality into the two profoundly separated,
yet constantly related, realms of matter and spirit cannot
be in the least understood from the unknowable thing-in-
itself. This agnosticistic thing-in-itself is merely a dark
chamber into which people cast their unsolved problems
without obtaining any light whatever upon them. Hence
in the metaphysical respect Kant has rounded his theory
of knowledge by distinguishing between the theoretical
insight of knowledge, which is supposed to be restricted
to phenomena, and the " guarantee by an interest of
reason," for which the theoretically unknowable is now
supposed to present itself as the suprasensible world of
the good and holy. He converted an absolute and
agnostic Phenomenalism, of which the main lines were
given in his criticism of knowledge, into a spiritualistic
Phenomenalism.

This, it is true, by no means exhausts the significance
of the Kantist theory of knowledge, but merely shows
its relation to metaphysical problems. We shall deal
later with other features of it. We have here still to
point out a new ramification of absolute Phenomenalism
in recent times. The ground of it is the uselessness of
the idea of thing-in-itself. When Kant declares that it
could not be known, but must necessarily be thought,
our perception of its uselessness raises the question whether
we really have to think this unknowable, or even whether
we can think it. When this question was answered in
the negative, it followed that the relation of reality and

196 NOETIC PROBLEMS

appearance could not in principle be applied to the relation
of being and consciousness ; and as all the other main
categories — likeness, causality, inherence — were inapplic-
able, there remained only identity as the fundamental
relation of consciousness and being, or the theory that all
being must somehow represent a consciousness, and all con-
sciousness must somehow represent a being. In the further
evolution of the theories of " consciousness in general,"
which we mentioned amongst the forms of Phenomenalism,
this theory of identity was developed as the standpoint
of Conscientialism, which gives itself the name of the
"immanent' philosophy, and which has in recent times
been decked out afresh and proclaimed as " the new
philosophy of reality." In its rejection of the idea of a
thing-in-itself, its refusal to seek behind appearances
any sort of being distinct from them, it is of a thoroughly
Positivistic character ; but it incurs the very serious
difficulty that an identification of consciousness and being
makes it absolutely impossible for us to understand
discriminations of value between knowledge and object-
less presentation, between the true and the false. For
the variations in actual recognition, the quantitative
graduations of assent, to which alone we could look on
this theory, do not suffice to give us a firm definition of
truth, and therefore for the solution of the noetic problem.
Hence the solution must be sought in another direction,
and that is the direction which Kant took in his new
conception of the object of knowledge.

§12

The Object of Knowledge. — Transcendental method — Function and con-
tent of consciousness — Being and consciousness — Synthesis of the
manifold — Objectivity as real necessity — Abstraction — Selective
synthesis — Rational sciences : sciences of nature and culture —
The position of Psychology — Knowledge without and with value —
Autonomy of the various sciences.

All the various conceptions of the theory of knowledge
which we have as yet considered depend on the naive

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 197

assumption of the transcendental definition of truth,
according to which the knowing mind stands opposed to
a reality which is its object. Whether this object is taken
into consciousness, whether it is mirrored in it or repre-
sented by a drawing, are merely different shades of the
same fundamental idea; and all the theories derived
therefrom, no matter what category they seek to apply
to the relation of consciousness and being, are doomed
by the impossibility of restoring the connection between
thought and its content once they have been metaphysi-
cally torn apart. Phenomenalism tries to disguise this
unsolved fundamental problem under vague phrases
such as " relating ' and " corresponding," but it always
returns the moment we look closely into the words. To
have delivered noetics from these assumptions and put
it on its own basis is the merit of the critical or tran-
scendental method which Kant opposed to the psycho-
logical and the metaphysical ; though he himself only
gradually discovered it, and developed it out of earlier
methods. Thus he found the formula for the problem
of the theory of knowledge in the well-known question :
" What is the basis of the relation to the object of what
we call in ourselves presentation ? ' Without adhering
too closely to the academic forms of Kant's system, we
can best explain its nature by a consideration which starts
first from consciousness alone.

In all consciousness we encounter the fundamental
antithesis of the function, the activity or state, and the
content, in which this function is discharged. In the ex-
perience of consciousness the two are inseparably con-
nected ; function is impossible without content, and
content is equally impossible without function. But
psychological experience shows in the facts of memory
that it is possible for the content of consciousness occa-
sionally to have a reality without the function of conscious-
ness entering into activity ; and on the other hand, the
distinction between true and false proves that many
a content of consciousness has no other reality than that
of being presented in the mind. A simple analysis,
however, of what we mean by this shows us that we can

198 NOETIC PROBLEMS

only speak of any particular content as real in the sense
that we relate it to some sort of consciousness as its con-
tent. From the empirical consciousness of the individual
we rise to the collective consciousness of any historical
group of human beings, and beyond this to an ideal or
normative culture-consciousness — in the end, metaphysi-
cally, to an absolute world-consciousness. The final limit
of this series is a reality which needs no sort of conscious-
ness for its reality. This being is reality in the sense of
naive Realism, and ultimately also in the sense of the
philosophical idea of the thing-in-itself ; and that is what
we mean when we speak of the object to which knowledge
is supposed to be related. From this point of view we
then distinguish between those objects to which it is
essential that they be contents of consciousness, and those
for which entering into consciousness is something new.
Psychic reality is one in which being and consciousness
eo ipso coincide ; but to the extramental reality, we say,
it is immaterial whether it be taken into consciousness,
since it exists without any activity of consciousness.
As a matter of fact, a reality of this sort without conscious-
ness can never be thoroughly thought out, because when
we attempt to do so — when it is to be known at all — it
becomes a content of consciousness. It follows that in
the long run we cannot conceive the objects of knowledge
otherwise than as contents of a consciousness. It is very
interesting to test this idea by the question in what con-
sists the truth of our knowledge in regard to the past
or the future. At first sight the past seems to be no longer
a reality ; and if all knowledge is to mean an agreement
of the idea with the reality, this criterion of truth in the
ordinary sense of the word is inapplicable to all our his-
torical knowledge. Yet something must be assumed
that constitutes the " object " even of this kind of know-
ledge and decides as to its soundness or unsoundness.
A past that forms no content in any way of any conscious-
ness could never become an object of knowledge. And
that holds, mutatis mutandis, for our knowledge of the
future. Indeed, it may be extended to all that is assumed
to be real in space without being perceived anywhere

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 199

or being perceptible. In fact, that which would pass as
real in such conditions, which would exclude all relation
to a perceiving or knowing mind, would have to be con-
sidered as not real at all for consciousness. It could
neither be thought nor spoken of.

We must therefore define an object otherwise than is
usually done on the lines of na'ive Realism, and this was
first done in the Critique of Pure Reason. In conscious-
ness itself we always find, as soon as we ask what is given
in and with it, a multiplicity of content bound up in a
unity. In this synthesis consists what we call the object
of consciousness ; for the multiplicity of elements thus
gathered into a unity becomes in this way something
independent, in which the movement of the presentations
may further develop. These elements, however, which
are gathered into a unity, never arise from the unity
itself ; they are parts of the great whole of the real. They
only become objects of the mind when they are brought
into a unity. Hence the object is not real as such outside
the mind, but merely in virtue of the form in which the
mind brings together the various parts of its content
in a unity ; and the whole question is, in the long run,
under what conditions this synthetic unity of the manifold
has the value of knowledge. Here we must notice that
in our inquiry it is a question of human knowledge ; we
are dealing with the question under what conditions
the objects which arise out of the synthetic unity in the
empirical consciousness have a significance that goes
beyond the play of presentations in the individual and in
the species. Clearly they can have this only if the form
of combination is really based upon the elements and
is to be regarded as the norm for each individual form of
the accomplishment of the synthesis. It is only when
we think the elements in a connection which really belongs
to them that the concept which a man has is a knowledge
of an object. Objectivity of thought is therefore real
necessity. But in what elements this will be done depends
always on the empirical movement of thought. It is
only in the latter sense that Kant meant that it is " we "
ourselves who produce the objects of knowledge.

200 NOETIC PROBLEMS

All the groups which the elements of the real form in
the empirical consciousness, excluding the empirical
self-consciousness of the individual himself, are sections
of the whole immeasurable domain of the real. Whether
they are ideas of things or of events, they are always only
a very restricted selection out of the total reality, and all
the thousandfold relations, in which everything that can
be an object of consciousness and knowledge finds itself,
can never be presented together in an empirical conscious-
ness. Even the mature mind of civilised man, in which
the work of many generations is condensed into a unity,
or the scientific conception, in which many potential
pieces of knowledge are packed with all the economy
of thought — even these highest products of the theoretical
mind can never embrace the totality of the real. The
synthesis of the manifold is in the human mind, and there-
fore for human knowledge, inexorably limited. In per-
ception itself there is always only a selection out of the
possible sensations even of the empirical consciousness,
and every advance from perceptions to concepts, and from
concepts to higher concepts, is won only by abandoning
differences and concentrating upon common features.
Logic calls this process abstraction. All the results that
are based on it have the value of a selection from the
immeasurable fullness of reality. This simplification of
the world in the concept is, in fact, the one means by which
a limited mind like that of man can become master of
its own world of presentations.

In this sense it is generally true that the mind produces
its own objects, and creates its own world out of the
elements of the real which it finds in itself as its contents.
For the ethical and the aesthetic mind this fundamental
feature is, as we shall see later, so obvious that it almost
goes without saying. Its significance for the theoretical
mind could only be discovered from the fact that, under
the influence of the untrained mind, the idea arose that it
is the aim of knowledge to picture a reality independent
of itself. But the more clearly we realise that this know-
ledge is itself a part of reality, and indeed one of the
most valuable parts, the more we see that the knowledge

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 201

itself is nothing but a synthesis of the elements, which
reveals itself in their selection and arrangement. At
first this selection and arrangement take place involun-
tarily, as in the case of perception, and the entire shaping
of our objective presentation issues in the production of
our world as a section of reality. What we call object,
even in simple perception, is never real as such ; the
elements which enter into our object as constituents
have innumerable other relations which do not come
within the narrow limits of our consciousness. To that
extent we ourselves make the objects. But they are
not on that account something other than the reality —
not the appearance, known to us, of an unknown thing-
in-itself. They are just as much a part of reality : a part
that is real as such, though it can never stand for the whole
of reality. Not only its constituents, but also the forms
in which these combine to form objects, have their roots
in the reality itself. In this, and in this alone, consists
the truth of our knowledge, that in it we produce objects
which, as regards their content and form, do actually
belong to reality, yet as regards their selectiveness and
arrangement arise from it as new structures. Hence
the production of these objects in knowledge itself is one
of the valuable structures of reality, and if the formation
and shaping of these objects in the process of human
knowledge is to be called " appearance " (but an appear-
ance which in this case is quantitative, not qualitative,
since it cannot represent reality, but only a selection
from it), we may quote the saying of Lotze that, if our
knowledge is supposed to contain only appearance, the
efflorescence of this appearance in consciousness must be
regarded as one of the most valuable things that can happen
between the constituents of reality generally.

If we thus conceive the essence of knowledge as a
selective synthesis, which produces in the human mind
a world of objects out of the immeasurable fullness of the
universe, we shall be best able to orientate ourselves as
regards the number of the ways in which this essence of
knowledge is realised. The simplest thing to do is to
distinguish first between prescientific and scientific know-

202 NOETIC PROBLEMS

ledge. The first, the simple and naive action of the impulse
to~acquire knowledge, is an unscientific production of
its world of objects. Not only in perception, but also
in the opinions that are based thereon, the objects seem
to take shape so much of themselves, so much without
any action of our psychic powers, that they seem to be
something foreign, introduced, seen, reproduced and
pictured in the soul. It is only in scientific knowledge
that the objects are consciously engendered, and there-
fore deliberately shaped. But the way of doing this
differs according as it starts from the forms or the contents
of consciousness. We therefore distinguish (not in the
psychogenetic, but in the logical sense) between rational
and empirical sciences. The synthetic character of the
knowledge, which engenders the objects, is plainer in
the rational than in the empirical sciences. Hence
amongst the rational sciences it is especially mathe-
matics that has, since the time of Plato, been the
guiding star of the theory of knowledge. In the case
of mathematics it is quite clear that its objects are
not as such taken over by consciousness, but are its
own, and are engendered from within. That is true of
numbers in the same way as of space-forms. However
much experience gives the occasion of forming one or
other arithmetical or geometrical idea, these ideas them-
selves are never objects of experience. Hence even in
the naive view of things the mathematical mind is not
supposed to reproduce, embrace, or picture some existing
reality in the ordinary sense of the word. Mathematical
knowledge is entirely independent of the question whether
there is or is not something corresponding to it in natura
rerum. And precisely for that reason it reflects the real
nature of knowledge. For once the object appears,
whether it be produced from an empirical stimulation
or by deliberate direction of the sensory imagination,
such as a circle, a triangle, a logarithm, or an integral,
all the knowledge that is derived from it is necessarily
bound up with this self-engendered structure, and depends
as to its soundness or unsoundness upon the objective
nature of this.

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 203

Apart from mathematics, the only rational science we
now recognise is logic, which is related to the forms of
thought just as mathematics is related to the forms of per-
ception. Here again we find the peculiar relation between
the self-production of objects and the dependence upon
them which thought experiences. But the validity which
we claim for the formal conceptions of mathematics and
logic is not restricted to the fact that, once conceived
and fixed in scientific definitions, they demand general
and compulsory assent from every normal mind. They
seem to us also to be conditioning powers in the totality
of things. The regularity of numbers and spatial magni-
tudes, the knowledge of arithmetic and geometry, is con-
firmed in the texture of the material world, and is repro-
duced in the natural laws in which science represents
it. The validity of logical forms has such real significance
for us that we cannot imagine the world otherwise than
entirely conditioned by them. To this extent the two
rational sciences are wholly parallel in their type of truth,
and this analogy between them holds further in the sense
that both sciences, being restricted to the forms of reality,
cannot deduce therefrom for our knowledge the content-
determinations of reality. In regard to logical forms
there is an illusory idea that they yield an interpretation
of the actual nature of reality. This gave rise to the
Rationalistic Dogmatism of metaphysics, the untenability
of which was proved for all time by the Critical philosophy.
Since then we may regard the homogeneity of the two
rational sciences as a firm foundation for the theory of
knowledge. Both relate to the forms of reality ; and in
this respect the mathematical forms hold good for reality
just as much as the logical. But metaphysics is, precisely
on that account, only conceivable as a theory of know-
ledge : as, that is to say, a critical inquiry into the logical
forms of the real, from which we cannot deduce its
content -conditions. We halt at this distinction between
the logical-mathematical form and the content of reality
which depends on it as a final and insoluble dualism. We
may hope and suspect that the two, which we always find
in relation, have somewhere a common root in some ulti-

204 NOETIC PROBLEMS

mate unity. But this would have to be sought in the
absolute totality of universal reality, from which we can
never do more than build up a fragment as the work of
our own scientific knowledge. All the real perceptions of
science or of daily life are based upon experience.

Yet the empirical sciences themselves reveal in their
own way this selective character of human knowledge ;
in them it is a deliberate, if not always fully self-conscious,
selection from the immeasurable richness of reality. While
we distinguish between rational and empirical sciences
according to the difference in their starting-point, we divide
the empirical sciences themselves according to the different
purposes of the various branches. For some of the em-
pirical sciences this purpose consists of a purely logical
value, generalisation. The logical values of generalisa-
tion are represented by generic ideas of things or events,
types or laws ; and the real " validity " of these ideas
in regard to all that is grouped under them is the funda-
mental relation which we sum up in the word " nature,"
the totality of things and of whatever happens between
them, the cosmos. All scientific investigation seeks in
the long run to ascertain the forms of this cosmic uni-
formity, in so far as they are amenable to our knowledge
with its limitations of space and time. The absolute
validity, transcending subjective recognition, of mathe-
matical and logical forms, under which the contents of
experience are combined in synthetic structures, and ulti-
mately as the cosmos, proves to us that here we have to
deal with an order which goes beyond the specifically
human conditions of presentations and raises their objec-
tive significance to the status of full reality.

Opposed to this study of nature, as that form of empirical
knowledge which has to build up the cosmos out of the
chaos of our perceptions, are those scientific activities
which have to establish and thoroughly study particular
realities. But these particular things, since they lack
the logical value of generalisation, can only be objects
of knowledge when there is some other value inherent
in them ; and all other values are known to us only in
such structures as in their empirical appearance belong

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 205

to the life of man, and relate to what man has elaborated
from his experience of the surrounding world. These are
the structures of civilised life, which, engendered and per-
fected in the course of human history, we regard as the
historical cosmos as distinguished from the natural. It
is true that there is in this historical cosmos the same
universal rule of law, and in it, as a single part of the uni-
versal reality, we find the same broad feature, that the
individual is subject to the general. But it is not on
that account that historical events and institutions form
the object of a special investigation, differing in principle
and method from that of natural science. The real reason
is that we would interpret the sequence of the historical
life as the realisation of values which, in their turn, tran-
scend in their validity the life of man, in whose mind they
attain recognition. The study of civilisation, or the science
of history as it used to be called, is an appreciation of
values, whereas natural science has in mind only the
logical value of generalisation, and otherwise regards
itself as indifferent to values. However, the apprecia-
tion of values in historical research does not consist in
some feeble moralising over and evaluation of its objects,
but in the fact that here again the objects only come
into being in science by relating them to a standard of
value. Certainly everything that happens is not his-
torical. The object of historical science is always some-
thing that stands out from accompanying events by reason
of its relation to some high standard of value in life, and
is thus converted into an historical object. Such an
event is never real in this outstandingness ; it is only
in science that it becomes a definite structure or institu-
tion. Thus both the natural cosmos and the historical
cosmos, as they are ultimately attained in empirical
science, are new structures of scientific thought. Their
truth does not consist in their agreement with something
that is precisely such extra mentem, but in the fact that
their contents belong to the immeasurable absolute
reality ; not as the whole, but again as parts selected
and elaborated by human knowledge.

This division of scientific research according to its

206 NOETIC PROBLEMS

objects is not entirely the same as the usual distinction
between natural and mental sciences, the best known
and most established of the many attempts to classify
the sciences. Such a distinction is based upon the meta-
physical dualism of nature and spirit far more than on
the psychological dualism of external and internal experi-
ence, and it therefore does not regard the objects of scien-
tific research in the critical sense of the modern theory of
knowledge. Our theory is aware that from the same
groups of the absolutely real we may elaborate either
objects of natural knowledge, which aims at emphasising
the uniformity of nature, or historical objects, the shaping
of which is based upon a selection of elements according
to value. But the distinction between the two branches
is particularly important in regard to psychology. The
relation of psychology to the two branches is not simple ;
it is complicated by the fact that their aims, as formulated
in modern times, range from the psycho-physical studies
of individual psychology to the most intricate structures
of social psychology, the analysis of which touches the
frontiers of historical research. In the middle between
these extremes we have the knowledge provided by the
inner sense, the self-perception of consciousness, which
is also the chief requisite in all auxiliary studies on the
part of both extremes. Judged by its chief material
and its essential character, psychology is natural research
in the ordinary scientific sense. It passes into historical
science only in so far as it seeks, as a sort of character-
study, to interpret psychic individuals as such, whether
in their individual occurrence or in their typical structure.
On the other hand, if the sciences are divided into natural
and mental, psychology has some difficulty in finding a
place amongst the latter. We often speak as if it were
the chief of the mental sciences, because all of them,
and particularly the historical, deal with processes which
we recognise as belonging to the human mind. But
phrases such as these have nothing to do with the realities
of research. The results of scientific psychology, which
are summed up in the formulation of general laws, are of
no consequence to the historian. The great historians

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE 207

had no need to wait for the experiments and research
of our psycho-physicists. The psychology they used
was that of daily life. It was the knowledge of men, the
experience of life, of the common man, coupled with the
insight of the genius and the poet. No one ever yet
succeeded in making a science of this psychology of intui-
tive understanding.

However we may try to divide the sciences according to
their objects, we shall always encounter the difficulty that
these objects are not given simply as such, but are shaped
by the scientific work of the concepts themselves. Hence
it is impossible to make a clean division of sciences accord-
ing to what we call their objects. It can only be done
on the basis of the scientific procedure itself. In the prac-
tical work of science we find the various branches marked
off from each other, and then (very much as in the rest of
academic life) reunited in groups ; but in each branch,
whichever we choose, we find scientific trains of thought
crossing each other, in which ideas, types, or laws are
sought, with investigations of an historical nature, which
have the value of the individual as the principle of their
objectivity. Such elements are most finely interwoven
everywhere in establishing the causal relations of the indi-
vidual event of value. In this natural and historical research
unite in seeking to determine the regular course of events
in which the ultimate values of the world are realised.

On the whole, however, we find that the theory of know-
ledge cannot go too far in recognising the autonomy of
the different sciences. In methodology the illusion of a
universal method, which might hold good for all the
sciences, was abandoned long ago. It was realised that
the difference of objects demands a difference in scientific
procedure. And while the theory of knowledge has
grasped the fact that these objects themselves arise from
a selective synthesis of scientific thought, we must not
refuse to recognise that all the elements of the conception
of truth are conditioned for each science by its own
peculiarities, and that here again we cannot compress
the richly varied vitality of human thought into an
abstract formula.

PART II

AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

(QUESTIONS OF VALUE)

THE scientific form in which we most clearly conceive
the meaning of the distinction between theoretical and
axiological problems lies in the fact that the propositions
which we enunciate, affirmatively and negatively, are
either judgments or verdicts. In spite of an identity in
grammatical form, the two have very different meanings.
In the one case the relation of subject and predicate is
said to be a relation of two contents which are theoreti-
cally connected in the mind, the relation being either
assigned to such contents or denied them. In the second
case the predicate does not represent any theoretical
content of consciousness, but a relation to a purpose or
a value, which is granted or refused to the subject. It
is only a quite untrained mind that treats such purposive
relations as the pleasant or the beautiful as properties
that inhere in the subject as other properties do. The
slightest shade of reflection discovers that these predicates
of value do not belong to the things themselves as pro-
perties, but accrue to them by their being related to some
standard in the mind. If, however, verdicts of this nature
are to claim general validity like judgments, it can only be
because they express or presuppose a relation to some
standard that is generally valid. But it is one of the
natural necessities of psychic life that each empirical
mind regards its own standard of values as independent
and valid for all, and that here again experience of

208

VALUE 209

must disturb this naive confidence before valuations
can become problems, first of practical life and then of
science. Hence the idea of value is now the centre of
any further discussion of problems.

§13

Value. — Psychological axiology — Valuation as feeling or will — Primary
feeling — Primary will — Reciprocity of values — Conversion —
Morality — Valuation of values — Conscience — Postulate of the
normal consciousness — Logic, ethics, and esthetics.

Axiology, or the science of values, has only been recog-
nised in recent times as an independent and extensive
science. The frequent appearance of the word " value '
in modern philosophical language began with Lotze, and
it has grown because theories of philosophy and national
economy have been based upon it. This, however, has
led to many complications and misunderstandings, and
we can only avoid these by endeavouring to understand
how value or valuation may and did become a problem,
and indeed a philosophical problem.

Valuation appears first as a psychic process de-
scribed by psychologists, and a proper study for
psychologists. There is so little to be said against
this that, as a matter of fact, axiology readily seeks a
psychological basis. The Voluntarist and Emotionalist
tendencies in recent philosophy lean toward a pre-
dominantly psychological treatment of their problems.
The contents of the theoretical consciousness, with their
mainly objective features, only gradually and indirectly
betray their relation to the psychic processes. They
have at first an appearance of transcending and pointing
beyond the human mind, and this seems to demand that
they be treated purely as facts. The "practical " func-
tions of the mind, on the contrary, always show a pre-
dominant character of inwardness, of subjectivity. They
are so intimately bound up with what is specifically
human that they must necessarily be approached from
the psychological side. That is true above all of the

14

210 AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

generic idea of these practical functions, value ; and our
inquiry into it must start from the facts of valuation.

We find the idea of value everywhere defined either
so as to mean anything that satisfies a need or anything
that evokes a feeling of pleasure. The latter, taken from
the emotional side of consciousness, is the broader defini-
tion. It includes the narrower, which looks to the life
of the will. In view of this double relation, to the will
and the feelings, the question arises whether one of these
functions can claim to be original rather than the other.
The two species of valuation are certainly intimately
connected psychogenetically, so that it is often difficult
to say confidently in a particular case which was prior,
the will or the feelings. From this we understand the
one-sided claims of the Voluntarist and the Emotionalist
psychologists. They have even, as we saw above, occa-
sionally given a tinge to spiritualist metaphysics. We
must admit that it would be difficult to make out as good
a case for feeling as is made out for the will as the essence
of reality. This is the more remarkable as precisely in
recent psychology we notice a tendency to see in feeling
the fundamental psychic activity or psychic state, and
regard thought and will as derivative functions. If,
in spite of this, we scarcely ever find in metaphysical
circles, which affect to take the typical contents of reality
from the psychic life and inner experience, the idea of
seeking the primary reality in feeling, it may be that this
is because in feeling we have always, and quite unmis-
takably, a reaction to something more fundamental.

There are certainly very many emotional valuations
which can be traced to the will or to needs. Hence
pleasure is often defined as the satisfaction of the will,
and displeasure as the dissatisfaction of the will. This
is particularly clear when the volition is conscious. But
even the unconscious volition, which we generally call
an impulse or craving, is the origin of such feelings as
hunger (as displeasure) or satiety (as pleasure). These
observations have inspired the theory that all pleasure or
displeasure presupposes a volition ; not necessarily in
the shape of a deliberate purpose, but at least in that of

VALUE 211

cravings or impulses as forms of an unconscious will.
Kant lent a certain sanction to this view when, in his
Critique of Judgment, he expressed the opinion that pleasure
and displeasure are related to the purposiveness or non-
purposiveness of their objects. Purpose is determined
by the will, whether conscious or unconscious, and is
therefore always something willed. Hence all feeling
must be preceded by a volition which, according as it is
satisfied or no, gives rise to the reaction, pleasure or dis-
pleasure. But against this Voluntarist theory of feeling
we have, in the first place, the elementary sense-feelings,
the sensations of colours, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. In
their case there is often, not only no relation to any pur-
pose of a conscious will, but none even to a craving or an
unconscious impulse. The artificial hypotheses of physio-
logical psychology about some normal state or middle
state of excitation, which purport to explain sensory
feelings as the realisation or non-realisation of a purpose,
entirely fail ; they break down before the facts of anti-
purposive pleasure, which is to them an insoluble problem.
We are bound to grant that there are primary feelings of
a totally unintelligible nature ; and, as the relation of
the quality of sensations to the objective properties
of the stimuli cannot possibly be deduced synthetically
— that is to say, logically — so we can never understand
from these qualities why they are partly characterised by
feelings of pleasure and partly by feelings of displeasure.
Hence the opposite theory, the Emotionalist interpre-
tation of the volition. Here again it is notorious that
frequently our desire or aversion arises from some past
pleasure or displeasure, some experience of pleasantness
or unpleasantness. Hence the old question : " How can
a man will anything that he does not regard as good ?
And how can he will this unless he has already experi-
enced a feeling of pleasure in it ? " Generalising in this
way leads to the Eudaemonistic or Utilitarian theory,
that all volition springs from an experienced feeling of
pleasure or displeasure. Here we have a decisive counter-
instance in instincts, in which there is undoubtedly in
the individual an original volition, without any knowledge

212 AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

of pleasure acquired by experience. There are even cases
of bad disposition in which this primary volition, directed
to acts and objects, seeks fulfilment in spite of all experi-
ence of unpleasantness arising therefrom. There are
some who think that they evade the difficulty by the usual
appeal to the unconscious, and try to explain the intensity
of the instinctive volition by unconscious expectations of
some pleasure which the subject promises himself ; or
by the evolutionary theory, regarding the experience of
feeling, which the individual cannot possibly have had
in this case, as an experience of the species, and speaking
of an inherited reaction of the will. In neither way can
we escape the fact that there is in the individual a primi-
tive will to act without any conscious regard to pleasure
or unpleasantness in the future.

Thus in our psychic experience there is the fundamental
fact of a reciprocity of the two kinds of valuation, that of
feeling and that of will. For each there are original
functions as well as functions which are conditioned by
the other kind. In particular states we may observe
that they are completely separable. Just as there are
border-cases, states of the disinterested intellect in which
the content of consciousness -is merely presented without
being subjected to an}' valuation — states of imagination
which are in part ingredients of the aesthetic life — so there
are on the other hand border-cases of temperament (the
melancholic, for instance), more or less permanent states
in which our conscious experience of the environment
is bound up with strong feelings of pleasure or displeasure,
but no wishes or efforts to react voluntarily on these.
In the average life, however, the valuations of feeling
and will are always intermingled. In this there is no
feeling which does not entail a desire of pleasure or a
shrinking from disagreeableness, and no volition that
does not become pleasure or displeasure according as it
is or is not satisfied. In the psychogenetic development
the chief part in this is played by the law that all that
is firmly connected in any way with a thing of value in
the mind passes under the same valuation in the course
of time.

VALUE 213

This principle of transference is developed not only
in the teleological relation of ends and means or the causal
relation of causes and effects, but in every categorical
connection of the contents of experience, particularly in
the combinations of an association of contiguity. We need
take as examples only two of the most familiar of these.
On the one hand there is the psychogenetic explanation
of greed or avarice by the fact that money, which in
itself (as scraps of paper, for instance) has no value at
all, becomes of value, and is highly esteemed, as the
general means of securing valuable things and satisfying
one's wants. On the other hand there is the well-known
and basic fact of experience that things that are of no
consequence in themselves are esteemed because of rewards
attached to them or avoided because of penalties. Educa-
tion can go so far, as everybody knows, as to completely
invert the value of things, so that what was once esteemed
is regarded with disgust, and what was hated may become
desirable. From the same formal development we thus
get, on the one hand, something so irrational and evil
as unnatural passion, and on the other hand the creation
of states of feeling and will to which we attach the greatest
pleasure. From this it follows that for a theory of value
which is to settle the question of the vindication or ration-
ality of values the psychogenetic origin of any particular
value is entirely irrelevant and can never afford a decisive
criterion.

To such a theory, transcending all psychological explana-
tion, we are driven irresistibly by all the experiences
which we have in the development of our appreciations
of value. The simple confidence with which at first we
ascribe to all others our own way of appreciating things,
is very soon disturbed by our experience. We quickly
notice that what is pleasant to us may be very unpleasant
to others, and vice versa. We learn that what is good
for us is injurious to others ; and we later, as we get on
in life, realise that even what we regard as good or evil,
beautiful or ugly, is not judged by others in the same
way. At first we are reconciled with this great diversity
in ideas of value because in the circles to which we look

214 AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

there is, in spite of these individual variations, a certain
amount of a generally recognised standard of values,
which we usually call morals. In many forms of inner
and outer experience, of our own and others, we grant
this code of morals a sovereignty over the personal feel-
ings of the individual. The generally recognised standard
is the correct standard ; the individual decision must be
subject to and in agreement with it. In this we may see
the psychological nature of conscience. It is the voice
of the general consciousness in the individual, and from
it we derive the law of the subjection of the individual
to it. Here we already perceive the intricacy of the
process of appreciating values. The primary processes
of the individual cravings, feelings, and volitions, each of
which contains its own appreciation of an object, are them-
selves subject to a higher and more deliberate type of
appreciation, which approves one valuation as sound
and condemns another as unsound. The norms according
to which this secondary appreciation is conducted will
be considered later. We see at once, however, in what
direction this consideration and the question of the validity
of value take us. In the sphere of the pleasant and un-
pleasant, and also of the useful and harmful, there is no
such higher appreciation. Here the question of the justi-
fication of our valuations has no meaning. In this case
all the phenomena of valuation take place with the same
psychological necessity ; even the great diversity of indi-
viduals and individual states and conditions leaves no
room for wonder whether what appears to one pleasant
and desirable may be unpleasant and undesirable to
another. Hence there is no philosophical hedonism as
an inquiry into the validity of our ideas of pleasantness
or usefulness. On the other hand, the two provinces
of life which we find described in the predicates good or
evil, and beautiful or ugly, are of such a nature that the
validity of the primary valuations of will and feeling is
called into question by the general consciousness and its
claim to set up a universal standard of value. Thus the
philosophical problem here is to studj' and establish the
value of values. It cannot simply be satisfied with this

VALUE 215

judgment of the individual appreciations by the general
moral consciousness. Morality itself is, in the long run,
a fact, and the privilege which it claims in its validity
over the individual feelings and volitions is not an obvious
right. We know, in fact, that morality itself is just as
liable to err in its verdicts as the individual. Hence
conscience, in this first form of a relation between the
actual individual mind and the actual general mind, is
not something final. We have first to settle difficult
questions about the soundness of our most treasured
appreciations.

This is the commencement of the real problems of philo-
sophical axiology. At first every value meant something
which satisfies a need or excites a feeling of pleasiire.
It follows from this that valuableness (naturally, both
in the negative and the positive aspect) is never found
in the object itself as a property. It consists in a relation
to an appreciating mind, which satisfies the desires of
its will or reacts in feelings of pleasure upon the stimula-
tions of the environment. Take away will and feeling,
and there is no such thing as value. Now morality is a
standard of appreciation of the general mind set over the
individual appreciation, and from this arose new values
beyond the original appreciations. These also, never-
theless, when they are examined by the historian and
ethnographer, show just as great diversities as individual
appreciation did. Ethical and aesthetic judgments dis-
play, in the mind of any unprejudiced observer, an
extremely great diversity when one surveys the various
peoples of the earth in succession. Here again, however,
we try to set up a final standard of values ; we speak of
higher and lower stages of morality or of taste in different
peoples and different ages. Where do we get the standard
for this judgment ? And where is the mind for which
these ultimate criteria are the values ? If it is quite
inevitable to rise above the relativity in individual appre-
ciations and the morals of various peoples to some standard
of absolute values, it seems necessary to pass beyond
the historical manifestations of the entire human mind
to some normal consciousness, for which these values are

216 AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

values. There is just the same compulsion as we found
in connection with the theory of knowledge. As there
are objects only for a presenting and knowing mind,
the object which is to form the standard of truth points
to a " consciousness in general " as to that for which it
must be the object. It is just the same with value-in-
itself as with the thing-in-itself. We have to seek it in
order to get beyond the relativity of actual appreciations ;
and, since there is value only in relation to a valuing
consciousness, the value-in-itself points to the same normal
consciousness which haunts the theory of knowledge as
the correlate of the object-in-itself. In both cases this
implication is at the most a postulate, not a thing meta-
physically known.

This analogy has a far-reaching significance. This
normal consciousness to which the theory of knowledge
leads us means, at the bottom, only that the truth of our
knowledge and the guarantee that in our knowledge we
perceive reality are based upon the fact that therein we
see the emergence of an actual order which transcends
in its validity the specifically human order. In the same
way our conviction that for human valuation there are
absolute norms, beyond the empirical occasions of their
appearance, is based upon the assumption that here also
we have the sovereignty of a transcendent rational order.
As long as we would conceive these orders as contents
of an actual higher mind, on the analogy of the relation
we experience of consciousness to its objects and values,
they have to be considered contents of an absolute reason
— that is to say, God. These relations are in the long
run based upon the fact that noetic problems themselves
have something of the nature of the axiological in them,
and they thus afford a transition from theoretical to
practical problems. For in the theory of knowledge
we deal with the truth-value of ideas, with its definition,
with the question how it becomes psychically a value,
and therefore, how, in what sense, and by what method,
it is attained. In the affirmative and the negative
judgment there are the same alternative elements as in
the affirmations and denials of the ethical and aesthetic

VALUE 217

judgment, and thus to a certain extent logical, ethical,
and aesthetic appreciations are co-ordinated, and we get
the three great philosophical sciences — logic, ethics, and
aesthetics. That is the division of universal values which
Kant made the basis of the distribution of his critical
philosophy. It proves, moreover, to be also a psycho-
logical guide, as it starts from the division of psychic states
into presentation, volition, and feeling. This guarantees
the completeness of the division, and the few attempts
that have been made to replace it by some other systematic
distribution always come to the same thing in the end.
However, the relation of the theoretical world-order
to the practical demands a final synthesis. It consists
in the question how the two orders are related to each
other in the entire frame of things : that is to say, how
the world of things, which exist and are recognised as
existing, is related to the world of values, which ought to
be, and must be, valid for the things as well as for us.
This is the question of the supreme unity of the world ;
and if we find the solution in the idea of God, we get a
final group of problems— those of the philosophy of
religion. Our second part must therefore be divided
into three sections, and these will successively deal with
ethical, aesthetic, and religious problems.

CHAPTER I
ETHICAL PROBLEMS

OF the two types of psychological attitude toward the
idea of value we start first with the Voluntarist, when
we approach the domain of moral philosophy or, as we
just as commonly say, ethics. In this province value
appears essentially as end, the reAo?, the principle of
conduct. The philosophical inquiry we make into it
is not a science of the ends toward which the human will
is actually directed — that is the work of psychology and
history — but a theory as to how the human will ought
to be directed. In accordance with the terminology
invented by Aristotle we call this branch of philosophy
ethics, because it has to show how human life, as a result of
man's own activity, is to be shaped in virtue of the natural
and customary ideas of morality. It is the science of what
man can and ought to make of himself and his world :
the science of the values which he owes to the activity
of his own reason (TO TTPCLKTOV dyadov). The ancient
philosophers distributed these considerations in three
parts. In so far as values are the ends which must be
attained by the activity of the human will, they are called
good. The determination of the dispositions, actions,
and rules needed for this gives us what we call a man's
duties. And the qualities which guarantee the fulfilment
of duty and attainment of the good are called virtues
(aper-q, virtus). We thus get the threefold division into
the theory of the good, the theory of duties, and the
theory of virtues. It is not entirely a good division, as
it really implies only three different methods of treating
the same material. To-day much more importance is
attached to a division according to the subject of the

218

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 219

moral action. The entire problem of ethics, which has
on that account been called practical philosophy, is man
in so far as he acts voluntarily ; and it is in this sense
that Aristotle occasionally calls it the science which
has especially to deal with human affairs (77 Trepi rav9pa>7nva
7rpa.yna.Teia). At all events no other branch of philosophy
is so intimately concerned with the sphere of man's life
as ethics, and therefore the chief danger in treating it
is that it may not be able to find the way from this sphere
to the transcendent validities of the rational order. In
human life, moreover, the subject of moral conduct is
partly the individual, partly the social community, and
partly the species in its historical evolution. Hence we
get the three sections of practical philosophy which we
may distinguish as morality, social science, and the
philosophy of history.

§ 14

The Principle of Morality. — Imperativistic and descriptive morality —
Many meanings of the moral principle — Universal moral law —
Teleological fundamental law — Eudasmonism — Egoism — Hedon-
ism— Epicureanism — Morality of soul-salvation — Altruism — Utili-
tarianism— Morality of perfectibility — Rational morality — Defini-
tion of man — Emotional morality — Morality and legality — The
categorical imperative — Moral order of the world — Morality of
personality.

Empirical and rational morality — Morality of feeling — Intui-
tionalism— Morality of authority — God, the State, and custom as
legislators — Heteronomy and autonomy.

Reward and punishment — Altruistic impulses — Sympathy and
fellow-feeling — The beautiful soul — Strata of morality.

The freedom of the will — Freedom of action and choice —
Determinism and indeterminism — Responsibility — Metaphysical
freedom as causelessness — Practical responsibility.

The psychological assumption of the ethical problem,
and one that runs counter to all parallelistic hypotheses,
is that there are voluntary acts : that is to say, purposive
movements of the human body which are caused by will
and are meant to produce something in the environment
which the will pursues as a value or end. To this we must
add a second, specifically ethical, assumption : the basic

220 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

fact that some of these actions are liked by us, either
because of their content, their causes, or their results, and
some are not liked. The former are considered " good,"
the latter " bad." This valuation, however, means no
more than that they respond or do not respond to the
expectations of the acting subject. Hence as a norm
of ethical judgment one thing is desired, another for-
bidden, and a third is indifferent. In any case, even
in ordinary life, we set up a command for every actual
event, in so far as it represents human conduct, which
it has to fulfil, and on the fulfilment or non-fulfilment
of which its moral value depends. Wherever there is
ethical judgment amongst men, the validity of such a
command is assumed, even if its content is not quite
clearly realised or one is far from clear as to the legal
basis of the command. This command we call duty or
the moral law. In view of the very various situations,
however, in which men may be called upon to act, there
are clearly numbers of such duties and moral laws, and
the question may be raised whether they can all be re-
duced to a fundamental type which we may then call
the moral law.

From this we get a broad divergence in the treatment
of ethical problems ; in the question, namely, whether
the moral law and its various ramifications were established
by the scientific research of ethics and appointed over
man's actual voluntary movements, or whether this
moral law was merely discovered as the actual norm
which determines the decisions of moral life. In the
former case we may speak of an imperativist ethic ; in
the latter it is, in the long run, merely of a descriptive
nature. But, however sharp this antithesis may appear,
it is increasingly lessened in the development of ethical
theory. We rarely get the extremes. Very rarely has
the ethicist set out to pose as the moral legislator, or to
represent himself as the founder of a new moral law in
face of the existing moral life. In modern times we find
this claim of being a legislator in its most pronounced
form in Nietzsche ; who, however, was quite conscious
that in this he was discharging a personal mission and

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 221

rendering what he believed to be a service to civilisation
rather than expounding a scientific theory. There is
something of an imperativist ethics, rightly or wrongly,
in the work of all reformers. And precisely on that
account it is anything but scientific. Where ethics is
found as a science in the imperativist form, as, particularly,
in the case of Kant, it does not lose sight of life. It
remains conscious that it has not to create the moral
law, but to discover it and formulate it as the most
intimate principle of actual morality. Hence Kant
himself was most careful in formulating his moral law
to keep in sympathy with the ideas of the ordinary man.
To that extent even the imperativist ethic has a descriptive
character, since it establishes the laws of moral conduct
and judgment. It seeks to develop the principles which
constitute the real moral consciousness. On the other
hand, a descriptive ethic will never be satisfied with merely
establishing descriptively that amongst all the possible
modes of human conduct and judgment there are some
which we call moral. It seeks to test the interrelation
and foundation of these modes of action, and it cannot
avoid, while it justifies and reconciles them, making
into a compact system what in reality comes from a
number of different sources and is not always in perfect
harmony. It is much the same as the process known to
the jurist in his science ; it has not to create a new law,
but to describe and codify the existing law, and in doing
this has to work up the law into a compact structure.
But whether we lean more in ethical inquiry toward
the imperativist or the descriptive side, it is the same
basic problems which occupy the science with their com-
plications. It must be regarded as a considerable merit
of the great moral philosophers of England in the eighteenth
century that the structure of moral problems was clearly
put together and the way prepared for their distribution.
We may, for instance, speak of the moral principle in
four different senses. First we have to define what we
really understand by moral ; what it is that appeals to
us as good, and what we avoid as evil. In view of the
great variety of duties and moral laws it may be asked

222 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

whether they are all to be brought under one formula,
under a general moral law : whether there is any criterion
by which in every case, under any conditions, we can
decide what is morally prescribed. In this sense the
moral law is the substance of the principle of morality.
In the next case, we may ask on what our know-
ledge of the moral law in general and its application
to particular cases is based ; what sort of knowledge
constitutes what we usually call " conscience." In this
sense the principle of morality is the source of our knowledge
of the moral law. Thirdly, when we oppose this law as
a command and demand to the natural impulses and
movements of the human will, we have to ask what right
we have to do this ; where in the world we must look for
the basis of such a claim. In this sense the principle of
morality becomes the sanction of the moral law. Fourthly,
in fine, the more closely we consider the antagonism
between the natural will of man and the claims of the
moral law, and the more secure we find its foundations,
the more we are bound to make it clear how it is that
a man is brought to will or to do, in obedience to the
moral law, something that his will does not of itself desire.
This question is all the more urgent in proportion as the
demand of conscience is opposed to a man's natural
inclination. If a man regards this as in itself morally
indifferent, or as really immoral, we have to show how
he is induced to carry out the command he experiences.
In this sense the principle becomes the motive of morality.
The first and greatest difficulties are connected with
the contents of the principle of morals. Here it is a
question of the material definition of the moral ; the
formal definition is found by reflection on the fact that
amongst the great mass of human dispositions and acts
some are approved as good, and others condemned as
evil, with a claim of general validity for this secondary
valuation. What is affirmatively recognised in this
— what is laid down as a rule or duty, and must be con-
tained in a general way in the material definition — we
call the moral. In German there are two expressions,
Sittliche and Moralische, and Hegel endeavoured to dis-

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 223

tinguish between the two, restricting the latter to the
province of motives of the personal life and claiming
the higher value of the former for the realisation of the
practical reason in the entire life of the State. There
was good reason to maintain this distinction, but it has
not been maintained and is not likely to be renewed. On
the other hand, it is to be regretted that the practice
has grown up in recent years of confining the meaning
of the word " moral " to sexual matters. It is not merely
in journalistic language that we find sexual conditions
and crimes alone meant when there is a reference to
moral conditions and transgressions. That is a perversion
of the word which ought not to be encouraged.1

The material definition of morality touches one of the
most difficult points at which the contradictions of life
are converted into philosophical problems. Every man
finds in time his untrained moral judgment called into
question by the experience that the moral principles
are not the same in various circles even of ordinary life.
In different strata and classes and professions amongst
the same people there is considerable difference as to
what is forbidden and what is allowed. Certain general
rules may seem to be independent of these variations,
but even these have different shades in different circles.
And our scepticism about the general validity of the
standard we have adopted is enlarged and strengthened
when we pass over our limits in time and space and survey
the whole life of humanity. Different races and peoples
have unquestionably their different codes of morality.
Historical development, again, shows further variations.
We need not here enter into a consideration of them. On
one side we have the view that in all this we trace an
advancing development, and that modern man is superior
in his morals to primitive man. But on another side we
find complaints that civilisation deprives man of his

1 We may add that there may be a different sort of ambiguity in
the word "moral." In French and English "moral" sometimes means
psychic or spiritual as opposed to material. This has led to many
misunderstandings in translations. The same erroneous use of the
word crept into German literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, as when writers spoke of " moral victories."

224 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

primitive simplicity and purity, and that the complexity
of the conditions of life is prejudicial to morals. However
that may be, we can no more ignore the diversity of
moral principles in history than we can in ethnography.
We may try to find a number of general elements which
may serve in all cases as criteria of moral judgment,
and draw up certain propositions which are recognised
everywhere, such as the ten commandments of the Hebrew
tradition. But even in the case of these, and supposing
that we have actually proved the universal recognition
of them, we find a multiplicity which leaves us very un-
certain as to their real number. We thus see that we
cannot by inductive research draw up any general moral
law from the existing individual laws. In this we dis-
regard the fact that an induction of this kind would have
reference only to the actual validity of moral rules in
the great groups of historical humanity. Of an absolutely
universal validity in all individuals there can be no question
whatever because immoral men contest the validity — in
practice at least, and partly in theory — of the rules which
they transgress.

We have next to consider that all the various duties
and rules from which an inductive inquiry into the moral
law could start are related to the endlessly diverse con-
ditions of human life and are conditioned in their contents
by this. But we cannot conceive anything that is, in
respect of moral disposition and action, prescribed for
every single occasion in life. Hence the moral law cannot
be related to the various duties as a generic idea is to
its species ; indeed, if there were such a relation of all
moral precepts to a supreme principle, we should have
to determine it, not by a logical, but by a teleological
subordination — a subordination of means to the common
end. Thus in our first excursion into the province of
practical problems we are confronted with the fundamental
teleological law. It seemed to have only a doubtful
and restricted application in our theoretical interpre-
tation of the world, and here we find it in the proper
sphere of its supremacy. In the province of values the
chief relation is that of means and end ; and therefore

TPIE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 225

the highest value, or the highest good, as the older
philosophers said, can only be the final end to which all
the elements in the various duties and rules are subordinated
as means, and to which they all owe their value.

In the psychological introduction to axiology we have
referred to the teleological series which are evoked by
the reciprocity in the origin of feelings and volitions, in
such wise that one is always appreciated for the sake of
another. We now ask if these chains have anywhere
a last link, a value of all values, a value for the sake of
which all other values are values. If there is in the
necessary process of the life of value such a link, which
we might with equal justice call the last link or the first
link, the determination and maintenance of this would
make the contents of the moral law, and all particular
duties would be only means of its realisation suited to
various conditions of life.

Hence the next point in ethical theory must be to
see that in the psychological mechanism this ultimate
end of all volition has a recognised validity. There is a
very widespread belief that happiness has this significance.
This psychological theory of morals is known as Eudaemon-
ism. It seems to suit the general feeling, and it therefore
dominated the ancient mind to a great extent. Its prin-
ciple is expressed in the well-known Socratic-Platonist
saying that nobody willingly does injustice. It means
that every man of his own nature seeks happiness, and
only at times makes a mistake as to the means of attaining
the end. Hence the theory of virtue which was much
disputed in Platonist circles, and interpreted in many
different ways, became the first principle of Eudaemonism.
Morality may be taught, since it has only to point out
the correct means for the attainment of an end which
every man spontaneously and entirely aims at. The
Eudsemonistic principle is at the root of all ordinary
moralising from ancient times until our own ; in domestic
education, in the school, the pulpit, or literature. It
is always an appeal to the desire of happiness, a recom-
mendation of the right means to attain it, a warning
against wrong means that might be adopted. Who

15

226 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

does not know Xenophon's superficial allegory of the
Prodicos who represents Heracles at the crossways,
equally beset by virtue and vice, each of which promises
an abundance of happiness ! From this point of view
morality is, as Kant said, a system of prudence, the
business of which it is to tell us how to attain happiness
in the best and safest way. No one will underrate the
human significance and the social value of these well-
meant disquisitions. Man is, when we reflect on the
thousands of millions who pass over this planet in the
course of ages, really a pitiable creature, and none will
resent it if in the short span of existence he seeks whatever
satisfaction of his desires he can attain. Whoever shows
him the best way to do this is a benefactor of the race ;
as is the man who warns him against the many errors
in regard to this search for happiness with which nature
and life are beset. The effort to refute Eudaemonism
in many theories of morality is not very successful. We
must remember that in practical philosophy we have to
deal with the living man, who cannot be imagined without
pleasure and pain ; and that no moral principle is con-
ceivable that would forbid men to be happy. It would,
moreover, be a contradictory state of things if the happiness
of the individual were a value that all others had to
respect, yet he himself were forbidden to cultivate it.
Happiness has therefore an indisputable right to a place
in the discussion of the values of which ethics treats.
But it is another question whether it can take the
dominating position of the highest and final end which
Eudaemonism claims for it.

There are many objections to this. In the first place
the psychological assumption, which seems so plausible,
is really wrong. Pleasure as the feeling of the satisfaction
of a desire is undoubtedly always the result of a fulfilled
wish. But, as Aristotle rightly said, it by no means
follows from this that the desire of the pleasure should
be the general motive of willing. Happiness is the out-
come of satisfaction of the will, but certainly not either
its motive or its object. We have already seen that there
are, not only in the primary but even in the more complex

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 227

states of the will, purely actual forms by which it is
directed immediately to its object without any presentation
or any regard to expectation of pleasure or unpleasantness.
To this extent it is impossible to say that happiness is
the final end, for the realisation of which all other volition
is only a means. We are the less entitled to do this as,
if we wish to speak with psychological accuracy, no one
really wills happiness in the generic or abstract form.
Every volition is related to some definite willed object
in which a particular happiness will be found. From
the desire of happiness we could never deduce how it
is to be attained.

Further, the psychological assumption in virtue of
which happiness is set up as the principle of duty really
shows of itself that this is impossible. On that view
happiness would be the natural and general termination
of all teleological series and would be obvious in all actual
volition. But there would be no meaning in seeking
an obvious thing of this nature and setting it up as a
duty. According to the Eudsemonistic view it is quite
unnecessary to demand of a man that he shall seek
happiness. The only thing we can do is tell him the best
means of attaining it But even this appeal to his prudence
gives us no test of value for the contents of the individual
volition. Since every volition, no matter to what content
it be directed, brings pleasure or happiness as soon as it
is fulfilled, all objects of the will are in this respect of
equal value. If one man prefers wine and oysters, and
another devotes himself to social questions, each of them
will be happy when he has attained his object Differences
in value in objects of the will are, on this theory, not
qualitative, but at the most quantitative. They consist
in the intensity, the duration, and the attainability of
the pleasure. In regard to intensity and duration the
moral competence or virtue consists in an art of weighing
one thing against another (^rprjms) , which the great
Sophist Protagoras made the central point of his
system of morality ; and the further development of
this theory leads to some such quantitative morality as
Bentham sketches in his table of the good. On the

228 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

other hand, the test of attainability long ago led to the
interesting result that the logical consequence of Eudae-
monism is the morality of having no desires. As things
go in the world, a man can only expect the realisation
of his wishes when they are confined to the most necessary
and simplest things. The more a man wants, the more
probable it is that he will be rendered unhappy by the
non-fulfilment of his wishes. A man finds the surest
way to happiness in asking as little as possible of the
world and of life. In ancient times Antisthenes deduced
this consequence from Socratic Eudasmonism. It led
to the safest, but to the poorest and most pitiful of all
moralities, the sour-grapes morality of cowardice, which
does nothing from fear of failure and disillusion. On the
contrary, the natural impulse is to regard that life as of
more value which is directed to great and important
aims, even when it cannot attain them.

The question next arises whoso happiness is at stake,
and the first answer we get is that the willing and acting
individual must regard his own happiness as the supreme
end of his efforts. When this side is particularly stressed,
we have the development of Individualistic ethics ; part
of which is the ancient ideal of the wise man — the mature
man who knows how to control his will and conduct in
such wise that he will attain perfect happiness. It is a
thoroughly Egoist ethic : the morality of enlightened
interest, by which a man turns to his own profit all the
conditions of life and all his relations to his fellows, so
that everything contributes to his own happiness. It
is the morality of actual life : the theory that the great
majority of men have held in all ages, and will continue
to hold. The only difference we find is in the degree
of candour with which the fact is acknowledged and
defended. This candour does not often rise to the height
of coolness which it reaches in the " Selfish System " of
Hobbes in the early days of modern philosophy, which
has rightly been rejected by all schools.

Egoistic Eudsemonism has various shades, according
to the nature of the object in which the individual seeks
his happiness. In its simplest form, it is sensuous en-

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 229

joyment or bodily pleasure that is raised to the position

of the highest good. This is the theory of Hedonism,

the chief exponent of which in ancient times was Aristippus.

In cases where the theory was revived in modern times,

as it was by Lamettrie, it lost the character of healthy

naturalness, and was elaborated into an insipid coquetry

which could only be tolerated as a reaction against the

equally unnatural ascetic theory. By the side of, or in

place of, pleasure of the senses later and riper forms of

the theory put mental enjoyment — the enjoyment of

science, art, friendship, and all the finer things of life.

That is the ethical tendency which acknowledges

Epicurus as its leader. In his own case, and in the

school which was called after him in antiquity, the two

elements — • sensuous and intellectual enjoyment — are

combined, perhaps with a certain predominance of the

latter. In the eighteenth century there was a pronounced

^Esthetic Epicureanism, founded by Shaftesbury, in

which the ideal was the artistic cultivation of personality.

In the case of Shaftesbury himself it, in virtue of the

metaphysical background which he gave to it, approaches

the morality of perfection, which we shall consider later.

When the ideal was adopted in German poetry, it again

assumed a psychological form, and eventually it was

used by the Romanticists for the full development of their

aristocratic and exclusive theory. The self-enjoyment

of the spiritually developed personality is the finest and

highest form that the moral life has taken, or can take,

on the lines of the Eudsemonistic theory.

The individualistic form of Eudaemonist ethics goes
beyond both forms of enjoyment, sensuous and mental,
when it takes on a religious complexion, and regards
the salvation of the soul as the ultimate object of moral
precepts. Sometimes it is now said that " felicity " is
the aim rather than happiness, and this ethic of soul-
salvation sometimes assails the other forms of enjoyment
very vigorously. In its extreme forms (of which Plato
gives some indication in the opening part of his Phcsdo)
it not only despises pleasure of the senses, but it sees even
in the enjoyment of the intellectual and aesthetic life

230 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

grave obstacles to the attainment of the highest good.
In this case, especially as these ideas are generally con-
nected with the belief in immortality and the hope of
'eternal life," we may call it otherworldly or transcen-
dental Eudaemonism, or even Egoism — in so far as duties
toward other men and things are at times forgotten or
thrust aside in the zeal for one's own salvation. To
this theory corresponds practical asceticism ; though in
general nature has taken care that these interests of
another life do not unduly preponderate. The extreme
form in which transcendental morality is often preached
on the theological side has always tended to cause the
other forms of Eudaemonism to emphasise more strongly
the this-worldliness of their ethic. This is particularly
true of Materialism and Socialism. We need quote only
Saint-Simon, Diihring, and Feuerbach, and even Guyau
and Nietzsche, as examples.

The egoistic forms of Eudaemonism only include a
concern for the happiness of one's fellows amongst the
duties of the individual in so far as he actually needs the
others. Hence in regard to its main principle this theory
of morals is sharply opposed to the system which regards
the community, not the individual, as entitled to the
happiness which it is a duty to create. We give to this
system the name Altruism, which was invented a century
ago. It regards as " good " all intentions and acts which
aim at promoting the happiness of one's fellows. As far
as the principle is concerned, it is immaterial whether
the Altruism is based psychologically, as regards motives,
on egoistic foundations or on the assumption that there
are original social impulses. It is also immaterial whether
it seeks the sanction of the altruistic command in the
divine will or in the political and social order. For, since
men become happy only by the satisfaction of their needs
and desires, whatever be the burden of those desires,
Altruism must, to be consistent, and unless it brings in
other standards of value, come to the conclusion that
every man is to be satisfied by the fulfilment of his wishes ;
and in cases of conflict, which necessarily arise, there is
nothing left but the majority principle. The conclusion

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 231

in this case is that that intention or action is moral and
acceptable which results in the greatest amount of pleasure
for the largest number of one's fellows. In this formula,
which was evolved in the course of the eighteenth century,
altruistic Eudsemonism assumes the form of Utilitarianism.
This also seems to the untrained mind a very plausible
system of morals, and there is no doubt that its principle
is quite justified in every application in which there is
question of the good of the majority. The most impressive
form of this Utilitarianism, indeed, that given us by
Bentham, sprang from a legislator's modes of thought.
Here again, however, the uselessness of the principle as
a basis of ethics is made clear by a few comparatively
simple questions. We have no need to ask to whom the
sum-total of happiness really falls, or who feels the general
felicity, which, while made up by the addition of individual
happinesses, cannot be perceived by any other mind than
that of the individuals. The Utilitarian is reduced to
silence by the pupil who objects that, if there is question
only of a sum-total of felicity, and it is immaterial how it
is distributed amongst the individuals, he thinks it best
to begin with himself, since in that case he knows best
what is to be done. It is a much more serious objection
that Utilitarianism, precisely because it lays such stress
on the quantity of happiness, must inevitably accommodate
itself to the lower cravings of the masses, and so confine
its moral interests to their good in the sense of the further-
ance of pleasure and avoidance of the unpleasant. It
purchases its democratic character by the abandonment
of the higher advantages which lie beyond the vicissi-
tudes of the pleasant and unpleasant, the useful and
injurious — in Plato's words, beyond the entire com-
mercial business of pleasures and desires — and represent
a higher region of life.

So much for the exposition and criticism of Eudsemonistic
morality. Related to it in some ways, yet differing in
principle from it, is the morality of perfection. This
purports to have a metaphysical, not a psychological
basis. It regards improvement or increasing perfection
as the ultimate standard which determines the various

232 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

moral precepts. By perfection is generally meant the
full development, on teleological lines, of the resources of
nature ; and thus, corresponding to Egoism and Altruism,
the morality of perfection has a singularist and a univer-
salist form, since it may regard the perfection either of
the individual or of the species. Psychologically this form
of ethic is connected with Eudaemonism in that it main-
tains that what improves us gives us pleasure, and what
restricts us gives us displeasure. So said Spinoza, Shaftes-
bury, and Christian Wolff. This is generally true, apart
from abnormal cases of injurious pleasure or useful un-
pleasantness. But when this side of the system is stressed,
there is no need for any imperativist complexion of the
ethic. Since it is obvious in the case of man, as in the
case of all beings, that he seeks what promotes his develop-
ment and avoids what restricts it, there is no need to
impose this on him as a special task. Spinoza saw this
most clearly. He is on that account the most pronounced
representative of a purely descriptive ethic, and he has
given the classic form to its method, that it must speak
of human feelings and actions just as if it had to deal with
lines, surfaces, and bodies. Its business in relation to the
actual moral life is to understand it, not to detest or smile
at it (nee detestari nee ridere, scd intellegere).

In the main, however, the principle of the perfection-
morality is a teleological theory, which assumes that there
is in man a certain disposition for it that is realised through
his moral life. Since the realisation of this disposition
leads to happiness, the theory approaches Eudaemonism,
even when it expressly rejects the psychology of Eudae-
monism. This was so in the case of Aristotle, who re-
garded reason and rational conduct as man's disposition,
and contended that in realising this disposition he would
become as happy as it was possible for any activity of
his own to make him. Shaftesbury also places morality
in the full development of human nature with all its im-
pulses and resources. However varied these may be —
egoistic and altruistic moods, bodily and spiritual cravings,
sensuous and suprasensuous forces — the moral task is
to bring them all into perfect harmony. The fully de-

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 233

veloped personality must also develop its relations to
the universe, in which again there is an infinite harmony
of contrasts. The perfection-morality assumes a rather
different form in Leibnitz's Monadology. Here the human
soul is a being that pursues an end which it has to
develop, from a primitive obscurity and unconsciousness,
to a clear and conscious form. The monad is conceived as
essentially a presentative force, and its perfection is there-
fore intellectualistic, consisting in the evolution of a
clear and lucid vision, from which rational conduct will
inevitably ensue. In the case of Leibnitz's successor,
Christian Wolff, who abandoned this metaphysical back-
ground, the perfection-morality sinks on that account
into an intellectual Eudsemonism, which, since it
intimately connects utility with the perfection of
the intelligence, returns to the original psychological
foundations.

German Idealism has more profoundly developed the
idea of a disposition on the part of man. Fichte and
Schleiermacher, in their different ways, gave us the same
formula, that man has to fulfil his disposition, and they
found this disposition in the incorporation of the individual
in a total structure of peoples, ages, and humanity gener-
ally. Here again, it is true, the perfection-morality
(though more pronounced in these metaphysical types)
sometimes loses the imperativist form. In many of these
systems the moral life is supposed to be the spontaneously
developing completion of the natural disposition of man ;
the moral law seems to be, as Schleiermacher expressly
said, the completion of the natural law — something that in
the main is self-evident. If this is so, it is very difficult
to understand the antithesis of the " ought " and the
natural " must." Moreover, this idealist theory, with
the disposition that it ascribes to individuals as well as
to the whole race, dissolves into metaphysical and, in part,
religious speculations which are matters of conviction
and faith, not intellectual knowledge. The total life of
mankind is for scientific knowledge a final synthesis,
beyond which conceptual thought can prove nothing
which might serve as a principle of morality. Hence,

234 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

although in this form of ethical speculation we have a
special effort to represent the moral order as a world-
order, in which man and humanity are a necessary link,
nevertheless the special forms in which this situation
must be conceived are no longer of such a nature that
they can lay claim to the general and necessary validity
of scientific knowledge. How easy it is for such ideas
to take a fantastic turn is best seen in the work of C. F.
Krause, who in his ethical philosophy of humanity tries
to connect terrestrial humanity with a humanity on the
sun, and all in a general community of spirits as a part
of the world-order.

All the answers we have hitherto considered to the ques-
tion of the substantial principle of morality agree in
seeking it in the consequences of moral conduct ; whether
these consequences be the happiness or the perfection of
the individual or of the race. And precisely on that
account they are incompetent to discover ai^ simple
and general content for the principle. Even the per-
fection-morality gives us only the formal definition of
fulfilment of a disposition, without giving us the least
definite idea of the nature of this disposition, which ought
to be the guide of will and conduct. This is clear first
in the case of Aristotle, who found in " reason " the prin-
ciple for that reconciliation of extremes which constitutes
the nature of virtue. It is from the lack of this that we
understand the two features which distinguish Kant's
ethic from all others. The first is that he relates the ethical
judgment and the moral precept only to the disposition
which lies at the root of the action ; the second is that
he abandons the attempt to define the content of the
moral law, and he can therefore give only a formal defini-
tion of it. In the first respect Kant very vigorously
pointed out that the moral verdict, which even in ordinary
conduct only bears upon actions in so far as they proceed
from intentions, ought in the proper sense to be restricted
to the intentions. " Nothing in the world is good except
the good will." This intention-morality stresses the dis-
tinction between morality and legality. It points out that
there are actions which are entirely in conformity with

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 235

the moral law in their form and their consequences,
although their motive is not the fulfilment of the moral
law. Actions of this kind may be very useful and agree-
able in the course of life and in view of their effects. They
may in this sense have anthropological value ; but, since
they did not issue from an intention in conformity to the
moral law, they are morally indifferent, and they can
merely claim the value of legality. From the nature of
the case Kant, in discussing this antithesis, was disposed
to exclude this legality from the ethical sphere and depre-
ciate its value ; although there was no reason in his philo-
sophy to reject its significance entirely. It was left to
his successors, especially Schiller, to mitigate the sharp
contrast by the reflection that legality itself has a large
moral significance as an important helpful element, not
only in the education of the individual and the race, but
also in moulding the entire circumstances of common
life. Even if many, perhaps most, of these actions by
which the moral law is fulfilled are not done for their own
sake — out of regard for the moral law, as Kant says—
but from other motives, in view of which they are merely
chosen as the best means, there is precisely in this fact
some recognition of the moral law, preparing the way for
and securing its sovereignty in life. The individual
becomes accustomed to seeing his will obey the rational
command, and this may be converted into a good dis-
position ; the external features of the life of the community
become more and more conformable to the claims of
reason.

From the methodical point of view there is much more
importance in the other special feature of the Kantian
ethic, which we find in its formalist character. It is
based upon the idea, to which we have already referred,
that, in view of the infinite complexity of the relations
in which man's will and conduct are involved, it is impos-
sible to find any common content that could be definitely
indicated as the necessary object of the will. There is
no generic concept of the content of duty. Ethical re-
flection, however, finds significance in the fact that there
is no moral life without a consciousness of duty, no matter

236 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

how much the content of the duty in each particular
case differs from all others. In this sense the conformity
of the will to duty is the general and supreme duty. As
is well known, it takes the form in the Critical philosophy
of the categorical imperative. The significance of this
is its express opposition to every other system of morals.
These presuppose a will for the precepts and demands
which are expressed in the various duties, and they merely
teach what is to be done in order to attain the end of
this will. Thus all moralising, as we have said, appeals
to the desire of happiness, which is assumed by Eudse-
monistic ethics as the basis of its prudential theory. Thus,
again, the perfection-morality deduces from the natural
craving for self-development the various means that are
necessary for its realisation. Hence all the imperatives
which they lay down are hypothetical. They depend
upon the condition that this will or desire is consciously
or unconsciously present, and they lose all meaning if
this is not the case. In their dependence upon given
relations they are, Kant says, heteronomous. But it is
the peculiarity and dignity of the moral law that its claims
upon man are quite irrespective of his wishes. The moral
precept demands obedience in all circumstances. It
creates an entirely new volition, independent of any
existing empirical volition. It is in this sense autonomous.
This is the categorical imperative : a precept, independent
of any circumstances, in which Kant finds the meaning
of the moral law.

Since this formal moral principle is not conditioned
by any given content, but of itself, it amounts to a prin-
ciple of the imperativeness of precepts without deter-
mining the contents of the precepts themselves. The
most remarkable and significant thing about the Kantist
ethics is that this purely formal definition has to be com-
pleted by reference to a rational order that far transcends
the empirical human world. Kant discovered the cate-
gorical imperative as the general definition of the conscience
which teaches each individual to submit his will to a law,
a command, and tells him that this command is entirely
independent of whatever tendencies and objects the indi-

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 237

vidual finds already present in his will. It was therefore
necessary to conceive this law as valid quite independently
of all the variations of individual will and therefore
equally valid for all individuals. This independence of
the categorical imperative of every empirically existing
will gave it a universal validity for all rational beings.
And although the Critical ethic sought the source of its
knowledge in the disposition and its sanction in the self-
determination of the individual, nevertheless every duty
thus learned and based had to be considered a constituent
of a moral world-order which was equally binding for all.
The world-law of morality had to be discovered in the
individual mind without any empirical intermediaries.
In Kant this was a direct relation of individual and uni-
verse, soul and world, which was characteristic of the whole
period of the Aufkldrung. The fact that the individual
gives himself the moral law, which is to be valid for all
others, shows that he bears in his own personality the
dignity of the moral law.

In this enhancement of personality we have a common
bond between the Kantian ethic and the earlier perfection-
morality. Whilst, however, Eudaemonism, whether in
Shaftesbury's or Leibnitz's form, regarded personality
as that which had to be developed out of the natural
and given individuality, Kant puts personality in the
sovereignty of the general law of reason over all individual
volition. For the former of these theories of personality
it was difficult to pass from empirical individuality to a
generic legality, and they incurred the danger, as the
Romanticists did to some extent, of regarding the survival
of the natural individuality as the ultimate and supreme
moral value. In the Critical theory of personality, on
the contrary, individuality seemed to be in effect
obliterated, and the moral essence of personality seemed
to mean only that in its will there ruled certain precepts
which ruled equally in the lives of all others. It was in
the end the task of the morality of personality to fill the
gap between the natural disposition of the individual and
the universal moral law by connecting the personality
with the general texture of historical life, which has to

238 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

realise the moral law in the phenomenal world. The
Idealist moral philosophy of Fichte, Schleiermacher, and
Hegel attempted to achieve this object, and it is only
along these lines that ethics can hope to connect the
empirical elements which arise from the real nature of
man with the tasks which emerge from a transcendent
rational order. Eudaemonist morality, with its interests
of pleasure and pain, weal and woe, remains at the confines
of the empirical life of man. Perfection-morality would
build upon a metaphysical knowledge of man's nature,
whether it be formulated in philosophical or theological
terms. Critical morality derives the consciousness of the
moral world-order from the conscience of the individual
or, as Kant says, from practical reason. The Idealist
morality of the historical theory tries to understand how
the contents of the categorical imperative emerge from the
historical institutions of civilisation, collaboration in the
construction of which constitutes the good disposition of
the individual.

The conception of the principle of morality according
to the source of our knowledge of it has a good deal to
do with these differences. The question how we know
what really is to be considered good and to serve as a
norm of judgment may find an answer either in experi-
ence or in a direct pronouncement of the reason ; and
in this sense we may speak of empirical and rational or
apriorist morality. These antitheses themselves, however,
are not sharply defined. If the ethical empiricist wishes
merely to decide what in point of fact is moral, he has
to sift and compare the facts in order to get as near as
he can to a general standard. If the ethical rationalist
wishes to lay down the imperatives which are to hold,
he has to confine himself essentially to the actual moral
consciousness of humanity ; otherwise he adopts the
arbitrary position of the superman, who announces new
values, yet has to wait and see if the rest of men will
agree. Moral theories are, therefore, once more only
predominantly either empirical or rational. Empiricism
has either a psychological or an historical complexion,

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 239

and in either case, if it confines itself to a mere registra-
tion of the facts, leads to Relativism. In the former
respect we saw this happen to all forms of Eudaemonism.
In the second form the Empirical ethic tries to evade
Historism by a method of consequences, pointing out how
the principles of moral precepts have been made clearer
and stronger in the course of historical development.
Hence in ancient times the Stoic theory of the consensus
gentium. In modern times the same result is reached
on the lines of biology ; it is sought to show, as was
attempted by Spencer, that what appears in the indi-
vidual as a directly perceived and self-evident standard
has been produced and established as a purposive habit
in the evolution of the race by heredity and adaptation.
On none of these lines, however, does one reach the absolute
validity of the norms which the claims of the moral con-
sciousness set up. If, on the other hand, a man chooses
to start, rationalistically, from the general rational order
itself, we see precisely from the example of Kant that one
is thus restricted to the formal law, and can only get by
devious ways from that to substantial imperatives — by
the idea of the dignity of personality in the progressive
application to the empirical conditions of life.

Far more important than this question of the method
of scientific ethics is the actual problem, whence in daily
life the plain conscience of man derives the knowledge of
his duties as the norms of his judgment. Here it is clear
in the first place that we do not in the practical reality
of moral life consciously use that supreme principle which
moral theory seeks ; otherwise the search would not be
so difficult, as we saw above. In actual consciousness
of duties, and especially in our continual verdicts upon
each other's conduct, we apply the rules from case to case,
generally without being conscious of any definition. In
this sense it is true that the source of knowledge of the
various precepts or moral principles of ordinary life is
in feeling far more than in any sort of explicit knowledge.
It is certainly one of the most important distinctions
between men, considered in this respect, whether they
have predominantly in their morality the rational element

240 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

of intellectual control or the irrational force of instinctive
and emotional decision. On the whole, we shall not go
astray if we ascribe the far greater predominance to the
emotional element. We thus understand how the English
moralists, with Shaftesbury and Hutcheson at their head,
treat feeling as the essence of conscience and the source
of all moral consciousness, and leave to moral philosophy
only the task of enlightening these feelings as to their
own content and meaning. As a matter of fact, it is,
as David Hume and Adam Smith pointed out, only in
complex situations of life that the intelligence is called
upon to clear up the difficult}^. Even in those cases,
however, the rational conviction must wait for the right
moral feeling in judgment or decision. We are quite
aware that moral preaching is useless unless it can appeal
to feelings that already exist, in however rudimentary
a form ; otherwise it would be easy to make men moral
simply by giving them ideas.

The theory that the principle of morality is to be sought
in feeling, as far as our knowledge of it is concerned,
is very closely connected with the assumption that in
man's nature, whether in a rudimentary form or as a
more or less conscious power, there is a knowledge of rules
ready to rise directly into consciousness on every occasion
that the varied circumstances of life produce. Our know-
ledge of the moral law is in this sense of an intuitive
character, and not based upon either theoretical considera-
tions or any sort of external influence. But if the moral
feeling is thus ranged amongst our empirical states of
feeling generally, as the psychological ethic used to range
it, we end once more in the relativity of all that is empiri-
cal. On that account Kant lifted the moral feeling into
the region of the rational and universal by seeing in it
the " fact of the purely practical reason." He was of
opinion that in this directness of the moral consciousness,
which shows itself in every man independently of the
measure of his intellectual cultivation and capacity,
we have the emergence of a higher world-order. In-
tuitionism in this form leads to an emphasising of the
direct emotional evidence with which the norms of con-

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 241

science enforce themselves upon the mind on every occa-
sion. It was this main line of practical philosophy which
induced Herbart to treat ethics as a part of general
aesthetics. He started from the fact that all judgments
may in the long run, when they are relieved of any intel-
lectual accessions, be reduced to the original pleasantness
of different situations. This original pleasantness, which
is found in feeling, could not be grasped by or based upon
any theoretical speculations. It is, he said, in each case
a primary fact which makes itself felt as a reality in the
mind as soon as the mind turns to such a relation as its
content. Herbart was especially of opinion that psycho-
genetic speculations could not form a basis of this direct
evidence. He thus came to his theory of the five moral
ideas as the directly illuminative forms for the judgment
of acts of the will ; and it must be added that he was
unable to furnish any systematic justification of this
plurality of ultimate principles.

Thus theories of the source of our knowledge of morality
lean to its emotional side, but the voluntary side becomes
prominent as soon as we speak about the sanction of the
principle of morals. It is in any case clear that conscience
is not merely, retrospectively, a judgment of actual dis-
positions and acts, but, prospectively, a demand on the
existing decision of the will ; and this demand asserts
itself over against the will as a precept. We ask there-
fore what is the basis of this right to command ; what
in the world has power to impose a command on our
will which is different from its own natural contents.
Naturally, a sanction of this sort is only requisite in so
far as the moral law is opposed to the natural will. We
need no sanction when the duty is regarded as the self-
evident outcome of our own nature. Hence Eudaemonism
properly speaking needs no sanction, for the impulse
to happiness itself sanctions all its phenomenal forms,
and the intelligence legitimises the moral precepts before
the tribunal of this impulse to happiness as prudent and
nicely calculated ways of realising it. The perfection-
morality also needs no sanction, since the process of

16

242 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

amelioration is natural and rational ; or, as Wolff said,
it is the natural disposition and self-evident bias in the
structure of man, who has merely to be instructed as to
the correct development of this impulse.

On the other hand, the more alien ethics makes the
moral law to the natural will, the more urgently morality
needs a principle of sanction. On what ground is some-
thing demanded of me that I do not myself want ? The
origin of such a demand on my will can only be sought
in another will. We call this alien will, which imposes
duties, authority ; and so we give the name of authorita-
tive ethics to the theory which seeks the sanction of the
moral law in a will which is higher than and authoritative
over the will of man. Of this authoritative ethics we
may say that it also corresponds to a deep craving of
human nature. Man, as he is, has a feeling of weakness
from his constant experience of erring, and casts himself
into the arms of a more powerful will in order to receive
from that the direction which he cannot find in himself.
On that is based the power, and in part the right, of
authority for all time. Surrendering oneself to authority
is the best resource for the masses, perhaps for the over-
whelming majority of men ; and we find it adopted
precisely by those who either remain sceptical in the
failure of their efforts to come to decisions, or have allowed
themselves to be driven by clearness of thought into some
mystic vagueness. We thus understand the craving for
authority by a sense of weakness of intelligence and
will, and we understand still better the profound im-
morality which results from the abuse of authority.

Authoritative morality may, as Locke showed, assume
three different forms, according as the legislative power
is discovered in a divine command, in the claims of the
State, or in the prescriptions of custom. Theological
ethics, the first type, has often assumed very exaggerated
forms, making an arbitrary command on the part of the
Deity the foundation of the force of moral rules. The
spiritual Franciscans of the Middle Ages, such as Duns
Scotus and Occam, taught that nothing is good or bad
of itself ; it is only made so by a divine command. God

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 243

could, they said, if he had so willed, have enacted entirely
the opposite in moral acts. This naturally led to a belief
that there could be no rational morality, no intelligent
basis of its contents, and that the sole source of our know-
ledge of morality is the divine revelation. And as for
these men the divine revelation only came through the
Church, it followed in practice that we could not know
by personal conscience, but only from the teaching of
the Church, what was good or bad, allowed or forbidden.

Other ethical systems replaced ecclesiastical authority
by the State, and derived the sanction of morality from
this. The Egoistic ethic of enlightened interest granted
that, on its theory, the individual could of himself recog-
nise no other distinctions of value in his actions than
such as were Eudaemonistic — that is to say, such as were
related to his own comfort or discomfort. A different
kind of valuation could only arise from the circumstance
that the acts of individuals might, through their conse-
quences, have a significance for the weal or woe of others,
of the whole community. Hence the sanction of the moral
precept derives from the social authority, either in the
definite form of a State-prescription or in the more or less
indefinite form of a custom. With such a basis we lose
the distinction between morality and legality ; for in
such cases we are concerned with the action and its con-
sequences for the general welfare and the disposition or
character only indirectly and in so far as they have to
bow and, in the course of time, adapt themselves to these
claims which are imposed upon them from without.

In all these types of authoritative morality there is a
pronounced element of heteronomy : that is to say, the
conditioning of the will by a law enforced upon it from
without. In opposition to this Kant stressed the autono-
mous character of conscience as a self-conditioning of the
rational will. But Kant also, in seeking the content and
the various precepts of this self-conditioning in a moral
world-order, equally valid for all rational beings, did not
really require any special sanction of this self-lawgiving.
The most that one can say, in a certain sense, is that for
the Critical ethic the dignity of the personality, which

244 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

identifies itself with the moral law, is the true sanction ;
or, rather, that it makes superfluous any other and external
sanction. But this autonomy of the personality must
not be quoted, as was done by some of the Romanticists,
as a sanction of the arbitrariness of a superman. It should
never be forgotten that according to Kant the autonomous
sovereignty of conscience only holds as long as the indi-
vidual gives himself a law which is suitable for becoming
a universal precept.

The theory of the motives of moral conduct also
depends upon the extent to which the demands of the
moral law are opposed to man's natural feelings and im-
pulses. The psychology which is at the root of the
Egoistic ethic, and professes that man can never in any
circumstances desire anything but his own happiness or
the avoidance of unhappiness, separates man so pro-
foundly from nature that it must find it very difficult to
understand how he ever comes to behave properly. It
has often been observed that an alien spirit coming
upon our planet and studying the impulses of men would
be greatly astonished to see that they so often do things
which are no use to them, even things which are contrary
to their own interests. Anybody who says this betrays
that he regards man, in the main, as a fool ; and he has
to speculate what the egoistic motives can be which induce
a man to desire something other than his own interest as
an individual requires. When we seek the motive or
motives of moral conduct in this sense, the ethic of
enlightened interest is quite ready with the answer that
an action conformable to moral law can be based only
upon either fear or hope. Authoritative morality adds
that the subjection to an alien will is because this will
has the power to reward and punish. It is the familiar
practice of moralising theologians to point to the penalties
which God fixed for transgression of his commandments,
and make a parade of the rewards that await the obedient.
In the other forms of authoritative ethics the same part
is played by the penal power of the State and the social
influence of custom. The function of the State is restricted
to palpable advantages and disadvantages of the external

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 245

life, and authoritative ethics has in its appeal to the social
force of custom a means of dealing with subtler and very
interesting aspects of the internal life. The collective life
gives rise psychologically to the very considerable values
of public opinion, the psychological meaning of which
was studied by the English moralists in their theory of
the emotions of reflection. The praise and blame which
our actions incur from other men do not merely mean
that they influence the conduct of others toward us,
and that they may thus lead to very positive advantages
and disadvantages in our external lives ; by a sort of
transference praise and blame, even when we merely
conceive them as possible, become independent values or
depreciations. They thus represent one of the values
on which is based, psychogenetically, the self-judgment
which is part of the nature of conscience. In this re-
ciprocal play of judgment and self- judgment ambition
becomes a very powerful motive, and is much considered
in the social forms of authoritative morality. In the
eighteenth century the French moralists of this school,
such as Lamettrie, Montesquieu, and Helvetius fully
discussed the significance of ambition.

It is quite clear that actions which are conformable
to the moral law will, if they are based on such motives
as these, never have a moral value ; they have merely
the value of legality. Hence in the proper sense of the
word they have no moral significance, though, as we said
above, they may have in many respects an anthropo-
logical and social value. We may be confident that what
seems to be morality in the case of the great majority
of men is no more than legality based on fear and hope
with respect to various authorities. But it would be quite
a mistake to say that the whole moral life of mankind
may be understood in that sense. On the contrary, it
cannot be doubted that this one-sided psychology of the
' Selfish System ' ' must be corrected by the facts, which
show that in the natural disposition of men there are
social impulses just as deeply implanted and as effective
as the egoistic impulses. They are direct motives of moral
conduct, and do not need to be induced by psychological

246 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

considerations. Amongst the states of the will which
influence with original force an action that presupposes
as its motive no personal experience of pleasure or pain
we must count, in the first place, these social or benevolent
impulses ; and they are in point of fact the motives
which inspire a very large part of our moral actions.
Biology explains the gradual development of these motives
in the race. But it is, as far as we can historically survey
the evolution of humanity, very doubtful if the social
impulse has arisen in this way ; indeed, it might be pos-
sible to defend the view that it began earlier. On the
other hand, it is equally impossible to derive this altruistic
disposition from egoistic motives on the lines of individual
psychology. Even Hume's theory of sympathy pre-
supposes the existence of the general capacity for sym-
pathy as a necessity of social life. In this case it is not
suffering and joy, but the sharing of suffering and joy
(sympathy), that is the motive of moral conduct.
Whether it is participation in suffering or in joy that
takes the foremost place is a psychological issue that
partly depends on differences of temperament, and is
expressed theoretically in the antithesis of optimistic and
pessimistic views of life. Schopenhauer regarded sym-
pathy in the sense of sharing suffering as the principle
of morals as far as motive is concerned : Feuerbach said
that it was sympathy in sharing joy. Schopenhauer
sought a metaphysical foundation and sanction for the
motive in the supremacy of will : Feuerbach, the anti-
metaphysician, was content with the social-psychological
significance of sympathy.

However, even this motivation of moral conduct by
a natural social disposition was not secure against being
claimed as leading to mere legality. No less a person
than Kant wanted to regard it as a perhaps pleasant
feature of nature, but devoid of any moral merit in the
proper sense of the word. The more intensely he sought
morality in the disposition alone, the more it seemed
to him to be opposed to any natural impulses ; and if
at times the motives of natural social feeling, such as sym_
pathy, issue in acts such as are demanded by the moraj

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 247

law, it seemed to him that these acts had no moral value
whatever in the strict sense. He saw a danger to moral-
ity itself in the satisfaction of any natural craving, even
when its end coincided with that of a moral precept. He
feared that in such cases Eudaemonistic motives would
insinuate themselves amongst the causes of the volition.
In point of fact, in the actual life of men the fine threads
by which the natural craving for happiness is connected
with the consciousness of duty are very numerous, and
they leave all sorts of ways open to the sophistry of the
human heart. We must admit that the close connection
between the thirst for happiness and morality which has
been brought about by the customary moralising, with
its promises of mountains of gold to virtue, is responsible
for man's disposition, even when he has done his duty
quite honourably and unselfishly, to stretch out his hand
involuntarily and wonder if there is not some sort of
reward for him. This " morality of tips ' finds expres-
sion in the feeling which demands that goodness shall be
rewarded with happiness and evil shall be punished : a
demand that Kant himself did not hesitate to use as an
argument in deducing his postulate of immortality.

The rigorism which would convert natural social feel-
ing from morality into legality must regard as the sole
spring of moral conduct " respect for the moral law '
and "a feeling for the dignity of personality." In this it
incurs the risk of pride in virtue which appeared promi-
nently enough in the Stoic morality. At the same time
its self-satisfaction of the moral act has in it something
of that very reward against which it most energetically
protests. Hence it is that Schiller attacked this rigorism
in his Ernst und Scherz ; though in Kant's ethic it is per-
haps more in the strength of the language than a real
rigorism. In opposition to it the poet-philosopher set
up the ideal of the beautiful soul, which has got so far
in moral development that it can trust its own feelings
without any risk of being brought into conflict with moral
law. In all cases of conflict between duty and inclination
this secures the domination of the moral maxims. The
higher perfection consists in the fact that a man has

248 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

learned to think so nobly that he does not need to brace
his will.

In view of all this we may distinguish various strata
of motivation in the moral life. The most primitive
is that of natural social feeling, in which the adjustment
of the individual will to the general will follows as a matter
of course. Next above this is the stratum of legality,
which is quite conscious of a contrast between the claims
of the general will and the individual will, and finds its
motives in the latter for its subjection to the former
Above this is the most complex stratum psychologically,
in which the command is recognised by the individual on
its own merits and is adopted in his own will with the
effect of overcoming its opposition — the stratum of, in
the strict sense, the morality of merit. Finally there is
the stage in which experience of life has brought about
an identification of the individual will with the general
will — the stratum of morality pure and simple.

Amongst the questions which are much discussed in
this connection there is a problem which in the course
of human thought has led to an extraordinary amount
of confusion, misunderstanding, and unfortunate blunder-
ing. This is the problem of the freedom of the will. The
needless difficulties that have been created in this field
are due to the complication of psychological questions
by questions of moral, legal, and religious responsibility ;
and this confusion can only be avoided by stating clearly
the different meanings of the word and the various prob-
lems to which they give rise.

In the first place, there is no problem of the freedom
of the will in cases where it means freedom of action, or
the capacity to translate the decision of the will into a
corresponding purposive movement of the body. Freedom
of this sort is a fact, a universal condition of human nature,
a power that can merely be restricted or destroyed in
certain circumstances by disturbances in the bodily
organism or by social or other external compulsion.

The difficulties are more serious when we consider
freedom of choice ; yet it is comparatively easy to get

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 249

over them as long as we confine ourselves to the province
of psychology. Choice means that, while there are different
and conflicting desires in consciousness, the action may
be exclusively determined by one or other of them. In
a conflict of motives, however, we have to consider, not
only the stimulations of the moment and the desires they
evoke, but also the constant tendencies of an individual's
will which are due to his entire development. If we
call this a conflict between the momentary provocations
and the character, all are agreed in the psychological
theory that the issue of the choice is determined by both
together according to the respective strength of each.
If we pay attention to the fact that it depends on diversi-
ties of character to what extent the stimulations of the
moment will influence the will, and if we speak of these
stimulations only as the motives, we come to the idea
that a man as a character is, in the process of choice,
independent in his decision of the motives — he is free.
This is usually called Indeterminism. If, on the other
hand, we emphasise the necessity with which the volition,
according to psychological theory, results from the col-
lated totality of elements, and we call them all motives
without distinction, including the constant volitions
which really constitute character,- we come to the con-
clusion that the will is inevitably determined by the
motives. This view is known as Determinism. In the
end, therefore, Indeterminism and Determinism are
psychologically at one ; they differ only in the extension
which they give to the meaning of the word " motive."
Hence there would be no occasion whatever for the heat
with which the controversy has been conducted if the
parties had not brought against each other the charge of
destroying responsibility.

In order to explain this we must first clearly understand
what we mean by responsibility. Any man who reflects
dispassionately on the matter will easily perceive that it
is a question of psycho-physical causal relations taken
from the ordinary ideas of daily life. We must premise
that there is no meaning in making something else respon-
sible, such as a cause for its effect. There are certain

250 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

foolish and irrational ways of attributing responsibility,
as when one who brings us bad news is held responsible
for the unhappy event which he announces, but certainly
did not cause. Rationally a man can only be held respon-
sible for his action in the sense that he — that is to say,
his nature as a more or less settled character — is the cause
of his actions. But, on the other hand, there is the prac-
tical meaning of responsibility that in some way the un-
pleasant consequences of an action are visited upon the
agent by making him suffer. Whether we see the practical
meaning of responsibility in the punishment alone, or in
intimidation, or in improvement, it always means that the
doer of evil deeds is to have counter-motives implanted
in him in the shape of unpleasant feelings, the aim of
which is to restore the due position of normal conscious-
ness in the offender. The whole process is clear and simple
in itself, yet it is the source of the whole complicated
problem of the freedom of the will. It is generally put
that responsibility assumes that it is possible to act
otherwise ; and this conditional power is then described
as freedom in the sense that the acts for which a man is
to be made responsible cannot be " necessary." Hence
the unfortunate idea of freedom as causelessness, the
metaphysical difficulties of which then combine with
the psychological difficulties and form an almost
inextricable confusion.

That a man might have acted differently from what
he actually did obviously means, supposing that he were a
different person. In the end it comes down to the ques-
tion whether a man can be held responsible for his own
nature. If we begin with a consideration of causes,
which is one aspect of responsibility, we have three alter-
natives. We may regard as the author of the man's nature
either, on the lines of theological metaphysics, a divine
creator or, on sociological lines, the social fabric ; or we
may, again in a metaphysical sense, regard the man's
individuality as one of the primary positions, the ultimate
elements, of reality, in which case there is no longer any
question about its cause. In the first case any impartial
person will ascribe the responsibility to the Deity, and it

THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY 251

is quite impossible to evade this conclusion by talking
about permission, etc. In the second alternative the
responsibility falls upon the community, upon its conditions
and institutions ; and in the modern theory of penal
legislation this idea is very familiar. It is only in the
third case that there remains any metaphysical originality
and personal responsibility ; but no one will question
that a theory of this kind opens the door to unthinkable
metaphysical vagaries which could not be reconciled
with any form of metaphysical or theological Henism.

Thus the theoretical study of the question whether there
is a freedom of the original volition in the sense that it is
uncaused comes to an end when one follows the causal
series of the volition beyond the individual into a field of
insoluble metaphysical difficulties. The identification of
causality with uniformity, which we saw in its main
features in dealing with theoretical problems, led to ideas
such as we express in statements like, " There is nothing
new in the world " — to the view that every event is neces-
sarily based upon some preceding event. On the con-
trary, the postulate of causal uniqueness is a need of
human nature. A man is conscious that in his responsible
activity he introduces into his surroundings something
new which would not be possible without that activity.
From this it seems to follow that human conduct must
be in a position to inaugurate new causal series and in-
corporate them in the subsisting general causal process.
It is interesting that this postulate was first expressed in
history in a metaphysical form, being used to explain
the origin of individual structures in the uniform
mechanism of the world. It was Epicurus who put
forward this typical conception of the freedom of the will
as the arbitrary and uncaused initiation of causal series.
He explained the origin of different worlds from the
uniform fall of atoms by the occasional deviation, however
slight, of some atoms from the general direction, and he
expressly drew a parallel between these deviations and
the arbitrary acts of men. The point of comparison
between the two is the causal uniqueness of an uncaused
event. The capacity for this in the psychic world is called

252 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

the libcrum arbitrium indiffer entice, and it is supposed to
cover motiveless acts of will which are believed to be
experienced as facts in the process of choice between
apparently " indifferent " alternatives. This idea of free-
dom as a volition which has no antecedent cause, but
has endless consequences in later events, is the real diffi-
culty which no amount of theorising seems able to solve.
Kant showed this most clearly of all. In his system
freedom is theoretically quite unintelligible, but absolutely
indispensable in practice from the consciousness of
responsibility.

As a matter of fact, the practical aspect of the problem
of responsibility can only be dealt with from the practical
standpoint. Here there is question, on the one hand,
of the share which falls to the individual in the division
of labour of social life, and which the interest of the whole
requires that he shall fulfil ; and, on the other hand, of
the observance of the rules which the conditions of com-
munity life demand. And in this sense holding a man
responsible merely means that the proper motives will
be strengthened in his mind by setting up rewards and
punishments. These are psycho-physical causal pro-
cesses that have their root in social life and their sanction
in its collective interests. For if the individual were to
turn upon this responsibility with the claim that he must
act in his own way according to universal law, the answer
would be that according to the same universal law the
community is required to react in its own way. The appeal
to mere causal necessities does not extricate us from the
difficulty. We must treat the matter as a practical pro-
cess which we cannot in any way trace to general theoreti-
cal considerations of a metaphysical nature. This is true
also of the refined and intimate form of responsibility in
which a man makes himself responsible to his own moral
or religious consciousness. In so far as this intimate
responsibility does not belong to the province of advan-
tages and disadvantages, the sphere of weal and woe, as
social and legal responsibility does, it has the significance
of a self-education in virtue of its analogous inspiration
of counter-motives or its confirmation of positive elements.

COMMUNAL WILL 253

All this, however, as something justified in itself and
ethically necessary, is entirely independent of the meta-
physical problems of the causelessness of the volition
with which theory has unnecessarily complicated a com-
paratively simple situation.

§15

Communal Will. — Individual and common will — Voluntary and pre-
existing unions — Natural and historical unions — The family,
nation, economic community, State, and Church — Custom, morals,
and law — Era of voluntary communities — Civilisation — Sociology —
Natural law and jurisprudence — The definition of law — Legal
duty, legal claims, legal rights — Law as the ethical minimum —
Purpose of the State and law — Liberalism and Socialism — The
national State — Object of the State — Real rationality of the legal
order.

In all forms of morality, although it has to be valid
for the dispositions and actions of the individual, yet
has to find a basis in his conscience, there is question
in the long run of some relation between the individual
and the general community. This community is opposed
to the individual as a complex of willing, and harmoniously
willing, other individuals, hence the centre of gravity of
all ethical problems is in this relation of the individual to
a community, or of the individual will to a universal will.
Even where the personality appears in its most intimate
independence — in conscience — it shows its dependence
upon a regard for the general will. On the other hand,
where the life-forms of the community develop in their
historical shapes as institutions, their significance is, in
some measure at least, restricted to the value which they
have or acquire for individuals. These are the poles
in all voluntary life ; it is always a question how far the
will of the individual and that of the community coincide
or diverge, and in the end the chief question is, what is
the nature of this whole that has the right to act as a
counterpart to the natural will of the individual. Even
in the most extreme cases to which this antagonism
leads, the individual must not ignore the collective will,

254 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

nor the general will entirely sacrifice the individual.
This fundamental relation is based upon the incomparable
position which man assumes in virtue of his remarkable
combination of individuality and sociality, We know
man only as a social being, and it is in view of this that
Aristotle has described the whole of practical philosophy
as ' political science." But it is not this which speci-
fically distinguishes man. There are many animals which
not only have a social life, but a social life much more
complex and perfect than that of man — from the corals
to the bees and ants. In the case of these the height of
their sociality consists in the unqualified and complete
absorption of the individual in the collective life, so that
we may question the very existence of an individual
will differing from or opposed to the general will. In the
case of man, on the contrary, a difference between the
two is customary, and this power of the individual to
oppose his will to that of the community is a character-
istic feature of our species. It is on this selfishness of
individuals that the specifically human thing, history,
is based. It does not consist merely in the cumulative
change brought about by the addition of individual
variations, which we find as a general biological fact in
the case of all animals, but in spasmodic changes due to
the strong wills of personalities. It has been well said
that man comes into the world as the most helpless of
creatures and is the most adapted for social life. That
is certainly true ; yet, on the other hand, he is even
better fitted, as a unique and incomparable reality, to
attain an inner independence and from this standpoint
to react upon the whole. The entire historical process
is an accentuation of this strain between the individual
and the whole, and therefore it is a misconception of the
elementary features of history to conceive its end as a
return to the animal sociality which may have suited the
lowest prehistoric condition of our race.

The super-individual whole in which man finds himself
incorporated is a voluntary community, directed to
purposes of the will. Hence the principle of ethics requires
something more than the purely formal conception of

COMMUNAL WILL 255

an incorporation in the hierarchy of the organic structure,
at which we glanced in dealing with the problems of
teleology. It is a question of a whole that is full of life-
values, and therefore of value as a whole ; and this is
found only in a compact totality of wills. We may
speak of a common will, but we must say of this what
we occasionally said of a common consciousness when
we dealt with theoretical questions. An attempt has
been made to ascribe some substantial reality beyond the
individual minds to this common spirit — we hear of the
spirit of the nation, the time-spirit, the spirit of commerce,
etc. — but in social psychology even more than in indi-
vidual psychology it holds that the synthetic unity of
consciousness is, as far as empirical knowledge goes, of
a functional, not a substantive, character. In the case
of the collective mind we lack the defmiteness of a bodily
organ, which is certainly the empirical foundation of the
individual mind. In the case of the spirit of the people
or the time-spirit we have no such thing in a specific form.
We have to have recourse to Fechner's idea of the spirit
of a planet in order to find anything of the kind. Apart
from metaphysical vagaries of this kind, and looking
more closely into the relation of the collective spirit and
the individual spirit, we have to admit that the collective
mind has no other physical basis than the individuals,
and that it merely indicates psychic processes which occur
in the individuals, and occur in them because they live
a common life. The measure of this biological connection
determines in particular cases whether more influence
comes from the totality or from the individuals which
grow out of and in it. In any case the development is

I that the individual mind filled itself first and foremost
with those contents which are common to it and its entire
social environment, and that the peculiarities with which
it at times opposes itself to the whole arise from this.
We all know that our ideas, our whole theory of the world
and of life, develop spontaneously as the theory of our
living environment, and that only out of this in the course
of time, when the circumstances are favourable, do we
get individual thought and judgment that may differ

25G ETHICAL PROBLEMS

from and conflict with the traditional. Psychogenetically,
we should never forget, the collective mind precedes
the individual ; it is the womb in which the latter is
moulded.

From this standpoint, in order to state clearly the
ethical problems which arise in this connection, we will
first consider the various types of voluntary communities
which are within our actual knowledge. They have been
called societies or federations, though these are super-
ficial terms with a not very clearly defined significance.
Perhaps the best term is that used chiefly by Giercke,
associations. We distinguish between them genetically in
virtue of their relation to the individuals. Either the
individuals pre-exist and form the associations, or the
association comes first and determines the will of the
individual. The association may be, as far as the indi-
vidual is concerned, voluntary or involuntary. We
may therefore speak of constructed or of pre-existing
voluntary communities. Compare, for instance, a league
with a nation. I belong to the league, having been
invited to do so, by a declaration of my pleasure ; but I
belong to the nation without being invited and whether
I will it or no. The league has as a whole no other element
of will than that which its members give to it ; the nation
has a will as a whole and expresses it in all the individuals
who belong to it. The distinction, is best understood
on the analogy of the difference between mechanical
and organic development. In the one case the parts
precede the whole and constitute it ; in the other case
the whole precedes the parts and produces them by its
vital action. We quite understand why we speak of
an organic theory of the State when this association is
regarded as a totality antecedent to the individuals ;
whereas the " contract theory," which would attribute
the State to an agreement of individuals, treated it as
an association like any other. In reality all theories of
the nature of voluntary communities take one of two
directions : the universalistic-organic or the individualistic-
mechanical.

From these genetic differences between associations

COMMUNAL WILL 257

we get at once important differences with regard to the
position of individuals to them. To a league belongs
only so much of my will as is needed for the purpose of
the union. I have no further obligation toward it. The
individual member may will whatever he likes outside
of it. He may belong to other leagues provided that
does not affect the aim of the first league. The main
point is that my belonging to the league depends on my
own will. When it no longer suits me, I leave it. But
I cannot leave my nation. It embraces and determines
my will from youth onward. I belong entirely to it,
and my connection with it is up to a certain point indis-
soluble. It is a totally different kind of membership ;
there is more of " must " than of " will " in it. In earlier
ages the bond was almost absolute, especially where
State and nation were the same thing. Even in foreign
lands a man did not cease to belong to his nation. And
internally that is in a sense still the case. The individual
may oppose or alienate himself from his nation ; but in
his nature and character he cannot obliterate the main
features of his nationality, and often does not wish to
dd so. If in this example of so general an association
as is that of a nation we see something vague about the
relation between the individual and the whole, it is clear
where our problems lie. The one extreme, that of arti-
ficial and voluntary associations, is realised entirely in
the league ; the other is not found in absolute purity
in empirical conditions. In this respect one might
reduce the ethical problem to the formula : Is there a
voluntary community which a man cannot leave, and
which therefore still has a claim upon the will even when
the will is disposed to reject it ? In his " Community
of Rational Beings generally " Kant has, in his formula-
tion of the categorical imperative, given us the idea
of such an ideal voluntary community which a man
cannot leave. For the claim of the moral law is positive
and independent of any pre-existing will of an individual.
This community of rational beings is, however, a postu-
late of the moral consciousness, and not an actually
existing association. Amongst actual associations, leagues

17

258 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

and all sorts of societies with a definite practical purpose
have various degrees of value within the limits of the
interest of our ordinary life. They must be appreciated
according to the values which they are framed to pro-
mote. They are only means in the mechanism of motives,
and they therefore do not constitute an ethical problem.
It is quite otherwise with pre-existing associations.
In regard to these the individual raises the question of
the sanction of the claim which the common will, which
he had no share in producing, makes upon him ; whereas
in the case of a league he supplies the sanction himself
by becoming a member. Involuntary communities may
be either natural or historical associations. This appa-
rently sharp antithesis, however, proves to be anything
but sharp when we consider the facts. We may take
first the family as a purely natural association. On
looking closely into the matter, we must grant that the
ethical community which we respect under the name,
and regard as the very type of voluntary associations
and the germ of civilisation, is in the last resort a
product of history. The connection between mother
and children, in the first place, is older than mankind ;
and what we learn from sociologists as to the matriarch-
ate and the associations of men dependent thereon shows
quite clearly, however much one may contest details of
the theory, that the family in the modern sense is an out-
come of the time when the human herd ceased to be
nomadic. When we consider also the innumerable forms
of polygamy of which we read in history, we see that
the monogamous family, with which ethics is concerned,
is really an evolutionary product of civilisation. We
owe it to the Caucasic race, while other races have remained
nearer to the natural condition of polygynous associa-
tions. This origin of the monogamous family does not
prevent us from regarding it as the first and most sacred
of voluntary communities and, in spite of its imperfec-
tions and occasional evils, the absolute type of the
ethical life, adumbrating all social relations in a simple
and admirable form. One may say, indeed, that in this
first construction of a totality all those relations of

COMMUNAL WILL 259

subordination and co-ordination, which are indispensable
to a voluntary community, have their finest and firmest
expression, and we therefore know what to think of the
reactionary movements in which modern individualism
endeavours to destroy this great achievement of history.
On the families is based the community of the people,
in which we find the same relations between natural
and historical origin on a larger scale. We may recognise
that, as is expressed in the meaning of the natio as the
totality of the cognati, community of descent is one of
the conditions of the unity of the people ; but this can
never be taken absolutely. It cannot be controlled, and
our modern peoples, who have passed through countless
wars and are in constant commcrcium and connubium
with each other, have ended with an indistinguishable
confusion of blood in their veins. It is only in lower
races without any history that we may find a unity or
purity of race, though even in these cases it is diluted
at the frontiers. All peoples in the course of their develop-
ment take into their midst other peoples whom they
have brought under their yoke, and, on the other hand,
various sections are detached from their own body.
Hence a people is never merely a physical community.
It is psychic, produced in historical movement, a
community of mind, heart, and will. Even the country,
in spite of its importance in the popular mind as the home
of the nation, is no indispensable element of a community ;
as we see in the case of nomadic peoples or those which
maintain their community independently of any particular
country. The decisive external expression of this psychic
union is the language ; just as the Greeks distinguished
themselves from all other peoples on the ground that
these were " barbarians," or stammerers. In the language
the spiritual community is expressed as the elaboration
of a definite historical life-content, the finest shape of
which is found in its literature. Thus language and
literature form the essential characteristic and, at the
same time, the highest possession of a people : the
outcome of its spiritual activity and the measure of its
contribution to civilisation. Whoever deprives a people

260 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

of this possession, or destroys its love of it, is its real
and most dangerous enemy.

While the association of the people, being a half
natural and half historical phenomenon, has not quite
definite outlines, this is even more true of the forms of
the economic community, to which it was long customary
to give the name ' society ' in a specific sense. It is
the loosest and least organised of all. Whatever shape
it has, it owes partly to the unions which individuals
form for definite purposes and partly to the co-operation
of State-forces. It is itself, it is true, not bound up with
any of these special unions, or with any particular people
or State. In it we have an expression of the common
will by means of usages, customs, and traditions which
can only partly attain an organised form. It contains
the mechanism of economic life, to meet and initiate
fresh paths for which is the task partly of individuals
and their various combinations, and partly of the State
or States. We need not inquire here how much is to
be expected or desired from one side or the other. That
is a matter of life and, as far as science is in harmony
with it, of the national economy. But it is clear that
this also, together with the establishment of aims, which
must be assumed for economic communities, has its roots
in the general principles of ethics.

The State has quite a different position amongst the
types of voluntary communities, in so far as they repre-
sent pre-existing life-unities. For the individual it pre-
exists, and is only in a very slight degree natural ; its
nature is, indeed, historically determined, since it is not
the same thing as the people. The German people does
not live entirely in the German Empire, but in Switzer-
land and Austria also ; and these States in turn include
others besides Germans. For the State the external
condition is the country, its territory, hence it has a
precision of frontiers which a people never has. Yet a
State is not merely a community confined within a definite
country ; its characteristic feature and its inner condition
is a predominating will, which holds the physical and
psychic power. When there is no such psychic power,

COMMUNAL WILL 261

the State is in a condition of decay ; it merely lives on
the relics of its physical power, which, moreover, is
always based upon psychic power, upon authority. How
this power came into existence, whether by usurpation
or contract, by force or by law — in what persons it is
embodied — what is the purpose of its exercise — these
are all qualitative differences between States which may
be very considerable. There are similar differences in
their quantitative aspects, the extent of a State varying
from the ancient City-State to a structure like the United
States of North America. What is essential to the nature
of a State is the domination of will, which extends to
every external function of the life of the subjects.
Hence the State is a visible organisation by means of
which a common will presses into its service the activity
of individuals. Out of this organised nature of the State
we get law, as the form in which it expresses and formu-
lates its will. It is, in respect of its tendency, the common
will developed from its primitive haziness to a definite
form, and is therefore the highest shape in which such
a common will can develop.

The Church occupies a special position amongst the
pre-existing communities into which a man is born. We
must distinguish it from the more general idea of a
common religious will, which embraces many other forms.
These differ in virtue of the differences of religions, which
may be either evolved or founded religions. In the case
of evolved religions the religious community coincides
in the main with the people, as we see in the classical
instance of Judaism. Membership of the people means
also membership of the cult : communion with the great
ancestors, heroes, and gods. Here again large associa-
tions do not exclude smaller ones. Thus there were
cults for the two sexes within the common cult, or cults
of particular City-States along with the aesthetic national
religion, in ancient Greece. Vague intermediate forms
also arise in the shape of mysteries, and to some extent
these assume the character of unions or founded associa-
tions (OiaaoC). They are fraternities for the purpose of
salvation with all the features of leagues ; they leave it
to the individual will to enter or leave them.

262 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

Of the founded religions Mohammedanism arises as
a tribal religion, and combines with a conquering and
subjugating political power, so that, for a time at least,
the community of religion coincides with the community
of the State. It was otherwise with Christianity. At
first it was one amongst many religious associations in
the Roman Empire : a founded association, which the
individual was free to enter or leave, as is the case with
recent sects such as the Quakers, Methodists, Memnonites,
Mormons, Salvation Army, etc. But what are now called
Churches are quite different. They are very far from
calling themselves mere unions or associations. As they
have historically developed, they are now for the individual
pre-existing associations, almost in the same sense as is
the State. A man belongs to them from birth, without
being invited, and the declaration of membership which
one makes in childhood, at confirmation, is as a rule
anything but an act of free will. In theory membership
of the Church is as indissoluble as membership of the
State. In certain historical periods, such as the Middle
Ages, this indissolubility was asserted in practice ; no
one was free to leave, or could leave except by way of
expulsion. In modern times it is possible to break one's
connection with either Church or State, but it is [in Ger-
many] rarely done, and it is made difficult by social
usages and legal regulations. The result is that many
are counted as members of both Church and State who
in their own hearts and convictions do not belong to them.
The Roman Church insists on the principle that membership
cannot be surrendered, or regards the ' apostate ' as
still belonging to it.

All this shows marked analogies between Church and
State ; and as a matter of fact, although the Church has
the aim of giving reality to the religious life on earth, it
has one essential feature in common with the State-
domination. The organised will of the ecclesiastical
regiment, assuming different shapes (monarchic or demo-
cratic) in different organisations, always means power
over subjects, and sometimes it assumes the character
of an entirely worldly rule. The analogy with the State

COMMUNAL WILL 263

is further seen in the fact that the Churches create their
own law, which ought to be the prerogative of the State.
They frame a constitutional law, penal law, and even,
to some extent, parts of the civil law — a marriage law,
for instance — and for the purpose of seeing it carried out
they have organised officials, institutions, and property.
This is just the same as in the State ; yet the Churches
are not, and do not wish to be, States. The power of the
State is both physical and psychic : that of the Church
is of itself psychic only. It becomes physical only when
the State lends the Church its power. It is very difficult
to assign the limits between the two in this respect, for
the State's physical power rests ultimately on psychic
power — on its authority over subjects, on their convic-
tions, confidence, obedience, subjection, and, where
necessary, on fear. In the case of the Church the charac-
teristic thing is that its physical power depends always
on the State. It is made up of concessions by the State,
and is not really sovereign, but delegated. There is no
valid Church-law except in the case of " recognised
religious associations," or Churches, as is commonly
said. If a sect wished to lay down rules for its members
which conflicted with the law of the State — take the
case of the Mormons — they would be just as ineffective
as the rules of any other society would be. This is the
situation as far as the facts go. Ecclesiastical theory,
it is true, bases the power of the Church on a divine
institution ; but this naturally holds only for the members
of the Church. It is from this character of the Church
as a semi-State that it becomes involved in difficulties
with the State. At times it appears as a political power
like any State ; at times it emphasises the fact that its
aim is different from the State, since it lies beyond this
world. But this is not the place to discuss arguments
of this nature and subject them to the test of history
and fact.

This survey of the known types of associations, especially
of the differences between voluntary communities which
the individual finds pre-existing, was necessary if we
are to understand the way in which they become ethical

264 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

problems. Each of us at first finds these associations,
which precede our existence, set before us as something
of self-evident validity ; indeed, in the strict sense they
are not set before us or above us, but we experience
them as elements of our conscious will in common
with our fellows. Of the ground of their validity we
have a very vague idea, in fact scarcely a conscious idea
at all. They rule us by custom, the involuntary observ-
ance of inherited and traditional usages. They are a
mode of feeling, willing, and acting in which we find
ourselves involved, and with which we co-operate, without
asking any questions about their basis, perhaps not even
about their meaning. The main source of custom is in
natural associations, even when these have only attained
their full significance in the course of time — in the family,
the people, and the social community. Hence custom is,
in its involuntariness and its vague influence, the primitive
form of the spiritual community ; not only in feeling and
will, but also in ideas and views. It does not rely for
protection and sanction on any visible authority, but on
public opinion or the general mind, which assumes a
dominating position in each individual mind.

This primitive state of custom, however, undergoes
an historical development, and every people that passes
into the historical phase inherits the process which we
find with grandiose simplicity in the period of the Greek
cultural advance — the emancipation of the individual.
It is partly based upon the energy with which the will
of the individual resists the pressure of prevailing custom,
but partly on a perception of the contradictions in which
custom becomes involved owing to the fact that the
individual belongs to many different associations with
different aims. When the claims of the family, the
State, and the people differ from each other, or are even
antagonistic to each other, the individual has to decide
for himself, and he thus becomes partly freed from the
semi-conscious tyranny of custom which had at first
ruled him. By this process custom is divided into two
parts. On one side, the intimate side, custom becomes
personal morality ; on the other hand, the external

COMMUNAL WILL 265

side or external life, it takes the form of State-regulations
in the shape of law. The more morality and law take
over the work of custom, in their different ways, the more
custom falls into decay. It becomes to some extent
superfluous, and is confined to what is of no consequence
from the moral or the legal point of view. The relation
between these three ethical powers — custom, morals,
and law — determines the far-reaching variations of social
life. How much law leaves to custom, and how much
law and custom leave to individual morality, is character-
istic in the highest degree of a people or an age. There
is no rule by which this is determined. It has to be
studied historically in each case. The broader the rule
of custom, the poorer personal morality is and the cruder
and more external the law. The broader, more subtle,
and more intimate the law is, the more zealously individual
morality, which grows stronger in opposition to it, guards
its province against law and custom. In the end the
two great developments of custom stand face to face
with each other, and give us the main problem of civilisa-
tion : What is the frontier between the province of moral
personality and that of legal government ?

In such a situation the mind recalls the difference in
value of the many voluntary communities into which the
individual is born, and the inevitable question arises,
whether there is a standard, by which we may appreciate
these differences of value, that may claim universal and
necessary validity. In the personal decision of the indi-
vidual it is always his interests, partly his convictions,
which influence him in each case of conflict. But the
distressing doubts into which he may or must be driven
impel him to look for some such ultimate standard of
judgment. It can be found only when a man bears
clearly in mind the function which these communities
have to discharge. In the case of deliberate associations,
leagues or unions, the function may be any of the very
varied purposes of daily life, amongst which the Eudae-
monistic or Utilitarian feature is a common element.
When this is met, the tasks of these various pre-existing
communities go further, and their claims on the individual

266 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

are sanctioned by the duties they have to discharge.
These duties, however, differ considerably in character,
and it may be asked whether we can bring them all
under one common formula.

An attempt is made to do this by indicating the welfare
or advancement of the individuals as the aim and task
of these associations. In doing this, however, we put
them on the level of leagues, and there is no justification
for their assuming a dominion over the individual to
which he does not consent. On the other hand, the
attempt may be made to seek the aim of these pre-existing
communities, beyond the social fabric, in the higher
nature of man. The solution which was obvious in the
case of the Church seems to some to apply also to the
State, and even to the people and the family. But the
principles involved in that solution lay beyond the limits
of scientific knowledge, in the ideas and claims of faith.
The only alternative, if in explaining this task we may
neither sink to individual utility nor rise to metaphysical
hypotheses, is to seek in the nature of these communities
themselves some immanent indication of their function ;
and for this purpose we find some assistance in the
evolution of custom into morals and law. This shows
us that at the base of every existing community there is
a psychic collective life, especially a collective will, in a
form that is obscure, vague, and unconscious of its own
grounds. This collective element must be fully under-
stood and must have an external shape. This elaboration
of the vital order for the purpose of collective activities
and for the construction of visible institutions in which
they are expressed is what we call civilisation. As
opposed to nature and natural powers, it means that
which man makes with conscious power out of his environ-
ment. In the work of these vital tasks the individual
as such, and in his independence as regards traditional
customs, takes a part, and strives to bring on the common
life, in which he arises, to a conscious improvement and
external form. Thus the task of voluntary communities,
and therefore of individuals, is the creation of these vital
orders and therefore the production of civilised institu-

COMMUNAL WILL 267

tions ; for the work of each individual is to co-operate
in the realisation of the task in the position assigned to
him by all the elements and particular features which
constitute individuality.

We must leave it to special discussions of ' practical
philosophy ' to deduce from this the consequences for
ethical theory and the philosophic science of society.
All that we had to do here was to indicate the philosophical
point of view from which alone these voluntary commu-
nities must be treated. Those who are not clear on the
matter remain in the sphere of social psychology and
its genetic explanations. Since the name Sociology—
a good name in itself — was introduced by Auguste Comte,
it has generally been applied to inquiries which are of
a social-psychological, or, as is sometimes said (just
as infelicitously), folk-psychological character ; inquiries
which borrow all sorts of facts from ethnography, pre-
history, and history. That is in itself a very worthy
subject of scientific research, but for philosophy it provides
only the data from which the problems arise. We can
speak of a philosophical sociology only in the sense of
a research into the value of the various types and strata
of voluntary communities and the functions on the dis-
charge of which such value may depend.

The contrasts of scientific attitude toward the problems
presented by associations are most clearly seen in the
treatment of the most advanced of vital orders : namely,
in dealing with theories of law. A philosophy of law is
greatly distrusted even by jurists ; and that is easily
understood, because they fear that there is question of
some other law than theirs, a law that holds nowhere,
a Utopian law — the so-called " law of nature." Let us
see first how the idea of a law of nature arose, and what
sound and unsound elements there are in it. Antiquity
did not expressly attempt to set up a philosophic or
normal law, or, as has been said, a just law in face of
the existing or positive law ; though there are approaches
to this in the Sophistic distinction between what is valid
by nature and what is valid by promulgation (tfrvaei TJ

'268 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

Even the Roman jurists, in spite of their relations
to the Stoics, took little notice of this distinction. Where
they speak of a jus naturale, a lex naturae, a detiora
naturalis, they mean either the positive consciousness
and feeling of law or the logical consistency in the series
of legal propositions. For them the jus naturale is one
of the sources of law or one of the motives of the positive
law with which they deal. The antithesis of natural
and existing law comes later ; to some extent in medieval
philosophy, but particularly during the Renaissance.
Modern philosophy, which mainly took its conceptual
apparatus from science, derived its knowledge from
general conceptions and judgments with their timeless
validity. It therefore believed that it could deduce
law philosophically from general nature, or at least human
nature, by a purely rational process, whilst historical
knowledge was restricted to the various phenomena of
positive law. In this way there emerged the idea of a
general rational law which was, and ought to be, naturally
valid, as distinguished from positive law with its actual
validity within certain time-limits. Hence the difference
in value which determined that in a case of disagreement
the higher validity should belong to the rational or
natural law. The general concept becomes the judge
of the individual phenomenon ; the natural becomes the
standard for judging the historical ; the idea becomes
an ideal. A distinction is drawn between the law that
is and the law that ought to be. The science of actual
law is jurisprudence : the science of ideal law is the
natural law.

This antithesis is not convenient for the jurist. The
law with which he deals is a fact, a tangible reality. The
other, which does not exist, seems to him a creature of
fancy or of wish. It is law as the professors, perhaps,
would like to see it. If that were true, all philosophy
of law would be in a sorry plight, and therefore we must
at once remove this misunderstanding. It is not an
ideal and artificially constructed law that is the subject
of a philosophy of law, but actually existing law, the law
with which jurisprudence deals. It is just the same as

COMMUNAL WILL 269

in all other sections of philosophy. Natural philosophy
does not speak about an ideal nature which it itself creates,
but of the same nature with which physics and chemistry,
physiology and psychology, are concerned. Logic is
not expected to bring science into existence ; it investi-
gates knowledge and science which come into being and
work quite independently of logic. Moral philosophy is
not imperativist in the sense that the philosopher under-
takes to create new values ; he deals with the actual
moral life. /Esthetics has not to invent a new art ; it
discusses existing art. Above all, the philosophy of
religion has no intention of thinking out a philosophic
religion ; it has to deal with religion as we all experience
it. It is not the object, but the mode of treatment,
which distinguishes philosophical theory from that of
the other sciences. When this distinction is forgotten,
when philosophy attempts to encroach upon the genetic
theories of the other sciences, it becomes superfluous and
meaningless.

In this way the philosophy of law has to recognise
jurisprudence in its entirety. It is the business of juris-
prudence to state the actual law and show its logical
connectedness. That is its dogmatic function. It has
to study the origin and development of law. That is
its historical function. It has to work out the system of
its application to particular cases. That is its prac-
tical function. Thus the interpretation, history, and
technique of law always presuppose an existing law in
its various historical manifestations. Philosophy does
the same, but it regards the subject from an entirely
different point of view ; and this is the sound element
in the old idea of natural law. It is an undoubted fact
that we study the actually existing law. Do we not
speak at times of an unjust law ? Every advance in
law, every change in legislation, is based upon some such
censure, which in some way recognises the unsatisfac-
toriness of the positive law. In practice these censures
are very individual, very variable, and inspired by very
different motives. In face of this we see in the principle
of a natural law a desire to make these censures objective

270 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

and universal, to give them a scientific basis. Hence
here again the philosophic standpoint is that of an appre-
ciation of values of universal validity. We have not to
enlarge our knowledge of reality and its causal relations,
but to discover how it is possible to determine values.
This was the aim of natural law, but it was carried out
in quite a wrong way, as an ideal law which was valid
without restriction of time was set up, and the value of
every positive law was measured according to the measure
of its agreement therewith. Instead of this ideal we
must conceive our task as one for the fulfilment of which
the law already exists, and for the sake of which it has
been produced. Once we define our task and aim, the
means of realising it cannot be deduced logically — this
was the error of the old natural law — but the aim can
merely be used as a standard to apply in considering
actual laws. Here again, however, we must guard against
a certain confusion. We may consider whether the
law is, having regard to its purpose, fitted to carry out
the intention of the legislator. This consideration of
the technical satisfactoriness of legislation is in every
case the business of jurisprudence. Hence there is no
question of empirical work of this kind when the
philosophy of law discusses the aim of law ; for opinions
on this subject may be sound or unsound, and even contra-
dictory. We might say that in certain circumstances
even an abuse of law may technical!}' be admirable.
From these opinions we appeal to what opinion ought
to be — to the ethical end of law.

In general we may understand by law a system of
rules which an organised voluntary community has laid
down for its subjects as the indispensable minimum of
the claims it makes upon them for the realisation of its
cultural function ; and it has laid these down in the
sense that an official executive will see that they are
enforced, will punish transgressions, and will decide in
case of dispute about them. Amongst the characteristics
which we include in this definition there are two which
may be differently interpreted according to certain
individual or general tendencies. The value of legal

COMMUNAL WILL 271

clauses as norms is based upon the fact that the duties
of the individual are settled by the whole — the State —
and it follows from this that the claim upon law is merely
the correlative of the duty to law. My claim upon law
consists of the duties that my fellows have toward me
in virtue of the law. In this it seems to individualistic
thought that the originality of the claims which indi-
viduals have upon the State is not sufficiently recognised.
We may, however, meet this objection by observing that
the ethical claim of the personality, which we may call
a moral right, does not arise from the law itself, but is
one of the antecedent sources of the law, whilst the claim
upon law can only be something that arises from the
law itself. The same arguments will suffice to settle the
controversy whether law is to be denned as the limitation
of an original right. A right in this original sense means
the sphere of those functions which are not regulated by
law, and the free discharge of which is therefore protected
by law ; though on the condition that they do not disturb
the legal order. In all these matters the Kantist principle
holds that law represents the sum of the conditions in
which the freedom of the individual can be adjusted to
the freedom of his fellows under a general rational law.
If law determines by means of a general enactment what
I have to do or to omit, it eo ipso determines what the
others have to do or to omit in regard to me. My legal
claims are laid down at the same time as my legal duties.
However, this mutual limitation of the life-spheres of
individuals extends only to those interests which fall
within the province of law — of State regulation. These
are always only a part of the entire activity of the will.
And the settlement of the matter depends upon what
one regards as the end of the State, and therefore of its
legal regulation. In our definition of law we have given
this element a general formal expression which results
from what we said previously about the evolution of
custom, morals, and law. We saw that custom is quanti-
tatively, and morality qualitatively, greater than law.
The fulfilment of his legal duties is the least that life
asks of a man : custom and morality demand far more.

272 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

If one does not comply with their demands, he is not
held legally responsible, but he is all the more visited with
the penalties of social life and the moral censure of his
fellows and his own conscience. On the other hand,
there are cases in which the law makes demands which
conflict with custom, or even with mature personal
morality, but it never demands more than they. A man
may be a scoundrel, yet legally unassailable ; the con-
verse case, in which one might be in the grip of the law,
yet morally right, is an exceptional happening in certain
tragic conflicts. The claim of law, therefore, extends
only to the indispensable minimum which the State must
have from everybody. Hence Jellinek's definition : the
law is the ethical minimum.

This minimum, moreover, is not definitely fixed in
relation to the whole of man's interests. The limits are
subject to considerable variations. The minimum, in
fact, has its own maximum and minimum. The content
of the legal regulation depends, both in theory and prac-
tice, on what one conceives to be the end of the State.
The extreme limit in this respect was the theory that the
legal order of the State has nothing to do beyond protecting
the lives and property of individuals. That was the
sentiment of modern individualistic Liberalism, which
started from the originality and self-mastery of the
individual, and regarded the State as a technical product
of the common consent of the individuals. This is the
tendency of what is called the contract-theory, which,
if it meant more than an explanation of the origin of
the State, got into the vicious circle of maintaining that,
while a valid contract is not possible until the State is
formed, there was at least a regulative idea in the sense
that the State had the right only to lay down things to
which its subjects would agree if they were asked if they
cared to be members of it. It follows plainly from this
that the individual concedes to the legal order only as
much as it finds absolutely necessary ; and that ought
to be the protection, as far as external conditions are
concerned, of the independent activity of the individuals.
The historical weight of this theory comes of its connec-

COMMUNAL WILL 273

tion with the Protestant conscience and the agitation
for tolerance. The idea of religion as a private affair
of the individual rose in rebellion against the State-
organisation of religious life in the Church, and the first
sphere of life which claimed freedom from the State was
that of personal religion. Other spheres, such as trade
and commerce, science and art, which are equally based
upon the free activity of the individual, wished to be
free from the State, yet protected by it. On these lines
the State is in itself a matter of indifference to the indi-
vidual. All the main interests of personality, its external
and internal possessions, lie outside it. It is a necessary
evil which a man keeps at a distance as far as possible
— the " scavenger-State." When this extreme is devel-
oped, law and State have no positive roots in the indi-
vidual ; there is no State-sentiment. From the theoretical
point of view it appears that even the discharge of this
function of the State is a technical matter, and it may
be essentially the same everywhere. That is a funda-
mental element of the old law of nature. In this the
function of being a genuine inner voluntary community
and an external ordering of life based thereon is most
imperfectly realised. It is, as Schiller and Fichte said,
the State for necessities only. All cultural resources
were to be sought in the individual with his self-expression
in religion, art, science, industry, trade, etc. — in a word,
all that we call civilisation.

Now, ought the State and the law to be cut off from
these and have no ethical inwardness ? Here we have
the other extreme, which claims that they must have all
these things as the essential elements of their aim. This
is the "organic" conception of the civilised State. It
must be based upon a complete community of will, and
this must be realised in the full extent of public life. In
the long run this becomes the Socialist ideal. The prac-
ticable elements of this are suited only for small associa-
tions like the City-States of ancient Greece. It is true
that even these were very far in their real features from
the ideal form which Plato gave to their principle in
his Politeia. In developing the idea of a complete commu-

18

274 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

nity of will the philosopher found himself compelled, on
the one hand, to underrate and reject the family, and,
on the other hand, to restrict government to the aristo-
cratic section of ancient society, which was to leave the
inferior and necessary work of daily life to an army of
slaves much more numerous than itself. Far different
are the civilised States of our time, which have the basis
of their community of will in the historical evolution of
peoples, and are therefore National States. In their case
the adjustment of the interests of the whole to those of
individuals has in principle succeeded so well that the
individual can enter even with his most valuable work
into the activity of the State without any prejudice to
his inner independence. In all these various forms the
State and its legal order have become the vehicles of
civilisation to such an extent that the State-institutions
sustain the progress of the collective spiritual work. The
most important of these institutions is, as Plato perceived,
education, by means of which the State ensures the
continuity of the common will throughout the succession
of generations. The moment the State relinquishes
education it ceases to be a civilised State, and sinks to
the position of a State merely endowed with power and
looking after the welfare of citizens.

When we compare the two extremes, we see that they
agree in placing the end of the legal order of the State
somewhere in the field of cultural activities, and merely
differ as to the means. Individualism would restrict the
legal order to securing to the individual the possibility
of exerting his cultural activity. Universalism demands
that the legal order shall directly contribute thereto by
an organisation of the common life. A way has been
sought out of this formal contradiction, without going
into their many ramifications, by the purely formal
theory that the legal order must be regarded as an autono-
mous end, not as a means ; as if it were necessary that
State and law must exist somehow, no matter in what
form. Certainly the legal order has its ethical value,
but it always derives this from the content which it has
to realise. Hence the theory of the State and law as an

COMMUNAL WILL 275

autonomous end, which is really a relic of the old law
of nature, is unsatisfactory ; though it contains an element
that is always worthy of consideration in connection
with the question of the validity-in-itself which has to
be claimed for the types of voluntary communities.

As a matter of fact this question is one of the chief
points in the philosophy of law, and, neglecting a number
of special problems such as that of the sanction of the
right to punish, which we touched in connection with
responsibility, we turn to consider it. All these vital
orders, and particularly law, are the work of men.
Behind them is the living man with his interests, feelings,
and desires, even his affections and passions. No one
denies that. But in view of the emphasis which is
sometimes put on it, we may ask whether these orders
are really only the work of man ; whether, from the very
fact that man develops the necessary activity from his
interests, transcendental orders are not involuntarily
realised ; whether here again there is not something of
what Hegel called " the cunning of the idea " — namely,
that higher contents emerge unsought from the play of
the movements of earthly life, and develop in them of
their own inner necessity. That certainly happens in
other fields. Knowledge also is the work of man, born
of human needs ; but it does not end there. In it the
transcendental comes into consciousness : realities of
a higher order. That is the validity-principle of actual
necessity, which is the real nucleus of the transcendental
philosophy. We cannot think without combining valid
contents in valid forms, and it is only a question of our
becoming fully conscious of it.

It is the same with the various orders of community
of will. Wherever there is a voluntary communit}', and
whatever its purpose, it is bound to have certain forms
and rules, however scanty and loose they may be, as
they are in the case of leagues, unions, etc. This element
of indispensability, which is in the nature of things and
is essential in every form of voluntary community, was
certainly part of what people aimed at in the law of
nature. It corresponds, on the highest stage of abstrac-

276 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

tion, to the element which is pursued by rational theories
of jurisprudence, in part, as opposed to the historical
schools. In both cases there is a conviction that in this
we have the rule of necessities which are independent of
the arbitrariness of individuals or the chance of circum-
stances, and are rooted in the reality itself — in the reason
of things. From another side the comparative science
of law is on the track of these necessities in an empirical
way, as it attempts to discover by a collection of the
facts what the general element is — what law in general is.
If in these ways we find that some community of will
given by nature and history as an obscure rudiment seeks
distinctness, conscious self-comprehension, and firm
external shape in the legal order, the aim is still very
imperfectly realised. All realisation of law in legislation,
government, and executive is limited by the individuals
whose business it is to take part therein. Even the
meaning of the collective will of the State is a problem
that constitutional law can never clearly solve, and that
is, perhaps, best expressed, with Rousseau, in the
formula, how the volonte generale is related to the volonte
dc toiis. For the " general will ' can never be simply
the will of all, otherwise all injustice ceases. The general
will, therefore, is not a natural fact, but an historical
task ; and it is a superstition that the modern method
of securing it by adequate majorities has solved the
problem. If we further consider the men employed in
carrying out the law, how there must always be weak,
fallible, and blundering officials in the government and
executive, we see how little one can speak of a complete
realisation of the collective will by any single historical
legal order. But even if we flattered ourselves that we
had overcome these difficulties, even if in some fortunate
case the restrictions which a people experiences in the
development of its legal order, partly on account of
inimical relations to other peoples and partly by the
division of parties at home, were removed, even then,
in the case of this most perfect phenomenal form of the
realm of morality (to speak with Hegel), the vital order
would still be bound up with the special historical features

HISTORY 277

of a single people or State. None of these historical
special phenomena fully realises humanity as a community
of will. Yet the life of peoples, States, and even of
individuals has no other meaning than this, to realise in
the collective life and in outer form what is implanted
in the nature of man as an unconscious and obscure
collective will. That is the very meaning of the word
"civilisation" in its modern sense. We understand by
it, not merely a cultivation of the mind, but the
self-realisation of the rational germ, the conscious
comprehension and elaboration of what a man finds
given in himself. The living man makes himself in the
course of time what he is according to the outline laid
down in him. " Become what thou art " is the supreme
law of the individual. It is the law also of peoples,
which are summoned to realise their inmost being in
the creation of their State and its legal order. But
humanity as a whole is not realised in any single people
or State. Its realisation is history.

§16

History. — The philosophy of higher research — What happens in and around
man — Individuality and personality — Self-consciousness — Emanci-
pation of the personality — History of language — Collectivist and
individualist history — Superpersonality of values — Unity of the
human race — Concept and idea of humanity — Historical unifica-
tion— Moral order of the world — Progress in history — Indefinite
perfectibility — Intellectual, moral, and hedonistic progress — Old
age and death of humanity — Life as the greatest good — Reality
with and without time.

The philosophy of history has, like the philosophy of
law, to reckon with the special science which deals with
the same subject, and it has to see that it incurs no risk
or suspicion of encroaching upon it. For historical
research as a whole has to investigate and arrange the
historical cosmos as thoroughly as natural science does
with the natural cosmos. What philosophical stand-
point is there, apart from this, from which this broad
province of knowledge can and ought to be further con-

278 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

sidered ? Let us first lay down a negative qualification
and limitation. The philosophy of history has often
been conceived, especially in its beginnings, as we find
more or less in Herder, and is still often conceived, as if
its business was to sum up the results of research in
a survey of universal history. But a universal history
of this kind is and remains an historical science, and
philosophy must not attempt anything new in this line.
Either it would have to be identical with the empirical
science — in which case it would be superfluous — or it would
have to teach something different from the historian
about these ultimate truths of history — and in that case
it would be false. This, therefore, is not the task of
the philosophy of history ; nor, on the other hand, is
it restricted to being a mere theory of knowledge for
the historical sciences. It would not, indeed, be wrong
for it to seek the achievement of its aim by a kind of
investigation that has frequently been attempted in
modern times. Just as natural philosophy in its first
stages may be construed as a philosophy of the sciences
— that is to say, a theory of knowledge for scientific
research — so one might make the philosophy of history
a philosophy of historical science — that is to say, a theory
of knowledge for historical science. But just as natural
philosophy has, after this preparatory work, to enter
upon its proper problems in its own way, so the philosophy
of history also may and must, from its special point
of view, go on to a conceptual treatment of the actual
problems of the evolution of civilisation.

As far as the theory of knowledge for historical research
is concerned, the essential points have been considered
when we discussed noetical problems. We saw that the
principle of selection and synthesis in the science is always
a relation of value. An event becomes historical when,
in virtue of its individual significance, it is directly or
indirectly related to values. Thus the empirical science
of history creates its objects, since it gives prominence
amongst the immense variety of events to those which
may be of interest on account of their relations to value,
and it then combines the separate elements in constructions

HISTORY 279

which in turn are related to values. But this relation
to value — we must constantly emphasise this in order
to avoid very unfortunate and frequent misunderstandings
— is by no means a judgment of value. Moralising valua-
tions have no more to do with historical than with
natural science. Both are scientific presentations, without
regard to value, of what is — what ought to be or has
been. Hence when it is said that the theory of knowledge
of historical science must be sought in ethics, we do not
mean ethics as the theory of individual duty, but ethics
as practical philosophy in its entirety, in which sense it
includes the philosophy of history. This relation to
value is found in every individual fable or story, and in
the traditions of the family, the tribe, or the people,
owing to the interests of the narrator. The tale is told
and repeated ; not about the trivial things that occur
daily, but about something that has occurred once and
awakened an interest that may prove permanent. That
these tales shall be true — that they shall describe the
event as it really happened — is claimed by historical
science as distinguished from fiction, which may merely
tell how it might have been (ofa av ylvono, says Aris-
totle). Yet we must bear in mind that what any memory,
and therefore the historical in the form of historical
research, may contain as a real event, was never a
solitary reality ; in its actual form it was entangled in
and overgrown by a mass of trivial and familiar things
from which it was extricated by historical selection and
synthesis and made into a self-contained whole, that is
to say, an historical object. And if the pre-scientific
elements of history, ordinary memory and tradition, are
conditioned by the interests of the narrator and related
to his particular valuation, it is clearly the duty of man's
scientific memory that the selection and synthesis in it
be conditioned by values of a universal character. The
determination of these values is precisely the aim of
ethics, and in this sense, and this alone, we attempt to
find in ethics the principles of the theory of knowledge
of historical science.

Now these values of historical science are always

280 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

human values, and therefore man is at the very centre
of historical research. It deals with the human event,
the event in and about man. Physical processes are
introduced into the historical selection and combination
only in so far as they may be brought into relation in
some way to the human life of values. Hence the empirical
foundations of historical research are values in so far
as these are psychic facts I ; and the philosophy of history
goes so far in its character as theory of knowledge as
to understand and determine the actual procedure of
historical science. Ethical valuation, however, is not
content, as we have repeatedly seen, with a determina-
tion of the empirical validity of values. It further asks
to what extent the actual valuations are well grounded
in the case of the higher orders which transcend the
empirical course of human life. It works out this postu-
late first in personal morality, then in the philosophy of
voluntary communities, and lastly in the philosophy of
history. It seeks to determine whether the orders in
which the civilised activity of the human race is embodied
are similarly based upon higher orders of reason ; just
as one regards as general necessities of reason the uni-
formities which are attained in the theoretical knowledge
of nature. In other words, the ultimate question is
whether the logos, the world-reason, rules in the historical
cosmos as it does in the natural cosmos.

This proper task of the philosophy of history demands
above all things a conceptual analysis of what is character-
istic and distinctive in the historical process. Auguste

1 But we must again emphasise that it by no means follows from this
that, as has often been said and still more often thoughtlessly repeated,
psychology is the foundational science of all historical culture. This is
not at all true of scientific psychology, which as to its method belongs to the
natural sciences, and in its content is an inquiry, apart from value, into
the uniform movements of the psychic elements. Its theories are no
nearer to the interest of historical research than those of other sciences
are. The psychology which the historian uses is a very different thing.
It is the psychology of daily life : the practical psychology of a know-
ledge and understanding of men, the psychology of the poet and the great
statesman — the psychology that cannot be taught and learned, but is a
gift of intuitive intelligence, and in its highest form a genius for judging
contemporary life and posterity. This sort of psychology is an art, not a
science.

HISTORY 281

Comte called it sociological statistics. This leads us to
the strain between individual and whole, to which we
referred above. For the first basic principle here is that
individuality is far greater in the human race than amongst
animals, and greater in civilised man than in savages.
We may say, in the naturalistic sense, that each organic
being is an unrepeated individuality, both in its physical
and its psychic features. One wether is fatter than the
others ; one dog cleverer than others. Even midges
certainly have differences of form as we do, but they do
not interest us, and so we take no notice of them. If
our attention is drawn to them, we perceive them. The
shepherd knows each member of his flock. In a foreign
people, where at first all seem to us alike, we soon learn
to distinguish one individual from another. This natural
individuality, however, which we share with all organic
beings, is as such only an objective individuality : a
peculiarity for another, for the comparative judgment of
another, not for itself. Thus plants and animals may
become individualities to us in virtue of the special
value which we ascribe to their particular features ; even,
in fact, a house, a chair, a stone, or a mountain. All
these, however, are not individualities for themselves.
It is only man who acquires this sort of individuality,
and we then call him a person. Personality is, therefore,
individuality which has become objective to itself : indi-
viduality for itself. Hence all men are individuals, but
not all are persons. We speak of people becoming and
being persons, of the child and of the incurable lunatic.
Personality again has various degrees. The great majority,
who seem to be there merely for the propagation of the
race, have only a potential personality. We respect
them legally and morally, but in them we see only the
beginning of the transition from individuality to person-
ality. This transition is brought about by consciousness,
though this is certainly not identical with personality.
They, however, have the same gradations.

Self-consciousness is the greatest marvel in psychology.
We can establish the fact, but we cannot comprehend
it. We can analyse the conditions and prerequisites

282 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

for its appearance. They consist, from the point of
view of individual psychology, in apperceptions in which
memory and character are precipitated as constant
ideas and appreciations ; from the point of view of social
psychology, in language, which treats even organic beings
as substantives and brings out the reflection of the self
in the mutual play of the Thou and I. This eventual
result is, however, not to be considered a product of the
psychic mechanism. There is between self-consciousness
and the other contents of consciousness no analytical,
but only a synthetic, relation, just as between nervous
movement and consciousness, or between inorganic and
organised matter. Psychological theories of self-conscious-
ness leave it an entirely obscure problem in philosophy.
And just as obscure is the content of the self, which
distinguishes itself from every content that it can
present as that which has this content, and precisely
on that account is not it. Thus this synthetic func-
tion appears as something self-producing : something
that is not there until it creates itself. The self is, as
Fichte taught with great energy, not first there before
it comes into consciousness ; it becomes through its
own function. It is a new thing in the world of sub-
stances. We learned when discussing theories of causality
to recognise it as something that resists every attempt
to clothe it in the doctrine of the conservation of energy.
This inexpressible element of personality, as individu-
ality for itself, is freedom ; and that is the only sense
in which ethics can adopt this much-abused word. This
originality of persons must not, it is true, be taken in the
sense of a metaphysical power. On the contrary, the
Henism of metaphysical thought, as well as of the religious
mind (as we saw in dealing with problems of substance),
inexorably removes the aseity of individuals. Yet the
feeling of moral responsibility and historical thought
just as inexorably require it ; for this synthetic freedom
alone introduces new elements into history.

This significance is only attained by personality by
self-consciousness in the individual becoming self-criticism
and creating the free position which the personality adopts

HISTORY 283

over against itself. As logical conscience it determines
the value of one's own ideas, and as moral disposition
it determines the value of one's own valuations. Man
was once subtly denned as the being who deceives As a
matter of fact, deception is only possible as an act of a
mind that is able to weigh its own value in free judg-
ment against those of others. But the self-criticism that
is found even in this presupposes in every case a division
in the consciousness and in the self-consciousness of the
personality. If in an animal or a child, as a becoming
personality, and in the lower classes of every nation and
age some recollection of an injury suffered or a pleasure
enjoyed is the motive of action or counter-motive, this
is only the psycho-mechanical preparatory stage to the
self-consciousness and self-orientation of a conscious
personality. In its self-criticism this divides itself into
the determining and the determined part ; and Fichte
has profoundly explained this by supposing that in
every personality there is a vital stratum of clear con-
sciousness which is contrasted with a stratum of obscure
feeling — a situation that is found in its most perfect form
in the genius. The stratum of obscure feeling is the
background of the general mind, and the stratum of
lucid consciousness is the sum of all contents in which
the personality has comprehended its own peculiar nature.
Whenever it asserts this against the domination of the
general mind and manifests itself in an external act,
it enters into that antagonism to the whole on which
the historical process is based. The essence of personality
is, therefore, that the individual must be more than a
mere specimen of the species. In this sense Kant has
said that the Fall was probably the beginning of human
history. This is not only an interpretation of the Hebrew
legend, but an allegorical description of the fact that
the emancipation of individuals is the essence of human
history as so many repetitions of the Fall — not as an
hereditary sin, but as ever-new acts of personalities.
Every advance in knowledge, in morals, in the life of the
State, in art, or in religion is a fall from the previous state
of things : a fall which, through struggle and sacrifice,

284 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

alters the mind and the collective life. This is the ulti-
mate meaning of the fact that it is only by the initiative
of personalities that the general mind evolves from its
obscure, stupid, and subconscious rudiments to a clear
and free spiritual form. And that is, in the last resort,
the entire meaning of human history. As a natural
species man, Homo sapiens, shows an infinite variety of
possibilities of spiritual life and a high degree of sociality,
which in the earliest and lowest stages of life is almost
equal to what we find amongst such invertebrates as the
bees and ants. But in the course of human history there
is a rebellion against this sociality in the sense that the
work of personalities has to give form and clearness to
the common content of life. Of history as an objective
process, therefore, we may speak wherever individual
functions of personalities bring about permanent changes
in the general condition of the common life.

We see this best in the development of the chief
natural function of human sociality, speech. Its changes
—and in this we find all developments of man as the
speaking animal — are based as a natural process partly
on phonetic necessities, and they proceed on physiological
laws like those of the permutation of consonants ; though
from these alone no one could deduce the history of
literature or the entire history of language. Individual
variations and personal acts have a part in it. It is not
the people as a whole that speaks, but the individuals.
Every innovation was first uttered somewhere, then
repeated and established. That is true in detail and as
a whole. The significant personality grows into the
prevailing speech ; has received everything from it, and
shapes it afresh for new generations. That is what
we find, for instance, in the case of Luther and Goethe
in the history of the German language. Then we have
the accumulation of small changes, all of which can be
traced to an individual origin and have been shaped by
adaptation in the course of time. Thus we see the his-
torical change in the easy and gradual flow of accumu-
lating small alterations and, at the same time, in the
abrupt action of new creations. The common substratum

HISTORY

of the entire movement is, however, the mutual under-
standing of all individuals that have the same language,
and this is, perhaps, the most remarkable and obscure
phenomenon in the whole of collective life. For speech
is very far from expressing the full meaning of people
when they speak. It conveys a good deal more meaning
in its forms, in the secondary meanings of words, in tone
and emphasis ; in this, in fact, we not only express most
of our meaning, but the most important part of it. That
we understand each other in this — that what is not said
is fully appreciated — is the great mystery that we can
only regard as possible in view of the half-conscious
collective psychic life which forms the substratum for
the development of the complexes of the individual mind
and the conscious activity of personalities.

All these features of linguistic life are typical of every
other form of the historical development of humanity,
and we thus understand what is sound and unsound in
the onesided views which we call the collectivist and
individualist conceptions of history. Collectivism rightly
emphasises the fact that all history is a collective
movement, and that its meaning is to be sought in the
changes of the collective life. It affects to treat person-
alities, however, as mere transitory phenomena in which
the collective process incorporates itself and in time dis-
solves again. It admits the significance of the influences
which proceed from these concentration-points of the
common life, not only because the energies of this are
particularly incorporated in them, but also because they
are thus combined for the realisation of a new and peculiar
impulse. Collectivism treats personalities as if they
were merely individualities. Individualism, on the other
hand, rightly emphasises the creative elements which
issue from the activity of the individual, especially the
great individual, the " hero." But it runs some risk of
overlooking the fact that in these influences the collective
forces have a share, and that the extent and permanence
of the influence of the deeds of heroes can only be under-
stood on that account. Both conceptions, however, miss
the most significant thing in human history — the ever-

286 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

changing strains between personalities and the collective
life — and they therefore fail to perceive the essential
point in the construction of the vital orders which give
us the meaning of historical development.

For the relation of the emancipation of personalities to
the whole varies in an extraordinary degree. Often
enough it assumes the character of a " Fall," in the sense
that it is a sort of running off the rails which depends
upon individual variation or motives related only to the
individual. In this case it may, it is true, have for a time
a far-reaching influence on the general life, but viewed
in relation to the whole it is never more, in such circum-
stances, than a temporary change. The influence can
only be permanent and real in the historical sense when
the elements which slumber in the general mind and are
unconscious of their power awaken to clear consciousness
in this insurgence of the individual. All great actions of
historical personalities — as Hegel has excellently said —
are based upon the fact that the passionate energy of
their will is directed to precisely the same ends as the
driving energies in the ferment of the collective life which
have not yet become fully conscious. In the case of
heroes the most valuable element of the collective life is
at work, apparently in contradiction to itself. The solu-
tion of the great historical problems and conflicts is that
this situation breaks out and determines the decisive
form of things. The end, it is true, is never fully attained,
and there are all sorts of obstacles and difficulties provided
on the way. It follows, nevertheless, that in the personal
element of historical development it is not really a question
of the arbitrariness of individuals and their particular
qualities, but of that part of them in which the most
valuable element of the collective life takes clear shape.
It is not obscure singularities which make up the histori-
cally significant ; it is the achievements of personalities
through which the general mind presses on to its fulfilment
and realisation. Hence the more the personality attains
to conscious clearness, the more it destroys in itself the
merely individual element in which its natural endowment
consisted. Thus the whole of this strain between the

HISTORY 287

personality and the entirety comes to the dialectical
issue that all that is highest and most valuable that the
individual can attain has in it something impersonal
and superpersonal. If the outbreak of a new truth in the
mind of the individual seems at first a fall from the
current condition of thought, nevertheless the energy of
its influence consists in this, that in its own nature it
shall be valid for all, and shall be completely independent
of the accidental features of the mind of its discoverer.
This superpersonality belongs to all great deeds of heroes
in every department of life, and thus the personality
attains its historical significance from the fact that it is
more than itself. What constitutes the power of the
significant personality is that it develops superpersonal
values in itself and externalises them. The independence
of these values of the individual features of the man who
bears them may also be expressed by saying that they
are independent of the accidents of time — they have an
eternal validity. We may therefore say that eternal
values emerge from every historical strain between the
whole and the individual that is due to the action of
personalities. In the conflict of the general in time and
the personal the real necessity of the vital orders enforces
its validity, and thus logical and ethical uniformities
realise themselves as eternal values in the temporal
struggle of the historical life. For the personality, there-
fore, the highest aim is, " To sacrifice oneself is good."
For the whole the ultimate gain is that its vital orders
approach more and more maturely and perfectly to the
rational orders which they are expected to realise in
time.

When, from this point of view, we speak of the history
of the human race (which is often wrongly spoken of as
the history of the world) as a self-contained whole, we
have in our minds an idea of the unity of the species,
the meaning and justice of which we have now to examine.
It involves the assumption that humanity as a natural
entity is an organic unity. But this biological conception
of mankind is by no means sufficient for a critical inquiry
into the nature of history. Whether mankind really is

288 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

such an organic unity is a question that cannot be stated
or answered either from the point of view of history or
of the philosophy of history. It is not historical, since
it cannot be decided by traditions which, in this case,
cannot contain the matter itself, but merely myths and
legends about it. Neither is it the business of pre-history
or ethnography to decide it. The controversy about the
origin of races and unity of the species belongs to natural
philosophy, and can at the most be decided by scientific
research. On the one hand the unity of the race is affirmed
as probable on the ground that crossings between different
races are fertile. Also, there seems to be some indication
of such an original unity in the philological evidence of
relationship in space and time of different peoples, so
that at one time an ideal primitive people was imagined.
On the other side, however, philolog}' shows that its
material gives us no clue whatever to an original language.
We have great intellectual diversities (which need not be
diversities of value) between races, but we have also an
extraordinary diversity of gradations between them in
all their physical and psychic qualities, reaching from the
heights of civilisation down to the depths of an almost
animal existence. We may say that the lowest human
tribes, everything considered, are nearer to animals than
to civilised peoples, so that here again we have an argu-
ment against the unity of the species Homo sapiens.

However that may be, the question of the natural and
genetic unity of the human race is irrelevant in history.
At the beginning of our history, as far as tradition takes
us, we find the human race as a scattered group of tribes
and peoples who knew nothing, and could know nothing,
about their unity. These hordes and tribes fell fiercely
upon each other, and upon the stranger they turned as
if he were a wild beast. They killed and ate him. It
does not matter whether an originally homogeneous race
was scattered over the earth as a consequence of some
" Fall" and its results, and so its members were estranged
from each other, or whether, having had several different
origins, its division is natural ; the beginnings of history
know nothing of a unity of the human race. We cannot

HISTORY 289

say that it ever existed as a natural state. All that
history teaches us is dispersion, conflict, struggle. The
modern idea of a unity, solidarity, and common evolution
of the human race is rather itself a product of history ;
and indeed so essential a product that we may see in
it the chief meaning of the historical development. We
might almost formulate it : history proceeds from the
conception of humanity to the idea of humanity. This
idea is not something given and pre-existing, but some-
thing worked out in toil and misery. We can understand
it best on the analogy of personality. This also is not
given by nature and pre-existing. Only its elements are
given in the scattered achievements and movements of
the nervous system and the psycho-physical vitality.
The personality makes itself out of them. Thus humanity
also finds itself scattered over the planet in peoples and
races, and out of these it makes itself as a self-conscious
unity. That is its history. Hence even if there had been
a biological unity of descent of the human race (as to
which biology and ethnography must decide on scientific
grounds), it was lost in the wanderings of the species
which form the content of prehistoric development, and
history has created it as something new. That is its
deepest meaning.

This is not the place to trace this process of unification.
We need only recall the extensive minglings between
conquering and conquered peoples, which, in the struggle
for food, women, luxuries, domination, and freedom, have
repeatedly combined in new forms and obliterated older
tribal differences. If the various peoples or races are
not autochthonous, but derived from a single stem, this
was a prehistoric process that is reversed in history, since
it brings before us the physical mingling of races. The
more important element in this is, however, the spiritual
adjustment : the mingling of the spirits of peoples to
form a common civilisation. This gives us the great
culture-groups of the course of history in the three main
centres : Central America, the Chino- Japanese Sea, and
the Mediterranean. If we care to glance at the future,
we are confident that the Mediterranean civilisation will

19

290 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

ultimately prevail, because its chief offshoot is the culture
of North America, and this gives promise of a great
Atlantic civilisation in the future. The most valuable
and decisive centre of crystallisation in this story of the
unification of the human race has been the Mediterranean
civilisation, which is based upon a fusion of Aryan and
Semitic elements, and which seems destined, in its blend
of Greek art and science with the political and legal
organisation of the Roman Empire and Semitic religion,
to provide a foundation for the civilisation of the future.
Here the unity of the species does not merely consist
in the vast fusion of nations which migrations have brought
about as physical and psychic facts ; it reaches conscious-
ness for the first time. The self-consciousness of humanity
appears first in Greek science. Under its influence the
antagonism of Hellenes and barbarians, of masters and
slaves, disappeared. Thus the idea of humanity was
revealed in the Stoic plan of a world-State of the wise,
and it sought its realisation afterwards in the conception
of the Church as the one salvation of the human race.
All that we have to do here is to indicate the way in which
mankind attains self-consciousness in the form of scientific
conceptions and dogmatic theories. It is for universal
history to expound in detail the varied fortunes of this
idea in the course of its realisation. We would add only
that the lines of this realisation, which point toward the
infinite, never point toward any abstract unity or singu-
larity. The age of world-empires is over ; and no world-
religion can ever again attain supreme rule. The domina-
tion of any ultimate political or religious unity becomes
less and less probable in historical movements, as far
as we can survey them. Everything points rather to a
system of equilibrium of differentiated orders as the only
possible form of unity. A community of interests and
of the normal consciousness ought ultimately to be
created above the spirits of peoples and spirits of the
times as the idea of an absolute collective mind of
humanity, to which, as their highest good and final aim,
all the special vital orders of the nations ought to be
referred in their details as well as in their most compre-

HISTORY 291

hensive features. This idea of humanity is realised in

all who, scattered over the whole planet, entertain it

and work for its fulfilment in the collective life ; and it

is further realised in all institutions which give expression

to the community of the tasks of civilisation. In the

last resort we ought to say that individual peoples have

the same relation to this idea of a single mind of humanity

as personalities have to the various forms of the collective

spirit which are found in nations, States, and religious

communities. We thus get a picture of the construction

of vital orders which we find realised by some inner

necessity in the historical process, and in which we have

to see the phenomenal appearance of what, with ideal

insight into the spiritual cosmos, we call the moral order

of the world. The growth of this construction of vital

orders in the various systems of civilisation is one of

the subjects that are on the frontier between the

research of universal history and the philosophy of history.

For the ideal of a life-unity of humanity extends to all

its rational activities. In the province of intellect arises

science, in the province of feeling art, in that of will

morality, and in that of action the organisation of State

and society. In all these forms of civilisation the various

peoples and ages create their special systems, all of which

point beyond themselves to the general human, the

realisation of humanity. It is precisely the mission of

personalities constantly to renovate this relation in the

mind, and thus to improve and strengthen it. Thus

between the people and humanity, between the restricted

and merely temporary form of the collective mind and

the idea of the unity of the human race, there interposes

a new and important function of the personality, the

position of which in the vital order of the whole can

only be fully understood from this point of view.

Hence the self-forming of humanity is for us the ulti-
mate meaning of historical progress ; and, if this self-
forming means also self-determination, we may adopt
Hegel's formula that the history of progress is in the
consciousness of freedom. In this idea we have the end
without which it is impossible to speak of progress. The

292 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

more we talk about progress in dealing with historical
questions, either particular or general questions, the
more necessary it is to be quite clear as to the standards
by which we measure the amount of progress or reaction
in the changes which present themselves to a knowledge
which is devoid of values. These standards naturally
depend in detail upon the needs and views which hold
sway in the historical conditions and forces themselves,
and at times seek to realise themselves through a struggle.
Success or failure decides whether we are to speak of
progress or reaction in the case of any particular movement.
If we apply this to the whole of history it can only mean
that in some way the idea of a task which the historical
process had to fulfil has won ; or that at least we have
in mind a number of such tasks in relation to which the
various movements are to be judged successes or failures.
Of progress in itself, without indicating any goal to which
it tends, we cannot reasonably speak at all, as we saw
above in dealing with the biological conception of evolu-
tion. Then we have to consider the variety of the interests
in which the historical life is involved. There is, therefore,
no such thing as a simple progress of humanity. History
reveals rather a very tortuous movement backward and
forward. Most of the opinions about the matter are
falsified by assumptions as to what ought to be ; they
differ according to the individual tendency. On the one
hand we have enthusiastic theories of an indefinite perfec-
tibility of man, such as were inspired about the time of
the French Revolution by the feeling that some new
politico-social era was dawning. On the other side we
have the depressing idea, as in the preaching of Schopen-
hauer, of an eternal monotony of history, in which the
same tragi-comedy of human misery is played over and
over again with new costumes and scenery. The truth
is in the middle between these extremes, and the question
of progress in history cannot receive a uniform ans\ver
in all cases, but must be considered according to the
different directions in which development necessarily
moves.

These different lines of the historical movement are

HISTORY 293

dependent upon each other in various ways, and the
question may be raised whether one of them has a decisive
significance for the others, and therefore for progress in
general. The philosophy of history of the Aujklarung
and the French Revolution give this position to the
development of " ideas," the development of knowledge,
especially knowledge of nature ; and this ideological and
expressly intellectualist conception tried to show that
the historical movement on all other lines depended upon
changes of theories and convictions. In extreme contrast
with this we have now what is called the Materialistic
philosophy of history, which finds in the change of
economic conditions the fundamental process which
determines all other changes in the social, political, moral,
religious, scientific, and artistic life. In face of these
conflicting views we may recognise that there are ages
in which one or the other interest stands out prominently
in the foreground and determines the development of the
others, but in general we must say that the various
threads of the evolution of civilisation are interwoven
in a net of reciprocal relations, and yet at times are in
many respects quite independent of each other.

It is sometimes assumed that we cannot question
intellectual progress in history, but we have to draw a
distinction. That in the course of time, and with tradi-
tion accumulating experiences and the results of research,
we- have gained a considerable sum of knowledge with
which we orientate ourselves in the world, and in turn
react upon it in our various spheres of life, is clearly a
fact that no one can dispute. It will also be granted by
everyone that in virtue of the same tradition the child
of to-day easily acquires, by speech, custom, and education,
the outcome of the thoughts of its ancestors. These,
certainly, are advances. But in part they relate only
to a very thin upper stratum of social life, and it is not so
easy to decide whether in general there is a greater capa-
city for knowledge, a higher power of thinking, or, especially,
a better average judgment. The great decisions of human
history do not favour the ideological dreams of the
philosophers of history. They show the insignificance

294 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

of the intellectual culture of our thin upper stratum as
compared with the elementary passions of the masses.
In regard to scientific knowledge we are accustomed to
say that, by means of our inductive methods of natural
research and the critical methods of history, there has
been a marked advance ; but even this is true only of
the very slight percentage of scientifically minded men.
In the majority there is the same hasty generalisation
and blind confidence in whatever is said and handed down
(particularly in the shape of a respect for print) as formerly.
On the whole, perhaps, the human view of things has
experienced some elaboration through the imagination
as a certain self-consciousness of judgment ; but from
the eighteenth century onward it has been usual to follow
reactionary movements in which man, stung by his own
uncertainty, falls back into the mists of mysticism and
fantasy or into the arms of authority. Right in the
heart of civilised nations we see, as in the primitive days
of the race, the spiritual flocks — the}' are now called
' parties " — following authority more blindly than ever
before.

The situation in regard to the moral progress of the
race is peculiar. In this connection a fact of great im-
portance is the circumstance that the idealising of the
natural condition of man could give rise to an idea of
his original goodness and of the degeneration he has
suffered in his historical development. Such a statement
as that man is naturally good is in this crude form as
erroneous as the opposite opinion, that he is naturally
bad. Good and bad are predicates which one can ascribe
to particular actions and intentions, and to the predominant
tendencies in the value-life of individuals. But no man
is entirely good or entirely bad. One must be devoid
of all psychological insight to be able to divide men into
"wise and fools' or "sheep and goats," as is done in
the interest of moralising or theological theories. As a
matter of fact, good and bad are mixed in an extraordinary
degree both in the natural disposition and the develop-
ment of men ; and it is very difficult to say whether in
the course of time the preponderance is on the one side

HISTORY 295

or on the other. We may grant that the establishment
of a political and legal order has promoted conduct in
conformity with the moral law, and that therefore legality
has been to some extent furthered in the course of time.
But we have to realise on the other hand that the naive
sociality which forms the natural disposition of man
has been more or less enfeebled during the historical
process. As opposed to these two forms of legality, it
is true that in respect of inner morality a higher personal
life has been developed, and this means higher stages of
morals which go far beyond the primitive condition of
the race ; but here again there is question of an extremely
small minority. The moral character of the average
human, with his strong tincture of legality, is very much
the same in all ages. We must, indeed, admit that the
refinement and complication of the conditions of life
have led to a refinement and interiorisation of crime
which at times express themselves in deeds that make
us shudder.

The question of the hedonistic progress of the race,
which was for a time strongly affirmed, is in a very am-
biguous position. Many take it for granted that men are
better off because of civilisation and its technical achieve-
ments. We may, as a matter of fact, call this into question.
It is true that in the course of time the general level of
life has been raised and improved, but our needs have
increased at least in the same proportion, and thus per-
sonal satisfaction is by no means greater. One might
say, on the contrary, that the contentment of the individual
is much better provided for in simple and primitive
conditions of life than in the complex struggle to which
civilisation has led, and will increasingly lead. The
gain to individual comfort of our mastery of nature is,
on the whole, very doubtful. Aristotle once said that
if the weavers' shuttles would go of themselves, there
would be no need for slaves. They almost go of them-
selves to-day ; but are our workers better off for it ?
Their legal and moral position has been greatly improved
by the abolition of slavery, and they have won human
dignity ; but their feeling of contentment, their personal

296 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

comfort, have not been improved. It is only the condition
of the whole that has been raised and ennobled. In
the vital order, the aim and dignity of man have been
recognised and have won supremacy. But this has
been purchased in part at the cost of the simple content-
ment which accompanied the state of nature. Kant
has emphasised precisely this fact as a decisive refutation
of the Eudaemonistic theory of morals. If pleasure and
the satisfaction of one's desires were the meaning of
human life, the aim would be much better realised by
Rousseau's state of nature than by the whole of the
work of history ; and from this it follows that the vital
orders which represent the achievement of history must
be in themselves higher things than happiness, which
history has not increased.

Considerations of this kind, which might be extended
in other directions — for instance, in respect of the develop-
ment of art and religion — must make us sceptical about
the claim of indefinite progress and distrustful of the
belief in an illimitable perfectibility of man. The theory,
no doubt, has its advantage, but it is rather a judgment
of value than a piece of theoretical knowledge. We
might, indeed, say that all analogy is against it. Peoples
grow old and die, just as individuals do. New blood may
circulate, and the future seem to hold infinite possibilities,
but it is certain that the planet, and man along with it,
grow older. Is there to be no old age, no period beyond
the bloom, for man before he dies ? We certainly cannot
say whether we may not now be in the ripest period, or
may even have passed it. There is no longer any room
for doubt that our civilisation in many respects shows
signs of age, as the Roman once did. Who knows whether
it has still the strength to strike new roots in peoples that
are not yet used up ? And will not the supply of fresh
peoples at length be exhausted ? In many respects it
may be suspected that we have already passed our highest
point. We need not think pessimistically about the
possibility of new forms of art in order to realise that
certain types of artistic achievement reached heights
in the history of the past which, from the nature of

HISTORY 297

the case, can never be overtopped. Such creations as the
Homeric poems, the sculptures of the Parthenon, the
dialogues of Plato, the madonna of Raphael, Goethe's
Faust or Beethoven's music, will never be surpassed,
or even equalled. At the most they may be replaced
by something different. If, on the other hand, we turn
our attention to public life, we see everywhere, and to
an increasing extent, the overwhelming need of associative
forms which in their cumulative effect destroy individuality
and lead to the death of personality. There is not much
said in our time about personality. People speak more
about what they want, and have not got. Everybody
complains that originality is dead or in decadence. Every-
thing is aiming at bigness, but it is mere bigness in quantity.
This depreciation of personality is, from the point of
view of what constitutes the essential thing in history,
the most dangerous of all reactions. It threatens to
thrust us back into the primitive condition of sociality
without personality. That is in part the effect of the
all-round democratisation of life. It restricts more
and more the influence of the essential factor in history,
the personal element. Any man who studies the move-
ments of our time from this point of view must be appre-
hensive about the future ; unless he consoles himself
with the hope of unknown possibilities of which we have
at present no conception. In this respect we may find
some relief in the fact that the historical cosmos is the
world of new and unexpected things.

In the end we have always the painful fact that the
entire rich world of forms is destined to pass into the
night of the infinite. We cannot get beyond this torment-
ing idea of the death of mankind except by seeking in
the temporal achievements of man's history the traces
of eternal values which, independently of all time and
duration, have a validity in themselves and therefore
need not be regarded as final products of the historical
process ; or by seeing in life itself, apart from its contents,
and in its constant affirmation the highest of all values.
This is another way of formally defining the highest good
— by placing it in life itself. It amounts to an idea

298 ETHICAL PROBLEMS

that the way itself is the goal of the way ; that the end
and value of life are to be sought, not in the realisation
of eternal contents, but in the restless affirmation of
life and of will. This is an axiological tendency that
has in it, perhaps, an element of decadence and exhaustion
and ennui, and arises from these very features of our life
by a sort of contrast. When life froths and flowers, it
has contents which determine its value. It is only when
these are languid, or lose their significance, that life in
itself is regarded as a value, even the greatest of all values.
It is not therefore surprising that our age, on various
sides, imagines that it has discovered the ethical principle
in life itself, for the sake of life and will. The modern
mind leans to this view in the form in which it was expressed
by Nietzsche, who is supposed to have transcended all
the content-values of history and placed the new valu-
ation of the superman in the supreme affirmation of
the great personality, the unfolding of the power of
the will, and the self-development of life. Even in the
biological forms of modern ethics, as in that of Herbert
Spencer, the quantitative principle of valuation is adopted,
and the chief criterion of progress and improvement is
the extent of the affirmation of life together with the
complexity of vital functions. Much more finely and
delicately than Nietzsche, and with more ability than
is usual on the biological side, Guyau has developed
his enthusiastic optimism, which places the meaning
of life in the extensive and intensive advancement of it ;
a doctrine which he preaches with glowing zeal. In
contrast to all these theories we may quote the ethic of
Schopenhauer, which, on metaphysical grounds, finds
its principle in the will to live — that is to say, the will
of will, and the life of life — and then perceives that this
life itself has no meaning or value, precisely because it
is not directed to any content of value in itself. The
formal definition of this will for will's sake in Schopenhauer
might be traced to the teaching of Fichte, in whose
metaphysic action for action's sake takes the highest
rank, but we 'must not forget that in this conception
Fichte refers to the Kantian autonomy, the self-legislation

HISTORY 299

of reason, and thus sets up as the content of the self-
contained will a world-law of the moral order and the
timeless values of morality.

Thus the ultimate problems of ethics bring us back
to the metaphysical problems in which it is discussed
what meaning the temporal course of the event has in
relation to the timeless reality as the genuine being.
It remains an unsolved problem why this timeless reality
needs realisation in the temporal course of the event,
or why it tolerates in itself an event in the temporal
course of which there is something that differs from its
own nature. We do not understand why that which is
nevertheless has to happen ; and still less why something
different happens from that which is in itself without
time. This is the case in metaphysics, and ethics reveals
the same unintelligibility in its special questions of the
human will and conduct. If timeless values of higher
orders of life are realised in them, how is it that they are
not at once and absolutely real in their timelessness ?
And, on the other hand, if in all the restless pressure of
our will throughout history we have only the temporal
interests of a race that is doomed to extinction, how can
we speak of values manifesting themselves therein with
timeless validity ? No metaphysical theory helps us
in regard to this fundamental antithesis of the temporal
and the timeless ; nor does any ethical postulate. It is
the basic feature of the insoluble problems of the religious
mind.

CHAPTER II
ESTHETIC PROBLEMS

HOWEVER true it may be that in the moral life and in
ethical theories we may catch a glimpse of higher orders
of life and timeless pronouncements of reason, nevertheless
the moral life as a whole is always related to needs which
shape our conduct through our will. No matter whether
we seek the end of life in happiness or in welfare or in
co-operation in the cultural self-formation of the time-
spirit, we always keep within the limits of human needs.
It is of the very essence of will and conduct that they
presuppose some craving, some state of incompleteness
and dissatisfaction from which we strive to emerge.
Hence there is always something anthropological, some
earthly residue of the human, in ethical values, even when
they rise to a rational world-order. The power of desire
rules in the entire realm of the " practical." Even
when there is no sensuous desire on the part of the indi-
vidual, and no quest of use or advantage, there is always
a straining after something that is to happen. We there-
fore ask finally whether valuation is to be confined to
this region of the will, or whether there are kinds of
values that may be free from all desire and expectation.
The new and higher province of axiology which is thus
demanded must be a life of values that is not based upon
the needs of the will. Pleasure and displeasure must
now be complete in themselves, and must not point beyond
to the province of desire. It must be a pleasure that
satisfies the mind with its own contents, and the mind
must neither wish nor expect anything from these contents.
To this province belong the noblest of all values— all
that Schiller meant when he spoke of ' the noble in

300

CONCEPT OF THE ESTHETIC 301

the moral world ' —the objects of love without desires :
persons, things, and relations the value of which does
not depend upon what they do, but on what they are and
mean. The saying of Goethe, " I know that they are
eternal because they are," is true of these. Here at
last we reach values in themselves, and therefore valuation
is now raised above the region of specifically human needs
and interests into the higher realm of the universally valid.

§ 17

Concept of the Esthetic. — History of the word " aesthetics " —
Disinterested pleasure — Freedom of wish and will — Toward a
system of values — Beauty in nature and art — /Esthetics from
above and below.

The values without desire which, having no wish for
their motive and engendering no wish as their effect,
constitute this realm detached from needs, go by the
name of the aesthetic life. Etymologically the meaning
of the name is not obvious. The Greek word involved in
it originally meant something else, and it is the vicissitudes
of theory that have, in devious ways, given it the new
meaning. The preoccupation of the mind with questions
about the nature of the beautiful and art has in the course
of time been occasioned, sometimes by metaphysical
interests, at other times by elements of the artistic life,
and at others by psychological considerations; but for
some time now it has been embodied in a special branch
of science or philosophy. Its development into a special
discipline has, curiously, been due to the arid interests
of scientific systematisation, which has scarcely anything
to do with the subject in itself. About the middle of
the eighteenth century a pupil of Christian Wolff, Alexander
Baumgarten, found a gap in the well-arranged system
of the sciences that was then current. The whole group
of the rational sciences was preceded by an inquiry into
the right use of the intelligence in scientific knowledge.
This was called " logic." But besides the superior
faculty of knowledge, which was known as the intelligence,

302 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

man had a lower faculty, sensory perception, which
provided the facts for another group of sciences, the
empirical sciences. Ought not these also to be preceded
by a theory of the faculty of knowledge, of the com-
pleteness of sensory knowledge ? Being a theory of
sense-perception (cua&rjais), it would have to be called
" aesthetics." And while Baumgarten undertook to
bring into the world and develop this younger sister of
logic (as Lotze has called it), he was guided in regard
to its contents and subject by a theory of Leibnitz. For
Leibnitz beauty was the perfection of sensory presentation
just as truth was the perfection of rational thought.
In his mind this means that in the beautiful there is a
sensory preliminary stage of the true or the sensory sub-
stitute for truth : an idea to which we will return later.
In accordance with this theory Baumgarten converted
his aesthetics, which ought to have been a sort of method-
ology of sensory perception, into a theory of the beauti-
ful, of the enjoyment and production of beauty. Hence
the word " aesthetics" came to have the meaning which
is now always attached to it ; and in the history of the
reception of the term an interesting and decisive part
was played by Kant, who at first hesitated and then
accepted it.

Moreover, the framing of the problem, with which we
have introduced aesthetic questions, was determined by
Kant's aesthetics. In this — as everyone will acknow-
ledge, no matter how far he dissents from the theory
in detail — we have the decisive element, which makes
aesthetics a special province of the realm of axiology,
traced with all the confidence of genius. In order to
distinguish clearly between the beautiful and the agreeable,
between the aesthetic faculty and the hedonistic or the
ethical, Kant formulated the criterion of disinterested
pleasure. This does not say anything about the content
of the aesthetic object, but it very plainly indicates the
formal element which enables us to mark off this province
from its neighbours. Kant's expression, " disinterested,"
was, perhaps, not as fortunate and as free from misunder-
standing as he supposed. Schiller, and then Schopenhauer,

CONCEPT OF THE AESTHETIC 303

discovered a better expression which indicates the really
significant element as the freedom of the valuation from
wish and will. They succeeded in getting this definition
so firmly established in general usage that Herbart's
attempt to take the word "aesthetics" in a more general
sense and apply it to the whole of axiology, and make
this enlarged aesthetics a second part after theoretical
philosophy, was unsuccessful. The attitude which began
with Baumgarten remained in such general favour that
we now use the name even for the objects of the new science,
and we speak in this sense of the aesthetic life, aesthetic
temperament, aesthetic enjoyment, aesthetic production,
and so on. There is only one respect in which this has
given rise to differences and difficulties: Schopenhauer
— and perhaps Schiller had foreshadowed this — put truth
as well as beauty in the province of aesthetic valuation
as will-less pleasure, and he therefore included science
as well as art under the heading of the redemptive cultural
functions of desirelessness.

Here we touch an essential problem of the theory of
values generally. As a matter of fact, truth and beauty,
as forms of valuation which are independent of the needs
of the empirical consciousness, and are in virtue of their
peculiar and original nature far from all will and conduct
— all that is practical — differ considerably not only from
hedonistic, but also from ethical, values, which in the
long run are always related to weal and woe. Hence
truth and beauty prove to be the higher values, which
transcend the specifically human in a pronounced and
obvious manner, whereas, though these higher manifesta-
tions are not entirely lacking in the province of ethics,
they have to be detected as the ultimate foundation.
The general mind in which the absolute validity of morality
has its roots is the mind of the human race ; but truth
and beauty presuppose a higher and more important
relation. In the scheme of Hegel's philosophy this is
expressed by treating morality, society, the State, and
history as phenomena of the objective spirit, and art,
science, and religion as forms of the absolute spirit. In
recent times theories of judgment, which emphasise

304 .ESTHETIC PROBLEMS

the axiological element in it, have led to the recognition
that logical values form, with ethical and aesthetic values,
a considerable problem, which plays, and must play, a
part in these questions about the system of values which
we seek. We must be content here merely to indicate
these subtle questions of axiological systematics. They
do not so much arise from the simple considerations of
the prescientinc mind as from the ultimate needs of
philosophical systematics. When we turn from these
to the questions of aesthetic valuation which arise from
life itself and artistic activity, we see that here, differently
from in the case of ethical problems, which cover the
whole of human life in all its heights and depths, we
have to deal with a smaller sphere, which cannot claim
the same general interest and understanding. Moreover,
what we call the specifically aesthetic in the historical
reality is never pure, but always embedded in a multi-
tude of other interests. In the living aesthetic judgment
there are always hedonistic and ethical elements at work.
They give the aesthetic object the stimulation that we
cannot avoid, the significance that holds us. Whether
there is any specifically aesthetic effect depends upon
properties of the particular object, which may not appear
altogether. Nevertheless, however narrow the circle may
be in which this specific element comes to conscious
realisation, the beautiful as a whole is, though rarely
found in a pure form, yet distributed wherever the eye
of man can reach ; and there are effects of art, such
as great religious ceremonies, which fill all men, without
distinction of social or intellectual condition, with elemen-
tary transports. Nay, one may say in this regard that,
whilst the appreciation of the good is very general, the
appreciation of the beautiful for its own sake is even more
widely spread than that of truth ; and how exclusive
truth is in its innermost nature is best seen by the prag-
matical imitation of it.

We call the object of the aesthetic attitude the realm
of the beautiful. In this an unmistakabty distinct province
is that of art. We distinguish between beauty in nature
and beauty in art, the latter being produced by man.

CONCEPT OF THE AESTHETIC 305

Hence aesthetics develops along two different lines.
Either it starts from natural beauty, and goes on to
understand artistic beauty, or it gathers its definition
from an analysis of the beautiful in art and passes on
from this to beauty in nature. In the one section we deal
rather with the enjoyment, in the other with the pro-
duction, of the beautiful, since the enjoyment of artistic
beauty is in principle not different from that of natural
beauty. We sometimes find it said that these two lines
lead to different theories. Perhaps it is best for the
philosopher to start from the enjoyment he derives from
artistic beauty. He is himself no artist. Personal union
between art and philosophy, such as we find in the case
of Plato, is very rare ; and artists generally ignore aesthetics
altogether. We then find that the enjoyment of artistic
beauty can only be understood on the analogy of its
production, and the principle may be extended to the
enjoyment of the beautiful in general. If, however,
aesthetic thought starts from artistic beauty, it will be
tinged by the predominant interest which the philosopher
takes in one or other branch of art. We can show
historically how the classical theory of aesthetics since
Winckelmann was influenced by a dominating regard
for plastic art ; how its further development in the idealist
philosophers, especially Schelling and Hegel, was influenced
by regard for poetry ; and how, finally, certain tendencies
of the Romanticist aesthetic were determined by the
predominance of musical interests.

These differences are traversed by a second, which has
been mainly characterised by Fechner's description of an
aesthetics from above and an aesthetics from below. By
the latter Fechner meant the purely empirical registration
of the pleasure felt in the several elements of aesthetic
enjoyment, and he thus initiated the kind of treatment
which has gradually developed into the quantitative
research of modern empirical psychology. As distin-
guished from this, the aesthetic from above is a conceptual
inquiry. Such an inquiry might be of a metaphysical
character, as was that of Schelling and Hegel, which
Fechner rejected. But it may also be analytic-psycholo-

20

306 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

gical, when it seeks merely to determine clearly by means
of reflection on our experience in aesthetic enjoyment
what the characters of this are. This psychological
establishment of the actual features is far more important
for philosophical aesthetics than the facts of quantitative
research. Even this analysis, however, does not suffice
to meet the demands of a philosophical aesthetics, the
conceptual task of which it is to understand, with the aid
of this material, the conditions under which a disinterested
pleasure can be general. It is only in this sense that the
aesthetic inquiry becomes part of the philosophical theory
of values.

§ 18

The Beautiful. — Differences of taste — Criticism of the idea of equal
diffusion — Majority and authority — Play of the intellectual forces —
Formalistic aesthetics — Play of the feelings and moods — Emotional
sympathy — Importance — The sensuous and suprasensuous — The
beautiful as a symbol of the good — The sublime — Freedom in
the appearance — Illusion — The aesthetic object — Sensuous appear-
ance of the idea.

By the beautiful in the broader sense we understand
the aesthetic object generally. If we attempt to draw
up a definition of it by comparing everything that comes
under the head of " beautiful " anywhere, our inductive
procedure will not be as fruitful as in the case of goodness.
Not only different nations and ages, but even different
individuals in the same environment, vary so much in
aesthetic judgment that no consistent principle can be
discovered in their ideas. The only result we can reach
in this way has been justly formulated in the trivial
phrase that a thing is beautiful if it pleases anybody —
the bankruptcy of aesthetic investigation.

We now frequently speak of the aesthetic faculty as
" taste," and differences of taste are so proverbial that
we say there is no disputing about such a matter. It
is not a question of such deep feeling as in differences
of moral judgment. In that case it is a question of
weal or woe, a question of vital interest ; but questions

THE BEAUTIFUL 307

of taste refer precisely to things in which no interest is
involved, and they are irrelevant to the great issues of
life. We take contradictions on such matters with com-
paratively greater tranquillity. Yet we do not like them,
and we try to impose our taste on others; and in doing
this we distinguish the beautiful from the agreeable
and useful. There are, however, no firm limits in this
respect. Even a difference of "taste' in the original
sensuous meaning of the word excites in the untrained
mind a surprise that only gradually disappears with
experience. In the aesthetic field we seek to claim, as
far as possible, general validity for our taste. When,
however, there is a quarrel about it, we cannot appeal
to definitions, norms, maxims, or principles. We oppose
impression to impression, feeling to feeling. We can
give no proof or definition of aesthetic universal validity.
That is the logical difficulty of the aesthetic problem.
We find particular judgments, which are valid only for
the individual thing and person as emotional impressions ;
yet the question arises where there is in this something
that transcends the individual and his validity. In any
case there is the consequence that Kant drew : aesthetics is
not a normative doctrine. There is no aesthetic imperative,
as there is a moral or logical imperative ; and we can work
out a critique of the aesthetic attitude only in the sense
that we can draw up the possibilities and conditions of
the general diffusibility of the aesthetic judgment. These,
then, are the Limits of our science ; it has no rules. For
the various arts there are technical rules, and an observ-
ance of these is an indispensable condition of artistic
achievement. But for aesthetic creation generally there
are no more rules than there are for aesthetic enjoyment.
The proportion of universal validity in this field is there-
fore of the scantiest, and on that account it is the chief
department of life for personal activity.

From all this it is intelligible why in this province
psychology looms so large and there is so little left for
philosophy. Hence aesthetics is much nearer than the
other two philosophical disciplines, logic and ethics,
to the frontier between philosophy and psychology,

308 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

and it must on that account pay all the more attention
to this frontier. We must not suppose that we can pass
from a registration of the facts of pleasantness to a norma-
tive science. At the most we may reach a relatively
normal — a standard that is actually valid within the
limits of a period or a nation or some even narrower
range, and almost as changeable as fashion. From the
empirical point of view there are only two ways of doing
this : the way of majority and the way of authority.
The rule of the masses is, however, more brutal and
deadening in this field than in any other. In the masses,
one may say, there is almost no specifically aesthetic element ;
it is there only in so far as it assists the expression of
some other content of value, and this may just as well
be common pleasure as religious or ethical conviction.
It is better on the side of authority. The sestheticist
must credit himself with good taste, and assume it on
the part of those whom he addresses. We do not speak
necessarily of what are called connoisseurs, who go ways
of their own and follow certain tendencies (especially
in technical matters) in the province of plastic art or of
music. We are thinking rather of consulting men of
considerable intellectual cultivation who have experienced
this enjoyment without desire and found in it a new life ;
though their judgments are in the first instance only
psychological facts, and they are therefore part of the
broadest and most extensive field of material to which
the critical mind addresses itself.

The task of this critical mind is to discover in aesthetic
pleasure the special element which has a super-individual,
super-anthropological, super-empirical value. It is from
the start clear that beauty as a predicate of value does
not mean a property in a thing or state or relation which
is to be described in theoretical knowledge, but it is
something that arises in the judgment of an emotional
subject. That, however, does not prevent us from asking
what properties must be present in the theoretically
determinable object in order that it shall excite the aesthetic
judgment of value in a receptive mind. Kant did this,
for instance, in the case of the sublime, but in his analysis

THE BEAUTIFUL 309

of the beautiful he tried to confine himself almost entirely
to the subjective world.

Kant found the super-individual element in the play
of the two faculties of knowledge, sensitiveness and
intelligence. This was an effect of the analogy with
logic out of which aesthetics historically arose, and it
laid the foundation of an intellectual development of
aesthetics. It is a question mainly of the type of pre-
sentation, and this, Kant said, was conditioned by the
forms of knowledge. All content, he thought, was
related to interest, whether hedonist or moral, and there-
fore disinterested pleasure pertained to the form. The
important point in this relation of the aesthetic attitude
to the mere presentation and its form is its indifference
as regards the empirical reality of the object. It acts
only in virtue of the way in which it is presented. We
must not, however, suppose that it is necessary for the
object to be unreal in the ordinary sense of the word ;
otherwise there could be no beauty in nature as such.
What is meant in this respect is merely that we do not
get as far as the empirical reality. In popular psychology
we might express it in the sense that the aesthetic object
is realised, not by perception, but by the imagination,
and that in such case there is question of a purposive
co-operation of the sensory perception and the intellectual
comprehension of its contents. But purposiveness of
this nature can only be found if these two elements,
presentation and imagination, balance each other, or, as
Kant said, are in harmony. Thus vitality and diversity
of the sensory material and lightness and transparency
of its arrangement would be equally necessary in all
beautiful things.

Another consequence of Kant's theory was the tendency
toward a formal and formalistic aesthetics. From this
point of view Herbart denned the aim of this general
aesthetics to be a theory of the original pleasure in relations
and situations. These in turn may certainly be divorced
in presentation from the realities in which they are found,
and so here again the aesthetic pleasure is not necessarily
related to the reality of the object. The application of

310 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

this general principle to the special questions which we
call aesthetic in the usual sense of the word was made,
according to Herbart, by his pupil Zimmermann, and
to music in general literature by Hanslick. The latter
point brings us to a burning question in the development
of modern music : namely, whether the play of the airs
has its aesthetic value solely in itself, or whether it acquires
this, or increases it, by its relation to what it means.
In Kant's theory the weakness in regard to its formal
application was the meaninglessness which he had to
ascribe to the real object of aesthetic pleasure on account
of the immateriality of the content ; and in this respect
Herder's polemic was not altogether without justification.
Kant had found himself compelled to distinguish between
free and dependent beauty, and to see free or pure beauty
only in flowers, arabesques, and similar meaningless struc-
tures in nature and art. How far this meaninglessness
applies to the various arts — music, for instance — we
need not determine here, but will be content to mention
it as an important problem of modern aesthetics. For-
malistic aesthetics can only be impugned when it claims
this meaninglessness in principle for all beauty and in
all art. It will then encounter the difficulty, that Kant
himself was compelled to exclude from the province of
free beauty, and relegate to the category of dependent
beauty, precisely the beauty which is to us the most
valuable of all, and particularly all that is connected with
the life of man. This shows that the aesthetic object in
the vast majority of cases acts, not only as such, but
by its content-elements, and these are in some way
dependent upon the relation to reality.

In this respect we can understand why we do not
seek the super-individual element of the aesthetic effect
on the intellectual side, but find the element of signi-
ficance precisely in the connection of values. But from
this field volitions are excluded because of the peculiar
nature of the aesthetic state, and there remained only
the province to which Kant had already relegated the
aesthetic problem in his systematics : the province of
feeling. For the play of the faculties of knowledge.

THE BEAUTIFUL 311

therefore, must be substituted a play of feelings and
dispositions. That would, in fact, be the decisive direction,
corresponding to the systematic position of aesthetics
in regard to feeling as the third psychic function, after
presentation and will. Kant had misplaced it because, in
view of the rationalistic character of his teaching, he
could not regard the irrational as the essential element
in a rational function. But it is precisely this which
recent psychological aesthetics aims at wherever it speaks
of in-feeling. The object, we are told, becomes aesthetic
as soon as we read into it or out of it a certain movement
of our feelings and disposition. Its theoretically deter-
minable properties must in some way be of such a character
that they can excite in us these feelings and moods and
their varying movements. Psychological theory dis-
tinguished between after-feeling and feeling at the time,
but these are two elements which, though they may be
in different proportions in the various aesthetic effects,
must nevertheless both be present. There must be
something in the object that excites after-feeling in us,
although we have to trace this mood as feeling at the
time to the object as the aesthetically significant thing.
Hence the principle of in-feeling is fully justified as the
psychological expression for the element of significance
in the aesthetic object ; and in this psychological form
we find an answer to the question which feelings and
moods it is that are generally shareable, and therefore
may be valuable in the aesthetic sense. The philosophy
of art of Christiansen has recently attempted to answer
this on the lines of the Critical method, but it meets a
check in the relation between man's sensuous and supra-
sensuous systems of impulses and the moods and feelings
that arise therefrom. From this four strata of the aesthetic
life develop in a very interesting way : the hedonistic,
the comic, the beautiful, and the sublime. But in this
construction the aesthetic disposition is always related
to the antagonism between two impulses, which we may
call the vital and the moral, the sensuous and the supra-
sensuous. Hence, though in the aesthetic life there
must be question of the play of feelings and moods, yet

312 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

this theory is voluntaristic on its psychological side, and
it is foreshadowed to some extent in Schopenhauer's
aesthetics of music, which purports to have explained
music as the pure perception of the life of the will and
therefore as the genuinely metaphysical art. Even
this attempt, however, leads to the opposition of the
sensuous and suprasensuous elements in man's nature ;
as it was for Kant the basis of the antithesis of sense
and intelligence, the harmony of which is the beautiful
and the clash of which is the sublime. Both these theories
rest upon the strain between the two natures in man.
The aesthetic relation presupposes a being that reaches
from sensuous existence up to a transcendent world of
reason. In the case of Kant, however, the suprasensuous
is essentially the moral ; as it is the same in this latest
attempt at a philosophy of art. It ends, as did Kant's
theory, in the conception of the beautiful as a symbol
of the good, and finds therein the guarantee of a super-
individual universal validity in the play of feelings and
moods.

In this reduction of the aesthetic to the ethical the
sublime is conceived as a special type of aesthetic
relation, not subordinate to, but co-ordinate with, the
beautiful. Psychologically the way was prepared by
Edmund Burke, and Kant followed on the lines of the
Critical method. If the sublime is explained by the
triumph of the ethical-suprasensuous in man's being
over his sensuous nature, it seems no longer to be a
purely aesthetic relation, but an ethical-aesthetic com-
bination ; or it is at least one of the most important
types of dependent beauty. For if this is to depend,
as Kant thinks, upon the presentation of an "idea,"
we have in the sublime the highest of ideas, the
moral law.

We find a moralising tendency also in the chief pupil
of Kant in this field, Schiller. In his Kalliasbriefen he
sought an objective standard of beauty, and tried to
raise it above all that is specifically human ; whereas
at other times he proclaimed that, if not beauty in general,
at least art was the characteristic property of man as

THE BEAUTIFUL 313

contrasted with higher as well as lower beings. In his
objective theory, however, he again took the Kantian
dualism of freedom and appearance as his starting-point.
The autonomy or self-orientation which constitutes the
essence of the moral super-world is never found as real
in the appearance ; but there arises a semblance of
" freedom in the appearance ' whenever the sensuous
shape presents itself to us as so complete and self-con-
tained that it seems to need nothing further for its reality.
So it is with the aesthetic object ; it is determined in itself,
and it looks as if all its categorical relations to its environ-
ment were broken off. Hence Schopenhauer also, for
whom, as is well known, causality was the only category
of importance, characterised the aesthetic life as observa-
tion free from causality, and found the difference between
art and science in the fact that science was observation
from the point of view of causality. Self-sufficiency
is the essential feature of the beautiful. Here the idea
of an analogy to ethical self-determination departs from
Schiller's formula of freedom in the appearance. The
aesthetic autonomy is no longer voluntarist or moral ;
it is rather intellectual. This self-sufficiency, however,
is not real as such ; it is enjoyed in the appearance, and
thus we have again an emphasis of the unreality of the
aesthetic object. In the art-product the detachment
from the rest of reality is particularly instructive ; in
natural beauty the detachment is not real, but exists
merely for the " beautiful semblance."

This element of unreality has become very prominent
in the modern theory of illusion. It is quoted most
profitably for the explanation of the enjoyment of artistic
beauty, particularly in regard to the plastic arts and the
drama. Here, in fact, a conscious self-deception and a
vacillation between deception and the consciousness of
deception play a great part ; and it must be particularly
noted that in all these cases the coarse as well as the
refined imitation which gives a substitute for reality
rather enfeebles or destroys than enhances the aesthetic
effect. " Art shall never attain to reality": that applies
particularly to certain excesses of the modern theatrical

314 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

world. There are therefore fields in which illusion is
of the very essence of aesthetic enjoyment and can never
be entirely excluded. But it is very questionable if
this feature is indispensable to all beauty, or even for
all art. In architecture, for instance, illusion seems to
have hardly any significance ; and when we admire
a fine tree or a noble cliff in nature, there is no question
whatever of vacillation between deception and the con-
sciousness of deception. For beauty in general the only
consequence of the independence of reality of the object
is that it arises, not so much in direct perception as in
the imagination, as by the latter it is freed from all the
associations which it would otherwise have for our know-
ledge and will. In this detachment the aesthetic object is,
in fact, something new, something not real as such alone.
It is just the same as with the object of scientific know-
ledge, the elements of which belong to reality, as we saw,
though in its selection and new construction it must be
taken as something independent. The only difference
between the noetic and the aesthetic object is that what
in the former is done by conceptions is done in the latter
by the imagination. The reasons for this detachment
of the aesthetic object from the great mass of experiences
are often given by the elements of personal presentation.
If they are to have general validity — if the aesthetic object
is to become an independent value — -that which detaches
the object from all others must be determined by the
nature of the matter. Here again the transcendental
element of necessity and universal validity is given only
in conformity to reality. The process of the aesthetic
construction and enjoyment passes from the casual
phenomenon to the true nature of the object and endeav-
ours to grasp this with luminous clearness. If this
sounds like an intellectualist version, as if aesthetic con-
templation were in the long run an act of knowledge,
we must remember that in this we merely indicate a condi-
tion of the universal validity of the aesthetic object ;
and this can be reconciled with the fact that the aesthetic
state itself is based upon a play of feelings and moods
which may arise in connection with such contemplation.

THE BEAUTIFUL 315

And in the second place we must emphasise the fact
that the penetration into the nature of things which is
achieved in the aesthetic contemplation is never a con-
ceptual vision, but always an intuitive experience.

If, however, we seek the decisive mark of the beauti-
ful in a vision of the essence of things, we pass beyond
experience into the realm of the metaphysical. There
is already a tendency of this sort, to some extent, in
Schiller's formula. Freedom is in the Kantist sense the
suprasensuous, and the beautiful is the appearance of
the suprasensuous in the sensuous. That was implied in
the metaphysical theory of the beautiful which modern
philosophy has borrowed from antiquity. It was merely
indicated by Plato, and developed with great energy by
Plotinus : the beautiful is the sensuous appearance of
the idea. This translucence of the suprasensuous in the
sensible object was so strongly held by the Neo-Platonists
of the Renaissance and by Shaftesbury that it persisted,
enriched by the Kantist critique, in German idealists
such as Schelling, Hegel, Solger, Weisse, Vischer, etc. We
find this metaphysical aesthetics in its most characteristic
form in Schelling, for whom art thus becomes the organon
of philosophy. Science, he shows, in its ceaseless progress
seeks the idea in the appearance without ever attaining
to it ; the moral life in its similar ceaseless advance forms
the idea in the appearance without ever bringing it to full
realisation. It is only in the vision of the beautiful
that the idea is entirely present in its sensory appear-
ance. Here the infinite has passed wholly into the finite,
and the finite is wholly filled with the infinite. Thus
every work of art exhibits what is otherwise given only
in the totality of the real : namely, the realisation of the
infinite idea in finite appearances. Hence for Schelling
the universe is God's work of art, the incorporation of his
idea in the sensory appearance ; and beauty in nature
is the art fashioned by God. And if the fact is empha-
sised that in all man's creations the infinite idea must
struggle with the inadequacy of the sensory finite in
which it has to manifest itself, this is the basis of Solger's
theory of tragic and romantic irony. In all these specula-

316 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

tions, especially in Schelling and Hegel, the metaphysical
theory of the beautiful was directed to art, particularly
to poetry as the art in which the manifestation of the
idea can be most visibly accomplished. In these circum-
stances, however, aesthetic enjoyment can only be under-
stood by an analogy with artistic constructions : the
origin of the aesthetic object in the imagination of the man
who enjoys it must proceed in the same way as the creation
of a work of art. When, in order to enjoy a landscape, we
look for a point from which it is best seen, we compose
lines and colours just as the artist does in painting a
picture of the landscape. There is the same selection,
the same new-forming synthesis, in both cases. We can
only enjoy the beautiful as such in so far as there is some-
thing of the artist in us.

§19

Art. — Imitation — Entertainment, education, improvement — Play and
the impulse to play — Aimless self-presentation — Genius — The
unconscious-conscious in art.

Art, as we discuss it here, is generally distinguished
as fine art from the other arts which have useful functions.
Here again the essential feature is the absence of pur-
pose. Every artistic activity creates ; but fine art does
not, like the others, create objects for use in daily life.
There are, however, intermediate developments in which
the frontiers disappear : as when we compare ordinary
house-building and architecture, or a political or forensic
speech with an aesthetic oration. Every manual work
of art, in particular, is near these frontiers. Art in respect
of its quality of not being needed is, like science, the off-
spring of leisure. Aristotle finely described this cultural
value of leisure. Free from the pressure of daily needs,
man creates for himself the new world of the beautiful
and true. And precisely on that account the work of
the artist has no value for the needs of daily life ; which
marks off the fine arts in general clearly from all other
artistic activity and its products. It is remarkable that

ART 317

scientific thought seems to have found the essential
feature of creation (TO TTOL-^TIKOV) in a higher degree in the
useful arts than in the arts of leisure. It could not resist
the impression of inventiveness in face of the technical
production of useful objects, and it regarded fine art
chiefly as imitative art. It is, in fact, astounding that
the Greek theory of art never got beyond this point of
view, and that it never learned to appreciate the creative
element which was just as abundant in the plastic art
of the Greeks as in their poetry and music. It is more
surprising than that Greek philosophy missed the creative
or, as Kant says, spontaneous element in the object of
knowledge, in which it is more difficult to detect. The
peculiar subjection of the mind to what is presented,
which the Greeks show in their theory of knowledge, is
seen also in their conception of art as imitation. It was
with this that Plato forged his weapons against the artists
and formed his depreciatory judgment on art ; it was
supposed to imitate objects which are themselves mere
imitations of higher types, the ideas. What we know
of Aristotle's theory of art, from the surviving fragment
of his Poetics, shows that he also held the theory that art
is imitation. The whole of the critique and theory of
art in modern times followed this path at first, and the
final result of it was the Positivist conception of art for-
mulated by Diderot. This naturalist theory expects of
art, as of science, only a " true " description in harmony
with reality, and it thus obliterates the frontiers between
art and science.

As a matter of fact, imitation is indispensable to fine
art. Even what is called the productive power of imagina-
tion is productive only in the sense of giving new com-
binations, but reproductive in regard to the elements of
the inner and outer life, which as such cannot be created
by the imagination, but must be experienced. To that
extent, therefore, there is imitation in all art. On the
other hand we must not forget that all imitation means
itself a selection and re-combination, and that this is
precisely the essential aesthetic element in it. The material
is imitated, but the aesthetic shaping of it is never mere

318 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

imitation. Moreover, imitation is a natural impulse and
is one of the fundamental features of all animal sociality,
as modern mass-psychology has shown ; but the carrying
out of this impulse excites only a feeling of pleasure like
the satisfaction of any other impulse. In that, therefore,
we have not the specifically aesthetic element. Joy in
the capacity for imitation and its purely technical and
often very difficult use means something in which the feel-
ing of pleasure is neither more nor less than in the case
of any other capacity. To paint cherries so well that
the sparrows will peck at them — to carve marble so well
that the spectator will try to take the lace from the lady's
shoulders or feel the velvet of her dress — to compose music
so that one seems to hear the blood drip from the head
which has been cut off — all this may very well be an
object of technical ambition, but it is rather a piece of
art than art.

In no case is imitation a value of universal validity
in itself. If therefore art were merely imitation, its value
could not be in itself, but in what it does with the imita-
tion. As a matter of fact, that is the idea of the theories
of imitation. First entertainment is taken as a fitting
occupation of one's leisure ; and for many men this is
still the whole meaning and value of their interest in art.
What people seek and find in the theatre and concert,
in picture-galleries and exhibitions, or in reading novels,
is much more a pleasant way of passing the time than an
enjoyment of art as such. Somewhat higher aims have
been assigned to imitative art in education and moral
improvement. The idea of the Aufklarung was that art
and the aesthetic life generally should be pressed into the
service of intellectual or moral improvement, and aims
and rules of a pedantic educational nature and a moralising
tendency were to be assigned to it. To this corresponded
the psychological theory of the aesthetic life generally,
which regarded it as a happy transition from a state of
sensuous impulses to one of rational activity. The enjoy-
ment of the beautiful tames the savagery of the sensual
man. It teaches him to observe without desires, and
thus makes him free for the higher values of truth and

ART 319

morality. It agrees with this that art and the aesthetic
life generally appeal only to the two higher senses, the
senses concerned with things at a distance, vision and
hearing, which remove the stimulation from one's own
body and are far from a sensuous enjoyment of the object.
In this is correctly indicated the aesthetic distance by
which, in every case, the enjoyment of the beautiful
shall be removed from its object. In the imitative
theories this was considered only a negative and prepara-
tory element. The positive value of art was supposed
to consist in what it did for morality and knowledge.
It had therefore no intrinsic value.

Schiller, taking his stand on the Critical philosophy and
going beyond these theories, sought the proper value of
the aesthetic in the adjustment of the two natures of man,
and this he found in play. It is true that he meant this
in a sense which seemed to give great prominence to the
anthropological element. Schiller took the sensuous and
the moral impulses to be an original antagonism in man's
nature, as Kant did, and thought that he found in the
impulse to play that which brought about a reconciliation
of our dual nature. Hence art was supposed to be specifi-
cally human, and peculiar to man :

In industry the bees surpass thee,
A worm could feats of skill to thee impart,
Exalted spirits in thy science share —
But thou alone, O man, hast art.

That is based upon the metaphysical assumption that
these exalted spirits are devoid of sense ; that they have
not the sensory experience of the inner life. It follows
that it is in man alone that the great antitheses of reality
are combined.

Apart from this, Schiller's theory of the impulse to play
has been entirely confirmed and much developed in modern
biology and psychology. In the play of children, animals,
and primitive peoples we see the evolutionary preparatory
stage of art. Dancing, singing, and adornment are the
rudiments of it ; and in unconscious co-operation therewith

320 AESTHETIC PROBLEMS

we have, as important elements in its development, the
erotic play of courtship on the one hand, and on the other
the social forms of play which, especially in the shape of
rhythm, ennoble daily toil and relieve what is otherwise
tedious and joyless. The impulse of play has also been
called the function-impulse, to the satisfaction of which
there is attached a pure pleasure, even when it seems
to have no aim and no serious meaning. In the proper
sense, however, there is no aesthetic significance in play
of this description, and we may ask what must be the
nature of its content to give any aesthetic value to play.
All play is a copy of something serious. It imitates a
vital activity which is seriously concerned with real things
and purposes. Hence it is that play so easily turns into
earnest, as one sees in the case of children. As long as
it remains pure play, we are at some distance from the
serious life which it imitates, and we thus freely enjoy the
proper content of life at a distance. Hence play is higher
according to the value of the life-content which is repre-
sented in it, detached from the seriousness of real willing.
Esthetic play is, therefore, when the deepest and highest
reality of life is copied in it. Hence all art, as aesthetic
production, is self-presentation and self-forming in play.
The inner content expresses itself, where it claims the
seriousness of life, desire and conduct, by means of action
and enjoyment. Where there is neither of these things,
the inwardness breaks out in a sensuous shape which gives
pure joy. Hence art is, as Benedetto Croce says, expression
endowed with intuition itself, and life passes into appear-
ance more purely and perfectly in this purposeless ex-
pression than when it develops in serious work and the
restriction of this to the casual and particular by action
and enjoyment. In this sense art is, Guyau says, the
most intensive enhancement of life that we know. Here,
then, is the real meaning of what we found called the
unreality of the aesthetic object : all idealising and style
aim in the long run at giving a pure and perfect expression
of one's own life in the sensory appearance.

The capacity to do this is the power of aesthetic pro-
duction, or what we call genius. This idea again has

ART 321

changed a good deal in the course of time. It was denned
ex eventu when it was said that genius is a model and
standard for posterity and critics. One goes a little deeper
in pointing out that the genius does not create according
to rules, but produces the new and beautiful out of itself ;
and Kant saw deepest of all into the nature of the aesthetic
life, from which he was so remote, when he said that genius
is an intelligence which acts as nature does. In this
much-quoted phrase both the inward necessity and the
undesigning purposiveness of the formative power of the
aesthetic personality are expressed. The inward necessity
means the impulse and force of the undesigning self-
presentation. The impulse and the force : both together
make the genius, but it does not follow that they are
both given together. Rather, there is, perhaps, nothing in
the world more difficult to endure, nothing that is more
disturbing, than the unhappy condition of the half-genius,
in whom the impulse is found without the power to carry
it out. That is a misfortune of the artistic life that even
the greatest experiences at the limits of his productive
power. It is a deep shadow cast from the heights of
human life. These limits cannot be passed by any toil
and exertion, because the creative power of art is rooted
in the unconscious. That is why the artist is usually
averse from theory and philosophising. It does not
help him ; indeed, it threatens to disturb him. It is
we others who need to understand his nature and activity
and determine its place in the general fabric of civilised
values. And in attempting to do so we stumble against
the irrational in the creative work of the artist.

Hence Schelling gave a happy turn to Kant's definition
when he defined genius as " the unconscious-conscious."
The artistic activity exhibits a mutual play of conscious
and unconscious processes which can never be rationally
explained. The artist must create because of an impulse
to self-realisation of which he is not the master. From
this unconscious depth there emerge into his consciousness
the images of what is to be. How he embodies them,
what particular shape he gives them, is again determined
by something in the unconscious depths. The creation

21

322 ESTHETIC PROBLEMS

is accompanied by conscious criticism, but the positive
element of achievement is not a matter of cunning and
calculation ; it comes as a fortunate chance from the
unconscious depths of life. This is what the Greeks
felt when they spoke of some divine madness, the ^avla of
the poet. The affinity of genius to madness refers only
to this mingling of conscious and unconscious functions,
which evades all control of analytic thought ; it by no
means contains the pathological element that has at times,
on the strength of this analogy, been wrongly ascribed
to the nature of the genius. On the contrary, the self-
realising of the genius is, precisely because in it the conscious
reaches into the sub- or super-conscious, the personal into
the super-individual, the human into the metaphysical,
the redemptive power which men have always felt and
prized as the divine in art. This significance, however,
pertains to the genius only in the highest stages of his
creativeness, and the artist himself is, like all his activity,
in the general affairs of life hampered by all the failings
of humanity, from which a transcendent value emerges
only in his most perfect achievements. He must con-
stantly wrest this value from reluctant reality, and he
finds himself oppressed by it in his self-realisation :

The noblest thing that spirit e'er conceived
Is with some foreign stuff adulterate.

CHAPTER III
RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

LOGICAL, ethical, and aesthetic values make up the entire
range, for philosophical inquiry, of the human value-
activity which, as distinct from the amenities and utili-
ties of ordinary life, can lay claim to general recognition
and the necessity of actual unconditionedness. In them
we have traversed the three provinces of the psychic
life — presentation, will, and feeling — and in each of these
provinces we have explained how the valuation of the
empirical mind has a significance that transcends the mind
itself. The normative general consciousness which is thus
indicated is in its empirical form the collective conscious-
ness of any particular historical structure in the human
chronicle : in its ideal form the cultural unity of the whole
race : in its metaphysical significance a rational com-
munity of spiritual primary reality that transcends all
experience. There can be, as regards content, no further
universal values beyond these three, because in these the
entire province of psychic activity is exhausted ; and we
cannot, in point of fact, name any value that does not
belong to one of these provinces. When, in spite of
this, we speak of a realm of religious values, which may
be comprised under the title of the sacred, we mean that all
these values may assume religious forms. We know a
religious guarantee of truth, religious motives of conduct,
and religious feelings of many kinds. Even sensuous
enjoyment may in some circumstances, as in the case of
orgiastic conditions, assume a religious form and become
sacred. From this we get that universal significance of
religion in virtue of which it embraces the whole life of
man ; and from this also we understand why the treat-

823

324 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

ment of religious philosophy must always be one-sided
if it is subordinated to or incorporated in one of the special
philosophic disciplines — logic, ethics, or aesthetics — as a
derivative part. Religion was for a time treated philoso-
phically, from the point of view of theoretical reason —
that is to say, as knowledge. Its centre of gravity was
then put in the province of practical reason, and it was
converted into a species of ethic. Lastly, its home has
been sought in the province of the aesthetic reason, and
it has been represented as mainly a mode of feeling.
But the comprehensive content of religion cannot be under-
stood in any one of these ways, without — consciously or
unconsciously — using the others at the same time.

If we seek the common feature in all the valuations
which can thus assume a religious complexion, we find that
it is always the relation of the values to a supramundane,
superempirical, suprasensuous reality. This element of
otherworldliness is so characteristic of the essence of
religion that, when it is excluded, we get some such
caricature as the Positivist Religion of Humanity. This
is not the place to resume the various elements which lead
to this enhancement of the essential valuations. That
is the business of the history and psychology of religion,
and they have a broad and far from exhausted field for
their investigations. Philosophy is concerned only with
the question where we must, in all circumstances, seek the
reason for this change of the sensuous into the supra-
sensuous. We shall not find it in the contents of par-
ticular values, but in the character of universal validity
of these values.

§ 20

The Sacred. — The sacred not a special province of values — Conscience
as an otherworldly phenomenon — The superempirical union of
persons — God as a suprasensuous reality — Ejection of the mythical
from religious philosophy — Relation of religion to the other pro-
vinces of culture — The classification of religions — Pious sentiment
and its influence on ideas — Two meanings of the suprasensuous.

By the sacred we do not mean any special class of
universally valid values, such as those which constitute

THE SACRED 325

the true, the good and the beautiful, but all these values
together in so far as they are related to a suprasensuous
reality. We seem to be justified in assuming such a rela-
tion by the experiences which our consciousness sustains
from the exercise of its own activity and from the aspira-
tion, based thereon, after ultimate and absolute princi-
ples of valuation. In our mental life we cannot be satisfied
with the empirical forms of the general mind to which
we are conducted by an inquiry into logical, ethical, and
aesthetical values. The division within itself which con-
science means, since it opposes the judged subject to the
judging, suffices up to a certain point for the sociological
explanation of the actual and approximative universal
validity of the valuation. That is supposed to be true
which corresponds with general opinion : that false
which contradicts it. Thus also every violation of custom
is bad, and every feeling that runs counter to tradition is
perverse. In this way it might seem as if the division in
conscience were reduced to an opposition between the
normative general mind and the special functions of the
individual whom the general mind finds to be part of
itself. But this is only apparent. It might be true if
this general mind were, as an actually general mode of
presentation, will, and feeling, something fixed and absolute.
That it is not. It not only varies in the different his-
torical phenomenal forms of society, but it is gradually
changed by each of them. Progress in the evolution of
the general mind consists, as we saw, in an original sin on
the part of the individual, who rebels against the current
valuation. In this, however, the individual does not
rely upon his arbitrary will. He appeals to a higher
court. He ascends from the temporal to the eternal
and divine law, and is the champion of this against a
world of contradiction. The investigator or the thinker
defends his new result, the reformer his ideal, the artist
his new form ; and in them conscience transcends the
social phenomenal form of the general mind and reaches
transcendental and metaphysical reality. There are, of
course, innumerable illusions in this. But, however much
false prophets may err, the undeniable right of appeal to

326 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

the highest court remains. We usually recognise this
situation in the province of knowledge, and why should
it not hold also for conflicts of the ethical and aesthetic
life ? If it does, it provides a proof of a vital connection
of personalities which transcends experience. Just as
conscience as a social phenomenon is possible only through
the reality of the common social life, so conscience as a
consciousness of value beyond all the chances of space
and time is possible only in virtue of a still deeper connec-
tion. There is revealed in it a spiritual depth of life
which presupposes, not merely the collective social mind,
but a supramundane court. And since this social mind
forms the ultimate and highest synthesis empirically,
this absolute reason of conscience must be sought beyond
experience. Augustine claimed that the distinction
between true and false, which makes judgment possible in
us, implies the reality of the highest truth as the prin-
ciples on which this judgment rests. Descartes similarly
said that our appreciation of different degrees of perfec-
tion in all finite things and in ourselves can only be based
upon the reality of the most perfect being. Even in
Plato's theory that all higher knowledge is recollection
we have this belief in the reality of value, and of the norm
of the idea and the ideal, which transcends life in time.
It is the Socratic feeling that truth is not our discovery
or our illusion, but a value that is rooted in the ultimate
depths of reality ; that in it we experience something
that goes beyond the empirical existence, not only of the
individual, but also of the race.

In this sense the life of values demands a metaphysical
anchorage, and, if we give the name God to this super-
empirical vital connection of personalities, we may say
that his reality is given in the reality of conscience itself.
God is just as real as conscience. The life of values
which is conscious of these connections may be called
the life of man in God, or religion. It is, of course, clear
that this chain of thought is not a proof in the sense of
empirical thought ; but it contains a postulate that is
rigorously involved in the nature of valuation the moment
it would rise above individual and historical relativity.

THE SACRED 327

Hence this metaphysical anchorage of valuation is more
than a feeling of conviction or a belief, which might be
merely an opinion or an illusion. Kant's theory, that this
superempirical connection of life is not a matter of know-
ledge that is restricted to the world of the senses, but of
a rationally necessitated belief, has been conceived in
the sense that this postulate of the belief contains an
ideal that holds only as a guarantee in the interest of
reason, and that it might therefore very well be merely
an illusion or fiction for a practical purpose. Albert
Lange weakened the force of Kant's idea in this way, and
the recent " Philosophy of the as-if " followed him.
In point of fact, however, this relation to a supersensuous
reality is found in the content of conscience, which is just
as real an experience as any other that we use in con-
structing our knowledge of the world. Even if all the
ideas we form of it are figurative and inept, even if they
are illusions or fictions, the relation itself is unquestion-
able ; it is, as Kant said, the fact of pure reason. And
on this we rely when we would be certain that the
religious problem is real, and not a fictitious problem
of philosophy.

What we have here tried to make clear indicates the
way in which philosophic thought is led from its own
highest problems to the problem of religion. Prescien-
tific thought approaches the problem in quite other and
very different ways, and it raises questions so many
of which are scientifically unanswerable by philosophy
that we must seek some principle which will enable us
to exclude from consideration those constituents of reli-
gious thought that are alien to philosophy. The mythical
faculty, without which there can be no religion, is pro-
vided by the pressure of imagination and of empirical
wishes with an abundance of contents which, though
they may here and there offer possibilities of interpreta-
tion in detail, are quite beyond scientific explanation.
These imaginative elements of the religious life, which
have not, and cannot claim, any general validity as facts
or, still less, as norms, must be studied by the history and
psychology of religion. The philosophy of religion can

328 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

only take them into account as side-issues, when it considers
religion as a sociological fact and interprets it, on critical
lines, as an historical phenomenon, showing how its con-
ceptual nature is realised in the empirical vital forms of
society. The core and proper sphere of the inquiries of
the philosopher of religion are the questions which con-
sider how far this superempirical connection of personali-
ties is related with a rational realm of values.

We reach the same result when we start with a concep-
tion of the task of philosophy as a philosophy of civilisa-
tion. We are accustomed to count religion as one of
the great cultural forms together with science, art, morality,
law, and the State, but the consideration we have just
given teaches us in principle that there can be no ques-
tion of the complete co-ordination of religion with the
other forms. These others have each their peculiar kind
of value in the content which they realise in the life of
humanity, but religion has no such special province of
values. It consists in the metaphysical tincture and
relation which all these values may assume. Religion
would be deprived of its universal significance if the
sacred were marked off from the other cultural provinces
as a special section of the life of values. Wherever this
is attempted in practice, religion becomes rigid and sap-
less. When it is done in theory, it prevents an insight
into the essential relations between religion and secular
life. The course of history is in its general features in
harmony with this. We now know all four cultural
forms as differentiated departments, often overlapping
with religion, but clearly distinct from it in their nature.
But this was not always the case. The further we go
back into the past, the more we find a religious com-
plexion even in the secular aspects of life. All science has
developed from myths and dogmas, all artistic creation
from practices of worship, all morality from the religious
obligation of conscience, all State organisation from the
religious bonds of society. From these differentiated
and secularised institutions religious reactions and new
growths are quite distinct. They take the secularised
forms of civilisation back into the religious unity, and

THE SACRED

the process of differentiation has to begin over again.
European evolution shows this feature of the history
of civilisation in all its phases. Greece and Rome develop
the outer forms of culture out of the religious matrix in
the clearest fashion. With the science of the Ionics know-
ledge is detached from the mythical imagination : in
Greek comedy and plastic art the secularisation of the
aesthetic life is completed : the ethic of Epicurus brings
about a conception of life entirely free from religion : and
the secular political organisation of Rome, even where
it retains some external remnant of its religious origin,
stands clear of the whole group of religions which wage
war on each other within its frontiers. Afterwards, at
the time of the great migrations of peoples, the reli-
gious reconstruction begins. It opens with the clash of
religions, which ends in the triumph of Christianity, and
Christianity takes back science, art, morality, and poli-
tical life into its religious form. Thus it was in the
Middle Ages. But from the thirteenth century to the
eighteenth we see the other institutions of civilisation
gradually awaken to a sense of independence and assume
an increasingly secular form, which remains a luminous
standard for all future time. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, however, a new reaction seems to
set in, and all the signs of the times seem to promise a
fresh period of religious integration. A new wave of
strong religiosity sweeps over old Europe. The eccle-
siastical forces, especially the Roman, work cleverly to
direct it into their bed. They have to struggle against
the multitude of sects, the rich growth of which affords
the best proof of the religious pressure of the time. Far
less dangerous for them is the mystical tendency which
has infected the thought of our time in the sense that a
philosophy to-day seems to be able to count upon a stretch
of reality when it takes these elements into consideration.
The mystical intuition, which forswears a conceptual
knowledge of its subject, abounds in picturesque language
and glowing imagination, but it yields no firm and dis-
tinct results. It is a thing of moods ; and, as history
repeatedly teaches us, it merely loosens the soil for

330 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

ecclesiastical dogmatism to sow its seed and reap the
fruits in its own domination.

The religions which owe their own origin to an advanced
stage of civilisation, such as Buddhism, Christianity, and
Islam, adopt the valuations of the other departments of
culture as parts of their own life, and give them a new
complexion. In the case of other religions, which have
developed out of primitive conditions with the peoples
who hold them, and suffered State and morality, art
and science, to grow out of them as independent struc-
tures, all these values are from the start included in the
religious unity. Thus these relations to the other depart-
ments of culture are common to all religions, and they
have been rightly characterised and classified, according
to the predominance of one or other element, as aesthetic,
theoretical, ethical, and ritualistic religions. This shows,
however, that the value is to be sought always in the other
fields, and that the specific religious element must be
sought only in the relation of these to a transmundane
validity. This is, therefore, the essential thing in religion
that offers itself to philosophic inquiry. All the special
forms which this otherworldliness assumes in the imagina-
tion, feeling, and conduct of the religious man must remain
the subject of empirical investigation.

The connection with a higher world of values is first
felt in the empirical consciousness, and Schleiermacher
has justly described the devout feeling of " simple depen-
dence " as the foundational fact of the religious life. This
feeling, however, in its na'ive and simple primitiveness,
knows nothing about the object to which it is related.
Psychologically considered, it is one of the indefinite
feelings, and even Schleiermacher connects it first only
with a world-unity in the Pantheistic sense of Spinoza.
To embrace and explain the totality of the psychic life
this feeling must be given in presentation. Only then
can it develop in the external life as a motive of will and
conduct and organise itself as a specific religious com-
munity in a Church. But this definition of devout feeling
in presentation is not possible as knowledge ; and in that
we have the fundamental problem of religious existence.

THE SACRED 331

For knowledge, which in the last resort must be capable
of scientific proof, comprehends only the world of experi-
ence, and in this instance there is question of the relation
of this world of experience to what is beyond experience.
Of this relation our knowledge can attain only one element ;
the other we know only by postulating the relation itself,
and out of these two elements we cannot construct that
which is beyond experience. Instead of knowledge,
therefore, we get a presentation which claims another
sort of validity. This is the mythos, in the general sense
of the word ; much as Hegel described religion as the form
of presentation of the Absolute in consciousness. Here we
have the same relation as that which Kant, in his " tran-
scendental dialectic," described in regard to the attempts
to create a philosophic-dogmatic metaphysics. It is a
question of something that is not experienced, but must
necessarily be thought, yet cannot be known solely by its
relation to experience. Hence the constantly recurring
attempt to attain the impossible, and the failure of every
such attempt. Just in the same way all the historical
religions attempt to give some sort of form in presentation
to the object of pious feeling. They do not attain any
knowledge that can be proved, but merely the self-shaping
of their inner life in the " presentational ' mind. This
significance must be conceded to the mythos in every form ;
but this is all it can claim. It is only in this way that it
is protected from the criticism of scientific thought, which
otherwise would have to bring to bear upon it its logical
principles, its principles of contradiction and sufficient
reason. This criticism is disarmed in respect of the mythos
when it purports to be no more than a presentational expres-
sion of the religious feeling ; for the latter, being a relation
between the knowable and the unknowable, inevitably
has in it a character of irrationality. The truth that the
mythical presentation can lay claim to is, therefore,
Pragmatist. It is, in fact, the most important field for
the application of the Pragmatist conception of truth.
For it means the mental satisfaction of the religious
craving beyond the limits of any possible knowledge.
Hence in the course of philosophic thought we cannot

332 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

deal with any of the questions which the mythical pre-
sentations, or the dogmatic teachings in which they are
elaborated by the actual religions, involve. They are,
it is true, the occasion for most men of the birth of doubt
in regard to their nai've ideas, and therefore they lead to
philosophy. In ordinary life we mean chiefly by " sceptic "
the man who has begun to question the traditional
religious teaching. There are many questions with
which the mind of youth, especially, torments itself
under the pressure of traditional dogmas, and which,
nevertheless, can never be problems of philosophy, because
they presuppose purely mythical views. Doubts of this
kind cannot in detail be solved by philosophic thought.
It can only consider in a general way what elements of
the religious reality are accessible to the scientific mind.
The essential thing is to inquire to what extent man belongs
to this suprasensuous vital order which forms the essence
of every religious affirmation. In that sense alone can
the truth of religion be considered from the point of view
of philosophy.

Before we go into this, it is advisable to point out the
ambiguity of the idea of the suprasensuous world in the
ordinary way of thinking and speaking, which leads to
a good deal of misunderstanding. We find the word used
by Kant himself in two different ways ; by which he got
out of many difficulties, but created greater difficulties.
If by "sensory" we understand, according to the direct
meaning of the word, what is accessible to the bodily
senses and knowable through them, it is the same thing
as corporeal or material. On these lines the non-sensory or
suprasensual is the incorporeal or immaterial : that is to
say, everything without exception that is not body or
bodily movement. The soul with all its states and activi-
ties belongs to this incorporeal or suprasensuous world,
according to general opinion as well as all philosophic
theories except the Materialistic. But that is not what
is meant when we speak of the suprasensuous in the sense
of religious metaphysics. Here there is question of the
relation of the mundane to the transmundane, and there-
fore the entire psychic life, as far as it can be experienced,

THE SACRED 333

belongs to the mundane. When we thus bring the psychic
into relation with the world of sense, we may express it
by speaking of the " inner sense " as the form or faculty
of knowledge in which we have experience of the psychic
functions and come to know them. The difficulty of the
ambiguity is, therefore, that in one sense the sensory
excludes the psychic life, and in the other includes it ;
to put it the other way about, the psychic life is part of
the suprasensuous on one view, and not part of it on the
other. The difficulty was felt by Plato, in whose teaching
the soul belongs to the world of appearances, but is related
to the world of suprasensuous forms, and is able to perceive
them. He solved the difficulty by regarding the soul as
the highest and best thing in the corporeal world. The
ambiguity of sensuous and suprasensuous is still more
marked in Kant's philosophy. As long as we remain
in the field of theoretical reason the sensory world,
which we can know, is conceived in the sense of the
world of experience, to which the objects of the inner
sense, the psychic states, belong just as strictly as do
the objects of the outer senses, bodies. The supra-
sensuous here is the realm of what lies beyond experience,
of the unknowable, which we have to think, though we
cannot attribute to it any content of our experience.
But the moment we pass to the field of practical philo-
sophy, the moral life becomes part of the suprasensuous,
and is opposed to the life of sensuous impulses. The
suprasensuous fills itself with experiences of the moral
consciousness, and is opposed to all that is defined
and conditioned by a relation to the bodily life, and
by man's belonging to the world of sense or matter.
Out of this vacillation in the use of the word arises the
fundamental religious problem, how in man the psychic
life reaches from the sensuous world to the suprasensuous.

334 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

§21

The Truth of Religion.— Faith and knowledge — Natural religion and
rational religion — The immortality of the soul — The transmigration
of souls — The substance of souls — The postulate of freedom —
Posthumous justice — The Faust-like impulse to live on — Per-
sonalistic pluralism — Soul and spirit — The philosophical idea of
God — Proofs of the existence of God — The ontological proof and
Pantheism — The cosmological proof and Deism — The teleological
proof and Theism.

The first contact between knowledge and faith,
between philosophy and religion, was inimical. The
thinkers of the school of Miletus, in whom the scientific
thought of the Greeks begins, put their physical and
metaphysical hypotheses in the place of the ideas which
they found in popular beliefs, in the aesthetic national
mythos, and in cosmogonical poetry ; and out of their
teaching the poet-philosopher Xenophanes forged his
weapons in his struggle with the anthropomorphism
which was common to all these forms of faith. Thus
science created a new conception of God, having little
but the name in common with the traditional view, and
this new creation encountered the movement toward
Monotheism that was taking place in general thought.
In the great vitality and subtle differentiation which dis-
tinguished the religious life amongst the Greeks it was
inevitable that the various deities should blend with
each other, and this was in harmony with the Heno-
theistic feature which was present in Greek mythology
from the start, since it expressed the idea of fate or
of the preponderance of a single deity such as Zeus.
Science co-operated very powerfully in the victorious
development of Monotheism, and since that time all
its positive relations to religion have been restricted
to Monotheism. The relics of polytheistic and poly-
dsmonistic myths, which even the great civilised
religions partly retained and partly reabsorbed in the
course of time, lie entirely beyond the range of philo-
sophical inquiry. The evolution of Monotheism, on
the other hand, coincides with the change which we
regard as the transition to moral religion, an essential

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 335

feature of which is that the Deity shall be endowed with
ethical predicates. Amongst the Greeks this change
occurs in the very period in which scientific criticism
of religion was born. The gnomic poetry represents
Zeus as the supporter of the moral order, whilst the
ridicule which Xenophanes poured upon the popular
belief had reference not only to the imagining of the
gods in physical human shape, but particularly to the
fact that human experiences such as birth and death,
human sins like murder and adultery and lying, were
imputed to them. The new conception of Deity,
which philosophy helped to elaborate, combines the
metaphysical idea of a single world-principle with the
idea of a supreme court of the moral life. Hence there
arose an antagonism between the religion of science
and the religion of the people. With the conceptual
forms of the Sophists the Cynics and the Stoics taught
that there was only one God according to nature and
truth, but there were many according to human belief
and the changes of opinion. In the course of time the
conflict of religions in the Middle Ages, in the period
of the Arabian philosophers, and then the struggle of
sects in the West led to a distinction between positive
religions, which are based upon history, and a natural
religion based upon reason. The eighteenth century
in particular sought this unsectarian religion : a religion
that could be understood and proved, and which
should represent the essential and significant things
in all religion.

Opposed to a natural religion of this character are
all the arguments we quoted previously in dealing with
natural law. And there is a special difficulty in the
case of religion. If there were such a natural religion,
its teaching could be established in the same way as a
mathematical theorem, and there would then be only
one religion. But it would no longer be a religion,
because it is part of the fundamental pious feeling that
its object is vague and undefined. This forms the
mystery of it, and without mystery there is no religion.
Hence science is ill advised to attempt to construct a

336 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

religion out of its knowledge. Wherever this has been
attempted, the result has been an anaemic structure
which secured no community, and was unsuited to
secure one. Indeed, even positive religion is equally
ill advised when it attempts to convert itself into a
demonstrable doctrine. It then exposes itself to all
the dangers which arise for the irrational content of
life from clash with rational thought, and it divests
itself of the mystery which is of its very essence.
' Christianity without mysteries ' ' was an unhappy idea
of the eighteenth century. Hence, however necessary
the construction of dogmas may be in the ecclesiastical
organisation and for the purposes of its external life —
as Plato very clearly shows in his ideal State, which has
a deeply religious complexion — yet the intellectualising
of the devout feeling is a great menace to its specifically
religious energy. It has been said of Church-law that
religion ends where it begins ; and the same might be
said of dogma, for they are parallel forms in the
secularisation of religion.

In spite of these objections to the attempt to found
a rational religion, it must be recognised that such
attempts have brought out the two problems with
which we have to deal in any philosophical discussion
of the theoretical truth of religion. The poverty and
anaemia of natural religion are due to the fact that it
retains only two elements out of the whole apparatus
of the religious mind : the belief in the existence of a
just and good God as creator and ruler of the world and
the belief in the immortality of the human soul. It
is easy to see that there are remnants of anthropo-
morphism even in these formulae of eighteenth-century
thought. To the Deity, for instance, they do not, it
is true, attribute any physical or morally reprehensible
features, but they do ascribe a moralising tendency
of a human sort. They are midway between the
mythical ideas above which they would rise and the
conceptual description of the transmundane with which
philosophical inquiry is concerned. And this character
shows in what direction we must look for the philoso-

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 337

phical elements which are the ultimate justification for
the whole mass of religious ideas.

In the idea of immortality we have a combination
of a number of elements derived from human needs ;
and these are in part of a worldly origin and content,
and they therefore chiefly determine the various forms
in which the life of the soul after death is pictorically
represented. We need not go into these different shapes
which the imagination has given to the intellectual
demand which is common to them all. It is our place
rather to point out that this common element of them
all is the metaphysical craving to secure for the human
personality some significance that transcends the world
of sense. We have found this craving fully justified
in every form of the life of values : in the knowledge
of science, in the unconditionedness of the moral judg-
ment, and in the task of art. We need therefore give
no special proof here. But religious thought has con-
verted this into a temporal conception. If there were
question only of the philosophical postulate in virtue
of which the highest forms of valuation which we dis-
charge as our own bring into the world of appearance
a transcendental order of reason, the problem would
assuredly have to be solved in an affirmative sense by
a critique of the logical, ethical, and aesthetic activity.
But ordinary religious thought demands the pro-
longation in time of the existence of the human indi-
vidual beyond its earthly life, and it thus takes the
problem into quite a different field. In this sense the
belief in the immortality of the human soul first arose
in the Dionysian religion of souls. In this the soul was
regarded as a dcemon which, on account of some sin,
was banished from the suprasensuous world to which
it originally belonged, and put into an earthly body to
expiate its sin and merit a return to its divine home.
Hence in the original sense, as we see very clearly in the
writings of Plato, immortality meant the transmigration
of souls. It teaches pre-existence just as emphatically
as post-existence. Indeed, in the case of Plato, it
seems from the first argument for immortality in the

22

338 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

Pluedo as if he particularly emphasised the pre-exis-
tence, and only inferred post-existence by analogy.
The whole philosophy of life of the Dionysian religion
is concentrated in this idea of transmigration of souls,
according to which the dcemons, limited in number,
wander restlessly through the world of living things,
feeling all the misery of sin and repentance and at last
finding rest with the gods who, in a state of eternal
felicity, are raised above the whole of this turmoil.
Later redemptive religions more or less vigorously
rejected the idea of pre-existence, and confined their
theory of immortality to post-existence. They see no
difficulty in representing the soul as beginning to exist
at a definite point in time and then continuing to exist
for ever. Since then the task of apologetic thought
has been to find a secure foundation for this perpetual
post-existence of the human soul after its life on earth
is over.

The theoretical arguments which may be used for
this purpose are centred mainly about the conception
of the substance of the soul. They lay stress upon the
feature of indestructibility which, since the Eleatic
metaphysics, has been inseparably connected with sub-
stantiality ; and we need hardly point out that this
applies also to the claim that the soul never began, as
in the original idea of the transmigration of souls.
Since it has been the custom in ecclesiastical metaphysics
to count the soul amongst the finite substances created
by God, and at the same time award it the character
of indestructibility, the proof of immortality has been
sought particularly along the line of proving the soul's
substantiality. The earlier arguments, which were drawn
from the idea of the soul as the ultimate cause of all
movement and the principle of life, clearly prove too
much. As far as they can be regarded as sound, they
apply to all sorts of " souls," not merely the human
soul ; and they are generally connected with the
primitive idea of the soul as a vital force which, as we
have previously shown, has been more and more dis-
carded in the progress of scientific thought, and replaced

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 339

by the idea of a bearer or vehicle of the functions of the
mind. Now, if the soul in this sense were a simple sub-
stance— as it was in Descartes's metaphysic — it could
neither be destroyed nor dissolved into simple con-
stituents. This was the direction taken by Plato in
his arguments in the Phcedo, where he emphasised the
inner unity and independence of the soul as contrasted
with the composite character of the body. The chief
stress in this was laid upon the antithesis of physical
and psychic, and the " suprasensuous " nature of the
soul was essentially found in its conscious functions.
But we saw in the course of our analysis of the ontic
problems of substance and causality the weakness of
applying the category of substance to the facts of inner
experience, and that modern psychology speaks rather
of a functional than of a substantial unity of the indi-
vidual psychic life. In any case, it is impossible to
deduce from the categorical form of thought and speech
the actual endless duration of that to which the form
is applied. It is rather the other way about : verbal
usage must be justified by actual proof of this particular
feature of " surviving all the changes of time." And
from the nature of the case this empirical proof must
remain within the bounds of experience. Such sur-
vival might be conceived, perhaps, on the dualistic lines
of psycho-physical causality, whereby, on the analogy
of the nature of memory, one might speak of an inde-
finite persistence of the psychic contents beyond their
temporal and bodily occasions. But, on the other hand,
on the lines of psycho-physical parallelism it is difficult to
think that the soul has not to share the fate of its body.
Considerations of this nature are merely an appli-
cation, in harmony with modern empirical thought,
of the criticism which Kant made in his Paralogisms
of Pure Reason of the arguments which were current
in the rational psychology of his time for the substan-
tiality and immortality of the soul. He showed that
these arguments are based upon a confusion of the
logical subject with the real substratum. But he went
on to show that the negative position, the denial of im-

340 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

mortality, is just as incapable of proof as the affirmative,
and that here again we have one of the cases in which
science ends in an insoluble antithesis, and so it is per-
mitted to decide between the alternatives on the ground
of an interest of practical reason. Hence his theoretical
criticism kept open the possibility of an ethical meta-
physic, in which the soul returned, not now under the
name of substance, but as "intelligible character" and
a reality of the suprasensuous world.

This brings us to what are called the moral arguments
for the suprasensuousness of human nature. In the
course of his ethics Kant finds this argument in the self-
determination of the will without any other motive than
the moral law — that is to say, in freedom. Since this
is impossible in the world of sense, which is subject to
the law of causality, the reality of freedom, without which
there can be no morality, must be sought in the supra-
sensuous world ; indeed, it is only by freedom that we
learn its reality. In so far as a man belongs to this
world of freedom he is a person and intelligible character,
and is raised above time, which is merely the form of
the phenomenal world. This is not the place to examine
Kant's argument in detail : to ask whether the practical
conception of freedom as self-determination by law is
quite identical with the theoretical (transcendental)
conception of freedom as the capacity to cause without
being caused. We are rather concerned with the fact
that we have precisely in this train of thought the
decisive reason for lifting man as a moral being into
a super-terrestrial world. But Kant was not content
with this. He went on from this height to the tradi-
tional idea of immortality as an infinite persistence of
the earthly life of man, and he afterwards sought to
justify this postulate by the feeling of validity and the
demand of justice beyond the grave. In this he ex-
pressed a common mode of feeling and thinking, which
plays an important part in the positive religions and
their treatment of moral questions. Kant's formulation
starts from the idea of the highest good as the identity
of virtue and happiness. He means that it is incon-

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 341

ceivable that virtue should alone be worthy of happi-
ness, yet not destined to share it. And since this identity
is not secured during earthly life, but very disputable,
the realisation of the highest good must be sought in
the life beyond. It is a fact that this feeling really
exists. We would like the good man to be happy ; and
it is painful for us to see the wicked man enjoy the good
things of earth, perhaps in precise proportion to the
unscrupulousness with which he uses means which the
moral law forbids others to use. The general feeling
is not satisfied with the assurance that, in spite of all
his sacrifices, the good man bears real happiness within
him, and the other, in spite of all his enjoyments, has
only a fallacious happiness. No : the fact is that in the
course of earthly life the distribution of happiness and
unhappiness proceeds on lines of ethical indifference.
Let us not deceive ourselves as to this fact. But when
we regard this as unjust, and trust that the injustice
will be remedied beyond the grave, is this really a
moral or morally justified sentiment ? Is it, especially,
so necessary a claim of the moral consciousness that
the postulate of immortality may be securely based
upon it, as Kant attempted to do ? We may seriously
doubt it. A strict rigorism might discard it, and find
that virtue and happiness are two things that have,
and ought to have, nothing to do with each other. The
man who would say this might justly expect the approval
of so strong an opponent of Eudasmonism as the founder
of the categorical imperative. On the whole, however
consoling the argument may be, and however many
it may help through the painful riddle of life on earth,
it is certainly not proof. Besides all other objections
there is in the end the question : Who is going to
guarantee that what we think ethically necessary will
be realised ? It is quite clear that the broad application
of this argument in its popular forms is not free from
objection. The idea of justice beyond the grave cer-
tainly does much to promote legality, and this element
could not very well be spared in the actual condition
of social life. But it also contains a danger to pure and

342 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

autonomous morality, since it is apt to make a decisive
motive of the idea of reward and punishment in the
next life. And there is another danger in the frequent
use of this type of argument. The more closely the
moral precept is, in theological moralising, brought into
relation with the appeal to immortality and justice after
death, the greater is the likelihood of scepticism arising
as to moral conduct itself when the belief in the survival
of the soul after death is enfeebled.

The moral proof of immortality is purer in the form
in which Goethe, in his eightieth year, formulated the
postulate. " My belief in our continuance after death,"
he said, " arises from my conception of activity. If
I work right to the end, nature is bound to provide me
with another form of existence if the present can no
longer sustain my spirit." Goethe goes on to say that
he will have nothing to do with eternal happiness
unless it means new tasks and new difficulties to over-
come. From this he deduces that immortality depends
upon the value of one's activity, and is not given to all.
In the same way some of the Stoics claimed that only
the wise were immortal. In both cases the idea is based
upon a belief in the justice of the world-order.

Thus does the belief in immortality extend from one
extreme to the other. On the one hand we have the
desire for rest after the unrest of life : on the other hand
a desire of unbounded activity : between the two all
the desires which in one way or other postulate a con-
tinuance of earthly life and a remedy of its defects. In
all of them there is something of the Faust -impulse — to
experience more than earthly reality can supply. The
finite spirit is not content with the narrow circle of space
and time in which it finds itself exiled. The spatial
limitation of existence might, perhaps, be tolerated,
especially if we could continue the familiar experiences
of life. But our limitation in time is a more serious
matter. Men are not much troubled about the past,
and are not afflicted because there were so many things
at which they were not present ; but it is hard to reflect
that we shall not see the future, not see the further

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 343

development of those tasks in which our inmost feelings
were involved. Hence the Faust-impulse casts itself
upon the unbounded future. In a sense the limits of
time might be removed, and the limits of space remain ;
and so imagination, working upon the idea of im-
mortality, has pictured us in the future life wandering
from star to star, and has thus got back to the original
idea of the transmigration of souls.

We need not speak here about the very definite
pictures of the future life which have thus been
imagined, but will add a few considerations as to the
metaphysical and metapsychical tendencies of these
things. In the first respect we have the idea that per-
sonalities are amongst the timeless primary constituents
of things, and that they do not represent results in the
temporal course of the empirical which arise and pass
away. In this sense Kant and Schopenhauer speak
of the " intelligible character " of man. Later writers
speak of primary positions, henads, and so on. We
have noticed this question, when dealing with ontic
problems, in connection with the antithesis of the singu-
laristic and the pluralistic view of things. Personalistic
Pluralism has very often been held in connection with
the problems of freedom and responsibility ; but we
cannot fail to see that it is opposed to Monotheistic meta-
physics in a way which cannot be concealed by any
ingenuity of argument. Lotze, perhaps, made the best
attempt to get over the difficulty by representing that
individual personalities may be conceived as merely
partial appearances of the primary divine substance,
in which case they must share its eternity and inde-
structibility. Fechner at the same time contended that
he found room for the belief in immortality in his Pan-
psychic philosophy of life ; but in this case it is scarcely
consistent with Fechner's own theory of psycho-physical
parallelism.

In relation to metaphysics the ideas of immortality
are connected with the attempts to find a stratified
structure in the psychic life, the mortal parts being
separable from the immortal. This was done by Plato

344 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

with explicit reference to differences of value ; by
Aristotle rather on theoretical lines. Plato in his later
period regarded the psychic activities which are bound
up with the body and its needs as the lower and mortal,
overshadowing the higher and immortal part to some
extent during its life on earth ; in which case it is not
easy to see in what can have consisted the sin of this
pure immortal soul, for which it was condemned to exile
in the body. Hence in Plato's Timceus the migration
of souls looks more like a law of fate than a moral dis-
pensation. In Aristotle the vegetative and the animal
soul are put in a position of inferiority to the higher
and specifically human soul or reason, the vovs; which,
as it is supposed to have come from without into the
organic world, may also survive as the immortal part.
Thus, at all events, Aristotle has been understood by
all his scientific commentators. The combination of
these theories gave rise to the Neo-Platonist theory,
which has persisted, with various modifications of expres-
sion, from the time of Plotinus to modern philosophy,
and survives in the speech of our time. Besides
the psychic life that is bound up with the world of
sense, and perishes with it, there is supposed to be a
spiritual life which rises into the suprasensuous world.
The " soul ' is of this world ; the " spirit ' belongs
beyond this world. The one is empirical, the other
metaphysical. That is to some extent the language
of our own time. These theories, however, are in their
assumptions in some measure at variance with the idea
of immortality. For what we may call the reason or
the spirit, as distinguished from the soul, is altogether
impersonal or superpersonal. The commentators on Aris-
totle were not agreed whether there is question in his
theory of personal immortality ; and historically those
were right who contended the vovs is in the Aristotelic
system not personal, but merely the generic reason or
even the world-reason. Even in Plato there is the same
impersonality of the immortal part of ttje soul, since
he at times gives it the same name, reason. These ideas
are, up to a certain point, easily harmonised with

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 345

modern theories of the general mind. Just as the indi-
vidual arises from an empirical general mind, in which
he constantly shares by the whole of his own activity,
so there is in this general mind, as an ultimate and
innermost stratum, a province of rational validity, and
the individual mind shares also in this. But this share
in its actual content and its eternal validity is inde-
pendent of the extent to which it enters into the system
of an historical general mind, and through this into the
province of an individual mind. To that extent we
have here also a distinction of the mortal and the im-
mortal in the psychic life, and precisely in the thought
that we can make this eternal element our own in our
empirical psychic activity we find compensation for the
mortality of all that merely enters consciousness from
the bodily conditions of the life of the individual soul.
Any person, however, who consoles himself with this
thought, that whatever has the value of eternity lives
and works on in our nature and work, must realise that
this is not the individual and personal immortality of
religious teaching.

The moral proofs of immortality always find their
completion in the idea of a moral order of the supra-
sensuous world, an ordo ordinans, as Fichte called it
as a counterpart to natura naturans. If man, as a
metaphysical being, is to rise to a higher world, this
itself must be conceived as a self-contained whole ; and
if the category of substance is applied to it, it takes the
name " God." In Kant's formula the postulate of im-
mortality is completed by the existence of God. The
realisation of the highest good is by no means guaranteed
by the natural order even in the endless duration of
the life beyond. It is only guaranteed if there is a final
unity of the natural and moral order in the Deity. In
the main this was the chief point in the moral religion
of the eighteenth century, in the case of such men as
Shaftesbury and Voltaire.

When philosophy thus approaches the problem of
the reality of God, we must bear in mind that this con-

346 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

ception has an important feature in common with the
idea of God in current religion, but is by no means
identical with it. The distinction is of importance in
connection with all the theoretical proofs which philo-
sophy urges of the existence of God. They hold first
of all for the constructive religion which attempts to
put conceptual clearness into the traditional ideas of
the mythos. We must remember that from the earliest
period of science philosophers have been accustomed to
give the name "God" to the ultimate principle of reality,
no matter how they conceived the content of the term.
Anaximander of Miletus calls the infinite the divine :
Xenophanes calls the one, which for him is identical
with the all, <9eos-. So it goes on as far as Spinoza's Deus
sive natura and Fichte's God as the moral order of
the world. Positive religion will not recognise this
use of the terms. It declares that these doctrines are
atheism — they deny ^s God. Nor need philosophers
be surprised at this, since they see the different religions
bringing against each other the charge of atheism,
because one conceives the Deity differently from
another. Everybody who does not believe as we do
is an " unbeliever." Philosophy has, of course, nothing
to do with these controversies. But this very ambiguity
of the word is fatal to the popular proof of the existence
of God ex consensu gentium. For what different peoples
and ages meant by " God ' were very different things.
We may disentangle some vague surmise as the common
element in all this rich diversity, but we must remember
that a vague general belief of this kind need not be a
general truth.

The philosophic problem of Deity, which emerges
from axiology, is concerned only with our principle of
a totality of the suprasensuous world. The ordinary
proofs of the existence of God, of which we noticed the
theoretical significance in dealing with ontic problems,
especially the problem of substance, were divided by
Kant into the ontological, cosmological, and teleo-
logical or physico-theological. The ontological argu-
ment is that which starts from the conception of being.

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 347

By being is meant the content of all reality, and there
is then no difficulty in proving that it exists. If we
call God the ens realissimum et perfectissimum, our idea
includes reality and wants no proof. But we may ask
whether we are compelled to think the ens realissimum
at all; and, since the drift of Kant's criticism is that
reality does not follow from any conception that may
be thought, it is not even enough to show that this con-
ception must necessarily be thought. In this respect
Kant made the problem all the deeper when he asked
for proof, not of the existence of God, but of the neces-
sity of the existence of God. When we rid this idea
of its scholastic formulae, we find ourselves at the ex-
treme limit of human inquiry. We are face to face with
the question why anything must exist at all. Why is
there not nothing ? There is no answer to that question.
For, if we are not to move in a vicious circle, this neces-
sity must always be sought in something else, and from
that to another, and so on ad infinitum. This holds
good even if we seek the reason of all being, as Fichte
and Weisse did, in the " ought " or in the possible. For
we again ask, whence the " ought ' or the possibility,
and we must seek the reason in some other being.
Hence being reveals its necessity by the fact that it is.
In this direction lay the " one possible ' proof, which
Kant, after his criticism of the ontological argument,
first himself devised, and then silently abandoned. And
in the same direction lay the rehabilitation of the
ontological proof which Hegel attempted. It is quite
another question whether absolute being can be, in
respect of its contents, something different from all
special beings. On the strength of the premises of the
ontological proof that must be denied, and hence arises
its affinity to the Pantheism of the Eleatics, the
medieval Realists, Spinoza, and so on. Hence also
the intimate relation of this argument and of Pantheism
to the original indefiniteness of the religious feeling.
With this Pantheistic feature are connected also the
superlative predicates which play a great part in the
dialectic of this argument : the greatest, most real, best,

348 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

most perfect, etc. Whatever is possible in the world
of appearance and beyond it must be contained in the
principle itself. Even if it only makes its appearance
in the sensory world in the course of time, and had, per-
haps, never appeared before, it must be timelessly real
in the absolute being like all conceivable perfections.
Here the suprasensuous is regarded in a thoroughly
Spinozistic sense and sub specie ceterni, and therefore
the question discussed in the earliest metaphysical con-
troversies, whether perfection means the beginning or
the end, is irrelevant from this point of view. Emana-
tion and evolution relate only to the appearance. The
divine world-essence has neither beginning nor end. It
is alike beginning and end, the Alpha and the Omega.
The cosmological proof comes a little nearer to ordi-
nary religious thought since it seeks a cause of the innu-
merable individual things poured out in space and time :
a cause that shall be different from them in its nature
and its mode of reality. In the Scholastic formulation
this argument is helped out by ideas of chance and
necessity, or of relative and absolute, conditioned or
unconditioned, necessity, of the contingency of the finite
and the necessity of the Infinite. In the very compli-
cated dialectical play of these conceptions, which we
find most thoroughly drawn out in Hegel's Vorlesungen
uber die Gottesbeweise, we see the need of reducing the
force of this argument to the ontological, as Kant showed.
The cosmological argument in its simpler historical form,
as we find it in Aristotle, depends on the category of
causality in the same way as the ontological argument
depends upon the category of substantiality. It seeks
a final link in the chain of causes, the " prime mover,"
TO 7rpo)Tov KIVOVV. From this was developed later, partly
by introducing into it the element of time, the theory
of the transmundane creator of the world, the idea of
the Deists. In this causal form the argument is ex-
posed to the well-known objections derived from the
theory of knowledge. Causality, in so far as it is a cate-
gory, is a relation between given empirical elements,
and from it arises the need and the right to seek a second

THE TRUTH OF RELIGION 349

link in connection with one that is given, but only within
the sphere of experience. But this does not justify the
/iCTa/tacTi? els aAAo yevos which would occur if one were to
pass in search of the cause from the physical to the meta-
physical, from the finite to the infinite, from the con-
tingent to the necessary. It follows, however, that it
would be just as illogical to deny this physico-metaphy-
sical causal relation as to affirm it : that is to say,
Atheism is no more capable of scientific truth than
Deism. But even if we were to ignore these objections
and grant a demonstrative force to the cosmological
argument, it would give us no knowledge of the nature
and content of the cause which we thus inferred from
the effect. For the causal relation does not determine
anything about the likeness or unlikeness of cause and
effect. Hence at the most the cosmological proof merely
leads us once more to a quite vague idea of a First Cause,
without saying anything as to its nature. It therefore
gives us no ground to think of God as a spiritual being,
a personality.

If we are to do this, we need to go on to certain ele-
ments which will enable us to determine the contents
of the cosmic cause. This is supposed to be done by
the teleological proof, which is on that account, as Kant
pointed out, the most impressive of all, and is the most
esteemed by religious people. It infers a spiritual agency
from the purposiveness and harmony, the beauty and
perfection of the world. From the perfection of the
machine it deduces that it originated in the mind of a
supreme engineer. Hence this proof finds favour with
men of science who wish to reconcile the mechanical
trend of scientific investigation with religious belief.
The argument from analogy, which is thus made the
basis of the metaphysical position of Theism, has a good
deal of rhetorical force, but it is not strictly a proof.
Indeed, the analogy does not hold altogether when the
argument is supposed to lead us to the conception of
an all-wise, all-good, and all-powerful Creator. For
the human engineer finds his material at hand, and
there is thus a limit to his power ; whereas the Deity

350 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

has to create the material. This distinction was indi-
cated by Kant when he said that the teleological proof
leads only (as was the case with the older thinkers) to
the conception of a governor and architect of the world.
In order to go on to God we have to use also the cos-
mological (and in the end the ontological) argument.
But even with this restriction the teleological argument
is open to still further objections. That the purposive
can only be due to design cannot be proved ; from the
properties of the effect nothing can, strictly, be deduced
as to the properties of the cause. Hume himself
pointed out that it was possible that, on the principles
of probability, in an infinite course of time there might
arise a constellation of masses which would admit only
a minimum of disturbance and therefore persist for a
considerable time ; and when modern biology purported
to be able to give a mechanical explanation of the vital
capacity — which, as we previously saw, means purpo-
siveness in them — of organisms, physico-theological specu-
lation received a serious check and found itself in a
problematical situation.

An examination of the soundness of its premises is
even more menacing to the psychological impressive-
ness of this argument. Is the world really as purposive,
as harmonious, beautiful, and perfect as it ought to be
in order to sustain the burden of the teleological argu-
ment ? Kant took these premises for granted, but
others have made a detailed elaboration of them.
Astronomical and, especially, biological teleology has
figured conspicuously in the literature of the subject.
With the petulance which, unfortunately, is always
imported into any discussion in regard to religious ques-
tions it is said that only bad will can close a man's eyes
to the purposiveness and beauty of the world ; that
it is ungrateful not to search for the author of it. As
a matter of fact, no one actually resists this impression,
but it is not the only possible impression. Any man
who observes reality impartially sees a good deal that
is not purposive and not harmonious, a good deal that
is ugly and imperfect, in the world. Both, the pur-

REALITY AND VALUE 851

posive and purposeless, are found everywhere. There
is a good deal of each, and it would be difficult to say
which is the more abundant. Religion itself in its
highest form, redemptive religion, emphatically asserts
that this world, which in its purposiveness bears the
stamp of its divine Creator, is nevertheless full of im-
perfection, misery, and sin. How are we to reconcile
this ? What is the relation of the divine being who
sustains a suprasensuous world of values to a world of
sense in which these values, while realised to some
extent, are in large part flagrantly denied ? What is
the relation of what ought to be to what is ? Of the
world of timelessly valid values to the world of things
and temporal events ? That is the final problem.

§22

Reality and Value. — Subjective and objective Antinomianism — Optimism
and pessimism — -The problems of theodicy — Physical evil — Moral
evil — Dualism of value and unity of the world — The will as the
principle of the temporal.

Our inquiry began with the unsatisfactoriness of
knowledge: it ends with the unsatisfactoriness of life.
The former stimulated the reflective thought which
finds itself urged from the unsettled ideas of daily life,
through scientific conceptions, to the problems of
philosophy ; and these have pressed upon us more and
more as we passed from questions of knowledge to ques-
tions of valuation. All theoretical problems arose from
the fact that the assumptions and postulates latent in
the forms of knowledge of reality, especially the assump-
tion of the identity of the world with itself, can never
be fully realised in the contents given in experience.
The whole life of values reveals an unrealised, or even
unrealisable, mass of demands that are made, not only
of our ideas of the real, but of the reality itself ; and
these unfulfilled demands concern not only human
states and activities, but also the things and situations
to which they relate. Indeed, it is of the very essence

352 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

of valuation that the norm which guides it is not ful-
filled of itself, and not fulfilled always. "Ought' and
" is," value and reality, must be different. If norm
and reality were identical, there would be an end of
valuation, since its alternative character — affirmation
or denial — presupposes this difference. There would be
no logical appreciation of true and false if there were
a natural necessity guiding the mind only to sound con-
clusions : no ethical appreciation of good and bad if
the natural process of motivation fulfilled the moral
law in all volition and conduct : no aesthetic appre-
ciation of beautiful and ugly if in every construction
of nature and art we had a perfect expression of the
significant content ; and even all hedonistic appre-
ciation would cease if the whole of life were pleasant
or useful. The laws of " ought " and those of " must '
cannot be entirely different, yet cannot be identical.
Thus from the subjective antinomianism which reveals
itself in all philosophic treatment of problems we came
to an objective antinomianism, which puts the dualism
even in reality, and makes the subjective dualism intel-
ligible by showing that it is only a special case of this.
The fact of valuation necessarily implies a dualism of
the valuable and valueless in reality.

This subtle truth, which is easily overlooked, may
be traced in the meaning of the two attitudes which
we find opposing each other under the names of opti-
mism and pessimism. Even optimism does not deny
that there is evil in the world. The superlative expres-
sion in the name means only that the world is the best
of possible worlds. That is its meaning in the scientific
form which Leibnitz gave it. It by no means implies
that the world is free from evil, but that it is a world
in which evil is restricted to the smallest possible pro-
portions. It is the best in the sense that it contains
the least evil. Pessimism, on the other hand, has no
idea of denying that there is any good in the world. Its
most eloquent champion, Schopenhauer, admits that
even in this evil world there is much that is purposive,
successful, beautiful, and consoling. Hence neither view

REALITY AND VALUE 353

calls into question the dualism of value in the real. All
that they pretend to prove is the preponderance of one
or the other element, and in this they have a good deal
of appeal to the emotional reaction of people upon life.
There are optimism and pessimism in the sentiments
of the individual, or even of whole groups of individuals
— peoples and ages — which are urged by temperament
or experience in one or the other direction. These are
effects of emotional apperception which we quite
understand psychologically. If at some time the accu-
mulation of similar experiences leads to one of these
definite attitudes, it is generally confirmed and
strengthened by selection and assimilation. But the
result is a mood or disposition, and moods can neither
be proved nor disproved.

Hence we cannot objectively prove any preponderance
either of the valuable or the valueless in the world in
the sense of optimism and pessimism. It is impossible
to estimate or appreciate the proportion with any con-
fidence even within the narrow limits of humanity, to
say nothing of the whole realm of life or the entire uni-
verse. Moreover, in judging that anything is good
or bad we pass beyond the limits of man's faculty of
knowledge in the sense that in doing so we must flatter
ourselves that we know something about the end of
the world. This is particularly true of the lowest and
most widespread form of optimism and pessimism, the
Hedonist form, which seeks to determine whether pleasure
or pain predominates in the totality of reality. In this
respect explicit theories are generally pessimistic. In
ancient times, as a consequence of the Hedonism which
found the end and meaning of life in pleasure, there
arose a feeling of despair of attaining this end and a de-
preciation of life, to which a Hedonist named Hegesias
gave expression by preaching suicide. In modern times
Schopenhauer chiefly advocated pessimism ; his meta-
physic of the will and his ethic based upon compassion
culminated in his doctrine of the misery of existence.
Here were the germs of the scientific pessimism which
was afterwards established by Edward von Hartmann.

23

354 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

The very nature of the will, he said, involved a prepon-
derance of pain ; since in every effort there is the pain
of the unsatisfied will. This is replaced by pleasure
only when the will is fulfilled, but the pain returns
and is intensified when it is again disappointed. Hence
even if the chances of satisfaction and disappointment
were equal, there would be a preponderance of pain,
which must in any case precede in the will. This is
merely a scientific description of the pessimistic mood
itself, and the argument of it may be countered by
pointing out that the effort, whether it be successful
or no, is a pleasure, a pleasant feeling of life and self-
assertion ; though this again is only a description of
the optimistic tendency. Thus optimism and pessi-
mism in the Hedonist form are based upon claims which
the impulse to happiness makes upon knowledge, and
with which knowledge is unable to comply. Even if
we could statistically and scientifically prove a pre-
dominance of pleasure or pain in the whole scheme of
things, it would give us no right whatever to qualify
the universe as good or bad. There would always
remain the counter-question, whether the world is there
for the purpose of producing pleasure : a question that
many answer in the affirmative in practice, but that
no one has ever answered theoretically. Hedonist opti-
mism and pessimism are therefore moods at which we
need not cavil as long as they do not claim the general
force of demonstrable theories.

On a higher ethical level we have an optimism and
pessimism which see in the fulfilment of the moral law
the end and aim of the world and of human life. Here
we get a difference due to the theory that man's natural
and original disposition was good, and that it has
changed and degenerated in the course of his historical
development. Those who, with Rousseau, hold that
man is naturally good, must consider, when they con-
template the present state of things, that up to the
present, at all events, history has led to his degeneration.
On the other hand, those who regard man's primitive
disposition as bad, as the Egoistic ethic or the theolo-

REALITY AND VALUE 355

gical doctrine of original sin or Kant's theory of radical
evil does, will have to show that social or religious
influences have greatly improved him. These again
are antithetic views that are often due to individual
disposition or experience, and which are incapable of
convincing proof. As regards man's natural endow-
ment, we have already seen that a sharp division of men
into good and bad, such as the Stoics claimed, argues
a superficial psychology. As a matter of fact the motives
of men are so mixed in real life that it is impossible to
divide them in this way. As to historical development,
our consideration of the philosophy of history has shown
us how difficult it is to form scientific ideas about the
moral changes of the human race in the past or the
future. It is always open to hold that the moral nature
of man generally has remained unchanged, or is even
unchangeable ; and that would be an ethical pessimism
that is not confined to Schopenhauer. Again it is
possible to combine a pessimistic view of man's original,
and even of his present, condition with an optimistic
view of his future. Thus Feuerbach and Diihring, in
spite of their severe censure of actual moral and social
conditions, were not shaken in their belief in the per-
fectibility of man and the certainty of progress and im-
provement. The finest combination of optimism and
pessimism is in Hartmann, who believes in a develop-
ment of civilisation which will lead to redemption from
the misery of existence by the growth of the intellectual
and the ethical life. Leibnitz, he thinks, was right in
holding that this world, considered in its entire evolu-
tion, is the best of all possible worlds ; but Schopenhauer
also was right when he said that the world is bad and
miserable enough. Hence it was a mistake of the un-
conscious essence of the world to produce a world at
all, and the best possible world is this, in which the mis-
take will eventually be made good by knowledge and
the denial of will, and the Deity may be redeemed by
his own world.

In this fantastic way the optimistic and pessimistic
moods are built up into philosophical systems. The

356 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

only sound element of knowledge in them is the dualism
of value in reality. It is the task of philosophy to get
beyond optimism and pessimism, and understand this
dualism ; to overcome it is a problem on which it has
expended much fruitless labour. Ancient philosophy
took the wrong way to do this under the pressure of
the prevailing religious beliefs. It attempted to make
the dualism of value equivalent to the theoretical
dualism in which all metaphysical consideration ends :
the dualism of the spatial and the mental, of body and
soul, of matter and spirit. From various motives and
in many different ways it contended that the world of
sense is the world of the imperfect and bad, as opposed
to the good world of the spirit, the suprasensuous world ;
and that in man the body was the evil, the soul or spirit
the good. We have dealt previously with this identi-
fication and have pointed out the defects in its theo-
retical basis. In its effects, however, it goes far beyond
scientific thought ; in which, indeed, it did not originate,
and to which it is by no means confined. Both in theory
and practice (from which it sprang) it involved a depre-
ciation of the life of the senses. Man was taught to be
ashamed of his own body, of the sensuous-suprasensuous
dualism of his nature. For two thousand years this
has lain like a disordered dream upon European humanity,
and we return slowly, very slowly, to the clear Greek
view of life.

Apart from this error and aberration, the fact of the
dualism of value in the whole of life remains in undi-
minished obscurity, and from it sprang the four problems
of theodicy which we have considered. The funda-
mental question, formulated in religious terms, is,
Why did God create a world of which evil is a necessary
constituent ? These problems again present themselves
first to the ordinary mind in a Hedonist form. The
idea that the creation of the world was due to the wisdom,
goodness, and omnipotence of God seems to be sharply
contradicted by the dysteleological facts of life on earth :
the cruelty of animal life and the worse evils of human
life — pain, want, and misery of every sort. This im-

REALITY AND VALUE 357

pression is increased when we consider the distribution
of happiness and unhappiness, which seems to our sense
of value unjust. Even apart from all this, the bare
reality of physical evil is a powerful instance against
the belief in a divine creation and government of the
world. The question of Epicurus, whether God could
not or would not keep evil out of the world, or both,
has never been satisfactorily answered. The rhetorical
arguments which have been used repeatedly since the
time of the Stoics and their opponents depend entirely
on more or less pronounced anthropomorphisms. When
people speak of the educational value of evil, of the
unavoidable incidental effects of things good in them-
selves, of the use of apparently contradictory means
for the eventual fulfilment of the divine plan, one can
always retort by asking whether a benevolent omni-
potence could not have found less painful means for
carrying out its designs ; and the appeal, made long
ago by the Stoics, to the impenetrability of the ways
of Providence is supposed to be valid only for the believer,
not for the sceptic.

These reflections may suffice to lessen the force of
the problem of physical evil for some people, but they
do not touch the heart of the question — the reality of
moral evil, the quantity of wickedness in the world. It
is no use attempting to argue away this as is done with
physical evil, by saying, as the Stoics did, that pain is
not really an evil, especially for the wise, but is merely
considered such by the immature man ; or by saying,
as the Neo-Platonists did in their metaphysical opti-
mism, that everything real is good and perfect, and that
the evil and imperfect is merely a defect of being.
Rhetoric of this kind, as that evil is merely the absence
of good, is of no value. The religious mind itself can
never get over the fact of sin, which is for it the most
certain of all facts, and as such is the origin of all the
fervour of the craving for redemption. This is the point
at which the desire of a unified understanding of the
world breaks down before an insoluble problem. The
world of values and the world of realities, the provinces

358 RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS

of ' ought " and " must," are not foreign to each other.
They are in mutual relation everywhere. But they
are certainly not the same thing. There is a rent in
the fabric of reality. Besides the values which are
realised in it there is a dark power of something indifferent
to or opposed to value. If we mean by God a single
principle in which all that can be experienced has a
common being and common origin, we can never under-
stand how it divides into a duality that contradicts
itself. Ancient philosophy on that account stopped
short at the antithesis of God and matter, or form and
matter. At a later date theosophic and theogonic specu-
lations, such as those of Jacob Boehme, tried to do away
with this ' division ' or " otherness " ; but they had
to be content with obscure figures of speech and assump-
tions that were little more than aspirations. We cannot
get over the contradiction. The dualism is the most
certain of all facts, yet Henism is the most solid of all
the assumptions of our philosophy of reality. For the
dialectic which would try to evade the difficulty the
only logical means seemed to be the contradictory dis-
junction, and the only metaphysical escape the recog-
nition of negativity ; and it has therefore, from Proclus
to Hegel, attempted the impossible with its thesis, anti-
thesis, and synthesis. But when it thus attempts to
show how, in the words of Heraclitus, the one divides
itself into two and then returns to itself, it merely suc-
ceeds with the dialectical process in defining and
describing, but never in understanding and explaining.
From the very nature of the case this final problem
is insoluble. It is the sacred mystery, marking the
limits of our nature and our knowledge. We must be
content to remain there and to recognise that here, at
this inmost point of life, our knowledge and under-
standing can reach no further than the other side of our
being, the will. For the will the duality of value of
reality is the indispensable condition of its activity.
If value and reality were identical, there would be no
will and no event. All would remain motionless in a
state of eternal completion. The innermost meaning

REALITY AND VALUE 359

of time is the inalienable difference between what is
and what ought to be ; and because this difference,
which reveals itself in our will, constitutes the funda-
mental condition of human life, our knowledge can
never get beyond it to a comprehension of its origin.
Hence we human beings find a dispassionate joy, not
in the unrest of the will, which drags us into the tran-
sitory turmoil of the world of appearances, but in the
tranquil province of pure thought and contemplation
in which the values of eternity are revealed : 77
TO "rjSiarov Koi apiarov.

INDEX

Absolute reality, 36, 45

Acosmism, 80

^Esthetic Epicureanism, 229

.(Esthetics, 300-16

After-feeling, 311

Agnosticism, 194

Altruism, 230

Anaxagoras, 35, 58, 60, 75, 83,

127

Anaximander, 42, 74, 79, 89, 346
Anaximenes, 89
Animism, 106
Antinomianism, 45
Antisthenes, 228
Aposteriorism, 180-1
Appearance and reality, 34-46, 201
Apperception, 73
Apriorism, 108-1
Architecture, 314
Aristippus, 229
Aristotle, 18, 30, 35, 62, 92, 106,

317. 344. 34 S
Arnobius, 1 1 1
Art, 316-24
Aseity, 62, 76
Associations, 256
Assumptions, 18-20
Atomism, 53, 62, 82
Attributes, 66
Aufkldrung, the, 28, 318
Augustine, 115

Authority and morality, 241-4
Automatic actions, 161
Avenarius, 38
Axioms, 22

Bacon, 177
Bahnsen, 83
Baumgarten, A., 301
Beauty, nature of, 304-16
Being —

and existence, 35

true and apparent, 44
Belief, 175
Bentham, 227, 231

Bergson, 95

Berkeley, 38, 68, 114, 115, 194

Boehme, Jacob, 358

Brain, obscurity of the, 162

Broussais, 112

Bruno, Giordano, 79, 84

Biichner, 112

Burke, Edmund, 312

Cabanis, 112

Categorical Imperative, the, 236

Category—

of inherence, the, 47, 51

of quantity, the, 72
Causality, 48, 126-42, 348
Causes, classes of, 128-9
Chamberlain, H. S., 64
Chemical combination, 102, 155
Christianity, 262, 329
Christiansen, 311
Church, the, 261
Cicero, 190

Civilisation, the philosophy of, 328
Collectivism, 285
Colour, sensations of, 103
Common sense, the, 103
Communities, voluntary and in-
voluntary, 253-67
Comte, Auguste, 38, 39, 150, 267,

281

Condillac, 192
Conscience, 220-40
Conscientialism, 196
Consciousness, contents of, 196-

207

Conservation of energy, 157
Constitutive characters, 66
Convertibility of natural laws, 144
Copula, the, 67
Cornelius, 27

Cosmological argument, the, 349
Creation, 127, 349
Criterion of truth, 173
Croce, Benedetto, 320
Custom, 264

361

362

INDEX

Darwinism, 149

Deism, 77

Democritus, 35, 43, 62, 112

Derivative characters, 66

Descartes, 18, 40, 66, 68, 91, 95,

104, 109, in, 115, 133, 156,

179,326
Design, 146
Determinism, 249
Diderot, 317
Dogmatism, 185-8
Dualism, no, 116-20
Du Bois-Reymond, 113
Diihring, 99, 112, 355
Duty, 123-5
Dynamism, 129

Efficient causes, 128
Egoism, 193

ethical, 228
Eleatics, the, 34, 42, 79, 81 90,

336, 347
Elements, 59

Emotionalism, 108, 209, 211
Empedocles, 35, 117, 149
Empirical reality, 36, 49
Empiricism, 177-82
End, the, 146
Energetics, 71
Energy, 79
Entelechies, 63
Epicurus, 114, 191, 229, 251, 329,

357

Epiphenomena, 160

Epistemology, 167

Essence, 35, 52-5

Essential and accidental, 52-8

Eternity, 99

Ethic, the Kantist, 234-8, 243

Ethics-
empirical and rationalist, 238
imperativist and descriptive, 220
intuitive, 240

Eudaemonism, 211, 225-31

Event, the, 122-6

Evidence, 175

Evolution, 150

Existence, 35

Experience, contents of, 49, 180

Extension, 66, 68

Faculties, unreality of, 60

Fall, the, 283

Family, the, 258

Fechner, 104, 105, 119, 149, 156,

255. 3°5, 343

Feuerbach, 112, 191, 246, 355
Fichte, 24, 81, 115, 116, 129, 184,
233, 283, 298, 345, 347

Finitism, 92-3, 99

First Cause, the, 349

Folk-psychology, 154

Forces, 128

Free will, the illusion of, 70, 135,

248-53
French Revolution, the, 292, 293

Genius, 320-2

Giercke, 256

God, 76-80, 91-3, 216, 326, 336,

356-9

proofs of the existence of, 345-50
Goethe, 50, 61, 104, 177, 301, 342
Greek philosophy, 24, 34, 42, 58,

59, 90, 91, 121, 167, 176, 290,

317. 329, 334. 356
Guelincx, 137, 156

Guyau, 298, 320

Hanslick, 310

Happiness and morals, 226-31

Hartmann, E. von, 353

Hedonism, 229, 353

Hegel, 15, 25, 35, 43, 116, 168, 222,

303, 33L 347. 348
Hegesias, 353
Helmholtz, 48
Henism, 74, Si, 358
Heraclitus, 117, 176, 358
Herbart, 19, 24, 43, 59, 61, 81, 83,

122, 241, 303, 309
Hero, the, 285-6
Hertz, H., 130
History —

philosophy of, 277-99

truth in, 205-7

value in, 279
Hobbes, in
Hominism, 180
Homoomeria, 58, 82
Humanism, 180
Humanity —

end of, 297

unity of, 288-92
Hume, 69, 72, 138, 190, 240, 246,

350
Hutcheson, 240

Idealism, 68-9, 114, 192
Identity, 49-56
Ideology, 181
Illusion in art, 313
Imitation in art, 317-18
Immanence, 77
Immanent event, the, 124
Immanent Positivism, 39
Immortality, 337-45
Indeterminism, 249

INDEX

363

Individual, the, and society, 26.\-6,

271, 283-4, 286
Individualism, 62-5
Individuality, 63-5, 69
Infinity, 44, 78-9, 89, 93, 99
Inherence, category of, 47, 51
Innate ideas, 177
Inner sense, the, no
Intellectualism, 107
Intelligible Space, 83
lonians, the, 41
Irony, 315

Jacobi, 38

Jellinek, 272

Jerusalem, 27

Judgment, nature of, 28, 208

Jurisprudence, 269

Kant, 15, 31, 41, 45, 75, 85, 93, 94,
104, in, 114, 147, 168, 195,
221, 234-8, 302, 307, 312, 331,

339-41, 347
Kirchhoff, 139
Knowledge —

limits of, 23

nature of, 28, 167-73

object of, 196-207

origin of, 176-82

validity of, 182-96
Krause, C. F., 234
Kiilpe, O., 27

Lamettrie, 112
Lange, A., 162, 327
Law —

philosophy of, 267-77
of nature, 268
Laws, natural, 130, 141
Legality and morality, 245
Leibnitz, 54, 63, 84, 116, 151, 179,

233, 302
Liberum arbitrium indifferentise^o,

252

Liebmann, O., 27
Locke, 68, no, 168, 177, 181, 242
Logical truth, 203
Lotze, 31, 48, 84, 86, 151, 201, 209,

343

Mach, 139

Madness and genius, 322

Malebranche, 114

Manicheanism, 117

Materialism, 111-14, 160, 230

Materialistic conception of history,

293

Mathematical truth, 202
Measurement, 87

Mechanism, 143-4, 151

.Mediterranean race, the, 290

Melissos, 90

Memory, Plato's theory of, 176

Metaphysical craving, the, 13

Metaphysical reality, 36

Metaphysics, meaning of, 36, 40

Middle Ages, the, 329

.Milieu, theory of the, 65

Modi, 66, 76/128

Mohammedanism, 262

Molecules, 60

Moleschott, 112

Monadology, 63, 84, 85, 127

Monism, 74, 118-20, 160, 164

Monotheism, 74, 334

Moral order of the Universe, 345

Morality-
nature of, 19-41
sanction of, 241-53

Movement in causation, 133, 152

Mysteries, the Greek, 261

Mysticism, 329

Mythos, the, 331

Naive realism, 185, 199

National States, 274

Natural law, 268

Natural religion, 336

Nature, 61

Neo-Platonism, 79, 92, 106, 178,

315. 344- 357
Newton, 104, 151
Nicholas of Casa, 79, 84, 92
Nietzsche, 100, 298
Night-theory, 104
Noetics, 167
Nominalism, 186—7
Noumena, 36
Number, 73

Objective, the, 37

Occam, 191, 242

Occasional causes, 128

Occasionalism, 76

Ontological argument, the, 346-7

Opinion, 167, 174

Optimism, 352

Organism, identity of the, 56

Outer sense, the, no

Pantheism, 76-8, 92, 330, 347
Parmenides, 176
Paulsen, 27
People, the, 259
Perfection, morality of, 232-3
Personality, 70, 281-4, 2^7
Pessimism, 352
Phenomena, 36, 43

364

INDEX

Phenomenalism, 190-4
Philosophy —

criticisms of, 19-20

demand for, 13

difficulty of, 14

need of, 21

origin of, 18

task of, 17, 19, 27, 29

terminology of, 10
Plato, 34, 35, 40, 43, 59, 90, 105,
114, 167, 176, 186, 273, 315,

317. 336. 337- 344
Play, impulse to, 319-20
Pleasure and morals, 226-7
Plotinus, 79, 315, 344
Pluralism, 87, 343
Polydemonism, 75
Polytheism, 75
Positivism, 37-8, 41, 138
Postulates, 22
Powers, 128

Pragmatism, 174, 179, 331
Pre-established harmony, 86
Pre-existence, 337
Prejudices, 22
Priestley, 114
Probabilism, 189
Problematicism, 189
Proclus, 358

Progress, philosophy of, 293-7, 325
Properties, 49~54
Protagoras, 227
Psychogenetic theory of knowledge,

176

Psycho-physical causality, 155-65
Psycho-physical parallelism, 157-

63

Psychologism, 181

Psychology—

and science, 206

theories of modern, 107-8
Purposiveness, 146-8
Pythagoras, 90, nS

Quantity, 72-101

Rationalism, 177-82

Realism, 185, 199

Reality — •

and appearance, 34-46
relative and absolute, 36
true and apparent, 35, 43

Relativity, 89

Religion and philosophy, 39, 324-51

Renaissance, the, 28, 40, 178, 315

Renouvier, 27, 99

Responsibility, 249-53

Robinet, 158

Romanticists, the, 229, 245

Rome, cultural evolution in, 329
Rousseau, 276, 354

Sacred, the, 324-33
Scepticism, 187-8, 332
Schelling, 129, 146, 305, 315, 321
Schiller, 106, 235, 247, 303, 312,

313. 319

Schleiermacher, 80, 233, 330
Scholastics, the, 107, 177, 180, 242
Schopenhauer, 13, 37, 48, 108,

115, 246, 292, 298, 303, 312,

313. 352, 353
Science, truth in, 204
Scotus, Duns, 242
Secondary qualities, 103
Self, meaning of the, 69-70, 129
Self-consciousness, 281-3
Selfish System, the, 228, 245
Semeiotics, 191
Senses, the, 102-4
Sensualism, 177
Sex and morality, 223
Shaftesbury, 229, 232, 240, 315
Singularism, 74, 93
Size, 73, 87
Smith, Adam, 240
Socialism, 230
Society, 260
Sociology, 267
Socrates, 18
Solger, 315
Solipsism, 193
Soul, idea of the/l 105-7, 332-3,

338-45

Sound, sensations of, 104
Space, 83-4, 90, 93-7
Speech, 284-5
Spencer, Herbert, 107, 150, 239,

298
Spinoza, 37, 78, So, 109, 119, 156,

232, 346

Spirit of the age, 86
Spiritualism, in, 114-16
State, the, 57, 260, 271
Stoics, the, in, 170, 239, 335,

342. 355. 357
Strauss, D. F., 112
Subjective, the, 37
Sublime, the, 312
Substance, 47-72
and cause, 133

Taste, 306

Teleology, 146-52, 350

Tertullian, in

Thales, 42

Theism, 77, 349

Theory of knowledge, 167-73

INDEX

365

Thing-in-itself, the, 34, 68, 195
Things, 48-55. 67-8
Time, nature of, 94-9, 122
Transcendence, 77
Transcendental appearance, 45, 69
Transcendental truth, 171, 184
Transgredient event, 124
Transvaluation of values, 14
Truth, nature of, 166-75, 184-5
Turgot, 39

Unconscious states, 108, 148
Uniformity of nature, 141
Unity of the human race, 288
Unity of substance, 74-84
Universal restoration, too
Universalism, 60-5
Universals, controversy about, 186
Utilitarianism, 211, 231

Validity, 182-3

Value, meaning of, 209-17, 351-2

Vitalism, 106-7, 147

Vogt, 112

Volition, nature of, 210-11

Voluntarism, 107, 115, 209

Weisse, 347

Will-
freedom of the, 70, 135, 248-53
relation of to knowledge, 28-9,
210

Winckelmann, 305

Woltf, 233, 301

World-empires, 290

Wundt, 26

Xenophanes, 334, 335, 346
Xenophon, 226

Zimmermann, 310

MAR 1 6 1987

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