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THE   JOTJBNAL    OF    PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY   AND    SCIENTIFIC    METHODS 


J 

THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY 


AND 


SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


EDITED  BY 

FREDEBICK  J.  E.  WOODBBIDGE 

AND 

T.  BUSH 


VOLUME  IX 

JANUARY-DECEMBER,  1912 


THE  SCIENCE  PRESS 
1912 


B 


Putts  or 

TNI  Nc»  E*A  P«i>«Ti»8  C 

L«HCAfIt».   P« 


VOL.  IX.     No.  1.  JANUARY  4,  1912. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


DO   THINGS   EXIST? 

AT  first  sight  nothing  could  seem  more  obvious  than  that  things, 
individual  blocks,  exist.  In  fact  that  things  exist  as  indi- 
vidual and  distinct  has  seemed  far  clearer  to  common  sense  than  that 
minds  are  individual.  We  only  have  to  recollect  that  Aristotle  found 
mind  (active  nous)  impersonal  and  universal,  while  the  body,  with 
the  functions  depending  upon  it,  seemed  to  furnish  the  individual 
substrate,  and  that  Thomas  Aquinas  makes  the  body  the  principle  of 
individuation,  without  which  human  souls,  like  the  angels,  would 
merge  into  the  genus.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  philosophy  has 
changed  front  in  this  respect,  and  finds  it  comparatively  easy  to 
recognize  the  individuality  of  minds,  while  the  independence  and 
individuality  of  things  has  well-nigh  disappeared  in  the  general 
continuum. 

There  have  been  several  motives  for  this  attitude  towards  the 
reality  of  things.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  mention  that  of  tempera- 
mental mysticism,  which  will  always  seek  reality  in  haziness  and 
away  from  distinctions.  Our  going  into  a  trance  or  going  to  sleep 
does  obliterate  plurality  so  far  as  we  are  concerned.  But  while  it 
does  away  with  the  significance  of  distinctions  for  the  dreamer,  does 
it  also  do  away  with  the  existence  of  distinctions?  I  do  not  believe 
so.  I  can  not  help  feeling  that  we  are  wiser  when  we  are  awake  than 
when  we  are  asleep,  and  that  reality  is  such  as  we  must  take  it 
in  our  systematic  conduct.  I  would  rather  trust  the  tried-out  dis- 
tinctions of  common  sense  and  science  than  the  dreamy  confluence 
of  mysticism. 

Our  antipathy  to  distinctions,  however,  may  not  be  due  merely 
to  temperamental  laziness.  It  may  be  due  to  conceptual  difficulties. 
Thus  the  difficulties  of  conceiving  plural  things  and  their  interactions 
in  space  lead  Lotze  to  conceive  the  universe  as  a  polyphonic  unity — 
an  ' '  esthetic  unity  of  purpose  in  the  world  which,  as  in  some  work  of 
art,  combines  with  convincing  justice  things  which  in  their  isolation 
would  seem  incoherent  and  scarcely  to  stand  in  any  relation  to  one 

5 


6  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

another  at  all."1  Bradley,  in  a  similar  way,  having  found  the  prob- 
lem of  relations  and  of  motion  insuperable  on  his  abstract  basis  of 
procedure,  has  recourse  to  an  esthetic  absolute  where  the  plurality 
of  things  and  their  ceaseless  struggle  is  at  rest.  I  can  not  see,  how- 
ever, how  we  are  justified  in  reading  plurality  out  of  the  world 
because  its  existence  interferes  with  our  ready-made  concepts.  New 
concepts,  perhaps  the  electrical  definition  of  physical  atoms,  may 
make  it  easier  to  see  how  a  world  of  relatively  stable  things  may 
coexist  and  interact.  In  the  meantime,  if  we  must  acknowledge 
diversity  of  things  for  purposes  of  conduct,  we  must  hold  that  they 
have  some  distinct  reality,  even  while  we  are  perfecting  our  con- 
ceptual models.  In  any  case,  thought  must  wait  upon  facts.  Where 
we  find  symphonic  unity  of  system,  there  we  must  of  course  acknowl- 
edge it.  But  when  the  facts  do  not  warrant  such  intimate  unity,  we 
have  no  right  to  read  it  into  them  on  the  basis  of  a  priori  conceptions. 
Even  within  our  own  individual  history,  we  are  far  from  finding 
a  closely  woven  purposive  unity.  We  are  the  creatures  largely  of 
habits  and  instincts.  We  must  provisionally  acknowledge  different 
types  of  continuity  of  which  unity  of  purpose  is  only  one. 

The  intellectualist's  condemnation  of  things  owes  its  convincing- 
ness to  certain  deep-rooted  prejudices.  One  of  these  prejudices  is 
that  individuality  means  indivisibility,  and  conversely  that  what  can 
be  divided  into  parts  can  not  be  individual.  The  substance  of 
Spinoza  and  the  atoms  of  Democritus  are  alike  indivisible.  This 
difficulty  of  indecomposability  would  of  course  equally  influence  our 
view  of  psychic  unities.  We  would  have  to  deny  the  reality  of  the 
self,  because  it  is  complex  and  capable  of  analysis.  The  art-object 
would  fall  to  pieces  the  moment  we  analyzed  it.  Hence  you  have 
either  a  heap  of  pieces  on  the  one  hand  or  a  mystical,  undifferentiated 
unity  on  the  other.  Now,  what  we  must  do  here  is  to  face  the  prob- 
lem honestly  and  cast  out  prejudice.  We  can  as  a  matter  of  fact 
recognize  a  self  or  a  work  of  art  as  a  unity  if  the  complexity  con- 
verges in  a  direction  or  towards  a  purpose.  If  in  the  organic  or 
inorganic  thing  we  can  recognize  a  common  impulse  or  movement, 
we  must  recognize  the  thing  as  one,  even  though  it  is  complex  and 
physically  divisible. 

This  prejudice  is  closely  connected  with  another — the  vice  of 
abstraction,  useful  though  abstraction  is  in  its  own  place  in  the 
economy  of  thought.  This  prejudice  consists  in  emphasizing  the 
disjunctive  function  of  the  mind  and  in  ignoring  the  conjunctive. 
Thus  it  is  regarded  as  self-evident  that  the  disparate  qualities — the 
creatures  of  linguistic  substantiation — exist;  but  their  interpenetra- 
tion,  their  coexistence  in  the  one  thing,  is  regarded  as  the  insuperable 

'"Metaphysics,"  English  translation,  Vol.  II.,  p.  60. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  7 

problem.  And  it  is  insuperable,  if  you  take  the  disparate  abstrac- 
tions for  granted  and  try  to  compound  a  thing  out  of  them.  But  this 
is  starting  at  the  wrong  end  of  the  process.  We  must  go  back  to  the 
concrete  object.  While  our  thought  can  abstract  qualities,  these 
qualities  do  not  exist  first  as  abstract  entities  and  then  compound 
themselves.  They  are  ways  of  taking  things  in  concrete  contexts. 
If  we  can  discriminate  distinctions  within  this  object,  it  is  quite  true 
that  we  must  regard  such  distinctions  as  real.  But  if  we  must  take 
the  distinctions  as  coexisting,  interpenetrating,  flowing  into  each 
other,  cohering  in  one  pattern  and  movement,  it  is  also  true  that 
they  can  so  interpenetrate  and  coexist.  Our  conjunctive  way  of 
taking  the  object  of  experience  needs  no  more  justification  than  our 
disjunctive  or  analytic  way.  If  the  distinctions  do  coexist  and  inter- 
penetrate, they  can  do  so.  We  do  not  make  the  transitions  or  unities, 
any  more  than  the  discreteness,  in  taking  account  of  them.  And 
Berkeley  is  quite  right  in  maintaining  that  no  additional  entity,  no 
substance  or  x,  can  simplify  the  fact,  which  is  given  with  the  quali- 
ties, viz.,  that  they  interpenetrate  and  persist.  To  trace  these  coex- 
istences and  transitions  of  the  facts  of  experience  is  the  business  of 
science,  quite  as  much  as  that  of  the  analysis  of  properties. 

It  is  strange  that  the  unity  of  the  thing  should  have  caused  so 
much  trouble,  while  most  philosophers  have  been  willing  to  take  the 
diversity  within  the  thing  for  granted.  I  can  not  see  why  one  is  not 
as  mysterious  or  as  clear  as  the  other.  If  you  assume  that  a  thing  is 
mere  abstract  unity,  it  is  true  that  no  logic  could  get  diversity  out 
of  it.  If,  again,  you  start  with  a  collection  of  independent,  disparate 
qualities,  it  will  no  doubt  be  impossible  to  get  any  unity  into  it.  The 
simpler  way  is  to  proceed  empirically  and  not  to  make  absurd 
assumptions.  If  we  can  distinguish  diversity  of  function,  then,  of 
course,  there  is  diversity.  If  diversity  of  function,  on  the  other 
hand,  makes  a  thing  go  to  pieces,  if  the  only  transitions  possible  are 
those  of  identity  of  property,  then  we  should  at  least  be  as  consistent 
as  the  father  of  intellectualism,  Parmenides,  and  with  him  rule  out 
all  diversity  as  inconceivable,  leaving  the  residuum  of  the  homo- 
geneous block  of  being. 

Another  intellectualist  prejudice  of  which  we  must  rid  ourselves 
is  the  assumption  that  an  individual,  in  order  to  be  distinct,  must  dis- 
tinguish itself.  On  this  basis,  only  self-conscious  individuals  could 
exist,  and  they  only  so  long  as  they  are  self-conscious.  We  ourselves 
would  vanish  as  individuals  the  moment  we  go  to  sleep  or  when  our 
interest  becomes  absorbed  in  the  objective  situation.  I  do  not  believe 
this  a  valid  assumption.  Neither  the  existence  nor  the  significance 
of  an  individual  need  depend  upon  self-discrimination.  We  have 
individual  significance  so  long  as  any  experience  distinguishes  us, 


8  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

whether  awake  or  asleep.  And  the  existence  of  an  individual  is  in 
no  wise  dependent  upon  being  distinguished.  A  thing  may  exist  as 
individual  a  million  years  before  it  is  distinguished.  It  is  individual 
not  because  it  distinguishes  itself  or  we  distinguish  it,  but  because, 
when  we  do  take  account  of  it,  we  must  treat  it  as  distinct  for  the 
purpose  in  question. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  regard  self -subsistence  or  independence  as 
the  condition  of  reality.  If  only  the  self-subsistent  were  real,  then 
only  an  indivisible  whole,  as  Spinoza  maintains,  could  be  real.  Now, 
it  is  quite  true  that  the  parts  must,  somehow,  hang  together.  At  least 
the  physical  world  hangs  together  by  its  gravitational  threads.  But 
such  hanging  together  need  not  prevent  a  certain  individual  play  of 
the  parts.  The  earth  hangs  together  with  the  solar  system,  but  that 
does  not  prevent  the  earth  from  having  its  own  motion  and  history. 
For  finite  purposes  at  least,  it  is  convenient  to  take  reality  piece- 
meal. And  reality  has  parts  and  distinctions  just  in  so  far  as  it 
lends  itself  to  such  individual  taking,  however  much  the  parts  may 
cohere  with  a  larger  pattern.  It  is  such  pluralism  which  makes  prac- 
tical adjustment  and  scientific  sorting  and  identification  relevant. 
The  parts  or  aspects  are  real,  if  we  must  meet  them  as  real.  And 
the  recognition  of  the  character  and  reality  of  the  part  may,  for  the 
purpose  in  question,  be  more  essential  than  the  reality  of  the  whole. 

It  is  not  necessary,  on  the  other  hand,  in  order  to  recognize  the 
plurality  of  the  world,  to  fall  into  the  opposite  intellectualist  abstrac- 
tion, that  of  absolutely  independent  plural  entities  such  as  the  old- 
fashioned  atoms  or  monads.  Such  an  assumption  is  necessarily 
suicidal,  for  since  such  entities  could  not  make  any  difference  to  each 
other  or  to  any  perceiving  subject,  it  becomes  impossible  to  speak  of 
them  as  having  properties  or  even  to  prove  their  existence.  Even 
zero  must  be  part  of  a  thought  context  in  order  to  be  considered  as 
existing.  Things  are  as  independent  and  impenetrable  as  we  must 
take  them.  They  may  exist,  as  we  have  seen,  independent  of  our 
cognitive  context.  They  may  come  and  go,  so  far  as  our  awareness 
is  concerned,  without  prejudice  to  their  existence.  But  in  some  con- 
text they  must  hang.  I  can  not  conceive  of  individuals  as  outside 
of  any  context  at  all,  as  making  no  difference  to  other  individuals, 
for  it  is  through  such  difference  to  other  individuals,  and  in  the  last 
analysis  to  human  nature,  that  we  conceive  of  an  individual  as 
existing  at  all.  I  can  see  only  the  possibility  of  a  relative  pluralism 
— pluralism  with  its  rough  edges,  its  overlapping  identities — both 
from  the  existential  and  the  cognitive  side.  No  center  liveth  unto 
itself,  in  the  isolated  sense  of  Leibnitz's  monad.  But  such  relative 
pluralism  prevents  in  any  case  the  blank  monotony  of  eleatic  being. 
And  while  the  parts  hang  with  each  other,  they  must  be  considered 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  9 

as  real  as  the  whole.  The  whole  has  no  reality  abstracted  from  just 
such  parts.  If  the  parts  are  relative  to  the  whole,  the  whole  is  no 
less  relative  to  the  parts.  If  we  emphasize  that  individuals  exist  and 
have  significance  only  in  contexts,  it  is  well  not  to  forget  that  they 
do  exist  within  the  contexts,  social  or  physical,  and  can  be  identified 
in  the  variety  of  contexts  into  which  they  enter. 

Another  and  more  serious  kind  of  objection  has  been  raised 
against  the  reality  of  things  from  the  Heraclitean  point  of  view, 
represented  so  brilliantly  at  the  present  time  by  Professor  Bergson. 
If  the  universe  is  an  absolute  flux,  making  sections  in  the  stream  of 
change  and  calling  them  things  must  be  a  purely  artificial  attitude — 
an  illusion  due  to  our  gross  sense  perception  at  best  and  justified 
only  by  its  convenience  for  practical  purposes.  To  quote  a  recent 
statement  of  Bergson 's :  "I  regard  the  whole  parceling  out  of  things 
as  relative  to  our  faculty  of  perception.  Our  senses,  adjusted  to  the 
material  world,  trace  there  lines  of  division  which  exist  as  directions, 
carved  out  for  our  future  action.  It  is  our  contingent  action  which 
is  reflected  back  in  matter,  as  in  a  mirror,  when  our  eyes  perceive 
objects  with  well-marked  contours,  and  distinguish  them  one  from 
the  other."2  Things,  therefore,  have  no  real  existence.  They  are 
due  merely  to  our  practical  purposes.  The  real  world  is  one  of  abso- 
lute fluency,  where  the  past  is  drawn  up  into  the  moving  flow.  Not 
extension,  but  interpenetration;  not  repetition,  but  absolute  novelty 
and  growth;  not  qualities,  but  change,  characterizes  the  real  world, 
the  key  to  which  must  be  found  in  our  own  stream  of  consciousness. 
This  real  world  can  be  grasped,  not  by  the  intellect,  but  by  intuition, 
which  gives  us  the  real  flow,  as  contrasted  with  the  stereotyped  copy 
of  the  intellect.  And  how  do  we  come  to  speak  of  things  at  all,  then  ? 
By  means  of  the  intellect  we  form  a  space  image  of  the  real  process. 
This  image  is  like  the  cinematographic  copy  of  moving  figures.  It  is 
a  static  picture  of  spatially  spread  out  and  recorded  changes  which 
we  substitute  for  the  real  duration.  But  while  the  latter  is  char- 
acterized by  interpenetration  and  indivisibility,  the  former  is  char- 
acterized by  extension  and  divisibility.  Science  decomposes  the 
objects  of  sense  still  further  into  molecules  and  atoms  and  centers  of 
force,  but  these  pictures  of  science  have  no  more  reality  than  the 
perceptual  things.  They  are  merely  contrivances  to  deal  with  the 
world  of  flux. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  view  of  Bergson,  and  it  certainly  carries 
with  it  a  great  deal  of  truth.  Our  purposes  are  indispensable  in  the 
significant  differentiation  of  our  world ;  and  sometimes,  no  doubt,  our 
marking  the  world  off  into  parts  is  as  artificial  as  the  astronomer's 
longitudes  and  latitudes  and  his  names  for  constellations.  The  world, 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VII.,  No.  14,  pp.  386  and  287. 


10  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

too,  from  our  finite  point  of  view  at  any  rate,  is  a  world  where  novelty 
and  growth  play  an  important  part.  I  can  not  admit,  however,  that 
the  new  Ileracliteanism  gives  ua  the  whole  truth. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  be  suspicious  of  all  absolutistic  for- 
mulas. Absolute  flux  is  as  impossible  of  proof  as  absolute  identity. 
Bergson  and  Parmenides  alike  must  found  their  philosophy  on  intui- 
tion and  conviction.  I  prefer  the  more  modest  pragmatic  way  of 
taking  the  world.8  This  means  to  take  the  facts  at  their  face  value. 
If  there  seems  to  be  change  and  novelty,  then,  in  so  far,  we  must  own 
it,  whether  our  novelty  is  a  retracing  of  an  absolute  experience  or  is 
objectively  creative.  Knowledge,  whatever  claims  to  absoluteness  we 
may  make,  is  after  all  our  finite  human  version  of  reality;  and  we 
have  access  to  no  other.  And  for  us  change  and  novelty  are  real 
facts.  But  while  we  must  recognize  novelty  and  interpenetration  as 
facts  of  our  experience,  it  is  also  true  that  we  must  recognize  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  constancy.  And  this  constancy  can  not  be  due 
merely  to  language  and  space  objectification.  There  must,  on  the 
one  hand,  be  constancy  in  our  meanings,  our  inner  purposes;  and 
they  are  real  processes.  And  there  must,  on  the  other,  be  constancy 
on  the  part  of  the  processes  referred  to.  Else  constancy  on  the  part 
of  our  symbols  would  not  avail.  Suppose  we  had  a  world  where 
everything  flowed  but  the  symbols:  in  such  a  world  we  could  not 
recognize  or  use  the  symbols  as  the  same.  There  could  be  no  such 
thing  as  intellect  in  such  a  world,  because  it  too  would  have  to  change. 
And  even  if  memories  and  concepts  dipped  into  such  a  world  from 
another  universe,  they  would  be  utterly  useless  where  nothing  repeats 
itself.  The  intellect  is  an  agency  for  prediction ;  and  what  we  must 
be  able  to  predict  is  the  real  world  of  processes.  Mind  and  things 
must  conspire  to  have  science.  Even  in  the  cinematograph,  you  have 
the  constancy  of  the  pictures  and  of  the  machinery  which  repeats 
them ;  and  they  are  part  of  the  real  world. 

Nor  is  it  true  of  things,  any  more  than  of  selves,  that  our  marking 
them  off  from  their  context  is  purely  arbitrary.  It  is  difficult  enough 
in  either  case ;  and  we  can  not  pull  them,  root  and  all,  without  pull- 
ing a  good  deal  of  the  context  with  them.  When  we  come  to  define 
what  we  mean  by  Caesar,  we  find  that  he  is  very  much  entangled  with 
the  past  out  of  which  he  grew,  with  the  age  in  which  he  struggled, 
and  with  the  results  and  opinions  of  his  labors  ever  since.  Yet  for  all 
that  he  is  a  well-marked  character  which  we  can  understand  and 
appreciate.  So  with  the  thing — the  organic  individual,  like  the  tree, 
or  the  inorganic  individual,  like  the  stone  or  the  crystal.  In  any 
case,  they  are  individual,  when  we  must  deal  with  them  as  such; 

•My  attitude  to  pragmatism  I  have  explained  in  "Truth  and  Reality," 
Macmillan,  1911,  especially  in  Chapters  IX.  and  X. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  11 

not  when  we  mark  them  off  arbitrarily,  as  in  the  case  of  the  rainbow. 
And  this  is  true  though  the  individual  is  complex;  though  it  may 
consist  of  many  interpenetrating  impulses,  all  traveling  at  diverse 
paces. 

"When  we  come  to  define  what  we  mean  by  the  individuality  of  a 
thing,  the  problem  waxes  more  difficult.  Psychology  gives  us  but 
scant  help.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has  tended  to  unfit  us  for  the 
proper  attitude  to  reality  through  its  subjectivistic  tendency.  What 
we  intend  when  we  speak  of  a  thing  or  act  on  a  thing  is  not  a  fusion 
of  sensations,  together  with  the  suggested  sensory  and  ideational 
complex.  This  is  merely  an  account  of  the  process  of  becoming 
aware  of  things  and  not  an  account  of  the  reality  of  things.  Things 
can  make  sensible  differences  to  our  organism,  but  they  are  not  con- 
stituted by  our  perception.  They  must  be  taken  as  preexisting  in 
their  own  contexts,  prior  to  such  sensory  discrimination  on  our  part, 
else  our  instincts  would  not  be  adjusted  to  them ;  they  could  fulfil  no 
interest  or  need  on  the  part  of  our  will.  The  sensory  differences,  for 
practical  purposes,  exist  primarily  as  signs  or  guides  suggesting 
further  control  and  use.  The  sight  sensations,  in  the  case  of  the 
infant,  suggest  the  motor  reaction  of  active  touch,  which  in  turn 
suggests  the  reflexes  of  eating. 

What,  then,  individuates  things  ?  First  of  all,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  significance,  they  are  individuated,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the 
purposes  which  select  them  and  which  they  fulfil.  They  would  have 
no  individual  significance  except  as  thus  differentiated  in  our  cog- 
nitive experience.  The  thing  must  embody  a  will.  Aristotle  was 
quite  right  in  saying  that  we  can  not  treat  the  thing  as  a  mere  col- 
lection. We  can  not  regard  the  word  as  a  mere  collection  of  letters, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  an  individual  word.  "We  must  seek  the  cause  by 
reason  of  which  the  matter  is  some  definite  thing."4  For  Aristotle 
this  means  finding  the  final  cause  of  the  thing.  In  artificial  things 
like  the  word  or  the  work  of  art,  it  is  quite  plain  that  we  must  find 
the  idea  which  is  expressed.  Can  we  also  find  such  an  objective  idea 
in  natural  things  ?  No,  we  can  not  find  it  there.  We  must  be  satis- 
fied if  it  has  such  distinctness  of  character  and  history  as  to  fulfil  a 
specific  purpose  of  ours,  whether  it  sustains  the  relation  of  a  work  of 
art  to  a  more  comprehensive  experience  or  not. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  things  are  created  or  "faked" 
by  thus  being  taken  over  into  our  cognitive  context.  The  selection 
and  acknowledgment  is  forced,  not  arbitrary.  The  thing  must  sug- 
gest an  own  center  of  energy.  It  must  roll  out  from  the  larger  field 
of  experience,  forcing  attention  to  its  own  movement  and  identity. 
Our  cognitive  meaning,  so  far  from  constituting  things,  must  tally 

4 "Metaphysics,"  Bk.  VII.,  Ch.  XVII.,  1. 


12  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

with  the  things — terminate  in  our  perceptions  of  them — in  order  to 
be  valid.  If  the  thing  is  real,  it  can  not  be  infinitely  divisible,  t.  e., 
the  form  of  the  thing  can  not  be  merely  of  our  own  choosing.  To  be 
accorded  objective  existence,  the  thing  must  be  acknowledged  as 
having  its  own  impulse,  its  own  hi  story,  its  own  pattern  of  parts, 
which  our  ideas  must  copy  sufficiently  for  idi'iitiiication  and  predic- 
tion. And  the  thing  may  have  to  be  acknowledged  as  having  such 
character  and  history,  whether  as  old  as  the  sun  or  as  evanescent  as 
the  cloudlet. 

Can  we  identify  such  things  in  our  experience  f  In  the  case  of 
the  organic  thing,  we  seem  to  have  a  natural  unity,  comparable  to 
that  which  we  have  in  the  case  of  the  unity  of  the  ego,  even  though 
the  former  is  not  a  significant  unity.  There  is  a  history  which 
embodies  a  certain  end  or  has  a  certain  direction.  To  be  sure, 
organisms  may  sometimes  be  divided  without  destroying  their  life; 
and  the  lower  organisms  do  propagate  their  existence  by  spontaneous 
division.  But  the  cell  seems  to  be  even  here  a  fairly  definite  entity. 
The  unicellular  organisms  have  an  individual  immortality  which  is 
only  limited  by  external  accident. 

When  we  come  to  inorganic  things,  the  problem  is  difficult.  On 
the  analogy  of  geometrical  quantity  it  has  sometimes  been  held  that 
physical  things  are  infinitely  divisible.  Interesting  antinomies  have 
been  invented  from  Zeno  down  by  playing  between  the  mathematical 
and  the  physical  conception  of  quantity.  But  we  must  not  confuse 
mathematical  divisibility  with  physical  divisibility.  Empirically, 
what  we  call  things  are,  on  the  one  hand,  capable  of  being  taken  as 
individuals.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  to  distinguish  parts. 
Do  we  come  to  a  limit  in  our  division  where  we  have  to  deal  with  a 
final  natural  unity?  We  do  for  practical  purposes  at  least.  The 
molecule  seems  like  a  distinct  stopping-place,  however  hypothetical, 
if  we  would  preserve  the  character  of  the  compound.  And  in  recent 
years  interesting  experiments  have  been  made  by  Rutherford  and 
others  to  prove  the  real  existence  of  the  atom.  These  experiments 
can  not  be  ruled  out  by  any  a  priori  theory  as  regards  infinite  divisi- 
bility. The  atom  in  turn  seems  to  be  a  holding  company  for  energies 
which  under  certain  conditions  can  act  individually.  A  smaller  unit, 
the  electron,  it  is  maintained,  must  be  assumed  to  account  for  such 
phenomena  as  radioactivity.  The  negative  electric  charge  seems  like 
a  natural  unit.  Is  it  final  T  We  can  not  say.  All  we  can  say  is  that 
we  have  had  no  need  so  far  of  assuming  a  smaller  unit.  There  cer- 
tainly is  no  evidence  for  infinite  divisibility.  Furthermore,  because 
units  do  not  have  absolute  permanency  and  are  themselves  complex, 
that  does  not  gainsay  their  individual  reality,  while  we  can  take  them 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  13 

as  individual.  The  chair  is  an  individual  while  we  can  use  it  as  a 
chair,  however  complex  and  unstable  its  structure. 

It  will  be  seen  that  we  have  adopted  the  instrumental  method  in 
dealing  with  the  reality  of  the  thing.  Unlike  the  self,  the  thing  has 
no  meaning  or  value  that  we  can  share  with  it.  We  must  judge  it, 
therefore,  by  the  ways  in  which  we  must  take  it  in  realizing  our  pur- 
poses; and  we  must  hold  that  its  reality  is  precisely  what  we  must 
take  it  as  in  the  service  of  our  specific  will.  Let  us  now  try  to  sum 
up  the  pragmatic  significance  of  the  thing.  In  the  first  place,  we 
have  seen  that  we  can  not  speak  of  things  unless  we  have  persistent 
identity — identity  both  in  the  purposes  which  take  the  things  and  in 
the  objective  processes  which  are  taken.  Unless  we  can  take  the  same 
processes  over  again  and  thus  predict  their  reoccurrence,  we  can  not 
speak  of  things.  In  a  world  of  absolute  flux,  not  even  the  illusion  of 
a  thing  could  arise.  This  persistence  or  possibility  of  identification 
of  certain  processes  is  the  pragmatic  significance  of  substance,  what- 
ever fleeting  changes  we  may  have  to  ignore  in  our  conceptual  taking 
of  reality.  As  the  thing  is  capable  of  existing  in  many  contexts,  and 
as  it  may  have  different  reactions  in  different  contexts,  the  idea  of 
potential  energy  arises.  The  potential,  or  the  core  of  the  thing,  is 
the  more  of  what  the  thing  can  do.  The  air  can  produce  sound.  It 
can  also  furnish  the  Kansas  dust  storm,  it  can  convey  oxygen  to  the 
lungs,  etc.  As  the  contexts  are  not  present,  perhaps,  for  doing  all 
these  things  at  once,  we  speak  of  the  others  as  possible  reactions — 
the  (for  the  time  being)  hidden  energy  of  the  thing. 

In  the  second  place,  these  expectancies  or  ways  of  taking  the  thing 
are  social.  Things  do  not  merely  figure  in  my  individual  experience, 
but  they  are  capable  of  figuring  in  any  number  of  experiences  in  the 
same  immediate  way.  They  fulfil  not  merely  an  individual,  but  a 
social,  purpose.  One  reason  for  regarding  social  experience  as  more 
trustworthy  is  that  social  experience  is  less  subject  to  illusions  and 
hallucinations.  While  this  is  largely  so  and  therefore  furnishes  an 
additional  check,  illusions  and  hallucinations  may  be  social  for  the 
time  being.  The  illusion  of  the  moving  railroad  train  is  as  social  as 
any  perception.  A  whole  crowd  has  been  known  to  see  a  ghost.  So 
being  social  is  not  an  infallible  test  of  objectivity.  As  such  percep- 
tions, however,  do  not  tally  with  further  experiences,  they  can  not  be 
taken  as  things.  Whether  we  deal  with  things,  therefore,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  individual  or  of  social  experience,  our  ideas  of  things 
can  only  be  proven  true  as  experience  leans  upon  further  experience 
in  a  consistent  way. 

It  has  sometimes  been  stated  that  things  are  objective,  because 
they  are  objects  for  several  subjects.  But  this  is  inverting  the  true 
relation.  Things  are  social  experiences,  because  they  hang  in  a  con- 


14  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

text  of  their  own  and  are  not  dependent  upon  individual  experience 
for  their  existence.  Things,  moreover,  are  not  the  only  objects  of 
social  experience.  It  is  not  true  that  our  psychological  objects  are 
objects  of  one  subject  only  as  contrasted  with  things.  If  so,  we  could 
have  no  psychological  sciences.  We  could  never  understand  each 
other's  meanings  or  their  relations.  The  fact  is  that  we  can  share 
each  other's  images,  concepts,  and  even  emotions  and  will  atti- 
tudes, as  truly  as  our  sense  facts.  The  oldest  sciences  man  created 
were  sciences  of  meaning,  such  as  logic,  geometry,  and  ethics.  It  is 
absurd,  then,  to  say  that  mental  facts  exist  for  one  subject  only — are 
private  and  unique.  It  is  not  their  social  character  which  distin- 
guishes things  from  meanings. 

Besides  social  agreement,  we  must  add,  therefore,  sensible  contin- 
uity as  characteristic  of  our  taking  of  things.  Things  are  the  sen- 
sible embodiments  of  purposes.  They  have  a  certain  "liveliness" 
that  our  meanings  as  such,  however  social,  do  not  ordinarily  have. 
They  are  energies  which  we  must  recognize  as  belonging  to  a  space 
context  of  their  own,  with  their  own  steadiness  and  order,  inde- 
pendent of  our  meanings.  It  is  not  that  we,  either  in  our  individual 
or  our  social  capacity,  do  acknowledge  things,  which  makes  things 
objective,  but  that  we  must  acknowledge  them,  and  that  we  must 
acknowledge  them  as  having  such  a  sensible  character,  such  motion, 
such  use  in  the  realization  of  our  specific  purposes.  Our  ideas  must 
terminate  in  the  sensible  things  in  order  to  be  valid.  We  may  select 
them  in  our  service,  we  may  spread  them  out  into  our  classificatory 
schemes,  we  may  symbolize  their  relations  by  our  equations ;  but  we 
can  do  so  successfully  only  by  respecting  their  own  character  and 
relations  as  revealed  in  experience.  We  must  believe,  moreover,  that 
the  substance  of  things  is  precisely  what  we  must  take  it  as  in 
experience.  If  radium  breaks  down  and  changes  into  helium,  no 
assumption  of  inert  matter,  no  postulate  of  substance,  can  guarantee 
its  identity.  The  only  key  we  have  to  reality  is  what  reality  must  be 
taken  as  in  the  progressive  realization  of  the  purposes  of  human 
nature. 

JOHN  E.  BOODIN. 

UNIVERSITY  or  KANSAS. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  15 

DISCUSSION 
CONSCIOUSNESS    AND    BEHAVIOR.      A    REPLY 


shall  deliver  the  deliverer?" 

Professor  Miller  asks  the  question  at  the  end  of  a  "dis- 
cussion" of  my  paper  on  "Mind  as  an  Observable  Object."  It  is  I 
who  am  the  "deliverer,"  but  of  what  a  sorry  sort  will  be  gathered 
from  the  answer  Mr.  Miller  finds  to  his  own  question. 

What  shall  deliver  the  deliverer?  Nothing  but  a  taste  for  real  solutions  — 
which  is  the  same  as  intellectual  scruple.  Nothing  but  common  sense  untired  — 
which  is  the  same  as  pertinacity  in  logic.  Nothing  but  looking  about  us  before 
we  advance  —  sweeping  the  horizon  of  our  subject  —  circumspection;  that  last 
rule  of  Descartes  's  method,  followed  as  far  as  human  vision  can,  '  '  to  make 
enumerations  so  complete  and  reviews  so  general  that  I  might  be  assured  that 
nothing  was  omitted." 

One  would  like  to  have  contributed  something  better  than  the 
inspiration  of  a  bad  example  to  sentiments  so  just. 

But  Mr.  Miller  is  no  unkindly  critic.  He  is  good  enough  to  say 
that  some  earlier  work  of  mine  promised  better  things  —  that  even 
now  I  may  have  better  things  in  reserve.  Perhaps,  too,  it  occurred 
to  Mr.  Miller  that  a  twenty-minute  paper  left  me  little  room  for 
enumerations  so  complete  and  reviews  so  general  that  I  might  be 
assured  nothing  was  omitted.  Something  in  the  way  of  enumera- 
tion and  review  that  I  had  tried  before  writing  quite  brought  it  home 
to  me  that  sacrifices  were  demanded.  I  thought  I  might  begin  by 
passing  over  the  ungereimte  Frage. 

However  happy  this  idea,  I  know  it  would  have  been  happier  if 
men  stood  in  closer  agreement  as  to  what  meaning  meant.  But  then 
the  history  of  philosophy  would  be  the  shortest  of  stories,  the  love  of 
wisdom  would  not  go  long  unrequited,  thought  would  lie  listless  in 
the  pervading  calm  —  and  I  should  have  missed  a  critic  of  flavor.  It 
did  seem  to  me,  though,  that  some  questions  were  beyond  question  — 
as,  for  example,  What  should  we  call  that  which  can  have  no  name  ? 

I  know  that  many  with  a  taste  for  real  solutions  have  answered, 
An  immediate  fact  of  consciousness.  Out  of  such  facts  taken 
together  they  make  a  "field,"  and  out  of  such  fields  a  world. 
But  what  in  the  world  is  consciousness?  Across  these  fields, 
dust  of  their  dust,  passes  the  occasional  figure  of  a  fellow  being.  For 
his  brother-likeness  to  the  owner  of  the  field,  this  passing  figure  is 
given  a  field  of  his  own  —  one  from  which  the  giver  is  forever 
excluded.  Straightway  the  donor  grows  anxious  for  his  gift.  Does 
the  one  to  whom  it  has  been  given  really  have  the  thing  that  has  just 
been  given  to  him  ?  Then  where  in  the  world  is  his  consciousness  ? 


16         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

No  one  can  blame  the  dwellers  in  such  a  world  if  they  cry  aloud 
for  deliverance,  least  of  all  one  who  remembers  to  have  lived  there 
and  to  have  been  unhappy  there — one  who  might  still  be  unhappily 
living  there  had  he  waited  with  the  others  for  a  deliverer  who  could 
work  miracles. 

Very  pleasantly  Mr.  Miller  quotes  //  mon  intention  the  saying  of 
a  certain  Old  Lady:  "We  must  all  make  a  little  effort  every  day  to 
keep  sane  and  to  use  words  in  the  same  senses."  Which,  being 
applied,  I  take  to  mean  that  the  deliverer  Mr.  Miller  awaits  must 
begin  by  accepting  "consciousness"  in  the  sense  those  who  would  be 
delivered  have  given  to  the  word.  He  must  make  a  little  effort  every 
day  to  keep  on  using  the  term  in  this  same  sense.  He  must  start  at 
the  same  point  and  travel  the  same  road,  but  he  shall  reach  the  goal 
of  intelligibility  at  last  without  having  been  downed  by  any  of  those 
contradictions  that  have  been  the  undoing  of  all  who  have  so  started 
and  so  traveled.  Then,  and  only  then,  shall  we  know  him  for  the 
true  deliverer  by  the  miracle  he  has  wrought. 

Meanwhile,  for  one  who  is  too  impatient  to  await  the  impossible, 
there  lies  close  to  hand  a  suggestion  so  natural  that  it  can  not  excite 
enthusiasm,  so  simple  that  it  may  inspire  mockery,  and  so  little  in 
the  "same  sense"  with  what  has  gone  before  that  the  Old  Lady  of 
Good  Counsel  would  not  have  it  to  be  sane.  It  is  this :  Let  us  make 
our  way  out  of  a  troubled  world  by  the  same  door  where  in  we  went. 
Did  we  start  with  an  immediate  fact  of  consciousness  and  construct 
a  world?  Then  let  us  now  begin  with  the  world  and  construct  an 
immediate  fact  of  consciousness. 

To  be  sure,  the  familiar  scenes  of  the  journey  in  will  look  altered 
on  the  way  out,  but  isn't  that  rather  what  we  had  hoped  for?  At  all 
events,  it  is  vain  to  cry  paradox  at  each  new  episode  of  the  kind. 
For  example,  we  came  to  grief  by  assuming  that  a  man  knew  his  own 
mind  better  than  anything  else  and  prior  to  anything  else  in  the 
world.  Somewhere  along  the  way  out  we  should  expect  to  run  across 
the  reflection  that  his  own  mind  is  the  last  thing  a  man  comes  to 
know.  "It  is  so  far  from  self-evident,"  I  had  ventured  to  write, 
"that  each  man's  mental  state  is  his  own  indisputable  possession, 
that  no  one  hesitates  to  confess  at  times  that  his  neighbor  has  read 
him  better  than  he  has  read  himself.  .  .  .  No  one  finds  fault  with 
Thackeray  for  intimating  that  the  old  Major  is  a  better  judge  of 
Pendennis's  feeling  for  the  Fotheringay  than  is  Pendennis  himself." 

Mr.  Miller  selects  the  passage  for  an  illustration  of  his  difficulties. 

This  is  not  a  question  of  knowing  our  feelings,  but  of  knowing  how  our 
feelings  will  develop  or  continue.  To  have  a  feeling  and  to  be  acquainted  with 
it  are  the  same  thing.  If  a  man  does  not  know  whether  he  is  in  love,  it  means 
that  he  does  not  know  whether  what  he  actually  feels  is  or  is  not  a  sign  of  a 
continued  disposition  to  feel  and  to  act  such  as  goes  under  that  name. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  17 

And  again  I  had  said,  continuing  the  thought,  "It  is  quite  as 
likely  that,  under  certain  conditions,  I  do  not  know  what  red  is,  as 
that,  under  other  conditions,  I  do  not  know  \vhat  love  is." 

But  "this,"  comments  Mr.  Miller,  "is  not  a  question  whether  I 
am  acquainted  with  my  own  sensation,  but  whether  I  am  acquainted 
with  the  social  name  for  my  sensation." 

These  are  only  moments  of  our  progress ;  but  Mr.  Miller  is  right 
in  choosing  them  to  illustrate  a  difference  of  view  that  must  go  with 
every  step  we  take  together.  I  wish  indeed  he  had  put  his  first  objec- 
tion a  trifle  differently.  Unless  love  is  of  its  essence  enduring,  there 
was  no  question  of  what  Pendennis  's  feeling  would  develop  into,  still 
less  would  I  have  chosen  Pen  as  an  example  of  one  who  did  not  know 
whether  he  was  in  love.  I  assumed  that  we  were  dealing  with  a  man 
who  was  "sure"  he  was  in  love — later  with  a  man  who  was  "sure" 
he  saw  the  color  red.  Were  they  right  or  wrong  in  their  surety  ?  Or 
rather,  has  the  question,  Were  they  right  or  wrong  ?  a  meaning  ? 

My  own  position :  The  question  has  so  much  meaning  that  it  takes 
all  the  science  of  all  the  world  to  make  out  whether  A  is  in  love  or 
whether  B  sees  red.  In  that  science  A  and  B  have  their  little  part — 
they  are  contributors  of  undetermined  value — but  that  they  have  the 
supreme,  the  ultimate  part  seems  to  me  an  assumption  as  little 
warranted  as  to  suppose  that  I  know  better  than  all  the  world  the 
nature  of  the  pen  I  am  holding  because,  forsooth,  it  is  mine.  Is  it 
only  a  matter  of  the  "social  name"  for  the  state  of  mind  each  surely 
has?  Is  it  only  that  this  one  may  err  in  calling  his  feeling  "love," 
that  one  in  calling  his  "red"?  Then  may  they  not  err  in  calling 
their  respective  feelings  by  any  other  names,  or  by  any  names  at  all? 
And  what  should  we,  the  philosophers,  call  that  which  maybe  isn't 
this  and  maybe  isn't  that,  but  surely  is  the  immediate  and  certain 
possession  of  the  one  who  has  it?  "What  shall  we  call  that  which 
can  have  no  name  ? ' '  Isn  't  the  shade  of  Protagoras  whispering  some- 
thing about  ' '  the  last  seeming ' '  ?  Isn 't  Gorgias  nudging  my  elbow  ? 
Isn't  Cratylus  congratulating  himself  on  having  held  his  peace  and 
but  wagged  his  finger  ? 

However,  enough  of  episodes !  The  general  idea  is  that  we  start 
with  a  world  and  construct  an  immediate  fact  of  consciousness.  If 
this  is  the  problem,  we  might  be  expected  sooner  or  later  to  ask  our- 
selves, What  beings  of  this  world  do  we  call  conscious,  and  why  do 
we  call  them  so  ?  Is  not  this  a  search  for  the  meaning  of  conscious- 
ness ?  It  seemed  to  me  that  there  must  be  something  peculiar  in  the 
behavior  of  "conscious"  beings,  the  which,  if  I  could  discover  it, 
would  give  me  the  definition  I  sought.  Their  "consciousness"  is  that 
trait  of  the  behavior  of  certain  objects  which  makes  me  call  them 
conscious;  their  "life,"  that  trait  which  makes  me  call  them  alive; 


18  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

their  "heat,"  that  trait  which  makes  me  call  them  hot — so  I  thought 
one  might  argue. 

Mr.  Miller  does  not  complain  of  me  (I  think T)  for  having 
attempted  no  more  than  this  statement  of  an  experimental  problem. 
His  objection  is  to  the  statement  itself. 

Once  more  [he  asks]  the  question  what  leads  me  to  call  a  man  conscious,  and 
the  question  what  consciousness  means — is  Mr.  Singer  assuming  that  they  are 
the  same  question  f  Are  the  nature  of  a  thing  and  the  tokens  by  which  I  infer 
its  presence  the  samef  .  .  . 

They  are  to  me  the  same:  I  confuse,  I  identify,  the  question, 
What  leads  me  to  call  a  man  conscious  ?  with  the  question,  What  does 
consciousness  mean  ?  And  I  detect  in  myself  the  same  lack  of  intel- 
lectual scruple  in  other  situations.  I  am  inclined  to  confuse  the 
question,  What  leads  me  to  call  this  thing  a  triangle  ?  with  the  ques- 
tion, What  does  triangle  mean?  Whether  it  is  that  I  have  wearied 
me  of  common  sense,  or  that  my  logic  has  lost  its  pertinacity,  I  can 
not  see  why  I  should  treat  a  conscious  being  more  befoggedly  than  a 
triangle.  Is  making  a  mystery  of  them  a  way  of  paying  tribute  to 
the  ' '  higher  categories ' '  f 

In  watching  the  behavior  of  beings  I  call  by  instinct  conscious 
(the  reason  for  which  instinct  constitutes  my  problem)  I  seem  to 
find  grounds  for  differentiating  this  part  of  their  behavior  into 
"faculties."  Among  other  qualities,  I  attribute  to  them  "sensi- 
bility. ' '  Part  of  their  action  I  call  reaction ;  I  call  it  their  seeing  of 
a  color,  their  hearing  of  a  sound.  As  my  experience  of  other  minds 
grows,  my  knowledge  of  my  own  is  enriched :  I  class  myself  among 
those  who  see  and  hear.  Further,  I  recognize  certain  behavior  as 
descriptive,  and  notice  the  way  in  which  descriptive  behavior  varies 
with  the  conditions  governing  seeing  and  hearing.  All  do  not  see  the 
same  thing  or  see  the  same  thing  in  the  same  way.  Mr.  Miller  makes 
much  of  this  difference  of  content  as  a  peculiarity — yes,  as  the  very 
essence — of  our  notion  of  consciousness. 

The  reasons  why  we  say  we  find  something  in  the  world  of  facts  which  we 
call  consciousness  and  which  distinguishes  itself  from  a  behaving  body  [Mr. 
Singer]  really  does  not  consider.  These  reasons  are  after  all  simple.  .  .  .  Let 
us  try  to  state  the  reasons  without  the  terms  of  personality,  self,  etc.  For 
example,  at  a  single  moment  a  certain  number  of  objects  .  .  .  are  in  a  peculiar 
sense  together,  while  those  objects  and  other  objects  are  not  in  the  same  sense 
together.  ...  Of  course  the  easiest  way  of  putting  this  is  to  say  7  am  seeing  the 
first  mentioned  combination  and  7  am  not  seeing  [the  second].  But  it  is  quite 
easy  to  avoid  making  these  references  to  self  and  its  "seeing":  it  is  quite  easy 
to  put  it  in  terms  of  the  "objective"  facts  themselves.  These  facts  have  a  way 
of  being  together,  some  of  them,  while  others  are  not  in  this  sense  together.  .  .  . 
Groups  there  are,  and  breaches  between  tbem  there  are.  Consciousness  there  is, 
and  oblivion  there  is 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  19 

Ungefahr  sagt  das  der  Pfarrer  auch — but  with  a  slightly  different 
meaning !    For  Mr.  Miller  concludes : 

"Consciousness"  here  is  not  behavior;  it  is,  according  to  usage,  either  the 
"field"  itself  or  the  relation  of  conjunction  between  the  components  of  the  field. 

It  can  not  be  as  a  concession  to  my  manner  of  speaking  that  Mr. 
Miller  would  avoid  the  easiest  way  of  putting  things.  It  is  not  I  who 
object  to  such  phrases  as  "  /  am  seeing  the  rug"  and  "I  am  not  see- 
ing the  window,"  or  again  "I  am  seeing  the  rug  and  he  is  seeing  the 
window. "  As  I  arrive  through  observation  at  the  notion  of  descrip- 
tive behavior,  discover  the  way  in  which  this  varies  with  the  point  of 
view,  I  quite  come  to  recognize  that  I  see  different  things  at  different 
times,  that  I  and  another  see  different  things  at  the  same  time.  From 
this  I  gradually  struggle  toward  an  understanding  of  what  is  the 
same  in  the  thing  we  so  differently  see,  of  the  "objective"  and  the 
"subjective"  factors  in  every  description.  I  come  to  discover  a  sub- 
jective factor  in  my  account  of  the  very  world  with  which  I  started. 
I  come  to  see  that  the  purely  objective  world  and  the  purely  sub- 
jective datum  of  consciousness  are  two  ideals  toward  which  we  end- 
lessly strive,  modifying  our  notions  of  each  as  we  change  our  under- 
standing of  the  other. 

Are  there  not  left  vestiges  of  sanity,  even  of  something  like 
common  sense,  in  my  simple  philosophy  ?  Who  has  ever  been  offered 
an  immediate  state  of  consciousness  out  of  which  to  construct  a 
world?  Who  has  not  been  forced  to  start  with  a  world,  which  it 
was  his  given  task  to  re-construct?  It  is  only  in  this  process  of 
reconstruction  that  the  concepts  of  "consciousness"  and  "object  of 
consciousness"  fall  out — they  fall  out  together,  and  together  they 
grow  apace.  To  follow  the  adventures  of  this  pair  is,  I  suspect,  to 
be  led  deep  into  the  heart  of  things. 

EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


A  REPLY  TO  PROFESSOR  McGILVARY'S  QUESTIONS 

/CIRCUMSTANCES  connected  with  the  time  of  the  appearance  of 
^-^  Professor  McGilvary's  courteous  questions  to  me  (see  this 
JOURNAL  for  August  17,  1911)  prevented  my  attention  to  them  in 
proper  season.  I  hope  the  long  lapse  of  time  has  not  outlawed  my 
reply — such  as  it  is. 

His  questions  were  based  primarily  upon  the  following  quotation 
from  my  article  in  the  "James  Memorial  Volume":  "The  so-called 
action  of  'consciousness'  means  simply  the  organic  releases  in  the 
way  of  behavior  which  are  the  conditions  of  awareness  and  which 


20  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

also  modify  its  content."  If  I  am  not  able  to  answer  Professor  Me- 
Gilvary's  questions  directly,  or  with  respect  to  the  form  in  which  he 
has  put  them,  it  is  because  these  questions,  as  he  formulates  them, 
seem  to  me  to  depend  upon  ignoring  the  force  of  the  so-called  pre- 
fixed to  action  and  the  quotation-marks  surrounding  the  word  con- 
sciousness. I  meant  by  these  precautions  to  warn  the  reader  that  I 
was  referring  to  a  view  for  which  I  disowned  responsibility,  espe- 
cially as  regards  "consciousness."  In  fact  I  supposed  it  would  be 
evident  that  the  consciousness  of  the  quotation  marks  designated  pre- 
cisely a  conception  which  I  was  engaged  in  criticizing,  and  for  which 
I  was  proffering  a  substitute.  But  the  form  of  the  questions  put  to 
me  seems  to  me  (I  may  misapprehend  their  import)  to  depend  upon 
supposing  that  I  accept  just  what  I  meant  to  reject.  Naturally,  then, 
the  questions  imply  that  I  have  involved  myself  in  serious  incon- 
sistencies. 

I  quote  two  passages  which  afford  some  overt  evidence  that  my 
impression  is  correct.  "Although  elsewhere  in  this  paper  Professor 
Dewey  defined  awareness  as  attention,  I  presume  that  in  this  sen- 
tence [the  one  quoted  above]  he  would  mean  to  include  consciousness 
in  its  inattentive  forms  also."  And  in  connection  with  his  next 
question  he  says,  "Knowledge  is  one  kind  of  consciousness,  pre- 
sumably." Both  of  these  presumptions  are  natural  on  the  basis  of 
the  notion  of  consciousness  referred  to  in  quotation  marks,  but  I 
have  difficulty  in  placing  them  in  connection  with  my  own  view. 
Now  if  I  am  right  in  supposing  that  Professor  McGilvary  means  one 
thing  by  consciousness  and  I  mean  another,  I  am  somewhat  embar- 
rassed in  replying  to  his  questions.  If  I  reply  in  his  sense,  I  shall 
misrepresent  myself;  if  I  reply  in  mine,  I  shall  probably  give  addi- 
tional cause  for  misunderstanding,  as  the  answers  will  be  read  in 
terms  of  his  sense.  Accordingly,  I  shall  try  to  indicate  what  my  view 
is,  and  then  state  the  form  his  questions  would  take  upon  its  basis. 

My  contention  was  that  "consciousness"  is  an  adjective  of  be- 
havior, a  quality  attaching  to  it  under  certain  conditions.  When  we 
make  a  noun  of  "conscious"  and  forget  that  we  are  dealing  (as  in 
the  case  of  other  nouns  in  -ness)  with  an  abstract  noun,  we  are  guilty 
of  the  same  fallacy  as  if  we  abstracted  red  from  things  and  then 
discussed  the  relation  of  redness  to  things,  instead  of  the  relation  of 
red  things  to  other  things.  Hence  (to  come  to  question  1)  there  is 
certainly  a  question  as  to  the  relation  of  conscious  behavior,  atten- 
tive behavior,  to  other  kinds  of  behavior.  But  this  is  not  a  question 
that  can  be  discussed  profitably  after  it  has  been  misput.  If  the 
actual  question  is  as  to  the  role  of  the  brain  in  certain  kinds  of 
behavior,  the  parallelist,  automatist,  etc.,  are  making  answer  after 
they  have  translated  the  question  into  another  and  artificial  form. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  21 

So  with  the  second  question.  My  reply  (after  I  have  translated 
the  question)  is  that  the  aim  of  knowledge  (to  which  reference  was 
made)  is  the  enrichment  and  guidance  of  subsequent  behaviors — of 
all  kinds.  That  conscious  behavior  grows  out  of  instinctive  and 
habitual  (routine)  behavior  and  is  the  prerequisite  of  moral,  tech- 
nological, esthetic,  etc.,  behaviors,  and  that  looking  at  it  in  this  way 
is  the  proper  way  of  understanding  thinking  ("consciousness")  and 
all  that  goes  with  it,  may  be  false  positions  as  matters  of  fact,  but  I 
do  not  see  that  such  positions  involve  questions  of  internal  con- 
sistency. 

The  third  question  reads:  "If  it  is  the  organic  releases  that 
change  the  environment  in  the  act  of  knowing,  does  knowing  as  dis- 
tinct from  these  organic  releases  make  any  changes  in  the  environ- 
ment on  its  own  account?"  The  question  involves  the  repudiated 
conception  of  consciousness,  in  the  distinction  it  propounds  between 
knowing  and  behavior.  If  consciousness  be  a  characteristic  quality 
of  one  kind  of  behavior,  as  distinct  from  other  kinds,  Professor  Mc- 
Gilvary's  question  can  not  be  asked.  The  only  question  is  as  to 
what  changes  conscious  behavior  makes  as  contrasting  with  other 
kinds.  And  my  answer  is  that  just  given :  the  changes  that  conduce 
to  direction  of  subsequent  action  and  to  enrichment  of  their  mean- 
ings. 

The  fourth  question  reads  in  one  of  its  forms :  ' '  Once  distinguish 
between  consciousness  and  organic  releases,  what  justification  have 
we  for  asserting  that  knowledge  can  be  only  of  the  effects  of  the  con- 
ditions of  knowledge?"  Here  again,  the  distinguishing  holds  with 
the  meaning  that  Professor  McGilvary  obviously  attributes  to  "con- 
sciousness," but  not  upon  my  meaning.  Translated  into  my  own 
terms,  the  question  would  read:  "What  reasons  have  we  for  think- 
ing that  knowing  (attentive)  behavior  comes  after  certain  other 
kinds?"  And  I  quite  agree  with  my  questioner  that  this  question  is 
to  be  studied  "just  as  we  study  anything  else."  And  considering 
the  number  of  times  that  an  "instrumental"  theory  of  knowing  has 
been  attacked  on  the  ground  that  it  narrows  its  consideration  to  the 
functions  of  knowledge,  it  is  an  interesting  variation  to  find  it 
intimated  that  it  declines  to  extend  its  view  to  take  them  in.1  To  me 
— though  probably  not  to  those  who  criticize  it — this  suggests  that 
the  instrumental  theory  is  trying  to  date  knowing,  to  place  it  with 
respect  both  to  its  generating  conditions  and  its  consequences — or 
functions.  JOHN  DEWEY. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

1"If  knowledge  be  distinct  from  its  conditions,  should  we  not  study  it  as 
we  study  anything  else,  not  confining  ourselves  entirely  to  the  functions  of  its 
conditions,  but  extending  our  view  to  take  in  any  possible  functions  it  may 
itself  have?" 


22  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

REVIEWS   AND   ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

Some  Problems  of  Philosophy.    WILLIAM  JAMES.    New  York:  Longmans, 

Green,  and  Company.    1911.    Pp.  xii  -f  231. 

This  last  book  of  Professor  James  has  been  prepared  for  the  press  by 
Dr.  H.  M.  Kallen  from  two  unfinished  and  unrevised  manuscripts  left  by 
the  author.  The  first  chapter  treats  of  the  nature  of  philosophy,  its  value, 
and  the  objections  urged  against  it.  "  Philosophy,  beginning  in  wonder, 
...  is  able  to  fancy  everything  different  from  what  it  is.  It  sees  the 
familiar  as  if  it  were  strange,  and  the  strange  as  if  it  were  familiar.  It 
rouses  us  from  our  native  dogmatic  slumber  and  breaks  up  our  caked 
prejudices.  Historically  it  has  always  been  a  sort  of  fecundation  of  four 
different  human  interests,  science,  poetry,  religion,  and  logic,  by  one 
another"  (p.  7).  To  the  objections  that  philosophy  has  been  dogmatic 
and  unpractical  Professor  James  replies  that  while  this  has,  in  a  measure, 
been  so  in  the  past,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  continue  so.  "  One 
can  not  see  why,  if  such  a  policy  should  appear  advisable,  philosophy 
might  not  end  by  forswearing  all  dogmatism  whatever,  and  become  as 
hypothetical  in  her  manners  as  the  most  empirical  science  of  them  all " 
(p.  26).  As  for  the  objection  that  philosophy  has  made  no  progress,  we 
are  reminded  that  "  if  every  step  forward  which  philosophy  makes  .  .  . 
gets  accredited  to  science,  the  residuum  of  unanswered  problems  will  alone 
remain  to  constitute  the  domain  of  philosophy,  and  will  alone  bear  her 
name"  (pp.  22-23). 

Chapter  II.  enumerates  certain  typical  problems  of  metaphysics  the 
discussion  of  which  is  to  occupy  the  remainder  of  the  book.  Some  of 
them  are :  "  What  are  '  thoughts '  and  what  are  '  things '  ?  What  do  we 
mean  when  we  say  '  truth '  ?  Is  there  a  common  stuff  out  of  which  all 
facts  are  made?  How  comes  there  to  be  a  world  at  all?  Is  unity  or  di- 
versity more  fundamental?"  (pp.  29-30).  Chapter  III.  deals  with  the 
problem  of  being.  Has  what  exists  come  into  being  piecemeal,  as  the 
empiricist  inclines  to  believe,  or  has  it  always  been  in  its  completeness  a 
totality,  as  the  rationalist  holds?  We  can  not  say:  "For  all  of  us  alike, 
fact  forms  a  datum  .  .  .  which  we  can  not  explain  or  get  behind.  It 
makes  itself  somehow,  and  our  business  is  far  more  with  its  What  than 
with  its  Whence  or  Why  "  (p.  46). 

Chapters  IV.,  V.,  and  VI.  discuss  percept  and  concept.  The  author 
expounds  with  even  more  than  his  usual  clearness  and  force  the  position 
adopted  in  "  A  Pluralistic  Universe."  "  The  great  difference  between 
percepts  and  concepts  is  that  percepts  are  continuous  and  concepts  are 
discrete"  (p.  48).  "For  rationalistic  writers  conceptual  knowledge  was 
not  only  the  more  noble  knowledge,  but  it  originated  independently  of 
all  perceptual  particulars  "  (p.  55).  "  To  this  ultra-rationalistic  opinion 
the  empiricist  contention  that  the  significance  of  concepts  consists  always 
in  their  relation  to  perceptual  particulars  has  been  opposed "  (p.  57). 
Needless  to  say,  for  the  author  it  is  the  perceptual  flux  of  particulars  that 
has  the  primary  reality.  "  The  flux  can  never  be  superseded.  We  must 
carry  it  with  us  to  the  bitter  end  of  our  cognitive  business,  keeping  it  in 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  23 

the  midst  of  the  translation  even  when  the  latter  proves  illuminating, 
and  falling  back  on  it  alone  when  the  translation  gives  out.  '  The  in- 
superability of  sensation  '  would  be  a  short  expression  of  my  thesis.  To 
prove  it  I  must  show  (1)  that  concepts  are  secondary  formations,  inade- 
quate, and  only  ministerial;  and  (2)  that  they  falsify  as  well  as  omit,  and 
make  the  flux  impossible  to  understand"  (p.  79). 

Chapter  VII.  deals  with  the  One  and  the  Many.  "  The  alternative  here 
is  known  as  that  between  pluralism  and  monism.  It  is  the  most  pregnant 
of  all  the  dilemmas  of  philosophy.  .  .  .  Does  reality  exist  distributively  ? 
or  collectively? — in  the  shape  of  caches,  everys,  anys,  eithers?  or  only  in 
the  shape  of  an  all  or  whole?  .  .  .  Pluralism  stands  for  the  distributive, 
monism  for  the  collective  form  of  being"  (p.  114).  The  author  then 
proceeds  to  explain  further  the  nature  of  pluralism  and  to  defend  it  from 
the  misrepresentations  of  its  monistic  critics.  Various  types  of  monism 
are  noted  and  the  attempt  is  made  to  show  the  natural  affinity  of  monism 
for  rationalism  and  of  pluralism  for  empiricism.  A  rationalistic  plural- 
ist of  the  type  of  Professor  Howison  would,  of  course,  dissent  from  the 
view  that  pluralism  is  essentially  empiristic. 

Chapter  VIII.  treats  of  the  implications  and  consequences  of  monism 
and  pluralism,  and  in  Chapter  IX.  the  most  momentous  of  these  implica- 
tions, the  problem  of  novelty,  is  introduced  and  discussed  in  its  several 
aspects  through  the  remainder  of  the  book.  The  perceptual  life  gives 
overwhelming  testimony  to  the  existence  of  novelty,  and  that  testimony 
would  be  convincing  were  it  not  that  novelty  seems  to  conflict  with  the 
principle  of  continuity  of  which  science  is  so  fond.  "  With  the  notion 
that  the  constitution  of  things  is  continuous  and  not  discrete,  that  of 
a  divisibility  ad  infinitum  is  inseparably  bound  up.  This  infinite  divisi- 
bility of  some  facts  coupled  with  the  infinite  expansibility  of  others  (space, 
time,  and  number)  has  given  rise  to  one  of  the  most  obstinate  of  philos- 
ophy's dialectic  problems.  Let  me  take  up,  in  as  simple  a  way  as  I  am 
able  to,  the  problem  of  the  infinite"  (pp.  155-6). 

The  paradoxes  involved  in  the  infinite  as  set  forth  by  Zeno  and  by 
Kant  are  then  presented,  and  to  the  Kantian  antinomies  (or  rather  to  the 
first  two  of  them)  the  author  replies  with  what  is  virtually  a  defense  of 
the  "  antithesis."  A  "  standing  infinite "  (as  distinguished  from  a 
"  growing  infinite,"  i.  e.,  from  the  infinity  of  a  series  in  process  of  comple- 
tion) can  be  thought  of  either  distributively  or  collectively,  and  it  is  self- 
contradictory  only  when  thought  of  collectively.  "  When  we  say  that '  any,' 
'  each,'  or  '  every '  one  of  Kant's  conditions  must  be  fulfilled,  we  are  there- 
fore on  impeccable  ground,  even  though  the  conditions  should  form  a 
series  as  endless  as  that  of  the  whole  numbers,  to  which  we  are  forever 
able  to  add  one.  But  if  we  say  that  '  all '  must  be  fulfilled  and  imagine 
'  all '  to  signify  a  sum  harvested  and  gathered  in,  and  represented  by  a 
number,  we  not  only  make  a  requirement  utterly  uncalled  for  .  .  .  but 
we  create  puzzles  .  .  .  that  may  require,  to  get  rid  of  them  again,  hypoth- 
eses as  violent  as  Kant's  idealism  "  (p.  163).  "  If  now  we  turn  from 
static  to  growing  forms  of  being,  we  find  ourselves  confronted  by  much 
more  serious  difficulties.  Zeno's  and  Kant's  dialectic  holds  good  wherever, 


24  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

before  an  end  can  be  reached,  a  succession  of  terms,  endless  by  definition, 
must  needs  have  been  successively  counted  out.  .  .  .  That  Achilles  should 
occupy  in  succession  '  all '  the  points  in  a  single  continuous  inch  of  space 
is  as  inadmissible  a  conception  as  that  he  should  count  the  series  of  whole 
numbers  1,  2,  3,  4,  etc.,  to  infinity  and  reach  an  end  "  (pp.  170-1).  In 
the  solution,  based  upon  the  "  new  infinite,"  offered  by  Mr.  B.  Russell,  the 
author  can  find  no  satisfaction.  He  gives  in  this  connection  a  critical 
analysis  of  the  new  infinite  and  its  claim  to  override  the  whole-part 
axiom,  which  is  to  the  reviewer  one  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the 
book.  The  essence  of  the  criticism  is  perhaps  best  expressed  in  the  fol- 
lowing: "Because  any  point  whatever  in  an  imaginary  inch  is  now  con- 
ceivable as  being  matched  by  some  point  in  a  quarter  inch  or  half  inch, 
this  numerical  '  similarity '  of  the  different  quanta,  taken  pointwise,  is 
treated  as  if  it  signified  that  half  inches,  quarter  inches,  and  inches  are 
mathematically  identical  things  anyhow,  and  that  their  differences  are 
things  which  we  may  scientifically  neglect"  (p.  179).  And  after  carefully 
examining  Mr.  Russell's  remedy  for  the  Achilles  puzzle,  which  "  lies  in 
noting  that  the  sets  of  points  in  question  [constituting  the  respective  dis- 
tances traversed  by  Achilles  and  by  the  tortoise]  are  conceived  as  being 
infinitely  numerous  in  both  paths,  and  that  where  infinite  multitudes  are 
in  question,  to  say  that  the  whole  is  greater  than  the  part  is  false  "  (p. 
180),  the  author  concludes  that  "either  we  must  stomach  logical  contra- 
diction ...  or  we  must  admit  that  the  limit  is  reached  in  these  suc- 
cessive cases  by  finite  and  perceptible  units  of  approach — drops,  buds, 
steps,  or  whatever  we  please  to  term  them,  of  change,  coming  wholly 
when  they  do  come,  or  coming  not  at  all"  (p.  185).  In  short,  Professor 
James  divides  the  problems  of  the  infinite  into  two  classes:  (1)  those  that 
pertain  to  the  "  standing  infinite,"  (2)  those  that  pertain  to  the  "  growing 
infinite."  The  first  class  of  problems,  exemplified  in  the  first  two  antin- 
omies, he  solves  by  accepting  the  position  of  Kant's  "  Antithesis."  The 
second  class  of  problems,  illustrated  in  Zeno's  "  Achilles  "  and,  perhaps, 
by  the  last  two  of  the  Kantian  antinomies,  he  solves  by  accepting  the 
finitist  position  of  the  "  thesis."  This  dual  division  of  the  infinity  prob- 
lems with  the  correspondingly  diverse  solutions  offered  for  them,  puts  the 
whole  matter  in  a  new  and  interesting  light. 

In  the  last  chapter  the  problem  of  causation  is  taken  up.  We  get  our 
idea  of  cause  from  the  perceptual  experience  of  our  own  activity-situa- 
tions. Our  desires  seem  to  be  genuinely  creative  of  novelties  in  the 
world.  And  yet  observation  and  reflection  prevent  our  accepting  the  per- 
ceptual revelation  at  its  face  value.  For  between  our  conscious  activities 
and  the  effects  which  they  appear  to  produce,  there  intervenes  a  whole 
series  of  physiological  and  physical  events  which  conceptual  science  must 
recognize  as  genuine  links  in  the  causal  chain.  This  failure  of  the  per- 
ceptual view  "  has  led  to  the  denial  of  efficient  causation  and  to  the  sub- 
stitution for  it  of  the  bare  descriptive  notion  of  uniform  sequence  among 
events.  Thus  intellectualist  philosophy  once  more  has  had  to  butcher  our 
perceptual  life  in  order  to  make  it  '  comprehensible ' "  (p.  218). 

The  book  closes  with  the  following  passage :  "  If  we  took  these  [activ- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  25 

ity]  experiences  as  the  type  of  what  causation  is,  we  should  have  to  as- 
cribe to  cases  of  causation  outside  of  our  own  life,  to  physical  cases  also, 
an  inwardly  experiential  nature.  In  other  words,  we  should  have  to 
espouse  a  so-called  '  pan-psychic  '  philosophy.  This  complication,  and  the 
fact  that  hidden  brain-events  appear  to  be  '  closer '  effects  than  those 
which  consciousness  directly  aims  at,  lead  us  to  interrupt  the  subject 
here  provisionally.  Our  main  result,  up  to  this  point,  has  been  the  con- 
trast between  the  perceptual  and  the  intellectualist  treatment  of  it " 
(p.  218). 

It  can  not  but  be  keenly  disappointing  to  the  reader  that  this  uncom- 
pleted book  should  stop  just  at  the  threshold  of  the  treatment  of  the  more 
specifically  metaphysical  and  cosmological  problems  mentioned  in  the 
passage  just  quoted.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  may  be  possible  to  publish, 
if  only  in  the  form  of  scattered  notes  and  memoranda,  some  of  Professor 
James's  final  conclusions  on  such  subjects  as  the  relation  of  mind  and 
brain. 

Considered  as  an  introductory  text  in  philosophy,  this  book  has  in  a 
high  degree  that  quality  which  I  think,  more  than  any  other,  explains  the 
charm  of  James's  work — the  quality  of  making  the  reader  feel  as  he 
reads  that  he  is  himself  participating  in  the  creative  thinking  of  the  au- 
thor. James  speaks  here  as  he  has  always  spoken,  not  as  a  master  com- 
manding us  to  accept  a  completed  system  of  knowledge,  but  rather  as  a 
lover  of  wisdom  who  invites  us  to  join  with  him  in  the  search  for  truth. 

W.  P.  MONTAGUE. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

An  Introductory  Psychology,    MELBOURNE  STUART  READ.    Boston:  Ginn  & 

Co.    1911.    Pp.  viii  +  309. 

In  this  volume  Professor  Read  presents  the  results  of  psychological  in- 
vestigation as  seen  by  the  teacher.  It  is  written  obviously  and  admittedly 
for  the  most  part  at  second  hand,  from  text-books  rather  than  from  orig- 
inal investigations.  It  selects  from  the  current  literature  the  facts  that 
bear  upon  the  daily  life  of  the  student  and  applies  them  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  ordinary  mental  operations.  In  the  attainment  of  this  end  it 
may  be  said  to  be  highly  successful. 

The  chapters  cover  the  usual  material  in  the  introductory  texts,  in- 
cluding a  chapter  on  the  nervous  system.  In  the  arrangement  there  is 
some  departure  from  the  usual  order  which  makes  necessary  anticipation 
in  one  chapter  of  material  that  is  to  be  discussed  in  detail  in  another. 
Thus  attention  is  treated  after  perception  and  the  simple  affective  proc- 
esses and  imagination,  including  ideational  types,  after  memory.  In  each 
case  many  of  the  principles  involved  in  the  earlier  treatment  are  discussed 
in  full  later.  A  change  in  arrangement  would  make  the  treatment  more 
consistent  and  concise. 

On  the  whole  the  selection  of  material  is  very  good.  The  statements 
are  accurate  and  up-to-date.  The  aim  of  the  book  and  the  character  of  the 
reader  for  whom  it  was  intended  naturally  make  the  style  somewhat  dif- 
fuse. There  is  also  rather  more  about  psychology  relatively  to  actual  state- 


26  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

merits  of  psychological  fact  than  in  the  ordinary  text-book,  but  that,  too, 
is  to  be  expected  and  will  probably  make  the  book  more  acceptable  to  the 
reader  for  whom  it  is  intended. 

W.   B.    PlLLSBURY. 

UNIVERSITY  or  MICHIGAN. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

RTVISTA  DI  FILOSOFIA.  April,  1911.  Sul  concetto  di  veritd 
(pp.  161-170) :  B.  VARISCO.  -  Rational  truth  varies  according  to  a  psycho- 
historical  process;  absolute  truth,  determined  essentially  as  such,  de- 
mands a  theistic  basis.  Ordine  giuridico  ed  ordine  publico  (pp.  170-196): 
ALESSANDRO  LEVI.  -  The  concept  of  public  order  functions  as  a  political 
limit  of  subjective  rights.  //  subcosciente  (pp.  197-206) :  ROBERTO  As- 
FAGIOLI.  -  Proposes  a  stricter  terminology  to  distinguish  between  the  sub- 
conscious proper,  co-conscious  or  dissociated  psychic  activity,  and 
latent  consciousness.  La  valutazione  (pp.  207-216) :  LUIGI  VALLI.  -  Valua- 
tion is  not  a  simple  affective-volitional  relation  between  subject  and  ob- 
ject, but  a  real  or  supposed  constancy  and  uniformity  of  many  such  re- 
lations towards  the  same  object.  E  il  Buddhismo  una  religione  o  una 
filosofiaf  (pp.  217-222):  CARLO  FORMICHI.  -  Northern  Buddhism  reduces 
itself  to  a  system  of  ethics  based  on  radical  pessimism,  and  therefore 
should  be  considered  a  philosophy  rather  than  a  religion.  II  pluralismo 
moderno  e  il  monismo  (pp.  223-236) :  ALESSANDRO  CHIAPPELLI.  -  Modern 
pluralism,  with  its  absolute  heterogeneity,  does  not  account  for  the  mon- 
istic tendency  found  in  recent  science,  nor  the  necessary  integration  de- 
manded by  the  spiritual  principle  of  neo-Hegelianism.  II  contento  morale 
della  liber td  nel  nostro  tempo  (pp.  237-281) :  GIUSEPPE  TAROZZI.  -  The 
moral  content  of  liberty  is  nowadays  checked  by  unmoral  economic  free- 
dom and  by  excessive  individualism ;  it  is  increased  by  the  growth  of 
altruism  and  fraternity.  I  concetti  di  fine  e  di  norma  in  etica  (pp.  282— 
292) :  GIOVANNI  VIDARI.  -  Ends  and  norms  have  not  a  constitutive  but  a 
heuristic  function  in  ethics.  L'errore  (pp.  293-306)  :  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER.  - 
Truth  is  a  logical  and  error  an  illogical  mode  of  evaluating  a  conscious 
situation.  (The  above  papers  were  presented  at  the  recent  International 
Congress  of  Philosophy  at  Bologna.)  Della  filosofia  del  diritto  in  Italia 
dalla  fine  del  secolo  XVIII  alia  fine  del  secolo  XIX  (pp.  307-335) :  F.  F. 
GUELFI. 

RTVISTA  DI  FILOSOFIA.  May-June,  1911.  Estema  idea  logismo 
(pp.  337-360) :  ROBERTO  ARDIGO.  -  A  positivistic  discussion  of  the  psychic 
as  a  possible  world  after  the  analogy  of  nervous  activity.  La  filosofia 
italiana  al  Congresso  di  Bologna  (pp.  361-366) :  FREDERIOO  ENRIQUES.  - 
Argues  that  there  is  a  veritable  Italian  philosophy  and  that  it  is  not  a 
mere  adaptation  of  foreign  thought.  Dio  e  I'anima  (pp.  367-386)  :  B. 
VARISCO.  -  God  and  the  soul  are  not  mere  functions  of  thought,  but  real- 
ities. La  rinascita  dell'Hegel  e  la  filosofia  perenne  (pp.  387-401) :  PAOLA 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  27 

ROTTA.  -  The  renewed  interest  in  Hegel  (through  Croce,  Hibben,  Royce, 
Enriques)  shows  his  system  to  be  the  single  alternative  to  the  traditional 
philosophy  of  transcendence  between  God  and  the  world.  La  filosofia  che 
non  vissero  (pp.  402-419)  :  LUIGI  VALLI  -  Discusses  three  ways  to  recon- 
cile the  ideal  and  the  real — practical,  theoretical,  mystical.  Infinito  e 
indefinite  in  Cartesio  (pp.  420-427)  :  ROBERTO  MENASCI.  -  Shows  that  Des- 
cartes considered  the  world  infinite,  not  indefinite.  Per  I'io  di  Cartesio  e 
di  tutti  (pp.  428-432) :  L.  MICHELANGELO  BILLIA. -The  ego  of  Descartes  is 
not  the  grammatical  subject,  but  the  psychical  self.  Bibliografia  filosofica 
italiana  (1910).  Recensioni  e  cenni.  Notizie.  Atti  della  Societd  Filo- 
sifica  Italiana  (offers  the  programme  of  the  fourth  International  Congress 
of  Philosophy  at  Bologna,  at  which  Professors  Fullerton  and  Creighton 
were  elected  commissioners). 

Amendola,  Giovanni.  Maine  de  Biran :  quattro  lezione  tenute  alia  bib- 
lioteca  filosofica  di  Firenze  nei  giorni  14,  17,  21  e  24  Gennaio,  1911. 
Florence:  Casa  editrice  italiana  di  A.  Quattrini.  1911.  Pp.  123. 

Blight,  Stanley  M.  The  Desire  for  Qualities.  London:  Henry  Frowde. 
1911.  Pp.  xii  +  322.  2s. 

Botti,  Luigi.     L'infinito.      Genoa:  A.  F.  Formiggini.     1932.     Pp.  529. 

Lire  6. 
Herter,    Christian   A.     Biological   Aspects   of   Human   Problems.     New 

York :  The  Macmillan  Company.    1911.    Pp.  xvi  +  344.    $1.50. 
Wheeler,    Charles    Kirkland.     Critique    of    Pure    Kant.      Boston:    The 

Arakelyan  Press.    1911.    Pp.  298.    $1.50. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences  and  its  affiliated  societies  held 
their  annual  dinner,  Monday  evening,  December  18,  at  the  Hotel  Endicott. 
After  the  dinner,  the  annual  meeting  of  the  academy  was  held,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  which  the  address  of  the  retiring  president,  Professor  Franz 
Boas,  entitled,  "  The  History  of  the  American  Race,"  was  read  by  the 
recording  secretary,  after  which  Mr.  George  Borup,  a  graduate  student 
at  Yale  University,  related  a  few  of  his  most  interesting  experiences 
in  connection  with  Admiral  Peary's  North  Polar  Expedition  of  1908-09. 
According  to  the  report  of  the  recording  secretary,  the  Academy  held 
eight  business  meetings  and  twenty-seven  sectional  meetings  during  the 
year  ending  November  30,  1911,  at  which  sixty-one  stated  papers  were 
presented,  classified  under  eight  branches  of  science,  and  two  public  lec- 
tures were  given  at  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  to  the 
members  of  the  Academy  and  its  affiliated  societies  and  their  friends. 
The  academy  now  has  on  its  rolls  502  active  members,  including  in  this 
number  19  associate  members;  120  fellows,  90  life  members  and  11  pa- 
trons, aside  from  the  three  members  who  were  elected  to  fellowship  at  the 
meeting.  The  annual  election  resulted  in  the  choice  of  the  following 


28  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

officers  for  the  year  1912:  President,  Emerson  McMillin;  vice-presidents, 
J.  Edmund  Woodman,  Frederick  A.  Lucas,  Charles  Lane  Poor,  R.  8. 
Woodworth;  corresponding  secretary,  Henry  E.  Crampton;  recording  sec- 
retary, Edmund  Otis  Hovey;  treasurer,  Charles  F.  Cox;  librarian,  Ralph 
W.  Tower;  editor,  Edmund  Otis  Hovey;  councillors  (to  serve  three  years), 
Charles  P.  Berkey  and  Clark  Wissler ;  members  of  the  finance  committee, 
Emerson  McMillin,  Frederic  S.  Lee,  and  George  F.  Kunz. 

IN  accordance  with  announcements  already  published,  the  American 
Philosophical  Association  held  its  eleventh  annual  meeting  at  Harvard 
University,  December  27  to  29.  There  were  five  sessions,  all  of  which 
were  marked  by  a  full  attendance  and  vigorous  discussion.  Wednesday 
evening  the  Association  was  entertained  at  a  reception  at  the  Harvard 
Union.  The  retiring  president,  Professor  Woodbridge,  read  his  address  on 
"  Evolution "  on  Thursday  evening,  after  which  occurred  the  annual 
smoker  of  the  Association  at  the  Colonial  Club.  At  the  business  meeting 
on  Thursday  afternoon,  it  was  voted  to  continue  the  Committee  on  Dis- 
cussion. Officers  for  the  ensuing  year  were  elected  as  follows:  president, 
Professor  Frank  Thilly,  of  Cornell  University;  vice-president,  Professor 
Norman  Kemp  Smith,  of  Princeton  University;  new  members  of  the 
Executive  Committee,  Mr.  W.  B.  Pitkin,  of  Columbia  University,  and 
Professor  E.  A.  Singer,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  The  place  of 
the  next  meeting  of  the  Association  was  left  to  the  Executive  Committee 
with  power. 

THE  twentieth  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Psychological  Asso- 
ciation, held  at  Washington,  December  27  to  29,  was  more  than  usually 
successful  from  the  standpoints  of  both  attendance  and  interest.  The 
conference  on  psychology  and  medical  education  brought  together  a  num- 
ber of  eminent  psychiatrists  and  psychologists;  and  while  few  if  any 
problems  were  settled,  many  issues  were  raised  and  the  pressing  need  of 
attention  to  them  was  made  plainly  apparent.  The  Association  author- 
ized the  organization  of  a  committee  on  psychology  in  its  relations  with 
medical  education,  and  President  Seashore  appointed  to  this  committee 
Professor  W.  D.  Scott,  Professor  E.  E.  Southard,  and  Professor  J.  B. 
Watson.  Professor  E.  L.  Thorndike  was  elected  president  for  the  ensuing 
year.  The  new  members  of  the  Council,  to  serve  for  three  years,  are 
Professor  Margaret  F.  Washburn  and  Professor  Max  Meyer. 

DR.  G.  STANLEY  HALL,  president  of  Clark  University,  delivered  the 
address  at  the  inauguration  of  Dr.  George  E.  Myers,  principal  of  the 
State  Manual  Training  Normal  School  at  Pittsburg,  Kansas.  The  sub- 
ject of  the  address  was  "  Educational  Efficiency." 

PROFESSOR  JOSEPH  JASTROW,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  gave  a 
public  lecture,  entitled  "  On  the  Trail  of  the  Subconscious,"  at  the  Univer- 
sity on  December  4,  under  the  auspices  of  the  University  Association  for 
Research  and  Phi  Beta  Kappa. 

DR.  ALEXANDER  F.  CHAMBERLAIN,  hitherto  assistant  professor,  has  been 
promoted  to  a  full  professorship  in  anthropology  at  Clark  University. 


VOL.  IX.     No.  2.  JANUARY  18,  1912. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  INTRODUCTION  COURSES 
A   QUESTIONNAIRE 

IN  this  age,  when  nearly  every  discipline  has  achieved  its  own  par- 
ticular pedagogy  and  has  become  self-conscious  and,  in  a  meas- 
ure, revised  in  terms  of  educational  method,  philosophy  has  almost 
escaped.  Whether  it  is  because  philosophy  is  not  among  the  high 
school  disciplines,  or  because  it  is  not  popular  enough,  or  because  its 
canons  are  regarded  as  all  its  own  and  mysteriously  apart,  it  is  at 
any  rate  true  that  the  pedagogical  series  yet  lacks  a  ' '  How  to  Study 
and  Teach  Philosophy"  to  match  the  history  and  mathematics 
methodologies. 

It  may  be  that  it  will  do  philosophy  no  earthly  good  to  come  to 
pedagogical  self -consciousness ;  but  there  is  only  one  way  to  find  out 
— unless  one  has  a  truly  shameless  aprioristic  conscience.  And  it  is 
with  philosophy  as  it  is  with  most  other  subjects :  the  more  elemen- 
tary courses  present  the  most  harassing  problems  and  are  worthy 
of  first  attention.  Of  these  elementary  courses,  the  one  that  most 
obtrudes  itself,  because  of  its  frankly  experimental  character,  is  the 
course  whose  purpose  is  avowedly  and  exclusively  introductory. 
Whether  a  special  course  of  this  sort  should  be  given  at  all  is  still 
a  mooted  question ;  and  that  the  aims  and  methods  of  such  a  course 
are  still  highly  problematical  is  evidenced  by  the  increasing  number  of 
text-books  for  such  courses,  each  one  written  largely  under  the  im- 
pression that  the  others  are  unsatisfactory.  Here,  at  least,  is  a  prob- 
lem upon  which  educational  method  must  have  its  say :  it  is  enlight- 
ened pedagogy  alone  that  is  to  decide  whether  such  a  course  should 
be  given  and  what  shall  be  the  method  of  its  presentation.  Such 
philosophic  pedagogy  will  be  the  product  mainly  of  the  reflective  ex- 
perience of  numbers  of  teachers.  It  is  important  that  we  know  just 
what  that  experience  is. 

Last  year  the  Western  Philosophical  Association  at  its  spring 
meeting  devoted  a  special  session  to  the  consideration  of  the  aims  and 

29 


30  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

methods  of  introduction  courses  in  philosophy.1  Unusual  interest 
was  aroused  in  the  problems  raised,  and  it  was  unanimously  decided 
to  pursue  the  subject  further  through  an  investigation  which  would 
aim  to  enlist  the  active  cooperation  of  a  considerable  number  of 
teachers  of  philosophy  in  representative  colleges  and  universities  of 
this  country.  For  this  investigation  a  committee  was  appointed.2 
A  questionnaire  was  prepared,  through  which  it  was  hoped  to  ob- 
tain light  with  regard  to  the  prevalence  of  courses  specifically  intro- 
ductory, their  precise  aims,  and  their  methods,  both  formal  and  con- 
tentual ;  besides  which  any  other  suggestions  concerning  the  pedagogy 
of  introduction  courses  were  invited. 

The  results  of  this  investigation  proved  to  be  thoroughly  worth 
while.  Replies  were  received  from  most  of  the  leading  colleges  and 
universities — from  thirty-five  institutions  in  all,  twelve  of  which 
were  state  universities.  As  a  rule,  the  questions  were  answered  in 
careful  detail;  and  suggestions  beyond  the  answers  to  specific  ques- 
tions were  often  appended.  The  committee  concluded  its  work  with 
a  brief  report  to  the  Association  at  its  meeting  last  December.  Since 
then,  however,  those  who  had  been  members  of  this  committee  agreed 
that  it  might  be  profitable  for  some  one  to  go  over  the  replies  care- 
fully, with  a  view  to  a  digest  which  might  be  of  essential  interest  to 
teachers  of  philosophy  in  general.  This  task  was  handed  over  to  the 
writer,  who  herewith  presents  the  results  of  his  review,  together  with 
such  comments  as  have  seemed  to  him  worth  while. 

I.  PREVALENCE  OF  COURSES  IN  THE  INTRODUCTION  TO  PHILOSOPHY 

More  than  two  thirds  of  the  departments  represented  in  the  re- 
plies offer  a  special  course  in  the  introduction  to  philosophy.  The 
omission  of  the  course  is  not  restricted  to  the  smaller  colleges ;  thus, 
one  is  led  to  conclude  that  its  omission  is  not  merely  a  matter  of 
economy,  but  of  principle.  For  instance,  no  course  under  this  specific 
title  is  offered  at  Harvard,  Yale,  Minnesota,  California,  or  Stanford. 
Five  of  the  departments  that  omit  the  course  express  themselves  as 
doubtful  concerning  the  advisability  of  offering  it.  Two  departments 
have  discontinued  the  course,  one  because  it  seemed  the  least  im- 
portant in  a  crowded  curriculum,  and  one  because  it  had  not  proved 
a  successful  method.  A  member  of  this  latter  department  writes: 
"It  is  not  and  in  my  judgment  never  can  be  a  satisfactory  method 
of  introducing  a  student  to  the  subject." 

1  See  ' '  The  Tenth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Western  Philosophical  Associa- 
tion," reported  by  Bernard  C.  Ewer,  in  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  426-428. 

'This  committee  consisted  of  Messrs.  Bernard  C.  Ewer,  Edgar  L.  Hinman, 
and  the  writer. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  31 

Of  course  all  the  institutions  represented  have  introductory 
courses  of  some  kind.  For  instance,  the  chairman  of  the  division  of 
philosophy  in  one  of  our  most  important  universities  writes  that  the 
division  offers  no  single  course  in  the  introduction  to  philosophy,  and 
that  it  virtually  accepts  the  principle  that  it  is  better  to  provide  dif- 
ferent methods  of  approach  that  may  suit  men  with  different  inter- 
ests and  equipment.  The  usual  elementary  courses  serve  this  pur- 
pose. 

The  important  facts  to  note  are  that  less  than  one  third  of  the 
departments  represented  do  not  offer  a  special  course  in  the  intro- 
duction to  philosophy ;  that  the  majority  of  those  that  fail  to  offer  it 
express  no  conviction  against  it ;  that  of  the  few  that  do,  only  one  has 
tried  it ;  and  that  nearly  all  those  that  omit  it  make  attempts  to  intro- 
duce the  student  in  some  other  specific  and  systematic  way,  a  sum- 
mary account  of  which  will  be  given  later  under  a  discussion  of 
methods. 

II.  THE  AIM  OF  A  COURSE  IN  THE  INTRODUCTION  TO  PHILOSOPHY 
The  answers  reveal  three  main  aims :  first,  the  introduction  of  the 
student  to  philosophic  thinking  of  his  own ;  second,  to  the  problems 
of  philosophy;  third,  to  the  historic  systems.  A  small  number 
(eight)  think  the  three  aims  equally  fundamental.  Two  of  these 
think  that  the  order  of  the  fulfilling  of  these  aims  should  be  three, 
two,  one,  in  the  above  enumeration.  Few  are  willing  to  omit  any 
one  of  these  aims,  and  these  few  omit  the  introduction  to  historic 
systems,  save,  in  some  cases,  as  a  means.  Only  one  makes  this  latter 
aim  primary.  Among  the  rest,  opinion  is  about  evenly  divided  be- 
tween the  first  and  second  aims  as  fundamental,  with  a  slight  tend- 
ency to  emphasize  philosophic  thinking  of  the  student's  own.  To 
quote  a  particularly  thoughtful  reply  from  a  department  in  one  of 
our  best  New  England  colleges:  "I  feel  strongly  that  the  courses 
should  aim  above  all  else  to  make  thinkers  out  of  the  men,  to  make 
them  men  able  and  anxious  to  think  their  way  through  knotty  prob- 
lems, and  to  give  them  a  desire  to  get  at  the  truth  and  an  open- 
mindedness  towards  any  evidence  bearing  on  the  problems,  and  if 
they  get  these  things,  it  is  a  matter  of  secondary  importance  what 
they  know  of  philosophy  (i.  e.,  how  much) — for  time  will  remedy 
that  lack  of  quantity — and  also  what  philosophy  they  believe;  for 
success  in  attaining  the  results  just  mentioned  as  desirable  will 
guarantee  the  quality  of  their  product." 

Of  those  who  emphasize  the  aim  as  the  introducing  of  the  stu- 
dent to  the  problems  of  philosophy,  a  number  lay  stress  upon  the 
problems  "as  they  present  themselves  to  thinkers  to-day"  or  "in  re- 
lation to  present-day  attitudes  and  tendencies." 


32  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

One  reply  adds  an  aim  not  named  above :  the  preparation  of  the 
student  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  great  literatures. 

III.   THE  PREFERABLE  METHOD  FOR  INTRODUCING  STUDENTS  TO 

PHILOSOPHY 

There  are  six  chief  methods  suggested,  which  will  be  discussed 
in  the  order  of  their  preference. 

1.  Through  the  History  of  Philosophy. — A  majority  (twenty- 
four)  name  the  history  of  philosophy  as  an  indispensable  part  of  the 
means  whereby  the  student  shall  be  introduced  to  philosophy,  and  all 
but  three  of  these  emphasize  it  as  of  chief  importance.  Thirteen  of 
the  twenty-four  consider  the  history  of  philosophy  an  all-sufficient 
method,  the  rest  preferring  to  supplement  it  in  various  ways,  the  way 
most  frequently  mentioned  being  the  discussion  of  the  special  philo- 
sophical problems  for  their  own  sakes — especially  the  problems  of 
the  present  day,  which  saves  the  student  from  a  sense  of  remoteness 
and,  in  some  degree,  meets  the  objection  of  one  who  writes  that  he 
does  not  prefer  the  history  of  philosophy  as  a  method  because  "it  is 
too  likely  to  detach  the  student  from  the  problems  of  present-day 
civilization." 

Some  of  the  departments  that  prefer  the  historical  method  are 
among  those  that  were  recorded  above  as  having  no  special  course 
in  the  introduction  to  philosophy.  A  member  of  a  department  of 
this  sort,  with  definite  objections  to  a  special  introduction  course, 
strongly  defends  the  historical  method  thus:  "Assuming  that  the 
proper  introductory  course  is  the  historical  one,  it  should  teach  the 
student  to  do  some  philosophical  thinking  on  his  own  account,  and 
to  get  possession  of  himself  through  familiarizing  himself  with  the 
fundamental  categories  of  thought  as  these  have  emerged  in  the 
course  of  the  development  of  philosophy.  I  am  firmly  convinced,  as 
the  result  of  my  own  experience,  that  no  other  way  of  approach  can 
equal  the  historical  in  accomplishing  these  purposes.  The  aim  is  of 
course  never  simply  to  present  views  that  others  have  held  at  a  cer- 
tain time,  but  always  to  awaken  and  stimulate  the  student's  own 
powers  of  reflection  by  helping  him  to  live  through  the  historical 
movement.  Any  independent  introduction  is  sure  to  be  partial  and 
one-sided.  It  is  not  possible  entirely  to  escape  from  this  danger 
even  by  means  of  the  historical  course,  but  at  least  the  student  has  a 
better  opportunity  to  get  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  different 
points  of  view  which  have  together  contributed  to  bring  philosophy 
to  its  present  stage." 

Some  replies  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  vast  majority  of  stu- 
dents come  to  the  study  of  philosophy  with  no  realization  of  its  prob- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  33 

lems.  These  problems  have  to  be  made  real,  and  the  history  of  their 
actual  rise  is  indispensable  for  this  purpose.  That  the  history  may 
genuinely  accomplish  this  result,  it  is  suggested  that  the  main  aim 
should  be  to  present  the  more  fundamental  advances  made  toward 
a  theory  of  the  world  and  life  in  such  a  way  that  they  seem  progres- 
sive answers  or  approximations,  rather  than  mere  speculations.  One, 
who  has  made  a  signal  success  of  the  historical  mode  of  introduction, 
advises  that  it  is  an  excellent  principle  to  lay  down  at  the  beginning 
of  such  a  course  that  the  views  represented  by  the  historical  philos- 
ophers were  absolutely  convincing  to  those  who  held  them,  and  that 
until  one  is  able  to  feel  the  plausibility  of  the  doctrines  presented,  he 
is  in  no  position  to  criticize  them.  ' '  All  this  means  of  course  that  the 
older  philosophies  live  on  in  contemporaneous  thinking,  and  that  no 
view,  however  crude,  fails  to  find  its  counterpart  in  the  thinking  of 
each  one  who  is  undertaking  to  get  possession  of  himself. ' ' 

It  is  almost  the  unanimous  opinion  of  those  who  favor  the  histor- 
ical method  that  generous  use  should  be  made  of  the  sources :  in  this 
connection,  the  texts  of  Descartes,  Locke,  and  Berkeley  are  most 
frequently  mentioned  as  of  special  value  to  the  beginner. 

The  few  who  advance  reasons  against  the  historical  method  agree 
in  insisting  that  the  history  of  philosophy  should  follow  and  not  pre- 
cede a  somewhat  systematic  treatment  of  the  problems  of  philosophy. 
It  is  objected  that  unless  this  is  done  the  student  is  "too  raw"  to 
grasp  the  significance  of  the  history,  which,  at  any  rate,  is  more  val- 
uable to  him  after  he  has  come  face  to  face  with  some  of  the  problems 
for  himself. 

This  leads  us  to  a  consideration  of  the  method  next  in  favor. 

2.  Through  the  Problems  of  Philosophy  Considered  in  Them- 
selves.— While  only  six  consider  the  discussion  of  the  problems  of 
philosophy  an  all-sufficient  introduction,  it  is  most  frequently  men- 
tioned as  auxiliary  to  other  methods,  especially  the  historical.    One, 
who  favors  the  historical  method  for  the  less  mature,  is  convinced  that 
to  those  who  are  equal  to  it,  it  proves  more  stimulating  than  the  his- 
torical courses.    There  is  a  general  insistence  that  the  problems  shall 
be  presented  in  connection  with  present-day  issues  and  solutions,  and 
that  they  should  first  emerge  through  a  Socratie  questioning  of  the 
student's  own  attitudes  toward  life.8     As  a  typical  reply  puts  it: 
"Introduce  the  student  to  philosophy  through  his  stock  on  hand. 
Begin  where  the  students  are  and  grow  into  philosophy  with  them. 
Drag  the  problems  out  of  them ;  they  are  already  infected. ' ' 

3.  Through  Science:  Its  Generalizations  and  Presuppositions. — 
No  one  considers  this,  taken  by  itself,  a  good  mode  of  approach  for 

*  See  article  on  ' '  Hegel  'a  Conception  of  an  Introduction  to  Philosophy, ' '  by 
J.  W.  Hudson,  in  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VI.,  pp.  345  ff. 


84  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  average  class,  although  some  think  it  commendable  for  students 
with  specifically  scientific  preparation.  Nevertheless,  as  many  as 
twelve  deem  it  a  valuable  auxiliary  method.  The  advantages  most 
stressed  include  that  of  enabling  the  teacher  to  show  the  inevitable- 
ness  of  the  philosophic  task  and  at  the  same  time  to  distinguish  this 
task  in  aim  and  method  from  that  of  the  sciences.  Another  merit  of 
the  approach  through  an  examination  of  the  presuppositions  of  sci- 
ence is  felt  to  be  the  opening  of  an  attractive  and  easy  way  to  th<> 
problems  of  epistemology. 

The  objections  to  this  method  are  more  outspoken  and  specinV 
than  to  any  of  the  others  discussed.  They  group  themselves  into 
four  main  criticisms.  First,  it  is  alleged  that  students  are  not  at  the 
outset  interested  in  the  presuppositions  of  science;  second,  their 
knowledge  of  the  sciences  is  too  limited,  except  in  isolated  cases :  for 
the  special  student  in  the  sciences,  who  would  be  qualified,  rarely 
cares  anything  about  philosophy;  third,  the  problems  aroused  by 
science  soon  suffer  from  abstractness ;  fourth,  to  quote  the  reply  of  a 
noted  psychologist  and  authority  on  the  mind  of  the  youth,  "This  is 
the  very  worst  method,  for  it  brings  precocity  and  conceit." 

4.  Through  Literature. — While  only  one  reply  mentions  as  a 
purpose  the  introduction  of  the  student  to  the  great  literatures,  a 
little  over  a  third  lay  some  stress  upon  it  as  a  valuable  means  among 
others,  especially  if  used  judiciously  and  discriminatingly.  Its  specific 
use,  according  to  several,  is  to  relate  the  history  of  philosophy  to  the 
total  life  of  a  people ;  according  to  others,  its  value  is  in  furnishing 
material  and  food  for  thought  along  the  line  of  special  problems 
under  discussion.  One  reply  mentions  as  being  of  worth  for  intro- 
ductory purposes  a  course  on  philosophical  ideas  in  the  English  liter- 
ature of  the  nineteenth  century,  starting  with  Pope  for  a  back- 
ground. This  reply  adds  that  the  vast  advantage  is  that  the  topics 
mean  something  to  the  student  at  once;  moreover,  they  furnish  ac- 
cess to  any  philosophical  question  one  may  care  to  raise,  and  the  prob- 
lems need  not  be  carried  out  any  further  than  the  class  can  stand. 
The  writer  of  this  reply,  however,  considers  such  a  course  as  merely 
auxiliary. 

Several  feel  that  the  introduction  through  the  great  literatures 
can  best  be  made  in  conjunction  with  the  history  of  philosophy.  One 
reply,  representative  of  this  conviction,  is  of  such  interest  and  worth 
that  I  quote  from  it  at  length : 

The  best  "find"  in  the  history  of  philosophy  for  me  is  to  begin  with 
Oriental  literatures,  with  enough  copies  of  some  of  the  best  things  in  the  depart- 
mental library,  so  that  the  students  can  browse  and  make  selections  of  things  they 
like  in  their  notes.  The  order  used  is:  Confucius,  Mencius,  Lao  Tse,  the  Vedas, 
Brahmanas  Upanishads  (the  six  systems,  cursorily,  in  outline),  Buddhism,  Persia, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  35 

Egypt.  Then,  later,  in  its  proper  place,  Hebrew  literature  and  Jesus.  Among 
the  advantages  are:  a  world-view;  the  possible  historic  setting  of  some  of  the 
Greek  conceptions;  a  larger  conception  of  the  continuity  of  life  and  thought; 
and,  most  of  all,  an  escape  once  for  all  from  the  false  notion  that  ' '  philosophy ' ' 
consists  in  a  lot  of  "systems"  just.  Philosophy  has  certainly  drawn  more 
historically,  and  does  still,  from  ethics,  poetry,  religion,  and  the  like  than  from 
science  and  logic.  Philosophy  is  man 's  attempt  to  formulate  to  himself  his  sense 
of  worth  (scientific,  social,  moral,  esthetic),  or  his  appreciation  of  meaning,  or 
feeling  of  reality,  and  it  is  better  and  easier  for  students  to  catch  first  the  verities 
in  the  great  literatures  of  philosophy  that  are  struggling  to  get  themselves  said, 
and  then  to  formulate  them  into  systematic  statements  so  far  as  possible.  It  is 
a  shame  to  have  students  break  their  heads  over  conceptions  and  systems  and 
imagine  that  is  philosophy  the  first  thing.  It  is  a  piece  of  good  luck  if  they  get 
through  it  all  with  a  taste  left  for  philosophy. 

A  representative  of  one  of  our  larger  philosophy  departments, 
who  thinks  that  most  modern  " introductions"  are  written  primarily 
for  future  special  students  of  philosophy,  and  that  they  are  apt  to 
be  too  technical  for  the  average  student,  expresses  the  desire  for  a 
source-book  of  good  literary  material.  With  many  others  who  have 
had  practical  experience  with  the  problem,  he  feels  that  the  diffi- 
culty is  that  most  of  our  philosophy  is  not  simple  and  interesting 
enough  ("not  literature  enough")  for  the  beginning  student;  while 
most  literature  is  not  philosophic  enough — or  is  so  diffuse  that  a  be- 
ginner loses  sight  of  the  philosophical  problem. 

Apart  from  the  objection  on  the  part  of  some  that  literature  is 
"too  thin"  to  introduce  to  philosophy  with  much  success,  the  diffi- 
culty is  raised  that  most  of  those  who  affect  literature  seem  to  be 
usually  devoid  of  philosophic  interest.  Another  still  more  impor- 
tant objection  is  that  while  it  is  easy  to  get  students  to  take  literary 
courses  in  philosophy,  they  do  not  produce  any  adequate  preparation 
for  more  advanced  work. 

One's  total  impression  after  reading  the  replies  under  this  head 
is  that  we  have  not  paid  enough  attention  to  the  use  of  the  great 
literatures  as  an  auxiliary  mode  of  introduction  to  evaluate  it  ade- 
quately, and  that  here  is  a  field  in  which  some  one  might  do  some 
really  needful  intensive  work  with  regard  to  both  sources  and 
methods. 

5.  Through  Kulturgeschichte. — Several,  who  prefer  a  historical 
approach,  do  not  care  to  narrow  the  student  to  the  history  of  tech- 
nical philosophy,  but  wish  vitally  to  relate  that  history  to  Kultur- 
geschichte, i.  e.,  the  evolution  of  science,  morality,  art,  religion,  and 
political  life, — in  short,  the  history  of  institutions.  This  is  to  pre- 
vent the  student  from  getting  the  impression  that,  either  historically 
or  systematically,  "philosophy  is  simply  a  clever  and  surprising 
species  of  intellectual  gymnastics  performed  in  vacuo,"  and  also 


36  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

to  lead  him  to  philosophy  through  familiar  highways.  Some,  who 
do  not  prefer  the  history  of  philosophy  at  all,  or  only  secondarily,  as 
a  mode  of  introduction,  nevertheless  are  convinced  that  philosophy 
can  best  be  made  to  emerge  from  a  consideration  of  the  metaphysical 
implications  of  the  history  of  institutions.  Some  very  thoughtful 
replies  were  received  on  this  somewhat  untried  method — replies  that 
lead  one  to  feel  that,  in  the  right  hands,  it  would  be  highly  successful, 
at  least  in  a  supplementary  way.  In  order  to  give  a  more  detailed 
idea  of  this  method,  I  quote  from  the  reply  of  one  who  has  tried  it 
and  made  a  success  of  it  in  connection  with  the  history  of  philosophy 
proper : 

This  introductory  course  should  deal  with  the  ' '  natural ' '  systems  of  peoples 
and  ages  rather  than  with  the  "artificial"  systems  developed  by  exceptional 
historic  thinkers.  A  recent  article  in  the  JOURNAL*  describes  what  I  try  to 
make  my  general  history  of  philosophy — a  history  of  the  ideals  of  peoples,  their 
origin  and  significance  (a)  to  the  peoples  themselves  and  (b)  to  succeeding  agea 
and  peoples,  especially  to  us.  I  always  encourage  the  point  of  view  of  people, 
and  even  take  up  their  problems  for  systematic  discussion  so  far  as  the  class 
seem  inclined  to  it  and  time  permits.  In  general,  the  relation  of  philosophical 
movements  to  the  life  of  the  times  which  produced  them  needs  emphasis  in  an 
introductory  course  more  than  the  content  (conceptual  or  doctrinal)  of  the  move- 
ments themselves.  I  agree  with  you  that  the  philosophy  involved  in  history  is 
the  best  subject-matter  for  this  introductory  course,  and  have  pursued  it  to  such 
an  extent  in  the  past  that  the  historical  department  has  sometimes  asked  what 
I'm  teaching  my  students!  I  emphasize  everything  bearing  on  the  history  of 
institutions  and  social  organization — science  in  relation  to  industry,  political 
organization,  law,  social  customs  and  standards  of  moral  judgment,  the  medieval 
church,  educational  devices  and  methods,  historical  events  such  as  the  wars  with 
Philip,  the  conquests  of  Alexander,  the  fall  of  Borne  with  barbarian  invasions, 
the  rise  and  significance  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  etc.,  using  all  the  informa- 
tion students  gather  from  other  courses — so  far  as  possible.* 

6.  Through  the  Religious  Interest. — The  experience  of  several 
leads  them  to  believe  that  the  best  way  to  a  realization  of  the  mean- 
ing of  philosophy  is  through  the  religious  interest.     Through  this, 
they  find,  is  best  reached  the  life  and  thinking  of  the  majority.    Of 
the  six  who  mention  this  mode  of  approach,  none  rely  upon  it  alone. 
Five  combine  it  with  the  historic,  scientific,  and  literary  approaches. 
One  finds  that  "  comparing  the  religious  with  the  scientific  point  of 
view  creates  thinking  and  forces  the  student  to  see  the  necessity  for 
intelligent  opinion." 

7.  Other  Methods. — Two  other  modes  of  approach  are  named. 
Three  mention  logic  without  comment  and  one  expresses  a  preference 

•"An  Introduction  to  Philosophy  through  the  Philosophy  in  History,"  by 
J.  W.  Hudson,  in  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  569  ff. 

'See  also  "The  Aims  of  an  Introductory  Course  in  Philosophy,"  by  Edgar 
L.  Hinman,  in  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  561  ff.,  an  article  in  general  sympathy 
with  the  above  method. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  37 

for  the  problems  of  sociology  as  revealing  the  necessity  for  a  rational 
basis,  and  epistemology  as  showing  the  possibility  and  character  of 
such  a  basis.  Three  mention  psychology  as  a  desirable  prerequisite 
for  the  introductory  course.  Several  feel  that  the  mode  of  approach 
depends  very  largely  upon  the  teacher,  or  upon  the  character  of  the 
students,  or  upon  both. 

An  attempt  was  made  by  the  writer  to  discover  whether  those 
who  agree  concerning  the  true  aim  of  an  introduction  course  tend 
toward  any  agreement  in  method.  No  such  tendency  was  discern- 
ible, except  in  the  instance  of  those  who  find  that  all  the  aims 
named  are  to  be  reckoned  with,  in  which  case  the  question  of  ends 
and  means  was  merely  relative  and  a  matter  of  emphasis  solely. 

IV.    THE  USE  OF  A  TEXT-BOOK  IN  INTRODUCTION  COURSES 

Only  seven  of  the  thirty-five  who  replied  deem  a  text-book  un- 
desirable, and  only  three  of  these  would  rely  wholly  upon  lectures 
and  discussions.  The  other  four  prefer  assigned  readings  from 
carefully  selected  sources.  One  writer  objects  to  the  use  of  a  single 
text  on  the  ground  that  it  supplies  the  student  with  answers,  so  that 
he  does  not  do  the  thinking  for  himself  that  is  essential  to  his  phi- 
losophizing. One  department  of  a  well-known  eastern  university 
writes  that  it  uses  none  of  the  elementary  text-books  written  espe- 
cially for  the  classroom. 

Those  who  do  rely  wholly  upon  lectures  and  discussions  feel  that 
a  book  of  any  sort  gets  in  the  way  of  the  student's  own  thinking, 
one  suggestion  being  that  the  student's  own  experience  is  a  sufficient 
text  to  yield  him  a  modicum  of  first-hand  philosophic  thinking. 

But  the  conviction  of  the  majority  is  unequivocally  in  favor  of 
some  kind  of  text,  a  conviction  which,  in  general,  is  based  upon 
the  feeling  that  immature  students  in  philosophy  need  a  basis  for 
discussion  or  ' '  center  of  operations ' ' ;  that  young  students  are  used 
to  quite  definite  tasks  and  require  them;  and  that  the  text  best 
directs  the  task  and  steadies  the  student's  work.  One  reason  given 
in  defense  of  a  text  is  that  students  are  helped  by  models  to  imitate 
critically.  A  number  insist  that  the  text  should  be  used  only  in  con- 
nection with  sources.  Many  suggest  (what  has  fortunately  become  a 
truism)  that  the  text-book  be  used  as  a  basis  not  of  mere  recitation 
but  of  active  discussion. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  while  the  majority  are  in  favor  of 
the  use  of  a  text-book,  over  one  third  of  these  complain  that  they 
have  found  none  that  is  satisfactory,  although  they  have  tried  a 
number  of  the  more  popular  introductions.  The  criticisms  are  not 


38  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

explicit  enough  to  be  of  any  final  value.  Some  think  the  current 
text-books  too  technical;  others  regard  them  as  "not  intelligible  and 
concrete  enough."  One  reply  suggests  what  is  probably  very  near 
the  truth :  that,  on  account  of  the  nature  of  the  course,  each  teacher 
would  have  to  write  his  own  text-book  if  he  wishes  one  thoroughly 
satisfactory  to  himself.  One  teacher  practically  follows  this  sug- 
gestion by  conducting  the  course  through  the  aid  of  a  syllabus  in  the 
form  of  questions,  which  aims  to  bring  the  student  in  contact  with 
the  sources,  to  guide  his  reading,  and  to  prepare  him  to  assist  in 
class  discussion  by  suggesting  problems. 

V.  CONCLUSION 

First  of  all,  the  result  of  this  questionnaire  should  not  be  taken 
for  more  than  it  purports  to  be — the  more  or  less  off-hand  contribu- 
tion of  thirty-five  teachers  of  philosophy  to  a  problem  so  little  dis- 
cussed as  yet  that  few  have  attained  to  critical  convictions  on  the 
subject.  Yet,  while  the  answers  give  results  that  obviously  are  not 
final,  they  are  of  immense  suggestive  value  both  for  those  to  whom 
the  introduction  course  is  a  real  problem  and  for  those  who  wish  a 
basis  for  further  investigation.  We  have  not  yet  fully  realized  how 
much  might  be  gained  for  philosophy  by  the  active  and  intelligent 
cooperation  of  its  teachers,  although  our  journals  and  associations 
are  gradually  awakening  us  to  the  new  demands  and  opportunities 
of  conference. 

There  are  two  points  upon  which  most  of  the  replies  agree,  no 
matter  what  the  emphasis  of  aim  or  method :  one  point  relates  to  a 
pedagogical  principle  and  the  other  to  what  philosophy  should  be 
made  to  mean  to  the  student.  First,  most  emphasize  the  imperative 
need  of  getting  at  the  student's  point  of  view  and  of  making  phi- 
losophy emerge  from  that,  instead  of  from  any  external  ipsissima 
vcrba.  To  this  end,  much  emphasis  is  laid  upon  generous  and  wisely 
directed  discussion,  the  subjects  of  which  shall  be  the  problems  of  the 
class — always  these  rather  than  those  of  the  teacher.  To  this  same 
end,  we  are  warned  against  "talking  over  the  heads  of  our  hearers" 
and  are  told  that  the  one  thing  needful  pedagogically  is  close  per- 
sonal intercourse  between  the  student  and  the  instructor,  in  order  to 
get  at  each  man's  mind  and  to  stimulate  him  to  the  formation  of  a 
critical  opinion  of  his  own.  Second,  the  replies  emphasize  the  fact 
that  philosophy  shall  be  so  taught  that  we  shall  avoid  the  danger  of 
making  it  seem  what  too  often  it  does  seem — a  thing  of  futility,  an 
empty  speculation.  The  problems  of  philosophy  are  to  be  made 
real,  and  for  this  purpose  it  is  well  constantly  to  refer  to  the  vital 
issues  of  the  present.  Thus  will  philosophy  be  made  a  living  thing 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  39 

and  assume  its  rightful  place  as  part  of  the  inmost  life  of  him  who  is 
so  fortunate  as  to  find  it. 

JAY  WILLIAM  HUDSON. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MISSOURI. 


THE  NEW  REALISM  AND  THE  OLD1 

problems  of  philosophy  fall  naturally  into  four  groups: 
(1)  Problems  of  knowing;  (2)  problems  of  being;  (3)  prob- 
lems of  acting;  (4)  problems  of  feeling.  The  subjects  with  which 
these  problems  deal  comprise,  respectively,  epistemology,  metaphys- 
ics, ethics,  and  esthetics.  Epistemology  is  itself  concerned  with  two 
fairly  distinct  types  of  problems :  ( 1 )  the  functional  problem  of  the 
criteria  of  truth  and  the  way  of  attaining  it;  (2)  the  structural  prob- 
lem of  the  nature  of  knowledge  and  the  relation  of  the  knower  to  the 
known.  Discussion  of  the  functional  problem  of  epistemology  has 
given  us  such  doctrines  and  attitudes  as  mysticism,  rationalism,  em- 
piricism, and  pragmatism,  which  are  so  many  theories  as  to  how  we 
should  get  our  knowledge  and  how  we  should  test  its  truth.  Discus- 
sion of  the  second  or  structural  problem  of  epistemology  has  given 
us  the  doctrines  of  nai've  realism,  of  dualistic  realism,  and  of  subjec- 
tivism, which  are  so  many  theories  as  to  the  nature  of  the  relation  of 
a  knower  to  the  objects  known.  These  three  epistemological  theories, 
or  rather  types  of  theory  (for  there  are,  as  we  shall  see,  several 
variations  of  each),  may  be  discussed  pretty  much  on  their  own 
merits  and  in  relative  independence  not  only  of  metaphysical, 
ethical,  and  esthetical  issues,  but  even  of  the  epistemological  prob- 
lems of  the  methodological  or  functional  kind.  In  this  paper  I  shall 
undertake  to  define  the  theories  of  nai've  realism,  dualism,  and  sub- 
jectivism, as  they  appear  to  me,  and  to  show  how  the  difficulties  in- 
herent in  the  first  theory  have  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  second,  and 
how  that  has  been  given  up  for  the  third,  the  futility  of  which,  in  its 
turn,  has  led  to  a  revival  of  the  first. 

The  theory  of  nai've  realism  is  the  most  primitive  of  the  theories 
under  discussion.  It  conceives  of  objects  as  directly  presented  to 
consciousness  and  being  precisely  what  they  appear  to  be.  Nothing 
intervenes  between  the  knower  and  the  world  external  to  him.  Ob- 
jects are  not  represented  in  consciousness  by  ideas;  they  are  them- 
selves directly  presented.  This  theory  makes  no  distinction  between 
seeming  and  being ;  things  are  just  what  they  seem.  Consciousness  is 
thought  of  as  analogous  to  a  light  which  shines  out  through  the 

1  Bead  at  the  tenth  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Philosophical  Associa- 
tion, December,  1910. 


40  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

sense  organs,  illuminating  the  world  outside  the  knower.  There  is  in 
this  naive  view  a  complete  disregard  of  the  personal  equation  and  of 
the  elaborate  mechanism  underlying  sense  perception.  In  a  world 
in  which  there  was  no  such  thing  as  error,  this  theory  of  the  knowl- 
edge relation  would  remain  unchallenged;  but  with  the  discovery  of 
error  and  illusion  comes  perplexity.  Dreams  are  probably  the  earliest 
phenomena  of  error  to  arouse  the  primitive  mind  from  its  dogmatic 
realism.  How  can  a  man  lie  asleep  in  his  bed  and  at  the  same  time 
travel  to  distant  places  and  converse  with  those  who  are  dead?  How 
can  the  events  of  the  dream  be  reconciled  with  the  events  of  waking 
experience  ?  The  first  method  of  dealing  with  this  type  of  error  is  to 
divide  the  real  world  into  two  realms,  equally  objective  and  equally 
external,  but  the  one  visible,  tangible,  and  regular,  the  other  more 
or  less  invisible,  mysterious,  and  capricious.  The  soul  after  death, 
and  sometimes  during  sleep,  can  enter  the  second  of  these  realms. 
The  objectified  dreamland  of  the  child  and  the  ghostland  of  the  sav- 
age are  the  outcome  of  the  first  effort  of  natural  realism  to  cope  with 
the  problem  of  error.  It  is  easy  to  see,  however,  that  this  doubling 
up  of  the  world  of  existing  objects  will  only  explain  a  very  limited 
number  of  dream  experiences,  while  to  the  errors  of  waking  experi- 
ence it  is  obviously  inapplicable.  Whenever,  for  example,  the  dream 
is  concerned  with  the  same  events  as  those  already  experienced  in 
waking  life,  there  can  be  no  question  of  appealing  to  a  shadow  world. 
Unreal  events  that  are  in  conflict  with  the  experience  of  one's  fellows, 
and  even  with  one's  own  more  inclusive  experience,  must  be  banished 
completely  from  the  external  world.  Where,  then,  shall  they  be  lo- 
cated? What  is  more  reasonable  than  to  locate  them  inside  the  per- 
son who  experiences  them?  for  it  is  only  upon  him  that  the  unreal 
object  produces  any  effect.  The  objects  of  our  dreams  and  our 
fancies,  and  of  illusions  generally,  are  held  to  exist  only  "in  the 
mind."  They  are  like  feelings  and  desires  in  being  directly  experi- 
enced only  by  a  single  mind.  Thus  the  soul,  already  held  to  be  the 
mysterious  principle  of  life,  and  endowed  with  peculiar  properties, 
transcending  ordinary  physical  things,  is  further  enriched  by  being 
made  the  habitat  of  the  multitudinous  hosts  of  non-existent  objects. 
Still  further  reflection  on  the  phenomena  of  error  leads  to  the  dis- 
covery of  the  element  of  relativity  in  all  knowledge,  and  finally  to 
the  realization  that  no  external  happening  can  be  perceived  until 
after  it  has  ceased  to  exist.  The  events  we  perceive  as  present  are 
always  past,  for  in  order  that  anything  may  be  perceived  it  must  send 
energy  of  some  kind  to  our  sense  organs,  and  by  the  time  the  energy 
reaches  us  the  phase  of  existence  which  gave  rise  to  it  has  passed 
away.  To  this  universal  and  necessary  temporal  aberration  of  per- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  41 

ceived  objects  is  added  an  almost  equally  universal  spatial  aberra- 
tion. For  all  objects  that  move  relatively  to  the  observer  are  per- 
ceived not  where  they  are  when  perceived,  but,  at  best,  where  they 
were  when  the  stimulus  issued  from  them-  Not  only  may  some  of  the 
stars  which  we  see  shining  each  night  have  ceased  to  shine  years  be- 
fore we  were  born,  but  even  the  sun  which  we  see  at  a  certain  place 
in  the  sky  is  there  no  longer.  The  present  sun,  the  only  sun  that  now 
exists,  we  never  see.  It  fills  the  space  that  to  us  appears  empty.  Its 
distance  from  what  we  see  as  the  sun  is  measured  by  the  distance 
through  which  the  earth  has  turned  on  its  axis  in  the  eight  minutes 
which  it  has  taken  the  sun 's  light  to  reach  our  eye.  And  in  addition 
to  these  spatial  and  temporal  aberrations  of  perception  we  know  that 
what  we  perceive  will  depend  not  only  upon  the  nature  of  the  object 
but  on  the  nature  of  the  medium  through  which  its  energies  have 
passed  on  their  way  to  our  organism ;  and  also  upon  the  condition  of 
our  sense  organs  and  brain.  Finally,  we  have  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  whenever  the  brain  is  stimulated  in  the  same  way  in  which 
it  is  normally  stimulated  by  an  object,  we  shall  experience  that  ob- 
ject even  though  it  is  in  no  sense  existentially  present.  These  many 
undeniable  facts  prove  that  error  is  no  trivial  and  exceptional  phe- 
nomenon, but  the  normal,  necessary,  and  universal  taint  from  which 
every  perceptual  experience  must  suffer. 

It  is  such  considerations  as  these  that  have  led  to  the  abandon- 
ment of  naive  realism  in  favor  of  the  second  theory  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge.  According  to  this  second  theory,  which  is  exemplified  in 
the  philosophies  of  Descartes  and  Locke,  the  mind  never  perceives 
anything  external  to  itself.  It  can  perceive  only  its  own  ideas  or 
states.  But  as  it  seems  impossible  to  account  for  the  order  in  which 
these  ideas  occur  by  appealing  to  the  mind  in  which  they  occur,  it  is 
held  to  be  permissible  and  even  necessary  to  infer  a  world  of  external 
objects  resembling  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  the  effects,  or  ideas, 
which  they  produce  in  us.  What  we  perceive  is  now  held  to  be  only 
a  picture  of  what  really  exists.  Consciousness  is  no  longer  thought 
of  as  analogous  to  a  light  which  directly  illumines  the  extra-organic 
world,  but  rather  as  a  painter's  canvas  or  a  photographic  plate 
on  which  objects  in  themselves  imperceptible  are  represented. 
The  great  advantage  of  the  second  or  picture  theory  is  that  it  fully 
accounts  for  error  and  illusion ;  the  disadvantage  of  it  is  that  it  ap- 
pears to  account  for  nothing  else.  The  only  external  world  is  one 
that  we  can  never  experience,  the  only  world  that  we  can  have  any 
experience  of  is  the  internal  world  of  ideas.  When  we  attempt  to 
justify  the  situation  by  appealing  to  inference  as  the  guarantee  of 
this  unexperienceable  externality,  we  are  met  by  the  difficulty  that 
the  world  we  infer  can  only  be  made  of  the  matter  of  experience,  i.  e., 


42  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

can  only  be  made  up  of  mental  pictures  in  new  combinations.  An 
inferred  object  is  always  a  perceptible  object,  one  that  could  be  in 
some  sense  experienced,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  only  things  that 
according  to  this  view  can  be  experienced  are  our  mental  states. 
Moreover,  the  world  in  which  all  our  interests  are  centered  is  the 
world  of  experienced  objects.  Even  if,  per  impossibile,  we  could 
justify  the  belief  in  a  world  beyond  that  which  we  could  experience, 
it  would  be  but  a  barren  achievement,  for  such  a  world  would  con- 
tain none  of  the  things  that  we  see  and  feel.  Such  a  so-called  real 
world  would  be  more  alien  to  us  and  more  thoroughly  queer  than 
were  the  ghostland  or  dreamland  which,  as  we  remember,  the  primi- 
tive realist  sought  to  use  as  a  home  for  certain  of  the  unrealities  of 
life. 

It  seems  very  natural  at  such  a  juncture  to  try  the  experiment  of 
leaving  out  this  world  of  extra-mental  objects,  and  contenting  our- 
selves with  a  world  in  which  there  exist  only  minds  and  their  states. 
This  is  the  third  theory,  the  theory  of  subjectivism.  According  to  it, 
there  can  be  no  object  without  a  subject,  no  existence  without  a  con- 
sciousness of  it.  To  be,  is  to  be  perceived.  The  world  of  objects 
capable  of  existing  independently  of  a  knower  (the  belief  in  which 
united  the  natural  realist  and  the  dualistic  realist)  is  now  rejected. 
This  third  theory  agrees  with  the  first  theory  in  being  epistemolog- 
ically  monistic,  t.  e.,  in  holding  to  the  presentative  rather  than  to  the 
representative  theory  of  perception,  for,  according  to  the  first  theory, 
whatever  is  perceived  must  exist,  and  according  to  the  present  theory 
whatever  exists  must  be  perceived.  Nai've  realism  subsumed  the  per- 
ceived as  a  species  under  the  genus  existent.  Subjectivism  subsumes 
the  existent  as  a  species  under  the  genus  perceived.  But  while  the 
third  theory  has  these  affiliations  with  the  first  theory,  it  agrees  with 
the  second  theory  in  regarding  all  perceived  objects  as  mental  states 
— ideas  inhering  in  the  mind  that  knows  them  and  as  inseparable 
from  that  mind  as  any  accident  is  from  the  substance  that  owns  it. 

Subjectivism  has  many  forms,  or  rather,  many  degrees.  It  occurs 
in  its  first  and  most  conservative  form  in  the  philosophy  of  Berkeley. 
Descartes  and  Locke,  and  other  upholders  of  the  dualistic  epistemol- 
ogy,  had  already  gone  beyond  the  requirements  of  the  picture  theory 
in  respect  to  the  secondary  qualities  of  objects.  Not  content  with  the 
doctrine  that  these  qualities  as  they  existed  in  objects  could  only  be 
inferred,  they  had  denied  them  even  the  inferential  status  which  they 
accorded  to  primary  qualities.  The  secondary  qualities  that  we  per- 
ceive are  not  even  copies  of  what  exists  externally.  They  are  the 
cloudy  effects  produced  in  the  mind  by  combinations  of  primary 
qualities,  and  they  resemble  unreal  objects  in  that  they  are  merely 
subjective.  The  chief  ground  for  this  element  of  subjectivism  in  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  43 

systems  of  dualistic  realism  immediately  preceding  Berkeley,  was  the 
belief  that  relativity  to  the  percipient  implied  subjectivity.  As  the 
secondary  qualities  showed  this  relativity,  they  were  condemned  as 
subjective.  Now  it  was  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  Berkeley 
to  show  that  an  equal  or  even  greater  relativity  pertained  to  the 
primary  qualities.  The  perceived  form,  size,  and  solidity  of  an  ob- 
ject depend  quite  as  much  upon  the  relation  of  the  percipient  to  the 
object  as  do  its  color  and  temperature.  If  it  be  axiomatic  that  what- 
ever is  relative  to  the  perceiver  exists  only  as  an  idea,  why,  then,  the 
primary  qualities  which  were  all  that  remained  of  the  physical  world 
could  be  reduced  to  mere  ideas.  But  just  here  Berkeley  brought  his 
reasoning  to  an  abrupt  stop.  He  refused  to  recognize  that  (1)  the 
relations  between  ideas  or  the  order  in  which  they  are  given  to  us, 
and  (2)  the  other  minds  that  are  known,  are  quite  as  relative  to  the 
knower  as  are  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  the  physical 
world.  I  can  know  other  minds  only  in  so  far  as  I  have  experience 
of  them,  and  to  infer  their  independent  existence  involves  just  as 
much  and  just  as  little  of  the  process  of  objectifying  and  hypostatiz- 
ing  my  own  ideas  as  to  infer  the  independent  existence  of  physical 
objects.  Berkeley  avoided  this  obvious  result  of  his  own  logic  by 
using  the  word  "notion"  to  describe  the  knowledge  of  those  things 
that  did  not  depend  for  their  existence  on  the  fact  that  they  were 
known.  If  you  had  an  idea  of  a  thing — say  of  your  neighbor's  body 
— then  that  thing  existed  only  as  a  mental  state.  But  if  you  had  a 
notion  of  a  thing — say  of  your  neighbor's  mind — then  that  thing  was 
quite  capable  of  existing  independently  of  your  knowing  it.  Con- 
sidering the  vigorous  eloquence  with  which  Berkeley  inveighed 
against  the  tendency  of  philosophers  to  substitute  words  for  thoughts, 
it  is  pathetic  that  he  should  himself  have  furnished  such  a  striking 
example  of  that  very  fallacy.  In  later  times  Clifford  and  Pearson 
did  not  hesitate  to  avail  themselves  of  a  quite  similar  linguistic  de- 
vice for  escaping  the  solipsistic  conclusion  of  a  consistent  subjectiv- 
ism. The  distinction  between  the  physical  objects  which  as  "con- 
structs" exist  only  in  the  consciousness  of  the  knower  and  other 
minds  which  as  "ejects"  can  be  known  without  being  in  any  way 
dependent  on  the  knower,  is  essentially  the  same  both  in  its  meaning 
and  in  its  futility  as  the  Berkeleian  distinction  of  idea  and  notion. 
For  the  issue  between  realism  and  subjectivism  does  not  arise  from  a 
psycho-centric  predicament — a  difficulty  of  conceiving  of  objects 
apart  from  any  consciousness — but  rather  from  the  much  more  rad- 
ical "ego-centric  predicament" — the  difficulty  of  conceiving  known 
things  to  exist  independently  of  my  knowing  them.  And  the  poig- 
nancy of  the  predicament  is  quite  independent  of  the  nature  of  the 


44  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

object  itself,  whether  that  be  a  physical  thing  like  my  neighbor's 
body,  or  a  psychical  thing  like  my  neighbor's  mind. 

Some  part  of  this  difficulty  Hume  saw  and  endeavored  to  meet  in 
his  proof  that  the  spiritual  substances  of  Berkeley  were  themselves 
mere  ideas;  but  Hume's  position  is  itself  subject  to  two  criticisms: 
First,  it  does  not  escape  the  ego-centric  predicament — for  it  is  as  diffi- 
cult to  explain  how  one  "bundle  of  perceptions"  can  have  any 
knowledge  of  the  other  equally  real  "bundle  of  perceptions"  as  to 
explain  how  one  "spirit"  can  have  knowledge  of  other  "spirits." 
Second,  the  Humean  doctrine  suffers  from  an  additional  difficulty 
peculiar  to  itself,  in  that  by  destroying  the  conception  of  the  mind 
as  a  "substance,"  it  made  meaningless  the  quite  correlative  concep- 
tion of  perceived  objects  as  mental  "states."  If  there  is  no  sub- 
stance there  can  not  be  any  states  or  accidents,  and  there  ceases  to 
be  any  sense  in  regarding  the  things  that  are  known  as  dependent 
upon  or  inseparable  from  a  knower.2 

Passing  on  to  that  form  of  subjectivism  developed  by  Kant,  we 
may  note  three  points:  (1)  A  step  back  toward  dualism,  in  that  he 
dallies  with,  even  if  he  does  not  actually  embrace,  the  dualistic  notion 
of  a  ding-an-sich,  a  reality  outside  and  beyond  the  realm  of  experi- 
enced objects  which  serves  as  their  cause  or  ground.  (2)  A  step  in 
advance  of  the  subjectivism  of  Berkeley  and  Hume,  in  that  Kant  re- 
duces to  the  subjective  status  not  merely  the  facts  of  nature  but  also 
her  laws,  so  far,  at  least,  as  they  are  based  upon  the  forms  of  space 
and  time  and  upon  the  categories.  (3)  There  appears  in  the  Kant- 
ian system  a  wholly  new  feature  which  is  destined  to  figure  promi- 
nently in  later  systems.  I  mean  the  dualistic  conception  of  the 
knower,  as  himself  a  twofold  being,  transcendental  and  empirical. 
It  is  the  transcendental  or  noumenal  self  that  gives  laws  to  nature, 
and  that  owns  the  experienced  objects  as  its  states.  The  empirical  or 
phenomenal  self,  on  the  other  hand,  is  simply  one  object  among 
others,  and  enjoys  no  special  primacy  in  its  relation  to  the  world  of 
which  it  is  a  part.8 

The  post-Kantian  philosophies  deal  with  the  three  points  just 
mentioned  in  the  following  ways:  (1)  The  retrograde  feature  of 
Kant's  doctrine — the  belief  in  the  ding-an-sich — is  abandoned.  (2) 
The  step  in  advance — the  legislative  power  conferred  by  Kant  upon 
the  self  as  knower — is  accepted  and  enlarged  to  the  point  of  viewing 
consciousness  as  the  source  not  only  of  the  a  priori  forms  of  relation, 
but  of  all  relations  whatsoever.  (3)  The  doctrine  of  the  dual  self  is 

*For  elaboration  and  proof  of  this,  see  the  article  by  the  author  entitled 
"A  Neglected  Point  in  Hume's  Philosophy,"  Philosophical  Review,  January, 
1905. 

*  Cf.  what  Kant  called  his  refutation  of  (Berkeleian)  idealism. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  45 

extended  to  the  point  of  identifying  in  one  absolute  self  the  plurality 
of  transcendental  selves  held  to  by  Kant,  with  the  result  that  our 
various  empirical  selves  and  the  objects  of  their  experience  are  all 
regarded  as  the  manifestations  or  fragments  of  a  single  perfect,  all- 
inclusive,  and  eternal  self.  But  it  is  not  hard  to  see  that  this  new 
dualism  of  the  finite  and  the  absolute  self  involves  the  same  difficul- 
ties as  those  which  we  found  in  the  Cartesian  dualism  of  conscious 
state  and  physical  object.  For  either  the  experience  of  the  fragment 
embraces  the  experiences  of  the  absolute  or  it  does  not.  If  the 
former,  then  the  absolute  becomes  knowable,  to  be  sure,  but  only  at 
the  cost  of  losing  its  absoluteness  and  being  reduced  to  a  mere 
"state"  of  the  alleged  fragment.  The  existence  of  the  absolute  will 
then  depend  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  known  by  its  own  fragments, 
and  each  fragmentary  self  will  have  to  assume  that  its  own  experi- 
ence constitutes  the  entire  universe — which  is  solipsism.  If  the  other 
horn  of  the  dilemma  be  chosen  and  the  independent  reality  of  the 
absolute  is  insisted  upon,  then  it  is  at  the  cost  of  making  the  absolute 
unknowable,  of  reducing  it  to  the  status  of  the  unexperienceable 
external  world  of  the  dualistic  realist.  The  dilemma  itself  is  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  making  knowledge  an  internal  relation 
and  hence  constitutive  of  its  objects.  Indeed  a  large  part  of  the 
philosophical  discussion  of  recent  years  has  been  concerned  with  the 
endeavor  of  the  absolutists  to  defend  their  doctrine  from  the  attacks 
of  empiricists  of  the  Berkeleian  and  Humean  tradition  in  such  a 
way  as  to  avoid  equally  the  Scylla  of  epistemological  dualism  and  the 
Charybdis  of  solipsism.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  more  empirical 
subjectivists  of  the  older  and  strictly  British  school  are  open  to  the 
same  criticism  as  that  which  they  urge  upon  the  absolutists,  for  it  is 
as  difficult  for  the  Berkeleian  to  justify  his  belief  in  the  existence  of 
other  spirits,  or  the  phenomenalistic  follower  of  Hume  his  belief  in 
bundles  or  streams  of  experience  other  than  his  own,  as  for  the 
absolutist  to  justify  those  features  of  the  absolute  experience  which 
lie  beyond  the  experience  of  the  finite  fragments. 

And  now  enter  upon  this  troubled  scene  the  new  realists,  offering 
to  absolutists  and  phenomenalists  impartially  their  new  theory  of  the 
relation  of  knower  to  known.  On  this  point  all  subjectivists  look 
alike  to  them,  and  they  make  no  apology  for  lumping  together  for 
purposes  of  epistemological  discussion  such  ontologically  diverse 
theories  as  those  of  Fichte  and  Berkeley,  of  Mr.  Bradley  and  Pro- 
fessor Karl  Pearson.  Indeed,  it  can  not  be  too  emphatically  stated 
that  the  theory  in  question  is  concerned  primarily  with  this  single 
problem  of  the  relation  of  knower  to  known.  As  such,  it  has  no 
direct  bearing  on  other  philosophical  issues,  such  as  those  of  monism 
and  pluralism,  eternalism  and  temporalism,  materialism  and  spiritu- 


46  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

alism,  or  even  pragmatism  and  intellectualism.  Of  course  this  does 
not  mean  that  those  individuals  who  defend  the  new  realism  are 
without  convictions  on  these  matters,  but  only  that  as  a  basis  for 
their  clearer  discussion  it  is  first  of  all  essential  to  get  rid  of  sub- 
jectivism. 

Like  most  new  things  this  new  theory  is  in  essentials  very  old. 
To  understand  its  meaning  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  beyond  Kant, 
beyond  Berkeley,  beyond  even  Locke  and  Descartes — far  back  to  that 
primordial  common  sense  which  believes  in  a  world  that  exists  inde- 
pendently of  the  knowing  of  it,  but  believes  also  that  that  same  inde- 
pendent world  can  be  directly  presented  in  consciousness  and  not 
merely  represented  or  copied  by  ' '  ideas. ' '  In  short,  the  new  realism 
is  almost  identical  with  that  naive  or  natural  realism  which  was  the 
first  of  our  three  typic  theories  of  the  knowledge  relation;  and  as 
such,  it  should  be  sharply  distinguished  from  the  dualistic  or  infer- 
ential realism  of  the  Cartesians. 

Now  the  cause  of  the  abandonment  of  nai've  realism  in  favor  of 
the  dualistic  or  picture  theory  was  the  apparently  hopeless  disagree- 
ment of  the  world  as  presented  in  immediate  experience  with  the 
true  or  corrected  system  of  objects  in  whose  reality  we  believe.  It 
follows  that  the  first  and  greatest  problem  for  the  new  realists  is  to 
amend  the  realism  of  common  sense  in  such  wise  as  to  make  it 
compatible  with  the  universal  phenomenon  of  error  and  with  the 
mechanism  of  perception  upon  which  that  phenomenon  is  based  and 
in  terms  of  which  it  must  be  interpreted. 

W.  P.  MONTAGUE. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


DISCUSSION 
OPPOSITION  AS  CONDITION  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

TN  No.  16  of  this  volume  Professor  Walter  B.  Pitkin  was  kind 
enough  to  give  a  critical  abstract  of  five  essays  published  by 
me  in  the  last  years,  all  expounding  one  system  of  thought,  based 
on  the  principle  that  opposition  is  the  spring  of  consciousness.  I 
feel  very  thankful  to  Professor  Pitkin  for  the  pains  he  took  in  draw- 
ing a  very  vivid  and  generally  true  picture  of  the  line  of  thought  I 
pursued,  and  I  am  glad  that  he  finds  me  at  least  on  the  trail  to  truth, 
although  my  path  diverges  by  a  large  angle  from  the  psychological 
highroad. 

Indeed  Professor  Pitkin  raises  only  one  objection  to  the  system 
contained  in  my  writings,  although,  to  be  sure,  that  objection  is 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  47 

directed  against  its  very  foundation.  My  critic  says  that  either  I 
mean  by  opposition  that  specific  kind  which  exists  between  anti- 
thetical pairs,  as  for  instance  light  and  dark,  or  yellow  and  blue,  as  he 
generously  puts  it  to  make  my  situation  easier,  or  that  I  understand 
opposition  only  in  that  broader  sense  of  mutual  exclusion  which 
exists,  for  instance,  between  all  colors.  In  the  first  case  I  must  suc- 
cumb to  the  difficulty  that  to  most  objects  an  antithetical  pair  can  not 
be  designated;  in  the  second,  opposition  could  not  carry  the  system 
built  upon  it,  because  "anything  could  be  a  sufficient  precondition 
for  the  experiencing  of  anything  else " ;  "a  sound,  or  a  flavor,  or  a 
perfume,  or  any  conceivable  object  with  three  sides,  would  all  be 
equally  efficient  as  'contraries'  with  regard  to  a  triangle." 

Professor  Pitkin  takes  into  consideration  both  branches  of  this 
alternative,  but  he  decidedly  represents  me  as  having  spoken  in  the 
former  sense.  Indeed,  according  to  him,  I  assume  "a  polarizing 
tendency  in  the  world-stuff  itself,  which  gives  rise  to  all  intellectual 
distinctions,"  and  he  asks  me  to  inform  my  readers  (who  would  other- 
wise not  be  convinced)  as  to  just  what  qualities  (physical  objects) 
do  operate  in  antithetical  pairs  to  effect  consciousness. 

I  think,  however,  and  I  am  sorry  that  I  must  say  so,  that  it  is 
clearly  the  second  sense  of  Professor  Pitkin 's  alternative  in  which 
the  term  "opposition"  is  used  in  my  writings.  In  formulating 
against  current  psychology  the  charge  mentioned  by  Professor  Pitkin, 
that  out  of  isolated  perceptions  (viz.,  such  as  have  not  a  content  of 
opposition  against  other  perceptions)  induction,  experience  of  certain 
facts  having  certain  consequences,  and  rational  action  can  not  arise, 
I  manifestly  take  opposition  in  the  sense  of  mutual  exclusion  only, 
since  to  establish  such  a  charge  no  conception  of  polar  antithesis  is 
necessary.  Indeed,  in  the  very  quotation  which  Professor  Pitkin,  in 
elucidating  this  charge,  kindly  takes  from  my  writings,  the  terms 
Gegensatz  and  Ausschliessung  are  used  together,  separated  only  by 
a  comma,  with  the  precise  intention  of  precluding  the  interpretation 
in  the  sense  of  polar  antithesis — the  former  term,  however,  being 
generally  preferred  in  my  writings  in  order  to  demonstrate  that 
at  the  root  of  consciousness  there  is  dynamic  opposition  (which, 
of  course,  is  not  identical  with  "polar  antithesis").  If  this  inter- 
pretation is  given  to  my  principle,  then  it  does  follow  that  anything 
is  a  sufficient  precondition  for  the  experiencing  of  anything  else. 
But  this  is  just  my  opinion.  Anything  is,  however,  according  to  the 
theory  I  propose,  the  sufficient  precondition  for  the  experiencing  of 
anything  else  with  regard  only  to  that  element  of  the  latter  which  is 
contained  in  it  on  that  ground,  that  fundamentum  divisionis,  on 
which  the  two  are  opposed  to,  or  exclude,  each  other.  So  a  sound  or 


48  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

a  flavor  or  a  perfume  makes  us  experience  a  (seen)  triangle  only  as 
light,  a  lighting,  or  visible  object. 

Let  us  suppose  a  baby  just  born  in  a  room  free  from  sound  and 
odor;  let  us  exclude  for  simplicity's  sake  all  tactual  and  gustatory, 
etc.,  impressions  also,  and  let  us  suppose  that  a  shining  triangle  is 
held  before  his  eyes.  The  light  of  the  triangle  is  not  light  to  him  in 
the  same  sense  as  it  is  to  us,  as,  namely,  one  sort  of  thing;  but 
it  is  to  him  the  something,  the  stirring,  the  powerful,  as  opposed 
to  the  nothing,  the  quiet,  the  weak  (namely,  the  dark),  which 
environed  him  in  his  mother's  womb,  unperceived  then  because  not 
yet  opposed  to  the  impression  of  light,  but  now,  in  consequence  of  the 
actual  opposition,  remembered.  Such  a  baby  would  have  no  experi- 
ence of  light  as  distinguished  from  something.  Let  us  now  suppose 
that  later  a  noise  arises  in  his  neighborhood.  He  takes  notice  of 
"something  again,"  which  is  "not  the  same,"  however,  as  that 
perceived  until  now,  and  he  arrives  at  the  notion  of  light  or  the 
visible  as  distinguished  from  another  something.1  %  To  experience  the 
visible  as  a  triangle,  the  opposition  between  planes  having  different 
outlines,  or  at  least  the  opposition  between  numbers,  must  be  brought 
to  his  perception;  or,  let  us  say,  with  regard  to  this  example,  more 
generally  to  his  mind,  as  mathematical  and  geometrical  conceptions 
can  be  formed  a  priori.  But  this  again  does  not  mean  a  polar  anti- 
thesis, but  only  a  mutual  exclusion  on  another  ground.  Between 
specific  opposition  (polar  antithesis)  and  chaotic  exclusion,  which 
Professor  Pitkin  opposes  to  each  other,  there  is  an  intermediate  sort 
of  relation  which  is  not  restricted  to  pairs  and  might  be  called  specific 
exclusion. 

To  sum  up:  Everybody  is  aware  that  rational  action  requires  a 
systematical  knowledge  of  things,  their  division  into  classes,  the  divi- 
sion of  every  such  class  into  sub-classes,  and  so  on.  What  I  assert  is 
that  consciousness  is  from  the  very  beginning  consciousness  of  system, 

1 1  foresee  that  readers  unfamiliar  with  the  writings  here  spoken  of  will  find 
great  difficulty  in  understanding  the  asserted  difference  between  perception  of 
light  as  perception  of  the  something  and  its  perception  as  perception  of  light. 
To  remove  this  difficulty,  I  am  obliged  to  refer  to  my  writings,  where,  especially 
in  ' '  Das  Beharren,  etc., ' '  I  try  to  show  throughout  the  whole  psychology  how  such 
differences  work.  Here  I  can  only  say  that  this  difference  is  like  that  between 
perception  of  a  tone  simply  as  a  tone  and  its  perception  as  a  high  or  a  low  tone. 
This  difference,  and  the  assertion  that  if  only  one  tone  (and  silence)  has 
impressed  the  subject  so  far  in  his  lifetime,  then  only  the  former  perception  is 
possible  to  him,  will  perhaps  more  easily  find  acceptance  than  the  corresponding 
assertion  with  regard  to  light.  And  I  can  further  point  to  the  fact  that,  whereas 
in  the  case  when  light  would  be  the  only  (positive)  sensation  which  has  impressed 
a  subject,  it  would  give  him,  as  was  said,  the  perception  of  the  powerful;  in  cases 
of  other  (positive)  sensations  also  having  already  been  experienced,  this  light 
would  give,  on  the  contrary,  the  perception  of  the  tenderest,  finest  thing  of  all. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  49 

which  only  develops  in  the  course  of  life;  consciousness  not  only  of 
"this,"  but  also  of  "therefore  not  being  that." 

It  is  this  idea  which  leads  to  that  psychophysical  theory  (I  can 
not  allow  that  it  is  a  "hypothesis"  only)  which  Professor  Pitkin 
somewhat  approvingly  reviews. 

The  opposition,  therefore,  from  which  this  theory  derives  con- 
sciousness, is  nothing  else  but  what  other  psychological  theories  call 
difference  of  stimuli.  These  theories,  however,  do  not  find  the  actions 
of  different  stimuli  or  their  residua  leading  to  dynamical  conflicts  in 
the  subject,2  and  they  do  not  see  in  such  conflicts  the  very  condition 
of  consciousness,  as  I  do.  This  is  my  answer  to  the  request  for  in- 
formation with  which  Professor  Pitkin  closes  his  review. 

I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  mention  that  W.  Polowzow,  after 
having  rather  favorably  reviewed  my  treatise  "Das  Beharren," 
etc.,3  later,  in  a  criticism  of  "Die  Stelle  des  Bewusstseins, "  etc.,4 
finds  the  same  difficulty  with  my  theory  as  Professor  Pitkin. 
Fraulein  Polowzow  mentions  that  I  oppose  to  "seeing  a  dog"  "see- 
ing no  dog,"  and  thinks  that  if  this  example  is  taken  as  typical  of 
the  sense  of  opposition  in  my  works,  my  theory  of  the  origin  of 
consciousness  is  reduced  ad  absurdum.  Now,  I  can  not  see  why. 
' '  Seeing  a  dog ' '  means  seeing  a  particular  form.  What  I  maintain  is 
that  consciousness  of  a  form  is  impossible  without  more  than  one  form 
being  known  to  the  subject,  and  that  consequently  the  consciousness 
of  the  form  called  a  dog  can  not  arise  in  a  subject  without  his  know- 
ing at  least  one  other  form  not  called  a  dog.  This  may  be  false,  but 
I  can  not  see  why  it  should  be  absurd. 

I  can  not  see  the  absurdity,  although  this  agreement  between  two 
(by  no  means  all)  of  my  critics  induced  me  to  think  the  matter  over 
seriously  once  more.  Their  agreement  seems  to  me  to  arise  simply 
from  the  influence  of  current  psychology,  which  prevents  those 
used  to  it  from  seeing  the  dependence  which  I  assert.  Indeed  I  know 
of  only  one  systematic  treatise  on  psychology  (the  "Leitfaden"  of 
Th.  Lipps)  which  mentions  negative  perceptions,  such  as  that  of  see- 
ing no  dog,  although  such  perceptions  manifestly  form  the  very 
starting-point  of  thought.  But  the  psychology  of  to-day  might  justly 
be  called  the  science  of  mind  apart  from  its  coherence. 

I  close  by  expressing  once  more  my  best  thanks  to  Professor 
Pitkin.  JULIUS  PIKLEB. 

UNIVERSITY  OP  BUDAPEST. 

*  Th.  Lipps  ("Von  Fiihlen,  Wollen  und  Denken,"  second  edition)  does 
derive  dynamical  conflicts  in  the  subject  from  this  difference,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  calls  this  difference  opposition,  Gegensatg,  Gegensatzlichkeit,  just  as  I  do. 

1  Zeitschrift  fur  Psychologic,  Bd.  55,  S.  154,  1910. 

4  Ibid.,  Bd.  58,  S.  388,  1911. 


60  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

REVIEWS    AND   ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

The  Presentation  of  Reality.     HELEN  WODEHOUSE.     Cambridge:  Univer- 
sity Press.     1910.     Pp.  xii  +  160. 

This  essay  is  intended  as  a  description  of  knowledge  from  the  point 
of  view  of  a  philosophical  psychology.  Inspection  of  the  experience 
called  knowledge,  or  consciousness,  finds  it  a  real  presentation  of  object 
to  subject.  Many  objects  are  not  spatial — e.  g.,  "  objectives  "  (the  con- 
tents of  affirmative  and  negative  judgments),  connections  of  fact,  other 
people's  minds — hence  the  object's  presence  to  the  subject,  in  knowledge, 
is  not  essentially  a  spatial  relation.  Neither  is  presence  in  general  essen- 
tially spatial.  "  A  real  thing,  whatever  else  it  may  be,  is  the  method,  or 
necessity,  or  law,  in  a  group  of  events.  The  laws  of  its  nature  govern  the 
behavior  of  other  objects  in  relation  to  it,  and  our  own  experience  in 
respect  of  it.  ...  Now  '  presence '  .  .  .  can  only  mean  the  actuality  of 
government  by  the  law-group  in  question.  .  .  .  '  I  see  Birmingham '  means 
that  the  nature  of  Birmingham  is  expressing  itself  in  my  perceptual  ex- 
perience, governing  the  happenings  there;  and  the  contemplation  of  a 
thing  in  memory,  in  imagination,  or  in  the  most  elaborate  thought  means 
exactly  the  same  kind  of  fact"  (pp.  70-72). 

The  logical  "  difference  "  that  makes  presence  knowledge  is  a  striving 
to  increase  or  diminish  the  extent  of  the  presence.  Consciousness  is  pres- 
ence with  interest. 

To  deny  that  knowledge  is  such  real  presentation  is  to  deny  that 
knowledge  has  content,  unless  "  content  "  means  something  other  than 
"  datum,"  the  "  given,"  the  "  present,"  in  knowledge,  which  no  subjectivist 
says,  or  could  think.  And  only  by  a  meaningless  distinction  between 
content  and  what  is  contained  can  presentation  in  knowledge  be  thought 
to  imply  absence  from  knowledge,  by  a  self-perpetuating  recurrence  of 
mediating  relationships  between  content  and  container. 

It  is  impossible  that  content,  an  actualization  of  law,  should  be  other 
than  the  very  law,  the  very  object;  and  again  impossible  that  such  object 
should  be  any  content  entirely.  "  No  manifestation  of  the  object  exhausts 
the  object;  the  latter  can  always  expand  its  expression  and  tell  us  more 
and  more"  (p.  52).  "In  introspection  ...  we  make  the  content  of  a 
given  act  of  apprehension  into  the  object  of  another  act "  (p.  20)  ;  but 
not  even  in  introspection  does  content  exhaust  object.  Any  knowledge  is 
a  process,  a  gradual  discovery.  However  we  fix  our  limits,  what  is  within 
them  can  develop  internally. 

No  one  has  yet  offered  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  nature  of  an 
idea,  and  the  author  of  this  essay  is  convinced  "  that  there  are  no  such 
things  as  ideas.  Contents  and  objects  alike  exist  outside  my  body.  .  .  . 
'  Contents '  may  be  admirable  tools  if  we  can  keep  them  free  from  the 
taint  of  the  old  '  ideas,'  and  can  remember  that  the  things  which  enter 
the  mind,  and  which  therefore  are  partly  contained  in  our  mind,  are  the 
same  things  that  exist  outside  our  body  in  the  ordinary  physical  world  " 
(p.  18).  "  It  is  literally  true  to  say  that  the  past  or  the  future  can  be 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  51 

'  present  with  me,'  or  that  the  friend  I  think  of  has  '  entered  into  my 
thought '  or  has  been  '  much  in  my  mind.'  ...  I  can  no  more  think  of  a 
thing  which  is  outside  thought  than  I  can  see  a  thing  which  is  out  of 
sight"  (pp.  71  and  72).  ("Literally,"  if  these  terms,  usually  spatial,  are 
given  their  deeper,  extra-spatial  meaning.) 

Knowledge  is  evidently  not  a  static,  but  an  active  relation.  The  object 
operates  on  the  subject.  The  subject  strives  to  alter  the  extent  of  the 
operation ;  the  subject  reacts  receptively.  The  verb  "  know,"  whose  gram- 
mar implies  that  the  subject  is  initially  or  positively  active,  lends  itself 
to  the  false  subjectivistic  conception  that  knowing  is  constructing  reality. 
It  is  the  object  that  is  initially  and  positively  active.  "  Even  if  the 
whole  world  grows  by  means  of  our  interest;  even  if  nothing  can  exist 
except  on  condition  that  it  is  known;  .  .  .  even  in  deliberate  fiction  or 
assumption,  where  we  do  wilfully  create  the  objects  that  we  apprehend,  the 
creation  is  not  the  apprehension.  .  .  .  Whatever  creates  the  reality  that  we 
find,  it  is  not  the  finding,  as  such,  that  creates  it,  and  it  is  this  finding 
that  constitutes  knowledge"  (pp.  7  and  8). 

If  judgment  is  a  kind  of  knowledge  different  from  other  apprehension, 
it  is,  like  all  apprehension,  a  case  of  "  finding  something  there."  It  is 
more,  no  doubt;  but,  therefore,  it  is  not  pure  knowledge.  The  modality 
of  a  judgment  depends  on  the  degree  of  limitation  of  content ;  the  strength 
of  conviction  is  equally  a  quality  of  the  object,  not  at  all  of  the  subject. 
It  depends  on  the  steadiness  of  the  content.  "  We  can  not  more  or  less 
receive  except  in  the  sense  that  we  can  receive  more  or  less." 

In  all  levels  or  departments  of  knowledge  the  object  may  be  the  same. 
The  content  is  different.  The  object,  set  in  a  clear  field  in  contemplation, 
unfolds  before  us  in  the  contents  of  consciousness.  Where  first  we  found 
only  sense-contents,  we  presently  find  shape  and  position  and  likeness  and 
distinction,  and  connections  with  all  the  world,  and  relations  on  which 
inferences  rest.  We  "think  the  thing  out."  In  a  sense,  the  object  of 
every  knowledge  is  the  universe  entire;  limitation  of  object  depends  on 
interest.  In  marginal  sensations  or  images  (where  interest  approaches 
the  vanishing-point),  and  in  exhaustive  philosophical  investigation,  the 
object  is  the  unlimited  universe ;  the  content  approaches  "  nothing "  in 
the  first  case,  "  everything  "  in  the  second.  In  sensations  that  are  ele- 
ments of  a  focalized  percept  the  object  is  a  section  of  the  physical  world 
that  includes  my  body;  in  the  peculiar  case  of  introspection,  a  former 
content  is  the  object.  Here  the  content  may  be  said  to  cover  its  object; 
even  here  the  content  does  not  exhaust  the  object,  which  is  capable  of 
indefinite  development  internally. 

There  are  an  indefinite  number  of  levels  of  knowledge  in  which  we 
meet  non-spatial  objects  that  therefore  can  not  enter  into  sense  or  imagery. 
All  these  are  brought  here  under  the  name  of  "  thought."  Important 
examples  of  such  non-spatial  presentations  were  cited  at  the  beginning. 
The  yes-no  determination  in  judgment  is  distinct  from  that  of  choice 
(B.  Russell),  and  consists  in  the  contrast  between  presence  and  absence  of 
some  feature  in  the  object — a  matter  of  content  purely,  not  of  subjective 


52  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

act.  In  inference,  association  is  undoubtedly  operative  constantly,  but 
here  also  the  matter  of  our  belief  is  objective  purely.  "  We  find  our  way 
to  a  new  conclusion  in  thinking  as  we  find  our  way  to  a  new  district  in 
exploring,  not  mainly  by  habit,  but  by  observing  the  lie  of  the  land  and 
searching  out  the  road"  (p.  47).  Inference  is,  in  fact,  only  a  special 
method  for  making  the  features  of  reality  clear  to  ourselves  and  to  others, 
and  non-inferential  knowledge  is  as  common  in  thought  as  in  sense. 

Among  non-spatial  presentations  are  included  the  minds  of  other 
people.  When  I  contemplate  material  things,  not  only  my  object  but  the 
content  of  my  mind  is  made  of  wood  and  stone.  So  when  I  contemplate 
my  friend,  the  contents  of  my  mind  are  "  made  "  of  his  spirit  and  spiritual 
activity;  for  this  enters  my  consciousness  and  is  present  to  my  thought. 

Two  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  defense  of  the  presentation  of  reality 
in  sense  and  in  thought,  respectively.  Those  who  regard  the  contents  of 
sense  as  too  near  to  be  objective  (e.  g.,  Stout)  confuse  sensation  with 
feeling;  for  no  other  distinction  between  them  ever  has  been  or  could  be 
offered  except  the  objectivity  of  sensation  and  the  subjectivity  of  feeling. 
Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  think  the  objects  of  thought  are  too  remote 
to  be  presented  at  all  are  under  the  delusion  of  a  spatial  meaning  in 
"  presentation,"  and  of  another  ambiguity,  that  of  the  phrase  "  immediate 
knowledge."  Inferred  knowledge  is  said  to  be  non-immediate,  but  the 
meaning  is  historical  rather  than  epistemological ;  that  is,  inferred  knowl- 
edge is  reached  by  means  of  other  knowledge;  it  is  by  no  means  therefore 
out  of  touch  with  its  object.  The  recipient  act,  in  inference,  is  continu- 
ally helped  and  guided  by  a  creative  act — hypothesis,  the  making  of  sug- 
gestive pictures  or  guiding  lines.  Subjectivism  confuses  these  elements 
of  inference. 

Under  the  head  of  inference  comes  a  criticism  of  James  on  conception, 
and  it  applies  equally  well  to  Bergson.  These  anti-conceptualists  at- 
tribute too  much  to  sense-experience,  and  miss  the  essential  significance  of 
thought.  Pure  sensation  is  the  unreachable  limiting  case  of  experience 
accepted  without  inspection,  with  the  given  forbidden  to  expand.  The 
immediate  feeling  of  life  does  not  solve,  but  sets,  the  problems  of  thought. 
Such  feeling  gives  us  the  going  thing;  understanding  gives  us  the  "go" 
of  it.  Bradley  is,  on  this  point,  in  the  strange  company  of  these  empiri- 
cists. They  are  right  in  counseling  a  modest  attitude  in  intellect;  wrong 
in  their  blindness  to  the  objective  realness  of  its  content.  They  urge  us 
to  get  full  data,  as  if  data  were  solution.  They  do  not  consider  the 
involvedness  of  "  immediacy."  The  true  inwardness  unfolds  in  relations, 
and  it  is  just  the  distinction  between  thought  and  sense  that  the  former 
is  the  apprehension  of  relations,  the  latter  the  apprehension  of  qualities. 
Our  coming  to  see  the  relations  may  be  (historically)  non-immediate; 
our  seeing  them  is  of  precisely  the  same  immediacy  as  that  of  sense.  The 
effort  of  coming  to  see  them  is  that  of  focusing  and  guiding  our  sight. 
There  is  construction,  creation,  in  coming  to  see;  none  in  seeing. 

In  short,  if  I  "  know  about,"  I  know.  So,  if  we  take  the  "  con- 
tent of  my  sensation "  as  the  object  of  thought,  thought  knows  that 
content  in  knowing  about  it.  The  proposition  that  thought  can  not  see 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  53 

what  sense  sees  in  an  object,  is  a  special  case  of  the  general  truth  that,  so 
far  as  I  am  not  repeating  an  apprehension,  so  far  I  am  not  apprehend- 
ing its  own  content — that  is,  the  aspect  of  the  object  which  I  appre- 
hended before.  I  can  apprehend  my  own  feeling,  as  I  do  in  any 
judgment  about  it.  But,  as  with  sensation  and  belief,  my  apprehension 
of  it  is  not  repetition  of  it.  Subjectivity  is  not  descriptive  of  feeling. 
Mind  is  no  more  subjective  than  objective.  I  can  contemplate  my  own 
mind,  or  anything  else  in  the  universe,  as  I  prove  by  writing  about  it. 
But  in  the  nature  of  things  I  can  not  have  within  the  limits  of  my 
presented  content  the  receiving  of  that  content.  I  can  not  see  my  face. 
It  is  not  invisible,  but  I  can  not  look  two  ways  at  once.  Living,  for 
James  and  Bergson,  is  more  than  seeing  life.  But  this  is  a  mistake. 
Seeing  life  is  more,  not  less,  than  living;  for  seeing  implies  living,  and 
living  does  not  imply  seeing. 

In  the  problem  of  error,  a  second  and  brief  division  of  the  essay,  the 
central  doctrine  is  that  knowledge  is  fallible  in  proportion  to  its  signifi- 
cance. If  sense  can  not  lie,  it  is  because  of  its  inarticulateness,  not 
because  of  its  immediacy.  "  The  only  way  of  avoiding  error  is  to  stop 
short  of  the  line  round  our  content  at  which  it  unites  with  a  special  and 
determinate  universe  of  reality"  (p.  109).  As  a  fact,  no  experience  that 
has  ever  been  proposed  as  the  unshakable  foundation  of  belief  is  roomy 
enough  for  any  belief.  But  this  is  no  great  matter,  for  it  is  in  the  whole 
of  experience  that  the  reality  of  the  world  manifests  itself.  In  any  case 
of  consciousness,  whether  knowledge  or  error,  a  real  object  is  presented. 
The  peculiarities  of  our  nature  conditioning  error  are  elements  in  the 
given  objective  world.  The  objects  of  error  are  abnormal.  Their  reality 
contradicts  itself,  becomes  transparent,  and  finally  fades  away.  But  no 
more  than  other  objects  is  the  false  object  created  by  our  apprehension 
of  it. 

The  third  part,  too,  can  only  be  glanced  at  here.  It  is  particularly 
interesting  in  its  justification  of  the  objective  reality  of  the  world  of 
assumption,  a  mansion  in  the  "  many-mansioned  universe." 

I  can  create  the  object  of  perceptual  experience,  as  in  building  a  house, 
or  I  can  create  it  in  the  non-actual  worlds  by  assuming.  It  is  dependent 
in  either  case  on  the  act  of  creation,  not  on  that  of  apprehension.  I  do, 
in  the  latter  case,  just  what  I  do  in  the  former,  "  enlarge  reality,  create 
more  objects  for  the  apprehension  of  myself  and  others.  These  objects 
would  be  real  if  they  were  only  presented  once  and  then  destroyed  and 
forgotten ;  but  in  most  cases  they  have  much  more  reality  than  this,  since 
they  are  capable  of  being  presented  again  and  again,  of  being  looked  at  in 
various  aspects,  of  being  explored  and  developed  "  (p.  133) . 

Assumption  is  thus  creation  in  another  universe  than  that  of  the  act 
of  creation.  The  latter  universe  is  the  ground  of  the  former.  As  free 
creator,  I  can  set  the  law  of  non-contradiction  aside,  in  assumption. 
This  circumstance,  it  will  be  remarked,  does  seem  to  constitute  an  impor- 
tant difference  in  the  two  kinds  of  creation.  The  building  of  a  house  has 
no  such  freedom  as  this.  The  author  evidently  regards  the  difference  as 
irrelevant  to  the  realness  of  the  assumption  world.  That  rests,  no  doubt, 


64  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

in  the  end,  on  the  fact  that  it  is  contained  in  our  knowledge.     One  can 
not  treat  the  argument  fairly  in  the  space  at  present  available. 

In  assumption,  I  see  the  object  as  non-actual ;  in  judgment,  as  actual. 
Assumption  and  judgment  differ  thus  in  content.  Both  differ,  also  in 
content,  from  doubt.  The  content  of  belief  has  external  articulation; 
the  outline  of  the  content  of  doubt  is  blurred.  The  outline  of  the  content 
of  assumption  is  distinct,  but  overlain  upon,  not  articulated  with,  an 
external  universe. 

This  little  book  is  much  more  suggestive  than  wordy,  and  criticism  is 
largely  disarmed  by  this  feature  of  it.  It  keenly  glances  at  many  of  the 
hardest  problems  of  the  theory  of  knowledge,  with  an  able,  charming,  and 
persuasive  air  of  solving  some,  and  an  equally  gracious  modesty  with 
regard  to  others. 

It  is  an  admirably  useful  book  to  work  from  in  a  study  of  epistemology. 

ARTHUR  MITCHELL. 
UNIVERSITY  or  KANSAS. 

An  Introduction  to  Experimental  Psychology.    CHARLES  S.  MYERS.    Cam- 
bridge: University  Press.     1911.     Pp.  vii  + 156. 

This  little  book  presents  very  clearly  and  interestingly  some  of  the  prob- 
lems and  results  of  experimental  psychology.  The  author  has  chosen 
those  fields  that  are  most  interesting  and  to  which  he  has  himself  made 
most  contributions.  There  are  seven  chapters:  one  each  on  touch,  tem- 
perature and  pain,  on  color  vision,  the  Miiller-Lyer  and  other  illusions,  on 
experimental  esthetics,  on  memory,  and  two  on  mental  tests.  The  first 
chapter  for  the  most  part  gives  a  summary  of  the  work  of  Head  and  Rivers 
on  nerve  division.  The  second  chapter  gives  a  brief  summary  of  the  facts 
of  color  vision,  with  some  reference  to  theories,  and  then  a  relatively  long 
summary  of  the  work  of  Rivers  in  its  bearing  upon  the  color  sense  of 
savage  tribes.  The  discussion  of  the  Miiller-Lyer  illusion  makes  much 
use  of  Rivers's  work,  with  summary  of  the  theories.  Contrast  and  con- 
fluxion  are  preferred  to  eye  movements  as  an  explanation. 

Particularly  good  is  the  chapter  on  memory.  It  gives  a  very  useful 
summary  of  the  results  of  investigations  of  memory,  with  some  practical 
suggestions.  The  first  chapter  on  mental  tests  covers  ten  tests  of  sensory 
acuity,  esthesiometer  tests,  and  different  tests  of  fatigue.  It  studies  the 
results  obtained  from  groups  of  different  mental  standings  and  of  differ- 
ent ages,  and  considers  the  relative  importance  of  mere  sensory  acuity 
and  intelligence  in  the  results.  The  second  chapter  on  tests,  the  best  in 
the  volume,  gives  the  Binet-Simon  tests  with  modifications  for  British 
usage. 

The  work  can  be  recommended  to  any  interested  layman,  and  should 
prove  very  useful  on  the  topics  treated  as  a  work  of  reference  for  college 
students. 

W.    B.   PlLLSBURY. 

UNIVERSITY  or  MICHIGAN. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  55 

JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

REVUE  DE  PHILOSOPHIE.  July,  1911.  Le  temps  selon  les  phi- 
losophes  Hellenes  (pp.  5-24)  :  P.  DUHEM.  -  According  to  Archytas  time 
is  a  number  determined  by  the  general  movement  of  the  universe ;  time  in 
general  is  the  duration  of  this  movement,  the  time  between  two  events  is 
the  number  of  revolutions  which  intervene  between  these  events.  Aris- 
totle, in  the  "  Physics,"  defines  time  as  that  which  indicates  the  number 
of  successions  in  any  movement.  Plato  denies  that  time  is  a  number  and 
asserts  that  it  is  a  certain  continuous  quantity  which  is  common  to  all 
actions.  Le  temperament  nerveux,  second  article  (pp.  25— 47)  :  J.  TOULE- 
MONDE.  -  Persons  of  the  nervous  temperament  are  characterized  by  sub- 
mission to  all  sorts  of  fanciful  ideas — obsessions  with  regard  to  their 
own  health,  judgments,  intellectual  problems.  As  a  result  they  are  filled 
at  times  with  anxiety;  at  times  are  completely  absorbed  in  thought,  and 
at  all  times  have  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  value  of  time.  The  type  is, 
moreover,  characterized  by  extreme  instability  and  by  marked  impression- 
ability. Les  fails  de  Lourdes.  A  propos  d'ouvrages  recents  (pp.  48-62)  : 
R.  VAN  DER  ELST. -To  judge  of  the  cures  at  Lourdes  it  is  necessary  to 
study  the  facts  of  the  cases;  defenders  of  the  miraculous  healings  have 
not  used  adequately  these  facts,  and  adverse  critics  have  almost  ignored 
them.  La  loi  naturelle,  second  article  (pp.  63-85)  :  E.  BRUNETEAU.  -  The 
doctrine  of  infallible  moral  intuition  is  utterly  destroyed  by  the  facts  of 
history  and  anthropology,  and  yet  these  same  facts  point  to  the  possession 
on  the  part  of  humanity  everywhere  and  in  all  times  of  the  same  funda- 
mental principles  of  morality.  Analyses  et  comptes  rendus:  J.  Dewey, 
How  we  Think;  G.  Dumesnil,  Le  spiritualisme ;  J,  Segond,  La  priere: 
J.  Louis.  A  Menard,  Analyse  et  critique  des  principes  de  la  psychologic  de 
W.  James:  F.  MEUTRE.  S.  Deploige,  Le  confiit  de  la  morale  et  de  la  so- 
ciologie:  R.  FLORIAN.  J.  Lebreton,  Les  origines  du  dogme  de  la  Trinite:  J. 
GARDAIR.  F.  Picavet,  Boscelin:  R.  SIMETERRE.  Recension  des  revues. 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  July,  1911.  Le  congres  international 
de  philosophic  de  1911  (pp.  1-22)  :  A.  REY.  -  The  author's  criticism  of  the 
organization  of  the  congress  and  an  account  of  the  general  ideas  that 
seemed  prevalent  there.  Pensee  theoretique  et  pensee  pratique  (pp.  23- 
41)  :  F.  RAUH.  -  The  affirmation  of  the  real  always  involves  practical  af- 
firmations, so  the  current  separation  of  moral  truths  from  cosmic  truths 
is  artificial  and  inexact.  La  sociologie  de  M.  Durkheim  (first  article) 
(pp.  41-71):  G.  DAVY. -As  M.  Durkheim's  works  first  made  precise  the 
idea,  object,  and  method  of  sociology,  so  through  this  and  the  following 
study,  M.  Davy  aims  at  a  definition  of  this  science.  Essai  d'une  classi- 
fication des  etats  affectifs  (end)  (pp.  72-89)  :  E.  TASSY.  -  A  study  of  two 
of  the  three  classes  of  affective  states  distinguished  in  the  author's  pre- 
vious article,  organic  affective  states  and  psychic  affective  states,  and  a 
section  on  the  function  of  intellectual  activity.  Analyses  et  comtes 
rendus.  J.  Rehmke,  Das  Bewusstsein:  R.  HUBERT.  H.  Joly,  Problemes 


56         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

de  science  criminelle:  G.  RICHARD.  8.  Deploige,  Le  conflit  de  la  morale 
et  de  la  sociologie:  3.  SEGOND.  N.  Kostyleff,  La  crise  de  la  psychologic 
experimental :  J.  DAGNAN-BOUVERET.  Chabrier,  Les  emotion*  et  les  etats 
organiques:  J.  DAGNAN-BOUVERET.  J.  Pickler,  Ueber  die  biologische 
Funktionen  des  Bewusstseins:  J.  DAGNAN-BOUVERET.  I.  Babbit,  The  New 
Laocobn:  C.  LALO. 

McDougall,  William.  Body  and  Mind:  A  History  and  a  Defense  of 
Animism.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1911.  Pp.  xix  + 
384.  $2.76. 

Stratton,  George  Malcolm.  Psychology  of  the  Religious  Life.  London: 
George  Allen  &  Company,  Ltd.  1911.  Pp.  xii  -f  376.  $2.75. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

A  NEW  psychological  review,  Psiche,  has  been  lauched  in  Italy  with 
Professor  Enrico  Morselli  of  Genoa,  Professor  Sante  de  Sanctis  of  Rome, 
and  Professor  Guido  Villa  of  Pavia  as  directors,  and  Dr.  Roberto 
Assagioli  of  Florence  as  editor-in-chief.  The  directors  aim  to  make  the 
new  review  different  from  previous '  reviews  in  certain  respects,  one  of 
which  will  be  the  devotion  of  each  number  to  a  particular  topic.  It  is 
planned  to  publish  six  numbers  of  not  less  than  sixty-four  pages  each  in 
the  course  of  the  present  year.  The  subscription  price  is  L.  8  for  Italian 
and  L.  10  for  foreign  subscriptions.  Single  numbers  will  cost  L.  2. 
Communications  may  be  addressed  to  Via  degli  Alfani,  46,  Florence. 

PRESIDENT  G.  STANLEY  HALL,  of  Clark  University,  is  giving  a  course 
of  six  lectures  on  "  The  Founders  of  Modern  Psychology  "  at  Columbia 
University.  His  program  is  as  follows :  January  16,  "  Edward  D.  Zeller, 
the  Scholar  in  his  Field " ;  January  17,  "  Edward  von  Hartmann,  the 
Philosopher  of  Temperament " ;  January  23,  "  Hermann  Lotze,  the  Har- 
monizer  " ;  January  24,  "  Theodor  Fechner,  the  Animist " ;  January  30, 
Hermann  von  Helmholtz,  the  Ideal  Man  of  Science";  January  31, 
"  Wilhelm  Wundt,  a  Scientific  Philosopher." 

THE  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  have  in  press  "The  Classical  Psy- 
chologists," selections  illustrating  psychology  from  Anaxagoras  to  Wundt,. 
compiled  by  Dr.  Benjamin  Rand.  This  work  of  Dr.  Rand  is  a  companion 
volume  to  his  "  Modern  Classical  Philosophers "  and  "  The  Classical 
Moralists." 

PROFESSOR  HENRI  BERGSON,  professor  of  philosophy  of  the  College  de 
France,  has  accepted  the  invitation  of  the  Senatus  Academicus  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh  to  be  Gifford  lecturer  from  October,  1913,  to 
October,  1915. 

EDWARD  O.  SISSON,  recently  head  of  the  department  of  education  at 
the  University  of  Washington,  has  been  appointed  professor  of  education 
in  the  newly  established  Reed  College,  at  Portland,  Oregon. 


VOL.  IX.     No.  3.  FEBRUARY  1,  1912 


DOCTRINE  OF  SPECIFIC  NERVE  ENERGIES 

r  I  ^  HE  doctrine  of  specific  nerve  energies  was  first  definitely  formu- 
lated by  Johannes  Miiller  (1801«-1858).  Physiologists  before 
his  time  had  regarded  the  sense  nerves  as  merely  conductors,  each  of 
which,  however,  had  a  special  sensibility  to  some  peculiar  impression, 
and  hence  was  the  mediator  of  some  definite  quality  of  external 
bodies.  Miiller  pointed  out  that  the  discovery  of  the  possibility  of 
arousing  different  sensations  in  different  nerves  by  the  same  stimulus, 
e.  g.,  electricity,  and  also  of  the  fact  that  different  stimuli,  e.  g.,  elec- 
trical and  mechanical,  can  produce  in  the  same  sense  organ  similar 
sensations,  had  rendered  the  theory  of  the  susceptibility  of  nerves  to 
certain  impressions  inadequate  and  unsatisfactory.  He  therefore 
advanced  the  theory  that  "each  peculiar  nerve  has  a  special  power 
or  quality,  which  the  exciting  cause  merely  renders  manifest";  and 
that  in  sensations  we  do  not  experience  the  qualities  or  states  of 
external  bodies,  but  merely  the  conditions  of  the  nerves  themselves. 
Hence  light,  sound,  and  other  apparently  external  qualities,  as  such, 
have  no  existence,  but  are  states  which  certain  unknown  external 
influences  excite  in  our  nerves. 

It  is  clear  that  Muller  considered  the  sensory  nerves  themselves 
as  the  seat  of  the  "specific  energy" ;  and  thought  that  the  function  of 
the  central  organ  consisted  in  the  connection  of  the  nerves  into  a 
system,  the  reflection  of  the  sensations  upon  the  origin  of  the  motor 
nerves,  ideation,  remembrance,  and  attention.  His  theory,  also, 
seems  to  refer  to  modality  only  and  not  to  quality;  that  is,  a  single 
specific  nervous  energy  is  provided  for  each  sense  organ ;  and,  there- 
fore, any  sensory  apparatus  may  respond  to  different  forms  of  ade- 
quate stimuli  in  a  variety  of  ways. 

Helmholtz  first  distinguished  between  modality  and  quality. 
Sensations  differ  in  quality  when  it  is  possible  to  pass  by  a  series  of 
intervening  sensations  from  one  to  the  other.  They  differ  in 
modality  when  this  can  not  be  done,  e.  g.,  visual  and  auditory  sensa- 
tions. Helmholtz  attempted  to  explain  quality,  also,  by  postulating; 

57 


58  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

a  specific  energy  for  each  nerve  fiber,  that  is,  he  sought  for  specific 
energies  within  the  individual  sense  organs;  and  his  theories  of  visual 
and  auditory  processes  depend  upon  this  further  application  of  the 
doctrine,  e.  g.,  each  of  the  colors,  red,  green,  and  violet,  depends  upon 
a  specific  process.  Ilelmholtz  must  have  interpreted  the  law  some- 
what differently  from  his  predecessors,  for  he  regarded  these  specific 
differences  in  quality  as  determined  by  the  character  of  the  external 
physical  stimulus.  In  apparent  contradiction  to  this  he  held  that 
modality  was  exclusively  subjective.  But  if  quality  depends  upon 
external  stimuli,  the  same  must  be  said  of  modality,  for  the  latter  is 
a  mere  concept  or  general  term.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  tasting 
in  general  or  seeing  in  general.  What  we  taste  or  see  is  always  a 
particular  quality. 

Before  proceeding  we  must  refer  to  a  certain  ambiguity  in  the 
term  "specific  energy."  It  confuses  function  with  property  or 
quality.  It  makes,  of  course,  a  great  deal  of  difference  whether 
specific  property  or  specific  function  is  meant  by  the  phrase.  Most 
writers  on  the  subject  have  used  the  term  so  loosely  that  it  is  difficult 
to  know  just  what  they  mean  when  they  speak  of  "specific  energy." 
Wundt  would  scarcely  deny  the  specific  energy,  in  the  sense  of  spe- 
cific function,  of  any  given  nervous  unit;  but  he  would  deny  it  in  the 
sense  of  a  specific  property,  that  is,  specific  chemical  or  physical 
process,  in  that  unit  as  a  correlate  of  a  specific  quality  of  sen- 
sation. Of  course  the  latter  meaning  includes  the  former,  but  the 
opposite  is  not  true — at  least  not  necessarily  so.  Miiller  meant  by 
the  doctrine  a  specific  nervous  process,  and  so,  we  think,  did 
Helmholtz. 

McDougall  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  his  position  when  he  says :  ' '  The 
nervous  process  which  is  the  immediate  exciting  cause  of  each  quality 
of  sensation  is  different  from  that  which  excites  any  other  quality 
of  sensation";  and  that  "it  is  a  difference  which  could,  if  we  knew 
more  about  it,  be  expressed  in  physical  or  chemical  terms."  He 
advances  the  following  proofs  for  his  theory:  (1)  Whenever  it  has 
been  found  possible  to  stimulate  a  nerve  or  sense  organ  by  inadequate 
stimuli,  the  resulting  sensation  is  of  a  similar  quality  to  that  pro- 
duced by  stimulation  of  the  same  nerve  or  sense  organ  by  its  ade- 
quate stimulus,  that  is,  the  one  that  normally  excites  it.  (2)  The 
Helmholtz  theories  of  visual  and  auditory  processes,  which  offer  the 
most  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  facts  (?),  depend  upon  this 
doctrine.  (3)  Unlike  effects  must  have  unlike  causes,  therefore 
unlike  sensations  must  depend  upon  unlike  nervous  processes. 

McDougall  differs  from  Miiller  in  placing  the  seat  of  the  specific 
energy  not  in  the  nerves  themselves,  but  in  the  cerebral  cortex,  and 
especially  in  the  synaptic  processes.  His  reasons  for  so  doing  are  as 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  59 

follows:  (1)  If  the  specific  quality  were  in  the  nerves  or  sense  organs, 
we  would  have  to  consider  these  processes  as  directly  affecting  con- 
sciousness. This  is  improbable  since  loss  of  a  sense  organ  or  nerve 
does  not  prevent  the  recurrence  of  the  same  quality  of  sensation  in 
imagination,  while  loss  of  the  cortical  structure  does.  (2)  The  con- 
duction processes  of  all  sensory  nerves  appear  similar  in  kind. 
(3)  It  is  in  harmony  with  the  principle  of  strict  localization  of 
cerebral  functions  and  the  principle  of  association ;  for  if  the  cortex 
were  of  indifferent  function,  it  would  be  difficult  to  Understand  why 
the  excitement  of  an  associated  group  might  not  on  one  occasion  be 
accompanied  by  one  sensation,  and  on  others  by  entirely  different 
sensations  or  psychical  states.  (4)  This  specialized  character  belongs 
to  the  synapse,  because  the  nerve  cells  are  anatomically  similar  and 
have  as  their  function  to  preside  over  nutrition;  also  the  synaptic 
processes  are  highly  fatiguable  and  transmit  the  nervous  impulse 
discontinuously.  These  features  seem  likewise  characteristic  of  psy- 
chical phenomena. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  as  our  knowledge  of  the  processes  concerned 
has  advanced,  the  seat  of  the  specific  quality  has  receded  from  the 
nerves  to  the  cell-bodies  and  thence  to  the  synapse.  That  is,  with 
the  progress  of  physiology  and  anatomy,  the  advocates  of  the  theory 
have  been  forced  to  withdraw  this  qualitas  occulta  from  known  to 
unknown  regions.  It  seems  likely,  as  Wundt  remarks,  that  in  the 
future  the  specific  energy  will  be  placed  in  the  sense  organs  them- 
selves, where  differences  of  structure  and  function  warrant  the 
assumption. 

Wundt  holds  that  the  different  qualities  of  sensations  depend  not 
on  the  specific  character  of  nervous  elements,  but  solely  upon  the 
different  modes  of  their  connection.  The  principle  of  connection  of 
elements  asserts  that  the  "simplest  psychical  content  has  a  complex 
physiological  substrate,"  e.  g.,  the  sensation  of  red  has  a  complex 
connection  of  nervous  elements  as  its  physical  correlate.  It  is  not, 
however,  so  much  the  connection  of  nerve  elements  with  one  another, 
as  their  connection  with  organs  and  tissue  elements  and  through 
these  with  external  stimuli,  that  determines  the  specific  quality  of 
sensation.  A  specific  physical  or  chemical  process  as  the  basis  for 
each  primary  quality  of  sensation  is  an  unnecessary  hypothesis  which 
involves  many  difficulties  and  is  wholly  unprovable.  True,  certain 
connections  or  systems  of  elements  have  specific  functions,  which, 
however,  have  been  acquired  under  pressure  of  the  external  condi- 
tions of  life. 

This  leads  to  the  hypothesis  of  the  original  indifference  of  func- 
tion, which  is  founded  upon  the  following  observations:  (1)  A  fairly 
long  continuance  of  any  function  is  necessary  before  the  correspond- 


60  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  sense  qualities  appear  in  imagination,  c.  g.,  if  a  person  becomes 
blind  in  early  life,  he  has  no  visual  imagery.  (2)  Functional  dis- 
turbances occasioned  by  lesions  are  sometimes  removed  by  a  vicarious 
functioning  of  other  elements.  Here  the  specific  function  arises  dur- 
ing the  lifetime  of  an  individual.  Of  course  we  inherit  dispositions, 
which  consist  in  the  connection  of  nervous  and  tissue  elements,  etc. ; 
but,  even  so,  the  development  of  their  specific  functions  demands  the 
actual  discharge  of  these  functions  upon  excitation  of  the  end  organs 
by  external  stimuli. 

The  indifference  of  elementary  function  (and  certainly  property) 
is  also  proved  anatomically  by  the  essential  identity  of  structure; 
physiologically,  by  the  essential  identity  of  nervous  processes;  and 
psychologically,  by  the  fact  that  elementary  qualities  of  sensation 
are  referred  to  functions  of  peripheral  elements. 

The  doctrine  of  specific  nerve  energies  is  contrary  to  the  physi- 
ological doctrine  of  the  development  of  the  senses  and  hence  to  the 
whole  theory  of  evolution.  According  to  the  latter  our  various  senses 
arose  through  differentiation  from  a  common  sensibility — a  differen- 
tiation due  to  the  action  of  external  stimuli  upon  the  organism,  and 
the  adaptation  of  the  latter  to  a  complex  environment.  Hence  each 
sense  organ  is  excited  only  by  those  stimuli  to  which  it  has  become 
specially  adapted,  and  is  unaffected  by  others.  Even  the  sense 
organs,  then,  are  only  secondary  in  determining  the  qualities  of  sen- 
sations. These  must  ultimately  be  referred  to  external  stimuli.  The 
specific  character  of  the  sensation  most  probably  consists  in  the 
attitude  which  we  assume  towards  the  external  stimulus — an  attitude 
determined  by  the  connection  of  nervous  and  other  elements. 

We  remarked  above  that  each  sense  organ  or  nerve  was  excited 
only  by  its  adequate  stimuli,  but  it  is  just  because  there  are  excep- 
tions to  this  rule  that  the  doctrine  of  specific  energies  was  first  for- 
mulated. Electrical  stimulation  will  produce  sensations  of  light, 
taste,  or  smell,  etc.  Mechanical  stimuli  will  produce  visual  or 
auditory  sensations;  direct  electrical  stimulation  or  section  of  the 
nervus  opticus  will  "cause  flashes  of  light";  and  it  is  said  that 
mechanical,  chemical,  or  thermal  excitation  of  the  chorda  tympani 
will  produce  sensations  of  taste.  These  are  the  chief  facts  that  can  be 
brought  to  bear  in  favor  of  the  theory,  and  which  any  other  theory 
must  endeavor  to  explain ;  but  even  if  otherwise  inexplicable,  they  can 
not  be  regarded  as  proofs  of  the  doctrine,  but  merely  as  illustrations. 

According  to  Wundt,  all  these  cases  of  abnormal  stimulation  can 
be  explained  by  the  principle  of  "practise  and  adaptation."  The 
impressions  which  the  sense  organs  are  adapted  to  receive,  by  virtue 
of  inherited  or  developed  connections  of  elements,  arouse  certain 
sensations;  and  when  this  mode  of  responding  has  become  habitual, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  61 

the  accustomed  excitation  is  set  up  by  inadequate  stimuli.  Kiilpe 
says  that  sensory  nerve  fibers  with  centrifugal  conduction  have  been 
demonstrated  in  the  case  of  the  nervus  opticus,  and  that  the  visual 
sensations  aroused  by  electrical  stimulation  of  this  nerve  are  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  nervous  excitation  is  first  conveyed  to  the  retina  by 
these  efferent  sensory  fibers,  and  thence  pursues  its  normal  or  accus- 
tomed path  of  discharge.  These  centrifugal  fibers  may  exist  in  all 
sensory  nerves;  but  even  if  they  do  not,  the  alternative  theory  that 
stimulation  arouses  the  accustomed  excitation  in  the  visual  system  of 
elements  is  not  difficult ;  and  far  simpler  than  the  theory  of  a  qualitas 
occulta  different  for  every  primary  quality  of  sensation. 

If  the  doctrine  of  specific  energies  were  true,  we  see  no  reason 
why  there  would  not  be  a  much  more  far-reaching  indifference  of  the 
stimuli  than  is  actually  the  case.  The  inadequate  stimuli  are  limited 
in  number,  and  there  are  many  negative  instances  against  the  theory : 
e.  g.,  mechanical  stimuli  will  not  produce  sensations  of  taste  or  of 
smell;  sound  waves  will  not  affect  the  nervus  opticus,  nor  light 
waves  the  auditory  nerve ;  temperature  stimuli  will  not  arouse  other 
sensations,  etc. 

When  electricity  arouses  the  sensations  of  taste  and  smell,  it  may 
only  prove  that  it  is  an  adequate  stimulus  for  these  sensations,  that  is, 
that  electricity  can  be  tasted  and  smelt.  There  is  at  least  nothing 
extraordinary  in  regarding  electricity  as  an  adequate  stimulus  for 
sight.  Electrical  and  light  waves  are  not  essentially  different ;  and, 
especially  if  one  adopts  Meisling's  vibratory  theory  of  vision,  this 
conclusion  appears  highly  plausible. 

Then  again  an  inadequate  stimulus  may  contain  within  itself  or 
give  rise  to  the  usual  normal  stimulus:  e.  g.,  when  a  sensation  of 
sound  is  produced  by  mechanical  pressure,  this  may  be  due  to  sound 
waves  produced  in  the  inner  ear  by  external  pressure  upon  the  organ 
of  hearing;  and  when  electrical  stimulation  produces  a  taste  sensa- 
tion, this  may  be  due  to  a  decomposition  of  the  saliva,  which  frees  the 
adequate  stimulus. 

A  final  objection  against  the  indifference  of  the  stimuli — or  rather 
against  the  effects  of  inadequate  stimuli  as  supposed  by  the  doctrine 
of  specific  nerve  energies — is  a  psychological  one  which  seems  to  us 
of  considerable  importance.  It  seems  introspectively  untrue  that 
adequate  and  inadequate  stimuli  produce  sensations  that  are  at  all 
or  essentially  the  same  in  character.  There  is  always  a  quality  or 
feeling  associated  with  sensations  produced  by  the  latter,  by  which 
they  can  clearly  be  distinguished  from  sensations  produced  by  the 
former.  We  are  never  deceived  in  this  respect ;  and  it  certainly  rests 
with  the  advocates  of  the  doctrine  to  explain  why  this  is  so.  If  the 
theory  were  true,  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand  why  inade- 


62  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

quatc  stimuli,  e.  </..  for  sight,  would  not  give  us  all  the  visual  qualities 
of  objects,  even  to  externality  and  figure,  which  light  waves  are 
capable  of  giving  us. 

We  saw  above  that  McDougall  advances  in  favor  of  the  doctrine 
of  specific  energies  the  Helmholtz  theories  of  visual  and  auditory 
processes,  which  he  says  offer  the  best  explanation  of  the  facts.  We 
do  not  intend  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  relative  merits  of  the 
various  theories  of  color  sensations.  Space  will  not  permit.  But 
we  consider  the  Hering  theory,  which  allows  at  least  two  processes 
for  each  structural  element,  far  superior  to  that  of  Helmholtz.  It 
affords  a  better  explanation  for  the  phenomena  of  color  blindness, 
peripheral  and  faint  light  vision,  the  psychical  primariness  of  blue 
and  yellow,  etc.  Moreover,  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  the  same 
cone  can  give  rise  to  any  or  all  of  the  sensations,  red,  green,  and 
violet.  This  fact  seems  favorable  to  Meisling's  vibratory  theory,  as 
well  as  incompatible  with  the  doctrine  of  a  specific  process. 

As  Wundt  very  well  remarks,  "Many  senses  have  no  distinct 
sensory  elements  corresponding  to  different  sensational  qualities" — 
at  least  these  have  not  been  pointed  out.  This  is  especially  true  of 
smell,  but  holds  to  a  lesser  or  greater  extent  of  taste,  vision,  and  even 
hearing,  unless  one  adopts  the  Helmholtz  theory  of  auditory  proc- 
esses. This  theory  may  be  seriously  questioned ;  but  even  if  true,  it 
can  scarcely  afford  an  argument  in  favor  of  specific  energies ;  because 
it  may  be  replied  that  "the  different  qualities  of  the  sensations  are 
due  not  to  any  original  specific  attribute  of  nerve  fibers  or  other 
sensory  elements,  but  to  the  way  in  which  single  nerve  fibers  are 
connected  with  end  organs,"  etc.  The  processes  in  these  fibers  and 
their  connections,  which  may,  perhaps,  be  called  specific  functions, 
depend  upon  external  impressions,  and  this  dependence  is  localized 
at  the  periphery. 

When  advocates  of  the  doctrine  of  specific  energies  analyze  sensa- 
tions to  obtain  elementary  qualities  and  ascribe  to  each  of  these  a 
specific  quality  of  nerve  process,  they  overlook  the  fact  that  we  have 
no  definite  criterion  of  the  primariness  of  a  sensation.  The  gray 
obtained  by  mixing  colors  has  psychically  no  similarity  whatever  to 
the  colors,  e.  g.,  red  and  green,  of  which  it  is  composed.  How  do  we 
know  that  red  may  not  itself  consist  of  two  or  more  equally  dissimilar 
sensations?  In  fact  Wundt 's  principle  of  the  connection  of  elements 
would  lead  us  to  believe  this;  and  physiologically  it  appears  true. 
Our  criterion  of  the  primariness  of  red  must  then  be  a  physical  one 
— the  simplicity  of  the  etheric  oscillations  corresponding  to  this  sen- 
sation. Here  again  we  see  external  stimuli  and  not  nerve  process  as 
the  ultimate  determining  factor.  This  physical  simplicity  may 
cause  (in  fact  does  cause)  excitation  in  a  physiologically  complex 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  63 

system.  Hence  it  does  not  militate  against  the  principle  of  connec- 
tion of  elements. 

Myers  points  out  that  "our  tonal  sensations  are  the  result  of  a 
fusion  between  various  primordial  elements  of  which  we  must  always 
remain  ignorant."  This  is  true  if  we  accept  the  Helmholtz  theory; 
for  according  to  it,  pitch  depends  upon  the  position  of  the  most 
intensely  stimulated  fiber,  and  we  never  experience  the  result  of 
stimulating  a  single  basilar  fiber.  This  is  another  illustration  of  the 
principle  of  connection  of  elements,  and  the  dependence  of  quality 
of  sensation  upon  peripheral  as  well  as  other  elements. 

Munsterberg's  "action  theory"  can,  we  think,  be  used  as  an 
argument  against  specific  nerve  energies.  At  least  it  harmonizes 
very  well  with  the  view  we  have  adopted  and  with  Wundt's  principle 
of  connection  of  elements.  According  to  this  theory,  sensory  proc- 
esses are  attended  by  consciousness  only  when  they  discharge  into 
actions.  In  other  words,  sensation  depends  upon  motor  reactions  to 
external  stimuli  or  objects.  This  seems  to  be  the  logical  conclusion 
of  Wundt's  principle;  for  this  reaction  or  motor  attitude  is  deter- 
mined by  an  inherited  or  developed  connection  of  elements.  The 
specific  quality  of  sensations,  then,  is  nothing  more  than  the  specific 
attitude  we  assume  as  determined  by  the  motor  discharge  or  rather 
by  the  whole  sensory-motor  arc.  The  chemical  or  physical  process 
is,  thus,  the  same  in  all  nervous  substance.  There  is  no  inexplicable 
difference  here.  This  seems  more  intelligible,  less  fraught  with  diffi- 
culties, and  more  in  accord  with  facts  than  the  doctrine  of  specific 
energies  in  Miiller's  and  McDougall's  sense.  We  say  in  McDougall's 
sense  because  this  theory  does  not  deny  "specific  energies,"  if  by 
the  term  is  meant  the  specific  function  of  a  given  sensory  motor  arc 
or  connection,  which  function  may,  however,  be  changed  or  modified 
by  incorporation  into  a  larger  system  or  by  vicarious  functioning, 
as  mentioned  above. 

The  action  theory,  it  may  be  said,  ascribes  the  quality  of  sensa- 
tions to  the  sensory  path  and  its  ending;  but,  we  answer,  vividness, 
intensity,  facilitation,  etc.,  depend  on  the  motor  discharge,  and  with- 
out these  there  would  be  no  quality,  for  these  are  attributes  of  the 
quality,  and  in  any  case  the  action  theory  may  not,  of  course,  be 
infallible  in  all  respects. 

A  difficult  question  may  be  raised,  viz. :  Why  is  it  that  on  loss  of 
a  sense  organ,  we  still  retain  the  corresponding  imagery,  while  a  cor- 
tical lesion  in  a  specific  area  annihilates  it?  We  sometimes  forget 
that  there  is  an  important  difference  between  a  memory-image  and  a 
sensation.  McDougall  says,  "An  image  resembles  the  sensation  of 
which  it  is  the  representation  or  reproduction  in  every  respect  save 
that  it  lacks  the  vividness  of  the  sensation."  The  image  seems  to 


64  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

lack  the  tangibleness  or  feeling  of  present  existence  that  accom- 
panies the  sensation.  This,  then,  must  be  the  quality  contributed 
by  the  sense  organ ;  for  every  element  in  the  sensory-motor  connec- 
tion contributes  its  quota.  Of  course  we  must  remember  that  without 
the  sense  organ  there  could  be  no  sensations  or  images ;  and  without 
external  stimuli  there  would  have  been  no  sense  organs.  After  a  cer- 
tain sensory-motor  arc  has  been  responding  for  a  considerable  time 
with  a  definite  motor  attitude  to  certain  external  stimuli,  if  the 
peripheral  portion,  the  retina,  e.  g.,  be  then  removed,  the  remaining 
part  of  the  arc  will  continue  by  virtue  of  adaptation  to  respond  in 
the  accustomed  manner,  when  excited  by  overflows  from  other  arcs 
or  systems  with  which  it  has  been  previously  connected.  The  sen- 
sory-motor connections  are  intact.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  dis- 
charge into  action.  The  result  is  imagery  (in  this  case  visual) 
which,  as  before  said,  lacks  certain  important  qualities  of  sensations, 
either  because  it  involves  but  part  of  the  arc  or  because  the  impulse 
can  never  be  so  great  as  that  initiated  by  external  stimuli,  without 
which  the  motor  reaction  and  hence  the  imagery  would  have  been 
impossible;  for  the  reaction  that  underlies  the  imagery  is  due  to 
adaptations  arising  from  the  habitual  assumption  of  the  attitude. 
The  doctrine  of  specific  nerve  energies,  as  we  mentioned  above,  ren- 
ders an  explanation  of  imagery  difficult  if  not  impossible.  McDou- 
gall's  two  theories  seem  to  us  inconsistent.  He  finds  it  difficult  to 
explain  how  the  seats  of  the  physiological  processes  can  be  identical 
or  partially  identical  and  the  resulting  psychical  phenomena  dif- 
ferent ;  and  we  find  him  hinting  at  the  action  theory,  when  he  says, 
"Their  motor  tendencies  are  the  same,  the  cortical  excitement  in 
both  cases  issues  from  the  cortex  by  the  same  efferent  paths. ' ' 

Now,  if  instead  of  a  sensory  organ  being  removed,  there  is  a 
lesion  in  a  definite  cortical  area,  e.  g.,  occipital  lobe,  how  is  it  that 
imagery  is  lost?  The  answer  to  this  follows  from  what  we  have 
said.  In  the  former  case  the  sensory-motor  connections  were  intact ; 
now  they  are  severed.  The  motor  discharge  is,  therefore,  impos- 
sible. Hence,  there  can  be  no  reaction  or  motor  attitude  and  no 
imagery  or  sensations.  New  connections  are  sometimes  formed  and 
the  lost  sense  thus  regained.  This  is  called  by  Wundt  "the  prin- 
ciple of  vicarious  function,"  and  is  itself  a  strong  argument  against 
specific  energy. 

In  spite  of  McDougall's  assertions  to  the  contrary,  we  consider 
association  inexplicable  on  the  hypothesis  of  specific  energy.  The 
connection  of  absolutely  unlike  processes  forever  remain*  an  enigma, 
while  association  by  similarity  of  motor  attitude  or  reaction  seems 
quite  intelligible;  and  his  principle  of  "strict  localization  of  cerebral 
functions,"  which  of  course  logically  follows  from  the  "doctrine  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  65 

specific  energies,"  is  held  by  very  few  physiologists  of  the  present 
day  and  still  remains  to  be  proved. 

In  conclusion  the  results  of  an  interesting  experiment  performed 
upon  cats  by  Langley  and  Anderson  may  be  cited  against  the  doctrine 
of  specific  energies.  The  cervical  sympathetic  nerve  contracts  the 
blood  vessels  of  the  submaxillary  gland ;  the  chorda  tympani  dilates 
these  vessels.  The  cervical  sympathetic  was  joined  at  its  peripheral 
end  to  the  chorda  tympani.  After  union  and  regeneration,  stimula- 
tion of  the  cervical  sympathetic  caused  dilation  of  the  vessels.  This 
proves  that  a  vaso-constrictor  fiber  can  become  a  vaso-dilator  fiber; 
and  that  whether  contraction  or  dilation  of  the  blood  vessels  occurs 
depends  upon  the  mode  of  nerve  ending.  The  experiment,  of  course, 
was  performed  upon  efferent  fibers,  but  it  is  not  therefore  without 
weight  in  a  consideration  of  this  problem ;  and  it  is  of  especial  value 
in  refuting  the  theory  that  the  seat  of  the  specific  energy  is  in  the 
nerve  fibers. 

J.  W.  BRIDGES. 

McGiLL  UNIVERSITY. 


IS  INVERSION  A  VALID  INFERENCE? 

TO  the  old  immediate  inferences  recent  writers  add  inversion. 
The  inverse  of_All  S  is  P  is  Some  S  is  not  P.  Of  No  S  is  P 
the  inverse  is  Some  S  is  P.  I  and  0  have  no  inverse. 

Inversion  violates  the  fundamental  principle  of  logic  and  com- 
mon sense  that  we  should  not  go  beyond  the  evidence.  Every  con- 
clusion, in  order  to  be  valid,  must  be  rigidly  limited  to  the  content 
of  the  premises.  Its  content  must  not  be  greater  than  that  of  the 
premises,  and  it  must  not  be  of  a  different  kind.  Now  S,  the  contra- 
dictory of  S,  is  an  infinite  term  greater  than  S,  for  it  includes  all 
the  universe1  other  than  S.  True,  it  is  limited  by  the  word  Some  in 
the  conclusion,  but  that  fails  to  make  the  reasoning  good,  because  S 
is  different  in  kind  from  S.  An  ordinary  illicit  process  of  the  minor 
term  is  indeed  cured  by  writing  Some  in  the  conclusion,  as  in  the 
following  example:  No  birds  are  viviparous;  all  birds  are  bipeds; 
therefore  no  bipeds  are  viviparous.  The  minor  term  is  illicit,  but 
the  fault  is  easily  cured  by  writing,  Some  bipeds  are  not  viviparous. 
But  the  inverse  also  begins  with  Some.  Why,  then,  is  it  still  at 
fault?  Simply  because  S  is  different  in  kind.  Bipeds  are  the  same 
two-legged  creatures  in  the  conclusion  as  in  the  minor  premise;  but 
every  possible  S  differs  from  any  possible  S.  Let  S  stand  for  rum- 
inants ;  then  S  will  represent  non-ruminants.  As  lambs  differ  from 

1  Universe  here  means  universe  of  discourse. 


66         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

hyenas  and  oxen  from  tigers,  so  every  possible  ruminant  differs  from 
any  conceivable  non-ruminant.  Inverting,  All  ruminants  are  herbiv- 
orous, we  have,  Some  non-ruminants  are  not  herbivorous.  In  the 
premise  we  are  talking  about  cows;  in  the  conclusion  about  lions. 
Can  we  infer  anything  about  the  food  of  lions,  or  any  other  non- 
ruminant,  from  the  fact  that  cows  eat  grass  f 

Of  the  two  fundamental  requirements,  (a)  the  content  of  the 
conclusion  must  not  be  greater  than  that  of  the  premises,  (&)  it  must 
not  differ  in  kind,  inversion  clearly  violates  the  second.  Whether  it 
does  not  also  violate  the  first  is  a  matter  of  doubt.  The  non-rum- 
inants are  much  the  larger  group,  and  whether  those  of  them  which 
are  not  herbivorous  exceed  the  ruminants  or  not,  is  a  question  for 
the  naturalist.  No  matter  how  it  turns  out,  the  doubt  is  damning. 
Valid  reasoning  is  free  from  any  shadow  of  doubt. 

Serious  as  this  shadow  of  doubt  may  be,  the  other  point,  the  dif- 
ference in  kind  between  the  subject-matter  of  the  conclusion  and  the 
premise,  is  far  more  damaging  to  inversion.  Shifting  ground  severs 
the  bond  of  inference.  To  infer  the  food  of  non-ruminants  from  that 
of  ruminants  would  be  a  famous  short-cut  in  zoology.  Such  an  easy 
royal  road  would  be  a  boon  to  the  plodding  naturalist  patiently 
studying  each  group  for  itself. 

Inversion  makes  no  pretense  of  limiting  its  conclusion  to  the  con- 
tent of  its  premises.  It  boldly  introduces  new  matter  and  is  reckless 
in  regard  to  quantity.  It  clearly  goes  beyond  the  evidence.  The 
most  common  violation  of  that  limiting  principle  of  reason  and  com- 
mon sense  is  illicit  process — the  whole  inferred  when  only  a  part  is 
given,  whole  and  part  being  alike  in  kind.  Inversion  goes  one  better 
(or  worse).  The  new  matter  of  its  conclusion  is  not  represented  at 
all  in  its  premises — not  even  by  so  much  as  a  beggarly  "part." 
The  only  semblance  of  its  presence  in  the  premises  arises  from  the 
common  element  "S"  in  both  subjects.  But  one  subject  is  the  nega- 
tive, the  contradictory,  of  the  other,  and  negation  is  separation, 
opposition,  not  union  or  likeness.  There  is  not  a  shred  of  matter  in 
the  premises  common  to  the  new  matter  of  the  conclusion,  not  the 
slenderest  filament  of  an  inferential  bond.  Inversion  is  a  novel  and 
gross  form  of  illicit  process  which  lugs  in  matter  wholly  new  apd 
utterly  alien  to  the  initial  matter  of  discourse. 

Bain  calls  immediate  inferences  "equivalent  prepositional 
forms,"  and  that  phrase  exactly  describes  the  obverse  or  converse. 
But  the  inverse,  with  its  injected  alien  matter  of  discourse,  is  very 
far  from  being  equivalent  to  the  invertend.  The  cogency  of  the 
reasoning  accordingly  differs  notably  in  passing  from  the  old  imme- 
diate inferences  to  the  new.  The  truth  of  the  obverse  or  of  the 
converse  is  obvious  and  indubitable.  Given,  No  men  are  immortal, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  67 

then  the  truth  of  its  obverse,  All  men  are  mortal,  admits  no  doubt. 
The  two  statements  are  strictly  equivalent.  Not  so  with  inversion. 
The  inverse  of,  All  men  are  mortal,  is,  Some  beings  who  are  not  men 
are  immortal.  That  may  be  true,  but  its  truth  does  not  follow  obvi- 
ously and  indubitably  from  the  invertend.  Not  so  easy  as  that  is  the 
proof  of  immortality.  My  friends  all  die,  therefore  somebody  will 
live  forever,  is  a  wide  and  wild  leap  in  the  way  of  inference.  Inver- 
sion habitually  proceeds  per  saltum. 

The  absurdities  of  inversion  are  legion.  No  mathematician  can 
square  the  circle ;  therefore  some  one  who  is  not  a  mathematician  can 
square  the  circle.  No  athlete  can  jump  thirty  feet;  therefore  some 
one  who  is  not  an  athlete  can  jump  thirty  feet.  No  man  can  prove 
that  two  and  two  are  five ;  therefore  some  one  who  is  not  a  man  can 
prove  that  two  and  two  are  five.  No  trouble  to  find  absurdities. 
Just  deny  something  of  somebody  and  straightway  it  is  true  of  some- 
body else !  The  trouble  comes  when  you  seek  concrete  examples  of 
inversion  which  are  not  silly.  Inversionists  for  the  most  part  pru- 
dently stick  to  symbols.  I  am  not  citing  these  absurdities  just  to 
be  witty  at  the  expense  of  inversion,  but  because  they  are  the  super- 
ficial symptoms  of  deep-seated  unsoundness. 

Illicit  process  of  the  minor  term  is  the  salient  point  of  my  criti- 
cism. In  the  inverse  of  A  there  is  also  an  apparent  illicit  process 
of  the  major  term.  Keynes  and  Read  have  attempted  to  explain 
away  this  weak  point.  I  make  no  comment  on  their  defense  of 
inversion.  One  illicit  process  is  quite  enough,  and  that  one  to  which 
I  am  now  directing  attention  attaches  not  only  to  the  inverse  of  A, 
but  to  every  possible  inverse,  full  or  partial,  derived  from  A,  E,  I, 
or  O,  for  they  all  have  S  for  the  subject. 

The  advocates  of  inversion  have  two  lines  of  proof.  First  in 
order  and  first  in  importance  is  the  eduction  series  leading  to  the 
inverse  by  alternate  obversion  and  conversion  thus:  SaP  .'.  SeP  .". 
PeS  .'.  PaS  /.  SiP  .'.  SoP.  Of  this  series  Keynes  says:  "If  the 
universal  validity  of  obversion  and  conversion  is  granted,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  detect  any  flaw  in  the  argument  by  which  the  conclusion  is 
reached"  ("Formal  Logic,"  p.  139).  There  is  a  flaw  nevertheless. 
The  series  involves  the  assumption  that  the  subject  may  be  manipu- 
lated just  as  freely  as  the  predicate,  despite  the  radical  difference 
between  them.  The  one  is  subjectum,  something  placed  beneath  as 
the  foundation,  the  essential  matter  of  discourse;  while  the  other  is 
not  the  initial  matter  of  discourse,  but  something  said  about  it. 
Substituting  S  for  S  tears  up  the  foundation  and  breaks  the  bond 
of  inference.  But  substituting  P  for  P  is  harmless,  provided  the 
balance  is  kept  true  by  changing  the  quality  of  the  proposition.  For 
example,  Some  S  is  P  .'.  Some  S  is  not  not-P.  The  two  negatives 


08         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

balance  each  other.  But  S,  by  injecting  new  matter  of  discourse, 
disturbs  the  equilibrium  so  profoundly  that  no  change  of  quality  can 
restore  it.  It  is  always  an  unbalanced  negative.  The  deceptive 
semblance  of  balance  in  the  double  negative  of  the  inverse  (Some 
not-S  is  not  P)  is  unreal.  The  two  subjects,  S  and  S,  being  wholly 
different,  the  quality  of  what  is  said  about  the  latter  cuts  no  figure 
in  restoring  equilibrium.  If  we  say  Smith  is  honest  .*.  not-Smith 
(Jones  for  instance)  is  not  honest,  do  the  negatives  balance?  Not 
at  all.  The  shifting  ground  from  one  subject  to  another  is  a  change 
so  stupendous  as  to  put  out  of  court  any  question  of  balancing  nega- 
tives. It  is  quite  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  we  say  Jones  is 
honest  or  not  honest  so  far  as  concerns  any  inferential  relation  to 
Smith  is  honest.  The  inferential  tie,  because  of  the  change  of  sub- 
jects, is  nil,  and  nonentity  is  indifferent  to  "is"  and  "is  not."  Just 
so  with  the  change  from  ruminants  to  non-ruminants.  It  matters 
not  one  whit  whether  the  latter  are  herbivorous  or  not.  Changing 
subjects  is  so  violent  a  jolt  to  the  equilibrium  that  one  little  negative 
more  or  less  in  the  predicate  is  of  no  consequence.  Whatever  con- 
crete values  we  assign  to  S  and  S  the  result  is  the  same.  They  are 
so  different  that  putting  one  for  the  other  shatters  the  equilibrium  so 
utterly  that  its  restoration  by  a  quality  change  is  hopeless.  The 
subject  can  not  be  manipulated  with  impunity.  The  basal  assump- 
tion of  the  eduction  series  is  fallacious.  S  always  destroys  the  bal- 
ance, shifts  the  ground  of  discourse,  brings  in  alien  matter,  breaks 
the  bond  of  inference,  and  produces  an  illicit  minor  term.  It  boots 
not  that  in  the  eduction  series  S  first  appears  in  the  predicate.  It 
comes  back  as  the  subject  with  all  its  sins  on  its  head.  By  severing 
the  bond  uniting  the  last  term  to  the  first,  it  leaves  the  inverse,  SoP, 
dangling  in  empty  space  without  any  inferential  support.  The 
eduction  series,  the  chief  prop  of  inversion,  is  invalid. 

As  regards  the  "universal  validity"  of  conversion  and  obversion, 
both  are  sound  inferences  so  long,  and  only  so  long,  as  the  integrity 
of  the  subject  is  preserved. 

In  the  second  place  the  inversionist  appeals  to  Euler's  circles. 
The  inverse  may  be  read  off  directly  from  them  without  any  refer- 
ence to  the  long  and  intricate  eduction  series.  From  the  diagram  of 

All  S  is  P,  tf|)p) ,  it  is  obvious  that  Some  S  is  not  P,  viz.,  the 

space  outside  of  both  circles.     But  unfortunately  for  inversion,  the 
argument  proves  too  much.     The  same  inverse  may  be  read  off  from 

/" — x^^\ 

[S    P )  ,  the  diagram  of  I  or  0.    But  I  and  O  have  no  business  to 

be  sporting  an  inverse.     By  definition  inversion  depresses  quantity, 
and  the  quantity  of  I,  or  of  0,  is  already  a  minimum.     Yet  Euler's 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  69 

method  is  just  as  liberal  to  them  as  it  is  to  A  and  E.  Even  if  we 
bring  in  the  four  possible  diagrams  of  I,  the  inverse  SoP  is  common 
to  all  of  them.  In  fact  every  possible  combination  of  two  circles 
leaves  outside  space  from  which  to  read  off  SoP. 

It  may  be  held  that  this  objection  is  not  fatal.  The  too  prolific 
results  of  the  Eulerian  method  may  be  checked  by  the  eduction  series, 
or  by  definition,  thus  ruling  out  the  unwelcome  results  obtained  from 
I  and  0.  But  I  have  shown  that  the  eduction  series  is  itself  invalid, 
hence  unfit  to  serve  as  a  standard  for  testing  the  results  of  another 
method;  and  the  ruling  out  of  certain  results  by  definition  is  arbi- 
trary. Logical  consistency  demands  either  the  acceptance  of  all 
inverses,  those  of  particulars  as  well  as  of  universals,  or  else  the 
wholesale  rejection  of  them  all. 

The  inversionist  may  claim  that  the  facile  and  indiscriminate 
reading  off  of  inverses  from  all  sorts  of  propositions  casts  doubt  upon 
the  Eulerian  method  rather  than  upon  inversion.  In  this  I  am  very 
much  inclined  to  agree  with  him,  though  meanwhile  indulging  the 
reflection  that  such  doubt  is  bad  for  him  in  the  end,  since  it  under- 
mines his  second  line  of  defense.  The  legitimacy  of  Euler's  diagrams 
rests  upon  the  assumption  that  the  relations  of  terms  may  be  ade- 
quately represented  by  their  extension  alone  as  presented  to  the  eye 
by  lines  and  spaces  on  a  flat  field.  In  order  to  read  off  inverses  we 
must  further  assume  that  outside  space  represents  the  contradictory 
of  the  term  in  the  circle,  and  that  this  contradictory  exists.  Here 
begin  modern  refinements  to  which  Euler  himself  was  a  stranger. 
He  never  dreamed  of  bothering  the  pretty  head  of  his  German 
princess  with  not-S's  and  not-P's. 

The  basal  assumption  is  sufficiently  bold.  Flat  spaces  constitute 
a  very  inadequate  presentment  of  the  intricate  relations  of  terms 
each  of  which  is  rounded  up  into  a  subtile  complex  of  qualities  as 
well  as  quantity.  However,  so  long  as  we  limit  ourselves  to  the 
inside  of  the  simpler  diagrams,  as  Euler  did,  the  method  has  some 
merit.  But  its  modern  refinements  are  distinctly  risky.  Outside 
space  is  an  untamed  jungle  full  of  logical  pitfalls.  There  it  lies  plain 
and  fair  to  the  eye,  therefore  the  contradictories  of  S  and  P  exist, 
and  their  relations  may  be  read  off  at  a  glance!  Logical  relations 
must  conform  to  space  relations!  But  the  study  of  the  existential 
import  of  propositions  casts  doubt  upon  the  existence  of  S  and  P; 
and  the  facile  reading  off  of  inversion  fallacies  casts  doubt  upon  the 
conformity  of  logical  relations  to  space  relations.  Conclusions  read 
off  from  the  outside  of  Euler's  circles  should  be  held  doubtful  unless 
they  have  been  independently  confirmed.  In  the  case  of  the  flood  of 
inverses  (no  less  than  six  may  be  read  off  from  the  four  diagrams 
of  I),  this  independent  verification  is  not  in  sight.  On  the  contrary, 


70         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

illicit  process  taints  them  all.     We  must  discard  the  whole  lot,  or  else 
remand  them  to  the  chapter  headed  "Fallacies." 

L.  E.  HICKS. 
BERKELEY,  CALIFORNIA. 


SOCIETIES 

NEW  YORK  BRANCH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PSYCHOLOG- 
ICAL ASSOCIATION 

THE  New  York  Branch  of  the  American  Psychological  Associa- 
tion met  in  conjunction  with  the  Section  of  Anthropology  and 
Psychology  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences  on  Monday,  No- 
vember 27.  An  afternoon  session  was  held  at  the  Psychological  Lab- 
oratory of  Columbia  University,  and  an  evening  session  at  the  Amer- 
ican Museum  of  Natural  History.  Members  dined  at  the  Faculty 
Club,  Columbia  University.  The  following  papers  were  read : 

Correlations  of  Association  Tests:  R.  S.  WOODWORTH. 

Preliminary  results  with  the  tests  of  controlled  association  pre- 
pared by  Woodworth  and  Wells  indicate  rather  high  correlation 
between  the  tests  of  similar  performances. 

Experiments  in  Progress  at  the  University  of  Illinois:  S.  S.  COLVIN. 

This  paper  reports  some  of  the  typical  experiments  now  in  prog- 
ress and  partly  completed,  but  not  as  yet  published.  One  of  the  most 
extensive  of  these  is  the  attempt  to  discover  the  effect  of  learning 
certain  motor  activities  on  the  learning  of  other  similar  activities.  It 
differs  principally  from  other  studies  on  the  transfer  of  training  in 
the  large  number  of  subjects  who  participated  and  in  the  attempt  to 
isolate  the  factors  of  accuracy  and  rapidity.  The  experiment  has 
been  conducted  in  two  sections,  the  first  with  about  300  children  of 
the  practise  school  of  the  Charleston  (Illinois)  Normal  School,  the 
second  with  about  1,800  children  in  the  grade  schools  of  Blooming- 
ton,  Illinois.  While  the  results  have  by  no  means  been  worked  out, 
as  far  as  they  go  they  show  that  while  there  is  a  positive  transfer 
effect  from  the  practise  series  to  the  test  series  in  accuracy,  the  op- 
posite is  true  in  regard  to  rapidity.  The  test  also  clearly  indicates 
the  necessity  of  running  a  series  of  check  experiments  in  interpret- 
ing the  results. 

Another  study  attempts  to  test  whether  it  is  better  to  learn  a 
given  task  at  one  sitting  or  at  several.  The  material  used  in  one  test 
was  nonsense  syllables.  These  were  learned  in  one,  two,  three,  and 
four  periods,  respectively.  The  results  showed  that  it  made  abso- 
lutely no  difference  as  to  which  method  was  employed.  The  test  is 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  71 

now  being  conducted  with  poetry  as  the  memory  material.  A  posi- 
tive result  that  lias  so  far  been  discovered  is  that  there  is  a  high  posi- 
tive correlation  between  immediate  recall  and  recall  24  hours  later. 
The  subjects  used  were  about  600  children  in  the  grammar  grades  of 
the  Champaign  public  schools. 

A  third  test  with  school  children,  also  conducted  in  the  Cham- 
paign schools,  has  shown  that  while  whispering  is  an  aid  to  learning 
nonsense  material,  writing  is  a  hindrance  up  to  the  sixth  grade. 

An  experiment  to  discover  the  extent  of  children's  vocabularies 
indicates  that  they  are  more  extensive  than  ordinarily  exposed. 

Another  experiment  investigates  the  efficiency  of  spatial  discrimi- 
nation under  varying  degrees  of  brightness  intensities.  Among  the 
interesting  results  appears  the  fact  that  there  are  two  maxima  of 
discriminative  efficiency,  a  relative  maximum  with  an  illumination 
of  about  two-candle-power  illumination,  and  an  absolute  maximum 
when  employing  32-candle-power  illumination.  Probably  the  factors 
of  attention  and  habituation  explain  respectively  the  two  maxima. 
The  experiment  is  to  be  continued  with  chromatic  lights  and  a  simi- 
lar test  is  to  be  made  in  regard  to  sound. 

Eeaction  Time  to  Different  Retinal  Areas:  A.  T.  POFFENBERGER,  JR. 
In  the  course  of  an  experiment  in  which  light  stimuli  falling 
upon  different  regions  of  the  retina  were  reacted  to  by  either  the 
right  or  the  left  hand,  certain  differences  appeared.  This  report  in- 
cludes :  (1)  the  differences  in  the  time  of  reaction  by  the  hand  when 
the  light  stimulus  strikes  the  center  of  vision,  and  points  10,  30,  and 
45  degrees  from  the  fovea  in  a  horizontal  plane;  (2)  a  comparison 
of  the  reaction  times  resulting  from  a  stimulation  of  one  eye  and  of 
both  eyes.  All  differences  were  based  on  averages  of  400  reactions 
and  have  a  very  low  probable  error.  In  the  two  subjects  tested,  the 
times  increased  as  the  distance  from  the  fovea  increased,  and  in  all 
cases  the  reaction  of  the  nasal  side  of  the  retina  was  faster  than 
of  the  temporal  side.  Comparison  with  other  retinal  peculiarities 
suggests  that  the  differences  found  are  due  to  conditions  in  the  retina 
rather  than  to  differences  in  the  speed  of  the  central  process.  The 
reaction  time  upon  stimulation  of  both  eyes  was  faster  by  about  .015 
second  than  in  the  case  of  one  eye,  a  difference  due  probably  to  the 
speed  of  transmission  through  the  nerve  centers. 

Some  Experiments  in  Incidental  Memory:  G.  C.  MYERS. 

Subjects  were  asked  to  draw  from  memory  a  representation  of 
the  size  of  a  dollar  bill ;  to  choose  from  a  series  of  circles  those  repre- 
senting the  size  of  the  respective  common  coins ;  to  represent  a  watch- 
dial  with  Roman  notation. 

Of  the  500  subjects  (business  men  and  students  and  pupils  from 


72  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  university  to  the  third  grade  public  school),  15  overestimated 
the  length,  88  subjects  overestimated  the  width.  In  both  the  cases 
the  average  underestimation  was  very  much  greater  than  the  average 
overestimation.  All  of  the  117  subjects  who  corrected  for  length  in- 
creased it,  and  all  but  2  of  the  124  subjects  who  corrected  for  width 
increased  it.  As  a  result  of  this  finding,  tests  are  in  progress  on 
"image  measuring." 

The  males,  as  a  rule,  did  better  than  the  females.  Of  the  50 
country-school  teachers  and  30  high-school  students,  however,  the 
females  did  noticeably  better  than  the  males.  In  the  watch  experi- 
ment, out  of  198  cases,  all  but  19  wrote  "IV"  and  all  but  8  wrote 
"VI."  In  the  coin  test  the  general  tendency  is  to  overestimate  the 
large  ones  and  to  underestimate  the  small  ones.  A  number  of  other 
tests  now  in  progress  were  mentioned. 

Visual  Acuity  with  Lights  of  Different  Colors  and  Intensities:  D.  E. 

RICE. 

The  comparatively  recent  development  of  illuminants  of  high 
intrinsic  brightness,  with  the  attendant  variations  in  hue,  has  given 
a  new  importance  to  the  question  of  visual  acuity. 

The  proper  conservation  of  the  eyesight  of  those  who  must  work 
almost  constantly  under  artificial  illumination  makes  it  desirable  to 
know  what  intensities  and  colors  of  illumination  are  best  adapted 
to  give  the  eye  its  highest  efficiency. 

In  the  study  of  this  question  two  points  are  obviously  of  vital 
importance — namely,  the  exact  determination  of  the  intensities  and 
the  character  of  the  test  used  to  measure  the  acuity. 

Many  complicating  factors  enter  into  the  problem,  among  them 
being  the  following :  the  state  of  adaptation  of  the  eye ;  the  varying 
sensitivity  of  different  parts  of  the  retina  to  lights  of  different 
colors  in  different  states  of  adaptation;  the  influence  of  accom- 
modation, involving  the  chromatic  aberration  of  the  eye;  size  of 
pupil ;  individual  differences,  including  variation  in  sensitivity  to 
different  colors,  and  variations  in  the  dioptric  system  of  the  eye. 

These  factors,  together  with  the  failure  to  determine  accurately 
the  intensities  of  the  lights  used,  and  the  employment  of  different 
types  of  tests,  are  responsible  for  the  wide  variations  which  are  to 
be  found  in  the  conclusions  of  different  observers. 

The  present  investigations  indicate  that  red  gives  a  considerably 
higher  acuity  than  green,  and  that  white  may  be  either  more  or  less 
efficient  than  red,  depending  largely  upon  individual  differences,  and 
upon  the  predominance  of  the  long  or  short  wave  lengths. 

With  all  lights  the  acuity  curve  rises  rapidly  with  increase  in 
illumination  until  an  intensity  of  from  one  to  two  meter  candles  is 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  73 

reached,  after  which  large  increases  in  intensity  are  accompanied 
with  relatively  slight  increase  in  acuity. 

Unit  acuity  with  white  light  is  reached  at  an  intensity  of  from  25 
to  35  meter  candles. 

The  following  explanation  is  suggested  to  account  for  the  higher 
acuity  with  red  illumination.  Various  facts  seem  to  indicate  that 
the  cones  of  the  retina,  which  are  concerned  in  the  perception  of 
form,  are  more  sensitive  to  radiations  of  longer  wave  length,  while 
the  rods  are  relatively  more  sensitive  to  shorter  wave  lengths.  It 
appears  also  that  there  is  to  some  extent  rivalry  between  the  bright- 
ness sense  and  the  form  sense.  With  red  illumination,  therefore, 
cone  vision  has  the  advantage,  resulting  in  enhanced  perception  or 
form. 

The  Action  of  Pharmacological  Agents  as  an  Aid  in  the  Classifica- 
tion of  Mental  Processes:  H.  L.  HOLLINGWORTH. 
Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  make  out  correlations  in  effi- 
ciency in  various  mental  and  motor  tests  with  a  view  to  their  classi- 
fication on  the  basis  of  function  or  process  involved  in  their  perform- 
ance. Low  correlations  have  usually  been  found  between  tests  that 
seem  to  have  many  elements  in  common.  These  low  correlations  per- 
haps result  from  specialized  skill  in  certain  analogous  performances, 
or  in  individual  differences  in  method  of  performing  the  task  as- 
signed. The  speaker  presented  results  showing  that  tests  can  be 
usefully  classified  on  the  basis  of  the  character  of  the  influence  of 
such  a  pharmacological  agent  as  caffein.  With  respect  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  drug  effect,  the  action  time  and  persistence  of  this  effect, 
the  tests  employed  at  once  fall  into  groups,  the  members  of  which 
resemble  each  other.  It  was  suggested  that  this  resemblance  pointed 
to  similarity  of  process,  function,  or  nervous  mechanism  involved  in 
performance  of  the  tasks.  Individual  differences  in  the  method  of 
performance  (revealed  in  the  introspections)  are  also  reflected  in 
the  character  and  time  relations  of  the  drug  effect. 

Reactions  to  Simultaneous  Stimuli:  J.  W.  TODD. 

One  hundred  reactions  were  obtained  from  each  subject  to  each 
of  the  following  arrangements  of  stimuli  of  medium  intensities:  to 
single  light,  electric  shock,  and  sound  stimuli ;  to  the  following  sim- 
ultaneous stimuli  with  instructions  to  react  to  the  first-named  mem- 
ber of  the  pairs  and  groups :  light  and  sound ;  sound  and  light ;  light 
and  electric  shock;  shock  and  light;  sound  and  shock;  shock  and 
sound;  light,  shock,  sound;  shock,  sound,  light;  sound,  shock,  light. 
The  following  conclusions  are  based  upon  the  data : 
1.  The  reaction-time  to  a  pair  of  simultaneous  stimuli  is  shorter 
than  the  reaction-time  to  either  member  of  the  pair  presented  alone. 


74  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

2.  The  reaction-time  to  three  simultaneous  stimuli  is  shorter  than 
that  to  a  pair  of  stimuli. 

3.  The  addition  of  another  stimulus  to  one  or  to  two  stimuli  re- 
duces the  reaction-time,  and  reduces  it  in  accordance  with  the  reac- 
tion-time to  the  stimulus  added,  i.  e.,  the  addition  of  sound,  which 
produces  the  shortest  reaction-time,  brings  about  the  greatest  reduc- 
tion ;  the  addition  of  the  electric  shock  causes  less  reduction,  while 
the  addition  of  light,  which  produces  the  longest  reaction-time,  pro- 
duces the  least  reduction. 

On  the  Relation  of  Quickness  of  Learning  to  Retentiveness:  DARWIN 

OLIVER  LYON. 

Close  inspection  shows  the  problem  to  be  a  very  elaborate  one. 
Not  only  must  we  settle  it  for  various  classes  and  ages,  but  we  must 
use  various  methods  of  learning  and,  most  important  of  all,  various 
kinds  and  lengths  of  material.  When  it  comes  to  the  problem  of  as- 
certaining the  subject's  degree  of  retentiveness,  various  methods 
present  themselves.  Of  these  the  two  used  chiefly  in  this  work  have 
been:  (1)  to  have  the  subject  write  down,  after  a  certain  number  of 
days,  as  much  of  the  material  as  possible,  and  measure  his  retentive- 
ness  by  the  work  produced;  (2)  to  supply  the  subject  with  the  orig- 
inal material  and  take  his  time  for  the  relearning  of  it.  Each  method 
has  its  advantages  and  disadvantages,  a  discussion  of  which  can- not 
be  undertaken  in  this  summary.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  although  the 
second  method  has  the  advantage  of  supplying  us  with  an  easy  and 
accurate  form  of  measurement,  it  is  a  question  if  it  is  a  fair  one  to 
use  in  settling  the  question  in  hand,  in  that  this  method  introduces 
the  factor  of  "relearning."  The  method  of  correlation  used  with 
the  second  method  is  also  open  to  criticism,  for  it  may  be  said  that  it 
is  incorrect  to  compare  two  men  as  having  the  same  degree  of  re- 
tentiveness, one  of  whom  takes  25  minutes  to  learn  a  passage  and 
who  one  week  later  takes  5  minutes,  and  another  who  takes  10  minutes 
and  three  weeks  later  only  2  minutes,  even  though  each  may  be  said 
to  have  saved  four-fifths  of  the  time  originally  spent.  A  combina- 
tion of  both  methods  was  used  in  this  work  by  having  the  second 
method  follow  immediately  upon  the  first. 

The  popular  impression  among  the  laity  is  that  the  slow  but 
steady  worker,  even  though  dull,  remembers  his  work  better  and 
longer  than  the  more  brilliant  student — a  corollary  of  which  is  that 
those  who  learn  the  quickest  forget  the  quickest.  However,  in  so 
far  as  reliable  statistics  have  been  gathered,  it  has  been  found  that 
in  general  the  most  rapid  learner  is  also  the  best  retainer.  Exami- 
nation of  the  class  records  of  the  132  students  tested  at  the  State 
Normal  College  at  Albany  also  proved  that  the  students  who  rank 
highest  in  their  classes  and  who  can  be  classed  as  "the  most  intelli- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  75 

gent"  have,  as  a  rule,  the  best  memories.  A  complete  expression  of 
the  various  results  obtained  with  the  various  methods  and  materials 
used  is  obviously  here  impossible.  Generally  speaking,  we  may  say 
that  those  who  learn  quickly  remember  longest  if  the  material  memo- 
rized is  "meaningful"  or  "logical,"  but  that  they  forget  quickly  if 
the  material  is  such  as  involves  the  memorizing  of  motor  associations, 
as  is  generally  the  case  with  digits,  words,  and  nonsense  syllables. 
This  statement,  however,  needs  many  modifications.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample, with  prose  the  ratio  is  not  nearly  so  marked  by  the  second 
method  as  it  is  with  the  first.  With  several  sets  of  students  it  was 
even  reversed.  Words  are  certainly  more  "meaningful"  than  non- 
sense syllables;  yet  by  the  second  method  the  ratio  is  found  to  be 
more  pronounced  for  words  than  for  nonsense  syllables  or  digits, 
i.  e.,  the  percentage  of  time  lost  by  the  fast  learners  is  greater  than 
that  lost  by  the  slow  learners ;  and  though  this  is  true  for  digits  also, 
it  seems  to  be  more  true  for  words.  For  nonsense  syllables  (which 
one  would  think  were  material  par  excellence  for  the  memorizing  of 
motor  associations)  the  ratio  is  not  nearly  as  high  as  it  is  for  digits 
and  words.  Although  averaging  the  two  methods  gives  a  positive 
correlation  for  both  prose  and  poetry,  the  second  method  taken  alone 
does  not  always  do  so.  This  is  especially  so  in  the  case  of  poetry, 
where  the  second  method  almost  invariably  gives  the  result  that  the 
fast  learners  have  forgotten  more  than  the  slow  ones.  We  are  led  to 
suspect  that  the  explanation  lies  in  the  fact  that  in  the  memorizing 
of  poetry  rhythm  is  a  most  important  factor.  Taking  all  methods 
and  materials  into  consideration,  we  can  state  quite  positively  that 
the  amount  of  difference  in  retentiveness  between  the  fast  learner 
and  the  slow  learner  is  much  less  than  is  generally  supposd. 

The  rather  large  mass  of  data  obtained  supply  us  with  many 
rather  interesting  implications.  (1)  The  retentiveness  of  men  was 
found  in  general  to  be  superior  to  that  of  women.  (2)  Individuals 
differ  more  in  quickness  of  learning  than  in  retentiveness.  (3)  The 
first  method  gives  a  truer  index  of  retention  than  does  the  second, 
and  would  be  more  desirable  were  it  capable  of  perfect  measurement. 
(4)  Memory  in  the  main  runs  parallel  with  intelligence  and  there  is 
a  positive  correlation  between  memory  and  scholarship.  (5)  This 
is  more  marked  where  the  material  is  of  a  "logical"  or  "intelligible" 
nature,  and  a  good  memory  for  digits,  words,  nonsense  syllables, 
sounds,  colors,  etc.,  does  not  necessarily  go  hand  in  hand  with  great 
intelligence.  (6)  With  the  same  individual,  slow  learning  gives 
greater  retentiveness  than  does  fast  learning.  (7)  With  the  same 
individual,  retentiveness  is  greater  if  the  material  is  memorized  as 
a  whole  than  if  memorized  in  parts.  (8)  Among  the  best  learners 
those  who  learn  the  nonsense  syllables  rhythmically  are  not  the  best 


76         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

retainers.  (9)  The  retention  of  ideas  is  increased  by  seeing  that  no 
mental  work,  especially  work  of  a  similar  nature,  is  allowed  to  fol- 
low the  memorizing.  (10)  Auditory  and  mechanical  learning  make 
recall  prompt  and  rapid,  but  the  amount  recalled  is  generally  less. 

H.  L.   HOLLINOWORTH, 

Secretary 
BARNARD  COLLEGE. 


REVIEWS   AND   ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

The  Mediceval  Mind:  A   History  of  the  Development  of  Thought  and 

Emotion  in  the  Middle  Ages.     HENRY  OSBORN  TAYLOR.     Two  volumes. 

London:  Macmillan  and  Co.     1911.     Pp.  xv -f  613 ;  589. 

So  far  as  the  present  reviewer  is  aware,  Mr.  Taylor's  enterprise  is  in 
many  important  respects  a  novel  one.  His  is  not  merely  a  new  and 
improved  version  of  standard  presentations,  but  a  fresh  and  highly  in- 
genious attempt  to  supply  the  thoughtful  reader  with  those  various  kinds 
of  information  in  regard  to  the  Middle  Ages  which  he  may  be  expected 
to  crave  and  which  he  would  look  for  in  vain  in  the  innumerable  learned 
treatises  on  medieval  history.  The  writer  would  make  us  feel  "the 
reality  of  medieval  argumentation,  with  the  possible  validity  of  medieval 
conclusions,  and  tread  those  channels  of  medieval  passion  which  were 
cleared  and  deepened  by  the  thought."  To  feel  these  is  obviously  "  to 
reach  human  comradeship  with  medieval  motives,  no  longer  found  too 
remote  for  our  sympathy,  or  too  fantastic  or  shallow  for  our  understand- 
ing." That  the  accepted  routine  of  medieval  history  does  not  accomplish 
this  end  is  patent  enough  to  any  one  who  has  sought  to  understand  the 
Middle  Ages.  As  Mr.  Taylor  says,  "We  must  not  drift  too  far  with 
studies  of  daily  life,  habits  and  dress,  wars  and  raiding,  crimes  and 
brutalities,  or  trade,  and  craft  and  agriculture.  Nor  will  it  be  wise  to 
keep  too  close  to  theology  or  within  the  lines  of  growth  of  secular  and 
ecclesiastical  institutions.  Let  the  student  be  mindful  of  his  purpose 
(which  is  my  purpose  in  this  book)  to  follow  through  the  Middle  Ages  the 
development  of  intellectual  energy  and  the  growth  of  emotion.  Holding 
this  end  in  view,  we  shall  not  stray  from  our  quest  after  those  human 
qualities  which  impelled  the  strivings  of  medieval  men  and  women,  in- 
formed their  imaginations,  and  moved  them  to  love  and  tears  and  pity." 

It  might  seem  at  first  sight  that  if  once  the  historian  deserts  those 
seemingly  staunch  foundations  of  political,  economic,  and  institutional 
history,  he  will  be  forced  to  choose  between  a  history  of  medieval  litera- 
ture or  of  philosophy,  or  run  the  grave  danger  of  lapsing  into  scattered 
reflections  and  personal  impressions  detached  from  the  solid  earth  of 
chronicled  fact  and  event.  Mr.  Taylor  has  done  none  of  these  things. 
He  has  not  written  a  history  of  literature  or  philosophy,  nor  has  he  at 
any  point  lost  his  moorings  and  drifted  about  the  vague  and  eventless  sea 
of  haphazard  generalization.  Before  proceeding  to  give  a  somewhat  care- 
ful analysis  of  the  volumes,  which  is  the  only  way  of  forming  a  correct 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  77 

notion  of  their  character  and  value,  one  more  of  Mr.  Taylor's  caveats 
may  be  mentioned.  He  is  not  occupied,  he  says,  with  "  the  brutalities  of 
medieval  life,  nor  with  all  the  lower  grades  of  ignorance  and  superstition 
which  have  attracted  many  previous  writers.  He  has  not  had  these  things 
very  actively  in  mind  when  using  the  expression  medieval  genius.  That 
phrase,  and  the  like,  are  to  be  understood  as  signifying  '  the  more  in- 
formed and  constructive  spirit  of  the  medieval  time.' " 

Book  I.  is  devoted  to  "  The  Groundwork."  Here  the  author  avails 
himself  of  the  elaborate  preparation  for  his  work  that  he  has  made  in 
writing  his  two  admirable  volumes  on  "  Ancient  Ideals "  and  his  sug- 
gestive "  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages."  As  every  one  should 
know  who  has  given  any  attention  to  the  matter,  the  Middle  Ages  are  far 
less  original  and  peculiar  in  thought  and  institutions  than  was  formerly 
supposed.  The  medieval  culture  is  really  the  culture  of  the  later  Roman 
Empire — at  any  rate,  no  real  understanding  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  possible 
to  one  unfamiliar  with  that  culture.  One  can  not  jump  from  the  Golden 
Age  of  Augustus  to  the  barbarian  invasions  without  missing  just  what  he 
most  needs  to  know  in  order  to  estimate  the  intellectual  and  emotional 
life  of  the  thousand  years  following  the  disruption  of  the  Empire. 
Accordingly,  Mr.  Taylor  properly  assigns  some  two  hundred  pages  to  the 
following  topics :  "  The  Genesis  of  the  Medieval  Genius,"  "  The  Latinizing 
of  the  West,"  "  Greek  Philosophy  as  the  Antecedent  of  the  Patristic 
Apprehension  of  Fact,"  "  Intellectual  Interests  of  the  Latin  Fathers," 
"  Latin  Transmitters  of  Antique  and  Patristic  Thought,"  "  The  Barbaric 
Disruption  of  the  Empire,"  "  The  Celtic  Strain  in  Gaul  and  Ireland," 
"  Teuton  Qualities :  Anglo-Saxon,  German,  Norse,"  and,  finally,  "  The 
Bringing  of  Christianity  and  Antique  Knowledge  to  the  Northern 
Peoples."  This  portion  of  his  work  would  form  an  independent  treatise 
of  the  greatest  value  to  those  laboring  under  a  variety  of  vain  delusions 
due  to  the  habit  of  the  older  historians  of  attempting  to  begin  their  his- 
tories of  the  Middle  Ages  with  the  so-called  fall  of  Rome.  Fustel  de 
Coulanges,  Ebert,  Dill,  Glover,  and  others  have  all  made  their  contribu- 
tions to  the  subject,  but  Mr.  Taylor  has  done  the  work  over  from  his  own 
standpoint,  basing  his  conclusions  on  his  own  independent  research.  He 
has  by  no  means  reproduced  his  "  Classical  Heritage,"  which  supplements 
in  certain  respects  the  present  work.  In  Book  II.  he  bridges  the  gap 
between  the  waning  culture  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  century  and  the 
clearly  reviving  culture  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth.  Toward  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pages  fall  to  these  early  Middle  Ages,  to  the  Carolingian 
period  and  the  mental  aspects  of  the  eleventh  century  in  Italy,  France, 
Germany,  and  England. 

The  great  bulk  of  the  work  is  properly  taken  up  with  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  which,  with  their  immediate  antecedents,  appear  to 
many  writers  to  constitute  a  truly  remarkable  and  instructive  period, 
which  can  be  deemed  from  the  standpoint  of  its  constructive  achieve- 
ments, in  art,  law,  education  and  thought,  one  of  the  chief  sources  of 
that  culture  which  has  prevailed  down  very  nearly  to  the  present,  and 
which  is  responsible  for  many  still  current  notions  and  social  adjustments. 


78         THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Indeed  the  so-called  Renaissance  and  the  Protestant  Revolt  did  far  less  to 
undermine  the  emotional  and  intellectual  life  inherited  from  the  thir- 
teenth century  than  has  commonly  been  assumed. 

Books  III.  and  IV.  deal  with  the  ideals  first  of  the  saints  and  secondly 
of  the  knights.  Peter  Damiani — whom  Mr.  Taylor  has  brought  to  life — 
St.  Bernard,  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  holy  women,  like  Hildegard  of  Bingen 
and  Elizabeth  of  Schonau,  illustrate  the  beauties  of  ascetic  devotion,  while 
the  "  spotted  actuality,"  as  the  author  happily  terms  it,  may  be  judged 
from  the  devout  obscenity  of  Caesar  of  Heisterbach,  the  prosaic  chronique 
scandaleuse  of  Archbishop  Rigaud's  pastoral  visits,  and  Salimbene's 
coarse  fun.  But  Mr.  Taylor  betrays  no  Schadenfreude  in  the  com- 
promising details  of  baseness,  nor  does  he  apologize  for  them.  They  do 
not  prove  to  him  that  the  ideals  of  the  time  were  mere  hypocrisy,  but 
merely  that  ideals  in  the  Middle  Ages  excelled  conduct,  as  is  their  wont. 
In  describing  "  society,"  knightly  virtue  is  illustrated  by  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon  and  St.  Louis,  reinforced  by  the  belated  Froissart.  There  is  a 
chapter  on  Parzival,  "  the  brave  man  slowly  wise,"  and  another  beautiful 
one  on  "  The  Heart  of  Heloi'se,"  surely  the  loveliest  woman  in  some  cen- 
turies of  whom  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  know  anything. 

Book  V.  shows  how  symbolism  lay  back  of  the  art,  literature,  and 
whole  thought,  emotion,  and  speculation  of  the  time.  This  subject  is  one 
of  the  most  important  for  the  student  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whatever  his 
special  interests.  Mr.  Taylor  illustrates  current  scriptural  allegorizing 
by  extracts  from  the  highly  imaginative  Honorius  of  Autun ;  the  "  sym- 
bolic universe  "  finds  its  exponent  in  Hugo  of  St.  Victor. 

In  Book  VI.  Mr.  Taylor  proceeds  to  a  consideration  of  two  important 
elements  in  the  medieval  heritage  from  the  Roman  Empire,  its  Latinity 
and  its  law.  Every  one  who  busies  himself  with  the  Middle  Ages  soon 
comes  to  feel  that  medieval  Latin  often  has  great  literary  charm,  if  one 
does  not  insist  on  wondering  what  Cicero  or  Horace  would  have  thought 
of  Abelard,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  or  Thomas  of  Celano.  Mr.  Taylor  shows 
a  lively  appreciation  of  both  the  beauty  and  the  defects  of  what  used  to 
be  called  "  low  "  Latin.  He  has  chapters  on  the  medieval  attitude  toward 
the  Latin  classics — for  the  Greek  books  had,  with  the  exception  of  Aris- 
totle, pretty  much  all  gone  by  the  board — together  with  many  apt  examples 
of  medieval  prose  and  verse.  To  any  one  with  some  knowledge  of  classical 
Latin  and  a  fair  degree  of  literary  feeling,  these  chapters  will  prove  among 
the  most  fascinating  in  the  work.  As  for  the  chapter  on  the  Roman  and 
Canon  laws,  Mr.  Taylor,  who  is  an  acknowledged  authority  on  an  impor- 
tant branch  of  contemporaneous  law,  is  well  qualified  by  his  studies  of 
earlier  days  to  quench  the  easily  satiated  thirst  of  most  of  his  readers  for 
knowledge  of  these  themes. 

The  second  half  of  Volume  II.  is  devoted  to  "  The  Ultimate  Intellec- 
tual Interests  of  the  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  Centuries  " — to  what,  in 
short,  is  commonly  called  scholasticism.  To  understand  in  some  degree 
the  spirit  and  scope  of  scholasticism,  it  may  be  remarked,  is  to  understand 
a  great  many  tendencies  of  the  human  mind  which  can  be  readily  ob- 
served at  the  present  day,  without  going  back  to  Albert  or  his  gifted 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  79 

disciple  Thomas.  After  a  consideration  of  the  origin  and  general  nature 
of  scholastic  speculation  and  its  development  in  the  twelfth  century  under 
the  auspices  of  Abelard,  Peter  Lombard  and  others,  Mr.  Taylor  gives  an 
account  of  the  rise  of  the  Aristotle-ridden  universities  and  the  intellectual 
role  of  the  Mendicant  friars.  Bonaventura,  Albertus  Magnus,  and 
Thomas  each  has  a  chapter  to  himself,  as  well  as  the  intempestive  Roger 
Bacon  and  those  daring  spirits,  Duns  Scotus  and  Occam,  who  exercised 
so  potent  an  influence  upon  later  thinkers.  The  final  chapter  is  admirably 
conceived — "  The  Mediaeval  Synthesis  "  which  Dante  offers  in  his  "  Divine 
Comedy."  Every  one  likely  to  read  Mr.  Taylor's  book  is  likely  to  have 
Dante  on  his  shelves,  and  equally  unlikely  to  possess  the  works  of  Albert 
or  the  "  Opus  Majus  "  of  Bacon.  If,  as  our  author  maintains,  Dante's 
long  poem  is  but  a  poetic  summa  of  medieval  thought  and  belief,  the 
reader  will  find  in  "  The  Medieval  Mind "  the  most  elaborate  and  satis- 
factory prolegomenon  ever  prepared  for  the  "  Divina  Commedia." 

Few  readers  who  follow  under  Mr.  Taylor's  guidance  the  long  way 
from  Augustine  to  Dante  will  leave  him  without  a  somewhat  bewildering 
sense  of  the  extraordinary  patience,  sympathy,  and  intelligence  which  has 
produced  the  work  in  hand.  There  is  ever  so  little  that  is  merely  formal 
or  second-hand;  the  writer  has  read  the  works  of  others,  but  does  not 
copy  them  out  in  his  pages.  He  has  doubtless  been  affected  by  their 
views  here  and  there,  but  his  own  impressions  and  convictions  are  based 
on  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  medieval  writings  themselves.  He 
has  found  time  and  has  had  the  industry  and  system  necessary  at  once  to 
collect  his  material  and  to  assimilate  it  and  "  react "  on  it.  To  him 
belongs  the  highest  tribute  that  the  historian  may  win;  he  is  at  once  the 
erudit  and  the  savant — and  of  few  can  this  be  said. 

JAMES  HARVEY  ROBINSON. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

A  History  of  the  Cavendish  Laboratory,  1871-1910.     London :  Longmans, 

Green,  &  Co.     1910.     Pp.  xi  +  342. 

Under  this  modest  title  we  have  a  really  important  chapter  in  the 
history  of  scientific  thought.  On  December  22,  1909,  J.  J.  Thomson,  on 
whom  has  fallen  the  mantle  of  Maxwell,  completed  the  twenty-fifth  year 
of  his  tenure  of  the  Cavendish  professorship  of  experimental  physics  at 
the  University  of  Cambridge.  In  deciding  to  commemorate  the  event 
with  a  Festschrift  his  colleagues  and  pupils  eschewed  the  usual  form  which 
such  volumes  now  take,  viz.,  that  of  a  series  of  technical  monographs  on 
points  of  special  interest  to  the  writers.  Instead  they  adopted  the  plan 
of  writing  a  history  of  the  Cavendish  Laboratory,  over  which  Clerk  Max- 
well, Lord  Rayleigh,  and  J.  J.  Thomson  have  in  turn  presided.  The 
Cavendish  Laboratory  is  easily  the  foremost  British  center  of  physical 
research,  and  of  late  years  students  from  all  parts  of  the  world  have  come 
to  work  there.  An  account  of  the  work  done  in  this  laboratory  should, 
therefore,  have  a  great  interest  for  general  students  of  science.  Moreover, 
the  plan  of  the  volume,  as  shown  in  the  letter  addressed  to  the  contribu- 
tors, states: 


80  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

"  It  is  understood  that  the  present  volume  should  be  the  record  not  of 
what  work  was  done,  but  of  lion-  that  work  came  to  be  done.  It  is  thought 
that  the  evolution  of  the  ideas  which  have  inspired  physical  teaching  and 
research  in  Cambridge,  and  the  part  played  in  that  evolution  by  the  many 
eminent  men  who  have  worked  in  the  laboratory,  should  be  traced  as  far 
as  possible;  and  it  is  hoped  that  the  narration  may  be  made  in  such  a  way 
as  to  be  of  interest  even  to  those  who  are  not  professed  students  of  our 
science." 

After  an  introductory  chapter  on  how  the  laboratory  came  to  be  built, 
there  follows  a  chapter  on  the  Clerk  Maxwell  period  by  Professor  Shuster, 
then  one  on  the  Rayleigh  period  by  Professor  Glazebrook,  and  a  survey  of 
the  last  twenty-five  years  by  J.  J.  Thomson  himself.  These  are  followed 
by  four  detailed  surveys,  viz :  the  period  of  1885-1894  by  Professor  Newall, 
the  period  of  1895-1898  by  Professor  Rutherford,  the  period  of  1899-1902 
by  C.  T.  R.  Wilson,  and  the  period  of  1903-1909  by  N.  R.  Campbell.  The 
concluding  chapter  by  Professor  Wilberforce  treats  of  the  development  of 
the  teaching  of  physics.  In  the  appendix  we  have  some  forty  odd  pages 
devoted  to  a  list  of  the  published  memoirs  based  on  the  work  done  in  the 
Cavendish  Laboratory,  and  also  a  list  of  the  workers  who  pursued  their 
researches  there,  with  their  official  positions,  etc.  The  name  index  and 
the  subject  index  which  follow  can  not  but  enhance  the  value  of  the  book. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  various  contributors  did  not  interpret  their 
instructions  in  exactly  the  same  way.  Some  emphasize  the  personal  and 
the  social  side  of  the  work,  the  inspiration  of  the  great  leaders,  the  genial 
spirit  of  cooperation  prevailing  among  the  workers,  etc.  Others  describe 
the  relation  of  the  various  researches  "  as  they  appear  in  a  general  and 
impersonal  review"  (p.  226). 

Professor  Shuster's  account  of  the  Maxwell  period  is  mainly  personal. 
He  describes  his  relations  with  Maxwell  and  the  work  done  in  the  labora- 
tory which  especially  interested  Professor  Shuster.  In  this,  as  well  as  in 
the  introductory  chapter,  however,  we  get  occasional  flashes  which  illumine 
for  us  not  only  the  personality  of  Maxwell,  but  also  the  general  ideas 
which  animated  his  labors.  In  the  seventies  it  was  generally  supposed 
that  the  only  function  of  a  physical  laboratory  was  to  measure  physical 
constants.  Maxwell,  admitting  that  it  is  characteristic  of  modern  experi- 
ments that  they  consist  principally  of  measurement,  went  on  in  his  intro- 
ductory lecture  to  add :  "  Our  principal  work,  however,  in  the  laboratory 
must  be  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  all  kinds  of  scientific  methods,  to  com- 
pare them,  and  to  estimate  their  value.  It  will  be  a  result  worthy  of  our 
university  ...  if,  by  the  free  and  full  discussion  of  the  relative  values  of 
different  scientific  procedures,  we  succeed  in  forming  a  school  of  scien- 
tific criticism,  and  in  assisting  in  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of 
method  "  (p.  17). 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  Maxwell,  by  many  considered  the  suc- 
cessor of  Newton,  should  have  had  only  two  or  three  students  at  his  lec- 
tures, and  that  his  laboratory  equipment  should  have  been  so  small  that 
he  should  have  found  it  necessary  to  report  after  a  few  years :  "  During 
the  present  term  a  skilled  workman  has  been  employed  in  the  laboratory, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  81 

and  has  already  greatly  improved  the  efficiency  of  several  pieces  of 
apparatus."  Genius  and  enthusiasm,  however,  seem  to  have  been  more 
effective  than  numbers  and  means,  so  that  the  amount  as  well  as  the 
quality  of  the  work  turned  out  was  truly  wonderful. 

The  period  of  Lord  Rayleigh's  professorship  (1879-1884)  was  devoted 
especially  to  the  determination  of  electrical  units;  and  Professor  Glaze- 
brook  introduces  his  account  with  a  remarkably  clear  exposition  of  the 
character  of  the  fundamental  units  of  physics,  leading  up  to  the  explana- 
tion of  how  the  ratio  between  the  electrostatic  and  the  electromagnetic 
units  suggests  the  electromagnetic  theory  of -light. 

Professor  Thomson's  own  account  is  a  genial  review  of  the  social  side 
of  the  work  as  well  as  its  relation  to  the  demands  of  Cambridge  University. 
Incidentally  and  parenthetically  we  have  in  a  few  pages  (pp.  92-96)  a  lucid 
account  of  the  considerations  which  led  him  to  formulate  the  corpuscular 
or  electronic  theory  of  matter. 

The  detailed  survey,  by  Professor  Newall,  of  the  work  done  in  the 
laboratory  between  1885  and  1894  contains  a  great  deal  of  very  valuable 
material  under  the  subheadings :  Experimental  Optics,  Electro-optics, 
Properties  of  Matter,  Heat  and  Thermometry,  Electricity  and  Magnetism, 
and  the  Passage  of  Electricity  through  Gases.  The  value  of  this  and 
other  chapters  is,  however,  lessened  for  the  general  reader  by  the  fact 
that  the  authors  do  not,  or  can  not,  owing  to  the  limitations  of  space, 
indicate  the  importance  or  subsequent  outcome  of  the  experimental  work 
which  they  describe.  Thus  on  page  133  we  are  dryly  told  that  a  number 
of  experiments  by  Roiti,  Lecher,  Wilberforce,  and  Rayleigh,  to  detect  the 
influence  of  the  motion  of  a  medium  on  the  velocity  of  light,  failed.  In 
view  of  the  fact  that  this  very  question  has  since  come  to  the  forefront  of 
physical  discussion,  and  that  the  relativity  theory  is  based  entirely  on  these 
and  similar  "failures,"  some  comment  should  have  been  vouchsafed  to 
"  those  who  are  not  professed  students  of  our  science." 

The  period  from  1895  to  1898  was  a  momentous  one  in  the  history  of 
modern  physics,  and  the  part  that  the  Cavendish  Laboratory  played  is 
told  by  Professor  Rutherford,  who  was  a  student  of  J.  J.  Thomson's 
during  this  period,  and  who  subsequently  won  the  Nobel  Prize  for  his 
researches  on  radium  emanations.  Professor  Rutherford  indicates  how 
"  amongst  other  discoveries  it  [the  Cavendish  Laboratory]  witnessed 
within  its  walls  the  final  proof  of  the  nature  of  the  cathode  rays,  the 
advent  of  the  negative  corpuscle  or  electron,  as  a  definite  entity,  the 
experimental  proof  of  the  character  of  the  conduction  of  electricity 
through  gases,  and  the  initial  analysis  of  the  radiations  from  radioactive 
matter  "  (p.  159). 

The  chapter  by  N.  R.  Campbell  is  perhaps  more  than  any  other  in  the 
book  written  with  an  eye  for  "  the  reader  who  is  not  a  professed  student 
of  physics."  It  is  full  of  suggestive  ideas,  and  is  from  a  philosophic 
point  of  view  perhaps  the  most  satisfactory. 

The  book  is  handsomely  printed  and  is  in  every  way  pleasant  reading. 
Natives  of  Hoboken  will  be  sorely  disappointed  to  find  Stevens  Institute 
credited  on  p.  330  to  Hobsten,  N.  J.  (wherever  that  may  be).  Most 


82  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

American  readers  will  likewise  prefer  class  of  men  to  class  of  man.  A 
more  serious  misprint,  liable  to  mislead  the  unwary  reader,  occurs  in  the 
last  line  on  p.  93.  The  conductivity  was  due  to  something  mixed  with 
the  gas,  not  with  the  glass. 

Professional  philosophers  who  light-heartedly  speak  of  atoms  and 
molecules  as  mere  "  convenient  symbols  "  will  find  the  reading  of  this  book, 
or  of  some  of  the  memoirs  mentioned  in  it,  very  troublesome.  For  not 
only  are  these  "  mere  concepts  "  conceived  as  objective  physical  entities, 
but  people  in  Cavendish  Laboratory  persist  in  counting  them,  weighing 
them,  measuring  their  dimensions,  and  determining  the  electrical  charges 
on  the  minute  corpuscles  which  compose  these  bodies.  No  doubt  the 
experimental  work  is  largely  interlarded  with  a  great  deal  of  conscious 
or  unconscious  assumption;  and  it  can  not  be  said  that  very  clear  lines 
are  here  always  drawn  between  experimental  results  and  the  theories 
which  are  intended  to  explain  them.  Nevertheless,  until  some  other 
explanation  of  this  vast  mass  of  experimental  work  is  forthcoming,  the 
theories  of  Joseph  J.  Thomson  and  his  disciples  will — at  least  in  the  eyes 
of  those  familiar  with  the  facts — hold  the  field, 

MORHIS  K.  COHEN. 
COLLEGE  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW.  July,  1911.  The  Ontological 
Problem  of  Psychology  (pp.  363-385) :  GEORGE  TRUMBULL  LADD.  -  Three 
topics  are  considered:  first,  the  more  or  less  scornful  objections  to  the 
whole  subject  of  ontology;  second,  the  relation  of  ontology  to  real  human 
interests;  third,  the  progress  attained  toward  answering  the  ontological 
problem  of  psychology.  The  greater  part  of  the  article  is  devoted  to  a 
discussion  of  the  first  topic.  The  present  condition  and  future  prospect 
of  the  ontological  problem  of  psychology  is  considered  and  illustrated 
from  the  corresponding  problem  in  the  physical  sciences.  The  concepts 
space,  time,  force,  and  substance  are  analyzed.  Knowing  Things  (pp.  386- 
404)  :  JOHN  E.  BOODIN.  -  "  In  dealing  with  things  as  known,  we  place  our- 
selves at  once  at  the  pragmatic  point  of  view — things  as  they  must  be 
taken  in  our  systematic  experience."  "  Qualities  must  be  taken  as  ob- 
jective, if  they  enable  us  to  identify  and  predict  the  things  with  which  we 
must  deal."  Qualities  are  further  distinguished  from  sensations,  rela- 
tions, and  values.  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  Epistemological  Realism 
(pp.  405-421)  :  ALFRED  H.  JONES.  -  "  The  salient  feature  of  this  theory  .  .  . 
consists  in  a  substitution  of  what  the  author  calls  epistemological  realism 
or  dualism  for  the  metaphysical  dualism  of  English  and  continental 
philosophy.  This  new  form  of  dualism  differs  from  the  traditional  form 
of  the  theory  in  that  it  makes  the  independent  or  realistic  existence  of 
objects  a  fact  of  knowledge  or  conscious  experience  instead,  as  is  usually 
done,  of  reality  or  existence."  Reviews  of  Books  (pp.  422-440).  Ber- 
trand  Russell,  Philosophical  Essays:  EVANDER  BRADLEY  McGiLVARY. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  83 

Pierre  Mandonnet,  Siger  de  Brabant  et  I'Averro'isme  latin  au  XIIIme 
siecle:  ISAAC  HUSIK.  Bruno  Bauch,  Das  Substanzproblem  in  der  griech- 
ischen  Philosophic  bis  zur  Blutezeit:  W.  A.  HEIDEL.  Dicran  Aslanian, 
Les  principes  de  devolution  sociale:  R.  M.  MAO!VER.  Notices  of  New 
Books.  Summaries  of  Articles.  Notes. 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  August,  1911.  Les  correlations  psy- 
chophysiques  (avec  fig.)  (pp.  115-135) :  DR.  SIKORSKI.  -  Experimental 
results  correlating  sphygmograms  and  pneumograms  with  different  types 
of  mentality,  normal  and  abnormal.  La  definition  du  hasard  de  Cournot 
(pp.  136-159)  :  G.  MILHAUD.  -  A  defense  of  the  coherency  of  Coumot's 
definitions  of  chance  against  current  criticism.  La  sociologie  de  M.  DurJc- 
heim  (2e.  et  dernier  article)  (pp.  160-185)  :  G.  DAVY.  -  The  remainder  of 
the  exposition  of  M.  Durkheim's  sociology  and  a  brief  estimate  of  its  sig- 
nificance, for  it  really  leads  to  philosophy  and  needs  completion  from 
philosophy.  Analyses  et  comptes  rendus.  C.  Dunan,  Les  deux  idealismes: 
A.  PENJON.  A.  Binet,  L'annee  psychologique :  H.  PIERON.  A.  Michotte 
et  Prum,  Etude  experimental  sur  le  choix  volontaire  et  ses  antecedents 
immediates:  G.  L.  DUPRAT.  T.  V.  Moore,  The  Process  of  Abstraction: 
G.  L.  DUPRAT.  Warner  Brown,  The  Judgment  of  Difference  with  Special 
Reference  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Threshold:  B.  BOURDON.  Jacks,  The 
Alchemy  of  Thought:  G.  L.  DUPRAT.  Martini,  I  fatti  psichici  riviviscenti : 
FR.  PAULHAN.  Chiappelli,  Dalla  critica  al  nuovo  idealismo:  L.  DAURIAC. 
Revue  des  periodiques  Strangers. 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  September,  1911.  Vie  vegetative  et 
vie  intellectuelle  (pp.  225-257):  F.  LE  DANTEC. -A  reply  to  M.  Lalande's 
objections  to  the  definition  of  life  that  the  author  has  advocated  for  the 
last  fifteen  years.  La  categoric  de  relation  (pp.  258-277)  :  A.  CHIDE.  -  An 
attempt  to  trace  the  empirical  genesis  of  this  category  in  opposition  to 
dialecticians  from  Heraclitus  down.  Le  pragmatisme  et  I'esthetique  (pp. 
278-284)  :  J.  PERES.  -  Pragmatism  contains  certain  esthetic  principles  and 
the  author  undertakes  to  exhibit  them,  together  with  certain  verifications 
in  fact.  Observations  et  documents.  Le  reve  et  la  pensee  conceptuelle : 
DUPRAT.  Whitehead  and  Russell,  Principia  Mathematica:  H.  DUFUMIER. 
L.  Couturat,  O.  Jespersen,  R.  Lorenz,  W.  Ostwald,  L.  Pfaundler,  Welt- 
sprache  und  Wissenschaft :  A.  L.  Dejerine  et  Gauckler,  Les  manifesta- 
tions fonctionelles  des  psychonevroses :  DR.  CH.  BLONDEL.  J.  Dubois,  Le 
probleme  pedagogique:  L.  DUGAS.  P.  Mandonnet,  Siger  de  Brabant:  F. 
PICAVET.  Noel,  (Euvres  completes  de  J.  Tauler:  F.  PICAVET.  Baeumker, 
Witelo,  philosophe  et  naturaliste  du  XHIe  siecle:  F.  PICAVET.  L.  Adelphe, 
De  la  notion  de  souverainete  dans  la  politique  de  Spinoza:  G.  RICHARD.  0. 
Richter,  Nietzsche  et  les  theories  biologiques  contemporaines :  L.  ARREAT. 
R.  M.  Wenley,  Kant  and  his  Philosophical  Revolution:  J.  SECOND.  Tari, 
Saggi  di  estetica:  C.  LALO.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 

Baldwin,  James  Mark.  Thoughts  and  Things  or  Genetic  Logic.  Volume 
III.  London :  George  Allen  &  Co.,  Ltd. ;  New  York :  The  Macmillan 
Co.  1911.  Pp.  xvi  +  284.  $2.75. 


84  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Boutroux,  Emile.     Science  and  Religion   in   Contemporary  Philosophy. 

Translated  by  Ilereward  Nield.    New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company. 

1011.    Pp.  ix  -f  35.3. 
Claparede,  Ed.     Experimental  Pedagogy  and  the  Psychology  of  the  Child. 

Translated  by  Mary  Louch  and  Henry  Holman.     New  York:  Long- 

111:1113,  Green  and  Co.    1011.    Pp.  viii  +  322. 
De  Coubertin,  Pierre.     L'analyse  universelle.     Paris:  Felix  Alcan.     Pp. 

155. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

ONE  of  the  great  founders  of  the  science  of  physical  anthropology  has 
passed  away  in  the  person  of  Dr.  Paul  Topinard.  He  was  a  pupil,  col- 
league, and  friend  of  the  illustrious  Broca,  a  "  man  who,"  Dr.  Beddoe 
said,  "  positively  radiated  science  and  the  love  of  science;  no  one  could  as- 
sociate with  him  without  catching  a  portion  of  the  sacred  flame.  Topinard 
has  been  the  Elisha  of  this  Elijah."  Topinard  made  valuable  investiga- 
tions on  the  living  population  of  France,  and  many  researches  in  various 
other  branches  of  physical  anthropology.  In  1876  he  published  a  relatively 
small  book,  "  L'Anthropologie,"  for  which  he  obtained  a  gold  medal  from 
the  Faculty  de  Medecine  de  Paris,  and  a  second  prize  from  1'Institut;  it 
was  translated  into  English,  and  published  in  the  Library  of  Contemporary 
Science  in  1878.  This  book  is  packed  with  information,  as  it  contains 
numerous  measurements  and  an  exposition  of  methods  of  investigation ; 
it  has  long  been  a  guide  for  students  and  a  manual  of  reference  for  travel- 
ers and  others.  In  1885  he  published  his  "  Elements  d'Anthropologie 
generate,"  a  monumental  work  of  1157  pages,  being  the  substance  of  his 
courses  of  lectures  and  laboratory  instruction  for  eight  years  in  the  Ecole 
d'Anthropologie.  It  is  not  the  compilation  of  a  mere  library  student,  but 
is  permeated  by  the  author's  personality  and  contains  the  results  of  his 
very  numerous  and  varied  researches;  in  it  he  broke  free  from  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  monogenists  and  polygenists,  and  incorporated  the  new 
ideas  spread  by  Darwin  and  Haeckel.  This  great  work  exhibits  his  vast 
erudition  and  untiring  energy,  and  it  is  indispensable  for  all  physical 
anthropologists.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  Dr.  Topinard  has  gained  honors 
in  his  own  country  and  the  homage  of  his  colleagues  all  over  the  world. — 
Nature. 

MR.  N.  C.  NELSON,  instructor  in  anthropology  in  the  University  of 
California,  has  been  appointed  assistant  curator  in  the  department  of 
anthropology  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History.  He  will 
assume  his  duties  next  June  and  give  special  attention  to  North  Amer- 
ican archeology. 

DR.  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON,  lecturer  in  philosophy  at  the  University  of 
Liverpool,  has  been  appointed  professor  of  mental  and  moral  philosophy 
at  the  University  of  Melbourne. 

A  GUIDE  to  "  The  Philosophy  of  Bergson,"  by  A.  D.  Lindsay,  a  young 
Scotchman,  will  be  brought  out  by  Doran. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  4.  FEBRUARY  15,  1912. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


ON  DEFINITIONS  AND  DEBATES 

THE  American  Philosophical  Association  has  lately  devoted  much 
attention  to  an  earnest  and  most  important  effort  to  render  its 
general  discussions  more  unified,  more  profitable,  and  more  conducive 
to  the  furtherance  of  agreement  among  students  of  philosophy. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  both  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Asso- 
ciation and  its  "Committee  on  Definitions"  have  labored  most  self- 
sacrificingly  to  further  this  effort,  so  far  as  they  could.  Where  the 
spirit  shown  has  been  so  serious  and  so  unselfish,  criticism  may  appear 
ungracious.  But  the  members  of  the  committee  have  asked  for  criti- 
cisms. The  issue  involved  is  not  as  to  their  unquestionable  sincerity 
and  devotion,  but  as  to  the  future  policy  of  the  Association,  and  as 
to  the  best  way  of  securing,  in  the  discussions  at  our  meetings,  the 
right  sort  of  philosophical  communion  and  community  amongst  the 
members.  Our  committees  consist  of  valued  and  honored  friends. 
But  the  Association  itself  is  the  "greater  friend."  We  all  wish  it 
to  find  the  best  way  of  doing  its  work.  We  hope  that  it  will  long 
outlive  our  own  generation.  We  want  to  initiate  methods  of  coop- 
eration which,  as  they  come  to  be  improved  by  experience,  will  con- 
tinue to  grow  more  and  more  effective  as  the  years  go  on.  To  this 
end,  we  must  be  ready  to  criticize  freely  the  first  efforts  to  organize 
such  methods  of  cooperation.  I  cheerfully  submit  to  the  severest 
scrutiny  this  my  own  effort  at  such  criticism. 

I 

In  the  report  of  the  Executive  Committee,  printed  before  the  last 
meeting  of  the  Association  and  used  during  the  meeting,  a  brief  state- 
ment leads  to  the  announcement  of  the  subject  selected  for  debate. 
Those  who  were  appointed  to  lead  the  debate,  as  we  are  told  in  this 
report,  "decided  to  limit  themselves  to  the  discussion  of  'The  Rela- 
tion of  Consciousness  and  Object  in  Sense  Perception.'  '  Nobody 
ought  to  doubt,  I  think,  that  this  selection  was  a  good  one.  Acting 
under  the  power  conferred  upon  the  Executive  Committee  by  the 

85 


86  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

previous  meeting  of  the  Association,  the  Executive  Committee  here- 
upon voted  "to  have  the  selection  of  debaters  carry  with  it  the  ap- 
pointment to  the  committee  on  definitions," — the  President  of  the 
Association  acting  as  the  fifth  member  of  that  committee.  The  com- 
mittee in  question,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Asso- 
ciation, undertook,  under  the  authority  of  the  original  vote  of  the 
Association,  "the  analysis  and  preparation  of  the  problem  for  dis- 
cussion," and  "definitions  of  terms  pertaining  to"  the  "subject,  for 
the  use  of  those  participating  in  the  debate."  That  the  "analysis," 
"the  preparation  of  the  subject,"  and  the  "definitions  of  terms," 
were,  in  the  main,  satisfactory  to  the  leading  debaters  who  had  been 
appointed  by  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Association,  was  thus 
secured  by  the  fact  that  the  subject  was  prepared  for  discussion  by  a 
committee  consisting  of  these  debaters  themselves  with  the  assistance 
of  the  President  and  the  Secretary.  In  their  report,  the  Executive 
Committee,  still  acting,  of  course,  under  the  authority  of  the  Asso- 
ciation, invited  "members  at  large"  to  participate  in  the  debate,  by 
written  papers,  or  otherwise,  and,  in  doing  so  "to  use,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  definitions  and  divisions  made  by  the  committee. ' ' 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Definitions,  printed  along  with 
the  Executive  Committee's  report  just  cited,  begins  by  emphasizing 
the  importance  of  the  enterprise  which  the  Association  had  thus, 
through  the  Executive  Committee,  assigned  to  its  care.  "Such  an 
extensive  attempt,"  it  said,  "at  an  organization  of  cooperative 
philosophical  inquiry,  has  not  hitherto  been  made  by  this  Asso- 
ciation." "The  committee  believes  such  organized  and  cooperative 
inquiry  to  have  important  possibilities  for  the  future  of  philosophical 
study.  It  therefore  ventures  to  express  the  hope  that  members  will 
make  a  special  effort  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  undertaking,  to 
review  the  recent  literature  of  the  subject,  and,  in  their  participation 
in  the  discussion,  to  conform,  for  the  time  being,  to  the  general  plan 
of  procedure  here  suggested." 

II 

It  would  have  been  indeed  a  very  ungracious  task  for  any  member 
to  take  part  in  the  general  discussion  to  which  all  members  of  the 
Association  were  thus  invited,  unless  he  could  feel  cordially  willing 
to  accept  all  the  essential  features  of  the  "preparation"  and  of  the 
"definitions"  which,  in  its  report,  the  Committee  on  Definitions  here- 
upon proceeded  to  set  forth.  Of  the  competency  of  the  Committee 
to  determine  the  rules  of  the  proposed  debate,  so  far  as  its  own 
members  were  concerned,  there  could  be  of  course  no  doubt.  Of  its 
authority,  by  virtue  of  the  original  vote  of  the  Association,  and  under 
the  conditions  of  its  appointment,  to  ask  members  to  follow  its 
rulings  with  scrupulous  care,  in  case  they  chose  to  participate  in  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  87 

general  discussion  at  all,  there  could  again  be  no  doubt.  The  Execu- 
tive Committee  added  its  express  request,  as  we  have  seen,  to  that  of 
the  Committee  on  Definitions ;  and  hereby  reasonably  bound  all  who 
wanted  to  debate  to  do  their  best  to  confine  their  usage  of  terms  and 
their  definition  of  the  issues  to  the  forms  prescribed  by  the  Com- 
mittee on  Definitions.  The  experiment  in  cooperative  philosophical 
inquiry  thus  for  the  first  time  tried,  could  not  fairly  be  interfered 
with  by  any  voluntary  participant  through  an  expression  of  his 
unwillingness — if  he  felt  such  unwillingness — to  accept  the  Com- 
mittee's analysis  and  .definitions  of  the  problem  as  sufficient  for  the 
purposes  of  the  debate.  The  Committee  defined  certain  terms: 
a,  b,  c,  etc.  It  proposed  certain  questions  for  debate  relating  to 
matters  defined  in  these  terms.  Such  a  question  might  take  the 
form:  "Are  all  the  members  of  the  class  ab  members  of  the  class  cf" 
It  asked  the  members  who  took  part  in  the  debate  to  accept  these 
definitions  and  formulations  of  questions  as  the  topics  of  inquiry. 
Nobody  could  meet  the  express  wishes  of  the  Committee,  and  discuss 
the  topics  which  it  wanted  to  have  discussed,  unless,  accepting  for 
the  time  the  definitions  proposed,  he  was  ready  to  answer  such  ques- 
tions as  "Is  every  ab  a  member  of  the  class  cf"  in  the  spirit  of  one 
who  considered  the  question  at  issue  important,  and  the  issue  well 
taken.  If  he  thought  the  issues  to  be  ill  defined  by  the  Committee, 
and  unworthy  of  the  sort  of  attention  that  the  Committee  required, 
he  had  no  proper  place  in  this  particular  experiment  in  cooperation. 
It  was  in  that  case  his  duty  to  leave  the  general  debate  to  other 
members.  For  nobody  was  asked  to  debate  in  the  meeting  the 
question  whether  the  Committee  had  well  formulated  the  issues. 
Members  were  asked  to  cooperate  under  the  rules  laid  down  by  a 
body  authorized  to  restrict  the  field  of  inquiry  for  the  sake  of 
ensuring  cooperation.  Nobody  could  attempt  the  cooperation,  unless 
he  was  willing  to  abide  by  the  restrictions. 

The  responsibility  of  the  Committee  was  of  course  as  great  as  its 
authority.  Its  duty  was — and  no  doubt  its  intention  was — so  to 
state  the  issues  for  debate  that  any  or  all  of  the  philosophical  opin- 
ions about  those  issues  which  are  worth  discussing,  could  be  discussed. 
And  of  course  a  proper  discussion  of  the  issues  could  not  include,  at 
the  meeting,  such  objections  to  the  Committee 's  report  as  I  now  offer. 
The  debater  was  required  to  follow  the  assigned  rules  of  the  game. 
He  was  not  to  discuss  their  value.  He  was  to  play  under  these  rules. 
Hence,  if  his  views  about  the  issues  were  worth  discussing  at  all,  the 
Committee's  formulas  ought  to  have  left  him  unhampered. 

My  present  question  is:  How  did  the  Committee  accomplish  this 
duty  ?  Whose  cooperation  did  it  make  possible,  in  case  the  one  who 
cooperated  was  understood  to  accept  the  plan  of  debate  as  printed? 


88  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

I  am  sorry  that  the  somewhat  elaborate  "preparation"  of  the 
question  set  forth  by  the  Committee  will  force  me  to  make  my  answer 
to  these  questions  tedious.  But  I  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  taking 
the  Committee's  formulas  seriously,  and,  in  consequence,  analyzing 
them  with  care. 

Ill 

After  a  study  of  the  possible  issues,  the  Committee  presented,  as 
the  first  of  its  questions  for  debate,  the  following:  "In  cases  where  a 
real  (and  non-hallucinatory)  object  is  involved,  what  is  the  relation 
between  the  real  and  the  perceived  object  with  respect  (a)  to  their 
numerical  identity  at  the  moment  of  perception,  (b)  with  respect  to 
the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  the  real  object  at  other  moments 
apart  from  any  perception?"  This  question  was  to  be  understood, 
by  all  who  were  to  cooperate,  as  determined  by  the  meanings  assigned 
by  the  Committee  to  the  terms  "object,"  "perceived  object,"  and 
"real  object." 

The  definitions  of  these  terms,  as  printed  in  the  Committee's 
report,  are  as  follows: 

By  object  in  this  discussion  shall  be  meant  any  complex  of  physical  quali- 
ties, whether  perceived  or  unperceived  and  whether  real  or  unreal.  _ 

By  real  objects  is  meant  in  this  discussion  such  objects  as  are  true  parts 
of  the  material  world. 

By  perceived  object  is  meant  in  this  discussion  an  object  given  in  some 
particular  actual  perception. 

It  appears,  from  the  context,  and  from  the  formulation  of  the 
question  for  debate  quoted  above,  that  the  Committee  very  naturally 
laid  some  stress  upon  the  fact  that  what  it  meant  by  "some  par- 
ticular actual  perception"  involved  an  occurrence  at  some  "moment 
of  time,"  called  also  "the  moment  of  perception" ;  or,  again,  involved 
some  determinate  set  or  sequence  of  such  momentary  occurrences, 
"in  some  particular  individuated  stream  of  perceptions,"  that  is,  in 
the  mind  or  in  the  experience  of  some  person. 

The  Committee  did  not  define  what  it  meant  by  the  adjective 
"given,"  used  in  the  above-cited  definition  of  "perceived  object." 
Of  course  the  participants  in  the  discussion  would  seem  to  be  in  so 
far  left  free  to  understand  and  to  use  that  word  in  any  reasonable 
and  customary  fashion  that  is  consistent  with  the  context  of  the  re- 
port ;  and  it  is  plain  that  the  members  of  the  Committee  were  entirely 
unaware  that  by  their  use  of  this  word  they  in  the  least  restricted 
the  reasonable  liberty  of  anybody.  As  a  fact,  however,  their  defini- 
tion of  the  term  "perceived  object,"  taken  together  with  their 
formulation  of  their  question,  and  the  context  in  which  they  used 
the  word  given,  involved  a  very  serious  interference  with  the  range 
of  the  cooperation  which  they  invited.  For  what  is  "given"  in  a 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  89 

"moment  of  perception,"  and  what  is  not  "given,"  and  the  sense  in 
which  anything  can  be  "given  at  a  particular  moment,"  and  the 
sense  in  which  what  is  "given"  can  also  be  an  "object" — all  these 
are  not  topics  of  a  merely  pedantic  curiosity  about  words.  They  are 
matters  which  have  been  lengthily,  frequently,  and  momentously 
discussed,  both  in  the  controversies  about  perception  and  in  other 
philosophical  inquiries.  Let  us  see  how  far  and  how  profitably  such 
questions  could  be  discussed  by  any  one  who  was  ready  to  be  guided, 
in  the  debate,  by  the  rules  laid  down  by  the  Committee. 

IV 

The  word  given  has  a  wide  range  both  of  popular  and  of  technical 
usage.  Amongst  its  more  technical  meanings,  three  very  readily 
occur  to  mind  as  possibly  in  question  when  the  word  is  employed  in 
a  philosophical  discussion. 

In  a  very  wide  sense,  which  is  rendered  in  special  cases  more 
determinate  by  the  context,  given  means:  "Assumed,  presupposed, 
agreed  upon,  accepted,  taken  as  if  it  were  known — but  always  with 
reference  to  some  specific  purpose,  inquiry,  undertaking,  discussion, 
or  plan  of  action. ' '  This  sense  is  of  course  a  very  elastic  one,  and  is 
often  convenient,  just  because  the  context  which  further  defines  the 
plan  or  inquiry  in  question  so  easily  specifies  the  conditions  subject 
to  which  something  is  declared  or  agreed  to  be  given.  But,  for  this 
very  reason,  given,  if  used  in  this  first  sense,  means  conditionally 
given,  subject  to  the  agreements  or  presuppositions  in  question,  and, 
in  this  sense,  does  not  mean:  "present  in  some  particular  actual  per- 
ception." In  this  wide  sense  of  conditionally  given,  the  Sherman 
Act  is  given,  when  legal  controversies  about  certain  combinations  in 
restraint  of  trade  are  in  question.  And,  for  the  purposes  of  the 
discussion,  or  of  the  present  paper,  the  Committee's  report,  with  its 
definitions,  requests,  statements  of  the  issue,  and  so  on,  is  itself  given, 
to  any  one  who  wants  to  engage  in  the  proposed  discussion,  or  to 
read  this  paper.  Any  conceivable  real  or  ideal  object,  principle, 
abstraction,  fact,  or  fabulous  invention,  any  portion  of  the  universe, 
or  the  whole  of  it,  could  be  given,  in  this  sense,  to  somebody  for  some 
purpose.  Yet  the  word  given  would  not  hereby  be  rendered  hope- 
lessly vague,  because,  each  time,  the  context  or  other  connections  of 
the  plan  or  inquiry  that  was  to  be  undertaken  would  enable  one  to 
specify  the  conditions  which  made  the  object  or  principle,  in  this 
sense,  hypothetically  or  conventionally  given. 

A  second  and  also  wide  sense  of  the  term  given  introduces  the 
word  into  one's  ontological  vocabulary,  and  employs  it  as  equivalent 
to  existent,  actual.  God  or  an  atom,  Herbart's  reals  or  Leibniz's 
monads,  the  events  of  history  or  the  interior  of  the  earth,  anything 


90  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

believed  by  anybody  to  be  a  fact  or  a  reality,  may  by  that  person  be 
declared,  in  this  sense,  to  be  a  given  fact  in  the  world,  or  simply  to 
be  given.  This  meaning  is  of  course  specified,  on  occasion,  by 
naming  the  place,  time,  or  other  definable  region  of  being,  in  which 
the  fact  in  question  is  asserted  to  be  a  fact.  This  signification  of  the 
word  given  is  frequent  in  usage,  but  is  often  inconvenient,  because 
of  the  danger  of  confusion  between  this  and  the  third  meaning  of 
given — a  danger  which  occasionally  arises. 

In  a  third  sense,  given  means  present  to  or  in  the  "experience" 
or  "perception"  or  "feeling"  or  "state  of  mind"  of  somebody. 
I  put  in  quotation  marks  the  words  and  phrases  that  specify  how  or 
wherein  the  given  is,  in  this  sense,  present,  merely  to  indicate  that,  in 
any  effort  to  specify  this  sense,  one  deals  with  matters  which  are 
amongst  the  most  obvious  and  at  the  same  time  most  problematic 
topics  that  philosophy  has  to  consider.  In  order  fully  to  explain 
what  it  is  which  in  this  sense  is,  for  somebody,  or  at  some  time,  given, 
that  is,  present  or  immediately  known,  or  directly  experienced,  you 
need  to  face  all  the  problems  about  "immediacy"  and  about  "experi- 
ence" and  about  the  "self"  and  about  "time"  and  about  the  rela- 
tion of  the  relational  aspect  of  the  given  to  its  non-relational  aspect 
— all  the  problems,  I  say,  which  have  most  divided  the  philosophers. 
These  are  also  the  problems  that  have  disturbed  the  seekers  after 
some  sort  of  "intuition"  or  of  religious  "faith,"  ever  since  the 
Hindoo  seers  first  retired  to  the  forests  (or  in  other  words  "took  to 
the  woods")  in  their  own  vain  effort  to  solve  that  most  recondite  of 
human  mysteries,  the  mystery  regarding  what  it  is  that  is  given  in 
this  third  sense.  From  Yajnavalkya  to  Bergson  this  problem  of  the 
given  has  troubled  men. 

This  sense  of  the  word  given  is  frequent  in  discussion.  It  is  ex- 
tremely useful  in  attempts  at  defining  the  various  problems  whose 
nature  and  variety  have  just  been  indicated.  But  unless  one  bears 
in  mind  how  difficult  and  recondite  these  problems  are,  he  is  likely 
to  employ  the  term  given,  in  this  third  sense,  rather  to  escape  from 
facing  the  greatest  issues  of  philosophy  than  to  prepare  the  way  for 
further  reflection  upon  them.  Of  course  an  important  part  of  the 
task  of  anybody  who  calls  anything  given,  in  this  third  sense,  is  to 
specify  what  sort  of  presentation  it  is  upon  which  he  is  insisting. 

Of  these  three  senses  of  the  word  given,  it  seems  plain,  from  the 
context,  that  the  Committee  intended  some  specification  of  the  third 
sense  to  be  in  question.  For  their  report  uses  the  phrases:  "at 
certain  times  present  in  a  given  individuated  series  of  perceptions"; 
"given  in  some  particular  actual  perception."  Even  if  given  were 
here  supposed  to  be  used  in  the  second  of  the  above-mentioned  senses, 
this  account  of  the  "locus,"  ».  e.,  of  the  place  and  time  wherein  some- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  91 

thing  is  for  the  purposes  of  the  definition  of  a  perceived  object, 
given,  would  make  the  second  sense  (specified  so  as  to  apply  to  the 
case  here  in  question)  identical  with  some  specification  of  the  third 
sense.  For  even  if  the  word  given  meant  "is  a  fact,"  is  "actual," 
the  "perceived  objects"  of  which  the  Committee  speaks  are  here 
specified  simply  as  "figuring"  or  as  "present"  "in  some  particular 
actual  perception. ' '  That,  then,  is  the  way,  or  at  least  one  way,  in 
which  those  "perceived  objects"  are  to  be,  just  then,  facts.  And  in 
this  way  the  Committee  means  given  to  be  understood. 

As  to  the  first  sense,  the  Committee  is  not  defining  its  "perceived 
objects"  as  given  to  the  percipient  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Sherman 
Act  is  given  as  the  agreed  presupposition  of  a  legal  controversy. 
Of  course,  I  repeat,  all  of  the  Committee 's  definitions,  topics,  objects, 
and  problems  are  to  us  members  given,  in  our  first  sense  of  the  word 
given,  for  the  purpose  of  the  proposed  discussion,  and  as  its  agreed  or 
at  least  supposed  basis.  But  the  "perceived  objects"  are  said  by 
the  Committee  to  be  given  in  "some  particular  actual  perception," 
at  one  or  at  several  moments  of  time,  and  in  the  individuated 
"stream"  of  some  percipient's  perceptions.  The  sense  of  given  in 
the  Committee's  definition  of  perceived  object  is,  therefore,  some 
specification  of  the  third  of  the  senses  above  indicated.  Hereby,  then, 
the  debater  who  can  cooperate  seems  to  be  bound  in  advance  by  the 
Committee's  report.  In  so  far  the  wording  and  the  context  leave 
him  not  free  to  interpret  the  word  given  as  he  pleases. 

What  is  the  result?  The  committee  has  certainly  not  left  the 
cooperating  debater  free  as  to  his  definition  of  the  word  object.  An 
object,  in  this  discussion,  is  a  "complex  of  physical  qualities."  It  is 
of  course  left  to  the  debater  to  hold  whatever  view  he  holds  as  to 
what  a  "complex  of  physical  qualities"  actually  is  and  involves. 
But  this  latter  view  will  no  longer  be  a  matter  of  merely  verbal  con- 
ventions. Of  course  such  "complexes"  as  "yellow,  hard,  and  ex- 
tended," or  "brown,  smooth,  and  solid,"  will  be  amongst  the  physical 
"objects"  denoted  by  such  phraseology.  The  debater  will  have  his 
opinion  as  to  what  such  ' '  physical "  "  complexes ' '  are,  and  as  to  what 
conditions  they  must  meet  in  order  to  be  "physical"  at  all.  These 
views  will  no  longer  be  reducible  to  definitions  of  terms.  The  de- 
bater's metaphysics  or  epistemology  or  perhaps  just  his  opinions  as  a 
student  of  some  physical  science,  will  now  come  into  play.  If  he  is 
to  cooperate,  he  must  indeed  accept  the  Committee's  definition  of 
object.  But  his  doctrine  about  what  makes  a  "complex"  a  "phys- 
ical" complex,  will  concern  issues  no  longer  verbal,  but  most  de- 
cidedly "material."  Let  us  still  try  to  see  what  follows  from  this 
restriction  of  the  meanings  of  object  and  of  given,  when  taken 
together. 


92  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Suppose  that  some  philosopher  should  be  asked  to  cooperate 
whose  views  about  what  a  "complex  of  physical  qualities"  is,  and 
especially  about  what  such  a  complex  is  when  it  is  a  "true  part  of 
the  material  world,"  required  him  to  say:  "Such  an  object,  such  a 
complex,  however  real  it  is  (and  also  in  case,  in  the  Committee's 
sense,  it  is  unreal),  never  is,  and  by  its  very  nature  never  can  be,  for 
any  human  being,  'present  in  some  particular  individuated  stream 
of  perceptions,'  at  any  moment  of  time;  and  (at  least  for  a  human 
being)  never  can  be  given  in  some  particular  actual  perception." 
Suppose  the  philosopher  held  this  view,  not  because  he  was  disposed 
to  favor  or  to  dwell  upon  verbal  controversies,  but  because  this  was 
his  opinion  as  to  a  material  issue,  namely,  as  to  what  a  physical 
"complex"  is,  and  as  to  what  in  this  sense  is  given.  Suppose, 
namely,  that  he  had  inquired  into  what  is  or  can  be  given  at  any 
moment,  in  any  human  perception,  or  to  any  human  being.  Sup- 
pose that  he  had  considered,  with  such  care  as  he  could  use,  why  we 
believe  in  any  physical  facts  whatever,  and  what  is  the  essential 
truth  about  the  very  nature  of  such  facts,  as  we  believe  in  them. 
Then  his  views  would  be  his  own,  and  would  not  depend  upon  his 
terminology.  Nevertheless,  when  asked  to  cooperate,  he  would  be 
bound  to  accept  the  Committee's  definitions.  Accepting  them,  what 
would  this  philosopher  be  obliged  to  say  about  the  class  of  perceived 
objects  as  defined  by  the  Committee  (not,  of  course,  as  he  himself 
would  have  preferred  to  define  what  he  calls  perceived  objects)  T 

Such  a  philosopher  could  only  say:  "For  a  man  of  my  opinions 
there  exist  no  perceived  objects  (in  the  Committee's  explicitly  stated 
sense  of  that  term),  whether  real  or  hallucinatory.  For  physical 
'complexes  of  qualities'  are  of  such  nature  as  forbids  their  being 
given,  at  any  moment,  in  any  human  being's  stream  of  perceptions. 
Therefore,  for  me,  the  Committee's  class  of  'perceived  objects'  is  a 
'zero-class'  (in  the  sense  of  modern  symbolic  logic).  It  is  an  'empty' 
class.  Herein  it  resembles  the  class  of  '  horses  that  are  not  horses. '  ' 

Since  the  problem  of  the  present  paper  principally  relates  to  the 
question :  What  part  could  a  philosopher  who  held  such  views  prop- 
erly take  in  the  debate,  under  the  Committee's  rules  and  definitions? 
I  shall  very  properly  be  met,  in  my  turn,  at  this  point,  by  the  coun- 
ter-question :  Are  there  any  such  philosophers  ?  If  so,  are  their  views 
worth  discussing? 

V 

In  answer  to  this  counter-question  I  may  first  cite  the  words  of 
the  Committee  itself.  On  page  11  of  its  report,  in  enumerating  the 
various  current  definitions  of  "consciousness,"  it  refers  to  the  fol- 
lowing view:  "Consciousness  is  the  instrumental  activity  of  an  or- 
ganism with  respect  to  a  problematic  or  potential  object.  Thus  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  93 

nature  of  consciousness  is  such  as  to  imply  the  artificiality  of  the 
first  question,  and  accordingly  of  its  several  answers."  Such  an 
opinion,  then,  exists.  We  all  think  it  worthy  of  careful  discussion. 
I  am  far  from  defending  this  reported  definition  of  conscious- 
ness; and  I  am  very  far  from  attempting  to  speak  on  behalf  of  the 
distinguished  representative  of  this  view  to  whom  the  Committee 
here  refers.  I  can  only  say  this:  Were  the  reported  view  my  own 
view  of  the  nature  of  consciousness,  I  should  be  obliged  to  say  that 
the  "problematic  or  potential  objects"  to  which  my  "instrumental 
activity"  had  "respect,"  were  not  the  Committee's  "perceived  ob- 
jects" at  all;  and  also  that  if  my  "problematic  objects"  were  what 
I  supposed  to  be  identical  with  the  "complexes  of  physical  qualities" 
which  the  Committee  asked  me  to  call  "objects,"  then  whatever  was 
given  in  my  "individuated  stream  of  perceptions"  would  not  be 
such  an  object.  So  that,  in  this  case,  the  first  question  would  be  for 
me  not  only  ' '  artificial, ' '  but  a  question  about  a  zero-class.  And  the 
Committee's  second  question,  that  about  consciousness,  would  require 
me,  if  I  also  accepted  the  Committee's  own  definition  of  conscious- 
ness, to  explain  how  this  "instrumental  activity"  of  my  own  organ- 
ism was  "that  by  virtue  of  which"  the  members  of  this  zero-class — 
that  is,  the  objects  which  for  me  would  be  no  objects  at  all — were 
"numerically"  or  otherwise  distinguished  from  something  else. 
Hereupon  I  should  indeed  be  at  a  loss  how  to  discuss  the  Committee 's 
second  question  any  more  usefully  than  the  first  question,  unless, 
indeed,  I  in  one  way  or  another  declined  to  accept  the  rulings  of  the 
Committee  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  discussion,  either  by  ignoring  or 
by  setting  aside  their  definitions  and  requests.  I  should  be  sure 
that  in  any  case  the  Committee  had  not  succeeded  in  so  stating  the 
two  questions  as  to  make  my  opinions  a  natural  part  of  the  inquiry 
that  they  defined.  I  should  feel  myself  excluded  from  profitable 
cooperation  under  the  rules. 

But  this  is  no  place  to  expound  in  detail  the  views  of  any  one 
thinker.  Let  me  next  simply  point  out  theses  which  every  one  will 
find  more  or  less  familiar  and  which,  in  various  contexts,  enter  into 
known  doctrines  about  perception.  Let  me  point  out  that  whoever 
holds  these  theses  ought  to  regard  the  Committee's  definition  of  a 
"perceived  object"  as  the  definition  of  a  zero-class. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  one  holds,  with  J.  S.  Mill,  that  a 
physical  object,  such  as  any  "complex  of  physical  qualities,"  is  es- 
sentially "a  permanent  possibility  of  sensation"  in  case  it  is  "a 
true  part  of  the  material  world"  at  all,  while,  in  case  of  hallucina- 
tory or  illusory  physical  objects,  the  object  seems  to  be  such  a 
"  permanent  possibility ' '  when  it  is  not  so.  One  who  takes  this  view 
seriously,  holds  a  doctrine  which  concerns  not  verbal  definitions,  but 


94  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

assertions  as  to  \\li.it  the  object  (in  the  Committee's  sense  of  the 
term)  actually  is. 

Hut  a  "permanent  possibility  of  sensation,"  whatever  else  it  ia, 
is  never  any  one  sensation  or  group  of  sensations ;  nor  yet  is  it  any 
set  of  events  in  the  individuated  streams  of  perceptions  of  any  hu- 
man percipients.  These  events,  the  given  facts  of  sensation,  come 
and  go.  The  "permanent  possibility"  is  no  one  of  them.  But  it  is 
what,  for  Mill,  the  "complex  of  physical  qualities"  essentially  is,  and 
for  Mill,  if  his  doctrine  were  taken  quite  seriously,  there  would  be  no 
other  physical  objects  to  consider,  whether  real  or  hallucinatory. 
But  to  speak  of  a  perceived  object,  in  the  Committee's  sense,  would 
be  to  speak  of  a  fleeting  sensory  event,  in  "some  given  actual  per- 
ception." That  is,  the  Committee's  "perceived  objects"  would  be 
"permanent  possibilities"  that  are  not  permanent,  or,  once  more, 
horses  that  are  not  horses. 

Mill's  account  of  the  object  of  perception  has  often  been  accuse-1 
of  a  false  abstractness  of  formulation.  Some  have  attempted  to 
render  his  account  more  precise,  or  to  deal  with  his  arguments  in 
another  way,  by  asserting,  with  greater  or  less  definiteness  of 
phraseology,  that  the  very  being  of  a  "complex  of  physical  quali- 
ties" essentially  consists  in  the  truth  of  certain  propositions.  This 
doctrine,  which,  as  it  stands,  is  of  course  a  metaphysical  doctrine, 
has  numerous  representatives  in  modern  discussion.  Many,  both 
before  Mill's  time  and  later,  have  been  led  to  such  an  opinion,  by 
considerations  not  wholly  identical  with  those  which  Mill  empha- 
sized. 

It  is  notable,  furthermore,  that,  whenever  such  thinkers  attempt 
to  define  their  objects  (that  is,  their  "complexes  of  physical  quali- 
ties" in  the  Committee's  sense  of  object),  with  precision,  they  in- 
clude amongst  the  propositions  which  define  the  being  of  the  object 
certain  universal  propositions.  Thus,  for  Mill,  a  bell  to  which  a 
wire  is  duly  attached  is  a  "complex  of  physical  qualities"  whose 
being  is  partly  defined  by  the  truth  of  the  proposition :  "If  I  pull  the 
wire  I  shall  hear  a  ringing."  Now  any  t'/-proposition  is,  in  its  log- 
ical sense,  an  universal  proposition.  And  we  are  not  here  concerned 
with  the  material  question  whether  this  or  that  one  amongst  a  set  of 
such  universal  propositions  is  actually  true,  or  again  with  the  ques- 
tion: Subject  to  what  conditions  is  it  true?  It  is  enough  for  our 
present  purpose  that,  if  a  percipient  is  led  to  believe  that  the  being 
of  his  object  is  in  some  respect  defined  by  such  a  universal  proposi- 
tion, and  if  this  proposition  is  not  true,  then  his  object  is  in  this  re- 
spect illusory.  The  being  of  the  object  is  defined  by  the  truth  of 
propositions,  some  of  which  are  universal,  whether  it  is  a  real  ob- 
ject or  an  unreal  one. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  95 

In  case,  however,  the  truth  of  some  universal  proposition  is  essen- 
tial to  the  constitution,  to  the  very  being,  of  a  "complex  of  physical 
qualities,"  it  is,  once  more,  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  talk  of  the 
truth  of  such  an  universal  proposition  as  ever,  or  at  any  time,  or  to 
anybody,  "given  in  some  particular  actual  perception,"  such  as  any 
mortal  ever  has. 

For  any  one  who  holds  this  view  of  what  an  object  is,  the  Com- 
mittee's definition  of  perceived  object  is,  therefore,  equivalent  to  the 
definition  of  a. horse  that  is  not  a  horse. 

Now  some  who  hold  such  views  about  physical  objects  are  meta- 
physical realists.  Some  are  Kantians;  and  one  very  important  as- 
pect of  Kant's  whole  theory  of  the  nature  of  the  "phenomenal  ob- 
jects" which  he  so  sharply  distinguished  from  the  sensory  data,  con- 
sisted in  his  identification  of  the  very  being  of  a  physical  object  with 
the  truth  of  propositions,  some  of  which  are,  in  his  opinion,  a  priori 
and  universal,  while  all  of  them  are  true  propositions  in  a  way  that 
only  the  "spontaneity  of  the  understanding"  and  the  relation  of  the 
object  to  the  transcendental  "unity  of  apperception"  could  warrant 
or  determine.  Whatever  the  variations  of  Kant's  own  phraseology 
— variations  easily  explainable  in  the  light  of  his  own  development — 
there  should  be  no  question  that  what  his  fully  developed  doctrine 
defines  as  the  true  Gegenstand  of  perception,  and  as  the  phenomenal, 
yet  still  perfectly  objective  actual  "complex  of  physical  qualities," 
is  nothing  whose  nature  permits  it  to  be  given  to  any  human  per- 
cipient, in  any  particular  actual  perception.  Many  Kantians  have 
come  to  emphasize  these  aspects  of  the  Kantian  theory  of  what  a 
"complex  of  physical  qualities"  essentially  is.  For  all  such,  the 
Committee's  definition  of  a  "complex  of  physical  qualities  given  in 
some  particular  actual  perception"  is  a  definition  of  "perceived  ob- 
jects" such  that  it  requires  some  universal  truth  to  be  given  as  true 
in  a  particular  actual  moment  of  perception,  and  is  also  a  definition 
which  requires  a  permanent  somewhat  to  be  given  as  permanent  in 
that  which  flits.  The  result  is  once  more  a  zero-class.  All  such 
thinkers  are,  in  my  opinion,  excluded  from  profitable  participation 
in  the  Committee's  discussion. 

Finally,  amongst  those  to  whom  the  very  being  of  a  "complex  of 
physical  qualities"  consists  in  the  truth  of  certain  propositions, 
whereof  some  are  universal  propositions,  there  are  students  of  phi- 
losophy who  are  metaphysical  idealists.  Of  these  students  I  am  one. 
My  views  are  not  here  in  question.  But  perhaps  I  have  a  right  to 
say  that  all  such  metaphysical  idealists,  whatever  their  other  vari- 
eties of  opinion,  get  to  their  results  by  interpreting  the  truth  of  these 
propositions  in  terms  which  they  suppose  to  be  concrete  and  reason- 
able enough,  but  which  do  not  permit  them  to  admit  that  such  truths 


96  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

as  constitute  the  being  of  such  a  "complex"  could  be,  at  any  moment 
of  time,  given  in  the  stream  of  anybody's  particular  actual  per- 
ceptions. 

I  submit  that,  for  all  such  thinkers,  the  Committee's  formulations 
of  the  issue  depend  upon  the  definition  of  a  zero-class.  All  such  are, 
in  my  opinion,  excluded  from  profitable  cooperation  in  the  discus- 
sion as  defined  by  the  Committee. 

In  sum,  whoever  emphasizes  the  fact  that  what  he  means  by  a 
"complex  of  physical  qualities"  is  something  that  perception  brings 
to  his  notice,  but  that,  once  brought  to  his  notice,  is,  in  his  opinion, 
essentially  an  object  of  interest,  of  belief,  of  intention,  of  faith,  or  of 
rational  assurance,  or  of  categorized  conceptual  structure,  may  well 
ask  himself  what  place  he  has  in  the  Committee's  undertaking.  For 
to  him  what  is  "given  in  a  particular  actual  moment  of  perception" 
is  simply  not  what  he  means  by  an  object  at  all,  whether  he  is  a 
mystic  or  a  pragmatist  or  a  realist  or  an  idealist. 

VI 

There  are,  then,  such  philosophers  as  I  have  defined,  in  general 
terms,  by  the  assertion :  For  such  philosophers  the  Committee's  class 
of  perceived  objects  is  a  zero-class.  But  just  why,  after  all — so  one 
may  reply  to  me — why  are  such  philosophers  excluded  from  the  in- 
quiry proposed  by  the  Committee?  Why  may  they  not  take  part  if 
they  please? 

My  answer  has  to  be  in  terms  familiar  to  every  student  of  modern 
formal  logic. 

If  a  "zero-class"  is  to  be  the  subject  of  an  assertion,  what  predi- 
cates may  with  truth  be  asserted  of  that  zero-class?  The  answer  of 
modern  formal  logic  of  the  prevailing  neo-Boolean  type  is  well 
known,  and,  for  logical  purposes,  is  useful.  A  zero-class  is  not  only 
subsumable,  but  is  actually  subsumed,  under  every  class  in  the  uni- 
verse of  discourse.  Hence  of  any  zero-class  all  universal  proposi- 
tions, whatever  their  predicates,  are  true.  All  particular  proposi- 
tions, however,  which  have  the  zero-class  as  their  subject,  are  false. 
Hence  the  fortunes  of  a  zero-class  are  easily  to  be  foreordained. 
Thus  the  class  defined  by  the  term,  a  horse  that  is  not  a  horse,  is,  in- 
deed, by  definition  a  zero-class.  Hence  it  is  formally  correct  to  say : 
"All  horses  that  are  not  horses  can  trot  fast  and  play  the  violin  at 
the  same  time."  For  the  assertion  is  an  universal.  But  this  asser- 
tion, whose  formal  justification,  and  whose  possible  importance  from 
certain  points  of  view  emphasized  by  modern  logic,  I  need  not  here 
pause  to  explain,  is  no  contribution  to  the  arts  or  to  the  sciences  that 
deal  with  the  trotting-horse.  It  is  an  actually  valuable  formalism, 
which  could  indeed  better  be  expressed  in  symbols.  If  I  were  asked 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  97 

to  cooperate  in  a  discussion  amongst  horse  fanciers,  and  I  had  only 
such  propositions  as  this  to  bring  to  their  attention,  it  would  be  at 
once  kinder  and  safer  for  me  not  to  address  the  meeting.  If  they 
chose  to  discuss  still  other  classes  of  horses  that  I  considered  to  be 
zero-classes,  I  could  at  best  only  contribute  the  same  logical  truisms 
to  their  discussion,  and  so  should  be  excluded  from  useful  participa- 
tion in  their  deliberations — unless  indeed  they  asked  me  to  say 
Whether  and  why  I  thought  these  classes  to  ~be  zero-classes.  That 
indeed  might  become  more  a  valuable  and  material  issue,  in  whose 
discussion  I  might  gladly  take  part.  But  if  they  formulated  ques- 
tions for  debate  that  did  not  include  this  question,  that  in  fact  obvi- 
ously excluded  it,  how  could  I  further  contribute,  unless  I  under- 
took something  in  the  form  of  a  criticism  of  the  limitations  which 
they  had  put  upon  the  debate  ? 

As  a  fact,  the  Committee  did  not  ask  anybody  to  discuss  the 
question  whether  there  are  any  "perceived  objects"  of  the  precise 
type  that  it  defined.  Its  use  of  its  definitions,  its  somewhat  elaborate 
formulation  of  the  ' '  logically  possible  views, ' '  its  entire  classification 
of  the  issues,  excluded  this  inquiry  from  the  recognized  field  for  the 
debate. 

No  philosopher  of  the  types  illustrated  in  the  foregoing  discussion 
had  any  proper  place  in  the  cooperation  which  the  Committee  invited. 

VII 

Now,  is  all  the  foregoing  mere  ' '  logic-chopping, ' '  mere  ' '  carping 
criticism, ' '  mere  ' '  verbalism, ' '  or  what  James  loved  to  call  * '  barren 
intellectualism"?  I  hope  not.  I  intend  to  insist  upon  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  a  practical  issue.  It  was  the  Committee  that  offered  defi- 
nitions supposed  to  be  exact.  My  "carping"  is  intended  only  to  be 
a  taking  of  the  Committee's  requirements  quite  seriously.  My 
*' verbalism"  consists  in  using  their  own  words  as  they  required. 
And  my  practical  purpose  is  constructive.  I  want  to  indicate  some- 
thing, however  little,  about  how  our  future  discussions  may  best  be 
organized  if  others  at  all  agree  with  me. 

That  the  whole  issue  is  not  merely  verbal,  but  is  quite  material 
and  of  practical  importance  for  the  discussion,  will  appear,  I  think, 
if  we  simply  leave  out  the  terms  defined,  and  substitute  the  defini- 
tions. In  order  to  do  this,  let  us  consider  where  we  should  stand  if 
the  Committee  had  said :  ' '  Those  who  are  to  take  part  in  this  discus- 
sion are  requested  and  supposed  to  assume :  That '  complexes  of  phys- 
ical qualities'  may  be,  and  often  are,  given  in  'some  particular 
actual  perception,'  at  some  time,  and  in  such  wise  as  to  be  'present 
in  some  individuated  sequence'  or  'stream  of  perceptions,'  and  for 
some  human  being."  This  would  not  be  a  verbal,  but  a  very  ma- 
terial assumption. 


98  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Had  the  Committee  said  just  this,  we  should  have  known  that  all 
whose  metaphysical  or  epistemological  opinions  led  them  to  hold, 
concerning  physical  objects,  the  views  held  by  those  whose  otherwise 
very  various  doctrines  I  have  just  summarized,  were  expressly  ex- 
cluded from  participation.  Such  an  exclusion  would  have  been  a 
perfectly  proper  plan  for  the  debaters  who  belonged  to  the  Com- 
mittee, if  it  was  simply  their  intention  to  present  their  own  views. 
But  in  that  case  the  plan  would  not  have  included  a  call  for  the 
cooperation  of  members  whose  views  were  thus  excluded.  Now  the 
Committee's  definitions,  and  the  preparation  of  the  subject  for  de- 
bate, essentially  involved,  however  unintentionally,  just  such  an 
exclusion.  This  is  the  ground  of  my  criticism.  I  conceive  that 
hereby  the  Committee  doomed  the  discussion  in  advance  to  be  unable 
to  find  place  in  any  just  fashion  for  some  of  the  most  important  views 
about  perception. 

And  now  as  to  the  practical  result :  The  Committee  inadvertently 
excluded  people  whom  of  course  they  never  consciously  intended  to 
exclude.  These  people  were  no  small  party.  Various  mystics, 
scholastics,  Kantians,  idealists,  modern  realists,  and  pragmatists  were 
among  the  people  thus  out  of  place  in  any  inquiry  that  should  be 
carried  on  under  the  restrictions  carefully  prepared  by  the  Com- 
mittee. When  any  such  people  attempted  to  enter  the  actual  debate, 
they  could  do  so  only  either  apologetically  or  rebelliously  or  unprofit- 
ably  or  through  an  ignoring  of  the  restrictions.  This  was  not  what 
the  Committee  intended ;  but  it  was  what  they  brought  to  pass.  This 
is  not  the  best  way  to  secure  general  cooperation.  This,  I  think,  is 
not  what  either  the  members  of  the  Committee  or  any  others  of  us 
desire  to  have  done  in  our  future  general  discussions,  of  which,  as  I 
hope,  there  will  be  many.  The  plan  of  having  general  discussions 
upon  issues  sharply  defined  and  directly  joined,  is  a  plan  that  prom- 
ises great  results  for  the  future,  if  only  we  learn  from  our  first 
attempts  how  to  carry  out  that  plan  better  than  at  first  we  did. 

What  should  the  Committee  have  done  ?  In  order  to  answer  this 
question,  I  need  not  dwell  upon  any  of  my  own  whims,  prejudices,  or 
tastes.  The  correct  mode  of  procedure  was  suggested,  during  the 
actual  general  discussion,  by  one  of  the  members  of  the  Committee, 
namely,  our  devoted  and  highly  esteemed  Secretary  himself.  I  can 
not  quote  his  words,  although  I  heard  them  with  approval.  In  sub- 
stance he  said  that  one  might  well  consider  that  table  yonder  (he 
did  not  define  it  in  the  abstract,  but  designated  it  by  a  perfectly 
acceptable  gesture  and  wording),  that  "brown,  smooth,  solid  some- 
what"; and  that  one  might  then  try  to  tell  how  he  himself  considered 
what  he  found  "present  to  his  senses"  (namely,  the  given)  to  be 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  99 

related  to  what  he  supposed  the  table  (the  object)  really  to  be.  I 
hope  that  I  fairly  represent  the  Secretary 's  remark. 

Well,  that  is  the  question  about  perception,  in  a  nutshell.  Let 
anybody  tell  (if  he  can,  and  so  far  as  he  can)  what  it  is  that  he  sup- 
poses to  be  given  in  his  "stream  of  perceptions,"  when  he  looks  at 
the  "table"  or  "orange"  or  "inkstand"  or  whatever  else  he  sees  or 
otherwise  perceives.  Let  him  then  indicate  what  this  which  is  given 
leads  him  personally,  at  that  "moment  of  perception,"  to  "believe  to 
be  there,"  or  "to  regard  as  real,"  or  to  view  as  a  "true  part  of  his 
material  world,"  or,  to  consider  as  the  object  which,  in  his  opinion, 
he  just  then  knows  or  believes  to  be  a  "physical  object."  Let  him 
hereupon  compare  the  given  as  it  is  given  with  the  object  as  he  just 
then,  in  his  momentary  perception,  takes  it  to  be  real.  Let  him  still 
further  explain,  if  he  can  and  will,  how  this  object  which,  at  the 
"moment  of  perception,"  he  takes  to  be  real,  is  related  to  what  he,  as 
a  philosopher,  believes  to  be  the  really  real,  the  genuine  fact  which 
lies  at  the  basis  both  of  his  perception,  and  of  the  given,  and  of  his 
momentary  beliefs  about  "what  is  there."  If  the  discussion  is  de- 
fined, upon  the  basis  of  such  a  beginning,  in  such  wise  as  to  call  for 
still  further  comments  upon  known  issues — let  the  disputant  coop- 
erate, if  he  will  and  can,  by  meeting  these  further  issues.  A  discus- 
sion thus  defined  will  indeed,  as  I  firmly  believe,  actually  illustrate 
the  thesis  that,  for  any  percipient  who  wakes  up  to  what  he  is  be- 
lieving and  is  doing,  the  being  of  the  object  of  perception  will  either 
consist  in  or  essentially  involve  the  truth  of  certain  propositions 
(some  of  them  universal),  each  of  which  defines  this  or  that  aspect  of 
the  object.  Since  such  truths  by  their  nature  exclude  the  possibility 
of  their  ever  being  given  at  any  moment  in  "the  stream  of  percep- 
tions" of  any  human  being,  the  object  of  perception  will  never  be 
anything  that  is  given  in  the  personal  experience  of  any  one  of  us. 
Yet  the  correct  result  will  not  be  (in  my  own  opinion)  what  the  Com- 
mittee defines  as  ' '  epistemological  dualism  and  realism. ' '  It  will  be 
a  result  dependent  upon  one 's  definition  of  the  truth  of  propositions. 
Hence,  for  me,  this  result  will  be  a  form  of  idealism  which  here  does 
not  concern  my  reader. 

But  the  essential  practical  point  is  that,  while  a  discussion  thus 
initiated  would  need  to  be  restricted  by  rules  and  definitions,  so  as 
to  keep  all  concerned  close  to  the  issue  and  in  constant  cooperation, 
there  would  now  be  no  need  and  little  danger  of  defining  the  issue 
or  the  rules  or  the  cooperation  so  as  to  exclude  anybody  whose 
views  are  seriously  represented  in  classic  or  current  philosophical 
discussion. 

Following  the  Secretary's  admirable  suggestion,  I  propose  then, 
for  the  planning  of  our  future  discussions,  a  mode  of  procedure  that 


100  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

in  its  origin  goes  back  at  least  to  Socrates  or  even  to  Zeno  of  Elea, 
and  that,  in  its  more  exact  and  exacting  restrictions,  is  well  exem- 
plified in  the  procedure  of  some  modern  mathematical  logicians.  It 
is  this : 

1.  Define  your  problem  as  far  as  possible  by  designating  typical 
examples.     Socrates  did  this,  and  was  a  model  for  all  of  us.     Even 
the  Eleatic  Zeno  did  it  in  his  famous  discussion  of  one  of  the  most 
abstract  of  problems,  and  the  issue  as  he  defined  it  still  interests  us 
to-day.     Our  Secreatry  proposes  to  do  this  sort  of  thing  in  preparing 
our  future  discussions.     I  second  the  suggestion.     The  Committee's 
report  did  not  exhaust  this  device  before  proceeding  to  the  more 
abstract  definitions  that  it  had  to  provide.     Hence  these  definitions 
were  not  all  well  adapted  to  their  own  end. 

2.  When  designation  by  example  has  done  its  work,  and  when 
you  come  to  the  marshaling  of  the  various  possible  varieties  of 
opinion  which  you  regard  as  worthy  of  discussion,  it  is  of  course 
natural  to  divide  some  universe  of  discourse  into  classes,  and  then 
to  enumerate  the  possible  views  by  pointing  out  the  logically  possible 
relations  amongst  these  classes.     But,  when  you  do  this,  do  not 
ignore  those   most  momentous   aspects  of  modern   exact  theories, 
namely,  the  "existence-theorems,"  or  "existential  postulates,"  and 
their  contradictories  (the  assertions  that  declare  or  deny  some  of  your 
defined  classes  to  be  "zero-classes").     Consider  carefully,  in  the 
light  both  of  formal  logic  and  of  the  history  of  opinion,  what  alterna- 
tives regarding  such  assertions  or  denials — what  questions  as  to 
whether  one  or  another  of  your  defined  classes  has  members — are 
assertions  or  questions  open  to  reasonable  differences  of  opinion. 
This  is  a  centrally  important  rule  for  every  exact  inquiry,  and  is 
greatly  emphasized  in  the  recent  procedure  of  the  logical  theorists. 

These  are  not  all  the  rules  that  ought  to  be  followed  by  a  com- 
mittee on  definitions.  But  they  are  good  rules,  and  practical  rules. 
The  Committee,  on  this  occasion,  did  not  follow  them. 

May  our  future  discussions  be  controlled  by  committees  on  defini- 
tions! That  is  a  wise  plan.  May  the  discussions  prosper!  That  is 
a  good  hope.  May  the  committees  be  as  successful  in  practise  as  the 
present  Committee  was  earnest  and  faithful  in  its  intentions  and  in 
its  toils.  My  carping  words  are  ended. 

JOSIAH  ROYCB. 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         101 


SOCIETIES 

ELEVENTH  ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
PHILOSOPHICAL  ASSOCIATION 

fTlHE  eleventh  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Philosophical  As- 
-L  sociation,  held  at  Harvard  University,  December  27,  28,  and 
29,  was  remarkable  in  two  respects :  First,  for  what  it  purposed  but 
did  not  accomplish;  second,  for  the  unmistakable  promise  of  a  new 
type  of  accomplishment  at  future  sessions.  A  committee  of  five  had, 
with  elaborate  care,  formulated  and  defined  the  main  issue  for  dis- 
cussion, and  this  same  committee,  with  the  exception  of  the  ex  officio 
member,  had  undertaken  to  debate  this  issue.  It  was  hoped  that  by 
this  means  the  discussion  would  be  so  narrowed  that  it  would  result 
either  in  clearly  defined  agreement  or  in  equally  clearly  defined  dis- 
agreement. This  hope  was  far  from  realized.  The  debate  was  not  a 
sharp  presentation  of  counter  positions,  but  rather  a  presentation  of 
the  more  or  less  complex  and  involved  views  of  the  individual  de- 
baters upon  the  various  issues  in  question.  The  discussion  which  fol- 
lowed was  hardly  less  nebulous.  In  great  part  it  was  a  discussion  of 
what  the  discussion  ought  to  have  been  but  was  not.  But  out  of  the 
confusion  and  relative  failure  of  the  debate — the  "riot  of  philo- 
sophic anarchy,"  as  one  of  the  members  expressed  it — the  opinion 
strongly  emerged  that  the  method  of  debating  a  clearly  formulated 
issue  should  by  all  means  be  continued  as  by  far  the  most  profitable 
mode  of  philosophic  discussion.  To  that  end,  the  committee  of  five 
was  continued  in  office  with  instructions  to  draw  up  a  plan  for  the 
next  meeting  along  lines  similar  to  those  laid  down  for  this  year's 
meeting.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  lessons  of  this  year  will  aid  the 
committee  in  outlining  a  plan  such  as  will  make  possible  both  a 
sharper  joining  of  issue  and  a  clearer  effort  of  cooperation. 

The  first  paper  of  the  session  was  read  by  Dr.  Durant  Drake  on 
."What  Kind  of  Realism?"  Epistemological  monism,  he  held,  in- 
volves the  giving  up  of  the  conception  of  a  single  temporal-spatial 
order  into  which  all  known  facts  fit;  whereas  the  form  of  realism 
which  accepts  epistemological  dualism  can  put  all  facts  into  one 
natural  order,  and  is  therefore  in  so  far  more  plausible. 

Professor  Montague  presented  three  objections  to  the  panpsy- 
chist  view  of  Dr.  Drake:  (1)  The  view  offers  no  explanation  of  the 
mind's  consciousness  of  other  minds  as  such;  (2)  it  does  not  justify 
the  differences  found  in  the  forms  of  the  external  world;  (3)  it  is 
a  self-refuting  system  in  so  far  as,  taking  its  stand  upon  the  facts  of 
physics  and  physiology,  it  then  informs  us  that  these  facts  do  not 
exist.  Dr.  Drake  in  answer  found  no  difficulty  in  the  view  that 


102  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

minds  are  known  as  true  parts  of  the  natural  world,  but  under  the 
form  of  brain  processes. 

Professor  Creighton  followed  with  a  paper  on  "The  Determina- 
tion of  the  Real  World."  This  process  of  determination,  he  held, 
consists  in  following  and  interpreting  the  findings  of  experience, 
which  involves  the  relation  of  a  mind  or  consciousness  to  a  real 
world  of  persons  and  things.  To  be  a  mind  is  just  to  stand  in  this 
relation  of  active  appreciation  and  interpretation  of  real  objects.  If 
knowledge  is  genuine,  the  categories  are  constituent  principles  of 
things,  as  well  as  forms  of  mind.  This  makes  unnecessary  all  at- 
tempts to  get  rid  of  knowledge  in  order  to  have  the  object  in  its 
purity.  To  report  the  nature  of  reality  as  a  whole,  a  synthesis  of  re- 
sults is  needed,  which  can  be  achieved  only  by  taking  account  of  the 
processes  of  knowing  through  which  the  results  of  the  special  sci- 
ences are  gained  and  reinterpreting  these  results  and  methods  in  the 
light  of  consciousness. 

Professor  Perry,  in  opening  the  discussion  of  the  paper,  charged 
the  reader  with  begging  the  question  in  his  statement  that  philos- 
ophy is  the  adoption  of  the  standpoint  of  experience,  meaning  by 
experience  that  which  involves  the  duality  of  subject  and  object. 
For  in  saying  this  Professor  Creighton  answers  at  the  outset  the 
question  that  is  really  most  interesting  to  us.  Furthermore,  the  as- 
sumption of  subject-object  duality  is  a  dangerous  one,  in  so  far  as  it 
tends  to  make  the  two  correlated  terms  final.  Most  of  the  difficulty, 
he  asserted,  arises  out  of  the  occupation  with  abstract  terms  rather 
than  with  concrete  situations.  Miss  Calkins  thereupon  rose  and 
added  humor  to  the  situation  by  expressing  her  delight  at  being  at 
last  in  agreement  with  Professor  Perry  and  admonishing  him  to 
forego  his  own  evil  way  of  using  such  abstract  terms  as  R  and  8 
and  0. 

Professor  Dewey  seemed  to  find  that  Professor  Creighton,  after 
having  declared  mind  to  be  a  meaning  and  evaluation  of  existence, 
had  substituted  the  declaration  that  it  was  a  principle  of  meaning. 

Professor  Creighton,  in  replying,  admitted  frankly  that  he  saw 
no  way  out  of  begging  the  question  as  to  the  initial  duality  of  sub- 
ject and  real  world.  He  failed  indeed  to  see  how  the  realists  them- 
selves could  escape  making  the  assumption. 

Professor  Lovejoy  propounded  two  questions  to  Professor 
Creighton:  (1)  Whether  he  regarded  the  existence  of  the  object  in 
the  experience  relation  as  essential  to  the  being  of  the  object.  To 
this  Professor  Creighton  answered  that  he  did  so  regard  it  in  so  far 
as  the  relation  was  internal.  (2)  If  the  object  is,  in  this  experience, 
truly  revealed  as  it  is,  what  does  the  object  suffer  if  the  conscious- 
ness is  taken  away!  Professor  Creighton  answered:  If  one  asks 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         103 

what  would  happen  if  my  individual  consciousness  were  withdrawn, 
the  answer  would  be  "nothing."  But  if  one  asks  what  would 
happen  if  all  relation  to  any  possible  mind  were  withdrawn,  the 
answer  would  be  that  no  answer  is  possible. 

Professor  Marvin  followed  with  a  paper  on  "Dogmatism  vs. 
Criticism."  The  present-day  issue  usually  called  that  between 
realism  and  idealism  should  rather  be  named  that  between  dogma- 
tism and  criticism.  By  criticism  is  meant  the  doctrine  which  asserts 
one  or  more  of  the  following  propositions:  (a)  The  theory  of  knowl- 
edge is  logically  prior  to  all  other  sciences  or  to  all  other  scientific 
procedure;  (6)  the  theory  of  knowledge  can  ascertain  the  limits  of 
the  field  of  possible  knowledge;  (c)  it  can  ascertain  ultimately  the 
validity  of  science  and  of  the  methods  of  science;  (d)  it  can  give  us 
of  itself  certain  fundamental  existential  truths  usually  called  a 
theory  of  reality.  In  opposition,  dogmatism  asserts:  (a)  The  theory 
of  knowledge  is  not  logically  fundamental;  it  is  simply  one  of  the 
special  sciences  and  logically  presupposes  the  results  of  many  other 
special  sciences;  (6)  the  theory  of  knowledge  can  not  show  except 
inductively  and  empirically  either  what  knowledge  is  possible,  or  how 
it  is  possible,  or  again  what  are  the  limits  of  our  knowledge;  (c)  it  is 
not  able  to  throw  any  light  upon  the  nature  of  the  existent  world 
or  upon  the  fundamental  postulates  and  generalizations  of  science 
except  in  so  far  as  the  knowledge  of  one  natural  event  or  object 
enables  us  at  times  to  make  inferences  regarding  certain  others.  As 
a  consequence  of  this  difference  in  doctrine  the  realist  has  a  very 
different  interest  in  the  theory  of  knowledge  itself  from  that  of  the 
idealist.  The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  is  that  the  name  neo-dogma- 
tism  would  be  a  far  more  appropriate  name  for  the  movement  in 
opposition  to  idealism  than  the  name  neo-realism. 

Miss  Case,  reverting  to  Professor  Creighton's  paper  and  refer- 
ring to  the  call  to  "dogmatism,"  expressed  her  belief  that  every 
philosophic  position  is  an  attitude,  an  assumption,  and  therefore  es- 
sentially and  necessarily  a  begging  of  the  question.  Professor 
Creighton  felt  that  a  return  to  dogmatism  would  eliminate  the  char- 
acteristic quality  of  modern  philosophy.  Philosophy  must  have  a 
criterion  for  distinguishing  between  true  and  false  ideas,  hence  must 
be  criticism.  Professor  Marvin,  answering  Miss  Case,  agreed  that 
we  must  start  with  premises,  but  only  as  postulates,  not  as  final 
truths.  He  summed  up  his  position  by  asking  whether  the  problem 
of  how  we  know  is  to  be  made  the  great  crucial  problem  in  the 
theory  of  reality,  or  whether  the  sciences  are  to  be  permitted  to 
forge  ahead  in  their  own  way. 

At  the  afternoon  session,  the  debate  proper  on  "The  Relation  of 
Consciousness  and  Object  in  Sense  Perception"  was  begun.  Pro- 


104  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

fessor  Montague  opened  the  debate  with  an  impartial  historical 
sketch  of  the  development  of  the  epistemological  issue  between  real- 
ism and  idealism  in  modern  philosophy  and  then  proceeded  to  de- 
velop his  own  argument  in  behalf  of  epistemological  monism  and 
realism.  He  held  that  the  independent  existence  of  perceived  ob- 
jects was  evidenced  by  their  behavior  as  common  sense  and  science 
regard  it,  and  in  so  far  as  physiological  theories  of  perception  imply 
the  prior  existence  of  the  objects  perceived.  The  ordinary  objec- 
tions to  realism  and  the  supposed  axiomatic  proof  of  idealism,  he 
held,  were  based  on  a  "verbal  fallacy  of  psychophysical  metonymy," 
t.  e.,  equivocal  use  of  such  words  as  "idea,"  "perception,"  "experi- 
ence," to  connote  (1)  the  act  or  relation  of  thinking,  perceiving, 
experiencing;  (2)  the  thing  or  object  thought  of,  perceived,  experi- 
enced. While  at  the  point  of  beginning  the  exposition  of  a  new  so- 
lution of  the  problem  of  error,  Professor  Montague  was  cut  short  by 
the  time  limit. 

Professor  Dickinson  S.  Miller  followed  with  the  second  paper  of 
the  debate.  In  the  first  part  of  his  paper  he  outlined  certain  well- 
known  positions  of  idealism  which  he  held  must  be  dismissed.  Pro- 
ceeding to  the  consideration  of  neo-realism,  he  pointed  out  that  the 
doctrine  which  neo-realism  in  the  main  defends  is  immediate  or 
so-called  naive  realism.  (It  is  not  real  naive  realism,  which  is  in 
fact  a  latent  idealism.)  But  this  species  of  presentative  realism 
breaks  down  for  three  reasons  amongst  others:  (a)  the  time  taken  in 
perception  proves  that  the  perceived  object  is  not  identical  with  the 
real  object;  (ft)  the  fact  of  illusion  proves  that  the  perceived  object 
is  not  identical  with  the  real  object;  (c)  the  theory  would  oblige  us 
to  hold  that  when  two  people  side  by  side  look  at  the  same  object 
much  of  the  object  is  actually  present  in  these  two  fields  of  con- 
sciousness at  once.  In  conclusion,  Professor  Miller  held  that  an 
object  can  not  become  a  content  of  consciousness  as  an  object. 
Objectivity  is  by  its  very  nature  a  matter  of  properties  in  the  object 
that  can  not  be  revealed  in  one  instant  nor  even  in  a  minute  span  of 
time.  Objectivity  means  a  potentiality  of  certain  further  manifesta- 
tions. A  perception  is  an  impression  plus  a  readiness  to  behave  in 
a  certain  fashion.  Thus,  an  object  can  not,  as  such,  be  a  given  or 
"perceived"  object. 

Professor  Lovejoy  followed  with  a  paper  which  concerned  itself 
solely  with  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  historic  discovery  of 
the  subjectivity  of  hallucinations,  illusions,  and  dreams.  While  all 
typical  new  realists  agree  in  denying  that  the  objects  and  qualities 
presented  in  hallucination  or  illusory  perception  are  "subjective 
existences"  merely,  they  differ  as  to  whether  those  objects  are 
"real"  or  "unreal"  (in  the  sense  suggested  by  the  committee). 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         105 

Nunn,  and  apparently  Alexander,  and  other  English  realists,  de- 
clare that,  e.  g.,  the  ' '  straight  staff  bent  in  a  pool ' '  does  not  ' '  merely 
seem  to  be  bent,"  but  that  it  really  "is  bent."  This  view,  which 
may  be  called  absolute  objectivism,  appears  to  the  writer  the  con- 
sistent one  for  this  school  to  take.  For  the  essence  of  the  new  real- 
ism is  its  conception  of  consciousness  as  an  external  and  non-consti- 
tutive relation.  But  this  conception  implies  that  all  objects  and 
qualities  actually  presented  in  consciousness  are,  in  a  universal 
sense,  real  things  in  a  real  relation.  But  this  consequence  of  the 
new  realism  requires  us  to  assert  contradictory  predicates  of  the 
same  object;  to  say  that,  e.  g.,  the  staff  in  the  pool  is  at  once  both 
straight  and  not  straight.  Unless  absolute  objectivism  can  give  us 
a  new  theory  of  the  logical  relation  of  sensible  "attributes"  to  the 
objects  possessing  them,  this  seems  a  fatal  objection  to  that  doctrine, 
and  therefore  to  the  relational  theory  of  consciousness,  and  therefore 
to  the  new  realism  (i.  e.,  the  combination  of  realism  with  epistemo- 
logical  monism). 

Professor  Thilly,  in  closing  the  debate,  held  that  the  answer  to 
the  question  of  consciousness  as  a  factor  in  the  perceptual  situation 
which  is  given  by  radical  realists  follows  necessarily  from  their 
naive  dogmatism:  if  the  object  perceived  is  the  object  unperceived, 
numerically  identical  with  it,  then  there  is  no  difference  between  the 
status  of  an  object  in  a  stream  of  perceptions  and  its  status  out  of  it. 
But  here  the  biological  theories  of  these  thinkers  suggest  conclusions 
inconsistent  with  their  radical  premises.  Physically  and  physiolog- 
ically speaking,  perception  is  the  entire  organism  in  interaction  or 
relation  with  its  environment;  we  can  not  single  out  any  one  partic- 
ular element  in  the  situation  and  call  that  the  physical  or  physiolog- 
ical counterpart  of  the  process  of  perception.  No  more  can  we,  in 
speaking  of  perception  as  a  mental  event,  abstract  the  so-called  per- 
ceived object  from  the  functions  involved,  in  the  hope  that  we  may 
in  this  way  get  at  the  case  of  being,  or  discover  the  object  exactly  as 
it  would  be  apart  from  any  perceiver.  We  may  say  that  in  the  per- 
ceptual situation  an  object  is  revealed,  made  manifest,  but  we  may 
also  say  that  much  that  appears  belongs  to  the  mental  realm,  is  read 
into  the  object,  sometimes  truly,  sometimes  not.  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  mind  alters  the  real  object  or  that  it  creates  an  object  out  of 
nothing  or  that  the  object  creates  a  picture  of  itself  in  the  mind  or 
that  the  object  lies  imbedded  in  the  mind.  All  that  we  can  say  is 
that  a  conscious  organism  perceives  a  real  object  in  a  certain  way, 
according  to  the  mental  and  physical  factors  involved. 

Professor  McGilvary  presented  a  close-packed  ten-minute  paper 
in  which  he  argued,  among  other  things,  that  the  relational  view  of 
consciousness  is  compatible  with  the  recognition  that  the  same  real 


106  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

object  is  in  different  consciousnesses;  that  an  hallucinatory  object 
occupies  real  space,  but  does  not  monopolize  it ;  in  other  words,  that 
impenetrability  is  not  a  universal  characteristic  of  space-occupying 
things;  that  color-blindness  is  explicable  on  the  relational  theory  of 
consciousness  as  due  to  the  fact  that  the  real  brightness  of  a  real  ob- 
ject is  selected  to  be  a  term  of  a  consciousness  relation,  while  the 
color  of  the  real  object  is  left  out  of  the  consciousness  complex. 

In  the  evening,  the  Harvard  members  of  the  Association  enter- 
tained the  visiting  members  at  dinner  at  the  Colonial  Club.  Pro- 
fessor Perry  introduced  President  Lowell,  who  welcomed  the  Associa- 
tion with  felicitous  humor;  to  which  President  Woodbridge  replied 
in  happy  vein.  After  the  dinner  a  reception  was  tendered  at  the 
Harvard  Union. 

The  session  Thursday  morning  was  opened  by  Dr.  H.  R.  Mar- 
shall's paper  on  the  general  topic.  Dr.  Marshall  argued  that  in  his 
appreciation  of  a  natural  order  as  distinguished  from  a  mental 
order,  the  natural  man  accepts  naively  a  radical  dualism.  But 
further  consideration  indicates  some  manner  of  correlation  between 
the  two  orders.  Objects  in  the  outer  world  may  become  images  of 
the  mental  order  by  the  loss  of  some  certain  characteristic,  viz.,  that 
of  "out-thereness."  This  suggests  that  the  natural  order  may  be 
really  part  of  and  within  the  mental  order,  a  part  which  has  this 
"out-thereness"  characteristic,  which  the  rest  of  the  mental  world 
has  not.  This  view  he  would  call  introspective  monism. 

The  meeting  was  then  thrown  open  to  general  discussion.  The 
prevailing  note  was  one  of  criticism  of  the  conduct  of  the  debate. 
Mr.  Pitkin  expressed  himself  as  grievously  disappointed  in  so  far 
as  the  specific  empirical  problems  raised  for  debate  had  been  passed 
over.  No  one  had  attempted  to  define  accurately  the  term  "numer- 
ical identity"  contained  in  the  first  question  propounded  for  debate. 
Numerical  identity,  he  thought,  might  be  defined  in  one  of  two  ways, 
of  which  he  felt  that  the  latter  would  be  the  more  profitable,  viz., 
(1)  identity  with  respect  to  quantity,  or  order,  or  place  in  a  series; 
or  (2)  identity  with  respect  to  one  value  in  a  space,  time,  or  other 
dimensional  complex.  With  respect  to  the  second  question  pro- 
pounded, he  felt  that  the  result  had  been  even  less  happy,  by  reason 
of  the  absence  of  any  clear  definition  of  "object"  and  "perception." 

Dr.  Cohen  gave  point  to  the  discussion  by  disagreeing  with 
Professor  Miller  that  the  neo-realist  account  of  a  stick  appearing  in 
water  as  bent  was  a  self-contradiction.  There  was  no  reason,  he 
held,  why  the  same  thing  should  not  possess  contradictory  proper- 
ties; it  was  only  necessary  that  these  should  not  be  contradictory 
from  the  same  point  of  view.  With  respect  to  a  straight  line,  for 
example,  there  are  an  infinite  number  of  points  of  view — length, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          107 

angle,  etc. — from  which  the  line  may  be  viewed.  It  is  fallacious  to 
suppose  that  the  only  relevant  point  of  view  is  that  of  the  observer. 
So  the  same  stick  may  appear  in  a  number  of  different  combinations 
according  as  we  take  our  point  of  reference.  In  short,  then,  the 
existence  of  a  thing  is  a  general  formula  for  all  possible  points 
of  view. 

Dr.  Spaulding  followed  Dr.  Pitkin  in  the  thought  that  the  debate 
had  failed  to  grapple  with  two  essential  issues :  What  is  the  differ- 
ence between  a  primary  quality  when  it  is  perceived  and  when  it  is 
not  perceived ;  and  what  is  the  status  of  the  entity  which  makes  the 
difference?  Professor  Love  joy,  he  felt,  had  attempted  a  reply  by 
making  consciousness  the  dumping-ground  into  which  one  put  every- 
thing that  one  could  not  put  into  the  real  world.  He  urged  that  the 
Association  proceed  at  once  to  the  discussion  of  the  two  main  issues. 
Whereupon  Professor  Warbeke,  taking  him  at  his  word,  with  some 
humor,  asked  that  Dr.  Spaulding  undertake  what  he  had  so  wisely 
proposed.  Dr.  Spaulding,  accepting  the  challenge,  replied  briefly 
that  the  brownness  of  the  desk,  for  example,  remains  the  same 
whether  perceived  or  unperceived;  that  its  perception,  in  short, 
consists  simply  in  the  desk's  entering  another  relationship  which 
does  not  alter  or  modify  it.  Professor  Dewey  felt  that  the  main 
trouble  with  the  discussion  was  due  to  the  character  of  the  com- 
mittee's report,  with  which  Professor  Lovejoy  took  issue,  declaring 
that  the  purpose  of  the  committee  was  to  call  forth  a  consideration 
of  a  certain  doctrinal  combination,  viz.,  epistemological  monism  and 
realism.  Was  this  combination  an  internally  consistent  and  tenable 
view  ?  He  had  in  his  own  paper,  he  said,  proposed  a  test  question : 
whether  if  you  adhere  to  a  relational  theory  of  consciousness  you 
can  give  any  intelligible  account  of  hallucinations  and  illusions.  He 
felt  that  the  neo-realist  must,  to  be  consistent,  admit  that  hallucina- 
tions are  real  in  the  same  sense  as  any  other  content.  Professor 
Thilly  expressed  his  disappointment  with  the  discussion,  asserting 
that  the  realist  had  no  theory  of  perception,  that  he  just  took  objects 
as  they  were.  This  he  felt  to  be  an  utterly  futile  form  of  dogmatism. 

Professor  Perry  urged  that  the  real  point  at  issue  in  the  discus- 
sion was  between  monism  and  dualism,  between  the  view,  namely, 
that  the  difference  between  perceived  objects  and  real  objects  is  an 
absolute  difference,  a  difference  of  substance,  and  the  view  that  the 
difference  was  not  an  absolute  one.  In  view  of  their  common 
monistic  tendency  he  felt  that  realists  and  idealists  might  form  one 
party.  Professor  Marvin  found  that  the  chief  shortcoming  of  the 
discussion  lay  in  the  confusion  of  meaning  of  "real"  and  "error." 
Real  objects  had  been  defined  as  true  parts  of  the  material  world. 
But  the  confusion  lay  in  defining  material  on  the  one  hand  in  terms 


108  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  abstract  dynamics,  and  on  the  other  in  terms  of  concrete  experi- 
ence. With  reference  to  "error,"  some  of  the  speakers  had  seemed 
to  look  upon  error  as  the  act  of  assigning  a  particular  content  to  the 
real  material  world  or  not  so  assigning  it.  On  the  contrary,  he  held, 
error  lies  rather  in  asserting  a  particular  form  of  relation  between 
one  content  and  another  which  does  not  in  fact  obtain.  Professor 
DeLaguna  attempted  by  a  concrete  demonstration  to  indicate  the 
difference  which  the  scientist  conceives  between  secondary  and  pri- 
mary qualities.  The  scientist,  he  held,  never  expressed  what  the 
qualities  were,  but  described  them  simply  in  terms  of  the  test  of 
double  contact. 

Professor  Tufts  felt  that  the  test  for  a  true  object  is  a  test  by 
various  sciences:  what  on  the  whole  is  the  more  permanent  object, 
the  one  that  we  can  do  business  with,  etc.  ?  It  is  obvious  that  we  can 
not  assert  numerical  identity  between  perceived  and  real  objects  in 
all  cases.  He  wondered  whether  Professor  McGilvary's  view  would 
imply  that  the  same  desk  might  be  all  the  various  possible  shades  of 
brown.  Professor  McGilvary  answered  Yes  and  No.  If  we  mean 
by  the  question  whether  in  the  space  in  which  we  see  the  colors  all 
colors  are,  we  must  answer  yes ;  but  in  so  far  as  they  are  in  different 
relational  contexts,  we  must  answer  no.  It  is  by  holding  fast  to 
distinctions  of  relational  contexts  that  one  avoids  contradictions. 

Miss  Calkins,  referring  to  Professor  Marvin's  paper,  hoped  that 
the  realists  would  follow  its  suggestion  that  the  task  of  philosophy 
was  the  logical  criticism  of  scientific  conceptions.  She  felt  that 
realism  must  make  its  position  good  not  simply  by  appealing  to  the 
sciences,  but  by  actively  entering  upon  the  task  of  logical  criticism 
of  scientific  conceptions  and  results.  Miss  Calkins  felt  that  the  real 
source  of  confusion  among  philosophers  was  their  constant  use  of 
abstract  terms,  that  is,  terms  like  "table,"  etc.,  in  which  the  self  was 
abstracted  from.  Professor  Norman  Smith  rose  to  criticize  what 
seemed  to  be  the  aim  of  the  whole  discussion.  It  seemed  to  be  ar- 
ranged in  such  manner  that  agreement  should  be  reached,  as  in  the 
sciences.  This,  he  felt,  was  seriously  to  confuse  philosophic  with 
scientific  method.  The  question,  What  is  the  object  when  unper- 
ceived?  Professor  Smith  thought  to  be  a  futile  question.  The  real 
question  that  we  should  ask  is,  How  do  we  conceive  the  object  when 
un  perceived  T 

Professor  Dewey,  reverting  to  the  question  of  the  bent  stick  and 
the  apparent  contradiction  between  its  bentness  and  straightness, 
approved  of  Dr.  Cohen's  position.  The  difficulty,  he  thought,  lay 
in  treating  the  perception  as  a  real  object  rather  than  as  various 
systems  of  relations.  The  visual  bentness  of  the  stick,  a  real  fact  of 
optics,  in  nowise  contradicts  its  tactual  straightness.  Professor 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         109 

Perry,  replying  to  Miss  Calkins,  saw  no  reason  why  "table"  was  an 
abstract  term  because  the  self  was  abstracted  from.  If  this  was  so, 
the  only  way  of  being  concrete  was  to  talk  about  everything.  Pro- 
fessor Creighton,  in  summing  up  the  discussion,  felt  that  there  was 
need  for  some  fundamentally  new  understanding  of  what  body  is. 
Professor  Pitkin  set  the  fundamental  problem  to  be  whether  any 
function  of  a  variable  real  should  be  regarded  as  a  predicate  of 
that  real. 

The  afternoon  session  was  opened  with  a  paper  by  Professor  G. 
R.  Montgomery  on  "The  Meaning  of  Evolution."  Professor  Mont- 
gomery pointed  out  the  two  meanings  of  evolution,  (1)  that  which 
asserts  merely  a  continuity  of  material  and  living  objects;  (2)  that 
which  regards  the  present  as  the  unfolding  of  the  past.  He  sug- 
gested that  the  word  evolution  should  be  restricted  to  the  second, 
while  a  new  word  should  be  found  to  express  the  first  meaning. 

Professor  Montgomery's  paper  was  followed  by  a  paper  on  "The 
Progress  of  Evolution ' '  by  Professor  A.  C.  Armstrong.  Considering 
the  progress  of  evolution  from  the  point  of  view  of  noetics,  Professor 
Armstrong  laid  special  stress  upon  the  fact  that  the  relation  of  the 
concepts  of  genesis,  nature,  and  worth  had  not  yet  been  adequately 
considered. 

The  last  paper  of  the  afternoon  was  by  Professor  I.  "Woodbridge 
Riley  on  "Early  Evolution  in  America." 

The  discussion  of  these  papers  was  desultory.  At  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  session  the  business  meeting  convened.  The  following 
officers  for  the  ensuing  year  were  elected:  president,  Frank  Thilly, 
vice-president,  Norman  Kemp  Smith;  secretary,  Edward  G.  Spaul- 
ding;  new  members  of  the  executive  committee,  W.  B.  Pitkin  and 
E.  A.  Singer,  Jr. 

Professor  Dewey  read  resolutions  in  memory  of  Professor  James, 
which  were  adopted  in  silence  by  a  standing  vote.  The  question 
of  the  place  of  meeting  for  1912  was  referred  to  the  executive  com- 
mittee with  power,  with  the  recommendation  that  the  meeting  be 
held  at  such  a  place  as  to  make  possible  the  attendance  of  Professor 
Bergson. 

In  the  evening,  Professor  Woodbridge  read  his  presidential 
address  on  "Evolution."  As  the  address  is  to  appear  in  full,  it 
will  be  needless  to  summarize  it  in  this  place. 

The  last  morning  of  the  meeting  was  occupied  with  four  papers, 
which  must  be  summarized  very  briefly.  Mrs.  Christine  Ladd- 
Franklin  opened  the  session  with  a  paper  on  "Existence  in  Logic," 
in  which  she  maintained  that  modern  logic  had  introduced  (in  the 
hands  of  Bertrand  Russell)  many  vagaries  which  the  philosopher 
will  do  well  not  to  take  too  seriously.  Thus  to  set  up  "p  implies  q" 


110  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

as  the  type  of  the  logic  process  and  to  regard  it  as  capable  of  throw- 
ing light  upon  problems  is  an  error.     It  would  be  far  better  to  take 
as  the  type-relation  one  of  those  in  which  the  existence-term  which 
is  always  present  is  present  explicitly.     After  some  discussion,  Dr. 
Morris  R.  Cohen  followed  with  a  paper  on  "Mechanism  and  Causal- 
ity in  the  Litfht  of  Recent  Physics."     The  belief,  he  held,  that  all 
physical  phenomena  must  be  explicable  in  terms  of  mechanics  rests 
as  a  matter  of  fact  on  the  doctrine  of  the  subjectivity  of  secondary 
qualities.      Recent  progress  in  physics  seems  to  indicate  that  the 
laws  of  mechanics  are  not  of  universal  application,  t.  e.,  do  not  hold 
of  very  large  velocities  nor  of  very  small  bodies,  and  it  may  be  neces- 
sary to  base   mechanics  on  electricity  rather   than   electricity   on 
mechanics.      Distinguishing  between  mechanism  and  determinism, 
the  paper  went  on  to  show  that  the  statistical  view  of  physics  enables 
us  to  dispense  with  the  notion  of  causality  and  to  replace  it  with  the 
wider  and  more  definite  idea  of  functional  relation,  in  the  mathe- 
matical sense,  between  phenomena.      In  the  subsequent  discussion 
with  Professor  Royce,   Dr.   Cohen   insisted  that  the  mathematical 
treatment  of  physical  phenomena  does  not  necessarily  make  them  a 
part  of  mechanics.      Professor  Sheldon  followed  with  a  paper  on 
"Chance,"  which  aimed  to  show  that  chance,  as  an  empirical  con- 
cept, is  just  as  real  as  cause,  space,  quantity,  or  other  accredited 
scientific  categories.     The  final  paper  of  the  morning  was  by  Dr. 
Karl  Schmidt  on  "The  Nature  and  Function  of  Definition  in  a 
Logical  System,"  in  which  the  writer  maintained,  as  against  the 
ordinary  modern  accounts  of  definition,  that  definition  is  of  indis- 
pensable use  in  a  deductive  system  because  it  introduces  into  that 
system  the  "new."     Professor  Royce  spoke  briefly  in  approval  of 
Dr.  Schmidt's  view.     After  some  brief  discussion  by  Mrs.  Franklin, 
Dr.  Cohen,  and  Professor  Royce,  the  meeting  adjourned. 

H.  A.   OVERSTREET. 

COLLEGE  or  THE  CITY  or  NEW  YORK. 


REVIEWS   AND   ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

Influencing  Men  in  Business.     WALTER  DILL  SCOTT.     New  York:  The 

Ronald  Press.    1911.    Pp.  168.    $1.00. 

This  readable  little  book  contains  an  analysis,  in  popular  language,  of 
typical  processes  of  choice  and  action,  and  a  comparison  of  argument  and 
suggestion  as  means  of  influencing  conduct.  Simple  business  situations 
are  cited  in  which  each  of  the  two  methods  of  appeal  is  most  likely  to 
meet  with  success.  The  ideo-motor  character  of  suggestion  is  empha- 
sized and  illustrations  of  both  argument  and  suggestion,  drawn  from 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         111 

advertising  sources,  are  discussed  in  much  the  same  vein  that  has  popu- 
larized the  author's  earlier  writings  among  the  ambitious  young  business 
men  to  whom  the  book  is  dedicated. 

The  chief  difficulty  with  this  type  of  "applied  psychology"  is  that 
while  classification  and  schematization  of  mental  operations  may  facili- 
tate the  recognition  of  one's  own  conscious  states,  it  goes  but  a  little 
way  toward  communicating  the  ability  to  set  up  these  processes  in  others. 
The  applied  psychology  which  will  really  contribute  toward  industrial 
efficiency  will  grow  out  of  the  application  of  laboratory  and  statistical 
method.  The  methods  of  inquiry  and  research  which  psychology  has  de- 
veloped can  be  made  to  yield  results  of  real  value  when  applied  to  the 
complex  process  of  every  day  life.  The  psychology  evolved  by  the  intro- 
spective method  can  never  be  in  the  true  sense  an  applied  science;  it  is 
at  most  an  academic  analysis  illustrated  by  industrial  instances.  Aside 
from  a  heightened  feeling  of  the  dignity  of  his  work,  the  real  advance 
which  the  man  of  business  can  expect  from  psychology  must  come  from 
his  acquaintance  with  experimental  technique.  There  are  countless  prob- 
lems in  the  efficient  production  and  distribution  of  goods  to  the  investi- 
gation of  which  such  technique  is  well  adapted.  Such  application  has  al- 
ready yielded  material  of  interest,  both  to  industry  and  to  science.  That 
the  practical  man  is  recognizing  this  fact  is  indicated  by  the  recent  es- 
tablishment, by  the  New  York  Advertising  Men's  League,  of  a  research 
fellowship  in  the  department  of  psychology  at  Columbia. 

H.   L.   HOLLINGWORTH. 

BARNARD  COLLEGE. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

REVUE  DE  METAPHYSIQUE  ET  DE  MORALE.  September, 
1911.  Husserl,  sa  critique  du  psyologisme  ei  sa  conception  d'une  logique 
pure  (pp.  685-698)  :  V.  DELBOS.  -  In  spite  of  certain  defects  in  its  develop- 
ment, Husserl's  logic  has  the  merit  of  rescuing  logic  from  the  corruptions 
of  pragmatism  and  restoring  it  to  its  essentially  theoretical  and  regulative 
function.  La  forme  moderne  du  probleme  des  universaux  (pp.  699-722) : 
CH.  DUNAN.  -  The  oppositions  in  the  views  of  the  realists,  nominalists,  and 
conceptualists  can  be  overcome  by  placing  the  principle  of  intelligibility 
in  the  object,  as  Aristotle  did,  instead  of  leaving  it  a  parte  rei,  as  was 
done  in  the  Middle  Ages.  La  generalisation  mathematique  (pp.  723-758)  : 
H.  DUFUMIER.  -  The  actual  process  of  generalization  is  the  process  of 
subordinating  objects  to  operations,  and  not  mere  omission  of  qualities 
of  the  object.  Le  caractere  normatif  et  le  caractere  scientifique  de  la 
morale  (pp.  759-779) :  FR.  D'  HAUTEFEUILLE.  -  Ethics,  to  remain  normative, 
must  give  up  the  pretense  of  being  scientific,  and  will  gain  by  so  doing. 
Etudes  critiques.  La  philosophic  du  langage  de  Julius  Bahnsen  d'apres 
des  documents  inedits:  MME.  I.  TALAYRACH.  Discussions.  Sur  un  aperc.u 
d'Ostwald  concernant  les  temps  a  plusieurs  dimensions:  G.  LECHALAS. 
Questions  pratiques.  La  famille  et  le  contrat:  E.  LEVY.  Supplement. 


112  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Amendola,  Giovanni.  Maine  De  Biran.  Firenze:  A.  Quattrini.  1911. 
Pp.  123. 

Angell,  James  Rowland.  Chapters  from  Modern  Psychology.  New 
York :  Longmans,  Green,  and  Co.  1912.  Pp.  rii  +  308. 

Leland,  Abby  Porter.  The  Educational  Theory  and  Practise  of  T.  H. 
Green.  Columbia  University  Contributions  to  Education.  No.  46. 
New  York:  Teachers  College.  1911.  Pp.  62. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

PROFESSOR  J.  McKEEN  CATTELL,  of  Columbia  University,  gave  the  foun- 
dation address  at  the  Indiana  University  on  the  morning  of  January 
nineteenth.  In  the  afternoon  he  spoke  before  the  faculties  on  "  Grades 
and  Credits,"  and  in  the  evening  addressed  the  Society  of  Sigma  Xi. 
On  January  twenty-second  he  gave  an  address  before  the  faculties  of  the 
University  of  Illinois  on  "  The  Administration  of  a  University,"  and  in 
the  evening  discussed  the  question  with  the  committee  charged  with 
framing  a  constitution  for  the  university.  On  January  fifth,  Professor 
Cattell  gave  an  address  at  Lehigh  University  and  at  Lafayette  College. 

ANNOUNCEMENT  has  been  made  that  the  formal  inauguration  of  Dr. 
John  Grier  Hibben  as  president  of  Princeton  University  will  take  place 
early  in  May.  Dr.  Hibben  will  continue  to  give  his  special  course  of  lec- 
tures on  philosophy  under  the  auspices  of  the  Graduate  School,  and  it  is 
expected  that  he  will  continue  to  give  at  least  one  course  to  the  under- 
graduates. 

THE  minister  of  education  has  laid  before  the  Hungarian  parliament 
a  bill  which  provides  for  the  erection  of  two  new  universities  in  Hungary, 
in  the  cities  of  Pressburg  and  Debreczin. 

M.  HENRI  BERGSON,  professor  of  philosophy  at  the  College  de  France, 
has  been  appointed  visiting  French  professor  of  Columbia  University  for 
the  year  1913. 

PROFESSOR  JOHN  B.  WATSON,  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  has  re- 
cently been  granted  a  three  years'  appointment  as  a  research  associate  of 
the  Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington. 

PROFESSOR  W.  P.  MONTAGUE,  of  the  department  of  philosophy  of  Co- 
lumbia University,  has  been  appointed  to  deliver  the  Hewitt  lectures  at 
Cooper  Union  in  the  spring  of  1913. 

PROFESSOR  WARNER  FITE,  of  the  University  of  Indiana,  is  lecturing  at 
Harvard  this  semester.  During  his  absence  his  work  at  Indiana  Univer- 
sity will  be  in  charge  of  Dr.  William  K.  Wright,  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  5.  FEBRUARY  29,  1912. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

rpHE  realist  platform  promulgated  in  this  JOURNAL,  and  the  dis- 
J-  cussions  to  which  it  has  since  given  rise,  have  led  me  to  try  to 
formulate  the  views  which  I  should  incline  to  defend.  I  do  not  un- 
fortunately myself  at  present  feel  anything  so  solid  as  a  platform 
beneath  my  feet.  In  this  paper  I  propose  to  describe  the  kind  of 
makeshift  raft  upon  which,  with  my  heart  in  my  mouth,  I  venture 
out  upon  the  stormy  sea  of  speculation.  My  views  are  more  negative 
than  positive,  but  the  negations  involve  assertions  sufficiently  defi- 
nite to  carry  me  into  waters  dangerously  deep,  or  else  perhaps  into 
befogged  shallows  where  rocks  abound.  The  reader  may  choose  the 
one  or  the  other  metaphor  according  as  what  follows  does  or  does  not 
meet  with  his  sympathetic  approval.  The  views  which  I  shall  de- 
velop, in  so  far  as  they  have  historical  affiliations,  are  chiefly  inspired 
by  two  thinkers,  one  older  and  one  contemporary,  by  Kant  and  by 
Bergson. 

For  me  personally,  the  chief  and  most  pressing  problem  in  the 
theory  of  knowledge  is  to  reconcile  objectivism  or  realism  with  phe- 
nomenalism, and  both  with  that  individualistic  standpoint  which  the 
nature  of  our  self-consciousness  seems  to  force  upon  each  of  us.  A 
satisfactory  theory  of  knowledge  must,  I  should  say,  be  at  once  real- 
istic, phenomenalistic,  and  individualistic.  Realistic,  because  sub- 
jectivism has  been  demonstrated  to  be  untenable.  Phenomenal- 
istic, because  it  seems  impossible  to  regard  the  world  known  in  sense 
perception,  or  even  in  the  natural  sciences,  as  any  thing  but  a  quite 
partial  and  very  imperfect  representation  of  the  real.  Individual- 
istic, because,  though  our  experience  reveals  a  wider  and  common 
world  to  which  we  belong  and  out  of  which  we  have  arisen,  its  com- 
plementary and  equally  striking  aspect  lies  in  the  privacy  of  the 
inner  life. 

The  general  problem  of  knowledge  accordingly  falls  into  two 
subordinate  problems,  each  of  which  has  its  own  peculiar  diffi- 
culties. First,  the  reconciliation  of  the  contention  that  we  apprehend 

113 


114  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

something  that  is  non-mental  with  recognition  of  the  fact  that  what 
we  apprehend  is  in  the  form  apprehended  not  genuinely  real.  Sec- 
ondly, the  reconciliation  of  both  objectivism  and  phenomenalism,  but 
especially  of  phenomenalism,  with  tin-  n -inurements  of  self-conscious- 
ness. I  say,  especially  of  phenomenalism,  because  if  the  phenome- 
nalism is  thoroughgoing  (and  it  must  be  if  we  are  really  to  steer 
clear  of  subjectivism),  it  will  apply  to  the  self  as  truly  as  to  the  not- 
self.  For  that  reason  it  seems  easier  to  combine  individualism  with 
subjectivism  than  with  phenomenalism.  Kant  and  Bergson  seem  to 
me  so  especially  helpful  in  this  inquiry  just  because  it  is  with  these 
two  problems  that  they  are  constantly  wrestling. 

Let  me,  at  starting,  indicate  in  the  briefest  manner  the  criticisms 
which  may  be  passed  upon  subjective  and  upon  objective  (or 
Hegelian)  idealism.  The  fundamental  objection  to  subjective  ideal- 
ism, as  found,  for  instance,  in  Locke's  philosophy,  is  that  it  sets  our 
representations  in  an  impossible  twofold  relation  to  objects,  first,  as 
their  mechanical  effects,  and  secondly,  as  their  apprehensions.  There 
exists,  on  this  view,  an  irresolvable  conflict  between  the  function  of 
sensations  and  their  origin.  The  function  of  sensations  is  cognitive ; 
their  origin  is  mechanical.  As  cognitive  they  stand  to  objects  in  a  re- 
lation of  inclusion.  They  reveal  the  objects,  reduplicating  them  in 
image  within  the  mind.  Yet  in  their  origin  they  are  effects,  mechan- 
ically generated  by  the  action  of  material  bodies  upon  the  sense  organs 
and  brain.  As  mechanical  effects,  there  is  no  guarantee  that  they  re- 
semble their  causes;  and  if  we  may  argue  from  other  forms  of  me- 
chanical causation,  there  is  little  likelihood  that  they  do.  They 
stand  to  their  first  causes  in  a  relation  of  exclusion,  separated  from 
them  by  a  large  number  of  varying  intermediate  processes.  There  is 
thus,  to  repeat,  a  conflict  between  their  function  and  their  origin. 
It  is  their  origin  in  the  external  objects  that  guarantees  their  valid- 
ity; and  yet  the  very  nature  of  this  relation  invalidates  their  cog- 
nitive claims.  It  can  also,  I  think,  be  shown  that  in  the  statement  of 
its  position,  subjective  idealism  is  guilty  of  arguing  from  a  realistic 
starting-point  to  an  idealistic  concluson  irreconcilable  therewith. 
This  is  especially  true  of  subjectivism  in  its  extreme  Berkeleian  form. 
That  argument  has,  however,  been  so  often  elaborated  that  its  repe- 
tition is  needless.1 

The  criticism  to  be  passed  upon  objective  idealism  is  of  a  different 
kind,  namely,  that  it  either  ignores  the  problem  of  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body,  or  else  gives  a  solution  which  is  quite  inadequate. 
It  proceeds  by  emphasizing  the  logical  relation  of  necessary  implica- 
tion which  holds  between  self-knowing  and  the  objects  known.  It 

1 1  hare  given  a  statement  of  it  in  an  article  in  the  Philosophical  Review, 
Vol.  XVII.,  p.  138  ff. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         115 

argues  that  it  is  the  very  nature  of  a  cognitive  process  to  transcend 
itself,  revealing  to  the  mind  real,  independent,  permanent  objects. 
The  distinction  between  subject  and  object  implies,  however,  an 
underlying  unity,  an  absolute  self-consciousness,  that  conditions  and 
unifies  both.  To  this  absolute  self-consciousness  sensations  and  all 
consciousnesses  are  due. 

Now,  even  supposing  that  these  relations  of  mutual  implication — 
between  subject  and  object,  or  between  both  and  an  absolute  self -con- 
sciousness— could  be  granted  as  conclusively  proved,  the  problem  of 
the  relation  of  mind  and  body  would  still  remain  unconsidered.  The 
only  answer  to  this  problem  which,  apparently,  objective  idealism  is 
capable  of  giving,  is  the  answer  of  Berkeley,  more  adequately  stated, 
but  still  in  essentials  the  same,  namely,  that  the  existence  of  the 
brain  is  necessary  in  order  to  complete  our  system  of  natural  science, 
to  develop  its  point  of  view  universally,  but  is  never  in  any  sense  the 
dynamical  condition  of  our  conscious  life.  The  conscious  can  not 
originate  in  the  unconscious.  Our  sensations  are  due,  not  to  our 
brain  states,  but  to  an  absolute  reality  that  comes  to  consciousness  of 
itself  in  the  finite  mind. 

Of  course,  stated  in  this  bald  fashion,  no  objective  idealist  will 
accept  such  an  interpretation  of  his  position.  He  is  ready  to  admit 
that  our  having  a  sensation  of  red  light  is  dependent  upon  a  brain 
state  caused  by  ether  waves  acting  on  the  retina,  but  that,  as  I 
should  contend,  is  a  fact  of  which  he  can  give  no  consistent  account. 

That  the  body  is  the  organ  of  our  activities  can  not  be  doubted. 
The  question  which  ought  to  be  explicitly  raised  and  definitely 
answered  by  objective  idealism  is  as  to  whether  or  not  the  brain  is 
likewise  the  organ  of  our  consciousness.  If  it  is  also  the  organ  of  our 
consciousness,  then  in  what  terms  is  its  cognitive  function  to  be  con- 
ceived? That  is  a  question  to  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  objective 
idealism  has  given  no  satisfactory  answer.  It  is  a  question  which  it 
persistently  ignores. 

The  chief  objection,  therefore,  to  subjective  idealism  is  that  it  re- 
gards the  objects  known  as  mechanically  causing  the  apprehensions 
through  which  they  are  known.  The  chief  objection  to  objective 
idealism  is  that  it  ignores  the  causal  problem  altogether. 

Each  position  has  also,  however,  its  own  merits.  The  strength  of 
subjectivism  lies  in  its  candid  recognition  of  what  appears  to  be 
beyond  dispute,  supported  as  it  is  by  the  whole  strength  of  physical 
and  physiological  science,  namely,  that  sensations  are  due  to  the 
action  of  material  bodies  upon  the  sense  organs  and  brain.  Philos- 
ophy is  peculiarly  skilled  in  explaining  away  inconvenient  facts,  by 
giving  to  them,  in  what  it  calls  critical  interpretation,  a  metaphysical 
twist.  But  the  affection  of  the  sense  organs  by  material  bodies  is,  it 


116 

would  seem,  something  that  can  not  be  thus  conjured  out  of  existence. 
The  theory  of  knowledge  must  be  prepared  to  interpret  it  in  a  man- 
ner that  is  not  virtually  in  some  concealed  form  its  denial. 

Objective  idealism  is  equally  strong  in  its  main  contention, 
namely,  that  mind  knowing  and  consciousness  of  objects  known  are 
inseparable.  Mind  has  no  meaning  for  us  save  as  consciousness,  and 
there  is  no  consciousness  that  is  not  consciousness  of  objects.  A  mind 
that  is  unconscious,  as,  for  instance,  in  sleep,  is  inconceivable  by  us. 
It  is  then  merely  a  name  for  an  unknown,  equal  to  x.  Sleep  is,  for  this 
reason,  something  of  which  objective  idealists  have  never  been  able  to 
give  any  reputable  account.  But  not  only  is  mind  that  which  is  con- 
scious, it  is  also  that  which  is  not  merely  self-conscious.  There  is,  as 
the  objective  idealists  rightly  maintain,  no  such  thing  as  pure  self- 
consciousness,  a  consciousness  by  a  mind  of  itself  and  of  nothing  but 
itself.  All  consciousness,  without  exception,  involves  consciousness 
of  objects.  Consciousness  of  self  and  consciousness  of  the  not-self 
are  inseparable.  This  fact  has  important  consequences,  and  is  very 
rightly  insisted  upon  by  objective  idealists.  That,  however,  is  a  mat- 
ter to  which  I  shall  return.  And  now  for  the  general  problem. 

We  may  judge  of  man  in  two  very  different  ways,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  his  animal  organism,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  his 
inner  life.  Voltaire  has  remarked  that  "it  would  be  very  singular 
that  all  nature,  all  the  planets,  should  obey  eternal  laws,  and  that 
there  should  be  a  little  animal  five  feet  high,  who,  in  contempt  of 
these  laws,  could  act  as  he  pleased,  solely  according  to  his  caprice." 
Voltaire  is  here  judging  of  man  in  terms  of  the  conditions  of  his 
animal  life.  He  is  forgetting  that  this  same  animal  of  five  feet  can 
contain  the  stellar  universe  in  thought  within  himself.  Infinite 
space  and  infinite  time  can  be  ranged  over  by  the  human  mind. 
Man's  spiritual  dignity  dwarfs  even  the  highest  of  his  animal  func- 
tions. Though  finite  in  his  mortal  conditions,  he  is  divinely  infinite 
in  his  powers. 

Were  we  not  so  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  unlimited  power  of 
thought,  could  we  (to  form  for  the  moment  a  self -contradictory 
hypothesis)  without  ourselves  possessing  this  capacity,  be  informed 
that  beings  on  other  planets  are  thus  endowed,  we  should  certainly 
be  incredulous.  It  would  seem  too  absurdly  impossible  that  a  crea- 
ture five  feet  high  and  confined  to  one  planet,  should  yet  at  the  same 
time  possess  a  something  called  mind  or  consciousness  which  can 
range  over  the  whole  of  infinite  space.  That  would  surely  be  de- 
nounced as  more  unbelievable  than  any  dogma  ever  propounded  by 
the  theologians,  more  impossible  than  the  wildest  and  most  super- 
stitious belief  of  primitive  man. 

The  power  of  thought  is  sufficiently  wonderful  in  the  animals, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          117 

enabling  them  as  it  does  to  have  some  apprehension  of  their  environ- 
ment, and  so  by  variation  of  their  reactions  to  attain  satisfaction  of 
their  instinctive  needs.  But  in  man  it  no  longer  serves  a  merely 
practical  purpose — that  is,  if  we  adopt,  as  it  seems  to  me  we  must, 
the  idealist  interpretation  of  the  function  of  human  thought.  In 
man  thought  is  essentially  speculative  in  its  character,  connecting 
him  with  the  universe  as  a  whole,  and  driving  him  by  the  com- 
pulsion of  an  inner  need  to  rationalize  and  render  intelligible  to 
himself  the  nature  of  things. 

It  is  this  uniqueness  of  thought  which  seems  to  justify  philosophy 
in  laying  so  absolute  a  stress  upon  it,  and  in  maintaining  that  it 
must  largey  contribute  to  the  determining  of  our  general  philo- 
sophical attitude.  By  preoccupation  with  the  question  of  knowledge, 
aided  by  the  natural  sciences,  but  not  overweighted  by  them,  we  may 
hope  to  find  some  of  the  deeper  clues  that  will  lead  to  a  more  ade- 
quate solution  of  our  philosophical  problems. 

It  is  this  twofold  aspect  of  our  existence,  as  at  once  animal  in  its 
conditions  and  potentially  universal  in  its  powers  of  apprehension, 
that  forces  upon  Kant  the  problem  of  reconciling  phenomenalism 
with  individualism.  The  finite  self  exists  in  and  through  space  and 
time,  not  space  and  time  in  and  through  the  finite  self.  It  is  con- 
scious of  a  time  that  existed  before  its  own  existence  and  which  will 
outlast  it.  It  is  conscious  of  itself  as  being  limited  down,  as  an  ani- 
mal existence,  to  a  particular  position  in  space,  and  as  subject  to  all 
the  limitations  which  such  position  involves.  Experience  also  teaches 
— and  this  is  likewise  an  essential  element  in  Kant's  doctrine — that 
our  various  sensations  are  due  to  the  action  of  material  bodies  upon 
our  sense  organs  and  brain.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Kant  is  no  less 
emphatic  in  maintaining  that  the  whole  world  in  space  and  time  rests 
upon  complex  conditions  that  are  inextricably  bound  up  with  the 
determining  factors  of  our  transitory  existence.  The  material  world 
in  space  is  in  its  apprehended  form  phenomenal.  It  is  an  appearance 
which  exists  only  in  and  through  consciousness.  And  yet  conscious- 
ness only  appears  in  connection  with  individuals  that  are  conditioned 
by  the  limitations  which  spatial  and  temporal  existence  impose. 

The  usual  interpretation  of  Kant  is  little  better  than  a  parody 
of  his  real  teaching.  It  takes  Kant's  solution  of  the  problem  as  con- 
sisting in  the  assumption  of  a  self  that  by  its  creative  agencies  con- 
structs out  of  given  sensations  the  mechanical  world  in  space  and 
time.  The  world  exists  separately  in  the  mind  of  each  individual 
observer;  it  has  no  independent  existence  apart  from  these  its  indi- 
vidual embodiments.  If  that  were  Kant's  position,  it  would  be  of 
comparatively  little  value,  and  would  merely  be  a  form  of  Berkeleian- 
ism.  The  chief  problems  of  philosophy  center  in  the  self,  in  the 


118  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

question  as  to  the  nature  and  possibility  of  spiritual  existence.  Cer- 
tainly, if  we  may  assume  the  existence  of  the  self  as  a  spiritual  being 
capable  by  its  activities  of  generating  the  world  in  space  and  time, 
we  may  be  able  to  explain  tin-  apprehended  universe.  The  legiti- 
macy of  such  an  assumption  is.  Imurvrr,  itself  the  chief  point  at 
issue.  And  that  it  is  an  illegitimate  assumption  was  one  of  Kant's 
main  contentions.  It  is  illegitimate  for  two  reasons.  First,  because 
to  explain  by  reference  to  the  activities  of  such  a  self  is  to  explain 
by  faculties,  by  the  unknown.  It  is  a  cause  that  will  explain  any- 
thing and  everything  equally  well  or  badly.  This  is  an  argument 
which  Kant  nowhere  himself  employs,  but  it  is  implied  in  a  second 
argument  which  finds  expression  both  in  the  deduction  of  the  cate- 
gories and  in  the  paralogisms.  The  only  self  that  we  know  is  a  con- 
scious self.  And  since  as  conscious  it  can  only  exist  in  and  through 
consciousness  of  objects,  it  can  not  precede  such  consciousness  as  its 
generating  cause. 

It  is  in  another  and  very  different  manner  that  Kant  maintains 
the  dependence  of  phenomena  upon  consciousness.  He  makes  a  most 
valiant  attempt  to  combine  his  phenomenalism  with  realism;  and 
though  most  of  the  inconsistencies  in  his  teaching  are  traceable  to 
the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  to  which  any  such  attempt  gives 
rise,  it  is  also  the  source  of  much  that  is  most  suggestive  in  his 
thought.  I  shall  try  to  indicate  Kant's  position  on  this  point. 

As  I  have  already  said,  it  is  much  easier  to  combine  realism  with 
subjectivism  than  with  phenomenalism.  Realism  appears  in  a  sub- 
jectivist  form  in  Descartes,  Locke,  and  Leibnitz;  also  in  Helmholtz, 
Huxley,  and  Spencer.  In  all  of  those  thinkers,  everything  outside 
the  individual  mind  is  real:  appearance  is  purely  individual  in 
origin.  Their  position,  therefore,  is  not  strictly  phenomenalism,  but 
only  subjectivism.  Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  maintains  that  the  indi- 
vidual is  himself  known  only  as  appearance,  and  can  not  therefore 
be  the  medium  in  and  through  which  appearance  exists.  Though 
appearance  exists  only  in  and  through  consciousness,  it  is  not  due  to 
any  causes  that  can  legitimately  be  described  as  individual. 

But  though  Kant  is  insistent  both  upon  his  phenomenalism  and 
upon  his  realism,  he  inclines,  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
argument  and  to  the  special  difficulties  which  he  happens  in  each 
context  to  have  in  view,  now  to  the  one  and  now  to  the  other. 
"Inclines"  is  perhaps  too  mild  a  term.  There  may  indeed  be  traced, 
running  side  by  side  through  all  his  critical  writings,  two  conflicting 
views  as  to  the  mode  of  existence  possessed  by  the  material  world  in 
space,  as  to  the  nature  of  mechanical  causation,  as  to  the  constitution 
of  inner  sense,  and  as  to  the  character  of  the  transcendental  unity  of 
apperception.  The  usual  and  current  interpretation  of  Kant,  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          119 

which  I  have  just  referred,  takes  only  the  one  set  of  views,  and 
ignores  the  others.  It  is  in  the  perpetual  oscillation  between  the 
two,  and  in  the  perpetual  striving  to  reconcile  them,  that  much  of 
the  value,  and  most  of  the  present-day  interest,  of  the  "Critique" 
lies.  To  this  cause  is  largely  due  its  permanent,  though  illusive, 
power  of  suggestion. 

Sensations,  Kant  holds,  have  a  twofold  origin,  noumenal  and 
mechanical.  They  are  due  in  the  first  place  to  the  action  of  things 
in  themselves  upon  the  noumenal  conditions  of  the  self,  and  also  in 
the  second  place  to  the  action  of  material  bodies  upon  the  sense- 
organs  and  brain.  To  take  the  latter  first.  Light  reflected  from 
objects,  and  acting  on  the  retina,  gives  rise  to  sensations  of  color. 
For  such  causal  interrelations  there  exists,  Kant  teaches,  the  same 
kind  of  empirical  evidence  as  for  the  causal  interacting  of  material 
bodies.  Our  sensational  experiences  are  as  truly  events  in  time  as 
are  mechanical  happenings  in  space.  In  this  way,  however,  we  can 
account  only  for  the  existence  of  our  sensations  and  for  the  order  in 
which  they  make  their  appearance  in  or  to  consciousness,  not  for 
pur  awareness  of  them.  To  state  the  point  by  means  of  an  illustra- 
tion. The  impinging  of  one  billiard  ball  upon  another  accounts 
causally  for  the  motion  which  then  appears  in  the  second  ball.  But 
no  one  would  dream  of  asserting  that  by  itself  it  accounts  for  our 
consciousness  of  that  second  motion.  We  may  contend  that  in  an 
exactly  similar  manner,  to  the  same  extent,  no  more  and  no  less,  the 
action  of  an  object  upon  the  brain  accounts  only  for  the  occurrence 
of  a  visual  sensation  as  an  event  in  the  empirical  time  sequence.  A 
sensation  just  as  little  as  a  motion  can  carry  its  own  consciousness 
with  it.  To  regard  that  as  ever  possible  is  ultimately  to  endow 
events  in  time  with  the  capacity  of  apprehending  objects  in  space. 
In  dealing  with  causal  connections  in  space  and  time  we  do  not 
require  to  discuss  the  problem  of  knowledge  proper,  namely,  how  it 
is  possible  to  have  or  acquire  knowledge,  whether  of  a  motion  in 
space  or  of  a  sensation  in  time.  When  we  raise  that  further  ques- 
tion we  have  to  adopt  a  very  different  standpoint,  and  to  take  into 
account  a  much  greater  complexity  of  conditions. 

I  may  indicate  two  of  the  difficulties  which  such  a  view  involves. 
It  is  fair  sailing  in  regard  to  the  organic  sensations,  and  to  the 
sensations  of  the  lower  senses,  including  temperature  sensations. 
Difficulties  present  themselves  in  regard  to  sensations  of  touch  and 
motor  sense,  and  especially  in  regard  to  sensations  of  color.  Color 
is  not  perceived  as  an  event  caused  by  the  external  object  which  acts 
on  the  retina,  but  as  its  inherent  and  permanent  quality.  The  treat- 
ment of  this  point  would  require  a  paper  all  to  itself.  Another 
difficulty  is  in  regard  to  feelings  and  desires.  Kant  cuts  the  gordian 


120  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

knot  by  viewing  them  as  all  mechanically  conditioned.  They  fall 
within  the  empirical  world,  and  are  completely  subject  to  its  laws. 
But  I  proceed  to  my  next  main  point. 

We  have  no  direct  acquaintance  with  consciousness.  We  are 
aware  only  of  contents  apprehended,  never  of  the  process  to  which 
their  apprehension  is  due.  We  may,  of  course,  be  aware  of  the  steps 
which  we  take  in  order  to  place  ourselves  in  a  proper  position  or 
mental  attitude  for  experiencing  a  content,  but  of  the  actual  con- 
sciousness of  the  content  we  have  no  awareness.  We  have  experi- 
ence of  pleasure,  pain,  desire,  striving,  and  the  like.  These,  how- 
ever, would  seem  to  be  in  all  cases  experiences  of  which  we  are 
aware,  but  not  to  be  themselves  describable  as  awareness.  We 
seem  to  postulate  the  existence  of  that  which  we  name  conscious- 
ness or  awareness  from  reflection  upon  the  order  and  mode  of  hap- 
pening of  the  various  contents  apprehended.  It  is  inferred  or 
postulated,  not  itself  experienced.  No  analogy  derivable  from  the 
known  world  is  in  the  least  degree  adequate  to  express  its  mysterious 
character.  The  nearest  analogy  is  space,  and  that  is  a  comparison 
which  does  not  help.  Consciousness  would  seem  to  be  an  absolutely 
unique  form  of  existence.  Though  we  may  determine  certain  of  its 
conditions,  and  some  of  its  chief  effects,  we  can  not  specify  its 
inherent  nature. 

My  third  point  is  that  the  connection  established  by  Kant  between 
time  and  inner  sense  is  illegitimate  and  misleading.  Time  appears 
to  be  just  as  objective  as  space.  It  is  just  as  necessary  a  component 
of  natural  phenomena.  Motion  is  the  fundamental  thing  in  nature; 
it  is  more  important  than  the  matter  which  serves  as  its  vehicle,  and 
by  its  very  nature  it  demands  both  time  and  space;  it  occurs  in 
both  equally.  One  reason  why  time  is,  by  Kant  and  others,  taken  as 
less  objective  than  space,  and  as  standing  in  a  closer  relation  to 
mind,  is,  of  course,  that  many  so-called  mental  experiences  have  no 
position  in  space  but  occur  in  time.  A  pleasure  or  a  pain,  an  odor, 
a  sound,  may  as  effects  be  traced  to  mechanical  processes  in  space, 
but  in  themselves  they  are  without  form  and  shape,  and  can  not 
strictly  be  regarded  as  possessing  spatial  position.  For  this  reason 
feelings  and  the  sensations  of  the  secondary  qualities  have  been 
regarded  as  mental  in  character  and  as  wholly  opposite  in  nature  to 
the  physical.  But  such  argument  might  prove  even  physical  energy 
to  be  a  mental  existence. 

To  turn  now  to  the  other  and  more  difficult  aspect  of  the  problem. 
What  does  the  postulating  of  consciousness  involve  ?  What  are  the 
conditions  upon  which  consciousness  would  seem  to  rest?  Kant's 
answer  to  this  question  is  given  in  the  subjective  and  objective 
deductions  of  the  categories.  For  the  purposes  of  this  paper  we 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          121 

need  consider  these  deductions  only  in  so  far  as  they  raise  the  ques- 
tion in  regard  to  consciousness  of  time.  Consciousness  of  time  is 
involved  in  all  our  consciousness.  Though  highly  complex,  it  is  the 
minimum  form  in  which  our  consciousness  exists.  It  can  not  be 
explained  as  having  developed  from  a  more  primitive  and  simpler 
form  in  which  such  temporal  consciousness  is  not  already  contained. 
It  is  consciousness  of  a  succession  as  a  succession.  Admittedly  com- 
plex, it  must  have  conditions  equally  complex.  These  Kant  for- 
mulates as  being  synthetic  processes  whereby  the  past  is  held 
together  with  the  present,  being  reproduced  in  image,  and  being 
recognized  as  representing  experiences  which  have  just  elapsed. 
Ultimately  this  recognition  involves  some  form  of  self-consciousness, 
implicit  though  not  explicit.  Kant  therefore  postulates  as  the  indis- 
pensable conditions  in  and  through  which  alone  the  minimum  con- 
sciousness can  be  rendered  possible,  a  large  number  of  synthetic 
processes.  These  synthetic  processes  must  take  place  and  complete 
themselves  before  consciousness  can  exist  at  all.  And  as  they  thus 
precondition  consciousness,  they  can  not  themselves  be  known  to  be 
conscious;  and  not  being  known  to  be  conscious,  they  may  not 
even  be  described  as  mental.  We  have,  indeed,  to  conceive  them  on 
the  analogy  of  our  mental  processes;  but  that  may  only  be  because 
of  the  limitation  of  our  knowledge  to  the  data  of  experience. 

Further,  we  have  no  right  to  conceive  them  as  the  activities  of 
a  noumenal  self.  "We  know  the  self  only  as  conscious,  and  the  syn- 
thetic processes,  being  the  generating  conditions  of  consciousness, 
are  also  the  generating  conditions  of  the  only  self  for  which  our 
experience  can  vouch.  They  are  named  "synthetic"  because  con- 
sciousness in  its  very  nature  would  seem  to  involve  the  carrying 
over  of  content  from  one  time  to  other  times,  and  the  construction 
of  a  more  comprehensive  total  consciousness  from  the  elements  thus 
combined.  Kant  is  here  analyzing,  in  its  simplest  and  most  funda- 
mental form,  what  William  James  has  described  in  his  "Principles 
of  Psychology,"2  as  the  telescoping  of  earlier  mental  states  into  the 

*  Cf.  Vol.  I.,  p.  339.  ' '  Each  later  thought,  knowing  and  including  thus 
the  thoughts  which  went  before,  is  the  final  receptacle — and  appropriating  them 
is  the  final  owner — of  all  that  they  contain  and  own.  Each  thought  is  thus  born 
an  owner,  and  dies  owned,  transmitting  whatever  it  realized  as  its  self  to  its 
own  later  proprietor.  As  Kant  says,  it  is  as  if  elastic  balls  were  to  have  not 
only  motion,  but  knowledge  of  it,  and  a  first  ball  were  to  transmit  both  its 
motion  and  its  consciousness  to  a  second,  which  took  both  up  into  its  conscious- 
ness and  passed  them  to  a  third,  until  the  last  ball  held  all  that  the  other  balls 
had  held,  and  realized  it  as  its  own.  It  is  this  trick  which  the  nascent  thought 
has  of  immediately  taking  up  the  expiring  thought  and  'adopting'  it,  which  is 
the  foundation  of  the  appropriation  of  most  of  the  remoter  constituents  of  the 
self.  Who  owns  the  last  self  owns  the  self  before  the  last,  for  what  possesses 
the  possessor  possesses  the  possessed. ' ' 


122  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

successive  experiences  that  include  them.  They  telescope  in  a  man- 
ure which  can  never  befall  the  successive  events  in  a  causal  series, 
and  which  is  not  explicable  by  any  scheme  of  relations  derivable  from 
the  physical  sphere. 

Tin-  point  may  be  made  clearer  by  inquiring  how  Kant  conceives 
the  material  upon  which  the  synthetic  processes  act.  They  are,  he 
says,  due  to  the  affection  by  thinirs  in  themselves  of  those  factors  in 
the  noumenal  conditions  of  the  self  which  correspond  to  "sensi- 
bility." ("Outer  sense"  must  not  be  identified  with  the  bodily 
senses.)  But  just  as  he  frequently  speaks  as  if  the  synthetic  proc- 
esses were  mental  activities  exercised  by  the  self,  so  also  he  fre- 
quently uses  language  which  implies  that  the  manifold  upon  which 
these  processes  act  is  identical  with  the  sensations  of  the  special 
senses.  But  the  sensations  of  the  bodily  senses,  even  if  reducible  to 
it,  can  at  most  form  only  part  of  it.  The  synthetic  processes,  inter- 
preting the  manifold  in  accordance  with  the  fixed  forms,  space,  time, 
and  the  categories,  generate  the  spatial  world  within  which  objects 
are  apprehended  as  acting  upon  one  another,  and  also  as  causing 
through  their  action  upon  the  sense-organs  of  the  animal  body  sensa- 
tions as  events  in  time.  Sensations,  as  mechanically  caused,  are 
thus  on  the  same  plane  as  other  appearances.  They  rest  upon  the 
same  complex  generating  conditions  as  the  motions  which  produce 
them.  And  the  material  for  all  of  them,  and  not  merely  for  our 
sensations,  must  be  supplied  in  the  primary  manifold. 

Obviously,  what  Kant  does  is  to  apply  to  the  interpretation  of 
the  noumenal  conditions  of  our  conscious  experience  a  distinction 
derived  by  analogy  from  conscious  experience  itself — the  distinction, 
namely,  between  our  mental  processes  and  the  sensuous  material  with 
which  they  deal.  The  application  of  such  a  distinction  may  be 
inevitable  in  any  attempt  to  explain  human  experience;  but,  as 
Kant  has  himself  pointed  out,  it  can  very  easily,  unless  carefully 
interpreted,  prove  a  source  of  serious  misunderstanding.  Just  as 
the  synthetic  processes  which  generate  consciousness  are  not  known 
to  be  themselves  conscious,  so  also  the  manifold  can  not  be  identified 
with  the  sensations  of  the  bodily  senses.  These  last  are  events  in 
time,  and  are  effects  not  of  noumenal  but  of  mechanical  causes. 

Kant's  conclusion  is  twofold:  positive,  to  the  effect  that  con- 
sciousness, for  all  that  our  analysis  can  prove  to  the  contrary,  may 
be  merely  a  resultant,  derivative  from  and  dependent  upon  a  com- 
plexity of  conditions;  and  negative,  to  the  effect  that  though  these 
conditions  may  by  analogy  be  described  as  consisting  of  synthetic 
processes  acting  upon  a  given  material,  they  are  in  their  real  nature 
unknowable  by  us.  Even  their  bare  possibility  we  can  not  profess  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          123 

comprehend.  We  postulate  them  only  because  they  would  seem  to  be 
demanded  as  indispensable  conditions  of  our  de  facto  experience. 
They  can  be  defined  only  in  terms  of  their  effects,  not  in  their  own 
non-experienced  nature. 

Kant  obscures  his  position  by  the  way  in  which  he  frequently 
speaks  of  the  transcendental  unity  of  apperception  as  the  supreme 
condition  of  our  experience.  At  times  he  even  speaks  as  if  it  were 
the  source  of  the  synthetic  processes.  That  can  not,  however,  be 
regarded  as  his  real  teaching.  Self-consciousness,  and  with  it  the 
unity  of  apperception,  rests  upon  the  same  complexity  of  conditions 
as  does  outer  experience,  and  may,  therefore,  be  merely  a  product  or 
resultant.  It  is,  as  he  insists  in  the  paralogisms,  the  emptiest  of  all 
our  conceptions ;  and  can  afford  no  sufficient  ground  for  asserting 
the  self  to  be  a  spiritual  and  abiding  personality.  We  can  not  by 
theoretical  analysis  of  the  facts  of  experience  or  of  the  nature  of  self- 
consciousness  prove  anything  whatsoever  in  regard  to  the  ultimate 
nature  of  the  self. 

Kant's  phenomenalism  thus  involves  an  objectivist  view  of  indi- 
vidual selves  and  of  their  interrelations.  They  fall  within  the  single 
common  world  of  space.  Within  this  phenomenal  world  they  stand 
in  external  mechanical  relations  to  one  another.  They  are  appre- 
hended as  embodied,  with  known  contents,  sensations,  feelings,  and 
desires,  composing  their  inner  experience.  There  is,  from  this  point 
of  view,  no  problem  of  knowledge.  On  this  plane  we  have  to  deal 
only  with  events  known,  not  with  any  process  of  apprehension. 
Even  the  inner  components  of  the  empirical  self  are  not  processes  of 
apprehension,  but  apprehended  existences.  It  is  only  when  we 
make  a  regress  beyond  the  phenomenal  as  such  to  the  conditions 
which  render  it  possible,  that  the  problem  of  knowledge  arises  at  all. 
And  with  that  regress  we  are  brought  to  the  real  crux  of  the  whole 
question — the  reconciliation  of  such  phenomenalism  with  the  condi- 
tions of  our  self-consciousness.  For  we  have  then  to  take  into 
account  the  fundamental  fact  that  each  self  is  not  only  a  minute 
existence  within  the  phenomenal  world,  but  also  in  its  powers  of 
apprehension  coequal  with  it.  The  self  known  is  external  to  the 
objects  known.  The  self  that  knows  is  conscious  of  itself  as  com- 
prehending within  the  field  of  its  consciousness  the  wider  universe 
in  infinite  space. 

Such  considerations  would,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  force  us  to 
modify  our  phenomenalist  standpoint  in  the  direction  of  subjectivism. 
For  in  what  other  manner  can  we  hope  to  unite  the  two  aspects  of 
the  self,  the  known  conditions  of  its  finite  existence,  and  the  con- 
sciousness through  which  it  correlates  with  the  universe  as  a  whole? 


124  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

In  the  one  aspect  it  is  a  part  of  appearance ;  in  the  other  it  connects 
with  that  which  makes  appearance  possible  at  all. 

Quite  frequently  it  is  the  subjectivist  solution  which  Kant  seems 
to  adopt,  but  he  also  suggests  one  that  is  more  in  harmony  with  his 
phenomenalist  tendencies.  He  would  then  seem  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  grounds  and  conditions  of  phenomenal  existence  and  the 
special  determining  causes  of  individual  consciousness.  Transcen- 
dental conditions  generate  consciousness  of  the  relatively  permanent 
and  objective  world  in  space  and  time;  empirical  conditions  within 
this  space  and  time  world  determine  the  sensuous  modes  through 
which  special  portions  of  this  infinite  and  uniform  world  appear 
diversely  to  different  individuals. 

But  such  a  solution  is  too  crude  to  be  acceptable.  Consciousness 
of  the  objective  world  in  space  and  time  does  not  exist  complete  with 
one  portion  of  it  more  specifically  determined  in  terms  of  actual 
sense  perceptions.  Rather  the  consciousness  of  the  single  world  in 
space  and  time  is  gradually  developed  through  and  out  of  sense- 
experience  of  limited  portions  of  it.  Kant  leaves  undiscussed  all  the 
obvious  objections  to  which  his  phenomenalism  lies  open.  He  does 
not  state  in  any  adequate  manner  how  from  the  phenomenalist 
standpoint  he  would  regard  the  world  described  in  mechanical  terms 
by  science  as  related  to  the  world  of  ordinary  sense  experience,  nor 
how  different  individual  consciousnesses  are  related  to  one  another. 
The  very  fact,  however,  that  such  problems  are  inevitably  suggested 
by  his  critical  inquiries  is  the  best  possible  proof  of  their  permanent 
value.  They  could  never  have  occurred  in  any  such  form  to  his 
predecessors. 

Bergson  is  one  of  the  many  who  have  attacked  these  problems  in 
the  light  of  distinctions  first  drawn  by  Kant.  And  in  so  doing  he 
reformulates  them  in  a  manner  which,  though  in  many  respects 
unsatisfactory,  and  which  perhaps  is  not  ultimately  tenable,  yet 
places  the  issues  in  a  new  and  suggestive  light.  He  sets  aside  the 
question  of  the  genesis  of  consciousness.  He  assumes  it  as  given. 
His  starting-point  is  the  world  of  material  bodies  in  space.  His 
problem  is  not  to  account  for  consciousness  of  it,  but  to  explain 
why  we  know  it  in  a  form  relative  to  our  individual  position  and 
practical  needs.  It  is  the  very  nature  of  consciousness  to  correlate 
with  reality  as  a  whole,  and  to  reveal  it  as  it  really  exists.  By  right 
it  is  complete  knowledge  of  true  independent  reality ;  in  actual  fact 
it  is  limited  in  extent,  permeated  with  illusion,  and  largely  personal. 
The  problem  is  not,  therefore,  one  of  genesis,  but  of  the  limitation  of 
the  already  existent — not  how  a  self  that  is  embodied  and  works 
under  animal  conditions  is  capable  of  attaining  to  a  consciousness 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          125 

of  the  universe  within  which  it  falls,  but  how  mind,  which  is  inalien- 
ably universal,  can  be  limited  by  animal  conditions.  The  change  is, 
indeed,  one  of  orientation  rather  than  of  problem,  for  consciousness 
of  time,  and  recognition,  i.  e.,  memory  still  remain  central  issues. 
Consciousness  is  "a  force  essentially  free  and  essentially  memory,  a 
force  whose  very  character  is  to  pile  up  the  past  on  the  past,  like  a 
rolling  snowball,  and  at  every  instant  of  duration  to  organize  with 
this  past  something  new  which  is  a  real  creation."3 

This  position,  when  thus  abstractly  and  baldly  stated,  may  well 
seem  to  embody  a  most  unlikely  and  even  repellent  thesis.  Bergson 
renders  it,  however,  both  interesting  and  illuminating  by  the  sug- 
gestiveness  with  which  he  works  it  out  in  honest  detail.  Common  to 
him  and  to  Kant  remains  the  contention  that  an  adequate  theory  of 
knowledge  must  reconcile  realism  and  phenomenalism  with  one 
another,  and  both  with  the  individualistic  requirements  of  self-con- 
sciousness. And  I  should  especially  insist,  considering  the  recent 
reemergence  of  realistic  theories,  upon  phenomenalism  as  a  funda- 
mental characteristic  of  our  experience,  calling  for  the  most  ample 
recognition.  Only  so  can  we  formulate  a  position  which  is  capable 
of  allowing  both  for  human  knowledge  and  for  human  ignorance, 
both  for  known  facts  and  for  unknown  possibilities.  And  only  so, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  can  an  idealist  philosophy  escape  the  suicidal 
admission  of  the  unlimited  validity  of  the  naturalistic  position. 

But  Bergson  modifies  Kant's  problems  in  still  another  direction; 
and  by  that  restatement  is  enabled  to  carry  their  discussion  several 
steps  further.  As  above  mentioned,  Kant  does  not  explain  in  what 
relation  the  mechanical  world  of  natural  science  stands  to  the  world 
of  ordinary  sense  experience.  The  key  to  this  question,  or  at  least  a 
point  of  view  from  which  it  can  be  profitably  investigated,  is  sup- 
plied by  biological  science,4  and  though  developed  by  many  writers, 
has  received  its  most  convincing  statement  in  Bergson 's  "Matiere 
et  Memoire."  Our  sense  perceptions  are  permeated  through  and 
through,  from  end  to  end,  with  illusion.  Objects  are  seen  as  dwin- 
dling in  size,  as  changing  in  form  and  color,  as  they  pass  into  the 
distance.  The  parallel  sides  of  a  street  are  seen  to  converge  as  they 
recede.  These  illusions  justify  themselves  by  their  practical  useful- 
ness, since  they  enable  us  to  compress  a  wide  extent  of  landscape 
into  a  single  visual  field,  to  determine  distance,  etc.  But  they  like- 
wise establish  the  unreal  fictitious  nature,  the  mental  subjective 

1 1  quote  from  the  excellent  resum6  of  his  views  which  Bergson  has  given  in 
his  recent  article  in  the  Hibbert  Journal,  October,  1911,  Vol.  X.,  p.  37. 

4  It  was  anticipated  by  Malebranche.  It  holds  a  central  position  in  his 
delightful  and  most  unfortunately  neglected  philosophy.  Cf.  British  Journal  of 
Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  part  3,  p.  191  ff. 


126  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

character  of  the  world  perceived.  The  extent  to  which  illusion  thus 
permeates  our  sense  experiences  does  not,  however,  become  evident 
until  we  compare  the  knowledge  which  they  yield  with  the  conclu- 
sions of  physical  science.  To  define  by  an  example:  to  sense  per- 
ception a  solid  cannon  ball  appears  to  be  a  cold,  black,  continuous 
mass  of  quiescent  matter.  According  to  science  it  consists  of  mil- 
lions of  discrete  particles  which  are  neither  cold  nor  black,  and  which 
are  in  constant  motion.  These  particles  by  their  movements  occupy 
the  volume  of  the  sphere,  much  as  a  small  army  may  occupy  a  huge 
extent  of  country,  not  by  bulk  but  by  mobility.  To  sense  perception 
the  ball  thus  appears  as  being  exactly  what  it  is  not,  and  not  at  all 
as  what  it  is.  Though  we  can  take  it  in  our  hands  and  gaze  upon 
it  with  our  eyes,  we  can  not  thereby  discover  its  real  nature.  When 
we  look  at  the  ball,  we  are  unable  to  see  what  actually  is  there,  and 
instead  we  see  something  that  is  not  there  at  all.  The  same  holds 
of  every  one  of  our  sense  perceptions.  They  do  not  represent,  but 
misrepresent,  the  true  nature  of  the  real.  Not  through  sense  experi- 
ence, but  only  through  scientific  research,  is  genuine  reality  ever 
attained.  The  purpose  of  sense  experience  is  not  knowledge,  but 
power.  Its  raison  d'etre  is  to  yield,  in  the  most  convenient  form 
possible,  such  apprehension  of  the  observer's  environment  as  will 
render  adaptation  and  practical  control  possible.  And%  this  con- 
venient form  in  which  external  objects  are  apprehended  may  be,  and 
generally  is,  entirely  false,  when  tested  by  a  theoretical  standard. 
The  deceptions  (if  we  may  so  name  them)  of  sense  experience  justify 
themselves  by  their  practical  usefulness,  as  well  as  by  their  esthetic 
value.  And  in  spite  of  their  illusoriness  they  yield  data  sufficient  to 
render  possible  of  achievement  the  adventurous  task  undertaken  by 
the  scientist,  namely,  that  of  discovering  from  them  their  actual 
generating  conditions. 

The  difference  between  the  sensible  and  the  mechanical  is  due  in 
part,  Bergson  teaches,  to  a  difference  of  tempo  in  the  two  series. 
"The  essence  of  life  seems  to  be  to  secure  that  matter,  by  a  process 
necessarily  very  slow  and  difficult,  should  store  up  energy  ready  for 
life  afterwards  to  expend  this  energy  suddenly  in  free  movements. '  '8 
Consciousness  is  similarly  constituted.  "In  an  interval  which  for 
it  is  infinitely  short,  and  which  constitutes  one  of  our  'instants,'  it 
seizes  under  an  indivisible  form  millions  and  billions  of  events  that 
succeed  each  other  in  inert  matter.  ...  It  is  this  immense  history 
that  I  seize  all  at  once  under  the  pictorial  form  of  a  very  brief  sensa- 
tion of  light.  And  we  could  say  just  the  same  of  all  our  other  sen- 
sations. Sensation,  which  is  the  point  at  which  consciousness  touches 

•  Loo.  tit.,  p.  35. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          127 

matter,  is,  then,  the  condensation,  in  the  duration  peculiar  to  this 
consciousness,  of  a  history  which  in  itself — in  the  world  of  matter — 
is  something  infinitely  diluted,  and  which  occupies  enormous  periods 
of  what  might  be  called  the  duration  of  things."  6 

So  far  Bergson  is  only  reinforcing  the  general  teaching  of  nat- 
ural science.  But  he  likewise  employs  this  pragmatic  point  of  view 
in  explanation  of  those  categories  of  the  understanding  which  Kant 
regarded  as  an  ultimate  and  not  further  explicable  endowment  of 
the  human  mind.  They  too  have  their  origin  in  our  practical  needs. 
Though  the  primary  conscious  purpose  of  the  scientist  is  the  gaining 
of  knowledge,  the  modes  in  which  he  seeks  to  satisfy  this  endeavor 
are  still  influenced  by  non-theoretical  conditions.  The  direct  and 
immediate  outcome  of  the  sciences  is,  consequently,  not  knowledge, 
but  power.  Like  sense  experience,  they  deal  only  with  appearances, 
though  certainly  with  appearances  that  may  legitimately  be  regarded 
as  nearer  to  the  independently  real.  For  through  knowledge  of  them 
man  is  enabled  to  transform  what  would  otherwise  be  a  fixed  en- 
vironment, tyrannically  dictating  the  general  principles  of  his  life, 
into  one  that  is  more  in  harmony  with  his  human  and  spiritual  needs. 

Problems,  closed  for  Kant,  thus  open  upon  new  perspectives ;  and 
become  possible  of  further  development  by  novel  methods  on  fresh 
lines.  If  the  mechanical  categories  are  the  outcome  of  practical 
needs,  and  are  therefore  systematic  illusions  justified  by  their  fruits ; 
and  consequently,  as  we  may  further  conclude,  are  only  partial  in 
their  distortion  of  the  real,  it  may  be  possible  that  scrutiny  as  careful 
and  painstaking  as  that  which  has  been  expended  upon  the  appear- 
ances of  sense,  may  find  in  certain  of  the  elements  and  contours  of 
our  scientific  results  data  sufficient  to  enable  the  mind  to  penetrate 
even  into  the  hidden  mysteries  of  the  absolutely  real.  For  this,  ulti- 
mately, is  Bergson 's  fundamental  divergence  from  Kant.  He  is  no 
less  emphatic  upon  the  merely  phenomenal  character  of  the  mechan- 
ical world  in  space.  But  he  cherishes  hope,  and  supplies  a  wealth  of 
detailed  argument  in  support  of  the  assertion,  that  by  empirical  cir- 
cumstantial reasoning,  based  upon  the  fundamental  characteristics 
of  natural  existence  and  of  human  life,  we  may  penetrate  to  the 
noumenal  sphere.  The  limits  of  sense  experience  have  been  trans- 
cended in  the  construction  of  science.  Thanks  to  these  successes,  and 
to  the  closer  contact  with  reality  which  is  thereby  acquired,  the 
achievements  of  the  sciences  may  be  accompanied  by  that  less  as- 
sured, but  even  more  valuable  insight  which  is  only  to  be  won  by 
adventurous  journeying  upon  the  perilous  paths  of  metaphysical 
speculation.  Such  insight,  anticipatory  and  almost  prophetic,  ahead 

•Loc.  tit.,  pp.  36-37. 


128  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  sciences  but  still  in  touch  with  them,  has  been  the  very  breath 
and  spirit  of  human  endeavor  in  the  past.  It  may  well  continue  to 
perform  the  same  precarious  but  indispensable  function  in  the  fu- 
ture. In  opposition  to  a  purely  naturalistic  interpretation  of  the 
real,  it  can  always  draw  afresh  upon  the  comparatively  untapped 
resources  of  our  specifically  human  and  essentially  spiritual  life. 

In  conclusion,  I  may  summarize  and  define  the  main  points  of 
this  paper  by  stating  them  in  their  relation  and  opposition  to  the 
standpoint  which  Professor  Dewey  has  so  forcibly  developed  in  his 
recent  articles.7  Firstly,  the  really  critical  issue  in  the  present-day 
problem  of  knowledge  would  seem,  as  Professor  Dewey  has  argued, 
to  be  the  question  whether  awareness  or  consciousness  may  legiti- 
mately be  regarded  as  an  event,  and  therefore  as  having  a  place  in 
the  single  continuous  causal  series  that  constitutes  the  objectively 
real.  The  thesis  which  I  have  tried  to  maintain  is  that  this  may  be 
true  of  sensations,  but  not  of  the  knowing  process,  of  the  awareness 
or  consciousness  as  such.  Consciousness  can  not  be  described  as  an 
event  in  any  sense  which  would  set  it  as  an  integral  element  into  the 
single  causal  time  and  space  series. 

Secondly,  Professor  Dewey  denies  that  knowing  is  a  "unique  and 
non-natural  type  of  relation."  I  have  tried  to  argue  for  its  unique- 
ness. "Non-natural"  is  a  hard  term;  but  taking  it  as  meant,  t.  e.,  as 
signifying  anything  and  everything  that  falls  outside  the  single  con- 
tinuous causal  series  investigated  by  the  natural  sciences,  I  have 
sought  to  defend  the  more  traditional  view,  that  the  knowing  process 
may  be  so  described. 

Thirdly,  it  has  been  argued  above,  that  we  may  judge  of  man 
either  from  the  point  of  view  of  his  animal  organism  or  from  that  of 
his  inner  life.  Professor  Dewey  would  seem  to  maintain  that  so  far 
as  regards  the  problem  of  knowledge,  or  at  least  of  sense  per- 
ception, the  former  alone  is  required.8  The  thesis  of  this  paper  is  the 
directly  counter  position.  The  problem  of  perception  is  for  phi- 
losophy uniquely  important,  and  can  not  be  solved  by  any  conceiv- 
able advance  either  of  physiology  or  of  biology  upon  their  present 
lines.  With  a  physiology  or  a  biology  fundamentally  different  from 
those  actually  existent  we  are  not,  of  course,  concerned ;  in  regard  to 
such  no  prophecy,  positive  or  negative,  can  be  made. 

NOBMAN  KEMP  SMITH. 

PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY. 

«  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  pp.  393  and  496. 
•  Cf.  Joe.  cit.,  pp.  400  and  552. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         129 

DISCUSSION 
BERGSON'S  ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM 

PEOFESSOR  PERRY'S  "Notes  on  the  Philosophy  of  Henri 
Bergson"1  is  a  trenchant  criticism  which  undertakes  to  main- 
tain two  propositions:  (1)  " Bergson 's  indictment  of  the  intellectual 
method  rests  on  a  misunderstanding  of  that  method"  (p.  674). 
(2)  Bergson 's  anti-intellectualism  is  "involved  in  a  more  serious 
error"  in  that  it  "puts  forth  a  claim"  to  immediate  knowledge  which 
is  "unfounded"  (p.  678). 

I  confess  I  am  not  able  to  make  out  the  particular  misunder- 
standing which  Professor  Perry  means  to  attribute  to  Bergson  under 
the  first  point  of  his  criticism.  From  the  statements  (p.  675)  it  is 
not  clear  to  me  whether  this  misunderstanding  relates  to  the  nature 
and  function  of  the  concept,  or  whether  it  relates  to  the  consistent 
procedure  of  the  anti-intellectualist. 

I  do  not  think  that  Professor  Perry's  statement  (p.  675)  that 
"Bergson  is  not  clear  as  to  whether  a  concept  is  to  be  distinguished 
by  its  function  or  its  content"  is  quite  to  the  point.  It  seems  to  me 
that  Bergson  is  altogether  clear  in  that  matter.  Bergson  clearly 
teaches  that,  since  the  function  of  the  intellect  is  to  direct  our  action 
upon  reality  instead  of  revealing  the  nature  of  reality,  concepts  are 
the  special  instruments  or  tools  by  means  of  which  our  actions  are 
made  effective  as  they  insert  themselves  into  the  real  world.  This 
essentially  instrumental  function  of  our  concepts  determines  also 
their  content  or  structure ;  the  two,  function  and  content,  correspond. 
Our  concepts  are  plans  of  action,  and  not  mediate  ways  of  pene- 
trating or  disclosing  the  nature  of  reality.  Conceptual  thinking 
is  not ' '  a  mode  of  access  to  immediacy. ' '  Hence,  the  ' '  strange  pro- 
cedure" which  Professor  Perry  points  out  (p.  675),  namely,  "to 
prove  that  intellect  is  essentially  instrumental  and  then  to  attack  it 
in  behalf  of  that  very  end  for  which  it  is  useful,"  can  not  rightly 
be  imputed  to  Bergson 's  pragmatism. 

I  can  not  see  that  Professor  Perry  has  brought  forth  anything 
under  the  second  point  of  his  criticism  which  tends  to  disprove 
Bergson 's  anti-intellectualism.  All  that  Professor  Perry  says  (pp. 
676-7)  about  spacial  continuity,  etc.,  Bergson  could  accept.  In  the 
case  of  space,  which  is  an  intellectual  construction,  the  formula  and 
added  statements  which  Professor  Perry  suggests,  can  mean,  nay, 
they  describe  this  kind  of  continuity ;  for  this  continuity  consists  of 
just  those  elements  and  connections  in  which  the  intellect  is  at  home ; 

irThis  JOUBNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  page  673. 


130  7  ///•;  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

this  quantitative  multiplicity  being  made  up  of  elements  which  are 
homogeneous,  static,  and  which  merely  touch,  but  do  not  penetrate, 
each  other.  Siu-h  a  system  or  order  can  be  conceived  and  described 
in  the  manner  Professor  IVrry  suggests  (p.  677). 

But  how  about  the  other  continuities,  those  of  time  and  motion? 
It  is  the  essence  of  Bergson 's  contention,  that  when  the  intellect 
deals  with  these  continuities,  it  can  do  so  only  as  it  frames  concepts 
which  leave  out  of  their  content  and  their  legitimate  function  just 
that  which  is  distinctive  of  time  and  that  which  is  the  essence  of 
motion.  The  intellect  thinks  time  only  as  it  spacializes  it,  and 
motion  only  as  it  reduces  it  to  a  succession  of  immobile  states.  Now, 
under  this  third  point  of  his  critique,  I  can  not  see  that  Professor 
Perry  has  broken  the  force  of  this  contention. 

In  the  next  criticism,  the  substance  of  Professor  Perry's  reason- 
ing against  Bergson's  position,  "that  to  conceive  time  is  to  spacialize 
it,"  is  as  follows:  "Bergson  is  misled  by  supposing  that  because 
time  is  conceived  as  orderly,  it  is  therefore  nothing  but  order.  Bare 
logical  order  is  static  and  can  never  express  time.  But  it  is  an 
utterly  different  matter  to  regard  time,  like  space  and  number,  as  a 
case  of  order,  having  the  specific  time  quale  over  and  above  the  prop- 
erties of  order.  Position,  interval,  before  and  after,  are  then  to  be 
taken  in  the  temporal  sense;  and  the  terms  of  the  series  are  not  to  be 
taken  as  bare  logical  terms,  still  less  as  spacial  points,  but  as  instants 
possessing  a  unique  time-character  of  their  own"  (p.  678). 

Now,  this  reasoning,  I  think,  begs  the  question.  For,  to  regard 
time  as  a  "case  of  order,"  and  at  the  same  time  to  give  it  the 
"specific  quale"  of  the  sort  proposed,  is  as  impossible  a  logical 
undertaking  as  would  be  the  attempt  to  place  something  in  a  certain 
genus,  and  at  the  same  time  give  it  a  mark  or  quale  which  takes  it 
out  of  that  genus  altogether,  and  puts  it  within  some  other  genus. 
The  "time  quale,"  the  "unique  time-character"  which  Professor 
Perry  thinks  constitutes  only  a  specific  differentia  in  the  case  he 
instances,  really  constitutes  a  generic  difference.  What  we  have  in 
this  instance  is  not  a  species  within  a  genus,  but  two  genera  between 
which,  Bergson  contends,  there  is  a  radical  difference.  I  do  not 
think  Professor  Perry,  in  this  part  of  his  critique,  has  successfully 
met  Bergson 's  contention  that  the  concepts  of  time  and  motion  which 
our  intellect  forms  do  not  give  us  knowledge  of  these  realities;  they 
do  not  give  us  "access  to  that  immediacy"  in  which  real  duration 
and  motion  are  given  us. 

The  second  main  criticism  which  Professor  Perry  makes  upon 
Bergson's  anti-intellectualism  is  that  Bergson  "puts  forth  a  claim 
which  is  unfounded — the  claim,  namely,  to  the  immediate  apprehen- 
sion of  a  fused  and  inarticulate  unity"  (p.  678). 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          131 

The  substance  of  the  critic's  reply  to  Bergson  is  that  what  Berg- 
son  puts  forth  as  matter  of  immediate  knowledge  is  not  really  knowl- 
edge at  all.  Thus,  Bergson  says:2  "The  more  we  succeed  in  making 
ourselves  conscious  of  our  progress  in  pure  duration,  the  more  we 
feel  the  different  parts  of  our  being  enter  into  each  other,  and  our 
whole  personality  concentrate  itself  in  a  point. ' '  To  this  Professor 
Perry  replies  (p.  679)  :  "What  Bergson  is  here  describing  is,  I  am 
convinced,  the  disappearance  of  cognition  into  an  experience  which 
is  not  an  experience  of  anything  at  all.  .  .  .  My  experience  of  life  has 
dissolved ;  but  nothing  follows  concerning  the  nature  of  life.  I  have 
simply  closed  my  eyes  to  it.  I  have  blurred  and  blotted  out  my 
knowledge  of  life. ' ' 

Now,  after  reading  all  the  passages  in  Bergson 's  writings  which 
relate  to  intuitive  knowledge,  I  can  not  convince  mi/self  that  Bergson 
is  not  describing  a  truly  cognitive  experience,  instead  of  giving  us 
knowledge  at  the  vanishing-point.  My  own  introspection  verifies 
Bergson 's  statements.  I  am  quite  certain  that  I  have  an  experience 
of  something,  namely,  of  real  time  in  its  flow  and  interpenetration  of 
moments.  I  have,  it  seems  to  me,  an  immediate  knowledge  of  just 
that  qualitative  multiplicity  of  psychical  states  which  Bergson  has 
clearly  described  and  accurately  distinguished  from  the  other  kind 
of  multiplicity,  of  which  we  have  knowledge  only  through  the  media- 
tion of  conceptual  thinking. 

I  am  unable  to  see  on  what  grounds  Professor  Perry  is  "con- 
vinced" of  the  erroneousness  of  Bergson 's  description,  other  than 
his  own  introspection,  and  possibly  that  of  other  individuals  whose 
introspection  yields  the  same  results.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
utmost  Bergson 's  critic  makes  out  against  Bergson 's  position  is  that 
Bergson 's  claim  to  an  immediate  apprehension  of  the  sort  described 
is  not  borne  out  by  the  introspective  analysis  of  at  least  one  person, 
and  possibly  not  borne  out  by  the  introspection  of  other  individuals. 
But  that  the  claim  to  such  non-conceptual  knowledge  is  an  unfounded 
one,  the  critic,  in  my  opinion,  has  not  shown. 

JOHN  E.  RUSSELL. 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE. 

REVIEWS    AND    ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

Lectures   on   the   Experimental   Psychology   of   the   Thought   Processes. 

EDWARD  BRADFORD  TITCHENER.     New  York :  The  Macmillan  Co.     1909. 

Pp.  ix  -f  318. 

This  book  consists  of  five  lectures  delivered  at  the  University  of  Illi- 
nois ;  the  lectures  proper  fill  about  two  thirds  of  the  volume,  the  rest  being 
'"Creative  Evolution,"  page  201. 


132  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

given  to  notes.  Together  they  form  a  needed  analysis  of  the  contribu- 
tions to  the  experimental  investigation  of  thought  by  Marbe,  Watt,  Ach, 
Messer,  Biihler,  etc.,  besides  giving  the  author's  estimate  of  their  value, 
his  own  present  views  concerning  the  problems  raised,  and  his  suggestions 
for  fruitful  directions  of  future  research.  It  is  doubly  welcome  because 
of  the  author's  happy  gifts  for  such  a  task. 

At  the  very  outset  it  is  shown  that  individual  differences  in  mental 
make-up  must  play  an  important  part  in  the  psychology  of  thought,  that, 
indeed,  "  a  frank  acceptance  of  the  teachings  of  differential  psychology 
will  go  far  to  allay  some  of  the  perennial  controversies  of  the  text-books  " 
(p.  7).  What  part  they  may  play  Titchener  indicates  by  laying  bare  the 
workings  of  his  own  mind.  His  mind  is  markedly  of  the  imaginal — the 
mixed  imaginal — sort.  Sometimes  one  kind  of  imagery  is  uppermost, 
sometimes  another.  In  reading,  for  instance,  his  ultimate  standard  of 
clarity  and  consistency  in  an  author  is  schematically  visual — the  visual 
pattern  not  merely  an  accompaniment  of  other  processes,  but  one  that  "  is 
or  equals  my  gross  understanding  of  the  matter  in  hand"  (p.  13).  For 
him  either  visual  or  kinesthetic  imagery,  quite  apart  from  verbal,  may  be 
the  vehicles  of  logical  meaning — may  mean  of  themselves — and  not  act 
merely  as  guide-posts  to  something  beyond. 

This  discussion  leads  to  one  concerning  the  possibility  of  abstract  or 
general  ideas.  It  is  pointed  out  that  in  the  traditional  English  teaching 
there  has  been  here  a  confusion  between  logic  and  psychology,  for  the 
abstract  is  not  the  conscious  process,  but  the  logical  meaning.  Titchener 
believes,  indeed,  that  a  particular  definite  image  might  carry  abstract 
meaning  and  a  vague  image  a  particular  meaning,  since  attenlional  clear- 
ness is  the  essential  element  in  the  meaningfulness  of  an  image,  and  not 
intrinsic  definiteness. 

The  argument  thus  far  points  to  psychological  sensationalism;  the 
book  is,  indeed,  a  defense  of  sensationalism  as  an  adequate  instrument 
of  interpretation  in  dealing  with  thought  processes  as  well  as  with  others. 
The  author  sharply  separates  modern  sensationalism,  however,  from  that 
of  the  associationists.  They  dealt  with  meanings,  thought-tokens,  bits 
of  knowledge,  with  sensations  of  and  not  with  sensations;  the  sensations 
and  ideas  of  modern  psychology  are,  on  the  contrary,  Erlebnisse,  data  of 
immediate  experience.  Meanings,  furthermore,  are  stable  and  may  be 
ordered  mosaic  wise  or  chain-wise,  but  experience  is  continuously  flowing; 
a  psychology  whose  elements  are  sensations  is,  therefore,  a  process  psy- 
chology, quite  innocent  of  mosaic  and  concatenation.  Whether  referring 
to  "  substantive  "  or  "  transitive  "  meanings,  the  psychological  process  is 
always  of  itself  transitory.  Nor  did  the  associationists  help  matters  by 
invoking  mental  chemistry,  for  "  we  do  not  expect,  if  two  sensations  are 
put  together,  to  obtain  a  simple  concurrence  of  their  two  qualities  "  (p. 
32).  Finally,  modern  sensationalism  is  merely  an  heuristic  principle  and 
not  a  preconceived  theory;  to  us  the  sensation  is  an  analytic  element, 
says  Titchener,  abstracted  from  complex  mental  experiences,  not  a  syn- 
thetic or  generative  element — not  a  "  first  term  "  in  the  construction  of 
mind. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          133 

The  upshot  of  this  first  lecture  is,  then,  that  the  image  may  adequately 
equal  meaning  and  that,  if  the  task  of  modern  psychology  is  analysis  of 
experience  into  its  existential  elements,  sensation  (with  affection)  is 
doubtless  an  adequate  tool. 

The  second  lecture  deals  with  " '  reference  to  object '  as  the  criterion 
of  mind."  In  the  various  "  reference  to  object "  theories  psychological 
fact  has  been  cast  into  logical  form;  the  separation  of  the  conscious 
experience  into  act  and  content,  or  idea  and  object,  leads  to  overarticula- 
tion  and  to  neglect  of  analysis,  because  logical  construction  and  not  intro- 
spective analysis  is  here  in  control  of  classification  and  analysis.  To 
extricate  psychology  from  this  Titchener  invokes  the  process  character 
of  mind :  the  way  a  process  runs  its  course  (act)  makes  it  sensing,  feeling, 
or  thinking,  whereas  the  quality  thus  in  passage  (content)  makes  it  tone 
or  pleasure.  Furthermore,  the  pointing  relation  of  the  "transitive  ob- 
jectivity" theories  (Stout,  Witasek)  does  not  obtain  in  feelings,  organic 
sensations,  etc.,  whereas  we  do  find  it  in  the  physical  world:  the  transitive 
reference  is  not,  therefore,  existentially  speaking,  a  unique,  characteristic 
criterion  of  mind.  The  concept  of  objective  reference,  in  whatever  form, 
is  thus  an  irrelevant  injection  of  logic  into  psychology,  warping  it  away 
from  the  direct  existential  analysis  of  conscious  phenomena  where  we 
do,  in  fact,  find  objectless  mental  processes.  This  exclusion  of  the  "  log- 
ical "  objective-reference  postulate  from  the  existential  science  of  psy- 
chology frees  us  from  a  frequently  urged  difficulty — that  two  ideas  or 
images  under  the  form  of  existence  can  not  make  a  meaning  (because 
meaning  is  reference  to  object  and  this  can  be  known  but  not  imaged), 
since,  in  an  existential  psychology,  the  final  appeal  is  to  introspection; 
and  introspection  tells  us,  thinks  Titchener,  that  under  certain  circum- 
stances two  ideas  do  make  a  meaning. 

The  third  lecture  takes  up  the  actual  work  of  the  experimental  investi- 
gators. Their  attempt,  the  details  of  which  can  not  here  be  considered, 
was,  essentially,  to  isolate  under  experimental  conditions  some  thought 
process  and  to  require  from  the  subjects  careful  introspection  on  its 
behavior.  These  introspective  data  Titchener  thinks  very  valuable.  As 
to  the  relative  merits  of  the  individual  investigators,  he  believes  that 
Marbe  and  Binet  made  a  good  beginning,  that  Ach  and  Watt  followed 
logically  with  respective  specializations  of  the  problems  involved,  that 
Messer,  disregarding  the  good  example  of  Ach  and  Watt,  tried  too  much, 
and  that  Biihler,  in  devoting  himself  to  "  a  revolutionary  attempt  to 
rewrite  the  psychology  of  thought  from  the  beginning"  (p.  98),  for- 
sakes rigid  experiment  and  is  methodologically  retrogressive. 

Emerging  from  the  work  of  these  experimenters  there  appears,  as 
perhaps  most  characteristic,  the  Bewusstseinslage — "  an  almost  untrans- 
latable term,  meaning  something  like  posture  or  attitude  of  conscious- 
ness"  (p.  100),  but  identifiable,  at  least,  with  what  Angell  had  previously 
phrased  as  "  a  tingling  sense  of  irradiating  meaning,"  and  Stout  as  the 
experience  of  "  imageless  thought."  Some  such  attitudes  are  doubt,  diffi- 
culty, effort,  hesitation,  and  the  opposite  experiences  of  certainty,  assent, 


134  THE  JOURNAL  OF 

conviction,  etc.  Disregarding  differences  in  usage,  classification,  and 
theory  of  the  various  investigators,  we  have  here  an  exix-rii-m-i-  that  appar- 
ently defies  analysis  into  sensations  and  images,  into,  in  tine,  any  taraat 
of  content  whatever ;  they  are  essentially  obscure  and  intangible,  "  image- 
less  presentations  "  with,  however,  perfectly  "  unequivocal  reference,"  the 
niiml  being  thrown  into  a  certain  set  or  adjustment,  the  significance  of 
which  may  be  nttentionally  clear  but  empty  of  imaginal  furnishings 
There  may,  of  course,  be  transitional  forms  (Titchener,  indeed,  regards 
the  present  pressing  problem  to  be  the  tracing  of  the  development  of  these 
attitudes,  within  the  individual  mind,  from  their  original  imaginal 
matrix),1  but  the  full-blown  attitude  is  apparently  contentless.  Does, 
then,  consciousness  really  harbor  such  things?  If  so,  are  they  mental 
elements?  If  they  are  not,  what  are  they?  The  challenge  to  sensation- 
alism is  unequivocal  and  unavoidable. 

It  is  but  a  short  step  to  pass,  in  the  fourth  lecture,  from  the  Beurusat- 
seinslage  of  meaning  to  thought  itself.  Do  the  experimental  results  bear 
out  the  theory  of  imageless  thought!  Marbe,  unsuccessful  in  his  search 
for  psychological  judgment  processes,  invokes,  as  the  guide  in  judgment, 
an  unconscious  dispositional  purpose.  Watt  proposes,  as  his  psychological 
criterion  of  judgment,  the  Aufgdbe  (problem  or  task)  given,  in  his  experi- 
ments, in  the  instructions  of  the  experimenter  and  definable,  more  gen- 
erally, as  the  underlying  intention  in  control  of  an  activity.  This  it  is 
that  distinguishes  a  judgment  from  a  mere  sequence  of  experiences,  and, 
although  as  explicit  conscious  experience  it  may  be  past  and  gone,  it 
persists  as  an  appreciable  influence — as  an  automatic  set,  attitude,  or 
adjustment.  This  determining  "  problem  "  is  also  clear  to  Messer  and 
Ach.  As  the  reviewer  understands  it,  we  are  here  again  in  the  presence 
of  a  Bewusstseinslage — a  Bewusstseinslage  of  cognition — that  may  func- 
tion effectively,  but  exhibit  no  apparent  imaginal  content.  Biihler  finds, 
indeed,  the  most  important  factors  in  the  thinking  of  his  subjects  to  be 
something  without  sensible  content,  referred  to  as  awareness,  or  knowl- 
edge, or  "  the  consciousness  that "  or,  most  frequently,  thoughts.  These 
are  Biihler's  thought  elements,  the  ultimate  units  of  thought  experience. 
Titchener,  it  may  be  remarked,  objects  to  this  last  result  on  the  specific 
ground  that  Biihler's  introspective  data  show  what  in  the  sphere  of  sen- 
sation would  be  called  the  stimulus  error — the  observer  does  not  describe 
his  thought,  but,  instead,  what  it  is  about,  describes  not  the  conscious 
process  as  such,  but  formulates  "  the  reference  of  consciousness  to  things  " 
(p.  147) — a  criticism  applying  also  to  Binet  and  Woodworth. 

But  aside  from  this  and  aside  from  the  unsatisfactory  state  of  affairs 
that  exists,  as  the  author  shows,  as  to  a  proper  psychological  criterion  of 
judgment,  the  investigators  agree  that  there  is  present  in  the  thought 
process  an  effectively  determining  factor,  yielding,  however,  no  explicit 
conscious  (sensory  or  imaginal)  content. 

The  challenge  to  sensationalism  is  wholesome  and  should  be  frankly 
and  gladly  met,  thinks  Titchener.  In  the  last  lecture  he  does  what  he 

'See,   on    this,    Helen    Maude   Clarke,    "Conscious    Attitudes/'    American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  1911,  Vol.  XXII.,  pp.  214-249. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          135 

can,  at  the  present  stage  of  investigation,  to  meet  it.  The  gain  from 
previous  work  is  clear:  conscious  states  like  doubt,  hesitation,  certainty, 
etc. — attitudes — have  been  isolated  and  the  fact  of  determination,  Auf- 
gabe,  has  been  recognized  as  a  principle  of  explanation  in  strict  labora- 
tory procedure.  The  discovery  of  Aufgabe  "  has  made  it  impossible  for 
any  future  psychologist  to  write  a  psychology  of  thought  in  the  language 
of  content  alone.  I  believe,  indeed,  that  the  principle  of  determination, 
taken  together  with  what  I  may  call  a  genetic  sensationalism,  furnishes 
a  trustworthy  guide  for  further  experimental  study  of  the  thought- 
processes;  and  I  think  that  the  work  immediately  before  us  is,  under  this 
guidance,  to  bring  the  processes,  little  bit  by  bit,  under  rigorous  experi- 
mental control"  (pp.  163-164).  The  question  is  not  wholly,  therefore, 
Can  the  sensationalists  find  in  the  alleged  imageless  experiences  always  a 
sensory  content?  but  rather,  Isn't  content  more  pervasively  present  than 
the  imageless-thought  disciples  suppose,  and  may  not  such  things  as 
Watt's  Aufgabe  and  Ach's  determinierende  Tendenzen  be,  genetically, 
developments  from  processes  essentially  imaginal?  The  further  question, 
it  is  true,  also  awaits :  If,  originally  full  of  content,  these  experiences  are 
now  empty  of  it,  how  should  a  sensationalistic  psychology  now  classify 
them? 

Three  regulative  maxims  are  first  proposed  that,  should  direct  inquiry 
into  these  matters.  (1)  Psychology  must  steer  circumspectly  between 
logic,  on  the  one  hand,  and  common  sense,  on  the  other.  (2)  Psychology, 
in  such  problems  as  thought,  must  supplement  the  analytic  treatment 
with  the  genetic,  racial  as  well  as  individual — an  analysis  must  be  re- 
peated at  the  various  formative  levels  of  consciousness.  Furthermore,  we 
shall  take  as  a  mental  element  "  any  process  that  proves  to  be  irreducible, 
unanalyzable,  throughout  the  whole  course  of  individual  experience  "  (p. 
170).  If  an  attitude  can  be  traced  back  in  the  individual  to  an  imaginal 
source,  it  is  not  a  new  kind  of  conscious  element.  (3)  "  Consciousness 
may  be  guided  and  controlled  by  extra-conscious,  physiological  factors — 
by  cortical  sets  and  dispositions  "  (p.  173) — a  determination  that  may  lead, 
too,  to  novel  conscious  connections. 

Titchener  then  attacks  the  problems  directly.  Is  it  nonsense  to  call  a 
psychological  fact  or  occurrence  the  meaning  of  another  psychological 
fact  or  occurrence?  Can  two  ideas  be  both  idea  and  its  meaning?  Yes, 
under  certain  circumstances,  as  already  stated  in  the  second  lecture. 
Psychologically,  "  meaning — so  far  as  it  finds  representation  in  conscious- 
ness at  all — is  always  context,"  and  context  is  "  simply  the  mental  process 
or  complex  of  mental  processes  which  accrues  to  the  original  idea  through 
the  situation  in  which  the  organism  finds  itself"  (p.  175).  Originally 
meaning  is  kinesthesis — the  sensations  involved  in  a  characteristic  bodily 
attitude  "  are  psychologically  the  meaning  of  that  process.  .  .  .  After- 
wards, when  differentiation  has  taken  place,  context  may  be  mainly  a 
matter  of  sensations  of  the  special  senses,  or  of  images,  or  of  kinesthetic 
and  other  organic  sensations,  as  the  situation  demands"  (p.  176).  Kin- 
esthesis and  verbal  imagery  are  especially  important,  since  words  them- 
selves were  originally  motor  attitudes,  kinesthetic  contexts. 


136  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOI'U  V 

But,  further,  meaning  is  probably  carried  in  purely  physiological 
terms;  the  Aufgdbe  must  be  there,  but  that  need  not  either  come  to  con- 
sciousness. As  for  imageless  thoughts,  Titchener's  own  introspection 
does  not  show  him,  in  his  search  for  Bewusstseinslagen,  forms  of  experi- 
ence different  in  kind  from  such  kinesthetic  backgrounds  as  his  careful 
introspection  often  discovers  in  the  respective  attitudes  involved  in  work- 
ing off,  for  instance,  on  a  typewriter,  a  lecture  or  the  daily  batch  of  pro- 
fessional correspondence.  But  the  contention  is  not  at  all  that  attitudes 
will  always,  in  their  developed  state,  exhibit  content,  but  that,  since 
genetically  they  probably  spring  from  sensory  experiences,  they  are  not 
distinct  conscious  elements.  While  still  recognizable  as  conscious  atti- 
tudes, they  either  show  some  remnant  of  imagery  or,  since  they  may  be, 
in  their  development  towards  physiological  dispositions,  on  the  brink  of 
unconsciousness,  exhibit  none  discoverable.  In  much  of  this  Titchener 
is,  of  course,  simply  expressing  tentative  belief  and  not  experiment-born 
conviction,  but  the  main  contention,  that  sensationalism  has  still  a  well- 
considered  word  or  two  to  say,  stands  clear.  In  "  feelings  of  relation," 
too,  Titchener  finds  content ;  but  here,  also,  habit  operates  towards  uncon- 
scious mechanization,  towards  physiological  disposition.  As  to  judgment, 
we  do  not  yet  know  what  it  psychologically  is;  but  the  task  of  psychology 
is  to  work  out  the  particular  problems  set  by  investigations  already  made 
and  compare  results  with  the  teachings  of  logic,  in  order  to  find  out  what 
kinds  of  consciousness  correspond  with  logical  definitions  of  judgment. 

Finally,  we  are  not  yet  driven  to  psychological  revolution.  "  My  task 
has  been  to  persuade  you  that  there  is  no  need,  as  things  are,  to  swell  the 
number  of  mental  elements;  that  the  psychology  of  thought,  so  far  as 
we  have  it,  may  be  interpreted  from  the  sensationalistic  standpoint,  and 
so  far  as  we  still  await  it,  may  be  approached  by  sensationalistic  methods  " 
(p.  194). 

Titchener's  personal  answer  to  the  challenge  of  the  exponents  of  image- 
less  thought  is  contained,  in  gist,  in  the  following  statement,  referring, 
specifically,  to  " feelings  of  relation " :  "I  must  declare  .  .  .  that  I  can 
bear  witness  both  to  kinesthesis  and  to  cortical  set,  but  that  between  these 
extremes  I  find  nothing  at  all"  (p.  188).  That  is,  in  such  things  as  the 
Bewusstseinslage,  as  the  Aufgabe,  there  is  either  discoverable  content 
(sensational,  imaginal)  or  there  is  unconsciousness,  mechanization,  physi- 
ological disposition,  cortical  set.  It  seems  to  the  reviewer  that  the  "  cor- 
tical set"  is  an  interpretation  of  the  "nothing  at  all";  that  is,  intro- 
spection may  discover  content,  but  when  it  finds  "  nothing  at  all,"  it 
takes  the  matter  to  lie  outside  the  conscious  field  and  refers  it  then  to 
cortical  set.  Others,  however,  prefer  to  keep  these  Bewusstseinslagen, 
etc.,  in  consciousness  and  to  call  them  "  imageless."  Introspection  may, 
of  course,  give  you  "  imagelessness " ;  it  can  not  give  you  cortical  set. 
It  might  be  a  question,  therefore,  whether  those  who  prefer  to  retain 
attitudes,  no  matter  how  contentless,  within  consciousness,  are  not  ad- 
hering the  more  closely  to  the  introspective  ideal.  The  reply  of  sensa- 
tionalism to  this  is,  of  course,  obvious:  when  any  attitude  reveals  no  sen- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          137 

sational  or  imaginal  content,  one  is  not  directly  aware  of  it  at  all  but 
infers  its  presence  (as  unconscious  or  physiological  set)  by  its  results  in 
(introspective)  consciousness;  it  can  not,  therefore,  be  a  part  of  con- 
sciousness. But  the  rebuttal  is  equally  obvious :  first,  some  observers  do 
confess  to  awareness  for  which  subsequent  reflection  persistently  fails  to 
unmask  imaginal  content.  Secondly,  any  one's  introspection  shows  that 
one  may  be,  at  least  momentarily,  naively  aware  of  some  attitude,  like 
doubt,  with,  at  the  time,  no  awareness  whatever  of  sensations  or  images; 
it  is  only  by  the  subsequent  reflective  analysis  of  introspection  that  the 
attitude,  like  a  dissolving  magic  lantern  view,  may  fade  away  and  be 
replaced  by  an  array  of  sensations.  Now  by  what  license  can  the  first  act 
of  introspective  awareness  (that  of  doubt)  be  identified  with  the  second 
(that  of  sensations)  ?  Surely,  if  introspection  is  the  arbiter,  as  the  sensa- 
tionalists would  have  it,  to  say  that  the  first  is  the  second  is  to  forsake 
introspection  and  invoke  logical  construction. 

But,  although  even  the  introspective  criterion  does  not  appear  to  give 
the  honors  wholly  to  the  sensationalists,  the  reviewer  considers  the  diffi- 
culty between  them  and  the  exponents  of  imageless  thought  as  one  that 
neither  experiment  nor  introspection  can  settle.  It  is  a  matter  of  just 
that  naughty  logical  construction  which  those  to  whom  it  is  axiomatic 
that  introspection  is  the  final  arbiter  intrench  themselves  against.  Shall 
the  term  consciousness  be  limited  to  introspect  able  content,  everything 
else  being  cortical  set,  or  shall  we  leave  physiology  alone  here  and 
affirm  that  the  contentless  attitudes  and  Aufgaben  are  simply  forms 
of  consciousness  on  which  the  additional  reflective  process  always 
involved  in  introspection  is  not  possible?  To  this  question  the  strictly 
introspective  dispute  as  to  whether  one  may  or  may  not  be  directly 
aware  of  attitudes  empty  of  discoverable  content  is,  of  course,  not 
germane.  The  dilemma  appears  clear:  either  we  must  reserve  the 
term  "  conscious  "  for  the  gifts  of  introspection,  in  which  case  we  have  a 
psychology  limited  to  the  field  of  attainable  reflection,  all  else  being 
extra-conscious — physiological,  if  you  will — or  we  must  maintain  that 
the  field  of  real  conscious  "  stuff  "  lies  underneath  and  around  and  about 
the  field  of  introspection — including,  therefore,  "  mechanized  "  Bewusst- 
seinslagen  and  Aufgaben — the  data  offered  by  introspection  being  simply 
the  possible  additional  reflections  that  we  may  make  on  a  part  of  it.  The 
attitude  in  which  no  content  is  discoverable  is  merely  conscious  process 
successfully  resisting  reflection.  This  is,  of  course,  quite  aside  from  the 
question  of  whether  it  is  a  distinct  kind  of  conscious  element,  for  even 
if  it  be  true  that  a  process  traceable  back  to  a  stage  involving  imaginal 
content  can  not  be  a  distinct  element,  does  the  fact  that  in  its  develop- 
ment from  this  stage  it  gradually  loses  such  content  mean  anything  more 
than  that  it  no  longer  presents  introspectable  attributes?  Excluding  it 
as  a  novel  element,  must  we  also  throw  it  out  of  consciousness  altogether? 
Is  it  logical  to  call  it  a  conscious  attitude  so  long  as  it  is  embedded  in  an 
imaginal  matrix  and  then  make  it  a  physiological  process  when  the 
imagery  has  forsaken  it?  Nor  is  all  this  a  mere  question  of  naming,  of 


138  THE  JOURNAL  OF  FTIIWSOPHY 

classification:   it   is  a  question  of  the  definition  of  consciousness,  one's 
answer  to  which  sets  the  Aufgabe  that  controls  even  the  details  of  labo- 
ratory procedure.  ROSWELL  P.  ANOIKU. 
YALI  UNIVERSITY. 


Phases  of  Evolution  and  Heredity.    DAVTD  Bi  HHV   II  \RT.    London:  Reb- 

man  Limited.     1910.    Pp.  xi  +  259. 

The  Darwin-Wallace  theory  falls  short  in  two  respects.  (1)  It  does 
not  show  where  the  power  of  variation  in  the  individual  lies.  (2)  No 
adequate  explanation  of  the  inheritance  of  variation  is  offered.  Circum- 
cision, practised  generation  after  generation,  plainly  demonstrates  that 
artificially  produced  variations  in  the  "  soma "  of  individuals  are  not 
transmitted  to  subsequent  generations.  Weismann  made  an  advance  on 
Darwinism  when  he  asserted  that  the  power  of  variation  lies  in  the  primi- 
tive germ-cells  of  the  sexual  glands,  but  he  did  not  explain  adequately  the 
exact  nature  of  the  process  of  transmission.  Mendel's  experiments  in 
artificial  cross-fertilization  between  tall  pea-plants  and  a  dwarf  variety 
showed  that  the  first  generation  consisted  uniformly  of  tall  pea-plants. 
When  these  were  allowed  to  self-fertilize,  the  result  was  tails  and  dwarfs 
in  the  ratio  3:1.  The  dwarfs  thereafter  bred  true,  but  the  "  tails  gave,  on 
self-fertilization,  one  third  which  bred  true  to  tallness  and  two  thirds 
which,  as  impure  tails,  gave  somatic  tails,  and  also  dwarfs  breeding  true 
again  in  the  ratio  3:1."  From  this  Mendelians  infer  that  dominance  and 
recessiveness  of  certain  characteristics,  called  unit-characters,  are  ac- 
counted for  by  the  theory  of  gametic  segregation  and  combination  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  chance.  Dr.  Hart  believes  that  the  principal  defect 
in  the  Mendelian  theory  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  it  states  the  ratio 
of  transmission  in  relation  to  the  "  soma  "  of  the  plant  only.  An  organism 
(plant  or  animal)  consists  of  the  adult  individual  part  or  "  soma  "  and 
the  propagative  part.  The  latter  is  the  determining  factor  in  future 
reproduction.  The  author  holds  that  the  zygotes  in  each  crossing  consist 
of  a  propagative  and  a  somatic  part.  The  Mendelian  ratio  obtains  in  the 
propagative  part  only. 

In  the  fifth  chapter,  the  author  discusses  what  he  terms  an  intrinsic 
theory  of  variation  and  transmission.  lie  sums  it  up1  as  follows: 

The  primitive  germ-cells  which  give  rise  to  the  gametes  are  derived  from  an 
early  division  of  the  zygote,  and  travel  through  the  organism  to  the  sexual  gland 
without  undergoing  any  mitosis,  that  is  to  say,  without  variation  in  their  struc- 
ture. In  the  sexual  gland  they  undergo  mitosis,  which  means  variation  in  the 
determinants  of  the  unit-characters,  according  to  the  law  of  probability.  .  .  . 
When  the  gametes  unite,  we  get  half  of  the  varied  chromosomes  thrown  off,  and 
then  when  the  zygote  with  its  proper  number  of  chromosomes  is  formed,  we  get 
the  phenomenon  of  Mendelism,  by  which  the  unit-characters  are  distributed  in 
the  rygote,  again  according  to  the  law  of  probability;  so  that  by  all  this  we 
get  in  subsequent  generations  organs  following  the  curve  of  probability  in  their 
anatomical  condition  and  function. 

Dr.  Hart  declares  that  this  theory  "puts  variation  by  environment 
quite  out  of  question."     This  conclusion,  however,  does  not  necessarily 
'P.  94  ff. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         139 

stand.  It  remains  to  be  shown  that  variations  which  environment — not 
artificial  mutilation — produces  on  many  succeeding  generations  do  not 
affect  the  cells  that  are  set  apart  for  propagation  as  well  as  those  that 
constitute  the  "  soma,"  Tallness  and  shortness,  which  are  continually 
transmitted,  are  themselves  often  the  result  of  environment.  The  propa- 
gative  cells  do  not  exist  independent  of  and  apart  from  the  "  soma."  In 
short,  it  seems  best  to  wait  until  more  evidence  is  in  before  accepting  a 
theory  which  in  part  falls  back  on  chance,  and  for  the  rest  posits  two 
independent  causal  series,  the  "  soma  "  which  is  manifestly  influenced  by 
the  environment,  and  the  cells  set  apart  for  propagation,  which  act  inde- 
pendent of  environment. 

The  book,  as  a  whole,  is  not  a  unit,  but  discusses  widely  divergent  phases 
of  evolution  and  heredity.  One  chapter  is  devoted  to  the  life  of  Mendel. 
Other  subjects  taken  up  are :  "  Heredity  in  Disease,"  "  The  Evolution  of 
the  Honey-Bee,"  "The  Handicap  of  Sex,"  "Evolution  and  Keligion." 
The  author  has  written  a  stimulating  book.  Most  of  the  chapter  captions 
might  well  serve  as  titles  of  books.  FREDERICK  GOODRICH  HENKE. 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  NANKING. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  EEVIEW.  September,  1911.  The  Pla- 
tonic Distinction  between  "  True "  and  "  False "  Pleasures  and  Pains 
(pp.  471^197)  :  HAROLD  H.  JOACHIM.  -  It  is  maintained  that  the  question 
raised  by  Plato  regarding  the  reality  of  pleasure  and  pain  is  of  great 
importance.  For  common  opinion  the  question  of  the  truth  or  falsity  of 
pleasure  and  pain  does  not  arise,  because  for  them  there  is  no  distinction 
of  "  the  that  "  from  "  the  what,"  thus  marking  them  off  from  "  knowing  " 
and  "  willing."  Regarding  the  distinction  of  the  "  that  "  and  the  "  what " 
in  "  knowing  "  and  "  willing  "  as  untenable,  "  feeling  "  is  put  in  the  same 
class,  and  the  question  of  reality  has  equal  validity  with  them.  The  Role  of 
the  Type  in  Mental  Processes  (pp.  498-514)  :  W.  B.  PiLLSBURY.-It  is  stated 
that  consciousness  has  to  do  more  with  things  than  with  sensations.  The 
two  current  views  that  perception  is  a  combination  of  sensations  and  that 
it  is  a  group  of  movements  are  rejected.  Things  are  "  types  "  developed 
in  experience  out  of  a  necessity  of  "  harmonizing  various  experiences  of 
the  same  object."  The  origin  and  nature  of  the  "  type  "  is  explained  as 
its  meaning  is  illustrated  in  the  processes  of  perception,  memory,  and 
action.  Philosophy  in  France,  1910  (pp.  515-534)  :  ANDRE  LALANDE.  -  A 
resume  and  brief  criticism  of  various  recent  books  on  French  philosophy. 
The  emphasis  is  on  religious  philosophy.  The  chief  works  viewed  are: 
J.  J.  Gourd:  La  philosophic  de  la  religion;  M.  Charles  Dunau:  Les  deux 
idealismes;  M.  Delvalue:  Rationalisme  et  tradition;  M.  Parodi:  Le  prob- 
leme  moral  et  la  pensee  contemporaine.  Reviews  of  Books  (pp.  535-558)  : 
Theodore  DeLaguna  and  Grace  Andrus  DeLaguna,  Dogmatism  and  Evolu- 
tion: Studies  in  Modern  Philosophy:  ARTHUR  O.  LOVEJOY.  Edward  Brad- 
ford Titchener,  A  Text-book  of  Psychology:  JAMES  ROWLAND  ANGELL. 
Emile  Brehier,  Chrysippe:  G.  S.  BRETT.  A.  Meinong,  Uber  Annahmen: 


140  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

WILBUR  M.  URBAN.      Notices  of  New  Books.      Summaries  of  Articles. 
Notes. 

Kii lit  111:11 1 ii.  Alfred.  Zur  Geschichte  des  Terminismus.  Leipzig:  Verlag 
von  Quelle  und  Meyer.  1911.  Pp.  viii  +  127.  M.  4.20. 

Marck,  Siegfried.  Die  Platoniscbe  Ideen-Lehre  in  Ihren  Motiven. 
Munich :  C.  H.  Beck'sche  Verlagsbuchhandlung.  1912.  Pp.  viii  +  180. 

Taylor,  A.  E.  Varia  Socratica:  First  Series.  (St.  Andrew's  University 
Publications,  No.  IX.)  Oxford:  James  Parker  &  Co.  1911.  Pp. 
xii  +  269. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

FOR  an  anthropological  research  expedition  to  the  islands  of  Normandy, 
Fergusson  and  Goodenough,  in  British  New  Guinea,  as  we  learn  from  the 
London  Times,  funds  are  being  provided  out  of  the  Oxford  University 
common  fund  and  by  several  of  the  colleges.  The  work  has  been  under- 
taken by  Mr.  David  Jenness,  of  Balliol  College,  who  proposes,  unaccom- 
panied, to  spend  a  year  amongst  people  who  are  admittedly  cannibals. 
It  is  stipulated  by  the  university,  in  contributing  to  the  expedition,  that 
the  museum  shall  have  the  first  offer  of  articles  of  interest  which  may  be 
obtained.  Assistance  has  been  promised  by  the  missionaries  on  Good- 
enough  Island,  including  the  use  of  a  boat  and  native  oarsmen.  The  first 
few  weeks  will  be  spent  in  cruising  around  the  islands  endeavoring  to  get 
on  friendly  terms  with  the  people  and  in  studying  the  trade  relations. 
As  the  natives  have  sea-going  canoes  and  trade  with  the  neighboring 
coast  and  the  island  of  Trobriand,  100  miles  away,  Mr.  Jenness  will 
endeavor  to  obtain  the  good  will  of  one  of  the  chiefs  and  settle  down  for 
about  a  year.  Later  he  will  proceed  on  a  mission  boat  to  Rossell  Island, 
at  the  eastern  end  of  the  Louisiade  Archipelago,  to  study  some  ethnolog- 
ical problems  concerning  the  relationships  of  Oceanic  peoples.  Mr.  Jen- 
ness  has  been  provided  with  the  latest  scientific  instruments,  including  a 
phonograph  for  recording  native  songs  and  speech. 

IT  is  stated  in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  that 
Professor  Theodor  Ziehen,  director  of  the  psychiatric  and  neurologic 
clinic  in  Berlin,  will  resign  his  position  at  the  end  of  the  winter  semester 
and  discontinue  all  medical  work,  in  order  to  devote  himself  exclusively 
to  research  in  psychology.  For  this  purpose,  he  will  remove  to  Wiesbaden, 
where  he  will  erect  for  himself  a  private  psychological  laboratory. 

DR.  G.  STANLEY  HALL,  president  of  Clark  University,  delivered  the 
address  at  the  inauguration  of  Dr.  George  E.  Myers,  principal  of  the 
State  Manual  Training  School  at  Pittsburg,  Kansas.  The  subject  of 
the  address  was  "  Educational  Efficiency." 

PROFESSOR  R.  S.  WOODWORTH,  of  Columbia  University,  is  planning  to 
spend  a  semester's  leave  of  absence  in  visiting  the  psychological  institutes 
of  England  and  Germany. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  6.  MARCH  14,  1912. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE    CONCEPT   OF   IMMEDIACY 

rpHE  attempt  to  determine  the  character  and  import  of  immedi- 
-L  acy,  as  a  concept  in  present-day  thought,  finds  its  most  promis- 
ing point  of  departure  in  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  While  it  is  true 
that  the  "back  to  Kant"  movement  has  been  in  abeyance  of  late,  the 
present  time  is  peculiarly  in  need  of  reflection  upon  its  borrowings 
from  the  Kantian  philosophy,  in  so  far  as  these  relate  to  the  issues 
involved  in  current  controversy.  The  fundamental  issue,  in  fact,  be- 
tween objective  idealism  and  its  opponents  may  be  conveniently  cen- 
tered about  the  treatment  which  Kant  accords  to  the  concept  of  im- 
mediacy. According  to  recent  critics  of  objective  idealism,  this  con- 
cept is  made  to  cover  two  divergent  and  incompatible  meanings,  a 
confusion  which  has  been  perpetuated  by  his  followers  down  to  the 
present  day. 

Stated  somewhat  generally,  the  problem  which  Kant  set  himself 
to  solve  was  to  ascertain  how  the  concepts  of  the  understanding 
justify  their  claim  to  validity  within  experience.  This  problem  was 
particularly  acute,  owing  to  the  sharp  separation  postulated  by  Kant 
between  sense  and  understanding.  The  categories  of  the  understand- 
ing, as  he  says,  "are  not  conditions  under  which  objects  can  be 
given  in  intuition,  and  it  is  quite  possible  therefore  that  objects 
should  appear  to  us  without  any  necessary  reference  to  the  functions 
of  the  understanding."1  "It  can  not  be  denied  that  phenomena 
may  be  given  in  intuition  without  the  functions  of  the  understand- 
ing."2 "We  could  quite  well  imagine  that  phenomena  might  pos- 
sibly be  such  that  the  understanding  should  not  find  them  conform- 
ing to  the  conditions  of  its  synthetical  unity,  and  all  might  be  in  such 
confusion  that  nothing  should  appear  in  the  succession  of  phenomena 
which  could  supply  a  rule  of  synthesis,  and  correspond,  for  in- 
stance, to  the  concept  of  cause  and  effect,  so  that  this  concept  would 

1 ' '  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason, ' '  p.  74.    All  the  references  are  to  the  transla- 
tion by  Max  Miiller. 
'Ibid.,  p.  75. 

141 


142  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

thus  be  quite  empty,  null,  and  meaningless.  With  all  this  phenomena 
would  offer  objects  to  our  intuition,  because  intuition  by  itself  does 
not  require  the  functions  of  thought."* 

From  this  standpoint  immediacy  is  necessarily  identified  with  the 
material  of  sense,  considered  without  reference  to  the  concepts  of  the 
understanding.  Concerning  this  material  of  sense,  considered  by 
itself,  there  can  be  no  question  of  truth  or  falsehood,  such  as  arises 
at  once  when  the  concepts  of  the  understanding  come  into  play. 
This  separation,  however,  of  sense  and  understanding  disappears  as 
Kant  proceeds.  "Every  representation,"  as  he  explains,  "contains 
something  manifold,  which  could  not  be  represented  as  such,  unless 
the  mind  distinguished  the  time  in  the  succession  of  one  impression 
after  another;  for  as  contained  in  one  moment,  each  representation 
can  never  be  anything  but  absolute  unity.  In  order  to  change  this 
manifold  into  a  unity  of  intuition  (as,  for  instance,  in  the  representa- 
tion of  space),  it  is  necessary  first  to  run  through  the  manifold  and 
then  to  hold  it  together."4  "Connection,  however,  does  never  lie  in 
the  objects,  and  can  not  be  borrowed  from  them  by  perception,  and 
thus  be  taken  into  the  understanding,  but  is  always  an  act  of  the 
understanding,  which  itself  is  nothing  but  a  faculty  of  connecting 
a  priori,  and  of  bringing  the  manifold  of  given  representations  under 
the  unity  of  apperception,  which  is,  in  fact,  the  highest  principle  of 
all  human  knowledge. ' >B 

Considerations  of  this  kind  evidently  require  a  profound  modifi- 
cation of  the  standpoint  maintained  by  Hume.  In  the  first  place, 
we  are  led  to  a  radically  different  conception  of  immediacy.  The 
sense  impressions  which  at  the  outset  represented  the  sum  total  of 
immediate  experience,  are  now  placed  under  the  ban  as  empty  ab- 
stractions. "Perception  without  conception  is  blind."  And,  sec- 
ondly, we  are  required  to  postulate  a  process  of  synthesis,  not  as  an 
experienced  fact,  but  as  a  precondition  of  all  experience.  That  is, 
this  reconstruction  of  immediacy  is  bound  up  with  a  non-spatial  and 
non-temporal  fact.  ' '  The  mind  could  never  conceive  the  identity  of 
itself  in  the  manifoldness  of  its  representations  (and  this  a  priori) 
if  it  did  not  clearly  perceive  the  identity  of  its  action,  by  which  it 
subjects  all  synthesis  of  apprehension  (which  is  empirical)  to  a 
transcendental  unity."6  While  Kant  does  not  set  forth  clearly  the 
precise  character  either  of  this  new  immediacy  or  of  this  numerical 
identity  pervading  experience,  the  implication  of  both  in  his  stand- 
point seems  to  be  reasonably  plain. 

1  Ibid.,  p.  75. 
4  Ibid.,  p.  82. 
•  Ibid.,  p.  747. 
•Ibid.,  p.  89. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          143 

Viewed  as  an  argument,  Kant's  disquisition  possesses  an  inherent 
weakness  to  which  his  critics  have  given  due  attention.  The  fallacy 
of  assuming  in  the  premises  what  is  denied  in  the  conclusion  is  so 
painfully  evident  that  extended  exposition  is  superfluous.  If  we 
assume,  to  start  with,  that  experience  consists,  in  the  first  instance, 
of  relationless  sensations,  we  are  indeed  obliged  to  infer  a  transcen- 
dental unity  of  apperception;  but  when  we  look  back  from  the  end 
of  the  argument  to  the  beginning,  we  find  that  these  relationless  sen- 
sations are  altogether  fictitious.  The  transcendentalist  who  reasons 
in  this  fashion  is  simply  sawing  off  the  bough  by  which  he  is  sup- 
ported. The  final  result  does  not  stand  forth  as  a  demonstrated  con- 
clusion, but  as  an  unsubstantiated  assertion.  This  being  the  case, 
the  vitality  of  transcendentalism  during  the  nineteenth  century  seems 
a  fit  subject  for  wonder.  As  has  been  indicated  previously,  the  ex- 
planation seems  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  two  conceptions  of 
immediacy  which  Kant  failed  to  keep  apart  have  been  persistently 
confused  since  his  day ;  and  it  is  to  this  confusion  that  transcenden- 
talism owes  its  influence  and  prestige. 

In  order  to  make  clear  the  nature  of  this  confusion,  it  is  necessary 
to  determine  more  precisely  than  is  done  by  Kant  the  character  of 
the  immediacy  which  is  involved  in  the  critical  philosophy.  The 
repudiation  of  sensationalism,  if  it  is  to  mean  anything  at  all,  must 
mean  that  a  different  conception  of  immediacy  has  come  into  play. 
One  of  the  chief  merits,  indeed,  of  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason" 
is  that  it  is  a  reductio  ad  dbsurdum  of  its  own  premises.  The  ques- 
tion which  forms  its  starting-point  is  how  thought  can  assert  its 
authority  over  that  which  is  immediately  and  independently  ' '  given. ' ' 
The  conclusion  at  which  Kant  arrives  is  that  thought  can  claim 
authority  because  there  is  no  such  immediate  "given"  as  the  argu- 
ment presupposed.  Instead  of  such  immediacy,  we  have  an  imme- 
diacy of  a  totally  different  kind.  If  we  turn  to  the  situations  in 
which  the  distinction  between  datum  and  meaning  is  present  as  an 
experienced  fact,  we  find  that  the  distinction  occurs  whenever  there 
is  a  question  for  which  an  answer  is  sought.  The  "immediate"  or 
the  "given"  in  such  cases  is  that  part  of  the  situation  which  is 
subjected  to  scrutiny;  the  meaning  is  that  which  is  tentative  or 
hypothetical  or  "  present-as-absent. "  The  distinction  is  transitory 
and  exists  for  the  sake  of  a  purpose  or  end;  it  is  indicative  of  the 
fact  that  the  situation  in  which  it  occurs  is  in  process  of  reconstruc- 
tion. Which  element  in  the  situation  is  to  function  as  datum  is 
determined  by  the  end  to  be  attained.  The  point  is  that  datum  and 
meaning  determine  each  other ;  they  are  derivatives  which,  when  held 
in  abstraction  from  each  other,  give  us  sense  and  thought  in  the  sense 
of  historical  dualism. 


144  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

This  interpretation  of  immediacy,  moreover,  necessarily  prede- 
termines the  conception  of  ' '  reality ' '  and  ' '  truth. ' '  Having  escaped 
the  incubus  of  the  transcendental,  we  are  enabled  to  say  that  the  facts 
\vith  which  we  become  acquainted,  so  far  from  being  appearances  of 
a  more  ultimate  "reality,"  are  just  what  they  are  found  to  be  and 
nothing  else.  Any  experience,  such  as  the  recollection  of  last  week's 
events,  the  reflection  upon  the  characteristics  of  a  geological  epoch, 
or  the  visual  perception,  clear  or  confused,  of  physical  objects,  is 
just  so  much  fact,  and  is  hence  a  datum  in  any  philosophy  which  has 
a  proper  understanding  of  its  own  aims  and  limitations.  The  ques- 
tion what  it  "really"  is  can  not  properly  be  asked,  save  with  refer- 
ence to  its  "truth"  or  serviceableness  in  the  guidance  of  expectation 
or  other  behavior.  The  "real,"  in  short,  is  whatever  we  find;  it  is  a 
domain  which  tolerates  no  hierarchy  or  privileged  class.  The 
"true,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  which  leads  or  guides  in  the  way 
that  it  promises  to  do,  and  hence  it  is  subject  to  a  test  or  criterion 
which  the  true  idea  itself  determines  or  points  out. 

A  consistent  interpretation  of  immediacy,  then,  compels  us  to 
discard  the  conventional  distinction  between  "appearance"  and 
"reality."  According  to  the  present  contention,  the  fallacy  of 
transcendentalism  lies  in  the  fact  that  sense  data  are  first  detached 
from  their  context  by  abstraction,  and  then  reunited  with  it  through 
the  agency  of  transcendental  factors.  When  sense  data  are  thus 
detached,  the  "being"  or  "reality"  of  the  facts  with  which  we  deal 
becomes  a  legitimate  problem,  since  we  are  compelled  to  regard  them 
as  a  combination  of  the  non-temporal  or  transcendental  with  the  tem- 
poral or  particular.  This  combination  makes  our  starting-point 
hopelessly  opaque,  as  Bradley  has  shown  in  pitiless  detail.  But  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  give  to  immediacy  a  purely  functional  inter- 
pretation, we  escape  the  opposition  between  experience  and  a  finished 
reality  which  inheres  in  the  idealistic  position,  in  spite  of  its  role  as 
the  self-appointed  nemesis  of  dualism.  This  functional  interpreta- 
tion construes  the  distinction  between  datum  and  meaning  in  terms 
of  a  change  taking  place  in  things,  a  change  which  has  as  its  goal  the 
guidance  or  control  of  adjustment.  This  procedure  furnishes  us 
with  an  entirely  different  starting-point.  It  means  that  all  experi- 
ences are  equally  real,  though  not  all  are  equally  true  or  serviceable. 
That  is  to  say,  the  "real"  is  not  a  question  if  we  regard  knowing  as 
a  change  which  occurs  in  things  for  the  furtherance  of  certain  ends, 
but  becomes  a  problem  only  in  so  far  as  we  oppose  experience  and 
its  object,  the  latter  being  considered  as  a  finished  real  passively 
waiting  to  be  "known." 

It  was  indicated  previously  that  Kant  is  at  no  particular  pains 
to  develop  the  implications  of  this  new  immediacy  to  which  his  argu- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         145 

ment  leads.  The  very  argument  which  logically  compels  the  infer- 
ence to  a  new  immediacy  apparently  shuts  off  the  light.  Between  the 
premises  and  the  conclusion  lies  the  machinery  of  the  Kantian  trans- 
cendentalism ;  and  neither  Kant  nor  his  successors  seems  to  have  real- 
ized adequately  that  the  rejection  of  abstract  sense  impressions  car- 
ries with  it  the  rejection  of  the  transcendental  elements  with  which 
they  are  correlated.  This  retention  of  the  transcendental  elements 
compels  both  sense  and  thought  to  lead  a  double  life.  In  so  far  as 
the  conclusion  of  the  Kantian  deduction  is  emphasized,  they  are 
simply  derivatives,  their  status  and  nature  being  determined  by  the 
function  which  they  fulfil.  But  in  so  far  as  the  bias  of  transcenden- 
talism prevails,  they  are  original  constituents  or  ingredients  of  the 
situation  from  which  functional  sense  and  thought  proceed  by  deriva- 
tion. In  other  words,  objective  idealism  shelters  two  fundamental 
and  correlative  ambiguities.  It  treats  immediacy  both  in  the  sense 
of  historical  empiricism  and  in  the  sense  of  present-day  functional- 
ism  ;  and  it  confuses  thought  as  a  function  in  the  reorganization  of  a 
situation  with  thought  as  a  transcendental  or  ''constitutive"  element. 
Hence  it  results  that  the  duality  of  sense  and  meaning  is  often  re- 
garded as  a  "discrepancy,"  for  which  there  is  no  remedy  within  the 
bounds  of  human  experience.  The  thought  of  an  object,  instead  of 
being  treated  simply  as  the  "presence-in-absence"  which  is  the  indis- 
pensable correlate  of  the  "presence"  of  sense  material,  is  "a  'what' 
which  so  far  as  it  is  a  mere  idea  clearly  is  not,  and  if  it  also  were, 
could  not  be  called  ideal.  For  ideality  lies  in  the  disjoining  of 
quality  from  being."7  Meaning  is  "a  content  which  has  been  made 
loose  from  its  own  immediate  existence  and  is  used  in  divorce  from 
that  first  unity. '  '8  Here  we  have  once  more  the  separation  of  ' '  imme- 
diacy" from  thought,  and  so  the  relation  of  the  two  forthwith  pre- 
sents a  formidable  problem.  The  two  can  not  be  wholly  disjoined, 
as  the  Kantian  conclusion  attests;  hence  the  puzzling  fact  that  "the 
essential  nature  of  the  finite  is  that  everywhere  as  it  presents  itself 
its  character  should  slide  beyond  the  limits  of  its  existence. '  '9 

It  seems  clear  that  this  ambiguity  in  "immediacy,"  with  its  cor- 
relate ambiguity  in  "thought,"  is  essential  to  the  standpoint  of 
objective  idealism.  If  immediacy  were  consistently  treated  as  abso- 
lute, the  outcome  would  not  be  transcendentalism  but  sensationalism. 
Or  if  immediacy  were  consistently  treated  as  relative,  then  again  the 
outcome  would  not  be  transcendentalism  but  some  form  of  function- 
alism.  But,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  two  meanings  of  immediacy 
are  used  in  alternation.  Bosanquet,  for  example,  states  that  "it 

T  Bradley,  ' '  Appearance  and  Eeality, ' '  p.  163. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  164. 
•  Ibid.,  p.  166. 


146  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

makes  no  essential  difference  whether  the  ideas  whose  content  is  pro- 
nounced to  be  an  attribute  of  reality  appear  to  fall  within  what  is 
given  in  perception  or  not.  We  shall  find  hereafter  that  it  is  vain  to 
attempt  to  lay  down  boundaries  between  the  given  and  its  extension. 
The  moment  we  try  to  do  this  we  are  on  the  wrong  track."10  In 
other  words,  the  distinction  between  the  given  and  its  extension  can 
at  best  be  only  a  relative  and  fluctuating  distinction,  depending  upon 
the  character  of  the  given  situation.  To  all  intents  and  purposes, 
however,  a  hard-and-fast  boundary  line  is  drawn  on  the  second  page 
preceding  the  passage  just  quoted;  and  as  might  be  expected,  the 
line  is  run  in  accordance  with  the  landmarks  set  up  by  the  Kantian 
transcendentalism.  "The  ideas  used  in  judging  are  not  particular 
existences  but  general  significations  or  objective  references.  No  mere 
mental  occurrences  as  such,  no  series  or  combination  of  particular 
images,  can  by  any  possibility  be  a  judgment."  The  given  and  its 
extension  apparently  tend  to  fall  apart  and  hence  to  necessitate  a 
resort  to  the  transcendental  in  order  to  unite  them  again.  Thus  the 
following  quotation  excludes  ideas  or  meanings  from  presentations, 
on  the  ground  that  the  idea  is  simply  a  "habit  or  tendency":  "If 
therefore  we  are  asked  to  display  it  [the  idea]  as  an  image,  as  some- 
thing fixed  in  a  permanent  outline,  however  pale  or  meager,  we  can 
not  do  so.  It  is  not  an  abstract  image,  but  a  concrete  habit  or  tend- 
ency. It  can  only  be  displayed  in  the  judgment,  that  is,  in  a  con- 
crete case  of  reference  to  reality.  Apart  from  this  it  is  a  mere  ab- 
straction of  analysis,  a  tendency  to  operate  in  a  certain  way  upon 
certain  psychical  presentations.  Psychically  speaking,  it  is  when 
realized  in  judgment  a  process  more  or  less  systematic,  extending 
through  time  and  dealing  with  momentary  presentations  as  its  ma- 
terial. In  other  words,  we  may  describe  it  as  a  selective  rule,  shown 
by  its  workings,  but  not  consciously  before  the  mind. ' '" 

A  similar  confusion  is  present,  as  I  venture  to  think,  in  an  excep- 
tionally subtle  and  interesting  form,  in  Royce's  "World  and  the 
Individual."  The  world  as  fact,  we  are  told,  must  be  subordinated 
to  the  world  as  idea.  When  we  study  the  idea,  we  find  that  it  in- 
cludes an  internal  meaning  and  an  external  meaning,  the  latter  being 
"that  attempted  correspondence  with  outer  facts  which  many  ac- 
counts of  our  ideas  regard  as  their  primary,  inexplicable,  and  ulti- 
mate character."12  There  is,  however,  no  purely  external  criterion 
of  truth ;  hence  it  is  futile  to  ' '  stand  apart  from  the  internal  meaning, 
from  the  conscious  inner  purpose  embodied  in  a  given  idea,  and  still 
attempt  to  estimate  whether  or  no  that  idea  corresponds  with  its 

"•"Logic,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  77. 
""Essentials  of  Logic,"  p.  78. 
MVol.  I.,  p.  26. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         147 

object. '  '13  The  experienced  inner  meaning  determines  its  own  task, 
its  own  special  form  of  ' '  correspondence. ' '  Hence  we  can  define  the 
external  meaning  as  that  experience  which  fulfils  the  internal  mean- 
ing. "The  fulfilment  of  the  internal  meaning  of  the  present  idea 
would  leave  no  other  object  defined  by  this  idea  as  an  object  yet  to 
besought"14 

This  subordination  of  the  world  as  fact  to  the  world  as  idea  has 
the  immense  advantage  that  it  eliminates  the  problem  how  we  are  to 
copy  or  "apprehend"  an  "external  world."  The  world  as  fact,  in 
Royce's  treatment,  corresponds  to  the  position  which  holds  sense  and 
thought  in  separation  from  each  other.  Its  criterion  of  truth  is 
external,  whereas  from  the  standpoint  of  the  world  as  idea,  the  cri- 
terion becomes  internal.  To  say  that  the  meaningful  experience 
determines  its  own  form  of  correspondence  is  to  deny  the  separation 
of  sense  and  thought,  or  of  "experience"  and  "object."  The  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  becomes  functional  and  relative,  in  the  sense 
previously  indicated.  It  does  not  occur  save  where  there  is  a  prob- 
lem to  be  solved,  a  task  to  be  performed,  a  purpose  to  be  accom- 
plished. "A  color,  when  merely  seen,  is  in  so  far,  for  consciousness, 
no  idea.  A  brute  noise,  merely  heard,  is  no  idea.  But  a  melody, 
when  sung,  a  picture,  when  in  its  wholeness  actively  appreciated,  or 
the  inner  memory  of  your  friend  now  in  your  mind,  is  an  idea.  For 
each  of  these  latter  states  means  something  to  you  at  the  instant 
when  you  get  it  present  to  consciousness. ' ' 15 

Up  to  this  point  the  position  under  consideration  is  to  all  appear- 
ances in  entire  agreement  with  that  of  functional  ism.  How  mean- 
ings can  determine  their  own  reference  ceases  to  be  a  problem  when 
meanings  are  interpreted  as  the  "  presence-in-absence "  of  their  ob- 
jects. This  agreement  ends,  however,  when  our  human  experience, 
in  the  hands  of  its  idealistic  inquisitor,  signifies  its  willingness  to  be 
damned  for  the  glory  of  the  absolute.  The  immediacy  which  pre- 
supposes the  object  gives  place  to  the  immediacy  which  is  divorced 
from  its  object.  Our  attention  is  first  of  all  called  to  the  fact  that 
"our  direct  experience  gives  us  only  the  passing  data  and  the  frag- 
mentary ideas  of  the  moment. ' '  This  direct  experience  is  compared 
with  "the  range  of  valid  possible  experience,"  which  "is  viewed  by 
me  as  infinitely  more  extended  than  my  actual  human  experience. '  '19 
A  valid  possible  experience,  when  known  as  such,  is  the  experience  of 
a  fact  which  is  present  as  absent.  But  according  to  Royce  this 
validity  is  ambiguous.  It  covers  both  the  validity  which  is  tested 

"Vol.  I.,  p.  308. 
"Vol.  I.,  p.  339. 
14  Vol.  I.,  p.  24. 
M  Vol.  I.,  p.  259. 


148  TUB  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  that  which  is  not.  That  is,  validity  is  a  name  both  for  the 
experience  in  which  the  valid  idea  finds  fulfilment  and  for  the  experi- 
ence in  which  a  fact  is  presented  simply  as  absent.17  Considered 
simply  as  a  matter  of  terminology,  this  might  be  allowed  to  pass,  but 
the  context  shows  that  something  further  is  intended.  Only  the 
direct  or  fulfilling  experience,  we  find,  can  give  us  the  definiteness 
which  characterizes  true  being.  Until  the  fulfilling  experience  super- 
venes, we  have,  so  far  forth,  bare  validity,  mere  universality.  Hence 
the  question :  "What  is  a  valid  or  a  determinately  possible  experience 
at  the  moment  when  it  is  supposed  to  be  merely  possible  ? ' U8 

To  this  question  the  appropriate  answer  is  that  it  makes  an 
assumption  which  is  both  incompatible  with  Royce's  starting-point 
and  untrue  to  fact.  The  import  of  the  functional  interpretation  of 
immediacy  is  precisely  that  datum  and  meaning  can  not  be  separated 
from  each  other.  It  is  hardly  good  logic  to  begin  by  making  the 
meaning  or  "possibility"  organic  to  the  given  experience,  and  then 
to  detach  it  in  order  to  condemn  it  as  "bare  validity"  or  "mere 
universality."  Such  a  procedure  implies  the  very  opposition  between 
sense  and  thought  which  constitutes  the  point  of  departure  for  Kant. 
This  separation  serves  only  to  justify  the  appeal  to  a  transcendental, 
which  thereupon  becomes  at  once  the  sole  abiding  place  for  all  indi- 
vidual fact,  since  the  latter  necessarily  remains  for  us  "the  object  of 
love  and  of  hope,  of  desire  and  of  will,  of  faith  and  of  work,  but 
never  of  present  finding. "  19 

It  appears,  then,  that  despite  the  originality  of  Royce's  treat- 
ment, his  procedure,  from  the  angle  of  the  present  criticism,  is  essen- 
tially the  same  as  that  of  his  predecessors,  save  that  he  both  starts 
and  finishes  with  the  functional  point  of  view.  The  immediate  and 
the  mediate  are  held  apart  just  long  enough  to  justify  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  transcendental,  in  order  to  heal  the  breach  which  has 
thus  been  created.  We  have  the  same  alternation  between  types  of 
immediacy,  the  same  triumphant  ushering-in  of  the  transcendental, 
and,  finally,  the  same  bland  denial  that  any  separation  between  the 
immediate  and  the  mediate  was  ever  made  or  intended. 

A  proper  reconsideration,  then,  of  the  concept  of  immediacy  will 
show  that  the  "higher  standpoint"  which  Kant  enabled  us  to  reach 
is  not  that  of  objective  idealism  but  of  functionalism.  The  former 
owes  its  being  and  peculiar  character  to  the  very  presuppositions 
which  Kant  is  supposed  to  have  destroyed  once  for  all.  When  these 
presuppositions  are  set  aside  in  fact  and  not  merely  in  appear- 
ance, we  rid  ourselves  of  a  troublesome  element  of  vacillation  and 

17  C/.,  especially,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  259-261. 
"  Vol.  I.,  p.  260. 
•Vol.  I.,  p.  297. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          149 

mystery;  and  the  problems  which  the  absolute  is  invoked  to  explain 
find  a  solvent  in  our  human  experience. 

B.  H.  BODE. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS. 


WHAT  KIND  OF  REALISM? 

IN  a  previous  paper  in  this  JOURNAL/  I  attempted  to  summarize 
the  arguments  against  "natural"  realism — that  doctrine  which 
purports  to  crystallize  the  view  of  the  "natural"  man,  that  the  very 
data  of  his  visual  and  tactile  experience  are  identical  with,  i.  e.,  go  to 
make  up,  the  "things"  in  the  midst  of  which  he  lives  and  moves. 
According  to  that  view,  the  "green"  that  my  experience  includes 
when  I  look  at  a  tree  exists  at  the  tree-point  in  the  world-order,  and 
is  not  a  copy  or  an  effect  of  what  there  exists.  That  is  to  say,  "nat- 
ural" realism  ignores  the  representative  nature  of  perception,  ignores 
the  distinction  between  the  stimulus  of  perception,  the  source  from 
which  (in  the  case  of  sight)  ether- waves  radiate,  and  the  datum 
existing  in  experience  after  those  waves  have  hit  the  eye,  ignores,  to 
say  no  more,  the  time-difference  between  the  stimulus-fact  and  the 
experienced-fact. 

Obvious  as  this  representative  nature  of  perception  is,  the  tempta- 
tion to  " epistemological  monism"  is  so  great  that  it  is  a  satisfaction 
to  read,  in  one  of  Professor  Dewey's  recent  papers,2  that  "it  is  easily 
demonstrable  that  there  is  a  numerical  duplicity  between  the  astro- 
nomical star  and  the  visible  light,"  that  "the  astronomical  star  is  a 
real  object .  . .  the  visible  light  is  another  real  object."  Generalized, 
this  is  to  say  that  there  is  a  numerical  duplicity  (but  not  necessarily 
a  difference  in  substance,  as,  physical  vs.  mental)  between  stimulus- 
fact  and  sensation-fact.  With  these  words,  as  with  much  in  Pro- 
fessor Dewey's  characteristically  brilliant  paper,  I  find  myself  in 
joyous  sympathy.  Surely  we  can  all  agree  that  the  qualia  which 
exist  in  a  man's  experience,  and  which  are  to  him,  as  he  looks,  a 
given  star  or  tree,  are  not  the  same  existences  as  the  "astronomical 
star"  or  the  botanical  tree.  Without  asserting  what  the  star  and 
tree  of  physical  science  are  or  are  not,  at  least  this  "visible  light," 
this  visible  greenness,  are  numerically  different  existences,  existing 
later  in  time,  and  largely  dependent  for  their  nature  upon  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  perceiver's  sense-organs  and  brain. 

Our  thanks  then  to  Professor  Dewey!  But  there  are  certain 
other  statements  of  his  that  seem  to  me  questionable  and  so  may  serve 

1  Vol.  VIII.,  page  365. 

. » This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  page  395. 


150  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

as  texts  for  the  inqury  that  I  suggested  at  the  close  of  my  previous 
paper  and  propose  here  to  outline.  He  tells  us  that  "contemporary 
realists  have  frequently  and  clearly  expounded  the  physical  explana- 
tion of  such  cases  as  have  been  cited" — the  converging  railway 
tracks,  the  star,  pressing  the  eyeball,  etc. — and  is  frankly  vexed  with 
the  idealists  for  not  accepting  this  explanation.8  Now,  personally, 
I  am  not  an  idealist.  But  if,  as  one  would  judge  from  the  columns 
of  this  JOURNAL,  the  idealist  is  the  under  dog  nowadays,  let  us  be 
sure  to  do  him  full  justice!  It  seems  to  me,  for  one,  that  he  has  a 
simple  and  consistent  account  to  give  of  these  cases,  and  therefore, 
even  when  an  adequate  realistic  account  is  offered  him,  need  not  neces- 
sarily bite  at  the  bait;  and,  moreover,  that  the  accounts  which  the 
neo-realists  have  been  offering  him  of  such  cases  are  for  the  most  part 
so  far  from  adequate  that  he  is  thoroughly  justified  in  considering 
them  still  as  cases  that  make  for  his  view.  Surely,  if  he  is  careful 
in  his  phraseology  (but  the  realist  must  remember  that  in  this  matter 
the  idealist  is  at  a  disadvantage,  the  practical  language  of  every  day 
being  hopelessly  realistic,  and  the  expression  of  the  facts  in  consist- 
ently idealistic  language  a  clumsy  and  confusing  matter)  he  does  not 
commit  the  fallacy  which  Professor  Dewey  ascribes  to  him.  He  does 
not  begin,  for  instance,  with  a  single  realistic  object,  and  then,  on 
pushing  the  eyeball,  decide  that  "there  ain't  no  such  animal."  He 
simply  finds  that  on  a  realistic  basis  such  an  experience  is  difficult 
to  explain,  whereas  it  is  very  simply  statable  on  an  idealistic  basis, 
as:  when  a  single-object  experience  is  followed  by  a  pushing-the- 
eyeball  experience,  there  is  thereupon  a  double-object  experience. 
Of  course  some  idealists,  especially  the  earlier  ones,  have  put  their 
arguments  in  ways  that  justly  provoke  criticism.  But  the  under- 
lying meaning  of  these  arguments  remains  a  sharp  challenge  to 
realism. 

The  point  is,  that  all  these  cases  can  easily  be  described  in  terms 
of  actual  and  potential  sensations,  while  a  description  in  terms  of 
objects  leads  to  grave  difficulties.  Suppose,  for  example,  the  realist 
is  looking  at  a  tree.  The  idealist  would  have  said  that  he  was  having 
a  tree-experience;  but  the  realist  says  that  this  tree-that-he-sees  is 
a  physical  tree,  outside  of  him.  He  then  shakes  his  eyeball.  The 
tree-that-he-sees  moves.  But  is  it  conceivable  that  a  physical  tree 
outside  of  him  moves  when  he  shakes  his  eyeball?  So  long  as  that 
green  datum  was  still  it  was  easy  to  think  of  it  as  a  physical  tree 
"out  there."  When  it  moves,  it  is  no  longer  easy  so  to  think  of  it. 
No  wonder  the  idealist  loves  such  cases !  Especially  since  early  real- 
ism was  of  this  ' '  natural ' '  type.  But  now,  if  the  realist  retracts  his 
naive  belief,  and  admits,  with  Professor  Dewey  and  the  present 

» Ibid.,  page  395. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         151 

writer  and  probably  most  contemporary  realists,  that  the  tree-datum- 
that-exists-within-his-experience  (the  moving-tree-datum — let  us  call 
it  existence  B)  is  an  effect  of  but  not  identical  with  the  tree-from- 
which-ether-waves-radiate  (existence  A),  this  difficulty  is  solved,  but 
another  arises.  The  coast  is  by  no  means  yet  clear  for  the  realist. 
"Frequent  and  clear"  explanations  of  the  situation  may  exist  in 
contemporary  realistic  writing,  but  where,  oh,  where  are  they  to  be 
found !  The  crux  of  the  difficulty  is  this :  where  in  the  world  of  the 
realist  does  B  exist?  Must  we  not  admit  that  unless  the  realist  can 
give  a  thoroughgoing  answer  to  this  question,  the  idealist  still  has 
rather  the  better  of  the  argument? 

That  there  is  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this  question,  and  that  a 
complete  realistic  explanation  of  the  situation  in  perception  is  pos- 
sible, I  do  not  doubt.  Several  attempts  at  answering  it  have  been 
made,  but  they  are  not  free  from  objections  and  have  generally  been 
rejected  by  realists.  It  seems  actually  to  be  the  case  that  the  average 
realist  refuses  to  recognize  the  need  of  explanation.  When  he  has 
declared  that  perception  is  a  "perfectly  natural  event,"  and  has 
shown  that  a  camera  likewise  produces  an  image  which  is  an  effect 
and  representative  of  an  outer  object,  he  seems  to  think  he  has  solved 
the  problem.  But  the  fact  is,  he  has  not  touched  it.  There  are  more 
existences  to  account  for  in  the  perception  case  than  in  the  camera 
case.  The  organism  is  indeed  like  a  camera.  There  is  produced  in 
the  brain  through  the  eyes  a  physical  perception-event  (call  it 
existence  C}  which  varies  concomitantly  with  the  object  looked  at, 
and  may  therefore  be  called  not  only  an  effect,  but  in  some  sense  a 
representative  of  that  object — the  more  legitimately,  as  it  actually 
serves  as  a  clue  for  the  guiding  of  the  organism  in  its  dealings  with 
it.  But  does  the  realist  think  that  this  brain-event,  C,  is  the  green- 
moving-datum,  B?  If  not,  where  does  this  latter  existence,  the 
surest  of  all  existences,  have  its  habitation  ?  Where  are  we  to  put  it 
in  our  physical  scheme?  If  we  have  no  place  for  it,  how  can  we 
think  we  have  given  a  clear  explanation  of  the  facts  of  perception? 

We  are  not  allowed  to  say  that  it  exists  in  the  mind.  The  very 
idea  that  we  have  minds  seems  to  be  repugnant  to  the  neo-realist. 
And  indeed,  if  such  a  statement  were  made  as  an  explanation  of  the 
difficulty,  it  would  be  but  a  verbal  one.  Calling  the  fact  B  mental, 
solves  no  problem.  We  have  still  to  ask  how  it  is  related  to  the 
other  existences,  A  and  C.  Here  is  a  well-known  physical  chain  of 
events,  from  A,  through  ether-waves,  eyes,  and  nerve-waves,  to  C, 
and  then  out  again  into  some  muscular  reaction.  But  nowhere  in 
this  chain  cf  events  do  we  find  B.  The  physical  order  seems  com- 
plete and  self-sufficing  without  it.  There  is  no  room  for  it.  In- 
stinctively we  identify  B  with  A.  It  is  the  tree,  what  we  see  of  the 


152  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tree.  But  if  my  previous  article  holds,  if  Professor  Dewey's  state- 
ment holds,  that  "there  is  a  numerical  duplicity  between  the  astro- 
nomical star  and  the  visible  light,"  between,  in  this  case,  the  botan- 
ical tree  and  the  visible  green-moving  fact  (for  the  only  difference 
between  the  two  cases  is  that  the  time-difference  between  A  and  B  is 
more  striking  in  the  former  case),  that  refuge  is  definitely  barred 
out.  B  exists  at  a  later  moment  than  A.  A  may  have  been  annihi- 
lated in  the  meanwhile  and  may  not  be  existing  when  B  exists. 
B  does  exist  simultaneously  (or  at  least  nearly  simultaneously)  with 
C;  that  is  all  that  we  seem  to  know  about  the  relation  of  B  to  the 
A-C  chain  of  events,  except  that  B,  like  C,  seems  to  be,  in  some  sort, 
a  representative  of  A,  since  it  is  the  sign  in  our  experience  of  our 
dealings  with  A.  Are  we  to  be  left  then  with  our  J5's  simply  hang- 
ing on  to  our  C"s,  without  any  real  footing  in  the  world,  with  a  time 
of  existence  but  no  place?  If  we  call  them  mental,  we  have  the 
well-known  " psychophysical  parallelism"  between  our  #'s  and  C's. 
This  is  certainly  a  mysterious  relation;  mental  B's  clinging  like 
barnacles  at  certain  spots  in  the  physical  universe,  but  not  really 
being  there.  If  we  call  them  physical,  we  have  an  equally  mysterious 
physicophysical  parallelism,  a  second  set  of  physical  realities  exist- 
ing at  the  moment  of  our  C's,  but  still  with  no  place  found  for  them. 
Truly,  they  are  adrift  in  the  deep ! 

One  reason  for  not  calling  our  B's  mental  lies  perhaps  in  the 
dualistic  implications  of  that  word.  The  neo-realist  is  convinced 
(one  wonders  if  it  be  not  sometimes  an  a  priori  conviction  rather 
than  a  humble  generalization  from  experience!)  that  there  are  not 
two  substances,  mind  and  matter.  Therefore  we  must  call  every- 
thing "physical";  or,  at  least,  "natural" — "mental"  being  thus 
made  equivalent  to  "supernatural"!  Professor  Dewey  likewise 
waxes  satirical  over  the  habit  of  calling  such  B's  as  the  visible  con- 
vergence of  railway  tracks,  or  the  vsible  light  of  a  star,  mental. 
"Is  a  photograph,  then,  to  be  conceived  as  a  psychical  somewhat?"4 
But  in  the  case  of  a  camera  (apart  from  perception  by  an  observer) 
there  is  no  B;  there  is  only  a  chain  of  events  loosely  similar  to  the 
A-C  chain  of  object-to-brain  events.  There  is  but  one  event  at  the 
moment  when  the  photograph  is  taken,  not  two ;  a  certain  molecular 
change  in  the  plate,  corresponding  to  C,  the  molecular  change  in  the 
brain,  or  to  an  earlier  event  in  the  A-C  chain,  the  molecular  change 
in  the  eye.  There  is  no  datum-within-experience,  no  B,  existing  at 
that  moment,  as  there  is  in  the  case  of  perception.  There  is  no  mys- 
terious parallelism,  no  problem,  nothing  that  there  is  any  temptation 
to  call  mental. 

Personally,  I  disbelieve  in  the  dualistic  theory,  and  should  be 

« Ibid.,  page  393. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         153 

quite  willing  to  give  up  the  word  "mental"  altogether.  But  I  can 
not  see  why  it  should  be  such  a  red  rag  to  a  realist.  Let  us  agree 
that  any  dualistic  implications  are  illegitimate  in  advance  of  the 
establishment  of  a  dualistic  theory,  and  let  us  use  the  word  in  a 
merely  denotative  sense,  to  include  our  .B's,  and  such  other  facts  as 
dreams,  wishes,  pleasure,  sorrow,  and  the  like,  for  which  there  is 
likewise  no  known  place  available  in  the  physical  world.  We  shall 
still  find  the  word  a  useful  generic  term  for  these  numerous,  impor- 
tant, and  indisputably  real  facts.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  the  commonly 
accepted  name  for  these  facts.  No  doubt,  the  natural  man  looks 
upon  these  same  B  's  as  the  actual  things  among  which  he  moves,  *.  e., 
as  if  they  were  the  A 's  which  cause  them,  and  at  such  times  he  calls 
them  not  mental,  but  physical.  But  as  soon  as  you  show  him  the 
impossibility  of  that  "natural"  realism,  he  hastens  to  call  his  per- 
ception-datum mental,  the  green-moving-datum,  e.  g.,  a  mental  image 
of  the  really  outer  tree.  It  may  still  be  that  this  fact,  B,  belongs  to 
the  same  world  as  A  and  C,  that  it  is  as  "natural"  an  event  as  the 
photographic  image  of  a  scene  or  the  echo  of  a  sound.  Nevertheless, 
why  disdain  the  common  name  for  it?  I  hear  a  partial  repetition 
of  a  sound.  Why  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  an  echo?  The 
only  answer  is,  that  is  what  we  call  it.  Why  jump  to  the  conclusion 
that  these  particular  events  we  have  specified  are  "mental"?  The 
only  answer  is,  again,  that  such  is  the  common  generic  name  for  them. 

It  is  presumably  true  that  "the  seen  light  is  an  event"  "stand- 
ing in  a  process  continuous  with  the  star. ' '  Though,  as  to  that,  if  it 
can  not  be  located  anywhere  in  particular,  and  if  it  has  no  discover- 
able relations  of  energy  with  any  part  of  the  physical  chain  of  events 
proceeding  from  the  star,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  knowledge  can 
have  "supervened"  that  it  does  stand  in  such  a  continuous  process. 
And,  moreover,  even  granting  that  it  is  a  link  in  the  process  some- 
where, is  it  safe  to  assert  that ' '  since  the  seen  light  is  an  event  within 
a  continuous  process,  there  is  no  point  of  view  from  which  its  'reality' 
contrasts  with  that  of  the  star"?5  Certainly  the  reason  why  the 
writer  has,  at  times,  spoken  of  the  "real"  star,  contrasting  that 
existence  with  the  "perception  of  the  star,"  has  had  nothing  to  do 
with  any  denial  of  the  place  of  the  latter  in  a  continuous  process. 
The  ' '  real ' '  star  is  the  star  that  astronomy  describes,  the  star  that  is 
moving  at  so  many  miles  a  second  through  space.  The  "real"  tree 
is  the  tree  the  botanist  describes,  the  tree  that  we  point  to  and  walk 
round.  These  existences,  the  A 's,  have  their  definite  and  well-known 
place  in  the  world  order.  The  B 's,  the  data  of  our  experience,  are 
none  the  less  real,  but  they  are  less  really  the  star  and  the  tree ;  they 
are  effects  in  our  consciousness  (or  on  our  organisms,  if  you  choose, 

'Ibid.,  page  395. 


164  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  are  prepared  to  show  where  in  the  organism),  representative  to 
us  of  star  and  tree,  but  distinct  existences.  The  visible  light,  the  B 
of  which  the  "real"  star  is  the  A,  figures  to  us  as  the  star  when  our 
attention  is  upon  that  visual  experience.  But  it  is  not  flying  through 
space  at  so  many  miles  a  second;  it  is  not  composed  of  billions  of 
whirling  atoms,  etc.,  etc.  So,  not  to  speak  of  the  ambiguous  status 
of  these  2?'s  in  the  world,  there  is  as  much  reason  for  speaking  of 
the  A's  as  the  "real"  things  as  there  would  be  in  discriminating 
between  the  "real"  landscape  and  the  picture  of  the  landscape  on 
a  camera-plate.  The  latter  is  real  enough,  but  it  is  not  the  real 
landscape. 

We  have  then  our  J.'s,  the  "real  things,"  and  we  have  our  C's, 
the  brain-perception-events  which  are  effects  and  in  some  sense  repre- 
sentatives of  them,  and  our  U's,  the  data  of  conscious  perception, 
which  exist  synchronously  (or  at  least  nearly  so)  with  our  C's. 
According  to  what  we  proceed  to  do  with  our  B 's  will  be  our  type  of 
realism.  The  "natural"  realist  identifies  them,  per  impossibile,  with 
the  .4's.  The  atomistic  realist  crams  them  all  into  one  monad  or 
arch-atom  which  is  located  somewhere,  but  no  one  can  say  where,  in 
the  brain.  The  dualistic  realist  asserts  that  they  get  into  the  causal 
chain  in  the  midst  of  the  C's,  but  gives  them  no  place  in  the  three- 
dimensioned  world;  they  somehow  get  their  fingers  in  the  brain-pie 
without  really  being  there.  Another  type  of  realist  puts  them 
frankly  in  the  brain,  in  between  or  hanging  on  to  the  C's.  One 
variety  of  this  type  of  theory  is  that  of  Professor  Montague,  which 
puts  the  B's  wherever  we  speak  of  "latent  energy"  in  the  brain. 
And  finally,  though  not  of  course  exhausting  all  contemporary  the- 
ories, the  panpsychic  realist  (who  has  a  better  name  for  him?)  iden- 
tifies the  B's  with  the  C's,  asserts  that  if  we  knew  enough  about  what 
we  call  brain  events  we  should  discover  that  they  really  are  con- 
scious events. 

This  last  theory  is  that  of  the  present  writer.  Space  forbids  its 
defense  at  this  time.  But  the  object  of  this  paper  will  have  been 
attained  if  it  sets  any  one  thinking  of  the  problem  a  little  more 
sharply  than  before;  if  it  helps  any  one  to  realize  that  there  is  a 
problem  here.  If  we  are  to  be  realists,  as  we  seem  determined  to  be, 
let  us  think  our  realism  through.  Let  us  not  think  that  by  calling 
perception  a  "natural"  or  a  "physical"  process  we  have  solved  the 
very  real  and  difficult  problem  of  perception,  or  have  won  the  right 
to  jeer  at  idealists  for  clinging  to  their  account  of  the  matter. 

DUBANT  DRAKE. 
THK  UNIVERSITY  or  ILLINOIS. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         155 

DISCUSSION 

EXPLICIT   PRIMITIVES:   A   REPLY   TO   MRS.   FRANKLIN 

T  WISH  to  offer  a  rather  belated  reply  to  Mrs.  C.  L.  Franklin's 
J-  article  on  "The  Foundations  of  Philosophy:  Explicit  Primi- 
tives."1 I  am  aware  of  the  danger  of  crossing  words  with  Mrs. 
Franklin  in  the  supposedly  special  field  of  symbolic  logic,  but  I  am 
nevertheless  moved  to  suggest,  in  response  to  her  demand  for  explicit 
primitives,  that  a  primitive  is  an  illusion  and  an  explicit  primitive 
a  contradiction  in  terms. 

Briefly,  my  position  would  be  that  when  a  term  has  been  made 
explicit,  it  is  then  a  party  to  a  comparison  and  is  thus  involved  in  a 
relation  to  another  term.  Since  each  term  now  depends  upon  the 
other  for  its  definition,  neither  can  claim  priority,  much  less  primi- 
tiveness.  The  locomotive  may  precede  the  train  and  pull  the  train, 
but  if  there  is  no  train  to  pull  there  is  no  locomotive.  At  least,  in 
that  case,  the  locomotive  would  call  for  a  new  definition  in  terms  of 
its  relation  to  some  other  things.  But  if  there  were  no  other  things, 
the  locomotive  would  have  no  character  whatever.  And  therefore 
I  say  that  the  very  notion  of  a  primitive  is  an  illusion. 

This  is  logical  commonplace.  So  much  so,  however,  that  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  idea  of  a  logical  primitive,  or  even  of  a 
logical  prior,  except  as  a  confusion  between  a  logical  relation  and  a 
certain  familiar  mechanical  relation,  which  our  logic  has  inherited 
from  Aristotle  and  which  owes  its  continued  support  to  its  plausi- 
bility for  unthinking  common  sense.  Mrs.  Franklin  suggests  the 
point  in  the  "Foundations  of  Philosophy."  Now,  as  we  all  know, 
a  house  must  rest  upon  a  foundation,  and  when  the  foundation  is 
removed  the  house  falls ;  that  is  to  say,  the  foundation  is  a  prior  con- 
dition to  the  superstructure.  But  to  assume  that  knowledge  must 
be  thus  "founded"  is  to  imitate  those  of  the  ancients  who  affirmed 
the  impossibility  of  the  antipodes.  For  our  human  structures,  in- 
deed, the  ultimately  universal  foundation  is  the  earth.  The  earth  is 
therefore  a  universal  ultimate,  or  ' '  primitive. ' '  But  a  primitive  in 
knowledge  marks  only  the  point  where  knowledge  ends.  To  make 
it  a  "foundation"  of  knowledge  is  then  to  found  knowledge  upon 
ignorance. 

Mrs.  Franklin  appeals  for  authority  to  the  logic  of  mathematics. 
Now,  according  to  tradition  at  least,  mathematical  method  consists 
in  laying  down  a  primitive — an  axiom  or  postulate,  or  what  not, 
which  by  definition  is  made  an  explicit  primitive — and  then  in  de- 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VHI.,  page  708. 


15t;  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

riving  its  consequences;  and  when  the  primitive  is  laid  down,  the 
consequences  are  supposed  to  be  not  yet  in  sight.  Otherwise  there 
would  be  danger  of  a  "circle."  But  we  know  that  the  manuscript 
of  a  mathematical  work  is  usually  completed  before  the  first  pages 
go  to  press;  hence,  the  mathematician  knows  whither  his  primitives 
are  to  lead  if  the  reader  does  not.  The  comparison  will  seem  irrev- 
erent, but  I  can  not  avoid  saying  that  the  usual  process  of  mathe- 
matical deduction  reminds  me  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  magician 
who  appears  before  his  audience  in  a  tightly  fitting  dress-suit  and 
then  from  a  roll  of  tape  held  between  his  thumb  and  forefinger 
extracts,  among  a  number  of  other  things,  two  jars  of  goldfish  and 
a  live  goose.  One  may  test  the  justice  of  the  comparison  by  ob- 
serving the  operation  whereby  even  so  critical  a  mind  as  Poincare2 
derives  a  whole  number-system  from  such  ostensibly  innocent  primi- 
tives as  x  -\-  a  and  x  -f- 1  (the  latter  of  which  consists  in  adding  a 
number  1  to  a  number  x).  To  the  uninitiated  it  would  seem  that, 
while  the  magician  mystifies  only  his  audience,  the  mathematician 
mystifies  also  himself. 

In  the  mechanical  world,  as  conceived  by  common  sense,  the 
foundation  supports  the  superstructure,  but  the  superstructure  adds 
no  strength  to  the  foundation.  In  the  world  of  knowledge,  I  should 
say,  the  first  principles  are  just  as  much  supported  by  the  deriva- 
tions as  the  latter  by  the  former.  Take  a  mathematical  axiom  and 
ask  what  it  means ;  it  means  just  as  much  as  may  be  derived  from  it, 
and  no  more.  How  far  is  it  true  ?  It  is  true  just  as  far  as  it  yields 
a  coherent  system  of  consequences.  That  is  to  say,  in  a  system  of 
thought  no  feature  is  necessarily  prior  to  any  other.  Priority  is 
here  a  matter  only  of  convenience  of  derivation,  as  determined  by 
the  point  of  view  to  which  the  argument  appeals;  or  it  may  be  a 
matter  only  of  the  paging  of  the  book.  Because,  however,  a  book 
must  have  a  page-order,  and  a  discourse  a  beginning  and  end  in  time, 
it  does  not  follow  that  there  must  be  an  order  of  precedence  in  the 
ideas.  Again,  take  a  witness  supposed  to  be  absolutely  truthful,  so 
that  the  truth  of  what  he  is  to  testify  will  only  depend  upon  his 
veracity;  make  this  supposition  as  absolute  as  you  please,  you  can 
never  make  it  so  absolute  that  his  veracity  will  be  unaffected  by  the 
nature  of  the  testimony  which  he  is  to  give.  It  is  just  as  absurd  to 
speak  of  a  science  as  being,  in  Mrs.  Franklin's  phrase,  "at  the  begin- 
ning of  things."  Where  is  the  beginning  of  things?  If  you  locate 
it  in  the  principles  of  physics,  or  of  mechanics,  or  even  of  pure  mathe- 
matics, I  may  reply  that  these  "fundamental"  principles  depend  for 
their  final  justification  just  as  much  upon  their  working  out  in 

•"Science  and  Hypothesis,"  Chapter  I. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         157 

biology,  or  upon  what  we  decide  about  the  freedom  of  the  will,  as 
conversely. 

Mrs.  Franklin  points  out  that  a  failure  to  make  your  primitives 
explicit  is  apt  to  result  in  a  ' '  circle  in  definition. ' '  But  for  my  own 
part,  although  I  stand  for  "straight  thinking,"  and  although  I 
should  be  at  a  loss  to  invent  a  circular  system  of  logic  as  a  substitute 
for  the  rectilinear  system  of  Aristotle,  I  find  it  difficult  to  see  that 
the  circle  is  not  a  better  figure  for  thinking  than  the  straight  line. 
At  least  I  should  say  that  the  test  of  a  finally  transparent  idea  is  the 
ability  to  argue  from  &  to  a  as  readily  as  from  a  to  &.  To  say  that 
circular  thinking  leaves  you  just  where  you  were  seems  to  me  not 
quite  true — this  seems  to  refer  to  circular  walking.  In  the  first 
chapter  of  "Pendennis"  I  find  the  Major  reading  his  mail.  "But," 
you  say, ' '  who  is  the  Major  ?  Let  us  first  define  our  ternm. "  "  Well, 
the  Major  is  Arthur's  uncle."  "But  who  is  Arthur?"  "Why,  he 
is  the  Major's  nephew."  This  seems  very  inane,  and  yet  I  beg  you 
to  note  that  we  are  not  as  free  to  define  the  Major  in  any  way  we 
please  as  we  were  before,  and  the  question  remains  whether  the 
paucity  of  the  result  is  not  due  solely  to  the  smallness  of  the  circle. 
Can  we  deny  that  the  whole  course  of  the  novel,  by  virtue  of  which 
alone  we  are  enabled  to  say  quite  definitely  who,  after  all,  the  Major 
was,  is  anything  more  than  an  extension  of  just  this  circular  process  ? 
And  can  we  then  point  to  any  absolute  difference,  especially  to  any 
"abstractly  logical"  difference,  between  the  plot  of  a  novel  and  a 
mathematical  system,  or  a  really  organized  natural  science?  Mrs. 
Franklin  cites,  as  an  illustration  of  the  vice,  Clerk-Maxwell's  defini- 
tions of  matter  as  ' '  that  which  may  have  energy  communicated  to  it, ' ' 
and  of  energy  as  "that  which  passes  from  matter  to  matter."  But 
it  is  hardly  true  that  these  definitions  are  altogether  futile ;  at  least 
one  learns  that  energy  is  communicable  and,  by  implication,  that 
matter  is  not.  Mrs.  Franklin  seems  to  hold  that  a  definition  must 
settle  the  character  of  its  object  once  for  all,  that  is,  must  be  finally 
explicit,  if  it  is  to  do  any  defining  whatever.  Hence  it  is,  no  doubt, 
that  in  a  "sound  epistemology"  consciousness  must  be  "the  first 
great  indefinable. ' '  But  in  a  world  where  everything  is  involved  in 
everything  else,  nothing  can  be  defined  once  for  all ;  and  if  conscious- 
ness is  wholly  indefinable,  we  shall  be  compelled,  not  to  stop  talking, 
perhaps,  but  at  least  to  stop  thinking  about  it. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  any  actual  process  of  thinking  is 
far  more  circular  than  rectilinear,  and  I  am  unable  to  see  how  it 
could  or  ought  to  be  otherwise.  Suppose  that  one  is  writing  a  book. 
On  the  rectilinear  theory,  the  first  chapter  should  be  written  first 
and  once  for  all,  and  in  writing  this  chapter  the  author  ought  him- 
self to  be  as  nai've  with  regard  to  the  outcome  in  later  chapters  as  he 


158  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

may,  perhaps,  suppose  his  reader  to  be.  In  other  words,  the  later 
parts  of  the  argument  or  the  story  should  only  depend  upon  the 
earlier.  But  of  course  this  is  never  the  case.  Indeed,  it  is  notorious 
that  the  first  chapter  is  the  hardest  of  all  to  write,  and  probably  the 
chapter  which  is  to  undergo  the  greatest  amount  of  revision;  first, 
because  the  ideas  can  never  be  so  clear  as  they  will  be  after  writing 
the  whole,  and  secondly,  because  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  making 
any  part  of  an  argument  clear  to  a  reader  who  is  not  more  or  less 
familiar  with  the  whole.  Hence,  though  we  begin  with  the  first,  after 
each  new  chapter  we  return  and  revise  and  we  never  cease  revising, 
here,  there,  and  everywhere,  until,  to  our  view,  there  is  a  mutual 
harmony  of  all.  And  upon  this  mutuality  of  dependence  the  argu- 
ment is  finally  "founded." 

Mrs.  Franklin  tells  us  that  "Nothing  must  be  admitted  ...  in 
the  way  of  terms  ...  or  propositions  .  .  .  except  upon  rigid  inspection 
and  fully  aboveboard. ' '  I  find  it  difficult  to  characterize  this  advice 
appropriately  and  yet  with  proper  courtesy.  For  it  reminds  me 
both  of  my  own  first  philosophical  paper  and  of  the  attitude  of  many 
of  my  students,  especially  of  those  who  are  trained  in  mathematics, 
just  when  they  begin  to  think  about  philosophy  at  all.  The  trouble 
with  philosophy  is,  they  tell  me,  that  it  fails  to  define  its  terms.  The 
answer  is  obvious.  Popular  opinion  to  the  contrary,  students  of 
philosophy  are,  at  least,  not  less  conscientious  in  their  thinking  and 
their  expressions  than  other  persons.  Nor  are  they  less  disposed  to 
recognize  the  practical  wisdom  of  "Be  sure  you  are  right  and  then 
go  ahead."  But  had  this  been  their  fixed  rule,  there  would  be  no 
philosophy.  For,  in  the  end,  the  trouble  is  not  with  the  definitions 
but  with  the  ideas.  If  we  could  make  the  ideas  clear,  we  could  easily 
define  them;  or,  rather,  the  clarification  and  the  definition  would  be 
one  and  the  same  thing.  But  the  clarification  of  the  ideas  is  just  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  what  philosophy  has  to  do. 

Having  said  something  similar  to  this  in  a  paper  published  sev- 
eral years  ago,  I  was  accused,  rather,  I  was  offered  the  right  hand 
of  fellowship  and  a  certificate  of  good  standing  in  the  school  of 
pragmatism.  I  have  been  unable  to  accept  this  generous,  though 
embarrassing,  invitation,  but  I  will  not  say  that  the  doctrine  is  not 
pragmatism,  because  I  do  not  know  what  pragmatism  would  exclude. 
My  belief  is,  however,  that  the  foregoing  criticism  of  the  conception 
of  primitives  should  belong  in  any  view  which  makes  coherence  the 
test  of  truth. 

WARNER  Fira 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          159 


EE VIEWS   AND    ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

Charles  Darwin  and  the  Origin  of  Species:  Addresses,  etc.,  in  America 

and  England  in  the  Year  of  the  Two  Anniversaries.    EDWARD  BAGNALL 

POULTON.    London:  Longmans,  Green  and  Co.    1909. 

The  year  1909  was  at  once  the  centenary  of  the  birth  of  Charles  Dar- 
win and  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  appearance  of  his  greatest  work. 
The  occasion  was  fittingly  commemorated  by  scientific  meetings  and  ad- 
dresses in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Professor  Poulton,  as  a  leading  ex- 
ponent of  the  Darwinism  of  twenty  years  ago,  and  an  active  investigator 
of  certain  diflicult  evolutionary  problems,  was  inevitably  an  important 
contributor  to  some  of  these  programs,  both  in  England  and  in  America. 
Considering  the  circumstances  of  its  preparation,  it  is  no  damaging 
criticism  of  the  present  volume  to  say  that  it  contains  little  that  is  new, 
and  little,  indeed,  that  the  author  has  not  himself  already  told  us.1 

To  the  reviewer,  the  most  interesting  pages  of  the  book  relate  to  Dar- 
win's personality  and  to  his  frame  of  mind  in  dealing  with  various  scien- 
tific problems.  In  this  regard,  he  will  ever  remain  as  an  ideal  to  succes- 
sive generations  of  younger  investigators,  whatever  may  become  of  his 
special  hypotheses  in  the  field  of  biology.  A  number  of  hitherto  unpub- 
lished letters  are  introduced  by  Poulton,  which  serve  to  confirm  the  im- 
pressions which  the  world  has  already  formed  of  the  great  naturalist's 
modesty  and  his  boundless  sympathy  with  the  work  of  others. 

In  recent  years,  along  with  the  growing  mass  of  legitimate  criticism 
of  certain  of  Darwin's  theories,  there  has  sometimes  been  displayed  a 
tendency  to  belittle  his  scientific  attainments,  even  to  the  point  of  charg- 
ing him  with  superficiality  and  a  proneness  to  forming  unwarranted  con- 
clusions. Indeed,  it  does  not  appear  diflicult  to  select  passages  from 
Darwin's  writings  in  support  of  this  view.  Such  charges  reveal,  how- 
ever, an  unfortunate  lack  of  historical  perspective.  To  begin  with,  Dar- 
win was  a  naturalist — a  thing  almost  impossible  at  the  present  time — and 
the  data  for  his  speculations  were  drawn  from  every  branch  of  biology, 
as  well  as  from  geology,  geography,  and  other  sciences.  This,  indeed,  was 
inevitable  for  the  man  who  should  establish  the  theory  of  organic  evolu- 
tion. To  the  present-day  specialist,  who  must  concentrate  his  activities 
upon  a  very  few  organisms  viewed  in  a  very  few  relations,  the  work  of 
all  the  great  pioneers  in  his  science  must,  in  a  sense,  seem  superficial. 
The  latter  were  forced  to  admit  much  evidence  provisionally,  which  the 
twentieth  century  experimentalist  would  very  properly  reject  as  inade- 
quate. Thus  alone  could  the  broad  outlines  of  the  science  be  sketched.  It 
is  in  no  way  to  the  discredit  of  these  great  pioneers  that  some  of  their 
outlines  were  later  erased  in  the  light  of  more  exact  knowledge. 

Poulton  is  at  considerable  pains  to  refute  that  much  hackneyed  bit  of 
moralizing  over  the  blighting  effect  of  a  scientific  career  upon  the  esthetic 
faculties.  As  is  well  known,  Darwin's  own  autobiography  affords  a  much- 

*"  Essays  on  Evolution,  1889-1907,"  reviewed  in  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VI., 
page  185. 


160  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

quoted  text  in  support  of  this  thesis.  But  Poulton  dwells  upon  the 
wretched  health  endured  by  Darwin  throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  his 
active  life,  and  points  out  that  this  concentration  upon  his  scientific  pur- 
suits was,  in  his  case,  a  condition  essential  to  the  accomplishment  of  his 
work.  Darwin's  experience — so  often  held  up  to  us  as  a  dreadful  warning 
— thus  seems  to  afford  no  evidence  for  the  mutual  exclusiveness  of  scien- 
tific and  esthetic  development  in  the  same  mind.  The  author  cites  his 
own  wide  acquaintance  with  scientific  men  in  support  of  the  contrary  view, 
and  it  is  likely  that  most  readers  will  draw  similar  evidence  from  their 
own  experience. 

Much  of  the  volume  at  hand  is  devoted  to  Poulton's  own  speculations 
in  explanation  of  the  colors  of  certain  butterflies  and  an  elaboration  of 
the  theories  of  "  mimicry,"  originally  framed  by  H.  W.  Bates  and  Fritz 
Miiller.  From  the  standpoint  of  organic  evolution,  these  cases  undoubt- 
edly raise  some  very  difficult  problems,  and  Darwin  himself  thought  them 
worthy  of  considerable  attention.  To  Poulton  they  become  the  central 
theme  in  his  view  of  nature,  and  the  various  hypothetical  types  of 
"  mimicry  "  and  protective  coloration — each  designated  with  a  rather  un- 
wieldy name — are  discussed  as  fundamental  realities,  regardless  of  the 
very  slender  thread  of  experimental  evidence  on  which  they  depend.  It  is 
true  that  he  concedes  the  "paramount  need  for  experimental  research 
and  field  observations  .  .  .  [which]  should  be  undertaken  on  the  largest 
possible  scale  "  (p.  191).  But  for  him,  the  case  seems  to  be  pretty  con- 
clusively settled  without  recourse  to  such  experiments,  and  he  later  quali- 
fies his  demand  for  investigations  of  this  sort  with  the  assurance  that 
"  while  human  performance  is  of  the  deepest  interest  for  the  solution  of 
mysteries  innumerable,  of  more  profound  significance  still,  for  the  com- 
prehension of  the  method  of  evolution,  is  the  vast  performance  of  nature 
herself  "  (p.  201).  True,  but  it  is  that  very  performance  itself  the  method 
of  which  is  here  in  question.  Nature  is  not  yet  such  an  open  book  that 
he  who  runs  may  read. 

Poulton  believes  that  "  the  Mullerian  hypothesis  appears  to  explain  a 
series  of  remarkable  relationships  which  remain  coincidences  under  any 
other  hypothesis  "  (p.  191).  On  the  other  hand,  Punnett1  has  pointed  out 
the  existence  of  some  evidence  that,  in  one  alleged  case  of  "  mimicry  "  at 
least,  the  coloration  of  two  "  mimetic "  forms,  belonging  to  a  single 
species  (supposed  to  be  modeled  after  two  distinct  species,  belonging  to  a 
different  family)  behave  to  one  another  as  Mendelian  alternatives.  "  On 
this  view,"  according  to  Punnett,  "  the  genera  Amauris  and  Euralia 
[the  "  mimicked  "  and  the  "  mimicking,"  respectively]  contain  a  similar 
set  of  pattern  factors,  and  the  conditions,  whatever  they  may  be,  which 
bring  about  mutation  in  the  former  lead  to  the  production  of  a  similar 
mutation  in  the  latter."  The  fact  that  among  domesticated  rodents  (rats, 
mice,  guinea-pigs  and  rabbits)  not  only  the  same  colors,  but  some  of  the 
same  general  types  of  color  pattern,  have  arisen  independently  argues  for 
the  possibility  of  such  an  origin  of  "mimetic"  resemblances  in  insects. 
This  view,  like  its  alternative,  is  at  present  wholly  unproven,  and  a  final 

' "  Mendelism, "  pp.  144  et  seq. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         161 

decision  of  the  question  is  probably  still  remote,  but  the  Mendelian-Muta- 
tion  explanation  certainly  relieves  us  of  the  truly  terrible  strain  imposed 
upon  our  imagination  by  the  classical  "  mimicry "  hypotheses,  as  elabo- 
rated by  such  writers  as  Poulton. 

As  regards  Mendel's  Law,  our  author  has  plainly  shifted  his  point  of 
view  somewhat  since  the  time  when  he  could  refer  airily  to  "  Mendel's 
interesting  discovery."  He  now  thinks  that  known  facts  "  are  enough  to 
stamp  Mendel's  discovery  as  among  the  greatest  in  the  history  of  the 
biological  sciences"  (p.  278). 

Poulton  appears  to  feel  keenly  the  contemptuous  attitude  of  many  of 
his  younger  colleagues  toward  the  real  founders  of  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion, and  deprecates  severely  the  gregarious  tendency  of  the  great  body 
of  minor  workers,  who  rush  to  fall  in  line  with  every  procession  which 
seems  to  be  marching  behind  a  promising  leader.  I  can  not  refrain  from 
quoting  some  of  the  strong  words  with  which  our  writer  seeks  to  relieve 
his  feelings :  "  In  these  later  years  the  multitudes  seem,  for  the  moment 
at  least,  to  recognize  a  prophet  in  every  reed  shaken  with  the  wind.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  the  number  of  forgotten  works,  of  works 
soon  to  be  forgotten,  of  works  dead  before  they  were  born,  which  have 
been  proclaimed  as  '  the  most  important  contribution  to  biological 
thought  since  the  appearance  of  the  Origin  of  Species.'  I  would  that  the 
multitudes  were  not  mere  followers  of  the  fleeting  fashions  of  a  day,  but 
that  they  were  right  in  their  intuitions:  I  would  that  Newtons  and  Dar- 
wins  might  arise  in  every  generation.  I  can  not  admit  that  the  inability 
to  see  them  on  every  side  is  merely  the  natural  consequence  of  a  cynical 
and  pessimistic  spirit"  (p.  ix).  Which  one  of  us  has  not  been  in  just 
that  mood? 

FRANCIS  B.  SUMNER. 
WOODS  HOLE,  MASS. 

Schopenhauer's  Criticism  of  Kant's  Theory  of  Experience.     RADOSLAV  A. 

TSANOFF.     New  York:  Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.     Cornell  Studies  in 

Philosophy,  No.  9.     1911.     Pp.  xiii  -f-  77. 

The  purpose  of  the  author  of  this  monograph  was  "  to  analyze  closely  " 
the  three  phases  of  Kant's  philosophy  which  Schopenhauer  regarded  as 
most  significant,  viz.,  that  philosophy  must  (1)  "recognize  the  purely 
phenomenal  character  of  knowledge,"  (2)  "  realize  the  primacy  of  will 
over  reason,"  and  (3)  "  be  kept  distinct  from  theology,"  and  then  "  to 
inquire  into  their  consistency  and  philosophical  significance,  as  well  as 
to  determine  as  nearly  as  possible  their  historical  value  as  interpretations 
of  Kant's  philosophy."  The  "  inherent  incompatibility  of  the  two  sys- 
tems "  receives  the  emphasis  rather  than  "  the  psychological  aspects  of 
the  problem."  A  brief  discussion  of  the  literature  in  English,  German, 
and  French  shows  the  need  for  such  a  work  as  this. 

The  four  chapters  which  constitute  the  body  of  the  book  have  the 
following  titles,  indicating  the  nature  and  scope  of  the  discussion:  (1) 
"  The  Nature  and  Genesis  of  Experience :  Perception  and  Conception" ; 
(2)  "  The  Principles  of  Organization  in  Experience :  The  Deduction  and 


162  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  Real  Significance  of  the  Categories";  (3)  "The  Scope  and  Limits  of 
Experience:  Transcendental  Dialectic";  (4)  "Experience  and  Reality: 
The  Will  as  the  Thing-in-itself."  The  author's  method  in  treating  these 
topics  is  to  present  Schopenhauer's  exposition  and  criticism  of  Kant  with 
reference  to  each,  and  then  by  quotations  from  Kant  and  his  own  inter- 
pretation to  show  wherein  Schopenhauer  erred,  or  was  correct.  Not  in- 
frequently, too,  he  introduces  pertinent  material  from  writers  who  were 
contemporary  or  nearly  so,  and  also  makes  comparison  with  recent  views 
which  are  the  outgrowth  of  the  Kantian  movement  or  had  a  comparatively 
independent  development.  The  author's  own  position  seems  to  be  "  instru- 
mental "  and  "  organic." 

Schopenhauer  accepted  the  doctrine  of  Kant's  "  Esthetic "  "  unre- 
servedly," and  then  made  a  "  clear-cut  distinction  between  Verstand  and 
Vernunft."  His  distinction,  however,  is  not  the  same  as  that  Kant 
himself  made,  and  this  initial  error  vitally  affected  Schopenhauer's  further 
treatment  of  Kant.  It  is  true  that  Kant  was  not  always  precise  in  the 
use  of  these  terms,  but  his  "  confusion  is  the  confusion  of  depths  not  yet 
clarified,"  while  "  Schopenhauer's  lucidity  manifests  epistemological 
shallowness." 

"  The  radical  fault  which  Schopenhauer  finds  with  Kant's  deduction  of 
the  categories,"  Tsanoff  maintains,  "  is  its  abstract  character.  .  .  .  This 
protest  against  Kant's  abstract  formalism  is  most  just;  but  his  own 
theory  of  judgment  incapacitates  him  at  the  very  start  from  indicating 
the  fundamental  error."  Tsanoff  states  Schopenhauer's  "  theory  of  judg- 
ment "  briefly,  compares  it  with  Kant's,  and  then  takes  up  the  categories 
in  their  respective  groups.  In  each  case,  Schopenhauer's  interpretation 
and  criticism  are  given,  together  with  what  seems  to  the  author  to  be  the 
proper  evaluation.  The  "schematism"  is  treated  briefly,  since  Schopen- 
hauer was  inclined  to  dispense  with  it  altogether,  along  with  all  the  cate- 
gories save  "  causality,"  upon  the  basis  of  his  own  distinction  between 
perception  and  conception.  Tsanoff,  too,  thinks  the  "  schematism  "  un- 
necessary, but  for  a  different  reason.  "  A  correct  diagnosis,"  he  says, 
"would  locate  the  trouble  in  Kant's  departing  from  his  own  ideal  of  the 
organization  of  experience  from  within  and  attempting  to  explain  that 
organization,  as  it  were,  ab  extra.  The  deduction  of  the  categories,  there- 
fore, should  be  reinterpreted  in  the  true  Kantian  spirit,  its  abstract 
formalism  eliminated,  and  the  immanent  character  of  the  organizing 
principles  of  experience  clearly  emphasized.  This  would  obviate  the 
difficulty  by  showing  the  irrelevancy  and  the  needlessness  of  any  schemata." 

In  connection  with  the  "  Dialectic,"  Tsanoff  admits  that  Schopenhauer 
was  right  in  maintaining  "  that  Kant's  use  of  the  term  '  idea '  is  essen- 
tially different  from  Plato's,"  but  he  also  points  out  that  Schopenhauer's 
use  of  the  same  term  was  not  "  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  original  Platonic 
doctrine."  The  origin  of  these  "  ideas,"  as  Kant  used  the  term,  is  indi- 
cated, and  each  is  discussed  in  turn,  both  from  Schopenhauer's  and  from 
Kant's  point  of  view.  Incidentally,  Schopenhauer's  interpretation  of 
matter  is  presented,  and  the  propriety  of  identifying  it  with  substance 
denied.  Without  dwelling  upon  the  discussion  of  the  mechanical  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         163 

teleological  categories  involved  in  the  antinomies,  Tsanoff's  conclusions 
may  be  stated.  "  In  spite  of  essential  differences  in  standpoint,"  he  says, 
"  which  have  been  at  least  sufficiently  accentuated  in  the  above  comparison 
of  their  treatment  of  the  teleological  principles,  Kant  and  Schopenhauer 
make  the  same  fundamental  mistake.  Neither  fully  realized  the  essen- 
tially instrumental  character  of  all  categories.  Each  and  every  category 
considers  experience,  all  of  it,  from  its  own  point  of  view.  Experience  is 
one,  and  the  categories  are  its  categories,  the  points  of  view  from  which 
it  may  profitably  be  regarded;  no  one  of  them  can  exhaust  its  meaning, 
nor  can  any  truly  significant  category  find  its  own  meaning  exhausted  in 
any  one  part  of  experience,  for  the  simple  reason  that  experience  is  organic 
and  is  therefore  not  divisible  into  discrete  parts."  This,  also,  clearly 
indicates  the  author's  point  of  view. 

In  his  interpretation  of  the  "  thing-in-itself "  as  will,  Schopenhauer 
made  what  he  regarded  "  as  his  own  great  contribution  to  philosophical 
thought."  At  this  point,  "  Schopenhauer's  philosophy  joins  on  to  the 
Kantian,  or  rather  springs  from  it  as  from  its  parent  stem."  "  By  '  will ' 
Schopenhauer  does  not  mean  'merely  willing  and  purposing  in  the  nar- 
rowest sense,  but  also  all  striving,  wishing,  shunning,  hoping,  fearing, 
loving,  hating,  in  short,  all  that  directly  constitutes  our  weal  and  woe, 
desire  and  aversion.' "  Now  while  this  "  will "  may  have  qualities  abso- 
lutely unknowable  to  us,  "  it  is  by  no  means  an  unknown  quantity,  .  .  . 
but  is  fully  and  immediately  comprehended,  and  is  so  familiar  to  us  that 
we  know  and  understand  what  will  is  far  better  than  anything  else." 
Consequently,  although  "  on  Kant's  basis "  Schopenhauer  thinks  that 
"  metaphysics  is  impossible,"  he  feels  that  he  himself  has  ground  for 
"  asserting  the  possibility  of  an  immanent  metaphysics,  a  metaphysics  of 
experience."  This  view  Tsanoff  rejects,  because  Schopenhauer  "  seeks  his 
ultimate  reality  ...  in  some  one  sort  of  experience.  .  .  .  The  spirit  of 
Schopenhauer's  theory  of  reality  "  is  that  "  to  learn  metaphysics,  we  must 
unlearn  science." 

In  conclusion,  Tsanoff  suggests  "  that  Schopenhauer  is  not  the  true 
successor  of  Kant.  Instead  of  being  a  neo-rationalist,  as  Kant,  on  the 
whole,  remained,  he  is  fundamentally  an  irrationalist,  so  far  as  his  atti- 
tude towards  ultimate  reality  is  concerned.  He  also  insists  that  the 
"  world  as  idea  and  world  as  will  are  at  least  as  incompatible  philosophic- 
ally as  Kant's  two  worlds  of  phenomena  and  noumena.  Schopenhauer 
failed  to  profit  by  his  own  criticism  of  Kant.  .  .  .  Experience  must  be 
interpreted  in  terms  of  its  own  self -organizing  totality.  In  the  solution 
of  its  problems  we  can  ignore  no  one  of  its  elements  or  aspects.  Cogni- 
tion is  an  essential  aspect  of  experience,  but  cognition  is  not  all;  this  is 
the  lesson  to  be  learned  from  the  '  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,'  and  espe- 
cially from  the  'Dialectic.'  The  same  is  true  of  will.  .  .  .  Schopen- 
hauer's philosophy  .  .  .  represents  an  endless  conflict.  .  .  .  His  every 
problem  is  stated  in  the  form  of  a  dilemma.  .  .  .  He  never  fully  com- 
prehended the  immanent  unity  of  experience.  .  .  .  This  is  the  funda- 
mental defect  of  his  philosophical  system,  which  makes  him  incapable  of 


164  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

grasping  the  real  problems  of  Kant's  philosophy,  and  of  indicating  a 
consistent  method  for  their  solution." 

The  work,  as  a  whole,  is  a  thorough,  scholarly  treatment  of  a  particular 
problem,  and  is  based  upon  an  independent  handling  of  the  sources.  It 
should  prove  very  serviceable  for  an  enlarged  knowledge  of  Kant  and  of 
Schopenhauer. 

GREGORY  D.  WALCOTT. 
HAMLINK  UNIVKBSITT. 

La  Nouvelle  Psychologic  Animale.    GEORGES  BOHN.    Paris:  Alcan.    1911. 

Pp.  ii  -f-  200. 

American  students  of  animal  behavior  hare  come  to  look  upon  the 
work  of  Dr.  Bohn  with  a  certain  suspicion.  Yerkes1  thought  his  earlier 
papers  "  not  thoroughly  satisfactory  scientifically,  for  they  continually 
suggest  questions,  doubts,  and  new  problems,"  and  Jennings,  reviewing 
"  La  Naissance  de  1'Intelligence,"  *  finds  that  Bohn  does  not  stand  "  the 
test  as  to  accuracy  and  trustworthiness  of  his  scientific  results  in  difficult 
fields  .  .  .  and  that  such  confusion,  inaccuracy,  and  misstatement  of  fact 
are  almost  or  quite  sufficient  to  remove  the  book  from  the  field  of  science." 
An  American  reviewer  is  likely,  therefore,  to  approach  this  new  work  of 
Dr.  Bohn,  which  is  "  the  continuation  and  complement  of  '  La  Naissance 
de  1'Intelligence,' "  with  misgivings.  The  pudding  is  hardly  better  than 
the  anticipation  for  "  La  Nouvelle  Psychologic  Animale,"  though  a  brief 
and  clear  statement  of  the  author's  views  bears  evidence  of  bias  in  favor 
of  a  theory  of  animal  behavior  which  to  say  the  least  is  but  little  more 
than  a  good  working  hypothesis.  This  presupposition  in  favor  of  a 
physicochemical  explanation  determines  not  only  the  author's  criticism 
of  other  men's  results,  but  it  also  seems  to  determine  the  presentation  of 
the  facts. 

Relying  upon  "  the  more  recent  studies  which  have  been  conceived  in 
a  really  scientific  spirit"  (Preface),  the  author  divides  his  treatise  into 
three  parts :  "  the  activities  of  the  inferior  animals,  the  instincts  of  the 
arthropods,  and  the  psychical  activity  of  the  vertebrates." 

The  phenomena  of  behavior  in  lower  animals  may  be  grouped  under 
three  principal  orders:  "tropisms,  sensibilite  differ entielle,  and  memoire 
cellulaire."  The  first  is  the  well-known  local  action  theory  of  Loeb;  the 
second  is  the  tendency  of  the  animal  "  to  pause,  to  recoil,  and  to  turn 
through  one  hundred  and  eighty  degrees  when  the  environment  changes 
abruptly  " ;  the  third  group  of  phenomena  are  the  evidences  of  associative 
memory. 

In  defense  of  his  physicochemical  theory,  for  which  he  does  not  cease 
to  praise  Loeb,  the  author  attacks  Jennings's  theory  of  trial  and  error  and 
insists  that  "  the  movements  of  infusoria  are  subject  to  very  simple  laws." 
But  when  did  Jennings  deny  the  explainability  of  infusorian  behavior? 
If  I  have  understood  his  work,  Jennings's  protest  has  not  been  against  a 
physicochemical  interpretation  of  animal  behavior,  but  against  the  ten- 

1  Journal  of  Comparative  Neurology  and  Psychology,  No.  66,  p.  238,  1906. 
*  American  Naturalist,  No.  43,  p.  619,  1909. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         165 

dency  to  find  that  explanation  without  considering  all  the  facts.  He  has 
insisted  on  seeing  the  behavior  in  detail  rather  than  in  bulk  and  has  re- 
fused to  accept,  as  final,  explanations  which  are  based  only  on  mass  obser- 
vations. This,  Bohn  does  not  seem  adequately  to  have  realized.  There 
seems  a  strange  tendency  on  the  part  of  certain  writers,  the  moment  you 
deny  the  sweeping  character  of  their  physical  formula,  to  think  that  you 
have  abdicated  causal  explanation  altogether  and  are  lost  in  the  realms  of 
mystery. 

In  the  second  part,  Dr.  Bohn  reviews  the  so-called  instincts  of  arthro- 
pods, giving  in  turn  the  detailed  studies  on  "  feigning  death,"  "  return  to 
the  nest,"  "  food-seeking,"  "  mimicry,"  and  "  the  social  instincts."  In- 
stinct he  regards  as  a  blanket  term  covering  a  "  complex  of  activities, 
some  simple  and  some  complex,  some  inherited  and  some  acquired  in  the 
course  of  individual  life,  all,  it  being  understood,  resulting  from  the  di- 
verse qualities  of  living  matter,  inherited  more  or  less  independently,  the 
one  of  the  other"  (p.  125).  Most  experimental  students  will  agree  with 
this  tendency  to  replace  the  term  instinct  by  more  analytic  concepts. 

"  Among  vertebrates  psychical  activity  acquires,  owing  to  the  brain,  a 
very  great  complexity"  (p.  129).  Hence,  ten  pages  devoted  to  brain  anat- 
omy, and  then  follow  fifty-six  pages  treating  in  turn  the  method  of  Paw- 
low,  the  labyrinth  method,  the  puzzle-box  method,  the  method  of  imitation, 
and  the  method  of  training  as  these  have  been  applied  in  the  study 
of  vertebrates.  Thirty-one  of  the  fifty-six  pages  are  given  to  Paw- 
low,  evidently  because  his  method  lends  itself  to  the  support  of  the  author's 
theory.  "  The  method  of  Pawlow  is  infinitely  precious  for  psychology,  be- 
cause, after  a  sure  fashion,  it  leads  to  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  associa- 
tive memory  among  superior  animals"  (p.  158,  italics  mine).  Much  less 
important  is  the  labyrinth  method  because  it  gives  "  only  synthetic  re- 
sults .  .  .  laws  do  not  appear  from  the  experiments  which  have  been 
made"  (p.  175).  However,  in  the  hands  of  Yerkes  and  Watson,  the  au- 
thor admits  this  method  has  given  results  of  some  importance.  Of  still 
less  importance  are  the  remaining  methods,  since  the  data  that  they  give 
are  "uncertain  and  contradictory"  (p.  188),  and  the  author  contents  him- 
self with  giving  the  results  with  little  comment.  The  method  of  discrimi- 
nation recently  elaborated  in  such  detail  for  the  study  of  vision  by  Yerkes 
and  Watson  receives  only  passing  notice. 

In  the  reviewer's  opinion  the  order  of  merit  for  the  several  methods  of 
animal  investigation  is  hardly  the  one  likely  to  be  adopted  in  the  further 
work  of  men  who  are  really  interested  in  getting  all  the  facts.  If  we  must 
have  a  physicochemical  explanation  of  animal  behavior  to-morrow  it  will 
be  well  to  let  labyrinths,  puzzle-boxes,  imitation,  and  all  go,  and  theorize 
ourselves  into  a  state  of  complacent  belief.  If  we  would  understand  ani- 
mal behavior  it  were  better  to  realize  that  in  the  case  of  the  vertebrates 
we  have  hardly  gotten  as  yet  the  first  inklings  of  how  to  attack  our  prob- 
lems, that  all  the  methods  are  yet  on  trial,  and  that  what  we  need  is  re- 
finement of  experimental  procedure  in  connection  with  every  method  yet 
proposed.  The  methods  which  Bohn  rejects  have  yielded  results  as  im- 
portant as  any  which  have  come  from  the  Pawlow  Laboratory,  and  if  it 


166  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

were  not  for  preoccupation  with  certain  theories  he  would  probably  have 
seen  them  in  a  truer  light.  M.  E.  HAGOERTY. 

INDIANA  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

MIND.  October,  1911.  Mr.  Bradley's  Doctrine  of  Knowledge  (pp. 
457-488):  E.  H.  STRANGE. -Mr.  Bradley's  thesis  that  it  is  in  "feeling" 
that  one  directly  encounters  reality  is  called  in  question.  The  contention 
that  feeling  is  the  original  mode  of  consciousness  is  challenged,  and 
for  the  existence  of  Mr.  Bradley's  "  whole  of  feeling  "  there  is  no  evidence. 
The  criticism  contains  a  refutation  of  Mr.  Bradley's  doctrine  of  percep- 
tion as  sentient  experience,  and  judgment  as  divorce  of  content  from 
existence.  Mind  and  Body  (pp.  489-506)  :  J.  S.  MACKENZIE.  -  The  diffi- 
culties arising  out  of  the  relations  obtaining  between  conscious  states  and 
body  center  around  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  and  it  is 
suggested  how  these  difficulties  may  be  met  without  abandoning  the 
doctrine.  Mind  is  distinguished  from  conscious  states  and  the  problem 
of  its  persistence  is  considered.  Aristophanes  and  Socrates  (pp.  507-520)  : 
R.  PETRIE. -An  examination  of  Professor  Taylor's  volume  of  essays, 
entitled  "  Varia  Socratica,"  relating  to  Aristophanes's  "  Clouds "  in  its 
bearing  upon  the  historic  Socrates.  Professor  Taylor  dismisses  the  evi- 
dence of  Xenophon  maintaining  Socrates's  interest  in  physics  and  mathe- 
matics. This  view  is  opposed,  and  it  is  maintained  that  the  caricature  in 
the  "  Clouds  "  does  not  contradict  the  account  given  by  Xenophon.  Nega- 
tion Considered  as  a  Statement  of  Difference  in  Identity  (pp.  521-529) : 
AUGUSTA  KLEIN.  -  The  thesis  is  that  "  Negative  predication  should  be  in- 
terpreted as  asserting  neither  a  Difference  in  Difference  (Miss  Jones)  nor 
an  Identity  in  Difference  (Hegel),  but  a  Difference  in  Identity."  Discus- 
sions: Self -consciousness  and  Consciousness  of  Self  (pp.  530-537) :  G.  W. 
CUNNINGHAM.  "  Self -consciousness  is  completely  realized  only  in  the 
experience  of  the  absolute."  Truth  as  Value  and  the  Value  of  Truth 
(pp.  538-539) :  J.  E.  RUSSELL.  A  Point  in  Formal  Logic  (pp.  540-541) : 
T.  B.  MULLER.  Critical  Notes:  E.  G.  Haldane  and  G.  R.  T.  Ross  (trans- 
lated by),  The  Philosophical  Works  of  Descartes,  Vol.  I.:  A.  E.  TAYLOR, 
Natorp,  Die  logischen  Grundlagen  der  exakten  Wissenschaften:  P.  E.  B. 
JOURDAIN.  A.  D.  Lindsay,  The  Philosophy  of  Bergson:  H.  W.  CARR. 
A.  W.  Moore,  Pragmatism  and  its  Critics:  D.  L.  MURRAY.  William 
James,  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy:  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER.  New  Books. 
Philosophical  Periodicals.  Notes. 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  October,  1911.  Le  pragmatisme  et  le 
realisme  du  sens  commun  (pp.  337-367) :  L.  DAURIAC.  -  Pragmatism  has 
its  source  in  an  attitude  of  mind,  perhaps  as  old  as  mind  itself,  but  it  is 
the  honor  of  William  James  to  have  detached  it  from  rationalism,  of 
which  it  now  appears  to  be  the  absolute  antithesis.  Les  tendances 
actuelles  de  la  psychologic  anglaise  (pp.  368-399) :  G.  CANTECOR.  -  The 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         167 

progress  and  transformations  of  English  psychology  in  the  last  thirty 
years  as  it  appears  in  the  work  of  Sully,  Ward,  and  Stout.  Methode  de 
la  science  pedagogique  (pp.  400-421) :  L.  CELLERIER.  -  The  method  includes 
a  definition  of  education  drawn  from  experience,  the  determination  of 
pedagogical  fact,  observations  of  the  facts  of  education,  and  the  study  and 
classification  of  elementary  pedagogical  facts.  Analyses  el  comptes 
rendus:  G.  Dromard,  Essai  sur  la  sincerite:  FR.  PAULHAN.  G.  Simmel, 
Soziologie:  DR.  S.  JANKELEVITCH.  E.  Durkheim  et  see  collaborateurs, 
L'annee  sociologique,  t.  XI:  G.  BELOT.  A.  Dupont,  Gabriel  Tarde  et 
I'economie  politique:  G.  JOUSSET.  J.  Delvaille,  Essai  sur  I'histoire  de 
I'idee  de  progres:  L.  ARREAT.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 
Adamson,  Robert.  A  Short  History  of  Logic.  Edited  by  W.  E.  Sorley. 

Edinburgh  and  London:  William  Blackwood  and  Sons.     1911.     Pp. 

x  +  266.     5s. 
Boden,  Friedrich.     Die  Instinkbedingtheit  der  Wahrheit  und  Erfahrung. 

Berlin:  Verlag  von  Leonhard  Simion  Nf.     1911.     Pp.  80.     M.  2.50. 
Buchenau,  Artur.     Rene  Descartes  Uber  die  Leidenschaften  der  Seele. 

Leipzig :  Verlag  von  Felix  Meiner.    1911.    Pp.  xxxi  -f  150.    2  M.  20  Pf . 
Busse,  Adolf.      Aristotles  Tiber  die  Seele.      Leipzig:  Verlag  von  Felix 

Meiner.     1911.     Pp.  xviii  -f  120.     2  M.  20  Pf . 
Oehler,  Richard.      Nietzsche  Als  Bildner  der  Personlichkeit.      Leipzig: 

Verlegt  bei  Felix  Meiner.     1910.     Pp.  31.     60  Pf . 

Vorlander,  Karl.    Immanuel  Kants  Leben.    Leipzig :  Felix  Meiner.    1911. 
Pp.  xi  +  223.     3  M. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  New  York  Branch  of  the  American  Psychological  Association 
met,  in  conjunction  with  the  Section  of  Anthropology  and  Psychology  of 
the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences,  at  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History  on  Monday  evening,  February  26.  The  following  papers  were 
read:  "  The  Heredity  of  Mental  Traits,"  Dr.  H.  H.  Goddard;  "  The  Med- 
ical Course  in  Psychology,"  Dr.  F.  Lyman  Wells ;  "  Rate  Norms  of 
Mental  Development,"  Professor  J.  E.  W.  Wallin ;  "  Auditory  and  Visual 
Memory,"  Mr.  A.  E.  Chrislip ;  "  The  Influence  of  Narcotics  on  Physical 
and  Mental  Traits  of  Offspring,"  Mr.  J.  E.  Hickman. 

Dr.  J.  E.  Wallace  Wallin,  who  has  been  engaged  in  the  psychoclinical 
study  of  various  types  of  mental  defectives  for  over  two  years,  and  who 
has  recently  worked  in  the  clinics  at  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  has  accepted 
a  call  from  the  University  of  Pittsburgh  to  organize  a  department  of 
clinical  psychology  in  the  School  of  Education  and  also  to  lecture  in  the 
summer  school  on  clinical  psychology,  the  education  of  exceptional  chil- 
dren, and  experimental  education. 

UNDER  the  auspices  of  the  College  of  Sciences,  a  series  of  lectures  has 
been  recently  given  at  the  University  of  Illinois  by  Professor  W.  Johann- 


168  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

sen,  of  the  University  of  Copenhagen.  The  subjects  treated  were  "  The 
Primitive  Conception  of  Heredity,"  "  The  Principle  of  Pure  Lines," 
"  Mendelism,"  "  Complications  and  Exceptions,"  "  Mutations,"  "  Con- 
tinuity or  Discontinuity." 

DR.  ELEANOB  H.  ROWLAND,  professor  of  philosophy  at  Mt.  Holyoke 
College,  has  resigned  to  become  dean  of  women  and  professor  of  philos- 
ophy at  Reed  College,  Portland,  Oregon.  Her  place  at  Mt.  Holyoke,  for 
the  current  semester,  will  be  taken  by  Dr.  Kate  Gordon. 

ON  account  of  illness,  Professor  Josiah  Royce,  of  Harvard  University, 
has  been  compelled  to  give  up  the  course  of  Bross  lectures  on  "  The  Source 
of  Religious  Insight "  and  has  been  given  leave  of  absence  for  the  present 
academic  year. 

THE  Sarah  Berliner  research  fellowship  for  women  has  been  awarded 
to  Miss  Marie  Gertrude  Rand,  of  Brooklyn,  a  doctor  of  philosophy  of 
Bryn  Mawr  College,  for  her  work  on  the  psychology  of  vision. 

DR.  W.  A.  HEIDEL,  professor  of  Greek  at  Wesleyan  University,  gave 
an  address  on  "  The  Beginnings  of  Science "  before  the  Middletown, 
Connecticut,  Scientific  Association  on  February  13. 

A  NEW  department  in  psychology  and  education  is  to  be  established  at 
Swarthmore  College  next  year,  of  which  Dr.  Bird  T.  Baldwin,  now  pro- 
fessor of  education  at  the  University  of  Texas,  will  be  in  charge. 

PROFESSOR  CASPER  RENE  GREGORY,  of  the  University  of  Leipzig,  is 
giving  a  series  of  lectures  at  the  University  of  Illinois  on  "  The  Develop- 
ment of  Science  in  Germany."  Dr.  Gregory  is  the  first  American-born 
professor  to  receive  appointment  in  a  German  university.  He  holds  the 
chair  of  theology  at  Leipzig. 

ELIZABETH  KEMPER  ADAMS,  of  Smith  College,  has  been  promoted  from 
associate  professor  of  philosophy  and  education  to  professor  of  education. 

DR.  B.  W.  VAN  RIPER,  of  Nebraska  Wesleyan  University,  has  been 
elected  assistant  professor  of  philosophy  in  Boston  University. 

DR.  S.  P.  HAYES,  professor  of  psychology  in  Mt.  Holyoke  College,  has 
been  granted  a  leave  of  absence  for  the  second  semester.  He  will  spend 
the  time  abroad,  chiefly  at  Cambridge  University. 

THE  Ichabod  Spencer  foundation  lectures  are  being  given  at  Union 
College  by  Professor  Hugo  Miinsterberg,  of  Harvard  University.  His 
subject  is  "  Applied  Psychology." 

THE  death  is  announced,  at  seventy-one  years  of  age,  of  Dr.  Otto 
Liebmann,  formerly  professor  of  philosophy  in  the  University  of  Jena. 

DR.  JOHN  J.  TIGERT  has  been  appointed  professor  of  philosophy  in  the 
University  of  Kentucky. 

Dr.  WENDELL  T.  BUSH,  associate  in  philosophy  in  Columbia  University  ^ 
has  been  appointed  associate  professor  of  philosophy. 

PROFESSOR  JOHN  JOLY,  F.R.S.,  has  been  appointed  Huxley  lecturer  at 
Birmingham  University  for  the  current  session. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  7.  MARCH  28,  1912. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  INDIVIDUAL  AND  EXPERIMENTAL 
PSYCHOLOGY  TO  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY.1 

PROFESSOR  JUDD  gives  a  brief  statement2  of  the  way  in  which 
the  problem  of  modern  experimental  psychology  arose.  The 
account  is  interesting  as  showing  how,  as  an  integral  part  of  the  de- 
velopment of  a  certain  form  of  control,  a  new  "science"  may  be 
differentiated.  From  the  standpoint  of  psychology  the  origin  of  the 
experimental  method  was  wholly  external  and  for  a  long  time  un- 
recognized. From  the  demands  of  another  sort  of  experimentation, 
and  in  the  service  of  another  science,  experimental  psychology  came 
into  being.  Some  consideration  of  this  fact  may  prove  of  general 
interest. 

The  specific  problem  to  be  solved  in  this  case  was  that  of  deter- 
mining the  amount  of  error  that  was  involved  in  certain  astronom- 
ical investigations,  the  inquiry  arising  from  a  suspicion  that  the 
hand  was  slow  in  recording  what  the  eye  perceived.  Theoretical 
exactness  required  that  the  hand  should  record,  without  loss  of  time, 
what  the  eye  noted  through  the  telescope.  For  the  purpose  of  cor- 
recting the  error,  the  astronomers,  as  a  mere  matter  of  developing 
their  own  technique,  and  with  no  interest  whatever  in  the  problems 
of  psychology  as  such,  measured  the  eye-hand  reaction-time  of  the 
one  who  made  the  record.  In  this  process,  as  an  interesting  fact 
(of  erudition),  it  was  noted  that  the  reaction  times  of  different  per- 
sons, the  "personal  equation,"  varied. 

Now,  had  these  men  been  interested  in  this  direction,  this  great 
discovery  might  have  become  immediately  the  basis  of  definite  psy- 
chological method ;  but  for  these  astronomers  it  was  only  an  incident, 
more  or  less  regrettable,  of  the  day 's  work ;  and  the  psychologists  of 
the  time  seem  not  to  have  been  able  to  make  any  constructive  use  of 
the  facts  or  to  fit  them  into  their  subject  in  any  way.  To  the  extent 

1  For  standpoint  and  material  suggestions  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  George 
H.  Mead,  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 
'"Psychology,"  p.  333. 

169 


170  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

that  it  was  noticed,  or  used,  at  all,  it  was  taken  over  in  a  wholly  ex- 
ternal sort  of  fashion,  without  analyzing  the  problem  farther;  it 
seems  to  have  been  a  kind  of  scientific  toy,  making  some  curious, 
rather  than  useful,  additions  to  knowledge.  They  used  the  method 
as  if  they,  too,  had  turned  astronomers,  and  as  if  the  whole  interest 
of  science  was  in  providing  data  for  the  correction  of  "personal 
equations."  Little  attention  was  paid,  in  these  earlier  days,  to 
introspective  reintegration  of  these  facts:  the  results  of  their  observa- 
tions and  measurements  were  averaged  in  a  purely  external  way, 
and  consequently  added  little  to  the  actual  knowledge  of  psycholog- 
ical processes. 

But  little  by  little  the  technique  and  method  of  experimental 
psychology  have  been  developed ;  and  the  field  of  operation  has  been 
changed  from  that  of  external  observation  and  mechanical  measure- 
ment to  that  of  charting  out  the  whole  field  of  the  psychical  life. 
But  it  would  seem  that  a  certain  exhilaration  has  carried  the  experi- 
mental psychologist  too  far,  until  we  have  to-day  a  very  great  over- 
working of  the  method,  though  it  is  likely  that  this  misuse  will  have 
its  value  in  helping  to  more  completely  determine  the  field  and  prob- 
lem of  psychology.  Let  us  carry  the  argument  through  to  the  end. 

Modern  science,  growing  out  of  individual  experience,  found  the 
forms  of  psychological  measurement  and  analysis  helpful  in  provid- 
ing a  check  upon  its  own  developing  technique.  In  its  turn,  psychol- 
ogy, as  it  became  conscious  of  itself  and  began  to  call  itself  a 
"science,"  considered  individual  experience  its  proper  field  of  in- 
vestigation, like  the  other  and  older  sciences:  it  assumed  that  it  could 
render  very  much  needed  service  by  investigating  in  accurate  ways 
the  whole  round  of  mental  phenomena;  and  its  method  was  to  be  a 
generalization  of  the  incidental  work  of  the  astronomers.  It  was 
thought  that,  since  the  method  gave  valuable  results  in  the  case  of 
its  use  by  these  devotees  of  the  oldest  of  the  sciences,  there  could  be 
no  doubt  of  its  legitimacy  and  adequacy  as  a  method  in  the  newest. 
But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  astronomers  used  this  psychological 
method  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  their  own  operations,  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  psychological  information :  that  is  to  say,  psychology 
was,  for  them,  not  a  "science"  in  itself,  but  an  important  element 
in  the  technique  of  their  science ;  and  it  would  seem  that  the  generali- 
zation of  their  method  would  give  us,  not  a  new  "science"  of  psy- 
chology, but  a  very  important  new  sort  of  check  upon  the  general 
technique  of  science.  The  mere  generalization  of  the  work  of  the 
astronomers  does  not  give  us  a  "psychology"  with  scientific  stand- 
ing; what  we  get  is  an  ancilla  scientiarum,  and  of  the  physical  sci- 
ences at  that. 

For  the  method  was,  and  is,  essentially  an  abstraction.    As  used 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          171 

by  the  astronomers  it  was  perfectly  concrete :  an  effort  to  more  ade- 
quately control  a  specific  social  experience.  But  when  it  was  gener- 
alized into  "experimental  psychology,"  it  became  abstract,  as  any 
mere  technique  must  inevitably  become.  To  be  sure,  psychology  has 
strenuously  denied  this,  insisting  upon  its  right  to  scientific  stand- 
ing. But  when  closely  pressed  to  define  its  actual  field  of  knowledge, 
it  has  never  been  quite  able  to  answer  conclusively.  For  example, 
if  we  take  such  an  avowedly  functional  treatment  as  that  of  Angell 
we  find  a  rather  questionable  statement  of  the  field  of  knowledge. 
He  says3  ''psychology  is  commonly  defined  as  the  science  of  con- 
sciousness. ' '  But  when  we  turn  to  page  65  of  the  same  book  we  find 
consciousness  spoken  of  as  the  instrument  of  development  "of  those 
fixed  and  intelligent  modes  of  reaction  which  we  call  habits. ' '  Now, 
any  particular  scientific  fact,  or  law,  or  system,  is,  for  the  time,  a 
"fixed  and  intelligent  mode  of  reaction,"  that  is,  it  is  a  social  or 
individual  habit.  Accepted  sciences  are  the  intellectual  and  prac- 
tical habits,  or  fixed  modes  of  controlling  experience,  in  any  period. 
Consciousness,  from  this  point  of  view,  becomes  the  tool  of  scientific 
development;  and  psychology  as  the  "science  of  consciousness"  be- 
comes the  method  of  developing  the  technique  of  general  science: 
and  this  brings  us  back  to  our  astronomers. 

Most  modern  writers  take  the  point  of  view  of  Angell.  Some  have 
tried  to  get  an  undisputed  subject-matter  for  psychology  by  a  proc- 
ess of  eliminating  all  the  physical  and  physiological  materials  of 
experience,  hoping  to  have  something  left.  But  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  sciences  which  deal  with  the  materials  thus  eliminated,  there 
is  to  be  nothing  left :  all  is  to  be  finally  stated  in  terms  of  the  iron  law 
of  cause  and  effect.  And  just  as  the  astronomers  had  no  interest 
in  their  results,  save  as  a  part  of  their  own  technique,  so  modern 
science  seems  to  care  little  for  any  "science  of  consciousness"  that 
offers  itself  as  an  abstract  and  independent  field  of  knowledge.  That 
which  has  been  called  prejudice  on  the  part  of  the  older  sciences  is 
probably  just  the  healthy  and  justifiable  feeling  that  psychology  as 
it  has  been  known  in  the  past  can  have  no  other  standing  in  any 
real  organization  of  the  sciences  than  it  had  with  those  first  astron- 
omers :  it  is  a  part  of  the  technique  of  science,  not  a  science  in  itself. 

The  experience  of  the  individual  has  been  the  rich  field  of  de- 
velopment of  modern  science ;  and  this  has  been  but  the  more  clearly 
seen  as  psychology  has  developed  and  the  technique  of  control  of  ex- 
perience in  the  various  sciences  has  been  refined.  But  this  develop- 
ment of  physical  science,  with  psychology  as  its  general  technique, 
has  been  accomplished  at  the  sad  cost  of  leaving  psychology  itself 
objectless,  homeless,  like  the  "man  without  a  country."  But,  not 

•"Psychology,"  p.  1. 


172  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

only  has  this  development,  as  thus  stated,  left  psychology  as  a  tool, 
rather  than  a  science ;  it  has  also  made  it,  practically,  utterly  useless 
in  the  field  of  the  social  sciences.  It  is  not  without  reason  that  the 
sociologist  has  denied  the  right  of  the  psychologist  to  any  voice  in 
the  determination  of  the  method  of  sociology.  It  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  the  educationist  has  been  skeptical  of  the  value  of 
psychology  as  an  aid  to  the  teacher.  Psychology  as  it  has  been 
known,  that  is,  experimental  psychology  developed  on  the  basis  of 
the  work  of  the  astronomers,  has  had  very  little  to  do  with  that 
stage  of  experience  that  precedes  the  differentiation  of  the  physical 
object.  It  has  been  called  into  existence  for  the  purpose  of  a  clearer 
definition  of  the  physical  object  (note  the  astronomers  again),  and 
it  has  had,  in  the  past,  no  method  of  dealing  with  the  social  object 
save  in  terms  of  the  abstractions  which  it  employs  in  the  case  of 
physical  objects:  that  is  to  say,  it  must  reduce  the  social  object  to 
physical  and  abstract  terms, — just  what  the  sociologist  and  educa- 
tor have  not  wanted. 

And  here  we  come  to  the  point  made  earlier  in  this  discussion, 
that  in  the  development  of  psychology  there  has  been  a  miscarriage 
of  method,  or  else  that  which  appears  so  has  been  but  a  necessary 
stage  in  the  development  of  the  subject.  Psychology  itself  has 
passed  through  several  stages  in  the  whole  course  of  its  development. 
Before  the  beginnings  of  the  experimental  point  of  view,  the  object 
of  knowledge  in  such  psychology  as  there  was,  was  psyche, — the 
soul, — disconnected,  or  only  temporarily  connected,  with  the  world 
of  observable  phenomena.  Then  there  came,  after  the  development 
of  the  experimental  method,  a  very  orgy  of  "scientific"  progress,  in 
which  the  ideal  was  that  along  with  the  world  of  physical  objects  the 
world  of  psychical  existences  was  to  be  reduced  to  a  statement  in 
terms  of  motion;  the  soul  was  ruled  out  of  existence.  To  this  end 
was  psychology,  handmaid  of  the  physical  sciences  but  ambitious  for 
a  realm  of  her  own,  thus  sadly  reduced. 

But  of  course  the  whole  range  of  the  social  sciences,  the  whole 
wide  content  of  morality  and  religion,  and  the  sober  common  sense 
of  the  physical  sciences  themselves,  all  rebel  against  the  extreme  im- 
plications of  this  doctrine,  because  it  leaves  out  of  account  the  whole 
world  of  the  ends  of  life,  the  vitally  human  side  of  life :  it  loses  sight 
of  the  ends  of  life,  and  focuses  all  its  attentions  upon  the  "means" 
of  life;  but  without  ends  the  very  need  of  "means"  passes,  and  the 
so-called  "means"  pass  also.  The  effort  to  state  the  self,  or  to  sum 
up  psychology,  in  terms  of  molecular  motion  had,  of  course,  to  run 
its  full  length  and  determine  its  own  impossibility.  But  if  this  at- 
tempt is  impossible,  it  is  so  because  there  is  something  in  the  field 
attacked  by  psychology  that  can  not  be  stated  in  terms  of  molecular 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         173 

motion ;  that  is  to  say,  there  is  something  which  the  physical  sciences 
can  not  take  care  of.  And,  in  recent  years,  in  the  general  develop- 
ment of  the  theory  of  evolution  and  its  wider  generalization  and 
application  to  more  inclusive  ranges  of  materials,  the  mind,  or  the 
self,  has  slowly  become  recognized  as  the  center  of  organization  of 
experience :  this  mind,  or  self,  is  now  no  longer  a  mere  left-over,  but 
a  real  and  positive  factor  in  the  world,  a  fact  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
term,  and  as  such  as  much  an  object  of  knowledge  as  the  molecule 
or  the  atom.  Psychology  thus  becomes  the  science  of  the  self, — the 
self  as  a  reality  for  experience;  it  has  accordingly  a  subject-matter 
of  its  own,  and  a  right  to  be  called  a  science  in  at  least  as  real  a  sense 
as  is  physics  the  science  of  the  molecule,  or  chemistry  the  science  of 
the  atom. 

But  from  this  point  of  view  psychology  can  no  longer  be  defined 
as  the  science  of  consciousness ;  it  is  now  the  science  of  the  self,  and 
the  self  is  larger  than  consciousness;  it  is  at  least  as  large  as  the 
whole  of  experience.  This  means  that  psychology  must  give  up  its 
old  position  (a  position  that  is  still  maintained  in  the  laboratory  atti- 
tude) as  the  handmaid  of  the  physical  sciences,  and  become  the  sci- 
ence of  the  self  in  all  the  relations  of  that  self,  its  genesis,  its  develop- 
ment, and  all  its  rich  differentiations  of  activity,  interest,  and  con- 
tent. But  at  this  point  we  see  that  psychology  has  thus  become 
social  psychology.  And  there  can  be  no  escape  from  the  fact  that  if 
psychology  is  to  be  a  real  science  in  its  own  right  it  must  become 
social;  for  in  no  other  way  can  it  find  a  real  object  of  knowledge 
that  shall  be  its  own. 

When,  however,  psychology  has  thus  become  social,  it  can  absorb 
all  the  materials  that  the  laboratories  can  bring  it,  and  give  to  those 
materials  a  meaning  they  have  never  had  before.  These  results, 
worked  out  in  psychological  laboratories,  are  just  like  the  results  of 
the  work  of  the  astronomers,  materials  that  have,  or  may  have,  a  so- 
cial value  in  perfecting  the  general  technique  by  which  science  is 
ultimately  to  control  all  experience  in  the  interest  of  a  nobler  human 
living.  And  from  this  point  of  view  psychology  becomes  of  use  also 
in  the  social  sciences ;  becomes,  indeed,  as  the  science  of  the  self,  the 
basis  of  the  technique  of  the  social  sciences ;  and  no  follower  of  any 
of  the  special  social  sciences  can  ever  again,  save  by  confessing  his 
ignorance,  deny  to  the  new  psychology,  as  science  of  the  self,  the 
right  to  some  voice  in  determining  the  materials,  methods,  and  results 
of  that  special  science.  Social  psychology  will  be  heard  from  in 
every  one  of  the  special  social  sciences  in  the  near  future. 

Essentially,  then,  psychology  has  left  the  narrow  field  of  service 
to  the  physical  sciences  (though  its  service  is  still  at  their  disposal), 
and,  finding  a  proper  object  for  a  special  science  in  the  "self,"  is 


174  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

about  to  find  a  scientific  standing  it  has  never  had  before.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  going  to  find  a  wider  range  of  usefulness  as  the  tech- 
nique of  all  the  sciences:  the  social  sciences,  first  of  all,  and  the 
physical  sciences,  also,  as  these  arise  in  the  constant  definition  of  the 
conditions  of  life.  Psychology  has  become  social  psychology,  the 
science  of  the  whole  concrete  activity  of  the  social  self,  or  selves; 
social  psychology  is  the  science  of  the  active  self,  the  self  at  work, 
organizing  and  reorganizing  its  world  of  experience.  The  impulses 
to  organization  of  experience  are  native,  and,  in  man  at  least,  they 
are  social  in  their  nature.  The  act  needs  no  motive,  and  it  presup- 
poses a  social  situation.  In  the  carrying  out  of  the  act,  in  so  far  as 
there  is  a  conflict  or  a  hindrance  to  be  overcome,  there  will  appear  a 
need  of  a  definition  of  means  to  the  end  in  view,  a  more  complete 
determination  and  organization  of  the  conditions  under  which  the 
act  may  go  on.  This  was  the  situation  in  which  the  astronomers  had 
found  themselves  many  times;  they  had  made  many  corrections  and 
readjustments,  of  which  the  one  here  described  was  for  them  only 
another.  In  many  of  their  adjustments  ordinary  reflection  upon  the 
situation  had  been  sufficient.  But  in  this  particular  case  mere  re- 
flection was  not  sufficient;  the  telescope  did  not  solve  the  problem: 
there  was  still  a  difficulty  that  had  to  be  more  adequately  under- 
stood and  controlled ;  and  a  further  refinement  of  method  was  neces- 
sary. Thus  were  undertaken  the  first  experiments  along  psycholog- 
ical lines ;  only,  they  were  not  experiments  in  psychology  at  all ;  they 
were  efforts  to  secure  practical  efficiency  and  a  greater  social  utility 
in  a  science  that  cared  nothing  for  psychology;  and  for  the  astron- 
omers they  never  became  psychological  materials.  That  is  to  say,  the 
astronomers  never  saw  the  full  implications  of  their  incidental  ex- 
periments. 

Now,  it  is  only  a  social  psychology  that  can  see  the  whole  act  in 
all  its  bearings.  The  social  psychologist  sees  the  astronomer  himself 
engaged  in  the  more  comprehensive  problem  of  a  careful  determina- 
tion of  the  character  of  the  universal  human  environment:  he  is  a 
social  worker,  in  spite  of  his  protests,  and  his  need  of  a  more  com- 
plete determination  of  the  "personal  equation"  is  ultimately  a  social 
need.  Social  psychology  can  also  see  why  this  method  was  finally 
seized  upon  and  hypothetically  erected  into  a  science  in  its  own 
right.  And  it  is  possible  to  see  how,  and  why,  psychology  had  to 
come  back  from  its  intellectualistic,  individualistic,  and  purely  me- 
chanical vagaries  to  the  more  human  conception  of  the  whole  man 
living  his  whole  life  in  a  complete  social  world.  Social  psychology  is 
undertaking  to  deal  with  a  concrete  social  situation,  the  wholeness  of 
an  act  in  all  its  immediate  richness  of  emotional  and  conative  ele- 
ments as  well  as  its  purely  intellectual  or  "scientific"  phases. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         175 

Within  this  whole  concrete  act  lies  the  specific  problem  of  determin- 
ing the  means  to  the  end:  this  is  true  for  the  simplest  act  and  for  the 
most  complex.  So  within  the  whole  of  social  psychology  lie  the 
various  problems  of  the  experimental  determination  of  the  actual 
conditions  of  activity;  but  this  experimental  determination  is  but 
one  phase  of  the  whole  act ;  and  if  this  determination  is  to  have  any 
other  than  a  purely  erudite  interest,  the  demand  for  it  must  rise  out 
of  a  concrete  situation,  and  the  determined  result  must  be  such  as 
can  get  back  into  concrete  activity  and  be  tested  by  more  organic 
conditions  than  those  of  the  laboratory. 

The  self  develops  through  activity  and  emotional  experiences 
which  are  organized  into  older  experiences,  as  occasion  demands,  by 
the  intellectual  processes.  Social  psychology  of  the  McDougall  type 
is  the  science  of  the  development  of  the  self  or  selves;  its  unit  of 
study  is  the  concrete  act,  in  all  its  organic  richness.  Within  this 
concrete  act  lie  the  beginnings  of  all  the  sciences,  social  as  well  as 
physical,  just  as  the  beginnings  of  psychology  lay  within  the  con- 
crete act  of  the  astronomer.  These  germs  of  rudimentary  sciences 
come  to  consciousness  at  the  call  of  some  specific  need.  Experimental 
psychology  arose  to  meet  the  need  of  more  exact  methods  of  determi- 
nation of  an  object  in  a  particular  physical  science,  but  it  might 
just  as  well  have  arisen  in  any  other  of  the  sciences:  it  came 
in  to  help  physical  science.  It  proved  so  helpful  that  some  who 
became  interested  undertook  to  give  it  an  independent  scientific 
standing.  But  after  thorough  tests  it  has  been  found  that  that 
hypothesis  is  partially  unfounded :  psychology  as  a  purely  laboratory 
performance  can  have  no  real  scientific  standing,  because  it  has  no 
real  object  of  knowledge.  But  the  hypothesis  was  not  utterly  false ; 
and  the  feeling  that  there  was  room  for  a  real  science  of  psychology 
was  well  founded,  though  its  foundation  is  not  in  the  laboratory. 
After  these  fifty  years  and  more  of  experimentation  and  discussion, 
psychology  is  coming  into  its  own,  the  actual  object  of  a  real  science 
is  emerging  into  consciousness,  and  social  psychology,  having  as  its 
object  of  knowledge  the  development  of  the  concrete  social  self,  is 
here  to  stay. 

Under  this  larger  conception,  the  work  of  the  laboratory  psychol- 
ogist comes  to  have  a  value  it  never  had  or  could  have  before :  it  has 
a  social  meaning ;  his  work  arises  out  of  actual  social  situations,  more 
or  less  immediate,  and  his  results  go  back  into  social  situations,  more 
or  less  close  by ;  if  they  do  not,  then  he  is  losing  his  way  among  bar- 
ren and  profitless  abstractions. 

And  under  this  conception  psychology  comes  to  have  meaning, 
essential  meaning,  for  all  the  social  sciences,  but  especially  for  edu- 
cation and  the  work  of  the  teacher.  In  the  midst  of  the  growing 


176  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

modern  world,  with  its  demands  for  more  democracy  and  at  the  same 
time  more  efficiency,  the  teacher  is  hard  pressed.  The  whole  modern 
world,  but  especially  the  school,  needs  a  new  insight  into  the  con- 
crete processes  of  the  developing  self.  The  laboratory  can  offer  de- 
tached fragments  of  isolated  cases ;  the  older  analytic  psychology  can 
offer  some  general  suggestions  on  mental  processes:  these  are  good 
when  they  can  be  seen  in  their  concrete  setting  in  the  actual  course 
of  the  child's  developing  experience.  But  they  are  decidedly  bad,  as 
Miinsterberg  has  shown,  when  they  are  taken  as  final  statements  of 
processes  and  blindly  followed  without  thought  as  to  the  organic  re- 
lationships they  sustain  to  the  rest  of  the  developing  experience  of 
the  victim.  Social  psychology  is  the  modern  attempt  to  redinte- 
grate the  experiences  of  the  individual,  to  present  that  experience  in 
concrete  forms,  with  as  much  richness  of  detail  as  the  analytical 
psychologist  and  the  laboratory  operator  can  furnish.  For  while 
the  experimentalist  is  a  good  man  to  go  to  for  data  as  to  detailed 
operations,  it  is  only  as  he  leaves  his  laboratory  to  find  his  prob- 
lems, and  takes  his  results  back  into  the  social  world,  there  to  rein- 
state them  concretely  in  the  flow  of  living  human  experience,  that 
he  can  truly  be  said  to  be  a  real  psychologist. 

The  hope  for  the  schools  and  for  education  generally,  even  the 
very  hope  for  democracy  itself,  lies  in  making  the  teacher  conscious 
of  the  processes  of  development  as  these  are  being  restated  in  terms 
of  social  psychology.  The  teacher  will  have,  must  have,  psychology 
of  some  kind ;  the  only  relief  from  the  intolerable  psychology  which 
Miinsterberg  so  rightly  criticizes  is  found  in  the  social  psychology 
which  can  see  the  child  as  child,  and  also  as  mechanism;  that  is, 
as  end  of  education  and  as  means  to  education,  at  the  same  time. 
The  educational  psychology  of  the  future  must  be  a  genuinely  social 
psychology. 

JOSEPH  KINMONT  HART. 

THE  UNIVERSITY  or  WASHINGTON. 


SOCIETIES 

TWENTIETH  MEETING  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
PSYCHOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION 

THE  twentieth  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Psychological 
Association,  held  in  Washington,  D.  C.,  December  27,  28,  29, 
1911,  in  affiliation  with  the  Southern  Society  for  Philosophy  and 
Psychology,  was  of  rather  unusual  interest.  The  fact  that  it  was 
the  twentieth  meeting  brought  up  reminiscences  regarding  the  found- 
ing of  the  association  and  rather  gratifying  reflections  on  the  growth 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         177 

of  psychological  science  in  America.  At  the  smoker  given  by  Pro- 
fessors Franz  and  Reudiger  at  the  New  Fredonia  Hotel  on  Thursday 
evening,  following  President  Seashore's  address,  the  company  fell 
into  a  reminiscent  mood  and  called  on  President  Hall,  Dr.  Ladd,  and 
Professors  Cattell  and  Miinsterberg  for  speeches  as  to  the  early  his- 
tory of  psychology  in  America.  This  occasion  and  the  luncheon 
given  by  Dr.  Franz  at  the  Government  Hospital  for  the  Insane  on 
Thursday  made  up  the  social  features  of  the  meeting.  The  program 
contained  several  unusual  features,  including  double  sections,  a  large 
exhibit  of  apparatus,  advanced  abstracts  of  the  papers  read  at  the 
symposium  on  instinct  and  intelligence,  and  the  conference  on  psy- 
chology and  medical  education.  Special  sessions  were  given  over  to 
mental  tests,  animal  behavior,  medical  education,  experimental  psy- 
chology, general  psychology,  and  educational  psychology.  Taking 
the  program  as  a  whole,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  applied  psychology 
bulked  larger  than  any  other  topic,  one  third  of  the  more  than  sixty 
papers  being  devoted  to  various  subjects  falling  in  this  field,  an  evi- 
dence that  the  day  of  the  consulting  psychologist  is  about  to  come. 

The  symposium  on  instinct  and  intelligence  opened  the  meeting, 
Mr.  Marshall  being  the  first  speaker.  He  considered  the  activities 
of  animals  from  two  view-points,  the  subjective  and  the  objective. 
Speaking  from  the  latter  point  of  view  he  divided  the  activities  of 
animals  into  two  groups,  one  characterizing  the  simplest  animals  and 
the  other  the  complex  animals.  The  first  group  of  activities  display : 
(1)  evident  biologic  value;  (2)  directness;  (3)  immediacy;  (4) 
"perfect  very  first  time";  (5)  non-modifiability ;  (6)  innateness. 
The  second  group  are  not  evidently  of  biologic  value,  are  indirect, 
hesitant,  highly  modifiable,  not  evidently  innate  and  not  "perfect 
the  very  first  time."  But  in  complex  animals  there  are  certain 
activities  of  the  first  sort  and  these  occurring  in  the  midst  of  activi- 
ties of  the  other  sort  may  be  called  ' '  instinct-actions. ' '  They  may  be 
regarded  as  due  to  the  instinct  actions  of  the  cells  and  this  cell 
instinct-action  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  biologic  unit.  But  these 
varied  activities  due  to  the  compounding  of  instinct  actions  are  what 
we  call  intelligent  activities.  Hence,  we  argue  that  intelligence  is 
statable  in  terms  of  "instinct  feelings,"  the  psychic  correspondents 
of  instinct  actions.  If  we  could  grasp  the  full  psychic  significance 
of  an  instinct-feeling,  by  slowing  down  the  process,  we  should  find 
in  it  all  the  essentials  of  intelligence;  and  if  intelligent  acts  could 
be  made  immediate,  they  would  appear  objectively  as  "instinct- 
actions"  and  subjectively  as  "instinct-feelings." 

Mr.  Herrick  held  that  the  term  instinct  as  popularly  used  is 
incapable  of  scientific  definition.  He  would  replace  the  terms 
instinct  and  intelligence  by  the  terms  innate  action  and  individually 


178  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

variable  action,  and  maintained  that  these  two  types  of  action  are 
separate  biological  functions,  both  of  which  are  exhibited  in  some 
degree  by  all  animals,  and  that  they  are  individually  variable. 
Under  innate  action,  he  would  include  the  fundamental  physiological 
properties,  tropisms,  taxes,  reflexes,  compound  and  chain  reflexes, 
and  the  inherited  elements  of  all  higher  behavior  complexes.  Under 
individually  variable  action  he  would  include  all  non-heritable, 
acquired  behavior  from  simple,  physiological  modifications  resulting 
from  practise  at  the  lower  extreme  to  learning  by  experience  and  the 
higher  intelligent  adaptations  at  the  other  extreme.  A  special  mech- 
anism has  been  differentiated  for  the  higher  forms  of  variable  action, 
namely,  the  association  centers  of  the  brain. 

Mr.  Yerkes  held  that  instinct  and  intelligence  are  two  functional 
capacities  or  tendencies  of  the  organism  and  that  neither  has  devel- 
oped from  the  other.  Now  the  one  and  now  the  other  predominates 
in  the  life  of  the  organism  or  the  species.  No  organism  lacks  either 
the  instinct  capacity  or  the  intelligence  capacity.  Instinctive  activi- 
ties are  practically  serviceable  on  the  occasion  of  their  first  appear- 
ance, strikingly  perfect  in  important  respects,  predictable,  heritable 
in  definite  form,  and  suggestive  of  experiences  which  the  organism 
has  not  had.  Intelligent  activities,  by  contrast,  are  serviceable  as 
the  result  of  trial,  practically  unpredictable,  not  definitely  heritable, 
and  suggestive  of  experiences  that  the  organism  has  had. 

Mr.  Judd  emphasized  the  importance  of  defining  intelligence  in 
positive  rather  than  negative  terms.  It  is  by  intelligence  that  an 
organism  becomes  superior  to  its  environment  and  capable  of  modi- 
fying its  environment.  It  is  the  power  of  initiating  activities  from 
inner  motives;  and  the  intelligent  individual,  instead  of  reacting 
upon  objects  in  a  manner  determined  by  their  sequence  in  nature,  is 
able  to  bring  objects  distant  in  time  or  space  into  close  relation  with 
each  other.  This  bringing  together  of  remote  objects  is  the  result  of 
inner  processes  of  comparison  or  association,  which  group  of  proc- 
esses marks  the  highest  stages  of  evolution. 

The  conference  on  psychology  and  medical  education  was  opened 
by  Dr.  Franz,  who  spoke  on  the  present  status  of  psychology  in 
medical  education  and  practise.  The  recent  favorable  growth  of 
psychology  in  connection  with  medical  affairs  was  held  to  be  due  to 
the  realization  of  the  importance  of  psychiatry  and  to  the  success 
of  non-medical  healers.  In  most  schools,  the  speaker  thought,  psy- 
chological matters  are  discussed  in  the  courses  in  physiology,  psy- 
chiatry, neurology,  and  medicine.  Psychology  was  held  to  be  of 
value  to  research  in  psychiatry  and  neurology,  and  also  in  pharma- 
cological studies.  To  the  physician  psychology  has  its  chief  value 
in  the  consideration  of  mental  diseases,  in  both  diagnosis  and  treat- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          179 

merit.  It  is  also  of  value  to  all  physicians  because  they  must  depend 
upon  mental  processes  for  diagnosis  and  for  the  estimation  of  the 
effects  of  remedial  agents.  This  subject,  which  is  so  important  for  all 
physicians,  can  not  be  picked  up  incidentally,  but  there  must  be  given 
some  special  attention  to  it  in  the  medical  course. 

Dr.  Adolph  Meyer  spoke  on  the  practical  relation  of  psychology 
and  psychiatry,  holding  that  both  fields  are  open  to  expansion.  He 
spoke  of  a  psychology  that  will  cope  with  the  problems  of  introspec- 
tion and  also  with  the  other  problems  dealing  with  the  biological, 
physiological,  and  even  anatomical  conditions  of  mental  life.  It  is 
the  psychologist  alone  who  can  deal  with  the  great  borderland  that 
lies  between  the  physiology  of  special  organs  and  the  behavior  of 
personalities.  Psychiatry  is  forced  to  deal  with  psychological 
material.  It  determines  mental  facts  partly  as  symptoms  of  diseases 
back  of  the  conditions  and  partly  as  biological  reactions  of  the  type 
of  mental  integration,  which,  like  suggestion,  once  induced,  play  a 
more  or  less  well  defined  dynamic  role.  The  first  task  is  to  describe 
critically  the  plain  events  of  abnormal  reactions  and  conduct  as 
experiments  of  nature  for  the  conditions  under  which  they  occur,  the 
subjective  and  objective  characteristics  which  allow  us  to  differen- 
tiate the  reactions  from  one  another,  the  events  and  results  in  the 
conduct  and  life  of  the  person,  the  dynamic  factors  and  their  modi- 
fiability,  the  time  and  influences  needed  for  a  readjustment  of  a 
state  of  balance.  With  this  rule  of  formal  technique  and  logical 
arrangement  of  the  inquiry,  we  are  bound  to  get  sound  common 
ground  for  a  psychiatry  which  aims  merely  at  the  identification  of 
given  conditions  with  accepted  disease-processes,  and  also  for  a 
dynamic  pathology  which  gives  psychobiological  data  a  dynamic 
position. 

Dr.  E.  E.  Southard  contrasted  the  problems  of  teaching  and 
research  in  the  fields  of  psycho-  and  neuro-pathology.  He  insisted 
first  on  the  unique  value  of  the  pathological  method,  not  merely  for 
the  diagnostic  and  therapeutic  purposes  of  medicine,  but  for  biology 
as  a  whole  and  for  the  most  vital  of  the  biological  sciences,  psy- 
chology. He  pointed  out  the  perniciousness  of  psychophysical  par- 
allelism in  the  discussion  of  matters  psychological  because  it  inhibits 
the  free  interchange  of  structural  and  functional  concepts  and  the 
passage  to  and  fro  of  workers  in  the  several  sciences.  He  pointed 
out  that  psychology  and  physiology  have  more  in  common  than 
either  has  with  such  structural  sciences  as  anatomy  and  histology 
and  that  the  main  common  element  of  both  mental  and  cerebral 
processes  is  the  time  element  as  against  the  space  element  of  the 
structural  sciences.  He  conceived  that  the  mind  twist  and  brain 
spot  hypotheses  for  the  explanation  of  certain  forms  of  mental  dis- 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ease  are  entirely  consistent  with  each  other,  since  from  a  different 
angle  each  is  dealing  with  the  same  facts. 

Dr.  Watson  gave  the  outline  of  a  proposed  course  in  psychology 
for  medical  students.  The  course  might  be  given  as  an  elective  in 
the  second  or  third  year  of  the  medical  school  and  should  occupy  two 
laboratory  periods  per  week  and  one  lecture.  The  course  would  pre- 
suppose a  thorough  course  in  elementary  psychology  as  a  part  of 
the  student's  premedical  training  and  would  deal  with  the  objective 
material  of  psychology.  Such  topics  as  the  following  should  be 
considered:  visual  and  auditory  sensation,  thorough  tests  and  appli- 
cation of  the  Binet-Simon  system,  work  in  mental  and  muscular 
fatigue,  acquistion  of  skillful  acts,  learning  plateaus,  conflicts,  stamp- 
ing in  and  retention  of  wrong  methods  of  response,  association,  mem- 
ory and  retention,  association  method  of  Jung,  reaction  time.  The 
aim  would  be  not  only  to  supply  information  regarding  these  sub- 
jects, but  also  to  give  training  in  the  objective  study  of  psychological 
processes  and  to  prepare  the  student  for  the  work  of  the  clinic  and 
the  study  of  hypnotism,  multiple  personalities,  aphasia,  etc. 

Dr.  Morton  Prince  doubted  the  value  of  the  teaching  of  structural 
psychology  to  the  medical  student  already  almost  submerged  in  the 
number  of  subjects  he  is  called  upon  to  master.  He  thought  normal 
psychology  should  be  to  pathological  psychology  and  psychothera- 
peutics  what  physiology  is  to  pathological  physiology  and  physiolog- 
ical therapeutics;  but  to  attain  this  position,  processes  and  mechan- 
isms should  be  elucidated  rather  than  structure.  He  insisted  that 
the  professional  psychologist  has  not  occupied  himself  sufficiently 
with  this  sort  of  research  and  consequently  the  applications  of  psy- 
chology lagged  far  behind  other  applied  sciences.  He  advocated 
what  he  chose  to  call  "a  new  psychology"  for  the  medical  student, 
the  chief  features  of  which  he  outlined  as  follows :  the  subconscious, 
hypnosis  and  allied  conditions ;  suggestion  and  its  phenomena ;  mem- 
ory as  a  process ;  amnesia  and  its  mechanisms ;  fixed  ideas,  conscious 
and  subconscious;  dissociation  and  synthesis  of  personality;  emotions 
as  dynamic  forces;  instincts  as  impulsive  forces;  sentiments  as  com- 
plexes of  ideas  and  emotions;  phenomena  of  conflicts,  repression, 
resistance,  inhibitions;  mechanisms  of  thought;  attitudes  of  mind; 
associative  processes  and  reactions;  habit  processes;  automatisms; 
mechanism  of  dreams ;  influence  of  mind  on  the  body ;  fatigue. 

This  course  Dr.  Prince  insisted  would  supplement  the  course  sug- 
gested by  Dr.  Watson  and  should  be  taught  in  the  premedical  course. 

In  respect  to  this  program  Dr.  Meyer  thought  that  the  college 
curriculum  should  not  preempt  the  field  of  psychopathology,  unless 
it  has  clinical  material  to  work  upon. 

The  discussion  which  followed  the  reading  of  the  papers  was 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         181 

prompt  and  was  engaged  in  by  an  equal  number  of  physicians  and 
psychologists.  In  general  it  centered  about  three  topics:  first, 
emphasis  on  the  importance  of  psychology  to  the  medical  student; 
second,  the  kind  of  psychology  that  should  be  given ;  third,  the  time 
and  place  to  be  given  to  psychology  in  the  medical  and  premedical 
program.  The  following  quotations  were  significant  of  the  whole 
discussion. 

Dr.  Jelliffe :  ' '  Let  us  picture  to  ourselves  the  medical  student  of 
the  remote  future.  Diseases  of  the  body  will  be  prevented  and  there 
will  be  three  functions  for  the  medical  practitioner;  to  deal  with  the 
preservation  of  the  species,  with  senility  and  with  mental  aberration. 
There  will  be  the  obstetrician  and  pediatrist,  the  specialist  in  old 
age,  and  the  psychotherapist.  If  the  problems  of  mental  activities 
are  to  occupy  such  a  large  share  in  the  future,  the  subject  of  psy- 
chology should  bulk  large  in  the  medical  curriculum. ' ' 

Professor  Angier  gave  an  outline  of  the  course  given  to  medical 
students  at  Yale  and  insisted  that  it  would  be  ' '  unwise  for  a  man  to 
go  into  medicine  or  into  psychotherapeutics  particularly  and  not  be 
acquainted  to  some  extent  with  normal  psychology." 

Dr.  Hoch:  "It  is  quite  evident  that  the  importance  of  mental 
factors,  not  only  so  far  as  psychiatry  is  concerned,  but  so  far  as  all 
diseases  are  concerned,  is  being  more  and  more  appreciated.  Physi- 
cians need  much  more  training  than  at  present,  not  only  in  psy- 
chiatry, but  also  in  other  branches,  but  the  more  marked  need  is  along 
mental  lines.  We  must  not  forget  that  common  disorders  that  come 
to  the  physician  and  are  looked  upon  as  essentially  physical  would 
sometimes  be  much  better  treated  from  a  mental  point  of  view. ' ' 

The  speaker  commended  the  course  outlined  by  Dr.  Watson,  but 
doubted  whether  there  would  be  sufficient  time  for  it.  He  rather 
favored  the  course  suggested  by  Dr.  Prince. 

Professor  Haines  emphasized  the  fact  that  "the  psychology  that 
the  physician  is  coming  to  use  is  departing  in  no  radical  way  from 
the  psychology  in  which  members  of  this  association  have  been  inter- 
ested. We  must  not  forget  that  at  bottom  psychology  grows  by  the 
method  of  introspection.  What  the  young  medical  student  needs  is 
to  get  the  attitude  of  the  psychologist.  He  needs  to  know  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  mental  phenomenon." 

Dr.  Koder :  "  I  believe  that  there  should  be  greater  attention  paid 
to  the  subject  of  psychotherapy,  and  also  to  psychology  of  the  normal 
mind ;  the  psychologist  should  be  introduced  into  the  medical  facul- 
ties to  teach  his  subject  as  a  part  of  the  curriculum  of  the  medical 
school.  It  seems  to  me  at  least  the  equal  in  importance  of  anatomy 
and  physiology  and  a  part  of  the  time  that  should  be  given  to  psy- 
chology may  well  be  carved  out  from  the  hours  now  devoted  to  the 


182  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

subjects  of  anatomy,  physiology,  materia  medica,  and  therapeutics. 
We  devote  forty  hours  to  materia  medica,  and  we  all  know  that  the 
practising  physician  uses  only  two  or  three  dozen  remedies  and  there 
is  no  need  of  overburdening  the  medical  student  with  the  almost 
useless  knowledge  of  drugs  which  have  little  or  no  value." 

Dr.  Starr  outlined  the  work  that  is  given  in  the  medical  and  pre- 
medical  course  at  Columbia  University  and  said:  "If  the  subject  of 
psychological  therapeutics  is  increasing  in  importance — and  we  are 
appreciating  it  every  day,  and  that  students  must  be  trained  along 
that  line — they  must  obtain  a  knowledge  of  physiological  psychology 
which  must  then  be  supplemented  by  some  knowledge  of  pathological 
psychology."  The  speaker  then  spoke  of  the  great  value  which 
pathology  had  been  to  psychology  and  suggested  further  cooperation 
from  both  psychologist  and  physician  in  research  and  teaching. 

Professor  Angell:  "I  am  very  much  more  interested  for  the 
moment  in  the  problem  of  psychology  for  the  general  practitioner 
than  in  that  of  the  value  of  psychology  for  the  medical  specialist  in 
psychiatry.  .  .  .  The  rank  and  file  of  students  are  not  becoming 
specialists  in  psychiatry.  In  the  medical  school  in  Chicago,  as  a 
result  of  my  conferences  with  men  of  the  medical  faculty,  I  conclude 
that  it  is  desirable  that  every  medical  student  should  have  the  equip- 
ment of  an  elementary  and  introductory  course  in  general  psy- 
chology. ...  I  have  in  mind  the  aspect  of  psychology  as  a  science  of 
mental  behavior,  one  dealing  with  the  common  affairs  of  everyday 
life.  ...  A  psychology  of  this  functional  and  dynamic  character 
can  be  taught  without  any  elaborate  terms  and  this  kind  of  psy- 
chology certainly  would  give  the  student  a  point  of  view  for  the 
exploration  of  the  human  mind.  I  can  not  for  a  moment  believe 
that  the  dissecting  of  the  mind  would  make  a  physician  a  better  gen- 
eral practitioner.  What  the  physician  needs  is  to  consider  the 
living  dynamic  individual,  not  the  human  being  of  the  dissecting 
table,  but  the  living  being  who  has  a  developing  mind." 

Dr.  Williams  objected  to  Dr.  Prince's  course,  insisting  that  "it 
was  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse,"  and  declared  that  "some 
such  course  as  Dr.  Watson  suggested  was  absolutely  essential. ' ' 

Professor  Miinsterberg  thought,  after  listening  to  the  discussion, 
that  the  best  thing  we  can  do  is  to  teach  medical  students  "a  little 
philosophical  foundation  for  their  psychological  conceptions." 

The  upshot  of  the  conference  was  the  appointment  of  a  committee 
at  the  business  meeting  of  the  association,  this  committee  to  represent 
the  association  in  conferences  with  similar  committees,  appointed  by 
the  American  Medical  Association  or  other  medical  associations, 
regarding  further  discussions  of  the  relation  of  psychology  to  medical 
education.  Professors  W.  D.  Scott,  E.  E.  Southard,  and  J.  B.  Wat- 
son were  appointed  to  this  committee. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         183 

In  his  address  as  president  of  the  Southern  Society,  Dr.  Franz 
held  that  it  can  not  be  concluded  at  the  present  time  that  the  psychic 
localization  is  more  specific  than  that  mentality  is  connected  with 
brain  activity.  We  are  unable  to  say  that  the  activity  of  the 
cerebrum  alone  is  the  concomitant  of  mental  processes.  He  reviewed 
the  work  of  Gall,  Broca,  Flechsig,  and  the  more  recent  histological 
studies  of  localized  function.  He  denied  the  proof  of  the  relation  of 
the  so-called  sensory  and  perceptive  areas  and  showed  that  there  has 
been  no  sufficient  explanation  for  the  histological  differences  between 
the  various  motor  areas.  The  disorders  of  speech  can  not  be  consid- 
ered to  be  associated  with  definite  parts  of  the  brain  and  there  are  no 
facts  which  warrant  a  localization  of  definite  mental  states  in  the 
several  layers  of  the  cortex. 

At  the  session  on  animal  behavior  three  papers  were  presented 
on  sensory  discrimination  in  mammals.  Mr.  Johnson  reported  tests 
on  auditory  discrimination  in  dogs  which  tended  to  show  that  after 
eliminating  all  secondary  criteria  and  with  the  operator  removed 
from  the  room,  the  dogs  were  unable  to  choose  between  middle  C 
and  the  E  above,  the  stimulus  being  given  by  the  Helmholtz  method 
of  " tandem-driven"  forks  equipped  with  Koenig  resonators,  giving 
practically  pure  tones.  On  the  basis  of  these  results  criticism  was 
offered  of  the  work  done  by  Kalischer  and  Rothmann  and  it  was  held 
that  there  was  no  certain  evidence  that  in  any  of  their  experiments 
were  the  dogs  reacting  to  tone  at  all. 

Dr.  Shepherd  reported  studies  on  the  discrimination  of  articulate 
sounds  by  cats.  The  method  was  to  speak  a  name  to  which  the  cat 
should  make  a  positive  response  and  get  food.  A  cat  seven  months 
old  learned  the  reaction  in  thirteen  days  and  a  three-year  old  cat 
learned  the  same  reaction  in  twenty-five  days. 

Professor  Yerkes  criticized  the  experiments  on  the  ground  that 
there  had  not  been  sufficient  caution  to  prevent  the  animals  choosing 
by  secondary  criteria,  unconscious  movements  of  the  operator,  etc. 

Professor  Washburn,  in  reporting  some  experiments  on  color 
vision  in  the  rabbit,  gave  as  a  criterion  that  an  animal  sees  color 
rather  than  a  gray,  the  animal's  ability  to  discriminate  between  a 
color  and  any  and  all  brightnesses  whatsover.  In  the  course  of 
experiments  in  which  colored  papers  were  used  the  rabbit  showed 
some  ability  to  select  a  door  on  account  of  the  relative  brightness  of 
the  paper  pinned  on  it,  but  the  experimenter  concluded  that  the  rab- 
bit's hold  on  this  principle,  which  involves  a  comparison  of  two 
papers,  is  very  unstable.  With  red  and  a  very  dark  gray  (Hering 
number  46)  four  rabbits,  which  had  learned  to  discriminate  red 
from  the  lighter  grays,  failed  to  make  any  discrimination  whatsoever 
and  there  was  no  evidence  that  rabbits  see  red  as  a  color. 


184  TIIK  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  following  results  regarding  the  modifiability  of  behavior  in 
the  earthworm  were  presented  by  Professor  Yerkes:  (1)  the  worms 
have  not  acquired  the  habit  of  turning  directly  to  the  open  arm  of 
the  T-shaped  glass  labyrinth  and  thus  escaping  to  a  moist  dark  tube ; 
(2)  certain  modifications  have  appeared  during  the  daily  series  of 
trials;  (3)  there  are  indications  of  tracking;  (4)  the  animals  fatigue 
rapidly ;  five  trials  per  day  prove  more  satisfactory  than  ten,  fifteen 
or  twenty;  (5)  in  so  far  as  the  worms  learn  to  follow  a  direct  path 
through  the  T,  they  do  so  apparently  by  the  use  of  certain  cutaneous 
sense  data  rather  than  by  inner  kinesthetic  data;  (6)  the  first  trial 
each  day  invariably  presents  numerous  mistakes;  (7)  there  is  some 
indication  that  the  sandpaper  becomes  a  "warning"  against  the  salt 
which  lies  beyond  it  in  the  arm  of  the  T. 

Two  experimental  studies  of  the  human  learning  process  in  the 
maze  were  reported.  Mr.  Boring  used  the  Watson  circular  maze 
duplicated  on  a  large  scale  and  two  observers  who  learned  the  maze 
made  a  numerical  estimate  of  the  processes  involved  in  the  learning, 
the  two  reports  agreeing  in  85  per  cent,  of  the  cases.  Three  phases 
were  noted:  the  determination  of  direction  after  making  the  turns, 
guidance  within  the  passage,  and  the  location  of  the  turns.  Com- 
plete analysis  of  the  first  phase  only  was  reported.  This  involved 
five  factors:  attitudinal,  verbal,  visual,  kinesthetic,  and  automatic. 
Each  of  these  followed  a  definite  course  throughout  the  learning 
process,  varying  somewhat  with  the  ideational  type  of  the  learner. 
Attitudes  were  of  importance  in  only  the  first  two  or  three  trials. 
The  verbal  factor  reaches  its  height  very  early  and  the  visual  later. 
They  both  give  place  to  kinesthesis,  which,  in  turn,  is  resolved  into 
a  somatic  automatism.  The  course  of  learning  in  this  first  phase 
falls  into  three  periods.  In  the  first,  attitudes  and  verbal  and  visual 
imagery  are  advantageous,  and  the  introduction  of  motor  imagery 
is  disadvantageous;  in  the  second  period,  kinesthesis  becomes  favor- 
able, while  attitudes  and  verbal  and  visual  imagery  become  unfavor- 
able; in  the  third  period,  automatism  predominates  and  learning  is 
retarded  by  the  introduction  of  any  form  of  imagery. 

Mr.  Perrin  reported  similar  work  in  which  he  had  used  two  types 
of  maze,  a  pencil  maze  and  another  through  which  the  subject  walked. 
In  both  cases  the  subject  was  blindfolded.  The  time  and  error 
curves  were  quite  comparable  with  those  based  on  the  records  of 
white  rats  in  the  maze.  The  introspection  showed,  however,  so  it 
was  claimed,  that  the  learning  was  essentially  that  of  the  human  in- 
stead of  the  animal  mind,  inasmuch  as  there  was  evidence  of  con- 
scious factors,  attending,  discriminating,  judging,  inferring,  and 
reasoning.  Ideational  controls  were  built  up  through  the  play  of 
the  cognitive  faculties.  While  the  learning  curves  showed  that 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         185 

learning  was  by  the  trial  and  error  method  and  that  the  human  did 
not  improve  upon  the  time  and  error  records  of  the  rats,  they  do  seem 
to  have  the  advantage  when  the  conditions  are  altered  as  in  chang- 
ing the  maze.  The  human  subjects  make  their  adaptations  more 
easily. 

In  his  president's  address  Professor  Seashore  spoke  on  the  meas- 
ure of  a  singer.  He  set  forth  the  possible  measurements  of  sensory, 
motor,  associative,  and  affective  powers  and  argued  that  technical 
psychology  may  be  so  employed  as  to  furnish  qualitative  and  quanti- 
tative classified  knowledge  about  a  singer,  which  knowledge  may 
serve  immediate  and  direct  practical  purposes.  This  sort  of  applied 
psychology,  the  speaker  thought,  will  lead  to  a  keener  and  more 
penetrating  insight  into  the  nature  and  the  conditions  of  both  the 
individual  and  his  art,  and  this  will  result  in  helpful  guidance  and  a 
more  vital  appreciation  and  respect  for  the  possibilities  of  the  singer 
and  his  song.  Using  the  case  of  the  singer  as  an  example,  President 
Seashore  went  on  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  applied  psychol- 
ogy, and  in  particular,  the  need  for  training  up  experts  who  will  be 
able  to  fill  the  places  of  consulting  psychologists  in  the  various  fields 
that  are  asking  help  from  psychology. 

Quite  in  the  spirit  of  President  Seashore 's  address  the  vocational 
bureau  at  Cincinnati  is  trying  to  be  of  help — in  determining  a  scien- 
tific ground  upon  which  to  make  recommendations  for  the  employ- 
ment of  children.  The  work  of  this  bureau,  which  was  reported  by 
Dr.  Wooley,  is  still  in  the  research  stage  and  has  planned  a  five-years' 
investigation  of  the  children  who  leave  the  public  schools  at  the  age 
of  fourteen  years  and  a  comparative  study  of  other  children  who 
remain  in  school.  A  thousand  children  are  to  be  studied  in  each 
case.  The  series  of  tests  include  sensation,  motor  ability,  perception, 
learning  power,  the  use  of  language,  ingenuity.  The  immediate 
problem  is  to  determine  the  value  of  the  tests  in  use,  with  the  hope 
that  later  such  tests  may  be  used  as  criteria  of  the  general  or  special 
ability  of  such  persons  as  come  under  the  bureau's  jurisdiction. 

Five  papers  dealing  with  the  learning  process  were  presented. 
Dr.  McGamble  reported  experiments  which  showed  no  correlation 
between  the  facility  of  learning  and  the  tenacity  of  impression. 
When  longer  series  of  nonsense  syllables  are  learned  and  relearned 
at  the  same  rate  of  presentation,  the  fraction  of  the  learning  time 
saved  in  the  relearning  is  greater  if  the  presentation  rate  is  neither 
very  fast  nor  very  slow.  When  the  series  are  learned  at  different 
presentation  rates,  but  relearned  at  the  same  rate,  the  fraction  of  the 
learning  saved  is  greater  for  the  series  which  were  originally  learned 
at  the  slow  rate  of  presentation,  unless  the  absolute  learning  time  of 
the  slow  series  is  very  small. 


186  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Mr.  Lyon  in  reporting  on  the  same  general  problem  thought  that 
those  who  learn  quickly  remember  longest  where  the  material  used 
is  logical  or  meaningful  in  character,  but  forget  quickest  where  the 
material  is  such  as  involves  the  memorizing  of  motor  associations, 
which  is  generally  the  case  with  digits,  words,  and  nonsense  syllables. 
Mr.  Lyon  agreed  with  Dr.  McGamble  that  the  difference  in  retentive- 
ness  between  the  fast  learner  and  the  slower  learner  is  much  less 
than  is  generally  believed. 

Mr.  Henmon  took  issue  with  the  oft-quoted  results  of  Ebbing- 
haus  that  the  number  of  repetitions  increases  at  first  with  great 
rapidity  as  the  amount  to  be  learned  increases  and  that  the  increase 
in  repetitions  is  relatively  greater  than  the  increase  in  the  length  of 
the  series.  Systematic  investigation,  he  held,  fails  to  confirm  the 
law.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  a  relative  decrease  in  the  number  of 
repetitions  as  the  length  of  series  increases,  and  an  increase  in  re- 
tention after  an  interval  of  time.  This  result  holds  not  only  for 
practised,  but  also  for  unpractised,  subjects  and  is  most  marked  with 
sense  material. 

Professor  Lough  gave  a  partial  report  of  extended  studies  in 
habit  formation  and  called  particular  attention  to  the  absence  of 
plateaus,  such  as  were  found  by  Bryan  and  Harter  some  years  ago. 
The  complete  report  of  these  tests  is  soon  to  appear  and  will  cover 
the  study  of  such  factors  as  practise,  fatigue,  distribution  of  repeti- 
tion, diurnal  efficiency,  changing  keys,  sex,  age,  ability,  and  indi- 
vidual variation. 

Dr.  Rail  presented  some  experimental  evidence  of  the  transfer  of 
training  in  memory.  As  test  material,  lines  from  "Evangeline"  and 
nonsense  syllables  were  used.  Training  material  included  poetry 
and  prose  in  English  and  foreign  languages,  irregular  verbs,  and 
vocabularies.  Training  period  lasted  four  weeks  and  was  for 
twenty  minutes  per  day.  Results  showed  wide  variation,  but  in 
general  there  was  gain  in  the  test  given  at  the  end  of  the  training 
period,  amounting  in  all  observers  to  32.5  per  cent.  Control  experi- 
ment on  28  untrained  observers  showed  a  gain  of  only  17.8  per 
cent.  The  results  were  held  to  show  that  there  was  a  transfer  of  21 
per  cent,  in  learning  "Evangeline"  and  36  per  cent,  in  the  nonsense 
syllables. 

Why  certain  advertisements  fail  to  force  themselves  upon  our 
attention,  and  why  certain  others  arouse  our  interest  so  that  we  read 
them  clear  through,  is  the  problem  that  Mr.  Strong  has  set  himself 
to  solve,  and  a  preliminary  statement  of  method  was  made  under 
the  title  of  the  role  of  attention  in  advertising.  The  first  problem 
of  method  indicates  that  the  method  of  simultaneous  presentation  of 
many  advertisements  gives  no  valid  results,  while  the  successive  pres- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          187 

entation  of  the  same  material  gives  surprisingly  constant  results 
from  different  subjects.  One  of  the  by-products  of  the  investiga- 
tion so  far  as  completed  was  that  there  is  no  indication  of  the  potency 
of  either  primacy  or  recency  when  more  than  ten  advertisements  are 
shown  successively  and  then  tested  for  attention-value  and  memora- 
bility by  the  recognition  method;  secondly,  advertisements  are  as 
simple  psychically  as  nonsense  syllables,  at  least  as  far  as  attention 
and  recognition  enter.  This  latter  fact,  Mr.  Strong  held,  was  evi- 
dence that  the  simple  physically  was  not  the  simple  psychically,  and 
that  it  is  now  time  in  experimental  work  to  advance  from  the  use  of 
simple  to  the  use  of  complex  material,  particularly  in  the  study  of 
esthetics. 

Professor  Warren  challenged  our  entire  system  of  elementary 
education  in  a  review  of  Montessori's  method  of  teaching  reading 
and  writing.  The  Casa  dei  Bambini,  it  was  held,  is  an  important 
modification  of  the  kindergarten  and  is  founded  upon  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  ability  of  children  to  do  certain  kinds  of  work  at 
certain  stages  of  development.  In  this  system  the  training  of  touch 
and  the  kinesthetic  senses  are  emphasized  as  important  preludes  to 
the  teaching  of  writing,  which  in  turn  precedes  the  teaching  of  read- 
ing proper. 

For  some  years,  papers  dealing  with  mental  tests  and  the  treat- 
ment of  defectives  have  found  a  place  on  the  general  program.  At 
the  twentieth  meeting  a  special  session  was  set  apart  for  this  aspect 
of  psychology  under  the  title  of  mental  tests.  Dr.  Fernald  discussed 
a  kinetic  will  test,  the  device  for  which  was  on  exhibition  in  the 
adjoining  apparatus  display.  The  apparatus  measures  fatigue  in 
terms  of  units  of  time.  The  subject  stands  on  his  toes  on  an  indi- 
cator which  registers  the  amount  of  failure  to  keep  the  heels  clear 
from  the  plates.  The  fluctuation  of  the  heels  is  registered  on  a  dial 
before  the  subject's  face  and  this  acts  as  a  stimulus  to  keep  the 
effort  going.  The  test  was  applied  to  116  reformatory  prisoners  and 
to  12  manual-training  school  students.  The  disparity  of  lowest 
and  highest  scores  is  remarkable,  i.  e.,  2%  and  52£  minutes  in 
the  former  group  and  12  minutes  and  2£  hours  in  the  latter  group, 
and  the  difference  in  the  average  and  median  for  these  two  groups  is 
35  minutes,  about  twice  the  average  of  the  reformatory  group.  No 
subject  involuntarily  rested  his  heels  while  still  striving,  but  each 
decided  to  yield. 

Dr.  H.  H.  Goddard  described  an  adaptation  board  and  its  use 
and  also  discussed  the  present  status  of  the  Binet  tests.  He  reported 
tests  on  400  feeble-minded  children,  2,000  normal  children,  56  de- 
linquent girls,  100  juvenile  court  children,  100  children  admitted  to 
the  Rahway  reformatory,  and  on  an  entire  private  school  in  Penn- 


is*  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

sylvania.  Further  tests  were  reported  on  the  insane,  and  the  speaker 
concluded  that  "the  tests  go  a  long  way  toward  giving  us  what  we 
want,  are  accurate  far  beyond  belief.  While  it  is  true  that  they 
need  supplementing  and  improving,  yet  it  is  quite  possible  that  this 
supplementing  will  have  to  be  in  the  nature  of  a  consideration  of 
individual  cases  and  special  tests  for  children.  It  is  a  problem  that 
may  well  occupy  the  attention  of  psychologists,  but  no  one  should 
attempt  to  criticize  the  tests  until  he  has  used  them  on  some  hun- 
dreds of  children." 

Dr.  Wallin  agreed  that  the  Binet  tests  possess  considerable  value 
as  an  instrument  for  gauging  mental  station  and  classifying  groups 
of  mental  defectives.  He  gave  methods  for  testing  the  accuracy  of 
the  scale  as  follows:  (a)  Extensive  surveys  of  normal  children  to  as- 
certain if  the  age  norms  are  correct;  (6)  annual  tests  of  the  same 
groups,  to  determine  whether  the  amount  of  actual  growth  corre- 
sponds to  the  growth  norms  laid  down  in  the  scale;  (c)  the  plotting 
of  curves  of  efficiency  or  capacity  for  each  age  for  the  various  traits 
tested  in  the  scale. 

At  this  same  session  Dr.  Hollingworth  presented  a  brief  ac- 
count of  elaborate  experiments  on  the  influence  of  caffein  on  mental 
and  motor  efficiency.  Extensive  accounts  of  these  tests  have  since 
appeared  in  the  January  numbers  of  The  American  Journal  of 
Psychology,  The  Psychological  Review,  The  Therapeutic  Gazette, 
and  in  the  Archives  of  Psychology,  Columbia  University  Contribu- 
tions to  Psychology. 

The  Cornell  experiments  on  the  difference  between  memory  and 
imagination  images,  reported  by  Mrs.  Perky1  and  generalized  in 
Titchener's  recent  text-book,  received  pointed  criticism  in  a  paper  by 
Dr.  Martin,  who,  on  the  ground  of  experimental  evidence,  refused 
to  accept  the  results  in  question  except  as  having  an  individual  char- 
acter. The  differences  between  the  two  kinds  of  images  were  not 
present  in  Dr.  Martin 's  results,  her  experiments  being  made  on  stu- 
dents and  professors  at  Bonn  and  Stanford  universities. 

Professor  Washburn  reported  a  new  method  of  studying  mediate 
association,  which  was  defined  in  the  following  manner :  a  process  A 
is  followed  in  consciousness  by  an  apparently  unassociated  process 
C;  later  it  is  found  that  the  connection  was  made  by  the  process  B, 
formerly  associated  with  both  A  and  C,  but  not  at  this  time  appearing 
in  consciousness.  The  method  used  was  as  follows:  The  observer 
was  given  a  stimulus  word  and  instructed  to  react  with  a  wholly  un- 
associated word.  662  experiments  were  performed  and  a  number  of 
typical  mediate  associations  resulted.  A  full  report  of  the  experi- 
ments appears  in  the  January  number  of  the  American  Journal  of 
Psychology. 

1  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  No.  21,  p.  422. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         189 

Another  paper  from  the  Vassar  Laboratory  given  by  Miss  Abbott 
dealt  with  the  effect  of  adaptation  on  temperature  discrimination. 
The  method  was  to  adapt  the  right  and  left  hands  to  temperatures 
differing  by  five  degrees,  and  then  to  test  for  slightly  wanner  tem- 
peratures. Such  adaptation  had  more  effect  on  the  power  of  dis- 
crimination than  adaptation  to  extreme  temperatures. 

Mr.  G.  R.  Wells  reported  the  results  of  studies  on  the  relation  of 
reaction  time  to  the  duration  of  auditory  stimulus.  Five  lengths  of 
stimuli  were  used,  viz.,  76,  306,  516,  766,  and  1066.  No  characteristic 
difference  was  found  in  the  reactions  to  these  different  stimuli. 

Dr.  Reudiger  gave  the  results  of  a  series  of  experiments  made 
with  the  Bloch  instrument  to  determine  the  ability  of  four  subjects 
to  localize  1  gram  and  10  gram  weights.  The  surfaces  explored 
were  on  the  forearm  and  the  weights  were  applied  to  a  vein  and  to 
surfaces  where  no  vein  was  in  evidence.  Localization  was  just  as  ac- 
curate with  one  gram  as  with  ten  grams  and  it  was  even  more  ac- 
curate on  a  vein  than  on  other  parts  of  the  skin.  These  facts,  the 
speaker  held,  were  contrary  to  the  sensation-complex  theory  of 
space  localization,  and  indicated  that  space  perception  on  the  skin 
was  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  the  sensation-element  theory. 

An  experimental  study  of  self -projection,  meaning  thereby  any 
explicit  form  of  self-reference,  was  reported  by  Professor  Richard- 
son, the  work  being  that  of  Professor  Downey.  Two  chief  forms 
were  recognized,  the  visual  and  the  kinesthetic.  Different  reagents 
saw  themselves  as  actors  in  or  spectators  of  a  visualized  scene.  Kin- 
esthetic  or  organic  self-reference  was  found  to  occur  frequently  and 
to  assume  the  following  forms:  (1)  objectified  and  fused  with  the 
visual  self;  (2)  oscillating  with  the  visualized  self  and  localized  in 
the  body  of  the  subject;  (3)  objectified  and  fused  with  a  visualized 
object  or  a  visualized  person  other  than  the  self;  (4)  abstracted  from 
all  visual  content  and  objectified  or  not. 

The  role  of  the  organic  factor  in  the  consciousness  of  meaning 
was  emphasized  in  the  report  of  experimental  work  by  Professor 
Murray.  The  use  of  an  extended  imagery  questionnaire  in  a  group 
of  elementary  students  brought  out  the  fact  that  the  organic  imagery 
was  accessible  to  introspection.  Such  stimulus  words  as  expectancy, 
impatience,  fright,  surprise,  relief,  etc.,  were  used,  and  definite  or- 
ganic imagery  was  roughly  demonstrated.  Further  tests  with  such 
words  as  mental,  delicate,  difficult,  mistake,  possible,  etc.,  showed 
that  organic  and  motor  imagery  claimed  an  equal  share  with  visual 
and  auditory  imagery. 

Dr.  Starch  described  a  method  for  the  objective  measurement  of 
handwriting  by  means  of  a  celluloid  graphometer,  which  measures 
the  mean  variation  of  the  slant  letters  and  their  mean  deviation  from 


190  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tin-  base  line.  These  two  are  reduced  to  the  same  units  of  linear  dis- 
tance and  averaged.  In  this  manner  all  the  samples  in  Thorndike's 
scale  were  measured,  which  showed  that  the  uniformity  of  letters 
regularly  decreases  as  the  quality  decreases. 

The  relation  between  the  retina  and  right-handedness  was  dis- 
cussed by  Professor  Stevens  in  reporting  experimental  results  on  the 
study  of  the  space  sense  of  the  retina.  His  conclusions  are  as  fol- 
lows: (1)  in  the  horizontal  meridian,  the  right  half  of  an  extent  in 
the  field  of  vision  is  overestimated;  (2)  this  overestimation  holds  true 
for  both  right  and  left  eyes;  (3)  the  extent  which  is  overestimated 
forms  its  image  upon  the  left  corresponding  halves  of  the  two  retinas ; 
(4)  the  left  corresponding  halves  of  the  retinas  are  connected  exclu- 
sively with  the  left  hemispheres  of  the  cerebrum;  (5)  by  reason  of 
the  fact  of  a  marked  difference  in  the  space  sense  of  the  two  halves 
of  the  retina,  those  objects  in  the  right  half  of  the  field  of  vision,  by 
appearing  larger,  attract  the  visual  attention  which  in  turn  leads  to 
grasping  movements  of  the  right  hand.  The  hand  thus  favored  by 
the  earliest  experiences  acquires  a  special  skill  which  causes  it  to  be 
used  in  all  manual  acts  requiring  the  greatest  precision. 

Professor  Magnusson  reported  experimental  data  on  visual  sensa- 
tions caused  by  changes  in  the  strength  of  a  magnetic  field.  The 
results  verified  the  work  of  Dunlap  and  Thompson ;  ascertained  that 
the  magnetic  field  induced  by  making  and  breaking  a  direct  current 
gives  a  visual  sensation ;  gave  threshold  of  the  sensation  in  terms  of 
ampere  turns  and  the  dependence  of  the  sensation  upon  the  fre- 
quency of  the  current.  No  sensation  other  than  visual  occurred  and 
no  after  effects  were  experienced. 

Professor  Cannon  reported  the  work  recently  done  at  the  Harvard 
Medical  School  on  physiological  changes  attending  fear  and  rage  in 
cats.  It  was  shown  that  the  emotional  excitements  caused  the 
adrenal  glands  to  pour  adrenalin  into  the  blood,  and  it  was  thought 
that  this  might  account  for  the  continued  excited  state  of  the  body. 
It  was  further  shown  that  glycosuris  occurred,  following  the  pro- 
duction of  adrenalin  and  the  conclusion  was  that  in  the  wild  state 
the  production  of  sugar  furnished  new  energy  and  the  adrenalin 
prevented  fatigue.  In  this  case  these  physiological  changes  would 
be  distinctly  useful  functions. 

Introspection  is  not  only  an  instrument  of  psychological  investi- 
gation, it  is  also  itself  a  psychological  process  or  group  of  processes, 
and  as  such  must  be  capable  of  psychological  analysis.  This  was  the 
point  of  view  defended  by  Professor  Dodge  in  a  paper  on  the  nature 
and  limits  of  introspection.  Such  an  analysis  should  furnish  data 
for  the  evaluation  of  the  products  of  introspection,  for  an  estimate 
of  its  reliability  as  an  instrument,  and  for  an  estimate  of  the  factors 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         191 

of  mental  life  that  it  is  best  calculated  to  disclose.  The  world  of 
things  is  the  result  of  the  integration  of  sensory  experience  while 
introspection  furnishes  material  for  the  integration  of  unitary  ex- 
periences. The  phenomena  of  introspection  are  not  final  facts  of 
mental  life,  but  like  the  phenomena  of  sound,  are  indicators  for 
scientific  construction. 

Professor  Dodge  also  described  two  new  sphygmographic  instru- 
ments. The  first  which  was  demonstrated  is  a  pneumatic  photo- 
graphic recorder  of  extremely  low  latency  and  high  sensitivity. 
Used  in  connection  with  any  good  microscope,  it  records  vibrations  of 
over  1,000  per  second,  shows  overtones  of  vowels  and  heart  tones,  and 
gives  pulse  waves  of  any  desired  amplitude  without  changing  its 
latency  or  other  constants.  Suitable  for  class  lantern-demonstrations 
of  pulse  and  plethysmographic  changes,  it  is  durable  and  practically 
fool-proof,  at  least  for  any  one  who  can  use  a  microscope.  The  second 
recorder  was  not  demonstrated.  It  provides  for  recording  the  pulse 
of  a  distant  and  active  subject  by  means  of  a  string  galvanometer. 

Mr.  Munsell  described  his  pigment  color  system  and  exhibited  his 
books  and  models  and  apparatus,  including  a  daylight  photometer 
which  attracted  considerable  attention.  Lack  of  space  forbids  ade- 
quate description  here,  but  extended  explanation  may  be  found  in 
The  Psychological  Bulletin.2 

Apropos  of  the  doctrine  of  reserve  energy,  Dr.  Williams  pointed 
out  that  the  inhibition  of  energy  is  not  synonymous  with  storage  and 
the  energy  which  is  not  expended  so  as  to  be  seen  by  the  superficial 
observer  is  not  merely  held  in  reserve  to  be  set  free  by  therapeutic 
treatment.  What  does  happen  is  that  the  energy  is  rechanneled, 
i.  e.,  set  going  into  new  directions. 

Dr.  Burrow  objected  to  the  present  anatomical,  static,  bureauolog- 
ical  ideas  in  connection  with  the  definition  of  neurasthenia,  and  con- 
tended for  a  more  restricted,  individual,  dynamic  interpretation, 
such  as  may  be  yielded  through  a  physiological  analysis  of  a  par- 
ticular case.  The  conception  of  functional  changes  having  their  basis 
in  disintegrations  occurring  within  the  elements  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem so  minute  as  to  escape  ordinary  objective  tests  he  held  to  be  a 
dodging  of  issues.  He  thought  rather  that  important  affective  trends, 
obstructed  in  their  natural  course,  bring  about  vicarious  gratifica- 
tions in  unconsciously  motivated  reactions,  allied  with  the  affective 
state  through  somatic  associated  connections.  Such  somatic  connec- 
tions are  the  so-called  symptoms  of  neurasthenia.  This  point  of  view, 
he  thought,  was  supported  by  the  evidence  from  dreams  where  there 
was  a  close  parallel  between  the  imagery  of  the  patient  as  presented 
in  his  dreams  and  the  organic  imagery  presented  in  his  symptoms. 

2  Vol.  6,  No.  7. 


192  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Professor  Jones,  accepting  Freud's  definition  of  the  term  sublima- 
tion as  ' '  the  capacity  to  exchange  an  original  sexual  aim  for  another 
no  longer  sexual  aim,  though  a  psychically  related  one, ' '  argued  that 
these  discarded  desires  form  the  basis  of  many  of  our  interests  and 
activities  in  later  life  and  insisted  that  a  fuller  knowledge  of  them 
would  be  of  the  greatest  value  to  education  by  indicating  the  most 
fruitful  paths  along  which  sublimation  could  take  place. 

That  the  real  cause  of  emotion  is  a  failure  in  the  mechanics  of 
brain  integration,  immediately  occasioned  by  the  occurrence  of  fac- 
tors, inner  and  outer,  that  are  too  difficult  of  synthesis  under  the 
given  conditions  and  to  whose  action  the  organism  may  be  abnormally 
sensitive,  was  the  thesis  advanced  by  Professor  Huey  in  a  discussion 
of  emotivity  and  emotion  in  their  relations  to  adaptation.  The  brain, 
the  speaker  thought,  may  be  as  basal  an  organ  of  emotion  as  the 
heart,  and  for  many  persons,  disturbances  of  the  pharynx,  bladder, 
genitals,  or  skin  ' '  mirror  the  soul ' '  more  than  do  the  heart  and  blood 
vessels.  Emotional  expression  depends  on  (1)  what  functionings  are 
called  for  by  the  situation;  (2)  what  functionings  happen  to  be  in 
use  at  the  time;  (3)  early  acquired  habits  of  reacting  in  a  given 
manner  to  a  given  emotional  situation ;  (4)  what  organs  or  functions 
are  most  enfeebled,  these  being  affected  preferably;  (5)  occurrence 
of  misfit,  instinctive  functionings  of  possible  utility  in  race  experi- 
ence; (6)  functionings  suggested  to  the  individual  in  the  fatigue  of 
emotion,  social  custom,  contagion,  or  auto-suggestion. 

At  the  business  meeting,  the  committees  on  mental  tests,  on 
teaching  experiments,  and  on  periodicals,  reported  progress  and  were 
continued.  The  following  recommendation  of  the  council  was 
adopted:  "The  council,  believing  that  the  members  of  the  association 
should  consider  exercising  a  more  direct  control  over  the  choice  of  its 
officers,  recommends  the  appointment  of  a  committee  of  three  to 
consider  this  question,  and,  in  the  event  of  their  approving  a  change 
in  the  present  arrangements,  to  submit  to  the  next  annual  meeting 
the  necessary  amendments  to  the  constitution."  Professors  Aikins, 
Minor,  and  Pierce  were  appointed  to  this  committee. 

On  the  recommendation  of  the  council,  Professor  Thorndike  was 
elected  president  for  the  ensuing  year  and  Professors  Margaret  F. 
Washburn  and  Max  Meyer  were  elected  to  membership  in  the  council 
for  three  years  to  succeed  President  Sanford  and  Professor  Thorn- 
dike.  Professor  Seashore,  the  retiring  president,  was  elected  to  rep- 
resent the  association  on  the  council  of  the  A.  A.  A.  S. 

The  next  meeting  will  be  held  in  Cleveland,  in  affiliation  with  the 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  during  the 
Christmas  holidays,  1912.  The  International  Congress  for  the  spring 
of  1913  is  abandoned.  M.  E.  HAOOEBTY. 

INDIANA  UNIVERSITY. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         193 

REVIEWS   AND   ABSTRACTS    OF    LITERATURE 

Animal  Intelligence:  Experimental  Studies.    EDWARD  L.  THORNDIKE.    The 
Animal  Behavior  Series.    New  York :  Macmillan.    1911.    Pp.  viii  -f-  297. 

All  psychologists  will  be  glad  to  have  Thorndike's  experimental  work 
on  the  intelligence  of  animals  brought  together  in  this  convenient  form. 
The  thesis  on  "  Animal  Intelligence,"  which  was  for  many  of  us  the  first 
intimation  that  a  real  science  of  comparative  psychology  was  possible, 
has  been  for  some  time  out  of  print.  It  is  here  reprinted,  together  with 
the  paper  on  "  The  Instinctive  Reactions  of  Young  Chicks,"  the  "  Note 
on  the  Psychology  of  Fishes,"  and  the  monograph  on  "  The  Mental  Life 
of  the  Monkeys."  To  these  papers  there  have  been  added  an  introductory 
chapter,  an  essay  on  "  Laws  and  Hypotheses  of  Behavior,"  and  one  on 
"  The  Evolution  of  the  Human  Intellect." 

It  is  the  new  chapters,  of  course,  that  demand  discussion  in  the  present 
review.  Thorndike's  experimental  researches  have  now  undergone  the  test 
of  time,  and  their  influence  has  been  valuable  enough  to  satisfy  any 
worker  in  a  scientific  field:  few  doctors'  theses,  indeed,  have  been  so  fruit- 
ful as  "  Animal  Intelligence."  The  introductory  chapter  in  the  present 
book  defends  the  study  of  behavior  as  opposed  to  that  of  "  consciousness 
as  such."  The  chapter  on  "Laws  and  Hypotheses  for  Behavior"  pro- 
poses, as  laws  of  behavior  in  general,  that  behavior  is  predictable,  that 
"  every  response  or  change  in  response  of  an  animal  is  the  result  of  the 
interaction  of  its  original  knowable  nature  and  the  environment " ;  and 
the  law  of  instinct,  that  "  to  any  situation  an  animal  will,  apart  from 
learning,  respond  by  virtue  of  the  inherited  nature  of  its  reception-,  con- 
nection-, and  action-systems."  All  learning  can  be  brought  under  the 
law  of  effect,  that  "  of  several  responses  made  to  the  same  situation,  those 
which  are  accompanied  or  closely  followed  by  satisfaction  to  the  animal 
will,  other  things  being  equal,  be  more  firmly  connected  with  the  situation, 
so  that,  when  it  recurs,  they  will  be  more  likely  to  recur;"  the  reverse 
being  true  of  responses  accompanied  by  discomfort;  and  the  law  of  exer- 
cise, that  "  any  response  to  a  situation  will,  other  things  being  equal,  be 
more  strongly  connected  with  the  situation  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
times  it  has  been  connected  with  that  situation  and  to  the  average  vigor 
and  duration  of  the  connections.  The  satisfaction  and  discomfort  men- 
tioned in  the  law  of  effect  are  correlated  with  advantage  and  disadvantage, 
not  necessarily  to  the  organism  as  a  whole,  but  to  its  neurones."  Acces- 
sory conditions  to  the  laws  of  effect  and  of  exercise  are  the  closeness  with 
which  the  satisfaction  is  associated  with  the  response,  and  "  the  readiness 
of  the  response  to  be  connected  with  the  situation."  The  chief  point  at 
which  the  reviewer  would  take  issue  with  the  author  in  this  chapter  con- 
cerns the  relation  between  an  act  and  the  idea  of  an  act.  As  is  well 
known,  Thorndike  opposes  the  doctrine  that  an  idea  of  a  movement  causes 
the  movement.  The  reviewer,  for  whom  this  doctrine  is  one  of  the  really 
valuable  and  fruitful  discoveries  of  modern  psychology,  has  long  felt  that 
its  critics  misunderstood  the  meaning  of  the  term  "  movement  idea,"  and 
the  arguments  put  forward  in  the  chapter  under  consideration  confirm 
this  opinion.  Take  for  instance  the  following:  "It  is  certain  that  in  at 


194  I  HE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

least  nine  cases  out  of  ten  a  response  is  produced,  not  by  an  image  or 
other  representation  of  it,  but  by  a  situation  nowise  like  it  or  any  of  its 
accessories.  Hunger  and  the  perception  of  edible  objects  far  outweigh 
ideas  of  grasping,  biting,  and  swallowing  as  causes  of  the  eating  done  in 
the  world."  It  is  surely  sufficient  to  reply  that  the  doctrine  of  the  move- 
ment idea  is  applied  to  the  perfecting  of  new  responses,  not  to  the  per- 
formance of  instinctive  responses,  and  that  of  course  even  in  new  re- 
sponses the  place  of  the  movement  idea  is  commonly  later  taken  by  an 
associated  idea  or  perception.  "  It  is  also  certain,"  the  author  continues, 
"  that  the  idea  of  a  response  may  be  impotent  to  produce  it.  I  can  not 
produce  a  sneeze  by  thinking  of  sneezing.  And,  of  course,  one  can  have 
ideas  of  running  a  mile  in  two  minutes,  jumping  a  fence  eight  feet  high, 
or  drawing  a  line  exactly  equal  to  a  hundred  millimeter  line,  just  as  easily 
as  of  running  the  mile  in  ten  minutes,  or  jumping  four  feet.  It  is  further 
certain  that  the  thought  of  doing  one  thing  very  often  results  in  the  man's 
doing  something  quite  different.  The  thought  of  moving  the  eyes 
smoothly  without  stops  along  a  line  of  print  has  occurred  to  many  people, 
who  nevertheless  actually  did  as  a  result  move  the  eyes  in  a  series  of 
jumps  with  long  stops."  The  sneeze,  of  course,  as  a  reflex,  may  be  left 
out  of  consideration;  nobody  ever  claimed  that  movement  ideas  produced 
reflexes.  As  for  the  other  instances  adduced,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  no 
one  has  ever  had  an  idea  of  running  a  mile  in  two  minutes,  or  of  any  of 
the  other  impossible  feats  mentioned,  or  of  moving  the  eyes  smoothly 
along  a  line  of  print.  The  ideas  which  people  may  have  thus  labeled 
would  be  revealed  by  even  a  moderate  degree  of  introspective  analysis  to 
be  ideas  of  movements  that  had  actually  been  performed  by  the  persons 
entertaining  the  ideas.  A  movement  idea  is  the  revival,  without  periph- 
eral stimulation,  of  the  sensations  that  resulted  from  the  actual  per- 
formance of  the  movement:  if  the  movement  has  never  been  performed, 
its  idea  is  impossible. 

Further,  Professor  Thorndike  appears  to  think  that  the  admission  of 
the  law  that  the  idea  of  a  movement  can  cause  the  performance  of  the 
movement  would  add  a  third  principle  of  learning  to  the  laws  of  effect 
and  exercise.  It  would  never  have  occurred  to  the  reviewer  not  to  see  in 
the  law  of  the  movement  idea  a  striking  instance  of  the  law  of  effect.  It 
is  of  course  always  understood  that  a  movement  idea  will  not  produce  the 
corresponding  movement  if  it  or  any  of  the  associated  processes  that  may  be 
substituted  for  it  has  been  connected  with  sufficiently  strong  unpleasantness. 
Just  as  an  outside  stimulus  that  by  virtue  of  an  inherited  nervous  con- 
nection naturally  produces  a  movement  may  cease  to  do  so  if  the  move- 
ment has  unpleasant  consequences,  so  may  a  movement  idea  lose  its  move- 
ment-generating power.  And  the  movement  idea  is  itself  based  on  the 
most  immediate  effect  of  the  movement;  the  sensations,  kinesthetic  and 
otherwise,  that  are  aroused  by  the  motor  process  as  it  takes  place. 

In  the  last  chapter,  on  "  The  Evolution  of  Human  Intellect "  the  writer 
points  out  that  the  superiority  of  the  human  mind  consists  in  the  power 
of  analyzing  situations,  which,  in  turn,  depends  on  "  the  increased  delicacy 
and  complexity  of  the  cell  structures  in  the  human  brain." 

VASSAK  COLLEGE.  MARGARET  FLOY  WASHBURN. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          195 

A  Text-book  of  Experimental  Psychology.     (With  Laboratory  Exercises.) 

CHARLES    S.    MEYERS.      Second    Edition.      2    volumes.      New    York: 

Longmanns,  Green,  and  Co.    1911. 

The  first  glance  at  the  second  edition  of  this  useful  book  reveals  a 
striking  improvement  in  general  appearance,  in  binding,  quality  of  paper, 
and  in  other  details  that  go  far  toward  making  a  book  agreeably  received. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  content,  the  references  at  the  chapter  ends  have 
been  brought  up  to  date  and  the  following  changes  have  been  made  in  the 
text. 

In  chapter  two  (Cutaneous  and  Visceral  Sensations)  the  recent  work 
of  Head  and  Kivers  is  amplified,  and  Head's  assumption  of  the  existence  of 
two  differently  distributed  systems  of  peripheral  nerves  underlying  the 
two  systems  of  cutaneous  sensibility  gives  way  to  the  suggestion  of  a 
single  physiological  system  dissociated  into  separate  psychological  systems. 
The  paragraph  on  "  The  Specific  Nature  of  Pain  Sensations  "  is  omitted. 
To  chapters  three  and  four  (Auditory  Sensations)  are  added  a  paragraph 
on  vowel  quality  of  tones  and  two  on  consonant  intervals  and  fusion. 
Erom  chapter  five  is  omitted  the  section  on  "  Nervous  Connections  of  the 
Motor  and  Labyrinthine  Sensory  Apparatus."  Hering's  colored  diagrams, 
showing  the  relation  between  the  pairs  of  antagonistic  colors,  are  added 
to  the  chapters  on  "  Visual  Sensations."  Chapters  twelve  and  thirteen, 
on  "  Memory,"  remain  unchanged  except  for  the  inclusion  of  the  "  method 
of  reconstruction."  Various  parts  of  these  chapters  remain  obscure  to  the 
average  student,  but  this  difficulty  largely  inheres  in  the  nature  of  the 
material  itself.  Chapter  sixteen,  "  On  Weight,"  is  recaptioned  "  On  Mus- 
cular Effort,"  and  supplemented  by  recent  work  on  ocular  movements. 
The  chapter  on  "Local  Signature"  contains  a  new  section  dealing  with 
"  Autokinetic  Sensations,"  and  in  the  chapter  on  "  Experiences  of  Iden- 
tity and  Difference  "  appears  a  paragraph  on  "  The  Influence  of  the  Sen- 
sory Cortex."  The  chapter  on  "  Feeling  "  now  precedes  that  on  "  Atten- 
tion "  and  is  supplemented  by  a  statement  of  the  effects  of  thalamic  lesion. 
A  final  new  chapter  on  "  Thought  and  Volition  "  gives  a  brief  view  of  the 
recent  experimental  investigations  of  imageless  thought,  the  conative  ex- 
perience sui  generis,  determining  tendencies  and  attitudes  of  conscious- 
ness, chiefly  from  the  point  of  view  of  method. 

Volume  two,  of  one  hundred  and  seven  pages,  contains  the  laboratory 
exercises.  The  manual  is  inadequate  as  a  guide  in  the  hands  of  the  be- 
ginning student,  since  it  lacks  sufficient  prescription  of  method  and  de- 
tailed procedure.  It  will  serve  better  as  a  manual  of  suggestions  to  the 
instructor,  who,  unless  he  can  work  personally  and  continuously  with  each 
pair  of  students  or  satisfactorily  rehearse  the  experiment  in  a  preliminary 
way  before  the  class  as  a  whole,  must  work  out  his  own  outline  in  detail. 
For  suggestions  toward  the  contents  of  such  an  outline  the  manual  is  very 
useful  in  the  fields  covered.  The  reviewer  regrets  that  the  publishers  have 
announced  that  the  two  volumes  will  not  be  sold  separately. 

H.    L.    HOLLINGWORTH. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


196        THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  November,  1911.  Le  probleme  soci- 
ologique  et  le  probli-me  philosophique  (pp.  449-490) :  E.  DE  ROBERTY.  - 
The  neo-positivistic  position,  that  philosophy,  like  all  branches  of  knowl- 
edge, has  been  in  the  past  beset  with  illusions,  "  a  real  astrology  and 
alchemy  of  general  thought,"  is  going  to  result  in  a  new  study,  purely 
sociological,  of  the  concepts  of  the  mind  and  the  laws  of  nature.  Freud 
et  le  probleme  des  reves  (pp.  491-522) :  KOSTYLEFF.  -  Freud's  principle, 
the  progress  of  sensorial  regression,  finds  in  objective  psychology  a  physio- 
logical basis  that  responds  to  all  the  varieties  of  dreams.  Vie  animale  et 
vie  morale  (pp.  523-528) :  A.  LAI.A.M n..  -  A  response  to  an  article  of  Le 
Dantec  on  "  Vegetative  and  Intellectual  Life."  Revue  Generate.  Les 
periodiques  allemands  de  psychologic:  FOUCALT.  Analyses  et  comptes 
rendus.  Schiller,  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx:  L.  DAURIAC.  Moore,  Prag- 
matism and  its  Critics:  L.  DAURIAC.  L.  Daville,  Leibnitz  historien:  A. 
PENJON.  K.  Vorlander,  Oeschichte  der  Philosophic:  M.  SOLOVINE.  Ber- 
nardino Telesio,  De  Rerum  Natura:  M.  SOLOVINE.  A.  Wohlgemuth,  On 
the  After-effect  of  Seen  Movements:  B.  BOURDON.  Necrologie. 

Keyserling,     Hermann     Graf.       Prolegomena     zur     Naturphilosophie. 

Munchen :  J.  F.  Lehmann's  Verlag.    1910.    Pp.  xii  -f  159.    5  M. 
Ostwald,  W.    Natural  Philosophy.    Translated  by  T.  Seltzer.    New  York : 

Henry  Holt  &  Co.    1910.    Pp.  ix  -f  193.    $1.00. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THERE  has  been  established  in  Geneva  an  Institute  for  the  Science  of 
Education,  which  will  be  opened  October  15,  1912.  M.  Pierre  Bovet,  pro- 
fessor of  philosophy  and  pedagogy  at  the  University  of  Neuchatel,  has 
been  chosen  director,  and  Professor  Ed.  Claparede,  director  of  the  psycho- 
logical laboratory  at  the  University  of  Geneva,  will  give  instruction  in 
psychology.  The  institute  will  be  open  to  those  who  wish  to  follow  the 
vocation  of  teaching. 

MAURICE  DE  WULF,  professor  at  the  University  of  Louvain,  announces 
that  the  new  edition  of  his  work,  "  Histoire  de  la  Philosophie  Medievale," 
contains  many  expansions  in  the  text  and  the  addition  to  the  bibliography 
of  many  titles  of  books  produced  within  the  past  five  years. 

THE  Holiday  Course  organized  by  the  University  of  Lille,  with  the  co- 
operation of  the  Alliance  Franchise,  will  enter  upon  its  eighth  year  at 
Boulogne-sur-Mer  in  August,  1912.  The  course  is  planned  to  appeal  to  all 
students,  whatever  their  knowledge  of  the  French  language  may  be. 

PROFESSOR  CHARLES  SEDOWICK  MINOT  has  been  selected  by  the  German 
government  as  Harvard  exchange  professor  at  the  University  of  Berlin  for 
1912-13.  Dr.  Rudolf  Eucken,  professor  of  philosophy  at  Jena,  has  been 
appointed  exchange  professor  at  Harvard  University. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  8.  APRIL  11,  1912. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


STUDIES  IN  THE  STRUCTURE  OF  SYSTEMS 
1.  THE  SEPARATION  OF  PROBLEMS 

~\  /TATHEMATICS,  physics,  astronomy  were  mere  chapters  in 
-i-V_L  the  philosophy  of  Greece.  Gradually  they  became  conscious 
of  their  own  problems  and  matured  into  relative  independence. 
This  process  of  emancipation  is  typical:  many  classes  of  problems 
(an  infinite  number  perhaps!)  are  contained  in  the  realm  of  what  is 
commonly  called  philosophy;  more  or  less  vague  efforts  at  solving 
them  are  made,  and  these  absorb  the  attention  for  a  while  until  there 
comes  a  day  when  one  class  is  recognized  as  distinct  from  the  others, 
and  a  new  science  is  born  out  of  philosophy.  Mathematics  arrived  at 
this  condition  early;  physics  only  in  the  days  of  Galileo.  It  is  true 
the  experimental  method  which  he  used  would  alone  assure  him  im- 
mortality. But  it  is  not  this  new  method  which  emancipated  physics ; 
it  is  the  particular  type  of  problem  which  Galileo  set.  At  first  sight 
it  might  seem  limited  in  application  and  insignificant  in  interest; 
but  it  proved  fruitful  in  calling  forth  other  problems  of  the  same 
type,  in  whose  solution  the  same  or  similar  methods  of  procedure 
were  effective.  Singling  out  a  new  type  of  problem  gave  birth  to 
a  new  science. 

This  process  of  emancipation  of  philosophy's  progeny  is  going  on 
vigorously  even  to-day.  It  seems  only  yesterday  that  chemistry  was 
born;  and  now  psychology  is  asserting  with  gentle  emphasis  that  it 
is  weaned  from  the  mother  milk  of  philosophy ! 

In  the  realm  of  the  old  Aristotelian  logic  there  are  four  distinct 
classes  of  problems  that  are  still  treated  promiscuously  and  with- 
out regard  for  their  inherent  distinctions.  Solutions  of  one  are 
given  out  for  solutions  of  another,  though  in  reality  they  may  be  per- 
fectly irrelevant  to  it.  To  separate  these  disciplines  by  clearly  dis- 
tinguishing the  kinds  of  problems  which  they  present  will  greatly 
help  in  their  development;  it  is  the  first  and  indispensable  step 
toward  their  proper  solution. 

197 


198  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

They  all  refer  principally  to  what  may  be  called  "cognition," 
i.  e.,  knowledge  of  a  certain  kind  characterized  by  the  property  of 
being  coherent,  necessary,  systematic,  etc.  Mathematics,  physics, 
may  stand  as  examples  of  what  is  here  designated  by  cognition  and 
may  always  be  substituted  for  it  in  the  present  discussion. 

Suppose  a  system  of  cognition,  such  as  plane  geometry,  to  be 
given,  6.  gr.,  in  the  form  of  Euclid's  "Elements."  Various  questions 
may  be  asked  regarding  it,  such  as:  Are  the  propositions  clear  and 
convincing?  Do  you  grasp  them  readily,  or  only  with  difficulty? 
Are  the  "axioms"  more  "evident"  to  you  than  the  propositions? 
How  is  your  attitude  toward  the  truth  of  a  proposition  affected  by 
the  "proof"  which  is  given  of  it?  Is  your  study  aided  or  impeded 
by  "logical  rigor"  in  the  formulation  of  the  "axioms"  and  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  propositions?  How  were  these  propositions  dis- 
covered, and  what  natural  conditions  are  most  favorable  for  discov- 
ering new  ones?  These  questions  can  easily  be  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely. They  are  all  of  a  certain  type  which  may  be  characterized 
as  follows:  They  imply  that,  besides  the  system  of  geometry,  an  "I" 
or  "you,"  in  general,  a  "consciousness,"  a  "subject"  is  given,  and 
the  questions  concern  the  relation  of  this  "consciousness"  to  the 
system  of  propositions  of  geometry.  Both  are,  in  the  meaning  of 
the  questions,  separate,  distinct,  though  in  relation  to  each  other. 
What  this  relation  is  in  particular  is  not  stated.  The  propositions  of 
geometry  may  be  conceived  as  "acts"  of  this  "subject,"  as  "con- 
tent" of  this  "consciousness,"  and  thus  as  residing  in  this  "ego"; 
but  the  words  "acts,"  "content,"  "in"  indicate  again  special  rela- 
tions of  these  propositions  to  the  "subject,"  just  as  did  "evidence," 
"clearness,"  "difficulty  of  apprehension."  Any  question  even 
whether  a  proposition  may  "exist"  independently  of  a  "human  con- 
sciousness" or  whether  it  is,  first  and  last,  nothing  but  a  "content  of 
some  human  consciousness"  must  be  considered  to  be  of  the  same 
type. 

In  order  to  make  this  clearer  let  us  call  the  propositions,  con- 
cepts, etc.,  such  as  form  plane  geometry,  "logical  entities,"  and 
let  us  say  that  they  have  "existence"  in  a  definite  realm  which 
we  will  call  the  "realm  of  logical  entities."  Distinct  from  this 
"realm  of  logical  entities  "is  the  "  ego "  which  enters  into  (or  is  in) 
relation  to  them;  and  I  shall  call  this  relation  the  "subject-relation" 
of  the  logical  entities.  Some  such  distinction  is  indeed  required  by 
any  of  the  above  questions  and  it  does  not  in  any  way  prejudice  the 
decision  as  to  what  the  subject-relation  will  be:  the  whole  realm  of 
logical  entities  may  be  "immanent"  in  the  "ego,"  or  "transcendent" 
— immanence  and  transcendence  would  merely  express  definite  kinds 
of  subject-relation. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          199 

It  is  apparent  that  what  ordinarily  passes  for  "idealism"  is 
concerned  primarily  with  problems  regarding  the  subject-relation. 
And  it  has  often  passed  for  "obvious"  that  a  consideration  of  the 
subject-relation  is  primary,  indispensable,  unavoidable,  decisive. 
Quite  on  the  contrary  it  seems  to  me  necessary  to  recognize  that 
problems  regarding  the  subject-relation  are  merely  one  type  of  prob- 
lems, that  other,  distinct  types  of  problems  are  possible  and  impor- 
tant in  the  solution  of  which  a  decision  regarding  the  subject-relation 
is  irrelevant.  This  does  not  derogate  in  the  least  from  the  impor- 
tance of  carefully  studying  the  subject-relation. 

It  seems  to  be  recognized  more  and  more  that  problems  of  this 
type  belong  to  psychology;  and  I  shall  therefore  speak  of  "Psychol- 
ogy of  Cognition"  to  designate  the  discipline  which  studies  the  sub- 
ject-relations of  logical  entities.  It  may  be  that  this  type  of  prob- 
lems can  fruitfully  be  subdivided;  it  may  be  that  this  whole  type 
should  be  classified  differently;  it  will  have  no  bearing  on  the  pres- 
ent study,  so  long  as  problems  regarding  the  subject-relation  of  log- 
ical entities  are  recognized  as  distinct  from  others  regarding  the  log- 
ical entities  themselves. 

It  is  a  platitude  that  nothing  is  true  for  me  unless  it  is  true  for 
me — though  much  discussion  has  hinged  on  this  platitude.  An  ex- 
treme individualism  has  based  on  it  the  theory  that  no  truth  exists 
for  me,  unless  it  is  recognized,  seen,  apprehended  as  such  by  me. 
All  those  who  urge  "evidence"  as  the  test  of  logical  truth,  maintain 
in  the  last  resort,  or  frankly  even  from  the  beginning,  this  theory. 
They  base  ' '  logic  "  on  "  psychology ' ' ;  for  ' '  evidence ' '  is  one  kind  of 
"subject-relation."  So  long  as  this  subject-relation  remains  the 
problem  under  investigation,  their  claim  may  be  made  with  much 
force.  We  seem  indeed  to  be  constantly  guided  in  our  search  for 
truth  by  the  "clair  et  evident"  of  Descartes — though  it  may  well  be 
suspected  that  the  subject-relation  corresponding  to  what  we  call 
"truth"  is  much  more  complicated,  as  the  pragmatists  are  showing 
with  convincing  force.  But  when  we  set  the  problem  of  the  truth  of 
a  proposition,  apart  from  its  power  of  convincing  me  or  you,  pro- 
vided such  a  problem  is  admitted  as  possible,  we  enter  a  completely 
different  realm  of  investigation.  Still  clearer  is  this  when  we  state 
such  problems  as:  Does  proposition  p1  "imply"  p2,  or  not?  What 
is  the  exact  relation  of  pl  to  p2l  Can  p2  be  "proved"  by  assuming 
P! ?  We  then  do  not  ask :  Can  "we"  prove  p2,  but :  Can  it  be  proved? 
And  these  two  do  not  by  any  means  coincide.  We  must  often  admit 
the  logical  existence  of  relations,  though  "we"  are  unable  to  exhibit 
them.  Every  algebraical  equation  has  a  root,  i.  e.,  a  root  "exists," 
but  given  an  algebraical  equation  "we"  can  but  rarely  find  it.  It  is 
by  no  means  necessary  to  go  to  special  cases  in  mathematics  to  show 


200  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  distinction  between  "logical"  and  "psychological"  existence, 
though  it  is  good  to  give  a  radical  example  where  no  "knower"  ex- 
ists who  psychologically  "perceives"  the  existence  of  the  logical 
entity.  For  whilst  in  the  ordinary  examples  we  readily  admit  that 
a  certain  relation  may  logically  exist  between  pl  and  p2,  though 
"you"  or  "I"  do  not  "see"  it,  t.  e.,  though  it  does  not  exist  for 
"us,"  we  are  apt  to  overlook  the  radical  nature  of  the  distinction, 
because  we  may  still,  and  often  rightly,  say:  but  it  exists  "psycho- 
logically" for  "somebody."  This  blurs  the  distinction;  for  instead 
of  entering  into  the  purely  logical  question  of  the  relation  of  pl  to 
p,,  we  fall  back  into  the  psychological  question  of  the  subject-rela- 
tion of  this  logical  relation,  by  reiterating:  but  the  relation  R  must  be 
in  subject-relation  to  "  somebody, "  some  "  consciousness, "  some  "  sub- 
ject," some  "knower"!  This  is  a  mixing  of  problems,  for  the  ques- 
tion was  not :  How  do  we,  or  how  does  anybody,  perceive,  or  find,  or  in 
whichever  manner  establish  a  subject-relation  to  R',  but:  does  it 
"exist";  does  the  proposition  that  "the  sum  of  the  angles  in  a  plane 
triangle  is  equal  to  two  right  ones  "presuppose  the  "parallel  axiom"? 

To  some  it  will,  no  doubt,  be  quite  impossible  to  "ignore,"  for 
the  time  being,  the  psychological  problem  of  the  subject-relation,  and 
to  them  the  "realm  of  logical  entities"  will  always  flit  around  some 
"consciousness";  as  the  platonic  ideas  always  had  physical  exist- 
ence somewhere,  as  Kant's  "transcendental  ego"  was  hidden  in  the 
innermost  depths  of  the  brain.  And  yet,  it  is  just  this  "ignoring" 
of  one  problem  when  moving  in  the  realm  of  another  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  all  fruitful  work:  in  any  "object"  many  kinds  of 
problems  intersect;  properly  and  systematically  to  ignore  the 
"others"  is  the  first  and  necessary  step  toward  the  solution  of  the 
"one." 

Whatever  theory  is  accepted  regarding  the  subject-relation  of  a 
logical  entity  does  not  in  any  way  decide  the  question  of  its  logical 
existence.  If  it  is  held  that  all  logical  entities  without  exception  are 
in  subject-relation  to  some  "consciousness,"  it  is  still  necessary  to 
establish  the  distinction  between  "existing"  and  "non-existing" 
logical  entities.  This  may  be  done  by  saying:  a  logical  entity  "ex- 
ists" if  it  is  "necessary,"  "of  general  validity";  whether  such  an 
attempt  would  prove  successful  or  not  is  not  our  concern  here ;  but 
it  is  our  concern  to  insist  that  the  mere  relation  of  all  logical  entities 
to  some  consciousness  is  not  capable  of  serving  for  a  criterion  to  es- 
tablish this  distinction.  It  is  irrelevant  to  the  problem  of  the  exist- 
ence of  logical  entities. 

If  this  distinction  of  the  problems  regarding  the  subject-relation 
of  logical  entities  from  those  regarding  the  logical  entities  them- 
selves is  admitted,  we  may  proceed  to  exemplify  the  latter  types  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          201 

problems.  I  shall  call  them  "Logic  of  Cognition,"  "Critique  of 
Cognition,"  and  "Structure  of  Cognition." 

"Logic  of  cognition"  treats  of  the  relations  of  logical  entities, 
not  to  a  subject,  but  to  each  other.  What  are  the  propositions  of 
plane  geometry?  Does  a  certain  proposition  p^  "imply"  another 
p2?  What  consequences  follow  from  certain  assumptions?  What 
laws  are  valid  in  the  drawing  of  inferences?  Logic  of  cognition 
constructs,  from  the  true  beginning,  systems  of  cognition.  Attempts 
such  as  Whitehead  and  Russell's  "Principia  Mathematica"  are  es- 
sentially examples  of  what  is  meant  here  by  "logic  of  cognition." 
It  is  dogmatic  in  form ;  it  does  not  justify  or  criticize ;  it  exhibits,  it 
hypothesizes,  it  proves;  in  brief,  it  constructs. 

But  with  its  special  type  of  problems  "logic  of  cognition,"  par- 
ticularly in  its  beginning,  combines  (and  often  confuses)  problems 
of  the  third  type:  "critique  of  cognition."  "Critique"  determines 
the  logical  ' '  value ' '  of  systems  of  cognition ;  its  main  problem  is  the 
determination  of  the  "truth"  of  a  system,  whilst  "logic  of  cog- 
nition ' '  should  be  indifferent  to  the  question  whether  the  hypotheses, 
whose  consequences  it  develops,  are  true  or  not.  When  mathema- 
ticians exhibit  sets  of  postulates  of  algebra,  of  geometry,  they  move 
in  the  realm  of  "logic  of  cognition";  when  they  add  proofs  of  the 
"independence"  or  "consistency"  of  these  postulates,  they  enter 
into  the  realm  of  "critique  of  cognition."  Critique  elaborates  and 
applies  certain  criteria  (which  may  be  called  "criteria  of  truth") 
to  systems  of  cognition. 

Construction  and  critical  examination  of  systems  of  cognition, 
embracing  as  they  are,  leave  still  another  type  of  problems  dealing 
with  the  logical  entities  themselves.  To  state  this  new  type  of  prob- 
lems, I  find  it  convenient  to  take  up  the  old  distinction  between 
"form"  and  "content"  and  apply  it  to  systems  of  cognition.  Sup- 
pose we  are  studying  the  properties  of  parallelograms.  We  could 
write  down  a  system  of  propositions,  such  as :  the  opposite  sides  are 
parallel ;  the  opposite  sides  are  equal ;  the  opposite  angles  are  equal ; 
etc.  But  we  might  next  ask:  Are  these  propositions  "independent" 
of  each  other?  Or  can  we,  in  a  plane  geometry,  by  assuming  some 
of  them,  deduce  the  others?  We  might  then  elaborate  a  different 
set  of  propositions,  in  which  we  proceed  from  some  "defining"  the 
parallelogram  to  others  which  we  "prove."  In  both  cases  the  same 
logical  "content"  is  presented,  namely,  the  properties  of  a  parallelo- 
gram, but  in  different  "form":  a  mere  enumeration  was  "trans- 
formed" into  a  deductive  system.  And  therewith  a  whole  class  of 
problems  is  presented  all  of  which  refer  to  the  structure  of  these 
possible  forms,  in  which  the  logical  content  of  systems  of  cognition 
is  or  may  be  presented.  What  are  the  structural  elements  of  a 


202  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

"deductive  system"!  How  is  it  to  be  distinguished  from  "induc- 
tive systems"?  What  are  the  advantages  of  either  form?  What 
conditions  must  a  certain  logical  content  satisfy  so  that  it  can  be  put 
into  the  deductive  system  form?  Are  other,  better  forms  existent  or 
possible?  What  is  the  nature  and  function  of  "axioms,"  "defini- 
tions," "proofs"?  The  problem  of  the  "new"  in  mathematics,  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  applying  the  deductive  system 
form  to  "philosophy,"  all  these  are  examples  of  the  type  of  prob- 
lems which  constitute  "structure  of  cognition." 

These  preliminary  remarks  may  serve  to  direct  attention  away 
from  some  problems  and  toward  the  type  to  be  examined  in  these 
studies,  namely,  the  ones  pertaining  to  "structure  of  cognition." 
Toward  the  necessity  of  keeping  these  problems  distinct  the  follow- 
ing studies  will  add  new  evidence.  Yet,  the  relation  of  these  four 
disciplines  to  each  other  is  so  peculiarly  close,  that  it  is  small  wonder 
they  have  not  been  clearly  distinguished  before.  No  system  can  be 
presented  without  an  appeal  to  the  understanding  of  the  reader, 
t.  «.,  without  some  subject-relation;  every  system  will  use  concepts 
and  propositions  of  logic  of  cognition ;  every  system  will  have  some 
structure,  and  endeavor  to  conform  to  the  criteria  of  truth.  This 
tends  to  confuse  the  issues;  but  if  the  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  prob- 
lem which  is  presented  for  solution,  the  distinction  becomes  simple. 
Every  system  has  a  definite  structure,  but  this  structure  need  not 
be  the  problem  of  every  investigation ;  every  system  shall  enter  into 
a  definite  subject-relation,  but  this  subject-relation  need  not  be  the 
problem  of  every  investigation,  etc. 

Since  the  days  of  Kant,  and  largely  in  consequence  of  his  work, 
our  thinking  has  been  controlled  by  the  idea  of  "presupposition." 
Categories  and  fundamental  judgments  were  to  him  "conditions  of 
the  possibility  of  experience,"  t.  e.,  that  which  is  necessarily  pre- 
supposed by  experience  itself.  This  idea  has  been  extended  to  apply 
to  sciences  as  a  whole  when  we  say :  mathematics  is  presupposed  by 
physics  and  attempts  have  been  made  to  order  the  various  disciplines 
in  a  series  from  this  point  of  view  of  "presupposition."  It  is  neces- 
sary to  insist  here,  however,  that  this  idea  of  ' '  presupposition ' '  leads 
readily  to  vagueness  and  confusion  if  applied  promiscuously.  It  re- 
quires two  restrictions. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  by  no  means  "self  evident"  that  the  vari- 
ous disciplines  can  really  be  arranged  in  serial  order  by  this  prin- 
ciple of  presupposition ;  and  this  applies  to  the  four  disciplines  which 
we  have  differentiated  above.  In  a  certain  sense  any  one  of  them 
"presupposes"  all  the  others.  You  can  not  study  the  subject-relation 
without  using  logical  concepts  and  methods,  without  applying  a 
definite  ideal  of  truth,  without  putting  the  logical  content  of  your 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          203 

study  into  a  form  of  definite  structure ;  and  the  same  applies  around 
the  circle.  Not  only  is  it  vain  thus  to  try  to  find  the  "more  funda- 
mental" of  the  four,  but  it  is  positively  misleading  and  injurious: 
we  are  apt  to  think  that  the  questions  of  one  can  not  be  answered 
unless  those  of  all  the  others  are  answered,  somehow  or  other,  first. 
We  become  so  involved  in  "presuppositions"  that  we  are  unable  to 
move  a  step  forward  or  backward.  The  lesson  of  this  predicament 
is  instructive  for  all  other  cases.  We  must  break  through  the  idea 
of  "presupposition"  as  applied  to  the  various  disciplines  and  recog- 
nize that  each  discipline  makes  its  own  presuppositions,  its  own 
hypotheses  on  which  it  builds;  and  in  doing  so  may  ignore  the 
hypotheses  of  others.  Mathematicians  let  "solids"  interpenetrate 
each  other,  assume  lines  without  breadth,  weight,  or  color;  to  the 
physicist  or  psychologist  such  entities  may  be  quite  chimerical. 

In  the  second  place  the  idea  of  "presupposition"  is  meaningless, 
unless  the  "point  of  view"  is  added  from  which  the  presupposition 
is  considered,  in  other  words  unless  we  state  in  the  realm  of  which 
problem  the  particular  presupposition  is  studied.  The  discipline 
which  is  "presupposed"  by  another  in  the  realm  of  one  problem 
may  in  turn  presuppose  it  in  the  realm  of  a  different  problem.  And 
thus  we  are  led  back  again  to  the  first  distinction  between  the  various 
problems  which  control  our  procedure:  not  methods,  not  objects, 
not  principles  and  presuppositions  separate  these  disciplines  "psy- 
chology of  cognition,"  "logic  of  cognition,"  "critique  of  cogni- 
tion," "structure  of  cognition,"  but  their  problems! 

If  this  is  kept  in  mind,  a  paradox  which  may  otherwise  be  puz- 
zling will  readily  dissolve.  In  this  study  of  the  structure  of  systems 
we  shall  frequently  "criticize"  other  accounts,  and  in  this  critique 
apply  criteria  which  can  be  developed  satisfactorily  only  in  ' '  critique 
of  cognition."  Thus  we  shall  frequently  apply  the  criterion  of 
"completeness":  certain  accounts  will  be  found  defective  in  com- 
pleteness in  that  they  do  not  account  for  certain  "facts."  This 
would  indeed  be  an  infringement  on  the  proper  province  of  "critique 
of  cognition,"  were  it  not  for  the  circumstance  that  such  critique 
is  here  merely  incidental  and  for  purposes  of  exposition.  When 
some  day  the  structure  of  systems  will  be  studied  more  elaborately, 
we  shall  be  able  to  dogmatically  develop  the  various  possible  ac- 
counts, and  then  submit  them  to  a  systematic  "critique."  The 
growth  of  any  science  illustrates  this,  though  what  has  been  done 
more  or  less  instinctively  we  can  to-day  see  rationally.  The  change 
in  procedure  between  Russell's  "Principles  of  Mathematics"  and 
Whitehead-Russell's  "Principia  Mathematica"  is  instructive  in  this 
respect,  and  illustrates  the  maxim  that  the  reduction  in  polemic  is 
proportional  to  the  degree  of  logical  perfection  of  a  discipline;  for 


i?04  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  logical  development  of  a  system  is  one  thing,  its  critical  evalua- 
tion a  second  and  distinct  problem. 

KARL  SCHMIDT. 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 


A  SIMPLE  METHOD  FOR  THE  STUDY  OF  ENTOPTIC 
PHENOMENA 

THE  introspective  examination  of  the  eye  is  interesting,  both  in 
experiments  and  in  classroom  work.  The  general  name  of 
entoptics  for  this  subject  was  suggested  by  J.  K.  Listing.  The 
method  of  studying  the  interior  of  one's  own  eyes,  by  letting  light 
shine  through  a  small  pin-hole  held  close  to  the  eye,  has  been  care- 
fully developed.  Barrett  constructed  an  elaborate  instrument  on 
this  plan  and  made  some  detailed  experiments  which  are  reported 
in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Dublin  Royal  Society,  1906.  That  the  in- 
side of  the  eye  can  be  illuminated  by  the  light  reflected  from  a 
bright  surface  held  close  to  the  eyeball  has  been  frequently  men- 
tioned, but  the  possible  improvements  in  method  that  this  fact  pro- 
vides have  not  been  developed  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  nor  have  their 
great  advantages  been  appreciated. 

A  very  simple  and  very  effective  apparatus  for  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  some  of  the  characteristics  and  phenomena  of  one's 
own  eye  is  provided  by  small  silver  beads  strung  on  a  wire  in  a 
spectacle  frame.  From  the  standpoint  of  psychology,  perhaps  the 
most  important  use  of  such  an  instrument  is  in  the  study  of  the 
movements  of  the  iris.1  If,  for  instance,  three  beads  are  strung  for 
each  eye  on  a  wire  adjusted  to  the  spectacle  frame  so  that  they  are 
horizontal  just  below  or  perpendicular  to  one  side  of  the  pupil,  they 
will  throw  three  circles  of  light  upon  different  parts  of  the  retina  of 
each  eye.  For  some  experiments  it  is  well  to  cover  the  frame  with 
black  cloth,  allowing  the  beads  to  show  through  a  slit.  The  beads 
may  be  moved  back  and  forth  and  the  intensity  of  the  light  increased 
or  diminished  by  approaching  it  or  removing  from  it  until  the  middle 
circle  is  exactly  tangent  to  the  two  others. 

In  the  first  place  we  have  here  a  means  of  observing  the  reflex 
action  of  the  pupils  in  both  the  eyes  at  the  same  time.  Their  co- 
ordination may  be  examined. 

In  the  second  place  we  have  a  means  of  measuring  quite  exactly 

1  Badol  reports  an  instrument  to  study  dilations  of  the  pupil  in  Transactions 
de  la  Societe  de  Biologic,  1876.  He  used  a  cylinder  and  two  cards  with  pin-holes. 
For  the  study  of  iris  movements  from  the  medical  standpoint,  see  Bumke, 
"  Pupillenstorungen, "  1904,  and  Bache,  "  Pupillenlehre, "  1908. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          205 

the  enlargement  and  contraction  of  the  pupil.  The  middle  circle 
will  go  over  into  the  field  of  the  other  circles  or  will  draw  away  from 
them.  A  scale  at  a  fixed  distance  from  the  eye  may  be  used  to  inter- 
pret dimensions  objectively. 

In  the  third  place  and  this  is  an  exceedingly  important  point — 
the  observer  may  take  an  easy  position,  settling  back  in  his  chair  and 
permitting  everything  to  fall  into  a  normal  condition.  Such  a  con- 
dition is  hardly  possible  where  the  eye  is  being  looked  at  from  the 
outside. 

The  reflex  movements  due  to  quantity  of  illumination,  to  con- 
verging movements  of  the  eyeballs,  to  bodily  irritations,  and  to 
mental  states  can  be  examined  at  one's  leisure.  A  physician  who 
undertakes  to  study  iris  movements  in  a  patient  would  do  well  to  be 
familiar  with  the  reflex  action  in  his  own  eye.  Interesting  are  the 
changing  jerkiness  of  the  continual  oscillations,  the  influence  of 
fatigue,  the  reaction  time,  etc.  It  is  noticeable,  for  instance,  that  the 
motion  of  the  circles  of  light  away  from  the  center  is  greater  than 
that  about  the  macula.  Again,  the  student  will  probably  be  surprised 
to  find  that,  given  a  certain  coordinated  dilation  with  one  eye  closed, 
the  opening  of  the  closed  eye  brings  about  a  quick  contraction.  He 
might  have  expected  that,  as  the  intensity  of  the  sensation  is  not 
increased  when  objects  are  seen  with  two  eyes,  so  the  reflex  motor 
effect  would  not  be  increased. 

The  use  of  a  single  bead  with  two  or  three  sources  of  light  moved 
nearer  and  farther  away  enables  one  to  light  up  surfaces  of  the 
retina  with  different  intensities.  This  different  lighting  is  an  ad- 
vantage when  one  wishes  to  compare  entoptic  shadows  falling  on  the 
outer  portions  of  the  retina  with  shadows  at  the  center.  If  the  light- 
ing be  of  the  same  degree,  the  central  shadows  are  so  much  clearer 
that  it  is  hard  to  pay  attention  to  those  away  from  the  center.  The 
difficulty  may  be  partly  overcome  by  strengthening  the  illumination 
which  is  thrown  upon  the  outer  parts  of  the  retina.  This  advantage 
becomes  quite  important  when  one  is  trying  to  locate  the  position  of 
the  bodies  which  throw  the  shadows.  Those  near  the  center  of  the 
lens  do  not  change  their  respective  location  on  the  different  circles  of 
light.  Those  in  front  move  apart  and  those  behind  move  together. 

In  my  own  eye  there  is  a  fixed  opaque  body  at  about  the  center  of 
the  lens.  A  body  like  this  enables  one  to  confirm  the  blind  spot. 
There  is  also  a  movable  anchored  body  on  the  nasal  side  just  back  of 
the  lens.  I  can  throw  this  into  the  field  of  vision  by  a  quick  move- 
ment of  the  eyeball,  and  then  it  will  slowly  draw  back  out  of  sight. 
If  the  light  be  dimmed  the  iris  curtains  are  drawn  away  and  show  it 
stationary. 

These  circles  of  light  give  indirect  information  about  the  place 


206  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  veins  and  arteries  that  appear  upon  the  retina  when  a  light  is 
moved  about  just  below  the  pupil.  The  student  will  probably  be 
surprised  to  learn  first  of  all  that  none  of  the  blood-vessels  are  made 
visible  when  the  circles  of  light  are  thrown  upon  the  retina  from  hi» 
bead.  Our  method  of  studying  entoptic  phenomena  allows  a  simul- 
taneous combination  with  Purkinje's  experiment.  The  arbor-like 
branches  will  then  be  seen  passing  right  across  the  circles  of  light. 

I  will  mention  one  more  fact  observed  on  using  one  bead  with 
two  lights,  which  seems  to  have  a  rather  special  psychological  inter- 
est. If  a  light  of  a  certain  intensity  is  throwing  a  circle  upon  one 
portion  of  the  retina  and  another  stronger  light  is  turned  on  to 
throw  a  circle  upon  another  portion  quite  a  distance  away,  there  is 
an  immediate  dimming  of  the  first  circle.  The  dimming  is  of  such  a 
character  as  to  appear  to  be  entirely  a  peripheral  matter  and  not 
due  to  mental  interpretation  from  contrast.  A  possible  analogy 
might  be  the  disturbance  of  one  current  of  electricity  by  the  proxi- 
mat ion  of  a  much  stronger  current. 

The  same  bead  arrangement  may  be  used  to  throw  different  colors 
from  colored  electric  light  globes  upon  different  surfaces  of  the 
retina.  These  circles  may  be  superposed,  the  different  parts  of  the 
retina  compared  as  to  color  sensation,  the  effects  of  contrasts  brought 
out,  etc. 

GEORGE  R.  MONTGOMERY. 

Niw  YORK  UNIVERSITY. 


DISCUSSION 
ON  MIND  AS  AN  OBSERVABLE  OBJECT1 

A  PAPER  of  this  same  title  which  I  offered  a  year  ago  met  with 
a  success  beyond  my  expectation.  It  is  something  to  have 
aimed  at  brevity  and  to  be  assured  one  has  not  missed  completeness. 
Now  there  are  a  number  of  ways  in  which  a  theory  of  mind  may  be 
vitally  amiss :  in  its  epistemological  background,  in  its  psychological 
application,  in  its  ethical  consequences.  Yet  brief  as  was  my  exposi- 
tion, my  critics  gave  me  to  understand  that  I  had  let  none  of  these 
ways  of  going  astray  escape  me. 

If  then  I  return  to  my  thesis,  if  I  am  led  into  an  insistence 
neither  justified  by  its  merit  nor  excused  by  its  interest,  something 

1  This  paper  was  prepared  to  be  read  before  the  Philosophical  Association 
at  Cambridge;  but  owing  to  a  misunderstanding  on  the  author's  part  was 
presented  too  late  to  be  included  in  the  program.  With  this  explanation,  the 
paper  is  offered  without  change  of  form. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          207 

must  be  forgiven  a  scruple :  I  would  make  sure  that  my  sinning  was 
as  round  and  perfect  as  my  critics  would  have  me  think. 

As  for  background,  it  can  not  be  painted  in  with  a  word  or  two. 
Professor  Miller  in  the  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY  has  called  attention 
to  the  defects  of  an  epistemology  that  would  let  one  speak  of  mind 
as  a  trait  of  behavior,  and  I  have  met  as  best  I  could  objections  so 
well  considered  and  so  clearly  put. 

This  matter  of  background  may  then  be  allowed  to  rest  for  the 
moment,  but  it  is  with  no  little  regret  that  I  postpone  the  considera- 
tion of  ethical  consequences.  For  I  was  greatly  interested  in  a  de- 
duction of  Professor  Ormond  's  making :  One  who  regards  mind  as  a 
trait  of  behavior,  must  he  not  hold  that  when  the  body  is  dissolved 
in  death  the  soul  that  once  inspired  its  outworn  flesh  is  also  dissi- 
pated and  lost? 

I  have  spoken  too  hastily  of  criticism.  Mr.  Ormond  would  justly 
blame  me  for  classing  under  this  head  remarks  that  were  meant  for 
no  more  than  question.  Mr.  Ormond  would  be  no  more  inclined 
than  I  to  assume  that  a  philosopher  is  bound  to  save  his  soul.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  am  at  least  as  unwilling  as  Mr.  Ormond  could  be 
to  divest  myself  of  any  rag  of  immortality  that  may  still  cling  to 
me  in  this  cool  age.  But  there  are  immortal  souls  and  immortal 
souls.  The  learned  in  their  high  power  of  abstraction  have  pre- 
tended to  find  solace  in  the  thought  of  a  soul  that,  surviving  the  body, 
continues  to  enjoy  all  the  individuality  embodiment  once  conferred 
on  it ;  living  on,  I  know  not  where ;  experiencing,  I  know  not  what — 
I  can't  think  how.  This  very  algebraic  soul,  this  diagram  of  an 
ethical  idea,  my  thought  may  inadvertently  have  rubbed  out.  If  so, 
let  that  rest  which  never  has  rested. 

But  simple  folk  too  have  their  notion  of  immortality,  and  with  the 
simple  I  would  seem  to  have  much  in  common.  I  should  be  sorry  to 
feel  that  nowhere  in  my  philosophy  might  I  come  across  the  like  of 
that  brave  and  kind  soul  which  has  gone  marching  on  now  these 
many  years  in  the  songs  that  men  sing.  Would  you  say  that  my 
thought  had  fallen  into  undignified  ways  if  it  sought  this  spirit  in 
the  very  world  that  still  sings  its  name,  in  the  world  which  still 
holds  a  grave  where  its  body  lies  a-mouldering  ? 

Of  all  these  delicate,  difficult  matters  I  would  willingly  speak 
another  time.  Just  now  there  faces  me  an  issue  more  vital  than  the 
destiny  of  souls  after  death — it  has  to  do  with  the  nature  of  souls 
during  life. 

To  Miss  Washburn,  whose  interest  lies  in  comparing  souls,  I  am 
indebted  for  a  criticism  that  cared  little  enough  what  theory  of 
knowledge  may  have  gone  before  my  thesis,  what  ethics  might  follow 
on  it.  Miss  Washburn 's  criticism  aimed  at  things  practical:  What 


208  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

are  you  going  to  do  with  a  being  who  thinks,  but  who  exhibits  no  be- 
havior for  the  very  reason  that  he  thinks?  What  are  you  going  to 
do  with  the  passive,  the  utterly  passive  thinker? 

Before  the  Pantheon  at  Paris  sits  Rodin's  image  of  the  Thinker. 
I  know  that  a  statue  doesn't  really  think,  but  I  know  too  that  those 
who  think  may  sit  as  stonily  statuesque  as  Rodin 's  Thinker.  Of  one 
who  has  dared  to  suggest  that  mind  is  a  trait  of  behavior  it  must 
inevitably  be  asked,  What  in  the  behavior  of  the  thinker  who  doesn't 
behave  is  his  thought? 

In  the  face  of  criticism  so  sympathetic  and  yet  so  thoroughgoing, 
it  would  be  vain  to  point  out  the  differences  that  make  flesh  not 
marble  and  marble  not  flesh.  Of  course  the  creature  of  blood  and 
muscle  is  not  wholly  inert :  his  heart  beats,  he  breathes,  his  eyes  blink. 
More  than  that — the  dendronated  termini  of  the  axis  cylinder  proc- 
esses of  his  cortical  nerve  cells  may  now  and  then  put  forth  a  new 
shoot;  at  the  very  least,  some  molecules  of  him  may  effect  an  inter- 
change of  atoms  while  he  thinks.  The  trouble  is  that  Miss  Washburn 
refuses  to  identify  any  sort  of  a  motion  of  atoms  with  a  thought,  and 
this  makes  the  whole  situation  trying.  If  I  say  that  the  movement 
of  certain  atoms  is  what  I  mean  by  the  behavior  which  is  thought, 
the  hands  of  Vogt  and  Biichner  will  reach  out  from  Orcus  and  have 
me.  If  I  refuse  to  say  this,  my  own  hands  will  seem  to  cast  me  off. 

One  who  has  to  surmount  an  obstacle  of  magnitude  is  entitled  is 
he  not  to  a  running  start,  a  start  from  old  and  settled  things  if  any 
such  can  be  found  that  hold  an  analogy?  Now  this  image  of  the 
passive  thinker  does  suggest  to  me  something  so  old  as  to  be  almost 
forgotten — it  is  the  figure  of  dormant  life. 

In  the  British  Foreign  Medical  Review  for  January,  1839,  ap- 
pears the  review  of  a  recent  medical  work.  The  author,  Mr.  Car- 
penter, had  defined  life  as  action  and  had  shown — so  the  sympathetic 
reviewer  sums  him  up — "that  instead  of  looking  for  its  cause  in  an 
imaginary  vital  principle  .  .  .  presumed  to  exist  for  the  sake  of  ex- 
plaining the  phenomena,  we  ought  to  study  the  properties  which  or- 
ganized structure  enjoys  and  the  agents  which  produce  their  mani- 
festation. ' ' 

Even  to  this  reviewer  of  1839  the  idea  that  life  is  behavior  has 
nothing  new  about  it,  for  he  continues,  ' '  Some  observations  are  made 
(by  Mr.  Carpenter)  in  refutation  of  the  doctrine  of  a  vital  principle 
and  we  do  not  think  them  supererogatory ;  for  although  the  hypoth- 
esis would  hardly  have  been  expected  to  survive  the  fine  scientific 
thrusts  of  Dr.  Pritchard's  classic  weapon  or  the  strokes  of  Dr. 
Fletcher's  more  truculent  blade,  it  seems  even  yet  not  quite  extinct."* 

•M.  Paine,  Med.  and  Phyt.  Com.,  I.,  13. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         209 

The  theory  that  life  was  something  other  than  behavior  was  not 
quite  extinct  in  1839!  Will  any  theory  that  substitutes  a  Ding  an 
sich  for  observable  phenomena  ever  win  to  extinction?  After  dor- 
mant life  comes  passive  thought. 

But  to  return  to  1839  and  the  years  that  follow.  Among  our 
early  American  physiologists  is  to  be  numbered  Martyn  Paine,  whose 
work  is  characterized  by  the  late  Dr.  Gross  as  "of  great  scope  and 
much  erudition."  Of  much  erudition,  surely,  and  I  beg  to  recom- 
mend Paine 's  "Medical  and  Physiological  Commentaries"  to  any 
in  search  of  sources  for  a  history  of  vitalism.  Of  what  scope  too 
I  know  to  my  sorrow.  And  yet  of  the  pages  and  pages  of  erudition 
and  scope  would  you  know  the  one  image  that  sticks  firmly  in  my 
mind,  Martyn  Paine 's  arm  and  shield  against  classic  weapon  and 
.truculent  blade?  It  is  just  a  seed,  just  an  ordinary  grain  of  corn, 
say.  For  one  may  defy  the  world  to  prove  that  this  little  dried-up 
thing  is  doing  aught  to  support  the  hypothesis  that  it  is  alive.  Yet 
one  may  take  testimony  of  all  the  world  that  it  is  a  living  thing. 
Dormant  life!  What  does  it  mean?  It  takes  more  than  classic 
weapon  and  truculent  blade  to  establish  life  as  the  thing  Bichat  de- 
fined it  to  be  "the  ensemble  of  functions  that  resist  death."  There  is 
the  seed  corn  that  refuses  to  function,  refuses  to  resist — for  what  is 
there  to  resist — and  yet  it  lives !  But  what  in  it  is  its  life  ?  Ah,  it  is  a 
certain  principle  called  vital,  dormant  now,  but  only  awaiting  the 
right  conditions  to  wake  into  the  free  gesture  of  life,  into  the  blade, 
the  ear,  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 

So  Martyn  Paine.  But  is  it  hard  for  us,  who  are  not  of  1839  or 
1840,  to  see  that  the  desiccated  seed-corn  is  living  not  for  what  it 
does,  if  it  does  aught  in  a  faint-hearted  way  to  resist  death,  but  just 
for  what  it  might  do?  It  is  still  on  account  of  its  doing  that  we 
call  it  alive ;  but  on  account  of  its  prospective,  not  of  its  actual  doing. 
It  is  now  alive,  for  we  may  now  calculate  from  its  condition  what 
under  other  conditions  it  would  do. 

If  there  is  any  analogy  between  dormant  life  and  passive  think- 
ing I  take  some  comfort  in  the  formula  in  which  my  thesis  was  pre- 
sented. Consciousness  is  behavior,  if  you  will,  but ' '  more  accurately, 
our  belief  in  consciousness  is  an  expectation  of  probable  behavior 
based  on  an  observation  of  actual  behavior,  a  belief  to  be  confirmed 
or  refuted  by  more  observation  as  any  other  belief  in  a  fact  is  to  be 
tried  out." 

If  Martyn  Paine  had  so  viewed  dormant  life,  he  would  not  have 
felt  the  need  of  appealing  to  a  vital  principle.  He  would  not  have 
added  this  unobservable  thing  to  facts  observable  in  order  to  explain 
the  meaning  of  the  terms  we  use  in  describing  these  facts.  If  we 
can  bring  ourselves  to  view  the  passive  thinker  as  we  view  passive 


210  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

life,  we  shall  not  have  to  add  an  "eject"  or  "thing-in-itself  "  to  the 
behavior  we  see  in  him  in  order  to  explain  what  more  than  this 
meager  behavior  is  the  rich  thought  we  attribute  to  him.  We  shall 
perhaps  find  that  what  we  add  to  behavior  actually  observed  is  an 
actual  calculus  of  probabilities;  but  the  nature  of  this  calculus  de- 
mands the  nicest  analysis  both  as  to  the  grounds  on  which  it  rests 
and  as  to  the  kind  of  test  to  which  it  can  ultimately  be  put. 

To  come  at  the  matter  from  another  angle :  the  analogy  argument 
for  other  minds  would  not  be  so  pernicious  if  it  were  not  so  true. 
It  offers  an  accurate  account  of  what  I  do  when  I  furnish  a  passive 
thinker's  mind  for  him,  only  it  fails  to  suggest  any  grounds  on  which 
I  may  justify  my  doing;  it  avoids  pointing  out  a  way  by  which  I 
may  discover  a  mistake  if  I  have  made  one  or  enjoy  the  sense  of 
truth  if  I  have  hit  on  it. 

Yonder,  say,  is  my  thinker.  It  is  of  course  the  observation  of 
past  and  present  behavior  that  invites  me  to  consider  him  as  a  thinker 
at  all  and  may  even  suggest  to  me  that  his  thought  is  dwelling  on  a 
mathematical  problem.  But  sooner  or  later  in  defining  his  thought 
I  venture  a  leap  in  the  dark — fill  his  mind  with  the  kind  of  thing 
that  goes  on  in  mine.  I  am  not  justified  by  observation,  but 
since  I  know  that  a  mathematician  can  not  think  about  mathematics 
in  the  abstract  I  give  him  a  definite  problem.  He  is  trying  to  inte- 
grate a  differential  equation ;  now  he  has  seized  upon  a  transforma- 
tion that  looks  promising;  for  a  moment  he  hopes,  in  another  moment 
he  has  cast  the  suggestion  aside — it  has  not  worked.  One  may  elab- 
orate to  one's  taste,  one  is  still  abstract  while  the  fact  before  one 
must  be  concrete.  Our  mathematician  is  integrating?  Very  well, 
what  is  he  integrating?  Is  it  an  equation  of  the  third  order  and 
fourth  degree,  or  of  the  fourth  order  and  third  degree,  or  of  some 
other  order  and  some  other  degree  ? 

The  obvious  resource  of  one  who  wants  to  know  is  to  ask  the 
thinker  what  he  is  thinking  about.  Whereupon  the  obvious  remark 
of  one  who  regards  consciousness  as  expected  behavior  is  that  one  who 
so  asks  is  appealing  to  behavior  to  confirm  or  refute  his  expectation. 
But  such  a  triumph  is  brief.  The  man  who  replies  is  already  other 
than  the  man  who  thought.  He  is  in  a  more  advantageous  position 
than  I  to  venture  a  guess  in  the  same  sense  that  he  is  better  placed 
than  I  to  see  the  wall  behind  my  head ;  but  for  him  as  for  me  it  is 
only  a  guess.  Memory  is  generally  less  fallible  than  divination,  but 
it  is  fallible  enough.  Meanwhile  if  the  question  as  to  this  thinker's 
past  has  a  meaning  it  has  also  an  answer  and  there  is  a  definable 
method  of  arriving  at  this  answer  or  at  least  of  indefinitely  approxi- 
mating it.  An  appeal  to  the  thinker  to  tell  us  what  was  his  thought 
can  not  give  us  the  truth  nor  open  a  way  by  which  we  may  approach 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          211 

the  truth.  The  thought  just  past  is  lost  in  the  infinite  ocean  of  the 
past,  the  pebble  just  now  dropped  into  this  ocean  is  no  easier  of  re- 
covery than  is  the  treasure  sunk  there  a  thousand  years  ago. 

Let  us  then  merge  our  present  problem  in  a  more  general  one; 
let  us  try  to  solve  the  difficult  in  terms  of  the  more  difficult;  let  us 
substitute  for  our  passive  thinker  another  hero. 

From  certain  letters  of  his,  I  judge  that  George  Washington  spent 
Christmas  Day,  1790,  at  Mount  Vernon.  That  there  was  a  George 
Washington  and  that  he  was  in  a  certain  neighborhood  at  a  certain 
past  time  an  examination  of  now  existing  things  will  enable  me  to  es- 
tablish. But  what  of  his  slave-boy  Caesar?  Was  there  such  a  slave- 
boy?  At  noon  of  this  day  was  he  in  the  kitchen  of  Mount  Vernon 
helping  the  cook?  And  what  was  going  through  his  mind  at  the 
moment?  Was  or  wasn't  it  a  thought  of  approaching  dinner? 

These  questions,  humble  in  themselves,  acquire  an  immense  dig- 
nity when  we  realize  that  it  tasks  all  our  philosophy  to  answer  them. 
Yet  there  must  be  a  way  of  answering  such  questions,  or  else  there 
is  in  the  domain  of  reality  such  a  thing  as  an  unknowable  fact.  This 
is  an  equally  portentous  figure  to  introduce  into  one's  philosophy, 
whether  it  stand  for  the  being  and  thought  of  a  slave,  or  whether  it 
be  taken  for  the  hidden  name  of  God.  In  either  meaning,  in  all 
meanings,  it  is  a  term  that  I  have  long  decided  to  leave  out  of  my 
philosophy.  The  right  to  do  so  is  one  of  those  questions  of  back- 
ground with  which  I  am  not  on  this  occasion  dealing. 

For  me,  then,  and  for  all  who  so  far  agree  with  me,  there  must 
be  a  way  of  reconstructing  the  past.  Now  the  only  way  of  recon- 
structing the  past  which  science  has  so  far  developed  is  suggested  by 
the  classic  saying  of  La  Place:  "Give  me  the  mass,  position,  and 
velocity  of  every  particle  of  matter  in  the  universe,  and  I  will  pre- 
dict its  future  and  recount  its  past."  I  say  this  utterance  of  La 
Place  suggests  a  method  of  reconstruction :  it  does  not  define  one ; 
he  existed  at  a  moment  of  the  history  of  mechanics  that  took  too 
seriously  the  conception  of  law  at  which  it  happened  to  have  arrived. 
Of  the  refinements  and  generalizations  that  would  have  to  be  intro- 
duced in  order  to  convert  this  suggestion  into  a  definition,  I  have 
treated  elsewhere,  and  as  they  do  not  affect  the  issue  with  which  we 
are  now  dealing  I  shall  pretend  to  take  La  Place  quite  seriously. 

If  we  do  take  such  ideas  seriously,  we  realize  that  the  conditions 
on  which  the  whole  past  may  be  reconstructed  can  never  be  realized. 
The  data  La  Place  asks  for  are  infinite,  the  law  by  which  he  pretends 
to  handle  these  data  is  a  law  that  is  known  to  hold  only  within  limits 
of  probable  error  which  can  never  be  reduced  to  zero.  But  what  is 
interesting  in  the  situation  is  that  we  can  see  no  obstacle  to  the  gath- 
ering of  more  and  more  of  the  data  demanded,  nor  to  the  endless  re- 


212  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

duction  of  the  probable  error  which  attaches  to  any  law  in  which  we 
propose  to  substitute  the  data  gathered. 

We  have  here  then  a  method  of  approximating  indefinitely  a  cer- 
tain order  of  facts ;  but  alas !  it  seems  to  be  an  order  very  different 
from  that  in  which  lay  the  facts  about  which  we  enquired.  We 
asked,  Did  such  a  being  live?  Did  he  have  such  and  such  a  thought? 
And  we  are  answered,  At  least  you  may  find  out  within  any  degree 
of  accuracy  required  what  atoms  were  in  the  neighborhood  at  the 
time  you  mention  and  how  they  were  moving. 

I  was  asked  at  the  outset,  Is  the  movement  of  an  atom  a  thought  ? 
I  was  afraid  to  answer  yes,  and  I  was  afraid  to  answer  no.  But 
such  courage  has  come  to  me  with  study  that  I  am  now  prepared  to 
answer,  yes  and  no.  In  order  that  this  answer  may  not  seem  in  any 
way  ambiguous  or  evasive,  I  must  explain  that  the  movement  of  an 
atom  is  the  movement  of  an  atom  and  a  thousand  things  beside. 

When  my  love  swears  that  she  is  made  of  truth 
I  do  believe  her  though  I  know  she  lies. 

As  these  lines  passed  for  the  first  time  through  the  poet's  mind,  I  am 
ready  to  believe  any  La  Place  who  tells  me  that  an  atom  of  carbon 
in  the  poet's  brain  described  such  and  such  a  path.  But  if  the  same 
reconstructor  assured  me  that  another  atom  of  carbon,  more  like  the 
first  than  one  pea  is  like  another,  described  just  such  another  path  as 
a  certain  lump  of  coal  was  being  shot  into  my  bin,  I  know  not  how  I 
should  disbelieve  him.  What  then  ?  If  moving  atoms  are  thoughts, 
had  not  that  lump  of  coal  a  bit  of  the  poet  in  its  make  up  ? 

Love,  as  our  poet  sings  it,  is  not  the  only  god  that  teaches  the  ear 
to  be  willing  and  the  heart  to  accept  truths  it  knows  to  be  untrue. 
Mathematical  science  with  its  beautiful  simplicity  has  a  way  of  cast- 
ing spells  as  deep.  The  lust  for  mechanical  images  is  as  seductive  to 
the  intellect  as  are  other  desires  to  the  flesh.  One  may  laugh,  but  one 
may  not  by  laughing  cure.  William  James  pointed  out  that  the  most 
ravishing  music  was  after  all  but  the  rasping  of  hairs  from  a  horse 's 
tail  on  the  intestines  of  a  cat.  Plato,  with  gentler  irony,  had  the 
Socrates  of  his  Phiedo  explain  his  situation  in  like  terms.  Why  was 
he  sitting  there  awaiting  the  cup,  instead  of  flying  to  Megara  or 
Bceotia?  After  all  it  was  because  his  bones  were  at  a  certain  angle 
with  each  other  and  his  muscles  drawn  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep 
them  so. 

Such  sayings  as  these  would  be  without  humor  if  they  were  not 
true.  There  is  nothing  false  in  any  of  them — or  at  least  there  is 
nothing  more  false  than  the  recurrent  "after  all"  which  seems  merely 
to  introduce  them.  However,  nothing  can  belie  a  truth  as  can  the 
gesture  with  which  it  is  presented.  Granted  that  the  poet,  the 


213 

musician,  the  moral  being,  is  a  congeries  of  moving  atoms,  is  he  after 
all  nothing  more?  Gossmann  in  his  Empirische  Teleologie  has  a  way 
of  answering  the  question  which  has  always  seemed  to  me  full  of 
meaning.  Because,  he  says,  mechanism  is  allgultig  it  is  not  there- 
fore alleingiiltig.  Mechanical  insights  give  the  truth,  they  only  de- 
ceive us  when  we  take  this  to  be  the  whole  truth. 

Now  the  vice  of  those  who  in  the  past  have  criticized  the  view  that 
would  treat  mind  as  an  aspect  of  mechanical  behavior  is  that  the 
critics  themselves  have  been  the  slaves  of  mechanical  and  mathe- 
matical ideas.  They  have  seen  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the 
movement  of  atoms  taking  place  in  a  body  can  not  be  the  thought  of 
that  body  viewed  as  a  thinker.  They  have  proceeded  with  the  in- 
stinct of  a  mathematician  to  add  something,  just  as  a  cook  whose  dish 
is  tasteless  adds  seasoning.  But  as  they  couldn't  get  the  right  flavor 
by  adding  more  atomic  movements,  they  added  an  "eject,"  a 
" parallel  series,"  an  " epiphenomenon. " 

My  whole  suggestion  is  that  instead  of  helping  out  the  shortcom- 
ings of  a  mechanical  description  of  experience  by  the  mechanical 
addition  of  something  not  falling  within  experience,  we  simply 
change  our  point  of  view  toward  the  mechanism  with  which  we  are 
presented  when  that  mechanism  also  behaves  in  a  teleological  way. 
Then  we  shall  not  be  tempted,  in  trying  to  say  what  the  movement 
of  a  certain  atom  of  carbon  has  to  do  with  Shakespeare's  thought,  to 
study  its  analogy  with  all  similar  movements  of  atoms  of  carbon  in 
the  wide  world.  If  we  insist  on  doing  this  we  can  not  fail  to  arrive 
at  the  conclusion  that  such  movements  as  a  class  have  nothing  to  do 
with  thoughts  as  a  class.  But  then,  if  in  order  to  learn  what  the 
turning  of  a  certain  wheel  in  my  watch  had  to  do  with  keeping  time, 
I  compared  it  with  all  the  wheels  in  the  world,  those  of  locomotives, 
those  of  rapid-fire  artillery,  and  the  rest,  I  should  have  to  conclude 
that  wheels  as  a  class  have  nothing  to  do  with  chronometry. 

I  come  back  at  last  to  my  passive  thinker.  What  I  observe  of  his 
present  behavior  is  not  his  thought ;  what  I  expect  in  the  way  of  fu- 
ture behavior  is  not  the  full  meaning  of  his  thought  even  though  that 
behavior  be  a  minute  exposition  on  his  part  of  what  he  believes  to 
have  been  his  thought;  what  I  might  observe  of  the  minutest  me- 
chanical changes  in  him  is  or  is  not  his  thought  as  I  view  it.  Detail 
by  detail  these  atomic  movements  may  be  classed  with  other  atomic 
movements  and  the  class  has  no  common  function.  Putting  all  to- 
gether— all  that  are  contained  within  his  skin — I  should  think  it  un- 
likely that  if  they  occurred  within  another  skin  placed  in  other  sur- 
roundings they  would  work  the  same  ends,  be  essential  to  the  same 
activity  of  mind.  But  in  so  far  as  they  are  the  mechanism  by  which 
the  same  peculiar  aspect  of  teleological  behavior  may  everywhere  be 


214  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

worked  out — then  I  am  willing  to  say,  This  is  the  behavior  of  the 
passive  thinker  that  I  mean  by  his  thought.  I  should  begin  by  look- 
ing for  such  movements  of  atoms  as  actually  moved  too  slightly  for 
us  to  notice  it — the  organs  of  expression,  the  tongue,  principally,  and 
the  eyes.  Or  perhaps  I  should  find  part  of  the  movements  to  be  of 
this  nature,  part  of  them  such  as  strained  the  muscles  that  inhibited 
such  expression.  Either  would  be  the  first  step  toward  a  teleological 
interpretation  of  a  mechanical  event.  But  of  these  details  I  am  not 
sure.  To  find  just  what  that  behavior  is  which  others  call  the  cri- 
terion of  mind  and  which  I  call  mind  is  a  problem  of  long  and  care- 
ful analysis.  For  this  analysis  we  must  turn  to  the  psychologist,  and, 
above  all,  I  have  recently  come  to  hope,  to  the  comparative  psychol- 
ogist. Yet  even  this  hope  must  learn  to  be  patient.  When  one  passes 
beyond  new  observations  to  look  for  new  interpretations  one  finds  the 
shadow  of  the  eject  clouding  fresh  fields. 

"Bien  entendu,"  writes  Georges  Bohn  in  a  chapter  discussing 
the  "criteria  of  psychism"8 — "bien  entendu,  je  ne  parlerai  pas  ici 
de  la  conscience  des  animaux.  Je  ne  la  nie  pas,  mais  je  ne  peux  rien 
savoir  a  son  egard.  Je  parlerai  de  psychisme,  ce  mot  designant  la 
complexity  de  phenomenes  que  je  parviens  a  analyser  plus  ou  moins." 

I  can  not  think  a  metaphysics  useless  that  might  prevent  a  writer 
of  the  keen  intelligence  of  M.  Bohn  from  perverting  his  own  sense  of 
what  words  should  mean  to  the  use  of  those  whom  he  occasionally 
refers  to  as  "metaphysicians."  In  science  as  elsewhere  it  is  not  a 
bad  thing  to  have  one's  courage  with  one,  and  a  very  little,  I  should 
think,  would  suffice  to  "deny"  what  one  "will  not  speak  of" — what 
one  can  not  speak  of  for  the  simple  reason  that  one  can  know  noth- 
ing about  it.  Isn't  it  saner  to  seek  the  meaning  of  consciousness 
itself  among  "the  phenomena  one  can  more  or  less  analyze"? 

EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR. 

UNIVEESITT  or  PENNSYLVANIA. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology.  GEORGE  TRDMBULL  LADD  and 
ROBERT  SESSIONS  WOODWORTH.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
1911.  Pp.  xix  +  704. 

The  "  Elements  "  has  served  a  generation  of  psychological  students  as 
a  storehouse  of  information,  covering  not  only  the  phenomena  of  nervous 
structure  and  function  in  their  relation  to  the  processes  of  consciousness, 
but  practically  the  whole  domain  upon  which  experimental  psychology 
had  entered  at  the  time  of  its  publication,  embracing  all  the  orders  of 

•"Naissance  de  I'lntelligence, "  p.  111. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          215 

sensation,  perception  of  objects,  the  time-relations  of  mental  phenomena, 
emotional  states,  the  system  of  expressive  reactions,  and  reproductive 
processes.  If  the  great  extension  of  research,  not  only  into  new  fields,  but 
also  within  each  individual  group  of  problems,  be  kept  in  mind,  it  is  high 
praise  to  say  that  the  new  edition  has  fully  maintained  the  standard  of 
comprehensiveness  and  exactness  by  which  the  work  was  originally 
marked. 

What  this  extension  means  in  mere  bulk  and  in  the  tax  it  imposes  on 
the  authors,  in  making  the  work  representative  of  the  status  of  research 
throughout  the  field  discussed,  may  be  inferred  from  a  comparison  of  the 
number  of  sources  cited  in  the  two  editions,  respectively.  In  the  old, 
there  were  some  hundred  and  fifty,  all  told;  in  the  new,  considerably  over 
five  hundred,  or  well  on  for  four  times  as  many,  appear.  The  increase  in 
number  of  individual  citations  in  the  new  edition  is  even  greater  than  is 
indicated  by  a  comparison  of  authors,  for  while  in  the  original  edition 
only  one  fourth  of  the  names  occurred  more  than  once,  repeated  citations 
in  the  present  mark  nearly  one  half  the  names. 

Yet  the  bulk  and  weight  of  the  volume  have  not  been  increased.  The 
numbered  pages  of  text  in  the  new  edition  are  less  by  one  than  in  the  old ; 
and  while  the  total  number  in  the  revised  edition  is  greater  by  some  half 
dozen  pages,  the  use  of  a  thinner,  but  tougher  and  more  flexible,  paper  has 
slightly  decreased  the  thickness  of  the  volume.  At  the  same  time,  noth- 
ing has  been  sacrificed  in  the  way  of  topographical  excellence.  The  paper 
is  solidly  opaque  and  white,  the  type  large  and  clear.  The  pages,  also, 
are  of  the  same  size  as  in  the  original  and  the  number  of  lines  to  a  page 
remains  unchanged. 

The  subject-index  of  the  new  edition  shows  an  enlargement  even 
greater  than  that  which  marks  the  list  of  authors,  increasing  from  about 
one  hundred  and  forty  titles  to  almost  eight  hundred,  or  nearly  six  times. 
When  it  is  recalled  that  not  only  has  the  general  product  of  experimental 
research  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  been  added  to  the  matter 
contained  in  the  original  edition,  but  that  wholly  new  chapters  have  been 
introduced,  such  as  the  discussion  of  the  process  of  learning  and  of  the 
place  of  the  nervous  system  in  the  animal  kingdom,  the  successful 
confinement  of  bulk  within  the  limits  of  an  easily  handled  volume  is 
the  more  remarkable.  This  has  been  accomplished  in  two  ways.  The 
more  obvious  of  these  is  the  omission  of  certain  chapters  of  a  more  theo- 
retical or  speculative  character  which  leaves  the  empirical  summation  un- 
affected. The  more  important  modification  in  this  regard,  however,  is  the 
painstaking  economy  of  statement  which  is  maintained  throughout  the 
work.  How  much  has  been  done  in  this  way,  even  in  those  parts  which 
have  undergone  the  least  material  changes  or  additions,  can  be  appreci- 
ated only  by  a  careful  comparative  reading  of  the  two  editions,  chapter 
by  chapter.  The  whole  work  is  a  close-packed  compendium  of  research 
which  represents  nothing  less  than  the  history  of  physiological  psychology 
during  the  past  twenty-five  years,  the  first  generation  of  its  continuous 
and  general  activity. 

What  that  period  of  time  has  meant  in  the  history  of  experimental 


216  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

psychology  in  America,  in  its  bearing  both  upon  the  general  extension  of 
interest  in  the  study  and  in  the  development  of  the  technical  means  of 
research,  is  indicated  by  a  comparison  of  the  place  which  American  titles 
hold  in  the  two  editions.  In  the  original  work  a  half  dozen  such  names 
occur,  or  one  in  twenty-five;  in  the  present  edition  there  are,  roughly,  six 
times  that  number,  or  nearly  one  fourth  the  total.  Even  allowing  for 
greater  completeness  in  the  review  of  American  literature,  this  change  of 
relative  position  is  impressive.  Nor  is  the  advance  restricted  to  any  indi- 
vidual province;  it  appears  in  the  comparative  study  of  organic  types,  in 
physiological  research,  and  in  the  field  of  exceptional  and  pathological 
.phenomena  as  well  as  in  the  study  of  normal  processes  in  the  human 
subject. 

The  general  arrangement  of  the  original  edition  is  retained  without 
change.  The  summary  of  psychological  data  is  supplemented  by  a  de- 
scription of  the  physical  basis  of  mental  activities  and  by  a  discussion  of 
the  theoretical  relations  which  exist  between  the  two  systems  of  phenom- 
ena. The  work  thus  comprises  three  general  divisions:  first,  a  detailed 
account  of  the  structure  and  functions  of  the  nervous  system;  secondly, 
the  presentation  of  the  qualitative,  quantitative,  and  temporal  correla- 
tions of  nervous  and  mental  activities;  and  lastly,  a  consideration  of  the 
nature  of  mind  in  the  light  of  the  preceding  discussion. 

The  first  part  presents  two  departures  from  the  first  edition,  apart 
from  the  many  internal  modifications  and  additions  by  which  it  is  marked. 
The  one  departure  consists  in  a  transference  of  the  two  chapters  on  cere- 
bral functions  from  their  original  place  in  the  second  part  to  the  close  of 
part  one.  The  change  brings  these  chapters  at  last  into  a  proper  relation 
with  the  discussion  of  the  mechanics  and  activities  of  the  nervous  system, 
to  which  the  first  part  of  the  work  is  devoted.  The  second  departure  ap- 
pears in  the  introduction  of  a  prefatory  chapter  on  the  significance  of  the 
nervous  system  in  the  animal  kingdom,  in  which  the  different  organic 
types  are  characterized  as  well  as  the  general  functions  of  nervous  ele- 
ments, tissues,  and  systems  pointed  out.  The  chemistry  of  the  nervous 
system  is  properly  given  a  separate  place  (new  ed.,  Chap.  V.).  It  is  not, 
however,  the  addition  of  a  new  discussion  to  the  text,  since  the  same  prob- 
lem is  treated  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  old  edition  ("  The  Elements  of 
the  Nervous  System  ").  The  subdivision  was  desirable,  not  only  in  view 
of  the  more  substantial  knowledge  now  possessed,  but  also  on  the  ground 
of  improvement  in  the  logical  scheme  of  treatment. 

It  seems  to  the  reviewer  scarcely  correct  to  say  in  the  preface  to  the 
new  edition  (p.  vi)  that  "  two  entire  chapters  .  .  .  have  been  added  to  part 
one,"  the  second  being  chapter  two  (new  ed.)  on  the  "  Development  of  the 
Nervous  System  in  the  Individual."  The  sixth  chapter  of  the  original 
edition  entitled,  "  The  Development  of  the  Nervous  Mechanism,"  is  de- 
voted to  this  question,  and  its  account  runs  parallel  to  that  of  the  new. 
What  does  mark  the  revision  is  the  greatly  increased  precision  with 
which  the  intimate  process  of  development  is  traced.  The  author  of  the 
original  edition,  limited  by  the  results  of  investigation  at  the  time,  was 
able  to  follow,  by  contrast,  only  the  gross  features  of  the  process.  In  con- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          217 

eluding  the  chapter  he  adds  the  words:  "All  the  coarser  differentiations 
of  structure  to  which  reference  has  thus  far  been  made  are  only  the  ex- 
pression— so  to  speak — of  certain  histogenetic  changes  which  hare  been 
secretly  taking  place."  These  changes  are  now  largely  an  open  secret,  and 
it  is  in  the  detailed  description  of  the  histological  development  of  the 
nervous  system  that  the  new  edition  differs  from  the  old,  rather  than  in 
the  introduction  of  an  organic  part  of  the  discussion  previously  omitted. 

The  advance  in  histology  is  also  reflected  in  the  admirable  and  abun- 
dant illustration  which  accompanies  this  section  of  the  new  edition.  It 
is  shown,  for  example,  in  the  description  of  the  elements  of  the  nervous 
system,1  especially  in  the  new  series  of  cuts  (Figs.  46-59).  In  the  orig- 
inal edition  there  was  not  a  single  illustration  of  the  minute  geography 
of  the  nervous  system  and  its  elements  which  this  series  of  figures  repre- 
sents in  such  variety  and  detail.  The  evidence  of  progress  in  this  direc- 
tion is  not  confined  to  a  single  chapter,  but  extends  throughout  the 
anatomical  part  of  the  work;  compare,  for  example,  as  regards  both  text 
and  illustration,  the  discussion  of  the  microscopical  structure  of  the  cor- 
tical layers  of  the  hemispheres.  The  full  treatment  of  the  nervous  system 
from  all  standpoints — structural,  functional,  chemical,  developmental,  etc. 
— as  an  introduction  to  the  psychological  discussion  of  problems  of  psycho- 
physiological  interrelation  gives  the  work  an  independent  value  for  the 
medical  physiologist  and  alienist  which  no  description  of  the  purely  mental 
phenomena  could  possess.  At  the  same  time  the  "  Elements  "  provides 
only  the  general  basis  for  the  work  of  physician  and  psychiatrist  since  its 
scope  is  restricted  to  the  phenomena  of  normal  psychophysiology,  a  limita- 
tion which  is  strictly  adhered  to  even  when  it  involves  the  exclusion  of 
data  repeatedly  dealt  with  in  psychological  laboratories,  such  as  the  influ- 
ence of  drugs  upon  reaction  times,  expressive  movement,  and  the  percep- 
tion of  objects  and  space  relations. 

The  second  part  of  the  work  retains  the  arrangement  of  the  original 
edition  throughout.  Its  general  subject  is  psychophysical  correlation 
which  is  treated  qualitatively  in  relation  to  three  groups  of  mental  phe- 
nomena— sensations,  perceptions,  and  representations;  quantitatively,  in 
the  discussion  of  the  psychophysic  law,  so-called;  and  temporally,  in  the 
review  of  reaction  time  and  its  complications.  Apart  from  the  revision 
and  supplementation  which  mark  practically  every  page,  this  section  of 
the  work  is  notable  chiefly  for  the  new  matter  added  in  the  later  chapters, 
in  which  are  summarized  the  experimental  investigations  of  association 
and  memory;  of  the  nature  and  forms  of  learning,  both  in  man  and 
simpler  organic  types;  and  of  the  mechanism  of  thought  processes,  atten- 
tion and  its  fluctuations,  varied  reactions,  comparison,  abstraction,  and 
the  forms  of  reasoning. 

In  this  central  division  of  the  work,  as  well  as  in  the  first  part,  certain 
general  features  of  the  revision  may  be  noted.  First,  of  course,  is  the 
great  addition  to  the  mass  of  individual  observations  recorded,  but  this 
is  only  the  beginning  of  what  the  new  edition  represents.  Equally  strik- 

JOld  Ed.,  Chap.  L;  New  Ed.,  Chap.  IV. 


218  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  is  the  reinspection  within  each  individual  field  which,  through  its  de- 
termination of  the  more  intimate  nature  of  the  processes  involved,  has 
resulted  in  many  important  changes  in  our  conception  of  the  phenomena 
— for  instance,  in  the  distribution  of  elements  in  the  time-scheme  of  re- 
actions, in  eye-movements  and  the  visual  perception  of  objects  and  space 
relations,  in  the  orientation  of  the  body  and  its  sensational  basis,  etc.  A 
thin!  feature  is  the  application  of  experimental  methods  to  a  larger  range 
of  psychological  problems  which  is  illustrated  in  the  study  of  learning 
and  the  acquisition  of  skill  and  in  the  analysis  of  thought  processes 
through  controlled  introspection.  A  fourth  phase  may  be  added,  namely, 
the  endeavor,  in  both  sections  of  the  work,  to  bring  together  the  results  of 
investigation  upon  human  subjects  and  various  types  lower  in  the  organic 
series,  in  order  to  achieve  a  more  adequate  view  of  the  forms  of  behavior 
and  their  systematic  modifications.  This  last  point  of  view,  however,  is 
not  maintained  throughout  the  work,  but  rather  appears  as  a  conception 
applied  in  connection  with  specific  problems,  such  as  the  development  of 
a  nervous  system  in  the  organic  kingdom  and  the  comparison  of  processes 
of  learning  in  man  and  brute. 

In  the  third  part,  "  The  Nature  of  the  Mind,"  the  more  theoretical  or 
speculative  problems  concerning  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  are  dis- 
cussed in  later  and  earlier  editions  alike.  To  this  section  in  the  original 
plan  should  properly  be  assigned  the  last  chapter  of  part  two  on  "  Certain 
Static  Relations  of  the  Body  and  Mental  Phenomena."  The  five  chapters, 
which  this  rearrangement  gives,  are  reduced  to  two  in  the  present  edition ; 
roughly,  the  discussion  is  cut  down  to  one  half  its  bulk.  This  modifica- 
tion is  in  service  of  the  specific  aim  of  the  book,  to  confine  attention  as 
closely  as  possible  to  the  summation  of  empirical  investigations  and  the 
correlation  of  their  results  in  descriptive  and  explanatory  concepts.  This 
reduction  has  made  possible  a  very  considerable  addition  to  the  facts  dis- 
cussed, without  increasing  the  bulk  of  the  volume. 

Throughout  the  work  the  authors  show  an  admirable  common  sense 
and  succinctness  of  statement  in  their  presentation  of  the  multitude  of 
facts  with  which,  in  its  several  parts,  the  work  deals.  In  very  many 
places  a  fine  expository  sense  is  necessary  to  set  forth  intelligibly  the  re- 
sults of  complicated  investigations  without  that  elaborate  description  of 
methods  and  instruments  which  the  scope  of  the  "  Elements  "  makes  im- 
possible. In  very  many  cases,  also,  a  sustained  critical  judgment  is  es- 
sential to  the  appraisement  of  both  methods  of  research  and  bearing  of 
results  upon  debated  theories.  In  all  these  ways  the  authors  seem  to  have 
maintained  an  attitude  for  which  they  deserve  the  highest  praise. 

ROBERT  MACDOUOALL. 
NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY. 

Geschichte  der  Psychologie.     OTTO  KLEMM.     (No.  VI II.  of  the  Series, 
"  Wissenschaf  t  und  Hypothese.")    Leipzig  and  Berlin :  B.  G.  Teubner. 
1911.    Pp.  387. 
A  general  history  of  psychology,  not  limited  to  one  period  (like  the 

work  of  Siebeck),  nor  to  one  nation   (like  that  of  Dessoir),  certainly 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          219 

answers  a  felt  need,  and  such  a  history  is  here  attempted  in  commend- 
ably  brief  compass.  No  limitation  of  scope  is  stated  by  the  author,  but  it 
is  evident  that  he  does  not  attempt  to  do  justice  to  the  most  recent  period; 
otherwise  he  would  scarcely  have  sketched  the  development  of  experi- 
mental psychology  with  no  mention  of  the  work  on  memory;  nor  the  de- 
velopment of  individual  psychology  with  no  mention  of  Galton  nor  of  any 
other  author  from  1782  down  to  Stern.  Had  he  seriously  meant  to  trace 
the  recent  course  of  psychological  discussion,  he  would  probably  have 
deemed  James  worthy  of  more  than  seven  lines  and  Ebbinghaus  of  more 
than  five,  and  found  occasion  to  mention  such  names  as  Ward,  Stout,  etc. 
The  references  to  recent  work  lack  balance  and  perspective,  and  the  his- 
tory should  properly  be  taken  as  ending  at  about  1870-1880. 

The  older  history  is  rather  attractively  told.  There  is,  indeed,  little  of 
the  personal  note;  biographical  facts  are  usually  limited  to  dates.  A 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  philosophy  is  presupposed  in  the  reader,  for 
the  development  is  here  traced  topic  by  topic,  a  very  serviceable  mode  of 
presentation,  though  it  leads  to  some  disjointedness  in  the  treatment  of 
related  topics,  and  to  the  omission  of  any  consecutive  account  of  the 
psychology  of  such  men  as  Aristotle  or  Locke.  The  main  headings  under 
which  the  subject  is  treated  are:  metaphysical  psychology,  empirical 
psychology  (the  faculty  psychology,  the  inner  sense,  the  association  psy- 
chology, Herbart's  psychical  mechanics,  comparative  psychology,  and  mod- 
ern scientific  psychology),  fundamental  concepts  of  psychology  (defi- 
nition of  psychology,  consciousness,  classification  of  the  contents  of  con- 
sciousness, psychological  methods,  psychical  measurements),  the  most  im- 
portant theories  (of  sensation  in  general,  of  sight  and  hearing,  of  space 
perception,  of  feeling,  and  of  will). 

The  value  of  the  different  sections  will,  of  course,  differ  with  the 
reader;  to  the  reviewer  one  of  the  most  instructive  chapters  was  that  on 
the  faculty  psychology.  Probably  every  reader  will  find  many  pages  for 
which  he  will  thank  the  author. 

Though  the  history  of  psychology,  up  to  recent  times,  is  closely  bound 
up  with  the  history  of  philosophy,  the  psychological  importance  of  the  sev- 
eral philosophers  is  by  no  means  always  proportional  to  their  importance 
in  metaphysics,  and  thus  it  happens  that  many  an  author  who  is  passed 
over  lightly  in  the  histories  of  philosophy  is  worthy  of  considerable  atten- 
tion from  the  psychologist.  Such  were,  to  judge  from  the  present  book, 
Alcahan,  Buridan,  Vives,  Bonnet,  names  unfamiliar  to  the  psychologist, 
but  deserving  to  be  brought  to  his  attention.  A  defect  of  the  book  in  this 
regard  is  assuredly  the  almost  complete  neglect  of  the  Scottish  school, 
with  the  exception  of  Hamilton.  The  eighteenth  and  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth centuries  receive,  on  the  whole,  the  most  attention,  and  it  is  in 
regard  to  this  period  that  the  author's  treatment  is  most  valuable.  Most 
of  the  psychological  beginnings  of  the  eighteenth  century  were,  as  the 
author  says,  submerged  by  the  flood  of  critical  and  romantic  philosophy; 
only  the  associationist  psychology  was  saved  by  the  continuity  of  British 
tradition. 

Objections  might  be  raised  at  several  points  to  the  author's  historical 


220  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

interpretations.  His  conception  of  the  origin  of  empirical  psychology  is, 
for  example  (p.  45),  that  "inner  perception  first  became  aware  of  the 
greatest  differences  between  complex  experiences,"  and  that  the  classes 
of  experiences  so  separated  were  substantialized  and  made  over  into  pow- 
ers or  forces;  and  so  arose  the  conception  of  faculties  of  the  soul,  a  con- 
ception which,  in  spite  of  its  scientific  deficiencies,  "was  yet  suited  in  a 
high  degree  to  portray  the  course  of  experiences  as  they  presented  them- 
selves to  primitive  inner  perception."  It  is  improbable  that  the  notion  of 
faculties  arose  from  inner  observation,  for  when,  in  recent  times,  the  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  find  the  introspective  differentia  of  judgment, 
will,  memory,  imagination,  etc.,  no  obtrusive  and  characteristic  differences 
have  appeared.  It  is  much  more  likely  that  the  faculties  were  from  the 
beginning  functions,  performances,  modes  of  behavior,  and  that  they  were 
distinguished  not  by  introspection,  but  in  terms  of  their  end-results,  even 
as  the  faculties  of  nutrition  and  reproduction  were  distinguished.  The 
faculty  psychology  was  based  on  a  teleological  classification,  and  this  was 
its  deficiency,  since,  being  contented  to  define  mental  performances  by 
their  end-results,  it  felt  no  need  either  for  introspective  description  or  for 
a  causal  mechanics  of  mental  processes. 

Again,  it  seems  likely  that  in  tracing  the  beginnings  of  modern  scien- 
tific psychology  back  almost  wholly  to  physiology  and  especially  to  Ger- 
man sense  physiology,  the  author  is  guilty  of  a  serious  though  common 
omission.  Two  other  streams  of  influence  have  certainly  been  potent  in 
producing  the  psychology  of  to-day.  One  is  a  biological  influence,  which, 
through  Darwin  and  Galton,  has  given  us  our  child  and  individual  psy- 
chology, studies  of  mental  heredity,  of  the  correlation  of  abilities,  etc. 
The  other  is  a  medical  influence,  very  strong  in  French  psychology,  and 
probably  traceable  back  to  Charcot  more  than  to  any  other  one  man.  This 
influence,  as  every  one  knows,  was  potent  in  forming  the  psychology  of 
James  as  well  as  of  many  living  psychologists  in  all  lands.  Each  of  these 
two  lines  of  study  brought  to  psychology  a  wealth  of  empirical  data  as 
well  as  of  problems  and  methods ;  and  though  both  of  them  have  been  and 
still  more  will  be  indebted  to  the  experimental  psychology  of  Helmholtz, 
Fechner,  and  Wundt,  yet  the  historian  must  recognize  their  independence 
as  sources  of  the  fruitful  empirical  movement. 

K.  S.  WOODWORTH. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

Hegels  Qrundlinien  der  Philosophic  des  Rechts:  mit  den  von  Oans  redi- 
gierten  Zusdtzen  aus  Hegels  Vorlesungen.  Edited  by  GEORG  LASSON. 
Leipsic:  Felix  Meiner.  1911.  Pp.  xcv  4-380. 

The  present  edition  of  Hegel's  "  Rechtsphilosophie  "  is  without  doubt 
the  most  satisfactory  that  has  as  yet  appeared:  indeed,  it  will  probably 
take  its  place  as  the  standard  text  of  that  work.  The  faultiness  of  Hegel's 
original  text  (1821)  has  always  been  apparent  enough:  its  defects  are 
probably  due  to  the  fact  that  Hegel  never  read  the  proof-sheets  a  second 
time,  although  he  had  indicated  many  corrections  and  additions  upon  the 
first  proof  which  made  a  second  scrutiny  necessary.  At  any  rate,  the  text 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          221 

as  it  appeared  was  full  of  passages  which  have  baffled  the  student  and 
have  been  the  vexation  of  translators.  The  only  reconstruction  of  the 
text  worth  mentioning,  during  the  ninety  years  since,  is  the  well-known 
edition  of  Gans,  appearing  in  1833  and  1840,  made  familiar  to  English 
readers  through  the  translation  of  Dyde.  To  be  true,  there  is  the  edition 
of  G.  J.  P.  Bolland  (1902),  but  this  is  based  upon  the  Gans  edition,  and, 
while  improving  the  text  in  a  number  of  places,  is  hardly  a  critical  at- 
tempt of  a  fundamental  sort. 

The  present  edition  takes  its  point  of  departure,  not  from  the  Gans 
edition,  but  from  the  original  text  of  1821.  The  editor  has  attempted  to 
clear  this  text  of  its  obvious  inconsistencies  and  unintelligible  passages 
and  to  make  it  the  most  readable  text  possible.  This  he  has  achieved, 
first,  by  adding  words  where  they  seemed  necessary  to  the  sense  probably 
intended,  and  secondly,  where  this  device  failed,  by  downright  alterations 
in  the  sentence  construction.  These  changes,  as  well  as  the  variations 
from  Gans  and  Bolland,  are  carefully  noted  in  a  table  at  the  close  of  the 
volume.  Where  words  have  been  merely  added  by  the  editor,  they  have 
been  bracketed.  Thus,  the  Hegelian  text  is  still  kept  apparent — a  care 
which  Gans  did  not  always  observe,  since  he  sometimes  mingled  added 
matter  from  the  lecture-notes  with  the  text  itself,  although  he  usually 
segregated  them  as  addenda  to  the  paragraphs  they  were  meant  to  il- 
lumine. 

The  present  text,  then,  is  essentially  a  critical  restoration.  However, 
the  lecture-notes  of  the  Gans  edition  are  included;  only  they  are  here 
gathered  together  in  a  separate  portion  of  the  book.  In  the  original  text, 
Hegel  had  given  a  number  of  references  to  passages  in  his  "Phanomen- 
ologie  des  Geistes  "  and  to  the  "  Encyclopadie."  These  references,  which 
Gans  for  the  most  part  omitted,  are  reinstated. 

The  full  and  excellent  introduction  by  the  editor  is  especially  com- 
mendable. Pastor  Lasson  is  so  well  known  as  a  sympathetic  and  patient 
student  of  Hegel,  and  has  so  clearly  evinced  his  thorough  scholarship  in 
his  editions  of  the  "  Encyclopadie  "  and  of  the  "  Phanomenologie  "  that 
one  expects  to  find  a  luminous  commentary  in  the  first-hand  analysis  of 
the  relation  of  Hegel's  "  Rechtsphilosophie "  to  his  system  as  a  whole. 
There  is  also  a  summary  of  Hegel's  main  positions  in  the  book,  as  well  as 
a  section  relating  Hegel's  views  to  the  philosophic  interpretation  of  his- 
tory, in  terms  of  the  characteristic  Hegelian  conceptions. 

JAY  WILLIAM  HUDSON. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MISSOURI. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.  October, 
1911.  Psychopathology  of  Every-day  Life  (pp.  477-527) :  ERNEST  JONES, 
M.D.  -  According  to  the  interpretations  v:orked  out  by  Freud  many  of  the 
abnormalities  of  every-day  life  are  determined  rather  than  accidental. 
Examples  of  forgetting,  lapsus  linguae,  lapsus  calami,  misprints,  false 


222  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

visual  recognition,  mislaying  of  objects,  and  symptomatic  acts,  are  cited 
with  their  Freudian  explanations.  Some  general  observations  on  the 
scope,  possibilities,  and  influence  of  this  kind  of  observations  are  made. 
Modifications  of  the  normal  routine  of  mental  activity  come  as  a  result  of 
a  counter-impulse  or  as  a  restraint  to  some  tendency  associated  with  it. 
A  Case  of  Colored  Gustation  (pp.  528-539) :  JUNE  F.  DOWNEY.  -  A  report  of 
colored  gustation  like  the  more  common  instances  of  colored  audition. 
The  synesthetic  factor  is  sensational  in  value.  Often  the  color  of  the 
objects  may  enter  into  a  fusion  with  their  taste.  A  Note  on  the  Con- 
sciousness of  Self  (pp.  540-552)  :  E.  B.  TITCUENER.  -  Several  subjects  who 
had  been  trained  in  experimental  introspection  report  concerning  the 
consciousness  of  self.  It  appears  that  self-consciousness  appears  inter- 
mittently in  many  cases.  On  Meaning  and  Understanding  (pp.  553-577) : 
EDMUND  JACOBSON.  -  The  report  of  a  study  on  the  perception  of  letters, 
understanding  of  words  and  sentences  by  the  report  of  what  happens  in 
a  temporal  order  when  certain  stimuli  are  presented,  also  known  as  the 
Binet  or  Wurzburg  method.  Minor  Studies  from  the  Psychological  Lab- 
oratory of  Vassar  College.  The  Effect  of  Area  on  the  Pleasantness  of 
Color  (pp.  578-579) :  DOROTHY  CLARK,  MARY  S.  GOODELL  and  M.  F. 
WASHBURN.  -  Preferences  are  indicated  as  follows :  saturated  colors,  small 
areas  with  the  exception  of  red,  a  large  area  for  tints  and  shades.  Fluctu- 
ations in  the  Affective  Value  of  Colors  During  Fixation  for  One  Minute 
(pp.  579-582) :  DOROTHY  CRAWFORD  and  M.  F.  WASHBURN.  -  Associated 
ideas  increase  the  pleasantness  while  adaptation  seems  to  decrease  it. 
Imitation  in  Raccoons  (pp.  583-585) :  W.  T.  SHEPHERD.  -  The  raccoon 
does  not  show  inferential  or  a  high  type  of  imitation.  A  Bibliography  of 
the  Scientific  Writings  of  Wilhelm  Wundt  (pp.  586-587) :  E.  B.  TITCH- 
ENER  and  L.  R.  GEISSLER.  Book  Reviews:  W.  Jerusalem,  Introduction  to 
Philosophy:  W.  H.  SHELDON.  Thomas  Vernier  Moore,  The  Process  of 
Abstraction:  W.  F.  BOOK.  E.  Toulouse  et  H.  Pieron,  Technique  de  Psy- 
chologie  experimental  de  Toulouse,  Vaschide  et  Pieron:  E.  B.  T.  Book 
Notes  (pp.  600-604).  Subject  Index.  Names  of  Authors. 

REVUE  DE  METAPHYSIQUE  ET  DE  MORALE.  November, 
1911.  L'intuition  philosophique  (pp.  809-827):  H.  BERGSON. -"To  phi- 
losophize is  a  simple  act "  and  the  apparent  complications  of  philosophies 
are  superficial.  While  science  seeks  to  obey  nature  in  order  to  command, 
philosophy  seeks  to  sympathize  with  nature.  La  logique  deductive  (pp. 
828-883)  :  A.  PADUA.  -  An  exposition  of  the  latest  thing  in  logical  ideog- 
raphy.  La  mobilite  chimique  (pp.  884-903)  :  A.  JOB.  -  In  modern  chem- 
istry the  stable  emerges  from  the  unstable  and  the  one  is  explained  by  the 
other.  Etudes  critiques.  L'incoordonnable :  A.  LALANDE.  Varietes.  Ve. 
Congres'  international  de  Progres  religieux:  I.  BENRUBI.  Tables  des 
matieres.  Supplement. 

Bosanquet,  Bernard.  The  Principle  of  Individuality  an'd  Value.  The 
Gifford  Lectures  for  1911.  London:  The  Macmillan  Co.  1912. 
Pp.  xxxvii  +  409.  $3.25. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         223 

Boutroux,  Emile.     William  James.     New  York:  Longmans,  Green,  &  Co. 

1912.    Pp.  vii  +  126.    $1.00. 
Fouillee,  Alfred.      La  Pensee  et  Les  Nouvelles  Ecoles  Anti-Intellectual- 

istes.    Paris:  Librairie,  Felix  Alcan.    1911.    Pp.  xvi  +  412.    7  Fr.  50. 

MacVannel,  John  Angus.  Outline  of  a  Course  in  the  Philosophy  of  Edu- 
cation. New  York :  The  Macmillan  Co.  1912.  Pp.  ix  +  207.  $  .90. 

Ward,  James.  The  Realm  of  Ends  or  Pluralism  and  Theism.  The  Gifford 
Lectures  delivered  in  the  University  of  St.  Andrews  in  the  years 
1907-10.  New  York:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  Cambridge:  University 
Press.  1911.  Pp.  xvi  +  490.  $3.25. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

WE  quote  from  an  article  in  Science  on  "Pleistocene  Man  from  Ips- 
wich "  by  Professor  George  Grant  MacCurdy,  curator  of  the  anthropo- 
logical collection  of  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Natural  History :  "  If  the 
skeleton  does  not  represent  a  burial  and  if  the  chalky  sandy  loam  at  this 
point  is  a  part  of  the  original  mantel  of  boulder  clay,  then  the  man  of 
Ipswich  is  the  earliest  yet  found  with  the  exception  of  Homo  heidel- 
bergensis  (Pithecanthropus  not  being  considered  as  Homo).  It  would  cor- 
respond to  the  latest  eolithic  horizon,  the  so-called  Mesvinian,  and  would 
thus  be  somewhat  older  than  the  man  of  Galley  Hill,  provided  the  latter 
is  properly  dated.  But  as  I  pointed  out  in  a  recent  article  there  is  room 
for  doubt  as  to  the  age  of  the  Galley  Hill  skeleton.  From  the  foregoing 
account  it  would  seem  that  the  age  of  the  Ipswich  skeleton  is  also  still  an 
open  question.  The  importance  of  having  expert  witnesses  present  at  the 
disinterment  in  discoveries  of  this  class  was  perhaps  never  better  exempli- 
fied than  at  Galley  Hill  and  Ipswich.  Their  absence  will,  it  is  feared, 
always  leave  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  as  to  the  age  of  the  skeletons  in  ques- 
tion; and  doubt  is  a  serious  handicap  in  matters  of  such  scientific  import. 
If  both  these  specimens  are  correctly  dated,  then  there  lived  as  contem- 
poraries in  Europe  for  a  long  space  of  time  two  somatologically  distinct 
races — a  primitive  type  represented  by  the  Mauer  mandible,  Neandertal, 
Spy,  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  La  Quina,  etc.;  and  a  modern  type  represented 
by  Ipswich,  Galley  Hill,  and  possibly  Bury  St.  Edmunds." 

THE  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Western  Philosophical  Association  was 
held  at  the  University  of  Chicago  on  April  5  and  6.  The  following  papers 
were  read  at  the  session  on  April  5 :  "  The  Genesis  and  Functions  of  the 
Ethical  Ideal,"  Professor  George  T.  Kern ;  "  The  Essentials  of  a  First 
Course  in  Ethics,"  Professor  G.  D.  Wolcott ;  "  The  New  Individualism," 
Professor  J.  H.  Tufts ;  "  The  Introductory  Course  in  Ethics,"  Professor 
F.C. Sharp;  "  Some  Points  on  Presentation,"  Professor  J.H. Tufts;  "The 
Content  and  Method  of  the  First  College  Course  in  Ethics,"  Professor  J. 
W.  Hudson;  "College  Ethics  for  Freshmen,"  Professor  B.  C.  Ewer;  "Berg- 
son  and  Pragmatism,"  Professor  A.  W.  Moore.  On  April  6,  there  was  a 
joint  session  with  the  Western  Psychological  Association  at  which  the 


224  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

following  papers  were  read:  "  A  Psychological  Definition  of  Religion," 
Professor  W.  K.  Wright;  "  Present  Status  of  the  Problem  of  the  Relation 
between  Mind  and  Matter,"  Professor  Max  Meyer;  "  The  Two  Theories  of 
Consciousness  in  Bergson,"  Professor  E.  B.  McGilvary;  "  The  Mechanism 
of  Social  Consciousness,"  Professor  G.  H.  Mead ;  "  The  Paradoxes  of 
Pragmatism,"  Professor  B.  H.  Bode;  "The  Interpretation  of  Reality," 
Professor  W.  H.  Wright ;  "  Cognition,  Beauty,  and  Goodness,"  Professor 
H.  M.  Kallen ;  "  German  Pragmatism,"  Professor  G.  Jacoby. 

IN  a  former  issue  of  the  JOURNAL  it  was  stated  that  Professor  Josiah 
Royce,  of  Harvard  University,  had  been  compelled  to  give  up  the  course 
of  Bross  lectures  on  "  The  Source  of  Religious  Insight."  It  should  have 
been  stated,  however,  that  this  course  of  lectures  was  given  in  full  at  Lake 
Forest  College,  Illinois,  last  November,  and  that  the  lectures  are  already  in 
the  press  and  are  to  be  published  shortly  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  They 
were  to  have  been  repeated  by  Professor  Royce  at  Harvard,  and  it  is  only 
their  repetition  which  has  been  abandoned  for  the  present. 

DR.  W.  V.  D.  BINGHAM,  director  of  the  psychological  laboratory,  and 
professor  of  psychology  and  education  at  Dartmouth  College,  has  been 
appointed  director  of  the  Dartmouth  Summer  School,  which  is  to  be 
reorganized  and  incorporated  as  an  integral  part  of  the  institution's 
scheme  of  education. 

THE  Rev.  Casper  Rene  Gregory,  professor  of  theology  in  the  University 
of  Leipzig,  has  concluded  a  special  course  of  lectures  at  Western  Reserve 
University.  The  lectures  included  a  series  of  six  on  "  Five  Hundred 
Years  of  Science  in  Leipzig." 

THE  Kaiser  Wilhelm  professor  at  Columbia  University  for  the  acade- 
mic year  1912-13,  who  is  nominated  by  the  Prussian  Ministry  of  Public 
Instruction,  will  be  Phelix  Kriiger,  professor  of  psychology  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Halle. 

GILBERT  MURRAY,  Regius  Professor  of  Greek,  Oxford  University,  will 
give  a  series  of  lectures  at  Columbia  University  on  April  15,  19,  and  22. 
His  general  subject  will  be  "  Three  Stages  in  Greek  Religion." 

THE  Section  on  Neurology  and  Psychiatry,  of  the  New  York  Academy 
of  Medicine,  held  a  meeting  on  April  4.  The  subject  under  discussion 
was  "  Psychanalysis." 

DR.  ARTHUR  HOLMES,  assistant  professor  of  psychology  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania,  has  accepted  the  post  of  dean  of  the  faculties  of 
Pennsylvania  State  College. 

PROFESSOR  HERMAN  HENDERSON,  of  the  Wisconsin  State  Normal  School 
at  Milwaukee,  will  offer  courses  in  the  psychology  of  education  at  Oberlin 
College  Summer  School. 

A  NEW  scientific  review,  Bedrock,  was  launched  in  England  this  month. 
It  is  to  appear  quarterly,  and  is  to  be  edited  by  a  committee  of  five 
members. 

DR.  WILLIAM  WUNDT,  professor  of  philosophy  at  Leipzig,  has  been  made 
a  knight  of  the  Prussian  order  pour  le  m&rite. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  9.  APRIL  25,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


IS  THERE   A  COGNITIVE   RELATION? 

THE  formal  distinctions  of  epistemological  theory  are  well  worked 
out  at  the  present  time.  All  possible  combinations  of  the 
terms  of  this  discipline  seem  to  have  been  discovered  and  cham- 
pioned. Each  combination  has  points  in  its  favor  which  awaken  the 
sincere  zeal  of  its  champion.  I  wish  to  rise  to  a  point  of  order. 
Have  the  postulates  which  lie  back  of  these  combinations  been  suffi- 
ciently examined?  Is  there,  indeed,  a  cognitive  relation  either  ex- 
ternal or  internal?  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  there  is  no  such  rela- 
tion. I  shall  now  seek  to  justify  and  explain  this  opinion  which 
seems,  on  the  face  of  it,  so  revolutionary. 

Theories  of  knowledge  are,  first  of  all,  divisible  into  two  classes, 
those  which  hold  cognition  to  be  somehow  immediate  and  those 
which  regard  it  as  mediate.  Theories  of  immediate  cognition  may, 
again,  be  divided  into  two  subclasses.  One  subclass  is  idealistic  and 
asserts  that  an  internal  relation  exists  between  the  object  and  the 
knower  or  subject.  There  are  many  slightly  divergent  forms  of 
this  position,  but,  in  essentials,  the  above  statement  is  not  mislead- 
ing. The  second  subclass  is  realistic  and  holds  that  an  external 
relation  exists  between  the  object  and  the  knower.  By  external  is 
meant  a  relation  which  does  not  affect  the  object  cognized.  There 
are  two  current  forms  of  this  realistic  subclass.  The  difference 
between  them  consists  in  their  views  of  consciousness.  The  one 
considers  it  an  actus  purus  externally  related  to  the  object;  the 
other  identifies  it  with  the  external  relations  supposed  somehow  to 
group  objects  selectively.  Before  we  pass  to  a  consideration  of  the 
mediate  theories  of  cognition,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  knowledge 
means  for  these  realistic  systems.  Knowledge  is  the  actual  presence 
of  reals.  For  the  first  view,  consciousness  in  its  relation  to  a  thing 
accomplishes  knowledge.  The  nature  of  the  object  is  supposed  to  lie 
open  to  the  mind  and  become  subject  to  inspection.  Things  become 
transparent,  as  it  were.  Out  of  this  peculiar  relation,  they  are,  for 
us,  enveloped  in  darkness;  in  it,  they  stand  in  a  glare  of  light. 

225 


226  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Knowledge  is  a  presenting,  an  introducing,  an  intuition.  The  second 
position  is  even  more  skeptical  of  the  traditional  views  of  mind  than 
the  first.  The  emphasis  shifts  from  mind  as  a  knower  to  the  objects 
known.  Knowledge  is  a  grouping  of  these  objects.  The  theory  may 
be  designated  selective  objectivism  and  cognition  is  the  selection. 

I  wish  now  to  call  attention  to  a  common  characteristic  of  all 
these  theories  of  immediate  knowledge.  They  assert  a  real  cognitive 
relation,  external  or  internal,  between  the  knower  and  the  object. 
The  only  partial  exception  is  the  theory  that  tends  to  do  away  with 
the  knower  and  to  substitute  a  pan-objectivism.  Even  here,  how- 
ever, a  real  relation  determines  a  grouping  although  it  does  not 
affect  the  nature  of  the  objects  grouped.  Such  epistemological 
hypotheses  are  statements  of  our  actual  experience  in  terms  of  logic 
—or,  shall  I  say,  in  terms  of  mathematics  ?  They  are  professed  trans- 
lations of  natural  realism.  I  suspect  their  correctness.  What  we 
actually  have  in  cognition  is  an  attitude  towards  objects  considered 
real.  Usually  the  attention  is  concentrated  on  the  things  and  the 
attitude  escapes  notice.  It  lies  in  the  background  of  consciousness. 
Even  when  it  does  attract  attention,  there  is  no  experience  of  a 
cognitive  relation  between  the  individual  and  the  thing.  Awareness 
is  simply  an  attitude  towards  things  which  is  not  supposed  to  affect 
them.  Plans  of  action  may  come  to  mind  and  then  the  attitude 
becomes  more  complex;  but  always  the  objects  retain  their  inde- 
pendence so  far  as  awareness  is  concerned.  It  is,  I  believe,  this 
character  of  cognition  that  makes  realistic  systems  thinkable.  The 
cognitive  attitude  involves  a  dualism  and  suggests  no  relation,  ex- 
ternal or  internal,  to  bridge  it.  This  is  a  description  of  natural 
realism  as  I  see  it.  Cognition  does  not  imply  a  cognitive  relation. 

Mediate  theories  of  cognition  are  more  complex  than  immediate 
theories.  That  fact  is  not  necessarily  in  their  favor.  There  are 
three  important  classes:  the  representative,  the  normative,  and  the 
pragmatic.  Space  forbids  me  to  enter  into  the  analysis  which  I  have 
made  of  these.  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  they  are  all 
one-sided.  But  they  emphasize  some  aspects  of  knowledge  which 
must  be  borne  in  mind. 

Pragmatism  stresses  the  mediate  character  of  the  objects 
known.  It  points  out  their  history,  the  reconstructions  they 
have  undergone.  Knowledge  is  an  achievement  and  "ideas"  are 
instruments  for  this  end.  This  doctrine  is  rightly  considered  by 
Moore  to  be  idealistic  in  the  strictest  sense  of  that  much-abused 
term.  The  mistake  made  by  the  pragmatist  is  to  confuse  the  re- 
flective attitude  with  the  cognitive.  He  is  so  interested  in  the  use 
of  knowledge,  its  criteria,  and  the  process  of  its  achievement  that 
he  has  overlooked  the  important  stratifications  and  distinctions  char- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         227 

acteristic  of  the  cognitive  attitude.  We  must  thank  the  realist  for 
his  counterbalancing  emphasis  on  them.  The  reflective  attitude  is, 
strictly  speaking,  precognitive. 

The  normative  position  brings  us  back  from  the  process  to  the 
act.  Its  mistake  is  to  misinterpret  this  act.  It  makes  the  object 
consciously  depend  on  the  "ought"  of  the  subject.  Here,  again, 
there  is  a  misreading  of  our  actual  experience.  I  repeat  that  the 
knower's  attitude  is  one  of  acceptance  of  an  object  as  being  of  such 
a  character  or  as  qualified  in  such  a  way.  This  attitude  is  modeled 
upon  that  of  natural  realism.  It  is  dualistic  and  no  cognitive  rela- 
tion is  to  be  found  in  the  experience. 

The  representative  view  is  more  complex.  I  shall  not  enter  into 
the  criticism  which  I  must  pass  upon  it.  It  is,  however,  the  means  of 
pointing  out  and  stressing  the  peculiar  phenomenon  of  doubling  that 
seems  to  telescope  itself  into  the  apparently  simple  act  of  cognition. 
The  distinction  between  thought,  consciousness,  idea,  or  concept  and 
its  object,  which  the  human  mind  has  been  forced  to  postulate  in 
order  to  account  for  error  and  for  the  mediate  and  personal  char- 
acter of  the  content  of  knowledge,  as  against  the  supposedly  com- 
mon and  independent  object  known,  is  erected  into  a  theory  of 
knowledge.  The  real  explanation  of  this  distinction  is  entirely  dif- 
ferent. It  results  from  a  duplication  of  the  cognitive  object.  This 
duplication  is  due  to  the  conflict  between  the  cognitive  attitude  and 
the  facts  which  emphasize  the  personal  character  of  the  objectivum. 
For  instance,  the  objectivum  can  be  considered  mental  and  dependent 
and,  at  the  same  time,  physical  and  independent  of  mind  as  the 
cognitive  attitude  requires.  It  is  assigned  to  two  spheres  of  exist- 
ence. The  duplication  of  the  cognitive  object  enables  both  motives 
to  secure  satisfaction.  And  they  must  both  secure  it.  Hence  even 
when  we  acknowledge  the  idealistic  motives  present  in  mediate 
theories  of  cognition,  the  structure  of  cognition  remains  dualistic. 

It  is  interesting  to  hunt  for  indications  of  the  twofold  use  of 
the  cognitive  object,  as  idea  and  as  object,  in  philosophic  literature. 
Unfortunately  idealistic  motives  and  outlook  so  dominated  the  think- 
ers who  came  nearest  to  its  discovery  that  its  significance  was  not 
grasped.  A  critical  study  of  Hume  (Treatise,  I.,  III.,  7),  Kant 
("Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  p.  483,  Max  Miiller's  translation)  and 
James  ("Psychology,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  290)  is  illuminating  from  the 
present  point  of  view.  None  of  them  does  justice  to  the  structure  of 
cognition.  Professor  James  substitutes  a  psychological  explanation 
of  cognition  for  the  cognitive  experience.  He  comes  much  nearer  to 
a  realization  of  the  duplication  in  the  article,  "Does  Consciousness 
Exist?",  but  makes  it  an  affair  merely  of  context.  The  tendency 
to  emphasize  the  influence  of  feeling  and  interest  in  determining  the 


228  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

attitude  and  object  of  cognition  is  natural  to  a  psychologist.  The 
very  terra,  belief,  selected  as  descriptive  of  the  cognitive  attitude 
inevitably  leads  to  an  analysis  of  these  subjective  factors.  It  is  but 
a  short  step  from  this  to  the  consideration  of  the  object  as  merely 
an  "idea"  and  the  meaning  of  the  existence  of  the  object  its  relation 
to  the  individual's  mind.  We  noted,  in  the  discussion  given  to  the 
mediate  theories  of  knowledge,  a  similar  mistake  on  the  part  of  the 
pragmatist.  The  latter  seeks  to  neutralize  this  result  by  a  denial 
that  there  are  individual  minds.  The  mediation  which  leads  to 
cognition  overshadows  the  cognitive  structure  and  meanings  and 
causes  their  neglect  or  misinterpretation.  In  the  very  interesting 
and  suggestive  note  in  his  "Psychology"1  James  discusses  the 
existential  judgment  and  decides  that  the  distinction  between  it 
and  the  attributive  judgment  is  superficial.  We  might  suggest  that 
the  reason  is  not  that  existential  judgments  are  attributive,  but  that 
attributive  judgments  are  implicitly  existential.  Let  us  examine 
his  argument:  "  'The  candle  exists'  is  equivalent  to,  'The  candle  is 
over  there.'  And  this  'over  there'  means  real  space,  space  related 
to  other  reals.  The  proposition  amounts  to  saying,  'The  candle  is  in 
the  same  sphere  with  other  reals.'  It  affirms  of  the  candle  a  very 
concrete  predicate,  namely,  this  relation  to  other  particular  con- 
crete things."  (So  far  we  would  agree  with  his  analysis.)  "Their 
real  existence,  as  we  shall  later  see,  resolves  itself  into  their  peculiar 
relation  to  ourselves.  Existence  is  thus  no  substantive  quality  when 
we  predicate  it  of  an  object."  This  emphasis  on  the  subjective  is 
apparent  in  another  place:  "Reality  means  simply  relation  to  our 
emotional  and  active  life"  (p.  295).  He  apparently  agrees  with 
Hume  and  Kant  whom  he  quotes  with  approval.  We  must  ask  our- 
selves this  question:  "Is  not  James  confusing  two  standpoints?" 
A  thing  is  considered  real  when  it  does  touch  us  vitally,  but  is  the 
meaning  of  reality  or  existence  that  of  a  relation  to  ourselves! 
Existence  is  a  meaning,  unique  in  character,  which  does  not  affect 
the  content  of  the  object.  It  is  not  a  determinant  in  the  attributive 
sense.  But  it  does  qualify  the  whole  object  and  give  it  a  place  with 
other  objects  of  its  own  class.  Things  toward  which  we  take  this 
attitude  are  considered  as  real  as  ourselves.  In  this  James  is  right 
when  he  says,  "The  pons  et  origo  of  all  reality,  whether  from  the 
absolute  or  the  practical  point  of  view  is  thus  subjective,  is  our- 
selves" (p.  296).  But  the  relations  which  we  suppose  ourselves  to 
establish  with  such  things  are  not  cognitive.  Cognition  is  a  means 
towards  the  establishment  of  practical  relations,  but  is  not  itself 
thought  of  as  a  real  relation.  We  may  suppose  that  cognition  is 
impossible  unless  we  are  in  causal  relation  with  things  by  means  of 

*Vol.  II.,  page  290. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         229 

our  bodies,  but  cognition  itself  means  a  duality  of  equally  real 
objects  in  which  one  takes  a  peculiar  attitude  towards  the  other. 
The  cognitive  relation,  so-called,  is  either  an  intellectual,  logical 
addition  assumed  because  it  is  scandalous  to  think  of  two  terms 
without  a  relation  between  them,  or  else  the  reading  into  the  cog- 
nitive attitude  of  genetic  relations  in  the  precognitive  stage,  or  else 
the  shadow  of  the  causal  relation  supposed  to  exist  between  us  and 
the  object.  The  first  of  these  mistakes  is  made  by  the  logician,  the 
second  by  the  psychologist,  and  the  third  by  the  scientist.  All  three 
are  wrong.  When  we  perceive  an  object  or  think  of  it,  we  do  not 
have  as  an  essential  element  a  relation  between  the  object  and  our- 
selves as  knowers. 

If  this  interpretation  of  the  structure  of  cognition  is  correct,  im- 
portant consequences  flow  from  it.  In  the  first  place  idealism  is 
robbed  of  the  defense  which  has  sheltered  it  for  so  long  against  the 
attacks  of  realism.  Who  has  not  felt  the  exasperating,  baffling 
power  of  the  dictum  that  we  can  not  think  an  object  except  in  rela- 
tion with  a  subject.  This  turns  out  to  be  merely  a  false  rendition  of 
the  analytic  proposition:  We  can  not  think  of  an  object  unless  we 
think  of  it.  Otherwise,  the  very  nature  of  cognition  is  to  recognize 
the  independence  and  reality  of  the  object.  A  peculiar,  non-natural 
relation,  such  as  the  supposed  cognitive  relation,  would  be  the  very 
denial  of  such  independence.  It  seems,  then,  that  the  subject-object 
relation  is  a  dogma  which  has  been  an  article  of  faith  in  the  philo- 
sophic world.  The  nearest  approach,  hitherto,  to  heresy  has  been 
the  doctrine  of  external  relations.  But  such  a  doctrine  is  half- 
hearted. We  need  the  complete  and  final  heresy;  there  is  no  cog- 
nitive relation. 

Were  we  to  accept  the  view  that  cognition  is  immediate  and  is  the 
presence  of  an  object  to  a  knower,  we  would  be  forced  to  hold  some 
form  of  naive  realism.  Once  deny  the  existence  of  a  cognitive  rela- 
tion, if  such  is  the  view  of  knowledge,  and  no  other  course  is  open. 
The  presence  of  objects  to  a  knower  would  make  no  difference  to 
them.  He  would  be  a  spectator  in  whose  field  of  vision  they  would 
come  and  go  as  people  in  a  thronged  street  pass  before  the  eyes  of 
a  stranger  who  looks  out  upon  them  from  a  hotel  window.  If  cog- 
nition is  the  actual  presence  of  reals  to  consciousness,  idealism  is 
doomed. 

But  we  have  been  led  to  acknowledge  that  cognition  is  mediate, 
not  immediate.  The  idealistic  motives,  which  the  precognitive  stage 
of  reflective  consciousness  supports,  are  unaffected  by  the  denial  of 
the  cognitive  relation.  The  history  of  the  material,  the  mediate  or 
constructive  character  of  the  object,  the  fact  of  error,  all  induced  us 
to  refuse  to  acknowledge  that  the  object  present  in  cognition  exists 


230  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

apart  from  the  individual's  mind.  These  facts,  stressed  so  emphatic- 
ally by  modern  psychology  and  by  pragmatism  of  the  Dewey  type, 
are  the  true  defense  of  idealism.  To  what  do  they  leadf  We  have 
claimed  that  they  lead  to  a  realism  broadened  by  the  inclusion  of 
these  idealistic  motives  and  with  a  new  conception  of  knowledge. 
Let  us  examine  this  more  critical  and  indirect  type  of  realism. 
There  are  many  questions  which  it  must  answer  satisfactorily  if  it 
is  to  justify  itself. 

There  is  one  problem  which  will  occur  to  the  mind  of  the  reader 
almost  immediately.  In  cognition  does  the  mind  transcend  itself? 
Hitherto  those  who  have  denied  the  possibility  of  such  a  transcend- 
ence of  experience  have  been  idealists.  How  can  the  mind  pass 
through  the  gulf  of  reality  and  touch  things?  To  those  who  hold 
an  organic  view  of  mind,  such  a  feat  seems  self-contradictory.  Even 
revelation  must  be  somehow  immanent  and  adapted  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  seer.  The  reply  must  be  that  such  a  transcendence 
is  both  thinkable  and  unthinkable.  It  is  thinkable  so  long  as  we 
give  attention  to  the  cognitive  attitude  and  its  meanings.  It  is  un- 
thinkable when  mind  is  regarded  as  a  realm  of  constructs  and  feel- 
ings, when  it  is  regarded  as  consciousness  in  the  non-cognitive, 
generic  sense  of  that  word.  Real  existents  can  not  mix  with  mind, 
and  knowledge  is  not  a  possession.  Let  us  examine  both  aspects 
which  have  been  so  much  confused. 

Transcendence  is  thinkable  when  we  pay  regard  to  the  cognitive 
attitude  and  its  meanings,  for  here  the  mind  is  a  limited  entity  op- 
posed to  that  which  is  known  as  regards  both  content  and  existence. 
Of  course  the  objects  known  could  be  called  a  part  of  experience,  but 
the  victory  resulting  would  be  merely  verbal.  It  would  consist  in 
so  stating  the  problem  that  it  would  be  meaningless.  We  must 
admit,  then,  that  the  cognitive  attitude  makes  the  transcendence  of 
mind  thinkable.  So  long  as  the  mind  can  be  opposed  to  that  which  it 
knows  in  cognition  the  transcendence  of  mind  is  conceivable  because 
it  is  seemingly  a  fact.  We  have,  however,  acknowledged  that  the 
cognitive  object  does  not  exist  apart  from  mind  even  though  it  de- 
mands such  an  existence.  This  peculiar  contradiction  led,  as  we  saw, 
to  the  phenomenon  of  the  duplication  of  the  cognitive  object  as  idea 
and  as  object.  As  a  result  of  this  doubling,  mind  is  enlarged  to 
satisfy  the  idealistic  motives  and  at  the  same  time  is  opposed  to  the 
object  as  an  independent  existent.  Cognition  continues  dualistic 
and,  hence,  realistic  in  its  structure  and  meanings.  The  transcend- 
ence of  mind  is,  however,  unthinkable  when  mind  is  regarded  as  a 
personal  system  of  ideas. 

The  answer  that  critical  realism  must  logically  make  to  this  first 
problem  is  evident.  Knowledge  does  not  involve  an  actual  trans- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         231 

cendence  of  the  individual's  mind,  but  it  secures  a  reference  beyond 
the  individual's  mind  through  the  structure  and  meanings  of  the 
cognitive  attitude. 

What,  then,  is  knowledge  and  what  is  the  relation  of  the  cogni- 
tive object  in  the  individual's  mind  to  the  real  whose  existence  cog- 
nition demands?  Knowledge  is  an  achievement  of  the  individual's 
mind  working  in  collaboration  with  other  minds  in  a  more  or  less 
conscious  fashion.  The  methods  and  tests  used  are  immanent  and 
arise  in  large  measure  from  the  material.  When  a  conclusion  is 
arrived  at  it  is  objectified,  i.  e.,  considered  to  exist  as  a  quality, 
object,  or  relation  in  the  sphere  of  existence  presupposed  by  the 
nature  of  the  domain  investigated.  When  this  domain  is  the  physi- 
cal world,  the  construction  is  considered  entirely  independent  of  the 
mind  which  has  elaborated  it.  There  are  types  of  knowledge  of  the 
physical  world  which  are  functions  of  our  interest  and  our  point  of 
view.  The  usual  type  results  from  a  collaboration  between  things 
and  man.  We  do  not  attempt  to  separate  out  our  contribution.  A 
landscape  is  beautiful.  The  soft  tones  and  harmonious  outlines  are 
assigned  to  nature.  Esthetic  knowledge  welcomes  this  collabora- 
tion. The  scientific  type  is  dominated  by  another  ideal,  to  separate 
out  and  remove  from  things  evidently  subjective  elements.  In 
neither  type  is  knowledge  the  actual  presence  of  the  real  in  the  mind. 
In  both,  however,  the  reference  is  realistic. 

We  can  turn  now  to  the  second  part  of  the  question  under  dis- 
cussion. What  is  the  relation  of  the  cognitive  object  in  the  indi- 
vidual's mind  to  the  real  whose  existence  cognition  demands?  The 
answer  is  simple  and  presents  a  negative  reply  to  the  question  pro- 
pounded in  the  title  of  the  article.  In  the  case  of  physical  reals 
there  is  no  relation  of  a  cognitive  sort.  The  dualism  of  the  cogni- 
tive attitude  corresponds  to  an  actual  dualism.  But  a  causal  rela- 
tion of  however  indirect  a  sort  between  the  real  and  a  mind  is  a 
presupposition  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge.  This  fact  is  ex- 
pressed by  us  in  the  causal  relation  assumed  to  connect  percept  and 
physical  thing.  This  epistemological  dualism  is  conceived  by  means 
of  the  duplication  of  the  cognitive  object  into  idea  and  thing  between 
which  no  relation  is  supposed  to  exist.  The  preposition,  "of,"  in 
the  phrase  "idea  of"  is  not  symbolic  of  any  actual  relation,  but  of 
a  distinction  between  two  spheres  with  different  characteristics. 
These  spheres  are  considered  existentially  distinct. 

The  second  comprehensive  question  which  should  be  asked  of 
critical  realism  is  the  following:  In  what  sense  does  it  differ  from 
the  idealism  of  the  critical,  phenomenalistic  sort,  from  an  up-to-date 
Kantianism,  for  instance  ?  The  difference  lies  not  in  the  content  of 
knowledge,  not  necessarily  even  in  the  methods  and  criteria,  which 


232  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

must  be  those  of  science,  but  in  the  reference  of  cognition  and  in  the 
existential  meanings  connected  with  it.  Idealism  has  entirely  mis- 
interpreted the  cognitive  attitude.  The  Kantian  phenomenon  is  the 
real  as  we  are  compelled  to  think  it.  Kant's  interest  in  the  process 
by  which  knowledge  is  secured,  together  with  his  leaning  towards  a 
Leibnitzian  metaphysics,  obscured  for  him  the  realistic  import  of 
cognition.  The  phenomenon  is  the  thing-in-itself  as  we  think  it. 

The  third  question  concerns  the  relation  of  individual  minds  to 
each  other.  Common  sense  and  psychology  hold  that  minds  do  not 
intersect.  Critical  realism  agrees  with  this  natural  view  and  makes 
it  comprehensible.  Minds  are  microcosms  whose  boundaries  are  of 
their  own  making.  Relatively  to  each  other  they  live  in  a  fourth 
dimension.  But,  since  knowledge  does  not  involve  the  actual  pres- 
ence of  the  real,  this  pluralism  is  no  barrier  to  mutual  knowledge. 
What  is  required  is  actual  causal  influence  and  this  is  obtained 
through  the  body.  Knowledge  of  other  minds  is,  for  critical  realism, 
not  a  whit  more  mysterious  than  knowledge  of  physical  reals.  Were 
minds  disembodied,  there  would,  indeed,  be  trouble.  As  it  is,  our 
information  is  interpretative  and  comes  through  the  channel  of  or- 
ganic activities  and  language.  The  cognitive  reference  and  its 
mechanism  is  the  same  as  for  physical  things.  The  knowledge  of 
physical  reals  is,  however,  a  means  as  well  as  an  end  in  itself.  This 
is  seen  in  imitation  and  in  the  actual  handling  of  things,  or  in 
pointing  towards  them  to  gain  a  common  reference  and  under- 
standing. 

There  are  many  questions  which  could  be  raised  and  discussed 
in  connection  with  this  subject,  besides  those  which  I  have  attempted 
to  answer  here.  But  it  is  only  the  general  epistemological  scheme 
which  I  wish  to  present.  I  may  state,  however,  that  the  import  of 
this  position  for  the  categories  is  uppermost  in  my  mind. 

ROY  WOOD  SELLARS. 

UNIVERSITY  or  MICHIGAN. 


"INVERSION" 

/""CONSIDERING  the  contemptuous  attitude  of  the  average  philos- 
^-^  opher  toward  algebra  of  logic,  it  is  amusing  to  see  "logicians" 
quarreling  about  so  simple  a  matter  as  "inversion."  Whilst  some 
maintain,  and  "prove,"  that  it  is  unconditionally  possible,  Professor 
Hicks1  as  stoutly  maintains,  and  "proves,"  that  it  is  unconditionally 
impossible.  The  whole  matter  seems  really  a  mere  trifle;  but  the 
clearing  up  of  the  issue  may  be  undertaken  as  a  very  simple  exercise 
in  the  "calculus  of  classes." 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  pages  65  ff. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         233 

(a)  The  Universal  Affirmative.  —  Question:  From  "all  A's  are 
B"  can  we  infer  that  "some  not-A's  are  not-B's?  Yes;  provided 
"not-B"  exists  in  the  particular  Universe  of  Discourse. 

For 


or 

and  as 

AB'  =  0  (by  hypothesis)  ; 

:.A'B'  =  B' 

and  if 

B'=f=0 
we  obtain 


which  is  the  required  proposition.  Note  1.  If  the  "particular  propo- 
sition" is  taken  to  imply  the  existence  of  subject  and  predicate,  we 
ought,  of  course,  to  add  the  second  condition  that  not-A  also  exists. 
Note  2.  Whilst  not-B  occurs  in  the  first  part  of  the  proof,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  assume  its  existence  until  we  wish  to  make  the  final 
conclusion,  which  follows  necessarily  from  the  joint  assertion  : 

AB'  =  0  [all  A's  are  B] 
and 

B'4=0   [not-B  exists], 

(&)  The  Universal  Negative.  —  Question:  From  "no  A  is  B"  can 
we  infer  that  "some  not-  A  is  B"?  Yes;  provided  "B"  exists  in  the 
particular  Universe  of  Discourse. 

For 


or 

and  as 

AB  =  0  (by  hypothesis); 

/.A'B  =  B 

and  if 

BH=0 
we  obtain 


which  is  the  required  proposition.    Note  1.  Same  as  above.    Note  2. 


234  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Whilst  "B"  occurs  in  the  proposition  itself,  its  existence  is  not 
thereby  required,  ».  e.,  if  "B"  does  not  exist,  the  proposition  is 
"true"  whatever  A.  But  it  is  necessary  to  presuppose  the  existence 
of  B  in  order  to  reach  the  particular  proposition  of  the  conclusion. 
Note  3.  The  "absurdities  of  inversion"  mentioned  by  Professor 
Hicks  (p.  67)  all  violate  the  condition:  5=f=0. 

Conclusion. — "Inversion"  is  a  valid  process,  provided  the  con- 
dition "not-5  exists"  (for  the  universal  affirmative),  "B  exists" 
(for  the  universal  negative)  is  satisfied  in  the  particular  Universe 
of  Discourse.  "  Inversionists "  are  wrong  if  they  hold  that  this 
process  is  always  valid;  and  Professor  Hicks,  who  concludes  that 
"we  must  discard  the  whole  lot"  (p.  70)  is  wrong  also. 

KARL  SCHMIDT. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 

SOCIETIES 

THE  NEW  YORK  BRANCH  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
PSYCHOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION 

THE  New  York  Branch  of  the  American  Psychological  Asso- 
ciation met  in  conjunction  with  the  Section  of  Anthropology 
and  Psychology  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences  on  Monday, 
February  26.  The  following  papers  were  read  at  the  meeting  in  the 
evening  at  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History.  Afternoon 
and  evening  sessions  are  being  planned  for  the  next  meeting  on 
April  15.  All  those  interested  are  invited  to  attend  the  meetings. 
The  secretary  will  be  glad  to  receive  titles  of  papers  which  members 
or  others  may  desire  to  present  at  the  April  meeting. 
The  Influence  of  Narcotics  on  Physical  and  Mental  Traits  of  Off- 
spring: J.  E.  HICKMAN. 

The  purpose  of  the  study  was  to  learn  if  the  use  of  narcostimu- 
lants  (tea,  coffee,  tobacco,  and  alcohol)  had  any  effect  on  the  off- 
spring. The  research  extended  over  a  period  of  four  years.  It 
included  306  families  with  2,560  children ;  620  of  this  number  were 
students  of  Murdoch  Academy,  Utah.  These  were  carefully  meas- 
ured by  medical  experts  and  teachers  to  get  their  physical  and  mental 
status.  The  measurements  and  examinations  included  height, 
weight,  eyes,  ears,  nose,  throat,  teeth,  heart,  lungs,  stomach,  spleen, 
liver,  kidneys,  and  nervous  condition.  A  record  of  the  death-rate 
in  the  families  was  obtained  as  well  as  a  record  of  the  student's 
intellectual  standing.  The  students  were  divided  into  eight  classes, 
according  to  the  kinds  and  quality  of  stimulants  used  by  the  parents. 
The  examination  showed:  first,  that  there  was  on  an  average  a 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         235 

very  decided  difference  between  the  offspring  of  abstainers  and  those 
of  users,  even  where  tea  or  coffee  was  used  by  only  one  parent,  for 
the  offspring  of  the  abstainers  were  superior  in  size,  intellect,  and 
bodily  condition  to  those  of  the  caffein  parents ;  secondly,  as  the  use 
of  caffein  was  increased  by  the  parents,  from  once  to  three  and  four 
times  a  day,  a  gradual  decrease  in  height,  weight,  bodily  condition, 
etc.,  of  the  offspring  was  manifest;  thirdly,  in  families  where  not 
only  tea  and  coffee  were  used,  but  also  tobacco,  the  children  were 
still  more  inferior  mentally  and  physically,  increasingly  so  with  the 
increase  of  caffein  drinks  in  connection  with  tobacco ;  fourthly,  where 
alcohol  was  used  with  the  above  narcostimulants  the  lowering  of  the 
physical  and  mental  status  was  very  marked. 

Comparing  all  the  offspring  of  the  narcostimulant  pa'rents  with 
those  from  abstaining  parents,  the  latter  were  found  to  be  better  in 
all  the  22  measurements  than  the  former.  Some  of  the  differences 
were  very  great,  especially  in  weight,  height,  eyes,  ears,  physical 
health,  and  rate  of  mortality.  There  are  over  100  per  cent,  more  eye, 
ear,  and  physical  defects  in  the  offspring  of  narco-parents.  72  per 
cent,  more  children  died  in  this  than  in  the  abstaining  class.  79 
per  cent,  of  the  narcostimulant  families  had  lost  one  or  more  children, 
while  only  49  per  cent,  of  the  abstaining  class  had  lost  any  children. 
It  was  also  shown  that  the  death-rate  of  the  parents  in  this  latter 
class  was  41  per  cent,  higher  than  in  the  former.  The  research  also 
brought  out  the  fact  that  it  took  the  offspring  of  the  narcostimulant 
parent  eight  tenths  of  a  year  longer  to  graduate  from  the  grades. 
In  the  Academy  they  were  on  an  average  a  year  and  seven  months 
older  than  the  students  from  the  abstaining  class. 

Visual  and  Auditory  Memory:  A.  E.  CHRISLIP. 

Experiments  have  been  carried  on  in  the  psychological  laboratory 
of  Columbia  University  and  elsewhere  for  the  purpose  of  comparing* 
visual  and  auditory  memory.  The  points  investigated  in  the  first 
experiment  were  to  determine:  the  number  of  repetitions  required 
by  each  sense  to  reproduce  in  a  certain  order  certain  total  series  of 
like  construction;  the  average  number  of  characters  of  a  .series 
recalled  in  their  proper  order  for  each  repetition  of  series  of  like 
construction  for  each  sense;  and  to  determine,  if  possible,  the  best 
material  for  testing  the  two  senses. 

The  material  used  consisted  of  numerals,  nonsense  syllables,  and 
words.  Series  composed  of  12  and  16  characters  of  each  material 
were  used  in  testing  both  senses. 

The  result  shows  that  when  series  of  12  numerals  similarly  con- 
structed were  presented  to  the  two  senses,  that  out  of  26  cases,  20  are 
visual,  8  auditory,  and  8  show  no  difference.  In  the  case  of  the  series 


236  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  16  numerals,  19  visual,  4  auditory,  and  13  show  no  difference. 
With  12  nonsense  syllables  there  are  15  visual  and  15  auditory,  the 
rest  showing  no  difference,  but  for  16  nonsense  syllables,  25  visual, 
7  auditory,  and  4  show  no  difference.  With  the  12  words  there  are 
14  visual,  10  auditory,  and  12  no  difference;  with  16  numerals,  22 
visual,  9  auditory,  and  5  show  no  difference. 

For  each  repetition  of  each  series  the  result  shows  that  in  the 
memory  tests  for  visual  reproduction  the  greater  average  number  is 
reproduced.  The  nonsense  syllables  were  the  best  material,  as  they 
offered  few  combinations  or  devices  for  memorizing  them. 

Experiments,  in  which  stories  of  100  words  each  have  been  used 
to  test  the  two  senses,  have  been  carried  on  for  some  time.  The 
two  senses  have  been  tested  for  both  immediate  and  delayed  recall. 
In  both  the  immediate  and  the  delayed  reproductions  the  visual  has 
been  better  than  the  auditory.  There  is  an  experiment  now  in  opera- 
tion in  which  the  method  is  somewhat  different  from  that  in  the 
former  experiments  conducted  with  logical  material.  While  the 
results  are  not  all  determined  the  indications  are  that  the  auditory 
may  surpass  the  visual. 

The  Hereditary  Transmission  of  Mental  Traits:  HENBY  H.  GODDABD. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  at  the  present  time  to  present  any  results, 
but  rather  to  make  some  suggestions  and  point  out  possible  lines  of 
research  in  the  hereditary  transmission  of  mental  traits  which  may 
be  of  interest  to  psychologists. 

In  connection  with  our  studies  of  the  cause  of  mental  deficiency 
at  the  training  school  at  Vineland,  much  material  has  been  accumu- 
lated showing  the  hereditary  transmission  of  deficiency.  In  connec- 
tion with  these  data  many  facts  have  come  to  hand  which  make  it 
clear  that  not  only  deficiency,  but  many  positive  traits  are  directly 
transmitted.  It  is  further  suggested  that  psychology  would  gain  val- 
uable data  and  contributions  to  many  of  its  problems  from  a  study  of 
this  question  of  heredity.  Indeed,  it  seems  quite  possible  that  many 
problems  which  are  now  so  complex  as  to  elude  our  powers  of  anal- 
ogy would  be  easily  analyzed  if  we  were  able  to  study  the  heredity 
problem  and  thus  eliminate  the  hereditary  factor.  For  example,  if 
the  goodness  of  memory  depends,  as  Professor  James  said,  upon  the 
natural  retentiveness  of  the  brain  tissue  plus  the  logical  association 
that  the  individual  establishes,  then  we  may  reasonably  expect  that 
the  condition  of  the  brain  tissue  may  be  a  quality  that  is  transmitted 
and  could  be  eliminated  through  the  study  of  mode  of  transmission : 
or,  in  other  words,  we  could  determine  to  what  extent  the  differences 
in  memory  are  due  to  acquired  factors. 

It  would  seem  equally  possible  that  sensory  conditions  may  be 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         237 

traced  through  families  just  as  peculiar  eyes  or  eye  sight,  peculiar 
hearing,  kinesthetic  sensations,  taste,  or  smell  may  be  dependent 
upon  organic  conditions  which  may  be  found  to  be  directly  trans- 
mitted. The  inborn  habits  or  instincts  are  so  bound  up  with 
acquired  habits  that  it  makes  a  very  complex  problem.  It  seems 
quite  possible  that  a  study  of  the  instinctive  activities  of  members 
of  different  generations  might  reveal  to  us  a  good  deal  about  the 
nature  of  instinct  and  its  transmission  which  would  have  very 
important  bearings  upon  many  of  our  problems  of  instinct  and 
emotions.  Even  the  study  of  such  a  complex  problem  as  the  inherit- 
ance of  mental  deficiency  may  possibly  yield  us  some  most  important 
results. 

It  seems  hardly  likely  that  mental  deficiency  is  due  to  the  absence 
of  any  one  characteristic,  but  of  several,  and  that  it  may  be  pictured 
more  as  though  normal  mentality  is  the  result  of  a  hundred  factors 
of  which  a  person  must  have,  say,  seventy-five  in  order  to  have  what 
is  called  normal  mentality.  Now  the  twenty-five  that  are  lacking 
may  be  any  twenty-five,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  list  and  a  tracing  of 
the  hereditary  traits  might  lead  us  eventually  to  determine  some 
things  about  the  resulting  mentality  when  the  missing  factors  belong 
to  different  groups. 

We  shall  work  on  these  problems  at  Vineland  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible, but  they  should  be  studied  in  normal  people  as  well.  It  is 
perhaps  true  that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  go  back  farther  than 
the  living  generations,  but  even  so,  if  careful  studies  and  tests  were 
made  of  the  mental  traits  in  living  persons,  it  would  be  possible  to 
get  the  records  of  two  and  sometimes  three  generations,  and  these 
records  could  then  be  kept  and  supplemented  as  the  years  go  by  and 
the  newer  generations  come  on.  There  would  thus  be  laid  the  basis 
for  most  valuable  studies  later  on. 

The  family  histories,  that  we  have  secured  in  connection  with  our 
children  at  Vineland,  suggest  two  or  three  interesting  questions. 
For  instance,  there  are  several  families  in  which  alcoholism  is  strong 
in  several  generations.  It  is  possible  that  we  have  in  these  families 
an  unusual  appetite  for  alcohol,  which  appetite  has  been  transmitted. 
It  looks  as  though  it  would  not  be  impossible  to  eliminate  to  quite  an 
extent  the  environmental  factor,  and  so  be  able  to  determine  whether 
this  was  hereditary  or  not.  The  same  is  true  of  the  sexual  life. 
A  great  many  charts  show  very  much  sexual  immorality:  and  pos- 
sibly here  we  may  have,  in  some  cases  at  least,  an  unusual  develop- 
ment of  the  sex  instinct  which  has  broken  over  all  bounds  of  con- 
ventionality and  has  shown  in  different  generations.  It  appears  that 
all  of  these  problems  are  not  only  worthy  of  study,  but  might  yield 


238  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

most  important  results.  The  speaker  then  showed  graphic  charts 
illustrating  the  family  histories  of  a  number  of  families.  These 
charts  showed  the  strong  inheritance  of  feeble-mindedness  and  also 
illustrated  the  points  made  in  regard  to  alcohol  and  sexuality.  Con- 
siderable discussion  followed. 

H.  L.  HOLLINGWORTH, 

Secretary. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Einleitung  in  die  Philosophic.  HANS  CORNELIUS.  Zweite  Auflage. 
Leipzig  und  Berlin:  Druck  und  Verlag  von  B.  G.  Teubner.  1911. 
Pp.  xv  +  376. 

The  philosophic  individuality  of  Cornelius  is  the  synthesis  of  two 
apparently  antagonistic  modes  of  thought:  it  has  been  molded  by  the 
same  tendencies  that  shaped  the  anti-metaphysical  methodology  of  Mach ; 
but — as  Cornelius  rightly  insists  (pp.  211,  343) — it  bears  not  less  clearly 
the  stamp  of  Kant's  transcendental  logic.  By  regarding  the  Einleitung 
from  this  point  of  view — as  an  independent  philosophic  complement  of 
Mach's  positivism — we  shall  probably  best  succeed  in  fixing  its  place  in 
contemporaneous  literature. 

Perhaps  no  living  thinker  has  proved  so  baffling  to  professional  philos- 
ophers as  Ernst  Mach;  perhaps  no  one  has  to  such  extent  evoked  what  I 
should  call  "  the  metaphysician's  fallacy."  For  Mach's  method  of  pro- 
cedure is  the  method  of  the  natural  scientist:  he  investigates  his  prob- 
lems, one  by  one,  according  to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  case,  without 
regard  to  whether  his  conclusions  fit  into  a  preconceived  system.  It  is 
but  necessary  for  the  critic  to  assume  that  such  a  system  exists  and  noth- 
ing is  easier  than  to  prove  inconsistencies.  What  Mach  attempts,  how- 
ever, is  not  a  system  of  philosophy,  but  a  methodology.  Those  critics 
have  never  comprehended  the  trend  of  Mach's  thinking  who  attach  an 
exaggerated,  quasi-metaphysical  meaning  to  his  "  sensations "  or  "  ele- 
ments." For  Mach,  his  elements  are  not  absolute,  but  provisional  units. 
Nor  does  he  suppose  for  a  moment,  as  even  so  friendly  a  critic  as  Dr. 
Cams  assumes,  that  the  elements  are  immediate  data  of  consciousness.1 
The  cardinal  point  lies  in  the  definition  of  scientific  endeavor  as  a  pro- 
gressive determination  of  the  functional  relations  of  the  elements.  For 
this  definition  at  once  eliminates  as  utterly  idle  all  such  concepts  of  pop- 
ular philosophy  as  the  ego,  the  Ding  an  sich,  or  the  principle  of  causality, 
and  thus  constitutes  the  core  of  Mach's  anti-metaphysical  positivism. 

This  methodological  standpoint  alone  does  not,  of  course,  account  for 
the  origin  of  these  popular  concepts  and  Mach  himself  has  indicated  that 
it  is  obligatory  to  investigate  what  functional  relations  of  the  immediate 
data  necessitated  these  methodologically  no  longer  valuable  concepts.* 

1 "  Erkenntnis  und  Irrtum,"  1906,  pages  12,  16. 
*Loc.  tit.,  page  13. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         239 

This  genetic  inquiry,  it  must  be  admitted,  Mach  has  rather  suggested 
than  undertaken  in  detail  from  a  uniform  psychological  point  of  view. 
But  in  still  another  direction  it  was  possible  to  supplement  Mach's  investi- 
gations. Mach  rightly  repels  the  criticism  that  his  psychology  ignores 
the  spontaneous  activity  of  the  human  mind;  indeed,  his  emphasis  of  the 
principle  of  the  economy  of  thought  suffices  to  refute  the  accusation. 
Nevertheless,  the  formal  peculiarities  of  Mach's  presentation  lend  some 
color  to  the  charge,  and  his  definitions  of  consciousness  might  be  misin- 
terpreted by  prejudiced  critics  as  a  relapse  into  atomistic  and  passivistic 
psychologizing. 

No  such  misinterpretation  would  be  possible  in  the  case  of  Cornelius. 
In  the  center  of  his  philosophy  stands  Mach's  principle  of  the  economy 
of  thought,  which  is,  however,  at  once  recognized  as  but  another  expres- 
sion of  the  unity  of  consciousness.  This  principle  explains  at  the  same 
time  the  efforts  of  prescientific  thought,  the  historical  attempts  at  meta- 
physical unification,  and  the  scientific  striving  for  a  view  of  the  universe. 
The  weakness  of  primitive  and  of  metaphysical  speculation  lies  in  the 
fact  that  both  make  uncritical  employment  of  traditional,  popular  ("  nat- 
uralistic ")  concepts.  The  investigation  of  the  legitimacy  of  these  con- 
cepts, that  is,  of  their  origin  and  empirical  meaning — such  as  the  concepts 
of  the  persistent  external  world,  of  the  reality  of  space  and  time,  of 
causality,  and  of  the  ego — coincides  with  the  coming  of  age  of  philosophy, 
its  transition  from  dogmatism  into  empiricism,  from  the  metaphysical 
into  the  epistemological  stage.  The  naturalistic  concepts  lead  to  prob- 
lems insoluble,  not  from  any  deficiency  of  the  human  intellect,  but  because 
of  the  erroneous  assumptions  involved  in  their  formulation  (Schein- 
probleme).  These  stumbling-blocks  can  be  removed  only  by  a  general 
inquiry  into  the  mechanism  of  thought,  by  a  natural  history  of  human 
thought.  Such  an  investigation  will  not  aim  at  a  purely  destructive 
annihilation  of  the  popular  view  of  the  world,  but  at  a  genetic  under- 
standing of  that  view  and  its  clarification  through  the  elimination  of 
dogmatic  elements.  It  must  indeed  be  idealistic  in  the  sense  that  it  will 
proceed  from  the  data  of  consciousness,  which  alone  furnish  the  material 
for  the  structure  and  the  totality  of  factors  for  the  development  of  our 
world-view.  Instead  of  denying,  however,  the  existence  of  an  objective 
world,  it  will  merely  attempt  to  show  from  what  facts  this  concept  is 
derived  and  thus  determine  its  purely  empirical  significance.  Cornelius's 
epistemology  is  thus  emphatically  psychologistic,  not  in  the  sense  of  rest- 
ing on  special  theories  of  psychic  phenomena,  but  in  the  sense  in  which 
all  epistemology,  tacitly  or  explicitly,  must  be  psychologistic — in  being 
based  on  an  unprejudiced  analysis  and  description  of  the  immediate  facts 
of  consciousness  (pp.  55  f.).  And  here  what  at  once  distinguishes  Cor- 
nelius's psychology  from  an  atomistic  view  is  his  emphatic  and  never- 
ceasing  consideration  of  "die  Factoren  des  Zusammenhangs  der  Erfahr- 
ung  " — those  factors  which  Hoffding  has  conveniently  included  under  the 
concept  of  the  formal  unity  of  consciousness.* 

Cornelius  begins  his  inquiry  with  a  consideration  of  the  psychological 

1 "  Psychologic  in  Umriasen,"  page  186. 


240  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

theories  developed  by  the  English  thinkers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eight- 
eenth centuries.  This  naturally  leads  to  a  critique  which  merely  expresses 
the  general  consensus  of  modern  psychologists  as  to  the  failure  of  the 
association  theory  to  account  for  the  distinctively  synthetic  peculiarity  of 
consciousness  (pp.  196  ff.).  It  is  the  faulty  psychology  of  the  associa- 
tionist  school  that  resulted  in  the  skeptical  conclusions  of  their  philos- 
ophy ;  for  a  theory  which  from  the  start  limits  our  knowledge  to  isolated, 
momentary  perceptions,  impressions,  and  ideas,  can  not  arrive  at  a  positive 
theory  of  generally  valid  knowledge  (p.  208). 

The  way  to  correct  Hume's  philosophy,  therefore,  is  to  correct  the 
faults  of  his  psychology.  What  we  actually  find  in  consciousness  is  not 
a  mere  sum  of  unrelated  impressions  and  ideas  out  of  which  our  experi- 
ence shapes  itself  by  virtue  of  the  laws  of  association,  but  a  unified  whole. 
The  point  is  to  ascertain  those  facts  which  may  be  noted  in  any  period  of 
consciousness  over  and  above  the  isolated  elements  of  experience.  The 
first  synthetic  factor  described  by  Cornelius  produces  the  recognition  of  a 
definite  part  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  as  marked  off  from  its  sur- 
roundings. A  second  factor  connecting  the  otherwise  isolated  elements  of 
experience  is  the  symbolic  function  of  memory  images.  By  means  of  this 
function  we  transcend  the  limitations  of  the  present  moment  and  form  an 
idea  of  a  past  experience  as  a  past  experience.  A  third  factor  enables  us 
to  classify  every  new  sensation  and  complex  of  sensations,  to  recognize  it 
as  similar  to  previous  experiences  or  complexes  of  experiences.  These 
synthetic  factors  correspond  to  Kant's  synthesis  of  "  intuitive  apprehen- 
sion," "  ideational  reproduction,"  and  "  conceptual  recognition,"  and  in 
Kant's  deduction  of  the  categories  of  the  understanding  from  the  unity  of 
consciousness  Cornelius  recognizes  the  historically  first  attempt  in  his 
own  direction  (p.  228). 

Without  the  facts  conditioned  by  the  synthetic  factors,  a  unified 
experience  would  be  impossible.  They  determine  the  most  general  laws  of 
conscious  phenomena — among  them  the  recollection  and  recognition  of 
complexes.  All  our  experiences  are  parts  of  complexes,  and  are  remem- 
bered as  parts  of  complexes.  The  law  of  association  by  contiguity  is  a 
special  instance  of  the  general  law  that  every  experience  (Erlebnis)  is 
merely  part  of  a  larger  complex  (p.  234).  Similarly,  the  law  of  asso- 
ciation by  similarity  is  merely  an  expression  of  the  same  principle :  we  do 
not  merely  recollect  a  past  experience  similar  to  a  present  one,  but  also 
distinguish  it  as  past  by  recalling  at  the  same  time  the  associated  elements 
of  the  past  complex.  Both  laws  axe  not,  as  might  be  supposed  on  the 
basis  of  the  old  associationist  school,  alien  forces  regulating  the  course  of 
conscious  states,  but  laws  immanent  in  all  consciousness — consequences  of 
those  factors  without  which  even  the  simplest  case  of  unified  conscious- 
ness would  be  inconceivable  (pp.  207,  236  f.).  Cornelius's  account  of 
these  laws  thus  recalls  that  of  Huff  ding,  who  similarly  views  association 
as  but  a  special  form  of  synthesis.4 

Having  enumerated  the   synthetic   factors   and   their   consequences, 

•  Loc.  cit.,  page  219. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         241 

Cornelius  turns  to  the  problem  of  the  development  of  our  concepts  and 
judgments  through  these  factors.  In  the  assimilation  of  any  new  experi- 
ence, we  proceed  in  one  of  two  ways.  We  either  confine  ourselves  to 
classifying  it  as  similar  with  certain  previous  experiences;  or,  we  step 
beyond  the  mere  classification  of  our  experience  and  infer  that  it  forms 
part  of  a  complex  of  other  experiences.  The  concepts  formed  in  these 
ways  Cornelius  describes  as  falling  into  two  distinct  categories :  perceptual 
concepts  (Wahrnehmungsbegriffe)  and  experiential  concepts  (Erfahr- 
ungsbegriffe).  To  subsume  a  given  portion  of  my  visual  field  under  the 
perceptual  concept  "  whiteness  "  is  one  thing ;  to  infer,  beyond  the  imme- 
diate data,  that  whiteness  represents  "  white  chalk  "  constitutes  the  quite 
different  step  of  subsuming  under  an  experiential  concept.  The  second 
process  always  takes  place  when  we  refer  an  impression  to  a  persistent 
object. 

For  the  explanation  of  the  development  of  our  knowledge  Cornelius 
introduces  the  concept  of  "  configuration,"  Gestaltqualitdt.  By  this  he 
understands  those  characteristics  which  define  a  complex  as  a  complex, 
that  is,  as  different  from  a  mere  summation  of  its  elements.  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  concept  results  from  the  fact  that  all  the  contents  of  our  con- 
sciousness are  parts  of  complexes  and  as  such  possess  relation — fringes  due 
to  the  configuration  of  their  complexes.  Among  the  concepts  of  complex- 
characteristics  there  are  some  relating  to  the  modes  of  connection  of  our 
experiences  in  so  far  as  these  modes  have  their  foundation  in  the  unity  of 
consciousness.  As  every  one  of  our  experiences  must  be  connected  with 
other  experiences  in  these  particular  ways,  these  "  relation-concepts  "  are 
applicable  to  all  experience,  and  the  judgments  based  on  them  are  neces- 
sarily valid  for  all  possible  experience,  regardless  of  the  nature  of  the 
contents  of  the  experiences.  Borrowing  Kant's  term,  Cornelius  accord- 
ingly refers  to  these  concepts  as  general  modes  of  intuition.  From  these 
he  eliminates  Kant's  spatial  mode,  first,  because  haptic  and  optic  space 
are  not  immediately  connected  as  parts  of  the  same  space  and  are  not 
three-dimensional ;  secondly,  because  even  in  the  field  of  sensation,  sounds 
are  arranged  without  spatial  order,  while  the  same  applies  to  the  relations 
of  sensations  to  memory  images,  or  of  sensations,  judgments,  and  feelings 
(pp.  252  f.).  On  the  other  hand,  Cornelius  includes  among  his  modes  of 
intuition  not  only  time,  but  also  the  concepts  of  totality  and  partiality, 
unity  and  plurality,  similarity  and  equality,  constancy  and  mutability, 
as  well  as  the  direction  of  the  changes. 

This  grouping  suggests  Ebbinghaus's  treatment  of  the  same  intuitions 
as  "  the  general  attributes  of  sensations."  Cornelius's  discussion  of  this 
subject  is  probably  the  least  satisfactory  portion  of  his  work.  There  is  no 
serious  attempt  to  justify  the  coordination  of  the  other  modes  of  intuition 
with  that  of  time.  It  is  perfectly  true,  for  example,  that  the  concept  of 
similarity  is  applied  to  every  possible  experience  in  the  sense  that  every 
experience  is  classified  with  reference  to  its  resemblance  to  previous  ex- 
periences— that  the  apprehension  of  similarity  may  be  described  as  merely 
an  expression  of  the  unity  of  consciousness.  But  this  immediate  classi- 


242  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

fication  does  not  involve  the  construction  of  a  continuum  in  which  "  alleg 
Afannigfaltige  der  Erscheinungen  in  gewixsen  Verhaltnissen  angeschauet 
wird."  While  time  is,  in  Hoffding's  phrase,  a  typical  individual  idea,  all 
the  several  times  experienced  being  but  parts  of  the  same  time,  this  does 
not  apply  at  all  to  similarity.  In  a  previous  section  (p.  245)  Cornelius 
himself  very  clearly  distinguishes  between  similarity  as  an  immediate 
datum  of  consciousness  and  the  abstract  concept  of  similarity.  The 
abstract  concept  of  similarity  naturally  comprises  as  a  concept  all  possible 
special  cases  of  similarity;  but  of  course  it  is  not  present  in  all  conscious 
phenomena.  The  apprehension  of  similarity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  indeed 
coextensive  with  consciousness,  but  each  such  apprehension  is  distinct  from 
every  other,  and  consequently  it  is  not  justifiable  to  speak  of  similarity 
as  a  general  mode  of  intuition.  So  far  as  the  exclusion  of  space  from 
the  universal  modes  of  intuition  is  concerned,  Cornelius's  reasons — quite 
irrespective  of  the  justice  of  his  conclusions — can  not  be  considered  satis- 
factory. In  limiting  psychological  space  to  two  dimensions,  the  author 
certainly  finds  himself  in  excellent  company,  but  an  indication  that  other 
views  are  held  would  have  been  in  place  in  a  treatment  which  allegedly 
rests  on  the  facts  rather  than  the  special  theories  of  psychology.  The 
same  criticism  applies  to  the  denial  of  spatial  quality  to  sensations  of  tone. 
If  a  psychologist  like  Wundt  insists  that  we  can  not  hear  tones  without 
localization,*  such  opinions  can  not  be  disregarded  without  some  critical 
discussion.  It  would  have  been  better  and  fairer  to  explain  on  what  psy- 
chological assumptions  space  could  not  be  regarded  as  a  universal  mode, 
and  under  what  assumptions  it  must  be  regarded  in  this  light. 

Having  disposed  of  the  purely  classificatory  perceptual  concepts,  Cor- 
nelius turns  to  the  second  category  of  experiential  concepts.  We  con- 
tinually complement  the  given  perceptions  by  referring  them  to  constant 
objects,  that  is,  by  associating  them  with  characteristics  not  immediately 
given  to  us,  which  is  equivalent  to  associating  them  with  possible  future 
experiences.  It  is  the  synthetic  character  of  consciousness  that  leads  us 
to  view  every  experience  as  a  member  of  a  complex.  Our  expectations 
as  to  the  experiences  linked  with  a  given  experience  are  defined  in  some 
measure  by  the  knowledge  that  it  has  hitherto  appeared  only  in  a  certain 
definite  series.  If  an  initial  member  common  to  several  known  series  is 
linked  with  final  members  varying  with  intermediate  members,  the  latter 
are  recognized  as  conditions  of  the  final  links  and  determine  the  nature 
of  our  expectations.  The  complementary  activity  which  forms  experien- 
tial concepts  and  explains  isolated  phenomena  by  connecting  them  with 
others  is  nothing  but  a  resume  of  our  past  experience  and  the  expectation 
of  future  events  in  accordance  with  the  past.  The  shorthand  description 
of  experience  synonymous  with  the  application  of  the  principle  of  economy 
of  thought  is  also  identical  with  the  formation  of  experiential  concepts 
(p.  263).  As  the  concept  of  a  constant  object  implies  nothing  but  the 
sum-total  of  its  constant  properties,  what  applies  to  the  latter  also  applies 

• ' '  Ohne  irgendeine  Localisation  Iconnen  wir  auch  Tone  nicht  horen. ' '  In 
"Waa  soil  uns  Kant  nicht  oeinf "  Kleine  Schriften,  1910,  I.,  page  160. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         243 

to  the  former:  it  expresses  nothing  but  a  series  of  definitely  connected 
phenomena.  To  attribute  reality  to  an  object  regardless  of  our  perception 
of  it  simply  means,  as  Hume  failed  to  notice,  that  we  connect  our  varying 
percepts  with  the  same  context  of  other  percepts  of  the  object.  Kant  cor- 
rectly explained  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  objects,  but  failed  to  note  that 
in  so  doing  he  had  already  explained  that  constant  which  an  earlier  philos- 
ophy postulated  as  an  unknowable  noumenon.  By  supposing  that  objects, 
as  complexes  of  phenomena,  must  be  phenomena  of  something  else — of  an 
ever  transcendent  Ding  an  sich — Kant  relapsed  into  naturalistic  philos- 
ophy (p.  277).  The  opposition  thus  engendered  between  noumena  and 
phenomena  is  quite  illusory.  The  foregoing  considerations  immediately 
eliminate  two  supposed  problems  which  have  disturbed  the  philosophers  of 
many  ages  as  to  the  connection  between  subject  and  object  ("  Ver- 
mittlungsprobleme").  As  the  concept  of  reality  is  constructed  solely  out 
of  our  subjective  data,  the  problem  how  we  can  recognize  the  objective 
world  despite  the  subjective  conditions  of  our  knowledge  disappears, 
because  it  is  seen  to  invert  the  actual  conditions  of  the  case.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  also  disappears  the  impassable  barrier  between  the  physical 
and  the  psychical  world  which  is  inevitably  encountered  on  the  dogmatic 
assumption  of  objective  reality.  As  Cornelius  puts  it:  " zu  fragen,  wie 
es  Jcomme,  doss  das  Ding  durch  die  Sinnesorgane  auf  unser  Bewusstsein 
wirTce,  heisst  also  soviel  als  fragen,  wie  es  Icomme,  dass  der  gesetzmdssige 
Zusammenhang  unserer  Sinneswahrnehmungen,  welchen  wir  erfarhrungs- 
massig  erkannt  und  in  bestimmter  Weise  bezeichnet  hdben,  wirklich  eben 
dieser  Zusammenhang  unserer  Wahrnehmungen  ist"  (p.  280). 

Cornelius  fully  recognizes  that  his  investigation  of  the  mechanism  of 
concept-formation  is  purely  psychological.  Accordingly  he  now  turns  to 
the  logical  question  of  the  validity  of  our  concepts  and  judgments.  After 
briefly  sketching  the  psychology  of  the  confirmation  or  repudiation  of 
specific  judgments,  he  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  judgments  are  of 
general  validity  only  if  the  conditions  defined  in  their  formulation  them- 
selves determine  quite  generally  the  nature  of  the  experiences  to  be  ob- 
served under  those  conditions.  This  is  true  of  analytical  judgments ;  and 
also  of  the  synthetic  judgments  resting  on  Cornelius's  first  category  of 
concepts  (Wahrnehmungsbegriffe),  for  the  "knowledge  of  acquaintance" 
with  any  phenomenon  that  can  be  subsumed  under  a  perceptual  concept 
completely  exhausts  the  possibilities  of  such  a  phenomenon.  That  spectral 
green  resembles  blue  more  closely  than  red  is  not  an  analytic  judgment, 
because  it  does  not  follow  from  the  definition  of  "  green  " ;  nevertheless  it 
is  a  statement  of  universal  validity.  This  is  not  true  of  the  experiential 
judgments,  of  our  "laws  of  nature,"  for  the  observation  of  innumerable 
past  experiences  does  not  seem  to  establish  the  validity  of  a  prophecy  as  to 
future  experiences  of  a  similar  character.  Observations  contrary  to  past 
experience  disturb  our  mental  equilibrium,  which  can  be  readjusted  only 
by  bringing  both  the  ordinary  observation  and  the  deviations  from  it 
under. a  common  law.  This  is  done  by  correlating  the  usual  experience 
with  a  formerly  unnoticed  condition,  a  change  in  which  results  in  a  dif- 


244  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ferent  experience;  in  such  cases  we  speak  of  the  cause  of  the  changed  re- 
sult. The  principle  of  causality  thus  embodies  merely  the  demand — in- 
dispensable for  the  unity  of  our  experience — that  all  phenomena  shall  be 
arranged  in  constant  empirical  combinations.  Accordingly,  this  prin- 
ciple has  absolute  validity  and  likewise  defines  the  validity  of  our  experi- 
ential laws:  they  are  valid  in  so  far  as  a  hitherto  unobserved  cause  does 
not  produce  an  alteration.  The  category  of  causality  is  thus  founded  in 
the  synthetic  factors  of  consciousness  (pp.  297-307). 

There  remains  to  be  explained  the  naturalistic  concept  of  the  ego.  As 
we  distinguish  from  the  varying  perceptions  of  an  object  the  persistent 
object  of  the  external  world,  so  we  develop  the  concept  of  a  permanent  ego 
as  opposed  to  the  flux  of  conscious  phenomena.  As  in  the  former  case, 
Cornelius  identifies  the  concept  of  a  persistent  reality  with  the  formation 
of  concepts  of  his  second  category.  Any  single  state  of  consciousness  is 
found  in  a  definite  connection  with  past  states  of  consciousness,  not  im- 
mediately experienced,  but  in  some  measure  determining  it.  These  defi- 
nite connections  constitute  the  constant  factors  of  our  personality  and 
may  be  described  as  "  unconscious  psychic  facts,"  provided  this  phrase  is 
taken  merely  as  an  abbreviated  designation  for  definite,  regular  combina- 
tions of  conscious  phenomena,  just  as  the  concept  of  an  objective  thing  is 
used  merely  to  denote  a  definite  connection  of  phenomena  (pp.  314  f.). 

The  subject  of  the  ego  naturally  leads  the  author  to  consider  two  re- 
lated problems — the  relation  of  mind  and  body  and  the  knowledge  of  alien 
consciousness.  On  both  these  questions  Cornelius  develops  views  of  ex- 
traordinary sanity.  The  solipsistic  view  can  not  be  refuted,  because  the 
direct  experience  of  alien  conscious  states  is  forever  precluded.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  association  of  certain  outward  manifestations  with  con- 
sciousness is  in  consonance  with  the  scientific,  as  well  as  prescientific, 
application  of  the  principle  of  the  economy  of  thought.  Further,  it  is  not 
a  metaphysical  association,  because  the  concept  of  alien  consciousness, 
being  patterned  on  our  own,  does  not  transcend  experience  (pp.  329-332). 
With  regard  to  the  relation  of  mind  and  body,  Cornelius  admits  psycho- 
physical  parallelism  for  sensations;  "well  die  physischen  Vorgange  ihrem 
Begrifie  nach  nichts  Anderes  sind,  als  die  gesetzmdssigen  Zusammen- 
hange,  denen  wir  unsere  Empfindungen  einordnen"  (p.  319).  But  it  is 
not  true  that  the  parallelism  of  ideation  and  of  physiological  processes  is 
an  empirical  fact.  An  analysis  of  the  psychophysiology  of  the  reflex  arc 
leads  to  the  result  that  while  central  nervous  paths  are  intermediaries  of 
sensation  and  movement,  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  they  correspond 
to  the  psychological  act  of  association  following  the  sensation.  Patholog- 
ical cases  are  likewise  inadequate  to  prove  the  point.  So  far  as  brain  dis- 
ease is  not  definitely  observed,  the  assumption  that  a  psychic  derangement 
is  necessarily  due  to  a  cerebral  anomaly  is  a  pure  dogma.  But,  even  when 
an  affection  of  the  brain  is  definitely  ascertained,  it  might  be  supposed 
that  the  disease  conditions  an  alteration  of  the  sensation  rather  than  of 
the  relevant  associations.  Which  of  these  views  represents  the  facts  can 
not  be  determined,  and  accordingly  the  general  question  whether  psycho- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         245 

physical  parallelism  holds  for  psychic  facts  beyond  sensations  and  feelings 
remains  unsolved.  That  the  course  of  ideation  depends  on  sensations  and 
is  thus  indirectly  conditioned  by  physiological  processes,  is  readily  ad- 
mitted (pp.  32&-32S).  The  constant  factors  of  psychic  life  are  by  defi- 
nition independent  of  physiological  alterations.  This  does  not  mean  that 
the  course  of  ideation  is  similarly  independent,  for  those  constant  factors 
are  precisely  what  the  stream  of  ideas  (Vorstellungsablauf)  does  not  con- 
sist in.  Accordingly,  Cornelius  infers  from  the  independence  of  the  con- 
stant factors  that  psychic  life  does  not  necessarily  disappear  with  its 
physiological  substratum.  Inasmuch,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  constant 
factors  are  not  themselves  conscious  experiences,  but  only  conditions  of 
such,  it  is  equally  inadmissible  to  infer  the  persistence  of  psychic  life 
after  death  from  the  constancy  of  those  factors.  This  argument  is  not 
particularly  cogent.  The  constant  factors  are  conditions,  but  they  are  not 
fully  determining  conditions,  of  consciousness.  Psychic  life  involves  a 
stream  of  ideas  admittedly  dependent — though  only  indirectly — on  physio- 
logical conditions.  The  cessation  of  these  conditions,  it  would  seem,  must 
necessarily  result  in  a  cessation  of  conscious  phenomena.  Indeed,  if  the 
constant  "  unconscious "  factors  are  nothing  but  our  experiences  as  to 
definite  combinations  of  conscious  phenomena,  if  consciousness  is  un- 
thinkable without  feelings,  and  the  latter  are  admittedly  dependent  on 
physical  conditions  (p.  319),  it  is  not  at  all  clear  how  consciousness  could 
survive  death. 

The  "  empiricist  picture  of  the  universe "  sketched  by  Cornelius 
towards  the  close  of  his  book  (pp.  332—348)  has  already  been  sufficiently 
indicated  in  the  preceding  pages.  The  recognition  of  all  our  laws  as 
merely  abbreviated  expressions  for  our  experiences  eliminates  all  the  il- 
lusory problems  based  on  the  uncritical  assumption  of  the  naturalistic 
concepts.  Thus,  Kant's  first  antinomy  is  now  found  to  rest  on  the  natural- 
istic concept  of  the  universe  as  an  immediate  datum  of  knowledge.  If  we 
conceive  the  world  merely  as  a  resume  of  our  experiences,  its  existence 
can  not  extend  beyond  the  ordering  of  our  experiences  in  accordance  with 
the  categories  of  our  thinking,  and  instead  of  regarding  it  as  infinite,  we 
can  state  only  that  our  increasing  experience  is  nowhere  hemmed  in  by 
any  limits.  This  position  eliminates  the  possibility  of  satisfying  the 
metaphysical  demand  for  a  unification  of  the  entire  universe,  for  our  in- 
tellectual machinery,  the  categories,  are  by  virtue  of  their  significance 
applicable  only  to  the  fractional  components  of  our  experience,  not  to  a 
complete  "  unit "  beyond  experience.  There  is  only  one  case  in  which  we 
have  scientific  knowledge  transcending  a  determination  of  parts — the 
knowledge  of  the  fundamental  unity  of  our  consciousness  which  differs 
from  all  our  fractional  experiences  in  appearing  not  as  a  manifold,  but 
as  an  immediately  unified  reality. 

In  the  opening  paragraphs  of  this  article  the  philosophical  position  of 
Cornelius  has  already  been  indicated.  The  foregoing  summary,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  has  convinced  the  reader  that  we  here  have  to  deal  with  a  solid  at- 
tempt to  grapple  with  philosophic  concepts.  Cornelius's  attempt  is  not  a 


246  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

final  solution  of  the  philosophical  problem  from  a  positivistic  standpoint, 
because  that  very  standpoint  precludes  a  final  solution.  For  positivism 
demands  a  philosophy  that  shall  deal  with  particular  philosophic  concepts 
and  problems,  as  every  science  deals  with  its  problems.  No  sane  scientist 
denies  that  each  of  his  problems  admits  of  indefinitely  more  profound  in- 
vestigation, and  in  precisely  the  degree  in  which  philosophers  will  attack 
their  specific  problems  in  the  same  spirit  they  will  rehabilitate  their 
scientific  standing.  With  regard  to  Cornelius  it  has  been  indicated  that 
several  of  his  analyses  do  not  seem  to  attain  to  the  relative  degree  of 
profundity  that  might  have  been  expected.  But  viewed  as  a  whole,  and 
more  particularly  as  contrasted  both  with  the  reactionary  sciolism  now 
invading  philosophical  literature  and  with  the  crudities  of  much  soi-disant 
positivism,  his  epistemology  constitutes  a  landmark  in  the  transition  to  a 
philosophy  of  the  future  that  will  be  at  once  uncompromisingly  radical 
and  unassailably  critical. 

ROBERT  H.  LOWIE. 
AMEEICAN  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY. 

Experiments  in  Educational  Psychology.     DANIEL  STARCH.     New  York: 

The  Macmillan  Company.    1911.    Pp.  vii  + 183. 

Two  questions  arise  in  the  consideration  of  this  work.  First,  what  is 
its  value  in  relation  to  other  books  in  the  same  field?  Second,  what  is  the 
value  of  this  method  of  approach  to  the  problems  of  education :  does  it 
bring  new  insight  or  does  it  complicate  the  situation? 

Dr.  Starch  has  brought  together  some  valuable  materials  which  must 
prove  very  stimulating  to  the  teachers  who  are  able  to  grasp  them.  He 
gives  experimental  methods  for  testing  in  concrete  ways  the  facts  of  in- 
dividual differences,  the  obstacles  to  learning  which  result  from  defective 
sensation  channels,  the  place  of  mental  imagery  in  the  processes  of  learn- 
ing and  knowledge,  the  place  of  "  trial  and  error "  in  experience,  the 
progress  of  habit-building,  the  actualities  in  "  formal  discipline,"  the  facts 
of  "  association,"  the  nature  of  the  apperceptive  processes,  the  methods 
and  laws  of  attention,  the  values  of  memory  in  learning,  and  the  vital  re- 
lationships of  work  and  fatigue.  All  these  things  are  real  factors  in  the 
equipment  of  the  teacher,  and  the  teacher  can  not  know  too  much  about 
them.  Any  work  which  attempts  to  make  clear  these  fundamental  ele- 
ments in  mental  development  must  be  welcomed,  and  it  must  be  said  that 
Dr.  Starch  has  organized  his  materials  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them 
very  interesting  to  the  teacher  of  educational  psychology,  and,  rightly 
interpreted,  to  the  average  teacher. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  matter,  as  indicated  by  the  second 
question.  Experimental  education  has  been  going  its  own  way  in  the  last 
few  years,  and  a  rather  curious  way  it  is,  too.  Education,  as  a  whole 
process,  is  becoming  more  socially  minded;  we  are  being  told  that  it  is 
essentially  a  social  movement,  growing  out  of  social  pressures  and  lead- 
ing into  social  programs,  both  for  the  child  and  the  race.  From  this  point 
of  view  "  only  social  psychology  is  of  primary  importance  for  education." 
On  the  other  hand,  experimental  education  seeks  to  isolate  certain  mental 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         247 

operations  for  special  study.  The  very  processes  of  isolation  tend  to  ex- 
clude the  social  element;  but  this  elimination  of  the  social  automatically 
eliminates  the  ideational,  also,  since  the  ideational  element  arose  in  ex- 
perience to  mediate  the  social  world  and  has  no  reason  for  existence  when 
the  social  is  gone.  The  net  result  of  these  exclusions  in  the  experimental 
laboratory  is  the  reduction  of  the  learner  to  a  piece  of  'psychophysical 
machinery,  and  the  interest  of  the  experimenter  centers  in  the  reactions 
which  the  machine  makes  to  a  series  of  organized  stimuli.  The  very 
make-up  of  Dr.  Starch's  book  is  determined  by  these  demands.  The  "  ob- 
server "  must  get  no  hints  as  to  what  is  coming  next :  hence,  many  pages 
must  be  left  blank,  etc.  Now,  when  the  book  is  read  in  this  light  it  is 
seen  that  provision  is  made,  not  for  the  study  of  those  subjects  noted 
above,  but  for  the  study  of  the  following  items :  the  individual  differences 
of  nervous  systems,  characteristic  defects  of  sensation  mechanisms,  per- 
sistence of  sense  impressions,  constructive  processes  on  the  higher  and 
lower  neural  levels,  the  spread  of  constructive  cerebral  processes  beyond 
their  local  field,  the  development  of  intracerebral  relations,  cerebral  re- 
constructions, the  persistence  of  neural  energies  and  cerebral  processes, 
and  the  rise,  fall,  and  renewal  of  neural  energies.  That  is  to  say,  experi- 
mental education,  as  represented  by  this  work,  devotes  itself  to  the  study 
of  a  mechanism  under  conditions  that  exclude  the  presence  of  the  most 
persistent  stimuli,  and  therefore,  the  most  characteristic  reactions,  of  the 
actual  school  situations.  A  very  serious  problem  is  thus  raised  as  to  how 
the  student  can  get  these  abstract  results  back  into  the  social  world  where 
the  actual  processes  of  education  go  on. 

Yet  there  is  no  fundamental  contradiction  between  this  work  of  the 
educational  experimentalist  and  that  social  psychology  of  the  concrete 
educational  processes  demanded  by  the  rising  tide  of  educational  inquiry. 
Social  psychology  seeks  experimental  determinations  of  processes  of  de- 
velopment and  interaction  that  lie  within  the  fields  of  social  action.  And 
the  social  psychology  of  education  needs  just  such  studies  as  this  we  are 
considering.  But  does  this  laboratory  education  feel  the  need  of  a  social 
setting  for  its  real  experiments?  And  can  this  laboratory  work  find  its 
way  back  into  the  concrete  educational  situation?  This  book  deals  with 
problems  that  have  arisen  in  the  life  of  the  school ;  the  problems  have  been 
abstracted  for  special  investigation :  should  not  a  chapter  have  been  added 
to  the  book  showing  how  these  problems  have  arisen,  and  may  arise,  and 
how  the  results  can  be  reinterpreted  into  the  actual  educational  situa- 
tions, where  they  can  be  of  real  value  to  the  teacher?  If  a  laboratory 
manual  is  to  have  proper  use,  even  by  the  average  laboratory  instructor,  it 
must  clearly  relate  itself  to  the  concrete  problems  out  of  which  it  arose 
and  into  which  its  results  must  go. 

We  need  more  work  of  this  kind:  but  the  experimentalist  in  the  field 
of  education  must  be  ready  to  relate  his  problems  and  his  results  to  the 
demands  of  the  concrete  educational  processes  as  these  are  being  inter- 
preted by  social  psychology  if  his  work  is  to  have  fundamental  value  for 
education.  JOSEPH  K.  HART. 

THE  UNIVEESITT  OF  WASHINGTON. 


24 s  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  American  Philosophy  Pragmatism.    A.  v.  C.  P.  HUIZINGA.    Boston: 

Sherman,  French,  &  Co.    Pp.  v  +  64. 

This  is  a  curiously  written  and  poorly  arranged  attack  upon  a  current 
mode  of  thought.  Disentangled,  it  consists  of  this  fourfold  root :  a  small 
amount  of  information  upon  pragmatism  as  an  American  philosophy;  a 
large  mass  of 'quotations  from  the  enemy;  several  popular  diatribes  from 
a  conservative  point  of  view ;  and  a  few  suggestive  notes  as  to  the  relations 
of  this  latter-day  movement  to  German  idealism. 

The  assumption  that  pragmatism  is  the  American  philosophy  comes  in 
the  middle,  not  the  beginning  of  this  sketch.  .  "  Professor "  McCosh  is 
said  to  have  wished  for  a  specific  American,  a  national  philosophy,  but 
little  anticipated  the  speedy  realization  of  his  desire  in  the  specifically 
American  Weltanschauung  pragmatism.  This  is  an  error.  What  President 
McCosh  wished,  and  the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought,  was  that  his  own 
natural  realism,  the  Scotch  common  sense,  might  become  the  system  of  his 
adopted  country.  The  rest  of  this  sketch  is  filled  with  like  misinforma- 
tion. Thus  it  is  alleged  that  pragmatism  neglects  the  theory  of  knowledge 
and  of  reality;  that  as  the  apotheosis  of  the  evolutionary  dogma  it  has 
irreverence  for  its  mainspring;  that  as  a  doctrine  of  hustling  activity  it 
is  opposed  to  "  contemplating  "  wisdom,  and  so  falls  in  with  Kipling's  de- 
scription of  the  predominant  American  trait  of  disregard  for  knowledge 
and  law  in  the  face  of  the  supreme  commands  of  "  the  instant  need  of 
things."  These  diatribes  have  their  extreme  form  in  a  preface  which 
claims  that  the  point  at  issue  is  a  denial  of  the  supernatural,  a  discard- 
ing of  the  notion  of  being,  a  revolt  against  all  tradition,  authority,  and 
unity,  and  all  regulative  norms  and  law. 

Such  is  poor  pragmatism  from  the  negative  side.  What  it  is  posi- 
tively its  opponent  finds  hard  to  say.  In  one  place,  he  holds  that  it  argues 
pluralism  or  polytheism  "  against  our  monotheistic  belief."  In  another, 
that  it  is  a  scheme  of  pantheistic,  evolutionary  monism.  This  brings  us 
to  the  fourth  and  only  valuable  point  in  the  essay — the  attempt  to  con- 
nect pragmatism  with  German  idealism  of  a  previous  generation.  By  his 
frequent  use  of  good  German  and  faulty  French  the  author  discloses  a 
certain  Teutonic  facility  in  his  exposition  of  "  this  pantheism  of  an  all- 
pervading  Zielstrebigkeit."  Pragmatism,  he  suggests,  in  a  blind  sort  of 
way,  is  akin  to  Fichte's  teaching  that  things  in  themselves  are  as  we  have 
to  make  them,  "  that  the  ego  limits  itself  in  order  to  overcome  the  limi- 
tation, that  the  theoretical  is  only  in  behalf  of  the  practical " ;  in  short,  he 
teaches  the  duty  of  unremitting  exertion,  and  this  duty,  it  is  easily  seen, 
appeals  to  people  who  have  work  to  do.  In  connecting  the  Vocation  of 
Man  with  the  demand  for  the  strenuous  life  Huizinga  has  hit  on  a  prob- 
able connecting  link  between  primitive  pragmatism  and  the  St.  Louis 
School.  He  does  not  say  so  definitely,  but  it  may  well  be  that  the  revo- 
lutionary refugees  of  '48  through  their  personal  beliefs  and  through  such 
a  German- American  organ  as  the  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy, 
prepared  the  way  for  the  rapid  spread  of  pragmatism  in  the  middle  west. 
This  is  a  suggestion  as  to  what  the  writer  might  have  done  in  tracing 


249 

possible  sources  of  the  movement.  However,  he  makes  no  such  exact 
•connection,  but  leaves  us  with  only  vague  analogies  between  the  Yankee 
"  Let  us  still  be  up  and  doing  "  and  the  theme  of  Faust  that  "  the  ever- 
active,  striving  soul  works  out  his  own  salvation." 

Although  he  is  able  to  point  out  these  German-American  affinities,  the 
author  has  no  sympathy  with  them.  His  conclusion  appears  to  be  that 
pragmatism  is  a  scheme  of  pantheistic,  evolutionary  monism,  totally 
antipathetic  to  readers  of  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra  for  whom  this  essay  was 
written.  Indeed,  pragmatism  seems  to  fulfill  the  boast  that  the  dangerous 
movement  of  Ritschlian  valuation-theology  would  carry  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  in  one  generation.  And  yet  in  vindication  of  the  old  school, 
and  against  the  charge  that  it  is  no  longer  adequate  to  the  present  needs, 
he  contends  that  it  is  adequate,  since  it  affirms  that  thought  not  only  re- 
veals reality,  but  is  a  unique  mode  of  reality  itself.  In  this  conclusion 
the  anti-pragmatist  has  reached  the  third  stage  portrayed  by  James — first 
•scorn,  then  tolerance,  lastly  adjustment  of  the  old  to  the  new  way  of 
thinking. 

We  might  dismiss  this  sketch  by  saying  that  it  is  an  essay  with  wide 
margins  but  a  narrow  outlook.  It  contains,  however,  several  excellences. 
One  is  in  pointing  out  the  affinity  between  pragmatism  and  the  Ritschlian 
motto  "  Religion  without  Metaphysics  " ;  another  is  in  showing  that  prag- 
matism is  an  epistemological  result  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution;  a  third  is 
in  coining  certain  phrases  which  might  be  used  as  effective  watchwords 
by  radical  pragmatists.  Such  phrases  are  "being  is  disclosed  in  the 
doing " ;  and  "  We  are  no  more  searching  for  truth,  we  are  engaged  in 
making  it."  I.  WOODBRIDGE  RILEY. 

VASSAE  COLLEGE. 


JOURNALS   AND    NEW   BOOKS 

RIVISTA  DI  FILOSOFIA  NEO-SCOLASTICA.  October,  1911. 
Lo  studio  sperimentale  del  pensiero  e  della  volonta  (pp.  494-504) :  A. 
GEMELLI.  -  From  a  series  of  experiments  performed  by  Biihler  and  other 
German  psychologists,  there  can  be  demonstrated  the  autonomy  of  psy- 
chical activity  and  the  essential  distinction  between  thought  and  phantasm. 
Est-inza  ed  esistenza  (pp.  505-525)  :  G.  MATTIUSSI,  S.  J.  -  In  the  divine  na- 
tuit,  essence  am!  existence  are  identical;  in  finite  beings,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  real  distinction  between  essence  and  existence.  Sigieri 
di  Brdbante  nella  Divina  Commedia  e  le  fonti  della  filosofia  di  Dante  (pp. 
526-545)  :  BRUNO  NARDI.  -  The  Dantean  cosmology  appears  as  a  fusion  of 
Avicenna's  peripateticism  with  the  cosmological  ideas  of  the  Augustinian 
school.  Note  e  Discussioni.  Tribuna  libera.  Analisi  d'opere.  A.  Pas- 
tore,  Dell'  essere  e  del  conoscere:  A.  CUSCHIERI.  Michotte-Priim,  Etude 
experimental  sur  le  choix  volontaire  et  ses  antecedents  immediats: 
ARCAKGELO  GALLI.  G.  Amendola,  La  volonta  e  il  bene:  G.  TREDICI.  G. 
Allievo,  G.  G.  Rousseau  filosofo  e  pedagogista:  M.  BRUSADELLI.  De 
Dominicis,  Scienza  comparata  dell'  educazione:  L.  VENTURA.  Note  bib- 
liografiche.  Sommario  ideologico  delle  opere  e  delle  riviste  di  filosofia. 


250  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

REVUE  NEO-SCOLASTIQUE  DE  PHILOSOPHIE.  November, 
1911.  Leg  perplexites  du  Philebe  (pp.  457-478)  :  ANDRE  BREMOND.  -  Plato's 
dialogues,  although  great  and  inspiring,  often  lack  in  logical  sequence  and 
force  of  reasoning.  Le  libre  arbitre  et  lea  lots  sociologiques  d'apres 
Quetelet  (pp.  479-515) :  J.  LOTTIN.  -  Quetelet  never  defended  the  thesis  of 
the  determinism  of  the  individual  will;  he  believed  in  social  determinism, 
which  he  carefully  distingushed  from  fatalism.  Le  traite  "  De  esse  et  es- 
sentia"  de  Thierry  de  Fribourg  (pp.  516-536):  DR.  KREBS. -Text  of 
Thierry's  "  De  Esse  et  Essentia,"  published  for  the  first  time  from  a 
manuscript  of  the  Vatican  library.  Le  neo-dogmatisme  (pp.  537-563) : 
L.  Du  ROUSSAUX.  -  The  type  of  neo-dogmatism  born  among  certain 
Scholastics  from  the  influence  of  Kantian  criticism  is  decidedly  inferior 
to  the  old,  traditional  dogmatism.  A  propos  des  conditions  philosophiques 
de  devolution  (pp.  564-588) :  A.  BOUYSSONIE.  -  A  criticism  of  Le  Gui- 
chaoua's  theory  of  causality  in  evolution.  Le  Guichaoua's  answer. 
Comptes  rendus.  H.  de  Jongh,  Uancienne  faculte  de  theologie 
de  Louvain  au  premier  siecle  de  son  existence:  J.  LOTTIX.  A.  Fouillee, 
La  pensee  et  les  nouvelles  ecoles  antiintellectualistes :  J.  HENRY. 
G.  Surbled,  La  Volonte:  F.  PALHORIES.  J.  Mausbach,  Grundlage  und 
Ausbildung  des  Charakters  nach  dem  hi.  Thomas  von  Aquin:  F.  PAL- 
HORIES. Zaragiieta,  El  problema  del  alma  ante  la  psicologia  experimental: 
A.  F.  E.  Boyd  Barrett,  S.J.,  Motive-force  and  Motivation-tracks,  a  Re- 
search in  Will  Psychology:  A.  F.  O.  Habert,  La  religion  de  la  Grece 
antique:  A.  MANSION.  L.  Jeudon,  La  morale  de  I'honneur:  A.  MOUSTIERS. 
Sommaire  ideologique  des  ouvrages  et  revues  de  philosophic. 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW.  November,  1911.  German 
Philosophy  in  1910  (pp.  589-609):  OSCAR  EwALD.-The  development  of 
German  philosophy  in  1910  represents  no  divergence  from  the  lines  which 
it  has  followed  during  recent  years.  The  era  of  critical  idealism  is  still  in 
the  ascendent.  The  chief  writers  are  mentioned,  their  principal  works 
cited,  with  brief  accounts  of  and  comments  on  their  contents.  The  Ex- 
ternality of  Relations  (pp.  610-621)  :  THEODORE  DE  LAGUNA. -The  conflict 
as  to  whether  relations  are  essential,  as  held  by  the  neo-Hegelians,  or  ex- 
ternal, as  held  by  the  realists,  is  a  conflict,  it  is  asserted,  calling  for  analy- 
sis rather  than  argument.  Externality  may  mean  that  all  relations  are 
external  to  the  nature  of  all  relatives,  a  doctrine  claimed  to  be  false;  or 
that  relations  are  external  to  qualities,  a  doctrine  dependent  upon  the  dis- 
tinction between  a  quality  and  a  relation ;  or  that  relations  are  external  to 
each  other.  The  word  "  essential "  is  analyzed  with  reference  to  its  vari- 
ous meanings.  The  Psychology  of  Punitive  Justice  (pp.  622-635) :  WIL- 
LIAM K.  WRIGHT.  -  "  Of  the  three  theories  regarding  punishment,  the  re- 
tributive theory,  the  deterrent  theory,  and  the  reformatory  theory,  public 
opinion  at  the  present  time  is  probably  most  correctly  interpreted  by  the 
deterrent  theory,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  resentment  instinct  inter- 
preted and  rationalized."  Reviews  of  Books  (pp.  636-657).  Konstantin 
Oesterreich,  Die  Phdnomenologie  des  Ich  in  ihren  Grundproblemen:  MARY 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         251 

WHITON  CALKINS.  Johannes  Rehmke,  Philosophie  als  Grundwissenschaft: 
W.  H.  SHELDON.  Warner  Fite,  Individualism:  ELLEN  BLISS  TALBOT. 
Leslie  J.  Walker,  Theories  of  Knowledge:  H.  W.  WRIGHT.  Notices  of 
New  Books.  Summaries  of  Articles.  Notes. 

Bosanquet,   Bernard.    Logic.      Second   Edition   Eevised    and   Enlarged. 

2  Vols.    Oxford :  The  Clarendon  Press.    1912.    Pp.  xxiv  +  711.    21s. 
Carver,  Thomas  Nixon.     The  Religion  Worth  Having.    Boston  and  New 

York:  Houghton  Mifflin  Company.    1912.    Pp.  140.    $1.00. 
Colvin,  Stephen  S.    The  Learning  Process.    New  York:  The  Macmillan 

Company.     1911.    Pp.  xxv  +  336.    $1.25. 
De  Wulf,  Maurice.     Histoire  de  la  Philosophie  Medievale.     Quatrieme 

Edition.     Louvain:    1' Administration   de   la   Revue   Neo-Scolastique. 

1912.    Pp.  viii  +  624.    10F. 
Engert,  Horst.     Teleologie  und  Kausalitat.     Heidelberg:  Carl  Winters 

TJniversitatsbuchhandlung.     1911.    Pp.  50. 
Flournoy,  Thomas.    La  Philosophie  de  William  James.     Saint-Blaise : 

Foyer  Solidariste.    1911.    Pp.  219.    2.50F. 
Gilbert,    Otto.    Griechische   Religionphilosophie.     Leipzig:    Verlag   von 

Wilhelm  Englemann.    1911.    Pp.  554. 
Heimsoeth,    Heinz.    Die    Methods   der   Erkenntnis   bei    Descartes    und 

Leibniz.     Erste  Halite:  Historische  Einleitung.     Descartes  Methode 

der  klaren  und  deutlichen  Erkenntnis.     Giessen:  Verlag  von  Alfred 

Topelmann.    1912.    Pp.  192.    5.50M. 
Home,  Herman  Harrell.    Free  Will  and  Human  Responsibility.     New 

York :  The  Macmillan  Company.    1912.    Pp.  xvi  + 197.    $1.50. 
Jerusalem,  Wilhelm.    Die  Aufgaben  des  Lehrers  an  Hoheren  Schulen. 

Wien  und  Leipzig :  Wilhelm  Braumuller.     1912.     Pp.  xii  +  392. 
Kessler,  Dr.  Kurt.    Rudolf  Euckens  Bedeutung  fur  das  moderne  Chris- 

tentum.    Bunzlau :  Verlag  von  G.  Kreuschmer.    1912.    Pp.  68.    1.50M. 
Levinstein,    Gustav.    Philosophische    Betrachtungen.      Berlin:    Leonard 

Simion.    1912.    Pp.  99.    1.80M. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  following  delegates  have  been  appointed  to  represent  the  Ameri- 
can Philosophical  Society  on  the  following  occasions:  Vice-president 
William  B.  Scott,  of  Princeton,  to  represent  the  society  at  the  two  hun- 
dred and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Society  in 
July  next;  Professors  Paul  Haupt,  of  Baltimore,  E.  Washburn  Hopkins, 
of  New  Haven,  Morris  Jastrow,  Jr.,  of  Philadelphia,  and  A.  V.  Williams 
Jackson,  of  New  York,  as  delegates  to  the  eleventh  International  Con- 
gress of  Orientalists,  to  be  held  at  Athens  on  April  7  to  14;  Dr.  Franz 
Boas,  of  New  York,  a  delegate  to  the  eighteenth  International  Congress 
of  Americanists,  to  be  held  in  London  from  May  27  to  June  1.  At  the 
centenary  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  on  March  19  to  21  the 


252  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

society  was  officially  represented  by  Professor  Henry  F.  Osborn,  of  New 
York,  Dr.  Charles  D.  Walcott,  of  Washington,  Mr.  Samuel  Vauclain,  of 
Philadelphia,  Professor  William  B.  Clark,  of  Baltimore,  and  Dr.  II>  nry 
H.  Donaldson,  of  Philadelphia. 

THE  Princeton  University  Press  announces  the  publication  of  Presi- 
dent Witherspoon's  Lectures  on  Moral  Philosophy,  edited  by  Mr.  V.  L. 
Collins,  of  Princeton  University.  This  reprint  is  the  first  in  the  series 
of  "  Early  American  Philosophers,"  planned  by  the  American  Philosoph- 
ical Association,  and  to  be  published  under  its  auspices  by  the  universi- 
ties with  which  the  respective  authors,  whose  works  are  to  be  reprinted, 
were  most  intimately  connected.  The  text  is  that  of  the  first  edition,  that 
of  1800,  which  the  editor  has  collated  not  only  with  the  editions  of  1810 
and  1822  but  also  with  manuscript  versions  of  the  lectures  written  in 
1772,  1782  and  1795,  and  significant  variants  have  been  noted.  The  In- 
troduction is  a  study  of  Dr.  Witherspoon's  many-sided  character;  and  a 
check-list  of  his  published  writings  has  been  supplied.  The  frontispiece 
is  a  reproduction  of  the  portrait  of  Dr.  Witherspoon  by  Charles  Wilson 
Peale.  The  edition  is  limited  to  500  copies. 

THE  New  York  Branch  of  the  American  Psychological  Association 
met  in  conjunction  with  the  Section  of  Anthropology  and  Psychology  of 
the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences  on  Monday,  April  22.  At  the  after- 
noon session,  which  met  at  Columbia  University,  the  following  papers 
were  read :  "  Sex  Differences  in  Incidental  Memory,"  Mr.  G.  C.  Myers ; 
"Studies  in  Recognition  Memory,"  Dr.  E.  K.  Strong;  "Individual  Dif- 
ferences in  the  Interests  of  Children,"  Miss  Gertrude  M.  Kuper ;  "  Ex- 
periments with  the  Hampton  Court  Maze,"  Professor  H.  A.  Ruger.  The 
papers  read  at  the  evening  session  at  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History  were  as  follows :  "  Relation  of  Interference  to  Adaptability,"  Mr. 
A.  J.  Culler;  "The  Optimal  Distribution  of  Time  and  the  Relation  of 
Length  of  Material  to  Time  Taken  for  Learning,"  Mr.  D.  O.  Lyon ;  "  The 
Age  of  Walking  and  Talking  in  Relation  to  General  Intelligence,"  Mr. 
C.  D.  Mead;  "Practise  in  the  Case  of  Children  of  School  Age,"  Mr.  T. 
H.  Kirby. 

MRS.  CHRISTINE  LADD  FRANKLIN  has  given  three  university  lectures  on 
color  vision  before  the  department  of  psychology  of  Columbia  University, 
as  follows :  March  25,  "  The  Theory  of  Color  Theories— The  Color  Tri- 
angle and  the  Color  Square — The  Facts  Inconsistent  with  the  Hering 
Theory  " ;  March  27,  "  The  Young-Helmholtz  Theory  in  its  Latest  Form 
— its  Indispensableness  and  its  Inadequacy";  March  29,  "The  Recent 
Views  on  Color — Brunner,  Pauli,  Bernstein,  Schenck — The  Development 
Theory  of  Color." 

THE  Philosophical  Institute  of  Canterbury,  New  Zealand,  which  came 
into  existence  on  August  30,  1862,  will  celebrate  its  jubilee  this  year.  It 
is  proposed  to  mark  the  occasion  by  holding  a  gathering  in  Christchurch. 

DR.  DURANT  DRAKE,  of  the  University  of  Illinois,  has  accepted  the 
position  of  associate  professor  of  ethics  and  the  philosophy  of  religion  at 
Wesleyan  (Middletown,  Conn.)  University. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  10.  MAY  9,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


BEAUTY,  COGNITION,  AND  GOODNESS 

~T)HILOSOPHERS  and  artists  have  taken,  throughout  the  history 
of  thought,  one  of  two  attitudes  toward  beauty.  They  saw  it 
either  as  a  deep,  metaphysical  principle  made  magically  manifest  or 
as  an  ordinary  psychologic  or  material  datum,  curious  in  its  bearing 
on  human  interests.  Beauty  was,  in  these  two  views,  assimilated,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  the  high,  the  noble,  the  divine,  impersonal,  and 
selfless;  on  the  other,  to  the  pleasures  of  the  lower  interests  of  life, 
to  the  satisfaction  of  appetites.  To  Plato,  Plotinus,  Kant,  Schelling, 
Hegel,  Schopenhauer,  Euskin,  Goethe,  among  many  others,  beauty 
was  the  supernal  reality  made  manifest;  escape  from  evil,  the  self- 
expression  of  the  infinite,  and  what  not  that  is  transcendental  and 
blissful.  For  Baumgarten,  for  the  English  empiricists  from  Hobbes 
to  Burke,  for  psychologizing  investigators  like  Lipps  and  Santayana, 
for  biologizing  ones  like  Darwin  and  Guyau  or  Spencer,  beauty  was 
identical  with  some  state  of  mind  or  the  function  of  some  biological 
condition  or  trait.  None  allowed  it  any  independent  status  or 
intrinsic,  observable  character.  It  was  always  taken  metaphysically 
or  positivistically ;  attributed  now  to  the  object,  now  to  the  mind, 
and  the  diversity  of  opinion  concerning  its  nature  is  so  great  as  to 
render  doubtful  any  definition  of  it,  save  in  so  far  as  that  definition 
contains  elements  common  to  all  the  others.  Such  elements  should, 
on  the  one  hand,  reveal  either  the  constant  conditions  or  occasions  of 
beauty  and  perhaps  its  intrinsic  character ;  on  the  other,  they  should 
indicate  its  status  with  respect  to  man  and  nature. 

Where  is  beauty  to  be  sought?  In  the  definitions  themselves? 
Hardly,  since  these  look  back  to  a  specific  situation  having  concrete 
and  multifold  characters  from  which  the  definitions  as  such  abstract. 
Actual  beauty  is  to  be  found  empirically,  like  actual  apples  or  chairs 
or  tables.  It  can  not  be  deduced;  it  must  be  sought  in  typical 
"beauty-situations."  But  since,  according  to  the  definitions,  these 
are  cases  of  either  objective  or  psychological  existence,  we  must 
examine  both  things  of  beauty  and  beauty-experiencing  minds. 

253 


254  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Suppose,  then,  that  we  study  any  object  to  which  the  adjective 
"beautiful"  is  applied — any  statue,  any  picture,  any  poem',  any 
melody.  If  it  contains  beauty  as  a  quality  or  attribute  not  identical 
with  any  one  of  its  other  qualities,  or  so  identical,  or  identical  with 
the  whole  collection  of  them,  this  beauty  must  be  capable  of  being 
analyzed  out,  like  color,  texture,  shape,  size,  or  expression.  Now  we 
can  abstract  from  any  object  of  beauty,  one  by  one,  its  qualities — 
its  order,  its  structure,  its  tone  or  color,  its  contour  or  pitch,  its 
imagery  or  expressiveness.  We  can  exhibit  these  elements.  We  can 
say  of  the  Lady  in  the  Sistine  Chapel :  ' '  See,  here  is  the  rose  of  the 
Madonna's  cheek,  here  the  pink  and  white  of  her  flesh,  the  blue  of 
her  eyes,  the  oval  of  her  face,  the  round  of  her  arm,  the  flowing  line 
of  her  robe,  the  perfect  curve  of  her  aureole."  But  can  we  so 
abstract  and  exhibit  her  beauty  ?  Where  in  the  picture  shall  we  find 
it,  whence  take  it,  as  we  have  found  and  taken  these  other  qualities, 
from  eyes  and  robe  and  aureole  ?  This  quality  we  can  not  discover : 
like  Berkeley's  matter,  it  disappears  with  enumerations  of  qualities 
that,  taken  together,  are  supposed  to  possess  it.  Empirically,  at  least, 
beauty  does  not  appear  to  be  an  additional  quality,  added  to  color 
and  line  and  expression ;  it  is  not  an  underlying  quality  where  color 
and  line  and  expression  inhere.  Shall  we  say  then,  as  Berkeley  said 
of  matter,  that  beauty  is  the  qualities  that  are  supposed  to  possess  it, 
that  it  consists  of  the  union  of  these  so  various  elements?  Some 
philosophers  do,  in  fact,  hold  some  such  proposition  to  be  true.  For 
them  beauty  consists  in  wholeness,  and  a  beautiful  thing,  they  call 
"an  organic  whole,  self -completing  and  self -complete. "  Others 
speak  of  the  beautiful  in  an  object  as  the  harmonious  union  of  its 
parts,  identifying  beauty  with  certain  specific  relations  that  such 
parts  bear  to  one  another.  To  all  persons,  who  so  think  of  beauty, 
it  involves  some  kind  of  complexity:  a  simple  thing  can  not  be 
beautiful.  Yet  are  there  not  many  things  we  find  beautiful  that  are 
genuinely  simple — a  pure  color,  a  graceful  line,  a  single  tone  ?  These 
are  units  of  which  complex  esthetic  objects  are  made,  yet  they  are 
not  unbeautiful  in  themselves.  Reduce  or  increase  their  quantity 
or  duration,  they  are  still  beautiful.  We  may  not  say,  therefore, 
that  beauty  is  identical  with  wholeness  as  such,  nor  yet  that  it  is 
identical  with  a  special  kind  of  wholeness.  Very  often  two  objects 
made  of  esthetically  the  same  material,  in  an  identical  fashion — a 
picture  and  its  copy,  for  example — differ  in  no  respect  save  in  this 
unique  matter  of  beauty;  one  of  them  possessing  it  supremely,  the 
other  not  at  all.  Still  more  frequently  an  object  which  is  found  to 
be  beautiful  on  one  day  is  judged  unbeautiful  on  the  next ;  while  an 
object  which  has  never  been  considered  to  possess  beauty  is  sud- 
denly found  to  be  endowed  therewith  in  high  degree.  And  this  last 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          255 

event  occurs  to  the  most  commonplace  of  objects — a  city  street,  a 
familiar  voice,  one's  wife,  one's  pupils,  even  one's  last  year's  con- 
tribution to  the  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY.  Yet  when  you  analyze 
this  transfigured  thing,  you  find  in  it  nothing  new  which  is  the  cause 
of  beauty,  nor  yet  beauty  itself.  And  not  only  is  one  and  the  same 
object  inconstant  with  respect  to  beauty  at  different  times ;  if  beauty 
is  a  quality  of  it,  it  both  has  it  and  does  not  have  it  at  the  same  time. 
For  every  disagreement  about  the  beauty  of  an  object  means  that 
the  beauty  is  there  and  not  there  at  an  identical  instant.  This  could 
not  be  if  beauty  were  a  quality,  whether  a  particular  one,  like  red 
or  shape,  or  the  unity  and  wholeness,  the  combination  of  many  such 
particular  qualities.  Experience,  when  taken  thus  radically,  refutes 
both  these  conceptions.  Neither  beauty  as  a  quality  nor  its  identity 
with  wholeness  is  revealed  in  it.  Complexes  or  simples,  they  may  be 
the  occasion  of  beauty,  or  perhaps  the  result  of  beauty,  but  beauty's 
self  they  are  not.  But  if  beauty  is  not  the  wholeness  of  an  object 
nor  any  special  part  or  quality  of  an  object,  then  it  does  not  reside 
in  the  object.  It  is  to  be  sought  for  elsewhere. 

That  ' '  elsewhere, ' '  estheticians,  following  the  normal  bent  of  the 
philosophic  mind,  make  the  spirit.  For  a  long  time  great  schools  of 
philosophy  have  persisted  as  the  exponents  of  a  fundamental  propo- 
sition— the  proposition  that  the  mind  contributes  a  great  deal  to  the 
nature  of  its  object ;  many,  indeed,  believing  that  knowing  is  creative. 
Psychology  has  given  this  belief  a  color  of  truth.  It  has  been  shown 
that  what  we  see  or  hear  or  feel  varies  with  our  previous  experience, 
the  state  of  our  bodies,  our  general  mental  tone.  This  fact,  it  is 
claimed,  is  most  particularly  evident  in  the  region  of  our  life  known 
as  values,  and  psychologists,  accordingly,  even  those  who  do  not  be- 
lieve the  general  assumption  that  the  mind  alters  or  creates  things  by 
knowing  them,  have  none  the  less  found  it  convenient  to  identify 
beauty  with  certain  psychological  conditions.  According  to  these 
scholars  the  mind  endows  an  object  with  beauty  when  it  assumes 
toward  that  object  an  "esthetic  attitude."  By  "esthetic  attitude" 
they  mean  certain  changes  in  mind  and  body.  These  changes  they 
study,  analyze  into  components,  define  with  respect  to  their  bearing 
on  each  other,  and  then  designate  one  or  all  of  them  with  the  word 
"beauty."  So,  beauty  consists  for  some  in  the  fusion  into  identity 
of  certain  mental  states;  for  others  it  consists  in  the  titillation  of 
two  feelings,  one,  that  the  object  is  real ;  the  second,  that  the  object 
is  unreal ;  others,  again,  find  beauty  to  be  a  balanced  system  of  motor 
responses,  or  a  fusion  of  mind  and  object,  causing  a  "loss  of  person- 
ality"; while  others  still  identify  beauty  with  the  emotional  imita- 
tion of  the  object,  by  empathy  or  einfiihlung,  or  with  the  feeling  of 
detachment  from  pain  and  the  stress  of  the  daily  life — the  "libera 


256  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tion"  of  the  mind  as  in  play,  or  with  the  attribution  of  pleasure  to 
the  object,  rather  than  to  the  mind,  and  so  on.  Against  such  iden- 
tifications, and  there  are  many  more,  the  same  difficulties  may  be 
urged  as  against  the  identification  of  beauty  with  wholeness  or  with 
any  simple  quality  of  an  object.  Are  such  psychological  or  physical 
states  actually  beauty?  Do  we  discover  them  to  be  beauty  as  the 
chemist  discovers  oxygen  and  hydrogen  to  be  water?  I  doubt 
whether  even  the  most  radical  of  the  psychologizing  estheticians 
would  venture  to  assert  that  they  can  exhibit  a  psychophysical  com- 
pound, beauty,  just  as  they  can  exhibit  any  other  psychophysical 
object — the  sensation  red,  an  image,  the  process  of  attention,  or  of 
association.  Here  again,  as  with  respect  to  the  object,  it  is  mere 
confusion  to  identify  beauty  with  what  precedes  or  succeeds  it  or  is 
simultaneous  with  it.  Empathy,  "favorable  stimulation  and  re- 
pose," "objectified  pleasure,"  may  be  occasions  or  results  of  beauty, 
its  concomitants,  perhaps.  They  are  not  beauty  itself,  nor  can  they, 
empirically,  be  made  into  beauty.  They  often  appear  where  it  does 
not,  and  it,  where  they  do  not.  If,  therefore,  beauty  lies  in  the  mind 
of  him  who  sees,  its  manner  of  existence  must  be  vastly  different  from 
ordinary  "psychological  existence."  Nor  can  it  have  even  trans- 
cendental existence  like  the  Kantian  categories,  since,  if  Kant  is 
right,  time  and  space  and  the  categories  are  always  with  us,  while 
beauty  is  not  so  with  us.  Is,  then,  its  existence  a  Berkeleyan  thing, 
destroyed  when  we  cease  to  think  of  it,  appearing  and  disappearing 
as  we  choose  ?  Or  is  it  something  free  and  independent,  working  its 
will  with  us  when  it  can  even  as  we  with  it  when  we  can  ?  What  is 
its  relation  to  the  beautiful  object  and  what  to  the  mind  ? 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  the  investigator  who  is  trying  to 
answer  this  question  is  the  fact  that  the  mind,  in  genuine  esthetic 
experience,  in  which  beauty  appears,  is  not  experiencing  a  thing 
called  beauty;  it  is  experiencing  an  object  to  which  it  afterwards 
attributes  beauty.  Nor  yet  is  this  object  affecting  a  psychological 
quality  or  trait,  designated  as  beauty;  it  is  affecting  an  ordinary 
mind.  Hence,  the  mind  which  seeks  to  experience  beauty  as  such 
must  take  the  esthetic  experience  as  a  whole ;  must  make  its  subject 
mind,  beauty,  and  object  together,  and  must  analyze  their  mutual 
involutions.  But  to  do  this  presupposes  a  conception  of  the  nature 
of  mind  and  its  relation  to  its  objects,  and  such  a  conception  must 
needs  be  defined  before  the  analysis  can  proceed. 

II 

Common  sense  speaks  of  "reading  the  mind,"  "seeing  what  is 
in  the  mind,"  and  so  on.  Empirically  taken,  mind,  when  spoken  of 
in  this  manner,  means  a  special  way  of  behavior  with  respect  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         257 

objects,  a  way  of  taking  them  together.  It  involves  a  body,  objects, 
and  this  distinctive  togetherness.  When  a  man  "knows  his  own 
mind"  or  "makes  up  his  mind"  or  "changes"  it,  one  object  or  one 
program  of  behavior  is  included,  another  rejected.  One  thing  is  clung 
to,  asserted,  another  abandoned.  To  be  able  ' '  to  read  another  like  a 
book"  is  to  distinguish  the  contents  of  the  other's  mind  and  his 
attitude  toward  them  which  alone  makes  them  uniquely  contents  of 
his  mind,  their  especial  and  concrete  togetherness.  It  is,  in  a  word, 
to  perceive  the  direction  and  bearing  of  his  interests. 

Now  what  is  interest?  Taken  concretely  it  is  an  action  of  a 
complex  called  a  body  upon  something  not  itself,  in  such  wise  that 
this  action  and  its  object  continue  to  increase  and  to  expand  pros- 
perously. To  say  that  John  Jones  is  interested  in  music  is  to  say 
that  Jones  so  acts  as  to  increase,  use,  and  control  those  objects  in  his 
environment  that  are  denoted  by  the  word  music — the  objects,  their 
associations,  and  implications.  He  goes  to  concerts,  to  operas,  he 
makes  himself  a  member  of  musical  clubs,  he  plays,  he  sings,  he 
composes,  or  buys  scores.  We  define  all  human  characters  by  their 
dominating  interests — the  miser,  the  boaster,  the  gambler,  the  philos- 
opher— each  of  these  words  designates  behavior  tending  to  preserve 
or  increase  a  certain  type  of  existence.  Now  behavior  of  this  kind 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  thinking.  For  thinking  is  only  the 
prosecution  of  interests — the  preservation  of  what  is  propitious  and 
the  elimination  of  what  is  evil — from  the  destruction  of  an  enemy  in 
the  flesh,  to  a  contradiction  in  logic.  It  requires  a  body,  an  object 
thought,  and  the  way  of  thinking.  And  mind  is  what  is  left  when 
the  body  is  abstracted.  In  any  concrete  instance,  hence,  mind  is  a 
system  of  objects  of  which  a  living  body,  its  operations,  its  desirings 
— i.  e.,  the  motor  and  affectional  life — are  central  and  the  objects 
marginal. 

If  this  be  the  case,  minds  are  neither  simple  nor  stable.  They 
may  be  and  are  "changed,"  "made  up,"  "confused,"  "cleared," 
etc.  One  body,  in  the  course  of  its  lifetime,  may  have  many  minds, 
only  partially  united.  The  unity  of  a  mind  is  coincident  with  its 
consistent  pursuit  of  one  interest  (we  then  call  it  narrow)  or  with  the 
cooperation  and  harmony  of  many  (when  we  call  it  liberal).  Fre- 
quently two  or  more  minds  struggle  for  the  possession  of  one  body ; 
that  is,  the  body  may  be  divided  between  two  objects,  each  equally 
demanding  response.  The  most  typical  instance  of  such  a  division 
is  that  in  which  you  can  not  determine  between  two  conflicting  ways 
of  behavior,  where  you  are  "of  two  minds"  with  respect  to  an  object 
or  an  end.  The  most  complex  instances  are  those  of  dual  or  mul- 
tiple personality,  in  which"  the  body  has  ordered  so  great  a  collection 
of  objects  and  systematized  a  sufficiently  large  number  of  interests 


258  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

in  such  typically  distinct  ways  as  to  have  set  up  for  itself  different 
and  opposed  "minds."  On  the  other  hand,  two  or  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred bodies  may  be,  so  far  as  is  compatible  with  their  fundamental 
numerical  diversity,  "of  the  same  mind."  In  fact,  concerning  the 
elementary  things  of  life,  the  business  of  feeding  and  loving,  the  sun, 
the  sky,  the  primordial  conditions  of  labor,  the  majority  of  men  are 
of  one  mind:  it  is  this  unity  of  mind  that  we  call  their  "common 
sense." 

Mind  so  taken,  it  is  clear,  does  not  create  the  objects  it  knows; 
it  selects  them.  It  does  not  "picture"  or  represent  what  it  knows, 
it  apprehends  its  objects  directly.  Not  only  is  it,  moreover,  uncre- 
ative  of  things;  it  is  uncreative  of  those  things  which  are  called 
purely  mental — memories,  imaginations,  ideas.  Its  world,  instead  of 
being  dual,  is  single  and  continuous.  Whatever  it  thinks  has  an 
independent  status  and  definable  character — a  centaur,  the  number  4, 
Caesar's  death,  to-morrow's  dinner.  Whatever  the  source  of  these 
objects,  once  they  are  cognitively  found,  they  are  found  as  real: 
they  are  capable  of  being  subjects  of  conversation  and  of  battle. 
They  may  be  envisaged  by  many  people  without  being  thereby 
changed  in  the  least,  or  they  may  be  changed  and  their  changes 
would  be  accountable  in  unambiguous  terms  of  bodily  or  otherwise 
entitative  action  upon  them.  A  world  of  such  objects  in  which  all 
things  have  each  a  genuine  status  has  been  called  by  William 
James  a  "world  of  pure  experience,"  and  this  way  of  viewing  it  he 
has  called  ' '  radical  empiricism ' '  and  ' '  logical  realism. ' '  Its  content 
is  an  infinitude  of  entities,  some  "existent,"  some  "non-existent," 
but  really  present  in  knowledge,  partly  or  altogether,  whenever 
thought  or  responded  to.  This  infinitude  must  not,  however,  be 
taken  as  inert,  nor  as  possessing  in  itself  the  orderly  character  of 
knowledge.  It  is  a  flux,  a  turmoil  of  confusion  and  disorder,  con- 
taining pure  chances,  and  with  all  its  fulness,  breeding  infinitely 
more  things.  What  order  it  contains  is  not  necessary,  but  accidental 
— an  acquired  habit  of  things :  what  things  there  are  are  not  neces- 
sary but  accidental — spontaneous  appearances  that  have  succeeded 
in  establishing  their  right  to  a  place  from  among  all  the  infinitude 
that  have  failed  and  been  irredeemably  lost.  The  cosmic  order  is  a 
matter  of  cosmic  adaptation:  it  is  the  salvage  out  of  the  universal 
chaos,  neither  good  nor  bad,  but  one  out  of  an  infinitude  of  possible 
orders,  any  of  which  might  be  much  superior  to  this  one,  and  any  of 
which  might  in  time  or  immediately  displace  it. 

I  have  just  made  use  of  the  words  "superior,"  "good,"  and 
"bad."  That  use  was  premature.  Such  terms,  terms  of  valuation, 
introduce  into  the  order  of  nature  a  new  and  extraneous  order,  itself 
as  much  an  incident  in  the  cosmos  as  is  the  cosmos  in  the  universe. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         259 

For  us,  however,  it  is  a  reordering  of  that  universe,  the  establish- 
ment therein  of  a  true  center  of  reference,  an  unutterably  different 
scale  of  being.  This  center,  as  we  have  seen,  is  that  arrangement  of 
entities  we  call  the  human  organism.  Like  a  magnet  set  within  a 
heap  of  iron  filings,  it  establishes  within  its  environment  a  new  and 
ulterior  order;  it  endows  the  environmental  contents  with  an  addi- 
tional quality  and  another  status,  making  them  relevant  chiefly  to 
its  specific  capacity  and  arranging  them  along  its  line  of  force.  It 
does  not  alter  their  constitution,  but  it  violates  their  inertia  and 
proper  bias,  refracting  these  with  reference  to  the  needs  of  its  own 
nature.  In  the  universal  jumble  simple  things  may  lie  side  by  side 
with  complex  things,  one  may  spring  from  the  other,  the  other  from 
the  one.  For  the  mind,  simple  things  are  first;  complexes  are  built 
out  of  them,  the  universe  is  reconstituted,  willy-nilly,  in  an  ascend- 
ing hierarchy  of  complexity,  from  logic,  through  mathematics, 
physics,  chemistry,  and  biology,  to  ethics.  Dominated  by  its  inter- 
ests, regarding  the  residual  world  only  with  reference  to  its  bear- 
ing on  these,  the  organism  manipulates  and  uses  what  it  apprehends 
directly,  until  its  complexity  is  utterly  reduced  or  its  force  consumed. 
This  activity  is  knowing — response  to  objects  as  constituents  or 
relevancies  of  interests. 

Now,  actions,  responses,  uses  are  either  relations  or  depend  upon 
them,  and  relations  may  be  not  only  efficacious  and  alterative,  but 
also  external  and  impotent,  in  no  sense  definitive.  They  need  not 
constitute  anything  on  which  they  operate.  They  appear  and  they 
disappear,  but  they  always  bind  two  or  more  things  together  in  a 
specific  identifiable  way.  Thus,  I  stand  on  the  floor,  and  "onness" 
is  a  relation  between  me  and  the  floor.  But  I  should  not  be  unmade 
by  not  being  on  the  floor,  nor  the  floor  made  by  my  being  on  it. 
Onness  is  an  external  relation  and  defines  neither  me  nor  the  floor. 
On  the  other  hand,  certain  relations,  which  bind  complex  things 
together,  do  define  them,  as  a  man's  cognitive  relation  to  things 
defines  man,  the  knowing  animal.  By  that  act  which  constitutes  him 
man,  he  is  most  adequately  distinguished  from  other  things.  These, 
again,  are  identified  as  heavy,  sweet,  red,  alive,  big,  small,  but  only 
under  very  special  conditions  are  they  identified  as  known,  and  only 
in  abnormal  cases  defined  as  such.  To  them  the  immediacy  of 
knowledge  is  an  external  relation  which  connects  them  with  many 
knowers,  and  it  is  a  relation  which  they  lose  and  assume  without 
suffering  directly  the  least  change  in  their  constitution  and  character. 
Indeed,  we  do  not  claim  to  know  things  certainly  or  immediately 
until  we  are  convinced  that  they  have  revealed  to  us  every  possible 
change  they  themselves  independently  undergo.  Their  self-revelation 
is  classified  sometimes  according  to  the  organs  which  respond  to 


260  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

them,  sometimes  according  to  their  complexity,  sometimes  according 
to  both. 

So,  when  the  body  responds  to  an  object  by  means  of  its  sense- 
organs,  the  object  is  called  a  perception.  It  is  generally  a  "thick" 
object,  supposed  to  be  made  up  of  many  simpler  elements.  It  gets 
itself  taken  hold  of  by  the  appropriate  reflex  arc  directly,  much  as  a 
pair  of  tongs  directly  spans  or  grasps  a  piece  of  coal.  Thus,  the 
sounds  you  hear  and  the  words  you  see  are  spanned  immediately 
by  your  auditory  and  visual  reflex  arcs,  indirectly,  by  your  whole 
nervous  system,  and  you  are  said  to  perceive  what  I  say  or  what 
impresses  the  eyes.  Now  such  perceptions  are  very  complex:  they 
are  composed  of  a  great  variety  of  tones  or  shapes  and  colors  and 
their  relations,  and  they  also  carry  meanings  and  stand  for  things 
not  themselves.  If  "you  span  a  single  element  of  this  complex,  you 
are  said  to  have  a  sensation  or  an  idea  or  a  conception.  Psycholo- 
gists, to  say  nothing  of  philosophers  like  Kant,  have  made  much  of 
the  difference  between  the  two,  but  no  genuine  difference  seems  dis- 
coverable. The  idea  of  red,  e.  g.,  whether  it  be  "motor,"  or  "kin- 
esthetic"  or  "sensory"  or  "verbal"  or  "imageless,"  is  not  distin- 
guishable as  to  qualitative  content  from  the  sensation  of  red;  nor 
the  idea  of  triangularity  from  the  sensation  of  triangularity.  In 
both  cases  you  have  before  you  less  than  is  before  you  in  perception, 
but  what  you  have  before  you  is  none  the  less  of  the  same  kind  as 
content  of  perception. 

Nor  can  the  distinction  between  idea  and  sensation  based  on  the 
mode  of  presentation  hold.  For  even  if  sensations  are  presented  by 
the  senses  and  ideas  by  means  of  central  processes,  each  is  at  the 
moment  spanned  by  some  reflex  arc,  and  who  shall  say  that  the 
senses  are  not  part  of  it  ?  If  an  entity  is  to  be  apprehended  at  all, 
it  must  be  apprehended  by  one  or  more  organs,  and  its  nature  is  not 
different,  whether  the  terminal  act  is  arrived  at  in  a  roundabout 
way,  through  the  intervention  of  various  neural  processes,  or  spon- 
taneously, by  the  response  of  the  appropriate  reflex  arc  to  its  stim- 
ulus. In  either  case  the  given  character  of  this  stimulus  is  directly 
grasped,  and  this  is  so  in  the  apprehension  of  even  such  putatively 
psychical  objects  as  memory  and  imagination.  A  remembered  thing 
has  to  be  sought  and  found  like  a  thing  perceived,  and  its  difference 
from  perception  is  rather  in  certain  additive  or  subtractive  qualities 
than  intrinsic  content.  It  is  essentially  no  more  a  psychic  or  hidden 
thing  than  is  a  perception.  If  attainable  at  all,  it  is  as  open  to-day, 
as  shareable  by  many  people,  as  potent  in  requiring  our  adjustment 
to  it. 

This  holds,  I  believe,  also  of  imaginational  beings.  These  are 
taken  to  be,  like  dreams,  peculiarly  private  and  hidden;  their  esse, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          261 

more  even  than  that  of  memory,  is  described  as  percipi.  But  if  you 
study  your  imaginative  activities,  if  you  are  lost  in  dream  or  revery, 
you  observe  that  they  do  not  come  at  your  bidding,  that  they  must, 
like  ideas  and  memories  and  sensations  and  perceptions,  be  sought 
out;  their  character  and  integrity  must  be  acknowledged  as  these 
impose  themselves  upon  you.  You  observe  that  they  require  you  to 
adapt  yourself  to  them  even  as  do  the  more  permanent  things, 
making  you  happy  or  afraid,  angry  or  sorrowful,  confiding  or  watch- 
ful, just  like  the  residual,  solid,  daily  life.  The  stuff  of  them  is  the 
stuff  of  that  life,  going  a  different  way,  appearing  in  new  complexes, 
differing  from  it  only  in  power  to  hold  the  places  they  preempt. 
Imaginations  are  not  unreal ;  those  entities  we  so  designate  are  only 
unfit.  They  belong,  perhaps,  to  these  other  orders,  to  the  infinite 
residuum  which  has  not  succeeded  in  making  a  place  for  itself  in  our 
cosmos,  and  breaks  in,  for  the  moment,  perhaps,  by  way  of  the  order 
of  value,  and  is  again  cast  out,  banished,  by  the  stronger,  more 
"valid"  order.  Imaginations,  too,  may  be  common  objects  of 
knowledge;  it  is  only  their  weakness  which  makes  them  sink  out  of 
our  sight,  like  a  tiny  cloud  to  which  you  call  the  attention  of  your 
friend  and  which  vanishes  even  as  you  cry,  ' '  Look ! ' ' 

Such,  then,  are  these  so-called  "mental,"  private  entities — quite 
real,  quite  recognizable,  with  varying  facility  open  to  the  day  and  to 
the  common  view  of  all  healthy  eyes.  But  one  group  of  realities  does 
not  seem  sharable  and  common  in  the  same  sense.  This  group  com- 
prises our  preferences,  our  valuations.  The  others  are  objects,  the 
goals  of  attention,  the  definitive  contents  of  interest,  the  intelligible 
ideals  of  our  lives.  Attitudes  and  actions,  however,  are  acceptances 
and  rejections  of  these  others,  are  the  relations  we  bear  to  them,  and 
just  as  two  bodies  can  not  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time, 
so  two  persons  can  not  hold  a  numerically  identical  relation  to  the 
same  object  at  the  same  time,  unless  these  persons  are  identical. 
In  this  fact  lies  the  source  of  all  our  differences  and  disagreements. 
Our  mere  numerical  diversity  compels  us  to  value  things  with  refer- 
ence to  fundamentally  separate  interests,  to  orient,  each  of  us  a 
world,  about  a  distinct  center,  the  self.  Such  orienting  is  the  re- 
lating of  the  environment  to  the  vital  purpose.  It  is  valuation,  the 
essence  of  knowing,  and  our  primordial  and  ultimate  relation  to  our 
world  is  a  value-relation.  As  such  it  carries  its  own  peculiar  terms, 
and  for  us,  at  least,  is  constitutive  of  our  nature  as  terms.  It  con- 
sists at  its  barest  of  the  direct  appreciation  of  the  immediate  bearing 
of  an  entity  on  our  vital  selfhood.  It  stands  out  most  clearly  in  an 
elementary  interest.  Such  an  interest  is  constituted  by  three  things 
— an  organism,  an  environment,  the  value-relation  that  binds  them. 
This  last  is  usually  called  cognition  or  awareness.  It  is  different 


262  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

from  all  other  possible  relations  of  organism  to  environment  in  that 
it  alone  values  the  latter,  connecting  its  terms  more  closely,  as  in 
attention,  i.  e.,  becoming  the  object's  attribute,  good;  or  divorcing 
them,  becoming  the  attribute,  'bad.  Good  and  bad,  thus,  are  con- 
verse modes  of  designating  immediate  cognition,  which  is  the  value- 
relation  and  the  essential  constituent  of  interest,  a  relation  that  can 
be  named,  but  not  defined,  utterly  simple,  primary,  and  ultimate. 

Now  a  mind  involves  countless  reflex  arcs,  many  objects,  is  com- 
posed of  innumerable  interests.  Each  of  these,  it  is  clear,  may  be 
separate  and  independent  valuations  of  their  content,  positive  or 
negative,  good  or  bad.  But  reflex  arcs  do  not  act  alone.  They  are 
"integrated"  and  act  like  mobs  or  armies,  and  when  they  so  act  their 
separate  valuations  also  integrate,  and  though  each  preserves  its 
identity  of  direction,  it  is  penetrated  through  and  through  by  all  the 
others  and  constitutes  with  them  a  unity  which  is  identical  with  a 
fresh  and  quite  diverse  valuation.  Such  would  be  the  complex  and 
more  massive  feelings,  pleasures  and  pains,  anger,  fear,  affection, 
respect,  admiration,  love,  sympathy.  These  are  valuating  complexes 
composed  of  simpler  valuations  which  fuse  into  one  as  the  separate 
tones  of  a  melody  fuse  into  the  melody.  They  are  appraisements  of 
the  environment  and  as  such  can  themselves  be  appraised — though 
only  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  For  when  you  are  possessed  by  any 
emotion  you  can  not  yourself  examine  it,  and  when  your  friend  or 
your  doctor  studies  such  an  actual  attitude  and  its  object  or  physi- 
ological condition  or  connected  incident,  he  finds  himself  speedily 
assuming  the  attitude  he  is  observing.  Nothing  is  so  fluent  and 
infectious;  anger  begets  anger;  love,  love;  any  relation  tends  to 
reproduce  itself.  It  is  because  of  this  that  a  "social  mind"  is  pos- 
sible or  that  a  stable  common  sense  can  arise. 

How  different  when  the  object  apprehended  is  a  thing!  Two 
persons  may  have  opposed  attitudes  toward  the  same  thing  or  a 
qualitatively  identical  attitude  toward  different  things.  For  in- 
stance, you  observe  the  red  of  the  sunset ;  your  observing  is  identical 
with  finding  it  pleasant ;  you  approach  it,  you  open  your  senses  wide 
to  absorb  it,  you  aim  at  more  and  more  of  it — in  a  word,  it  becomes 
the  content  of  your  interest.  Your  neighbor,  however,  apprehends 
it  negatively,  turns  from  it,  seeks  to  upset  the  cognitive  equilibrium, 
to  free  himself  of  his  relation  to  red,  to  oust  red  from  his  world. 
Then,  according  to  these  direct  and  immediate  valuations  of  that 
color,  its  place  in  your  common  world  will  be  determined,  and  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  it  or  to  save  it,  you  may  aim  even  to  get  rid  of 
each  other.  So,  while  your  object  is  identical,  your  attitudes  toward 
it  are  different  and  opposed  and  are,  mayhap,  never  to  agree.  For 
even  if  you  should  both  apprehend  red  positively,  even  if  it  should 


V 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          263 

become  your  common  interest,  it  would  be  bound  to  you  none  the  less 
by  two  numerically  diverse  relations;  and  while  you  might  unite  to 
defend  it  against  a  common  foe,  you  might  yet  quarrel  for  its  pos- 
session. Rivals  in  love  do  so  frequently.  They  enhance  and  glorify 
the  same  woman,  make  common  cause  against  her  enemies,  and  are 
themselves  bitter  foes.  So,  even  identical  instances  of  the  same 
relation,  when  directed,  not  upon  their  common  terminal,  but  upon 
each  other,  are  necessarily  opposed  in  so  far  as  they  are  numerically 
different;  and  the  whole  of  our  civilized  world  is  definable  by  the 
cooperation,  antipathy,  and  fusion  of  objects  in  the  whirl  of  value- 
relations. 

Ill 

Mind,  if  the  foregoing  analysis  is  correct,  is  a  system  of  objects 
related  by  a  highly  complex  arrangement  of  value-relations  to  an- 
other complex,  called  the  body.  Anything  outside  this  system,  more 
or  less  durable,  requiring  a  new  adjustment,  a  reenvisagement  or 
rearrangement  of  mind,  would  be  an  " object,"  whatever  its  char- 
acter, quality,  or  status.  When,  now,  is  such  an  object  "beautiful," 
and  what  happens  to  mind  when  the  object  it  encounters  is  called 
beautiful  ? 

Let  us  consider  first  how  this  encounter  ensues.  That  continu- 
ous stream  of  active  feeling  we  call  life  is  nothing  so  much  as  a 
stream.  Its  mass  is  flux ;  in  it  moment  passes  into  moment  in  terms 
of  use.  No  point  of  it  is  sufficient  for  itself;  it  must  borrow  some 
of  its  reality  from  its  predecessors  and  successors,  it  must  surrender 
some  of  its  proper  integrity  to  the  force  of  their  withdrawing  and 
of  their  coming  on.  Events  affect  us  in  their  uses,  not  their  natures, 
since  they  bear  on  interests,  and  should  we  pause  for  that  nature, 
hence,  the  world  becomes  empty  and  we  die.  But  now  into  the 
movement  of  multifold  rates  and  infinite  rhythms  there  bursts  a 
thing  with  power  to  resist  it.  The  attention,  customarily  shifting 
from  this  to  that,  pauses,  the  soul  is  turned  from  her  headlong  line 
of  march  to  move  upon  this  thing.  The  new  value-relation  brought 
to  birth  in  that  moment  of  pregnant  attention  feeds  upon  its  occa- 
sion. From  point  to  point  it  flows,  holding  each  within  the  field  of 
its  unbroken  act  until  it  spans  the  utter  fullness  of  the  whole  thing. 
One  by  one,  the  mind  empties  its  storehouse  of  its  appropriate  treas- 
ures; these  leap  to  the  thing,  making  a  constellation  about  it;  the 
limbs  of  the  body  adjust  themselves,  so  the  rhythm  of  the  breath,  the 
pulse  of  the  blood.  A  new  onward  movement  of  vitality  has  begun, 
enduring  intensely,  enduring  profoundly,  in  felt-pulses  of  self- 
enhancing  life.  There  is  flux,  but  it  is  the  flux  of  a  growing  fullness ; 
a  flux  of  power,  but  the  power  of  poise,  self-sufficient,  absolute.  It 
does  not,  as  the  flux  of  routine  or  of  individual  adventure,  flow 


264  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

unevenly,  in  eddies  and  whirls,  from  evil  to  good  and  back  again ;  it 
does  not  flow  instrumentally,  consuming  one  object  in  another,  pass- 
ing from  thing  to  thing,  holding  each  for  its  use  and  abandoning  each 
for  its  lost  function.  Rather  do  things  grow  more  intensely  them- 
selves, more  distinct,  and  yet  more  at  one.  The  flow  here  of 
instrument  into  end  is  the  flow  and  enduring  of  an  identical  thing. 
The  interest  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  and  it  feeds  upon  itself. 

Such  is  the  esthetic  experience.  Where,  in  it,  does  beauty  ap- 
pear? In  the  mind,  as  we  have  learned  to  know  mind?  Certainly 
not.  To  that  the  very  object  is  external,  an  occasion  for  reorganiza- 
tion and  readjustment,  set  over  against  it,  a  new  datum  to  be  encoun- 
tered and  controlled.  In  the  object  then  ?  We  have  seen  that  beauty 
can  not  be  in  the  object.  Rather  is  it  what  alone  remains,  an  inde- 
pendent thing,  a  relation  between  this  mind  and  this  object,  binding 
them  together  and  holding  them  bound.  As  such,  it  is  inevitably  a 
variable.  It  will  not  always  span  the  same  terms,  nor  even  one  of 
a  pair,  more  than  once,  nor  need  it  bind  two  minds  to  the  same  object. 
Positive,  since  it  links  rather  than  separates,  elusive,  concretely  per- 
ceptual, beauty's  nature,  like  the  nature  of  all  values,  is  its  particu- 
larity and  its  appearance  as  truly  active  only  in  concrete  situations. 
The  very  life  of  interest,  it  can  not  be  "disinterested";  the  very 
occasion  of  concreteness,  it  can  not  be  "universal."  It  may  link  the 
mind  to  any  environmental  content,  from  a  mathematical  abstrac- 
tion to  a  perceptual  blotch.  It  is  the  only  predicate  in  the  judgment 
of  beauty,  whether  the  surgeon's  of  an  operation,  the  carpenter's  of 
his  job,  the  sculptor's  of  his  statue,  the  philosopher's  of  his  system. 
But  just  because  this  is  so  it  belongs  to  particular  situations  only, 
and  the  radical  diversity  of  taste  and  judgment  attests  this  concrete- 
ness.  And  it  is  only  the  failure  to  observe  it  where  it  occurs  that 
makes  people  cling  to  its  "disinterestedness."  Such  people  miss 
the  fact  that  the  disinterestedness  of  the  "esthetic"  experience  is  like 
the  disinterestedness  of  him  who  wants  nothing  because  he  already 
possesses  everything.  In  morals,  "disinterestedness"  is  instru- 
mental. It  is  not  so  much  a  loss  of  self — far  from  it — as  a  gain  in 
the  sense  of  the  excellence  of  other  selves.  It  consists  in  subjecting 
"self"  to  the  service  of  alien  ends;  in  becoming  an  instrument,  a 
means,  without  finding  in  that  state  any  too  great  private  joy.  In  it, 
nothing  is  so  keen  as  the  sense  of  personality.  In  the  "esthetic" 
experience  the  sense  of  personalty  is  also  keen.  But  it  is  the  keen- 
ness of  completed  selfhood,  of  utter  private  joy,  not  of  public  use. 
Far  from  being  unselfish  and  disinterested,  the  esthetic  experience  is 
absolute  absorption  in  interest,  absolute  selfishness.  For  of  course 
what  is  already  completely  possessed  is  not  desired ;  and  the  mind  in 
the  grasp  of  beauty  is  in  possession  of  its  object  so  completely  as  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          265 

shut  out,  for  the  nonce,  the  righteous  demand  of  other  interests  and 
the  cry  of  other  needs  for  satisfaction.  Yet  unselfishness  is  not  the 
exclusion  of  other  needs  and  interest,  it  is  their  prosecution  and  ful- 
filment. Unselfishness  is  not  the  repose  of  one's  own  perfect  adapta- 
tion to  the  environment ;  it  is  the  unrest  which  compasses  that  adapta- 
tion for  others.  In  the  experience  where  beauty  is  the  relation 
between  you  and  your  environment,  it  is,  however,  you  yourself  who 
are  so  adapted,  and,  being  adapted,  lifted  up  and  out  of  the  horde  of 
conflicting  interests.  Your  world  is  that  object  to  which  you  are 
bound,  and  you  are  become  isolated,  alone,  and  supremely  happy  in 
that  loneliness.  Here  is  the  only  genuine  solipsism,  in  which  the 
stuff  of  reality  assumes  the  status  of  mentality  and  things  and 
thoughts  are  one.  It  is  of  the  essential  nature  of  beauty  that  your 
neighbor  can  have  no  part  in  your  experience  of  its  object,  and  that 
your  experience  of  it  can  have  no  part  as  such  in  any  other  concern 
whatever  in  the  enterprise  of  life. 

Private,  concrete,  elusive,  in  itself  neither  mental  nor  amental, 
beauty  is  the  optimal  mode  of  that  positive,  intrinsic  value-relation 
which  binds  the  mind  to  its  object  in  such  wise  that  the  two  are  com- 
pletely and  harmoniously  adapted  to  each  other  in  the  very  act  of 
apprehension. 

H.  M.  KALLEN. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 


IMITATION  AND  ANIMAL  BEHAVIOR1 

A  DVANCE  in  the  experimental  analysis  of  behavior  tends  to 
-£\.  make  psychological  concepts  inadequate.  In  the  realm  of 
human  psychology  one  needs  only  to  instance  such  a  term  as  memory. 
Aristotle  summed  up  his  total  discussion  of  this  subject  in  sixty 
words.  With  modern  psychology  came  experimental  analysis  and 
to-day  it  requires  twice  sixty  words  to  name  the  separate  subjects 
that  we  investigate  in  the  general  field  of  memory.  It  would  be  an 
easy  matter  to  show  the  same  analytic  tendency  in  perception  and 
thought  and  will  and  in  many  non-psychological  fields  as  well.  It 
would  be  no  less  easy  to  point  out  numerous  fields  where  such 
analysis  has  not  had  its  way,  and  comparative  psychology  is  one  of 
these.  It  does  not  require  any  great  insight  in  the  reader  of  com- 
parative psychology  to  see  that  many  of  the  concepts  used  in  the 
description  of  animal  behavior  are  of  the  relatively  unanalyzed  sort. 
That  we  continue  to  talk  in  general  about  growth,  development,  intel- 

1  Bead  at  the  twentieth  meeting  of  the  American  Psychological  Association, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  December,  1911. 


2»;u  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ligence,  instinct,  and  imitation  is  evidence  only  of  the  fact  that  we 
have  not  yet  pushed  our  experimental  analysis  to  the  end — not  far 
enough  to  see  what  in  reality  are  the  elemental  processes  out  of  which 
the  complex  behavior  of  animals  is  built  up.  I  insist  on  the  phrase 
"experimental  analysis,"  for  it  is  only  by  the  most  extensive  and 
painstaking  development  of  detailed  methods  and  the  application 
of  these  methods  in  quantitative  studies  that  we  shall  ever  be  able 
to  understand  animal  behavior  and  to  see  its  intimate  relation  to 
human  behavior. 

Take  the  case  of  imitation.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  facts 
which  this  concept  has  been  used  to  connote  are  more  complex  than 
any  writer  has  yet  set  forth.  It  was  no  doubt  a  distinct  advance  in 
the  discussion  of  the  subject  when  scientists  distinguished  instinctive 
from  voluntary  imitation.  This,  however,  is  not  a  finally  satisfac- 
tory analysis  of  the  concept,  and  one  reason  why  we  have  not  made 
more  progress  in  our  study  of  the  imitative  behavior  of  animals  is 
that  the  whole  subject  has  been  dominated  by  this  crude  differentia- 
tion. We  have  been  looking  for  something  that  could  be  called 
instinctive  imitation  or  voluntary  imitation,  and  the  facts  have  not 
fit  this  division.  It  would  probably  be  more  correct  to  say  that 
psychologists  have  been  looking  for  a  sort  of  animal  behavior  that 
could  be  called  voluntary  imitation,  and  when  they  have  found  imita- 
tion that  did  not  fulfill  their  idea  of  what  constituted  volition  or 
inference  they  have  gotten  rid  of  such  imitative  behavior  by  calling 
it  instinctive.  The  results  of  such  study  have  not  been  encouraging, 
and  experimentalists  have  tended  to  turn  away  from  the  study  of 
imitation  to  fields  that  promised  more  definite  results. 

Before  this  diversion  from  the  study  of  imitative  behavior  is 
complete  it  may  be  worth  while  to  examine  the  tools  with  which  we 
have  been  working.  After  all  what  can  one  mean  by  instinctive 
imitation?  Whatever  he  means  by  imitation,  it  must  be  qualified 
by  what  he  means  by  instinct.  And  what  does  instinct  mean  in 
current  psychological  discussion?  If  one  is  content  with  verbiage, 
he  may,  after  perusing  a  whole  library  on  the  subject,  as  Wheeler 
admits  doing,  and  exercising  the  most  arbitrary  selection,  satisfy 
himself  with  a  form  of  words.  If  he  is  not  a  word-monger  and  insists 
on  knowing  concretely  what  instinct  means  in  the  analyzed  behavior 
of  any  single  mammal,  there  is  scarcely  a  line  in  the  experimental 
literature,  except  Yerkes's  and  Bloomfield's2  work  on  the  cat,  to 
illuminate  him. 

Let  us  try  to  be  concrete.  Speaking  from  the  point  of  view  of 
current  thought,  we  would  doubtless  all  agree  that  there  is  in  the 
young  of  mammals  an  instinct  to  hunt  out  the  breast  and  suck. 

»"Do  Kittens  Instinctively  Kill  Mice,"  Psych.  Bull,  7:  253. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         267 

Now  take  the  case  of  newly-born  puppies  and  ask  any  single  ques- 
tion about  the  makeup  of  the  instinct ;  ask  what  it  is  that  sets  this 
instinct  going,  and  you  will  not  find  a  satisfactory  answer  anywhere 
in  the  literature.  That  it  can  be  neither  sight  nor  sound  seems 
evident,  because  the  eyes  and  ears  of  new-born  puppies  are  closed  for 
practically  a  fortnight  after  birth.  Yet  it  is  an  open  question 
whether  they  can  not  distinguish  shades  of  light  through  the  closed 
lids.  Suppose  you  eliminate  light  and  sound.  What  do  you  know 
about  the  puppy's  sense  of  smell,  its  power  of  discrimination,  its 
range  in  quality,  and  its  range  in  intensity;  the  exceptional  power 
of  certain  odors  to  excite  reaction,  the  distance  over  which  the  odor 
is  perceptible,  the  power  of  localization?  To  every  one  of  these 
questions  you  must  answer,  "Absolutely  nothing  specific."  What 
about  the  new-born  puppy's  sense  of  temperature,  its  sense  of  touch, 
its  power  of  orientation,  its  possible  kinesthetic  sensations,  its  oral 
sense,  its  ability  to  taste  ?  To  every  one  of  these  interrogatories  you 
must  reply  as  before,  "Nothing  at  all  that  fulfills  the  demands  of 
experimental  science. ' ' 

If  you  seek  to  know  which  of  several  stimuli  is  prepotent  over  the 
others  and  to  determine  some  order  of  importance  for  the  several 
possible  senses,  you  complicate  the  situation  still  more,  and  your 
confusion  increases  if  you  raise  the  question  of  the  relative  accuracy, 
serviceableness,  and  modifiability  of  the  supposedly  connate  neural 
connections.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  do  more  than  state  the  situa- 
tion to  see  that  when  we  speak  of  the  feeding  instinct  of  young 
mammals  we  are  merely  cloaking  our  ignorance  with  a  phrase.  As 
an  analytic  concept  it  is  valueless.  Yet,  if  we  have  so  little  knowl- 
edge of  the  first  experiences  of  the  new-born  animal,  all  its  later 
history  is  clouded  in  even  denser  mists.  There  have  been  some 
studies  on  the  sense  of  hearing  and  the  sense  of  sight  in  dogs,  but 
this  work  is  not  sufficiently  accurate  in  its  technique  but  that  later 
experimentalists  will  insist  on  doing  it  all  over  again.  There  has 
been  some  work  on  dog  intelligence,  but  not  one  of  the  reported 
investigations  has  even  attempted  to  take  the  dog  on  his  own  ground, 
that  of  smell,  and  in  no  one  of  the  investigations  has  the  experimenter 
succeeded  in  eliminating  himself  from  the  experimental  situation. 
These  two  shortcomings  very  decidedly  limit  the  value  of  any  investi- 
gation as  yet  made.  When  you  couple  with  the  evident  fragmen- 
tariness  of  the  experimental  work  and  its  certain  lack  of  finality,  the 
fact  that  the  behavior  of  a  dog  at  any  level  of  development  is  a  com- 
posite of  inherited  and  learned  reactions,  you  see  how  impossible  it  is 
in  any  given  case  of  canine  behavior  to  say  what  is  instinct  and  what 
is  intelligence.  Gross  facts  are  evident  enough,  but  we  ought  at  this 


268  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

time  to  be  beyond  the  stage  where  we  base  theories  of  learning  on 
the  simple  observations  of  common  sense. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  our  inability  in  concrete  cases  to  separate  instinct 
from  intelligence,  we  are  asked  by  current  writers  to  regard  a  large 
proportion  of  dog  behavior  as  due  to  instinctive  imitation.  I  con- 
fess that  I  can  not  see  how  this  sort  of  speculation  is  likely  to  illu- 
minate the  subject  of  animal  behavior.  To  use  the  phrase  to  point 
out  a  large  body  of  unanalyzed  behavior  is  of  course  allowable,  on 
condition  that  we  take  the  next  imperative  step  in  the  process, 
namely,  to  analyze  that  behavior  into  its  elemental  terms.  But  to 
imagine  that  we  have  said  something  final  about  a  certain  bit  of 
behavior  when  we  call  it  instinctive  imitation  is  to  mislead  ourselves 
and  to  confuse  the  rightful  course  of  experimental  investigation. 

With  voluntary  imitation  the  case  is  even  worse.  In  human  psy- 
chology we  are  at  sea  as  to  what  constitute  the  elemental  processes 
of  inference  and  volition.  In  one  place  we  read  that  the  highest 
processes  of  mental  life  are  nothing  more  than  highly  elaborated 
complexes  of  functioning  images.  In  another  place  we  are  told  that 
all  this  image-mongering  is  absurd,  and  that  volition  and  inference 
can  go  on  without  any  images  whatever.  On  the  one  hand,  we  hear 
that  we  are  nearing  the  end  of  sensationalism,  and  on  the  other,  that 
the  final  triumph  of  sensationalistic  psychology  is  even  now  in  sight. 
Then  we  hear  that  there  is  no  valid  objective  criterion  of  the  presence 
of  imagery — that  we  must  always  depend  upon  the  subject's  intro- 
spective report.  In  the  light  of  such  confusion,  such  a  term  as 
voluntary  or  inferential  imitation  loses  its  significance.  Until  human 
psychology  can  give  us  something  more  settled  regarding  the  proc- 
esses of  volition  we  do  well  to  use  the  term  volition  with  parsimony 
in  reference  to  the  doings  of  animals. 

Here  then  is  our  situation.  We  have  the  concept  of  imitation, 
which  is  an  essentially  descriptive  term,  setting  forth  certain  features 
in  the  objectively  observable  behavior  of  animals.  This  concept  is 
then  divided  into  two  parts,  not,  mark  you,  on  the  basis  of  objectively 
observed  features  of  behavior,  but  on  the  basis  of  the  supposed  psy- 
chical accompaniments  of  such  behavior.  The  terms  which  are  used 
to  denote  these  two  divisions  then  become,  not  descriptive  terms  any 
longer,  but  explanatory  terms,  i.  e.,  they  do  not  point  out  the  beha- 
vior which  actually  takes  place,  but  they  attempt  to  indicate  the  non- 
observed  processes  antecedent  to  such  behavior.  These  terms,  how- 
ever, when  submitted  to  critical  examination,  turn  out  to  have  the 
most  uncertain  significance,  for,  imitation  entirely  apart,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  there  is  no  understanding  about  the  relation  of  instinct 
and  volition.  What  is  more  is  that  we  shall  not  have  any  under- 
standing of  their  relation  so  long  as  we  confine  our  work  to  the  logical 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          269 

differentiation  of  terms.  It  may  not  be  a  very  encouraging  situation, 
but  there  is  little  likelihood  that  anybody  will  say  anything  signifi- 
cant and  concrete  about  instinct  and  volition  in  mammalian  behavior 
until  we  have  a  far  larger  accumulation  of  experimentally  deter- 
mined facts  than  we  now  have  regarding  any  single  mammal. 

This  situation  is  an  unfortunate  one  for  the  study  of  imitative 
behavior,  which  is  no  longer  approached  on  its  own  merits,  but  which 
has  to  struggle  for  recognition  under  the  burden  of  supposedly 
explanatory  adjectives,  which  in  fact  explain  nothing,  being  them- 
selves in  need  of  description  and  explanation.  We  seem  to  face 
two  alternatives :  we  may  abandon  the  study  of  imitation  and  direct 
our  studies  to  other  fields.  This  we  seem  to  be  doing  and  to  a  degree 
the  tendency  is  commendable.  If  the  change  is  actuated  by  the  feel- 
ing that  imitative  phenomena  are  so  complex  that  we  can  not  rightly 
interpret  the  results  of  experimental  studies  on  imitation  until  we 
know  more  about  the  sensations  and  instincts,  then,  I  agree.  If,  how- 
ever, the  tendency  to  drop  imitation  out  of  our  categories  is  due  to 
the  belief  that  when  we  are  talking  about  imitation  we  are  resorting 
to  "  magical  agencies"  and  that  we  must  abandon  it  in  favor  of 
something  that  is  more  truly  scientific,  then  I  dissent,  and  insist  that 
whatever  may  finally  be  our  decision  regarding  imitative  phenomena, 
we  are  as  yet  without  sufficient  evidence  for  any  such  speedy  termina- 
tion of  this  category.  No  person  can  face  the  whole  group  of  experi- 
mentally determined  facts  of  imitation  in  birds,3  rats,4  cats,5  mon- 
keys,6 and  apes7  and  come  to  any  such  conclusion,  except  he  do  it 
in  behalf  of  a  theory  which  he  regards  as  more  important  than  the 
facts. 

The  second  alternative  is  to  suspend  judgment  as  to  the  partic- 
ular level  of  psychical  accomplishment  denoted  by  the  different  kinds 
of  imitative  behavior,  to  free  the  concept  of  imitation  from  its  unfor- 
tunate appendages  and  set  ourselves  to  the  task  of  accumulating  the 
facts  which  we  shall  need  before  we  can  finally  determine  the  impor- 
tance of  any  particular  kind  of  imitative  behavior.  The  social  rela- 
tions of  animals  are  of  vast  importance  to  their  degree  of  mental 
attainment,  and  in  these  social  relations  there  is  a  kind  of  behavior, 

*  James  P.  Porter,   ' '  Intelligence  and  Imitation  in   Birds, ' '  Amer.  Jour. 
Psych.,  21. 

4  Charles  S.  Berry,  ' '  The  Imitative  Tendencies  of  White  Rats, ' '  Jour.  Comp. 
Neur.  and  Psych.,  16 :  333. 

'Charles  S.  Berry,  "An  Experimental  Study  of  Imitation  in  Cats,"  Jour. 
Comp.  Neur.  and  Psych.,  18:  1-25. 

•  M.  E.  Haggerty,  "Imitation  in  Monkeys,"  Jour.  Comp.  Neur.  and  Psych., 
19:  337. 

7  M.  E.  Haggerty,  ' '  Preliminary  Studies  on  Anthropoid  Apes, ' '  Psych.  Bull., 
7:  49. 


270  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

which,  to  date,  has  not  been  better  described  than  to  call  it  imitation. 
At  the  present  stage  of  our  study  of  these  relations,  it  is  of  secondary 
importance  whether  we  are  finally  to  explain  them  as  "inherited 
reactions  which  are  definitely  serviceable  on  the  occasion  of  their  first 
appearance,"  or  whether  we  must  group  them  under  entirely  new 
rubrics.  It  is  of  first  importance  that  we  find  out  in  terms  of  objec- 
tively describable  behavior  exactly  what  these  relations  are,  and  find 
it  out  in  elemental  terms. 

I  said  a  moment  ago  that  no  one  can  face  the  whole  group  of  experi- 
mentally determined  facts  of  imitation  in  animals  and  treat  them 
lightly.  I  wish  now  to  call  attention  to  a  single  case  of  imitation  which 
I  reported  to  this  association  three  years  ago.  Two  monkeys  were  put 
into  a  cage  three  by  four  feet  at  the  bottom,  and  six  feet  high.  Seven 
strings  hung  from  the  top  of  this  cage  to  within  eight  inches  of  the 
floor.  Near  the  floor  was  a  circular  opening  in  the  back  of  the  cage, 
and  one  of  the  strings  was  attached  on  the  outside  of  the  cage  to  a 
mechanism  which  would,  when  the  string  was  pulled,  drop  food  down 
through  a  chute  on  the  outside  of  the  cage  to  a  floor  level  with  the 
opening  in  question.  One  of  the  two  monkeys  had  learned  to  pull 
the  string  and  get  food  at  the  opening.  The  other  monkey,  although 
he  had  been  allowed  ample  opportunity  to  learn  the  trick  unaided, 
had  failed  to  do  so.  After  being  allowed  to  be  with  the  first  monkey 
when  she  pulled  the  string  and  got  food,  the  second  animal  when  left 
alone  directed  his  attention  to  the  food  opening  in  a  way  that  he  had 
never  done  and  repeatedly  handled  the  three  strings  nearest  the 
opening  in  a  far  more  interested  manner  than  he  had  ever  done.  In 
explanation  of  this  change  in  behavior  I  am  perfectly  willing  to 
invoke  Thorndike's  first  law  of  behavior8  that  "the  same  situation 
will,  in  the  same  animal,  produce  the  same  response — and  that  if  the 
same  situation  produces  on  two  occasions  two  different  responses, 
the  animal  must  have  changed."  But  then  I  would  ask  those  who 
deny  that  this  is  imitative  behavior  to  specify  in  what  the  change  in 
the  second  monkey  consists.  To  assume  that  there  has  been  a  change 
independent  of  the  presence  of  the  performing  animal  is  mere  gra- 
tuity. The  evidence  was  too  clear  that  the  attention  of  the  stupid 
monkey  received  a  decided  and  sudden  turn  in  the  direction  of  the 
behavior  of  the  other  animal  to  doubt  that  that  behavior  was  the 
determining  factor.  That  the  second  monkey  should  go  to  the  open- 
ing and  look  in  may,  of  course,  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
seen  food  there,  but  that  he  should  suddenly  become  interested  in 
the  strings,  the  ends  of  which  hung  six  inches  above  the  opening  and 
out  of  the  animal's  range  of  vision  when  he  was  looking  into  the 
opening,  can  receive  no  such  explanation.  There  had  been  ample 

•Edw.  L.  Thorndike,  "Animal  Intelligence,"  page  241. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         271 

opportunity  for  the  second  monkey  to  learn  the  trick  unaided,  but 
he  had  failed  to  do  so;  the  strings  had  never  brought  satisfaction 
to  him  through  his  own  activity.  Yet  now,  although  he  did  not  use 
the  strings  to  get  food,  he  continued  to  handle  them,  to  pound  them 
against  the  side  of  the  cage  and  against  each  other,  and  several  times 
after  acting  in  this  way  he  looked  directly  into  the  food  opening. 
Such  continued  interest  can  not  be  explained  by  the  ' '  law  of  effect. ' ' 
There  is  here  a  directing  of  attention  that  can  not  be  due  to  the 
activities  of  the  animal  itself  nor  to  any  change  in  the  mechanical 
situation. 

This  directing  of  attention  which  is  so  evident  in  this  case  was 
more  marked  in  the  next  stage  of  the  animal 's  learning.  The  trained 
animal  was  put  back  into  the  cage  and  allowed  to  get  food  in  the 
presence  of  the  learning  monkey.  As  a  result  of  this  experience  the 
attention  of  the  second  animal  was  narrowed  down  to  the  correct 
string.  He  no  longer  played  with  all  three  strings  but  centered  his 
attention  on  the  correct  one  of  the  three,  and  that  without  ever 
having  used  it  in  getting  food  or  finding  satisfaction  through  it  in 
any  other  way.  That  he  did  not  at  once  do  the  necessary  thing  to 
get  food  shows  that  imitation  was  not  perfect  and  had  to  be  pieced 
out  with  accidental  learning,  but  the  very  fact  that,  in  spite  of  his 
inability  to  do  the  proper  act,  he  kept  working  at  the  task  shows 
that  the  law  of  effect  is  not  sufficient  to  explain  this  kind  of  learning. 
I  do  not  claim  that  this  is  voluntary  or  inferential  imitation.  I  do 
not  profess  to  have  any  very  clear  idea  as  to  what  voluntary  and 
inferential  imitation  are.  What  I  do  claim  is  that  you  have  here 
a  progressive  narrowing  of  one  animal's  attention  (viewed  objec- 
tively) in  the  direction  of  the  behavior  of  another  animal  and  that 
this  change  in  the  behavior  of  the  second  animal  can  not  be  accounted 
for  by  any  supposed  change  in  the  animal  itself,  except  such  as  is 
induced  in  it  by  its  observation  of  the  successful  behavior  of  the 
trained  monkey. 

If  my  contentions  in  this  case  are  granted  it  may  be  urged  that 
this  is  an  exceptional  case.  I  doubt  that.  My  own  investiga- 
tion showed  other  cases  which  can  not  be  explained  on  the  basis  of 
the  supposedly  simpler  laws.  To  be  sure  I  do  not  claim  any  finality 
for  my  results.  The  investigation  marks  only  one  stage  on  the  road 
of  experimental  analysis  and  only  points  the  way  for  extended 
investigations  in  the  same  direction.  The  methods  of  procedure  will 
bear  favorable  comparison  with  those  of  any  published  experiments 
in  this  field,  and  under  these  circumstances  I  shift  the  burden  of 
proof  to  the  objectors.  They  must  take  the  experimental  devices 
which  produced  these  results  and  show  that  under  the  same  condi- 
tions most  monkeys  will  not  do  as  the  ones  whose  behavior  is  reported. 


272  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

In  view  of  these  contentions,  to  which  I  have  tried  to  give  some 
degree  of  reasonableness,  I  do  not  think  that  the  time  has  come  to 
discard  our  study  of  imitative  behavior  as  Bohn9  seems  to  think,  nor 
to  throw  aside  the  category  of  imitation  as  Thorndike  would  have 
us  do.  That  a  final  interpretation  of  the  facts  must  wait  upon  the 
accumulation  of  a  much  larger  body  of  material  than  we  now  have 
is  certain.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  equal  certainty  that  we  must 
not  telescope  the  facts  so  far  ascertained  with  theories  that  do  not 
give  full  justice  to  these  facts.  What  our  present  situation  indicates 
is  a  reworking  of  the  concept  of  imitation  by  discarding  the  old 
classification  and  proceeding  to  a  new  classification  based  on  objec- 
tively observed  facts.  That  the  experimentally  determined  data  are 
as  yet  wholly  inadequate  for  a  final  statement  is  admitted.  Such 
a  reorganization  must  take  account  of  all  the  factors  that  determine 
attention  and  of  the  various  levels  of  accuracy  and  complexity  in 
the  imitative  behavior.  The  first  step  in  the  process  of  reorganiza- 
tion is  to  convince  ourselves  that  the  old  classification  has  reached 
the  limit  of  its  usefulness ;  the  second  step  is  to  construct  a  new  classi- 
fication for  a  single  species  of  animal,  and  to  follow  this  with  a  like 
service  for  other  species,  in  every  case  basing  the  classification  on  the 
facts  which  have  been  brought  to  light  by  experimental  investigation ; 
the  third  step  will  be  to  push  the  experimental  analysis  of  imitative 
behavior  much  farther  than  we  have  yet  done,  and  in  the  end  we  may 
be  able  to  speak  with  positive  understanding  about  the  imitative 
behavior  of  animals. 

M.  E.  HAGGERTY. 

INDIANA  UNIVEBSITT. 


EEVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Motive  Force  and  Motivation  Tracks:  A  Research  in  Will  Psychology. 
E.  BOYD  BARRETT,  S. J.  London :  Longmans,  Green,  &  Company.  1911. 
Pp.  xiv  +  225. 

Those  who  are  watching  the  progress  of  psychology  will  easily  be  re- 
minded, through  the  present  work,  of  Cardinal  Mercier's  efforts  to  interest 
catholic  philosophers  in  experimental  psychology.  Broadly  speaking,  the 
Cardinal's  propaganda  in  favor  of  the  latest  phases  of  psychological  re- 
search can  not  be  said  to  have  been  very  fruitful  among  his  correligionists. 
Where  they  have  tackled  psychological  subjects  experimentally,  in  follow- 
ing Cardinal  Mercier's  advice,  they  have  done  so  with  the  intention  of 
showing  the  exact  manner  in  which  the  catholic  philosopher  must  look 
upon  experimental  psychology  rather  than  for  the  purpose  of  solving  any 
particular  problem. 

•Georges  Bohn,  "La  Nouvelle  Psychologic  Animate,"  page  185. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          273 

It  can  not  be  said  that  Barrett's  work  is  an  exception  to  this  rule ;  this 
author,  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  swears  by  the  name  of  Cardinal 
Mercier.  His  work,  however,  gives  us  an  excellent  summary  of  the  cur- 
rent theories  of  will.  The  subject  is  thus  covered  more  satisfactorily  than 
in  any  other  recent  publication,  at  least  in  so  far  as  the  literature  per- 
taining to  it  is  concerned,  and  for  this  service  we  may  be  thankful  to  the 
author.  His  familiarity  with  modern  theories  of  the  will  no  less  than  his 
easy  flowing  style  renders  the  reading  of  his  book  a  pleasure  even  to  one 
untrained  technically.  Such  fundamental  problems  as  determinism, 
automatism,  and  the  evolution  of  motivation  are  treated,  on  the  whole,  in 
a  competent  way,  although  the  author's  contention  that  the  work  shows, 
even  indirectly,  "the  worthlessness  of  the  psychological  arguments  for 
determinism "  is  unfounded.  The  strictly  empirical  experimental  por- 
tion of  the  work  shows  nothing  of  this  kind.  His  criticism  of  hedonism 
is  particularly  sound,  provided  we  limit  the  use  of  the  term,  to  a  physical 
sense,  in  connection  with  activities  of  lower  order,  and,  in  man,  to  con- 
scious mental  processes. 

We  turn  to  the  experimental  matters  reported  upon  in  the  book.  Ex- 
periments were  carried  on  with  five  subjects,  including  the  author.  Eight 
liquids,  specially  prepared,  were  used,  to  which  nonsense  names  were 
given.  Subjects  were  asked  to  taste  the  eight  substances  in  rotation  thrice 
every  morning  and  thrice  every  evening,  after  calling  out  their  respective 
names  as  given.  The  strength  of  these  associations  was  tested  by  means 
of  recognition  tests,  and  then  followed  the  choice  experiments  proper. 

These  were  as  follows :  The  nonsense  names,  printed  on  cards,  were 
revealed  to  the  subject,  as  in  the  ordinary  association  tests,  by  means  of 
Ach's  changing  machine.  Subject  was  instructed :  "  React  when  you 
know  what  it  is."  By  arranging  the  names  of  the  substances  in  the  order 
of  hedonic  feelings  they  evoked,  a  definite  scale  of  values  was  obtained, 
differing,  of  course,  for  each  subject  according  to  his  subjective  likes  and 
dislikes. 

Next,  cards  were  printed  in  various  combinations,  and  two  of  different 
hedonic  value  were  made  to  appear  at  the  same  time  over  glasses  contain- 
ing the  respective  solutions.  Subject  was  requested  to  choose  a  solution 
and  drink  it.  A  Hipp  chronoscope  measured  the  interval  between  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  card  and  the  time  of  reaction.  By  means  of  Ewald's  key, 
a  Vernier  chronoscope  was  started  by  the  reaction  so  that  the  time  elap- 
sing between  the  reaction  and  the  realization  of  the  choice  was  also 
measured. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  processes  of  motivation  and  choice,  which  the 
author  set  out  to  investigate,  took  place  in  the  interval  between  the  per- 
ception of  the  excitant  (in  this  case  the  card)  and  the  active  realiza- 
tion of  the  choice.  This  interval  was  subjected  to  close  introspective 
scrutiny.  The  subjects  made  note  of  the  motives  which  actuated  them  in 
the  choice.  The  motivation  factors,  of  course,  were  found  to  be  mostly 
hedonic;  they  are  divided  by  the  author,  arbitrarily,  it  would  seem,  into 
extrinsic  and  intrinsic.  The  author  also  speaks  of  "motivation  tracks"; 
this  adds  to  the  plasticity  and  clearness  of  his  thought,  but  when  he  per- 


274  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

sists  in  this  direction  to  the  extent  of  actually  mapping  out  tracks  or 
curves  of  motive  force  the  reader  can  not  escape  the  impression  that  this 
is  one  more  instance  in  which  a  happy  simile  has  been  made  to  bear  more 
than  it  will  support.  It  would  be  difficult  for  the  author  to  convince  his 
readers  of  the  actual  occurrence  of  such  tracks  and  curves  as  he  draws  out 
skilfully,  even  if  he  should  take  the  trouble,  which  he  evidently  thought 
unnecessary  in  the  present  connection,  of  disclosing  all  the  proofs  he  has 
for  their  support. 

In  its  final  term,  it  was  found  that  motivation  becomes  steadied  and 
more  and  more  automatic,  that  is,  independent  of  conscious  attention. 
This  accords  with  our  general  empirical  notions  and  is  an  illustration  of 
the  economizing  tendency  of  volition.  The  opposite  of  this  steadiness  of 
purpose,  hesitation,  occurred  frequently  in  the  course  of  the  author's  ex- 
periments and  is  discussed  by  him  in  a  special  chapter,  in  which  he  treats 
of  hesitation  as  a  disease  of  the  will  and  suggests  ways  of  healing. 

Whatever  might  be  said  of  the  practicability  or  therapeutic  value  of 
the  author's  remedies  for  impairment  of  the  will,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
wherein  the  author's  claim  that  "  these  suggestions  are  based  on  the  con- 
sideration of  the  actual  results  of  our  experiments  "  is  justified.  Suppose 
we  look  up  his  universal  remedy  or  grand  arcanum,  we  find  it  stated  as 
follows  (p.  218) :  "  With  regard  to  hesitation  which  is,  par  excellence,  the 
malady  of  the  will,  inasmuch  as  it  destroys  serious  motivation  and  leads 
to  irregularities  and  inconsistencies,  the  great  means  of  avoiding  it  is  to 
acquire  the  habit  of  serious,  decisive  choosing  and  to  avoid  repining  over 
past  choices."  Leaving  aside,  for  the  present,  the  manifestly  unwise  teach- 
ing about  "  not  repining  over  past  choices,"  it  must  be  said  that  such  ad- 
vice, far  from  being  the  product  of  experimental  research,  is  the  rawest 
kind  of  empiricism.  Any  country  gossip  is  prepared  to  tell  that  what  ails 
neighbor  Jones,  who  is  run  down  on  account  of  gastric  ulcer,  is  the  ab- 
sence of  good  nourishing  food  and  plenty  of  it.  The  need  of  nourishment 
may  be  very  obvious  in  the  case  of  neighbor  Jones  and  where  the  will  is 
not  sufficient  more  will  and  plenty  of  it  is  logical  enough,  but  such  pre- 
scriptions are  far  from  what  is  really  needed.  Other  remedies  suggested 
by  the  author  are  similarly  superficial,  even  though  they  be  ideally  log- 
ical enough. 

The  reader  who  will  turn  to  this  work  expecting  to  find  some  new  light 
on  the  subject  of  will  and  its  motivation  will  probably  be  disappointed,  but 
to  one  who  wants  the  subject  reviewed  attractively  and  brought  down  to 
date  this  book  will  be  highly  welcome. 

Though  not  quite  germane  to  the  subject  under  consideration,  the  re- 
viewer thinks  it  his  duty  to  express  disapproval  of  a  peculiar  trick  which 
may  as  well  be  branded  here  and  now  as  unworthy  of  a  scientist.  The 
name  of  a  liberal  educator,  who  has  recently  suffered  martyrdom  in  Spain, 
is  dragged  in  by  the  author  ostensibly  to  illustrate  a  point,  but  in  reality 
to  besmirch  his  memory.  It  is  unfortunate  that  even  the  dead  are  not  safe 
from  such  underhanded  attacks.  The  peculiar  villainy  consists  not  merely 
in  attaching  an  opprobrious  epithet  to  an  honored  man,  now  dead,  in  a 
spirit  of  partizanship,  but  in  doing  so  in  connection  with  a  work  the  read- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          275 

ers  of  which  are  not  expected  perhaps  to  know  the  details  of  the  situation 
to  which  reference  is  made.  It  is  a  sophisticated  way  of  carrying  preju- 
dice over  into  quarters  where  it  may  not  otherwise  have  a  chance  to  be 
heard,  in  the  hope  that  through  ignorance  of  the  actual  facts  it  may  take 
root.  Nothing  is  more  clear  to  careful  and  impartial  observers  of  contem- 
porary events  than  that  Francesco  Ferrer  did  not  "  hold  sway  for  three 
days  over  half  a  million  people,  burning  their  churches,  schools,  museums, 
and  all  they  held  most  precious."  This  allegation  is  false  in  every  respect. 
While  such  falsehoods  are  not  uncommon,  especially  in  certain  interested 
quarters,  one  would  not  expect  them  to  be  paraded  in  front  of  unsuspect- 
ing students  of  psychology  who  may  be  unfamiliar  with  the  details  of  the 
situation,  and  least  of  all  in  a  work  like  the  present. 

The  mention  of  Ferrer,  the  advocate  of  peace  and  apostle  of  secular 
education,  in  the  same  breadth  with  the  sort  of  anarchists  which  the  au- 
thor's fancy  depicts,  above  all  the  bringing  of  this  matter  furtively  into 
this  book,  is  not  without  a  purpose.  One's  adversary  is  shown  in  the 
wrong  and  placed  hors  de  combat,  as  it  were,  at  least  in  so  far  as  pub- 
lic sympathy  is  concerned  (especially  if  the  adversary  be  dead  and  unable 
to  defend  himself  against  a  false  charge)  if  one  succeeds  to  brand  the 
adversary's  memory  with  some  title  or  epithet  repulsive  to  public  opin- 
ion. This  E.  Boyd  Barrett,  S.J.,  has  endeavored  to  do  parenthetically 
by  throwing  a  sentence  or  two  into  the  midst  of  matter  with  which  the 
object  of  his  bias  has  nothing  in  common.  A  remark  thrown  in  sideways, 
where  the  hearer  is  not  on  guard  and  is  unprepared,  is  more  likely  to  take 
root  than  otherwise.  It  is  this  that  invests  the  offense  of  E.  Boyd  Bar- 
rett, S.J.,  with  particular  gravity. 

Fortunately,  no  event  of  historic  import  in  our  generation  has  been 
the  subject  of  such  a  thorough  and  impartial  study  as  the  Ferrer  case.  It 
is  hoped  that  readers,  upon  seeing  in  print  Barrett's  assault  upon  the 
memory  of  Ferrer  will  be  moved  thereby  to  examine  Wm.  Archer's  "  Life, 
Trial,  and  Death  of  Francesco  Ferrer  "  (London:  Chapman  &  Hall,  1911), 
and  thus  acquaint  themselves  with  the  "  Spanish  Dreyfus  "  case,  and  with 
the  true  story  of  those  troublous  days  in  Spain. 

J.  S.  VAN  TESLAAR. 
CLABK  UNIVEBSITY. 

Essentials  of  Psychology.    W.  B.  PILLSBURY.    New  York :  The  Macmillan 

Company.    1911.    Pp.  ix  +  358. 

On  reading  this  book  one  must  conclude  that  Professor  Pillsbury  has 
written  an  excellent  elementary  text-book  of  psychology.  The  mode  of 
presentation  is  such  as  to  interest  the  student  and  the  general  reader, 
while  the  style  is  forceful  and  clear.  Students  and  teachers  will  find  the 
exercises  connected  with  each  main  topic  very  usable  and  well  devised  for 
testing  and  applying  the  principles  brought  out  in  the  discussion.  The 
references  given  at  the  end  of  each  chapter  are,  for  the  most  part,  to  simi- 
lar treatments  from  other  texts.  The  topics  treated  in  the  book  are  prac- 
tically the  same  as  those  in  most  introductory  texts  except  chapters  four- 
teen and  fifteen,  which  deal,  respectively,  with  "  Work,  Fatigue  and  Sleep," 


276  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  "  Interrelations  of  Mental  Functions,"  and  which,  embodying  the  re- 
sults of  recent  experimentation,  are  a  genuine  addition  to  the  value  of  the 
book.  In  general,  the  book  profits  decidedly  by  the  incorporation  of  ex- 
perimental results,  giving  it  a  greater  scientific  value  without  detracting 
from  its  readableness.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  chapters  on  sensa- 
tion, perception,  memory,  and  action,  as  well  as  those  mentioned  above. 

The  book  is  written  confessedly  from  the  functional  point  of  view. 
Psychology  is  defined  in  terms  of  behavior  rather  than  in  terms  of  con- 
sciousness. Consciousness  as  an  object  of  study  is  subordinated  to  be- 
havior, its  importance  being  borrowed  from  its  relation  to  the  latter. 
However,  the  results  of  structural  psychology  are  made  much  use  of  and 
are  made  rather  more  important  in  the  treatment  than  the  author's  state- 
ments in  preface  and  introduction  would  lead  one  to  expect.  The  result  is 
largely  a  coordinating  of  the  functional-behavior  form  of  treatment  with 
the  structural-consciousness  aspect.  It  would  seem  that  at  the  beginning 
of  the  study  of  psychology  there  is  no  great  gain  in  making  one  type  sub- 
ordinate to  the  other,  but  that  a  coordination  of  treatment  is  more  natural 
and  useful  for  beginners. 

As  the  discussion  is  so  largely  functional,  considerable  space  is  given 
to  the  nervous  system  and  habit.  Two  features  here  may  be  noticed: 
first,  the  explanation  of  the  nervous  current  in  terms  of  chemical  action, 
and  secondly,  the  use  which  is  made  of  what  we  may  call  the  Sherrington 
theory  of  the  synapse.  This  latter  fits  in  well  with  the  discussion,  but  it 
seems  somewhat  doubtful  if,  after  all,  the  use  made  of  the  theory  is  much 
more  than  a  renaming  of  certain  known  features  of  nerve  functioning 
while  the  theory  itself  lacks  convincing  proof. 

The  general  arrangement  of  the  matter  of  the  book  is  excellent. 
Habit,  sensation,  selection,  and  retention  are  first  developed  and  are  con- 
sidered fundamental.  The  more  complex  operations  are  then  explained  in 
terms  of  the  simpler.  The  structural  elements  are  sensations  and  memo- 
ries. Though  all  mental  qualities  come  originally  from  sensation,  the 
distinction  is  maintained  between  sensational  and  imaginal  qualities. 
The  author  differs  from  some  writers  in  being  guided  in  classifying  and 
enumerating  sensation  qualities  by  the  doctrine  of  specific  energies  rather 
than  by  discrimination  by  introspection.  In  the  treatment  of  feeling,  we 
find  affection  as  a  mental  element  added  to  the  sense  and  image  qualities. 
The  primary  mental  function  is  selection.  This  is  fundamental  in  con- 
scious life  and  is  called  attention  or  will  as  applied  to  mental  content  or 
to  action.  Professor  Pillsbury's  contributions  to  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lems of  attention  are  well  known,  and  this  book  is  enriched  by  the  results 
reached  by  his  thorough  investigations.  The  whole  discussion  of  selec- 
tion, attention,  action,  and  will,  is  decidedly  good,  perhaps  forming  the 
best  part  of  the  book.  On  the  same  high  level,  however,  are  the  topics  sen- 
sation, perception,  association,  and  memory,  the  laws  of  learning  and  of 
retaining  and  forgetting  being  especially  well  worked  out  from  experi- 
mental data.  Probably  the  least  satisfactory  chapters  are  those  dealing 
with  feeling,  emotion,  and  reasoning.  The  three  theories  of  feeling  ac- 
cording to  the  author  ought  to  be  combined  if  feelings  are  to  be  under- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         277 

stood  in  their  entirety.  Perhaps  an  attempt  to  combine  them  in  a  single 
statement  would  be  useful  to  the  student.  The  chapter  on  the  emotions 
is  rather  disappointing  from  both  functional  and  structural  points  of 
view.  The  chapter  on  reasoning  is  rather  more  logical  and  rationalistic 
than  one  might  expect  from  an  experimental  psychologist.  These  are' 
minor  defects  along  with  the  general  excellence  of  the  work.  It  is  a  scien- 
tific text,  pedagogically  well  arranged  and  presented.  On  the  whole,  as  a 
first  book  in  psychology,  it  is  admirable  both  in  design  and  in  execution. 

MELBOURNE  S.  HEAD. 
COLGATE  UNIVERSITY. 

The  Moral  Life.    W.  E.  SORLEY.     Cambridge:  University  Press.     1911. 

Pp.  147. 

Since  this  handbook  on  "  The  Moral  Life  and  Moral  Worth  "  is  written 
for  the  general  reader  rather  than  the  philosophical  student,  it  is  not  un- 
fair to  discuss  the  work  from  the  standpoint  of  the  amateur  ethicist. 
And  such  a  person  will  be  apt  to  feel  vaguely  dissatisfied  with  the  rigid 
distinction  made  between  the  historical  treatment  of  the  moral  life  and 
that  from  the  view-point  of  validity,  or  judgment  of  worth.  The  author 
announces  at  the  beginning  his  intention  to  treat  the  subject  exclusively 
from  the  latter  point  of  view.  Then  follow  chapters  devoted  to  an  ortho- 
dox presentation  of  the  five  official  Greek  virtues,  with  a  slight  concession 
to  modern  ways  in  the  shape  of  an  inclusion  of  Industry,  Thrift,  and 
Prudence,  and  a  short  discussion  of  Freedom  and  Equality.  But  is  this 
traditional  outline,  this  static  and  coldly  harmonious  judgment  of  moral 
worth,  the  most  profitable  and  fruitful  way  of  viewing  the  subject? 
People  are  so  incurably  dynamic  in  their  philosophy  to-day  that  they  can 
not  find  in  this  cross-section  of  the  perfect  character,  this  instantaneous 
photograph  of  the  perfectly  developed  moral  man,  an  adequate  basis  for 
judgment. 

The  moral  life  is  a  process  of  the  moralization  of  life  and  it  can  be 
judged  only  as  a  process.  It  can  not  be  stated  in  terms  of  "  qualities  " 
that  we  "  possess,"  but  rather  as  a  life  that  emerges  and  grows  out  of  our 
reactions  to  successive  crises,  which  we  meet  out  of  our  store  of  instinctive 
tendencies  and  traditional  ideas,  and  the  peculiar  individual  trend  of  our 
reactions.  Out  of  the  jostlings  and  rubbings  and  settlings-down  of  these 
reactions  and  habits  there  slowly  emerges  the  moral  life.  And  in  our 
judgment  of  this  product  lies  the  true  moral  worth. 

The  study  of  a  process  of  the  forms  of  control  and  influence  over  hu- 
man behavior,  and  of  the  lines  of  reaction,  is  the  only  kind  of  "moral 
philosophy  "  that  will  prove  very  satisfactory  to-day.  Such  a  book  is  that 
of  Professors  Dewey  and  Tufts;  in  their  work,  the  moral  life  smacks  of 
reality;  its  nature  is  intelligible  because  its  development  is  intelligible. 
By  the  side  of  it  Professor  Sorley  seems  to  present  a  mass  of  cold  abstrac- 
tions. Some  general  readers  may  feel  the  fine,  healthy  glow  of  the  traveler 
in  high  and  rarified  altitudes  of  philosophic  thought,  but  the  radically 
minded  will  be  apt  to  feel  that  they  have  asked  for  bread  and  have  been 
given  a  stone.  R.  S.  BOURNE. 

COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 


278  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

JOURNALS    AND    NKW    HnnKS 

REVUE  PITILOSOPHIQUE.  December,  1911.  La  contagion  des 
monies  et  des  melancolies  (pp.  561-683):  O.  DCMAS. -For  manias  and 
true  melancholias  the  hypothesis  of  contagion  is  no  more  acceptable  than 
for  mental  confusions.  Positivisme,  criticisme,  et  pragmatisme  (pp.  584- 
605):  I.  I'i  HAS. -A  careful  analysis  of  the  pragmatic  elements  in  these 
three  points  of  view.  L 'introspection  (pp.  606-626)  :  L.  DUGAS.  -  Vindica- 
tion of  introspection  as  the  fundamental,  original,  and  peculiar  method  of 
psychology.  Analyses  et  comples  rendus.  E.  Tassy,  Le  travail  d' ideation: 
FR.  P\i  IIIVN.  Philosophic  und  Religion  in  Darstellungen  (par  divers 
auteure) :  J.  BEXRI'BI.  L.  Cuc'not,  La  genese  des  especes  qnimales:  F.  LE 
I>\NTEC.  H.  M.  Bernard,  Some  Neglected  Factors  in  Evolution:  G. 
Sn.im.i:.  E.  Underbill,  Mysticism:  L.  ARREAT.  Bohn,  La  nouvelle  psy- 
chologic animale:  J.-M.  LAHY.  Dr.  G.  Stroehlin,  Les  syncinesies:  G.-L. 
DTPRAT.  S.  Boirson,  La  coeducation:  G.-L.  DUPRAT.  J.  Rogues  de  Fur- 
sac,  L'avarice:  L.  DUGAS.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 

REVISTA  DI  FILOSOFIA  NEO-SCOLASTICA.  December,  1911. 
II  successo  di  Enrico  Bergson  (pp.  614-630).  The  success  of  Bergson's 
philosophy  depends  upon  the  abuse  of  intellectualism  during  the  preceding 
generation,  but  sooner  or  later  intellectualism  will  get  the  upper  hand 
again  and  Bergson's  reputation  as  a  philosopher  will  be  permanently 
eclipsed.  Essema  ed  esistenza  (pp.  631-657) :  G.  MATTIUSSI. — In  the 
divine  nature,  essence  and  existence  are  identical;  in  finite  beings,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  is  a  real  distinction  between  the  two  concepts.  Lo 
studio  sperimentale  del  pensiero  e  della  volonta  (pp.  658-669) :  A. 
GEMELLI. -An  account  of  some  recent  experimental  studies  (Ach, 
Michotte-Priim)  on  the  voluntary  act,  its  antecedents  and  its  motives. 
Note  e  discussioni.  Cronaca  scientifica.  Analisi  d'opere.  A.  Gemelli, 
8ui  rapporti  tra  scienza  e  filosofia:  D.  D'ALBA.  F.  Paulsen,  Introduzione 
alia  filosofia:  P.  ROTTA.  J.  Geyser,  Grundlagen  der  Logik  und  Erkennt- 
nislehre:  E.  CHIOCCHETTT.  L.  Profumo,  S.J.,  Corso  di  filosofia  ele- 
mentare,  G.  M.  PETAZZI,  S.J.  A.  Bonucci,  Veritd  e  Realta:  P.  ROTTA. 
A.  Tari,  Saggi  di  estetica  e  metafisica:  R.  FUSARI.  A.  Cappellazzi,  Le 
Categoric  di  Aristotele  e  la  filosofia  classica:  P.  G.  P.  E.  Krebs,  Meister 
Dietrich.  Sein  Leben,  seine  Werke,  seine  Wissenschaft:  B.  NARDI.  J. 
Zeitter,  L'idee  de  I'etat  dans  Saint  Thomas  d'Aquin:  A.  MASNOVO.  E. 
Caird,  Hegel:  E.  CHIOCCHETTI.  F.  von  Hiigel,  Religione  ed  illusione:  G. 
TREDICI.  Note  bibliografiche.  Somnario  ideologico. 
Frischeisen-Kohler,  Max.  Wissenschaft  und  Wirklichkeit  (Wissenschaft 

und  Hypothese,  Band  XV.).     Leipzig:  B.  G.  Teubner.     1912.     Pp. 

viii-f478.    3M. 
Johnston,  Charles  Hughes.    High  School  Education.    New  York :  Charles 

Scribner's  Sons.    1912.    Pp.  xii  -f  555. 
Lee,  Vernon,   and  Anstruther-Thomson.   C.    Beauty  and  Ugliness   and 

Other  Studies  in  Psychological  Esthetics.     New  York:  John  Lane 

Company.    1912.    Pp.  xviii  -f-  376.    $1.75. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         279 

Mackenzie,  W.  Alle  Fonti  della  Vita.  Genoa:  A.  F.  Formiggini. 
1912.  Pp.  387.  10L. 

Mercier,  Charles  Arthur.  Conduct  and  its  Disorders.  London:  The 
Macmillan  Company.  1911.  Pp.  xii  +  377.  $3.25. 

Moore,  Paul  Elmer.  Nietzsche.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  1912. 
Pp.  87.  $1.00. 

Miiller-Freienfels,  Eichard.  Psychologic  der  Kunst.  Leipzig:  Verlag 
von  B.  G.  Teubner.  1912.  2  Vols.  4.40M. 

Perry,  Ralph  Barton.  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies.  New  York: 
Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.  1912. 

Petzoldt,  J.  Das  Weltproblem.  Leipzig:  B.  G.  Teubner.  1912.  Pp. 
xii +  210.  3M. 

Reisner,  George  A.  The  Egyptian  Conception  of  Immortality.  Boston: 
The  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  1912.  Pp.  vii  +  85.  $0.85. 

Kichter,  Raoul.  Religionsphilosophie.  Leipzig:  Verlag  von  Ernst 
Wiegandt.  1912.  Pp.  viii  -f  178.  3M. 

Rogers,  Reginald  A.  P.  A  Short  History  of  Ethics.  London:  The  Mac- 
millan Company.  1911.  Pp.  xxii  +  303.  $1.10. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.  Formal  Logic.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company. 
1912.  Pp.  xviii  +  423.  $3.25. 

Shearman,  A.  T.  The  Scope  of  Formal  Logic.  The  New  Logical  Doc- 
trines Expounded  with  some  Criticisms.  London :  University  of  Lon- 
don Press ;  Hodder  &  Stoughton.  1911.  Pp.  xiv  + 165.  5s. 

Sheffield,  Alfred  Dwight.  Grammar  and  Thinking.  New  York:  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons.  1912.  Pp.  vii  + 193.  $1.50. 

Tannery,  Jules.  Science  et  Philosophic.  Paris:  Felix  Alcan.  1911. 
Pp.  284. 

Werner,  Max.  Das  Christen  turn  und  die  monistische  Religion.  Berlin: 
Verlag  von  Karl  Curtius.  Pp.  202. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  fifth  annual  Congress  of  the  Gesellschaft  fiir  experimentelle 
Psychologic  was  held  in  Berlin,  April  16-20,  under  the  presidency  of  Pro- 
fessor G.  E.  Miiller.  There  was  a  large  and  distinguished  attendance  of 
German  psychologists,  and  papers  were  read  by  Professors  Miiller,  Kiilpe, 
Sommer,  Goldscheider,  Vogt,  Lippmann  and  more  than  thirty  others. 
Representatives  from  almost  all  of  the  countries  of  Europe  were  present, 
England's  delegation  including  Professors  McDougall,  Myers,  and  Spear- 
man. From  America,  Professors  W.  F.  Dearborn,  L.  J.  Martin,  A.  Meyer, 
H.  Miinsterberg,  and  R.  S.  Woodworth,  were  in  attendance.  Extensive 
exhibitions  of  psychological  apparatus  and  of  the  methods  and  results 
of  applied  psychology  were  held  in  connection  with  the  congress.  The 
meeting  in  1913  will  be  held  in  Gottingen. 

PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  JAMES'S  letters  are  being  collected  for  biographical 
purposes,  and  any  one  who  has  any  of  his  letters  can  render  assistance  that 


280  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

will  be  highly  appreciated  by  addressing  Henry  James,  Jr.,  95  Irving  St., 
Cambridge,  Mass.  Casual  or  brief  letters  may  have  an  interest  or  im- 
portance not  apparent  to  the  person  preserving  them;  and  news  of  the 
whereabouts  of  any  of  the  late  William  James's  letters  will  be  gratefully 
received. 

DR.  EUOEN  KUEHNEMANN,  professor  of  philosophy  at  the  University  of 
Breslau,  Germany,  and  recently  German  exchange  professor  at  Harvard 
University,  has  been  appointed  as  the  first  German  university  professor 
to  occupy  the  Carl  Schurz  memorial  professorship  established  last  year  in 
the  University  of  Wisconsin  by  German-American  citizens  of  Wisconsin 
and  friends  of  the  university. 

THE  Annual  General  Meeting  of  the  Mind  Association  will  be  held  in 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  on  Saturday,  June  1,  1912.  On  the  after- 
noon of  that  day  the  London  Aristotelian  Society  will  hold  a  symposium, 
to  which  members  of  the  Mind  Association  are  invited,  on  "  Purpose  and 
Mechanism."  Papers  will  be  read  by  Professors  W.  R.  Sorley,  A.  D.  Lind- 
say, B.  Bosanquet,  and  G.  F.  Stout. 

PROFESSOR  FREDERICK  E.  BOLTON,  professor  of  education  and  director 
of  the  school  of  education  in  the  State  University  of  Iowa,  has  accepted  a 
call  to  become  head  of  the  department  of  education  in  the  State  Univer- 
sity of  Washington  at  Seattle,  and  will  begin  his  work  at  that  place  in 
September. 

M.  HENRI  POINCARE,  professor  of  mathematical  astronomy  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  lectured  at  the  University  of  London  during  the  early 
part  of  this  month,  upon  "La  Logique  de  I'Infini,"  " Le  Temps  et  I'Es- 
pace,"  " Les  Invariants  arithmetiques,"  and  "La  Theorie  du  Rayonnement." 

PROFESSOR  GEORGE  GRANT  McCuRDY  will  be  the  delegate  from  Yale 
University  to  the  International  Congress  of  Anthropology  and  Prehistoric 
Archeology  to  be  held  in  Geneva,  Switzerland,  during  the  first  week  in 
September,  1912. 

AMONG  the  recent  lectures  at  the  University  of  Illinois  were  three  upon 
"  Heredity  "  by  Professor  W.  E.  Castle,  of  Harvard  University,  and  one 
upon  "  Morals  and  Moral  Ideals  of  the  Japanese,"  by  Professor  Inaze 
Nitobe. 

CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  has  recently  received  a  gift  of  $100,000  with 
which  is  to  be  founded  a  professorship  for  the  study  of  the  laws  of  descent, 
to  be  called  the  Balfour  Professorship  of  Genetics. 

PROFESSOR  HENRY  B.  FINE  has  resigned  the  deanship  of  the  faculty  of 
Princeton  University,  but  continues  as  dean  of  the  department  of  science 
and  as  Dod  professor  of  mathematics. 

THE  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  American  Philosophical  Association 
held  an  unusually  interesting  meeting  on  April  18  to  20.  President  R.  W. 
Keen  gave  the  opening  address. 

THE  REV.  GEORGE  WILLIAM  KNOX,  professor  of  philosophy  and  the  his- 
tory of  religion  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  died  on  April  25, 
at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  11.  MAY  23,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


CHANCE 

MY  purpose  is  to  show  that  chance  is  an  objective  category; 
objective,  that  is,  in  the  same  sense  as  causation,  space, 
quantity,  or  other  accepted  scientific  categories.  By  a  chance-event, 
I  mean  an  event  which  has  no  cause ;  though  a  fuller  definition  will 
appear  in  the  course  of  the  argument.  The  question  of  the  ultimate 
metaphysical  status  of  the  category  will  not  be  discussed. 

That  there  are  aspects  of  the  physical  world  which  are,  in  a 
sense,  outside  the  pale  of  law  and  causation,  is  widely  admitted 
among  philosophers  to-day.  Professor  Royce  has  shown1  that  the 
element  of  significance  or  value  which  resides  in  individual  things 
can  not  be  scientifically  accounted  for ;  Mr.  C.  S.  Peirce  has  argued2 
for  an  ultimate  indeterminism  out  of  which  grows  a  certain  amount 
of  law;  James3  and  Bergson*  have  defended  an  irreducible  spon- 
taneity in  all  real  events;  Professor  Palmer  has  lately  advocated 
chance-combinations  of  causal  series  ;5  Cournot6  and  others  in  France 
have  stood  for  a  similar  view.  Admitting  in  general  the  truth  of 
these  positions,  I  wish  to  carry  the  argument  somewhat  further,  to 
give  the  concept  a  more  positive  interpretation,  and  to  place  it  firmly 
within  the  field  of  scientific  categories.  Not  only  is  chance,  as  I 
believe,  more  than  a  mere  name  for  our  ignorance ;  not  only  is  there 
a  certain  aspect  of  fact  which  is  outside  of  causality;  there  is  a  per- 
fectly definable,  intelligible  tendency  in  physical  events  toward  varia- 
tion from  law,  and  this  tendency  is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  widely 
verified  as  laws  themselves.  I  shall  venture,  then,  to  differ  from 

^'Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,"  Lecture  XII. 

*Monist,  January,  1891,  April,  1892;  also,  incidentally,  in  October,  1892, 
January,  1893,  and  July,  1893. 

* ' '  Some  Problems  in  Philosophy, ' '  Chapter  IV. 

4  Principally  in  "  L  'Evolution  creatrice. ' '  As  this  is  one  of  the  main  con- 
tentions of  the  whole  book,  specific  reference  is  perhaps  not  needed. 

•In  "The  Problem  of  Freedom,"  Chapter  X. 

* ' '  Essai  sur  les  f ondements  de  nos  connaissances. ' '  Many  articles  on  the 
subject  by  others  have  appeared  in  the  Eevue  PMlosopJiique. 

281 


282  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

most  of  the  previous  views  in  regarding  chance  as  a  well-defined 
and,  in  one  sense,  a  positive  category  within  the  scientific  field  or 
world  of  description. 

Before  we  go  to  the  evidence  for  this  view,  a  word  must  be  said 
as  regards  the  subject  of  this  investigation.  It  is  not  the  pure  or 
mathematical  concept  of  chance  which  is  here  studied,  but  the 
empirical;  and  a  failure  to  distinguish  these  might  lead  to  miscon- 
ception or  misdirected  refutation.  The  philosophy  of  scientific  cate- 
gories, toward  which  this  paper  aims  to  contribute,  may  proceed  in 
either  of  two  ways.  It  may  study  such  categories  in  abstracto,  as 
pure  concepts  and  members  of  an  ideal  system  of  concepts,  without 
direct  concern  as  to  their  mode  of  application  to  experience;  or  it 
may  study  them,  not  as  members  of  an  ideal  system  of  knowledge, 
but  as  their  nature  is  revealed  in  actual  scientific  treatment  of  the 
facts  to  which  they  apply.  The  former  method  treats  categories  as 
instruments  of  exact  knowledge  and  perfect  determination,  a  pur- 
posive rearrangement  of  data,  due  entirely  to  the  activity  of  mind, 
and  dominated  by  its  ideal  purposes ;  the  latter  treats  them  as  adapta- 
tions, rather,  in  which  the  ideals  of  the  mind  are  less  dominant  and 
the  intelligence  of  the  knower  is  more  subjected  to  the  data. 
Examples  of  the  former  are  the  many  recent  works  upon  exact  logic ; 
of  the  latter,  Bergson's  definition  of  consciousness  in  "Matiere  et 
Memoire,"  Dewey's  definition  of  truth  in  "Studies  in  Logical  The- 
ory," Montague's  definition  of  consciousness  in  the  paper  "Con- 
sciousness a  Form  of  Energy."7  In  general  the  results  of  these 
methods  will  not  agree,  because  they  study  different  concepts. 
Causation  as  a  factor  in  an  ideal  system  of  knowledge  may  be  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  causation  that  is  used  in  the  science  of 
to-day.  But  to  the  philosopher  both  should  be  at  least  interesting. 
As  to  the  question,  which  one  is  the  ultimately  correct  category,  that 
lies  beyond  the  province  of  this  paper.8  I  consciously  choose  the 
empirical  concept  of  chance,  seeking  to  know  what,  if  anything,  of 
the  fortuitous  is  implied  in  the  scientific  methods  and  results  of 
our  time. 

If  we  consider  the  world  in  cross-section,  at  one  moment  we  seem 
to  find  many  causes  acting,  which  themselves  bear  little  if  any  causal 
relation  to  one  another.  That  I  am  at  this  moment  speaking  can  not 
be  causally  explained,  so  far  as  we  know,  by  the  fact  that  the  tide  is 
just  now  turning  in  the  harbor.  That  the  tile  on  the  roof  is  loosened 
by  the  wind  and  falls  just  at  the  moment  I  pass  beneath  it  (to  use 
the  familiar  example)  may  very  well  be  fully  determined  by  ante- 

1  In  "  Essays  Philosophical  and  Psychological  in  Honor  of  William  James. ' ' 
'  The  clearest  statement  I  hare  found,  of  the  ideal  or  conceptual  method,  is 
in  Professor  Royce's  "William  James  and  Other  Essays,"  pages  234  ff. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          283 

cedent  causes;  that  I  pass  at  that  moment  may  be  equally  deter- 
mined; but  each  of  these  series  seems  to  be  quite  undetermined  by 
the  other.  Here  appears  a  loophole  through  which  chance  might 
enter  the  scientific  realm;  many  thinkers  have  been  so  persuaded. 
And  yet  who  knows  that  further  scientific  evidence  might  not  show 
the  two  events  related  as  the  scales  of  a  balance  ?  It  might  be  a  case 
of  Kantian  reciprocity.  My  passing  beneath  the  house  jars  the 
earth,  the  house,  and  the  tile,  however  slightly;  and  if  the  tide  did 
not  turn  just  now  when  I  speak,  something  would  be  wrong  with  the 
moon  or  sun,  and  who  knows  what  meteorological  conditions  might 
immediately  transpire,  even  to  the  destruction  of  all  of  us  ?  It  seems 
to  me  that  we  must  await  evidence  on  this  point.  Meanwhile  I  find 
nothing  in  the  observed  results  to  rule  out  a  mutual  determination  of 
all  these  facts. 

But  there  is  another  way  in  which  events  might  be  uncaused. 
We  might  consider,  not  a  cross-section  of  the  world  at  one  moment, 
but  a  sequence.  It  is  conceivable,  whether  credible  or  not,  that  in  a 
series  like  the  successive  positions  of  a  falling  body  slight  variations 
from  the  straight  path  might  occur,  which  were  not  caused  by  any- 
thing in  the  past  history  of  that  body  or  any  other  fact,  past  or 
present.  Is  there  any  evidence,  in  present  scientific  methods  or 
results,  of  such  phenomena  ?  Is  there  any  direct  and  positive  impli- 
cation of  uncaused  variations  from  exact  law  in  any  of  the  sequences 
of  this  world? 

At  the  present  date  we  have,  thanks  to  the  accurate  measurements 
and  tabulations  of  anthropologists,  biologists,  economists,  meteorol- 
ogists, and  others  who  employ  statistical  methods,  an  enormous  body 
of  facts  of  the  sort  we  are  seeking.  It  has  been  found,  for  example, 
that  the  height  of  men  and  women,  the  length  of  various  organs,  the 
fluctuations  of  the  thermometer,  of  rainfall,  of  prices,  and  so  on, 
show  a  variation  about  a  more  or  less  ideal  type  or  average.  And 
what  is  more,  the  manner  of  variation  is  much  the  same  throughout. 
To  quote  Professor  Pearson :  ' '  From  paupers  to  cricket  scores,  from 
school-board  classes  to  ox-eye  daisies,  from  Crustacea  to  birth-rates, 
we  find  almost  universally  the  same  laws  of  frequency."9  Nor  is 
such  variation  confined  to  phenomena  of  living  organisms.  Besides 
meteorological  facts  already  mentioned,  we  find  that  the  exactest 
measurements  in  our  physical  laboratories  show  similar  variations 
in  the  facts  there  recorded.10  But  with  the  exact  delimitation  of  the 
field  wherein  such  variations  occur  we  are  not  concerned;  enough 
that  they  are  widely  prevalent. 

•"Chances  of  Death  and  Other  Essays,"  page  20. 

10  Any  work  on  statistics  will  give  an  idea  of  the  wide  extent  of  this  fact  of 
variation.  See,  e.  g.,  G.  U.  Yule,  "Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics." 


L's4  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

We  may  say  summarily  that  there  seems  to  be  a  tendency,  when 
experiments  are  repeated  again  and  again,  for  the  results  to  vary 
more  or  less  about  an  ideal  standard,  norm,  or  type.  For  we  may 
regard  each  human  individual,  say,  as  a  repetition  of  the  experiment 
of  producing  a  human  being;  each  rainstorm  as  nature's  repeated 
attempt  to  produce  rain,  etc.  That  many  such  experiments  are 
being  conducted  simultaneously  does  not  affect  the  logic  of  the  situa- 
tion, just  as  the  result  is  indifferent  whether  we  toss  one  penny  many 
times  or  many  pennies  at  once.  The  examination  of  large  collections, 
or  repetitions  of  similar  phenomena,  thus  suggests  what  we  could  not 
discover  from  the  single  case,  namely,  that  besides  the  general  law 
which  says  "be  so  and  so"  there  is  another  which  says  "be  not  quite 
so  and  so. ' '  Such  at  least  is  the  superficial  impression  we  get  from 
the  facts.  Indeed  it  seems  likely  that  had  the  science  of  statistics 
been  organized  as  long  ago  as  the  other  natural  sciences,  philosophers 
would  scarcely  have  defended  universal  causation  as  frequently  as 
they  have  done. 

But  superficial  impression  is  far  from  demonstration.  The  mere 
fact  of  a  wide-spread  tendency  to  vary  from  a  type  is  hardly  the 
slightest  evidence  of  real  chance.  Are  not  all  the  variations  them- 
selves caused  ?  If  you  are  taller  than  I  am,  surely  there  is  a  reason 
for  it;  if  to-day's  rain  is  heavier  than  last  week's,  atmospheric  con- 
ditions will  account  for  it.  But  let  us  look  again  at  the  variations. 
We  said  above  that  their  manner  was  much  the  same  everywhere. 
And,  moreover,  that  manner  is  a  rather  remarkable  one.  When  the 
numerical  values  are  graphically  plotted  they  reveal  a  fairly  close 
approximation  to  the  well-known  curve  of  error,  or  probability- 
curve.  Exact  correspondence  with  that  curve  we  do  not  get,  of 
course;  but  perhaps  no  concept,  curve,  or  standard  ever  fitted  the 
facts  exactly.  Laws  are  certainly  never  exactly  fulfilled,  yet  we 
accept  them.  Now  this  striking  unanimity  of  the  variations  sug- 
gests that  they  are  not  completely  accounted  for,  each  by  its  par- 
ticular causal  antecedents,  but  that  a  special  tendency  must  be 
invoked  to  account  for  this  common  property;  and  that,  too,  a 
tendency  to  vary  fortuitously,  since  the  probability-curve  is  just 
what  would  result,  in  the  long  run,  from  fortuitous  variation.  If  a 
series  of  murders  are  committed  in  a  city,  or  in  several  cities,  with  a 
cross  drawn  in  blood  on  the  forehead  of  every  victim,  we  should 
reasonably  infer  that  one  man,  or  band  of  men,  was  the  author  of  the 
crimes.  Such  coincidence  would  be  the  strongest  kind  of  circum- 
stantial evidence.  Our  case  seems  just  like  that.  It  is  hard  to 
resist  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  wide-spread  tendency  at  work 
in  nature,  making  each  event  a  little  different  from  what  it  would 
be  if  all  were  governed  '.»y  absolute  law. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          285 

But  the  belief  in  universal  causation,  at  least  within  the  sphere 
of  science,  is  so  ingrained  in  us  by  our  modern  education  that  it  is 
not  easily  dislodged.  Must  this  resemblance  to  the  probability-curve 
be  explained  by  a  fortuitous  tendency  to  vary  ?  For,  if  there  is  any- 
thing less  than  a  strong  logical  compulsion  here,  we  can  hardly 
abandon  that  widely  attested  concept  of  law.  We  must  then  ask 
whether  the  facts  could  not  possibly  be  explained  without  the  resort 
to  chance.  And  in  answer  I  shall  try  to  show,  first,  that  a  special 
tendency  to  vary  must  be  begged,  and  secondly,  that  this  tendency 
must  be  such  as  to  permit  chance  to  the  individual  cases,  though  not 
to  the  group  as  a  whole.  No  other  explanation  of  the  situation,  I 
shall  claim,  will  do  justice  to  the  facts. 

First,  then,  can  not  the  resemblance  to  the  probability-curve  be 
explained  on  the  hypothesis  of  universal  causation  ?  Let  us  see  how 
that  hypothesis  would  work  out.  Consider  the  case  of  the  heights  of 
a  large  number  of  men  in  a  given  city.  When  their  numerical  values 
are  plotted,  we  have  an  approximation  to  the  said  curve.  The  height 
of  each  man  is  undoubtedly  dependent  on  many  causes,  such  as 
inheritance,  nourishment  during  years  of  growth,  early  health,  open 
air,  sunlight,  amount  of  fatigue  in  early  life,  etc.  Now  if  you  take 
a  great  number  of  men,  these  causes  are  certain  to  vary  greatly  from 
man  to  man.  They  will  combine  very  differently  in  the  individual 
men,  giving  very  different  results.  And  if  you  take  men  enough, 
you  will  include  all  possible  combinations  of  these  many  causes. 
And  this  is  no  affair  of  chance,  but  is  certain  to  be  the  case.  Every 
possible  effect  upon  the  height  of  a  man  will  thus  be  realized,  and 
this,  as  is  well  known,  will  give  a  result  approximating  the  curve. 
No  special  tendency  toward  variation  need  be  conjured  up,  therefore ; 
the  large  number  of  ways  in  which  the  causes  affecting  growth  will 
combine,  guaranteed  by  the  large  number  of  men  measured,  will  suf- 
fice to  account  for  the  facts.  So  much  for  the  hypothesis  of  causa- 
tion. As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  seems  to  be  the  view  of  many  writers 
on  the  subject.11  Yet  I  can  not  but  regard  it  as  unsatisfactory. 
That  each  variation  is  indeed  due  to  many  cooperating  causes  is 
indisputable.  That  it  can  be  wholly  explained  by  those  causes  is  a 
very  different  matter.  For  it  is  a  condition  of  the  formation  of  the 
curve  that  all  possible  combinations  be  realized  in  equal  numbers. 
And  there  is  nothing  in  the  causal  explanation  to  ensure  this.  The 
mere  fact  that  by  taking  cases  over  a  wide  enough  area  you  get  all 
possible  combinations  of  causes  will  not  determine  that  those  dif- 
ferent combinations  occur  in  anything  like  approximately  equal 

UE.  g.,  Venn,  "Logic  of  Chance,"  page  475,  footnote.  Jevons,  "Prin- 
ciples of  Science,"  page  196.  Laplace,  "Philosophical  Essay  on  Probabilities," 
page  4. 


286  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

numbers.  But  they  do  so  occur.  Accordingly,  I  think  we  are  driven 
to  say  that  over  and  above  the  known  and  unknown  causal  laws  there 
is  a  special  tendency,  active  in  nature,  to  realize  in  the  long  run 
every  possible  combination  of  causes  in  equal  numbers.  And  since 
the  individuals  that  vary,  whether  they  be  human  heights,  or  organs, 
or  prices,  or  temperatures,  or  what  not,  are  themselves  the  products 
of  many  causes,  we  may  perfectly  well  say  that  individual  phe- 
nomena themselves  tend  to  vary  equally  in  all  possible  directions 
about  a  type.  I  say  "in  all  possible  directions,"  for  the  variation  is 
always,  apparently,  restricted  to  a  rather  narrow  field.  But  within 
that  field,  at  any  rate,  a  clearly  marked  and  positive  tendency,  in 
addition  to  the  usual  kinds  of  causation,  seems  a  necessary  hypothesis. 

Of  course  "tendency"  is  a  vague  word  and  renders  one  liable  to 
the  accusation  of  hypostasising  an  abstraction.  But  it  is  here  used 
as  no  more  than  a  concept  or  formula  to  summarize  a  large  class  of 
facts.  Exactly  the  same  is  true  of  such  concepts  as  causation  and 
of  the  particular  causal  laws  to  which  we  accord  our  belief.  In  a 
sense  they  explain  nothing  and  solve  no  mysteries.  I  do  not  here 
claim  for  the  tendency  in  question  any  deeper  validity  than  we 
ascribe  to  the  usual  causal  laws;  but  if  the  argument  so  far  is  cor- 
rect, it  should  have  at  least  as  much  validity  as  those  concepts  have. 
We  should  speak  of  a  real  tendency  among  events  to  vary  about  a 
type,  even  as  we  speak  of  a  real  tendency  in  bodies  to  fall,  or  a  real 
tendency  in  heat  to  radiate. 

We  come  now  to  the  second  point  mentioned  above.  May  not  this 
tendency  to  vary  be  itself  a  unique  kind  of  a  causal  law,  strictly 
determined  in  every  detail?  If  it  is  so  orderly  and  regular  on  the 
whole,  must  it  not  be  equally  so  in  every  particular  case?  The 
probability-curve  is  a  very  regular  affair,  and  the  variations  of  phe- 
nomena are,  on  the  whole,  very  regular  too.  We  find  approximately 
the  same  proportion  of  heights  above  the  mode,  the  same  below,  again 
and  again.  How  could  the  collection  be  so  orderly  if  the  individual 
members  were  lawless?  In  short,  we  must  now  examine  the  indi- 
vidual instances,  to  see  how  this  collective  tendency  should  be  inter- 
preted in  its  application  to  them. 

If  the  tendency  to  vary  is  operative  through  the  series  as  a  whole, 
it  can  not  well  be  nil  in  any  one  event.  What  form,  then,  must  it 
assume  in  one  such  event?  There  must  be  a  tendency  for  each  event 
to  vary  somehow  from  the  norm.  And  further,  it  must  be  either 
predominant  in  one  direction,  or  equal  in  all  directions.  On  the 
latter  alternative,  the  various  directions  counterbalance  one  another, 
and  nothing  can  decide  which  variation  will  occur  except  some  cause 
external  to  the  event  itself,  or  just  chance.  But  it  will  not  suffice  us 
to  appeal  to  an  external  cause  to  decide  the  matter.  For,  as  we  have 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          287 

seen  above,  the  appeal  to  such  causes  will  not  account  for  the  col- 
lective character  of  the  variations.  It  will  not  guarantee  what  must 
be  guaranteed,  that  the  variations  will,  in  the  long  run,  be  fairly 
equal  in  all  possible  directions.  If  some  particular,  external  cause 
decided,  in  each  instance,  which  of  the  conflicting  directions  should 
prevail,  we  should  not,  in  general,  have  in  the  series  as  a  whole  the 
all-inclusive  manner  of  varying  that  we  do  find.  The  only  alterna- 
tive is  chance.  This  and  this  only  would  seem  to  allow  to  the  series 
that  elasticity  which  enables  each  instance  so  to  combine  with  the 
others  as  to  give  the  total  result  we  observe.  If  then  the  tendency  to 
vary  is  in  each  instance  equal  in  all  directions,  the  actual  result  in 
that  instance  must  be  ascribed  to  chance. 

But  perhaps  in  each  case  the  tendency  to  deviate  is  strongest  in 
one  direction,  changing  in  accordance  with  some  fixed  and  unknown 
law  as  the  cases  are  repeated,  and  gradually  covering  all  possible 
cases.  This  again  would  seem  to  reduce  all  to  strict  causation.  To 
be  sure  the  variations  seem  to  be  essentially  irregular  and  disorderly, 
but  that  may  perhaps  be  due  to  our  ignorance.  May  not  the  tend- 
ency to  vary  be  itself  found  an  orderly  and  thoroughly  determined 
affair  if  we  could  only  study  it  carefully  enough  ?  To  this  question 
I  must  answer,  no.  The  collective  tendency  toward  variation  seems 
to  me  inconsistent  with  causal  determination  of  the  individual  case. 
It  is,  I  think,  generally  agreed  within  the  scientific  field  that  one  and 
the  same  cause  can  not,  under  constant  conditions,  produce  varying 
effects.  The  cause  we  are  discussing  is  the  tendency  to  vary,  which 
is,  perhaps,  in  some  sense,  one  and  the  same  throughout  the  series. 
In  so  far  as  it  is  the  same  it  must  be  supposed  to  produce,  under 
similar  conditions,  much  the  same  results.  Now  the  conditions  in  all 
the  individual  cases  are,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  same 
throughout.  For  our  tendency  acts  independently  of  these  special 
circumstances  of  each  case.  We  have  already  seen  that  those  cir- 
cumstances could  not  guarantee  the  nearly  equal  distribution  which 
occurs,  and  that  consequently  the  tendency  in  question  must  be 
begged;  and  its  action  must  be  the  predominant  one  if  the  result  is 
to  be  secured.  Each  variation  might  then  be  treated  as  if  it  were 
due  to  that  tendency  alone.  But  that  seems  to  me  equivalent  to 
having  the  conditions  constant:  the  tendency  to  vary  acts  as  if  it 
were  in  isolation.  It  produces,  however,  as  the  experiment  is  re- 
peated, ever-differing  results.  As  this  would  seem  inconsistent  with 
the  causal  action  of  the  tendency,  such  action  must  be  denied,  and  we 
must  say  that  the  individual  variations  could  not  possibly  be  caused 
by  one  tendency.  Even  if  we  discovered  some  time  a  hidden  regu- 
larity about  the  variations,  an  order  expressed  by  some  function 
beyond  our  present  knowledge,  that  order  would  have  to  be  regarded 


288  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

as  fortuitous.  For  the  fact  that  there  occurred  different  results  from 
one  and  the  same  cause  would  be,  for  science,  an  inexplicable  thing. 
Is  it  answered:  "Perhaps  your  tendency  to  vary  is  not  one  tendency 
but  a  manifold  complex  of  them"?  The  same  inconsistency  with 
causation  would,  I  believe,  hold  even  then.  In  so  far  as  the  com- 
plexity obtains,  it  means,  after  all,  at  bottom,  many  independent  (i.e., 
fortuitous)  tendencies.  In  short,  no  one  tendency  can  explain  an 
ever-varying  manifold  of  effects,  and  many  tendencies,  in  so  far  as 
they  can  not  be  reduced  to  one,  themselves  constitute  chance.  It  is 
the  spreading  or  multitude  of  the  effects  that,  in  my  opinion,  renders 
a  causal  explanation  impossible. 

In  cases  of  ordinary  causation,  the  same  cause  does  indeed  pro- 
duce ever-varying  effects.  But  that  is  because  it  acts  in  ever-differ- 
ing circumstances,  and  its  action  is  influenced  by  those  circumstances. 
Our  tendency  however  can  not,  in  the  long  run,  be  influenced  by 
them.  It  acts  with  them  and  in  them,  but  it  must  predominate  over 
them  if  the  equal  distribution  is  to  result.  And  it  is  this  predom- 
inance, or  causal  isolation  in  a  certain  sense,  which  is  the  key  of  the 
situation.  The  manifoldness  of  the  effects  has  nothing  left  to  explain 
it  but  just  its  own  manifoldness.  From  one  isolated  principle  you 
can  never  get  many  results,  and  the  many  results  can  not  combine 
into  just  one  isolated  principle. 

The  conclusion  thus  seems  to  be  forced  upon  us  that  our  hypoth- 
esis of  an  all-inclusive  collective  variation  implies  complete  am- 
biguity in  the  single  case.  We  have  then  obtained,  if  the  argument 
is  correct,  the  following  principle :  there  is  a  tendency,  in  many  phe- 
nomena, to  vary  with  equal  frequency  in  all  possible  directions  from 
obedience  to  law,  the  variation  being  such  as  to  give  regularity  for 
the  group  as  a  whole,  chance  for  the  individual  member.  Of  course 
this  tendency  is  hardly  ever,  if  ever,  completely  realized.  It  is  a 
limiting  concept,  like  that  of  law  and  causation.  But  it  gives  what 
is  to  my  mind  a  more  positive  signification  to  chance  than  has  usually 
been  ascribed  to  that  notion.  Not  mere  irregularity,  but  a  tendency 
to  spread,  to  diverge,  so  as  to  treat  all  possibilities  fairly  and  give 
them  an  equal  showing — that,  somewhat  metaphorically  expressed, 
is  what  I  think  we  should  mean  by  chance.  Of  course  these  possi- 
bilities are  not  absolutely  infinite  in  any  one  case;  they  are  always 
restricted  by  the  special  circumstances  of  that  case.  Men  probably 
can  not  vary  much  in  height ;  temperatures  in  a  given  region  range 
hardly  more  than  a  few  degrees  out  of  the  long  scale  known  to 
science;  and  in  general  the  field  of  chance  is  relatively  small.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  seem  to  find  some  amount  of  chance  accompany- 
ing almost  every  case  of  law.  How  wide  the  field  of  variation  is,  in 
each  class  of  phenomena,  would  seem  to  depend  on  the  nature  of  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         289 

causes  whose  combination  gives  rise  to  the  phenomena.  But  the 
whole  matter  is  an  empirical  one.  Our  view  gives  no  occasion  for 
those  caricatures,  as  Professor  James  called  them,  which  would  ac- 
cuse its  advocates  of  believing  that  anything  might  happen  in  a 
given  situation.  Nor  does  it  offer  a  contradiction  to  the  principle  of 
causality.  Each  variation  is  the  resultant  of  many  causes  together 
with  a  chance-deviation.  It  would  not  be  regarded  as  a  denial  of 
the  law  of  gravitation  if  I  held  up  a  ball  in  my  hand.  No  more 
does  it  deny  the  constant  action  of  causes  to  assert  that  there  is 
another  principle  cooperating  with  them.  But  the  view  I  defend 
would  imply  partly  uncaused  beginnings,  arising  to  some  extent 
ex  nihilo.  Should  a  last  stand  be  made  on  the  ground  that  the 
principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy  would  forbid  any  uncaused 
changes,  we  need  only  remember  that  the  measurements  which  prove 
the  conservation  of  energy  are  themselves  subject  to  the  same  kind 
of  variation  as  that  we  have  been  exhibiting. 

Finally  let  me  indicate  the  relation  of  the  above  view  to  some 
previous  arguments  for  and  against  indeterminism.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  more  we  learn  about  any  given  event,  and  the  finer 
our  measurements  become,  so  much  the  closer  is  the  approximation 
to  exact  law.  The  conclusion  seems  to  many  thinkers  to  follow 
inevitably,  that  a  perfect  knowledge,  measurement,  etc.,  would  reveal 
perfectly  exact  law.  It  seems  to  be  a  case  of  a  variable  approaching 
a  limit,  as  a  hyperbola  approaches  its  asymptote,  or  the  series 
l  +  i-+i+>  etc.,  approaches  the  number  2.  But  the  mere  fact 
that  we  get  gradually  nearer  and  nearer  to  exact  law  does  not  imply 
that  the  latter  is  the  limit  we  are  approaching.  If  a  line  be  drawn 
parallel  to  the  asymptote  and  beyond  it,  the  curve  gets  nearer  and 
nearer  to  that  line,  but  does  not  approach  it  as  a  limit ;  and  the  series 
1  +  i  +  i  +,  etc.,  gets  nearer  and  nearer  to  3  without  approaching 
it  as  a  limit.  Such  reasoning  is  then  quite  inconclusive.  Moreover, 
it  overlooks  the  fact,  which  is  the  pivot  of  my  argument,  that  the 
deviations  from  exact  law  themselves,  when  recorded  and  measured, 
show  a  positive  manner  of  varying  which  can  hardly  be  explained  by 
causation.  It  is  in  this  point  that  the  present  argument  differs,  so 
far  as  I  know,  from  all  previous  arguments  for  indeterminism.  Even 
those  of  Bergson  and  James,  as  I  understand  them,  fail  to  point  out 
this  positive  difference  between  law  and  variation.  They  find  a 
fluent  quality  about  facts  which  forever  escapes  the  static  and  rigid 
concept.  Yet  one  might  reply  to  them  that  our  concepts  approach 
the  fluent  changing  reality  as  a  limit.  Even  though  those  concepts 
never  reach  that  limit,  they  allow  no  irreducible  remainder,  which 
can  be  definitely  named,  to  stay  outside  the  conceptual  series.  The 
advocate  of  universal  law  may  say:  "You  can  point  to  no  one  fact 


200  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

which  I  can  not  come  nearer  and  nearer  to  accounting  for  com- 
pletely. ' '  The  series  ir  is  never  completed,  yet  any  one  term  of  it, 
which  you  can  name,  may  be  exactly  computed.  My  own  argument 
does,  I  think,  escape  this  objection.  It  attempts  to  point  out  a  well- 
verified  character  about  facts  which  is  not  simply  at  present  unex- 
plained in  detail,  but  would  seem  to  be  inexplicable  in  terms  of 
causation,  even  to  a  perfect  knowledge.  The  tendency  to  deviate,  to 
spread  out,  to  produce  ever  new  sports,  is  indeed  in  substantial  agree- 
ment with  the  Jacobean  doctrine  of  a  growing  universe.  But  I  do 
not  think  the  inadequacy  of  any  given  concepts,  or  group  of  concepts, 
to  account  for  motion,  change,  or  life,  can  be  regarded  as  a  proof 
of  a  real  spontaneity  in  those  facts. 

And  the  present  argument  goes  even  further.  There  seems  to  me 
no  ground  for  saying  that  there  is  anything  about  spontaneity  which 
is  unintelligible,  i.  e.,  beyond  clear  conception.  Chance  as  here  de- 
fined appears  to  be  clear  enough.  It  is  a  dual  affair,  with  a  col- 
lective and  an  individual  aspect,  and  in  my  view  each  of  these 
aspects  is  meaningless  without  the  other.  The  collection  is  law- 
abiding,  the  individual  members,  within  limits,  ambiguous.  But  I 
do  not  see  why  ambiguity  is  not  a  perfectly  clear  concept.  There 
would  seem  to  be,  then,  no  real  reason  for  excluding  spontaneity 
from  the  kingdom  of  the  intellect.  It  should  be  included  as  a  gen- 
uine scientific  category,  no  more  wonderful  than  law  itself.  Not  the 
limitation  of  the  understanding  by  something  indefinable,  mysterious, 
unaccountable,  but  the  inclusion  of  that  something  within  the  sphere 
of  clear  definition,  is  what  every  thinker  naturally  desires. 

W.  H.  SHELDON. 

DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE. 


EXPERIMENTAL  ORAL  ORTHOGENICS:  AN  EXPERI- 
MENTAL INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  EFFECTS  OF 
DENTAL  TREATMENT  ON  MENTAL  EFFICIENCY1 

T~  ITTLE  if  any  attempt  has  hitherto  been  made  to  measure  by 
-L-J  scientific,  objective  means  the  mental  improvement  resulting 
from  the  correction  or  removal  of  the  various  physical  defects  which 
are  now  generally  known  to  afflict  the  majority  of  school  children. 
We  are  beginning  to  appreciate,  from  a  number  of  recent  studies, 
the  extent  of  the  retarding  effect  upon  mental  growth  of  such  phys- 
ical anomalies  as  adenoids,  hypertrophied  tonsils,  nasal  obstructions, 
defective  ears,  eyes,  and  mouths ;  but  no  one  has  attempted  to  deter- 

1  Read  before  Section  L,  Education,  of  the  American  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science,  Washington,  December  29,  1911. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          291 

mine  experimentally  the  precise  orthogenic  effects  which  are  believed 
to  ensue  from  a  definite  course  of  combined  prophylactic  and  opera- 
tive treatment.  And  yet  our  whole  system  of  medical  school  inspec- 
tion and  treatment  must  ultimately  justify  itself  by  its  demonstrated, 
verifiable  results — not  by  the  opinions  and  assumptions,  based  on 
unaided  observation,  of  schoolmasters,  or  medical  inspectors,  or 
school  patrons,  but  by  the  comparable  scores  of  a  system  of  verifiable 
and  demonstrable  objective  measures. 

In  the  present  paper  we  shall  give  a  very  brief  sketch  of  the 
results  of  an  attempt  to  determine  by  scientific,  mental  measures  the 
influence  of  hygienic  and  operative  dental  treatment  upon  the  intel- 
lectual efficiency  and  working  capacity  of  a  squad  of  27  public-school 
children  in  Cleveland,  Ohio  (10  boys  and  17  girls),  all  of  whom  were 
handicapped,  to  a  considerable  degree,  with  diseased  dentures  or 
gums  and  an  insanitary  oral  cavity.2  These  children  were  the  recipi- 
ents of  free  dental  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  Cleveland  Dental 
Society  and  the  National  Dental  Association  during  the  course  of  the 
experimental  year,  which  began  in  May,  1910,  and  closed  in  May, 
1911.  The  treatment  included  not  only  the  filling  of  dental  cavities, 
the  treatment  of  the  gums,  the  brushing  of  the  teeth  and  gums  after 
each  meal,  and  the  sanitation  of  the  oral  cavity,  but  the  thorough 
fletcherizing  of  the  food.  Oral  euthenics  contemplates  not  only 
mouth  sanitation  and  the  carpentry  of  the  teeth,  but  the  complete 
mastication  of  the  food.  Instruction  relating  to  mouth  hygiene  and 
correct  eating  habits  was  given  at  the  school  (Marion)  by  the  chair- 
man of  the  Oral  Hygiene  Committee  of  the  National  Dental  Asso- 
ciation (Dr.  W.  G.  Ebersole),  together  with  two  demonstration  meals. 
Follow-up  work  was  done  by  an  employed  nurse,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  individual  advice  and  instruction  to  parents  and  pupils,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  the  pupils  were  faithfully 
following  the  instructions. 

This  research,  it  may  be  added,  was  the  outgrowth  of  the  nation- 
wide school  oral-hygiene  campaign  inaugurated  in  Cleveland  in 
March,  1910,  by  the  National  Dental  Association.  My  own  connec- 
tion with  the  movement  consisted  in  suggesting,  contriving  and  giving 
(in  person  or  by  proxy)  five  series  of  psychological  efficiency  tests 
at  stated  intervals  during  the  experimental  year.  These  tests  were 
designed  to  measure  any  improvement  or  increase,  which  might  result 
from  the  practise  of  the  oral  hygiene  regimen  sketched  above,  in  the 
power  of  immediate  recall  (immediate  visual  memory  span),  in  the 
capacity  to  form  spontaneous  and  controlled  associations,  in  the 

*  A  more  complete  discussion  of  this  research  appears  in  ' '  Experimental 
Oral  Euthenics,"  The  Dental  Cosmos,  April  and  May,  1911,  pages  404  ff.  and 
pages  545  ff. 


292  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ability  to  add,  and  in  the  ability  to  perceive,  attend,  and  react  to, 
certain  visual  impressions. 

In  the  memory  test  the  pupils  were  required  to  memorize,  during 
a  period  of  45  seconds,  as  many  figures  as  possible.  10  figures,  each 
containing  3  digits,  in  large  print  on  a  cardboard  were  displayed 
before  the  class.  Exactly  one  minute  was  allowed  for  writing.  This 
test  is  thus  based  on  the  use  of  non-sense  materials  and  furnishes  a 
measure  of  the  immediate  visual  memory  span. 

In  the  spontaneous  association  test  the  pupils  were  provided  with 
a  sheet  of  paper  containing  a  column  of  30  simple,  every-day  words. 
At  a  given  signal  they  were  told  to  turn  the  papers  right  side  up  and 
write  opposite  each  word  the  first  word  suggested  by  it,  irrespective 
of  whether  or  not  the  suggested  word  was  logically  connected  with 
the  supplied  antecedent  or  key-word.  The  time  allowed  was  85  sec- 
onds. The  number  of  words  written  in  a  test  like  this  furnishes  an 
index  of  the  speed  of  ideating  or  forming  spontaneous  associations — 
or,  in  other  words,  of  the  speed  of  thinking. 

To  measure  the  speed  of  forming  controlled  associations  an 
antonym  test  was  employed.  In  this  the  pupils  were  supplied  with  a 
sheet  containing  a  column  of  25  key-words,  opposite  each  of  which 
they  were  instructed  to  write  (during  85  seconds)  only  that  word 
which  has  the  opposite  meaning:  e.  g.,  better — worse;  sunrise — sunset. 
This  test  requires  intelligent  discrimination  and  demands  a  higher 
degree  of  associational  efficiency  than  that  required  in  the  pre- 
vious test. 

In  the  test  on  the  speed  and  accuracy  of  adding  the  pupils  were 
supplied  with  a  sheet  containing  32  columns  of  figures,  each  column 
consisting  of  10  one-place  digits.  They  were  told  to  add  as  many 
columns  as  possible  within  the  time  limits  (2  minutes)  without  stop- 
ping to  re-add  any  of  the  columns.  This  test  gives  a  measure  of  the 
ability  to  form  controlled  numerical  associations. 

In  the  attention-perception  test  (A-test)  a  sheet  was  provided 
containing  26  lines  of  capital  letters.  The  letters  were  printed 
entirely  promiscuously  instead  of  in  proper  alphabetical  order.  The 
pupils  were  told  to  start  at  the  left  end  of  the  top  line  and  proceed 
to  draw  a  line  through  as  many  of  the  A's  as  possible  within  the 
time  limits  (100  seconds).  They  were  specially  cautioned  not  to 
skip  any  A's  or  to  cross  out  any  other  letters.  This  test  gives  a 
measure  of  the  speed  and  accuracy  of  perceptual  discrimination,  of 
the  power  of  sustained  attention,  and,  secondarily,  of  the  speed  and 
accuracy  of  manual  reaction. 

These  five  tests  thus  explore  some  of  the  fundamental  mental 
traits  or  capacities.  In  all  tests,  and  in  all  sittings,  the  pupils  were 
uniformly  urged  to  do  their  very  best.  A  system  of  quantitative, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          293 

or  combined  quantitative  and  qualitative,  scoring  was  worked  out 
for  each  test. 

In  order  that  tests  of  this  character  may  be  used  as  measuring- 
rods  for  gauging  the  increased  functional  efficiency  resulting  from 
the  given  euthenic  or  corrective  factor  or  factors,  a  number  of  essen- 
tial conditions  must  be  supplied. 

First,  each  of  the  tests  must  be  constructed  in  sets  or  series,  so 
that  some  of  the  tests  may  be  given  before  the  treatment  begins,  and 
some  during  the  course  of  the  treatment,  or  after  its  close.  In  this 
investigation  each  test  was  arranged  in  six  sets,  numbered  from  1  to 
6.  Tests  1  and  2  were  given  before  treatment  began.  The  average 
of  these  two  pre-treatment  tests,  therefore,  represents  the  pupils' 
initial  efficiency.  The  last  four  tests  were  given  during  the  course 
of  the  treatment,  or  after  its  close,  so  that  the  average  of  these  repre- 
sents the  pupils'  terminal  efficiency.  The  difference  between  the  two 
averages  accordingly  represents  the  gain  (index  of  improvement) 
made  during  the  course  of  the  treatment.  Or,  instead  of  taking  the 
average  of  the  last  four  tests  for  the  final  efficiency,  we  may  substi- 
tute the  average  of  the  last  two.  This  plan  seems  preferable,  because 
the  last  two  tests  were  given  from  three  to  five  months  after  the 
dental  treatment  had  been  completed  for  all  the  pupils,  while  tests  3 
and  4  were  given  only  one  or  two  months  after  the  beginning  of  the 
treatment  for  more  than  half  of  the  pupils.  Sufficient  time  had, 
therefore,  not  elapsed  to  allow  the  orthogenic  effects  to  become  opera- 
tive, at  least  not  in  maximal  degree,  at  the  time  of  the  third  and 
fourth  tests. 

Secondly,  the  sets  must  be  so  constructed  that  all  of  the  successive 
tests  in  the  same  set  are  uniformly  difficult.  That  is,  test  number  2 
must  be  of  the  same  difficulty  as  test  number  1,  test  3  the  same  as 
test  2,  and  so  on.  Manifestly,  if  each  of  the  successive  tests  dimin- 
ishes in  difficulty,  the  increased  efficiency  shown  is  spurious  or  largely 
exaggerated.  Contrariwise,  if  each  successive  test  increases  in  diffi- 
culty the  actual  improvement  will  be  minimized  or  counteracted. 
Considerable  pains  were  taken  to  make  all  the  tests  of  a  given  set 
equi-difficult.  Elsewhere  evidence  has  been  adduced  to  show  that  the 
tests  were  fairly  uniform  in  difficulty. 

Thirdly,  the  conditions  of  giving  the  tests  must  be  strictly  uni- 
form in  all  the  successive  sittings.  These  conditions  refer  to  the 
character  of  the  explanations,  the  use  of  incentives  or  suggestions, 
the  constant  putting  forth  of  maximal  effort  by  the  examinees,  the 
withholding  of  assistance  or  fore-knowledge  of  the  test  materials, 
the  seating  of  the  pupils,  the  hour  of  the  day  used  for  testing,  the 
time  allowed  for  the  tests,  and  the  employment  of  uniform  super- 


294  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

visory  conditions.  A  scrupulous  attempt  was  made  in  this  research 
to  realize  these  requirements. 

Fourthly,  to  place  the  results  upon  a  strictly  comparable  basis, 
a  second  squad  of  imlnated  children  should  be  given  exactly  the 
same  tests  under  precisely  the  same  conditions.  These  children 
should  come  from  the  same  social  strata  as  the  treated  children, 
should  approximately  be  of  the  same  ages  and  suffer  from  the  same 
degree  of  physical  handicap.  By  means  of  the  data  obtained  from 
such  an  untreated  squad  we  should  be  able  to  determine  the  amount 
of  improvement  which  is  due  to  such  contributing  factors  as  famil- 
iarity, habituation,  practise,  and  natural  development  (merely  grow- 
ing older),  and  the  share  which  is  solely  due  to  the  application  of  the 
orthogenic  factor  under  consideration.  Unfortunately  it  was  not 
possible  for  me  to  get  such  a  squad  as  this  organized  during  the 
experimental  year. 

Fifthly,  and  finally,  the  factor  or  factors  whose  orthophrenic  influ- 
ence is  to  be  measured  must  be  investigated  under  "controlled  con- 
ditions." One  must  make  certain  that  the  factor  is  constantly  opera- 
tive in  the  treated  squad,  and  that  it  is  inoperative  in  the  untreated 
squad.  In  this  investigation  the  oral  hygienic  measures  were  subject 
to  a  fair  degree  of  control.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  employed  nurse 
to  see  that  the  pupils  conformed  strictly  to  the  requirements. 

What,  now,  do  the  results  show  with  respect  to  the  influence  of 
the  dental  treatment  upon  the  working  efficiency  of  the  pupils?  In 
attempting  to  answer  this  main  question  we  shall  also  refer  briefly  to 
a  number  of  accessory  facts  brought  out  in  the  investigation.  One 
of  these  facts  is  the  circumstance  that  while  the  boys  manifested  a 
higher  degree  of  efficiency  than  the  girls  in  all  tests  except  the  per- 
ception test,  the  indices  of  improvement  were  about  the  same  for  the 
two  sexes,  whence  the  boys'  manifest  superiority  in  the  efficiency 
scores  is  not  paralleled  by  a  corresponding  superiority  in  the  im- 
provement indices.  Similarly  the  amount  of  improvement  was  about 
the  same  for  the  older  and  younger  pupils,  a  result  not  entirely  in 
accordance  with  expectation,  for  it  is  currently  believed  that  the 
benefits  derived  from  the  correction  of  physical  defects  are  greater 
the  earlier  in  the  child's  career  the  defect  is  corrected.  This  is 
believed  to  be  true  particularly  as  regards  nasopharyngeal  obstruc- 
tions. But  so  far  as  the  mal-effects  of  dental  defects  are  concerned 
there  are  no  significant  age  differences.  Pupils  between  the  ages  of 
11  and  15  appear  to  profit  in  equal  degree,  irrespective  of  sex,  from 
the  broad  application  of  community  mouth  hygiene. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  individual  differences  between  the  pupils 
in  all  tests  are  significant.  The  differences  are  quite  as  large  as  the 
differences  frequently  brought  to  light  in  other  psychological  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          295 

pedagogical  experiments  on  pupils  of  the  same  age  or  school  grade. 
Some  pupils  show  a  high  degree,  others  a  low  degree,  of  proficiency ; 
and  some  pupils  make  marvellous  gains  while  others  gain  very  little, 
or  not  at  all,  or  actually  lose  in  efficiency.  It  is  therefore  apparent 
that  experiments  of  this  sort,  which  are  based  on  only  a  few  pupils, 
are  at  best  only  suggestive,  and  that  valid  inferences  or  conclusions 
must  be  based  on  the  central  tendencies  or  average  results  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  pupils. 

Not  only  do  we  find  these  large  individual  differences  in  the 
efficiency  scores  and  improvement  indices,  but  the  fact  that  a  pupil 
gains  much  in  one  test  does  not  warrant  the  belief  that  he  will  gain 
much  in  all  the  other  tests.  Quite  the  reverse  may  be  the  case.  Thus 
a  list  of  the  5  pupils,  who  made  the  smallest  improvements  in  each 
of  the  5  tests,  was  found  to  contain  19  of  the  27  pupils,  while  the 
list  of  the  5  pupils,  who  made  the  greatest  gain  in  each  of  the  5  tests, 
included  13  pupils.  But  not  a  single  pupil  was  enumerated  among 
the  5  poorest  in  all  the  tests,  nor  was  a  single  pupil  enumerated 
among  the  5  best  in  all  the  tests.  On  the  other  hand,  8  of  the  pupils, 
ranking  with  the  5  poorest  gainers  in  one  test  or  another,  also  ranked 
with  the  5  best  gainers  in  one  test  or  another.  While  2  of  these 
showed  little  improvement  in  2  tests,  they  nevertheless  made  large 
gains  in  2  tests.  It  is  thus  apparent  that  many  pupils  who  gain 
little  in  some  tests  may  improve  remarkably  in  others.  But  it  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  only  1  of  the  3  pupils  who  were  enumerated 
among  the  best  gainers  in  3  or  more  tests  was  included  among  the 
poorest  gainers,  while  none  of  the  3  who  were  among  the  poorest  in 
3  tests  took  rank  with  the  5  best  in  any  of  the  5  tests,  so  that  there  is 
a  certain  amount  of  correlation  between  the  indices  of  improvement 
in  the  various  tests,  justifying  the  conclusion  that  pupils  who  improve 
very  slowly  in  several  tests  will  not  take  place  with  the  best  ground- 
gainers  in  any  of  the  tests.  Such  pupils  are  probably  suffering  from 
general  impairment  or  marked  retardation.  But  teachers  must 
recognize  (that  a  child  who  gains  little  along  one  line  of  mental 
action  may  be  developing  normally,  or  even  supernormally,  along 
other  lines.  His  capacity  for  development  can  not  be  determined 
from  the  improvement  indices  of  one  trait.  Scientific  pedagogy  will 
make  little  progress  until  this  fact  is  recognized,  so  that  the  educa- 
tional activities  may  be  adjusted  to  meet  individual  developmental 
idiosyncrasies. 

Although  there  are  these  individual  differences  the  character  of 
the  central  tendencies  is  unmistakable:  there  is  a  decided  gain  in 
every  test,  and  not  only  are  the  gains  decidedly  more  frequent  than 
the  losses,  but  the  largest  gains  are  invariably  emphatically  larger 
than  the  largest  losses.  This  may  be  seen  from  the  following  data 


2IM5  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

for  each  test,  based  on  the  average  scores  of  tests  1  and  2,  and  the 
averages  of  tests  5  and  6  : 

Memory:  8  pupils  lost  in  amounts  varying  from  5  to  15  per  cent., 
while  19  gained  in  amounts  varying  from  0  per  cent,  to  116  per  cent. 
The  average  gain  for  all  pupils  amounted  to  19  per  cent. 

Spontaneous  association:  2  pupils  lost,  the  one  18  and  the  other 
43  per  cent.,  while  25  gained  from  2  to  162  per  cent.  The  average 
improvement  amounted  to  42  per  cent. 

Addition:  1  pupil  suffered  a  loss  of  13  per  cent.,  26  gained  from 
6  to  125  per  cent.,  while  the  average  improvement  was  35  per  cent. 

Associating  antonyms:  all  the  pupils  gained  in  amounts  varying 
from  33  to  666  per  cent.,  the  average  gain  being  129  per  cent. 

Perception-attention:  all  gained  in  amounts  varying  from  19  to 
101  per  cent,  the  average  improvement  amounting  to  60  per  cent. 

It  is  thus  evident  that  the  gains  varied  considerably  in  the  dif- 
ferent tests,  and  that  the  largest  improvement  occurred  in  the  an- 
tonym, attention-perception,  and  spontaneous  association  tests.  The 
average  gain  for  all  tests  amounted  to  57  per  cent.,  truly  a  remark- 
ably large  gain. 

How  large  a  percentage  of  this  significant  gain  is  due  solely  to 
the  improved  physical  condition  of  the  pupils,  which  resulted  from 
the  treatment?  This  question  does  not  admit  of  a  categorical  answer 
in  the  absence  of  parallel  data  from  an  untreated  squad.  But  that 
a  very  large  share  is  directly  due  to  the  dental  treatment  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  most  of  these  pupils  were  laggards  or  repeaters, 
pedagogically  retarded  from  1  to  4  years.  During  the  experimental 
year,  however,  only  1  failed  of  promotion  in  the  school  work,  while 
6  completed  38  weeks'  work  in  24  weeks,  and  1  boy  did  2  years'  work 
in  1.  This  indicates  that  the  pupils'  physical  condition  had  been 
so  bettered  that  they  were  able  to  profit  by  the  instruction,  to  form 
habits  from  practise,  and  to  improve  mentally  as  a  result  of  in- 
creasing maturity.  We  may  therefore  conclude  that  if  it  be  granted 
that  a  part  of  the  gains  manifested  in  the  psychological  tests  resulted 
from  practise  and  increasing  maturity,  the  gains  are  still  significant 
as  showing  that  these  pupils  were  making  normal  progress-  during 
the  experimental  year,  while  many  had  failed  to  do  so  during  the 
preceding  year,  as  indicated  by  the  records  of  pedagogical  progress. 
It  may  be  doubted,  however,  that  the  practise  effects  were  very  con- 
siderable, partly  because  of  the  brevity  of  the  tests  and  the  length 
of  the  intervals  between  some  of  them,  and  partly  because  of  the 
counteracting  effect  of  the  growing  monotony. 

It  is  also  significant  that  the  regularity  of  attendance  improved 
considerably  during  the  experimental  year,  owing  to  the  improved 
physical  and  mental  condition  of  the  pupils.  During  the  preceding 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          297 

year  many  were  quite  irregular,  because  of  toothaches,  bodily  indis- 
positions, chronic  weariness,  or  distaste  for  the  school  work;  5  were 
obliged  to  carry  truancy  cards,  while  during  the  experimental  year 
it  was  not  necessary  to  issue  any  of  these  cards;  and  several  boys, 
previously  regarded  as  "  incorrigible, "  became  tractable  and  gentle- 
manly. The  improved  physical  and  mental  health  of  many  of  the 
pupils,  which  was  noticed  by  the  teachers,  commented  on  by  the 
parents,  and  fully  realized  by  the  pupils,  was  also  made  manifest  in  a 
more  buoyant  spirit,  a  healthier  complexion,  and  an  improved  disposi- 
tion and  deportment.  That  a  large  share  of  the  gains  in  the  psycho- 
logical tests,  say  at  least  one  half  on  a  conservative  estimate,  can  be 
directly  ascribed  to  the  oral  hygienic  regimen,  is  undoubted,  I  believe. 

This  experiment,  then,  furnishes  the  first  demonstration  by  means 
of  controlled,  serial,  experimental  tests,  extending  throughout  a  cal- 
endar year,  of  the  psycho-orthogenic  effects  of  the  application  of  the 
broad  principles  of  community  mouth  hygiene.  The  conclusions 
which  follow  from  the  results  of  the  research  are  of  far-reaching 
importance  to  the  state  and  nation. 

There  is  probably  no  phase  of  the  modern  child-welfare  movement 
which  merits  deeper  scientific  study  by  qualified  experts  than  the 
relation  of  normative  physical  health  and  growth,  and  of  normative 
pedagogical  and  psychical  development,  in  school  children,  to  a  well- 
conceived  plan  of  physical  and  mental  orthogenesis.  No  phase  of  the 
problem  of  national  conservation  or  racial  euthenics  more  nearly 
affects  the  very  fundamentals  of  human  existence.  Our  greatest 
national  asset  is  the  normal,  healthy  child.  It  would  seem  that  our 
child-welfare  and  social-betterment  workers  could  more  profitably 
apply  themselves  to  the  scientific  determination  of  the  physiological, 
psychological,  and  social  causes  of  physical  and  mental  inefficiency, 
and  the  discovery  of  scientific,  corrective  measures  on  a  community 
basis,  than  to  devote  their  resources  to  the  mere  gathering  of  statis- 
tical data.  The  largest  contribution  to  the  permanent  betterment 
of  the  race  will  be  made  by  those  workers  who  will  undertake,  on  an 
adequate  scale,  genuine,  scientific  investigations  into  the  actual,  dem- 
onstrated effects  of  the  application  of  various  orthogenic  measures  of 
a  physical  and  mental  character.  No  such  investigations  are  any- 
where being  prosecuted  on  an  effective  basis,  notwithstanding  that 
no  one  knows  the  actual,  proven  effects  on  the  child  of  the  application 
of  various  physical  and  psychological  orthogenic  measures  or  various 
pedagogical  methods  and  devices.  Our  knowledge  in  this  field  is 
largely  pretense  and  illusion.  In  no  field  of  modern  enterprise  has 
there  been  such  a  lame  attempt  made  to  measure  results  scientifically, 
as  in  education.  Indeed,  we  do  not  as  yet  so  much  as  possess  any 
scientific  measures  of  educational  results:  the  very  conception  of 


29s  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

"measuring  results  in  education"  is  a  product  of  very  recent  indus- 
trial t hi nki ng.  Is  it  not  time  that  our  large  research  foundations 
begin  to  treat  more  fairly  the  problems  of  human  conservation  and 
particularly  those  of  child  orthogenics?  A  million  dollars  spent  in 
orthogenic  investigations  will  accomplish  immeasurably  more  for  the 
welfare  of  the  human  race  than  tens  of  millions  devoted  to  the  cata- 
loguing of  the  stars  of  the  heavens  or  exploring  the  trackless  wastes 
of  the  polar  regions. 

From  the  results  of  this  investigation  the  conclusion  is  suggested 
that  the  desirability  of  establishing  dental  clinics  in  the  public  schools 
for  free  inspection  and  treatment  should  present  itself  to  the  tax- 
payer as  a  simple  business,  if  not  a  humanitarian,  proposition:  the 
clinics  are  an  economic  means  to  an  economic  end,  namely,  the  paying 
of  proper  dividends  on  the  capital  invested  in  the  schools.  Accord- 
ing to  the  best  estimates  there  are  6,000,000  retardates  in  the  public 
schools  of  the  country,  or  about  one  third  of  the  entire  school  popula- 
tion. One  sixth  of  all  the  pupils  are  repeaters.  It  costs  the  country 
$27,000,000  to  educate  every  sixth  child  once,  twice,  or  three  times  in 
the  same  grade.  That  part  of  this  enormous  waste,  which  is  as- 
cribable  to  the  presence  of  those  remediable  physical  defects  in  the 
children  which  exert  a  retarding  influence  upon  the  mental  processes 
or  which  cause  children  to  stay  away  from  school,  is  entirely  pre- 
ventable. Is  it  worth  while  to  attempt  to  save  this  waste?  Is  it 
worth  anything  to  the  child  to  enable  him  to  attend  school  more  regu- 
larly and  thereby  increase  his  chances  of  promotion?  Is  it  worth 
while  to  the  repeater  to  shorten  his  stay  in  the  schools?  Is  it  worth 
while  to  enable  him  to  attain  a  higher  level  of  academic  efficiency? 
Is  it  worth  while  to  remove  physical  obstacles  which  may  lessen  his 
efficiency  for  life?  Is  it  worth  while  to  the  taxpayer  to  eliminate, 
so  far  as  possible,  the  necessity  for  the  extra  financial  burden  which 
he  must  assume  for  instruction  that  should  have  been  done  satisfac- 
torily the  first  time?  There  can  be  none  but  an  affirmative  answer. 
One  of  the  means  for  accomplishing  these  desirable  results  appears 
to  be  the  establishment  of  departments  of  orthogenics  in  the  public 
schools.  But  these  departments  must  be  given  a  broader  scope  than 
are  the  present  departments  of  medical  inspection,  and  must  be  under 
the  skilled  direction  of  health  officers  who  are  experts  in  applied 
child  or  clinical  psychology,  corrective  pedagogy,  and  preventive 
and  corrective  hygiene. 

J.  E.  WALLACE  WALLJN. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PITTSBURGH. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          299 

DISCUSSION 
LETTER  FROM  PROFESSOR  POULTON 

nnHERE  are  many  points  which  it  would  be  interesting  to  discuss 
-L  in  Mr.  Francis  B.  Summer's  review  of  my  book,  "Charles 
Darwin  and  the  Origin  of  Species."1  I  should,  however,  have  ab- 
stained from  troubling  you  were  it  not  for  Mr.  Sumner's  quotation 
of  Professor  Punnett's  extraordinary  misstatement  of  the  modern 
Darwinian  view.2  For  some  time  I  had  been  intending  to  correct 
this  curious  blunder,  and  now  that  it  has  been  quoted  in  your  pages 
and  even  gives  an  ill-founded  relief  to  Mr.  Sumner,  I  feel  that  the 
time  has  come. 

Professor  Punnett  is  speaking  of  two  African  species  of  the 
Danaine  genus,  Amauris,  respectively  mimicked  by  two  Nymphaline 
butterflies  found  in  the  same  localities.  The  two  Danaines  are 
Amauris  niavius  dominicanus  and  Amauris  echeria;  the  two  Nympha- 
lines,  Euralia  waklbergi  and  Euralia  mima.  All  four  are  figured  on 
Plate  VI.,  facing  page  134  of  ' '  Mendelism. "  Mr.  G.  A.  K.  Marshall, 
in  1902,3  suggested  that  the  two  Euralias  are  probably  forms  of  the 
same  species,  but  the  proof  was  not  finally  obtained  until  1909  when 
the  late  Mr.  A.  D.  Millar,  of  Durban,  bred  both  forms  from  a  single 
female.4  There  is  good  reason  to  believe,  as  Professor  Punnett  states,5 
that  the  relationship  between  the  two  forms  is  Mendelian,  and  I  can 
now  further  add  that  there  is  no  doubt  that  mima  is  dominant  and 
wahlbergi  recessive.  This  conclusion  is  founded  on  the  recent  ex- 
periments of  my  friend,  Mr.  W.  A.  Lamborn,  on  the  corresponding 
forms  in  the  Lagos  district,  viz.,  dubia  (=>mima)  and  anthedon 
(=  walilbergi).  Details  of  these  experiments  were  communicated 
a  few  weeks  ago  to  the  Entomological  Society  of  London,  and  will 
appear  in  the  Proceedings  for  the  present  year.  Now  for  Professor 
Punnett's  statement:  "On  the  modern  Darwinian  view  certain  indi- 
viduals of  A.  dominicanus  gradually  diverged  from  the  dominicanus 
type  and  eventually  reached  the  echeria  type,  though  why  this 
should  have  happened  does  not  appear  to  be  clear.  At  the  same 
time  those  specimens  [of  Euralia']  which  tended  to  vary  in  the  direc- 
tion of  A.  echeria  in  places  where  this  species  was  more  abundant 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  pages  159-161. 

2 "  Mendelism, "  page  134.  This,  at  least,  is  the  reference  in  the  third 
British  edition,  1911,  of  Professor  Punnett's  work.  The  footnote  on  page  160 
of  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY  gives  page  144. 

8  Trans.  Ent.  Soc.  London,  pages  491-2. 

*Proc.  Ent.  Soc.,  London,  1910,  pages  xiv-xvi;  Trans.,  page  498. 

8 ' '  Mendelism, ' '  page  135. 


300  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

than  A.  dominicanus,  were  encouraged  by  natural  selection,  and 
under  its  guiding  hand  the  form  mima  eventually  arose  from  wahl- 
bergi. 

"According  to  Mendelian  views,  on  the  other  hand,  A.  echeria 
arose  suddenly  from  A.  dominicanus  (or  vice  versa),  and  similarly 
wima  arose  suddenly  from  wahlbergi  (p.  134).  ...  On  this  view 
the  genera  Amauris  and  Euralia  contain  a  similar  set  of  pattern  fac- 
tors, and  the  conditions,  whatever  they  may  be,  which  bring  about 
mutation  in  the  former  lead  to  the  production  of  a  similar  mutation 
in  the  latter"  (p.  135). 

Although  Professor  Punnett  ought  to  be  competent  to  express 
"Mendelian  views,"  I  am  pretty  confident  that  he  will  be  unable  to 
find  a  single  Mendelian  writer  who  would  accept  his  assumption 
about  the  origin  of  the  two  species  of  Amauris.  But,  however  this 
may  be,  it  is  quite  certain  that  no  Darwinian,  modern  or  ancient,  and 
certainly  no  student  of  insect  systematics,  has  committed  himself 
to  the  belief  that  one  of  these  two  Danaine  models  has  directly 
arisen  from  the  other. 

The  late  Dr.  F.  Moore,  in  his  revision  of  the  Danaince*  placed 
echeria  and  dominicanus  in  separate  genera.  In  this  he  was  prob- 
ably wrong,  but  they  are  certainly  widely  separated.  Amauris 
niavius  niavius  of  the  west,  together  with  the  eastern  sub-species, 
niavius  dominicanus,  occupies  an  isolated  position  in  the  genus 
Amauris,  and  it  is  absurd — I  can  use  no  milder  word — to  suggest 
that  echeria  arose  directly  from  either  of  them.  Hence,  the  whole  of 
Professor  Punnett 's  assumption  of  a  parallelism  in  origin  between 
model  and  mimic,  which  Mr.  Sumner  finds  so  comforting,  falls  to 
the  ground. 

May  I  say  in  conclusion  that,  although  the  relationship  between 
the  two  mimetic  forms  of  Euralia  is  undoubtedly  Mendelian,  I  can 
not  believe  that  one  of  them  arose  suddenly  from  the  other?  I  be- 
lieve that  any  one  who  looks  at  Professor  Punnett 's  Plate  VI.  will 
hesitate  to  accept  the  view  that  the  details  of  either  of  the  two 
mimetic  patterns — reproducing  with  great  precision  the  pattern  of 
a  species  belonging  to  a  different  sub-family — arose  all  at  once  from 
the  other  by  mutation. 

I  have,  furthermore,  some  evidence  in  support  of  the  conclusion 
that  the  origin  of  the  mimicry  was  gradual.  Another  closely  related 
species,  Euralia  dinarcha,  presents  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa  two 
forms  very  roughly  resembling  the  Danaine  models  which  are  so  won- 

*  Proc.  Zool.  Soc.  London,  1883,  page  201.  Dr.  Moore  placed  echeria  and 
an  allied  species  in  Nebroda.  Aurivillius  in  his  great  ' ' Bhopalocera  ^Ethiopica" 
places  niavius,  including  the  eastern  form  dominicanus,  second  and  echeria 
fifteenth  in  the  genus  Amauris. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         301 

derfully  mimicked  by  the  forms  anthedon  and  dubia  of  the  allied 
species.  I  very  much  hope  that  Mr.  Lamborn  will  be  able  to  breed  E. 
dinarcha,  and  ascertain  whether  the  Mendelian  relationship  exists 
between  its  two  forms.7  But  whether  this  is  so  or  not,  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  these  forms  exhibit  to  us  an  initial  stage  in  an  evo- 
lutionary journey  which  has  been  carried  very  much  further  by 
anthedon  and  dubia. 

There  are  other  interesting  facts  which  remain  to  be  further  in- 
vestigated in  the  Mendelian  relationship  of  these  mimics.  Mr.  Lam- 
born  informs  me  that  the  recessive  form  anthedon  shows  a  well- 
marked  tendency  to  appear  seasonally;  so  that,  during  part  of  the 
year,  he  finds  only  this  form  on  the  wing.  Then,  later  on,  dubia 
suddenly  appears.  Such  a  phenomenon  is  extremely  difficult  to  ex- 
plain on  ordinary  Mendelian  lines.  Either  we  are  faced  by  some 
undiscovered  aspect  of  Mendel 's  law  or  the  dominant  form  must  have 
the  power  of  lying  dormant  in  some  one  or  more  of  its  stages,  and 
then  suddenly  appearing.  Against  this  latter  hypothesis  is  the  fact 
that  in  the  seven  large  families  bred  by  Mr.  Lamborn,  and  now  in  the 
Oxford  University  Museum,  there  was  not  the  slightest  evidence  of 
any  difference  between  the  two  forms  in  this  respect. 

EDWARD  B.  POULTON. 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  MUSEUM. 


PROFESSOR  DEWEY'S  " AWARENESS" 

IT  is  a  shame  to  be  asking  Professor  Dewey  to  take  up  so  much 
time  in  answering  what  are  regarded  as  irrelevant  questions. 
But  he  has  been  so  good  in  the  past  that  I  am  going  to  take  the  lib- 
erty of  putting  two  more  questions.  I  shall  put  them  entirely  in 
Mr.  Dewey 's  own  words,  so  far  as  I  can;  and  I  shall  request  Mr. 
Dewey  to  forget,  so  far  as  this  is  possible,  that  in  my  former  queries 
I  seem  to  him  to  have  confused  his  position  with  my  own.  The  two 
questions  I  wish  to  lay  before  him  concern  the  passage  on  the  basis 
of  which  my  previous  unfortunate  questions  were  raised.  That 
passage  I  shall  requote  here  so  that  all  the  data  pertinent  to  my  pres- 
ent inquiries  may  be  seen  at  a  glance :  "  Of  course  on  the  theory  I  am 

7  Keturning  to  Oxford  at  the  end  of  the  Easter  vacation,  I  find  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Lamborn  written  March  29,  1912,  from  Oni  Camp,  near  Lagos,  telling  me 
that  he  has  now  succeeded  in  obtaining  eggs  from  both  forms  of  E.  dinarcha,  and 
that  the  larvae  are  doing  well.  We  may  hope  for  evidence,  which  will  decide 
whether  these  two  forms  are  a  Mendelian  pair,  in  a  few  weeks.  I  am  very 
fortunate  in  having  friends  in  the  tropics  who  are  so  often  able  to  supply  us 
with  just  the  Very  solutions  for  which  we  are  looking  with  the  utmost  interest 
and  eagerness. — E.  B.  P. 


302  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

interested  in  expounding  the  so-called  action  of  "consciousness" 
means  simply  the  organic  releases  in  the  way  of  behavior  which  are 
the  conditions  of  awareness,  and  which  also  modify  its  content."1  In 
this  sentence  it  seems  to  be  asserted  that  organic  releases  in  the  way 
of  behavior  are  the  conditions  of  awareness. 

There  are  two  other  passages,  in  the  essay  from  which  the  above 
quotation  is  made,  which  must  be  cited  before  I  can  put  my  ques- 
tions. "Awareness  means  attention,  and  attention  means  a  crisis  of 
some  sort  in  an  existent  situation ;  a  forking  of  the  roads  of  some  ma- 
terial, a  tendency  to  go  this  way  and  that"  (p.  73).  "A  mistake  is 
literally  a  mishandling;  a  doubt  is  a  temporary  suspense  and  vacilla- 
tion of  reactions ;  an  ambiguity  is  the  tension  of  alternative,  but  in- 
compatible mode  of  responsive  treatment;  an  inquiry  is  a  tentative 
and  retrievable  (because  intra-organic)  mode  of  activity  entered 
upon  prior  to  launching  upon  a  knowledge  which  is  public,  ineluct- 
able— without  anchors  to  windward — because  it  has  taken  physical 
effect  through  overt  action"  (pp.  69-70).  A  comparison  of  these 
two  statements  has  led  me,  perhaps  mistakenly,  to  think  that  for  Mr. 
Dewey  doubt,  ambiguity,  and  inquiry  are  all  cases  of  awareness. 
But  these  cases  of  awareness,  if  indeed  they  be  such,  are  all  said  to 
be  characterized  by  what  seem  to  me  to  be  not  organic  releases,  but 
organic  inhibitions. 

My  two  questions,  now,  are  these:  (1)  Where  in  these  cases  of 
awareness,  if  they  be  such,  are  "the  organic  releases  in  the  way  of 
behavior  which  are  the  conditions  of  awareness"?  (2)  Even  if  it 
should  prove  to  be  the  case  that  what  I  have  called  organic  inhibi- 
tions are  included  by  Mr.  Dewey  within  the  more  generic  term 
"organic  releases,"  why  are  these  "organic  releases"  called  "the 
conditions  of  awareness"  rather  than  the  awareness  itself?  In  other 
words,  if  awareness  be  literally  these  suspenses  and  tensions  and 
intra-organic  modes  of  activity,  can  these  suspenses  and  tensions  and 
intra-organic  modes  of  activity  be  properly  called  also  the  conditions 
of  awareness  ? 

There  are  of  course  several  other  questions  that  I  am  keeping 
intra-organic  and  therefore  retrievable — two  anchors  weighed  from 
the  windward,  I  have  found,  are  enough  at  a  time.  But  if  the  above 
two  questions  are  answered,  I  hope  that  I  may  get  from  these  answers 
a  clew  to  the  answers  of  the  others. 

EVANDEE  BRADLEY  McGiLVABY. 
UNIVKESITT  OP  WISCONSIN. 

»«'Jamee  Memorial  Volume,"  page  69. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          303 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Laughter:  An  Essay  on  the  Meaning  of  the  Comic.  HENRI  BERGSON.  Au- 
thorized translation  by  CLAUDESLEY  BRERETON  and  FRED  ROTHWELL. 
New  York :  The  Macmillan  Company.  Pp.  vi  +  200. 
As  usual,  Professor  Bergson  is  fortunate  in  his  translators.  There  is 
a  cockiness  of  expression  in  this  version  of  "  Le  Rire  "  not  altogether  true 
to  the  suave  dignity  of  the  original,  but  the  matter  is  such  that  the  manner 
becomes  it.  Laughter,  if  Professor  Bergson  is  right,  is  also  cocky :  an  im- 
pertinence, he  says  somewhere,  and  it  is  with  laughter  that  he  here  deals. 
His  handling  is  in  terms  of  the  characteristic  of  Bergsonian  philosophy. 
This  is  constituted  by  analytic  dualisms  of  time  and  space,  quality  and 
quantity,  life  and  matter.  Time,  quality,  and  life  are  real  and  potent,  the 
rery  stuff  and  texture  of  existence:  space,  quantity,  and  matter  are  but 
negations  and  inversions  thereof,  mere  appearances  of  the  living  onrush. 
The  routine  of  the  daily  life,  our  social  relations,  our  amusements,  are 
combinations  of  this  process  with  its  negations — spatializations  of  time, 
intellectualizations  of  instinct,  mechanizations  of  life.  The  exigencies  of 
action  make  them  so :  they  are  the  soul  of  use,  and  it  is  by  its  utilities  that 
life  maintains  itself.  There  exists,  however,  a  dimension  in  which  utili- 
ties, with  their  concepts  and  generalizations,  have  no  worth,  where  intellect 
is  satanic  rather  than  salvational,  where  only  concrete  and  living  individ- 
ualities count,  where  the  elan  vital  is  encountered  with  no  veils  between. 
In  this  dimension  lies  the  field  of  art,  which,  "  whether  it  be  painting  or 
sculpture,  poetry  or  music,  has  no  other  object  than  to  brush  aside  utili- 
tarian symbols,  the  conventional  and  socially  accepted  generalities,  in 
short,  everything  that  veils  reality  from  us,  in  order  to  bring  us  face  to 
face  with  reality  itself."  The  older  way  of  expressing  this  true  and  an- 
cient doctrine  is  to  say  that  art  is  intrinsic  and  expressive,  the  residual 
life  extrinsic  and  utilitarian — sometimes. 

But  the  art  of  comedy  is  excommunicate  from  this  election.  It  deals 
not  with  individuals,  but  with  types;  it  is  external  and  observational,  not 
internal  and  imaginative.  Only  averages  are  its  care,  and  the  inductive 
sciences  its  kin,  in  that  in  method  and  object  its  "  observation  is  always 
external  and  the  result  always  general "  (p.  169).  And  this  must  be,  since 
the  essence  of  the  comic  is  to  be  a  mechanization  of  life,  a  petrifaction  of 
the  labile,  a  mechanization  and  petrifaction  not,  however,  through  and 
through,  but  capable  of  correction,  and  therefore  subject  thereto  at  the 
hands  of  laughter.  But  that  laughter's  function  may  be  universal,  its  ob- 
ject, the  comic,  must  be  general  and  not  individual.  Comedy,  hence,  can 
not  reveal  reality. 

Whether  it  is  because  of  this  metaphysical  preconception  that  the 
analysis  of  objects  of  laughter  is  limited  to  French  comedy  from  Moliere 
to  Labiche,  or  because  such  an  analysis  has  led  to  this  generalization  in 
terms  of  the  Bergsonian  metaphysic,  can  not  be  easily  said.  Certainly,  to 
find  in  addition  that  laughter  must  concern  itself  with  something  human, 
in  its  social  relations;  that  it  must  be  divorced  from  emotion,  requiring  a 


304  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

"  momentary  anesthesia  of  the  heart,"  points  to  the  first  alternative,  for 
these  are  deducible  from  M.  Bergson's  interpretation  of  life  and  nature. 
And  it  is  only  such  a  deduction  that  would  see  the  comic  object  everywhere 
as  a  "  mechanization  of  life  " — caricature,  because  it  involves  rigidity  and 
disproportion  of  feature;  repeated  or  inverted  movements,  because  they 
have,  when  alive,  a  continually  changing  aspect;  character,  because  it  is 
funny  when  automatism  is  opposed  to  freedom,  the  persistent  and  uncon- 
scious self-admiration  of  vanity  to  the  labile  and  scientific  cautiousness  of 
modesty. 

Hence,  it  is  not  impossible  that  if  M.  Bergson  had  gone  further  afield 
for  his  cases  of  the  comic,  if,  instead  of  confining  himself  to  the  comedy  of 
literature  and  social  life,  he  had  sought  out  the  occasions  of  laughter  in 
nature  and  the  other  arts,  he  might  have  found  it  needful  to  modify  his 
theory  a  little.  Granted  that  it  lightens  the  cases  he  cites,  does  it  equally 
illuminate  the  laughter  occasioned  by  tickling,  by  fear,  by  victory,  by  re- 
lease from  any  kind  of  suppression  or  tension?  In  cases  of  this  sort  is 
not  the  elan  vital  really  liberated  from,  rather  than  a  victim  of,  the  contin- 
gencies of  mechanization?  How  does  the  "mechanization  of  life"  ex- 
plain the  comic  of  music,  of  discords  of  pure  colors  that  many  artists  find 
laughable?  What  human  or  social  relation  is  actually  to  be  seen  in  these 
things? 

Then  laughter  itself — is  it  really  "unemotional"?  It  is  true  that 
mirth  is  not  anger  nor  pity  nor  horror  nor  joy,  but  need  it  be  any  the  less 
an  emotion  on  its  own  account?  As  well  deny  it  of  any  other  that  has  an 
identifiable  individuality.  That  mirth  is  not  a  negative  nor  depressed 
emotion  is  obvious,  that  it  is  cruel  and  pitiless  is  often  true,  but  then  so 
are  joy  and  anger  among  the  exalted  emotions,  and  fear,  among  the  de- 
pressed ones.  The  "  anesthesia  "  of  the  heart  is  common  to  all  emotions, 
to  say  the  least — that  is  why  they  are  emotions.  They  are  selfish,  central, 
exclude  alternatives.  They  consume  their  object,  each  according  to  its 
fashion.  If  laughter  hurts,  so  does  anger;  if  mirth  is  blind,  so  is  joy.  And 
just  as  these  are  not  intrinsically  corrective,  neither  is  mirth.  Arising 
first  as  an  intrinsic  expression  of  certain  values  in  existence,  it  acquires  a 
secondary  character  which  is  in  no  way  essential  or  definitive  of  it.  Its 
utility  is  an  artifact,  not  a  natural  growth,  and  the  other  emotions  can 
participate  in  a  similar  utility,  for  if  people  dislike  being  laughed  at,  they 
also  dislike  being  stormed  at  or  pitied,  and  seek  to  change  the  conditions 
which  evoke  these  emotions. 

Now  are  such  conditions  also  mechanizations  of  life?  And  if  they  are 
not,  may  not  some  of  those  which  evoke  mirth  also  be  innocent  of  that 
rigor?  In  nature  there  seem  to  be  many  such  innocents.  But  even  if 
there  be  one  only,  M.  Bergson's  subtle  and  fascinating  book  is  rendered 
by  it  a  "fallacy  of  composition"  in  which  one  object  of  mirth,  viz.,  the 
petrifaction  of  the  labile,  is  identified  with  all,  and  in  which  one  incidental 
utility  is  converted  into  constitutive  function.  Yet  not  altogether,  for  at 
the  end  M.  Bergson  finds  laughter  also  sympathetic,  containing  a  "  move- 
ment of  relaxation,"  a  relief  from  the  strain  of  living,  analogous  to  dream. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          305 

And  perhaps  in  its  fundamental  and  deeper  nature,  laughter  is  that  and 
only  that. 

H.  M.  KALLEN. 
UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

The  Philosophy  of  Music:  A  Comparative  Investigation  into  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Musical  Esthetics.  HALBERT  HAINS  BRITAN.  New  York: 
Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.  1911.  Pp.  xiv  +  252. 

After  a  somewhat  laborious  "  Introduction,"  the  treatise  in  hand  com- 
prises a  "Psychological  Analysis  of  the  Elements  of  Music,"  with  chap- 
ters on  rhythm,  melody,  harmony,  and  musical  expression,  and  a  discus- 
sion of  "  The  Philosophy  of  Music,"  considered  with  reference  to  the  ap- 
peal and  the  content  of  music  to  musical  criticism  and  to  education. 

The  perspective  of  the  "  psychological  analysis  "  may  be  indicated  by 
a  typical  passage :  "  Ehythm  ...  is  an  attribute  of  neural  activity  in- 
bred in  the  nervous  tissues  through  ages  and  cycles  of  development  and 
growth  before  the  mind  was  capable  of  true  creative  work  such  as  both 
melody  and  harmony  imply.  Consequently  the  music  of  undeveloped 
tribes  and  of  uncultivated  taste  is  preponderatingly  rhythmical.  Instru- 
ments of  percussion  are  the  favorite  musical  instruments  of  men  in  the 
lowest  stages  of  mental  development"  (p.  63).  The  combined  authority 
of  physiology  and  anthropology  is  characteristic  of  the  day,  but  to  the 
reviewer  it  seems  too  often  to  amount  merely  to  the  restatement  of  fa- 
miliar facts  in  grotesque  or  pedantic  terms,  less  a  profit  to  learning  than 
a  trial  of  temper. 

Professor  Britan  is  better  in  his  discussion  of  melody  and  harmony 
where  neither  protoplasm  nor  "primitive  man"  can  be  conveniently  ad- 
jured. In  melody  he  finds  the  gist  of  "musical  thought,"  to  which  he 
proceeds  to  apply  the  rhetorical  criteria  of  unity,  strength,  grace,  original- 
ity, significance.  While  these  terms  serve  no  deeper  purpose  than  to  point 
to  certain  obvious  features  of  musical  composition  sufficiently  analogous 
to  their  literary  counterparts  to  justify  the  terminology,  yet  in  this  there 
is  a  real  service.  For  in  the  first  place,  it  is  worth  while  to  suggest  for 
musical  description  a  set  of  analogies  other  than  the  overused  (and  often 
absurd)  ones  of  painting  and  architecture;  and  in  the  second  place,  in  a 
thoroughly  profitable  chapter  on  "Musical  Criticism,"  Dr.  Britan  points 
the  practical  need  and  application  of  his  terms.  As  to  the  quite  different 
matter  of  penetrating  the  nature  and  analyzing  the  appeal  of  melody,  it 
can  hardly  be  maintained  that  we  are  much  advanced. 

A  suggestion  that  invites  consideration  is  that  the  plaintive  effect  of 
the  minor  mode  is  due  to  the  primacy  of  the  major  in  the  general  ordina- 
tion of  our  musical  conceptions :  "  So  here  in  the  minor  scale,  when  we 
feel  the  unrest  and  yearning  it  produces,  we  are  yearning  in  reality  for 
the  more  natural  order  of  the  major  mode"  (p.  146).  This,  of  course,  is 
but  another  application  of  the  "  expectation "  theory  to  musical  inter- 
pretation— like  all  the  rest,  still  leaving  with  us,  unsolved,  the  foundation 
of  such  expectancy. 

A  general  key  to  Professor  Britan's  position  is  his  excellent  saying, 


300  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

11  There  are  no  patterns  in  art,  though  we  are  endeavoring  to  establish 
certain  principles  "  (p.  217).  And  most  of  the  principles  laid  down  will 
be  generally  accepted.  Yet  his  book  as  a  whole  would  certainly  be  more 
effective  without  the  odd  assumption  that  it  constitutes  a  "  pioneer  work  " 
in  a  field  represented  by  a  literature  of  which  his  seventeen  prefatory 
"  references  "  give  small  measure.  H.  B.  ALEXANDER. 

UNIVERSITY  or  NEBRASKA. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.  January,  1912. 
The  Relative  Legibility  of  Different  Faces  of  Printing  Types  (pp.  1-34) : 
BARBARA  ELIZABETH  ROETHLEIN.  -  An  experiment  to  determine  the  ease  or 
difficulty  that  various  printing  types  present  in  reading.  The  factors 
that  produce  legibility  are  given.  The  texture  of  the  paper  is  not  im- 
portant. The  modification  of  certain  letters  is  urged.  The  Psychology  of 
the  New  Britannica  (pp.  37-58):  E.  B.  TITCHEXER. -The  author  has 
made  a  careful  study  of  the  articles  that  deal  with  psychology  in  the  new 
Britannica.  He  finds  little  to  commend  and  much  to  condemn.  It  seems 
that  this  new  edition  of  the  encyclopedia  has  not  made  an  adequate  re- 
vision of  its  psychological  material.  The  Function  of  the  Several  Senses 
in  Mental  Life  (pp.  59-74) :  EDMUND  C.  SANFORD.  -  A  brief  survey  of  the 
development  of  the  various  senses  is  here  given.  Several  mental  experi- 
ences are  taken  up  and  discussed  in  relation  to  the  various  senses.  The 
Relation  of  Practise  to  Individual  Differences  (pp.  75-88) :  FREDERIC 
LYMAN  WELLS. -The  experiments  indicate  that  a  superior  performance 
at  the  beginning  is  not  attained  with  a  sacrifice  of  the  possibility  of  fu- 
ture improvements.  The  Influence  of  Caffein  Alkaloid  on  the  Quality 
and  Amount  of  Sleep  (pp.  89-100)  :  H.  L.  HOLLINOWORTH.  -  Small  doses  do 
not  seem  to  disturb  sleep.  Doses  larger  than  six  grains  impair  sleep  for 
most  subjects.  The  effect  is  greatest  when  taken  on  an  empty  stomach. 
Minor  Studies  from  the  Psychological  Laboratory  of  Vassar  College. 
Mediate  Associations  Studied  by  the  Method  of  Inhibiting  Associations: 
An  Instance  of  the  Effect  of  "  Aufgabe "  (pp.  101-109) :  M.  VALERIE 
ATHERTON  and  M.  F.  WASHBURN.  A  Study  of  the  Images  Representing 
the  Concept  Meaning  (pp.  109-114) :  MART  W.  CHAPIN  and  M.  F.  WASH- 
BURN.  Recent  Literature  on  Psychoanalysis  (pp.  115-139) :  DR.  J.  S.  VAN 
TESLAAR.-A  series  of  reviews  of  the  following:  (1)  S.  Freud,  Psych o- 
analytische  Bemerkungen  uber  einen  autobiographisch  beschriebenen  Fall 
von  Paranoia  (Dementia  Paranoides).  Sonderabdruck  aus  dem  Jahr- 
buch  f.  psycholanalytische  und  psychopathologische  Forschungen,  III., 
1911,  9-68.  (2)  Oskar  Pfister,  Hysterie  und  Mystik  bei  Margaretha 
Ebner  (1291-1361).  Zeitschr.  f.  Psychoanalyse,  I.,  1911,  468-485.  (3)  S. 
F.  Ferenczi,  Anatole  France  als  Analytiker.  Zentralblatt  f.  Psycho- 
analyse, I.,  1911,  461-467.  (4)  Otto  Rank,  Das  Verlieren  als  Symptom- 
handlung.  Zentralblatt  f.  Psychoanalyse,  I.,  1911,  450-460.  (5)  Albert 
Mohl,  Beruhmte  Homosexuelle.  Orenzfragen  des  Nerven  und  Seelen- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          307 

lebens,  LXXV.,  1910,  pp.  80.  (6)  H.  Bertschlinger,  Heiligungsvorgdnge 
~bei  Schizophrenen.  Allgem.  Zeitschr.  f.  Psychiatric,  LXVIIL,  1911, 
209-222.  (7)  S.  Freud,  Formulierung  ueber  die  zwei  Prinzipien  des 
psychischen  Geschehens.  Sonderabdruck  aus  dem  Jahrbuch  fur  psycho- 
analytische  und  psychopathologische  Forschungen,  III.,  1911,  1-8. 
(8)  Oskar  Pfister,  Die  psychologische  Entratselung  der  religiosen  Glos- 
solalie  und  der  automatischen  Kryptographie.  Sonderabdruck  aus  dem 
Jahrbuch  f.  psychoanalytische  und  psychopathologische  Forschungen,  HI., 
1911,  427-466.  (9)  M.  Wulff,  Beitrdge  zur  infantilen  Sexualitdt.  Zen- 
tralblatt  f.  Psychoanalyse,  II.,  1911,  6-7.  (10)  Jan  Nelken,  Ueber 
schyzophrene  Wortzerlegungen,  Zentralblatt  f.  Psychoanalyse,  II.,  1911, 
1-5.  Alfred  Binet  (140-141). -A  brief  biographical  sketch.  Book  Re- 
views. E.  L.  Thorndike,  Animal  Intelligence:  L.  W.  SACKETT.  C.  S. 
Myers,  A  Text-book  of  Experimental  Psychology  with  Laboratory  Exer- 
cises: E.  B.  T.  H.  H.  Britan,  The  Philosophy  of  Music:  E.  B.  T.  H. 
Bergson  (translated  by  C.  Brereton  and  F.  Eothwell),  Laughter;  an 
Essay  on  the  Meaning  of  the  Comic:  E.  B.  T.  J.  Welton,  The  Psychology 
of  Education:  W.  S.  FOSTER.  William  Brown,  The  Essentials  of  Mental 
Measurement:  W.  S.  FOSTER.  H.  Addington  Bruce,  Scientific  Mental 
Healing:  W.  S.  FOSTER.  Francisco  Eedi  (translated  by  M.  Bigelow), 
Experiments  in  the  Generation  of  Insects.  H.  de  Vries  (translated  by  C. 
S.  Gager),  Intracellular  Pangenesis;  Including  a  Paper  on  Fertilization 
and  Hybridization.  B.  C.  Punnett,  Mendelism.  F.  L.  Wells  and  A. 
Forbes,  On  Certain  Electrical  Processes  in  the  Human  Body  and  Their 
Relation  to  Emotional  Reactions.  M.  T.  Whitley,  An  Empirical  Study 
of  Certain  Tests  for  Individual  Differences.  E.  Abramowski,  L' Analyse 
physiologique  de  la  perception.  F.  Boas,  Handbook  of  American  Indian 
Languages.  J.  E.  Swanton,  Indian  Tribes  of  the  Lower  Mississippi  Val- 
ley and  Adjacent  Coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  C.  Thomas,  Indian 
Languages  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  and  their  Geographical  Dis- 
tribution. J.  W.  Fewkes,  Preliminary  Report  on  a  Visit  to  the  Navaho 
National  Monument,  Arizona.  J.  W.  Fewkes,  Antiquities  of  the  Mesa 
Verde  National  Park:  Cliff  Palace.  W.  Goodsell,  The  Conflict  of  Natural- 
ism with  Humanism.  W.  L.  Eabenort,  Spinoza  as  Educator.  T. 
Schroeder,  "  Obscene "  Literature  and  Constitutional  Law :  a  Forensic 
Defense  of  Freedom  of  the  Press.  The  Social  Evil  in  Chicago:  a  Study 
of  Existing  Conditions  by  the  Vice  Commission  of  Chicago.  Report  of 
the  Vice  Commission  of  Minneapolis  to  His  Honor  J.  C.  Haynes,  Mayor. 
W.  J.  Chidley,  The  Answer.  G.  E.  Partridge,  An  Outline  of  Individual 
Study.  W.  Benett,  Justice  and  Happiness.  J.  Eehmke,  Zur  Lehre  vom 
Gemilt.  J.  W.  H.  Allen,  The  Universities  of  Ancient  Greece.  M.  Offner, 
Die  geistige  Ermiidung.  M.  Offner  (translated  by  G.  M.  Whipple),  Men- 
tal Fatigue.  M.  Offner,  Dass  Geddchtniss.  M.  E.  Thompson,  Psychology 
and  Pedagogy  of  Writing.  W.  H.  Winch,  When  Should  a  Child  Begin 
School?  J.  E.  W.  Wallin,  Spelling  Efficiency  in  Relation  to  Age,  Grade  and 
Sex.  H.  E.  Cushman,  A  Beginner's  History  of  Philosophy.  L.  J.  Walker. 
Theories  of  Knowledge:  Absolutism,  Pragmatism,  Realism.  C.  J.  Deter, 
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308  Tilt:  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

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Philosophen  der  Neuieit.  P.  Smith,  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Martin 
Luther.  Book  Notes.  H.  v.  Buttel-Reepen,  Aus  dem  Werdegang  der 
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Asthetik.  George  Trumbull  Ladd  and  Robert  Sessions  Woodworth,  Ele- 
ments of  Physiological  Psychology.  William  McDougall,  Body  and 
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Edward  L.  Thorndike,  Animal  Intelligence.  George  Trumbull  Ladd,  The 
Teacher's  Practical  Philosophy.  H.  H.  Schroeder,  The  Psychology  of 
Conduct.  M.  Mignard,  La  Joie  Passive.  H.  Addington  Bruce,  Scientific 
Mental  Healing.  Gustave  F.  Mertins,  A  Watcher  of  the  Skies. 
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&  C.     1912.     Pp.  176.     2.50  L. 
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Lectures  for  1911.     London :  The  Macmillan  Company.     Pp.  xxxvii  + 

409.     10s. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

M.  HENRI  POINCARE'S  lecture  at  the  Sorbonne  on  April  12  was  as  bril- 
liant as  it  was  instructive.  He  dealt  mainly  with  the  constitution  of 
matter,  and  drew  the  attention  of  his  hearers,  the  French  Physical  Society, 
to  the  objective  reality  of  the  chemical  atom,  which  he  considers  to  be  now 
beyond  dispute.  He  made  a  bold  comparison  of  the  free  electrons  within 
the  atom  to  comets,  while  considering  the  tied  electrons  as  equivalent  to 
the  fixed  stars,  and  accepted  the  magneton  of  M.  Weiss  as  the  third  com- 
ponent of  matter.  Hence,  he  said,  we  must  consider  the  atom,  if  we 
accept  the  most  probable  hypotheses  current,  not  as  a  system  whose  move- 
ments are  ordered  and  ruled  by  definite  laws,  but  as  a  world  where  reigns 
a  disordered  agitation  of  elements  delivered  over  to  chance.  Yet  this 
world  is  rigorously  closed  to  us  at  present,  and  every  atom  constitutes, 
according  to  him,  an  "  individual."  M.  Poincar6's  lecture  will  do  much  to 
clarify  the  views  of  inquirers  into  the  subject,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
during  his  forthcoming  visit  to  this  country  he  may  repeat  some  of  the 
conclusions  announced  in  it. — Athenceum,  April  27. 

PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  JAMES'S  letters  are  being  collected  for  biographical 
purposes,  and  any  one  who  has  any  of  his  letters  can  render  assistance  that 
will  be  highly  appreciated  by  addressing  Henry  James,  Jr.,  95  Irving  St., 
Cambridge,  Mass.  Casual  or  brief  letters  may  have  an  interest  or  im- 
portance not  apparent  to  the  person  preserving  them;  and  news  of  the 
whereabouts  of  any  of  the  late  William  James's  letters  will  be  gratefully 
received. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  12.  JUNE  6,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


DOGMATISM  YEESUS  CRITICISM1 

attention  of  the  members  of  this  association  has  been  directed 
-»-  in  their  recent  meetings  to  the  issue  between  idealism  and  neo- 
realism  and  within  this  issue  especially  to  the  problem  of  perception 
and  the  relation  between  consciousness  and  the  object  of  conscious- 
ness. Personally  I  rejoice  that  the  main  issue  is  the  center  of  our 
attention ;  but  I  regret  exceedingly  that  we  have  turned  to  the  prob- 
lem of  perception  as  the  point  where  the  two  philosophical  parties 
really  divide,  for  I  do  not  believe  that  the  study  of  this  problem  will 
lead  quickly  and  directly  to  mutual  understanding,  let  alone,  to  any 
agreement.  As  a  realist  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  this  is  not  the 
fundamental  problem  at  issue;  I  deny  that  it  is  even  in  general  a 
fundamental  philosophical  problem.  I  am  aware  that  the  very  name 
"realist"  as  a  party  name  is  thereby  declared  to  be  inappropriate 
and  that  most  realists  will  disagree  with  me  in  what  I  am  saying; 
still  I  can  urge  that  party  names  do  get  chosen  in  a  more  or  less 
accidental  way  and  do  often  describe  the  tension  or  division  of 
opinion  regarding  matters  of  momentary  interest  rather  than  the 
great  underlying  causes  for  this  difference  of  opinion.  Indeed  the 
partisans  themselves  are  often  blind  to  the  real  ground  of  difference ; 
and  my  point  is,  that  in  philosophy  this  is  precisely  the  state  of 
affairs  which  we  should  strive  to  avoid,  because  it  is  unphilosophical, 
and  because  it  is  bad  methodologically.  Moreover,  our  attention 
these  days  should  be  attracted  not  merely  to  a  few  men  or  to  a  local 
movement,  but  to  a  great  international  philosophical  movement,  a 
movement  which,  once  it  gets  full  headway,  will  mean  a  world-wide 
philosophical  revolution.  The  realist  should  already  know  this;  and 
the  idealist,  whatever  his  type  of  idealism,  should  awaken  to  the  fact 
that  the  long  and  undisputed  reign  of  idealism  is  about  to  enter  upon 
troublous  times.  Such  a  movement  as  neo-realism  has  already  shown 

*A  paper  read  before  the  American  Philosophical  Association,  Cambridge, 
December  27,  1911.  This  paper  borrows  a  few  paragraphs  from  an  essay  in  a 
forthcoming  volume  entitled  "The  New  Eealism." 

309 


310  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

enough  symptoms  to  make  evident  that  it  is  opposed  to  idealism  of 
every  form  and  variety  from  that  of  John  Locke  to  the  present-day 
pragmatism.  No  minor  problem,  but  a  wholly  different  attitude 
toward  all  philosophical  problems  is  the  true  force  center  from  which 
it  derives  its  impulse. 

What  is  this  new  attitude  which  forms  the  fundamental  point  at 
issue  between  the  two  philosophical  parties?  It  is  dogmatism  vs. 
criticism.  The  neo-realistic  movement  is  a  return  to  dogmatism,2  not 
to  dogmatism  in  the  specific  sense  of  the  seventeenth-century  ration- 
alism, but  in  the  generic  sense  of  the  contradictory  of  criticism.  Let 
me  make  my  meaning  explicit  by  summing  up  the  rival  theories  in 
two  sets  of  propositions.  The  defendant,  criticism,  maintains  one  or 
more  of  the  following  propositions:  first,  that  in  general  the  theory 

•It  should  be  distinctly  understood  by  the  reader  that  the  word  "dog- 
matism" is  used  throughout  this  paper  in  the  narrow  and  precise  sense  above 
defined.  The  name  is  taken  from  Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  where, 
whatever  else  it  may  mean,  it  denotes  the  contradictory  of  what  Kant  calls 
criticism.  Unfortunately  the  word  has  other  associations  in  Kant's  mind  and 
in  the  mind  of  the  student  of  Kant,  for  it  sometimes  means  specifically  the 
ratwnali,itic  ontology  of  the  Cartesian  and  Leibnizian  philosophers,  whereas  neo- 
realism  differs  radically  from  this  philosophy.  For  example,  many  neo-realista 
have  a  strong  tendency  toward  an  extreme  empiricism  and  toward  an  abandon- 
ment of  the  substance-attribute  notion  as  a  fundamental  notion  in  metaphysics. 
Again,  the  older  realism  was  a  representative  realism,  an  epistemological  dualism; 
whereas  neo-realism  is  an  epistemological  monism.  Finally,  a  modern  dogmatism 
must  of  necessity  differ  from  that  of  the  earlier  centuries,  just  because  it  has 
behind  it  two  centuries  of  experience  with  criticism.  That  is,  it  is  consciously 
and  deliberately  dogmatic,  whereas  the  earlier  dogmatism  was  naive  and  was 
therefore  easily  misled  into  idealism  and  its  so-called  criticism.  But  in  spite  of 
these  unfortunate  associations,  I  believe  the  names,  dogmatism  and  criticism,  not 
only  appropriate,  but  enlightening;  for  I  think  the  neo-realistic  movement  to  be 
a  reaction  against  the  whole  enterprise  of  Locke,  Kant,  and  their  followers  to 
get  at  a  fundamental  science,  and  not  merely  against  their  idealism.  That  is, 
neo-realism  is  not  only  a  different  theory  of  knowledge,  but  what  is  more  impor- 
tant for  metaphysics,  a  different  doctrine  as  to  the  place  of  epistemology  in  the 
hierarchy  of  the  sciences.  As  the  names  realism  and  idealism  do  not  point  out 
this  difference  clearly,  I  prefer  the  names  dogmatism  and  criticism,  which,  if 
taken  in  their  generic  meanings  as  given  by  Kant,  certainly  indicate  precisely 
this  difference.  Indeed  I  would  go  farther,  for  many  contemporary  realists  are 
critic  ists,  and  it  is  at  least  conceivable,  no  matter  how  remarkable,  that  some 
dogmatists  may  be  idealists.  My  point  may  be  summed  up  briefly  in  the  follow- 
ing two  sentences:  Dogmatism  is  the  contradictory  of  criticism  and  defines  neo- 
realism  negatively  or  by  exclusion.  Chiefly  and  perhaps  only  in  this  respect  la 
neo-realism  a  return  to  seventeenth-century  philosophy. 

Since  reading  this  paper  I  find  that  most  fellow  realists,  with  whom  I  have 
had  opportunity  to  speak  regarding  the  name  dogmatism,  disapprove  altogether 
of  it,  because  it  suggests  that  the  neo-realist  is  not  an  empiricist.  Personally, 
I  do  not  fear  this  misunderstanding  of  the  name,  though  of  course  any  name, 
realism  included,  will  be  misinterpreted  by  the  careless  and  thoughtless  reader. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          311 

of  knowledge  is  logically  fundamental  or  prior  to  all  other  sciences 
and  to  all  other  scientific  procedure;  secondly,  that  the  theory  of 
knowledge  can  ascertain  the  limits  of  the  field  of  possible  knowledge; 
thirdly,  that  it  can  determine  ultimately  the  validity  of  science  and 
of  the  methods  of  science  and  can  correct  the  results  of  science  with 
the  authority  of  a  court  of  final  resort ;  and,  finally,  that  it  can  give 
us  of  itself  certain  fundamental,  existential  truths  usually  called  a 
theory  of  reality.  In  opposition  to  these  claims,  the  plaintiff,  dog- 
matism, maintains :  first,  that  the  theory  of  knowledge  is  not  logically 
fundamental,  that  it  is  simply  one  of  the  special  sciences  and  logically 
presupposes  the  results  of  many  of  the  other  special  sciences;  sec- 
ondly, that  the  theory  of  knowledge  is  not  able  to  show,  except 
inductively  and  empirically,  either  what  knowledge  is  possible  or 
how  it  is  possible  or  again  what  are  the  limits  of  our  knowledge; 
and,  finally,  that  it  is  not  able  to  throw  any  light  upon  the  nature 
of  the  existent  world  or  upon  the  fundamental  postulates  and  gen- 
eralizations of  science,  except  in  so  far  as  the  knowledge  of  one 
natural  event  or  object  enables  us  at  times  to  make  inferences 
regarding  certain  others ;  in  short,  that  the  theory  of  knowledge  does 
not  give  us  a  theory  of  reality,  but,  on  the  contrary,  assumes  a 
theory  of  reality  of  which  it  is  not  the  author.  Put  in  one  proposi- 
tion, the  charge  which  neo-realism  makes  against  the  older  theory  is, 
idealism  is  a  vicious  circle. 

All  of  this  can  be  stated  in  a  way  that  is  less  precise,  but  that  is 
probably  more  suggestive.  There  are  two  prominent  and  radically 
different  points  of  departure  nowadays  in  our  philosophical  studies. 
One  man,  the  idealist,  is  impressed  with  the  facts  and  truths  of  psy- 
chology ;  and  though  he  may  protest  that  psychology  itself  is  but  one 
of  the  special  sciences,  he  still  seeks  a  philosophical  foundation  by 
means  of  a  study  of  these  facts  and  truths.  The  other  man,  the 
realist,  though  not  blind  to  these  facts,  can  not  regard  them  as  the 
most  significant ;  rather  he  is  impressed  with  the  truth  that  the  chief 
business  of  science  is  to  demonstrate,  and  that  logic  is  the  funda- 
mental science.  The  one  man  is  temperamentally  a  psychologist; 
the  other  a  logician. 

What  is  the  immediate  result?  Radical  disagreement  in  two 
important  places:  for,  in  the  first  place,  how  can  we  get  a  common 
platform  upon  which  we  can  discuss  the  problems  of  epistemology 
and  come  to  an  agreement  as  to  what  is  their  correct  solution ;  and, 
in  the  second  place,  how  can  we  come  to  the  same  opinion  regarding 
the  authority  and  the  place  of  the  sciences  in  the  field  of  philosoph- 
ical research  ?  Let  us  consider  each  of  these  questions  more  at  length. 

In  the  field  of  epistemology,  take  the  problem  of  perception  and 
the  relation  of  consciousness  to  its  object.  An  entirely  different 


312  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

point  of  departure  tends  to  keep  asunder  the  two  lines  of  research. 
The  idealist  has  on  his  hands  a  fundamental  problem,  and  his  whole 
theory  of  existence  depends  logically  upon  the  solution  at  which  he 
arrives.  From  the  study  of  our  conscious  life  and  of  the  knowing 
process  within  it,  he  must  learn  all  that  he  has  a  logical  right  to 
assume.  He  must  keep  his  entire  research,  as  it  were,  confined  within 
the  stream  of  consciousness.  If  he  looks  beyond  consciousness  he 
must  do  so  from  within  outward.  May  I  apply  to  his  problem  the 
adjective  immanent f  The  realist  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  dogmatist, 
approaches  the  problem  from  without.  He  assumes  not  only  ex- 
tensive information  regarding  the  knowing  process,  the  function  it 
fulfills  in  life,  the  relation  between  it  and  the  bodily  organism,  but 
also  extensive  information  regarding  the  physical  and  social  environ- 
ment and  regarding  the  nature  of  the  objects  of  knowledge.  Log- 
ically, the  whole  conception  of  existence  as  taught  in  physics,  chem- 
istry, and  biology  is  at  his  disposal  to  employ  as  a  premise.  For  the 
one  party,  there  is  no  non-mental  world,  or,  if  there  is,  it  is  unknow- 
able. For  the  other  party,  not  only  is  there  a  non-mental  world,  but 
it  is  well-known,  or  at  least  far  better  known  than  is  the  mental 
world.  Such  a  fundamental  difference  in  the  array  of  information 
upon  which  the  solution  of  the  problems  is  to  be  based  can  only  lead 
to  one  of  two  things:  to  the  illusion  that  we  agree  because  we  adopt 
the  same  words,  though  our  meaning  is  utterly  different,  or  to  a 
debate  on  the  logical  position  of  epistemology  in  science.  In  the 
latter  case  the  idealist  will  protest  that  no  problem  can  be  more 
nearly  fundamental  than  the  nature  of  the  very  process  by  which  we 
solve  problems;  and  the  dogmatic  realist  will  retort:  Show  me  the 
critical  theory  of  knowledge  that  lives  up  to  your  good  intentions, 
that  does  not  assume  what  you  deny  me  the  right  to  assume,  that  is 
not  a  vicious  circle. 

A  similar  situation  meets  us  when  we  turn  our  attention  to  the 
different  attitudes  taken  toward  the  authority  of  science.  Thus  if  we 
ask :  "Who  is  the  great  metaphysical  discoverer  and  explorer  ?  Is  he 
the  professional  philosopher  or  is  he  mankind  at  large  and  above  all 
others  the  investigator  in  the  various  fields  of  science  ?  Or  expressed 
in  other  words,  who  has  been  giving  us  and  who  is  giving  us  our 
modern  theory  of  reality,  the  professional  philosopher  or  the  great 
mathematicians,  astronomers,  physicists,  biologists,  and  psychologists ; 
such  men  as  Galileo,  Kepler,  Harvey,  Newton,  La  Place,  Lavoisier, 
Priestley,  Dalton,  Mayer,  Darwin,  Helmholtz,  Clerk  Maxwell,  and 
Hertz?  The  idealist  seems  to  answer,  "The  professional  philos- 
opher"; the  neo-realist,  "the  scientific  investigator  and  discoverer." 
The  idealist  appears  to  believe  that  the  most  certain  information 
regarding  reality,  which  we  can  possess,  is  that  furnished  by  himself 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          313 

and  other  philosophers.  At  best  the  special  sciences  are  only  rela- 
tively true  or  need  to  be  translated  into  the  language  and  thought  of 
idealism.  Whereas  the  neo-realist  regards  the  exact  sciences  to-day, 
to  be  sure,  not  as  infallible,  but  as  by  far  the  most  nearly  certain 
body  of  information  man  possesses.  Now  do  not  misunderstand  these 
statements.  The  realist  is  aware  of  many  a  crude  piece  of  meta- 
physics in  this  and  that  scientific  treatise,  of  many  metaphysical 
inconsistencies  in  the  doctrines  of  every  generation  of  scientists,  and 
in  those  of  almost  every  individual  scientist  himself.  Indeed  this  is 
precisely  why  professional  metaphysicians  are  needed,  for  the  special 
scientist  is  too  busy  to  explore  thoroughly  the  foundations  upon 
which  his  theories  rest,  especially  during  periods  when  science  is 
growing  rapidly.  But  the  metaphysician  is  not  needed  to  revolu- 
tionize these  theories.  On  the  contrary,  his  business  is  to  think 
through,  to  make  explicit,  to  organize,  and  to  make  evident  to 
the  world  the  theory  of  reality  that  the  scientists  are  implicitly 
entertaining. 

"Ah,"  the  idealist  will  say,  "this  is  positivism."  The  realist 
replies :  ' '  This  is  not  positivism,  for  positivism  is  itself  but  a  form  of 
idealism  and  has  in  it  precisely  the  error  against  which  the  realist 
protests.  Its  father  was  Hume,  and,  with  him,  it  too  would  base 
science  logically  upon  a  theory  of  knowledge.  True,  there  is  this 
common  feature — that  the  realist  is  inclined  to  oppose  absolutism  or 
any  other  claim  to  an  infallible  theory  of  reality.  He  sees  that 
science  grows  by  trial  and  error,  that  science  has  found  no  other 
ultimate  method  of  procedure.  The  realist  is  in  this  sense  an  empiri- 
cist; yet,  mark  well,  not  because  he  bases  his  metaphysics  upon  a 
theory  of  knowledge,  but  because  our  whole  scientific  procedure  is  a 
tentative  one.  Science  does  not  assert  its  results  as  certainties,  but 
as  probabilities.  It  admits  that  it  has  not  full  proof  of  any  of  its 
existential  hypotheses.  Thus  the  empiricism  of  neo-realism  is  not  a 
theory  of  knowledge,  but  a  confession  that  our  theories  are  not  based 
upon  full  and  sufficient  proof.  Moreover,  he  denies  that  our  theories 
of  knowledge  are  any  better  off  in  this  respect,  for  he  sees  no  way  of 
digging  deeper  down  for  some  ultimate  support  for  these  theories 
than  does  the  physicist  for  physics.  To  change  the  figure,  he  sees  no 
immovable  standpoint  that  can  serve  him  as  a  fulcrum  with  the  help 
of  which  his  logical  lever  will  enable  him  to  move  the  world.  He 
wishes  that  he  could ;  but  he  is  convinced  that  any  attempt  to  do  so, 
such  as  that  of  the  Kantian  or  Hegelian  transcendentalism,  is  an  out 
and  out  vicious  circle.  In  short  his  empiricism  is  dogmatism  and 
differs  radically  from  that  of  those  idealists  who  are  also  empiricists. 

Let  me  illustrate  my  point  that  the  realist  believes  that  we  owe 
our  metaphysics  to  science  and  not  to  some  ultimate  type  of  philo- 


314  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

sophical  research  by  giving  two  examples.  Suppose  a  follower  of 
Berkeley  and  a  modern  naive  realist  to  be  disputing  regarding  the 
nature  of  the  content  of  which  we  are  immediately  aware  in  percep- 
tion. The  Berkeleyan  holding  to  an  epistemological  theory  believes 
it  all  but  self-evident  that  this  content  is  mental  or  is  made  up  of 
states  of  consciousness.  In  turn,  of  course,  the  realist  maintains  that 
this  content  is  made  up  almost  entirely  of  a  non-mental  world.  Now 
my  question  is,  why  does  the  realist  do  so?  Is  it  because  he  also 
draws  this  proposition  as  a  conclusion  from  a  theory  of  knowledge 
or  perception?  I  reply,  "No."  It  might  even  happen  that  he  has 
no  theory  of  knowledge  or  perception.  Where  does  he  get  the  propo- 
sition? My  answer  is,  "Just  where  common  sense  and  science  get 
it";  and  that  means  it  is  virtually  an  ultimate  premise  and  not  a 
conclusion  at  all.  The  realist  can  not  come  over  to  Berkeley's  view 
because  he  can  not  see  how  to  get  there ;  for  he  sees  no  way  of  log- 
ically undermining  the  position  of  common  sense  and  of  science  and 
of  thereby  being  able  to  build  a  deeper  foundation  or  substructure 
beneath  science  and  common  sense.  Here  then  is  where  the  two  men 
differ.  The  Berkeleyan  finds  such  an  ultimate  problem  whose  solu- 
tion gives  him  a  more  nearly  fundamental  position  than  that  of  sci- 
ence. The  realist  beholds  in  this  position  a  mere  logical  treadmill 
by  which,  no  matter  how  long  or  how  hard  you  labor  onward,  you 
end  precisely  where  you  started.  To  turn  to  a  second  illustration. 
Suppose  a  Kantian  and  a  realistic  empiricist  to  be  discussing  the 
nature  of  matter.  The  former  would  maintain  that  a  study  of  the 
knowing  process  will  throw  light  upon  the  question  by  showing  what 
matter  must  be  in  order  to  be  a  possible  experience.  In  short,  there 
is  a  method  by  means  of  which  we  can  in  certain  particulars  antici- 
pate the  physics  of  all  time  to  come.  The  realist  would  reply,  "No, 
it  is  impossible,  or  at  least  it  has  never  been  done."  In  all  such 
reasoning  you  Kantians  are  surreptitiously  borrowing  the  funda- 
mental postulates  of  the  physics  and  of  the  psychology  of  the  time ; 
and  then  after  you  have  read  them  into  your  theory  of  knowledge 
you  read  them  out  again.  Twenty  years  ago  you  would  probably 
have  tried  to  show  that  mass  must  be  a  fundamental  constant  in  all 
nature  because  of  the  constitution  of  knowledge ;  and  your  argument 
would  no  doubt  have  seemed  plausible,  because  everybody  then 
believed  mass  to  be  such  a  constant:  but  here  to-day  the  ruthless 
facts  are  telling  us  that  mass  is  a  function  of  the  velocity.  In  short, 
the  realist  will  say,  I  fail  utterly  to  see  any  method  of  research,  other 
than  that  of  the  physical  sciences,  by  which  we  can  ascertain  the 
fundamental  postulates  or  principles  of  the  true  theory  of  nature. 
Hence  I  see  no  standpoint  from  which  as  a  metaphysician  I  can 
judge  regarding  such  matters  more  authoritatively  than  can  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          315 

physicist  in  his  laboratory.  Rather  what  I  see  is  that  the  growth  of 
physics  and  astronomy  in  the  days  of  Galileo  revolutionized  meta- 
physics then,  and  that  the  growth  of  physics  to-day  is  probably  going 
to  revolutionize  the  metaphysics  of  our  time,  too.  Indeed  it  has  ever 
been  thus,  for  all  the  major  discoveries  of  science  have  led  to  changes 
within  metaphysics;  and  some  of  them,  such  as  evolution,  have  led 
to  great  changes  within  the  theory  of  knowledge  itself. 

To  return  to  our  main  discussion :  The  dogmatist  and  the  criticist 
will  have  a  radically  different  methodology.  If  science  is  the  source 
of  my  theory  of  reality  my  method  of  research  must  be  a  logical 
analysis  of  what  science  teaches ;  and  if  science  is  as  yet  quite  unable 
to  answer  the  questions  I  put  to  it,  I  shall  simply  have  to  wait.  If, 
however,  the  theory  of  knowledge  is  the  fundamental  and  most  trust- 
worthy source  of  my  theory  of  reality,  my  method  will  be  to  pursue 
epistemological  research  and  not  to  wait  for  the  growth  of  any  other 
science.  Now  this  difference  in  method  leads  many  critics  to  mis- 
understand neo-realism,  charging  neo-realism  with  an  over-fondness 
for  dialectic.  But  there  is  a  radical  difference  between  using  logical 
analysis  in  order  to  ascertain,  for  example,  what  chemistry  teaches 
or  presupposes  and  using  logical  analysis  to  solve  a  chemical  problem. 
No  amount  of  mere  logic  could  discover  the  weight  of  oxygen,  but 
a  man  who  never  saw  a  chemical  laboratory  can  learn  from  an 
encyclopedia  what  chemists  assert  to  be  the  weight.  In  short,  my 
point  is  that  the  employment  of  such  logical  analysis  is  a  prominent 
trait  of  neo-realism  and  that  it  indicates  not  a  return  to  that  delight- 
ful occupation,  spinning  a  web  of  truth  out  of  one's  internal  organs 
spider  fashion,  but  a  return  to  dogmatism. 

May  I  call  your  attention  also  to  what  seems  to  me  further  evi- 
dence that  the  neo-realistic  movement  is  essentially  a  return  to 
dogmatism  ?  Why  have  neo-realists  championed  the  following  causes : 
first,  the  giving  up  of  the  substance-attribute  notion  as  fundamental ; 
secondly,  the  holding  to  logical  pluralism  and  its  companion  doctrine, 
the  defense  of  analysis  as  an  ultimate  method  of  research;  and, 
thirdly,  the  complete  elimination  of  psychology  or  epistemology  from 
formal  logic?  Which  is  true;  are  these  principles  inferred  by  the 
neo-realist  from  his  theory  of  knowledge  or  has  his  theory  of  knowl- 
edge logically  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter?  I  am  convinced  that 
the  latter  is  true,  yes,  even  in  the  case  of  some  neo-realists  who  may 
not  be  fully  aware  of  it  themselves.  In  the  case  of  the  substance- 
predicate  notion,  history  shows  that  there  has  been  gradually  a 
wider  and  wider  elimination  of  this  notion  from  the  mathematical 
and  physical  sciences  from  the  days  of  Galileo  to  our  own,  whereas 
pre-Kantian  rationalism,  idealism  of  Kantian  lineage,  and  roman- 
ticism have  held  more  or  less  tenaciously  to  the  older  conception. 


316  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

In  Lotze  in  Germany,  in  Bradley  in  England,  and  indeed  in  any 
upholder  of  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  we  see  a  remarkable  hostility 
to  the  proposition  that  relations  are  fundamental,  whereas  you  see 
the  opposite  tendency  among  neo-realists.  The  only  explanation  I 
have  of  this  division  by  parties  is  that  psychology  and  sometimes 
romanticism  dominate  in  the  one,  and  logic  dominates  in  the  other. 
In  the  case  of  the  remaining  two  principles,  it  is,  however,  more 
evident.  Examine  the  treatises  on  logic  of  the  objective  idealists, 
the  phenomenalists,  and  the  pragmatists;  and  the  influence  of  psy- 
chology, or,  if  you  prefer  so  to  call  it,  epistemology,  is  everywhere 
evident,  whereas  there  is  a  remarkable  tendency  for  neo-realism  to 
side  with  formal  logic  against  what  has  been  dubbed  Psychologismus. 
Consider  finally  how  neo-realism  champions  analysis  as  an  ultimate 
method  of  research  and,  in  general,  logical  pluralism  as  fundamental 
to  our  modern  theory  of  reality.  Now  if  I  mistake  not  it  is  evident 
to  all  philosophers  that  the  exact  sciences  have  been  for  centuries 
utterly  dependent  upon  the  method  of  analysis.  Indeed  without  it 
we  should  not  have  any  of  our  modern  sciences.  As  a  consequence 
both  romanticists  and  monistic  idealists  have  to  find  some  other 
pigeonhole  besides  that  of  genuine  truth  in  which  to  place  science. 
In  short,  they  have  to  claim  that  science  can  not  be  our  direct  and 
fundamental  source  for  a  theory  of  reality ;  whereas  the  realist  claims 
precisely  the  opposite. 

In  conclusion,  there  is  some  evidence  among  realists  themselves 
that  they  do  not  regard  the  name  realism  as  the  most  appropriate. 
Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  who  is  certainly  one  of  the  foremost  neo- 
realists  in  the  English-speaking  world,  urges  that  the  appropriate 
name  is  pluralism.  I  believe  it  would  be  more  appropriate,  for  it 
would  at  least  refer  to  a  fundamental  tenet  of  the  new  party;  but 
against  it  I  urge  that  the  new  movement  is  more  a  methodological 
rebellion  against  the  older  philosophy,  and  that  in  a  recent  reply  to 
Mr.  Bradley,  Mr.  Russell  suggests  this  very  thing.3  Thus  though  I 
may  be  suggesting  the  impossible,  I  do  nevertheless  ask :  Should  not 
the  new  movement  be  called  neo-dogmatism  ?  This  name  would  at 
once  make  clear  to  the  objective  idealist  the  difference  between  the 
parties  where  now  he  feels  that  he,  too,  is  in  a  sense  a  realist.  Again 
it  would  do  the  same  for  those  pragmatists  who  call  themselves  real- 
ists and  yet  feel  rightly  that  there  is  some  radical  difference  between 
their  position  and  that  of  the  neo-realists.  It  would  make  clear  the 
relationship  between  the  new  movement  and  the  seventeenth-century 
philosophy  for  which  this  movement  has  already  expressed  a  fond- 
ness and  with  which  neo-realism  has  been  confused  by  some  critics. 

•"The  Basis  of  Realism,"  this  JOUBXAL,  Vol.  VIIL,  page  158;  and  cf. 
Mind,  1910,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XIX.,  pages  373-378. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          317 

Finally,  I  believe  it  would  indicate  the  chief  bond  between  the  indi- 
vidual realists  themselves,  a  methodological  bond  rather  than  a  theory 
of  reality. 

WALTER  T.  MARVIN. 
EUTQEBS  COLLEGE. 


STUDIES  IN  THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SYSTEMS 

2.    THE  DEDUCTIVE  SYSTEM  FORM 

OF  all  system  forms,  the  so-called  "deductive"  has  received  the 
greatest  attention.  Its  father  is  Aristotle.  Following  sugges- 
tions and  using  preliminary  work  by  his  master,  Plato,  he  put  the 
stamp  of  his  own  mind  on  his  researches  into  the  nature  of  the 
deductive  system.  Euclid  gave  the  first  great  example  of  the  form 
in  his  "Elements,"  and  this  example  was  interpreted  and  imitated 
in  the  light  of  the  Aristotelian  theory.  Every  school-boy  who 
labored  through  Euclid's  text  was  thus  familiarized  with  the  leading 
ideas  of  Aristotle's  theory.  And  quite  naturally  it  was  believed 
that  the  deductive  system  form  was  something  peculiarly  mathe- 
matical, though  the  attempt  was  made,  with  indifferent  success,  to 
apply  it  to  philosophy,  with  great  success,  to  physics. 

The  conception  of  a  deductive  system  thus  made  current  may  be 
briefly  stated  as  follows :  Its  dominating  idea  is  that  of  ' '  proof, ' '  by 
which  is  meant  "deductive"  proof;  no  propositions  are  admitted  as 
valid  until  they  have  been  proved;  and  they  are  "true"  just  in  so 
far  as  they  have  been  proved.  The  "proof"  shows  that  the  proposi- 
tion "necessarily  follows"  from  some  other  propositions;  but  this 
regress,  so  Aristotle  taught,  must  come  to  an  end;  this  is  reached 
when  we  come  to  the  "principles"  (-n-p^tj )  which  neither  can  nor 
need  be  proved,  for  they  are  ' '  self  evident. ' '  By  means  of  the  proofs 
our  propositions  participate  in  this  self -evidence  which  the  "axioms" 
enjoy,  and  in  this  lucidity  consists  the  great  merit  of  the  deductive 
system;  error  may  indeed  creep  in  through  a  faulty  proof  (nothing 
human  is  perfect,  alas!)  ;  but  it  can  be  corrected,  for  the  rules  for 
making  valid  proofs  were  made  the  subject  of  explicit  and  detailed 
study.  Propositions  must  be  proved,  that  is,  reduced  to  the  axioms ; 
concepts  must  be  "defined,"  that  is,  reduced  to  the  fundamental 
concepts,  in  the  last  resort  to  the  categories,  which  thus  correspond 
to  the  axioms.  Categories  must  be  clear,  intelligible,  general;  and 
the  "derived"  concepts,  by  means  of  the  definitions,  participate  in 
the  clearness  of  the  categories,  just  as  the  propositions  do  in  the  self- 
evidence  of  the  axioms.  The  light  of  day  thus  shines  through  the 
whole  building,  for  its  very  structure  assures  clearness,  validity, 


318  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

necessity,  for  which  the  philosophic  mind  had  always  been  longing. 

As  we  look  back  over  the  centuries  through  which  the  history  of 
the  deductive  system  took  its  triumphant  march,  we  are  impressed 
with  the  feeling  (which  to  the  workers  at  the  building  seems  to  have 
been  a  conviction)  that  a  system,  such  as  plane  geometry,  could  be 
developed  in  the  deductive  system  form  in  but  one  way.  Certain 
concepts  are  the  fundamental  concepts,  certain  propositions  the 
axioms,  radically  distinct,  by  their  nature  of  "clearness,"  "self- 
evidence,"  from  all  other  concepts  and  propositions  in  the  system. 
The  search  for  "categories"  and  "principles"  has  always  taken  this 
direction  and  followed  this  procedure:  by  a  direct  inspection  they 
are  to  be  recognized  as  such,  without  further  ado.  Of  course,  indi- 
vidual writers  did  err  (though  it  seems  just  a  trifle  hard  to  under- 
stand how  they  could  have  failed  to  recognize  that  which  is  "self 
evident") ;  but  the  correction  itself  followed,  with  undaunted  confi- 
dence, the  same  method  of  direct  inspection ! 

This  is  the  heritage  of  the  Aristotelian  theory;  "categories," 
"axioms,"  the  terms  which  most  clearly  express  it. 

Had  philosophers  not  been  too  much  absorbed  in  different  prob- 
lems and  too  ignorant  of  mathematics  to  be  any  longer  interested  in 
the  work  which  was  going  on  around  them  in  the  special  sciences, 
this  idea  of  a  deductive  system  would  have  been  rudely  shaken  by 
the  work  of  intrepid  mathematicians,  who,  without  theoretical  bias, 
proceeded  to  develop  deductive  systems  of  "geometry,"  of  "algebra" 
by  starting  from  various  sets  of  "axioms."  As  it  was,  philosophers 
ignored,  and  mathematicians  built  according  to  Euclid's  pattern, 
without  much  concern  for  the  structural  significance  of  their  work. 
And  so  the  opinion  could  prevail  that  the  Aristotelian  account  still 
fitted  the  modern  work. 

These  various  sets  of  "axioms"  were  at  first  offered  in  the  spirit 
of  the  older  conception  of  a  deductive  system,  as  improvements  on 
Euclid's  system  which  was  found  deficient  in  important  points.  But 
once  the  absolute  perfection  of  Euclid's  system  was  impugned  and 
the  possibility  of  starting  from  a  different  basis  demonstrated,  the 
work  was  carried  on  beyond  the  intentions  of  these  first  attempts. 
Mathematicians  exhibited  new,  and  new,  sets  of  ' '  axioms, "  "  hypoth- 
eses," "postulates,"  "primitive  propositions,"  or  whatever  name 
they  chose  for  their  starting-point  of  a  deductive  system,  and  proved 
that  all  of  Euclid's  propositions  could  be  deduced  from  their  sets 
also.  But  even  more  important  than  this  multiplicity  of  "founda- 
tions" is  the  fact,  that,  if  any  one  of  these  sets  of  "axioms"  is 
chosen,  the  "axioms"  of  the  other  sets  become  theorems  which  must 
and  can  be  proved.  The  new  set  of  "axioms"  may  simply  be  a  new 
selection  from  among  the  propositions  of  the  old  systems.  What 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          319 

becomes  of  the  radical  distinction  between  "axioms"  and  "the- 
orems," if  they  may  thus  be  interchanged!  And  what  is  true  of 
the  "axioms"  applies  to  the  categories. 

The  consequences  of  this  work  have  not  yet  been  recognized, 
though  its  bearing  on  all  our  thinking  seems  great ;  for  the  ' '  example 
of  mathematics ' '  has  been  potent  with  those  who  imitated,  as  well  as 
with  those  who  opposed  it.  Spinoza,  who  put  his  philosophy  into 
the  deductive  system  form,  as  well  as  Kant,  who  denied  the  possi- 
bility of  "definition"  and  "deductive  proof"  in  philosophy,  was 
guided  by  the  Aristotelian  idea  of  a  deductive  system.  And  Kant's 
own  attempt  at  establishing  a  "table  of  categories"  and  of  "funda- 
mental judgments"  moves,  at  bottom,  in  the  same  direction:  certain 
concepts  are  the  categories;  certain  propositions  the  fundamental 
judgments.  This  is  a  remnant  of  the  Aristotelian  way  of  thinking 
in  the  great  and  complex  German  philosopher,  who — though  a  favor- 
ite subject  of  attack  by  the  young  scientists  working  in  the  realm  of 
the  "philosophy  of  mathematics" — in  other  respects,  and  particu- 
larly in  his  "transcendental  method,"  seems  to  have  sounded  the 
key-note  of  all  this  modern  work.  To  have  shown  this  convincingly 
is  one  of  the  great  merits  of  Hermann  Cohen. 

But  are  we  not  too  rash  in  thus  speaking  rather  disparagingly  of 
the  Aristotelian  conception  of  a  deductive  system  ?  Has  the  modern 
work  really  made  a  different  theory  necessary?  Above  all,  are  the 
ideas  controlling  this  work  sound  themselves?  Wherein  do  they 
differ  from  the  classical  account,  and  do  perhaps  they  themselves 
require  modification?  These  questions  should  be  put  and  answered 
systematically;  for  we  are  at  present  in  a  puzzling  and  somewhat 
irrational  position.  If  "proofs"  merely  link  propositions  to  "pos- 
tulates," lacking  the  distinguishing  mark  of  "self-evidence,"  "cer- 
tainty," "undeniability,"  what  is  the  advantage  of  all  this  laborious 
"proving"?  We  seem  to  "establish"  nothing!  And  if  all  the 
propositions  of  a  deductive  system  are  "contained"  in  the  "axioms," 
do  we  not  merely  keep  reasserting  these  "axioms"  when  we  state 
the  "Pythagorean  Proposition"?  The  problem  of  the  "New"  in 
mathematics  arises!  Ah,  says  Professor  Poincare,  who  himself 
urged  this  problem,  the  "New"  exists  (and  every  unbiased  mathe- 
matician will  agree  with  him  in  this) ;  but,  though  it  is  excluded 
indeed  by  the  "deductive"  procedure,  it  has  its  source  in  that  impor- 
tant other  method  of  mathematics,  namely,  "complete  induction." 

Does  not  the  great  mathematician,  in  opposing  this  "mathe- 
matical induction"  to  the  usual  "deduction,"  misconceive  the 
former?  This  question  is  of  double  importance.  If  Poincare 's 
solution  is  correct,  mathematics  is  not  purely  a  "deductive"  system, 
as  modern  mathematical  logicians  hold.  If  it  is  incorrect,  the  prob- 


320  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

lem  must  either  be  solved  differently  or  it  is  merely  symptomatic  of  a 
general  misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  a  deductive  system. 
I  believe  that  the  latter  alternative  is  correct,  and  I  shall  indicate 
this  by  a  brief  analysis  of  PoincarS's  theory. 

In  the  first  place  it  must  appear  paradoxical,  if  "complete  induc- 
tion" is  really  the  source  of  the  "New,"  that  the  application  of  the 
method  should  be  so  limited  in  "geometry"  where  the  "New"  is  so 
very  patent  ! 

In  the  second  place  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  question 
how  the  "New"  is  found  does  not  concern  us  here,  but  how  we  can 
account  for  its  logical  existence  in  a  deductive  system. 

Now  let  us  briefly  examine  this  method  of  "mathematical  induc- 
tion. '  '  It  may  be  well  to  attach  our  remarks  to  a  particular  example. 
I  choose  the  "binomial  theorem,"  because  it  is  here  that  the  beginner 
in  mathematics  usually  makes  his  first  acquaintance  with  this  method  ; 
and  the  simple  form  in  which  it  appears  here  illustrates  the  point  as 
well  as  the  later  refinements  on  it  by  Dedekind,  Schroder,  Hunting- 
ton,  and  others. 

Starting  with  the  formulae 


(a  +  6)  »  =  a8  +  3a26  +  3a62  -f  6«, 
etc., 

which  are  obtained  by  succesive  multiplication  with  a-\-b  =  a-\-b, 
we  make  an  "induction"  to  find  the  formula  for  the  wth  power, 


How  this  is  done  in  detail,  it  is  not  essential  for  us  to  examine  here. 
But,  and  this  is  essential,  this  formula  is  not  yet  warranted,  it  is  a 
mere  presumption,  a  methodical  guess  at  a  general  law.  To  incor- 
porate this  formula  into  the  system,  it  requires  to  be  "proved"; 
the  "induction"  is  no  warrant  whatever.  For  in  many  cases  we 
make  a  precisely  similar  induction,  but  find,  on  testing  the  "law" 
that  it  does  not  hold  in  general.  This  occurs  with  annoying  fre- 
quency in  the  case  of  finding  the  "nth  derivative  of  a  function"  (for 
the  remainder  in  Taylor's  theorem)  !  The  first  part  of  the  method, 
the  "induction"  consists,  therefore,  merely  in  making,  by  analogy, 
a  guess  at  a  general  law  (Bertrand  Russell  uses  this  rather  dis- 
paraging, but  very  characteristic,  expression).  It  is  the  second  part 
which  establishes  the  law  as  valid:  by  assuming  the  formula  to  be 
correct  for  n,  we  prove  that  it  holds  for  n  -f  1.  This  step  from  n  to 
n-\-l  is  the  really  characteristic  feature  of  the  method  (which  is 
often  called  after  it  "conclusion  from  n  to  n-f-1")  ;  this  step  dis- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          321 

tinguishes  it  radically  from  any  ' '  induction. ' '  For  it  is  a  deduction 
pure  and  simple;  here  we  "deduce"!  From  what?  This  I  shall 
examine  later.  But  we  "deduce,"  no  doubt  about  that!  And 
nothing  whatever  distinguishes  this  ' '  conclusion  from  n  to  n  -f- 1 " 
essentially  from  other  deductive  proofs.  The  "New"  does  enter  here 
indeed ;  but  so  it  does  in  other  ' '  deduction ' ' ;  only  how  ?  This  is  the 
question  which  the  reference  to  "induction"  leaves  completely  un- 
answered. And  the  problem  of  the  "New"  remains  on  our  hands. 

Its  solution,  however,  does  not  require  the  invention  of  new  struc- 
tural elements  or  the  recognition  of  hidden  and  unsuspected  methods  : 
the  problem  is  merely  symptomatic  of  the  insufficiency  of  our  preva- 
lent theory  of  a  deductive  system.  A  reexamination  is  needed  which 
will  draw  the  full  theoretical  consequences  of  the  practical  work  of 
modern  mathematics. 

KARL  SCHMIDT. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 


DISCUSSION 
MISS  CALKINS 'S  REPLY  TO  THE  REALIST 

MISS  CALKINS  is  almost  the  only  "idealist"  who  has  ap- 
peared in  arms  against  the  advancing  "realistic"  movement. 
Partly  because  of  this,  partly  because  of  the  position  Miss  Calkins  is 
rightly  accorded  among  philosophic  writers,  and  partly  because  her 
reply  to  the  "realist"  exhibits  a  type  of  fallacy  entailing  very  im- 
portant consequences,  it  has  seemed  that  her  contention  is  particu- 
larly worthy  of  consideration. 

The  reply  in  question1  is  divided  into  two  parts.  The  first  of 
these  is  concerned  with  the  ' '  recent  criticisms  of  idealism, ' '  which,  it 
is  said,  can  be  grouped  under  three  main  heads :  ' '  first,  those  which 
oppose  idealism  on  the  ground  that  it  is  subversive  of  some  impor- 
tant system  of  beliefs;  second,  those  which  charge  idealism  with 
fundamental  inconsistency ;  and,  third,  those  which  claim  that  ideal- 
ism is  based  on  unjustifiable  assumptions. ' ' 

The  first  of  these  criticisms  is  disposed  of  briefly.  The  fact  that 
certain  beliefs  are  generally  accepted  does  not  render  them  true,  and 
as  long  as  one's  contention  is  based  upon  this  principle  it  is  irre- 
futable. 

The  second  criticism,  that  concerning  the  inconsistency  of 
"idealism,"  is  not  treated  at  all  fully.  The  "realistic"  contention 
is  said  to  be  that  the  subject-object  relation,  which  is  essential  to 

1  This  JOUBNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  pages  449  ff. 


322  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

knowledge,  "is  possible  only  on  the  supposition  that  non-mental 
reality  exists."  Miss  Calkins  admits  that  "idealism"  makes  the 
distinction  between  subject  and  object;  but,  apparently,  not  the 
supposition  that  non-mental  reality  exists.  The  "idealist,"  "like 
other  men,  recognizes  a  difference  between  present  and  external,  and 
merely  imagined,  objects."  But  this  distinction  is  said  to  refer  not 
to  two  kinds  of  things,  "extra-mental  and  mental,"  but  to  "objects 
respectively  of  ...  shared  and  of  ....  unshared  consciousness." 
The  only  point  to  be  noted  here  is  that  the  nature  of  an  object  can 
not  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  it  is  an  object  for  many  subjects. 
That  is  a  fact  additional  to  the  problem  of  the  nature  of  the  object, 
and  irrelevant  to  its  solution. 

The  third  of  the  "realistic"  criticisms  of  "idealism"  is  treated 
at  greater  length  and  the  chief  point  for  consideration  in  Miss  Cal- 
kins's  article  is  to  be  found  in  connection  with  it.  The  "realist" 
has  said  that  "idealism"  is  based  upon  an  unjustifiable  assumption 
in  holding  that  "an  object,  because  known,  is  therefore  mental  in 
nature."  Miss  Calkins  endeavors  both  to  uphold  the  "idealistic" 
position  and  to  refute  the  "realistic"  criticism  of  it.  The  method 
employed  for  this  purpose  should  be  carefully  observed. 

The  "realistic"  position  is  first  stated  in  the  words  of  Holt: 
"The  entities  (objects,  facts,  et  cat.)  under  study  in  logic,  mathe- 
matics, and  the  physical  sciences  are  not  mental  in  any  usual  or 
proper  meaning  of  the  word  "mental."  The  being  and  nature  of 
these  entities  are  in  no  sense  conditioned  by  their  being  known" 
(p.  452).  This  is  said  to  be  "an  accurate  and  an  uncompromising 
statement  of  the  difference  between  the  two  parties.  For  the  ideal- 
ist does  hold  as  fundamental  just  this  doctrine  which  the  realist 
attributes  to  him,  that  is  to  say,  he  believes  that  objects,  as  known, 
are  mental"  (p.  452).  Miss  Calkins  asserts  (p.  454)  that  unknown 
objects  (and  hence  unknown  qualities  of  objects)  while  possible,  are 
yet  "utterly  negligible,"  and,  in  addition,  "inconceivable"  and 
"indefinable."  Throughout  the  article,  statements  recur  which 
seem  to  be  based  upon  the  position  that  the  unknown  is  non-existent ; 
but  since  Miss  Calkins  admits  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  an 
unknown,  we  must  simply  accept  the  statement  that  it  is  "incon- 
ceivable." Hence,  the  phrase  "as  known,"  at  the  end  of  the  last 
quotation  (p.  452)  is  unnecessary,  and  must  not  be  taken  to  imply 
that  Miss  Calkins  holds  objects,  as  unknown,  to  be  non-mental,  nor, 
indeed,  to  be  any  thing  at  all.  The  contention  between  "idealist" 
and  "realist"  is  then  clear:  the  "idealist"  holds  that  all  objects  of 
knowledge  are  mental,  the  "realist"  that  some  objects  of  knowledge, 
at  least,  are  non-mental.  And  the  "realist"  asserts  that  the  "ideal- 
istic" contention  is  an  unjustifiable  assumption. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          323 

Miss  Calkins 's  reply  assumes  the  form  of  asserting  that  an  ex- 
amination of  the  objects  of  logic,  mathematics,  and  the  physical  sci- 
ences, shows  that  they  are  "ideal"  (by  which,  apparently,  is  meant 
the  same  as  "mental").  An  empirical  study  of  any  known  object 
reveals  the  fact  that  it  is  constituted  of  (1)  sensible  qualities  and 
(2)  relations.  These  are  treated  separately;  but  as  the  argument  is 
the  same  in  both  cases,  it  will  simplify  matters  if  we  limit  our  con- 
sideration of  it  to  the  treatment  of  sensible  qualities. 

What  is  asserted,  then,  is  that  the  ' '  idealist  discovers  by  examina- 
tion of  objects — he  does  not  (as  the  realist  accuses)  assume — that 
both  sense  qualities  and  relations  are  mental"  (p.  453).    Hence,  the 
question  arises :  what  does  Miss  Calkins  mean  by  the  term  "mental"? 
The  answer  to  this  question  is  best  seen  from  the  treatment  of 
sensible  qualities.    Miss  Calkins  does  not  attempt  to  prove  the  men- 
tality of  sensible   qualities  by  the   ordinary  method,  namely,   by 
pointing  out  their  "variability";  for  this,  she  says,  quite  rightly, 
"does  not  prove,  even  though  it  suggests,  the  ideality  of  objects" 
(p.  453).     "But  the  idealist,"  we  are  told,  "rests  his  case,  not  on 
reasoning  of  this   sort,  but  on  the   results   of  direct  observation 
coupled  with  the  inability  of  any  observer  to  make  an  unchallenge- 
able assertion  about  sense  qualities  save  in  'the  terms  of  idealism. 
To  be  more  explicit :  the  idealist  demands  that  his  opponent  describe 
any  immediately  perceived  sense  object  in  such  wise  that  his  descrip- 
tion can  not  be  disputed.     The  realist  then  describes  an  object  as, 
let  us  say,  yellow,  rough,  and  cold.     But  somebody  may  deny  the 
yellowness,  the  roughness,  or  the  coldness ;  and  this  throws  the  realist 
back  on  what  he  directly  observes,  what  he  knows  with  incontro- 
vertible and  undeniable  certainty,  namely,  that  he  is  at  this  moment 
having  a  complex  experience  described  by  the  terms  yellowness, 
coldness,  and  the  like  (an  experience  which  he  does  not  give  himself). 
This  statement,  and  only  this,  nobody  can  challenge.     And  this  state- 
ment embodies  the  result  of  immediate  experience"  (p.  453).     This 
is  the  sole  argument  used  to  prove  that  sense  qualities  are  mental. 
Now,  what  is  meant  by  saying  that  no  one  can  make  "an  un- 
challengeable assertion  about  sense  qualities  save  in  the  terms  of 
idealism"?     We  find  that  "terms  of  idealism"  are  terms  which 
ascribe  to  sense  qualities  a  mental  nature.     That  this  is  so  follows 
from  the  statement  of  what  the  "idealist"  holds  "as  fundamental." 
So  that  the  contention  is  that  no  one  can  make  an  unchallengeable 
assertion  about  sense  qualities  save  by  saying  that  they  are  mental. 
When  it  is  asked  how  this  conclusion  is  supported,  the  illustrations 
supplied  are  found  to  be  of  the  following  kind.    If  I  say,  e.  g.,  that 
this  orange  is  yellow,  what  is  really  implied  is  that  I  see  that  this 
orange  is  yellow ;  or,  if  I  say  that  snow  is  cold,  what  is  really  implied 


324  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

is  that  I  am  aware  of  it  as  cold ;  when,  in  general,  I  make  an  assertion 
of  the  form  "A'  has  the  sense  quality  P,"  what  is  really  implied  is 
that  I  am  aware  of  X  as  having  the  sense  quality  P.  Hence,  the 
argument  runs,  sense  qualities  are  mental. 

There  is  a  certain  difficulty  in  perceiving  the  logic  of  this  argu- 
ment. It  must  be  particularly  noted  what  Miss  Calkins  is  demand- 
ing. She  is  insisting  on  an  unchallengeable  description  of  <f  sense 
quality.  It  is  therefore  important  to  consider  what  is  the  nature 
of  a  description. 

The  important  point  that  comes  to  light  when  we  begin  to  con- 
sider description  is  that  it  presupposes  knowledge  which  is  itself 
indescribable.  Sense  qualities  are  examples  of  such  knowledge ;  for 
sense  qualities  are  not  merely  indescribable  "save  in  the  terms  of 
idealism,"  but  they  are  strictly  not  describable  at  all.  It  is,  e.  g., 
impossible  to  describe  yellow  to  a  man  born  blind.  Each  individual 
has  a  stock  of  indescribable  knowledge,  in  which  sense  qualities  have 
a  large  place,  and  it  is  quite  incommunicable,  because  indescribable. 
Communication  proceeds  on  the  supposition  that  there  is  knowledge 
which,  while  incommunicable,  is  yet  the  property  of  all.  Each  indi- 
vidual is  assumed  to  have  a  corresponding  stock  of  such  knowledge 
which  he  could  have  attained  only  by  immediate  acquaintance. 

Further,  all  description  is  in  the  terms  of  the  elements  of  which 
the  object  is  composed.  (We  do  not  describe  yellow  by  saying  that 
we  are  aware  of  it.)  It  follows  that  there  can  be  no  description  of 
the  elements  themselves.  Individuals  are  immediately  aware  of  them. 

A  description  may  be  defined,  therefore,  as  the  characterization 
of  a  thing  by  the  enumeration  of  the  indescribable  elements  of  which 
it  is  composed.  The  question  then  is :  What  is  the  nature  of  inde- 
scribable objects  ?  Among  such  are  sense  qualities,  and  it  is  asserted 
that  they  are  mental.  But  why  are  they  mental?  Is  it  because 
they  are  indescribable?  If  so,  it  should  be  pointed  out  that  the 
proposition  ' '  Sense  qualities  are  mental ' '  is  different  from  the  propo- 
sition "Sense  qualities  are  indescribable"  and  needs  for  its  proof 
the  mediating  proposition  "Indescribable  qualities  are  mental." 
But  how  is  this  proposition  reached? 

Or  is  a  quality  mental  because  it  is  incommunicable  ?  This  con- 
clusion does  not  seem  to  follow  at  once.  To  establish  it  one  would 
have  to  prove  independently  that  all  incommunicable  qualities  are 
mental.  And  how  is  this  to  be  done  ?  It  might  possibly  be  contended 
that  if  an  object  were  purely  individual  it  would  be  mental,  though 
this  seems  questionable;  but  in  any  case  it  would  have  to  be  proved 
that  incommunicable  objects  were  purely  individual.  This  seems 
palpably  false:  yellow  is  not  purely  individual,  though  it  is  quite 
incommunicable. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          325 

What  Miss  Calkins  has  said  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that 
there  are  certain  objects  of  knowledge  which  are  incommunicable, 
because  indescribable;  though,  what  she  actually  says  is  that  such 
objects  can  not  be  described  "save  in  the  terms  of  idealism."  Hence, 
her  contention  that  sense  qualities  are  mental  should  mean  simply 
that  sense  qualities  are  incommunicable. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  Miss  Calkins  means  nothing  more 
than  this.  There  is  some  suggestion  that  when  Miss  Calkins  says 
that  sense  qualities  are  mental  she  means  ' '  mental ' '  to  refer  to  their 
nature  and  not  to  their  incommunicability.  And  this  leads  us  to 
suppose  that  the  term  "mental"  has  been  used  in  two  senses  by 
Miss  Calkins,  and  that  the  proposition  "sense  qualities  are  mental," 
in  consequence,  means  one  thing  at  one  time  and  another  at  another. 
This  seems  to  be  borne  out  from  the  following  considerations. 

Miss  Calkins  outlines  an  argument  (p.  452)  by  which  a  "monistic 
idealism"  (it  is  apparently  assumed)  could  be  established,  and  also 
the  conclusion  which  would  be  established  by  it.  But  the  argument 
there  outlined  is  merely  mentioned ;  much  of  the  article  is  concerned 
with  the  other  argument  which  we  have  quoted.  Consequently,  we 
must  believe  either  that  Miss  Calkins  did  not  think  the  outlined 
argument  adequate  for  her  purpose,  or  that  she  considered  the  one 
she  uses  a  more  effective  instrument  in  attaining  it.  Now,  the  con- 
clusion which  is  said  to  follow  from  the  "monistic  idealist's"  argu- 
ment (the  one  merely  outlined)  is  that  the  objects  which  I  "directly 
experience  .  .  .  must  be  like  me,  must — in  other  words — be  other- 
self  "*(p.  452).  That  is  to  say,  in  particular,  that  sense  qualities 
must  be  "like  me."  It  is  true  that  this  is  said  to  be  the  conclusion 
of  a  monistic  "idealist";  but  since  Miss  Calkins  would  assume  that 
title  for  herself,  we  must  believe  that  it  is  that  conclusion  she  is 
endeavoring  to  establish  by  the  method  which  she  actually  employs 
throughout  her  article.  //  so,  there  is  one  important  consideration. 

According  to  the  argument  actually  adopted  by  Miss  Calkins  the 
conclusion  was  reached  that  sense  qualities  are  mental,  and  it  was 
seen  what  that  proposition  should  mean.  "Mental"  in  this  conclu- 
sion should  mean  "indescribable."  And  as  long  as  a  term's  mean- 
ing is  made  clear  there  can  be  little  objection  to  any  particular  usage 
of  it.  But  it  must  be  noted  that  this  meaning  of  "mental"  has  no 
reference  to  the  nature  of  the  sense  qualities.  An  object  could  be 
mental  in  this  sense  if  it  were  "gross  matter."  The  one  condition 
that  it  would  have  to  fulfill  would  be  ' '  indescribability. ' ' 

Not  so,  however,  if  mental  is  taken  to  mean  "like  me."  The 
term  then  refers  to  the  nature  of  an  object  and  not  at  all  to  its  rela- 
tions to  a  knower.  A  sense  quality  is  "mental,"  is  "like  me,"  is 
* '  other-self, "  if  it  thinks,  feels,  wills,  acts,  in  this  sense  of  ' '  mental ' ' ; 


326  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  may,  if  it  does  these  things,  be  said  to  be  mental  with  as 
much,  and  as  little,  propriety  as  I  may  be  said  to  be  mental.  And 
it  is  clear  that  this  meaning  of  mental  is  very  different  from  the 
former  one. 

Now,  if,  in  using  the  term  "mental,"  we  at  one  moment  adopt 
one  of  these  meanings  and  at  another  moment  adopt  the  other,  our 
conclusion  will  probably  be  unsound.  Miss  C.alkins  seems  uncon- 
sciously to  have  done  this.  She  does  not,  indeed,  explicitly  use  the 
term  mental  to  mean  "like  me";  yet  she  says  that  is  the  "idealistic" 
conclusion,  and  the  "idealistic"  conclusion,  she  also  tells  us,  is  that 
objects  of  knowledge  are  mental.  Hence,  it  seems  that  one  sense  of 
mental  is  synonymous  with  "like  me."  On  the  other  hand,  Miss 
Calkins  does  not  explicitly  use  the  term  mental  to  mean  inde- 
scribable ;  but  that  is  what  her  argument  involves.  Once  sense  quali- 
ties are  said  to  be  mental  in  this  latter  sense,  it  is  natural  to  argue, 
fallaciously,  that  they  are  also  mental  in  the  sense  that  they  are  "like 
me."  But  this  conclusion  is  clearly  in  no  way  whatever  connected 
with  the  arguments  by  which  Miss  Calkins  endeavors  to  prove  that 
sense  qualities  are  mental. 

There  are  two  general  meanings  of  the  term  mental  which  it  is 
of  the  highest  importance  to  keep  distinct.  The  first  of  these  makes 
the  term  applicable  to  qualities  of  minds  as  real  existing  entities. 
(In  an  analogous  way  it  is  said  that  speech  is  human.)  In  this  sense 
of  mental  it  is  applied,  e.  g.,  to  awareness,  and  also  to  any  other 
quality  which  is  peculiar  to  minds. 

The  other  general  meaning  of  the  term  mental  makes  it  applicable 
to  any  entity  which  is  supposed  to  be  dependent  on  minds  for  its 
existence,  being,  or  reality.  "Mental,"  in  this  sense,  means  simply 
' '  dependent  for  existence,  being,  or  reality  on  mind  or  minds. "  It  is 
difficult  to  demonstrate  that  there  are  any  such  entities,  though  that 
there  are  is  sometimes  thought  to  be  quite  obvious.  It  has  also  been 
thought  that  an  "idealism"  could  be  established  if  it  could  be  proved 
that  all  objects  are  dependent  for  their  existence,  being,  or  reality 
on  minds.  But  this  belief  has  been  due  to  a  fallacy. 

The  fallacy  consists  in  supposing  that  if  objects  are  mental  in  the 
second  sense,  they  are  also  mental  in  the  former  sense :  if,  that  is,  they 
are  dependent  for  their  existence,  being,  or  reality  on  minds,  they 
are  also  qualities  of  minds.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that 
the  two  meanings  of  mental  have  no  logical  connection  whatsoever. 

This  confusion  has  led  to  much  superficial  argument  on  behalf  of 
"idealism."  "Mental"  has  been  used  illegitimately  very  widely 
and  much  ignoratio  elenchi  argument  has  arisen  due  to  the  fallacy 
arising  from  this  two-faced  term.  Miss  Calkins 's  article  exhibits  a 
similar  inconsequence. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          327 

It  may  be  true  that  the  objects  of  knowledge  are  "like  me." 
It  is  possible  also  that  Miss  Calkins  can  demonstrate  that  they  are 
"like  me."  I  am  not  at  present  concerned  to  consider  possible 
arguments  in  support  of  this  conclusion.  What  I  am  concerned  to 
do  is  to  show  that  Miss  Calkins  either  seeks  to  establish  the  conclu- 
sion that  objects  of  knowledge  are  mental  by  an  illegitimate  use  of 
the  ambiguous  term  mental  or  does  actually  establish  the  proposition 
that  the  objects  of  knowledge  are  mental,  but  in  a  sense  which  is 
trivial  and  wholly  irrelevant  to  the  "realistic"  contention.  Miss 
Calkins  has  shown  that  objects  of  knowledge  are  mental  neither  in 
the  sense  that  they  are  dependent  for  their  existence,  being,  or  reality 
on  minds  nor  in  the  sense  that  they  are  similar  to  minds.  Yet  these 
seem  to  be  by  far  the  most  important  meanings  of  the  term  mental, 
and  are  the  meanings  most  relevant  to  the  particular  "idealistic" 
theory  which  Miss  Calkins  outlines.  And  I  wish  to  point  out  that 
this  inconsequent  type  of  argument  is  very  prevalent  in  ' '  idealistic ' ' 
writings. 

The  second  part  of  Miss  Calkins 's  article  concerns  itself  (1)  with 
the  positive  "realistic"  doctrine  and  (2)  with  the  "idealistic"  con- 
ception of  the  universe.  What  is  said  with  reference  to  (1),  namely, 
that  "realistic"  writers  have  little  positive  doctrine  is  doubtless 
quite  true.  Still,  is  it  not  largely  a  polite  fiction  that  a  philosopher 
is  great  if  he  has  constructed,  at  any  cost,  a  pretentious  theory  of 
the  universe?  Has  not  the  clearer-away  of  "much  rubbish"  a  place 
in  this  world,  as  well  as  the  builder  of  a  crystal  palace?  In  regard 
to  (2)  there  is  little  to  be  said  except  that  the  treatment  exhibits  once 
more  the  difficulties  arising  from  the  word  ' '  mental. ' ' 

The  article  is,  on  the  whole,  so  admirably  clear  as  to  emphasize 
once  and  for  all  two  distinct  points:  (1)  when  "idealists"  say  that 
the  objects  of  knowledge  are  mental  they  must  also  say  precisely 
what  they  mean  by  the  term  "mental";  (2)  the  hypothesis  that  the 
objects  of  knowledge  are  mental  will  have  to  find  some  definite, 
relevant,  and  logical  support  if  it  is  to  be  more  than  a  mere  forgotten 
fantasy.  BERNARD  Muscio. 

CAIUS  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Wandlungen   in   der   Philosophic   der    Gegenwart.     JULIUS    GOLDSTEIN. 

Leipzig :  Werner  Klinkhardt.     1911.     Pp.  viii  + 171. 

To  readers  outside  of  Germany  Dr.  Goldstein's  book  is  likely  to  seem 
significant  chiefly  as  an  evidence  of  the  awakening  of  the  German  mind  to 
certain  new  philosophical  tendencies  that  have  long  been  conspicuous  in 


328  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Anglo-American  and  French  thought,  and  as  an  effective  instrument  for 
the  diffusion  of  those  tendencies  in  the  land  of  Kant  and  Hegel.  The 
author  plainly  intimates  to  his  fellow-countrymen  that  in  philosophical 
matters  they  have  for  the  most  part  ceased,  at  least  until  very  recently,  to 
be  dans  le  mouvement.  Elsewhere  great  changes  have  been  taking  place 
— changes  in  the  center  of  philosophic  interest  and  in  the  fundamental 
presuppositions  of  philosophic  procedure :  "  and  these  changes,  in  their 
reactions  upon  religion,  ethics,  and  men's  practical  attitudes,  have,  for 
now  nearly  two  decades,  been  bringing  about  a  crisis  in  philosophy,  have 
been  giving  a  new  direction  to  inquiry."  But  "  in  German  philosophy 
few  signs  of  all  this  are  recognizable.  It  still,  with  some  praiseworthy 
exceptions,  walks  with  unsuspecting  innocence  in  the  old  paths  and  busies 
itself  with  the  traditional  problems.  In  many  cases  it  has  not  yet  emerged 
from  the  Hume  vs.  Kant  controversy."  Possibly  the  old  doctrines  and  the 
traditional  methods  of  attack  may  in  the  end  hold  their  own  and  success- 
fully dispose  of  the  new — though  the  author  does  not,  in  fact,  anticipate 
that  outcome.  But  in  any  case,  the  new  ideas  must  be  faced,  must  be 
more  than  superficially  understood,  must  be  open-mindedly  examined,  as 
they  but  rarely  have  been  by  German  academic  philosophers.  Dr.  Gold- 
stein has  accordingly  undertaken  to  naturalize  the  new  tendencies  in  his 
own  country  and  to  arouse  in  the  German  philosophic  public  a  fuller 
realization  of  the  prevailing  drift  of  contemporary  reflection. 

Two  means  are  employed  to  this  end.  The  author,  in  the  first  place, 
endeavors  to  show  the  underlying  unity  of  seemingly  diverse  innovating 
doctrines,  to  trace  the  convergence  of  a  number  of  recent  lines  of  thought 
in  a  general  conclusion  of  great  moment  and  of  essential  novelty.  He 
offers,  in  the  second  place,  brief,  but  by  no  means  mechanical,  expositions 
of  the  teaching  of  three  philosophers  whom  he  regards  as  the  chief  repre- 
sentatives of  the  new  way  of  thinking :  Bergson,  James,  and  Eucken.  The 
introduction  of  Eucken  in  this  sort  of  company  is  somewhat  surprising; 
and  the  author  in  the  end  is  obliged  to  admit  that  that  metaphysician 
returns  to  the  "  old  paths  "  at  what  is,  confessedly,  the  crucial  point.  The 
new  movement  may  be  described  (among  other  ways  of  characterizing  it) 
as  a  final  Loslosung  vom  Platonismus;  but  Eucken's  "  affirmation  that  the 
Oeisiesleben  is  in  itself  timeless  and  immutable  "  can  only  be  regarded  as 
"  a  not  yet  eliminated  survival  of  the  Platonic  mode  of  thought."  One 
suspects  that  Dr.  Goldstein  felt  obliged  to  have  some  German  representa- 
tive of  the  new  philosophy  and  consequently  selected  Eucken  to  figure 
rather  incongruously  in  that  role,  faute  de  mieux.  But  in  fact  there  are 
better  German  examples  who  might  have  been  chosen,  though  perhaps  no 
perfectly  typical  one.  Some,  at  least,  of  Dr.  Goldstein's  "new  paths" 
were  trodden  some  time  since  by  Avenarius,  some  by  von  Hartmann,  and 
some  by  Dilthey;  and  the  most  important  ones  may  be  said  to  have  been 
opened  chiefly  by  Schelling  and  Schopenhauer. 

The  author's  enumeration  of  new  tendencies  and  his  attempt  to  inter- 
pret their  collective  import  are  interesting  and  often  decidedly  illumina- 
ting; no  one  can  fail  to  derive  from  the  book  a  better  understanding  of 
the  intellectual  movement  of  our  time.  Yet  I  do  not  think  that  the  inter- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          329 

pretation  is  at  all  complete  or  clear-cut.  In  general,  what  is  now  taking 
place,  Dr.  Goldstein  finds,  is  a  "  smash-up  of  rationalism."  nationalism 
he  defines  as  "  a  conception  of  the  nature  of  science  formed  under  the 
influence  of  mathematics  and  an  endeavor  to  bring  the  facts  of  life  into 
accord  with  the  mathematical  physicist's  picture  of  the  universe."  This 
definition,  however,  hardly  corresponds  to  the  author's  own  meaning  or  to 
the  nature  of  the  conceptions  against  which  the  most  typical  new  philos- 
ophies are  insurgent.  It  is  quite  as  much  against  the  rationalism  of 
absolute  idealism  as  against  the  rationalism  of  mechanistic  naturalism, 
that  James  and  Bergson  and  their  followers,  and  Goldstein  himself,  have 
rebelled.  The  formula  given  neither  indicates  the  common  essence  nor 
suggests  the  distinguishing  differences  of  the  various  current  forms  of 
anti-rationalism.  And  in  the  absence  of  a  more  satisfactory  definition  of 
rationalism,  the  author  fails  to  show  convincingly  that  all  the  tendencies 
which  he  describes  have  a  significant  common  essence  or  are  anti-ration- 
alistic in  the  same  sense.  Under  the  one  designation  he  includes  such 
diverse  attitudes  as  the  simple,  common-sense  recognition  of  the  limita- 
tions of  our  knowledge  of  nature  and  the  probable  necessity  of  future 
corrections  in  our  scientific  generalizations  (p.  25) ;  the  admission  that 
the  subsumption  of  particular  facts  under  general  laws  is  merely  descrip- 
tion and  not  explanation  (p.  165) ;  the  denial  of  the  apriority  and  logical 
necessity  of  the  axioms  of  mathematics  (p.  68) ;  the  recognition  of  the 
futility  of  all  ready-made  philosophies  of  history  (p.  36) ;  the  discovery 
that  technological  progress  often  entails  such  an  increasing  complication 
of  human  life  that  it  becomes  a  doubtful  boon  (p.  49)  ;  the  abandonment  of 
the  belief  that  "  an  absolute,  i.  e.,  a  final  and  definitive,  religion "  has 
been  attained  (p.  52) ;  vitalism,  which  is  fundamentally  a  special  form  of 
what  may  be  called  scientific  pluralism,  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of 
regarding  all  natural  laws  "  as  special  cases  of  a  single,  all-embracing 
world-law  "  (p.  58) ;  instrumentalism,  or  the  pragmatic  conception  of  the 
nature  and  office  of  the  intellect  (p.  13)  ;  indeterminism  (p.  30)  ;  temporal- 
ism,  or  the  conception  of  reality  as  a  process  of  becoming,  in  which  there 
is  no  room  for  the  timeless  and  eternal  (p.  166)  ;  and  radical  evolutionism, 
or  the  conception  of  this  becoming  as  a  constant  creation  of  new  reality 
not  given  in  nor  wholly  predictable  from  anything  preexistent — in  which 
creative  process  the  moral  endeavor  of  man  is  a  participation  (pp.  166-170). 
All  these  positions,  of  course,  represent  one  degree  or  another  of  diffi- 
dence with  respect  to  the  powers  of  the  human  reason;  so  much  they  have 
in  common.  But  they  represent  very  different  degrees;  and  they  have 
historically  made  their  appearance,  for  the  most  part,  under  the  influence 
of  diverse  logical  motives,  and  as  parts  of  quite  dissimilar  doctrines.  The 
adoption  of  some  of  them  by  no  means  commits  one  to  an  acceptance  of 
the  others;  and  many  of  them  are  far  from  novel.  But  the  adoption  of 
the  last  two  involves  the  acceptance  of  most — to  be  precise,  of  all  but  three 
— and  naturally  leads  to  the  acceptance  of  all,  of  the  others.  And  the  fact 
is  that  Dr.  Goldstein  himself  is  a  radical  temporalist  and  a  believer  in 
Bergson's  "  creative  evolutionism,"  and  that  to  him,  therefore,  all  these 
modes  of  anti-rationalism  present  themselves  as  phases  of  a  single  philos- 


330  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ophy.  In  other  words,  while  they  have  not  historically  sprung  from  a 
common  root,  and  while  the  milder  and  older  phases  of  the  tendency  do 
not  logically  imply  the  newer  and  more  extreme  phases,  the  former  are 
more  or  less  clearly  implied  by  the  latter.  The  book  would  have  been 
clearer  and  more  instructive  if  the  author  had  from  the  first  made  it 
evident  that  the  principal  root  of  his  own  anti-rationalism  was  the  com- 
bination of  temporalism  and  radical  evolutionism — and  had  noted  that  it 
is  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  his  own  philosophy,  and  not  in  them- 
selves, that  the  numerous  tendencies  which  he  mentions  constitute  a  doc- 
trinal unity.  In  the  absence  of  an  understanding  of  these  points,  the 
reader  is  likely  to  be  left  with  a  rather  confused  and  congested  sort  of 
conception  of  both  "  rationalism  "  and  its  opposite,  and  with  some  errors 
of  historical  perspective  not  at  all  intended  by  the  author.  Dr.  Gold- 
stein's Zusammenbruch  des  Rationalismus  is  a  name  for  too  many  and  too 
various  doctrines — or,  at  all  events,  for  too  many  that  are  not  themselves 
new,  but  merely  capable  of  combination  with  certain  significantly  new 
doctrines.  And  since  these  last  are  scarcely  set  forth  until  the  end  of  the 
book,  the  key  to  the  inner  logic  of  the  author's  exposition  is  concealed 
from  the  reader,  and — one  can  hardly  help  surmising — to  some  extent 
from  the  author  himself. 

ARTHUR  O.  LOVEJOY. 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY. 

Some  Neglected  Factors  in  Evolution:  An  Essay  in  Constructive  Biology, 
HENRY  M.  BERNARD.  Edited  by  MATILDA  BERNARD.  New  York :  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons.  1911.  Pp.  xvi  -f  489. 

A  book,  rather  interesting  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  speculative 
philosopher,  but  utterly  fantastic  in  so  far  as  it  claims  to  be  scientific,  is 
Henry  M.  Bernard's  "  Some  Neglected  Factors  in  Evolution." 

Mr.  Bernard  starts  with  a  hypothesis  of  the  universal  presence  in  liv- 
ing organisms  of  a  protomitomic  network  consisting  of  so-called  chroma- 
tin  bodies  from  which  radiate  delicate  linin  filaments.  The  chromatin 
bodies  function  chemically,  their  influence  being  distributed  along  the  linin 
threads.  Growth  and  extension  of  this  simple  chromidial  network  is  car- 
ried on  by  the  dividing  of  the  chromatin,  together  with  the  splitting  of  the 
growing  threads.  Waste  matter,  resulting  from  chemical  reactions,  is 
carried  along  the  filaments  to  the  surface  of  the  organism.  The  tips  of 
the  filaments  are  sensitive,  and  impulses  from  outside  may  travel  inward 
as  a  nerve  current. 

Increase  in  size  of  an  organism  of  this  kind  necessitates  differentia- 
tions. Concentration  of  the  powers  of  reaction  and  response  gradually 
takes  place.  This  means  a  closer  clustering  of  chromidia  where  the 
stimuli  are  the  strongest,  with  rearrangements  of  the  filaments  into 
strands  for  stronger  and  more  coordinate  contractions.  Theoretically, 
such  an  organism  should  be  spherical  with  all  its  chromatin  collected  in 
the  center.  The  centers  of  energy  would  then  be  at  the  spot  where  all  the 
paths  of  all  the  nerve  stimuli  from  the  surface  cross  each  other.  The 
primitive  chromidial  network  thus  becomes  transformed  into  a  new  organ- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          331 

ism,  the  cell.  All  this  reasoning  is  purely  hypothetical,  and  Mr.  Ber- 
nard's "  Studies  on  the  Ketina,"  published  in  1901-03,  have,  so  far,  con- 
vinced no  one  as  to  the  reality  of  a  protomitomic  network. 

The  metazoan  body,  according  to  Mr.  Bernard,  consists  of  a  multitude 
of  chromidial  centers  connected  with  each  other  by  myriads  of  filaments. 
Gastraeal  organisms  arise  from  a  rounded  protomitomic  individual  which 
became  impitted  to  form  a  digestive  cavity.  The  cavity  thus  produced 
became  lined  with  a  compact  layer  of  nuclear  nodes,  forming  a  digestive 
epithelium. 

How  tissues  and  organs  may  be  formed  out  of  the  chromatin  linin  net- 
work is  described  in  Chapters  IX.-XII.  The  scheme  described  denotes 
peculiar  imagination  and  considerable  ingenuity.  It  is  unfortunate,  how- 
ever, that  highly  diagrammatic  figures  are  shown  purporting  to  be  true  to 
nature.  The  description  of  nuclear  division  according  to  the  diagrams  in 
Fig.  39  is  grotesque. 

Part  II.  deals  with  the  "  Cosmic  Ehythm  "  which  Herbert  Spencer  had 
already  recognized  as  traceable  in  the  phenomena  of  life.  During  long 
epochs  species  have  arisen,  culminated,  and  dwindled  away.  Life  on  this 
earth  has  not  progressed  uniformly,  but  in  immense  undulations.  In 
this,  Mr.  Bernard  catches  a  glimpse  of  an  evolutionary  truth  "  wider  than 
any  as  yet  apprehended."  Considered  in  the  light  of  this  law,  the  evolu- 
tion of  organic  life  breaks  up  into  a  series  of  periods,  each  advancing  ac- 
cording to  a  fixed  formula.  A  great  many  forms  are  evolved  on  the  plan 
of  each  unit  of  structure.  Those  which  became  modified  for  any  special 
environment  acquire  stability  at  the  cost  of  progress,  but  those  which  re- 
main free  to  react  efficiently  to  any  environment  at  any  time  may  yield 
new  organisms  of  a  type  higher  than  their  own.  The  production  of  new 
types  of  organisms  is  due  to  that  special  method  of  colony  formation  in 
which  the  combining  organisms  or  "  units  "  fuse  together  in  such  a  way 
as  to  give  rise  to  a  new  and  more  complicated  organism. 

Mr.  Bernard  traces  five  structural  units  in  nature,  the  chromidial,  the 
cell,  the  gastraeal,  the  annelidan,  and,  lastly,  the  unit  culminating  in 
man.  In  man,  the  nervous  system  is  most  highly  specialized,  the  finer 
senses  are  so  coordinated  as  to  give  a  coherent  report  of  the  environment. 
A  wealth  of  new  forces  appear  comprised  under  the  term  psychic,  e.  g., 
the  thirst  for  knowledge,  the  love  of  the  beautiful,  etc.  "  The  human 
unit,  therefore,  has  to  attain  a  condition  of  stable  equilibrium,  not  only 
with  an  external,  material  environment,  but  with  a  psychical  environ- 
ment." 

In  the  outburst  of  the  "  mind  of  man,"  in  the  fifth  period,  the  psychic 
was  "  brought  to  the  surface  and  externalized  for  the  purpose  of  building 
up  social  aggregates."  In  modern  society  we  find  vast  amalgamations 
gradually  learning  to  live,  side  by  side,  without  continual  conflict.  Old 
distinctions,  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  human  organism  only  at  the 
earlier  stage  of  its  integration,  still  persist.  Like  vestigial  organs,  how- 
ever, they  must  in  time  disappear.  Any  real  advance  to  a  condition  of 
stable  equilibrium  seems  impossible  until  harmony  is  established  between 
the  component  units  of  the  organism.  The  politics  of  the  present  and  the 


332  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

history  of  the  past  give  evidence  of  only  blind  and  unsuccessful  attempts 
to  produce  efficient  and  harmonious  aggregates.  Expressions  of  human 
sympathy  and  help  have  been  considered  graces,  not  duties.  We  are  func- 
tional components  of  a  new  social  organism.  Only  by  the  free  develop- 
ment of  all  the  units  can  a  human  society  escape  the  fate  which  organ- 
isms of  past  periods  brought  upon  themselves  through  the  stiffness  of 
their  skeletons  and  the  consequent  withdrawal  of  large  numbers  of  their 
units  from  sensitive  contact  with  the  environment.  The  organic  rhythm 
is  nearing  the  end  of  its  fifth  great  period.  Just  as  it  appears  to  be  re- 
peating the  law  of  unit  formation,  it  vanishes  entirely.  May  we  not  be- 
lieve that  it  rises  out  of  sight  in  order  to  start  a  new  period  on  a  higher 
level  of  life? 

ROBERT  CHAMBERS,  JR. 
NEW  YORK  CITY. 

Free  Will  and  Human  Responsibility.    HERMAN  HARRELL  HORNE.    New 

York:  The  Macmillan  Co.    1912.    Pp.  xvi-f  197. 

If  one  is  tempted  to  consider  the  freedom  of  the  will  an  outgrown 
question  left  behind  us  with  scholasticism  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  the 
publication  of  two  books  on  the  subject  by  American  thinkers  (Professor 
Palmer  and  Professor  Home)  within  three  months  of  each  other  should 
give  one  a  greater  respect  for  this  time-honored  problem.  Nor  will  the 
perusal  of  Professor  Home's  presentation  of  the  subject  be  likely  to  make 
one  feel  that  the  question  is  any  nearer  being  settled  than  it  was  on  that 
mournful  day  when  BuridanoV  ass  starved  quietly  to  death  in  the  midst 
of  assinine  dainties.  That  one  should  feel  thus  on  concluding  the  book 
is,  perhaps,  the  more  surprising  inasmuch  as  the  author  does  not  pose  as 
a  dispassionate  judge,  but  frankly  holds  a  brief  for  the  cause  of  freedom. 
To  say  this,  however,  does  not  mean  that  he  treats  determinism  in  an  un- 
fair manner.  He  states  the  case  without  prejudice  and  puts  the  argu- 
ments on  both  sides  as  strongly  as  he  can. 

The  plan  of  the  book  is  simple.  After  an  introductory  chapter,  the 
history  of  the  dispute  is  traced  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present. 
Then  comes  a  presentation  of  the  arguments  of  determinism,  followed  by 
the  libertarian's  rebuttal,  and  these  are  then  reinforced  by  a  chapter  of 
positive  arguments  in  favor  of  freedom.  With  this  the  discussion  really 
ends,  though  further  chapters  are  given  us  on  "Pragmatism  and  Free- 
dom "  and  "  The  Difference  it  Makes." 

The  historical  sketch  of  so  large  an  issue  is  naturally  superficial. 
This  of  course  was  inevitable  and  is  quite  excusable.  But  the  author 
might  have  given  a  clearer  notion  than  he  does  of  the  relative  importance 
of  the  question  in  pagan  and  in  Christian  philosophy.  Moreover,  the  at- 
tempt is  made  to  put  the  history  of  the  conflict  in  such  a  light  as  to  be 
itself  an  argument  in  favor  of  freedom,  by  showing  that  the  general 
tendency  has  been  toward  it  and  away  from  determinism, — a  conclusion 
arrived  at  by  omitting  any  mention  of  the  great  reinforcement  which  de- 
terminism has  received  from  the  modern  views  of  nature  since  the  time 
of  Galileo. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          333 

Professor  Home  claims  no  originality  in  his  statement  of  the  argu- 
ments on  either  side.  He  has  simply  collected  all  he  could  find,  and  the 
result  is  nine  arguments  for  determinism  (each  separately  rebutted),  and 
twelve  arguments  for  freedom.  In  reading  these  thirty  arguments  (count- 
ing the  rebuttals)  one  can  not  help  feeling  that  each  side  would  have 
been  more  persuasive  had  it  been  furnished  with  fewer  reasons.  More 
striking  is  the  author's  apparent  failure  to  grasp  the  real  force  of  the 
ethical  argument  of  determinism  so  well  put  by  Hume,  Greene,  and  many 
others,  that  if  the  act  is  not  determined  by  the  character,  responsibility 
and,  with  it,  morality  go  to  pieces.  This  seeming  failure  of  our  author 
to  evaluate  fully  the  strongest  argument  of  his  opponents  is  perhaps  re- 
lated to  his  frequent  confusion  of  determinism  with  materialism,  of  the 
doctrine  of  freedom  with  idealism.  That  Professor  Home  is  perfectly 
aware  of  the  distinction  here  involved  is  clearly  shown  by  the  appendix; 
and  yet  many  of  his  most  elaborate  and  most  trusted  arguments  and  re- 
buttals aim  simply  at  proving  that  mind  may  be  a  cause,  that  will  acts  are 
not  determined  by  brain  states,  etc. — as  if  Hegel,  Greene,  Paulsen,  and  a 
band  of  others  had  not  amply  demonstrated  that  determinism  is  as  con- 
sistent with  mental  causation  as  is  freedom. 

The  value  of  the  book  lies  in  the  sharpness  with  which  the  issue  is 
stated,  the  clearness  with  which  the  whole  great  subject  is  presented  in 
187  pages,  and  the  excellence  of  the  rebuttals  of  certain  strong  determi- 
nistic arguments.  There  is  appended  also  a  valuable  bibliography  which 
every  one  interested  in  the  subject  will  be  glad  to  have.  On  the  whole, 
the  book  fulfills  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  written  as  expressed  in  the 
author's  preface :  "  In  my  own  work  I  have  felt  the  need  of  a  clear  brief 
treatise  covering  both  sides  of  the  issue  in  outline,  to  which  students 
might  be  referred,  and  which  might,  perhaps,  be  used  as  a  text  for  dis- 
cussion at  a  certain  point  in  the  course.  These  pages  are  designed  to 
supply  such  a  need." 

JAMES  B.  PRATT. 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE. 


JOTJKNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

KEVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  January,  1912.  Le  "  volontarisme 
intellectualiste  "  (pp.  1-21)  :  A.  LALANDE.  -  Critical  discussion  of  Fouille's 
"  Thought  and  the  New  Anti-intellectualistic  Schools."  Les  grands 
courants  de  I'esthetique  allemande  contemporaine  (ler  article)  (pp.  22-43)  : 
V.  BASCH.  -  Shows  the  fundamentally  psychological  method  of  all  Ger- 
man estheticians  and  discusses  the  Einfiihlung  theory  of  Lipps  and 
Volkelt.  Les  consequences  et  les  applications  de  la  psychologie  (pp. 
44-67) :  R.  MEUNIER.  -  A  sketch  of  the  working  value  of  psychological 
science  in  logic,  ethics,  sociology,  metaphysics,  pedagogy,  psychothera- 
peutics,  and  "  the  difficult  art  of  living."  Notes  de  discussions.  Y  a-t-il 
dualisme  radical  de  la  vie  et  de  la  penseef:  A.  FouiLLfs.  Analyses  et 
comptes  rendus.  F.  Le  Dantec,  Le  chaos  et  Vharmonie  universelle:  CH. 


334  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

PPEDALLU.  Laberthonni&re,  Positivisme  et  Catholicisme:  J.  BARUZI. 
Alexandra  David,  Le  modernisme  bouddhiste  et  le  bouddisme  du  Bouddha : 
J.  BARUZI.  J.  Pacheu,  Psychologic  des  mystiques  Chretiens:  J.  BARUZI. 
A.  Brofferio,  La  Filosofia  delle  Upanishadas:  J.  BARUZI.  L.  Jeudon,  La 
morale  de  I'honneur:  F.  PAULHAN.  J.  Segond,  Cournot  et  la  psychologie 
vitaliste:  DR.  CH.  BLOXDEL.  L.  Perego,  L'idealismo  etico  di  Fichte  e  il 
socialismo  contemporeano :  J.  SECOND.  B.  Croce,  La  Filosofia  di  Oiambatt- 
isia  Vico:  DR.  S.  JANKKI.EVITCH.  Kant,  Oesammelte  Schriften:  J. 
SECOND.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 

REVUE  DE  METAPHYSIQUE  ET  DE  MORALE.  January,  1912. 
Sur  la  structure  logique  du  langage  (pp.  1-24) :  L.  COUTURAT. -A  sketch 
of  an  universal  grammar  that  might  realize  Leibniz's  idea  of  mirroring 
the  human  mind.  Les  formes  de  la  vie  psychologique  (pp.  25-47) :  C. 
D'ISTRIA. -A  study,  with  reference  to  Cabanis,  of  the  effects  of  age,  sex, 
and  temperament  on  psychic  life.  La  logique  deductive  (pp.  48-67) :  A. 
PADOA.  -  A  continuation  of  his  exposition  of  symbolic  logic,  including  the 
syllogistic.  Etudes  critiques.  La  nature  et  I'homme  d°apres  Sigurd  Ibsen: 
P.-G.  LA  CHESNAIS.  La  Socio-psychologie  de  Wilhelm  Wundt:  H.  NORERO. 
Discussions.  La  theorie  elect romagnetique :  M.  DJUVARE.  Questions 
pratiques.  Les  obligations  des  ouvriers  syndiques:  M.  LEROT.  Supple- 
ment. 

Collins,  Varnum  Lansing.  Lectures  on  Moral  Philosophy  by  John 
Witherspoon.  Princeton:  Princeton  University  Press.  1912.  Pp. 
xxxi  + 144. 

Downey,  June  E.  The  Imaginal  Reaction  to  Poetry.  Bulletin  No.  2 
of  the  Department  of  Psychology  of  the  University  of  Wyoming.  1912. 
Pp.  56. 

J.  G.  Fichtes  Werke.  Vol.  VI.  Mit  Mehreren  Bildnissen  Fichtes  Heraus- 
gegeben  und  Eingeleitet  von  Fritz  Medicus.  Leipzig:  Verlag  von 
Felix  Meiner.  1912.  Pp.  680.  7  M. 

Harrison,  Jane  Ellen.  Themis :  A  Study  of  the  Social  Origins  of  Greek 
Religion.  Cambridge:  The  University  Press.  1912.  Pp.  xxxii + 
559.  $5.00. 

Hollingworth,  H.  L.  The  Influence  of  Caffein  on  Mental  and  Motor 
Efficiency.  Archives  of  Psychology,  No.  22.  Columbia  Contribu- 
tions to  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  Vol.  XX.,  No.  4.  New  York: 
The  Science  Press.  Pp.  iv  -f  166. 

Husik,  Isaac.  Matter  and  Form  in  Aristotle.  Berlin :  Verlag  von  Leon- 
hard  Simion.  1912.  Pp.  93.  2.50  M. 

James,  William.  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism.  Longmans,  Green,  and 
Company.  1912.  Pp.  xiii  +  282.  $1.25. 

Petronievics,  Branislav.  Principien  Der  Metaphysik.  Heidelberg:  Carl 
Winter's  Universitatsbuchhandlung.  1912.  Pp.  xxxviii  -f-  570. 

Stockl,  Albert.  Handbook  of  the  History  of  Philosophy.  Vol.  I.  Second 
edition.  Translated  by  T.  A.  Finlay.  New  York :  Longmans,  Green, 
and  Company.  1911.  Pp.  446.  $3.75. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          335 

Wallin,  J.  E.  Wallace.     Experimental  Oral  Euthenics.     Eeprinted  from 
the  Dental  Cosmos.     Pp.  32. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

SEVERAL  professors  and  graduates  of  the  new  National  University  of 
Ireland,  founded  in  1909  (see  Rev.  Sc.  Ph.  Tin,.,  III.,  p.  390),  published  in 
March  the  first  number  of  a  review,  entitled  Studies,  in  which  they  intend 
to  place  before  the  reading  public  their  researches  in  general  literature, 
Celtic,  classic,  and  oriental  literature  and  history,  philosophy,  pedagogy, 
sociology,  and  the  sciences.  The  magazine  is  to  be  directed  by  a  com- 
mittee presided  over  by  the  Reverend  T.  A.  Finlay,  S.J.,  M.A.,  professor 
of  political  economy  in  the  University  College  of  Dublin.  Each  number 
will  contain  articles,  reviews,  and  notes. 

PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  JAMES'S  letters  are  being  collected  for  biographical 
purposes,  and  any  one  who  has  any  of  his  letters  can  render  assistance  that 
will  be  highly  appreciated  by  addressing  Henry  James,  Jr.,  95  Irving  St., 
Cambridge,  Mass.  Casual  or  brief  letters  may  have  an  interest  or  im- 
portance not  apparent  to  the  person  preserving  them;  and  news  of  the 
whereabouts  of  any  of  the  late  William  James's  letters  will  be  gratefully 
received. 

A  RECENT  number  of  the  Cambridge  Review  notes  the  lively  interest  of 
university  scholars  in  the  study  of  early  Greek  religion.  Recently  we  had 
Miss  Harrison's  remarkable  "  Themis,"  and  in  the  near  future  we  may 
expect  Mr.  F.  M.  Cornford's  "  From  Religion  to  Philosophy,"  as  well  as 
a  book  by  Mr.  A.  B.  Cook  and  further  researches  from  the  original  and 
always  stimulating  pen  of  Professor  Ridgeway. 

M.  W.  SPECHT,  privat-docent  of  psychiatry  in  the  University  of 
Munich,  recently  launched  a  Zeitschrift  fur  Pathopsychologie  (Leipzig, 
Englemann),  the  aim  of  which  will  be  to  strengthen  the  psychological 
foundations  of  mental  pathology.  Professors  Ach,  Bergson,  Heymans, 
Janet,  Kiilpe,  Meumann,  Miinsterberg,  Dick,  and  Sommer  will  be  con- 
tributing editors. 

A  NEW  periodical,  Imago,  is  announced  from  Vienna,  edited  by  Pro- 
fessor S.  Freud  and  published  under  the  direction  of  Otto  Rank  and 
Dr.  Hanns  Sachs.  It  is  to  be  devoted  to  the  application  of  psychoanalysis 
to  the  entire  field  of  mental  sciences. 

THE  University  of  California  has  conferred  the  doctorate  of  laws  upon 
Dr.  Sidney  E.  Mezes,  professor  of  philosophy  and  president  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Texas,  and  upon  Dr.  E.  C.  Sanford,  professor  of  psychology  and 
president  of  Clark  College. 

AT  the  National  University  of  Mexico  Professor  J.  M.  Baldwin  is 
delivering  the  second  half  of  the  two  years'  programme  of  lectures  on 
psychosociology.  In  addition  to  these  lectures  a  course  in  the  history  of 
psychology  is  also  announced. 


336  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

MRS.  JOHN  STEWART  KENNEDY  has  given  to  New  York  University  a 
Hall  of  Philosophy.  It  is  to  be  known  as  the  Cornelius  Baker  Hall  of 
Philosophy  in  memory  of  Mrs.  Kennedy's  father,  who  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  University. 

PROFESSOR  LILLIEN  J.  MARTIN,  of  the  department  of  psychology  of  Stan- 
ford University,  gave  an  address  on  "Uber  die  Localisation  optischer 
Vortellungsbilder  "  at  the  Fifth  Congress  for  Experimental  Psychology, 
held  in  Berlin. 

DR.  F.  W.  MOTT  will  complete  his  series  of  lectures  on  "  Heredity  con- 
sidered from  the  Point  of  View  of  Physiology  and  Pathology  "  at  Kings 
College,  University  of  London,  on  June  10. 

IN  a  recent  issue  of  the  JOURNAL,  the  American  Philosophical  Society 
was  incorrectly  referred  to  as  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Association. 

MM.  L.  DUGAS  and  M.  L.  Cellerier,  of  Geneva,  are  about  to  launch 
a  new  educational  annual  entitled  Annee  Pedagogique,  which  is  to  be 
published  by  Alcan,  Paris. 

THE  installation  of  Dr.  John  Grier  Hibben,  hitherto  Stuart  professor 
of  logic,  as  president  of  Princeton  University  occurred  on  Saturday, 
May  11. 

DR.  IRA  KEMSEN  has  resigned  the  presidency  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity. It  is  understood,  however,  that  he  will  retain  the  chair  of  chem- 
istry. 

MESSRS.  E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  COMPANY  announce  the  publication  of 
"  English  Philosophies  and  Schools  of  Philosophy  "  by  Professor  James 
Seth. 

DR.  ALEXANDER  MEIKLEJOHN,  professor  of  philosophy  and  dean  of  the 
faculty  of  Brown  University,  has  been  elected  president  of  Amherst 
College. 

MR.  WALTER  B.  PITKIN,  associate  in  philosophy  in  Columbia  Univer- 
sity, has  been  appointed  associate  professor  of  philosophy. 

MR,  C.  M.  GILLESPIE,  of  Yorkshire  College,  has  been  appointed  to  a 
newly  established  professorship  of  philosophy  at  Leads. 

MR.  A.  J.  BALFOUR  has  been  appointed  as  next  Gifford  lecturer  for 
the  session  1915-14.  The  appointment  is  for  two  years. 

ON  May  14  Professor  W.  Bateson  gave  the  first  of  two  lectures  on 
"  The  Study  of  Genetics,"  at  the  Eoyal  Institution. 

PRIVAT  DOCENT  DR.  F.  A.  SCHMID,  of  the  University  of  Heidelberg,  has 
been  made  professor  extraordinarius. 

DR.  GEORGE  CLARKE  Cox,  of  Dartmouth  College,  has  been  appointed 
assistant  professor  of  philosophy. 

THE  ninth  annual  meeting  of  the  Experimental  Psychologists  was 
held  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  April  15-17. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  13.     .  JUNE  20,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  EVOLUTION1 

progress  of  evolution  has  various  meanings.  Hence  it  is 
necessary  to  define  the  subject  proposed  for  consideration. 
Progress,  first,  may  denote  the  spread  of  evolutionary  doctrine.  But 
this  is  patent,  so  that  discussion  is  not  required.  Or  it  may  mean 
the  development  of  biological  theory.  In  regard  to  this  we  need 
remember  only  that  progress  has  of  late  been  making,  since  progress 
here,  contrary  to  the  earlier  belief,  has  proven  indispensable.  The 
fact  of  evolution  is  established.  The  form,  the  law,  the  process  of 
evolution,  and  the  forces  at  work  therein,  remain  subjects  of  eager 
technical  debate.  Or,  thirdly,  progress  might  refer  to  the  readjust- 
ment of  principles  occasioned  by  the  acceptance  of  evolution.  This 
phase  of  the  matter  lies  more  fully  within  the  philosophical  field; 
still  it  is  not  the  one  now  suggested  for  discussion.  Our  subject 
proper  may  be  termed  the  noetic  of  evolution,  the  discussion  of  the 
concepts  and  principles  implied  by  evolution,  and  on  which  it  is 
based.  What  progress  has  been  made  in  respect  of  these?  What 
was  needed?  How  much  has  been  gained?  What  remains  to  be 
accomplished  ?  Along  with  these  questions,  I  shall  also  recall  certain 
phases  of  the  history  of  opinion. 

1.  I  begin  with  a  negative  statement  of  progress  which  may  excite 
dissent:  a  just  estimate  has  not  yet  been  reached  of  the  origin  of 
evolutionary  theory.  It  is  common  to  date  the  beginning  from  Dar- 
win. But  genetic  views  were  fundamental  in  nineteenth-century 
thinking  before  Darwin  announced,  in  part  before  he  had  conceived, 
"The  Origin  of  Species."  Among  naturalists  a  notable  minority 
had  been  groping  their  way  toward  a  theory  of  descent.  Spencer, 
at  the  mid-century,  was  advancing  from  sociology,  biology,  and 
psychology,  to  his  cosmical  doctrine.  Prior  to  both  Darwin  and 
Spencer  many  of  the  Geisteswissenschaften  had  felt  the  influence  of 
idealistic  evolution,  or  had  of  themselves  approached  their  problems 

1  Bead  before  the  American  Philosophical  Association,  Harvard  University, 
December  28,  1911. 

337 


338  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

by  the  genetic  line  of  attack.  Great  as  Darwinism  was — in  itself 
and  through  its  effects — it  may  be  questioned  whether  part  of  its 
success  was  not  due  to  the  preparation  previously  made  for  evolu- 
tionary conclusions.  This  question  has  special  pertinence  in  regard 
to  the  influence  of  evolution  beyond  the  limits  of  biology.  Concern- 
ing this  broader  field  there  has  been,  and  there  persists,  some  con- 
fusion of  opinion.  Here,  too,  Darwin's  work  has  been  the  greatest 
single  force.  But  it  has  not  been  the  only  force,  or  the  earliest,  or 
the  creative  force  in  the  temporal  sense  of  the  term.  More  often — 
in  the  phrase  of  a  recent  writer2 — it  has  furnished  "vast  reinforce- 
ment" to  tendencies  already  existing. 

2.  Progress  has  been  made  in  distinguishing  phenomenal  from 
transcendent  evolution.  Though  Darwinism  was  not  the  sole  cause 
of  the  intellectual  revolution  of  the  mid-century,  it  was  the  principal 
cause.  The  movement  thus  involved  a  scientific  theory.  And  as  we 
look  back  to  the  discussions  of  the  sixties,  how  few  there  then  were 
who  distinguished  between  scientific  results  and  transcendent  impli- 
cations. Primarily  the  issue  lay  between  rival  theories  of  organic 
life:  Are  species  fixed  in  nature,  or  are  they  mutable,  produced  by 
gradual  process?  But  this  issue  was  phrased  in  terms  which  com- 
bined science  and  theology:  Have  species  been  created  once  for  all, 
or  are  they  mutable  and  explicable  by  descent?  The  question  of 
phenomenal  fact  and  law  was  crossed  with  a  transcendent  problem. 

Related,  of  course,  these  questions  are.  And  under  the  conditions 
of  thought  fifty  years  ago  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  be 
united.  Nevertheless  the  consequences  were  disastrous.  In  regard 
to  them,  and  concerning  a  number  of  kindred  questions,  the  result 
was  extreme  confusion.  The  light  engendered  by  the  controversy 
was  small,  the  heat  in  inverse  ratio.  Now,  however,  we  marvel  less 
at  the  clash  of  opposing  doctrines  and  the  emotional  disturbance  than 
at  the  tacit  assumptions  which  were  fundamental  to  the  whole  debate. 
Among  these  the  fallacy  under  consideration  took  a  prominent  place. 
Neither  orthodox  nor  revolutionary  distinguished  between  phenom- 
enal truths  and  ultimate  interpretations. 

From  this  fallacy  later  thought  is  happily  delivered.  At  least, 
in  this  connection  progress  has  been  making  in  the  sphere  of  ethics 
and  theology.  Whether  the  gain  is  equal  in  philosophy  proper 
appears  more  doubtful.  Fact  and  notion,  law  and  ultimate  prin- 
ciple, differ,  whatever  the  instrument  of  transcendent  thought  may 
be — whether  faith  or  seasoned  speculation.  But  concerning  evolu- 
tion the  distinction  has  been  made  more  clear  in  the  former  than  in 
the  latter  case.  Our  scientific  brethren  we  can  hardly  hold  re- 

1  Waggett,  ' '  Darwin  and  Modern  Science, ' '  page  480. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          339 

sponsible  for  the  confusion — or  popular  reflection.  Have  philosoph- 
ical thinkers  always  been  clear  on  the  point  themselves  ?  Have  they 
contributed  in  due  measure  to  the  general  enlightenment  ? 

3.  Evolution  and  the  sciences.  The  problem  just  suggested  has 
various  ramifications.  Scientific  evolution  and  philosophical  evolu- 
tion touch — and  differ.  Hence  arise  questions  in  the  logic  of  science 
— on  the  other  hand,  also,  questions  of  metaphysical  conclusion.  Our 
primary  concern  is  with  the  problems  of  the  former  class,  among 
which  the  subject  of  method  is  first  and  prominent. 

At  the  end  of  the  "Origin  of  Species,"  Darwin  predicted  the 
application  of  evolution  to  psychology  and  anthropology.  This 
prophecy,  as  all  are  aware,  has  been  amply  fulfilled.  The  mental 
sciences  like  the  organic,  sociology  and  ethics  as  well  as  psychology 
proper,  have  felt  the  stimulus  of  genetic  ideas;  not,  however,  with- 
out doubtful  transfers  of  method  and  explanatory  principle  from 
one  science  to  another,  or  from  the  sciences  of  one  group  to  a  group 
essentially  diverse.  Biological  evolution  has  wrought  out — Darwin, 
cautious  technician  that  he  is,  concludes — "the  necessary  acquire- 
ment of  each  mental  power  and  capacity  by  gradation."  The 
struggle  for  existence  determines  organic  evolution :  mental  evolution 
and  its  sub-varieties — social,  ethical,  artistic,  literary,  religious — 
the  extremists  urge,  must  follow  the  same  law. 

Here  progress  has  been  forced  by  the  continuing  inquiry.  The 
phenomena  themselves  have  compelled  revision  of  the  categories 
chosen  to  explain  them.  Two  examples  may  be  cited  in  illustration. 
In  moral  evolution,  as  speedily  appeared,  the  law  of  struggle  in  its 
primary  form  is  a  doubtful  application.  It  would  tend,  for  one 
thing,  to  eliminate  rather  than  to  conserve  the  superior  individual. 
Therefore  it  was  referred  to  the  survival  of  the  group,  and  competi- 
tion was  interpreted  as  tribal  instead  of  individual.  Later  the 
problem  of  heredity  grew  pressing,  and  in  particular  the  problem  of 
mental  inheritance.  Here  the  emphasis  has  recently  been  placed  on 
the  importance  of  the  social  environment,  and  a  return  has  been 
made  to  the  doctrine  of  social  heredity — a  position,  I  venture  to 
think,  which  we  should  never  have  abandoned. 

Progress  then  has  been  making  at  this  point  also.  Is  it,  however, 
complete?  Is  it  so  great  as  is  vitally  needed  for  the  independent 
prosperity  of  the  sciences  of  the  mental  group?  An  affirmative 
answer  would  be  of  questionable  validity.  Undoubtedly  the  climax 
has  been  passed.  No  longer — or,  at  least,  more  rarely — do  we 
explain  all  things,  from  theology  to  summer  novels,  by  natural  selec- 
tion. But  biological  psychology  continues  fairly  prevalent.  And 
one  has  even  heard  echoes  of  a  similar  spirit  in  recent  developments 
of  philosophy  itself ! 


340  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

4.  The  presuppositions  of  evolution:  that  is,  the  presuppositions 
of  a  noetical  kind,  the  concepts  and  principles  assumed  by  evolution 
and  on  which  it  depends.  Such  are  present,  even  in  the  scientific 
form  of  the  doctrine,  in  evolution  as  a  theory  of  descent.  Still  more 
are  they  present  and  determinant  when  the  consequences  of  organic 
evolution  are  drawn,  when  its  conclusions  are  brought  to  bear  upon 
broader  problems,  when  its  methods  are  applied  in  other  departments 
of  thought.  If  the  matter  itself  admitted  of  uncertainty,  the  doubt 
might  be  dispelled  by  a  glance  at  recent  history.  Fifty  years  ago 
men  confused  scientific  evolution  and  its  transcendent  implications. 
For  the  most  part,  also,  they  overlooked  the  bases  on  which  their 
own  arguments  rested.  Consider,  e.  g.,  the  famous  meeting  of  the 
British  Association  at  Oxford  in  1860.  In  the  discussion  between 
Wilberforce  and  Huxley  the  honors  lay  with  the  scientific  thinker. 
In  ethics,  as  in  science,  the  biologist  showed  superior  to  the  bishop. 
In  epistemology,  however,  were  not  both  at  fault  ?  For  them,  as  for 
most  thinkers  of  the  time,  the  debatable  issue  was  the  question  of 
fact :  Is  man  descended  from  some  animal  form  ?  The  corollaries  of 
the  fact,  they  felt,  needed  no  debate :  If  man  is  so  descended,  man  is 
man  no  longer.  For  the  underlying  notions  which  condition  this 
conclusion  were  left  out  of  account;  or  they  were  deemed  of  little 
moment.  Change  and  becoming,  origin  and  nature,  genesis  and 
value — how  many  thought  of  these  ancient  problems  as  fundamental 
to  nineteenth-century  reflection  ?  Yet  nothing  is  clearer,  if  the  mat- 
ter is  thought  through  to  the  end,  nothing  more  certain,  than  that 
such  concepts  underlie  the  whole  body  of  genetic  doctrine. 

If  now  we  ask  what  progress  has  in  this  respect  been  made,  the 
answer  is  complex.  In  certain  ways  the  advance  has  been  consid- 
erable. For  the  pressure  of  the  questions  forced  by  evolution  on  the 
world  compelled  attention  also  to  their  underlying  bases.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  this  attentive  thought  has  always  realized  its  own 
procedure.  That  is  rarely  true  in  the  history  of  such  movements. 
More  often  there  is  a  mingling  of  methods — reflective  thinking,  con- 
scious of  its  own  nature  and  aims,  goes  hand  in  hand,  or  side  by 
side,  with  processes  which  may  best  be  described  as  processes  of  trial 
and  error,  practical  attempts  at  partial  readjustment  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  given  cases.  Such  processes  have  in  special  measure  been 
characteristic  of  our  time.  We  could  not  become  philosophers  at  a 
bound.  Or  rather,  we  have  philosophized  in  the  happy  belief  that 
naught  of  metaphysics  was  mingled  with  our  thinking.  The  origin 
of  species,  the  descent  of  man,  the  genesis  of  conscience,  political, 
social,  religious  development — in  measure  we  have  thought  through, 
or  worked  through,  or  "muddled  through"  our  problems.  And 
though  we  often  knew  it  not,  we  have  been  busy  the  while  with  these 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         341 

other  cruces — origin,  nature,  worth,  and  their  relations — for  they 
were  inwrought  in  the  tissue  of  our  reflective  task. 

Progress  has  been  most  pronounced  in  the  field  of  the  mental 
sciences.  A  letter  of  Henry  Sedgwick,  dated  in  the  middle  eighties, 
well  expresses  the  change  from  the  earlier  point  of  view.  Thinking 
of  the  non-moral  and  the  moral  stages  of  evolution,  Sedgwick  wrote : 
"I  can  not  feel  any  doubt  as  to  the  historic  fact  of  the  time-relation 
of  the  two.  .  .  .  But  I  do  not  think  that  the  determination  of  this 
historical  question  settles  the  relation  between  the  two:  the  funda- 
mental question  still  remains  open  whether  what  is  later  in  time  is 
to  be  understood  by  contemplating  what  went  before  it,  ...  or 
whether  the  process  of  cosmical  or  of  human  development  is  not  of 
such  a  kind  that  the  significance  of  the  earlier  stages  is  only  revealed 
when  we  look  forward  to  their  end.  This,  I  think,  is  the  deepest 
question  of  philosophy  in  the  present  stage  of  thought."  The  con- 
clusion suggested  by  the  lamented  Sidgwick  was  reached  by  many 
thinkers  in  the  closing  decades  of  the  century  gone,  but  not  by  all. 
On  questions  of  such  import  scholars  will  differ,  even  when  the  issues 
have  been  made  clear,  and  when,  so  far  as  may  be,  they  have  been 
thought  through.  Above  all,  these  causes  of  divergence  produce 
their  maximum  effect  in  ages  which,  like  our  own,  have  felt  the  spell 
of  great  discoveries.  But  if,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  progress 
could  not  be  complete,  has  it  been  adequate?  I  fear  the  answer 
must  be  given  in  the  negative.  Indeed,  if  I  mistake  not,  there  has 
been  of  late  considerable  reaction  toward  the  earlier  and  the  cruder 
point  of  view.  Current  accounts  of  evolution  and  its  influence  not 
merely  proclaim  the  universal  potency  of  the  genetic  method,  they 
appear  to  imply  that  no  other  estimate  is  possible.  At  times  this 
conclusion  is  urged  as  the  unassailable  outcome  of  nineteenth-century 
reflection.  It  should  rather  be  termed  the  position  of  the  mid-cen- 
tury, or  of  the  first  decades  after  the  mid-century  was  passed.  For 
it  ignores  the  progress  which  the  later  years  have  brought. 

It  is  necessary  in  conclusion  to  guard  against  a  possible  mis- 
understanding. The  thesis  that  progress  has  been  less  than  adequate 
does  not  imply  agreement  with  venturesome  essays  of  a  contrary  type. 
If  certain  forms  of  genetic  theory  ignore  their  own  noetic  problems, 
some  philosophers  of  evolution  attack  these  questions  in  a  spirit  of 
surprising  confidence.  The  question  may  be  raised  whether  Bergson 
himself  should  not  be  included  in  the  latter  class.  Mind,  Bergson 
defends  in  the  evolutionary  process,  and  other  important  interests. 
But  what  of  the  method  of  defense  ?  It  is  incisive,  it  is  illuminating, 
the  argument  is  phrased  in  a  marvelous  style,  the  doctrine  is  one  of 
those  works  of  genius  which  get  us  forward  by  its  stimulating  influ- 
ence, whether  or  not  it  can  in  the  end  be  accepted  as  true.  Is  there, 


342  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

however,  sufficient  evidence  for  the  conclusions  reached?  This  at 
least  is  the  doubt  which  recurs  to  some  of  us  who  welcome  many  of 
these  conclusions.  In  the  case  of  other  systems  the  foundations  are 
certainly  too  weak  to  support  the  constructions  which  are  reared 
upon  them.  Therefore  systems  of  this  type  also  represent  imperfect 
progress.  For  they  are  unstable,  and,  being  unstable,  they  fail  to 
realize  their  legitimate  aims.  In  sum  the  noetic  cruces  suggested  by 
evolution  can  not  reasonably  be  ignored.  Neither,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  they  solvable  at  a  stroke. 

A.  C.  ARMSTRONG. 
WCSLKYAN  UNIVERSITY. 


THE  FEELING  OF  OUGHTNESS: 
ITS  PSYCHOLOGICAL  CONDITIONS 

rriHIS  JOURNAL  having  been  kind  enough  to  review1  with  some 
J-  sympathy  a  paper  of  mine,  which,  as  Professor  Leuba  phrased 
it,  was  intended  to  "clear  much  of  the  ground  surrounding  one  of 
the  fundamental  problems  of  the  psychology  of  ethics,"  I  venture 
to  submit  to  American  men  of  science  the  conclusions  of  a  larger 
inquiry  which  is  to  appear  this  year  in  Binet's  Annee  psychologique. 

The  problem  is  that  of  the  psychological  conditions  of  this  specific 
and  well-known  state  of  mind  which  a  subject  expresses  when  he 
says:  "I  am  conscious  that  I  ought."  In  a  paper2  of  1897,  Pro- 
fessor Leuba  has  called  it  "the  feeling  of  oughtness."  I  shall  use 
the  term,  although  it  seems  to  me  that  the  latest  researches  on  the 
psychology  of  feelings  tend  to  confine  this  word  to  affective  states, 
where  the  consciousness  is  necessarily  either  agreeable  or  painful. 
Writing  in  French,  I  have  used  the  expression  la  conscience  de  devoir 
or  I'obligation  de  conscience. 

The  feeling  of  oughtness  is  not  always  connected  with  the  impres- 
sion of  moral  goodness.  I  have  found  it  very  often  in  introspections 
gathered  during  experiments  on  judgment  and  ideation,  and  was 
thus  put  on  the  way  of  an  experimental  study  of  this  feeling  such 
as,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  has  never  been  conducted  before. 

The  first  results  concerning  this  feeling  of  oughtness  in  the  labo- 
ratory experiments  are  the  following: 

1.  It  is  the  apperception  of  an  internal  conflict  between  two  tend- 

'Vol.  VIIL,  page  361. 

'"The  Psychophysiology  of  the  Moral  Imperative,"  Amer.  Journal  of 
Psychology,  Vol.  Vm.,  No.  4. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          343 

encies,  one  of  which  has  its  origin  in  some  definite  orders  (French 
consigne;  German  Aufgabe)  given  to  the  subject  as  to  a  sentry. 

2.  These  orders  give  birth  only  to  a  tendency  if  they  be  accepted 
by  the  subject.  This  acceptance  implies,  as  its  condition,  a  peculiar 
relation  between  the  subject  and  the  inquirer.  From  the  standpoint 
of  the  subject  this  relation  may  be  roughly  described  as  an  affective 
state — a  combination  of  love  and  fear  and  admiration  which  gives  to 
the  experimenter  prestige  and  authority  in  the  eyes  of  the  subject. 

These  being  the  results  of  a  first  investigation,  the  question  arises : 
What  are  the  tendencies  of  every-day  life  which  can  be  assimilated 
to  the  tendency  originating  from  orders?  What  are  the  tendencies 
which,  if  they  meet  with  opposition,  shall  give  rise  to  the  feeling  of 
oughtness?  Habit,  social  custom  and  example,  instinct  have  been 
asserted  by  several  schools  to  be  the  fountain  of  moral  obligation. 
I  think  it  can  be  shown  that  none  of  them  is,  if  considered  alone,  the 
source  of  any  obligation  whatever.  Habit  (of  church  going,  e.  g.) 
enforces  the  feeling  of  oughtness;  it  does  not  create  it.  Social  cus- 
tom has  certainly  in  every  one  of  us  a  binding  force ;  but  it  does  not 
act  in  this  way  through  habits  nor  through  the  ideo-motor  power  of 
example.  It  is  felt  as  an  obligation,  because  there  are,  at  its  origin, 
positive  orders  given  by  respected  authorities  to  affectively  disposed 
subjects:  in  other  terms,  because  the  circumstances  are  exactly  the 
same  as  in  the  laboratory  experiments  alluded  to. 

If,  in  speaking  of  instincts,  we  first  think  of  animal  life,  is  it  not 
curious  that  the  symptoms,  which  might  be  interpreted  as  proving 
the  presence  of  a  feeling  of  oughtness  in  animals,  are  to  be  found  in 
dogs  to  whom  orders  are  given  in  general  terms?  Ought  we  per- 
haps to  consider  our  domestic  animals  as  Aristotle  considered  the 
slave :  if  they  be  not  apt  to  form  general  judgments,  they  might  be, 
nevertheless,  capable  of  receiving  them? 

The  orders  given  in  general  terms  to  the  psychological  subject 
as  to  the  soldier  have  not  only  the  same  characteristics  as  the  ances- 
tral taboo  to  which  the  sociological  school  gives  such  a  great  place 
in  the  explanation  of  moral  ideas;  they  also  answer  exactly  to  the 
description  which  Kant  gives  of  the  moral  law :  categorical,  impera- 
tive, but  requiring  some  experience,  if  one  is  to  see  where  they  have  to 
be  applied  in  practical  life.  This  resemblance  is  easy  to  account  for. 
The  orders  are  indeed  a  product  of  reason,  if  we  think  that  reason 
has  a  part  in  every  universal  proposition,  be  it  indicative  or  impera- 
tive. But  we  have  no  ground  for  invoking  here  a  pure  reason 
dictating  a  law  to  all  intelligent  beings,  whether  human  or  not. 
Kant  says  himself  that  his  theory  does  not  in  the  least  account  for 


344  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  practical  effect  of  this  purely  rational  law ;  the  fact  of  obligation 
remains  to  him  entirely  unintelligible.8 

If  we  say  that  the  origin  of  obligation  is  to  be  found  in  an  uni- 
versal proposition  formulated  by  a  concrete  person  and  accepted  by 
another  person,  we  shall  understand  the  binding  character  of  some 
orders,  which  to  our  intellectual  judgment  appear  absurd.  The 
obligatory  character  of  the  law  of  sacrifice,  as  it  is  felt  by  many 
Christians,  is  inconsistent  with  the  rationalistic  theory  aa  well  as 
with  the  sociological  one :  this  law,  taken  universally,  is  anti-rational 
as  well  as  anti-social.  With  our  theory,  if  we  have  received  the  law 
from  somebody  whom  we  love  and  admire,  this  is  sufficient  to  explain 
the  hold  it  has  on  us. 

Two  questions  are  forced  on  our  attention  and  require  further 
examination:  (1)  How  does  the  reason  work  in  order  to  transform 
the  "impression  of  good,"  given  by  a  particular  action,  into  a  gen- 
eral judgment  of  value?  (2)  How  is  the  affective  relation,  necessary 
to  the  acceptance  of  orders,  originated?  To  this  last  problem  so 
much  may  here  be  said:  there  is  no  ground  to  believe  that  prestige 
is  always  of  social  origin.  Psycho-analysis  shows  a  way  in  which 
biological  and  sociological  values  might  be  created  apart  from  any 
social  influence. 

These  few  propositions  may  perhaps  be  of  some  interest  even 
without  the  body  of  facts  which  in  a  longer  article  could  be  called 
upon  to  back  them  up.  They  are,  as  can  be  seen,  purely  psycholog- 
ical. Their  ethical,  pedagogical,  and  philosophical  corollaries  do 
not  concern  us  here.  When  the  causal  relations,  which  we  have  set 
forth,  shall  be  generally  recognized,  the  various  philosophies  will 
have  to  reckon  with  them,  and  they  will  do  so  without  difficulty. 
Some  will  welcome  the  contingent  character  of  our  moral  obligations ; 
others  will  be  impressed  with  the  great  place  our  theory  gives  to  the 
personality:  to  them  the  mystery  of  personality  will  soon  seem  as 
sacred  and  as  adorable  as  did  the  mystery  of  the  moral  law. 

PIERRE  BOVET. 

UNIVERSITY  o»  NEUCHATEL. 


DISCUSSION 
PROFESSOR  DE WET'S   "BRIEF   STUDIES   IN  REALISM" 

IN  the  interesting  "Studies  in  Realism,"  which  Mr.  Dewey  has 
recently  published,1  he  has  done  two  things.      In  addition  to 
presenting  more  fully  than  he  had  done  before  his  own  view  of  the 
• ' '  Grundlegung, ' '  3d  section,  sub  fine. 
1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  pages  393  ff.  and  pages  546  ff. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          345 

nature  of  perception,  he  has  criticized  the  doctrine  of  perception 
held  by  ' '  epistemological "  and  ' '  presentative "  realists.  It  is  this 
criticism  of  realism  that  I  wish  to  examine  in  this  paper. 

The  cardinal  error  Mr.  Dewey  finds  in  this  realism  is  perhaps 
best  summed  up  in  these  words:  " Until  the  epistemological  realists 
have  seriously  considered  the  main  propositions  of  the  pragmatic 
realists,  viz.,  that  knowing  is  something  that  happens  to  things  in  the 
natural  course  of  their  career,  not  the  sudden  introduction  of  a 
'unique'  and  non-natural  type  of  relation — that  to  a  mind  or 
consciousness — they  are  hardly  in  a  position  to  discuss  the  second 
and  derived  pragmatic  proposition  that,  in  this  natural  continuity, 
things  in  becoming  known  undergo  a  specific  and  detectable  quali- 
tative change"  (p.  554).  The  realists  criticized  are  guilty,  then,  of 
believing  that  knowing  is  a  sudden  introduction  of  a  "unique"  and 
non-natural  relation. 

There  are  three  adjectives  in  this  charge,  but  I  presume  that  only 
one  of  them  has  any  dyslogistic  significance.  The  suddenness  of  the 
introduction  of  any  relation  can  hardly  be  objected  to  by  any  em- 
piricist who  sticks  to  his  last.  Nor  can  the  recognition  of  the  unique- 
ness of  any  relation  be  reasonably  considered  by  Mr.  Dewey  as  an 
anti-empirical  procedure.  He  has  himself  recognized  at  least  one 
unique  relation  and  has  given  an  excellent  statement  of  what  a 
unique  relation  is :  "  Here,  if  you  please,  is  a  unique  relation  of  self 
and  things,  but  it  is  unique,  not  in  being  wholly  incomparable  to  all 
natural  relations  among  events,  but  in  the  sense  of  being  distinctive, 
or  just  the  relation  that  it  is"  (p.  552).  This  sentence  shows  that 
the  adjective  that  really  is  meant  to  count  in  Mr.  Dewey 's  indictment 
is  the  adjective  "non-natural." 

Now  why  should  the  consciousness  relation,  which  "epistemolog- 
ical" and  "presentative"  realists  recognize,  be  considered  non-nat- 
ural ?  The  answer  seems  to  be  that  for  them  this  relation  is  a  rela- 
tion "to  a  mind."  A  very  cursory  glance  over  the  pages  of  Mr. 
Dewey's  articles  will  show  that  the  realists  he  is  criticizing,  whether 
"presentative"  or  "epistemological,"  are  constantly  represented  as 
holding  that  the  thing  known  in  perception  is  in  relation  "to  a 
knower"  or  "to  consciousness."  Every  criticism  he  passes  against 
these  realists  presupposes  for  its  validity  that  these  realists  are  com- 
mitted to  the  doctrine  that  there  is  a  non-natural  "mind"  or  "con- 
sciousness" or  "knower,"  and  that  anything  in  order  to  get  known 
must  get  into  a  non-natural  relation  to  this  non-natural  term.  It  is 
possible  that  these  criticisms  could  be  stated  in  other  forms  which 
should  leave  out  of  account  this  presupposition,  so  thorough-going  in 
the  form  in  which  Mr.  Dewey  has  stated  them,  but  what  the  criticisms 
would  then  be  would  largely  be  a  matter  of  conjecture.  As  the 


346  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

criticisms  now  stand  they  have  direct  pertinence  only  to  some  type 
of  non-naturalistic  realism  which  is  based  on  the  recognition  of 
"mind"  as  an  indispensable  "knower"  in  every  perception. 

Relation  to  a  mind  or  consciousness  or  knower !  This  is  a  thesis 
which  some  years  ago  was  quite  generally  supported,  and  among 
realists  even  now  Messrs.  Bertrand  Russell  and  G.  E.  Moore  still 
maintain  this  thesis.  But  most  of  the  American  thinkers,  whom  the 
American  Philosophical  Association's  "Committee  on  Definitions" 
would  class  as  "epistemologically  monistic  realists,"  have  been  as 
outspoken  against  this  thesis  as  Mr.  Dewey  himself.  For  instance, 
Mr.  Woodbridge  and  the  contributors  to  the  "First  Program  and 
Platform  of  Six  Realists"  have  made  it  fundamental  to  their  re- 
spective realisms  that  consciousness  is  a  relation  between  things  and 
not  a  term  of  a  relation  or  a  relation  of  things  to  mind. 

Now  Mr.  Dewey  has,  in  the  commendable  way  so  characteristic  of 
him,  made  his  criticisms  as  impersonal  as  possible.  With  two  or  three 
exceptions  he  has  named  no  names ;  but  he  has  made  it,  nevertheless, 
quite  obvious  that  the  "epistemological"  and  "  presentative  "  realists 
he  has  in  mind  are  those  whose  views  are  similar  to  Mr.  Perry's. 
His  reference  to  Mr.  Perry's  phrase,  "ego-centric  predicament,"2 
near  the  beginning  of  his  second  paper,  seems  to  be  a  clear  indication 
of  his  meaning,  so  far  as  "epistemological"  realism  is  concerned. 
As  regards  "presentative"  realism  his  position  is  made  unmis- 
takable. "Many  realists  .  .  .  have  treated  the  cases  of  seen  light, 
doubled  imagery,  as  perception  in  a  way  that  ascribes  to  perception 
an  inherent  cognitive  status.  They  have  treated  the  perceptions  as 
cases  of  knowledge,  instead  of  as  simply  natural  events  having,  in 
themselves  (apart  from  a  use  that  may  be  made  of  them),  no  more 
knowledge  status  or  worth  than,  say,  a  shower  or  a  fever.  What  I 
intend  to  show  is  that  if  'perceptions'  are  regarded  as  cases  of 
knowledge,  the  gate  is  opened  to  the  idealistic  interpretation.  The 
physical  explanation  holds  of  them  as  long  as  they  are  regarded 
simply  as  natural  events — a  doctrine  I  shall  call  nai've  realism;  it 
does  not  hold  of  them  considered  as  cases  of  knowledge — the  view  I 
call  presentative  realism"  (p.  395).  All  epistemologically  monistic 
realism,  thus,  is  explicitly  brought  within  the  scope  of  his  criticism. 

Now  how  does  Mr.  Dewey  show  that  when  perceptions  are  re- 
garded as  cases  of  knowledge  the  gate  is  opened  to  the  idealistic 
interpretation?  After  stating  his  own  "nai've"  realistic  position  he 
says:  "But  suppose  that  the  realist  accepts  the  traditionary  psy- 
chology according  to  which  every  event  in  the  way  of  a  perception  is 
also  a  case  of  knowing  something.  Is  the  way  out  now  so  simple? 

*  Of  the  bearing  of  which  on  the  realistic  position  I  have  written  elsewhere, 
Philosophical  Eevicw,  Vol.  XXI.,  pages  351  ff. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          347 

In  the  case  of  the  doubled  fingers  or  the  seen  light,  the  thing  known 
in  perception  contrasts  with  the  physical  source  and  cause  of  the 
knowledge.  There  is  a  numerical  duplicity.  Moreover,  the  thing 
known  in  perception  is  in  relation  to  a  knower,  while  the  physical 
cause  is  not  as  such  in  relation  to  a  knower.  Is  not  the  most  plaus- 
ible account  of  the  difference  between  the  physical  cause  of  the  per- 
ceptive knowledge  and  what  the  latter  presents  precisely  this  latter 
difference — namely,  presentation  to  a  knower  f  If  perception  is  a  case 
of  knowing,  it  must  be  a  case  of  knowing  the  star;  but  since  the 
'real'  star  is  not  known  in  the  perception,  the  knowledge  relation 
must  somehow  have  changed  the  'object'  into  a  'content.'  Thus 
when  the  realist  conceives  the  perceptual  occurrence  as  a  case  of 
knowledge  or  of  presentation  to  a  mind  or  knower,  he  lets  the  nose 
of  the  idealist  camel  into  the  tent.  He  has  not  great  cause  for  sur- 
prise when  the  camel  comes  in — and  devours  the  tent"  (pp.  395-6; 
most  of  the  italics  mine). 

It  is  as  clear  as  anything  can  be  that  here  the  gate  is  opened  to 
the  idealistic  interpretation  by  the  introduction  of  the  phrases  and 
clauses  I  have  italicized.  Once  deny  that  a  case  of  knowledge  is  a 
presentation  of  the  thing  known  to  a  "mind"  or  "knower,"  and  the 
proof  that  an  idealistic  interpretation  is  involved  in  the  treatment 
of  perceptions  as  cases  of  knowledge  loses  all  cogency.  But  this  is 
just  the  denial  that  is  made  by  many  realists  who  still  regard  percep- 
tions as  cases  of  knowledge.  These  realists,  however,  in  so  regarding 
perceptions  are  "  presentative "  realists  according  to  Mr.  Dewey's 
definition.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Dewey's  proof  of  the  essentially 
idealistic  character  of  "presentative"  realism  requires  two  premises. 
One  is  that  perceptions  are  cases  of  knowlege,  and  the  other  is  that 
perceptive  knowledge  is  presentation  to  a  "knower."  Without  the 
latter  premise  the  proof  halts,  and  Mr.  Dewey  must  do  without  this 
premise  if  he  is  to  represent  the  position  of  these  realists  correctly. 
Mr.  Dewey's  proof  then  leaves  untouched  the  question  whether  these 
realists  have  given  ground  for  the  idealists'  neglect  of  the  physical 
explanation  given  by  realists  of  such  cases  as  doubled  imagery 
(p.  395). 

Now  everything  that  is  further  urged  in  these  two  articles  against 
"presentative"  and  " epistemological' '  realism  assumes  that  all  the 
advocates  of  this  realism  believe  perception  to  be  a  presentation  of 
objects  "to  a  mind."  Hence  the  whole  argument  is  void  as  against 
these  realists  who,  while  being  "presentative"  and  "epistemolog- 
ical," deny  the  existence  of  a  "mind"  to  which  objects  are  presented. 
It  is  quite  possible,  as  I  have  already  suggested,  that  some  of  the 
reasons  urged  against  this  type  of  realism  can  be  restated  so  as  to 
bear  against  it,  but  it  is  evident  that  in  the  form  in  which  they  have 


348  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

been  stated  by  Mr.  Dewey  they  are  beside  the  mark,  if  the  mark  is 
this  type  of  realism.8 

But  there  is  one  specification  of  the  charge  against  "presentative" 
realism  which  it  is  possible  here  to  examine  without  regard  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  implicated  in  the  general  misunderstanding  already 
alluded  to.  Mr.  Dewey  says  that  if  ' '  presentative "  realism  be  true 
the  physical  conditions  which  cause  perception  ought  to  be  perceived 
along  with  other  objects.  "In  the  case  of  the  seen  light,  reference  to 
the  velocity  of  light  is  quite  adequate  to  account  for  its  occurrence 
in  its  time  and  space  difference  from  the  star.  But  viewed  as  a  case 
of  what  is  known  (on  the  supposition  that  perception  is  a  case  of 
knowledge),  reference  to  it  only  increases  the  contrast  between  the 
real  object  and  the  object  known  in  perception.  For,  being  just  as 
much  a  part  of  the  object  that  causes  the  perception  as  is  the  star 
itself,  it  (the  velocity  of  light)  ought  to  be  part  of  what  is  known  in 
the  perception,  while  it  is  not.  Since  the  velocity  of  light  is  a  constit- 
uent element  in  the  star,  it  should  be  known  in  the  perception ;  since 
it  is  not  so  known,  reference  to  it  only  increases  the  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  object  of  the  perception — the  seen  light — and  the  real,  as- 
tronomical star.  The  same  is  true  of  any  physical  conditions  that 
might  be  referred  to:  The  very  things  that,  from  the  standpoint  of 
perception  as  a  natural  event,  are  conditions  that  account  for  its 
happening  are,  from  the  standpoint  of  perception  as  a  case  of  knowl- 
edge, part  of  the  dbject  that  ought  to  be  known  but  is  not"  (pp. 
396-7). 

The  simplest  way  to  answer  this  criticism  is  to  challenge  the 
statement.  Why  might  anything  to  be  perceived  that  is  not  per- 
ceived? Either  we  have  an  empiricist  theory  of  perception  or  we 
have  an  apriorist  theory.  Apriorism  can,  from  its  own  presupposi- 
tions, lay  down  the  law  as  to  what  ought  to  be.  The  genuine  em- 
piricist may  also  be  concerned  with  what  ought  to  be,  but,  in  matters 
theoretical,  what  ought  to  be  is  for  him  only  what  he  is  led  by  ex- 
perience to  expect.  If  these  expectations  are  not  realized,  he  does 
not  decline  to  accept  what  comes  instead;  he  merely  tries  next  time 
not  to  cherish  such  vain  expectations.  Now  our  past  experience  does 

•  The  fact  that  such  an  acute  thinker  as  Mr.  Dewey  can  criticize  an  adverse 
view  without  realizing  that  he  is  thoroughly  misapprehending  it  should  make  him 
more  sympathetic  with  the  failure  of  the  critics  of  instrumentalism  in  under- 
standing its  presuppositions.  It  may  also  be  suggested  that  perhaps  one  reason 
for  Mr.  Dewey 's  misunderstanding  questions  asked  of  him  by  a  realist,  questions 
that  concern  his  view  of  consciousness,  is  that  Mr.  Dewey  misunderstands  the 
questioner's  view  of  consciousness  and  is  thus  led  to  impute  to  the  questioner  an 
imputation  to  Mr.  Dewey  of  a  view  which  the  latter  has  first  erroneously 
imputed  to  the  questioner.  (See  Mr.  Dewey 's  "Reply,"  this  JOUBNAL,  Vol.  IX., 
pages  19  ff.) 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         349 

not  justify  us  in  saying  that  whenever  anything  is  perceived  the 
physical  conditions  which  give  rise  to  our  perception  of  it  are  all 
perceived.  If  then  we  persist  in  saying  that  nevertheless  they  ought 
to  be  perceived,  this  "ought"  is  evidently  not  an  "ought"  of  empir- 
ically warranted  expectation,  but  an  ' '  ought  "  of  a  priori  legislation. 
It  is  a  bit  of  sheer  dogmatism,  of  licentious  intellectualism ;  and  the 
i^se  of  such  an  "ought"  by  an  avowed  opponent  of  dogmatism  and 
intellectualism  for  the  purpose  of  demolishing  an  empirical  realism 
comes  as  a  startling  surprise,  not  unrelieved  by  a  touch  of  humor. 

"  Presentative  "  realists  who  regard  consciousness  as  a  selective 
relation  among  things,  a  relation  unique  in  the  sense  of  being  the 
distinctive  relation  it  is  and  comparable  to  other  natural  relations,4 
have  in  this  conception  of  consciousness  a  means  of  explaining  why 
the  physical  conditions  of  perception  as  a  case  of  knowledge  are  not 
themselves  perceived.  This  explanation  consists  in  showing  that 
what  has  to  be  explained  is  an  instance  of  a  general  characteristic  of 
selective  relations.  This  characteristic  is  exemplified  when  the  chisel 
of  the  sculptor,  though  it  is  the  physical  condition  of  the  marble's 
assuming  a  similitude  to  the  model,  does  not  itself  enter  into  the  re- 
lation of  similarity  with  statue  and  model.  Suppose,  for  another 
instance,  that  my  room-mate  at  college  invites  me  to  spend  the  holi- 
days at  his  home  and  that  there  I  meet  his  sister  whom  I  subse- 
quently marry.  When  I  thus  enter  into  the  matrimonial  relation 
with  the  girl  of  my  choice,  must  she  and  I  include  her  brother  in  the 
family  constituted  by  our  marriage,  because  forsooth  he  was  the  con- 
dition of  our  coming  to  know  and  love  and  wed  each  other  ?  Must  we 
likewise  marry  the  clergyman  who  officiated  at  the  ceremony,  and  also 
marry  the  marriage-license  which  authorized  it,  because  they  too 
are  the  conditions  of  the  marriage  ?  What  a  monstrously  redundant 
polygamy  such  an  "oi^ght"  requires  every  bride  and  groom  to  com- 
mit! It  seems  the  most  "natural"  thing  in  the  world  that  new  re- 
lations should  arise  and  sometimes  arise  suddenly,  and  yet  that  the 
conditions,  physical  and  otherwise,  which  brought  about  these  rela- 
tionships should  not  be  included  in  the  specific  relational  complexes 
produced  by  them.  Why  should  we  deny  to  the  consciousness  rela- 
tion a  similar  privilege  of  obtaining  among  just  the  terms  its  condi- 
tions see  fit  to  assign  to  it,  without  intruding  ourselves  upon  it  with 
the  arbitrary  demand  that  it  should  be  more  catholic  in  its  terms 
than  it  naturally  is  ?  EVANDER  BRADLEY  McGiLVARY. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

4 ' '  Experience  and  its  Inner  Duplicity, ' '  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VI.,  page  232 : 
"In  answering  this  question  I  beg  the  reader  not  to  allow  the  term  'together- 
ness' as  I  have  employed  it  to  prejudice  him.  Like  every  general  term,  it 
emphasizes  common  features  and  slurs  over  peculiar  features." 


350  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

SOCIETIES 

THE   TWELFTH   ANNUAL  MEETING   OP   THE   WESTERN 
PHILOSOPHICAL  ASSOCIATION 

THE  Twelfth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Western  Philosophical  As- 
sociation was  held  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  April  5  and  6, 
1912.  In  pursuance  of  the  plan  adopted  by  the  executive  committee, 
the  morning  and  afternoon  sessions  of  the  first  day  were  devoted 
to  papers  on  ethics  and  the  discussion  of  ethical  problems.  The 
special  topic  of  the  afternoon  was  "The  Teaching  of  Ethics."  The 
discussion  of  this  topic,  led  by  F.  C.  Sharp,  J.  H.  Tufts,  and  J.  W. 
Hudson,  was  lively  and  profitable.  In  the  evening  the  visiting  mem- 
bers were  guests  of  the  local  members  at  a  delightful  dinner  given 
at  the  Quadrangle  Club.  At  the  session  immediately  following,  the 
President's  address  was  given  by  A.  W.  Moore  upon  "Bergson  and 
Pragmatism."  The  day  was  closed  by  a  smoker  where  the  usual 
good-fellowship  prevailed. 

The  morning  of  the  second  day  was  given  to  a  joint  session  with 
the  Western  Psychological  Association,  at  which  five  papers  were 
read  and  discussed.  At  the  business  meeting,  which  was  held  at  the 
close  of  the  afternoon  session,  reports  were  received  from  the  Secre- 
tary and  Treasurer,  B.  C.  Ewer,  showing  a  balance  on  hand  of  $82.85, 
and  from  the  Acting  Secretary,  H.  W.  Wright,  showing  an  expendi- 
ture of  $9.58  for  printing,  postage,  etc.  E.  B.  Crooks,  V.  A.  C.  Hen- 
mon,  H.  M.  Kallen,  and  G.  T.  Kirn  were  elected  to  membership  in  the 
Association.  Officers  for  the  coming  year  were  elected  as  follows: 
President,  J.  E.  Boodin;  Vice-president,  B.  H.  Bode;  Secretary  and 
Treasurer,  H.  W.  Wright;  Executive  Committee,  A.  W. Moore, A. K. 
Rogers,  G.  A.  Tawney,  W.  K.  Wright.  The  place  and  time  of  the 
next  meeting  were  left  to  the  decision  of  the  Executive  Committee. 

The  following  are  abstracts  of  papers  read  at  this  meeting: 

The  Genesis  and  Function  of  the  Ethical  Ideal:  G.  T.  KIRN. 

The  ethical  ideals  are  the  product  of  the  natural  life  which  pro- 
ceeds to  organize  experience. 

Human  life  begins  with  instincts,  and  if  ever  more  than  an  in- 
stinctive life  is  to  appear  the  instincts  must  be  redirected  by  the  ra- 
tional life. 

In  the  growth  of  the  ethical  ideal  there  is  a  prelogical  stage,  for 
ethical  ideals  as  well  as  concepts  are  formed  before  we  become  con- 
scious of  the  process.  They  are  largely  the  bequest  of  social  heredity, 
and  are  enforced  by  social  authority.  But  what  at  first  is  done  un- 
consciously will  in  time  be  done  under  the  direction  of  consciousness. 

An  instinctive  act  has  consequences  which  are  unsatisfactory  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         351 

the  unsatisfactory  results  tend  to  inhibit  the  instinct.  After  a  num- 
ber of  repetitions  the  "idea"  of  unpleasant  future  consequences  will 
inhibit  present  impulses  to  action.  The  action  of  the  moment  is  now 
organized  with  reference  to  life  as  a  whole. 

Society  also  makes  the  contribution,  for  the  actions  of  one  per- 
son have  consequences  for  another.  The  painful  response  of  the  other 
has  an  inhibitive  effect  upon  the  agent;  and  the  impulse  of  the  mo- 
ment is  organized  in  a  larger  whole,  which  is  society.  In  all  cases  the 
ideals  crystallize  out  of  experience  and  determine  the  direction  a  per- 
sonality takes  in  the  realization  of  itself. 

Even  the  earlier  prophets  of  Israel  wrote  history  in  order  to  trace 
the  relation  between  conduct  and  consequences.  Thus  they  ascer- 
tained the  will  of  their  God.  The  authority  which  at  first  is  found 
in  society  is  afterwards  turned  over  to  reason  which  instinctively 
urges  that  every  intention,  or  volition,  be  consistent  and  in  harmony 
with  the  experience  already  organized. 

The  Essentials  of  a  First  Course  in  Ethics:  GREGORY  D.  WALCOTT. 

A  first  course  in  ethics  should  give  college  students  a  fairly  ade- 
quate survey  of  the  field  of  ethical  discussion  and  present  a  fairly 
consistent  programme  of  procedure  when  face  to  face  with  actual 
ethical  problems.  The  former  result  is  gained  by  an  epitomized  his- 
tory of  philosophy,  with  emphasis  upon  the  ethical  contributions  of 
the  more  important  thinkers  as  presented  in  their  own  works;  the 
latter,  by  a  constructive  discussion  of  a  half  dozen  main  topics,  viz., 
"The  Method  of  Ethics,"  which  should  be  scientific  against  a  gen- 
eral evolutionary  background;  "The  Field  of  Ethics,"  where  ethics 
is  considered  in  relation  to  other  subjects,  especially  sociology,  from 
which  it  is  practically  differentiated  by  the  altruistic  motive;  "The 
Different  Planes  of  Ethical  Living,"  which  result,  in  part,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  opposition  between  the  individual  consciousness  and 
the  social  consciousness ;  ' '  The  Criteria  of  Moral  Progress, ' '  in  con- 
nection with  social  progress  evidenced  by  increasing  social  complex- 
ity and  social  control;  "The  Moral  Ideal,"  which  has  both  physical 
and  psychical  elements;  and  "The  Realization  of  the  Ideal,"  con- 
sidered with  reference  to  both  an  ideal  and  the  actual  environment. 
College  students  are  a  variable  factor  in  the  community  and  form  a 
distinct  class.  They  need  to  realize  that  their  contribution  to  the 
social  welfare  will  be  in  proportion  to  their  affiliation  with  the  larger 
group,  but  not  complete  submergence  in  it. 

The  New  Individualism :  JAMES  H.  TUFTS. 

The  new  individualism  defended  by  Professor  Fite  in  his  recent 
volume,  ' '  Individualism, ' '  takes  as  its  point  of  departure  the  distinc- 
tion between  a  mechanical  and  a  conscious  process,  and  proposes  as 


352  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ethical  standard,  "To  each  according  to  his  intelligence."  The  paper 
aims  to  examine  how  far  the  distinction  referred  to  is  consistently 
carried  through,  and  whether  the  author's  conceptions  of  the  individ- 
ual and  society  involve  survivals  of  the  mechanical  point  of  view. 
As  regards  the  criterion  proposed,  the  question  is  discussed  whether 
duty  to  another  is  adequately  met  by  treating  him  according  to  his 
actual  intelligence,  or  whether  there  is  a  duty  to  raise  his  intelligence. 

The  Introductory  Course  in  Ethics:  F.  C.  SHARP. 

On  account  of  its  importance  for  the  guidance  of  life,  the  course 
in  elementary  ethics  should  be  accessible  to  the  largest  possible  num- 
ber of  students.  For  this  reason  it  should  be  free  from  prerequisites 
and  should  not  ordinarily  extend  beyond  the  limits  of  a  single  semes- 
ter. For  the  same  reason,  if  a  semester  in  theory  and  a  semester  in 
applied  ethics  are  offered,  each  course  should  be  so  planned  that  it 
can  be  taken  independently  of  the  other. 

The  method  generally  employed  in  the  class  room  in  this  country 
seems  to  be  the  "pouring-in  method,"  in  one  of  its  several  forms. 
This  does  not  even  accomplish  satisfactorily  the  narrow  ends  which 
it  sets  before  itself,  that  of  the  apprehension  and  retention  of  the  re- 
sults of  the  observation  and  thought  of  others.  What  is  far  more 
important,  it  does  little  or  nothing  to  develop  either  the  power  to 
observe  and  think  or  the  habit  of  observing  and  thinking.  The 
method  now  in  vogue  should  therefore  be  replaced  by  the  method 
of  discovery,  in  which  the  members  of  the  class  are  given  problems  to 
work  out  and  the  teacher  supplies  only  so  much  of  the  necessary  in- 
formation as  the  students  are  unable  to  obtain  by  their  own  efforts. 
Since  we  all  live  in  an  ethical  laboratory  the  introduction  of  this 
method  into  ethics  is  a  comparatively  simple  matter.  The  teaching 
of  introductory  ethics  through  the  study  of  the  history  of  ethics  will 
by  no  means  accomplish  the  results  obtainable  by  the  method  here 
recommended. 

The  Content  and  Method  of  the  First  College  Course  in  Ethics:  JAY 

WILLIAM  HUDSON. 

The  founding  and  maintaining  of  a  concrete,  democratic  society 
is  not  merely  a  political  project ;  it  is  primarily  an  ethical  undertak- 
ing for  the  sake  of  a  very  definite  ethical  ideal  of  human  welfare.  It 
is  an  undertaking  which  implies  rational,  self-conscious  responsibility 
on  the  part  of  every  real  member  of  it.  This,  in  turn,  implies  the 
self-conscious  examination  and  evaluation  of  moral  standards  by 
every  man  and  woman  who  have  achieved  democracy's  rights  and 
duties.  Education  for  democracy,  in  contrast  with  education  for  less 
autonomous  forms  of  society,  means  a  new  and  cardinal  emphasis 
upon  a  thorough  education  in  all  the  technique  of  efficient  moral  re- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         353 

flection.  There  is  only  one  course  in  which  the  future  citizen  can 
receive  a  direct  and  intensive  training  of  this  sort — the  course  in  eth- 
ics. The  content  and  method  of  the  course  must  be  modified  in  terms 
of  this  neglected  fact. 

College  Ethics  for  Freshmen:  BERNARD  C.  EWER. 

Many  college  troubles  are  due  in  part  to  undergraduate  ignorance 
of  college  ideals.  There  is  need  of  a  systematic  course  of  study,  in 
the  curriculum  of  the  freshman  year,  dealing  with  the  various  educa- 
tional and  social  aspects  of  college  life.  Such  a  course  would  include 
consideration  of  the  history  of  the  American  college,  its  purpose,  the 
individual  programme  of  study,  departments  and  methods  of  study, 
grades  and  honors,  honesty,  educational  interests  outside  the  cur- 
riculum, health,  athletics,  fraternities,  co-education,  student  govern- 
ment, college  spirit  and  college  honor,  religious  institutions,  the  rela- 
tion of  the  college  to  the  home  and  to  the  surrounding  community, 
the  choice  of  a  vocation.  It  should  afford  training  in  study  methods, 
and  could  be  combined  with  work  in  various  departments.  The 
literature  used  should  include  books  and  magazine  articles  on  the 
college,  and  also  the  best  popular  books  on  education,  health,  Amer- 
ican social  and  political  life,  and  biography.  Such  a  course  would 
impart  seriousness  to  undergraduate  purposes,  and  would  help  to 
establish  a  cordial  understanding  between  students  and  faculty. 

Berg  son  and  Pragmatism  .-1  A.  W.  MOORE. 

A  Psychological  Definition  of  Religion:  WILLIAM  K.  WRIGHT. 

The  definition  defended  was:  "Religion  is  the  endeavor  to  secure 
the  conservatism  of  socially  recognized  values  through  specific  actions 
that  are  believed  to  evoke  some  agency  different  from  the  ordinary 
ego  of  the  individual,  or  from  other  merely  human  beings,  and  that 
imply  a  feeling  of  dependence  upon  this  agency. ' '  The  definition  is 
subjective  and  empirical  and  covers  all  cases  of  what  any  individual 
of  any  religion  would  himself  regard  as  a  religious  act,  and  differ- 
entiates religion  from  animism,  magic,  morals,  ethics,  esthetics,  and 
science.  It  is  practically  useful  as  a  preliminary  step  toward  deter- 
mining the  objective  function  of  religion  in  human  society,  which  is 
found  to  be  conservative  and  socializing.  This  function  is  so  sig- 
nificant as  to  furnish  a  strong  defense  for  the  ontological  validity 
of  religion  in  the  field  of  contemporary  metaphysics. 

Present  Status  of  the  Problem  of  the  Relation  between  Mind  and 

Matter:  MAX  MEYER. 

Modern  scientific  progress  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  scientists 
have  ceased  to  introduce  ghosts  as  causes  into  the  explanation  of 
objective  facts.  Accordingly,  we  ought  not  to  introduce  ghosts,  sub- 

1  To  be  published  in  full  elsewhere. 


364  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

jective  states,  into  our  explanations  of  animal  behavior,  as  is  quite 
commonly  done  by  comparative  psychologists  who  speak  of  satisfac- 
tion as  stamping  in  paths  of  low  resistance  in  the  nervous  system, 
unless  a  scientific  advantage  is  to  be  gained  by  thus  deviating  from 
the  approved  method  of  science.  No  one,  however,  has  ever  shown 
any  advantage  to  be  thus  gained.  If  by  interaction  this  ghost  theory 
of  animal  and  human  behavior  is  meant,  then  we  certainly  ought  to 
prefer  parallelism,  that  is,  purely  objective  science.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  parallelism  is  meant  that  corresponding  subjective  states 
and  nervous  processes  are  strictly  simultaneous,  then  we  ought  simply 
to  wait  till  the  answer  is  given  by  proper  observation,  which  may 
become  possible  in  the  future.  The  most  urgent  need  of  the  present 
time  is  the  establishment  of  definite  correlates  of  specific  mental 
functions  and  of  specific  nervous  functions  so  that  we  may  translate 
subjective  descriptions  of  human  life  into  objective  terms  for  the 
benefit  of  a  purely  objective  theory  of  human  behavior. 

The  Two  Theories  of  Consciousness  in  Bergson:  E.  B.  McGiLVABY. 

In  "Time  and  Free  Will,"  duration  and  motion  are  mechanical 
syntheses;  t.  e.,  there  is  neither  duration  nor  motion,  except  for  a 
conscious  spectator  and  except  in  consciousness.  "If  consciousness 
is  aware  of  anything  more  than  positions,  the  reason  is  that  it  keeps 
the  successive  positions  in  mind  and  synthesizes  them"  (p.  111). 

In  the  first  chapter  of  "Matter  and  Memory,"  not  only  do 
objects  exist  independently  of  the  consciousness  which  perceives 
them,  but  these  objects  have  motion  and  activity  of  their  own;  "the 
truth  is  that  movements  of  matter  are  very  clear,  regarded  as  images, 
and  that  there  is  no  need  to  look  in  motion  for  anything  more  than 
we  see  in  it"  (pp.  9-10).  So  far  is  consciousness  from  being  the 
agent  whose  synthetic  activity  gives  motion  to  inert  spatial  things, 
that  on  the  contrary,  consciousness  arises  only  when  the  independent 
motion  of  matter  is  partly  suppressed  in  order  to  make  way  for  the 
indeterminate  action  of  our  bodies. 

According  to  the  former  view  there  is  more  in  consciousness 
than  in  matter;  there  is  motion  in  consciousness,  which  matter  by 
itself  does  not  have.  According  to  the  latter  view  there  is  less  in 
consciousness  than  in  matter;  the  motion  that  matter  has  in  its  own 
right  is  reduced  to  give  play  to  freedom.  Bergson  oscillates  in  the 
latter  part  of  "Matter  and  Memory"  and  in  "Creative  Evolution" 
between  these  two  views.  His  behavior  exemplifies  in  a  beautiful 
manner  his  theory  that  every  one  carries  all  his  past  with  him  and 
that  just  so  much  of  this  past  as  is  suited  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
present  moment  becomes  effective.  When  it  is  suitable  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  his  philosophy  to  remember  that  matter  has  been  proved 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         355 

to  be  inert,  he  remembers  that  this  proof  has  been  given.  When  it  is 
suitable  that  matter  should  be  active,  he  remembers  that  matter  has 
been  proved  to  be  active.  The  difficulty  which  the  reader  finds  in 
his  later  view  of  matter  is  thus  due  to  the  fact  that  Bergson  com- 
bines two  radically  inconsistent  views. 

The  Mechanism  of  Social  Conduct:  G.  H.  MEAD. 

The  mechanism  of  social  conduct  is  to  be  regarded  from  the 
standpoint  of  social  behavior.  The  peculiar  character  of  social 
behavior  is  found  in  the  gesture  which  influences  other  forms  in 
acts  involving  members  of  a  group.  These  gestures  are  the  first 
overt  indications  of  the  response  of  another  individual  who  forms 
the  answering  gesture.  Within  this  field  of  the  conversation  of 
gestures  lies  social  behavior.  The  social  object  or  percept  may  be 
defined  as  the  gestures  which  lead  to  a  social  act  when  it  is  sensed 
by  another  form,  and  arouses  in  that  form  the  imagery  of  its  answer- 
ing gesture  and  the  consequences  of  this  response.  This  involves  as 
yet  only  responses  to  social  objects  in  the  experience  of  an  animal, 
but  no  consciousness  of  a  self.  This  is  presumably  not  present  in 
the  consciousness  of  animals  lower  than  man  nor  in  that  of  very 
young  children.  It  is  a  growth  in  consciousness.  The  phase  of 
social  behavior  which  seems  to  give  the  mechanism  for  the  formation 
of  a  self,  is  found  in  the  human  animal's  ability  to  stimulate  himself 
socially,  largely  through  vocal  gesture,  as  he  stimulates  others,  and 
to  respond  to  this  gesture  as  he  would  to  the  vocal  gesture  of  another. 
A  self  is  in  these  terms  one 's  own  response  to  one 's  own  social  stim- 
ulation. One  is  able  to  carry  on  a  conversation  with  one's  self  and 
one  carries  it  on  with  others.  This  "me" — the  empirical  ego  of 
psychology — arises  only  over  against  the  consciousness  of  other  selves 
and  gains  its  importance  through  its  function  of  rehearsing  inhibited 
social  actions  in  their  relation  to  each  other,  in  the  reflective  prepara- 
tion for  conduct  involving  interaction  with  other  individuals  of  a 
group. 

The  Paradoxes  of  Pragmatism:  B.  H.  BODE. 

The  paradoxes  of  pragmatism  have  their  origin  in  the  fact  that 
certain  of  its  doctrines  are  interpreted  from  different  and  incom- 
patible standpoints.  Such  difficulties  as  arise  from  the  appeal  to 
immediate  experience,  from  the  changes  that  objects  undergo  in 
becoming  known,  and  from  the  influence  of  the  organism  upon  the 
character  of  our  experiences,  may  be  removed  if  we  avoid  the  con- 
fusion of  standpoints.  The  appeal  to  immediate  experience  is  at  the 
bottom  a  repudiation  of  the  unknowable,  to  which  other  philosophies 
are  bound  to  have  recourse  in  order  to  give  a  consistent  account  of 
the  nature  of  the  truth-relation.  The  pragmatic  account  avoids  this 


356  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

result,  and  it  is  able  to  establish  an  intimate  connection  between  the 
origin  of  hypothesis  and  the  process  by  which  it  is  verified.  The 
apparent  impossibility  of  attaining  true  knowledge  of  the  past,  if 
knowledge  involves  a  change  in  things,  ceases  to  be  formidable  if  we 
do  not  construe  the  relation  of  organism  and  environment,  and  of 
past  and  present,  in  a  mechanical  fashion.  Once  we  give  up  the 
attempt  to  cut  off  the  past  from  the  present  and  to  make  of  know- 
ing a  process  in  which  things  are  passively  registered,  the  pragmatic 
explanation  becomes  straightforward  and  natural. 

The  Interpretation  of  Reality:  H.  W.  WRIGHT. 

Rationalism,  whether  it  takes  the  form  of  naturalism  or  of  intel- 
lectualism,  is  unable  to  interpret  a  reality  which  is  undergoing  gen- 
uine evolution.  Naturalism  attempts  to  interpret  the  real  universe 
in  terms  of  facts  and  forces  whose  modes  of  action  are  already  fixed 
and  predetermined,  and  hence  leaves  no  opportunity  for  the  occur- 
rence of  the  really  new,  in  fact,  no  possibility  of  evolution  itself. 
Intellectualism,  on  the  other  hand,  converts  the  legitimate  demands 
of  human  thought  for  consistency  and  coherence  of  ideas  into  a  test 
of  reality,  and,  finding  the  actual  world  neither  unified  nor  self- 
consistent,  rejects  it  as  illusory  and  regards  the  temporal  process  of 
change  which  we  directly  experience  as  mere  appearance,  and  evolu- 
tion itself  as  unreal.  Neither  is  feeling  nor  any  form  of  sensuous 
intuition  adequate  to  the  interpretation  of  real  evolution.  To  which 
of  our  capacities  shall  we  look  then?  Assuredly,  to  that  activity 
which  produces  our  own  personal  development,  i.  e.,  will.  For  it  is 
volition  which  maintains  the  unity  of  our  experience  while  at  the 
same  time  continually  introducing  new  objects  into  it.  The  activity 
of  will  is  therefore  the  very  principle  of  genesis  itself,  the  essence  of 
real  development,  showing  us  the  ideal  possibilities  of  the  future, 
thus  converting  the  ideal  into  actuality.  It  is  consequently  able  as 
no  other  form  of  human  experience  to  interpret  the  nature  of  reality, 
not  as  being,  but  as  becoming,  as  that  which  is  achieving  organization, 
is  winning  unity. 

Cognition,  Beauty,  and  Goodness:  H.  M.  KALLEN. 

Private,  concrete,  elusive,  in  itself  neither  mental  nor  amental, 
beauty  is  the  optional  mode  of  that  positive,  intrinsic,  value-relation 
which  binds  the  mind  to  its  object  in  such  wise  that  the  two  are  com- 
pletely and  harmoniously  adapted  to  each  other  in  the  very  act  of 
apprehension. 

German  Pragmatism :  G.  JACOBY. 

In  opposition  to  Professor  James's  formula:  "Germany  lags 
behind  in  pragmatism,"  we  propose  that  "America  lags  behind  Ger- 
many." American  pragmatism  is  the  reaction  of  a  biological  type 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         357 

of  philosophy  against  the  rationalistic  idealism  of  the  so-called 
"Hegelian"  school  of  this  country.  Forty  years  ago  a  similar 
biological  philosophy  in  Germany  reacted  against  the  true  Hegelian 
school  of  Hegel  himself.  From  this  anti-Hegelian  movement  derives 
the  well-known  German  pragmatism  of  Ernest  Mach,  Wilhelm 
Jerusalem,  George  Simmel,  Richard  Avenarius,  Wilhelm  Ostwald, 
and  Hans  Vaihinger,  whose  recently  published  standard  work  on 
"Die  Philosophic  des  Als  Ob"  was  written  in  1816-1818.  If  Amer- 
ican pragmatism  meets  at  present  with  disapproval  in  Germany  this 
is  due  to  the  fact,  that  just  at  the  time  when  anti-Hegelian  prag- 
matism became  popular  in  this  country,  Germany  had  become  tired 
of  it  and  had  just  entered  a  new  counter-reaction,  the  so-called 
"revival  of  philosophy."  The  German  revivalists  reject  pragmatism 
as  a  kind  of  utilitarianism.  But  this  is  a  misunderstanding.  It 
appears  that  pragmatism  is  the  best,  if  not  the  only  method,  by  which 
the  tendencies  of  the  new  German  movement  can  be  worked  out 
satisfactorily. 

H.  W.  WRIGHT. 

LAKE  FOREST  COLLEGE. 


Analyse  et  Critique  des  Principes  de  la  Psychologic  de  W.  James.     A. 

MENARD.    Paris :  Felix  Alcan.    1911.    Pp.  466. 

"  Une  etude  de  ce  genre,"  M.  Menard  writes  in  his  preface,  "  destinee 
tout  particulierement  a  exposer  I'essentiel  d'un  ouvrage  important  pen  ou 
mal  connu  comportait  des  citations  ou  le  lecteur  put  retrouver  I'auteur, 
malgre  le  commentateur.  On  excusera,  pour  cela  meme,  noire  loyalisme 
d'en  avoir  abuse."  This  sentiment  is  the  key  to  the  book.  But  M.  Menard 
is  too  modest.  His  analysis  is  desirable  not  only  for  the  French  public; 
it  performs  a  needful  and  a  high  service  also  for  all  readers  to  whom  the 
psychological  work  of  William  James  is  of  interest — readers  American  or 
English  or  continental.  Nor  is  there  need  to  deprecate  the  "  loyalty  "  of 
quotation,  or  to  excuse  such  divergences  between  author  and  commenta- 
tor as  arise  in  the  book.  M.  Menard's  criticisms  are  those  of  a  reflective 
interpreter,  not  of  a  hostile  judge.  What  he  says  comes  rather  by  way  of 
supplementation  and  complement,  than  by  way  of  contradiction  or  dis- 
putatious abstraction. 

Of  the  many  excellences  of  this  summary,  not  the  least  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  effectiveness  with  which  it  exhibits  the  inward  consistency  and 
articulation  of  James's  psychological  method.  To  the  incidental  reader 
and  even  to  the  student  who  approaches  the  "  Principles  "  with  the  bias 
and  preconceptions  of  the  barren  psychology  of  the  laboratory,  a  psychol- 
ogy dominated  largely  by  the  Wundtian  influence,  much  in  the  master's 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

great  book  seems  discontinuous,  unreflectively  empirical,  contradictory. 
M.  M<'nard  shows  how  superficial  such  an  impression  is.  The  eight  chap- 
ters, in  which  James's  principles  of  psychology  are  expounded  reveal  an 
architectonic  that  is  not  merely  the  expression  of  the  deductive  habits  of 
the  French  mind,  which  will  set  its  world  in  order  whether  or  no;  it  is 
much  more  the  natural  articulation  of  James's  conclusions  on  psychology, 
now  treated  as  objects  to  be  exhibited,  where  in  the  text  they  are  principles 
to  be  discovered. 

It  is  needless,  for  readers  of  the  JOURNAL,  to  restate  these  principle*  or 
their  review  by  M.  Menard.  He  throws  them,  however,  into  relief  by  flank- 
ing them,  with  respect  to  method,  by  the  views  of  Wundt,  and  with  re- 
spect to  content,  by  those  of  Bergson.  In  M.  Menard's  opinion  they  shine 
by  the  contrast  as  well  as  by  their  inward  light,  and  this  is  not  an  opinion 
with  which  I  am  ready  to  disagree,  though,  I  do  not  doubt,  others  may 
and  will. 

The  contrast  in  method  depends  on  and  derives  from  the  contrast  in 
content.  From  the  standpoint  of  radical  empiricism,  mental  states  are 
continuous  and  genuinely  indivisible.  Consciousness  is  a  stream;  no 
state  of  it  can  be  "compounded."  Mental  facts,  hence,  can  not  undergo 
analysis  from  within,  and  the  method  of  psychology  will,  in  consequence, 
involve  no  more  than  the  description  of  such  states  and  their  coordination 
with  their  physiological  correspondents.  These  latter,  indeed,  the  ground 
and  condition  of  mental  states,  are  susceptible  of  determination  with  re- 
spect to  their  components,  if  they  have  such,  but  no  state  of  consciousness 
can  be  deduced  or  compounded  from  simpler  mental  elements.  Thus 
there  should  be  a  radical  difference  between  the  method  of  psychology  and 
that  of  the  physical  sciences.  Wundt,  however,  denies  the  necessity  of 
such  a  difference.  Believing  that  there  is  no  means  of  knowing,  other 
than  the  analysis  of  a  whole  into  its  elements,  he  maintains  that  psycho- 
logical knowledge  must  consist  of  just  such  analysis,  t.  e.,  "  if  we  succeed, 
in  psychology,  under  the  same  given  and  measurable  conditions,  in  caus- 
ing a  certain  complex  to  vary  in  a  constant  manner,  we  should  be  able  to 
conclude  that  this  complex  contains  a  constant  element  which  is  one  of  its 
constituents."  On  the  basis  of  such  variations  Wundt  finds  two  elemen- 
tary psychological  categories — pure  sensations  and  simple  feelings. 
James,  starting  empirically  with  content,  argues  to  a  method  determined 
by  that  content :  Wundt,  starting  a  priori  with  a  method,  argues  to  a  con- 
tent that  alone  such  a  method  can  adequately  handle. 

Both  procedures  and  conclusions  are  practically  antithetical.  For 
James,  consciousness  is  nothing  so  much  as  a  stream  in  which  identical 
and  changeless  elements  can  not  be  found;  least  of  all,  elements.  For 
Wundt,  consciousness  is  a  comparatively  stable  composition,  and  its  transi- 
tive and  elusory  aspects  are  negligible.  Can  there,  then,  be  no  compromise 
between  the  procedure  of  James  and  that  of  Wundt,  no  genuinely  solid 
psychological  knowledge?  Not  so,  thinks  M.  Menard.  James's  own  work 
is  such  a  compromise.  If  mind  is  a  stream,  its  bed,  the  nervous  system,  is 
compared  with  it,  not  a  stream.  The  action  of  the  nervous  system  is  the 
resultant  of  the  interaction  of  its  elements — a  physical  thing  susceptible 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          359 

to  just  that  experimentation  which  Wundt  desiderates.  Thus,  on  the  side 
of  the  mind,  we  get  purely  empirical  description;  on  the  side  of  the  body, 
scientific  analysis  of  conditions  coordinate  with  the  states  subject  to  this 
description.  Laboratory  psychology,  hence,  is  both  possible  and  desirable. 
But  its  business  is  not  the  disintegration  of  an  undisintegrable  stream  of 
thought;  its  business  is  the  coordination  of  the  qualities  of  that  stream 
with  the  exact  conditions  under  which  they  appear. 

As  for  Bergson,  M.  Menard  finds  much  in  common  between  him  and 
James.  Both  are  agreed  as  to  the  inadequacy  of  the  analytic  method  of 
approach  to  a  knowledge  of  the  mind.  There  is  an  intimate  analogy  be- 
tween James's  "  radical  empiricism  "  and  Bergsonian  intuitionism.  The 
letter's  conception  of  pure  perception  is  practically  identical  with  James's 
pure  sensation,  while  his  doctrine  of  the  sensori-motor  function  of  the 
brain,  of  the  selective  character  of  its  activities,  though  they  derive  from 
different  motives  (not,  in  M.  Menard's  opinion,  opposed  to  each  other)  are 
analogous  to  the  Jamesian  teaching  on  the  same  subject.  It  is  when  one 
passes  beyond  the  function  of  the  nervous  system  and  the  abstraction  of 
"  pure  sensation  "  to  the  problem  of  perception  that  differences  are  per- 
ceived. These  differences  are  radical.  They  involve  the  questions  of 
memory,  recognition,  and  attention,  and  with  respect  to  none  of  them  are 
Bergson's  answers  satisfactory.  These  answers  turn  on  his  division  of 
memory  into  "  pure  "  and  "  motor,"  a  division  not  founded,  M.  Menard 
thinks,  on  introspection,  and  presupposing  an  unverifiable  subconscious 
and  inert  mentality,  that  becomes,  in  perception,  recognition  and  atten- 
tion, conscious  by  some  vis  occulta.  James's  interpretation  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  memory  in  sensori-motor  terms  is  simpler  and  more  elegant, 
and  by  use  of  association  by  contiguity,  serves  equally  well  to  account  for 
"  recognition  "  and  the  "  feelings  of  familiarity  " ;  and  for  attention  by 
means  of  "  accommodation  "  and  "  preperception."  Although  M.  Menard 
doubts  whether  James's  distinction  between  "  accommodation  "  and  "  pre- 
perception "  is  not  a  distinction  without  a  difference,  he  holds  that  this 
doubt  abates  in  no  way  the  superior  adequacy  of  the  Jamesian  account  of 
memory,  recognition,  and  attention.  Nor  is  the  latter  account  of  will  less 
superior  to  Wundt's  hypothesis  of  a  particular  feeling  of  innervation  for 
which  there  is  neither  logical  necessity  nor  empirical  evidence,  direct  or 
indirect,  since  all  that  is  needful  is  the  underlying  theory  of  the  sensori- 
motor  function  of  the  brain.  In  the  light  of  this  theory,  James  finds  the 
will  to  be  at  most  the  deployment  of  the  motricity  of  ideas,  all  of  which 
are  to  him,  in  varying  degrees,  motor.  But  it  does  not  follow  from  this 
intimacy  between  ideas  and  bodily  action  that  the  difference  between  mind 
and  matter  (which  is  felt  through  action)  is  reduced  thereby.  William 
James's  assumption  of  the  attitude  of  the  populace  toward  mind  and 
body — nai've  and  irreducible  dualism — is  the  only  assumption  that  com- 
ports with  scientific  psychology.  And  herein  again  James  excels  both 
Wundt  and  Bergson. 

It  will  be  seen  that  there  are  here  many  possible  points  of  difference 
with  respect  to  interpretation.  I  do  not  propose  to  take  these  up.  Inter- 
pretation is  a  matter  of  temperamental,  not  of  logical,  necessity.  I  can 


360  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

not  refrain  the  remark,  however,  that  it  is  something  of  a  pity  that  M. 
M£nard  has  found  it  necessary  to  confine  himself  to  the  "  Principles  "  and 
has  not  followed  the  development  of  the  master's  thinking  on  psycholog- 
ical problems  to  its  latest  expressions.  He  notes,  for  example,  hut  does 
not  use,  the  chapter  on  the  "  Compounding  of  Consciousness "  in  "  A 
Pluralistic  Universe."  Yet  this  has  a  profoundly  important  bearing  on 
one  of  the  positions  taken  in  the  "  Principles."  Then,  there  is  the  essay 
on  the  "  Energies  of  Men,"  and  still  others.  However,  within  the  limits  of 
his  book  M.  Menard  has  performed  a  service  for  which  lovers  of  William 
James  and  of  the  science  of  psychology  may  well  be  grateful. 

HORACE  M.  KALLEN. 
Tmc  UNIVERSITY  or  WISCONSIN. 

Justice  and  Happiness.     W.  BENETT.     Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.     1911. 

Pp.  140. 

Readers  of  Mr.  Benett's  "Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution,"  published 
several  years  ago,  will  be  somewhat  disappointed,  at  least  in  the  form  of 
the  two  essays,  "  Justice  "  and  "  Happiness,"  which  are  brought  together 
in  this  more  recent  volume.  The  author  shows  himself,  on  the  whole,  the 
same  close  and  independent  thinker;  he  is  often  suggestively  original  as 
well  as  independent;  but  he  seems  here  too  much  the  abstract  thinker. 
The  essays  are  so  much  more  of  the  concept-without-percept  type  than  the 
earlier  work.  Not  that  he  offers  no  illustrations,  but  such  illustrations  as 
he  gives  do  not  belong  so  convincingly  to  the  natural  scenery  of  thought. 
Again,  the  two  essays  are  more  than  merely  the  two  essays  which  they 
appear  to  be,  since  in  point  of  fact  the  author  has  only  one  subject, 
namely,  the  relation  of  justice  to  happiness,  and  for  his  failure  more 
openly  and  more  completely  to  organize  his  material  to  this  one  end  he 
should  be  criticized — at  least  with  a  gentle  reproof!  Still,  although  in 
both  of  the  ways  now  indicated  he  has  failed  to  make  thought  and  fact, 
form  and  matter  meet  in  a  wholly  successful  harmony,  nevertheless  any 
critic  must  feel  apologetic,  for  Mr.  Benett  has  certainly  made  an  interest- 
ing contribution  to  the  subject — or  subjects? — upon  which  he  has  written. 

To  give  a  very  brief  and  inadequate  statement  of  his  contentions,  the 
primary  interest  of  men  in  justice  is  not  acquisition  or  maintenance  of 
happiness,  but  security  for  freedom.  Primarily,  justice  makes  men  free — 
free  to  live,  free  to  realize  themselves,  free  in  a  "  forward  evolution." 
Thus  justice  is  either  retributive  or  distributive,  and  in  either  case  is  de- 
termined under  two  principles,  one  of  personal  equality,  the  other  of 
desert  or  "equality  of  value."  In  retributive  justice  there  is  no  conflict 
of  these  principles,  rewards  and  punishments  being  governed  entirely  by 
desert,  the  position  of  men  before  the  law,  by  personal  equality;  but  in 
distributive  justice  there  is  and  always  must  be  conflict,  for  here,  e.  g.,  in 
the  distribution  of  property  and  social  status,  desert  (especially  after 
modification  by  historic  development)  and  personal  equality  "  are  contra- 
dictory and  can  not  be  realized  concurrently  or  by  the  same  laws."  Ac- 
cordingly distributive  justice  is  always  a  compromise  between  equality  of 
persons  and  equality  of  deserts  or  perhaps  (again  remembering  how  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         361 

original  principal  of  equality  of  desert  has  been  obscured  by  history) 
"between  personal  equality  and  personal  inequality";1  or  say,  further, 
between  dispersion  and  accumulation  of  property,  between  socialism  and 
individualism,  in  taxation  between  a  poll  tax  and  a  graduated  property 
tax.  And,  being  such  a  compromise,  "  true  justice,  if  established,  will 
never  be  regarded  as  just  by  the  adherents  of  either  side  "  and,  "  because 
in  a  state  of  evolution  the  conditions  on  both  sides  are  always  shifting, 
both  terms  must  be  continually  under  revision"  (p.  57).  Justice,  in  other 
words,  is  ever  a  sort  of  restless  balancing,  an  unstable  equilibrium  of 
opposites  and  herein  one  hears  again  the  persistent  theme  of  the  author's 
Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution,  to  quote  now  the  rest  of  his  title,  "  viewed 
as  the  parallel  development  of  Opposites."  But,  justice  being  such  a 
mean  or  poise,  being  unjust  if  given  to  either  side  in  excess,  and  any 
deviation  from  its  character  of  a  mean,  as  in  either  insufficient  or  exces- 
sive respect  for  property,  bringing  the  dangers  of  degeneration,  of  ex- 
treme stability,  which  is  a  bar  to  progress,  of  deterioration  of  moral 
character,  and  of  one  form  and  another  of  despotism,  there  is  the  "  plain 
inference  that  what  we  have  to  thank  justice  for  is  that  it  protects  us 
from  those  dangers  and  secures  our  freedom  and  our  uninterrupted  prog- 
ress along  the  path  of  evolution  "  (p.  70).  As  for  happiness,  it  can  not  bo 
primarily  the  motive  of  man's  interest  in  justice,  for  justice,  as  has  been 
shown,  both  implies  and  seeks  life,  progress,  conflict,  while  happiness  "  is 
a  state  of  peace  or  harmony  from  which  the  feeling  of  conation  is  as 
completely  as  possible  excluded "  and  "  its  value  depends  entirely  on  the 
conduct  which  it  accompanies  "  (p.  124) .  "  To  pursue  happiness  must  be 
the  same  thing  as  to  avoid  conflict "  and  this  "  is  the  same  thing  as  to 
renounce  duty."  In  short  "  the  pursuit  of  happiness  as  a  direct  end 
empties  happiness  of  value,  and  the  only  prizes  it  offers  are  apples  of  the 
Dead  Sea"  (p.  125).  Happiness,  then,  can  no  more  be  the  motive  of 
justice  than  peace  is  the  motive  of  war.  "  Peace  may  be  had,  without  war 
and  without  honor,  by  submission.  When  men  go  to  war  it  is  for  freedom, 
and  the  love  of  freedom  is  a  higher  form  of  the  love  of  life.  Rather  than 
lose  that  they  would  forego  peace  and  live  in  perpetual  warfare.  And 
they  would  forego  not  only  peace,  but  happiness  also  "  (p.  121). 

Such  are  Mr.  Benett's  contentions  and  let  me  hope  that  by  my  at- 
tempts to  state  them  clearly  and  fairly  I  have  both  tempered  my  intro- 
ductory criticisms  and  justified  my  statement  that  he  has  made  an  in- 
teresting contribution  to  his  subject. 

ALFRED  H.  LLOYD. 

MUNICH,  BAVARIA. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW.  January,  1912.  Contribution 
to  the  History  of  the  Concept  of  Reality  (pp.  1-10)  :  OSWALD  KUELPE.  - 
By  the  concept  of  reality  is  meant  "  those  objects  whose  determination  is 

1  Vide  whole  of  author 's  excellent  summary,  pp.  40—41. 


362  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

arrived  at  by  the  several  empirical  sciences  and  their  supplementary  meta- 
physics, .  .  .  and  the  fact  becomes  clear  that  in  these  cases  there  is  some- 
thing postulated,  whose  being  and  becoming  are  quite  independent  of  all 
thinking  and  cognizing."  An  examination  of  the  concept  of  reality 
throughout  the  course  of  philosophy  shows  that  reality  is  postulated  and 
determined.  The  Problem  of  Time  in  Recent  French  Philosophy.  I. 
Renouvier  and  Recent  Temporalism  (pp.  11-31):  ARTHUR  O.  LOVEJOY. - 
The  beginning  of  a  series  of  papers  on  the  history  of  temporal  ism.  the 
series  to  consider  Renouvier,  Bergson,  Pillon,  and  James.  The  work  of 
Renouvier  is  here  reviewed.  Nietzsche  and  Democracy  (pp.  32-50) :  A. 
K  ItooERS. -An  exposition  and  criticism  of  the  three  main  features  of 
Nietzsche's  philosophy,  namely,  the  appeal  to  nature,  the  rejection  of  the 
social  and  sympathetic  virtues,  and  the  attempted  alliance  with  the  scien- 
tific dogma  of  natural  selection.  The  Consistency  of  Idealism  with  Real- 
ism (pp.  51-68) :  W.  H.  SHELDON.  - "  Realists  then  have  been  right  in 
asserting  the  reality  of  abstracted  unreduced  facts,  wrong  in  denying  that 
they  may  also  be  reduced  to  terms  of  mind.  Idealists  have  been  right  in 
asserting  the  finality  of  that  reduction,  wrong  in  denying  the  equal  final- 
ity of  the  abstract."  Discussion  (pp.  69-81) :  A  Reply  to  Professor 
Royce's  Critique  of  Instrumentalism:  JOHN  DEWEY.  Reviews  of  Books 
(pp.  82-97).  Hastings  Rashdall,  Philosophy  and  Religion:  H.  W.  STUART. 
Alfred  Walth  Whitehead  and  Bertrand  Russel,  Principia  Mathematica: 
MORRIS  R.  COHEN.  Simon  Deploige,  Le  Conflict  de  la  Morale  et  de  la 
Sociologie:  WARNER  FITE.  A.  E.  Taylor,  Varia  Socratica:  G.  S.  BRETT. 
Notices  of  New  Books.  Summaries  of  Articles.  Notes. 

ARCHIV  FUR  GESCHICHTE  DER  PHILOSOPHIE.  Band  25, 
Heft  2.  January,  1912.  Wilhelm  Dilthey  (pp.  143-153) :  A.  TUMARKIN. 
-  A  tribute.  Im  Druck  erscheinene  Schriften  von  Wilhelm  Dilthey  (pp. 
154-161)  :  H.  Zeeck.  -  111  of  Dilthey's  more  important  books  and  articles 
published  between  1859  and  1911.  Platon's  Oesetze  und  die  sizilische 
Reform  (pp.  162-174) :  J.  O.  EBERZ.  -  The  Philebus,  the  Statesman,  and 
the  Timseus  were  succeeded  by  the  Laws  in  Plato's  final  attempt  to  unite 
the  Sicilian  towns  in  a  reformed  state,  with  the  cooperation  of  Dion  and 
the  Pythagoreans.  Aristophanischer  und  geschichtlicher  Sokrates  (pp. 
175-195)  :  H.  ROCK.  - 1.  An  examination  of  previous  trials  for  sacrilege 
preparatory  to  contesting  Zeller's  position  that  Socrates's  execution  was 
a  judicial  murder.  Die  Anamnesis.  Ein  Beitrag  zum  Platonismus  (pp. 
196-225) :  E.  MULLER.  -  From  a  study  of  ten  of  Plato's  dialogues  it  is 
made  clear  how  essential  his  doctrine  of  anamnesis  is  to  an  understanding 
of  his  theory  of  knowledge,  and  of  mental  faculty.  Einige  wichtigere 
Erscheinungen  der  deutschen  Literatur  uber  die  Sokratische,  Platonische 
und  Aristotelische  Philosophic  1905-1906  (pp.  226-236) :  H.  GOMPERZ.  - 
A  critical  but  very  appreciative  review  of  A.  Boring's  Oeschichte  der 
griechischen  Philosophic,  and  a  combative  study  of  R.  Pohlmann's 
Sokratische  Studien,  to  be  continued.  Rezensionen  (pp.  237-245)  :  M. 
Wundt,  Oriechische  Weltanschauung:  R.  PHILLPPSON.  H.  H.  Bockwitz, 
Jean  Jacques  Gourds  Philosophisches  System:  B.  JORDAN.  G.  Falter, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         363 

Staatsideale  unserer  Klassiker:  B.  JORDAN.     Die  neuesten  Erscheinungen. 
Historische  Abhandlungen.     Eingegangene  Werke. 

EEVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  February,  1912.  La  substitution 
psychique  (pp.  113-139) :  E.  PAULHAN.  -  A  study,  in  pathological  and 
periodic  variations,  of  consciousness  in  three  phases  of  substitution;  when 
an  element  is  suppressed  in  a  preexisting  system  leaving  a  gap,  when  a 
new  element  comes  to  replace  one  that  has  temporarily  or  permanently  dis- 
appeared, and  when  a  new  element  is  accommodated  to  the  old  and  the  old 
to  a  new.  De  la  valeur  pratique  d'une  morale  fondee  sur  la  science  (pp. 
140-166)  :  J.-M.  LAHY.  -  Ethics  must  draw  its  ideals  from  the  contribu- 
tions of  science  and  the  certainty  of  a  scientific  ethics  gives  a  mental  calm 
and  enthusiasm  that  the  old  ethics  could  never  attain.  Les  grands  cour- 
ants  de  esthetique  allemande  contemporaine  (2e  et  dernier  article)  (pp. 
167-190)  :  V.  BASCH.  -  An  exposition  of  Lipps's  position,  and  the  "  science 
of  art "  of  Semper,  Grosse,  Wundt,  Schmarsow.  Analyses  et  comptes 
rendus.  Lash,  Die  Logic  der  Philosophic  und  die  Kategorienlehre :  A.  L. 
Les  methodes  juridiques  (Legons).  A.  Levy,  La  societe  et  Vordre  jurid- 
ique:  G.  KICHARD.  Cornejo,  Sociologie  generate:  DR.  S.  JANKELEVITCH. 
J.  Van  Biervliet,  Premiers  elements  de  pedagogic  experimental :  L. 
DUGAS.  A.  de  Fleuriau,  L'Activite  reflechie:  J.  DAGNAN-BOUVERET. 
Werner  Klette,  fiber  Theorien  und  Probleme  der  Buhnenillusion:  L. 
ARREAT.  Berthelot,  Un  romanticisme  utilitaire:  FR.  P.  Broder  Chris- 
tiansen, Kritik  der  Kantischen  Erkenntnislehre :  J.  SECOND.  J.  Burnet, 
Plato's  Phcedo :  C.  HUIT.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 

Coffey,  P.  The  Science  of  Logic.  Volume  I.  New  York:  Longmans, 
Green,  and  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xx  +  445.  $2.50. 

Dubray,  Charles  A.  Introductory  Philosophy:  A  Text-Book  for  Colleges 
and  High  Schools.  New  York:  Longmans,  Green,  and  Company. 
1912.  Pp.  xxi  -f  624.  $2.60. 

Elliot,  Hugh  S.  R.  Modern  Science  and  the  Illusions  of  Professor  Berg- 
son.  New  York :  Longmans,  Green,  and  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xix  -f- 
257.  $1.60. 

Gesell,  Arnold  L.  and  Beatrice  C.  The  Normal  Child  and  Primary 
Education.  New  York :  Ginn  and  Company.  1912.  Pp.  x  +  342. 
$1.25. 

Lickley,  J.  D.  The  Nervous  System:  An  Elementary  Handbook  of  its 
Anatomy  and  Physiology.  New  York:  Longmans,  Green,  and  Com- 
pany. 1912.  Pp.  xii  -f  130.  $1.80. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

AT  the  meeting  of  the  Aristotelian  Society  on  May  6,  Miss  Beatrice 
Edgell  read  a  paper  on  "  Imagery  and  Memory."  "  In  examining  the 
orders  of  fact  which  it  is  necessary  for  psychological  analysis  to  recognize 
in  its  attempt  to  deal  with  memory  as  a  cognitive  state  of  consciousness, 


3i,4  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

we  may,  following  Bergson,  distinguish  retention,  the  memory  which 
repeats,  the  memory  of  habit  and  practise,  from  the  memory  which 
imagines,  memory  proper.  The  differing  forms  of  the  latter — recognition, 
persistence,  reminiscence,  suggested  recall,  and  recollection — manifest  with 
varying  degrees  of  distinctness  three  orders  of  fact :  an  act,  reference  back 
to  the  past,  imagery  and  meaning  or  object  remembered.  Imagery  is 
treated  as  the  product  of  the  reference  back,  the  form  in  which  conscious- 
ness responds  to  a  given  situation.  It  is  "  presentation,"  distinguishable 
from  the  act  of  remembering  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  the  meaning  or 
what  is  remembered  on  the  otherx  Unless  "  presentation  "  be  so  recog- 
nized, there  is  no  justification  for  regarding  a  cognitive  state  of  conscious- 
ness as  generically  different  from  other  forms  of  conscious  experience. 
All  consciousness  would  then  be  reducible  to  one  supreme  category — cona- 
tion. A  sketch  plan  of  such  a  merely  conative  psychology  has  been  worked 
out  by  Professor  Alexander.  But  the  attempt  to  eliminate  '  presentation  ' 
leads  to  insuperable  difficulties.  When  imagery  is  treated  as  object  and 
non-mental,  the  '  pastness '  of  what  is  remembered  becomes  unintelligible, 
while  the  memory  of  the  subject's  own  past  states  of  consciousness  is  ex 
hypothesi  impossible,  for  such  past  states  can  not  be  non-mental  objects. 
Memory  in  this  case  has  to  be  translated  into  '  revival '  or  *  renewal/  but 
such  a  translation  proves  upon  examination  inadequate  to  the  fact  as  con- 
sciously experienced." — The  Athenaum. 

J.  CARLETON  BELL,  Ph.D.  (Harvard),  managing  editor  of  the  Journal 
of  Educational  Psychology  and  director  of  the  psychological  laboratory  in 
the  Brooklyn  Training  School  for  Teachers,  has  been  appointed  professor 
of  the  art  of  teaching  in  the  University  of  Texas.  Dr.  Bell  will  devote 
his  attention  chiefly  to  the  experimental  investigation  of  problems  of 
teaching. 

STEPHEN  S.  COLVIN,  Ph.B.  (Brown,  '91),  Ph.D.  (Strasburg,  '97),  pro- 
fessor of  psychology  in  the  University  of  Illinois,  has  accepted  a  chair  in 
educational  psychology  in  Brown  University,  newly  established  in  coopera- 
tion with  the  State  Board  of  Education  with  the  assistance  of  an  appro- 
priation made  by  the  state  legislature. — Science. 

PROFESSOR  HUGO  MUNSTERBERG,  who  has  now  sailed  for  Europe,  gave 
an  address  on  June  4  before  the  Naval  War  College  in  Newport,  R.  L,  on 
"  The  Psychology  of  the  Navy,"  and  an  address  on  June  5  before  the 
American  Association  for  Labor  Legislation  on  "  The  Psychology  of  In- 
dustrial Efficiency." — Science. 

THE  fourth  annual  meeting  of  the  Minnesota  Psychological  Confer- 
ence was  held  at  the  University  of  Minnesota  on  March  29.  The  morning 
session  was  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  Treatment  and  Diagnosis  of 
Exceptional  Children. 

PROFESSOR  G.  M.  WHEPPLE,  of  Cornell  University,  has  been  granted  a 
half  year's  leave  of  absence.  He  will  make  a  study  of  the  recent  develop- 
ments in  applied  and  educational  psychology  in  various  educational  cen- 
ters of  Europe. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  14.  JULY  4,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  RELA- 
TION BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY1 

JAM  not  sure  that  the  title  of  this  paper  conveys  the  proper  idea 
of  its  contents.  It  might  have  been  more  correct  to  call  it 
' '  The  Ghost  Theory  of  Animal  Behavior. ' '  But  that  might  have  im- 
pressed the  hearer  as  too  sensational. 

At  the  last  meeting  of  the  Psychological  Association,  during  the 
discussion  of  the  place  of  psychology  in  medical  education,  one  of 
the  speakers  found  it  necessary  to  warn  against  including  in  the 
teaching  of  psychology  a  discussion  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body.  Let  me  say  at  once  that  I  hold,  on  the  contrary,, 
that  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  is  the  chief  one, 
if  not  the  only  one,  for  the  adequate  discussion  of  which  the  medical 
student  should  turn  to  psychology,  for  practically  every  other  con- 
tent of  the  modern  science  of  psychology  is  available  to  him  in  his 
courses  other  than  those  going  under  the  name  of  psychology.  Yet 
in  spite  of  the  apparent  contrast  of  opinion,  as  just  stated,  I  feel  cer- 
tain that  my  own  ideals  are  not  essentially  different  from  those  of 
the  gentleman  referred  to.  The  contrast  of  opinion  results  chiefly 
from  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  "  relation  of  mind  and  body."  I 
object  to  throwing  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  out 
of  the  curriculum  of  a  medical  student  just  because  some  teachers  of 
psychology  can  see  in  it  no  more  than  the  endless  repetition  of  tra- 
ditional metaphysical  speculation. 

If  we  follow  the  traditions  of  past  centuries,  a  discussion  of  the 
relation  of  mind  and  body  is  merely  the  discussion  of  metaphysical 
arguments  in  favor  of  adopting  the  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  meta- 
physical war-cries,  interaction  or  parallelism.  I  can  readily  under- 
stand why  any  one  who  expects  of  science,  not  terms  suitable  for 
shouting,  but  terms  suitable  for  clearer  and  more  comprehensive 
thinking,  should  get  disgusted  with  these  terms  interaction  and  paral- 

1  Bead  before  the  Western  Philosophical  Association,  University  of  Chicago, 
April  6,  1912. 

365 


"'><>  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

lelism.  If  these  terms  mean  anything  to  me,  they  mean  this.  Any 
mental  state  of  mine,  I  am  convinced  on  scientific,  empirical  grounds, 
is  in  a  specially  direct  manner  dependent  on  (mathematically  speak- 
ing, is  a  function  of)  one  or  more  variables  of  the  nature  of  nervous 
activity.  Suppose  we  refer  to  such  mental  and  nervous  variables  as 
corresponding  values.  Then  the  question  arises :  Do  such  correspond- 
ing values  make  their  appearance  in  our  experience  strictly  simul- 
taneously or  in  succession  ?  In  the  latter  case  we  have  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect;  that  is,  we  accept  interaction.  If,  however,  there 
is  strict  simultaneity,  we  can  not  speak  of  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect;  that  is,  we  accept  parallelism.  Now,  it  is  almost  incompre- 
hensible that  philosophers  should  have  wasted  their  energies  for  cen- 
turies in  order  to  derive  from  metaphysical  arguments  an  answer  to 
a  question  which  can  be  answered  only  by  appealing  to  observation. 
Imagine  that  geographers  had  attempted  to  derive  from  metaphys- 
ical speculation  an  answer  to  the  question  whether  the  North  Pole 
was  located  on  the  ocean  or  on  a  continent.  They  had  to  wait  pa- 
tiently until  some  one  had  made  the  observation.  We  shall  have  to 
wait  patiently  until  an  instrument  (let  us  think  of  an  X-ray  mirror) 
will  have  been  invented  which  enables  a  person  having  a  mental 
state  to  observe  the  corresponding  value,  the  corresponding  objective 
process  in  his  own  nervous  system  without  the  slightest  interference 
with  the  normal  function  of  this  nervous  system.  Then  we  shall  be 
able  to  decide  whether  the  corresponding  experiences,  subjective  and 
objective,  are  strictly  simultaneous  or  successive.  Until  then  let  us 
wait  and  not  spend  any  more  time  on  interaction  and  parallelism 
than  what  is  sufficient  to  describe  the  problem  to  the  student  as  a 
problem  whose  solution  lies  in  the  future. 

"With  the  rise  of  modern  biological  science  parallelism  seemed  to 
be  destined  to  beat  its  rival  into  oblivion.  But  a  curious  reaction  has 
set  in,  and  the  latest  book  on  this  subject-matter,  that  of  William 
McDougall  ("Body  and  Mind")  steps  before  the  public  eye  as  an 
outspoken  and  very  able  defender  of  interaction.  What  has  brought 
about  this  evolution  and  attempt  at  revolution,  for  no  name  other 
than  revolution  seems  to  me  significant  enough  for  the  attempt  to 
answer  our  question  thus  one-sidedly?  It  might  be  said  that  the 
preceding  parallelism  was  equally  one-sided.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
this  can  not  be  said  of  the  parallelism  of  that  class  of  men  whom  we 
may  compare  with  McDougall — of  the  biologists.  With  the  biolo- 
gists, especially  those  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  confession  of 
parallelism  did  not  mean  the  dogmatic  solution  of  the  problem  which, 
as  just  stated,  can  be  solved  only  by  future  observation;  it  really 
meant  only  a  confession  of  their  belief  that  animal  life,  including 
human  life,  in  all  its  phases  and  without  any  exception,  could  be 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          367 

scientifically  described  without  any  reference  whatsoever  to  subjec- 
tive states,  to  states  of  consciousness.  McDougall  sees  that  this  is 
the  meaning  of  the  term  parallelism  in  the  biology  of  the  last  cen- 
turies. He  sees  this  so  clearly  that  he  defines  his  own  view,  inter- 
action, as  meaning  that  a  scientific  understanding  of  animal  life  is 
made  possible  only  by  introducing  into  the  chain  of  causes  and 
effects  the  subjective  factor,  consciousness. 

Should  we  side  with  the  majority  of  the  biologists  or  with  Mc- 
Dougall and  those  others  of  a  similar  trend  who  assure  us  of  the  in- 
sufficiency of  a  purely  objective  science  of  animal  life  ?  Before  I  give 
my  answer,  I  invite  you  to  glance  back  over  a  few  thousand  years  of 
human  thought.  There  was  a  time  when  no  strange  event  seemed 
comprehensible  to  the  human  race  unless  it  was  referred  to  a  god,  a 
ghost,  a  demon  as  its  source.  Lightning  was  fire  thrown  by  the 
weather  god.  A  king  eating  grass  did  so  because  he  was  possessed 
of  a  demon.  A  friend  found  dead  in  his  bed  in  the  morning  had 
been  smitten  by  a  ghost.  We  no  longer  think  in  this  way.  We  no 
longer  think  of  an  epidemic,  for  example,  as  the  work  of  gods  taking 
revenge.  Is  not  all  progress  of  modern  science  due  to  the  fact  that 
scientists  have  consistently  discarded  all  ghosts  as  causes  explaining 
any  natural  phenomenon  ?  And  now  we  are  asked  to  be  inconsistent. 
In  the  explanation  of  animal,  and  especially  human,  life  we  are 
asked  to  introduce  the  ghost,  consciousness,  as  a  cause.  Truly,  be- 
fore we  take  such  an  inconsistent  step,  strong  proofs  should  be  re- 
quired that  thereby  we  may  hope  to  gain  a  scientific  advantage. 

Let  no  one  object  that  introducing  consciousness  into  the  explana- 
tion of  animal  life,  of  animal  behavior,  is  not  the  same  as  intro- 
ducing a  ghost  into  the  explanation  of  an  epidemic,  for  one's  own 
consciousness  is  surely  not  an  illusion.  But  here  is  the  point:  "one's 
own."  The  scientist  who  gives  an  explanatory  description  of  an 
epidemic  does  not  describe  the  disease  from  which  he  is  suffering 
himself,  lying  on  his  death  bed.  He  describes,  if  not  exclusively,  at 
least  chiefly,  his  experience  of  the  diseases  which  have  stricken  other 
people.  And  the  scientist  who  portrays  animal  behavior  describes 
chiefly  his  experience  of  the  behavior  of  other  organisms,  not  his 
own.  But  the  consciousness  of  other  organisms  is  not  an  experi- 
ence. It  is  a  ghost  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  explanation  like 
the  ghost  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  an  epidemic. 

What,  now,  are  the  scientific  advantages  which  are  offered  us,  if 
we  show  ourselves  willing  to  deviate  from  the  established  custom 
of  several  centuries  of  scientific  progress,  if  we  show  ourselves  will- 
ing to  introduce,  in  our  study  of  animal  behavior,  the  ghost  into  our 
explanations  ?  Let  me  quote  McDougall,  whom  I  regard  as  the  ablest 
champion  of  the  ' '  ghost  theory ' '  of  animal  behavior.  He  adopts  for 


368  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

this  theory  the  name  of  "animism."  He  says:  "Animism  recom- 
mends itself  because  it  points  to  a  great  unknown  in  which  great 
discoveries  still  await  the  intrepid  explorer,  a  vast  region  at  whose 
mysteries  we  can  hardly  guess,  but  to  which  we  can  look  forward 
with  wonder  and  awe,  and  towards  which  we  may  go  in  a  spirit  of 
joyful  adventure,  confident  in  the  knowledge  that,  though  sup 
tion  is  old,  science  is  still  young."  I  have  been  unable  to  find  that 
McDougall  claims  for  his  view  any  other  scientific  advantage.  I  do 
not  know  how  others  estimate  the  weight  of  this  one ;  to  me  it  has  no 
weight  at  all.  I  am  too  much  aware  of  the  present  incompleteness 
of  our  neurological  science,  of  the  existence  of  a  great  unknown 
lying  there  before  the  intrepid  explorer,  too  enthusiastic  and  hope- 
ful in  my  endeavor  to  clear  up  my  notions  of  the  manner  in  which 
animal  behavior  depends  on  nervous  functions,  too  much  embued 
with  the  spirit  of  joyful  adventure  in  the  field  of  objective  science, — 
to  turn  to  the  ghost  theory  for  a  mental  tonic,  for  inspiration  and 
encouragement.  If  that  is  the  whole  scientific  advantage  offered  by 
the  ghost  theory,  I  must  say  that  I  do  not  need  it.  Let  him  accept 
the  ghost  theory  who  has  already  despaired  of  further  progress  of 
the  objective  science  of  nature,  who  needs  a  bracing  up.  I  do  not 
need  it. 

If  there  is  no  real  scientific  advantage  attaching  to  the  ghost 
theory,  how  are  we  to  understand  its  reawakening,  under  the  name 
of  interactionism  or  animism,  among  psychologists,  after  it  had 
seemed,  for  many  years,  to  have  been  laid  into  the  grave  with  its 
last  defender,  Lotze?  There  are  two  reasons  for  this.  First,  it  had 
suffered  under  an  argument  unjustly  wielded  against  it.  The  asser- 
tion had  been  made  and  had  been  generally  accepted  that  the  theory 
was  incompatible  with  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy.  Fifteen 
years  ago  Stumpf  succeeded  in  pricking  this  bubble.  Unfortunately, 
however,  some  psychologists  mistook  the  annihilation  of  that  hostile 
argument  for  a  positive  proof  of  the  value  of  the  ghost  theory,  which, 
obviously,  it  could  not  be.  The  second  reason  is  of  greater  signifi- 
cance. The  neuron  theory  held  its  sway  over  neurology,  and,  as  a 
part  of  this  theory,  appeared  the  doctrine  of  the  synapse.  The  ear, 
say,  is  stimulated.  A  nervous  process  runs  along  a  neuron,  but  only 
to  find  itself  blocked  at  a  point  which  is  both  an  end  point  of  the 
path  thus  far  taken  and  a  division  point  from  which  many  directions 
may  be  taken.  The  tension  becomes  greater  and  greater.  The  proto- 
plasm stretches  out  its  arms  like  an  amoeba  and  touches  the  proto- 
plasm of  another  neuron.  The  nervous  process  then  crosses  this 
bridge.  Thus  far  this  seems  plausible,  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
synapse  has  always  seemed  plausible  to  the  neurologist  who  asked  no 
further  question.  But  the  psychologist  asks  a  further  and  abso- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          369 

lutely  essential  question:  Why  does  the  protoplasm  stretch  towards 
one  neighboring  neuron  when  the  organism  happens  to  be  in  one 
situation,  towards  another  neuron  when  the  organism  is  in  another 
situation  ?  General  silence  with  the  neurologists.  But  some  psychol- 
ogists had  an  answer  ready.  They  brought  in  their  deus  ex  machina. 
The  ghost  does  it.  Consciousness,  feeling,  will,  or  whatever  you  call 
it,  turns  the  bridge  in  the  proper  direction  as  the  switchman  turns 
the  switch  in  the  railway  yard.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  synapse  is 
largely  responsible  for  the  reawakening  of  the  ghost  theory  of  ani- 
mal behavior. 

Although  it  does  not  interest  us  directly,  I  can  not  forbear  men- 
tioning as  a  curiosity  the  fine  reasoning  of  some  psychologists  tell- 
ing us  that  the  mere  causal  determination,  selection,  of  one  direction 
among  many  thinkable  ones  did  not  require  an  expenditure  of 
energy  and  therefore  could  well  be  regarded  as  the  work  of  the 
ghost.  As  if  the  direction  of  anything,  say,  a  pole  losing  its  balance 
on  the  tip  of  the  nose  of  a  circus  clown,  could  be  causally  determined 
without  the  expenditure  of  energy. 

It  was  among  European  psychologists  chiefly  that  the  physiolog- 
ical doctrine  of  the  synapse  reintroduced  the  ghost  into  the  explana- 
tion of  animal  behavior.  In  America  the  ghost  became  popular 
through  the  great  influence  of  one  man,  James,  whose  followers  as- 
sign to  one  kind  of  mental  states  which  does  not  seem  to  have  any 
proper  business,  to  the  feelings,  the  job  of  stamping  in  and  stamp- 
ing out  complete  paths  of  nervous  conduction.  But  they  never  state 
any  definite  law  explaining  how  the  proper  feeling  itself,  with  its 
stamping  power  turned  in  the  proper  direction,  comes  into  existence 
at  the  proper  time. 

We  now  reach  the  crucial  point  of  the  issue  which  I  intend  to 
present.  According  to  McDougall,  those  who  reject,  or  do  not  favor, 
the  ghost  theory  of  animal  behavior  do  so  because  they  lack  the  cour- 
age to  accept  an  incomplete  world  picture.  But  I  charge  that,  on 
the  contrary,  those  who  adopt  the  ghost  theory  lack  the  courage  to 
accept  an  incomplete  world  picture  and  to  wait  for  future  research 
in  natural  science  to  complete  it.  Too  impatient  to  wait,  they  fill 
in  the  gap  writh  a  ghost,  with  unexperienced  consciousness,  with  the 
concept  of  something  which  is  unmeasurable,  to  which  none  of  the 
methods  of  scientific  research  are  applicable.  If  any  one  claims  that 
my  assertion  is  wrong,  that  the  methods  of  scientific  research  are 
applicable  to  the  ghost  which  is  made  to  bridge  the  gap  of  causal 
connections  in  animal  behavior,  I  challenge  him  to  state  a  single  in- 
stance. He  will  not  assert  that  such  work  as  the  classical  experi- 
ments of  Ebbinghaus  on  memory  serves  as  such  an  instance.  Mc- 
Dougall himself  admits  expressly  that  they  are  a  purely  objective 


370  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

study  of  verbal  ha  I.  its.  that  they  are  no  measurements  of  conscious- 
MM, 

Hi>\\,  (hen,  did  men,  so  much  in  earnest  about  psychological  prog- 
ress as  McDougall,  become  so  overwhelmed  with  despair  that  they 
had  to  appeal  to  the  ghost  theory  for  help,  or  rather  for  mere  com- 
fort? The  answer  is  simple.  They  attempted  in  vain  to  conceive  of 
a  nervous  process  as  being  capable  of  forcing  another  nervous  proc- 
ess from  its  own  path  into  a  new  path.  It  is  the  demand  for  such  a 
conception  that  I  have  tried  to  supply  in  my  book  on  the  "Funda- 
mental Laws  of  Human  Behavior." 

The  most  important  concept  applied  to  animal  behavior  is  that 
of  an  experience.  We  mean  by  an  experience  that  an  animal,  in  a 
new  situation,  acts  in  a  new  way  in  response  to  the  same  stimulus, 
that  is,  that  the  nervous  process  from  a  certain  sensory  point  does 
not  pass  along  the  path  of  least  resistance,  but  along  a  path  of  higher 
resistance.  In  order  to  understand  that  a  nervous  process  proceeds 
over  a  path  other  than  that  of  least  resistance,  we  must  speak  of  its 
being  forced.  But  we  need  not  speak  of  its  being  forced  by  a  ghost. 
When  a  person,  say,  a  school-boy,  instead  of  moving  along  the  path 
of  least  resistance,  which  leads  to  a  circus  parade,  is  forced  away 
from  this  path  towards  his  school,  he  is  forced  most  probably  by 
another  person,  his  mother,  or  a  truant  officer;  but  certainly  not  by  a 
ghost,  a  good  or  evil  demon.  When  a  nervous  process  is  forced  to 
stream  over  a  path  other  than  that  of  least  resistance,  it  is  forced 
most  probably  by  another  nervous  process.  If  psychologists  had 
been  less  slow  in  thinking  this  simple  thought,  they  would  have  been 
less  quick  in  introducing  the  ghost  who  is  supposed,  in  the  nervous 
system,  to  take  a  place  equivalent  to  that  of  a  switchman  of  a  rail- 
way yard,  or  a  lineman  of  a  telephone  company,  or  a  stamper  of  a 
sheet  metal  factory,  but  who,  in  the  nervous  system,  is  simply  a  deus 
ex  machina.  I  have  shown  in  my  book  that  it  is  possible  to  under- 
stand all  the  fundamental  facts  of  animal  life  experience  by  simply 
conceiving  of  any  nervous  process  as  capable  of  forcing,  under  cer- 
tain conditions,  any  other  nervous  process  out  of  the  path 
of  least  resistance  into  another  definite  path.  The  doctrine  of  the 
synapse  is  then  entirely  superfluous.  To  enter  into  the  details  of  this 
conception  and  its  application  to  the  various  forms  of  animal  (in- 
cluding human)  behavior,  this  is  neither  the  time  nor  the  place. 

If,  then,  a  purely  objective  science  of  animal  behavior  must  be 
the  ideal  towards  which  to  strive  to-day  as  much  as,  and  even  more 
than,  at  any  previous  period  of  science,  can  we  afford  to  omit  all 
reference  to  subjective  states  in  the  instruction  given  to  scientific, 
and  especially  medical,  students?  May  be  that  the  time  will  come 
when  we  can  afford  it,  but  my  study  of  the  most  modern  advances  in 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         371 

that  branch  of  medical  science  which  particularly  concerns  us,  in 
psychiatry,  furnishes  me  sufficient  proof  that  that  time  has  not  ar- 
rived yet.  I  have  in  mind  that  successful  movement  of  studying  and 
treating  hysteria  and  related  disturbances  which  has  become  associ- 
ated with  the  name  of  the  Austrian  psychiater,  Freud.  His 
analysis  of  the  individual's  life  leads  to  a  systematic  reeducation  of 
the  organism  along  definite  lines,  which  is  beginning  to  replace  the 
former  therapeutic  methods  of  strong,  but  haphazard  suggestions, 
hypnotic  or  non-hypnotic ;  and  this  analysis  is  made  almost  exclu- 
sively in  subjective  terms.  It  is  too  early,  then,  to  renounce  under 
any  and  all  conditions  all  subjective  terms  in  psychology.  We  can 
not  put  them  out  of  the  world  by  putting,  like  the  proverbial  ostrich, 
our  heads  in  the  sand  so  that  we  do  not  see  them. 

But  then,  certainly,  it  is  impossible  to  keep  the  purely  objec- 
tive description  of  animal,  or  let  me  now  rather  say  "human," 
behavior  and  its  subjective  description  in  tight  compartments; 
but  a  mixing  up  of  them  is  equally  unjustified.  We  need  to  es- 
tablish definite  relations  between  our  subjective  and  our  objective 
terms,  so  that,  instead  of  mixing  them  up,  we  can  translate  the  one 
into  the  other.  Then  only  will  it  be  possible  to  utilize  the  advances 
made  at  the  present  time  in  psychiatry  for  the  advancement  of  an 
objective  science  of  human  behavior.  We  must  try  to  establish  defi- 
nite nervous  correlates  for  all  the  specific  mental  states  and  mental 
functions  which  are  used  in  and  seemingly  can  not  be  spared  from 
our  descriptions  of  human  life  in  the  mental  and  social  sciences.  I 
venture  to  predict  that  those  terms  of  mental  function,  for  which  no 
nervous  correlate  can  be  found,  are  the  very  ones  which  are  super- 
fluous, can  be  spared  from  our  descriptions  of  mental  life  in  man  and 
animals.  When  a  few  years  ago  I  made  an  attempt  at  establishing 
some  such  nervous  correlates,  I  found  to  my  surprise  that  most  psy- 
chologists did  not  seem  to  see  the  use  of  them.  They  failed  to  see  the 
difference  between  such  definite  correlates  and  the  vague  generalities 
of  our  text-books  stating  that,  whenever  anything  is  to  go  on  in  our 
minds,  something  must  go  on  in  our  brain;  or  that,  whenever  any 
brain  function  is  fixed,  it  is  fixed  by  the  satisfaction  which  it  gives 
to  the  mind.  Such  generalities  may  be  true ;  but  to  me  it  makes  no 
practical  difference  whether  they  are  true  or  not,  because  they  are 
no  solutions  of  scientific  problems,  for  reasons  stated  throughout  the 
whole  length  of  this  paper. 

In  the  establishment  of  definite  correlates  of  specific  mental  func- 
tions and  of  specific  nervous  functions  I  see  the  present-day  problem 
of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body. 

MAX  MEYER. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MISSOURI. 


372  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DISCUSSION 
SOME  ASPECTS  OF  PROFESSOR  FITE'S  INDIVIDUALISM 

I  FIND  myself  with  considerable  sympathy  for  what  I  interpret 
as  Professor  Fite's  purpose  in  his  recent  book.  Indeed  I  am 
not  sure  that  what  I  have  to  say  involves  much  more  than  a  change 
of  emphasis.  I  am  ready  at  any  rate  to  agree  that  the  logic  of  a 
fully  conscious  individualism  looks  in  the  direction  which  he  urges. 
The  principle  of  democracy,  as  distinguished  from  what  may  loosely 
be  called  communism,  is  indeed  just  this,  that  each  man  shall,  not 
surrender  his  aims  to  the  general  welfare,  but  adjust  them  to  a  full 
and  free  recognition  of  the  similar  aims  of  other  men,  on  the  faith 
that  only  thus  can  he  fulfill  his  own  life  most  abundantly. 

But  along  with  a  communistic  ideal  of  the  state,  such  as  Professor 
Fite  seems  to  have  chiefly  in  mind  to  criticize,  motivated  by  altruistic 
feelings,  and  logically  dependent,  therefore,  upon  the  somewhat 
remote  hope  that  men  can  be  induced  voluntarily  to  surrender  such 
advantages  as  they  possess  to  their  less  successful  neighbors,  there  is 
an  alternative  position  which,  though  sharply  opposed  to  the  con- 
ception of  democracy,  adopts  equally  with  it  the  presuppositions  of 
individualism.  It  differs,  however,  in  giving  to  certain  individuals 
a  preference,  and  in  holding  that  their  more  important  claims  can 
only  be  met  through  the  absence  of  a  complete  autonomy  and  satis- 
faction in  a  considerable  number  of  their  fellow  men.  Of  course  no 
one  who  is  not  entirely  stupid  can  fail  to  see  that  the  logic  of  his  own 
private  interest  demands  that  he  allow  some  other  men  to  get  their 
way,  too.  But  plenty  of  people  do  believe,  with  much  confidence, 
that  they  can  and  ought  to  stop  short  of  a  universal  tolerance. 

Now  at  this  point  I  have  not  been  able  to  make  up  my  mind  with 
certainty  just  what  Professor  Fite's  attitude  is.  On  the  practical 
side  I  suppose  he  intends  at  least  to  say  this:  first,  that  people  can 
never  be  largely  benefited  until  they  have  an  intelligent  understand- 
ing of  their  own  needs  and  purposes  and  are  ready  to  assert  these  for 
themselves,  instead  of  leaving  them  to  the  good  will  of  others ;  and, 
secondly,  that  schemes  of  social  reform,  to  be  effective,  must  be  framed 
primarily  to  appeal  to  interests,  rather  than  to  benevolence  and 
charity,  to  supply  their  motive  force.  So  far  I  am  inclined  very 
largely  to  agree,  as  a  question  of  where  the  emphasis  had  better  lie 
in  the  promoting  of  political  and  social  measures.  Talk  about 
humanity  and  disinterested  justice  has  indeed  an  important  prepara- 
tory value  in  breaking  up  the  inertia  of  the  public  mind  in  the  face 
of  new  proposals,  to  which  I  doubt  if  Professor  Fite  is  altogether 
fair.  But  after  all  if  concrete  changes  are  to  be  brought  about  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         373 

are  to  continue  to  work  well  in  practise,  men  have  got  to  be  shown 
that  these  are  to  their  interest.  The  average  citizen,  for  example, 
must  be  made  to  realize  that  his  taxes  are  increased  or  his  business 
opportunities  lessened  by  public  graft,  before  he  can  be  held  in  line 
for  municipal  reform ;  and  the  disposition  to  substitute  such  definite 
economic  considerations  that  come  home  to  self-interest,  for  humani- 
tarian exhortation,  is  one  of  the  best  guarantees  of  the  probable  suc- 
cess of  any  wave  of  reform.  Back  of  this  there  may  be,  and  indeed 
I  have  no  doubt  there  must  somewhere  be,  a  temper  of  moral  fervor. 
But  the  less  we  talk  about  this  and  accentuate  it  as  the  professed 
motive,  and  the  more  we  apply  ourselves  to  the  rational  business  of 
working  out  the  situation  in  a  form  to  enlist  a  sufficient  multitude 
of  private  interests,  the  more  reforms  are  likely  to  lose  their  spas- 
modic character  and  become  settled  principles  of  action. 

But  now  while  this  is  good  advice  to  the  reformer  and  to  those  in 
whose  special  interest  a  change  is  sought,  I  do  not  feel  so  clear  about 
the  state  of  mind  which  it  recommends  to  the  powerful  classes  who 
are  already  in  possession,  or  who  by  their  superior  intelligence,  have 
the  immediate  directing  of  the  future.  So  far  as  bringing  influence 
to  bear  upon  them  goes,  I  agree,  because  it  seems  to  be  the  fact  that 
we  are  foolish  to  trust  much  to  exhortation.  We  ought  rather  to 
gird  up  our  loins  and  convince  them  that  they  can  not  disregard  us 
with  safety  to  themselves ;  and  in  so  far  as  they  are  intelligent  they 
will  doubtless  in  the  end  see  the  point  and  act  accordingly.  But 
what  is  the  temper  of  mind  that  Professor  Fite  would  ethically 
approve  and  justify  on  their  own  part?  Does  reason  prescribe  that 
they  wait  passively  for  the  corresponding  development  of  intelligence 
in  other  men,  exploiting  them  meanwhile  as  without  rightsuntiTthey 
are  able  to  enforce  these  rights?  or  does  justice  demand  that  they 
take  such  men  into  account  from  the  start  as  potentially  capable  of 
autonomy,  and  so,  as  having  rights  to  be  respected?  Professor  Fite 
gives  some  ground  for  believing  that  the  first  is  his  meaning;  if  so, 
I  have  no  wish  to  defend  him.  But  his  idealistic  logic  seems  to  me 
rather  to  look  the  other  way.  Much  of  this  appears  without  point 
unless  it  intends  to  hold  that  a  complete  self-interest  will  find  itself 
imperfectly  fulfilled,  except  as  others  are  equally  self-conscious  and 
autonomous ;  and  if  this  is  so,  one  is  failing  in  duty  to  himself  unless 
he  does  what  he  can  to  further  the  development  of  security  for  equal 
rights  to  all,  even  before  these  can  be  enforced  upon  him.  The  same 
claims  would  thus  rest  upon  him  as  on  the  ordinary  showing;  only 
the  source  of  these  would  be  his  own  welfare,  rather  than  something 
from  the  outside  that  calls  for  sacrifice  and  altruism.  Subject  to 
correction,  I  am  inclined  to  suppose  that  this  is  really  Professor  Fite's 
meaning,  and  that  apparent  evidence  to  the  contrary  is  due  to  the 


374  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

fact  that  he  has  not  sufficiently  separated  two  different  standpoints — 
the  standpoint  of  the  reformer,  who  asks  what  he  can  safely  presup- 
pose in  other  men  as  a  working  basis  of  reform,  and  the  inner  stand- 
point of  the  intelligent  man  himself  in  face  of  the  question  what 
rights  he  shall  concede  voluntarily  to  his  weaker  neighbor. 

But  here  another  query  arises  about  Professor  Fite's  philosophy. 
He  has,  as  I  understand  him,  a  twofold  problem.  Primarily,  per- 
haps, he  is  trying  to  refute  what  he  considers  the  sentimentalism  of 
the  humanitarian.  But  also  he  is  attempting  to  justify  rationally 
the  claims  of  social  conduct  apart  from  such  an  altruistic  motive. 
Now  it  is  when  the  aristocratically-minded  man  is  to  be  convinced  of 
this  that  I  feel  a  lack  of  conclusiveness  on  Professor  Fite's  argument. 
I  agree  that  the  most  likely  way  to  reach  him  is  by  showing  him  that 
he  is  playing  the  fool,  is  ignoring  facts  which  he  ought  to  face,  and 
which  are  preventing  the  best  attainment  of  his  own  desires.  But  I 
hesitate  to  believe  that  this  demand  is  always  capable  of  being  met 
completely,  or  that  it  is  sufficiently  met  by  an  appeal  to  the  nature  of 
consciousness  as  such.  And  the  reason,  on  the  side  of  theory,  is  this, 
that  I  find  it  difficult  to  separate  jntellige^ce_from  the  particular 
nature  of  the  desires  which  it  may  endeavor  to  serve.  The  inclusive- 
ness  with  which  a  man  is  going  to  admit  foreign  ends  within  his  own 
system  will  depend  upon  the  character  of  the  objects  which  he  thinks 
worth  while  attaining;  and  this  can  not  be  assumed  forthwith  as  of 
just  one  standard  quality.  What  am  I  to  say,  for  example,  if  I  come 
across  an  ideal  which  apparently  gets  satisfaction  through  compelling 
as  many  other  men  as  possible  to  do  its  bidding — which  seems  to  aim 
at  the  very  act  of  keeping  others  under,  because  this  affords  an 
enjoyable  sense  of  superiority  and  power?  The  only  thing  that  can 
be  counted  on  with  certainty  is  that  a  perfect  intelligense^will  aim 
to  take  account  of  all  the  facts,  but  not  that  it  will  necessarily  accept 
as  among  these  facts  the  legitimacy  of  another  person's  ends.  It  is 
conceivable  that  as  much  intelligence  may  be  shown  in  recognizing 
such  a  competing  end  and  then  finding  ways  to  override  it,  as  in 
accepting  it  and  adjusting  action  to  its  requirements. 

And  to  this  there  are  only  two  answers  that  I  see.  It  may  be  said 
that  you  are  losing  something,  after  all,  from  the  content  of  the  world 
when  you  exclude  the  contribution  which  another  man  might  bring 
if  he  were  permitted  to  follow  his  own  bent.  From  the  world,  per- 
haps, but  why  of  necessity  from  my  world,  unless  I  happen  to  be 
built  so  that  I  want  it  more  than  I  want  its  exclusion  ?  His  economic 
contribution  I  may  easily  be  indifferent  to,  even  if  it  were  clearer 
than  it  is  that  some  of  it  would  flow  to  me.  There  may  be  a  chance 
that  he  may  put  some  obstacles  in  my  own  path,  but  possibly  I  enjoy 
the  excitement  of  combat  and  exploitation.  If  it  is  claimed,  again, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         375 

that  by  admitting  him  into  my  circle  I  realize  the  finer  spiritual  joys 
of  cooperative  fellowship,  this  may  very  well  be  so  in  case  I  find 
myself  caring  for  an  enlargement  of  this  sort,  but  not  at  all  if  I  hap- 
pen to  have  an  aristocratic  taste  for  power.  It  will  not  do  to  say 
that  no  man  actually  does  prefer  this  last  ideal,  and  that  his  nature 
will  in  reality  get  a  fuller  expression  in  the  other  way.  I  may  hold 
this  as  a  faith ;  but  I  can  not  demonstrate  it  while  so  many  are  con- 
vinced to  the  contrary.  And  in  any  case  the  ground  for  my  faith 
will  be,  not  the  abstract  character  of  consciousness,  but  the  concrete 
nature  of  the  being  who  is  to  make  use  of  intelligence^  further  his 
ends,  those  ends  being  set  by  his  inborn  make-up  and  natural  dis- 
position, which  apparently  differs,  within  limits,  in  different  people. 
If  a  man  has  seemingly  other  wants  than  mine,  which  look  to  empire 
rather  than  cooperation,  I  can  not  refute  him  by  pointing  out  that 
intelligence — and  he  of  course  wishes  to  be  intelligent — is  never  com- 
plete until  it  has  thoroughly  grasped  the  standpoint  of  every  would- 
be  competitor.  He  will  answer  that  he  intends  to  understand  them ; 
but  as  for  sympathizing  with  them  and  accepting  their  claims,  that 
is  another  matter.  To  do  this  may  be  precisely  to  defeat  his  own 
particular  aim.  To  enter  into  their  hopes  with  toleration  and  sym- 
pathy would  require  that  he  be  another  sort  of  being  from  what  he 
is — that  he  be  of  a  nature  to  suffer  directly  some  diminution  of  his 
own  sense  of  attainment  through  an  outlying  loss  to  another  man. 
Assume  a  satisfaction  in  fellowship  independent  of  the  special  char- 
acter of  the  task  to  which  cooperation  is  turned,  or  an  intrinsic  dis- 
inclination to  view  with  indifference  a  loss  to  others  over  and  above 
the  indirect  effects  that  this  may  have  on  my  own  enterprises,  and 
you  may  indeed  expect  results.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  suspect  that 
Professor  Fite  does  assume  this,  and  that  to  it  his  argument  owes  the 
generous  quality  that  might  have  been  quite  lacking.  But  this  looks 
suspiciously  like  bringing  back  again  the  notion  of  a  disinterested 
side  to  human  character  on  which  the  effective  appeal  of  motives  to 
social  conduct  depends,  and  the  proof  of  this  carries  us  beyond  the 
abstract  logic  of  self-consciousness. 

Accordingly,  while  I  agree  that  ordinarily  the  best  way  of  proving 
to  any  one  that  he  ought  to  regard  the  rights  of  others  is  by  showing 
him  that  he  is  acting  unintelligently  otherwise,  I  should  expect  to  be 
able  to  do  this,  not  by  a  deductive  argument  from  the  nature  of  con- 
sciousness, but  rather  in  an  empirical  way,  by  calling  his  attention 
to  the  actual  nature  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  and  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case.  But  then  I  should  have  to  give  up  the  hope  of 
convincing  him  that  the  harmony  was  bound  to  be  a  complete  one. 
I  should  be  content  if  he  were  persuaded  only  that  this  was  the  better 
way,  though  not  of  necessity  a  way  which  involved  no  elements  what- 


376  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ever  of  loss  to  him.  I  might  fall  back  on  the  faith  that  apparent  loss 
will  after  all  prove  real  gain.  But  so  long  as  knowledge  confessedly 
is  incomplete,  this  would  have  to  be  faith,  and  not  philosophic  in- 
sight. Even  if  I  came  up  against  an  ultimate  difference  of  ideal  I 
should  not  despair  of  finding  solid  reasons  for  my  own  side.  But  in 
that  case,  at  any  rate,  I  should  have  to  admit  a  solution  which  was  of 
the  nature  of  a  compromise,  which  came  about  at  the  expense,  to 
some  degree,  of  a  real  preference,  and  was,  therefore,  a  reconciliation 
only  partially  complete. 

A.  K.  ROGERS. 

UNIVERSITY  OP  MISSOURI. 


NEW  YORK  BRANCH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PSYCHOLOG- 
ICAL ASSOCIATION 

rpHE  New  York  Branch  of  the  American  Psychological  Associa- 
J-  tion  held  its  final  meeting  for  the  current  academic  year  on 
May  22,  in  conjunction  with  the  Section  of  Psychology  and  Anthro- 
pology of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences.  An  afternoon  session 
was  held  at  the  Psychological  Laboratory  of  Columbia  University. 
After  dinner  at  the  Faculty  Club  the  evening  session  was  held  at  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History.  The  following  abstracts  are 
of  the  papers  presented  at  the  two  sessions: 

Group  Differences  in  the  Interests  of  Children:  GERTRUDE  MARY 

KUPER. 

That  interest  plays  a  very  important  dynamic  role  in  the  educa- 
tional field  is  only  too  evident  from  such  treatises  as  Dr.  Dewey's 
article,  "Interest  as  Related  to  Will"  and  Dr.  Montessori's  "Peda- 
gogia  Scientifica. "  But  interest  is  a  general  term  and  can  not  have 
an  absolutely  universal  value  for  every  individual  or  every  subject 
of  thought  or  desire.  Individual  interests  are  as  important  in  the 
social  world  as  are  individual  capacities.  They  should,  therefore,  be 
a  fruitful  field  for  scientific  investigation.  The  experimental  work 
done  with  advertisements  has  brought  to  light  group  differences  in 
the  preferences  of  men  and  women  for  various  appeals.  The  investi- 
gation to  be  reported  was  of  a  like  nature,  except  that  it  dealt  with 
children. 

The  formal  experiment  consisted  in  asking  an  individual  child  to 
arrange  nine  pictures  in  the  order  in  which  he  liked  them  best.  The 
nine  pictures  were  chosen  to  represent  nine  specific  appeals :  landscape, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          377 

children,  animals,  religion,  pathos,  sentiment,  patriotism,  heroism, 
and  action.  (They  were  Cosmos  prints  and  therefore  of  uniform 
size  and  finish.)  In  all,  there  were  three  series  of  these  pictures, 
each  parallel  so  far  as  possible  with  the  other  two  in  their  appeals. 
The  children  numbered  over  200,  10  girls  and  10  boys  for  each  year's 
age  from  6.5  to  16.5.  They  were  almost  entirely  attendants  of  the 
public  schools  of  New  York  City  and  came  from  quite  varied  sections 
of  the  city. 

The  results  were  tabulated  according  to  age  differences,  broad  so- 
cial distinctions,  and  nationality.  In  the  last-named  case  the  number 
of  subjects  was  so  limited  (10  girls  and  10  boys  to  each  of  the  follow- 
ing nationalities:  Irish,  French,  German,  and  Italian,  and  only  9 
girls  and  8  boys  to  the  Spanish)  that  the  results  are  not  held  as  sig- 
nificant. 

The  positive  data  showed  a  sex  difference  in  the  order  of  prefer- 
ence for  these  several  appeals.  The  girls'  order  was:  (1)  Religion, 
(2)  patriotism,  (3)  children,  (4)  pathos,  (5)  animals,  (6)  senti- 
ment, (7)  landscape,  (8)  the  heroic,  (9)  action.  The  last  two  were 
decidedly  lowest  in  the  scale  and  the  first  three  were  quite  clearly 
highest  for  all  ages;  but  the  picture  representing  these  nine  curves 
was  one  of  bewildering  intersections  as  the  values  changed  from  year 
to  year.  The  boys'  order  was:  (1)  Religion,  (2)  patriotism,  (3)  ac- 
tion, (4)  the  heroic,  (5)  pathos,  (6)  animals,  (7)  sentiment,  (8)  land- 
scape, (9)  children.  The  boys'  chart  representing  the  curves  for 
these  appeals  showed  greater  agreement  from  year  to  year.  Relig- 
ion and  patriotism,  the  heroic  and  action,  and  landscape  and  chil- 
dren kept  rather  parallel  courses  all  along  the  age  scale,  and  no  very 
decided  tendencies  appeared  with  progressive  age  differences.  Girls 
seemed  to  lose  interest  somewhat  in  pictures  of  children  and  animals 
and  to  take  greater  interest  in  the  heroic  and  action  pictures.  The 
latter  change  is  explained  by  the  fact  that,  as  the  girls  increased  in 
school  knowledge,  they  read  an  historical  background  into  these  more 
or  less  warlike  scenes. 

A  great  sex  difference  was  found  in  the  variability  measures,  as 
calculated  for  the  various  ages,  appeals,  social  classes,  and  nationali- 
ties. In  every  case  but  two,  the  girls  exceeded  the  boys  in  their  P.E. ; 
and  in  these  two  exceptions  the  boys'  P.E.  was  once  greater  than  the 
girls'  by  only  5  per  cent.,  and  another  time  exactly  equal  to  the  girls' 
P.E.  The  amount  of  sex  difference  was,  as  a  rule,  anywhere  between 
12  per  cent,  and  57  per  cent.  This  held  true  in  every  scale,  whether 
according  to  age,  appeals,  social  class,  or  nationality.  The  girls'  aver- 
age P.E.  was  1.66 ;  that  for  the  boys  was  1.36. 

Both  girls  and  boys  were  least  variable  about  the  subjects  they 


378  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

liked  best,  i.  «.,  religion  and  patriotism ;  but  apart  from  these  appeals 
there  was  no  correlation  of  variability  with  relative  likes  or  dislikes. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  in  range  of  variability  the  boys  far 
exceeded  the  girls.  The  limits  for  the  boys'  P.E.  were  .82  (patriot- 
ism) and  1.60  (landscape),  giving  a  range  of  difference  of  78  per 
cent.;  the  limits  for  the  girls'  were  1.47  (religion)  and  1.95  (ani- 
mals), showing  a  range  of  only  48  per  cent.  In  this  particular  ex- 
periment this  indicates  that  boys  are  very  much  more  agreed  about 
some  likes  than  are  girls,  and  yet  quite  as  varied  about  others.  In 
other  experiments  such  a  range  of  variability  may  point  to  greater 
individuality  of  the  male  sex  among  themselves  while  as  a  group  they 
are  relatively  homogeneous. 

Another  sex  difference  noted  was  the  number  of  positive  dislikes 
expressed  by  each  sex.  The  girls  gave  161,  or  6  per  cent.,  dislikes  as 
against  the  boys'  65,  or  2.4  per  cent.  Boys  seemed  to  entertain  rela- 
tive indifference  toward  the  appeals  at  the  bottom  of  the  list.  The 
things  the  girls  disliked  most  were,  (1)  scenes  of  action  suggesting 
death  and  (2)  pictures  showing  angry  attitudes.  The  reasons  given 
by  the  boys  for  their  dislikes  were,  (1)  gloomy,  indistinct  scenes, 
(2)  sentimental  pictures,  (3)  costumes  worn  by  men  which  were 
feminine  in  style  or  left  the  figure  partly  nude,  and  (4)  pictures 
suggesting  illness. 

A  certain  age  difference  revealed  itself  in  the  remarks  made  by 
the  children  about  the  pictures.  The  seven  and  eight  year  olds 
showed  limited  powers  of  observation.  Some  detail,  and,  in  land- 
scape scenes,  always  the  human  detail,  no  matter  how  small,  was 
made  the  focus  of  attention  to  the  complete  overlooking  of  the  larger 
subject.  Unfamiliar  details  when  pointed  out  to  them  received  as 
many  different  interpretations  as  there  were  children.  As  the  chil- 
dren grew  older  their  remarks  were  fuller;  they  made  fewer  mis- 
takes in  their  interpretation  of  the  pictures  and  they  drew  upon  all 
their  known  sources  for  filling  in  their  perceptions.  At  the  ages  be- 
tween 11  and  13  the  critical  spirit  made  its  first  appearance  among 
the  girls.  Only  at  fourteen  did  it  occur  in  the  boys'  comments.  At 
these  ages  the  emotions  prompted  the  remarks  of  both  girls  and  boys. 
Emotional  attitudes,  actions,  and  even  words  were  ascribed  to  the 
pictorial  persons.  At  15,  the  remarks  became  more  laconic,  but  what 
was  said  was  significant  and  definite  as  to  the  persons,  place,  and 
action  of  the  picture.  This  age  marked  the  first  signs  of  hesitation 
in  speaking  of  the  pictures  of  sentiment.  Up  to  the  age  of  nine  the 
remarks  had  been  very  naive ;  after  that  the  pictures  were  dismissed 
with  the  phrase,  "they're  lovers"  or  "a  love  picture";  often  the 
characters  were  named  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Paul  and  Virginia,  etc. 

In  all  their  comments  the  girls  were  far  more  personal  than  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          379 

boys.  The  personal  pronoun  and  references  to  their  individual  ex- 
periences were  the  usual  preface  to  their  statements.  With  the  boys 
it  was  quite  otherwise;  they  discussed  the  picture  as  an  objective 
thing,  independent  of  their  conscious  existence.  Boys  tended  to  lo- 
cate scenes  in  definite  historical  time  and  specific  geographical  places. 
The  effect  of  uncertainty  about  a  picture,  crudely  averaged,  was 
a  displacement  of  about  five  places  toward  the  lower  end  of  the  scale. 

Practise  in  the  Case  of  Children  of  School  Age:  THOMAS  J.  KIBBY. 

This  experiment  was  conducted  to  get  some  information  concern- 
ing (1)  the  value  of  the  practise  experiment  as  a  method  for  school 
work  and  (2)  the  value  of  practise  periods  of  different  lengths. 

339  fourth  year  children  belonging  to  10  different  classes  took  part 
in  the  practise,  which  consisted  of  adding  columns,  each  of  10  num- 
bers, O's  and  1's  not  included,  as  rapidly  as  was  consistent  with  ac- 
curacy, each  child  competing  with  his  own  past  record.  Seven  dif- 
ferent sheets  of  columns  of  equal  difficulty  were  used.  (Thorndike's 
Addition  Sheets.) 

In  every  case  there  was  one  hour  of  practise,  but  for  different 
classes  this  hour  was  broken  into  22£-,  15-,  and  6-minute  periods,  an 
initial  15-minute  period  and  a  final  15-minute  period  being  given  to 
form  the  basis  for  determining  the  gain  per  cent. 

The  hour's  practise  for  the  339  children  taken  as  one  group  re- 
sulted in  an  average  gain  of  55  per  cent. ;  median  gain  of  48  per 
cent.  In  a  similar  test  with  19  university  students,  Professor  Thorn- 
dike  found  an  average  gain  of  29  per  cent.,  median  33  per  cent.,  from 
about  53  minutes  of  practise,  and  said:  "The  amount  of  improve- 
ment in  this  experiment  may  also  add  to  our  confidence  that  the 
method  of  the  practise  experiments  wherein  one  works  at  one's  limit 
and  competes  with  one's  past  record  may  well  be  made  a  regular 
feature  in  many  school  drills.  Even  if  the  same  length  of  time  pro- 
duced in  children  a  percentile  improvement,  only  half  as  great  as 
here,  the  gain  would  still  probably  be  far  greater  than  the  gain  by 
any  of  the  customary  forms  of  drill." 

For  the  classes  which  took  the  hour's  practise  in  22}-minute 
periods,  there  was  an  average  gain  of  61  per  cent.,  median  49  per 
cent. ;  in  15-minute  periods,  average  gain  55  per  cent.,  median  43  per 
cent.;  in  6-minute  periods,  average  gain  54  per  cent.,  median  44 
per  cent. 

The  Age  of  Walking  and  Talking  in  Relation  to  General  Intelli- 
gence: CYRUS  D.  MEAD. 

I.  Data. — 50  "normal"  children  (25  boys  and  25  girls),  averag- 
fng  less  than  six  years  of  age,  of  graduate  students  of  Teachers  Col- 
lege and  Columbia  College.  Ages  were  thrown  to  the  nearest  month. 


380  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Walking  means:  "To  take  a  step  unassisted."  Talking  means:  "To 
use  a  word  intelligently,  i.  e.,  to  associate  the  idea  with  the  object." 

Results. — The  median  "normal"  child  begins  to  walk  at  13.5 
months,  with  a  probable  error  of  1.06  months.  The  chances  are  999 
to  1  that  the  true  median  will  not  differ  from  the  median  obtained 
by  more  than  .66  month.  The  extreme  range  is  from  11  to  30 
months.  90  per  cent,  of  the  cases  fall  between  11  and  17  months. 
The  median  "normal"  child  begins  to  talk  at  15.7  months,  with  a 
probable  error  of  2.83  months.  The  chances  are  999  to  1  that  the  true 
median  will  not  differ  from  the  median  obtained  by  more  than  1  96 
months.  The  extreme  range  is  from  9  to  25  months.  90  per  cent, 
of  the  cases  fall  between  10  and  21  months,  with  18  months  as  the 
mode. 

II.  Data. — 145  "schoolable"  children  (boys  and  girls)  of  the 
Indiana  School  for  Feeble-minded  Youth,  in  reply  to  the  question  on 
the  personal  descriptive  entrance  blanks :  "  At  what  age  did  the  child 
commence  to  walk?"  and  92  in  reply  to  the  question:  "At  what  age 
did  the  child  commence  to  talk?" 

Results. — The  median  feeble-minded  child  begins  to  walk  at  21.8 
months,  with  a  probable  error  of  7.56  months.  The  chances  are  999 
to  1  that  the  true  median  will  not  differ  from  the  median  obtained  by 
more  than  3  months.  The  extreme  range  is  from  12  to  72  months. 
90  per  cent,  of  the  cases  fall  between  13  and  50  months. 

The  median  feeble-minded  child  begins  to  talk  at  34.2  months, 
with  a  probable  error  of  12.6  months.  The  chances  are  999  to  1  that 
the  true  median  will  not  differ  from  the  median  obtained  by  more 
than  6.5  months.  The  extreme  range  is  from  12  to  156  months  (only 
one  case  going  above  108  months).  90  per  cent,  of  the  cases  fall  be- 
tween 14  and  84  months. 

Sex  Differences  in  Incidental  Memory:  G.  C.  MYERS. 

A  test  was  desired  wherein  the  thing  to  be  remembered  should  be 
merely  incidental  and  where  the  focus  of  the  subject's  attention 
should  be  directed  away  from  the  facts  to  be  called  for  after  the  ex- 
posure of  the  stimuli,  but  where  these  facts  would  have  to  enter, 
wholly  or  in  part,  into  the  experience  of  the  subject.  To  this  end  a 
list  of  six  simple  words  were  used  as  stimuli.  The  subject  was  told 
that  he  would  be  given  a  spelling  test  and  he  was  led  to  believe  that 
it  would  be  a  real  test  in  speed  and  accuracy  of  spelling. 

A  practise  test  with  digits  was  given  for  three  successive  times 
before  the  real  test  began,  to  delude  the  subject  as  to  the  purpose  of 
the  experiment.  A  dozen  or  more  digits  were  pronounced  at  ran- 
dom so  rapidly  that  the  subject  could  scarcely  keep  up  in  writing 
them.  In  the  midst  of  this  series  of  digits  the  experimenter,  without 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          381 

any  warning,  gave  the  signal  for  the  subject  to  turn  the  page  upon 
which  he  was  writing,  and  continued  to  pronounce  digits  at  the  same 
speed.  The  subject  was  told  that  the  words  would  be  given  in  the 
same  manner,  but  not  quite  so  rapidly.  The  following  words  were 
then  pronounced:  angel,  pickle,  dirt,  busy,  onion,  women.  The  last 
word  was  pronounced  in  such  a  manner  that  another  word  was  ex- 
pected by  the  subject,  but  the  signal,  "turn,"  was  given  instead,  and 
the  subject  was  told  to  write  as  many  of  these  words  as  he  could  re- 
member, to  place  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  had  been  given, 
and  to  indicate  by  a  line  the  place  for  each  omitted  word.  The  time 
each  individual  required  to  reproduce  the  words  was  recorded  by  a 
stop-watch. 

After  testing  over  100  individuals  the  writer  applied  the  test  to 
groups  of  college,  normal-school,  and  public-school  subjects.  Aside 
from  immediate  reproduction,  records  were  secured  after  various 
intervals,  ranging  from  £  hour  to  3  months.  In  all  such  cases  a 
practise  test  of  rapid  folding  of  papers  was  added.  After  the 
words  were  pronounced  the  papers  were  promptly  collected  and 
the  experimenter  left  the  room.  The  subjects  thought  the  work  was 
ended,  but  at  various  times  the  experimenter  reappeared  and  asked 
for  the  reproduction.  The  time  for  all  group  reproduction  was 
limited  to  1£  minutes. 

The  best  results  were  secured  immediately  after  presenting  the 
stimuli.  Practically  the  same  efficiency  was  shown  for  the  repro- 
duction after  6  hours  as  for  that  after  £  hour.  But  there  was  a  de- 
cided fall  after  7  days  and  a  still  greater  fall  after  3  months. 

No  appreciable  difference  was  shown  in  efficiency  between  the 
lower  grades  and  the  college  students  for  immediate  reproduction; 
but  after  various  intervals  there  was  a  gradual  decrease  in  efficiency 
with  age. 

Of  the  1,515  subjects,  757  females  and  758  males,  only  29  of  the 
former  and  18  of  the  latter  reproduced  the  six  words  in  exact  order. 

In  all  grades  the  females  were  markedly  superior  to  the  males, 
both  for  the  number  of  words  remembered  and  for  order.  They  had 
a  higher  central  tendency  and  were  more  variable  than  the  males  in 
the  5th,  6th,  7th,  and  8th  grades,  while  for  the  other  groups  the 
males  were  more  variable. 

108  other  subjects  were  tested  with  10  letters  and  digits.  Here 
the  girls  answered  more,  but  the  boys  were  better  for  order. 

The  Effect  of  Distribution  of  Practise  Upon  Learning:  ELMER  A. 

CULLER. 

The  purpose  of  this  experiment  was  twofold:  to  determine  the 
effect  of  differently  distributed  practise  series  upon  learning  given 


382  7 'UK  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

material;  and  to  make  observations  upon  the  learning  process  in 
general. 

The  material  to  be  learnt  was  the  path  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  Hampton  Court  maze.  The  paper  (8  by  6  inches)  on 
which  the  maze  was  printed,  was  affixed  to  a  board.  Over  it  was 
placed  a  large  circular  piece  of  cardboard,  easily  movable,  having  in 
the  center  a  small  opening  (%  to  n/ie  inch)  through  which  extended 
a  pencil  to  mark  the  course  of  the  subject's  movement.  At  no  time 
could  the  subject  see  more  of  the  maze  than  the  part  visible  through 
the  opening.  At  the  beginning  of  the  experiment  the  subject  was 
thus  instructed:  Pencil  is  now  at  the  entrance  to  the  maze;  keep  on 
moving  until  you  reach  the  end.  Never  cross  a  line ;  always  keep  to 
an  open  path.  Mazes  are  all  the  same  and  will  be  placed  in  the  same 
position. 

At  each  trial  the  time  was  recorded  and  number  of  errors  was 
counted  and  recorded.  To  each  subject  were  given  12  trials.  Sub- 
jects were  divided  into  6  groups  as  follows:  12  trials  at  one  time, 
6  on  2  successive  days,  4  on  3  days,  3  on  4  days,  2  on  6  days  and  1 
on  12  days.  There  were  5  men  in  each  group  except  the  last,  in 
which  were  3.  With  regard  to  time  of  day,  subjects  were  divided 
into  two  groups:  one  group  each  day  for  the  required  number  of 
days,  after  lunch  (1-2  P.M)  :  the  second  group  each  day  after  dinner 
(7-8  P.M).  In  comparing  men  of  the  two  groups  no  account  was 
taken  of  this  slight  difference,  as  it  was  considered  practically  neg- 
ligible. Good  light  was  uniformly  provided.  The  interval  between 
successive  trials  of  a  subject  at  the  same  sitting  was  30-40  seconds. 

Subjects  were  all  graduate  students,  age  from  22  to  28. 

Three  classes  of  errors  appeared:  Wrong  choice  between  alter- 
native courses,  retracing  when  on  right  course,  and  (accidentally) 
crossing  a  line.  The  first  kind  are  major  errors  (value  1)  and  the 
other  two  kinds  minor  (value  £).  These  are  arbitrary  values  for 
computing  results.  The  major  errors  were  counted  as  follows: 
There  are  6  (or  7,  depending  upon  the  course  taken)  places  where 
choice  must  be  made  between  alternative  paths  of  which  only  one  is 
right.  Each  time  the  subject  moved  from  one  of  these  places  in  a 
wrong  path,  i.  e.,  away  from  the  goal,  it  was  counted  one  error. 
Errors  of  retracing  when  on  the  right  path  were  usually  small  and 
due  to  defective  attention  or  eyesight — subject  either  thought  he  had 
accidentally  passed  an  opening  and  moved  back  to  see,  or  on  coming 
to  a  turn  failed  to  notice  the  opening  and  thought  he  had  run  into  a 
blind  alley. 

The  results  are  as  follows: 
I.    TABLE  or  ABSOLUTE  TIME  AND  ERROR  VALUES  ATTAINED  IN  EACH  GROUP 

(The  different  groups  are  indicated  thus:  One — 12,  etc.;  the  word  indicates 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          383 

the  number  of  trials  each  day,  the  figure  the  number  of  successive  days.  The 
two  columns  show  the  average  of  number  of  seconds  consumed  and  number  of 
errors  made  in  the  last  three  trials  in  each  group;  thus  showing  the  relative 
standing  of  groups  at  end  of  practise  period.  The  figures  in  parentheses  show 
relative  position.) 

Time,  Errors, 

Per  C«nt.  Per  Cent. 

One— 12    50  (3)  4.8  (4) 

Two— 6     61  (5)  5.2   (5) 

Three— 4    59  (4)  3.2  (3) 

Four— 3    39  (1)  .9   (1) 

Six— 2     75  (6)  5.5  (6) 

Twelve— 1    48  (2)  3.0  (2) 

II.    TABLE  OF  PERCENTAGE  GAINS 

(In  each  case  the  percentage  represents  the  ratio  between  the  average  of 
first  three  trials  and  last  three  trials  in  the  same  group.  This  table  is  intended 
to  show  improvement  of  each  group  irrespective  of  absolute  values  attained.) 

Time,  Errors, 

Per  Cent.  Per  Cent. 

One— 12     210.0  (4)  147.9  (5) 

Two— 6    253.0  (3)  161.5  (4) 

Three— 4  195.0  (6)  302.0  (1) 

Four— 3     341.0  (2)  218.5  (3) 

Six— 2    206.6  (5)  125.3  (6) 

Twelve— 1   368.7  (1)  236.6  (2) 

(It  must  be  said  that  the  results  of  Six — 2  were  vitiated  by  the  professed 
indifference  of  one  subject,  because  of  which  both  time  and  errors  for  the  last 
few  trials  in  that  group  are  abnormally  high.) 

The  results  seem  to  point  to  the  following  conclusions :  In  general, 
outside  the  Six — 2  group,  the  One — 12  and  Two — 6  groups  made  the 
lowest  absolute  records  and  also  least  improvement;  this  apparently 
indicates  that  the  learning  period  was  too  prolonged,  with  insuffi- 
cient practise  at  any  one  time.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Twelve — 1  and 
Four — 3  groups  show  in  general  the  highest  absolute  records  and 
greatest  improvement.  Here  the  practise  was  more  thorough  each 
time  and  not  so  prolonged.  The  curve  of  greatest  regularity  is  the 
Four — 3  curve.  The  three  groups,  then,  in  which  practise  periods 
were  longer  and  confined  to  a  few  days  show  better  results  than  the 
three  in  which  practise  periods  are  shorter  and  prolonged  over  4—12 
days.  The  application  to  learning  any  material  would  seem  to  be 
that  better  results  are  secured  by  a  few  more  prolonged  or  persistent 
periods  of  study  repeated  perhaps  for  several  days  than  shorter 
periods  prolonged  over  a  greater  number  of  days. 

Some  observations  were  made  on  individual  methods  of  learning 
which  can  not  be  included  here. 


384  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Experiment  in  the  Catching  of  Pennies:  E.   S.  REYNOLDS,  J.   T. 

GYOER,  L.  L.  WINSLOW. 

The  experiment  had  two  aims:  (1)  To  investigate  the  learning 
process.  (2)  To  find  what  transfer,  from  the  right  hand  to  the  left 
hand,  if  any,  would  be  shown. 

Three  subjects  took  part  in  the  experiment  which  follows.  It 
was  carried  on  in  two  series:  (1)  That  in  which  the  subjects  caught 
the  pennies,  two  at  a  toss,  palm  of  the  hand  down.  (2)  That  in 
which  they  caught  three.  The  first  series  was  of  7  days'  duration; 
the  second,  10  days'.  The  time  for  tossing  was  from  1.  P.M.  to  2  P.M. 
on  Mondays  and  Wednesdays.  Conditions  were  as  nearly  constant 
as  possible,  the  same  room  being  used  throughout  the  experiment. 
In  the  case  of  the  two-penny  series,  the  subjects  caught  for  10  trials 
and  then  rested  for  10.  In  the  three-penny  series  two  subjects 
caught  at  the  same  time,  the  third  subject  resting.  In  the  first  case, 
score  was  kept  by  the  two  unemployed  subjects  in  turn ;  in  the  sec- 
ond case,  by  the  one  unemployed  subject. 

Certain  conditions  influencing  accuracy  were  noted,  among  which 
are  the  following:  Some  parts  of  the  room  were  more  conducive  to 
accurate  catching  than  others,  that  nearest  the  window  being  the 
most  favorable.  The  pennies  could  be  caught  with  most  accuracy 
if  no  objects  were  in  front  of  the  subject  to  distract  his  attention. 
The  tossing,  when  carried  on  before  a  blank,  light-colored  wall,  was 
most  successful.  An  increase  in  confidence  and  in  accuracy  resulted 
when  a  window  was  opened  to  admit  new  air.  An  interruption,  as 
that  caused  by  another  person  entering  the  room,  was  followed  by  a 
corresponding  fall  in  score.  The  subject,  by  counting  to  himself  his 
successful  tosses,  was  stimulated  to  a  better  score.  The  nervous  feel- 
ing of  haste  as  well  as  nervousness  caused  by  outside  matters  of  im- 
portance to  the  subjects  (such  as  pressure  of  work)  tended  rather  to 
increase  than  to  diminish  their  scores. 

Each  subject  discovered  and  followed  his  own  methods  of  tossing. 
After  finishing  the  two  series,  the  subject  who  had  followed  the 
method  of  throwing  his  pennies  high  into  the  air  was  able  to  catch 
an  additional  penny  (making  four  in  all)  with  very  little  effort. 
The  other  subjects  tried  this  continually  and  failed,  their  hands 
striking  the  floor  before  the  fourth  penny  was  reached.  The  quick 
shutting  of  the  hand  was  an  important  factor.  One  subject  was  ma- 
terially helped  by  thinking  of  the  word  "grab"  previous  to  each 
trial.  In  some  instances,  the  second  penny  would  be  caught  and  lost, 
the  first  and  third  being  retained.  Although  occasionally  a  subject 
would  catch  all  three  successfully  without  knowing  it,  yet  the  toss- 
ing can  not  be  said  to  have  become  automatic. 

The  progress  in  learning  was  unsteady.    Yet  in  each  case  there 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         385 

was  a  gradual  advance,  noticeable  particularly  in  the  beginning.  A 
warming-up  period  was  universally  experienced  by  each  subject  at 
the  beginning  of  each  day's  practise. 

In  the  second  series,  a  transfer  test  was  tried  with  the  left  hand 
before  and  after  the  practise  series.  This  showed  a  considerable  in- 
crease in  ability  to  catch  with  the  left  hand. 

AMOUNT  OF  TRANSFER  CATCHES 


Subject 
1     

Before  Test 
3 

After  Test 
14 

Per  Cent.  Gain 
466§ 

2    

11 

32 

290+ 

3    

1 

29 

2900 

Total  eain 

.   15 

75 

"500 

Painting  and  the  Learning  Process:  C.  M.  SAX. 

Although  art  and  science  are  widely  separated,  they  may  cooper- 
ate in  art  education.  Prevailing  methods  are  indirect,  depending 
upon  a  never  certain  transfer  of  training.  During  the  three  years 
the  average  student  spends  at  art  school,  his  course  is  as  follows: 
Casts  and  still  life  in  charcoal ;  still  life  in  color ;  anatomy  and  per- 
spective as  formal  subjects ;  the  figure  in  charcoal ;  some  composition, 
and,  finally,  painting  the  head  and  figure  in  oils. 

Results  show  little  transfer;  for  example,  compositions  show 
little  knowledge  of  anatomy  or  perspective.  Charcoal  and  oils  have 
few  identical  elements  in  substance  or  procedure;  in  fact,  specific 
habits  formed  in  mastering  charcoal  often  act  preclusively  when  the 
student  attempts  to  paint.  Students  who  can  draw,  but  not  paint; 
construct,  but  not  compose,  or  are  draughtsmen,  but  not  colorists, 
and  their  opposites  are  in  the  overwhelming  majority. 

Experiments  now  under  way  on  the  learning  process  as  applied 
to  painting  seem  to  show  that  (a)  preparation  in  charcoal  and  still 
life  is  unnecessary  in  painting  figures ;  ( 6 )  efficiency  depends  largely 
upon  correct  analysis;  (c)  muscular  coordination  plays  a  minor 
part;  (d)  a  direct  method  and  generalized  idea  of  procedure  are  es- 
sential and  (e)  the  control  of  attitude  is  most  important. 
The  Optimal  Distribution  of  Time,  and  the  Relation  of  Length  of 

Material  to  Time  Taken  for  Learning:  DARWIN  OLIVER  LYON. 

This  paper  was  divided  into  two  parts,  it  being  in  reality  a  dis- 
cussion of  two  distinct  questions:  (1)  "The  Distribution  of  Time  in 
Relation  to  Economy  in  Learning  and  Retention";  and  (2)  "The 
Relation  of  Length  of  Material  to  Time  Taken  for  Learning. ' '  Con- 
cerning the  first  of  these,  it  was  shown  that  in  estimating  economy, 
not  only  must  we  consider  the  time  spent,  but  the  degree  of  reten- 
tion as  well.  It  was  shown  that  individuals  differ  greatly,  and  that 


386  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

where  one  could  learn  a  set  of  ten  stanzas  in  less  time  by  the  con- 
tinuous method  (t.  e.,  doing  the  work  in  "one  sitting"),  another  in- 
dividual could  lower  his  total  time  by  dividing  the  time  spent  into 
several  periods,  e.  g.,  by  spending  5  minutes  per  day.  With  but  3 
exceptions  retentiveness  was  decidedly  better  by  the  divided-tirae- 
method.  This  was  notably  the  case  with  nonsense-syllables  and 
poetry.  The  most  general  statement  that  can  be  made,  taking  all 
materials  and  methods  of  presentation  into  consideration,  is  that  the 
most  economical  method  is  to  distribute  the  readings  over  a  rather 
lengthy  period, — the  intervals  between  the  readings  being  in  arith- 
metical proportion.  For  example,  with  one  individual  in  memo- 
ri/ing  a  poem  of  20  stanzas  the  highest  retentiveness  was  obtained 
by  distributing  the  readings  as  follows:  2  hours,  8  hours,  1  day,  2 
days,  4  days,  8  days,  16  days,  32  days,  etc.  The  practical  bearing  of 
the  results  obtained  on  education  in  general  was  then  considered. 
The  above  individual  found  that  the  most  economical  method  for 
keeping  material  once  memorized  from  disappearing  was  to  review 
the  material  whenever  it  started  to  "fade."  Here  also  the  inter- 
vals were  found  to  be,  roughly  speaking,  in  arithmetical  proportion. 
For  similar  reasons  the  student  is  advised  to  review  his  "lecture- 
notes"  shortly  after  taking  them,  and  if  possible,  to  review  them 
again  the  evening  of  the  same  day.  Then  the  lapse  of  a  week  or  two 
does  not  make  nearly  so  much  difference.  When  once  he  has  for- 
gotten so  much  that  the  various  associations  originally  made  have 
vanished,  a  considerable  portion  of  the  material  is  irretrievably  lost. 
2.  The  Relation  of  the  Length  of  Material  to  Time  Taken  for 
Learning. — Tables  were  presented  to  show  that  the  relation  de- 
pended almost  wholly  upon  the  division  of  the  time  spent  in  learn- 
ing, i.  e.,  the  distribution  of  the  time-intervals.  In  other  words,  the 
relation,  or  ratio,  depends  upon  the  method  used  in  memorizing. 
Only  three  methods  were  considered:  The  "continuous"  or  "mass" 
method;  the  once-per-day  method;  and  the  once-per-week  method. 
Up  to  a  certain  point,  with  some  individuals,  when  digits  were  used 
as  material,  the  time  varied  directly  as  the  square  of  the  number  of 
digits,  when  the  continuous  method  was  used.  By  the  once-per-day 
method,  however,  the  time  varied,  roughly  speaking,  directly  as  the 
length  of  the  material.  It  was  shown  that  in  order  to  get  the  best 
results  the  same  subject  should  take  all  the  various  lengths  of  ma- 
terial used,  and  that  it  would  be  unfair  to  distribute  the  varying 
lengths  among  different  subjects.  As  only  one  method  can  be  tried 
at  a  time,  an  experiment  of  this  nature  must  needs  extend  over  a 
period  of  several  years.  In  the  case  of  prose,  by  the  once-per-day 
method,  500  words  were  memorized  in  as  few  days  as  the  95-word 
passage.  The  time  may  therefore  be  said  to  vary  directly  as  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          387 

length  of  the  passage.  The  same  holds  true  for  digits  and  nonsense 
syllables,  but  not  to  so  great  a  degree ;  for  the  number  of  days  needed 
for  200  nonsense-syllables  was  considerably  greater  than  that  needed 
for  20.  By  the  "continuous"  method,  however,  we  observe  that 
where  the  100-word  passage  was  memorized  in  9  minutes,  the  500- 
word  passage  took  52  minutes — nearly  6  times  as  much  time  being 
required,  although  the  passage  is  only  5  times  as  long.  This  is  much 
more  strikingly  shown  when  we  examine  the  curve  obtained  for  the 
digits.  Here  we  see  that  although  it  took  only  5  minutes  to  learn  24 
digits,  it  took  2  hours  and  34  minutes  to  learn  200 — more  than  31 
times  as  long  instead  of  8.  In  short  it  is  obvious  that  the  once-per- 
day  method  is — to  say  nothing  of  giving  a  far  superior  retention — 
far  more  economical  than  the  "continuous"  method.  This  is  espe- 
cially so  for  material  memorized  by  motor  associations  such  as  non- 
sense-syllables or  digits. 

H.   L.   HOLLINGWORTH, 

Secretary  and  Treasurer. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

The  Essentials  of  Mental  Measurement.     WILLIAM  BROWN.     Cambridge: 

University  Press.    1911.    Pp.  vi  +  154. 

The  structure  of  Mr.  Brown's  book,  as  he  himself  points  out,  bears 
marks  of  its  composite  origin.  The  first  three  chapters  of  Part  II.,  orig- 
inally published  in  1910  as  a  doctorate 'thesis,  deal  essentially  with  some 
experimental  work  with  mental  tests  similar  to  the  work  of  Winch  and 
Burt,  prefaced  by  a  disquisition  on  the  theory  of  correlation  and  a  brief 
historical  survey  of  the  use  made  of  the  theory.  To  these  chapters  he  has 
added  a  fourth  sketching  the  possibilities  of  the  use  of  the  method  of  corre- 
lation by  psychologists,  and  a  Part  I.  treating  of  mental  measurements  in 
general.  There  are  also  four  appendices,  giving  tables  quoted  from 
Fechner,  Miiller,  and  Urban,  examples  of  the  working  out  of  single  and 
multiple  correlations,  some  regression  curves  in  illustration  of  one  of  his 
earlier  chapters,  and  a  copious  bibliography. 

The  result  is  an  abstruse,  slightly  critical,  mathematical  treatise  on 
the  measurement  of  variables,  rather  than  the  expression  of  interest  in 
things  mental  which  might  be  investigated.  With  the  exception  of  a 
concise  statement  of  conclusions  (pp.  126-27)  the  author  leads  one  to  for- 
get any  connection  with  psychologic  functions,  since  the  data  supplying 
the  basis  for  his  mathematical  elaboration  might  apparently  have  been 
drawn  from  any  convenient  source. 

As  it  stands,  Chapter  I.  of  Part  I.  takes  up  Weber's  law,  Fechner 's  work 
with  it,  and  three  general  interpretations  of  the  law.  Chapter  II.  sets  out 


388  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

to  explain  tho  three  p^yclmphysical  methods.  Clear  in  the  beginning,  the 
treatment  becomes  involved  by  the  "  slightly  controversial  tone  "  employed 
in  the  discussion  of  some  other  mathematicians'  formula?,  and  by  the 
digressions  necessary  to  set  forth  his  own  objections.  For  purposes  of  ex- 
position these  digressions  might  have  been  placed  in  footnotes  rather  than 
embodied  in  the  text.  Yet,  condensed  as  they  are,  they  assume  consid- 
erable facility  in  statistical  methods  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  who,  if  in- 
sufficiently prepared,  may  refer  to  the  more  elementary  treatments  of 
Titchener,  Pearson,  Sheppard,  Spearman,  Urban,  and  others. 

The  Introduction  to  Part  II.  gives  a  concise  "  preliminary  view  of  the 
method  "  of  correlation,  illustrated  by  examples  and  two  figures.  Chapter 
I.  takes  up  the  correlation  coefficient,  correlation  ratio,  probable  errors, 
multiple  correlation,  six  short-cut  ways  of  determining  correlation, 
spurious  correlation,  and  the  significance  of  the  correlation  coefficient. 
Much  of  this  is  beyond  any  but  the  "  professed  psychologist "  prepared  to 
undertake  quantitative  research,  especially  as  the  already  sufficiently  diffi- 
cult accounts  of  Yule  and  others  are  here  very  much  condensed.  Empha- 
sis is  laid  on  the  importance  of  not  disregarding  skew  curves,  and  a  rela- 
tively large  space  is  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  Pearson's  criticisms  of 
Spearman's  ranking  method.  Chapter  II.  is  a  sketch  of  the  use  made  of 
correlation  by  Wissler,  Thorndike,  Burt,  Pearson,  Elderton,  and  others, 
but  is  mainly  taken  up  with  Spearman's  researches  and  the  author's  own 
refutation  of  some  of  Spearman's  conclusions  and  formulas.  Particular 
notice  is  taken  of  the  theory  of  both  Spearman  and  Burt  that  there  may 
exist  a  common,  fundamental,  mental  function  or  group  of  functions  as 
demonstrated  by  the  hierarchical  order  of  correlation  coefficients.  Chapter 
III.  embodies  the  results  of  Mr.  Brown's  experiments  with  three  groups  of 
school-children  and  three  of  adults,  about  260  subjects  in  all,  in  ten  or 
eleven  mental  tests.  These  were  undertaken  in  order  to  determine  the  ex- 
tent of  correlation  between  simple  mental  abilities  and  the  relationship 
between  them  and  general  intellectual  ability  as  measured  by  teachers' 
judgments,  school  marks,  etc.  It  is  interesting  and  unusual  to  find  in- 
cluded the  Miiller-Lyer  illusion,  and  a  little  disappointing  not  to  find 
further  work  with  some  of  Burt's  original  tests.  Full  tables  are  inserted 
giving  results  in  each  test,  and  correlation  coefficients  for  the  various 
groups  separately.  Some  of  the  more  general  of  the  fifteen  conclusions 
which  close  the  chapter  are: — that  the  Ebbinghaus  Combination  test  is  a 
good  measure  of  intellectual  ability,  that  "  mechanical  memory  correlates 
fairly  closely  with  intelligence,"  that  "  correlation  between  speed  and  ac- 
curacy of  mental  performance  is  slightly  non-linear,"  and  that  "  in  homo- 
geneous groups  of  subjects  there  is  no  positive  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
one  central  factor."  A  brief  final  chapter  works  out  a  proof  to  emphasize 
the  possibility  of  measuring  correlation  between  complex  variables,  and 
for  more  than  two  variables. 

The  author  expresses  a  hope  that  this  book  will  prove  of  use  to  the 
educationist  who  has  had  "  a  real  training  in  psychology."  Such  real 
training  would  have  to  be  largely  along  the  lines  of  quantitative  research 
before  this  little  volume  could  be  appreciated.  It  will  be  valued  by  Eng- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          389 

lishmen,  under  the  influence  of  Karl  Pearson,  and  contributors  to  Bio- 
metrika  rather  more,  perhaps,  than  by  students  and  investigators  in  this 
country. 

M.  T.  WHITLEY. 
TEACHERS  COLLEGE,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

Outline  of  a  Course  in  the  Philosophy  of  Education.    JOHN  ANGUS  MAC- 

VANNEL.    New  York :  The  Macmillan  Company.    1912.    Pp.  207. 

This  book  is  a  revision  and  extension  of  a  syllabus  used  in  Teachers 
College,  Columbia  University.  The  leading  topics  are  philosophy,  per- 
sistent problems  and  presuppositions  of  education;  the  place  of  education, 
the  individual  and  society,  institutional  factors,  course  of  individual  de- 
velopment, democracy  and  education,  the  school  as  a  social  institution, 
and  the  intellectual  organization  of  the  school.  Many  subdivisions  of 
these  main  topics  are  given  and  at  the  close  of  each  chapter  is  placed  a 
considerable  list  of  references  to  both  ancient  and  modern  books. 

The  author  believes  the  most  "  fruitful  study  of  education  consists  in 
treating  it  as  an  integral  part  of  a  wider  philosophy  of  society,"  and  he 
attempts  to  show  the  relation  of  the  educational  process  to  the  facts  of 
organic  and  social  evolution.  Education  as  a  social  institution  is  defined 
as  "  the  method  by  which  a  particular  generation  endeavors  to  incorporate 
the  vital  elements  of  its  civilization  or  culture  into  the  life  of  the  genera- 
tion that  succeeds  it."  Development  is  not  merely  "  an  unfolding  from 
within,  but  also  an  enfolding  from  without  the  individual,"  and  environ- 
ment can  not  be  considered  separately.  Heredity  and  environment  "  are 
in  reality  phases  of  the  actual  concrete  working  self."  "  The  fundamental 
ethical  need  of  men  is  self-realization."  "  Self-realization  is  a  process  in 
which  the  self  (a)  comes  to  be  more  completely  defined,  i.  e.,  individual- 
ized; (&)  but  defined  through  the  membership  in  the  larger  unity."  The 
functions  of  education  "  are  (1)  the  liberation  of  the  individual  from 
himself  and  (2)  the  discovery  of  the  individual  to  himself." 

The  book  has  many  such  aptly  worded  definitions  and  statements  of 
truths  in  accordance  with  the  best  educational  thought  of  the  times,  and 
those  who  are  interested  in  correlating  their  ideas  of  philosophy  and  edu- 
cation after  the  manner  of  philosophers  will  appreciate  the  work  highly. 
There  is  nothing,  however,  in  the  book  to  give  direct  aid  to  those  who  are 
studying  educational  problems  in  a  scientific  or  practical  way. 

The  ideals  of  every  one  who  attempts  to  deal  with  educational  prob- 
lems are  determined  by  his  philosophy  of  life,  whether  he  has  ever  formu- 
lated it  or  not.  A  conscious  study  of  philosophy  may  be  very  valuable  to 
an  educator  by  leading  him  to  form  broader  and  truer  ideals  of  life,  but 
after  such  ideals  have  been  formed  the  important  thing  is  to  interpret  and 
apply  them  in  a  concrete  form.  Men  may  agree  on  a  theoretical  statement 
and  differ  radically  as  to  subjects  and  methods  to  be  used  in  applying  the 
theory  or  even  as  to  the  results  desired.  For  example,  the  religious  ascetic 
of  older  times  might,  in  learning  to  ignore  the  body  and  its  desires,  hare 
claimed  that  he  was  performing  the  educational  function  of  "  the  libera- 
tion of  the  individual  from  himself  "  and  the  New  England  puritan  might 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

be  justified  in  his  frequent  self-examination  by  the  principle  that  the 
function  of  education  is  "  the  discovery  of  the  individual  to  himself." 
Dr.  MacVannel  would  undoubtedly  protest  emphatically  against  such  in- 
terpretation of  his  statements  and  perhaps  against  a  dozen  other  in- 
terpretations that  might  honestly  be  made  by  others. 

It  is  not  his  purpose  to  make  applications  in  this  brief  outline  he  has 
written  and  hence  he  is  not  to  be  criticized  for  not  doing  what  he  did  not 
attempt.  The  question  in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  however,  remains,  "  Is 
there  any  real  value  in  any  book  on  the  philosophy  of  education  that  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  philosophy  of  the  theories  without  indicating  how  it 
is  purposed  to  interpret  and  apply  these  theories  to  concrete  problems?" 
The  statement  that  development  is  not  merely  "  an  unfolding  from  within 
but  also  an  enfolding  from  without  the  individual  "  is  very  good,  but  it 
might  be  offered  to  the  agriculturist  with  just  as  much  propriety  and  sig- 
nificance as  to  the  educator.  Fanners  and  scientific  students  of  agricul- 
ture consciously  or  unconsciously  assume  this  truth  and  are  trying  to  in- 
terpret and  apply  it  in  choosing  seed,  soil,  fertilizers,  etc.  They  would  be 
disgusted  with  any  one  who  asked  them  to  study  such  fundamental  as- 
sumptions under  the  name  of  "  philosophy  of  agriculture  "  if  there  were 
no  attempt  made  to  point  out  the  kind  of  problems  to  which  such  general 
definitions  and  general  truths  can  be  applied.  Why  should  not  the  educa- 
tor be  equally  pragmatic? 

Dr.  MacVannel  has  done  the  work  he  undertook  to  do  well,  but  the 
writer  wishes  to  raise  the  question  among  educators  and  philosophers  as 
to  whether  it  is  possible  for  any  philosopher  as  such  to  construct  a  phi- 
losophy of  education  that  will  be  of  any  more  real  value  to  educators  than 
would  be  a  philosophy  of  farming  to  the  farmer  or  a  philosophy  of  manu- 
facturing to  the  mill  man  or  the  philosophy  of  mining  to  the  miner.  Psy- 
chology is  largely  freed  from  philosophy.  Why  should  not  education  as 
a  science  and  art  also  be  independent  of  it? 

E.   A.   KlRKPATRICK. 

FITCHBUBO,  MASS. 


JOURNALS   AND   NEW   BOOKS 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW.  March.  1912.  Evolution  (pp. 
137-151):  FREDERICK  J.  E.  WOODBRIDCE.  -"  Evolution  is  history;  that 
antecedents  and  causes  should  consequently  be  historically  construed;  that 
evolution  is  pluralistic,  .  .  .  that  man  writes  the  history  only  of  his  own 
world ;  that,  however,  since  he  discovers  his  world  to  be  a  history,  he  may 
have  a  science  of  history  or  evolution  which  is  universal ;  and  this  science 
indicates  that  evolution  is  progressive."  The  Relation  of  Consciousness 
and  Object  in  Sense-Perception  (pp.  152-173) :  EVAXDER  BRADLEY  Mc- 
GILVARY. -A  defense  of  an  epistemological  monism  and  realism  with  the 
view  that  consciousness  is  a  unique  and  not  further  analyzable  relation  of 
"  togetherness."  The  difficulties  such  as  qualitative  differences,  how  one 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         391 

object  may  be  in  different  consciousnesses,  hallucinations,  the  time  problem, 
color-blindness,  and  the  "  consciousness  of  consciousness,"  are  examined. 
Moral  Experience  (pp.  174-188)  :  Louis  W.  FLACCUS.  -  The  term  "  moral 
experience  "  as  used  in  current  interpretations  of  ethics  is,  it  is  claimed, 
too  vague.  Its  meaning  as  employed  by  biological,  psychological,  and 
autoteleological  (including  the  Kantian  type  and  current  personal  ideal- 
ism and  pragmatism)  methods  is  unsatisfactory.  The  advantages  are  on 
the  side  of  personal  idealism  and  pragmatism.  Proceedings  of  the  Ameri- 
can Philosophical  Association;  the  Eleventh  Annual  Meeting,  Harvard 
University,  December  27-29,  1911  (pp.  189-217) .-  Includes  reports  of 
committees  with  summaries  of  papers  and  discussions.  Reviews  of  Books 
(pp.  218-238).  B.  Croce,  Lebendiges  und  Totes  in  HegeVs  Philosophic: 
FRANK  TILLY.  Th.  Ruyssen,  Schopenhauer:  RADOSLAV  A.  TSANOFF.  G.  F. 
Barbour,  A  Philosophical  Study  of  Christian  Ethics:  T.  B  KILPATRICK. 
A.  W.  Moore,  Pragmatism  and  its  Critics:  THEODORE  DE  LACUNA.  Notices 
of  New  Books.  Summaries  of  Articles.  Notes. 

REVUE  DE  METAPHYSIQUE  ET  DE  MORALE.  March,  1912. 
La  philosophic  des  sciences  historiques  dans  I'Allemagne  contemporaine 
(pp.  129-168) :  CH.  ANDLER.  -  The  work  of  the  historian  leads  naturally  to 
philosophical  results.  In  particular,  the  conflict  between  descriptive  and 
sociological  history  has  placed  the  problem  of  the  a  priori  which  presides 
over  the  formation  of  historical  concepts.  Translation  solaire  ou  defor- 
mation du  systeme  sideral?  (pp.  169-192) :  F.  MARGUET.  -  The  author 
suggests  an  astronomy  based  on  the  deformation  of  a  tetrahedron  formed 
by  joining,  say,  the  earth  and  three  other  planets,  or  the  sun  and  two 
planets.  Devoir  et  duree  (pp.  193-206)  :  J.  WILBOIS.  -  The  sketch  of  an 
ethics  which  shall  mark  out  a  science  of  morals,  establish  the  moral  im- 
perative, and  make  the  imperatives  precise,  or,  at  need,  revise  them.  La 
logique  deductive  (Suite  et  fin)  (pp.  207-231):  A.  PADOA. -The  conclu- 
sion of  the  author's  exposition  of  the  symbolic  language  of  Peano  and 
the  mathematical  logicians.  Etudes  critiques.  Victor  Brochard,  philos- 
ophe  et  historien  de  la  philosophic:  A.  RIVAUD.  Questions  practiques. 
Le  Syndicalisme  jaune:  F.  CHALLAYE.  Supplement. 

Bowne,  Borden  Parker.  Kant  and  Spencer.  Boston:  The  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xii  -f-  440.  $3.00. 

Griinbaum,  A.  S.  The  Essentials  of  Morbid  Pathology.  London :  Long- 
mans and  Company.  Pp.  xvi  -\-  219.  7a.  6d. 

Lones,  T.  E.  Aristotle's  Researches  in  Natural  Science.  London :  West, 
Newman,  and  Company.  Pp.  viii  +  274.  6s. 

Rand,  Benjamin.  The  Classical  Psychologists.  Selections  illustrating 
psychology  from  Anaxagoras  to  Wundt.  Boston :  The  Houghton  Mif- 
flin Company.  1912.  Pp.  xxi  +  734.  $3.50. 


392  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

NOTES  AND  NEWS 

at  decent  at  Heidelberg,  is  publishing,  with  the  collab- 
oration of  Ilerr  VVindelband,  a  collection  of  systematic  studies  devoted  to 
various  branches  of  philosophy.  The  enterprise  is  unique  in  that  the 
studies  will  consist  of  articles  written  by  representatives  of  the  principal 
contemporary  schools  of  philosophy.  The  first  volume,  now  in  press,  will 
contain:  Wilhelm  Windelband,  "Die  Prinzipien  der  Logik";  Josiah 
Royce,  "Principles  of  Logic";  Louis  Couturat,  "  Les  Principes  de  la 
Logique  ";  Benedetto  Croce,  "  H  Compito  della  Logica  ";  N.  Losskij,  "  Die 
Umgestaltung  des  Bewusstseinsbegriffes  in  der  modernen  Erkenntnis- 
theorie  und  ihre  Bedeutung  fur  die  Logik."  The  general  title  of  the 
work  is  "  Encyclopadie  der  philosophischen  Wissenschaft." 

Tut:  Aristotelian  Society  held  meetings  on  June  3  and  5.  At  the 
former  a  symposium  on  "  Purpose  and  Mechanism  "  was  carried  on  by 
Professor  W.  R.  Sorley,  Mr.  A.  D.  Lindsay,  and  Dr.  Bernard  Bosanquet. 
At  the  second  meeting,  Mr.  W.  E.  Tanner  read  a  paper  on  "  Significance 
and  Validity  in  Logic." 

THE  death  is  announced  of  Dr.  H.  de  Struve,  who  from  1871  to  1903 
was  professor  of  philosophy  at  the  University  of  Warsaw.  A  corre- 
spondent of  The  Times  states  that  Dr.  de  Struve  may  be  claimed  as  the 
founder  of  the  present-day  school  of  philosophy  in  Poland. — Nature. 

AT  a  meeting  of  the  British  Academy,  on  June  5,  the  Rev.  Hastings 
Rashdall  read  a  paper  on  "  The  Metaphysic  of  Mr.  Bradley."  The  paper 
dealt  with  Mr.  Bradley  as  an  idealist  and  with  various  problems  as  to  the 
essence  of  reality. 

A  NEW  critical  edition  of  the  works  of  Schopenhauer  in  fourteen  vol- 
umes is  to  be  undertaken  by  Paul  Deussen.  Two  volumes,  devoted  to 
"  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,"  have  already  appeared. 

THE  inauguration  of  Dr.  Anna  McKeag,  formerly  head  of  the  depart- 
ment of  education  in  Wellesley  College,  as  president  of  Wilson  College, 
occurred  on  May  1. 

PROFESSOR  D'AHCY  W.  THOMPSON,  professor  of  natural  history  at 
Dundee,  has  been  appointed  Herbert  Spencer  lecturer  at  Oxford  for 
1912.— Science. 

AT  the  anniversary  meeting  of  the  Linnean  Society,  on  May  24,  Pro- 
fessor E.  B.  Poulton  was  elected  president  for  the  ensuing  year. 

DR.  JOHN  E.  CLARK,  instructor  in  history  and  philosophy  in  Boston 
University,  has  been  appointed  professor  of  education  in  that  institution. 

A  NEW  magazine,  Comment  enseigner,  has  just  been  launched  in 
France.  It  is  to  be  issued  every  three  months. 

DR.  DANIEL  STARCH  has  been  promoted  to  the  rank  of  assistant  pro- 
fessor at  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  15.  JULY  18,  1912 

THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


~I~N  our  text-books  of  logic  the  topics  of  opposition  and  the  syllogism 
-*-  are  treated  as  if  they  were  only  externally  connected  with  each 
other.  Opposition  is  regarded  as  a  relation  between  two  proposi- 
tions, and  the  syllogistic  implication  is  regarded  as  a  relation  be- 
tween three  propositions,  so  that  the  two  relations  are  made  radically 
distinct.  I  wish  to  show  that  the  syllogistic  relation  is  very  closely 
allied  to  that  of  opposition.  In  what  I  shall  have  to  say  on  the  sub- 
ject there  is  nothing  new.  But  it  is  my  hope  that  a  new  mode  of 
presentation  may  set  in  clearer  light  some  truths  which  have  often 
been  misunderstood. 

As  a  preliminary,  let  us  consider  the  following  table  of  the  prop- 
ositions having  as  subjects  S  or  non-S  and  as  predicates  P  or  non-P. 
In  the  table  equivalent  propositions  are  grouped  together;  and  they 
may  be  derived  from  each  other  in  the  given  order,  by  obversion  or 
simple  conversion. 

I  II  III  IV 

All  S  is  P  All  S  is  non-P  All  non-S  is  non-P  All  non-S  is  P 

No  S  is  non-P  No  S  is  P  No  non-S  is  P  No  non-S  is  non-P 

No  non-P  is  S  No  P  is  S  No  P  is  non-S  No  non-P  is  non-S 

All  non-P  is  non-S  All  P  is  non-S  All  P  is  S  All  non-P  is  S 

v  vi  vii  vin 

Some  S  is-not  P  Some  S  is-not  non-P  Some  non-S  is-not  non-P  Some  non-S  is-not  P 

Some  S  is  non-P  Some  S  is  P  Some  non-S  is  P  Some  non-S  is  non-P 

Some  non-P  is  S  Some  P  is  S  Some  P  is  non-S  Some  non-P  is  non-S 

Some  non-P  is-not  non-S  Some  P  is-not  non-S  Some  P  is-not  S  Some  non-P  is-not  S 

On  account  of  the  equivalence  of  the  propositions  in  each  group, 
it  is  possible  and  convenient  to  consider  the  relation  of  opposition  as 
subsisting  between  the  several  groups,  instead  of  merely  between  the 
separate  propositions.  In  stating  the  relations  between  the  groups, 
I  shall  use  the  expression  "the  terms  of  the  group,"  meaning  thereby 
the  terms  which  appear  in  its  symmetrical  propositions,  i.  e,,  the 
universal  negative  and  particular  affirmative  forms.  We  may  then 
say: 


394  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

1.  A  universal  and  a  particular  group  having  the  same  terms  are 
contradictory.    Both  can  not  be  true  and  both  can  not  be  false.  Thus 
I.  and  V.,  II.  and  VI.,  III.  and  VII.,  and  IV.  and  VIII.  are  contra- 
dictory. 

2.  Two  universal  groups  having  one  term  in  common  are  con- 
trary; that  is  to  say,  if  their  common  term  is  not  null,  both  can  not 
be  true.    Thus  I.  and  III.  are  contrary  to  II.  and  IV.    More  pre- 
cisely, 

If  any  8  exists,  I.  and  II.  can  not  both  be  true. 

If  any  non-P  exists,  I.  and  IV.  can  not  both  be  true 

If  any  P  exists,  II.  and  III.  can  not  both  be  true. 

If  any  non-S  exists,  III.  and  IV.  can  not  both  be  true. 

3.  A  particular  group  having  one  term  in  common  with  a  uni- 
versal group  is  subaltern  to  it;  that  is  to  say,  if  the  common  term  is 
not  null  the  universal  implies  the  particular.     Thus  VI.  and  VIII. 
are  subaltern  to  I.  and  III.,  and  V.  and  VII.  are  subaltern  to  II.  and 
IV.    More  precisely, 

If  any  S  exists,  I.  implies  VI.,  and  II.  implies  V. 

If  any  non-P  exists,  I.  implies  VIII.,  and  IV.  implies  V. 

If  any  P  exists,  II.  implies  VII.,  and  III.  implies  VI. 

If  any  non-8  exists,  III.  implies  VIII.,  and  IV.  implies  VII. 

All  these  relations  are  indicated  in  the  accompanying  "  square  of 
opposition."  Contradictories  are  placed  together  at  the  corners. 
Universals  at  adjacent  corners  are  contrary.  A  particular  is  sub- 
altern to  a  universal  at  an  adjacent  corner.  The  term  upon  which 
contrariety  and  subalternation  depend  is  written  between.  If  one 
wishes  to  recall  from  the  diagram  the  meaning  of  the  numbers,  I., 
II.,  etc.,  one  needs  only  in  each  case  to  put  together  the  two  nearest 
terms  into  a  universal  negative  or  particular  affirmative  proposition. 
Thus  for  I.  we  may  write,  No  non-P  is  S ;  for  VII.,  Some  non-S  is  P. 
The  equivalent  forms  may  then  be  gotten  by  obversion  and  simple 
conversion. 

Several  comments  suggest  themselves.  If  we  analyze  any  par- 
ticular proposition  of  the  form,  Some  S  is  P,  we  find  that  it  implies 
that  there  exists  an  individual  that  belongs  both  to  the  class  S  and  to 
the  class  P.  There  may  be  more  than  one  such  individual,  but  there 
must  be  at  least  one.  But  the  universal  proposition,  All  S  is  P,  may 
be  true,  even  though  the  subject-class  (or  indeed  both  classes)  be 
null.  In  fact,  as  Professor  Royce  has  recently  had  occasion  to  re- 
mind us,  in  that  case  the  proposition  must  be  true.  "All  trespassers 
will  be  prosecuted,"  is  not  refuted,  but  verified,  if  no  trespass  is 
committed.  To  be  sure,  the  context  often  shows  that  the  existence 
of  the  subject  is  to  be  taken  for  granted.  But  in  numberless  in- 
stances we  assert  universal  propositions  when  we  are  ignorant 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


395 


whether  the  subject-class  is  null  or  not — less  often,  of  course,  when 
we  know  it  to  be  null.  Hence,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  when  the 
existence  of  the  subject  is  to  be  assumed  this  must  be  set  down  in  the 
formulae ;  for  example :  Some  S  exists,  and  all  S  is  P.1 


CONTRARY 


non-P 


Sometimes  this  distinction  between  universal  and  particular 
propositions  has  been  beclouded  by  the  contention  that  universal 
propositions  too  have  a  certain  existential  import — that  all  proposi- 
tions are  characterizations  of  reality,  or  of  some  universe  of  dis- 
course. This  contention  is  just.  But  one  truth  does  not  rub  out 
another;  and  it  still  remains  true  that  universal  propositions  need 
not  imply  that  their  subject-classes  are  not  null. 

For  this  reason,  in  all  the  forms  of  inference  where  a  particular 
proposition  is  derived  from  one  or  more  universal  propositions  (aside 
from  one  exception,  to  be  noted),  an  additional  existential  proposi- 
tion is  covertly  taken  for  granted.  That  this  is  the  case  with  the 
derivation  of  the  subaltern,  we  have  just  noted;  and  we  shall  here- 
after have  occasion  to  note  that  the  like  is  true  of  those  modes  of 
the  syllogism  (Darapti,  Felapton,  Fesapo,  and  Bramantip,  as  well  as 
the  so-called  "subalteran  modes"),  in  which  two  universal  premises 
give  a  particular  conclusion.3  The  same  principle  applies  to  conver- 

1  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  rare  instances  when  we  assert  propositions  of  the 
form,  Some  S  is  P,  conditionally,  without  meaning  to  imply  the  existence  of  any 
S,  this  too  must  be  made  explicit  in  the  formula:  If  any  S  exists,  some  S  is  P. 

8 1  believe  that  this  observation  was  first  made  by  the  American  logician, 
Miss  Ladd,  whom  we  know  now  by  a  different  name. 

*In  the  first  three  the  middle  term,  in  Bramantip  the  major  term,  and  in 
the  subaltern  modes  the  minor  term,  must  not  be  null.  It  has  sometimes  been 


30fi  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

sion  per  accident  and  (consequently)  to  inversion.  The  former  is 
valid  only  when  the  original  subject  is  not  null,  the  latter  only  when 
the  negative  of  the  original  predicate  is  not  null.  Thus  the  propo- 
sition, All  S  is  P  (in  group  I.),  implies  that  some  P  is  S  (group  VI.) 
only  on  condition  that  some  S  exists;  and  the  same  premise  implies 
that  some  non-S  is  non-P  (group  VIII.)  only  on  condition  that  some 
non-P  exists.  In  the  case  of  inversion  the  fallacy  that  results  from 
the  neglect  of  this  condition  is  sometimes  startling.  All  wise  men 
are  mortal,  may  be  held  to  imply  that  some  unwise  men  are  immortal ; 
but  this  is  correct  only  on  the  condition  that  some  immortal  men 
exist.4  I  should  think  that  it  would  be  possible  for  the  authors  of 
our  elementary  text-books  to  give  in  simple  English  a  correct  ac- 
count of  this  whole  matter. 

All  the  exceptions  (so  far  as  I  am  aware)  to  the  rule  that  uni- 
versal premises  can  not  give  particular  conclusions  rest  upon  the 
fact  that  from  the  proposition,  No  S  exists,  we  can  infer:  Some  non-S 
exists.  Here,  indeed,  we  assume  that  U  (the  universe  of  discourse) 
is  not  null ;  and  the  inference  can  be  put  in  the  form :  No  U  is  S,  and 
some  U  exists,  therefore  some  U  is  non-S.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  assumption  that  the  universe  of  discourse  is  not  null  is  every- 
where made;  and  every  attempt  to  deny  it  or  even  question  it  in- 
volves the  bringing  in  of  a  new  and  larger  universe,  as  if  we  should 
say:  No  V  is  U;  and  in  that  case  we  have  a  new  non-S  as  well.  Hence 
this  assumption  can  not  be  laid  particularly  to  the  charge  of  the  in- 
ference in  question.  What  we  can  say  is  that  in  this  case  the  omni- 
present assumption  becomes  explicit.5 

Let  the  class  which  consists  of  the  individuals  common  to  the 
classes  S,  P,  M,  N,  etc.  (the  so-called  "logical  product"),  be  denoted 
by  the  expression  S.P.M.N.,  etc.  In  what  follows  I  shall  assume 
that  in  such  an  expression  the  order  of  the  factors  is  immaterial,  and 
also  that  the  factors  may  be  grouped  together  ad  libitum.  Thus  it 

held  that  in  all  syllogisms  the  existence  of  the  middle  term  is  assumed.  That 
this,  however,  is  an  error  appears  very  clearly  in  the  case  of  Camestres:  All 
angels  have  hands  and  wings,  no  vertebrates  have  hands  and  wings,  therefore  no 
vertebrates  are  angels.  This  is  valid,  even  though  we  be  quite  ignorant  whether 
any  angels  or  other  creatures  with  hands  and  wings  exist,  or  not. 

4  Keynes,  whom  a  recent  writer  in  this  JOURNAL  severely  criticizes  for  bis 
treatment  of  inversion,  gives  explicit  mention  to  this  condition  ("Formal  Logic," 
p.  159).  On  the  other  hand,  Aikins  ("The  Principles  of  Logic,"  p.  138)  goes 
too  far  in  saying:  "The  process  of  alternate  obversion  and  conversion  .  .  .  is 
valid  only  if  the  existence  of  all  the  objects  named  is  presupposed. ' '  For  obver- 
sion and  simple  conversion  are  unconditionally  valid. 

*  It  is  thus  that  from  the  premises,  All  8  is  P,  No  S  is  P,  and  All  P  is  8 
we  can  infer:  Some  non-S  is  non-P.  The  first  two,  being  contraries,  imply  that 
no  8  exists;  wherefore  some  non-S  exists.  But  this  is  the  condition  that  the  third 
premise  implies  the  conclusion  as  its  subaltern. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         397 

will  be  assumed  that  S.P.M.N  is  the  same  class  as  P.N.M.S,  or 
(P.M).(N.S),  or  (N.S.M.).P. 

It  is  then  to  be  observed  that  any  universal  proposition  can  be 
put  into  the  form:  No  S  exists;  and  that  any  particular  proposition 
can  be  put  into  the  form :  Some  S  exists.  For  example  the  proposi- 
tions of  group  I.  above  may  be  expressed:  No  S.  non-P  exists:  and 
those  of  group  VII.  may  be  expressed:  Some  non-S.P.  exists.  And 
the  relations  of  contrariety  and  subalternation  may  be  expressed: 

If  no  S.P  exists,  and  no  S.non-P  exists,  then  no  S  exists. 

If  no  S.P  exists,  and  some  S  exists,  then  some  S.non-P  exists. 

On  the  other  hand,  any  proposition  in  the  positive  or  negative  ex- 
istence-form can  be  translated  into  the  subject-predicate  form.  Thus, 
No  S.P.Q  exists,  may  be  rendered  as  No  S  is  P.Q,  or  as  No  S.P  is  Q, 
or  as  No  S.Q  is  P.  Similarly:  Some  S.P.Q  exists,  may  be  rendered 
as :  Some  S  is  P.Q,  etc.  The  single-factored  propositions :  No  S  exists, 
and  Some  S  exists,  may  be  put  in  the  form :  No  U  is  S,  and  Some  U  is 
S  (where  U  signifies  the  universe  of  discourse). 

There  are  two  principles  of  immediate  inference,  which  are  in 
constant  use,  but  which  our  text-books  seldom  recognize.  These  are : 
(1)  Any  factor  may  be  added  to  a  distributed  term  of  a  proposition; 
and  (2)  any  factor  may  be  dropped  from  an  undistributed  term. 
Thus,  if  all  S  is  P,  it  follows  that  all  S.M  is  P ;  and  if  some  S  is  P.Q, 
it  follows  that  some  S  is  P.  As  applied  to  propositions  in  the  nega- 
tive and  positive  existential  form,  the  principles  read:  (1)  Any  fac- 
tor may  be  added  to  a  universal  proposition;  and  (2)  any  factor  may 
be  dropped  from  a  particular  proposition.  If  no  S.P  exists,  then  no 
S.P.Q  exists ;  and  if  some  S.P.Q  exists,  some  S.P  exists. 

It  is  by  means  of  these  principles  that  we  shall  be  able  to  show 
the  connection  between  the  syllogism  and  opposition. 

1.  Consider  the  premises: 

No  P.M  exists. 
No  S.non-M  exists. 

Let  us  add  the  factor  S  to  the  first  and  the  factor  P  to  the  second. 
(Permit  me  to  emphasize,  in  passing,  the  fact  that  these  operations 
upon  the  two  premises  are  mutually  independent;  that  is  to  say, 
each  can  be  performed  without  assuming  the  truth  of  the  other 
premise.) 

No  (S.P).M  exists. 

No  (S.P).non-M  exists. 

But  these  two  propositions  are  contraries;  and  hence  since  both 
are  true,  their  common  term  must  be  null.  That  is  to  say: 

No  S.P  exists. 


398  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

We  have  thus  "reduced"  the  syllogism  in  Cesare  to  the  principle 
of  contrary  opposition.  Of  course,  the  same  process  might  be  carried 
through  with  propositions  in  the  subject-predicate  form,  and  it  can 
be  applied  to  any  of  the  moods  in  which  a  universal  conclusion  is  ob- 
tained. Take,  for  example,  the  premises  of  Barbara: 

All  M  is  P. 
All  8  is  M. 

Obvert  and  convert  simply  the  major  premise : 
No  non-P  is  M. 

Introduce  non-P  into  the  subject  of  the  minor  premise,  and  S 
into  the  subject  of  the  transformed  major  premise : 

All  s. n,,n  I-  is  M. 
No  S.non-P  is  M. 

Since  these  are  contraries  we  have : 

No  S.non-P  exists. 

Or,  in  subject-predicate  form: 
All  8  is  P. 

Nevertheless  it  is  convenient  to  use  the  existence-forms,  because 
their  symmetry  enables  us  to  dispense  with  the  consideration  of 
figure.8 

2.  Consider  the  premises: 

No  P.M  exists. 

Some  S.M  exists. 
Adding  the  factor  S  to  the  first,  we  obtain : 

No  (S.M).P  exists. 
From  this  and  the  second  premise  we  obtain  the  subaltern : 

Some  (S.M). non-P  exists. 
And  now,  dropping  the  factor  M,  we  have : 

*  It  is  in  this  way  that  Mrs.  C.  L.  Franklin  proves  her  half -humorous  thesis, 
that  the  conclusion  of  the  syllogism  in  Barbara  omits  precisely  one  half  of  what 
is  contained  in  the  premises.  We  are  asked  to  note  that  from  the  proposition: 
No  P.M  exists,  we  can  derive  the  tiro  propositions:  No  S.P.M  exists  and  No 
non-S.P.M  exists;  and  furthermore,  that  since  these  propositions  are  contraries, 
the  two  together  imply  the  proposition:  No  P.M  exists.  Thus:  No  P.M  exists, 
is  exactly  equivalent  to  those  two  propositions  taken  together.  Similarly,  the 
proposition:  No  S.non-M  exists,  is  equivalent  to  the  two  propositions:  No 
S.P.non-M  exists  and  No  S.non-P.non-M  exists.  Thus  the  two  syllogistic 
premises:  No  P.M  exists  and  No  S.non-M  exists,  are  equivalent  to  the  four 
propositions:  (1)  No  S.P.M  exists;  (2)  no  non-S.P.M  exists;  (3)  no  S.P.non-M 
exists;  and  (4)  no  S.non-P.non-M  exists.  But  (1)  and  (3)  are  together  equiva- 
lent to  the  conclusion:  No  8.P  exists;  while  no  account  is  taken,  in  the  con- 
clusion, of  the  two  other  propositions,  (2)  and  (4). 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         399 

Some  S.non-P  exists. 

3.  Consider  the  premises : 

No  P.M  exists. 
No  S.M  exists. 

Let  us  suppose  that  in  addition  to  these  premises  we  may  assume : 

Some  M  exists. 
From  this  last  and  the  second  premise,  we  obtain  the  subaltern: 

Some  non-S.M  exists. 

This,  with  the  first  premise,  gives  us  (by  the  method  shown 
above) : 

Some  non-S.non-P  exists. 

4.  Consider  once  more  the  premises : 

No  P.M  exists. 
No  S.non-M  exists. 

Suppose  that  we  are  entitled  to  assume : 

Some  P  exists. 
This  last,  with  the  first  premise,  gives  us  the  subaltern : 

Some  P.non-M  exists. 

This,  with  the  second  premise,  gives  us  (by  the  preceding 
method)  : 

Some  P.non-S  exists. 

We  have  now  derived  the  following  four  syllogistic  formulae : 

1.  If  no  P.M  exists,  and  no  S.non-M  exists,  then  no  S.P  exists. 

2.  If  no  P.M  exists,  and  some  S.M  exists,  then  some  S.non-P  exists. 

3.  If  no  P.M  exists,  and  no  S.M  exists,  then  some  non-S.non-P  exists,  on  the 
condition  that  some  M  exists. 

4.  If  no  P.M  exists,  and  no  S.non-M  exists,  then  some  P.non-S  exists,  on  the 
condition  that  some  P  exists. 

Of  these  formulae,  (1)  is  equivalent  to  Barbara,  Celarent,  Cesare, 
Camestres,  and  Camenes;  (2)  is  equivalent  to  Darii,  Ferio,  Festino, 
Baroko,  Disamis,  Datisi,  Bokardo,  Ferison,  Dimaris  and  Fresison;"1 
(3)  is  equivalent  to  Darapti,  Felapton,  and  Fesapo;  and  (4)  is  equiv- 
alent to  Bramantip  and  the  so-called  "subaltern"  modes. 

This  completes  the  "reduction"  of  the  moods  of  the  syllogism.  It 
is  apparent,  however,  that  formulae  (3)  and  (4)  are  not  independent 
and  do  not  describe  simple  syllogisms.  All  syllogisms  may  be  ob- 
tained from  (1)  and  (2).  We  may  now,  furthermore,  observe  that 
if  we  replace  the  conclusions  of  these  two  formulae  by  their  contra- 
dictories and  interchange  the  symbols  M  and  P  in  (2),  they  reduce 
to  the  common  form : 

Some  S.P  exists,  no  S.non-M  exists,  and  no  P.M  exists,  are  not  all  true. 

T  For  example,  the  old  enemy  Bokardo  becomes :  Some  M.non-P  exists,  no 
M.non-S  exists,  therefore  some  non-P.S  exists. 


400  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

This,  then  (if  we  leave  out  of  account  the  possible  occurrence  of 
singular  terras),  is  the  general  principle  of  the  categorical  syllogism. 

Now,  if  we  refer  to  the  formula;  for  the  contrary  and  the  sub- 
altern (on  p.  397),  we  at  once  perceive  that  these  too  can  be  reduced 
to  a  common  form  by  replacing  the  conclusions  by  their  contradic- 
tories: 

Some  8  exists,  no  S.non-P  exists,  and  no  8.P  exists,  are  not  all  true. 

But  this  is  simply  the  principle  of  the  syllogism  in  the  special 
case  where  S  and  P  are  identical  (the  symbol  P  being  put  here  in- 
stead  of  M).  From  this  point  of  view,  therefore,  we  see  that  the  in- 
ference of  the  falsity  of  the  contrary  and  the  truth  of  the  subaltern 
constitute  a  simple  variety  of  syllogism,  although  we  deduced  the 
principle  of  the  syllogism  by  a  particular  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  opposition.  This  sort  of  "generalization"  is,  of  course,  not 
uncommon  in  the  deductive  sciences.8 

The  principle  of  the  categorical  syllogism  may  be  compared  with 
a  similar  principle  of  the  hypothetical  syllogism  :  It  is  false  that  the 
joint  assertion  of  p  and  q  is  true,  the  joint  assertion  of  p  and  not-r 
false,  and  the  joint  assertion  of  q  and  r  false.  If  we  observe,  that  to 
say  that  the  joint  assertion  of  two  propositions  is  false,  is  equivalent 
to  saying  that  each  implies  the  falsity  of  the  other,  we  may  interpret 
this  principle  as  declaring:  If  p  implies  r  and  r  implies  not-q,  then 
p  implies  not-q.  It  may  also  be  read  as  affirming  that  if  q  implies  r, 
and  p  and  q  are  both  true,  then  p  and  r  are  both  true. 

In  the  case  where  p  and  q  are  the  same  proposition  —  a  case  which 
is  thus  analogous  to  the  principle  of  the  contrary  and  the  subaltern 
—  we  have  :  It  is  false  that  p  is  true,  the  joint  assertion  of  p  and  not-r, 
false,  and  the  joint  assertion  of  p  and  r,  false.  This  yields  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  reductio  ad  absurdum:  If  p  implies  both  r  and  not-r  it 
is  false.  And  it  also  yields  the  principle  of  the  modus  ponens  (from 
which  the  modus  tollens  is  easily  derived)  :  If  p  implies  r,  and  p  is 
true,  then  r  is  also  true. 

If  we  use  letters  to  denote  ambiguously  either  classes  or  proposi- 
tions, the  two  general  principles  (of  the  categorical  and  the  hypo- 
thetical syllogism)  may  be  expressed  in  a  single  symbolic  formula: 


And  in  the  same  way  the  principle  of  the  contrary  and  the  subaltern, 
and  the  principle  of  the  reductio  ad  absurdum,  and  the  modus 
ponens,  may  be  expressed  in  the  one  formula: 


BEYN  MA  WE  COLLEGE.  THEODORE  DE  LACUNA. 

'  For  example,  in  elementary  geometry  we  first  find  the  sum  of  the  interior 
angles  of  a  triangle;  and  then  by  the  application  of  this  result  we  find  the 
formula  for  the  sum  of  the  interior  angles  of  any  polygon. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         401 

THE  MECHANISM  OF  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS1 

THE  organization  of  consciousness  may  be  regarded  from  the  . 
standpoint  of  its  objects  and  the  relation  of  these  objects  to  / 
conduct.     I  have  in  mind  to  present  somewhat  schematically  the  rela- 
tion of  social  .ohjficts  or  selves  to  the  form  of  social  conduct,  and  to 
introduce  this  by  a  statement  of  the  relation  of  the  physical  object 
to  the  conduct  within  which  it  appears. 

A  physical  object  or  percept  is  a  construct  in  which  the  sensuous  / 
stimulation  is  merged  with  imagery  which  comes  from  past  experi- 
ence. This  imagery  on  the  cognitive  side  is  that  which  the  imme- 
diate sensuous  quality  stands  for,  and  in  so  far  satisfies  the  mind. 
The  reason  for  this  satisfaction  is  found  in  the  fact  that  this  imagery 
arises  from  past  exporiejJ£e-^4he  result  of  an  act  wJiiclL_this  stim- 
ulus has  set  going.  Thus  the  wall  as  a  visual  stimulus  tends  to  set 
free  the  impulse  to  move  toward  it  and  push  against  it.  The  per- 
ception of  the  wall  as  distant  and  hard  and  rough  is  related  to  the 
visual  experience  as  response  to  stimulation.  A  peculiar  stimulus 
value  stands  for  a  certain  response  value.  A  percept  is  a  collapsed 
act  in  which  the  result  of  the  act  to  which  the  stimulus  incites  is 
represented  by  imagery  of  the  experience  of  past  acts  of  a  like  nature. 

In  so  far  as  our  physical  conduct  involves  movements  toward  or 
away  from  distant  objects  and  their  being  handled  when  we  come 
into  contact  with  them,  we  perceive  all  things  in  terms  of  distance 
sensation — color,  sound,  odor — which  stand  for  hard  or  soft,  big  or 
little,  objects  of  varying  forms,  which  actual  contact  will  reveal. 

Our  conduct  in  movement  and  manipulation,  with  its  stimulations 
and  responses,  gives  the  framework  within  which  objects  of  percep- 
tion arise — and  this  conduct  is  in  so  far  responsible  for  the  organ- 
ization of  our  physical  world.     Percepts — physical  objects — are  com-  i 
pounds  of  the  experience  of  immediate  stimulation  and  the  imagery  | 
of  the  response  to  which  this  stimulation  will  lead.    The  object  can 
be  properly  stated  in  terms  of  conduct. 

I  have  referred  to  percepts  as  objects  which  arise  in  physical 
experience  because  it  is  a  certain  phase  of  conduct  which,  with  its 
appropriate  stimuli  and  responses,  gives  rise  to  such  products,  i.  e., 
movement  under  the  influence  of  distant  stimuli  leading  to  contact 
experiences  of  manipulation. 

Given  a  different  type  of  conduct  with  distinguishable  stimula- 
tions and  responses,  and  different  objects  would  arise — such  a  dif- 
ferent field  is  that  of  social  conduct.  By  social  conduct  I  refer 
simply  to  that  which  is  mediated  by  the  stimulations  of  other  ani- 

1Eead  at  the  meeting  of  the  Western  Philosophical  Association  held  in 
Chicago,  April  5  and  6. 


402  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

mals  belonging  to  the  same  group  of  living  forms,  which  lead  to 
responses  which  again  affect  these  other  forms — thus  fighting,  repro- 
duction, parental  care,  much  of  animal  play,  hunting,  etc.,  are  the 
results  of  primitive  instincts  or  impulses  which  are  set  going  by  the 
stimulation  of  one  form  by  another,  and  these  stimulations  again  lead 
to  responses  which  affect  other  forms. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  a  man  is  a  physical  object  to  the  percep- 
tion of  another  man,  and  as  really  as  is  a  tree  or  a  stone.  But  a  man 
is  more  than  a  physical  object,  and  it  is  this  more  which  constitutes 
him  a  social  object  or  self,  and  it  is  this  self  which  is  related  to  that 
peculiar  conduct  which  may  be  termed  social  conduct. 

Most  social  stimulation  is  found  in  the  beginnings  or  early  stages 
of  social  acts  which  serve  as  stimulLto  other  forms  whom  these  acts 
would  affect.  This  is  the  field  of  (gestures,  which  reveal  the  motor 
attitude  of  a  form  in  its  relation  to  others ;  an  attitude  which  psy- 
chologists have  conceived  of  as  predominantly  emotional,  though  it  is 
emotional  only  in  so  far  as  an  ongoing  act  is  inhibited.  That  certain 
of  these  early  indications  of  an  incipient  act  have  persisted,  while  the 
rest  of  the  act  has  been  largely  suppressed  or  has  lost  its  original 
value,  e.  g.,  the  baring  of  the  teeth  or  the  lifting  of  the  nostrils,  is 
true,  and  the  explanation  can  most  readily  be  found  in  the  social 
value  which  such  indications  have  acquired.  It  is  an  error,  however, 
to  overlook  the  relation  which  these  truncated  acts  have  assumed 
toward  other  forms  of  reactions  which  complete  them  as  really  as  the 
original  acts,  or  to  forget  that  they  occupy  but  a  small  part  of  the 
whole  field  of  gesture  by  means  of  which  we  are  apprised  of  the 
reactions  of  others  toward  ourselves.  The  expressions  of  the  face  and 
attitudes  of  body  have  the  same  functional  value  for  us  that  the 
beginnings  of  hostility  have  for  two  dogs,  who  are  maneuvering  for 
an  opening  to  attack. 

This  field  of  gesture  does  not  simply  relate  the  individual  to  other 
individuals  as  physical  objects,  but  puts  him  en  rapport  with  their 
actions,  which  are  as  yet  only  indicated,  and  arouses  instinctive  reac- 
tions appropriate  to  these  social  activities.  The  social  response  of 
one  individual,  furthermore,  introduces  a  further  complication.  The 
attitude  assumed  in  response  to  the  attitude  of  another  becomes  a 
stimulus  to  him  to  change  his  attitude,  thus  leading  to  that  conversa- 
tion of  attitudes  which  is  so  vividly  illustrated  in  the  early  stages  of 
a  dog  fight.  We  see  the  same  process  in  courting  and  mating,  and  in 
the  fondling  of  young  forms  by  the  mother,  and  finally  in  much  of 
the  play  of  young  animals. 

It  has  been  recognized  for  some  time  that  speech  belongs  in  its 
beginnings,  at  least,  to  this  same  field  of  gesture,  so-called  vocal  ges- 
ture. Originally  indicating  the  preparation  for  violent  action,  which 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         403 

arises  from  a  sudden  change  of  breathing  and  circulation  rhythms, 
the  articulate  sounds  have  come  to  elaborate  and  immensely  compli- 
cate this  conversation  of  attitudes  by  which  social  forms  so  adjust 
themselves  to  each  other's  anticipated  action  that  they  may  act  appro- 
priately with  reference  to  each  other. 

Articulate  sounds  have  still  another  most  important  result.  While 
one  feels  but  imperfectly  the  value  of  his  own  facial  expression  or 
bodily  attitude  for  another,  his  ear  reveals  to  him  his  own  vocal  ges- 
ture in  the  same  form  that  it  assumes  to  his  neighbor.  One  shakes 
his  fist  primarily  only  at  another,  while  he  talks  to  himself  as  really 
as  he  talks  to  his  vis-a-vis.  The  genetic  import  of  this  has  long  been 
recognized.  The  young  child  talks  to  himself,  i.  e.,  uses  the  elements 
of  articulate  speech  in  response  to  the  sounds  he  hears  himself  make, 
more  continuously  and  persistently  than  he  does  in  response  to  the 
sounds  he  hears  from  those  about  him,  and  displays  greater  interest 
in  the  sounds  he  himself  makes  than  in  those  of  others.  We  know 
also  that  this  fascination  of  one's  own  vocal  gestures  continues  even 
after  the  child  has  learned  to  talk  with  others,  and  that  the  child  will 
converse  for  hours  with  himself,  even  constructing  imaginary  com- 
panions, who  function  in  the  child's  growing  self -consciousness  as 
the/processes  of  inner  speech — of  thought  and  imagination — function 
in  tnlTconsciousness  of  the  adultp 

To  return  to  the  formula  given  above  for  the  formation  of  an 
object  in  consciousness,  we  may  define  the  social  object  in  terms  of 
social  conduct  as  we  defined/fehe  physical  object  in  terms  of  our  reac- 
tions to  physical  objects.  /The  object  was  found  to  consist  of  the 
sensuous  experience  of  the  stimulation  to  an  act  plus  the  imagery 
from  past  experience  of  the  final  result  of  the  act.  jThe  social  object 
will  then  be  the  gestures,  i.  e.,  the  early  indications  of  an  ongoing- 
social  act  in  another  plus  the  imagery  of  our  own  response  to  that 
stimulation.)  To  the  young  child  the  frowns  and  smiles  of  those 
about  him,xthe  attitude  of  body,  the  outstretched  arms,  are  at  first 
simply  stimulations  that  call  out  instinctive  responses  of  his  own 
appropriate  to  these  gestures.  He  cries  or  laughs,  he  moves  toward 
his  mother,  or  stretches  out  his  arms.  When  these  gestures  in  others 
bring  back  the  images  of  his  own  responses  and  their  results,  the  child 
has  the  material  out  of  which  he  builds  up  the  social  objects  that 
form  the  most  important  part  of  his  environment.  We  are  familiar 
with  this  phase  of  a  baby's  development,  being  confident  that  he 
recognizes  the  different  members  of  the  group  about  him.  He  acts 
then  with  confidence  toward  them  since  their  gestures  have  come  to 
have  meaning  for  him.  His  own  response  to  their  stimulations  and 
its  consequences  are  there  to  interpret  the  facial  expressions  and  atti- 
tudes of  body  and  tones  of  voice.  The  awakening  social  intelligence 


404  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  child  is  evidenced  not  so  much  through  his  ready  responses  to 
the  gesture  of  others,  for  these  have  been  in  evidence  much  earlier. 
It  is  the  inner  assurance  of  his  own  readiness  to  adjust  himself  to 
the  attitudes  of  others  that  looks  out  of  his  eyes  and  appears  in  his 
own  bodily  attitudes. 

If  we  assume  that  an  object  arises  in  consciousness  through  the 
merging  of  the  imagery  of  experience  of  the  response  with  that  of 
the  sensuous  experience  of  the  stimulation,  it  is  evident  that  the 
child  must  merge  the  imagery  of  his  past  responses  into  the  sensuous 
stimulation  of  what  comes  to  him  through  distance  senses.  His  con- 
tact and  kinesthetic  experiences  must  be  lodged  in  the  sensuous  ex- 
periences  that  call  them  out  if  they  are  to  achieve  objective  character 
in  his  consciousness. 

It  will  be  some  time  before  he  can  successfully  unite  the  different 
parts  of  his  own  body,  such  as  his  hands  and  feet,  which  he  sees  and 
feels,  into  a  single  object.  Such  a  step  must  be  later  than  the  forma- 
tion of  the  physical  objects  of  his  environment.  The  form  of  the 
object  is  given  in  the  experience  of  things,  which  are  not  his  physical 
self.  When  he  has  synthesized  his  various  bodily  parts  with  the 
organic  sensations  and  affective  experiences,  it  will  be  upon  the  model 
of  objects  about  him.  The  mere  presence  of  experiences  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  together  with  organic  sensations,  will  not  form  an  object 
Wnless  this  material  can  fall  into  the  scheme  of  an  object — that  of 
Ijsensuous  stimulation  plus  the  imagery  of  the  response. 

In  the  organization  of  the  baby's  physical  experience  the  appear- 
ance of  his  body  as  a  unitary  thing,  as  an  object,  will  be  relatively 
late,  and  must  follow  upon  the  structure  of  the  objects  of  his  environ- 
ment. This  is  as  true  of  the  object  that  appears  in  social  conduct, 
the  self.  The  form  of  the  social  object  must  be  found  first  of  all  in 
the  experience  of  other  selves.  The  earliest  achievement  of  social 
consciousness  will  be  the  merging  of  the  imagery  of  the  baby's  first 
responses  and  their  results  with  the  stimulations  of  the  gestures  of 
others.  The  child  will  not  succeed  in  forming  an  object  of  himself 
— of  putting  the  so-called  subjective  material  of  consciousness  within 
such  a  self — until  he  has  recognized  about  him  social  objects  who 
have  arisen  in  his  experience  through  this  process  of  filling  out  stim- 
ulations with  past  experiences  of  response.  And  this  is  indeed  our 
uniform  experience  with  children.  The  child's  early  social  percepts 
are  of  others.  After  these  arise  incomplete  and  partial  selves — or 
"me's" — which  are  quite  analogous  to  the  child's  percepts  of  his 
hands  and  feet,  which  precede  his  perception  of  himself  as  a  whole. 
The  mere  presence  of  affective  experience,  of  imagery,  of  organic  sen- 
sations, does  not  carry  with  it  consciousness  of  a  self  to  which  these 
experiences  belong.  Nor  does  the  unitary  character  of  the  response 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         405 

which  tends  to  synthesize  our  objects  of  perception  convey  that  same 
unitary  character  to  the  inner  experience  until  the  child  is  able  to 
experience  himself  as  he  experiences  other  selves. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  lower  animals  never  reach  any  such 
objective  reference  of  what  we  term  subjective  experiences  to  selves, 
and  the  question  presents  itself — what  is  there  in  human  social  con- 
duct that  give  rise  to  a  "me,"  a  self  which  is  an  object?    Why  does  ; 
the  human  animal  transfer  the  form  of  a  social  object  from  his  en-l 
vironment  to  an  inner  experience? 

The  answer  to  the  question  is  already  indicated  in  the  state- 

.' 

ment  of  vocal  gesture.  Certainly  the  fact  that  the  human  animal 
can  stimulate  himself  as  he  stimulates  others  and  can  respond  to  his 
stimulations  as  he  responds  to  the  stimulations  of  others,  places  in 
his  conduct  the  form  of  a  social  object  out  of  which  may  arise  a 
"me"  to  which  can  be  referred  so-called  subjective  experiences. 

Of  course  the  mere  capacity  to  talk  to  oneself  is  not  the  whole  of 
self-consciousness,  otherwise  the  talking  birds  would  have  souls  or 
at  least  selves.  What  is  lacking  to  the  parrot  are  the  social  objects 
which  can  exist  for  the  human  baby.  Part  of  the  mechanism  for 
transferring  the  social  objects  into  an  inner  experience  the  parrot 
possesses,  but  he  has  nothing  to  import  into  such  an  inner  world. 
Furthermore,  the  vocal  gesture  is  not  the  only  form  which  can  serve 
for  the  building  up  of  a  "me,"  as  is  abundantly  evident  from  the 
building-up  gestures  of  the  deaf  mutes.  Any  gesture  by  which  the 
individual  can  himself  be  affected  as  others  are  affected,  and  which 
therefore  tends  to  call  out  in  him  a  response  as  it  would  call  it  out 
in  another,  will  serve  as  a  mechanism  for  the  construction  of  a  self. 
That,  however,  a  consciousness  of  a  self  as  an  object  would  ever  have 
arisen  in  man  if  he  had  not  had  the  mechanism  of  talking  to  him- 
self, I  think  there  is  every  reason  to  doubt. 

If  this  statement  is  correct  the  objective  self  of  human  conscious- 
ness is  the  merging  of  one's  responses  with  the  social  stimulation  by 
which  he  affects  himself.  The  "me"  is  a  man's  reply  to  his  own 
talk.  Such  a  me  is  not  then  an  early  formation,  which  is  then  pro- 
jected and  ejected  into  the  bodies  of  other  people  to  give  them  the 
breadth  of  human  life.  It  is  rather  an  importation  from  the  field 
of  social  objects  into  an  amorphous,  unorganized  field  of  what  we 
call  inner  experience.  Through  the  organization  of  this  object,  the 
self,  this  material  is  itself  organized  and  brought  under  the  control 
of  the  individual  in  the  form  of  so-called  self-consciousness. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  psychology  that  it  is  only  the  "me" — the 
empirical  self — that  can  be  brought  into  the  focus  of  attention — that 
can  be  perceived.  The  "I"  lies  beyond  the  range  of  immediate  ex- 
perience. In  terms  of  social  conduct  this  is  tantamount  to  saying 


406  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

that  we  can  perceive  our  responses  only  as  they  appear  as%  images 
from  past  experience,  merging  with  the  sensuous  stimulation.  We 
can  not  present  the  response  while  we  are  responding.  We  can  not 
use  our  responses  to  others  as  the  materials  for  construction  of  the 
self — this  imagery  goes  to  make  up  other  selves.  We  must  socially 
stimulate  ourselves  to  place  at  our  own  disposal  the  material  out  of 
which  our  own  selves  as  well  as  those  of  others  must  be  made. 

The  "I"  therefore  never  can  exist  as  an  object  in  consciousness, 
but  the  very  conversational  character  of  our  inner  experience,  the 
very  process  of  replying  to  one's  own  talk,  implies  an  "I"  behind  the 
scenes  who  answers  to  the  gestures,  the  symbols,  that  arise  in  con- 
sciousness. The  "I"  is  the  transcendental  self  of  Kant,  the  soul  that 
James  conceived  behind  the  scene  holding  on  to  the  skirts  of  an  idea 
to  give  it  an  added  increment  of  emphasis. 

The  self-conscious,  actual  self  in  social  intercourse  is  the  objec- 
tive "me"  or  "me  V  with  the  process  of  response  continually  going 
on  and  implying  a  fictitious  "I"  always  out  of  sight  of  himself. 

Inner  consciousness  is  socially  organized  by  the  importation  of 
the  social  organization  of  the  outer  world. 

GEORGE  H.  MEAD. 

UNIVERSITY  or  CHICAGO. 


DISCUSSION 
RELIGION  AND  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  TRUTH1 

PROFESSOR  STRATTON'S  book  is  almost  altogether  concerned 
with  the  exhibition  of  the  range  of  the  conflict  of  motives,  of 
feelings,  and  of  ideas  in  religious  life.  In  a  final  brief  chapter,  how- 
ever, he  argues  in  favor  of  the  proposition  that  "religion  is  justified 
in  taking  part  in  the  discovery  of  truth. ' '  I  wish  to  make  the  fol- 
lowing comments  upon  his  defense  of  that  thesis. 

There  are,  we  are  told,  four  varieties  of  truth;  and  religion  is 
concerned  with  all  four  of  them.  The  worshiper,  when  his  faith  is 
at  its  best,  does  not  only  want  to  "believe  usefully  and  in  all  con- 
sistency and  with  a  just  sense  of  relative  values";  he  wants  also  to 
believe  that  the  ideal  world  exists  not  merely  in  someone's  idea,  but 
also  independently  of  the  thinker.  Let  the  reader  bear  in  mind  that 
this  fourth  kind  of  truth  is  the  one  discussed  by  Professor  Stratton 
and  the  only  one  with  which  I  shall  be  concerned  in  these  pages.  It 
is  often  called  objective  truth,  but  he  prefers  the  term  factual  truth. 

1 A  propos  of  Professor  Stratton 's  book,  ' '  The  Psychology  of  the  Religious 
Life."  London:  George  Allen  and  Company.  1911. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         407 

I  shall  first  summarize  briefly  our  author's  argument.  We  are 
reminded  that  although  the  scientist  looks  upon  the  universality  of 
causal  relations  as  rigorous  and  demonstrable  at  every  point,  yet 
"observation  has  found  such  causes  only  within  narrow  limits;  and 
even  these  are  discovered  only  by  assuming  in  every  observation  the 
truth  of  the  very  principle  which  the  observation  seems  to  verify. 
Deep  within  us  is  the  desire  for  causal  explanation;  and  largely 
because  we  are  ill  at  ease  until  this  desire  is  gratified,  we  come  at 
last  to  believe  unhesitatingly  in  that  kind  of  universe  which  alone 
makes  explanation  possible."  Why  should  not  religion  enjoy  the 
same  privilege?  The  need  of  sympathy  and  of  full  companionship 
has  as  good  a  right  to  bring  into  existence  its  own  great  belief  that 
the  world  is  morally  harmonious,  as  the  need  of  explanation  has  the 
right  to  build  an  objective  world  held  to  be  permeated  throughout  by 
causal  relations.  "There  is  something  that  tells  us  to  connect  and 
surround  the  fragments  of  experience  in  such  wise  that  the  whole 
will  answer  to  the  moral  impulse.  Shut  within  our  little  cell  of  self, 
we  can  not  see  that  the  whole  is  moral,  more  than  we  can  see  that  it 
is  beautiful  or  reasonable  or  that  it  furnishes  a  causal  explanation 
of  all  we  experience.  ...  If  we  will  not  believe,  there  is  no  recourse ; 
no  one  can  demonstrate  to  us  that  morality  runs  through  the  uni- 
verse any  more  than  that  causation  runs  through  all.  If  accepted, 
however,  the  moral  principles  leads  to  a  more  spacious  world,  as  does 
the  causal  principle. ' ' 

So  far  my  quotations  from  Professor  Stratton's  argument  seem 
a  straight-out  defense  of  the  right  to  believe  whatever  we  feel  the 
need  of  believing.  But  this  does  not  represent  fairly  the  author's 
position.  He  accepts  the  moral  principle  as  only  one  "among  sev- 
eral great  guides  to  what  is  real."  And  he  admits  that  under  the 
leadings  of  that  principle  ' '  there  is  room  and  demand  for  the  utmost 
critical  care."  "The  acceptance  of  the  moral  principle  does  not  of 
itself  reveal  what,  in  all  definiteness,  that  moral  world  is,  but  de- 
mands of  us  observation  and  critical  cunning  before  we  decide  what 
is  the  concrete  system  of  fact  that  meets  this  high  demand  for  per- 
fect comradeship. ' ' 

There  is  nothing  in  these  statements  with  which  I  would  disagree. 
Nevertheless,  for  reasons  which  I  shall  now  try  to  make  clear,  I  find 
myself  out  of  sympathy  with  Professor  Stratton's  attitude.  The 
heart  and  the  conscience  have  certainly  a  role  to  play  in  the  search 
after  truth.  But  man  has  not  waited  for  the  permission  of  the  philos- 
opher to  accept  the  guidance  of  his  moral  needs  in  determining  reality. 
Religious  souls  have  usually  done  more;  they  have  behaved  as  if  the 
moral  needs  were  not  merely  one  of  the  guides  to  knowledge,  but  its 
only  instrument.  It  is  because  of  this  wantonness  of  piety  that  the 


408  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

dominant  religious  beliefs  of  the  present,  instead  of  harmonizing 
with  and  completing  those  of  science,  are  altogether  alien  or  antag- 
onistic to  them.  The  Ritschlian  school  of  theology,  for  instance,  in 
order  to  save  "faith,"  claims  in  behalf  of  theology  a  complete  divorce 
of  science  and  metaphysics.  The  present  conflict  between  science 
and  religion  is  due  chiefly,  it  appears  to  me,  to  a  refusal  on  the  part 
of  the  upholders  of  religious  tradition  to  acknowledge  the  rights  of 
intelligence. 

Under  these  circumstances,  why  should  the  psychologist,  writing 
on  religion,  be  at  pains  to  defend  the  right  of  religion  rather  than 
endeavor  to  indicate  adequately  the  nature  of  the  function  of  the 
moral  promptings  in  the  determination  of  factual  truth?  Professor 
Stratton  would,  it  seems  to  me,  have  rendered  a  more  needed  service 
had  he  developed  his  bare  statement  regarding  "the  observation  and 
critical  cunning"  that  should  be  exercised  when  the  moral  principle 
is  allowed  a  share  in  the  guidance  of  intelligence.  What  mental 
activities  are  involved  in  the  manifestation  of  that  critical  cunning? 
I  shall  try  to  answer  this  question  by  setting  down  the  factors  taking 
part  in  a  discovery  of  objective  truth,  whether  of  the  material  or  of 
the  spiritual  order,  and  indicating  their  respective  functions. 

1.  At  the  root  of  the  search  for  truth  there  is  always,  as  instiga- 
tor, a  prompting,  a  need,  a  desire ;  for  instance,  a  desire  for  orderly 
sequence,  for  beauty,  for  justice,  for  love,  for  power.     Just  as  our 
need  of  order  in  the  physical  universe  normally  and  rightfully  leads 
us  to  desire  the  existence  of  fixed  causal  laws  and  a  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  them,  so  the  needs  of  the  heart  and  of  the  conscience  nor- 
mally and  rightfully  prompt  us  to  desire  objects  that  may  gratify 
them  and  a  detailed  knowledge  of  how  the  satisfaction  may  be  best 
secured.     Human  needs,   whatsoever  they   are,   provide   thus   the 
motive  for  the  search  after  factual  truth  and  determine  its  direction. 

2.  The  recognition  of  the  gratification  of  the  need,  when  it  comes, 
is  of  course  independent  of  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been  secured ; 
the  recognition   does  not  go   beyond  the  states   of  consciousness 
themselves. 

3.  There  remains  the  determination  of  the  cause  of  the  gratifica- 
tion.    Is,  for  instance,  the  alleged  object  a  real  perception  or  only 
an  hallucination ;  or  is  the  exalted  conviction  of  the  man  who  thinks 
he  has  been  in  communion  with  God  due  to  the  action  of  an  objec- 
tively real  being?     The  impulses,  the  needs,  the  desires,  have  no 
legitimate  part  in  determining  the  answer  to  either  of  these  questions, 
beyond  keeping  one  interested  in  the  search.     The  needs  may,  how- 
ever, thwart  the  inquiry  by  making  impossible  the  free  operation  of 
the  mind.     The  only  way  in  which  any  advance  can  be  made  toward 
the  discovery  of  factual  truth,  whether  in  matters  physical  or  spirit- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          409 

ual,  is  by  untrammeled  intellectual  criticism:  by  observation,  com- 
parison, discrimination,  association,  inference. 

We  reach  thus  the  conclusion  that  the  relation  of  humaa  needs — 
whether  the  need  of  causal  explanation,  of  logical  consistency,  of 
moral  harmony,  or  of  any  other.kind — to  the  discovery  of  the  trans- 
subjective  reality  through  which  they  may  be  gratified  is  expressible 
in  the  following  propositions.  All  human  needs  have  the  same  func- 
tion in  the  discovery  of  factual  truth:  they  constitute  merely  de- 
mands and  incentives.  It  is  the  intellect  which  passes  upon  the 
validity  of  each  proposition  affirming,  in  the  interest  of  any  need, 
objective  existence.  The  determination  ''of  the  concrete  system  of 
facts"  qualified  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  heart  and  of  conscience 
belongs  thus  also  to  science. 

Can  those  who  would  reject  these  propositions  say  why  and 
wherein  the  rights  of  the  intellect  should  be  different,  when  the 
question  is  one  of  the  satisfaction  of  the  body,  from  when  it  is  one  of 
the  satisfaction  of  the  heart  ?  In  the  first  case,  there  is,  for  instance, 
a  craving.  The  object  desired  may  take  a  definite  form — let  it  be 
some  particular  food  or  medicine.  The  desired  food  or  drug  taken, 
the  body  is  satisfied.  In  the  other  case,  the  heart  yearns  for  friend- 
ship or  love;  the  object  of  the  craving  may  here  also  assume  a  defi- 
nite form ;  it  may  be  a  man,  a  woman,  or  a  god.  Presently  the  heart 
has  found  its  satisfaction.  The  need  as  felt,  and  the  gratification  as 
experienced,  are  incontrovertible,  absolute  facts.  It  would  be  as 
absurd  for  science  to  challenge  them  as  to  challenge  bare  sensation 
or  simple  feeling.  But  it  is  otherwise  when  it  is  affirmed  that  one 
particular  substance  is  the  cause  of  the  relief  to  the  body  or  that  the 
objective  existence  of  a  particular  transhuman  order  of  Being  is 
necessarily  implied  in  the  moral  comfort.  Science  is  here,  and  in 
both  instances  equally,  in  its  rightful  province. 

And  what  can  be  the  intention  of  those  who,  when  comparing 
the  validity  of  religious  and  scientific  propositions,  remind  us  that 
science  proceeds  upon  assumptions  that  can  not  be  fully  verified; 
that  "scientific  labor  is  always  a  sifting  and  a  rearranging  and  sup- 
plementing of  what  the  senses  offer"  ?  What  of  that  ?  Do  they  imply 
that  an  equal  freedom  is  refused  to  religion  ?  That  would  be  a  prepos- 
terous implication.  Would  that  religion  were  as  careful  in  establish- 
ing its  factual  truths  as  is  science !  As  a  matter  of  fact,  whenever  it 
has  been  possible  to  put  to  an  experimental  test  the  scientific  belief 
that  causal  relations  hold  throughout  the  physical  universe,  the  belief 
has  been  verified.  The  only  proper  use  that  may  be  made  of  the  fact 
quoted  above  is  as  a  warning  to  religion  that  although  it,  as  well  as 
science,  possesses  the  right  to  make  hypotheses,  it  can  not  claim  for 
them  equal  certainty  with  those  of  science  until,  when  examined  with 
all  possible  critical  cunning,  these  religious  hypotheses  have  been 


410  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

found  to  fit  the  facts  for  the  explanation  of  which  they  were  devised. 
Does,  for  instance,  the  hypothesis  of  a  righteous  and  benevolent  per- 
sonal God  in  direct  communication  with  man  and  in  control  of  the 
physical  world  fit  the  facts  as  the  known  physical  phenomena  fit  the 
hypotheses  of  science?  The  only  possible  answer  to  this  query  is 
negative.  The  effort  of  William  James  to  show  scientific  cause  for 
the  acceptance  of  the  fundamental  proposition  of  the  historical  re- 
ligions (action  of  superhuman  being  or  beings  in  human  affairs)  has 
only  made  more  evident  the  insufficiency  of  that  foundation. 

An  attempt  is  made  at  times  to  reinforce  the  argument  under 
criticism  by  drawing  an  analogy  from  the  common  belief  in  the 
existence  of  other  minds  than  our  own.  A  rigid  scientific  method, 
we  are  told,  would  lead  the  investigator  to  the  belief  that  his  was  the 
only  mind  in  the  universe.  "Our  friends  that  now  are  would  then 
be  for  us  mere  bodies  governed  by  curious  laws  of  reflex  or  other 
physiological  action."  "Yet  every  sane  mind  rejects  such  a  view. 
And  why  ?  Because  the  social,  the  moral  instincts,  are  outraged  by 
it  ...  ours  must  be  a  world  wherein  there  is  mutual  recognition, 
mutual  regard.  An  ineradicable  sense  of  the  value  of  others  requires 
that  they  too  shall  be  real."  "The  enlargement  of  the  universe 
according  to  the  ways  of  religion  is  in  the  main  but  a  further  yield- 
ing to  this  rightful  impulse."  What  a  misleading  analogy !  Human 
beings  are  objects  of  sense  to  me:  I  touch,  see,  hear,  them.  They 
behave  exactly  as  I  do  and  respond  obviously  to  my  presence.  These 
beings  meet  every  scientific  test  of  my  belief  that  they  think  and  feel 
as  I  do.  But  the  hypothesis  of  religion,  of  an  unseen  being  or  beings 
acting  upon  man — whatever  its  worth — is  far  from  meeting  equally 
well  the  same  test  of  objective  reality.  On  the  contrary,  the  more 
carefully  the  sequences  of  events  are  observed,  the  less  convincing 
becomes  the  demonstration.  So  that  there  is  no  parity  between  the 
validity  of  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  sentient  human  beings  and 
that  in  superhuman  persons. 

It  is  sometimes  affirmed  that  science  is  threatening  the  very  exist- 
ence of  religion.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  which  science  is  destroy- 
ing is  not  religion,  but  particular  religious  beliefs,  as,  for  instance, 
that  in  a  Father  who  stands  to  man  in  the  direct  personal  relation 
implied  in  Christian  worship.  The  truth  is  that  it  is  the  heart  which 
makes  a  stubborn  war  upon  science,  for  it  contests  the  right  of  the 
understanding  to  pass  judgment  upon  propositions  affirming  trans- 
subjective  existence. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  would  seem  that  the  task  of  the 
philosopher  in  religion  is  to  initiate  an  honest  search  for  means  of 
gratification  sufficient  to  the  heart  and  acceptable  to  the  intellect, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          411 

rather  than  to  attempt  a  defense  of  religion  in  its  disregard  of  the 
rightful  function  of  the  intellect. 

If  venerable  beliefs  give  way,  let  it  be  recalled  that  one  and  the 
same  need  may  be  variously  relieved.  The  diet  a  man  thinks  the  only 
diet  upon  which  he  can  live  may  not  even  be  the  best  diet  for  him. 
So  it  is,  no  doubt,  of  those  means  for  the  gratification  of  the  moral 
nature  discovered  by  humanity  in  this  the  first  part  of  its  religious 
history. 

BRYN  MA  WE  COLLEGE.  JAMES  H.  LEUBA. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

A  System  of  Psychology.     KNIGHT  DUNLAP.     New  York:  Charles  Scrib- 

ner's  Sons.     1912.     Pp.  xiv-H368. 

Dunlap's  "  System  of  Psychology "  is  a  text-book  to  be  used  by  the 
semi-advanced  student  as  supplementary  reading.  The  book  treats  prac- 
tically the  same  topics  as  most  of  the  similar  texts  with  the  exception  of 
the  last  three  chapters  on  the  subconscious,  the  ego,  and  the  occult.  Great 
care  is  given  to  the  definition  of  the  terms  used  and  we  desire  to  call 
attention  to  a  well-worked-out  terminology  which  seems  to  be  capable  of 
consistent  use. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  book  is  written  in  an  easy  style.  The  influ- 
ence of  William  James  is  very  noticeable  and  it  seems  that  the  author  has 
been  inspired  not  only  with  the  ideas  of  the  "  Principles  of  Psychology," 
which  he  calls  the  most  important  of  all  books  in  point  of  theory,  but  also 
with  its  style,  for  we  noticed  several  mannerisms  peculiar  to  the  diction 
of  William  James.  Dunlap  believes  that  the  data  of  psychology  must  be 
described  in  terms  of  theories  which  are  more  or  less  philosophical,  and 
that  an  attempt  to  divorce  the  data  from  the  theories  would  result  in  an 
uncritical  acceptance  of  fragments  of  theories. 

The  philosophical  view-point  is  emphasized  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
discussion  of  experimental  results  is  almost  entirely  neglected.  This 
feature  of  the  book  is,  perhaps,  less  noticeable  in  the  chapters  dealing  witH 
sensation,  but  it  is  very  pronounced  in  the  discussion  of  the  more  complex 
mental  processes.  The  text  contains  frequent  references  to  every-day 
experiences,  among  which  the  well-known  "inkwell  which  stands  on  the 
desk  before  me "  plays  an  important  part,  but  experimental  evidence  is 
rarely  spoken  of,  and  recent  investigation  is  generally  disregarded.  The 
reader  will  be  surprised  to  find  in  a  text-book  on  modern  psychology  some- 
thing on  the  transcendental  unity  of  apperception  and  a  short  chapter  on 
"  Platonic  Ideas  and  Matter."  It  is  characteristic  of  the  book  that  it  gives 
three  references  on  Platonic  Ideas,  while  only  two  are  given  on  association 
and  one  on  concept  and  judgment. 

The  author  does  not  undertake,  of  course,  to  offer  first-hand  informa- 
tion in  an  elementary  text-book,  and  very  likely  it  would  be  unjust  to 
expect  the  possession  of  such  information  in  all  the  fields  of  psychology 


412  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

from  a  comparatively  young  man.  The  unfortunate  part  is  that  his 
sources  of  information  are  not  always  the  most  recent  nor  his  selection 
of  authorities  fortunate.  The  following  case  is  fairly  characteristic. 
Chapter  V.  defines  the  threshold  in  terms  of  the  method  of  just  perceptible 
differences  and  leads  to  a  discussion  of  Weber's  law  in  Chapter  VI.  Dunlap 
defines  the  discussions,  controversies,  and  investigations  consequent  on 
Fechner's  formulation  of  this  law  as  the  subject  of  psychophysics.  and  says 
that  "  fortunately  for  the  student,  the  whole  matter  is  chiefly  of  historical 
importance."  W.  James,  "Principles  of  Psychology,"  Vol.  I.,  Chap. 
XIII.,  pp.  533-549,  is  given  as  reference. 

We  insist,  first,  that  the  logical  reference  would  have  been  to  E.  B. 
Titchener's  "  Experimental  Psychology,"  as  the  standard  book  on  this 
topic.  William  James  is  not  an  authority  to  be  quoted  on  anything  related 
to  psychophysics,  as  is  seen  best  from  the  very  pages  referred  to  by  Dunlap. 
The  only  way  in  which  this  versatile  writer  could  express  his  appreciation 
of  the  work  of  Fechner  was  by  quoting  a  few  lines  from  a  satirical  poem. 
The  mischief  done  by  this  attitude  of  William  James  has  been  pointed  out 
repeatedly,  and  the  admirers  of  the  late  literary  genius  should  make  it  a 
point  not  to  refer  to  this  passage  at  all,  for  it  shows  that  William  James 
never  understood  the  significance  of  psychophysics. 

So  much  for  the  authority  by  which  Dunlap  supports  his  statement. 
Now  let  us  consider  the  truth  of  the  assertion  that  psychophysics  is  chiefly 
of  historical  importance  and  that  its  subject  is  the  discussion  of  Weber's 
law.  The  most  superficial  acquaintance  with  any  of  the  more  recent  pub- 
lications on  this  topic  could  have  shown  that  the  field  of  psychophysics  18 
much  wider  and  almost  coincides  with  the  realm  of  experimental  psy- 
chology. This,  in  fact,  is  the  meaning  in  which  W.  Wirth  uses  this  term 
in  his  latest  publication.  That  psychophysics  has  not  historical  impor- 
tance only  is  seen  best  by  the  number  of  publications  on  this  topic  issued 
in  the  course  of  a  year.  The  general  review  in  the  Psychological  Bulletin, 
for  which  the  present  writer  happens  to  be  responsible,  contains  fifteen 
articles  and  books  on  psychophysics  published  in  America,  England, 
France,  and  Germany  during  the  last  year,  with  a  total  of  about  a  thou- 
sand printed  pages.  It  is  obviously  unfair  to  assign  to  a  group  of  prob- 
lems historical  importance  chiefly,  when  this  group  can  muster  such 
wide-spread  interest  all  over  the  world. 

The  shortcomings  of  Dunlap's  "  System  of  Psychology  "  had  not  been 
pointed  out  to  such  length,  were  they  not  characteristic  of  a  certain  class 
of  books.  Every  year  brings  its  crop  of  elementary  text-books  of  psy- 
chology, and  there  are  few  which  do  not  contain  misstatements  as  glaring 
and  as  unjust  as  those  of  the  present  book.  They  seem  to  be  unavoidable, 
since  there  is  no  question  as  to  the  ability  and  the  good-will  of  the  authors. 
Their  aim  is  to  produce  a  well-written  text-book  which  can  be  read  and 
enjoyed  even  by  the  ordinary  reader.  Since  the  imparting  of  information 
is  less  emphasized,  such  a  book  could  be  written  by  almost  any  one  who 
writes  an  easy  style;  and  we  observe  that  most  of  these  books  are  written 
by  young  men.  A  moment's  consideration  will  show  that  writing  an  ele- 
mentary text-book  is  so  far  from  being  an  easy  task  at  which  a  new  hand 


413 

might  try  itself,  that  it  takes  a  master  of  his  profession  really  to  succeed 
at  it.  Direct  personal  experience  with  a  problem  alone  enables  one  to 
form  an  independent  view  or  to  decide  on  the  authority  to  follow.  This 
lack  of  personal  experience  renders  the  text-books  written  by  young  men 
so  unsatisfactory,  because  they  follow  authorities  which  they  do  not  choose 
intelligently. 

The  existence  of  so  many  text-books  must  be  blamed  in  part  on  the 
scientific  public,  for  the  popular  demand  seems  to  be  for  the  well-written, 
readable  book.  Keviews  frequently  insist  on  the  fluent  style  in  which  a 
book  is  written  and  the  perfect  ease  with  which  it  can  be  read  even  by  the 
uninformed.  It  may  be  well  to  arouse  the  interest  of  the  general  public, 
but  let  us  not  forget  to  cater  to  the  needs  of  the  advanced  student.  We 
have  too  many  primers  and  not  enough  handbooks.  It  would  seem  the 
logical  course  for  an  ambitious  writer  to  begin  with  a  general  treatise  and 
to  let  it  be  followed  by  an  elementary  text-book.  The  handbook  or  general 
treatise  is  the  place  in  which  to  expound  personal  opinions  and  to  advance 
new  theories  based  on  a  large  number  of  facts,  but  the  elementary  text- 
book should  be  given  to  the  presentation  of  facts  exclusively.  It  should 
contain  nothing  but  facts  on  which  the  followers  of  all  schools  can  agree. 
It  is  an  absurd  enterprise  to  print  original  views  in  an  elementary  text- 
book, which  is  intended  for  pupils  not  in  the  possession  of  the  informa- 
tion necessary  to  appreciate  them.  Printing  an  ordinary  elementary  text- 
book must  not  be  considered  an  act  of  scientific  merit,  because  rearranging 
the  material  and  rephrasing  the  sentences  hardly  requires  much  more 
thought  than  copying.  Let  us  make  up  our  minds  that  printing  text-books 
does  not  improve  a  man's  scientific  standing  and  let  us  insist  on  correct 
and  definite  information  as  the  first  requirement.  A  fluent  pen  and  the 
belief  in  the  truth  of  some  doctrines — no  matter  what  they  may  be — do 
not  qualify  a  man  as  a  writer  of  a  text -book  on  psychology. 

F.  M.  URBAN. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

The  Conflict  of  Naturalism  and  Humanism.  WILLYSTINE  GOODSELL. 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University  Contributions  to  Education, 
No.  33.  New  York  City.  1910. 

In  the  "Introduction"  to  this  study  Miss  Goodsell  presents  three 
controlling  "  world-views  " — naturalism,  humanism,  and  supernaturalism, 
which  may,  she  thinks,  be  traced  through  "  changes  and  variations  in  the 
life  of  thought,"  and  treats  the  emergence  in  Greek  philosophy  of  the 
first  two.  The  four  succeeding  chapters  consider  the  reemergence  in  the 
renaissance  of  naturalism  and  humanism,  "  their  more  clear  definition  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,"  "  the  humanism  of  the  German 
enlightenment,"  and  "the  conflict  of  naturalism  and  humanism  in  the 
nineteenth  century."  The  chapter  following  concerns  itself  with 
"  humanism  and  naturalism  in  education,"  and  attempts  to  trace  the 
influence  of  this  conflict  on  "  educational  theory  and  practise  in  different 
periods."  The  last  chapter  of  the  monograph  proposes  to  point  out  "a 
reconciliation  of  the  views  of  naturalist  and  humanist  upon  the  basis  of 


414  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  theory  of  pragmatism;  and  to  suggest  the  implications  of  such  a 
synthesis  for  the  philosophy  and  art  of  education  "  (p.  17). 

The  point  of  departure  for  the  discussion  is  the  two  "  dominating 
attitudes  "  of  humanism  and  naturalism  as  they  are  described  in  defini- 
tion. Naturalism  is  defined  (p.  2)  as  "  the  attempt  to  explain  human  life, 
as  well  as  all  phenomena  that  penetrate  man's  experience,  by  reference  to 
natural  forces,  operating  throughout  the  universe  to  produce  unvarying 
sequences  of  events."  The  term  "  humanism  "  is  used  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  discussion  "  to  signify  that  world-attitude  which  tends 
to  interpret  the  universe  in  terms  borrowed  from  the  consciousness  of 
man,  and  to  identify  the  goal  toward  which  all  things  are  supposed  to 
move,  with  the  spiritual  advance  of  humanity."  In  the  educational  dis- 
cussion "  humanism  "  is  used  to  indicate  "  that  type  of  classical  educa- 
tion which  flourished  .  .  .  from  the  age  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  until 
well-nigh  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century"  (p.  129).  The  relation- 
ship between  the  two  usages  of  the  term  is  dismissed  with  general  state- 
ments regarding  the  inclusive  content  of  the  renaissance  movement  and 
a  quotation  from  Guariro  which  connects  the  "  humanities "  with  the 
concerns  of  man. 

The  presupposition,  as  stated  (p.  4),  is  that  the  three  "world-atti- 
tudes "  denominate  a  three-fold  division  everywhere  exhibiting  itself  in 
the  life  of  thought,  and  to-day  still  unhealed.  The  assumption  is  that 
naturalism  and  humanism  are  to  be  seen  in  conflict  in  each  period.  It  is 
held  that  there  is  unfailing  opposition  between  them  up  to  the  present 
time,  but  within  what  whole  the  opposition  exists  we  do  not  learn. 

The  attempt  made  is  not  to  find  and  describe  the  particular,  specific 
"  conflict "  of  ideas  or  interests  peculiar  to  a  period,  and  to  discover  the 
humanistic  and  naturalistic  characters  respectively  of  these  ideas  in  con- 
flict, but  rather  to  exhibit  humanism  and  naturalism  existing  at  the 
different  periods.  The  concern  of  the  discussion  is  treatment  of  these 
world-attitudes,  not  discovery  of  them.  Further :  the  discussion  does  not 
follow  these  attitudes  through  the  ages  to  learn  the  variant  factors  enter- 
ing into  each  of  these  in  the  successive  eras  and  controversies.  It  is  not 
a  history  of  ideas  and  interests  as  these  change  and  develop  through  the 
centuries,  but  rather  an  arrangement  in  chronologic  sequence  of  concep- 
tions derived  from  a  post-analysis  of  learning  in  these  centuries.  The 
world  and  its  multiple  interests  in  every  period  are  seemingly  comprised 
in  "  the  conflict  of  naturalism  and  humanism."  The  resulting  account 
suffers  from  meagerness,  therefore. 

The  plan  and  method  impose  a  limitation  on  the  initial  instrumental 
conceptions  themselves.  Naturalism  and  humanism  as  defined  suffer  no 
important  change  or  development  when  treated  in  the  different  periods. 
Sheer  naturalism  and  sheer  humanism  do  not  receive  unqualified  favor, 
but  the  features  and  restrictions  of  each  are  set  forth  in  terms  of  con- 
trast with  the  features  and  restrictions  of  the  other  (p.  34).  It  is  not 
until  the  chapter  dealing  with  "  Humanism  and  Naturalism  in  Educa- 
tion "  that  there  appears,  in  connection  with  the  "  opposition  "  between 
the  sciences  and  the  humanities,  the  recognition  that  "  this  unfortunate 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         415 

antithesis  has  its  roots  in  a  philosophy  of  nature  and  of  man  which  is 
strongly  dualistic  in  character"  (p.  161).  And,  later  (p.  173),  in  con- 
nection with  this  same  discussion  occurs  the  earliest  mention  of  man's 
desire  "  to  select  and  appreciate  the  worthier  and  more  enduring  values  of 
human  life,"  and  his  desire  "  to  subjugate  his  environment,  to  penetrate 
its  hidden  secrets  that  he  may  make  it  minister  to  the  wants  of  human 
life,"  as  the  origin  of  these  "  branches  of  recorded  experience  " ;  and  the 
earliest  recognition  in  this  discussion  that  "these  are  not  antagonistic, 
for  each  sends  its  roots  deep  into  the  common  soil  of  social  experience." 
This  mention  and  this  recognition  appear  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  the 
"  Pragmatic  Solution  of  the  Problems  " — a  solution  that  has  not  seem- 
ingly before  this  point  affected  the  historic  account  of  the  conflict  of  nat- 
uralism and  humanism. 

The  plan  and  method  impose  a  limitation  also  upon  the  nature  of  the 
discussion  of  these  attitudes.  With  the  interest  in  treating,  at  each 
period,  the  conflict  of  humanism  and  naturalism  goes  the  programme  of 
treating  individually  and  specifically  the  men  and  events  of  each  period. 
So  that  the  material  of  the  discussion  is  of  two  kinds :  generalized  descrip- 
tions of  naturalism  and  humanism  at  the  conclusion  of  each  period  under 
consideration  and  particular  accounts  of  thinkers  and  of  the  specific 
movements  within  that  period.  The  latter,  although  evidencing  informa- 
tion and  interest,  do  not  always  demonstrate  their  force  and  availability 
for  the  discussion  of  the  conflict  of  naturalism  and  humanism.  So  that 
the  former  in  their  role  of  summaries  of  these  accounts  are  often  a  sur- 
prise mentally  to  the  reader,  not  always  prepared  for  this  conclusion  of 
what  he  has  been  reading.  Moreover,  from  the  showing  of  the  particular 
accounts  one  gets  the  idea  at  one  time  that  the  difficulty  in  that  era  was 
rather  confusion  than  "  conflict "  between  a  humanistic  and  a  naturalistic 
view-point  (p.  94) ;  at  another  time  that  the  contention  existing  was,  in 
fact,  opposition  between  the  methods  of  sense-observation  and  reasoned 
analysis  for  acquisition  of  essential  knowledge;  or,  again  (p.  150),  opposi- 
tion and  interest,  do  not  always  demonstrate  their  force  and  availability 
tion  between  the  claims  of  the  re-al  and  the  classic  as  these  conceptions 
figured  in  educational  thought.  The  ideas  and  characteristics  of  men 
and  movements  are  set  forth,  and  critical  comments  appended,  but  the 
accounts  and  criticism  are  in  general,  and  do  not  proceed  from  a  single, 
definite  point  of  view.  The  discussion,  consisting  of  accepted  or  accept- 
able comment  and  exhibition  of  the  topics  treated,  fails  to  take  hold  of 
one's  mind  as  one  reads.  The  study  wants  single  and  clear  purpose,  and 
the  conviction  which  springs  from  an  integral  conception  of  experience, 
assuring  unity  of  interest  and  independence  of  approach  and  of  activity. 

ELSIE  KIPLEY  CLAPP. 

NEW  YORK  CITY. 

The  Philosophy  of  Schiller.    EMIL  CARL  WILM,  Ph.  D.    Boston:  John  W. 
Luce  and  Company.    1912.    Pp.  xi  +  183. 

This  clear  and  stimulating  book  is  indeed  an  important  contribution 
to  the  history  of  philosophy.  Any  one  acquainted  with  the  development 


416  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  German  thought  since  Kant  can  scarcely  deny  the  poet  Schiller  a  sig- 
nificant place  in  it.  It  is  true  Schiller  was  lacking  in  a  strictly  philo- 
sophic method  and  system,  but  his  influence  upon  the  men  of  his  genera- 
tion was  great.  The  author  of  this  little  volume  has  rendered  a  real  serv- 
ice to  English  and  American  students,  who  have  neither  the  time  nor  the 
inclination  for  original  Quellenuntersuchungen,  in  bringing  together  in 
a  unified  and  comprehensive  fashion  Schiller's  philosophic  views  scattered 
throughout  his  letters,  essays,  and  poems. 

The  author  had  no  easy  task.  Those  acquainted  with  Schiller's  philo- 
sophic prose  will  heartily  agree  with  this  characterization :  "  Rhetorical 
and  poetic,  even  in  his  scientific  writings,  we  miss  the  clear-cut  definitions 
and  sharp  distinctions  so  indispensable  to  clear  thought  and  presentation; 
and  the  vacillation  of  his  terminology,  the  indefiniteness  of  his  concepts, 
and  the  boldness  of  his  antitheses  are  the  source  of  endless  trouble  to  the 
student  of  his  philosophical  writings"  (p.  13).  The  greatest  difficulty  is 
encountered  in  the  content  rather  than  in  the  form  of  Schiller's  writings. 
It  can  be  shown  that  several  incompatible  doctrines  were  advocated  by 
him.  It  is  of  course  impossible  to  remove  this  difficulty  if  each  writing 
is  treated  as  an  isolated  unit.  What  the  author  undertakes,  therefore,  is 
to  give  the  evolution  of  Schiller's  philosophic  ideas:  the  development  of 
his  views  and  the  growth  of  his  conceptions  are  treated  stage  by  stage. 
The  mature  philosophic  doctrine  of  the  poet  is  shown  to  be  the  product  of 
many  and  conflicting  views. 

A  very  valuable  chapter  in  the  book  is  the  one  dealing  with  Schiller's 
early  views  as  contained  in  his  essays  "  Philosophic  der  Physiologic  "  and 
"  Tiber  den  Zusammenhang  der  thierischen  Natur  des  Menschen  mit 
seiner  geistigen."  So  far  as  the  reviewer  is  aware,  there  is  no  book  on 
Schiller  in  English,  and  very  few  in  German,  which  gives  such  a  detailed 
and  critical  exposition  of  the  two  essays  so  significant  for  the  understand- 
ing of  Schiller's  development.  The  germs  of  much  of  his  mature  philos- 
ophy are  contained  in  these  early  writings  of  the  pre-Kantian  period. 
They  show  the  influences  from  various  sources, — from  the  Leibniz- Wolffian 
philosophy  and  from  that  of  the  Scottish  school,  from  Shaftesbury, 
Hutcheson,  Ferguson,  Garve,  and  Haller.  Already  in  these  essays  the 
dualism  between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual,  or  between  the  physical  and 
the  moral,  is  the  center  of  Schiller's  interest ;  and  "  his  attempt  at  a  media- 
tion between  the  so-called  lower  and  higher  natures,  first  by  means  of  a 
metaphysical  intermediate  agent,  later  by  means  of  art,  foreshadows  the 
whole  course  of  his  future  thinking  "  (p.  66). 

Accordingly  when  Schiller  takes  up  his  study  of  Kant,  the  critical 
philosophy  fell  in  with  the  line  of  his  own  development.  "  The  stream  of 
his  thought,  rising  from  many  sources,  was  only  clarified  and  deepened, 
rather  than  directed  into  other  channels,  by  contact  with  the  Critical 
Philosophy"  (pp.  37,  115).  Those  writers  who  see  in  Schiller's  philos- 
ophy nothing  more  than  a  reproduction  of  the  Kantian  ethical  concep- 
tions in  a  rhetorical  garb,  overlook  the  early  writings  in  which  the  poet, 
prior  to  his  studies  in  Kant,  strove  to  reconcile  extreme  sensualism  and 
extreme  rationalism  in  morality.  His  attitude  towards  Kant  is  that  of  an 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         417 

independent  critic,  and  the  opposition  to  Kant's  extreme  rigorism  is 
wholly  in  keeping  with  Schiller's  own  development.  That  Schiller's  atti- 
tude "makes  an  advance  upon  the  Kantian  position,  that  this  advance 
.  .  .  consists  in  a  fuller  recognition  of  the  desiderative  side  of  man's  na- 
ture, all  this  must  be  the  broad  result  of  an  unbiased  reading  of  the 
writings  of  Schiller"  (p.  118). 

While  the  difficulty  of  establishing  a  single  unambiguous  ethical  doc- 
trine out  of  the  different  writings  of  Schiller's  post-Kantian  period  must 
be  admitted,  a  critical  reading  of  these  writings  leads  the  author  to  as- 
sume an  independent  development  of  Schiller's  esthetic  morality  in  which 
Kant's  dualism  between  inclination  and  duty  is  reconciled.  Schiller  recog- 
nized two  distinct  kinds  of  valuation  of  human  conduct — the  moral  and 
the  esthetic — and  only  in  the  complete  fusion  of  the  ethical  and  the  artistic 
standards  does  Schiller's  view  of  beautiful  morality  consist.  "  Inclination 
to  duty, — that  is  the  heart  of  Schiller's  ethics,  and  the  gist  of  his  criticism 
of  Kantian  rigorism  "  (p.  127).  "  The  conduct  flowing  from  the  har- 
monious activity  of  all  man's  powers  Schiller  calls  beautiful  conduct  (die 
schone  Sittlichkeif) ,  and  the  soul  thus  at  one  with  itself,  the  beautiful 
soul  (die  schone  Seele)"  (p.  131). 

Schiller's  independent  philosophical  views  centered  mainly  around 
ethical  and  esthetic  problems.  It  is  in  his  view  of  beautiful  morality  as  a 
synthesis  of  the  natural  and  spiritual  demands  that  his  originality  con- 
sists. Metaphysical  ideas,  in  so  far  as  such  can  at  all  be  seriously  as- 
cribed to  him,  "  did  not  constitute  a  clear  development  upon  those  of 
Kant,  as  did  his  ethical  and  esthetic  theories  "  (p.  159).  The  question 
whether  Schiller  should — in  his  metaphysical  views — be  classed  with 
Kant  or  rather  with  the  post-Kantians  is  an  interesting  one.  The  author 
holds  that  metaphysically  Schiller  is  to  be  identified  with  Kant. 

It  may  well  be  that  the  philosophy  of  Schiller  was  far  from  being  so 
well  founded  in  his  own  mind.  But  a  student  of  the  genesis  of  any  phi- 
losophy must  always  endeavor  to  understand  its  author — to  use  a  Kantian 
phrase — lesser  als  er  sich  selbst  verstand. 

The  student  of  Schiller  will  find  the  extensive  bibliography  at  the  end 
of  the  book  very  helpful.  It  is  regrettable,  however,  that  an  index  has 
been  omitted.  J.  LOEWENBERG. 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

RIVISTA  DI  FILOSOFIA  NEO-SCOLASTICA.  February,  1912. 
L'antesignano  del  neotomismo  in  Italia  (Gaetano  Sanseverino)  (pp.  1- 
19)  :  DOMENICO  LANNA.  -  A  study  of  the  life  and  work  of  the  father  of 
Italian  Neo-Scholasticism,  Gaetano  Sanseverino.  La  veritd  ontologica  e 
la  veritd  logica  secondo  il  Card.  Merrier  (pp.  20-30)  :  A.  MASNOVO.  -  The 
foundation  of  ontological  truth  is  not  in  the  human  intellect,  as  Cardinal 
Mercier  teaches,  but  in  the  Divine  Mind.  Univocitd  od  analogia?  (pp. 
31-61) :  G.  M.  PETAZZI,  S.J.  -  The  concept  of  being,  when  applied  to  God 


418  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  creatures,  is  analogical.  The  univocal  character  of  the  concept, 
credited  to  Duns  Scotus  by  Belmont,  although  absurd  as  understood  by 
the  latter,  is  perfectly  logical  in  Scotus  himself,  and  in  agreement  with 
the  Thomistic  teaching.  Lo  studio  sperimentale  del  pensiero  e  della 
volontd  (pp.  62-72) :  A.  GEMELLI.  -  The  recent  studies  made  in  psycholog- 
ical laboratories  show  that  purely  experimental  psychology  is  insufficient 
and  must  be  completed  by  metaphysics.  Sigieri  di  Brabante  e  le  fonti 
della  filosofia  di  Dante  (pp.  73-90) :  BBUNO  NARDI.  -  The  theological  and 
psychological  doctrines  of  Dante  are  not  purely  Thomistic,  as  has  been  so 
often  maintained,  but  reveal  the  influence  of  Neo-Platonism  and  Aver- 
roism.  Note  e  discussioni.  Tribuna  libera.  Analisi  d'opere.  H.  Hoff- 
ding,  La  pensee  humaine,  ses  formes  et  ses  problemes:  L.  NECCHI. -A 
Fouillee,  La  pensee  et  lesnouvelles  ecoles  anti-intellectualistes :  L.  BIAM  in. 
P.  Natorp,  Philosophic,  Ihr  Problem  und  ihre  Probleme:  B.  C.  Giach- 
etti,  La  fantasia:  A.  GALLI.  A  Michotte  et  C.  Ransy,  Contribution  a 
I' etude  de  la  memoire  logique:  A.  GALLI.  T.  V.  Moore,  The  Process  of 
Abstraction.  An  Experimental  Study:  A.  GEMELLI.  Ed.  Claparede, 
Psicologia  del  fanciullo  e  pedagogia  sperimentale :  M.  BRUSADELLI.  O. 
Renz,  Die  Synderesis  nach  dem  hi.  Thomas  von  Aquin:  B.  NARDI.  S. 
Deploige,  Le  conflit  de  la  morale  et  de  la  sociologie:  G.  TREDICI.  M. 
d'Herbigny,  Un  Newman  Russe.  Vladimir  Soloviev:  V.  ZABUGHIX.  Th. 
Cremer,  Le  probleme  religieux  dans  la  Philosophic  de  I' Action.  G.  M. 
PETAZZ.  Note  bibliografiche.  Notiziario.  Sommario  ideologico. 

REVUE  NEO-SCOLASTIQUE  DE  PHILOSOPHIE.  February, 
1912.  L'energetique  et  la  theorie  scolastique  (pp.  5-41):  D.  NYS. -The 
new  science  of  energetics  presents  great  advantages  over  the  mechanical 
conception  of  the  universe.  The  monism  which  is  professed  by  some  of 
its  defenders  is,  however,  incompatible  with  the  principles  of  the  new 
science  and  ought  to  be  rejected.  Les  theories  politiques  dans  les  ecrits 
de  L.  Lessius  (pp.  42—85):  V.  BRANTS. -An  exposition  of  the  political 
theories  of  the  famous  Jesuit  Leonard  Lessius  (1554-1623).  Le  neo- 
dogmatisme  (pp.  86-115) :  L.  Du  ROUSSAUX.  -  The  type  of  neo-dogmatism 
born  among  certain  Scholastics  from  the  influence  of  Kantian  criticism  is 
decidedly  inferior  to  the  old  traditional  dogmatism.  L'ethique  et  la 
pedagogic  morale  de  Fr.  W.  Foerster  (pp.  116-132) :  F.  DE  HOVRE.  - 
Forster's  system  of  ethics  borrows  some  elements  from  the  philosophy  of 
Nietzsche,  as  well  as  from  the  naturalistic  and  socialistic  conceptions. 
It  is,  however,  much  more  logical  than  these  systems,  of  which  Forster 
skilfully  points  out  the  weak  points.  Comptes  rendus.  Th.  Ruyssen, 
Schopenhauer:  F.  PALHORIES.  G.  Rensi,  II  genio  etico  ed  altri  Saggi: 
F.  PALHORIES.  L.  Perego,  L'idealismo  etico  di  Fichie  e  il  socialismo  con- 
temporaneo:  F.  PALHORIES.  G.  Calo,  Fatti  e  Problemi  del  mondo  educa- 
tivo:  F.  PALHORIES.  J.  Rogues  de  Fursac,  L' avarice.  Essai  de  psychol- 
ogic morbide:  G.  LEORAXD.  J.  Lottin,  QueDelet,  statistician  et  sociologue: 
M.  DE  WULF.  O.  Willmann,  Didactiek  als  vormingsleer :  A.  MANSIOX. 
E.  Rolfes,  Aristoteles'  Nikomachische  Ethik:  A.  MANSION*.  R.  Eisler, 
Philosophen-Lexicon,  Leben,  Werke  und  Lehren  der  Denker:  M.  DE  Wt  LF. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         419 

J".  Segond,  Cournot  et  la  psychologie  vitcdiste:  J.  LOTTIN.  E.  Rolfes,  Die 
Wahrheit  des  Glaubens  durch  grundliche  Beweise  ins  Licht  gestellt: 
MOUSTIERS.  Sommaire  ideologique  des  ouvrages  et  Revues  de  Philosophic. 
Seth,  James.  English  Philosophers  and  Schools  of  Philosophy.  New 

York:  E.  P.  Button  and  Company.    1912.    Pp.  xi  +  372.    $1.50. 
Sommerville,  D.   M.  J.     Bibliography  of  Non-Euclidean  Geometry,  in- 
cluding the  Theory  of  Parallels,  the  Foundations  of  Geometry,  and 
Space  of  n-dimensions.    London :  Harrison  and  Sons.    Pp.  xii  -f-  404. 
10s. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

A  GROUP  of  European  professors  distinguished  in  philosophy  and 
science  has  issued  an  appeal  to  all  who  are  interested  in  promoting  the 
scientific  spirit  in  philosophy.  They  explain  their  undertaking  as  follows : 

"  There  has  long  been  felt  the  need  of  a  philosophy  which  should  grow 
in  a  natural  manner  out  of  the  facts  and  problems  of  natural  science. 
The  mechanical  view  of  nature  no  longer  satisfies  this  need.  Let  any  one 
recall  the  "  Ignorabimus  "  of  Du  Bois  Reymond  and  the  various  attempts 
to  relate  mechanical  and  psychological  processes  by  means  of  neovitalistic 
concepts,  attempts  of  physicists  as  well  as  of  biologists.  The  current 
philosophy,  of  Kantian  origin  for  the  most  part,  or  with  strongly  Kantian 
emphasis,  is  impotent  here,  because  it  directs  its  inquiries  without  any 
deep  appreciation  of  the  need  in  question,  because  it  treats  of  problems 
scarcely  intelligible  to  any  one  who  comes  to  them  from  the  natural  sci- 
ence of  to-day,  and  because  it  is  usually  not  able  to  go  far  enough  into 
the  questions  of  natural  science. 

To  be  sure,  there  has  grown  up  from  the  soil  of  natural  science  itself  a 
strictly  empirical  and  positivistic  point  of  view  quite  indifferent  to  meta- 
physical speculation  and  to  so-called  critical,  transcendental  doctrines. 
Its  principles  are  however  not  yet  accepted  in  their  essential  meanings 
and  systematic  relations  throughout  considerable  scientific  circles.  They 
are  even  completely  misunderstood  by  distinguished  scientists  as  they  are 
by  most  of  the  influential  philosophers. 

On  the  other  hand  the  particular  sciences  find  themselves  forced  to 
consider  problems  of  even  greater  generality  so  that  they  take  on  of  them- 
selves a  philosophical  character.  Mathematics  advances  to  higher  and 
higher  abstractions.  Geometry,  in  its  deductive  development,  is  freeing 
itself  from  all  intuition  after  overcoming  the  limits  of  the  Euclidean  con- 
ception of  space.  In  the  theory  of  groups  it  has  reached  a  positive  treat- 
ment of  the  concept  of  infinity,  once  a  purely  negative  idea,  and  it  faces 
now  the  question  of  its  differentiation  from  logic.  Physics  has  been  made 
to  include  more  and  more  remote  fields  of  research.  Optics  and  all  the 
phenomena  of  radiation  have  been  brought  under  the  concepts  of  electro- 
magnetic theory,  and  physics  has  now  before  it  the  question,  how  far  can 
mechanics  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  electromagnetism  ?  In  the  theory 


420  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  relativity  it  touches  the  most  searching  question  thus  far  of  epistemol- 
ogy:  Is  absolute  or  is  only  relative  knowledge  attainable?  Indeed:  Is 
absolute  knowledge  conceivable?  It  comes  here  directly  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  man's  place  in  the  world,  the  question  of  the  connection  of  thought 
with  the  brain.  What  is  thought?  What  are  concepts?  What  are  laws? 
In  psychological  problems,  physics  and  biology  come  together.  And 
finally,  the  anthropological  sciences,  especially  history  and  sociology,  find 
themselves  brought  into  closer  and  closer  connection  with  biological  con- 
cepts. 

Those  who  take  an  interest  in  these  progressive  inquiries  will  find  it 
to  their  advantage  to  have  a  scientific  association  which  shall  declare 
itself  opposed  to  all  metaphysical  undertakings,  and  have  for  its  first 
principle  the  strictest  and  most  comprehensive  ascertainment  of  facts  in 
all  fields  of  research  and  in  the  development  of  organization  and  tech- 
nique. All  theories  and  requirements  are  to  rest  exclusively  on  this  ground 
of  facts  and  find  here  their  ultimate  criterion. 

Annual  reports  will  bring  together  all  branches  of  the  association,  the 
bibliographies  will  be  collected  of  the  material  that  can  be  made  to  con- 
tribute to  strictly  positivistic  theory,  and  as  soon  as  possible  a  periodical, 
for  which  the  resources  are  already  assured,  will  serve  the  undertaking. 

We  ask  for  members  and  active  cooperation.  If  all  those  who  are 
competent  and  earnest  in  genuinely  scientific  philosophical  work,  or  who 
take  an  interest  in  the  progress  and  results  of  such  research,  will  write  in 
this  way  we  can  not  fail  to  meet  with  success,  which  will  lead  us  in  no 
distant  future  out  of  the  unsatisfactory  conditions  of  the  present.  The 
present  day  is  surfeited  with  the  fruitless  and  nearly  uniform  repetition 
of  philosophical  ideas,  often  expressed  before,  but  not  sufficiently  clear 
and  concrete,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  increasing  separation  of 
science  into  ever  smaller  divisions  and  with  the  merely  external  accumu- 
lation of  results.  The  present  day  desires  the  solution  of  general  prob- 
lems, which  research  itself  throws  up,  and  is  not  to  be  put  off  with  an 
Ignorabimus  for  which  there  is  no  evidence." 

The  appeal  is  signed  by  E.  Dietzgen,  Professor  Dr.  Einstein,  Professor 
Dr.  Forel,  Professor  Dr.  Fb'ppl,  Professor  Dr.  S.  Freud,  Professor  Dr. 
Helm,  Professor  Dr.  Hilbert,  Professor  Dr.  Jensen,  Professor  Dr.  Jerusa- 
lem, Professor  Dr.  Kammerer,  Professor  Dr.  B.  Kern,  Professor  Dr.  F. 
Klein,  Professor  Dr.  Lamprecht,  Professor  Dr.  v.  Liszt,  Professor  Dr. 
Loeb,  Professor  Dr.  E.  Mach,  Professor  Dr.  G.  E.  Miiller,  Dr.  Miiller-Lyer, 
Josef  Popper,  Professor  Dr.  Potonie,  Professor  Dr.  Rhumbler,  Professor 
Dr.  Ribbert,  Professor  Dr.  Roux,  Professor  Dr.  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  Pro- 
fessor Dr.  Schuppe,  Professor  Dr.  Ritter  v.  Seeliger.  Profesor  Dr.  Connies, 
Professor  Dr.  Verworn,  Professor  Dr.  Wernicke,  Professor  Dr.  Wiener, 
Professor  Dr.  Th.  Ziehen,  M.  H.  Baege,  Professor  Dr.  Petzoldt.  For 
further  information  address  Mr.  M.  H.  Baege,  Waldowstrasse  23,  Fried- 
richshagen  b.  Berlin,  Germany. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  16.  AUGUST  1,  1912 

THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  CONCEPTION  OF  "SOUL" 

THE  evolution  of  the  idea  of  a  "soul"  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting and  curious  chapters  in  the  history  of  human  thought, 
having  an  enormous  influence  not  only  upon  our  religious,  but  also 
upon  our  philosophical  and  scientific,  conceptions.  As  this  develop- 
ment is  especially  pertinent  to  some  matters  under  current  discus- 
sion, I  present  some  reader's  notes  on  the  topic — with  no  thought,  of 
course,  that  my  sketch  is  more  than  provisional. 

I 

(a)  As  the  "Life." — Australian  Blacks  and  Zandeh  Negroes  alike 
believe  that  nobody  dies  a  natural  death  (and  see  to  it  that  this  is 
usually  the  case,  being  energetic  cannibals!).      The  life  is  purely 
physical ;  by  eating  the  body  one  absorbs  the  life.     But  corpses  are 
realities;  the  life  is  separable  from  the  body:  hence  this  separable 
life  is  an  entity  by  itself ;  it  is  a  soul.     Of  course,  plants  and  animals, 
as  well  as  men,  have  souls  of  this  sort.     This,  in  general,  is  the  funda- 
mental animistic  notion. 

(b)  As  the  "Life-Blood." — The  separable  soul  is  naturally — and, 
where  the  mind  is  incapable  of  abstract  ideas,  necessarily — thought 
of  as  a  physical  or  material  substance.     For  obvious  reasons,  one  of 
the  earliest  and  most  inalienable  identifications  is  of  soul  and  life- 
blood.     Our  very  phrase  "life-blood";  the  notion  of  its  physical 
perpetuation  in  "consanguinity,"  "of  the  blood";  the  notion  of  its 
transmission  in  "blood  brotherhood" — all  point  to  this  primitive 
identification. 

The  blood  is  "the  fountain  of  life."  Plutarch  states  that  pre- 
vious to  the  reign  of  Psammetichus  the  Egyptian  priests  were  unused 
to  drink  wine,  or  even  to  offer  it  in  libation  to  the  gods,  for  they 
regarded  it  as  the  blood  of  those  who  had  warred  against  the  gods ; 
which,  falling  to  earth  and  mixing  therewith,  became  the  seed  of 
vines.  It  is  on  account  of  this,  said  the  Egyptians,  that  drunkenness 
drives  men  mad,  they  being,  so  to  speak,  filled  with  the  life-blood  of 

421 


422  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tli'-ir  ancestors.  This  is  an  obvious  explanation  of  the  hurtfulness 
of  "wine  when  it  is  red,"  of  its  sacramental  vicariousness,  of  the 
divine  possession  of  the  Dionysiac. 

A  more  primitive  and  explicit  idea  is  that  which  Berosus  states  as 
held  in  Chalda-a,  that  all  life,  human  and  animal,  is  derived  from  the 
blood  of  a  decapitated  deity  mixed  with  clay — which  recalls  the  whole 
group  of  myths  in  which  procreation  of  life  follows  bloody  mutila- 
tion. It  accounts  also  for  such  tabus  as  are  apparent  in  "kosher" 
slaughter:  "But  flesh  with  the  life  thereof  which  is  the  blood  thereof, 
ye  shall  not  eat."  The  Arabs  speak  of  "the  life"  that  flows  forth 
upon  the  spear-point;  and  we  still  have  the  saying  that  "blood  calls 
for  vengeance."  Says  King  James  ("Daemonology") :  "In  a  secret 
murther,  if  the  dead  carcass  be  at  any  time  thereafter  handled  by 
the  murtherer,  it  will  gush  out  of  blood,  as  if  the  Blood  were  crying 
to  Heaven  for  revenge  of  the  murtherer." 

(c)  As  the  "Breath  of  Life."— Gen.  ii.  7:  "And  the  Lord  God 
formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils 
the  breath  of  life;  and  man  became  a  living  soul."     Many  of  the 
words    meaning    "soul"    are    derivatives    from    roots    signifying 
4  4  breath, "  "  wind. ' '    Such  are  Hebrew  nephesh,  Greek  -^v^n-,  vrvevfjui, 
Latin  spirit  us,  anima.     The  derivation  offered  for  am,  arc,  present  of 
be,  from  a  root  meaning  "breathe,"  is  interesting  in  this  connection. 
The  invisibility,  intangibility,  fleetness,  and  ubiquity  of  the  soul  are 
naturally   associated   with    this   conception — perhaps   as    primitive 
as  any. 

(d)  As  Wind,  Smoke,  Fire. — Closely  associated  with  the  pre- 
ceding is  the  body  of  analogies  drawn  from  air  and  fire.     "He 
opened  the  earth,  and  the  spirit  of  Eabani  he  caused  to  rise  up  like  a 
wind"   (Jastrow's  translation).      This  simile  from  the  Babylonian 
epic  literature  recalls  the  Jinni  of  the  " Arabian  Nights"  issuing 
from  the  flask  in  the  form  of  a  smoky  cloud.     In  Beowulf  the  crema- 
tion of  a  hero  is  described  guth-rinc  dstdh,  "the  hero  ascended"; 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  conception  underlying  cremation  is 
that  the  smoke  of  the  consumed  body  bears  the  spirit  aloft,  as  the 
smoke  of  the  burnt-offering  bears  the  savor  of  life  to  the  divinity. 
At  all  events,  the  flammulte,  nimbi,  haloes,  and  the  like,  which  in 
Occident  and  Orient  denote  spiritual  endowment,  are  an  obvious 
indication  of  a  primarily  material  conception  of  the  soul. 

(e)  As  Shade,  or  Shadow. — Egyptian  chaibit,  Greek  crxai.  Latin 
umbra,  like  the  Zulu  zitunzela   (from  izitunzi,  shadows),  are  all 
terms  illustrative  of  the  idea  that  the  man's  shadow  is  his  soul,  cur- 
rent in  European  poetry  since  Homer,  though  with  Homer  less  a 
figure  of  speech  than  a  description  of  spiritual  reality. 

(/)  As  J'/ifin/<isin. — The  notion  of  the  soul  as  a  shadow  is  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         423 

natural  precursor — aided,  no  doubt,  by  dream  images  and  hallucina- 
tions— of  the  conception  of  a  phantasmal  duplicate  of  the  body, 
visible,  but  normally  intangible,  and  evanescent.  The  phantasmic 
soul  is  often  a  manikin,  though  it  may  be  an  exaggeration  of  the 
physical  form.  The  Greek  eiScoXov,  Latin  simulacrum,  the  English 
fetch,  wraith,  doubleganger  (respectively  of  Celtic,  Norse,  and 
Scottish  origins,  I  believe)  are  instances.  So  also  is  the  "astral 
body"  of  the  theosophists.  The  ghost,  though  originally  like  the 
Greek  Kijp,  probalDiy  "the  one  who  tears,  wounds,"  is  currently  con- 
ceived as  spectral  and  phantasmic  in  his  visitations. 

II 

(a)  Soul  and  Body. — Thus  is  developed  the  conception  of  a  being 
closely  associated  with  the  body,  intervolved  with  bodily  life,  yet 
detachable  from  the  body — "hospes  comesque  corporis." 

The  Papuans  "all  believe  that  within  them  resides  an  invisible 
other  self,  or  spirit,  which,  if  it  occasionally  wanders  for  a  hurried 
tour  from  its  home  in  the  hours  of  sleep,  goes  forth  for  good  at  death, 
to  hover  for  some  period  at  least  round  the  scenes  of  its  embodied  life 
before  departing  for  some  lone  island  or  inaccessible  summit. ' '  Zulu 
souls  "may  occupy  the  roof  of  a  man's  hut,  and  if  he  changes  his 
abode  his  soul  flits  also."  It  is  the  Fijian  (if  my  memory  serves) 
who  secretes  his  soul  at  home  as  a  precaution  for  his  own  safe  return 
from  battle.  And  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

The  whole  man  is  the  union  of  body  and  soul — the  life,  or  the 
spirit,  incarnate;  and  each  of  the  two  elements  suffers  in  power  from 
the  separation.  This  is  the  normal  view,  and  certainly  the  primitive 
one.  But  as  ideas  magnify,  each  of  these  elements  assumes  its  own 
special  importance. 

The  relative  importance  of  the  bodily  element  and  the  unimpor- 
tance, or  at  least  inefficiency,  of  the  spiritual,  is  the  elder  notion. 
The  discarnate  soul  is  naked  and  shivering,  lacking  the  warmth  of 
life— 

"Errant  exangues  sine  corpore  et  ossibus  umbrae." 

At  death  "the  spirit  flies  forth  like  a  dream,"  says  the  mother  of 
Odysseus;  it  is  sinewless  and  fleeting,  and  even  its  voice  is  reduced 
to  mumblings  and  mouthings;  the  shades  are  "gibbering  shades" 
and  the  "ghostly  voice"  is  only  a  fainting  replica  of  human 
utterance — 

"And  ghosts  did  shriek  and  squeal  about  the  streets," 

is  Shakespeare's  phrase.  The  Scandinavian  "little  people"  are 
souls  awaiting  their  turn  to  be  clothed  in  human  flesh ;  and  the  whole 
notion  of  metempsychosis  is  founded  upon  the  incredibility — ethic- 


424  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ally,  at  least — of  a  lastingly  disembodied  life:  it  could  do  nothing 
for  the  world,  and  so  is  unthinkable. 

The  ineffectiveness  of  disembodiment  seems  to  extend  even  to 
superhuman  beings.  At  all  events,  the  blood  offering  is  best  to  be 
explained  as  an  effort  to  nourish  the  immaterial  "spirit"  with  the 
more  substantial  "life."  "I  took  the  sheep,"  says  Odysseus,  "and 
cut  their  throats  over  the  trench,  and  the  dark  blood  flowed  forth, 
and  lo,  the  spirits  of  the  dead  that  be  departed  gathered  them  from 
out  of  Erebus."  Neoptolemus,  in  offering  Polyxena  to  the  shade  of 
Achilles  (Euripides,  "Hecuba"),  cries:  "Drink  the  maiden's  blood, 
black  and  unmixed!"  The  pursuing  Furies,  in  the  "Eumenides," 
"delight  in  the  odor  of  man's  blood" — their  vital  nourishment. 

A  higher  grade  of  respect  for  spiritual  power,  at  least  in  its  con- 
junctive augmentation  of  the  bodily,  appears  in  the  group  of  beliefs 
which  concede  the  possession  of  a  proper  soul  only  to  the  more  effi- 
cient persons.  The  Negresses  of  Darfur  are  forbidden  to  eat  liver, 
because  they  have  no  souls.  A  Basoga  chief,  pointing  at  a  peasant, 
exclaims :  ' '  He  have  an  immortal  soul !  I  can  not  believe  it ;  but  I 
will  admit  that  perhaps  Wakoli  or  Luba  had  a  soul.  Wakoli  had 
four  hundred  wives ! ' '  Among  some  Polynesians  only  the  nobles  are 
believed  to  possess  souls.  We  recall  the  reassurance  of  the  pirates 
in  "Treasure  Island":  "Nobody  minds  Ben  Gunn,  dead  or  alive, 
nobody  minds  him. ' ' 

The  power  of  the  spirit  is  more  distinctly  recognized  in  the  con- 
ception of  it  as  a  guardian  spirit  which  hovers  about  the  body,  or 
appears  at  necessity  to  render  aid.  The  genius  of  the  Roman  is  the 
type  of  such  a  being,  exemplified  again  in  the  fravashi,  who  looks 
after  the  interests  of  the  Persian  "in  the  presence  of  Ormazd"- 
very  much,  we  may  suppose,  as  the  Fijian's  soul  preserves  him  from 
battle  danger. 

It  is  but  a  step  from  this  idea  to  that  of  the  soul's  superior  power 
and  worth,  which  is  the  root  of  the  ascetic  despisal  of  the  body.  The 
body  becomes  "the  spirit's  house"  or  "the  garment  of  flesh"  and  is 
misused  accordingly.  The  Egyptian  priests,  according  to  Plutarch, 
avoided  fatness  for  the  reason  that  they  wished  their  bodies  to  sit 
lightly  and  easily  about  the  soul,  not  pressing  upon  and  weighing 
down  the  immortal  and  divine  with  a  merely  mortal  part.  This  is 
but  the  material  root  of  the  later  idea  of  the  soul  as  a  prisoner  of 
the  flesh  to  be  set  free  at  death. 

(b)  Survival  of  Bodily  Death. — A  soul  which  is  first  conceived  as 
separable  from  the  body,  later  as  hardly  more  than  accidentally  con- 
nected with  the  body,  and  finally  as  the  essential,  but  independent 
cause  of  bodily  life,  can  not  but  be  conceived  aa  surviving  bodily 
decay.  Some,  to  be  sure,  have  conceived  the  soul  to  survive  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          425 

death,  but  not  the  destruction  of  the  body.  This  appears  to  have 
been  a  Stoic  notion — the  soul  being  held  to  survive,  on  an  irrational 
plane,  until  the  body  was  entirely  resolved  into  its  elements. 
Theosophists  of  our  own  day  hold  some  such  notion  in  regard  to  the 
phantasmal  soul  which  they  recognize.  And  it  must  be  confessed 
that  there  is  a  kind  of  ghastly  plausibility  of  this  view  in  the  appar- 
ently decaying  personalities  of  some  of  the  mediumistic  communica- 
tions of  the  research  societies.  Nevertheless,  advance  in  civilization 
has,  on  the  whole,  been  attended  by  the  development  of  more  refined 
and  convincing  conceptions,  founded  upon  ethical  rather  than 
material  reasons.  And  it  has  been  the  affair  of  the  science  of  psy- 
chology to  give  content  to  the  more  advanced  ideas  of  spiritual  being. 

(c)  "Anthropology."— Both  the  spectacle  of  a  lifeless  body  and 
the  belief  in  a  living,  though  soulless  body,  or  in  a  bodiless,  though 
inefficient  soul,  lead  to  the  conception  of  a  complete  man  combining 
body  and  soul.  The  science  of  man's  nature,  in  this  full  sense,  the 
Schoolmen  named  "anthropology,"  leaving  "psychology"  as  the 
branch  concerned  with  the  analysis  of  the  soul 's  life  alone. 

The  most  primitive  type  of  such  an  anthropology  is  that  formed 
by  combining  the  various  conceptions  of  soul,  almost  universally 
developed,  with  the  idea  of  the  body,  the  name,  and  such  other 
notions  as  center  in  a  personality.  Thus  the  Indian  prophet  Keokuk 
instructed  his  followers  to  pray  for  the  heart,  the  flesh,  the  life,  the 
name,  the  family.  The  Persians  distinguished  in  man  the  body,  the 
life,  the  soul,  the  form,  the  genius;  and  the  Egyptians — who  seem 
never  to  have  relinquished  an  idea,  no  matter  how  primitive,  once  it 
had  gained  a  mental  hold — analyzed  the  personality  of  the  deceased 
into  mummy,  genius,  bird-soul,  heart,  form,  shadow,  soul,  strength, 
name,  assigning  separate  destinies  and  longevities  to  these  numerous 
divisions. 

The  ethical  conception  of  a  good  and  a  bad  inner  nature  in  each 
individual  is  often  hypostatized,  giving  two  souls  in  place  of  two 
dispositions — a  sort  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde  double  personality.  Even 
Plato  can  say,  ' '  there  are  two  souls,  a  good  and  an  evil ' ' ;  while  the 
Bagobos  are  said  to  carry  this  idea  to  the  picturesque  extreme  of  con- 
signing the  good  soul  to  Heaven,  the  bad  to  Hell,  in  the  dissociation 
which  the  future  world  is  to  bring  about. 

(d)  The  Partitive  Soul. — From  this  plurality  of  souls  it  is  only  a 
natural  step  to  regard  the  soul  as  divided  into  a  number  of  fairly 
distinct  parts.  In  our  own  popular  thought  there  is  frequently  an 
entitative  distinction  between  Soul,  Spirit,  Mind,  and  Consciousness ; 
and  it  is  to  be  doubted  if  the  mass  of  men  have  outpassed  Purchas's 
conception  of  the  soul  as  "conflate  of  the  Mind,  Spirit,  and  Animal 
Soul,  or  Idolum. ' ' 


426  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Certainly  the  strong  hold  which  the  old-time  "faculty"  psy- 
chology still  retains  even  upon  scientific  text-books  and  treatises, 
compartmentalizing  perception,  emotion,  volition,  reason,  etc.,  is 
palpable  evidence  of  the  vitality  of  this  primitive  way  of  thinking. 
Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  physiological  analysis  of  experience 
given  by  the  "Five  Wits,"  which  the  miracle  plays  loved  to  per- 
sonify, is  in  itself  a  somewhat  powerful  and  striking  support  to  the 
compartmental  mode  of  conceiving  mental  life;  while  in  our  own 
day  the  curious  and  complicated  phenomena  of  multiple  personality 
have  given  a  semi-scientific  ratification  of  old-fashioned  beliefs  in 
multiple  entities  connected  with  the  same  body. 

Ill 

Philosophic  Conceptions. — The  earliest  efforts  to  analyze  philo- 
sophically the  nature  of  the  soul,  the  earliest  psychologies,  are  as 
inefficient  as  the  early  attempts  to  analyze  nature,  committing  the 
same  error  of  carrying  simplification  to  absurdity.  Thus  for  Anaxi- 
menes  the  soul  is  air ;  for  Heracleitus,  fire ;  for  the  Atomists,  a  wraith 
of  fine  and  impalpable  atoms;  for  Empedocles,  the  blood  about  the 
heart — all  conceptions  at  once  related  to  the  ontologies  of  these 
thinkers  and  to  the  primitive  conceptions  from  which  their  thought 
had  developed.  There  is  a  slight  advance  in  the  Pythagorean  notion 
of  the  soul  as  a  harmony;  but  it  is  only  with  Plato  that  we  attain 
anything  like  a  scientific  psychology. 

Plato  regarded  the  soul  as  immaterial  and  as  partaking  of  the 
nature  and  divinity  of  ideas.  It  is  related  to  the  body  as  is  har- 
mony to  the  lyre — apparently  the  Pythagorean  notion.  Its  faculties 
are  reason,  understanding,  faith,  perception.  Here  we  have  the  gen- 
eral conception  of  an  entity  endowed  with  faculties,  which  is  the 
model  of  most  later  thinking. 

Aristotle  merely  elaborates  the  Platonic  view.  A  living  being  is 
a  composite  of  soul  and  body,  the  soul  being  its  formal,  the  body  its 
material,  cause.  Soul  is  the  "actuality"  of  life,  it  is  "the  entelechy 
of  a  natural  body  endowed  with  the  capacity  of  life."  Its  powers 
are  (1)  nutritive  or  vegetative,  (2)  perceptive,  (3)  creative  or 
kinetic,  (4)  rational  or  dianoetic.  In  every  organism  it  is  a  unit, 
but  it  is  found  in  every  part  of  the  body. 

Aristotle  here,  as  elsewhere,  sets  the  detailed  model  for  the  work 
of  centuries;  what  follows  is  but  minute  elaboration  of  his  plans. 
Says  Burton:  "According  to  Aristotle,  the  soul  is  defined  to  be 
eirreXfycta,  perfectio  et  actus  primus  corporis  organici,  vitam 
habcntis  in  potentia;  the  perfection  or  first  act  of  an  organical  body, 
having  power  of  life,  which  most  philosophers  approve.  But  many 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          427 

doubts  arise  about  the  essence,  subject,  seat,  distinction,  and  sub- 
ordinate faculties  of  it. ' ' 

"The  common  division,"  Burton  continues,  "is  into  three  prin- 
cipal faculties — vegetal,  sensitive,  and  rational,  which  make  three 
distinct  kinds  of  living  creatures — vegetal  plants,  sensible  beasts, 
rational  men.  How  these  three  principal  faculties  are  distinguished 
and  connected,  Humano  ingenio  inaccessum  videtur,  is  beyond 
human  capacity."  Nevertheless,  it  has  not  been  beyond  human 
speculation. 

Augustine  described  the  soul  as  simple,  immaterial,  spiritual, 
devoid  of  quantity  or  space.  He  distinguished  in  it  the  lower  sensu- 
ous and  appetitive  faculties  from  the  higher  volitional  and  cognitive ; 
and  he  made  it  immortal  because  it  is  the  repository  of  imperishable 
truth.  To  this  the  Schoolmen  added  little  except  pedantry.  Body 
and  soul,  according  to  Aquinas,  are  coprinciples  of  the  substantial 
unit  which  is  man,  being  related  as  matter  and  form  (Aristotle). 
Man  is  defined:  substantia  singularis  rationalis  Integra  tota  in  se 
et  sui  juris.  The  soul  is  locomotive,  nutritive,  sensitive,  rational 
(Aristotle  once  more)  ;  with  the  rational  soul  as  the  dominant  and 
immortal  part:  anima  intellective!,  est  forma  corporis,  sed  non  qua 
intellective. 

Sir  John  Davies's  poem,  "Of  the  Soul,"  in  which  he  reduces 
psychology  to  rhyme,  serves  up  the  general  hotch-potch  in  a  series 
of  powers  which  almost  rivals  Burton,  but  is  better  than  Burton's 
analysis  in  that  it  reflects  more  persistent  notions.  The  soul 's  powers 
he  finds  to  be  the  vegetative,  those  of  the  "five  senses"  and  that  of 
the  "common  sense,"  fantasy,  sense  memory,  passions,  powers  of 
movement,  intellect,  abstraction,  reason — almost  a  modern  phrenol- 
ogy. But  the  real  problem  is  not  the  analysis,  but  the  spacelessness 
and  at  the  same  time  the  ubiquity  of  the  soul,  and  this  Sir  John 
resolves  with  a  verbal  dexterity  that  would  do  credit  to  the  modern 
absolutistic  application  of  the  similar  notion  to  the  soul  of  the 
universe — 

' '  So  doth  the  piercing  soul  the  body  fill, 
Being  all  in  all,  and  all  in  part  diffused. ' ' 

"Others  make  a  doubt,"  says  Burton,  "whether  it  be  all  in  all,  and 
all  in  every  part."  But  Davies  has  the  tradition  back  of  him,  and 
that  is  better  than  intelligibility.  He  is  a  fair  prophet  of  Fechner, 
defining  the  soul  as  "the  whole  unitary  spiritual  process  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  whole  unitary  bodily  process. ' ' 

Fechner  is  largely  the  founder  of  our  most  modern  psychology — 
but  not  on  the  basis  of  this  definition.  The  truth  is  that  modern 
philosophy  and  psychology  alike  have  largely  ceased  to  be  concerned 
with  the  "soul."  Psychology  has  chosen  the  more  phenomenal 


428  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

region  of  mind,  or  latterly,  of  consciousness  for  its  province;  and 
while  it  has  sceptically  hinted  that  there  may  be  no  ens  spirituals 
behind  or  beneath  or  beside  mind  and  consciousness,  it  has  mainly 
left  the  matter  to  the  safer  handling  of  theologians.  Where  it  is  at 
all  frank,  it  treats  the  brain  as  the  sole  substratum  and  support  of 
conscious  life.  This  is  to  be  understood  of  physiological  psychology, 
for  which  consciousness  is  merely  a  bodily  habit,  or  of  psycho- 
physics,  which  sees  in  mental  phenomena  merely  a  convenient  index 
to  experimentation. 

I  think  a  fair — as  well  as  a  shrewd — statement  of  the  modern 
view  is  that  given  by  Professor  Singer  i1 

"We  are  barely  through  those  long  chapters  in  the  history  of 
science  in  which  the  theory  of  a  hot  body  composed  that  object  of  a 
body  plus  heat.  This  heat  was  first  conceived  as  itself  a  kind  of 
body — a  congeries  of  small,  round  atoms;  then,  since  heat  did  not 
increase  the  mass  to  which  it  was  added,  it  became  the  vaguer  stuff 
called  caloric.  Nevertheless,  however  ghostly  this  caloric  had  be- 
come, it  still  went  in  and  out  of  bodies  like  a  stuff,  fell  under  the 
same  principles  of  individuation  that  bodies  fall  under,  was  in  short 
a  sort  of  body,  though  a  mysterious  sort  of  body.  We  know  with 
what  travail  this  strong,  primitive  instinct  to  add  was  overcome,  and 
men  had  the  courage  to  say, '  Heat  is  not  something  inferred  from  the 
heated  behavior  of  a  body,  it  is  that  behavior. '  .  .  . 

"As  a  hot  body  is  a  body  plus  heat,  so  a  living  body  is  a  carcass 
plus  life.  The  history  of  this  conception  is  strikingly  like  that  of 
the  previous  one.  At  first  the  thing  added  to  body  to  make  it  alive 
was  another  body — the  psyche — differing,  may  be,  in  certain  of  its 
qualities,  but  still  falling  under  the  same  principles  of  individuation, 
having  a  history  of  its  own  when  disembodied.  Now,  this  psyche  is 
reduced  where  it  survives  at  all  to  that  vague  principle  called  'the 
vital,'  of  which  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  it  is  a  mystery.  Few 
thinkers  cling  to  this  survival;  for  most  of  us  a  living  body  is  a 
mechanism  that  behaves  in  a  certain  way,  one  that  is  well  calculated 
to  attain  certain  ends.  Life  is  no  longer  a  thing  to  be  inferred  from 
behavior;  it  is  behavior,  and  while  it  is  an  aspect  of  a  body's  be- 
havior from  which  other  aspects  may  be  distinguished,  we  no  longer 
think  of  these  aspects  as  separate.  Disembodied  life  has  been  placed 
among  the  myths." 

IV 

Bodily  and  Spiritual  Life. — The  net  result  of  the  conceptual 
development  traced  is  thus  negative.  It  reminds  one  of  Burton's 
anecdote  in  regard  to  the  discussion  of  the  soul's  immortality  before 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  pages  185-6. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          429 

Leo  X.:  "That  Epicurean  pope,  as  some  record  of  him,  caused  this 
question  to  be  discussed  pro  and  con  before  him,  and  concluded  at 
last,  as  a  profane  and  atheistical  moderator,  with  that  verse  of  Cor- 
nelius Gallus,  Et  redit  in  nihilum,  quod  fuit  ante  nihil."  So  our 
analysis  shows  the  conception  of  soul  to  begin  and  end  in  mythic 
hypostatization. 

Nevertheless  this  result  is  mainly  an  appearance  due  to  the  essen- 
tial cloudiness  of  abstract  thinking.  The  process  has  been  one  of 
abstraction  and  reification  from  the  first;  coupled,  in  the  more  ele- 
mentary stage,  with  an  identification  of  the  abstracted  and  reified 
"life"  with  some  such  concrete  symbol  as  the  breath  or  the  blood. 
The  "soul,"  the  "psyche,"  is  an  ideal  emblem,  useful  in  the  analysis 
of  experience,  but  certainly  not  designating  any  legitimate  non- 
experiential  entity.  What  it  properly  means  is  a  kind  of  fact  as 
simple  and  direct  as  any  that  we  know — the  fact  of  personality. 

This  personality  consists  in  something  more  than  "bodily  be- 
havior," even  while  it  is  "incarnate"  in  the  body  with  which  it  is 
objectively  associated.  For  "behavior"  and  "body"  represent  ab- 
stractions of  experience  quite  as  emblematic  as  is  "soul."  Indeed,  if 
we  assume  the  personal,  or  shall  I  say  possessional  attitude  toward 
experience,  which  is  characteristic  of  philosophy  as  the  impersonal 
attitude  is  characteristic  of  science,  then  we  make  rather  better  sense 
in  speaking  of  the  body  as  the  mind's  "behavior"  than  vice  versa;2 
for  the  body  is  only  one  among  the  multitude  of  "things"  which  the 
mind's  activity  generates — or,  if  you  are  a  realist,  identifies.  Of 
course  "the  mind,"  too,  is  one  of  these  "things";  and  so  we  are 
brought  through  the  whole  circuit  of  abstractions  without  any  rest 
in  the  elusive  reality.  But  this  is  the  general  fate  of  thinking. 

The  truth  is  that  all  our  descriptions  of  life  have  to  be  from  some 
point  of  view — and  that  an  artificial,  or  at  least  an  arbitrary  one. 
If  we  happen  to  be  ontologically  minded  we  will  think  with  the 
Greeks  and  the  Schoolmen  in  terms  of  substance  and  attribute,  and 
soul  and  body  will  each  be  an  ens,  whose  function  is  to  have  and 
whose  nature  is  to  be.  If  we  are  of  a  more  recent  turn  we  will  psy- 
chologize experience.  The  German  mode  of  doing  this  is  primitive 
and  anthropomorphic,  but  with  a  peculiar  bent,  the  parent  of  which 
is  the  "faculty  psychology."  Thus  it  is  that  Fichte  makes  the  will 
— the  moral  and  enlightened  will — into  the  moving  cause  and  the 
essence  of  the  universe.  For  Schelling,  sensation  and  imagination 
set  the  model.  Hegel  makes  the  reason  the  proper  being  of  all. 
Schopenhauer,  like  Fichte,  utilizes  volition,  only  Schopenhauer  uses 
a  blind  and  unintelligent  will.  In  each  case  we  have  a  "faculty" 
artificially  created  by  psychological  analysis  erected  into  the  founda- 

*  As  witness  Strong's  "Why  the  Mind  Has  a  Body." 


430  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tion  for  all  the  other  facts  of  experience.  The  characteristic  exag- 
geration of  the  procedure  is  nowhere  better  shown  than  in  a  com- 
parison of  Fichte  and  Schopenhauer,  each  of  whom  succeeds  in  cre- 
ating a  universe  to  his  taste  by  the  simple  expedient  of  broadening 
or  contracting  the  scope  of  the  faculty  (the  abstraction)  which  he 
has  chosen  to  regard  as  basic.  The  whole  operation  is  in  kind  exactly 
like  that  of  the  savage  who  places  the  life  in  the  blood. 

Nor  is  the  phenomenalistic,  or  naturalistic,  mode  of  analysis  any 
nearer  the  facts.  When  physiological  science  gives  us  a  "body"  as 
the  core  of  certain  "behaviors"  we  have  simply  taken  old  facts  from 
a  new  point  of  view.  The  character  of  what  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  term  mental  facts  is  not  altered  by  the  new  name.  The 
name  does,  to  be  sure,  give  a  certain  connotation  of  evanescence  and 
destructibility  to  the  facts,  which  the  older  terminology  lacks — and 
this,  of  course,  is  the  reason  for  its  introduction ;  but  it  does  not  alter 
the  facts  nor  interfere  with  other  interpretations.  For  example, 
entirely  intelligible  may  be  that  view  of  life  which  finds  the  founda- 
tion of  its  continuity  in  personality,  as  life  constructs  it,  rather  than 
in  either  a  perishable  body  or  an  entitative  soul.  Many  of  our  facts, 
and  indeed  most  of  those  we  care  for,  are  not  bodily  facts,  and  are 
only  incidentally  associated  with  the  bodily  facts.  This  must  not  be 
taken  to  mean  that  we  have  a  "dark"  history  concurrent  with  our 
conscious  "light,"  founded  upon  some  dim  ulterior  being.  It  means 
rather  that  the  moments  of  light,  which  are  the  moments  of  what  we 
call  reality,  are  creative  moments  whose  content  and  achievement  far 
transcend  bodily  relations  and  possibilities.  Continuing  life  means 
simply  continuing  experience,  and  analysis  of  experience,  as  in  the 
body  we  know  it,  indubitably  reveals  a  more  than  bodily  element 
which  we  are  justified  in  terming  the  spiritual  element. 

For  men  will  continue  to  speak  and  think  in  the  categories  of  sub- 
stance and  attribute,  rest  and  motion,  body  and  mind,  thing  and 
behavior.  Generations  of  practical  use  have  proven  the  value  of 
these  categories:  they  are  simplifications,  abstractions,  and  hence 
temporary  falsifications  of  fact;  but  the  experience  of  mankind  cer- 
tainly shows  that  in  the  long  run  their  employment  leads  to  clarity 
and  truth  and  to  such  general  intelligibility  as  enables  efficient  living. 

H.  B.  ALEXANDER. 

UNIVERSITY  or  NEBRASKA. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          431 
STUDIES  IN  THE  STRUCTURE  OF  SYSTEMS 
3.   POSTULATES 

structural  elements  of  the  classical  theory  of  the  deductive 
-*-  system  are:  proof,  definition,  categories,  axioms,  theorems. 
Whilst  all  these  are  integral  elements  of  the  deductive  system,  it  is 
"proof,"  or  "deduction,"  in  terms  of  which  the  form  is  defined. 
A  systematic  account  might  therefore  be  expected  to  begin  with 
"proof."  I  find  it,  however,  more  convenient  to  introduce  my 
exposition  with  a  critical  account  of  the  main  propositions  regarding 
"axioms,"  because  it  is  through  the  more  patent  changes  here  that 
the  required  changes  in  our  theory  of  "proof"  will  become  evident. 

It  is  interesting  that  neither  the  term  nor  the  usual  meaning  of 
"axiom"  has  any  place  in  Plato's  philosophy.  It  is  characteris- 
tically Aristotelian.  Though  the  Stagirite's  theory  of  the  deductive 
system  rests  on  the  basis  laid  by  Socrates — Plato  (a  fact  which  is 
merely  obscured  by  his  numerous  criticisms  of  Plato's  doctrine), 
regarding  "axioms,"  he  fundamentally  differed  from  the  latter. 
Plato's  term  is  vTro'^eo-t?,  which  in  its  meaning  and  function  corre- 
sponds to  the  modern  use  of  "postulate." 

Aristotle's  theory  of  the  deductive  system  is  dominated  by  his 
conception  of  "cognition"  (eVto-TTj/i?;).  Cognition  is  "necessary," 
"certain,"  " apodictical' '  and  implies  the  idea  of  a  "cause"  (atria) 
on  which  it  rests  and  from  which  it  follows  with  necessity.1  A  proof 
is  a  syllogism  which  leads  to  cognition  (o-vXXo7t<?/*o9 
,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  "proving,"  the  syl- 
logism was  elaborated  by  Aristotle  as  the  methodical  procedure  which 
determines  the  ' '  following  with  necessity. ' '  In  every  proof  Aristotle 
distinguishes  three  parts:  first,  that  which  is  proved,  the  conclusion 
(TO  aTroSeiKvvfj&vov  TO  o-vfjiTrepaa-fjia)  •  secondly,  the  axioms,  from  which 
(ef  &v)  the  proof  proceeds;  and,  thirdly,  the  subject  whose  properties 
the  proof  exhibits  (TO  70/05  TO  vTroKat/Mvov).2  But  the  proof,  this 
mediator  of  cognition,  making  the  truth  of  one  proposition  rest  on 
that  of  another,  can  neither  move  in  a  circle  nor  regress  indefinitely ; 
it  must  come  to  a  standstill;  there  must  be  a  "first"  of  cognition: 
secondly,  we  say:  "not  only  is  there  cognition,  but  also  a  first  of 
cognition  (apx'n  errtoTTj/i^)."3  The  ap%rj  is  twofold,  namely,  e£  &v 
and  -jrepl  o.4  The  latter  comprises  the  special  presuppositions  in 
each  proof,  the  Saut;  they  are  usually  interpreted  as  meaning  the 
' '  special  principles  of  each  science. ' '  This  interpretation  is  indeed 

1Analyt.  post.  I2. 
*Analyt.  post.  It. 
*  Ibid.,  Chap.  3. 
*Ibid.,  Chap.  32. 


432  mi-:  ,101  //Y.I/,  OF 

suggested  by  the  end  of  Chapter  XXXII.,  referred  to  above,  as  well 
as  by  the  remarkable  passage  at  the  beginning  of  Chapter  VII 
( \\  liich  anticipates  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  the  modern  insistence 
on  the  "purity  of  methods")-  But  this  interpretation,  though 
supported  by  the  authority  of  Zeller,  is  certainly  too  narrow,  for 
even  these  "special  principles"  are  "general";  but  each  proof  re- 
quires the  "particular";  and  Aristotle  insists  that  the  number  of 
"principles"  (apxh]  is  n°t  much  smaller  than  that  of  the  "conclu- 
sions," and  can  not  be  finite  if  that  of  the  conclusions  is  infinite.5 
The  tStat  are  therefore  not  merely  the  special  principles  of  each 
"science,"  but  of  each  cnroSevtcvvfjuvov  TO  <rvfj.7repa(rna:  wherever 
there  is  proof  it  proceeds,  in  part,  ex  TO>V  etcdo-rov  ap-^fav.  Such  is  the 
Trcpl  o,  such  TO  yevos  TO  viroicai^vov.  "Number,"  "magnitude"  are 
mentioned  as  examples;  it  is  iheyevos,  the  concept,  and  we  shall  have 
to  consider  this  part  of  the  ap%r)  in  a  later  paper. 

The  "axioms,"  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  e£  &v,  the  xofoai,  as 
opposed  to  the  i8iat,  in  each  proof.  As  examples  of  "axioms"  are 
mentioned  the  principle  of  contradiction,  of  excluded  middle,  that 
equals  subtracted  from  equals  are  equal. 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  ap^rj  on  which  all  cognition  rests? 
Aristotle  concludes  that  it  must  be  true,  the  first,  immediate,  better 
known,  earlier,  and  in  causal  relation  to  the  conclusion.  These 
determinations  seem  indeed  necessary  from  the  Aristotelian  point  of 
view.  Cognition  appears  like  a  building  which  needs  must  rest  on  a 
secure  foundation.  And  Aristotle  has  given  the  reasons  for  each 
one  of  these  properties  of  the  apxn-  It  will  be  necessary  to  examine 
them. 

The  first  demands  "truth"  for  the  apxrj,  a  truth  which  does  in 
no  way  depend  on  that  which  follows  from  it,  neither  does  itself 
follow  from  any  other  truth;  truth  belongs  to  the  axiom  as  such, 
apart  from  anything  else;  the  truth  of  the  ap%r)  is  isolated,  even 
though  the  ap^  itself  stands  in  relation  to  other  propositions.  And 
it  is  recognized  "immediately";  it  is  self-evident,  for  we  know  it 
"in  still  higher  degree"  than  any  of  the  derived  propositions.  If  any 
proposition  is  presented,  and  it  is  an  a/^,  we  must  be  able  to  decide 
by  direct  inspection  whether  it  is  true  or  not;  and  vice  versa. 

After  what  has  been  said  in  the  first  paper,  it  will  be  apparent 
that  these  arguments  move  in  the  realm  of  "psychology  of  cogni- 
tion" and  of  "critique  of  cognition";  for  they  deal  with  problems 
concerning  the  truth  and  the  subject-relation  of  logical  entities.  But 
it  was  necessary  to  inspect  them  here,  because  they  serve,  in  their 
part,  to  establish  the  radical  distinction  between  the  apx*1  and  the 
"theorems."  If  Aristotle  adds  therefore  that  the  "axioms"  must 

'  Loc.  cit. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          433 

be  a  "first,"  it  is  clear  that  he  refers,  not  to  any  accidental  order  of 
presentation  in  a  given  system,  but  to  an  objective  order,  to  a  relation 
between  the  logical  entities  themselves.  The  "first"  is  not  merely 
"unproved,"  but  "indemonstrable"  (etc  Trpwrcov  8'  avaTroSeiKrcw} 
t.  e.,  that  which  can  not  be  proved;  and  which  need  not  be  proved, 
because  its  certainty  is  superior  to  all  proof. 

The  determinations  "better  known"  and  "earlier"  seem  at  first 
sight  to  refer  merely  to  a  subject-relation;  but  Aristotle  makes  the 
distinction  between  the  Trpdrepov  TT/W  Ty/ia? ,  and  the  Trpdrepov  rfj 
(frvo-ei  ;  it  is  the  latter  he  means  here,  and  it  stands  merely  for  "gen- 
erality"; for,  according  to  him,  "better  known  and  earlier  in  itself" 
is  that  which  is  further  away  from  sense-perception ;  and  ' '  the  most 
general  is  furthest  away."  Aristotle  applies  here  to  propositions  a 
distinction,  which  is  of  fundamental  importance  in  his  theory  of  con- 
cepts, namely,  with  respect  to  ' '  generality  " ;  he  seems  to  assume  that, 
given  two  propositions  pl  and  p2,  they  always  have  a  definite  relation 
of  generality.  And  yet  it  is  by  no  means  self-evident  that  this  as- 
sumption must  hold ;  on  the  contrary,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it 
really  does  hold.  Aristotle  had,  no  doubt,  in  his  mind  examples  of 
syllogisms  of  the  "all  men  are  mortal"  type;  and  here  the  distinc- 
tion is  simple :  "all  men  are  mortal ' '  is  more  general  than  ' ' Socrates 
is  mortal."  It  was  a  dogma  of  the  traditional  logic  that  all  proofs 
in  mathematics  are  of  this  type.  Kant  took  exception  to  this  dogma ; 
Sigwart  tried  to  formulate  a  difference  in  his  "Logik";  but  most 
clearly  the  difference  is  exhibited  by  the  modern  work  in  the  algebra 
of  relatives.  Now  take  Sigwart 's  example:  "if  the  corresponding 
sides  of  two  triangles  are  in  proportion,  the  corresponding  angles  are 
equal;  if  the  corresponding  angles  of  two  triangles  are  equal,  the 
triangles  are  similar;  therefore,  if  the  sides  of  two  triangles  are  in 
proportion,  the  triangles  are  similar."  This,  as  Sigwart  rightly 
remarks,  looks  like  Barbara,  but  is,  in  reality,  himmelweit  davon 
verschreden.  The  propositions  do  not  simply  state  ' '  subsumptions, ' ' 
but  relations  of  a  different  kind.  But  which  of  these  propositions  is 
the  most  general  f  In  a  similar  way,  which  proposition  is  more  gen- 
eral: Euclid's  parallel  axiom,  or  the  theorem  about  the  sum  of  the 
angles  in  a  triangle  ? 

This  criticism  of  the  concept  of  "generality,"  as  applied  to 
propositions,  merely  introduces  the  critique  of  "axioms,"  which  the 
modern  work  necessitates.  Generality  might  be  surrendered;  it 
would  not  make  Aristotle's  account  any  more  acceptable.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  ap^rj  and  any  theorem  would  still  be  radical, 
absolute,  inherent;  the  proof,  according  to  Aristotle,  can  proceed  in 
but  one  direction:  from  certain  propositions  (the  ap%r)),  to  certain 
others:  it  never  can  go  in  the  opposite  direction,  at  least  not  as  a 


434  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

deductive  proof;  it  is  impossible,  if  A  is  used  as  a  basis  for  proving 
B,  that  B  should  be  used  to  prove  A.  We  can,  from  "all  men  are 
mortal,"  deduce  "Socrates  is  mortal,"  but  not  inversely.  This 
inverse  procedure,  prohibited  by  the  Aristotelian  theory  of  a  deduc- 
tive system,  we  can,  however,  easily  exhibit  in  mathematics,  at  least 
in  a  large  class  of  cases.  Thus  if,  in  plane  Euclidean  geometry,  the 
opposite  sides  of  a  quadrilateral  are  parallel,  it  can  be  proved  that 
they  are  equal ;  and  vice  versa.  This  may  not  seem  very  remarkable; 
but  it  applies  to  the  "axioms."  By  means  of  the  "parallel  axiom" 
we  can  prove  the  theorem  about  the  sum  of  the  angles  in  a  triangle ; 
and  vice  versa.  Either  one  can  therefore  be  "proved,"  provided  the 
other  is  accepted.  "Indemonstrable"  is  not  a  property  which  in- 
heres in  a  proposition  as  such,  as  Aristotle  claimed,  but  in  a  proposi- 
tion in  a  system,  i.  e.,  in  relation  to  others.  Take  it  out  of  this  defi- 
nite systematic  arrangement  with  its  definite  order,  and  the  term 
"indemonstrable"  becomes  meaningless. 

Mathematicians  have  therefore  more  and  more  avoided  the  term 
"axiom,"  and  speak  of  "postulates,"  or  "hypotheses,"  to  express 
that  the  starting-point  of  the  system  is  merely  "assumed,"  that  the 
"fundamental  propositions"  of  a  system  are  merely  "unproved," 
but  might  be  "provable"  propositions  in  a  different  arrangement. 
Which  propositions  are  chosen  as  postulates  and  which  as  theorems  is 
accidental,  namely,  to  the  particular  arrangement ;  it  is  not  a  logical 
property  of  certain  propositions  to  be  "presupposed"  by  others. 

This  states  somewhat  radically  what  has  been  demonstrated,  how- 
ever, thus  far  only  in  part.  Mathematicians  have  worked  out  nu- 
merous "sets  of  postulates,"  which  exhibit  this  interchange  between 
postulates  and  theorems.  Is  there  any  limit  to  this  interchange- 
ability  ?  Are  there  any  propositions  which  always  must  be  among  the 
postulates?  The  views  regarding  this  degree  of  interchangeability 
differ  somewhat ;  some,  e.  g.,  Bertrand  Russell,  hold  that  it  is  possible 
only  within  certain  (though  as  yet  undefined)  limits;  others,  as  E.  V. 
Huntington,  incline  to  the  view  that  this  interchange  can  go  on 
indefinitely ;  and  I  myself  incline  to  the  latter  view ;  the  presumption, 
at  least  so  far  as  mathematics  is  concerned,  is  strongly  in  favor  of  it. 

But,  some  writers  hold,  whilst  this  may  be  true  for  mathematics, 
it  is  not  true  for  logic ;  such  propositions  as  the  ' '  syllogism ' '  must  be 
among  the  "fundamental  principles."  Two  arguments  are  advanced 
to  support  this  view. 

First,  it  is  held,  these  propositions  are  "absolutely  true,"  in  the 
sense  that  they  can  not  possibly  be  denied;  or,  as  Professor  Royce 
puts  it,  their  denial  implies  their  own  assertion.  It  would,  therefore, 
be  absurd  to  begin  with  any  other  "postulates"  if  these  "sure"  and 
"undeniable"  propositions  are  at  our  disposal.  This  view  is  closely 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          435 

allied  to  the  Aristotelian ;  it  differs  from  it  in  that  it  proposes  a  defi- 
nite logical  criterion  for  testing  the  absolute  truth  of  a  proposition; 
it  does  not  rely  on  psychological  "self-evidence";  the  principles 
which  are  thus  declared  "absolutely  true"  by  the  criterion  "that 
which  is  implied  by  its  own  denial  is  absolutely  true"  may  indeed 
be  very  much  lacking  in  psychological  self-evidence. 

The  second  argument,  used  by  Russell  and  others,  is  that  the  very 
nature  of  proof  demands  certain  propositions,  such  as  the  ' '  principle 
of  the  syllogism,"  that  they  must  therefore  be  amongst  the  "postu- 
lates, ' '  for  no  proof  is  possible  without  them. 

I  can  not  consider  the  first  argument  here,  as  it  belongs  to  "cri- 
tique of  cognition";  I  have  treated  it  in  a  paper  on  "A  Class  of 
Invalid  Criteria  of  Truth,"  in  which  I  believe  to  have  shown  that 
"absolute  truth"  in  any  such  sense  as  the  argument  understands  it, 
does  not  exist.  Truth  is  always  relative  to  its  particular  problem. 

The  second  argument,  however,  contains  the  recognition  of  an 
important  principle,  though  it  unduly  restricts  it  to  such  postulates 
as  the  "principle  of  the  syllogism."  We  may  state  it  thus:  any 
deductive  system  of  logic  must  have  among  its  "postulates"  the 
"principle  of  the  syllogism,"  or  its  equivalent.  But  this  holds  true 
of  all  postulates  and  for  all  deductive  systems.  In  other  words :  we 
do  not  interchange  propositions  at  haphazard  in  selecting  new  sets  of 
postulates  from  the  propositions  of  the  system.  We  choose  equivalent 
sets.  But  "equivalent"  propositions  may  in  all  other  respects  be 
widely  different;  they  are  by  no  means  necessarily  identical.  I  shall 
revert  to  this  question  of  equivalence,  which  seems  of  very  great  im- 
portance, in  a  later  paper.  For  the  present  purpose  it  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  equivalence  regulates  but  does  not  limit  the  interchange  of 
propositions  in  a  system.  (Incidentally  it  may  be  remarked  that 
the  "principle  of  the  syllogism"  is  not  among  Whitehead's  set  of 
postulates  for  the  algebra  of  logic,  but  is  proved  as  a  theorem.)9 
Russell's  own  position  seems  to  have  undergone  a  change  regarding 
the  question  of  "axioms"  and  in  the  direction  toward  the  position 
taken  in  this  paper.  As  evidence  I  quote  merely  two  passages  from 
the  "Principles  of  Mathematics,"  published  in  1903,  and  their 
amendments  in  the  "Principia  Mathematica"  published,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Whitehead,  in  1910.  The  passages  are:  "A  definition  of 
implication  is  quite  impossible"  (p.  14),  supporting  Peano's  view 
regarding  the  existence  of  " indefinables " ;  but  "Principia  Mathe- 
matica" does  define  implication!  The  other  quotation  is:  "Some 
indemonstrables  there  must  be;  and  some  propositions,  such  as  the 

'Whitehead,  "Universal  Algebra";  or  E.  V.  Huntington's  paper,  "Sets 
of  Independent  Postulates  for  the  Algebra  of  Logic, ' '  in  the  Transactions  of  the 
American  Mathematical  Society,  July,  1904. 


436  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

syllogism,  must  be  of  the  number,  since  no  demonstration  is  possible 
without  them."7  In  the  same  connection  Russel  upholds  the  distinc- 
tion between  "unproved"  and  "indemonstrable"  propositions,  and 
explicitly  asserts  the  existence  of  "indemonstrables."  But  "Prin- 
cipia  Mathematica"  is  less  explicit  on  the  point  and  seems  to  me  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  view  defended  in  the  present  paper. 
"Thus  deduction  depends  upon  the  relation  of  implication,  and 
every  deductive  system  must  contain  among  its  premises  as  many 
of  the  properties  of  implication  as  are  necessary  to  legitimate  the 
ordinary  procedure  of  deduction"  (p.  94).  Only  why  not  frankly 
say  that  logic  could  be  developed  altogether  without  even  mention- 
in-,'  implication?  Mrs.  Franklin  has  developed  a  system  which  takes 
"inconsistency"  as  its  fundamental  concept;  Professor  Royce,  by 
means  of  his  0-relation,  is  able  to  dispense  with  "implication"  as  a 
fundamental  concept;  Whitehead  did  not  require  it.  In  all  these 
cases  it  was  easy  to  "define"  implication,  and  "prove"  the  laws  of 
the  syllogism. 

If  this  position,  that  there  are  no  "indemonstrables,"  is  accepted 
as  the  outcome  of  the  modern  work,  an  enormous  freedom  is  gained 
for  logic  as  well  as  for  mathematics.  For  then  only  are  we  able  to 
rid  ourselves  successfully  of  the  confusion  of  purely  logical  with 
psychological  questions.  Ever  since  Kant  has  the  attempt  been 
made  to  separate  these;  but  "logical"  necessity  was  ever  so  closely 
allied  with  a  purely  psychological  "  not-being-able-to  think  other- 
wise" that  a  confusion  was  unavoidable. 

But,  whilst  it  is  demonstrated  that  an  interchange  between  "pos- 
tulates" and  "theorems"  is  possible,  and  whilst  it  is  at  least  probable 
that  this  interchange  has  no  logical  limitations,  it  is  still  possible, 
and  necessary,  to  choose,  from  the  various  possible  sets  of  postulates, 
certain  ones  as  preferable,  provided  the  criteria  of  preference  are 
stated  or  indicated.  And  if  we  look  back  to  Aristotle's  theory,  we 
can  say:  he  stated  as  principle  of  selection  prominently  this: 
"Choose  a  set  of  postulates  such  that  it  contains  the  most  general 
propositions  of  the  system."  And  our  main  objection  to  Aristotle's 
theory  may  now  be  stated  thus :  he  incorporated  his  principle  of  se- 
lection into  his  theory  of  the  structure  of  a  deductive  system,  basing 
on  it  an  absolute  distinction  between  "fundamental  principles"  and 
"theorems,"  and  denying  the  possibility  of  other  principles  of  selec- 
tion. And  in  this  he  was  wrong.  It  is  not  necessary  to  always 
prefer  the  "most  general"  principles.  And  it  may  be  well  to  eluci- 
date this  by  referring  to  other  possible  principles  of  selection  which 
have  played  an  important  role  in  the  history  of  science.  Thus  it  is 
interesting  to  notice  that  if  philosophers  have  been  dominated  in 

T "  Principles  of  Mathematics,"  page  15. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          437 

their  procedure  by  "generality,"  mathematicians  have  striven  for 
"simplicity"  of  their  starting-point.  In  "geometry"  they  do  not 
begin  with  the  general  properties  of  curves,  but  with  postulates  about 
straight  lines  and  points;  in  "algebra"  they  start  with  the  proper- 
ties of  the  "natural"  numbers,  before  developing  the  properties  of 
' '  complex  quantities ' ' ;  propositions  are  not  taken  in  their  most 
general  meaning  at  first,  but  proved  for  a  limited  field  and  gradually 
"extended"  by  proper  methods  of  procedure.  In  all  these  it  is  the 
"simpler"  from  which  mathematicians  start,  the  more  "general" 
they  may  strive  to  reach  afterwards.  And  this  procedure  is  not  dic- 
tated by  any  logical  necessity ;  it  could  be,  and  sometimes  is,  inverted. 
Instead  of  starting,  as  Weierstrass  did,  with  the  simple  properties  of 
"power  series"  and  extending  these  gradually  so  as  to  reach  the 
more  general  functions,  we  may,  with  Riemann,  begin  by  studying 
the  general  properties  of  functions  and  "apply"  these  to  "alge- 
braic," etc.,  functions.  But  in  the  two  cases  we  obtain  a  different 
system  of  the  ' '  Theory  of  Functions. ' ' 

And  may  we  not,  in  the  selection  of  sets  of  postulates,  base  our 
preference  on  purely  psychological  grounds,  such  as  "evidence"? 
Why  not,  indeed?  We  may  admit  that  "evidence"  is  not  a  logical 
property  of  propositions,  but  depends  also  on  the  "subject"  and  his 
natural  surroundings;  and  what  we  suppose  will  be  "evident"  to 
our  hearers  may  be  far  from  it !  Nevertheless,  if  a  teacher  should 
choose  to  present  a  subject  in  the  deductive  system  form,  he  would  be 
likely  to  start,  as  best  he  could,  with  postulates  which,  to  the  pupils, 
have  at  least  a  certain  degree  of  "evidence"  or  even  "familiarity." 
He  would  not  be  likely  to  start  a  study  of  "arithmetic"  on  the 
basis  of  Dedekind's  Was  sind  und  was  sollen  die  Zahlen;  he  would 
not  choose  many  of  the  "primitive  propositions"  of  the  "Principia 
Mathematica  " !  To  Aristotle  the  ' '  general ' '  was  the  ' '  better  known, ' ' 
the  deductive  procedure  the  best  for  arriving  at  cognition.  We,  who 
know  better  than  Aristotle  possibly  could  have,  how  much  is  really 
demanded  by  "logical  rigor"  may  well  doubt  whether  any  subject 
should  ever  be  first  presented  in  a  purely  deductive  form,  and  may 
be  profoundly  thankful  that  our  mathematical  school-books  fall  so 
palpably  short  of  their  much-boasted  rigor. 

From  here  the  real  necessity  of  a  "critique  of  cognition"  will 
become  apparent.  If  a  system,  such  as  geometry,  can  properly  be 
presented  in  but  one  form,  we  may  need  a  code  of  rules  to  detect 
errors  in  reasoning.  Beyond  this,  what  demand  is  there  for  criteria 
to  determine  the  logical  value  of  a  given  system?  If,  however,  the 
same  content  can  be  presented  in  many,  perhaps  an  infinity  of  dif- 
ferent forms,  all  logically  faultless,  we  are  put  before  the  questions : 
how  shall  we  select,  and  by  what  ideals  shall  we  be  guided  in  our 


438  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


What  do  we  even  mean  by  saying:  thin  system  is  truef 
For  now  we  can  no  longer  answer:  because  it  follows  from  abso- 
lutely true  and  self-evident  propositions;  the  theorems  of  one  are  the 
postulates  of  another,  and  this  simple  transference  has  not  suddenly 
increased  their  truth  value  from  the  "to  be  proved"  to  the  "unde- 
niable"! It  is  curious  to  notice  the  attitude  of  some  mathematical 
philosophers  in  this  respect.  They  have  always  insisted  on  "proofs." 
And  this  demand  could  easily  be  justified  so  long  as  deductive  sys- 
tems were  conceived  to  start  from  "axioms."  Theorems,  by  their 
proofs,  were  made  to  participate  in  this  "self  -evidence"  of  the 
axioms.  But  how,  if  it  is  admitted  that  the  starting-point  is  merely 
"postulated"?  "In  mathematics,"  say  the  authors  of  the  "Prin- 
cipia  Mathematica,  "  "the  greatest  degree  of  self-evidence  is  usually 
not  to  be  found  quite  at  the  beginning,  but  at  some  later  point  ;  hence 
the  early  deductions,  until  they  reach  this  point,  give  reasons  rather 
for  believing  the  premises  because  true  consequences  follow  from 
them,  than  for  believing  the  consequences  because  they  follow  from 
the  premises"  (preface). 

This  certainly  turns  the  Aristotelian  conception  of  a  deductive 
system  upside  down:  the  "postulates"  borrow  now  their  certainty 
from  that  of  the  "theorems";  for  the  latter  are  "facts."  It  is 
easily  seen  how  this  view,  which  is  shared  by  others,  could  have  been 
suggested  by  the  recent  work  in  mathematics.  The  "theorems"  have 
remained  much  more  invariant  than  the  "postulates."  There  are 
numerous  sets  of  postulates  for  Euclidean  plane  geometry  ;  but  they 
all  leave  the  Pythagorean  proposition  "true";  and  their  own 
"truth"  is,  in  part,  tested  by  the  criterion  that  this  theorem  can  be 
deduced  from  them.  However,  calling  a  theorem  a  "fact"  does  not 
in  any  way  show  how  this  claim  to  certainty  and  truth  is  warranted. 
It  does  not  usually  mean  that  the  propositions  of  mathematics  are 
"empirical";  and  it  leaves  open  the  possibility  that  the  theorem  does 
not  hold  if  the  "postulates"  are  suitably  changed;  i.  e.,  it  leaves  the 
possibility  of  other  geometries  in  which  the  contradictory  opposite 
of  the  particular  theorem  is  also  a  "fact."  The  term  "fact"  is 
therefore  used  here  merely  to  designate  that  which  is  "true"  in  a 
given  system  :  it  explains  nothing,  it  warrants  nothing  ;  in  particular, 
the  implication  of  the  ordinary  use  of  the  term  '  '  fact,  '  '  namely,  that 
it  "holds"  quite  apart  from  the  truth  of  anything  else,  is  certainly 
not  meant  by  those  who  use  the  term  "fact"  here. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  difference  between  the  attitudes  of 
philosophers  and  of  mathematicians  that  the  question  of  "certainty," 
"undeniability"  plays  so  large  a  role  with  the  former,  and  so  small 
a  one  with  the  latter.  Through  the  whole  history  of  philosophy 
runs  this  endeavor  to  find  premises  which  will  silence  every  possible 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          439 

doubt;  however  slim  the  foundation,  however  insignificant  in  itself — 
a  mere  cogito  ergo  sum,  perhaps — if  only  it  is  secure,  if  only  it  may 
serve  to  refute  the  radical  skeptic!  This  timidity,  this  absorbing 
desire  for  security,  this  willingness  to  sacrifice  everything  to  the  feel- 
ing: here  at  last  is  a  proposition  that  nobody  can  deny!  would  be 
ludicrous  were  it  not  so  pathetic ;  for  this  abstemious  self-denial  was 
never  rewarded.  No  sooner  had  one  philosopher  retired  to  his  one 
lone  rock,  when  another  began  to  show  that  it  was  a  mere  drift !  Is 
it  not  time  to  recognize  that  this  whole  procedure  is  vain ;  can  philos- 
ophers not  resign  themselves  to  admit  that  the  radical  skeptic 's  posi- 
tion is  impregnable — but  also  absolutely  barren,  and  that  there  is  no 
need  whatever  to  take  or  even  to  invest  this  stronghold  ? 

Mathematics  has  always  passed  as  the  paragon  of  security,  of 
undeniability ;  how  envious  it  must  have  made  some  philosophers! 
Yet,  the  fear  of  a  possible  skeptic  has  never  been  one  of  the  obses- 
sions of  mathematicians.  It  is  astonishing  how  often  even  legitimate 
objections  were  simply  disregarded — until  the  proper  time  had  come 
for  their  disposal.  When  the  infinitesimal  calculus  was  first  in- 
vented, it  rested  on  a  foundation  by  no  means  irreproachable  from  a 
logical  point  of  view.  But  Bishop  Berkeley  made  small  headway 
with  his  attacks  on  calculus.  It  was  an  efficient  instrument  in 
solving  problems,  which  could  not  be  solved  by  any  other  method — 
that  was  sufficient  reason  for  keeping  it.  Had  a  logically  superior 
and  practically  as  efficient  an  instrument  been  offered  to  the  mathe- 
matician, he  would  have  been  quick  in  discarding  calculus.  As  it 
was,  it  was  used  constructively  for  over  a  hundred  years  before 
serious  attempts  were  made  to  improve  the  logical  foundations ;  more 
justly  it  ought  to  be  said :  before  mathematicians  were  in  a  position 
to  improve  the  foundations.  Had  they,  however,  discarded  calculus 
in  the  first  place  on  the  ground  of  logical  imperfections,  they  would 
never  have  been  able  to  find  the  better  foundations.  All  this  is  not 
said  in  justification  of  the  mathematician's  procedure;  but  it  illus- 
trates the  difference;  mathematicians  are  supremely  interested  in 
"construction":  what  will  follow  from  certain  data;  whilst  philos- 
ophers have  concerned  themselves  primarily  with  the  question :  which 
premises  are  sufficiently  secure  to  build  upon ;  and  this  desire  has  led 
them  to  "self-evident"  axioms,  to  "absolute"  truth,  and  now  to  the 
assertion  that  the  propositions  of  mathematics  are  ' '  facts. ' ' 

We  are  not  concerned  here  with  the  problem  of  truth ;  we  require 
merely  that  no  theory  of  truth  should  be  held  which  makes  certain 
questions  of  structure  impossible  of  solution.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  structure,  the  radical  and  inherent  distinction  between  theorems 
and  postulates  must  be  denied.  They  are  logically  on  a  par.  The 
decision — which  propositions  are  chosen  for  postulates  and  which 


440  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

proved   as  theorems — is   determined   by  secondary   considerations, 
prominent  amongst  which  are  those  of  "critique  of  cognition." 

This  denial  of  the  radical  and  inherent  distinction  between  the- 
orems and  postulates  does,  however,  not  imply  the  denial  of  the 
existence  of  "order"  in  a  deductive  system.  Which  propositions  of 
a  given  system  are  chosen  as  postulates  is  logically  irrelevant,  but 
//"//  certain  ones  be  chosen  is  necessary  if  a  deductive  system  is  to 
result.  In  a  given  deductive  system  the  difference  between  postu- 
lates and  theorems  is  definite:  the  latter  must  be  proved,  the  former 
are  "premises"  of  these  "proofs,"  themselves  "unproved"  and 
"indemonstrable,"  namely,  in  the  given  system.  To  say  that  the 
distinction  is  not  radical  means  therefore  merely  that  the  same 
logical  content  could  have  been  put  into  the  deductive  system  form 
with  a  different  selection  of  propositions  for  postulates  and  for  the- 
orems. Order  is  inherent  in  the  deductive  system  form,  but  the 
particular  order  is  accidental  to  the  particular  system.  And  for  this 
the  term  "postulate"  is  meant  to  stand.  It  is  a  repudiation  of  Aris- 
totelianism  and  a  revival  of  Platonism. 

KARL  SCHMIDT. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society.      1910-1911.      N.  S.,  Vol.  XI. 

Williams  and  Norgate. 

As  usual,  the  papers  read  before  the  Aristotelian  Society,  during  its 
official  year  last  completed,  command  the  attention  of  every  reader  who 
would  keep  abreast  of  the  philosophical  times.  With  a  few  exceptions, 
the  ten  topics  discussed  and  the  opinions  expressed  about  them  are  so 
important  that  a  critical  survey  of  them  would  greatly  exceed  the  re- 
viewer's proper  bounds. 

"  Self  as  Subject  and  as  Person,"  by  S.  Alexander,  is  an  ingenious, 
pretty  accurate,  but  not  quite  convincing  analysis  which  aims  to  show 
"that  the  subject  never  is  a  presentation  (or  object),  that  the  body  of 
course  is,  and  that  the  person  (which  is  a  combination  of  the  former  two) 
is  partly  presentation  and  partly  not."  There  is,  for  Alexander,  no  pure 
ego  to  which  objects  are  presented;  the  only  ego  is  an  experience,  and 
this  is  not  an  object,  but  a  bodily  activity.  (The  term  "  object "  here 
means  of  course  any  entity  generically  like  a  percept.)  Different  things 
require  different  actions  in  order  to  be  cognized;  and  so,  just  as  there  is 
one  type  of  behavior  for  knowing  color,  so  too  there  is  a  distinct  action 
for  knowing  one's  "  self."  No  peculiar  complex  of  objects,  no  mere  rela- 
tion between  past,  present,  and  future  things,  constitute  the  material  of 
this  knowing.  On  the  contrary,  "just  as  the  percept,  the  memory,  the 
forecast  of  an  external  object  as  in  the  present,  the  past,  or  the  future, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          441 

or  as  the  concept  of  it  as  the  law  of  its  construction  and  action,  so  the 
"  enjoyed  "  self  which  is  enjoyed  or  "  minded  "  by  itself,  and  not  contem- 
plated by  itself  from  the  outside,  exists  in  more  or  less  partial,  more  or 
less  complete,  forms,  and  these  forms  have  the  same  general  characters  as 
make  external  percepts,  memories,  and  forecasts  differ  from  one  another  " 
(p.  24).  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  consciousness  is  an  activity  spread 
out  in  space  and  time  and  also  is  an  activity  toward  differentiated  spatio- 
temporal  things. 

The  second  paper  is  "  On  a  Defect  in  the  Customary  Logical  Formula- 
tion of  Inductive  Reasoning,"  by  Bernard  Bosanquet.  It  is  an  acute, 
thoroughly  sound  criticism  of  the  doctrine,  lately  popularized  afresh  by 
Bergson,  that  the  essential  function  of  intelligence  is  to  relate  like  to  like. 
This  view,  says  the  writer,  is  invited  and  fostered  by  current  statements 
about  induction.  The  postulate  that  "  same  produces  same  "  is  equivocal. 
It  properly  means  that  A,  under  identical  conditions,  always  has  the  same 
effect ;  but  by  Bergson  and  others  it  is  construed  to  mean  that  the  factors 
causally  related  are,  for  intelligence  at  least,  identical.  Now,  except  in  a 
remote  sense  which  is  of  no  relevance  here,  the  likeness  of  cause  to  effect 
is  not  postulated  at  all;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  denied.  Neither  does  the 
intellectual  operation  of  discovery  and  interpretation  involve  peculiarly 
the  repetition  of  identical  experiences.  "  It  is  ...  a  continuing  of  some 
elements  .  .  .  into  new  forms  of  nexus,"  according  to  some  principle 
which  is  not  one  of  the  elements  related.  The  true  principle  underlying 
induction  should  therefore  be  stated  more  precisely;  and  Mr.  Bosanquet 
suggests  that  we  say  that  "  every  universal  nexus  tends  to  continue  itself 
inventively  in  new  matter."  Mr.  Bosanquet's  incidental  denial  that 
induction  is  based  upon  elimination  is  not  very  persuasive. 

Discussing  "  The  Standpoint  of  Psychology,"  Mr.  Benjamin  Dumville 
insists  that  the  realistic  postulate  has  no  business  to  invade  the  science 
of  psychology,  even  though  it  is  a  useful  metaphysical  assumption.  From 
the  strictly  scientific  angle,  the  knowing  process  and  whatever  relations 
it  may  involve  are  "  hidden  in  obscurity  " ;  so  deeply  hidden,  indeed,  that 
the  observer  who  will  not  pass  beyond  strict  facts  may  not  even  speak  of 
an  "  extra-mental  thing  "  being  related  to  a  knower.  Mr.  Dumville  points 
out  at  some  length  how  Stout  has  preached  this,  but  not  practised  it. 
But,  however  proper  to  the  natural  science  of  mind,  subjective  idealism 
is  inadequate  to  philosophy ;  for  "  the  process  by  which  we  come  to  know 
can  not  form  a  basis  for  the  validity  of  what  we  know,"  and  knowledge  of 
the  process  is  only  a  part  of  what  we  know  and  "  must  sink  or  swim  with 
it."  Hence  pure  psychology  is  an  artificial  view  of  reality.  Before  we 
approach  it  we  must  have  some  kind  of  philosophy.  In  defending  these 
opinions,  the  writer  criticizes  a  number  of  contemporaries  extensively. 

The  aim  of  Mr.  H.  D.  Oakeley's  paper  on  "  Reality  and  Value  "  is 
"to  consider  whether,  starting  from  .  .  .  the  newer  natural  realism,  any- 
thing can  be  done  toward  showing  that  for  .  .  .  the  values  of  experience 
.  .  .  there  is  a  source  which  is  objective  or  independent  in  the  realistic 
sense."  After  an  investigation,  which  is  overcharged  with  comments  on 
other  men's  remarks,  the  author  concludes  that  "the  reason  for  the  way 


4U        THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

in  which  purpose  is  seen  to  dominate  human  life,  and  reality  in  this 
sphere  to  increase  in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  ends  are  pursued, 
would  seem  to  be  that  this  is  the  struggle  or  conatus  .  .  .  from  a  lower  to 
a  higher  grade  of  reality.  Purpose  would  thus  be  an  example  of  the 
tendency  for  any  existence  to  increase  its  value." 

Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  in  his  article  entitled  "  Knowledge  by  Acquaint- 
ance and  Knowledge  by  Description,"  attacks  this  question :  "  What  is  it 
that  we  know  in  cases  where  we  know  propositions  about  '  the  so-and-so ' 
without  knowing  who  or  what  the  so-and-so  is?"  In  the  course  of  his 
discussion  Mr.  Russell  again  demonstrates  that  the  duality  of  meaning 
and  denotation  is  not  fundamental.  The  denotation  is  not  a  constituent 
of  the  proposition.  This  point  has  relevance  in  the  defining  of  descrip- 
tive knowledge,  which  can  be  sharpened  only  after  acceptance  of  the 
fundamental  epistemological  postulate  that  "  every  proposition  which  we 
can  understand  must  be  composed  wholly  of  constituents  with  which  we 
are  acquainted."  Acquaintance  means  direct  cognitive  relation  to  an 
object;  and  "we  have  descriptive  knowledge  of  an  object  when  we  know 
that  it  is  the  object  having  some  property  or  properties  with  which  we  are 
acquainted;  that  is  to  say,  when  we  know  that  the  property  or  properties 
in  question  belong  to  one  object  and  no  more.  .  .  ."  Accepting  this  defi- 
nition, we  discover  that  "  our  knowledge  of  physical  objects  and  of  other 
minds  is  only  knowledge  by  description,  the  descriptions  involved  being 
usually  such  as  involve  sense-data."  The  descriptive  judgment  can  not 
be  explained  as  one  which  affirms  identity  of  denotation  with  diversity  of 
connotation,  nor  as  one  which  affirms  simple  identity. 

"  The  Theory  of  Psycho-Physical  Parallelism  as  a  Working  Hypothesis 
in  Psychology,"  by  H.  Wildon  Carr,  is  a  swift  and  severe  repudiation  of 
the  pseudo-postulate  of  parallelism,  pretty  much  in  the  Bergsonian  spirit. 
The  pseudo-postulate  has  been  accepted  by  psychologists  because  the 
immediate  data  of  consciousness  do  not  form  the  subject-matter  of  a 
genuine  science,  inasmuch  as  they  are  pure  qualities  and  therefore  in- 
capable of  being  measured  and  compared  and  expressed  in  formulas.  But, 
even  were  the  pseudo-postulate  tenable,  no  science  should  assume  it  as  a 
working  hypothesis,  for  it  is  a  metaphysic;  physiology  might  as  properly 
assume  that  thought  is  a  secretion  of  the  brain.  The  pseudo-postulate, 
however,  is  not  tenable ;  and  Mr.  Carr  shows,  as  Bergson  has  already  done, 
that  it  contradicts  equally  both  the  idealistic  and  the  realistic  positions, 
and  has  meaning  only  in  terms  of  the  eighteenth-century  substance 
philosophies,  which  exaggerated  the  metaphysical  importance  of  mathe- 
matics and  physics.  Life  is  more  than  physics,  though;  and  in  the 
measure  of  its  superiority  we  find  the  measure  of  parallelism's  inade- 
quacy. Mr.  Carr  ends  with  full  allegiance  to  Bergson's  interpretation 
of  this  last  fact. 

Mr.  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  under  the  caption  of  "  Error,"  points  out  that 
most  theories  of  error  conceive  it  metaphysically  as  a  thing,  and  not 
logically  as  a  cognitive  relation.  "  And  yet,"  he  goes  on,  "  if  we  desire 
to  give  an  account  of  the  way  men  actually  err,  it  is  clear  that  what  is 
needed  is  a  logical  analysis  of  human  procedure."  He  then  proceeds  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          443 

argue  that  "without  a  relation  to  a  purpose  there  can  be  no  Error";  for 
"  relation  to  purpose  is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  meaning  as  such,  and 
therefore  includes  the  spheres  of  both  Truth  and  Error."  "  But  this  sine 
qua  non  of  its  existence  at  once  equips  it  with  a  psychological  pedigree." 
The  difference  between  truth  and  error  is  ultimately  one  of  value;  the 
two  are  hence  continuous  and  vary  quantitatively.  The  illusion  of  stable 
truths  arises  from  the  fact  that  many  purposes  are  relatively  fixed.  And 
the  distinction  between  appearance  and  reality  is  a  creation  of  purposive 
selection.  By  all  odds  the  most  interesting  part  of  Mr.  Schiller's  paper 
is  the  last  wherein  he  classifies  types  of  truths  and  errors.  He  distin- 
guishes eight  classes:  lies,  errors,  methodological  fictions,  methodological 
assumptions,  postulates,  validated  truths,  axiomatic  truths,  and  jokes. 
In  his  discussion  of  these,  he  endeavors  to  check  his  critics'  charge  that 
he  passes  from  the  dictum,  "  all  truths  work,"  to  "  all  that  works  is  true." 

"  A  New  Law  of  Thought "  is  the  title  of  an  essay  in  which  Miss 
E.  E.  Constance  Jones  contends  that  there  is  a  "  Law  of  Significant  Asser- 
tion "  logically  prior  to  the  so-called  "  Laws  of  Thought "  mentioned  in 
traditional  logics ;  and  that  it  is  this :  "  What  is  asserted  in  S  is  P  is 
identity  of  denotation  of  8  and  P  with  diversity  of  intension."  The 
writer  criticizes  Mr.  Kussell's  opinion  that  denotation  is  not  a  constituent 
of  the  proposition;  her  arguments,  however,  seem  to  assume  what  Mr. 
Russell  takes  pains  to  deny,  namely,  that  not  all  judgments  assert  identi- 
ties. One  interesting  case  which  she  cites  against  Mr.  Russell  is  the  type 
of  proposition,  "  The  round-square  is  self-contradictory."  How  explain 
this,  if  meaning  equals  intension  and  there  is  no  denotation  in  the  case? 
"  In  intension,  '  round  square  '  can  not  be  identified  with  '  self -contra- 
dictory ' ;  the  terms  are  differently  defined."  Furthermore,  Miss  Jones 
urges,  the  substitutions  which  Mr.  Russell  makes  in  supplying  constants 
for  variable  in  the  formula  of  the  descriptive  judgment,  can  not  be  made 
unless  the  latter  be  construed  as  Miss  Jones's  law  of  significant  assertion 
demands. 

Mr.  G.  F.  Stout,  in  "  The  Object  of  Thought  and  Real  Being,"  dem- 
onstrates that  "  we  always  immediately  think  some  reality  which  is  indis- 
pensably required  to  supply  the  basis  of  truth  and  error.  Further,  the 
reference  is  not  merely  to  the  real  universe  as  a  whole,  but  to  some  special 
portion  or  aspect  of  it,  which,  if  it  is  not  determined  in  the  way  we 
believe,  must  be  determined  in  some  alternative  way."  In  a  very  clear 
and  somewhat  novel  manner,  Mr.  Stout  develops  the  view,  diametrically 
opposed  to  Mr.  Bradley's,  that  "  whatever  is  thought,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
thought,  is  therefore  real."  To  reproduce  any  fragment  of  the  argument 
leading  to  this  would  mar  the  latter;  suffice  it  then  to  say  that  Mr.  Stout 
centers  his  inquiry  upon  the  nature  of  indeterminates  and  alternatives; 
and  he  shows  that  the  mere  employment  of  such  in  ordinary  thinking 
presupposes  genuine  indetermination  and  alternatives  which  are  more 
than  "  mental  states."  In  closing,  Mr.  Stout  contrasts  his  view  with  that 
of  Mr.  Bradley  and  that  of  Mr.  Russell. 

An  unusual  enterprise  is  pursued,  in  the  last  paper  of  the  volume, 
by  Mr.  Alfred  Caldecott.  In  "  Emotionality :  A  Method  of  its  Unifica- 


444  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tion,"  the  author  aims  "  to  justify  the  search  for  a  central  Emotion  which 
shall  be  able  to  enter  as  sovereign  into  the  whole  realm  of  Feeling  and 
l>riiitf  it  into  order."  Of  course,  the  emotion  thus  exalted  is  love;  and 
the  essay  is  largely  a  resumS  of  Baron  Friedrich  von  Huegel's  monu- 
mental biography  and  diagnosis  of  the  conversion  and  later  spiritual 
evolution  of  Catherine  of  Genoa. 

WALTER  B.  PITKIN. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 

Chapters  from   Modern   Psychology.     JAMES   ROWLAND    ANGELL.     New 

York:  Longmans,  Green,  and  Company.    1912.    Pp.  308. 

Through  the  generosity  of  Mrs.  Katherine  Spencer  Leavitt  a  founda- 
tion has  been  established  upon  which  eight  lectures  in  psychology  are  to  be 
delivered  each  year  at  Union  College.  This  lectureship  is  endowed  in 
memory  of  her  father,  the  Rev.  Ichabod  Spencer,  D.D.,  a  graduate  of 
Union  College  of  the  class  of  1823,  and  is  to  be  known  as  the  Ichabod 
Spencer  Lectureship  in  Psychology.  The  present  volume  contains  the 
first  series  of  lectures  delivered  upon  this  foundation  during  the  early  part 
of  the  year  1911. 

It  was  highly  desirable  that  the  first  series  of  lectures  made  possible  by 
this  important  foundation  should  begin  with  a  general  introductory  sur- 
vey of  the  many  departments  of  modern  psychology.  Such  an  introduc- 
tion must  of  necessity  be  sketchy  in  character  and  can  only  point  the  way 
toward  the  more  intensive  presentation  of  special  topics  which  later  lec- 
turers may  undertake.  The  appointment  of  Professor  Angell  for  this  in- 
troductory task  is  amply  justified  by  the  impartial  and  readable  discus- 
sions of  the  general  subject  matter  and  aims  of  psychology  which  the  book 
contains. 

The  first  chapter,  on  "  General  Psychology,"  discusses  the  analysis, 
classification,  and  role  of  the  various  mental  elements  and  patterns  (sen- 
sation, feeling,  imagery,  memory,  instinct,  interest,  reasoning,  etc.)  with 
emphasis  on  genesis  and  function.  In  the  following  chapter,  on  "  Physio- 
logical Psychology,"  are  recited  the  familiar  evidences,  from  comparative 
psychology  and  anatomy,  experimental  physiology,  pathology  and  daily  life, 
for  the  connection  of  mind  and  nervous  system.  The  dependence  of  mental 
life  on  sense  organs,  on  vascular  and  respiratory  activities,  on  possibilities 
of  motor  expression,  and  the  influence  of  emotional  states  on  organic  func- 
tions, are  suggested,  and  it  is  made  clear  that  the  metaphysical  questions 
of  mind-body  relation  are  no  more  psychological  problems  than  they  are 
physical  and  chemical. 

The  value  of  controlled  conditions  of  observation  and  the  genuine 
scientific  character  of  modern  psychology  are  illustrated  in  Chapter  III., 
by  simple  descriptions  of  classical  experiments  in  sensation,  memory,  at- 
tention, reaction  time,  writing,  and  the  association  method.  No  attempt 
is  made  to  amplify  either  technique  or  results,  the  emphasis  being 
throughout  on  the  fact  that  there  are  "  no  fundamental  forms  of  mental 
action"  which  have  not  been  submitted  to  experimental  inquiry,  and  on 
the  prediction  of  "  unlimited  improvement  and  unceasing  conquest "  for 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          445 

experimental  methods.  In  the  following  chapter  the  subjects  of  dreams, 
hypnotism,  multiple  personality,  telepathy,  spiritism,  muscle  reading,  and 
the  subconscious  are  passed  in  sketchy  review.  The  negative  attitude  of 
critical  investigators  is  expressed  and  the  reader  invited  either  to  master 
the  evidence  for  himself  or  to  hold  judgment  in  suspense. 

The  first  section  of  Chapter  V.,  on  "  Individual  Psychology,"  presents 
in  a  fairly  representative  way  what  little  is  really  known  on  the  subject. 
The  second  section,  on  "  Applied  Psychology,"  points  out  a  fact  that  is  not 
always  sufficiently  clearly  apprehended — that  applied  psychology  should 
concern  itself  in  large  measure,  not  so  much  with  the  amplification  and 
direct  application  of  academically  formulated  laws,  but  rather  with  the  at- 
tempt to  supply  to  practical  fields  adequate  methods  for  securing  and 
interpreting  their  own  data.  The  value  of  psychology  in  education,  medi- 
cine, jurisprudence,  juvenile  clinics,  and  business  is  illustrated,  adver- 
tising receiving  special  attention. 

The  chapter  on  "  Social  and  Race  Psychology "  enumerates  various 
topics  in  which  these  types  of  inquiry  are  interested,  and  illustrates  the 
character  of  the  methods  and  the  results.  Among  the  topics  considered 
are  social  tendencies  and  impulses,  language,  play,  ceremonials  and  rituals, 
fine  arts,  imitation,  invention,  mob  behavior,  religious  consciousness  and 
institutions,  racial  types  and  interests. 

The  two  remaining  chapters  are  on  "  Animal  and  Genetic  Psychology." 
In  the  first  of  these  some  of  the  problems  and  methods  of  those  interested 
in  the  investigation  of  animal  behavior  are  suggested  and  illustrated,  and 
the  many  difficulties  and  sources  of  error  pointed  out.  The  few  certified 
results  which  the  lecturer  is  able  to  point  to  in  this  field  present  an  ade- 
quate picture  of  the  present  stage  of  animal  psychology,  and  perhaps  at 
the  same  time  of  the  possibilities  in  store  for  it  when  control  of  vital  con- 
ditions is  once  achieved. 

The  final  lecture  is  devoted  to  genetic  questions,  to  the  problem  of 
working  out  the  details  of  evolutionary  mental  patterns,  and  to  a  general 
retrospective  view.  The  book  contains  an  appendix  presenting  a  brief 
list  of  references  for  general  readers. 

H.  L.  HOLLINGWORTH. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  March,  1912.  La  sociologie  juridique 
et  la  defense  du  droit  subjectif  (pp.  225-247) :  G.  RICHARD.  -  A  defense  of 
subjective  right  and  a  criticism  of  syndalism.  Le  role  latent  des  images 
matrices  (pp.  248-268)  :  TH.  RIBOT.  -  This  paper  aims  at  directing  atten- 
tion to  the  preponderant  role  of  motor  elements  in  the  unconscious  activ- 
ities of  the  mind.  La  substitution  psychique — II.  Substitution  et  trans- 
formism  (pp.  269-289)  :  F.  PAULHAN.  -  The  life  of  the  mind  appears  like 
a  sort  of  whirlpool  of  substitutions,  and  substitution  is  traceable  to  sys- 
tematic association  and  inhibition.  Revue  critique.  La  morale  de  I'in- 


446  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

teret  et  I'internafionalisme:  FR.  PAULHAN.  Analyses  et  comptes  rendus. 
Windelband,  Die  Philosophie  im  Deutschen  Oeitesleben:  M.  ANTMROPOS. 
Q.  de  Greef,  Introduction  a  la  Sociologie:  DR.  S.  JANKELKVITCH.  Th. 
Ruyssen,  Schopenhauer:  J.  BOURDEAU.  H.  Hoffding,  La  pensee  humaine, 
ses  formes  et  ses  problemes:  L.  P<>i  n.viv  P.  Menzer,  Rants  Lehre  von  der 
Entwickelung  in  Natur  und  Oeschichte:  J.  L.  SCULEGEL.  Revue  des 
periodiques  etrangers. 

THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.  April,  1912. 
Description  vs.  Statement  of  Meaning  (pp.  165-182) :  E.  B.  TITCHENER.  - 
Investigations  into  the  processes  of  thought  give  introspective  descrip- 
tion and  information.  There  is  no  distinct  division  between  the  two. 
This  article  presents  two  kinds  of  reports,  one  descriptive  psychology,  the 
other  logic  or  common  sense.  Analysis  of  Consciousness  under  Nega- 
tive Instruction  (pp.  183-213) :  L.  R.  GEISSLER.  -  Positive  instruction  sets 
up  one  determining  tendency  while  negative  instruction  sets  up  two  de- 
termining tendencies  in  the  mental  processes.  The  Theory  and  Limita- 
tions of  Introspection  (pp.  214-229) :  RAYMOND  DODGE.  -  Introspection  is 
an  important  indicator  in  special  fields,  but  it  must  be  supported  by 
pathological,  neurological,  and  experimental  facts.  Psychopathology  and 
Neuropathology:  The  Problems  of  Teaching  and  Research  Contrasted 
(pp.  231-235) :  E.  E.  SOUTHARD.  -  For  teaching  purposes  it  may  be  well 
to  keep  structure  and  function  or  even  cerebral  and  psychic  function 
apart,  but  for  research  no  such  distinctions  should  be  made.  A  Pigment 
Color  System  and  Notation  (pp.  236-244) :  A.  H.  MUXSELL.  An  Ex- 
perimental Study  of  Musical  Enjoyment  (pp.  245-308)  :  HARRY  PORTER 
WELD.  -  There  are  the  analytic,  motor,  imaginative,  and  emotional  types 
of  musical  enjoyment.  Classified  bibliography.  Psychoanalysis:  A  Re- 
view of  Current  Literature  (pp.  309-327):  J.  S.  VAN  TESLAAR.  (1)  S. 
Freud,  Die  Handlung  der  Traumdeutung  in  der  Psychoanalyse.  Zen- 
tralblatt  f.  Psychoanalyse,  II.,  1911,  109-113.  (2)  Rudolph  Reitler,  Fine 
Sexualtheorie  und  ihre  Beziehung  zur  Selbstmordsymbolik.  Zentralblatt 
f.  Psychoanalyse,  II.,  1911,  114-121.  (3)  B.  Dattner,  Eine  psychoanaly- 
tische  Studie  an  einem  Stotterer.  Zentralblatt  f.  Psychoanalyse.  IT., 
1911,  18-26.  (4)  N.  Vaschide,  Le  sommeil  et  les  reves.  Paris,  1911,  pp. 
305.  (5)  John  Hourly  Void,  Ueber  den  Traum.  (6)  L.  Loewenfeld, 
Ueber  die  Sexualitdt  im  Kindesalter.  Sexual-probleme,  VII.,  1911,  444- 
534.  (7)  P.  Nacke,  Ueber  tardive  Homosexualitdt.  Sexual-probleme, 
VII.,  1911.  (8)  A.  J.  Storfer,  Zur  Sonderstellung  des  Vatersmordes. 
Eine  rechtsgeschichtliche  und  volkerpsychologische  Studie.  Schriften 
zur  angewanten  Seelenkunde,  No.  12,  1911,  34  pages.  (9)  F.  Wittels, 
Tragische  Motive:  Das  Unbewusste  von  Held  und  Heldin.  A  Note  on 
the  Determination  of  the  Retina's  Sensitivity  to  Colored  Light  in  Terms 
of  Radiometric  Units  (pp.  328-332) :  C.  E.  FERREE  and  GERTRUDE  RAND. 
-A  preliminary  announcement  of  an  experiment  on  the  above  subject. 
Book  Reviews.  Henri  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution:  B.  H.  BODE.  J. 
Roscoe,  The  Baganda:  An  Account  of  Their  Native  Customs  and  Be- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          447 

'liefs:  E.  B.  T.  FREDERICK.  S.  Breed,  The  Development  of  Certain  In- 
stincts and  Habits  in  the  Chicks:  J.  S.  VAN  TESLAAR.  Book  Notes. 
Franz  Boas,  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man.  Ikbal  Kichen  Shargha,  Ex- 
amination of  Professor  William  James's  Psychology.  Wilhelm  M.  Wundt, 
Zur  Psychologic  und  Ethik.  William  Stern,  Die  differentielle  Psychol- 
ogie  in  ihren  methodischen  Grundlagen.  Ed.  Claparede,  Experimental 
Pedagogy  and  the  Psychology  of  the  Child.  W.  E.  Burghardt  Du  Bois, 
The  Souls  of  Black  Folks;  Essays  and  Sketches.  Bureau  of  Aboriginal 
Affairs,  Report  of  the  Control  of  the  Aborigines  in  Formosa.  W.  Bar- 
brooke  Grubb,  An  Unknown  People  in  an  Unknown  Land.  James  G. 
Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough:  A  Study  in  Magic  and  Religion.  W.  Y. 
Evans  Wentz,  The  Fairy-faith  in  Celtic  Countries.  S.  J.  Holmes,  The 
Evolution  of  Animal  Intelligence.  Frederic  S.  Lee,  Scientific  Features 
of  Modern  Medicine.  Max  Offner,  Mental  Fatigue.  George  D.  Bu- 
chanan, Biyonde  cifrun.  Henri  Bergson,  Laughter:  An  Essay  on  the 
Meaning  of  the  Comic.  Carl  Stumpf,  Die  Anfange  der  Musik.  Rudolf 
Lehmann,  Lehrbuch  der  philosophischen  Propaedeutik.  Twenty-seventh 
Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  1905-06.  E.  Boyd  Barrett.  Motive-force 
and  Motivation-tracts.  Gustav  Gottlieb  Wenzlaff,  The  Mental  Man.  Vik- 
tor Kraft,  Weltbegriff  und  Erkenntnisbegriff.  Heinrich  Obersteiner, 
Anleitung  beim  Studium  des  Baues  der  nervosen  Zentralorganeim 
gesunden  und  kranken  Zustande.  Hans  Schoeneberger,  Psychologie  und 
Padagogik  des  Gedachtnisses.  Carl  Seher,  Die  Seele  des  Gesunden  und 
Kranken.  Jules  Bordet,  Studies  in  Immunity. 
Coffey,  P.  The  Science  of  Logic.  Vol.  LT.  New  York :  Longmans,  Green, 

and  Company.    1912.    Pp.  vii  -f  359.    $2.50. 
Moll,  Dr.  Albert.    The  Sexual  Life  of  the  Child.    Translated  by  Dr.  Eden 

Paul,  with  an  introduction  by  Edward  L.  Thorndike.    New  York :  The 

Macmillan  Company.    1912.    Pp.  xii  +  339.    $1.75. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  University  of  Louvain  announces  the  publication  of  Book  I. 
of  Aristotle's  "  Metaphysics."  With  this  volume  the  Institut  su- 
perieur  de  Philosophic  de  Louvain  commences  the  publication  of  a 
series  of  studies  on  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  having  the  general  title: 
Aristote:  Oeuvres  philosophiques :  Traductions  et  etudes.  We  quote 
from  the  circular :  "  A  translation  of  the  principal  philosophical  treatises, 
a  critical  commentary,  at  the  culminating  point  of  philological  and  his- 
torical progress,  requires  a  collective  effort.  The  undertaking  will  exhibit 
the  necessary  qualities  of  unity  and  accuracy  the  more  clearly,  since  its 
authors  are  actuated  by  a  common  motive  and  possess  similar  points  of 
view.  At  a  university,  founded,  as  was  the  University  of  Louvain,  for 
the  express  purpose  of  teaching  the  Thomist  philosophy,  an  exhaustive 
study  is  necessarily  made  of  the  works  of  the  master  of  Saint  Thomas 


448  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Aquinas;  his  works  are  read  and  analyzed  with  care.  Naturally  the 
thought  presented  itself  to  the  students,  who  so  familiarized  themselves 
with  Aristotle's  theories,  that  they  should  arrange  for  publication,  each 
upon  his  own  responsibility,  the  result  of  their  researches  and  reflections. 
The  collection  will  comprise  translations  of  various  philosophical  treatises 
and  studies  connected  with  the  text  and  doctrines  of  Aristotle.  Each 
volume  will  be  published  upon  completion.  The  translation  of  the  first 
book  of  the  Metaphysique,  which  is  the  work  of  M.  Gaston  Colle,  is  the 
fruit  of  a  long  and  conscientious  labor,  based  upon  a  study  of  the  com- 
mentaries of  early  writers  and  the  best  works  of  contemporary  writers. 
The  notes  in  connection  with  the  volume  aim  to  be  primarily  a  key  to  the 
text.  The  difficulty  and  merit  of  the  undertaking  should  command  the 
gratitude  of  all  philosophers." 

JULES  HENRI  PoiNCARfi,  the  illustrious  mathematician,  died  suddenly 
on  July  17.  He  was  born  on  April  29,  at  Nancy,  and  was  educated  at  the 
Lyceum  of  Nancy  and  at  the  Ecole  Polytechnique.  From  the  Universities 
of  Cambridge  and  Oxford  he  received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Sciences. 
He  was  a  Commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  a  member  of  the  French 
Institute  and  of  the  Bureau  of  Longitudes,  a  professor  of  mathematics  at 
the  Ecole  Polytechnique,  and  Chief  Engineer  of  Mines.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber, also,  of  the  Academic  Franchise.  The  Paris  newspapers  are  unani- 
mous in  asserting  that  M.  Poincare  was  the  greatest  scientist  of  modern 
France.  The  Figaro  says  his  death  is  the  greatest  loss  that  the  contempo- 
rary world  of  science  could  suffer. 

PROFESSOR  A.  S.  PRINGLE-PATTISON  has  just  delivered  the  first  course  of 
his  Gifford  Lectures  at  the  University  of  Aberdeen.  The  subject  of  the 
course  was,  "  Contemporary  Thought  and  Theism,"  and  the  ten  lectures 
had  the  following  titles :  "  Hume's  Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Relig- 
ion " ;  "  The  Idea  of  Value  as  Determinative  " ;  "  The  Philosophical  Prob- 
lem in  the  Latter  Half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  " ;  "  The  Emancipating 
Influence  of  Biological  Science  " ;  "  The  Lower  and  the  Higher  Natural- 
ism " ;  "  Continuity  of  Process  and  the  Emergence  of  Real  Differences  " ; 
"  Man  as  Organic  to  the  World  ";  "  Ethical  Man,  The  Religion  of  Human- 
ity " ;  "  Positivism  and  Agnosticism  " ;  "  Retrospect  and  Provisional  Con- 
clusions."— Philosophical  Review. 

THE  second  International  Congress  on  Moral  Education  will  be  held 
at  The  Hague,  August  22  to  August  27.  The  first  congress  was  held  at 
the  University  of  London,  September  25  to  29,  1908,  and  at  that  meeting 
a  large  number  of  the  leading  educationists  of  the  world  were  present. 

DR.  ALFRED  H.  JONES,  of  Cornell  University,  has  been  appointed  pro- 
fessor of  philosophy  at  Brown  University,  to  succeed  Dr.  Alexander 
Meiklejohn,  recently  elected  to  the  presidency  of  Amherst  College. 

THE  death  of  Dr.  Shadworth  H.  Hodgson,  the  English  metaphysician 
and  philosopher,  occurred  June  13. 

M.  E.  HAGGERTY,  of  Indiana  University,  has  been  promoted  from  as- 
sistant professor  to  associate  professor  of  psychology. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  17.  AUGUST  16,  1912 

THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE   INTRODUCTORY   COURSE   IN   ETHICS1 

QIEVERAL  years  ago  there  was  held,  at  this  University,  a  con- 
^  ference  of  teachers  of  economics.  They  met  in  order  to  work 
out,  in  cooperation,  an  elementary  course  in  economics  which  could 
be  recommended  as  more  satisfactory  in  both  content  and  method 
than  the  courses  hitherto  in  existence.  The  work  of  this  conference 
has  already  led  to  results  of  the  greatest  importance, — results  which 
will  undoubtedly  be  felt,  sooner  or  later,  far  beyond  the  confines  of 
the  department  immediately  concerned.  Let  us  hope  that  our  con- 
ference may  lead  to  action  which,  in  the  end,  will  have  an  equally 
salutary  effect  upon  the  teaching  of  the  discipline  committed  to 
our  care. 

An  examination  of  the  catalogues  of  twenty  of  the  leading  uni- 
versities of  the  United  States  reveals  the  following  facts  concerning 
the  teaching  of  ethics  in  these  institutions.2  The  length  of  the  course 
in  just  half  the  number  is  three  semester  hours,  in  four  it  is  two 
hours,  in  two  it  is  four  hours,  and  in  four  it  is  six  hours.  In  eight 
of  the  universities  on  our  list,  some  other  course  in  philosophy  is 
demanded  as  a  prerequisite.  This  is  usually  either  history  of  philos- 
ophy, or  "some  one  elementary  course  in  philosophy."  With  the 
growth  in  the  complexity  and  importance  of  the  problems  of  the 
moral  life,  both  individual  and  social,  with  the  growth  in  the  tend- 
ency for  young  people  who  are  possessed  of  the  ability  and  ambition 
for  leadership  to  seek  a  college  education,  it  is  becoming  increasingly 
important  that  the  course  in  ethics  should  be  open  to  the  largest  pos- 
sible number  of  students.  A  year's  course  is  likely  to  keep  away 
many  who  would  find  the  time  for  a  semester's  course.  The  pre- 
requisites tend  to  confine  the  attendance  to  those  who  have  special 

1  Bead  before  the  Western  Philosophical  Association,  University  of  Chicago, 
April  6,  1912. 

*  I  have  confined  my  attention  solely  to  the  universities,  because  they  usually 
have  enough  teachers  in  the  department  of  philosophy  to  enable  them  to  arrange 
their  courses — broadly  speaking — in  the  way  that  they  consider  most  desirable. 

449 


450  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

interests  in  philosophy.  Such  a  result  is  so  unfortunate  from  the 
point  of  view  of  social  welfare  and  progress  that  it  must  outweigh— 
it  M-,-ms  to  me — any  counterbalancing  advantages.  Nor  should  the 
plea  of  better  class  work  be  urged  in  behalf  of  this  policy.  Of  course 
the  more  preliminary  training  required  for  any  subject,  and  the 
more  time  given  to  it,  the  more  satisfactory  the  results.  But  experi- 
ence abundantly  proves  that  excellent  work  can  be  done  in  a  course 
of  a  single  semester  with  a  class  composed  of  a  large  proportion  of 
students  who  have  never  before  had  a  course  in  either  philosophy  or 
psychology.  This  statement  will  hold,  I  believe,  even  for  courses 
based  upon  metaphysical  presuppositions.  If,  in  your  view,  ethics 
requires  a  metaphysical  foundation,  follow  the  example  of  Kant  in 
the  "Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten"  and  begin  with  an 
analysis  of  the  moral  life  which  lays  bare  its  metaphysical  presup- 
positions. Then  let  your  student  enter  a  course  in  metaphysics  or 
the  history  of  philosophy,  and  he  will  pursue  it  with  an  interest  and 
an  intelligence  to  which  otherwise  he  might  have  been  a  stranger. 
Let  it  be  remembered  that,  in  very  many  cases,  the  pedagogic  order 
is  not  the  same  as  the  logical.  A  course,  then,  three  or  four  semester 
hours  in  length,  open  to  all  students  beyond  the  Freshman,  or,  at 
most,  beyond  the  Sophomore  year,  represents  the  present  practise  in 
elementary  ethics  in  a  little  more  than  half  of  the  American  universi- 
ties examined,  and  seems  to  me  to  represent  the  practise  to  be  recom- 
mended for  all.  It  is  such  a  course  as  this  that  I  shall  have  in  mind 
in  the  description  which  follows. 

The  course  in  theoretical  ethics  should  be  followed  or  preceded — 
the  latter  alternative  seems  to  me  to  be  distinctly  the  better  one — by 
a  course  of  about  the  same  length  in  applied  ethics.  The  latter  both 
can  and  should  be  so  planned  that  it  can  be  taken  with  advantage  by 
those  who  have  not  taken  and  do  not  intend  to  take  the  course  in 
theory.  This  recommendation,  again,  is  based  upon  the  desirability 
of  the  broadest  possible  appeal.  The  required  standard  of  right  and 
wrong  can  be  educed  inductively  during  the  progress  of  the  work 
from  the  study  of  the  concrete  situations  which  are  being  examined. 

The  method  which  appears  to  be  commonly  used  in  the  teaching 
of  ethics — as  in  the  teaching  of  almost  every  other  subject  in  the  cur- 
riculum of  the  American  college — is  the  "pouring  in"  process.  The 
text-book,  the  lecture,  the  outside  reading,  seem  to  be  the  favorite 
instruments.  In  addition  a  place — large  or  small — is  doubtless 
usually  left  for  class  discussion.  It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  that 
this  feature  of  the  program  is  too  often  allowed  to  become  a  merely 
incidental  one,  that  its  subject-matter  is  not  infrequently  confined, 
for  the  most  part,  to  the  mere  determination  of  the  meaning  of  some 
author,  or  of  the  lecturer,  and  that,  at  its  best,  it  is  usually  not 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND.  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         451 

employed  systematically  as  a  means  of  intellectual  training  and  does 
not  represent  a  part  of  the  work  for  which  definite  and  careful 
preparation  is  demanded.  The  main  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  offer 
some  reasons  for  the  position  that  a  certain  form  of  what  may  per- 
haps be  called  discussion  should  constitute  the  principal  part  of  the 
course  in  elementary  ethics,  and  to  make  a  few  suggestions  as  to  the 
way  in  which  this  may  be  done. 

In  the  first  place,  let  it  be  noted  that  the  "pouring  in"  method 
does  not  even  accomplish  satisfactorily  the  narrow  aims  which  it  sets 
before  itself.  For  material,  especially  philosophical  material,  intro- 
duced into  the  system  in  this  manner,  is,  for  the  most  part,  not  really 
assimilated ;  and  even  when  it  is,  is  not  long  retained  by  the  memory. 
But  this  is  the  least  count  in  the  indictment.  Suppose  the  above 
ends  attained  as  completely  as  you  will.  It  still  remains  true  that 
your  pupil  has  not  gained  one  whit  in  power  to  observe,  to  analyze, 
or  to  reason,  either  in  the  field  of  moral  phenomena  or  anywhere  else. 
He  has  not  even  gained  the  ability  to  apply  the  principles,  which  you 
have  forced  into  him,  to  new  problems,  whether  the  problems  which 
he  will  meet  in  life,  or  any  other.  He  is  about  as  helpless  as  the 
graduate  of  a  correspondence  course  in  swimming.  As  he  has  gained 
little  or  nothing  in  power  to  do  intellectual  work,  so  he  has  not  been 
trained  to  habits  of  intellectual  work.  He  may  have  had  much  exer- 
cise in  memorizing,  and  perhaps  in  getting  at  the  meaning  of  obscure 
prose,  but  he  has  not  acquired  the  habit  of  using  his  intellectual  eyes 
or  his  intellectual  muscles.  The  use  of  these  members  is,  in  the  case 
of  most  persons,  an  acquired  characteristic.  Since  his  college  ordi- 
narily does  little  to  induce  or  compel  this  acquisition,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  after  a  few  years  the  average  graduate  is  scarcely  distinguish- 
able from  the  ordinary  Philistine  who  has  never  had  what  the  public 
calls  the  former's  "advantages."  And  yet  the  events  of  the  next 
thirty  years  will  demand  from  the  educated  man  and  woman  clear 
thought  about  the  problems  of  right  and  wrong  (and  much  else), 
more  insistently,  perhaps,  than  any  preceding  period  in  the  world's 
history. 

For  this  reason  we  teachers  of  ethics  must  face  the  problem  of  a 
change  in  our  methods  of  teaching,  as  the  teachers  of  law,  and,  more 
recently,  the  teachers  of  elementary  economics,  have  done.  The 
economists  recognized,  among  other  things,  that  their  pupils  were 
living  in  a  laboratory,  and  that,  accordingly,  some  of  the  best  prin- 
ciples of  the  laboratory  method  could,  with  the  necessary  adjustment, 
be  applied  in  their  classes.  But  the  problems  of  ethics  are  still 
nearer  to  the  experience  of  our  pupils.  They  all  live  in  an  ethical 
laboratory  and  live  there  all  the  time.  This  fact  makes  two  very 
desirable  things  possible:  First,  the  generalizations  reached  can  be 


452  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

obtained  through  a  direct  examination  of  the  concrete  data  upon 
which  they  rest;  secondly,  the  students  can  be  compelled,  to  a  very 
considerable  extent,  to  obtain  their  generalization  by  working  them 
out  for  themselves. 

One  or  two  concrete  illustrations  of  this  method  may  perhaps  be 
pardoned,  as  making  my  precise  meaning  clearer.  I  will  premise 
that  the  questions  which  follow  are  mimeographed  and  given  out  to 
the  class  for  study  in  advance  of  the  discussion.  A  discussion  based 
upon  snap-shot  opinions  would  be  worse  than  no  discussion  at  all, 
because  likely  to  encourage  and  strengthen  one  of  the  most  per- 
nicious of  intellectual  habits. 

One  of  the  problems  we  have  to  bring  before  our  classes  is  that 
concerning  the  precise  locus  of  the  moral  judgment.  The  teacher 
will  have  to  begin  by  analyzing,  or  helping  his  class  to  analyze,  a 
voluntary  action  and  defining,  or  getting  his  class  to  define,  motive 
and  intention.  They  will  then  be  able  to  determine  whether  it  is 
results,  intention,  or  motives  that  are  under  consideration  in  the 
moral  judgment,  by  examining  the  following  cases:  (1)  The  executor 
of  an  estate  loses  the  property  entrusted  to  his  care  by  investing  it 
in  the  stock  of  a  corporation  that  fails.  The  corporation  was  one  in 
which  he  had  no  personal  interest,  and  the  investment  was  made  only 
after  very  careful  examination  into  its  actual  status  and  its  prospects. 
(2)  The  executor  of  an  estate,  having  had  a  quarrel  with  his  ward 
and  having  as  a  result  come  to  feel  a  bitter  hatred  for  him,  invests 
the  latter 's  money  in  securities  that  he  believes  will  fall  in  value. 
Instead  of  that  they  rise  and  make  his  ward  rich.  (3)  The  executor 
deliberately  takes  his  ward's  money  and  uses  it  for  his  own  purposes, 
t.  e.,  he  steals  it.  (4)  Later,  however,  the  executor  of  (3)  discovers 
that  his  fellow  executors  are  watching  him  more  closely  than  he 
thought  they  were;  accordingly,  fearing  a  term  in  the  penitentiary, 
he  restores  the  money.  (5)  The  executor  takes  $1,000.00  of  his 
ward's  money  and  without  the  latter 's  knowledge  or  consent  gives  it 
to  a  hospital  in  which  he  (the  executor)  is  very  much  interested. 

Another  application  of  this  method  can  be  made  in  supplying  our 
pupils  with  a  concrete  conception  of  the  various  types  of  moral  judg- 
ment used  in  every-day  life  by  themselves  and  those  about  them. 
One  of  our  colleagues  proceeds  by  requiring  his  students,  at  the 
opening  of  the  course,  to  hand  in  to  him  problems  of  moral  conduct 
which  they  themselves,  or  some  one  of  whom  they  know,  have  had  to 
face;  and  he  devotes  the  opening  weeks  of  the  semester  to  discussing 
them.  This  seems  to  me  an  admirable  device.  The  chief  objections 
to  employing  it  are  that  you  are  not  likely  to  get  all  the  typical  forms, 
and  that  many  of  the  problems  will  be  too  complex  to  be  handled 
satisfactorily  in  the  limited  time  at  your  disposal.  These  difficulties 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         453 

could  doubtless  be  met  by  selection  and  supplementation.  But  the 
supplementation  would  ordinarily  have  to  be  quite  extensive,  and 
accordingly  a" more  systematic  method  of  procedure  seems  to  me 
preferable.  This  consists  in  giving  the  class  a  dozen  carefully 
selected  casuistry  problems.  The  answers  to  these  they  are  to  write 
out,  assigning  their  reasons,  when  they  have  any,  for  their  conclu- 
sions. These  answers  are  classified  and  the  typical  ones  are  mimeo- 
graphed and  given  to  the  class  for  analysis.  This  supplies  the  stu- 
dent with  a  mass  of  concrete  data.  Some  of  it,  representing  as  it 
does  his  own  ideals  and  processes  of  thinking,  will  be  familiar  to  him 
and  thus  make  him  feel  throughout  the  semester  that  he  is  treading 
on  the  firm  ground  of  observed  fact.  That  which  is  unfamiliar,  as 
foreign  to  his  modes  of  thinking  and  feeling,  will  serve  the  equally 
important  purpose  of  waking  him  from  his  dogmatic  slumbers  and 
enabling  him  at  once  to  realize  the  complexities  of  the  problem  and 
to  see  the  nature  of  these  complexities.  Often  also  it  will  open  his 
eyes  to  attitudes  of  his  own  which  had  never  come  explicitly  to  con- 
sciousness, but  which  had  none  the  less  exercised  an  appreciable, 
sometimes,  indeed,  a  very  important,  influence  upon  his  moral  judg- 
ment. This  exercise  also  gives  a  new  interest  to  the  question :  "What 
is  meant  by  calling  the  various  modes  of  action  right?  and  a  new 
urgency  to  the  problem  of  universal  validity. 

It  will  perhaps  be  urged  that  the  results  here  demanded  can  be 
obtained  through  the  study  of  the  history  of  ethical  theory.  And 
whatever  the  reasons  may  be,  the  catalogues  show  that  in  at  least  half 
of  our  universities  historical  material  forms  a  very  considerable, 
sometimes  (apparently)  even  the  chief  part  of  the  subject-matter  of 
the  course.  After  having  given  this  system  and  that  just  described 
thorough  trials  my  conviction  is  very  strong  that  the  latter  is  dis- 
tinctly preferable.  Certain  of  the  objections  to  the  use  of  the  his- 
torical method  are  obvious.  They  are  identical  in  principle  with 
those  which  have  driven  the  old-fashioned  manuals  out  of  the  class- 
room in  English  literature.  If  the  manifold  evils  of  this  method  are 
met  by  sending  one's  pupils  to  the  original  sources,  new  difficulties 
arise  as  serious  as  the  former  ones.  A  Shaftesbury,  a  Kant,  to  say 
nothing  of  a  Plato,  offer  difficulties  to  a  raw  young  student  which 
we  teachers  can  realize  only  with  the  greatest  effort.  If  he  is  to 
understand  and  appreciate  what  he  reads,  either  we  must  do  the 
interpreting  for  him,  or  else  give  up  half  of  our  semester  to  the  study 
of  a  single  author.  The  latter,  of  course,  means  a  return  to  the  text- 
book method.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  selections  from  different  au- 
thors are  chosen,  new  difficulties  arise  from  the  fact  that  in  most 
writers  on  ethics  the  understanding  of  every  chapter  after  the  first 
requires  the  understanding  of  all  that  have  preceded.  In  any  event, 


454  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

whichever  of  these  awkward  alternatives  may  have  been  chosen,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  major  part  of  the  energy  and  time  of  the  student 
has  been  expended  upon  apprehension  and  memorizing — a  good  deal 
of  it,  by  the  way,  directed  upon  material  of  no  particular  value  to 
any  one  but  the  expert  in  ethics.  Accordingly,  genuinely  inde- 
pendent thought  will  have  to  be  relegated  to  an  inferior  position  or 
else  crowded  out  entirely. 

But  there  is  a  more  serious  and  fundamental  objection  to  the  use 
of  the  historical  method.  It  leads  the  student  to  look  at  the  facts 
through  another  person's  eyes,  instead  of  using  his  own.  Of  course 
the  author  is  not  treated  as  an  oracle ;  he  is  freely  criticized  by  the 
teacher  and  may  be  criticized  by  the  class.  Nevertheless,  at  its  best, 
the  process  is  entirely  too  much  like  going  through  a  picture  gallery 
with  a  guide-book  in  which  each  picture  is  analyzed  for  your  benefit 
by  an  expert.  In  class  work  in  a  college  or  university  there  should 
be  but  one  cicerone,  the  teacher.  He  should  guide  the  observation 
and  thought  of  his  pupils;  and  he  should  supply  information  only 
after  they  have  exercised  their  own  powers  to  the  best  of  their 
ability. 

Hitherto  I  have  been  discussing  the  possibility  and  the  desirabil- 
ity of  training  one's  students  in  the  power  and  the  habit  of  intel- 
lectual exploration  in  the  subject  of  theoretical  ethics.  But  the  op- 
portunities for  such  work  are  still  greater  in  applied  ethics.  A 
considerable  number  of  programmes  could  be  sketched,  but  I  will 
speak  only  of  that  one  with  which  I  happen  to  be  most  familiar.  It 
consists  in  presenting  certain  general  principles  which  have  been 
widely  held  to  be  applicable,  just  as  they  stand,  to  the  solution  of 
social-moral  problems,  and  requiring  the  class  to  criticize  them — of 
course,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  criticism.  In  particular  the 
class  determines  their  meanings,  or  various  possible  meanings — an 
excellent  exercise  in  the  logic  of  ambiguity — and  discovers, 
and  then  evaluates,  the  concrete  results  that  would  follow  a  con- 
sistent application  of  them  to  the  life  of  the  society  in  which  we 
live.  The  principles  employed  are  those  generally  held  by  the 
adherents  of  the  doctrine  of  natural  rights :  Every  man  ought  to  be 
free  to  do  that  which  he  wills,  provided  he  infringes  not  the  equal 
freedom  of  any  other  man ;  Government  depends  upon  the  consent  of 
the  governed;  All  men  ought  to  be  treated  equally;  Every  man  has 
an  absolute  right  to  the  fruits  of  his  labor.  A  study  is  also  made  of 
Mill's  formula  of  liberty.  In  addition  to  the  general  criticism,  each 
principle  is  examined  in  its  relation  to  two  or  three  concrete  problems 
of  contemporary  industrial,  social,  or  political  life.  Such  work,  it 
will  be  evident,  is  to  a  very  considerable  degree — though  by  no  means 
entirely — destructive.  This  is,  in  some  respects,  unfortunate.  But 


455 

if  you  are  going  to  train  your  students  to  see  and  to  think,  it  is 
largely  inevitable.  Their  minds,  when  they  come  to  us,  have  reached 
the  critical,  but — ordinarily — not  the  constructive  stage;  and  we 
have  to  take  these  minds  as  we  find  them,  and  make  the  best  of  them. 
The  constructive  work  will  have  to  be  done  largely  by  the  teacher. 
Even  here,  however,  if  he  is  determined  to  do  nothing  for  his  pupils 
which  they  can  be  allured,  or  cajoled,  or  whipped  into  doing  for 
themselves,  he  will  find  that  there  are  more  ways  of  throwing  the 
burden  upon  them  than  he  would  ever  have  suspected  if  he  had  not 
made  the  attempt. 

FRANK  CHAPMAN  SHARP. 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 


THE  AIM  AND  CONTENT  OF  THE  FIRST  COLLEGE 
COURSE   IN  -ETHICS1 

I  WANT  to  consider  the  aim  and  content  of  the  first  college  course 
in  ethics  as  a  moral  issue  larger  than  our  customary  academic 
vision  cares  about.  Permeating  all  that  I  shall  say  is  the  fundamental 
guess  that,  in  general,  there  are  some  ideals  even  more  imperative 
than  those  of  scholarship,  namely,  those  for  the  sake  of  which  schol- 
arship exists  at  all;  that,  from  a  pedagogical  point  of  view,  philos- 
ophy has  larger  responsibilities  than  those  she  owes  to  herself;  that 
we  should  cease  finding  philosophy  and  teaching  philosophy  merely 
in  terms  of  the  technical  problems  and  systems;  that  we  should  re- 
gard our  students  as  something  more  than  potential  philosophers, 
and  that,  in  the  case  of  the  student  in  the  first  course  in  ethics,  this 
something  more  should  be  thoroughly  defined. 

I.    AIM 

What  the  course  in  ethics  shall  be  about  depends  upon  the  an- 
swer to  the  prior  question:  What  is  the  best  purpose  subserved  by 
having  such  a  course  at  all,  in  view  of  the  present  state  of  the  col- 
lege curriculum? 

I  am  convinced  that  this  question,  in  turn,  is  peculiarly  depen- 
dent upon  what  is  to  be  our  ultimate  ideal  in  education.  Many 
other  current  problems  converge  to  the  same  point,  which  is  the  rea- 
son that  the  solution  of  this  question  concerning  the  educational  ideal 
is  so  singularly  insistent  of  late. 

Now,  American  ideals  of  education  are  many  and  conflicting,  but 
the  ideal  most  widely  emphasized  from  the  beginning  of  our  educa- 

1  Bead  before  the  Western  Philosophical  Association,  University  of  Chicago, 
April  6,  1912. 


456  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tional  history  is  what  can  be  most  succinctly  expressed  as  education 
for  democracy.  Sometimes  this  ideal  receives  such  narrower  phras- 
ings  as  "education  for  self-government"  or  "education  for  citizen- 
ship." The  recognition  of  this  ideal  has  always  been  at  the  basis  of 
the  assumption  by  our  government  of  its  educational  responsibility, 
a  recognition  which,  more  than  anything  else,  has  made  our  educa- 
tional system  what  it  is.  In  spite  of  new  and  illuminating  theories 
of  the  end  of  education,  and  partly  because  of  them,  this  ideal  has 
steadily  grown  and  is  receiving  emphasis  from  some  of  the  most 
prominent  professional  educators  of  our  generation.  True,  this  ideal 
is  not  insistently  present  in  college  faculties;  there,  the  proximate 
end  of  teaching,  scholarship  for  its  own  sake,  receives  its  expected 
emphasis.  But  this  immediate  ideal  can  never  finally  settle  the 
fundamental  meaning  of  a  particular  discipline  in  a  college  curricu- 
lum, much  less  the  ultimate  end  of  that  curriculum  itself.  The  ideal 
which  can  settle  such  matters  is  the  ideal  with  which  I  am  now  seri- 
ously concerned. 

Education  for  democracy  is  not  best  defined  as  education  for  self- 
government,  although  it  includes  that;  for,  of  course,  democracy  is 
not  merely,  or  even  primarily  a  form  of  government,  but  a  form  of 
society.  It  involves  a  special  theory  of  persons,  their  nature,  their 
worth,  their  possibilities,  and  their  social  rights  and  duties.  Just 
what  democracy  is  need  not  be  settled  here :  but  whatever  else  it  is, 
it  is  primarily  an  ethical  conception,  and  an  ethical  conception  of  a 
very  distinct  type.  Thus,  first  of  all,  the  founding  and  the  main- 
taining of  a  concrete  democratic  society  is  not  merely  a  political 
project ;  it  is  primarily  an  ethical  undertaking  for  the  sake  of  a  defi- 
nite ethical  ideal  of  human  welfare.  Secondly,  it  is  distinctive  of  the 
very  conception  of  democracy  that  it  is  an  undertaking  which  im- 
plies rational,  self-conscious  responsibility  on  the  part  of  every  real 
member  of  it.  Thirdly,  this  in  turn  implies,  first  of  all  and  all 
the  time,  the  self-conscious  examination  and  evaluation  of  moral 
standards  by  every  man  and  woman  who  has  achieved  democracy's 
rights  and  duties.  And,  now,  here  is  the  crucial  point :  education  for 
democracy,  in  contrast  to  education  for  less  autonomous  forms  of 
society,  means  a  new  and  cardinal  emphasis  upon  a  thorough  train- 
ing in  all  the  technique  of  efficient  moral  reflection.  It  is  not  that 
democracy  will  be  the  worse  if  this  is  not  recognized:  it  simply  will 
not  be  at  all. 

Now,  how  is  the  American  college  student  to  arrive  at  a  reflective 
knowledge  of  ethical  values  such  as  is  to  make  his  education  funda- 
mentally efficient?  Well,  he  will  receive  it  indirectly  and  partially 
from  many  of  his  courses,  especially  in  literature  and  in  such  social 
sciences  as  history,  economics,  and  sociology.  But  there  is  only  one 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         457 

course  in  which  he  can  receive  a  direct  and  intensive  training  of  this 
sort,  only  one  course  which  can  give  him  in  a  systematic  way  the 
data  indispensable  to  his  full  moral  consciousness  and  which  will  edu- 
cate him  to  recognize  and  apply  the  various  sorts  of  moral  standards 
of  value.  That  one  course  is  the  course  in  ethics.  And  he  should  be 
able  to  find  this  training  in  an  elementary  course,  since,  for  one  rea- 
son, it  may  be  the  only  course  in  philosophy  that  he  cares  to  take; 
and,  for  reasons  yet  to  be  given,  he  should  take  it  early  in  his  cur- 
riculum. 

What  I  mean  by  the  larger  educational  responsibilities  of  ethics 
as  a  science  is  now  evident.  It  is  a  responsibility  dictated  by  the 
larger  responsibilities  of  education  in  a  democracy.  The  first  course 
in  ethics  must  be  modified  to  some  degree  in  terms  of  this  responsi- 
bility. Nor  are  these  general  considerations  the  only  commanding 
ones.  For  moral  scholarship  has  assumed  the  place  of  an  educa- 
tional issue  because  of  acute  social  issues  definitely  depending  upon 
it.  Even  philosophers  with  only  theoretical  interests,  if  their  theory 
reaches  down  to  an  analysis  of  contemporary  institutions,  can  not 
fail  to  observe  that  the  conspicuous  American  social  institutions, 
especially  those  of  politics,  society  in  the  restricted  and  broad  senses, 
education  itself,  the  national  literature,  and  the  institution  of  re- 
ligion, are  lacking  nothing  so  much  as  ethical  self-consciousness  to 
make  possible  their  rational  progress.  Plainly,  this  lack  of  accurate 
power  in  ethical  reflection  is  the  chief  reason  of  what  Professor  Royce 
calls  the  "inefficiency  of  our  ideally  disposed  public."  We  are  a 
nation  of  idealists,  but  of  an  idealism  without  sufficiently  definite 
ideals,  often  strenuously  aimless  and  busily  incoordinate. 

Will  a  college  course  in  ethics  remedy  the  trouble  ?  No,  the  ques- 
tion is  not  quite  so  absurd  as  that.  The  question  is:  Since,  ad- 
mittedly, education  alone  can  make  democracy  possible,  since  indeed, 
education  exists  to  make  it  possible,  what  part  does  a  training  in 
ethics  assume?  Without  losing  its  technical  character,  and,  above 
all,  never  leaving  scholarship  for  the  dubious  and  sickening  ideal  of 
edification,  this  course,  somewhat  revised  in  content  and  method,  is 
yet  to  bear  a  heavier  and  more  definite  burden  in  the  process  of  edu- 
cation for  democracy.  All  the  other  aims  of  a  course  in  ethics  may 
be  attained  in  consonance  with  this  aim  and  indeed  through  it. 

II.    CONTENT 

In  view  of  the  aim  just  emphasized,  the  content  of  the  first  course 
in  ethics  should  be,  primarily,  a  review  of  the  various  criteria  of  the 
moral  judgment,  with  emphasis  upon  the  conceptions  of  personality 
and  of  society  involved  in  these.  This  content  should  be  pursued  in 
the  spirit  of  a  constructive  search.  Let  us  insist  that  it  shall  be 


458  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

constructive:  doubt  may  be  the  birth  of  philosophy  to  the  philos- 
opher, but  it  often  means  permanent  scepticism  t<>  the  sophomore. 
To  prevent  the  student  from  getting  moral  scepticism  as  the  only  re- 
sult of  his  ethics  course,  it  should  have  a  minimum  of  unsettled  and 
unsettling  problems.  Certainly  they  belong  to  a  later  course.  Many 
of  our  first  courses  in  ethics  are  failures  because  we  seem  unwittingly 
to  adopt  the  noble  aim  of  launching  students  into  a  life  of  ethical 
theorizing  for  the  sake  of  ethics:  this  might  well  be  the  working  ideal 
if  men  were  not  what  they  are :  but  this  one  course  in  ethics  will  be 
the  only  definite  and  coherent  training  in  ethical  theory  that  the 
average  student  will  ever  receive. 

As  to  the  nature  of  the  constructive  result,  it  should  at  least  in- 
clude the  ethics  of  that  form  of  society  in  which  the  student  is  to 
find  his  moral  education  worth  while — the  ethics  of  democracy.  I 
myself  make  one  of  my  elementary  ethics  courses  a  study  of  Ameri- 
can ideals:  and  some  such  study  might  well  be  an  integral  part  of 
every  elementary  course  in  ethics.  The  procedure  is,  first,  to  review 
democracy 's  doctrine  of  the  person ;  secondly,  to  define  the  ideal  of 
democratic  society  in  terms  of  this  doctrine ;  thirdly,  to  examine  five 
conspicuous  American  institutions,  namely,  politics,  society,  educa- 
tion, literature,  and  religion,  ascertaining  concerning  each:  (a)  The 
ideal  pretended  and  announced;  (&)  the  ideal  implied  in  organiza- 
tion and  deeds,  or  the  ideal  actually  being  realized;  (c)  the  true 
ideal;  (d)  how  to  make  the  real  ideal  efficient.  A  syllabus  in  con- 
nection with  the  study  of  each  institution,  including  a  carefully  se- 
lected bibliography,  is  a  great  help  in  this  part  of  the  course.  With 
such  a  content  as  here  outlined,  a  valuable  prerequisite  is  elemen- 
tary psychology :  indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that  this  is  the  one  prerequi- 
site to  any  ethics  course. 

With  regard  to  the  classic  difficulty  in  finding  a  suitable  text- 
book, I  am  convinced,  after  trying  six  different  texts  and  readopting 
one  that  was  discarded  in  disgust,  that  the  trouble  is  not  chiefly  with 
texts,  but  with  our  own  vagueness  of  purpose  in  using  them.  Any 
text  is  insufficient  in  itself :  but  several  of  the  standard  texts  can  be 
made  fruitful  in  our  hands  if  our  purpose  is  vital  enough  to  use  them 
and  supplement  them  rationally. 

It  is  evident  that  I  believe  that  the  first  course  in  ethics  should 
have  a  much  more  important  place  in  the  college  curriculum  than  is 
now  accorded  it.  This  would  be  amply  justified  in  terms  of  the  aim 
I  have  held  for  it:  but  when  one  adds  the  strangely  neglected  con- 
sideration that  an  ethical  self-consciousness  is  imperative  for  the 
student's  rational  evaluation  of  the  educational  process  itself,  espe- 
cially in  terms  of  an  elective  system  which  presupposes  autonomous 
standards,  the  conclusion  is  beyond  cavil.  For  education  is  only 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         459 

falsely  defined  as  the  satisfaction  of  the  student's  wants:  education 
goes  deeper  than  that :  education  is  training  men  and  women  to  have 
the  right  wants  and  to  know  how  to  set  about  to  fulfil  them.  The 
first  part  of  this  educational  task  is  a  strictly  ethical  problem. 

It  would  be  different  if  our  colleges  would  provide  any  other 
courses  that  would  do  the  work :  but  none  of  them  do :  and  I  am  not 
sure  that  an  ethics  course  will  ever  be  superseded  in  this  service. 

The  course  is  so  important  that  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  it 
should  be  required  of  all  students  at  least  as  early  as  the  sophomore 
year.  At  least  this  early,  because  the  ethics  course  is  best  adapted  of 
all  the  philosophical  courses  to  build  on  the  knowledge  of  the  stu- 
dent, for  even  freshmen  have  had  self-conscious  moral  experiences. 
We  have  many  fallacious  qualms  about  requiring  courses  in  philos- 
ophy, especially  in  ethics.  This  is  one  course,  we  say,  which  the  stu- 
dent can  not  afford  to  hate  because  he  has  to  take  it  and  after  which 
he  will  say  ' '  Thank  God,  I  'm  through  with  that ! ' '  Such  an  attitude, 
we  say,  defeats  the  very  end  of  philosophic  teaching.  So  it  does :  but 
what  is  the  matter  with  our  teaching  if  all  that  it  achieves  is  to  make 
a  student  dislike  a  vital  subject  ?  A  teacher  who  can  not  render  the 
first  course  in  ethics  interesting  enough  to  make  every  student  glad 
clean  through  that  he  took  the  subject,  simply  ought  not  to  be  teach- 
ing elementary  ethics  at  all. 

Not  only  in  the  teaching  of  ethics,  but  in  the  teaching  of  other 
elementary  philosophy  courses,  a  new  spirit  is  discernible.  It  was 
well  shown,  in  the  answer  to  the  questionnaire2  recently  sent  out  by 
a  committee  of  the  Western  Philosophical  Association  that  in 
courses  in  the  introduction  to  philosophy  there  is  new  insistence 
upon  the  student's  independent  thinking  in  terms  of  present-day 
problems.  And  we  need  not  be  concerned  with  regard  to  whether 
philosophy  in  general  or  ethics  in  particular  will  suffer  in  discharg- 
ing its  larger  responsibilities.  To  quote  a  passage  from  the  very 
suggestive  preface  to  "Ethics"  by  Dewey  and  Tufts:  "A  science 
which  takes  part  in  the  actual  work  of  promoting  moral  order  and 
moral  progress  must  receive  a  valuable  reflex  influence  of  stimulus 
and  test." 

JAY  WILLIAM  HUDSON. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MISSOURI. 

* ' '  The  Aims  and  Methods  of  Introduction  Courses :  A  Questionnaire, "  J.  W. 
Hudson,  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  pages  2&-S9. 


460  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOI'IIY 


THE  present  keen  interest  in  the  problems  of  justice  and  its  ad- 
ministration through  the  courts  affords  an  unusual  opportu- 
nity for  the  teacher  of  ethics.  The  questions  of  constitutionality,  of 
the  "rule  of  reason,"  of  "rights"  of  various  kinds,  are  no  longer 
regarded  by  the  public  as  technical  matters  to  be  discussed  by  ex- 
perts only.  Following  theology  and  education,  law  is  taking  its  turn 
at  being  heckled,  and  as  a  result  is  likely  to  return  to  closer  relation 
with  public  sentiment  from  which  it  once  arose.  Undergraduates 
are  sufficiently  affected  by  the  general  attitude  of  the  public  to  re- 
spond to  illustrations  drawn  from  current  legal  doctrines  and  dis- 
cussions. Some  problems  which  may  seem  to  be  highly  abstract  are 
seen  to  have  important  bearings.  The  following  suggestions  are  in- 
tended merely  to  indicate  a  few  typical  instances. 

1.  One  of  the  most  discussed  questions  at  present  is  that  of  the 
fixed,  as  versus  the  flexible  constitution.  The  underlying  assump- 
tion in  the  idea  of  a  constitution  is  that  there  are  certain  principles 
so  general  that  they  may  be  placed  in  a  separate  category  from  other 
less  general  rules.  Such  principles  are  analogous  to  the  universal 
laws  of  rationalistic  ethics.  Few  publicists  would  affirm  that  a  con- 
stitution should  never  be  altered  in  any  respect,  yet  many  would 
consider  it  as  consisting  largely  of  "eternal  truths,"  of  fundamental 
rights.  If  it  is  to  be  changed  some  would  prefer  to  change  it  only  by 
a  formal  amendment  which  then  becomes  again  a  "universal  law." 
It  is  easy  in  the  books  to  discuss  Kant's  "universality"  as  merely 
formal  and  therefore  empty.  But  why  the  deep-seated  objection  to 
"special  legislation";  why  the  general  approval  of  constitutions, 
unless  there  is  some  reason  for  framing  our  laws  so  that  they  shall 
apply  to  all? 

On  the  other  hand  the  position  of  the  empiricist  or  pragmatic 
critic  of  eternal  laws  is  equally  well  rooted  in  judgments  of  common 
sense  and  in  present  criticisms  upon  fixed  constitutions.  Those  who 
advocate  the  "recall"  of  decisions  upon  constitutional  questions 
would  change  principles,  but  not  by  substituting  a  universal  law  of 
absolute  extent.  They  point  to  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the 
Federal  Constitution  as  an  instance  that  such  a  sweeping  declara- 
tion may  have  applications  undreamed  of  by  its  proponents.  They 
propose  rather  a  specific  modification.  Others,  who  deem  such  a 
specific  modification  too  radical  a  method  when  it  takes  place  by 
popular  vote,  approve  the  method  of  tentative  and  gradual  change 
if  carried  through  by  the  process  of  judicial  interpretation.  The 

1  Read  before  the  Western  Philosophical  Association,  University  of  Chicago, 
April  6,  1912. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         461 

Federal  Supreme  Court  may  be  said  to  illustrate  the  method  of 
"working  hypothesis"  in  its  amendment  or  development  of  the 
constitution.  A  decision  is  handed  down  and  allowed  to  stand  until 
it  appears  that  the  unlimited  application  of  its  principle  is  undesir- 
able. Then  a  basis  is  found  for  restricting  this  by  some  other  prin- 
ciple. This  method  of  reconstructing  principles,  in  view  of  their 
working,  raises  another  interesting  problem.  It  proceeds  under  the 
"legal  fiction"  that  judges  do  not  make  law,  but  only  declare  or 
interpret  law.  It  thus  preserves  the  seeming  immutability  of.  law 
while  actually  admitting  change.  What  are  the  advantages  and  dis- 
advantages of  this  method  in  the  field  of  ethics?  Is  it  better  to  make 
clear  our  moral  reconstructions  and  thus  make  ' '  progress ' '  our  chief 
value,  or  to  keep  continuity  in  the  fore  and  thus  preserve  the  sanc- 
tions of  unity  with  past  values? 

Under  this  point,  it  may  be  worth  noting  also  that  at  present  the 
objectors  to  the  fixed  rules  who  are  most  active  are  not  the  antisocial, 
but  the  social  reformers. 

2.  Another  question  connected  with  general  rules  is  illustrated 
by  a  recent  case  under  the  criminal  clause  of  the  Sherman  Act.    The 
prosecution  supposed  it  had  a  very  strong  case,  but  the  jury  ac- 
quitted the  defendants.     It  is  held  by  some  in  explanation  of  the 
outcome,  that  though  the  prosecution  made  a  strong  showing  that 
there  was  a  combination,  it  did  not  show  conclusively  that  this  had 
specifically  injured  any  one.    It  is  claimed  that  a  jury  is  not  likely  to 
convict  unless  injury  is  shown.    If  this  is  the  case,  it  is  a  significant 
evidence  that  the  average  man,  even  when  an  "impartial  spectator," 
is  not  ready  to  support  the  sanctity  of  "law"  unless  he  can  see  a 
reason  for  the  law  in  some  concrete  consequences  of  its  violation. 
Indeed  this  is  but  a  part  of  a  more  general  situation.    When  a  man 
fails  to  live  up  to  his  professed  standards,  we  usually  assign  his  fail- 
ure to  his  incomplete  control  over  his  passions,  or  to  the  lack  of  effec- 
tive motivation  for  good.     But  it  is  possible  that  there  may  be 
another  reason  in  some  cases.     It  is  notorious  that  lawmakers  are 
more  ready  to  pass  strict  laws  and  affix  rigorous  penalties  than  juries 
are  to  enforce  them.    This  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  lawmakers  are 
better  men ;  it  may  also  be  due  to  the  fact  that  they  abstract  unduly 
from  the  complex  motives  and  interests  of  human  nature.    It  may 
be  true  that  the  average  man  does  not  err  in  being  too  strict  with 
himself,  but  in  the  problems  of  moral  education  there  is  certainly  a 
suggestion  here  for  the  lawmaking  parent  and  teacher. 

3.  Another  line  of  cases  offers  an  illustration  of  the  issues  in- 
volved in  the  subject  of  the  moral  judgment.    Do  we  judge  motives, 
intentions,  or  results?    The  ordinary  legal  doctrine  that  a  criminal 
act  must  include  both  intent  and  overt  act  is  well  known,  but  some 


462  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

further  points  are  of  interest.  It  is  commonly  said  that  the  law  does 
not  consider  motives.  No  doubt  it  does  not  permit  a  religious  fanatic 
to  justify  illegal  acts  on  the  ground  that  his  motives  were  good. 
Nevertheless,  if  we  take  motive  as  indicating  the  more  remote,  and 
intent  the  more  immediate  aim,  it  is  evident  that  sometimes  one  will 
be  singled  out  as  important  and  sometimes  the  other.  In  strike 
cases,  the  courts  have  sometimes  held  that  the  injury  to  the  employer 
was  the  primary  intent,  and  have  refused  to  consider  the  more  re- 
mote aim  of  benefiting  the  strikers ;  whereas  in  business  competition, 
it  is  assumed  that  self-benefit  is  the  important  part  of  the  process,  the 
injury  to  competitors  being  incidental.  In  a  recent  case,  however,  a 
court  upheld  a  strike  called  to  compel  the  discharge  of  a  helper  to 
one  of  the  men.  The  decision  admitted  the  injury  to  the  individual 
whose  discharge  was  sought,  but  maintained  that  this  was  incidental. 

Strikes  to  obtain  a  closed  shop  have  been  enjoined  where  no 
specific  gain  other  than  that  of  securing  monopoly  has  been  in  evi- 
dence. Such  cases  bring  out  very  well  the  problem  of  end  and 
means. 

4.  Is  there  a  "common  good,"  or  are  there  only  "individual" 
goods?  The  courts  have  long  had  an  answer  to  this  question  which 
at  any  rate  may  be  regarded  as  the  answer  of  common  sense,  and  as 
indicating  the  ordinary  usage.  Taxes  may  be  levied  for  public  pur- 
poses only.  It  is  recognized  that  the  public  good  will  indirectly  bene- 
fit the  private  citizen,  and,  conversely,  that  which  benefits  the  private 
citizen  is  likely,  in  the  end,  to  benefit  the  public.  But  it  is  held  that 
the  distinction  is  clear  between  what  is  primary  and  what  is  indirect 
or  secondary.  Another  aspect  in  which  the  same  distinction  arises 
is  in  the  supremacy  of  the  police  power  over  the  rights  of  private 
property.  To  provide  for  mutual  confidence  in  the  conduct  of  busi- 
ness is,  according  to  a  recent  decision,  within  this  power.  That  is, 
public  good  and  general  welfare  do  not  mean  merely  the  public  in 
corporate  capacity:  they  include  the  maintenance  of  social  relations. 
The  principle  seems  eminently  sound  to  one  who  holds  to  the  doc- 
trine of  a  common  good,  but  whether  it  is  accepted  or  not,  such  cases 
afford  excellent  opportunity  to  show  clearly  what  is  involved. 

The  obvious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  using  legal  material  is  that 
the  teacher  of  ethics  has  ordinarily  had  no  legal  training  and  is 
therefore  liable  to  mislead  if  he  cites  a  principle  or  a  case  which  may 
need  qualification  by  other  principles  or  cases.  This  difficulty  no 
doubt  is  serious,  but  such  works  as  Goodnow's  "Social  Reform  and 
the  Constitution,"  and  Freund's  "The  Police  Power,"  used  in  con- 
nection with  the  source  books  for  constitutional  law,  enable  even  the 
layman  to  find  material  and  see  it  in  its  broad  relations. 

UNIVERSITY  or  CHICAGO.  JAMES  H.  TUFTS. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         463 

DISCUSSION 
MR.    SCHILLER'S   LOGIC1 

PEOPLE  who  are  trying  to  teach  formal  logic  ought  to  read  Mr. 
Schiller's  book.  It  is  a  loud  statement  of  all  their  difficulties, 
and  will  give  them  somewhat  the  same  comfort  that  profanity  would. 
It  will  also  give  them  at  least  one  piece  of  good  news,  even  though 
they  may  not  accept  the  main  thesis.  The  main  thesis  is  that  all 
their  (i difficulties"  arise  from  the  fact  that  "It  is  not  possible  to  ab- 
stract from  the  actual  use  of  the  logical  material  and  to  consider 
'forms  of  thought'  in  themselves,  without  incurring  a  total  loss,  not 
only  of  truth  but  also  of  meaning. ' '  The  piece  of  good  news  is  inde- 
pendent of  that  dogma,  however.  It  is  this — that  logic  is  either 
dead,  in  which  case  it  is  some  day  going  to  be  buried,  or  else  alive,  in 
which  case  it  is  some  day  going  to  begin  to  grow. 

This  would  not  appear  a  great  piece  of  news  to  persons  of  outdoor 
intelligence ;  but  to  the  custodians  of  formal  logic  it  will  come  like 
a  child  to  the  barren.  After  all  these  years  something  may  yet 
happen  some  day;  that  is  the  great  affirmative  message  of  Mr. 
Schiller's  book.  And  he  backs  it  up,  as  it  would  need  backing  to 
convince  anybody,  by  some  very  cogent  arguments.  I  recommend 
especially  a  brilliant  chapter  on  "The  Laws  of  Thought,"  and  one 
on  "The  Theory  of  Ideas,"  which  concludes  as  follows:  "If  log- 
icians had  taken  the  precaution  of  examining  the  psychological 
process  of  judging  before  constructing  their  theories,  they  could 
hardly  have  failed  to  observe  that  the  characteristic  features  in  our 
intelligence  are  not  'things'  but  processes.  Perception  is  a  process, 
thinking  is  a  process,  meaning  is  a  process,  attention  is  a  process, 
and  'ideas'  are — a  misinterpretation  of  processes.  .  .  .  The  right 
name  for  the  theory  of  'ideas'  is  the  theory  of  judgment." 

These  are  the  statements  that  give  us  hope  either  of  the  burial  or 
the  growth  of  logic.  Mr.  Schiller  advocates  its  burial,  but  I  expect 
its  growth.  I  do  not  see  why  logic  should  not  enter  into  the  great 
change  with  all  the  other  topics,  one  by  one,  since  Darwin — or  since, 
in  the  last  century,  we  all  recovered  from  the  "madness"  of  the 
' '  friends  of  ideas, ' '  and  returned  to  the  more  healthy  wisdom  of  Hera- 
cleitus.  And  it  is  because  I  believe  this  that  I  wish  to  make  more 
than  a  review  of  Mr.  Schiller's  book.  I  wish  to  oppose  it  from  the 
standpoint  of  an  hypothesis  about  knowledge,  not  deeply  different 
from  his  own.  I  wish  to  prove,  indeed,  that  that  hypothesis  (which 
puts  value  above  truth)  does  not  involve  the  acceptance  of  Mr. 

'"Formal  Logic:  A  Scientific  and  Social  Problem,"  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  M.A., 
D.Sc.  London:  Macmillan  and  Co.,  1912. 


464  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Schiller's  dogma  about  formal  logic — any  more  than  it  involved  a 
real  acceptance  of  Mr.  James's  books  about  "Pragmatism,"  great 
and  originating  as  they  were.  It  does  involve,  in  fact,  and  ulti- 
mately depend  upon,  a  more  sustained  scepticism  of  intellect  than 
any  of  these  books  reveal. 

If  knowledges  are  the  successful  postulates  for  specific  purposes, 
of  uniformities  in  experience,  as  Mr.  Schiller  professes  to  believe  they 
are,  then  his  method  of  attack  upon  the  knowledges  of  logic  is  pro- 
foundly wrong.  It  is  indeed  intellectual istic,  absolute,  and  academic. 

In  his  introduction  he  declares  that  it  is  necessary  to  pull  down 
this  "pseudo-science"  of  formal  logic  before  it  will  be  possible  to 
build  up  a  logic  of  science  and  practical  life.  And  is  that  not  the 
typical  academic  assumption  that  fills  our  libraries  with  rubbish  and 
gas?  Everybody  who  thinks  in  our  day,  thinks  about  books,  and 
that  is  the  whole  reason  for  the  inferiority  of  our  thoughts.  Why 
must  the  logic  of  our  science  and  practical  life  be  but  a  negative 
graft  upon  the  logic  of  Greek  science  and  practical  life  ?  Their  logic 
was  great  and  dominating  because  it  was  a  study  of  experience ;  our 
logic  is  petty  and  inconsequent  because  it  is  a  study  of  their  logic. 
I  should  say  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  any  one  to  build  up  a  logic 
of  science  and  practical  life,  after  he  has  corrupted  his  mind  with  all 
the  scholarship  necessary  to  an  elaborate  attack  upon  the  logic  of 
the  past. 

Only  because  he  leads  off  with  this  conventional  assumption 
that  no  new  knowledge  can  be  created  except  in  relation  to  the 
knowledge  which  is  now  respectable,  does  Mr.  Schiller  find  himself 
tinder  the  necessity  of  proving  a  relation  of  entire  contrariety.  He 
finds  himself  under  the  necessity  of  establishing  his  negative  dogma, 
that  formal  logic  is  ' '  incoherent,  worthless,  and  literally  unmeaning. ' ' 
But  to  condemn  an  early  science  for  its  incoherence  is  intellectual- 
istic  in  the  extreme.  And  to  declare  any  knowledge  which,  by  his 
own  confession,  has  lent  support  and  satisfaction  to  the  undertak- 
ings of  intellect  for  many  centuries  "literally  unmeaning,"  is  not 
wise  in  one  who  intends  to  support  his  attack  with  such  a  description 
of  meaning  as  Mr.  Schiller  gives.  It  is  not  wise  in  one  who  intends 
to  declare  that  "an  exhaustive  catalogue  of  the  meanings  of  judg- 
ments .  .  .  would  involve  a  reference  to  the  actual  context,  and  a 
psychological  study  of  each  assertor's  state  of  mind"  (p.  135). 

In  one  place,  indeed,  Mr.  Schiller  himself  pays  an  unconscious 
tribute,  both  to  the  meaning  and  to  the  true  meaning  of  his  pseudo- 
science,  for  he  says:  "The  mistake  was  pardonable  in  Plato,  who  .  .  . 
lived  before  Aristotle  had  discovered  the  Syllogism ;  it  is  inexcusable 
in  philosophers  who  .  .  .  professed  to  have  studied  and  grasped 
Formal  Logic"  (p.  345).  The  truth  is,  it  is  as  hard  for  an  academic 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         465 

mind  to  adopt  the  philosophy  of  outdoor  wisdom,  as  it  is  for  a  camel 
to  enter  into  the  kingdom. 

Nevertheless,  if  Mr.  Schiller's  eyes  were  wholly  open  to  this 
great,  democratic,  and  system-wrecking  philosophy  he  has  got  hold 
of,  and  if  he  had  made  a  deliberate  effort,  I  believe  he  might  have 
applied  it  with  profit  to  a  negative  criticism  of  formal  logic.  He 
might  have  asked  himself:  What  are  the  uniformities  postulated  by 
this  knowledge;  to  what  purposes  were  they,  and  are  they,  rele- 
vant ;  and  to  what  extent  do  they  lend  themselves  to  these  purposes  ? 
And  by  this  means  he  might  have  wrought  a  great  service  to  the 
memory  of  Aristotle,  even  if  no  more  living  enthusiasm  could  be 
furthered  in  these  days  of  open  revolution,  by  a  "radical  reform  of 
the  Predicables. " 

Had  he  approached  it  in  this  equilibrium  of  mind,  he  would  not 
have  been  compelled,  like  a  prosecuting  attorney,  by  the  intellectual 
purpose  that  retained  him,  to  make  logic  appear  at  its  very  worst. 
This  logic  Mr.  Schiller  writes  of,  having  no  real  definition  of 
the  word  "formal,"  no  demarkation  between  formal  reasoning  and 
scientific  induction,  no  separate  recognition  of  probability,  contain- 
ing such  expressions  as  "valid  conclusion,"  "formal  truth,"  and 
professing  to  be  a  complete  account  of  "actual  thinking,"  or  "real 
reasoning" — such  a  logic  was  forgotten  many  years  ago  in  the  little 
college  where  I  studied.  It  does  not  require  a  humanist,  but  only 
a  man  of  sound  mind,  to  perceive  the  purely  honorific  value  of  an 
expression  like  "formal  truth."  I  can  not  speak  for  Oxford,  but, 
in  those  parts  I  can  speak  for,  a  great  deal  of  the  logic  which  Mr. 
Schiller  annihilates  did  not  exist. 

But  a  logic  did  exist,  and  does  still,  which,  although  containing 
many  truths  that  are  relevant  to  human  purposes,  is  in  sad  confu- 
sion with  itself,  having  been  once  too  proud  and  having  suffered  a 
humiliation  at  the  hands  of  science,  and  not  knowing  now  to  what 
purposes  its  truths  are  relevant,  nor  which  truths  to  which  purposes. 
If  Mr.  Schiller  had  approached  this  logic  with  the  humble  questions 
which  his  own  definition  of  knowledge  suggests,  he  might  have 
drawn  some  conclusions  which  would  themselves  have  been  humbly 
relevant  to  the  purposes  of  education,  and  therein  true. 

Perhaps  the  chief  of  these  conclusions  would  have  been  this: 
that  all  the  part  of  logic  properly  called  "formal"  is  an  austere  de- 
velopment of  the  standard  of  consistency  in  generalization,  relevant 
especially  to  the  purposes  of  argument,  but  also  furnishing  one  of 
the  many  ideals  of  science  and  practical  life.2  The  standard  of  con- 

2  On  page  309  Mr.  Schiller  speaks  of  "the  true  ideal  of  science,"  again 
revealing  his  own  failure  to  adopt  the  philosophy  of  specific  purposes.  (Italics 
are  mine.) 


466  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOI'IIY 

sistency  is  never  once  mentioned  throughout  Mr.  Schiller's  book,  ex- 
cept when  its  value  and  relevance  to  science  are  assumed  for  the 
purpose  of  condemning  the  inconsistencies  of  the  logic  he  attacks. 
And  it  is  only  In 'cause  of  this  silence,  I  believe,  that  he  was  able  to 
write  the  first  half  of  his  book  at  all — or  plausibly  enough  to  pass 
the  eye  of  the  printer. 

The  ideal  of  consistency  in  generalization,  or  the  purpose  (we 
might  say)  to  "abstract  from  the  actual  context  in  which  [general] 
assertions  grow  up,  viz.,  the  time,  place,  circumstances,  and  pur- 
pose of  the  assertion  and  the  personality  of  the  assertor,"8  in  order 
to  discover  whether  the  said  assertions  can  be  foredoomed  to  success 
or  failure  by  comparison  with  other  assertions  already  established, 
the  energy  of  experiment  thus  being  saved, — did  not  come  into  the 
world  with  Aristotle.  It  came  into  the  world  with  the  beginnings 
of  conversation.  And  it  was  not  first  formulated  by  Aristotle 
either,  but  by  a  man  of  greater  natural  wisdom  if  less  scholarship, 
Heracleitus.  He  could  see  the  eternal  change  of  purposes  (as  well  as 
things),  and  yet  declare  the  eternal  value  of  abstracting  from  them, 
the  eternal  value  of  the  ideal  of  consistency,  or  rationality,  or  the 
common,  in  a  flux  of  opinions.  In  that  vision  the  true  formal  logic 
had  its  birth,  and  in  that  it  will  have  its  regeneration.  Formal  logic 
is  not,  as  Mr.  Schiller  presents  it,  a  denial  of  the  pervasiveness  of 
emotional  purpose,  but  it  is  an  affirmation  of  it,  and  a  caution  on 
account  of  it,  and  a  system  of  standards  for  making  that  caution 
effective.  If  a  man  with  specific  purposes  makes  a  general  statement 
(even  though  that  man  should  be  yourself)  distrust  him.  Test  him 
by  the  standards  of  consistency.  That  is  what  the  ' '  formal ' '  chapter 
in  a  reborn  logic  probably  will  say. 

And  it  will  reassure  those  who  believe  this,  to  observe  that  al- 
most every  instance  which  Mr.  Schiller  adduces  of  "extra-logical" 
thinking,  does  not  concern  a  general,  but  a  specific  assertion.4  The 
conclusion  from  all  these  instances,  therefore,  is  that  the  standards 
of  formal  logic  relate  to  generalization  and  abstract  argument,  not 
that  they  relate  to  nothing  actual  at  all.  They  relate  particularly 
to  such  a  work  as  Mr.  Schiller's,  and  we  can  not  say  that  tested  by 
them  it  would  always  stand.  In  many  passages  his  thinking  falls 
too  far  away  from  an  ideal  consistency  to  hold  a  mind  that  has  been 
disciplined  by  Aristotle.6 

'This  is  Mr.  Schiller's  own  derisive  description  of  what  formal  logic  tries 
to  do  (page  374). 

«Cf.  pages  10,  13,  88,  129,  186,  and  many  others. 

'  I  quote  this  foot-note  from  page  257,  as  a  brief,  and,  I  think,  glaring 
example  of  the  kind  of  sophistry  that  formal  logic  would  condemn  forever.  It 
is  a  misinterpretation  of,  or  what  is  worse  a  misinterpolation  in,  a  quotation 
from  Mill. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         467 

It  may  be  that  this  discipline  in  its  regenerate  form  will  not  con- 
tain much  of  the  syllogism.  And  yet,  to  one  who  understands  the 
nature  of  the  test  he  is  applying,  it  need  not  appear  ridiculous  to 
shift  his  general  statements  into  various  rigid  forms.  It  is  but  a 
scientific  development  of  the  common-sense  procedure  of  saying, 
"Now  sit  down,  and  let  us  find  out  exactly  what  you  mean!"  It 
is  useful  when  there  is  earnest  doubt  about  one 's  reasonings,  or 
when  one  is  teaching  to  a  child  the  ideal  of  consistent  thought. 
In  education,  and  in  genuine  doubt,  our  ideal  standards6  become 
relevant,  and  it  is  not  impossible  to  make  any  of  them  appear 
ridiculous,  by  dragging  them  in  at  inappropriate  times. 

Mr.  Schiller  himself  has  declared  (p.  222)  that  the  syllogism 
"still  retains  an  important  critical  function.  ...  To  put  an  argu- 
ment in  syllogistic  form  is  to  strip  it  bare  for  logical  inspection." 
But  he  has  slipped  over  with  the  art  of  a  thimble-rigger  that  word 
"logical."  What  is  "logical  inspection,"  indeed,  if  it  is  not  in- 
spection as  to  consistency  with  other  generalizations  established  at 
other  ' '  times, ' '  or  other  ' '  places, ' '  in  other  ' '  circumstances, ' '  for  other 
"purposes,"  or  by  other  "personalities"?  That  is  what  Heraclei- 
tus  recommended.  That  is  what,  besides  perfecting  argument  for 
its  own  sake,  the  exercises  of  formal  logic  seek  to  effect.  Even  for 
that  function,  they  need  improvement,  but  the  chief  improvement 
that  they  need  is  a  definite  determination  to  that  function  and  no 
other.  And  this  they  will  never  acquire  through  a  criticism  that  is 
conducted  in  the  all  or  nothing  method  of  the  church  and  the 
academy. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  philosophers  contribute  strength 
to  the  new  theory  of  knowledge.  One  is  to  write  books  which,  al- 

' '  '  There  is  no  science  which  will  enable  a  man  to  bethink  himself  of  that 
which  will  suit  his  purpose.  Bu  when  he  lias  thought  of  something'  (which  'will 
suit  his  purpose'  presumably!)  'science  can  tell  him  whether  that  which  he  has 
thought  of  will  suit  his  purpose  or  not.'  /.  e.,  when  he  has  found  out  without 
logic,  logic  can  tell  him  he  has  done  right!  What  admirable  caution!  And  yet 
how  true  to  all  Formal  Logic." 

When  irreverent  critics  are  at  the  same  time  careless,  formal  logic  is  well 
able  to  take  her  own  revenge  upon  them.  And  she  takes  it  with  peculiar  sharp- 
ness upon  Mr.  Schiller,  just  as  he  is  "disposing  of"  the  last  of  the  material 
fallacies.  It  is  the  fallacy  of  ' '  Many  Questions. ' '  And  no  sooner  has  he  got  it 
thoroughly  ' '  disposed  of, ' '  no  sooner  has  he  well  laid  it  down  that  there  should 
not  be  any  such  fallacy,  than  he  is  moved  (surely  by  the  devil  himself)  to  add 
in  a  foot-note:  "Why  should  there  not  be  a  Fallacy  of  the  Unmeaning  Question, 
etc.,  as  well  as  of  Many  Questions?"  The  italics  are  mine — or  they  are 
Aristotle 's ! 

8  This  is  recognized  in  regard  to  mathematics,  and  the  reason  given  is  that 
mathematics  more  readily  concedes  its  ideal  character  (cf.  footnotes,  pages  249 
and  320).  This  might  have  suggested  that  the  real  fault  in  logic  is  not  that  it 
exists,  but  that  it  does  not  concede  its  ideal  character. 


468  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

though  they  make  the  old  profession  of  absolute  verity,  reveal  to 
scrutiny  the  control  of  a  specific  purpose.  Mr.  Schiller's  book  is  of 
this  kind.  The  other  way  is  to  write  books  which  profess  their 
purpose  and  present  their  verity  as  only  relative  to  that.7  They 
exemplify  not  only  the  fact  of  how  our  thought  proceeds,  but  also 
the  ideal  for  its  procedure,  which  rises  from  a  recognition  of  the 
fact.  They  face  their  own  music.  And  they  are  more  different 
from  the  others,  than  the  new  theory  is  from  the  old.  The  control 
of  thinking  by  a  purpose  unavowed  is  prejudice  or  hypocrisy,  but 
the  control  of  thinking  by  an  avowed  purpose  is  wisdom  itself. 

And  in  his  chapters  on  "Induction,"  Mr.  Schiller  sometimes 
achieves  wisdom.  He  forgets  the  ever-hidden  purpose  of  the  dog- 
matist, and  simply  endeavors  to  generalize  the  facts  of  scientific 
procedure  toward  his  own  avowed  hypothesis  about  knowledge. 
The  chapters  on  "Causation,"  "Laws  of  Nature,"  "The  Forms  of 
Induction,"  "The  Problem  of  Induction,"  The  "Social  Effects  of 
Formal  Logic,"  are  of  high  value.  In  them  one  finds  many  pas- 
sages where,  to  use  the  language  of  the  author's  own  ideal,  "postu- 
lation  occurs  with  a  clear  consciousness  of  the  scientific  nature  of 
its  aims,"  and  "the  reasoning  will  be  found  to  run  somewhat  as 
follows:  'I  have  made  such  and  such  observations  and  they  could 
be  generalized  in  such  and  such  ways;  of  these  this  one  would  be 
the  most  convenient  .  .  .'  "  (p.  243). 

These  passages — interrupted  though  they  are  by  others  where 
postulation  occurs  with  obscure  consciousness  of  the  aim  to  estab- 
lish at  any  cost  an  academic  dogma — are  so  excellent  and  forceful 
in  themselves,  that  for  them,  even  more  than  for  the  other  reasons 
I  gave,  I  think  this  book  ought  to  be  read  by  all  who  teach  logic. 

And  let  them  be  both  perspicuous  and  merciful  in  the  reading, 
and  not  reject  the  value  theory  of  knowledge,  merely  because  the 
author  so  little  succeeds  in  exemplifying  it.  Few  philosophers,  to 
say  nothing  of  scholars,  will  ever  succeed  in  that.  For  the  theory 
strongly  opposes  that  intellectual  gullibility  which  makes  philosophy 
possible.  There  is  a  kind  of  noble  paradox  between  believing  it,  and 
even  stating  it  as  true.  It  posits  a  heroic  doubt,  not  only  as  the  first, 
but  also  as  the  last  condition  of  the  mind  that  seeks  to  know. 

MAX  EASTMAN. 
NEW  YORK  CITY. 

T  John  Dewey  'B  ' '  How  We  Think, ' '  which  I  reviewed  in  this  JOURNAL,  Vol. 
VIII.,  page  244,  is — so  far  as  I  know — the  only  book  of  this  kind  that  has  come 
from  the  hands  of  those  who  hold  the  new  theory  of  knowledge. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         469 

REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Body  and  Mind:  A  History  and  Defense  of  Animism.      WILLIAM  Mc- 

DOUGALL.     New  York :  The  Macmillan  Company.     1911.     Pp.  xix  + 

384. 

This  book  is  a  hark  back  to  an  earlier  generation  of  theorists.  It  is 
avowedly  and  frankly  a  defense  of  an  animistic  mind  and  is  based  upon 
religious  and  political  arguments  that  one  would  expect  from  Cardinal 
Richelieu.  In  the  preface  it  is  asserted  that  the  animistic  mind  is  the 
only  assumption  from  which  arguments  for  immortality  can  be  made,  and 
that  while  superior  minds,  such  as  the  author's  own,  can  be  comfortable 
and  desire  morality  without  belief  in  immortality,  upon  that  alone  can  a 
general  and  popular  morality  be  based.  It  is  particularly  interesting  as 
coming  from  the  author  of  the  "  Primer  of  Physiological  Psychology." 

The  earlier  chapters  of  the  book  are  historical  and  describe  the  dif- 
ferent ways  of  conceiving  mind  and  its  relation  to  the  body  that  have 
been  held  from  primitive  times  to  the  present.  Then  follow  a  series  of 
chapters  in  refutation  of  the  different  automaton  theories  and  the  various 
forms  of  monism.  The  outcome  of  these  arguments  is  that  the  only 
alternatives  open  to-day  are  to  accept  animism  or  psychophysical  paral- 
lelism. Some  of  the  alternatives  are  eliminated  through  showing  that 
they  involve  solipsism,  others  because  they  assume  the  compounding  of 
the  unitary  mind  out  of  simpler  elements.  This  section  is  full  of  hair- 
splitting arguments  that  depend  upon  skill  in  assuming  premises  that 
shall  be  incompatible  with  the  conclusion  it  is  desired  to  refute.  The 
historical  section  is  very  full  and  gives  an  accurate  summary  of  doctrines. 

The  next  group  of  chapters  is  devoted  to  a  refutation  of  parallelism  in 
which  much  use  is  made  of  the  arguments  of  Busse.  Here  begins  the 
development  of  the  characteristic  argument  of  the  book,  that  whenever  we 
do  not  know  what  the  physical  or  chemical  explanation  of  an  event  may 
be,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  to  mental  forces  for  an  answer  to  our  questions. 
Large  use  is  made  of  an  adaptation  of  Busse's  argument  based  upon  the 
great  difference  between  slight  verbal  differences  in  a  telegram,  the  dif- 
ference between  angekommen  and  umgekommen  in  Busse's  example,  which 
is  given  many  different  applications  by  McDougall.  Similar  arguments 
would  require  a  soul  for  each  complex  molecule  in  organic  chemistry  to 
explain  the  numerous  cases  in  which  a  different  arrangement  of  the 
atoms  gives  a  substance  with  very  different  physiological  effects. 
"  Inconceivable "  plays  a  very  large  part  in  this  chapter  as  a  synonym 
of  "  not  yet  known." 

With  many  repetitions  this  is  the  argument  for  animism  in  all  of  the 
later  chapters.  The  author  goes  with  the  neo-vitalists  in  arguing  that 
one  can  not  yet  explain  all  of  the  biological  processes  by  pure  physical 
and  chemical  processes,  hence  there  must  be  entelechies  that  produce 
them.  One  can  not  understand,  on  the  basis  of  the  present  knowledge  of 
cerebral  physiology,  how  various  sensations  may  be  compounded  into  ob- 
jects or  ideas,  hence  the  compounding  must  take  place  in  the  unitary  soul. 


470  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

We  have  no  physiological  correlate  for  meaning,  although  we  know  that 
associations  have  nervous  correlates,  hence  meanings  belong  in  the  soul, 
while  associations  are  in  the  nervous  system.  We  can  not  understand 
why  pleasant  movements  should  be  retained  while  unpleasant  ones  tend 
to  be  dropped,  therefore  feelings  belong  to  the  animistic  mind,  while  move- 
ments themselves  are  physiological  reflexes.  Logical  memory  has  marked 
advantages  over  rote  learning.  It  is  alleged  that  these  advantages  are 
not  to  be  explained  in  terms  of  physiology,  therefore  logical  memory  must 
be  the  product  of  a  simple  mind.  Similarly  the  results  of  psychical 
research  and  telepathy  can  not  be  understood  in  terms  of  parallelism  and 
hence  must  be  explained  on  the  basis  of  an  animistic  mind.  It  will  be 
noted  that  each  of  these  is  a  positive  conclusion  drawn  from  negative 
premises.  If  the  author  were  to  attempt  to  carry  out  the  explanation  of 
these  different  phenomena  on  the  assumption  of  an  animistic  mind  the 
results  would  probably  be  much  less  satisfactory  to  him,  and  one  may 
venture  to  say  even  less  satisfactory  than  the  current  explanation. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  see  the  swinging  of  the  pendulum  in  scientific 
fashions.  Forty  and  fifty  years  ago  under  the  lead  of  Darwin,  Huxley, 
and  Clifford  science  became  convinced  that  teleology  and  entelechies 
could  give  no  real  explanation,  but  only  words.  The  swing  was  to  science. 
Now  after  forty  years  science  has  reached  an  impasse  on  many  of  the 
fundamental  problems  and  the  swing  is  back  toward  teleology.  In  each 
case  the  determining  arguments  are  negative,  furthered  by  the  hope  that 
some  progress  may  be  made  along  lines  that  have  already  shown  results. 
One  must  insist  however  that  McDougall  does  not  show  in  detail  how  his 
animistic  mind  is  to  be  in  any  way  a  solution  for  the  problems  which  he 
asserts  can  not  conceivably  be  solved  by  scientific  methods.  Even  his 
unitary  consciousness  is  altogether  a  name.  Conation  solves  certain 
problems,  feeling  certain  others,  meaning  still  a  third  set,  and  logical 
memory  its  share,  but  what  the  relation  may  be  between  these  different 
forces  or  functions  he  leaves  altogether  in  the  air.  In  each  case  he  has 
funded  our  ignorance,  given  it  a  name,  and  calls  it  an  explanation.  It  is 
interesting  as  a  study  in  logical  method  to  notice  that  he  exactly  reverses 
the  ordinary  and  what  seem  to  the  reviewer  the  plausible  arguments 
without  any  signs  of  a  qualm.  Thus  one  ordinarily  brings  in  habit  to 
explain  by  the  nervous  activity  the  possibility  of  carrying  on  a  compli- 
cated act  like  talking  without  conscious  thought  of  separate  movements. 
Our  author  in  one  passage  asserts  that  a  whole  congress  of  physiologists 
could  not  carry  out  adequately  the  coordination  of  movements  required  for 
a  single  simple  act.  He  would  find  the  explanation  not  in  habit  or  the 
efficiency  of  the  nervous  system,  but  in  the  wonderful  power  of  the  unitary 
mind.  Apparently  the  congress  of  physiologists  does  not  stand  for  mind. 

When  in  tlie  concluding  chapter  our  author  attempts  to  say  what  mind 
is  or  how  it  accomplishes  its  wonders,  he  is  much  less  successful.  He  will 
not  accept  the  statements  of  Bergson  and  James  or  of  any  contemporary 
defendant  of  soul  or  mind.  The  description  is  largely  of  what  the  mind 
is  not.  In  a  brief  summary  he  does  state  vaguely  that  mind  is  a  force 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         471 

that  is  everywhere  present  in  the  organism.  It  presides  over  the  process 
of  generation  from  the  moment  of  the  fertilization  of  the  ovum;  it  looks 
after  the  various  movements  of  digestion  and  reflex  action,  as  well  as  gov- 
erning the  highest  functions  of  mind.  These  functions  are  the  per- 
quisites of  different  grades  of  mind,  but  how  they  unite  or  interact  is  not 
said.  All  is  delightfully  vague. 

As  a  presentation  of  animism  in  historical  and  current  form  the  work 
is  well  done,  but  one  who  reads  it  feels  that  the  explanations  offered  are 
no  explanations.  Between  the  two  alternatives  of  teleology  or  mechanism 
there  is  no  decision  on  basis  of  fact.  The  only  answer  to  the  funda- 
mental problems  they  raise  is  at  present  "  we  do  not  know."  The  advan- 
tage of  mechanism  over  teleology  is  that  the  former  offers  a  hope  of  a 
solution  in  the  end,  while  the  latter  merely  gives  up  the  problems  and 
glosses  over  our  ignorance  with  words  like  mind,  entelechy,  vital  force, 
or  what  not  that  explain  nothing,  but  pretend  to.  The  hope  of  scientific 
advancement  lies  in  continued  analysis  and  investigation  rather  than  in 
the  hypostatizing  of  unanalyzable  and  incomprehensible  entities. 

Lest  one  should  be  misled  by  the  statement  of  disagreement  with  the 
conclusions  and  methods  of  the  author,  it  should  be  emphasized  that  the 
book  is  a  real  contribution  to  the  topic  discussed.  The  material  is  well 
chosen  and  accurate  in  its  statement  of  the  views  of  others,  and  is  excel- 
lently presented.  The  proof-reader  has  been  careless  at  times,  and  there 
are  minor  mistakes.  Professor  McGilvary  appears  as  Miss  in  one  place, 
for  example. 

W.   B.  PlLLSBURY. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN. 

Nietzsche.     PAUL  ELMER  MORE.     Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin,  and  Com- 
pany.    1911.     Pp.  87. 

The  author  of  this  essay  on  Nietzsche  is  evidently  one  of  those  men  of 
letters  who  have  not  sensed  that  fundamental  distinction  between  philos- 
ophers— between  the  thinker  of  cool,  logical,  careful  temperament  who 
is  stirred  to  action  only  by  the  thoughts  and  systems  of  other  men,  and 
spends  his  time  in  solving  problems  that  others  have  set  for  him — and 
the  gigantic,  incalculable  thinker,  who  reacts  violently  and  directly  to  his 
spiritual  environment,  and  whose  work  is  not  the  neatly-ordered  next  step 
in  a  process,  but  an  individual  explosive  interpretation  of  life.  No  one 
can  deny  that  Nietzsche  is  emphatically  a  philosopher  of  this  latter  type, 
but  Mr.  More  has  treated  him  as  if  he  were  numbered  among  the  former. 
Devoting  one  third  of  his  book  to  a  sketch  of  the  gradual  evolution  of 
the  ideas  of  egotism  and  sympathy  from  Hobbes  through  Locke,  Mande- 
ville,  Hume,  and  Rousseau,  he  has  forced  Nietzsche  into  this  polite  scheme 
as  the  culminating  figure,  as  a  mere  reaction  against  the  sentimental 
absurdities  of  romanticism.  But  to  get  him  in,  he  has  had  to  do  such 
violence  to  the  spirit  of  Nietzsche  as  to  prune  away  much  that  is  really 
significant  in  him.  Such  an  attempt  to  explain  a  genius  like  Nietzsche 
simply  will  not  do.  It  was  not  the  dainty  sentimentalism  of  the  eight- 


472  THE  JOUKXAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

century  or  the  amiable  humanitarianism  of  the  Romanticists  that 
roused  the  fury  of  Xirt7-<-hc,  not  any  fashionable  theory  of  an  age  that 
filial  his  soul  with  gall,  but  something  far  more  elemental — the  spirit  of 
an  European  civilization  stretching  out  behind  him,  reeking,  as  he 
thought,  with  a  slave-morality,  and  stretching  out  in  the  future  ahead  of 
him,  degenerate  with  the  poison  of  a  levelling  democracy.  It  was  in  the 
heated  days  of  Marxian  Socialism  that  Nietzsche's  early  days  were  spent, 
and  Marx  derived  not  from  any  British  ethicists  or  French  romanticists, 
but  from  a  materialized  Hegel;  German  Socialism  was,  from  the  first, 
economic  and  materialistic,  not  ethical.  And  Nietzsche  made  this 
materialism  thoroughly  his  own,  while  reacting  against  the  implications 
that  outraged  his  curiously  complex  character  of  fierce  pride  and  tem- 
peramental weakness.  His  innate  aristocracy  was  outraged  by  the  menace 
of  industrial  democracy,  remorselessly  working  itself  out  by  evolutionist ic 
laws,  and  his  passion  for  power  and  strength  was  insulted  by  the  sacri- 
ficial ethics  of  Christianity.  No  neat  Hobbes-Locke-Hume-Rousseau 
dynasty  of  thought  could  have  inflamed  that  passionate  moral  anger;  it 
took  the  vision  of  a  gradual  degradation  of  power  and  genius  to  one 
mediocre  level  to  madden  him.  It  was  not  the  silly  tears  of  Sterne  or 
Henry  Brooke  that  made  him  trample  on  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount," 
but  a  patient,  apathetic  Christian  civilization.  No  one  can  understand 
Nietzsche  who  does  not  feel  these  two  world-spirits,  against  which  he 
hurled  his  strength,  or  see  in  his  philosophy  a  sort  of  world-projection  of 
himself  out  upon  European  civilization,  past,  present,  and  to  come. 

No  one  would  recognize  in  the  shrunken,  frock-coated  Nietzsche  of 
Mr.  More  the  wild  blasphemer  who,  a  prey  to  the  morbid  fascination  which 
makes  us  imitate  the  thing  we  loathe,  wrote  his  best  works  in  the  sublime 
style  of  the  Gospels,  at  the  same  time  that  he  touched  with  ruthless  hand 
the  weakest  spots  of  Christian  ethics.  The  author  even  has  the  sugges- 
tion of  an  apology  for  Nietzsche's  audacities,  and  a  little  patronizing  pity 
for  his  rage:  how  Nietzsche  would  have  hated  being  apologized  for  or 
pitied!  The  author  shows  his  sympathy  with  the  Nietzschean  spirit, 
however,  in  passages  such  as  these:  "  He  [Nietzsche],  too,  saw  the  danger 
that  threatens  true  progress  in  any  system  of  education  and  government 
that  makes  the  advantage  of  the  average  rather  than  the  distinguished 
man  its  first  object,"  and,  "  It  would  be  possible  to  establish  from  sta- 
tistics a  direct  ratio  between  the  spread  of  humanitarian  schemes  of 
reform  and  the  increase  of  crime  and  suicide." 

The  author  has  much  to  say  of  the  effects  of  naturalism  on  the  modern 
world,  and  his  wholesale  merging  of  humanitarianism,  social  reform, 
socialism,  romanticism,  and  naturalism,  as  equivalent  and  interchangeable 
terms,  while  sometimes  ingenious,  is  not  especially  convincing.  Nietzsche 
was  the  most  naturalistic  of  philosophers,  and  if  romanticism  and  nat- 
uralism are  kindred  expressions  of  a  lawlessness  and  lack  of  restraint  and 
limitation,  as  Mr.  More  assumes,  it  is  hard  to  fit  Nietzsche  into  his  scheme 
as  the  arch-anti-romanticist.  Similarly,  the  implication  that  Nietzsche 
is  somehow  a  prophet  of  concentration  and  rationality,  of  order  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         473 

serene  art — the  ideal  of  all  who  oppose  the  extravagancies  of  modern 
culture — is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  anything  we  know  of  Nietzsche's 
works.  Modern  Socialism,  too,  which  Mr.  More  lumps  with  romanticism 
and  humanitarianism,  is  most  materialistic,  and  bases  its  philosophy  on 
the  doctrine  of  evolution.  These  facts  make  Mr.  More's  use  of  the 
categories  less  suggestive  than  they  might  have  been  had  he  been  deal- 
ing with  a  less  original  genius  than  Nietzsche,  who  defies  classification 
or  interpretation  in  conventional  terms.  The  inconsistencies  into  which 
the  author  is  led  are  proof  that  such  a  placing  of  the  philosopher  19 
really  irrelevant. 

It  is  natural  that  the  man  who  translated  all  values  should  trail  para- 
doxes after  him.  The  most  glaring  of  these  is  that  the  supermen  of 
to-day  are  practising  and  professing  Christianity;  while  the  most  brilliant 
Socialists  are  preaching  Nietzscheanism.  For  our  industrial  barons,  our 
business  geniuses,  are  practising  an  undiluted  ethics  of  power  and  ruth- 
lessness,  and  professing  the  mild  and  sacrificial  ethics  of  Jesus.  That  is, 
Nietzsche  has  expressed  perfectly  the  working  philosophy  of  an  age ;  some 
of  his  works  read  almost  like  a  satire  on  modern  industry  looked  at  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  masters.  And  yet  he  has  inspired  the  social 
philosophy  of  some  of  the  most  resourceful  of  the  leaders  who  are  trying 
through  Socialism  to  overturn  that  mastery.  For  besides  Mr.  More, 
Nietzsche  numbers  among  his  disciples  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  and  consist- 
ently. For  Mr.  Shaw  says  simply,  Let  us  all  be  supermen!  A  world  of 
men  longing  to  be  supermen  would  soon  free  itself!  If  that  unorganized 
mass  of  people  that  we  call  with  such  unconscious  self-satirization  "  the 
working-classes,"  could  be  filled  with  the  will  to  power,  the  salvation  of 
society,  Mr.  Shaw  says,  would  be  at  hand.  And  in  this,  Mr.  Shaw  is  a 
better  prophet  of  Nietzsche  than  is  Mr.  More.  For  would  not  Nietzsche 
have  gloried,  had  his  pessimism  permitted  him  to  think  it  possible,  in  a 
race  of  supermen? 

Thus,  ignored  by  his  consistent  followers,  the  modern  business  men, 
enthusiastically  hailed  as  prophet  by  his  enemies,  the  Socialists,  and 
deprived  of  what  he  believed  to  be  his  sound  scientific  basis  of  Darwinism 
— the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest — by  changing  evolutionary 
theory,  Nietzsche  occupies  to-day  a  curiously  anomalous  position.  The 
divergent  effcts  of  his  philosophy  indicate  his  place  as  a  creative  thinker; 
his  influence  will  grow  rather  than  wane.  And  we  may  be  sure  that  he  is 
more  fruitful,  more  stimulating  and  profound,  than  would  appear  from  the 
interpretation  and  point  of  view  which  are  presented  in  this  little  book. 

E.  S.  BOURNE. 

COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 

Lectures  on  Fundamental  Concepts  of  Algebra  and  Geometry,  JOHN 
WESLEY  YOUNG.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1911.  Pp. 
vii  +  247. 

The  philosopher  who  wishes  to  become  acquainted  with  the  mathe- 
matician's point  of  view  concerning  the  foundations  of  mathematics,  and 


474  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

who  perhaps  has  been  discouraged  after  trying  Russell's  "  Principles " 
and  Whitehead's  and  Russell's  "  Principia,"  will  find  Professor  Young's 
lectures  an  ideal  medium  of  introduction.  Symbols  and  difficult  technical 
matters  are  kept  in  the  background  in  order  to  emphasize,  in  a  very 
stimulating  style,  ideas  that  are  general  and  fundamental.  Only  the 
elements  of  algebra  and  geometry  are  presupposed. 

From  a  purely  logical  standpoint,  a  mathematical  science  is  defined 
to  be  "  any  body  of  propositions  which  is  capable  of  an  abstract  formula- 
tion and  arrangement  in  such  a  way  that  every  proposition  of  the  set, 
after  a  certain  one,  is  a  formal  logical  consequence  of  some  or  all  the 
preceding  propositions."  Mathematics  includes  potentially  all  such  sci- 
ences. Each  science  is  thus  based  on  certain  undefined  terms  and  un- 
proved propositions  (axioms  or  postulates).  Questions  of  psychological 
genesis  or  metaphysical  import  are  outside  the  mathematician's  domain. 

The  role  of  definitions  and  axioms  and  the  problems  of  consistency, 
independence,  and  categorical  character  of  a  system  of  axioms  are  ex- 
plained very  clearly  by  a  "  miniature  mathematical  science  "  in  Chapter  V. 
The  author  then  takes  up  the  notions  of  class  and  number,  including  the 
development  of  ordinary  and  higher  complex  number  systems.  Geometry 
is  treated  first  according  to  Hilbert's  theory,  in  which  the  notion  of  con- 
gruence is  undefined,  and  then  according  to  Pieri,  rigid  displacement  and 
groups  being  fundamental.  The  final  chapters  deal  with  variables,  func- 
tions, and  limits,  but  calculus  and  its  developments  are  not  treated.  A 
note  on  the  growth  of  algebraic  symbolism  is  contributed  by  Professor  V. 
G.  Mitchell. 

EDWARD  KASXER. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

RIVISTA  DI  FILOSOFIA  NEO-SCOLASTICA.  April,  1912.  La 
filosofia  di  Benedetto  Croce  (pp.  185-202) :  E.  CHIOCCHETTI.  -  Croce's 
philosophy  starts  from  the  systems  of  Hegel  and  of  the  Italian  Spaventa, 
of  which  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  development.  II  valore  dell'  intro- 
spezione  provocata  (pp.  203-225) :  A.  GEMELLI.  -  In  spite  of  Wundt's  ob- 
jections, provoked  introspection  is  legitimate  in  its  procedure,  and  most 
fruitful  in  its  results.  Sigieri  di  Brabante  nella  Divina  Commedia  e  le 
fonti  della  filosofia  di  Dante  (pp.  225-239):  B.  NARDL-  Dante  did  not 
ignore  Siger  of  Brabant's  philosophy.  If  he  gives  him  a  place  in  the 
Paradise,  by  the  side  of  St.  Thomas,  it  is  because  he  regards  him  as  one 
of  the  great  thinkers  of  the  day.  Note  e  discussioni.  Cronaca  scientifica. 
Analisi  d'opere.  M.  Losacco,  Razionalismo  e  misticismo:  A.  GEMELLI. 
A.  Pagano,  L'individuo  nett'  etica  e  nel  diritto:  F.  OLGIATT.  C.  Ranzoli, 
11  linguaggio  dei  filosofi:  A.  MASNOVO.  G.  Molteni,  II  materialismo  storico 
e  la  nuova  storiografia:  G.  TREDICI.  P.  Rotta,  11  pensiero  di  Nicolo  da 
Cusa  ne'  suoi  rapporti  storici:  A.  MASXOVO.  G.  Gentile,  Bernardino 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         475 

Telesio:  A.  CUSCHIERI.  G.  Amendola,  Maine  de  Biran:  E.  CHIOCCHETTI. 
D.  Halevy,  La  vita  di  Federigo  Nietzsche:  F.  OLGIATI.  G.  Calo,  Fatti 
e  problemi  del  mondo  educative.  Tra  riviste  e  libri.  Sommario 
ideologico. 

EEVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  April,  1912.  Les  idees  directrices  de 
la  physique  mechaniste  (pp.  337-366) :  A.  KEY.  -  A  current  doctrine  in- 
sists that  science  only  establishes  external  relations  of  things  and  con- 
tains only  technical,  empirical  formulas.  The  author  attempts  to  show 
by  positive  historical  fact  that  science  has  developed  through  a  mass  of 
realistic  and  rationalistic  conceptions,  i.  e.,  philosophic  ideas,  and  can  not 
be  understood  apart  from  them.  La  psycho-analyse  applicee  a  I'etude  ob- 
jective de  I'imagination  (pp.  367-396) :  N.  KOSTYLEFF.  -  A  study  of  the 
results  that  have  been  obtained  by  applying  the  methods  of  Freud  to  the 
study  of  imagination,  especially  in  abnormal  cases.  Le  raisonnement  par 
I'dbsurde  et  la  methode  des  residus  (pp.  397-403) :  A.  BERROD.  -  A  psycho- 
logical study  of  reductio  ad  absurdum  and  the  method  of  residues. 
Analyses  et  comptes  rendus.  Ranzoli,  II  languaggio  dei  filosofi:  FR. 
PAULHAN.  Dr.  Gustave  Le  Bon,  Les  opinions  et  les  croyances:  G.  DAVY. 
Brugeilles,  Le  droit  et  la  sociologie :  G.  RICHARD.  Miceli,  Lezioni  di  filos- 
ofia  del  diritto:  G.  RICHARD.  Petrone,  II  diritto  nel  mundo  dello  spirito: 
G.  RICHARD.  L.  Secretan,  Charles  Secretan,  sa  vie  et  son  ceuvre:  A. 
NAVILLE.  Notices.  Bibliographiques.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 

Macran,  H.  S.    Hegel's  Doctrine  of  Formal  Logic.    Oxford:  Clarendon 

Press.    1912.    Pp.  315.    7s.  6d. 

Whitehead,  Alfred  North,  and  Russell,  Bertrand.  Principia  Mathematica. 
•  Vol.11.  Cambridge:  University  Press.  1912.  Pp.  xviii  +  772.  $10. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  Nation  comments  as  follows  on  Andrew  Lang  whose  death  oc- 
cured  on  July  21 :  "  Andrew  Lang  deserved  in  his  lifetime  to  rank  with 
William  James  as  a  vivid  proof  that  personality  is  more  than  learning. 
A  man  of  solid  attainments  in  several  branches  of  knowledge,  he  was  al- 
ways superior  to  his  material,  and,  whether  he  was  deep  in  early  Scottish 
history,  or  meeting  all  comers  in  disputes  about  the  origins  of  human  so- 
ciety, or  correcting  Anatole  France's  use  of  the  sources  relating  to  Joan 
of  Arc,  he  allowed  his  intellect  to  play  freely  and  lightly,  and  could  by  no 
possibility  be  thought  of  as  a  pedant.  And  in  the  broad  sweep  of  his  verse 
and  criticism  and  essay  writing  and  multifarious  discussion,  it  was  al- 
ways the  man  of  genial  humor  and  wit  that  left  no  sting  who  impressed 
himself  upon  the  imagination  of  his  readers.  In  a  large  way,  his  extra- 
ordinary versatility  and  his  prolific  pen  were  doubtless  a  detriment  to  his 
enduring  fame.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  say  of  him  that  knowledge  was 
his  forte  and  omniscience  his  foible,  but  the  witticism  about  him,  that 


476  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIl-Mirir  METHODS 

Andrew  Lang  was  not  a  man  but  a  syndicate,  is  hardly  one  that  a  great 
scholar  would  gladly  hear  of  himself.  Roam  broadly  as  an  acquisitive 
mind  may  to-day,  the  specialization  of  the  whole  field  of  knowledge  com- 
pels a  certain  Besclriinkiing  on  the  part  of  those  who  would  display  real 
mastery.  Harnack's  opinion  is  that  in  1700  the  most  encyclopa3dic  mind 
was  that  of  Leibnitz,  and  that  in  1800  it  was  Goethe's.  For  1600,  we  might 
say  that  it  was  Bacon's,  but  whom  should  we  dare  put  forward  for  1900? 
Possibly,  Lord  Acton,  though  there  were  vast  ranges  of  knowledge — espe- 
cially scientific — where  he  seldom  browsed.  The  encyclopa?dic  mind  has 
necessarily  gone  out,  by  comparison.  Mr.  Lang  really  made  no  preten- 
sions to  possessing  it.  But  he  lighted  up  history  and  speculation  and  life 
at  many  points,  and  led  thousands  to  feel  that  he  was  a  man  whom  it 
would  be  delightful  to  know." 

ALFRED  FOUILEE,  member  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences  morales  et 
politiques,  died  at  Lyons,  on  July  16.  He  was  born  at  La  Poueze  in  1838. 
Among  his  numerous  philosophical  works  perhaps  "  Morale  des  Idees- 
force.s "  and  "  La  Pensee  et  les  nouvelles  ecoles  anti-intellectualistes " 
best  illustrate  his  own  philosophical  tendencies. 

PROFESSOR  WILBUR  M.  URBAN,  of  Trinity  College,  has  been  granted 
leave  of  absence  for  a  year.  He  will  spend  much  time  in  Graz  in  study 
and  investigation  with  Professor  A.  Meinong.  Mr.  Carl  Vernon  Tower 
will  take  his  place  at  Trinity  during  the  year. 

A  MEETING  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  London,  was  held  on  July  1. 
Mr.  D.  L.  Murray  read  a  paper  entitled  "  A  Modern  Materialist :  A  Study 
of  the  Philosophy  of  George  Santayana."  The  paper  was  followed  by  a  dis- 
cussion. 

DR.  JOSEPH  JASTROW,  professor  of  psychology  in  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin, has  given  three  lectures  on  "  The  Sensibilities,"  "  The  Emotions," 
and  "  The  Appraisal  of  Human  Qualities,"  at  the  summer  session  of  the 
University  of  California. — Science. 

DR.  WALTER  F.  DEARBORN,  professor  in  the  school  of  education  at  the 
University  of  Chicago,  has  been  appointed  assistant  professor  of  edu- 
cation at  Harvard  University. 

DR.  HARLAN  UPDEGRAFF,  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Education, 
has  been  appointed  professor  of  education  and  head  of  that  department 
in  Northwestern  University. 

DR.  MORRIS  R.  COHEN,  formerly  instructor  in  mathematics,  has  been 
promoted  to  assistant  professor  of  philosophy  at  the  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York. 

PROFESSOR  DURCK,  formerly  director  of  the  pathologic  institute  at 
Jena,  has  undertaken  the  direction  of  the  pathologic  institute  at  Rio  de 
Janeiro. 

DR.  H.  G.  HARTMANN,  of  Columbia  University,  has  been  appointed  in- 
structor in  philosophy  at  the  University  of  Cincinnati. 

DR.  GEORGE  R.  WELLS  has  been  appointed  instructor  in  psychology  at 
Oberlin  College. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  18.  AUGUST  29,  1912 

THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  CAUSAL  RELATION  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY 


ALL  readers  of  this  JOURNAL  will  recall  William  James's  descrip- 
tion of  the  diverse  "Worlds  of  Reality"  in  his  larger  "Psy- 
chology,"1 and  will  remember  that  he  refers  in  some  detail  to  seven 
such  worlds:  the  worlds  (1)  of  sense,  or  of  physical  "things"  as  we 
instinctively  apprehend  them;  (2)  of  science, or  of  physical  things  as 
the  learned  conceive  them;  (3)  of  ideal  relations;  (4)  of  "idols  of 
the  tribe";  (5)  of  the  supernatural;  (6)  of  individual  opinion; 

(7)  of  madness.    "Every  object  we  think  of,"  he  tells  us,  "gets  at 
last  referred  to  one  world  or  another  of  this  or  some  other  list. ' '    To 
the  "worlds"  in  his  list,  I  would  add  the  important  "worlds"; 

(8)  of  immediate  experience  as  introspectively  recalled;  and  (9)  of 
"reflection  upon  this  immediate  introspective  experience";  as  well 
as  (10)  the  "world  of  dreamland";  and   (11)   the  "make-believe 
world  of  imaginative  discourse. ' ' 

In  this  manner  of  thought  it  is  apparent  that  James  was  not 
dealing  with  the  concept  of  reality,  but  rather  with  the  appreciation 
of  realness,  or  presentative  stability,  upon  which  this  concept  of 
reality  is  based ;  and  for  this  reason  I  have  suggested2  that  we  gain 
a  better  idea  of  his  meaning  if  we  speak  of  diverse  "realms  of  real- 
ness"  instead  of  "worlds  of  reality"  as  he  did;  for  the  significance 
of  the  point  he  made  lies  in  the  fact  that  given  mental  items,  or  pre- 
sentations, may  be  included  in  more  than  one  of  these  realms,  "the 
whole  distinction  of  real  and  unreal,"  as  he  says,8  "the  whole  psy- 
chology of  belief,  disbelief,  and  doubt"  being  "grounded  on  two 
mental  facts; — first,  that  we  are  liable  to  think  differently  of  the 
same"  (mental  items) ;  "and  secondly,  that  when  we  have  done  so,  we 
can  choose  which  way  of  thinking  to  adhere  to  and  which  to  dis- 
regard." 

1  Vol.  II.,  pages  291  ff. 
'"Consciousness,"  pages  231  ff. 
»  Op.  cit.,  page  290. 

477 


478  THE  JOURXAL  OJ'  I  HILOSOPHT 

In  other  words  these  diverse  realms  of  realness  are  in  fact  diverse 
noetic  systems  in  which  certain  specific  mental  items  appear,  and 
are  of  such  a  nature  that  what  we  call  ''the  same"  mental  items  may 
appear  in  several  systems,  and  may  be  real  in  one  system  while  very 
unreal  in  another. 

That  these  worlds  are  as  diverse  as  James  teaches  is  not  always 
evident.  To  be  sure  it  becomes  apparent  that  his  statements  are 
justified  when,  for  instance,  we  compare  the  "world  of  dreamland," 
or  the  "world  of  imaginative  make-believe,"  with  the  "world  of 
sense"  of  every-day  waking  experience:  or  when  we  compare  this 
latter  world  of  every-day  experience  with  what  James  called  "the 
world  of  ideal  relations,  or  abstract  truths  believed  or  believable  by 
all":  or  again,  when  we  compare  this  "world  of  sense"  with  that  of 
"immediate  experience  as  introspectively  recalled,"  or  with  that  of 
"reflection  upon  this  immediate  introspective  experience."  But  it 
is  not  so  evident  that  a  significant  diversity  exists  between  the 
"world  of  sense,  or  of  physical  things  as  we  instinctively  appre- 
hend them, ' '  and  the  ' '  world  of  science,  or  of  physical  things  as  the 
learned  conceive  them."  In  fact  these  two  "worlds"  do  not  seem  to 
the  average  scientist  to  be  separate  worlds  at  all;  and  even  when, 
led  by  such  suggestions  as  that  given  by  James,  he  begins  to  con- 
sider them  as  diverse,  he  is  likely  to  think  of  the  "world  of  science" 
merely  as  a  purer  form  of  the  "world  of  sense." 

That  the  diversity  of  these  two  worlds  is  thus  overlooked  is  ac- 
counted for,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  by  the  fact  that  there  is  a  very 
special  bond  between  the  two.  Nevertheless  if  we  study  their  na- 
tures with  care  we  soon  become  convinced  that  they  are  justly  judged 
to  be  as  diverse  as  any  of  the  other  worlds  above  referred  to.4 

4  The  diversity  between  the  ' '  world  of  science ' '  and  the  ' '  world  of  sense, 
or  of  physical  things  as  we  instinctively  apprehend  them,"  is  clearly  seen  when 
we  consider  the  concept  of  mechanism  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  generally 
accepted  in  our  day,  and  which  dominates  our  ' '  world  of  science. ' ' 

This  concept  of  mechanism  is  evidently  one  that  is  based  primarily  upon 
the  study  of  motions  of  inorganic  bodies  and  has  become  established  because  it 
serves  our  purpose  in  coordinating  many  situations  observable  in  the  material 
world  in  which  we  live;  and  in  maintaining  it  in  relation  to  the  inorganic  world 
we  choose  to  overlook  many  of  the  characteristics  observable  in  these  natural 
bodies  and  their  relations  as  they  are  given  in  the  "world  of  sense." 

For  instance,  because  it  serves  our  purpose  in  taking  this  view,  we  choose 
to  assume  the  existence  of  an  ethereal  medium,  and  agree  to  overlook  the  funda- 
mental contradictions  involved  in  the  very  nature  of  this  medium  as  conceived, 
as  well  as  the  fact  that  its  characteristics  transcend,  and  are  even  incompatible 
with,  experiences  that  are  familiar  to  us  in  our  observation  of  the  "world  of 
sense. ' '  In  like  manner  we  choose  to  overlook  the  difficulties  connected  with  the 
conception  of  potential  energy  and  with  the  distinction  between  kinetic  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         479 

II 

As  James  says,  the  whole  distinction  of  real  and  unreal  is 
grounded  upon  the  fact  that  these  diverse  " worlds"  exist;  that  what 
we  call  "the  same"  mental  items  may  appear  in  two  or  more  differ- 
ent "worlds";  and  that  these  mental  items  may  be  very  real  in  one 
' '  world ' '  while  very  unreal  in  another.  The  ether  which  is  very  real 
in  the  "mechanistic  world"  of  the  physicist  is  quite  unreal  in  the 
" world  of  sense,"  if  judged  by  the  canons  of  every-day  experience. 
The  rising  of  the  sun  is  very  real  in  the  ' '  world  of  sense, ' '  but  very 
unreal  in  the  astronomer's  "world  of  science."  Certain  items,  and 
the  relations  between  them,  appear  fully  real  in  our  "dreamland 
world,"  and  in  the  "make-believe  world"  of  the  constructive  imagi- 
nation, which  would  be  cast  aside  instantly  as  unreal  in  the  world 
of  every-day  experience. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  seems  clear  that  we  can  not  properly 
draw  conclusions  in  one  ' '  world ' '  from  premises  in  a  diverse  world ; 
nor  employ  concepts  derived  from  data  given  in  one  "world"  within 
a  quite  diverse  "world,"  without  logical  danger. 

potential  energy,  which  latter  can  not  be  said  to  be  more  than  a  name  devised 
to  describe  the  absence  of  all  signs  of  energy.  Again  we  choose  to  overlook  the 
problems  relating  to  the  basis  of  the  transformation  of  energy  from  potential  to 
kinetic  forms,  and  vice  versa,  as  well  as  the  more  fundamental  problems  arising 
when  we  attempt  to  account  for  the  existence  of  diverse  forms  of  energy,  and 
look  for  the  basis  of  the  transfer  from  one  form  to  another.  Beyond  this  we 
overlook  the  difficulties  connected  with  the  assumption  of  a  closed  energetic 
system,  as  well  as  those  connected  with  the  assumption  of  a  beginning  of  the 
conditions  that  have  led  to  present  situations. 

All  these  are  difficulties  and  inconsistencies  overlooked  when  we  build  up  the 
quite  artificial  "world  of  mechanism"  as  a  mode  of  interpretation  of  the  phe- 
nomena observed  in  the  inorganic  world.  When  we  turn  to  the  study  of  organic 
life  we  again  note  motion  followed  by  motion,  and  are  again  tempted  to  take  a 
mechanistic  view.  But  a  new  difficulty  arises  here  in  the  fact  that  vital  energy 
appears  diverse  from  all  other  forms  of  energy.  Even  if  this  vital  energy  is 
finally  shown  to  be  resolvable  into  the  forms  found  in  the  inorganic  world,  which 
have  given  rise  to  the  mechanistic  conception,  the  same  problems  above  referred 
to  in  considering  that  conception  must  be  overlooked  if  we  are  to  make  the  con- 
ception work,  and  a  new  one  in  connection  with  the  attempt  to  account  for  the 
basis  of  the  rise  of  the  vital  energy  form.  In  organic  life,  moreover,  we  find  a 
new  formidable  difficulty  in  the  existence  of  the  capacity  of  inheritance;  but 
especially  of  the  capacity  of  variation  involved  in  the  development  of  one  form 
from  another,  which,  as  Stout  says,  is  as  important  a  fact  as  inheritance. 

All  this  shows  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  very  artificially  restricted  concep- 
tion when  we  picture  the  universe  in  terms  of  energy,  or  of  motion  followed  by 
motion.  In  other  words,  we  are  choosing  to  dwell,  for  the  time  being,  not  in  the 
"world"  of  every-day  experience,  but  in  what,  from  the  standpoint  of  this 
every-day  experience,  is  a  "make-believe  world,"  just  as  much  as  the  imagina- 
tive "world"  of  "Alice  in  Wonderland"  and  the  "world"  of  the  shadow  pan- 
tomime are  ' '  make-believe  worlds. ' ' 


480  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

When  we  witness  a  shadow  pantomime  we  live  for  the  time  being 
in  a  "world"  where  real  situations  do  not  correspond  with  real 
situations  in  the  "world  of  every-day  experience,"  and  we  should 
not  for  a  moment  think  ourselves  warranted  in  concluding,  because 
the  shadow  girl  allows  the  shadow  man  to  kiss  her,  that  the  physical- 
object  girl  would  permit  such  a  liberty.  Or  taking  a  more  serious 
case,  we  may  note  how  impossible  it  is  to  make  proper  conclusions  in 
the  "world  of  introspective  observation"  from  premises  in  the 
"metaphysical  world."  In  the  latter,  pain  and  error  may  be  looked 
upon  as  unreal  by  the  absolutist,  while  "the  same"  pain  and  error 
in  the  "world  of  introspective  experience"  can  not  be  held  to  be 
unreal.  The  error  of  the  Christian  Scientist  lies  in  the  fact  that, 
half  grasping  the  absolutist  doctrine  in  a  "metaphysical  world," 
he  jumps  therefrom  to  conclusions  in  the  "world  of  introspective 
experience." 

Inasmuch  as  the  concepts  developed  in  any  one  "world"  are 
based  upon  the  appreciation  of  relations  that  are  found  real  in  that 
"world,"  I  think  it  will  be  granted  also  that  concepts  which  are  de- 
veloped in  any  one  special  "world"  can  not  be  transferred  to,  and 
made  applicable  within,  a  diverse  "world"  without  risk  of  confu- 
sion of  thought.  As  I  shall  attempt  to  show  in  the  sequel,  we  take 
just  such  a  dangerous  step  when  we  attempt  to  apply  the  concept  of 
causality  to  the  relation  between  mind  and  body. 

Ill 

It  seems  to  me  clear,  notwithstanding  the  views  of  eminent  think- 
ers to  which  I  refer  below,  that  the  concept  of  causality  arises  pri- 
marily in  connection  with  our  nai've  observation  of  natural  phe- 
nomena ;  that  it  is,  in  other  words,  a  concept  belonging  primarily  to 
the  "world  of  sense."  One  object  strikes  another  that  is  stationary; 
the  latter  then  moves;  the  former  loses  its  motion  in  whole  or  in 
part.  The  motion  of  the  first  object  is  thought  of  as  bound  up  with, 
and  the  basis  of,  the  motion  of  the  second.  The  experience  of  an  in- 
numerable number  of  facts  of  this  nature  leads  to  the  development 
of  the  concept  of  cause. 

From  the  "world  of  sense"  develops  the  "world  of  science"  and 
within  it  the  "world  of  mechanism";  and  although  this  newly  found 
"world"  is,  as  we  have  seen,  diverse  from  the  "world  of  sense," 
nevertheless  in  it  the  same  order  of  occurrences  appears  which  orig- 
inally yielded  the  concept  of  cause.  And  in  this  "world  of  me- 
chanism" this  causal  concept  becomes  of  very  fundamental  impor- 
tance. In  the  "world  of  sense"  attention  is  given  to  many  other 
than  causal  relations,  which  latter  are  only  occasionally  noted.  The 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         481 

"world  of  mechanism/'  on  the  other  hand,  excludes  all  forms  of  ex- 
perience to  which  it  is  impossible  to  apply  this  causal  concept,  a  fact 
which  becomes  more  and  more  significant  as  the  structure  of  science 
becomes  more  complex.  The  causal  concept  thus  serves  as  a  most 
powerful  bond  between  the  "world  of  sense"  and  the  "world  of 
mechanism,"  and  the  "world  of  science"  in  general;  and  its  im- 
portance is  thus  greatly  emphasized. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that,  whether  applied  in  the  "world  of  sense" 
or  in  the  "world  of  science,"  this  causal  concept  arises  in  connec- 
tion with  what  we  call  our  objective  view  of  experience. 

When  we  turn  to  what  we  call  the  subjective  view  of  experience, 
we  enter,  as  we  have  seen,  a  "world"  quite  diverse  from  the  "world 
of  sense"  and  equally  diverse  from  the  "world  of  science" — enter, 
in  other  words,  the  "world  of  immediate  experience  as  recalled," 
from  which  develops  the  "world  of  reflection  upon  this  immediate 
experience. ' ' 

In  these  new  "worlds"  we  should  naturally  expect  to  note  the 
development  of  certain  concepts  quite  diverse  from  those  developed 
in  the  "worlds"  of  sense  and  of  science,  and  this  expectation  we  find 
realized. 

In  the  "world  of  reflection  upon  immediate  experience,"  which 
we  describe  as  the  field  of  introspective  observation,  we  discover 
volitional  experiences  which  yield  a  concept  which  we  may  speak  of 
as  the  concept  of  efficiency. 

This  efficiency  concept  is  clearly  not  derived  from  data  found  in 
the  "worlds"  of  sense  or  science,  within  which  the  primal  concept 
of  cause  appears.  Nevertheless,  when  we  objectify  the  whole  situa- 
tion we  note  that  the  experience  of  efficiency  often  occurs  together 
with  motions  of  our  bodies,  which  in  turn  move  objects  just  as  they 
are  moved  in  the  world  of  physical  objects.  Hence  this  concept, 
which  I  here  call  efficiency,  becomes  closely  bound  up  with  the  causal 
concept,  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  is  not  uncommonly  thought 
to  be  of  its  very  essence — so  much  so  indeed  that  the  term  causation 
is  very  frequently  used  as  though  it  were  identical  with  the  term 
efficiency. 

Using  the  term  efficiency  thus,  and  because  of  the  observed  rela- 
tion above  noted,  we  are  led  to  make  a  false  step,  carrying  the  con- 
cept of  efficiency,  which  properly  belongs  only  to  the  world  of  intro- 
spective observation,  over  into  the  diverse  world  of  physical  objects, 
and  conceiving  of  efficiency  as  part  and  parcel  of  causation  in  the 
physical  world.  Thus  by  a  failure  to  keep  clearly  before  us  the  di- 
versity of  the  objective  and  subjective  "worlds"  we  come  to  attach 
the  term  causality  to  the  experience  of  efficiency,  on  the  one  hand, 


482  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and,  on  the  other  hand,  come  to  think  of  this  experience  of  efficiency 
as  of  the  very  essence  of  the  causal  concept. 

To  take  sin-h  ;i  position  as  is  thus  outlined  may  seem  somewhat 
audacious,  when  it  is  considered  how  many  keen  thinkers  have  up- 
held the  due-trine  that,  but  for  the  sense  of  efficiency  correlated  with 
successive  movements,  we  would  never  have  conceived  of  any  such 
thing  as  a  cause.  Thus  Dr.  James  Ward  tells  us5  that  "the  source 
and  primary  meaning"  of  cause  is  found  "unquestionably  in  our- 
selves as  active  and  efficient." 

Ni  \t  rtheless  I  must  be  bold  in  the  assertion  that  this  view  appears 
to  me  to  be  untenable;  for  if  I  read  experience  aright,  we  are  per- 
fectly capable  of  entertaining  the  conception  of  cause  in  nature 
without  attaching  to  it  any  attribute  of  efficiency  whatever.  For 
instance,  I  do  not  find  this  sense  of  efficiency  bound  up  with  my  no- 
tion of  the  causal  relation  between  the  activities  within  the  sun  and 
the  conditions  of  motion  upon  the  earth.  It  is  only  as  we  approach 
realms  closely  allied  with  those  which  are  distinctly  related  to  the 
direct  activities  of  man  himself  that  the  sense  of  efficiency  becomes 
bound  up  with  the  notion  of  cause  by  the  process  above  referred  to ; 
and  surely,  if  we  examine  the  evidence  critically,  we  find  in  our  ex- 
perience of  nature  no  evidence  whatever  of  what  we  call  efficiency 
when  we  speak  in  terms  of  immediate  experience. 

The  distinction  between  these  two  concepts  of  cause  and  effi- 
ciency stands  out  more  distinctly  when  we  consider  that  the  causal 
concept  as  derived  from  the  observation  of  nature,  and  quite  apart 
from  the  concept  of  efficiency,  depends  for  its  existence,  as  Hume 
taught  us,  upon  the  appreciation  of  what,  when  clearly  defined,  ap- 
pear, as  J.  S.  Mill  puts  it,  as  "ideas  of  invariable,  certain,  and  un- 
conditional sequence." 

On  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  concept  of  efficiency 
fn  the  world  of  introspective  observation  is  not  resolvable  into  "ideas 
of  invariable,  certain,  and  unconditional  sequence." 

It  is  of  course  a  matter  of  fact  that  we  do  in  every-day  conver- 
sation speak  of  mental  states  as  the  cause  of  physical  states,  and 
vice  versa.  But  we  must  note  that  we  all  very  commonly  apply  the 
concept  of  cause  where  we  have  no  right  whatever  to  do  so.  The 
average  man  is  restive  when  he  finds  it  difficult  to  account  for  any 
situation  that  baffles  him,  but  at  once  rests  satisfied  if  he  can  attrib- 
ute it  to  anything  that  he  can  call  a  cause.  It  has  been  said  that  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Bahama  Islands  believe  the  Gulf  Stream  does 
everything  but  milk  their  cows.  The  other  day  the  laundress  of  one 

•"The  Realm  of  Ends,"  page  273. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         483 

of  my  friends,  having  been  spoken  to  sympathetically  of  the  fog  on 
a  " washing  day,"  remarked  with  satisfied  complacency  "How  can 
you  expect  anything  else  when  everybody  tries  to  dry  their  clothes 
on  the  same  day?" 

It  is  true  that  we  should  not  apply  the  concept  of  cause  to  the 
relation  of  mind  and  body  did  we  not  find  some  measure  of  similar- 
ity between  the  experiences  involved  and  the  causal  succession  in 
nature,  and  we  may  grant  with  Hume  that  so  far  as  we  apply  th'e 
concept  of  causation  to  the  relation  of  mind  to  body  we  do  so  as  the 
result  of  judgments  based  upon  the  experience  of  successions.  But 
this  is  quite  apart  from  the  point  I  would  here  make.  What  I  am 
concerned  to  argue  is  that  the  concept  of  efficiency  is  derived  from 
data  given  wholly  in  the  mental  field  as  immediately  experienced, 
in  which  we  gain  none  of  the  characteristics  from  which  the  concept 
of  physical  causation  is  developed. 

It  is  true,  as  Hume  argued,  that  when  we  consider  ourselves  as 
active,  as  doing  something,  and  think  of  our  volitions  as  causes  of 
bodily  movements,  we  are  dealing  with  mere  successions, — succes- 
sions which  must  be  judged  to  be  invariable  and  unconditional  if  we 
are  to  justify  ourselves  in  speaking  of  the  volitions  as  the  causes  of 
the  bodily  acts.  But  I  submit  that  when  we  think  thus  of  this 
"sense  of  doing  something,"  we  objectify  the  whole  situation.  We 
think  of  our  "sense  of  doing  something"  as  "out  there,"  exactly  as 
if  it  were  the  "sense  of  doing  something"  thought  of  as  belonging 
to  another  man  in  the  objective  world,  rather  than  within  our  own 
introspective  experience.  And  we  then  carry  over  into  this  objecti- 
fied mental  field  the  causal  concept  derived  from  the  "world  of 
sense." 

This  is  natural  enough  when  one  considers  our  reckless  attribu- 
tion of  cause  above  referred  to,  and  is  a  common  procedure  in  the 
careless  life  of  the  average  man,  and  of  the  philosopher  when  he  lays 
aside  the  attitude  of  the  thinker  and  becomes  an  average  man.  The 
trouble  arises  however  when  the  philosopher,  as  a  thinker,  assumes 
that  he  is  justified,  not  only  in  carrying  over  the  causal  concept  into 
this  objectified  mental  field,  but  also  in  carrying  it  over  into  the 
non-objectified  field  of  immediate  experience.  It  is  one  thing  to 
apply  the  term  cause  where  we  note  mere  physical-mental  or  mental- 
physical  sequences,  following  the  habit  of  the  common  man  who 
thoughtlessly  applies  the  causal  relation  whenever  he  notes  sequences. 
It  is  quite  another  thing  to  show  the  warrant  for  this  application  of 
the  causal  concept,  if  we  agree  that  it  can  only  properly  be  applied 
when  sequences  are  recognized  to  be  "invariable,  certain,  and  un- 
conditional." 


484  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

If  the  position  thus  taken  is  warranted,  then  clearly,  when  we 
ask  whether  the  mind  can  act  causally  upon  body,  or  body  act 
causally  upon  mind,  we  must  use  care  in  distinguishing  the  diverse 
meanings  attributed  to  the  word  causation. 

Activities  of  body  when  considered  quite  objectively,  as  may  be 
done  in  our  study  of  the  behavior  of  animals  without  any  assump- 
tion of  consciousness  due  to  our  observation  of  the  analogy  between 
them  and  ourselves,  appear  as  part  of  the  mechanistic  system, 
within  the  "world  of  science."  Here,  causation,  in  the  sense  of  in- 
variable unconditional  succession,  may  be  held  to  apply.  But  the 
concept  of  efficiency  does  not  at  all  clearly  apply :  for,  if  we  strictly 
maintain  the  objective  attitude  we  have  no  evidence  whatever  of  the 
existence  of  mind  in  connection  with  this  objective  study  of  be- 
havior. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  we  consider  changes  in  consciousness 
as  such,  we  find  that  the  concept  of  efficiency  does  apply,  while  the 
concept  of  causation  in  the  sense  of  unconditional  invariableness  of 
succession  does  not  at  all  evidently  apply. 

It  must  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  also  that  when  we  consider  this 
question  we  are  not  dwelling  within  the  "world  of  physical  objects" 
which  gives  us  the  conception  of  causality  as  invariable  uncondi- 
tional sequence,  nor  within  the  "world  of  introspective  experience" 
which  gives  us  the  concept  of  efficiency,  but  in  a  realm  of  realness 
quite  diverse  from  both.  Thus,  in  applying  the  concept  of  causality 
to  the  mental  and  physical  items  in  this  new  "world,"  we  are  at- 
tempting to  cany  over  into  it  a  concept  derived  from  the  one  or  the 
other  of  the  diverse  worlds  first  mentioned.  The  question  is  whether 
we  have  any  right  to  take  this  step — a  question  which  can  not  fail 
to  be  raised  if  one  bears  in  mind  the  radical  difference  above  noted 
between  the  meaning  attributed  to  causation  in  the  realm  of  body 
and  in  the  realm  of  mind. 

IV 

In  taking  up  the  consideration  of  this  question  we  must  note  in 
the  first  place  that  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  an  obvious  error  made  by 
the  average  man,  who  is  wont  to  think  that  the  mind  sometimes  acts 
causally  upon  the  body  and  that  sometimes  the  body  acts  causally 
upon  the  mind.  We  seem  bound  to  reject  any  such  haphazard  and 
dubious  relation,  and  to  ask  two  questions ;  viz.,  first,  whether  we  are 
warranted  in  holding  that  the  mind  always  or  sometimes  acts  caus- 
ally upon  the  body,  and,  secondly,  whether  the  body  sometimes  or 
always  acts  causally  upon  the  mind.  And  we  are  also  called  upon 
to  consider  each  of  these  questions  in  relation  with  the  two  concepts 
above  considered,  viz.,  that  of  causation  proper  derived  from  our 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         485 

objective  observation  of  the  world  of  objects,  and  that  of  efficiency 
derived  from  our  reflection  upon  introspective  experience  which  is 
held  by  many  to  be  of  the  essence  of  the  causal  concept. 

Let  us  take  up  first  the  concept  of  causation  as  it  is  thought  of 
by  those  who  hold  that  it  is  derived  from  our  experience  of  efficiency. 
If  under  this  view  we  hold  that  a  bodily  state  is  in  any  case  the 
cause  of  a  mental  change,  we  are  compelled  to  assume  in  physical 
nature  the  existence  of  an  efficiency  of  which  we  have  no  evidence 
whatever. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  hold  in  any  case  that  a  mental  state 
causes  a  bodily  act,  we  hold  that  the  bodily  act  was  due  to  the  effi- 
ciency component  of  the  mental  state.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to 
bring  such  a  tenet  into  harmony  with  the  phenomena  of  habit,  where 
we  note  that  acts,  which  are  at  first  preceded  by  mental  states  which 
involve  this  sense  of  efficiency,  if  repeated,  soon  follow  the  occur- 
rence of  mental  states  which  do  not  involve  this  sense  of  efficiency, 
and  are  finally  performed  without  the  occurrence  of  any  recogniz- 
able, antecedent,  correlated  mental  states  whatever. 

If  now  we  take  the  term  causation  in  the  sense  applicable  to  our 
observations  of  the  external  world,  we  can  apply  it  to  the  relation 
between  mind  and  body  only  by  showing  that  we  have  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  certain  special  mental  changes  follow  invariably  and  un- 
conditionally certain  special  physical  changes;  or  that  certain 
special  physical  changes  follow  invariably  and  unconditionally  cer- 
tain special  mental  changes. 

We  do  note  certain  mental  changes  which  in  repeated  instances 
appear  to  follow  certain  changes  of  bodily  activities;  but  we  surely 
are  not  warranted  in  saying  that  these  sequences  are  invariable  and 
unconditional.  The  cutting  of  superficial  nerves  is  often  in  our  ex- 
perience followed  by  a  marked  painful  sensation;  but  that  this  suc- 
cession is  not  invariable  or  unconditional  appears  clear  when  we  note 
that  the  soldier  in  the  heat  of  battle  often  fails  to  appreciate  the  fact 
that  he  has  received  a  superficial  wound;  this  being  an  example  of 
the  influence  of  what  we  call  a  change  of  "threshold"  of  awareness. 

In  like  manner  we  do  note  certain  bodily  changes  which  in  re- 
peated instances  appear  to  follow  certain  mental  changes;  but  we 
surely  are  not  warranted  in  saying  that  these  sequences  are  invari- 
able and  unconditional.  Grief  is  so  often  followed  by  ill-health  that 
we  carelessly  speak  of  the  former  as  the  cause  of  the  latter,  but  the 
sequence  is  really  not  invariable  or  unconditional.  Volitional  ex- 
perience does  not  always  prevail  to  overthrow,  or  even  to  modify, 
habitual  activities. 


486  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Surely  then,  whether  we  hold  that  mind  acts  on  body,  or  body  on 
mind,  we  are  bound  to  agree  that  it  is  impossible  to  hold  that  the 
succession  of  changes  is  unconditional  even  where  it  appears  to  be 
invariable.  Under  such  conditions,  in  the  "world  of  sense,"  and, 
its  development,  the  "world  of  science,"  from  which  the  concept  of 
causation  here  considered  is  derived,  we  are  led,  not  to  the  attribu- 
tion of  a  direct  causal  relation  between  the  two  successive  phenom- 
ena, but  to  the  postulation  of  a  causal  influence  beyond  both ;  as  the 
invariability  of  the  sequence  of  night  and  day  are  appreciated  to  be 
conditioned  by  something  in  nature  extrinsic  to  them.  We  may  in 
the  end  find  ourselves  compelled  to  postulate  some  cause  as  the  de- 
terminant of  the  observed  relation  of  correspondence  between  mental 
and  physical  changes,  but  this  does  not  imply  that  we  are  forced  to 
apply  the  causal  concept  to  the  mental-physical  relation  itself. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  if  we  deny  ourselves  the 
luxury  of  occasional  leaps  from  the  realm  of  introspective  observa- 
tion into  the  realm  of  physical  objects,  which  is  the  "world  of  real- 
ity" of  every-day  life,  or  vice  versa,  and  if  we  persistently  cling 
strictly  to  the  realm  of  introspective  observation,  then  nerve  activi- 
ties, and  all  other  objects  in  the  outer  world,  appear  as  complex 
systematized  psychic  systems,  or  as  complex  emphases  within  con- 
sciousness, fundamentally  of  the  same  nature  as  those  spoken  of  as 
distinctly  mental.  In  such  a  view  the  neururgic-noetic  correspond- 
ence appears  as  a  correspondence  quite  within  consciousness,  and 
presents  a  problem  quite  diverse  from  that  to  which  the  concept  of 
causality  applies. 

V 

Assuming  that  the  validity  of  the  application  of  the  concept  of 
causality  to  the  relation  between  mind  and  body  is  open  to  grave 
question,  nevertheless  as  it  is,  in  fact,  thus  applied  by  the  average 
man,  we  should  not  be  surprised,  after  what  has  been  said  above,  to 
find  that  he  comes  to  look  upon  this  causal  relation  as  a  thoroughly 
haphazard  and  lawless  one,  although  we  may  well  wonder  that 
thinkers  do  not  protest  against  such  inconsistency.  Few  of  us  in- 
deed can  claim  to  be  free  from  such  a  charge.  We  are  usually  quite 
content  to  say  that  sometimes  the  mind  acts  upon  the  body  and  some- 
times it  does  not ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  sometimes  the  body 
acts  upon  the  mind  and  sometimes  it  does  not.  We  say  for  instance 
that  indigestion,  which  is  a  physical  state,  gives  my  friend  "the 
blues,"  which  is  a  mental  state;  but  we  do  not  seem  to  think  that  any 
physical  state  causes  such  a  mental  state  as  an  act  of  will.  We  say 
that  a  noise,  which  is  a  mental  state,  makes  our  friend  jump,  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         487 

jumping  being  clearly  a  change  of  physical  state ;  but  we  do  not  seem 
to  think  that  any  antecedent  mental  state  causes  the  winking  of  his 
eyelids,  or  the  throbbing  of  his  heart,  which  are  also  physical  states. 

But  this  difficulty  disappears  altogether  if  we  look  away  from 
this  causal  relation  and  concentrate  our  attention  upon  the  corre- 
spondence between  mental  and  body  changes ;  for  then  we  find  much 
evidence  that  there  is  a  thorough-going  correspondence  between  suc- 
cessions of  neururgic  and  noetic  changes  which  enables  us  to  account 
for  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  in  a  manner  freed  from  the  ac- 
ceptance of  haphazardness  and  lawlessness. 

Under  such  a  view  certain  changes  in  the  nature  of  the  activi- 
ties within  the  nervous  system  are  held  to  be  coincident  with  the 
appearance  of  certain  specific  mental  items.  There  thus  appears  to 
be  a  correspondence  between  neururgic  and  noetic  forms,  and  evi- 
dence of  the  breadth  of  this  correspondence  increases  as  our  knowl- 
edge of  nerve  activity  increases.  Furthermore,  if  we  assume  that 
the  correspondence  is  thoroughgoing  in  the  individual,  we  are  en- 
abled to  correlate  many  phenomena  in  mental  fields,  such  correla- 
tion being  suggested  by  noticeable  correlations  in  neururgic  fields. 
This  theory  of  thoroughgoing  correspondence  being  thus  corrobo- 
rated, if  carried  to  what  appear  to  be  its  legitimate  conclusions, 
indicates,  first,  that  there  is  psychic  existence  wherever  there  is  life ; 
and  finally,  that  to  all  transfer  of  energy  some  psychic  change  corre- 
sponds.6 

Now  what  we  have  to  deal  with  in  connection  with  this  theory  is 
merely  corresponding  successions  in  both  the  neururgic  and  the 
noetic  series,  and,  if  we  approach  our  problem  from  this  standpoint, 
we  find  the  interpretation  of  the  facts  concerning  the  relation  of 
mind  to  body,  which  are  usually  made  in  terms  of  causation, 
thoroughly  well  interpretable  without  any  such  use  of  this  causal 
concept,  provided  we  accept  the  view  that  there  is  a  psychic  field  of 
non-awareness,  a  view  in  favor  of  which  we  have  much  cogent  evi- 
dence. 

In  closing,  then,  let  us  consider  a  few  cases  to  illustrate  how  the 
apparent  haphazardness  and  lawlessness  of  the  relation  between 
mind  and  body  disappear  if  we  interpret  this  relation  in  terms  of 
correspondence  rather  than  in  terms  of  causation. 

If  I  were  to  walk  up  behind  a  man  and  discharge  a  pistol  close 

•  This  I  call  the  theory  of  neururgic  and  noetic  correspondence  to  differen- 
tiate it  from  the  theory  of  parallelism  which  was  devised  by  the  atomistic  psy- 
chologists, and  which  fails  in  many  directions.  The  theory  of  correspondence, 
however,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  meets  these  difficulties  in  assuming  that  changes  in 
a  psychic  system  correspond  with  changes  in  the  physical  system  as  differentiated 
in  the  nerve  system. 


488  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

to  his  ear  he  would  jump  aside  suddenly  and  would  be  likely  to  de- 
scribe the  occurrence  by  saying  "the  noise  made  me  jump."  The 
noise  is  a  psychic  state,  while  the  jump  is  due  to  certain  active  mus- 
cular states  occasioned  by  changes  in  the  nervous  system.  His  de- 
scription therefore  implies  that  the  psychic  state  (the  noise)  in  some 
mysterious  way  caused  the  physical  change  (the  jump). 

But  if  we  consider  the  case  merely  as  an  instance  of  coordinate 
successive  occurrence  the  mystery  seems  at  once  to  disappear.  The 
psychic  change,  which  we  call  the  noise,  was  accompanied  by  a 
change  of  nerve  condition,  and  in  like  manner  the  jump,  which  was 
due  to  certain  nerve  activities,  was  accompanied  by  certain  "in- 
stinct feelings"  quite  within  the  mental  order.  What  happened 
may  therefore  be  formulated  as  follows: 

Mental  series (A)  Noise,  followed  by  (B)  "instinct-feeling." 

Corresponding 
physical  series  ...  (X)  Nerve  change,    followed  by  (F)  jump. 

But  in  his  description  of  this  occurrence  the  average  man  over- 
looks the  nerve  change  X  and  also  the  instinct-feeling  B,  so  that  he 
thinks  of  the  jump  as  due  to  the  noise  rather  than  to  the  overlooked 
nerve  change  X.  When  the  situation  is  stated  in  the  terms  above 
used  this  occurrence  surely  seems  quite  natural  and  not  especially 
involved  in  mystery. 

Or  let  us  take  another  commonplace  case.  The  ordinary  man  is 
likely  to  say  of  one  of  his  friends  "His  deep  grief  (mental  state) 
made  him  ill  (nerve  situation)." 

If  the  occurrence  thus  described  is  formulated  as  above  we  have : 

Mental  series (A)  Grief,  followed  by  (B)  a  mental  state 

(overlooked). 
Corresponding 

physical  series (X)  Nerve  situation    followed  by  (T)  illness. 

(overlooked), 

In  his  description  of  this  occurrence  the  ordinary  man  overlooks 
the  nerve  change  X  and  also  the  psychic  change  B,  so  that  he  thinks 
of  the  illness  as  due  to  the  grief  rather  than  to  the  depressed  nerve 
condition  accompanying  this  grief. 

So  again  you  may  hear  some  one  say  "My  act  of  will  (mental 
state)  made  my  arm  move  (physical  state)."  But  if  we  state  this  in 
terms  of  a  similar  formulation  we  have : 

Mental  series (A)  Will-act  followed  by  (B)  a  mental  state 

(overlooked). 
Corresponding 

physical  series (X)  Nerve  change       followed  by  (F)  arm  movement. 

(overlooked), 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         489 

In  the  ordinary  description  of  this  occurrence  the  nerve  change 
(X)  corresponding  with  the  will-act  (A)  is  overlooked  as  is  also  the 
psychic  change  (B)  corresponding  with  the  arm  movement  (F),  so 
that  the  arm  movement  is  thought  of  as  due  to  the  appreciated  will- 
act  rather  than  to  the  nerve  condition  that  accompanied  this  will- 
act. 

The  commonplace  remark  about  willing  to  move  one's  arm  is 
closely  allied  with  similar  remarks  made  by  a  very  large  number  of 
people  in  these  days  whom  you  are  accustomed  to  hear  say  "I  willed 
to  be  cured  and  I  am  now  well";  or  in  other  words  "my  will-act 
(mental)  gave  me  good  health  (physical)." 

If  this  is  formulated  as  above  it  reads  as  follows : 

Mental  series (A)  Will-act,  followed  by  (B)  mental  conditions 

(overlooked). 
Corresponding 

physical  series  ...   (X)  Nerve  changes      followed  by  (Y)  good  health, 
(overlooked), 

In  the  ordinary  description  of  this  occurrence  the  nerve  change 
(X)  corresponding  with  the  will-act  (A)  and  also  the  mental  state 
(B)  corresponding  with  good  health  (Y)  are  overlooked,  so  that  the 
restored  health  is  thought  of  as  due  to  the  will-act  rather  than  to  the 
resultants  of  the  nerve  changes  corresponding  with  this  will-act. 

The  same  people  who  tell  us  that  they  regain  their  health  by  will 
power  are  likely  to  say:  "By  an  act  of  will  I  can  make  pain  disap- 
pear. ' '  If  the  occurrences  upon  which  they  base  such  a  broad  state- 
ment are  formulated  as  above,  we  have : 

Mental  series (A)  Will-act,  followed  by  (5)  loss  of  pain. 

Corresponding 

physical  series (X)  Nerve  change  followed  by  (F)  nerve  change 

(  overlooked ) ,  (  overlooked ) . 

Here  the  nerve  changes  that  accompany  both  the  act  of  will  and 
the  loss  of  pain  are  overlooked,  so  that  the  person  who  speaks  thus  is 
aware  of  merely  (A)  the  will-act  (mental)  followed  by  (B)  loss  of 
pain  (mental). 

It  is  true  that  in  some  cases  the  will-act  is  followed  by  disap- 
pearance of  pain;  which  merely  means  that  the  nerve  situation  ac- 
companying a  particular  will-act  is  followed  by  special  nerve  condi- 
tions whose  psychic  correspondents  involve  no  pain.  We  have,  how- 
ever, no  evidence  to  warrant  us  in  holding  that  the  sequence  is  in- 
variable and  unconditional,  and  that  therefore  the  causal  concept 
is  applicable.  In  other  words  we  have  no  adequate  evidence  to  war- 


490  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPH  Y 

rant  us  in  holding  that  the  nerve  state  accompanying  the  will-act  is 
in  all  cases  followed  by  the  healthy  physical  stale  which  carries  with 
it  this  loss  of  pain.  That  is  to  say,  the  experience  above  described 
gives  us  no  ground  for  the  belief  that  if  a  man  has  sufficient  "will 
power"  he  can  always  remove  the  unhealthy  conditions  which  yield 
pain. 

II;  N*RY  RUTGERS  MARSHALL. 
NEW  YORK  CITY. 


LITERARY  SYNESTHESIA 

"OEADIXG  the  literature  of  synesthesia  one  is  frequently  im- 
-L ^  pressed  by  the  poetical  value  of  many  of  the  sense-analogies 
reported.  It  would  seem  that  this  aspect  of  the  topic  has  been  par- 
ticularly interesting  to  the  French  investigators  of  the  subject,  so 
that,  in  conjunction  with  the  more  strictly  scientific  reports  of  such 
cases,  they  have  given  us  an  exposition  of  them  from  the  standpoint 
of  musical  and  literary  criticism.  French  poets  have  themselves 
manifested  their  interest  in  synesthetic  experiences  and  have  not 
hesitated  to  utilize  such  material  in  enhancing  poetic  expression. 
One  recalls  Max  Nordau's  unhesitating  condemnation  of  the  attempt 
to  confound  sense-qualities  and  his  inevitable  conclusion  that  such 
exchange  of  adjectives  is  only  a  fantastic  straining  after  novelty  of 
effect,  or,  if  rooted  in  actual  experience,  a  confession  of  degeneracy. 

Psychologically,  the  attempt  to  treat  together  cases  of  true  synes- 
thesia, in  which  sensations  of  a  given  sensory  quality  regularly  and 
uniformly  arouse  sensations  of  another  sensory  tone,  and  cases  of 
so-called  colored  thinking  or  the  employment  of  sense-analogies  in  a 
figurative  or  reflective  way,  has  induced  some  confusion.  Each  of 
these  topics  is  undeniably  interesting  and  may  be  related  to  the  other 
in  ways  not  yet  thought  of,  but  at  present  each  demands  separate 
treatment. 

We  may  then  legitimately  ask  (1)  to  what  extent  true  synesthesia 
is  to  be  found  among  poets,  recognizing  this  question  as  distinct  from 
that  which  asks  (2)  the  esthetic  value  of  an  exchange  of  sense-quali- 
ties and  the  extent  to  which  such  transfer  is  employed  by  imaginative 
writers.  The  objection  may,  however,  be  raised  that,  apart  from  a 
personal  examination  of  a  given  poet,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
answer  the  first  question,  for  in  appeal  for  answer  to  the  poet's  works 
we  can  not  with  certainty  distinguish  between  spontaneous  and  delib- 
erate analogies.  The  objection  is  undoubtedly  well  taken.  None  the 
less,  the  attempt  to  answer  the  question  allures  one.  It  seems 
scarcely  possible,  for  instance,  that  a  poet,  who  experienced  a  sys- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         491 

tematic  case  of  colored  audition,  in  whom,  that  is,  sound  uniformly 
and  constantly  aroused  color,  would  fail  to  show  this  peculiarity  in 
descriptive  writing. 

The  question  as  to  the  prevalence  of  synesthesia  among  poets 
aroused  the  interest  of  Bleuler  and  Lehmann  in  their  early  report  on 
synesthesia  to  such  an  extent  that  an  examination  was  made  of  cer- 
tain literary  material,  but  largely  with  negative  result. 

French  literature,  on  the  other  hand,  raises  many  questions  as  to 
the  possibility  of  poets '  experiencing  synesthesia  to  an  undue  degree. 
Every  one  will  recall  Rimbaud's  "Sonnet  of  the  Vowels,"  which,  it 
must  be  confessed,  sounds  somewhat  sophisticated.  Baudelaire's  in- 
sistence upon  sense-correspondences  and  Maupassant's  confessions 
are  scarcely  more  convincing.  Leaving,  however,  the  French  poet 
and  litterateur  to  the  mercy  of  the  French  critic  and  psychologist,  I 
have  found  it  interesting  to  make  a  somewhat  detailed  study  of  cer- 
tain English  poets  in  order  to  determine  whether  or  not  their  poetry 
shows  any  evidence  of  systematic  or  sporadic  arousal  of  one  sensation 
by  another. 

Only  one  unambiguous  case  was  discovered.  Poe,  singing  of  the 
sound  of  the  coming  darkness,  adds  in  a  footnote  to  "Al  Aaraaf": 
"I  have  often  thought  I  could  distinctly  hear  the  sound  of  the  dark- 
ness as  it  stole  over  the  horizon."  This  simple  and  apparently  iso- 
lated case  of  tonal  vision  is  in  interesting  contrast  to  the  more  usual 
feeling  of  silence  that  so  frequently  steals  upon  one  at  sundown. 

After  this  one  attested  instance,  Swinburne's  poetry  furnishes 
the  best  evidence  for  a  possible  synesthesia.  It  is  Swinburne's 
peculiarity  to  deal  with  simple  sense-qualities  in  an  abstract  and 
emotional  way  with  results  very  unlike  the  plastic  and  pictorial 
effects  produced  by  poets  of  another  type.  As  Woodberry  has 
pointed  out,  it  is  this  abstractness  from  perceptual  quality  that  ac- 
counts for  the  peculiarly  elusive  and  monotonous  effect  of  Swin- 
burne's poetry.  Swinburne's  preoccupation  with  simple  sensational 
tone  might  well  furnish  opportunity  for  the  expression  of  true  syn- 
esthesia and  such  we  seem  to  find.  Light  and  music  are  used  as 
almost  interchangeable  terms.  He  sings  of  sounds  that  shine,  and  of 
song  visible.  His  is  the  line:  "Light  heard  as  music,  music  seen  as 
light."  Swinburne  was,  however,  influenced  greatly  by  modern 
French  tendencies,  so  that  it  is  possible  that  such  exchange  of  sound 
andjight  is  merely  literary. 

~~~A  survey  of  Shelley's  poetry  shows  that  he  makes  use  of  odor 
terms  in  a  peculiar  way,  in  description  of  things  visual  and  auditive. 
Sometimes,  light  and  music  are  blended  in  his  similes;  the  song  of 
both  the  skylark  and  of  the  nightingale  are  described  in  pictorial 


492  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

terms.  Usually,  however,  his  comparisons  are  too  deliberate  to 
evidence  any  confusion.  The  same  statement  may  be  made  in  gen- 
eral of  Keats 's  taste  and  touch  analogies.  These  poets  delighted,  as 
it  were,  in  embellishing  their  figures  with  a  favored  form  of  imagery. 

The  sense-analogies  of  William  Blake  are  more  difficult  to  qualify. 
He  has,  for  instance,  an  odd  way  of  describing  things  heard  in  terms 
of  things  seen.  Unlike  Swinburne's  transfer  of  qualitative  words, 
Blake's  shift  is  at  the  perceptual  level  rather  than  at  the  sensational, 
as  when  he  speaks  of  a  virgin  clothed  in  sighs. 

Tonal  vision — a  very  rare  form  of  synesthesia — is  frequently 
imitated  in  these  poetic  analogies.  So  too  is  olfactory  vision  and 
olfactory  audition,  of  which,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  actual  experi- 
ence is  on  record,  although  the  latter  is  a  favorite  form  of  phrasing 
among  musical  critics  who  imitate  synesthetic  effects.  Sound  de- 
scribed as  light  occurs,  but  usually  without  suggestion  of  colored 
audition  except  in  the  use  of  the  vague  color-adjectives  silver  and 
gold.  The  nearest  approach  to  synesthetic  phrasing  of  this  sort 
comes  in  Swinburne's  line, 

' '  Fine  honey  of  song-notes,  goldener  than  gold. ' ' 

But  in  actual  experience,  colored  audition  is  the  most  common  form 
of  synesthetic  experience. 

On  the  whole,  the  evidence  for  the  prevalence  of  synesthesia 
among  poets  is  ambiguous.  In  order  to  weigh  the  matter  more  thor- 
oughly the  question  may  be  raised  as  to  the  esthetic  and  affective 
values  of  synesthesia  as  a  literary  device.  To  test  this  the  following 
experiment  was  made.  Thirty-four  fragments,  the  phrasing  of  which 
was  synesthetic,  were  chosen  from  the  5  poets  mentioned  above — Poe 
(3),  Swinburne  (9),  Shelley  (11),  Keats  (4),  Blake  (7)— and  were 
included  among  100  poetic  fragments  used  in  a  test  on  the  imaginal, 
affective,  and  esthetic  reaction  to  poetry.  Twelve  subjects  served  in 
determination  of  the  imaginal  and  affective  reactions  to  these  frag- 
ments. The  esthetic  and  affective  values  were  obtained  by  using  the 
group  method  of  finding  the  average  position  of  each  fragment  in  the 
series  as  a  whole.  For  this  last  determination  6  subjects  served. 
The  fragments  were  arranged  in  8  groups  for  each  of  the  2  series  of 
judgments. 

A  survey  of  the  average  position  given  each  of  the  100  fragments 
on  the  basis  of  their  pleasantness  shows  that  20  of  the  synesthetic 
fragments  are  to  be  found  in  the  first  50,  or  more  pleasant  group; 
14  in  the  second  50,  or  less  pleasant  group.  There  is,  then,  a  slight 
indication  of  the  pleasantness  of  such  fragments.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  we  take  the  20  most  pleasant  fragments  and  the  20  most  un- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         493 

pleasant,  we  find  that  the  first  group  contains  5  and  the  second  7 
synesthetic  fragments.  5  is  a  trifle  under,  7  about  equal  to  what  we 
would  expect  from  a  chance  distribution.  In  two  of  the  pleasant 
fragments  of  the  former  group,  moreover,  the  synesthetic  element  is 
very  slight.  It  does  not  appear,  then,  that  synesthesia  as  a  literary 
device  is  particularly  pleasing.  The  objection  may  be  raised  that 
with  familiarity  these  fragments  might  become  more  pleasant,  since 
repetition  would  overcome  the  strangeness,  and  perhaps  unpleasant- 
ness, of  the  phrasing.  But  in  a  series  of  repeated  judgments  there 
was  little  evidence  for  this  view,  since  as  many  synesthetic  fragments 
waned  in  affective  value  as  waxed. 

A  survey  of  the  average  position  of  each  fragment  of  the  100  in 
the  esthetic  series  shows  16  synesthetic  fragments  in  the  first  50,  and 
18  in  the  second  50,  a  very  even  distribution.  But  there  are  8  syn- 
esthetic fragments  in  the  first  20,  9  in  the  last  20;  in  both  cases  a 
trifle  above  the  expected  number.  It  would  appear,  then,  that  syn- 
esthetic phrasing  has  slightly  more  influence  upon  the  esthetic  than 
upon  the  affective  judgment. 

The  M.V.  upon  the  synesthetic  fragments  is  no  greater  than  upon 
the  whole  series  of  fragments.  But  both  for  the  whole  series  and  for 
the  synesthetic  group  the  M.V.  is  greater  for  the  esthetic  judgment 
than  for  the  judgment  of  pleasantness.  This  shows  that  the  former 
judgment  is  even  more  subjective  than  the  latter. 

Some  cases  of  striking  discrepancy  between  the  affective  and 
esthetic  judgments  may  be  noted.  Here  we  may  quote  a  Swinburne 
fragment  which  is  held  to  be  of  high  esthetic  value,  although  very 
unpleasant.  It  reads : 

"And  swordlike  was  the  sound  of  the  iron  wind." 
The  following  from  Keats : 

"O  turn  thee  to  the  very  tale, 
And  taste  the  music  of  that  vision  pale," 

is  given  a  very  much  lower  place  on  the  esthetic  than  on  the  affective 
scale.  There  are  only  2  fragments  in  the  100  esthetically  inferior 
to  this ;  but  there  are  41  that  are  more  unpleasant.  One  of  the  two 
non-esthetic  fragments  spoken  of  in  the  preceding  sentence  is 
Shelley's  line, 

"And  music  from  her  respiration  spread 
Like  light." 

This  fragment,  again,  is  less  esthetic  than  pleasant.  On  the  first 
scale  it  occupies  the  one  hundredth  or  last  position ;  but  there  are  33 
fragments  held  to  be  more  unpleasant. 

A  survey  of  the  reports  shows,  however,  that  each  poet  must  be 


494  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

considered  separately  and  in  connection  with  the  imaginal  reports 
from  the  reagents.  Of  the  12  reagents  who  gave  these  reports,  only 
3  showed  any  tendency  to  synesthetic  experiences.  Of  these,  one 
(B)  shows  a  pronounced  case  of  colored  gustation.  Although  he  had 
never  previously,  so  far  as  he  could  recall,  experienced  colored  audi- 
tion, during  the  test  he  reported  such  transfer,  always  in  imaginal 
terms.  Another  reagent  (D)  has  experienced  colored  audition  occa- 
sionally and  uses  color-thinking  to  some  degree.  A  third  (E) 
during  the  course  of  the  test  was  found  to  translate  sound  into  terms 
of  sight  with  great  frequency.  The  reports  of  these  subjects  are  of 
particular  interest. 

The  Blake  fragments  were,  without  exception,  on  the  average, 
both  unpleasant  and  of  slight  esthetic  value.  His  description  of  the 
auditory  in  visual  terms  is  felt  to  be  ridiculous  or  unmeaning,  as  in 
the  line, 

"And  all  thy  moans  flew  o'er  my  roof,  but  I  have  called  them  down." 

Translated  into  definite  imagery,  this  fragment  becomes  absurd,  as 
was  reported  by  one  reader  to  whom  the  moans  appeared  as  pigeons. 
A  slight  blurring  of  the  imagery  so  that  merely  vague  flying  crea- 
tures of  some  sort  are  seen  renders  the  imagery  more  supportable. 
The  lines, 

"Sweet  moans,  dovelike  sighs, 
Chase  not  slumber  from  thine  eyes," 

again  bring  visual  personification  of  one  sort  or  another.  D,  who 
finds  the  fragment  more  pleasing  than  do  the  other  subjects,  is  the 
only  one  who  reports  a  literal  translation.  The  vaguely  outlined 
moans  and  sighs,  evanescent  visual  flashes  of  gray,  are  felt  brushing 
the  eyelids  in  a  faint  flicker. 

These  illustrations  may  serve  as  examples  of  Blake's  tendency  to 
translate  his  thoughts  into  terms  of  vision.  Much  more  successful 
than  such  attempts  are  those  in  which  he  surrenders  to  sound.  The 
laughing  cadence  of  certain  of  his  verses  for  children  gives  almost  the 
effect  of  auditory  hallucination ;  the  laugh  itself  resounds  through 
the  verse.  Blake,  it  is  said,  was  not  only  poet,  painter,  and  seer,  but 
also  musician. 

Poe's  phonism  of  the  approaching  night,  his  readers  usually  find 
unmeaning  or  else  understand  it  as  descriptive  of  the  sound  of 
thunder  borne  on  the  wings  of  the  storm-cloud,  an  interpretation 
which  suggests  the  possible  origin  of  the  experience.  Several  call  the 
phrasing  incongruous  and,  in  general,  it  is  not  pleasing. 

Poe  gives  no  other  example  of  clear-cut  synesthesia  and  offers  few 
instances  of  striking  sense-analogies.  Once  he  forms  a  pretty  conceit 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         495 

of  a  goddess's  song  carried  to  heaven  as  odor  and  he  describes  the 
sparkling  Echoes  that  flow  through  the  door  of  the  Haunted  Palace 
in  terms  of  visual  personification.  This  latter  description  pleases  his 
readers  exceedingly.  Every  reagent  makes  a  more  or  less  poetic 
picture ;  two  of  them  do  so  in  striking  synesthetic  fashion.  E  writes, 
' '  Through  the  open  door  is  streaming  waves  of  white,  blue,  and  pink 
light,  which  I  hear  as  soft  sweet  music."  And  B  reports,  "I  see  a 
beautiful  door  to  a  palace  and  pale  blue  and  darker  blue  lights  flash 
from  it.jj. 

Movement  vivifies  Poe's  imagery  to  an  extraordinary  extent.  He 
delights  in  winged  odors,  floating  banners,  ethereal  dances.  This 
preoccupation  with  movement  affects  even  his  description  of  things 
auditory.  He  images  a  gush  of  melody  welling  from  sounding  cells ; 
he  sings  of  floating  ditties  and  of  groans  that  float;  and  in  "Lenore," 

"No  dirge  will  I  upraise, 
But  waft  the  angel  on  her  flight  with  a  paean  of  old  days ! ' ' 

This  intimate  union  of  vision  and  movement  brings  it  about  that 
such  descriptions  of  sound  in  terms  of  movement  evoke  frequently  a 
visual  interpretation.  Sometimes  even  a  complete  translation  of 
sound  into  vision  is  effected,  as  by  one  reader  (E)  of  the  line  quoted 
above  who  saw  the  music  following  the  angel  in  a  stream  of  light. 
Such  translation  by  Poe  of  sound  into  movement  and  a  retranslation 
by  the  reader  into  visual  terms  perhaps  best  explains  the  fact  that 
the  reports  on  Poe  show  a  greater  number  of  synesthetic  translations 
than  do  those  on  any  other  poet. 

Swinburne's  synesthetic  phrasing,  although  often  reported  to  be 
unmeaning,  derives  so  much  beauty  from  its  association  with  melodi- 
ous words  and  rhythmic  cadences  that  the  reader,  preoccupied  with 
the  delight  in  sheer  word-music,  often  surrenders  all  demand  for 
meaning.  Swinburne's  frequent  attempt  to  render  song  visible  is, 
however,  rarely  successful,  although  there  are  readers  who  make  the 
transfer,  as  E  who  images  the  visible  music  as  tiny  motes  flying  in 
the  sunlight  and  B  who  sees  the  blue,  not  of  the  sky,  but  of  the 
music,  shining  through  rifts  in  fleecy  clouds. 

Keats  was  not  particularly  successful  in  his  synesthetic  frag- 
ments. The  most  effective  is  that  in  which  he  sings  of  the  "velvet 
summer  song"  of  the  wind,  lines  apt  in  the  arousal  of  tactile 
imagery.  The  most  noted  of  his  synesthetic  fragments  is  the  one 
reading, 

' '  Lost  in  pleasure,  at  her  feet  he  sinks, 
Touching  with  dazzled  lips  her  starlight  hand." 

It  is  significant  that  the  one  reagent  (D)  who  made  an  almost  hal- 
lucinatory translation  of  the  fragment  into  light  localized  on  the  lips 


496  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

is  the  one  reader  of  the  fragment  who  finds  it  highly  pleasant.  Other 
reagents  comment  frequently  upon  the  incongruous  phrasing. 
*  The  statues' |iie  quality  of  much  of  Keats 's  imagery,  in  contrast 
toIHe"Jance  and  liuoyaney  i.f  Por's  flitting  visions,  exemplifies  his 
preoccupation  with  the  tangible.  Poe  often  describes  sound  in  terms 
<>t'  movement:  KraK  ""  tin-  other  hand,  frequently  conceives  musir 
as  tangible,  material,  as  in  the  wonderful  lines — lines  which  yet  per- 
plex many  readers — 

"A  haunting  music,  sole  perhaps  and  lone 
Supportress  of  the  faery-roof,  made  moan 
Throughout. ' ' 

Shelley's  synesthetic  fragments,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  exceed- 
ingly pleasant.  The  French  exponents  of  literary  synesthesia  are 
fond  of  quoting  a  celebrated  passage  from  Shelley  as  evidence  of  the 
translation  in  his  mind  of  music  into  odor.  It  reads, 

".  .  .  music  so  delicate,  soft,  and  intense, 
It  was  felt  like  an  odor  within  the  sense. ' ' 

And  in  another  place  he  sings, 

"Thine  old  wild  songs  which  in  the  air 
Like  homeless  odours  floated." 

Not  only  is  music  translated  into  fragrance,  but  also,  in  turn,  odor 
is  described  in  visual  terms.  Thus  the  odors  that  lie  visibly  above 
the  flowers  suggest  the  vision  of  tiny  clouds  that  carry  the  perfumed 
incense  of  flower  and  forest. 

The  many  forms  assumed  by  Shelley's  odor-similes  suggest  that 
the  conversion  is  literary,  not  spontaneous.  Readers  frequently 
react  to  them  with  olfactory  images,  in  themselves  highly  pleasant. 

Shelley  affords  also  many  beautiful  illustrations  of  the  exchange 
of  light  and  sound.  The  two  fragments  quoted  below  were  given 
high  esthetic  and  high  affective  value  by  nearly  every  reader. 

The  first  has  reference  to  the  coming  morn : 

"Hear  I  not 

The  -SJolian  music  of  her  sea-green  plumes 
Winnowing  the  crimson  dawnf" 

And  the  other : 

"This  is  the  mystic  shell; 
See  the  pale  azure  fading  into  silver, 
Lining  it  with  a  soft  yet  glowing  light; 
Looks  it  not  like  lulled  music  sleeping  there?" 

There  is,  too,  a  noteworthy  description  of  the  nightingale's  song  in 
terms  of  the  bird's  circling  movements. 

In  general,  as  has  been  stated,  Shelley's  readers  find  such  com- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         497 

parisons  most  beautiful.  They  do  not  often  make  the  translation  he 
suggests,  but  they  find  their  imagery  enriched  by  all  manner  of 
delicate  connotations.  Where,  for  instance,  the  silver  and  azure  of 
the  mystic  shell  are  said  to  be  like  lulled  music,  one  does  not  translate 
color  into  sound,  but  surrenders,  instead,  to  a  delightful  relaxation 
such  as  is  induced  by  soft  music,  or  else  one  visualizes  the  shell  to  the 
accompaniment  of  orchestral  strains  or  to  that  of  the  ocean-murmur 
resounding  faintly  in  the  shell's  pale  whorls.  Again,  one  may  not 
hear  the  -<Eolian  music  of  the  dawn,  but  may  see,  instead,  the  wind 
pluming  itself  among  the  dawn-clouds  or  may  hear  the  sighing  of  the 
morning  breeze.  The  descriptions  are  at  once  of  things  seen  and 
heard  together,  and  therefore  the  appropriateness  of  the  double 
imagery,  as  in  the  line, 

"Whose  waters  like  blithe  light  and  music  are." 

By  the  description  of  the  nightingale's  song  cited  above,  Shelley 
has  actually  succeeded  in  arousing  in  many  readers  a  synesthetic 
experience,  an  interpretation  of  the  song  as  circling  light.  E  writes, 
"I  see  the  music  as  rings  of  light  twist  up  into  the  sky  where  sud- 
denly they  break  and  fall  to  the  ground  in  a  shower  of  stars. ' ' 

Such  a  cursory  review  as  the  above  of  a  few  chosen  poets  leads  to 
the  conclusion  that  while  there  is  very  slight  evidence  that  the  chosen 
poets  experienced  true  synesthesia,  there  is  some  justification  in  con- 
cluding that  they  enjoy,  more  than  the  ordinary  reader,  analogies 
between  the  senses.  It  may  be  stated  as  a  principle  of  interpreta- 
tion that  if  a  given  transfer  of  sense-qualities  is  found  pleasing  only 
when  the  reader  makes  the  suggested  translation  easily  and  spon- 
taneously, there  is  some  evidence  that  the  writer  himself  used  the 
analogy  spontaneously  rather  than  reflectively  unless  the  expression 
be  purely  conventional.  Put  differently,  an  analogy  that  the  average 
reader  finds  forced  and  unmeaning  probably  represents  a  peculiar 
but  natural,  rather  than  reflective,  mode  of  thought  for  the  poet. 
We  may,  then,  interpret  Swinburne's  tonal  vision,  Poe's  phonism  of 
the  night,  Blake's  visions,  and  Keats 's  ''dazzled  lips"  as  due  to  indi- 
vidual idiosyncrasies,  while  Swinburne's  organic  toning  of  phrases, 
Poe's  kinesthetic  analogies,  Keats 's  tactual  imagery,  and  Shelley's 
odor  and  auditive  similes  are  literary  and  imaginative  in  significance. 

Synesthesia  may,  it  should  be  observed,  be  systematic,  that  is, 
constant  in  appearance  under  given  conditions,  and  uniform  in 
quality,  or  it  may  be  sporadic,  occur,  that  is,  only  occasionally. 
While  synesthetic  experiences  are  not  pathological,  yet  it  is  known 
that  they  may  result  from  stimulation  by  drugs  or  accompany  the 
excitement  of  fever.  It  would  not  then  be  impossible  for  the  poet  in 
the  fever  of  inspiration  to  experience  a  subtle  confusion  of  the  senses, 


498  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

that  would   lead   to  spontaneous  synesthetic   phrasing,   incompre- 
hensible to  the  average  reader. 

JUNE  E.  DOWNED. 
UNIVERSITY  or  WYOMING. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

La  Pensee  et  lea  nouvelles  ecoles  anti-intellectualistes.    ALFRED  FOUILLEE. 

Second  edition.     Paris :  F.  Alcan.     1911.     Pp.  xvi  +  415. 

This  work,  the  first  edition  of  which  seems  to  have  been  exhausted 
almost  immediately,  is  of  less  interest  to  the  American  than  to  the  French 
public.  Its  object  is  twofold:  first,  to  claim  for  its  author  the  priority  in 
certain  psychological  and  metaphysical  theories  which  have  been  generally 
ascribed  to  Guyau,  Nietzsche,  James,  and  Bergson ;  and,  secondly,  to  show 
that  voluntarism,  pragmatism,  and  (mystic)  intuitionalism,  wherever  they 
have  departed  from  the  lines  he  had  laid  down,  have  fallen  into  serious 
error.  It  also  contains  a  brief  exposition  of  the  author's  own  theory  of 
the  nature  and  functions  of  thought. 

The  claim  to  priority  is  based  principally  upon  "  La  Liberte  et  le 
Determinisme,"  which  appeared  in  1872,  and  the  proof  is  as  convincing 
as  such  proofs  usually  are.  In  Fouillee's  comprehensive  eclecticism  (or 
synthesis,  as  he  himself  would  say)  all  the  historical  types  of  philosophy 
are  merged ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  invent  an  "  ism  "  which 
he  could  not  claim  to  have  in  some  sort  anticipated.  The  points  of  com- 
parison are  of  a  very  general  character,  all  that  is  individual  and  dis- 
tinctive in  the  various  theories  being  set  aside  as  error.  And  meanwhile 
the  further  question,  how  far  our  author  himself  had  been  anticipated,  is 
left  untouched. 

To  denote  the  fundamental  principle  of  his  philosophy,  Fouillee  here, 
as  in  other  recent  essays,  uses  the  phrase,  "  will  to  consciousness,"  formed 
after  the  analogy  of  the  "  will  to  live  "  and  the  "  will  to  power."  The 
most  primitive  datum  of  a  reflective  self-consciousness  is,  he  declares, 
consciousness  itself — not  a  blank  "  awareness,"  but  a  consciousness  full  of 
concrete  content  of  sensations,  feelings,  impulses,  ideas,  etc.;  ever  chang- 
ing and  ever  looking  for  change,  and  especially  looking  forward  to 
change  which  it,  by  its  own  feelings,  ideas,  and  efforts,  shall  initiate  or 
control.  Thus  the  reflecting  subject  is  conscious  of  himself  as  will;  will, 
moreover,  not  for  a  life  that  shall  be  insensible  or  unconscious,  for  then 
it  would  be  of  no  interest  to  him,  but  a  life  for  himself.  His  will  is  es- 
sentially a  will  to  consciousness.  Its  object  is  always  to  maintain  or  in- 
crease the  functions  of  conscious  life.  These  functions  are  comprised  in 
three  principal  functions,  which  are,  however,  inseparable:  thought,  feel- 
ing, and  action.  This  is  the  "  law  of  idea-forces" :  that  the  affective  and 
the  intellectual  life  are  inseparable.  It  is  by  means  of  this  law  that  Fouil- 
lee undertakes  to  bring  together  the  portions  of  truth  in  all  the  various 
systems — intellectualistic,  mystic,  voluntaristic — of  his  time. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         499 

In  the  obtaining  of  these  first  principles,  Fouillee  professes  to  employ 
a  strictly  "  immanent,"  experiential  method,  simply  and  plainly  describ- 
ing the  most  obvious  features  of  conscious  life  without  addition,  selec- 
tion, or  criticism.  Opinions  will,  of  course,  differ  as  to  the  justice  of  his 
professions.  To  me  they  seem  to  be  far  from  well  founded.  Instead  of 
describing  fact  he  seems  to  me  to  be  manipulating  conceptions.  That  all 
desire  is,  at  bottom,  directed  toward  one's  own  future  experience  is  not 
affirmed  upon  introspective  evidence^  nor  is  the  further  theory,  that  at  all 
times  thought,  feeling,  and  action  go  together;  or,  at  any  rate,  no  suffi- 
cient account  of  any  such  evidence  is  presented. 

What  makes  these  theories  attractive  is  the  synthesis  to  which  they 
lead.  "  Every  purely  intellectualistic  system  loses  itself  in  a  considera- 
tion of  the  objective,  which  admits  only  things  that  are  more  or  less  ex- 
ternal and  relations  that  are  more  or  less  extrinsic,  without  showing  the 
ground  which  gives  character  to  these  objects,  and  still  less  the  life  of  the 
conscious  subject  himself.  On  the  other  hand,  every  system  that  is  purely 
voluntaristic  or  sentimental  loses  itself  in  an  exclusive  consideration  of 
the  subjective,  which  does  away  with  both  objective  reality  and  objective 
truth.  And  so  it  has  always  seemed  to  us  essential  to  rise  above  the  two 
contraries"  (p.  3).  Accordingly  Fouillee  is  an  uncompromising  intel- 
lectualist,  and  at  the  same  time  an  uncompromising  voluntarist.  He 
stands  ready  to  grant  their  full  claims  to  reason  and  heart  alike. 

The  volume  is  too  rich  in  detail  to  admit  of  even  a  scant  summary 
within  the  limits  of  a  brief  review.  The  constructive  part  contains,  I  be- 
lieve, no  notable  addition  to  the  author's  system.  As  I  have  said,  the  ex- 
position is  decidedly  brief;  and  for  that  reason  it  will  be  found  useful  by 
those  who  wish  to  gain  a  rapid  insight  into  the  "  philosophy  of  idea- 
forces." 

The  critical  part,  as  well  as  the  abundant  critical  suggestions  which 
are  contained  in  the  constructive  part,  strikes  me  as  being  of  very  uneven 
value.  Both  its  best  and  its  weakest  points  are  expressive  of  the  author's 
notable  good  sense  and  balance  of  judgment.  He  lays  bare  the  character- 
istic weaknesses  of  men  with  unfailing  skill.  But  where  good  sense  and 
judgment,  joined  with  a  fine  analytical  ability,  are  not  sufficient,  where  a 
bold  imagination  is  necessary  for  the  proper  appreciation  of  new  and 
striking  views,  there  Fouillee  is  disappointing.  Poorest  of  all  are  the 
notices  of  Poincare  and  his  "  new  philosophy  of  the  sciences,"  this  for  the 
special  reason  that  the  author's  knowledge  of  mathematics  is  very  lim- 
ited and  superficial.  His  attempt  to  prove  the  necessary  truth  of  the 
axioms  of  Euclidean  geometry  is  of  a  kind  to  be  very  much  regretted. 
The  treatment  of  pragmatism  is  also  disappointing.  It  adds  nothing  new 
to  the  controversy;  and  like  most  French  essays  on  the  subject,  it  attrib- 
utes a  great  deal  to  the  pragmatists  which  they  have  not  dreamed  of 
claiming.  The  following  extract,  which  summarizes  a  section,  is  typical. 
u  ...  It  is  certain  that  pragmatism  contains  an  essential  contradiction. 
It  holds  that  the  intellect  is  only  a  means  of  voluntary  action  upon  na- 
ture. But  one  can  not  act  upon  nature  and  provide  thus  for  the  satis- 


500  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

faction  of  human  feelings,  except  as  he  can  foresee;  provision  and  pre- 
vision are  inseparable.  Intelligence,  to  be  a  means  of  action  and  feeling, 
ought  therefore  to  be  first  of  all  a  means  of  knowledge  and  to  have  a 
truth-value.  If,  as  we  ourselves  have  maintained,  theoretical  knowledge 
and  practical  efficiency  are  in  direct  ratio  with  each  other,  or  rather  are 
one  and  the  same  thing  under  two  aspects,  that  is  no  reason  for  denying 
the  cognitive  side  of  ideas"  (p.  288). 

The  notices  of  Bergson  are  widely  scattered  through  the  volume,  and 
are  generally  without  mention  of  his  name.  By  far  the  most  important  is 
a  long  study  of  "intuitionalism"  which  occupies  the  last  place  in  the 
work,  and  to  which  the  remainder  leads  up  as  to  a  climax.  Fouillee  shows 
with  admirable  clearness  what  varied  elements  the  intuition  of  Bergson 
embraces:  the  general  consciousness  of  bodily  life;  the  fleeting  impression 
of  the  momentary  state  of  mind;  a  confused  and  condensed  memory;  the 
spontaneous  consciousness  of  one's  own  existence;  introspection;  sym- 
pathy; instinct;  constructive  imagination.  And  he  proceeds  to  show 
how  poor  an  organ  of  philosophy  this  many-sided  faculty  is;  that  instead 
of  being  superior  to  the  scientific  intellect  it  is  altogether  inferior  to  it; 
that  instead  of  being  above  criticism,  as  giving  us  a  direct  revelation  of 
the  reality  of  ourselves  and  of  other  things,  it  stands  in  the  utmost  need 
of  criticism  from  every  point  of  view. 

Fouillee  writes  admirably.  Though  now  an  old  man,  he  still  retains 
the  facility  and  grace  of  earlier  years.  There  is  little  of  the  poet  in  him ; 
but  he  gives  occasional  evidences  of  a  flashing  wit.  One  bon-mot  is  worth 
remembering:  "The  Chantecler  of  the  poet  claims  that  it  is  his  morning 
song  that  causes  the  sun  to  rise ;  the  '  new  philosophy  of  the  sciences,'  so 
close  to  pragmatism,  attributes  almost  the  same  honor  to  its  '  decrees ' ; 
it  causes  truth  to  rise." 

THEODORE  DE  LAOUNA. 
BBYN  MAWB  COLLEGE. 

Thought  and  Reality  in  Hegel's  System.     GUSTAVUS  WATTS  CUNNINGHAM. 

Cornell  Studies  in  Philosophy,  No.  8.    New  York :  Longmans,  Green, 

and  Company.     1910.     Pp.  v  -f-  150. 

This  very  readable  monograph  defends  the  thesis  that  Hegel's  philos- 
ophy neither  lends  itself  to  the  charge  of  "  intellectualism,"  of  equating 
things  with  mere  abstract  thought  about  things,  nor  justifies  the  many 
attempts  made  by  his  critics  to  define  reality  in  irrational  terms,  as  sheer 
immediacy  over  which  thought  can  play  superficially,  but  into  whose  heart 
thought  can  not  penetrate.  The  author  sees  clearly  that  any  such  iden- 
tification of  Hegel's  philosophy  with  an  abstract  intellectualism,  and  the 
consequent  appeal  to  the  supposed  immediacy  of  fact  or  feeling,  rests  upon 
a  conception  of  thought  which  Hegel  did  his  best  to  overcome.  This  non- 
Hegelian  doctrine  of  thought,  wrongly  attributed  to  Hegel  even  by  so 
sympathetic  an  interpreter  as  McTaggert,  is  the  doctrine  that  "  thought 
is  a  mediating  activity  among  other  mental  processes — which  bear  to  it 
an  external  relation"  (p.  73).  Whoever  thus  interprets  Hegel's  doctrine 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         501 

of  thought  will  suppose,  in  view  of  his  identification  of  thought  and 
reality,  that  Hegel  absurdly  equates  reality  with  the  process  of  formal 
knowledge,  that  he  transfers  "  the  wealth  of  the  factual  world  and  the 
glory  of  it "  into  "  the  poverty  of  general  principles  and  universal  laws  " 
(p.  85).  Such  an  interpretation  will  also  imply  that  in  asserting  the 
supremacy  of  the  Notion,  Hegel  held,  as  McTaggert  puts  it,  "  that  the 
highest  activity  of  spirit,  in  which  all  others  are  transcended  and  swal- 
lowed up,  is  that  of  pure  thought,"  that  the  legitimate  activities  of  will 
and  feeling  are  suppressed.  Again,  such  an  interpretation  of  Hegel's 
doctrine  of  thought  makes  it  easy  to  ridicule  the  supposed  transition  from 
the  logic  to  the  world  of  nature  and  of  mind,  "  the  deduction  of  existential 
reality  from  abstract  universals"  (p.  67).  Moreover,  classic  misconcep- 
tions of  Hegel's  account  of  negation  rest  at  bottom  upon  attributing  to 
him  this  false  doctrine  of  thought.  Haym's  supposition  that  according  to 
Hegel  the  essence  of  things  consists  in  their  being  contradictory,  the 
criticism  of  Trendelenburg  that  pure  thought  is  always  an  affair  of  sheer 
identities  and  therefore  can  not  involve  any  real  opposition  and  negation, 
and  McTaggert's  contention  that  negation  loses  import  as  the  dialectic 
advances,  these  views  all  rest  on  the  supposition  that  "  Thought "  in 
Hegel's  system  is  the  thought  of  formal  logic,  always  dealing  with  an 
external  content. 

As  against  such  an  interpretation  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  thought,  Dr. 
Cunningham  holds  that  Hegel  understands  by  the  Notion  "  not  abstract 
and  formal  cognition,  but  organized  experience"  (p.  71) ;  that  the  apparent 
transition  from  the  logic  to  nature  and  mind  "  was  attempted  for  purely 
schematic  purposes";  that  the  so-called  transition  is  only  a  change  in 
point  of  view  because  "  the  logic,  the  philosophy  of  nature  and  the  philos- 
ophy of  mind  are  only  three  points  of  view  from  which  one  organic  whole 
is  observed  and  interpreted"  (p.  58).  When  thought  is  thus  regarded 
as  the  whole  life  of  mind,  it  is  not  so  palpably  vicious  to  hold  that  philos- 
ophy is  the  highest  expression  of  spirit,  since  "philosophical  knowledge 
always  means  more  than  mere  abstract  cognition;  it  is  an  immediacy 
which  includes  within  itself  the  whole  life  of  spirit"  (p.  89).  And  such 
an  account  of  thought  makes  it  possible  to  hold  that  the  individual  is 
significant  and  unique,  not  because  of  any  irrational  immediacy,  but 
through  rational  (not  formal)  definition. 

In  the  last  chapter  the  author  defends  the  interpretation  of  the 
Hegelian  absolute  as  a  self-conscious  individual,  differentiated  from  the 
world  and  from  all  finite  existence  precisely  because  "  consciousness 
always  demands  a  content  from  which  it  is  differentiated"  (p.  144). 

Dr.  Cunningham  rightly  insists  that  the  Phenomenology  must  be 
reckoned  with  as  well  as  the  Logic  in  the  final  interpretation  of  Hegel's 
philosophy.  He  might  have  added  that  the  early  theological  writings 
are  not  without  significance  in  estimating  the  drift  of  Hegel's  doctrine 
of  thought. 

Unquestionably  an  important  motive  in  the  contemporary  revival  of 
Hegel  studies,  of  which  this  monograph  is  an  important  symptom,  is  the 


502  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

belief  that  Hegel's  attempt  to  deepen  the  concept  of  thought  is  highly 
significant  for  us  to-day  when  so  much  of  our  philosophy  is  drifting 
either  towards  an  irrational  i>m  or  a  realistic  doctrine  of  consciousness, 
remote  from  the  real  life  of  thought. 

GEORGE  P.  ADAMS. 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

REVUE  PHILOSOPIIIQUE.  May,  1912.  Identite  de  la  liberte  et 
de  la  necessite  (pp.  449-475)  :  J.  DE  GAUL-TIER.  -  The  word  liberty  is  a  word 
wholly  without  significance.  Essai  de  critique  sociologique  du  Darwin- 
isme  (pp.  476-492):  DR.  S.  JAXKKI.KVITCM.- An  exposition  of  certain 
grave  difficulties  that  have  become  manifest  in  Darwinism  through  at- 
tempts to  apply  it  to  sociological  phenomena.  Les  idees  directrices  de  la 
physique  mechaniste  (2e  et  dernier  article)  (pp.  493-513) :  A.  REY.  -  The 
method  of  physics  is  essentially  an  assimilative  synthesis  where  reason 
and  experience  are  complimentary.  Present  progress  consists  in  pushing 
on  mechanistic  rationalism.  Analyses  et  comptes  rendus.  Cournot, 
Traite  de  I'enchainement  des  idees  fondamentales:  A.  PENJON.  G.  Hey- 
mans,  Das  kuntftige  Jahrhundert  der  Psychologie:  M.  SOLOVIXE.  F. 
Raun,  Etudes  de  morale:  G.  BELOT.  Dr.  Remond  et  Dr.  Voivenel,  Le 
genie  liiteraire:  G.-L.  DUPRAT.  O.  Frieh  v.  d.  Pfordten,  Psychologie  des 
Oeistes:  G.-L.  DUPRAT.  Dr.  Erich  Becher,  Gehirn  und  Seele:  G.-L.  Dr- 
PRAT.  W.  Rakic,  GedanJcen  iiber  Erziehung  durch  Spiel  und  Kunst:  L. 
ARREAT.  Dr.  D.  Vladoff,  L'homicide  en  pathologic  mentale:  G.-L.  DUPRAT. 
Fr.  Picavet,  Roscelin,  philosophe  et  theologien:  A.  PENJON.  Revue  des 
periodiques  etrangers. 

REVUE  DES  SCIENCES  PHILOSOPHIQUES  ET  THEOL- 
OGIQUES.  April,  1912.  La  sanction  morale  dans  la  Philosophic  de  saint 
Thomas  (pp.  213-235):  A.  D.  SERTILLANGES.  -  What  we  call  sanctions  of 
good  and  evil  are,  according  to  St.  Thomas,  its  natural  consequences, 
brought  about  by  a  moral  determinism,  much  more  rigorous  than  physical 
determinism.  Les  Methodes  de  la  definition  d'apres  Aristote  (pp.  236- 
252) :  M.  D.  ROLAND-GOSSKUN.  -  An  exposition  of  Aristotle's  theory  of 
definition.  Le  Magistere  ecclesiastique,  source  et  regie  de  la  theologie 
(pp.  253-278) :  M.  JACQUIN.  -  The  divine  Revelation  is  proposed  to  us  by 
the  ecclesiastical  authority,  sole  rule  of  the  faith,  already  elaborated  and 
more  or  less  developed,  according  to  the  times.  Jacobin,  Gallican  et 
"  Appelan,"  le  P.  Noel  Alexandre  (pp.  279-281):  REMI  COXLON.  -  Proves, 
from  historical  documents,  that  Father  N.  Alexandre  (1639-1724)  died  in 
perfect  adhesion  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  Note.  Bulletins. 
Chronique.  Recension  des  Revues.  Supplement. 

Fliigel,  O.    Herberts  Lehren  und  Leben.    Leipzig:  B.  G.  Teubner.    1912. 
Pp.  iv  -|- 138.    M.  1.25. 

Hensel,  Paul.    Rousseau.    Leipzig:  B.  G.  Teubner.    1912.    Pp.  vi -f  100. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         503 

Kiilpe,  O.  Immanuel  Kant.  Leipzig:  B.  G.  Teubner.  1912.  Pp.  viii  + 
153.  M.  1.25. 

Le  Roy,  Edouard.  Une  Philosophic  Nouvelle:  Henri  Bergson.  Paris: 
Librairie  Felix  Alcan.  1912.  Pp.  208.  2  fr.  50. 

Loeb,  Jacques.  The  Mechanistic  Conception  of  Life.  Chicago:  Chicago 
University  Press.  1912.  Pp.  232.  $1.50. 

Taylor,  D.  The  Composition  of  Matter  and  the  Evolution  of  Mind.  Lon- 
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NOTES   AND   NEWS 

HENRI  POINCARE 

ON  July  17,  the  death  of  Henri  Poincare  deprived  the  world  of,  perhaps, 
its  foremost  genius.  In  the  address  delivered  at  his  funeral,  Nature 
quotes  M.  Guist'hau,  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  as  saying  of  him: 

"  His  powerful  spirit  came  into  touch  with  every  problem  and  threw 
fresh  light  upon  each.  He  was  one  of  those  rare  figures  in  the  history  of 
mankind  who,  by  Bringing  together  fragmentary  or  isolated  facts,  ideas, 
or  observations,  can  raise  themselves  to  a  conception  of  the  universe,  can 
study  its  constitution  and  evolution,  and  can  fathom  even  its  variations. 
With  the  help  of  this  force  of  investigation,  which  extended  to  every- 
thing, he  studied  the  laws  of  the  intellectual,  as  well  as  of  the  physical 
world,  and  philosophers,  mathematicians,  and  astronomers,  recognized  in 
him  their  master." 

The  breadth  of  his  interests  can  best  be  shown  by  quoting  from  the 
speech  of  M.  Frederic  Masson,  on  the  occasion  of  M.  Poincare's  election 
to  the  Academic  Franchise,  in  1909 : 

"  M.  Poincare  is  a  very  vast  mind.  He  is  remarkable  for  both  the 
diversity  and  the  profundity  of  his  learning.  He  is  a  geometer  as  well  as 
a  physicist  and  astronomer,  pursuing  these  sciences  rather  by  the  applica- 
tion to  them  of  analytical  methods  than  by  simple  observation  and  ex- 
perimentation. His  interests,  thus,  have  been  largely  in  the  fields  of 
mathematical  physics  and  celestial  mechanics. 

"  As  a  geometer,  his  works  concerning  the  theory  of  numbers,  inte- 
gral calculus,  and  the  general  theory  of  functions  may  be  found  in  more 
than  one  hundred  and  fifty  communications  published  in  the  Proceedings 
of  the  Academy  of  Science  and  in  as  many  articles  published  in  mathe- 
matical journals  of  France  and  other  countries. 

"  While  professor  of  mathematical  physics,  at  the  University  of  Paris, 
he  published  fourteen  volumes  of  lectures  on  light,  electricity,  thermody- 
namics, and  the  propagation  of  heat.  He  popularized  in  France,  while 
perfecting  them,  Maxwell's  theories  which  were  later  proved  by  the  ex- 
periments of  the  great  German  physicist,  Herz. 

"  In  the  field  of  astronomy,  Poincare  showed  great  originality,  and  his 
studies  upon  the  form  taken  by  a  fluid  mass  in  rotation  and  subjected  to 


604  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  laws  of  universal  gravity  led  to  the  formulation  of  many  interesting 
and  important  theories  regarding  the  separation  of  the  earth  and  the 
moon,  and  the  formation  of  the  variable  stars.  By  revising  the  calculus 
of  LaPlace  he  was  able  through  further  investigation  to  establish  the 
theory  formulated  in  1784  concerning  the  stability  of  the  solar  system." 

Furthermore,  the  volumes  that  bring  together  certain  prefaces  to  scien- 
tific works  and  articles  published  in  reviews  present  M.  PoincarS  as  a 
philosopher  of  no  mean  order.  The  analyses  of  scientific  concepts,  found 
in  "  Science  and  Hypothesis,"  which  form  the  basis  of  the  work,  are  re- 
considered in  the  light  of  their  relation  to  reality,  in  the  "  Nature  of 
Science,"  and  there  established  in  a  noteworthy  contribution  to  the  prob- 
lem of  the  nature  of  knowledge. 

Certain  extracts  from  a  third  work,  not  yet  translated  into  English, 
"  Science  et  M6thode  "  will  show  both  the  psychology  of  the  investigator 
and  the  motivation  of  his  life. 

"  The  scientist  does  not  study  nature  because  to  do  so  is  useful ;  he 
studies  it  because  he  takes  pleasure  in  it,  and  he  takes  pleasure  in  it  be- 
cause it  is  beautiful.  If  nature  were  not  beautiful,  it  would  not  be  worth 
knowing,  and  life  would  not  be  worth  living."  "  It  is  the  search  for  the 
special  beauty,  the  sense  of  harmony  of  the  world,  that  makes  us  choose 
facts  most  suited  to  contribute  to  this  harmony,  as  an  artist  chooses, 
among  the  features  of  his  model,  those  which  complete  the  portrait  and 
give  it  character  and  life."  "  And  it  is  because  simplicity,  because 
grandeur  is  beautiful,  that  we  investigate  by  preference  simple  facts  and 
great  facts,  that  we  take  pleasure  now  in  following  the  gigantic  course  of 
the  stars,  now  in  scrutinizing  with  the  microscope  that  prodigious  little- 
ness, which  is  also  a  grandeur,  and  now,  in  seeking  through  geological 
time  the  hour  of  a  past  which  draws  us  because  it  is  remote."  "  But  this 
disinterested  investigation  of  truth  for  its  peculiar  beauty  is  also  healthy 
and  can  make  man  better." 

DOCTOR  EDWIN  D.  STARBUCK,  professor  of  philosophy  in  the  State  Uni- 
versity of  Iowa,  has  been  granted  sabbatical  leave  for  the  coming  year, 
and  will  reside  in  Boston.  He  will  act  for  the  year  as  psychologist  ad- 
viser to  The  Beacon  Press  in  the  publication  of  children's  and  young 
people's  literature,  and  especially  in  the  formation  of  the  graded  Sunday 
School  curriculum.  His  address  will  be  25  Beacon  St. 

DR.  WILLIAM  PEPPER,  professor  of  clinical  pathology  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania,  has  been  appointed  dean  of  the  medical  depart- 
ment, to  succeed  Dr.  Allen  J.  Smith.  Dr.  Smith  will  remain  professor  of 
pathology,  comparative  pathology,  and  tropical  medicine. 

DR.  L.  R.  GEISSLER  (Cornell)  has  resigned  his  position  as  research 
psychologist  in  the  physical  laboratory  of  the  National  Electric  Lamp 
Association,  Cleveland,  to  become  professor  of  psychology  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Georgia. 

IN  the  last  issue  of  this  JOURNAL,  Dr.  Walter  F.  Dearborn  was  re- 
ferred to  as  professor  in  the  school  of  education  at  Chicago.  He  should 
have  been  referred  to  as  associate  professor. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  19.  SEPTEMBER  12,  1912 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  ITS  OBJECT 

PHILOSOPHIC  discussion  of  the  past  decade  has  been  in  large 
measure  a  controversy  over  idealism.  Our  present  era  of  aca- 
demic protestantism,  however,  has  brought  with  it  the  inevitable 
creeds  and  sects,  ready  to  engage  in  conflict  with  each  other  before 
their  common  battle  is  fairly  won.  They  are  at  present  divided  into 
the  two  main  camps  of  pragmatism  and  realism,  each  of  which  ac- 
cuses the  other  of  perpetuating  the  very  heresies  from  which  the 
original  struggle  was  a  revolt.  It  is  charged,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
pragmatism,  after  all,  embodies  the  idealistic  fallacy  which  makes 
"being"  dependent  on  experience;  and,  on  the  other,  that  realism 
sanctifies  anew  the  mechanical  "external"  relation  of  consciousness 
and  object.  All  these  charges  and  counter-charges,  however,  have 
increased  rather  than  diminished  the  difficulty  of  discovering  the 
points  at  issue.  This  suggests  the  possibility  that  the  divergence  has 
either  been  exaggerated  or  else  is  to  be  sought  to  some  extent  in 
matters  which  have  not  so  far  been  made  sufficiently  prominent  by 
both  parties. 

In  a  series  of  articles,  which  have  not  as  yet  met  with  the  recog- 
nition they  deserve,  Professor  McGilvary  has  set  forth  in  greater  de- 
tail than  has  usually  been  attempted  by  other  realists  the  implica- 
tions of  his  realistic  views.  His  excellent  paper,  "The  Relation  of 
Consciousness  and  Object  in  Sense-Perception,"1  is  a  presentation 
of  a  position  which  has  so  much  in  common  with  that  of  other  writers 
who  do  not  call  themselves  realists  as  to  arouse  the  hope  that  the 
differences  are  less  important  than  they  may  seem  to  be.  It  is  my 
purpose  to  discuss  a  point  in  Professor  McGilvary 's  article  which 
appears  to  be  of  fundamental  importance,  but  which  requires  to  be 
made  more  explicit  in  order  to  establish  the  exact  relationship  be- 
tween this  form  of  realism  and  its  pragmatic  rival. 

Stated  broadly  the  epistemological  problem  may  be  said  to  center 
in  the  question  how  the  same  fact  can  be  at  the  same  time  a  member 

1  Philosophical  Eeview,  March,  1912. 

505 


606  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

in  the  "objective"  and  in  the  "subjective"  order;  how  it  can  be  both 
a  physical  reality  and  an  experiential  fact.  To  postulate  this  identity 
is  apparently  the  only  alternative  to  historic  dualism.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, that  the  fact  which  thus  figures  in  two  different  orders  at  once 
is  not  quite  the  same  fact  in  both  cases.  The  difference,  moreover, 
if  we  are  agreed  to  forswear  the  old-time  soul  and  its  degenerate 
descendant,  an  entitative  consciousness,  must  be  located  in  the  fact 
itself.  In  other  words,  the  coming  into  consciousness  necessarily 
means  that  the  fact  has  undergone  some  kind  of  change.  Hence  the 
question  how  the  fact  can  be  known  as  it  was  before  the  change  took 
place.  At  first  glance  such  a  formulation  of  the  problem  seems  to 
make  the  whole  epistemological  undertaking  an  absurdity.  It  is  like 
turning  on  the  light  in  order  to  see  the  darkness. 

That  the  arrival  of  consciousness  means  a  change  on  the  part 
of  sensuous  objects  is  conceded  by  Professor  McGilvary,  and  indeed 
can  scarcely  be  denied  by  any  one,  if  change  be  taken  in  a  sufficiently 
wide  sense.  The  important  thing  is  the  character  of  this  change. 
According  to  Professor  McGilvary,  this  change  consists  of  a  certain 
new  grouping  or  relationship  of  the  objects  within  the  field  of  ex- 
perience. This  grouping  is  unique  in  that  it  has  a  unique  center  of 
reference.  To  have  such  a  center  of  reference  is  characteristic  of 
many  relational  complexes.  Examples  of  such  centers  are  the  center 
of  a  circle,  the  patriarch  of  a  clan,  the  hero  of  a  story,  the  boss  of  a 
political  machine.  "If  the  relation  is  consciousness,  the  centrality 
is  just  that  unique  kind  of  centrality  which  we  find  belonging  to  the 
various  terms  of  the  conscious  relation,  which  we  call  collectively  and 
synthetically  the  self"  (p.  164).  The  constituents  of  the  sense-ex- 
perience are  also  constituents  of  the  "external  world";  it  is  merely 
this  type  of  relationship  that  supervenes  when  the  objects  are  sen- 
suously experienced.  By  limiting  the  change  which  objects  undergo 
in  becoming  experienced  to  the  acquisition  of  this  new  type  of  rela- 
tionship, we  possess  ourselves  of  the  key  that  will  unlock  many  a 
door. 

This  relationship,  as  is  further  pointed  out,  is  always  selective  in 
character.  Some  facts  are  taken  and  others  are  left.  Two  things 
may  appear  as  synchronous  when  in  reality  they  are  successive, 
simply  because  the  time-interval  between  them  happens  to  be  omitted 
from  the  relational  complex  called  consciousness  (c/.  pp.  170-71). 
False  perceptions,  therefore,  present  no  insuperable  difficulty. 
While  it  is  true  that  the  suppressio  veri  is  a  suggestio  falsi,  this  fact 
is  not  incompatible  with  the  assertion  that  even  in  false  perception 
we  see  things  as  they  are.  The  omission  of  relevant  facts  is  some- 
thing that  may  be  empirically  ascertained,  and  when  thus  ascertained 
may  be  used  to  eliminate  the  suggestio  falsi  from  the  situation. 


507 

Similarly,  when  we  are  concerned  with  facts  which  do  not  antedate 
the  experiential  situation,  as  in  hallucinations,  our  procedure  is 
strictly  empirical  and  scientific.  "The  theory  of  consciousness  as 
a  unique  selective  relation  then  seems  to  work  pretty  well  here  as  an 
hypothesis.  The  empirical  fact  that  consciousness  is  a  unique  way 
of  togetherness  seems  thus  to  become  a  scientific  principle  for  the 
solution  of  a  most  vexed  problem"  (p.  171). 

With  this  view,  as  far  as  it  goes,  the  pragmatist  has,  I  think,  no 
legitimate  ground  for  quarrel.  But  it  remains  to  determine  how  far 
it  really  goes.  Consciousness  is  selective,  without  doubt.  Moreover, 
it  is  a  peculiar  togetherness  of  things.  It  involves  a  kind  of  central- 
ity,  to  borrow  the  term  employed  by  Professor  McGilvary,  and  this 
centrality  may  properly  be  characterized  as  unique.  Negatively 
such  statements  are  significant  and  important,  since  they  betoken  a 
radical  change  of  front  when  compared  with  the  affirmations  of  dual- 
ism. Regarded  from  the  standpoint  of  constructive  theory,  however, 
they  merely  indicate  a  mode  of  approach,  which  may  or  may  not 
justify  itself  by  its  results.  To  rest  in  them  means  that  we  have 
mistaken  a  plan  of  campaign  for  the  conquest  of  the  difficulty. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  this  togetherness  or  grouping  which 
is  said  to  constitute  consciousness.  Leaving  aside  cases  of  false  per- 
ception, our  facts  by  hypothesis  undergo  no  change  save  that  they 
now  appear  in  this  new  relational  complex.  This  latter  presents  us 
with  two  new  elements,  viz.,  that  the  facts  in  question  are  now 
marked  off  from  the  facts  which  are  not  in  the  field  of  consciousness, 
and  that  they  sustain  to  each  other  the  relations  which  give  to  the 
complex  as  a  whole  its  centrality.  These  two  statements,  in  fact, 
denote  the  same  thing.  To  have  membership  in  a  system  which 
possesses  this  centrality  is  precisely  what  marks  off  these  facts  from 
other  facts.  It  would  seem  to  be  fairly  evident  that  unless  we  take 
this  centrality  as  a  criterion,  we  have  no  criterion  whatever  by  which 
to  differentiate  between  what  is  and  what  is  not  in  consciousness. 
Without  this  criterion  the  marking  off  necessarily  presupposes  the 
very  fact  it  is  introduced  to  explain.  The  grouping  together  of  a 
certain  number  of  facts  would  be  intelligible  only  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  consciousness  which  was  already  on  the  scene  and  consti- 
tuted a  point  of  reference.  The  facts  in  question  would  constitute  a 
group,  marked  off  from  other  facts,  because  this  consciousness  saw 
fit  to  bestow  upon  them  this  momentary  distinctiveness.  Without 
this  consciousness  the  marking  off  would  become  an  empty  name, 
since  it  would  indicate  no  intelligible  difference  between  the  facts 
which  are  thus  marked  off  and  those  which  are  not.  "To  say  that 
consciousness  is  a  relation  is  not  to  say  much  that  is  worth  saying, 
unless  it  be  followed  by  saying  that  consciousness  is  not  a  relation 


508  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

iiberhaupt,  but  a  relation  which  relates  in  just  the  specific  way  that 
brings  about  the  specific  things  that  we  call  our  experiences"  (p. 
165).  It  seems  reasonably  clear  that  our  theory  must  either  furnish 
a  specifiable  principle  of  grouping  or  remain  indefinitely  in  a  state 
of  suspended  animation. 

Such  a  principle  Professor  McGilvary  discovers  in  "that  unique 
kind  of  centrality  which  we  find  belonging  to  the  various  terms  of 
the  conscious  relation  which  we  call  collectively  and  synthetically 
the  self."  This  centrality  is  indeed  unique,  but  its  uniqueness  is  no 
bar  to  comparison  and  description,  any  more  than  in  the  case  of  the 
circle  or  the  political  machine.  We  might,  therefore,  reasonably 
anticipate  that  Professor  McGilvary  would  enlarge  on  this  cardinal 
feature,  in  order  to  show  as  adequately  as  possible  just  what  happens 
to  the  facts  when  they  become  members  of  this  relational  complex, 
what  transformation  they  undergo,  or  what  function  they  perform. 
I  may  repeat  that  to  impose  this  relationship  ab  extra,  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  bystander,  is  not  to  make  use  of  the  criterion,  but  to 
leave  everything  where  it  was.  A  realism  obtained  in  this  way  gets 
its  conclusions  by  ignoring  the  very  facts  which  set  the  problem.  As 
against  subjective  idealism,  for  example,  and  the  alleged  subjectiv- 
ism of  pragmatism,  the  realist  sometimes  makes  the  claim  that  his 
account  of  the  difference  between  "in  consciousness"  and  "out  of 
consciousness"  respects  the  integrity  and  independence  of  the  facts 
in  a  way  that  the  rival  theories  do  not.  But  in  order  to  furnish  this 
account,  the  difference  must  be  kept  in  sight  and  not  allowed  to  slip 
from  view  through  the  interstices  of  the  argument.  Yet  I  venture 
to  suggest,  in  a  spirit  of  inquiry  rather  than  of  controversy,  that  this 
is  what  happens  in  the  course  of  Professor  McGilvary 's  presentation. 

That  the  relational  complex  called  consciousness,  however  unique 
its  character,  can  nevertheless  be  compared  with  other  types  of  re- 
lationship is  indicated  by  Professor  McGilvary  when  he  says:  "If 
in  an  experience  the  relations  between  objects  may  and  do  have  at- 
tentional  prominence,  why  may  not  consciousness,  which  is  a  relation 
among  objects,  also  have  like  attentional  prominence?  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  at  times  in  my  experience  it  does.  For  instance,  'when  I  am 
forced  to  contrast  the  relation  of  the  objects  conjoined  to  each  other 
with  the  opposing  relation  between  objects  not  conjoined'  in  this 
conscious  way,  it  may  be  the  present  conjunction  of  objects  in  my 
present  experience  which  I  contrast  with  the  fact  that  this  sort  of 
conjunction  does  not  now  obtain  between  this  sheet  of  paper  and  a 
house-boat  on  the  MaaNam"  (p.  172).  It  is  sufficiently  evident, 
presumably,  that  if  no  sort  of  comparison  were  possible,  the  exist- 
ence of  the  relationship  would  never  be  suspected  by  us.  What  is 
important  just  now  is  not  the  fact  of  comparison,  but  its  nature. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         509 

Things  are  sometimes  grouped  in  the  way  called  consciousness  and 
sometimes  they  are  not.  This  distinction  would  cause  no  difficulty 
if  we  could  suppose  that  both  types  of  situation  were  presented  in 
juxtaposition  to  an  intelligence  standing  apart  from  both.  But  the 
intelligence  which  makes  the  discrimination  is  immersed  in  the  facts, 
so  to  speak,  and  is  hence  called  upon  for  an  act  of  self -transcendence 
which  at  first  sight  seems  mysterious  enough.  In  some  sense  both 
situations  must  enter  into  experience  in  order  to  be  discriminated 
from  each  other.  It  is  precisely  this  fact  which  makes  the  elucida- 
tion of  "that  unique  kind  of  centrality"  called  consciousness  of 
such  fundamental  importance.  And  it  is  at  this  point  that  our  prob- 
lem may  be  most  conveniently  focused.  To  ignore  the  fact  that  the 
objects  contrasted  with  the  present  experience  are  already  within 
the  experiential  field  is  to  overlook  the  very  thing  that  calls  for 
explanation.  There  is  reason  to  think  that  the  centrality  which  is 
supposed  to  differentiate  consciousness  from  other  complexes  holds 
a  purely  honorific  position.  It  marks  no  genuine  difference  between 
what  is  consciousness  and  what  is  not,  because  the  comparing  is  done 
by  a  third  party  and  from  the  outside. 

An  illustration  of  what  is  meant  is  furnished  by  the  facts  of 
memory.  We  can  not  only  remember  with  accuracy  a  past  oc- 
currence, but  we  are  also  able  to  reflect  on  the  difference  between  the 
original  experience  and  the  recollection  thereof,  and  note  how  widely 
they  diverge.  The  memory-experience  can  somehow  achieve  the 
paradoxical  result  of  distinguishing  between  itself  and  the  original 
experience,  without  any  impossible  reaching  back  in  order  to  resur- 
rect bodily  the  original  experience  and  set  it  down  side  by  side  with 
the  memory-experience  for  inspection  and  comparison.  That  is,  the 
thing  remembered  must  change  in  order  to  be  remembered  at  all, 
since  the  discrimination  takes  place  within  the  memory-experience 
and  not  from  the  standpoint  of  an  outside  observer.  And  this  situa- 
tion, it  seems,  is  typical.  The  distinction  between  the  experienced 
and  the  non-experienced  must,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  made 
within  the  experiential  situation.  The  danger  to  which  realism  is 
exposed  is  that  in  the  endeavor  to  maintain  the  independence  of  ob- 
jects all  change  may  be  excluded  and  the  relationship  in  which  con- 
sciousness consists  become  so  "external"  as  to  deprive  it  of  all  sig- 
nificance. In  other  words,  there  is  danger  of  gravitating  towards  an 
independence  which  can  be  made  plausible  only  by  comparing  the 
experienced  with  the  non-experienced  from  a  standpoint  external  to 
both. 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  possible  to  flank  this  argument  by 
means  of  a  distinction.  One  might  argue  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  experienced  and  the  non-experienced  falls  within  the  ex- 


510  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

periential  field  only  if  we  define  experience  in  an  arbitrary  way. 
If  experience  be  defined  so  as  to  include  not  only  what  is  present  to 
sense,  but  also  things  thought  about,  then  the  proposition  is  incon- 
testable, but  only  because  it  has  first  been  made  tautologous.  An 
opponent  may,  however,  object  to  this  definition  of  experience  and 
insist  that  in  the  case  of  things  thought  about  we  are  not  dealing 
with  things  directly,  but  only  with  their  mental  representatives. 
This,  if  I  understand  him,  is  Professor  McGilvary's  view.2  He  has 
the  courage  to  defend  a  doctrine  of  representationism,  or  a  "corre- 
spondence" theory  of  truth,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  such  doctrines 
have  become  very  unfashionable  of  late.  He  would  hold,  pre- 
sumably, that  when  a  person  compares  his  present  experience  with 
facts  lying  outside  that  experience,  the  situation  is  not  properly  de- 
scribed by  saying  that  this  distinction  of  inside  and  outside  is  itself 
inside  the  experiential  field;  it  lies  between  the  experiential  field 
and  something  that  is  not  experiential  at  all.  The  present  experience 
contains  ideas  which  point  to  or  represent  these  absent  facts,  but  it 
does  not  contain  these  facts  themselves. 

A  move  of  this  kind,  however,  does  not  avoid  the  fallacy  of  the 
"external  observer."  The  issue  just  raised  is  evidently  more  than 
a  matter  of  definition,  since  it  involves  a  theory  of  representation 
which  may  be  seriously  questioned.  Let  us  take  again  the  case  of 
memory.  On  this  ground  the  recollection  of  an  event  does  not 
mean  that  the  event  itself  is  now  experienced,  though  with  a  differ- 
ent "  centrality, "  but  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  representative 
which  points  to  the  event.  This  pointing  is  not  identifiable  with  the 
function  of  leading  or  guiding,  for  these  have  to  do  with  the  future, 
whereas  the  pointing  has  its  face  towards  the  past.  The  leadings 
may  verify  the  pointing,  but  are  not  identical  with  it.  The  self- 
transcendence  of  the  pointing  must,  it  seems,  be  accepted  as  a  fact 
which  is  subject  indeed  to  empirical  tests,  but  which  is  not  amenable 
to  further  analysis. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  this  distinction  between  the 
pointing  backward  of  memory  and  the  leadings  by  which  memory 
is  verified  transforms  the  whole  doctrine  of  meaning  as  held  by  in- 
strumentalism.  The  leadings  through  which  the  verification  is 
achieved  necessarily  presuppose  the  same  sort  of  pointing  as  the 
pointing  backward  of  memory;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  all  lead- 
ings are  reduced  to  a  rigid,  static  type.  If  we  are  to  maintain  the 
distinction  between  "present  experience"  and  "things  thought 
about,"  on  the  ground  that  things  thought  about  are  not  present 

*Cf.  his  articles,  "The  'Fringe'  of  James's  Psychology  and  its  Relation  to 
Logic,"  Philosophical  Eeview,  March,  1911,  and  "Pure  Experience  and  Reality," 
ibid.,  May,  1907. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         511 

save  by  representation,  the  type  of  pointing  which  characterizes 
memory  must  be  extended  to  all  forms  of  thinking.  This  leads  back 
directly  to  the  familiar  transcendentalism  with  its  patronizing  inter- 
est in  "transitive  states"  and  "feelings  of  tendency,"  all  of  which, 
however,  are  finally  dismissed  as  "mere  psychology"  and  hence 
irrelevant  to  the  high  considerations  of  logic. 

The  difficulty  that  I  wish  to  urge  is  that  on  this  ground  the 
verification  of  a  meaning  becomes  an  impossibility,  unless  we  appeal 
once  more  to  the  outside  observer.  A  given  instance  of  pointing,  as 
in  memory,  must  be  verified  by  other  pointings,  such  as  looking  up 
documents,  questioning  other  witnesses,  etc.  Just  how  these  point- 
ings are  related  to  one  another,  why  the  verification  should  depend 
on  certain  pointings  and  not  on  others,  is  a  matter  of  some  interest, 
but  this  may  be  left  aside  for  the  present.  It  is  a  matter  of  more 
serious  moment  just  now  that  if  we  follow  up  a  given  pointing  and 
finally  arrive  at  the  goal  to  which  it  directs,  we  seem  to  find  that  we 
are  no  better  off  than  we  were  before.  The  culminating  experience 
informs  us  that  "  this  is  what  that  meant,"  but  the  "that"  which 
did  the  pointing  is  now  at  the  opposite  pole  of  the  pointing,  and  the 
"thing  meaning"  remains  sundered  from  the  "thing  meant"  by  the 
whole  intervening  territory  which  we  have  just  traversed  with  the 
original  pointing  as  our  guide.  The  original  experience  of  pointing  is 
now  a  mere  memory ;  it  is  present  in  the  new  experience,  not  in  the 
flesh,  but  by  representation.  What,  then,  have  we  gained?  The 
first  pointing  has  been  supplanted  by  a  second,  and  the  claim  of  the 
latter  to  be  the  fulfilment  of  the  former  turns  out  to  be  nothing  but  a 
claim,  since  the  original  pointing  is  not  present  in  the  later  experi- 
ence. Here  again  the  analogy  of  the  outside  observer  is  likely  to 
mislead.  The  intelligence  which  decides  the  case  is  both  judge  and 
jury,  and  incidentally  prosecuting  attorney  also,  but  it  easily  mis- 
takes itself  for  an  innocent  bystander.  If  we  imagine  ourselves  com- 
paring the  original  experience  with  the  verifying  experience  from  a 
standpoint  external  to  both,  the  business  of  verification  presents  no 
especial  difficulty.  But  if  we  stick  uncompromisingly  to  our  premises, 
we  do  encounter  a  difficulty,  the  solution  of  which,  on  our  present 
plane  of  discussion,  is  still  to  seek. 

Considerations  of  this  general  kind  are,  I  presume,  what  Pro- 
fessor Dewey  has  in  mind  when  he  says  that  "  presentative "  realism 
errs  in  treating  all  forms  of  experience  as  forms  of  knowledge.  This 
type  of  realism  is  the  offspring  of  the  prejudice  that  experiential  fact 
can  be  compared  with  non-experiential  fact  in  this  mechanical  fash- 
ion. Sensory  experiences,  considered  apart  from  their  function  as 
guides  to  other  experiences,  can  hardly  be  treated  as  cases  of  knowl- 
edge on  any  other  basis.  And  essentially  the  same  assumption  is 


512  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

made  in  the  treatment  which  is  accorded  these  functions.  The 
pointing  experience  does  not  give  us  an  object  which  is  presented  as 
absent  and  as  performing  the  task  of  leading  or  pointing,  but  is 
considered  solely  in  terms  of  the  pointing,  i.  e.,  solely  as  a  knowl- 
edge experience,  with  the  result  that  the  thing  meaning  and  the 
thing  meant  fall  hopelessly  asunder.  Similarly  the  fulfilling  experi- 
ence is  treated  as  purely  cognitive,  as  something  which  exhausts  itself 
in  the  labor  of  pointing  back  to  its  symbol  or  representative.  The 
identity  of  thing  meaning  with  thing  meant  goes  by  the  board;  we 
become  entangled  with  an  impossible  representationism  which  can 
pass  muster  only  by  its  appeal  to  the  tendency  to  hold  the  idea  and 
its  object  at  arm's  length  in  order  to  contemplate  their  agreement  or 
correspondence. 

The  conclusion  to  which  these  considerations  point  is,  I  think, 
that  our  realistic  friends  have  not  as  yet  given  sufficient  emphasis 
and  elaboration  to  the  "unique  kind  of  centrality"  which  objects 
possess  when  they  enter  into  the  relational  complex  of  experience. 
The  "presentative"  realist,  in  his  desire  to  safeguard  the  inde- 
pendence of  objects,  accords  to  this  centrality  a  recognition  that  is 
more  formal  than  real.  That  there  is  such  a  centrality  and  that  it 
has  some  bearing  on  the  character  of  objects  as  experienced,  he  is 
disposed  to  admit,  but  having  made  the  admission  he  ignores  it. 
Professor  McGilvary's  centrality  is  invested  with  all  the  powers  and 
prerogatives  of  a  sovereign  ruling  by  divine  right,  but  with  the 
tacit  understanding  that  it  will  in  no  way  interfere  with  the  perfect 
independence  of  its  objects.  In  view  of  the  brevity  of  Professor 
McGilvary's  exposition,  it  may  be  that  this  criticism  has  been 
pressed  further  than  is  warranted  by  the  facts.  At  all  events  the 
view  that  our  standpoint  must  be  " internal"  rather  than  "external" 
to  experience  leads  us  directly  to  the  conclusion  that  fixity  is  but 
relative,  and  that  the  things  we  experience  possess  a  boundless  mo- 
bility. It  seems  worth  while  to  try  out  the  view  which  places  this 
endless  flux  in  the  things  themselves,  rather  than  persist  in  the  at- 
tempt to  foist  upon  them  a  type  of  stability  suited  perhaps  to  the 
archangels  and  beings  that  dwell  apart,  but  useless  to  an  intelli- 
gence that  forms  a  part  of  mundane  reality. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  present  purpose  to  attempt  an  elaboration  of 
this  point  of  view.  Time  may  show  that  it  is  not  all  clear  sailing. 
But  the  whole  drift  of  things  in  philosophy  seems  to  indicate  that 
our  point  of  departure  should  be  a  clear  recognition  that  experience 
and  knowledge  are  events  or  processes  in  which  things  undergo  a 
change.  A  thing  is  a  different  thing  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
experienced.  This  statement  can  of  course  be  interpreted  so  as  to 
become  tautology,  but  is  not  so  intended.  The  facts  of  memory  seem 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         513 

to  furnish  an  instance  of  the  sort  of  change  which  must  be  recog- 
nized, a  change  which,  so  far  from  thwarting  the  ends  of  knowing, 
is  the  very  instrumentality  through  which  these  ends  are  achieved. 
This  change  is  the  stone  which  the  builders  of  philosophic  theory 
have  hitherto  rejected,  but  which  has  promise  of  usefulness  as  head 
of  the  corner.  Questions  relating  to  the  character  of  things  ante- 
dating experience  and  to  the  nature  of  the  change  which  they 
undergo  in  becoming  experienced  derive  most  of  their  terrors  from 
the  assumption  of  the  ''external  standpoint"  which  was  criticized 
above.  "This  doctrine  of  the  real  efficiency  of  thought  does  not 
teach  that  thinking  undoes  or  reverses  or  blots  out  any  thing  or 
event  that  has  happened.  It  insists  only  that  in  becoming  known 
or  entering  into  knowledge  a  past  act  is  altered  in  the  sense  that  it 
takes  on  additional  functions  or  consequences. '  '3  Similarly,  the  con- 
tents of  a  perceptual  experience  can  hold  membership  in  the  physical 
order,  because  as  experienced  the  objects  of  perception  are  con- 
strued with  reference  to  their  function  of  control.  Every  field  of 
experience  is  thus  dominated  by  a  principle  of  organization,  a 
"unique  kind  of  centrality,"  in  which  both  identity  and  change 
find  a  place.  But  it  is  not  primarily  to  the  cogency  of  this  view  so 
much  as  to  its  recognition  of  the  character  of  the  problem  that  I  wish 
to  direct  attention.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  realist  and  the 
pragmatist  hold  so  many  conclusions  in  common,  we  may  hope  for 
a  still  more  extensive  agreement  as  the  result  of  further  reflection 
on  the  nature  of  consciousness  and  the  "internal  standpoint  of  ex- 
perience. ' ' 

B.  H.  BODE. 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  FORM  AND  CATEGORY  ON  THE 
OUTCOME  OF  JUDGMENT 

/"CONTRARY  to  the  statement  of  logicians  experiment  has  shown 
^-^  that  judgments  of  similarity  and  of  difference  are  not  merely 
the  two  sides  of  one  and  the  same  act  of  intellect,  but  involve  each 
its  own  peculiar  psychological  processes  and  criteria,  and  that  the 
category  or  the  form  in  which  the  judgment  is  expressed,  the  attri- 
bute toward  which  it  is  directed,  makes  a  considerable  and  measur- 
able difference  in  the  outcome  of  that  judgment.  The  present  study 
reports  an  investigation,  from  a  similar  point  of  view,  of  certain 
other  judgments  commonly  passed  in  daily  life. 

Is  a  judgment  of  stupidity  the  exact  reverse  of  a  judgment  of  in- 

*  Moore,  "Pragmatism  and  its  Critics,"  pages  103-4. 


614  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


Is  a  judgment  of  preference  the  exact  reverse  of  a  judg- 
ment of  dislike?  In  other  words,  do  we  use  the  same  standard  in 
judging  characteristics  designated  by  logical  opposites,  ranking  all 
specimens  according  to  the  degrees  by  which  they  deviate  positively 
or  negatively  from  that  standard?  When  we  arrange  specimens  of 
handwriting  in  an  order  of  merit  with  respect  to  resemblance  to  a 
given  standard  hand  we  use  somewhat  different  criteria  from  those 
employed  when  the  specimens  are  arranged  according  to  their  dif- 
ference from  the  standard.  May  it  be  also  true  that  judgments  of 
intelligence  or  of  preference  are  based  on  different  sets  of  criteria 
from  those  of  judgments  of  stupidity  or  aversion  ?  Do  we  like  a  per- 
son for  certain  qualities  and  dislike  those  who  possess  the  exact  anti- 
thesis of  these  qualities,  or  are  our  dislikes  and  preferences  based  on 
different  sets  of  qualities?  To  discover  which  of  these  possibilities 
has  the  greater  degree  of  probability  is  the  main  purpose  of  this 
study. 

The  material  consisted  of  25  photographs  of  actresses.  The 
photographs  were  similar  in  shape,  size,  finish,  and  mount,  differing 
only  with  respect  to  the  individual  photographed  and  the  pose  as- 
sumed. In  selecting  the  photographs  care  was  taken  to  avoid  those 
of  well-known  actresses,  in  order  that  past  judgments  might  not 
influence  the  results  of  the  experiment.  These  pictures  were  ranked 
in  an  order  of  merit,  by  10  observers,  with  respect  to  preference,  dis- 
like, intelligence,  and  stupidity.  As  the  purpose  was  to  discover  the 
effect  of  the  direction  or  category  of  judgment,  special  emphasis  was 
laid  on  each  category  in  the  written  instructions  with  which  each  of 
the  observers  was  provided.  These  instructions  were  as  follows: 

PEEF-ERENCE 

Arrange  the  photographs  in  an  order  of  merit,  placing  at  the  top  the  face 
you  like  the  most,  placing  second  the  face  you  like  next  best,  and  so  on,  until 
the  face  you  like  the  least  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  series. 

DISLIKE 

Arrange  the  photographs  in  an  order  of  demerit,  placing  at  the  top  the 
face  yon  dislike  the  most,  placing  second  the  one  you  dislike  next  intensely,  and 
so  on,  until  the  one  you  dislike  the  least  is  at  the  bottom. 

INTELLIGENCE 

Arrange  the  photographs  in  an  order  of  merit  with  respect  to  the  intelligence 
of  the  face,  putting  at  the  top  the  most  intelligent,  next  to  it  the  next  in  intelli- 
gence, and  so  on,  with  the  least  intelligent  face  at  the  bottom  of  the  series. 

STUPIDITY 

Arrange  the  photographs  in  an  order  with  respect  to  the  stupidity  of  the 
face,  putting  the  most  stupid  at  the  top,  next  to  it  the  next  stupid,  and  so  on, 
until  the  least  stupid  looking  face  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  series. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


515 


Five  of  the  observers  made  the  arrangements  in  the  following 
order : 

1st  week,  ranked  for  preference  and  intelligence. 
2nd  week,  ranked  for  preference  and  intelligence. 
3rd  week,  ranked  for  dislike  and  stupidity. 
4th  week,  ranked  for  dislike  and  stupidity. 

The  remaining  five  ranked  for  dislike  and  stupidity  in  the  first  two 
weeks,  and  for  preference  and  intelligence  in  the  last  two  weeks. 
This  precaution  was  taken  in  order  to  minimize  the  influence  of 
practise  on  the  results  of  the  group  averages.  In  every  case  at  least 
a  week  intervened  between  one  judgment  and  the  next.  There  was 
no  clear  evidence  of  decided  memory  effect  except  in  the  case  of  the 
extremes  of  the  series.  After  the  fourth  arrangement  the  observers 
were  asked  to  write  out  a  statement  of  the  criteria  used  in  judging 
each  trait.  The  observers  were  all  students  of  Barnard  College, 
juniors  or  seniors  taking  their  second  or  third  year's  work  in  psy- 
chology. 

In  making  the  correlations  to  be  discussed  later,  the  formula 


d(d2-!) 

was  used.  The  correlations  were  worked  out  between  each  observ- 
er's two  trials  (I.  and  II.),  and  between  each  observer's  average 
judgment  (a)  with  the  group  judgment  (A),  for  each  of  the  four 
traits.  These  results  are  given  in  Table  I. 

TABLE    I 
THESE  COEFFICIENTS  OF  CORRELATION  ARE  ALL  POSITIVE 


Observer 

Ell. 

Car. 

Ste. 

Hal. 

DeN. 

Str. 

Bro. 

Bar. 

Val. 

Caa. 

AT. 

M.V. 

Correlations  of  I.  and  II. 
Preference  

55 

73 

87 

91 

68 

74 

88 

92 

84 

96 

808 

10  6 

Dislike  

57 

89 

86 

98 

87 

73 

84 

70 

86 

60 

79.0 

11  0 

Intelligence  

71 

84 

90 

92 

78 

74 

86 

77 

91 

83 

82.6 

60 

Stupidity  

77 

85 

89 

87 

83 

7? 

73 

65 

82 

86 

79  9 

6  5 

Correlations  of  a  with  A  : 
Preference  

51 

57 

58 

?3 

56 

55 

44 

45 

54 

58 

50.1 

7  7 

Dislike  

50 

59 

64 

31 

43 

?,7 

57 

48 

63 

48 

49  0 

9  6 

Intelligence  

3? 

?9 

3?! 

48 

43 

41 

32 

59 

26 

30 

37  2 

8  4 

Stupidity  

54 

57 

55 

52 

62 

46 

62 

36 

42 

36 

50.2 

8.2 

Table  II.  gives  the  correlations  between  each  order  and  the  recip- 
rocal of  its  supposed  opposite  (by  the  reciprocal  is  meant  the  in- 
verted order,  so  that  what  was  originally  the  bottom  of  the  series 
becomes  the  top).  If  categories  logically  opposite  are  also  psycho- 


5 1« 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


logically  the  two  sides  of  the  same  act  of  intellect,  then  the  correla- 
tion between  preference  and  the  reciprocal  of  dislike  should  be  equal 
to  the  average  of  the  personal  consistency  coefficients  for  preference 
and  for  stupidity.  That  is  to  say,  the  inverted  order  for  dislike 
should  coincide  with  the  direct  order  for  preference,  and  should  cor- 
relate as  closely  with  this  direct  order  as  would  two  trials  for  prefer- 
ence with  each  other.  The  same  relation  should  be  expected  to  hold 
between  intelligence  and  stupidity.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  proc- 
esses differ  from  each  other  psychologically,  it  would  seem  that  the 
correlation  between  preference  and  the  reciprocal  of  dislike  (both 
standards  or  categories  being  involved)  should  be  less  than  the  corre- 
lations of  two  trials  for  preference  or  of  two  trials  for  dislike.  The 
same,  again,  should  hold  for  intelligence  and  stupidity. 

TABLE   II 


Obserrer 

Ell. 

Car. 

Ste. 

Hal. 

DeN. 

Str. 

nro. 

Bar. 

Val. 

CM. 

A-..T- 

age 

Correlations  of: 
1.  Pref.  and  therecip.  of  dial. 
2.  Av.  of  pref.  I.  and  II.,  and 
dial.  I.  and  II  

60 

56 

89 
81 

93 
86.5 

94 
94.5 

90 

77  ft 

57 
73  5 

86 
8ft 

78 
81 

89 

85 

83 

78 

81.9 
79.9 

3.  Int.  and  the  recip.  of  stup. 
4.  Av.  of  int.  I.  and  II.,  and 
Btup.  I.  and  II  

85 
74 

79 

84.5 

93 
89.5 

90 
89.5 

94 
80.5 

74 
73 

73 

78.5 

87 
71 

86 
86.5 

96 
84.5 

85.7 
81.2 

At  first  glance,  as  the  results  are  presented  in  this  table,  the 
situation  does  not  seem  to  be  similar  to  that  found  in  the  study  of 
judgments  of  similarity  and  difference.  In  6  of  the  10  cases  the 
•correlation  between  preference  and  the  reciprocal  of  dislike  is  greater 
than  the  average  correlations  of  similar  arrangements,  and  in  two 
of  the  remaining  cases  there  is  no  difference  between  the  two.  The 
average  shows  a  small  per  cent,  in  favor  of  the  former. 

In  the  case  of  intelligence  and  stupidity,  7  of  the  10  observers 
have  higher  correlation  between  the  judgment  of  intelligence  and 
the  reciprocal  of  stupidity  than  the  average  correlation  of  similar 
arrangements,  and  the  average  shows  superiority  in  this  direction 
of  4.5  per  cent. 

It  is  apparent  then  that  if  these  character  judgments  really  have 
the  same  psychological  differences  as  those  found  between  judgments 
of  similarity  and  difference,  some  factor  is  present  in  this  experiment 
which  obscures  the  difference. 

Table  III.  indicates  that  this  factor  is  practise,  adaptation,  or 
familiarity  with  the  material,  and  that  before  these  factors  operate 
genuine  psychological  differences  are  disclosed.  In  this  table  the 
trials  are  not  averaged  as  in  Table  II.,  but  the  first  order  for  prefer- 
ence is  correlated  with  the  reciprocal  of  the  first  order  for  dislike, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


517 


and  the  second  order  for  preference  with  the  reciprocal  of  the  second 
order  for  dislike.  In  a  similar  way  are  handled  the  arrangements 
according  to  intelligence  and  stupidity.  Each  of  these  indirect  cor- 
relations is  then  compared  with  the  average  of  the  direct  correla- 
tions,— that  is,  with  the  average  of  preference  with  preference,  and 
dislike  with  dislike.  This  also  is  done  in  the  case  of  intelligence  and 
stupidity. 

In  both  cases  the  results  are  clear.  The  correlation  of  the  first 
of  the  positive  quality  with  the  reciprocal  of  the  first  of  the  nega- 
tive quality  is  less  than  the  average  correlation  of  positive  and  nega- 
tive qualities  with  themselves.  In  the  case  of  preference  and  dislike 
there  is  no  exception  to  this  rule,  and  the  average  difference  amounts 
to  over  13  per  cent.  In  the  case  of  intelligence  and  stupidity  3  of 
the  observers  are  exceptions,  but  the  other  7  show  the  difference 
clearly ;  a  difference  which  averages,  for  the  10  observers,  over  5  per 
cent.  Averaging  the  two  types  of  judgment,  in  the  lower  part  of 
the  table,  there  is  no  exception  to  the  rule,  and  the  average  superior- 
ity amounts  to  over  9  per  cent. 

TABLE   III 


Obierrer 

Ell. 

C»r. 

s«. 

Hal. 

DeN. 

Str. 

Bro. 

Bar. 

Val. 

Cai. 

Aver- 
age 

Av.  pref  .  (I.  and  II.)  and  dial. 

(I.  and  II.)  

56 

81 

87 

95 

78 

74 

86 

81 

85 

78 

79.9 

Pref.  I.  and  recip.  of  dial.  I. 

22 

81 

83 

91 

66 

43 

77 

56 

80 

67 

66.6 

Pref.  II.  and  recip.  of  disl.  II. 

59 

80 

90 

95 

92 

55 

79 

86 

82 

90 

80.8 

Av.  int.  (I.  and  II.)  and  stup. 

(I.  and  II.)  

74 

85 

90 

90 

81 

73 

79 

71 

87 

85 

81.2 

Int.  I.  and  recip.  of  stup.  I.. 

72 

78 

88 

88 

87 

53 

52 

73 

77 

92 

76.0 

Int.  II.  and  recip.  of  disl.  II. 

83 

78 

88 

90 

91 

69 

86 

84 

83 

87 

83.9 

Av.  pos.  and  neg.  (I.  and  II.) 

65 

82 

88 

92 

79 

73 

82 

76 

86 

81 

80.5 

Pos.  I.  and  recip.  of  neg.  I  .  . 

47 

80 

86 

90 

77 

48 

65 

65 

79 

80 

71.3 

Pos.  II.  and  recip.  of  neg.  II. 

71 

79 

89 

93 

92 

62 

83 

85 

83 

89 

82.3 

The  influence  of  practise,  adaptation,  and  familiarity  with  the 
material  is  shown  by  comparing  the  third  row  of  coefficients  in  each 
group  of  Table  III.  with  the  second  row  of  the  same  section.  In 
these  third  rows  the  correlation  of  the  second  direct  arrangements 
with  the  second  of  the  reciprocal  arrangements  is  seen  to  move  up, 
in  each  case,  and  very  clearly  in  the  average,  to  the  correlation  of 
two  direct  arrangements  for  a  given  trait.  In  fact  the  coefficients 
are  usually  a  little  higher.  Very  evidently,  then,  in  the  beginning 
of  the  experiment,  before  the  two  categories  have  been  brought  to- 
gether in  the  consciousness  of  the  observer  in  any  explicit  way,  the 
judgment  of  a  negative  quality  is  not  the  exact  antithesis  of  that  of  a 
positive  quality.  A  judgment  of  dislike,  that  is  to  say,  is  not  merely 


518 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


the  reverse  aspect  of  a  judgment  of  preference,  but  a  new  kind  of 
judgment,  with  perhaps  different  criteria,  and  certainly  with  a  dif- 
ferent outcome.  The  same  must  be  said  of  judgments  of  intelli- 
gence and  stupidity.  The  form  of  expression,  the  direction  or  cate- 
gory of  the  judgment,  has  a  measurable  influence  on  the  outcome  of 
that  judgment.  But  as  the  experiment  proceeds  and  the  two  cate- 
gories are  both  explicitly  brought  to  the  consciousness  of  the  ob- 
server, and  after  practise,  adaptation  and  familiarity  with  the  ma- 
terial have  played  their  part,  the  difference  between  the  two  cate- 
gories tends  to  fall  away,  and  the  form  or  direction  of  the  judgment 
no  longer  influences  its  outcome. 

This  tendency  is  the  same  as  that  remarked  in  the  study  of  the 
judgments  of  similarity  and  difference  in  the  case  of  handwriting, 
where  it  is  found  that  with  practise  and  repetition  the  two  judg- 
ments come  to  resemble  each  other,  and  the  inverted  order  for  dif- 
ference to  agree  more  closely  with  the  direct  order  for  similarity. 

This  tendency  is  further  shown  by  the  figures  in  Table  IV.,  in 
which  the  correlation  of  the  first  two  trials  of  a  given  observer  is 
compared  with  the  correlation  of  his  last  two  trials,  regardless  of  the 
category  of  judgment  concerned.  With  a  single  exception  the  latter 
coefficient  is  always  higher  than  the  former,  the  average  of  the  ten 
observers  showing  a  superiority  of  7  per  cent. 

TABLE   IV 


ObMrrer 

Ell. 

Car. 

8te. 

Hal. 

DeN. 

Str. 

Bro. 

Bar. 

Val. 

Cat. 

Average 

First  two  trials  

63 

7ft 

89 

92 

73 

73 

79 

68 

84 

73 

77.0 

Last  two  trials  

67 

87 

88 

93 

85 

74 

87 

85 

88 

90 

84.2 

TABLE    V 
PERSONAL  CONSISTENCY  COMPARED  WITH  GENERAL  JUDICIAL  CAPACITY 


Observer 

EJL 

Car. 

Sta. 

Hal. 

DeN. 

Str. 

Bro. 

Bar. 

Val. 

CM. 

Average 

Average  correlations  of  I. 
with  II  

65 

83 

88 

ft? 

79 

73 

83 

76 

86 

81 

80.6 

Average  correlations  of  a 
with  .4  

47 

51 

52 

39 

51 

42 

49 

47 

46 

43 

46.6 

TABLE    VI 


Ratio  of  BMt  to  Poorett 

Preference 

Intelligence 

Dislike 

Stupidity 

Average 

Correlation  of  I.  and  II  
Correlation  of  a  with  A  

96:55 
58:23 

92:71 
59:26 

98:57 
64:27 

89:65 
62:36 

1.51:1.00 
2.15-1  00 

Average 1.83:1.00 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         519 

TABLE   VII 

Correlations  of  Averages  of 
I.  and  I. : 

Preference    80.8  10.6  Subjective  judgments    .  78.9  10.8 

Intelligence     82.6  6.0  Objective  judgments    . .  81.3  6.2 

Dislike     79.0  11.0  Positive  judgments    . . .  81.7  8.3 

Stupidity     79.9  6.5  Negative  judgments    . .  79.4  8.8 

o  with  A: 

Preference    50.1  7.7  Subjective  judgments    .  49.5  8.6 

Intelligence     37.2  8.4  Objective  judgments   . .  43.7  8.3 

Dislike     49.0  9.6  Positive  judgments    . . .  43.7  7.9 

Stupidity     50.2  8.2  Negative  judgments    . .  49.6  8.9 

The  introspection  was  of  little  value,  consisting  for  the  most  part 
of  mere  generalization.  But  where  specific  criteria  were  given  the 
presence  of  the  two  standards  was  apparent.  For  example,  Ob- 
server Hal. — "I  like  eyes  looking  straight  at  me.  I  don't  like  head 
or  eyes  to  have  unnatural  pose,  because  it  looks  affected.  I  can't 
abide  frowsy  hair.  I  like  smiling  eyes  and  mouth  and  a  high  fore- 
head." Here  the  first  two  criteria  do  seem  to  be  opposed — eyes 
looking  straight  at  one  are  not  usually  eyes  in  an  unnatural  pose. 
But  other  criteria  show  the  two  standards.  The  observer  "  can't 
abide"  frowsy  hair,  but  she  does  not  specifically  admire  smooth 
coiffures.  She  likes  high  foreheads,  but  expresses  no  positive  dis- 
like for  low  ones. 

Some  incidental  points  brought  out  in  the  results  are  worth 
noting.  In  Table  V.  the  personal  consistency  of  each  observer  is 
compared  with  her  correlation  with  the  group  average.  The  coeffi- 
cient (.06)  shows  that  there  is  absolutely  no  correlation  between  the 
two.  This  seems  to  indicate  an  absence  of  general  judicial  capacity. 

In  Table  VI.  the  ratio  of  best  to  poorest  is  given,  and  the  familiar 
ratio  of  about  2:1  found. 

Table  VII.  seems  to  show  that  the  more  subjective  judgments  of 
preference  and  dislike  are  more  variable  and  uncertain  than  the 
more  objective  ones  of  intelligence  and  stupidity.  The  coefficients 
are  slightly  lower  on  the  average  and  the  mean  variations  are  larger. 
This  is  true  whether  personal  consistency  or  judicial  capacity  is  con- 
cerned. The  coefficients  for  the  negative  judgments  of  dislike  and 
stupidity  also  show  a  higher  variability  than  do  those  of  the  positive 
judgments  of  preference  and  intelligence. 

SUMMARY 

1.  Judgments  which  are  grammatically  opposite  (as  preference 
and  dislike,  intelligence  and  stupidity)  involve,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  experiment,  psychological  processes  and  criteria  which  are  not 


520  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

identical.    The  form,  direction,  or  category  of  the  judgment  exerts 
a  measurable  difference  on  its  outcome. 

2.  As  the  experiment  proceeds  the  processes  and  criteria  move 
to  a  common  plane  and  the  two  types  of  judgment  resemble  each 
other  more  closely.    This  movement  to  a  common  plane  is  apparently 
the  result  of  repetition,  adaptation,  and  familiarity  with  the  ma- 
terial, and  of  the  fact  that  the  two  categories,  hitherto  implicitly 
distinct  from  each  other,  are  now  brought  explicitly  together  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  observer. 

3.  The  result  of  practise  and  familiarity  with  the  material  is  to 
increase  the  personal  consistency  of  the  observer's  judgments. 

4.  Introspection  suggests  different  criteria  for  judgments  which 
are  grammatically  or  logically  only  two  sides  of  the  same  intellec- 
tual act. 

5.  There  is  seen  to  be  no  correlation  between  personal  consist- 
ency and  agreement  with  the  group  average. 

6.  The  ratio  of  best  to  poorest,  in  both  these  respects,  is  the  fa- 
miliar one  of  about  2 : 1. 

7.  Subjective  judgments  (of  preference  and  dislike)   are  more 
variable  and  uncertain  than  the  more  objective  judgments  (of  in- 
telligence and  stupidity). 

8.  The  coefficients  of  "negative"  judgments  (dislike  and  stupid- 
ity)   are  more  variable  than  those  of  the   "positive"  judgments 
(preference  and  intelligence). 

MARGARET   HART   STRONG. 
H.  L.  HOLLINGWORTH. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


DISCUSSION 
SOMETHING  MORE  ABOUT  INVERSION:  A  REJOINDER 

I  AM  much  obliged  to  Dr.  Karl  Schmidt  for  his  critical  notice  of 
my  article  on  "Inversion."1  He  has  added  to  the  evidence  that 
inversion  is  practically  worthless.  For  note  carefully  what  his  equa- 
tions prove.  From  ^' All  A  is  B"  he  proves  that  if  A  exists,  and  if 
B  exists,  then  the  A  which  is  also  B  exists.  To  put  it  in  concrete 
terms,  from  "All  men  are  mortal"  he  proves  that  if  not-men  exist 
and  if  immortals  exist,  then  not-men  who  are  also  immortals  exist. 
The  inverse  is  a  simple  categorical  proposition,  "Some  not-men  are 
immortal."  Dr.  Schmidt  succeeds  only  in  proving  a  very  complex, 
doubly-conditioned  hypothetical  conclusion.  This  difference  be- 
tween the  real  inverse  and  what  he  actually  proves  is  probably  one 
1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  232.  My  article  is  in  Vol.  IX.,  page  65. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         521 

of  those  ' '  mere  trifles  ' '  which  symbolic  logic  glides  over  so  sweetly. 
But  he  has  no  doubt  achieved  all  that  the  case  admits.  Given  the 
same  problem  that  he  attempted,  I  do  not  think  any  man  could  do 
better.  That  is  just  the  reason  why  his  attempt  shows  that  the  task 
of  validating  inversion  is  hopeless.  Inversion  has  been  masquer- 
ading as  an  immediate  inference,  yet  it  seems  to  require  six  equa- 
tions, to  say  nothing  of  some  notes,  for  its  proof,  or  semblance  of 
proof.  An  elastic  sort  of  immediate  inference! 

I  have  remarked  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  concrete  examples  of 
inversion  which  are  not  silly.  ' '  Inversionists  for  the  most  part 
prudently  stick  to  symbols."2  Dr.  Schmidt  is  an  example  of  this 
wise  caution;  he  sticks  to  symbols.  I  do  not  say  that  he  is  an  ex- 
ample of  an  inversionist.  I  am  afraid  he  would  repudiate  that 
title,  and  decline  to  be  classed  with  the  people  to  whom  it  properly 
applies.  He  is  like  them  only  in  eschewing  concrete  reality  in  the 
treatment  of  inversion.  It  is  not  irrelevant,  therefore,  to  inquire 
into  the  meaning  and  value  of  his  symbols,  and  to  ask  whether  it  is 
legitimate  to  turn  our  backs  on  concrete  reality.  A  gentleman  with 
whom  I  conversed  about  inversion,  himself  the  author  of  a  text-book 
of  logic,3  said,  "You  can't  prove  anything  by  examples."  But,  if 
we  may  believe  Professor  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  you  can't  prove  anything 
without  examples.  "Formal  Logic  in  fact  means  nothing."*  The 
truth  of  a  proposition  lies  wholly  in  its  application.  "The  meaning 
of  ' S  is  P'  thus  is  strictly  ad  hoc,  and  depends  on  its  application  to 
a  particular  case."5  Propositions  are  somewhat  like  clothes;  they 
must  be  tried  on.  A  bland,  persuasive  shopman  says,  "This  is  a 
fine  coat,  the  very  thing  you  want."  I  shake  my  head;  I  haven't 
tried  it  on.  And  the  fit  is  not  all;  many  things  go  to  make  it  my 
coat.  In  like  manner  propositions  must  be  fitted  to  a  specific  in- 
stance. Trying  on,  application  to  the  case  in  hand,  is  the  only  way 
of  making  sure  of  their  meaning,  their  truth.  But  this  is  not  formal 
logic ;  very  far  from  it. 

Here  is  a  ringing  challenge  to  formal  logic  to  defend  its  very  ex- 
istence. Much  more  is  symbolic  logic,  that  ultra-formal  phase  of 
formal  logic,  put  to  the  proof.  The  fact  that  symbols  are  absolutely 
empty  of  relevant  meaning  may  account  for  some  astonishing  feats 
of  legerdemain  in  the  "new  logic."  Meaningless  things  may  be 
juggled  into  a  semblance  of  proving  one  thing  just  as  well  as  another. 
This  may  be  also  one  reason  for  those  discordant  notes  which  sound 
aloud  from  the  symbolist  camp.  They  all  alike  fairly  run  riot  in 

2  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  67. 
1  Dr.  P.  K.  Ray. 

*Mind,  No.  82,  April,  1912,  page  246. 
8  Loc.  cit.,  page  248. 


622  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

"pure  form,"  but  they  differ  widely  among  themselves.  If  the 
"quarrels"  of  logicians  are  "amusing,"  what  shall  we  say  of  the 
domestic  brawls  of  that  happy  family,  the  symbolists?  "Mr.  Venn 
has  collected  some  two  dozen  ways  in  which  'a  is  b'  has  been  put  in 
logical  (t.  e.,  symbolic  equational)  form."8  Some  symbolists  soar  so 
far  into  the  blue  empyrean  of  "pure  form"  that  they  are  really  in 
danger  of  being  lost  to  mortal  ken.  Even  their  own  kith  and  kin  ad- 
vise us  not  to  take  them  "too  seriously."7  In  Browning's  "Christ- 
mas Eve"  he  finds  the  breathing  decidedly  bad  in  Zion  Chapel,  but 
worse  is  in  store  for  him ;  his  German  professor  claps  him  under  the 
air-pump  and  takes  his  breath  clean  away.  So  with  some  of  the 
symbolists;  they  are  quite  too  ethereal  for  ordinary  mortals.  That 
alleged  "contemptuous  attitude  of  the  average  philosopher  towards 
algebra  of  logic,"  of  which  Dr.  Schmidt  complains,  may  be,  after 
all,  merely  instinctive  shrinking  from  the  air-pump.  We  can  not 
forget  the  piteous  last  gasp  of  that  poor  little  mouse,  the  victim  of 
our  heartless  rage  for  knowledge  in  student  days.  Give  us  a  whiff  of 
the  vital  air  of  real  logic,  even  if  it  is  not  quite  "pure." 

A  grave  question  as  to  the  soundness  of  equational  logic  is  this: 
Is  it  legitimate  to  ignore  the  radical  qualitative  distinction  between 
mathematical  units  and  logical  units?  The  former  are  quantitative 
only;  the  latter  are  not  merely  quantitative,  but  also  qualitative. 
They  mean  something.  Now  equational  logic  rubs  off  this  fine  deli- 
cate bloom  of  quality  from  logical  units,  leaving  them  like  stale  fruit 
in  a  shop  window,  fit  only  to  be  reckoned  in  bulk  by  the  bushel  or 
cart-load. 

Even  if  we  concede  that  symbolic  logic  can  ever  make  good  its 
own  raison  d'etre,  what  follows  as  to  its  bearing  on  inversion? 
Merely  this :  It  enables  us  to  prove  a  far-fetched  hypothetical  conclu- 
sion which  has  some  semblance  of  the  actual  categorical  inverse. 
But  when  all  is  said  and  done  it  will  be  found  that  inversion  is  no 
more  at  home  in  equations  than  in  real  logic.  Symbolists  have  really 
no  occasion  to  use  the  name.  From  their  point  of  view  it  is.  as  Dr. 
Schmidt  rightly  says,  "a  mere  trifle."  The  calculus  of  classes  flat- 
tens out  all  class  relations  to  one  dead  level,  just  as  it  degrades  log- 
ical units  from  their  high  estate  as  members  of  "the  quality"  to  the 
dead  level  of  mathematical  quantitative  units.  All  classes,  the  posi- 
tive, the  negative,  even  the  mythical  "null"  class  wholly  empty  of 
content,  are  alike  in  importance;  and  no  one  class  relation  has  pre- 
eminence or  distinctive  emphasis  over  another.  To  single  out  one  of 

'"Johns  Hopkins  Studies  in  Logic,"  page  24,  footnote. 
*  Witness,  for  instance,  Mrs.  Ladd-Franklin  's  remarks  about  Mr.  Bertrand 
Bnssell,  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  109. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         523 

them  and  call  it  the  inverse,  or  one  inverse  from  the  host  of  inverses 
of  A,  E,  I,  and  0,  is  quite  uncalled  for  and  foreign  to  the  whole 
tenor  and  spirit  of  symbolism. 

I  have  shown  that  inversion  is  silly  and  illicit  in  real  logic,  and 
Dr.  Schmidt  shows  that  in  symbolic  logic  it  is  a  mere  trifle  hardly 
worth  notice,  and  certainly  not  worth  a  distinctive  name.  His  dis- 
cussion and  mine  together  constitute  a  complete  demonstration  of  the 
futility  of  inversion.  The  ambitious  attempt  to  foist  it  upon  logical 
science  as  a  new  form  of  immediate  inference  coordinate  with  con- 
version and  obversion  is  doomed  to  failure. 

Dr.  Schmidt  says  that  my  examples8  "violate  the  condition 
B  ±  0."  This  is  not  true  of  the  first  one  on  that  page;  and  of  the 
others,  while  it  is  true,  it  is  not  fatal.  They  are  still  perfectly  sound 
illustrations  of  inversion-silliness.  As  inverses  of  E  they  are  for- 
mally correct,  and  yet  they  are  grossly  absurd.  Inversion  itself  is  at 
fault,  not  my  examples  of  it.  Perhaps  Dr.  Schmidt  will  be  so  good 
as  to  give  us  some  examples  which  are  not  silly.  The  proof  of  the 
pudding  is  in  the  eating.  Inversion  must  be  tried  on,  and  my  ex- 
amples of  trying  it  on  show  its  abounding  Capacity  for  misfits. 

The  first  example  (p.  67)  illustrates  the  absurdity  of  proving 
immortality  from  mortality,  and  it  does  not  violate  the  condition  "B 
exists."  Surely  we  mortals  exist  if  anything  does.  Is  there  a  life 
beyond?  "Yes,"  says  the  inversionist ;  "I  can  prove  it.  All  men 
are  mortal,  therefore  not-men  are  immortal."  But  here  emerge 
those  pesky  "If's,"  "If  not-men  exist,"  "If  immortals  exist,"  and 
so  forth.  In  a  conclusion  thus  hampered  with  conditions  there  is 
small  comfort  for  an  anxious  soul  seeking  proofs  of  immortality. 

L.  E.  HICKS. 

BERKELEY,  CAL. 

REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

The  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value:  The  Gifford  Lectures  for  1911. 
B.  BOSANQUET.  London:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xxxvii 
+  409. 

The  tradition  of  idealism  as  a  defensible  and  significant  body  of 
truth  still  lives  in  English  philosophy.  The  present  volume  of  Gifford 
lectures  must  be  reckoned  among  the  most  vigorous  and  profound  of  the 
writings  of  that  English  school  of  idealism  which  counts  as  its  leaders 
Green,  the  Cairds,  and  Bradley.  Idealism  is,  in  one  sense,  a  tradition. 
That  is  to  say,  certain  attitudes,  concepts,  and  experiences  have  been 
seized  upon  in  the  history  of  thought,  held  fast  to,  and  declared  to  be 
of  prime  importance  for  the  interpretation  of  nature  and  of  life,  re- 
•  This  JOUBNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  67. 


524  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

gardless  as  to  what  the  detailed  facts  of  experience  may  prove  to  be.  It 
is  because  of  this  that,  to  the  critic,  idealism  has  so  often  seemed  es- 
sentially a  dogma,  in  the  sense  in  which  none  of  us  approves  of  dogma. 
And  this  is  why  we  are  so  often  assured  that  idealism  is  foreign  to  the 
empirical  temper  of  the  scientific  interest  which,  so  we  are  also  as- 
sured, is  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  facts  of  experience  as  the  future  shall 
reveal  them  to  be.  Hence,  when  Mr.  Bosanquet  says :  "  I  do  not  conceal 
my  belief  that  in  the  main  the  work  has  been  done,  and  that  what  is  now 
needed  is  to  recall  and  concentrate  the  modern  mind  out  of  its  distrac- 
tion rather  than  to  invent  wholly  new  theoretical  conceptions  " — when 
the  author  says  this,  we  are  tempted  to  say  that  this  sort  of  philosophy 
has  allied  itself  with  the  old  dogmas  and  absolutisms,  and  is  not  for 
•euch  as  we. 

If,  however,  a  system  of  philosophy  is  an  interpretation  of  central, 
constant,  and  obvious  characteristics  of  experience  which  are  present 
from  day  to  day  and  from  age  to  age,  then  one  may  indeed  have  greater 
confidence  in  the  work  of  previous  thinkers,  provided  that  their  survey 
is  based  on  "what  man  recognizes  as  value  when  his  life  is  fullest  and 
his  soul  at  its  highest  stretch"  (p.  3).  That  there  are  "great  and  simple 
facts,"  obvious  things  which  "  depend  not  on  immediacy,  but  on  centrality 
and  dominance,"  and  that  the  hardest  philosophy  consists  in  attempts  to 
interpret  such  central  things — this  is  emphasized  at  the  outset  by  Mr. 
Bosanquet.  "  The  great  philosophers,  it  will  be  found,  are  just  those 
who  have  succeeded  in  discerning  the  great  and  simple  things  "  (p.  6). 

One  will  do  well  to  keep  this  in  mind  in  dealing  with  idealism. 
Idealism  is  the  deliberate  and  philosophical  expression  of  an  attitude  to 
life  and  experience  and  reality,  an  attitude  which  idealism  believes  to 
be  rationally  justifiable  because  of  one  dominant  and  central  character- 
istic of  reality.  Mr.  Bosanquet's  lectures  are  in  substance  a  commentary 
on  this  characteristic  of  experience  which  is  so  central  that  we  may 
safely  build  our  philosophy  upon  it.  It  is  what  our  author  well  calls  the 
"  arduousness  of  reality,"  the  impossibility  of  falling  back  upon  any 
single  nucleus  of  fact  or  feeling  as  a  stable  possession.  To  discover  the 
truth  of  things  a  pilgrim's  progress  is  necessary.  Or,  stated  negatively, 
one  may  say  that  idealism  is  chiefly  a  warning  against  a  too  confident 
trust  in  immediacy.  The  author  especially  notes  three  types  of  immedi- 
acy, three  orders  of  being  which  as  solid  immediate  data  are  exploited  by 
much  contemporary  thought.  Radical  empiricism  and  realism  have  their 
fact,  mysticism  and  irrationalism  their  life,  and  personal  idealism  and 
much  popular  metaphysics  their  self.  "  The  solid  fact  or  object  of  per- 
ception; the  indeterminate  living  or  duration  which  defies  the  notional 
grasp;  the  isolated  personality,  impervious  to  the  mind  of  others,  seem 
all  of  them  to  mark  arbitrary  refuges  or  timid  withdrawals  from  the 
movement  of  the  world"  (p.  13).  But  the  central  and  obvious  lesson  of 
all  experience  is  the  way  in  which  all  these  apparently  solid  nuclei  be- 
come dissolved,  share  in  that  "  nisus  towards  a  whole,  that  search  for 
completeness,  that  remoulding  of  a  cosmos  by  its  own  yearning  for  total- 
ity "  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  life,  of  logic,  of  art,  and  of  spon- 
taneity. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         525 

It  is  not  so  much  this  radical  doctrine  of  flux  and  thorough  media- 
tion which  calls  forth  opposition  to  idealism  as  it  is  the  idealist's  identifi- 
cation of  this  life  and  movement  of  things  with  the  life  and  movement  of 
thought.  On  this  issue  more  than  on  any  other  does  idealism  depend. 
For  the  realist,  thought  is  either  a  replica  of  things  or  else  for  the  neo- 
realist  a  purely  cognitive  relation  in  which  neutral  things,  indifferent  to 
thought,  become  known  together.  For  Bergson,  the  irrationalist,  thought 
is  a  more  or  less  mechanical  repetition  of  identical  elements,  remote  from 
life  and  from  real  activity.  For  the  biological  pragmatist  thought  is  but 
another  name  for  the  response  of  the  nervous  system  to  the  environment. 
Mr.  Bosanquet  is  at  his  best,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  the  reviewer,  on 
wholly  solid  ground  when  he  maintains  that  typical  instances  of  the 
work  of  thought  are  not  to  be  looked  for  in  decaying  sense  or  in  tautolog- 
ical analyses  or  in  any  region  foreign  to  the  world  of  active  experience. 
A  work  of  art,  a  great  business  organization,  the  economic  life  of  a  great 
city,  the  moral  life  of  society — all  of  these  show  us  what  thought  is. 
"  The  object  which  thought  in  the  true  sense  has  worked  upon  is  not  a 
relic  of  decaying  sense,  but  is  a  living  world,  analogous  to  a  perception 
of  the  beautiful,  in  which  every  thought  determination  adds  fresh  point 
and  deeper  bearing  to  every  element  of  the  whole"  (p.  58). 

Thus  far,  the  idealism  set  forth  in  this  volume  could  not  fairly  be 
called  l<  intellectualism."  But  absolute  idealism  has  gone  beyond  this  dis- 
trust of  sheer  immediacy  and  this  confidence  that  the  best  instance  of  life 
and  continuity  and  movement  towards  a  whole  is  to  be  found  in  the 
work  of  thought.  Absolute  idealism  has  made  the  leap  from  this  discov- 
ery of  the  "  nisus  towards  a  whole  "  as  the  central  character  of  experience 
and  the  resulting  rational  character  of  a  concrete  universal  to  the  well- 
known  doctrines  of  the  absolute.  It  is  a  fascinating  and  tempting  step 
to  take.  But  I  suspect  that  something  is  likely  to  happen  when  this  step 
is  taken,  which  justifies  the  epithet  of  "  intellectualism  "  and  the  feeling 
that  idealism  has  suffered  thereby.-  What  happens  seems  to  be  that  the 
very  significant  concepts  of  nisus,  of  activity,  of  end,  of  purpose,  in  short, 
the  moral  concepts,  are  threatened  with  extinction  in  absolute  idealism. 

This  can  well  be  seen  by  a  brief  consideration  of  a  topic  about  which 
Mr.  Bosanquet  has  much  to  say.  His  volume  contains  a  vigorous  polemic 
against  any  teleology  or  active  moral  character  being  attributed  to  such 
consciousness  as  we  are  familiar  with.  Some  difficulties  which  idealism 
invites  by  so  doing  can  be  seen  by  noting  certain  expressions  used  by  the 
author.  These  expressions  are  strikingly  similar  to  views  about  con- 
sciousness whose  spirit  and  import  are  quite  the  opposite  of  idealistic. 
I  quote  a  few  of  the  passages  referred  to.  "  The  only  possible  course,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  is  simply  to  accept  conscious  process  as  the  essence  of  a 
certain  kind  of  physical  process  "  (p.  179).  "  Mind,  so  far  as  it  can  be  in 
space,  is  nervous  system;  nervous  system,  focused  in  the  nisus  towards 
unity,  which  a  standing  miracle  associates  with  it,  is  finite  mind.  .  .  . 
There  is  nothing — no  part  nor  point — in  the  one  that  is  not  in  the  other  " 
(p.  219).  "Mind  has  nothing  positive  of  its  own  but  the  active  form  of 
totality;  everything  positive  it  draws  from  Nature"  (p.  367).  "Every 


526  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

self  is  the  representative  center  of  an  external  world"  (p.  382).  And  be- 
cause of  this  it  follows  that  "  the  self  which  experiences  as  well  as  that 
which  is  experienced,  is  content"  (p.  323).  Now  wherein  lies  the  differ- 
ence between  such  a  view  of  consciousness  as  these  passages  suggest  and 
the  theory  which  in  general  can  be  called  the  biological  view  of  conscious- 
ness? For  both  views,  consciousness  is  wholly  ex  post  facto;  it  expresses 
and  illumines  a  situation  which  is  to  be  defined  in  non-conscious  terms 
as  nervous  system  and  organism  responding  to  environment,  as,  in  any 
case,  a  fragment  of  external  nature.  For  both  views,  consciousness  is  a 
spectator  of  achievements  in  which  it,  as  something  unique  and  active, 
has  had  no  share.  Yet  Mr.  Bosanquet  would  undoubtedly  be  the  first  to 
deny  that  his  views  about  mind  are  similar  to  the  biological  theories  advo- 
cated by  pragmatists  and  neo-realists.  He  believes  that  he  is  maintain- 
ing the  position  that,  compared  with  the  physical  and  biological  world  of 
nervous  system  and  environment,  "  mind  is  the  more  complete  and  su- 
perior system"  (p.  218).  But  if  indeed  mind  is  the  more  complete  and 
superior  system,  then  mind  does,  in  some  sense,  add  something  of  its  own. 
And  if  "  thought  is  the  world  builder,"  and  is  the  "  very  essence  of  free 
activity,"  if  the  "  ultimate  tendency  of  thought  is  to  constitute  a  world," 
then  the  structure  and  activity  of  mind  or  thought  are  not  borrowed  from 
any  external  system,  nor  are  they  the  illumination  of  what  is  merely  a 
preexisting  situation.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  animus  of  the  account 
of  mind  which  Mr.  Bosanquet  gives.  He  is  chiefly  concerned  to  refute 
the  concept  of  "  naked  consciousness,"  or  the  stream  of  life,  creating  de- 
terminations apart  from  sufficient  reason."  Endow  consciousness  with 
active  agency,  let  it  contribute  anything  new,  let  the  mind-world  be  a 
richer  world  than  the  nature-world  in  some  significant  way,  and  appar- 
ently you  introduce  an  unaccountable  and  capricious  factor.  You  revive 
the  animism  of  primitive  man  and  the  pseudo  science  of  vitalism.  Is, 
now,  our  choice  limited  to  these  two  types  of  idealism, — an  absolute 
idealism  where  the  concept  of  mind  is  freed  from  the  concepts  of  pur- 
pose, activity,  and  achievement,  from  the  ethical  concepts,  and  an  anim- 
ism with  its  supernatural,  active  agencies  and  its  harsh  dualism?  The 
English  idealism  represented  by  Bradley  and  our  present  author  supposes 
that  it  is,  and  naturally  chooses  the  former  in  the  interests  of  science, 
continuity,  and  intelligence.  The  result  is  that  idealism  gives  the  im- 
pression of  ignoring  the  moral  consciousness  and  the  ethical  concepts. 
It  is  condemned  as  "  intellectualism,"  and  invites  by  way  of  reaction 
every  variety  of  irrationalism  and  pragmatism. 

The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that  the  lesson  to  be  learned  from  the 
distrust  of  immediacy,  the  "  arduousness  of  reality,"  is  the  truth  that  the 
vocation  of  man's  intelligence  is  a  vocation  of  moral  activity,  of  making 
facts  everywhere  transparent  to  reason,  and  if  this  ethical  element  drops 
out  idealism  suffers.  And  this  moral  factor  inevitably  will  drop  out  un- 
less somewhere  in  consciousness  there  exists  an  activity  which  is  auton- 
omous and  not  the  illumination  of  an  external  cosmos.  But  this  activity 
must  be  defined  in  such  a  way — and  here  we  can  sympathize  entirely  with 
the  author — as  not  to  imply  the  ordinary  external  and  dualistic  account 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         527 

of  consciousness  which  is  too  often  given  by  defenders  of  teleology.  This 
is  indeed  the  chief  task  of  constructive  idealism — to  maintain  the  moral 
significance  of  just  that  "  arduousness  of  reality  "  which  is  so  adequately 
dealt  with  by  Mr.  Bosanquet,  and  yet  not  to  revert  to  the  harsh  dualism 
and  crude  externality  of  ordinary  vitalism  and  interactionism. 

This  criticism  need  not  blind  us  to  the  main  positive  achievement  and 
value  of  these  lectures,  which  lie  in  their  brilliant  and  vigorous  vindica- 
tion of  the  fundamental  idealistic  attitude,  which  refuses  to  build  upon 
any  supposed  solid  immediate,  and  their  vindication  of  the  concreteness 
and  life  of  thought. 

GEORGE  P.  ADAMS. 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 

La  Philosophic  de  William  James.     TH.  FLOURNOY.     Paris :  Saint-Blaise. 
1911.     Pp.  219. 

The  mind  and  heart  of  the  author  are  equally  engaged  in  the  composi- 
tion of  this  enthusiastic  labor  of  love.  No  one  could  understand  James 
better,  nor  expound  his  philosophy  more  ably.  The  early  pages  of  per- 
sonal portraiture  will  interest  students  and  admirers  of  the  philosopher 
as  much  as  the  more  exegetical  part.  These  pages  throw  valuable  light 
on  the  philosophy  because  this  is  an  expression,  not  merely  of  the  intellect, 
but  of  the  mind,  the  whole  character,  of  the  philosopher.  The  portrait  is 
a  wonderful  harmony  of  scientist,  artist,  moralist,  lover  of  his  race.  We 
comprehend  the  dominant  note  of  seriousness  in  his  character  in  the  light 
of  his  parentage  and  childhood  influences.  Four  convictions  became  the 
foundation  of  his  character:  human  freedom,  the  final  reality  of  evil,  the 
existence  of  God  and  the  possibility  of  the  salvation  of  the  world,  the 
absolute  triumph  of  good  over  evil,  through  the  cooperation  of  man  with 
God. 

James's  scientific  genius  received  its  first  great  awakening  under  the 
influence  of  Agassiz,  and  from  him  James  learned  reverence  for  fact,  con- 
crete and  particular.  "  The  hours  I  spent  with  Agassiz  so  taught  me  the 
difference  between  all  possible  abstractionists  and  all  livers  in  the  light  of 
the  world's  concrete  fulness  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  forget  it." 

Whether  or  not  a  true  philosophy  can  be  a  system  of  doctrine  (which 
such  anti-intellectualists  as  James  and  Bergson  deny),  the  remarkable 
excellence  and  value  of  this  book  seem  to  me  to  consist  in  its  application 
of  the  philosopher's  "  vision  "  to  a  consistent  interpretation  of  all  sorts 
of  aspects  and  departments  of  experience,  expressing  them  luminously  in 
terms  of  its  own  comprehensive  principle.  What  is  this  vision?  It  is 
not,  of  course,  th$  rejection  of  monism  or  absolutism.  Much  philosophy 
that  James  condemns  as  "  intellectualistic  "  is  pluralistic.  It  is  not  even 
his  pragmatism.  This  is  an  ethical  disposition  more  than  a  philosophical 
generalization.  James's  vision,  says  Professor  Flournoy,  is  his  radical 
empiricism.  James  thinks  empiricists  have  not  pushed  their  method  to 
its  proper  limit,  and  have  consequently  fallen,  like  the  rationalists,  into 
vicious  abstractionism.  "  All  that  is  experienced  is  real ;  all  that  is  real 
is  experienced" — this  formulates  the  doctrine,  though  the  philosopher 


628  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

himself  abhorred  such  general  propositions.  To  experience,  as  James 
means  the  term,  is  to  feel,  to  perceive,  to  test  by  trial,  to  live  through. 
The  formula  therefore  trenchantly  distinguishes  James's  vision  from  the 
antipodal  Platonic  formula:  All  that  is  rationalized  is  real;  all  that  ia 
real  is  rationalized. 

The  psychological  problem  of  the  unity  of  consciousness  is  the  start- 
ing-point of  James's  philosophy.  His  solution  of  this  problem  is  to 
criticize  the  conditions  of  the  problem.  These  conditions  are  an  aggre- 
gate of  elements  of  consciousness — the  problem,  their  synthesis.  There 
is  no  such  problem,  says  James;  for  there  are  no  such  conditions.  Con- 
sciousness is  no  aggregate  of  elements,  but  a  continuum,  in  which  past, 
present,  and  future  enter  together  into  the  given  fact.  Our  states  are  not 
abrupt.  The  quality  even  of  the  thunder-clap  depends  on  that  of  the 
silence  in  which  it  has  its  being,  without  which  it  would  be  no  thunder- 
clap. "  The  continuity,  the  identity,  the  unity  of  our  consciousness  or  of 
our  personality  are  things  immediately  and  concretely  felt,  lived,  experi- 
enced, and  consequently  real  just  in  the  measure  in  which  they  are  given 
to  us"  (p.  74). 

Continuity,  identity,  unity — these  are  of  the  formal  or  relational  fac- 
tors of  knowledge,  "  intellectual  categories."  But  they  are  data  of  experi- 
ence: they  are  of  the  same  status  as  the  factor  of  sense  quality.  The 
domain  of  experienced  fact  includes  a  certain  hanging  together  of  fact  in 
so-called  logical  relationships,  whose  nature  is  just  so  conceptually  ideal 
as  we  find  it,  and  no  more — that  is  to  say,  never  absolutely  so.  There  is 
no  more  room  for  the  transcendental  object  than  for  the  ego.  The  abso- 
lute, the  unknowable,  force,  matter,  substance,  the  thing-in-itself — experi- 
ence knows  them  no  more  than  it  knows  the  ego.  "  A  sincere  philosophy 
.  .  .  accepts  the  given  reality  and  sets  itself  the  task  only  of  studying  its 
details  and  characters;  its  presence  will  ever  remain  an  enigmatic  fact, 
alogical,  irrational,  impenetrable  to  our  thought"  (pp.  86,  87). 

The  radical  empiricism  of  James  thus  consists  of  three  points:  the 
postulate  that  philosophy  can  concern  itself  only  with  experience:  the 
observed  fact  that  the  relations  of  things  are  matters  of  particular  and 
direct  experience  as  much  as,  and  no  more  than,  the  "terms"  related; 
that  ideas  and  things  are  of  the  same  stuff,  experience:  and  the  gen- 
eralization that  the  parts  of  our  phenomenal  world  are  continuous  with 
each  other ;  there  is  no  transcendental  "  cement." 

If  there  is  anything  empirically  obvious  it  is  multiplicity.  No  wave 
of  the  stream  of  the  world-process  is  quite  like  any  former  one,  much  less 
identical  with  it  or  deducible  from  it.  James  was  always  an  enemy  of 
determinism,  originally  from  instinct,  since  he  could  take  life  seriously 
only  as  a  real  struggle,  of  uncertain  issue,  not  as  a  farce,  of  prearranged 
denouement.  Renouvier  afforded  him  a  point  of  departure  for  a  reflec- 
tive justification  of  his  belief;  but  this  justification  remains  in  effect  the 
appeal  to  experience.  Freedom  is  a  lived  experience,  an  ultimate  fact. 

Choice  is  everywhere,  and  every  choice  a  new  modification  of  the  whole 
of  existence.  Optimism  and  pessimism  are  equally  deterministic;  either 
the  salvation  of  the  world  can  not  fail,  is  necessary,  or  else  it  is  impossible 


529 

— in  either  case,  only  because  the  world-process  is  mechanically  deter- 
mined. Either  view  is  fatal  to  morality,  for  one  makes  effort  vain,  the 
other,  superfluous.  So  James's  tychism  results  in  meliorism.  The 
world's  history  is  essentially  uncertain.  Each  of  us  is  constantly  mend- 
ing or  marring  it.  "  Our  moral  nature,  taken  seriously  with  all  its  needs 
— this  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  philosophy  of  James"  (pp.  114, 
115). 

Now,  any  conception  of  the  universe,  capable  of  motivating  a  truly 
human  system  of  conduct,  is  theistic.  Any  atheistic  philosophy  paralyzes 
the  faculties  by  destroying  our  intimate  personal  relation  to  the  universe. 
But  radical  empiricism  can  yield  no  metaphysical  principle  like  the  God 
of  scholasticism,  of  such  attributes  as  unity,  aseity,  perseity,  infinity, 
necessity,  immutability,  etc.  Such  attributes  are  not  real,  for  they  are 
not  experienced.  Neither  can  James's  God  be  that  of  the  idealistic  pan- 
theist— universal  consciousness,  the  omniscient  thinker,  the  absolute. 
Such  a  God  were  a  monster,  for  one  to  whom  evil  is  absolutely  real. 
James's  God  is  that  of  the  naive  pietist,  the  "  Higher  Presence."  He  by 
no  means  must  needs  be  the  "  All."  He  may  well  be  only  a  part  of  the 
universe,  if  so  be  he  is  its  most  ideal  and  profound  part,  and  has  the 
requisite  affinities  with  our  moral  nature. 

God,  so  conceived,  James  finds  given  in  experience.  Sudden  conver- 
sions, extraordinary  bodily  and  mental  cures,  are  impressive  indications 
of  his  existence,  unaccountable  on  any  other  hypothesis.  With  such  a 
God,  we  must  be  coworkers  for  the  prevailing  of  our  ideals.  For  every 
man  has  a  certain  fundamental  disposition  toward  the  universe  and  life, 
his  way  of  feeling  and  acting  toward  it.  This  disposition  presupposes  not 
knowledge;  knowledge  conditions  the  expediency,  the  apt  utility,  of  con- 
duct, not  its  general  direction.  The  direction  is  conditioned  by  faith, 
the  will  to  believe,  the  will  that  one's  ideal  shall  be  reality. 

In  the  Resume,  minor  opinions  of  James  come  in  for  brief  but  inter- 
esting notice,  such  as  his  attitude  toward  spirit  mediumship  and  immor- 
tality, with  a  tentative  cosmogony  sketched  in  the  article  entitled  "  Con- 
fidences of  a  Psychical  Researcher."  There  are  also  a  few  pages  on  the 
relation  between  James  and  Bergson.  The  obvious  similarity  of  their 
anti-intellectualism  and  temporalism  does  not  extend  to  their  metaphysics. 
"  Nothing  is  more  opposed  than  such  a  vision  of  things  [Bergson's  orig- 
inal elan  vital,  a  profoundly  monistic  conception]  to  that  of  James:  a 
primordial  chaos,  without  trace  of  unity,  order,  harmony,  or  law,"  out  of 
which  chaos  reality  progresses  toward  a  state  of  union  and  harmony. 
This  is  the  very  inverse  of  the  Bergsonian  process,  which  starts  from  a 
real  unity  and  evolves  divergently,  in  indefinitely  increasing  dispersion 
of  elements. 

The  author's  review1  of  "  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience "  is 
added  as  an  appendix. 

ARTHUR  MITCHELL. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  KANSAS. 

1  Revue  Philosophique,  Volume  LIV.,  pages  516-527. 


530  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  Desire  for  Qualities.    STANLEY  M.  BLIOH.    London  and  New  York: 

Henry  Frowde.    1011.    Pp.  322. 

The  student  of  the  social  sciences  is  apt  to  feel  a  vague  dissatisfaction 
with  their  abstract  character  as  they  are  ordinarily  presented  to  him. 
They  give  him,  to  be  sure,  a  sufficiently  rational  and  coherent  explanation 
of  social  phenomena,  but  he  constantly  finds  himself  asking:  "What  of 
it  ?  What  do  these  happy  and  true  generalizations  point  to  in  the  way  of 
actual  control  of  social  forces  in  the  direction  that  I  see  to  be  good  and 
desirable?"  In  other  words,  he  wants  an  applied  social  science,  and  the 
opportunity  of  deducing  from  its  applications  what  we  are  apt  to  call,  in 
a  phrase  so  useful  and  just  that  it  bids  fair  soon  to  degenerate  into  mere 
cant,  a  philosophy  of  life.  It  is  pleasant  therefore  to  find  a  psychologist 
who  also  feels  this  need,  and  is  willing  to  break  the  ground  towards  out- 
lining the  bearings  of  the  most  modern  psychological  and  sociological  sci- 
ence on  the  moulding  of  the  human  personality. 

In  this  extraordinarily  suggestive  little  book,  "  The  Desire  for  Quali- 
ties "  the  author  suggests  a  new  science,  which  he  calls  directive  psychol- 
ogy. This  science,  by  studying  and  analyzing  those  more  subtle  reactions 
of  human  personality  to  social  stimuli  which  the  social  sciences  ignore, 
will  be  able  to  give  practical  and  advisory  aid  in  the  formation  of  some 
such  philosophy  of  life  as  he  defines  to  be  "  a  connected  theory  as  to  what 
qualities  of  personality  are  worth  the  trouble  necessary  for  their  attain- 
ment." He  seems  justified  in  assuming,  as  he  has  explained  in  another 
book, — "  The  Direction  of  Desire  " — that  a  more  frank  and  general  curi- 
osity about  the  rich  variations  of  human  personality,  and  recognition  of 
the  absorbing  interest  in  life  which  such  a  curiosity  brings,  will  free  intro- 
spection and  self-consciousness  of  that  morbidity  with  which  false  social 
standards  have  tainted  them.  The  qualitative  psychologist  will  collect  a 
sort  of  memoria  technica  of  thought  and  behavior  that  will  enable  him  to 
act  as  expert  adviser  to  those  afflicted  with  the  minor  ailments  of  the  soul 
or  to  those  who  are  living  a  spiritual  life  at  a  low  and  uninteresting  level. 
He  will  contrive  methods  by  which  the  paths  of  individual  improvement 
may  be  made  easier,  discover  what  ideals  are  suited  to  individual  tempera- 
ments, and,  in  short,  learn  the  art  of  conferring  psychological  benefits. 
His  aim  will  be  the  enrichment  of  personality,  and  he  will  study  the  art 
of  supplying  stimulus  and  of  discovering  latent  capacities  of  happiness 
and  new  potentialities  of  character  by  a  dispassionate  study  of  the  reac- 
tion of  different  types  of  personality  to  ideas  and  ideals,  and  of  ways  in 
which  sympathies  and  affinities  can  best  be  awakened  and  sustained.  By 
helping  men  to  a  proper  knowledge  of  their  aims  and  by  teaching  them 
how  to  work  most  intensively  and  effectively  in  attaining  them,  this  quali- 
tative psychology  can  render  large  services  to  men.  It  can  teach  them  by 
psychological  methods  to  effect  an  improvement  in  their  own  characters 
and  in  those  of  others  and  solve  the  problem  of  how  their  desires  may  be 
most  profitably  directed. 

This  necessarily  generalized  outline  of  the  theory  gives  no  conception 
of  the  vigor  and  charm  of  the  writer's  argument,  of  his  extraordinary  in- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         531 

sight  into  human  nature,  and  his  grip  on  the  realities  of  life.  The  book 
is  full  of  passages  of  comment  on  modern  ideals  and  social  standards  that 
are  penetrating  and  original.  It  is  a  demonstration  that  analysis  of  the 
qualitative  side  of  life  is  possible  without  descending  to  symbolism  or  the 
vagaries  of  "  New  Thoughtism."  The  style  has  much  the  same  happy 
combination  of  scientific  validity,  personal  interest,  and  grip  on  the  prac- 
ticalities of  common  experience  that  make  the  works  of  William  James 
so  tremendously  appealing.  Fortunate  indeed  is  a  new  branch  of  social 
science  with  such  an  expositor! 

R.  S.  BOURNE. 
COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

ARCHIV  FUR  GESCHICHTE  DER  PHILOSOPHIE,  Band  25, 
Heft  3.  April,  1912.  Aristophanischer  und  geschichtlicher  Sokrates — III. 
(pp.  251-274)  :  H.  ROCK.  -  It  is  more  probable  that  Aristophanes's  carica- 
ture "hits  off"  pretty  well  the  historical  Socrates,  than  that  the  genial 
figure  portrayed  by  Plato  and  Xenophon  should  have  excited  the  intense 
animosity  of  the  satirists  of  the  period.  War  Heraclit  "  Empiriker"  f 
(pp.  275-304) :  W.  NESTLE.  -  A  vigorous  rejection  of  E.  Low's  revolution- 
ary efforts  to  show  that  in  the  term  Name  (onoma)  Heracleitus  defended 
the  empirical  standpoint  against  the  rationalistic  doctrine  centered  in  the 
Parminidean  concept,  logos.  Die  kosmogonsichen  Elemente  in  der  Natur- 
philosophie  des  Thales  (pp.  304-331) :  J.  DORFLER.  -  The  relation  of 
Thales's  doctrine  to  the  theogonies  and  cosmogonies  before  and  after  him, 
especially  to  the  Orphic  tradition.  Philosophiegeschichtliche  Arbeit  in 
Polen  von  Anfang  1910  bis  Mitte  1911  (pp.  332-344)  :  J.  HALPERN.  -  Promi- 
nence is  given  to  the  influence  of  W.  James  on  Polish  philosophy  (p.  339). 
Jahresbericht :  Einige  wichtigere  Erscheinungen  der  deutschen  Literatur 
uber  die  Sokratische,  Platonische  und  Aristotelische  Philosophic  1905— 
1908  (pp.  346-356)  :  H.  GOMPERZ.  -  Most  space  is  given  to  W.  KinkePs 
Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  Zweiter  Teil,  who  is  accused  of  making  the 
Socratic  philosophers  say  what  he  thinks  they  should  have  said.  Rezen- 
sionen  (pp.  357-372):  W.  Schultz,  Dokumente  der  Gnosis:  B.  JORDAN. 
Guttmann,  Kant's  Begriff  der  objectiven  Erkenntnis:  B.  JORDAN.  O. 
Apelt,  Platan's  Dialog  Thedtet:  R.  PHILIPPSON.  Th.  Ruyssen,  Schopen- 
hauer: E.  BREHIER.  O.  Hamelin,  Le  systeme  de  Descartes:  E.  BREHIER. 
E.  Boutroux,  William  James:  E.  BREHIER.  Erkldrung,  Josef  Popper 
(Lynkeus)  betreffend.  Die  neueste  Erscheinungen.  Historische  Abhand- 
lungen  in  den  Zeitschriften.  Zur  Besprechung  eingegangene  Werke. 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  June,  1912.  II  y  a  une  biologic  gener- 
ale  (pp.  561-582) :  F.  LE  DANTEC.  -  Biology  exists  as  a  deductive  science, 
i.  e.,  a  science  with  established  principles  suitable  to  furnish  bases  for 
reasonings.  La  conscience  collective  et  le  bien  obligatoire  (pp.  583-609)  : 
A.  BAUER.  -  Knowledge  of  the  morally  good  is  obtained  from  observation 


532  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  experience.  Respect  for  the  rights  of  others  under  social  conditions  is 
the  source  of  obligations,  and  their  direction  is  defined  by  collective 
reason.  Let  etats  mystiques  negatifs  (pp.  610-628)  :  G.  TBUC.  -  Negative 
mystical  states  present  only  partial  aspects  of  our  feeling  manifestations, 
and  correspond  to  certain  psychological  and  moral  maladies.  Revue 
generale.  Revue  generate  de  philosophic  des  sciences:  A.  RET.  Analyses 
et  comptes  rendus.  Rabaud,  Le  transformisme  et  I'experience:  LE  DANTEC. 
W.  MacDougall,  Body  and  Mind:  G.  SELIBER.  F.  Simiand,  La.  methode 
positive  en  science  economique :  P.  F.  Dr.  P.  Sollier,  Morale  et  moralite: 
D.  PARODI.  F.  Le  Dantec,  L'ego'isme,  seule  base  de  toute  societe:  G. 
PALANTE.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 

Boutroux,  E.  The  Beyond  that  is  Within  and  other  Addresses.  Trans- 
lated by  J.  Nield.  London :  Duckworth  and  Company.  Pp.  xvi  -f- 
138.  3s.  6d. 

Rabaud,  E.  Le  Transformisme  et  l'Exp£rience.  Paris:  Felix  Alcan. 
1911.  Pp.  vii  +  315.  3.50  francs. 

Semon,  Richard.  Das  Problem  der  Vererbung  "  Erworbener  Eigen- 
schaften."  Leipzig:  Wilhelm  Engelmann.  1912.  Pp.  viii -|- 203. 
3.20  Marks. 


NOTES  AND   NEWS 

DR.  LOTUS  D.  KAUFMAN,  supervisor  of  the  training  school  of  the 
Eastern  Illinois  Normal  School  at  Charleston,  has  been  appointed  pro- 
fessor of  education  at  the  University  of  Illinois. 

PROFESSOR  GOMPEREZ,  of  the  University  of  Vienna,  will  give  four  lec- 
tures at  the  College  de  France  during  the  first  fortnight  of  November, 
on  the  "Maitres  de  Platon." 

PROFESSOR  HENRI  PIERON  has  been  appointed  director  of  the  psycho- 
logical laboratory  at  1'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes  of  the  Sorbonne,  succeed- 
ing Professor  Alfred  Binet. 

MR.  A.  A.  BOWMAN,  lecturer  in  logic  at  Glasgow  University,  has  been 
appointed  professor  of  philosophy  in  Princeton  University,  succeeding 
Professor  J.  G.  Hibben,  recently  elected  president  of  that  university. 

Mi;.  EDGAR  A.  DOLL  has  geen  appointed  associate  psychologist  in  the 
department  of  research  of  the  Vineland  Training  School,  Vineland,  New 
Jersey. — Science. 

DR.  MELBOURNE  S.  READ,  professor  of  psychology  at  Colgate  Univer- 
sity, has  been  appointed  vice-president  of  that  institution, 

PROFESSOR  E.  C.  WILM  has  been  called  from  Washburn  College  to  the 
chair  of  philosophy  and  psychology  at  Wells  College. 

HORATIO  W.  DRESSER,  Ph.D.  (Harvard),  has  been  appointed  professor 
of  philosophy  in  Ursinus  College. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  20.  SEPTEMBER  26,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.    I 

HE  present  philosophical  situation  in  America  may  be  character- 
•*•  ized  by  saying  that,  whereas  formerly  the  subject  of  our 
debates  was  whether  or  no  objects  existed  independently  of  con- 
sciousness, now  the  question  that  exercises  us  is  rather,  whether 
consciousness  exists  independently  of  objects.  Many  writers  are 
found  who  deny  that  consciousness  exists,  except  as  a  relation  be- 
tween objects  or  a  later  way  of  viewing  them — objectivists,  as  per- 
haps these  writers  may  be  named.  Other  writers  maintain  the  sepa- 
rate reality  of  consciousness,  but  in  a  sense  that  can  only  be  called 
dualistic.  In  the  present  series  of  articles1  I  shall  attempt  to  sug- 
gest a  view  which  combines  the  chief  points  of  both  these  theories; 
holding,  on  the  one  hand,  that  consciousness  is  a  distinct  existence 
from  the  object  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  it  is  another  object  in  the  same  world. 

If  we  are  to  come  to  an  understanding  in  this  matter,  the  first 
essential  is  to  recognize  that  the  term  "consciousness"  is  currently 
used  to  denote  two  entirely  different  things.  When  psychologists 
speak  of  "consciousness,"  they  mean  by  the  word  our  feelings,  emo- 
tions, desires,  and  sensations,  or  rather  the  whole  which  these  at  any 
moment  form — something  of  which  it  would  be  absurd  to  doubt  that 
it  is  a  datum  of  experience.  When  logicians  or  epistemologists  use 
the  term,  what  they  refer  to  is  the  bare  cognizing  or  being  aware — 
something  whose  empirical  status  is  so  questionable,  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  many  reputable  thinkers  deny  its  existence.  In  other  words, 
we  must  learn  to  distinguish  sharply  between  FEELING  and  AWARENESS. 

Neither  of  these  current  meanings  of  "consciousness,"  strange  to 
say,  represents  the  original  sense  of  the  word. 

1.  What  this  was  may  be  seen  by  considering  the  circumstances 
under  which  we  still,  in  correct  speech,  use  the  phrase  "to  be  con- 
scious." We  are  always  said  to  be  conscious  "of"  something — which 

1  The  first  two  articles  were  read  as  a  paper  before  the  Oxford  Philosophical 
Society  in  May,  1911. 

533 


634  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


that  to  be  conscious  is  in  some  way  to  know.  Nevertheless 
knowing  and  consciousness  are  far  from  being  synonymous.  I  know 
that  two  and  two  make  four,  but  I  can  not  be  said  to  be  "conscious 
of"  the  fact.  We  do  not  speak  of  ourselves  as  "conscious  of"  ab- 
sent things—  of  what  we  remember,  conceive,  expect.  Nor  do  we  say, 
ordinarily,  that  we  are  "conscious  of"  present  material  objects,  such 
as  the  fire  in  the  grate.  We  do  say  we  are  "conscious  of  "  a  pain,  or 
a  desire.  Thus  it  appears  to  be  our  feelings,  our  states  of  mind,  of 
which  we  are  said  to  be  conscious.  Where  this  might  seem  not  to  be 
the  case,  further  reflection  will  show  that  really  it  is  so  after  all. 
For  instance,  when  I  speak  of  being  "conscious  of"  the  beating  of 
my  heart,  I  use  the  phrase  because  it  is  the  sensation  rather  than  the 
material  occurrence  to  which  I  refer.  Similarly  we  say,  "I  was  con- 
scious of  somcthiiiL'  iroin<r  on  in  the  next  room,"  "I  was  conscious 
of  something  strange  in  his  appearance,"  where  the  exact  nature  of 
the  objective  fact  is  imperfectly  made  out  and  our  attention  is  there- 
fore drawn  to  the  sensation  that  serves  to  reveal  it. 

These  examples  show  that  we  are  properly  said  to  'be  conscious 
only  of  our  own  states  of  mind.  Consciousness,  in  the  original  sense 
of  the  word,  is  not  simply  the  same  thing  as  cognition  or  awareness, 
but  is  a  special  case  of  it  :  it  is  the  awareness,  sometimes  accompany- 
ing cognition,  of  the  states  of  mind  by  means  of  which  we  cognize. 
In  other  words,  it  is  what  we  are  nowadays  accustomed,  by  an  ob- 
jectionable tautology,  to  call  "self-consciousness."  It  is  another 
name  for  introspection,  or  for  introspection  plus  its  object. 

2.  This  being  so,  how  comes  the  term  to  be  currently  used  for  the 
object  minus  the  introspection? 

When  modern  psychologists  began  to  study  the  mind  in  a  scien- 
tific way,  they  found  the  literature  of  the  subject  full  of  references 
to  things  which  they  could  not  verify  in  experience,  such  as  the 
"soul,"  "faculties,"  etc.  In  their  effort  to  limit  investigation  to 
the  given  facts,  they  were  led  to  use,  as  a  name  for  these  in  their 
entirety,  the  term  "consciousness"  —  by  which  they  meant  that 
which  consciousness,  i.  e.,  introspection,  reveals.  But,  not  having 
any  definite  theory  as  to  the  nature  of  introspection,  and  being  dis- 
posed to  regard  the  awareness  it  involves  as  an  ultimate  property  of 
the  introspected  feelings,  they  soon  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  intro- 
spection is  necessary  to  make  "consciousness,"  and  applied  this 
name  to  the  feelings,  or  rather  to  the  whole  which  they  form.  Con- 
sciousness thus  ceases  to  be  an  activity  or  function,  and  becomes  a 
substance,  a  being.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  term  is  constantly 
used  by  contemporary  writers,  indeed  the  original  sense  has  almost 
become  obsolete. 

A  most  regrettable  feature  of  this  usage  is  that  it  seems  to  as- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          535 

cribe  to  feeling,  as  part  of  its  essential  nature,  that  function  of 
awareness  which,  as  these  articles  will  tend  to  show,  it  has  only  acci- 
dentally and  in  certain  connections;  nay  more,  to  fasten  upon  it  a 
self -awareness  which  the  feeling  itself  never  has,  but  which  is  a 
name  we  give  to  awareness  of  it  on  the  part  of  a  later  feeling.  But 
this  usage  is  now  so  firmly  established  and  well-nigh  universal  that  it 
seems  hopeless  to  attempt  to  struggle  against  it. 

3.  Still  further  to  increase  the  confusion,  logicians  and  epistem- 
ologists  have  of  late  years — apparently  through  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  psychologists — taken  to  using  the  term  "consciousness," 
not  for  awareness  of  our  feelings,  nor  yet  for  the  feelings,  but  for  the 
bare  function  of  awareness  which  feelings  sometimes  exercise. 
"Consciousness"  in  this  sense  is  only  another  word  for  cognition — 
i.  e.,  awareness  of  an  object  in  that  object's  presence;  indeed,  it  were 
much  to  be  wished  that  philosophers  would  desist  from  using  the 
term  in  this  sense,  and  use  "cognition"  instead. 

The  debate  as  to  whether  "consciousness"  exists  seems  to  refer 
exclusively  to  the  bare  function  of  awareness,  and  even  to  that  con- 
ceived in  a  certain  way.  But  it  is  certainly  not  any  such  bare  func- 
tion that  forms  the  subject-matter  of  psychology.  Logicians  and 
epistemologists,  occupied  as  they  are  with  knowing,  seem  to  have  an 
inadequate  place  in  their  systems  for  the  facts  of  feeling.  Even  if 
we  grant  the  current  thesis  that  awareness  does  not  exist  except  as  a 
relation  between  objects,  we  shall  have  to  insist  all  the  more  strongly 
that  "consciousness"  in  the  sense  of  feeling  does  exist. 

Thus  our  inquiry  seems  to  fall  naturally  into  two  parts,  in  the 
first  of  which  we  must  consider  feeling,  and  in  the  second  awareness. 

I.    FEELING,  OR  PSYCHICAL  EXISTENCE 

My  object  in  this  section  is  to  examine  whether  feeling  is  an  ex- 
istence; or,  to  put  the  question  otherwise,  whether  there  are  exist- 
ences which  are  psychical  in  their  original  character.  Only  in  this 
sense  does  it  seem  to  me  possible  to  assert  the  existence  of  con- 
sciousness. 

Objectivism,  in  one  of  its  forms,  tells  us  that  psychical  facts  are 
artificial  products,  due  to  a  transformation  of  experience.  What 
originally  exists  in  experience  is  simply  objects  (material  objects, 
one  is  tempted  to  understand),  and  states  of  mind  come  about  by 
our  taking  these  objects  subsequently  in  a  new  set  of  relations.  I 
shall  not  stop  to  argue  that  in  experience  the  original  fact  is  not 
simply  an  object,  but  an  object  perceived,  so  that  the  psychical  side 
of  experience  is  as  original  as  the  physical.  The  point  I  wish  to  make 
is  that,  even  if  only  objects,  and  no  perceptions,  existed  originally, 
still  it  would  not  be  possible  for  any  one  to  hold  that  the  objects 


636  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

constituted  the  whole  of  experience:  no  one  could  deny  that  there 
were  also  feelings  and  volitions,  contemporaneous  with  the  objects, 
and  not  objective  but  subjective  or  psychical  in  their  character.  Those 
who  make  the  difference  between  the  physical  and  the  psychical  a 
difference  of  two  ways  of  taking  the  same  matter  of  experience 
reason  as  if  there  were  no  other  kind  of  experience  but  that  which 
has  to  do  with  physical  objects;  the  "psychical"  of  which  they  are 
giving  an  account  is  mere  awareness  of  these  objects,  not  that  psy- 
chical composed  of  feelings,  desires,  and  other  similar  states  which 
the  psychologist  considers.  Yet,  even  granting  their  doctrine  of 
awareness,  objects,  originally,  are  not  the  whole  of  experience,  but 
there  is  a  part  of  experience  that  can  never  be  considered  as  objec- 
tive or  physical,  but  that  is  psychical  originally. 

When  altered  so  as  to  make  room  for  these  necessary  facts,  the 
objectivist  view  changes  to  the  proposition  that  experience  consists 
of  two  parts,  one  part  being  objects  and  the  other  feelings  and  will. 
But  where,  in  that  case,  do  perceptions  come  in  ?  Are  there  not  such 
things,  and,  if  there  are,  are  they  not  contemporaneous  with  the  ob- 
jects perceived?  Is  it  a  possible  position  that  one  part  of  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  psychology,  namely,  feelings  and  will,  exists  as  a  por- 
tion of  experience  and  is  psychical  originally,  while  the  other  part, 
namely,  perceptions,  or,  in  general,  cognitive  states,  exists  originally 
in  the  form  of  objects,  and  becomes  psychical  only  subsequently,  by 
being  taken  in  a  different  set  of  relations  ?  Must  we  not  rather  hold 
that  perceptions  too  exist  as  psychical  originally,  and  is  not  this 
granted,  really,  in  the  admission  that  objects  are  not  merely  objects 
but  experiences? 

There  is  another  feature  of  experience,  more  closely  connected 
with  objects  than  are  the  feelings  and  will,  which  necessitates  the 
same  conclusion.  This  is  the  clearness  with  which  objects  are  given, 
or  exist  for  us.  A  reader  gradually  dropping  asleep  is  less  and  less 
clearly  conscious  of  his  book.  Here  is  a  character  attaching  to  the 
objective  part  of  experience,  which  yet  can  never  be  construed  as 
part  of  the  object.  We  may  think  to  dispose  of  it  as  merely  a  dif- 
ference in  the  cognitive  function  or  in  the  activity  of  thought;  in 
truth  it  is  primarily  a  difference  in  the  feelings  or  sensations  by 
means  of  which  objects  are  cognized.  It  belongs,  like  the  feelings 
and  will,  not  to  experience  in  the  sense  of  that  which  is  perceived, 
nor  yet  to  experience  in  the  sense  of  the  mere  awareness,  but  to  ex- 
perience in  a  subjective  or  psychical  sense.  When  we  consider  that 
this  character  appears  to  be  that  by  which  experience  exists  (there 
being  no  experience  when  the  reader  has  fallen  sound  asleep),  we  see 
how  essentially  psychical  in  its  nature  experience  is,  and  how  false 
is  the  notion  that  it  is  ever  pure  object.  What  is  true  is  merely  that 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          537 

at  the  first  moment  only  objects  are  known.  The  view  in  question  is 
an  example  of  the  common  fallacy  of  assuming  that  only  what  is 
known  at  any  moment  exists  at  that  moment — of  turning  the  time 
and  manner  in  which  things  are  known  into  the  time  and  manner  in 
which  they  exist. 

The  construction  put  in  the  preceding  upon  objectivism,  or  rather 
upon  this  particular  form  of  objectivism,  represents  perhaps  a  super- 
ficial view  of  its  meaning.  I  can  conceive  objectivists  declining  to  ad- 
mit the  point  for  which  I  have  been  contending — the  existence  of  sub- 
jective elements  in  experience  which  are  in  no  sense  objects — and  at- 
tempting to  construe  the  facts  in  a  different  way.  The  notion  of 
elements  of  experience  that  are  not  experienced  will  seem  to  them 
non-empirical  and  even  self-contradictory.  They  will  describe  it  as 
a  view  which,  if  it  were  true,  could  not  be  known  to  be  true  (to 
which  the  retort  might  be  made  that,  if  material  objects  exist  when 
we  do  not  perceive  them,  this  is  something  that  can  not  be  known 
upon  the  evidence  of  experience).  And  the  construction  they  put 
upon  the  facts  will  be  that  all  the  elements  of  experience  are  orig- 
inally objects,  but  of  these  objects  there  are  two  kinds,  physical  ob- 
jects and  feelings.  In  other  words,  they  will  admit  the  existence  of 
feelings  and  desires  so  far  as  they  are  objects,  but  not  so  far  as  they 
are  supposed  to  exist  in  the  absence  of  awareness  of  them.  An  ex- 
perience of  which  we  are  not  aware — a  feeling  we  do  not  feel — they 
will  hold  to  be  a  monstrosity,  a  contradiction.  To  say  that  all  experi- 
ences are  originally  objective  is  simply  to  say  that  they  are  experi- 
enced. And  this  will  seem  to  these  critics  to  be  the  only  necessary 
postulate  of  a  philosophy  of  experience. 

With  all  due  respect,  I  venture  to  think  that  this  postulate  in- 
volves an  error.  You  say  that  experiences  are  experienced;  but 
what  is  the  meaning  or  justification  of  this  passive  form  ?  Where  is 
the  subject  or  cognitive  activity  in  virtue  of  which  this  experience  is 
an  object?  The  argument  is,  of  course,  that  if  a  subject  existed  it 
would  be  non-empirical.  This,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  inevitable  re- 
sult of  putting  the  object  in  the  wrong  place:  identify  the  object 
with  experience  as  an  existent — i.  e.,  with  the  sensuous  matter  that 
constitutes  the  medium  for  perceiving — and  any  subject  that  ex- 
isted would  have  to  be,  so  to  speak,  on  this  side  of  experience,  that 
is,  outside  it,  and  so  non-empirical.  Whereas,  if  the  object  is  on  the 
other  side  of  experience — beyond  it,  though  not  out  of  its  cognitive 
reach — experience  itself,  considered  so  far  as  it  is  psychical,  may  be 
what  we  mean  by  the  subject. 

The  only  way  to  decide  between  the  objectivist  position  and  that 
which  I  have  just  indicated  will  be  to  undertake  an  analysis  of  ex- 


•r>.'.s  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

perience,  with  a  view  to  determining  the  relation  between  it  and  its 
objects. 

Notion  of  the  "Image" 

In  analyzing  experience,  it  is  important  we  should  take  as  our 
starting-point  some  fact  that  is  perfectly  plain  and  unequivocal.  If 
we  ask  ourselves  what  fact  of  sense-experience  is  most  so,  the  answer 
must,  I  think,  be:  the  image.  Let  me  explain  what  I  mean  by  the 
image.2  I  mean,  in  any  experience,  just  so  much  as  is  sensibly  dis- 
coverable and  no  more.  A  few  examples  will  make  my  meaning 
clear. 

Suppose  I  am  looking  at  the  moon  in  the  daytime.  The  image 
here  is  the  pale  crescent  or  disc,  flat,  small,  and  whitish,  which  is  all 
that  vision  actually  shows  me.  If  the  object  is  a  house  and  I  see  one 
side  of  it  only,  the  image  is  a  variegated  plane,  more  or  less  rectangu- 
lar in  shape.  If  it  is  a  sheet  of  paper  lying  before  me  on  a  table,  the 
object  itself  may  be  square,  but  the  image,  as  I  look  down  obliquely,  is 
a  white  surface  having  the  form  called  a  rhomboid.  If  it  is  a  saucer, 
the  saucer  itself  is  round,  but  the  image  is  oval. 

Now  of  course,  in  all  these  cases,  what  I  perceive  is  not  the  image, 
but  the  moon,  the  house,  the  sheet  of  paper,  the  saucer.  I  may  even 
perceive  the  saucer  as  round,  the  sheet  of  paper  as  square,  though  my 
images  are  oval  and  rhomboidal.  But  it  would  be  quite  erroneous  to 
suppose  that,  because  the  image  is  not  perceived,  it  is  non-existent. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  one  hold,  so  to  speak,  which  I  have  on  the 
object.  Even  when  I  am  quite  absorbed  in  the  perception  of  the 
object,  the  image  continues  to  exist,  and,  if  I  retain  the  same  point 
of  view,  continues  unchanged.  It  is  the  only  thing  in  perception 
which  is,  as  we  may  say,  open  to  inspection. 

Indeed,  the  essential  mark  of  an  image  is  that  it  is  open  to  in- 
spection. By  this  of  course  I  do  not  mean  merely  visual  inspection. 
The  sound  of  a  bell,  the  fragrance  of  a  flower,  the  feeling  of  ice  when 
you  touch  it,  are  equally  examples  of  images.  These  are  all  things 
one  can  sensibly  find.  If  the  concept  of  the  image  is  to  have  this 
latitude,  it  would  of  course  in  strictness  include  pleasures  and  pains, 
emotions  and  desires,  which  also  are  accessible  to  our  inner  gaze.  I 
wish,  however,  to  restrict  the  term  "image"  to  those  sensible  ex- 

*  I  regret  that  I  do  not  see  my  way  to  use  Messrs.  Moore  and  Russell 's  term, 
"sense-datum,"  though  I  agree  so  largely  with  their  philosophy.  My  reasons 
are  that  I  do  not  want  to  have  it  taken  for  granted  (1)  that  the  sense-datum 
is  a  datum  in  sense-perception,  (2)  that  it  is  a  datum  essentially.  After  much 
thought,  I  can  find  no  better  word  than  M.  Bergson's  "image."  But  I  do  not 
take  for  granted,  as  he  at  once  does,  that  the  image  is  identical  with  or  a  p;irt 
of  the  object.  In  fact,  I  wish  to  take  nothing  for  granted  at  all,  and  to  use  the 
term  simply  as  a  designation  for  a  fact. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          539 

periences  which  are  employed  in  cognition,  calling  the  rest  merely 
'  'feelings." 

Here,  then,  is  something  about  which  one  can  speak  with  a  fair 
chance  of  being  understood  by  everybody,  whatever  his  philosophical 
opinions.  One  can  point  out  fact  after  fact  about  the  image,  and  be 
sure,  so  far  as  they  are  really  facts,  of  carrying  everybody  with  one. 
Surely  there  could  be  no  more  useful  form  of  philosophical  investiga- 
tion than  submitting  our  theories,  if  it  were  possible,  to  the  test  of 
facts. 

Immediatism  and  Mediatism 

But  we  must  ask  questions,  if  we  want  the  facts  to  answer;  and 
so  the  first  question  I  would  raise  is  as  to  the  relation  between  the 
image  and  the  object.  What  do  we  mean  by  the  "object"?  Do  we 
mean  the  image — either  the  single  image  by  itself,  or  perhaps  a  whole 
of  which  the  different  images  form  part  ?  Or  do  we  mean  something 
different  ? 

The  view  that  the  object  is  identical  or  consubstantial  with  the 
image  represents  a  doctrine  which  I  shall  call  immediatism.  The 
image,  as  compared  with  an  object  lying  beyond  it  or  cognized  by  its 
means,  is  an  immediate  fact.  The  doctrine,  then,  that  this  immediate 
fact  is  the  object,  or  a  part  of  the  object,  may  be  fitly  called  immediat- 
ism. Note  that  immediatism  is  an  element  common  to  naive  realism 
and  Berkeleian  idealism.  For,  though  one  of  these  theories  regards  the 
object  as  a  material  fact  which  continues  to  exist  when  it  is  no  longer 
perceived,  while  the  other  regards  it  as  a  mental  fact  which  exists 
only  so  long  as  it  is  perceived,  both  conceive  the  object  as  something 
sensibly  given,  and  mean  by  it  in  fact  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
image  or  a  whole  composed  of  images. 

Opposed  to  this  doctrine  is  another,  according  to  which  the  ob- 
ject is  something  grasped  by  means  of  the  image,  and  either  existent 
beyond  it  or  at  least  distinct  from  it,  the  image  being  merely  a 
medium  or  vehicle  for  its  cognition.  Thus,  in  memory  and  imagina- 
tion, the  object  remembered  or  imagined  is  evidently  distinct  from 
the  image  by  means  of  which  we  remember  or  imagine  it.  This  is  the 
mediatist  view.  Mediatism  as  such  does  not  involve  any  decision  of 
the  question,  whether  the  object  is  a  real  existence  or  a  purely  ideal 
fact.  Mediatism  is  a  common  element  in  post-Kantian  idealism  and 
in  what  may  be  called  critical  realism.  The  former  conceives  the  ob- 
ject as  an  ideal  point  of  reference  to  which  images  are  referred; 
material  things  become  mental  constructs — or,  as  Kant  put  it,  the 
intellect  creates  nature.  By  "critical  realism"  I  mean  the  view  that 
the  intellect,  or  rather,  I  am  afraid  we  must  say,  the  senses,  create 
the  form  under  which  nature  appears.  The  object  itself,  on  this 


540  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

view,  exists  beyond  the  image,  being  another  part  of  the  same  world 
to  which  tin-  image  belongs;  but  the  image  brings  it  before  the  mind* 
and  determines  the  form  under  which  it  shall  appear. 

Mediatism  must  not  be  confused  with  what  is  known  as  "the 
representative  theory  of  knowledge,"  or,  as  I  shall  briefly  call  it, 
representativism.  According  to  the  latter,  the  image  is  the  thii'-r 
primarily  known,  it  is  the  immediate  object  of  the  mind  in  sense- 
perception  ;  and  the  real  object  that  lies  beyond  it  is  known  only  by 
inference  and  representatively.  Under  these  circumstances  no  legit- 
mate  inference  would  lie  to  the  real  object;  it  could  not  be  known  at 
all.  Contrast  with  this  the  purport  of  mediatism.  Mediatism  d->  - 
not  conceive  the  image  as  being  an  object  of  knowledge  at  the  mo- 
ment— I  pointed  out  that,  though  the  image  exists,  what  we  per- 
ceive is  the  object :  it  conceives  it  solely  as  the  medium  or  vehicle  of 
knowledge.  And  while,  no  doubt,  it  holds  the  object  to  be  known 
mediately,  it  does  not  on  that  account  consider  it  to  be  known  the 
less  directly:  for  the  cognitive  relation  passes  straight  from  the 
image,  which  is  the  part  of  the  mind  concerned  in  knowing,  to  the 
real  object.  Representativism  results  from  assuming  a  "soul," 
"ego,"  or  "consciousness"  distinct  from  the  image  and  contem- 
plating it,  or  from  supposing  that  the  image  contemplates  itself. 
In  truth  the  image  is  not  contemplated,  but  is  the  part  of  the  mind 
which  enables  it  to  contemplate. 

The  issue  between  immediatism  and  mediatism  seems  to  me  to 
represent  the  most  fundamental  dichotomy  in  the  theory  of  cognition 
— one  lying  deeper  than  the  traditional  issue  between  idealism  and 
realism. 

Now  let  me  point  out  certain  facts  about  the  image  that  have  a 
bearing  on  this  issue. 

As  we  move  to  and  fro  with  reference  to  any  object,  the  image 
constantly  changes,  and  it  changes  in  a  different  way  according  as 
our  motion  is  in  the  line  connecting  us  with  the  object,  or  lateral. 
Let  us  consider  the  results  of  lateral  motion  first. 

Suppose  I  am  looking  at  a  sqiiare  house  some  distance  away. 
When  I  am  directly  in  front  of  the  house,  my  image  is  square.  As  I 
move  to  the  right,  the  right  side  of  the  house  becomes  higher  than  the 
left,  and  the  image  changes  from  a  square  to  a  trapezium.  It  gets 
more  and  more  trapezial  the  further  I  go  to  the  right.  Pretty  soon 
a  new  side  of  the  house  comes  into  view,  having  the  shape  of  a 
trapezium  whose  left  side  is  higher  than  its  right.  This  side  grows 
gradually  larger,  changes  from  a  trapezium  to  a  square,  and  then 
from  a  square  to  a  trapezium  again  whose  right  side  is  higher  than 
its  left.  Then  it  grows  smaller  and  at  last  disappears,  giving  place 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          541 

to  a  third  side,  which  goes  through  the  same  changes.  Thus  I  can 
pass  completely  round  the  house,  viewing  it  in  turn  from  every 
angle,  and  all  the  while  my  images  will  have  been  constantly  chang- 
ing their  shape  and  proportions,  even  though  each  side  of  the  house 
is  an  exact  square. 

If  I  move  towards  or  away  from  the  house,  my  images  change  in 
a  different  manner.  They  get  smaller  and  smaller,  or  else  larger  and 
larger.  In  the  latter  case,  a  moment  comes  when  I  can  no  longer  see 
the  entire  front  of  the  house  at  once.  If  I  keep  on,  the  images  still 
continue  to  expand,  so  to  speak,  and  the  part  of  the  front  I  can  see 
becomes  smaller  and  smaller.  At  last  a  point  is  reached  beyond 
which — though  the  object  is  even  more  truly  there — I  can  get  them 
no  longer.  Visual  images,  that  is;  for  I  can  now  get  tactile  images, 
through  my  hands  or  face  coming  in  contact  with  the  house. 

This,  so  to  speak,  geometrical  variability  of  the  images  is  par- 
alleled by  their  variability  as  respects  color.  The  shade  of  an  object 
differs  accordingly  as  it  is  seen  in  sunlight  or  in  shadow,  by  daylight 
or  by  artificial  light.  As  daylight  fades  all  colors  approach  nearer 
and  nearer  to  blackness.  Touch  seems  to  be  of  all  senses  the  least 
changeable  in  quality. 

Recall  now  that  the  images  so  far  mentioned  were  due  solely  to 
seeing  and  touching  the  surfaces  of  objects,  and  that  their  solid  con- 
tents reserve  further  possibilities  of  seeing  and  touching  on  an  un- 
limited scale.  There  are  also  the  indefinitely  numerous  images  which 
we  may  receive  from  objects  through  other  senses.  Yet,  despite  this 
infinite  multiplicity  and  variety  of  possible  images,  the  object  is 
deemed  to  be  one ! 

Now  I  think  we  may  dismiss  at  once  the  possibility  that  any 
image  is  the  whole  of  the  object  we  perceive  through  its  means. 
What  we  have  to  consider  is  whether  the  different  images  are  parts 
of  the  object.  And,  if  this  is  to  be  so,  we  have  evidently  got  in  some 
way  to  put  them  together  or  combine  them.  The  images  have  got  to 
be  combined  into  a  whole  which  shall  be  the  object. 

This  is  true,  whether  we  give  to  our  immediatism  a  realistic  or  an 
idealistic  form.  For  the  naive  realist,  evidently  all  the  images  which 
we  might  get  exist  whether  we  get  them  or  not,  and  coexist  with  the 
image  actually  present  as  parts  of  a  whole.  But,  for  the  naive  ideal- 
ist, as  we  might  call  the  Berkeleian,  the  consequence  is  just  as  neces- 
sary. Though  images,  according  to  him,  do  not  exist  when  they  are 
not  present,  they  must  pass  over  into  the  image  that  is  present  by 
physical  relations;  for  the  physical  world,  whether  it  consist  of  ma- 
terial or  of  mental  stuff,  must  have  continuity.  In  short,  the  idealist 
must  put  his  world  together  out  of  possible  images,  as  the  naive  realist 


542  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

puts  his  together  out  of  actual  ones.  For,  conceive  our  senses  to  be 
so  enlarged  that  we  could  take  in  the  entire  physical  world  at  once : 
thouirh  consist ing  of  sensation,  it  would  needs  be  a  continuous  whole, 
a  panorama.  Then  the  Berkeleian,  no  less  than  the  naive  realist,  is 
bound  to  combine  the  images. 

But  can  they  be  combined?  Let  us  turn  again  to  the  foregoing 
examples,  and  consider  the  images  first  as  respects  shape.  Take  the 
different  shapes  a  thing  has  when  seen  from  different  points  of  view 
— square,  trapezial  in  various  degrees,  with  now  the  right  side  and 
now  the  left  side  the  higher,  in  the  case  of  the  house ;  round,  or  oval 
in  various  degrees,  in  that  of  the  saucer:  how  could  images  having 
such  contradictory  characters  possibly  be  combined?  The  case  is 
even  clearer  when  we  take  the  different  sizes  of  a  thing  as  seen  from 
different  distances :  there  is  no  possible  way  of  putting  the  different- 
sized  images  together  so  as  to  form  the  object.  Finally,  take  the  dif- 
ferent shades  of  a  thing  when  seen  in  different  lights,  and  combine 
them  if  you  can ! 

The  enterprise  of  combining  the  images  into  an  object  is  as  if 
one  had  a  great  many  photographs  of  a  building,  taken  from  every 
conceivable  angle  and  at  every  conceivable  distance,  and  should  at- 
tempt to  construct  or  reconstruct  the  building  by  piecing  them  to- 
gether. Evidently  the  photographs  are  views  of  the  building,  not 
parts  of  it.  Each  of  them  represents  the  building  entire.  Just  so 
with  the  images.  If  you  doubt  this,  imagine  yourself  in  half  a 
dozen  places  at  once  and  looking  from  all  of  them  at  the  building — 
and  ask  yourself  what  you  would  see. 

Even  had  we  chanced  to  fit  all  the  visual  images  together,  we 
should  not  know  what  to  do  with  the  images  of  other  senses.  For 
these,  on  the  hypothesis  in  question,  must  be  parts  of  the  object  too. 
Sounds,  no  less  than  sights,  come  in  the  first  instance  objectively,  as 
events  in  the  physical  world.  Touches  come  as  the  solidity  or  pres- 
sure of  objects,  and  not  as  mere  subjective  experiences.  Similarly 
with  tastes  and  smells.  If  the  world  is  to  consist  of  images,  room 
must  be  found  in  it  for  these  images  also.  But  how  you  are  going  to 
join  these  various  images  with  each  other  or  with  the  visual  ones  so 
as  to  form  a  whole,  I  confess  I  can  not  imagine.  To  me  it  seems  that 
a  world  formed  out  of  all  actual  and  possible  data  of  sense  would  be 
a  monstrosity,  a  chaos.  It  is  only  in  the  soul  that  sights,  sounds, 
tastes,  smells,  and  touches  get  on  together  harmoniously. 

To  conclude:  the  notion  that  all  the  different  images  of  a  thing 
which  we  get  at  different  times  could  be  fitted  together  in  such  a 
way  as  to  form  the  thing  is  illusory.  The  images  are  uncombinablc. 
They  could  not  all  coexist  simultaneously  in  space.  They  are  mu- 
tually contradictory  in  the  reports  they  give  of  the  object,  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          543 

hence  can  only  succeed  each  other  in  time.  Empirically  that  is  all 
they  ever  do.  They  pass  over  into  each  other  as  we  move  towards  or 
away  from  an  object,  or  at  right  angles  to  it.  They  grow  into  each 
other  temporally.  And,  since  their  empirical  relation  is  a  temporal 
one,  the  medium  in  which  we  must  put  them  together,  if  we  wish  to 
do  so,  is  time,  not  space.  But,  in  that  case,  they  can  not  be  parts  of 
the  object ;  for  the  parts  of  the  object  coexist  in  space.  In  truth  the 
images,  taken  in  the  objective  way  in  which  we  have  been  taking 
them  thus  far,  are  not  parts  of  the  object  but  aspects  or  views  of  it. 

One  conclusion  seems  to  stand  out  clearly  from  our  discussion 
thus  far,  and  that  is  that  idealists  are  at  least  so  far  right,  that  the 
image  is  an  intermittent  fact.  For,  if  the  image  were  not  inter- 
mittent, all  possible  images  would  have  to  exist  at  once,  and  then  the 
difficulty  of  combining  them  would  return.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
have  seen  that  the  image  can  not  be  identified  with  the  object,  and 
therefore  we  can  not  admit  idealists  to  be  right  in  their  idealism. 

We  passed  rather  lightly  over  the  alternative  that  what  we  mean 
by  the  object  might  be  the  single  image;  let  us  consider  the  facts 
which  make  such  a  view  impossible.  The  single  image  that  has  the  best 
claims  to  be  identified  with  the  object  is  what  may  be  called  the 
' '  standard  image. ' '  This  is  the  image  that  we  get  when  we  are  close 
to  the  object  and  in  the  best  position  for  viewing  it.  When  naive 
realists  and  Berkeleians  reason  about  perception,  the  "object"  they 
have  in  their  mind's  eye  is,  I  am  convinced,  the  standard  image. 

But  the  hypothesis  that  the  object  is  identical  with  the  standard 
image  is  ruled  out  by  a  number  of  considerations.  In  the  first  place, 
the  object  may  be  viewed  from  many  sides,  and  there  are  therefore 
many  standard  images;  and,  since  the  object  is  one,  or  its  plurality 
at  least  not  that  of  the  images,  the  two  can  not  be  identical.  In  the 
second  place,  the  image  changes  as  we  move  without  the  object 
changing,  and  therefore,  again,  the  two  can  not  be  identical.  Even 
when  we  get  the  nearest  (visual)  image,  we  recognize  that  we  are  still 
a  certain  distance  away  from  the  object.  Vision  is  by  its  very  nature 
a  cognition  of  things  from  without.  Touch  brings  us  much  closer  to 
the  object  itself.  If  objects  are  to  be  identified  with  images,  tactile 
images  should  be  the  ones  chosen.  But  even  touch  remains  still  on 
the  outside. 

In  short,  so  long  as  we  remain  spatially  separate  from  the  ob- 
ject, we  can  not  get  it  as  an  image — get  an  image,  that  is,  which 
shall  be  it.  If  the  object  is  to  be  an  image,  it  will  have  to  be  the 
image  we  should  have  if  we  could  get  bodily  into  it  and  be  it,  re- 
ducing the  distance  and  the  difference  between  ourselves  and  it  to 
nil.  Would  that  be  an  image,  or  something  like  an  image?  I  am 


514  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

quite  prepared  to  think  so.  Only,  two  differences  must  be  pointed 
out.  In  the  first  place,  we  can  not  do  this;  it  would  involve  a  com- 
plete departure  for  the  condit ions  of  sense-perception.  In  the  s"«-- 
ond  place,  if  the  object  is  such  an  image,  it  is  one  which,  unlike  the 
images  we  have  been  considering  thus  far,  exists  whether  you  and  I 
have  it  or  not.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not,  like  most  images  that  we  do 
not  have  at  this  moment,  a  mere  possibility  for  you  and  me,  but  is 
an  actual  image  in  itself.  But  my  plan  was  to  employ  the  term 
"image"  for  the  sensible  experiences  you  and  I  have  in  perception. 

To  our  query  as  to  the  relation  between  the  object  and  the  image, 
the  facts  have  now  returned  an  unequivocal  answer.  All  attempts 
to  identify  the  object  with  the  image  have  failed.  The  image  can  not 
be  construed  either  as  the  whole  or  as  a  part  of  the  object.  The  ob- 
ject is  quite  other  than  it — in  other  words,  immediatism  has  been 
shown  to  be  untenable,  and  mediatism  in  some  form  to  be  true.  We 
can  not  yet  say  in  what  form.  The  object  may  be  a  real  existence 
beyond  the  image.  Or  it  may  be  only  an  ideal  entity  distinct  from 
it.  What  we  are  now  sure  of  is  that  the  image  is  merely  a  medium 
for  cognizing  it. 

C.  A.  STRONG. 

PARIS,  FRANCE. 


DISCUSSION 

IN  RESPONSE  TO  PROFESSOR  McGILVARY 

WITH  the  editors'  kind  permission,  I  shall  group  together  my 
responses  to  the  three  articles  which  Professor  McGilvary 
has  been  kind  enough  to  devote  of  late  to  my  writings.1    I  shall  take 
them  in  the  order  of  their  publication. 

1.  Regarding  my  article  in  which  I  argued  that  if  the  ego-centric 
predicament  marked  a  ubiquitous  fact  and  so  was  a  true  predica- 
ment, it  left  the  controversy  between  the  idealist  and  the  realist  in- 
soluble and,  in  fact,  meaningless,  I  should  like  to  say  that  so  far  as  I 
know  there  is  nothing  in  that  article  which  attributes  to  Professor 
Perry  the  belief  that  it  is  a  true  predicament.  I  had  no  such  inten- 
tion ;  it  was  the  situation,  not  Professor  Perry 's  views,  that  I  was  deal- 
ing with ;  and  besides  I  was  not  sure  what  his  attitude  was,  as  there 
are  things  in  his  writings  that  could  be  interpreted  both  ways.  I 
certainly  never  thought  of  arguing  that  a  realist  must  accept  the 

1 ' '  Realism  and  the  Ego-Centric  Predicament, ' '  Philosophical  Beview,  May, 
1912;  "Professor  Dewey's  Awareness,"  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  301;  and 
"Professor  Dewey's  Brief  Studies  in  Realism,"  this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  344. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          545 

predicament  as  real;  although  I  was  convinced  (and  still  am)  that 
any  realism  which  regards  the  self,  ego,  mind,  or  subject  as  neces- 
sarily one  of  two  terms  of  the  knowledge  relation  can  not  escape  the 
predicament.  So  far  as  Professor  McGilvary 's  argument  is  con- 
cerned, if  the  predicament  is  a  predicament,  he  has  fallen  into  a  fal- 
lacy which,  upon  retrospection,  I  think  he  will  find  as  amusing  as  he 
finds,  upon  occasion,  my  logic.  He  quotes  the  following  from  Pro- 
fessor Perry:  "The  same  entity  possesses  both  immanence  by  virtue 
of  its  membership  in  one  class,  and  also  transcendence,  by  virtue  of 
the  fact  that  it  may  belong  also  indefinitely  to  many  classes."  In 
comment,  Professor  McGilvary  adds:  "This  means  that  when  T 
stands  in  the  complex  TRC(E)  it  had  'immanence':  but  when 
this  same  T  stands  in  some  other  complex  TRnT',  it  has  'transcend- 
ence' with  respect  to  the  former  complex."  //  the  predicament  is 
genuine,  a  moment's  reflection  will  make  it  obvious  that  the  last 
formula  is  not  complete.  It  should  read  TRnT'R°(E).  Any  known 
relation  among  things,  */  knowledge  involves  a  relation  to  an  ego,  is 
itself  in  relation  to  the  ego.2  That  with  respect  to  the  subject-matter 
of  knowledge,  realism  has  the  advantage  over  idealism  of  recognizing 
the  importance  of  the  relations  that  things  sustain  to  one  another 
was  explicitly  recognized  in  my  article.3 

2.  In  the  second  article,  Professor  McGilvary  asks  me  two  ques- 
tions. In  reply  to  his  first,  I  would  say  that  he  is  right  in  suggesting 
that  I  included  "organic  inhibitions"  within  the  generic  term  "or- 
ganic releases" — a  careless  way  of  writing.  His  second  question  is 
not  so  easily  disposed  of :  namely,  ' '  Why  are  these  '  organic  releases ' 
called  'the  conditions  of  awareness'  rather  than  awareness  itself?" 
The  passage  of  my  own  upon  which  Professor  McGilvary  bases  his 
question  reads  as  follows :  "  Of  course  on  the  theory  I  am  interested 
in  expounding  the  so-called  action  of  'consciousness'  means  simply 
the  organic  releases  in  the  way  of  behavior  which  are  the  conditions 
of  awareness,  and  also  modify  its  content."  Professor  McGilvary 's 

2  Since  the  text  was  written,  Professor  McGilvary 's  review  of  Perry 's 
"Recent  Philosophical  Tendencies"  has  appeared  (Philosophical  Eeview,  July, 
1912).  In  this  review  Professor  McGilvary  states  the  point  succinctly  and 
vividly  in  this  way:  "How  can  we  discount  what  is  ipso  facto  counted  in  the 
very  act  of  discounting?"  (p.  466).  This  relieves  Professor  McGilvary  from 
any  imputation  of  incurring  the  fallacy  mentioned  above.  But  it  makes  me 
even  more  uncertain  than  before  as  to  just  why  and  how  my  article  fell  under 
his  criticism. 

8 ' '  Nevertheless,  I  do  not  conceive  that  the  realistic  assertion  and  the  ideal- 
istic assertion  in  this  dilemma  stand  on  the  same  level,  or  have  the  same  value. 
The  fact  that  objects  vary  in  relation  to  one  another  independently  of  their 
relation  to  a  'knower'  is  a  fact,  and  a  fact  recognized  by  all  schools."  This 
JOURNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  page  551 — the  article  with  which  Mr.  McGilvary  is  here 
dealing. 


M6  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

difficulty  is  a  natural  one:  the  passage  should  either  have  expanded 
or  not  appeared  at  all.  I  was  alluding  to  the  views  of  those  who  hold 
that  "consciousness"  acts  directly  upon  objects.  Since  my  own 
view  appears  similar  to  this  doctrine  and  has,  as  matter  of  fact,  been 
identified  with  it,  I  threw  in  the  above-quoted  passage.  My  inten- 
tion was  to  state  that  the  difference  made  in  objects  was  made  not 
by  a  distinct  or  separate  entity  or  power  called  consciousness,  but  by 
the  distinctive  type  of  behavior  that  involves  awareness.  The  pas- 
sage as  I  wrote  it  is  worded  with  an  unfortunate  accommodation  to 
the  view  I  was  criticizing.  What  I  should  have  brought  out  was.  first, 
that  "consciousness"  is  short  for  Conscious  or  intelligent  behavior; 
and,  secondly,  that  this  kind  of  behavior  makes  its  own  distinctive 
difference  in  the  things  involved  in  its  exercise.  The  unfortunate 
accommodation  to  which  I  refer  (and  which  gives  point  to  Professor 
McGilvary's  query)  is  the  seeming  acceptance  on  my  part  of  a  dual- 
ism between  organic  action  and  awareness  of  an  object.  Cancelling 
this  concession  and  remaining  true  to  my  own  point  of  view,  the  dis- 
tinction between  organic  action  and  the  object  known  is  replaced  by 
the  distinction  of  unconscious  and  purposive  behavior  with  re- 
spect to  objects.  Strictly  speaking,  accordingly,  upon  my  view  the 
"organic  releases"  are  neither  conditions  of  awareness  nor  the  aware- 
ness itself.  They  are  a  distinguishable  element  in  intelligent  be- 
havior, "awareness"  being  another  distinguishable  element.  I  hope 
this  makes  my  real  meaning  clear. 

3.  I  have  to  confess  that  I  am  surprised  by  Professor  McGilvary's 
last  article.  It  starts  by  quoting  from  me  (p.  345)  a  passage  in  which 
I  state  that  until  the  epistemological  realists  have  "considered  the 
main  proposition  of  the  pragmatic  realists,  viz.,  that  knowing  is 
something  that  happens  to  things  in  the  natural  course  of  their 
career,  not  the  sudden  introduction  of  a  'unique'  and  non-natural 
type  of  relation — that  to  a  mind  or  consciousness — they  are  hardly 
in  a  position  to  discuss  the  second  and  derived  pragmatic  proposi- 
tion that,  in  this  natural  continuity,  things  in  becoming  known 
undergo  a  specific  and  detectable  qualitative  change."  So  far  the 
quotation  from  my  article.  Then  follows  immediately  this  amazing 
statement  of  Professor  McGilvary.  "The  realists  criticized  are 
guilty,  then,  of  believing  that  knowing  is  a  sudden  introduction  of 
a  'unique'  and  non-natural  relation."  I  call  it  amazing  because  I 
know  of  no  principles  of  conversion,  obversion,  contraposition  or  any 
other  mode  of  interpreting  a  proposition  by  which  the  passage 
quoted  is  transformable  into  what  Professor  McGilvary  makes  out 
of  it.  Idealists  hold  that  knowledge  is  a  unique  and  non-natural  re- 
lation of  things  to  mind  or  consciousness,  and  they  make  this  belief 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          547 

the  basis  of  the  doctrine  that  things  thereby  have  their  seemingly 
physical  qualities  changed  into  psychical  ones.  This  idealistic  doc- 
trine has  been  attributed  to  pragmatists ;  at  least  it  has  been  attrib- 
uted to  me,  as  possibly  Professor  McGilvary  may  recall.  That  real- 
ists are  not  in  a  position  to  consider  the  actual  nature  of  the  prag- 
matic doctrine  that  knowing  makes  a  difference  in  things  till  they 
have  dissociated  the  premisses  upon  which  it  rests  from  the  premisses 
upon  which  the  idealistic  conclusion  rests,  may,  I  think,  be  stated 
without  being  turned  into  a  statement  that  realists  are  "guilty"  of 
holding  the  obnoxious  doctrine. 

So  far  as  this  portion  of  his  article  is  concerned,  it  seems  to  rest 
upon  the  supposition  that  I  was  hitting  at  some  person  or  persons, 
instead  of  examining  a  position.  In  talking  about  presentative  real- 
ism, I  thought  I  made  it  clear  that  by  presentative  realism  I  meant 
the  doctrine  that  knowledge  is  presentation  of  objects,  relations,  and 
propositions  to  a  knower,  such  presentation  occurring  (according  to 
this  kind  of  realism)  both  by  perception  and  by  thought.  I  can 
assure  Professor  McGilvary  (and  others,  if  there  be  others  that  need 
the  assurance)  that  I  never  supposed  that  my  criticism  applied  to 
any  except  to  those  to  whom,  by  its  terms,  it  does  apply.  Mr.  Mc- 
Gilvary says:  "Mr.  Dewey  has,  in  the  commendable  way  so  char- 
acteristic of  him,  made  his  criticisms  as  impersonal  as  possible."  I 
could  gladly  have  foregone  the  compliment  if  this  impersonal  exami- 
nation of  a  problem  had  been  taken  as,  in  good  faith,  of  the  essence 
of  the  article.  The  identification  of  mind,  soul,  with  the  self,  the  ego, 
and  the  conception  that  knowledge  is  a  relation  between  the  object 
as  one  term  and  the  self  as  the  other,  are  perhaps  the  most  character- 
istic and  permeating  traits  of  the  doctrines  of  modern  philosophy.  As 
yet  the  realists,  with  two  partial  exceptions,  have  not  explicitly  de- 
veloped a  theory  regarding  the  self — or  subject — and  its  place  or  lack 
of  place  in  knowledge.  The  problem  seems  to  me  important  enough  to 
repay  attention. 

In  the  latter  part  of  Mr.  McGilvary 's  article,  there  is  a  point  pre- 
sented which  does  not  depend  upon  dubious  mind-reading  of  my 
intentions.  In  my  earlier  article  I  had  stated  "the  very  things  that, 
from  the  standpoint  of  perception  as  a  natural  event,  are  conditions 
that  account  for  its  happening,  are  from  the  standpoint  of  percep- 
tion as  a  case  of  knowledge,  part  of  the  object  that  ought  to  be 
known,  but  is  not."  Mr.  McGilvary  questions  the  "ought" — ques- 
tions, in  fact,  is  a  mild  term.  It  denotes,  according  to  him,  "a  priori 
legislation,"  "sheer  dogmatism,"  "licentious  intellectualism. "  Be- 
fore doing  penance  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  I  will  remark  that  ought 
sometimes  means  "ought  as  a  matter  of  logical  conclusion  from  the 


•>is  ////•:  ./or/,' v.i/,  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

premisses."  It  was  in  that  sense  the  ought  is  used  in  this  passage,  so 
that  if  I  am  in  error  my  sins  are  not  of  the  kind  mentioned,  but  con- 
•f  inability  to  connect  premiss  and  conclusion  properly.  To  go 
into  tlint  matter  would  involve  pretty  much  a  recapitulation  of  my  en- 
tire article.  I  content  myself  here  with  pointing  out  that  I  was  deal- 
ing with  the  doctrine  that  a  seen  light  is,  ipso  facto,  a  knowledge  (good 
or  bad)  of  its  cause,  say  an  astronomical  star,  and  with  the  bearing  of 
this  doctrine  upon  the  idealistic  contention  concerning  the  numerical 
duplicity  of  the  star  and  the  star  as  "known"  in  perception — that 
is,  the  immediately  visible  li^ht.  And  my  point  was  that  if  the  seen 
light  is  per  se  knowledge  of  the  star  as  a  real  object,  the  physical 
conditions  referred  to  can  not  be  appealed  to  (this  "can  not"  is  in- 
tended in  a  purely  logical  sense)  in  explanation  of  the  deficiencies 
and  mistakes  of  the  perceptual  knowing,  since  they  are,  according 
to  the  doctrine,  part  of  the  object  known  by  the  perception.  Mr.  M<-- 
Gilvary's  illustration  regarding  a  wedding  and  the  events  that  lead  up 
to  it  is  interesting,  but  not  relevant,  as  there  is  no  contention,  so  far  as 
I  am  aware,  that  the  event  called  a  wedding  is,  ipso  facto,  a  knowledge 
of  that  which  caused  it.  It  is  somewhat  "amusing"  that  the  illustra- 
tion fits  perfectly  what  I  said  about  the  adequacy  of  the  naturalistic 
explanation  when  applied  to  the  happening  of  the  perception  as  an 
event,  but  has  no  visible  tie  of  connection  with  the  doctrine  that  the 
perception  is,  ex  officio,  a  knowledge  of  the  "real"  object  that  pro- 
duced it. 

JOHN  DEWEY. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERRATURE 

William  James  and  other  Essays  in  the  Philosophy  of  Life.  JOSIAH 
ROYCE.  New  York :  The  Macmillan  Company.  1911.  Pp.  ix  +  301. 
What  survives  in  any  philosophic  system  is  not  so  much  its  dialectic 
adequacy  as  its  temperamental  promptings.  People  do  not  embrace  an 
ism  for  reason,  but  become  reasonable  by  embracing  an  ism.  A  particular 
formula  then  becomes  a  genuine  philosophers'  stone,  whose  virtue  it  is  to 
dissolve  the  dross  of  experience  in  the  alembic  of  argument  and  to  trans- 
mute its  baser  metal  into  the  pure  gold  without  alloy  of  canon  or  of 
system.  These  observations  are  commonplaces,  I  know.  But  no  one  can 
fail  to  feel  keenly  the  deep  and  living  truth  of  them  who  reads  this  book 
by  Josiah  Royce,  with  its  familiar  arguments  so  rejuvenated  by  the  fresh- 
ness of  new  contexts  and  new  experience,  its  somewhat  stern  but  not 
joyless  piety  so  suffusing  every  evoking  occasion,  lifting  it  by  the  force  of 
personality  from  the  realm  of  utterance  to  the  realm  of  worship,  so  wide 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          549 

the  vistas  caused  to  cluster  about  it,  so  deep  the  feeling  that  links  them 
to  the  center.  The  book  is  made  up  of  occasional  pieces — an  address 
before  a  learned  society,  a  commencement  audience,  an  undergraduate 
religious  body,  a  congress  of  philosophers,  a  clerical  assembly.  The 
diversity  of  these  groups  is  striking,  but  not  less  so  than  the  unity  of  the 
lesson  brought  to  them  all,  and  the  harmony  and  completeness  with  which 
occasion  is  assimilated  to  doctrine,  so  much  so  that  the  two  are  not  to  be 
separated,  and  one  lives  in  the  other  as  do  the  tones  of  a  melody  or  the 
words  of  a  sentence.  Each  piece  is,  in  sum,  a  complete  miniature  of  the 
great  vision,  a  fully  representative  member  of  the  self-representative 
system. 

Admire  as  one  must  the  esthetic  excellence  of  such  an  interpenetration 
of  vision  with  datum,  the  feeling  is  none  the  less  inevitable  that  the 
admirable  thing  exists  only  by  the  rape  of  its  individuality  from  the 
datum.  In  each  instance  the  thing  as  it  is  is  made  over  into  the  thing 
as  it  ought  to  be,  and  its  intrinsic  nature,  "  fragmentary,"  perhaps,  but 
for  all  that  something  to  be  envisaged  and  appraised  in  and  for  itself,  is 
absorbed  in  a  "  larger  view,"  to  be  sure,  lovely,  but  death  to  what  enters  it. 
To  those  who  are  interested  in  things  as  they  are  this  is  a  defect,  but  it 
is  a  defect  shared  by  all  compensatory  philosophies,  and  most  philosophy 
is  compensatory.  It  portrays  a  cosmos  which  is  more  loyal  to  desire  tnan 
to  perception.  Perception  shows  a  highly  diversified  world  distinctly  not 
made  for  man,  inwardly  discordant,  a  changeful  flux,  wherein  life  is  a 
struggle  to  live,  and  human  values  are  often  lost,  and  when  won,  even  at 
great  cost.  Philosophic  "  reality,"  on  the  contrary,  from  Plato  to  Eoyce 
is  unified,  harmonious,  spiritual,  eternally  changeless,  the  very  essence  of 
human  value,  the  ultimate  and  utter  satisfaction  of  human  desires.  Such 
a  "  reality,"  which  is  biologically  an  ideational  elaboration  of  the  central 
goal  of  all  that  struggles  to  maintain  itself — that  vital  equilibrium  with  a 
propitious  environment  which  experience  is  always  upsetting — thus  desig- 
nates the  perennial  excellences  which  the  mind  most  desires,  and  becomes 
the  transmuting  formula  of  philosophic  and  religious  reconstruction. 
So  the  world  is  to  be  thought,  and  the  effort  of  most  thinkers  in  the  his- 
tory of  thought  has  been  to  prove  what  is  empirically  not  so — that  the 
world  is  one,  of  spiritual  substance  or  spiritually  regulated,  and  secures 
the  eternal  conservation  of  the  being  and  freedom  of  the  human  mind. 
Systems  offering  such  proof  are  compensatory :  they  pay  to  our  desires,  for 
the  insolvencies  of  the  actual,  with  promissory  notes  on  the  eternal.  They 
respond  to  human  wishes  and  either  ignore  the  conditions  which  deter- 
mine the  satisfaction  or  disappointment  of  these  wishes,  or  transmute  and 
reconstruct  them,  designating  these  actualities  as  appearance,  and  re- 
serving the  eulogium  of  reality  for  that  which  is  not,  but  is  desired.  This 
latter  is  then  taken  to  be  the  secret  and  all-satisfying  heart  of  existence. 

This  substitution  is  at  once  the  pathos  and  the  glory  of  the  mind.  It 
would  be  interesting,  were  there  space,  to  trace  the  historic  processes  which 
culminate  therein,  to  exhibit  the  causes  of  their  persistence,  to  specify  their 
effect  on  the  progress  of  free  thought.  What  is  here  to  the  purpose, 
however,  is  alone  the  mutative  power  which  makes  every  act  of  thought 


550  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

on  the  part  of  a  spirit  whose  force  is  their  force  a  very  miracle  of  trans- 
substantiation.  Though  he  be  just  as  justice  and  sympathetic  as  love, 
nothing  that  he  touches  retains  its  own  contour  or  nature,  nor  can.  Thus, 
pragmatism  has  never  had,  perhaps,  a  fairer,  more  sympathetic  or  learned 
critic  than  Koyce.  For  him.  if  for  anybody,  criticism  has  always  meant 
judgment,  not  destruction.  No  one  has  been  more  intent  than  he  in 
conserving  whole  as  much  of  pragmatic  doctrine  as  might  be.  And  yet — 
to  me,  at  any  rate,  all  that  is  distinctive  of  pragmatism  seems  to  dissolve 
under  his  handling  and  when  he  is  done  quite  another  thing  appears 
bearing  its  name. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  is  the  general  outcome  of  philosophic  argu- 
ment concerning  an  opposition,  but  surely  analysis  is  not  transmutation, 
and  again,  the  same  results  appear  in  the  papers  where  pragmatism  is  not 
in  issue.  Take  first  the  discussion  of  "what  is  vital  in  Christianity." 
It  appears  that  what  is  vital  are  the  incarnation  and  the  atonement.  But 
the  incarnation  and  the  atonement  as  these  are  manifest  in  the  mythology 
and  history  of  Christianism?  Not  so:  the  incarnation  and  the  atonement 
as  poetic  tropes  for  fundamental  conceptions  in  the  Royceian  idealism. 
"  First,  God  wins  perfection  through  expressing  himself  in  a  finite  life 
and  triumphing  over  and  through  its  very  finitude.  And  secondly,  our 
sorrow  is  God's  sorrow.  God  means  to  express  himself  by  winning 
through  the  very  triumph  over  evil  to  unity  with  the  perfect  life;  and 
therefore  our  fulfilment,  like  our  existence,  is  due  to  the  sorrow  and  tri- 
umph of  God  himself.  These  two  theses  express,  I  believe,  what  is*  vital 
in  Christianity"  (p.  183).  The  God  here,  be  it  observed,  is  not  the  God 
of  the  Christians,  that  is  the  Royceian  absolute.  His  finite  life  is  not  the 
life  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  any  and  each  empirical  existence.  The  sorrow 
and  evil  are  not  those  arising  through  freedom  and  original  sin,  they  are 
the  absolute  inevitable  "  rule  of  the  fame "  of  the  far  nobler  Royceian 
"  solution  "  of  the  "  problem  of  evil."  And  the  triumph  and  salvation  are 
not  the  consequences  of  man's  belief  and  God's  free  grace,  they  are  in- 
volved inexorably  in  the  absolute's  nature.  In  sum,  "  what  is  vital  in 
Christianity  "  turns  out  to  be  not  Christian  at  all. 

A  still  more  striking  example,  because  of  the  more  radical  inner  dif- 
ference of  the  mutatives,  appears  in  the  commencement  address  on  "  Loy- 
alty and  Insight."  These  two  views  of  life  are  confronted — naturalism 
with  loyalty,  which  designates  anew  and  significantly  Professor  Royce's 
lelensanschanung.  According  to  naturalism  ideals  are  alien  here  on 
earth :  "  In  no  case  .  .  .  does  the  real  world  essentially  care  for  or  help 
or  encourage  [them]."  The  aim  of  life  is  to  "be  free  from  superstition, 
then;  and  next  avoid  false  hopes"  (p.  65).  Loyalty,  on  the  other  hand, 
"  is  founded  not  upon  a  decision  of  nature's  supposed  mechanism,  but 
upon  a  study  of  man's  own  inner  and  deeper  needs.  It  is  a  doctrine  about 
the  plan  and  business  of  human  life."  It  appears  in  the  light  thereof  that 
"  the  study  of  science  is  a  very  beautiful  and  human  expression  of  a  cer- 
tain exalted  form  of  loyalty"  (p.  83).  But  now;  the  study  of  science  is 
and  leads  to  most  often  just  that  decision  upon  nature's  supposed  mech- 
anism which  is  the  essence  of  naturalism,  so  radically  contrasted  with 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         551 

loyalty;  its  programme  is  exactly  and  supremely  to  be  free  from  supersti- 
tion and  avoid  false  hopes.  What  difference,  then,  between  naturalism 
and  idealism  ?  None.  But  the  conclusion  contradicts  the  premise  ?  No. 
The  premise  has  been  altered.  Naturalism  has  not  really  been  meant  to 
be  taken  as  it  is  in  itself.  Its  very  statement  has  involved  reservations 
and  exceptions  which,  when  considered,  shall  make  it  over  into  altogether 
an  idealistic  thing.  These  reservations  and  exceptions  are  the  ideals  of 
which  naturalism  is  supposed  to  take  no  account,  "  man's  own  inner  and 
deeper  needs."  Naturalism  gets  transmuted  into  their  form  and  sub- 
stance and  becomes  a  thing  not  natural  at  all. 

Of  great  importance,  not  more  as  an  example  of  transmutation  than 
for  its  bearing  on  the  discussion  of  pragmatism,  is  Professor  Royce's 
treatment  of  time  in  the  present  restatement  of  his  well-known  views  on 
"  immortality."  Most  of  the  experiences  of  life,  he  there  asserts,  "  unite 
to  show  us  that  the  reality  of  time  is  possessed  especially  by  its  past  and 
future,  over  against  which  the  present  is  indeed  but  vanishing"  (p.  268). 
This  is  discovered  in  the  act  of  willing.  Therefore  time  is  a  function  of 
volition.  "  In  terms  ...  of  my  attitude  of  will,  and  only  in  such  terms 
can  I  define  time,  and  its  regions,  distinctions,  and  reality."  By  analogy, 
since  I  discover  hydrogen  and  oxygen  by  operating  with  water,  I  ought 
not  to  be  able  to  define  these  gases  in  terms  other  than  water.  Such  a 
definition  would,  however,  invert  the  logical  implications  of  whole  with 
part,  and  where  a  complex  used  to  imply  its  elements  the  elements  would 
now-  imply  the  complex.  This  is  logically  inadmissible.  And  as  em- 
pirically time  is  an  element  in  the  complex  we  call  volition,  and  can  itself 
be  still  further  reduced  to  elements  of  which  the  most  distinctive  is 
duration,  it  becomes  clear  that  time  can  be  a  function  of  volition  only  if 
the  logic  of  implication  is  abrogated.  The  further  question  may  yet  be 
raised  as  to  whether,  empirically,  the  past  and  future  do  have  superior 
reality.  The  experiences  of  life,  I  think,  unite  to  deny  that  they  do.  But 
this  point  may  be  waived  for  the  present,  and  inquiry  made  into  the  rela- 
tion between  the  time  in  which  past  and  future  are  more  real  than  present, 
this  "  fragmentary "  and  relative  time  of  actual  experience,  and  that 
species  of  time  which  the  absolute  alone  enjoys — a  time  in  which  future 
and  past  do  not  exist  as  such,  but  are  present.  It  is  to  be  noted  that, 
though  this  time  is  the  special  privilege  of  the  absolute,  our  own  relative 
and  fragmentary  experience  does  contain  prototypes  of  it.  Musical  pro- 
gressions, at  least,  are  experiences  in  which  what  had  better  be  called 
actual  duration  is  more  prominent  than  elsewhere  and  which  somewhat 
resemble  the  absolute's  time.  Why  should  this  species  of  time  be  reserved 
for  the  absolute,  the  other  attributed  to  men,  and  all  identified  with  will, 
and  ultimately  with  eternity?  The  answer  is:  compensation;  but  its 
elaboration  must  be  postponed  till  the  criticism  of  "truth." 

Now  if  such  inwardly  oppugnant  things  as  Christianism  and  absolute 
idealism,  absolute  idealism  and  naturalism,  duration  and  eternity,  can  be 
thus  transfused  one  into  the  other,  so  that  all  real  distinctions  get  for- 
gotten and  lost,  how  much  more  facile,  then,  no  matter  how  cautious  and 
detached  the  investigator,  a  transsubstantiation  of  concepts  that  have  a  cer- 


5.VJ  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

tain  similarity  of  content — such  as  is  denoted,  for  example,  by  "  action," 
"  deed,"  "  purpose  " — as  do  pragmatism  and  Royceian  voluntarism.  When, 
moreover,  discourse  is  suffused  by  deep  and  commemorative  emotion,  and 
the  address  on  "William  James  and  the  Philosophy  of  Life"  is  so  suf- 
fused, it  is  well-nigh  inevitable  that  feeling  shall  bring  together  ;m<l  In M 
firmly  in  one  Blowing  vision  all  things  dear  and  cherished,  without  respect 
to  how  great  be  their  oppugnance  otherwise.  The  thought  of  William 
James  may  thus  become  indistinguishable  from  that  of  Josiah  Royce,  and 
I  must  confess  that  this  is  what  seems  here  to  have  occurred,  and  that  the 
address  appears  to  me  much  more  effective  as  history  than  as  interpreta- 
tion. The  alignment  of  James  with  Edwards  and  Emerson,  the  exposition 
of  his  relation  to  his  times,  even  the  somewhat  supererogatory  defense  of 
James  against  those  who  unjustly  "  confound  pragmatism  with  the  cruder 
worship  of  efficiency  "  seem  rightly  borne  out  by  the  facts.  But  as  inter- 
preted, the  "  Will  to  Believe  "  and  the  whole  of  James's  philosophy  of 
life  gets,  as  with  Boutroux,  a  very  definite  twist  that  makes  it  over  as 
Royce  would  have  it  be,  but  as  it  is  not.  Here  are  characteristic  passages : 
"Your  deeper  ideals  always  depend  upon  viewing  life  in  the  light  of  the 
larger  unities  that  now  appear,  upon  viewing  yourself  as  a  coworker  with 
the  universe  for  the  attainment  of  what  no  present  game  of  human  action 
can  now  reveal"  (pp.  38-39).  "  Moreover,  these  ethical  maxims  are  here 
governed,  in  James's  exposition,  by  the  repeated  recognition  of  certain 
essentially  absolute  truths,  truths  that,  despite  his  natural  horror  of  abso- 
lutism, he  here  expounds  with  a  finished  dialectic  skill.  .  .  .  The  need  of 
faith  in  the  unseen  and  the  superhuman  he  founds  upon  these  simple  and 
yet  absolutely  true  principles,  principles  of  the  true  dialectic  of  life: 
First,  every  great  decision  of  practical  life  requires  faith  and  has  irre- 
vocable consequences,  consequences  that  belong  to  the  whole  great  world, 
and  that  therefore  have  endless  possible  importance.  Secondly,  since 
action  and  belief  are  thus  inseparably  bound  together,  our  right  to  believe 
depends  upon  our  right  as  active  beings  to  make  decisions.  Thirdly,  our 
duty  to  decide  life's  greater  issues  is  determined  by  the  absolute  truth 
that,  in  critical  cases,  the  will  to  be  doubtful  and  not  to  decide  is  itself  a 
decision,  and  is  hence  no  escape  from  our  responsible  moral  position. 
And  thus  our  responsible  moral  position  is  a  position  that  gives  us  our 
place  in  and  for  all  future  life"  (pp.  41-42).  I  have  italicized  the  trans- 
forming phrases.  They  turn  the  doctrines  of  James,  who  had  tried  abso- 
lutism and  found  it  wanting,  who  was  radically  an  empiricist,  an  inde- 
terminist,  a  pluralist,  impatient  of  alls  and  wholes,  always  asserting  the 
externality  of  relations,  into  just  that  non-empirical  absolutism  he  in- 
stinctively rejected  upon  trial  and  reflectively  combatted.  Only  when 
these  phrases  are  accepted  can  he  be  compared  with  the  absolutists,  Fichte 
and  Hegel.  Reject  them,  and  you  find  that  he  resembles  Fichte  in  those 
respects  in  which  Fichte  was  most  citizen  and  least  philosopher;  you  find 
that  what  he  has  in  common  with  Hegel  is  exactly  not  the  Hegelian  spirit, 
but  what  is  characteristic  of  Hegel,  as  he  himself  points  out,1  "  merely  as 
a  reporter  of  certain  empirical  aspects  of  the  actual."  Altogether,  I  can 
l"A  Pluralistic  Universe,"  page  100. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          553 

not  overcome  the  impression  that  as  this  address  progresses  there  is  a 
gradual  transmutation  of  the  distinctive  ideas  of  pragmatism  into  the 
characteristic  conceptions  of  absolutism.  In  the  end,  I  find  attributed  to 
William  James  the  philosophy  of  life  of  Josiah  Koyce. 

In  this  there  is  the  undeniable  appeal  of  a  high  pathos.  The  mind  is 
so  inevitably  decking  whom  it  loves,  even  though  the  beloved  could  not 
and  will  not  wear  them,  with  all  its  preferred  supremacies  and  excellences. 
Such  desire  is  the  universal  trait  of  lovers.  Its  execution  gives  recollec- 
tion something  of  the  flavor  and  glow  of  actuality,  forges  anew  the  chains 
which  bind  earth  to  eternal  good.  Though  the  naked  fact  were  rougher, 
perhaps,  yet  nobler  to  utter,  here  compensation  has  a  dual  right — for  to 
that  which  the  mind  inevitably  craves  is  joined  that  for  which  the  fact 
itself  compels  the  yearning.  In  pure  discourse,  however,  many  would 
challenge  compensation's  place.  Yet  nowhere  does  it  flourish  more  or  win 
greater  victories,  for  its  nature  is  to  grow  by  argument  and  to  secure  itself 
by  dialectic.  Compensatory  philosophies,  as  a  rule,  play  their  game  with 
loaded  dice,  and  disingenuously:  their  answer,  as  Mr.  Jacks  boasts,  exists 
prior  to  their  problem :  they  bet  on  a  sure  thing.  Now  it  is  not  one  of  the 
least  splendid  qualities  of  Eoyceian  idealism  that  with  respect  to  it  the 
rule  does  not  altogether  hold.  Its  compensations  are  demanded  with  as 
much  frankness  as  unconsciousness  that  they  are  compensation,  and  the 
essential  begging  of  excellence  and  salvation,  as  well  as  of  the  question, 
appears  as  a  right,  not  as  a  trespass. 

Nowhere,  I  think,  are  the  virtues  and  defects  of  the  system  so  apparent 
as  in  the  weighty  and  important  address  before  the  international  congress 
of  philosophy  at  Heidelberg,  four  years  ago,  on  "  The  Problem  of  Truth 
in  the  Light  of  Recent  Discussion,"  and  here  reprinted.  The  joining  of 
the  issues  between  pragmatism  and  absolutism  is  subtle  as  well  as  broad; 
just,  as  well  as  searching,  and  yet — what  is  true  of  the  essays  examined 
above  is  true  also  of  this :  the  very  presuppositions  on  which  the  issues  are 
stated  render  them  impossible  as  between  absolutism  and  its  opponent. 
Absolutism  loves  pragmatism,  and  with  cannibalistic  intensity;  it  swal- 
lows pragmatism  whole  and  sublates  in  the  "  larger  view." 

Analysis — so  the  fable  runs — lays  bare  three  motives  in  the  current 
descriptions  of  truth:  that  derived  from  biology,  with  its  conception  of' 
the  survival-value  of  ideas ;  that  derived  from  "  the  longing  to  be  self- 
possessed  and  inwardly  free,"  and  ramifying  into  individualism,  personal 
idealism,  and  irrationalism ;  that  derived  from  "  modern  logic "  and 
identical  with  the  Kantian  motive  "  which  leads  us  to  seek  for  clear  and 
exact  self-consciousness  regarding  the  principles  both  of  our  belief  and 
of  our  conduct,"  a  motive  not  altogether  properly  called  intellectualism. 
These  motives  appear  in  realism  like  Russell's  and  voluntarism  like 
Fichte's,  as  well  as  in  the  pragmatism  of  James  and  the  instrumentalism 
of  Dewey.  Each  and  all  of  them  leads  to  absolute  idealism.  "  Individ- 
ualism is  right  in  saying,  '  I  will  to  credit  this  or  that  opinion.'  But 
individualism  is  wrong  in  supposing  that  I  can  ever  be  content  with  my 
own  will  in  so  far  as  it  is  merely  an  individual  will.  The  will  to  my 
mind  is  to  all  of  us  nothing  but  a  thirst  for  complete  and  conscious  self- 


564  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

possession,  for  fulness  of  life.  And  in  terms  of  this  its  central  motive 
the  will  defines  the  truth  that  it  endlessly  seeks  as  a  truth  that  possesses 
completeness,  totality,  self-possession,  and  therefore  absoluteness.  The 
fact  that,  in  our  human  experience,  we  never  meet  with  any  truths  such 
as  completely  satisfy  our  longing  for  insight,  this  fact  we  therefore  in- 
evitably interpret,  not  as  any  defect  in  the  truth,  but  as  a  defect  in  our 
present  state  of  knowledge,  a  limitation  due  to  our  present  type  of  indi- 
viduality. Hence  we  acknowledge  a  truth  which  transcends  our  in<li- 
vidual  life"  (pp.  235-6).  "We  can  define  the  truth  even  of  relativism 
only  by  asserting  that  relativism  is  absolutely  true  "  (p.  237).  The  course 
of  our  daily  life  even  as  of  dialectic  must  presuppose  this  absolutism.  For 
it  assumes  the  past,  which  transcends  all  individual  experience,  and  it 
assumes  the  minds  of  other  men,  which  transcend  the  individual  experi- 
ence of  each  man.  If  the  truth  of  assertions  about  these  two  assumptions, 
which  can  not  be  verified,  consists  simply  in  the  fact  that  such  assertions 
are  credited,  truth-telling  becomes  indistinguishable  from  lying.  For 
truth-telling  pre-supposes,  looks  backward,  to  already  existing  facts  which 
validate  assertions  by  their  mere  existence.  If  not,  the  pragmatist  shares 
the  fate  of  Epimenides  the  Cretan,  who  called  all  Cretans  liars  (pp.  225- 
233),  to  say  nothing  of  the  Psalmist  who  extended  this  quality  to  all  men. 
Withal,  "  instrumentalism  in  so  far  correctly  defines  the  nature  which 
truth  possesses  in  so  far  as  we  ever  actually  verify  truth  "  (p.  224). 

The  arguments  here  recapitulated  are  familiar  to  all  readers  of  Royce : 
Pragmatism  can  not  account  for  past  time,  other  minds,  and  is  self-con- 
tradictory. It  happens,  however,  that  the  pragmatism  which  so  fails  is 
not  pragmatism  as  it  is,  but  pragmatism  in  the  absolutistic  version.  This 
version  derives  from  presuppositions  which  the  pragmatist  neither  ac- 
knowledges nor  entertains.  Of  absolutism,  however,  these  are  the  critical 
center.  They  regard  the  nature  of  cognition  or  experience  with  respect 
to  its  volitional-durational  character  and  with  respect  to  its  ego-central ity. 
In  Professor  Royce's  version  of  absolutism,  the  analysis  of  time  plays  a 
leading  role.  He  concludes,  as  is  well  known,  that  living  time,  the 
enduring  present,  is  less  real  than  past  or  dead  time  and  unborn  or  future 
time.  But  this  time  itself  is  only  a  function  of  the  will,  whose  operation 
is  reality,  and  our  own  wills  assume  but  never  experience  past  and  future 
as  such.  The  result  is  that  they  are  both  real  and  unreal.  This  is  a 
contradiction  which  is  sublated  by  turning  past  and  future  into  an  actual 
present — the  immediate  experience  of  the  absolute  will,  which  alone  thus 
possesses  "  completeness,  totality,  absoluteness."  In  it  wish,  need,  and 
satisfaction  are  identical.  In  the  finite  mind  they  are  different,  and  the 
difference  is  "  a  limitation  due  to  my  present  type  of  individuality." 
Thirst  is  a  guarantee  thus  of  its  own  unreality.  My  thirst  guarantees  that 
what  will  assuage  it  exists  and  will  assuage  it,  even  though  I  die  of  it 
in  the  meantime.  The  upshot  of  this  analysis  of  time  is,  then,  that  the 
past  can  never  be  present  to  us,  but  is  together  with  the  future  present 
to  the  absolute,  m  actu.  Absolutely,  time  hasn't  a  temporal  nature  at 
all.  It  collapses  into  "eternity,"  an  ordinal  simultaneity  in  space;  when 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          555 

the  absolute  does  experience  it  as  such,  he  experiences  it  as  duration 
(vid.  supra,  p.  551). 

Now  for  pragmatism  time  is  as  central  as  for  absolutism.  But  it  finds 
no  empirical  ground  for  the  superior  reality  of  the  past  and  future  over 
the  present.  And  as  for  "  eternity,"  that  is  an  empty,  negative  concept 
like  "  not-man."  The  real  duration,  which  Professor  Royce  reserves  for 
the  absolute,  pragmatism  observes  to  be  the  substance  of  all  experience. 
This  it  describes  as  it  flows,  and  its  flow,  as  Professor  A.  W.  Moore  has 
long  ago  shown,  without  rejoinder,  consists  of  actual  transitions  from 
uneasiness  and  fragmentariness  to  "  completeness,  totality,"  satisfactions, 
the  former  leading  durationally  into  the  latter  as  one  tone  of  a  melody 
into  another,  and  each  in  its  turn  supplying  "  conscious  self-possession 
and  fulness  of  life."  For  pragmatism,  furthermore,  each  and  every  phase 
of  this  process  is  its  own  guarantee  and  is  neither  logically  nor  emotionally 
in  need  of  aid  and  comfort  from  without.  It  is  logically  what  it  is,  and 
no  more,  a  matrix  to  be  credited,  at  the  creditor's  own  risk,  as  a  starting- 
point  for  more  experience  which  may  or  may  not  grow  out  of  it,  inde- 
terminately and  freely,  but  does  not  already  preexist  as  its  warranty  in 
an  absolute  mind.  Hence,  our  felt  lack  of  a  thing  in  idea  is  silent  about 
that  thing's  existence  or  non-existence.  As  substance  it  is  just  that  felt 
lack,  and  no  more,  capable  of  working  generatively  toward  the  making  or 
the  discovery  of  what  is  desired.  It  may  fail  to  do  so,  and  then  becomes 
false;  it  may  succeed,  and  becomes  true,  acquires  through  application  or 
activity  a  new  trait  or  function,  is  verified.  We  have  Professor  Royce's 
own  word  that  this  description  of  the  nature  of  truth  is  correct  "  in  so 
far  as  we  ever  actually  verify  truth."  But  what  would  be  the  "  truth  " 
of  a  felt  lack,  of  a  guiding  idea  which  didn't  guide,  if  it  were  not  verified 
in  some  concrete  way?  Its  truth  would  be  nil;  it  would  be  mere  datum, 
an  existence  having  a  logically  real  nature,  but  neither  true  nor  false. 
Only  if  truth  and  existence  be  confused  is  it  possible  to  speak  of  unveri- 
fied truth.  Such  a  confusion  arises  wherever  a  compensatory  absolute  ex- 
perience is  invoked  to  confirm  natural  experience.  To  that,  since  that  is 
empirically  generative,  the  dialectic  of  a  block  universe  does  not  apply. 
Hence,  the  objection  that  not  we,  but  the  absolute  only,  can  verify  the  past, 
falls  beside  the  mark.  A  past  event,  even  such  an  event  as  Newton's  mind, 
may  in  so  far  as  it  perdures  be  presently  known  and  is  presently  known. 
So  we  know  the  law  of  gravitation.  Newton's  body  indeed  and  his  lapsed 
emotions  are,  as  such,  irrecoverable.  But  they  are  none  the  less  subjects 
of  predicative  propositions,  are  none  the  less  terms  we  have  knowledge 
about,  that  gets  itself  verified  in  acquaintance  with  such  data  as  these  have 
continued  themselves  into,  not  necessarily,  but  freely,  determining  in 
virtue  of  their  inward  nature  our  present  experience  of  them.  This  con- 
sists in  the  books  Newton  wrote,  the  portraits  that  were  made  of  him,  and 
so  forth.  And  so  long  as  these  are  credited  forward,  and  the  crediting 
continually  and  prosperously  enriches  life,  even  as  doctors'  theses,  can 
they  be  better,  more  truly  known?  Professor  Royce  himself  agrees  they 
can  not,  by  us.  But  do  they  become  any  more  immediate  to  us,  is  the 
truth  about  them  changed  for  us  into  the  fact  of  them,  by  declaring  them 


6f>i;  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

to  be  the  immediate  possession  of  the  absolute,  who  is  still  less  immediate 
lo  us?  Such  a  declaration  is  as  reasonable  as  an  attempt  firmly  to  found 
a  house  of  cards  by  building  it  on  a  quicksand. 

What  I  have  just  said  about  Newton's  mind  as  a  past  event  applies 
equally  to  all  other  minds  as  presently  active.  This  means,  of  course,  that 
pragmatism  regards  minds  as  being  as  little  private  in  their  essential 
nature  as  things;  propositions  of  which  they  are  the  subjects,  hence,  are 
amenable  to  verification.  Absolutism  regards  other  minds  as  something 
essentially  private,  therefore  not  amenable  to  verification  and  hence 
subjecting  the  thinker  to  the  alternative  between  solipsism  and  the  abso- 
lute. As  the  absolute's  mind  is  ex  hypothesis  least  of  all  subject  to  verifi- 
cation, the  validating  effect  of  that  mind  is,  to  say  the  least,  highly  ques- 
tionable. But  granting  that  I  believe  in  the  absolute,  how  am  I  thereby 
to  be  saved  from  solipsism?  Does  the  alternative  offer  anything  more 
than  solipsism  on  a  large  scale  as  against  solipsism  on  a  small?  Be  this 
as  it  may,  it  can  arise  only  if  the  purely,  the  "  merely  psychological " 
character  of  the  individual  mind  be  assumed.  Pragmatism  declares  this 
assumption  to  involve  a  dialectical  reconstruction  of  objective  empirical 
data.  It  declares  these  data  to  be  found  in  actual  acquaintance  with 
other  minds  themselves.  It  finds  that  a  knower  first  discovers  those 
minds,  and  only  afterwards  understands  his  own  in  the  light  of  these 
discoveries.  It  finds  those  minds  to  be  highly  complicated  objective 
organizations  of  terms  and  relations,  not  simple  wills.  And  finally  while 
it  finds  that  empirically  not  all  the  elements  in  a  mind  are  perceivable 
with  equal  facility,  any  more  than  are  all  the  elements  of  the  residual 
world,  it  exhibits  the  purely  empirical  fact  that  one  mind'  does  know 
another  and  demonstrates  how  this  knowledge  occurs.  What,  then,  is  to 
be  gained  by  violating  the  principle  of  parsimony  and  invoking,  in  addi- 
tion to  actual  verifications  of  propositions  the  subjects  of  which  are 
objects  of  acquaintance,  an  utterly  unverifiable  and  unknowable  absolute 
mind  to  validate  the  knowledge  of  other  minds  admitted  already  to  be 
valid  so  far  as  may  be? 

Altogether,  pragmatism  seems,  thus  far,  to  fall  into  the  toils  of  abso- 
lutism only  when  it  is  transmuted  into  a  thing  absolutistic  from  the  start. 
Is  there  not,  however,  one  instance  at  least  in  which  pragmatism  falls  of 
its  own  momentum  into  absolutism,  like  a  meteorite  into  the  sun?  Does 
not  pragmatism  assert  the  absolute  whenever  it  affirms  a  general  propo- 
sition? Can  the  truth  even  of  relativism  be  defined  otherwise  than  abso- 
lutely? Impossible,  says  Professor  Royce:  and  the  impossibility  arises  by 
the  use  of  the  most  dread  weapon  in  his  dialectical  armory.  "  An  abso- 
lute truth  is  one  whose  denial  implies  the  reassertion  of  that  same  truth  " 
(p.  251).  We  are  facing  the  famous  reflexive  argument.  In  the  essay  it  is 
incarnated  in  many  and  elaborate  examples,  from  Epimenides  the  Cretan, 
Euclid  and  his  theorem  that  there  is  no  last  prime  number,  to  all  the 
ramifications  of  the  "  new  logic."  Formally  it  has  not,  so  far  as  I  know, 
been  met.  Yet  it  is  curious  that  so  profound  and  sympathetic  a  student  of 
symbolic  logic  as  Professor  Royce  should  not  long  ago  have  observed  its 
formal  impossibility.  Logically  the  reflexive  argument  is  coincident  with 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          557 

the  conception  which  Mr.  Bertrand  Kussell  designates  as  the  "  class  of  all 
classes  "  and  this  conception  is,  according  to  Mr.  Russell's  unquestioned 
analysis,  self-contradictory.  To  choose  one  term  of  the  contradiction  and 
to  call  that  the  valid  one  is  an  act  purely  arbitrary,  in  no  sense  a  solu- 
tion of  the  contradiction.  The  solution  of  it,  however,  destroys  the  reflex- 
ive effect.  When,  for  example,  the  Psalmist  says,  "  all  men  are  liars,"  all 
men  formally  become  liars  and  not-liars  at  the  same  time.  When  the 
relativist  declares,  "  There  is  no  absolute  truth,"  truth  is  thereby  rendered 
both  absolute  and  relative.  Mr.  Russell's  conclusion  of  his  examination 
of  the  contradiction  is  that  the  all  type  of  "formal  truth"  is  not  ad- 
missible; the  any  and  every  type  is.  Classes  have  to  be  taken  as  many, 
and  when  so  taken  can  be  logical  subjects,  but  only  in  propositions  of  a 
different  kind  from  those  in  which  their  terms  are  subjects.  The  propo- 
sition which  applies  to  the  Psalmist  himself  will  be  other  than  that  which 
applies  to  the  Psalmist  as  a  member  of  the  class  men.  As  the  latter,  then, 
he  may  well  be  a  liar.  In  and  by  himself  he  may  be  altogether  veracious. 
So,  also,  the  assertion,  "  there  is  no  absolute  truth,"  may  be  in  itself 
"  absolute,"  as  a  member  of  the  class  "  truth  "  relative.  The  distinctions 
which  lead  to  this  particularism  at  once  destroy  the  force  of  the  reflexive 
argument  and  confirm  the  distinctly  pragmatic  reply  to  it. 

This  reply  points  to  the  fact  that  the  all  form  of  being  is  possible  only 
in  a  block-universe  in  which  time  is  unreal.  Now  empirically  the  uni- 
verse is  a  collection  of  eaches,  i.  e.,  of  particulars,  and  time  is  real.  The 
block-quality  appears  always  in  retrospect,  for  experience  grows  and  all 
implies  more  than  all.  Reflexion  is  impossible  under  such  conditions. 
The  judgment  in  which  it  is  said  to  occur  is  a  new  fact  in  the  world,  the 
latest  in  so  far  forth.  What  it  regards  and  designates  is  not  itself,  but  its 
predecessors.  The  all  it  makes  use  of  becomes  in  this  very  use  less  than 
all.  This  is  why,  as  Mr.  Russell  points  out,  it  is  subject  to  predicates  of 
a  different  kind  from  those  applying  to  its  own  members.  Epistemolog- 
ically,  the  reflexive  argument  rests  on  a  confusion  of  kinds,  namely,  of 
knowledge  of  acquaintance  with  knowledge  about,  of  existence  with  truth, 
of  the  perception  of  the  datum,  "  all  truth  is  relative  "  with  the  particular 
proposition  "  It  is  true  that  all  truth  is  relative."  The  former  is  a  fact, 
neither  true  nor  false,  but  just  so  much  brute  being  which  may  or  may 
not  perdure.  It  is  the  class  as  many.  The  latter  is  not  designative,  but 
predicative,  it  is  knowledge  about,  and  validates  itself,  in  so  far  as  it 
can  validate  itself  at  all,  pragmatically.  It  may  be  added  that  only  in  the 
latter  form  can  or  does  knowledge  require  validation.  An  illustration 
will  clinch  the  argument:  Suppose  that  on  entering  a  room  I  formulate 
my  perception  thus,  "  There  is  no  one  here."  According  to  the  reflexive 
argument  I  contradict  myself,  for  I  deny  that  I  am  in  the  room  while  I  am 
in  it.  Yet  who,  even  among  absolute  idealists,  would  accuse  me  of  self- 
stultification?  Philosophers,  none  the  less,  in  strictly  similar  logical 
situations  make  this  accusation,  and  in  good  faith.  Which  exhibits  again 
the  attitude  of  pragmatism  and  of  absolutism  toward  the  actual  processes 
of  experience,  one  taking  it  as  it  comes,  the  other  making  it  over. 


658  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  upshot  is  that  the  reflexive  argument,  no  less  than  that  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  past  and  the  knowledge  of  one  mind  by  another,  is  based 
on  premises  which  pragmatism  points  to  experience  as  denying.  The  em- 
pirical data  with  which  it  starts  must  be  dealt  with  alchemically  before 
they  can  yield  the  desired  results.  Premises  are  made  to  conform  to  the 
wished-for  conclusion  rather  than  the  conclusion  to  the  premises.  Un- 
satisfied interests  must  have  their  compensatory  satisfactions.  "  Then 
what  I  have  called  the  trivialities  of  mere  instrumentalism  will  appear  as 
what  they  are — fragmentary  hints  and  transient  expressions  of  the  will 
whose  life  is  universal,  whose  form  is  absolute  and  whose  laws  are  at 
once  those  of  logic,  of  ethics,  of  the  unity  of  experience,  and  of  whatever 
pivr-j  sense  to  life."  H.  M.  KALLKV 

UNIVERSITY  OP  WISCONSIN. 

Die  Philosophic  der  Oegenwart  in  Deutschland.  (Aus  Natur  und  Oeistes- 
welt,  Band  41.)  OSWALD  KULPE.  Leipzig:  Teubner.  1911.  Pp. 
viii  + 136. 

This  little  volume  has  become  very  popular  in  Germany.  Its  title, 
however,  is  quite  misleading;  for  it  does  not  deal  with  present-day  phi- 
losophy, but  only  with  the  philosophy  of  the  past.  The  philosophers  rep- 
resented in  the  booklet:  Mach,  Diihring,  Haeckel,  Nietzsche,  Fechner, 
Lotze,  Hartmann,  Wundt,  were  typical  of  German  thought  during  the 
last  two  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  they  are  typical  of  what 
German  thought  of  the  early  twentieth  century  is  not.  As  a  history  of 
German  philosophy  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  however,  Kiilpe's 
exposition  can  be  recommended.  It  is  popular,  easy  reading,  and  fur- 
nishes a  good  deal  of  useful  knowledge. 

GUNTHER  JACOBY. 
GBEIFSWALD  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

LA  CIENCIA  TOMISTA.  May,  1912.  El  femenismo  en  Alemania 
(pp.  181-194) :  A.  G.  MENEXDEZ-REIGADA.  -  An  Account  of  the  Programme 
and  Discussions  of  the  Congress  of  Women  held  in  Berlin  in  February. 
1912.  El  ascetismo  de  D.  Diego  de  Torres  Villaroel  (pp.  195-227) :  J.  DK 
LAMANO  Y  BENEITE. -The  true  character  of  Torres  Villaroel  is  not  gen- 
erally known.  Behind  the  humorous  and  sarcastical  writer,  there  was  a 
man  imbued  with  asceticism  and  heroic  charity.  Las  Cortes  y  la  Consti- 
tution de  Cadiz  (pp.  228-247):  J.  D.  GAFO. -The  question  of  the  legiti- 
macy of  the  Cortes  and  of  the  Constitution  of  1812  has  given  rise  to  nu- 
merous inconsistencies  and  contradictions  on  the  part  of  so  notaMi- 
writers  as  Strauch,  Puigcerver,  and  especially  Rafael  Velez.  El  Filosofo 
Rancio  (pp.  248-264):  G.  A.  GETINO. -A  study  of  the  work  and  influ- 
ence of  the  forerunner  of  nee-scholasticism  in  Spain.  Francisco  Al\;i- 
rado.  Boletin  de  Apologetica.  Boletin  de  Filosofia.  Cronicas  cientifico- 
sociales.  Revista  de  Re  vistas.  Bibliografia. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          559 

Binet,  Alfred,  and  Simon,  Th.  A  Method  of  Measuring  the  Development 
of  the  Intelligence  of  Young  Children.  Translated  by  Clara  Harrison 
Town.  Lincoln,  111. :  The  Courier  Company.  1912.  Pp.  83.  $1.00. 

De  Kuggiero,  Guido.  La  Filosofia  Contemporanea.  Bari,  Italy:  Gius. 
Laterza  &  Figli.  1912.  Pp.  485.  6  L. 

Dinsmore,  John  Wirt.  The  Training  of  Children.  New  York:  The 
American  Book  Company.  1912.  Pp.  336. 

Fullerton,  George  Stuart.  The  World  We  Live  In.  New  York:  The 
Macmillan  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xi  +.  293.  $1.50. 

Goddard,  Henry  Herbert.  The  Kallikak  Family.  New  York :  The  Mac- 
millan Company.  1912.  Pp.  xv  -f- 121.  $1.50. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 
ALFRED  FOUILLEE 

Alfred  Fouillee,  who  died  at  Lyons  on  July  16  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
five  years,  was  born  at  La  Poueze  in  the  Department  of  Maine-et-Loire. 
He  never  attended  a  university,  and  was,  in  respect  of  his  higher  studies, 
self-educated.  At  the  age  of  thirty,  after  having  acted  as  schoolmaster 
in  various  small  provincial  schools,  he  was  appointed  to  a  post  in  the 
Lycee  of  Bordeaux,  where  he  very  shortly  acquired  a  great  reputation  as 
an  eloquent  teacher  of  philosophy.  In  1879  considerations  of  health 
obliged  him  to  abandon  teaching  as  a  profession,  and  he  devoted  himself 
to  philosophic  writing.  He  published  a  very  large  number  of  books,  some 
of  which  have  not  been  without  considerable  influence  on  modern  thought. 
Among  them  are  "  Liberte  et  Determinisme " ;  "  Critique  des  Systemes 
de  Morale  Contemporaine  " ;  "  L'Avenir  de  la  Metaphysique  " ;  "  La  Psy- 
chologic des  Idees  Forces  " ;  and  "  La  Morale  des  Idees  Forces."  The 
ruling  element  in  Fouillee's  philosophical  ideas  was  a  reaction  against  the 
positivism  which  reigned  in  France  under  the  influence  of  Taine  from 
about  1860  to  the  close  of  the  last  century.  As  opposed  to  the  positivist 
school,  he  denied  that  the  feelings  were  the  sole  inspirers  of  action,  and 
maintained  that  ideas  in  their  purest  form  were  likewise  a  force  which 
could  and  did  produce  action.  His  theory  of  "  1'idee  force  "  was  entirely 
opposed  to  determinism,  and  in  this  connexion  he  uttered  his  famous 
aphorism,  "  La  volonte  n'est  ni  determinee  ni  indeterminee ;  elle  est 
determinante."  He  explicitly  traversed  the  theory  in  both  speculative 
and  imaginative  literature  that  character  and  action  are  solely  or  even 
chiefly  the  result  of  circumstances,  and  that  a  human  life  is,  as  it  were, 
a  mere  thread  in  the  web  of  time.  He  strongly  asserted  the  freedom  of 
the  will  and  its  capability  of  being  formed  and  directed  by  the  influence 
of  ideas. 

In  later  years  he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  sociology,  a  subject 
which  had  always  interested  him,  and  he  published  successively  "  Psychol- 
ogie  du  Peuple  Frangais  " ;  "  Esquisse  Psychologique  des  Peuples  Euro- 
peens  " ;  "  Elements  Sociologiques  de  la  Morale  " ;  and  "  Le  Socialisme  et 


660 

la  Sociologie  Re'formiste."  Unlike  some  contemporary  French  psycholo- 
gists— eminent  among  their  number  M.  Paul  Bourget — he  was  essentially 
a  liberal  in  politics,  since  he  considered,  first,  that  the  diversity  of  mod- 
ern opinion  due  to  the  extension  of  education  and  the  complexity  of  civil- 
ization precluded  anything  like  intellectual  uniformity;  and,  secondly, 
that  no  man  of  intellect  could  be  a  patriot  in  a  country  which  prevented 
him  from  thinking,  speaking,  writing,  and  teaching  in  accordance  with 
the  dictates  of  his  conscience.  Liberalism  he  interpreted,  however,  as 
respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  and  as  the  determination  to  "  sacrifice 
our  own  passions  to  the  rights  of  others."  He  did  not  follow  with  any 
sympathy  the  dawn  of  the  modern  philosophy  which  calls  itself  prag- 
matism. He  is  said  to  have  expressed  his  willingness  to  go  back  to 
Plato,  but  not  to  Plotinus. 

Fouillee  was  a  member  of  the  Academic  des  Sciences  Morales  et 
Politiques,  which  in  1867  had  given  its  imprimatur  to  his  essays  on  the 
philosophy  of  Plato  and  of  Socrates. 

DR.  ARNOLD  RUGE,  editor  of  Die  Philosophic  der  Oegenwart  is  anxious 
to  secure  the  cooperation  of  all  students  of  philosophy  in  his  important 
undertaking.  In  order  that  the  work  may  be  established  on  the  firmest 
possible  foundation  it  is  necessary  that  a  number  of  constant  subscribers 
be  secured.  These  being  obtained  it  will  be  possible  to  make  an  advan- 
tageous agreement  with  the  publisher  for  a  number  of  years,  which  in 
turn  will  allow  the  present  low  subscription  price  to  continue.  The  suc- 
cess of  the  undertaking  should  be  a  matter  of  concern  for  all  philosophers 
and  this  success  can  be  assured  if  subscribers  are  secured.  The  price  of 
the  annual  is  not  to  exceed  $3.75.  Dr.  Ruge  requests,  also,  that  all 
writers  on  philosophical  subjects  send  a  brief  statement,  not  exceeding 
four  or  five  printed  lines,  of  the  contents  of  their  philosophical  publica- 
tions during  the  past  and  current  year.  The  statement  should  describe 
some  characteristic  feature  of  the  work  and  should  be  accompanied  by 
any  reviews  of  it  that  have  appeared  in  philosophical  journals.  If  the 
work  itself  is  sent,  the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  table  of  contents  will  be 
reprinted.  Only  articles  whose  philosophical  or  scientific  character  is 
beyond  doubt  can  be  included  in  the  pages  of  the  review,  but  it  is  hoped 
that  all  schools  of  thought  will  be  represented.  Specimen  copies  which 
are  unsuited  for  the  purposes  of  the  review  will  be  returned  to  the  sender, 
the  others,  forming  an  international  collection,  will  be  deposited  in  the 
Library  of  the  Philosophical  Seminar  at  Heidelberg.  Letters  and  books 
should  be  addressed  to  Dr.  Arnold  Ruge,  Die  Philosophic  der  Oegenwart, 
Heidelberg,  Burgweg  9. 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  G.  F.  ARPS,  who  has  been  acting  head  of  the 
department  of  psychology  of  the  University  of  Illinois  during  Professor 
Colvin's  sabbatical  year,  has  accepted  a  position  in  the  department  of 
psychology  at  the  Ohio  State  University. 

MR.  JOHN  LAIRD,  formerly  assistant  in  philosophy  to  Professor  Taylor 
at  St.  Andrew's  University,  has  been  appointed  to  the  chair  of  philosophy 
in  Dalhousie  University. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  21.  OCTOBER  10,  1912 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS.     II 

TN  the  preceding  article  we  began  a  study  of  the  image,  or  sensible 
fact  in  perception,  and  the  conclusions  to  which  we  came  were : 
(1)  that  the  image  can  not  be  identified  with  the  object;  (2)  that  it 
is  an  intermittent  fact;  (3)  that  it  serves  to  bring  the  object  be- 
fore us. 

Though  the  image  is  not  what  we  mean  by  the  object,  yet  we 
treat  it  as  a  momentary  embodiment  of  the  latter.  Our  behavior  re- 
calls that  of  a  person  looking  at  a  photograph,  who  says,  "Yes,  this 
is  A.  B."  In  fact,  it  would  be  impossible  to  state  the  case  better  than 
by  saying  that  the  image  stands  for  the  object  as  a  photograph 
stands  for  a  person.  Only  we  must  remember  that  nobody  ever 
looks  at  a  photograph.  He  always  looks  through  the  photograph  at 
the  person. 

Images  are  thus  essentially  aspects  or  views.  In  the  first  place, 
they  show  only  the  outsides  of  things  and  omit  their  solid  contents. 
Secondly,  they  present  objects,  not  as  these  are  absolutely,  but  as 
they  appear  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  body.  For  each  possible 
position  of  the  body  with  reference  to  an  object  there  is  a  distinct 
image.  Perception  has  a  terminus  a  quo,  and  not  merely  a  terminus 
ad  quern.  It  springs  out  from  the  body  as  a  center,  like  an  arrow 
from  a  bow.  Images  are  not  adequately  conceived  until  they  are 
seen  to  be  relative  to  the  body. 

What  indeed  are  those  deformations  which  the  front  of  the 
house  went  through,  when  its  right  side  became  higher  than  its  left 
and  its  left  side  higher  than  its  right,  what  is  the  oval  shape  in  a 
saucer  that  really  is  round,  but  an  evidence  that  the  body  is  present 
in  the  image,  and  not  merely  the  object? 

Though  in  general  the  images  can  not  be  fitted  together,  there  is 
a  case  where  it  can  be  done.  If  you  turn  on  your  heel  in  a  circle 
without  moving  from  the  spot,  you  get  a  series  of  images  which  are 
not  merely  temporally  but  spatially  continuous,  an  unbroken  pano- 

561 


562  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

rama  that  returns  into  itself  again.  Such  a  sequence  of  views  could 
be  painted  on  one  canvas,  which  it  would  be  quite  impossible  to  do 
with  the  sequence  of  views  got  in  going  around  a  mountain.  And 
why  is  this  sot  Because,  in  the  former  case,  the  body  has  not  moved. 
So  true  is  it  that  the  images  represent  points  of  view,  and  are  a 
function  not  of  the  object  only  but  also  of  the  body. 

Close  inspection  of  visual  images  reveals  in  them  further  traces 
of  this  relation  to  the  body.  Thus  the  smallest  star  we  can  see  is 
one  that  can  just  irritate  a  terminal  element  of  the  retina,  perhaps  a 
rod  or  a  cone.  Still  smaller  pencils  of  light  come  from  invisible 
stars,  but,  not  being  able  to  stimulate  the  retina,  they  obtain  no  rep- 
resentation among  images.  Similarly,  the  total  expanse  of  sky  we 
can  take  in  at  one  glance  corresponds  to  the  total  extent  of  the  retina. 
More  sky  exists  all  about  it,  but,  being  unable  to  affect  the  retina,  it 
can  not  gain  admission  to  the  visual  field.  Even  were  our  power  of 
vision  so  enlarged  that  we  could  see  all  round  the  circle,  as  perhaps 
some  animals  do,  still  we  should  look  out  upon  the  world  from  one 
center  and  see  its  objects  at  a  certain  distance,  and  therein  the  rela- 
tivity of  our  image  to  the  body  would  appear. 

Who,  as  he  looked  up  at  the  sky,  has  not  seen  there  minute  cir- 
cles and  vaporous  films  and  shooting  atoms  of  light,  which  were  not 
there  at  all,  but  were  projections  from  the  internal  media  of  the  eyeT 

Since,  then,  the  image  expresses  not  so  much  the  object  by  itself 
as  its  relation  to  the  body,  it  must  involve  a  false  abstraction  to  ig- 
nore the  body  and  make  the  image  a  pure  and  unadulterated  revela- 
tion of  the  object,  as  immediatist  theories  do. 

Phenomenism  and  Psychism 

On  the  other  hand,  the  image  is  a  revelation  of  the  object ;  and  it 
is  not  a  revelation  of  the  body.  The  object,  and  the  object  alone,  is 
what  it  shows  us.  Thus  the  image  is  not  a  mere  compound  of  objec- 
tive and  bodily  factors,  but  the  contributions,  if  one  may  so  speak, 
from  these  two  sources  enter  into  it  on  different  terms.  And  it  be- 
comes important  for  us  to  specify  the  nature  of  this  difference — to 
make  clear  to  ourselves  in  what  way  the  image  is  objective,  and  in 
what  way  it  is  bodily. 

We  have  already  partly  answered  this  question  in  saying  that  the 
image  is  a  revelation  of  the  object.  That  is,  the  image  is  objective 
in  what  it  conveys.  But  what  is  it  in  itself,  and  considered  as  an 
existence?  Can  it  be  that,  considered  as  an  existence,  the  image  is 
in  some  sense  a  bodily  fact? 

For  the  image  is  an  existence.  It  is  something  which  we  find,  as 
plainly  and  indubitably  as  (some  would  say  even  more  plainly  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          563 

indubitably  than)  we  find  the  object. .  When  we  look  at  the  moon, 
it  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  shining  disc,  but  we  discover  the  disc, 
as  certainly  as  we  discover  the  moon.  The  image  is  something  which 
we  find,  and  then  again  do  not  find — in  other  words,  which  exists 
and  then  ceases  to  exist.  It  undergoes  changes.  There  can  be  no 
doubt,  then,  that  it  is  an  existence  in  time.  Whether  it  is  also  in 
space  is  more  difficult  to  determine.  It  is  plainly  extended,  and  has 
a  shape  and  size,  and  these  things  are  hard  to  explain  unless  it  is  in 
space.  But  it  is  neither  the  whole  nor  a  part  of  the  object,  and 
therefore,  though  it  appears  to  be  where  the  object  is,  it  can  not  really 
be  there.  If  it  is  in  space  at  all,  it  must  be  in  some  other  place  than 
that  occupied  by  the  object — perhaps  in  the  body,  the  only  other 
thing  to  which  it  has  spatial  relations. 

When  I  suggest  that  the  image  may  be  bodily  or  in  the  body,  I 
do  not  of  course  mean  that  it  is  material,  or  that  we  could  observe  it 
there  if  we  knew  where  to  look.  I  mean,  to  begin  with,  that  it  is 
closely  connected  with  and  has  its  characters  determined  by  the  body 
— by  the  body,  rather  than  by  the  object.  We  have  a  term  that,  in 
one  of  its  senses,  expresses  just  this;  namely,  "subjective."  When 
we  speak  of  a  pain  as  a  "subjective"  fact,  we  mean  primarily  indeed 
that  it  is  not  referred  to  an  external  object,  but  at  the  same  time  that 
it  is  closely  bound  up  with  and  has  its  characters  determined  by  the 
body.  Now  my  suggestion  is  that  the  image,  even  though  it  is 
referred  to  an  object,  may,  as  an  existence,  be  a  subjective  fact  in 
this  sense. 

But  I  would  give  to  the  subjectivity  of  the  image  a  deeper  mean- 
ing than  this.  It  is  easy  to  show  that  as  existences  images  are  sub- 
jective, if  by  this  we  merely  mean  conditioned  directly  on  events 
within  the  body ;  for  we  have  already  seen  that  they  contain  the  body 
within  them  invisibly  and  that  they  are  intermittent  facts,  the  con- 
dition for  their  occurrence  being  a  process  in  the  brain.  But  the 
question  I  would  raise  is  whether  images  are  objective  or  subjective 
in  their  own  nature;  whether  that  character  of  objectivity  which 
seems  to  belong  to  them  is  original  and  inherent,  or  adventitious; 
whether,  in  a  word,  they  are  objective,  or  only  objectified. 

Most  persons,  on  hearing  this  question  raised  for  the  first  time, 
will  answer  without  hesitation  that  images  are  objective  inherently. 
For  they  bring  objects  before  us;  and  how,  it  will  be  asked,  could 
they  do  this  if  they  were  not  themselves  objective?  Are  not  the 
characters  of  the  image  precisely  the  characters  which  we  attribute 
to  the  object,  and  must  they  not  therefore  be  objective?  The  image, 
in  this  view,  duplicates  and  makes  visible  the  object,  like  a  garment 
cut  for  it  by  an  extraordinarily  skilful  tailor. 


564  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

On  the  other  hand,  the  image  clothes  the  object  only  as  seen  from 
a  certain  point  of  view,  and  from  another  point  of  view  quite  a  dif- 
ferent image  clothes  it:  in  short,  the  garment  is  not  really  on  the 
object,  but  only  put  on  it  by  us — a  projection  of  our  seeing;  where- 
with the  body  makes  its  appearance  again.  When  we  recall  that 
color,  according  to  physics,  does  not  exist  in  objects  as  such,  we 
realize  how  subjective  this  clothing  is.  And  we  have  seen  how  even 
the  spatial  characters  of  objects  are,  at  the  very  least,  deformed  by 
the  participation  of  the  body. 

When  one  considers  the  images  (visual  ones,  that  is)  from  the 
spatial  point  of  view,  one  can  not  but  be  struck  by  the  resemblance 
between  them  and  those  other  images  which  we  see  on  the  ground- 
glass  plate  of  a  photographic  camera  when  we  look  in  from  behind. 
The  latter  exhibit  exactly  the  same  deformations,  the  same  variations 
of  shape  and  size,  as  the  visual  images,  and  in  this  case  the  effect  is 
plainly  due  to  the  physical  process  by  which  the  image  is  projected 
on  the  plate,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  optics.  And  the  eye, 
physically  considered,  is  just  such  a  camera!  Now,  in  the  case  of 
the  photographic  camera,  the  images,  as  existences,  are  obviously 
"cameral"  or  bodily,  and  belong  to  the  object  that  cast  them  only  so 
far  as  they  are,  so  to  speak,  reprojected  outward.  May  not  the  same 
be  the  case  with  the  visual  images? 

At  all  events  we  have  here  two  theories  pitted  against  each  other, 
which  might  be  designated  as  objectivism  and  subjectivism,  but 
which,  to  avoid  certain  misleading  suggestions  of  these  terms,  I  am 
going  to  call  phenomenism  and  psychism.  Phenomenism  is  the  view 
that  the  image  is  essentially  a  phenomenon  or  appearance,  i.  e.,  that 
its  own  characters  are  objective;  psychism  is  the  view  that  it  is  an 
existence  sui  generis,  presenting  an  object  not  essentially,  but,  so  to 
speak,  by  accident. 

The  best  way  to  formulate  the  issue  between  these  theories 
is  to  make  it  refer  to  the  relations  which  the  image  contains.  The 
image  is  composed  of  parts  which  have  certain  relations  between 
them.  Are  these  relations  objective  relations,  or  are  they  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind  ?  Do  they  correspond  to  the  relations  between  the  parts 
of  the  object,  or  to  those  between  the  parts  of  the  brain-event  T 
Phenomenism  is  the  theory  that  the  relations  of  the  image  correspond 
to  those  of  the  object,  psychism  the  theory  that  they  correspond  to 
those  of  the  brain-event.  And,  as  the  internal  relations  of  the  image 
are,  so  presumably  will  its  external  relations  be — its  place  and  con- 
nections in  the  universe.  In  the  one  case  these  will  be  indicated  for 
us  by  the  place  and  connections  of  the  object,  in  the  other  case  by 
the  place  and  connections  of  the  brain-event. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          565 

The  issue  between  these  theories  is  not  less  fundamental  than  that 
before  discussed  between  imraediatism  and  mediatism — indeed,  the 
two  issues  are  in  some  sort  complements  of  each  other.  Phenomenism 
is  a  common  element  in  doctrines  as  remote  from  each  other  as 
dualism  and  post-Kantian  idealism.  By  "dualism"  I  mean  any 
view  which  assumes  images  to  be  contemplated  by  a  ' '  soul, "  ' '  ego, ' ' 
or  ' '  consciousness ' '  distinct  from  them ;  as  nai've  realism  in  one  of  its 
forms  does,  and  as  Berkeleianism  does  when  it  says  that  the  esse  of 
material  things  is  percipi  in  the  passive.  But  the  elimination  of  this 
contemplating  entity  does  not  necessarily  deprive  the  image  of  in- 
herent objectivity,  as  we  may  see  by  the  examples  of  post-Kantian 
idealism  and  of  a  theory  now  widely  held  that  may  be  called 
' '  immediate  empiricism, ' '  both  of  which  have  naught  but  images,  yet 
conceive  them  as  essentially  objective.  A  view,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  makes  the  image  non-objective  and  psychic  is  panpsychism,  or 
the  theory  of  mind-stuff. 

Now  let  us  seek  to  decide  this  issue  by  means  of  facts  about  the 
image,  as  we  did  the  other.  The  relations  of  the  image  include  not 
only  spatial  but  also  temporal  relations,  and,  as  the  case  of  time  is 
the  simpler,  I  shall  take  that  up  first. 

Are  the  temporal  relations  of  the  image  objective  relations — rela- 
tions, that  is,  corresponding  to  those  of  the  object — or  do  they  corre- 
spond rather  to  the  temporal  relations  of  the  brain-event?  An 
unambiguous  answer  to  this  question  is  given  by  certain  peculiarities 
of  the  image  which  we  have  not  yet  noted. 

As  we  move  further  and  further  away  from  an  object,  the  images 
do  not  merely  grow  smaller,  but  they  come  later.  To  make  this 
apparent  we  must  take  as  our  example  not  a  thing,  but  an  event. 
Let  it  be  the  discharge  of  a  gun.  Every  one  knows  that  sound,  as 
we  say,  takes  time  to  travel ;  by  which  is  meant  that,  if  the  gun  is  at 
any  distance  from  us,  an  appreciable  interval  elapses  between  its 
discharge  and  our  hearing  of  the  report.  The  sound  as  an  image,  in 
other  words,  is  separated  from  the  sound  as  an  objective  event  by  the 
exact  length  of  time  which  it  takes  for  the  sound-waves  to  make  their 
way  from  the  gun  to  the  ear.  Yet  the  sound  is  not  the  less  on  that 
account  heard  as  an  objective  event — we  project  it  outward  into  the 
physical  world,  although  not  backward  in  time. 

Of  course,  if  sounds  are  later  than  their  objective  causes,  the  same 
must  be  true  of  sights;  though  the  interval  between  physical  event 
and  image  in  this  case  will  be  smaller,  in  proportion  as  light  travels 
faster  than  sound.  An  instructive  case,  bringing  sensibly  home  to 
us  this  lateness  of  the  image,  is  that  in  which  we  both  see  and  hear  a 


666  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

distant  event,  such  as  the  blowing  of  a  whistle.  First  we  see  the 
puff  of  steam,  and  a  moment  later  we  hear  the  sound.  Now,  if 
images  were  in  themselves  objective — and  not  simply  objectified,  or 
projected — these  two  events  should  be  perceived  at  the  same  instant. 
But,  since  the  sound-waves  lag  behind  the  light-rays,  there  is  a  con- 
sequent displacement  of  the  images  with  reference  to  each  other, 
which  should  rouse  not  merely  the  naive  realist,  but  every  other 
believer  in  the  inherent  objectivity  of  the  images  from  his  dogmatic 
slumber.1 

The  extreme  case  of  the  lateness  of  the  image  is  seen  in  the  per- 
ception of  a  star.  Astronomers  tell  us  that  it  takes  the  light  of  some 
stars  hundreds  of  years  to  reach  us.  The  result  is  that,  where  a  star 
has  been  extinguished,  we  may  go  on  for  centuries  perceiving  an 
object  that  no  longer  exists — and  then,  perhaps,  if  we  are  fortunate, 
witness  an  event  that  happened  before  the  Christian  era !  But  it  is 
merely  a  question  of  degree:  we  are  all  the  while  perceiving  objects 
and  events  that  no  longer  exist,  that  is,  at  the  instant  of  our  percep- 
tion of  them ;  indeed,  if  the  present  reasonings  be  correct,  we  never 
perceive  an  object  or  event  that  does. 

If  objects  and  events  are  in  truth  earlier  than  our  perceptions  of 
them,  why  do  we  suppose  them  to  be  simultaneous?  Doubtless  for 
pragmatic  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  the  temporal  difference  is  so 
slight  that  it  does  not  matter  in  practise ;  and,  secondly,  perception 
is  a  faculty  designed  to  serve  for  immediate  action,  and  therefore 
showing  us,  ostensibly,  the  state  things  are  in  at  the  moment  of  our 
perceiving  and  will  still  be  in  when  our  action  takes  effect  on  them. 
The  lateness  of  perception  is  a  purely  academic  fact;  common  sense 
ignores  it,  and  rightly;  it  is  only  the  philosopher  theorizing  about 
perception  who  expiates  his  inattention  to  the  little  facts  of  science 
by  the  illusion  that  the  image  is  really,  and  not  merely  intentionally, 
in  the  object. 

Let  us  stop  here  to  note  an  important  conclusion  that  may  be 
drawn  from  the  fact  of  lateness.  This  fact  permits  us  to  decide 
between  the  two  theories  as  to  the  nature  of  the  object  which,  as  we 
saw,  would  be  equally  mediatist:  that  the  object  is  an  ideal  entity, 
and  that  it  is  a  real  existence — in  short,  between  idealism  and  realism. 

The  fact  that  the  image  is  later  than  the  object  suggests,  if  it 
does  not  actually  prove,  that  the  object  is  an  existence  independent 
of  the  image.  For,  if  it  were  an  ideal  entity,  a  mere  mental  con- 
struct formed  from  the  images,  we  should  expect  it  to  have  the 

1  My  attention  was  first  drawn  to  the  fact  of  lateness  by  an  article  of 
Professor  Montague 's,  this  JOUBNAI>,  Vol.  I.,  page  296. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          567 

same  time  as  they;  no  reason  could  be  given  for  the  compulsion  the 
facts  put  on  us  to  conceive  it  as  existing  anteriorly — indeed,  such 
anterior  existence  would  be  an  unaccountable  anomaly.  But,  if  the 
object  is  a  real  existence  and  the  image  an  effect  which  it  calls  forth, 
the  temporal  relation  is  most  naturally  explained. 

If  we  decide  objects  to  be  real  existences,  it  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance that  we  should  give  them  a  proper  nature.  The  danger, 
since  they  lie  beyond  the  image  and  are  merely  brought  before  us  by 
its  means,  is  that  we  should  make  them  in  themselves  unknowable. 
This  danger  is  avoided  if  we  recognize  that  the  image  is  another 
existence  in  the  same  world  with  the  object,  and  conclude  that  the 
object  is  fundamentally  of  the  same  nature  as  the  image,  whatever 
that  nature  may  prove  to  be. 

Now  let  us  return  to  the  temporal  relations  of  the  image.  When 
we  see  a  bell  rung,  we  refer  the  sound  to  the  bell,  and  think  we 
experience  directly  the  objective  event  itself.  But  suppose  a  person 
of  a  Sunday  morning  listening  to  the  bells  ringing  in  a  score  of 
towers:  the  sound-waves  from  the  nearer  bells  reach  his  ear  sooner 
than  the  sound-waves  from  the  more  distant  ones,  and  the  result  is 
that  the  mass  of  sound  he  hears  at  any  one  instant  represents  objec- 
tive events  happening  at  an  earlier  and  earlier  moment,  according  to 
the  distance  the  sound-waves  have  come.  In  other  words,  this  per- 
son does  not  hear  an  objective  event  belonging  to  any  one  moment, 
but  hears,  and  that  simultaneously,  sounds  which  objectively  are 
spread  back,  so  to  speak,  over  a  considerable  portion  of  the  immediate 
past.  That  the  temporal  relations  (if  there  can  be  said  to  be  such) 
within  the  image  are  not  objective  relations,  is  evident. 

Or  imagine  a  person  looking  out  at  a  distant  view  through  a  mist 
or,  let  us  say,  a  snowstorm  that  obscures  it:  the  light-rays  from  the 
snowflakes  come  sooner  than  those  from  the  objects  composing  the 
view,  and  the  light-rays  from  the  nearer  snowflakes  come  sooner  than 
those  from  the  more  distant  ones ;  so  that,  again,  the  total  image  has 
relations  of  simultaneity  between  its  parts  which  do  not  correspond 
to  any  simultaneities  in  nature — or,  at  all  events,  to  any  simul- 
taneities between  the  objects  the  person  sees. 

Thus  there  are  in  images  relations  of  simultaneity  that  do  not 
correspond  to  any  simultaneities  among  objects,  but  rather  to  se- 
quences, and  relations  of  sequence  where  what  exists  objectively  is 
simultaneity  or  identity.  The  temporal  relations  of  images  are  not 
objective  relations.  They  are  objective  relations  only  if  the  objective 
relations  referred  to  are  those  of  the  brain-event,  not  those  of  the 
object  which  the  images  bring  before  us. 


568  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

From  time  let  us  turn  to  space,  and  seek  here  also  to  submit  the 
issue  between  phenomenism  and  psychism  to  the  test  of  facts.  Are 
the  spatial  or  quasi-spatial  relations  between  the  parts  of  the  image 
objective  relations,  or  are  they  of  a  different  kind? 

If  one  looks  at  a  door  from  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees,  the  near 
side  of  the  door  appears  longer  than  the  far  side:  though  in  reality 
the  two  are  equal.  $<  nsihli/,  as  we  may  say,  they  are  unequal,  but 
objectively  they  are  equal.  Of  the  corners  of  the  door  two  have 
sensibly  the  form  of  acute  angles  and  two  the  form  of  obtuse  angles : 
objectively  all  four  are  right  angles.  Here  is  clear  evidence  that 
the  spatial  relations  within  the  image  are  not  objective  relations  in 
our  sense. 

Possibly  the  reader  may  conceive  that  the  two  sides  of  the  door 
are  somehow  equalized  by  the  fact  that  we  see  depth.  That  is,  we 
are  subconsciously  aware  that  one  side  is  further  from  us  than  the 
other  side,  and,  allowing  for  this,  see  the  two  as  equal.  Doubtless  we 
think  of  them  as  equal,  and  even  in  a  sense  perceive  them  as  equal,  but 
that  does  not  prevent  the  two  sides,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  perception, 
retaining  their  sensible  inequality.  Does  the  reader  question  this? 
He  has  only  to  take  a  book  in  his  hand  and  hold  it  up  alongside  the 
door.  By  moving  it  back  and  forth  he  will  quickly  find  a  point  at 
which  the  book  and  the  near  side  of  the  door  are  exactly  equal.  Let 
him  then  transfer  the  book  to  the  other  side  of  the  door  (which  by 
hypothesis  is  seen  obliquely).  The  book  will  now  look  longer  than 
this  new  side  of  the  door,  as  plainly  as  before  the  two  were  equal. 
Nor  will  he,  I  think,  be  able  to  doubt  tfiat  the  image  retains  precisely 
these  proportions  and  relations  whether  we  attend  to  it  or  not. 

Careful  observation  of  images  thus  seems  to  show  that  their  in- 
ternal relations  are  not  those  of  the  object,  but  those  of  the  brain- 
event,  and  to  confirm  the  analogy  above  suggested  between  them  and 
the  images  on  the  plate  of  a  photographic  camera.  Is  this  analogy 
complete?  In  particular,  does  it  extend  to  the  third  dimension — 
have  visual  images  really  no  depth,  or  distance  from  the  eye  ? 

Visual  images  might  of  course  be  subjective  facts,  that  is,  not 
essentially  appearances  of  objects,  and  yet  be  tri-dimensional.  On 
the  other  hand,  no  better  proof  of  their  subjectivity  could  be  given 
than  the  demonstration,  if  it  were  possible,  that  they  are  spread  out 
only  in  length  and  breadth,  and  that  depth  is  not,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  seen.  Can  a  case  be  made  out  for  the  view  that  visual 
images  are,  so  to  speak,  fiat,  like  the  cameral  images,  and  inside  the 
head,  as  these  are  inside  the  camera  ? 

This  view  must  not  be  understood  in  a  cruder  sense  than  that  in 
which  I  desire  to  maintain  it.  The  proposition  is  not  that  one  image, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          569 

say,  that  of  the  door,  is  inside  another  image,  that  which  I  should 
have  of  my  head  if  I  perceived  it ;  nor  yet  that  one  object,  the  door, 
is  inside  another  object,  my  head !  It  is  that  a  certain  image,  that 
of  the  door,  or  any  other  image  I  may  chance  to  have,  is  always 
inside  a  certain  object,  my  head.  And  this,  we  now  know,  signifies 
that  the  image,  considered  as  an  existence,  is  a  part  of  the  existence 
which  is  cognized  by  means  of  the  image  of  my  head. 

True,  visual  images  do  not  seem  to  be  inside  the  head;  and  the 
proposition  that  they  are  there  is  undeniably  a  great  paradox.  They 
seem  for  the  most  part  to  be  much  too  big,  and  they  seem  quite 
plainly  to  be  outside  us.  Let  us  consider  separately  these  two  objec- 
tions, that  of  their  bigness  and  that  of  their  outness. 

1.  How,  it  may  be  asked,  can  my  image  of  the  side  of  this  room, 
or  my  image  of  a  mountain,  be  inside  so  small  an  object  as  the  head? 
At  first  sight  the  disproportion  in  each  of  these  cases  seems  immense. 
A  thinker  who  identifies  the  object  with  the  image  has  no  difficulty 
in  showing  the  thesis  we  are  discussing  to  be  absurd.  A  few  facts 
may  help  to  make  it  appear  less  so. 

The  door,  as  I  look  at  it  across  the  width  of  the  room,  seems  a 
much  larger  object  than  my  outstretched  hand;  yet,  if  I  hold  the 
latter  up  beside  the  door,  or,  better  still,  between  my  eyes  and  the 
door,  it  proves  to  be  as  large  or  larger.     A  peculiar  impression  is 
produced  on  us  when  we  hold  the  hand  over  the  door,  but  in  such  a 
way  that  we  can  still  see  the  door  through  the  fingers  and  about  the 
edges :  we  are  brought  as  it  were  for  the  first  time  into  the  presence 
of  the  real  relations  of  images  to  each  other,  and,  being  unable  to 
divest  ourselves  at  once  of  the  habit  of  cognizing  objects  rather  than  . 
images,  are  startled  at  the  suggestion  of  our  hand  being  so  enormous. 
For  the  size  which  objects  appear  to  have  is,  of  course,  largely 
matter  of  suggestion.     And  that  which  is  suggested  is  the  size  of  the 
object  as  perceived  through  the  medium  of  what  we  have  called  the 
' '  standard  image. ' '     But,  since  we  may  sometimes  be  in  error  in  our 
inference  of  what  the  standard  image  will  be,  a  further  complication 
is  introduced  into  the  case,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  following  ex- 
ample.    An  object  viewed  through  a  mist,  such  as  a  ship  at  sea, 
looks  larger  than  it  would  if  the  air  were  clear.     Now  the  sensible 
size  of  the  ship  at  that  distance  is  a  constant  quantity,  and  its 
objective  size  is  a  constant  quantity;  whence  it  follows  that  this 
illusory  bigness  must  be  distinguished  both  from  its  objective  size 
and  from  its  sensible  size — and  that  there  is  a  third  thing  which  we 
may  call  apparent  size. 

Now  a  little  consideration  suffices  to  show  that  that  size  of  images, 
which  appears  to  stand  in  the  way  of  their  being  inside  the  head,  is 


670  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

apparent  size,  and  not  sensible  size.  The  image  of  an  object  which 
we  know  to  be  large  seems  large,  and  we  can  hardly  make  it  seem 
small — except  by  the  simple  and  conclusive  device  of  measurement. 

Suppose  I  am  looking  through  a  window  at  a  mountain.  The 
mountain  looks  immensely  big,  vastly  bigger  than  the  window,  and 
consequently  the  respective  images  appear  to  have  much  the  same 
proportions;  and  yet  the  image  of  the  window  is  plainly  larger  than 
that  of  the  mountain,  else  how  could  I  see  the  mountain  through  the 
window?  I  may  cover  them  both  completely  with  my  hand,  the 
image  of  which  is  therefore  larger  still.  Now  suppose,  while  still 
looking  at  the  mountain,  I  draw  back  from  the  window  far  enough  to 
take  in  the  whole  of  the  window-frame  at  once.  In  that  case  the 
image  of  the  window-frame  completely  surrounds  that  of  the  moun- 
tain, and  is  therefore  larger ;  and  both  are  completely  surrounded  by 
the  frame  formed  by  my. eyebrow,  nose,  and  cheek,  which  therefore 
is  larger  still.  But  this  last  image  is  the  image  of  an  object  smaller 
than  the  head,  in  which,  according  to  the  thesis  we  are  considering, 
all  these  images  are  contained.  The  largest  image  we  can  possibly 
have  is  the  image  of  an  object  smaller  than  the  head!  Surely  this 
disposes  of  the  objection  that  images  can  not  be  inside  the  head 
because  they  are  too  big. 

2.  Coming  now  to  the  second  objection,  it  will  be  urged  that 
images  can  not  be  inside  the  head  because  we  see  them  outside  it. 
Depth,  it  will  be  said,  is  an  actual  character  of  our  visual  images,  as 
much  demanding  recognition  as  any  of  the  other  characters  we  have 
so  painstakingly  set  down.  Here  is  something  that  differentiates 
the  visual  images  from  the  photographic  ones,  and  gives  to  them  an 
objectivity  which  the  latter  do  not  possess. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  space  presents  itself  to  the  eye  as  a 
homogeneous  whole,  in  which  the  three  dimensions  appear  at  first 
sight  to  be  entirely  on  a  footing.  Visual  perception  undeniably 
shows  us  depth,  and  not  simply  length  and  breadth.  The  only  ques- 
tion is  whether  this  depth  is  given  sensibly,  or  rather  given  sensibly 
in  the  same  way  as  the  other  two  dimensions  are;  whether  it  is  a 
character  of  the  image  in  every  way  analogous  to  length  and  breadth. 
Now  it  will  be  evident  to  any  one  who  has  considered  the  matter  that, 
even  if  all  three  dimensions  come  sensibly,  the  third  does  not  come  in 
quite  the  same  way  as  the  other  two.  We  can  always  almost,  and 
never  quite,  see  it.  And  we  oughtn't  to  see  it — at  least  if  we  had 
but  one  eye. 

The  familiar  argument  about  "a  line  endwise  to  the  eye"  has  at 
first  sight  the  air  of  demonstrating  the  impossibility  of  what  is  never- 
theless a  fact.  But,  in  its  true  effect,  it  simply  puts  us  on  the  track 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         571 

of  the  nature  of  this  fact.  That  color  should  be  spread  out  not  in 
two  dimensions  but  in  three  is  indeed  an  impossibility ;  and  also  not 
a  fact.  For,  in  the  first  place,  we  see  only  surfaces,  and  only  sur- 
faces that  are  turned  towards  us;  and,  though  these  surfaces  seem 
to  wind  in  and  out,  the  least  intervening  opaque  object  arrests  them. 
Secondly,  although  we  see  the  surfaces  at  a  distance,  how  could  we 
see  them  if  we  saw  anything,  such  as  distance,  between  us  and  them  ? 
Shall  we  say  it  is  seen  transparently?  If  the  degree  of  the  trans- 
parence be  realized,  that  is  another  way  of  saying  that  it  is  not  seen, 
that  the  surfaces  are  seen  at  it — in  other  words,  of  repeating  the 
problem.  It  seems  to  follow  that  distance  is  not  seen.  And  yet  even 
that,  as  we  shall  see,  is  true  only  in  one  sense,  and  false  in  another. 

In  our  muscular  feelings  of  accommodation  and  convergence  we 
have  images,  accompanying  or  fused  with  the  visual  ones,  which 
partly  account  for  our  sense  that  depth  is  felt  and  not  simply  in- 
ferred or  thought.  But  the  chief  factor  is  unquestionably  binocular 
disparity.  Owing  to  the  different  positions  of  the  two  eyes,  a  slightly 
different  picture  is  presented  to  each :  the  right  eye  sees  a  little  more 
of  the  right  side  of  an  object,  the  left  eye  a  little  more  of  the  left 
side;  when  we  look  past  an  object  at  another  which  it  partly  covers, 
one  eye  sees  a  little  strip  of  the  far  object  which  is  invisible  to  the 
other  eye.  The  fact  that  the  visual  image  results  from  the  combina- 
tion of  two  not  quite  identical  retinal  impressions  shows  that  there  is 
in  the  sense  of  depth  an  element  specifically  visual.  On  the  other 
hand,  this  element  is  only  a  sign  of  depth,  and  not  an  actual  dimen- 
sion of  the  image.  It  is  only  a  blurring  in  those  parts  of  the  image 
where  the  impressions  were  not  identical,  the  image  itself  remaining 
all  the  while  bi-dimensional.  It  is  no  more  an  actual  sense  of  depth 
than  is  that  covering  of  haze  which  makes  us  judge  certain  objects 
to  be  very  distant. 

Muscular  feelings  and  binocular  disparity,  then,  with  differences 
of  faintness  and  clearness  and  the  other  signs  of  depth  cooperating 
— such  are  the  only  data  which  observation  discloses.  It  is  the  syn- 
thesis of  these  divers  sense-elements — or,  more  strictly  perhaps,  the 
fact  that  the  one  image  depends  on  a  combination  of  physiological 
influences  from  these  different  sources — which  at  once  gives  rise  to 
the  sense  of  depth,  and  explains  why  it  is  not,  after  all,  wholly  homo- 
geneous with  sensible  length  and  breadth.  To  these  factors  it  re- 
mains only  to  add  our  life-long  habit  of  reacting  as  if  the  image  were 
where  the  object  is. 

I  conclude  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  visual  image  repugnant  to 
the  analogy  of  the  images  on  the  plate  of  a  camera,  or  inconsistent 
with  the  view  that  we  have  to  do  with  an  intra-bodily  fact. 


572  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Though  tin-  foregoing  analysis  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  have 
explained  depth  away,  I  think  the  more  we  live  with  it  and  attempt 
to  verify  it  by  observation,  the  more  we  shall  feel  it  to  be  satisfactory 
and  to  cover  the  whole  ground.  The  truth  is  that  depth  is  a  datum 
of  perception,  and  not  an  image  or  dimension  of  an  image.  In  other 
words,  it  is  something  the  mind  grasps  in  cognition,  not  a  feeling 
entering  into  its  structure,  as  length  and  breadth  do. 

And  here  we  come  to  the  fundamental  illusion  of  phenomenism. 
Observation,  in  the  case  we  have  just  analyzed,  discloses  a  whole  of 
elements  which,  if  you  take  them  in  their  significance — i.  e.,  in  what 
by  their  function  they  succeed  in  bringing  before  the  mind — repre- 
sent the  vision  of  three  dimensions  of  space ;  but,  if  you  take  them  as 
sensible  facts,  are  only  a  field  of  two  dimensions  with  differences  of 
clearness  and  blurring  in  the  parts,  transfused  with  elements  of 
other  senses.  The  illusion  consists  in  supposing  that  what  is  con- 
veyed is  also  sensibly  or  psychologically  existent.  It  is  an  illusion 
that  can  only  be  dispelled  by  knowledge  of  psychology,  and  by  that 
more  accurate  vision  of  introspective  facts  which  such  knowledge 
makes  possible.  Unfortunately  too  many  of  those  who  occupy  them- 
selves with  logic  and  theory  of  knowledge  are  without  psychological 
interests  or  habits  of  thought;  and  the  consequence  often  is  that 
they  base  their  metaphysics  on  a  conception  of  experience  to  which 
experience  really  gives  the  lie. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  sum  up  the  results  of  our  study  of 
the  image.  It  has  been  shown  (1)  that  the  image  is  an  existence 
distinct  from  the  object,  (2)  that  its  relations  are  not  those  of  the 
object,  but  rather  those  of  the  brain-event.  Now  an  existence  whose 
relations  are  not  objective,  and  which  is  correlated  with  a  brain- 
event,  seems  to  me  to  be  precisely  what  we  mean  by  a  psychical 
t.rlsfcnce.  In  these  respects  the  image  agrees  with  pleasures  and 
pains,  emotions  and  desires,  which  are  psychical  existences.  This 
conclusion  has  simply  brought  us  round  to  the  fact  of  current  psy- 
chology :  every  reader  knows  that  images  are  treated  of  by  psycholo- 
gists under  the  name  of  sensations.  In  an  earlier  passage  we  spoke 
of  images  as  "open  to  inspection":  this  inspection  is  now  seen  to  be 
introspection — images  are  data  of  introspection. 

Images  or  sensations,  with  pleasures,  pains,  emotions,  and  desires, 
form  the  whole  to  which  contemporary  psychologists  refer  when  they 
speak  of  "consciousness."  It  has  been  shown  that  the  former  of 
these  facts,  as  much  as  the  latter,  are  existences,  and  these  existences 
psychical  originally.  In  this  sense,  then,  the  existence  of  conscious- 
ness has  been  proved. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         573 

Throughout  this  discussion  we  have  abstracted  from  awareness. 
Whether  the  states  above  mentioned,  all  of  them  or  some  of  them, 
possess  awareness  as  an  essential  property;  whether  awareness  is 
something  that  can  be  introspectively  discovered  in  the  same  way  as 
images  and  feelings;  whether  awareness  is  an  existential  fact — these 
are  questions  which  must  be  reserved  for  another  article. 

C.  A.  STRONG. 
PARIS,  FRANCE. 

(To  be  continued.) 


DISCUSSION 
PROFESSOR   PERRY'S   PROOFS   OF   REALISM 

IN  the  essays  of  its  advocates,  and  especially  in  Professor  Perry's 
recent  and  admirable  book,  "Present  Philosophical  Tenden- 
cies," the  new  realism  has  come  forward  as  a  militant  creed,  no 
longer  on  the  defensive,  but  eager  to  show  by  positive  arguments 
that  the  realistic  view  is  the  only  tenable  one.  All  students  of 
philosophy  must  welcome  this  earnest  endeavor  to  throw  new  light 
on  the  knotty  problems  of  mind  and  reality,  and  to  Professor  Perry 
in  particular  we  are  all  indebted  for  his  clear  presentation  of  the 
case  for  realism.  The  subject  is  important,  and  it  will  therefore 
not  be  out  of  place  if  I  seek  here  to  analyze  the  arguments  on  which 
this  case  rests.  For  the  sake  of  brevity,  and  also  in  order  to  have  a 
definite  text  before  us,  I  shall  confine  my  comments  to  Professor 
Perry's  recent  book. 

Professor  Perry  offers  us  four  proofs  of  the  realistic  doctrine. 
They  are:  (1)  "the  Negative  Argument"  a  critique  of  idealism; 
(2)  "the  Argument  from  the  Externality  of  Relations";  (3)  "the 
Argument  from  the  Distinction  between  Object  and  Awareness"; 
(4)  "the  Argument  from  the  Nature" of  Mind."  I  shall  deal  only 
with  these  four  arguments,  because  the  realistic  view  that  mental 
content  is  merely  a  part  of  the  environment  (which  might  at  first 
be  considered  an  additional  argument  for  realism)  does  not  itself 
bear  upon  the  quest  whether  reality  must  be  construed  idealistically 
or  realistically.  In  fact,  Professor  Perry  himself  says  of  this  theory 
that  "it  not  only  fails  to  establish  realism;  but  appears  even  to 
disprove  it  by-  bringing  the  transcendent  directly  into  mind"  (p. 
33).  The  crucial  question  for  realism  is,  therefore,  as  Professor 
Perry  points  out,  not  the  "theory  of  immanence"  (the  view  of  mind 
just  referred  to),  but  the  "theory  ofjndependence. "  This  theory 


674  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

is  stated  as  follows:  "It  means  that  things  may  be,  and  are,  directly 
experienced  -n-Hlmuf  ou-imj  t/»ir  being  or  their  nature  to  that  cir- 
(ii >, i stance"  (p.  315). 

The  first  proof  offered  for  this  view  consists  in  pointing  out  that 
idealism  rests  upon  two  specious  arguments,  which  Professor  Perry 
entitles  "definition  by  initial  predication"  or  "exclusive  particu- 
larity," and  the  "argument  from  the  ego-centric  predicament." 
The  first  of  these  is  seen  in  Berkeley's  insistence  that  it  is  "an 
evident  contradiction"  to  suppose  "that  any  immediate  objects 
of  the  senses  should  exist  in  an  unthinking  substance."  The  tulip 
which  I  see  is  an  idea  (in  Berkeley's  sense),  and  it  is  contradictory 
to  assert  that  this  or  any  other  object  of  experience  can  be  exterior 
to  mind.  Professor  Perry's  comment  on  this  view  is  as  follows: 
"It  does  not  occur  to  Berkeley,  apparently,  that  a  natural  body, 
like  a  tulip,  can  belong  both  to  the  order  of  ideas  and  also  to  another 
and  independent  order.  In  other  words,  he  assumes  that  an  iden- 
tical element  can  belong  to  only  one  complex.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  such  is  not  the  case.  The  letter  a,  for  example,  is  the  second 
letter  of  the  word  'man,'  and  also  the  fifth  letter  of  the  word 
'mortal';  and  it  enters  into  innumerable  other  words  as  well.  It 
possesses,  in  other  words,  a  myMple  and  not  *n_f.T.rlusiye.  part,jmi. 
larity.  And  the  false  assumption  to  the  contrary  gives  rise  to  a 
specious  argument.  For  having  found  an  entity,  like  the  tulip,  in 
the  mental  context,  where  it  is  named  'idea,'  and  having  assumed 
that  it  can  belong  to  only  one  context,  Berkeley  thereupon  defines  it 
as  idea  and  concludes  that  it  is  such  exclusively.  But  this  is  as 
though,  having  found  the  letter  a  in  the  word  'man,'  one  should 
propose  to  define  it  as  'the  second  letter  in  the  word  man'  and  so 
to  preclude  its  occurring  in  any  other  word"  (pp.  127-28). 

I  can  not  persuade  myself  that  this  criticism  fully  answers 
Berkeley.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  one  denies  that  a  thing  can 
enter  into  several  different  groups  at  the  same  time;  but  to  prove 
by  this  that  a  thing,  all  of  whose  characteristics  borrow  their  mean- 
ing from  experience,  may  also  exist  out  of  all  relation  to  experience 
seems  to  me  a  difficult  matter.  The  illustration  of  the  letter  a  in 
man  and  mortal  does  not  fit  the  case.  Truly  the  letter  a  may  be 
in  several  words  and  remain  identical  with  itself.  But  tell  me  that 
the  letter  a  continues  to  exist  after  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  letter  of  the 
alphabet,  and  I  may  be  unable  to  refute  you,  but,  I  confess,  I  shall 
also  be  unable  to  put  any  meaning  into  your  assertion.  The  color 
red  in  no  sense  experienced,  and  the  letter  a  in  no  sense  a  letter  of 
the  alphabet,  seem  to  me  very  much  alike.  Certainly  no  idealist 
can  prove  that  they  do  not  exist;  but  with  equal  certainty,  no 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         575 

idealist  would  try,  since  it  would  make  no  difference  to  any  one 
whether  they  existed  or  not. 

These  words  that  I  have  just  used,  namely,  that  "it  would  make 
no  difference  to  any  one,"  bring  us  to  Professor  Perry's  second 
criticism  of  idealism,  and  the  "ego-centric  predicament."  The 
idealist  argument  based  on  this  predicament,  says  Professor  Perry, 
"calls  attention  to  a  situation  that  undoubtedly  exists,  and  that  is 
one  of  the  most  important  and  original  discoveries  that  philosophy 
has  made.  No  thinker  to  whom  one  may  appeal  is  able  to  mention 
a  thing  that  is  not  idea,  for  the  obvious  and  simple  reason  that 
in  mentioning  it  he  makes  it  an  idea"  (p.  129).  This  "most  impor- 
tant and  original  discovery"  of  philosophy,  however,  turns  out,  on 
Professor  Perry's  analysis,  to  be  merely  "a  redundant  proposition 
to  the  effect  that  every  mentioned  thing  is  mentioned — to  the  effect 
that  every  idea,  object  of  knowledge,  or  experience,  is  an  idea.  And 
a  redundant  proposition  is  no  proposition  at  all.  The  assertion  that 
an  idea  is  an  idea  conveys  -no  knowledge  even  about  ideas.  But 
what  the  idealist  requires  is. a.  proposition  to  the  effect  that  every- 
thing is  an  idea,  or  that  only  ideas  exist.  And  to  derive  this  propo- 
sition directly  from  the  redundancy  just  formulated,  is  simply  to 
take  advantage  of  the  confusion  of  mind  by  which  a  redundancy  is 
commonly  attended"  (p.  131). 

Professor  Perry  is  probably  right  in  holding  that  the  crux  of  the 
whole  matter  is  to  be  found  here  in  the  "ego-centric  predicament." 
For  we  are  in  the  ego-centric  predicament  whether  we  like  it  or 
not,  and  can  never  get  out  of  it  to  see  what  is  beycmd.  Hence  no 
one  can  ever  prove  that  the  realist  is  wrong  in  asserting  the  exist- 
ence of  any  n.umber  of  "neutral  entities"  (Professor  Perry's  well- 
chosen  term)  Heyojid—ex^erience.  The  unpleasant  question,  how- 
ever, will  present  itself  as  to  what  the  realist  means  by  existence. 
This  question  of  the  meaning  of  "reality"  has  no  terrors  for  either 
the  idealist  or  the  pragmatist.  For  them  both  reality  is  to  be 
expressed  in  experience  terms.  The  difference  between  "real"  and 
"unreal"  is  that  one  makes  a  difference  to  experience  and  the  other 
does  not.  "^hat  is  it  fr"^wMi  ff°?"  was  James's  crucial  question 
about  the  nature  of  anything.  If  you  want  to  know  what  reality 
is,  Professor  Dewey  will  tell  you  to  "go  to  experience  and  see." 
Beyond  the  realm  of  experience  there  may  be  as  many  "neutral 
entities"  as  you  like,  but  if  they  make  no  difference  to  any  sentient 
being  they  are  not  reality  for  us,  for  tij£m&elve.s+__Qr__for  any_one._ 
In  short,  it  is  very  hard  to  see  how  such  neutral  and  independent 
entities  could  ever  become  a  part  of  any  human  philosophy.  All  of 
which,  we  shall  be  told,  is  only  a  wearisome  rehearsal  of  the  redund- 
ancy of  the  ego-centric  predicament.  And  it  is — provided,  at  least, 


A 


576  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

that  this  phrase  be  taken  to  indicate  the  central  position  which 
experience  must  have  in  knowledge.  In  that  sense  it  would  seem 
that  all  human  philosophy  which  has  meaning  for  us  must  be  ego- 
centric, and  that  realism  can  never  be  ultimately  intelligible  to 
human  beings,  however  well  it  may  satisfy  "neutral  entities." 

So  much  for  Professor  Perry's  "negative  argument."  And 
however  we  may  feel  about  it,  all  will  be  agreed  that  it  is  very  far 
from  proving  the  truth  of  realism.  The  realists  and  Professor 
Perry,  in  fact,  will  frankly  agree  with  this,  for  the  most  that  the 
attack  on  idealism  sought  to  do  was  to  show  that  realism  was  pos- 
sible, and  that  idealism,  though  possibly  true,  had  not  proved  itself 
the  only  tenable  doctrine.  As  Professor  Perry  himself  puts  it, 
"We  have  thus  far  done  no  more  than  prepare  the  way  for  the 
realistic  theory  of  independence,  by  refuting  the  contrary  theory, 
and  by  denying  the  charge  that  the  realistic  theory  is  inherently 
absurd."  "The  reasons  for  supposing  that  there  are  things  that 
are  not  knewn  must  now  be  introduced"  (pp.  318-319).  We  must 
have  recourse,  in,  othej*  words,  to  the  three  positive  arguments  for 
the  realistic  doctrine. 

"The  most  general  argument  for  realism,"  we~are  told,  "is  an 
£  jhft  th£f>ry_nfig  tLTtemgl  nf  f^rin^  "^fl^fl^tpr  of 


relations."  Professor  Perry  thereupon  proceeds  to  explain  clearly, 
though  briefly,  the  question  at  issue  concerning  the  naturfi_oJLxfila.- 
tions  injsgjieral.  This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  this  discussion. 
I  shall  simply  point  out  that  it  will  require  more  than  one  short 
paragraph  to  refute  the  theory  of  the  intrinsic  character  of  rela- 
tions, and  that  if  realism  must  wait  for  the  settlement  of  this  subtle 
logical  question,  it  will  be  a  long  while  before  it  comes  into  its  own. 
For  us,  however,  the  interesting  thing  is  the  application  of  the  view 
of  extrinsic  relations  (granted  for  the  sake  of  the  argument)  to  the 
question  of  reality  and  experience.  According  to  Professor  Perry, 
this  application  "shows,  in  the  first  placp—lhal  the  cfon.^nt  of  things 
is  in  no  case  made-up  of  relationsbeyoiul-  IheuiHdves.  So  the  con- 
tent of  a  thing  can  not  be  made  up  of  its  relations  to  consciousness. 
Of  course,  the  consciousness  of  a  thing  is  made  up  of  the  thing  and 
its  relation  to  consciousness.  But  the  thing  then  contributes  its 
own  nature  to  the  conscious  complex,  and  does  not  derive  it  there- 
from. ...  It  follows,  in  the  second  place,  that  whether  the  relation 
of  a  thing  to  consciousness  is  a  relation  of  dependence  or  not.  is 
an  empirical  question.  It  is  necessary  to  examine  the  relatioi 
see.  In  other  words,  ii^is^imp08sibl£_tQ_infpr  ^°pond£iice^  simply, 
Jrgn^the  fflc^ofj^latipn  "  (p.  320). 

The  idealist  will  not  be  altogether  without  comfort  in  seeing 
what  "follows  in  the  second  place,"  since  misery  loves  company. 


577 

For  it  is  plain  enough  that  the  realistic  argument  is  here  somewhat 
of  a  boomerang.  If  it  is  impossible  to  infer  dependence,  no  more 
can  you  infer  independence.  And  if  realism  be  right  in  maintain- 
ing that  the  thing  exists  outside  of  experience,  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
you  can  "examine  the  relation  and  see"  whether  the  thing  is  inde- 
pendent or  not.  The  ego-centric  predicament  puts  the  realistic 
"thing"  beyond  your  grasp.  In  short,  it  is  vain  for  realism  to 
appeal  to  experience.  If  it  should  seriously  try  to  do  so  it  would 
give  away  its  case. 

The  first  application  quoted  above  of  the  theory  of  external 
relations  in  its  bearing  on  our  question  is  more  important  than  the 
second.  If  the  reader  will  peruse  it  again  carefully  he  will  see 
that  the  theory  of  relations  applies  to  the  question  at  issue  only  on 
condition  that  you  first  admit  that  things  are  external  to  experience. 
This  is  the  very  point  to  be  proved.  Doubtless  if  things  exist  out- 
side of  any  and  every  consciousness  and  are  connected  with  it  by 
external  relations  only,  then  "the  content  of  the  thing  can  not  be 
made  up  of  its  relation  to  consciousness."  But  if  the  essential 
nature  of  things  is  experiential,  then  the  "relation"  between  the 
"thing"  and  "experience"  is  not  extrinsic,  and  the  theory  of  rela- 
tions has  absolutely  no  application  to  the  question  at  issue. 

Something  like  this  Professor  Perry  evidently  sees  for  himself, 
for  after  doing  his  best  by  this  second  realistic  argument,  he  admits, 
"The  theory  of  the  externality  of  relations  is  not  sufficient  in  itself 
to  establish  the  case  for  realism.  Indeed  it  is  so  general  in  scope 
as  to  argue  pluralism  rather  than  realism"  (p.  320).  Hence  we  are 
referred  to  the  third  argument  for  realism,  which  is  styled  "the 
Argument  from  the  Distinction  between  Object  and  Awareness." 
This  "argument"  turns  out  to  be  the  "contention"  of  Mr.  G.  E. 
Moore  that  sensation  and  its  object  are  distinct  and  quite  different 
things.  The  idealist  might  be  excused  for  insisting  that  the  conten- 
tion is  either  dogmatic  or  irrevelant,  according  as  it  is  interpreted. 
That  it  quite  fails  to  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter  will,  I  think,  be 
plain  to  any  one  who  will  consult  Mr.  Moore's  original  article.1 
The  gist  of  the  argument  is,  in  Professor  Perry's  words,  as  follows: 

"The  object  of  a  sensation  is  not  the  sensation  itself.  In  order 
that  a  sensation  shall  be  an  object,  it  is  necessary  to  introduce  yet 
another  awareness,  such  as  introspection,  which  is  not  at  all  essen- 
tial to  the  meaning  of  the  sensation  itself.  And  'the  existence  of 
a  table  in  space  [quoting  again  from  Moore]  is  related  to  my 
experience  of  it  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  the  existence  of  my 
own  experience  is  related  to  my  experience  of  that.'  In  both  cases 

»"The  Eefutation  of  Idealism,"  Mind,  Vol.  XII.,  pages  442  ff. 


678  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

awareness  is  evidently  a  'distinct  and  unique  relation,'  'of  such  a 
nature  that  its  object,  when  we  are  aware  of  it,  is  precisely  what  it 
would  be  if  we  were  not  aware'  "  (p.  321). 

Professor  Perry  significantly  points  out  that  Mr.  Moore  does  not 
inform  us  what  "awareness"  is.  In  fact,  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
Mr.  Moore's  theory  of  awareness  can  be  made  to  fit  into  Professor 
Perry's  theory  of  consciousness.  But  it  is  much  more  important 
to  observe  that  neither  Mr.  Moore  nor  Professor  Perry  has  given 
any  reason  to  prove  that  the  "object  of  a  sensation"  is  independent 
of  experience.  The  "distinction  between  object  and  awareness"  is 
irrelevant  to  the  issue  if  it  mean  simply  that  when  I  see  the  tree, 
there  is  something  in  the  tree  not  identical  with  my  sensation.  The 
majority  of  idealists  would  admit  this  and  insist  upon  it.  But  from 
this  it  does  not  follow  that  the  tree  is  independent  of  all  experience, 
even  its  own.  The  "argument  from  the  distinction  of  object  and 
awareness"  would,  therefore,  seem  to  be  either  quite  irrelevant,  or 
else  an  attempt  to  inveigle  the  unwary  idealist  out  of  a  harmless 
admission  into  a  fatal  and  quite  fallacious  one.  That  Professor 
Perry  has  no  such  unfair  purpose  is  plain  enough  from  his  final 
remarks  on  the  argument.  For  it  transpires  at  last  that  he  too 
regards  it  as  rather  irrelevant  and  certainly  quite  useless.  Things, 
he  admits,  may  be  altogether  dependent  on  experience,  for  anything 
Mr.  Moore's  argument  shows  to  the  contrary.  So  the  third  argu- 
ment for  realism  goes  to  join  the  second,  and  we  are  yet  without  a 
single  positive  reason  for  accepting  the  realistic  view.  All,  there- 
fore, hangs  on  argument  number  4.  I  transcribe  it  in  Professor 
Perry 's  own  words : 

"We  need  to  foresake  dialectics  and  observe  what  actually  trans- 
pires. We  find,  then,  that  consciousness  is  a  species  of  function 
exercised  by  an  organism.  The  organism  is  correlated  with  an 
environment  from  which  it  evolved  and  on  which  it  acts.  Con- 
sciousness is  a  selective  response  to  a  preexisting  and  independently 
existing  environment.  There  must  be  something  to  be  responded  to, 
if  there  is  to  be  any  response.  The  spacial  and  temporal  distribu- 
tion of  bodies  in  its  field  of  action,  and  the  more  abstract,  logical 
and  mathematical  relationships  which  this  field  contains,  determine 
the  possible  objects  of  consciousness.  The  actual  objects  of  con- 
sciousness are  selected  from  this  manifold  of  possibilities  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  various  exigencies  of  life.  It  follows  that  the  objects 
selected  by  any  individual  responding  organism  compose  an  aggre- 
gate defined  by  that  relationship.  What  such  an  aggregate  derives 
from  consciousness  will  then  be  its  aggregation  and  nothing  more" 
(pp.  322-323). 

Obviously,  the  most  important  sentence  in  the  above  is  the  one 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          579 

that  reads,  "Consciousness  is  a  selective  response  to  a  preexisting 
and  independently  existing  environment."  If  this  means  simply 
that  nature  does  not  depend  altogether  on  the  individual  conscious- 
ness, it  is  irrefutable — and  irrelevant.  If  it  means  that  the  environ- 
ment is  altogether  independent  of  any  experience — that  it  is  not 
made  of  experience  stuff,  is  neither  object  of  experience  nor  center 
of  experience — then  indeed  the  sentence  is  relevant ;  but  its  position 
in  the  argument  is  hard  to  discover.  Is  it  premise  or  conclusion? 
If  the  latter,  what  are  the  premises?  If  the  former,  how  does  the 
realist  come  by  it?  Who  has  admitted  it  and  how  has  it  been 
proved?  Professor  Perry  seems  to  regard  it  as  an  empirical  fact. 
Before  coming  to  this  argument,  and  with  evident  reference  to  it, 
he  has  said,  ' '  it  remains  for  realism  to  investigate  the  precise  nature 
of  the  relation  of  things  to  consciousness,  to  discover  whether  or  no 
this  is  a  relation  of  dependence.  And  this  is  now  a  question  of  fact, 
like  the  question  of  the  relation  of  the  tides  to  the  moon."  What, 
then,  are  the  experimental  or  observed  "facts"  on  which  realism 
bases  its  contention?  The  "theory  of  immanence"  will  here  do  us 
no  good,  for,  in  the  first  place,  that  is  only  a  theory,  and  in  the 
second,  its  sponsor  has  admitted  that  it  "not  only  fails  to  establish 
'realism,'  but  appears  even  to  disprove  it."  The  truth  seems  to  be 
that  "it  still  remains  for  realism"  to  furnish  us  with  any  facts  that 
tend  to  prove  the  complete  independence  of  things  from  all  experi- 
ence. And,  as  I  have  indicated  in  another  connection,  it  will  prob- 
ably so  "remain"  for  a  long  time.  For  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
observation  can  ever  lead  us  to  the  unobservable,  or  how  experience 
can  ever  prove  the  unexperienced  and  inexperienceable.  The  truth 
is,  we  are  all  in  the  ego-centric  predicament,  no  matter  how  little 
we  like  it — the  realist  along  with  the  rest  of  us — and  if  we  are  ever 
to  get  out  of  it  and  prove  the  existence  of  "neutral  entities"  in  an 
"independently  existing  environment,"  it  will  not  do  to  "forsake 
dialectics  and  observe  what  actually  transpires."  "What  actually 
transpires,"  at  any  rate  when  observable,  is  not  in  the  "indepen- 
dently existing  environment."  Observation  will  do  the  realist  very 
little  good,  and  he  had  much  better  stick  to  "dialectics."  There  is, 
however,  one  way  by  which  "neutral  entities"  may  be  secured  more 
easily  than  even  by  dialectics;  and  that  is  by  begging  them  at  the 
start.  I  do  not  need  to  recommend  this  to  the  realists. 

This  paper  is  not  meant  as  a  vindication  of  idealism.  Idealism 
has  troubles  of  its  own — no  one  can  read  Professor  Perry's  admirable 
book  without  realizing  it.  For  some  reasons  I  should  like  to  be  a 
realist,  and  I  am  sure  there  are  many  others  who  feel  with  me  in 
this.  We  looked  to  the  rise  of  the  new  realism  with  anticipation 
and  joy,  hoping  for  some  deliverer  from  the  bonds  of  Berkeley. 


680  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Most  of  us  do  not  yet  feel  that  deliverance  has  come.  The  realists 
have,  indeed,  fought  a  good  fight,  but  in  our  opinion  they  need  all 
the  help  they  can  get  from  the  kindly  critic.  Sometimes  it  is  well 
for  us  to  see  our  arguments  as  others  see  them.  I  may  say,  there- 
fore, in  all  candor,  that  this  paper  is  intended  as  a  humble  contribu- 
tion toward  the  new  realism.2 

JAMES  BISSETT  PRATT. 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE. 


EXPLICIT  PRIMITIVES  AGAIN:  A  REPLY  TO 
PROFESSOR  FITE 

I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Fite  for  a  very  vigorous  onslaught1 
upon  my  paper  on  "Foundations  of  Philosophy:  Explict 
Primitives";2  I  say  indebted,  because  nothing  conduces  so  much  to 
making  your  views  thoroughly  understood  as  to  have  them  violently 
attacked.  I  perceive  that  I  must  have  been  very  obscure  in  this 
article,  for  Professor  Fite  has,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  some  important 
points,  quite  misconceived  my  meaning;  in  others,  I  venture  to 
think  that  he  is  somewhat  in  error. 

For  instance,  when  I  use  the  term  "explicit  primitives"  as  a 
shorter  form  for  the  phrase  "terms  or  propositions  which  are 
explictly  admitted  as  indefinables  or  indemonstrables "  (since  all 
time  would  not  suffice  to  define  everything,  nor  to  prove  everything) 
—that  is,  as  primitive  terms  or  propositions — I  am  far  from  meaning 
that  the  signification  of  the  term,  for  instance,  has  been  made 
explicit.  What  I  mean  is  just  the  reverse — you  can  not  set  forth 
explicitly  the  meaning  of  every  term,  hence  some  must  be  taken  for 
granted.  Take  the  first  definition  of  your  treatise  or  your  discus- 

*  This  paper  was  written  before  the  publication  of  ' '  The  New  Realism ' '  by 
the  six  "platform  realists."  In  this  book,  Professor  Perry  again  takes  up  the 
question  of  independence  in  a  closely  reasoned  and  admirable  argument.  The 
argument  shows  that  reality  need  not  be  dependent  on  knowledge  in  the  sense  of 
standing  to  it  in  the  whole-part  relation  or  the  exclusive  causation  relation,  or  of 
implying  or  being  exclusively  implied  by  it.  The  type  of  idealism  which  I  have 
had  in  mind  in  the  preceding  paper  would  affirm  none  of  these  relations,  but 
would  simply  raise  the  question  whether  the  real  can  be  conceived  in  any  other 
than  experience  terms.  In  other  words,  if  it  must  assert  a  relation  between  reality 
and  experience,  it  would  choose  the  relation  of  identity.  Against  this  view 
(which  seems  to  me  the  vital  thing  in  Berkeley),  Professor  Perry's  discussion  in 
"The  New  Realism"  is  as  unpersuasive  as  is  his  argument  in  "Recent  Phi- 
losophical Tendencies." 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  155. 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  VIII.,  page  708. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          581 

sion — provided  that  has  logical  sequence  at  all — the  definiendum  of 
your  definition  can  not  itself  be  defined,  otherwise  that  first  would 
not  be  first.  It  is  well  known  to  the  logician  that  you  can  not,  in 
one  and  the  same  treatise,  define  matter  in  terms  of  energy  and 
energy  in  terms  of  matter.  The  two  sentences  which  I  quote  from 
Clerk-Maxwell  as  an  instance  of  a  violation  of  this  rule  may,  indeed, 
both,  if  they  are  true  statements,  give  information,  but  they  do  not 
both  answer  the  requirements  of  the  definition.  My  simple  rule  is 
that  all  those  terms  which  you  decide  to  forego  the  defining  of 
you  must,  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader,  make  a  list  of  at  the 
beginning — you  must  not  introduce  them  surreptitiously,  you  must 
set  them  out  explictly  as  primitive.  When  in  the  phrase  ' '  explicitly 
primitive  terms,  etc.,"  I  decide  to  use  primitive  as  a  noun,  explicit 
necessarily  becomes  an  adjective.  But  Professor  Fite  says  (p.  155)  : 
''Briefly,  my  position  would  be  that  when  a  term  has  been  made 
explicit,  it  is  then  a  party  to  a  comparison  and  is  thus  involved  in 
a  relation  to  another  term. ' '  But  that  is  exactly  what  an  ' '  explicit 
primitive"  is  not.  Hence  it  has  not  been  shown  that  the  phrase 
involves  "a  contradiction  in  terms."  I  deny  that  I  ought  to  fall 
under  the  same  condemnation  as  Professor  Fite 's  students  who  insist 
upon  it  that  in  philosophy  everything  must  be  defined,  when  my  very 
thesis  is  that  not  everything  can  be  defined. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  of  course,  that,  in  general,  the  terms  (objects 
of  thought)  which  constitute  the  subject-matter  of  your  treatise  or 
discussion  will  be  far  richer  in  meaning,  will  have  a  far  greater 
number  of  marks  attached  to  them,  at  the  end  of  your  work  than  at 
the  beginning.  It  is  true  that  we  are  far  better  acquainted  with  the 
character  of  Major  Pendennis  after  reading  Thackeray's  novel  than 
before,  but  this  fact  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  definition.  ' '  To  say 
quite  definitely"  (meaning  very  fully)  "who,  after  all,  the  Major 
was"  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as  to  define  him.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  say  that  we  are  not  far  better  "acquainted  with"  (to  use 
Bertrand  Russell's  term)  parallel  lines  at  the  end  of  our  reading  of 
Euclid  than  at  the  beginning,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  we  shall 
have  to  change  our  definition  of  parallel  lines.  A  term  has  been 
properly  defined  when  such  a  congeries  of  its  marks  has  been  given 
as  is  sufficient  to  enable  you  to  determine  whether  any  freshly 
presented  object  will  fall  under  this  same  head  or  not.  It  is  not 
the  function  of  the  definition  of  a  term  to  give  all  of  its  marks. 
Owing  to  the  existence  of  Natural  Kinds3  in  this  world  of  ours  (the 
world  of  thoughts  as  well  as  of  things)  a  limited  number  of  marks 
will  in  general  suffice  to  entail  all  the  rest.  ' '  The  character  Thackeray 

8  See  "On  Natural  Kinds,"  F.  and  C.  L.  Franklin,  Mind,  Vol.  XIII.     1888. 


582  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

was  writing  about  at  a  given  moment"  would  be  a  perfectly  good 
definition  of  Major  Pendennis,  though  it  would  give  us  very  little 
information  about  him. 

My  paper  on  "Explicit  Primitives"  was  written  in  haste  and 
for  a  special  purpose — after  the  appearance  of  the  "Program  of  the 
Six  Realists"  and  in  time  to  serve  as  a  brief  prolegomenon  to  the 
proposed  discussion  at  Cambridge  last  January.  In  that  Program  (as 
Professor  Royce  has  since  pointed  out  at  much  greater  length)  there 
are  many  concepts  and  propositions4  laid  down  implicitly  as  basis  for 
the  proposed  discussion  which  are  very  far  from  being  such  as  any 
non-realist  could  admit  to  be  legitimate.  If  these  had  been  explicitly 
set  forth,  this  inadmissibility,  it  seemed  to  me,  would  have  been  quite 
apparent.  I  say  in  my  paper  (p.  711)  that  the  makers  of  the  pro- 
gram must  have  intended  the  discussion  to  be  carried  on  solely 
among  the  neo-realists  themselves.  However,  the  appearance  of  my 
remarks  in  this  JOURNAL  prior  to  the  meeting  turned  out  to  be 
unavailing,  for  I  could  not  detect  that  they  had  been  read  by  any 
of  the  participants  in  the  discussion.  (My  contention  was,  of  course, 
an  old  story  to  Professor  Royce.) 

But  despite  brevity,  I  should  have  thought  it  to  be  apparent  that 
my  subject  of  discourse  was  not  the  field  of  knowledge  in  general — 
discursive  and  of  miscellaneous  provenance — but  merely  any  closed 
field  of  deductive,  or  chiefly  deductive,  reasoning.  The  proposed 
discussion,  to  which  my  paper  was  particularly  d  propos,  was  of 
this  kind.  I  say:  "It  is,  however  [though  I  find  them  objectionable 
and  question-begging],  an  immense  advance  in  philosophical  discus- 
sion to  find  definitions  and  postulates  prepared  beforehand."  The 
discussion  was  to  be  prevented  from  being  discursive,  it  was  expected 
to  flow  from  the  definitions  and  postulates,  which  had  been  sent  out 
beforehand  to  the  members  of  the  Association. 

In  view  of  all  this,  I  am  much  surprised  to  find  Professor  Fite 
saying  (as  if  it  had  any  bearing  on  my  article),  "In  a  system  of 
thought,  no  feature  is  necessarily  prior  to  any  other."  Surely  in 
any  system  of  deductive  thought,  premises  are  necessarily  prior  to 
conclusions.  If  we  are  considering  simply  some  miscellaneous  col- 
lection of  thoughts,  not  a  system,  the  collection  may  be,  it  is  true, 
without  priority  among  its  members.  Your  thoughts  may  happen 
to  be  all  logically  disconnected,  to  be  all,  so  far  as  they  are  universal 
propositions,  simple  inductions,  with  no  common  terms  giving  rise  to 
pairs  of  premises.  They  will  be  thoughts,  none  the  less  (a  thought 
is  best  defined  as  an  asserted  relation  between  terms),  but  they  will 
not  constitute  a  system  of  thought.  There  is  no  system  of  thought 

4 For  instance,  "physical  objects,"  that  "different  persona  exist,"  etc. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          583 

without  interrelations.  There  is  no  "system"  of  thought  which  does 
not  contain  at  least  some  deductive  reasoning.  But  deductive  rea- 
soning is  non-symmetrical — unless,  indeed,  it  is  conducted  in  terms 
of  the  Antilogism  (the  Inconsistent  Triad,  as  Professor  Royce  calls 
it),  which,  like  the  simple  proposition  "no  a  is  &,"  is  purely  sym- 
metrical, destitute  of  right-and-leftness.6  This  is,  in  fact,  exactly 
such  "a  circular  system  of  logic,  a  substitute  for  the  rectilinear 
system  of  Aristotle,"  as  Professor  Fite  says  that  he  should  be  at  a 
loss  to  invent.8  But,  in  general,  premises  entail  conclusions,  and  a 
conclusion  does  not  entail  its  premises — the  belief  that  it  does  is 
what  I  have  called7  the  fallacy  of  the  extended  or  of  the  compound 
Wrong  Conversion — it  is  the  same  thing  in  propositions  that  ordi- 
nary wrong  conversion  is  in  terms.  This  is  the  simple  fallacy  upon 
which  the  doctrine  of  pragmatism  is  built  up,  and  I  am  astonished 
to  find  Professor  Fite  adopting  it  as  his  own.  We  have  need  of  a 
new  term  here — I  propose  the  term  (to  be  used  in  a  technical 
sense)  Confirmatory  Evidence.  If  you  have  devised  an  hypothesis, 
and  if  you  have  been  able  to  deduce  (with  the  aid  of  second  prem- 
ises) a  great  many  consequences  from  it,  and  if  these  consequences 
all  turn  out  to  be  in  conformity  to  fact,  then  you  may  be  said  to 
have  strong  confirmatory  evidence  of  your  hypothesis,  but  you  can 
never  reach  proof  in  this  way — and  not  even  hypothetically.  So  if 
you  start  with  an  induction — if  it  yields  you  many  consequences, 
and  they  turn  out,  upon  testing,  to  be  all  true,  you  have  gained 
additional  probability  for  your  original  belief,  but  you  have  not 
proved  it. 

It  happens  that  in  some  deductive  systems,  notably  in  logic  and 
mathematics — and  it  is  quite  a  curious  fact — you  come  upon  certain 
theorems  which  are  "logically  equivalent"  to  one  or  another  of  your 
chosen  primitive  propositions — either  can  be  proved  from  the  other 
(of  course,  with  the  aid  of  other  axioms  and  theorems) — p,  etc., 
involves  q,  but  also  q,  etc.,  involves  p.  Whenever  this  occurs,  it  is 
matter  of  taste,  of  one's  feeling  for  harmony,  or  beauty  of  develop- 
ment, whether  one  shall  or  shall  not  substitute  this  q  for  the  p  orig- 
inally chosen  as  primitive.8  When  this  occurs,  one  may  rewrite 
one's  first  chapter  many  times  after  finishing  one's  book — as  many 
times  as  one's  esthetic  instincts  demand.  This  never  occurs  in 
physics — in  that  science  the  game-aspect  is  not  yet  sufficiently  in 

'  See  my  paper  on  ' '  The  Implication, ' '  in  the  forthcoming  number  of  the 
Philosophical  Beview. 

•  See  Schroeder,  ' '  Algebra  der  Logik, "  §  43. 

1  Loc.  cit. 

8  When  a  theorem,  q,  is  of  this  kind,  Peano  indicates  that  fact  by  the  letters 
Pp  in  the  margin — "possible  primitive." 


584  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

evidence — in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  has  already  become  enormou^y 
dfductivc.  We  are  told  that  a  certain  principle  which  was  first 
A\o'_M<ln>'s  happy  guess,  then  Avogadro's  rule,  then  Avogadro'g 
hypothesis,  and  then  Avogadro's  law,  is  now  a  deduction  from  a 
great  general  dynamical  theorem  which  applies  to  other  things  as 
well  as  to  gases — the  law  of  equipartition  of  energy. 

The  order  of  composition  of  a  treatise,  or  of  any  piece  of  reason- 
ing, is  seldom  the  order  in  which  it  is  finally  presented  to  the  reader. 
There  is,  for  instance,  not  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that  when 
Euclid  invented  his  geometry  he  first  thought  of  his  axioms  and  then 
deduced  from  them  all  his  consequences.  He  doubtless  set  down  first 
the  well-known  facts  of  geometry,  and  then  let  his  imagination  search 
about  for  more  and  more  primitive  propositions  from  which  they 
could  all  be  syllogistically  deduced,  until  he  could  no  farther  back- 
ward go.  This  searching  was  an  act  of  invention.  But  having  got 
his  best  "first  principles,"  he  set  down,  for  his  reader,  all  his  con- 
clusions— his  vast  Sorites — in  orderly  form.  He  might  have  written 
a  purely  inductive  treatise  on  geometry — in  that  case  he  would 
have  saved  himself  all  this  toilsome  labor  of  the  reasoning  mind. 
Any  deductive  system  of  thought  is  a  sort  of  a  game.  One  is  not 
in  search  of  knowledge  simply — one  is  engaged  in  the  task  of  seeing 
from  how  small  a  number  of  primitive  premises  all  known-to-be-true 
propositions  can  be  syllogistically  deduced.  The  chief  difficulty  in 
overcoming  the  young  person's  instinctive  dislike  to  geometry  is  in 
getting  him  or  her  to  appreciate  this  little  joke.  "Do  you  have  to 
prove  every  little  thing  like  that?"  said  a  recalcitrant  student  once 
in  class.  Young  children  do  not  reason  (though  I  have  plenty  of 
experience  to  show  that  they  can,  upon  occasion),  because  they  have 
few  universal  propositions  at  their  command,  and  in  such  as  they 
have,  "common  terms"  are  either  not  present  or  not  noticed. 

The  doctrine  of  coherence  has,  of  course,  an  important  role  to 
play  in  logic,  though  not  in  the  limited  field  of  the  hypothetico- 
deductive  sciences.  But  my  doctrine  of  histurgy  I  regard  as  better 
representative  of  the  real  nature  of  the  validity  of  science  (or  knowl- 
edge) than  the  ordinary  doctrine  of  coherence.9  By  coherence  I 
take  its  advocates  to  mean10  that  no  inconsistencies  or  contradictions 
arise  in  the  course  of  knowledge — that  we  come  upon  no  pairs  of 
propositions  like  "no  a  is  6"  and  "some  a  is  6,"  which  are  mutually 
contradictory.  But  by  the  doctrine  of  histurgy,  while  I  include  such 
cases  of  incoherence  as  this,  I  mean  to  cover  much  more  than  simply 
these  abstract,  logical,  inconsistencies,  which  seldom  arise.  Knowl- 

•  See  " Epistemology  for  the  Logician,"  Verhandlungen  des  III.  Inter- 
nationaler  Kongresses  fUr  Philosophic,  Heidelberg,  1908. 

"Bertrand  Russell,  "The  Problems  of  Philosophy,"  1912. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          585 

edge  starts  with  inductions,  which  are  based  upon  facts.  After 
many  of  these  have  been  accumulated,  it  will  happen  that  certain 
pairs  of  them  contain  a  common  term,  in  such  a  form  that  they  are 
capable  of  constituting  the  premises  of  a  valid  syllogism.  We  draw 
the  conclusion,  and  this  conclusion  we  then  submit  to  the  test  of 
fact,  simple  experiment,  or,  if  they  are  applicable,  refined  laboratory 
methods.  If,  in  a  given  case,  the  conclusion  turns  out  to  be  true,  the 
system  has  received,  to  this  degree,  confirmatory  evidence.  Thus  the 
closely  interwoven  tissue  of  knowledge  (hence  the  name,  histurgy) 
is  like  a  tree  of  many  interlacing  branches,  which,  though  it  may  be 
for  long  stretches  deductive,  and  abstract,  is  nevertheless,  as  a  whole, 
constantly  sending  down  shoots  (like  the  banyan  tree)  into  the  solid 
ground  of  fact,  and  hence  deriving  incalculably  strong  support. 
It  can  appropriate  to  philosophical  use  that  sentiment  of  Wordsworth 
which  the  journal  Nature  has  taken  for  its  device : 

"  To  the  solid  ground 
Of  Nature  trusts  the  mind  that  builds  for  aye." 

CHRISTINE  LADD-FRANKLIN. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

The  New  History:  Essays  Illustrating  the  Modern  Historical  OutlooTc. 
JAMES  HARVEY  ROBINSON.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company. 
1912. 

It  is  probably  not  possible  for  an  orientalist  to  review  without  favor- 
able bias  these  charming  essays  in  the  interest  of  a  larger  and  ever-grow- 
ing outlook,  both  for  the  function  of  history  and  the  method  of  writing  it. 
That  the  arena  cf  history  was  the  scene  of  operation  for  a  larger  and  more 
complicated  array  of  forces  than  those  included  in  the  conventional  list 
of  categories  set  up  by  the  majority  of  historians  hitherto,  is  a  fact  which 
is  inevitably  forced  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  open-minded  oriental- 
ist, especially  if  he  be  in  any  adequate  degree  historically  minded.  In 
order  to  discern  anything  at  all  of  the  career  of  man  during  long  ages  in 
the  early  east,  the  historian  must  often  deal  exclusively  with  material 
documents  as  contrasted  with  written  sources.  He  sets  up  categories  and 
works  them  through,  which  the  traditional  historical  method  does  not 
employ,  or  with  which  it  is  even  unacquainted.  For  him  flint  tools  and 
copper  implements  are  milestones  stretching  far  back  into  past  a3ons  and 
often  marking  the  course  of  the  human  career  when  all  other  sources 
fail.  In  the  writer's  student  days  in  Germany  we  used  to  state  apologet- 
ically that  it  was  possible  to  write  only  "  Culturgeschichte  "  in  the  field 
of  early  oriental  history. 

It  is  therefore  very  welcome  to  me  to  find  this  method  proclaimed  as 


586  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

really  the  proper  method  in  all  fields  of  historical  writing.  With  a  com- 
manding range  of  example  and  analogy,  with  constant  literary  charm  and 
convincing  logic,  Professor  Robinson  urges  that  the  career  of  man  as  a 
whole  is  the  legitimate  subject  of  history,  as  contrasted  with  a  too  exclu- 
sive attention  to  organization  and  institutions,  or  the  cataloguing  of 
wearisome  series  of  events,  all  analogous  in  character,  in  a  realm  of  little 
significance  in  explaining  the  general  progress  or  logical  sequence  of 
events,  where  one  or  two  examples  might  have  served  equally  well  as 
typical  of  the  whole  class  of  such  events. 

Your  reviewer  is  unable  to  do  full  justice  to  the  range  of  materials, 
with  which  the  author's  position  is  buttressed  and  supported,  and  to  the 
supplementary  contentions  involved  in  his  general  position.  While  it  is 
a  position  toward  which  there  has  been  a  distinctly  noticeable  drift  among 
leading  historians  for  some  time,  as  evinced  for  example  in  the  treatise 
on  general  anthropology  introducing  Meyer's  "  Geschichte  des  Altertums," 
historians,  as  a  whole,  and  notably  in  the  writing  of  text-books,  have  been 
lamentably  slow  in  discerning  and  appropriating  the  new  method  and 
point  of  view.  Educationally  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  value  and 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  what  Professor  Robinson  well  calls  the  "  new 
history."  Your  reviewer  is  also  convinced  of  its  scientific  value.  The 
old  categories  as  traditionally  employed  are  quite  insufficient  to  disclose 
the  slow  fusion  of  races  and  peoples,  of  religions  and  even  of  institutions, 
a  process  which,  when  discerned,  at  once  obliterates  the  sharply  drawn 
artificial  lines  of  demarcation  between  periods  and  peoples  as  we  find 
them  in  the  current  histories.  The  so-called  fall  of  Rome,  as  employed 
by  Professor  Robinson,  is  a  convincing  example  of  this  fact.  Similarly 
when  the  early  history  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean  has  been  adequately 
written  on  the  basis  of  the  whole  life  of  man,  there  will  be  disclosed  to  us 
a  gradual  interpenetration  of  eastern  and  western  life,  of  early  Oriental 
and  ^Egean  civilization,  to  which  the  interfusion  of  Roman  and  German 
in  the  fifth  century  furnishes  a  perfect  analogy.  As  the  author  notes,  it 
is  chiefly  the  anthropologist  who  has  demonstrated  how  much  of  so-called 
paganism  has  survived  even  in  modern  Christianity,  and  how  utterly  un- 
able is  a  new  religion  completely  to  displace  an  old  one.  This  is  a  fact  of 
first-class  historical  importance.  The  last  ten  years  have  disclosed  how 
the  fabric  of  modern  life  in  Palestine  is  tinctured  through  and  through 
with  pre-Moslem,  pre-Christian,  and,  indeed,  far  earlier  ancient  Semitic 
customs  and  beliefs.  The  tenacity  of  such  things  has  hardly  as  yet  been 
suspected  by  the  modern  historian.  A  winter  in  Bordighera,  on  the  Ital- 
ian Riviera  close  to  the  French  frontier,  disclosed  to  the  present  writer,  in 
the  market-place  of  this  old  town,  such  Arabic  words  as  "  rub'a,"  for  "  quar- 
ter," "  kufiya,"  for  a  "  headcloth,"  and  some  others,  although  it  is  a  thou- 
sand years  since  the  Saracen  outposts  were  driven  back  from  these  re- 
gions after  Charles  le  Martel's  victory.  Such  words  have  no  literary  ex- 
istence, but  have  survived  in  folk  custom  and  the  jargon  of  the  market- 
place for  a  millennium.  The  tenacity  of  life  displayed  by  such  things  as 
these  is  a  historical  fact  of  the  highest  importance,  because  it  demon- 
strates the  possibly  early  origin  of  many  elements  of  human  life  still 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          587 

surviving  in  modern  times.  The  fact  allies  itself  with  the  psychological 
kinship  between  man  and  the  animals  as  disclosed  in  the  study  of  animal 
psychology,  discussed  by  Professor  Robinson,  and  suggests  the  little 
suspected  remoteness  of  the  origin  of  much  in  the  life  of  the  modern  man. 
The  writer  can  only  reiterate  his  complete  sympathy  with  the  point 
of  view  for  which  Professor  Robinson  contends  in  this  little  volume,  and 
express  the  hope,  as  well  as  the  belief,  that  the  book  will  contribute  sub- 
stantially toward  the  employment  of  a  historical  method  of  more  generous 
scope  and  larger  outlook  on  life. 

JAMES  HENRY  BREASTED. 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

REVUE  DE  METAPHYSIQUE  ET  DE  MORALE.  May,  1912. 
Remarques  sur  la  philosophic  de  Rousseau  (pp.  265-2Y4) :  E.  BOUTROUX. 
-Rousseau's  philosophy  represents  the  history  of  humanity  in  three 
stages:  (1)  a  state  of  nature,  ruled  by  instinct;  (2)  a  social  state,  cor- 
rupt, with  feeling  subordinated  to  intelligence;  (3)  a  political  and  moral 
state  of  regeneration.  Its  weakness  lies  in  the  barrier  erected  between 
the  political  and  the  social  life.  Rousseau  et  la  religion  (pp.  275-293)  : 
H.  HOFFDING.  -  Rousseau's  chief  merit  is  in  bringing  the  problem  of  re- 
ligion into  close  relation  to  the  problem  of  civilization  in  general.  Les 
idees  religieuses  de  Rousseau  (pp.  295-320):  D.  PARODI. -A  study  of  the 
part  religious  ideas  played  in  Rousseau's  life,  and  their  positive  content 
in  relation  to  his  voluntarism.  Les  idees  politiques  de  Rousseau  (pp. 
320-341)  :  B.  BOSANQUET.  -  Exposition  of  Rousseau's  influence,  not  from 
the  point  of  view  of  his  own  time,  which  was  hostile  to  him,  but  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  later  time  which  had  accepted  him.  Rousseau  et  le 
Socialisme  (pp.  341-352)  :  C.  BOUGLE.  -  Study  of  the  degree  and  sense  in 
which  Rousseau  could  be  called  the  forerunner  of  socialism  as  it  stands 
to-day.  Les  deux  tendances  de  Rousseau  (pp.  353-369) :  M.  BOURGUIN. 
-  The  man  of  passion  and  imagination  as  opposed  to  the  implacable  logi- 
cian. Les  idees  politiques  et  sociales  de  J.  J.  Rousseau  (pp.  371-381)  :  J. 
JAURES.  -  A  general  sketch  of  Rousseau's  political  and  social  conceptions. 
Notion  et  portee  de  la  "  Volunte  generale  "  chez  J,  J.  Rousseau  (pp.  383- 
389)  :  R.  STAMMLER.  -  Rousseau  as  a  pioneer  in  investigating  the  idea  of 
law  and  determining  the  legitimacy  of  political  life.  Rousseau  et  la  con- 
ception fonctionnelle  de  I'enfance  (pp.  391—416)  :  E.  CLAPAREDE.  -  Modern 
psychology  is  increasing  the  value  of  Rousseau's  theory  of  education,  and 
the  end  is  not  yet,  for  we  are  just  beginning  to  appreciate  its  profound 
and  vital  significance.  Quelques  mots  sur  la  querelle  de  Hume  et  de 
Rousseau  (pp.  417—428)  :  L.  LEVY-BRUHL.  -  A  biographical  study.  Rous- 
seau et  Kant  (pp.  429-439)  :  V.  DELBOS.  -  Rousseau's  influence  on  Kant, 
especially  in  ethical  conceptions.  Rousseau,  Goethe  et  Schiller  (pp  441- 
460)  :  J.  BENRUBI.  -  In  combating  the  hypocrisies  of  an  intellectualistic 
civilization,  and  in  their  strife  for  the  inner  ennobling  of  individual  and 
social  life,  Goethe  and  Schiller  continue  the  work  of  Rousseau.  Rousseau 


588  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

et  Tolstoi  (pp.  461-482):  G.  D\vi  ;i><  n  \i  \i  .u-;.  -  A  picture  of  a  very  close 
literary  and  philosophical  influence.     Supplement. 

Ellwotxl.  Charlt  --  A.  Sociology  in  its  Psychological  Aspects.  New  York: 
D.  Appleton  and  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xiv  +  417. 

Ruge,  Dr.  Arnold.  Die  Philosophic  der  Gegenwart.  Vol.  II.  Heidel- 
berg: Weiss'sche  Universities  Buchhandlung.  1912.  Pp.  306.  15  M. 


NOTES  AND   NEWS 

LETTER  FROM  PROFESSOR  DE  LAGUNA 

To  THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  PSYCHOLOGY,  AND  SCIEN- 
TIFIC METHODS: 

Mrs.  C.  L.  Franklin,  in  a  private  letter,  has  complained  that,  in  my 
recent  paper  on  Opposition  and  the  Syllogism,  while  I  gave  her  credit  for 
the  method  of  reduction  employed,  I  did  not  credit  her  with  the  triadic 
formula : 

—  [(S.  P).-(S.-M).  — (P.  M)]. 

I  had  learned  the  formula  from  another  source,  and  was  ignorant  of  its 
authorship.  Very  respectfully  yours, 

BRYN  MAWB  COLLEGE,  THEODORE  DE  LAGUNA. 

September  26. 

DR.  MADISON  BENTLEY,  assistant  professor  of  psychology  at  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, has  been  called  to  the  chair  of  psychology  at  the  University  of 
Illinois.  Dr.  H.  P.  Weld,  of  Clark  University,  is  to  be  assistant  pro- 
fessor of  psychology  at  Cornell. 

DR.  W.  F.  BOOK,  professor  of  psychology  and  philosophy  at  Leland 
Stanford  University,  has  accepted  a  professorship  of  educational  psychol- 
ogy at  Indiana  University,  succeeding  Dean  W.  A.  Jessup,  who  goes  to 
the  University  of  Iowa. 

PROFESSOR  WILLISTON  S.  HOUGH,  dean  of  the  Teachers  College  and  pro- 
fessor of  philosophy  at  the  George  Washington  University,  died  suddenly 
on  September  18,  at  the  age  of  fifty-two  years. 

PROFESSOR  T.  GOMPEREZ,  of  the  University  of  Vienna,  has  recently 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty  years.  He  was  distinguished  by  his  studies  in 
philology  and  philosophy. 

MR.  WILLIAM  McDouoALL,  Wilde  reader  in  mental  philosophy  at 
Oxford,  has  been  made  an  extraordinary  fellow  of  Corpus  Cristi  College. 

RUDOLF  PINTNER,  M.A.  (Edinburgh),  Ph.D.  (Leipzig),  has  been  ap- 
pointed professor  of  psychology  and  education  at  Toledo  University. 

LOTUS  D.  COFFMAN  (Ph.D.  Columbia,  1911)  has  been  appointed  to  a 
professorship  of  education  in  the  University  of  Illinois. 

DR.  GEORGE  SANTAYANA,  professor  of  philosophy  at  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, has  resigned. 

DR.  R.  A.  TSANOFF  has  been  appointed  instructor  in  philosophy  at 
Clark  University. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  22.  OCTOBER  24,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE  NATURE  OF   CONSCIOUSNESS.     Ill 

IN  the  two  preceding  articles  it  has  been  shown  that  the  image,  or 
sensuous  fact  in  perception,  is  a  psychic  existence,  and  that  it 
is  the  medium  of  cognition,  that  is,  the  part  of  the  mind  concerned 
in  cognizing.  In  other  words,  proof  has  been  given  of  the  existence 
of  "consciousness"  in  the  sense  in  which  it  means  feeling.  We  pass 
now  to  the  second  branch  of  our  subject,  "consciousness"  in  the 
sense  of  awareness.  The  question  is,  How  does  the  image  enable 
us  to  cognize  or  be  aware?  What  is  awareness,  and  what  does  it 
involve  ? 

II.     THE  MECHANISM  OF  AWARENESS 

Awareness  may  be  defined  as  the  mere  experiencing  or  thinking 
of  a  thing,  apart  from  any  thought  about  it.  It  is  bare  "knowledge 
of  acquaintance,"  perceptual  and  conceptual.  It  is  the  function  by 
which  the  mind  has  to  do  with  an  object,  has  an  object  before  or 
present  to  it — "presentation." 

Thus  it  is  necessary  to  conceive  awareness  in  such  a  way  as,  on  the 
one  hand,  to  include  thinking  of  absent  things,  or  representation,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  exclude  thinking  about  things,  i.  e.,  interpre- 
tation, or  "thought"  in  the  proper  sense.  Of  course  we  can  think 
about  some  things  only  by  thinking  of  others,  and,  in  so  far,  aware- 
ness enters  even  into  thinking-about. 

In  conceiving  representation  we  must  beware  of  falling  into 
the  fallacy  of  representativism,  referred  to  in  a  previous  article. 
Though  in  sense-perception  our  awareness  of  the  object  is  obviously 
direct,  we  are  apt  to  suppose  that  in  memory,  for  instance,  this  is 
not  the  case,  but  that  what  we  are  immediately  aware  of  is  a  mental 
image  or  duplicate  of  the  object,  which  only  stands  for  it.  This, 
however,  is  an  error.  Memory  has  as  directly  to  do  with  its  object 
as  presentation  proper.  The  mental  image,  which  is  undeniably 
necessary,  is  not  the  object  of  the  awareness,  but  its  vehicle  or 
medium — the  part  of  the  mind  concerned  in  remembering ;  and  from 

589 


590  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

this  the  relation  of  knowing  goes  straight  to  the  remembered  fact 
itself.  What  is  copied  or  duplicated  in  memory  is  not  the  object, 
but  the  knowing  activity — representation  is  re-presentation,  presen- 
tation in  fainter  form  in  the  absence  of  the  object  that  originally 
evoked  the  cognition. 

Representation  is  evidently  derivative  from  presentation  proper 
— we  never  should  think  of  things  in  their  absence  if  we  had  not  ex- 
perienced  their  presence.  Awareness  of  a  present  object  is  perhaps 
best  called  cognition.  Of  this  there  are  two  forms :  sense-perception 
and  introspection.  Cognition,  or,  to  call  it  by  its  epistemological 
name,  experience,  is  the  function  in  which  knowledge  (knowledge  of 
facts  at  least)  is  acquired — in  the  one  case  knowledge  of  physical 
facts,  in  the  other  case  knowledge  of  feelings. 

Of  the  two  forms  of  cognition,  introspection  is  at  present  far  the 
less  clear  to  us,  since  we  do  not  at  all  know  what  is  the  medium  of 
the  awareness;  whereas,  in  the  case  of  sense-perception,  we  know 
that  it  is  the  image.  We  had  better,  therefore,  content  ourselves 
here  with  analyzing  awareness  as  exemplified  in  sense-perception. 

On  the  threshold  a  difficulty  meets  us.  All  actual  sense-percep- 
tion is  a  compound  of  cognition  with  "thought" — that  is,  with  in- 
terpretation by  means  of  representations  (or  at  least  by  means  of 
habits  that  past  experience  has  left  behind).  To  get  awareness  in 
the  pure  state,  we  must  separate  this  thought-element  out;  and  this 
can  be  done  only  by  an  ideal  abstraction.  Moreover,  a  school  of 
philosophers  exists  who  define  awareness  as  thinking-about — this 
may  be  called  the  post-Kantian  definition  of  awareness — and  we 
must  settle  our  scores  with  them  before  we  can  proceed. 

According  to  these  philosophers,  sense-experience  without  thought 
would  be  mere  sensation,  not  knowing.  We  are  aware  of  a  thing 
only  so  far  as  we  conceive  it;  in  other  words,  only  awareness  of  a 
thing  as  being  this  or  that  is  allowed  to  be  awareness.  Thus,  to  be 
aware  of  a  color,  e.  g.,  red,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  see  it,  but  you  must 
think  of  it  as  different  from  green  and  blue,  or  as  called  red,  or  as 
in  a  certain  place;  without  which  it  would  be  "nothing  for  us  as 
thinking  beings."  This  is  cruel  to  the  lower  animals,  who  presum- 
ably are  without  the  power  of  thought,  yet  who  look  at  things  and 
act  very  much  as  if  they  were  aware  of  them.  The  bird  who  eyes  me 
from  his  cage  is  in  a  true  sense  aware  of  me,  even  though  he  can  not 
think.  Might  not  things  be  "nothing  for  us  as  thinking  beings," 
and  yet  something  for  us  as  percipient  beings? 

The  post-Kantian  view  finds  expression  in  the  current  formula 
that  "all  knowing  is  judgment."  What  this  really  means  is  that  no 
knowing  is  simple  apprehension  or  cognition.  It  follows  as  a  conse- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          591 

quence  from  the  post-Kantian  denial  of  things  in  themselves,  since 
without  an  independent  object  there  is  nothing  to  be  cognized,  and 
hence  no  such  function  as  cognition.  We,  conversely,  who  recognize 
an  independent  object,  must  also  recognize  a  function  of  cognition 
or  awareness  distinct  from  thought. 

No  sane  person  would  underrate  the  immense  importance  of 
thought.  Without  it  not  only  would  there  be  no  such  thing  as  sci- 
ence, but  we  should  not  even  be  able  to  profit  by  our  experiences  or 
to  carry  anything  away  from  them ;  so  that,  in  so  far  as  experience 
means  a  learning  and  not  simply  a  momentary  awareness,  thought 
is  indeed  essential  to  its  possibility.  Without  thought  sense-per- 
ception would  be  a  mere  dumb  staring  at  the  subject,  with,  no  doubt, 
correct  instinctive  responses  to  it,  but  without  any  accession  of 
wisdom. 

This  admitted,  we  must  insist  with  firmness  that  thought  is  a 
superstructure  erected  upon  perception,  and  that  perception  is  inde- 
pendent of  it  and  does  not  necessarily  involve  any  admixture  of 
thought.  When  Kant  says  that  sense  and  thought  are  both  neces- 
sary to  experience,  his  "sense"  is  not  mere  sensation,  but  sensory 
awareness,  cognition.  We  must  be  aware  of  an  object  before  we  can 
relate  it  to  other  things  according  to  the  categories.  Cognition  is 
prior  to  thought  both  epistemologically  and  logically. 

Logicians  recognize  this  when  they  distinguish  simple  apprehen- 
sion from  judgment  and  make  it  something  which  judgment  pre- 
supposes. How,  indeed,  could  we  think  about  a  thing  unless  we  first 
thought  of  or  perceived  it?  The  attempt  to  explain  perception  by 
thinking-about  is  a  hysteron-proteron,  completely  reversing  the  true 
relations  of  cognition  and  thought. 

Thinking  about  a  thing  perceived  must  take  place  by  means  of 
representations  additional  to  the  image  that  conveys  the  thing.  But 
these  representations  are  themselves  presentations  of  other  things; 
we  must  apprehend  the  predicate,  as  well  as  apprehend  the  subject, 
before  we  can  judge.  Presentation,  then,  can  not  be  explained  by 
means  of  judgment,  but  judgment  must  be  explained  by  means  of 
presentation. 

In  these  observations  my  assumption  has  been  that  the  "judg- 
ment" referred  to  is  an  explicit  one — the  "thought"  an  actual  ele- 
ment of  consciousness  distinct  from  images  (or  possibly  fused  with 
them).  If  the  judgment  meant  is  only  implicit,  I  answer  that 
an  implicit  judgment  is  no  actual  judgment  at  all,  but  only  the  be- 
having as  if  you  were  prepared  to  make  one.  Doubtless  in  cog- 
nizing an  object  we  imply  by  our  conduct  the  object's  existence, 
but  judgment  in  that  sense  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  judgment 
in  the  sense  of  predication. 


592  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Since,  tln-u.  »-pistemologically,  "thought"  presupposes  cognition, 
and  since  logically  it  involves  several  awarenesses,  not  only  that  of 
the  subject,  but  also  that  of  the  predicate  and  of  the  relation  be- 
tween them,  I  think  we  may  safely  put  this  function  on  one  side, 
even  though  we  have  to  do  so  by  an  abstraction,  and  analyze  aware- 
ness  as  if  it  were  entirely  unaccompanied  by  thought. 

What  is  it  for  us  to  be  aware  of  a  physical  object — wherein  con- 
sists presentation  of  it? 

We  know  from  the  preceding  articles  that  the  first  requisite  is 
an  image.  The  mere  existence  of  the  object,  then,  is  not  in  itself  a 
being  presented,  but  presentation  is  a  distinct  and  additional  fact, 
contingent  on  the  rise  of  an  image.  On  the  other  hand,  the  mere 
presence  of  the  image  is  not  in  itself  a  presentation  of  the  corre- 
sponding object.  For  image  and  object  are  distinct  facts,  and  there 
is  nothing  in  the  image  considered  by  itself  which  points  to  or  an- 
nounces an  object.  Introspection  reveals  no  awareness  in  the  image. 
When  we  scrutinize  the  image  introspectively,  we  find  it  to  be  simply 
a  form  of  feeling;  and,  if  there  is  any  awareness  present,  it  is  our 
awareness  of  it,  not  its  awareness  of  the  object.  True,  when  we 
scrutinize  the  image  thus  we  are  no  longer  sense-perceiving,  and  the 
image  has  passed  from  a  subjective  to  an  objective  position ;  but  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  in  this  passage  it  has  changed  its  nature, 
or  that  introspection  does  not  show  us  correctly  what  it  was.  It  fol- 
lows that  that  which  makes  the  image  aware,  or  us  aware  by  means 
of  it,  must  be  sought  outside  its  own  being. 

But  not  in  another  simultaneous  element  of  consciousness.  The 
other  element  most  likely  to  serve  the  turn  would  be  "  thought  "- 
say,  thought  of  the  image  as  referring  to  an  object — but  thought,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  simply  other  awareness,  awareness  of  other  objects, 
and  therefore  can  not  be  used  to  explain  awareness  itself.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  were  tempted  to  look  to  a  hypothetical  centre  of  con- 
sciousness, other  than  all  images  and  thoughts,  a  sort  of  eye  of  the 
mind,  as  the  locus  of  this  awareness,  the  difficulty  would  be  that  it 
could  only  explain  awareness  of  the  image,  whereas  what  we  have  to 
explain  is  awareness  of  the  object.  The  real  eye  of  the  mind,  or  part 
of  the  mind  that  perceives,  is  the  image  itself,  and  awareness  must 
be  a  relation  passing  from  it  to  the  object — as  we  see  when  we  con- 
sider that  in  sense-perception  the  image  is  not,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
line  of  vision,  or  an  object  of  awareness,  at  all. 

Can  it  be  that  the  relation  in  which  awareness  consists  falls  out- 
side the  mind — that  awareness  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  psychical 
fact,  or  property  of  the  mind  considered  as  an  existence? 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         593 

In  order  to  explain  the  mechanism  of  awareness,  we  need  two 
premises,  one  of  them  distinctly  stated  and  the  other  implied  in  the 
preceding  articles:  (1)  that  the  objects  of  sense-perception  are  real 
existences,  (2)  that  these  existences  are  not  only  in  time,  but  also  in 
space,  or  in  an  order  symbolized  to  us  by  space. 

1.  We  saw  that  realism  follows  from  the  lateness  of  the  image. 
If  the  object  were  merely  a  sort  of  composite  picture  formed  out  of 
images  or  a  concept  of  their  permanent  possibility,  we  should  ex- 
pect it  to  be  assigned  to  the  same  moment  of  time  as  the  image.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  understand  the  constraint  the  facts  put  on  us 
to  refer  it  to  an  earlier  moment — indeed,  this  peculiarity  in  the  facts 
would  appear  an  unaccountable  anomaly.  Whereas,  if  the  object 
is  a  real  existence,  and  the  image  an  effect  which  it  calls  forth,  their 
temporal  relation  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 

The  reluctance  of  philosophers  to  admit  that  the  object  causes 
our  perception  of  it  has  been  due  in  part  to  a  confusion  between  the 
appearance  which  the  object  presents  in  sense-perception,  and  the 
image  by  means  of  which  this  appearance  is  presented.  The  object 
does  not  cause  the  appearance:  for  the  appearance  is  the  object  as  it 
appears,  and  the  object  can  not  be  causally  related  to  itself  even  as 
it  appears.  What  the  object  causes  is  the  image  by  means  of  which 
it  appears ;  and  this,  being  another  existence  in  the  same  world  with 
the  object,  can  perfectly  well  be  causally  related  to  it. 

The  proof  of  realism  I  offer,  then,  is  that  no  other  view  affords  a 
satisfactory  explanation  of  the  temporal  gap  between  object  and 
image.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  the  idealist  can  not  state  the 
facts  in  terms  of  his  theory — can  not  say  that  the  object,  besides 
being  referred  outward,  is  also  (at  least  as  soon  as  we  learn  of  these 
peculiar  facts)  referred  backward,  and  yet,  for  all  that,  is  purely 
ideal.  No  detail  of  perceptual  experience  would  be  different  on  this 
hypothesis  from  what  it  would  be  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  object 
is  real :  in  pure  logic  the  two  hypotheses  are  exactly  on  a  par.  But 
not  in  science.  The  realistic  hypothesis  gives  an  intelligible  expla- 
nation of  the  time-gap,  the  idealistic  hypothesis  gives  none.  Not 
only  so,  but  the  latter  makes  such  an  explanation,  quite  plainly, 
forever  impossible.  Now  we  may  admit  for  argument 's  sake  that  the 
time-gap  might  conceivably  be  an  ultimate  fact,  which  we  must  ac- 
cept without  explanation;  but,  in  science  and  philosophy,  it  is  a 
legitimate  ground  for  preferring  an  hypothesis  that  it  absorbs  anom- 
alous facts  and  brings  them  into  intelligible  connection  with  others, 
and  the  simplest  hypothesis  that  systematizes  all  the  facts  is  con- 
sidered true. 

Idealists  might  with  a  better  grace  point  to  the  logical  purity  and 
adequacy  of  their  doctrine  if  they  would  apply  it  consistently  all 


r.i»4  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

round — for  instance,  to  memory,  expectation,  and  knowledge  of 
otlirr  minds.  Is  there  any  idealistic  reader  who  is  prepared  to  deny, 
quite  generally,  that  things  can  exist  independently  of  our  minds 
and  yet  be  known  f 

A  more  colorable  objection  to  independent  things  in  sense-per- 
ception is  the  difficulty  of  assigning  to  them  a  nature.  Idealists 
maintain  that  the  kind  of  existence  best  known  to  us,  indeed  the 
only  kind  we  can  really  conceive,  is  psychical.  Hence  they  urge 
that  realism  involves  dualism.  Some  idealists  even  consider  that,  if 
real  things  be  assumed  beyond  our  states  of  mind,  the  states  become 
unreal  by  comparison.  Either  all  reality  lies  beyond  us,  or  none 
does:  such  is  the  only  alternative  they  seem  able  to  conceive. 

But  if,  as  we  saw,  the  image  is  an  existence,  a  portion  of  reality, 
there  is  evidently  an  intermediate  possibility:  namely,  that  what 
lies  beyond  us  is  only  the  rest  of  reality — in  other  words,  that  in  cog- 
nition reality  is,  so  to  speak,  bisected,  far  the  greater  part  of  it  lying 
beyond,  but  not  the  particular  part  that  cognizes.  Here  is  an  hypoth- 
esis that  would  have  great  advantages,  since,  in  the  first  place,  it 
does  away  with  dualism.  If  we  consider,  secondly,  that  the  image 
is  a  psychical  fact,  we  shall  see  that  the  other  point  of  the  idealists, 
viz.,  that  the  only  existence  conceivable  is  psychical,  is  in  a  fair  way 
to  have  justice  done  it.  For,  granting  that  the  psychical  is  the  exist- 
ence best  known  to  us — that  is,  known  most  nearly  as  it  is ;  if  it  be 
true,  as  has  been  shown,  that  we  know  objects  only  through  the 
medium  of  images,  so  that  what  they  are  in  themselves  remains 
more  or  less  problematic;  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  our  supposing 
that,  in  themselves,  they  are  of  the  same  nature  as  images  and  feel- 
ings: especially  as  these  latter  appear  to  have  been  evolved  out  of 
them. 

Such  panpsychism  can  not  be  denied  to  be  an  exceedingly  eco- 
nomical hypothesis,  since  at  a  single  stroke  it  achieves  monism  both 
with  regard  to  the  arrangement  of  reality  and  with  regard  to  its 
nature.  As  to  the  former,  note  that  the  bisection  in  cognition  is, 
so  to  speak,  movable :  now  it  is  one  image  that  is  on  this  side  the  line 
permitting  us  to  cognize  one  object,  now  it  is  another  image  per- 
mitting us  to  cognize  another  object ;  and,  since  each  image  is  a  part 
of  the  world,  it  is  itself  an  object  which  in  its  turn  is  capable  of  being 
cognized  through  the  medium  of  some  other  image.  Thus  there  is  no 
part  of  the  world  that  is  not  capable  of  being  cognized,  in  the  way  in 
which  sense-perception  gives  us  cognition  of  objects.  Add  to  this 
that  we  have  introspection,  enabling  us  to  cognize  in  a  more  intimate 
way  our  own  images  just  after  they  have  occurred. 

The  drawback  (if  it  really  be  one)  of  the  hypothesis  is  that  it 
obliges  us  to  some  extent  to  materialize  the  psychical — to  conceive, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         595 

on  the  one  hand,  that  psychical  facts  are  capable  of  appearing  under 
a  physical  form,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  all  physical  facts  are 
appearances  of  the  psychical. 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  the  following  explanation  of 
awareness  to  assume  that  the  realities  which  appear  as  inanimate  ob- 
jects are  psychical  in  their  nature.  It  is  sufficient  to  assume  that 
they  are  other  existences  in  the  same  world  with  the  image. 

2.  Realistic  theories  vary  greatly  in  the  amount  of  information 
they  suppose  sense-perception  to  give  us  about  the  object — in  the 
degree,  that  is,  in  which  they  consider  the  object  to  resemble  the  form 
under  which  it  appears  to  us.  Kant's  "things  in  themselves,"  for 
instance,  are  neither  in  time  nor  in  space,  so  that  everything  per- 
ception tells  us  about  them  (if  it  can  be  said  to  be  about  them!)  is 
wrong.  We  are  forbidden  any  such  agnostic  view  of  our  own  real 
things  by  the  nature  of  the  argument  used  to  prove  them.  Since  this 
argument  was  the  time-gap,  we  are  committed  to  conceiving  them  as 
at  least  in  time.  The  object  is  an  existence  at  an  earlier  time  than 
that  of  the  brain-event. 

If  we  follow  out  this  line  of  thought  further,  we  shall  see  that 
they  must  be  assumed  to  be  also  in  space,  or  in  something  that  appears 
as  space.  For  the  time-gap  is  greater  in  proportion  as  the  object  is 
more  distant  from  us;  it  is  greatest  of  all  in  the  case  of  such  a  very 
distant  object  as  a  star.  Now,  time  being  real,  what  is  this  interval 
of  real  time  needed  for,  except  precisely  to  enable  the  light-rays  to 
traverse  the  space  intervening  between  the  object  and  us?  This 
space,  then,  must  be  as  real  as  the  time.  That,  in  itself,  it  is  just  like 
what  it  appears  to  be,  we  need  not  assume. 

A  conclusion  not  essentially  different  from  this  may  be  urged  on 
other  grounds.  If  you  deny  that  space  is  real,  you  can  not  mean  to 
shrink  simultaneous  reality  together  into  a  point,  or  a  distinctionless 
unity.  Room  must  be  found  at  least  for  the  difference  between  indi- 
vidual minds ;  so  far  as  isolated  centres  or  fields  of  experience  exist, 
and  they  certainly  exist  in  vast  numbers,  reality  must  be  plural,  it 
must  consist  of  separate  if  connected  parts.  Furthermore,  so  far  as 
many  distinct  thoughts  and  feelings  coexist  within  each  centre  or 
field,  reality  must  be  still  further  divided  up.  Even  recognizing 
only  individual  minds,  then,  reality  consists  of  an  immense  number 
of  simultaneous  parts. 

But  these  parts,  surely,  are  not  without  relation — they  form  an 
order.  Very  great  differences  exist  in  the  ease  with  which  one  part 
of  reality  is  able  to  affect,  or  produce  changes  in,  other  parts  of 
reality.  For  instance,  I  can  excite  a  feeling  in  a  person  at  my  side 
by  merely  touching  or  speaking  to  him :  whereas  to  a  person  across 
the  ocean  I  must  send  a  cablegram  or  a  letter,  which  may  take  days. 


-V.x;  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

We  can  hardly  consider  the  case  without  recognizing  that  there  are 
in  reality,  so  to  speak,  paths  by  wlii,  />  the  causal  influence  finds  its 
ii-aif  about.  These  paths,  these  relations  of  nearness  and  remoteness, 
iit-xtnoss  and  non-nextness  with  respect  to  influence,  correspond  ex- 
actly to  the  spatial  relations  between  perceived  things ;  so  that,  even 
if  we  deny  reality  to  be  in  space,  we  shall  have  to  admit  a  quasi- 
spatial  order  of  its  parts  which  will  not  be  so  very  different.  If  any 
reader,  then,  rejects  real  space,  I  beg  him  to  substitute  for  it  this 
quasi-spatial  order  or  these  paths  of  influence:  and  they  will  serve 
equally  well  as  a  basis  for  the  explanation  of  awareness  I  am  going 
to  give. 

At  the  outset,  I  want  to  declare  in  the  most  explicit  way  that  it 
does  not  enter  into  my  plan  to  question  that  we  are  aware  of  the  ob- 
ject. I  accept  awareness  as  a  fact.  If  any  one  expects  my  theory  of 
awareness  to  deny  that  awareness  is  a  fact,  he  will  be  disappointed. 

Let  me  point  out,  however,  just  what  this  declaration  does,  and 
what  it  does  not,  involve.  On  any  theory  of  awareness,  that  of  which 
we  are  aware  is  the  object,  and  the  object  alone.  You  can  not,  with- 
out vitiating  the  logical  purity  of  the  object,  introduce  into  the  con- 
ception of  it  any  taint  of  subjectivity  or  flavor  of  the  cognizing 
process.  Logic  is  the  science  which  tells  us  how  to  think  with  perfect 
correctness  about  the  things  we  cognize.  And  logic  must  insist 
that  what  we  cognize  is  exclusively  objects  and  relations  between  ob- 
jects. Logically,  then,  awareness  is  a  function  which  takes  us  to  the 
object :  awareness  can  not  be  recognized  at  all  without  admitting  self- 
transcendence  in  a  logical  sense. 

This,  however,  must  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  the  report  cog- 
nition gives  us  about  the  object  is  necessarily  authoritative  and 
final.  It  only  means  (1)  that  sense-perception  really  reaches  the 
object  and  brings  it  before  us;  (2)  that  its  report  deserves  confidence 
so  long  as  it  is  self-consistent  and  not  contradicted  by  information 
derived  from  other  sources.  That  there  are  limits  to  the  trustworthi- 
ness, or  rather  to  the  adequacy,  of  sense-perception  is  shown  by  the 
existence  of  "secondary"  qualities. 

If  realism  is  true,  we  are  in  an  entirely  different  position  in  ac- 
counting for  awareness  from  what  we  should  be  on  the  idealistic  hy- 
pothesis. 

1.  For,  in  that  case,  besides  the  object  and  the  image  there  is  also 
the  body.  The  body  is  real,  it  exists  during  cognition,  it  is  another 
object  than  the  one  perceived,  and  an  object  lying  closer  to  us.  In- 
deed, on  our  view  it  surrounds  the  image — the  image  is,  as  it  were, 
at  its  centre. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         597 

2.  With  the  body  come  also  the  sense-organs.     The  image  is  not 
merely  in  a  general  way  an  effect  of  the  object,  but  it  is  an  effect 
produced  through  the  medium  of  the  sense-organs. 

3.  Then  there  is  the  other  side  of  the  matter:  the  image  enalbles 
the  body,  by  means  of  the  motor  apparatus,  to  react  on  or  towards 
the  object.    It  would  be  a  serious  omission,  in  our  quest  of  the  secret 
of  awareness,  to  overlook  this  motor  function  of  the  image,  from 
which  we  have  thus  far  abstracted.     The  image  would  not  exist  at 
all  if  it  were  not  for  its  role  of  enabling  the  body  to  adjust  itself 
to  the  object. 

4.  Thus,  quite  independently  of  awareness,  the  image  is  connected 
with  the  object  by  what  we  may  call  afferent  and  efferent  relations. 
We  are  apt  to  conceive  the  problem  as  if  we  had  simply  the  image, 
swinging  in  vacuo,  on  the  one  side  and  the  object  on  the  other,  and 
had  then  to  account  for  the  image  cognizing  the  object;  but  this  in 
reality  is  an  illusion,  it  involves  an  abstraction:  the  image  (if  we  are 
right  that  it  is  in  the  brain,  or  even  if  it  is  only  correlated  with  a 
brain-event)  is  held  in  position  towards  the  object  by  a  set  of  definite 
physical  relations.    So  far  from  being  in  vacuo,  it  exists  (either  as 
itself  located,  or  through  correlation)  at  a  perfectly  definite  point 
in  the  world,  next  to  some  things  and  not  next  to  others,  able  to  be 
acted  on  by  and  to  react  to  the  things  in  its  immediate  neighborhood 
and  not  other  things.    It  is  like  a  gun  which,  held  by  a  certain  per- 
son and  pointed  in  a  certain  direction,  must  if  it  goes  off  hit  a  cer- 
tain object. 

These  things  being  so,  why  need  we  in  accounting  for  awareness 
admit  any  self -transcendence  except  the  logical  one?  Why  need  we 
assume  the  undoubted  logical  self-transcendence  to  be  incarnated  in 
a  psychological  power,  other  than  feeling,  and  of  the  nature  of  a 
mysterious  intuition? 

Two  possible  conceptions  of  the  psychology  of  awareness  stand 
opposed  to  each  other. 

The  one  is  the  popular  conception,  the  conception  we  all  find 
ourselves  possessing  as  a  result  of  our  every-day  contact  with  the 
facts.  On  this  view,  all  the  color  and  variety  lie  in  the  object,  and 
awareness  is  a  pale,  diaphanous  something,  the  mere  mental  grasp,  so 
to  speak,  which  we  have  on  this  color  and  variety — something  which, 
like  a  lens,  brings  the  object  better  before  us  in  proportion  as  it  is 
itself  transparent  and  invisible.  This  conception  may  be  called 
intuitionism.  A  distinctive  mark  of  it  is  that  it  makes  awareness  an 
ultimate  fact  (awareness  conceived  psychologically,  I  mean — logic- 
ally awareness  is  indeed  ultimate),  incapable  of  resolution  into  any- 
thing simpler. 


vjs  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  other  conception  is  that  to  which  our  whole  exposition  has 
been  tending,  and  I  would  designate  it  as  protectionism.1  This  view 
also  puts  the  color  and  variety  in  the  object  in  the  double  sense  (1) 
that  in  cognition  they  appear  as  qualities  of  the  object,  and  (2)  that 
they  bring  before  us  real  characteristics  of  it,  which  vary  as  they 
vary;  but,  considered  as  existences,  it  puts  them  in  the  image  or 
subject,  from  which  it  conceives  them  to  be  projected  much  as  the 
beams  of  a  searchlight  are  projected  upon  a  distant  ship — or,  to  use 
a  more  accurate  simile,  as  blue  spectacles  shed  their  color  upon  the 
object  seen  through  them. 

Projectionism  differs  from  intuitionism  in  assuming  nothing  ulti- 
mate or  incapable  of  analysis.  It  assumes,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the 
afferent  causal  relations  by  which  the  image  was  called  forth,  such 
resemblance  or  correspondence  as  actually  exists  between  it  and  the 
object,  and  the  efferent  causal  relations  by  which  adjustment  to  the 
object  is  effected.  Self-transcendence  it  looks  upon  as  purely  logical. 

Let  me  try  to  reply  to  certain  objections  that  are  likely  to  be  felt. 

1.  It  will  be  said  that  the  existential  connections  just  mentioned 
in  no  way  account  for  the  cognitive  character  of  the  image,  or  serve 
to  communicate  a  cognitive  character  to  it.  They  fall  outside  its 
being,  are  unfelt  by  it,  and,  so  far  as  it  is  concerned,  are  as  good  as 
non-existent.  No  matter  what  other  things  surround  it  in  the  world, 
a  non-cognitive  feeling  remains  a  non-cognitive  feeling  still. 

Of  course  it  does,  I  reply;  but  my  contention  is  precisely  that  a 
cognitive  state  is,  in  itself  considered,  a  non-cognitive  feeling.  The 
critic  would  be  more  likely  to  see  in  this  proposition  a  correct  account 
of  experience  if  he  would  not  look  at  the  feeling  or  image  abstractly, 
but  consider  the  cortege  of  other  feelings  in  the  midst  of  which  it 
comes.  Actually  each  image  is  a  brief  momentary  state,  occurring 
in  the  midst  of  others  and  succeeded  by  others  still ;  and  the  different 
images,  besides  their  merely  psychological  simultaneity  and  succes- 
sion, are  related  to  each  other  as  they  must  be  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  they  are  effects  of  surrounding  objects.  All  this,  it  is  true,  is 
unknown  to  the  images ;  nevertheless  there  is  method  in  the  way  they 
come.  Again,  the  images  do  not  merely  in  fact  evoke  bodily  reac- 
tions, but  these  reactions  in  their  turn  contribute  feelings,  namely, 
kinesthetic  ones,  that  are  likewise  in  methodic  relation  to  each  other 
and  to  the  images.  Finally,  these  various  images  and  feelings  suc- 

1  The  sources  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  this  conception  are  Professor 
James's  article  on  "The  Function  of  Cognition,"  in  Mind  for  1885,  pages  27- 
44,  reprinted  in  his  posthumous  "Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,"  and  Pro- 
fessor Miller's  article  on  "The  Confusion  of  Function  and  Content  in  Mental 
Analysis,"  in  Psychological  Seview  for  1895. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          599 

ceed  each  other  in  a  train  all  the  members  of  which  are  accessible  to 
memory;  and  this  accessibility  to  memory  introduces  among  them  a 
certain  unity,  in  so  far  as  we  can  at  any  moment  pass  in  thought 
from  one  to  any  other,  by  moving  backward  or  forward  along  the  line. 

In  this  I  am  simply  pointing  out  undeniable  facts  about  the 
sequence  of  our  feelings — facts  that  are  so,  whether  the  (so  to  speak) 
intelligible  connection  between  our  feelings  is  to  be  found  in  them, 
or  lies  outside  them.  The  possibility  therefore  exists  that  the  thread 
on  which  our  feelings  (so  far  as  they  are  cognitive)  are  strung  is  an 
external  one ;  that  we  never  can  understand  their  performances  un- 
less we  take  account  of  their  external  relations. 

In  a  word,  feelings  need  not  be  intelligent  in  themselves,  pro- 
vided they  follow  one  another  in  an  intelligent  order.  The  functions 
they  discharge  will  then  communicate  to  our  life  as  a  whole  as  much 
intelligence  as  we  feel  it  to  possess. 

But  this,  it  will  be  said,  at  least  assumes  memory,  as  a  real  faculty 
of  contemplating  or  cognizing  feelings.  Not  at  all,  I  answer; 
memorial  knowing  is  presumably  explicable  on  just  the  same  prin- 
ciples as  perceptive  knowing.  And  introspection  is,  in  my  opinion, 
simply  a  form  of  memory. 

2.  It  may  be  objected  that  I  have  not  explained  how  the  image, 
which  according  to  the  theory  is  in  the  brain,  or  at  least  the  quality 
of  the  image,  comes  to  be  found  in  the  object — have  not  justified,  in 
other  words,  the  metaphor  of  projection. 

The  reader  will  recall  that  in  sense-perception,  as  we  saw  in  an 
earlier  article,  our  attention,  as  is  shown  both  by  our  overt  acts  and 
by  our  sensory  accommodations,  is  occupied  exclusively  with  the 
object.  The  different  colors,  shapes,  and  sizes  of  images  operate  in 
us  solely  as  incitements  to  different  kinds  of  behavior  towards  objects. 
Or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  that  in  the  image  which  guides  our  action 
and  thought  is  solely  what  has  come  through  to  it  of  the  object :  it  is 
only  so  far  as  the  image  has  the  object's  shape  rather  than  a  shape 
of  its  own,  the  object's  size  rather  than  a  size  of  its  own,  and  so  far 
as  its  color  can  be  safely  treated  as  the  color  of  the  object,  that  it 
affects  our  conduct  and  thinking  at  all.  But  this  is  to  say,  almost  in 
so  many  words,  that  the  image  is  taken  as  being  where  it  is  not  and 
what  it  is  not — that  it  is  projected  into  the  object. 

And  this,  I  believe,  is  the  real  truth  of  the  matter ;  by  the  unani- 
mous voice  of  all  our  reactive  tendencies  the  image  is  pronounced  to 
be  in,  if  not  actually  to  be,  the  object. 

The  projection  of  the  image  is,  above  all,  a  conferring  of  depth. 
This,  as  we  saw,  is  not,  as  such,  a  character  of  the  image.  How  can 
an  image  not  possessing  depth  acquire  it  ?  The  answer  is  now  plain. 


600  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

By  prompting  us  to  act  as  if  the  object,  with  which  alone  we  have  to 
do,  were  at  a  certain  point.  To  direct  our  action  thus,  the  image 
must  of  course  itself  have  certain  characters :  one  image  will  prompt 
one  movement  and  therefore  show  us  an  object  at  one  distance, 
another  image  another;  or  the  same  image  coming  in  different  set- 
tings may  have  different  motor  and  perceptual  effects.  It  is  always 
the  image  taken  with  its  motor  promptings  that  explains  what  we 
perceive. 

Such,  then,  is  projection — a  rooted  habit  of  seeing  the  object  in 
the  guise  of  the  image,  and  yet  where  the  image  is  not. 

This  account  of  awareness  touches  modern  psychology  at  three 
points. 

1.  It  rehabilitates  the  notion  of  "eccentric  projection."    Physiol- 
ogists, assuming  in  perhaps  too  na'ive  a  sense  that  sensations  were  in 
the  brain,  spoke  of  a  process  by  which  they  or  their  qualities  were 
transferred  to  objects  outside  the  body.    Psychological  critics  retorted 
that  this  was  mythology:  sensations  are  not  first  in  the  brain,  and 
then  moved  out;  what  is  in  the  brain  is  only  their  physical  concom- 
itants, but  the  sensible  qualities  are  from  the  outset  discovered  in 
objects;  as  for  the  sensations,  they  are  not  in  any  place  at  all.     To 
criticize  the  physiologists  thus  was  to  take  in  a  literal  sense  what  had 
been  meant  in  a  metaphorical — or,  rather,  to  take  in  an  existential 
sense  what  had  been  meant  in  a  logical.     The  place  where  in  sense- 
perception  the  qualities  appear  to  us  to  be  is  in  the  object;  that  is 
true.     But  the  place  where  they  are,  together  with  the  psychic  exist- 
ences of  which  they  are  primarily  qualities,  we  have  shown  is  in  the 
brain.     Their  escape  from  the  brain  and  installation  in  objects  can 
only  be  explained  by  a  sort  of  logical  or  intentional  projection :  by 
the  fact  that  from  the  outset  we  take  them  only  as  signs,  and  ignore 
their  existence  in  any  other  character — just  as  the  practised  reader 
never  once  thinks  of  the  letters. 

The  physiologists  seem  to  me  to  have  been  entirely  in  the  right. 
Their  conception  needs  only  to  be  taken  in  its  true  logical  sense, 
to  furnish  the  key  to  the  nature  of  awareness. 

2.  Modern  psychologists  have,  I  think,  largely  given  up  belief  in  a 
"third  conscious  element,"  and  explain  will  as  a  complex  of  feelings 
and  sensations,  with  or  without  anticipatory  ideas.     The  older  psy- 
chology of  course  recognized,  side  by  side  with  cognitions  and  affec- 
tions, a  class  of  conations,  the  essence  of  which  was  a  conscious  exer- 
cise of  power.     We  now  know  (a)  that  there  are  no  such  things  as 
"feelings  of  innervation,"  accompanying  the  outgoing  nerve-current; 
(6)  that  all  psychic  states  are  dynamic,  or  tend  to  produce  motor 
effects,  in  like  degree,  and  that  our  feeling  of  our  own  activity,  so  far 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         601 

as  it  is  something  over  and  above  this  motor  tendency,  is  due  to 
sensations  from  muscles,  joints,  etc.,  apprizing  us  that  the  motor 
effects  have  already  been  produced. 

Now  will,  in  the  older  conception  of  it,  was  one  of  the  two  in- 
stances of  the  mind's  power  of  self -transcendence,  the  other  being 
cognition;  and  the  modern  theory  of  will  amounts  to  the  denial  of 
any  such  self-transcendence  as  a  psychological  fact.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  the  one  instance  of  psychological  self-transcendence 
remaining  should  meet  with  a  similar  explanation.  Projectionism 
and  the  modern  theory  of  will  agree  in  principle,  and  stand  or  fall 
together. 

3.  Another  modern  theory  to  which  our  hypothesis  stands  in  close 
relation  is  the  "James-Lange"  theory  of  emotion.  A  little  reflection 
will  show  that  protectionism  is  simply  the  application  of  the  essential 
principle  of  this  theory  to  cognition.  For  there  are  bodily  effects 
characteristic  of  cognition,  just  as  much  as  of  emotion :  e.  g.,  incipient 
discharges  into  the  muscles  expressing  the  motor  tendency  of  the 
state  in  question,  continued  accommodation  of  the  sense-organs  for 
attending  properly,  etc.  These  effects  give  rise  by  "return  wave" 
to  sensations,  which  communicate  to  the  cognitive  state  its  special 
coloring.  Hence,  just  as  James  could  say,  by  an  excusable  hyper- 
bole, "We  are  angry  because  we  clench  our  fists,  we  are  ashamed 
because  we  blush,"  so  the  projectionist  may  maintain  that  we  cog- 
nize because  we  attend  and  react. 

Consider  a  cat,  intent  upon  a  mouse-hole  from  which  certain 
exciting  noises  have  come.  Must  we  conceive  that  the  cat's  psyche, 
so  far  as  expectant  of  the  mouse,  is  endowed  with  a  miraculous  power 
of  self-transcendence,  not  reducible  to  images  or  feelings,  and  not 
explicable  by  evolution?  Is  it  not  simpler  to  say  that,  when  a  cer- 
tain image  evokes  movements  of  crouching  and  watching  with  the 
accompanying  feelings,  the  cat  ipso  facto  is  aware ;  in  short,  that  she 
expects  the  mouse  because  she  crouches  and  waits  for  it? 

Like  emotion,  cognition  has  its  origin  in  instinct.  An  instinctive 
act  differs  from  a  merely  reflex  one  in  that  it  involves  the  interven- 
tion of  consciousness,  i.  e.,  of  psychic  states;  for  instance,  the  bird 
must  have  certain  feelings  and  see  certain  objects  in  order  to  be 
prompted  to  build  her  nest,  the  chick  must  see  on  the  ground  a  grain- 
like  object  in  order  to  be  prompted  to  peck  at  it,  etc.  Many  such 
activities  take  place  with  entire  perfection  at  birth.  This  must  mean 
that  ready-made  nerve-connections  pass  from  the  visual  centres  to  the 
motor  tracts,  so  that  on  the  very  first  occasion  on  which  the  object  is 
seen  it  produces,  not  a  mere  sensation,  but  a  perception.  A  sensa- 
tion which  automatically  incites  a  reaction  to  the  object  that  called  it 


602  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

forth,  in  such  wise  that  there  is  a  virtual  judgment  of  the  object's 
presence,  is  a  perception. 

In  mature  beings  often  no  actual  reaction  is  evoked,  yet  we 
can  not  doubt  that  there  has  been  a  perception.  This  may  be 
because  the  act  was  inhibited  by  other  instinctive  stimuli  oper- 
ating at  the  same  moment.  It  would  be  wrong,  obviously,  to  make 
an  actual  reaction  necessary  to  a  cognition.  What  is  necessary  is 
rather  that  the  nerve-connections  should  exist  in  virtue  of  which  the 
reaction  is  possible.  And,  just  as  we  must  thus  exclude  the  efferent 
causal  relations  so  far  as  signifying  any  actual  occurrence,  so  we 
must  exclude  the  afferent  ones  considered  as  actual  facts  (though 
both  are  throughout  implied,  i.  e.,  as  existing  in  some  cases) :  what 
makes  the  image  cognitive  is  neither  the  fact  that  it  has  been  called 
forth  by  the  object,  nor  the  fact  that  it  enables  us  to  react  to  the 
object ;  but  the  fact  that,  standing  at  the  point  in  the  world  where  it 
does,  and  being  what  it  is,  it  is  the  fit  instrument  for  guiding  our 
adjustments  to  the  object — because  it  is  the  sign  within  our  minds  of 
what  the  object  is.  And,  when  I  add  that  it  really  serves  as  such  a 
sign,  that  through  it  our  minds  are  so  directed  upon  the  object  as 
never  once  to  think  of  the  sign  itself,  this  is  only  another  way  of  say- 
ing that  the  image  does  really  bring  the  object  before  us. 

Let  those  who  are  tempted  to  believe  in  a  psychological  self- 
transcendence  make  clear  to  themselves  that  the  image  functions  in 
all  ways  <w  if  it  were  aware :  and  then  ask  themselves  whether  such 
functioning-as-if  does  not  make  their  own  hypothesis  idle. 

In  the  foregoing  we  have  considered  projectionism  only  in  its 
application  to  sense-perception.  I  have  not  room  to  explain  how 
it  would  apply  to  other  forms  of  presentation,  such  as  memory, 
thought,  etc.,  but  must  content  myself  with  suggesting  that  the 
application  could  be  made. 

In  conclusion,  the  reader  may  be  put  on  his  guard  against  two 
misconceptions. 

1.  Though  I  explain  awareness  by  the  practical  function  of  the 
image,  I  do  not  regard  it  as  consisting  in  that  practical  function. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  that  no  actual  reaction  need  take  place,  and 
that  all  that  is  necessary  is  that  the  image  should  be  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  to  make  the  right  reaction  possible.    Projectionism  does  not, 
then,  resolve  awareness  into  action,  but  only  into  a  peculiar  relation 
between  existences  which  is  the  condition  of  action. 

2.  If  any  one  chooses  to  say  that  this  relation  between  existences 
is  not  itself  awareness,  and  that  the  only  thing  that  deserves  that 
name  is  the  logical  self-transcendence  which  is  thereby  made  possible 
— in  a  word,  the  fact  of  appearance,  as  such — I  have  no  objection 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         603 

to  this  terminology.  Only  the  critic  may  be  reminded  that  the 
appearance  is  of  the  extra-bodily  object  to  the  intra-bodily  subject, 
and  so  itself  a  relation  between  existences,  even  if  not  an  existential 
relation. 

C.  A.  STRONG. 
PARIS,  FRANCE. 

DISCUSSION 

MR.  MUSCIO'S  CRITICISM  OF  MISS  CALKINS 'S  REPLY 
TO  THE  REALIST 

I  HAVE  just  read  with  great  interest  Mr.  Muscio  's  able  and  clearly 
written  criticism1  on  my  paper,  "The  Idealist  to  the  Real- 
ist. '  '2  Muscio 's  statement,  mainly  in  my  own  words,  of  my  argument 
may  be  summarized  as  follows : ' '  What  is  asserted  is  that  the  '  idealist 
discovers  by  examination  of  objects — he  does  not  (as  the  realist  ac- 
cuses) assume — that  both  sense  qualities  and  relations  are  mental.' 
Hence  the  question  arises :  What  does  Miss  Calkins  mean  by  '  men- 
tal '  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  is  best  seen  from  the  treatment  of 
sensible  qualities.  .  .  .The  'idealist'  we  are  told,  'rests  his  case 
...  on  the  results  of  direct  observation  coupled  with  the  inability  of 
any  observer  to  make  an  unchallengeable  assertion  about  sense  quali- 
ties save  in  the  terms  of  idealism.  To  be  more  explicit :  The  idealist 
demands  that  his  opponent  describe  any  immediately  perceived  sense 
object  in  such  wise  that  his  description  can  not  be  disputed.  The 
realist  describes  an  object  as,  let  us  say,  yellow,  rough,  and  cold.  But 
somebody  may  deny  the  yellowness,  the  roughness,  or  the  coldness; 
and  this  throws  the  realist  back  on  what  he  directly  observes,  what  he 
knows  with  incontrovertible  and  undeniable  certainty,  namely,  that 
he  is  at  this  moment  having  a  complex  experience  described  by  the 
terms  yellowness,  coldness,  and  the  like  (an  experience  which  he  does 
not  give  himself).  This  statement,  and  only  this,  nobody  can  chal- 
lenge.'" 

Mr.  Muscio 's  criticisms  are  two : 

I.  It  is  impossible  to  "describe"  sense  qualities  for  they  are  ele- 
mental, incommunicable  (p.  324). 

II.  Miss  Calkins  uses  the  term  "mental"  ambiguously,  meaning 
by  mental  sometimes  (1)  the  "incommunicable"  (p.  324),  sometimes 
(2)  "that  which  is  like  me"  (p.  325).    Now,  the  .sense-quality  is  in 
truth   (1)   incommunicable,  but  is  not  on  this  account  "mental." 

1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  pages  321-327. 

2  Ibid.,  VIII.,  pages  449-458.     In  the  passage  which  follows,  the  sentences 
in  single  quotation  marks  are  from  this  paper. 


604  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

And  (2)  in  the  second  and  admissible  sense  of  mental,  yellow  is  not 
mental,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  true  that  yellow  "thinks,  feels,  wills, 
acts"  as  I  do  (p.  325). 

Upon  these  criticisms  I  have  the  following  comment  to  make: 
I  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Muscio  that  it  is  impossible  to  describe  a 
sense-element.  But  the  quotation  from  my  paper  makes  it  clear  that 
I  apply  the  term  "describe"  to  the  sense-oft ject,  or  sense-complex, 
not  to  the  sense-quality.  I  speak  of  making  assertions  about  qualities 
and  of  "describing"  objects,  or  things,  by  enumeration  of  their 
qualities  Mr.  Muscio 's  criticism  is  here  based  on  a  misreading  of  my 
statement.  But  this  is  a  minor  point  and  need  not  detain  us. 

Far  more  important  is  Mr.  Muscio 's  distinction  between  (1) 
"mental"  in  the  sense  in  which  yellow  may  be  called  mental  and  (2) 
"mental"  meaning  "like  me" — a  difference  which,  as  he  rightly 
notes,  my  paper,  "The  Idealist  to  the  Realist,"  ignores.  My  reason 
for  leaving  so  important  a  distinction  out  of  account  was  the  fact 
that  I  was  strictly  limited  to  fifteen  minutes  in  the  delivery  of  the 
paper,  and  that  it  overran  its  predestined  bounds  in  its  published 
form.  I  offer  this,  however,  as  explanation,  not  as  excuse,  for  Mr. 
Muscio 's  criticism  more  than  half  inclines  me  to  believe  that  I  might 
better  have  withheld  a  partial  statement  of  my  view.  The  present 
brief  discussion  is  mainly  an  attempt  to  make  good  the  former 
omission. 

I  agree  with  Mr.  Muscio  in  the  belief  that  the  basal  meaning  of 
"mental"  is  "like  me."  To  be  mental  is,  ultimately,  to  be  a  self. 
The  form  of  idealism  which  I  uphold  is,  in  other  words,  personal 
idealism, — the  doctrine  that  the  universe  is  constituted  by  inter- 
related selves,  not  phenomenalistic  idealism,  the  Humian  doctrine  that 
things  and  selves  alike  are  resolvable  into  series  of  mental  "con- 
tents," impressions,  and  ideas.  In  what  sense  then  can  I  call 
"yellow"  mental,  since  (as  my  critic  rightly  insists)  yellow  does  not, 
like  a  self,  "think"  or  "feel."  I  answer:  yellow  is  mental  in  the 
subordinate  sense  of  being  an  "aspect"  or  "partial  experience" 
of  a  self.  The  only  unchallengeable  assertion  about  yellow  is  that 
it  is  a  way  in  which  I,  a  self,  am  conscious.  Mr.  Muscio  accordingly 
mutilates  reality  when  he  says  that  yellow  is  mental  only  in  the 
sense  of  being  incommunicable.  For  yellow  is  not  merely  incommuni- 
cable :  it  is  the  incommunicable  experience  of  a  self.  The  conception 
is  in  truth  through  and  through  personal:  the  "communicated"  is 
experience  shared  with  and  by  a  self,  and  the  "  uncommunicated "  is 
that  experience  which  a  self  does  not  share. 

To  summarize  this  reply  to  Mr.  Muscio :  I  agree  with  him  that  the 
term  "mental"  is  used  in  two  senses  in  my  paper,  and  (2)  that  a 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         605 

sense  quality  is  not  mental  in  the  sense  of  being  a  self.  But  I  insist 
that  a  sense  quality  is  mental,  or  ideal,  in  a  genuinely  idealistic  sense, 
that  is,  as  aspect  or  "content"  of  a  self.  Thus  "yellow"  is  a  certain 
experience  which  a  self  has  (or  which  selves  have)  ;  just  as  any  rela- 
tion (whether  knowledge,  or  dependence,  or  influence)  ultimately  is  a 
self-in-its-relating, — a  self  as  knowing,  depending,  or  acting.  And 
again  I  ask  Mr.  Muscio  and  the  other  critics  of  idealism  to  make  any 
other  unchallengeable  assertions  about  sense-qualities. 

I  realize  that  the  "unchallengeableness"  of  these  statements  will 
not  give  pause  to  those  neo-realists  who  regard  the  indisputableness  of 
an  assertion  as  a  possibly  insignificant  character  of  it.3  This  indiffer- 
ence to  a  self-evident  truth  is  perhaps  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that 
the  neo-realists,  adhering  as  they  do  to  the  philosophy  of  ' '  primordial 
common  sense"  (excepting  only  in  their  highly  uncommon  explana- 
tions of  illusion),  enter  on  the  business  of  philosophy  with  a  very  re- 
spectable stock  in  trade  of  unchallenged  (not  of  unchallengeable!) 
assumptions.  But  thinkers  who  have  divested  themselves  of  this 
hereditary  capital  and  who  have  to  make  their  way  in  the  world  of 
speculation  without  such  helpful  presuppositions  as  the  "knower"4 
and  the  "known  world,"  with  its  "evident  composition,"4  can  not 
afford  to  throw  away  even  insignificant  certainties.  They  hold  that 
however  unimportant  the  unchallengeable  in  itself,  the  character  of 
being  unchallengeable  is  of  utmost  significance  in  the  philosophi- 
cal search  for  truth. 

Of  course,  my  argument  in  its  present  form  has  led  only  to  a 
solipsistic  type  of  personal  idealism.  The  first  stage  of  the  argument 
against  non-idealism  does,  in  truth,  lead  to  a  temporarily  solipsistic 
conclusion.  The  way  out  of  solipsism,  through  a  recognition  of  the 
implication  of  the  passivity  and  receptiveness  of  my  experience,  I 
have  indicated  briefly  in  the  article  under  discussion  and  more  at 
length  elsewhere.5 

Mr.  Muscio  concludes  his  very  temperately  written  article  with 
the  rather  extravagant  observation  that  "the  hypothesis  that  the 
objects  of  knowledge  are  mental  will  have  to  find  some  definite, 
relevant,  and  logical  support  if  it  is  to  be  more  than  a  mere  forgotten 
fantasy. ' '  The  remark  is  the  more  surprising  in  that  Mr.  Muscio  has 
just  admitted  that  it  "is  doubtless  true  that  'realistic'  writers  have 
little  positive  doctrine."  He  defends  the  realist,  however,  as  a 
"clearer  away  of  much  rubbish."  Waiving  the  question  whether  or 
not  the  realist  has  yet,  as  a  fact,  cleared  away  the  "rubbish"  of 

•C/.  "The  New  Kealism,"  1912,  pages  19-20. 

« Ibid.,  pages  34-35. 

8 "The  Persistent  Problems  of  Philosophy,"  passim.     Cf.  p.  411. 


<,or,  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

idealism,  I  am  loath  to  agree  with  Mr.  Muscio's  implication  that 
demolishment  is  all  that  may  be  demanded  of  philosophical  thinkers.. 

MARY  WHITON  CALKINS. 
WKLLESLXT  COLLEGE. 

REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

The  Treatment  of  Personality  by  Locke,  Berkeley  and  Hume:  A  Study  in 
the  Interests  of  Ethical  Theory  of  an  Aspect  of  the  Dialectic  of  English 
Empiricisms.  JAY  WILLIAM  HUDSON.  University  of  Missouri  Studies. 
Philosophy  and  Education  Series.  Vol.  I.,  No.  1. 
Consideration  of  fundamental  ethical  conceptions  leads  Professor 
Hudson  to  look  upon  them  as  essentially  predicates  of  personality.  Used 
abstractly  such  terms  lose  their  significance.  Witness  the  many  argu- 
ments concerning  freedom.  The  true  question  at  issue,  it  should  always 
be  borne  in  mind,  is  that  of  the  free  person.  This  personal  reference 
of  ethical  conceptions  points  to  the  view  that  the  logically  validating 
ground  of  all  such  terms  is  to  be  found  in  a  finally  self-sustaining  doc- 
trine of  the  person.  That  is  to  say,  ethics  presupposes  the  reality  of 
the  ethical  person.  The  true  question  that  the  moralist  must  answer, 
stated  in  terms  reminiscent  of  Kant,  is,  How  is  the  ethical  person  possible  ? 
Owing  to  the  interdependence  of  all  ethical  conceptions,  Professor  Hudson 
feels  justified  in  looking  at  the  subject  from  a  restricted  aspect.  What 
is  the  nature  of  a  free  person?  If  we  go  no  further  than  the  domain  of 
natural  science,  no  such  person  can  exist ;  science  denies  autonomy  to 
persons.  But  Kant,  so  we  are  reminded  with  interesting  conviction,  has 
demonstrated  that  science  itself  presupposes  the  a  priori  knoiver.  What- 
ever else  may  be  said  of  an  ethical  person,  he  is  essentially  the  a  priori 
knower.  The  prime  object  of  this  study  is  to  show  that  any  attempt  to 
establish  any  other  theory  of  personality  ends  in  self-refutation.  The 
particular  attempt  considered  is  English  empiricism.  To  let  the  author 
speak  for  himself: 

"  To  summarize  in  one  sentence,  our  threefold  task  is :  to  present  the 
treatment  of  personality  by  Locke,  Berkeley  and  Hume,  especially  with 
reference  to  the  place  of  the  a  priori  in  that  treatment,  with  the  sub- 
sidiary aim  of  showing  by  a  sort  of  illustrative  dialectic,  in  each  case  and 
together,  the  necessity  of  the  a  priori  for  any  personality  such  as  they 
tried  to  guarantee,  and  such  as  is  adequate  for  ethics.  Thus  our  aim  is 
plainly  a  restricted  one.  The  working  out  of  a  total  ethics  or  metaphysics 
is  the  least  of  the  intention.  The  most  that  can  be  essayed  is  to  indicate 
one  logical  condition  which  such  a  total  view  must  observe — the  logical 
condition  of  rational  self -activity,  in  the  sense  of  a  priori  cognition." 

While  Locke  is  interested  primarily  in  the  limitation  of  human  knowl- 
edge, he  has  much  to  say  in  regard  to  personality.  He  is  intuitively  cer- 
tain of  his  own  existence,  but  this  certainty  is  not  for  him  what  it  was 
for  Descartes,  a  logical  first  principle.  Though  the  implication  of  his 
treatment  may  not  always  uphold  it,  the  essay  is  pervaded  with  dualistic 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         607 

presuppositions  from  beginning  to  end;  experience  seems  to  uphold  the 
existence  of  both  mind  and  body.  Thought,  however,  is  not  a  substance; 
it  "  inheres  "  in  spiritual  substance.  The  real  nature  of  the  soul  is  not, 
for  Locke,  such  an  important  consideration,  which  leads  Professor  Hud- 
son to  suspect  that  he  did  not  truly  understand  the  task  that  he  had  in 
hand.  Thinking  and  willing  are  peculiar  to  the  soul ;  existence,  duration, 
and  motion  are  shared  with  matter.  Identity  of  the  self  is  needful  to 
guarantee  accountability,  but  this  is  not  necessarily  identity  of  substance; 
it  is  rather  a  continued  consciousness  distinct  from  substance.  This  has 
the  advantage  of  taking  accountability  out  of  the  uncertain  field  of  meta- 
physics, and  after  all  it  is  the  conscious  person  that  is  accountable. 
Locke's  treatment  of  freedom  is  viewed  as  quite  inadequate,  though  there 
are  now  and  then  hints  at  a  true  view  of  the  subject.  The  person  is  not 
autonomous,  but  the  will  is  determined  by  "  uneasiness." 

Locke  is  not  always  consistent ;  in  his  works  are  "  found  the  hints  of 
many  schools."  It  is  an  open  question  what  his  denial  of  innate  ideas 
means.  Bent  upon  giving  experience  its  place  in  his  text,  he  is  blinded 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  stating  only  a  partial  truth.  He  loses  sight  of  the 
a  priori  in  cognition.  Such  seems  to  be  the  explanation  of  what  he  did. 
But  even  so,  an  examination  of  what  he  wrote  will  show  that  he  made 
definite  assumptions  that  committed  him  to  the  a  priori  in  cognition,  had 
he  followed  these  assumptions  out  logically.  Locke's  "  active  "  mind,  not 
always  admitted  by  students  of  his ;  the  use  of  such  expressions  as  "  opera- 
tions," "  innate  faculties,"  "  innate  powers  " ;  the  resting  of  all  knowledge 
on  "  self-evident  propositions,"  and  other  items,  not  unknown  to  those 
who  defend  the  view  that  Locke  was  a  mentalist,  all  go  to  show  that  by 
the  denial  of  innate  ideas  Locke  does  not  mean  just  what  is  often 
thought,  and  that  he  makes  place  for  intellectual  necessity  in  his  theory 
of  knowledge.  Witness,  too,  what  he  has  to  say  of  complex  ideas  and  rela- 
tions, and  his  assumption  of  the  causal  principle.  And  yet  when  brought 
squarely  face  to  face  with  such  questions  as  the  nature  of  perception, 
judgment,  and  consequently  of  the  a  priori  in  cognition,  regarding  them 
as  beyond  the  ken  of  man,  he  uniformly  refuses  to  inquire  into  their 
nature.  He  could  not  have  done  so  intelligently.  So,  too,  he  has  no  con- 
ception of  eternalism.  Eternity  is  merely  a  mode  of  duration  along  with 
hours  and  days.  The  supra-temporal  has  no  meaning  for  him.  Even  God 
is  in  time.  This  follows  from  his  failure  to  apprehend  what  it.  means  to 
be  a  rational,  self-active  person,  which  in  turn  follows  from  his  incon- 
sistent position  upon  the  question  of  innate  ideas. 

Yet  Locke  had  a  practical  hold  upon  ethics.  He  was  not  blind  to  the 
inconsistency  between  creationism  and  genuine  human  freedom.  Man 
must  be  free  if  possible  under  God,  "  though  he  saw  not  the  way  of  it." 
He  believed  in  the  meaning  and  worth  of  persons  more  deeply  than  the 
limits  of  his  philosophy  will  allow.  He  had  faith  in  a  rational  universe; 
practical  certainty  was  sufficient  for  our  limited  faculties.  This  is  not 
surprising  when  we  remember  the  limits  that  he  set  to  his  own  inquiry. 
His  function  was  to  tell  us  what  to  know,  not  why;  this  was  left  to  Kant. 

Berkeley,  the  logical  heir  of  Locke,  rises  above  his  master's  difficulties 


<i<»s  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

with  substance  by  means  of  well-known  arguments,  declaring  that  the 
esse  of  all  things,  save  mind,  is  percipi.  Minds,  or  spirits,  are  simple, 
undivided,  active,  thinking,  and  willing  beings;  they  exist  in  time,  but  are 
not  mobile  as  with  Locke.  The  ordered  world  of  experience  is  not  due  to 
these,  but  to  God.  For  this  reason  it  is  but  natural  that  Professor  Hud- 
son should  find  fault  with  his  treatment  of  freedom.  Personal  identity 
is  a  continuous  consciousness,  as  with  Locke,  but  it  is  more  than  this, 
it  is  substantial.  While  Berkeley's  achievements  as  an  idealist,  in  so  far 
as  he  eliminated  matter,  had  great  promise  and  really  marked  an  advance 
in  the  direction  of  true  idealism,  on  the  whole  the  results  fall  short  of 
what  one  has  a  right  to  expect.  Indeed  he  is  more  of  an  empiricist  than 
Locke.  He  nowhere  faces  the  question  of  the  a  priori  in  cognition.  His 
minds  are  not  constitutive  of  reality;  this  being  so,  he  can  afford  no  guar- 
antee for  ethical  personality.  His  conception  of  the  person  is  inadequate. 
His  refuge  should  have  been  rational  self-activity,  implications  of  which 
are  found  throughout  his  works.  He  did  not  understand  as  did  Locke 
that  creationism  is  inconsistent  with  ethics.  Had  he  proved  his  God,  it 
would  have  been  at  the  expense  of  his  persons.  Still  we  have  made  prog- 
ress in  Berkeley;  idealism  has  been  born  in  the  land  of  a  stranger.  The 
doctrine  must  be  transferred  from  these  empiristic  surroundings  if  it  is  to 
survive.  The  need  of  this  step  is  made  quite  evident  by  another  British 
writer,  Hume. 

The  center  and  import  of  the  work  of  Hume  is  essentially  a  critique 
of  personality  rather  than  of  causality,  as  has  been  taught  heretofore; 
this  is  his  great  contribution  to  thought.  As  substance  is  neither  idea 
nor  impression,  the  conception  is  meaningless.  That  inference  of  the 
mind,  known  as  the  self,  in  so  far  as  considered  continuous,  exists  by  a 
trick  of  the  mind,  only  in  our  imagination.  Morals  are  merely  mores. 
But  does  not  experience  presuppose  a  self?  This  is  adequate  excuse  for 
Hume  to  plead  the  right  to  be  a  skeptic,  for  he  could  not  see  that  this 
constituted  a  dialectical  refutation  of  empiricism,  his  greatest  service  to 
thought.  Berkeley  was  not  qualified  to  judge  where  Locke's  premises 
led,  except  with  respect  to  substance,  just  as  Locke  did  not  know  that 
the  real  hidden  name  for  limited  knowledge  was  nescience.  Hume  made 
all  clear.  But  while  doing  this,  he  could  not  know  that  the  self-refuting 
experience  was  calling  out  for  something  more  than  a  mere  self;  he  did 
not  know  that  the  demand  was  for  the  a  priori  cognizing  self.  Light  broke 
upon  the  world  of  thought  in  the  immortal  Kant.  Then  it  was  that 
Hume's  "  customary  "  coherence  was  supplanted  by  "  intellectual  "  coher- 
ence; combination  supersedes  mere  addition,  and  experience  comes  to 
have  an  interpretable  meaning. 

The  results  of  his  study  are  gratifying  to  Professor  Hudson.  The 
efforts  on  the  part  of  English  writers  to  vindicate  the  spirit  must  never 
be  regarded  as  futile.  Aside  from  Locke's  emphasis  upon  certitude  and 
Berkeley's  discovery  of  the  real  as  spirits  and  their  ideas,  both  of  which 
Professor  Hudson  regards  as  steps  in  the  right  direction,  the  grand  result 
may  be  easily  summed  up.  "  A  self -refuting  empiricism  "  can  neither 
guarantee  nor  refute  the  self.  "  Deeply  seen — the  whole  progress  from 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         609 

Locke  to  Hume  is  the  progress  in  empiricism's  self-dissolution  " — at  least 
so  far  as  the  interests  of  personality  is  concerned.  But  this  was  neces- 
sary; only  upon  such  dissolution  could  Kant  build. 

The  last  chapter  of  Professor  Hudson's  study  is  devoted  to  "  sugges- 
tions for  reconstruction."  While  he  is  unwilling  in  the  present  study 
"  to  attempt  such  a  metaphysical  superstructure  as  would  give  a  complete 
doctrine  of  ethical  personality  upon  the  logical  foundation  dialectically 
revealed  to  be  necessary,"  he  can  not  "  refrain  from  appending  a  few 
remarks  announcing  the  general  outlines."  His  idealism  is  unique  enough 
to  call  for  an  epitome. 

"  That  the  person  knows  a  priori,  and  what  the  person  supremely 
knows  purely  as  such  an  a  priori  knower — these  are  to  give  us  the  vindi- 
cation, the  only  vindication  there  is,  of  an  ethical  world."  There  is  no 
freedom  in  the  world  of  efficient  causation.  The  a  priori  knower,  how- 
ever, as  the  source  of  necessity  in  nature,  can  not  be  determined  by  it. 
The  freedom  thus  guaranteed  is  not  negative,  but  is  the  positive,  active 
legislation  of  the  self  over  its  own  world.  The  self  is  not  a  process,  but 
the  source  of  processes;  uncreated,  supra-temporal,  eternal,  free.  Such  a 
person  can  know  and  form  necessary  judgments  otherwise  impossible. 
Without  such  a  priori  support  for  knowledge,  even  a  rational  world  could 
not  be  fathomed,  and  there  would  be  no  basis  for  moral  responsibility. 
The  known  moral  ideal  of  the  rational  person  must  arise  out  of  his 
rational  nature  as  such.  The  fact  that  he  knows  it  means  that  he  knows 
it  as  his  own  creation ;  its  "  ought "  is  autonomous.  Such  an  ideal  is 
within  demands;  that  it  is  recognizable  witnesses  to  this.  The  freedom 
of  a  rational  person  precludes  monism,  whether  spiritual  or  material — 
self-activity  must  not  be  lost  in  its  ground.  Thinking  is  the  one  self -sus- 
taining thing  in  the  universe  and  as  ultimately  real  "  is  a  priori  in  the 
deepest  sense  of  that  term,"  furnishing  the  "  conditions  not  only  of  all 
knowing,  but  of  all  that  can  be  known."  I  am  such  a  self -active  thinking, 
but  only  in  so  far  as  I  recognize  other  persons ;  I  think  identity  in  terms 
of  difference.  The  "  I "  thinks  itself  in  terms  of  uon-this-ego,  and  not 
in  terms  of  utter  non-ego.  That  I  think  myself,  know  myself,  only  in 
terms  of  others  is  just  what  I,  as  an  a  priori  knower,  know.  This  judg- 
ment is  at  the  basis  of  all  knowledge  and  is  "  the  basal  import  of  all 
logical  judgment  as  such."  The  position  here  outlined  calls  for  a  state- 
ment of  the  relation  of  the  ego  to  the  categories,  which  really  involves  a 
new  proof  of  the  categories,  but  Professor  Hudson  foregoes  such  an 
undertaking  at  this  time.  A  person  may  be  defined  as  "  a  self-active, 
self -defining,  and  so  self -differentiating  intelligence."  The  genus  of  self- 
definition  is  self-active  rationality;  the  difference  is  precisely  the  differ- 
ence in  approximation  toward  complete  rationality,  the  perfect  of  which 
there  can  be  but  one.  For  one  to  define  himself  and  thus  freely  be  him- 
self "  is  to  recognize  others  as  equally  real,  and  freely  to  define  a  perfect 
self,  an  Ideal,  as  the  mandatory  goal  of  all  changing  experience;  this  in 
truth  is  the  creation  of  a  self,  which  a  priori,  constitutes  and  thus  con- 
trols his  own  experience."  Thus  values  are  introduced  into  the  world 


610  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  the  world  becomes  a  world  of  progress.  The  supreme  cause  becomes 
the  final  cause,  the  "  moral  ideal."  Thus  we,  in  our  search  for  a  free 
person,  have  come  upon  the  ethical  person  that  demands  and  guarantees 
not  only  freedom,  but  all  ethical  conceptions — we  have  come  upon  the 
Ideal  Person,  a  world  of  obliged  persons,  a  world  of  values  expressed  in 
terms  of  right  and  wrong.  But  this  has  not  given  us  a  multi-verse,  but 
a  universe  made  one  by  final,  not  by  efficient,  causation. 
Epistemology  has  led  us  into  the  very  heart  of  ethics. 

JOHN  PICKETT  TURNER. 
COLLEGE  or  THE  CITY  or  NEW  YOEK. 

An  Outline  of  Individual  Study.     DR.  E.  E.  PARTRIDGE.     New  York: 

Sturges  and  Walton.     1910. 

Dr.  Partridge's  work  on  "  Individual  Study  "  is  taking  a  well-deserved 
place  in  the  hands  of  teachers  of  child  study.  The  work  opens  with  an 
inspirational  as  well  as  a  scientific  discussion  of  theories  underlying  the 
study  of  individual  characters  and  of  the  history  of  the  movement  which 
has  steadily  progressed  from  child  study  to  a  study  of  the  child.  In  the 
words  of  the  author  the  book  is  "  intended  to  serve  a  practical  and  intro- 
ductory rather  than  a  scientific  purpose,"  to  serve  rather  as  "  a  first  guide 
in  the  study  of  individuals."  The  nature  of  individuality  and  the  scien- 
tific study  of  it  are  secondary  to  the  more  practical  purpose  of  enabling 
the  student  to  "  observe  individuals  more  intelligently  and  systematically, 
and  thus  be  better  able  to  understand  and  serve  them."  The  material  of 
the  book  comprises  what  the  author  has  repeatedly  given  in  normal  school 
classes  with  the  growing  conviction  that  "  some  such  work  is  the  best 
psychology  and  pedagogy  for  these  classes."  The  charge  is  made  that 
"  most  so-called  general  psychology,  even  the  most  elementary,  fails  to 
affect  the  practical  life  of  the  teacher."  The  author's  experience  convinces 
him  that  it  is  "better  to  lead  to  psychology  from  practical  questions  that 
arise  in  actual  teaching  or  observing  children  than  to  try  to  apply  psy- 
chology in  advance  to  the  work  of  teaching."  This  is  the  "  case  method  " 
which  has  been  found  so  efficient  in  the  training  of  physicians  and  law- 
yers. Dr.  Partridge  would  apply  the  same  theory  in  the  training  of 
teachers.  The  only  general  psychology  recommended  to  precede  this 
study  of  individuals  is  genetic  psychology  with  a  view  to  giving  the 
teacher-to-be  the  proper  point  of  view. 

Individuality  is  identified  with  the  general  problem  of  biological 
variability.  It  is  recognized,  however,  that  the  individual  is  more  than  a 
collection  of  variables,  that  he  is  "  a  unique  whole,  in  which  the  parts  are 
balanced  in  just  such  a  way  as  to  make  this  particular  individual."  Two 
people  might  appear  identical  in  analysis  and  very  unlike  when  appreci- 
ated as  wholes,  or  two  who  were  similar  in  general  appearance  might  ap- 
pear quite  dissimilar  in  the  cold  analysis  of  facts.  There  are  mental 
traits  and  physical  traits  and  another  group  which  arises  from  the  fact 
that  an  individual  may  be  regarded  as  a  series  of  events,  "  some  of  which 
seem  to  be  mysterious  dispensations  of  providence,  or  the  result  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         611 

fortuitous  combinations  of  circumstances."  It  thus  appears  that  the 
study  of  individuality  involves  problems  of  variation,  of  psychology,  of 
ethics,  of  sociology,  and  of  other  hereditary  and  environmental  influences. 
It  is  to  supply  this  need  for  a  "better  knowledge  of  individuals  and  bet- 
ter methods  of  studying  them  "  that  this  book  is  written.  Part  I.  is  de- 
voted to  a  consideration  of  the  sciences  on  which  individuality  is  based 
and  the  "  attitude  of  mind  one  must  take  in  considering  how  and  why 
people  differ  from  each  other." 

Part  II.  gives  practical  directions  for  the  study  of  individuals.  The 
best  types  for  practise  study  of  individuality  in  children  are  found  be- 
tween the  ages  of  eight  and  twelve,  and  fifty  children,  occupied  in  some- 
what similar  school  work,  is  a  sufficiently  large  group  to  begin  with.  To 
be  sure,  it  is  pointed  out  that  much  larger  numbers  must  be  considered 
before  generalized  conclusions  can  be  drawn,  and  that  the  "practical 
limitations  of  the  school "  will  preclude  definite  standards,  but  still  under 
these  conditions  an  application  of  the  simple  mathematical  methods  of 
Boaz,  Pearson,  and  Spearman  may  make  results  illuminating. 

Specific  directions  and  recommendations  are  given  for  determining 
individual  differences  in  health,  in  body-characteristics,  in  movements 
(both  observational  and  experimental),  in  such  mental  traits  as  emo- 
tional life,  instincts,  interest,  senses  and  perception,  memory  association, 
as  well  as  in  "free  activity  of  the  mind,"  and  in  purposive  thinking. 
This  constitutes  the  most  important  part  of  the  book.  It  presents  the 
best  tests  known  in  the  literature  with  additions  and  comments  by  the 
author.  Recommendations  are  concrete  and  in  many  cases  simplified  to 
suit  the  beginner.  The  effort  is  to  give  too  much  rather  than  too  little  de- 
tail. In  many  cases  tables  of  averages  are  copied  from  other  works  so  that 
the  book  serves  as  a  ready  handbook  and  the  student  without  an  efficient 
library  will  be  less  handicapped  than  usual. 

Part  III.  of  the  book  opens  with  a  detailed  account  of  the  individual 
differences  noticed  by  the  author  in  two  twin  boys  in  a  community  con- 
taining only  the  simplest  primitive  elements  of  social  life.  The  chil- 
dren had  never  been  separated  a  day  in  their  lives,  so  they  had  the  same 
environment,  in  the  gross  aspects  at  least,  as  well  as  similar  heredities. 
The  boys  were  so-called  identical  twins.  Neighbors  who  had  known 
them  all  their  lives  could  not  distinguish  them.  A  teacher  experi- 
enced difficulty  after  a  year's  association,  and  even  the  mother  was 
sometimes  confused.  Despite  these  similar  characters  it  is  remarkable 
how  the  system  of  tests  which  Dr.  Partridge  gives  in  Part  II.  of  this  book 
revealed  characteristic  differences  which  had  been  unsuspected  by  any  one 
before,  but  which  were  clearly  evident  when  they  were  pointed  out.  It 
even  appeared  that  the  faults  were  opposite,  calling  for  very  different 
treatment  in  correcting  them.  In  the  same  way  the  learning  processes 
showed  marked  differences,  necessitating  clear  distinctions  in  their  train- 
ing. These  more  subtle  differences  in  the  mental  type  were  concealed 
below  physical  masks  whose  differences  consisted  mainly  of  a  different 


612  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

distribution  of  freckles  on  the  nose  and  three  eighths  of  an  inch  differ- 
ence in  height. 

The  book  closes  with  a  classification  of  individuals  into  types  of 
normal,  precocious,  stupid,  and  morally  deficient.  Individual  characters, 
both  physiological  and  psychological,  also  combine  to  form  certain  mixed 
types,  showing  that  the  problem  of  determining  types  is  an  extremely 
complex  one  necessitating  the  detailed  schematization  elaborated  in  the 
main  body  of  the  book. 

The  Reviewer's  reaction  to  the  book  is  that  it  is  eminently  worth  while, 
particularly  when  the  course  of  study  is  somewhat  limited.  Where  the 
study  of  the  individual  is  outlined,  the  text  constitutes  the  entire  course 
in  child  study.  Where  psychology  and  child  study  are  given  as  prerequi- 
sites to  higher  study  it  would  seem  that  something  less  liable  to  become 
superficial  would  be  a  safer  requirement.  In  the  hands  of  the  teacher-in- 
service  the  book  is  invaluable.  The  reviewer  clearly  recalls  his  own  de- 
sire to  carry  on  systematic  child  study  when  in  public  school  work  and  his 
inability  to  find  specific  directions  for  definitizing  the  work.  Such  a  book 
as  Dr.  Partridge's  would  have  filled  a  need  keenly  felt  at  that  time.  The 
use  of  the  book  as  a  text  in  normal-school  classes  would  have  the  effect 
of  placing  it  as  a  handbook  for  teachers  in  service,  thus  encouraging  that 
systematic  study  of  child  nature  which  would  make  for  growth  of  the 
young  teacher  and  tend  to  neutralize  some  of  the  retardation  factors  in- 
herent in  the  profession. 

L.  W.  SACKETT. 
UNIVERSITY  or  TEXAS. 

The  Classical  Psychologists.  Compiled  by  BENJAMIN  RAND.  Boston: 
The  Houghton  Mifflin  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xii  +  726. 
This  is  a  companion  volume  in  the  field  of  psychology  to  Rand's  com- 
pilations of  "  The  Classical  Moralists "  and  the  "  Modern  Classical  Phi- 
losophers," and  consists  of  a  series  of  "original  texts  containing  funda- 
mental theories  of  the  classical  psychologists "  from  Anaxagoras  to 
Wundt.  Forty-three  men  are  represented:  fourteen  of  the  selections  are 
very  brief  (less  than  ten  pages  in  length),  and  only  three — Aristotle, 
James,  and  Wundt — receive  as  much  as  forty  pages  apiece.  Several  se- 
lections are  here  translated  into  English  for  the  first  time,  namely,  those 
from  Beneke,  Drobisch,  Maine  de  Biran,  Fechner,  Hering,  Stumpf, 
Lange,  and  the  shorter  selections  from  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Wolff,  Bonnet, 
Weber,  and  Helmholtz. 

"  The  study  of  psychology  as  pursued  to-day  in  several  important  di- 
visions might  suggest  the  desirability  of  a  work  of  recent  material  from 
these  various  domains.  An  historical  volume  of  the  character  of  this 
book  was,  however,  deemed  not  only  more  in  harmony  with  the  other 
works  of  the  author's  series,  but  also  as  much  more  necessary  for  the  use 
of  students  before  entering  upon  investigations  in  special  fields."  "  Such 
a  work,  it  is  hoped,  may  prove  adapted  for  colleges  and  universities  as  a 
text-book  of  reading  accompanying  courses  of  lectures  in  general  psy- 
chology"  (p.  v). 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         613 

The  choice  of  the  texts  has  evidently  been  made  with  competent  care 
and  is  probably  as  successful  as  could  be  expected  in  such  a  difficult  work 
of  selective  compilation.  The  limits  of  the  volume  have,  of  course,  made 
the  omission  of  some  important  authors  inevitable;  but,  to  notice  one 
among  the  moderns,  it  will  seem  strange  to  many  that  a  work  which  in- 
cludes the  selection  from  Stumpf  should  contain  nothing  whatever  from 
Freud. 

It  seems  improbable  that  this  volume  will  find  a  place  as  a  college  text- 
book, not  because  of  any  failure  to  select  its  contents  judiciously,  but 
because  college  courses  can  hardly  afford  to  give  so  much  time  to  the  his- 
torical side  of  psychology.  This  book  needs  ample  supplementary  mate- 
rial from  lectures ;  it  does  not  seem  adapted  to  be  read  in  connection  with 
a  course  of  lectures  in  general  psychology;  and  a  course  devoted  wholly 
to  the  history  of  psychology  is  impracticable  in  most  colleges,  however 
necessary  for  the  postgraduate  student. 

A  good  many  people,  who  find  no  resting-place  in  their  own  thinking 
on  philosophical  questions,  do  find  a  deep  interest  and  satisfaction  in  the 
definite  history  of  philosophy.  Similarly  a  good  many  have,  for  instance, 
some  acquaintance  with  a  structural  psychology  that  does  its  business 
with  fictitious  "  elements " ;  with  a  functional  psychology  that  can  not 
establish  any  efficacy  of  the  mental  upon  the  physical;  with  a  general 
animal  psychology  that  can  not  even  assign  any  sure  criterion  for  the 
presence  of  consciousness;  and  they  do  not  observe  that  professional  psy- 
chologists are  remarkably  efficient  masters  of  their  own  minds  or  of 
other  men's.  If  these  students  still  can  not  escape  the  fascination  of  the 
evident  problems  that  psychologists,  since  the  time  of  the  Greeks,  have 
attempted  to  solve,  such  a  book  as  Rand's  will  be  welcome  to  them.  But 
it  seems  that  the  limited  time  of  the  college  student  had  better  be  given  to 
present  methods  and  current  problems.  Rand's  book  will  be  valuable  in 
colleges  for  reference,  but  hardly  as  a  text. 

CHARLES  H.  TOLL. 
AMHEEST  COLLEGE. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.  July,  1912. 
Further  Experiments  on  the  Inhibition  of  Sensation  (pp.  345-369)  :  ED- 
MUND JACOBSON.  -  Odor  sensations  are  not  lessened  by  a  simultaneous  sound 
stimulation  either  in  the  ordinary  attentive  or  relaxed  attitudes.  By 
strong  concentration  on  the  sound  the  odor  sensation  suffered  some  in- 
hibition. This  increased  attention  consists  of  representative  and  other  proc- 
esses associated  with  it  and  are  called  "  adducent  processes."  Why  Kant  is 
Passing  (pp.  370-426)  :  G.  STANLEY  HALL.  -  Kantianism  is  an  antiquated 
system  of  philosophy  that  hinders  the  work  of  the  world  to-day.  Kant 
made  some  contributions  in  his  time,  but  is  cumbersome  and  practically 
useless  in  modern  thought,  because  scientific  facts  are  more  able  to  main- 
tain themselves.  Prolegomena  to  a  Study  of  Introspection  (pp.  427-148)  : 


614  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

E.  B.  TIT<  HIM  it.  -Introspection  is  an   important  means  in   acquiring 
psychological  knowledge.    In  the  laboratory  it  must  be  distinguished  from 
"  moralizing  common  sense  "  and  rationalizing  philosophy.    Introspection 
is  a  scientific  part  of  descriptive  psychology.     Description  of  a  Rotary 
Campimeter  (pp.  448-453) :  C.  E.  FERRKK.    A  Remark  on  the  Legibility 
of  Printed  Types  (pp.  454-456):  F.  M.  URBAN. -Some  suggestions  for 
making  mathematical  tables  more  legible.     A  List  of  the   Writings  of 
James  Ward  (pp.  457-460) :  E.  B.  TITCHENER  and  W.  S.  FOSTER.     The 
Discrimination   of   Articulate    Sounds   by    Cats    (pp.   461-463) :    W.   T. 
SHEPHERD.  -  Cats  are  able  to  discriminate  articulate  sounds.     Book  Re- 
views (pp.  464—478).     G.  C.  Ferrari,  Le  emozioni  e  la  vita  del  subcos- 
ciente:  THEODATE  L.  SMITH.    Emily  S.  Hamblen,  Friedrich  Nietzsche  and 
His  New  Gospel:  R.  R  GURLEV.    W.  Hellpach,  Die  geopsychischen:  Wet- 
ter, Kilma  und  Landschaft  in  ihrem  Einfluss  auf  das  Seelenleben.    H.  H. 
Home,  Free  Will  and  Human  Responsibility:  G.  CAMPBELL.    Dr.  James 
Devon,  The  Criminal  and  the  Community:  MIRIAM  VAX  WATERS.     Ed- 
ward Westermark,  The  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas.     E. 
Claparede,  La  psychologic  animate  de  Charles  Bonnet.     S.  C.  Earle,  The 
Theory  and  Practise  of  Technical  Writing:  E.  B.  T.     Rudolph  Eucken, 
Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal:  the  Fundamentals  of  a  New  Philosophy  of 
Life.    R.  B.  Perry,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies.    J.  Royce,  William 
James  and  Other  Essays  on  the  Philosophy  of  Life.    G.  Santayana,  Three 
Philosophical  Poets:  Lucretius,  Dante,  and  Goethe.     W.  D.  Scott,  In- 
creasing Human  Efficiency  in  Business.     H.  W.  Dresser,  Human  Effi- 
ciency: A  Psychological  Study  of  Modern  Problems.     E.  N.  Henderson, 
A  Text-book  in  the  Principals  of  Education.    J.  A.  MacVannel,  Outline 
of  a  Course  in  the  Philosophy  of  Education.    N.  Kostyleff,  La  crise  de  la 
psychologic  experimental:  le  present  et  I'avenir:  E.  B.  T.     Book  Notes 
(pp.  479-484).    Yves  Delage  and  Marie  Goldsmith,  The  Theories  of  Evo- 
lution.    A.  T.  Shearman,  The  Scope  of  Formal  Logic.     P.  G.  Buekers, 
Die  Abstammungslehre :  eine  gemeinverstandliche  Darstellung  und  krit- 
ische  Ubersicht  der  verschiedenen  Theorien  mit  besonderer  Berucksicliii- 
gung  der  Mutationstheorie.     Narziss  Ach,  Uber  den  Willensakt  und  das 
Temperament.    August  Messer,  Empfindung  und  Denken.    W.  Hellpach, 
Die  Grenzwissenshaften  der  Psychologie.     Shepherd  Ivory  Franz,  Hand- 
book of  Mental  Examination  Methods.     August  Gallinger,  Das  Problem 
der  objectiven  Moglichkeit:  eine   Bedeutungsanalyse.     Henry  J.   Watt, 
The  Economy  and  Training  of  Memory.     Hermann  Cohen,  Logik  der 
reinen  Erkenntnis.    Vernon  Lee  and  Anstruther-Thomson,  Beauty,  Ugli- 
ness, and  Other  Studies  in  Psychological  Esthetics.     W.  Wirth,  Psycho- 
physik.    J.  A.  Angell,  Chapters  from  Modern  Psychology.    Adolph  Busse, 
Aristotles  uber  die  Seele.    Abbe  Jean  Delacroix,  Ascetiques  et  mystiques. 

F.  L.  Wells,  Fatigue.    J.  Mourly  Void,  Ueber  den  Traum:  experimental- 
psychologische  Untersuchungen.    W.  Ament,  Die  Seele  des  Kindes.     Ar- 
thur Kronfeld,  Ueber  die  psychologischen  Theorien  Freuds  und  verwandte 
Anschauungen,  Systematik  und  kritische  Erdrterung.    Ray  Madding  Mc- 
Connell,    Criminal    Responsibility    and    Social    Constraint.      Archibald 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         615 

Church  and  Frederick  Peterson,  Nervous  and  Mental  Diseases.  Jean 
Dawson,  The  Biology  of  Physa.  William  Patten,  The  Evolution  of  Ver- 
tebrates and  their  Kin.  W.  L.  H.  Duckworth,  Prehistoric  Man.  Charles 
Arthur  Mercier,  A  New  Logic.  Alexandre  Movran,  Syphilomanie  et 
syphilophobie.  M.  Guechot,  La  formation  directe  du  raisonnement  chez 
I'enfant.  Emile  Lauviere,  Edgar  Poe.  Thomas  Mainhardt,  Die  nervosen 
Augstefuhle.  Jean  Farrand,  Les  localisations  celebrales:  equisse  medi- 
cale  et  psychologique. 

Adams,  John.     The  Evolution  of  Educational   Theory.     No.  1  of  The 

Schools  of  Philosophy,  edited  by  Sir  Henry  Jones.    New  York:  The 

Macmillan  Company.     1912.    Pp.  vii  +  410.    $2.75. 
Anant,   Dharm.     Plato   and  the   True   Enlightener   of   Soul.     London: 

Luzac.    6s. 
Hocking,  William  Ernest.     The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience: 

A  Philosophic  Study  of  Religion.    New  Haven :  Yale  University  Press. 

1912.    Pp.  xxxiv  +  586.    $3.00. 
Ossip-Lourie.     Le   Langage   et   La   Verbomanie:    Essai    de   Psychologie 

Morbide.    Paris :  Librairie  Felix  Alcan.    1912.    Pp.275.    5  F. 
Rosmini-Serbati,    Antonio.     Theodicy:    Essays    on    Divine    Providence. 

Translated  with  some  omissions  from  the  Milan  edition  of  1845.    III. 

Vols.    London:  Longmans  and  Company.    21s. 


NOTES  AND   NEWS 
THE  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHICAL  ASSOCIATION 

THE  Twelfth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  American  Philosophical  Associa- 
tion will  be  held  at  Columbia  University  on  December  26,  27,  and  28, 
under  the  presidency  of  Professor  Frank  Thilly.  Members  are  requested 
to  send  to  the  secretary,  E.  G.  Spaulding,  Princeton,  N.  J.,  before  Decem- 
ber 1,  titles  of  papers  which  they  wish  to  read  at  this  meeting.  Further 
details  regarding  the  meeting  will  be  sent  to  members  of  the  association  in 
a  circular  letter. 

The  Committee  on  Discussion  reports  the  following  topic  for  the  gen- 
eral discussion:  Agreement  in  Philosophy:  7s  a  continuous  progress 
towards  unanimity  among  philosophers  on  the  more  fundamental  philo- 
sophical issues 

(a)  Desirable? 

(&)  Attainable? 

I.  If  not  attainable: 

1.  What  are  the  impediments  to  agreement  in  philosophy? 

2.  Should  it  be  deemed  the  essential  function  of  philosophy  to  serve 

as  a  means  for  expressing  the  reactions  upon  reality  of  dif- 
ferent types  of  temperament? 

3.  What  is  the  purpose  of  philosophical  argumentation  and  dis- 

cussion ? 


616  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

4.  What,  from  this  point  of  view,  is  the  place  and  value  of  the  study 

of  the  history  of  philosophy? 
II.  If  agreement  is  attainable: 

1.  Upon  what  significant  issue  has  it  already  been  attained? 

2.  How  is  the  failure  to  reach  a  greater  measure  of  agreement  in 

the  past  to  be  explained? 

3.  Is  the  study  of  the  history  of  philosophy  indispensable  as  a  means 

towards  the  attainment  of  agreement? 

4.  What  methods  for  the  systematization  of  philosophical  inquiry, 

or  for  organized  cooperation  in  philosophizing,  would  help 
towards  this  end? 

5.  Are  discussions  of  specific  problems,  with  preliminary  analyses 

and  definitions,  after  the  general  manner  of  last  year's  dis- 
cussion in  this  association,  serviceable  towards  this  end? 

ARTHUR  O.  LOVE  JOY. 

DICKINSON  S.  MILLER. 

WILLIAM  P.  MONTAGUE. 

EDWARD  G.  SPAULDINO. 

FRANK  TIIILLY. 

FREDERICK  J.  E.  WOODBRIDGE. 

The  committee  publishes  the  report  in  order  that  other  members  of  the 
association  than  the  leaders  of  the  discussion  may  have  the  opportunity  to 
prepare  their  contributions  to  the  general  discussion  of  the  question 
stated. 


THE  Deems  lectures  at  the  New  York  University  will  be  given  this  year 
by  Professor  Rudolph  Eucken,  of  the  University  of  Jena,  visiting  professor 
at  Harvard  University.  The  lectures,  which  are  six  in  number,  will  prob- 
ably be  given  in  February  or  March,  the  general  subject  being  "  The 
Fundamental  Principles  of  Ethics  with  special  Consideration  of  the  Re- 
ligious Problems. 

THE  proof  of  Professor  H.  M.  Kallen's  review  of  Royce's  "William 
James  and  other  Essays  in  the  Philosophy  of  Life,"  which  appeared  in  the 
JOURNAL  for  September  26,  was  unfortunately  sent  to  press  before  the 
author  was  able  to  correct  it. 

CARL  P.  BOCK  has  been  made  assistant  in  experimental  psychology  at 
the  University  of  Missouri  to  fill  the  vacancy  created  by  the  resignation 
of  A.  P.  Weiss,  who  has  accepted  an  instructorship  in  Ohio  State  Uni- 
versity. 

AN  International  Congress  of  Comparative  Pathology  has  been  organ- 
ized by  the  Societe  de  Pathologic  Comparee,  to  be  held  in  Paris  this 
month.  The  subject  for  discussion  will  range  over  the  entire  field  of 
pathology. 

PROFESSOR  GEORGE  H.  PALMER,  Alford  professor  of  natural  religion, 
moral  philosophy  and  civil  polity,  will  be  the  Harvard  exchange  professor 
with  the  four  western  colleges,  Knox,  Grinnell,  Colorado,  and  Beloit. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  23.  NOVEMBER  7,  191 


THE  KINDS  OF  POETRY 

many  attempts  in  the  last  quarter-century  to  describe  or 
-i-  define  literary  genres  have  assumed  in  poetry  some  such  evolu- 
tion as  can  be  demonstrated  in  geology  or  anatomy.  Literary  schol- 
arship has  chiefly  taught  itself  to  see  in  the  drama  a  development 
from  the  religious  rites  of  Greece  or  of  the  Middle  Age,  to  hear  in 
the  lyric  thin  echoes  of  Lesbos  or  Provence,  and  to  suspect  behind 
these  beginnings,  as  behind  the  Homeric  epic,  lost  tracts  of  primi- 
tive poetry  that  reach  to  the  earliest  mutterings  of  the  race.  To  this 
understanding  of  poetry  and  its  career  the  anthropologists,  beyond 
their  intention,  have  been  most  friendly;  their  gatherings  of  folk- 
song from  races  or  tribes  all  but  incoherent,  furnish  oblique  evidence 
for  the  scholar's  guess  after  forgotten  poetic  origins,  much  as  the 
surviving  monkey  witnesses  to  kindred  aspects  in  our  parentage. 
The  study  of  the  beginnings  of  poetry  is  now  usually  supposed  to 
call  for  the  same  kind  of  deduction  and  induction  from  fossils  and 
belated  survivals  as  the  study  of  the  origin  of  the  horse.  Is  it  too 
presumptuous  to  suggest  that  in  this  whole  drift  of  literary  research 
there  is  confusion  of  ideas? 

In  the  first  place,  you  can  not  follow  the  track  of  anything  that 
changes  until  you  have  some  minimum  of  definition  or  standard  or 
guide  to  assure  you  that  from  change  to  change  you  are  still  follow- 
ing one  thing,  and  not  discovering  something  new.  If  this  general- 
ization is  sweeping,  at  least  it  can  hardly  be  disputed  by  the  his- 
torians of  literary  genres,  who  have  all  in  some  measure  assumed  and 
acted  upon  it.  But  so  far  as  literature  is  concerned  it  does  not  seem 
too  sweeping.  Before  you  can  inquire  into  the  lowliest  phases  of 
life  you  must  assume,  as  a  scientist,  what  every  man  instinctively 
feels,  that  life  under  all  its  appearances  is  one  thing.  To  uncover 
the  history  of  any  kind  of  poetry,  you  must  carry  along  with  you  an 
image,  a  definition,  of  what  you  would  identify.  Yet  the  lyric,  the 
drama,  the  epic,  are  still  after  much  discussion  undefined,  and  stu- 
dents of  literature  are  become  so  reconciled  to  the  unscientific  slip- 

617 


618  ////•;  JOURNAL  OF  I'll  I  !.<)*< >!' II  Y 

periness  nf  tlit-ir  terminology  that  they  expect  no  one  to  mean  any 
.speeiiie  tiling  by  "lyric"  or  "drama";  they  merely  try  to  discover, 
in  each  use  of  each  term,  the  user's  idiosyncrasy,  the  unconscious 
mark  of  himself  or  his  breeding.  Or,  if  they  feel  the  need  of  taming 
this  chaos,  they  put  their  hope  in  those  histories  of  genres,  already 
mentioned,  \\hieh  are  supposed  to  describe  if  not  define.  Yet  until 
there  is  first  a  definition  of  what  is  eternally  lyrical,  eternally 
dramatic,  how  can  they  know  the  evolution  of  lyric  or  drama? 

Such  a  definition — in  the  second  place — is  indispensable  not 
merely  to  any  logical  inquiry  into  evolution,  but  much  more  to  any 
fair  statement  of  what  men  in  general  think  poetry  is.  In  our 
ordinary  thought  we  conceive  of  poetry  just  as  we  conceive  of  life 
itself,  as  subject  to  no  development  whatever.  Things  either  have 
existed  or  they  have  not;  the  utterances  of  the  race,  similarly,  have 
been  either  poetry  or  not  poetry.  It  is  no  contradiction  of  this  view 
that  what  to  one  age  seems  poetic  is  often  unpoetic  to  the  next;  for 
in  every  such  case  it  is  not  the  poetry,  but  the  language,  the  medium 
of  it,  which  time  has  rendered  obsolete.  Nor  does  materialistic 
science  present  any  obstacle  to  this  instinctive  selection  of  the  eternal 
and  universal  in  life  and  poetry.  Indeed,  the  more  materialistic  our 
explanation  of  life  and  the  more  anatomical  our  account  of  poetry, 
the  less  importance  will  the  evolution  of  either  have  in  comparison 
with  its  permanent  aspects.  If  consciousness  is  but  a  fortunate 
conjunction  and  behavior  of  atoms,  how  wonderful  that  the  myriad 
different  combinations  of  atoms  should  have  a  consciousness  in  com- 
mon and  should  understand  each  other.  If  poetry  is  but  an  acci- 
dent of  syllables,  a  fortunate  stirring  of  connotations,  emotional  and 
mental,  how  extraordinary  that  we  should  agree  that  some  connota- 
tions are  poetic  and  others  not!  To  be  sure,  life  and  poetry  do 
appear  in  degrees  and  variations;  but  to  say  quantitatively  that  a 
man  is  barely  alive  or  that  a  piece  is  almost  poetry  does  not  in  the 
least  affect  the  qualitative  distinction  we  all  make  between  living 
and  dead,  poetic  and  unpoetic. 

Yet,  though  the  evolutionary  historian  has  not  shared  this  view 
of  poetry  as  an  unchanging  function  of  an  unchanging  life,  it  will 
not  do  to  say,  even  to  imply,  that  he  has  contributed  nothing  to  our 
knowledge.  lie  has  only  failed  to  add  to  our  knowledge  of  poetry. 
He  has  made  clearer  some  aspect  of  the  form,  the  meter,  the  imagery 
—what  in  a  large  sense  we  may  call  the  language — of  poetry;  and 
in  this  field  his  method  is  practicable,  since  language  does  undergo 
evolution,  and  its  relation  to  poetry  is  only  secondary  though  indis- 
pensable, like  the  relation  of  the  body  to  life.  To  take  a  ready  illus- 
tration, the  accounts  of  the  development  of  the  drama  are  for  the 
most  part  studies  of  the  expression  of  drama — studies  of  language, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  619 

in  the  large  sense — of  the  number  of  actors,  the  shape  of  the  stage, 
the  conditions  of  presentation ;  or,  more  subtly,  studies  of  theme,  of 
reversals  of  fortune  and  combat  with  fate.  In  every  such  case  the 
preliminary  definition  which  determined  the  evolution  was  based 
not  on  the  drama,  but  on  the  expression  of  it,  or  on  its  subject-matter. 
Drama  is  that  which  can  be  acted,  postulates  one  historian,  and  then 
goes  trailing  the  drama  with  this  lantern,  though  perhaps  he  would 
not  agree  that  everything  actable  is  dramatic.  Tragedy,  begins  the 
more  subtle  scholar,  taking  his  cue  from  Aristotle,  is  that  kind  of 
drama  which  deals  with  a  tragic  incident,  a  destructive  or  painful 
action,  such  as  death  or  agony  or  wounds.  Yet  the  Tale  of  Troy 
furnishes  as  apt  subject-matter  for  the  lyric  or  the  epic  as  for  the 
drama,  of  which  the  scholar  told  us  tragedy  is  a  kind.  And  even  if 
he  hedges  himself  round  with  all  these  postulates  at  once,  and  says 
that  tragedy  deals  with  such  and  such  subject-matter  and  must  be 
actable,  we  still  can  see  how  the  Tale  of  Troy  might  be  staged  and 
yet  turn  out  to  be  a  lyric  after  all.  The  scholar  has  simply  failed 
to  put  something  in  his  definition  that  would  make  certain  the 
dramatic  quality  of  his  tragedy.  Illustrations  from  other  kinds  of 
poetry  are  as  easily  cited.  He  who  traces  a  literary  genre  like  the 
elegy,  let  us  say,  and  determines  what  is  an  elegy  by  some  metrical 
characteristic,  is  really  chronicling  the  use  of  that  meter — just  as 
the  scientist  who  would  write  the  history  of  man  by  showing  the 
evolution  of  his  anatomy,  really  traces  only  the  history  of  his  anat- 
omy. That  language,  the  whole  dress  of  poetry,  is  as  necessary  to 
it  as  the  body  is  to  the  phenomenon  of  life,  justifies  any  amount  of 
study  upon  it,  but  it  should  not  be  confused  with  the  study  of  poetry. 
Even  if  poetry  were  subject  to  evolution,  it  would  be  wise  to 
study  it  in  its  latest  development.  The  significance  of  life  is  not  in 
the  lowest  cell,  but  in  the  soul  of  the  most  spiritual  man ;  and  if  we 
are  interested  in  defining  the  oak,  why  turn  our  back  upon  it,  to 
draw  conclusions  from  an  acorn?  But  it  is  time  to  distinguish 
between  language,  which  has  an  evolutionary  career,  and  poetry, 
which  has  not.  The  English  tongue  has  evolved  since  Shakespeare's 
day,  but  poetry  is  just  what  it  was.  Kill  off  every  horse  in  the 
wrorld,  and  you  destroy  the  species.  Kill  off  every  known  and  sus- 
pected poet,  and  there  will  be  as  many  as  ever  after  a  generation  or 
two.  If  the  language  were  destroyed,  ages  would  be  needed  to 
evolve  another;  but  poetry,  being  a  constant  function  of  life,  is 
rooted  as  it  were  perpendicularly  in  every  moment  of  consciousness, 
and  not  horizontally,  trailing  back  long  feelers  into  mist-hidden 
swamps  of  primitiveness. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  paper  to  see  what  progress  can  be  made 
toward  defining  poetic  genres  by  throwing  overboard  all  idea  of 


620  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

evolution  and  considering  poetry  as  an  invariable  function  of  life. 
In  one  sense,  all  poetry  is  of  one  kind,  and  is  easily  described.  Ordi- 
narily the  emotions  aroused  by  experience  are  used  up  in  the  further 
process  of  living.  The  poet  differs  from  his  fellows  only  in  the 
greater  power  of  his  emotions,  in  the  greater  imperativeness  of  his 
intuitions,  whereby  it  is  easier  for  him  to  express  them  in  words  than 
to  consume  them  in  life.  The  stimulus  that  enters  the  poet's  nature 
and  comes  out  as  epical  or  dramatic  or  lyrical  expression,  enters 
equally  the  nature  of  ordinary  man  and  is  consumed  in  lyrical  or 
epic  or  dramatic  living.  However  theoretical  or  dogmatic  this 
parallel  may  seem,  in  practise  it  is  recognized  by  all  men.  A  poet's 
temperament  prescribes  into  which  of  the  three  genres  his  work 
shall  fall ;  and  similarly  the  temperament  of  average  men  prescribes 
whether  they  shall  live  in  the  present,  or  in  the  past,  or  in  the 
future.  In  these  three  eternal  ways  of  meeting  experience,  it  is 
believed,  are  to  be  found  the  definitions  of  the  lyric,  the  drama,  and 
the  epic.  The  qualities  to  which  we  give  the  names  "lyrical," 
"dramatic,"  "epic,"  are  no  less  normal  and  fundamental  than 
these  three  apprehensions  of  life — as  simply  a  present  moment,  or 
as  a  present  moment  in  which  the  past  is  reaped,  or  as  a  present 
moment  in  which  the  future  is  promised. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  the  lyric  expresses  emotion,  with 
or  without  an  admixture  of  intellectual  content;  the  emotion  is  the 
essential.  Emotion,  however,  is  the  nearest  intimation  we  have  of 
the  present  moment.  A  man  may  act,  and  not  realize  that  he  has 
done  so  until  afterwards,  but  he  can  not  have  an  emotion  until  he 
feels  it.  Yet  vivid  as  is  the  response  to  immediate  experience  in 
the  lyric,  it  is  also  as  transitory  as  time  itself — the  lyrical  is  the  most 
evanescent  attitude  toward  life;  and  as  all  feeling  tends  to  subside 
after  the  exciting  cause  is  removed,  so  the  lyric  is  the  representation 
of  a  changed  and  dying  feeling.  Because  the  emotion  is  involun- 
tary, its  career  in  the  poet's  spirit  will  be  to  a  degree  a  revelation 
of  his  character,  and  in  that  revelation  some  glimpse  of  his  past  and 
future  will  be  involved;  but  the  emphasis  will  remain  upon  the 
sense  of  the  present,  and  from  this  flow  the  lyrical  qualities — the 
immediate  emotion  and  its  subsiding. 

This  transitory  nature  of  feeling  has  troubled  both  poets  and 
critics,  as  the  passing  of  time  troubles  every  meditative  spirit,  who 
would  make  eternal  the  high  moments  of  life.  In  the  lyric  to  fix  the 
most  fleeting  emotion  has  seemed  imperative,  but  how?  Many  a 
poet  has  been  disposed  to  let  the  emotion  subside  into  a  broad  gen- 
eralized frame  of  mind — into  a  reflection  or  a  prophecy — and  so 
rescue  a  permanent  lesson  from  the  sinking  mood.  But  whether  this 
disposition  tactfully  insinuates  itself,  as  in  Wordsworth,  or  bluntly 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  621 

obtrudes,  as  in  Longfellow,  the  suspicion  grows  upon  the  reader  that 
it  is  a  defect  of  art;  the  poet's  reflection,  or  whatever  else  he  gets 
from  his  emotion,  is  likely  to  be  personal  and  peculiar — more  and 
more  so  as  time  separates  him  from  his  audience,  for  ages  differ 
in  their  conventional  thoughts  more  than  in  their  feelings. 

Recognizing  this  difficulty,  criticism  has  never  agreed  with  the 
poets  that  the  eternity  of  the  lyric  should  be  provided  for  in  the 
end  of  it,  in  the  more  intellectual  part ;  rather,  theorists  of  literature 
have  formulated  a  platitude  that  the  lyric  is  great  by  virtue  of 
elemental,  universal  emotion.  This  would  seem  to  be,  however,  a 
reading  of  history  into  a  prudent  recipe  for  fame.  Unless  it  is  an 
affectation,  the  lyric  renders  an  emotion  truly  felt,  and  this  sincerity 
of  intuition  appears  to  be  all  that  the  poet  can  be  expected  to  care 
about.  So  far  as  his  fame  is  concerned,  the  greatness  of  his  poem 
will  depend  upon  the  number  of  men  who  share  his  emotion.  That 
he  ought  not  to  take  thought  overmuch,  nor  choose  between  emotions 
even  if  he  could,  seems  proved  by  the  very  large  number  of  lyrists 
who  have  come  to  their  own  through  the  belated  sympathy  of  a  new 
age,  to  which  they  would  never  have  appealed  had  they  consulted 
contemporary  preferences  in  their  emotions.  And  even  if  the  lyric 
poet  has  missed  fame  by  the  singularity  of  his  reactions  to  experi- 
ence, his  work  is  still  recognized  as  lyrical  if  it  have  the  attitude 
that  responds  to  life  always  as  a  rapturous  present  moment. 

In  its  unconscious  revelation  of  character,  every  lyric  suggests  a 
momentum  of  previous  conduct,  choices  made,  habits  formed;  and 
to  the  extent  of  this  implication  of  the  past,  a  lyric  is  a  kind  of 
drama.  The  difference  between  them  is  only  a  shifting  of  emphasis. 
Every  drama  is  in  a  high  sense  lyrical,  for  it  must  be  imagined  as 
happening  in  the  present;  and  every  character  in  it,  supposed  to 
be  living  in  the  present,  is  a  lyrical  character.  But  the  emphasis 
of  the  whole  is  upon  the  past.  That  the  drama  is  the  exhibition  of 
human  will  is  true  only  so  far  as  it  exhibits  a  harvested  past,  char- 
acter returning  upon  itself  in  the  guise  of  fate;  for  if  a  person  in 
a  play  should  will  something  inconsistent  with  his  known  past,  or 
if  some  trick  of  fortune  should  release  him  from  his  past,  the  play 
would  not  satisfy  the  dramatic  sense.  That  situation  is  dramatic 
which  brings  men  suddenly  to  account,  and  he  who  has  the  eye  for 
drama  sees  in  life  a  perpetual  judgment  day.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
analysis,  nor  of  training,  but  of  temperament,  and  therefore  the 
young  Shakespeare,  when  he  writes  a  sonnet-sequence,  manages  to 
write  a  drama,  and  later,  when  the  structure  of  his  plays  seems 
premeditated  or  elaborated,  the  complexity  can  be  accounted  for  by 
the  dramatic  sense  through  which  he  apprehends  life.  There  are 


622  THE  JOURNAL  OF  I'HILOSOPHY 

two  plots  in  tin-  "Merchant  of  Venice";  how  clever  Shakespeare 
was,  say  the  commentators,  to  join  both  in  one  play.  But  given  the 
character  of  Antonio,  tin-  merchant,  and  Shakespeare  would  have 
been  forced  to  invent  the  equivalents  of  those  two  plots,  if  he  had 
not  laid  hands  on  them.  For  Antonio  is  a  moody  creature,  extrava- 
gant in  his  generosity,  careless  and  reckless  in  his  prejudices.  He  is 
a  contradiction  of  himself,  and  his  life,  viewed  dramatically,  must 
show  the  simultaneous  reaping  of  his  good  and  bad  acts.  His  insult- 
ing bravado  with  Shylock  gets  him  into  danger,  but  his  loan  to 
Bassanio,  the  generosity  bound  up  with  the  insult  and  the  bravado, 
brings  Portia  to  his  aid ;  and  when  the  two  streams  of  fate  balance, 
he  becomes  again  what  he  was  before — moody  and  contradictory. 

To  say  that  Shakespeare  constructed  this  consistency  is  to  forget 
that  without  such  consistency  one  can  not  conceive  of  life  as  the 
accomplishment  of  the  past.  The  secret  of  this  harmony  of  form 
is  not  in  Shakespeare's  craft,  but  in  his  intuition.  Nor  need  we 
attribute  to  the  Greek  dramatist  any  particular  theory  of  heredity, 
if  in  the  CEdipus  story  the  past  that  is  reaped  extends  over  two 
generations.  His  parents  grasped  at  opportunity  at  all  costs,  and 
CEdipus  inherits  their  impulsiveness,  their  inability  to  consider.  To 
be  sure  he  is  indifferent  to  the  identity  of  the  old  man  he  killed  on 
the  highway,  and  he  risks  his  life  to  share  the  throne  of  a  queen 
whom  he  does  not  know  and  has  never  seen.  But  only  his  father 
would  so  forget  his  royalty  as  to  quarrel  on  the  highway  with  a 
young  vagabond,  and  only  his  mother  would  promise  herself  indif- 
ferently to  whoever  should  answer  the  Sphinx.  It  is  the  same  char- 
acter in  all  three,  and  the  fault  is  alike  ruinous  to  all. 

The  fact  that  all  three  characters  submit,  as  it  were,  to  the  same 
judgment  day  and  are  punished  for  the  same  fault,  suggests  the 
observation  in  passing,  that  the  dramatic  point  of  view  tends  to 
unify  life  at  any  given  moment  by  discovering  in  it  a  homogeneous 
past.  Just  as  the  student  of  anatomy  sees  the  passers-by  as  skele- 
tons, and  as  the  journalist  who  investigates  graft  comes  to  attribute 
every  defect  of  government  to  peculation,  so  the  dramatist,  studying 
the  past  as  reaped  by  one  person  in  his  play,  is  likely  to  attribute  a 
similar  past  to  other  characters.  This  duplication  of  theme  is  so 
familiar  as  hardly  to  need  illustration.  "Twelfth  Night,"  a  love 
story,  shows  all  its  characters  except  the  clown  to  be  in  some  stage 
of  love;  "Measure  for  Measure,"  similarly,  exhibits  the  degrees  of 
the  fear  of  death  in  various  natures;  and  "King  Lear"  studies  life 
as  a  problem  of  filial  relations.  The  significant  thing  is  that  this 
economy  of  situation  and  theme  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  or  craft 
with  the  dramatist,  any  more  than  the  observation  of  men  as  skele- 
tons is  economy  of  point  of  view  with  the  anatomist;  it  lies  rather 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  623 

in  the  method  or  means  of  perception — in  the  dissective  eye,  and  in 
the  dramatic  sense. 

The  immediate  effect,  however,  of  any  play  read  or  seen,  is  less 
logical,  less  rigidly  consistent,  because  of  the  lyrical  element — the 
emphasis  of  the  present  moment  in  all  the  characters.  If  the  story 
is  to  be  of  value  as  proving  the  past,  the  persons  must  all  speak  and 
act  conscious  only  of  the  present,  without  suspicion  that  they  are 
terms  in  a  demonstration.  That  is,  they  must  act  and  speak  lyric- 
ally. Each  present  moment,  as  it  passes  through  the  reader's  or  the 
spectator's  mind,  will  be  interesting  in  proportion  to  its  emotional 
intensity,  which  is  furnished  partly  by  the  lines,  partly  by  the 
acting,  partly  by  the  situation.  These  all  are  lyrical  elements. 
Situation  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  dramatic  sense,  except  as  it 
affords  character  an  opportunity  to  display  itself;  it  looks  to  the 
present,  and  sometimes  to  the  future,  but  never  to  the  past.  How 
unconscious  of  the  past  the  acting  must  be,  has  just  been  suggested. 
The  lines  may  be  very  lyrical,  as  in  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  without 
much  glancing  at  the  dramatic  drift,  or  they  may  be  capable  of  a 
double  meaning,  lyrical  to  the  speaker  and  dramatic  to  his  hearers, 
as  in  "Macbeth." 

The  kind  of  character  or  emotion  revealed  in  the  lyric,  we  saw, 
has  been  thought  to  have  a  bearing  upon  its  probable  fame.  It  is 
obvious,  however,  that  drama  may  be  judged  either  by  the  kind  of 
emotion,  the  kind  of  character  exhibited — from  the  standpoint  of  the 
actor — or  by  the  extent  to  which  the  reaping  of  the  past  is  felt.  It 
is  a  common  enough  phenomenon  of  stage  history  that  the  popular 
favor  often  leans  to  the  lyrical  side,  and  many  a  play  dramatically 
bad  succeeds  because  it  contains  some  character  lyrically  good.  But 
if  the  play  gives  a  strong  enough  sense  of  the  past,  that  is,  if  the 
characters  are  consistent  with  their  own  history,  they  may  be  lyric- 
ally what  they  please;  they  must  in  any  case  appeal  less  upon  the 
virtue  of  their  emotions  than  upon  the  justice  of  their  fate.  An 
audience  will  permit  the  lyric  to  express  only  such  emotions  as  they 
at  the  moment  understand,  but  in  the  drama  they  will  accept  the 
emotion  tentatively  until  they  see  what  is  to  become  of  it.  Satan 
cursing  God  in  a  lyric  will  not  please  the  pious,  who  yet  would  be 
delighted  to  see  him  in  a  drama  cursing  God  and  getting  punished 
for  it. 

The  drama  has  one  other  lyrical  effect,  in  the  general  emotional 
tone  it  conveys.  This  tone  is  serious  in  proportion  as  the  work  is 
felt  to  be  a  reaping  of  the  past ;  every  judgment  day  is  serious,  even 
if  we  are  acquitted.  Therefore  there  is  no  clear  line  to  be  drawn 
between  tragedy  and  comedy,  for  different  men  and  different  ages 
will  disagree  as  to  what  is  serious;  nor  is  there  any  essential  differ- 


624  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ence  between  tragedy  and  comedy,  since  a  mere  change  of  opinion 
as  to  what  is  serious  so  easily  converts  one  into  the  other.  The  occa- 
sion of  laughter  or  merriment  in  the  play  is  from  the  lyrical  part — 
from  the  speech  or  the  situation  or  the  acting — and  we  enjoy  it  for 
the  passing  moment;  but  every  comedy  which  is  really  dramatic 
becomes  serious  with  time,  as  men  more  highly  value  the  sacredness 
of  human  nature.  Beatrice  and  Benedick  amuse  us  while  they  are 
joking  or  while  others  trick  them,  and  Petruchio's  behavior  at  his 
wedding  is  funny  while  we  hear  of  it,  but  in  so  far  as  we  care  about 
those  characters,  such  episodes  grieve  our  sense  of  the  dignity  of  life. 
The  difference,  then,  that  at  first  sight  appears  between  comedy  and 
tragedy  depends  upon  nothing  but  whether  we  care  so  little  for  the 
characters  that  laughter  is  adequate  armor  against  the  judgments 
they  unconsciously  pronounce  upon  themselves,  or  whether  we 
require  a  nobler  kind  of  fortitude. 

The  lyric  is  closer  to  the  drama  than  to  the  epic,  and  there  are 
fewer  epics  than  either  lyrics  or  dramas.  The  reason  is  probably 
that  a  sense  of  the  future — the  ability  to  see  life  as  a  prospect  of 
destiny — is  far  rarer  than  a  sense  of  the  past,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
immediate  sense  of  the  present,  and  it  seems  to  have  always  some- 
thing of  the  miraculous  in  it.  If  each  moment  can  be  seen  as  a 
harvest  of  previous  moments,  there  is  every  logical  reason  why  the 
interest  of  the  present  should  be  the  future  it  promises;  but  only 
men  of  unusual  faith  have  risen  to  this  logic,  and  even  they  felt  the 
promise  of  destiny  more  as  a  gift  from  a  superior  being  than  as  a 
consequence  of  the  present.  Indeed,  where  the  promise  reveals 
itself  to  a  nature  of  great  optimism,  it  often  takes  the  form  of  strong 
contrast  with  things  as  they  are,  and  the  lyrical  and  the  epical  moods 
in  the  poem  are  almost  miraculously  contradictory.  JEneas  is 
humanly  weak,  his  expedition  but  a  frail  band  to  make  certain  the 
destiny  of  Rome ;  the  poet  intends  us  to  set  the  lyrical  mood  of  the 
hero — regret,  reluctance,  even  terror — over  against  the  majesty  of 
the  imperial  doom  he  served.  It  is  a  contrast,  not  a  consequence; 
or  if  a  consequence,  then  too  much  a  thing  of  wonder  for  the  fogic 
of  normal  man. 

A  more  superficial  reason  has  usually  been  given  for  the  small 
number  of  epics  in  literature,  especially  for  the  total  disappearance 
of  the  genre  in  modern  times.  It  is  said  that  every  epic  must  have 
a  plot  in  heaven,  working  itself  out  in  human  fortunes  on  earth, 
because  the  epic  exhibits  divine  will,  as  the  drama  exhibits  the  will 
of  man ;  and  since  we  no  longer  have  a  well-peopled  anthropomorphic 
heaven,  we  can  no  longer  show  the  gods  plotting  there.  But  to  say 
that  the  epic  exhibits  divine  will  is  only  to  say  that  it  gives  the  sense 
of  destiny,  the  feeling  of  guidance  to  an  end.  Why  can  not  men 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  625 

express  such  a  feeling  without  a  scene  on  Olympus?  The  gods  and 
goddesses  of  the  old  epics  were  but  part  of  the  language  with  which 
the  epic  feeling  was  expressed;  they  are  no  more  essential  to  the 
rendering  of  that  sense  than  the  kings  and  queens  of  the  old  plays 
are  essential  to  the  drama.  If  only  we  had  an  epic  to  express,  we 
could  make  the  language  for  it.  But,  say  the  historians,  the  epic 
has  always  dealt  with  a  world  crisis,  involving  a  higher  and  a  lower 
civilization;  how  can  we  have  this  large  kind  of  poetry  again  until 
we  have  another  great  crisis  ?  If  the  historian  be  American,  he  often 
concludes  by  wondering  why  the  Civil  War,  so  easily  comparable  to 
that  of  Troy,  never  found  its  Homer.  Yet  these  explanations,  and 
the  description  of  the  epic  implied  in  them,  are  not  sufficiently 
searching.  The  world  crisis  which  is  clear  enough  now  in  the 
JEneid  was  probably  not  clear  until  Vergil  made  it  so,  and  whether 
he  believed  in  the  mythology  and  the  heaven  he  wrote  of,  made  no 
difference  poetically  to  him,  and  makes  none  to  us.  The  essence  of 
the  epic  is  that  attitude  toward  life  which  sees  in  the  moment  a 
destined  future.  Without  this  attitude,  no  epic  is  possible. 

If  literature  is  now  barren  of  this  kind  of  poetry,  may  it  not  be 
because  this  age,  in  spite  of  much  theorizing,  has  no  confidence  as 
to  what  its  destiny  may  be?  It  is  not  that  we  have  lost  the  gods. 
If  we  no  longer  have  Milton's  celestial  personages  and  geography, 
we  have  the  idea  of  evolution,  which  ought  to  give  the  strongest  pos- 
sible conviction  of  our  future.  But  evolution,  whether  in  the  hands 
of  the  literary  historian  or  in  those  of  the  scientist,  has  been  exclu- 
sively occupied  in  clarifying  and  reinforcing  our  sense  of  the  past; 
it  has  not  even  suggested  whither  we  are  bound.  No  wonder  that 
its  chief  service  has  been  to  the  drama,  which  with  a  new,  scientific 
confidence  now  shows  us  the  inevitability  of  one  moment  upon  the 
next,  the  sins  of  the  fathers  visited  mathematically  upon  the  chil- 
dren; no  wonder  that  with  this  rejuvenated  day  of  judgment  per- 
petually before  us,  our  drama  is  dark  and  tragic,  and  deals,  however 
wholesomely,  with  our  worse  selves.  The  beast  we  were,  constantly 
returns  to  bear  witness  against  the  man  we  think  we  are. 

Exactly  what  sort  of  epic  we  shall  have  when  science  becomes 
once  more  prospective  and  hopeful  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  guess, 
but  the  permanent  traits  of  the  genre  are  fairly  clear.  Just  as  the 
lyric  enters  into  the  drama,  so  the  drama  enters  into  epic;  for  a 
sense  of  destiny  involves  some  guidance  out  of  the  past  and  the 
present,  the  direction  of  to-morrow  being  found  as  it  were  by  the 
two  points  of  to-day  and  yesterday.  To  the  ancient  mind  all  this 
meant  simply  the  will  of  the  gods,  within  such  limits  as  the  gods 
wrere  free;  therefore  a  drama  was  enacted  in  heaven  reaping  the 
past  of  the  divinities,  and  that  harvest  became  on  earth  man's  fate. 


////v  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

To  state  it  another  way,  man  would  be  most  devout,  most  ready  to 
attribute  his  future  t»»  the  past  of  the  gods,  at  those  moments  of 
history  \\li.-n  he  felt  himself  in  a  world-current  of  destiny.  Tasso 
and  Milton  felt  such  prophetic  influences,  though  they  substituted 
the  Christian  heaven  and  divinities  for  the  pagan.  And  however 
the  future  poet  creates  new  imagery  or  modifies  the  old,  he  will  keep 
unchanged  the  soul  of  the  epic — the  prospect  of  the  race;  and  in 
this  prospect  will  remain,  if  only  in  a  diffused  state,  a  dramatic 
consciousness  of  the  past  from  which  it  grew. 

The  lyric  also  enters  into  the  epic,  not  only  as  it  is  included  in 
the  heavenly  drama,  but  throughout  the  poem — most  obviously  in 
the  character  of  the  hero,  upon  whom  the  will  of  the  gods  falls. 
Here  again  the  poem  may  be  judged  by  the  lyric  impression — by 
the  behavior  of  the  hero.  Such  a  standard,  however,  leaves  us  dis- 
appointed with  most  epics.  For  it  is  to  the  poet's  advantage  to 
minimize  the  strength  of  the  hero  and  magnify  his  obedience,  in 
order  that  the  power  of  destiny  on  him  may  seem  irresistible ;  other- 
wise the  poet  may  find  he  has  written  not  epic  but  drama.  It  is  best 
rather  to  judge  a  poem  by  the  quality  that  distinguishes  its  genre. 
The  test  of  the  epic  attitude  is  in  the  consistency  of  its  sense  of  an 
inexorable  future — which  is  quite  apart  from  its  lyrical  excellences. 

Finally,  the  epic,  like  the  drama,  has  a  total  lyric  aspect,  as 
naturally  hopeful  as  the  sense  of  the  past  is  naturally  serious.  No 
matter  how  somber  the  incidents  or  the  situation,  they  are  in  the  epic 
but  opportunities  for  the  display  of  destiny ;  every  moment  promises 
a  new  beginning.  For  an  epic  to  be  pessimistic  is  a  paradox,  and 
indicates  a  confusion  in  the  poet's  view  of  life. 

If  these  definitions  of  the  kinds  of  poetry  are  just,  they  would 
seem  to  open  for  the  student  of  literature,  if  he  so  desires,  a  new 
field  besides  that  of  language  in  which  to  apply  the  principle  of 
evolution.  The  changes  that  can  be  traced  in  literary  history  are 
changes  not  of  poetry  nor  of  its  kinds,  but  of  the  spiritual  ideals, 
the  social  conventions  and  proprieties,  the  political  conditions,  which 
at  any  given  time  are  as  it  were  the  raw  material  of  literature ;  and 
in  this  material  some  principle  of  evolution  may  perhaps  be  found. 
For  example,  the  history  of  English  drama,  if  drama  is  the  sense  of 
the  past  called  to  judgment,  should  study  the  changes  in  the  English 
conception  of  what  is  a  test  of  character.  The  Elizabethan  stage 
dealt  with  situations  of  great  adventure — with  murders,  shipwrecks, 
plots,  and  surprises ;  whereas  the  modern  play  usually  prefers  a  test 
of  character  taken  from  an  ordered,  quiet  life.  Evidently  there  has 
been  a  change  in  the  English  ideal  of  success  and  failure.  It  will 
not  do  to  assume  that  the  nature  of  drama  has  changed,  nor  even 
that  the  process  of  time  has  made  the  modern  play  more  dramatic ; 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  627 

"Lear"  and  "Macbeth"  and  "Othello"  hold  their  own  by  any 
definitions.  But  it  is  illuminating  to  remember  that  the  successful 
man,  in  the  Renaissance  ideal,  was  one  who  could  cope  with  every 
public  or  private  emergency.  It  was  not  enough  that  he  should  be 
morally  good — a  beggar  might  be  that;  but  he — and  the  women  as 
well — must  have  the  varied  efficiency  of  gentlefolk  born  to  a  career. 
Viola,  Portia,  Orlando  meet  emergencies  with  success;  Hamlet  and 
Othello  do  not.  The  modern  playwright,  however,  would  be  most 
unlikely  to  represent  any  of  these  excellent  persons  as  tragic  vic- 
tims, because  the  modern  ideal  of  success  is  a  matter  of  living,  as 
it  were  on  the  defensive,  not  by  rising  to  extraordinary  accomplish- 
ment, but  by  avoiding  such  errors  as  later  may  embarrass  us;  our 
typical  tragedy  shows  some  weakness  overtaking  us  in  the  very 
routine  of  our  existence.  Between  this  idea  of  failure  and  the 
Elizabethan,  there  is  a  change  that  can  not  be  understood  without 
the  historian's  help;  and  there  are  similar  changes,  calling  for 
similar  help,  in  the  crude  material  that  has  gone  into  lyrics  and 
epics.  If  the  study  of  these  changes  is  not  specifically  the  study  of 
poetry,  at  least  it  is  the  study  of  man's  way  of  accounting  for  him- 
self to  himself; — not  an  ignoble  study;  and  its  effect  would  be  to 
show  the  kinship  of  poetry  with  life,  by  illuminating  man's  eternal 
effort  to  restate  life  so  that  it  will  satisfy  him,  and  the  eternal 
moods  through  which  the  eternal  effort  is  made. 

JOHN  EBSKINE. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


DISCUSSION 
"PRESENT  PHILOSOPHICAL  TENDENCIES"1 

I.     THE  CRITIQUE  OF  NATURALISM 

"FT  is  not  primarily  a  philosophical  History  of  Our  Own  Times  that 
J-  Professor  Perry  has  undertaken  to  present,  in  this  substantial 
volume;2  and  it  is  not  chiefly  as  an  interpretation  of  contemporary 
tendencies  that  I  shall  here  discuss  it.  It  is,  as  he  himself  observes 
in  his  preface,  more  as  critic  than  as  historian,  that  he  has  written ; 
and  it  is,  in  fact,  most  of  all  as  constructive  philosopher.  He  has 

1  Owing  to  the  length  and  thoroughness  of  this  review  it  has  been  published 
as  a  discussion.  Professor  Lovejoy  is  in  no  wise  responsible  for  the  classification. 

'"Present  Philosophical  Tendencies:  A  Critical  Survey  of  Naturalism, 
Idealism,  Pragmatism,  and  Eealism,  together  with  a  Synopsis  of  the  Philosophy 
of  William  James,"  by  Ralph  Barton  Perry.  Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.  1912. 
Pp.  xv  -f  383. 


628 

accordingly  disclaimed  the  responsibilities  of  the  exegete  of  other 
men's  teachings,  deeming  it  "to  be  more  important  to  discover 
\\ln-thrr  certain  current  views  were  true  or  false  than  to  discuss  with 
l>;iinM;iking  nicety  the  question  of  their  attribution."  And  his  in- 
terest in  current  views  is  largely  that  of  a  writer  desirous  of  ex- 
pounding his  own  doctrine  more  clearly  and  justifying  it  more  com- 
pletely by  means  of  a  reasoned  presentation  of  its  relations  of 
partial  sympathy  and  partial  antagonism  to  certain  other  typical 
doctrines  concerning  the  special  problems  which  appeal  to  him.  The 
scope  and  arrangement  of  the  book  are  clearly  determined  by  this 
constructive  purpose.  The  four  principal  tendencies  with  which  it 
deals — naturalism,  idealism,  pragmatism,  realism — all  have  definite 
logical  relations  to  Perry's  own  position  with  respect  to  three  specific 
issues:  (1)  to  Weltanschauung slehre  or,  in  a  broad  sense  of  the 
word,  the  philosophy  of  religion;  (2)  to  the  epistemological  and 
metaphysical  question  about  the  "nature"  of  reality  and  its  de- 
pendence on,  or  independence  of,  cognition;  and  (3)  to  the  question 
whether  reality  conforms  to  the  requirements  of  logic  and  is  truly 
to  be  apprehended  through  logical  thought, — i.  e.,  to  the  controversy 
over  "anti-intellectualism."  These  three  issues,  rather  than  the 
four  tendencies,  might,  with  some  advantage,  have  furnished  the 
chief  rubrics  of  the  volume.  For,  in  very  rough  outline,  Perry's 
main  contentions  are  that  "naturalism,"  though  often  conjoined 
with  correct  views  upon  the  second  and  third  questions,  is  unsatis- 
factory as  an  answer  to  the  first  question;  that  idealism  in  all  its 
forms  is  an  erroneous  answer  to  the  second  question,  though  it  is  an 
error  which  has  been  largely  inspired  by  a  reaction  against  the  errors 
of  naturalism ;  that  pragmatism  is  a  faulty  answer  to  the  third  ques- 
tion, though  it  represents  a  legitimate  criticism  upon  certain  errors 
of  both  naturalism  and  idealism ;  and  that  the  true  philosophy  is  to 
be  found  in  a  realistic  metaphysics  which  avoids  the  mistakes  of 
naturalism  by  a  recognition  of  the  significant  role  of  conscious  vo- 
lition and  "moral  causality"  in  the  world,  yet  avoids  the  excesses  of 
pragmatic  voluntarism  by  maintaining,  with  the  idealists,  "the  va- 
lidity and  irreducibility  of  logical  and  moral  science,"  even  while 
it  agrees  with  the  pragmatists  in  asserting  the  "practical  and  em- 
pirical character  of  the  knowledge  process  and  the  presumptively 
pluralistic  constitution  of  the  universe"  (p.  272). 

It  is  with  the  reasonings  leading  to  certain  of  these  positive  con- 
clusions that  I  should  like  to  come  to  close  quarters.  Yet  I  should  be 
doing  the  book  a  grave  injustice  if  I  did  not,  before  proceeding  to 
this  examination,  emphasize  the  importance  and  value  of  the  piece 
of  work  which  Professor  Perry  has  done  purely  on  its  historical  side. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  629 

While  he  brings  to  the  task  a  wide  acquaintance  with  most  of  the 
important  phases  of  contemporary  reflection,  it  is  especially  the  re- 
cent developments  and  the  contemporary  situation  in  Anglo-Ameri- 
can philosophy  that  he  has  essayed  to  portray.  And  it  was  high  time 
that  this  should  be  undertaken.  Many  things  of  great  interest,  and 
some  things  of  real  moment,  have  been  occurring  among  us  these  last 
two  decades;  yet  there  have  been  very  few  attempts  hitherto  made 
to  give  a  comprehensive  and  interpretative  account  of  these  new 
movements — and  no  attempt,  I  think,  which  has  achieved  so  high  a 
degree  of  success  as  the  present  one.  In  spite  of  his  doctrinal  preoc- 
cupations Perry  has  produced  an  extremely  illuminating  review  of  the 
philosophical  tendencies  of  our  time  in  the  English-speaking  world; 
and  in  doing  so  he  has  rendered  a  service  for  which  all  students  of 
contemporary  thought  must  be  grateful.  His  general  plan  of  treat- 
ment I  can  myself,  for  reasons  which  it  would  take  too  long  to  explain, 
not  regard  as  the  ideal  one;  there  are  some  serious  omissions  and 
oversights;  and  there  are,  of  course,  some  interpretations  to  which 
it  would  be  possible  to  take  exception,  if  the  author  had  not  himself 
professed  comparative  indifference  upon  this  point.  But,  in  so  far 
as  it  attempts  to  be  a  history,  the  book  has  the  essential  merit  of 
being  a  genuinely  philosophical  history.  It  deals — in  spite  of  the 
somewhat  misleading  prominence  given  to  the  four  principal  "isms" 
—with  the  reasons,  the  logical  (and  sometimes  the  alogical)  motives 
that  lead  contemporary  philosophers  to  their  diverse  conclusions, 
and  not  merely  with  the  resultant  systems  as  accomplished  facts. 
These  more  fundamental  motives,  the  dialectical  elements  out  of 
which  philosophic  compounds  are  formed,  the  author  has  in  many 
cases  very  instructively  generalized  and  separated  from  the  non- 
essential  forms  and  the  accidental  concomitants  which  they  happen 
to  have  in  the  doctrines  of  this  or  that  individual  philosopher.  And 
his  analysis  of  the  complicated  interlacings  or  cross-workings  of  these 
motives  is  often  singularly  penetrating.  I  can  not  forbear  to  add 
that  the  book  perpetuates  the  tradition  of  felicity  and  distinction  of 
English  style  which  has  been  honorably  characteristic  of  Harvard 
philosophers. 

In  one  part  of  the  book,  at  least,  Perry  assumes  those  definite 
responsibilities  of  the  exegete  which  he  has  elsewhere  disclaimed; 
and  on  this  some  relatively  detailed  comment  is  perhaps  in  order. 
By  his  appended  summary  of  James's  doctrines,  Perry  seems  to  me 
to  have  done  a  substantial  service  both  to  the  reputation  and  influ- 
ence of  that  master  and  to  the  study  of  contemporary  philosophy. 
For  James's  thought  had  a  good  deal  more  coherency,  and  the 
various  parts  of  his  reflection  more  of  definite  interconnectedness, 


630  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

than  has  commonly  been  recognized,  more,  indeed,  than  James  him- 
self ever  paused  to  point  out.  Much  of  this  Perry  has  exhibited  in 
a  highly  illuminating  manner;  to  not  a  few  readers,  I  doubt  not, 
this  appendix  will  give  a  clearer  and  more  correct  understanding  of 
James's  philosophical  position  than  they  have  ever  gained  fn.ni 
reading  James's  own  writings.  This  may  seem  a  singular  thing  to 
say  in  the  case  of  a  writer  so  notable  as  James  was  for  concreteness 
and  effectiveness  in  exposition.  But  the  truth  is  that  James  was  by 
no  means  a  good  expounder  of  his  own  philosophy  a*  a  whole,  ex- 
cept for  such  readers  as  had  the  patience  to  do  what  Perry  has  here 
done  for  them :  to  compare  one  passage  with  another,  to  put  two  par- 
tially contradictory  utterances  together  and  extract  from  them  the 
residuum  of  positive  affirmation,  to  take  from  one  volume  the  clauses 
intended  to  qualify  the  propositions  in  another  volume,  to  make  ex- 
plicit certain  logical  relations  implied,  but  not  fully  drawn  out.  The 
result  of  this  process,  to  be  sure,  is  not  exactly  a  faithful  psycholog- 
ical picture  of  the  mind  of  James.  Upon  many  questions  James's 
thought  was  to  the  end  characterized  by  uncertainties,  confusions, 
tendencies  towards  now  one  solution  and  now  another;  and  he  was 
not  wont  to  remember  all  his  other,  and  perhaps  counterbalancing, 
ideas,  when  his  presentation  of  the  idea  for  which  he  was  at  the 
moment  concerned  was  in  full  course.  His  thought,  in  short,  was  in 
process  and  partly  in  oscillation,  and  his  expression  was  unguarded 
and  sometimes  inconsistent;  while  Perry's  synopsis  reduces  the 
thought  to  a  single  and  arrested  doctrine,  and  the  expression  to  a 
relatively  precise  and  balanced  formulation.  But  if  what  we  get 
thereby  is  not  always  identifiable  with  James's  teaching,  it  still  is  in 
a  certain  real  sense  James's  philosophy;  the  pieces  of  the  picture  are 
his  handiwork,  and  the  way  in  which  they  ought  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  to  be  fitted  together  was  pretty  well  indicated  by  their  contours. 
Especially  good  is  the  section  on  James's  theory  of  knowledge;  none 
who  wish  to  understand  the  pragmatism  of  the  original  pragmatist 
should  fail  to  read  the  pages  in  which  Perry  sets  this  forth,  using,  as 
it  was  very  needful  to  do,  the  polemical  statement  in  "The  Mean- 
ing of  Truth"  to  give  greater  precision  to  the  constructive  statement 
in  "Pragmatism." 

There  are,  however,  some  omissions  and  misapprehensions  in  the 
account  of  James's  doctrine  which  perhaps  were  not  inevitable  con- 
sequences even  of  the  attempt  to  convert  it  from  a  flux  into  "static 
concepts."  The  interesting  fact  that  James,  "radical  empiricist" 
though  he  called  himself,  was  never  unequivocally  an  empiricist  in 
the  traditional  sense,  never  held  that  all  ideas  are  derived  from 
sense-experience  and  that  a  priori  knowledge  is  non-existent,  is  not* 

*The  fact  is,  however,  indirectly  intimated  elsewhere  in  the  volume  (p.  206). 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          631 

clearly  indicated.  That  it  is  a  fact  seems  to  be  shown  by  the  last 
chapter  of  the  "Psychology"  taken  together  with  "Pragmatism" 
(pp.  210-211).  James's  anti-intellectualism  in  "A  Pluralistic  Uni- 
verse" went  beyond  that  which  Perry  sets  forth  (pp.  366-368).  It 
did  not  merely  declare  that  the  "perceptual  flux"  contains  more 
than  any  concept  ever  contains,  and  that  some  of  its  most  character- 
istic attributes  can  never  be  conveyed  in  conceptual  form ;  it  closely 
approached,  and,  indeed,  clearly  implied,  the  assertion  that  the  flux 
is  not  subject  to  the  requirements  of  logic,  that  in  it  everything  is 
"already  in  the  fullest  sense  its  hegelian  'own  other.'  '  This, 
though  James  was  averse  from  putting  the  matter  so  baldly,  clearly 
implied  that  reality  when  conceptualized  may  involve  insoluble  antin- 
omies and  intellectually  irreconcilable  contradictions;  and  that,  ac- 
cordingly, you  can  not  argue  merely  from  the  "conceptual"  self- 
contradictoriness  of  the  notion  of  a  thing  to  the  unreality  of  the 
thing.  But  in  "Some  Problems  of  Philosophy"  this  position  was 
abandoned,  a  definite  solution  of  the  antinomies  was  offered,  and 
James's  unwillingness  to  "stomach  logical  contradiction"  was  ex- 
pressly given  as  his  reason  for  adopting  certain  important  meta- 
physical conclusions.  Since  Perry's  purpose  was  to  present  James's 
doctrine  in  its  final  form  rather  than  in  its  transitional  stages,  the 
omission  of  the  former  phase  of  James's  anti-intellectualism  was,  no 
doubt,  justifiable.  But  it  does  not  seem  certain  that  Perry  has  real- 
ized that  this  particular  fluctuation  occurred;  and,  in  consequence, 
his  citations  from  "A  Pluralistic  Universe"  are  sometimes  mal  a 
propos.  For  example,  he  gives  the  following  as  representing  a  view 
of  James 's :  "  The  same  mind  may  know  the  same  thing  at  different 
times.  The  different  pulses  of  one  consciousness  may  thus  overlap 
and  interpenetrate.  And  where  these  pulses  are  successive  the  per- 
sistence of  these  common  factors,  marginal  in  one  and  focal  in  the 
next,  gives  to  consciousness  its  peculiar  connectedness  and  contin- 
uity." Now,  as  used  by  James,  the  second  of  these  sentences  is  not 
at  all  synonymous  with  the  first;  and  his  whole  notion  of  the  "inter- 
penetration  of  the  pulses  of  consciousness,"  in  "A  Pluralistic  Uni- 
verse" is  something  far  more  paradoxical  than  Perry's  summary 
here  even  hints.  On  the  other  hand,  in  "Some  Problems"  James 
did  not  hold  that  the  pulses  of  consciousness  are  either  interpene- 
trative or,  in  the  mathematical  sense,  continuous;  he  there  emphat- 
ically insists  that  they  are  discrete.4 

Again,  no  account  of  James's  philosophy  can  be  complete  which 
does  not  emphasize  the  fact  that,  next  to  its  pluralism,  its  distin- 

4 1  discuss  this  subject  at  length  in  The  Philosophical  Eeview,  September, 
1912. 


632  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

guishing  feature  was  a  radical  temporalism, — that,  indeed,  James's 
pluralism  had  temporalism  as  its  form.  By  this  I  mean  not  only  that 
James  affirmed  the  irreducibly  temporal  nature  of  reality,  but  also 
that  he  was  characteristically  prone  to  think  in  terms  of  time-rela- 
tions— than  which  few  modes  of  thinking  are  rarer  among  philos- 
ophers. Meaning,  for  example,  signified  to  him  the  reference  of  a 
concrete  event  at  one  moment  to  another  such  event  at  another 
moment.  Truth  was  likewise  defined,  not  as  a  relation  of  corre- 
spondence between  a  thought  and  a  simultaneous  or  an  undated 
object,  nor  yet  as  a  conformity  with  some  timeless  validity,  but  as  a 
special  sort  of  inter-temporal  relation.  So  throughout  James's  psy- 
chology, epistemology,  metaphysics,  and  philosophy  of  religion  runs 
a  peculiarly  temporalistic  habit  of  mind.  Now,  Perry  by  no  means 
neglects  to  note  this  trait.  But  he  seems  to  me  hardly  to  insist  upon 
it  sufficiently ;  and  in  any  case,  he  fails  to  observe  how  greatly  James 
was  preoccupied  with  certain  special  problems  of  temporalism.  Two 
of  these  were  to  James  peculiarly  important  and  engrossing:  the 
question  concerning  the  actual  nature  of  time-perception,  and  the 
question  about  the  bearing  of  a  temporal ist  ontology  upon  one's 
view  of  the  relation  of  logic  to  reality.  Into  this  region  of  James's 
reflection  Perry  does  not  appear  to  me  to  have  penetrated  deeply. 
All  these,  however,  are  minor  limitations  in  an  unusually  clarifying 
exposition. 

Since,  however,  Perry's  chief  concern  is  to  establish  definite  con- 
clusions upon  the  three  problems  mentioned,  it  behooves  the  reviewer 
also  to  deal  with  the  book  chiefly  as  an  attempt  at  constructive  phil- 
osophical reasoning  rather  than  as  an  historical  study.  Of  the  three 
problems,  I  shall  take  the  space  to  discuss  Perry's  treatment  only  of 
the  first  two,  i.  e.,  his  philosophy  of  religion  and  his  argument  for 
realism.  For  these  appear  to  me  to  be  the  parts  of  the  book  about 
which  there  is  most  left  for  the  reviewer  to  say.  The  section  dealing 
with  the  third  problem, — i.  e.,  the  examination  of  pragmatism  and 
anti-intellectualism — is,  I  think,  much  the  best  thing  in  the  volume; 
most  of  it  seems  to  me  so  acute  and  so  sane  and  judicial  that  I  am 
afraid  that  any  extended  comment  which  I  might  make  upon  it 
would  prove  but  a  tiresome  reiteration  of  admiration  and  assent. 

It  should  be  obvious  that  the  first  two  problems  ought  by  no 
means  to  be  confused;  yet  it  can  not  be  said  that  Perry  has  suc- 
ceeded in  focusing  the  two  separately  and  distinctly.  An  answer 
to  the  ontological  question  concerning  the  relation  of  reality  to  con- 
sciousness is  no  answer  to  the  religious  question  concerning  the  con- 
formity of  reality  to  our  ideals  of  value.  The  controversy  over  real- 
ism deals  with  a  purely  theoretical  issue  which  may  be  and  should  be, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  633 

though  it  often  has  not  been,  dealt  with  in  an  entirely  disinterested 
and  cold-blooded  manner.  Metaphysical  idealism  does  not  as  such 
imply,  and  can  never  by  itself  alone  be  made  to  establish,  an  opti- 
mistic view  of  the  universe ;  realism  does  not  as  such  imply  a  pessi- 
mistic one.  Unfortunately,  Perry  has  adopted  a  terminology  which 
tends  not  only  to  obscure  this  distinction,  but  actually  to  merge  the 
two  issues.  While  he  primarily  means  by  idealism  and  realism  the 
metaphysical  doctrines  ordinarily  so  designated,  in  several  passages 
he  flatly  identifies  the  one  with  an  optimistic  view  about  the  rela- 
tion of  worth  to  reality,  the  other  with  abstention  from  optimism. 
Idealism,  he  tells  us  (p.  38),  is  a  form  of  romanticism  (a  word  which 
surely  has  already  enough  meanings  to  answer  for  without  acquiring 
a  brand-new  one)  ;  and  "romanticism"  signifies  "a  philosophy  in 
which  the  spiritual  ground  or  center  of  things  is  ...  accepted  by 
an  act  of  faith,  in  which  the  motive  of  religious  belief  is  allowed  to 
dominate"  (p.  36).  Thus  idealism  is  the  theory  which  professes  to 
guarantee  "the  eternal  predominance  of  the  good"  (p.  330).  Real- 
ism, on  the  contrary,  "rejects  the  doctrine  that  all  things  must  be 
good  or  beautiful  or  spiritual  in  order  to  be  at  all."  It  recognizes 
that  "the  universe  contains  things  good,  bad,  and  indifferent." 

This,  of  course,  not  merely  confounds  things  which  are  distinct, 
but  also  somewhat  unfairly  creates  prejudice  against  the  one,  and 
in  favor  of  the  other,  answer  to  the  purely  metaphysical  question. 
For  it  affirms  that  the  idealistic  answer  is  always  at  bottom  moti- 
vated by  considerations  which  have  no  lawful  pertinency  to  a  theo- 
retical issue;  while  it  ascribes  to  the  realist  alone  the  right  "scien- 
tific" attitude  of  readiness  to  accept  facts  as  one  finds  them. 
Imputing  motives  is  a  somewhat  delicate  and  difficult  business  at 
best ;  but  the  history  of  philosophy  clearly  refutes  the  generalization 
that  idealism  in  metaphysics  has  always  been  inspired  by  a  craving 
for  a  religiously  satisfying  view  of  the  world  and  has  always  pro- 
fessedly sanctioned  such  a  view.  That  it  often  has  sprung  from  that 
motive  and  ostensibly  issued  in  such  a  Weltanschauung  is  undeni- 
able ;  just  as  it  is  undeniable  that  some  latter-day  idealists  have  been 
guilty  of  the  discreditable  practise  of  recommending  their  doctrine 
to  general  acceptance  by  employing  the  language  of  religion  in  rad- 
ically altered  meanings,  and  even  by  a  play  upon  the  two  senses — 
the  technical  and  the  colloquial  sense — of  the  term  "idealism." 
But  the  religiously  affirmative  and  optimistic  temper  can  not  well 
be  regarded  as  inherent  in  idealistic  views  so  long  as  there  are  num- 
bered among  the  idealists  or  near-idealists  such  names  as  Protagoras, 
Hume,  Mill,  Schopenhauer,  and  Bradley.  Nothing  is  more  obvious 
than  that  one  of  the  types  of  mind  inclining  towards  idealism — in 


634  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  form  of  phenomenalism — is  precisely  the  positivistic,  sceptical, 
hard-headed  type,  which  refuses  to  affirm  aught  that  is  not  attested 
by  tin-  iiniin di;iti>  evidence  of  sense;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
affirmative  and  confident  humor  which  inclines  men  to  religious  faith 
and  to  a  belief  in  the  general  goodness  of  things  has  also  been  a 
temperamental  source  of  dogmatic  realism — teste  the  Scotch  School 
or  Dr.  Martineau.  There  has,  throughout  the  history  of  speculation, 
been  a  curious  cross- working  of  motives  here ;  but  I  suspect  that  both 
religious  optimism  and  physical  realism  are  possible  only  by  an  act 
(usually  unconscious)  of  faith;  and  that  much  historic  idealism, 
even  when  it  speaks  the  language  of  theology,  is  in  reality  a  mani- 
festation of  the  spirit  which  denies.  Das  war  des  Pudels  Kern! 
But  in  theoretic  philosophy  the  spirit  which  denies  is  by  no  means 
the  Devil. 

It  is  the  more  surprising  that  Perry  has  so  far  confused  these 
two  issues,  because  he  has  seen  with  unusual  clearness  that  there  is 
no  true  logical  inference  possible  from  idealism  as  such  to  a  morally 
inspiring  and  religiously  fortifying  view  of  the  universe.  One  of  the 
most  admirable  chapters  in  the  book,  that  entitled  "Absolute  Ideal- 
ism and  Religion,"  exposes  with  merciless  lucidity  the  confusions 
and  equivocations  through  which  alone  many  neo-Kantian  or  eter- 
nalistic  idealisms  of  the  last  half-century  have  acquired  a  speciously 
edifying  sound : — for  example,  the  confusion,  characteristic  of  much 
of  Eucken's  writing,  between  the  notion  of  "the  primacy  of  spirit" 
in  a  purely  epistemological  and  practically  barren  sense,  and  th*e 
notion  of  man's  practical  dominance  over  his  environment  and  of 
his  power  over  it  and  over  himself.  Especially  telling  is  Perry's 
"showing-up"  of  the  imposture  in  the  pseudo- voluntarism  of  the 
neo-Fichteans.  This  chapter  at  least,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  be 
generally  read  by  those  whom  Perry  calls  "the  middle-men  of  en- 
lightenment— clergymen,  litterateurs,  lecturers,  and  teachers,"  many 
of  whom  have  long  been  wont,  no  doubt  in  all  innocence,  to  dress  up 
the  unlovely  figure  of  the  idealistic  Absolute  in  the  garb  of  the  God 
of  religion,  and  to  bid  men  lift  up  their  eyes  to  that  object  as  the 
source  of  courage  and  consolation.  But  that  the  author  who  so 
clearly  shows  the  logical  disjunction  between  these  sorts  of  idealism 
and  religious  optimism  should  at  the  same  time  imply  that  religious 
optimism  is  the  logical  essence  of  idealism,  is  a  little  curious. 

If  now,  in  this  first  paper,  we  separate  the  threads  of  Perry's 
reasoning  which  concern  the  philosophy  of  religion  or  "Weltan- 
ai-liniiungslehre  from  those  which  concern  the  epistemological  con- 
troversy over  realism,  his  chief  contentions  upon  the  former  point 
may  be  roughly  summarized  thus:  Idealism  in  its  current  forms  is 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  635 

(for  reasons  already  indicated)  without  religious  value;  it  is  also 
(for  reasons  hereafter  to  be  examined)  logically  inadmissible.  But 
realism,  or  at  least  physical  realism,  has  not  uncommonly  been  as- 
sociated with  "naturalism,"  i.  e.,  with  the  adoption  of  the  cate- 
gories and  the  larger  conclusions  of  physical  science  as  a  definitive 
general  philosophy.  It  is,  however,  undeniable  that  naturalism  is 
irreconcilable  with  religion, — with  "the  requirement  that  the  cosmos, 
whatever  it  be  made  of,  shall  in  the  end  yield  to  desires  and  ideals — 
shall,  in  short,  be  good."  "Religion  of  the  optimistic  type,  the  be- 
lief that  civilization  dominates  and  eventually  possesses  the  cosmic 
process,  can  not  survive,  if  the  scientific  version  of  things  be  accepted 
without  reservation."  Such  a  belief,  or  at  least  such  a  hope,  Perry 
is  solicitous  to  defend; — a  fact  which  shows  that  faith  may  play  its 
part,  wholesomely  enough,  in  the  philosophy  even  of  a  realist.  With 
the  gloomy  eloquence  of  his  fellow-realist,  Mr.  Russell,  in  that  strik- 
ing essay  called  "A  Free  Man's  "Worship,"  he  has  small  sympathy. 
He  has  an  affirmative  religious  philosophy  of  his  own,  though  it  is  a 
completely  and  honestly  "  this- worldly  "  one;  he  seeks  to  fortify 
men's  confidence  that  "values,"  though  they  do  not  "constitute  the 
ground  of  existence,  will  in  the  long  run  control  existence"  (p.  340). 
He  therefore  offers  a  criticism  of  naturalism,  a  proof  of  the  inade- 
quacy and  inconclusiveness  of  the  "scientific  version  of  things." 

This  proof,  which  one  must  suppose  to  have  been  intended  to 
yield  one  of  the  three  principal  constructive  conclusions  of  the  book, 
is,  I  think,  somewhat  slighted  in  the  execution.  From  the  idealistic 
and  other  familiar  grounds  of  attack  upon  naturalism,  such  as  those 
used  recently  by  Ward  and  Wenley,  Perry  is,  of  course,  debarred  by 
his  general  position ;  of  several  such  attacks  he  makes  some  vigorous 
criticisms.  His  own  justification  of  "the  claims  of  religious  opti- 
mism" appears  to  rest  chiefly  upon  three  grounds:  (a)  a  logical  or 
Platonic  realism,  (6)  a  belief  in  the  "effectuality  of  interests"  or 
desires,  and  (c)  an  extremely  sanguine  sort  of  evolutionary  melior- 
ism, (a)  "Logic,"  it  is  affirmed,  "is  prior  to  physics"  (p.  109), 
but  is  equally  descriptive  of  a  realm  of  independent,  extra-mental 
realities  (p.  83)  ;  consequently,  "being  has,  in  the  last  analysis,  a 
logical  rather  than  a  physical  character"  (ib.,  italics  the  author's). 
If  this  "rather"  is  seriously  meant,  the  whole  of  Perry's  physical 
realism  resolves  itself  eventually  into  a  sort  of  Platonic  realism;  a 
singular  outcome,  which  one  could  wish  to  have  a  great  deal  more 
fully  elucidated.  However  this  may  be,  the  conclusion  just  quoted, 
we  are  told,  "is  fatal  to  naturalism."  Perhaps  it  is;  but  I  fail  to  see 
how  it  "affords  a  basis  for  religious  belief,"  if  religious  belief  means, 
as  Perry  repeatedly  insists  that  it  should  mean,  not  merely  a  barren 


r,3i;  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

metaphysical  affirmation  of  otiose  immaterial  subsistences,  but  also  a 
definite  expectation  of  the  conservation  and  the  triumph  of  concrete 
human  values  in  the  order  of  time.  This  first  aru'UMient,  then,  ap- 
pears irrelevant  to  the  conclusion  to  be  established,  and  its  premises 
may  therefore,  in  the  present  connection,  be  left  unscrutinized. 

More  pertinent  is  (6)  the  second  consideration.  "That  interests 
operate  and  that  things  take  place  because  of  the  good  they  promote" 
— t.  e.,  because  conscious  agents  desire  them — is,  Perry  holds,  a  fact 
which  it  is  mere  wantonness  and  absurdity  to  deny;  like  Mr.  Mc- 
Dougall,  he  takes  his  stand  upon  the  fundamental  certitude  of  he- 
donic  selection.  This,  now,  is  a  philosophical  contention  of  interest 
and  importance;  but  one  is  obliged  to  record  with  disappointment 
that  Perry  neglects  not  only  to  offer  any  new  or  extended  argument 
for  it,  but  also  to  make  clear  just  how  much  he  means  by  it  and  what 
its  inherent  implications  are.  He  employs  upon  the  same  pages  two 
seemingly  irreconcilable  sets  of  expressions  upon  the  subject.  On 
the  one  hand,  he  appears  to  wish  to  avoid  unequivocal  interactionism. 
For  he  denies  that  there  is  "any  absolute  incompatibility  between 
mechanism  and  interest,"  and  at  times  writes  as  if  the  mechanical  de- 
termination of  all  physical  events  could  be  asserted  and  epi  phenom- 
enalism at  the  same  time  escaped.  ' '  The  same  process  may  obey  many 
laws  and  laws  of  different  types."  "Were  it  necessary  that  the 
good  should  triumph  only  in  the  breach  of  mechanical  law,  then  the 
growth  of  science  would  indeed  be  ominous.  But  life  triumphs 
through  and  in  mechanical  law.  The  systems  of  nature  enter  itit>i<-{ 
into  the  systems  of  life"  (p.  344).  This,  one  would  naturally  sup- 
pose, means  that,  for  example,  a  martyr's  march  to  the  stake  can  be 
equally  correctly  and  fully  accounted  for  by  referring  it  either  to  a 
mechanical  uniformity,  in  accordance  with  which  the  martyr's  body 
is  at  a  given  time  necessarily  moved  in  a  certain  direction  at  a  cer- 
tain velocity ;  or  to  a  psycho-physical  uniformity  in  accordance  with 
which  the  emotion  of  loyalty  to  conviction  propels  the  selfsame 
body  upon  the  same  path  at  the  same  moment.  This,  no  doubt, 
would  be  an  attractive  synthesis;  it  has  the  air  of  dealing  very 
handsomely  with  both  mechanism  and  interactionism,  since  it  seem- 
ingly endorses  in  full  the  claims  of  each.  But  there  are  certain 
fairly  obvious  and  notorious  difficulties  in  such  a  reconciliation ;  and 
to  these  Perry  gives  no  attention.  I  mention  but  one.  If  a  specified 
kind  of  event  or  circumstance,  A,  occurs  always  in  concomitant-  with 
another  event  or  circumstance,  B,  and  if  a  specified  effect,  -Y,  occurs 
whenever  A  -}-  B  occurs,  then,  it  is  quite  true,  we  may  formulate 
this  uniformity  in  two  ways.  We  may  say  that  X  always  follows  A, 
or  that  it  always  follows  B.  And  if  we  know  no  more  of  the  matter 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  637 

than  this,  we  may  remain  in  doubt  whether  we  ought  to  regard  A, 
or  B,  or  A  -f-  B,  as  the  "cause"  of  X.  But  if  we  happen  to  know  or 
to  assume  that,  given  B,  X  would  occur  even  if  A  were  absent,  we 
should  certainly  not  consider  A  the  cause,  or  even  part  of  the  cause, 
of  the  effect.  However  Humian  one's  conception  of  causality,  a  cir- 
cumstance which,  though  present  when  a  given  effect  is  produced,  is 
held  to  be  not  requisite  to  the  production  of  that  effect,  is  ex 
hypothesi  no  causal  determinant  of  the  effect.  The  fly  who,  observ- 
ing that  whenever  he  sat  upon  the  axle  of  the  chariot-wheel  a  great 
dust  ensued,  inferred  that  he  was  himself  the  cause  of  the  dust,  was 
doubtless  a  faulty  inductive  logician;  yet  so  far  as  his  observation 
went,  his  hypothesis,  though  not  proven,  was  from  his  point  of  view 
not  logically  absurd.  But  if  the  same  fly  had  held  a  philosophy 
which  declared  that  the  motion  of  the  chariot  was  quite  sufficient  to 
account  for  all  the  dust,  yet  had  at  the  same  time  persisted  in 
affirming  the  dust-producing  "efficacy"  of  his  presence  on  the  axle, 
— he  would  have  been  a  very  illogical  fly  indeed.  If,  now,  Perry's 
conception  of  the  "  multiple  determination"  of  any  single  event  in 
the  life  of  a  conscious  being  implies  that  one  of  the  so-called  determin- 
ants— e.  g.,  the  mechanical  one — is  of  itself  a  sufficient  cause  of  the 
event,  he  falls  into  a  like  illogicality,  when  he  at  the  same  time 
affirms  that  the  event  happens  "because  of"  the  coincident  but  un- 
necessary presence  of  a  desire  or  interest.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  supposes  the  desire  to  be  really  necessary  to  the  production  of  the 
effect,  he  implies,  not  the  conformity  of  a  single  event  with  two 
parallel,  non-interfering,  "laws,"  but  the  supplementing  or  modifi- 
cation of  the  effects  which  mechanical  uniformities  alone  would  have 
ensured,  by  the  interposition  of  volitional  agencies.  If  the  martyr's 
bodily  conduct  could  be  deduced  by  means  of  a  complete  knowledge 
of  the  mechanics  of  molecules,  which  laws  require  no  reference  to 
any  such  factors  as  desires  or  interests  or  moral  obligations, — then 
these  latter  are  causally  redundant  circumstances.  But  if  the 
martyr's  conduct  can  not  be  so  deduced,  it  must  be  because  the  ob- 
served effects  are  different  from  those  which  the  mechanical  laws 
would  have  described.  In  other  words,  the  invocation  of  what  Perry 
calls  "moral  causality"  can  be  justified  only  if  the  implications  of 
mechanical  laws  alone,  with  respect  to  the  specified  conditions,  are  be- 
lieved to  be  incompatible  with  the  phenomena  which  in  the  given 
case  actually  occur.  And  this  is  equivalent  to  affirming  the  incom- 
patibility, in  the  given  case,  of  purely  mechanistic  with  volitional 
determination.  Accordingly,  universal  mechanism  seems  to  mean 
epiphenomenalism,  or  to  mean  nothing,  and  the  assertion  of  the 
efficacy  of  interests  as  such  seems  to  mean  the  denial  of  universal 
mechanism,  or  to  mean  nothing. 


638  TIIK  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

There  are,  however,  numerous  expressions  of  Perry's  which  seem 
to  be  plainly  tantamount  to  a  denial  of  universal  mechanism, — ex- 
pressions in  which  the  "multiple  determination"  of  the  same  process 
is  maintained  only  in  the  sense  that  a  single  act  of  a  conscious  being 
involves  both  types  of  causality,  the  one  to  account  for  part  of  the 
effect,  the  other  to  account  for  the  rest  of  it.  ' '  There  is, ' '  one  reads, 
"freedom  from  exclusive  control  of  mechanical  laws."  "If  it  be 
true  that  the  kinetic  energy  of  my  actions  is  quantitatively  propor- 
tionate to  the  nutritive  substances  which  I  consume,  it  is  not  less 
true  that  my  actions  exhibit  a  qualitative  uniformity  which  can  only 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  interests  that  govern  me"  (p.  342; 
italics  mine).  This  passage  suggests,  not  a  reconciliation  of  "mech- 
anism and  interest,"  but  plain  interactionism.  For,  of  course,  no 
interactionist  ever  denied  that  there  are  mechanical  laws  and  that 
they  have  something  to  do  with  the  case ;  his  doctrine  does  not  imply 
that  the  martyr's  movements  are  not  conditioned  by  the  force  of 
gravity  as  well  as  by  the  emotion  of  loyalty.  But  with  an  inter- 
actionistic  interpretation  of  Perry's  position  it  is  impossible  to  rec- 
oncile the  expressions  in  which  he  implies  that  he  has  transcended 
the  old  antithesis.  "It  is,"  he  writes,  "customary  to  suppose  that 
the  accepted  validity  of  mechanical  laws  somehow  stands  in  the  way 
of  the  operation  of  interest."  Now,  in  fact,  it  is  not  customary  to 
suppose  that  the  validity  of  mechanical  laws  as  partial  determinants 
of  the  action  of  conscious  beings  stands  in  the  way  of  the  operation 
of  interest ;  on  the  contrary,  I  dare  say,  nobody  ever  supposed  any- 
thing of  the  sort.  What  is  often  assumed  is  that  universal  determi- 
nation of  all  physical  happenings  through  mechanical  laws  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  operation  of  interest  in  the  physical  order.  And  the 
careful  reader  will  be  unable  to  be  quite  sure  from  Perry's  language 
whether  he  means  to  controvert  this  actual  "customary  supposi- 
tion" or  not. 

One  may,  then,  fairly  complain  of  the  author  that  he  has  left  a 
most  important  point  in  his  argument  in  a  regrettable  confusion  and 
obscurity.  Yet  it  is  clear  enough  what  he  ought  to  mean,  in  order 
to  give  genuine  significance  to  his  polemic  against  naturalism  as  a 
professedly  final  philosophy.  He  ought  to  mean  an  unqualified  as- 
sertion that  the  actions  of  men  and  other  organisms  are  not  at  all 
what  they  would  be  if  they  conformed  merely  to  general  laws  of  the 
motion  of  masses  or  molecules,  laws  valid  alike  for  inorganic,  or- 
ganic, and  conscious  beings.  Assuming  this  to  be  the  position  really 
intended,  I  should  wish  to  urge,  not  that  it  is  intrinsically  untenable, 
but  only  that,  if  taken,  it  opens  the  way  to  further  conclusions 
which  Perry  hardly  seems  to  have  glimpsed.  One  who  goes  so  far 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS  639 

as  this  can  not  well  avoid  going  farther;  to  change  the  figure,  his 
affirmation  is  big  with  implications  which  cry  for  the  light  of  day. 

Meanwhile,  it  is  evident  that  even  this  conclusion  falls  short  of 
a  justification  of  the  sort  of  "religious  optimism"  which  Perry  de- 
sires to  encourage.  It  affirms  the  efficacy  of  ideals  in  the  universe, 
but  not  their  supremacy,  present  or  future.  It  assures  us  of  the 
pertinency  of  moral  causality  amidst  the  changes  of  the  outer 
world;  but  it  does  not  assure  us  of  its  eventual  predominance.  For 
this  assurance,  Perry  invokes  (c)  considerations  which  may  perhaps 
not  unfairly  be  reduced  to  the  remark  that  "consciousness"  has 
done  a  good  deal  in  the  world  already,  that  we  know  little  about 
the  universe's  latent  capacities,  and  that  in  view  of  these  facts  we 
ought  to  hope  for  the  best.  We  are,  he  urges,  not  justified  in 
"speaking  for  the  universe  in  terms  of  the  narrow  and  abstract 
predictions  of  astronomy;"  that  "residual  cosmos  .  .  .  which  looms 
beyond  the  border  of  knowledge  .  .  .  may  in  time  overbalance  and 
remake  the  little  world  of  things  known,  and  falsify  every  present 
prophecy."  It  is  upon  such  a  note  that  the  book  ends.  So  confi- 
dent a  temper  one  would  not  willingly  discourage ;  that  it  is  a  false 
confidence  no  man,  happily,  can  demonstrate.  In  so  far  as  Perry 
argues  affirmatively  for  it  (against,  for  example,  Russell  and 
Santayana)  he  seems  to  me  to  argue  ineffectively.  To  have  proved 
even  that  "consciousness,  instead  of  creating  the  mere  toys  and 
playthings  of  the  imagination,  does  actually  make  [some]  things 
good, "  is  by  no  means  to  have  proved  it ' '  fatuous  and  unreasonable ' ' 
to  anticipate  that  probably,  in  despite  of  consciousness,  the  sun  will 
some  day  grow  cold  and  the  earth  be  left  a  lifeless  waste.  Perry  is 
prone  at  times  to  find  in  the  "effectuality  of  consciousness"  a 
prophetic  significance  which  it  does  not  logically  contain.  The  fact 
that  I  can  at  will  lift  a  table  affords  no  safe  ground  for  the  infer- 
ence that  I  shall  some  day  be  able  to  remove  mountains;  and  the 
fact  that  humanity  has  much  transformed  the  planet  of  its  habita- 
tion affords  as  little  ground  for  the  inference  that  it  will  some  day 
be  able  to  regulate  the  solar  system.  Even  seriously  to  hope  for  this 
last  (a  hope  which  certainly  seems  implied  by  Perry's  two  con- 
cluding pages)  will  impress  many  minds  as  an  attitude  of  some- 
what comic  presumptuousness.  And  that  "the  claims  of  religious 
optimism"  are  not  really  based  upon  inference,  but  upon  an  appeal 
to  faith  and  courage,  Perry,  on  the  whole,  plainly  enough  recognizes. 
The  only  argument  in  this  matter  is,  in  truth,  the  argument  from 
nescience;  ignoramus,  ergo  speremus.  That,  if  not  at  all  an  intel- 
lectually cogent,  is  none  the  less  a  potent,  argument.  And  if  the 


640  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

measure  of  our  ignorance  is  the  measure  of  our  permissible  hope, 
then  indeed  is  the  room  left  for  hope  large. 

ARTHUR  0.  LOVEJOY. 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

The  Psychology  of  the  Religious  Life.     GEORGE  MALCOLM   STRATTON. 

London.     George  Allen  &  Co.     1911.     Pp.  ix  +  376. 

This  volume  is  one  of  the  "  Library  of  Philosophy  "  series  edited  by 
Professor  Muirhead.  It  is  most  delightfully  written,  the  reader  being 
carried  along  through  many  difficult  problems  of  the  philosophy  and  psy- 
chology of  religion  by  a  real  literary  style  and  by  constant  surprises  in 
the  way  of  happy  turns  of  thought.  It  is  a  book  to  be  enjoyed  by  the 
general  reader  as  well  as  by  the  specialist. 

The  conflict  of  opposing  attitudes,  so  well  known  to  all  students  of 
religion,  is  the  underlying  theme  of  the  treatment.  The  author's  aim  is 
not  so  much  to  explain,  if  that  were  indeed  possible,  as  to  describe  the 
various  phases  of  the  religious  spirit  as  diverse  aspects  of  this  conflict 
of  impulses  and  motives.  First  he  points  out  the  conflicts  of  feeling  and 
emotion  as  seen  in  the  alternate  tendency  to  exalt  and  depreciate  the  self, 
in  the  breadth  and  narrowness  of  sympathy,  in  the  acceptance  and  re- 
nunciation of  the  world,  in  the  alternation  of  gloom  and  cheer,  and  so 
forth.  In  each  case  the  author  shows  that  the  opposing  attitudes  are 
genuine  expressions  of  human  moods  and  are  alike  needful  for  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  complex  religious  attitude.  "  The  mind,  by  its  very  atten- 
tion to  a  more  impressive  form  of  existence,  finds  itself  drawn  to  opposite 
poles  of  feeling;  now  honoring  and  now  despising  the  self;  holding  fellow- 
men  in  respect  or  in  contempt;  loving  or  else  hating  the  ways  and  insti- 
tutions of  the  world;  viewing  the  relation  between  humanity  and  the 
divine,  now  with  excitement  and  now  with  calm,  and  in  particular  with 
gladness  or  with  sorrow.  The  very  fealty  to  the  Ideal — stirs  into  life  the 
most  contrary  emotions." 

Then  the  conflicts  of  action  are  described  as  seen,  on  the  one  hand,  in 
excessive  ritualism  and,  on  the  other,  in  avoidance  of  all  ritual ;  in  aggres- 
sive religious  activity  and  in  the  attitude  that  shuns  all  action  and  seeks 
inner  and  outer  passivity.  The  varying  expression  of  religion,  now  in 
some  sort  of  overt  action  and  now  in  inaction,  being  but  the  reflection  of 
varying  moods  in  the  individual  or  of  varying  types  of  human  nature  or 
of  differences,  perfectly  genuine,  of  mental  constitution.  With  all  the 
human  need  of  action  there  are  yet  cravings  that  action  does  not  satisfy 
and  man  often  turns  and  finds  .satisfaction  of  religious  impulses  in  passive 
contemplation.  "  Opposed  to  the  religion  of  effort  and  the  outward  look 
is  that  of  quiet  and  the  inward  look." 

Last  of  all  there  are  the  conflicts  of  thought,  the  trust  in  the  intellect, 
and  the  strange  jealousy  of  all  things  reasoned.  The  belief  now  in  many 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          641 

gods  and  now  in  one  supreme  divinity,  in  the  known  and  in  the  unknown 
god,  in  the  god  near  at  hand  and  in  the  gods  far  off.  Particularly  inter- 
esting and  suggestive  is  the  discussion  of  the  motives  leading  to  a  multi- 
plication of  gods  or  to  a  reduction  of  all  to  a  unity. 

The  closing  chapters  deal  with  the  nature  of  the  ideal  and  the  stand- 
ards of  religion  as  interpreted  through  the  many-sided  conflict  of  motives 
on  which  religion  is  seen  to  rest. 

To  a  large  extent  the  data  offered  by  the  author  in  support  of  his 
theses  are  drawn  from  the  highly  developed  religions  of  India  and  of  the 
Semitic  peoples.  If  a  word  of  criticism  may  be  offered,  it  seems  to  the 
reviewer  that  the  author  does  not  draw  sufficiently  from  the  recent  litera- 
ture regarding  the  ethnic  religions,  e.  g.,  the  later  researches  dealing  with 
the  American  Indians.  One  finds  here  an  impressive  picture  of  the  many- 
sidedness  of  the  religious  motive  and  of  the  genuineness  of  many  phases 
which  seem  at  first  glance  to  be  hopelessly  opposed.  Nevertheless  it  is  a 
view  from  only  one  angle  that  we  are  given.  Much  more  might  be  done 
toward  an  explanation  of  the  deep-seated  conflicts  by  a  more  thorough 
discussion  of  the  relation  of  the  inner  religious  attitudes  to  the  more 
ordinary  phases  of  the  life  process.  The  reviewer  has  the  feeling,  per- 
haps unwarranted,  from  reading  the  book,  that  the  author  tends  to  take 
the  conflicts  as  ultimate  facts,  referring  to  them  as  the  final  explanation 
of  diverse  modes  of  religious  expression.  Certainly  the  phenomena  of 
social  life  will  throw  more  light  than  the  author  admits  upon  many  of  the 
curious  opposing  tendencies  here  discussed. 

IRVING  KING. 
STATE  UNIVERSITY  OP  IOWA. 

The  Alchemy  of  Thought.     L.  P.  JACKS.     New  York:  Henry  Holt  and 

Company.     1911.     Pp.  viii  -f  349. 

This  book  is  more  notable  for  its  manner  than  its  matter.  Fluent, 
often  witty,  distinguished  by  a  rare  and  welcome  ease,  which  in  an  in- 
stance or  two,  it  must  be  confessed,  becomes  very  like  journalese,  the 
manner,  bar  prodigality  of  capital  letters  amounting  to  extravagance,  is 
a  consummation  in  philosophy  much  to  be  desired.  The  matter  is  an 
ancient  dogma  redressed  to  serve  the  fashionable  taste.  Its  essence  is 
"  the  whole."  Not  the  "  rational  whole,"  for  that,  because  of  the  new 
mode  introduced  by  pragmatists  and  pluralists,  is  no  longer  the  supreme 
excellence.  The  supreme  "  whole  "  contains  the  "  rational  whole  "  and 
many  other  "  wholes  "  and  parts,  as  a  body  contains  organs,  or  a  sentence 
words.  Whatever  is,  is  a  necessary  and  organic  part  of  this  highest  whole, 
which  has  the  familiar  omnivorousness  of  the  Royceian  absolute.  It  differs 
from  the  latter  in  garb  and  garniture,  wearing  plumes  borrowed  from  the 
esthetic  and  anti-intellectualistic  vitalism  of  Bergson  and  the  utilitarian 
epistemology  of  the  humanists.  In  it,  philosophies  are  complementary 
and  organic.  One  is  nothing  without  its  enemy,  the  later  without  the 
earlier.  Knowledge  is  constitutive;  hence  a  revealing  science  of  "fixed 
terms "  is  impossible.  Science,  in  fact,  fails  because  it  regards  the 


<.4l>  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOl'll  Y 

universe  as  a  "  Problem-to-be-solved."  But  every  question,  scientific  or 
philosophic,  assumes  its  answer  in  advance.  The  universe  hence  is  not  a 
problem.  It  is  a  thing  self-explanatory,  "  a  free  work  of  art,"  whose 
"  infinite  and  eternal  attributes  "  no  science  of  ours  could  ever  exhaust. 
For  the  method  of  science,  like  the  method  of  philosophy,  is  to  abstract, 
to  arrest,  to  fix;  its  results,  consequently,  are  abstractions,  verbalizations, 
tliintr-  insulated  and  self-defeating,  needing  always  to  be  pieced  out  and 
saved  by  the  residuum  they  thought  to  abandon,  the  residuum  which 
concepts  miss,  words  skip,  philosophic  systems  detach  from. 

Art  is  closer  to  reality  than  thought:  only  the  artistic  vision  succeeds 
in  apprehending  the  inwardness  of  things.  But  when  these  things  are 
"  the  whole,"  the  vision  of  them  is  religion.  Religion,  Mr.  Jacks  an- 
nounces in  passionate  and  resounding  dithyrambs,  alone  speaks  with  au- 
thority, is  possessed  of  cosmic  courage,  unifies  men,  devotes  them  to  the 
"  Highest,"  rests  absolute  and  self-sufficient. 

Such  is  the  content  of  this  charming  collection  of  lyrical  essays  in 
philosophy.  It  indicates  at  once  the  wide  range  of  the  religionistic  temper 
in  its  search  for  aid  and  comfort  from  the  intellect  and  the  broad  toler- 
ance it  can  develop  for  the  sake  of  the  conservation  of  its  own  values. 
Whatever  the  justice  of  its  attack  on  systematic  thinking  and  on  science, 
it  misses  the  application  of  its  own  lyric  and  esthetic  formula  to  these 
things.  Thus  it  insists  on  what  they  do  not  do,  rather  than  on  what  they 
do,  and  their  life  and  inwardness  escape  it.  Its  method  is  not,  of  course, 
new.  The  sceptical  " tu  quoque"  it  throws  in  the  teeth  of  positive  thought 
is  the  immemorial  device  of  the  pietist  and  the  mystic.  For  its  contempo- 
rary use  Bergson  and  the  pragmatists  are  not  a  little  to  blame,  but  a 
genuine  pragmatism  makes  no  reservation  in  favor  of  one  type  of  knowl- 
edge against  another.  All,  religious,  esthetic,  scientific,  must  submit  to 
the  same  tests  and  be  established  in  the  same  way.  It  is  only  when  the 
pluralism  is  superficial  and  the  application  of  the  pragmatic  method  nega- 
tive and  not  positive,  that  such  distinction  can  be  made.  And  a  negative 
application  of  pragmatism  and  a  superficial  pluralism  mean  a  dialectical 
game  with  loaded  dice,  a  special  plea  which  intends  to  prove  the  superior 
virtue  of  "  the  whole  "  by  no  matter  what  device.  As  Mr.  Jacks  so  well 
says,  the  answer  is  already  presupposed  by  the  question,  while  for  positive 
pragmatism  the  answer  is  not  presupposed,  and  only  the  "  tender-minded  " 
could  presuppose  it. 

H.  M.  KALLEN. 

THE  UNIVERSITY  or  WISCONSIN. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

MIND.  January,  1912.  The  Method  of  Metaphysics;  and  the  Cate- 
gories (pp.  1-20) :  S.  ALEXANDER.  -  Experience  reveals  two  orders  of 
things:  mind,  the  act  of  experiencing,  which  is  enjoyed;  and  external 
things,  the  content  experienced,  which  are  contemplated.  Things  do  not 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          643 

depend  upon  mind.  The  method  of  metaphysics  is  empirical.  The  cate- 
gories are  descriptive  of  the  pervasive  character  of  things  and  are  both 
enjoyed  and  contemplated.  Does  Moral  Philosophy  Best  on  a  Mistake? 
(pp.  21-37)  :  H.  A.  PRICHARD.  -  Why,  upon  reflection,  ought  we  to  do  the 
things  which  in  unreflective  thinking  we  suppose  we  ought  to  do?  The 
answers  given  by  "  happiness  "  theories  and  "  intrinsic  goodness  "  theories 
are  unsatisfactory.  The  sense  of  moral  obligation  is  not  open  to  proof, 
but  rests  upon  immediate  and  self-evident  apprehension.  The  Meaning 
of  Mysticism  as  seen  through  its  Psychology  (pp.  38-61) :  WILLIAM 
ERNEST  HOCKING. -Psychology  has  the  advantage  over  metaphysics  and 
theology  in  finding  the  meaning  of  mysticism.  Mysticism  is  neither  a 
metaphysics  nor  an  experience,  but  it  is  the  fine  art  of  worship.  From 
this  interpretation  objection  is  made  to  the  prevailing  metaphysical  inter- 
pretations, and  positive  theses  are  contributed  to  the  psychology  of  mys- 
ticism. The  Vedantic  Absolute  (pp.  62-78):  HOMO  LEONE. -An  account 
of  the  Vedantic  concepts  of  unity  and  totality,  with  a  description  of  the 
Vedantic  teachings  about  man,  nature,  God,  and  practical  problems.  The 
Limits  of  Deductive  Reasoning  (pp.  79-83)  :  H.  S.  SHELTON.  -  An  outline 
statement,  inviting  criticism,  of  logical  principles  to  be  developed  more 
fully  at  a  later  date.  Discussions:  The  Kernel  of  Pragmatism  (pp.  84- 
88)  :  HASTINGS  BERKELEY.  Truth's  "  Original  Object "  (pp.  89-93)  :  E.  D. 
FAWCETT.  Critical  Notes:  H.  Vaihinger,  Die  Philosophie  des  Als  Ob. 
System  der  thaoretischen,  praktischen  und  religiosen  Fiktionen  der 
Menschheit  auf  Grund  eines  idealistischen  Positivismus,  mit  einem 
Anhang  uber  Kant  und  Nietzsche:  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER.  William  Mc- 
Dougall,  Body  and  Mind:  a  History  and  a  Defence  of  Animism:  J.  S. 
MACKENZIE.  Henri  Delacroix,  Etudes  d'Histoire  et  de  Psychologic  du 
Mysticisme.  Les  grands  Mystiques  Chretiens:  A.  R.  WHATELY.  New 
Books.  Philosophical  Periodicals.  Notes. 

EEVUE  DES  SCIENCES  PHILOSOPHIQUES  ET  THEOLOG- 
IQUES.  July,  1912.  Les  Judgements  de  valeur  et  la  conception  theolog- 
ique  de  la  morale  (pp.  433-464):  M.  S.  GILLET. -The  double  problem  of 
regulation  and  motivation  in  ethics  can  be  satisfactorily  solved  only  in 
the  hypothesis  of  a  theological  ideal,  which  is  at  the  same  time  the  norm 
and  supreme  motive  of  conduct.  La  theorie  de  I' intelligence  chez  saint 
Bonaventure  (pp.  465—189) :  F.  PALHORIES.  -  There  are  two  sources  of 
knowledge  in  St.  Bonaventure's  philosophy:  (1)  the  senses,  from  which 
all  knowledge  starts,  and  (2)  a  certain  union  of  our  thought  with  the 
divine  thought,  by  means  of  which  we  possess  an  intuition  of  the  eternal 
truths.  L'Histoire  des  religions  de  I'Inde  et  I'apologetique  (pp.  490-526)  : 
LA  VALLEE  POUSSIN. -A  study  of  the  origin  and  development  of  the  re- 
ligions of  India.  Note.  Bulletins.  Chronique.  Recension  des  Revues. 
Supplement. 

Barton,  George  A.      The  Heart  of  the  Christian  Message.     New  York: 
The  Macmillan  Company.     1912.     Pp.  xi  +  218.     $1.25. 


644  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Hoffding,  Harold.  Brief  History  of  Modern  Philosophy.  Translated  by 
Charles  Finley  Sanders.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company.  Pp. 
x  +  324.  $1.50. 

Leuba,  James  II.  A  Psychological  Study  of  Religion.  New  York :  The 
Macmillan  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xiv  -f  363.  $2.00. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

PROFESSOR  E.  A.  KIRKPATRICK,  of  the  State  Normal  School,  Fitchburg, 
Massachusetts,  would  be  glad  to  receive  letters  from  all  those  who  would 
care  to  have  a  series  of  photographs,  similar  to  those  issued  by  the  Open 
Court  Publishing  Company,  of  present-day  psychologists,  educators,  and 
men  of  science.  Suggestions  concerning  the  photographs  which  should 
be  placed  in  such  a  collection  would  be  welcomed  by  him,  and  the  amount 
of  interest  in  the  matter  indicated  by  the  communications  received  will 
determine  whether  it  is  feasible  to  undertake  the  task  of  collecting  and 
publishing. 

A  COURSE  of  lectures  at  Union  College  on  the  Ichabod  Spencer  Founda- 
tion will  be  given  by  Dr.  Rudolf  Eucken,  professor  of  philosophy  at  the 
University  of  Jena  and  visiting  professor  at  Harvard  University,  on 
"  Goethe  as  a  Philosopher,"  "  Idealism  and  Realism  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,"  "  Defence  of  Morality,"  and  "  Philosophy  and  Religion." 

IN  a  recent  issue  of  the  JOURNAL,  in  reporting  Professor  W.  F.  Book's 
appointment  at  the  University  of  Indiana,  he  was  referred  to  as  professor 
of  psychology  and  philosophy  at  Leland  Stanford  University.  The  credit 
should  have  been  given  to  the  State  University  of  Montana. 

DR.  FELIX  KRUEGER,  professor  of  philosophy  and  psychology  at  the 
University  of  Halle- Wittenberg,  and  Kaiser  Wilhelm  professor  at  Colum- 
bia University,  1912-13,  gave  his  inaugural  lecture  Tuesday,  October  29, 
on  "  New  Aims  and  Tendencies  in  Psychology." 

DR.  WILLIAM  G.  SEAMAN,  formerly  of  the  department  of  philosophy  of 
De  Pauw  University,  has  been  elected  president  of  Dakota  Wesleyan 
University.  Frederick  M.  Harvey,  Ph.D.  (Boston  '11),  goes  to  De  Pauw 
in  Dr.  Seaman's  place. 

DR.  EDWARD  BRADFORD  TITCHENER,  who  has  been  Sage  professor  of 
psychology  in  the  graduate  school  of  Cornell  University,  has  been  ap- 
pointed head  of  the  department  of  psychology  and  lecturer  in  the  College 
of  Arts  and  Sciences. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  24.  NOVEMBER  21,  1912 


PERCEPTION  AND  ORGANIC  ACTION 

VERY  reader  of  Bergson — and  who  to-day  is  not  reading  Berg- 
son — is  aware  of  a  twofold  strain  in  his  doctrine.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  defining  traits  of  perception,  of  common  sense  knowledge 
and  science  are  explained  on  the  ground  of  their  intimate  connection 
with  action.  On  the  other  hand,  the  standing  unresolved  conflicts 
of  philosophic  systems,  the  chief  fallacies  that  are  found  in  them,  and 
the  failure  to  make  definite  progress  in  the  solution  of  specific  philo- 
sophic problems,  are  attributed  to  carrying  over  into  metaphysics 
the  results  and  methods  of  the  knowledge  that  has  been  formed  with 
the  exigencies  of  action  in  view.  Legitimate  and  necessary  for  use- 
ful action,  they  are  mere  prejudices  as  respects  metaphysical  knowl- 
edge. Prejudices,  indeed,  is  too  mild  a  name.  Imported  into  phi- 
losophy, they  are  completely  misleading;  they  distort  hopelessly  the 
reality  they  are  supposed  to  know.  Philosophy  must,  accordingly, 
turn  its  back,  resolutely  and  finally,  upon  all  methods  and  con- 
ceptions which  are  infected  by  implication  in  action  in  order  to  strike 
out  upon  a  different  path.  It  must  have  recourse  to  intuition  which 
installs  us  within  the  very  movement  of  reality  itself,  unrefracted  by 
the  considerations  that  adapt  it  to  bodily  needs,  that  is  to  useful  ac- 
tion. As  a  result,  Bergson  has  the  unique  distinction  of  being  at- 
tacked as  a  pragmatist  on  one  side,  and  as  a  mystic  on  the  other. 

There  are  at  least  a  few  readers  in  sympathy  with  the  first  of 
these  strains  who  find  themselves  perplexed  by  the  second.  They  are 
perplexed,  indeed,  just  in  the  degree  in  which  the  first  strain  has  left 
them  convinced.  Surely,  they  say  to  themselves,  if  the  irresolvable 
conflicts  and  the  obscurities  of  philosophy  have  arisen  because  of 
failure  to  note  the  connection  of  every-day  and  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge with  the  purposes  of  action,  public  and  private,  the  clarification 
of  philosophic  issues  will  arise  by  correcting  this  failure,  that  is  to 
say,  by  the  thorough  development  of  the  implications  of  the  genuine 
import  of  knowledge.  What  an  emancipation,  they  say  to  themselves, 

645 


r,K,  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

is  to  come  to  philosophy  when  it  actively  adopts  this  discovery  and 
applies  it  to  its  own  undertakings! 

Perhaps  it  is  because  of  unredeemed  pragmatic  prejudice  that  I 
find  myself  among  those  who  have  this  feeling  of  a  baffled  ex- 
pectation and  a  frustrate  logic.  Nevertheless,  the  feeling  indicates 
a  genuine  intellectual  possibility,  a  legitimate  intellectual  adventure. 
The  hypothesis  that  the  same  discovery  that  has  illuminated  per- 
ception and  science  will  also  illuminate  philosophic  topics  is  an 
hypothesis  which  has  not  been  logically  excluded;  it  has  not  even 
been  discussed.  It  may,  then,  be  worth  trying.  Any  notion  that 
this  road  has  been  closed  in  advance  arises  from  confusion  in  reason- 
ing. It  rests  upon  supposing  that  the  unresolved  antitheses  of 
philosophic  systems  and  the  barriers  that  arrest  its  progress  have 
been  shown  to  be  due  to  importing  into  philosophy,  from  common 
life  and  from  science,  methods  and  results  that  are  relevant  to  ac- 
tion alone.  If  it  had  been  shown  that  the  evils  of  philosophy  have 
resulted  from  knowingly  carrying  over  into  it  considerations  whose 
practical  character  had  all  along  been  knowingly  acknowledged, 
then  the  conclusion  would  follow  that  philosophy  must  throw  over- 
board these  considerations,  and  find  a  radically  different  method  of 
procedure.  But  this  is  a  supposition  contrary  both  to  fact  and 
to  Bergson's  premises.  Why  not,  then,  try  the  other  hypothesis: 
that  philosophic  evils  result  from  a  survival  in  philosophy  of  an 
error  which  has  now  been  detected  in  respect  to  every-day  knowledge 
and  science  ?  Why  not  try  avowedly  and  constructively  to  carry  into 
philosophy  itself  the  consequences  of  the  recognition  that  the  prob- 
lems of  perception  and  science  are  straightened  out  when  looked  at 
from  the  standpoint  of  action,  while  they  remain  obscure  and  obscur- 
ing when  we  regard  them  from  the  standpoint  of  a  knowledge  defined 
in  antithesis  to  action  ? 

We  are  thus  carried  a  step  beyond  the  mere  suggestion  of  a  pos- 
sibly valid  adventure  in  philosophy.  If  a  conception  of  the  nature 
and  office  of  knowledge  that  has  been  discarded  for  common  sense 
and  for  science  is  retained  in  philosophy,  we  are  forced  into  a 
dualism  that  involves  serious  consequences.  Common  sense  knowl- 
edge and  science  are  set  in  invidious  contrast  not  merely  with  philos- 
ophy— a  contrast  that  they  might  easily  endure  more  successfully 
than  philosophy — but  with  "reality."  As  long  as  the  notion  sur- 
vives that  true  knowledge  has  nothing  to  do  with  action,  being  a 
purely  theoretical  vision  of  the  real  as  it  is  for  itself,  insistence  upon 
the  operation  within  perceptual  and  conceptual  "knowledge"  of 
practical  factors  ipso  facto  deprives  such  "knowledge"  of  any  gen- 
•  uine  knowledge  status.  It  gives  us  not  reality  as  it  is,  but  reality  as 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          647 

it  is  distorted  and  refracted  from  the  standpoint  of  bodily  needs. 
To  condemn  all  other  "knowledge"  (as  knowledge)  to  the  realm 
of  fiction  and  illusion  seems  a  high  price  to  pay  for  the  rescue  of 
philosophy  from  the  ills  that  it  may  be  suffering  from. 

Thus  we  are  compelled  to  go  still  further.  A  philosophy  which 
holds  that  the  facts  of  perception  and  science  are  to  be  explained 
from  the  standpoint  of  their  connection  with  organically  useful 
action,  while  it  also  holds  that  philosophy  rests  upon  a  radically  dif- 
ferent basis,  is  perforce  a  philosophy  of  reality  that  is  already 
afflicted  with  a  dualism  so  deep  as  seemingly  to  be  ineradicable.  It 
imports  a  split  into  the  reality  with  which  philosophy  is  supposed 
to  deal  exclusively  and  at  first  hand.  We  account  for  perception 
and  science  by  reference  to  action,  use,  and  need.  Very  well;  but 
what  about  action,  use,  and  need?  Are  they  useful  fictions?  If 
not,  they  must  be  functions  of  "reality,"  in  which  case  knowledge 
that  is  relevant  to  action,  useful  in  the  play  of  need,  must  penetrate 
into  "reality"  instead  of  giving  it  a  twist.  With  respect  to  such 
characters  of  the  real,  a  purely  theoretical  vision  of  intuition  would 
be  refracting.  Suppose  that  conceptions  mark  fabrications  made 
in  the  interest  of  the  organic  body.  Are  the  organic  needs  also  fabri- 
cations and  is  their  satisfaction  fabrication?  Either  that,  or  else 
the  conceptual  intelligence  which  effects  the  development  and  sat- 
isfaction of  the  needs  plays  a  part  in  the  evolution  of  reality,  and 
a  part  that  can  not  be  apprehended  by  a  mode  of  knowing  that  is 
antithetical,  in  its  merely  theoretic  character,  to  them.  From  the 
standpoint  of  philosophy,  accordingly,  the  analytic  intellect,  space, 
and  matter — everything  related  to  useful  action — must  be  irreducible 
surds,  for  reality  as  apprehended  in  philosophic  cognition  by  defini- 
tion omits  and  excludes  all  such  affairs. 

Precisely  the  same  order  of  considerations  applies  to  the  theory 
of  knowledge.  Were  it  not  for  the  survival  in  the  court  of  last 
resort  and  of  highest  jurisdiction  of  the  old  idea  of  the  separation  of 
knowledge  and  action,  Bergson's  special  analyses  would  point  to 
very  different  conclusions  from  those  that  constitute  his  official 
epistemology.  The  connection  with  action  of  the  characteristic 
methods  and  results  of  knowledge  in  daily  affairs  and  in  science 
would  give  us  a  theory  of  the  nature  of  reflective  intelligence,  not 
a  theory  of  its  limitations.  When  theoretic  and  disinterested  knowl- 
edge cease  to  occupy  a  uniquely  privileged  position  with  respect 
to  reality,  there  also  cease  to  be  any  motive  and  ground  for  denying 
the  existence  of  theoretic  and  disinterested  knowledge.  Such  knowl- 
edge is  a  fact  exhibited  in  sympathetic  and  liberal  action.  Its  con- 
trast is  not  with  the  limitations  of  practical  knowledge,  but  with 


«4.s  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  limitations  of  the  knowledge  found  in  routine  and  partisan 
action !  Genuine  theoretic  knowledge  penetrates  reality  more  deeply, 
not  because  it  is  opposed  to  practise,  but  because  a  practise  that  is 
genuinely  free,  social,  and  intelligent  touches  things  at  a  deeper 
level  than  a  practise  that  is  capricious,  egoistically  centered,  sec- 
tarian, and  bound  down  to  routine.  To  say  the  same  thing  the  other 
way  around,  if  it  were  not  for  the  assumed  monopolistic  relation  to 
reality  of  a  knowledge  disconnected  from  organic  life,  reference  to 
action  would  cease  to  be  a  distorting,  or  even  a  limiting,  term  with 
respect  to  knowledge.  The  reference  would  be  wholly  explanatory 
and  clarifying.  Just  as  complications  attaching  to  the  questions  of 
the  relation  of  mind  and  body,  or  the  self  and  its  stream  of  mental 
states,  are  disentangled,  and  the  elements  in  question  fall  into  ordered 
perspective  when  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  growth  of  an 
intelligently  effective  action,  so  with  the  other  questions  of  phi- 
losophy. 

It  is  high  time,  however,  to  make  a  transition  from  these  general 
considerations  to  the  special  problems  to  which  they  are  relevant. 
In  this  paper,  I  propose  to  deal  with  their  bearing  upon  the  topic  of 
perception.  Before  directly  attacking  it,  I  must,  however,  introduce 
some  further  general  considerations  in  order  to  make  clear  the  bear- 
ing of  what  has  been  said  upon  what  is  to  follow.  Take  the  matter 
purely  hypothetically.  Imagine  a  philosophy  which  is  convinced 
that  the  peculiarities  of  perception  remain  opaque,  defying  genuine 
analysis,  as  long  as  perception  is  regarded  as  a  mode  of  theoretical 
cognition,  while  they  become  luminous  with  significance  when  it  is 
treated  as  a  factor  in  organic  action.  Imagine  also  that  this  con- 
viction is  conjoined  with  a  belief  that  there  is  something  in  the  nature 
of  organic  action  marking  it  off  so  definitely  from  the  truly  real, 
that  the  latter  must  be  known  by  a  radically  heterogeneous  opera- 
tion. Imagine  that  in  the  further  course  of  the  discussion  the  dual- 
ism in  reality  presupposed  in  this  mode  of  treatment  threatens 
to  break  out,  and  to  break  down  the  account.  What  is  likely  to 
happen?  Are  we  not  likely  to  find,  at  first,  a  sharpening  of  the 
antithesis  between  the  special  topic  under  consideration  (whether  it 
be  perception,  space,  quantity,  matter)  and  pure  knowledge  and 
genuine  reality;  and  then,  as  the  metaphysical  consequences  of  this 
dualism  come  to  view,  a  toning  down  of  the  antithesis  between  the 
two,  by  means  of  the  introduction  into  each  of  reconciling  traits 
that  approximate  each  to  the  other?  And  surely  this  is  one  of  the 
marked  traits  of  the  Bergsonian  procedure.  Suppose,  however,  we 
had  commenced,  not  with  the  view  that  is  afterwards  corrected,  but 
with  the  corrected  view.  Would  not  then  the  special  analysis  of  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          649 

specific  topic  (perception  or  whatever)  have  assumed  a  very  differ- 
ent form  from  that  in  which  it  is  actually  found?  And  is  it  not 
a  priori  likely  that  the  original  account  will  not  be  found  quite  con- 
sistent even  in  its  own  nominal  sense  ?  Is  it  not  likely  that  there  will 
be  already  present  in  it  elements  that,  inconsistent  with  the  notion  of 
the  sheer  opposition  of  useful  action  and  reality,  point  to  the  correc- 
tion to  be  later  made  ? 

I  have  asked  the  above  questions  not  because  I  expect  the  reader 
to  answer  them,  much  less  because  I  expect  in  advance  an  affirmative 
answer,  but  to  put  the  reader  in  possession  at  the  outset  of  the  point 
of  view  from  which  the  following  criticism  of  Bergson's  account  of 
perception  is  written,  and,  in  outline,  of  the  technic  of  its  method. 
As  has  been  sufficiently  intimated,  I  shall  not  question  his  main 
thesis:  the  description  of  perception  as  a  factor  in  organic  action. 
Neither  shall  I  be  called  upon  to  question  the  specific  terms  in  and 
by  which  he  carries  on  this  description:  the  central  nature  of  inde- 
terminate possibilities  and  the  preoccupation  of  perception  with  the 
physical  environment,  not  with  mental  states.  My  point  is  rather 
that  so  far  as  these  traits  receive  due  development  we  are  carried  to 
a  conclusion  where  reference  to  useful  action  ceases  to  mark  an  in- 
vidious contrast  with  reality,  and,  accordingly,  indicates  a  standpoint 
from  which  the  need  of  any  rival  mode  of  knowledge,  called  philo- 
sophical, becomes  doubtful. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  perception  is  relative  to  action :  one 
needs  to  know  how  it  is  relative,  and  one  needs  to  know  the  distin- 
guishing traits  of  action.  And  so  far  as  Bergson's  account  makes 
perception  relative  to  action,  that  is,  makes  knowledge  qualified  by 
possibilities  (by  freedom),  and  useful  in  affording  an  efficient  devel- 
opment of  free  action,  we  are  taken  where  the  antithetical  dualisms 
of  space  and  time,  matter  and  spirit,  action  and  intuition  have  no 
belonging.  Let  the  reader  recall  the  honorific  use  of  "life"  in 
Bergson  and  his  depreciatory  use  of  "action,"  and  decide  whether 
the  following  sentence  (the  most  emphatic  one  that  I  have  found  in 
his  writings  in  the  sense  just  indicated)  does  not  break  down  the 
barriers  supposed  to  exist  between  action  and  life,  and  connect  per- 
ception with  an  action  which  is  naught  but  the  process  of  life  itself. 
"Restore,  on  the  contrary,  the  true  character  of  perception;  recog- 
nize in  pure  perception  a  system  of  nascent  acts  which  plunges  roots 
deep  into  the  real ;  and  at  once  perception  is  seen  to  be  radically  dis- 
tinct from  recollection;  the  reality  of  things  is  no  more  connected 
or  reconstructed,  but  touched,  penetrated,  lived."1 

1 ' '  Matter  and  Memory, ' '  English  translation,  pages  74-75.  The  signifi- 
cance of  the  passage  stands  out  the  more  if  one  calls  to  mind  that,  from  the 
other  standpoint,  recollection  is  the  index  of  the  real,  of  time  and  spirit,  while 
perception,  since  connected  with  action,  is  tied  down  to  space  and  matter. 


(,:.o  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Place  in  contrast  with  this  sentence  such  statements  as  the  fol- 
lowing: "My  conscious  perception  has  an  entirely  practical  destina- 
tion, it  simply  indicates,  in  the  aggregate  of  things,  that  which  inter- 
ests my  possible  action  upon  them";2  and  this:  "When  we  pass 
from  pure  perception  to  memory,  we  definitely  abandon  matter  for 
spirit."8  Must  not  such  a  view  of  perception  flow  from  quite  another 
analysis,  or  at  least  from  another  emphasis,  from  that  which  yields 
the  conception  that  in  perception  we  live  reality  itself?  I  have 
finally  reached  a  point  where  I  can  state  what  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
specific  oscillation  between  inconsistent  views  in  Bergson's  account 
of  perception,  while  it  will  also  be  evident,  I  hope,  that  the  discussion 
of  this  oscillation  is  not  a  picayune  attempt  to  convict  a  great  writer 
of  a  mere  technical  inconsistency,  but  involves  the  whole  question  of 
the  validity  of  the  knowledge  that  is  connected  with  action,  and  of 
the  need  in  metaphysics  of  another  kind  of  knowledge.  One  view  of 
perception  implicates  indeterminate  possibilities  (and  hence  time, 
freedom,  life)  in  the  quality  of  its  operation,  subject-matter,  and 
organ;  the  other  regards  indeterminate  possibilities  as  conditions 
sine  qua  non  of  the  act,  but  not  as  qualifying  either  its  nature  as  an 
act  or  that  of  its  subject-matter.  Our  long  introduction  is  now  at  an 
end.  We  come  to  the  details  of  Bergson  's  account  of  perception. 


Perception,  according  to  Bergson,  must  be  approached  as  a  prob- 
lem of  selection  and  elimination,  not  as  one  of  enhancement  and 
addition.  If  there  were  more  in  the  conscious  perception  of  the 
object  than  in  its  presence,  the  problem  of  the  passage  from  the 
latter  to  the  former  would  be  wrapped  in  impenetrable  mystery. 
Not  so,  if  its  perception  means  less  than  its  presence,  since  all  that 
is  then  required  is  to  discover  the  condition  that  might  lead  to  the 
abandoning  by  the  unperceived  object  of  some  of  its  entire  being.4 
In  the  search  for  this  condition,  we  begin  by  noting  the  trait  charac- 
teristic of  the  existence  of  the  subject  in  its  entirety.  Since  the  phys- 
ical world  is  always  a  scene  of  complete  transmitting,  by  equal  and 
opposite  reactions,  of  energy,  it  follows  that  "in  one  sense  we  might 
say  that  the  perception  of  any  unconscious  material  point  whatever, 
in  all  its  instantaneousness,  is  infinitely  greater  and  more  complete 
than  ours,  since  this  point  gathers  and  transmits  the  influences  of  all 
the  points  of  the  material  universe."8  Anything,  accordingly,  that 
would  eliminate  some  of  the  transmitting  power  of  some  part  of  the 

1  Ibid.,  page  306. 
•Ibid.,  page  313. 
4  Ibid.,  page  27. 
•Ibid.,  page  30. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          651 

total  physical  system  would  throw  the  phases  of  this  blocked  part 
into  contrast  with  the  rest  of  the  system,  and  thereby  into  a  kind  of 
relief  equivalent  to  its  perception.  Introduce  a  living  body,  with  its 
special  interests,  and  this  is  just  what  happens.  The  activity  of  the 
organism  allows  all  influences,  all  movements,  that  have  no  interest 
for  it,  to  pass  immediately  through  it.  With  respect  to  them  it  is  a 
neutral  transmitter  like  any  other  part  of  the  total  system.  But 
those  movements  that  are  of  concern  to  it  are  singled  out,  disen- 
gaged.6 They  are  held  up,  as  it  were,  as  a  highwayman  holds  up 
his  intended  victim  preparatory  to  exercising  upon  him  the  function 
of  robbery  that  defines  a  highwayman.  This  arrest  and  detachment 
throws  the  traits  of  the  things  with  which  it  is  concerned  into  relief : 
they  are  perceived.  From  this  interpretation  of  perception  are 
derived  its  main  traits.  It  is  concerned  directly  with  physical 
things,  no  mental  states  intervening;  the  perceived  objects  are  ar- 
ranged about  our  body  as  their  center;  they  vary  with  changes  of 
the  body ;  the  extent  of  the  field  perceived  increases  with  growth  in 
the  variety  and  scope  of  our  organic  interests.  Above  all,  perception 
is  primarily  a  fact  of  action,  not  of  cognition. 

In  making  this  summary  I  have  tried  to  leave  out  of  account  con- 
siderations which  would  tell  one  way  or  another  as  respects  the 
double  analysis  of  perception  to  which  I  referred  above,  making  my 
account  as  neutral  as  may  be.  The  account  must  now  be  compli- 
cated by  referring  to  the  considerations  slurred  over.  In  the  first 
place,  the  fact  must  be  emphasized  that  in  Bergson's  professed  view 
(that  which  leads  in  the  end  to  invidious  contrast  with  true  knowl- 
edge of  reality)  the  change  from  the  total  world  to  the  perceived 
part  is  merely  quantitative ;  it  is  merely  a  diminution,  a  subtraction. 
The  relation  is  just  and  only  that  of  part  and  whole.  "There  is 
nothing  positive  here,  nothing  added  to  the  image  [object] ,  nothing 
new.  The  objects  merely  abandon  something  of  their  real  action."7 
Perception  "creates  nothing;  its  office,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  elim- 
inate from  the  totality  of  images  [objects]  all  those  on  which  I  can 
have  no  hold,  and  then,  from  each  of  those  which  I  can  retain,  all 
that  does  not  concern  the  needs  of  the  image  [object]  which  I  call 
my  body."8  This  notion  of  sheer  diminution  and  elimination  of 
most  of  the  parts  and  aspects  of  a  whole  supplies  the  official  defini- 
tion of  pure  perception:  "a  vision  of  matter  both  immediate  and 
instantaneous;9  an  uninterrupted  series  of  instantaneous  visions, 
which  would  be  a  part  of  things  rather  than  of  ourselves. '  '10 

'Ibid.,  pages  28-29. 

1 1bid.,  page  30.    The  omitted  half  of  the  last  sentence  will  be  noted  later. 

'Ibid.,  page  304. 

•  Ibid.,  page  26. 

10  Ibid.,  page  69.    The  reader  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of  space  and  time 


(.52  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  position  that  seems  inconsistent  with  this  one  might  be  ar- 
rived at  deductively  from  the  stress  laid,  in  the  definition  of  percep- 
tion, upon  indeterminateness  of  action :  upon  the  operative  presence 
of  genuine  possibilities.  Consider  such  a  statement  as  the  following: 
"Is  not  the  growing  richness  of  this  perception  likely  to  symbolize 
the  wider  range  of  indetermination  left  to  the  choice  of  the  living 
being  in  its  conduct  with  things?  Let  us  start,  then,  from  this 
indetermination  as  from  the  true  principle,  and  try  whether  we  can 
not  deduce  from  it  the  possibility  and  even  the  necessity,  of  con- 
scious perception.  .  .  .  The  more  immediate  the  reaction  is  compelled 
to  be,  the  more  must  perception  resemble  a  mere  contact;  and  the 
complete  process  of  perception  and  of  reaction  can  then  hardly  be 
distinguished  from  a  mechanical  impulsion  followed  by  a  necessary 
movement.  But  in  the  measure  that  the  reaction  becomes  more 
uncertain,  and  allows  more  room  for  suspense,  does  the  distance 
increase  at  which  the  animal  is  sensible  of  the  action  of  that  which 
interests  it.  ...  The  degree  of  independence  of  which  a  living  being 
is  master,  or,  as  we  shall  say,  the  zone  of  indetermination  which  sur- 
rounds its  activity,  allows,  then,  of  an  a  priori  estimate  of  the  num- 
ber and  distance  of  the  things  with  which  it  is  in  relation.  ...  So 
that  we  can  formulate  this  law :  perception  is  master  of  space  in  the 
exact  measure  in  which  action  is  master  of  time."11  The  passage  is 
quoted  because  of  its  statement  of  the  central  position  of  indeter- 
minate action.  The  explicit  reference  (in  the  last  sentence)  to  time 
suggests  what  I  regard  as  the  true  doctrine,  but  a  careful  reading 
shows  that  this  reference  can  not  be  taken  as  an  assertion  of  that 
conclusion.  On  the  contrary,  Bergson  evidently  means  that  the 
indeterminateness  only  acts  as  a  sort  of  negative  condition,  a  condi- 
tion sine  qua  non,  to  throw  into  relief  those  objects  which  have  a  pos- 
sible concern  for  the  indeterminate  action.  As  he  says  elsewhere,  it 
operates  "to  filter  through  us  that  action  of  external  things  which  is 
real,  in  order  to  arrest  and  retain  that  which  is  virtual."12  Again 
the  effect  is  spoken  of  as  one  of  disassociation,  of  disengaging.18 
The  objects  "detach  from  themselves  that  which  we  have  arrested 
on  the  way,  that  which  we  are  capable  of  influencing."14  He  speaks 
of  indetermination  acting  as  a  sort  of  mirror  which  brings  about  an 

in  Bergson  does  not  need  to  be  reminded  that  perception  as  an  instantaneous 
section  (non-temporal,  non-du  rational)  in  an  instantaneously  complete  field  in- 
evitably aligns  perception  with  matter  to  the  exclusion  of  time,  mind,  and  reality 
as  it  would  be  envisaged  from  within. 

""Matter  and  Memory,"  pages  21,  22,  23.  It  is  perhaps  superfluous  to 
multiply  references,  but  see  also  pages  28,  29,  35,  37,  67,  68. 

**  Ibid.,  page  309. 

"Ibid.,  page  41. 

"Ibid.,  page  29. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          653 

apparent  reflection  of  surrounding  objects  upon  themselves.15  Again, 
the  body  "indicates  the  parts  and  aspects  of  matter  on  which  we 
can  lay  hold:  our  perception  which  exactly  measures  our  virtual 
action  on  things  thus  limits  itself  to  the  objects  which  actually  influ- 
ence our  organs  and  prepare  our  movements. '  '16 

All  such  statements  but  emphasize  the  doctrine  of  mere  subtrac- 
tion, of  diminution,  as  the  essence  of  the  act  of  perception.  And 
if  I  now  quote  some  passages  which  seem  to  have  a  contrary  sense, 
it  is  not  because  I  attach  any  great  importance  to  what  may  be 
casual  verbal  inconsistencies,  but  because  the  passages  bring  to  the 
front  a  contrasting  notion  of  the  facts  themselves.  The  part  of  the 
sentence  that  was  omitted  in  our  earlier  quotation  after  saying  that 
objects  merely  abandon  something  of  their  real  action  "in  order  to 
manifest  their  virtual  action"  reads:  "that  is,  in  the  main  the 
eventual  action  of  the  living  being  upon  them."  (Italics  mine.) 
To  the  same  effect  he  says  (p.  59)  around  my  body  "is  grouped  the 
representation,  i.  e.,  its  [the  body's]  eventual  influence  upon  the 
others  [objects]."  So  (p.  68)  perception  is  said  to  "express  and 
measure  the  power  of  action  in  the  living  being,  the  indetermination 
of  the  movement  or  of  the  action  which  will  follow  upon  the  receipt 
of  the  stimulus."  (Italics  mine.)  Again,  "perception  consists  in 
detaching,  from  the  totality  of  objects,  the  possible  action  of  my  body 
from  them."  Most  significant  of  all,  perhaps,  is  the  following: 
"Perception,  understood,  as  we  understand  it,  measures  our  possible 
action  upon  things,  and  thereby,  inversely,  the  possible  action  of 
things  upon  us."17 

As  I  have  just  said,  I  shall  try  not  to  attach  undue  importance 
to  the  mere  wording  of  these  passages.  It  is  easy  to  substitute  for 
the  phrase,  "bodies  upon  which  we  may  act,"  the  other  phrase,  "our 
possible  action  upon  bodies,"  and  yet  mean  the  same  thing,  verbally 
opposed  as  are  the  two  phrases,  especially  as  the  idea  that  perception 
"measures"  our  possible  action  upon  things  seems  to  afford  a  con- 
necting link.  But  the  verbal  opposition  may  be  used  to  suggest  that 
there  follows  from  Bergson's  theory  of  the  dependence  of  perception 
upon  indeterminateness  quite  another  view  of  the  perceived  subject- 
matter  than  that  of  quantitative  elimination.  If  we  allow  our  mind 
to  play  freely  with  the  conception  that  perceived  objects  present 
our  eventual  action  upon  the  world,  or  designate  our  possible  actions 
upon  the  environment,  we  are  brought  to  a  notion  of  complication, 
of  qualitative  alteration.  For  the  only  way  in  which  objects  could 

15  Ibid.,  pages  29  and  46. 

19 Ibid.,  page  232.     Compare  "It  eliminates  from  the  totality  of  objects  all 
those  on  which  I  can  have  no  hold."    Ibid.,  page  304. 
11  Ibid.,  page  57.    Italics  mine. 


«,:»4  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

conceivably  designate  our  future  actions  would  be  by  holding  up  to 
view  the  objective  effects  of  those  actions;  that  is  to  say,  presenting 
the  prior  environment  as  it  will  be  when  modified  by  our  reactions 
upon  it.  Perception  would  then  be  anticipatory,  prognostic ;  it  would 
exhibit  to  us  in  advance  the  consequences  of  our  possible  actions.  It 
would  thereby  facilitate  a  choice  as  respects  them,  since  the  act  of 
appreciating  in  advance  the  consequences  that  are  to  accrue  from  in- 
cipient activities  would  surely  affect  our  final  action. 

So  far  as  the  subject-matter  of  perception  is  concerned,  we  are 
led  to  substitute  for  a  material  cut  out  from  an  instantaneous  field, 
a  material  that  designates  the  effects  of  our  possible  actions.  What 
we  perceive,  in  other  words,  is  not  just  the  material  upon  which  we 
may  act,  but  material  which  reflects  back  to  us  the  consequences  of 
our  acting  upon  it  this  way  or  that.  So  far  as  the  act  of  perception 
is  concerned,  we  are  led  to  substitute  an  act  of  choosing  for  an  act  of 
accomplished  choice.  Perception  is  not  an  instantaneous  act  of 
carving  out  a  field  through  suppressing  its  real  influences  and  per- 
mitting its  virtual  ones  to  show,  but  is  a  process  of  determining  the 
indeterminate. 

So  far  we  have,  however,  simply  two  contrasting  positions  placed 
side  by  side.  What  are  the  grounds  for  preferring  one  view  to  the 
other?  I  shall  first  take  up  the  formal  or  dialectic  analysis  of  the 
elements  of  the  situation  as  Bergson  describes  them,  and  then  con- 
sider his  account  of  perception  as  choice,  closing  with  his  account  of 
the  place  of  the  brain  in  the  act  of  perception. 

II 

I  think  it  can  be  shown  that  the  idea  of  perception  as  bare  instan- 
taneous outstanding  of  part  of  an  instantaneous  larger  world  is 
supported  only  by  a  rapid  alternation  between  the  two  conceptions 
of  real  and  of  possible  action ;  and  that  the  moment  we  hold  these  two 
conceptions  together  in  a  way  that  will  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
situation  we  are  bound  to  pass  over  to  the  other  idea  of  perception, 
the  one  involving  a  qualitative  change  of  antecedents  in  the  direction 
of  their  possible  consequences. 

The  difficulty  in  Bergson 's  professed  account  may  perhaps  be 
suggested  by  the  following  passage:  "If  living  beings  are  just  cen- 
ters of  indetermination  ...  we  can  conceive  that  their  mere  presence 
is  equivalent  to  the  suppression  of  all  those  parts  of  objects  in  which 
their  functions  find  no  interest."18  But  can  we  conceive  anything 
of  the  kind,  even  if  we  allow  our  imagination  the  most  generous  lee- 
way ?  We  seem  to  be  caught  in  a  dilemma.  Either  the  living  bodies 

"  Ibid.,  page  28.     Italics  mine. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         655 

are  engaged  in  no  action,  are  merely  present ;  or  else  they  are  really 
acting.  If  the  former  is  the  case,  then  no  influence  is  exercised 
upon  the  environment,  not  even  a  suppressive  or  relinquishing  one. 
If  the  latter,  the  action  must  modify  the  bodies  upon  which  it  is 
exercised.  We  get  either  less  or  more  than  abandonment.  Does  it 
not  seem  a  priori  probable  that  the  idea  of  perception  as  the  outcome 
of  a  sort  of  purely  negative  action  is  but  a  half-way  station  between 
the  notion  of  no  perception  at  all  and  of  perception  as  an  environ- 
ment modified  through  a  characteristic  response  of  the  living  body? 
For  we  can  conceive  that  some  act  of  the  organism  in  accord  with  its 
peculiar  interests,  some  gesture,  or  active  attitude,  might  accentuate 
the  parts  of  the  world  upon  which  the  organism  is  interested  to  act, 
and  that  this  stress  might  be  equivalent  to  their  perception. 

Perhaps,  however,  our  hard  and  fast  dilemma  is  due  .to  our 
ignoring  just  the  points  upon  which  Bergson  insists:  indeterminate- 
ness  and  possibilities.  But  the  dilemma  appears  to  repeat  itself. 
Are  the  possible  actions  of  the  organism  merely  possible?  Even  if 
we  admit  (what  seems  to  me  inadmissible)  that  mere  potentiality  is 
an  intelligible  conception,  we  are  still  far  from  seeing  how  it  could 
exercise  even  a  suppressive  influence.  But  if  possible  activities  mean 
(as  it  seems  to  me  they  must  mean  to  have  a  meaning)  a  peculiar 
quality  of  real  actions,  then  we  get  real  influence  indeed,  but  some- 
thing more  and  other  than  sheer  elimination  and  suppression.  If  we 
look  at  it  from  the  side  of  indetermination,  the  logic  is  not  changed. 
Either  indetermination  and  uncertainty  mean  a  qualitatively  new 
type  of  action,  or  they  mean  the  total  absence  of  action. 

Perhaps  I  can  now  make  clearer  what  I  meant  by  Bergson 's 
alternation  between  real  and  possible  action.  The  act  of  carving  out 
a  portion  of  the  entire  field  must  be  a  real  act.  It  is  complete  at 
one  stroke,  all  at  once.  This  by  itself  gives  a  sheer  quantitative 
limitation.  But  this  act  of  eliminative  selection  is  still  to  be  ac- 
counted for.  So  we  have  recourse  to  the  presence  of  possible  actions. 
What  is  let  go  is  that  upon  which  the  organism  can  not  possibly  act; 
what  is  held  to  is  that  upon  which  it  can  act.  Bergson  thus  strings 
the  two  conceptions  one  after  the  other  in  this  way :  Logically,  possi- 
bility antecedes  (that  is,  implies  and  requires)  an  act  of  selection; 
really,  the  act  of  selection  precedes  the  actualization  of  possible  ac- 
tions, furnishing  the  field  upon  which  they  are  to  operate.  Bergson 
seems  to  vibrate  between  the  real  action  of  possibilities,  and  the  pos- 
sible action  of  real  (but  future)  actualities.  The  former  designates 
an  act  that  is,  however,  more  than  instantaneous,  that  is  a  process; 
and  that  does  more  than  cut  out,  that  qualifies  the  material  upon 
which  it  operates,  so  as  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  subsequent  action. 


<,:>r,  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  latter  expresses  something  that  will  be  instantaneous  when  it 
comes  and  that  may  be  conceived  (perhaps)  as  having  only  an  effect 
of  diminution,  but  that,  unfortunately,  is  not  present  to  have  any 
effect  at  all,  save  as,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  situation,  it 
suddenly  changes  to  a  present  real  action  of  possibilities,  that  is,  to 
a  distinctive  quality  of  selective  action.  The  same  dialectic  operates 
(as  we  shall  shortly  see)  upon  the  side  of  the  environment.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  perceived  subject-matter  indicates  possible  action  upon 
the  organism,  something  which  has  been  acquired  in  the  act  of  per- 
ception. But  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  perceived  subject-matter  is 
an  instantaneous  section  out  of  a  homogeneous  totality,  any  possi- 
bilities which  the  subject-matter  can  present  must  have  been  already 
in  its  possession.  But  as  this  contradicts  the  notion  of  complete  pres- 
ence, we  are  again  forced  to  the  conception  of  possibility  as  something 
conferred  by  the  organism. 

Bergson  seems  to  recognize  that  the  bare  inoperative  presence  of 
potentialities  (the  conception  which  seems  to  provide  a  middle  term 
between  possible  future  real  actions  and  present  real  action  of  possi- 
bilities) will  not,  after  all,  suffice  to  account  even  for  a  diminution 
of  the  physical  environment.  We  somehow  arrest  the  influences  pro- 
ceeding from  those  bodies  that  we  are  capable  of  acting  upon.  This 
act  of  arrest  receives  some  positive  characterization  in  the  follow- 
ing passage.  After  stating  that  physical  bodies  act  and  react 
mutually  by  all  their  elements,  he  goes  on  to  say :  ' '  Suppose,  on  the 
contrary,  that  they  encounter  somewhere  a  certain  spontaneity  of 
reaction :  their  action  is  in  so  diminished,  and  this  diminution  of 
their  action  is  just  the  representation  which  we  have  of  them."19 
Here  we  have  the  most  explicit  statement  that  I  have  been  able  to 
find  of  the  modus  operandi  of  the  act  of  suppression.  It  is  treated  as 
a  real  act,  and  in  so  far  meets  the  necessities  of  the  case,  while  at  the 
same  time  spontaneity  is  suggestive  of  possibilities.  We  will  admit, 
without  caviling,  that  spontaneity  of  action  describes  a  peculiar 
type  of  action,  one  which,  instead  of  following  the  physical  principle 
of  equal  and  opposite  reaction,  merely  diminishes  the  real  efficacy 
of  the  influences  that  it  encounters.  But  even  so,  we  have  only  a 
real  action  of  a  peculiar  unusual  sort  in  this  reduction  of  the  efficacy 
of  the  objects.  If,  however,  spontaneity  means  that  the  organic  act 
is  already  charged  with  potentiality,  its  manifestation  might  convert 
the  energy  of  the  environment  into  a  form  that  would  involve  the 
inhibition,  for  the  time  being,  of  its  usual  physical  mode  of  efficacy. 
But  suppression  through  conversion  into  a  different  form  is  a  rad- 
ically different  thing  from  suppression  by  mere  diminution.  This 
latter  might,  by  lowering  the  resistance  that  it  would  otherwise 

urbid.,  page  29. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          657 

encounter,  give  a  better  chance  for  some  subsequent  organic  activity 
to  express  itself,  but  this  would  be  the  limit  of  its  significance.  Such 
a  state  of  affairs  would  involve  no  indetermination,  and  there  is  no 
sense  in  calling  the  subsequent  action  a  possible  action.  It  is  simply 
a  postponed  action,  bound  to  occur  if  the  spontaneous  action  inter- 
venes. It  is  simply  the  real  future  action  of  which  we  have  spoken. 
In  short,  it  does  not  fulfill  the  conditions  for  the  emergence  of  the 
unperceived  into  the  perceived. 

Upon  occasion,  however,  Bergson  states  the  situation  differently. 
As  stated  in  a  passage  already  quoted,  we  allow  ' '  to  filter  through  us 
that  action  of  external  things  which  is  real,  in  order  to  arrest  and 
retain  that  which  is  virtual:  this  virtual  action  of  things  upon  our 
body  and  of  our  body  is  our  perception  itself.20  I  pass  over  the 
question  of  how  this  view  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the  statements  to 
the  effect  that  perception  "limits  itself  to  the  objects  which  actually 
influence  our  organs  and  prepare  our  movements."  The  point  to 
notice  is  that  virtual  or  potential  action  is  transferred  from  our  body 
and  made  a  property  of  the  objects,  the  peculiarity  of  our  action 
now  being  that  it  isolates  this  property  of  the  objects.  This  point  of 
view  is  even  more  explicit  in  such  a  statement  as  the  following: 
"Representation  is  there  (that  is,  in  the  universe),  but  always  vir- 
tual— being  neutralized  at  the  very  moment  when  it  might  become 
actual,  by  the  obligation  to  continue  itself  and  to  lose  itself  in  some- 
thing else.  To  obtain  the  conversion  from  the  virtual  to  the  actual 
it  would  be  necessary,  not  to  throw  more  light  upon  the  object,  but 
on  the  contrary  to  obscure  some  of  its  aspects,  to  diminish  it  by  the 
greater  part  of  itself,  so  that  the  remainder,  instead  of  being  encased 
in  its  surroundings  as  a  thing,  should  detach  itself  from  them  as  a 
picture."21  The  extraordinary  nature  of  this  passage  stands  out  if 
we  recall  that  the  express  definition  of  the  physical  is  complete  actu- 
ality, total  lack  of  virtuality.  Even  more  significant,  however,  than 
this  contradiction  is,  for  our  present  problem,  the  complete  shift  of 
the  point  of  view.  Potentiality  to  begin  with  was  wholly  on  the  side 
of  the  living  being,  just  as  actuality  was  the  essence  of  the  world. 
But  since  any  act  of  elimination,  of  diminution,  affected  by  the 
living  being  would  obviously  be  a  real  act  of  a  certain  kind,  the 
exigencies  of  the  logic  require  that  potentiality  be  attributed  to  the 
object,  the  real  action  of  the  organic  being  now  treated  merely  as  an 
occasion  for  the  display  of  this  potentiality.  But  whenever  the 
exigencies  of  the  argument  require  reference  to  the  indeterminate- 
ness  of  the  action  of  living  beings,  to  mark  them  off  from  non-living 

20  Ibid.,  page  309. 

21  Ibid.,  page  28. 


6f,s  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

things,  potentiality  retires  from  the  object  to  take  up  again  its 
exclusive  residence  in  the  living  being.22 

Quite  likely  the  reader  has  been  brought  to  a  feeling  that  we  are 
not  any  longer  considering  perception  at  all,  but  are  engaged  simply 
in  performing  dialectic  variations  on  the  themes  of  actuality  and 
possibility,  indeterminateness  and  determinateness.  Let  us  then 
attempt  to  translate  the  conceptions  over  into  their  factual  equiva- 
lents. I  think  that  the  essential  of  Bergson's  view  may  be  correctly 
stated  about  as  follows:  The  indeterminateness  of  the  action  of  a 
living  being  serves  to  delay  its  motor  responses.  This  delay  gives 
room  for  deliberation  and  choice.  It  supplies  the  opportunity  for 
the  conscious  selection  of  a  determinate  choice — for  freedom  of 
action.  But  the  delay  of  motor  response  also  signifies  something 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  world:  namely,  a  division  within  it. 
Certain  of  its  movements  are  still  continued  through  and  beyond  the 
organism ;  with  respect  to  them,  there  is  no  delaying  response.  Con- 
sequently those  other  movements  of  the  world  to  which  response  is 
postponed  are  sundered ;  they  are  thrown  into  relief,  cut  out.  More- 
over, it  will  be  noted  that  the  material  that  thus  stands  out  presents 
just  those  movements  upon  which  the  possible,  or  postponed,  re- 
sponses of  the  organism  may  take  effect.  Material  thus  cut  out  and 
having  such  reference  to  subsequent  organic  actions  constitutes  pure 
perception. 

*  It  is  worth  considering  whether  this  dialectic  does  not  throw  light  upon 
Bergson's  panpsychic  idealism.  It  seems  as  if  his  final  attribution  of  pan- 
psychic  quality  to  matter  were  simply  a  generalization,  once  for  all,  of  the 
circular  logic  we  have  just  noticed.  If  (a)  we  define  perception  as  a  conscious 
representation  on  the  basis  of  potentiality,  and  then  (b)  fall  back  on  the  in- 
herent potentiality  of  the  universe  to  account  for  the  diminution  of  the  field 
characteristic  of  the  conscious  representation,  it  follows  as  matter  of  course  that 
the  universe  itself  is  already  consciousness  of  some  sort  (cf.  page  313).  "No 
doubt  also  the  material  universe  itself,  defined  as  the  totality  of  images,  is  a 
kind  of  consciousness,  a  consciousness  in  which  everything  compensates  and 
neutralizes  everything  else,  a  consciousness  of  which  all  the  potential  parts, 
balancing  each  other  by  a  reaction  which  is  always  equal  to  the  action,  recipro- 
cally hinder  each  other  from  standing  out."  Here  we  have,  I  think,  the  key  to 
his  entire  treatment.  Let  anything  throw  the  whole  out  of  balance,  and  a  piece 
of  this  total  consciousness  stands  out.  The  cut-out  portion  is  a  conscious  repre- 
sentation just  because  the  whole  from  which  it  is  cut  is  conscious.  But  why  is 
the  whole  called  consciousness  f  Simply  because  perception  is  conscious  and 
perception  is  a  part  cut  out  from  a  homogeneous  whole.  But  there  must  be 
something  to  effect  the  cutting  out;  the  whole  does  not  cut  itself  up.  Hence  the 
need  of  referring  to  the  differential  presence  of  the  organism  as  a  center  of 
indeterminate  possibilities.  But  to  stay  by  this  standpoint  would  connect  all  the 
eulogistic  traits  that  are  employed  in  designating  philosophic  intuition  with 
crises  of  organic  activity.  Hence  potentiality  and  freedom  are  transferred  back 
to  the  whole,  which  accordingly  makes  matter  into  consciousness  once  more. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         659 

The  ingenuity  of  this  account  is  indubitable.  For  my  own  part, 
I  think  it  gives  the  elements  of  a  true  account.  But  it  is  possible  to 
arrange  these  elements  quite  differently  and  thereby  reach  quite  a 
different  result.  The  revised  account  reads  somewhat  like  this. 
External  movements  are  involved  in  the  activities  of  an  organism. 
If  and  in  so  far  as  these  activities  are  indeterminate,  there  is  neither 
a  total,  or  adequate  stimulus  in  the  movements,  nor  an  adequate  total 
response  by  the  organism.  Adequate  stimulation  and  adequate 
response  are  both  delayed  (the  delay  is  an  effect,  not  a  cause  or 
condition,  as  it  seems  to  be  in  Bergson's  account).  The  partial 
responses,  however,  are  neither  merely  dispersed  miscellaneously 
upon  the  environment,  nor  are  they  merely  possible.  They  are  di- 
rected upon  the  partial  stimuli  so  as  to  convert  them  into  a  single 
coordinated  stimulus.  Then  a  total  response  of  the  organism  fol- 
lows. This  functional  transformation  of  the  environment  under  con- 
ditions of  uncertain  action  into  conditions  for  determining  an  appro- 
priate organic  response  constitutes  perception. 

What  is  the  difference  between  the  two  views  ?  According  to  the 
first,  perception  is  a  stimulus,  ready-made  and  complete.  According 
to  the  second,  it  is  the  operation  of  constituting  a  stimulus.  Accord- 
ing to  the  first,  the  object  or  given  stimulus  merely  sets  a  problem,  a 
question,  and  the  process  of  finding  its  appropriate  answer  or  re- 
sponse resides  wholly  with  the  organism.  According  to  the  second, 
the  stimulus  or  perceived  object  is  a  part  of  the  process  of  deter- 
mining the  response;  nay,  in  its  growing  completeness,  it  is  the 
determining  of  the  response.  As  soon  as  an  integral  and  clear-cut 
object  stands  out,  then  the  response  is  decided,  and  the  only  intelli- 
gent way  of  choosing  the  response  is  by  forming  its  stimulus.  Mean- 
time organic  responses  have  not  been  postponed;  a  variety  of  them 
are  going  on,  by  means  of  which  the  environing  conditions  are  given 
the  status  of  a  stimulus.  The  change  effected  in  the  environment  by 
the  final  total  organic  act  is  just  a  consummation  of  the  partial 
changes  effected  all  through  the  process  of  perception  by  the  partial 
reactions  that  finally  determine  a  clear-cut  object  of  perception. 
This  means  that  the  perceived  subject-matter  at  every  point  indi- 
cates a  response  that  has  taken  effect  with  reference  to  its  character 
in  determining  further  response.  It  exhibits  what  the  organism  has 
done,  but  exhibits  it  with  the  qualities  that  attach  to  it  as  part  of  the 
process  of  determining  what  the  organism  is  to  do.  If  at  any  point 
we  let  go  of  the  thread  of  the  process  of  the  organism's  determining 
its  own  eventual  total  response  through  determining  the  stimulus 
to  that  response  by  a  series  of  partial  responses,  we  are  lost. 


r,»;o  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

III 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  same  situation,  but  this  time  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  act  of  choice  concerned  in  it.  Our  pre- 
vious discussion  prepares  us  for  the  points  at  issue.  We  may  antici- 
pate an  alternation  between  two  conceptions,  introducing  into  a 
choice  alleged  to  be  complete  in  an  instantaneous  act,  traits  which 
belong  to  a  choice  among  future  possible  acts.  The  circular  reason- 
ing will  disappear,  we  may  also  anticipate,  as  soon  as  substituted  for 
the  alternation  between  a  present  choice  and  a  future  choice,  each  of 
which  owes  its  character  to  the  other,  a  temporal  act  of  choice,  that  is, 
a  choosing. 

Bergson's  nominal  theory  is  that  the  selective  elimination  is  itself 
a  choice.  "Our  consciousness  only  attains  to  certain  parts  and  cer- 
tain aspects  of  those  parts.  Consciousness — in  regard  to  external 
perception — consists  in  just  this  choice."23  Such  a  choice  seems, 
however,  exactly  like  a  "choice"  exhibited  in  the  selective  or  differ- 
ential reaction  of  a  metal  to  an  acid.  The  metal  also  "  picks  out" 
the  form  of  energy  upon  which  it  can  act  and  which  can  act  upon  it.24 
Permit,  however,  the  phrase  to  pass  as  a  metaphor;  or  permit,  if  you 
will,  the  metaphor  to  pass  as  a  fact.  There  is  here  no  indetermina- 
tion  of  any  kind ;  nothing  undecided  and  no  need  of  any  subsequent 
choosing.  The  choice  being  complete,  the  reaction  of  the  organism 

*  Ibid.,  page  31 ;  cf.  page  304 :  ' '  Perception  appears  as  only  a  choice. ' ' 
14  Considerations  of  space  compel  me  to  omit  many  matters  of  interest  which 
are  relevant  to  the  topic.  But  I  can  not  forbear  here  a  word  of  reference  to 
Bergson's  earlier  mode  of  statement  of  the  point  at  issue  between  idealism  and 
realism.  The  reader  will  recall  that  he  sets  out  from  a  statement  of  the  two 
ways  in  which  objects — called,  for  convenience,  "images" — may  vary.  In  one 
system  each  varies  according  to  all  the  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  it;  in 
the  other,  all  vary  according  to  the  action  of  one  privileged  object,  the  organic 
body.  The  former  system  describes  the  physical  world;  the  latter,  the  perceived 
world.  But  some  of  his  descriptions  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  latter  surely 
refer  as  well  to  the  traits  of  the  former.  Thus  "I  note  that  the  size,  shape, 
even  the  color  of  external  objects  is  modified  according  as  my  body  approaches 
or  recedes  from  them;  that  the  strength  of  an  odor,  the  intensity  of  a  sound, 
increases  or  decreases  with  distance"  (page  6).  Surely,  however,  the  intensity 
of  an  influence  exercised  by  any  physical  body  upon  another  physical  body  varies 
with  distance.  Shape  and  size,  regarded  as  the  angular  portion  of  the  total  field 
subtended,  vary  with  distance  in  the  same  physical  way;  so  does  color  with  the 
change  in  intensity  of  light  effected  by  distance.  Thus  choice,  as  here  defined,  is 
only  a  name  for  the  specific  action  one  body  exercises  upon  others.  But  in  his 
final  formula  is  stated  the  peculiar  kind  of  a  change  in  the  physical  system 
effected  by  the  organic  body  in  perception:  things  not  merely  change  with  its 
changes,  but  change  so  as  to  reflect  its  "eventual  action"  (p.  13).  Here,  indeed, 
is  a  genuine  criterion  of  distinction;  and  our  further  discussion  of  choice  is 
simply  a  development  of  the  consequences  of  introducing  reference  to  eventual 
action  into  its  nature. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         661 

follows  at  once,  or  as  soon  as  its  time  comes.  But  now  there  enters 
upon  the  scene  a  present  effect  attributed  to  future  possible  actions. 
There  are  many  possible  acts  lying  in  wait.  Otherwise  the  choice, 
the  relinquishing  and  the  standing  out,  would  not  have  occurred. 
Somehow,  therefore,  the  perceived  object  sketches  and  measures  the 
many  possible  acts  among  which  a  choice  has  to  be  made  before  a 
determinate  response  can  occur.  The  circle  is  before  us.  The 
present  complete  choice  makes  possible  a  presentation  of  future  pos- 
sibilities; the  future  possible  acts  operate  to  define  the  peculiar 
nature  of  the  present  act. 

The  two  sides  are  brought  together  in  the  consideration  that  the 
perceived  object  reflects  or  mirrors  our  state  of  suspense,  of  hesita- 
tion, the  conditions  with  respect  to  which  we  have  to  choose.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  go  over  the  ground  already  traversed ;  if  I  have  not 
succeeded  in  laying  bare  the  circular  reason  nothing  I  can  add  now 
will  be  of  any  avail.  But  we  may  note  two  consequences  applicable 
to  the  situation  as  it  takes  form  with  respect  to  choice.  Since  the 
unperceived  world  is,  by  definition,  one  that  is  completely  actual 
in  itself — since,  in  other  words,  the  world  as  physical  already  has  its 
mind  all  made  up — this  view  implies  the  introduction  into  the  per- 
ceived world  of  a  quality  contradictory  to  the  conception  of  a  mere 
quantitative  selection.  Choice,  even  though  instantaneously  com- 
plete choice,  has  done  something  positive  after  all.  But  of  greater 
moment  is  the  fact  that  a  subject-matter  of  perception  that  merely 
mirrors  our  own  hesitation  is  of  no  use  in  resolving  that  hesitation. 
If  we  insist  upon  looking  at  it  as  marking  a  choice,  the  choice 
is  simply  to  be  undecided  as  to  a  choice.  The  perceived  object  just 
gives  back  to  us,  indifferently,  sullenly,  uninstructively,  our  own 
need  of  a  choice.  Such  a  perception  could  never  participate  in  the 
"office  of  ensuring  our  effective  action  on  the  object  present."25 
Our  later  choice  among  possible  actions  will  then  be  as  blind  and 
random  as  if  perception  had  never  intervened.  What  is  the  likeli- 
hood of  an  act  so  chosen  being  effective,  appropriate  ?  Better  had  it 
been  to  have  remained  in  the  frying-pan  of  complete  mechanism 
than  to  have  jumped  into  the  fire  of  purely  random  action.26 

K  Ibid.,  page  84.  Italics  mine.  In  its  context  the  quotation  refers  to  the 
r6le  of  the  cerebral  mechanism  in  perception,  but,  by  hypothesis,  it  must  be 
capable  of  transfer,  without  injustice  to  the  logic,  to  the  perception  as  the 
chosen  object. 

28  It  may  be  objected  that  we  have  here  ignored  the  distinction  between  pure 
and  concrete  perception  and  the  need  of  memory  to  effect  the  change  of  the 
former  into  the  latter,  and  thereby  have  treated  the  essence  of  the  account  of 
pure  perception  as  if  it  were  a  difficulty  in  the  account.  Pure  perception,  we 
may  be  told,  does  present  us  with  exactly  the  indeterminateness  which  reflects 
our  own  hesitation.  It  gives  the  field  with  respect  to  which  choice  has  to  be 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Note  how  the  difficulties  disappear  if  we  regard  the  act  of  per- 
ceiving as  a  temporal  act,  as  choosing.  Follow  out  literally  the  idea 
that  our  reactions  are  uncertain,  not  merely  ' '  allowing  room  for  sus- 
pense," but  involving  suspense.27 

Since  any  reactions  that  we  actually  make  must,  no  matter  how 
charged  they  are  with  uncertainty,  modify  the  environment  upon 
which  they  exercised,"  we  shall  have  as  the  counterpart  of  the  act  a 
field  undergoing  determination.  So  far  as  reactions  are  dominantly 
uncertain  we  shall  expect,  indeed,  to  find  the  subject-matter  vague 
and  confused — and  we  do  so  find  it.  But  an  indefinite  reaction  may 
have  a  certain  focusing  that  will  further  define  its  subject-matter  so 
that  it  will  afford  the  stimulus  to  a  more  effective  subsequent  re- 
sponse, and  so  on  till  the  perceived  matter  gets  outline  and  clear- 
made.  It  sets  a  question  to  which  the  motor  response  has  to  find  a  reply  (see, 
for  example,  page  41).  What  guides  the  motor  response  in  finding  the  reply  is 
not  perception  but  memory.  "Though  the  function  of  living  bodies  is  to  receive 
stimulations  in  order  to  elaborate  them  into  unforseen  reactions,  still  the  choice 
of  the  reaction  can  not  be  the  work  of  chance.  This  choice  is  likely  to  be 
inspired  by  past  experience,  and  the  reaction  does  not  take  place  without  an 
appeal  to  the  memories  which  analogous  situations  may  have  left  behind  them. 
The  indetermination  of  acts  to  be  accomplished  requires,  then,  if  it  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  pure  caprice,  the  preservation  of  the  images  perceived"  (page 
69,  italics  mine;  see  also  pages  103  and  114).  I  have  no  doubt  that  this  quota- 
tion represents  Bergson's  view;  perception  puts  the  question,  and  only  puts  the 
question ;  memory  helps  the  motor  response  to  find  the  effective  and  appropriate 
answer.  Even  though  my  whole  argument  seems  left  hanging  in  the  air  with 
its  underpinning  knocked  out,  I  must  postpone  consideration  of  this  point  of 
view  till  an  explicit  discussion  of  memory  is  undertaken.  But  certain  indications 
may  be  suggested  at  this  point.  The  assumption  leaves  totally  unexplained  the 
sudden  transformation  of  a  physical  world  totally  devoid  of  virtuality  (see  pages 
80  and  and  81  for  the  statement  that  if  the  physical  world  had  virtuality  it 
might  be  the  cause  of  consciousness)  into  a  world  that  is  as  perceived  nothing 
but  potentialities.  Matter  as  perceived  is  now  pure  freedom;  mind  as  memory 
is  pure  determination.  But  more  significant  to  the  present  problem  is  the 
recognition  that  action  based  on  pure  perception  is  a  matter  of  "chance,"  of 
"pure  caprice."  If  such  be  the  case,  how  can  the  object  of  pure  perception 
provide  any  clew  to  the  recall  of  the  proper  memory  f  Why  is  not  that  a  work 
of  chance,  of  capricef  But  most  significant  of  all  is  the  preestablished  har- 
mony set  up  between  perception  and  memory,  space  and  time,  matter  and  mind, 
by  this  view  that  perception  sets  the  problem  to  which  an  alleged  radically 
different  power  uniquely  supplies  the  answer.  For  like  all  preestablished  har- 
monies it  testifies  to  the  probability  of  a  prior  artificial  separation. 

'"Ibid.,  page  22. 

"  It  will  be  interesting  to  watch  the  logic  of  those  neo-realists  who  connect 
the  act  of  perception  with  the  organism  instead  of  with  "consciousness"  when 
they  develop  their  views  in  detail.  Professor  Montague's  theory  of  potential 
energy  as  the  physical  side  of  consciousness  seems  to  avoid  the  snares,  but  if  I 
mistake  not,  potential  energy  which  is  all  located  at  one  spot  instead  of  marking 
a  stress  in  a  larger  field  alleges  an  unprecedented  physical  fact. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         663 

ness.  If,  however,  the  reactions  continue  wholly  and  only  indeter- 
minate, the  confusion  of  the  subject-matter  will  remain,  and,  cor- 
respondingly, the  indeterminateness  of  response  will  persist.  The 
only  perception  that  can  be  a  useful  part  of  the  act  of  choosing  a 
useful  response  will  be  one  that  exhibits  the  effects  of  responses 
already  performed  in  such  a  way  as  to  provide  continuously  im- 
proving stimuli  for  subsequent  responses.  The  only  way  in  which  a 
living  being  with  indeterminate  possibilities  of  action  can  be  intel- 
ligently helped  to  their  determination  by  perceived  objects  is  by 
having  perceived  objects  serve  as  anticipations  of  the  consequences 
of  the  realization  of  this  or  that  possibility.  And  only  through  a 
presentation  in  anticipation  of  the  objective  consequences  of  a  pos- 
sible action  could  an  organism  be  guided  to  a  choice  of  actions  that 
would  be  anything  except  either  mechanical  or  purely  arbitrary. 
Perception  can  prepare  our  further  movements  effectively  and  ap- 
propriately in  the  degree  in  which  it  continuously  provides  the  stim- 
uli for  them.  In  words  of  Bergson  's  own  which  can  not  be  bettered : 
"That  which  constitutes  our  pure  perception  is  our  dawning  action, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  prefigured  in  those  images  [namely,  objects] .  The 
actuality  of  our  perception  thus  lies  in  its  activity,  in  the  movements 
which  prolong  it."29  Take  this  passage  seriously  and  literally,  and 
you  have  the  precise  view  of  perception  here  contended  for.  It  is 
not  a  choice  accomplished  all  at  once,  but  is  a  process  of  choosing. 
The  possible  responses  involved  are  not  merely  postponed,  but  are 
operative  in  the  quality  of  present  sensori-motor  responses.  The 
perceived  subject-matter  is  not  simply  a  manifestation  of  conditions 
antecedent  to  the  organic  responses,  but  is  their  transformation  in 
the  direction  of  further  action. 

IV 

In  the  references  which  we  have  made  in  this  discussion  to  sen- 
sori-motor responses  we  have  already  implicitly  trenched  upon  our 
last  topic:  the  body,  as  implicated  in  perception.  Just  what  part 
does  the  brain  have,  in  the  act  of  perception  ?  The  reader  need  not 
be  reminded  how  central  is  this  aspect  of  the  matter  for  Bergson. 
From  one  standpoint,  his  entire  discussion  of  perception  is  intended 
as  a  demonstration  that  the  brain  is  not  the  cause  of  conscious 
representations,  but  is,  and  is  solely,  the  organ  of  a  certain  kind  of 
action.  The  undoubted  correspondence  between  the  facts  of  the 
subject-matter  of  perception  (the  conscious  representations)  and 
brain  events  is  to  be  explained,  not  by  invoking  materialism  or 
psycho-physical  parallelism  (both  of  which  depend  upon  regarding 
perception  as  a  case  of  knowledge  instead  of  action),  but  by  showing 

19  Ibid.,  page  84.    Italics  in  the  original. 


604 

that  both  the  conscious  representations  and  the  brain  states  are 
functions  of  nascent  or  potential  action.  The  "representations" 
designate  action  on  the  side  of  its  material,  the  environing  condi- 
tions; the  brain  movements  designate  it  on  the  side  of  the  organs 
intimately  involved  in  it.80  The  correspondence  is  that  of  material 
and  tool  of  action,  like  that  of  soil  and  plow  with  reference  to  the 
act  of  sowing  seed. 

The  reader  is  invited  to  traverse  the  field  for  a  third  and  last 
time.  We  have,  once  more,  to  see  how  Bergson  provides  all  the 
factors  of  an  adequate  statement;  how  he  places  them  in  temporal 
alternation  to  each  other  and  thereby  renders  them  incapable  of  per- 
forming the  office  attributed  to  them;  and  how  the  account  stands 
when  it  is  corrected  by  making  the  factors  of  actuality  and  indeter- 
minateness  contemporaneous  instead  of  successive. 

The  nervous  system,  being  a  physical  structure,  is  a  medium  of 
the  transmission  of  movements,  and  is  only  that.  Consequently  any 
correspondence  or  correlation  that  can  be  made  out  between  the 
brain  processes  and  the  object  of  conscious  perception  (the  so-called 
conscious  content  or  representation)  must  be  in  terms  of  corre- 
spondence of  modes  of  movement.  The  nervous  process  concerned 
in  the  act  of  perception  must  be  describable,  in  other  words,  in  a 
way  analogous  to  the  peculiar  type  of  action  that  is  exhibited  in  the 
perceived  object.  The  marks  that  distinguish  cortical  action  from  the 
so-called  reflex  action  of  the  lower  structures  furnish  the  clew.  In 
the  latter,  the  incoming  movement  is  shunted  at  once  into  a  return 
movement.  In  the  former  the  paths  of  communication  are  im- 
mensely multiplied  and  the  nature  of  transmission  correspondingly 
complicated.  The  same  incoming  stimulus  has  many  outgoing 
paths  open  to  it.  Thus  the  brain  has  a  double  office.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  provides  a  mechanism  by  which  peripheral  disturbance, 
upon  reaching  the  spinal  cord  instead  of  being  deflected  into  its 
immediate  reflex  track,  may  be  put  in  flexible  connection  with  other 
motor  mechanisms  of  the  cord.  The  cortical  cells  termed  sensory 
"allow  the  stimulation  received  to  reach  at  will  this  or  that  motor 
mechanism  of  the  spinal  cord,  and  so  to  choose  its  effect."  "On 
the  other  hand,  as  a  great  multitude  of  motor  tracks  can  open  sim- 
ultaneously in  this  substance  to  one  and  the  same  excitation  from 
the  periphery,  this  disturbance  may  subdivide  to  any  extent,  and 
consequently  dissipate  itself  in  innumerable  motor  reactions  which 
are  merely  nascent.  Hence  the  office  of  the  brain  is  sometimes  to 
conduct  the  movement  received  to  a  chosen  organ  of  reaction,  and 
sometimes  to  open  to  this  movement  the  totality  of  the  motor  tracks, 

**  Ibid.,  pages  35,  309. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          665 

so  that  it  may  manifest  there  all  the  potential  reactions  with  which 
it  is  charged,  and  may  divide  and  so  disperse.  .  .  .  The  nervous  ele- 
ments ...  do  but  indicate  a  number  of  possible  actions  at  once,  or 
organize  one  of  them. '  '31 

With  respect  to  the  matter  under  discussion,  the  significant 
element  is  the  statement  that  sometimes  the  brain  has  one  office — 
allowing  a  chosen  reaction  to  proceed;  and  sometimes  another  office 
— to  permit  its  dispersal  into  a  number  of  channels.  The  same 
duality  is  repeated  in  the  statement  that  the  brain  indicates  a  num- 
ber of  possible  reactions  or  organizes  one  of  them.  The  alternation 
already  considered  here  presents  itself  overtly  and  externally.  And 
the  dilemma  is  presented  in  an  equally  definite  way.  So  far  as  there 
is  choice,  organization  of  a  fixed  path,  there  is  just  a  single  actual 
response.  So  far  as  there  is  dispersal  in  many  paths,  there  are  many 
actual  responses.  In  neither  case  does  possibility,  or  choice  among 
possibilities,  show  its  face.  At  the  same  time,  there  is  indicated  the 
true  state  of  affairs:  the  brain  expresses  the  operation  of  organizing 
one  mode  of  total  response  out  of  a  number  of  conflicting  and  partial 
responses. 

We  can  of  course  imagine  that  the  dispersal  of  energy  among 
many  paths  is  so  extensive  as  to  be  equivalent  to  a  practical  inhibi- 
tion, for  the  time  being,  of  any  definite  action  upon  the  environment. 
For  the  time  being,  the  expenditure  of  energy  (barring  what  leaks 
through)  is  intra-organic,  or  even,  anticipating  the  dispersion  into 
sensori-motor  tracks  to  be  mentioned  shortly,  intracerebral.  We 
might  identify  this  temporary  inhibition  of  overt  response  with  the 
gap  in  the  instantaneously  completed  transmission  which  throws  part 
of  the  material  world  into  relief.  But  this  identification  proves  too 
much.  If  the  dispersal  is  into  motor  tracks,  these  discharges  are 
just  so  many  overt  and  disconnected  acts  in  an  incipient  or  nascent 
condition.32  They  are  not  the  incipiency  of  one  appropriate  act. 
No  provision  is  made,  none  is  suggested,  for  recalling  them  so  that  in 
place  of  the  multitude  of  dispersive  tendencies  there  may  be  one  con- 
centrated act.  With  reference  to  the  performance  of  this  one  act — 
that  alone  could  meet  any  need  of  life — these  dispersive  activities 
are  just  so  much  waste  energy.  They  sketch,  not  what  we  are  going  to 
do,  but  what  we  are  doing  futilely. 

The  single  path  opened  may,  however,  be  said  to  represent  a  choice 
of  the  effect  to  be  attained  if  it  is  regarded  as  a  process  of  coordinat- 
ing, for  greater  efficiency,  a  number  of  competing  partial  tendencies. 
Similarly,  these  tendencies  may  be  said  to  represent  possible  incipi- 

w  Ibid.,  page  20. 

**  Compare  what  was  said  earlier  about  the  reality  of  future  acts,  page  655, 
above. 


r>r,<;  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ent  acts  (possible  paths  of  choice)  if  they  are  brought  into  contem- 
porary, not  alternating,  connection  with  seeking  and  finding  the 
single  most  effective  line  of  discharge.  Completely  real  and  really 
complete  just  as  they  are  when  their  dispersive  character  is  isolated, 
they  are  incipient  acts  with  reference  to  a  unity  of  organic  attitude 
which  they  take  part  in  establishing. 

The  method  of  realization  of  the  contemporary  relation  of  dis- 
covering a  unified  response  to  a  mutitude  of  dispersive  tendencies  is 
incidentally  mentioned  in  Bergson's  allusion  to  the  intervention  of 
the  "cortical  cells  termed  sensory."  All  direct  motor  shunting, 
whether  unified  or  dispersive,  is  of  the  reflex  type.  Only  because  of 
the  complication  of  a  situation  by  the  continuation  of  an  incoming 
stimulus  to  senson-motor  areas  in  intricate  interconnection  with  one 
another,  can  there  be  that  suspension  and  choosing  which  constitute 
the  act  of  perception.  This  act  is  as  genuinely  motor  as  eating,  walk- 
ing, driving  a  nail,  or  firing  combustibles,  and  involves  a  like  change 
in  the  environment  upon  which  it  takes  effect.88  But  its  motor 
peculiarity  is  that  it  takes  effect  not  in  such  acts  as  eating,  walking, 
driving,  firing,  but  in  such  acts  as  tasting,  seeing,  touching.  The 
motor  response,  as  long  as  the  act  of  perception  is  continued,  is 
directed  to  moving  the  sense-organs  so  as  to  secure  and  perfect  a 
stimulus  for  a  complete  organic  readjustment — an  attitude  of  the 
organism  as  a  whole.  This  is  made  possible  precisely  in  so  far  as  the 
incoming  disturbance  is  "dispersed"  not  into  motor  tracks,  but  into 
sensori-motor  areas.84  In  the  reciprocal  interactions  of  these  sensori- 
motor  areas  (their  reciprocal  stimulation  of  one  another)  is  found  the 
mechanism  of  coordinating  a  number  of  present  but  ineffectual  motor 
tendencies  into  an  effective  but  future  response. 

Let  us  suppose  the  disturbance  reaches  the  brain  by  way  of  the 
visual  organ.  If  directly  discharged  back  to  the  motor  apparatus  of 
the  eyes  this  results  not  in  a  perception,  but  in  an  eye-movement. 
But  simultaneously  with  this  reaction  there  is  also  a  dispersal  into  the 
areas  connected  with  tasting,  handling,  and  touching.  Each  of  these 
structures  also  initiates  an  incidental  reflex  discharge.  But  this  is 

n  Not,  of  course,  that  the  act  is,  as  such,  a  change  of  the  perception  (that 
would  involve  us  in  the  regressus  ad  infinitum  of  which  the  neo-realists  have 
rightly  made  so  much),  but  that  perception  is  the  change  of  the  environment 
effected  by  the  motor  phase. 

M  It  is  doubly  significant  that  Bergson  alludes  to  the  sensory  elements  in- 
volved without  in  any  way  amplifying  the  allusion.  The  allusion  is  necessary  in 
order  to  supply  the  basis  for  the  uncertain  character  of  the  situation  in  which 
perception  occurs,  and  for  explanation  of  its  inherent  future  reference.  It  is 
not  amplified  because  the  whole  explanation  of  sensory  features  in  Bergson 's 
scheme  is  found  in  memory.  "Memory"  is  thus  again  found  implicated  in  the 
very  heart  of  pure  perception. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS         667 

not  all ;  there  is  also  a  cross-discharge  between  these  cortical  centers. 
No  one  of  these  partial  motor  discharges  can  become  complete,  and 
so  dictate,  as  it  were,  the  total  direction  of  organic  activity  until  it 
has  been  coordinated  with  the  others.  The  fulfillment  of,  say,  eating, 
depends  upon  a  prior  act  of  handling,  this  upon  one  of  reaching,  and 
this  upon  one  of  seeing ;  while  the  act  of  seeing  necessary  to  stimulate 
the  others  to  appropriate  execution  can  not  occur  save  as  it,  in  turn, 
is  duly  stimulated  by  the  other  tendencies  to  action.  Here  is  a  state  of 
inhibition.  The  various  tendencies  wait  upon  one  another  and 
they  also  get  in  one  another's  way.  The  sensori-motor  apparatus 
provides  not  only  the  conditions  of  this  circle,  but  also  the  way  out 
of  it. 

How  can  this  be  ?  It  is  clear  that  if,  under  the  condition  supposed, 
the  act  of  seeing  were  overtly  complete  it  would  then  furnish  the 
needed  stimulus  of  reaching,  this  to  handling  and  so  on.  The  sensory 
aspect  of  the  apparatus  is,  in  its  nature,  a  supplying  of  this  condition. 
The  excitation  of  the  optical  area  introduces  the  quality  of  seeing  con- 
nected (through  the  simultaneous  excitation  of  the  areas  of  reaching, 
tasting,  and  handling)  with  the  specific  qualities  of  the  other  acts. 
The  quality  of  movement,  or  action,  supplied  by  the  sensory  aspect, 
is,  in  effect,  an  anticipation  of  the  result  of  the  act  when  overtly 
performed.  With  respect  to  determining  the  needed  stimulus,  it  is 
as  if  the  overt  responses  in  question  had  been  actually  executed.35 

The  reader  may  regard  this  account  as  speculative  to  any  degree 
which  he  pleases.  Personally  I  think  it  outlines  the  main  features 
of  the  act  of  perceiving.  But  that  is  neither  here  nor  there.  The 
question  is  whether  or  no  it  furnishes  the  terms  of  an  account  which 
shall  avoid  the  dilemma  in  which  Bergson's  account  is  held  captive, 
while  remaining  true  to  the  three  requirements  of  his  method  of  defi- 
nition: namely,  that  the  brain  be  treated  as  an  organ  for  receiving 
and  communicating  motion ;  that  indeterminateness  be  introduced  as 
a  specifying  feature ;  that  brain  processes  correspond  to  subject-mat- 
ter perceived,  as  an  organ  of  action  corresponds  to  the  material  of  its 
action. 

Our  analysis  of  Bergson's  account  is  now  completed.  The  reader 
will  decide  for  himself  how  far  we  have  been  successful  in  showing 
that  his  professed  account  of  perception  depends  upon  alternation 
between  two  factors  which,  if  they  are  involved  at  all,  must  operate 
contemporaneously,  not  alternately.  He  will  judge  for  himself  of 
the  value  of  the  account  of  perception  obtained  when  these  factors  are 
treated  as  contemporaneously  operative.  I  may  however  be  pardoned 

*  Here  we  find  the  modus  operand*  presupposed  in  our  account  of  percep- 
tion as  a  process  of  obtaining,  by  partial  reactions  to  partial  stimuli,  the  deter- 
minate stimulus  which  will  evoke  a  determinate  response.  See  ante,  p.  659. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

for  reminding  him  that  if  the  argument  has  been  successful  in  its 
two  purposes,  the  traits  that  are  alleged  to  demarcate  perception  and 
the  objective  material  with  which  it  deals  from  a  reality  marked  by 
genuine  presence  of  temporal  considerations  have  disappeared.  Per- 
ception is  a  temporal  process :  not  merely  in  the  sense  that  an  act  of 
perception  takes  time,  but  in  the  profounder  sense  that  temporal 
considerations  are  implicated  in  it  whether  it  be  taken  as  an  act  or  as 
subject-matter.  If  such  be  the  case,  Bergson's  whole  theory  of  time, 
of  memory,  of  mind  and  of  life  as  things  inherently  sundered  from 
organic  action  needs  revision.  JOHN  DEWEY. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


DISCUSSION 
OPPOSITION  AND  THE  SYLLOGISM 

PROFESSOR  DE  LAGUNA  sums  up  his  discussion  of  the  syllog- 
ism in  the  formula1 

-[(S-P)-   -(8-—M)-  -(P-M)]. 

According  to  a  letter  to  the  JOURNAL*  he  "learned  the  formula 
from  another  source"  [than  Mrs.  Franklin's  paper].  It  may  not  be 
amiss  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that,  whilst  Mrs.  Franklin's  "in- 
consistent triad"3  is  valid,  the  above  formula,  whoever  is  responsible 
for  it,  is  invalid  if  8,  P,  M  denote  classes,  i.  e.,  in  the  case  in  which  it 
ordinarily  would  be  applied,  the  categorical  syllogism.  According  to 
Professor  de  Laguna  his  formula  expresses  both  the  "general  prin- 
ciples of  the  categorical  and  the  hypothetical  syllogism,"  "if  we  use 
letters  to  denote  ambiguously  either  classes  or  propositions."4  But, 
if  the  letters  denote  classes  his  formula  does  not  represent  any  propo- 
sition whatever,  but  merely  a  class.  This  objection  is  not  valid 
against  Mrs.  Franklin 's  proposition  itself,  nor  against  any  of  the  fa- 
miliar statements  of  it;  e.  g.,* 

(a  v  b)  (b  V  c)  (c  V  o)  v 

is  valid  whether  a,  b,  c,  denote  classes  or  propositions. 

Professor  De  Laguna 's  failure  to  distinguish  between  class  and 
proposition  is  perhaps  to  be  explained  by  his  intention  to  denote  by 

1  This  JOUKNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  400. 

•  Ibid.,  Vol.  IX.,  page  588. 

*  According  to  Mrs.  Franklin  (this  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  583)  this  name 
is  due  to  Professor  Royce. 

4  I.IK:  <  it.,  page  400. 

§ ' '  Studies  in  Logic, ' '  by  members  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
page  40. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          669 

the  minus  sign  in  front  of  the  bracket  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  a 
class.  And  therewith  I  come  to  the  second  point.  The  use  of  the 
minus  sign,  which  goes  back  to  the  beginnings  of  the  algebra  of  logic, 
is  itself  unobjectionable ;  though  it  was  abandoned  by  the  writers  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  its  use,  in  a  modified  form, 
has  been  revived  by  Whitehead  and  Russell  in  their  "Principia 
Mathematica. ' '  I  object,  not  to  the  minus  sign  itself,  but  to  the  con- 
fusion of  two  distinct  fundamental  ideas  which  are  both  denoted  here 
by  the  same  symbol.  In  the  same  formula,  if  P  denotes  a  class  " — P" 
denotes  here  (1)  the  negative  of  P,  and  (2)  the  denial  of  the  existence 
of  P;  e.  g.,  "no  S  non-Af  exists  is  symbolized  by  Professor  De  Laguna 
thus: 

—  [8'—M] 

where  "S  •  — M"  is  the  product  of  two  classes,  and  therefore  itself  a 
class ! 

Such  ambiguous  use  is,  of  course,  against  the  very  first  principles 
of  any  symbolism  whatsoever. 

Mrs.  Franklin's  classical  formula  is  sufficient  to  adjudge  all  syl- 
logisms. Any  attempt  to  reduce  the  moods  of  the  syllogism  to  the 
' '  principle  of  opposition ' '  might  be  considered  a  barren  undertaking. 
Not  so !  Even  if  useless,  it  would  still  be  of  theoretical  interest  and  a 
novelty.  But,  alas!  the  claim  of  the  paper  that  "we  deduced  the 
principle  of  the  syllogism"6  is  not  substantiated,  except  by  a  very 
loose  and  unwarrantable  use  of  the  word  "deduce."  The  principle 
from  which  Professor  De  Laguna  really  deduced  his  "principle  of 
the  syllogism"  is  not  his  "principle  of  opposition"  but  Peirce's 
"Theorem  L,"  referred  to  in  Mrs.  Franklin's  paper,  or  the  rules  of 
"inserting  and  dropping  terms,"7  to  which  Professor  De  Laguna 
refers  as  "two  principles  of  immediate  inference."8  The  proof  of 
this  last  contention  can  not  very  well  be  given  without  the  use  of  the 
"algebra  of  logic";  and  in  that  form  it  is  part  of  Mrs.  Franklin's 
admirable  paper.  KARL  SCHMIDT. 

TUFTS  COLLEGE. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Le  Langage  et  la  Verbomanie;  Essai  de  Psychologie  Morbide.     OSSIP- 
LOURIE.    Paris :  Felix  Alcan.     1912.    Pp.  275. 

This  is  a  discursive  treatise  on  the  disease  of  talking  too  much.    The 
author  has  previously  written  rather  along  literary  than  nosologic  lines, 

•  Loc.  tit.,  page  400. 

T  Cf .  ' '  Studies  in  Logic, ' '  by  members  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
page  33. 

8  Loc.  cit.,  page  397. 


670  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

and  is  one  of  those  friends  of  the  "  Psychological  Index  "  who  write  their 
names  without  initials.  He  is  also  a  bit  of  a  pessimist,  even  misogynist, 
to  judge  from  the  seventh  chapter.  He  has  some  good  ideas,  which  are 
entertainingly  developed. 

By  way  of  introduction  a  fairly  satisfactory  account  is  given  of  the 
psychological  processes  to  he  supposed  in  the  origin  of  language,  the  re- 
lation of  language  to  thought,  with  a  discussion  of  their  lack  of  parallel- 
ism. The  basal  conception  is  of  language  as  a  delicate  and  complex  mental 
function  legitimately  suited  to  particular  social  ends.  To  fail  to  limit  it 
to  its  proper  sphere  in  the  psychic  economy,  putting  it  to  loose  and  im- 
proper uses,  is  not  without  its  dangers  to  the  personality.  The  great  em- 
phasis laid  hereon  is  the  main  characteristic  of  the  volume.  It  is  this 
which  is  termed  "  verbomanie,"  especially  in  the  sense  of  an  overdevelop- 
ment of  the  linguistic  function.  The  psychiatrist  would  probably  tend  to 
regard  these  manifestations  as  symptomatic,  but  while  the  author  oc- 
casionally uses  the  word  in  this  sense,  he  seems  more  frequently  to  re- 
gard it  as  an  independent  disease,  manifesting  itself  par  trop  d'efiets, 
complexes  et  contraires.  The  clinical  picture  is  consequently  ill-defined, 
and  probably  includes  many  better-recognized  disease  forms  that  are 
partly  characterized  by  disturbances — in  the  direction  of  hypertrophy — of 
the  linguistic  faculty.  It  is  conceived  of  as  an  almost  exclusively  psycho- 
genie  condition,  and  doubtless  justly  so,  so  far  as  the  content  is  concerned, 
though  the  symptoms  of  genuine  verbomanie  are  scarcely  so  independent 
of  originally  unstable  mental  organization  as  the  author  seems  to  think. 

The  essential  question  is,  then,  if  loose  speaking,  besides  being  a  de- 
rivative of  loose  thinking,  may  not  in  turn  react  upon  the  intellectual 
faculty.  Popularly,  this  is  the  opinion  voiced  in  speaking  of  one  carried 
away  by  his  own  eloquence.  The  clouding  of  adequate  reaction  by  emotion 
is  an  elementary  psychological  principle,  and  in  so  far  as  the  false  use 
of  language  may  arouse  inappropriate  emotional  reactions,  it  may  lead  to 
inappropriate  intellectual  ones.  The  "  argument  by  epithet "  is  well 
known  politically,  nor  is  the  scientific  investigator  exempt  from  its  pit- 
falls. A  clever  but  suggestible  worker,  with  a  turn  for  rhetoric,  may  turn 
his  own  dialectics  upon  himself  to  the  detriment  of  clear  thinking.  All 
this  independently  of  a  clinical  conception  of  "  verbomanie"  of  which  the 
author  has  at  least  a  clear  enough  idea  to  formulate  a  definite  scheme  for 
its  management.  In  the  matter  of  responsibility  he  places  his  verbo- 
manias  between  the  "  insane  "  and  the  normal,  not  considering  that  so- 
ciety can  guard  itself  against  them,  mais  elle  pent  les  combattre  morale- 
ment  et  socialement.  Prophylactically,  he  desires  more  training  in  the 
precise  employment  of  speech.  The  idea  of  "  learning  by  doing,"  expressed 
by  so  many  who  approach  educational  questions  from  a  psychopathological 
angle,  we  meet  again  here  in  the  words,  "  La  transmission  purement  ver- 
bale  d'un  savoir,  au  lieu  d'infuser  des  energies  aux  auditeurs,  les  habitue 
a  I'incapacite  intellectuelle  et  a  la  phraselogie  vide,"  and  otherwise. 
Therapeutically,  "  disciplinary  silence  "  is  the  key-word,  and  the  author 
voices  a  suggestion  singularly  like  one  in  the  "  Modern  Utopia  "  of  H.  G. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          671 

Wells,  in  which  every  member  of  a  privileged  class  must  annually  pass  a 
fixed  number  of  days  alone  in  immediate  and  elementary  contact  with 
natural  forces. 

Books  are  of  four  kinds;  by  clever  people  who  know  their  subject,  by 
clever  people  who  do  not,  by  stupid  people  who  know  their  subject,  and  by 
stupid  people  who  do  not.  The  first  are  the  most  brilliant,  the  second  the 
most  suggestive,  the  third  the  most  reliable,  the  fourth  the  most 
consoling.  The  present  one  is  clever  and  to  spare,  but  there  are 
greater  limitations  on  the  other  score.  It  is  an  "  Essai  de  Psychologic 
Morbide,"  yet  does  not  draw  its  references,  of  which  there  are  many,  from 
the  best  known  contemporary  sources,  either  on  the  philological  or  psycho- 
logical side,  and  it  is  quite  incoordinate  with  systematic  psychopathology, 
so  ought  scarcely  to  be  judged  by  psychiatric  standards.  On  the  grounds 
of  suggestion  and  of  literary  quality,  it  is  better  justified  in  its  graceful 
epigraph,  Vel  taceas,  vel  meliora  die  silentio. 

F.  L.  WELLS. 
MCLEAN  HOSPITAL. 


JOUKNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

MIND.  April,  1912.  Relevance  (pp.  154-166) :  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER. 
-An  analysis  of  the  concept  of  relevance  into  the  notion  of  the  subjec- 
tivity, the  selectiveness,  the  honesty,  and  the  disputableness  of  the  rele- 
vant. Application  is  made  to  logic,  the  sciences,  and  philosophy,  with  the 
result  of  a  voluntaristic  as  opposed  to  intellectualistic  conception  of 
knowledge.  Representational  Pragmatism  (pp.  167-181) :  DOUGLAS  C. 
MACINTOSH.  -  Adopts  a  point  of  view  intermediate  between  traditional 
intellectualism  and  current  pragmatism  combining  the  intellectual 
"  proximate  genus  of  truth  (representation  of  reality)  "  and  the  prag- 
matic "specific  difference  (sufficiency  for  all  practical  purposes)."  The 
Ethical  Significance  of  the  Idea  Theory—  (II.)  (pp.  182-200)  :  K.  M. 
MAC!VER.  -  An  ethical  interpretation  of  Plato's  doctrine  of  ideas.  Philos- 
ophy, for  Plato,  is  explanation.  Plato's  main  interest  was  ethical.  Con- 
sequently the  metaphysics  of  the  Idea  is  the  result  of  an  ethical  demand, 
and  the  theory  of  ideas  conies  as  the  expression  of  an  ethical  need.  The 
Idea  is  identified  with  the  Good  and  with  Reality,  all  else  is  unreal. 
"  Matter  and  Memory  "  (pp.  201-232) :  EDWARD  DOUGLAS  FAWCETT.  -  A 
rather  detailed  exposition  with  a  criticism  of  the  fundamental  difficulties 
of  M.  Bergson's  "Matter  and  Memory."  The  main  force  of -criticism  is 
directed  against  the  Intuitionist  method.  Certain  inconsistencies  are 
pointed  out  between  Time  and  Free  Will  and  Matter  and  Memory  center- 
ing chiefly  around  the  problem  of  space.  Discussions:  Thought  and  its 
Function  (pp.  233-237) :  ADDISON  W.  MOORE.  -  A  reply  by  the  author  to 
Mr.  Murray's  review  of  Pragmatism  and  its  Critics.  Dr.  Alexander  and 
the  A  Priori  (pp.  238-240):  H.  S.  SHELTON.  -  Charges  Dr.  Alexander 
with  a  misconception  of  Spencer's  view  of  the  a  priori.  Critical  Notes: 
H.  Richards,  Platonica:  A.  E.  TAYLOR.  E.  E.  C.  Jones,  A  New  Law  of 
Thought  and  its  Logical  Bearings:  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER.  Rene  Berthelot, 


672  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Un  Romantisme  Utilitaire:  Etude  sur  le  Mouvement  Pragmatiste :  F.  C. 
S.  SCHILLER.  J.  Welton,  The  Psychology  of  Education:  W.  H.  WINCH. 
A.  Miiller,  Das  Problem  des  absoluten  Raurnes  und  seine  Beziehung  zum 
allgemeinen  Raumproblem :  P.  E.  B.  JOURDAIN.  New  Books.  Philosoph- 
ical Periodicals.  Notes. 

Lowenberg,  Dr.  J.     Hegel's  Entwiirfe  zur  Enzyklopadie  und  Propadeutik. 
Leipzig:  Felix  Meiner.     1912.     Pp.  vi-f-58.     M.  3.40. 

Radhakrishnan,  S.     Essentials  of  Psychology.     Oxford :  University  Press. 

1912.     Pp.  75. 
Wundt,   W.     An   Introduction  to   Psychology.      Translated  by   Dr.   R. 

Pintner.    London :  Allen  and  Company.    Pp.  xi  -|-  198.    3s.  6d. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

Dr.  J.  E.  W.  WALLIN,  Director  of  the  Psychological  Clinic  in  the 
University  of  Pittsburgh,  has  been  appointed  R.  B.  Mellon  Fellow  in  the 
division  of  smoke  investigation  in  the  department  of  industrial  research 
of  the  university,  with  the  immediate  duties  of  making  a  preliminary 
survey  of  the  literature  bearing  on  the  psychology  of  smoke,  and  of 
outlining  a  plan  of  investigation  in  this  field.  Owing  to  the  lack  of 
bibliographies  bearing  on  this  topic,  he  will  be  pleased  to  receive  state- 
ments from  any  one  who  has  made  observations  on  the  mental  influences 
of  smoke,  or  who  is  in  a  position  to  supply  references. 

THE  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences  announces  for  December  6  a 
lecture  by  Professor  Hugo  de  Vries  on  "  Experimental  Evolution,"  which 
will  be  given  in  cooperation  with  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History. 

Ox  October  9,  Dr.  Henry  M.  Sheffer  lectured  at  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  on  "  The  Revolution  in  Logic  and  the  '  New '  Philosophy." 
He  repeated  this  lecture  at  the  University  of  Chicago  the  following  night. 

MR.  W.  H.  MILLS,  M.A.,  of  Jesus  College,  has  been  appointed  demon- 
strator to  the  Jacksonian  professor  of  natural  experimental  philosophy  at 
Cambridge  University  in  place  of  the  late  Mr.  H.  O.  Jones. 

DR.  RAYMOND  DODGE,  professor  of  psychology  at  Wesley  an  University, 
Middletown,  Connecticut,  has  been  appointed  consulting  experimental 
psychologist  at  the  Nutrition  Laboratory  of  the  Carnegie  Institution. 

"  The  Problem  of  Christianity "  is  the  subject  of  the  eight  Lowell 
lectures  to  be  given  by  Professor  Josiah  Royce,  of  Harvard  University, 
on  Monday  and  Thursday  afternoons,  beginning  November  18. 

ON  November  11,  Dr.  H.  L.  Hollingworth,  of  Columbia  University, 
read  a  paper  on  "  The  Relation  of  Psychology  to  Medicine  and  Law  "  at 
a  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Medical  Jurisprudence. 


VOL.  IX.  No.  25.  DECEMBER  5,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


T 


"PRESENT   PHILOSOPHICAL  TENDENCIES" 

II.     IDEALISM  AND  REALISM 

HE  part  of  his  task  for  which  Professor  Perry  shows  the  most 
zeal,  and  to  which  he  devotes  the  most  space,  is  the  refutation 
of  idealism  and  the  exposition  and  justification  of  the  principles  of 
the  new  realism.  His  book  is,  I  believe,  the  first — though  it  evi- 
dently is  not  to  be  the  last — volume  in  which  those  principles  are 
authoritatively  set  forth  and  elaborately  defended.  It  seems  worth 
while,  therefore,  to  deal  with  this  part  of  the  volume  at  some  length. 
The  reasonings  propounded  on  the  subject  contain,  assuredly,  much 
acute  criticism  and  some  original  and  ingenious  pieces  of  construct- 
ive argument.  But — to  come  to  the  main  point  at  once — the  dis- 
cussion, as  a  whole,  is  vitiated  by  a  singular,  an  enormous  over- 
sight. Half,  and  the  more  important  half,  of  the  'considerations 
which  first  generated  and  still  support  idealism,  are  all  but  com- 
pletely disregarded.  And  the  oversight  is  more  than  a  mere  omis- 
sion; Perry  expressly  denies  the  fact  which  he  overlooks.  "The 
strategy  of  idealism,"  we  are  told,  "depends  on  the  adoption  of  a 
certain  initial  standpoint.  The  world  must  be  viewed  under  the 
form  of  knowledge."  "A  study  of  the  later  development  of  ideal- 
ism will  disclose  the  fact  that  it  relies  mainly,  if  not  entirely,  on  the 
Berkeleian  proofs"  (pp.  132  and  158). l  And  for  Perry  these  proofs 
are  reducible  to  two,  both  fallacies  in  formal  logic,  which  he  calls 
"definition  by  initial  predication"  and  "argument  from  the  ego- 
centric predicament."1  The  first  consists  in  "the  error  of  inferring 
that  because,"  e.  g.,  a  tulip  "is  seen,  therefore  its  being  seen  is  its 
essential  and  exclusive  status";  the  second  consists  in  taking  the 
methodological  difficulty  that  only  things  thought  of  can  be  men- 
tioned or  instanced  in  argument,  as  a  proof  that  only  things  thought 
of  can  exist.  Both  of  these,  no  doubt,  are  bad  arguments;  though 
even  of  these  the  second  is  hardly  fairly  presented.2  The  egocen- 

J"  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,"  Ralph  Barton  Perry,  1912. 
2 A  few  "objective  idealists"  are  credited  with  having  added  "at  least 
one  new   argument ' ' — the   argument   that    the    relatedness   of   things   must   be 

673 


674  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

trie  predicament  is  obviously  misapplied  when  regarded  as  a  demon- 
stration of  idealism;  but  it  is  not  without  force  when  regarded  as  a 
challenge  to  the  realist  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of  his  affirmations. 
What  the  predicament  tends  to  show — as  many  of  those  who  have 
used  it  have  clearly  understood — is  not  that  realism  is  false,  but  that 
it  is  prultli'inatical,  and  that  the  situation  in  which,  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  our  thinking  is  entangled  renders  direct  proof  of 
the  independence  of  things — by  the  actual  exhibition  of  a  thing  out- 
side of  "the  cognitive  relationship" — impossible.  When  so  con- 
strued, this  "Berkeleian  argument"  at  least  creates  an  embarrass- 
ment for  any  realist — and  I  say  this  as  one  of  them,  so  far  as  the 
purely  epistemological  issue  is  concerned.  Moreover,  the  argument 
as  presented  by  idealists  is  usually  backed  up  by  an  explicit  or  im- 
plied appeal  to  the  principle  of  parsimony.  We  find  things,  we  are 
told,  existing  only  in  a  certain  mode  or  context  or  relation;  and  a 
law  of  scientific  procedure  requires  us  to  refrain  from  multiplying 
entities — and  even  from  multiplying  the  "particularities"  of  a  given 
entity — praeter  necessitatem.  But  taken  thus,  the  argument  from 
the  egocentric  predicament  is  by  no  means  the  crude  formal  fallacy 
which  Perry  (pp.  129-132)  represents  it  as  being.  I  believe  it,  in- 
deed, to  be  an  argument  that  can  be  met;  but  in  meeting  it  one 
would  be  obliged  to  go  outside  the  position  of  epistemological 
monism. 

The  essential  point,  however,  is  that  idealism — or  at  least  the 
opposition  to  physical  realism — has  never  relied  solely  upon  these 
two  proofs,  has  seldom  relied  upon  them  mainly,  and  has  some- 
times, especially  of  late,  not  relied  upon  them  at  all.  For  besides 
the  epistemological  type  of  argument  for  idealism  or  spiritualism, 
there  has  always  been  recognized  a  dialectical  type  of  argument. 
Appearing  in  many  forms,  this  argument  in  its  general  method  con- 
sists in  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  hypothesis  of  the  independent 
reality  of  the  objects  of  perception,  in  a  proof  that  that  hypothesis, 
if  followed  through,  compels  you  to  assert  of  these  objects  proposi- 
tions contradictory  either  of  one  another  or  else  of  undisputed  facts 
of  experience.  In  its  earliest  and  simplest  form  this  dialectical  argu- 
ment arises  out  of  reflection  upon  the  relativity  of  the  sensible  quali- 
ties and  magnitudes  of  objects  to  their  individual  percipients,  and 
even  to  the  several  sense-organs  of  the  same  percipient ;  and  in  that 
form  it  leads  only  so  far  as  epistemological  dualism.  The  anthropo- 
logical roots  of  idealism  lay  in  the  earliest  distinction  between  ap- 

derivative  from  the  synthetic  unity  of  consciousness  (p.  156).  But  this  is 
scarcely  an  argument  at  all  (p.  158),  and  "the  majority  of  idealists  do  not  even 
attempt  to  find  a  new  proof ' ' ;  they  still  rest  their  case  on  the  two  ' '  Berkeleyan 
grounds"  (ibid.). 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          675 

pearance  and  reality;  and  its  direct  historic  source,  as  a  technical 
theory,  was,  as  every  schoolboy  knows,  the  physicist's  doctrine  of  the 
"subjectivity"  of  most  of  the  sensible  attributes  of  matter.  There 
are,  as  Hume  said,  certain  "trite  topics  employed  by  sceptics  of  all 
ages  against  the  evidence  of  sense;  such  as  those  which  are  derived 
from  the  imperfection  and  fallaciousness  of  our  organs ;  the  crooked 
appearance  of  an  oar  in  water;  the  various  aspects  of  objects,  accord- 
ing to  their  different  distances ;  the  double  images  which  arise  from 
the  pressing  of  one  eye;  with  many  other  appearances  of  like  na- 
ture." And  of  such  scepticism,  idealism  is  quite  as  truly  the  child 
— or  at  least  the  grandchild — as  it  is  the  child  of  the  religious  crav- 
ing to  "restore  a  spiritual  center  to  nature,"  which  Perry  regards 
as  the  principal  motive  engendering  idealistic  tendencies.  It  was  the 
distinction  between  what  things  seem  and  what  they  are  "in  their 
own  nature," — and  certainly  not  any  tendency  in  the  Greek  mind 
towards  inwardness  and  subjectivism — that  brought  Protagoras  to 
an  adumbration  of  idealism,  two  thousand  years  before  Berkeley. 
And  even  Berkeley,  though  he  is  the  arch-representative  of  the  two 
types  of  argument  which  Perry  regards  as  the  essence  of  the  ideal- 
ist apologetic,  rests  his  case  quite  as  much,  if  not  more,  upon  the 
dialectical  sort  of  argument,  upon  the  consequences  of  "the  distinc- 
tion some  make  betwixt  primary  and  secondary  qualities."  The  re- 
lation of  Berkeley's  doctrine  to  the  chapters  on  "Our  Knowledge  of 
Existence"  in  Locke's  Fourth  Book,  Perry  sufficiently  indicates; 
quite  as  important  is  its  relation  to  the  twenty-third  chapter  of  the 
second  book. 

The  relativity  of  secondary  qualities  is  taken  by  science  as  an 
evidence  of  their  subjectivity,  because  otherwise  you  would  appar- 
ently be  compelled,  self-contradictorily,  to  assert  of  one  and  the 
same  object  that  it  "really"  and  in  itself  is  at  the  same  moment 
long  and  short,  square  and  oblong,  hot  and  cold,  red  and  gray,  and 
so  on.  But  the  dialectical  type  of  idealistic  reasoning  is  not  limited 
to  an  extension  of  the  argument  from  the  relativity  of  sensible  qual- 
ities. It  is  exemplified  likewise  in  the  argument  from  the  antin- 
omies of  the  infinite  divisibility  and  extension  of  space — already 
made  much  of  by  Berkeley — and  in  any  other  proposed  proofs  of 
spiritualism  through  the  demonstration  of  paradoxes  in  physical 
realism.  And  this  type  of  argument,  I  say,  has  at  all  times  tended, 
not  less  powerfully  than  the  direct  and  purely  epistemological  argu- 
ment, to  generate,  first  of  all,  dualism,  and  eventually  some  form  of 
idealism.3 

*  Perry  mentions,  though  briefly  and  not  in  connection  with  his  principal 
exposition  and  criticism  of  idealism,  the  argument  from  the  antinomies,  and  in 
something  less  than  two  pages  (103-5)  presents  a  solution  of  those  difficulties. 


676  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Professor  Perry  has  thus  largely  forgotten  or  failed  to  under- 
stand the  more  significant  of  the  two  principal  factors  in  the  genesis, 
the  evolution,  and  the  logic  of  idealism.  The  fact  makes  his  three 
otherwise  admirable  chapters  on  the  subject  not  only  incomplete,  but 
misleading.  He  has,  consequently,  almost  as  completely  ignored  the 
principal  difficulties  which  inhere  in  that  ' ' epistemological  monism" 
which  is  an  essential  part  of  the  theory  of  knowledge  of  the  new 
realism.  The  nature  of  that  theory  is  expressed  with  a  clearness  for 
which  one  must  be  grateful.  The  new  realism  consists  in  the  joint 
affirmation  of  two  doctrines,  (1)  "epistemological  monism,  or  the 
theory  of  immanence"  of  objects,  which  "means  that  when  a  given 
thing,  a,  is  known,  a  itself  enters  into  a  relation  which  constitutes  it 
the  idea  or  content  of  a  mind";  and  (2)  "the  theory  of  independ- 
ence" of  objects,  which  means  "that  although  a  may  thus  enter  into 
mind  and  assume  the  status  of  content,  it  is  not  dependent  on  this 
status  for  its  being  or  nature"  (p.  308).  And  the  new  realism 
achieves  the  conjunction  of  these  two  by  means  of  the  "relational 
theory  of  consciousness"  and  of  a  proof  of  the  possibility  of  classify- 
ing "presence  in  consciousness"  among  the  external  or  non-constitu- 
tive relations. 

Of  his  own  doctrine,  then,  Perry's  formulation  leaves  little  to  be 
desired,  in  point  of  clarity  and  definiteness.  But  his  reasoning  in 
its  behalf  shows  no  equal  insight  into  the  grounds  of  other  people's 
dissent  from  that  doctrine.  This  I  shall  show  by  examining  his 
brief — his  all  too  brief — "proof"  of  neo-realism. 

There  are,  of  course,  two  things  to  be  proved:  (A)  The  realistic 
part  of  the  new  realism,  its  doctrine  of  the  "independence"  of  the 
object;  (B)  its  epistemological  monism,  the  doctrine  of  the  "im- 
manence" of  the  object.  And  the  latter  must  be  defined  and  proved 
in  terms  not  destructive  of  the  former.  Now  of  (.4.)  Perry's  proof 
is  composed  of  a  rebuttal  of  the  idealist's  arguments,  and  a  justifi- 
cation of  realism.  The  rebuttal  consists  of  two  contentions.  The 
first  is  that  the  two  "Berkeleian  arguments" — that  by  "definition 
by  initial  predication"  and  that  "from  the  egocentric  predicament," 
as  these  have  been  previously  expounded  by  Perry — are  unconvinc- 
ing. That  they  are  so  I  have  already  conceded;  the  one  is  an  os- 
tentatious petitio  principii  and  the  other  has  no  tendency  to  prove 
that  objects  can  not  exist  independently.  But  then,  these  never  were 
the  only  or  the  most  serious  arguments  for  idealism.  Secondly, 
Perry  belatedly  bethinks  him  of  the  real  meaning  of  the  argument 

But  of  the  dialectical  argument  in  general,  and  of  the  significance  of  its  more 
elementary  forma — the  arguments  from  illusions,  the  subjectivity  of  secondary 
qualities,  etc. — there  is,  I  believe,  no  recognition.  And  the  treatment  of  the 
antinomies  seems  to  me  as  unsatisfactory  logically  as  it  is  meager. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          677 

from  the  egocentric  predicament,  which  in  his  chapters  on  idealism 
he  had  missed;  he  observes  that  if  this  predicament  does  not  prove 
idealism,  it  may  at  least  seem  to  "render  it  impossible  to  prove  real- 
ism." Though  Perry's  statement  of  the  idealist's  point  here,  in 
two  sentences,  by  no  means  does  that  point  justice,  the  author  has 
at  any  rate  at  last  faced  one  of  the  serious  arguments.  His  reply 
to  it  has  more  point  than  he  clearly  brings  out.  As  given,  it  consists 
wholly  in  a  citation  from  Mr.  Eussell,  wherein  that  logician  argues 
that,  since  to  know  that  all  the  numbers  never  thought  of  by  any 
one  are  numbers  above  1,000  does  not  require  us  to  know  all  or  any 
instances  of  such  numbers,  therefore  knowledge  of  the  truth  of  a 
general  proposition  does  not  require  us  to  know  all  or  any  of  the 
class  to  which  it  refers.  Mr.  Russell,  the  Macaulay  of  logicians,  has 
his  own  heightened  and  telling  way  of  putting  truisms  so  that  they 
look  like  paradoxes.  "What  his  example  here  shows  is  simply  this: 
if  I  divide  numbers  into  two  classes,  those  below  and  those  above 
1,000;  if  I  know  (whether  by  definition  or  a  "necessity  of  thought") 
that  these  two  classes  exhaust  all  possible  numbers;  and  if  I  also 
know  that  all  of  the  former  class  have  a  given  predicate,  such  as  that 
of  "having  been  thought  of";  then  I  know  that  any  number  lack- 
ing this  predicate  must  fall  into  the  remaining  class.  All  that  the 
example  illustrates,  for  Perry's  purposes,  is  that  there  are  other 
ways  of  proving  facts  besides  empirically  exhibiting  concrete  ex- 
amples of  them.  This  is  true,  though  the  citation  from  Russell  was 
not  well  calculated  to  make  the  reader  understand  the  precise  point 
required.  It  is  also  pertinent  to  the  argument  from  the  egocentric 
predicament;  for  that  argument  consists  in  a  demand  that  the  inde- 
pendent existence  of  objects  be  proved  by  the  empirical  exhibition 
of  an  object  so  existing.  Perry  virtually  answers — and  the  reply  is 
good  so  far  as  it  goes — "the  realist's  inability  to  furnish  this  kind 
of  proof  does  not  show  that  his  doctrine  is  incapable  of  proof ;  for  it 
is  open  to  him  to  offer  other  and  more  indirect  proofs."  Yet  this, 
of  course,  does  not  carry  the  realist  far  upon  his  way.  What  are 
his  other  proofs  ? 

Those  offered  by  Perry  are  two  in  number.  (1)  A  reductio  ad 
absurdum  of  subjective  idealism:  that  doctrine  can  not  stop  short 
of  solipsism,  and  solipsism  implies  absolute  scepticism,  which  is  self- 
refuting  or  at  least  self-stultifying.  As  an  objection  to  the  idealism 
based  upon  the  epistemological  arguments,  this  seems  to  me  valid; 
as  an  objection  to  a  pluralistic  idealism  based  upon  the  dialectical 
arguments,  it  is  without  pertinency.  For  the  dialectical  arguments 
do  not  tend  to  prove  epistemological,  but  only  metaphysical  idealism, 
or  spiritualism.  It  may  perhaps  be  urged  that  Perry  uses  the  term 
"idealism"  only  of  the  former.  But  a  term  must  be  judged  by  the 


678  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

antitheses  it  keeps;  and  Perry  habitually  assumes  that  "realism" 
includes  physical  realism,  and  that  the  realism  so  inclusive  and 
"idealism"  together  give  an  exhaustive  dichotomy  of  the  doctrines 
about  the  problem  in  question.  He  assumes,  in  short,  that  epistemo- 
logical  idealism  is  the  only  enemy  realism  (as  such)  has  to  attack; 
and  he  uses  weapons  effective  only  against  that  enemy.  Such  are 
the  consequences  of  his  habitual  disregard  of  most  of  the  dialectical 
arguments. 

His  remaining  argument  for  the  "doctrine  of  independence" 
runs  thus:  relations  may  be  "external,"  or  non-essential  to  the  na- 
ture or  existence  of  the  relata;  "being  in  consciousness"  is  a  rela- 
tion of  this  sort.  Now,  of  these  propositions,  the  former  by  no  means 
needs  so  much  proving  as  is  bestowed  upon  it.  The  second  is  equiv- 
ocal. If  it  means  only  a  denial  of  the  proposition  that  any  thing's 
existence  necessarily  depends  upon  its  now  being  perceived  by  me,  it 
affirms  no  more  than  any  idealist,  except  a  solipsist,  will  readily  ad- 
mit. But  the  fact  is  that,  as  used  by  a  genuine  neo-realist,  the  prop- 
osition "being  in  consciousness  is  an  external  relation,"  means  a 
great  deal  more  than  this.  It  means  that  consciousness  is  never  con- 
stitutive of  any  object  that  is  in  consciousness,  or  of  any  quality  of 
such  object,  or  of  any  of  its  relations  except  the  one  relation  of 
"being-experienced" — which  for  Perry  consists  in  "being  reacted 
upon  in  the  specific  manner  characteristic  of  the  central  nervous 
system."  Precisely  what  is  known  or  "presented"  or  experienced 
is  always  an  existent  that  would  be  the  same  even  if  not  known  or 
presented  or  experienced;  its  being  and  its  characters  are  always 
such  as  they  appear  to  be  when  present  in  the  "mind,"  and  are  not 
in  any  way  modified  by  their  relation  to  a  mind. 

This,  if  I  understand  the  matter,  is  the  essence  of  neo-realism 
when  its  "theory  of  independence"  is  interpreted  in  the  light  of  its 
"theory  of  immanence."  To  understand  Perry's  defence  of  the 
one,  then,  we  must  from  now  on  also  be  mindful  of  the  other.  For 
his  proof  of  the  assertion  that  objects  and  their  qualities  are  inde- 
pendent of  consciousness  really  reduces  to  the  assertion  that  con- 
sciousness is  known  to  be  the  sort  of  thing  that  can  not  possibly  be 
constitutive  of  the  existence  or  the  nature  of  any  object.  It  is  not 
from  a  knowledge  about  objects,  but  from  a  knowledge  of  what  con- 
sciousness is,  that  he  supposes  himself  to  have  proved  the  "theory 
of  independence."  "The  objects  selected  by  any  individual  re- 
sponding organism  compose  an  aggregate  defined  by  that  relation- 
ship. What  such  an  aggregate  derives  from  consciousness  will  then 
be  its  aggregation  and  nothing  more"  (p.  323;  italics  the  author's). 
Since  this  is  the  utmost  that  "the  mind"  can  do  to  objects,  ob- 
viously it  is  a  poor  thing  which  can  in  no  way  threaten  their  inde- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          679 

pendence ;  with  powers  so  limited,  it  can  not  even  make  itself  dupli- 
cate or  imitation  objects.  Thus  the  nature  of  consciousness  is  such 
that  objects  can  not  be  anything  but  "immanent"  and  yet  "inde- 
pendent." Quod  erat  demonstrandum. 

This,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  the  only  argument  which  Perry  pre- 
sents that  is  directed  against  metaphysical  idealism,  and  not  merely 
against  the  purely  epistemological  arguments  for  idealism ;  and  it  is 
the  only  one  which,  if  accepted,  would  establish  the  kind  of  realism 
that  neo-realism  tries  to  be.  I  think  it,  however,  a  poor  argument; 
and  that  Professor  Perry  finds  it  a  convincing  one,  I  can  only  as- 
cribe to  that  same  disregard  of  half  the  generating  logic  of  both 
dualism  and  idealism  of  which  I  have  already  spoken. 

The  fault  of  the  argument,  as  presented  by  Perry,  is  twofold. 
He  offers  no  serious  evidence  for  the  proposition  that  the  conscious- 
ness-relation can  not  be  a  constitutive  one;  and  he  ignores  some 
well-known  evidence  that  it  is  constitutive.  Some  relations  are  es- 
sential and  some  are  external;  and  you  can't  by  simple  inspection 
tell  which  is  which.  As  Perry  himself  pertinently  remarks,  in  an 
excellent  criticism  of  Mr.  G.  E.  Moore's  "Refutation  of  Idealism," 
"transportation"  may  be  essential  to  the  table's  being  in  my  room; 
but  observation  of  the  table  as  it  is  found  in  the  latter  relation  will 
not  reveal  the  fact.  What,  then,  is  the  test  for  the  essentiality  of  a 
relation?  The  criterion,  Perry  holds,  must  be  an  empirical  one; 
"we  need  to  forsake  dialectics,  and  observe  what  actually  tran- 
spires." Let  us  then  apply  his  chosen  test.  Obviously  the  only 
evidence  from  observation  which  could  show  even  that  the  neo-real- 
istie  doctrine  sometimes  holds  true, — i.  e.,  that  the  consciousness-re- 
lation is  not  always  requisite  in  order  to  constitute  objects  or  their 
other  relations — would  consist  in  the  presentation  of  an  object  free 
from  that  specific  relation  but  in  all  other  respects  unaltered.  But 
this  the  egocentric  predicament  renders  impossible;  the  one  thing 
that  never  "actually  transpires"  is  precisely  the  thing  without 
which  the  conception  of  consciousness  as  a  wholly  external  relation 
can  never  be  empirically  established.  Perry  has  forgotten  the  fact 
— which  his  earlier  comment  on  the  predicament  seemed  designed 
to  show — that  it  can  not  be  upon  an  empirical  proof  that  the  apol- 
ogist of  realism  relies.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  empirical  evi- 
dence, long  familiar  to  common-sense,  but  strangely  disregarded 
by  the  neo-realist,  tending  to  show  that  the  characters  which  objects 
have,  as  they  actually  appear  in  any  individual  consciousness,  are 
in  a  notable  degree  constituted  by  their  presence  in  that  conscious- 
ness, i.  e.,  by  their  "being  reacted  to  in  the  specific  manner  char- 
acteristic of  the  central  nervous  system"  and  the  sense-organs  of 
that  particular  organism.  This  evidence  consists  precisely  in  those 


680  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

"trite  topics"  which  show  that  certain  peculiarities  of  the  per- 
ceiver  and  certain  attributes  of  the  thing  perceived  vary  concomi- 
tantly.  The  same  evidence,  as  reflection  very  early  began  to  note, 
also  shows  that  if  all  the  observed  attributes  of  an  actually  per- 
ceived object  are  supposed  to  belong  wholly  to  its  nature,  and  to 
inhere  in  it  in  the  place  where,  and  the  time  at  which,  it  is  supposed 
to  exist — then  every  object  perceived  by  more  than  one  person,  or 
even  apprehended  by  more  than  one  sense,  must  be  held  to  possess 
simultaneously  many  properties  logically  contradictory  to  one 
another.  These,  as  I  have  already  said,  are  merely  two  of  the  ele- 
mentary stages  in  the  development  of  the  dialectical — which  in  its 
initial  data  is  an  empirical — argument  against  epistemological  mon- 
ism, two  of  the  more  obvious  sources  of  the  notion  of  a  realm  of 
purely  subjective  existence,  to  their  presence  in  which  at  least  some 
objects  and  qualities  may  owe  all  the  existence  they  have.  But 
these  are  enough  to  provide  empirical  disproof  of  the  "external-rela- 
tion" theory  of  consciousness — in  the  rigorous  and  consistent  form 
of  that  theory. 

It  ought,  however,  to  be  said  that  Perry  does  not  himself  adhere 
with  undeviating  orthodoxy  to  the  theory.  Apparently  without 
quite  intending  it,  he  now  and  then  credits  "consciousness"  with 
powers  which  are  strange  ones  for  a  mere  "external  relation"  to 
possess.  For  example,  we  find  that  the  "selective  action  of  con- 
sciousness" can  not  merely  determine  the  limits  of  an  aggregate  or 
set  of  objects  between  which  at  any  moment  subsists  a  common  rela- 
tion to  a  given  organism ;  it  can  also  create  ' '  fictions, ' '  can  ' '  mistake 
things  for  what  they  are  not, ' '  can  ' '  give  rise  to  illusion  and  error, ' ' 
can,  e.  g.,  "generate  the  image  of  a  mermaid,"  which  image  is  "a 
subjective,  and  not  a  physical,  manifold."  But  how  in  the  world 
can  you,  out  of  an  aggregation  of  real  things,  and  of  nothing  else 
whatever,  produce  a  fictitious  thing?  An  organism — which  is  real 
and  physical — by  really  aggregating  a  number  of  real  objects  or 
qualities  into  a  single  real  relationship,  thereby  generates  an  unreal- 
ity !  Perry  evidently  feels,  but  he  nowhere  fully  faces,  the  difficulty. 
He  seems  to  suppose  that  it  can  be  obviated  by  treating  "aggrega- 
tion" as  equivalent  to  "rearrangement"  and  regarding  all  "ficti- 
tious" objects  as  mere  rearrangements  of  real  qualities.  A  mer- 
maid, even  a  full-fledged  hallucinatory  mermaid,  is  after  all  nothing 
but  part  fish  and  part  maiden ;  fish  and  maidens  are  real,  and  there 
needs  but  a  "selective  abstracting  and  grouping,"  and  the  mer- 
maid is  accounted  for !  But  rearrangement  on  such  a  scale  as  this  is 
not  "aggregation  and  nothing  more";  it  is  a  great  deal  more.  It  is 
not  even  mere  "selective  response."  It  implies  a  power  to  alter  the 
relations  of  things  and  qualities  to  one  another,  and  is  therefore  not 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          681 

consistent  with  the  conception  of  consciousness  as  in  all  cases  wholly 
non-constitutive  of  the  other  relations  and  qualities  of  what  at  any 
moment  is  in  the  "consciousness-relation."  It  implies,  which  is 
more,  a  power  to  lend  a  kind  of  existence  to  sensible  qualities  or  ob- 
jects at  a  time  when,  or  at  points  in  space  where,  they  do  not  exist 
in  the  physical  world-order,  are  not  "physical  manifolds." 

Another  admission  which  is  scarcely  reconcilable  with  the  neo- 
realistic  account  of  the  mind's  modest  role  may  be  found  in  Perry's 
remarks  upon  "mediate  knowledge  or  discursive  thought."  In  this 
— which  presumably  includes  all  recollection — "there  is  a  more 
complete  (sic)  difference  between  the  knowledge  and  the  thing. 
There  are  even  cases  in  which  the  knowledge  and  the  thing  known 
possess  little,  if  any,  identical  content"  (p.  312).  In  these  cases 
"the  thing  mediated  or  'represented'  transcends  the  representa- 
tion" (p.  313).  I  am  unable  to  recognize  in  this  language  the 
authentic  accent  of  epistemological  monism,  though  I  perceive  it  to 
be  the  language  of  truth.  And  I  am  unable  to  derive  any  help  from 
the  few  words  in  which  Perry  tells  us  how  "the  theory  of  imma- 
nence explains  these  cases."  The  explanation  is  that  while  "the 
thing  transcends  the  thought,  it  remains  perceivable,  or  in  "some 
such  manner  immediately  accessible;  and  possesses  the  qualities  and 
characters  which  such  immediate  knowledge  reveals."  Here  we 
have  three  items  referred  to:  A,  "the  thing"  or  independent  object; 
B,  the  "representation"  of  it  at  a  given  time  in  mediate  knowledge, 
or  in  memory;  C,  the  perception  or  "immediate  knowledge"  of  the 
same  thing  at  quite  another  time.  Now,  how  does  the  (assumed) 
fact  that  C  is  identical  with  A  entitle  one  to  say  that  B  is  also  iden- 
tical with  A — especially  when  one  has  just  been  assured  that  it  isn  't  ? 
And  if  it  does  not  entitle  one  to  say  so,  then,  surely  B  is  a  case  in 
which  the  content  that  is  in  cognitive  consciousness  is  not  the  same 
existent  as  the  supposed  real  "thing"  that  is  cognized. 

What  is  more  significant  about  these  cases,  however,  is  the  fact 
that  the  representation  is  usually  different  from  its  original  in  date 
of  existence,  but  not  altogether  different  in  qualities.  The  differ- 
ence of  time,  of  itself,  no  doubt,  would  involve  no  paradox.  That  a 
thing  which  has  ceased  to  exist  may  subsequently  acquire  new  ex- 
ternal relations  is  familiar  enough;  all  later  events  may  be  said  to 
provide  it  with  such  post  mortem  relationships.  And  if  the  relation 
of  a  present  consciousness  to  a  past  reality  were  never  anything 
more  than  this  simple  relation  of  posteriority,  consciousness  would 
offer  no  significant  peculiarity  for  the  consideration  of  the  philos- 
opher. Nor  would  it  do  so  if  the  present  "response  of  an  organ- 
ism" to  a  past  reality  consisted  in  no  more  than  a  change  in  the 
physical  qualities  or  motions  of  the  organism,  caused  by  that  past 


682  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

existence;  that  a  present  effect  may  be  due  indirectly  to  a  cause  no 
longer  perceptible  in  its  original  character,  every  one  knows.  But,  as 
it  happens,  the  sort  of  "response  of  an  organism"  to  past  existences 
which  is  exemplified  by  the  memory-image  and  the  general  concept 
is  not  wholly  reducible  to  these  ordinary  cases  of  mere  posteriority 
or  mere  indirect  causality.  In  the  ordinary  cases  the  subsequently 
supervening  relationship  never  consists  in  a  revival  of  the  past  ob- 
ject; but  when  a  past  existence  subsequently  enters  the  conscious- 
ness-relation, there  occurs  a  partial  "making  present  again,"  a  rep- 
resentation, of  the  object,  and  its  qualities.  When  Perry  tells  us 
how  "the  theory  of  immanence  explains  these  cases"  of  mediate 
knowledge,  he  neglects  to  explain  the  one  thing  which  is  uniquely 
characteristic  of  them.  While  he  recognizes  that  this  type  of  ex- 
perience has  something  distinctive  about  it,  he  does  not  observe  what 
that  distinguishing  peculiarity  is,  nor  the  seriousness  of  the  diffi- 
culty which  it  creates  for  the  neo-realistic  theory  about  conscious- 
ness. The  experiences  in  question  indicate  the  falsity  of  the  uni- 
versal proposition  that  consciousness  is  never  in  any  degree  consti- 
tutive of  the  object ;  for  they  show  plainly  that,  in  a  familiar  class  of 
cases,  the  "consciousness-relation"  has  a  power  of  reconstituting  an 
object,  of  giving  it  a  species  of  present  existence  at  a  time  which  is 
not  the  same  as  the  time  of  its  presence  in  its  other,  especially  its 
"physical,"  relations.  The  only  alternative  to  acknowledging  this 
is  to  declare  that  the  memory-image  is  a  brand-new  objective  reality, 
having  no  relations  to  the  original  object  save  those  of  posteriority 
and  causal  connection.  But  this  is  an  alternative  which  Perry  does 
not  adopt,  and  one  which  can  not  be  adopted.  My  present  image  of 
my  last  year's  coat,  though  it  is  a  present  existent,  is  not  merely  a 
present  existent.  It  is  an  evocation — and  an  evocation  at  will — of 
a  past  existent ;  and  there  is  no  conceivable  reason  for  believing  that, 
so  far  as  it  is  present,  it  exists  in  any  other  sense  or  degree  than  the 
sense  and  degree  of  being  which  it  has  by  virtue  of  the  "conscious- 
ness-relation," or  that  its  coming  into  existence  was  not  due  to  an 
antecedent  which  existed  purely  as  a  phase  of  "consciousness" — 
namely,  to  a  desire. 

This  last,  however,  brings  up  another  difficulty  and,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  another  incongruity  in  Perry's  realism.  His  epistemo- 
logical  monism  is,  as  the  previous  paper  indicated,  conjoined  with 
a  sort,  though  an  equivocal  sort,  of  psychophysical  dualism.  I  do 
not  argue  that  the  conjunction  involves  any  direct  and  express  con- 
tradiction ;  but  I  think  that  upon  a  little  analysis  it  will  be  found  to 
disclose  some  unexplained  obscurities.  For  example:  while  cog- 
nitive consciousness  is  merely  an  "external  relation."  appetitive 
consciousness  or  desire,  is,  for  Perry,  so  far  as  I  can  determine,  not 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          683 

merely  a  relation.  What,  then,  is  the  common  essence  of  the  two  by 
virtue  of  which  they  are  species  of  a  single  genus?  Again,  desire 
in  its  complete  form  is  always  conjoined  with  the  representation  of 
some  yet  unrealized  future  condition,  of  which,  moreover,  the  reali- 
zation is  problematical.  Just  how,  now,  does  an  epistemological 
monist  find  room  in  his  scheme  of  things  for  a  present  thought  of  an 
object  which  belongs  not  only  to  the  future,  but  to  an  unreal  future? 
Have  we  not  here  again — in  anticipation,  as  well  as  in  memory — an 
example  of  an  object  of  which  it  is  absurd  to  maintain  that  it  has 
any  more  existence  or  other  qualities  than  it  is  found  to  have  "in 
consciousness"?  And  is  it  not  the  first  requisite  to  the  "effectuality 
of  consciousness"  that  consciousness  shall  be  able  to  generate  volun. 
tary  images,  to  construct  for  itself  a  purely  ideal  world,  before  it 
endeavors  to  impose  those  ideals  upon  physical  reality?  But  the 
chief  incongruities  in  Perry's  version  of  the  new  realism  appear 
to  be  due  to  a  failure  to  perceive  that  a  consistent  neo-realist 
must  be  a  "pan-objectivist,"  and  can  have  no  place  in  his  uni- 
verse for  "fictions"  or  purely  "subjective  manifolds"  of  any  sort. 
There  are  others  of  the  school  who  realize  this  fully,  and  are  pre- 
pared to  defend  their  paradox.  In  so  far  as  Perry  avoids  it  and  re- 
tains not  a  few  shreds  and  patches  of  the  dualism  of  common-sense, 
he  nullifies  that  doctrine  concerning  the  powers  of  consciousness 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  core  of  the  neo-realistic  argument. 
For  that  doctrine  ceases  to  serve  the  purposes  of  epistemological 
monism  when  it  ceases  to  affirm  the  absolute  and  the  invariable  ex- 
ternality of  the  conscious-relation.  On  the  other  hand,  in  so  far 
as  Perry  formally  adopts  this  doctrine,  and  the  whole  argument  of 
which  it  is  a  necessary  premise,  he  betrays  an  inability  to  under- 
stand the  real  nature  and  force  of  the  reasons  which  have  chiefly 
conduced  to  make  most  people  epistemological  dualists  and  later 
have  led  some  people  to  become  metaphysical  idealists.  This  inabil- 
ity seems  to  be  a  characteristic  of  many  of  the  school;  one  can  not 
avoid  surmising  that  these  learned  as  well  as  acute  and  ingenious 
writers  are  afflicted  with  a  sort  of  intellectual  blind-spot,  which 
renders  imperceptible  to  them  an  important  part  of  the  history  of 
human  reflection  and  of  the  "immanent  dialectic"  of  the  problem 
that  most  engages  their  interest.  Some  of  them,  however,  have  of 
late  become  sensible  of  the  real  logical  situation  and  have  addressed 
themselves  seriously  to  the  defence  of  their  doctrine  against  the 
simpler  phases  of  what  I  have  called  the  dialectical  type  of  argu- 
ment— so  much  of  that  argument  as  attacks  epistemological  monism. 
The  first  (not  the  only)  requisite  in  such  a  defence  is  a  wholesale 
revision  of  the  logic  of  attribution,  with  a  view  to  explaining  how  it 
is  possible  for  an  object  at  a  single  time  to  have  and  not  have  a 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

given  attribute,  for  a  percept  or  image  existing  at  one  time  to  be 
"numerically  identical  with"  an  object  existing  at  another  time,  for 
two  space-occupying  things  to  occupy  (in  a  univocal  sense)  the  same 
space  simultaneously,  and  for  a  coherent  and  rational  world  of 
physical  reality  to  find  room  for  all  the  hallucinations  and  dreams 
and  illusions  the  mind  of  man  has  ever  bred,  all  in  one  "real"  space 
and  upon  a  single  and  common  plane  of  objectivity.  At  this  un- 
promising task  some  efforts  which  can  at  least  be  called  interesting 
and  intrepid  have  recently  been  made.  Since  Perry's  book  shows 
almost  no  appreciation  even  of  the  necessity  (from  the  realistic 
standpoint)  for  the  task's  accomplishment,  its  whole  discussion  of 
realism  and  idealism,  fails  to  touch  the  central  logical  issue  in  the 
controversy. 

ARTHUR  0.  LOVEJOY. 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY. 


A  POINT   OF   DIFFERENCE   BETWEEN  AMERICAN  AND 
ENGLISH  REALISM 

THE  New  Realism  has  advocates  both  in  England  and  in  Amer- 
ica. In  many  of  its  theses,  notably  the  doctrines  of  independ- 
ence and  of  subsistence,  the  tendency  toward  pluralism,  and  the 
separation  of  theories  of  reality  from  theories  of  knowledge,  the 
English  realist  and  the  American  realist  are  in  close  agreement. 
New  realism,  the  assertion  is  repeatedly  made,  is  primarily  a  polemic 
against  subjectivism,  subjectivism  being  a  term  now  generally  used 
by  the  realist  to  designate  the  various  types  of  idealism  in  so  far  as 
they  hold  to  an  inseparable  connection  between  consciousness  and  its 
object.  In  opposition  to  subjectivism  all  realists  agree  that  the  con- 
tent of  which  one  is  conscious  is  independent  of  the  consciousness  of 
it,  a  distinction  which  the  realist  expresses  by  saying  that  conscious- 
ness is  an  external  relation. 

The  leading  point  of  difference  between  the  English  and  the 
American  realists  is  a  difference  relating  not  to  the  type  of  connec- 
tion holding  between  the  act  of  being  conscious  and  the  content  of 
which  one  is  conscious,  but  a  difference  relating  to  the  nature  and 
status  of  consciousness  itself ;  it  is  a  difference  pertaining  to  the  im- 
portance which  attaches  to  the  element  of  consciousness  and  to  the 
relative  position  which  consciousness  occupies  in  relation  to  the  con- 
tent of  which  one  is  conscious.  For  subjectivism  consciousness  is  the 
supreme  factor,  is  logically  prior  to  content,  and  is  somehow  authori- 
tative respecting  its  organization  and  coherence.  Content  is  insep- 
arable from,  coextensive  with,  and  dependent  upon,  consciousness. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          685 

For  English  realism  content  is  separable  from  and  independent  of 
consciousness.  Consciousness  is  an  entity  among  other  entities,  a 
term  among  other  terms,  a  "first  among  equals";  it  is  on  a  level  with 
content,  sustaining  to  it  the  relation  of  togetherness  or  compresence. 
By  the  American  realist  consciousness  is  taken  out  of  the  realm  of 
terms  and  placed  within  the  realm  of  relations.  The  leading  char- 
acteristic which  distinguishes  the  American  realist  from  the  English 
realist  is  this  relational  theory  of  consciousness.  Consciousness  is 
neither  above  nor  on  a  level  with  content ;  it  is  below  it,  is  subsequent 
to  and  dependent  on  it. 

In  illustration  of  this  distinction  may  be  cited  the  writings  of 
Mr.  S.  Alexander.  The  analysis  of  sensation  begun  by  Mr.  G.  E. 
Moore1  consisting  in  the  separation  of  the  sensation  into  the  object 
of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  the  consciousness  of  the  object,  the 
former  being  extra-mental,  the  latter  being  an  undifferentiated,  pure, 
transparent  process,  is  pushed  to  its  furthest  possible  limit  by 
Mr.  Alexander.  Any  experience,  according  to  Mr.  Alexander, 
which  may  be  termed  mental  experience  is  characterized  by  a  funda- 
mental distinction  between  what  is  experienced  and  the  act  of  ex- 
periencing. There  is  the  act  of  apprehending  and  the  something 
apprehended,  the  act  of  judging  and  the  something  judged,  the  act 
of  remembering  or  imaging  or  believing,  and  the  something  remem- 
bered or  imaged  or  believed.  The  something  experienced  is  al- 
ways other  than  the  mind  which  experiences  it.  Such  are  the  two 
elements  present  in  every  mental  experience.  There  is  the  object  or 
content  or  "cognitum,"  and  there  is  the  knowing,  the  thinking,  the 
mental  act,  which  Mr.  Alexander  terms  consciousness  or  mind. 

The  relation  between  these  two  elements  is  simply  that  of  togeth- 
erness or  compresence.  ' '  But  when  I  merely  perceive  the  table,  I  am 
there  and  the  table  is  there.  .  .  .  The  togetherness  or  compresence 
of  the  perceiving  and  the  table  is  the  perception  of  the  table.  .  .  . 
Thus  the  table  and  I  are  together  in  precisely  the  same  sense  as  the 
table  and  the  chair  are  together.  A  looker-on  who  could  see  me  and 
the  table  in  the  same  way  as  I  see  the  table  and  the  chair  would  say 
that  the  table  and  I  or  the  table  and  the  chair  are  together  in  the 
same  sense.  Instead  of  the  table  there  happens  to  be  I,  who  am  a 
mass  of  experiencings. "2  Or  again:  "For  our  fundamental  fact  in- 
forms us  that  mind  or  that  which  is  enjoyed  is  but  one  thing  together 
with  other  things  in  the  world.  .  .  .  Mind  is  but  the  most  gifted  in- 
dividual in  a  democracy  of  things."3  Mind,  as  thus  seen,  is  viewed 
as  an  entity,  as  a  term.  It  occupies  a  position  on  a  level  with  other 
entities  and  terms. 

1" Refutation  of  Idealism,"  Mind,  Vol.  12. 

*Cf.  "The  Method  of  Metaphysics,"  Mind,  January,  1912. 

*  Op.  cit. 


<Jsu  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

But  if  consciousness  is  a  term,  it  must  sustain  some  sort  of  rela- 
tion to  the  other  terms  with  which  it  is  copresent.  The  mere  relation 
of  togetherness  or  compresence  is  insufficient.  One  is  at  a  loss  to 
understand  how  such  a  purely  diaphanous  activity,  when  viewed  as 
a  mental  entity,  a  mental  term,  can  be  related  to  content  terms  of  a 
nature  other  than  itself.  If  consciousness  is  a  term  it  should  be  pos- 
sible to  isolate  it  from  its  compresent  associates  and  identify  it  as 
such.  If  we  take  away  all  the  content  terms,  it  should  be  possible  to 
discover,  by  an  empirical  analysis,  the  term  consciousness  as  the 
necessary  residue.  The  impossibility  of  such  an  analysis  seems  to 
indicate  that  perhaps  consciousness  is  not  a  term  at  all.  There  seems 
need,  therefore,  of  some  modification  in  the  primary  conception  of 
consciousness.  And  this  demand  is  supplied  by  the  American  real- 
ist who  regards  consciousness,  not  as  a  term,  but  as  a  relation.  The 
English  realist  separates  off  the  content  of  which  there  is  conscious- 
ness and  declares  that  it  exists  independent  of  consciousness.  He 
limits  the  meaning  of  the  term  consciousness  to  mental  activity.  But 
in  so  far  as  consciousness  is  taken  to  mean  mental  activity,  there  is 
no  break  with  the  traditional  conception  of  consciousness  as  an 
operation. 

English  realism  thus  shows  that  consciousness  is  at  best  only 
compresent  with  content.  American  realism  goes  a  step  further  and 
maintains  that  consciousness  is  not  even  of  equal  grade  with,  but  is 
secondary  to  and  dependent  on  content.  The  impetus  to  the  rela- 
tional theory  of  consciousness  was  given,  doubtless,  by  the  article, 
"Does  'Consciousness'  Exist?"  by  Professor  James,  who  maintained 
that  the  word  consciousness  stands  not  for  an  entity,  but  for  a  func- 
tion. The  theory  was  first  systematically  formulated  by  Professor 
Montague,  who  takes  the  view  that  the  relational  theory  of  conscious- 
ness and  a  realistic  theory  of  objects  mean  the  same  thing,  though 
approached  from  different  points  of  view.  Realism,  he  asserts,  is  the 
logical  implication  of  such  a  theory  of  consciousness.4  In  ' '  The  New 
Realism"  we  find  the  statement:  "being  known  is  something  which 
happens  to  a  pre-existing  thing. '  '5  Or,  according  to  Professor  Perry : 
' 'when  an  entity  is  known  or  otherwise  experienced  it  is  related  to  a 
complex."9  The  "complex,"  one  gathers  from  turning  the  pages  of 
"The  New  Realism,"  may  be  termed  the  "knower";  and  of  the 
•_  "knower"  "New  Realism"  has  little  to  say.  It  may  be  a  soul,  or  the 
body,  or  what  not.  But  knowing  is  the  relation  between  the  knower 
and  the  something  known. 

•W.  P.  Montague,  "The  Relational  Theory  of  Consciousness,"  thia  JOUR- 
NAL, Vol.  II.,  page  309. 

•"The  New  Realism,"  page  34. 
•"The  New  Realism,"  page  126. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          687 

Now  to  view  knowing  or  consciousness  as  a  relation  carries  with 
it  an  obvious  implication.  It  implies  that  the  relation  is  dependent 
upon  the  terms  related.  Consciousness  is  not  primary,  but  deriva-  • 
tive;  it  occupies  a  position  subordinate  to  the  terms  related,  and 
fluctuates  with  changes  in  those  terms.  The  American  realist,  con- 
sequently, in  viewing  consciousness  as  a  relation,  is  saying  something 
definite  about  the  nature  of  consciousness.  He  is  saying  that  con- 
sciousness is  something  which  is  generated,  and  thus  he  is  led  to  de- 
scribe the  conditions  of  its  genesis.  We  find  the  American  realist, 
therefore,  attempting  to  tell  us  what  consciousness  is  and  to  give  an 
account  of  its  nature.  And  this,  it  seems,  is  a  legitimate  inquiry, 
since  consciousness  is  not  ultimate,  but  is  something  derived  from 
more  ultimate  terms,  which  are  themselves  open  to  investigation.  In 
the  light  of  this  position  consciousness  itself  naturally  becomes  a 
subject  of  analysis.  The  English  realist,  on  the  other  hand,  viewing 
consciousness  as  a  term  which  introspection  finds  to  be  present  along 
with  other  terms,  has  nothing  to  say  as  to  its  origin  or  nature. 

We  see  from  this  brief  analysis  that  consciousness,  touching  the 
position  which  it  occupies  in  relation  to  the  content  of  which  there  is 
consciousness,  is  taken  at  three  levels.  For  subjectivism  conscious- 
ness is  above  content.  For  English  realism,  consciousness  or  mental 
activity,  itself  a  term  of  logical  equality  with  its  compresent  associ- 
ates, sustaining  to  them  the  democratic  relation  of  togetherness,  is 
on  a  level  with  content.  For  American  realism  consciousness,  being 
a  relation  between  terms  and  logically  dependent  on  those  terms,  is 
taken  at  a  level  below  content.  M.  T.  McCmRE. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


DISCUSSION 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  FORMAL  LOGIC 

PROFESSOR  HOWISON  is  said  once  to  have  remarked  to  Will- 
iam James,  ''James,  philosophers  always  say  they  want  'rec- 
ognition'; but  what  they  really  want  is  praise."  I  find,  however, 
that  I  myself  am  too  perverse,  hardened,  or  unphilosophic  to  want 
either,  and  so  am  a  little  disappointed  with  Mr.  Eastman's  review 
of  my  "Formal  Logic."1  Had  I  wanted  "recognition,"  the  honor 
of  a  "Discussion"  in  the  JOURNAL  OP  PHILOSOPHY,  had  I  wanted 
"praise,"  quite  a  number  of  Mr.  Eastman's  remarks  would  have 
contented  me;  but  I  happened  to  desire  a  precise  indication  and  a 
relevant  discussion  of  some  at  least  of  the  logical  issues  raised  in  my 
book.  And  of  this  I  regret  to  say  I  did  not  find  enough.  It  is  of 
course  very  interesting  to  learn  that  Mr.  Eastman  has  been  brought 
1  This  JOURNAL,  Vol.  IX.,  page  463. 


688  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

up  in  a  "little  college"  where  logic  had  been  "forgotten  many  years 
ago,"  and  now  believes  in  a  "great,  democratic,  system- wrecking 
philosophy,"  or  even  that  he  can  not  speak  for  Oxford2  (nor  pre- 
sumably for  the  rest  of  Europe),  but  it  would  have  added  both 
weight  and  intelligibility  to  his  rather  elliptic  and  sketchy  com- 
ments if  he  had  explained  a  little  what  he  meant  by  "formal  logic," 
both  of  the  "non-existent"  kind  he  regards  me  as  having  (super- 
fluously?) "annihilated"  and  of  the  extant  kind  he  regards  me  as 
having  made  the  worst  of.  As  it  is,  it  is  certainly  very  hard  to 
make  out  how  many  sorts  of  logic  he  thinks  there  are  and  how  they 
should  be  related,  as  also  what  he  means  by  ' '  consistency, "  "  general- 
ization," and  so  forth.  Had  Mr.  Eastman  endeavored  to  put  his  ideas 
a  little  more  clearly,  it  might  even  have  occurred  to  him  that  his 
readers  might  develop  some  little  curiosity  as  to  mine,  and  that  it 
was  his  duty  as  a  reviewer  to  report  on  them.  His  review  would  then 
have  gained  enormously  by  presenting  a  clear  issue  between  his 
definition  of  formal  logic  and  mine,  and  it  would  have  become  appar- 
ent that  very  many  of  his  remarks  have  no  application  to  my  book. 

As  it  is,  I  found  Mr.  Eastman's  discussion  frequently  unintelligi- 
ble, until  I  realized  that  what  was  the  matter  with  it  was  precisely 
that  he  had  not  studied  formal  logic  in  his  "little  college,"  but  had 
merely  given  a  general  and  uncritical  assent  to  some  of  its  most 
untenable  claims ;  this  had  enabled  him  subsequently  to  imagine  that 
he  had  emancipated  himself  from  all  such  nonsense,  while  yet  re- 
maining under  its  spell,  thanks  to  the  affinity  which  its  verbalism  has 
with  grammar.  Now  this  is  precisely  the  position  of  the  man  in  the 
street,  and  is  the  worst  of  formal  logic ;  the  less  you  know  about  it,  the 
more  easily  it  deceives  you. 

At  any  rate,  no  one  who  has  by  painful  experience  acquired  a 
proper  respect  for  the  intellectual  output  of  eighty  generations  of 
logicians  could  possibly  regard  formal  logic  as  an  unimportant  thing, 
or  imagine  that  he  was  making  a  harmless  concession  to  it  by  admit- 
ting that  it  could  legitimately  concern  itself  with  "consistency  in 
generalization."  He  would  realize  that  he  had  thereby  given  him- 
self away  completely,  and  that  no  amount  of  "democratic,  system- 
wrecking"  riotousness  could  after  that  prevent  his  philosophy  from 
being  very  promptly  suppressed  by  formal  logic.  For  if  it  is  true 
that  the  "consistency"  (or  otherwise)  of  forms  of  words  can  guaran- 
tee in  advance  the  soundness  (or  otherwise)  of  the  meanings  to  be 
expressed  by  their  aid,  and  can  dispense  with  all  knowledge  of  the 

1  He  may,  therefore,  possibly  believe  me  when  I  assure  him  that  all  the  impor- 
tant formalist  doctrines  I  criticize  are  to  my  certain  knowledge  at  present 
actually  taught  in  Britain.  And  it  would  surprise  me  to  be  given  evidence  that 
they  are  not  also  prevalent  in  America.  Certainly  American  text-books  seem 
to  be  fully  as  formal  as  English. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          689 

use  to  which  the  words  are  to  be  put,  and  if  it  is  further  allowed  that 
meaning  is  inherent  in  words  and  not  in  persons,  it  is  clear  that  there 
is  conceded  to  "logic"  a  very  real  and  extensive  control  of  all  em- 
pirical reasoning.  Nor  will  any  thorough  empiricism  be  possible  so 
long  as  "logic"  retains  any  a  priori  jurisdiction  over  the  process  of 
reasoning;  a  consistent  empiricist  must  discard  wholly  the  notions 
that  "consistency"  is  ultimately  a  matter  of  words  and  that  "gener- 
alization ' '  has  meaning  apart  from  application. 

It  was  because  I  perceived  this  that  I  refused  to  recognize  a  logic 
of  "consistency,"  even  as  an  "ideal"  formal  logic  might  vainly 
hanker  after.  I  did  not  discuss  it  elaborately  as  an  ideal,  both  be- 
cause it  was  too  obvious  on  every  page  that  consistency  of  any  sort 
is  about  the  last  thing  formal  logic  is  capable  of  achieving,3  and  be- 
cause I  was  proving  that  the  formal  notion  of  consistency  involved  a 
total  abstraction  from  meaning,  and  it  seemed  trivial  to  ask  whether 
the  unmeaning  should  or  should  not  be  ' '  consistent. ' '  This  abstrac- 
tion I  showed  to  be  the  essence  of  formalism,  and  to  be  almost  uni- 
versal among  logicians,  whether  or  not  they  conceived  themselves  as 
formalists.  If  Mr.  Eastman  approves  of  it,  all  I  need  say  is  that  he 
is  a  formalist  too. 

I  admit,  however,  that  I  took  pride  in  showing  that  the  weapons 
of  formal  logic  could  be  effectively  used  against  it,  and  that  its  doc- 
trines were  everywhere  lacking  in  "consistency"  and  precision.  Mr. 
Eastman  sees  fit  to  condemn  this  procedure  as  "academic"  and  "in- 
tellectualistic. "  He  has  apparently  forgotten  that  logic  is  a  subject 
which  none  but  professors  teach,  and  that  boisterous  ' '  system-wreck- 
ing" is  about  the  last  thing  to  appeal  to  them.  They  live  by  ex- 
pounding the  systems  of  others,  if  not  by  patenting  their  own.  That 
is  one  reason  why  they  will  not  understand  his  "great  democratic 
philosophy"  at  all.  There  is  also  another  which  strikes  deeper,  as  I 
discovered  when  reflecting  on  the  manifest  inability  of  most  trained 
philosophers  to  understand  the  theory  of  real  knowing.  Their  minds 
are  preoccupied  by  certain  deep-seated  prejudices  which  have  been 
instilled  into  them  unconsciously  by  the  study  of  formal  logic.  It 
was  clear,  therefore,  that  if  progress  was  to  be  made  these  prejudices 
had  to  be  attacked  systematically  and,  if  possible,  eradicated. 

Mr.  Eastman's  charge  of  intellectualism  would  seem  to  rest  on  a 
confusion  of  intellectuality  with  intellectualism.  Mr.  Eastman  has 
not  observed  that  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  have  despaired  of  logic 
and  the  intellect  with  all  its  works,  and  propose  to  live  by  scepticism 
agreeably  diversified  by  an  irrational  faith.  I  defy  him  to  quote 

3  It  is,  however,  far  from  true  that  ' '  the  standard  of  consistency  is  never 
once  mentioned"  by  me  (cf.  pages  viii,  ix,  6,  211,  etc.). 


«.90  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

from  me  any  disparagement,  either  of  intellect  or  of  real  logic,  and 
can  not  understand  why  my  rejection  of  the  defective  reasonings  of 
intellectualism  (shown  to  be  slipshod  and  incoherent  by  its  own 
standards)  should  debar  me  from  availing  myself  of  intellectual  ap- 
peals where  such  were  appropriate  and  likely  to  be  effective. 

I  was  accordingly  not  a  little  shocked  to  find  that,  though  Mr. 
Eastman  regarded  his  theory  of  knowledge  as  akin  to  mine,  he  could 
nevertheless  assert  that  it  "put  value  above  truth."  For  of  course 
"truth"  to  me  is  a  kind  of  "value,"  and  truth-values  are  as  worthy 
of  exact  and  scientific  study  as  any  others.  That  is  precisely  why  I 
objected  to  the  total  disregard  of  this  aspect  of  thought  in  the  tradi- 
tional logics. 

Mr.  Eastman's  conception  of  the  relation  of  truth  and  value,  on 
the  other  hand,  seems  to  me  to  play  right  into  the  hands  of  those  who 
have  long  been  trying  to  persuade  themselves  and  others  that  prag- 
matists  regard  anything  handy  as  true.  Hitherto  this  accusation  has 
encountered  a  slight  obstacle  in  the  facts  that  the  responsible  leaders 
of  the  new  theory  of  knowledge  had  always  expressly  repudiated  this 
simple  conversion  of  the  A  proposition,  "all  truth  is  useful,"  and 
that  no  one  could  quote  any  authentic  pragmatist  who  had  actually 
asserted  it.  But  now  Mr.  Eastman  favors  them  with  the  very  thing 
they  wanted.  Alike  in  his  preference  of  "value"  to  "truth"  and  in 
his  rebuke  of  my  "inconsistency"  in  rejecting  formal  logic  as  in- 
coherent in  spite  of  the  solace  and  profit  it  has  long  brought  logicians* 
(p.  464),  he  plainly  does  imply  this  conversion.  And  if  he  will  visit 
the  intellectualist  camp  with  this  achievement,  he  will  doubtless  be 
hailed  with  enthusiasm,  and  preserved  in  alcohol — or  any  other 
liquor  he  may  prefer. 

In  short  Mr.  Eastman 's  method  of  defending  the  voluntarist  theory 
of  knowledge  seems  so  unsound,  the  claims  he  makes  for  a  Heraclitean 
"logic"  are  so  unknown  to  the  history  of  philosophy,  his  vision  of 
the  merits  of  a  "  reborn ' '  formal  logic  is  so  queer,6  the  verbalism  and 
lack  of  humor  of  some  of  his  criticisms  (e.  g.,  note  5)  are  so  glaring, 
the  distortion  of  my  meaning  is  sometimes  so  flagrant,*  that  a  horrid 

4  There  is  of  course  no  ' '  intellectualism ' '  in  this.  For  to  me  the  ' '  inco- 
herence" means  a  failure  of  the  purpose  to  make  a  consistently  formal  logic. 

*  A  formal  logic  that  takes  account  of  relevance  and  purposes  would  indeed 
be  a  remarkable  novelty  in  hybrids  (cf.  p.  465). 

*  Cf.  notes  2  and  3.    It  is  a  plain  statement  of  fact  that  formal  logic  tries 
to   abstract  from  the  personal   context  of  assertions,   and   there  was   nothing 
"derisive"  in  my  saying  so.     Per  contra  I  can  not  understand  how  any  one 
could  imagine  from  the  passage  on  page  135  that  I  was  myself  proposing  to 
embark  on  an  exhaustive  catalogue,  in  advance,  of  the  meanings  of  judgments, 
because  I  pointed  out  the  failure  of  formal  logic  to  achieve  this  self-imposed 
task.     It  also  strikes  me  as  rather  cool  (on  page  466)  to  correct  my  statement 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          691 

suspicion  arises.  Can  it  be  that  he  is  really  an  intellectualist  mas- 
querading as  a  pragmatist  in  order  to  reduce  pragmatism  to  absurd- 
ity and  to  sow  dissensions  in  its  camp? 

That  would  explain  why  he  should  strive  to  represent  my  work  as 
antagonistic  to  Dewey's.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  in  full  accord  with 
him.  I  drew  attention  to  the  greatness  of  his  discovery  that  we  do 
not  reason  except  in  relation  to  a  doubt,  and  emphasized  that  even 
though  this  seems  as  simple  as  the  egg  of  Columbus  once  it  is  seen, 
logicians  have  all  along  erroneously  based  the  theory  of  knowledge 
on  a  relation  to  certainty.  Again  it  should  be  a  material  help  to  an 
experimental  theory  of  knowledge  to  have  it  shown  that  both  judg- 
ments and  inferences  must  always  be  experiments  and  that  formal- 
ism's attempt  to  conceive  them  otherwise  reduces  them  (and  it)  to 
nullity. 

Certainly  "Formal  Logic"  does  not  compete  with  Dewey's  valu- 
able little  work  on  ' '  How  We  Think. ' '  It  was  not  intended  to  do  so, 
any  more  than  to  expound  the  whole  logic  of  real  knowing,  which 
would  be  a  two-volume  affair  at  the  least.  It  was  merely  intended  to 
show  how  impossible  it  is  that  we  should  think  as  logicians  think  we 
think.  It  evinces  then  an  extraordinary  misapprehension  of  its  pur- 
pose to  criticize  it  as  a  constructive  theory  of  knowledge.  It  is  meant 
as  a  systematic  criticism  of  traditional  logic  on  its  own  ground.  But  as 
systematic  criticism  must  have  a  positive  ground  of  its  own  to  start 
from,  it  implies  throughout  that  the  existence  of  a  personal  assertor 
must  be  taken  into  account  in  any  logical  treatment  of  real  thought. 
How  in  detail  a  real  logic  would  do  this  I  did  not  propose  to  show  ex- 
plicitly on  this  occasion.  But  as  it  is  sometimes  impossible  to  explain 
what  is  wrong  without  revealing  what  is  right,  I  could  not  help  hint- 
ing how  differently  a  logic  of  real  knowing  would  handle  logical 
questions.  I  apologize  for  these  hints,  for  they  may  lead  to  repetitions 
later  on.  Naturally  they  were  rather  more  numerous  and  detailed  in 
exposing  the  wholly  unscientific  character  of  the  formal  theory  of 
' '  induction ' ' ;  for  it  was  necessary  to  refer  to  the  actual  procedure  of 
scientific  thinking  in  showing  that  formalist  "induction"  is  just  as 
impotent  as  formalist  "deduction."  I  intend,  of  course,  if  I  am 
spared,  to  publish  some  day  a  systematic  logic  of  real  knowing ;  but  it 
would  have  been  quixotic  to  embark  on  so  big  a  construction  until  the 
ground  had  been  freed,  by  clearing  away  the  ruins  of  the  pseudo- 
science  of  logical ' '  forms. ' ' 

F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER. 
CORPUS  CHRIST:  COLLEGE,  OXFORD. 

that  formal  logic  tries  to  abstract  from  the  context  of  all  assertions  and  to 
restrict  its  scope  to  "general"  assertions.  I  certainly  did  not  mean  this. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


REJOINDER  TO  MR.  SCIIILLHR 

MR.  SCHILLER  says  that  he  found  my  discussion  of  his  book 
unintelligible.  It  is  evident  that  he  did,  and  I  am  sorry,  for 
I  studied  his  book  and  made  an  earnest  effort  to  tell  the  truth  about 
it.  I  wish  I  could  have  put  my  opinions  before  him  clearly  enough 
so  that  he  could  answer  them. 

As  I  did  my  best,  however,  I  am  not  going  to  try  again,  except 
upon  two  points  where  I  know  I  can  remove  his  confusion  with  a 
word. 

He  says: 

"At  any  rate,  no  one  who  has  by  painful  experience  acquired  a 
proper  respect  for  the  intellectual  output  of  eighty  generations  of 
logicians  could  possibly  regard  formal  logic  as  an  unimportant  thing, 
or  imagine  that  he  was  making  a  harmless  concession  to  it  by  ad- 
mitting that  it  could  legitimately  concern  itself  with  '  '  consistency  in 
generalization." 

Now  I  did  not  say  that  formal  logic  is  an  unimportant  thing,  nor 
that  admitting  it  could  concern  itself  with  consistency  in  generaliza- 
tion is  a  harmless  concession  to  it.  I  said  in  effect  that  formal  logic 
is  an  important  thing,  and  admitting  that  it  concerns  itself  with 
consistency  in  generalization  is  a  formidable  statement  of  its  im- 
portance. Not  to  go  into  detail,  I  think  Mr.  Schiller's  misconcep- 
tions here,  and  elsewhere,  arose  from  his  impatience  of  my  article. 
Instead  of  reading  it  with  attention  to  its  structure  and  sequence,  I 
have  the  impression  that  he  swallowed  it,  found  it  disagreeable,  and 
got  rid  of  it  as  a  whole  in  a  very  short  space  of  time. 

The  other  misconception  I  can  remove  in  a  word,  is  this:  He 
says: 

"I  was  accordingly  not  a  little  shocked  to  find  that,  though  Mr. 
Eastman  regarded  his  theory  of  knowledge  as  akin  to  mine,  he 
could  nevertheless  assert  that  it  'puts  value  above  truth.'  For  of 
course  'truth'  to  me  is  a  kind  of  'value.'  ' 

Now  by  "puts  value  above  truth"  I  meant  holds  value  to  be  the 
higher  genus.  That  is,  I  meant  exactly  what  Mr.  Schiller  expresses 
in  other  words  when  he  says,  "for  of  course  truth  to  me  is  a  kind  of 
value."  No  other  aboveness  than  that  of  genus  to  species  was,  or 
could  well  have  been,  present  to  my  mind. 

Mr.  Schiller's  idea  that  I  meant  to  say  value  is  more  valuable  than 
truth,  is  not  flattering  to  me.  But  then,  neither  is  the  rest  of  his 
reply.  He  seems  to  have  discovered  in  some  way  or  other  that  I  am 
not  very  well  educated,  and  while  I  have  no  feelings  about  the  matter 
and  do  not  resent  his  making  it  public  in  this  way  at  all,  I  do  think 
it  is  a  little  off  the  main  line  of  the  argument.  That  is,  I  think  it  was 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          693 

all  right  to  mention  it,  but  he  ought  not  to  dwell  on  it  quite  so  strong 
as  he  does,  because  it  is  one  of  those  "extra-logical"  forms  of  reason- 
ing that  keep  tempting  us  back  into  the  text-book  where  we  could 
classify  it,  and  call  it  by  a  Latin  name,  and  get  all  those  other  medi- 
eval satisfactions  out  of  it. 

MAX  EASTMAN. 

NEW  YORK  CITY. 


REVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Hamann  und  die  Auflcldrung.  Studien  zur  Vorgeschichte  des  roman- 
tischen  Geistes.  2  Vols.  RUDOLF  UNGER.  Jena:  Diederichs.  1911. 
Pp.  978. 

The  publication  of  a  standard  work  in  the  history  of  thought  is  not 
an  every-day  event.  Such  a  standard  work  is  Professor  Rudolf  Unger's 
"  Hamann  und  die  Auf  klarung."  In  spite  of  its  title  it  deserves  to  at- 
tract the  attention,  not  only  of  the  historian  of  literature  and  culture,  but 
also  that  of  the  historian  of  philosophy. 

Johann  Georg  Hamann  of  Konigsberg,  a  good  friend  of  Kant,  Her- 
der's most  intimate  friend,  admired  by  Goethe,  by  Hegel,  by  Schelling, 
Baader,  Friedrich  Schlegel  and  the  German  Romanticists,  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  a  strange  destiny  in  the  history  of  thought.  He  was  by  nature 
a  "  crank,"  similar,  in  a  way,  to  his  more  famous  contemporary,  Rousseau ; 
similar  in  other  ways  to  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche,  to  Pascal,  and 
again  to  Kierkegaard.  There  is  indeed  no  doubt  that  the  latter  was  al- 
most entirely  influenced  by  Hamann.  Cranks  are,  as  a  rule,  in  some  re- 
spects superior  to  the  majority  of  their  contemporaries.  That  is  the 
reason  why  the  majority  of  their  contemporaries  do  not  understand  them. 
But  some  men  of  genius  do.  So  it  was  with  Hamann.  Quite  unintelli- 
gible to  the  "  Aufkldrer,"  he  was  an  immediate  precursor  of  the  famous 
"  storm  and  stress  "  period,  a  mighty  inspirer  of  thought  for  the  German 
classicists,  and  an  important  element  in  the  philosophy  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century.  Since  that  time  his  reputation  has  gone  up  and 
down.  From  inspiring  the  highest  enthusiasm  he  has  been  treated  with 
scorn  or  entirely  neglected.  Hamann  was  himself  responsible  for  both 
these  attitudes  of  the  nineteenth  century;  for  his  writings  contained  not 
only  sparks  of  surprising  originality  and  profundity,  but  also  a  surpris- 
ing amount  of  real  oddities  and  rubbish.  The  former  are  buried  in  the 
latter  and  all  are  wrapped  up  in  a  most  mysterious  and  often  almost  in- 
comprehensible style.  In  order  to  walk,  I  should  rather  say  to  climb, 
through  Hamann's  writings  one  needs  a  guide.  "  My  writings  are  words 
only,"  Hamann  said  himself.  "  The  music  which  interprets  them  is  miss- 
ing. This  music  consists  of  casual  audita,  visa,  lecta  et  oblita,  and  the 
whole  play  of  my  authorship  is  a  mimic  art." 

To  find  a  reliable  guide  through  these  words  without  music  was 
hitherto  no  easy  task.  Most  of  the  Hamann  admirers  were  too  much 
enthusiasts  and  too  little  scientists.  Professor  Rudolf  Unger  is  actually 


094  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  first  Hamann  scholar  who  has  not  contented  himself  with  being 
spiritual  about  Hamann's  spirituality,  but  has  by  strict  methods,  by  an 
amazing  range  of  knowledge,  and  by  an  unequaled  endurance  success- 
fully solved  one  after  another  of  the  Hamann  riddles. 

Several  years  ago,  in  1903,  linger  published  a  small  volume  on 
"  Hamann's  Sprachtheorie,"  a  book  containing  far  more  information 
than  its  title  suggests — in  fact,  the  best  and  most  comprehensive  book  on 
Hamann's  thought  at  that  time.  We  can  not  dispense  with  it  even  now 
after  the  publication  of  the  larger  work.  This  larger  standard  work  on 
"  Hamann  und  die  Aufklarung  "  is  the  result  of  nine  years'  further  study 
of  the  subject.  It  contains  three  parts  in  four  chapters. 

The  first  part  deals  with  the  fundamental  movement  of  German 
thought  from  the  time  of  the  Reformation  to  the  time  of  the  "  Aufklar- 
ung," and  then  proceeds  to  a  very  careful  analysis  of  German  thought  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  amount  of  learning  condensed 
in  this  part  is  almost  incredible.  One  often  gets  more  information  from 
a  single  phrase  than  from  a  whole  page  in  other  books.  Personally  I  do 
not  know  of  any  such  comprehensive  exposition  of  German  thought  in  the 
early  "  Aufklarung  "  and  its  subcurrents.  For  him  who  has  looked  into 
the  enormous  riches  of  the  volume  it  goes  without  saying  that  not  every- 
thing in  it  comes  at  first  hand.  Rudolf  Unger  is  a  great  reader  and  reads 
carefully.  Almost  all  results  of  modern  investigation,  as  far  as  they  are 
related  to  the  subject,  are  utilized.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  some 
extremely  interesting  chapters,  the  material  of  which  is  entirely  new  and 
representative  of  TJnger's  own  research  work.  I  allude  especially  to  his 
references  to  Hamann's  immediate  intellectual  environment — German 
thought  in  Konigsberg.  All  this  is  of  extreme  importance  for  a  knowl- 
edge of  Hamann,  as  well  as  for  our  knowledge  of  young  Herder  and  young 
Kant.  No  Kant  scholar  can  henceforth  dispense  with  the  reading  of 
those  chapters. 

The  second  part  contains  a  minute  and  very  interesting  psychological 
analysis  of  Hamann's  personality.  This  is  so  much  the  more  important 
as  Hamann's  curious  position  in  the  eighteenth  century  is  largely  con- 
ditioned by  the  singular  structure  of  his  psychic  life.  The  central  point 
in  Hamann's  philosophy  is  a  feeling  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  generali- 
zations of  the  "  Aufklarung."  It  appeared  to  him  that  these  generaliza- 
tions leave  the  individuality  of  man  unaccounted  for.  They  seemed  to 
him  like  a  network  through  the  meshes  of  which  a  certain  residue  is  al- 
ways slipping,  and  Hamann  would  maintain  that  it  is  just  this  residue 
which  is  the  most  essential  part  of  man. 

The  residue  of  individuality  makes  itself  known  in  what  is  usually 
called  "feeling"  (Sinnlichkeit)  as  distinguished  from  "reason."  Ha- 
mann had  the  gift  of  an  extraordinary  sense  of  "feeling,"  and  aa  this 
feeling  developed  with  him  into  the  channels  of  a  pronounced  and  even 
immoral  sexuality,  against  which  no  beautiful  philosophical  system  could 
stand,  he  took  refuge  in  the  opposite  extreme  of  irrationalism,  in  religion 
as  a  source  of  moral  power. 

From  this  he  derives  his  philosophy,  which  is  at  bottom  a  confession 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          695 

of  feeling,  rooted  in  religious  life,  sometimes  tainted  with  a  sexual  under- 
current, generally  spiced  with  the  paradoxical  mood  of  orthodoxy,  and  al- 
ways directed  against  the  pet  ideas  of  the  "  Aufklarung."  Feeling  against 
reason;  religion  against  philosophy;  receptive  attitude  of  genius  against 
explicitly  made  plans  of  human  self-sufficiency;  immediate  experience 
against  deduction;  imagination  against  investigation;  instinctive  life 
instead  of  principle ;  devotion  instead  of  science ;  depth  of  passion  instead 
of  sweet  sentimentalism ;  belief  in  God  and  "  freedom  in  Christ "  in- 
stead of  moral  rules  which,  without  the  former,  appear  to  him  frivolous; 
recognition  of  the  radical  sinfulness  of  the  heart  against  the  pharisean 
doctrine  of  shallow  optimism;  true  optimism  with  a  view  to  heaven 
against  wrong  optimism  with  a  view  to  civilization,  a  quiet  life  within 
narrow  limits — XaOf.  /Jioxras — against  the  tumultuous  distractions  of  pub- 
lic life :  these  are  the  doctrines  of  the  "  Magus  im  Norden."  Indeed  a 
queer  sermon  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but  none  the  less  a  good  admix- 
ture. The  important  truths  of  Hamann's  writings  were  realized  by  the 
best  of  his  contemporaries.  Their  drawbacks  were  no  less  realized  by  the 
author,  who  himself  was  a  severe  judge  of  the  weaknesses  in  his  char- 
acter from  which  the  strange  paradoxes  of  his  preaching  sprang. 

The  third  part  of  Unger's  work  is  perhaps  the  hardest  for  continuous 
reading,  but  very  likely  the  most  important  for  our  understanding  of 
Hamann's  writings.  I  should  call  this  third  part  a  guide-book  par  ex- 
cellence; the  only  really  reliable  commentary  on  Hamann  we  have,  al- 
though not  a  complete  one.  Unger  has  collected  all  of  Hamann's  utter- 
ances on  esthetics  and  related  subjects,  such  as  genius,  drama,  literature, 
style,  and  given  them  a  very  learned  and  satisfactory  commentary,  which 
elucidates  a  great  number  of  difficulties  hitherto  unsolved.  One  chapter 
in  this  section,  combined  with  another  in  the  second  part,  gives  an 
exhaustive  enumeration  of  Hamann's  entire  reading.  Both  chapters  are 
dry,  but,  with  a  view  to  the  numberless  obscure  allusions  in  Hamann, 
very  valuable'. 

The  second  volume  of  Unger's  work  is  mainly  of  a  bibliographical  na- 
ture. There  are  more  than  280  pages  filled  with  notes  containing  refer- 
ences, and  very  interesting  side-issues.  As  to  the  references,  it  is  much 
to  be  regretted  that  Unger  did  not  arrange  a  list  of  them  according  to  the 
number  of  the  volumes  and  pages  to  which  they  refer.  This  would  have 
made  it  ever  so  much  easier  to  use  Unger's  work  as  a  commentary  for  a 
continuous  reading  of  Hamann.  An  appendix  of  almost  100  pages  sur- 
prises the  reader  with  a  number  of  Hamann's  writings  hitherto  unknown 
and  now  rediscovered  by  Professor  Unger's  investigations.  Another  ap- 
pendix completes  our  present  Hamann  bibliographies  with  an  addition 
of  no  less  than  144  numbers.  Several  elaborate  indices  conclude  the  work. 

Considering  all,  I  have  the  conviction  that  we  are  greatly  indebted  to 
the  author.  His  work  on  "  Hamann  und  die  Aufklarung  "  represents  an 
astounding  amount  of  mental  energy,  and  we  can  profit  by  it.  At  present 
we  can  face  the  riddles  of  Hamann  in  quite  a  different  manner  than  be- 
fore. Unger's  work  creates  an  entirely  new  foundation  for  the  Hamann 
research;  a  result  which  is  so  much  the  more  important  as  a  new  edition 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  Hamann's  works  is  planned  by  the  Prussian  Academy  of  Sciences, 
with  which  Professor  linger  will  collaborate.  Unger's  work  is  a  new 
foundation,  but  it  is  not  itself  a  building.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
overwhelming  number  of  details  in  it  often  veils  the  evidence  of  the  great 
outlines  of  Hamann's  thought.  Here  and  there  "  aieht  man  den  Wald 
vor  Bdumen  nicht."  Professor  Unger  promises  still  another,  possibly  a 
still  more  important,  work  on  the  subject.  The  last  work  was  analytical 
in  spirit;  we  hope  that  the  next  one  will  be  a  synthesis  in  spirit  and  in 
structure. 

GUNTHER  JACOBY. 
GREIFSWALD  UNIVEESITT. 

Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal.  RUDOLF  EUCKEN.  Translated  with  an  In- 
troductory Note  by  ALBAN  G.  WIDOENY.  New  York:  The  Macmillan 
Co.  Pp.  xxii  -|-  377. 

This  is  a  successful  translation  of  "  Die  Grundlinien  einer  neuen 
Lebensanschauung,"  the  latest  and  best  statement  of  the  philosophy  of 
Eucken.  Though  more  technical  than  the  more  popular  works  of  the  au- 
thor, not  long  ago  translated  into  English,  it  is  by  far  the  most  satisfac- 
tory in  making  clear  his  general  position. 

What  that  position  is  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows :  It  is  a  philos- 
ophy of  life  primarily  rather  than  a  world  philosophy,  a  cosmology.  It 
reaches  out  to  and  finally  comprehends  the  world,  but  it  is  based  on  man's 
life,  and  from  that  takes  its  rise.  This  life  is  essentially  spiritual;  its 
spirituality  is  not  an  inference,  but  is  an  original  datum.  The  sound  of 
a  bell  is  no  more  a  presupposition  of  what  you  experience  than  is  spiritual- 
ity a  presupposition  of  your  experience.  It  is  what  you  experience.  It  is 
not  mediately,  but  immediately  known,  as  a  color  or  a  sound.  It  is  known, 
not  as  idea  representative  of  a  spirituality,  but  as  spiritual  reality  itself. 
But  this  spiritual  reality  immediately  known,  in  and  by  the  individual, 
necessarily  involves  and  presupposes  a  spirituality  wider  than  itself,  and 
comprehending  other  and  all  individualities,  and  even  the  world  itself 
through  its  ideals  of  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful. 

It  can  readily  be  seen  that  there  is  a  measure  of  misrepresentation  of 
this  philosophy  in  calling  it  an  idealism,  even  a  new  idealism.  It  is  more 
and  other  than  that.  Being  a  philosophy  of  life  as  spiritual,  it  involves 
more  than  idealism,  which  names  but  a  part  of  its  totality.  It  is  a  spirit- 
ual multiplicity  far  richer  than  any  meaning  of  idealism  can  name. 

From  this  fundamental  conception  of  the  opulence  of  the  spiritual 
life,  other  systems  are  criticized  as  partial  and  superficial  and  as  mis- 
representative  of  the  life  immediately  known.  It  is  shown  that  the  neces- 
sary implications  of  these  systems  transcend  the  systems  themselves. 
What  they  are  is  possible  only  through  the  implied  existence  of  something 
beyond  that  recognized  in  them,  a  spirituality  active  and  creative  from 
itself. 

This  active  creative  spiritual  life  known  immediately  in  individual 
experiences  involves  a  life  transcending  itself,  which  is  its  basis.  This — 
the  independent  spiritual  life — is  ever  embodying  itself  in  systems  of  life. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          697 

Philosophies  grow  out  of  these  life-systems  and  are  ideal  representations 
of  them.  But  they  come  and  pass  as  the  life-systems  out  of  which  they 
grow.  They  "  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be."  There  is  no  final  philos- 
ophy, as  there  is  no  arrival  at  its  terminus  of  the  independent  spiritual 
life,  which  is  at  once  the  basis  of  all  systems  of  life  and  of  all  philosophic 
representations  of  those  life-systems. 

From  this  fundamental  conception  of  the  essential  character  of  life  it 
can  easily  be  seen  what  is  life's  ideal.  It  is  spiritual  fruitfulness,  larger, 
fuller,  more  manifold  spiritual  realizations.  Not  freedom  from  suffer- 
ing, not  external  deeds,  acquisitions,  or  civilizations,  but  fuller  life  of 
spirit.  All  human  attainments  are  but  means  to  this  life's  ideal. 

This  brings  us  to  what  is  probably  the  most  significant  practical  as- 
pect of  Eucken's  philosophy — what  he  names  activism.  The  human  indi- 
vidual spirit  is  called  to  strenuous  creative  endeavor  in  realizing  this 
spiritual  fruitfulness.  All  systems  of  thought  must  be  measured  by  their 
bearing  on  this  one  ideal.  Failing  to  be  means  to  this  end,  they  are  so 
far  not  representative  of  the  spiritual  life  that  is,  and  are  so  far  false. 
Contributing  to  fuller  realization  of  the  spirit  they  are  so  far  true. 

These  statements  suggest  the  kinship  of  Eucken's  philosophy  to  that 
of  William  James,  Bergson,  and  the  adherents  of  the  personal  idealism 
of  England.  The  likenesses  are  significant,  but  the  differences  are  as 
great.  It  is  impossible  to  discuss  these  matters  here.  It  will  be  sufficient 
to  indicate  the  characteristic  quality  of  Eucken's  philosophic  attitude. 

As  the  seer  and  prophet  of  the  spiritual  life,  he  has  no  personal  animus 
against  the  systems  of  others  or  for  the  system  one  may  call  his  own. 
That  the  spirit  of  man  may  be  delivered  from  its  present  barrenness  and 
enter  into  its  large  inheritance  is  his  one  desire.  Whether  his  thought  or 
another's  be  the  pathway  to  that  imperative  goal  is  of  small  consequence. 
That  man  be  moving  in  that  direction  is  important.  The  direction  is  all 
we  shall  hope  to  know.  The  active  endeavor  to  move  thereon  is  man's  im- 
perative vital  need  and  ethical  law.  The  criticism  will  at  once  be  made 
that  this  philosophy  is  practical  rather  than  theoretic,  ethical  rather  than 
rational.  The  obvious  reply  from  the  point  of  view  of  this  philosophy  is 
as  follows:  The  sole  guarantee  of  the  validity  of  any  so-called  theoretic 
truth  is  in  its  practicality. 

Of  course  this  philosophy  is  open  to  the  attack  of  every  current  philo- 
sophic system  starting  from  other  bases  than  that  on  which  this  is 
founded.  It  is  not  necessary  to  name  and  discuss  them  here.  In  refer- 
ence to  the  charge  that  it  is  essentially  mystical,  it  may  be  confessed  that 
it  is  true.  But  the  reply  may  be  made  that  other  systems  escape  the 
charge  only  as  the  ultimate  facts  of  life  are  ignored,  and  a  scheme  of 
thought  is  built  up  without  reference  to  the  final  mysteries  in  which  all 
existence  is  concealed. 

HERBERT  G.  LORD. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


<;t»s  ////•;  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW.  July,  1912.  Bergson  and  Prag- 
matism (pp.  397-414)  :  A.  W.  MOORE.  -  Bergson's  three  doctrines  of  instru- 
mentalism,  anti-intellectualism,  and  evolutionism  are  supposed  to  contain 
his  chief  points  of  contact  with  pragmatism.  Current  attention  has  been 
given,  wrongly  the  writer  maintains,  to  the  first  two.  Emphasis  is  laid 
upon  the  differences  between  the  instrumentalism  and  anti-intellectual- 
iem  of  Bergson  and  that  of  pragmatism.  Pragmatism  receives  most  from 
Bergson's  evolutionism.  The  Relation  of  Consciousness  and  Object  in 
Sense-perception  (pp.  415-432):  FRANK  THILLY. -Is  opposed  to  the  neo- 
realistic  theory  of  perception  respecting  numerical  identity  of  object  in 
and  out  of  the  perceptual  situation.  "  All  we  can  say  is  that  a  conscious 
organism  perceives  a  real  object  in  a  certain  way,  according  to  the  mental 
and  physical  factors  involved."  Descriptive  and  Normative  Sciences  (pp. 
433-450) :  GEORGE  H.  SABINE.  -  The  traditional  distinction  between  de- 
scriptive and  normative  sciences  is  untenable,  not  because  all  sciences  are 
descriptive,  but  because  they  are  all  normative.  The  role  of  valuation, 
though  often  concealed  in  the  so-called  descriptive  sciences,  is  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  method  of  all  science  and  is  always  present  in  scientific 
development.  Discussion:  Consistency  and  Ultimate  Dualism  (pp.  451- 
454) :  W.  H.  SHELDON.  -  Replies  to  Professor  Creighton's  criticism,  the 
criticism  being  to  the  effect  that  Mr.  Sheldon's  attempted  reconciliation 
of  idealism  and  realism  is  incomplete.  Reviews  of  Books:  L.  Levy-Bruhl, 
Les  Fonctions  Mentales  dans  les  Societes  Inferieures:  GEORGE  S.  PATTON. 
Ralph  Barton  Perry,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies:  EVANDER  BRAD- 
LEY McGiLVARY.  John  Elof  Boodin,  Truth  and  Reality:  ELLEN  BLISS 
TALBOT.  F.  Rauch,  Etudes  de  Morale:  Louis  W.  FLACCUS.  Notices  of 
New  Books.  Summaries  of  Articles.  Notes. 

REVUE  PHILOSOPHIQUE.  July,  1912.  Essai  d'une  classification 
du  Mystique  (pp.  1-26)  :  F.  PICAVET. -The  three  classes  are  (1)  those  who 
seek  of  themselves  the  development  of  personality  and  union  with  supreme 
perfection,  (2)  those  who  appeal  to  God  to  realize  in  them  a  higher  per- 
sonality, and  to  unite  them  with  God,  (3)  those  who  no  longer  yearn  for 
individual  perfection,  but  suffer  all  physiological  and  psychological 
misery.  The  first  class  is  rare  and  the  third  most  common.  La  philo- 
sophic russe  contemporaine  (ler  article)  (pp.  27-64) :  SELIBER.  -  A  sur- 
prisingly rich  field.  This  first  article  contains  only  a  part  of  the  contri- 
butions touching  the  theory  of  knowledge.  More  will  follow  as  well  as 
the  treatment  of  other  problems.  Les  mouvements  et  I'activite  incon- 
sciente  (pp.  65-81) :  TH.  RIBOT.  -  What  persists  in  unconscious  mental 
states  is  the  kinesthetic  portion  of  consciousness.  The  unconscious  is  an 
accumulator  of  energy,  which  consciousness  can  dispense.  Analyses  et 
comptes  rendus.  J.  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  or  Pluralism  and 
Theism:  A.  LALANDE.  G.  Simmel,  Melanges  de  philosophic  relativists: 
A.  JOUSSAIN.  Kuhlmann,  Zur  Geschichte  des  Terminismus:  A.  L. 
Foereter,  Pour  former  le  caractere:  FR.  PAULHAN.  Notices  libliograph- 
iques.  Revue  des  periodiques  etrangers. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          699 

Del  Vecchio,  Giorgio.  H  Progresso  Giuridico.  Home:  Keprinted  from 
the  Rivista  Italiana  di  Sociologia.  1911. 

Del  Vecchio,  Giorgio.  La  Comunicabilita  del  Diritto  e  Le  Idee  del  Vico. 
Trani,  Italy:  Vecchi  e  C.  1911.  Pp.  13. 

Del  Vecchio,  Giorgio.  Sulla  Positivita  come  Carattere  del  Diritto. 
Modena :  Formiggini.  1911.  Pp.  24.  L.  1. 

Holt,  Edwin  B.,  Marvin,  Walter  T.,  Montague,  William  P.,  Perry,  Ralph 
B.,  Pitkin,  Walter  B.,  Spaulding,  Edward  G.  The  New  Realism. 
New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xii  +  491.  $2.50. 

Limentani,  Ludovico.  I  Presupposti  Formali  della  Idagine  Etica.  Genoa: 
A.  F.  Formiggini.  1913.  Pp.  xii  -J-  541.  L.  7.50. 

McDougall,  William.  Body  and  Mind.  London :  Methuen  and  Company. 
Pp.  xix-f384.  10s.  6d. 

Morgan,  C.  Lloyd.  Instinct  and  Experience.  New  York:  The  Mac- 
millan Company.  1912.  Pp.  xvii  +  299.  $1.50. 

Robinson,  A.  T.  The  Applications  of  Logic.  New  York:  Longmans, 
Green,  &  Company.  1912.  Pp.  x  +  219.  $1.20. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

THE  New  York  Branch  of  the  American  Psychological  Association 
met  in  conjunction  with  the  Section  of  Anthropology  and  Psychology  of 
the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences  on  November  25.  The  following 
papers  were  read:  "Difference-Tones  and  Consonance,"  by  Professor  F. 
Krueger,  Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  University  of  Halle- 
Wittenberg,  Kaiser  Wilhelm  professor  in  Columbia  University ;  "  The 
Attempt  to  Measure  Mental  Work  as  a  Psycho-Dynamic  Process,"  by 
Professor  Raymond  Dodge,  of  Wesleyan  University ;  "  The  Psychology  of 
the  Earthworm,"  by  Professor  Robert  M.  Yerkes,  of  Harvard  University. 

DR.  EMILE  BOREL,  professor  of  mathematics  in  the  University  of  Paris, 
and  assistant  director  of  the  Ecole  Normale  Superieur,  presented  a  scien- 
tific address  in  connection  with  the  dedicatory  exercises  of  Rice  Institute, 
October  10-12.  On  November  6,  Professor  Borel  delivered  an  address  at 
Princeton  University  on  "  Non-analytic  Monogenic  Functions " ;  on 
October  22,  he  gave  a  lecture  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  on  "  The 
Employment  of  Probabilities  in  Mathematics  and  Physics";  at  Columbia 
University,  November  19,  he  delivered  a  lecture  on  "  Scientific  Studies 
in  France." 

DR.  KARL  MARBE,  professor  of  psychology  at  the  University  of  Wurz- 
burg,  and  director  of  the  Institute  of  Psychology,  has  undertaken,  in  col- 
laboration with  Dr.  W-  Peters,  privat-docent  of  psychology  at  the  same 
university,  the  publication  of  a  new  review  entitled  Fortschritte  der 
Psychologic  und  Hirer  Anwendungen.  Particular  attention  will  be  given 


700  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

to  the  applications  of  psychology  and  to  the  services  which  psychology  is 
capable  of  n -mlcring  to  philosophy,  science,  and  business.  The  price  of 
each  number  is  3  Marks. 

A  GIFT  of  100,000  Marks  was  made  to  the  Jewish  Institute  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Marburg  by  Herr  Brunn,  of  Berlin,  on  the  occasion  of  the  cele- 
bration of  the  seventieth  birthday  of  Professor  Hermann  Cohen.  The 
fund  is  to  be  used  for  the  establishment  of  a  Hermann  Cohen  professorship. 

THE  course  of  public  lectures  inaugurated  by  members  of  the  faculty 
of  Princeton  University  on  "  Some  Aspects  of  the  Renaissance "  will 
include  "Philosophy,"  by  Professor  Kemp  Smith;  "Natural  Science," 
by  Professor  Trowbridge;  and  "The  Medieval  Mind,"  by  Dr.  Stewart 
Paton. 

PROFESSOR  T.  H.  HAINES,  of  Ohio  State  University,  has  been  granted 
leave  of  absence  for  the  present  year.  He  plans  to  visit  a  number  of  the 
psychopathological  institutes  of  Europe. 

M.  EMILE  BOUTROUX,  honorary  professor  of  modern  philosophy  at  the 
Sorbonne,  and  director  of  the  "Fondation  Thiers,"  was  recently  elected 
a  member  of  the  French  Academy. 

JOHN  MADISON  FLETCHER,  Ph.D.,  has  been  appointed  assistant  pro- 
fessor of  experimental  and  clinical  psychology  at  the  Newcomb  College 
School  of  Education,  Tulane  University. 

PROFESSOR  BERGSON,  of  Paris,  Professor  De  Vries,  of  the  University  of 
Amsterdam,  and  Sir  William  Ramsay,  of  London,  have  been  appointed 
Woodward  lecturers  at  Yale  University. 

AT  Cambridge  University,  Professor  R.  C.  Punnett  has  been  selected 
by  the  Prime  Minister  and  Mr.  A.  J.  Balfour  as  the  first  Arthur  Balfour 
professor  of  genetics. 

PROFESSOR  JAMES  WARD  will  give  the  Henry  Sidgwick  memorial  lec- 
ture at  Newnham  College  on  November  9.  The  subject  will  be  "  Heredity 
and  Memory." 

MR.  F.  C.  AYERS,  a  graduate  fellow  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  has 
gone  to  the  University  of  Oregon  as  head  of  the  department  of  education. 

DR.  SAMUEL  W.  FERNBERCER,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  has 
accepted  an  instructorship  in  psychology  at  Clark  University. 

PRENTICE  REEVES,  A.B.,  of  the  University  of  Missouri,  has  been  made 
instructor  in  psychology  at  Princeton  University. 

DR.  C.  E.  FERREE,  of  Bryn  Mawr  College,  has  been  advanced  to  an 
associate  professorship  of  experimental  psychology. 

THE  Second  Congress  of  Experimental  Psychology  will  be  held  in  Paris 
during  next  Easter  vacation. 


VOL.   IX.  No.  26.  DECEMBER  19,  1912 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


THE   AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHICAL  ASSOCIATION'S   DIS- 
CUSSION 

AT  the  request  of  the  committee  on  discussion  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Association,  and  with  the  cooperation  of  the 
leaders  in  the  discussion,  the  editors  are  glad  to  print  in  this  issue  of 
the  JOURNAL  the  following  papers  as  preliminary  statements  of  the 
principal  topics  to  be  brought  forward. 


HOW  FAR  IS  AGREEMENT  POSSIBLE  IN  PHILOSOPHY? 

JN  this  brief  paper  I  shall  try  to  indicate  a  possible  line  of  answer 
to  the  questions  formulated  in  the  programme  of  discussion  ar- 
ranged for  the  coming  meeting  of  the  Philosophical  Association. 

The  term  "science"  is  currently  employed  in  two  very  distinct 
senses.  It  may  mean  thinking  that  is  as  rigorous,  as  enlightened, 
and  as  competent  as  our  present  knowledge  of  the  factors  involved  in 
the  problems  dealt  with  will  permit.  All  philosophical  thinking, 
worthy  of  the  name,  may  be  presumed  to  be  of  this  character,  and  as 
such  will  fall  under  the  rubric  of  science  in  this  broader  meaning  of 
the  term.  It  will  be  grouped  with  mathematics  and  physics  as  well 
as  with  sociology,  politics,  and  psychology.  But  the  term  is  also  em- 
ployed, and  as  I  think  more  advisedly,  in  a  narrower  sense  to  denote 
those  disciplines  in  which  there  is  a  working  agreement  as  to  prin- 
ciples, methods,  and  results.  By  universal  admission  philosophy  has 
not  in  the  past  been  of  this  character. 

Are  we  then  to  conclude  that  all  knowledge  worthy  of  the  name 
is  science,  and  that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  save  in  those  regions 
where  science  has  gained  secure  footing?  Such  a  question  answers 
itself.  We  can  not  defer  having  convictions  in  ethics  and  politics 
until  the  scientific  expert  is  prepared  to  enlighten  us  upon  the  duties 
of  life.  And  as  history  proves,  we  would  not  possess  even  the  exist- 
ing mathematical  disciplines  if  non-scientific,  tentative  theorizing 

701 


702  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

had  not  seemed  to  our  ancestors  a  legitimate  and  worthy  form  of 
attainable  knowledge. 

The  nature  of  the  distinction  between  science  and  philosophy  may 
perhaps  be  interpreted  somewhat  as  follows.  Science  deals  with  the 
isolable,  philosophy  with  the  non-isolable  problems.  Each  science 
has  been  brought  into  existence  through  the  discovery  of  a  method 
whereby  some  one  problem  or  set  of  problems  can  be  isolated  from 
all  others,  and  solved  in  terms  of  the  factors  revealed  within  a  defi- 
nitely limited  field  of  observation  and  analysis.  Science  is  successful 
specialization.  Galileo  founded  the  science  of  dynamics  by  demon- 
strating that  it  is  possible  to  discover  the  laws  governing  the  behavior 
of  bodies  independently  of  any  solution  of  the  many  metaphysical 
problems  unsolved  in  the  determination  of  the  causes  of  motion. 
Newton  transformed  Descartes 's  speculative  cosmology  into  a  scien- 
tific system  by  a  further  extension  of  the  same  procedure.  Dar- 
win's triumphant  achievement  was  similar  in  character.  He  suc- 
cessfully segregated  the  problem  of  the  preservation  of  variations 
from  the  question,  with  which  all  that  is  speculative  in  biology  is  so 
inextricably  bound  up,  of  the  nature  of  the  causes  determining  their 
origin.  Such  methods  of  specialization  prove  acceptable  to  other 
workers  in  the  same  field,  and  their  application  leads  to  a  growing 
body  of  universally  accepted  teaching. 

It  is  frequently  urged  that  science  succeeds  where  philosophy  has 
failed.  But  that,  as  history  can  demonstrate,  is  an  entirely  false 
reading  of  the  actual  facts.  The  sciences,  when  not  simply  new  sub- 
divisions within  an  existing  science,  and  sometimes  even  then,  are  al- 
ways the  outcome  of  antecedent  philosophizing.  The  coming  into  ex- 
istence of  a  new  science  means  that  the  earlier  ' '  unscientific ' '  specula- 
tions have  at  length  succeeded  in  forging  conceptual  weapons  suffi- 
ciently adequate  for  the  steady  progressive  solution  of  the  problems 
dealt  with.  The  creation  of  a  science  is  consequently  the  justification 
of  the  relevant  previous  theorizings.  But  the  objection  will  at  once 
be  restated  in  altered  form.  Philosophy  is  of  value  only  in  propor- 
tion as  it  becomes  science,  and  it  has  already  been  displaced  from 
every  one  of  the  fields  of  knowledge.  Induction  from  observed  facts 
has  been  substituted  for  a  priori  reasoning  from  fictitious  premises. 
Philosophy,  so  far  as  it  continues  to  exist  in  any  form  distinct  from 
science,  is  merely  the  attempt  to  formulate  solutions  while  our  insight 
is  still  such  as  not  to  justify  them.  In  the  absence  of  the  disciplinary 
rigor  of  observed  fact,  it  freely  indulges  the  caprice  of  temperament, 
and  employs  the  arts  of  the  special  pleader  to  justify  conclusions 
antecedently  adopted. 

Such  objections,  I  take  it,  only  show  that  even  in  devoted  students 
of  science  the  old  Adam  of  circumscribed  outlook  may  still  survive. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          703 

The  above  attitude  is  merely  the  modern  representative  of  the  kind 
of  objection  that  greeted  the  beginnings  of  speculation  even  in  ancient 
Greece.  And  to  any  such  sweeping  criticisms  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy is  sufficient  reply.  It  is  still  what  it  has  always  been,  the  his- 
tory of  genuine  insight  in  the  making.  For  reasons  entirely  under- 
standable Hegel  is  of  evil  repute  with  the  majority  of  scientists.  But 
surely  in  the  field  of  the  historical  disciplines  his  influence  has  been 
fruitful  to  a  quite  remarkable  degree.  The  list  of  historians  and 
sociologists  who  have  profited  by  his  speculations  would  overflow  the 
limits  of  many  pages.  I  need  only  mention,  as  outstanding  instances, 
Ranke  and  Zeller,  Renan  and  Strauss,  Proudhon  and  Karl  Marx.  Or 
to  cite  the  work  of  an  earlier  thinker :  Leibnitz  not  only  shares  with 
Newton  the  honor  of  discovering  the  differential  calculus,  he  also 
formulated  that  programme  of  a  universal  logic  which  has  since  been 
so  fruitfully  developed  by  Boole,  Peano,  and  Russell,  and  which  has 
in  consequence  made  so  beneficial  an  eruption  through  the  hard 
crust  of  the  more  traditional  logic.  The  difficulties  which  we  find  in 
defining  the  present  relation  between  science  and  philosophy  would 
not  seem  to  be  due  to  any  diminution  in  the  influence  which  philos- 
ophy is  exerting  either  upon  science  or  upon  general  thought.  They 
are  largely  caused  by  its  more  delicate  and  sensitive  adjustment  to 
the  varied  and  complex  needs  of  our  modern  life.  It  has  learned  to 
formulate  its  theories  in  more  adequate  terms  and  so  can  bring  its 
influences  more  subtly  and  persuasively  to  bear.  The  interplay  of 
influences  is  closer  and  more  complicated  than  ever  before. 

The  tasks  of  philosophy  vary,  indeed,  with  the  needs  of  the  age, 
and  for  that  reason  are  all  the  more  inevitably  prescribed.  The  very 
certainty  and  assurance  which  the  sciences  have  acquired  in  their  sev- 
eral fields  constitutes  a  new  menace  to  the  liberality  of  thought.  The 
frequent  unreliability  of  the  expert  in  matters  of  practise  is  univer- 
sally recognized ;  his  dogmatism  in  matters  broadly  theoretical  is  less 
easily  discounted,  and  may  in  the  future  prove  insidiously  harmful. 
Philosophy  is  still  needed  in  order  to  enforce  breadth  of  outlook  and 
catholicity  of  judgment.  It  stands  for  the  general  human  values  as 
against  excessive  pretensions,  whether  in  science,  in  religion,  or  in 
practical  life,  for  the  past  and  the  future  as  against  the  present,  for 
comprehensiveness  and  leisure  as  against  narrowness  and  haste.  The 
individual  philosopher  may  not,  of  course,  possess  these  qualities, 
but  he  at  least  lays  claim  to  them,  and  is  supposed  to  have  earnestly 
striven  to  embody  them  in  his  own  person,  when  he  professes  to  give 
a  theory  of  life  that  is  genuinely  philosophical.  And  though,  per- 
haps, at  some  time  in  the  very  distant  future  philosophy  may  over- 
come the  differences  between  itself  and  science,  that  is  not  a  possibil- 
ity which  we  can  anticipate  in  any  precise  or  even  imaginative  fash- 


704  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ion.  What  truly  concerns  us  is  rather  to  define  the  actual  relation  in 
which,  under  present  conditions,  the  two  types  of  theoretical  inquiry 
would  seem  to  stand  to  one  another.1 

That  brings  me  to  the  second  part  of  my  question.  What  is  phi- 
losophy in  its  distinction  from  science!  Philosophical  knowledge,  I 
should  contend,  differs  from  the  scientific  in  its  incapacity  to  answer 
any  one  of  its  problems  without  anticipating,  in  broad  outline,  the 
kind  of  answer  that  has  to  be  given  to  all  the  others.  In  other  words, 
it  deals  with  all  those  problems  for  which  no  method  of  successful 
isolation  has  yet  been  formulated.  The  present  position  of  logic  may 
serve  as  an  illustration.  There  is  as  great  divergence  regarding  log- 
ical questions  as  there  is  in  regard  to  ethical  problems.  And  the 
reason  would  seem  to  be  that  the  theory  of  the  judgment  and  of  the 
nature  of  universals  has  never  yet  been  successfully  segregated  from 
the  general  body  of  philosophical  doctrine.  Bertrand  Russell's 
analysis  of  deductive  reasoning  is  inspired  by  his  rationalistic  epis- 
temology,  just  as  Mill's  counter-theory  is  based  on  his  sensationalist 
metaphysics.  This  is  still  more  obvious  when  we  come  to  such  prob- 
lems as  the  nature  of  consciousness  or  of  our  moral  vocation.  They 
involve  considerations  which  reach  out  into  all  departments  of  life. 
They  are  humanistic  problems,  and  carry  with  them  into  their  theo- 
retical treatment  all  the  complexities  and  difficulties  of  a  practical, 
ethical,  and  religious  orientation  towards  life.  They  bring  into  play 
the  whole  man  as  well  as  all  the  sciences.  The  various  philosophical 
problems  can  not  be  treated  as  so  many  separate  issues  and  their 
solutions  combined  to  form  a  comprehensive  system.  That  would 
result  in  what  Faguet,  in  speaking  of  Voltaire,  has  described  as 
' '  a  chaos  of  clear  ideas. ' '  The  specific  characteristic  of  philosophical 
reflection  is  that  in  dealing  with  any  of  its  problems  it  must  simul- 
taneously bear  in  mind  the  correlative  requirements  of  all  the  others. 
Even  when  it  finds  its  chief  inspiration  in  some  one  specific  field,  it 
may  do  so  only  in  so  far  as  the  insight  thereby  acquired  can  be  shown 
to  be  supremely  illuminating  in  other  spheres. 

1  All  the  most  important  distinctions,  even  those  that  are  most  fundamental, 
are  ultimately  partial  and  in  some  degree  relative.  I  am  not  concerned  to 
maintain  that  the  isolation  of  scientific  problems  is  ever  quite  complete  or 
that  the  sciences  do  not  from  time  to  time  themselves  become  metaphysical. 
I  also  recognize  that  philosophy  does  in  some  measure  experimentally  employ 
methods  of  partial  isolation  within  its  own  field.  But  in  this  brief  paper  I  can 
take  account  only  of  the  broader  features  of  the  intellectual  landscape.  Should 
these  be  properly  surveyed,  the  description  will  yield  an  outline  that  no 
minuteness  of  detail  need  essentially  modify.  Science  and  philosophy  may 
have  community  of  origin,  of  logical  structure,  and  of  ultimate  destiny;  and 
yet  may  be  most  fruitfully  interpreted  in  terms  of  their  differences.  The  fact 
that  mountain  ranges  have  been  ocean  beds  and  may  become  so  again  does  not 
affect  the  truth  and  utility  of  our  modern  maps. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          705 

But  if  the  residual  problems  can  only  be  solved  in  terms  of  a 
general  philosophical  standpoint,  how  is  that  latter  to  be  attained? 
The  answer — lack  of  space  must  excuse  dogmatism  of  statement — lies 
in  recognition  of  the  manner  in  which  the  past  history  of  philosophy 
predetermines,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  our  present-day  prob- 
lems. Philosophy  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  history  of  philosophy, 
and  each  new  system  fulfils  its  mission  in  proportion  as  it  yields  an 
enlightening  reading  of  past  experience,  a  genuine  analysis  of  pres- 
ent conditions,  and  in  terms  of  these  a  prophetic  foreshadowing  of  its 
own  future  development.  The  results  of  scientific  research  sum 
themselves  up  in  definite  principles  and  in  prescribed  methods.  To 
that  extent  the  scientist  can  dispense  with  the  study  of  history.  But 
this  does  not  happen  in  philosophy,  and  the  place  of  those  principles 
and  methods  has  therefore  to  be  supplied  by  such  guidance  as  the 
individual  thinker  can  extract  from  the  past  development  of  the 
philosophical  problems. 

There  are,  of  course,  two  paths,  apparently  independent,  upon 
which  philosophical  truth  may  be  sought.  It  may  be  discovered 
through  direct  historical  study.  It  was  largely  so  in  the  case 
of  Comte  and  of  Hegel.  Or  it  may  come  through  concentration 
on  the  present-day  problems  as  in  Spencer  and  Karl  Pearson.2  But 
in  neither  case  is  the  procedure  such  as  to  completely  dispense  with 
the  alternative  method.  It  is  easy  to  decipher  the  interpretation  of 
past  thought  which  underlies  Spencer's  or  Pearson's  thinking.  It 
is  some  such  hag-ridden  reading  of  history  as  we  find  in  Buckle's 
"Civilization  in  England."  We  can  similarly  single  out  the  con- 
temporary influences  which  controlled  and  directed  the  historical 
studies  of  Comte  and  Hegel.  The  alternative  is  not  really  between 
historical  and  systematic  treatment  of  our  philosophical  problems,  but 
only  in  both  classes  of  thinkers,  between  the  more  competent  and  the 
less  competent,  between  intellectual  mastery  and  unconscious  pre- 
conception. 

My  meaning  will  be  made  clearer  if  I  draw  attention  to  the  ob- 
vious fact  that  the  history  of  philosophy  can  not  be  written  once  and 
for  all.  It  has  to  be  recast  by  each  generation  to  suit  its  own  needs, 
to  harmonize  with  its  increased  insight  and  altered  standpoint.  Ulti- 
mately every  independent  thinker  must  reinterpret  it  for  himself. 
It  is  no  less  plastic  to  new  interpretations  than  the  present  reality 
with  which  our  analytic  thinking  deals.  An  adequate  solution  of 
philosophical  problems  and  a  valid  interpretation  of  past  systems 
must  develop  together.  They  mutually  condition  one  another. 

This  practically  amounts  to  a  reassertion,  in  a  more  special  form, 

*  It  is  significant  how  few  examples  of  "  unhistorical "  philosophy  can  be 
cited. 


706  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

of  my  previous  contention  that  the  problems  of  philosophy,  as  co- 
ordinating and  humanistic,  are  non-isolable.  They  differ  from  the 
problems  of  the  positive  sciences,  not  only  in  the  complexity  of  their 
data,  but  also  in  the  impossibility  of  adequately  treating  them  by  any 
method  exclusively  analytic.  They  likewise  demand  an  orientation 
towards  history,  and  the  application  of  the  insight  thereby  acquired. 
Proof  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  perennial  character  of  the  three 
fundamental  types  of  philosophical  thinking;  naturalism,  scepticism, 
and  idealism.  All  three  are  in  this  twentieth  century  as  vigorously 
assertive,  and  as  eagerly  supported  by  competent  thinkers,  as  they 
have  ever  been  in  past  time.  While  developing  pari  passu  with  the 
general  body  of  human  knowledge,  they  stand  in  a  constant  relation 
of  interaction  and  mutual  aid.  Each  in  the  struggle  for  self-main- 
tenance compels  the  competing  systems  to  develop  on  fresh  lines, 
meeting  new  objections  by  modification  of  their  former  grounds ;  and 
in  this  process  each  progresses  largely  in  proportion  as  it  can  profit  by 
the  criticisms  rendered  possible  by  the  two  opposing  standpoints.  The 
debt  which  modern  agnosticism  owes  to  the  transcendentalism  of  Plato 
and  to  the  phenomenalism  of  Kant  is  only  to  be  matched  by  that  which 
Plato  owed  to  Heraclitus,  and  Kant  to  Hume.  Present-day  idealism 
is  largely  indebted  for  more  adequate  formulation  of  its  views  to  the 
mediating  function  which  naturalism  has  exercised  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  scientific  results.  That  system,  therefore,  which  is  accepted  as 
most  satisfactorily  solving  our  present-day  problems  will  have  to  be 
viewed  as  being  the  goal  toward  which  previous  philosophies  of  every 
type  have  gradually  converged.  The  history  of  philosophy  can,  in- 
deed, be  written  from  any  one  of  the  three  standpoints  in  such  manner 
as  to  demonstrate  that  all  past  thought  has  been  contributory  to  its 
ultimate  strengthening.  The  grouping,  interrelation,  and  valuation 
of  historical  facts  will  vary  in  the  three  interpretations,  but  the  entire 
content  of  each  will  be  reinterpreted  by  both  the  others.  The  sceptic, 
for  instance,  can  not,  without  self-stultification,  without  the  tacit  ad- 
mission of  the  inadequacy  of  his  philosophy,  recognize  the  possibility 
of  a  separate  history  of  scepticism.  He  must  sweep  into  his  historical 
net  the  positive  teachings  of  the  idealist  thinkers ;  he  must  be  able  to 
assign  a  value  to  the  mystical  temperament,  and  to  assimilate  the  re- 
sults of  the  so-called  positive  sciences.  In  other  words,  his  history 
must  be  a  history  of  philosophy  as  a  whole.  Thus  the  type  of  system 
which  a  philosopher  propounds  determines,  and  is.  determined  by  the 
interpretation  given  to  the  history  of  philosophy.  Only  in  propor- 
tion as  he  consciously  realizes  this,  does  he  look  before  and  after, 
and  show  the  philosophic  mind.  And  if  we  may  argue  not  only  from 
the  past  to  the  future,  but  from  the  character  of  the  present  situation 
to  the  remedy  for  its  confusions  and  defects,  surely  we  may  conclude 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          707 

that  no  one  of  the  three  standpoints  has  yet  outlived  its  usefulness. 
Would  not  the  liberality  of  thought  and  the  progressiveness  of  phi- 
losophy be  seriously  endangered  if  only  one  of  the  three  were  to  be 
permanently  suppressed,  or  were  no  longer  able  to  gain  supporters 
willing  to  yield  to  it  their  whole-hearted  devotion? 

My  position  may  be  further  developed  by  reference  to  the  influ- 
ence exercised  by  temperament.  That  this  is  very  considerable  can 
not  surely  be  questioned.  Frequently  it  is  of  an  entirely  legitimate 
and  beneficial  character,  tending  by  its  psychological  influence  to 
clarity  of  judgment.  A  pessimistic  temperament  may  render  a 
thinker  more  sensitive  to  the  facts  of  evil,  and  more  willing  to  recog- 
nize them  for  what  they  truly  are.  The  mystic 's  firm  personal  footing 
in  immediate  experience  may  conduce  to  a  more  acute  and  open- 
minded  recognition  of  radical  defects  in  the  mediating  labors  of 
idealist  thinkers.  No  doubt  in  both  cases  the  advantage  will  be 
counterbalanced  by  corresponding  limitations  which  the  tempera- 
ment will  impose ;  but  that  need  not  prevent  us  from  recognizing  the 
quite  invaluable  role  which  it  frequently  plays. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  recognize  the  psychological  value  of  varying 
temperaments;  it  is  quite  another  to  view  them  as  justifying  the 
conclusions  to  which  they  may  lead.  Philosophy  is  an  enterprise  no 
less  purely  intellectual  than  science  itself.  In  dealing  with  the  im- 
mediate experiences  of  religion,  of  art,  and  of  social  and  individual 
life,  it  must  aim  exclusively  at  theoretical  interpretation.  Such  feel- 
ings can  be  reckoned  with  only  in  proportion  as  they  are  found  to 
possess  some  cognitive  significance.  Even  if  we  might  assume  that 
the  various  temperaments  tend  to  generate  specific  types  of  philos- 
ophy, it  would  still  have  to  be  recognized  that  each  must  justify  its 
preference  by  arguments  that  can  be  intellectually  tested.  But  any 
such  assumption  is  surely  contrary  to  all  experience.  Is  there  any 
respectable  type  of  philosophical  system  which  may  not  afford  ade- 
quate scope  for  all  possible  temperaments?  The  Marxian  socialist  is 
frequently  mystical  and  idealistic  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  material- 
istic creed;  and  many  idealists  are  of  the  exclusively  logical  cast  of 
mind.  And  as  a  rule  temperament,  it  would  seem,  chiefly  displays 
itself  in  some  such  manner.  It  does  not  so  much  determine  the  type 
of  system  adopted,  as  lend  to  it  the  emotional  atmosphere  in  which  it 
is  suffused. 

The  really  fundamental  reason  why  equally  competent  philosoph- 
ical thinkers  may  arrive  at  diametrically  opposite  results  is  not,  I 
believe,  to  be  looked  for  in  temperament,  but  rather  in  the  complex- 
ity of  the  problems,  and  in  the  limitations  which  personal  experience, 
necessarily  incomplete  and  differing  from  one  individual  to  another, 
imposes  upon  us.  Owing  to  the  multiplicity  of  the  elements  which 


708  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

we  are  called  upon  to  coordinate,  omission  of  certain  factors  and  the 
distribution  of  emphasis  among  those  that  are  retained,  are  all-im- 
portant in  determining  the  outcome.  This,  of  course,  affords  tem- 
perament its  supreme  opportunity.  But  in  ultimate  analysis  it  is 
not  temperament  itself,  but  the  complexity  of  the  data  that  makes 
this  situation  possible  at  all.  And  the  sole  escape  from  the  perverting 
influence  of  subjectivity  lies  in  progressive  intellectual ization  of  the 
experiences  which  generate  and  support  it.  Recognition  of  tempera- 
ment as  a  universally  present  and  subtly  illusive  psychological  influ- 
ence does  not  in  any  wise  conflict  with  the  ideal  demand  for  a  rigorous 
enforcement  of  impersonal  standards. 

If  thinkers  can  sincerely  differ  in  such  radical  fashion,  ought  we 
not  rather  to  argue  that  the  material  which  awaits  scientific  treat- 
ment, and  which  meantime  can  only  allow  of  the  tentative  insight 
that  we  call  philosophy,  must  be  extraordinarily  rich  in  significant 
data,  and  must  on  fuller  knowledge  yield  conclusions  that  will  im- 
mensely deepen  and  greatly  revolutionize  our  present  theories  ? 

The  criticisms  passed  upon  current  systems  for  their  lack  of  agree- 
ment would  apply  equally  well  to  the  pre-Socratic  philosophers,  and 
yet,  arbitrary  as  their  conflicting  views  may  at  first  sight  seem,  there 
is  surely  no  more  fascinating  period  in  the  whole  history  of  human 
thought.  For  we  there  find  truth  in  its  manifold  aspects  coming  to 
its  own  through  the  devious  channels  of  opposing  minds.  The  pre- 
Socratics  cooperated  through  their  very  diversity  more  fruitfully 
than  they  could  possibly  have  done  had  they  all  belonged  within  a 
single  school.  What  is  purely  arbitrary,  merely  temperamental,  due 
to  ignorance  or  confusion,  is  gradually  eliminated,  while  the  really 
fruitful  problems  and  the  truly  helpful  methods  are  retained  and 
developed. 

The  willing  acceptance  by  the  individual  of  mutually  irrecon- 
cilable beliefs,  *.  e.,  pluralism  within  the  individual  mind,  is  the 
"happy  despatch"  of  philosophy.  The  cooperative  pluralism  of 
divergent  thinkers  may,  on  the  other  hand,  prove  its  salvation. 
Though  logical  consistency  is  a  far  from  reliable  guide  in  the  affairs 
of  life,  it  must  none  the  less  be  accepted  as  a  universally  valid  cri- 
terion of  truth.  The  only  field  of  legitimate  pluralism  lies  outside 
the  individual  mind  in  the  sphere  of  historical  development,  and  in 
the  encouragement  in  our  present-day  thinking  of  everything  that 
favors  individual  reaction.  For  we  have  to  recognize  that  while 
mutual  agreement  may  perhaps  be  the  ultimate  goal,  it  can  not 
reasonably  be  looked  for  in  the  near  future.  The  situation  does  not 
allow  of  it.  Should  it  come  about,  by  the  tyranny  (it  could  be  noth- 
ing else)  of  a  dominant  school,  such  as  that  of  the  Hegelian  philos- 
ophy in  Germany  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  phi- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          709 

losophy  itself  would  cease  to  fulfill  its  critical  function,  and 
the  scientific  philistine  would  deserve,  for  the  greater  good  of  his 
generation,  again  to  reign  supreme.  When  experts  in  science  con- 
trive to  be  of  one  mind,  benefits  result  to  society  at  large ;  but  when 
metaphysicians  consent  to  agree,  philosophy  may  safely  be  counted 
as  being  on  the  decline.  Science  is  able  to  discover  more  or  less  final 
truth,  and  so  all  scientists  may  unite  to  voice  a  common  rejoicing; 
but  philosophy  with  its  merely  tentative  and  always  inadequate 
formulations  must  regard  each  step  forward  as  a  challenge  for 
criticism,  and  as  a  call  for  counter-emphasis  upon  omitted  facts.  The 
duty  of  scientists  is  to  arrive  at  mutual  agreement  upon  fundamen- 
tals; the  best  service  which  one  philosopher  can  do  another  is  to 
supply  effective  and  damaging  criticism.  No  doubt  such  a  mode  of 
statement  exaggerates  the  differences.  But  it  is  these  that  seem  to 
me  chiefly  relevant. 

I  do  not  wish  to  argue  against  the  formation  of  groups  or  schools. 
Thinkers  tend  to  group  themselves  according  to  affinities.  In  the  diffi- 
cult task  of  developing  a  novel  theory  against  the  damaging  on- 
slaughts of  ingenious  and  forceful  opponents  who  will  always  have 
the  advantage  of  deriving  ready-made  weapons  from  the  armory  of 
established  and  therefore  more  fully  elaborated  philosophies,  the  sym- 
pathetic backing  of  an  understanding  group  is  certainly  a  helpful  and 
legitimate  support.  But  such  agreement  does  not,  I  think,  require  to 
be  artificially  fostered.  It  comes  about  of  itself,  and  frequently  in 
the  most  unlocked  for  fashion.  When  consciously  sought,  as  it  was  in 
France  under  Cousin 's  domination  of  university  teaching,  it  may  all 
too  easily  prove  dangerously  harmful.  Even  when  more  or  less  uni- 
fied groups  exist,  a  member  of  one  group  may  learn  more  from  the 
members  of  opposed  groups  than  from  those  of  his  own  school. 

Science,  Bacon  has  declared,  is  a  discipline  in  humility  of  mind. 
But  surely  philosophy  is  so  in  even  greater  degree.  It  is  not  gre- 
garious like  science — not  even  in  conferences,  for  we  meet  only  to 
learn  from  our  mutual  differences.  Philosophy  still  pursues,  in  tenor 
of  its  ancient  ways,  a  life  solitary  and  itinerant,  devoted  to  problems 
which  may  be  illusive  and  refractory,  but  which  seem  to  it  to  make 
up  by  centrality  of  interest  for  anything  they  may  lack  in  definite- 
ness  of  detail  or  in  finality  of  statement.  We  here  find  one  of  the 
most  striking  manifestations  of  the  influence  of  temperament.  The 
scientist  has  a  liking  for  the  one  type  of  problem,  the  philosopher  for 
the  other.  May  both  continue  to  flourish  to  their  mutual  benefit! 
Probably  the  best  aid  to  the  their  mutual  understanding  lies  in  a 
frank  canvassing  of  what  in  the  present  situation  would  seem  to  be 
their  ineradicable  differences. 

This  indicates  my  answer  to  the  last  of  the  questions  in  the  dis- 


710 

cussion  programme.  The  point  of  view  which  inspired  the  elaborate 
organization  of  last  year's  discussion  seems  to  me  to  involve  an  im- 
possible ignoring  of  the  radical  differences  between  scientific  and 
philosophical  inquiry.  Though  both  interesting  and  valuable  as  an 
experiment,  it  seemed  to  me,  on  trial,  to  have  proved  self-defeating. 
That  did  not  happen  through  any  fault  of  the  committee  on  defini- 
tions; their  difficult  task  was,  I  think,  most  admirably  executed. 
But  the  initial  agreement  which  they  sought  to  establish  was  really 
impossible.  Science  may  start  from  agreed  principles  and  defined 
terms,  since  it  has  behind  it  a  body  of  universally  accepted  knowl- 
edge from  which  such  principles  and  definitions  may  be  obtained. 
But  it  is  just  upon  the  question  of  how  to  define  ultimate  terms  that 
all  our  philosophical  disputes  really  turn.  Such  imitation  of  scien- 
tific procedure  would  therefore  seem  to  be  altogether  impossible. 
The  formulations  given,  whether  of  terms  or  of  postulates,  have  to  be 
lacking  in  precision  in  order  to  allow  of  use  by  differing  disputants. 
And  being  indefinite  they  are  ambiguous,  and  so  defeat  the  very  pur- 
pose for  which  they  are  formulated. 

The  committee's  discussion  programme  for  the  coming  meeting 
seems  better  calculated  to  achieve  the  purposes  which  our  Association 
has  in  view.  It  does  not  assume  that  we  can  start  from  points  of 
agreement ;  it  aims  only  at  better  mutual  understanding  of  our  points 
of  difference,  in  the  hope  that  we  may — for  such  is  in  almost  all  cases 
the  sole  outcome  of  friendly  discussion  on  such  fundamental  topics — 
thereafter  be  more  clear  minded  in  regard  to  our  own  tenets,  and 
better  appreciative  of  the  more  inward  aspects  of  our  opponents  posi- 

1 1  can  not  resist  quoting  the  following  passage  from  the  President-elect  'a 
"Constitutional  Government"  (p.  104):  "Many  a  radical  programme  may  get 
what  will  seem  to  be  almost  general  approval  if  you  listen  only  to  those  who 
know  that  they  will  not  have  to  handle  the  perilous  matter  of  action  and  to 
those  who  have  merely  formed  an  independent,  that  is,  an  isolated  opinion,  and 
have  not  entered  into  common  counsel;  but  you  will  seldom  find  a  deliberative 
assembly  acting  half  so  radically  as  its  several  members  professed  themselves 
ready  to  act  before  they  came  together  into  one  place  and  talked  the  matter 
over  and  contrived  statutes.  It  is  not  that  they  lose  heart  or  prove  unfaithful  to 
the  promises  made  on  the  stump.  They  have  really  for  the  first  time  laid  their 
minds  alongside  other  minds  of  different  views,  of  different  experience,  of  dif- 
ferent prepossessions.  They  have  seen  the  men  with  whom  they  differ,  face  to 
face,  and  have  come  to  understand  how  honestly  and  with  what  force  of  genuine 
character  and  disinterested  conviction,  or  with  what  convincing  array  of  prac- 
tical arguments  opposite  views  may  be  held.  They  have  learned  more  than  any 
one  man  could  beforehand  have  known.  Common  counsel  is  not  aggregate 
counsel.  It  is  not  a  sum  in  addition,  counting  heads.  It  is  compounded  out  of 
many  views  in  actual  contact;  it  is  a  living  thing  made  out  of  the  vital  substance 
of  many  minds,  many  personalities,  many  experiences;  and  it  can  be  made  up 
only  by  the  vital  contacts  of  actual  conference,  only  in  face  to  face  debate,  only 
by  word  of  mouth  and  the  direct  clash  of  mind  with  mind." 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          711 

tions.3  Our  purpose  is  increased  understanding  of  what  are  almost 
certain  to  continue  to  be  our  lines  of  divergence,  and  not  what,  as  I 
have  argued,  would  under  present  conditions  be  a  most  undesirable 
consummation,  mutual  conversion  to  a  common  standpoint.  Recipro- 
cal enlightenment  is  surely  more  likely  to  descend  upon  us  when  each 
uses  his  terms  in  the  individual  manner  that  most  naturally  expresses 
the  trend  of  his  thought. 

NORMAN  KEMP  SMITH. 
PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY. 


IS  AGREEMENT  DESIRABLE? 

fT^HE  first  question  for  debate  before  the  Philosophical  Association 
-*•  this  season  is  more  properly  settled  in  print  than  on  the  floor. 
For  the  eye  follows  its  discussion  more  readily  than  does  the  ear,  in- 
asmuch as  the  issue  is  one  of  pure  logical  analysis,  not  one  of  inter- 
pretation or  discovery.  I  should  therefore  prefer  to  speak  of  it  here 
and  reserve  my  allotted  minutes  before  the  Association  for  the  wider, 
more  matter-of-fact  questions  with  which  it  is  concerned. 

"Is  continuous  progress  toward  unanimity  among  philosophers 
on  the  more  fundamental  philosophical  issues  desirable?"  So  runs 
the  query.  And  it  bewilders  me  not  a  little.  I  am  unable  to  regard 
it  as  a  genuine  interrogation,  and  for  the  following  reasons. 

The  question  is  sensible,  only  if  the  desirability  it  asks  about  is 
not  esthetic  desirability  but  moral.  "Desirable"  here  can  not  mean 
' '  appetizing  "  or  "  agreeable, ' '  for  that  would  reduce  the  prospective 
debate  to  a  mere  census-taking  of  likes  and  dislikes.  The  discussion 
would  be  exactly  as  absurd  as  one  over  the  pleasing  flavor  of  sauer- 
kraut. No,  the  real,  the  intended  significance  of  the  question  must 
be  this : ' '  Does  unanimity  prove  valuable,  after  all  relevant  facts  have 
been  weighed?"  In  other  words,  we  have  to  do  here  with  a  moral 
problem,  not  with  personal  taste  or  mere  immediate  reactions. 

Now,  I  suppose  that  nobody  will  deny  that  agreement  on  all  ordi- 
nary moral  problems  is  highly  desirable.  Where  there  is  no  accord, 
the  people  perish.  For  the  issues  of  society,  large  and  small,  are  such 
that  united  decision,  followed  by  united  action,  is  indispensable. 
Customs,  traditions,  manners,  laws,  and  governmental  institutions 
are  but  so  many  devices  for  bringing  to  pass,  executing,  and  main- 
taining cooperations  in  thinking  and  acting.  And  they  are  necessar- 
ily such,  because  men  live  perforce  in  communities  and,  living  thus, 
wish  to  thrive  in  comfortable  peace,  which  they  can  do  only  by  think- 
ing out  many  difficult  matters  together  and  reaching  a  common  con- 
clusion. They  can  not  trust  either  their  impulsive  personal  reactions 


712  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

or  their  personal  encounters  with  other  men  or  their  private  reason- 
ing about  affairs  which  they  contemplate  only  from  their  private 
points  of  view. 

How  foolish,  then,  would  he  appear  who  sought  to  discuss  whether 
agreement  on  the  tax  rate,  or  on  child  labor,  or  on  the  prevention  of 
tuberculosis,  or  on  public  school  appropriations  were  desirable!  In 
honesty,  there  is  no  such  question,  once  you  admit  that  the  prob- 
lems are  there  awaiting  discussion.  It  is  sheer  nonsense  to  ask 
whether  agreement  over  the  tax  rate,  for  instance,  is  worth  while: 
For  this  very  question  presupposes  that  there  is  a  tax  rate  problem, 
and  the  proposition  that  there  is  a  tax  rate  problem  presupposes  a 
social  order,  citizens,  public  expenses,  and  the  obligation  to  defray 
the  expenses.  And  in  this  last  presupposed  situation  there  is  con- 
tained the  necessity  of  solving  the  problem  by  some  sort  of  social  en- 
terprise, which,  however  its  specific  form  may  vary  under  varying 
circumstances,  is  in  every  instance  some  sort  of  cooperative  thinking 
and  acting. 

To  all  this  most  philosophers  will  give  ready  assent.  But  they  will 
add:  "What  has  it  all  to  do  with  the  question  under  debate?" 
Agreement  over  the  tax  rate  is  all  very  good,  we  shall  be  told;  but 
agreement  over  the  status  of  concepts  or  over  the  existence  of  gods 
or  devils  is  a  very  different  matter.  The  fundamental  metaphysical 
issues  lie  in  a  realm  alien  to  tax  rates,  and  the  solving  of  them  is  a 
matter  of  impression,  temperament,  point  of  view.  Agreement  over 
them  is  either  an  idle  hope,  or,  if  attainable,  then  profitless.  But,  I 
would  inquire,  can  this  opinion  be  defended  by  appeal  to  fact?  Or 
is  it  prohibited  by  the  very  presuppositions  of  the  alleged  question 
in  connection  with  which  the  doctrine  is  advanced?  An  inspection 
of  these  presuppositions  may  help  us  choose  between  the  queries. 

When  we  ask  whether  progress  toward  unanimity  on  fundamental 
philosophical  issues  is  desirable,  our  question  is,  of  course,  material, 
not  formal.  That  is,  it  expresses  a  doubt  concerning  a  matter  of 
fact,  and  the  doubted  matter  of  fact  is  indicated  in  and  presupposed 
by  the  question  itself.  Now,  what  does  this  matter  of  fact  contain? 
And  what  does  it  presuppose?  Well,  it  either  contains  or  presup- 
poses (1)  certain  doubts,  (2)  certain  doubters,  and  (3)  certain  mat- 
ters which,  with  relation  to  certain  basic  relations  (such  as  those  em- 
ployed in  metaphysical  explanations),  are  more  fundamental  than 
certain  other  (here  indesignate)  matters.  And  this  last  matter  in 
turn  presupposes  that  some  matters  are  fundamental  philosoph- 
ically. Omit  any  one  of  these  presuppositions,  and  the  original  ques- 
tion loses  all  meaning.  What,  for  example,  is  the  sense  of  asking 
whether  agreement  on  any  topic  is  desirable,  if  there  are  no  doubts 
about  it?  What  if  there  are  no  doubters?  What  if  we  do  not  as- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          713 

sume  that  there  are  fundamental  philosophical  issues?  I  take  it, 
then,  that  the  Discussion  Committee — like  myself  and,  I  trust,  like 
most  other  persons — assumes  that  there  are  doubters  doubting  about 
certain  fundamental  issues.  But  what  follows  upon  these  presuppo- 
sitions? First  and  most  disastrous,  follows  the  implication  that  the 
question  thus  construed  allows  of  no  debate. 

Consider  what  the  presupposed  existence  of  philosophic  doubts 
implies  materially.  A  doubt  regarding  any  matter  carries  with  it 
(not  in  mere  logic,  but  in  real  life)  the  desirability  of  the  doubt's 
annihilation.  No  demonstration  can  be  adduced  to  strengthen  this 
statement.  The  undesirability  of  doubt  is  a  psychological  axiom,  just 
as  the  undesirability  of  pain  is.  It  is  an  ultimate  condition  of  life, 
and  every  human  being  is  well  aware  of  the  fact.  Before  dwelling 
upon  this,  though,  I  must  call  attention  again  to  the  two  meanings  of 
' '  desirable ' '  and  warn  the  reader  that  doubt  is  undesirable  primarily 
in  the  weaker  sense  of  the  adjective;  that  is,  it  is  immediately,  un- 
reflectively  undesirable,  just  as  a  color  is  immediately  pleasant  or 
sugar  immediately  sweet.  Considered  by  itself,  a  doubt  is  something 
to  be  rid  of ;  and  to  ask  whether  it  is  worth  removing,  is  to  utter  an 
absurdity,  if  we  are  talking  about  the  immediate  undesirability.  One 
might  as  well  ask  whether  blue  is  a  visible  thing.  In  the  higher  and 
ethical  connotation  of  desirability,  though,  a  particular  doubt  may 
or  may  not  be  desirable ;  and  the  question  about  it  is  therefore  justi- 
fied. For,  when  we  put  the  ethical  query,  we  ask  whether  the  re- 
moval of  the  doubt  is  going  to  involve  the  loss  of  something  still  more 
desirable  than  the  clear  cognizing  of  the  doubted  matter.  Here, 
plainly,  we  are  confronted  with  a  problem  of  fact,  and  one  which  fre- 
quently proves  intricate  and  obscure. 

Now,  as  we  had  to  construe  the  committee's  original  question  as 
one  which  refers  to  just  this  ethical  desirability  and  not  at  all  to  the 
mere  esthetic  flavor  of  philosophical  agreement,  we  are  at  last  in  a 
position  to  see  the  difficulties  of  debating  the  topic.  We  are  asked  to 
decide  whether  agreement  is  desirable,  but  we  are  not  informed  of 
the  particular  alternative  which  is  forced  upon  us.  We  have  re- 
ceived no  hint  as  to  the  nature  of  the  conflict  which  generates  the 
issue  itself.  We  are  forced,  though,  to  presuppose  that  there  is  such 
a  conflict,  that  there  are  alternatives,  and  that  they  are  mutually 
exclusive.  For  were  there  no  conflict  between  desirable  things,  no- 
body could  reasonably  ask  whether  any  act  or  condition  or  possession 
or  habit  that  was  liked  immediately  was  desirable.  For  the  moral 
issue  is  a  question  of  preferences,  and  there  is  a  question  of  prefer- 
ences in  the  moral  sense  only  when  the  attaining  of  one  immediately 
desirable  thing  excludes  the  attaining  of  another.  If  this  were  not 


714  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  case,  there  could  be  no  genuine  (jufstion,  inasmuch  as  all  recipro- 
cnHy  compatible  desirables  are  collectively  desirable. 

We  must  seek,  therefore,  the  incompatible  alternatives  which  the 
committee  has  not  designated.  Judging  from  the  entire  context  of 
the  proposed  debate,  I  am  led  to  believe  the  query  should  be  stated  as 
follows:  "Is  progress  toward  unanimity  more  desirable  than  ex- 
clusively individual  research?"  And  the  assumption  is  that  an  ad- 
vance toward  unanimity  is  incompatible  with  individual  research.  If 
this  is  the  assumption,  one  of  two  meanings  may  be  placed  upon  it. 
It  may  mean  that  progress  toward  unanimity  prevents  individuals 
from  thinking  clearly  and  progressively.  Or  it  may  mean  that  indi- 
vidual thinking  prevents  progress  toward  unanimity.  Which  inter- 
pretation shall  we  choose,  as  a  basis  for  the  proposed  discussion  T 

Certainly,  every  man  who  accepts  the  second  presupposition  must 
do  so  only  on  the  strength  of  some  still  deeper  metaphysical  presup- 
position concerning  the  natural  limitations  of  individual  knowledge. 
He  must  hold  that,  in  the  very  nature  of  cognition,  there  is  some 
twist  or  whorl  which  marks  off  each  mind's  personal  achievements 
from  those  of  every  other.  If  he  does  not  assume  this,  he  must  either 
(a)  assume  the  other  alternative,  or  else  (6)  deny  that  the  alleged 
alternatives  are  incompatible,  thereby  denying  that  there  is  any 
question  as  to  desirability.  If  he  chooses  the  latter  course,  there  is 
no  debate.  Now  let  us  suppose  that  he  goes  the  other  way.  What 
then?  He  must  make  another  assumption  about  the  nature  of  in- 
dividual cognition.  He  must  assume  that  one  man's  reasoning  dis- 
turbs his  fellows — not  accidentally,  as  through  some  mere  misun- 
derstanding over  words  or  intents,  but  intrinsically  in  the  very 
operation  of  comparing  notes  and  arguing  together.  But  obviously 
whoever  assumes  that  assumes  debate  to  be  impossible;  for  debate  is, 
by  definition,  an  exchange  and  parrying  of  different  men's  opinions 
over  a  single  subject  some  of  whose  propositions  have  been  agreed  upon. 
Men  who  differ  completely  on  a  subject  can  not  debate  that.  They 
must  at  least  come  together  in  some  one  proposition  concerning  it,  in 
order  to  fix  a  common  universe  of  discourse. 

Does  it  not  follow,  then,  that  no  debate  on  the  committee's  first 
question  is  logically  possible  ?  For  we  have  seen  that  desirability  be- 
comes an  issue  only  when  a  choice  is  forced  between  incompatible 
goods;  and  we  have  also  seen  that,  by  assuming  agreement  and  in- 
dividual study  to  be  incompatibles,  we  are  driven  into  one  of  two 
metaphysical  presuppositions  about  the  inevitable  limits  of  cognitive 
effort ;  and  each  of  these  presuppositions  makes  debate  impossible  for 
him  who  accepts  the  presupposition. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  state  my  point  in  another,  less  exact  but 
possibly  more  readily  intelligible  form.  There  is  no  sanity  in  asking 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          715 

whether  agreement  on  a  given  problem  is  desirable,  unless  the  prob- 
lem exists.  For  without  the  problem,  agreement  is  neither  wished 
nor  unwished,  neither  good  nor  ill,  neither  consequential  nor  futile. 
Therefore,  the  Discussion  Committee  must  raise  the  prior  question 
for  debate ;  it  must,  in  its  first  query,  mean  to  ask  us  whether  there 
are  any  fundamental  philosophical  issues  or  not.  And  we  who  dis- 
cuss should  address  ourselves  to  the  novel  task  of  deciding  whether 
there  is  a  problem  of  the  concept,  or  a  problem  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  or  a  problem  of  God,  or  a  problem  of  the  relation  of  mind 
to  body,  or  a  problem  of  the  status  and  function  of  perception.  If  all 
these  do  exist ;  if,  that  is  to  say,  each  one  of  them  is  a  certain  matter 
of  fact  which  men  have  not  yet  come  to  understand,  then  the  desira- 
bility of  men's  agreeing  upon  them  is  self-evident.  But  if  there  are 
no  such  issues  at  all — well,  that  is  another  story  which  only  those  who 
believe  it  should  tell. 

WALTER  B.  PITKIN. 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY. 


AGREEMENT 

THE  "task  of  philosophy"  may  indeed  be  infinite;  hide  whoever 
may  behind  this  pretext,  no  "science"  urges  its  infinitude  as 
an  excuse  for  lack  of  agreement  amongst  its  workers.  Is  agreement 
desirable  ?  De  gustibus,  etc.  It  would  be  better  to  ask :  how  much 
agreement  is  necessary?  We  of  to-day  are  in  a  transition  period, 
and  I,  for  one,  believe  that  the  change  in  our  philosophic  thinking 
will  be  revolutionary.  This  makes  any  form  of  agreement  more  diffi- 
cult, but  also  more  tempting,  more  urgent. 

Those  who  think  a  philosophical  platform  both  "desirable  and 
possible ' '  do  not  look  for  merely  implicit  agreement :  they  are  trying 
to  make  such  agreement  explicit.  But  they  do  not  mean  that  every- 
body should  agree  with  everybody  else ;  nor  that  there  should  be  com- 
plete agreement  on  all  questions;  nor  that  propositions  on  which  an 
agreement  has  been  reached  should,  forever  after,  be  exempt  from 
the  tooth  of  time.  We  do  not  mean  to  stem  the  flux  of  time,  to  stop 
the  growth  of  living  thought ;  neither  does  the  mathematician,  nor  the 
physicist. 

There  is  a  certain  modicum  of  agreement,  below  which  we  can  not 
fall  and  still  discuss  at  meetings,  agree  or  disagree. 

(a)  There  must  be  certain  common  problems.  If  my  problem  is 
nobody  else's  problem,  I  might  as  profitably  go  into  the  wilderness 
and  discourse  with  wolves  and  foxes.  If  our  statements  do  not  lie  in 


716  TEE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

the  realm  of  the  same  problem,  our  arguments  neither  agree  nor  dis- 
agree,— they  are  irrelevant  to  each  other. 

(6)  It  is  not  necessary  that  our  solutions  of  the  same  problem 
should  be  identical;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  much  better  that  they 
should  not;  but  they  should  be  equivalent  with  respect  to  truth. 

(c)  How  is  this  possible  unless  there  is  a  common  set  of  criteria 
by  which  the  solutions  are  to  be  judged  f    It  is  not  the  definition  of 
truth  which  matters  primarily,  but  the  criteria  of  truth. 

(d)  Such  a  set  of  criteria  requires,  I  believe,  that  the  solution  be 
of  a  definite  type,  i.  e.,  that  there  be  agreement  on  the  structure  of 
the  solution. 

This  modicum  of  agreement  does  not  commit  one  to  any  "school 
of  philosophy." 

We  may  to-day  go  further,  I  think,  than  this:  an  agreement  on 
method  seems  quite  possible. 

The  whole  platform  question  has  been  put  in  a  new  light  by  the 
appearance  of  the  platform  of  the  Six  Realists,  elaborated  in  their 
book  "The  New  Realism."  A  discussion  of  the  platform  idea  must 
lead  to  a  discussion  of  this  notable  example  of  cooperation  amongst 
philosophers. 

On  many  points  I  find  myself  in  substantial  agreement  with  the 
Neo-Realists.  We  seem  to  differ  on  a  point  of  method .  I  say  ' '  seem, ' ' 
because  I  believe  that  our  positions  here  are  complementary  rather 
than  exclusive  of  each  other. 

The  Neo-Realists  consider  analysis  as  the  prime  method  of  exact 
thinking,  sometimes  even  identifying  the  two.  Analysis  treats  the 
problematic  as  a  "complex"  which  it  dissolves  into  the  "simples" 
and  their  relations. 

In  its  application  to  logical  complexes  (and  these  are  the  ones  of 
particular  interest  to  the  philosopher)  this  method  produces  the  il- 
lusion that  the  "simples"  of  a  given  "complex"  are  uniquely  de- 
termined, i.  e.,  that  there  are  certain  "iwdefinables"  and  certain  "in- 
demonstrables "  into  which  concepts  and  propositions  ultimately 
resolve. 

And  it  is  insufficient;  it  shows  that  certain  "simples"  are  present 
in  a  "complex";  but  it  does  not  itself  show  that  these  "simples" 
exhaust  the  "complex." 

Analysis,  as  the  "careful,  systematic  and  exhaustive  examination 
of  any  topic  of  discourse"  is  a  necessary  preliminary;  and  much  of 
our  philosophizing  to-day  can  not  get  beyond  this  stage ;  but  logic  at 
least  has  proceeded  to  the  second  stage,  the  synthesis,  in  which  the 
"complex"  is  constructed  out  of  certain  "simples." 

This  "postulate-method"  is  the  necessary  complement  of  the 
analytical  method.  It  shows  that  "simples"  are  such  only  in  a  given 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          717 

system;  that  what  is  a  "simple"  in  one  system  may  be  a  "complex" 
in  another,  and  vice  versa.  It  discards  the  criterion  of  "self -evi- 
dence." And  it  shows  that  many  solutions  of  a  given  problem  are 
possible;  many  systems  of  logic.  But  vera  philosophia  unaf 

KARL  SCHMIDT. 
TUFTS  COLLEGE. 


EEVIEWS  AND  ABSTRACTS  OF  LITERATURE 

Die  Philosophic  des  Als  Ob.  System  der  theoretischen,  praTctischen  und 
religiosen  Fiktionen  der  Menschheit  auf  Grand  eines  idealistischen 
Positivismus.  Mit  einem  Anhang  uber  Kant  und  Nietzsche.  H. 
VAIHINGER.  Berlin :  Verlag  von  Reuther  &  Reichard.  1911.  Pp.  xxxv 
+  804. 

This  important  book,  written  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  but  not  pub- 
lished until  last  year,  when  the  author  suddenly  realized  the  kinship 
between  his  radical  views  and  other  revolutionary  tendencies  in  recent 
philosophy,  such  as  neo-Fichtean  voluntarism,  radical  empiricism,  prag- 
matism, Bergsonianism, — might  well  claim  to  be  called,  as  its  full  title 
indicates,  a  critique  of  human  reason.     One  may  agree  or  not  with  Pro- 
fessor Vaihinger,  but  there  is  little  possibility  of  misunderstanding  a 
philosophy  whose  presuppositions  are  so  clearly  formulated.     They  may 
be  summarized  as  follows :  (1)  All  the  reality  that  we  are  justified  in  as- 
suming are  sensations  and  their  complexes   (empiricism) ;   (2)   thought 
and  being  are  not  identical, — the  former  is  but  an  organic  function  and 
has  merely  instrumental  value  (pragmatism) ;  (3)  thought,  serving  only 
as  a  means  to  the  individual  for  the  better  orientation  in  the  sensational 
flux,  general  terms  must  be  regarded  as  having  no  other  than  a  practical 
value  (nominalism  and  anti-intellectualism) .    From  these  points  of  view 
Vaihinger  develops  the  theory  that  all  concepts,  laws,  and  theories  are 
merely  fictions.     Fictions,  in  Vaihinger's  usage,  are  not  identical  with 
figments,  such  as  centaur  or  fairy,  nor  are  they  hypotheses  capable  of 
verification.     They  are  deliberate  devices   (Kunstgriffe)   on  the  part  of 
thought  for  the  practical  purpose  of  successful  orientation  in  and  perfect 
control  over  the  environment.    Theoretically  they  are  absolutely  valueless. 
Applied  with  a  knowledge  of  their  fictitious  character,  they  will  lead  to 
the  intended  practical  results,  but  used  as  hypotheses,  they  must  neces- 
sarily create  confusion  and  false  theories,  for  a  fiction  is  defined  as  that 
which  is  both  contradictory  in  itself  and  which  has  no  correspondence  with 
reality  (sensational  flux). 

To  illustrate  the  nature  of  fictions,  Professor  Vaihinger  has  collected 
examples  from  various  fields  of  thought.  Many  illustrations  taken  from 
mathematics  will  be  regarded  by  modern  investigators  as  antiquated,  but 
those  borrowed  from  other  realms  are  certainly  impressive.  Dichotomous 
artificial  divisions  of  nature  (organic  and  inorganic,  animate  and  inani- 
mate, etc.) ;  the  Linnsean  or  other  classifications  of  plants ;  over-simplifi- 


718  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

cation,  excessive  abstraction,  and  over  complication  of  the  real  world  by 
all  sciences;  analogies  in  mathematics,  economics,  theology,  and  other 
fields;  hypostatic,  anthropomorphic,  and  animistic  scientific  concepts; 
ethical  postulates,  logical  principles,  and  epistemological  categories — all 
these  are  fictions  in  Vaihinger's  sense,  all  these  are  deliberately  artificial, 
mental  constructs  to  which  nothing  corresponds  in  reality  (sensational 
flux)  and  whose  sole  justification  lies  in  their  practical  usefulness. 

The  epistemological  lesson  which  Professor  Vaihinger  wishes  us  to 
draw  from  his  "  Fiction-Theory  "  is  this :  Knowledge  of  the  real  world  by 
means  of  categories  is  impossible,  since  all  categories  are  fictions,  and  dis- 
cursive thinking  consists  in  the  application  of  fictitious  static  concepts 
to  the  real  flux  of  sensations.  The  world  such  as  we  "  know  "  it  is  an 
interpretation,  but  an  interpretation  by  means  of  fictions.  But  although 
a  "  theory  "  of  the  universe  is  impossible,  for  the  sake  of  useful  and  suc- 
cessful action  certain  fictions  must  be  regarded  as  if  they  were  more  true 
than  others.  Truth  is  nothing  but  error  constantly  and  progressively  reg- 
ulated. Thought  with  its  complex  of  fictions  may  be  compared  to  the 
mechanism  of  a  machine.  The  ideal  is  to  do  the  greatest  possible  amount 
of  work  with  the  least  possible  amount  of  effort.  What  screws,  levers, 
pulleys,  planes,  and  the  like  are  to  mechanics,  fictions  are  to  thought.  As 
rational  beings  we  must  always  operate  with  them,  but  our  rationality 
consists  in  the  recognition  of  their  fictitiousness.  And  this,  according  to 
Vaihinger,  is  the  tragedy  of  life — to  live  and  to  act  as  if  fiction  were  theo- 
retically true. 

The  task  of  logic  is,  according  to  this  philosophy,  very  definite:  the 
study  of  the  relative  usefulness  of  fictions.  The  business  of  a  complete 
methodology  is  to  bring  order  into  the  shifting  fictions  which  humanity 
has  invented  in  its  struggle  with  the  sensational  flux,  to  classify  them,  to 
define  their  extent  and  limits,  to  assign  relative  values  to  them.  But  the 
logician  should  always  remember  that  logic  is  not  Selbstzweck;  beyond 
their  practical  value  all  logical  theories  and  systems  as  such  are  equally 
nil.  This  is  "  Critical  Positivism,"  as  Vaihinger  calls  his  "  theory,"  which 
he  interestingly  relates  to  Kant  and  to  Nietzsche. 

The  obvious  critical  comment  to  be  made  upon  this  philosophy  is  that 
its  presuppositions — unless  they  are  thrust  upon  us  dogmatically — de- 
mand a  theoretical  standard  for  their  justification.  The  equation  of  real- 
ity with  the  sensational  flux,  the  denial  of  theoretical  interests  for  their 
own  sake,  the  ascription  of  merely  instrumental  value  to  thinking  and 
ultimate,  or  at  least  prepotent,  value  to  acting — all  these  are  theoretical 
assumptions  which  presuppose  a  meta-practical  point  of  view  for  their 
acceptance  or  rejection.  Besides,  one  may  agree  with  the  spirit  of 
Vaihinger's  "  Fiction-Theory  "  without  being  forced  into  an  admission  of 
either  his  presuppositions  or  conclusions.  That  every  science,  because  it 
offers  a  mere  fragmentary  view  of  reality,  is  dealing  with  fictions;  that 
every  science  must  for  the  sake  of  its  practical  interests  regard  its  fictions 
as  if  they  were  true ;  that  scientific  truth  may  be  looked  upon  as  error  con- 
stantly regulated, — are  theses  equally,  indeed  more,  compatible  with  ideal- 
istic presuppositions  and  conclusions.  But  Vaihinger's  book,  though  both 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          719 

its  fundamental  assumptions  and  final  theses  may  be  rejected,  is  a  philo- 
sophic work  whose  importance  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate.  As  a  criti- 
cism of  science  it  is  an  extremely  significant  contribution  to  the  field  of 
methodology  and  as  an  exposition  of  pragmatism, — though  the  author 
repudiates  the  title  and  scornfully  identifies  American  pragmatism  with 
mere  utilitarianism, — it  is  the  only  coherent  and  systematic  expression  of 
this  "  new  name  for  some  old  ways  of  thinking." 

J.    LOEWENBERG. 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 


JOURNALS  AND  NEW  BOOKS 

MIND.  July,  1912.  On  Relations;  and  in  Particular  the  Cognitive 
Relation  (pp.  305-328):  S.  ALEXANDER.  -  As  to  relations  in  general, 
all  are  as  substantive  as  their  terms.  As  to  internality  and  externality, 
neither  alternative  is  strictly  true.  Knowing  is  the  togetherness  of  a 
mind  and  its  object.  This  relation  of  togetherness  is  extremely  elemen- 
tary and  simple.  It  is  experienced  in  "  my  enjoyment  of  the  perceiving." 
Notes  on  the  Problem  of  Time  (pp.  329-346)  :  J.  S.  MACKENZIE.  -  A  sum- 
ming up  of  the  main  results  of  recent  discussions  of  the  problems  of 
time.  The  results  are  stated  in  connection  with,  and  chiefly  in  contrast 
to,  Kant's  treatment  of  the  subject.  The  Analysis  of  'EIII2THMH  in 
Plato's  Seventh  Epistle  (pp.  347-370) :  A.  E.  TAYLOR.  -  Deals  with  the 
genuineness  of  a  disputed  passage  (342a,  344d)  in  Plato's  seventh  Epistle. 
Argues  that  "  the  whole  section  has  a  definite  purpose,  that  its  leading 
contentions  are  in  principle  sound."  Answers  the  charge  of  digression 
by  maintaining  the  relevancy  and  connection  of  the  passage  and  the 
charge  of  unintelligibility  by  translating  and  interpreting  the  passage. 
The  Ethical  System  of  Richard  Cumberland  and  its  Place  in  the  History 
of  British  Ethics  (pp.  371-398)  :  FRANK  CHAPMAN  SHARP.  -  It  is  main- 
tained that  the  ethical  system  of  Cumberland  is  "  one  of  the  three  or 
four  most  powerful  influences  in  the  history  of  British  ethics."  An 
account  of  the  system  is  given.  The  eighteenth-century  British  moralists 
were  profoundly  influenced  by  Clarke  and  Shaftesbury,  and  these  in 
turn,  it  is  held,  based  their  moral  systems  upon  the  writings  of  Cumber- 
land to  an  extent  hitherto  scarcely  suspected.  Discussions:  The  Nature 
of  Sense-Data  (pp.  399^09) :  G.  DAWES  HICKS.  -  An  examination  of  Mr. 
Bertrand  Russell's  view  of  sense-apprehension  as  set  forth  in  his  The 
Problems  of  Philosophy.  Euler's  Circles  and  Adjacent  Space  (pp.  410- 
415):  L.  E.  HICKS.  -  Points  out  the  difficulties  of  diagrammatic  methods 
in  Logic.  Critical  Notes:  B.  Bosanquet,  The  Principle  of  Individuality 
and  Value:  the  Gifford  Lectures  (Edinburgh)  for  1911:  J.  E.  McTAGGART. 
J.  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  or  Pluralism  and  Theism:  the  Gifford  Lec- 
tures (St.  Andrews)  delivered  1907-1910:  A.  E.  TAYLOR.  A.  E.  Taylor, 
Varia  Socratica,  First  Series:  H.  W.  BLUNT.  W.  Wells  Denton,  John 
Wesley  Young:  Lectures  on  Fundamental  Concepts  of  Algebra  and 


720  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Geometry:  P.  E.  B.  JOURDAIN.     New  Books.     Philosophical  Periodicals. 
Notes. 

Calkins,  Mary  W.  Persistent  Problems  of  Philosophy.  Third  revised 
edition.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1912.  Pp.  xvi  + 
677.  $2.60. 

Calkins,  Mary  W.     A  First  Book  in  Psychology.     Third  Revised  Edition. 

New  York :  The  Macmillan  Company.     1912.     Pp.  xix  -f-  426.     $1.90. 
Martin,  Ernest  G.     The  Measurement  of  Induction  Shocks.     New  York : 

John  Wiley  and  Sons.     1912.     Pp.  vii-f- 117.     $1.25. 
Martin,  Lillien  J.     Die  Projektionsmethode  und  die  Lokalisation  visueller 

und   anderer   Vorstellungsbilder.     Leipzig:    Verlag   von   Johann    A. 

Barth.     1912.     Pp.  231.     M.  6. 

Moore,  G.  E.  Ethics.  New  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Company.  1912. 
Pp.  v-f  256.  $0.50. 


NOTES  AND  NEWS 

LETTER  FROM  PROFESSOR  LOVEJOY 

To  THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  PSYCHOLOGY,  AND  SCIEN- 
TIFIC METHODS: 

In  a  review  in  a  recent  number  of  this  JOURNAL  reference  was  made 
by  me  to  "  the  imposture  in  the  pseudo-voluntarism  of  the  neo-Fichteans." 
It  appears  that  some  readers  have  understood  this  phrase  (a)  to  refer  to 
absolute  idealists  in  general;  (&)  to  impute  to  those  to  whom  it  referred 
some  sort  of  conscious  and  deliberate  deceit.  The  former  interpretation 
is,  I  believe,  expressly  excluded  by  the  language  of  the  paragraph  in 
which  the  phrase  occurred;  the  reference  was  plainly  to  a  more  limited 
school.  But  in  any  case,  the  word  "  imposture,"  since  it  doubtless  may 
convey  the  implication  mentioned,  should,  I  think,  be  withdrawn, — not 
only  as  "  unparliamentary,"  but  also  as  ill-chosen  to  convey  the  criticism 
intended.  My  purpose — since  I  am  not  a  neo-realist,  and  therefore  am 
not  so  well  acquainted  with  other  men's  minds  as  with  my  own — was  not 
to  dogmatize  concerning  the  intentions,  still  less  to  judge  of  the  motives, 
but  to  call  attention  to  the  actual  result  of  the  manner  of  expression 
employed  by  certain  philosophers.  The  inevitableness  of  that  result  does, 
indeed,  appear  to  me  so  clear  that  I  find  it  surprising  that  it  should  not 
be  clear  to  those  who  use  the  sort  of  language  which  is  in  question.  But 
I  have  no  ground  for  asserting  that  it  is  so,  or  for  denying  that  the 
writers  themselves  were  the  first  to  be  imposed  upon  by  their  own  rhetoric. 
And  even  if  that  result  has  been  in  some  degree  foreseen  by  some  of  the 
writers  criticized,  their  use  of  such  modes  of  expression  may  well  be,  and 
doubtless  is,  due  to  highly  honorable  and  amiable  motives:  to  an  irenic 
spirit  which  desires  to  maximize  agreement  with  the  prevailing  beliefs 
of  mankind;  to  a  temperamental  sympathy  with  those  beliefs;  or  to  a 
wish  to  put  philosophy  into  terms  that  make  for  religious  consolation  or 
moral  edification.  These  motives  have,  I  surmise,  greatly  influenced 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS          721 

many  of  the  most  earnest  and  sincere  philosophers,  who  have  at  the  same 
time  been  religiously-minded  or  irenically-disposed  philosophers,  through- 
out history.  But,  whatever  the  intent  or  the  native,  I  can  not  but  think 
a  use  of  language  which  gives  to  a  philosophical  system — even,  perhaps, 
in  the  eyes  of  its  author — an  air  of  meaning  something  not  identical  with 
its  precise  and  entire  logical  import,  is  an  unfortunate  use.  And  the 
tendency — to  which  all  of  us  are  in  some  degree  subject  in  philosophical 
writing — to  accommodate  common  terms  to  meanings  which  differ  in 
essence  from  the  common  meaning,  seems  to  me  to  be  in  the  long  run 
detrimental  to  the  credit  of  philosophy  as  a  science. 

A.  O.  LOVEJOY. 
JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVEESITY. 


IN  accordance  with  the  plan  recently  adopted  by  the  bishops  in  charge 
of  the  catholic  institutions  in  France,  the  teaching  of  philosophy  in  these 
institutions  is  undergoing  a  reorganization  and  development.  The  move- 
ment started  in  the  Catholic  Institute  of  Paris  and  now  Toulouse  and 
Lille  have  undertaken  a  similar  task.  At  Toulouse,  the  number  of  courses 
offered  in  philosophy  has  been  increased  from  four  to  ten,  while  at  Lille 
the  institute  of  philosophy  has  been  established.  It  is  also  reported  that 
Mgr.  Kiss  delivered  his  inaugural  address  at  the  University  of  Budapest 
on  "  The  Importance  of  Philosophy."  He  urged  the  faculty  of  philosophy 
of  the  University  to  found  a  chair  of  scholastic  philosophy. 

THE  Revue  des  Sciences  Philosophiques  et  Theologiques  announces 
that  all  editorial  matter  should  hereafter  be  addressed  to  the  Couvent  des 
Dominicains,  Le  Saulchoir,  a  Kain,  Belgium,  and  all  communications 
regarding  subscriptions,  etc.,  should  be  sent  to  M.  J.  Gabalda,  Editeur, 
rue  Bonaparte,  90,  Paris,  VI*. 

DR.  HUGO  DE  VRIES,  professor  of  botany  in  the  University  of  Amster- 
dam, gave  two  informal  seminars  at  Columbia  University,  December  6 
and  9,  on  "  The  Mutation  Theory  and  Its  Bearing  on  Evolution  and 
Genetics." 

THE  twenty-first  meeting  of  the  American  Psychological  Association 
will  be  held  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  on  December  30,  31,  and  January  1. 


INDEX 


NAMES   OF   CONTRIBUTORS   ARE   PRINTED   IN    SMALL    CAPITALS 


Action,     Perception     and     Organic. — 

JOHN  DEWEY,  645. 
ADAMS,   GEORGE   P. — Bosanquet's    The 

Principle      of      Individuality      and 

Value,  51.'::. 
Cunningham 's   Thought   and   Reality 

in  Hegel's  System,  500. 
Agreement. — KARL  SCHMIDT,   715. 
Desirable,  1st — WALTER  B.   PITKIN, 

711. 

Possible  in  Philosophy,  How  Far  Isf 
— NORMAN  KEMP  SMITH,  701. 

Aim  and  Content  of  the  First  College 
Course  in  Ethics,  The. — JAY  WIL- 
LIAM HUDSON,  455. 

Aims  and  Methods  of  Introduction 
Courses,  The. — JAY  WILLIAM  HUD- 
SON, 29. 

ALEXANDER,  H.  B. — Britan's  The  Phi- 
losophy of  Music,  305. 
Conception  of  Soul,  The,  421. 

Alfred  Fouillee,  559. 

American  Philosophical  Association, 
Eleventh  Annual  Meeting  of. — H. 

A.  OVERSTREET,  101. 

Philosophical     Association's    Discus- 
sion, 701. 
Philosophical     Association,     Twelfth 

Annual  Meeting  of,  615. 
Psychological   Association,  The   New 
York  Branch  of  the. — H.  L.  HOL- 
LINOWORTH,  70,  234,  376. 
Psychological  Association,  The  Twen- 
tieth   Meeting    of. — M.    E.    HAQ- 
OERTY,  176. 

Angell's  Chapters  from  Modern  Psy- 
chology.— H.  L.  HOLLINOWORTH, 
444. 

ANGIER,  ROSWELL  P. — Titchener's  Lec- 
tures on  the  Experimental  Psy- 
chology of  the  Thought  Processes, 
131. 

Animal  Behavior,  Imitation  and. — M. 
E.  HAOOERTY,  265. 

Anti-Intellectualism,  Bergson  'B. — JOHN 
E.  RUSSELL,  129. 

ARMSTRONG,  A.  C. — The  Progress  of 
Evolution,  337. 

Awareness,  Professor  Dewey's. — EVAN- 
DER  BRADLEY  MCGILVARY,  301. 

Barrett's  Motive  Force  and  Motivation 
Tracks. — J.  S.  VAN  TESLAAH,  272. 

Beauty,  Cognition,  and  Goodness. — H. 
M.  KALLEN,  253. 

Behavior,  Consciousness  and,  A  Reply. 

— EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR.,  15. 
Imitation  and  Animal. — M.  E.   H.\<; 
GERTY,  265. 


Benett's  Justice  and  Happiness. — AL- 
FRED H.  LLOYD,  360. 

Bergson 's    Anti-Intellectualism. — JOHN 

E.  RUSSELL,  129. 
Laughter. — II.  M.  KALLEN,  303. 

Bernard's  Some  Neglected  Factors  in 
Evolution. — ROBERT  CHAMBERS,  JR., 
330. 

Bligh's  The  Desire  for  Qualities. — B. 
S.  BOURNE,  530. 

BODE,   B.   II. — Concept   of   Immediacy, 

The,  141. 
Consciousness  and  Its  Object,  505. 

Body,  The  Causal  Relation  between 
Mind  and. — HENRY  RUTGERS  MAR- 
SHALL, 477. 

The  Present  Status  of  the  Problem 
of  the  Relation  between  Mind  and. 
— MAX  MEYER,  365. 

Bohn  's  La  Nouvelle  Psychologie  Ani- 
male. — M.  E.  HAGOERTY,  164. 

BOODIN,  JOHN  E. — Do  Things  Exist!  5. 

Bosanquet's  The  Principle  of  Individ- 
uality and  Value. — GEORGE  P. 
ADAMS,  523. 

BOURNE,  R.  S.— Bligh  's  The  Desire  for 

Qualities,  530. 
More's  Nietzsche,  471. 
Sorley's  The  Moral  Life,  277. 

BOVET,  PIERRE. — The  Feeling  of  Ought- 
ness:  Its  Psychological  Conditions, 
342. 

BREASTED,  JAMES  HENRY. — Robinson's 
The  New  History,  585. 

BRIDGES,  J.  W. — Doctrine  of  Specific 
Nerve  Energies,  57. 

"Brief  Studies  in  Realism,"  Professor 
Dewey's. — EVANDER  BRADLEY  MC- 
GILVARY, 344. 

Britan's  The  Philosophy  of  Music. — H. 
B.  ALEXANDER,  305. 

Brown 's  The  Essentials  of  Mental 
Measurement. — M.  T.  WHITLEY, 
387. 

CALKINS,  MARY  WHITON. — Mr.  Mus- 
cio's  Criticism  of  Miss  Calkins 's 
Reply  to  the  Realist,  603. 

Calkins 's  Reply  to  the  Realist,  Miss. — 

BERNARD  Muscio,  321. 
Reply    to     the     Realist,     Miss — Mr. 
Muscio 's  Criticism  of,  603. 

Causal  Relation  between  Mind  and 
Body,  The. — HENRY  RUTGERS  MAR- 
SHALL, 477. 

CHAMBERS,  ROBERT,  JR. — Bernard 's 
Some  Neglected  Factors  in  Evolu- 
tion, 330. 

Chance.— W.  H.  SHELDON,  281. 


722 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


723 


CLAPP,  ELSIE  EIPLEY. — GoodselFs  The 
Conflict  of  Naturalism  and  Hu- 
manism, 413. 

Cognition,  Beauty,  Goodness  and. — H. 
M.  KALLEN,  253. 

Cognitive  Eelation,  Is  There  a? — BOY 
WOOD  SELLAKS,  225. 

COHEN,  MORRIS  E. — A  History  of  the 
Cavendish  Laboratory,  79. 

Concept  of  Immediacy,  The. — B.  H. 
BODE,  141. 

Conception  of  Soul,  The. — H.  B.  ALEX- 
ANDER, 421. 

Condition  of  Consciousness,  Opposition 
as. — JULIUS  PIKLER,  46. 

Consciousness  and  Behavior:   A  Eeply. 

— EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR.,  15. 
And  Its  Object.— B.  H.  BODE,  505. 
The  Nature  of.— C.  A.  STRONG,  533, 

561,  589. 
Opposition  as  Condition  of. — JULIUS 

PIKLER,  46. 

Social,   The  Mechanism  of. — GEORGE 
H.  MEAD,  401. 

Content  of  the  First  College  Course  in 
Ethics,  The  Aim  and. — JAY  WIL- 
LIAM HUDSON,  455. 

Cornelius's  Einleitung  in  die  Philos- 
ophic.— EGBERT  H.  LOWIE,  238. 

Course  in  Ethics,  The  Aim  and  Content 
of   the   First    College. — JAY    WIL- 
LIAM HUDSON,  455. 
In      Ethics,      The      Introductory. — 
FRANK  CHAPMAN  SHARP,  449. 

Criticism,  Dogmatism  versus. — WALTER 
T.  MARVIN,  309. 

Cunningham's  Thought  and  Eeality  in 
Hegel's  System. — GEORGE  P.  AD- 
AMS, 500. 

Debates,  On  Definitions  and. — JOSIAH 
EOYCE,  85. 

Deductive  System  Form:  Studies  in 
the  Structure  of  Systems.  2. — 
KARL  SCHMIDT,  317. 

Definitions  and  Debates,  On. — JOSIAH 
EOYCE,  85. 

DE  LAGUNA,  Letter  from  Professor, 
588. 

DE  LAGUNA,  THEODORE. — Fouillee/s  La 
Pensee    et    les    Nouvelles    Ecoles 
Anti-Intellectualistes,  498. 
Opposition  and  the  Syllogism,  393. 

DEWEY,  JOHN. — A  Eeply  to  Professor 

McGilvary's  Questions,  19. 
In  Eesponse  to  Professor  McGilvary, 

544. 
Perception  and  Organic  Action,  645. 

Dewey's  Awareness,  Professor. — EVAN- 

DER  BRADLEY  MCGILVARY,  301. 
Brief  Studies  in  Eealism. — EVANDER 
BRADLEY  MCGILVARY,  344. 

Difference  between  American  and  Eng- 
lish Eealism,  A  Point  of. — M.  T. 
McCLURE,  684. 


Discovery  of  Truth,  Eeligion  and  the. — 
JAMES  H.  LEUBA,  406. 

Discussion,  American  Philosophical  As- 
sociation's, 701. 

Doctrine  of  Specific  Nerve  Energies. — 
J.  W.  BRIDGES,  57. 

Dogmatism  versus  Criticism. — WALTER 
T.  MARVIN,  309. 

Do  Things  Exist? — JOHN  E.  BOODIN,  5. 

DOWNEY,  JUNE  E. — Literary  Synes- 
thesia,  490. 

DRAKE,  DURANT. — What  Kind  of  Eeal- 
ism? 149. 

Dunlap's  A  System  of  Psychology. — 
F.  M.  URBAN,  411. 

EASTMAN,  MAX. — Mr.  Schiller's  Logic, 

463. 
Eejoinder  to  Mr.  Schiller,  692. 

Eleventh  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Amer- 
ican Philosophical  Association. — 

H.   A.    OVERSTREET,    101. 

Energies,  Doctrine  of  Specific  Nerve. — 
J.  W.  BRIDGES,  57. 

Entoptic  Phenomena,  A  Simple  Method 
for  the  Study  of. — GEORGE  E. 
MONTGOMERY,  204. 

ERSKINE,  JOHN. — The  Kinds  of  Poetry, 
617. 

Ethics,   The  Aim   and  Content   of  the 
First     College     Course     in. — JAY 
WILLIAM  HUDSON,  455. 
The  Introductory  Course  in. — FRANK 

CHAPMAN  SHARP,  447. 
The  Use  of  Legal  Material  in  Teach- 
ing.— JAMES  H.  TUFTS,  460. 

Eucken's  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal. 
— HERBERT  G.  LORD,  696. 

Evolution,  The  Progress  of. — A.  C. 
ARMSTRONG,  337. 

Experimental  Oral  Orthogenics. — J.  E. 

WALLACE  WALLIN,  290. 
Psychology,   The   Eelations   of   Indi- 
vidual and,  to   Social  Psychology. 
— JOSEPH  KINMONT  HART,  169. 

Explicit  Primitives:   A  Eeply  to  Mrs. 

Franklin. — WARNER  FITE,  155. 
Primitives  Again:   A  Eeply  to  Pro- 
fessor     Fite. — CHRISTINE      LADD- 
FRANKLIN,  580. 

Feeling  of  Oughtness,  The:  Its  Psycho- 
logical Conditions. — PIERRE  BOVET, 
342. 

FITE,    WARNER. — Explicit    Primitives : 

A  Eeply  to  Mrs.  Franklin,  155. 
Professor,  A  Eeply  to.    Explicit  Prim- 
itives    Again. — CHRISTINE     LADD- 
FRANKLIN,  580. 

Fite's  Individualism,  Some  Aspects  of 
Professor. — A.  K.  EOGERS,  372. 

Flournoy's  La  Philosophic  de  William 
James. — ARTHUR  MITCHELL,  527. 

Form  and  Category  on  the  Outcome  of 
Judgment,  The  Influence  of. — 


724 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


MARGARET  HART  STRONG  and  II.  L. 

llol. I.INGWORTH,   513. 

Formal  Logic,  The  Problem  of — F.  C. 
8.  SCHILLER,  687. 

Fouill<<e,  Alfred,  559. 

Fouillee's.  La  Penstfe  et  lea  Nouvel- 
les  Ecoles  Anti-Intellectualistes. — 
THEODORE  DE  LAGUNA,  498. 

Franklin,  Mrs.,  A  Reply  to:  Explicit 
Primitives. — WARNER  FITE,  155. 

Goldstein's  Wandlungen  in  der  Philos- 
ophic der  Oegenwart. — ARTHUR  O. 
LOVE  JOY,  327. 

Goodness,  Beauty,  Cognition,  and. — H. 
M.  KALLEN,  253. 

Goodsell's  The  Conflict  of  Naturalism 
and  Humanism. — ELSIE  RIPLEY 
CLAPP,  413. 

HAGGKRTV,  M.  E. — Bonn's  La  Nouvelle 

Psychologie  Animale,  164. 
Imitation  and  Animal  Behavior,  265. 
The  Twentieth  Meeting  of  the  Amer- 
ican     Psychological      Association, 
176. 

HART,  JOSEPH  KINMONT. — The  Rela- 
tions of  Individual  and  Experi- 
mental Psychology  to  Social  Psy- 
chology, 169. 

Starch's  Experiments  in  Educational 
Psychology,  246. 

Hart's  Phases  of  Evolution  and  Hered- 
ity.— FREDERICK  G.  HENKE,  138. 

HENKE,  FREDERICK  6. — Hart's  Phases 
of  Evolution  and  Heredity,  138. 

HICKS,    L.    E. — Is    Inversion    a   Valid 

Inference f  65. 

Something  More  about  Inversion:  A 
Rejoinder,  520. 

History  of  the  Cavendish  Laboratory. — 
MORRIS  R.  COHEN,  79. 

HOLLINGWORTH,  H.  L. — Angell 's  Chap- 
ters from  Modern  Psychology,  444. 
Meyers 's    A    Text-Book    of    Experi- 
mental Psychology,  195. 
New  York  Branch  of  the  American 
Psychological  Association,  70,  234, 
37fi. 

Scott's  Influencing  Men  in  Business, 
110. 

HOLLINGWORTH,  H.  L.,  and  STRONG, 
MARGARET  HART. — The  Influence 
of  Form  and  Category  on  the  Out- 
come of  Judgment,  513. 

Home's  Free  Will  and  Human  Respon- 
sibility.— JAMES  BISSEBT  PRATT, 
332. 

How  Far  Is  Agreement  Possible  in  Phi- 
losophy f — NORMAN  KEMP  SMITH, 
701. 

HUDSON,  JAY  WILLIAM. — The  Aim  and 
Content  of  the  First  College  Course 
in  Ethics,  455. 

The  Aims  and  Methods  of  Introduc- 
tion Courses:  A  Questionnaire,  29. 


Lasson's    Hegel's    Grundlinien    der 
Philosophic  des  Rechts,  220. 

Hudson's  The  Treatment  of  Person- 
ality by  Locke,  Berkeley,  and 
Hume. — JOHN  PICKETT  TURNER, 
606. 

lluizinga's  The  American  Philos- 
ophy Pragmatism. — I.  WOODBRIDGE 
RILEY,  248. 

Imitation  and  Animal  Behavior. — M. 
E.  HAGGERTY,  265. 

Immediacy,  The  Concept  of. — B.  H. 
BODE,  141. 

Individual  and  Experimental  Psychol- 
ogy, The  Relations  of,  to  Social 
Psychology. — JOSEPH  KINMONT 
HART,  169. 

Inference,  Is  Inversion  a  Valid? — L. 
E.  HICKS,  65. 

Influence  of  Form  and  Category  on  the 
Outcome  of  Judgment. — MARGARET 
HART  STRONG  and  H.  L.  HOLLI  NO- 
WORTH,  513. 

In  Response  to  Professor  McGilvary. — 
JOHN  DEWEY,  544. 

Introduction  Courses,  The  Aims  and 
Methods  of:  A  Questionnaire. — 
JAY  WILLIAM  HUDSON,  29. 

Introductory  Course  in  Ethics,  The. — 
FRANK  CHAPMAN  SHABP,  449. 

Inversion. — KARL  SCHMIDT,  232. 
A  Valid  Inference,  Is!— L.  E.  HICKS, 

65. 

Something  More  about,  A  Rejoinder. 
— L.  E.  HICKS,  520. 

Is  Agreement   Desirable! — WALTER  B. 

PITKIN,  711. 

Agreement    Possible    in    Philosophy, 
How  Far! — NORMAN  KEMP  SMITH, 
701. 
Inversion  a  Valid  Inference. — L.  E. 

HICKS,  65. 

There    a    Cognitive    Relation! — ROY 
WOOD  SELLARS,  225. 

Jack's  The  Alchemy  of  Thought.— H. 
M.  KALLEN,  641. 

JACOBY,  GUNTHER, — KUlpe's  Die  Phi- 
losophie  der  Gegenwart  in  Deutsch- 
land,  558. 

Unger's    Hamann    und    die    Aufkla- 
rung,  693. 

James's  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy. 
— W.  P.  MONTAGUE,  22. 

Journals  and  New  Books,  26,  55,  82, 
111,  139,  166,  196,  221,  249,  278, 
306,  333,  361,  390,  417,  445,  474, 
502,  531,  558,  587,  613,  642,  671, 
698,  719. 

Judgment,  The  Influence  of  Form  and 
Category  on  the  Outcome  of. — 
MARGARET  HART  STRONG  and  H.  L. 
HOLLINGWORTH,  513. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


725 


KALLEN,    H.    M. — Beauty,    Cognition, 

and  Goodness,  253. 
Bergson  's  Laughter,  303. 
Jack's  The  Alchemy  of  Thought,  641. 
Menard's    Analyse    et    Critique    des 
Principes  de  la  Psychologie  de  W. 
James,  357. 

Eoyce's  William  Junes  and  Other 
Essays  in  the  Philosophy  of  Life, 
548. 

KASNER,  EDWARD. — Young's  Lectures 
on  Fundamental  Concepts  of  Alge- 
bra and  Geometry,  473. 

Kinds  of  Poetry,  The. — JOHN  ERSKINE, 
617. 

KING,  IRVING. — Stratton's  The  Psychol- 
ogy of  the  Eeligious  Life,  640. 

KIRKPATRICK,  E.  A. — MacVannel's 
Outline  of  a  Course  in  the  Philos- 
ophy of  Education,  389. 

Klemm's  Geschichte  der  Psychologie. — 
E.  S.  WOODWORTH,  218. 

Knowledge,  The  Problem  of. — NORMAN 
KEMP  SMITH,  113. 

Kulpe's  Die  Philosophic  der  Gegen- 
wart  in  Deutschland. — GUNTHER 
JACOBY,  558. 

LADD-FRANKLIN,  CHRISTINE. — Explicit 
Primitives  Again:  A  Eeply  to 
Professor  Fite,  580. 

Ladd's  and  Woodworth's  Elements  of 
Physiological  Psychology. — EGBERT 

MACDOUGALL,   214. 

Lasson's  Hegels  Grundlinien  der  Phi- 
losophic des  Eechts. — JAY  WILLIAM 
HUDSON,  220. 

Legal  Material  in  Beaching  Ethics,  The 
Use  of. — JAMES  H.  TUFTS,  460. 

Letter  from  Professor  de  Laguna,  588 
From  Professor  Poulton,  299. 

LEUBA,  JAMES  H. — Eeligion  and  the 
Discovery  of  Truth,  406. 

Literary  Synesthesia. — JUNE  E.  DOW- 
NEY, 490. 

LLOYD,  ALFRED  H. — Benett's  Justice 
and  Hapmness,  360. 

LOEWENBERG,  J. — Vaihinger's  Die  Phi- 

losophie  des  Als  Ob,  717. 
Wilm's  The  Philosophy  of   Schiller, 
415. 

Logic,  Mr.  Schiller's. — MAX  EASTMAN, 

463. 

The  Problem  of  Formal.— F.  C.  S. 
SCHILLER,  687. 

LORD,  HERBERT  G. — Eucken's  Life's 
Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  696. 

LOVE  JOY,  ARTHUR  O. — Goldstein 's 
Wandlungen  in  der  Philosophie  der 
Gegenwart,  327. 

LOWIE,    EGBERT    H. — Cornelius's    Ein- 

leitung  in  die  Philosophie,  238. 
Perry's  Present  Philosophical  Tend- 
encies, 627,  673 


MACDOUGALL,  EGBERT. — Ladd  's  and 
Woodworth's  Elements  of  Physio- 
logical Psychology,  214. 

MacVannel's  Outline  of  a  Course  in  the 
Philosophy  of  Education. — E.  A. 
KIRKPATRICK,  389. 

McCLURE,  M.  T— A  Point  of  Differ- 
ence between  American  and  Eng- 
lish Eealism,  684. 

McDougall's  Body  and  Mind. — W.  B. 

PlLLSBURY,  469. 

MCGILVARY,     EVANDER     B. — Professor 

Dewey's  Awareness,  301. 
Professor  Dewey's  "Brief  Studies  in 
Eealism,"  344. 

McGilvary,  In  Eesponse  to  Professor. 
— JOHN  DEWEY,  544. 

McGilvary 's  Questions,  A  Eeply  to  Pro- 
fessor.— JOHN  DEWEY,  19. 

MARSHALL,  HENRY  EUTGERS. — The 
Causal  Eelation  between  Mind  and 
Body,  477. 

MARVIN,  WALTER  T. — Dogmatism  ver- 
sus Criticism,  309. 

MEAD,  GEORGE  H. — The  Mechanism  of 
Social  Consciousness,  401. 

Mechanism  of  Social  Consciousness, 
The. — GEORGE  H.  MEAD,  401. 

M6nard's  Analyses  et  Critique  des 
Principes  de  la  Psychologie  de  W. 
James. — HORACE  M.  KALLEN,  357. 

Method  for  the  Study  of  Entoptic  Phe- 
nomena, A  Simple. — GEORGE  E. 
MONTGOMERY,  204. 

Methods  of  Introduction  Courses,  The 
Aims  and:  A  Questionnaire. — JAY 
WILLIAM  HUDSON,  29. 

MEYER,  MAX. — The  Present  Status  of 
the  Problem  of  the  Eelation  be- 
tween Mind  and  Body,  365. 

Meyers 's  A  Text-Book  of  Experimental 
Psychology. — H.  L.  HOLLING- 
WORTH,  195. 

Mind  and  Body,  The  Present  Status  of 
the  Problem  of  the  Eelation  be- 
tween.— MAX  MEYER,  365. 
and  Body,  The  Causal  Eelation  be- 
tween.— HENRY  EUTGERS  MAR- 
SHALL, 477. 

As  an  Observable  Object,  On. — ED- 
GAR A.  SINGER,  JR.,  206. 

MITCHELL,     ARTHUR. — Flournoy  's     La 
Philosophie  de  William  James,  527. 
Wodehouse's     The    Presentation     of 
Eeality,  50. 

MONTAGUE,     W.     P. — James's     Some 

Problems  of  Philosophy,  22. 
The  New  Eealism  and  the  Old,  39. 

MONTGOMERY,  GEORGE  E. — A  Simple 
Method  for  the  Study  of  Entoptic 
Phenomena,  204. 

More's  Nietzsche. — E.  S.  BOURNE,  471. 

Muscio,  BERNARD. — Miss  Calkins 's  Ee- 
ply to  the  Eealist,  321. 


726 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


MUSCJO'B  Criticism  of  Miss  Calkins 's 
Reply  to  the  Realist.— MARY 
WHITON  CALKINS,  603. 

Myers's  An  Introduction  to  Experi- 
mental Psychology. — W.  B.  PILLS- 
BURY,  54. 

Nature  of  Consciousness,  The. — C.  A. 
STRONG,  533,  561,  589. 

Nerve  Energies,  Doctrine  of  Specific. — 
J.  W.  BRIDGES,  57. 

New  Realism  and  the  Old,  The.— W.  P. 
MONTAGUE,  39. 

New  York  Branch  of  the  American 
Psychological  Association. — H.  L. 
HOLLINGWORTH,  70,  234,  376. 

Notes  and  News,  27,  56,  84,  112,  140, 
167,  196,  223,  252,  279,  308,  335, 
363,  392,  419,  447,  475,  503,  532, 
559,  588,  615,  644,  672,  699. 

Object,  Consciousness  and  Its. — B.   H. 

BODE,  505. 

On  Mind  As  an  Observable. — EDGAR 
A.  SINGER,  JR.,  206. 

Observable  Object,  On  Mind  As  an. — 
EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR.,  206. 

On    Definitions    and    Debates. — JOSIAH 

ROYCE,  85. 

Mind    as    an    Observable    Object. — 
EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR.,  206. 

Opposition  as  Condition  of  Conscious- 
ness.— JULIUS  PIKLER,  46. 
and    the    Syllogism. — THEODORE    DE 

LACUNA,  393. 

and  the  Syllogism. — KARL  SCHMIDT, 
668. 

Organic  Action,  Perception  and. — JOHN 
DEWEY,  645. 

Orthogenics,  Experimental  Oral. — J.  E. 
WALLACE  WALLIN,  290. 

Ossip-Louri^'s  Le  Langage  et  la  Ver- 
bomanie. — F.  L.  WELLS,  669. 

Oughtness,  The  Feeling  of;  Its  Psycho- 
logical Conditions. — PIERRE  BOVET, 
342. 

OVERSTREET,  H.  A.— Eleventh  Annual 
Meeting  of  the  American  Philo- 
sophical Association,  101. 

Partridge's  An  Outline  of  Individual 
Study.— L.  W.  SACKETT,  610. 

Perception  and  Organic  Action. — JOHN 
DEWEY,  645. 

Perry's  Present  Philosophical  Tenden- 
cies.— ARTHUR  O.  LOVEJOY,  627, 
673. 

Proofs  of  Realism. — JAMES  DISSERT 
PRATT,  573. 

Philosophical  Association 's  Discussion, 
701. 

Philosophy,  How  Far  Is  Agreement 
Possible  in. — NORMAN  KEMP 
SMITH,  701. 

PIKLER,  JULIUS. — Opposition  as  Condi- 
tion of  Consciousness,  46. 


PILLSBURY,  W.  B. — McDougall's  Body 

and  Mind,  469. 

Myers's  An  Introduction  to  Experi- 
mental Psychology,  54. 
Read's  An  Introductory  Psychology, 

25. 
Pillsbury's  Essentials  of  Psychology. — 

MELBOURNE  8.  READ,  L 
PITKIN,  WALTER  B. — Is  Agreement  De- 
sirable f  711. 

Proceedings   of  the  Aristotelian  So- 
ciety, 440. 
Poetry,  The  Kinds  of. — JOHN  ERSKINE, 

617. 

Point  of  Difference  between  American 
and  English  Realism,  A. — M.  T. 
McCLURE,  684. 

Postulates.    Studies  in  the  Structure  of 

Systems.    3. — KARL  SCHMIDT,  431. 

POULTON,    PROFESSOR    E.    B.,    Letter 

from,  299. 

Poulton  's  Charles  Darwin  and  the 
Origin  of  Species. — FRANCIS  B. 
SUMNER,  159. 

PRATT,  JAMES  BISSERT. — Home's  Free 
Will    and    Human    Responsibility, 
332. 
Professor  Perry's  Proofs  of  Realism, 

573. 

1 '  Present    Philosophical     Tendencies. ' ' 
— ARTHUR  O.   LOVEJOY,  627,   673. 
Status  of  the  Problem  of  the  Rela- 
tion   between    Mind   and    Body. — 
MAX  MEYER,  365. 
Primitives,  Explicit:   A  Reply  to  Mrs. 

Franklin. — WARNER  FITE,  155. 
Explicit,    Again :    A    Reply    to    Pro- 
fessor     Fite. — CHRISTINE      LADD- 
FRANKLIN,  580. 
Problem  of  Formal  Logic,  The. — F.  C. 

8.  SCHILLER,  687. 
of  Knowledge,  The. — NORMAN  KEMP 

SMITH,  113. 

of  the   Relation   between   Mind   and 
Body,  The  Present  Status  of  the. 
— MAX  MEYER,  365. 
Problems,  The  Separation  of.     Studies 
in  the  Structure  of  Systems.     I. — 
KARL  SCHMIDT,  197. 
Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society. 

— WALTER  B.  PITKIN,  440. 
Professor  Dewey  's   Awareness. — EVAN- 

DER  BRADLEY  MCGILVART,  301. 
Dewey 's    "Brief    Studies    in    Real- 
ism."— EVANDER  BRADLEY  McOiL- 
VARY,  344. 
Fite's    Individualism,   Some   Aspects 

of. — A.  K.  ROGERS,  372. 
McOilvary,    In    Response    to. — JOHN 

DEWEY,  544. 
McGilvary's  Questions,  A  Reply  to. 

— JOHN  DKWIY,  19. 
Perry's   Proofs  of  Realism. — JAMES 
BISSERT  PRATT,  573. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  METHODS 


727 


Poulton,  Letter  from,  299. 

Progress  of  Evolution,  The. — A.  C. 
ARMSTRONG,  337. 

Proofs  of  Realism,  Professor  Perry's. 
— JAMES  BISSERT  PRATT,  573. 

Psychology,  The  Relations  of  Individ- 
ual and  Experimental  Psychology 
to  Social. — JOSEPH  KINMONT 
HART,  169. 

Rand's  The  Classical  Psychologists. — 
CHARLES  H.  TOLL,  612. 

READ,  MELBOURNE  S. — Pillsbury's  Es- 
sentials of  Psychology,  275. 

Read's  An  Introductory  Psychology. — 

W.    B.    PlLLSBURY,    25. 

Realism,  The  New,  and  the  Old. — W.  P. 
MONTAGUE,  39. 

A  Point  of  Difference  between  Am- 
erican and  English. — M.  T.  Mc- 
CLURE,  684. 

Professor  Perry's  Proofs  of. — JAMES 
BISSERT  PRATT,  573. 

What    Kind    of? — DURANT    DRAKE, 

149. 

Realist,  Miss  Calkins 's  Reply  to  the. — 
BERNARD  Muscio,  321. 

Muscio  's  Criticism  of  Miss  Calkins 's 
Reply  to  the. — MARY  WHITON  CAL- 
KINS, 603. 

Rejoinder  A:  Something  More  about 
Inversion. — L.  E.  HICKS,  520. 

to     Mr.     Schiller. — MAX     EASTMAN, 

692. 

Relation  between  Mind  and  Body,  The 
Causal. — HENRY  RUTGERS  MAR- 
SHALL, 477. 

Between  Mind  and  Body,  The  Pres- 
ent Status  of  the  Problem  of  the. 
— MAX  MEYER,  365. 

Is    there    a    Cognitive. — ROY    WOOD 

SELLARS,  225. 

Relations    of    Individual    and    Experi- 
mental Psychology  to  Social  Psy- 
chology.— JOSEPH  KINMONT  HART, 
169. 
Religion  and  the  Discovery  of  Truth. — 

JAMES  H.  LEUBA,  406. 
Reply,  A,  Consciousness  and  Behavior. 
— EDGAR  A.  SINGER,  JR.,  15. 

to  Mrs.  Franklin. — Explicit  Primi- 
tives.— WARNER  FITE,  155. 

to  Professor  Fite.  Explicit  Primi- 
tives Again. — CHRISTINE  LADD- 
FRANKLIN,  580. 

to  Professor  McGilvary's  Questions. 
— JOHN  DEWEY,  19. 

to  the  Realist,  Miss  Calkins 's. — BER- 
NARD Muscio,  321. 

to    the   Realist,    Mr.   Muscio 's   Criti- 
cism   of    Miss     Calkins 's. — MARY 
WHITON  CALKINS,  603. 
Response  to  Professor  McGilvary,  In. — 
JOHN  DEWEY,  544. 


RILEY,  I.  WOODBRIDGE. — Huizinga  's 
The  American  Philosophy  Prag- 
matism, 248. 

ROBINSON,  JAMES  HARVEY. — Taylor 's 
The  Medieval  Mind,  76. 

Robinson's  The  New  History. — JAMES 
HENRY  BREASTED,  585. 

ROGERS,  A.  K. — Some  Aspects  of  Pro- 
fessor Fite's  Individualism,  372. 

ROYCE,  JOSIAH. — On  Definitions  and 
Debates,  85. 

Royce's  William  James  and  other  Es- 
says in  the  Philosophy  of  Life. — 
H.  M.  KALLEN,  548. 

RUSSELL,  JOHN  E. — Bergson's  Anti- 
Intellectualism,  129. 

SACKETT,  L.  W. — Partridge's  An  Out- 
line of  Individual  Study,  610. 

SCHILLER,   F.   C.   S. — The   Problem   of 

Formal  Logic,  687. 
Rejoinder    to    Mr. — MAX    EASTMAN, 
692. 

Schiller's  Logic,  Mr. — MAX  EASTMAN. 
463. 

SCHMIDT,   KARL. — Agreement,    1\dC-» 
Inversion,  232. 

Opposition  and  the  Syllogism,  668. 
Studies  in  the  Structure  of  Systems, 
197,  317,  431. 

Scott 's  Influencing  Men  in  Business. — 

H.   L.   HOLLINGWORTH,   110. 

SELLARS,  ROY  WOOD. — Is  There  a  Cog- 
nitive Relation?  225. 

Separation  of  Problems,  The.  Studies 
in  the  Structure  of  Systems.  I. — 
KARL  SCHMIDT,  197. 

SHARP,  FRANK  CHPMAN. — The  Intro- 
ductory Course  in  Ethics,  449. 

SHELDON,  W.  H. — Chance,  281. 

Simple  Method  for  the  Study  of  En- 
toptic  Phenomena,  A. — GEORGE  R. 
MONTGOMERY,  204. 

SINGER,   EDGAR   A.,   JR. — Consciousness 

and  Behavior:  A  Reply,  15. 
On  Mind  As  an  Observable  Obiect, 
206. 

SMITH,  NORMAN  KEMP. — How  Far  Is 
Agreement  Possible  in  Philosophy, 
701. 
The  Problem  of  Knowledge,  113. 

Social    Consciousness,    The    Mechanism 

of. — GEORGE  H.  MEAD,  401. 
Psychology,   The   Relations   of   Indi- 
vidual and  Experimental  Psychol- 
ogy to. — JOSEPH  KINMONT  HART, 
169. 

Some  Aspects  of  Professor  Fite's  Indi- 
vidualism.— A.  K.  ROGERS,  372. 

Something  More  about  Inversion:  A 
Rejoinder. — L.  E.  HICKS,  520. 

Sorley's  The  Moral  Life.— R.  S. 
BOURNE,  277. 

Soul,  The  Conception  of. — H.  B.  ALEX- 
ANDER, 421. 


728 


T1IR  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


Specific  Nerve  Energies,  Doctrine  of. — 
J.  W.  BRIDGES,  57. 

Starch's  Experiments  in  Educational 
Psychology. — JOSEPH  KIN  MONT 
HART,  246. 

Stratton's  The  Psychology  of  the  Re- 
ligious Life. — IRVING  KING,  640. 

STRONG,  C.  A. — The  Nature  of  Con- 
sciousness, 533,  561,  589. 
MARGARET  HART  and  HOLLIKG WORTH, 
H.  L. — The  Influence  of  Form  and 
Category  on  the  Outcome  of  Judg- 
ment, 513. 

Studies  in  the  Structure  of  Systems. — 
KARL  SCHMIDT,  197,  317,  431. 

Structure  of  Systems,  Studies  in  the. — 
KARL  SCHMIDT,  197,  317,  431. 

SUMNER,  FRANCIS  B. — Poulton  's 
Charles  Darwin  and  the  Origin  of 
Species,  159. 

Syllogism,  Opposition  and  the. — KARL 

SCHMIDT,  668. 
THEODORE  DE  LAGUNA,  393. 

Synesthesia,  Literary. — JUNE  E.  DOW- 
NEY, 490. 

Systems,  Studies  in  the  Structure  of. — 
KARL  SCHMIDT,  197,  317,  431. 

Taylor's  The  Medieval  Mind. — JAMES 
HARVEY  ROBINSON,  76. 

Teaching  Ethics,  The  Use  of  Legal  Ma- 
terial in. — JAMES  H.  TUFTS,  460. 

Thorndike  's  Animal  Intelligence. — 
MARGARET  FLOY  WASHBURN,  193. 

Titchener's  Lectures  on  the  Experi- 
mental Psychology  of  the  Thought 
Processes. — ROSWELL  P.  ANGIER, 
131. 

TOLL,  CHARLES  H. — Rand's  The  Class- 
ical Psychologists,  612. 

Truth,  Religion  and  the  Discovery  of. 
— JAMES  H.  LEUBA,  406. 

Tsanoff's  Schopenhauer's  Criticism  of 
Kant's  Theory  of  Experience. — 
GREGORY  D.  WALCOTT,  161. 

Turrs,  JAMES  H. — The  Use  of  Legal 
Material  in  Teaching  Ethics,  460. 

TURNER,  JOHN  PICKETT. — Hudson 's 
The  Treatment  of  Personality  by 
Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume,  606. 


Twelfth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  West- 
ern Philosophical  Association. — H. 
W.  WRIGHT,  350. 

Twentieth  Meeting  of  the  American 
Psychological  Association,  The. — 
M.  E.  HAGGERTY,  176. 

Unger's  Hamann  und  die  Aufklarung. 
— GUNTHER  JACOBY,  693. 

URBAN,  F.  M. — Dunlap's  A  System  of 
Psychology,  411. 

Use  of  Legal  Material  in  Teaching 
Ethics,  The. — JAMES  H.  Turrs, 
460. 

Vaihinger's    Die    Philosophie    des    Als 

Ob. — J.    LOEWENBERG,    717. 

Valid  Inference,  Is  Inversion  a. — L.  E. 
HICKS,  65. 

VAN  TESLAAX,  J.  S. — Barrett's  Motive 
Force  and  Motivation  Tracks,  272. 

WALCOTT,  GREGORY  D. — Tsanoff's  Scho- 
penhauer 's  Criticism  of  Kant 's 
Theory  of  Experience,  161. 

WALLIN,  J.  E.  WALLACE. — Experi- 
mental Oral  Orthogenics,  290. 

WASHBURN,  MARGARET  FLOY. — Thorn - 
dike's  Animal  Intelligence,  193. 

WELLS,  F.  L. — Ossip-Louri6 's  Le  Ajan- 
gage  la  Verbomanie,  669. 

Western  Philosophical  Association,  The 
Twelfth  Annual  Meeting  of. — H. 
W.  WRIGHT,  350. 

What  Kind  of  Realism  f — DURANT 
DRAKE,  149. 

WHITLEY,  M.  T. — Brown's  The  Essen- 
tials of  Mental  Measurement,  387. 

Wilm's  The  Philosophy  of  Schiller. — 
J.  LOEWENBERG,  415. 

Wodehouse's  The  Presentation  of  Real- 
ity.— ARTHUR  MITCHELL,  50. 

WOODWWORTH,  R.  S. — Klemm's  Ge- 
schichte  der  Psychologic,  218. 

WRIGHT,  H.  W. — The  Twelfth  Annual 
Meeting  of  the  Western  Philosoph- 
ical Association,  350. 

Young's  Lectures  on  Fundamental  Con- 
cepts of  Algebra  and  Geometry. — 
EDWARD  KASNER,  473. 


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